Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry, 1100-1550
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The author of the international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind looks at covert operations and assassination plots in the medieval period, matching anything to be found in our own era.
Alongside the familiar pitched battles, regular sieges, and large-scale manoeuvres, medieval and early modern wars also involved assassination, abduction, treason and sabotage. These undercover operations were aimed chiefly against key individuals, mostly royalty or the leaders of the opposing army, and against key fortified places, including bridges, mills and dams. However, because of their clandestine nature, these deeds of "derring-do" have not been studied in any detail, a major gap which this book fills. It surveys a wide variety of special operations, from the eleventh to the sixteenth century. It then analyzes in greater depth six select and exciting operations: the betrayal of Antioch in 1098; the attempt to rescue King Baldwin II from the dungeon of Khartpert in 1123; the assassination of Conrad of Montferrat in 1192; the attempt to storm Calais in 1350; the "dirty war" waged by the rulers of France and Burgundy in the 1460s and 1470s; and the demolition of the flour mill of Auriol in 1536.
"A portrait of espionage, covert operations, assassination squads, and the deep penetration of seemingly invulnerable fortresses or security systems matching anything to be found in the war stories of the modern era." MATTHEW BENNETT, SANDHURST.
Professor YUVAL NOAH HARARI teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is the author of the international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.
The Personal Rule of Charles II, 1681-85
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The wider repercussions and consequences of Charles II's personal rule are discussed, with special reference to the fledgling Tory and Whig parties.
This book is concerned with political culture, government, and religion during the personal rule of Charles II, the period between the dissolution of his last English Parliament in 1681 and his death in 1685. The author argues that the nature of this phase of Stuart personal rule was different to that of Charles I in 1629-40. He discusses the nature of whig and tory politics during this crucial period in their formation as political parties, showing how they coped with the absence of a parliamentary forum. He also examines political life in the English localities, the growing importance of news dissemination in political life, and the politics of religious persecution and toleration. Scotland and Ireland are included in this analysis of Charles's rule, setting the discussion in a "Three Kingdoms" context.
GRANT TAPSELL is Lecturer in Modern History at St Andrews University.
Monastic Hospitality
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How guests were cared for in medieval monasteries, exploring the administrative, financial, spiritual and other implications.
Hospitality was an integral part of medieval monastic life. In receiving guests the monks were following Christ's injunction and adhering to the Rule of St Benedict, as well as taking on an important role within society andproviding a valuable service for fellow religious. This book draws on a wide range of sources to explore the practice and perception of monastic hospitality in England c.1070-c. 1250, an important and illuminating time in aEuropean and an Anglo-Norman context; it examines the spiritual and worldly concerns compelling monasteries to exercise hospitality, alongside the administrative, financial and other implications of receiving and caring for guests. Analysis focuses on the great Benedictine houses of Southern England (Abingdon, Bury St Edmunds, Canterbury, Reading, St Albans) for which a substantial and diverse body of material survives, but they are set in the context of other houses and other orders (chiefly the Cistercians) to show the wider picture in both England and Europe.
JULIE KERR is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews.
The Pursuit of High Culture
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This monograph investigates the promotion and consumption of high musical culture among leisured society in Victorian London, by focusing on the activities of the concert manager John Ella and his Musical Union.
This monograph investigates the promotion and consumption of high musical culture among leisured society in Victorian London, by focusing on the activities of the concert manager John Ella and his Musical Union [1845-81], an eminent, long-lived institution for chamber music, much fêted across Europe in its day. It combines a biography of Ella with a social-economic history of the Musical Union, its players, repertoire and audiences, and sets them against the gradually shifting contexts for London concerts, chamber music and cultural life. Ella's extraordinary life story, which began in provincial, artisan-class obscurity and ended in the upper echelons of London society, shapes thenarrative. Such themes as entrepreneurship, concert management, taste shaping, music appreciation and elite social networks are discussed throughout, as is the curious interplay between the desire to 'sacralize' chamber music, especially Beethoven's, on the one hand, and the need to survive amid the increasing commercial imperatives of London concert life on the other. CHRISTINA BASHFORD is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Martyrs and Martyrdom in England, c.1400-1700
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A fresh examination of the idea of martyrdom in the transition from the medieval to the modern periods.
Concepts of Christian martyrdom changed greatly in England from the late middle ages through the early modern era. The variety of paradigms of Christian martyrdom (with, for example, virginity or asceticism perceived as alternateforms of martyrdom) that existed in the late medieval period, came to be replaced during the English Reformation with a single dominant idea of martyrdom: that of violent death endured for orthodox religion. Yet during the seventeenth century another transformation in conceptions of martyrdom took place, as those who died on behalf of overtly political causes came to be regarded as martyrs, indistinguishable from those who died for Christ. The articles in this book explore these seminal changes across the period from 1400-1700, analyzing the political, social and religious backgrounds to these developments. While much that has been written on martyrs, martyrdom and martyrologies has tended to focus on those who died for a particular confession or cause, this book shows how the concepts of martyrdom were shaped, altered and re-shaped through the interactions between these groups.
THOMAS S. FREEMAN is Research Officer at the British Academy John Foxe Project, which is affiliated with the University of Sheffield; THOMAS F. MAYER is Professor of History at Augustana College.
Contributors: JOHN COFFEY, BRAD S.GREGORY, VICTOR HOULISTON, ANDREW LACEY, DANNA PIROYANSKY, RICHARD REX, ALEC RYRIE, WILLIAM WIZEMAN
The Culture of Medieval English Monasticism
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Examinations of the culture - artistic, material, musical - of English monasteries in the six centuries between the Conquest and the Dissolution.
The cultural remains of England's abbeys and priories have always attracted scholarly attention but too often they have been studied in isolation, appreciated only for their artistic, codicological or intellectual features and notfor the insights they offer into the patterns of life and thought - the underlying norms, values and mentalité - of the communities of men and women which made them. Indeed, the distinguished monastic historian David Knowles doubted there would ever be sufficient evidence to recover "the mentality of the ordinary cloister monk". These twelve essays challenge this view. They exploit newly catalogued and newly discovered evidence - manuscript books,wall paintings, and even the traces of original monastic music - to recover the cultural dynamics of a cross-section of male and female communities. It is often claimed that over time the cultural traditions of the monasteries were suffocated by secular trends but here it is suggested that many houses remained a major cultural force even on the verge of the Reformation.
James G. Clark is Professor of History at the University of Exeter.
Contributors: DAVID BELL, ROGER BOWERS, JAMES CLARK, BARRIE COLLETT, MARY ERLER, G. R. EVANS, MIRIAM GILL, JOAN GREATREX, JULIAN HASELDINE, J. D. NORTH, ALAN PIPER, AND R. M. THOMSON.
Norwegian Runes and Runic Inscriptions
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An accessible account of Norwegian runic inscriptions from their first appearance around AD200 until their demise around 1400.
Runes, a unique functional writing system, exclusive to northern and eastern Europe, were used for some 1300 years in Scandinavia, from about AD 200 till around the end of the fourteenth century, when the runic alphabet, called fuþark after the six first characters, finally gave way to the modern writing system. Runes were not written, but carved - in stone, and on jewellery, weapons, utensils and wood. The content of the inscriptions is very varied, from owner and carpenter attributions on artefacts to memorials to the deceased on erected stones; contrary to popular belief, they are not necessarily magical or mystical, and the post-it notes of today have their forerunners in such runic reminders as: "Buy salt, and don't forget gloves for Sigrid." The typical medieval runic inscription varies from the deeply religious to the highly trivial [or perhaps crucial], such as "I slept with Vigdis when I wasin Stavanger." This book presents an accessible account of the Norwegian examples throughout the period of their use. The runic inscriptions are discussed not only from a linguistic point of view but also as sources of information on Norwegian history and culture.
TERJE SPURKLAND is Associate Professor of Nordic Medieval Studies at the University of Oslo.
Henry I and the Anglo-Norman World
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Aspects of the reign of King Henry re-examined, from royal biography to administrative history.
It is a testament to C. Warren Hollister's ongoing influence that the reign of Henry I, until his work on the period relatively neglected, is now a vibrant field of inquiry - to which this collection, a special volume of the Haskins Society Journal dedicated to his memory, makes a significant contribution. Its distinguished contributors, many former Hollister students, cover a wide range of areas: royal biography; political history, including Church-Staterelations and relations with neighbors such as Maine and Ireland as well as the English people Henry ruled; administrative history, including fiscal management; and prosopography, especially of the major developments in the Anglo-Norman aristocracy under Henry's reign. This volume thus continues and extends Hollister's scholarly legacy.
Contributors: ROBERT S. BABCOCK, RICHARD E. BARTON, STEPHANIE MOOERS CHRISTELOW, DAVID CROUCH, RAGENA C. DE ARAGON, LOIS L. HUNEYCUTT, DAVID S. SPEAR, HEATHER J. TANNER, KATHLEEN THOMPSON, ANN WILLIAMS, SALLY N. VAUGHN.
Lionel Tertis
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This new biography examines the life and work of Lionel Tertis, almost solely responsible for the rise of the viola in the twentieth century.
Lionel Tertis [1876-1975] stands in the company of Ysaÿe, Kreisler, Casals, Thibaud and Rubinstein as one of the greatest instrumentalists - and arguably the greatest viola player - of all time. Such composers as Arnold Bax, Holst, and Vaughan Williams all wrote significant works for him; he was a member of a number of prominent string quartets; and he was later to design and promote his own 'Tertis model' viola. He is virtually synonymous with the increasing importance of the viola as a solo and recital instrument alongside the violin and the cello. This biography, the first full-length survey of his life, tells how he rose from humble beginnings to become 'the father of themodern viola'. It explores in detail his long and distinguished career, persuading composers to write works for the viola, arranging existing works for the instrument, editing and performing the music, teaching and coaching in Great Britain, and his performances in the United States. JOHN WHITE is a prominent viola teacher and performer; in 2000 he was awarded the International Viola Society's highest award for distinguished scholarship and contributions to the viola.
Medieval Suffolk: An Economic and Social History, 1200-1500
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A comprehensive survey of the economy and society of late medieval Suffolk.
Suffolk was one of the most important regions of England in the middle ages. Even by 1200 it was wealthy, densely populated, highly commercialised and urbanised; and it survived the impact of three of the most tumultuous events ofthe last millennium, the Great Famine (1315-22), the Black Death (1349) and the Peasants' Revolt (1381), to become by 1500 one of the richest and most industrialised regions of England, based on cloth manufacture, fishing and tanning. This volume describes, documents and analyses these events. It combines an accessible and readable summary of the current state of knowledge with fresh insights drawn from extensive investigations of primary sources. Overall, it offers a guide to and re-evaluation of the history of late medieval Suffolk.
The Cromwellian Protectorate
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The neglected period of the Protectorate is reviewed and reassessed in this stimulating collection.
The Protectorate is arguably the Cinderella of Interregnum studies: it lacks the immediate drama of the Regicide, the Republic or the Restoration, and is often dismissed as a 'retreat from revolution', a short period of conservative rule before the inevitable return of the Stuarts. The essays in this volume present new research that challenges this view. They argue instead that the Protectorate was dynamic and progressive, even if the policies put forwardwere not always successful, and often created further tensions within the government and between Whitehall and the localities. Particular topics include studies of Oliver Cromwell and his relationship with Parliament, and the awkward position inherited by his son, Richard; the role of art and architecture in creating a splendid protectoral court; and the important part played by the council, as a law-making body, as a political cockpit, and as part of a hierarchy of government covering not just England but also Ireland and Scotland. There are also investigations of the reactions to Cromwellian rule in Wales, in the towns and cities of the Severn/Avon basin, and in the local communities of England faced with a far-reaching programme of religious reform. PATRICK LITTLE is Senior Research Fellow at the History of Parliament Trust. Contributors: BARRY COWARD, DAVID L. SMITH, JASON PEACEY, PAUL HUNNEYBALL, BLAIR WORDEN, PETER GAUNT, LLOYD BOWEN, STEPHEN K. ROBERTS, CHRISTOPHER DURSTON.
The Reign of Chivalry
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Richard Barber, author of Holy Grail: The History of a Legend and King Arthur: Hero and Legend, has written an engaging and intriguing book on one of the most original concepts of the medieval mind. Profusely illustrated and redesigned for a new generation of readers.
Profusely illustrated and redesigned for a new generation of readers, Richard Barber's classic The Reign of Chivalry presents a broad picture of the chivalric world, and shows how chivalry affected or was affected by greatsocial movements, great writers and great events, and analyses the legacy it passed down to later ages. The opening chapter looks at the central figure of the whole chivalric world, the knight, and asks why he is such a different figure from other fighting men. Following sections deal with chivalry in relation to the main themes of medieval literature, especially the vast cycle of Arthurian romances, and discuss the attitudes towards chivalry of writers such as Jean Froissart, whose pages cast a golden glow over the harsh realities of war. Later sections look at chivalry's influence on the Renaissance and later culture, beginning with the knight's transition to gentleman. The element by which chivalry is now most remembered, its respectful, even adoring, attitude towards women, is the subject of a wide-ranging discussion, covering both medieval reality and modern ideals.
