Module Convenor: Penny Roberts

 

This second-year early modern option module will investigate the development of espionage and intelligence-gathering in various settings, geographically and chronologically, across pre-modern Europe

It will explore how espionage was used and understood as well as its relationship with diplomacy and the development of communication and information-gathering more broadly from the ancient world to the Enlightenment. In particular, it will focus on the extensive historiography on spying in early modern Europe (c.1500-1800), which has primarily concentrated on Elizabethan England, comparing and contrasting this example with developments in other times and other places. It will interrogate the definition of espionage and consider its correlation with the activity of rulers and their ambassadors as well as other agents linked to military, religious and socio-economic or commercial considerations. It will make use of a rich variety of case studies and engage with the associated primary sources in order to bring these activities, and our understanding of them, to life.

 

Syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered.

1) What is a Spy?

2) Espionage and intelligence in the Ancient World and the Middle Ages

3) Espionage and diplomacy during the Renaissance

4) The Elizabethan paradigm of the Spymaster

5) Ambassadors, merchants and other agents

6) Religious and other considerations in information-gathering

7) Ottoman and other non-European networks

8) The material culture of espionage

9) Espionage and intelligence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

10) Conclusions: whither espionage?

 

Assessment

• Seminar Contribution (20%)
• 3000 Word Essay or Applied Task (80%)