Intellectual and cultural history has suffered in comparison with the institutional and political history of the Tudor commonwealth in recent years, and this collection of essays is a concerted aim to redress the balance. Clearing fresh paths into the languages, debates and underlying structures of Tudor political thought and policy, the volume addresses a range of problems in Tudor statecraft that have not traditionally been considered. Using a wide variety of sources, issues such as the emergence of political economy, the political uses of the past, approaches to resistance, the policy debates and proposals surrounding war and peace, poverty, usury and bankruptcy are explored with particular emphasis on medieval precedents and the context of continental thought.Introducing methods and perspectives from political anthropology, sociology and literary historicism, the essays as a whole are strongly interdisciplinary and present alternative approaches to the study of Tudor politics and statecraft. Combining the work of the 'Cambridge school' with the continental Begriffsgeschichte (history of concepts), these essays complement both the Eltonian and anti-Eltonian orthodoxies. The volume contains a comprehensive historiographical introduction and an extensive critical bibliography.