Introduction
The Wohl Library has many collections and sub-collections about numerous aspects of history between the late fifteenth and late eighteenth century. These primarily take the form of published primary source material, bibliographic and archive guides and reference works. Relevant titles can be found in the majority of our national collections (e.g. we have large holdings on early modern Spain both from a national and local perspective). Also the library's General Collection holds works on the European and global history of this period as well as general surveys of the historiography of this time.
Beyond Europe, works on global history, charting especially the history of European Colonialism can be found in the library's large Colonial Collections. For instance we have large collections on the history of the British and Spanish invasions of North and South America.
Below is a guide which show-cases the general scope of our collections as well as a number of case studies which highlight some specific aspects from this period.
Finding Material
Since many of our national collections have large sub-collections for the early modern period you can consult the library's collection page to get an idea of our geographic remit. Here you can also find details about our thematic collections, such as the Military and Religious History Collections, as well as subjects like Slavery of which relevant material can be found across our collections.
Our catalogue will allow you to search our collections as well as other libraries within the School of Advanced Study (the Warburg Institute has some of the finest library collections on early modern history in the world). From here you can also search the numerous collections held within Senate House Library.
Finally listed below are some useful general online finding aids that will help you locate and download where possible relevant titles, periodicals, theses and online resources.
Finding within the Library
Collections Arrangement
Collections within the library each have a letter, followed by a numerical sequence (decimal numbers are used, arranged as if after a decimal point, so for example ER.53 comes after ER.504). Each national collection has a sequence of local and regional material following the general sequence. The main areas of early modern works and the corresponding classmarks are as follows:
- Austria (1556-1792): EA.292
- Britain and England General sections with medieval material: B.0 Bibliographies/guides, B.2 Biography, B.3-4 Law and Parliament, B.6 1485-1603, B.73-78 1603-1815, BC English local history
- Colonial History Works on Colonial history are spread over a number of sub-collections. In the General Colonial Collection are sections on the Atlantic Slave Trade (CG.155), exploration from 1492-1779 (CG.173-174) and the British Empire to 1783 (CG.42). The other collections include:
- Colonial North American CLAA
- Canada CLAB, (To 1867 CLAB.2)
- The Caribbean CLAC, (Cuba to 1898 CLAC.22), (Hispaniola to 1697 CLAC.31), (Jamaica 1654-1834 CLAC.43)
- Africa CLB
- Asia CLC (India to 1757 CLC.312)
- Australasia and the Pacific CLD
- France (1483-1643): EF.4 and (1643-1789): EF.5. Additional relevant material can be found in the French Provincial collection with the shelf-mark EFP.
- General history: E.1 Historiography and Methodology, E.2 Reference works, E.47 the Holy Roman Empire 1519-1806, E.72 Early Modern general sources and secondary works.
- Germany (1517-1648): EG.3 and (1648-1789): EG.4. Additional relevant material can be found in the German local history collection with the shelf-mark EGL.
- Ireland (1540-1801): BI.5. Additional relevant material can be found in the Irish local history collection with the shelf-mark BI.8.
- Italy (1494-1796): EI.4. A lot of material can also be found in the Italian regional history sections: EI.7-9.
- Jewish history Early Modern Historiography: EY.093 and sources and secondary works (1492-1789): EY.3
- Latin America
- General Works (1492-1810): LA.16
- Mexico (1519-1821): LAB.2
- Central America (1492-1823): LAC.2-3
- Colombia (To 1811): LAD.612
- Ecuador (To 1809): LAD.632
- Venezuela (To 1811): LAD.652
- Chile (1540-1810): LAE.412
- Peru (1532-1810): LAE.422
- Argentina (To 1810): LAF.512
- Bolivia (To 1809): LAF.522
- Paraguay (To 1811): LAF.532
- Uruguay (To 1811): LAF.542
- Brazil (1500-1822): LAG.2
- Low Countries (1477-1579): EN.37-38 and (1579-1795): EN.53, The Netherlands (1579-1830): ENA.3, Belgium (1579-1830): ENB.3-5. Additional relevant material can be found in the Low Countries local history collection with the shelf-mark ENL.
- Military: (16th century): W.42, (1603-1714): W.43 and (1714-1789): W.44.
- Northern Europe
- General (1523-1721): ED.3
- Denmark (1523-1814): EDA.3
- Finland (1150-1809): EDC.3
- Iceland (1550-1944): EDE.4
- Norway (1523-1814): EDF.3
- Sweden (1523-1814): EDG.3
- Portugal (1385-1580): EP.26, (1580-1640): EP.32 and (1640-1811): EP.34.
- Religious history: ER. Includes sections on the Reformation (ER.1043) and the Counter-Reformation (ER.1045), Saints and Hagiography ER.4, Theology ER.4, Papacy: ER.5, Papal Letter and Registers ER.53, Church Councils ER.57, including the Council of Trent (ER.5763), Monasticism and Religious Orders ER.6-7, including the Jesuits (ER.68), Aspects of Religious life: liturgy, pilgrimage, Heresy and the Inquisition ER.8. Source material on religious establishments is also found in the relevant national collections.
- Scotland (1542-1707): BS.3 and (1707-1832): BS.62. Additional relevant material can be found in the Scottish local history collection with the shelf-mark BSL.
- Spain (1479-1516): ES.27, (1516-1700): ES.4 and (1700-1808): ES.5. Additional relevant material can be found in the Spanish local history collection with the shelf-mark ESR.
- Wales (1536-1700): BW.3. Additional relevant material can be found in the Welsh local history collection with the shelf-mark BWL.
Further Help
Contact us if you would like help on finding or using our collections, or if you have any comments or suggestions about the content of this guide. We are happy to help.
You can also join the library and book a help session.
Highlights from the Collections: Primary Sources
The General Collection
The main focus of the library since its foundation in 1921 has been to collect published primary sources so, as you can imagine, our holdings are rather large. This section as well as the next two gives a brief snap shot of what published sources can be found in our general, thematic and geographical collections. See our collections page for more details on specifc collections that may interest you.
General Collection
- De subventione pauperum (Juan Luis Vives)
- The Fugger news-letter, being a selection of unpublished letters from the correspondents of the house of Fugger during the years 1568-1605
- Œuvres historiques (Voltaire)
- The origin of the distinction of ranks, or, An inquiry into the circumstances which give rise to influence and authority, in the different members of society
- Public drinking in the early modern world : voices from the tavern, 1500-1800
- I documenti del processo di Galileo Galilei
- The examination of men's wits
- Travel writing 1700-1830 : an anthology
- News from abroad : letters written by British travellers on the Grand Tour, 1728-71
- In the lands of the Christians : Arabic travel writing in the seventeenth century
- Westward bound : travels of Mirza Abu Taleb
Religion, War and International Relations
The library's main thematic collections are its religious and military collection as well as its collection on the history of international relations. Below is a brief selection of works you can find in these collections. See our collections page for more details on specifc collections that may interest you as well as the section later in the guide specifically on Reformation history resources.
Catholic and Protestant history
- A documentary history of Lutheranism
- Early modern Catholicism : an anthology of primary sources
- Concilium Tridentinum : diariorum, actorum, epistularum, tractatuum
War and Peace
- An account of the Earl of Peterborow's conduct in Spain : chiefly since the raising the siege of Barcelona, 1706. To which is added the campagne of Velencia. With original papers
- Acta pacis Westphalicae
- The actions of the Low Countries
- La bataille de Saint-Cast : (Bretagne, 11 septembre 1758) : entre histoire et mémoire
- La batalla de Lepanto : según cartas inéditas de Felipe II, don Juan de Austria y Juan Andrea Doria e informes de embajadores y espías
- The Blenheim roll, 1704
- Colonial wars of North America, 1512-1763 : an encyclopedia
- Correspondencia de los Reyes Católicos con el Gran Capitán, duranto las campañas de Italia
- La disfatta della flotta spagnola (1588) : due "Commentari" autografi inediti
- English military news pamphlets, 1513-1637
- Gedachtenisse van d'Engelsche Furie op de Vliestroom, en der Schellingh
- Glories to useless heroism : the seven years' war in North America from the French journals of Comte Maures de Malartic, 1755-1760
- Peter Hagendorf - Tagebuch eines Söldners aus dem dreissigjährigen Krieg
- Hulâsatüʼl-iʻtibâr = A summary of admonitions : a chronicle of the 1768-1774 Russian-Ottoman War
- 'An ill jurney for the Englishemen' : Elis Gruffydd and the 1523 French campaign of the Duke of Suffolk
- Journal of William Amherst in America, 1758-1760
- The letters and dispatches of John Churchill, first duke of Marlborough, from 1702 to 1712
- Mémoires, correspondance et manuscrits du général Lafayette
- Mémoire du sieur de Ramezay, commandant à Québec, au sujet de la reddition de cette ville, le 18 septembre 1759 : d'après un manuscrit aux archives du Bureau de la marine, à Paris
- John Milton's writings in the Anglo-Dutch negotiations, 1651-1654
- 'Regimental Practice' by John Buchanan, M.D. : an eighteenth-century medical diary and manual
- Renaissance military memoirs : war, history, and identity, 1450-1600
- Tagebuch eines Söldners aus dem dreissigjährigen Krieg
- The Turkish letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, imperial ambassador at Constantinople, 1554-1562
- 'Een vriendelijcke groetenisse'. : Brieven van het thuisfront aan de vloot van De Ruyter (1664-1665)
- Würzburg unter schwedischer Herrschaft 1631-1633 : die „Summarische Beschreibung‟ des Joachim Ganzhorn
Africa and Asia
See our collections page for more details on specifc collections that may interest you.
Sources for African History
- The East African coast : select documents from the first to the earlier nineteenth century
- The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415-1670 : a documentary history
- Documentos das chancelarias reais anteriores a 1531 relativos a Marrocos
- Cartas de Etiópia
- The Portuguese expedition to Abyssinia in 1541-1543 as narrated by Castanhoso
- Dos feitos de D. Christovam de Gama em Ethiopia : tratado composto
- Kaapse plakkaatboek (1652-1806)
- Cape Good Hope, 1652-1702 : The first fifty years of Dutch colonisation as seen by callers
- Letters despatched from the Cape, 1652-1662
- Trade on the Guinea Coast, 1657-1666 : the correspondence of the English East India Company
- Correspondence from the Royal African Company's factories at Offra and Whydah on the slave coast of West Africa in the Public Record Office, London 1678-93
- Correspondence of the Royal African Company's chief merchants at Cabo Corso Castle with William's Fort, Whydah, and the Little Popo Factory, 1727-1728 : an annotated
transcription of Ms. Francklin 1055/1 in the Bedfordshire County Record Office - The diary of Antera Duke, an eighteenth-century African slave trader
- Letters on West Africa and the Slave Trade : Paul Erdmann Isert's "Journey to Guinea and the Caribbean Islands in Columbia" (1788)
Sources for Asian History
- Palestine, Liban, Syrie, Mésopotamie : 1523-1583
- Hans Dernschwam's Tagebuch einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien (1553/55)
- The report of Lello : third English Ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Babıâli nezdinde üçüncü İngiliz Elçisi Lello'nun muhtırası
- Johann Michael Wansleben's travels in the Levant, 1671-1674 : an annotated edition of his Italian report
- Voyages en Turquie, 1675-1677
- The history of the Turks beginning with the year 1679
- Historia incrementorum atque decrementorum Aulae Othomanicae
- A chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia and the Papal mission of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries
- Sir John Chardin's Travels in Persia
- Documenta Indica
- Akbarnamah
- The first Englishmen in India : letters and narratives of sundry Elizabethans
- The Mughal Padshah : a Jesuit treatise on Emperor Jahangir's court and household
- Jahangir's India, the Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert
- Storia do Mogor : or, Mogul India, 1653-1708
- Ideas of Chinese gardens : Western accounts, 1300-1860
- Johannes Schreck-Terrentius SJ : Wissenschaftler und China-Missionar (1576-1630)
- A true description of three voyages by the north-east towards Cathay and China : undertaken by the Dutch in the years 1594, 1595 and 1596
- Manchu-Mongol relations on the eve of the Qing Conquest : a documentary history
- Cartas anuas da China (1636, 1643 a 1649)
- Acta Pekinensia sive ephemerides historiales eorum, quae Pekini acciderunt a 4.a Decembris Anni 1705
- Juifs de Chine : à travers la correspondance inédite des jésuites du dix-huitième siècle
- João Rodrigues's account of sixteenth-century Japan
- History of Japan compiled from records of the English East India Company at the instance of the Court of Directors
- Histoire de l'établissement, des progrès et de la décadence du Christianisme dans l'empire du Japon, ou l'on voit les différentes révolutions qui ont agité cette monarchie
pendant plus d'un siècle - England and Japan : the first known account of Japan in English extracted from the "History of Travayle" 1577
- Les jésuites au Japon : relation missionnaire (1583)
- Diary of Richard Cocks : Cape-Merchant in the English factory in Japan 1615-1622 with correspondence
- Mémoires d'un voyage aux Indes orientales, 1619-1622 : un marchand normand à Sumatra
- The Jesuit Makasar documents : (1615-1682)
- The British in West Sumatra (1685-1825) : a selection of documents, mainly from the East India Company records preserved in the India Office Library
- La relation sur le Tonkin et la Cochinchine
- Philippine Jesuits in exile : the journals of Francisco Puig, S. J., 1768-1770
- La correspondance générale de la Cochinchine (1785-1791)
Colonial North and South America
See our collections page for more details on specifc collections that may interest you.
