An Accidental History of Tudor England

Steven Gunn and Tomasz Gromelski offer a new view into Tudor life, told through ordinary people's untimely deaths.

About the event

How did ordinary people live in Tudor England? This unique analysis unearths the ways they died to find out. Far from the intrigues of Hampton Court Palace, Shakespeare’s plots and the Spanish Armada, explore the history of everyday life, and everyday death.

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 and Tomasz Gromelski use 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.

Additional information

This event is eligible for our 20% ticket bundle discount.

Book tickets to three or more different events across the festival and you can save 20%. Tickets must be purchased in the same transaction and the discount will automatically be applied within the basket.

Entry to this event is via London Gate.

About the speakers

Steven Gunn is Professor of Early Modern History at Merton College, Oxford. He writes for ‘BBC History Magazine’ and ‘History Today’, has contributed to radio and television programmes such as ‘In Our Time’ and ‘Time Team’, and speaks regularly to Historical Association branches and sixth-form conferences. He is currently a trustee of the Royal Armouries.

Tomasz Gromelski is Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford, and Associate Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University. He is a researcher on the Everyday Life and Fatal Hazard in Sixteenth-Century England and on the Living Standards and Material Culture in English Households projects, based in Oxford and Cambridge respectively.