Sometimes, caught up in research about a person who lived four or five hundred years ago, I find myself wondering why I, or anyone, should be interested in them now? There is also the broader question — what is the relevance of early modern history today, when there are so many contemporary issues to be addressed?
I have come up with two key reasons. Firstly, as long as there is a great narrative, with captivating events and characters, then the fact that it is historical, and true, makes it all the more interesting. I find the early modern period (c1500-1700) an ideal source for stories because it is far enough away that people thought and behaved very differently, and are therefore more perplexing, but not so distant for them to be unrecognisable to us; and there are many primary sources available — thanks to the invention of printing and the shift from Latin to the vernacular — to provide a broad basis for research (even if, inevitably, this restricts the scope to the literate). In addition, although every generation imagines it faces the greatest challenges, there can be few doubts that those who lived in Europe during the evolution from the Medieval to the beginnings of the ‘modern’ era faced unprecedented, and traumatic, change that turned their world upside down: the re-emergence of classical, pre-Christian, humanistic thought in the Renaissance, with its cultural and artistic outpourings, that led to the beginnings of scientific enquiry and questioning of previously irrefutable ‘facts’; the Reformation that challenged a fundamental, absolutist belief system going back centuries and unleashed violence and horror between Protestants and Catholics; the establishment of commercial trades and the middle-classes, that gave rise to social, political and legal upheavals and battles over sovereignty; the emergence of nation states and military advancements; and the broadening of horizons and first stirrings of globalisation as a result of the voyages of discovery.
Imagining what it must have been like to live through such a period of immense change as an individual or family leads naturally to a second reason for preferring early modern, and especially local, history…Empathy. I am drawn to stories of local people because it creates a stronger link to know that they lived where I live, and (at least for natural topography) saw what I see. For the same reason I look for letters, diaries and eyewitness accounts because that’s where the intriguing details of their real lives exist, rather than the historian’s broad sweep or the repetitive lists of births, marriages and deaths. Of course, it helps when those I am researching came into contact with famous faces or were caught up in some historical event, because that broadens the appeal of a story, which is ultimately the aim of writing it down.