History of Britain (BBEAN/BBLAN 02500) Fall 2007 Lecturer: Karáth Tamás
History of Britain (BBEAN/BBLAN 02500)
Lecturer: Karáth Tamás (kartauzi@gmx.de)
The seven sessions we will have this semester will only allow us a very concise survey of British history from the beginnings (Celtic Britain) to Britain at the beginning of the third millennium. The lectures will aim at giving you guidelines to the main issues of the chosen periods, always focusing on some of the most important primary sources (see also in the list of obligatory readings). Outlines and illustrative materials will be put on the website of the English Department under the code of the course (History of Britain). The compulsory reading for the lecture will determine the course‟s overall approach to British history, i.e. instead of talking about parallel “national histories” of England, Wales, Scotland and (Northern) Ireland, an encompassing history of the British Isles will be attempted.
This series of lectures will be concluded by an exam, consisting of a written entry test and an oral part. The material of the exam is based on Hugh Kearney‟s The British Isles: A History of Four Nations. (Cambridge University Press, 1989). Questions of the screening test will refer to the list of persons, events and concepts, figuring in this volume. The list of the items of the written entry test as well as the detailed description of the oral part will follow in the section after the course syllabus. Lecture syllabus (1) Presentation of the course and of the requirements. The difficulties of facing history in present-day Britain, illustrated by contemporary witnesses. Approaches to British history. (2) Celtic Britain, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans (3) Turning points after 1066 in the Middle Ages (4) The beginnings of an empire: The Tudors and the Stuarts (5) “Remaking the empire” (18th century) and the “Pax Britannica” (Victorian Britain) (6) From Celtic revival and nationalism to devolution (Ireland, Scotland and Wales in the 19th and 20th centuries) (7) “Withdrawal from empire” (post WWII-Britain)
Obligatory Reading
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History of Britain (BBEAN/BBLAN 02500) Fall 2007 Lecturer: Karáth Tamás Hugh Kearney, The British Isles: A History of Four Nations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Suggested Readings Guy, John, The Tudors: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. (Text first published in The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain 1984) Morgan, Kenneth O., Twentieth-Century Britain: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morrill, John, Stuart Britain: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ross, David, England: History of a Nation. Geddes and Grosset: 2005.
Feel free to contact me by e-mail with all eventual questions and problems in connection with the course. I wish you a nice semester.
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History of Britain (BBEAN/BBLAN 02500) Fall 2007 Lecturer: Karáth Tamás
THE EXAM
Procedure and Content of the Exam The exam consists of two parts: a written entry test and a colloquy. 1. The entry test contains 15 questions related to basic concepts and personalities of British history (see the list of these below). Failure of the entry test means the automatic failure of the whole exam. NOTE: the entry test is valid only on the day of the respective exam. If you decide not to continue the exam with the oral part, after having successfully passed the screening test, the next time you resume the exam, you have to re-sit for the written test as well. 2. The oral part, following immediately the written entry test, is basically the presentation and discussion of a source text of your own choice from the list of sources below. When preparing a source, first of all, you have to read it carefully, do background research about its author, context, circumstances of composition, reception, critical approaches; furthermore you are expected to point out the main arguments and ideas of the text, present eventual contradictions, and discuss the significance of the source in the given historical period. A bare literal summary of the text, evidently, cannot replace its complex analysis. Besides the presentation (analysis) of the source text and its background, everyone has to prepare one of the topics also listed below. I would draw your attention to the following basic principles of the oral exam: Do not say anything without due support and without lack of personal conviction. Use maps for the preparation. You may also get maps to explain and illustrate your presentation at the exam. The oral exam is a colloquy, i.e. a conversation, where both participants can have relevant questions. They may have an essential role in specifying the problems or in pointing out some contradictions in our present state of knowledge.