The Spanish Invasion and Colonisation
- Colección de documentos inéditos : relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas de América y Oceanía, sacados de los archivos
del reino, y muy especialmente del de Indias - Letters and people of the Spanish Indies, sixteenth century
- Cartas privadas de emigrantes a Indias (1540-1616)
- Diario del primer viaje de Colón
- Pleitos colombinos
- Tratados de Fray Bartolome de las Casas
- Brevísima relación de la destrucción de Indias
- Carta al Emperador : refutación a Las Casas sobre la colonización española
- Defending the conquest : Bernardo de Vargas Machuca's Defense and discourse of the western conquests
- Historia del Nuevo Mundo (Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda)
- Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España (Bernal Díaz)
- Leyes de Burgos de 1512 y Leyes de Valladolid de 1513
- De iusto bello contra indos
- De Indiarum iure
- Portraying the Aztec past : the codices Boturini, Azcatitlan, and Aubin
- Cartas de relación : informes al Emperador Carlos V sobre la conquista de México ; Ordenanzas de gobierno de la Nueva España (Hernán Cortés)
- Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Bernardino Sahagún)
- Relación breve de la conquista de la Nueva España
- The native conquistador : Alva Ixtlilxochitl's account of the conquest of New Spain
- Chimalpahin's conquest : a Nahua historian's rewriting of Francisco López de Gómara's La conquista de México
- Breve y sumaria relación de los señores de la Nueva España
New Spain in the 17th and 18th centuries
- The archival records of the african slave trade to Mexico at Santiago el Pescador, 1692-1799
- Autos de fe de la Inquisición de México : con extractos de sus causas, 1646-1648
- La carta atenagórica de Sor Juana : textos inéditos de una polémica
- Descripción de la Nueva España en el siglo XVII, por el padre fray Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa, y otros documentos del siglo XVII
- Documentos sobre la expulsión de los jesuítas y ocupación de sus temporalidades en Nueva España (1772-1783)
- Documentos sobre las rebeliones indias de Tehuantepec y Nexapa, 1660-1661
- Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza : su Virreinato en la Nueva España, sus contiendas con los PP. Jesuitas, sus partidarios en Puebla, sus apariciones, sus escritos escogidos, etc., etc.
- Fuentes para la historia de la crisis agrícola de 1785-1786
- Gobierno militar y político del reino imperial de la Nueva España, 1702
- Guerra de los chichimecas : Mexico 1575 - Zirosto 1580
- Informe sobre las rebeliones populares de 1767 : y otros documentos inéditos
- Las minas de Nueva España en 1753
- Misiones mexicanas de la Compañía de Jesús, 1618-1745 : cartas e informes conservados en la "Colección Mateu"
- Misiones norteñas mexicanas de la Compañía de Jesús, 1751-1757
- Movimientos de resistencia y rebeliones indigenas en el norte de Mexico (1680-1821)
- A wild country out in the garden : the spiritual journals of a colonial Mexican nun
Colonial Peru
- Biblioteca peruana
- Crónica de la conquista del Perú
- Descripción del Virreinato del Perú : crónica inédita de comienzos del siglo XVII
- Francisco de Toledo : disposiciones gubernativas para el virreinato del Perú
- Gobernantes del Perú, cartas y papeles, siglo XVI : documentos del Archivo de Indias
- Guerras civiles del Perú
- An Inca account of the Conquest of Peru
- Monumenta Peruana
- El primer nueva coronica i buen gobierno
- Relación del descubrimiento del reyno del Perú
- Sínodos de Lima de 1613 y 1636
- Testimonio : documentos oficiales, cartas y escritos varios (Francisco Pizarro)
- The Tupac Amaru and Catarista Rebellions : an anthology of sources
- Voices from Vilcabamba : accounts chronicling the fall of the Inca Empire
Colonial Brazil
- Administração, recursos naturais e contrabando : documentos selecionados sobre a América portuguesa no tempo dos Filipes (1580-1640)
- Cartas Jesuíticas : cartas do Brasil (1549-1560)
- Children of God's fire : a documentary history of black slavery in Brazil
- Early Brazil : a documentary collection to 1700
- Escritos sobre os Índios
- A escravização indígena e o bandeirante no Brasil colonial : conflitos, apresamentos e mitos
- Indice da correspondencia da corte de Portugal com os Vice-Reis do Brasil no Rio de Janeiro de 1763 a 1807
- Monumenta Brasiliae
- Tombos das cartas das sesmarias do Rio de Janeiro, 1594-1595, 1602-1605
- A Viagem de Pedro Álvares Cabral : os sete únicos documentos de 1500, conservados em Lisboa, referentes à Viagem de Pedro Álvarez Cabral
The Caribbean
- Las Antillas Mayores, 1492-1550: ensayos y documentos
- Calendar of State Papers: Colonial Series: America and the West Indies
- The correspondence of Stephen Fuller, 1788-1795: Jamaica, the West India interest at Westminster, and the campaign to preserve the slave trade
- Early colonists of the Bahamas: a selection of records
- Ensayo politico sobre la isla de Cuba
- The history of Jamaica: or, a general survey of the ancient and modern state of that island
- A history of the West Indies, containing the natural, civil, and ecclesiastical history of each island
- In miserable slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica, 1750-86
- Jews in the Caribbean: evidence on the history of the Jews in the Caribbean zone in colonial times
- Los Jesuítas en la República Dominicana
- A narrative of the Wesleyan mission to Jamaica: with occaisonal remarks on the state of the society in that colony
- Nouveau voyage aux isles de l'Amerique
- Sir Francis Drake's West Indian voyage, 1585-96
- Sources documentaires de l'histoire des jésuites en Haïti aux XVIIIe et XXe siècles
- A true and exact history of the island of Barbados
- De West-Indische Compagnie
- The western design: an account of Cromwell's expedition to the Caribbean
The British Inavasion and Colonisation of Mainland North America
- Bristol and America : a record of the first settlers in the colonies of North America, 1654-1685, including the names with places of origin of more than 10,000 servants to foreign plantations who sailed from the port of Bristol to Virginia, Maryland, and other parts of the Atlantic coast, and also to the West Indies from 1654 to 1685
- The colonial records of North Carolina(Opens in new window)
- The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia
- The Correspondence of Thomas Hutchinson
- Diary of King Philip's War, 1675-76
- Escaping bondage : a documentary history of runaway slaves in eighteenth-century New England, 1700-1789
- The history of the Indian wars in New England : from the first settlement to the termination of the war with King Philip in 1677
- Hutchinson papers
- The journal of the Commons House of Assembly(Opens in new window) (South Carolina)
- Journals of the Council of the state of Virginia
- Journeys in new worlds : early American women's narratives
- The Letters of Thomas Gorges, Deputy Governor of the Province of Maine, 1640-1643
- The Mayflower papers : selected writings of colonial New England
- Minutes of the House of Assembly of the three counties upon Delaware at sessions held at New Castle in the years 1740-1742
- Narratives of the Indian wars, 1675-1699
- The papers of Sir William Berkeley, 1605-1677(Opens in new window)
- The papers of William Penn(Opens in new window)
- Proceedings and acts of the General Assembly of Maryland
- Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1636-1770(Opens in new window)
- The public records of the colony of Connecticut [1636-1776]
- Records of the Moravians in North Carolina(Opens in new window)
- The Winthrop Papers
- Women's voices, women's lives : documents in early American history(Opens in new window)(Opens in new window)
New France
- An account of upper Louisiana
- Au secours de l'amérique française, 1632 (Samuel de Champlain)
- The Capuchins in French Louisiana (1722-1766)
- Collection de mémoires et de relations sur l'histoire ancienne du Canada, d'après des manuscrits récemment obtenus des archives et bureaux publics en France
- La correspondance de Vauban relative au Canada
- Dreams of empire : Canada before 1700
- Écrits sur le Canada : mémoires-journal-lettres
- Edge of empire : documents of Michilimackinac, 1671-1716
- Histoire de la Nouvelle-France : contenant les navigations, dećouverts et habitations faites par les François ès indes occidentales et nouvelle France avec les muses de la Nouvelle France
- Jacques Cartier : documents nouveaux
- Mississippi provincial archives, [1701]-1763 : French dominion
- La Nouvelle-France sous Joseph-Antoine Le Febvre de La Barre, 1682-1685 : lettres, mémoires, instructions et ordonnances
- The Vaudreuil papers : a calendar and index of the personal and private records of Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, Royal Governor of the French province of Louisiana, 1743-1753
Europe
See our collections page for more details on specifc collections that may interest you.
Central Europe
- Die Korrespondenz der Herzogin Elisabeth von Sachsen und ergänzende Quellen
- Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Kaiser Karl V
- Hexenprozesse am Reichskammergericht
- The correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia
- Documenta Bohemica Bellum tricennale illustrantia
- Die Briefe König Friedrich Wilhelms I : an den Fürsten Leopold zu Anhalt- Dessau. 1704-1740
- Politische Correspondenz Friedrich's des Grossen
- Maria Theresia und Joseph II : Ihre Correspondenz sammt Briefen Joseph's an seinen Bruder Leopold
- II. József utazásai Magyarországon, Erdélyben, Szlavóniáben és a Temesi Bánságban 1768-1773
- Raporty rezydentów francuskich w Gdańsku w XVIII wieku
- Tagebuch einer Reise durch die deutschen Länder im Jahre 1784
England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales
- The register of the Privy Council of Scotland
- The Lisle letters
- Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII
- Calendar of state papers, Ireland, Tudor period 1509-1547
- Expositions and notes on sundry portions of the Holy Scriptures ; together with The practice of prelates
- John Knox's History of the Reformation in Scotland
- Calendar of patent rolls 45 Elizabeth I (1602-1603) : C66/1596-1606
- An account of an Elizabethan family : the Willoughbys of Wollaton
- Calendars of the manuscripts of the Most Honourable the Marquess of Salisbury : preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire
- The dialogue of the government of Wales (1594) : updated text and commentary
- Calendar of the Stuart papers belonging to his majesty the King preserved at Windsor Castle
- English family life, 1576-1716 : an anthology from diaries
- The journals of the House of Commons of the Kingdom of Ireland, 1613-1776
- Calendar of State Papers, Domestic series, of the reign of Charles I
- Angliae notitia : or, The present state of England : together with divers reflections upon the antient state thereof
- Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle : political writings
- Calendar of the Orrery papers
- Calendar of the manuscripts of the Marquis of Bath preserved at Longleat, Wiltshire
- Mary Astell : some reflections upon marriage
- The manuscript journal of the Reverend Charles Wesley
- The manuscripts and correspondence of James, first earl of Charlemont
- Calendar of the Trevecka Letters
- The manuscripts of His Grace, the Duke of Rutland, K.G. preserved at Belvoir Castle
- The manuscripts of J. B. Fortescue, esq., preserved at Dropmore
France
- Collection universelle des mémoires particuliers relatifs à l'histoire de France
- Nouvelle collection des mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France : depuis le Xiiie siècle jusqu'à la fin du XVIIIe
- Collection des mémoires relatifs a l'histoire de France, depuis l'avénement de Henri IV, jusqu'a la paix de Paris, conclue en 1763
- Les registres des consistoires des églises réformées de France, XVIe-XVIIe siècles : un inventaire
- Mémoires et lettres de Marguerite de Valois
- La monarchie de France et deux autres fragments politiques (Claude de Seyssel)
- Collection des ordonnances des rois de France : catalogue des actes de François Ier
- Lettres de Catherine de Médicis
- Les papiers de Richelieu (section politique intérieure), (section politique extérieure)
- Mémoires de Louis XIV
- Lettres de madame de Maintenon
- Avertissement aux protestans des provinces : 1684
- Précis du siècle de Louis XV (Voltaire)
- Remontrances du Parlement de Paris au XVIIIe siècle
- Mémoire sur la population : dans lequel on indique le moyen de la rétablir, & de se procurer un corps militaire toujours subsistant & peuplant
- Letters to John Law : a collection of works
- Selected philosophical and scientific writings (Emilie du Châtelet)
- De l'administration des finances de la France (Jacques Necker)
Italy
- Venice : A documentary history, 1450-1630
- Family memoirs from Venice (15th-17th centuries)
- Carteggi di Francesco Guicciardini
- Historia del sacco di Roma
- Istoria del granducato di Toscana sotto il governo della casa Medici
- Apologia e lettere (Lorenzino de Medici)
- Cronaca fiorentina, 1537-1555
- Raccolta di tutti i più rinomati scrittori dell' istoria generale del regno di Napoli
- Opere (Laelius Socinus)
- La corrispondenza di Bernardo Navagero, ambasciatore veneziano a Roma, 1555-1558
- Milano e la corte di Spagna : un carteggio inedito di Carlo Borromeo
- Le "Antichità di Milano" : una descrizione della città alla fine del cinquecento
- Most glorious & peerless Venice : observations of Thomas Coryate (1608)
- A Jew at the Medici Court : the letters of Benedetto Blanis hebreo (1615-1621)
- Al servizio dell'amatissima patria : le Memorie di Lodovico Manin e la gestione del potere nel Settecento veneziano
- Lettere inedite alla celebre Laura Bassi scritte da illustri Italiani e stranieri
- Gli abitanti del ghetto di Roma : la Descriptio hebreorum del 1733
- Edizione nazionale delle opere di Cesare Beccaria
The Low Countries
- La correspondance de Marie de Hongrie avec Charles Quint et Nicolas de Grenvelle
- Nederlantsche oorloghen, beroerten, ende borgerlijcke oneenicheyden
- Correspondance du cardinal de Granvelle, 1565-1586
- Archives ou correspondance inédite de la maison d'Orange-Nassau
- Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester, during his government of the Low Countries, in the years 1585 and 1586
- The antiquity of the Batavian republic
- Dutch-Asiatic shipping in the 17th and 18th centuries
- Recueil des ordonnances des Pays-Bas : Regne d'Albert et Isabelle. 1597-1621
- Acta et documenta Synodi Nationalis Dordrechtanae (1618-1619)
- Historie of verhael van saken van staet en oorlogh, in, ende ontrent de Vereenigde Nederlanden, beginnende met 't uytgaen vanden Treves, en eyndigende met den Iaere
1626-1669 - Actes des États généraux de 1632
