Book Reviews

James Kelly

English Converts in Catholic Europe c.1600-1800

Cambridge University Press

 225 pp, $99.99

Publication date: 2020.

English Converts in Catholic Europe by James Kelly was published in 2020. Dr. James Kelly is a Sweeting Associate Professor in the History of Catholicism at Durham University. Dr. Kelly is a joint general editor of  five-volumes of The Oxford History of British and Irish Catholicism (OUP, forthcoming 2022). In addition,he is one of the co-editors of the book series, ‘Catholicisms, c.1450-c.1800’, published by Durham University IMEMS Press. His focus and interests are in post-reformation Catholic history in Europe, with a focus on Britain and Ireland, the focus of his research is on British and Irish catholic communities at home and in exile. Thus, his book on English converts in Catholic Europe is an area in which he specializes in.

Chapter 1 of Kelly’s book focuses on the recruitment process of the postulant’s choice of a covenant. This would lead to what he states is a main argument of the chapter; which was “on what basis did a postulant choose which convent they wanted to join?” What we would find out in that chapter and further on in the book is that many things went into deciding what convent they wanted to join, one of the factors that played a role in this was their nationality. Where they were from played a role in where they decided to go but the overarching theme that became clear the deeper that you go through the book was that your nationality could be different but, all converts still strongly believed that they were a part of the bigger umbrella that is the catholic church. This was despite the strife and conflicts that were ever present in the Catholic Church and within European politics. Chapter 2 focuses on the English exile converts and their commitment to the Council of Trent and its teaching on female religious life. The Council of Trent, in December 1563, at their 25th session made their rulings on male and female orders. In their ruling, they decided that female religious groups were to be enclosed (they removed themselves from the main religious body). Kelly ties in Chapter 1 in this chapter by pointing out that once a postulant chose their convent, it was the enclosed environment that the Council of Trent decided that they were to live by. In Chapter 3 we get to see how materials were incorporated into religious life. The Council of Trent shaped the way that Catholicism was run and viewed by others, their decrees made Catholic Europe shape into a more visual religion, paintings were being commissioned and the arts were present within monasteries and churches. The focus was on bringing people into worship, they wanted the world to see how great Catholicism was. This, as Kelly notes, was tied to previous and future chapters of his book, these decisions by the Council of Trent forced those in exile to adapt the way that they operated, these decrees “had a huge impact on the financial management of convents across Europe and was felt keenly by the exile English institutions. However, like their continental equivalents, the English convents found ways to negotiate these new systems and at the same time augment their spiritual experience: architecture might have enforced enclosure and shaped spiritual behaviour but could in turn be used to increase the level of esteem in which the nuns were held.” As I noted earlier, churches were now built with side chapels, which were not present in medieval churches. (Chapter 3). Chapter 4, Kelly discusses the financial aspect of English covenants in Catholic Europe, the decrees made by the Council affected the finances of these covenants, they were unable to raise funds in ways that were previously used such as quire nuns begging for alms, were no longer possible. So, other ways of raising funds became a necessity. Although nuns took vows not to hold any personal finances, depending on the covenant, some took it more seriously than others. An example that Kelly gives is the Poor Clares, who believed that nothing went to waste, even food that had started to smell. But, in order for a covenant to run properly, money needed to be brought in. So, the nuns who were responsible for the money had to balance their vows to not hold money and keep the covenant alive. Chapter 5 details the daily lives of those within the enclosure. The daily lives and rituals of those in the enclosure are commonly found in covenant archives, so Kelly had a wealth of information at his fingers. Typically, “The convent day was dictated by the rhythm of the Divine Office, a series of prayers made up of seven Hours: Matins, Lauds, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline. Praying these was each nun’s primary task and numerous advice books were written with the aim of guiding nuns through each Hour, offering them advice on how best to prepare for the contemplative day.” It was this rhythm that they were accustomed to. Kelly notes that not all covenants followed this exactly and that many changed it to fit the mission of their own covenant but that the core values still remained, the lives of the nuns were to be structured around prayer. That even though these enclosures were to be enclosed, covenants found a way to stay connected to the world around them. Chapter 6 is the wider picture of English converts and the mission of Catholicism. As Kelly has noted in previous chapters, these enclosures weren’t completely enclosed, they still had a finger on the pulse of the world. Covenants were still connected to the world in one way or another, one example that Dr. Kelly gives is “the Liège Sepulchrines had a very close relationship with several eighteenth-century rectors of the English College, Rome, particularly Christopher Maire, SJ, the Rome-based Jesuits seeking advice on feasts and indulgences on behalf of the convent’s inhabitants.” Of course, not all interactions were positive and there was some disagreement such as the incident in Lisbon. “. . . an angry exchange ensued over students from the college visiting the Bridgettine convent and allegedly compromising its observance of enclosure. The nuns’ chaplain, John Marks, wrote caustically in 1669 to the college vice-president Mathias Watkinson, ‘Had you considered the words of my letter as a considerate man would have done you might have saved yourself the labour of writing a reply and me the trouble of answering it.’” The relationships that existed between English exile institutions all shared the same goal that was mentioned earlier, the betterment of the Catholic Church. Although these religious institutions started to take a less religious approach as time went along fulfilling various social, educational and political functions.

