Early modern history plays dramatized the recent and distant past for audiences and readers across Europe. While there is a wealth of scholarship on individual national traditions, European history plays have been rarely studied from comparative, interdisciplinary and multilingual perspectives. This conference will explore a range of questions. What was the relationship between historical drama and other forms of historical writing? How did vernacular and neo-Latin history plays respond to major political events and religious conflicts, both at home and abroad? How far did history plays exert influence across national borders?