- Volkoome register over de ses deelen der brieven des raedt-pensionaris J. de Witt en der ministers van haer hoog mogende by naeburige vorsten residerende
- Recueil des ordonnances des Pays-Bas. 3e série (1700-94), Pays-Bas autrichiens
- Journal de G.K. van Hogendorp pendant la révolution de Hollande : (avril-octobre 1787)
Russia and the Ottoman Empire
- Of the Rus Commonwealth
- Rude and barbarous kingdom : Russia in the accounts of sixteenth-century English voyagers
- Den Ryssiske lov 1649 : oversat og kommenteret af Rasmus Æreboe 1721
- Reise udi Rusland : første udgave fra 1743 med forord af Ludvig Holberg
- Correspondence of Catherine the Great when grand-duchess : with Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams, and letters from Count Poniatowski
- An English lady at the court of Catherine the Great : the journal of Baroness Elizabeth Dimsdale, 1781
- Raguse (Dubrovnik) et l'empire ottoman (1430-1520) : les actes impériaux ottomans en vieux-serbe de Murad II à Selim Ier
- Δημητριος Φαρμακης : νοταριος και πρωτοπαπες Αγιου Ματθαιου Κερκυρας : πρωτοκολλο των ετων 1515-1525
- Ein Fugger-Kaufmann im Osmanischen Reich : Bericht von einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien 1553-1555 von Hans Dernschwam
- William Harborne and the trade with Türkiye, 1578-1582 : a documentary study of the first Anglo-Ottoman relations
- La prise de Rhodes par Soliman le magnifique
- The report of Lello : third English Ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Babıâli nezdinde üçüncü İngiliz Elçisi Lello'nun muhtırası
- Le voyage d'Orient : espion en Turquie
- Documents concerning Rumanian history (1427-1601)
- Cronici și povestiri românești versificate : sec. XVII-XVIII
- Chius vincta, or, The occupation of Chios by the Turks (1566) : & their administration of the island (1566-1912)
Spain and Portugal
- Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España
- Documentos inéditos para la historia de España
- Cedulas y provisiones de Carlos I rey de España conservadas en el archivo general de la Villa de Madrid
- Cortes del reinado de Carlos I
- Epistolario (Juan Luis Vives)
- Fray Bartolomé Carranza : documentos históricos
- Libro de la vida (St Teresa of Ávila)
- Historia de Felipe II, Rey de España
- Cartas de Felipe II a sus hijas
- Relaciones del secretario de estado de Felipe II
- Correspondència diplomàtica de Joan Francesc Rossell, 1616-1617 : una crònica de la cort de Felip III
- Memoriales y cartas del Conde duque de Olivares
- Correspondencia con Felipe IV : religión y razón de estado
- Memoirs of the kings of Spain of the House of Bourbon : from the accession of Philip V. to the death of Charles III. 1700 to 1788
- Censo de poblacion 1712
- Granada, 1752 : según las respuestas generales del catastro de Ensenada
- Dictamen fiscal de expulsión de los Jesuitas de España (1766-1767)
- Crónicas de D. Manuel e de D. João III (até 1533)
- Letters of John III, King of Portugal, 1521-1557
- Livro das igrejas e capelas do padroado dos reis de Portugal, 1574
- Itinerários de el-rei D. Sebastião
- Cartas para duas infantas meninas : Portugal na correspondência de D. Filipe I para suas filhas (1581-1583)
- Viagens em Portugal de Manuel Severim de Faria, 1604, 1609, 1625
- Cartas de el-rei d. João IV para diversas autoridades do reino
- Inventário post mortem del-rei D. Pedro II
- Enigma Pombal : nova documentação ; tentativa de interpretação
- Terramoto doutrinal : a carta dogmático-política (1755) do P. João Moutinho contra a inquisição
Scandinavia and Switzerland
- Monumenta historiae danicae : Historiske kildeskrifter og bearbejdelser af dansk historie isaer i det 16. aarhundrede
- Christian III's rentemesterregnskaber
- Kirkeordinansen 1537/39 : Det danske Udkast til kirkeordinansen (1537) : Ordinatio Ecclesiastica Regnorum Daniae et Norwegiæ etc.
(1537) : Den danske kirkeordinans (1539) - Danske kancelliregistranter 1535-1550
- Aktstykker og oplysninger til Rigsraadets og stændermødernes historie i Kristian IV's tid
- Aktstykker og oplysninger til Rigsrådets og stændermødernes historie i Frederick III's tid
- Svenska riksrådets protokoll
- Erik XIV : Oratio de iniusto bello regis Daniae anno 1563 contra regem Sueciae Ericum 14 gesto
- Brev 1636-1654 (Axel Oxenstierna)
- Allrakäraste : Catharina Wallenstedts brev, 1672-1718
- John Robinson's Account of Sweden 1688
- Mémoires pour servir a l'histoire de Charles XII, Roi de Suede
- Chronik 1506 bis 1521
- Die Täufer und Zwingli : eine Dokumentation
- Bullingers Korrespondenz mit den Graubündnern
- Zürcher Kirchenordnungen 1520-1675
- Ioannis Calvini Epistolae
- Registres du Conseil de Genève à l'époque de Calvin
- Registres du Consistoire de Genève au temps de Calvin
- Registres de la Compagnie des pasteurs de Genève au temps de Calvin
- Chroniques de Genève
- Charles François D'Iberville, résident de France à Genève : correspondance 1688-1690
- Il vescovo, il clero, il popolo : atti della visita personale di Feliciano Ninguarda alle pievi comasche sotto gli Svizzeri nel 1591
Microfilms and Fiche
The library microform collection consists mainly of films and fiche of important source collections including those from the National Archives, the British Library and Longleat House. Most items in this collection concern British history but there are some titles relevant to European history. To view these works the library has microform readers available on the first and lower ground floors.
- Ancien regime in turmoil? : commerce, politics, and society in France, c. 1682-1793 : the Gazette manuscrite, 1775-1793, and related sources from the John Rylands University Library of Manchester
- Church state and politics in 16th and 17th century England : ...volumes selected from the Tanner collection of Mss. in the Bodleian Library
- The Complete State Papers Domestic
- The Dudley papers
- Dutch pamphlets, ca. 1486-1648. Section 1 : the collection in the Royal Library, The Hague
- The Ferrar papers, 1590-1790
- From the Reformation to the Puritan revolution : Papers of the York Court of High Commission, c.1560-1641
- Historical gazetteer of London before the Great Fire. 1, Cheapside : parishes of All Hallows, Honey Lane, St. Martin Pomary, St. Mary le Bow, St. Mary Colechurch, and St. Pancras Soper Lane
- Huguenot exiles from Europe in England, 1618-1688
- Huguenot exiles from France in the reign of Louis XIV
- The London Gazette 1665-1800
- The papers of Lady Anne Clifford (1590-1676) : from the Hothfield manuscripts held at Cumbria Record Office, Kendal
- Politics in the age of revolution, 1715-1848. Pt 1, The papers of Edmund Burke, 1729-1797, from Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries and Information Services and Northamptonshire Record Office
- The registers of the Archbishops of Canterbury : 13th to 17th centuries
- The Seymour papers
- Sixteenth and seventeenth century manuscripts : volumes selected from the Rawlinson collection of manuscripts in the Bodleian Library
- The Thynne papers
Highlights from the Collections: Secondary Works
Bibliographies, Catalogues, Guides
Below is a selection of bibliographies and archive guides found in our general, national, religious and military history collections.
General
- Early modern European history, c.1492-1788 : a select bibliography
- Bibliographie internationale de l'humanisme et de la renaissance (1965-1985)
- Unlocking government archives of the early modern period
- The eighteenth century : a current bibliography
- "My gracious silence" : women in the mirror of 16th century printing in Western Europe
- Iter Italicum : a finding list of uncatalogued or incompletely catalogued humanistic manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and other libraries
- A guide to Jesuit archives
- Society and economy in early modern Europe, 1450-1789 : a bibliography of post-war research
- Migration und Integration in Europa seit der Frühen Neuzeit : eine Bibliographie zur historischen Migrationsforschung
- Festivals and ceremonies : a bibliography of works relating to court, civic and religious festivals in Europe, 1500-1800
- A select list of works on Europe and Europe overseas, 1715-1815
National Collections
- A short-title catalogue of books printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland and of English books printed abroad, 1475-1640
- Short-title catalogue of books printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America, and of English books printed in other countries, 1641-1700
- Political broadside ballads of seventeenth-century England : a critical bibliography
- Register of sermons preached at Paul's Cross, 1534-1642
- Bibliography of the Bishops' Wars, 1639-40
- Répertoire des ouvrages de controverse entre catholiques et protestants en France, 1598-1685
- Quellenkunde der deutschen Reformationsgeschichte
- Carteggio universale di Cosimo I de Medici : Archivio di Stato di Firenze : inventario
- Bibliography of Dutch seventeenth century political thought : an annotated inventory, 1581-1710
- Iberian books : books published in Spanish or Portuguese or on the Iberian Peninsula before 1601
- Indice de documentos de Nueva Espana existentes en el Archivo de Indias de Sevilla
- Guia de história do Brasil colonial
- Bibliography of the East India Company : books, pamphlets and other materials printed between 1600 and 1785
- A catalogue of the library of the Hon. East-India company
- Sources of Jamaican history 1655-1838 : a bibliographical survey with particular reference to manuscript sources
- Bibliographie des Français dans l'Inde
- Bibliography of Goa and the Portuguese in India
Religious and Military Collections
- Reformation Europe : a guide to research
- Vatican Archives : an inventory and guide to historical documents of the Holy See
- Bibliotheca Calviniana : les oeuvres de Jean Calvin publiées au 16e siècle
- Catholicism in early modern history : a guide to research
- Anabaptist bibliography 1520-1630
- Christian Muslim relations : a bibliographical history
- The Spanish Armada of 1588 : historiography and annotated bibliography
- French military history, 1661-1799 : a guide to the literature
- The War of the Spanish Succession, 1702-1713 : a selected bibliography
Dictionaries and Reference Works
The library has substantial collections of encyclopedias, biographical dictionaries and other reference works both in print and online. Below is a selection that can be found in the General Collection as well as elsewhere in our collections, including an original edtion of the text of Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopedie.
General Collection
- The encyclopedia of European migration and minorities : from the seventeenth century to the present
- The Princeton companion to Atlantic history
- The historical encyclopedia of world slavery
- Contemporaries of Erasmus : a biographical register of the Renaissance and Reformation
- Lexikon zum aufgeklärten Absolutismus in Europa : Herrscher--Denker--Sachbegriffe
- Witch hunts in Europe and America : an encyclopedia
- Dictionary of scientific biography
- A biographical dictionary of women in science : pioneering lives from ancient times to the mid-20th century
- Tooley's Dictionary of mapmakers
- Dictionnaire européen des Lumières
- The encyclopedia of the Enlightenment
- Anciens systèmes de poids et mesures en occident
Other Collections
- Atlas of the European Reformations
- Wars of the age of Louis XIV, 1650-1715 : an encyclopedia of global warfare and civilization
- Bosworth Field to Bloody Mary : an encyclopedia of the early Tudors
- Britain in the Hanoverian age, 1714-1837 : an encyclopedia
- Lexique historique de la France d'Ancien régime
- Encyclopédie; ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences : des arts et des métiers
- Deutsche biographische Enzyklopädie
- Biographische Enzyklopädie der deutschsprachigen Aufklärung
- Dizionario biografico degli Italiani
- Biografisch woordenboek van Nederland
- Oranje-Nassau : een biografisch woordenboek
- Diccionario de impresores españoles, siglos XV-XVII
- Catálogo de pasajeros a Indias durante los siglos XVI, XVII y XVIII
- The complete book of emigrants in bondage, 1614-1775
- New World immigrants : a consolidation of ship passenger lists and associated data from periodical literature
Historiography and Methodology
Consult the Historiography collection guide to get a general overview of our large collections on historiography and methodology. Below is a selection of titles you can find in our General Collection and elsewhere.
General Collection
- What is early modern history?
- What was history? : the art of history in early modern Europe
- Writing early modern history
- Les historiographes en Europe de la fin du Moyen Âge à la Révolution
- Frontiers and the writing of history, 1500-1850
- Les femmes et l'écriture de l'histoire : 1400-1800
- Antiquarianism and intellectual life in Europe and China, 1500-1800
- Secret history and historical consciousness : from the Renaissance to romanticism
- The flight of Icarus : artisan autobiography in early modern Europe
- Models of political competence : the evolution of political norms in the works of Burgundian and Habsburg court historians, c. 1470-1700
- The Renaissance sense of the past
- Geschichtsbewusstsein und Geschichtsschreibung in der Renaissance
- Palgrave advances in Renaissance historiography
- A companion to Enlightenment historiography
Other Collections
- Historiography of Europeans in Africa and Asia, 1450-1800
- English historical scholarship in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
- The historian's two bodies : the reception of historical texts in France, 1701-1790
- Forging the past : invented histories in counter-reformation Spain
- Nuns as historians in early modern Germany
- Subverting Scotland's past : Scottish Whig historians and the creation of an Anglo-British identity, 1689-c. 1830
- The Reformation of England's past : John Foxe and the revision of history in the late sixteenth century
- Restoration historians and the English Civil War
- Annals of Native America : how the Nahuas of colonial Mexico kept their history alive
- Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl and his legacy
- Translation as conquest : Sahagún and Universal history of the things of New Spain
- Die Dignität des Ereignisses : Studien zu Heinrich Bullingers Reformationsgeschichtsschreibung
Secondary Texts
While the vast majority of secondary monographs can be found in the collections of Senate House Library, you can find some secondary titles in the IHR library, notably editions of collected essays, secondary monographs with large primary source appendices and comprehensive histories such as the Cambridge History series. Below are a few examples you can find in our library.
