The Extraordinary and the Everyday in Early Modern England: Essays in Celebration of the Work of Bernard Capp

This fascinating collection of essays written by renowned and emerging scholars of the early modern period explores the relationship between the extraordinary and the everyday to provide a greater understanding of and new insights into the mental and material worlds of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century England. By juxtaposing cases that struck early modern people as irregular or strange with things that they found perfectly usual, everyday matters such as household relationships, farting, drinking and exchanging insults are shown to reveal extraordinary aspects of early modern life. At the same time, seemingly exceptional events and beliefs - such as those involving ghosts, prophecies, and cannibalism - illuminate something of the routine experience of ordinary people. The contributions employ a variety of different approaches to engage with and illuminate the past, demonstrating that categories such as the strange and the commonplace were the subject of constant renegotiation, just as they are now.

Angela McShane is Tutor in Postgraduate Studies for the V&A/RCA History of Design programme. Her publications include Political Broadside Ballads in Seventeenth-Century England: A Critical Bibliography (2010) and articles on ballads, fashion, drinking cultures and the materiality of popular politics in 17th century England. A monograph, The Political World of the English Broadside Ballad, 1640-1695 is forthcoming.
Garthine Walker is Senior Lecturer in History at Cardiff University. Her publications include Crime, Gender and Social Order in Early Modern England (2003), Writing Early Modern History (2005), and essays and articles on topics ranging from abduction, rape and criminal households to the influence of psychoanalysis and modernisation theory in historical writing.