Recent research on the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Viking and Angevin worlds of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
The latest volume of the Haskins Society Journal presents recent research on the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Viking and Angevin worlds of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and includes topics ranging from emotional communities in the middle ages, English identity, and the artistic construction of sacred space to the organization of royal estates, Jewish credit operations, the English colonization of Wales, and more. This volume of the Haskins Society Journal includes papers read at the 21st Annual Conference of the Charles Homer Haskins Society at Cornell University in October 2002 as well as other submissions. Contributors include Barbara Rosenwein, Kate Rambridge,Nicholas Brooks, Ryan Lavelle, Robin Mundill, Diane Korngiebel, Ryan Crisp, Philadelphia Ricketts, Louis Hamilton, and Brigitte Bedos-Rezak.
Kelly DeVries
Journal of Medieval Military History
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"The leading academic vehicle for scholarly publication in the field of medieval warfare." Medieval Warfare
The essays in this volume of the Journal continue its proud tradition of presenting cutting-edge research with a wide chronological and geographical range, from eleventh-century Georgia (David IV's use of the methods described in De velitatione bellica) to fifteenth-century England and France (a detailed analysis of the use of the under-appreciated lancegay and similar weapons). Iberia and the Empire are also addressed, with a study of Aragonese leaders in the War of the Two Pedros, a discussion of Prince Ferdinand's battle-seeking strategy prior to the battle of Toro in 1476, and an analysis and transcription of a newly-discovered Habsburg battle plan of the early sixteenth century, drawn up for the war against Venice. The volume also embraces different approaches, from cultural-intellectual history (the afterlife of the medieval Christian Warrior), to experimental archaeology (the mechanics of raising trebuchets), to comparison of "the face of battle" in a medieval illuminated manuscript with its depiction in modern films, to archivally-based administrative history (recruitment among the sub-gentry for Edward I's armies).
Contributors: David S. Bachrach, Daniel Bertrand, Peter Burkholder, Ekaitz Etxeberria Gallastegi, Michael John Harbinson, Steven Isaac, Donald J. Kagay, Tomaž Lazar, Mamuka Tsurtsumia
Richard Barber
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.
John B Gillingham
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.
Jenny Stratford
Richard II and the English Royal Treasure
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Detailed documents describing Richard II's holdings of treasure highlight the magnificence of the 14th-century English court, often underrated by historians.
Awarded the 'première medaille des Antiquités de France' for 2016 by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
The remarkable treasure of gold and silver from England and France which Richard II had amassed by the end of his reign in 1399 is fully revealed for the first time in this richly illustrated book. The author explores the nature of the objects themselves, their provenance and later fate, and examines the crucial role the treasure played in diplomacy and in financing the Hundred Years War, especially at the time of Agincourt. This fresh analysis is based on the discovery in the National Archives at Kew of a roll over 28 metres long, compiled around the time of Richard's deposition. English courtiers and Valois princes are named as the donors of many gifts. Concealed among the treasure are valuables Richard seized from the magnates he executed or exiled in 1397. Publication in full of this exceptional inventory leads to completely new perspectives on Richard II's court and on its splendour in the last years of the fourteenth century.
Jenny Stratford began her career in the Department of Manuscripts, the British Library. Her books include The Bedford Inventories (1993). She is a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.
Ben Dodds
Peasants and Production in the Medieval North-East
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Evidence from unused sources sheds much light on the peasant economy of the later middle ages.
The peasant economy in north-east England, and indeed throughout the country as a whole, underwent many changes during the later Middle Ages, but owing to the lack of evidence it has been difficult to come to definite conclusions.This pioneering survey uses previously unexploited sources, principally from tithe data, to offer new interpretations of the patterns for change and the scope for adaptability. The author argues that the peasant economy in this region of England was profoundly affected by war in the early fourteenth century and then disease with the arrival of the Black Death in 1349, calling into question the orthodox theories of overpopulation in explaining the "crisis"of the late Middle Ages: even at its medieval peak, the population of northeast England was sparse by comparison with areas further south. Nor did the availability of land and improved living standards lead to demographic recovery in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. He also shows that despite their vulnerability to crises, peasant cultivators were highly responsive to change. Far from being primitive subsistence farmers oblivious to the marketand its signals, medieval peasants in the Durham region were subtle and successful decision-makers regarding the production and marketing of their output.
BEN DODDS is Lecturer in History at the University of Tallahassee.
Robin Netherton
Medieval Clothing and Textiles 1
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First volume in new series dedicated to medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines and with a special focus on reconstruction and re-enactment.