General Histories and Handbooks
- Handbook of European history, 1400-1600 : late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation
- The Cambridge history of political thought, 1450-1700
- The Cambridge history of eighteenth-century political thought
- The Oxford handbook of the Ancien Régime
- Die Ökonomie des Privilegs : Westeuropa 16.-19. Jahrhundert
- The Cambridge history of Judaism. Volume 7, The early modern world, 1500-1815
- The Ashgate research companion to the Thirty Years' War
- The Routledge companion to the Stuart Age, 1603-1714
- The Oxford handbook of the English Revolution
- The Routledge companion to Britain in the eighteenth century, 1688-1820
- The Oxford history of the British Empire (Volume 1. The origins of empire, Volume 2. The eighteenth century)
- La France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles
- Deutschland im achtzehnten Jahrhundert
- The Cambridge history of Ireland
- The Dutch Republic : its rise, greatness and fall, 1477-1806
- The Cambridge history of Scandinavia (Volume 2, 1520-1870)
- The Cambridge history of Latin America (Volumes 1-2)
Collected Essays and Festschriften
- Braudel revisited : the Mediterranean world, 1600-1800
- Culture and identity in early modern Europe (1500-1800) : essays in honor of Natalie Zemon Davis
- Plus ultra : die Welt der Neuzeit : Festschrift für Alfred Kohler zum 65. Geburtstag
- Essays in European history in honour of Ragnhild Hatton
- Black Africans in Renaissance Europe
- Regnum, religio et ratio : essays presented to Robert M. Kingdon
- Politics and reformations : essays in honor of Thomas A. Brady, Jr.
- Die frühneuzeitliche Monarchie und ihr Erbe : Festschrift für Heinz Duchhardt zum 60. Geburtstag
- Politicians and virtuosi : essays in early modern history
- Spain, Europe and the Atlantic world : essays in honour of John H. Elliott
- Politics and society in Reformation Europe : essays for Sir Geoffrey Elton on his sixty-fifth birthday
- Town and country in Europe, 1300-1800
- Merkantilismus : Wiederaufnahme einer Debatte
- New perspectives on Renaissance thought : essays in the history of science, education and philosophy : in memory of Charles B. Schmitt
Theses
The library holds University of London history theses from the early 20th century to the early 21st which can be found on our online catalogue. Many titles are also increasingly available online via EThos. Below are a small selection of titles available in our collection.
- Bauer, Stefan. The Censorship and Fortuna of Platina's Lives of the Popes of the Sixteenth Century
- Crean, Martin. Saint Brides Church before during and after the Great Fire of London 1666
- Gouldbourne, Ruth. Theology and Gender in the Writings of Caspar Schwenckfeld
- Kaplanoglou, Michael. Contribution to the economic history of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople under Ottoman Rule (Fifteenth to Nineteenth century)
- Landes, Jordan. London's role in the creation of a Quaker transatlantic community in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries
- McHugh, Timothy. Crown, Civic Elites and the Poor in France 1656-1715 : Charity and Poor Relief during the Reign of Louis XIV
- Meldrum, Timothy. Domestic service in London, 1660-1750 : gender, life cycle, work and household relations
- Munt, Anette. The impact of Dutch Cartesian medical reformers in early enlightenment German Culture (1680-1720)
- Oliphant, John. Great Britain and the Cherokee Nation : war and peace on the Anglo-Cherokee frontier 1756-1763
- Richardson, Glenn. Anglo-French political and cultural relations during the reign of Henry VIII
- Russell, Camilla. Giulia Gonzaga (1513-1566) and her role in the religious controversies of Tridentine Italy
- Skelton, Elfreda. The court of Star Chamber in the reign of Queen Elizabeth
- Valletta, Frederick. Witchcraft, magic and superstition in England, 1640-70
- Vasiliauskas, Arturas. Local Politics and clientage in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania 1587-1632
- Watson, William. The late Stuart reformation : church and state in the first age of party
Periodicals
The library subscribes to hundreds of periodicals. Of course relevant articles can be found in general titles such as the American Historical Review, Historische Zeitschrift and Historical Research as well as periodicals titles, listed below, specifically about aspects of early modern history.
Online Resources
Accessing Resources
You can access many of the digital resources listed here when in the building on IHR library computers or via the UoL Libraries wifi. Offsite access is mostly limited to SAS students and staff due to licence restrictions. Electronic resources in CD format are on the catalogue and can be requested.
However a growing number of resources are freely available to everyone. In the lists below any resource that is freely available will be marked as "Freely Available" and any that can only be accessed from within the library by the majority of our readers will be marked "Onsite only".
Also listed in the next section below are a number of portals and finding aids which list freely available online sources, ebooks and journals.
Research Portals and Finding Aids
Below are a number of finding aids which list the growing number of largely freely available resources open to researchers.
- Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
A discovery service for the growning number of Open Access books. - Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. - MEMSLib Early Modern History Resource List
Resource list compiled by staff at the University of Kent. - Open Access Publishing in European Networks
The OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of humanities and social sciences. - Open and Free Access Materials for Research
A list compiled by the IHR library of over 750 resources covering many fields of historical research. There is a section specifically dedicated to Early Modern history.
Africa and Asia
Below is a selection of resources both freely available and accessible from within the IHR Library. For full lists check the Free Resources portal and our list of online resources.
North and South America
Below is a selection of resources both freely available and accessible from within the IHR Library. For full lists check the Free Resources portal and our list of online resources.
Britain and Ireland
Below is a selection of resources both freely available and accessible from within the IHR Library. For full lists check the Free Resources portal and our list of online resources.
Rest of Europe
Below is a selection of resources both freely available and accessible from within the IHR Library. For full lists check the Free Resources portal and our list of online resources.
Theses and Periodicals
Below are listed two crucial finding aids for OA (open access) journals and theses.
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. - Ethos
EThOS is the UK’s national thesis service which aims to maximise the visibility and availability of the UK’s doctoral research theses.
Some specifc open access journals include:
Government and Politics in Early Modern Europe
General Works
Below are a selection of titles from the library's general history collection concentrating on political culture in early modern Europe. Most consist of books of essays but published sources can be found in the respective national collections outlined below.
- Conseils et conseillers dans l'Europe de la Renaissance
- Monarchies and parliaments in early modern Europe : dominum regale or dominum politicum et regale
- Princes, patronage, and the nobility : the court at the beginning of the modern age c.1450-1650
- Politics and culture in early modern Europe : essays in honor of H.G. Koenigsberger
- Politics, ideology, and the law in early modern Europe : essays in honor of J.H.M. Salmon
- Politische Kultur im frühneuzeitlichen Europa : Festschrift für Olaf Mörke zum 65. Geburtstag
- Representative government in Western Europe in the sixteenth century : commentary and documents for the study of comparative constitutional history
- Rituals of politics and culture in early modern Europe : essays in honour of Edward Muir
- Royal and republican sovereignty in early modern Europe : essays in memory of Ragnhild Hatton
Political Philosophy
Although not one of the main foci of the our collection policy, the library has acquired a number of works on political philosophy as well as some of the well-known texts from the period. Below is a selection you can find in our collections.
- The Cambridge history of political thought, 1450-1700
- The Cambridge history of eighteenth-century political thought
Astell, Mary
Political writings
Bacon, Francis
The works of Francis Bacon
Bodin, Jean
De Republica libri sex
Burke, Edmund
The writings and speeches of Edmund Burke (Vol. 1 - Vol. 9)
Cavendish, Margaret
Political writings
Court, Johan de la
Consideratien van staat : ofte polityke weeg-schaal
Eliot, John
De jure maiestatis : or, Political treatise of government
Elyot, Thomas
The boke named The gouernour
Filmer, Robert
Patriarcha and other political works of Sir Robert Filmer
Forsskål, Peter
Tankar om borgerliga friheten
Grotius, Hugo
Commentarius in Theses XI
Guicciardini, Francesco
Ricordi
Harrington, James
The political works of James Harrington
Hobbes, Thomas
Three-text edition of Thomas Hobbes's political theory
Languet, Hubert
Vindiciae contra tyrannos
Locke, John
Political essays
Two treatises of government : a critical edition
Machiavelli, Niccolò
Florentine histories
Il principe
Milton, John
Areopagitica, and other political writings of John Milton
Montagu, Edward Wortley
Reflections on the rise and fall of the ancient republicks
Montesquieu
De l'esprit des lois
Lettres persannes
More, Thomas
Utopia
Nedham, Marchamont
The excellencie of a free-state
Paine, Thomas
Political writings
Seyssel, Claude de
La monarchie de France et deux autres fragments politiques
Smith, Thomas
De republica Anglorum : a discourse on the Commonwealth of England
Suárez, Francisco
De legibus, ac Deo legislatore
Voltaire
Histoire du parlement de Paris
Winstanley, Gerrard
The complete works of Gerrard Winstanley
Central Europe
The library is particularly strong in German language material. We have a large German history collection which covers both the general history of the region (including its political history) as well as the political history of individual states such as Prussia, Saxony and Bavaria. We also have a growing collection on the Holy Roman Empire and Austria as well as small collections on Hungary and Poland-Lithuania (to date our focus has not been to collect much material on Eastern Europe, for more extensive holdings see the library of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies)
The German States
- Die Briefe König Friedrich Wilhelms I : an den Fürsten Leopold zu Anhalt- Dessau. 1704-1740
- Dokumente zu den politischen Beziehungen Philipps des Großmütigen von Hessen zum Haus Habsburg 1528-1541
- Die Geheimnisse des sächsischen Cabinets, ende 1745 bis ende 1756
- Hessen-Kasselische Landtagsabschiede, 1649-1798
- Hessische Landtagsakten
- Die Politik Maximilians I. von Bayern und seiner Verbündeten 1618-1651
- Politische Correspondenz Friedrich's des Grossen
- Politische Korrespondenz des Herzogs und Kurfürsten Moritz von Sachsen
- Pommersche Landtagsakten
- Protokolle und relationen des Brandenburgischen geheimen rathes aus der zeit des kurfürsten Friedrich Wilhelm
- Die Staatsreform in Kursachsen, 1762-1763 : Quellen zum kursächsischen Rétablissement nach dem Siebenjährigen Kriege
- The Swabian kreis : institutional growth in the Holy Roman Empire, 1648-1715
- Urkunden und Actenstücke zur Geschichte des Kurfürsten Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg
Habsburg Central Europe
- Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Kaiser Karl V
- Deutsche Reichstagsakten : Reichversammlungen 1556-1662, Der Reichstag zu Regensburg, 1556/57
- Deutsche Reichstagsakten (1556-7), (1558), (1564), (1566), (1567), (1570), (1575), (1582), (1586)
- The Imperial privy council in the seventeenth century
- Joseph II., Leopold II. und Kaunitz : Ihr Briefwechsel
- King and estates in the Bohemian lands, 1526-1564
- Die Korrespondenz Ferdinands I
- Die korrespondenz Maximilians II
- Papiers d'état du cardinal de Granvelle
- Un Registro de Cancillería de Carlos V : el manuscrito 917 de la Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid
- Relazione sullo stato della monarchia, 1784
The Kingdom of Hungary
Poland-Lithuania
England, Ireland and Scotland
The library has extensive collections of of published governmental records from England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland. These include records from the English, Scottish and Irish parliaments as well as a large number of calendars from various administrative and governmental bodies such as the Star Chamber and the English and Scottish Privy Council.
England and Wales
- Acts of the Privy Council of England (new series, 1542-1631)
- Calendar of State Papers, domestic series, of the reigns of Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth
- Calendar of State Papers, domestic series
- Calendar of Treasury Books (1660-1718)
- A Collection of the Parliamentary Debates in England from the year MDCLXVIII to the present time (1668-1742)
- A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe : containing authentic memorials of the English affairs from the year 1638 to the Restoration of Charles II
- The Dialogue of the Government of Wales (1594)
- Letters and Papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII
- List and Index to the Proceedings in the Star Chamber for the reign of James I
- Parliamentary Journals
- Proceedings and ordinances of the Privy Council of England
- Proceedings in Parliament 1614 (House of Commons)
- Proceedings in the opening session of the Long Parliament : House of Commons
- Proceedings of the Court of Star Chamber
- Proceedings of the Parliaments of Elizabeth I
- State Papers published under the authority of his Majesty's Commission : King Henry the Eighth
- The Statutes of the Realm (1101-1713)
- Tudor Royal Proclamations
Ireland
- Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, Tudor Period
- Calendar of the State Papers relating to Ireland
- The Irish Fiants of the Tudor Sovereigns during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Philip and Mary, and Elizabeth I
- Irish Parliamentary Journals
- The Parliamentary Register : or, History of the Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons of Ireland
- The Proclamations of Ireland, 1660-1820
- The Statutes at Large, passed in the Parliaments held in Ireland from the third year of Edward the Second, A.D. 1310, to the twenty-sixth year of George the Third, A.D. 1786
- Statue Rolls of the Parliament of Ireland
Scotland
- The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, 1127 to 1707
- Calendar of the State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots, 1547-1603
- The Parliamentary Records of Scotland in the General Register House, Edinburgh (Volume 1, 1240-1571)
- The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland
- The Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland
France
In the library's large collection of French history titles you will find sources relevant to French governmental bodies such as the Parlements, especially the Paris Parlement, as well as royal letters and letters and memoirs of prominent ministers through this period such as Richelieu, Mazarin and Colbert. Below is a selection of the titles in our collection. To find out more about the IHR's French history collections see our collection guide.
