Lydia Towns

ORCID Identifier(s)

0000-0001-5006-780X

Graduation Semester and Year

2019

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in History

Department

History

First Advisor

Imre J Demhardt

Abstract

This dissertation explores the birth of the English Atlantic by looking at English activities and discussions of the Atlantic world from roughly 1481-1560. Rather than being disinterested in exploration during the reign of Henry VIII, this dissertation proves that the English were aware of what was happening in the Atlantic world through the transnational flow of information, imagined the potentials of the New World for both trade and colonization, and actively participated in the opening of transatlantic trade through transnational networks. To do this, the entirety of the Atlantic, all four continents, are considered and the English activity there analyzed. This dissertation uses a variety of methods, examining cartographic and literary interpretations and representations of the New World, familial ties, merchant networks, voyages of exploration and political and diplomatic material to explore my subject across the social strata of England, giving equal weight to common merchants’ and scholars’ perceptions of the Atlantic as I do to Henry VIII’s court. Through these varied methods, this dissertation proves that the creation of the British Atlantic was not state sponsored, like the Spanish Atlantic, but a transnational space inhabited and expanded by merchants, adventurers and the scholars who created imagined spaces for the English. Not only does this reveal the consistent and active presence of the English in the Atlantic world throughout the sixteenth century, but it also acts as a case study for the European moment of contact with the Atlantic World.

Keywords

Atlantic, Tudor, Exploration, Discovery, Maritime, Early modern, Henry VIII, Transatlantic, British Atlantic

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | History

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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