Introductory description

This second-year early modern option module will investigate the development of espionage and intelligence-gathering in various settings, geographicaly and chronologically, across pre-modern Europe

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.

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. What is a Spy?
2. Espionage and intelligence in the Ancient World and the Middle Ages
3. Espionage and diplomacy during the Renaissance
4. The Elizabethan paradigm of the Spymaster
5. Ambassadors, merchants and other agents
6. Religious and other considerations in information-gathering
7. Ottoman and other non-European networks
8. The material culture of espionage
9. Espionage and intelligence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
10. Conclusions: whither espionage?

Learning outcomes

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

• -To develop enhanced research, writing and communication skills through essays and oral presentations in seminars
• To gain an understanding of the historical development of espionage and intelligence
• To be able to make effective comparison of the operation of secret networks in different historical periods and national contexts
• To critically engage with a variety of primary and secondary sources
• To demonstrate an enhanced knowledge of the political, religious and diplomatic history of the premodern period

Indicative reading list

Robyn Adams and Rosanne Cox (eds.), Diplomacy and Early Modern Culture (2011)
Nadine Akkerman and Pete Langman, Spycraft: Tricks and Tools of the Dangerous Trade from Elizabeth I to the Restoration (2024)
Stephen Alford, The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I (2013)
Jenny Benham, ‘“A little bird told me…”. Spies and Espionage in the Norman World’, Anglo-Norman Studies (2024)
John Bossy, Under the Molehill. An Elizabethan Spy Story (2002)
Guido Braun and Susanne Lachenicht (eds.), Spies, Espionage and Secret Diplomacy in the Early Modern Period (2021)
John Cooper, The Queen’s Agent: Sir Francis Walsingham and the Rise of Espionage in Elizabethan England (2012) Filippo De Vivo, Information and Communication in Venice: Rethinking Early Modern Politics (2007)
Susan B. Edgington, ‘Espionage and Military Intelligence during the First Crusade, 1095-99’ (2014)
David Scott Gehring, ‘Intelligence Gathering, Relazioni, and the Ars Apodemica’, Diplomacy and Statecraft (2022) Tobias P. Graf and Charlotte Backerra, ‘Case Studies in Early Modern Intelligence, Journal of Intelligence History (2022)
Maxim Hoffman, ‘A secret life of Queen Eleanor of Austria: correspondence, courtiers and covert agents’, French History (2024)
Ioanna Iordanou, Venice’s Secret Service: Organising Intelligence in the Renaissance (2019)
Nike Koutrakou, ‘Diplomacy and espionage. Their role in Byzantine foreign relations, 8th-10th centuries’ (1995)
Noel Malcolm, Agents of Empire: Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits and Spies in the Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean World (2015)
Fabrice Micallef, ‘Judicial diplomacy: dealing with defectors and conspirators after the French Wars of Religion (1598-1610)’, French History (2022)
Keith Neilson and B. J. C. McKercher (eds.), Go Spy the Land: Military Intelligence in History (1992)
Dannielle Shaw and Matthew Woodcock, ‘New Explorations in Early Modern Intelligence-Gathering’, History (2023)
Tracey A. Sowerby, ‘Early Modern Diplomatic History’, History Compass (2016)
Tracey A. Sowerby and Jan Hennings (eds.), Practices of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World c.1410–1800 (2017)
Daniel Szechi (ed.), The Dangerous Trade: Spies, Spymasters and the Making of Europe (2010)

Research element

Writing of assessed essays based on primary and secondary sources

Interdisciplinary

Engages with work in social sciences especially intelligence studies

International

Covers a variety of Western European countries as well as case studies from the Ottoman and Byzantine empires

Subject specific skills

To gain an understanding of the historical development of espionage and intelligence
To be able to make effective comparison of the operation of secret networks in different historical periods and national contexts
To critically engage with a variety of primary and secondary sources
To demonstrate an enhanced knowledge of the political, religious and diplomatic history of the premodern period

Transferable skills

To develop enhanced research, writing and communication skills through essays and oral presentations in seminars