Hunting and the Politics of Violence before the English Civil War

by Daniel C. Beaver

Overview

A major contribution to debates about the origins of the Civil War, this study of English forests and hunting from the late sixteenth century to the early 1640s explores their significance in the symbolism and effective power of royalty and the nobility in early modern England. Blending social, cultural and political history, Dan Beaver examines the interrelationships among four local communities to explain the violent political conflicts in the forests in the years leading up to the civil war. Adopting a micro-historical approach, the book explores how local politics became bound up with national political and ideological divisions. The author argues that, from the early seventeenth century, a politics of land use in forests and other hunting reserves involved its participants in a sophisticated political discourse, touching on the principles of law and justice, the authority of the crown and the nature of a commonwealth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521878531
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/24/2008
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Daniel Beaver is Associate Professor at the Department of History, Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of Parish Communities and Religious Conflict in the Vale of Gloucester, 1590-1690 (1998).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: hunting, violence, and the origins of the English Revolution; 2. Blood, sacrifice, and order: meanings of the forest and hunt in culture, politics, and society; 3. Honor, property, and the symbolism of the hunt in Stowe, 1590–1642; 4. Ancient liberties and the politics of the commonweal in Waltham forest, 1608–42; 5. Royal honor, Great Parks, and the commonweal in Windsor forest, 1603–42; 6. Venison and the politics of honor in Corse Lawn Chase, 1620–42; 7. Conclusion: royal symbols, forest politics, and popular politics in Early Modern England.

Editorial Reviews

"Daniel C. Beaver’s study of attacks on deer, timber, and other resources of royal forests and aristocratic chases and parks in early seventeenth-century England is an attempt to analyze the popular politics of these peculiar woodland communities." - Brian S. Weiser, H-Albion

"Hunting and the Politics of Violence looks likely to earn a place on postgraduate reading lists and prompt further research. Readers will look at the royal forests with a heightened awareness of their distinct law, culture, and experience, as well as an increased awareness of the significant place that hunting continued to play in visions of English society. " -James Robertson, H-Law

"...Daniel Beaver’s book should be read by an audience beyond those nominally interested in hunting and forest history. Early modern cultural and political historians will benefit from Beaver’s close attention to popular politics and political consciousness leading up to the Civil War. Scholars in literary, environmental, and other disciplines will likewise be rewarded by Beaver’s attention to symbolic language, community formation, and the complex human construction of what we often assume is a natural environment." -Jeffrey Theis, Renaissance Quarterly

"Beaver has written an intriguing volume and one worth serious study by anyone who wishes to understand the issues that led England to civil war. It certainly demonstrates that the last word on the causes of the revolution has not yet been written." -Jasmin L. Johnson, H-War

"This is an important book which provides a new perspective on the social and geographical reach of of national politics and imaginatively uses episodes of conflict in the forests to unpack some of the tensions that culminated in the outbreak of civil war." -Emma Griffin, Journal of Social History

"In a fascinating study...Beaver argues that the royal forests, and by extension the deer parks constructed by members of the nobility and gentry, provided a setting for the pursuit of honour and the ritualized violence of hunting...Beaver’s book is notable for offering a much richer and more nuanced analysis of these violent episodes than any published hitherto." -David Smith, Historical Journal

From the Publisher