Richard Barber, author of Holy Grail: History of a Legend, Myths and Legends of the British Isles and King Arthur: Hero and Legend, has written an engaging and intriguing book on one of the most original concepts of the medieval mind.
Thirteenth Century England XI
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[The series is] a necessary addition for any scholar working in this field. NOTTINGHAM MEDIEVAL STUDIES
Editors: Janet Burton, Björn Weiler, Philipp Schofield, Karen Stöber The thirteenth century brought the British Isles into ever closer contact with one another, and with medieval Europe as a whole. This international dimensionforms a dominant theme of this collection: it features essays on England's relations with the papal court; the adoption of European cultural norms in Scotland; Welsh society and crusading; English landholding in Ireland; and dealings between the kings of England and Navarre. Other papers, on ritual crucifixion, concepts of office and ethcis, and the English royal itinerary, show that the thirteenth century was also a period of profound political and cultural change, witnessing the transformation of legal and economic structures [represented here by case studies of noblewomen and their burial customs; and a prolonged inheritance dispute in Laxton]. This volume testifies to the continuing vitality and [with contributors from three continents and six countries] international nature of scholarship on medieval Britain; and moves beyond the Channel to make an important contribution to the history of medieval Europes.
Contributors: ROBERT STACEY, FRÉDÉRIQUE LACHAUD, STEPHEN CHURCH, CHRISTIAN HILLEN, JESSICA NELSON, MATTHEW HAMMOND, KATHRYN HURLOCK, NICHOLAS VINCENT, ADAM DAVIES, HUI LIU, EMMA CAVELL, DAVID CROOK, BETH HARTLAND
Robert `Curthose', Duke of Normandy [c.1050-1134]
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The acclaimed biography of the eldest son of William the Conqueror, whose failure to secure the kingdom of England has overshadowed his role in capturing Jerusalem during the First Crusade.
This detailed biography offers a reappraisal of the career of Robert Curthose, William the Conqueror's eldest son and duke of Normandy from 1087 to 1106, locating the duke's career in the social, cultural and political context ofthe period. Robert's relationship with members of his family shaped the political landscape of England and Normandy for much of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries: indeed, even after his incarceration, from 1106 to 1134, his son William Clito (d. 1128) continued the fight against Robert's brother, Henry I. Twice driven into exile, Robert defeated his father in battle and eventually succeeded to the duchy of Normandy, although the throne of England was seized by William Rufus and then Henry I. For twenty years Robert successfully defended Normandy, developing policies to counter the vastly superior English resources at the disposal of his brothers. Robert's leading role in the success of the First Crusade [1095-99] also made him one of the most famous warriors of his age. He returned to Western Europe in 1100, a chivalric hero with a reputation that stretched from Scotland to Palestine. This bookreturns Robert Curthose to centre stage in the bloody drama of this period, a drama so often dominated by accounts from a royal and English perspective.
Dr William M. Aird is Lecturer in History, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh.
Leprosy in Medieval England
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A major reassessment, based on hitherto unpublished manuscript material, of a disease whose history has attracted more myths and misunderstandings than any other.
One of the most important publications for many years in the fields of medical, religious and social history. Rawcliffe's book completely overhauls our understanding of leprosy and contributes immensely to our knowledge of theEnglish middle ages. This is a fascinating study that will be a seminal work in the history of leprosy for many years to come. EHR
Set firmly in the medical, religious and cultural milieu of the European MiddleAges, this book is the first serious, comprehensive study of a disease surrounded by misconceptions and prejudices. Even specialists will be surprised to learn that most of our stereotyped ideas about the segregation of medieval lepers originated in the nineteenth century; that leprosy excited a vast range of responses, from admiration to revulsion; that in the later Middle Ages it was diagnosed readily even by laity; that a wide range of treatment was available; that medieval leper hospitals were no more austere than the monasteries on which they were modelled; that the decline of leprosy was not monocausal but implied a complex web of factors - medical, environmental, social andlegal. Written with consummate skill, subtlety and rigour, this book will change forever the image of the medieval leper.
CAROLE RAWCLIFFE is Professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia.
Céli Dé in Ireland
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A detailed investigation into the mysterious group of monks, the Céli Dé, who flourished in early medieval Ireland.
The Céli Dé [`clients of God'], sometimes referred to as the Culdees, comprise the group of monks who first appeared in Ireland in the eighth century in association with St Máel Ruain of Tallaght. Although influential and important in the development of the monastic tradition in Ireland, they have been neglected in general histories. This book offers an investigation into the movement. Proceeding from an examination of ascetic practice and theory in earlymedieval Ireland, followed by a fresh look at the evidence most often cited in support of the prevailing theory of céli Dé identity, the author challenges the orthodox opinion that they were an order or movement intent uponmonastic reform at a time of declining religious discipline. At the heart of the book is a manuscript-centred critical evaluation of the large corpus of putative céli Dé texts, offered as a means for establishing a more comprehensive assessment of who and what céli Dé were. Dr Follett argues that they are properly understood as the self-identified members of the personal retinue of God, in whose service they distinguished themselves from other monks and monastic communities in their personal devotion, pastoral care, Sunday observance, and other matters. A catalogue of céli Dé texts with manuscript references is provided in an appendix.
WESTLEY FOLLETT is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Journal of Medieval Military History
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Latest volume in the leading forum for debate on aspects of medieval warfare.
The essays in this latest edition of the Journal, by leading experts in the field, are a witness to the flourishing state of the subject, and provide significant contributions to various important on-going debates and controversies. They include wide-ranging discussions of state formation and the role of women in medieval warfare, and an energetic argument against viewing medieval warfare as cavalry-dominated. A trio of articles dealing with issuesof bravery and cowardice, though based on Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman evidence, advance our knowledge of one of the all-pervasive aspects of the military history of the middle ages. Similarly, an experimentally-based study of theeffectiveness of arrows against mail armor reaches conclusions that will cast light on combat from Visigothic Spain to Crusader Outremer to fifteenth-century Bohemia. In addition, the Journal includes in-depth studies of Iberianwar-dogs, the naval battle of Zierikzee at the start of the fourteenth century, and [reflecting the editors' broad understanding of the scope of the field] the war-related activities of Dutch magistrates at the turn of the sixteenth century.
Contributors: STEPHEN MORILLO, BERNARD S. BACHRACH, RUSS MITCHELL, RICHARD ABELS, STEVEN ISAAC, WILLIAM SAYERS, JAMES P. WARD, J. F. VERBRUGGEN, ROBERT BURNS
The Richest East India Merchant
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Biography and business history of wealthy British merchant in India reveals much about the nineteenth-century Empire.
John Palmer was the most influential and wealthiest British merchant in British India for the first three decades of the nineteenth century. He ran an `agency house', a global commercial firm involved in banking, the opium trade,shipping, plantation agriculture and trade with Britain, Europe, China, south east Asia and the USA. When his firm went bankrupt in 1830, thousands of people, European and Indian, were ruined, triggering the worst commercial crisis in British India up to that time. This book, the first major study of a British agency house in India, presents an account of both of Palmer's business and personal life, showing how his personal relations and circumstances shaped his commercial strategies, with ultimately disastrous consequences for Anglo-Indian relations as well as his clients. ANTHONY WEBSTER is Head of Humanities at the University of Central Lancashire.
Thomas Becket and his Biographers
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Our major sources for the life and death of Thomas Becket are rigorously examined in this major new book.
In the wake of his murder in December 1170, an extraordinarily large number of Lives of Thomas Becket were produced.They provide an invaluable witness to the life and death of Thomas and the dramatic events in which he was involved, but they are also works of great literary value, more complex and sophisticated than has been recognised. This book, the first to be devoted to the biographers and their works, consists of an examination the individual Lives,followed by an analysis of the biographers' treatment of the major themes in Thomas's life - conversion, conflict, trial, exile and martyrdom - in the light of contemporary hagiographical, historical and theological writing and canon law. It raises points of major significance for the study of intellectual and literary life in the central middle ages and provides an important reassessment of the Becket conflict and Thomas Becket himself.
Dr MICHAEL STAUNTON is Lecturer in Medieval History, School of History and Archives, University College Dublin.
The Oldest Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Chronicle
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First modern text and translation of the prose Brut chronicle, the most popular secular vernacular work of the middle ages.
First composed in Anglo-Norman French around the end of the thirteenth century, the anonymous prose Brut chronicle became the most popular secular vernacular work, and the most widespread Arthurian work, of the later middle ages in England: repeatedly expanded, revised, and translated, it remained influential for centuries. Yet it has been little studied, in part because of the lack of any full modern edition. This edition of the Oldest Version of the prose Brut, running from the fall of Troy to the death of Henry III in 1272, provides the Anglo-Norman text with facing-page translation and textual apparatus, a comprehensive introduction, and extensive explanatory notes. It makes new contributions, on, for example, the identification and classification of the manuscripts, the identification and analysis of the sources [far more varied and numerous than had been previously recognised], and the probable circumstances of the chronicle's composition. It will enable scholars to make full use of this remarkable resource for the study of Arthurian tradition, contemporary visions of British history, popular thought about society and government in late-medieval England, and the history of reading itself.
Professor JULIA MARVIN teaches at the University of Notre Dame.
Gerald Finzi: His Life and Music
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Critically acclaimed biography of one of England's best loved composers, with a full discussion and evaluation of his works.
Gerald Finzi is one of the best-known modern English composers. While he is especially famous as a song-writer, for his sensitive settings of poets such as Hardy and Wordsworth, he also wrote in other genres; notable works includethe exquisite cantata Dies Natalis, and his cello concerto. He also exerted a major influence in the musical world as a whole, championing the neglected Ivor Gurney and reviving eighteenth-century composers with the amateur orchestra he founded.
In this lively and sensitive study of his life and works, Diana McVeagh, the renowned Elgar and Finzi scholar, has made use of interviews with the main figures in his life, correspondence with contemporaries such as Vaughan Williams, Edmund Blunden, Arthur Bliss, Edmund Rubbra, Howard Ferguson and Herbert Howells, and her access to previously unpublished material in the form of his widow, Joy's, unpublished journal. The Finzithat emerges is a multi-faceted and complex character. The author shows how he developed from a solitary, introverted youth into a man with strong views and a myriad of interests: everything from education, pacifism, vegetarianism, to the Arts and Crafts movement, the English pastoral tradition, English apple varieties, and the significance of ancestry, friendship and marriage in an artist's life. She also discusses every work within the narrative of Finzi's life, and shows what makes his output so outstanding.
Diana McVeagh is the author of the highly acclaimed Elgar the Music Maker [2007]; of the entries on Elgar and Finzi for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians [1980, 2001]; and of the Finzi entry in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [2004].
The Battle for Palestine 1917
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The story of Allied victory in the Holy Land, far from the carnage of the Western Front but a crucial, morale-boosting success under the aggressive and forward-thinking General Allenby.
Three battles for the control of the key fortress-city of Gaza took place in 1917 between the `British' force [with units from across the Empire, most notably the ANZACs] and the Turks. The Allies were repulsed twice but on theirthird attempt, under the newly-appointed General Allenby, a veteran of the Western Front where he was a vocal critic of Haig's command, finally penetrated Turkish lines, captured southern Palestine and, as instructed by Lloyd George, took Jerusalem in time for Christmas, ending 400 years of Ottoman occupation. This third battle, similar in many ways to the contemporaneous fighting in France, is at the heart of this account, with consideration of intelligence, espionage, air-warfare, and diplomatic and political elements, not to mention the logistical and medical aspects of the campaign, particularly water. The generally overlooked Turkish defence, in the face of vastly superior numbers, is also assessed. Far from laying out and executing a pre-ordained plan, Allenby, who is probably still best remembered as T. E. Lawrence's commanding officer in Arabia, was flexible and adaptable, responding to developmentsas they occurred.
JOHN D. GRAINGER is the author of numerous books on military history, ranging from the Roman period to the twentieth century.
Elgar the Music Maker
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An expert and informative appraisal of all of Elgar's works - from his juvenilia to the unfinished 3rd symphony - by the author of the acclaimed Gerald Finzi.
The new Diana McVeagh book on Elgar is first-rate, wrote Gerald Finzi of her earlier study of the composer, published in 1955. In the completely new Elgar the Music Maker she harvests five decades of thoughts about his music, scrutinizing the biographical details that have since been discovered and using them to assess the ways in which they affect the compositions. Diana McVeagh explores Elgar's complex personality and his compositional methods, his style and his relationship to his contemporaries, yet it is the music - still played, recorded, loved and discussed as much as ever- that remains her prime focus. Each of Elgar's works is discussed, balancing information and appraisal, from his juvenilia to his unfinished Third Symphony. Diana McVeagh provides a compelling and accessible companion to the music of one of England's greatest composers. Musicians, scholars and CD collectors alikewill find much to enjoy in Elgar the Music Maker. Diana McVeagh is the author of the highly acclaimed Gerald Finzi: His Life and Music [2005]; of the entries on Elgar and Finzi for The New Grove Dictionaryof Music and Musicians [1980, 2001]; and of the Finzi entry in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [2004].
