Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Dugdale Society: Its First Hundred Years
- 2 The Beginnings of Coventry
- 3 Was Commerce in Late Medieval Coventry Restricted by Regulation?
- 4 Studying Late Medieval Small Towns in Warwickshire 1920–2020
- 5 Rural Warwickshire in the Middle Ages: Society and Landscape
- 6 Religion, Rebellion and Red Jackets: Changing Approaches to Society and Politics in Sixteenth-century Warwickshire
- 7 Social Networks, Intellectual Affinities and Communal Harmony in Post-Reformation Warwickshire
- 8 Discovering Warwickshire’s Vernacular Architecture
- 9 Local History and the English Civil War: A View from Warwickshire
- 10 Writing Histories of the Landed Elite in Georgian Warwickshire
- 11 The Victoria County History in Warwickshire
- 12 Writing Women into the Political History of Warwickshire
- 13 Shakespeare and the Warwickshire Landscape in the Age of the Tourist
- Conclusion
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 December 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Dugdale Society: Its First Hundred Years
- 2 The Beginnings of Coventry
- 3 Was Commerce in Late Medieval Coventry Restricted by Regulation?
- 4 Studying Late Medieval Small Towns in Warwickshire 1920–2020
- 5 Rural Warwickshire in the Middle Ages: Society and Landscape
- 6 Religion, Rebellion and Red Jackets: Changing Approaches to Society and Politics in Sixteenth-century Warwickshire
- 7 Social Networks, Intellectual Affinities and Communal Harmony in Post-Reformation Warwickshire
- 8 Discovering Warwickshire’s Vernacular Architecture
- 9 Local History and the English Civil War: A View from Warwickshire
- 10 Writing Histories of the Landed Elite in Georgian Warwickshire
- 11 The Victoria County History in Warwickshire
- 12 Writing Women into the Political History of Warwickshire
- 13 Shakespeare and the Warwickshire Landscape in the Age of the Tourist
- Conclusion
- Index
Summary
Historians should be aware of their own history. Members of the Dugdale Society noticed in the second decade of the twenty-first century that they were approaching the hundredth anniversary of the Society’s foundation in 1920. Everyone agreed that this milestone should be recognised, and various proposals were debated, but it was soon decided to award prizes to students and independent researchers, and to hold a conference. This event was intended to be a festive celebration of past achievements, but also an appraisal of the present state of historical studies of Warwickshire, aimed both to attract local people and to inform a wider public. Our resolve to embark on potentially costly events was encouraged by a generous bequest from our genial and always supportive president, Sir William Dugdale, who had died in 2014. After more discussion the theme of the conference was agreed: contributors would be invited, from the perspective of their periods and specialisms, to consider different aspects of the history of Warwickshire studied during the century 1920–2020, and explain how and why interpretations had changed. So the conference was called Warwickshire’s Changing Past, a deliberately ambiguous title covering the unfolding events and processes over the centuries, and the perception of those developments by modern scholars. Potential speakers were asked to send in proposals for papers, with the intention of including a wide range of contributors. A committee had the difficult task of selecting contributors from the many proposals submitted. In order to accommodate as many topics as possible the time allocated for each speaker was reduced to the minimum. A programme was decided and publicised.
The conference was to be held in May 2020. In March the final preparations were being made. So many people wished to attend that we were forced to put some of the applicants on a waiting list. Then COVID-19 arrived, and the conference had to be postponed. Eventually it was held as a virtual event in May 2021. All of the speakers making substantial contributions to Warwickshire history participated, and the event attracted more ‘attenders’ than would have been possible had there been a ‘face to face’ occasion. Another advantage of the new technology was that there was more time for comments and questions, enabling speakers to improve their subsequent written papers to take account of points raised. The technology worked well, thanks to the staff of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
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- Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2022