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Healing History? The Reformation 500 years on
By Fred Smith | @Fred_E_Smith On 31 October 1517, Martin Luther (supposedly) nailed 95 criticisms of the Catholic Church to the door of a Wittenburg church. His actions, alongside those of many other ‘reformers’, helped catalyse events which would ultimately splinter Catholic Christendom into a myriad of diverse, often antagonistic, sects. Fast-forward 499 years, and there…
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Royal Power takes Flight: A Reconsideration of the Staircase in the Early Modern Palace
By Atlanta Neudorf | @ARaeNeudorf In a letter written in 1663, Jean-Baptiste Colbert wrote to King Louis XIV of France that ‘in lieu of dazzling actions in war, nothing indicates better the greatness and spirit of princes than buildings’.[1] This sentiment illustrates the importance of palace architecture to the image and character of the prince in…
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Australia Day and the Struggle to Control a Nation’s History
by Eleanor Russell On the 26th of January 1788 eleven ships under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip sailed into Port Jackson, now known as Sydney Harbour, carrying the first of more than 150,000 convicts sent to the new penal colony in Australia. The experiences of these convicts, and of the naval and military personnel,…
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Sweet harmony or rough music? Singing in the seventeenth century
By Carys Brown | @HistoryCarys If you’ve ever been in a roaring rugby crowd, a church full of carol singers, or even just broken into song in the shower, you’ve probably noticed that singing can have a powerful effect. The physical, psychological, and social benefits of singing are now widely recognised, although the underlying reasons behind…
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The trials and tribulations of the cross-border historian
By Zoe Farrell | @zoeffarrell Writing in History Today this January, Suzannah Lipscomb, the TV historian and fellow of the New College of Humanities, urged us to remember that ‘no island is an island.’[1] In essence, what Lipscomb argued is that in these times of great uncertainty and heightened feelings of hostility towards ‘the other,’ it…
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