What to know for the entry test? The entry test will presuppose the knowledge of the following essentials (persons and concepts). Each of them (except for the few items underlined) can be found in the compulsory reading. Some essential concepts and persons are not treated by Kearney; still, their knowledge is quintessential to an understanding of cultural or social history. Therefore I added some items, unexplained by Kearney, but to be explicated in the course of the lectures. NOTE: Kearney‟s account of British history implies a good knowledge of British topography. Before starting to read, please, revise the chapter on geography and regions from British civilisation, and check all place names (towns, cities, shires, counties, regions as well as foreign countries) occurring in Kearney‟s book. The author also provides maps, but feel free to recur to other aids at your disposal
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History of Britain (BBEAN/BBLAN 02500) Fall 2007 Lecturer: Karáth Tamás (especially recommended: The Atlas of British History, available in Szabó Ervin Library). I. CELTS, ROMANS, ANGLO-SAXONS AND VIKINGS La Tène Julius Caesar Brigantes Hadrian Belgae Arthur (Ambrosius Aurelianus) Iceni Gildas Stonehenge Gregory the Great Clydeside St. Augustine of Canterbury Cornwall St. Patrick Cumbria Colman Dalriada Colmcille Druids Columbanus East Anglia Aethelberht Gaels Beda Venerabilis (the Venerable Bede) Glastonbury Offa Hadrian‟s Wall Alfred the Great Picts Aethelred the Unready Scots Cnut Anglo-Saxons Edward the Confessor Northumbria Harold of Wessex (Godwinson) Mercia Kenneth MacAlpin Wessex MacBeth Kent Duncan Brittany Brian Boru Sutton Hoo Gruffyd ap Llywelyn Iona Lindisfarne Lindisfarne Gospels Synod of Whitby Offa‟s Dyke Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation Vikings Danelaw Battle of Brunanburh Fyrd Regularis Concordia II. THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND THE MIDDLE AGES (1066-1485) The Middle English period William the Conqueror The Battle of Hastings Lanfranc Domesday (Doomsday) Book Malcolm III (Canmore) The Angevins Matilda Welsh marches King Stephen (of Blois)
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History of Britain (BBEAN/BBLAN 02500) Fall 2007 Lecturer: Karáth Tamás Aquitaine Magna Carta The Battle of Bannockburn Gascony Franco-Scottish Alliance Hundred Years War Order of the Garter Black Death Peasants‟ Revolt (1381) The „Merciless‟ parliament Lollards The Battle of Agincourt Wars of the Roses House of Lancaster House of York Bosworth Field David I of Scotland Geoffrey of Monmouth Henry II Thomas Becket King John (Lackland) Simon de Montfort Edward I John Balliol William Wallace Robert Bruce Edward II Roger Mortimer Edward III Jeanne d‟Arc Owain Glyndŵr (Owen Glendower) John Wyclif Richard II John of Gaunt Richard III
III. THE 16TH CENTURY Whitehall Star Chamber Henrician Reformation Dissolution of the monasteries Pilgrimage of Grace Council of the North Acts of Union with Wales Edwardian Reformation Protestant martyrs 39 articles Book of Common Prayer Puritans Enclosure Scottish Reformation Scottish Presbytarianism „The Pale‟
Henry VII Henry VIII Cardinal Thomas Wolsey Thomas Cromwell Thomas More Thomas Cranmer Edward VI Mary Tudor Mary, Queen of Scots John Knox Elizabeth I William Cecil, Lord Burghley John Foxe
IV. THE CENTURY OF THE STUARTS (17TH CENTURY) James I (James VI of Scotland) Ship Money Charles I First and second civil wars William Laud The short and long parliaments Oliver Cromwell The „Moderates‟ Sir Thomas Fairfax Parliamentarians (in the civil war) Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford
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History of Britain (BBEAN/BBLAN 02500) Fall 2007 Lecturer: Karáth Tamás The „Irish‟ massacre New Model Army Pride‟s Purge Cromwellian ascendancy Drogheda massacre Lord Protectorate Instrument of Government Glorious Revolution Tories Whigs Dissenters (dissent in England) Covenanters Test Acts Battle of the Boyne V. 18TH CENTURY BRITAIN Jacobites Scottish Act of Union (1707) Battle of Culloden Highland Clearances James MacPherson Ossian - the Ossianic myth „Orange lodges‟ Highland Clearances Nonconformity (rise of -) Methodism Stamp Act Scottish Enlightenment Irish Act of Union (1800) VI. 19TH CENTURY BRITAIN Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts „Great‟ Reform Act Rotten boroughs Working class Middle class Chartism New Poor Law Workhouses Metropolitan Police Corn Laws Anti-Corn Law League Liberal Party General George Monck Charles II James II William III (of Orange)
George I Charles Edward Stuart („Bonny Prince Charlie‟) Sir Robert Walpole George II George III Frederick North, Lord John Wilkes Edmund Burke Thomas Paine Horatio Nelson John Wesley William Pitt, „the Younger‟
