Suzannah Lipscomb

Read my shield: Henry VI on horseback with a coat of arms, 15th century.

Written in Heraldry

Lions are noble; unicorns pure. Knowing how to decipher heraldry reveals the aspirations – and humour – of the regal past.

scene from The New Art and Mystery of Gossiping, Being a Genuine Account of All the Women’s Clubs in and about the City and Suburbs of London, c.1760.

Explicit Content

Rude words are a constant, but their ability to cause offence is in flux. Historians should know their flim-flam from their fiddle-faddle. 

Wives

Matters of Importance

There are several obstacles between Tudor women and their biographers. Bypassing them is a slow but necessary process. 

Life in the Countryside, by Jan Brueghel the Elder, 17th century.

The Continuity of Community

The support and camaraderie of close-knit communities were a double-edged sword. Nothing was private and reputations could be ruined at the twitch of the curtain.

A ‘witch’ is punished by being ‘dipped’ in the mill-stream. Woodcut, English, 17th century.

A Ventriloquist Act?

Recent studies show the benefits and limitations of giving voice to the thoughts of our predecessors. 

‘Fishes Close to the Quayside’, 19th-century illustration.

Fishing for the Facts

E.H. Carr’s belief that the histories we get depend on the questions we ask is more relevant than ever. 

A Literary Joust, by Jonathan Wolstenholme, 2006.

Open Access, Closed Minds

Plans to measure the impact of historical research as if it were a science will mean fewer history books that excite the general reader. 

A young woman hanging up laundry, Newport, Rhode Island, 1903.

Make Believe

Historians are tethered to the archive, but sometimes fixing the gaps requires the techniques of a novelist.