1483-1610
- Actes du parlement de Paris et documents du temps de la Ligue : 1588-1594
- Collection des ordonnances des rois de France : catalogue des actes de François Ier
- Correspondance de Charles VIII et de ses conseillers avec Louis II de La Trémoïlle : pendant la guerre de Bretagne (1488)
- La Grande Chancellerie et les écritures royales au 16e siècle, 1515-1589
- Journal des états généraux de France tenus a Tours en 1484 sous le règne de Charles VIII
- Recueil des lettres missives de Henri IV
- Procés-verbaux des États généraux de 1593
- Procès-verbaux des séances du conseil de régence du roi Charles VIII, pendant les mois d'août 1484 a Janvier 1485
- Les théories sur le pouvoir royal en France pendant les guerres de religion
1610-1715
- Correspondance administrative sous le règne de Louis XIV : entre le cabinet du roi, les secrétaires d'état, le chancelier de France, et les intendants et gouverneurs des provinces, les présidents, procureurs et avocats généraux des parlements, et autres cours de justice, le gouverneur de la Bastille, les évêques, les corps municipaux, etc., etc
- Correspondance des contrôleurs généraux des Finances avec les intendants des provinces
- Correspondance et papiers d'Etat (Jean Baptiste Colbert)
- Débats du Parlement de Paris pendant la minorité de Louis XIV
- Les intendants de Louis XIV
- Lettres de Louis XIV
- Lettres du Cardinal Mazarin pendant son ministère
- Lettres et mémoires adressés au chancelier Séguier (1633-1649)
- Lettres, instructions et mémoires de Colbert
- Louis XIII et l'Assemblée des Notables á Rouen, en 1617
- Mémoires et instructions de Louis XIV pour le Dauphin
- Mémoriaux du Conseil de 1661
- Les papiers de Richelieu : section politique intérieure, correspondance et papiers d'Etat
1715-1789
- Les arrêts de règlement du Parlement de Paris au XVIIIe siècle : dimension et doctrine
- L'Assemblée des notables de 1787 et l'esprit de réforme : les réflexions de Michel Joseph de Coeurderoy, premier président du parlement de Nancy
- Le Conseil du roi sous le règne de Louis XV
- Histoire du parlement de Paris (Voltaire)
- Journal de l'Assemblée des notables de 1787
- Mémoires du duc de Choiseul : 1719-1785
- Procès-verbal de l'Assemblée de notables : tenue à Versailles, en l'année M.DCCLXXXVIII
- Remontrances du Parlement de Paris au XVIIIe siècle
The Italian States
Below is a selection of titles from major Italian state from the mid-fifteenth century to the eighteenth. See our collection guide to find out more about the library's large Italian history collection.
Florence and Tuscany
- Apologia e lettere (Lorenzino de Medici)
- Coniurationis commentarium (Angelo Poliziano)
- Consulte e pratiche della Repubblica Fiorentina, 1498-1505
- Consulte e pratiche : 1505-1512
- Dialogo della mutatione di Firenze
- Dialogue on the government of Florence
- Florentine histories (Niccolò Machiavelli)
- Francesco Ferruccio e la guerra di Firenze del 1529-1530 : raccolta di scritti e documenti rari
- Lettere (Lorenzo de Medici)
- Lettere (Cosimo I)
- Republica fiorentina : a critical edition and introduction
- Il ritratto del vero governo del prencipe (1552)
- La Toscana del Granduca Ferdinando II : diplomazia, cerimonie e quotidianità alla corte dei Medici (1661-1664)
Milan and Lombardy
- Dispatches with related documents of Milanese ambassadors in France and Burgundy, 1450-1483
- Memorie storico-diplomatiche degli ambasciatori, incaricati d'affari, corrispondenti e delegati, che la città di Milano inviò a diversi suoi principi dal 1500 al 1796
- Stati di guerra : i bilanci della Lombardia francese del primo Cinquecento
Rome and the Papal States
- Le istruzioni di Filippo III : ai suoi ambasciatori a Roma 1598-1621
- Il liber decretorum dello scribasenato Pietro Rutili : regesti della più antica raccolta di verbali dei consigli comunali di Roma (1515-1526)
- Il ruolo della corte di Leone X (1514-1516)
- Die Territorien des Kirchenstaates im 18. Jahrhundert : vorwiegend nach den Papieren des Kardinals Stefano Borgia dargestellt
Naples and Southern Italy
- Corrispondenza degli ambasciatori fiorentini a Napoli : Piero Nasi (10 aprile 1491-22 novembre 1491), Antonio della Valle (23 novembre 1491-25 gennaio 1492) e Niccolò Michelozzi (26 gennaio 1492-giugno 1492)
- Declino del viceregno di Napoli, 1599-1689
- Epistolario (Bernardo Tanucci)
- Memoriale dal carcere al Re di Spagna
- Privilegios otorgados por el Emperador Carlos V en el Reino de Nápoles
- Il Regno di Napoli dalla tutela all'emancipazione (1775-1789) : lettere di Ferdinando IV a Carlo III ed altri documenti inediti
- Sentimenti e politica : il diario inedito della Regina Maria Carolina di Napoli (1781-1785)
- La Sicilia sotto gli Austriaci (1719-1734) : Da docmenti inediti
- Il viceregno di don Pietro di Toledo, 1532-53
- Il viceregno di Napoli : introduzione alla raccolta di documenti curata da Giuseppe Coniglio, con indici
The Venetian Republic
The Low Countries
The IHR Library is lucky to have one of the best collections of published sources outside the Netherlands and Belgium. And within the collection, our holdings on the history of the region from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century is particularly rich. Listed below are some of the published sources on the political history from this period. To find out more about the Low Countries Collection see our collection guide.
Belgium
- Actes des États généraux de 1632
- Les chambres des comptes des pays-bas espagnols : histoire d'une institution et de son personnel au XVIIe siecle
- La correspondance de Sacré Bastin, chargé d'affaires du Gouvernement général des Pays-Bas autrichiens auprès du Prince-Évêque de Liège (1786-1794)
- Liste chronologique des Édits et Ordonnances des Pays-bas Autrichiens : [1700-1794]
- Recueil des ordonnances des Pays-Bas : Regne d'Albert et Isabelle. 1597-1621
- Wiener Quellen zu den Österreichischen Niederlanden : die Statthalter Erzherzogin Maria Elisabeth und Graf Friedrich Harrach (1725-1743)
The Netherlands
- Archives ou correspondance inédite de la maison d'Orange-Nassau
- De briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius 1702-1720
- Brieven aan Johan de Witt
- Brieven van Johan de Witt
- Les chambres des comptes des pays-bas espagnols : histoire d'une institution et de son personnel au XVIIe siecle
- Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne, prince d'Orange : publiée pour la première fois
- Correspondentie van Willem III en van Hans Willem Bentinck, eersten Graaf van Portland
- The diary of Constantijn Huygens Jr : secretary to Stadholder-King William of Orange
- The Earl of Leicester's governorship of the Netherlands, 1586-1587
- Johan van Oldenbarnevelt : Bescheiden betreffende zijn staatkundig beleid en zijn familie
- De Nederlandse staat onder de Republiek
- Particuliere notulen van de vergaderingen der Staten van Holland, 1620-1640
- Propositie eertijdts gedaan aan de Edele Mogende heeren Staten van Vrieslandt,|bnopende de separatie van't stadthouderschap, door eenige heeren gedeputeerden van haer Hoogh Mogende de heeren Staten Generael
- Resolutiën der Staten-generaal van 1576 tot 1609
- Resolutiën der Staten-Generaal : nieuwe reeks 1610-1670
- Spiegel van staat des vereenigde Nederlands
Spain and Portugal
The library's Spanish and Portuguese collections holds a range of sources relevant to political history including editions of letters from monarchs and prominent ministers as well as records of political bodies such as the Cortes of Castille. See our collections guides to found out more about our holdings in Spanish and Portuguese history.
Spain
- Actas de las Cortes de Castilla (1563-1664)
- Cómo ser rey : instrucciones del emperador Carlos V a su hijo Felipe : mayo de 1543
- Consultas del Consejo de Estado : documentos procedentes del Archivo General de Simancas (1600-1606)
- Correspondencia privada de Felipe II con su secretario Mateo Vázquez, 1567-1591
- Cortes del reinado de Carlos I
- Discursos de Bernardino de Escalante al Rey y sus ministros (1585-1605)
- Epistolario (1778-1802) (Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes)
- Epistolario político de Juan Alonso de Gámiz, secretario destacado a la Corte del emperador Carlos V, en el Archivo Histórico Provincial de Álava
- Felipe II y los libreros : actas de las visitas a las librerías del Reino de Castilla en 1572
- Memoriales y cartas del Conde duque de Olivares
- Relacciones de Antonio Perez secretario de estado, que sue del Rey de España Don Phelippe II
Portugal
- Cartas de el-rei d. João IV para diversas autoridades do reino
- Chancelaria de D. João II : índices : fontes documentais
- Documentos da reforma pombalina
- Enigma Pombal : nova documentação ; tentativa de interpretação
- Epistolario de Olivares y el Conde de Basto (Portugal 1637-1638)
- Instruções políticas (Luiz da Cunha)
Scandinavia
Although not the largest of our collections, the Nordic European collection has large holdings for early modern Denmark and Sweden. See also our collection guide for this region.
Denmark-Norway
- Aktstykker og oplysninger til Rigsrådets og stændermødernes historie i Frederick III's tid
- Aktstykker og oplysninger til Statskollegiets historie 1660-1676
- Danske kancelliregistranter 1535-1550
- Inkvisitionskommissionen af 20. januar 1772 : udvalg af dens papirer og brevsamlinger til oplysning om Struensee og hans medarbejdere
- Kancelliets brevbøger vedrørende Danmarks indre forhold; i uddrag : 1551-1660
- Kong Christian den fjerdes egenhændige breve
- Kongeloven : Thomæsons håndskrift
- Prins Christian (V)s breve
Sweden
Search Within the Sources : Diplomatic Sources
Diplomatic papers, the correspondence of ambassadors and consuls as well as reports of specific diplomatic missions often glean useful insights into the workings of government of various early modern states.
The library has a number of these kinds of sources; the Calendars of State Papers Venetian, Spanish and Rome will be familiar to many researchers of Tudor government, while works on the inter-state relations in Northern Italy can be found, surprisingly, in the Italian collection. In addition there are a number of similar works in the library’s International Relations collection which document relations between states during a specific period (see for example Cartas de el-rei D. João IV ao conde da Vidigueira (marques de Niza) embaixador em França or Correspondencia de Gutierre Gomez de Fuensalida, embajador en Alemania, Flandes é Inglaterra (1496-1509) or detail relations at a specific moment of crisis or war (for example Preussische und österreichische Acten zur Vorgeschichte des Siebenjährigen Krieges or Relação da embaixada do Padre Mestre Inácio Mascarenhas á Catalunha em 1641).
Also found in the International relations collection are a number of published works about diplomatic missions both to and from Eastern Europe and beyond. Selected titles include:
The Ottoman Empire, Safavid Persia and late Mamluk Egypt
- L'ambassade de Gregório Pereira Fidalgo à la cour de Châh Soltân-Hosseyn, 1696-1697
- Comentarios de la embaxada al rey Xa Abbas de Persia (1614-1624)
- Correspondance consulaire des ambassadeurs de France a Constantinople 1668-1708
- Legatio Babylonica : una embajada española al Egipto de principios del siglo XVI
- The Turkish embassy letters
- The Turkish letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, imperial ambassador at Constantinople, 1554-1562
- Vier brieven over het gezantschap naar Turkije
China, Japan and Thailand
- Dialogo sulla missione degli ambasciatori Giapponesi alla Curia Romana e sulle cose osservate in Europa e durante tutto il viaggio : besato sul diario degli ambasciatori e tradotto in latino da Duarte de Sande, sacerdote della compagnia di Gesù
- An embassy to China : being the journal kept by Lord Macartney during his embassy to the Emperor Chʻien-lung, 1793-1794
- English intercourse with Siam in the seventeenth century
- A Portuguese embassy to Japan (1644-1647)
- Prisonniers de l'Empire céleste : le désastre de la première ambassade portugaise en Chine (1517-1524) : récits et témoignages portugais et chinois
- Records of the relations between Siam and foreign countries in the 17th century
Russia and Poland-Lithuania
The European Reformations
General Works
Works included here are taken mainly from our Religious History collection. General works on early modern religious history of individual nations and regions can also be found in their respective collections.
- Confessionalization in Europe, 1555-1700 : essays in honor and memory of Bodo Nischan
- The formation of clerical and confessional identities in early modern Europe
- From Rome to Zurich, between Ignatius and Vermigli : essays in honor of John Patrick Donnelly, SJ
- Religion and culture in the Renaissance and Reformation
- Revival and religion since 1700 : essays for John Walsh
- The sacralization of space and behavior in the early modern world : studies and sources
The Late Medieval and Early 16th Century Catholic Church and Spirituality
Below is a small selection of titles about late medieval religious history including works on popular devotion, fifteenth century religious literature and heretical movements such as the Lollards and Hussites. See also the Medieval and Religious History collection guides for more information.