Queen Victoria Richard Cobden John Bright Henry John Temple Palmerston, Viscount Robert Peel Benjamin Disraeli William Gladstone Daniel O Connell Charles Stewart Parnell Richard Cobden Charles Darwin
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History of Britain (BBEAN/BBLAN 02500) Fall 2007 Lecturer: Karáth Tamás Conservative Party Chartism Splendid isolation Reform Acts The Maynooth Grant Catholic Emancipation Disestablishment of the Anglican Church Great Famine Irish Home Rule „Boycott‟ (Captain Boycott) Fenianism Welsh liberalism VII. 20TH-CENTURY BRITAIN Labour Party Irish Republican Brotherhood Anglo-Irish Treaty (1922) Ulster Ulster Unionism Ulster Volunteers Irish Free State taoiseach Statute of Westminster (1931) Scottish National Party Plaid Cymru Post-war immigration West Indies „New Commonwealth‟ Suez Canal Temperance movement in Wales Welsh Temperance Act IRA Sinn Fein Stormont EEC Welsh and Scottish referendum of 1979
Herbert Henry Asquith David Lloyd George Ramsey MacDonald Eamonn de Valera Stanley Baldwin Neville Chamberlain Sir Winston Churchill John Maynard Keynes Ernest Bevin Clement Attlee Harold MacMillan Iain MacLeod Harold Wilson Saunders Lewis Enoch Powell Ian Paisley Margaret Thatcher John Major Tony Blair David Trimble
Topics for the Oral Exam Choose one of the following broad topics and prepare it for the oral exam on the basis of Hugh Kearney‟s The British Isles. You enjoy absolute freedom in the structure and the line of thought of your presentation. Mind that each of the topics is broad enough to include many of the chapters of Kearney‟s book. Do not attempt to equate one topic
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History of Britain (BBEAN/BBLAN 02500) Fall 2007 Lecturer: Karáth Tamás with one chapter of the book. (Besides Kearney‟s book, you may also consult other pieces of secondary literature.) 1. The history of Anglo-Irish relations 2. The history of Anglo-Scottish relations 3. The history of Anglo-Welsh relations 4. Catholicism in Britain 5. The history of Protestant dissent in Britain 6. Religious revivals after the Reformation (to the 20th century) 7. Priorities of foreign policy in Britain after the Glorious Revolution to WWII 8. Aliens in Britain 9. The sense of a “British nation” 10. The roots of class consciousness in Britain 11. Ideologies in modern British politics (19th and 20th century) 12. The Victorian heritage of modern Britain 13. Medieval and early modern colonisations 14. The development of the English Constitution from the late Anglo-Saxon period to the Glorious Revolution 15. Cultural transmissions between Britain and the continent from the 5th century to Reformation Sources For the oral exam, you are expected to choose one of the following source texts and prepare it according to the criteria discussed above (under the requirements of the exam). The sources are listed chronologically with the indication of the age they were written in. Even if a Hungarian translation is given as an option, the presentation and discussion of the text have to be in English.
I. ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND
Beda Venerabilis, Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. (The Venerable Bede‟s Ecclesiastical History of the English People) Excerpts: Book I, Chap. 22-33; Book II, Chap. 9-14; Book III, Chap. 25; Book IV, Chap. 27-30.
II. THE MIDDLE AGES
John of Salisbury, Policraticus. Az udvaroncok hiábavalóságairól és a filozófusok nyomdokairól. (Válogatta és fordította: Somfai Anna) Atlantisz, 1999. OR
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History of Britain (BBEAN/BBLAN 02500) Fall 2007 Lecturer: Karáth Tamás The passages on John Wyclif and the spread of Lollardy from Henry Knighton‟s Chronicle
III. TUDOR ENGLAND
Thomas More, Utopia
IV. THE STUART CENTURY
Samuel Pepys‟ Diary. Either the year of 1660 or the year of 1666.
V. 18TH-CENTURY BRITAIN
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France. Cf.: E. Burke, Töprengések a francia forradalomról. (Ford.: Kontler László) Budapest: Atlantisz, 1990. OR Ludassy Mária (szerk.), Az angolszász liberalizmus klasszikusai I. Budapest: Atlantisz, 1991.
VI. VICTORIAN BRITAIN
Victorian Issues in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. II.
VII. 20TH CENTURY
Winston Churchill, Excerpts from The Second World War. Vol. II, Book 2, Chap. 15-17 and 21; Vol. VI, Book 2. Cf.: Winston S. Churchill, A második világháború I-II. (Ford. Betlen János, 1989) Budapest: Európa, 1995. OR The memoir of any post-WWII British politician
Feel free to contact me by e-mail with all eventual questions and problems in connection with the course. I wish you a nice semester.
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