Handel's Operas, 1726-1741
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Detailed overview of Handel's final 22 operas - including major masterpieces such as Orlando, Ariodante and Alcina and the brilliant lighter works Partenope, Serse and Imeneo - by the world's leading authority.
Handel ranks with Monteverdi, Mozart and Verdi among the supreme masters of opera, yet between 1754 (when Handel was still living) and 1920 not one of his operas was performed anywhere. Their revival in the modern theatre has beenamong the most remarkable phenomena in the history of the art. But they are still too little understood, or studied, and until recently no reliable modern editions existed. This long-awaited book is the sequel to Handel'sOperas 1704-1726, published in 1987. It is the first study in depth of Handel's last twenty-two operas, including major masterpieces such as Orlando, Ariodante and Alcina and the brilliant lighter works Partenope, Serse and Imeneo. Each chapter contains a full synopsis and study of the libretto, a detailed assessment of the opera's musical and (often misunderstood) dramatic qualities, a performance history, and comparison of the different versions. Much new material has been incorporated. In addition four general chapters throw a vivid light on the historical background. Two Epilogues touch on Handel's dramatic vision, the revival of his operas in the twentieth century, and their performance today. There are a number of valuable Appendices. Together with its predecessor, the book provides the first complete overview of these works. WINTON DEAN isthe most distinguished British authority on the life and work of Handel; he has also written extensively on opera in general.
The Church of England in the Twentieth Century
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Unique account of the affairs of the Church of England during a period of colossal change and controversy.
This is the first comprehensive historical picture to be published of the life and work of the Church of England in the second half of the twentieth century. It traces the evolution of the Church in a period of immense upheaval, giving not only a detailed portrait of the work of its archbishops and bishops, but also exploring the Church's relationship with the State, the changes within its central institutions, and the response of the wider community to those changes. Placing the Church of England in its social context, Andrew Chandler examines the parochial reforms which arose in response to the realities of domestic and international migration, multi-culturalism and secularization. Other themes explored are the administration of property (particularly bishops' houses and the work of the cathedrals), 'ethical investment', and the recent crises which are still the subject of argument. Included among theseare the financial speculations of the late 1980s and early 1990s, from which flowed controversies about the reform of the Church of England itself and the nature of its relationship with the state.
ANDREW CHANDLER is Director of the George Bell Institute, Birmingham, and Honorary Lecturer at the University of Birmingham.
John Goodwin and the Puritan Revolution
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`A major contribution to our understanding of the English Revolution.' Ann Hughes, Professor of Early Modern History, Keele University.
John Goodwin [1594-1665] was one of the most prolific and controversial writers of the English Revolution; his career illustrates some of the most important intellectual developments of the seventeenth century. Educated at Queens'College, Cambridge, he became vicar of a flagship Puritan parish in the City of London. During the 1640s, he wrote in defence of the civil war, the army revolt, Pride's Purge, and the regicide, only to turn against Cromwell in 1657. Finally, repudiating religious uniformity, he became one of England's leading tolerationists. This richly contextualised study, the first modern intellectual biography of Goodwin, explores the whole range of writings producedby him and his critics. Amongst much else, it shows that far from being a maverick individualist, Goodwin enjoyed a wide readership, pastored one of London's largest Independent congregations and was well connected to various networks. Hated and admired by Anglicans, Presbyterians and Levellers, he provides us with a new perspective on contemporaries like Richard Baxter and John Milton. It will be of special interest to students of Puritanism, the EnglishRevolution, and early modern intellectual history. JOHN COFFEY is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Leicester.
The Haskins Society Journal 16
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The latest volume of the Haskins Society Journal, presenting recent research on the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Viking and Angevin worlds of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, includes topics ranging from examinations of the cultures of power and peacemaking to analyses of patterns of religious patronage, ethnic stereotyping, law and theology, the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, and politics in the Ireland of Lionel of Antwerp.
Contributors: THOMAS N. BISSON, PAUL DALTON, BRIAN GOLDING, TRACEY-ANNE COOPER, FLORIN CURTA, JASON TALIADOROS, GILBERT STACK, ALEX NOVIKOFF, PETER CROOKS
Medieval Clothing and Textiles 3
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The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines and with a special focus on reconstruction.
The third volume of this pioneering series explores the manufacture and trade of textiles and their practical, fashionable, and symbolic uses. Papers include in-depth studies and cross-genre scholarship representing such fields associal history, economics, art history, archaeology and literature, as well as the reconstruction of textile-making techniques. They range over England, Flanders, France, Germany, and Spain from the seventh to the sixteenth centuries, and address such topics as soft furnishings, ecclesiastical vestments, the economics of the wool trade, the making and use of narrow wares, symbolic reference to courtly dress in a religious text, and aristocratic children'sclothing. Also included are reviews of recent books on dress and textile topics.
ROBIN NETHERTON is a professional editor and a researcher/lecturer on Western European dress, specializing in the depiction and interpretation of clothing by artists and historians.
GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER is Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture at The University of Manchester and author of Dress in Anglo-Saxon England; she is the Director of an ARHC-fundedproject on cloth and clothing terminology in medieval Britain.
CONTRIBUTORS: ELIZABETH COATSWORTH, SARAH LARRATT KEEFER, SUSAN LEIBACHER WARD, JOHN H. MUNRO, JOHN OLDLAN, LESLEY K. TWOMEY, ELIZABETH BENNS, LOIS SWALES, HEATHER BLATT, MELANIE SCHUESSLER
The English Countryside between the Wars
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A revisionist look at the true state of rural England between the two world wars.
England is the country, and the country is England, as Stanley Baldwin famously said in 1924, but what kind of country was it? There are persistent memories of depression and depopulation, of dilapidated villages and deserted country houses, in a period of bitter discontent and disturbance when the brief febrile excitements of the 1920s gave way to the thirties, Auden's "low dishonest decade". Recent work has radically modified the history of the interwar years, but largely from an urban and industrial viewpoint. Hitherto this revisionist perspective has left unquestioned one of the central components of the old orthodoxy: that this was a period of unremitting, unmitigated decline in the countryside. In The English Countryside Between the Wars an interdisciplinary group of scholars have come together to challenge this view. Organised into sections on society, culture, politics and the economy,and embracing subjects as diverse as women novelists and village crafts, the book argues that almost everywhere we look in the countryside between the wars there were signs of new growth and dynamic development. This will be required reading for everyone with an interest in British history between the wars and to lecturers, teachers and students studying social, cultural, political, economic and environmental history, historical and cultural geography, English literature, performance studies and art and design history.
Contributors: ALUN HOWKINS, CAITLIN ADAMS, MARION SHAW, MARK RAWLINSON, MICK WALLIS, DAVID JEREMIAH, CHRISTOPHER BAILEY, JOHN SHEAIL, CLARE GRIFFITHS, NICHOLAS MANSFIELD, ROY BRIGDEN
Acts of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, 1609-1642
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This volume completes the edition of the two earliest manuscript Chapter Act books of Westminster Abbey, which is now the first cathedral or collegiate church to have all its Chapter Acts fully in print from the Reformation to theCivil War. It records the formal decisions of the Abbey's governing authority, many involving grants of office and leases of the Abbey's large and widely-scattered estate, principally in the midlands and the south-east, and especially in Westminster itself. A full introduction brings out the value of the documents in placing the Abbey in the tumultuous history of the church under James I and Charles I.
The British and their Laws in the Eighteenth Century
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New analysis and interpretation of law and legal institutions in the "long eighteenth century".
Law and legal institutions were of huge importance in the governance of Georgian society: legislation expanded the province of administrative authority out of all proportion, while the reach of the common law and its communal traditions of governance diminished, at least outside British North America. But what did the rule of law mean to eighteenth-century people, and how did it connect with changing experiences of law in all their bewildering complexity?This question has received much recent critical attention, but despite widespread agreement about Law's significance as a key to unlock so much which was central to contemporary life, as a whole previous scholarship has only offered a fragmented picture of the Laws in their social meanings and actions. Through a broader-brush approach, The British and their Laws in the Eighteenth Century contributes fresh analyses of law in England andBritish settler colonies, c. 1680-1830; its expert contributors consider among other matters the issues of participation, central-local relations, and the maintenance of common law traditions in the context of increasing legislative interventions and grants of statutory administrative powers.
Contributors: SIMON DEVEREAUX, MICHAEL LOBBAN, DOUGLAS HAY, JOANNA INNES, WILFRED PREST, C.W. BROOKS, RANDALL MCGOWEN, DAVID THOMAS KONIG, BRUCE KERCHER
Episcopal Culture in Late Anglo-Saxon England
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A radical new interpretation of the Anglo-Saxon episcopate, bringing to light previously unused evidence.
This first full-length study of the Anglo-Saxon episcopate explores the activities of the bishops in a variety of arenas, from the pastoral and liturgical to the political, social, legal and economic, so tracing the development ofa particularly English episcopal identity over the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries. It makes detailed use of the contemporary evidence, previously unexploited as diffuse, difficult and largely non-narrative, rather than that from after the Norman Conquest; because this avoids the prevailing monastic bias, it shows instead that differences in order [between secular and monk-bishops] had almost no effect on their attitudes toward their episcopalroles. It therefore presents a much more nuanced portrait of the episcopal church on the eve of the Conquest, a church whose members constantly worked to create a well-ordered Christian polity through the stewardship of the English monarchy and the sacralization of political discourse: an episcopate deeply committed to pastoral care and in-step with current continental liturgical and theological developments, despite later ideologically-charged attempts tosuggest otherwise; and an institution intricately woven, because of its tremendous economic and political power, into the very fabric of English local and regional society. MARY FRANCIS GIANDREA teaches at George Mason University
The Brus Family in England and Scotland, 1100-1295
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Survey of the activities of one of the most important cross-Border families, the ancestors of Robert the Bruce.
Robert de Brus, the "conquisitor of Cleveland, Hartness and Annandale", who came into England among the followers of Henry I, was also a close companion and mentor of David I, king of Scots. The lands he acquired from bothkings were divided between his sons, from whom two lines descended: the lords of Skelton, influential Northerners who played an active part during the baronial troubles in the reigns of John and Henry III, and the prominent cross-Border lords of Annandale, co-heirs of the substantial Chester and Huntingdon estates and progenitors of King Robert Bruce. This study takes a fresh approach to the Brus family by assessing the achievements of the two lines in parallel while examining the extent of their power and the development of their lordships; it highlights the inter-relations between the barons of England and Scotland during two hundred years of comparative peace between the kingdoms. Of additional interest is the appendix of an extensive handlist of charters of the Brus family of both lines. It will be a welcome addition to the existing body of works on English baronial families and on Anglo-Scottish cross-Border lords of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
The Eucharist in Romanesque France
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An overview of the theologies of the eucharist leads on to a detailed exploration of the Berengarian debates of the eleventh century and the complex of eucharistic ideas subsequently developed.
During the Romanesque period in France, and accelerated by a growing introspection and consciousness of self-identity, a penitential focus was given to eucharistic piety. Population increase and prosperity brought greater tithe income to the Church, allowing new discipline and religious regulation in respect of the sacraments.
The aim of this book is to bring together aspects of the multi-faceted penitential-eucharistic devotion, as revealed in theological writings and Mass commentaries, in Gregorian reform, in heretical circles both clerical and popular and in works of art, so that the reader can contemplate, through a wider juxtaposition than that usually practicable in more detailed specialised scholarship, something of the mood of the period. Just as the new scholastic writings impressed by their innovative creativity, the best late eleventh- and twelfth-century art was astonishingly vital and the comparison of art and textual works is central to the volume.
Dr Elizabeth Saxon has recently retired from the staff of the Open University.
Shoes and Pattens
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The best scholarship focused on shoes and everyday dress accessories from the Middle Ages. Indispensable. SPECULUM
Until recently, very little was known about medieval shoes. Glimpses in manuscript illustrations and on funerary monuments, with the occasional reference by a contemporary writer, was all that the costume historian had as evidence, not least because leather tends to perish after prolonged contact with air, and very few actual examples survived. In recent years, however, nearly 2,000 shoes, many complete and in near-perfect condition, have been discovered preserved on the north bank of the Thames, and are now housed in the Museum of London. This collection, all from well-dated archaeological contexts, fills this vast gap in knowledge, making it possible to chart precisely the progress of shoe fashion between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries.
Religious Politics in Post-Reformation England
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New scrutinies of the most important political and religious debates of the post-Reformation period.
The consequences of the Reformation and the church/state polity it created have always been an area of important scholarly debate. The essays in this volume, by many of the leading scholars of the period, revisit many of the important issues during the period from the Henrician Reformation to the Glorious Revolution: theology, political structures, the relationship of theology and secular ideologies, and the Civil War. Topics include Puritan networks and nomenclature in England and in the New World; examinations of the changing theology of the Church in the century after the Reformation; the evolving relationship of art and protestantism; the providentialist thinking of Charles I;the operation of the penal laws against Catholics; and protestantism in the localities of Yorkshire and Norwich.
KENNETH FINCHAM is Reader in History at the University of Kent; Professor PETER LAKE teaches in the Department of History at Princeton University.