In conclusion, I felt that Kelly did a great job at explaining English converts and covenants. He had a clear thesis and he stuck to that thesis throughout the book, he tells the audience what they’re going to be learning about and provides a number of examples. He references previous chapters and how they tie into the current chapter. English Converts in Catholic Europe reinforces and adds to a growing historiography that has become a topic of interest among historians, with its clear structure and flow. James Kelly has written an academic book that was enjoyable to read and will aid future research on the topic of Catholicism in Europe.

Book Review done by Vincent Cervone, Graduate Student at George Mason University

Ofer Hadass

Medicine, Religion, and Magic in Early Stuart England: Richard Napier’s Medical Practice

The Pennsylvania State University Press

 213 pp, $34.95, ISBN: 9780271080192

Publication date: 2018.

This work was created by Ofer Hadass who has released several books on the subject of medicine and magic in Stuart England. This Interestingly seems to be an extension or rewrite of his dissertation at University of Haifa (Israel) called Richard Napier,” renowned Physician Both of Body and Soul”: Astrological Medicine, Theology and Magic in Early Stuart England (2014). Even though this book is only 213 pages, it reviews not only a general understand of medicine during this time, but also how Napier and a few others operated on “hard evidence” theories when practicing. Hadass states several time that he and other scholars want to understand how medicine and religion or spiritual work could be reconciled at this time. The book is then broken down into four chapters but then further separated in each chapter with subsections.

Starting with chapter one, “Astrological Medicine,” Hadass begins by giving the reader a general understanding of where medicine is at by 1600, plus a general view of Napier’s framework. This is discussed in the subsections of The Image of Body, The Image of Illness, and The Basics of Astrological Medicine. I learned a vast amount about humors and how the belief that the whole body was interconnected (p 17) was used by Napier at a time to better understand these illnesses, and some of his treatments seemed to prove this theory correct.  

Chapter two, “Astral Magic,” contained Napier and other practitioners using charms and spells in their medicine plans. This seems like it would contradict the idea of hard evidence in medicine. However, this seems to be “balanced” out with the idea of using natural items from the earth. When a patient came back to the doctor with the same issues more than twice, Napier told her that she was condemned and no goodness from the earth could save her. He believed (as the author portrayed) that it was not the medicine alone that was giving them health, but the power of god through the medicine would help his patients. Another way Napier used astral magic was to use a copper or tin talisman to ward off the illness from that person. Thinking that the planets in specific phases, these talisman would attempt to counteract the effects.

Chapter three, “Converse with Angels,” is a bit harder to grasp at first. Very basically, some doctors like Napier began the practice of extending contact to Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Asariel to gain advice or information about how the patient is doing. This was following an English natural philosopher, John Dee, who subscribed to the belief that angels could assist mankind. Hadass states that “at this point, most recorded answers limited to disease prognosis or to forecasting the outcome of Napier’s treatment” (p 96). This seems to be controversial even for the time, but was not unheard of. Napier was attempting to find some facts, even within faith that would explain why treatments would work for some patients and not others. Asking angels and looking at the positions of the planets seemed to be what he saw as hard evidence.

Finally chapter four. This chapter is called “Religion and Knowledge” and it begins to answer some of the confusion that may have arose in the previous chapter. We see that Napier was stuck in two worlds, and Hadass offers that these two realms of thought may not have been so different after all. The author offers that ‘religion and the investigation of nature’ were simply different ways of seeing God (p 123). This starts to tie together all the strings from the previous chapters as Napier is looking for hard evidence in his work. Hadass uses this chapter to dive into Napier’s letters with others as tensions rose throughout his career. Napier would often write sermons in his personal notes, but did not fare well with the other members of society. At several points he was accused of heresy, especially in one case when his sermon mentioned pagans gods and goddesses (p 131). I believe this makes the case that, as much as Napier wanted to be a man of God, he was not religious in the way that Early Stuart England expected. After his sermon, he was chastised by the minister and many others. He battled religion and knowledge.

As a historian that is interested in medicine but not an endless wealth of knowledge on this topic, Hadass does well at explaining (sometimes more like translating) what would happen when patients came to see Napier for help. In what I thought was the most interesting case, a female had come to see Napier because she had not had her menstrual cycle in two months and had body aches, swelling, and feeling vertigo. When applying astrology and finding out that she has also had nose bleeds, Napier concludes that the interconnected body lost its menses and the blood needed a place to escape (p16). This is how we start to see connections between astrology, astral magic, and religion to his daily cases and the search for what caused these changes in the humors of the body.

This was a time of questions and attempting to find answers that made sense to these doctors. Hadass makes the claim here that “Napier was not an uneducated practitioner and certainly not a quack,” and I have to agree (p 140). Looking at the mix of what was proven science and educated estimate based on experience, Napier was quite close to what we know today. Hadass makes a strong and convincing case that Napier and others may have called this work magic and conversing with angels, but had shown that there was some “hard evidence” in his work. Napier would not have moved forward with a treatment or medical exam if he did not think it would be helpful, or even harmful as shown in his notes for each patient. 

