Staff profile

I am originally from Greater Manchester. I was lucky to study as an undergraduate at the University of York, in the Department of History (1985-88). I was equally fortunate to work with Keith Wrightson, who supervised my doctoral work at Jesus College, Cambridge. This focused on the history of Derbyshire mining villages in the seventeenth century. Eventually, my doctoral dissertation formed the basis for my first book, albeit with a rather longer chronology. I have held a Scouloudi Research Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research (1992-3), a British Academy Research Fellowship at University College London (1995-6), a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2006-8), a Fellowship at Durham University’s Institute of Advanced Study (2012), a Fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library (2016), and a Fellowship at the Henry E. Huntington Library (2017). In 2022-23, I was the Fletcher Jones Distinuished Fellow at the Huntington Library. I am a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Historical Society. I have held teaching positions at the University of East London (Dept. of Cultural Studies, 1992-3) the University of Liverpool (Dept. of Economic and Social History, 1993-5) and the University of East Anglia (School of History, 1996-2013). In April 2013, I joined the Department of History at Durham University as Professor of Social History. I have acted as historical advisor on the play 'Common' at the National Theatre and a play depicting the Eyam plague of 1665 staged at the Globe Theatre. I have written for BBC Radio 4 and have appeared several times on BBC Radio, ITV and Channel Four. This involved working with Benjamin Zephaniah, Alice Roberts, Melvyn Bragg, Bettany Hughes and Suzie Lipscomb. 

Together with Stephen Taylor (Durham) and Tim Harris (Brown), I edit Boydell and Brewer's Studies in Early Modern Cultural, Political and Social History monograph series. I am a member of the Editorial Board of Rural History and of the Editorial Board of Cultural and Social History

Awards

In 2014, the American Historical Association awarded my fourth book, The Memory of the People: Custom and Popular Senses of the Past in Early Modern England the Leo Gershoy Award. The Memory of the People was also shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Award by the Folklore Society. In 1999, my first book, The Politics of Social Conflict: the Peak Country, 1520-1770 was declared proxime accessit to the Royal Historical Society’s Whitfield Prize.

Doctoral supervision

I am happy to supervise research students working in any aspect of English social history (broadly conceived!), c.1480-1850. I specialize in the use of archival court records to 'get at' the mental worlds of that diverse group whom the Levellers called the ‘poorer and middling sort of people’: traders, farmers, artisans, labourers, cottagers, smallholders, miners, weavers, and the poor. I am interested in the comparative history of social memory and I have written some science fiction criticism. 

Doctoral work I have supervised, or am currently supervising:

• Crime and punishment in early modern England, with special reference to seventeenth-century Norfolk
• Magic and popular culture in industrial England, c.1750-1850
• Antonio Gramsci and the politics of New Labour
• Gender and social relations in seventeenth-century Norfolk
• Custom, memory and place in the Forest of Dean, c.1500-1800
• Custom, gender and power in early modern Essex
• Governance, social relations and popular politics in eighteenth century Norwich
• Social mobility and the social production of capital and gentility in early modern England: the Newtons, c.1520-1743
• Power, ideology and "Country politics": episodes from Derbyshire, c. 1660-1760
• Yorkshire litigation at the Jacobean Court of Star Chamber
• Political thought and litigation in Elizabethan Norfolk
• Prostitution in London and Paris, 1660-1740

Research projects

I was Principal Investigator on the project ‘Everyday Life and Social Relations in England, 1500-1640’. This was funded by the Leverhulme Trust in the shape of a Research Project Grant and an AHRC Research Leadership Fellowship. The project ran between 2015 and 2019. It culminated in my fifth book, Faith, Hope and Charity: English Communities in Conflict, 1500-1640 (Cambridge University Press, 2020). 

My sixth book, intended for a wider readership, will be entitled I Predict A Riot: A History of the World In Twelve Rebellions. This is contracted to Atlantic Books. I am also writing a seventh book, Letters of Blood and Fire: Authority, Resistance and Social Relations in England, 1500-1640 (contracted to Cambridge University Press). 

My full list of publications is as follows: 

Books

·               Faith, hope and charity: English neighbourhoods, 1500-1640 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge and New York, 2020), 291 pp.

·               The memory of the people: custom and popular senses of the past in early modern England (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge and New York, 2013.) 396 pp.

·               The 1549 rebellions and the making of early modern England. (Cambridge University Press: Studies in Early Modern British History: Cambridge and New York, 2007). 291 pp. 