- After Arundel : religious writing in fifteenth-century England
- The cloud of unknowing and the Book of privy counselling
- The complete Ruusbroec : English translation with the original Middle Dutch text
- The devil's mortal weapons : an anthology of late medieval and protestant vernacular theology and popular culture
- Erasmus the reformer
- The influence of the religious literature of Germany and the Low Countries on English spirituality circa 1350-1475
- Letters and translations from Thomas à Kempis in the Lille archives and elsewhere
- A mirror to devout people : (speculum devotorum)
- Selected writings of Girolamo Savonarola : religion and politics, 1490-1498
- Het Wiesbadense handschrift : Hs. Wiesbaden, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, 3004 B 10
Lollards and Hussites
- A companion to Jan Hus
- The crusade against heretics in Bohemia, 1418-1437 : sources and documents for the Hussite crusades
- Dialogus sive Speculum ecclesie militantis : now first edited from the Ashburnham Ms. XXVIIC; with collations from the Vienna Mmss. 1387, 3930, and 4505
- The earliest advocates of the English Bible : the texts of the medieval debate
- Europäische Texte aus der Hussitenzeit (1410-1423) : Adamiten, Pikarden, Hussiten
- Feeling like saints : Lollard writings after Wyclif
- Lollard sermons
- Lollards and reformers : images and literacy in late medieval religion
- The premature reformation : Wycliffite texts and Lollard history
The Protestant Reformations
Listed below is a small sample of the works you can find in the library. While general works on the Reformation can be found in our general Religious and Ecclesiastical history collection, significant additional holdings can be found in our German, Swiss, British, Low Countries and French collections.
General Sources, Reference Works and Books of Essays
- All things made new : writings on the Reformation
- The archaeology of Reformation 1480-1580
- Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte
- The Cambridge companion to Martin Luther
- Collaboration, conflict, and continuity in the Reformation : essays in honour of James M. Estes on his eightieth birthday
- Confessionalization in Europe, 1555-1700 : essays in honor and memory of Bodo Nischan
- Documents illustrative of the Continental Reformation
- Documents of the English Reformation 1526-1701
- From Rome to Zurich, between Ignatius and Vermigli : essays in honor of John Patrick Donnelly, SJ
- Humanism and reform : The Church in Europe, England and Scotland 1400-1643: essays in honour of James K. Cameron
- Italian reformation studies in honor of Laelius Socinus
- The Oxford encyclopedia of the Reformation
- The Oxford handbook of the Protestant Reformations
- Original letters relative to the English Reformation : written during the reigns of King Henry VIII., King Edward VI., and Queen Mary: chiefly from the achives of Zurich
- The radical Reformation
- Radical Reformation studies : essays presented to James M. Stayer
- Reformatio ecclesiae : Beiträge zu kirchlichen Reformbemühungen von der Alten Kirche bis zur Neuzeit : Festgabe für Erwin Iserloh
- Reformation and revolt in the Low Countries
- The Reformation of England's past : John Foxe and the revision of history in the late sixteenth century
- Remembering the Reformation : an inquiry into the meanings of Protestantism
- Religion, reformation, and repression in the reign of Francis I : documents from the Parlement of Paris, 1515-1547
- The stripping of the altars : traditional religion in England c.1400-c.1580
- Voices of the English Reformation : a sourcebook
Reformers' Works and Letters
- Argula von Grumbach : a woman's voice in the Reformation
- Briefe 1530-1563 (Andreas Hyperius)
- Briefwechsel (Johannes Bugenhagen)
- Der Briefwechsel des Friedrich Mykonius, 1524-1546 : ein Beitrag zur allgemeinen Reformationsgeschichte und zur Biographie eines mitteldeutschen Reformators
- Bullingers Korrespondenz mit den Graubündnern
- Church mother : the writings of a Protestant reformer in sixteenth-century Germany (Katharina Zell)
- Correspondance de Martin Bucer
- The correspondence of Wolfgang Capito
- D. Martin Luther's Werke : kritische Gesamtausgabe
- Doctrinal treatises and introductions to different portions of the Holy Scriptures (William Tyndale)
- The eucharistic pamphlets of Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt
- Gesamtausgabe (Andreas Osiander)
- Institutes of the Christian religion (Jean Calvin)
- Ioannis Calvini Epistolae
- Life, letters, and sermons (Pietro Vermigli)
- Melanchthons Briefwechsel
- Memorials of the Most Reverend Father in God Thomas Cranmer
- Miscellaneous writings and letters of Thomas Cranmer
- Die Schriften des Menno Simons Mennonitische Forschungsstelle Weierhof
- The political writings of John Knox
- Schriften (Lazarus Spengler)
- Selections (Ulrich Zwingli)
- The works of John Knox
- The writings of John Bradford : containing letters, treatises, remains
Other Sources
- The acts and monuments of John Foxe
- Akten und Briefe zur Kirchenpolitik Herzog Georgs von Sachsen
- Die Apologien Herzog Albrechts
- Augsburg during the Reformation era : an anthology of sources
- Caritas Pirckheimer : a journal of the Reformation years, 1524-1528
- Evangelisch-katholische Fürstenfreundschaft : Korrespondenzen zwischen den Kurfürsten von Sachsen und den Herzögen von Bayern von 1513-1586
- Flugschriften vom Bauernkrieg zum Täuferreich (1526-1535)
- Kirkeordinansen 1537/39 : Det danske Udkast til kirkeordinansen (1537) : Ordinatio Ecclesiastica Regnorum Daniae et Norwegiæ etc. (1537) : Den danske kirkeordinans (1539)
- Luther's lives : two contemporary accounts of Martin Luther
- The Marprelate tracts, 1588, 1589
- Pedro de Ribadeneyra's 'Ecclesiastical history of the schism of the Kingdom of England' : a Spanish Jesuit's history of the English Reformation
- The Perth kirk session books 1577-1590
- Un procès de religion à Louvain : Paul de Rovere (1542-1546)
- Records of the reformation : the divorce 1527-1533
- Reformationschronik 1517-1534
- Les registres des consistoires des églises réformées de France, XVIe-XVIIe siècles : un inventaire
- Spiritual and Anabaptist writers : documents illustrative of the Radical Reformation
Early Modern Catholicism and the Counter Reformation
The resources on the Catholic Church from 1500 to the French Revolution can be found in a number of our collections. General titles can be found in the Ecclesiastical collection, including resources on the Council of Trent and the general history of the Jesuits. The national and regional history collections have a great deal of material on the history of the Catholic Church in their respective areas. See especially Spain, Italy, Portugal, France and Latin America.
- Acta reformationis catholicae : ecclesiam Germaniae concernentia saeculi XVI
- Akten und Korrespondenzen zur Geschichte der Gegenreformation in Innerösterreich unter Erzherzog Karl II. (1578-1590), unter Ferdinand II
- Aspetti della Controriforma a Firenze
- Catholicism in early modern history : a guide to research
- The contemporary printed literature of the English Counter-Reformation between 1558 and 1640 : an annotated catalogue (Volume 1), (Volume 2)
- Correspondance (Julius von Pflug)
- The correspondence of Reginald Pole
- Die Gegenreformation in Westfalen und am Niederrhein : Actenstücke und Erläuterungen
- Monumenta Borromaica
The Council of Trent
- Annuarium historiae conciliorum : Internationale Zeitschrift für Konziliengeschichtsforschung (Band 1-45, 1969-2013)
- El Concilio de Trento : Documentos procedentes del Archivo general de Simancas
- Concilium Tridentinum : diariorum, actorum, epistularum, tractatuum
- Decreta septem priorum sessionum Concilii Tridentini
- Examination of the Council of Trent
- Histoire du Concile de Trente : édition originale de 1619
- Die römische Curie und das Concil von Trient unter Pius IV : Actenstücke zur Geschichte des Concils von Trient
- Vera Concilii tridentini historia : contra falsam Petri Suavis Polani
The Jesuits
- Archivum historicum Societatis Iesu (Volume 1-, 1932-)
- The autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola : with related documents
- The Cambridge companion to the Jesuits
- Cartas desde Roma para la extinción de los jesuitas : correspondencia julio 1772-septiembre 1774
- Defuncti primi saeculi Societatis Jesu (1540-1640), (1641-1740)
- Fabri monumenta : Beati Petri Fabri, primi sacerdotis e Societate Jesu, epistolae, memoriale et processus, ex autographis aut archetypis potissimum deprompta
- Fontes narrativi de S. Ignatio de Loyola et de Societatis Iesu initiis
- Hieronymi Nadal Commenarii de Instituto Societatis Iesu
- Historia de la vida del p. Francisco de Borja : tercero general de la Compañía de Jesús
- Jesuit writings of the early modern period, 1540-1640
- Monumenta Ignatiana, ex autographis vel ex antiquioribus exemplis collecta. Series tertia : Sancti Ignatii de Loyola Constitutiones Societatis Jesu
- On the suppression of the Society of Jesus : a contemporary account
- Regulae Societatis Iesu (1540-1556)
- Remembering Iñigo : glimpses of the life of Saint Ignatius of Loyola : the Memoriale of Luis Gonçalves da Câmara
- Sanctus Franciscus Borgia : quartus Gandiae dux et Societatis Iesu praepositus generalis tertius, 1510-1572
Early Modern Women
General Works
The library has amassed a growing number of works about the women in the early modern world. Concentrating mainly on Europe, the library has not only primary works but also some secondary monographs, especially books of essays. And works on women's history in colonial North and South America can be found in found in the respective Colonial and Latin American collections. Below are some of the titles currently available in the library.
- Autobiographical writing by early modern Hispanic women
- Che le donne siano della spetie degli huomini : un trattato proto-femminista del 17. secolo (Arcangela Tarabotti)
- Challenging orthodoxies : the social and cultural worlds of early modern women : essays presented to Hilda L. Smith
- A corresponding Renaissance : letters written by Italian women, 1375-1650
- "Dat gij mij niet vergeet" : correspondentie van vrouwen in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw
- De institutione feminae Christianae (Juan Luis de Vives)
- Early modern women in the Low Countries : feminizing sources and interpretations of the past
- The equality of the sexes : three feminist texts of the seventeenth century (includes works by Marie Le Jars de Gournay, Anna Maria van Schurman and François Poulain de la Barre)
- La famille, les femmes et le quotidien : XIVe-XVIIIe siècle
- Lettres de femmes : textes inédits et oubliés du XVIe au XVIIe siècle
- The merits of women : wherein is revealed their nobility and their superiority to men (Moderata Fonte)
- Mujeres en la Alhambra : colección de documentos de los siglos XVI y XVII
- Revisiting gender in European history, 1400-1800
- The Routledge research companion to early modern Spanish women writers
- Selections from The female spectator
- Women in the eighteenth century: constructions of femininity
- Women letter-writers in Tudor England
- Women's letters across Europe, 1400-1700 : form and persuasion
- Women's voices, women's lives : documents in early American history
- Women's worlds in seventeenth-century England : a sourcebook
- Worth and repute : valuing gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe : essays in honour of Barbara Todd
Politics and Governance
Below is listed a number of titles show-casing the types of works available in our collections. As well as works by and about specific queens and empresses we also have titles about those women who were politically engaged such as Olympe de Gouges and the Duchess of Devonshire, as well as those who exercised political power on a local level.
- Anna of Denmark and Henrietta Maria : virgins, witches, and Catholic queens
- Aus der Zeit Maria Theresias : Tagebuch des Fürsten Johann Josef Khevenhüller-Metsch, Kaiserlichen Obersthofmeisters, 1742-1776
- Authentick memoirs of the life and conduct of Her Grace, Sarah, late Dutchess of Marlborough : containing a genuine narrative of Her Grace's conduct, from her first coming to court ... to Her Grace's death : likewise all Her Grace's letters to the Queen, and Her Majesty's answers : to which is prefix'd, the last will and testament of Her Grace
- Christina, Queen of Sweden - a personality of European civilisation
- Correspondence of Catherine the Great when grand-duchess : with Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams, and letters from Count Poniatowski
- The diary of Anne Clifford, 1616-1619 : a critical edition
- Écrits politiques (Olympe de Gouges)
- Elizabeth I : collected works
- An English lady at the court of Catherine the Great : the journal of Baroness Elizabeth Dimsdale, 1781
- Georgiana : extracts from the correspondence of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
- An impartial and genuine list of the ladys on the Whig or Jacobite partie : Edinburgh 1745-6
- Lady Anne Clifford, countess of Pembroke, Dorset and Montgomery (1590-1676)
- Njinga of Angola : Africa's warrior queen
- The political writings of John Knox : The first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women and other selected works
- The private correspondence of Jane Lady Cornwallis Bacon, 1613-1644
- Queenship in Britain, 1660-1837 : royal patronage, court culture and dynastic politics
- Testamento de Isabel la Católíca
- Two Warwickshire women of character : Margaret Sheldon (c.1510-1590) and Margaret Knollys (c.1549-1606)
Business, Trades and Professions
Below is a selection of published primary sources and essays that highlight the women's labour and business history from the 15th to the 18th century.
- Ale, beer and brewsters in England : women's work in a changing world, 1300-1600
- De Bredasche heldinne
- The business and household accounts of Joyce Jeffreys, spinster of Hereford, 1638-1648
- The experience of domestic service for women in early modern London
- 'Fiscal citizens: female investors in public finance before the South Sea Bubble' in Challenging orthodoxies : the social and cultural worlds of early modern women : essays presented to Hilda L. Smith
- Fuentes documentales sobre el trabajo de las mujeres
- 'Gender and the underground economy on the western French Alps' in Revisiting gender in European history, 1400-1800
- Silent partners : women as public investors during Britain's Financial Revolution, 1690-1750
- Women in service in early modern England
- Women's voices in Tudor wills, 1485-1603 : authority, influence and material culture
Learning and the Arts
Below are works by women authors, scientists and philosophers during the early modern period. Also included are works on the education of women.
