University of Oxford
Faculty of History
Search

Sir Noel Malcolm

Sir Noel Malcolm

Senior Research Fellow

All Souls College

01865 (2)79344noel.malcolm@all-souls.ox.ac.uk My main research interests are in British and European early modern history – especially, but not only, intellectual history. My work on the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) has led me into the many areas of Hobbes's own work: not only political philosophy, but also ethics, metaphysics, theology, biblical criticism and optics. I have published editions of his Correspondence (2 vols., Oxford, 1994) and of Leviathan (3 vols., Oxford, 2012), as well as a volume of essays, Aspects of Hobbes (Oxford, 2002).

Another interest concerns Western knowledge of, and involvement in, the Ottoman / Islamic world. In 2001 I gave the Carlyle Lectures at Oxford on 'Islam and the Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought'; in 2010 I gave the Trevelyan Lectures at Cambridge on 'Early Modern Europe's Encounters with Islam'. There are some connections between this and my on-going interest in Balkan history – especially the history of the Albanian lands.

Publications

Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe
Featured Publication

Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations, 1400-1750

(OUP, 2024)

Until quite recently, the history of male-male sexual relations was a taboo topic. But when historians eventually explored the archives of Florence, Venice and elsewhere, they brought to light an extraordinary world of early modern sexual activity, extending from city streets and gardens to taverns, monasteries and Mediterranean galleys. Typically, the sodomites (as they were called) were adult men seeking sex with teenage boys. This was something intriguingly different from modern homosexuality: the boys ceased to be desired when they became fully masculine. And the desire for them was seen as natural; no special sexual orientation was assumed.