·               Riot, rebellion and popular politics in early modern England (Palgrave: Social History in Perspective: Basingstoke and New York, 2002).  227 pp.

·               The politics of social conflict: the Peak Country, 1520-1770 (Cambridge University Press: Studies in Early Modern British History: Cambridge and New York, 1999). 376 pp.

 

Articles in refereed journals

·                   ‘Tales from the “Yarmouth Hutch”: civic identities and hidden histories in an urban archive’, in L. Corens, K. Peters and A. Walsham (eds), The social history of the archive: record keeping in early modern Europe, Past and Present 230, Supplement 11 (2016), 213-30.

·               ‘“Some banglyng about the customes”: popular memory and the experience of defeat in a Sussex village, 1549-1640’, Rural History, 25, 1 (2014) 1–14.

·               ‘The deep roots of Albion’s fatal tree: the Tudor state and the monopoly of violence’, History, 99, 336, (2014), 403-17.

·               ‘Popular senses of time and place in Tudor and Stuart England’, Insights, 6, 3 (2014). Online journal.

·               ‘“A lyttull worde ys tresson”’: loyalty, denunciation and popular politics in Tudor England’, Journal of British Studies, 48, 4 (2009), pp. 837-847.

·                   ‘Subordination, solidarity and the limits of popular agency in a Yorkshire valley, c.1596-1615’, Past and Present, 193 (2006), pp. 41-72.

·                   ‘Fear, hatred and the hidden injuries of class in early modern England’, Journal of Social History, 39, 1 (2006), pp. 803-26.

·                   ‘Custom and the social organisation of writing in early modern England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th. ser., 9 (1999), pp. 257-69.

·                   ‘Politics, ideology and “the people” in eighteenth century Britain’, History Workshop, 43 (1997), pp. 276-82 [review essay].

·                   ‘Beyond post-revisionism? The civil war allegiances of the miners of the Derbyshire “Peak Country”’, Historical Journal, 40, 1 (1997), pp. 23-40

·                   ‘The place of custom in plebeian political culture: England, 1550-1800’, Social History, 22, 1 (1997), pp. 46-60.

·                   ‘Social conflict and change in the mining communities of north-west Derbyshire, c.1600-1700’, International Review of Social History, 38 (1993), pp. 31-58.

 

Chapters in edited collections

·               ‘Plain russet coated captains: the social semiotics of rural workers’ clothing, c. 1500-1700’, in S. Toulalan (ed.), Early modern bodies (Routledge: London, 2024), forthcoming.

·               ‘When this old hat was new: ballads, nostalgia and social change in early modern England’ in H. Lyon and A. Walsham (eds), Early modern nostalgia: memory, temporality and emotion (Boydell: Woodbridge, 2023), 228-47.

·               ‘Afterword: landscapes, memories and texts’, in C. Griffin and B. McDonagh (eds), Remembering protest in Britain since 1500: memory, materiality and the landscape since 1500 (Palgrave: Basingstoke, 2018), 237-44.

·               ‘Five swans over Littleport: fenland folklore and popular memory, c. 1810-1978’, in J.H. Arnold, M. Hilton, and J. Rüger (eds), History after Hobsbawm: writing the past for the twenty-first century (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2018), 225-41.

·               ‘Brave minds and hard hands: work, drama and social relations in the hungry 1590s’, in C. Fitter (ed.), Shakespeare and the politics of commoners: digesting the new social history (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2017), 84-103.

·                 ‘History, time and social memory’, in K.E. Wrightson (ed.), A social history of England, 1500-1750 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2017), 373-91.

·                ‘Spectral lordship, popular memory and the boggart of Towneley Hall’ in M. Braddick and P. Withington (eds), Popular culture and political agency in early modern England and Ireland (Boydell: Woodbridge, 2017), 109-22.

·                ‘Postscript. Small places, big questions: reintegrating social and economic history, 1350-1750’, in J.P. Bowen and A.T. Brown (eds), Custom and commercialization in English rural society: revisiting Tawney and Postan (Hertfordshire University Press, 2016), 250-66.

·                ‘The loss of Athelstan’s gift: the politics of popular memory in Malmesbury, 1607-1633’, in J. Whittle (ed.), Landlords and tenants in Britain, 1440-1660: Tawney’s Agrarian Problem Revisited (Boydell: Woodbridge, 2013), 85-99.