- Angelica's book and the world of reading in late Renaissance Italy
- Bathsua Makin and Mary More, with a reply to More by Robert Whitehall : educating English daughters : late seventeenth-century debates
- British women writers and the writing of history, 1670-1820
- The contest for knowledge : debates over women's learning in eighteenth-century Italy
- Dictionnaire des femmes des Lumières
- Gründliche Untersuchung der Ursachen, die das weibliche Geschlecht vom Studiren abhalten
- Isabella d'Este : selected letters
- 'A late seventeenth-century Englishwoman and her history books' in Books and bookmen in early modern Britain : essays presented to James P. Carley
- Laura Bassi and science in 18th Century Europe : the extraordinary life and role of Italy's pioneering female professor
- Lettere inedite alla celebre Laura Bassi scritte da illustri Italiani e stranieri : con biografia
- The letters of Sarah Scott
- Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle : political writings
- Memoirs of Laetitia Pilkington
- Nuns as historians in early modern Germany
- A preliminary bibliography of Isabelle de Charrière (Belle de Zuylen)
- Selected philosophical and scientific writings (Émilie du Châtelet)
- The selected works of Delarivier Manley
- A serious proposal to the ladies
- Strictures on the modern system of female education : with a view of the principles and conduct prevalent among women of rank and fortune
- A woman who defends all the persons of her sex : selected philosophical and moral writings (Gabrielle Suchon)
- Women of letters : gender, writing and the life of the mind in early modern England
- Women writing history in early modern England
- Women's life writing and early modern Ireland
Family and Marriage
Below is a selection of titles on marriage and family history in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, including published marriage records, theoretical works on the institution of marriage and a number of books of essays.
- Clandestine marriages in the chapel and rules of the Fleet Prison 1680-1754
- Daughters, wives, and widows : writings by men about women and marriage in England, 1500-1640
- Early Virginia marriages
- Les époux bordelais, 1450-1550 : régimes matrimoniaux et mutations sociales
- La Famiglia e la vita quotidiana in Europa dal ʼ400 al ʼ600 : fonti e problemi : atti del convegno internazionale, Milano, 1-4 dicembre 1983
- La famille, les femmes et le quotidien : XIVe-XVIIIe siècle
- The family in early modern England
- The Fleet registers : comprising the history of Fleet marriages, and some account of the parsons and marriage-house keepers, with extracts from the registers: to which are added notices of the May Fair, Mint and Savoy chapels, and an appendix relating to parochial registration
- Huwelijk en gezin in Holland in de 17de en 18de eeuw : processtukken en moralisten over aspecten van het laat 17de- en 18de-eeuwse gezinsleven
- Index of the marriage licence bonds 1715-1734 for Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire preserved in the Norfolk Record Office...with index of brides
- Juan Maldonado's Hispaniola, "the Spanish woman" : a Spanish view of marriage choices in the Reformation
- Legal treatises
- Marriage and its dissolution in early modern England
- Marriage records, 1665-1800...with an historical introduction on the early marriage laws of New Jersey, and the precedents on which they were founded
- Sixteenth century marriages, 1538-1600
- William Hay's lectures on marriage
Religion
Here is a selection of works from the library's collections highlighting the religious experience of women in the early modern period ranging from works about early sixteenth century monastic life to the writings of North American missionaries.
- Baptist women's writings in revolutionary culture, 1640-1680
- Between revival and uncertainty : monastic and secular female communities in Central Europe in the long eighteenth century
- A bio-bibliography of eighteenth-century religious women in England and Spain
- Female monastic life in early Tudor England : with an edition of Richard Fox's translation of the Benedictine rule for women, 1517
- 'Hear the word of the Lord' : a critical and bibliographical study of Quaker women's writing 1650-1700
- De institutione feminae Christianae (Juan Luis de Vives)
- Journey of five Capuchin nuns
- De levens der maechden : het verhaal van een religieuze vrouwengemeenschap in de eerste helft van de zeventiende eeuw
- Luther on women : a sourcebook
- Mary Ward (1585-1645) : A briefe relation-- with autobiographical fragments and a selection of letters
- Sarah Osborn's collected writings
- Women's history in the age of Reformation : Johannes Meyer's chronicle of the Dominican observance
- The writings of Elizabeth Webb : a Quaker missionary in America, 1697-1726
Violence and Persecution
Below are a number of titles which highlight the various forms of violence inflicted upon women in this period. The list show-cases some of the works on witchcraft trials that can be found in the library as well as a couple of titles specifically on domestic violence (for more information where to find sources for the history of domestic violence in this period see the section below).
- The case of Mistress Mary Hampson : her story of marital abuse and defiance in seventeenth-century England
- Religion and domestic violence in early New England : the memoirs of Abigail Abbot Bailey
Witchcraft Trials and Texts
- An Account of the trial, confession & condemnation of six witches : at Maidstone, in the county of Kent, at the assizes held there July 1652
- An advertisement to the jury-men of England touching witches
- Compendium maleficarum
- Early modern witches : witchcraft cases in contemporary writing
- Hexenglaube und Hexenprozesse im Raum Rhein-Mosel-Saar
- Kölner Hexenverhöre aus dem 17. Jahrhundert
- The lands and people of Moray. Witchcraft trials in Elgin, Morayshire : from kirk sessions, presbytery and other sources, 1560-1734
- Malleus maleficarum
- L'ombre du diable : Michée Chauderon, dernière sorcière exécutée à Genève (1652)
- Potts's Discovery of witches in the county of Lancaster
- Processo per stregoneria a Caterina De Medici, 1616-1617
- Records of the Salem witch-hunt
- The Salazar documents : Inquisitor Alonso de Salazar Frías and others on the Basque witch persecution
- The Salem witchcraft papers : verbatim transcripts of the legal documents of the Salem witchcraft outbreak of 1692
- The sermon notebook of Samuel Parris, 1689-1694
- Eine Stadt im Hexenfieber : aus dem Tagebuch des Zeiler Bürgermeisters Johann Langhans (1611-1628)
- Witchcraft in early modern Scotland : James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick witches
- Witchcraft in seventeenth-century Yorkshire : accusations and counter measures
- Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England : a regional and comparative study
- The witchcraft papers : contemporary records of the witchcraft hysteria in Essex, 1560-1700
- Die Zauberei- und Hexenprozesse in Kursachsen
Search Within the Sources : Domestic Violence in Early Modern England
The library does have a handful of published primary source titles that are highlighted in the list above. However, more information can be found on this subject in a number of other titles that can be found or accessed within the IHR.
Some material can be found in general anthologies of sources such as Women in the eighteenth century, while relevant stories from the newspapers of the period can be accessed within the library in the 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection. A general overview of the law can be found in William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the laws of England while Sarah Kirkham Chapone’s work The hardships of the English Laws in relation to Wives can be found in Legal treatises edited by Lynne Greenberg. Also the library has several sources which highlight how the law was administered, including disputes between wives and husbands; some that can be found or accessed within the library are The justicing notebook of William Hunt, 1744–49, Justice in eighteenth-century Hackney: the justicing notebooks of Henry Norris and the Hackney Petty Sessions Book [also available on British History Online], and The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913.
Many works on the conduct of wives – and what was deemed permissible punishment if they transgressed this patriarchal ideal - can be found in online resources accessible within the library such as JISC Historical Texts, which includes what was formerly covered by EEBO (Early English Books Online) and ECCO (Eighteenth-Century Collections Online).
Testimony from wives themselves can be found in both electronic and physical formats within the library. As well as the title about Mary Hampson already listed above, the memoirs of Catherine Jemmat can be found again within JISC Historical Texts while Elizabeth Freke’s Remembrances can be found on the library shelves.
Europeans beyond Europe: Invasion, Colonisation and Resistance
General Titles
Below is a selection of general titles on the European colonial presence during the early modern period.
- Atlas des empires maritimes
- Black Africans in the British imagination : English narratives of the early Atlantic world
- Documentos sobre os portugueses em Moçambique e na Africa central, 1497-1840
- European beginnings in West Africa, 1454-1578
- Histoire de l'expansion coloniale des peuples européens
- The limits of the British Empire (John Dee)
- The Oxford history of the British Empire
- The Portuguese period in East Africa
- Soundings in Atlantic history : latent structures and intellectual currents, 1500-1830
Exploration/Invasion
Below is a list highlighting the range of primary sources you can find in the library about European early modern exploration. The library also has extensive holdings of two important series. The first is the Hakluyt Society who have been publishing travel accounts for over a century; in the library these have the shelf-mark CG.171/Hak. The other is the Linschoten Vereeniging who have similarly published travel accounts but concentrating on Dutch exploration and the Dutch Empire; these can be found in the library's Low Countries collection.
- A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia
- Captain Cook's final voyage : the journal of midshipman George Gilbert
- The Conquest of the river Plate (1535-1555)
- La Conquista de Tenochtitlan
- The Conquistadors : first-person accounts of the conquest of Mexico
- Contesting conquest : indigenous perspectives on the Spanish occupation of Nueva Galicia
- The De Soto chronicles : the expedition of Hernando de Soto to North America in 1539-1543
- Diário da viagem de Vasco da Gama
- Diario de a bordo (Christopher Columbus)
- The Dutch explorations, 1605-1756, of the north and northwest coast of Australia : extracts from journals, log-books and other documents relating to these voyages : original Dutch texts
- Great cruelties have been reported : the 1544 investigation of the Coronado Expedition
- Historia de la conquista de Itzá
- The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768-1820
- Invading Guatemala : Spanish, Nahua, and Maya accounts of the conquest wars
- The journey and ordeal of Cabeza de Vaca : his account of the disastrous first European exploration of the American Southwest
- Las Casas on Columbus : background and the second and fourth voyages
- Las Casas on Columbus : the third voyage
- Magellan's voyage around the world : three contemporary accounts
- A memoir of Sebastian Cabot : with a review of the history of maritime discovery
- The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques & discoveries of the English nation : made by sea or over-land to the remote and farthest distant quarters of the earth at any time within the compasse of these 1600 yeeres
- The three voyages of Martin Frobisher in search of a passage to Cathay and India by the north-west, A.D. 1576-8
- Untruth and consequences : Ralegh's Discoverie of Guiana and the 'salting' of the gold mine
- Visión de los vencidos : crónicas indigenas
- Voyage de Jaques Cartier au Canada en 1534
- The voyage of Sutil and Mexicana, 1792 : the last Spanish exploration of the northwest coast of America
- A voyage to New Holland : the English voyage of discovery to the South Seas in 1699
- We people here : Nahuatl accounts of the conquest of Mexico
- The world encompassed and analogous contemporary documents concerning Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the world
Colonisation, Conversion and Control
Here is a list of titles available in the library outlining the various means by which colonial occupying forces exercised control, whether political, economic or spiritual.
- Bengal in 1756-1757 : a selection of public and private papers dealing with the affairs of the British in Bengal during the reign of Siraj-uddaula
- Documenta Indica
- Documentary evidence for the Spanish missions of Texas
- Documentos coloniales de Honduras
- The East India trade in the XVIIth century in its political and economic aspects
- The first century of British justice in India : an account of the Court of judicature at Bombay, established in 1672, and of other courts of justice in Madras, Calcutta and Bombay, from 1661 to the latter part of the eighteenth century
- Formosa under the Dutch
- Fray Alonso de Veracruz O.E.S.A. y la encomienda indiana en la historia eclesiástica novohispana (1522-1556)
- Friar Bringas reports to the King : methods of indoctrination on the frontier of New Spain, 1796-97
- Histoire de l'établissement, des progrès et de la décadence du Christianisme dans l'empire du Japon, ou l'on voit les différentes révolutions qui ont agité cette monarchie pendant plus d'un siècle
- Johannes Hoornbeeck (1617-1666), On the conversion of Indians and heathens : an annotated translation of De conversione indorum et gentilium (1669)
- Journals of the Commissioners of the Indian Trade : September 20, 1710-August 29, 1718
- Legislação e actos de posse do Conselho Ultramarino (1642-1830)
- The Mayflower papers : selected writings of colonial New England
- Misiones Dominicanas en China (1700-1750)
- Los parlamentos hispano-mapuches, 1593-1803 : textos fundamentales
- A plain pathway to plantations (1624)
- Ordenanzas reales sobre los indios : las leyes de 1512-13
- Portuguese colonization in the sixteenth century : a study of the royal ordinances (regimentos)
- The private record of an Indian governor-generalship : the correspondence of Sir John Shore, Governor-General, with Henry Dundas, President of the Board of Control 1793-1798
- Records relating to the Gold Coast settlements from 1750 to 1874
The European Slave Trades
The library has rapidly growing collections of resources and titles on the European slaves trades from the fifteenth century. To explore our collections about this subject see our Slave History collection guide. Below is a selection of titles available in the library about the slaves trades from the fifteenth to the late eighteenth centuries.
- Africa remembered; narratives by West Africans from the era of the slave trade
- The agony of Asar : a thesis on slavery by the former slave, Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein, 1717-1747
- Les bières flottantes des négriers : un discours non prononcé sur l'abolition de la traite des noirs (novembre 1789 - mars 1790)
- La cause des esclaves nègres et des habitants de la Guinée
- Correspondence from the Royal African Company's factories at Offra and Whydah on the slave coast of West Africa in the Public Record Office, London 1678-93
- The English in West Africa
- The Forgotten trade : Including the log of the "Daniel and Henry" of 1700 and accounts of the slave trade from the minor ports of England, 1698-1725
- Freedom's debt : the Royal African Company and the politics of the Atlantic slave trade, 1672-1752
- Granville Sharp's uncovered letter and the Zong Massacre
- Horrors of slavery and other writings (Robert Wedderburn)
- The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano
- Journal of a slave-dealer : "A view of some remarkable axcedents in the life of Nics. Owen on the coast of Africa and America from the year 1746 to the year 1757."
