CSRC is home to a vibrant postgraduate community who meet to discuss and present their work on a regular basis.
Laura Charles
‘An Honourable estate’: A study of marriage in an elite family network, 1660-1753
This project investigates the ideals and experience of elite marriage in early modern Britain through a detailed examination of a select network of individuals connected via the Cavendish family. The experience of marriage is charted throughout its life cycle from the arrangement of matches through to widowhood and potential remarriage, exploring the motivations and roles of all involved. This study also closely engages with theories regarding the emotional landscape of marriage, examining the standards of the time through prescriptive literature as well as identifying how far these ideals can be observed within the Cavendish family network.
Email me: laura.charles2020@my.ntu.ac.uk
Lucy Judd
The Value of Domestic Knowledge: Recipes and Receipt Book Manuscripts in the Nottinghamshire Households of the Long Eighteenth Century.
This thesis examines regional examples of receipt book (or recipe book) manuscripts to explore their value and utility to the individuals and communities who used them, as well as to the scholars who now study them. It considers recipe attributions alongside biographical and supplementary household evidence to establish their value as education tools, sources of authority and agency, and to map local networks and relationships. Ultimately it seeks to demonstrate that the exchange of quotidian culinary and medicinal knowledge occurred across a network of individuals and households, and to challenge assumed gender and status boundaries in matters of early modern domesticity.
Email me: lucy.judd@ntu.ac.uk
Erin Newman
Gender and Criminality in The East Midlands during the Civil War and Interregnum period.
Crime, gender, and conflict generates a wealth of dichotomies to explore, especially during the Civil War and Interregnum period. By analysing criminal records for Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and Lincolnshire between 1630 and 1660, the thesis explores: Who committed crimes? What crimes? When and where were they committed? And why? To determine any significant trends in the figures, that provide an insight into the social aspect during this period. The research also examines popular literature for cultural ideas on criminality and gender that will help provide insight to the questions above. Fundamentally this study explores such notions by analysing if and how male and female criminal activity challenged the shared ideals of gender that were embedded within a patriarchal society.
Email me: erin.newman2019@my.ntu.ac.uk
Twitter: @Erin_History
Catherine Gower
“Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japheth”: The production, dissemination and use of royal genealogical chronicles in the first reign of Henry VI (1422-61).
The genealogical chronicle was a popular form of historical literature in fifteenth-century England, depicting in a visual manner the king’s descent from a long line of esteemed ancestors, going as far back as Creation. This PhD project considers how the genre developed under Henry VI, and how changes in the chronicles’ various narratives, both in its diagram and its commentary, reflected changing interpretations of history and kingship among the chronicle’s writers and readers under the last Lancastrian king.
Email me: catherine.gower2020@my.ntu.ac.uk
James Kendrick
What makes a JP? A socio-economic and character study of the Justices of the Peace in Elizabethan Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
Justices of the Peace were the main office which linked the counties to the central government. However, the question of who these people were is still mostly unknown. Especially in understudied counties like Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, the character of Elizabethan JPs has yet to be asked. This research will analyse Elizabethan JPs in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and analyse their education, family, wealth, alliances and religion to determine what factors made a JP. This research will also create an extensive database of JPs.
Email me: james.kendrick2016@my.ntu.ac.uk
Sophie Rice
The Good Death and the English Civil War.
Prior to the English Reformation and the English Civil War, death was a familiar event and mirrored the conventions of a late medieval text, known as the ars moriendi. This text, an instructional piece of Christian literature, aimed to alleviate the general fear of death and subsequently helped define the ideal way to die in society. This project seeks to investigate whether the late medieval notion of ‘dying well’, was still applicable during the circumstances of the English Civil War, an event where death was not only sudden, but large in number, and where adherence to traditional convention was infeasible.
Email me: sophie.rice2014@my.ntu.ac.uk
Matthew Bayly
A human ecology of the poor law in the Lincolnshire Wolds, 1800-1860.
Email me: matthew.bayly2020@my.ntu.ac.uk
Luke Butler
Southeast Asian Illuminated Manuscripts: A Study of the Maritime Silk Road using Scientific Imaging and Artificial Intelligence.
Email me: luke.butler2014@my.ntu.ac.uk
Chelsea Killian
The Emotional Experience of Friendship in Early Modern England.
Email me: chelsea.killian2019@my.ntu.ac.uk
Jeffrey James
Punishment in the New Poor Law Workhouse, 1834-1884.
Email me: jeffrey.james2020@my.ntu.ac.uk
Elizabeth Lowry
Household textiles in the English country house 1600/1940s.
Email me: elizabeth.lowry2019@my.ntu.ac.uk
Jennifer Pearce
Latin law and the Levantine Population 1099 -1291.
My research concerns interactions and relationships between members of different faiths, ethnicities and cultures in the Levant during the ‘crusades’ era. Specifically, I am looking into the Latin population’s relationship with the heterogeneous Levantine population through an investigation of how the latter were presented and treated in Latin law and legal texts. In doing so, I aim to address three major questions posed by previous historians concerned with cross-cultural relations in the Latin East: to what extent did the Latins integrate into Levantine society? How peaceful and tolerant was their relationship with the Levantine population? And to what extent did they discriminate and differentiate between the many different peoples living in the Levant at this time?
Email me: jennifer.pearce2020@my.ntu.ac.uk
Mark Robinson
Routiers, Brabancons and Cotteraux: Mercenaries and Crusade in Southern France, 1179-1229.
Email me: mark.robinson@ntu.ac.uk
Mary Rudling
The experiences of the poor under the Old and New poor laws in Sussex, 1800-1860.
Email me: mary.rudling2020@my.ntu.ac.uk
Maxine Spry
The use of angels and angelic motifs in martyrdom treatises during the English Reformation.
Email me: maxine.spry2007@my.ntu.ac.uk
Makiko Tsunoda
A study of 18th to 19th century Japanese Nanga Paintings through art historical and material analysis, with a focus on the Nanpin School.
This PhD project compares, through art historical studies and scientific analysis of the materials and media, Japanese Nanga paintings with the Chinese paintings that influenced Nanga paintings in connection with collections at the British Museum and at the Ashmolean Museum, the largest Japanese collections in the UK. This is an interdisciplinary project, drawing together strands from art history, conservation science, and museum collections to create an innovative and accessible research project from key Japanese art collections held by UK national museums.
Email me: makiko.tsunoda2019@my.ntu.ac.uk
Caroline Walton
An emotional history of the nineteenth century workhouse.
Email me: caroline.walton2020@my.ntu.ac.uk
Kate Arnold
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Emma Fearon
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Centre for the Study of Religion and Conflict at NTU 