Contributors: THOMAS COGSWELL, RICHARD CUST, PATRICK COLLINSON, THOMAS FREEMAN, PETER LAKE, SUSAN HARDMAN MOORE, DIARMAID MACCULLOCH, ANTHONY MILTON, PAUL SEAVER, WILLIAM SHEILS
Lay Religious Life in Late Medieval Durham
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Relations between the laity and the religious in medieval Durham reveal much about lay religion of the time.
Although religious life in medieval Durham was ruled by its prince bishop and priory, the laity flourished and played a major role in the affairs of the parish, as Margaret Harvey demonstrates. Using a variety of sources, she provides a complete account of its history from the Conquest to the Dissolution of the priory, with a particular emphasis on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. She shows how the laity interacted vigorously with both bishop and priory, and the relations between them, with the priory providing schools, hospitals, chantries and regular sermons, but also acting as a disciplinary force. On a wider level, she also looks at the whole question of lay religion andwhat can be discovered about it. She finishes by an examination of local reactions to the Reformation.
Britain, Hanover and the Protestant Interest, 1688-1756
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A new examination of the links between religion and politics in the early eighteenth century, showing how the defence of protestantism became a major plank in foreign policy.
Religious ideas and power-politics were strongly connected in the early eighteenth century: William III, George I and George II all took their role as defenders of the protestant faith extremely seriously, and confessional thinking was of major significance to court whiggery. This book considers the importance of this connection. It traces the development of ideas of the protestant interest, explaining how such ideas were used to combat the perceived threats to the European states system posed by universal monarchy, and showing how the necessity of defending protestantism within Europe became a theme in British and Hanoverian foreign policy. Drawing on a wide range of printed and manuscript material in both Britain and Germany, the book emphasises the importance of a European context for eighteenth-century British history, and contributes to debates about the justification of monarchy and the nature of identity in Britain. Dr ANDREW C. THOMPSON is Lecturer in History, Queens' College, Cambridge.
Curia Regis Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office XX [34-35 Henry III] [1250]
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Transcripts of 13c plea rolls, vital legal, social and economic detail of the time, presented with full index for ease of reference.
This volume completes the series initiated in 1922 to publish full texts of the plea rolls of the central courts of the English common law, the Bench and the Court Coram Rege. It contains the rolls of both courts for the second half of the year 1250, illustrating the development of the common law and providing information about a variety of people, places and subjects, from a hunting dispute between St Albans abbey and one of its knights to the activitiesof a criminal gang in Staffordshire and a settlement between neighbouring lords about the return of stray hunting dogs. A comprehensive index of persons and places is also included.
Lectures on Musical Life
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Lectures by leading Victorian conductor and composer reveal much about musical life at the time.
An annotated critical edition of twelve lectures by William Sterndale Bennett [1816-75], the foremost English musician of the mid-Victorian period, principal of the Royal Academy, and conductor of the Philharmonic Society. Delivered at the London Institution and Cambridge University between 1858 and 1871, they are valuable both as representative of the Victorian understanding of musical history, and for Bennett's astute comments on the state of music andmusical life at the time. They include admonishments to the British government for failing to offer adequate financial support to the art; interesting and often surprising views on many contemporary composers; and discourses on his own experiences as a professional musician. The lectures are presented with annotations which identify the persons, institutions and compositions referred to in the text. An extensive introduction sets the lectures in context and reflects on their significance to English musical history and to Bennett's personal career. NICHOLAS TEMPERLEY is Professor of Music Emeritus at the University of Illinois.
The Siege of Malta, 1565
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An eyewitness account of one of the greatest-ever battles as a few men under the Knights of St John took on a huge Turkish armada.
This is the history of one of the great battles of the world, written by a private soldier who was an eye-witness. The siege of Malta was a crucial moment in the long struggle between Islam and Christendom for domination of the Mediterranean, fought out by unequal forces on the small island which commands the sea-routes at the centre of that sea. The Knights of St John were a survival from the medieval world, the largest of the surviving crusading orders,and they had been driven out of their base on Rhodes in the eastern Mediterranean after a great onslaught by the Turks in 1522. Now, forty-three years later, the Turkish ruler, Suleyman the Magnificent, who had been the victor atRhodes, was determined to finish them off. He sent out a huge armada, carrying the pick of his army, under two commanders. Against this powerful force, the Knights could only raise a handful of men and mercenaries, and had to depend on the fortifications they had raised in the thirty-five years since they first came to Malta, which bore no comparison to the massive walls and ditches on Rhodes. Francisco Balbi di Correggio was a humble soldier of fortune who enlisted under the charismatic command of the Grand Master of the Order, Jean de la Valette. The extraordinary drama that unfolded after the first appearance of the Turkish fleet in the summer of 1565 is told in his own words, giving equal credit to the courage and leadership of the Knights and the grim determination of the ordinary people of Malta.
Wolves and the Wilderness in the Middle Ages
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The complex attitude to the wolf in the Middle Ages re-evaluated, bringing together historical and other evidence.
The wolf, a common metaphor for vice in medieval Christian literature, is today an iconic symbol of the intense fear and insecurity that some associate with the middle ages. In reality, responses to wolves varied across medieval Europe. Although not dependent on the wilderness, wolves were conceptually linked to this environment - which although on the fringes of medieval society, became increasingly exploited from the eighth to fourteenth centuries, so bringing people and livestock closer to the wolf. This book compares responses to wolves, focusing on two regions, Britain and southern Scandinavia. It looks at the distribution of wolves in the landscape, their potential impact as predators on both animals and people, and their use as commodities, in literature, art, cosmology and identity. It also investigates the reasons (both practical and cultural) for the eradication of wolves in England, but their survival on the Scandinavian peninsula.
ALEKSANDER PLUSKOWSKI is Associate Professor, Department of Archaeology, University of Reading,
Textiles and Clothing, c.1150-1450
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A model of clarity... It provides absolutely essential reference material for the dress historian and archaeologist, for the early textile specialist, and those interested in the tools and equipment used. TOOL AND TRADES HISTORY SOCIETY NEWSLETTER [Linda Woolley, curator of early and medieval textiles and dress, V&A Museum]
Among the most evocative items to be discovered by archaeologists are the scraps of silk and wool and other fabrics that signal so eloquently their owner's status and concerns. Such clothing and textile finds have figured prominently in excavations of medieval sites in London in the past two decades; they have included knitting, tapestries, silk hair-nets and elaborately patterned oriental, Islamic and Italian fabrics, which reveal for the first time the wide range of cloths available to medieval Londoners; there are beautifully made buttons, and buttonholes and edgings which display superb craftsmanship and a high level of needlework skills; the way that clothes were cut and sewncan be studied in detail. This highly readable account will be of wide general interest; dress historians and archaeologists will also find a wealth of new insights into the fashions, clothing and textile industries of medieval England and Europe. Contents include: The Excavations, Techniques used in Textile Production, Wool Textiles, Goathair Textiles, Linen Textiles, Silk Textiles, Mixed Cloths, Narrow Wares, Sewing Techniques and Tailoring, Dyes. THE AUTHORS Past and present staff of the Museum of London.
Unrepentant Tory
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Nineteenth-century diaries cast new light on politics of the time.
The diaries of the fourth duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne [1785-1851] provide an unrivalled insight into the politics of the 'age of reform', during the late-1820s and 1830s, from the perspective of a prominent political critic. Newcastle was a well known defender of the constitutional status quo and used his position in the house of lords, his family's historic electoral influence and personal contacts with the leading royal and political figures of the dayto argue the case against change. He was also a leading participant in ultra-tory parliamentary groups such as the 'king's friends' and the 'country party'. His diaries offer not just invaluable detail on these activities, but also a vivid personal testimony of Newcastle's political creed, and cast important light on the hopes, fears and strategies of those who resisted 'the triumph of reform' during these years. This edition reproduces the politicalcontent of the diaries and Newcastle's published letters to the press for the period 1827-38; it is accompanied with an extensive introduction placing the diaries in their historical context, and other apparatus.
The Iconography of Sir Isaac Newton to 1800
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Catalogue and iconography of the extraordinary wealth of images of Sir Isaac Newton, both before and after his death.
Sir Isaac Newton [1642-1727] is rare among figures of the past for the number of authentic paintings, engravings and images of him which survive. He was painted by some nine different artists in the latter part of his life, and after his death both portraits and sculptures continued to proliferate, the amazing demand for representations of his image demonstrating his immense fame. This iconography, lavishly illustrated in both colour and black and white, and involving the disciplines of History of Art and History of Science, catalogues 231 icons in two sections, and is thus an invaluable guide to the images. Part I contains 122 portraits and Part II 109 sculptures, about fifty of which were produced before his death, the rest from then until 1800.
The Goodman of Paris (Le Ménagier de Paris)
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A first-hand view of life in medieval France, as seen through the eyes of an elderly man instructing his young wife.
The Goodman of Paris (Le Ménagier de Paris) wrote this book for the instruction of his young wife around 1393. He was a wealthy and learned man, a member of that enlightened haute bourgeoisie upon which the French monarchy was coming to lean with increasing confidence. When he wrote his Treatise he was at least sixty but had recently married a young wife some forty years his junior. It fell to her to make his declining years comfortable,but it was his task to make it easy for her to do so. The first part deals with her religious and moral duties: as well as giving a unique picture of the medieval view of wifely behaviour it is illustrated by a series of storiesdrawn from the Goodman's extensive reading and personal experience. In the second part he turns from theory to practice and from soul to body, compiling the most exhaustive treatise on household management which has come downto us from the middle ages. Gardening, hiring of servants, the purchase and preparation of food are all covered, culminating in a detailed and elaborate cookery book. Sadly the author died before he could complete the third section on hawking, games and riddles. This unique glimpse of medieval domestic life presents a worldly, dignified and compelling picture in the words of a man of sensibility and substance.
The distinguished historian EILEEN POWER was Professor of Economic History at the University of Cambridge.
Writing Medieval Biography, 750-1250
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A survey both of medieval biographical writings, and the problems of recovering medieval lives.
Biography is one of the oldest, most popular and most tenacious of literary forms. Perhaps the best attested narrative form of the Middle Ages, it continues to draw modern historians of the medieval period to its peculiar challenge to explicate the general through the particular: the biographer's decisions to impose or to resist the imposition of order on biographical remnants raise issues which go to the heart of historical method. This collection, compiled in honour of a distinguished modern exponent of the art of biography, contains sixteen essays by leading scholars which examine the limits and possibilities of the genre for the period between 750AD and 1250AD. Ranging from pivotal figures such as Charlemagne, William the Conqueror and St Bernard, to the anonymous female skeleton in an Anglo-Saxon grave, from kings and queens to clerks and saints, and from individual to the collective biographies,this collection investigates both medieval biographical writings, and the issues surrounding the writing of medieval lives.
Professor DAVID BATES is Director of the Institute of Historical Research; Dr JULIA CRICK and DrSARAH HAMILTON teach in the Department of History at the University of Exeter.
Contributors: JANET L. NELSON, ROBIN FLEMING, BARBARA YORKE, RICHARD ABELS, SIMON KEYNES, PAULINE STAFFORD, ELISABETH VAN HOUTS, DAVID BATES,JANE MARTINDALE, CHRISTOPHER HOLDSWORTH, LINDY GRANT, MARJORIE CHIBNALL, EDMUND KING, JOHN GILLINGHAM, DAVID CROUCH, NICHOLAS VINCENT
Saint Michael the Archangel in Medieval English Legend
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First comprehensive study of the representations of St Michael in the liturgy, literature, and iconography of the period.
The cult and legends of St Michael the archangel were widespread in medieval England, and this book - the first full-length study of the subject - offers a comprehensive examination of their genesis and diffusion. Part I identifies and analyses the concerns, conflicts, and roles with which St Michael is associated, from scriptural and apocryphal literature through to the homiletic literature of the medieval period. Part II begins with a discussion of thevernacular recensions of the popular account of the archangel's earthly interventions, and goes on to survey the legendary accounts in Old English, Anglo-Norman, and Middle English of the archangel and his roles as guardian, intercessor, psychopomp, and warrior-angel follows. The Appendices contain the first English translation of the archangel's hagiographic foundation-myth; an annotated bibliographical list and motif index of textual materials relating to the archangel; and an essay on the iconographic representations of the archangel in medieval England.
RICHARD F. JOHNSON is Assistant Professor of English at William Rainey Harper College.
North-East England, 1569-1625
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This study of England's north-eastern parts examines counties Durham and Northumberland as well as Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with its central theme the extent to which the county gentry and urban elites possessed a sense of regional identity. It concentrates on these elites' social, political, religious and cultural connections which extended beyond the purely administrative jurisdictions of the county or town. By concentrating on a series of seismic changes inthe area - the demise of its great regional magnates, the rapid upsurge of the coal industry and the union of the crowns - it offers a distinctive chronological coverage, from the latter half of the sixteenth century through to the early seventeenth century. Old stereotypes of the north-eastern landed elites as isolated and backward are overturned while their response to state formation reveals their political sophistication. Traditional views of the religious conservatism of the north-eastern parts are reassessed to demonstrate its multi-faceted complexion. And contrasting cultural patterns are analysed, through ballad literature, the cult of St Cuthbert and increasing exposure to metropolitan "civility", to reveal a series of sub-regions within the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom.