·                ‘Deference, paternalism and popular memory in early modern England’, in S. Hindle, A. Shepard and J. Walter (eds), Remaking English society: social relations and social change in early modern England (Boydell: Woodbridge, 2013), 233-53.

·               ‘The pedlar of Swaffham, the fenland giant and the Sardinian communist: usable pasts and the politics of folklore in England, c.1600-1830’, in F. Williamson (ed.), Locating agency: space, power and popular politics (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010), 161-92.

·                ‘The Queen is “a goggyll-eyed hoore”: gender and seditious speech in early modern England’, in N. Tyacke (ed.), The English revolution, c. 1590-1720: politics, religion and communities (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2007), 81-94.

·               ‘Collective violence, social drama and rituals of rebellion in late medieval and early modern England’, in S. Carroll (ed.), Cultures of violence: interpersonal violence in historical perspective (Palgrave: Basingstoke, 2007), pp. 99-116.

·               ‘Kett’s rebellion’, in C. Rawcliffe and R. Wilson (eds), Medieval Norwich (Hambledon: London, 2004), pp. 277-300.

·               ‘“What’s past is prologue”: politics, ideology and the burden of history in the Fall Revolution Quartet’, in A.M. Butler and F. Mendelsohn (eds), The true knowledge (Science Fiction Foundation: Reading, 2003), pp. 29-46. Jointly authored with J.H. Arnold.

·               ‘“Poore men woll speke one daye”: plebeian languages of deference and defiance in England, c.1520-1640’, in T. Harris (ed.), The politics of the excluded in England, 1500-1850 (Palgrave: Basingstoke. Themes in Focus Series, 2001), pp. 67-98.

·               ‘Custom, identity and resistance: English free miners and their law, c.1550-1800’, in P. Griffiths, A. Fox and S. Hindle (eds.), The experience of authority in early modern England (Macmillan: Basingstoke. Themes in Focus Series, 1996), pp. 249-85.

• English social history, c.1500-1750, especially: popular politics; riot and rebellion; social relations; custom and the law; popular memory; literacy and oral tradition; social and economic change
• The mid-Tudor crisis
• The English Revolution
• Comparative and interdisciplinary approaches to social memory

• 2000: Proxime Accessit for the Whitfield Prize: Awarded by the Royal Historical Society
• 2000: Leo Gershoy Award from the American Historical Association: awarded for my fourth book, The Memory of the People: Custom and Popular Senses of the Past in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2013). This was also shortlisted for the Katherine Briggs Folklore Award

Authored book

• Wood, A. (2020). Faith, Hope and Charity: English neighbourhoods, 1500-1640. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108886765
• Wood, A. (2013). The memory of the people: custom and popular senses of the past in early modern England. Cambridge University Press
• Wood, A. (2007). The 1549 rebellions and the making of early modern England. Cambridge University Press
• Wood, A. (2002). Riot, rebellion and popular politics in early modern England. Palgrave
• Wood, A. (1999). The politics of social conflict: the Peak Country, 1520-1770. Cambridge University Press

Book review

• Wood, A. (1997). ‘Politics, ideology and “the people” in eighteenth century Britain’. History Workshop Journal, 43, 276-282. https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/1997.43.276

