| Unit name | The English Reformation |
|---|---|
| Unit code | HISTM0005 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Professor. Hutton |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of History (Historical Studies) |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit explores the manner in which historians since 1970 have portrayed and refashioned the English Reformation, the greatest religious upheaval in England and Wales during the past millennium. It examines the achievements and limitations of revisionist historiography and its critics, and the continuing power of confessional loyalties in directing perception. It draws the attention of participants to the overwhelming importance of differing contexts and bodies of source material in the reaching of conclusions. Participants are challenged to determine for themselves how far an objective history of these events can ever be written, and to what extent it must continue to be dominated by polemic. They are invited to consider how far particular forms of history - cultural, political, intellectual and social - are equipped to tackle the problems of the subject, and whether new theoretical constructs will open the way to any genuine further progress in knowledge of it.