The study of medieval clothing and textiles has aroused great attention in recent years, as part of the growing concern in material culture as a whole; apart from its own intrinsic interest, it has much to reveal about life at thetime. This exciting new series aims to offer all those interested in the subject the fruits of the best research in the area. Interdisciplinary in approach, it will feature work from the fields of social and economic history, history of techniques and technology, art history, archaeology, literary and non-literary texts, and language, while experimental reconstruction of medieval techniques or artifacts will also form a particular focus. The contents of each volume are selected to cover a broad geographical scope, as well as a range of periods from early medieval to the late Middle Ages. The journal also publishes short reviews of new books. Topics in this first volume include Anglo-Saxon embroidery; textiles and textile imagery in the Exeter Book; the tippet; the regulation of clerical dress; and evidence for dress and textiles in late medieval English wills. ROBIN NETHERTON is a costumehistorian. Her research focuses on Western European clothing between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER is Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture, University of Manchester. She has a special interest in dress throughout the medieval period - she advises on dress entries to the Toronto Old English Dictionary and has consulted for many museums and television companies.
Robert Douglas Smith
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.
Nicholas Evans
The Present and the Past in Medieval Irish Chronicles
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A new analysis of a vital source for the history of Ireland and Scotland in the middle ages.
Ireland has the most substantial corpus of annalistic chronicles for the early period in western Europe. They are crucial sources for understanding the Gaelic world of Ireland and Scotland, and offer insights into contacts with the wider Christian world. However, there is still a high degree of uncertainty about their development, production, and location prior to 1100, which makes it difficult to draw sound conclusions from them. This book analyses the principal Irish chronicles, especially the "Annals of Ulster", "Annals of Tigernach", and the Chronicum Scotorum, identifying their inter-relationships, the main changes to the texts, and the centres where they were written in the tenth and eleventh centuries - a significant but neglected period. The detailed study enables the author to argue that the chroniclers were in contact with each other, exchanging written notices of events, and that therefore the chronicle texts reflect the social connections of the Irish ecclesiastical and secular elites. The author also considers how the sections describing the early Christian period (approximately 431 to 730 AD) were altered by subsequent chroniclers; by focussing on the inclusion of material on Mediterranean events as well as on Gaelic kings, and by comparing the chronicles with other contemporary texts, he reconstructs the chronicles' contents and chronology at different times, showing how the accounts were altered to reflect and promote certain views of history. Thus, while enabling readers to evaluate the sources more effectively, he also demonstrates that the chronicles were sophisticated and significant documents in themselves, reflecting different facets of contemporary medieval society and their shifting attitudes to creating and changing accounts of the past.
Dr Nicholas Evans is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow.
David Farr
Henry Ireton and the English Revolution
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A devout puritan, Henry Ireton was an immediate parliamentarian activist rising to the rank of Commissary-General of the New Model Army. Ireton shared Oliver Cromwell's religious enthusiasm and acted as one of his political mentors. Ireton, more than any other individual, even Cromwell, brought about the execution of Charles I. Indeed it was Ireton's influence, symbolised by his marriage to Bridget Cromwell, that did much to persuade Cromwell to become a regicide. Ireton's importance was through the theoretical and practical framework he provided for the revolution of 1647-9. As the 'penman' of the revolutionary army Ireton was an author of its significant political statements. Ireton was at the heart of the army's Heads of the Proposals, their attempt at settlement with the king in 1647, he was its chief negotiator with the Levellers at the Putney and Whitehall Debates and Ireton was chiefly responsible for the 1648 Remonstrance that justified the army's purge of Parliament and called for execution of justice on Charles I. In 1649 both Ireton and Cromwell embarked on the conquest of Ireland, Ireton remaining there asLord Deputy until he died on campaign in 1651.
Linda Clark
The Fifteenth Century VI
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The most crucial issues in current research are debated in the latest volume in the series.
The essays collected here provide fresh insight into a range of important topics across the period. They discuss religion([both orthodox, as revealed by the lives of anchoresses living in Norwich, and heretical, as practised by lollards living in Coventry); politics (exploring the motivations of individuals seeking election to parliament, and how the way Cade's Rebellion was recorded by contemporaries affected its subsequent perception); law (whether it may be deduced from manorial court rolls that lawyers were employed by peasants, and an examination of the process of peace-making in feuds on the Scottish border); national, ethnic and political identity in the British Isles; social ranking and chivalry (in particular knighthood in Scotland); and verse (a consideration of the poem Lydgate addressed to Thomas Chaucer, and the occasion of its composition).
Contributors: JACKSON W. ARMSTRONG, JACQUELYN FERNHOLTZ, TONY GOODMAN, DAVID GRUMMITT, CAROLE HILL, MAUREEN JURKOWSKI, JENNI NUTTALL, SIMON PAYLING, ANDREA RUDDICK, KATIE STEVENSON, MATTHEW TOMPKINS
Nathaniel Wolloch
Macaulay and the Enlightenment
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A new intellectual biography of Thomas Babington Macaulay, showing how nineteenth-century British liberal culture retained and transformed the ideas of the Enlightenment in a rapidly changing world.
