The 1549 Rebellions and the Making of Early Modern England

Description

This is a major study of the 1549 rebellions, the largest and most important risings in Tudor England. Based upon extensive archival evidence, the book sheds fresh light on the causes, course and long-term consequences of the insurrections. Andy Wood focuses on key themes in the social history of politics, concerning the end of medieval popular rebellion; the Reformation and popular politics; popular political language; early modern state formation; speech, silence and social relations; and social memory and the historical representation of the rebellions. He examines the long-term significance of the rebellions for the development of English society, arguing that the rebellions represent an important moment of discontinuity between the late medieval and the early modern periods. This compelling history of Tudor politics from the bottom up will be essential reading for late medieval and early modern historians as well as early modern literary critics.

Andy Wood is Reader in Social History at the School of History, University of East Anglia. His first book, The Politics of Social Conflict: the Peak Country, 1520-1770 (1999), was declared Proxime Accesitt in 1999 for the Royal Historical Society's Whitfield Prize.

'... brilliant study ... fascinating work ...Wood offers a rich narrative of the events ... the greatest strength of the book: its attentiveness to the voices of the rebels themselves.' BBC History Magazine