Professor Steven Gunn

Teaching

I teach British and European History between 1330 and 1700, including the undergraduate Special Subject 'The Trial of the Tudor State: politics, religion and society, 1540-1560' and the MSt/MPhil paper on 'State and Society in Early Modern Europe'. I supervise graduate students working on British and European political, social and cultural history in the period 1450-1600.

Research

My research interests are in the political, social, cultural and military history of England and its continental neighbours from the mid-fifteenth to the later sixteenth century. I am principal investigator of a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council on life and death in Tudor prisons. 

Publications and podcasts

I have written books on Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, c1484-1545 (1988), Early Tudor Government, 1485-1558 (1995), War, State and Society in England and the Netherlands, 1477-1559 (2007), Henry VII's New Men and the Making of Tudor England (2016), The English People at War in the Age of Henry VIII (2018) and An Accidental History of Tudor England: From Daily Life to Sudden Death (2025) and edited Cardinal Wolsey: Church, State and Art (1991), Authority and Consent in Tudor England (2002), The Court as a Stage: England and the Low Countries, 1270-1580 (2005) and Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales: Life, Death and Commemoration (2009).

'Everyday death in Shakespeare's England' - A talk by Steven Gunn for the Bodleian Libraries' 'Shakespeare's Dead' exhibition

The 2015 James Ford Lectures in British History: 'The English people at war in the age of Henry VIII'

Listen to Steven Gunn on BBC Radio 4's 'In Our Time - The Battle of Bosworth Field'

Listen to a podcast from That Shakespeare Life

For more information, visit my Faculty profile here.