Accidents and Violent Death in Early Modern London by Dr. Craig Spence was published in 2016 by Boydell & Brewer. Dr. Spence is a former professor of History and Archaeology at Bishop Grosseteste University. His expertise and interests include early modern urban and cultural history with a focus on the patterns and interpretation of accidents. This is exemplified in Accidents and Violent Death as the book discusses murder, suicide, and fatal accidents experienced in urban London between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries. This study is unique as it is a subject often overlooked by Early Modern historians. Dr. Spence argues that these deaths are telling of life in general as well as social and cultural norms of the time. Through the examination of quantitative and qualitative data, Dr. Spence was able to thrust the reader into a world of danger and ground them in the realities of urban living during the Early Modern period.

Dr. Spence discusses a brief historiography of accidents and violent deaths within the introduction of his book and defines accidents as dependent on environment, period, and place (1). He also discusses the shift of public perception of accidents from that of the wrath if God to threats to be managed. This shift was characteristic of the scientific revolution and the enlightenment as society gravitated to a more secular understanding of the world. After this shift, threats were mitigated through technological and fiscal solutions rather than atonement for sins and religious superstition (8). Also within his introduction, Dr. Spence breaks down the book structure into three sections. The first section, comprising of chapters one and two, discusses demographics and metropolitan record keeping of the analysis of death. Section two, consisting of chapters three through six, focuses on the most common types of violent death during the era. And section three, consisting of chapters seven through nine, discuss the dissemination of these records and public response as well as medical efforts.

Chapter one discusses sudden violent death in London, listing homicide, suicide, and fatal accidents as the main categories (26). This chapter also examines the city’s demographics and infrastructure as contributing factors to the record data, stating that this was a period of urban development and influx of young people, both leading to more accidents (24). Chapter two discusses the act of record keeping, the procedures around examination of the body, and the charges placed in correlation with findings. Chapter three discusses death by burning and drowning. Death by fire was a domestic fear as women and children were increasingly susceptible due to the use of candles, lamps, and hearths within the home (66). Drowning was a prevalent danger in maritime professions as well as civilian travel expeditions. Drowning was so common that it was, for a time, considered an inevitable demise for maritime professionals (94). Chapter four examines the urban phenomenon of fatal falls, vehicular accidents, machinery hazards, and animal related deaths that claimed the lives of many on city streets, labeling these as “everyday urban accidents.” Chapter five discusses more rare and exceptional deaths caused by explosions, asphyxiation, poisoning, crowd-crushing, and weapon misfires (148). Chapter six discusses time, drawing distinct trends that correlate with population density, warfare, economic strife, and other large scale events with the causes and frequency of violent deaths (164). Chapter seven discusses the development of occupational medicine and the role of the parish when presented with a violent accident. Chapter eight examines the attempt to mitigate accidents through company management and government regulation in order to control negligent behavior in the workplace (206). Chapter nine discusses the print culture responsible for sharing the narrative of events and reiterating the fact that these events were an undeniable part of urban life (242).

Dr. Spence utilizes various primary sources as the foundations of his study. These sources include ballads, books, maps, corporate documents, personal correspondence, diaries and journals, legal statements and statutes, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, prints, burial registers, and the Bills of Mortality. Dr. Spence has a deep interest in print culture and the Bills of Mortality is arguably his most valued source for this work. The Bills were a weekly publication of death records primarily used to track plague outbreaks in Early Modern London. These publications, however, provide quantitative data that gives insight into the dangers of living in London. Dr. Spence also utilizes various secondary sources from peers within the field to bolster his analysis of primary sources.

Accidents and Violent Deaths in Early Modern London is a well-written book that attempts to place the phenomenon of accidents and violent deaths into a broader context of early modern society. At first glance, this book seems that it would be a “history buff’s” dream. About 200 pages of gruesome stories of the way people died. Not going to lie, that is what drew me to the book at first as well. However, the author pleasantly takes everything a step further to make this book impactful within the historiography of early modern England. The main purpose or goal of the book seems to be to use the records and primary sources collected about accidents and violent deaths, to help readers construct a view of early modern London. The author does address the problem that since accidents and violent deaths are rare by nature, it is contested whether we can use these sources to draw conclusions about society as a whole. The author counters by arguing that by looking at the response of society to enough accidents, one can start to see how society might have reacted to such traumatic events. 

Chapter 1 starts out by giving a brief overview of what life was like in the city of London at this time, and by overviewing some of the main accidents and types of deaths that are to be discussed in the book. Chapter 1 also reviews some important social structures that interacted with each other around the theme of accidents and violent deaths. Chapter 2 goes more in-depth into the social structures and institutions whose responsibilities it was to manage the aftermath of accidents and violent deaths. The author argues that although rare occurrences, the people whose job it was to oversee these processes had a very organized and methodological way of working. Chapter 3 dives into the opposing forces of water and fire. Both resources are essential for human life, but can also end your life in the blink of an eye. Chapter 5 deals with the everyday accidents that are consequences of living in a city. Falling, being struck, horse accidents, cart accidents. All of these events happened quite frequently and were results of how the city of London was structured and built. Chapter 5 talks about more types of death that occurred in cities but were likely rarer. Often times it is debated whether these accidents were truly accidental or done on purpose. Due to the nature of the Bills of Mortality, it is often hard to tell. Chapter 6 analyzes the data in terms of seasonality, exploring what types of accidents happened during specific times of the year. This chapter also looks at death trends from 1654-to 1735, seeing if there are any significant trends that align with economic or political events within the region. Chapter 7 takes a look into the medical responses that happened after an accident had occurred. Depending on the type of injury, who provided care after an accident varied. Doctors were very limited in Early Modern London. In most cases, parishes would help to fund the healing of patients. And in other cases, companies or jobs would help to pay if the injury was obtained at work. Chapter 8 reviews some of the regulations that were put into place in order to prevent certain accidents from occurring again. Although at a higher level, not much was done, some localities did enforce regulations to keep cities a little bit safer. Finally, Chapter 9 deals with the narratives that were often constructed from accidents and violent deaths. By exploring newspapers, pamphlets, ballads, and personal journals, readers are able to see how early modern Londoners made sense of traumatic events that were happening around them. 

