Bernard Capp

Biographic Data

ID1021229
NAMEBernard Capp
GIVEN NAMESBernard
FAMILY NAMECapp
SIGNATURECAPP B
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Warwick
ORCID0000-0002-3955-1243
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS76
TOTAL CITATIONS26
AUTHOR COUNT75
EDITOR COUNT1
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1971
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX3

  • The Cultural, Social, and Ideological Role of the Hat in Early Modern England

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLEThe Historical Journal2026

    When Thomas Ellwood repeatedly flouted his father’s command in 1659 to stay away from the Quakers, his behaviour provoked bitter family quarrels and a beating, until his father eventually found a surprising solution: he confiscated all his son’s hats. Thomas became in effect a prisoner in the house, accepting that it would be unthinkable to go outside without a hat. However strange to us today, this made perfect sense to contemporaries, and such …

  • Ralph Josselin and eschatology: The anxious millenarian

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLEHistorical Research2026

    Though the diary of the Essex puritan Ralph Josselin is a very familiar source, one core feature has remained almost totally overlooked. This article redresses that neglect. Josselin believed the British civil wars possessed eschatological significance, and set out to interpret them in the light of biblical prophecies. Close analysis of the text reveals how the political flux of the period repeatedly nullified his theories, making his emotions sw…

  • Disentangling Eben-Ezer: William Okeley and His Barbary Captivity Narrative

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLEHumanities2024

    Eben-ezer (1675) was the most successful Barbary captivity narrative and remains the most challenging. This article engages with debates over its authorship, publication history, purpose, and significance, and offers new information and interpretations on each aspect

  • Children, juveniles, and crime in early modern London: Old Bailey trials, 1674–1750

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLEContinuity and Change2024

    This article uses the early records of the Old Bailey to examine how the court handled cases involving children and juveniles, whether as offenders, victims or witnesses. It argues that though juvenile courts belong to a later age, the early modern court was already applying different criteria in trying young offenders. It demonstrates how juries used age, gender and related considerations to justify the ‘pious perjury’ that sheltered many from t…

  • Blind lives: The sightless and society in early modern England

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLEThe Seventeenth Century2024References: 12

    The historiography on blindness in the early modern period has focused almost entirely on the condition itself, rather than the lived experiences of the blind. It is often suggested that before the modern age it is impossible to access their lives. This article challenges that assumption. The evidence, though fragmentary, is far richer than has been supposed. The article shifts the focus to the blind themselves: their emotional responses, experie…

  • Re-assessing the ars moriendi: Good and bad deaths in early modern England

    Bernard CappARTICLEThe Seventeenth Century2023References: 2

    The mediaeval concept of the ‘good death’ lived on into the early modern period, suitably modified, through prescriptive and descriptive accounts that emanated from the ranks of the godly. How far the same understanding was shared across the wider society is a question that has been little considered. This article addresses the issue through the letters of the prolific Jacobean news-writer, John Chamberlain, over a period of thirty years. What em…

  • The Missing Generation: Grandparents and Agency in Early Modern England

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLEHistory2023

    Grandparents have been largely overlooked in the otherwise rich historiography of the family in early modern England. This article shows how many were able to play significant roles in family life, in both emotional and practical terms. Some forged close bonds with their young grandchildren, or took them in for a period to relieve hard‐pressed parents, while others were willing to raise and educate the orphaned. Some also provided moral or religi…

  • The Restless Republic: Britain without a Crown

    Bernard CappARTICLECommon Knowledge2023

    Britain's “restless republic” survived for only eleven turbulent years, from 1649 to 1660. Britain today is a somewhat restless monarchy, troubled from within by two turbulent and disgruntled royal princes, Andrew and Harry, and from without by considerable public unease. If the two princes had been firstborns rather than younger brothers, and in the direct line of succession, the long-term future of the monarchy would look very uncertain. Charle…

  • John Harrison, Envoy to Morocco: Barbary and the Downfall of Babylon

    Bernard CappARTICLECultural and Social History2022References: 1

    John Harrison was a significant figure in early Anglo-Moroccan relations, and made repeated visits to Morocco as a royal envoy. This article explores his career and places it within its broader context. A militant Calvinist, Harrison viewed Morocco as a potential ally against Spain and the Roman Antichrist, and dreamed of the conversion of its Moriscos and Jews, but his world-view proved alien to the early Stuart monarchs. The article further exp…

  • British Slaves and Barbary Corsairs, 1580-1750

    Bernard CappBOOKBritish Slaves and Barbary…2022

    This is the first comprehensive study of the thousands of Britons captured and enslaved in North Africa in the early modern period, charting their lives from capture to eventual liberation, death in Barbary, or for a lucky few, escape. It outlines the character of Barbary’s government and society, the world of the corsairs, and the wider context of Mediterranean slavery. Using letters from slaves and accounts by former slaves, the book describes …

  • Healing the nation: Royalist visionaries, Cromwell, and the restoration of Charles II

