Introduction: Lying and Truth: A Very (Early) Modern Problem?

Week 2

Tutors: Mark Knights and Naomi Pullin

This opening seminar...

Required preparation

In addition to asking students about previous work, perhaps we could also ask students to bring in an example of a current event/news story related to truth or lying?
Emma Claussen and Luca Zenobi, 'Fiction and Disinformation in Early Modern Europe: An Introduction' in Claussen and Zenobi (eds), Special Issue: ‘Beyond Truth: Fiction and Disinformation in Early Modern Europe’, Past and Present, 257, Issue Supplement 16 (2022), 1-35.
Shapin, ch. 1 on trust, truth and the moral order? OR perhaps a Keyword exercise on EEBO?

Seminar questions

What factors made truth contested in the early modern period?
What concepts of truth and lying did contemporaries work with?
What key terms were associated with truth and lying?
How far did early modern notions of truth and lying differ from our own?
How have you encountered notions of truth and lying in your previous work?

Key texts

Emma Claussen, Luca Zenobi et al., Special Issue: ‘Beyond Truth: Fiction and Disinformation in Early Modern Europe’, Past and Present, 257, Issue Supplement 16 (2022).
Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (1990).
John McTague, Things That Didn’t Happen (2019), Introduction?
Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in C17th England (1985), Chapter 1 'Trust, Truth and the Moral Order'.

Primary Sources

Further reading (please also consult the background reading list for this module)

Patricia M. Ball, ‘Sincerity: The Rise and Fall of a Critical Term’, The Modern Language Review 59, no. 1 (1964): 1-11.
Emma Claussen, Luca Zenobi et al., Special Issue: ‘Beyond Truth: Fiction and Disinformation in Early Modern Europe’, Past and Present, 257, Issue Supplement 16 (2022).
David Colclough, Freedom of Speech in Early Stuart England (2005).
Faramerz Dabhiowala, What is Free Speech: The History of a Dangerous Idea (2025).
Clare Egan, ‘Libel in the Provinces: Disinformation and ‘Disreputation’ in Early Modern England’, Past & Present , 257..Suppl. 16 (2022) 75-110.
Andrew Hadfield, Lying in Early Modern English Culture: From the Oath of Supremacy to the Oath of Allegiance (2021).
Johannes Müller and Michiel van Groesen (eds), Far From the Truth: Distance, Information, and Credibility in the Early Modern World (London: Routledge, 2024).
Margaret Poovey, The History of the Modern Fact (1998).
Barbara Shapiro, Probability and Certainty in C17th England (1983).
H G Van Leeuwen, The Problem of Uncertainty in English Thought 1630-90 (1963).
Brian Vickers and Nancy Streuver (eds), Rhetoric and the Pursuit of Truth (1985).