Embroidered Encounters: Travel, Religion and the Household at Hardwick Hall

Please join us for a series of public lectures exploring the findings and implications of our research "Cultural Encounters: Travel, Religion, and Identity in the Early Modern World"

The years between 1550 and 1700 saw the birth of our modern world. The rumbling legacy of the Reformations shaped the social and political landscape of Europe, and drove evangelical missions at home and abroad. Thanks to the trading influence and military prowess of the Ottoman Empire, Europeans were confronted by strange ideas, novel societies, and unfamiliar faiths, as well as sophisticated mathematical and scientific knowledge. Voyages of business and exploration brought travellers into contact with the peoples of the Far East, South Asia, and the Americas.
This lecture series will roam across early modern Europe and beyond, investigating the effects of these turbulent centuries, and their centrality to our own social and cultural inheritance.See further information about the series at: http://www.york.ac.uk/crems/conversion/news/publiclectures/

Lectures will take place in the wonderful surroundings of the York Medical Society, on Stonegate, and will start at 20.00. Refreshments will be provided, and all are welcome to attend.
For directions please see: http://yorkmedsoc.org/how-to-find-us.html

Dr Helen Smith, Department of English, University of York

Bess of Hardwick was a redoubtable woman who built her magnificent house during one of the most turbulent periods of English history. Despite its isolated position, high on a Derbyshire hillside, Hardwick Hall was caught up in the swirling currents of the Reformation, Catholic plots and counter-plots, magic and murder attempts, the rumblings of atheism, and encounters with Islam. In this lecture, I will explore the history of the Hall, and Bess’s own colourful life, and use the sumptuous objects which still decorate Hardwick to show how one great household can be understood as a microcosm of English society in the Elizabethan age.