Price: Free
The seventeenth century is often seen as a period of turmoil and ‘crisis’, when tensions repeatedly ramped up and confrontations erupted across Europe. It was a time of great princes and statesmen, like Gustavus Adolphus, Cardinal Richelieu and the Count-Duke Olivares, as well as of natural disasters and diseases which affected thousands of people.
In this lecture, we will explore how the decade in which Leeds got its charter was a time when nations fought each other, witchcraft accusations were rife, people rebelled against their monarchs, fled their homelands in the name of religious freedom, or became involved in new forms of religious piety. At the same time, new forms of media allowed people to read about what was happening across the country and the continent: might reading or hearing about battles and disasters happening far away have helped the people of Leeds understand their own place, and that of their newly chartered borough, in a confusing and scary world?
Dr Sara Barker is Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Leeds, where she is also Director of the Centre for the Comparative History of Print. Her research focuses on the print culture of sixteenth and seventeenth-century France and Europe, in particular news publications, pamphlets and translations. She has appeared on In Our Time, You’re Dead to Me and Inside Versailles.
John Roles (1957-2020), head of Leeds Museums and Galleries 2004-2020, is commemorated in this annual event which the Phil & Lit organises in co-operation with John’s former colleagues in the Leeds Museums & Galleries service and the current Director, David Hopes.
