Lecture: Deafness in Early Modern England

Join us for research seminars hosted by the Department of History with a selection of visiting academics, alongside University of York researchers. All students and staff are very welcome.

A zoom link will be made available for distance learning PhD students on request. Please contact Dr Purba Hossain (purba.hossain@york.ac.uk) if you have any questions.

You can view the full schedule for the semester here: History Research Seminar Schedule Autumn 2025

Speaker: Dr Rosamund Oates, Reader in Early Modern History, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Abstract:

Historians have claimed that in pre-modern Europe, deaf sign language users were treated as ‘infants’ by an oral legal system. This paper questions this, examining the marriages of deaf men and women, and addressing ideas of rationality, speech and what it meant to be human in early modern England.