My course is in “Crisis”

Bad joke.  I’m just about through putting together my course reader for my class (which starts next week).  It was way more work than I thought, but I got some interesting material in there.  I translated a few mazarinades, too, so that should be fun.  I’ve got one that purports to be from the printers of Paris, thanking Mazarin for making them rich.  It’s pretty funny.

I’ve been thinking about trying to create some kind of mazarinade web site.  I’ve mentioned my problem to a number of people, and two have already expressed frustration at the lack of available translations.  I’ve got a few, some more partial than others, and if other people want to contribute, that would be great.  A kind of wikimazarinade, if you will, which would make some imperfect but serviceable translations available to those who need them.  If anybody thinks this is a good idea, let me know.

England, teaching, and Los Angeles

So I’m back in the United States.  I’m actually at the Clark Library in Los Angeles right now.  I’ve been finishing up cataloguing the pictures I took in the various archives.  It’s kind of annoying, but I’ve already figured out a bunch of stuff I missed, including something rather interesting.  One of the parliamentary clerks was having at least one of his correspondents send his newsletters directly to Mabbott, even before the clerk got his hands on them.  So I’ve found some of the newsletters and need to go take a look, since the calendar of them is rather imprecise.  I’ve also found direct evidence that Mabbott had access to at least the Commons Journal when he was writing his newsletters in the 1650s.  That could have been assumed, but it’s nice to have the supporting evidence.  Mabbott did start his career as a parliamentary clerk after all.

I’ve also got my hands on a few interesting print cases, including one with forged publisher information.  I guess it goes to show parliament’s determination to uphold its printing laws that while the perpetrators got in trouble for what they were printing, parliament seems not to have cared about the forgery.  And they were released a few days later.  Interestingly, the Commons said that while it was okay for the material to be printed, the real problem was that it only presented one side of the argument (the other side, of course).

A lot of this has to go on hold for a while because I’m trying to get a course ready for second summer session.  I decided to teach a course on the English Civil War, the Fronde, and the Catalan Revolt, and then found out how little there was in translation for the last two.  There is a reasonable amount for the Fronde, I suppose, but not many mazarinades, and almost nothing for the Catalans.

In other news, the symposium in Hull went very well, despite a sudden cold I caught the second day.  The papers were really interesting and thoughtful, and I think they showed both the progress made in this field of history as well as how many avenues there are left to explore.  What they all showed was the importance of not underestimating the power of religion as a motivator.  Of course, what else would we expect?

Although anyone reading this blog has undoubtedly already seen it, I should still point out the series of great posts over at Mercurius Politicus on the spat between John Taylor and Henry Walker.  Neither of them was particularly pleasant, so you know it has to be good.  Also, please check back regularly at my girlfriend’s blog isaacnewtonalso for updates on how her part of the UK trip went.

In the UK 2

So I’ve traveling from archive to archive.  Right now I’m in Hull.  There’s the Morrill conference, and I’ve spent the last two days at the Hull City Archives.  It was a nice little archive with friendly people.  I also got to see a really well preserved seal of Mabbott’s.  It has three fleur-de-lis with a bird in the middle.  It’s probably a specific bird, but I’m not sure what.  I even found a receipt for his payment for his work as an agent for the Hull corporation, but it doesn’t say how long the work was for, so it’s almost worthless.  Still, the trip has been very enlightening.  I haven’t really been able to process all the information, but I found some interesting cases to include in my dissertation, including one interesting examination of Laurence Chapman, Samuel Pecke, Anne Griffin, and Francis Leach.  I’ll probably have a much bigger post when I get back, or maybe even one more before I leave.