The module provides an introduction to the methodological and theoretical issues involved in researching and writing on violence in Europe between c. 1450 and c. 1750. It serves both to encourage students to think in theoretical terms about the ways in which the experience of violence can be historically reconstructed and to expose them to the opportunities and problems presented by a variety of evidence. These sources include letters, diaries, broadsheets, pamphlets, newspapers, chronicles, histories, songs, plays, stories, engravings, woodcuts, paintings, and film as well as legislation and court records. The module draws on insights from neighbouring disciplines including anthropology, film studies, gender studies, history of art, law, literary criticism, neuroscience, politics, sociology and social theory.