若纳德·哈顿

Ronald Edmund Hutton (born 19 December 1953) is an Indian-born English historian specialising in early modern Britain, British calendar customs, pre-Christian religion, and modern paganism. A professor at the University of Bristol and Gresham College, Hutton has written over a dozen books and often appears on British television and radio.

Born in Ootacamund, India, Hutton returned to England as a child, where he attended school in Ilford. Interested in archaeology, he volunteered on various excavations. He studied history at Pembroke College, Cambridge and then took a DPhil at Magdalen College, Oxford, before securing a position at the University of Bristol in 1981. Specialising in early modern Britain, he wrote four books on the subject: The Royalist War Effort (1981), The Restoration (1985), Charles the Second (1989), and The British Republic (1990). He followed these with three books on Britain's pre-Christian religions and calendar customs: The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles (1991), The Rise and Fall of Merry England (1994), and The Stations of the Sun (1996). These were followed by The Triumph of the Moon (1999), an examination of Wicca's history which would receive praise as a seminal text in Pagan studies.

After Shamans (2001), which considered Western perceptions of Siberian shamanism, Hutton focused on the role of the druids in the British imagination, producing two books, The Druids (2007) and Blood and Mistletoe (2009). Revising his earlier approach to pre-Christian religion with Pagan Britain (2013), he then addressed witchcraft for The Witch (2017) before beginning work on a three-volume biography of Oliver Cromwell (2021–24). In addition to appearing in various television documentaries, he fronted his own series, Professor Hutton's Curiosities, in 2013. After 2009 he also became a commissioner and then a trustee of English Heritage, a chair of the organisation's blue plaque committee, and academic advisor for their development of the Stonehenge visitor centre. In 2022 he became Gresham Professor of Divinity.

Hutton's work has brought recognition from a range of institutions. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Society of Antiquaries of London, Learned Society of Wales and the British Academy, and was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He has also become a popular figure in the British Pagan community and has received honours from the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids.

Biography

Early life: 1953–1980

Hutton was born on 19 December 1953 in Ootacamund, India. His father was British, his mother Russian. Hutton's father died when Hutton was still an infant, leading his mother to move them to Britain, where they settled into a council flat in eastern England. There, Hutton attended Ilford County High School, further developing his knowledge of history through television documentaries and books from a local library.

Interested in archaeology, Hutton joined the committee of a local archaeological group and from 1965 to 1976 took part in excavations, including at Pilsdon Pen hill fort, Ascott-under-Wychwood long barrow, Hen Domen castle and a temple on Malta. Between 1966 and 1969 he visited every surviving prehistoric chambered tomb in England and Wales, writing a guide to them for himself and his friends. In 1967, he also traveled to Canewdon, Essex to talk with locals who remembered the reputed cunning man George Pickingill.

As a teenager, Hutton was involved with the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, attending folk clubs and free festivals. Hutton's mother had been Pagan and in this period he encountered other Pagans, joining Pagan rituals held in Epping Forest between 1968 and 1969. Through this interest, he met Alex Sanders, the head of the Alexandrian Wiccan tradition. He has noted that at the time, he believed in the witch-cult theory that was used by many Wiccans to connect their religion to the pre-Christian past. Supporting that theory, in 1973 he argued for the veracity of Charles Leland's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches against the historian Norman Cohn but, as Hutton related, "was floored by him". This encouraged Hutton to later read more of the new research emerging regarding the early modern witch trials. Hutton was also politically active in the anti-racist movement, in 1978 being badly injured by Neo-Nazis for his involvement with the Anti-Nazi League.

Despite his love of archaeology, Hutton decided to study history at university, believing that he had "probably more aptitude" for it. He won a scholarship to study at Pembroke College, Cambridge. There, he continued his interest in archaeology alongside history, in 1975 taking a course run by the university's archaeologist Glyn Daniel, an expert on the Neolithic. While Hutton was a student, his mother died. After completing his undergraduate degree at Cambridge, he moved to the University of Oxford, where he completed his DPhil on the English Civil War at St John's College, Oxford in 1980.

Bristol University and first publications: 1981–1990

After a brief fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford, Hutton secured a job at the University of Bristol in 1981. That year, he published his first book, The Royalist War Effort 1642–1646, which was adapted from his DPhil thesis and focused on how King Charles I raised support from Wales and the West Midlands during the Civil War. It was reviewed by Ian Roy in History Today. Also in 1981, Hutton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Hutton followed with another book on 17th-century Britain, The Restoration: A Political and Religious History of England and Wales 1658–1667, published in 1985. C. John Somerville reviewed it for the Church History journal, deeming it "a work of great energy in research, sober judgement, and readable presentation." In The Historian, Michael J. Galgano thought Hutton's book "a valuable corrective to the pioneering works" of Godfrey Davies and David Ogg and believed that it would "remain the standard for some time".