    Bernard CappARTICLEThe Seventeenth Century2019References: 6

    The radical visionaries of the civil war era had several royalist counterparts, today often overlooked. This article examines the three most significant: John Sanders of Harborne, Walter Gostelo, and Arise Evans. God, they claimed, had directed them to press Cromwell to restore Charles II, perhaps through a marriage alliance. This alone could settle the nation, and it would usher in a millennial age of peace. Sanders combined support for the crow…

  • The Leveller Revolution: Radical Political Organisation in England, 1640–1650

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLERenaissance Quarterly2018

    An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content

  • Disaffection and Everyday Life in Interregnum England by Caroline Boswell

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLEJournal of History2018

    "Disaffection and Everyday Life in Interregnum England by Caroline Boswell." Canadian Journal of History, 53(2), pp. 260–261

  • Alastair Bellany and Thomas Cogswell. The Murder of King James I

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLEThe American Historical Review2018

    Despite the title of their new book, The Murder of King James I, Alastair Bellany and Thomas Cogswell do not believe that James I was in fact murdered. His death in 1625 was almost certainly from natural causes. But many contemporaries suspected that the king had been poisoned by his favorite, the Duke of Buckingham, and suspicions continued to circulate for decades. In this exhaustive study, the authors piece together the origins of these rumors…

  • The Social History of English Seamen, 1650-1815

    Cheryl Cheryl Fury, B R Burg et al.BOOKSocial History of English Seamen,…2017

  • Social History of English Seamen, 1650-1815

    B R Burg, Bernard Capp et al.BOOKSocial History of English Seamen,…2017

  • Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears, by Thomas Dixon

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLEThe English Historical Review2017

    Thomas Dixon’s pioneering study carries glowing endorsements from Jo Brand and Ian Hislop, as well as Joanna Bourke, and fully deserves the huge attention and success it has received both within and far beyond the academic sphere. Erudite and entertaining, it is intellectually ambitious, emotionally engaged, full of insight and packed with surprising details. The illustrations are well chosen, and the eighty-five pages of notes and guides to furt…

  • The Power of Gifts: Gift-Exchange in Early Modern England, by Felicity Heal

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLEThe English Historical Review2016

    The title of Felicity Heal’s impressive new book recalls Ilana Krausman Ben-Amos’ The Culture of Giving (Cambridge, 2008), which might suggest considerable overlap. There is, in fact, almost none. Ben-Amos was exploring cultures of informal gifting and support, among families, neighbours and local communities. Heal focuses, by contrast, on more formal gifting and gift-exchange among the elites, especially between monarchs, courtiers and magnates.…

  • Major-General Thomas Harrison: Millenarianism, Fifth Monarchism and the English Revolution 1616–1660

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLERenaissance Quarterly2015

    An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content

  • Remaking English Society. Social Relations and Social Change in Early Modern England

    Bernard CappARTICLESocial History2014

    The three editors have assembled an impressive team of contributors to this Festschrift for Keith Wrightson, probably the most influential early modern social historian of his generation. All were

  • The Religious Marketplace: Public Disputations in Civil War and Interregnum England

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLEThe English Historical Review2014Cited by: 3

    The civil wars and interregnum (1640–60) ushered in a period of religious flux and debate, with controversies pursued in fierce pamphlet wars. Equally important, but far less familiar to us, were the public disputations, which spread across England and Wales to become a significant aspect of the religious culture of the age. This article traces their antecedents in the European tradition of university disputation, in the sixteenth-century contine…

  • True Relations: Reading, Literature and Evidence in Seventeenth-Century England, by Frances E. Dolan

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLEThe English Historical Review2014

    Journal Article True Relations: Reading, Literature and Evidence in Seventeenth-Century England, by Frances E. Dolan Get access True Relations: Reading, Literature and Evidence in Seventeenth-Century England, by Frances E. Dolan (Philadelphia: U. of Pennsylvania P., 2013; pp. 331. $59.95). Bernard Capp Bernard Capp 1University of Warwick Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume…

  • Benjamin Woodford. Perceptions of a Monarchy without a King: Reactions to Oliver Cromwell's Power

    Bernard CappARTICLEThe American Historical Review2014

    In March of 1657 Parliament offered Oliver Cromwell the crown. Cromwell was tempted, half persuaded that only a return to monarchy could deliver the enduring political settlement for which he yearned. But he doubted whether God would approve; if divine providence had swept monarchy aside, would it not be a sinful betrayal to resurrect it? For weeks Cromwell wrestled with these doubts before finally declining the offer. This episode lies at the he…

  • Jesus Wept' But Did the Englishman? Masculinity and Emotion in Early Modern England

    Bernard CappARTICLEPast & Present2014Cited by: 4

    In June 1600 the earl of Essex appeared before the Privy Council ‘to aunswer his contempts and misgovernment’. There, ‘humblie confessing his errors with teares’, he pleaded that ‘the teares of his heart had quenched the sparkles of pride that were in him’. The earl’s lachrymose submission, stripping away his masculine bravura, handed the council a weapon it seized with relish. The lord keeper promptly recounted the scene to the judges assembled …

  • Gender and the English Revolution, by Ann Hughes

    Open AccessBernard CappARTICLEThe English Historical Review2013