Not Just the Tudors

Not all suspicions of witchcraft led to a formal accusation, and not all such accusations led to trials and execution. During the entire early modern period, the large, Lutheran duchy of Württemberg in southwestern Germany - where there were some 600 accusations - only 350 went to trial, 197 of which ended with burning at the stake. So what does this tell us about how people understood themselves and each other, the psychology and emotions of those accused, and how they tried to defend themselves? 

In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Dr. Laura Kounine, who has been studying how the community, church, and agents of the law sought to identify witches, and the ways in which ordinary men and women fought for their lives in an attempt to avoid execution.

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King Henry VIII was deeply religious and started out as a staunch supporter of the Pope and the Roman Catholic church. But everything changed when Henry's need to produce a male successor led to his wanting to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. 

In this first of an occasional series of Explainer podcasts, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb offers everything you ever wanted to know about one of the most famous and far-reaching episodes in British history.

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Between February 1534 and June 1535, the German city of Münster was seized and ruled over by a radical group of Protestant Christians called Anabaptists who believed the Biblical Apocalypse was imminent. Their leader styled himself as a new King Solomon. He took 16 wives and - allegedly - personally executed those who opposed him. 

In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Dr. Kat Hill about this extraordinary attempt to create the "New Jerusalem" and its inevitably disastrous outcome.

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What was the 16th century ideal of beauty for women? Fat or thin? Blonde or brunette? Pale or tanned? How did women keep clean? Did they remove their body hair?

In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb gets the lowdown from Jill Burke - Professor of Renaissance Visual and Material Cultures at the University of Edinburgh - on all the tips to become an authentic Renaissance Woman.

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Queen Mary I has had a bad press over the centuries, her five-years on the throne overshadowed by her half-sister Elizabeth's 45-year reign. While Elizabeth I is often hailed as "Gloriana" - and one of the greatest ever Britons - "Bloody Mary" more often finds her way onto charts of the most evil women in history. Both childless, Mary is reviled as "barren" while Elizabeth is lauded as the "Virgin Queen".

In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Professor Anna Whitelock who puts the case for a more balanced assessment of Mary I as a Queen who pioneered what female rule could look like.

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In the cut-throat world of Renaissance Florence, Alessandro - the illegitimate son of a Duke and a mixed-race servant - attempts to reassert the Medicis’ faltering grip on the city state. But after just six years in power, Alessandro is murdered by his cousin while anticipating an adulterous liaison.

In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Professor Catherine Fletcher, author of The Black Prince of Florence, about one man's spectacular rise to power against the odds, and his violent demise.

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Five hundred years ago in 1521, the title 'Defender of the Faith' was bestowed by Pope Leo X upon King Henry VIII for his defence of the Catholic Church against the threat of Martin Luther. Why did he then break away from Rome and create religious divisions for centuries to come? A new online exhibition - drawn from the colletion of the Society of Antiquaries in London - offers a new perspective on the power Henry wielded, his personality and passions.

In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb finds out more about this fascinating resource from its curator Dr. John Cooper. View the objects while listening to the podcast here: https://stories.sal.org.uk/henryviii/

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Between 1570 and 1630, there was intense persecution and thousands of executions of suspected witches in Lorraine, a small duchy on the borders of France and the Holy Roman Empire. In some cases, suspicious citizens waited decades to report their neighbours as witches. But why did they take so long to use the law to eliminate the supposedly dangerous figures who lived amongst them?

Robin Briggs - Emeritus Fellow at All Souls College Oxford - has delved into perhaps the richest surviving archive of witchcraft trials to be found in Europe. In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, he talks to Professor Suzannah Lipscomb about his conclusion that witchcraft was actually perceived as having strong therapeutic possibilities: once a person was identified as the cause of a sickness, they could be induced to take it off again. 

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For the Tudors and Elizabethans, a beard denoted masculinity while beardlessness indicated boyhood or effeminacy. How a man wore his beard - or not - said a lot about his power and position in society. 

In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to theatre historian Dr. Eleanor Rycroft about her hirsute pursuits, analysing the depiction of beards in portraits and on stage, what their various colours, shapes and sizes meant, and what they tell us about gender attitudes in early modern England.

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Though she is relatively unknown outside of Mexico, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz - poet, playwright and nun - is an icon and national hero in her homeland. She even features on the 200 peso banknote. 

In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Dr. Amy Fuller Morgan about the real Sor Juana - misrepresented and mythologised as a subversive upstart, even a martyr - who in fact had a privileged life and the support of the Church and court, and who carefully cultivated her own image and saintly reputation.

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