24.2. 2010 (STŘEDA) – 14:10 – 15:45, HL. BUDOVA FF., Č. 201
Projekt Cliohres končí 31.5. 2010, doposud vytvořil 28 kolektivních knih a připravil vydání 6 doktorských disertací. Chtěli bychom Vám představit téma jednoho z našich kolegů
Gerald Power
Border nobles and the Tudor state: a case study from Ireland
It is generally accepted that relations between English border nobles and the Tudor state were consistently tense and frequently hostile because the crown’s drive towards centralisation and uniformity clashed with the border magnates’ military and judicial semi-independence and cultural and religious distinctiveness. According to the cliché, the Tudor state was intolerant of ‘over-mighty subjects’, and steadily eroded their power. This paper applies these ideas to an Irish setting, specifically to the enclave of Tudor rule known as the English Pale. Here the resident aristocracy also came into conflict with royal government, but not because they were ‘over-mighty subjects’: by and large the nobility were of modest means and were consistent upholders of the crown’s interests in the land. Instead the nobility of the English Pale were identified as opponents of Tudor rule because their comparatively slim resources and peripheral location made them convenient scapegoats for the embattled royal administration. In sum therefore, a noble did not have to be a potentially dangerous earl or duke to attract the disapproval of the state: weak peers with little influence at the centre could also find themselves out of favour with the Tudor regime. The Pale peers’ location on the frontier of the Tudor state was thus crucial in determining how they were perceived during a period in which noble behaviour and identity was under increased scrutiny.
GERALD POWER completed his doctorate at the National University of Ireland, Galway, in 2008. He was a doctoral member of the CLIOHRES ‘Frontiers and Identities’ workgroup between 2005 and 2008. He currently lectures at the Anglo-American University in Prague, and is preparing his PhD thesis, entitled ‘The nobility of the English Pale in Tudor Ireland, 1496-1566’, for publication as a monograph.
