Dr Fiona Mccall Is an Early Modern Historian Specialising in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Religious and Social History
Women’s experience of violence and suffering as represented in loyalist accounts of the English Civil War Dr Fiona McCall Senior Lecturer in History, University of Portsmouth & Departmental Lecturer in Local & Social History, University of Oxford Department of Continuing Education Biography Dr Fiona McCall is an early modern historian specialising in sixteenth and seventeenth-century religious and social history. Her work focuses on anti-clericalism, religious conflict, family and memory within parishes during and after the English Civil wars. She has published a book, Baal's Priests: the Loyalist Clergy and the English Revolution (Ashgate, 2013) and other papers on loyalist culture. She is currently writing a book on religious conflict in English parishes during the Commonwealth period, funded by the British Academy. She lectures in history at the University of Portsmouth and for the University of Oxford Department of Continuing Education. Address 41 Clayhill Close, Waltham Chase, Hampshire, SO32 2TT Tel: 07733114279 Email: Fiona.Mccall@port.ac.uk 1 Abstract A long-standing literary and religious narrative tradition positioned medieval and early modern women as the helpless, passive and silent victims of male cruelty and violence. Yet during the English Civil Wars, expressed ideals of female meekness were challenged, as women became notably more assertive, voicing their opinions by preaching, writing and petitioning, or otherwise becoming ‘masculine’. After the Restoration of 1660, female agency was seen as a symptom of a troubled past, causing debate amongst historians as to whether the Civil Wars had any significant effect on women’s status in society. This paper investigates attitudes to gender and agency engendered by the English Civil Wars, by considering the depiction of women’s responses to violence in a collection of letters describing the experiences of loyalist clerical families during the Civil Wars.
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