This timely study analyses the seventeenth-century revival of monasticism by English women who founded convents in France and the Low Countries. Examining the nuns' membership of both the English Catholic community and the continental Catholic Church, it argues that despite strict monastic enclosure and exile, they nevertheless engaged actively in the spiritual and political controversies of their day. The book will add much to our understanding of women's power in early modern Europe, and offer an insight into a previously ignored section of English society.

This is a study of the social and cultural implications of the growth of governance in England in the century after 1550. It is principally concerned with the role played by the middling sort in social and political regulation, especially through the use of the law. It discusses the evolution of public policy in the context of contemporary understandings, of economic change; and analyses litigation, arbitration, social welfare, criminal justice, moral regulation and parochial analyses administration as manifestations of the increasing role of the state in early modern England.

In 1598 a man - branded the Calabrian Charlatan by his Spanish opponents - appeared in Venice claiming to be King Sebastian, the Portuguese monarch who disappeared in battle some twenty years before. Over the next five years Venetians, Spaniards, and Portuguese wrangled over the true character and identity of the man. Was he a lunatic? Was he an impostor? Was he a messianic king? Eric Olsen uses this strange event to explore Portuguese millenarianism and how a group of Portuguese rebels sought to exploit it to free their nation from Spain.

In Renaissance Europe, the human need for recreation became a cultural topos. This book explores, amongst other subjects, the spectrum of leisure activities of that period, the moral approach to play, and the visual representation of leisure.

In 1598 a man - branded the Calabrian Charlatan by his Spanish opponents - appeared in Venice claiming to be King Sebastian, the Portuguese monarch who disappeared in battle some twenty years before. Over the next five years Venetians, Spaniards, and Portuguese wrangled over the true character and identity of the man. Was he a lunatic? Was he an impostor? Was he a messianic king? Eric Olsen uses this strange event to explore Portuguese millenarianism and how a group of Portuguese rebels sought to exploit it to free their nation from Spain.