Impious Itineraries: routes between the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula

A new seminar series organised by the Warburg Institute with the support of the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Gobierno de España.

The traffic of people and objects between the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles in the early modern period was considerable. Political and religious differences complicated this circulation but also allowed for the search of a secure haven for those that dissented or were persecuted. This seminar series traces the itineraries followed by exiles, diplomatic missions and material objects such as books or gifts to establish the networks of communication that allowed for a material and cultural exchange that sometimes broadened, sometimes narrowed, the religious and political rift between these territories.

The geographical distance between the islands in the Atlantic and the Peninsula, facing both the Atlantic and Mediterranean, translates into a gap of the imagination that could be bridged by means of various planned itineraries for people and objects. Planning, following and improvising itineraries enabled communities and individuals to shorten this distance.

In these online talks we shall retrace some of these routes following the itineraries of certain objects and people to learn how the route transformed them or how the route was transformed by their passage.

Programme: Summer Term 2022

Tuesday 31 May: 5.00-7.00pm - via zoom
Session 1: 'Diplomatic Itineraries':

  • 'English perambulations of the Count of Villamediana in 1603' - Berta Cano Echevarría (University of Valladolid and Warburg Institute)
  • 'A Travelling Court and Household for the Prince of Wales: The troublesome jornada to Santander of September 1623' - Anunciación Carrera de la Red (University of Valladolid)  

Tuesday 14 June: 5.00-7.00pm - via zoom
Session 2: 'Itineraries of the Faith':

  • 'Texts and nuns on the run: itinerant texts for itinerant persecuted communities' - Ana Sáez-Hidalgo (University of Valladolid)
  • 'Choice, necessity and laissez-faire in the conversion narratives of early modern Irish Protestant visitors to Portugal' - Thomas O’Connor (National University of Ireland Maynooth)

Tuesday 28 June: 5.00-7.00pm - via zoom
Session 3: 'Itineraries of Objects':

  • 'Horses on demand: exchanging diplomatic gifts between the Habsburgs and the Stuarts' - Óscar Ruiz Fernández (Technical University of Bucharest)
  • 'Real Biblioteca, El Escorial MS Q.II.6: The Travels of an English Manuscript' - R. F. Yeager (Emeritus, University of West Florida):

image: “An English and Dutch Fleet lands at the Spanish Port of Cadiz” Unknown Artist. Real Colegio de los Ingleses de Valladolid

This series is organised by Berta Cano Echevarría, Associate Professor of English Literature and Culture, University of Valladolid. She is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Warburg Institute.

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