Tracey Sowerby

Senior Fellow
Period of Stay: 
October 2016 – June 2017
Discipline: 
History
Institution: 
University of Oxford, UK
Project Title: 
Tudor Diplomacy in a Multi-Confessional Age
Project Abstract: 

This project examines the Tudor government’s response to the challenges of conducting cross-confessional diplomacy in the wake of the Reformation and the establishing of relations with Russia and Muslim polities in Eurasia and Africa. Traversing the religious, as well as the political cultures of Catholic, Orthodox or Muslim courts also had implications for the selection of diplomatic personnel. The limits of reciprocity and immunity had to be worked out in different religious environments. And a reformation of diplomatic ritual occurred as the ceremonies that were integral to diplomatic agreement—such as ratifying peace treaties—or to an ambassador’s integration into the ritual world of the host court had to be rethought. By comparing cross-confessional diplomacy within Christendom with that practiced by English diplomats at extra-European courts this project will contribute to debates about de-centring Europe within studies of early modern diplomacy.

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