Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts
Yale historian Keith Wrightson traces English society from the late fifteenth century to the early eighteenth, covering the Tudor and Stuart monarchies, the Reformation through the Act of Toleration, and the Civil War. Lectures examine social structure, households, and local communities alongside gender roles, literacy, print culture, crime, poverty, and witchcraft accusations. The course also tracks the slow emergence of parliamentary government and shifting patterns of political participation across two centuries of upheaval. Recorded on campus for Open Yale Courses in Fall 2009, the course consists of lecture videos covering the full HIST 251 syllabus, with no assignments or certificate attached. It works as a broad survey for anyone wanting a structured account of how rebellion, religious conflict, and economic change reshaped English life between the Wars of the Roses and the Glorious Revolution.