As seen from the summary, this book gave a very comprehensive overview of the types of accidents and deaths that happened in early modern London, and how society reacted to make sense of them. I think the broad yet specific nature of this book is a strength. It takes a very niche topic and expands it in every way possible. This could have very easily been a book summarizing the trends from the Bills of Mortality. However, the author weaved in some aspects of cultural history which allowed readers to receive some first-hand accounts of this topic. Chapter 9 especially helped to pull the culture of Early Modern England into what could have otherwise been a very quantitative book. The organization of the book was also a strength. In three parts: an overview, empirical data, and social and cultural responses, there was truly something for everyone. Although, in part 2 of the book I felt that they were just restating the bills of mortality at times, and wished for more commentary on the goals of the book. Not necessarily a weakness but a source shortcoming, but it would have been nice to learn about accidents and violent deaths from other parts of England as well. Although, that might have made the book too long at that point. 

Overall, this was a wonderfully written book that gave a very holistic view of different types of accidents and violent deaths. The goal of the book was to use the sources based on accidents and violent deaths to give readers a peek into early modern society by seeing how people reacted to and dealt with these traumatic events. After reading this book I am not sure if I am left with any new revelations as to how social structures of this time functioned surrounding accidents. However, I do feel that the author did something new by using the Bills of Mortality to look more into the social and cultural structures of early modern London.

Spence, Craig

Accidents and Violent Death in Early Modern London, 1650-1750

Suffolk: Boydell Press

288 pp, £19.99, ISBN: 9781782049005

Publication date: 2016.

As a historian who has found extreme fascination with the Bills of Mortality, my interest was peaked (and/or piqued) by the work Accidents and Violent Death in Early Modern London, 1650-1750 by Craig Spence. Accidents is a book that attempts to explain what the Bills of Mortality did and the purpose it served in society but also a look at some of the inconsistencies within them that added to some confusion and questionable statistics. Spence has stated on his website to be a “historian and archaeologist. His interests are varied but he has expertise in late 17th and early 18th century London, social and cultural history, and archaeological practice.” I think we get to see that in this work as it bounces between storytelling of a cultural shift, but also a data driven archaeological sense of change happening.

Working through the book structure, Spence split the book into three parts. Part one, which included chapters one and two, are more of a broad understanding of the physical lay of the land and social reactions to death in general respectively. Part two, which included chapter three through six, covers what was deemed as an accident and how these accidents were listed in the Bills versus what actually occurred. Incidents like fires or water related deaths, everyday accidents that could happen in the cities, rarities like carbon monoxide, and seasonal deaths are all discussed in their respective chapters in quite a bit of detail. Finally part three, which included chapters seven through nine, looks at the social and medical changes that death brought to Early Modern London.

Before I get too far, I want to examine and explain the difference between chapter two and nine. These two chapters seem similar but are quite different and I appreciate it. Both sections look at death in society and how the culture of the time engaged it or not, but the difference is that chapter two dives into why these deaths began to be counted and how suicide or murder is defined. However, in nine, Spence takes a look into how sudden or violent death affected society and how it digested that information. There is now more private records like diaries, looking at how the average person was understanding and handling (or not) the deaths happening around them became easier. However, this chapter also dives into the news of these deaths changing as well.

The Bills of Mortality were just an example of how information began to switch from oral retellings to pamphlets, and then soon to newspapers! It is great to see how this transformed visually and historically because people could then understand what was happening in other parishes much faster than before. Then, there is a downside of politics coming into play here. As Spence puts it “It was not only the London papers that utilised sudden-death narratives. Early provincial newspapers often recycled metropolitan news, in part to establish a publisher’s credibility but also, more prosaically, to fill column space: as Cranfield phrased it, they were ‘a mere parasite upon the London press’.” (p 233) As we have seen in other works, like Disaffection and Everyday Life in Interregnum England, written news could change the perception of the information and this could then affect how the top-down versus bottom-up reactions could be vastly different, if not opposite. In this case, we see the Bills serve as possible way to question daily life for each class and even how the government attempts to respond or ignore the issue while getting wrapped up in the politics of misinformation or narrative made.

I truly was not sure if I liked this book when I first started reading it because the introduction drew me in with storytelling, then took a flip to data and a more mathematical view. I do tend to be a story not data driven historian. But, after getting through part one of the book, I understood the style of the work better and I really enjoyed it. This book seems to be that middle ground between the data historians and the historians that thrive on stories. Straight out from the beginning, Spence stated that this book’s “aim is not to reduce portrayal of such incidents and fatalities to anecdotal tales of ‘human interest’ or, for that matter, to see them as a window onto ‘everyday life’ in the past. Rather, it is to comprehend who, among hundreds of thousands of Londoners, encountered such events, how the city’s bureaucracy recorded and elaborated their circumstances and why they did so, and what practical responses might follow.” (p 2). I think he did just that in this book. There is not a focus on what ‘everyday life’ was like unless it was necessary to the story, like in the section about urban accidents. Overall, I like that this book stretched one mile wide but six miles deep per say.

