This MA module encourages students to consider the significance of the study of space for the understanding of early modern history. It aims to show that investigation of the organisation and use of space is integral to the understanding of key historical developments from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Space was far from a passive backdrop to historical events that had structural origins elsewhere. The organisation and use of material space was shaped by and in turn had effects back on the political, religious, economic, social and cultural changes associated with the Reformation, the English Revolution and the rise of agrarian capitalism. Students will explore how status, gender, age and religious identity shaped spatial experience. They will be introduced to approaches to the study of space from a range of disciplines including anthropology, sociology and geography. Themes to be considered include early modern representations and perceptions of space; the role of the organisation of the physical environment in the construction of social and religious identity; the shifting boundaries of ‘natural’ landscape and cultivated land and of public and private spaces. Students will be introduced to a range of relevant sources, including travel writing, diaries, probate inventories, court records, house plans and other forms of material evidence, and the module will train them in the reading, analysis and critical assessment of those sources.