Restrictions:
None known.
Cost (members): 0.00
Cost (non-members): 5.00
Event description: In this illustrated talk, Dr Alistair Dougall will explore how serious divisions emerged in early modern England between those who valued traditional festivity and those who tried to suppress it, and how attitudes to traditional festive pastimes and celebrations became a major factor in determining people’s allegiance in the English Civil War. The talk will include some examples from Hampshire but will not focus on the county but look instead at events and issues across England. It will look at the types of sports and pastimes enjoyed by people in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, and at how and why attitudes to festive traditions changed in the late sixteenth century.
With events like the Olympics, we are today used to sports bringing people together but, far from uniting people, sports and their celebration had become hugely divisive by the early seventeenth century. The talk will look at the “Book of Sports” – the name commonly given to a declaration that James I issued which explicitly licensed the playing of certain sports and leisure activities on Sundays and which his son, Charles I then tried to enforce. Its enforcement was extremely contentious. The talk will explore how the controversy over traditional sports and festivity fed into the Civil War and how and why Cromwell’s government suppressed the celebration of Christmas and other traditional revelry during the Interregnum.
Speaker: Having read Law and qualifying as a barrister, Alistair Dougall worked in business in London for several years before returning to university as a mature student to do a degree, Masters, and PhD in History. While doing the PhD, he taught students at both undergraduate and M.A. level at the University of Southampton. He later turned his PhD thesis into a book, and he has written for BBC History magazine. Between 2002 and 2021, Alistair taught History at a secondary school in Salisbury, where he was Head of Sixth Form and Head of History for several years. Alistair is Chairman of the Hampshire Archives Trust.
There is a fee of £5 for non-Hampshire Archives Trust Members who will need to register here – whilst logged in.There is a fee of £2 for non-HAT member Students who will also need to register here – using their personal School/College/University email address.
This event is held online via Zoom.
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