My final thought is that this works shows a broader interest in the historiographical side of this time but from a data format. If historians can see things like a 1.6:1 male to female suicide rate compared to the previous 5.2:1 (p 36), there can be questions asked about how suicide was defined before or if the data was skewed because of something else happening like parishes changing, fires loosing records, etc. There are some places Spence could have made more deductions about the data he found, but I also feel like that defeats the purpose of the work. This is a bit more of an overview or “how to read the Bills of Mortality” and I found that it begins the process of gathering information to create further discussion, not too many hard arguments here.

Lady Ranelagh is a year old publication by Dr. Michelle DiMeo about the life and contributions of Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh. Dr. DiMeo, a historian of science, is the Arnold Thackray Director of the Othmer Library. She has a PhD in History and English from the University of Warwick and a certificate in curation and management of digital assets from the University of Maryland. She has particular interest in alchemy, ethics, and networking. These interests are front and center within Lady Ranelagh as Dr. DiMeo investigates Ranelagh’s unique role within her society and her relationship to her brother, Robert Boyle. Robert Boyle would eventually be recognized as the father of modern chemistry and a pioneer of the scientific method. His study of ethics in science is attributed to the guidance of Ranelagh as a moral authority. Much of his experiments and research was conducted at Ranelagh’s house in a private laboratory. Robert Boyle’s work overshadowed his sisters due to gender norms, hence the significant delay in revelation of her contributions by historians such as Dr. DiMeo.

The overall argument of Dr. DiMeo’s book is that Ranelagh heavily influenced not only her brother’s, but multiple significant intellectuals’ as well as political players’ social and political opinions while contributing to scientific advancements in chemistry, horticulture, and medicine during the Scientific Revolution (62). The book is broken up into seven chapters, each coinciding with different periods in Ranelagh’s life. The first chapter examines Ranelagh’s birth and upbringing in Ireland. Her childhood was characterized by her family’s position of nobility and wealth in Ulster and her father’s strong Protestant beliefs. After the death of her mother, she stepped into the role of a surrogate parent in order to assist with raising her younger siblings, particularly her brother, Robert Boyle. Ranelagh eventually marries Arthur Jones, heir to the First Viscount Ranelagh. The marriage is strained, but produces several children. After the outbreak of religious rebellion in Ireland and the English Civil Wars, Ranelagh leaves her husband and children and moves to London in favor of a more simple and independent lifestyle. Chapter two discusses her entry into the Hartlib circle and the progressive recognition of her as a woman of piety and virtue as well as an intellectual. Here we see the shift in Ranelagh’s political ideology as her support of Charles I waned in favor of her growing support for Parliament. Chapter three shows the intellectual shift in Ranelagh’s studies toward medicine and the intersection of natural philosophy and ethics. She learns Hebrew in order to better study religious texts and gains religious agency as a translator and scholar. She assists in advocating for the allowance of Jews back into England. Ranelagh also returns to Ireland during this time to reclaim the Boyle family estates. Chapter four examines the three subsequent years she spends in Ireland and her intellectual networking in the 1650s. Chapter five focuses on her life during the Stuart restoration and her interpretation of plague, fire, and the Anglo-Dutch War as divine products of Gods wrath. She also advocates for the toleration of nonconformists, like herself. Chapter six examines Ranelagh’s medical practice as she treats high profile patients, including the future king James II. Chapter seven examines Ranelagh’s final 23 years where Robert Boyle permanently moves in with her and the two continue their studies together.

Dr. DiMeo states within her introduction that finding primary sources by or about Ranelagh proved difficult during her research and had to resort to piecing together tidbits from the works of Ranelagh’s peers and family. Dr. DiMeo utilizes personal correspondence, manuscripts, medicinal recipes, official documents, religious records, and various scientific publications as primary sources. Her secondary sources consist of works by her peers that bolster her argument and show the progression of recognition of Ranelagh’s contributions. Judging by the diction and complexity of the book, Dr. DiMeo’s intended audience is any interested reader. The book is a quick and easy read that captivates the audience with relatable details and various intimate twists and turns. The only weakness of the work is the lack our sources from Ranelagh herself, which is acknowledged by Dr. DiMeo.

For further information on Dr. DiMeo: https://www.sciencehistory.org/profile/michelle-dimeo

Dr. Michell DiMeo’s book is the first comprehensive, book-length biography of Lady Ranelagh and one that demonstrates that she was far more than merely the great “Father of Modern Chemistry” Robert Boyle’s supportive sister and hostess “who may have been present but not intellectually engaged,” as characterized by Stephen Shapin and some other historians. (3, 168) Rather, Dr. DiMeo shows that not only did she “help shape some of [Boyle’s] philosophical publications and collaborate with his experimentation with chemical medicine, but she was also an intellectual authority in her own right, composing her own theological and political treatises and corresponding with an intellectual network comprising the most influential men and women of her time” – an important network she introduced her younger, teenage brother to in 1644 after he finished his Grand Tour. Moreover, she was an adept lobbyist for variety of causes including liberty of religious conscience, conversion of native Americans and Irish Catholics, and a respected ethical adviser, medical practitioner, and tester of medical recipes in her own right. (3, 184, 193)