Dr DIANA NEWTON is Lecturer in History at the University of Teesside.
The History of the Kings of Britain
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New translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin history - the first work to recount the woes of Lear and the glittering career of Arthur.
This imaginative history of the Britons, written in the twelfth century, is the first work to recount the woes of Lear and the glittering career of Arthur. It rapidly became a bestseller in the British Isles and Francophone Europe, with over 200 manuscripts surviving. Here, an authoritative version of the text is presented with a facing translation, prepared especially for the volume. It also contains a full introduction and notes.
MICHAEL D. REEVE is Kennedy Professor of Latin Emeritus at the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge; Dr NEIL WRIGHT is a Senior Language Teaching Officer at the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.
Seafarers, Merchants and Pirates in the Middle Ages
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A vivid and highly-illustrated history of seafaring in the Middle Ages based on archaeological evidence and contemporary accounts.
The first sailors braved the North Sea and the Baltic in open wooden boats: their aims were varied - to fish, to trade, to conquer and plunder. Without maps or compasses, they steered by the sun or by landmarks on the coast. Nevertheless they discovered Iceland and North America and explored the rivers that flowed through Europe and Russia into the Black Sea.
With the Frisians and the Vikings, extensive trade routes, better ships, larger harboursand wealthy coastal towns developed. The pinnacle of these advances was the Hansa, an association of port cities running from Bruges to Riga.
In recent years archaeologists have discovered much about the development of their ships: the elegant Viking longboat, the ubiquitous cog, the carrack and the caravel. Much, too, has been revealed about life in Viking settlements and the bustling Hanseatic cities. In the first paperback edition of this engaging and highly-illustrated study, Dirk Meier brings to life the world of the medieval seaman, based on evidence from ship excavations and contemporary accounts of voyages.
Dr Dirk Meier teaches ancient and medieval history and is Head of Coastal Archaeology at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany.
The Evolution of Norman Identity, 911-1154
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A close examination, through original sources, of the Norman self-image.
During the period 911-1154, a newly-constituted people came to control not only a Frankish duchy, but also the kingdoms of England and Sicily. This people, composed of Scandinavian settlers and Frankish natives, came to be known as the Normans. This book examines the growth of the concept of the Norman people (gens Normannorum), through the self-perception of group members (Normanitas or "Norman-ness") and the perceptions of "others". Using identity models which deal with the interaction of various types of communities, it examines narrative sources (both internally and externally produced) in order to establish what it meant to be a Norman, both to the Normans themselves, and to those with whom they had contact. Beyond these perceptions of self and otherness, examination focuses in particular on the role of the Norman leaders (as the embodiment of Norman identity), the effects of language, the importance of conquest and the sense of homeland, up until the significant change in rulership in both England and Sicily in 1154.
Medieval Clothing and Textiles 2
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The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines and with a special focus on reconstruction and re-enactment.
Historical dress and textiles, always a topic of popular interest, has in recent years become an academic subject in its own right, transcending traditional genre boundaries. This annual journal includes in-depth studies from a variety of disciplines as well as cross-genre scholarship, representing such fields as social history, economics, history of techniques and technology, art history, archaeology, literature, and language. The contents cover a broad geographical scope and a range of periods from the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Papers in this latest volume discuss clothing descriptions in an early Irish poem in relation to archaeological finds; the Latin inscription embroidered on the Bayeux Tapestry; clothmaking in twelfth-century French romances; medieval Paris as an international textile market; the cost of sartorial excess in England as attested by sumptuary laws and satire; textile cleaning techniques at a German convent in the fifteenth century; the use of jewelled animal pelts as fashion accessories in the Renaissance; and the social significance of the embroidered jacket in early modern England. Also included are reviews of recent books on dress and textile topics.
ROBIN NETHERTON's research focuses on medieval Western European clothing and its interpretation by artists and historians; GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER is Professor ofAnglo-Saxon Culture, The University of Manchester. Her most recent books are Dress in Anglo-Saxon England (2004), and King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry (2005).
Contributors: Niamh Whitfield, Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Monica L. Wright, Sharon Farmer, Margaret Rose Jaster, Drea Leed, Tawny Sherrill, Danielle Nunn-Weinberg
Grieg
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An examination of the role of landscape and cultural identity in the music of Edvard Grieg.
While Grieg's music continues to enjoy a prominent place in the concert hall and recording catalogues, it has yet to attract sustained analytical attention in Anglo-American scholarship. Daniel Grimley examines the role which music and landscape played in the formation of Norwegian cultural identity in the nineteenth century, and the function that landscape has performed in Grieg's work. It presents new perspectives on the relationships between music, landscape and identity. This tension between competing musical discourses - the folklorist, the nationalist and the modernist - offers one of the most vivid narratives in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century music, and suggests that Grieg is a more complex and challenging historical figure than his critical reception has often appeared to suggest. It is through the contested category of landscape, this book argues, that these tensions can be contextualised and ultimately resolved.
Anglo-Norman Studies XXVIII
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`A series which is a model of its kind.' EDMUND KING, HISTORY
The latest volume in the series concentrates, as always, on the half century before and the century after 1066, with papers which have many interconnections and range across different kinds of history. There is a particular focuson church history, with contributions on an Anglo-Saxon archiepiscopal manual, architecture and liturgy in post-Conquest Lincolnshire, Anglo-Norman cathedral chapters, and twelfth-century views of the tenth-century monastic reform. Other topics considered include social history (the Anglo-Norman family), gender (William of Malmesbury's representation of Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester), and politics (the sheriffs of Northumberland and Cumberland 1170-1185). The volume is completed with articles on Domesday Book and the post-Domesday Evesham Abbey surveys, and a double paper on land tenure and royal patronage. Contributors: STEPHEN BAXTER, JOHN BLAIR, HOWARD CLARKE, TRACEY-ANN COOPER,HUGH DOHERTY, PAUL EVERSON, DAVID STOCKER, KIRSTEN FENTON, VANESSA KING, JOHN MOORE, NICOLA ROBERTSON, DAVID ROFFE
The Letters of Samuel Pepys
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New selection of Pepys' letters throws light on his life and early career, and includes 30 never previously published.
The correspondence included here represents the first selection of Pepys's letters drawn from all possible sources to be published since 1933. Since the Diary does not cover this period, the letters enable the reader to follow Pepys' early career on the staff of the Earl of Sandwich, his rise to greatness as Secretary of the Admiralty, and his retirement after the Glorious Revolution. Along the way Pepys fought battles with opponents of his naval reforms and enemies who tried to implicate him in the Popish Plot, while taking care of his various relatives and keeping up with an array of friends and acquaintances who included many of the great and famous of late-seventeenth-century England. The letters have been chosen to reflect all these aspects of Pepys's varied and fascinating life, and include 30 never before published. They are accompanied by a running commentary, biographies of persons mentioned, aglossary, a chronology, and an introduction that explains how the letters have survived and analyses how they were written.
GUY DE LA BÉDOYERE is an historian and archaeologist with numerous books to his credit. His specialist field is Roman Britain but he has published three books for Boydell on the 'other' seventeenth-century diarist, John Evelyn [1620-1706], including the widely-acclaimed Particular Friends: The Correspondence of SamuelPepys and John Evelyn which features all the letters exchanged by the two men over a period of 38 years.
Runic Amulets and Magic Objects
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A fresh examination of one of the most contentious issues in runic scholarship - magical or not?
The runic alphabet, in use for well over a thousand years, was employed by various Germanic groups in a variety of ways, including, inevitably, for superstitious and magical rites. Formulaic runic words were inscribed onto small items that could be carried for good luck; runic charms were carved on metal or wooden amulets to ensure peace or prosperity. There are invocations and allusions to pagan and Christian gods and heroes, to spirits of disease, and even to potential lovers. Few such texts are completely unique to Germanic society, and in fact, most of the runic amulets considered in this book show wide-ranging parallels from a variety of European cultures. The question ofwhether runes were magical or not has divided scholarship in the area. Early criticism embraced fantastic notions of runic magic - leading not just to a healthy scepticism, but in some cases to a complete denial of any magical element whatsoever in the runic inscriptions. This book seeks to re-evaulate the whole question of runic sorcery, attested to not only in the medieval Norse literature dealing with runes but primarily in the fascinating magical texts of the runic inscriptions themselves.
Dr MINDY MCLEOD teaches in the Department of Linguistics, Deakin University, Melbourne; Dr BERNARD MEES teaches in the Department of History at the University of Melbourne.
The Court as a Stage: England and the Low Countries in the Later Middle Ages
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European and English courtly culture and history reappraised through the prism of the court as theatre.
In the past half-century, court history has lost the air of frivolity that once relegated it to the margins of serious historical study and has rightfully taken a central part in the study of European states and societies in the age of personal monarchy. Yet it has been approached from so many different angles and appropriated to so many different models that it can be hard to put all our new understandings together to achieve a proper perspective on the functions of the court as a whole. This collection of essays uses the idea of the court as a stage for social and political interaction to re-integrate different styles of court history, focusing on courts in England and the Low Countries from the age of Richard II and Albert of Bavaria to that of Elizabeth I and Philip II. Themes studied include the relationship between court politics and cultural change, the social and political functions of court office-holding, the military, judicial and propagandist roles of the court, the economic relationships between courts and cities and the wider social and political significance of court rituals and traditions.
The Chamber Cantatas of Antonio Vivaldi
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Detailed survey of Vivaldi's unjustly neglected chamber cantatas, showing them to stand comparison with his more famous works.
Vivaldi's chamber cantatas for solo voice, some forty in total, are steadily gaining in popularity: but because of their relatively small place in the oeuvre of a composer famed for his productivity, and also on account of the general scholarly neglect of their genre, they are little discussed in the literature. This book comprehensively explores their literary and musical background, their relation to the composer's biography, the chronology of their composition, and their musical qualities. Each cantata is discussed individually, but there is also a broader consideration of aspects concerning them collectively, such as performance practice, topical allusion, and the conventions of Italian verse. The author argues that while Vivalid's cantatas are not as innovative as his concertos and operas, he produced several masterpieces in the genre that rank with his best music.
MICHAEL TALBOT is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Liverpool.
The Fenian Ideal and Irish Nationalism, 1882-1916
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Demonstrates that separatist thinking in Ireland was crucial even when the political focus was on home rule.
This book analyses Fenian influences on Irish nationalism between the Phoenix Park murders of 1882 and the Easter Rising of 1916. It challenges the convention that Irish separatist politics before the First World War were marginaland irrelevant, showing instead that clear boundaries between home rule and separatist nationalism did not exist. Kelly examines how leading home rule MPs argued that Parnellism was Fenianism by other means, and how Fenian politics were influenced by Irish cultural nationalism, which reinforced separatist orthodoxies, serving to clarify the ideological distance between Fenians and home rulers. It discusses how early Sinn Fein gave voice to these new orthodoxies, and concludes by examining the ideological complexities of the Irish Volunteers, and exploring Irish politics between 1914 and 1916.
The Franciscans in the Middle Ages
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This is the most useful survey of medieval Franciscan history available. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW
St Francis of Assisi is one of the most admired figures of the Middle Ages - and one of the most important in the Christian church, modelling his life on the literal observance of the Gospel and recovering an emphasis on the poverty experienced by Jesus Christ. From 1217 Francis sent communities of friars throughout Christendom and launched missions to several countries, including India and China. The movement soon became established in most cities and several large towns, and, enjoying close relations with the popes, its followers were ideal instruments for the propagation of the reforms of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. They quickly became part of the landscape of medieval life and made their influence felt throughout society.
This book explores the first 250 years of the order's history and charts its rapid growth, development, pastoral ministry, educational organisation, missionary endeavour, internal tensions and divisions. Intended for both the general and more specialist reader, it offers a complete survey of the Franciscan Order. Dr MICHAEL ROBSON is a Fellow and Director of Studies in Theology at St Edmund's College, Cambridge.
The Early English Baptists, 1603-49
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A fresh examination of the Baptist movement, showing its growth and development to be more complex than hitherto assumed.
This book challenges the orthodoxy that seventeenth-century Baptists were divided from the first into two separate denominations, 'Particular' and 'General', defined by their differing attitudes to predestination and the atonement, showing how the position was in fact much more complicated. It describes how from the foundation of the 'Generals' in 1609 there were always two tendencies, one clericalist and pacifist, influenced by the Dutch Mennonites, and one reflecting the English traditions of erastianism and local lay predominance in religion. It re-analyses the confessional struggle during and after the civil war, showing how Independent and erastian sentiment in Parliament increasingly combined to baulk Presbyterian ambition; during and partly because of this process (which they also influenced), the Baptists evolved into three recognisable tendencies. Amongst General Baptists there was a politically radical current, but also a more passive tendency which was starting to gain ground. In 1647-9 most but by no means all Particular Baptist leaders were hostile to the Levellers. The book looks at the nature of religious convictionin the New Model Army, reassessing the role and influence of Baptists in it. In the late 40s, many Baptists, soldiers and civilians, rejected formal ordinances altogether. STEPHEN WRIGHT received his Ph.D. from the Universityof London. He has been visiting lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire and the University of North London.