- The letters and other writings of Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano, the African) documenting abolition of the slave trade
- Letters on West Africa and the Slave Trade : Paul Erdmann Isert's "Journey to Guinea and the Caribbean Islands in Columbia" (1788)
- The suppression of the African slave-trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870
- Thoughts and sentiments on the evil of slavery and other writings
- Versions of blackness : key texts on slavery from the seventeenth century
Resistance
Below is a selection of titles that present how indigenous peoples and slave populations resisted the European invasions and occupying forces during this period. Most concentrate on the histories of North and South America, although relevant source material for other parts of the world (e.g. the Pacific in the 18th century) can be found in general primary sources on exploration. Works on Toussaint L'Overture and the Haitian Republic can be found in the Modern History Collection guide.
- Contesting conquest : indigenous perspectives on the Spanish occupation of Nueva Galicia
- Cuarenta años de cautiverio : (memorias del inka Juan Bautista Túpac Amaru)
- Diary of King Philip's War, 1675-76
- Documentos sobre las rebeliones indias de Tehuantepec y Nexapa, 1660-1661
- Guerra de los chichimecas : Mexico 1575 - Zirosto 1580
- The history of the Indian wars in New England : from the first settlement to the termination of the war with King Philip in 1677
- A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, from the year MDCCXLV
- The history of the wars of New-England with the eastern Indians : or a narrative of their continued perfidy and cruelty, from the 10th of August, 1703, to the peace renewed 13th of July, 1713. And from the 25th of July, 1722, to their submission 15th December, 1725, which was ratified August 5th, 1726
- The Indian uprising in Lower California, 1734-1737, as described by Father Sigismundo Taraval
- Invading Guatemala : Spanish, Nahua, and Maya accounts of the conquest wars
- El levantamiento de Huarochirí de 1750 : el diario histórico de Sebastián Franco de Melo
- Movimientos de resistencia y rebeliones indigenas en el norte de Mexico (1680-1821)
- Narratives of the Indian wars, 1675-1699
- The Presidio and militia on the northern frontier of New Spain : a documentary history
- The Pueblo Indian revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan missions in New Mexico : letters of the missionaries and related documents
- La rebelión de Túpac Amaru
- Relación histórica de Calchaqúi
- Révoltes des Indiens Tarahumars, 1626-1724
- Stono : documenting and interpreting a Southern slave revolt
- The Tupac Amaru and Catarista Rebellions : an anthology of sources
- Los últimos días de Lempira y otros documentos : el conquistador español que venció a Lempira
Search Within the Sources : Tacky's Revolt of 1760
Sources on the insurrection of enslaved people in Jamaica known as Tacky’s Revolt (named after one of its leaders in the early months of the uprising) can be found throughout the library. There are a number of sources which devote quite a considerable amount to the events of 1760; Edward Long’s The history of Jamaica, the diary of the plantation overseer, Thomas Thistlewood (an online version is also available from Yale University Library), and Bryan Edwards The history…of the British colonies in the West Indies all give accounts of the revolt and with Long’s case, infamously informed his beliefs, helping to cement the History as a ur-text of English racism.
Delving into some more general sources, mentions of the revolt can be found in works such as The Gentleman’s Magazine (vol. 30, 1760, page 306–7), the Journal of the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations (Jan. 1759–Dec. 1763, pages 136, 166 and 182) as well as within the House of Commons Session Papers (vol. 69, page 217-21 and vol. 82, page 56). Also mention of the revolt can be found in later works published in the nineteenth century such as George Wilson Bridges’s The annals of Jamaica (vol. 2, page 91–102).
Obviously these narratives give a very flawed account given the absence of sources from the enslaved. Thankfully historians such as Vincent Brown have produced works which not only question these white, planter-colonist narratives but set the events of 1760 in the wider context of the 18th century Atlantic world. A copy of Prof Brown’s work can be found in the Senate House Library.
Early Modern Information Cultures
General Titles
Below are a selection of titles mainly found in our general collection that consider early modern information cultures as a whole including subjects such as book history, literacy and public opinion.
- Ars epistolica : communication in sixteenth century Western Europe : epistolaries, letter-writing manuals and model letter books 1501-1600
- Atlas histórico de las comunicaciones en España, 1700-1998
- Culture and identity in early modern Europe (1500-1800) : essays in honor of Natalie Zemon Davis
- Experten, Wissen, Symbole : Performenz und Medialität vormoderner Wissenkulturen
- L'informazione politica in Italia (secoli XVI-XVIII) : atti del seminario organizzato presso la Scuola normale superiore Pisa, 23 e 24 giugno 1997
- Kommunikation und Medien in der Frühen Neuzeit
- News in early modern Europe : currents and connections
- News networks in early modern Europe
- The order of books : readers, authors, and libraries in Europe between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries
- Publiek debat en propaganda in Amsterdam tijdens de Nederlandse Opstand : Amsterdam 'Moorddam' 1566-1578
- The structural transformation of the public sphere : an inquiry into a category of bourgeois society
The Written Word
Here are a selection of titles found in the library on written communication during this period, including a number of works on letter-writing.
- Archives and information in the early modern world
- Ars epistolica : communication in sixteenth century Western Europe : epistolaries, letter-writing manuals and model letter books 1501-1600
- La correspondance et la construction des identités en Europe Centrale (1648-1848)
- Cultures of correspondence in early modern Britain
- The material letter in early modern England : manuscript letters and the culture and practices of letter-writing, 1512-1635
- A monarchy of letters : royal correspondence and English diplomacy in the reign of Elizabeth I
- The opened letter : networking in the early modern British world
- Une reine épistolaire : lettres et pouvoir au temps de Catherine de Médicis
- Scribal publication in seventeenth-century England
- Women's epistolary utterance : a study of the letters of Joan and Maria Thynne, 1575-1611
The Printed Word
The library has substantial holdings on the history of early modern printing in Europe and North and South America. Also listed are works on early modern broadsides and newspapers.
- Annals of Scottish printing : from the introduction of the art in 1507 to the beginning of the seventeenth century
- The Banbury chapbooks
- Before copyright : the French book-privilege system, 1498-1526
- Books and tracts printed in Belfast in the seventeenth century
- Boston printers, publishers, and booksellers, 1640-1800
- The Catalogus universalis : a facsimile edition of the Dutch booktrade catalogues
- Diccionario de impresores españoles, siglos XV-XVII
- English books & readers, 1475 to 1557 : being a study in the history of the book trade from Caxton to the incorporation of the Stationers' Company
- The English provincial printers, stationers and bookbinders to 1557
- Historia y bibliografía de la imprenta en el antiguo Vireinato del Río de la Plata
- Historia y bibliografía de las primeras imprentas rioplatenses, 1700-1850 : misiones del Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay
- The history of printing in America : with a biography of printers, and an account of newspapers
- La imprenta en Bogotá, 1739-1821
- La imprenta en La Habana, 1707-1810
- Imprimeurs & libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle
- Inventaire analytique des documents relatifs à l'impression et au commerce des livres (1546-1702), contenu dans les cartons 1276 à 1280 du Conseil privé espagnol
- The invention of rare books : private interest and public memory, 1600-1840
- Italian printers, 1501-1520 : an annotated list
- A list of books printed in Cambridge at the University Press, 1521-1800
- John Day, the Elizabethan printer
- Le livre en Brabant jusqu'en 1800
- O livro, o jornal e a tipografia no Brasil, 1500-1822
- A memoir of the York Press : with notices of authors, printers, and stationers, in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries
- Pamfletten en publieke opinie : Massamedia in de zeventiende eeuw
- Print letters in seventeenth-century England : politics, religion, and news culture
- The printing revolution in early modern Europe
- Scottish rebel printers
- Serie dell'edizioni aldine : per ordine cronologico ed alfabetico : con gli annali di Aldo il Vecchio
- Stationers' Company Apprentices (1641-1700), (1701-1800)
- A Transcript of the registers of the Company of Stationers of London, 1554-1640 A.D
- A transcript of the registers of the Worshipful Company of Stationers from 1640-1708 A.D
- Typographical antiquities, or, The history of printing in England, Scotland, and Ireland : containing memoirs of our ancient printers, and a register of the books printed by them
- The Worshipful Company of Stationers : a short account of its charter, hall, plate, registers & other matters connected with its history
- Zuidnederlandse boekdrukkers en boekverkopers in de Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden omstreeks 1570-1630 : een bijdrage tot de kennis van de geschiedenis van het boek
Broadsides and Newspapers
- All the news that's fit to print : a short history of Bristol's newspapers since 1702
- Broadsheets : single-sheet publishing in the first age of print
- Broadsides, ballads, &c. printed in Massachusetts 1639-1800
- Dutch corantos : 1618-1650. A bibliography
- The German political broadsheet 1600-1700
- I giornali dei dotti : i periodici di Antico Regime della Biblioteca Angelica
- London gazette
- Some forerunners of the newspaper in England, 1476-1622
The Spoken and Sung Word
The library has a growing number of works on the spoken word during this period. These include contemporary works on rhetoric as well as a number of published ballad collections.
- An analytical index to the ballad-entries (1557-1709) in the registers of the Company of Stationers of London
- The Bagford ballads : illustrating the last years of the Stuarts
- Ballads and broadsides in Britain, 1500-1800
- Ballads from manuscripts
- A collection of songs and ballads relative to the London prentices and trades : and to the affairs of London generally. During the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries
- Cornelius Agrippa, the humanist theologian and his declamations
- Political ballads illustrating the administration of Sir Robert Walpole
- Political ballads of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
- Singing the news : ballads in mid-Tudor England
- Teaching language to a boy born deaf : the Popham notebook and associated texts
- Two Elizabethan treatises on rhetoric : The foundacion of rhetorike by Richard Reynolds (1563) and A brief discourse on rhetoricke by William Medley (1575)
- The virtues and vices of speech (Giovanni Pontano)
Image and Form
Below are a selection of titles available in the library on the history of art, architecture and fashion during this period. For more information of what we hold on these subjects see the respective guides: Art, Architecture, Fashion.
Art and Illustration
- Albrecht Dürer : documentary biography : Dürer's personal and aesthetic writings, words on pictures, family, legal and business documents, the artist in the writings of contemporaries
- British political and social cartoons 1655-1832 not in the British Museum
- Caricature history of the Georges : or, Annals of the House of Hanover : compiled from the squibs, broadsides, window pictures, lampoons and pictorial caricatures of the time
- Documents du Minutier central des notaires de Paris : Histoire de l'art au 16e siècle (1540-1600)
- Documents du Minutier central concernant les peintres, les sculpteurs et les graveurs au XVIIe siècle (1600-1650)
- Documents du Minutier central concernant l'histoire de l'art (1700-1750)
- Dynasties : painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530-1630
- Fonti per la storia artistica romana al tempo di Clemente VIII
- Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo's Trattato dell'Arte della Pittura : color, perspective and anatomy
- Imaging Stuart family politics : dynastic crisis and continuity
- Remarques sur l'ancien état des arts dans Rouen et sur l'école de dessin de cette ville
- Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti
Architecture and Interiors
- Documentos par la historia del monasterio de San Lorenzo el Real de El Escorial. 3, Instrucciones de Felipe II para la fabrica y obra de San Lorenzo el Real
- English architecture public and private : essays for Kerry Downes
- Glorious temples or Babylonic whores : the culture of church building in Stuart England through the lens of consecration sermons
- Versailles : histoire, dictionnaire et anthologie
Fashion and Clothing
- Dressing the Scottish court, 1543-1553 : clothing in the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland
- Fashion and popular print in early modern England : depicting dress in black-letter ballads
- Fashion prints in the age of Louis XIV : interpreting the art of elegance
- Rich apparel : clothing and the law in Henry VIII's England
- Versailles : histoire, dictionnaire et anthologie
Search Within the Sources : Rumour and Gossip in Early Modern Europe
The history of gossip and rumour is a vast subject that can be explored in a number of diverse settings. Rumour was a feature of witchcraft scare and trials, and some of the titles you can find in the library have already been listed in the section on Persection and Violence against women. Impending or actual disasters were also a fertile catalyst for rumour to spread; there are famous examples in Samuel Pepys’s Diary where he notes the rumour that the fire of 1666 had been started by either French or Dutch residents in London. Similarly rumour was whipped up during an earlier fire at St Pauls noted in the pamphlet, ‘The true report of the burning of the steeple and church of Paul’s in London’ and during a devastating fire in Warwick in 1694.
Considering a very different environment, the royal courts of the period, as one might imagine, were fertile grounds for gossip. Letters and diaries are often rich seams for this type of information and the library has extensive holdings for this genre. Insights as to how information (or dis-information) spread within the French court at various points in its history can be found in Mémoires de messire Michel de Castelnau, seigneur de Maussière, Lettres de madame de Maintenon and Lettres de Madame de Pompadour : portrait d'une favorite royale, for example. Also, insights into the scandals and rumours surrounding Marie Antoinette during the 1770s and 1780s can be found in a number of diaries, memoirs and letter collections, often sympathetic to her position, including the Mémoires sur la vie privée de Marie-Antoinette, reine de France et de Navarre by Jeane-Louise-Henriette Campan, Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette et Madame Élisabeth : lettres et documents by her sister-in-law and memoirs of the court historian Jacob Nicolas Moreau. To see how she confronted the various scandals at court (or how she wished them to be portrayed), we also have various editions of Marie Antoinette’s correspondences (1864, 2004 and 2005)