The structure of Dr. DiMeo’s history of Lady Ranelagh’s intellectual life, one inextricably intertwined with Robert Boyle’s, is chronological beginning in chapter one with her birth to a wealthy, connected, leading Anglo-Irish family in Ireland in 1615 and ending in chapter seven with her death in London in 1691.  The second chapter sets forth several of the overarching themes of the book and explores her deep involvement with the Hartlib circle in London and her rising status as the “incomparable” Lady Ranelagh as she became known to contemporaries.  This chapter and the introduction also address the limitations of the surviving sources for documenting the life of an intellectual woman in the seventeenth century and Dr. DiMeo’s efforts to overcome them. (10, 203)

Lady Ranelagh became one of the central members of the vibrant Hartlib correspondence circle “which began in London in 1641 and centered on Samuel Hartlib, John Dury, and Jan Amos Kominski,” and included John Milton, Henry Oldenberg, and numerous prominent intellectuals in England and on the continent. (44) Dr. DiMeo summaries Evan Bourke’s quantitative network visualization analysis to demonstrate that Lady Ranelagh was “a central correspondent within this international circle” as demonstrated by a “betweenness” measure that ranked her sixth of 766 correspondents showing how important she was in connecting people including her famous younger brother who benefited enormously from her connections and intellectual guidance throughout his life. (45-46, Ahnert at 12)

DiMeo emphasizes that Lady Ranelagh followed the contemporary social convention of women “chos[ing] to disseminate their writings primarily via manuscript coteries and networks instead of print publications,” which at the time was still considered a “more elite method” of publication and more consistent with the piety, charity, and dignity expected of seventeenth century elite women. Recent historians have established how effectively women used the Republic of Letters “as tools to exert agency in a number of spheres” which DiMeo also demonstrates in this work.

Lady Ranelagh’s reliance on the genres of manuscript circulation and letter circulation along with long-standing collection practices of archivists and historians to undervalue collections of female documents create challenges in reconstructing Lady Ranelagh’s life, as well as those of other women. (202) Dr. DiMeo adroitly uses her finely honed skills as an archivist and historian to piece together the details of Lady Ranelagh’s life by plumbing the archives and writings of male family members and friends, including her famous brother, the digitized Hartlib papers, and a host of her influential male correspondents including Samuel Hartlib, William Penn, Robert Boyle, Henry Oldenburg, secretary of the Royal Society, and others. (2, 202) Dr. DiMeo is highly successful in this endeavor to uncover and interpret the scattered sources and has deep experience for the task as she was Director of the Othmer Library at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia, and also managed the Hagley Heritage Curators program and Manuscripts and Archives department at the Hagley Museum and Library. She holds a PhD in English and History from the University of Warwick, a Certificate in the Curation and Management of Digital Assets from the University of Maryland, and possesses deep experience with digital archives.  Dr. DiMeo’s research focuses on the intellectual and cultural history of early modern science and medicine, with particular interests in domestic science, medical remedies, and women practitioners. Consistent with these interests, in this history, she explores Lady Ranelagh’s important contributions to the emerging fields of chemical medicine and empirical science as well as the challenges facing intellectual women generally in the seventeenth century.

Dr. DiMeo shows the depth of Lady Ranelagh’s influence on Robert Boyle’s work. For example, she argues that Lady “Ranelagh’s own expertise in writing, trading, and testing medical recipes must be seen as a contribution to Boyle’s evolving thoughts on” medicine. Thus, Lady Ranelagh’s influence is seen in Boyle’s important publication in 1685 of Specifick Medicines in which he views “recipes as experiments to test philosophical theories and principles” which is reflective of his partnership with his sister as to medical matters and the empirical practices both were engaged in. (184) Dr. DiMeo shows that Lady Ranelagh often “shaped the works of her brother prior to publication” and “offered critical appraisal and encouragement,” for example, for his critic of Aristotelian modes of inquiry embodied in his The Origin of Forms and Qualities published in 1666. (133, 189)

Dr. DiMeo also places Lady Ranelagh’s experiences and accomplishments in the context of the history of science. She notes that the founding of the Royal Society in London in 1660, with a formal charter following in 1662, is often viewed by historians of science as a “turning point” when science became “institutionalized.” (123-24) Londa Schiebinger and feminist historians have argued the founding of Royal societies is also the turning point when women were excluded from natural science as the Societies did not admit women and emphasized print publications to their further detriment. (124) Dr. DiMeo argues instead “the decreased diversity among experimenters took place over a much longer period, and was not directly related to the founding of the Royal Society.” (125) She argues persuasively that women, such as Lady Ranelagh continued “preparing medicines, perfecting chemical techniques, writing about and debating the latest philosophies” often through letters and with the household as a primary local for learning. (125) Four members of Ranelagh’s Hartlib circle were founding fellows of the Royal Society, including her younger brother Robert Boyle, and other friends and correspondents later joined including her close friend Henry Oldenburg who managed its journal, and her son Richard Jones who became a member in 1663. (124) Dr. DiMeo concludes that she maintained close connections to the fellows of the Royal Society and “though she was not a part of the Royal Society, Ranelagh assertively engaged with other political causes and intellectual projects throughout the restoration, demonstrating that she was not the silent victim excluded from creating new knowledge and shaping public opinion.” (127)

Dr. DiMeo’s biography is deeply researched and readable and should appeal to both specialists and the general reader. Dr. DiMeo convincingly demonstrates that Lady Ranelagh merited the honorific “incomparable” bestowed upon her by contemporaries as despite her gender precluding her from attending university or joining the Royal Society, Lady Ranelagh built an impressive network through which she “participated in controversial political cases, influenced decision makers, shaped the publications of male contemporaries, and wrote her own pieces that circulated widely in manuscript.” (203) The book contributes to the history of science and gender by demonstrating how women “could leverage social status and piety to gain the respect of others and shape the public sphere” including chemical medicine and other disciplines despite their exclusion from the Royal Society and reluctance to risk their reputations through print media.