Chivalry and Knighthood in Scotland, 1424-1513
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Studies the manifestation of the chivalric ideal in medieval Scotland, casting much light on a hitherto unexplored area.
For decades, the study of Scotland in the fifteenth century has focused on the complex relationships between crown and magnates. However, the importance of the chivalric ideal to the Scottish knightly class, and the use of chivalry as a political tool by the Stewart kings, has been overlooked by scholars. This book aims to fill this gap. It considers how chivalry was interpreted in fifteenth-century Scotland and how it compared with European ideas of chivalry; the responsibilities of knighthood in this period and the impact that this had on Scottish political life; the chivalric literature of the fifteenth century; the relevance of the Christian components of chivalric culture; and the use of chivalry by the increasingly powerful Scottish crown. It also brings to light, and investigates further, a variety of tournaments held in Scotland by the Stewart kings. It will be of considerable significance to all those interested in the manifestations of chivalric culture at the close of the Middle Ages, in a kingdom beginning to make its mark amongst the prominent and fashionable European courts.
KATIE STEVENSON is a teaching fellow in the Department of Scottish History, University of St Andrews
Catch and Glee Culture in Eighteenth-Century England
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A ground-breaking study of the rise of the catch and glee in Georgian England.
The rise of the catch and glee in Georgian England represents a rare example of indigenous forms establishing themselves within a wide musical and social context. This study examines a phenomenon that has to date been largely overlooked by historians. Taking the 17th-century background as a starting point, it moves on to a detailed account of the clubs formed to propagate the two genres, placing them within the ambiance of the thriving club life of Londonand the provinces. The success of the London Catch Club and its emulators in encouraging the creation of a large and popular repertoire that would come to assume nationalistic significance is reflected by the incursion of the catch and glee into mainstream concert life and the theatre. The volume concludes with a discussion of the glee in relation to the aesthetics of the period and a brief survey of its subsequent reputation among musicians and historians.
The Medieval Horse and its Equipment, c.1150-1450
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Over 400 recent finds associated with horses and excavated in London, from the utilitarian to the highly decorated, illustrated and discussed.
Whether knight's charger or beast of burden, horses played a vital role in medieval life. The wealth of medieval finds excavated in London in recent years has, not surprisingly, included many objects associated with horses. This catalogue illustrates and discusses over four hundred such objects, among them harness, horseshoes, spurs and curry combs, from the utilitarian to highly decorative pieces. London served by horse traffic comes vividly in view. The introductory chapter draws on historical as well as archaeological sources to consider the role of the horse in medieval London. It looks at the price of horses and the costs of maintaining them, the hiring of 'hackneys' forriding, the use of carts in and around London, and the work of the 'marshal' or farrier. It discusses the evidence for the size of medieval horses and includes a survey of finds of medieval horse skeletons from London. It answersthe key questions, how large a 'Great Horse' was, and why it took three horses to pull a cart. This is a basic work of reference for archaeologists and those studying medieval artefacts, and absorbing reading for everyone interested in the history of the horse and its use by humankind.
JOHN CLARK is Curator (Medieval) at the Museum of London.
Norwegian Runes and Runic Inscriptions
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Readable, enjoyable and provides a clear overview of runes and their importance to reading the past. EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE
Runes, a unique functional writing system, exclusive to northern and eastern Europe, were used for some 1300 years in Scandinavia, from about AD 200 till around the end of the fourteenth century, when the runic alphabet finally gave way to the modern writing system. They were not written, but carved - in stone, and on jewellery, weapons, utensils and wood. The content of the inscriptions is very varied, from owner and carpenter attributions on artefacts to memorials to the deceased on erected stones; contrary to popular belief, they are not necessarily magical or mystical, and the post-it notes of today have their forerunners in such runic reminders as: "Buy salt, and don't forgetgloves for Sigrid." The typical medieval runic inscription varies from the deeply religious to the highly trivial [or perhaps crucial], such as "I slept with Vigdis when I was in Stavanger." This book presents an accessibleaccount of the Norwegian examples throughout the period of their use. The runic inscriptions are discussed not only from a linguistic point of view but also as sources of information on Norwegian history and culture.
TERJE SPURKLAND is Associate Professor of Nordic Medieval Studies at the University of Oslo.
The History of the Kings of Britain
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Text and translation of key Arthurian text - a major source for scholars.
Written in the 1130s, Geoffrey's imaginative history of the Britons from Brutus to Cadwallader, the first work to recount the woes of Lear and the glittering career of Arthur, rapidly became a bestseller in the British Isles and Francophone Europe, with over 200 manuscripts surviving. Yet no critical edition of the main version has appeared since 1929.
This new text, for which 14 manuscripts have been collated in full, rests on a survey of the entire tradition; it is accompanied by a facing English translation, prepared especially for this volume. A comprehensive introduction discusses the status of variant versions, the shape of the main tradition, and many questions of editorial principle; critical notes analyse some problems raised by the transmitted text; and there is a full index of names.
MICHAEL REEVE is Kennedy Professor of Latin Emeritus at the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge; Dr NEIL WRIGHT is a Senior Language Teaching Officer at the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.
Royal Inauguration in Gaelic Ireland c.1100-1600: A Cultural Landscape Study
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An investigation of the places in the Irish landscape where open-air Gaelic royal inauguration assemblies were held from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.
This investigation considers the places on the Irish landscape where open-air Gaelic royal inauguration assemblies were held in the period c. 1100-1600. Specially designated inauguration sites played an important role in the political life of Gaelic lordships in later medieval Ireland. Gaelic ruling families often appropriated prehistoric ritual landscapes for their royal assemblies in order to attach the pedigree of a royal candidate to an illustrious past; such sites might be an alleged burial place of an eponymous ancestor or a legendary heroic figure, or an ancient landscape associated with renowned events. This study of their physical appearance, place-names, and geographicaland historical contexts ranges over all the archaeological sites identified as inauguration places - enclosures, sepulchral mounds, natural places, ringforts and churches, and associated inauguration furniture in the form of leaca and stone thrones, basin stones and sacred trees. Irish royal assembly places and practices are viewed in relation to sites elsewhere in Britain and greater Europe, and the circumstances that brought about the ending of the Gaelic practice of inauguration are also considered.
ELIZABETH FitzPATRICK is Lecturer in Medieval Archaeology, National University of Ireland, Galway.
Women in Business, 1700-1850
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A reappraisal of the business enterprises of women in the `long' eighteenth century, showing them to be more flourishing than previously thought.
Orthodox opinion is that in the `long' eighteenth century women, especially of the middle classes, had very little involvement with business affairs and enterprises, and that as a group they were more usually characterised by their domestic roles. This book takes issue with this view, arguing that the major factors which supposedly prevented women's economic activity in this period had much less impact than has previously been thought. It demonstrates thatdespite the pressure of gendered cultural expectations, financial barriers and legal disabilities, many women participated extensively in entrepreneurial activity as integrated members of trading networks, exchanging money, credit, property and goods with male traders on a regular basis throughout the period. The author examines how women in business engaged with the tangled legal systems of common law, borough customs and equity, showing that the legal doctrine of coverture did not in practice curtail married women's ability to trade on their own account; she goes on to look at women's business practices, partnerships and credit networks, including their involvement in the insurance business and newspaper advertising. Finally, she considers the impact of domestic ideology, particularly on women in the feminine trades of millinery and dressmaking, and the languages women used to express their commercial interests.
Rural Society and the Anglican Clergy, 1815-1914
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A vivid and accessible reappraisal of the frequently uneasy relationship between the Victorian clergyman and his congregation.
The conduct of divine service was only one item on the agenda of the nineteenth-century clergyman. He might have to sit on the magistrates' bench, or concern himself with business as a farmer or landowner, or attend a meeting of the Poor Law guardians. He would, in all probability, be closely involved with the day-to-day running of the local school, and he would almost certainly be the principle administrator of the parochial charities. While some of theseroles were clearly predestined to bring him into conflict with certain members of his flock, others seem ostensibly designed to operate in their interests. None, however, seem to have earned him much in the way of devotion and respect: instead, each of them at one time or another attracted the direct hostility of parishioners, most particularly those attached to dissenting and/or radical groups. This book is a detailed exploration of the relationship between Anglican clergymen and the inhabitants of rural parishes in the nineteenth century. Taking Norfolk as a focus, the author examines the many and profound ways in which the Victorian Church affected the daily lives and political destinies of local communities.
Gustav Mahler [3 Volume Set]
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A specially-priced three volume paperback set of Donald Mitchell's acclaimed study of Mahler's music.
The first three volumes of Donald Mitchell's masterly examination of the work of Gustav Mahler are available here in a specially-priced paperback set. The titles included are Gustav Mahler: The Early Years, The Wunderhorn Years and Songs and Symphonies. The scope of these books is immensely wide: scholars will appreciate their absorbing research, performers will respond to the interpretive issues that Mitchell brings to the fore, while general readers will find texts that deepen and sometimes fundamentally modify their response to this marvellous music.
The Artillery of the Dukes of Burgundy, 1363-1477
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A major new exploration of the history and development of gunpowder weapons in the 15th century based on the artillery of the Dukes of Burgundy.
The four Valois Dukes of Burgundy created, in little more than a century, a fabulously wealthy and independent state. Their centralised control and chancellery have bequeathed to us a vast treasure trove of documents, including accounts and inventories of the Masters of the artillery under the later Dukes. Although many of these were extracted and transcribed in the late nineteenth century, modern historians have largely ignored their unprecedented insights into fifteenth-century guns and their use. When Charles the Bold, the last Valois Duke, took on the combined Swiss confederate forces in 1476 he lost not just the battles and his personal fortune, but much of his artillerytrain as well. Of the dozens of cannons captured, at least 25 pieces survive in Swiss museums. The documents that survive from the Valois state give us, almost for the first time in medieval Europe, the ability to see the course of history in a period when Europe was undergoing some of the most profound changes before the 20th century. The Artillery of the Dukes of Burgundy is the first attempt to combine all these sources, bringing newand fresh insights into the development and use of artillery in the fifteenth century. Moreover this is the first modern study of medieval cannon, one of the most important discoveries of the post-classical world.
KELLY DeVRIES has authored numerous books and articles on medieval warfare. ROBERT DOUGLAS SMITH formerly Head of Conservation in the Royal Armouries, Tower of London, is an acknowledged expert on medieval artillery. This study is thefirst major fruit of their combined researches.
Anglo-Norman Studies XXVI
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The sense of a group of scholars sharing work in progress comes over on numerous occasions... a series which is a model of its kind. EDMUND KING, HISTORY
The emphasis in this collection of recent work on the Anglo-Norman realm is particularly on narrative sources: Dudo, Vita Ædwardi Regis, monastic chronicle audiences in the Fens, the chronicles of Anjou, the Warenne view of the past - and much later sources for stereotypical images of the Normans. There are also papers analysing both charter and chronicle evidence in reconsiderations of the succession disputes following the deaths of William I and WilliamII. Papers range geographically from Anjou to the Irish Sea zone. Contributors, from France and Germany as well as from Britain, Ireland and the US, are BERNARD S. BACHRACH, RICHARD BARBER, JULIA BARROW, CLARE DOWNHAM, VERONIQUE GAZEAU, JOHN GRASSI, ELISABETH VAN HOUTS, JENNIFER PAXTON, NEIL STREVETT, NEIL WRIGHT.
The Foundations of Medieval English Ecclesiastical History
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Contributions on fundamental aspects of medieval ecclesiastical history, demonstrating the importance of primary documents.
The work of historians in providing new editions of primary documents, and other aids to research, has tended to go largely unsung, yet is crucial to scholarship, as providing the very foundations on which further enquiry can be based. The essays in this volume, conversely, celebrate the achievements in this field by a whole generation of medievalists, of whom the honoree, David Smith, is one of the most distinguished. They demonstrate the importance of such editions to a proper understanding and elucidation of a number of problems in medieval ecclesiastical history, ranging from thirteenth-century forgery to diocesan administration, from the church courts to the cloisters, and from the English parish clergy to the papacy. Contributors: CHRISTOPHER BROOKE, C.C. WEBB, JULIA BARROW, NICHOLAS BENNETT, JANET BURTON, CHARLES FONGE, CHRISTOPHER HARPER-BILL, R.H. HELMHOLZ, PHILIPPA HOSKIN, BRIAN KEMP, F. DONALD LOGAN, ALISON MCHARDY
Journal of Medieval Military History
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Latest volume of original articles on all aspects of warfare in the middle ages.
Volume III of De Re Militari's annual journal once again ranges broadly in its chronological and geographic scope, from John France's article on the evidence which early medieval Saints' Lives provide concerning warfare toSergio Mantovani's examination of the letters of an Italian captain at the very end of the middle ages, and from Spain (Nicolas Agrait's study of early-fourteenth-century Castilian military structures) to the eastern Danube (Carroll Gillmor's surprising explanation for one of Charlemagne's greatest setbacks). Thematic approaches range from "traditional", though revisionist in content, campaign analyses (of Sir Thomas Dagworth, by Clifford J. Rogers, and ofMatilda of Tuscany, by Valerie Eads), to tightly focused studies of a single document (Kelly DeVries on militia logistics in the fifteenth century), to controversial, must-read assessments of the broadest topics in medieval military history (Stephen Morillo and Richard Abels on change vs. continuity from Roman times; J. F. Verbruggen on the importance of cavalry.)
