Petitions and Petitioning in Europe and North America From the Late Medieval Period to the Present

Throughout history, across very different types of state and society, petitions and petitioning have been ubiquitous practices and the interaction between petitioners and authority has been a crucial dynamic in exercising and contesting power. Consolidating and advancing a rapidly expanding field of research across history, law, and the social sciences, Petitions and Petitioning in Europe and North America is the first study of these venerable practices from their development in the late medieval period to the emergence of e-petitions in the twenty-first century. With a broad focus on Europe and North America, this ambitious volume breaks new ground by examining the concept, history, and practice of petitions and petitioning across chronological and geographical boundaries, opening up this important topic using an interdisciplinary approach across the humanities and social sciences.

Richard Huzzey, Professor of Modern British History, Durham University,Maartje Janse, Associate Professor of History, Leiden University,Henry Miller, Vice-Chancellor's Fellow, Northumbria University,Joris Oddens, Research Group Leader, Huygens Institute for the History and Culture of the Netherlands, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences,Brodie Waddell, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History, Birkbeck, University of London

Richard Huzzey acted as Co-Investigator for the AHRC network on which this volume is based, and Principal Investigator of the Leverhulme Trust project on 'Rethinking Petitions, Parliament, and People in the long nineteenth century' and the AHRC-ESRC project on 'Petitioning and people power in twentieth-century Britain'. He co-edited The Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade and edited Pressure and Parliament: From Civil War to Civil Society. He is currently a Professor of Modern British History at Durham University.

Maartje Janse is Associate Professor of History at Leiden University. She jointly led the NWO-funded research group The Promise of Organization and was Principal Investigator of the NWO-funded project Organizing the Masses. She has published widely on political participation, including De Afschaffers: Publieke opinie, organisatie en politiek in Nederland, 1840-1880. She co-edited the volume Organizing Democracy and is one of the editors of the Palgrave Studies in Political History series.

Henry Miller acted as Principal Investigator of the AHRC Research Network on Petitions and Petitioning (2018-19). He has edited a special issue of Social Science History on the comparative history of petitioning in the nineteenth century, and his second book, A Nation of Petitioners: Petitions and Petitioning in the United Kingdom, 1780-1918, was published in 2023. He is currently the Vice-Chancellor's Fellow in the Department of Humanities at Northumbria University.

Joris Oddens is Research Group Leader at the Huygens Institute for the History and Culture of the Netherlands, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He has published widely on the history of petitioning in journals such as European History Quarterly, Eighteenth Century Studies, National Identities, and Low Countries Historical Review, as well as in multiple edited volumes. He recently published a book on petitions and politics in the Netherlands in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: Op veler verzoek. Inclusieve politiek in Nederland 1780-1860.

Brodie Waddell is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at Birkbeck, University of London. He was Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded project 'The Power of Petitioning in Seventeenth-Century England' (2019-21). His interest in petitioning began with his first book, God, Duty and Community in English Economic Life, 1660-1720. He edited Addressing Authority: An Online Symposium on Petitions and Supplications in Early Modern Society and has published widely on early modern history. He is co-editor of Cultural and Social History.

List of FiguresList of TablesNotes on ContributorsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Petitions and Petitioning in Historical Perspective, RICHARD HUZZEY, MAARTJE JANSE, HENRY MILLER, JORIS ODDENS, AND BRODIE WADDELLPart I: Definitions1. What is a Petition?, DAVID ZARET2. Petitions and Petitioning Through the Ages: Etymology and Historical Semantics, JORIS ODDENS3. Alike but Different: Varieties of Subscriptional Practices and Communities, MARK KNIGHTS4. Petitions: Rule-bound but Malleable, JOANNA INNES5. E-petitions to Parliaments: Why Processes Matter, CRISTINA LESTON-BANDEIRAPart II: Chronologies, Continuities, and Transformations6. Transitions and Continuities in Petitioning in Early Modern England, BRODIE WADDELL AND HANNAH WORTHEN7. Strategies of Collectiveness: Representative Claims in Dutch Petitionary Practices, 1600-1940, MAARTJE JANSE, JORIS ODDENS, ANNE PETTERSON, JORIS VAN DEN TOL, EDURNE DE WILDE, AND ELSA MIEDEMA8. Power, Policy, and Petitions in Jamaica, 1664-1834, AARON GRAHAM9. Petitioning in Transition: Switzerland, 1481-1891, ANDREAS WÜRGLER10. The Evolution of Petitioning in Europe and North America, 1850-2000, RICHARD HUZZEY AND HENRY MILLERPart III: Petitions and Petitioning in Context11. Unanimity, Anonymity and Immunity: Thomas Haxey and the Form of the Common Petition in Fourteenth-Century England, GWILYM DODD12. Negotiated Citizenship Through Petitions in Late Medieval Italy, MARTA GRAVELA13. Petitioning Soldiers, the Power of the Patient, and the Provision of Military Welfare in Seventeenth-Century England and Wales, ISMINI PELLS14. Petitions Above Party: Representation and Congressional Petitioning, 1789-1950, MAGGIE BLACKHAWK AND DANIEL CARPENTER15. Petitioning the Soviet President: Mikhail Kalinin's Reception Office, 1919-46, LARA DOUDSConclusion: And Your Petitioners, &c., HENRY MILLERIndex