Introductory description

Societies are identified, at least in part, by whom they choose to marginalise. This first-year 30 CAT undergraduate module offers students an introduction to early modern history and the opportunity to explore why and how some individuals and groups were marginalised and persecuted because of differences in their beliefs, gender, ethnicity and behaviour. The early modern period was a time of great social, economic, and religious uncertainty. Conflicts and social tensions created by developments in Europe led to the emergence of new types of deviant and radical groups and new measures to control their behaviour. 

The module will be structured around a series of case studies, including those outcast for religious reasons like Jews, Muslims, Catholic and Protestants, nonconformists, and atheists; supernatural deviants like witches, werewolves, and demons; social and political outsiders, including those of divergent gender or sexual identities, vagabonds, monsters, and people with physical and mental disabilities; and those discriminated against for reasons of race and ethnicity.

Though this module focuses on early modern Europe, the groups we discuss will be set firmly within the context of wider global developments and economic transformations. Students will also be encouraged to reflect on their own ideas about deviant behaviour.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1. Defining deviants in early modern Europe
2. Persecuting societies: a social and cultural history
3. Orthodoxy, heterodoxy and heresy
4. European Judaism, antisemitism and religious prejudice
5. Muslims, Islam and the Ottoman world
6. Lepers, plague spreaders and the diseased
7. The European Reformations and deviance
8. Astrologers, prophets and mystics
9. Supernatural deviants and witches
10. Werewolves, demons and the possessed
11. Unbelief and atheism
12. Gender, sex and illegitimacy
13. Sodomy, cross-dressing and sexual deviance
14. Marvels, 'monsters' and hermaphrodites
15. Mental illness and disability
16. Suicide and self-harm
17. The poor, vagabonds and hermits
18. Criminals, bandits and travellers
19. Migrants and exiles
20. Black Europeans and the consequences of European colonialism
21. Conclusions

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the different conditions affecting the treatment and marginalisation of deviant groups in early modern Europe.
• Develop a basic knowledge of the political, social and religious contexts of early modern Europe affecting the treatment of minority and marginal groups.
• Communicate ideas and findings through oral and written discussion, adapting to a range of situations, audiences and degrees of complexity.
• Generate ideas through the analysis of a broad range of primary source material, showing an appreciation of the possibilities and limitations of analysing primary sources relating to marginal groups in early modern society.
• Analyse and evaluate the contributions made by existing scholarship, drawing upon scholarship from comparative history, anthropology and sociology.
• Act with limited supervision and direction to explore topics and themes of interest within defined guidelines in order to develop individual research skills, accepting responsibility for achieving deadlines.

Indicative reading list

R. Bartlett, 'Medieval and Early Modern Concepts of Race and Ethnicity', Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 31 (2001), 39-56
C. Bingham, ‘Seventeenth-Century Attitudes Toward Deviant Sex’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 1 (1971), 447-68
W.J. Bouwsma, ‘Anxiety and the Formation of Early Modern Culture’, in B.C. Malament (ed.), After the Reformation (Manchester, 1980), pp. 215-46
Anna Clark, Alternative Histories of the Self: A Cultural History of Sexuality and Secrets, 1762-1917 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017)
J. Dillinger, ‘Terrorists and Witches: Popular Ideas of Evil in the Early Modern Period’, History of European Ideas, 30 (2004), 167-82
M. Douglas, 'Witchcraft and Leprosy: Two Strategies of Exclusion', Man, 26 (1991), 723-36
M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (London, 1977; 1991)
J.P. Gibbs, ‘Conceptions of Deviant Behaviour: The Old and the New’, in M. Lefton et al (eds), Approaches to Deviance (New York, 1968), pp. 44-55
O.P. Grell and B. Scribner (eds), Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation (Cambridge, 1996)
R. Jütte, Poverty and Deviance in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1994)
R.L. Kagan and A. Dyer (eds), Inquisitorial Inquiries: Brief Lives of Secret Jews and Other Heretics (Baltimore, 2004)
B.J. Kaplan, Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 2007)
Miranda Kauffman, Black Tudors: The Untold Story (2017).
J.C. Laursen and C.J. Nederman (eds), Beyond the Persecuting Society: Religious Tolerance before the Enlightenment (Philadelphia, 1998)
B. Lewis, Cultures and Conflict: Christians, Muslims and Jews in the Age of Discovery (Oxford, 1995)
S.J. Milner (ed), At the Margins: Minority Groups in Premodern Italy (Minneapolis, 2005), esp. chaps. 1 and 2
Renee Levine Melammed, ‘Sephardi Women in the Medieval and Early Modern Period’, in Jewish Women in Historical Perspective, ed. Judith Baskin (Detroit, 1991), pp. 115-134.
W.G. Naphy and P. Roberts (eds), Fear in Early Modern Society (Manchester, 1997)
Simon P. Newman, Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration London (London, 2022).
Rosamund Oates, ‘Speaking in Hands: Early Modern Preaching and Signed Languages for the Deaf’, Past & Present (2021).
Olivette Otele, African Europeans: An Untold History (2020).
W. O'Reilly, ‘Turks and Indians on the Margins of Europe’, Belleten, 65 (2001), 243-56
J. Richards, Sex, Dissidence and Damnation: Minority Groups in the Middle Ages (London, 1991), chap. 3
Jonathan Schorsch, Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World (2004).
Ivan Van Sertima, African presence in Early Europe (1986).
J.A. Sharpe, 'Witches and Persecuting Societies', Journal of Historical Sociology, 3 (1990), 75-86
K. Stuart, Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts: Honour and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1999)
Alexandra Walsham, Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance in England, 1500-1700 (Manchester, 2006)

Subject specific skills

• A greater understanding of how historians are able to utilise debates from other disciplines (like sociology, anthropology and political thought) in their work.
• The ability to carry out independent research and to develop areas of interest.
• To develop critical thinking and analytical skills when reading primary sources.
• To understand how early modern society, politics and culture differs from (and has similarities to) modern societies.
• To develop comparative skills, since students will be encouraged to not only compare different deviant groups but also to consider their treatment in different parts of Europe (or the wider world) and in different spaces, times and contexts.

Transferable skills

• To develop research and analytical skills, and work as independent researchers with limited supervision.
• To think critically about their readings and topics and sources we cover.
• To make use of databases and other research platforms to pursue their research.
• To develop oral, written and presentation skills through the different forms of verbal and written assessment.