Cressy, David. England’s Islands in a Sea of Trouble. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. 

Outcrops in the English Channel are battered by waves as the sparse inhabitants brace against the raids by pirates and privateers. The small islands off the coast of England were outcrops of the Empire and possessed unique economic and political institutions. Throughout the history of the archipelago around England, the islands served as targets of opportunity for pirates and tax havens in the modern era. All of the islands suffered from isolation from the mainland and were often an afterthought of the central government in London. However, during moments of crisis, the islands could be used by warring factions as a safe retreat from enemy forces. In the early modern period, the islands were difficult to govern from London due to their isolated nature and the terrain around the islands. How the Islands were governed is the central question that David Cressy tries to answer in England’s Islands in a Sea of Trouble. 

David Cressy is a professor of early modern England at The Ohio State University. He has written extensively on social aspects of England in the early modern period. Alongside this book, Cressy has written numerous works on early modern Egland. He focuses on the time of the Tudor and Stuart dynasties and the social revolution that followed those periods. Cressy is an expert in early modern England and throughout his number of books, he provides a complex analysis of society in early modern England.

The layout of England’s Islands is easy to follow and provides a well-structured book that provides case studies of some of the islands and moves into larger social and cultural impacts on the islands. The first section of the book includes two case studies of the Island of Lundy off the coast of Wales and the Channel Islands between England and France. The second half of the first section examines the natural conditions that made the islands hard to govern and the economies that allowed the islands to maintain a population. The second section examines the social and everyday life of the islands starting directly after the English Civil War. Cressy dedicates chapters to the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration of Charles II. Section two covers the islands of England during the revolutionary time during the early modern period. 

The third section examines the use of the islands as a prison starting with Charles I. Charles I used some of the islands as prisons for religious dissidents that threatened his power. The following chapter explores the year-long imprisonment of Charles I after the royalists lost the English Civil War. The following two chapters investigate the prison island system through the Interregnum and the Restoration. The third section explores the ways that the central government used the islands as a resource to cure their political problems. 

Cressy writes a wonderful book that examines a part of the English empire that remained outside of England proper but still benefited from the rights of English citizens. During the early modern period, the government in London wanted to create a unified state that was organized around their power. The Islands around England proved resistant to incorporation into England. Some of the islands, such as Lundy, did not have resources or a strategic position for London to be concerned about their incorporation. Other islands, such as the Isle of Wight and the Channel Islands, were very important strategically to England due to their proximity to their lifelong rival France. London needed to control the islands to project their power into the English Channel and to prevent the spread of French influence towards England. 

Some islands had a strong cultural tradition that conflicted with the wishes of London. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands were traditionally part of different governments. The Isle of Man was settled by Norse conquerors that traveled throughout the British Isles. The traditional government has remained in power on the island and they did not speak English but rather spoke a Norse tongue. The Channel Islands also had established cultural ties that traced back to the days of William of Normandy. The Islands were a part of the Kingdom of Normandy and they spoke a form of French. The Channel Islands were right off the coast of France and were threatened by invasion. The military governors of the Channel Islands were appointed by the Crown. Throughout their history, the Channel Islands were a thorn in the side of England by resisting central authority.  Both islands resisted the tide of centralization emanating from London. 

Many of the islands around England were used as prisons by the central authority in London. During the reign of Charles I, religious dissidents were moved to the islands to isolate them from the rest of the population. Charles I also spent a year as a prisoner on the Island of Wight. During his time on the island, Charles constantly devised ways to escape and rally loyal forces to overthrow Parliament. During the Interregnum, the islands were used to house a number of prisoners, including royalist army officers, religious dissidents, and conspirators against the regime. The stance towards the periphery islands was similar in both the reign of Charles I, the Interregnum, and Charles II. 

David Cressy is an expert in early modern England and provides another well-researched book that examines a subject that is gaining traction in historiography. More work is needed to bring the islands around England fully into the history, but Cressy provides a wonderful example of how to bring an oft-overlooked subject into the wider field of English history. The book has many strong points, including strong research and a compelling argument. Cressy does a great job at compiling a number of sources that back up the argument that the author is making. One aspect of the book I believed that detracted from it was the format of the book. The book is not organized chronologically and it made it difficult to follow each island through time. Each section is organized thematically and multiple times I had to reread paragraphs to follow the time jump. Overall, Cressy delivered a good book that adds to previous works. He is bringing to light a missed part of the history of the British Isles. 

Reviewed by Tyler Thompson, Student at George Mason University. 