CONTRIBUTORS: RICHARD ABELS, NICOLAS AGRAIT, KELLY DEVRIES, VALERIE EADS, JOHNFRANCE, CARROLL GILLMOR, SERGIO MANTOVANI, STEPHEN MORILLO, CLIFFORD J. ROGERS.
Pastoral Care in Late Anglo-Saxon England
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The role of pastoral care reconsidered in the context of major changes within the Anglo-Saxon church.
The tenth and eleventh centuries saw a number of very significant developments in the history of the English Church, perhaps the most important being the proliferation of local churches, which were to be the basis of the modern parochial system. Using evidence from homilies, canon law, saints' lives, and liturgical and penitential sources, the articles collected in this volume focus on the ways in which such developments were reflected in pastoral care, considering what it consisted of at this time, how it was provided and by whom. Starting with an investigation of the secular clergy, their recruitment and patronage, the papers move on to examine a variety of aspects of late Anglo-Saxon pastoral care, including church due payments, preaching, baptism, penance, confession, visitation of the sick and archaeological evidence of burial practice. Special attention is paid to the few surviving manuscripts which are likely to have been used in the field and the evidence they provide for the context, the actions and the verbal exchanges which characterised pastoral provisions.
Portugal: A Traveller's History
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An historical guide to Portugal which both describes and accounts for what the visitor might see and experience in this often-spellbinding country.
Portugal, the 'ancient ally', is a country easily accessible, with an enviable climate, welcoming inhabitants and famous beaches. English and Spanish apart, Portuguese is more widely spoken than any other European tongue. This historical guide draws on personal experiences ranging from a residence of three years to regular visits since 1936. It combines introductory chapters on eight centuries of nationhood, and sections on the Roman and Islamic past, architecture, painting, music and birds, with visits to the great cities of Lisbon and Oporto, and to the country's varied regions. The author's aim is not merely to describe; rather to account for the emergence of what the visitor may expect to see. He avoids jargon, preferring clarity and moderation - although permitting himself an occasional expression of saudade (the nostalgia for Portugal which haunts all who have loved this land). Harold Livermorestudied in Portugal in 1937 and taught there, in Cambridge and in Canada. He was educational director of the Luso-Brazilian Council in London and is a member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences and of the Portuguese Academy of History. His first 'History of Portugal' was awarded the CamSes Prize and was followed by a 'New History' and a 'Shorter History'. He has also published a history of Spain and an account of the medieval origins of both countries. A selection of his articles, 'Essays on History and Literature', appeared in 2000.
Leadership in Medieval English Nunneries
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Examination of the role of the convent superior in the middle ages, underlining the amount of power and responsibility at her command.
The position of an abbess or prioress in the middle ages was one of great responsibility, with care for both the spiritual and economic welfare of her convent. This book considers the power wielded by and available to such women.It addresses leadership models, questions of social identity and the varying perceptions of the role and performance of the abbess or prioress via a close examination of the records of sixteen female houses in the period from 1280to 1540; the large range of documentary evidence used includes selections from episcopal registers, account rolls, plea rolls, Chancery documents, letters, petitions, medieval literature and comparative material from additional nunneries. The theme of conflict recurs throughout, as religious women are revealed steering their communities between the directives of the church and the demands of their budgets or their secular neighbours. The Dissolution and its effects on the morale and behaviour of the last superiors conclude the study.
The Church of England in the Twentieth Century
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Unique account of the affairs of the Church of England during a period of colossal change and controversy.
This is the first comprehensive picture of the life and work of the Church of England in the second half of the twentieth century, tracing the evolution of the Church at a time of immense upheaval. The Church was inevitably facedwith the need for [sometimes painful] reform as society became more secularised and multi-cultural, and its response is examined. The book also gives a detailed portrait of the work of its archbishops and bishops; and tackles thecontroversial questions raised by financial matters and the administration of property. They include the financial speculations of the late 1980s and early 1990s, which provoked fundamental questions about the role of the Church and the nature of its relationship with the state.
ANDREW CHANDLER is Director of the George Bell Institute, Birmingham, and Honorary Lecturer at the University of Birmingham.
English Government in the Thirteenth Century
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Papers on aspects of the growth of royal government during the century.
The size and jurisdiction of English royal government underwent sustained development in the thirteenth century, an understanding of which is crucial to a balanced view of medieval English society. The papers here follow three central themes: the development of central government, law and justice, and the crown and the localities. Examined within this framework are bureaucracy and enrolment under John and his contemporaries; the Royal Chancery; the adaptation of the Exchequer in response to the rapidly changing demands of the crown; the introduction of a licensing system for mortmain alienations; the administration of local justice; women as sheriffs; and a Nottinghamshire study examining the tensions between the role of the king as manorial lord and as monarch.
Contributors: NICK BARRATT, PAUL R. BRAND, DAVID CARPENTER, DAVID CROOK, ANTHONY MUSSON, NICHOLAS C. VINCENT, LOUISE WILKINSON
Irish Migrants in New Zealand, 1840-1937
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An innovative and original contribution to the history of European migration between the mid-nineteenth century and the interwar years.
I have at last reached the desired haven', exclaimed Belfast-born Bessie Macready in 1878, the year of her arrival at Lyttelton, when writing home to cousins in County Down. There was a huge amount of worldwide European migrationbetween the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, a phenomenon which this book examines. Making close use of personal correspondence exchanged between Ireland and New Zealand, the author addresses a number of central questions in migration history, including the circumstances of departure; why some connections chose to stay; how migrant letter writers depicted their voyage out, the environment, work, family and neighbours, politics, and faith; and the prevalence of return and repeat migration. Throughout, the book gives significant attention to the social networks constraining and enabling migrants. It also considers broader debates in the history of European migration, relating to the use of personal testimony to chart the experiences of emigrants and the uncertain processes of adaptation, incorporation, and adjustment that migrants underwent in new and sometimes unfamiliar environments.
Medieval East Anglia
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Medieval East Anglia - one of the most significant and prosperous parts of England in the middle ages - examined through essays on its landscape, history, religion, literature, and culture.
East Anglia was the most prosperous region of medieval England; far from being an isolated backwater, it had strong economic, religious and cultural connections with continental Europe, with Norwich for a time England's second city. The essays in this volume bring out the importance of the region during the middle ages. Spanning the late eleventh to the fifteenth century, they offer a broad coverage of East Anglia's history and culture; particular topics examined include its landscape, urban history, buildings, government and society, religion and rich culture.
Contributors: Christopher Harper-Bill, Tom Williamson, Robert E. Liddiard, P. Maddern, Brian Ayers, Elisabeth Rutledge, Penny Dunn, Kate Parker, Carole Rawcliffe, James Campbell, Lucy Marten, Colin Richmond, T. M. Colk, Carole Hill, T.A. Heslop, A.E. Oliver, Theresa Coletti, Penny Granger, Sarah Salih
A Bibliography of Westminster Abbey
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First bibliography of all printed material concerned with Westminster Abbey, from parliamentary papers to guide books.
Westminster Abbey is one of the most significant ecclesiastical institutions in Britain and occupies a unique position in the life of Church and Nation. Founded as a Benedictine monastery c.960, it is the coronation church and a royal mausoleum, a place of worship and an architectural masterpiece, a national shrine whose collection of monumental sculpture is of international renown. The Abbey's history is inextricably linked with that of both Westminster School [governed directly by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster until 1868] and of St Margaret's church [built by the Westminster monks for the local community, and closely associated with the Abbey ever since].
Thisfully-indexed bibliography is the first of its kind dedicated to a major church, and is a fundamental contribution to the historiography of Westminster Abbey. It provides full bibliographical details of more than 3300 printed works, including parliamentary papers, editions of archival sources, guide books, theses, historical monographs and journal articles. Covering a huge range of subjects from art and architecture to poetry, sermons and Westminster School grammars, it is an indispensable reference work for anyone seeking to know more about this remarkable institution.
Food Poisoning, Policy and Politics
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Study of the 1963/4 typhoid outbreak, highlighting issues and debates which are strikingly relevant today.
The problem of food poisoning and food-borne infections is currently one of vigorous debate, highlighted since the 1980s by numerous outbreaks and scares involving salmonella in lettuce and eggs, listeria in cheese, the links between vCJD and BSE, E.Coli 0157 in cooked meats, and foot and mouth disease. Yet, as this book shows, the various issues involved were important as early as 1963/4, when there were serious typhoid outbreaks in Harlow, South Shields,Bedford, and Aberdeen, traced to contaminated corned beef imported from Argentina. Based upon extensive research, using archives which have only recently become available, private papers, and interviews as well as secondary literature, the book analyses the course of the outbreak and looks at the responses of politicians, officials, health professionals, business interests, the media and the public. It also considers the difficult issue of the weighing offood safety against international trade and other business and economic interests; conflicts between government departments; rivalry between professionals such as doctors and veterinarians; the effects upon and influence of victims and local communities; and the conduct of and responses to an official enquiry. Overall, it draws out generic lessons for how such epidemics should be handled, adding an historical perspective to contemporary debates.
The Chronica Maiora of Thomas Walsingham (1376-1422)
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First complete translation of detailed chronicle of medieval England, one of Shakespeare's most important sources.
Winner of a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award
Translated by David Preest with introduction and notes by James G. Clark Thomas Walsingham's Chronica maiora is one of the most comprehensive and colourful chronicles to survive from medieval England. Walsingham was a monk at St Albans Abbey, a royal monastery and the premier repository of public records, and therefore well placed to observe the political machinations of this period at close hand. Moreover, he knew the monarchs and many of the nobles personally and is able to offer insights into their actions unmatched by any other authority. It is this chronicle, transmitted through popular Tudor histories, that informed some of the central dramas of Shakespeare's History cycle. Covering almost fifty years, the narrative provides the most authoritative account of one of the most turbulent periods in English history, from thelast years of Edward III (1376-77) to the premature death of Henry V (1422). Walsingham describes the many dramas of this period in vivid detail, including the Peasants' Revolt (1381), the deposition and murder of Richard II (1399-1400), The Welsh revolt of Owain Glyn Dwr (1403) and Henry V's victory at Agincourt (1415); they are brought to life here in this new translation.
Perception and Action in Medieval Europe
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Study of the changing nature of the perception of an action and the action itself, and how thought-processes altered radically in the middle ages.
Can dancers dance for a year and a day without drinking, eating and sleeping? Can pictures be made to speak to their viewers? Can lavender purify the soul? The modern mind regards it as impossible and simply regards reports that these things happened as typical of the `fantastic' Middle Ages. In his new book, however, Harald Kleinschmidt argues that we should not be so swift to dismiss such matters. In this thought-provoking study of the logic of perception and action behind these and other stories, and of the history of the five senses, he argues that modern Western rationalism is peculiar in seeing an opposition between perceivers and the targets of their curiosity, actors and their environments or, in general terms, subject and object. Instead, he shows that whether active or passive, people saw their deeds as correlated and mutually dependent. Using a wide range of textual and pictorial sources, he goeson to demonstrate that the assumption of an opposition between subject and object resulted from fundamental changes of standards of perception and patterns of action that took place during the Middle Ages, resulting in the emergence of a new rationalism. HARALD KLEINSCHMIDT teaches in the College of International Studies at the University of Tsukuba, Japan.
The Amiens Truce: Britain and Bonaparte 1801 - 1803
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A study of the hardening of British public opinion against Bonaparte and an examination of the events that caused it.
In 1801 Britain and Bonaparte made an armistice, which became the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802. In the brief period of peace which followed, British attitudes underwent a major change, so that when war began again in May 1803 there was little or no dissent from the view that the war had to be fought to a finish and Bonaparte's power destroyed. This was partly the result of Bonaparte's underhand methods during negotiations; but it was also due to the conclusion reached by the many British visitors to France during the interval of peace that Bonaparte was extremely dangerous, anger at his stealthy political advances in Europe and America, and outrage at his detention and imprisonment of British civilians when war began again. The attitude of the British government headed by Henry Addington, and in particular the diplomatic methods of the Foreign Secretary Lord Hawkesbury (later the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool) were decisive in countering Bonaparte's methods; they receive their due in this first detailed examination of events, based on original materials.
Citation and Authority in Medieval and Renaissance Musical Culture
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Essays - collected in honour of Margaret Bent - examining how medieval and Renaissance composers responded to the tradition in which they worked through a process of citation of and commentary on earlier authors.
Essays in honour of Margaret Bent.