Chapter in book

• Wood, A. (2018). Afterword: landscapes, memories and texts. In C. Griffin, & B. McDonagh (Eds.), Remembering protest in Britain since 1500 : memory, materiality and the landscape since 1500 (237-244). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74243-4_10
• Wood, A. (2017). Five swans over Littleport: fenland folklore and popular memory, c. 1810-1978. In J. H. Arnold, M. Hilton, & J. Rüger (Eds.), History after Hobsbawm : writing the past for the twenty-first century (225-241). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198768784.003.0012
• Wood, A. (2017). Brave minds and hard hands: work, drama and social relations in the hungry 1590s. In C. Fitter (Ed.), Shakespeare and the politics of commoners : digesting the new social history (84-103). Oxford Unversity Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198806899.003.0004
• Wood, A. (2017). Spectral lordship, popular memory and the boggart of Towneley Hall. In M. Braddick, & P. Withington (Eds.), Popular culture and political agency in early modern England and Ireland : essays in honour of John Walter (109-122). Boydell Press
• Wood, A. (2017). Coda: History, time and social memory. In K. Wrightson (Ed.), A social history of England, 1500–1750 (373-391). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781107300835.018
• Wood, A. (2016). Afterword: Small places, big questions: reintegrating social and economic history, c.1350-1750. In J. Bowen, & A. Brown (Eds.), Custom and commercialisation in English rural society : revisiting Tawney and Postan (250-266). Hertfordshire University Press
• Wood, A. (2013). The loss of Athelstan’s gift: the politics of popular memory in Malmesbury, 1607-1633. In J. Whittle (Ed.), Landlords and tenants in Britain, 1440-1660 : Tawney’s Agrarian problem revisited (85-99). Boydell Press. https://doi.org/10.7722/j.ctt31nh5b.14
• Wood, A. (2013). Deference, paternalism and popular memory in early modern England. In S. Hindle, A. Shepard, & J. Walter (Eds.), Remaking English society : social relations and social change in early modern England (233-253). Boydell Press
• Wood, A. (2010). ‘The pedlar of Swaffham, the fenland giant and the Sardinian communist: usable pasts and the politics of folklore in England, c.1600-1830’. In F. Williamson (Ed.), Locating agency: space, power and popular politics (161-92). Cambridge Scholars Press
• Wood, A. (2007). ‘The Queen is “a goggyll-eyed hoore”: gender and seditious speech in early modern England’. In N. Tyacke (Ed.), The English revolution, c. 1590-1720: politics, religion and communities (81-94). Manchester University Press: Manchester
• Wood, A. (2007). ‘Collective violence, social drama and rituals of rebellion in late medieval and early modern England’. In S. Carroll (Ed.), Cultures of violence: interpersonal violence in historical perspective (99-116). Palgrave: Basingstoke
• Wood, A. (2004). Kett’s rebellion. In C. Rawcliffe, & R. Wilson (Eds.), Medieval Norwich (277-300). Hambledon and London
• Wood, A., & Arnold, J. (2003). ‘“What’s past is prologue”: politics, ideology and the burden of history in the Fall Revolution Quartet’. In A. Butler, & F. Mendelsohn (Eds.), The True Knowledge (29-46). Science Fiction Foundation: Reading
• Wood, A. (2001). “Poore men woll speke one daye”: plebeian languages of deference and defiance in England, c.1520-1640’. In T. Harris (Ed.), The politics of the excluded in England, 1500-1850 (67-98). Palgrave: Basingstoke
• Wood, A. (1996). ‘Custom, identity and resistance: English free miners and their law, c.1550-1800’. In P. Griffiths, A. Fox, & S. Hindle (Eds.), The experience of authority in early modern England (249-85). Macmillan: Basingstoke

Journal Article

• Wood, A. (2016). Tales from the ‘Yarmouth Hutch’: civic identities and hidden histories in an urban archive. Past & Present: A Journal of Historical Studies, 230(Supplement 11), 213-230. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtw034
• Wood, A. (2014). The deep roots of Albion’s fatal tree: the Tudor state and the monopoly of violence. History, 99(336), 403-417. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229x.12060
• Wood, A. (2014). ‘Some banglyng about the customes’: Popular Memory and the Experience of Defeat in a Sussex Village, 1549–1640. Rural History, 25(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0956793313000174
• Wood, A. (2013). Popular senses of time and place in Tudor and Stuart England. Insights (Durham), 6, Article 3
• Wood, A. (2009). ‘“A lyttull worde ys tresson”’: loyalty, denunciation and popular politics in Tudor England’. Journal of British Studies, 48(4), 837-847. https://doi.org/10.1086/603603
• Wood, A. (2006). Subordination, solidarity and the limits of popular agency in a Yorkshire valley, c.1596-1615. Past & Present: A Journal of Historical Studies, 193(1), 41-72. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtl011
• Wood, A. (2006). Fear, hatred and the hidden injuries of class in early modern England. Journal of Social History, 39(1), 803-826. https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2006.0024
• Wood, A. (1999). Custom and the social organisation of writing in early modern England. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 9, 257-269. https://doi.org/10.2307/3679403
• Wood, A. (1997). ‘The place of custom in plebeian political culture: England, 1550-1800’. Social History, 22(1), 46-60
• Wood, A. (1997). ‘Beyond post-revisionism? The civil war allegiances of the miners of the Derbyshire “Peak Country”’. Historical Journal, 40(1), 23-40
• Wood, A. (1993). ‘Social conflict and change in the mining communities of north-west Derbyshire, c.1600-1700’. International Review of Social History, 38, 31-58