Professor Steven Gunn - An Accidental History of Tudor England - Sat 25th July 4.00pm
How did ordinary people live in Tudor England? This unique analysis unearths the ways they died – revealed in coroners’ inquest reports – to find out. Far from the intrigues of Hampton Court Palace, Shakespeare’s plays and the Spanish Armada, this was a world where farming, building and travel were dangerous. Fruit trees killed more people than guns, and sheep killed about the same number of people as coalmines. Men stabbed themselves playing football and women drowned in the hundreds while fetching water. From bear attacks in north Oxford to a bowls-on-ice incident on the Thames, Steven Gunn reveals a remarkable trove of sources and stories to put common folk at the heart of Tudor England, bringing the reality of their world to life as never before.
Steven Gunn is professor of early modern history at Merton College, University of Oxford, where he teaches the history of later medieval and early modern Britain and Europe. His books include studies of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, Early Tudor Government, and Henry VII’s ‘New Men’. Most recently he has published The English People at War in the Age of Henry VIII (2018) and, with Tomasz Gromelski, An Accidental History of Tudor England: From Daily Life to Sudden Death (2025). He has contributed to radio and TV programmes such as In Our Time, Great Lives, Time Team and Cunk on Britain.
https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-steven-gunn
Book signing available
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How did ordinary people live in Tudor England? This unique analysis unearths the ways they died – revealed in coroners’ inquest reports – to find out. Far from the intrigues of Hampton Court Palace, Shakespeare’s plays and the Spanish Armada, this was a world where farming, building and travel were dangerous. Fruit trees killed more people than guns, and sheep killed about the same number of people as coalmines. Men stabbed themselves playing football and women drowned in the hundreds while fetching water. From bear attacks in north Oxford to a bowls-on-ice incident on the Thames, Steven Gunn reveals a remarkable trove of sources and stories to put common folk at the heart of Tudor England, bringing the reality of their world to life as never before.
Steven Gunn is professor of early modern history at Merton College, University of Oxford, where he teaches the history of later medieval and early modern Britain and Europe. His books include studies of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, Early Tudor Government, and Henry VII’s ‘New Men’. Most recently he has published The English People at War in the Age of Henry VIII (2018) and, with Tomasz Gromelski, An Accidental History of Tudor England: From Daily Life to Sudden Death (2025). He has contributed to radio and TV programmes such as In Our Time, Great Lives, Time Team and Cunk on Britain.
https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-steven-gunn
Book signing available
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