The chapters of this book probe the varied functions of citation and allusion in medieval and renaissance musical culture. At its most fundamental level musical culture relied on shared models for musical practice, used by singers and composers as they learned their craft. Several contributors to this volume investigate general models, which often drew on earlier musical works, internalized in the process of composers' own training as singers. In written theoretical musical pedagogy, conversely, citation of authority is deliberate and intentional. The adaptation of accepted wisdom in theoretical treatises was the means by which newer authors stamped their own authority. Further kinds of citation occur in specific musical texts, either within the words set to music or in the music itself. The diverse functions of citation and allusion for the creator, reader, scribe, performer and listener are here given due consideration. In doing so, this volume is a fitting tribute to Margaret Bent, whose pedagogy, publications, and presence are honoured in this Festschrift. Contributors: SUSAN RANKIN, GILLES RICO, CHRISTIAN THOMAS LEITMEIR, BARBARA HAGGH, LEOFRANC HOLFORD-STREVENS, ANDREW WATHEY, KEVIN BROWNLEE, ALICE V. CLARK, LAWRENCE M. EARP, VIRGINIA NEWES, JOHN MILSOM, DAVID HOWLETT, REINHARD STROHM, THEODOR DUMITRESCU, CRISTLE COLLINS JUDD, BONNIE J. BLACKBURN
The Hospitallers and the Holy Land
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A new appraisal of the Order of the Hospitallers, showing how they were responsible for the survival of the Christian settlement in the East.
The Order of the Hospital of St John was among the most creative and important institutions of the Middle Ages, its history provoking much debate and controversy. However, there has been very little study of the way in which it operated as an organisation contributing to the survival of the Christian settlement in the East, a gap which this book addresses. It focuses on the impact of the various crises in the East upon the Order, looking at how it reactedto events, the contributions that western priories played in the rehabilitation of the East, and the various efforts made to restore its economic and military strength. In particular, the author shows the key role played by the papacy, both in the Order's recovery, and in determining the fate of the crusader states. Overall, it offers a whole new perspective on the connections between East and West. JUDITH BRONSTEIN gained her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge
The Buccaneer Explorer
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Dampier's observations and descriptions are as valid today as they were in the 17th century and this book is to be commended to anyone who is interested in the great early voyages of exploration. THE REVIEW
William Dampier [1651-1715] is the most remarkable seaman that England produced in the century and a half between Drake and Captain Cook. They each circumnavigated the world once; Dampier did so three times. He commanded the firstgovernment-funded voyage of discovery with a specific mission to report on matters of government and science. A good seaman, but a bad commander, he spent most of his life as a privateer, buccaneer, or pirate, and his career culminated in the capture of the great treasure galleon sent each year from the New World to Spain. But he was also a great writer, author of the first major English travel book, A New Voyage Round the World, and of scientifictreatises and descriptions of natural history. His expedition to Australia was in many ways disastrous, with his ships being lost; but the book that came out of it, A Voyage to New Holland, is rich in evocative accounts ofthe peoples and places he had found or visited. He was not afraid to record things he could not explain, for `better qualified persons who shall come after me', and his books were reference works used extensively not only by subsequent voyagers but by modern scientists who continue to cite his observations. This edited account of his voyages gives an admirable picture of this fascinating and unorthodox figure in his own words. GERALD NORRIS writes on maritime and musical subjects. His books include West Country Pirates and Buccaneers, Stanford, the Cambridge Jubilee and Tchaikovsky and A Musical Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland.
The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, 1275-1504 [16 volume set]
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Major edition of all the surviving medieval Rolls of Parliament: an invaluable source for scholars.
The rolls of parliament were the official records of the meetings of the English parliament from the reign of Edward I (1272-1307) until the reign of Henry VII (1485-1509), after which they were superseded by the journals of thelords, and, somewhat later, the commons. The rolls were first edited in the eighteenth century and published in 1767 in six folio volumes entitled Rotuli Parliamentorum, under the general editorship of the Reverend John Strachey. This new edition reproduces the rolls in their entirety, together with a few individual items published since 1783, as well as a substantial amount of material never previously published; it is complemented by a full translation of all the texts from the three languages used by the medieval clerks (Latin, Anglo-Norman and Middle English). It also includes an introduction to every parliament known to have been held by an English king (or in his name)between 1275 and 1504, whether or not the roll for that parliament survives. Where appropriate, appendices of supplementary material are also provided, and there is a General Introduction to the rolls.
Contributors to the set are as follows: PAUL BRAND (1275-1307), SEYMOUR PHILLIPS (1307-1337), MARK ORMROD (1337-1377), GEOFFREY MARTIN (1377-1379), CHRIS GIVEN-WILSON (1380-1421), ANNE CURRY (1422-1453), ROSEMARY HORROX (1455-1504).
Max Bruch
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In this book - the only full-length study of the composer - the author provides a richly documented account of Bruch's career as music director and composer.
Max Bruch (1838-1920), the German composer best known for his Violin Concerto in G minor, was in his day, a famous conductor and teacher as well as a prolific composer; yet he has been sadly neglected, perhaps in comparison to hiscontemporary Brahms. In this book - the only full-length study of Bruch - the author provides a richly documented account of Bruch's career as music director and composer, including a spell with the Liverpool Philharmonic Societyfrom 1880-1883, and as a teacher at the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin from 1892 until his retirement in 1911, where Vaughan Williams was one his pupils; he paints a picture of a proud and sensitive man, whose talents were perhaps left behind at a time of rapid musical development. The book also offers a musical analysis of his one hundred published works, including three operas.
CHRISTOPHER FIFIELD is foremost a conductor, but also a writeron music history (Grove, DNB, Viking Opera Guide, Oxford Companion to Music), the author of a biography of Hans Richter, the editor of the letters and diaries of Kathleen Ferrier, and a recent history of the music agents Ibbs and Tillett.
William Camden
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A comprehensive analysis of the life of William Camden (1581-1623), historian, herald, and leading literary figure of the Elizabethan period and of the context in which he lived.
William Camden [1551-1623] was one of the most notable historians of the Elizabethan period; his works include Britannia the first description of Britain county by county. A herald by profession, he moved in the literary and political circles of London in an age when history and the study of the past interacted with present politics, and was well-connected with many leading figures of the time; his involvement with the precursor of what is now the Society of Antiquaries of London is of especial importance.
This book provides the first major analytical biography of Camden's life and career since that of Thomas Smith in 1691. It offers a comprehensive analysis of Camden's life and of the context in which he lived, including in its great scope a wide range of aspects of English and European learned culture during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; and examines the nature of his extraordinary impact on writers both of his own and later generations.
WYMAN H. HERENDEEN is Professor and Department Chair in the Department of English at the University of Houston, Texas.
Anglo-Norman Studies XXVII
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A series which is a model of its kind EDMUND KING, HISTORY
This volume contains the usual wide range of topics, and offers some unusual and provocative perspectives, including an examination of what the evidence of zooarchaeology can reveal about the Conquest. The other subjects discussedare the battle of Alençon; the impact of rebellion on Little Domesday; Lawrence of Durham; Thomas Becket; Peter of Blois; Anglo-French peace conferences; episcopal elections and the loss of Normandy; Norman identity in southern Italian chronicles; and the Normans on crusade.
Contributors: RICHARD BARTON, NAOMI SYKES, LUCY MARTEN, MIA MÜNSTER-SWENDSEN, JOHN D. COTTS, J.E.M. BENHAM, JÖRG PELTZER, JULIE BARRAU, EMILY ALBU, EWAN JOHNSON, G. A. LOUD, HANNA VOLLRATH.
Lords and Communities in Early Medieval East Anglia
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Investigation of the growing regional power of the English aristocracy in the central middle ages.
The period between the late tenth and late twelfth centuries saw many changes in the structure and composition of the European and English aristocracy. One of the most important is the growth in local power bases and patrimonies at the expense of wider property and kinship ties. In this volume, the author uses the organisation of aristocracy in East Anglia as a case-study to explore the issue as a whole, considering the extent to which local families adopted national and European values, and investigating the role of local circumstances in the formulation of regional patterns and frameworks. The book is interdisciplinary in approach, using anthropological, economic and prosopographical research to analyse themes such as marriage and kinship, social mobility, relations between secular and ecclesiastical lords, ethnic groups, and patterns of economic growth amongst social groupings; there is a particular focus too on how different landscapes - fenland, upland, coastal and urban - affected the pattern of aristocratic experience.
Dr ANDREW WAREHAM is a Research Associate at the Centre for Computing in the Humanities at King'sCollege London.
The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade
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A fresh look at the Albigensian Crusade, highlighting its effects upon the indigenous nobility.
The Albigensian Crusade was called by Pope Innocent III in 1208 against the Count of Toulouse in response to the murder of the papal legate Pierre des Castelnau. The Pope's aim was to force the Count and other nobles in Languedocto take action against the Cathar heretics in their lands, but in the end, the defeat of Catharism in the south of France was achieved through the establishment of the Inquisition and the extension of French royal authority to thearea. While some Occitan noble families survived the crusade, others were destroyed and the behaviour of the crusaders towards the local nobility has often been regarded as rather arbitrary, unconnected to how these families related to each other before 1209. This study takes the case of the Trencavel Viscounts of Béziers and Carcassonne, who were the only members of the higher nobility to lose their lands to the crusade, and argues that an understandingof how the Occitan nobility fared in the crusade years must be based in the context of the politics of the noble society of Languedoc, not only in the thirteenth century but also in the twelfth.
ELAINE GRAHAM-LEIGH gained her Ph.D. from the University of London.
Thirteenth Century England X
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Aspects of the political, social, cultural, economic and ecclesiastical history of medieval England re-examined.
This collection presents new and original research into the long thirteenth century, from c.1180-c.1330, with a particular focus on the reign of Edward II and its aftermath. Other topics examined include crown finances, markets and fairs, royal stewards, the aftermath of the Barons' War, Wace's Roman de Brut, and authority in Yorkshire nunneries; and the volume also follows the tradition of the series by looking beyond England, with contributions onthe role of Joan, wife of Llywelyn the Great in Anglo-Welsh relations, Dublin, and English landholding in Ireland, while the continental connection is represented by a comparison of aspects of English and French kingship.
Contributors: David Carpenter, Nick Barratt, Emilia Jamroziak, Michael Ray, Susan Stewart, Louise J. Wilkinson, Sean Duffy, Beth Hartland, Francoise Le Saux, Henry Summerson, Janet Burton, H.S.A. Fox, David Crook, Margo Todd,Seymour Phillips
The Autobiography of Gerald of Wales
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The autobiography of Gerald of Wales, translated from the Latin, offers a compelling picture of medieval life.
Gerald of Wales, the son of a Norman Baron and the grandson of a Welsh Princess, is one of the most gifted and entertaining of medieval writers. His autobiography, translated from the Latin, presents the story of an Archdeacon who, despite his passionate efforts, never became a Bishop; it is the self-revelation of a man as able and courageous as he was vain and eccentric, and as devout and serious as he was flamboyant and humorous, a vivid picture of twelfth-century kings and prelates, of politics and travel, full of strange adventures at home and abroad, told with frankness and power, and without a counterpart in the literature of his day. Moreover, the volume presents a vivid picture of medieval life in general.
The late H. E. BUTLER was Professor of Latin at University College, London.
Liber Eliensis
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First translation into English of 12th-century history of Ely from its foundation, including the Danish sack, Hereward's resistance to the Normans, and the repercussions of Becket's martyrdom.
This is the first ever translation from Latin into English of an important source for English and ecclesiastical history. The Liber Eliensis is an account of the history of the Isle of Ely compiled by a monk of Ely monastery in the later twelfth century. He uses evidence from the monastery's Latin and Old English archives, combined with chronicle data and biographies of saints and heroes, to tell the story of Ely in three parts. The first book, chiefly concerned with the abbesses of Ely (St Aethelthryth founded the house as a double house under female leadership), extends from the conversion of East Anglia to Christianity to the aftermath of the Danish sack; the second bookcovers 970-1109, when the Benedictine monastery was ruled by abbots, and includes an account of Hereward's resistance to William the Conqueror; the third book begins at the point when Ely first became the seat of a bishop, and extends to the compiler's own times, ending with the martyrdom of Thomas Becket.
The translation does full justice to the compiler's gift for story-telling and his wide range of source material; it gives priority to the readings of the oldest manuscript of the Liber Eliensis, but covers all the material in the later but fuller recension of the Latin text presented in E.O. Blake's 1962 edition. The volume is completed with notes on the text and sources and an introductory essay.
JANET FAIRWEATHER is a freelance researcher and translator, a member of the classics faculty, Cambridge University.
North-East England in the Later Middle Ages
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The medieval development of the distinct region of north-east England explored through close examination of landscape, religion and history.
The recent surge of interest in the political, ecclesiastical, social and economic history of north-eastern England is reflected in the essays in this volume. The topics covered range widely, including the development of both rural and urban life and institutions. There are contributions on the well-known richness of Durham cathedral muniments, its priory and bishopric, and there is also a particular focus on the institutions and practices which evolved to deal with Scottish border problems. A number of papers broach lesser-known subjects which accordingly offer new territory for exploration, among them the distinctive characteristics of local jurisdiction in the northern counties, the formation of north-eastern landscapes, the course of agrarian development in the region and the emergence of a northern gentry class alongside the better known ecclesiastical and lay magnates. CHRISTIAN D. LIDDY is Lecturer in History at the University of Durham, where R.H. BRITNELL is Emeritus Professor.