Cressy, David. England’s Islands in a Sea of Troubles. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Great Britain is an island world, separated from mainland Europe and comprised of a diverse group of nations – England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. But even this mixture of different lands contains its own island fringe, smaller places surrounding the main islands that contain a heterogeneous assortment of people groups who, along with the physical islands on which they live, have made important contributions to British history. In England’s Islands in a Sea of Troubles, David Cressy focuses his attention on a number of these islands – primarily the islands of Man, Anglesey, Scilly, Wight, Guernsey, and Jersey – to show how they were noteworthy factors in the early modern history of Britain. A Humanities Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Ohio State University, Cressy has written widely on the history of early modern England, and describes himself as an early modern social historian. For England’s Islands, he is expressly interested in relations between the center and periphery, and delves into multiple types of history, from the social to the legal, political, religious, military, maritime, and economic. He draws from a large range of documents, from manuscripts and letters of people involved in island history to government papers from groups such as the Privy Council and Parliament. Arguing that England’s islands are an under-served subject in the historiography, Cressy shows that the islands were diverse and complex places with varying degrees of autonomy that presented both challenges and opportunities for the central state government in London.

Cressy’s book does an excellent job of detailing the diversity among the different islands, showing how their locations, people, and histories impacted their particular cultures. On a number of the islands very few inhabitants spoke English, there were different religious practices, and distinct cultural differences from the mainland existed. There was also what Cressy refers to as a ‘legal pluralism’ in the islands’ relationships with the state, involving differing jurisdictional arrangements between particular islands and the central government. An apt example of this is evident in the contrasts among several of the islands. Anglesey, while heavily Welsh, was connected to the central state through having representation in parliament, being subject to English courts, and owing various subsidies and taxes to the state. The Isle of Wight had a similarly close relationship to mainland England, being politically and socially integrated with nearby southern England. But residents of Wight also enjoyed certain exemptions, such as not having to serve on juries, not paying rates for the county house of corrections, and their mariners being free from impressment. The Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey provide a strong contrast in that they were practically independent (almost French) satellites of England. The islands essentially traded their loyalty to England, in the form of military and commercial assets, in return for privileges and immunities from English interference in their affairs. The Channel Islands did not contribute to parliament, nor were they subject to English Common Law. They were not answerable to English courts or English taxes, and were not restricted in their choice of trading partners. As Cressy sums up, “they were under the English crown, but not controlled by the English state” (43). Taking all the peripheral islands into account, a view develops of the challenge faced by the central government in administering and dealing with numerous islands, each with a different relationship and set of rules and exceptions that favored their own liberties, traditions, and the status quo.

Even as the metropole had to manage the challenges of the periphery, there were simultaneous benefits provided by the island fringe that the state could take advantage of. First, the islands provided a certain degree of security to the mainland by essentially serving as maritime outposts of defense. Though Cressy points out that, at the same time, using the islands as defensive outposts presented its own challenges, such as push-back from islanders and the cost of providing and maintaining defensive structures and equipment. Arguably, the greatest benefit provided by the islands was their usefulness as prisons, a subject to which Cressy dedicates an entire section of his book. In the discussion of islands as prisons, he particularly focuses on the eras of the civil wars, the interregnum, and the Restoration to highlight how different leaders and governments all took advantage of the islands to isolate their enemies. The usefulness of this practice is seen in Cressy’s examination of several political prisoners who, while imprisoned in London, could still participate in the public sphere through the ability to meet with visitors and could write and publish pamphlets to spread their ideas. By imprisoning these types of government enemies on islands, the state could isolate them from almost all connections; as Cressy writes, “island prisons were intended to cut them off forever from the business of the world” (219). The state was able to hold its enemies in these prisons due to the paradoxes of the island fringe; they were connected to the state, but they were also somewhat extra-legal areas where normal legal codes, such as the writ of habeas corpus, did not reach. Governments could arbitrarily lock their enemies away in island prisons and those prisoners had no recourse to legal rights. Leaders from the Commonwealth to the Protectorate to the Restoration used this method to deal with enemies; even Charles I was a prisoner on the Isle of Wight.

Cressy notes that some of the islands have retained a measure of autonomy and distinct privileges into the present, but a major arc of his book shows a slow, steadily increasing hegemony of the center over the periphery. Through the shake-ups of the civil wars and changing governments there was a growing state power over the islands and a diminishing ability for them to go back to all the liberties of the past. Cressy lays out this argument by outlining many of the principal and high-profile actors in island events, but the perspectives of ordinary island residents are mostly absent. This could very well be due to a lack of documentation produced by or about these individuals, but it becomes a noticeable gap in the history of these islands. The inclusion of the viewpoints of ordinary people would have made this very good book into an excellent one.

England’s Islands in a Sea of Troubles explains the significance and complexity of the relationship between the center and the periphery in the early modern period, but it also points toward themes and events in the subsequent modern era, particularly the development of the modern nation-state. Britain’s interactions with its nearby islands also provided experience for its future efforts with colonialism in the wider Atlantic world and beyond. In the same way the British state sought to use its islands to its own profit, in its colonies it strived to both impose British law and culture while simultaneously taking advantage of the colonies as legal gray zones to engage in behavior that was prohibited at home. Its island fringe had provided it with long involvement in seeking mastery over peripheries in pursuit of achieving the greatest benefit for the British state.

Reviewed by Matthew Inman, George Mason University