Macaulay and the Enlightenment sheds new light on both familiar and unfamiliar aspects of the life and ideas of this most famous of nineteenth-century British historians. Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) was a prominent representative of mainstream British liberalism in the first half of the nineteenth century. He was also a Member of Parliament and government minister, and famously spent several years as a member of the governing council in India, where he promoted legal and educational reforms.
One of the book's key contributions is the investigation of Enlightenment influences on the more well-known aspects of Macaulay's thought: history, politics, social and economic issues, religion, revolution and colonialism. The book also offers new revelations about Macaulay's attitude towards women, and provides insight into his views on art, nature and animals.
In this study, Macaulay emerges as a more subversive, at times even radical, figure than previously assumed. The book thus emphasizes the transformation of Enlightenment ideas into early nineteenth-century liberalism.
Susan Ridyard
The Medieval Crusade
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Papers on major themes in current scholarly work on the medieval crusade, including the Templars and Jewish-Christian polemics.
These papers explore major themes in recent scholarship on the medieval crusade and its religious, political and cultural context, re-evaluating the issue of "were the Templars guilty?" and suggesting their problem was one of organisation; one study looks at the impact and effect of the crusade on Jewish-Christian relations, another at crusaders and their interaction with indigenous Christians in the county of Edessa as a case study of developments in other crusader states; and there are papers on Peter the Hermit, on the political and religious context and impact of the Fourth Crusade, on the influence of the crusade on Piers Plowman, and on the political context for the failure of crusading ideals in fifteenth-century Burgundy.
Contributors ALFRED ANDREA, ROBERT CHAZAN, KELLY DEVRIES, CHRISTOPHER McEVITT, THOMAS MADDEN, JONATHAN RILEY-SMITH, WILLIAM E. ROGERS, JAY RUBINSTEIN
SUSAN J. RIDYARD is Professor of History, University of the South.
Stephen R Morillo
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
Benjamin W. D. Redding
The English and French Navies, 1500-1650
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Challenges the received wisdom about the relative weakness of French naval power when compared with that of England.
This book traces the advances and deterioration of the early modern English and French sea forces and relates these changes to concurrent developments within the respective states. Based on extensive original research in correspondence and memoirs, official reports and accounts, receipts of the exchequer and inventories in both France, where the sources are disparate and dispersed, and England, the book explores the rise of both kingdoms' naval resources from the early sixteenth to the mid seventeenth centuries. As a comparative study, it shows that, in sharing the Channel and with both countries increasing their involvement in maritime affairs, English and French naval expansion was intertwined. Directly and indirectly, the two kingdoms influenced their neighbours' sea programmes. The book first examines the administrative transformations of both navies, then goes on to discuss fiscal and technological change, and finally assesses the material expansion of the respective fleets. In so doing it demonstrates the close relationship between naval power and state strength in early modern Europe. One important argument challenges the received wisdom about the relative weakness of French naval power when compared with that of England.
Antonia Gransden
A History of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, 1182-1256
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Definitive history of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds during a crucial period in its history.
St Edmund's Abbey was one of the most highly privileged and wealthiest religious houses in medieval England, one closely involved with the central government; its history is an integral part of English history. This book (the first of two volumes) offers a magisterial and comprehensive account of the Abbey during the thirteenth century, based primarily on evidence in the abbey's records [over 40 registers survive]. The careers of the abbots, beginning withthe great Samson, provide the chronological structure; separate chapters study various aspects of their rule, such as their relations with the convent, the abbey's internal and external administration and its relations with itstenants and neighbours, with the king and the central government. Chapters are also devoted to the monks' religious, cultural and intellectual life, to their writings, book collection and archives. Appendices focus on the mid-thirteenth century accounts which give a unique and detailed picture of the organisation and economy of St Edmunds' estates in West Suffolk, and on the abbey's watermills and windmills.
Dr ANTONIA GRANSDEN is former Reader atthe University of Nottingham.
Anthony Webster
The Twilight of the East India Company
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Examines how and why the East India Company was transformed from a commercial trading company to an institution of government, and then abolished.
This book examines the development of British commercial, financial and political relations with India and the Far East during the final period of the East India Company's reign as the sovereign power in India. This was a most turbulent period for British commerce with India. The period began with the renewal of the East India Company's Charter and its component monopolies of trade with India and China, but this was quickly followed by the outbreak of theNapoleonic Wars, which spread to the east and saw the completion of Britain's assertion of power over India and much of Southeast Asia. However, the war also strengthened those political forces in Britain campaigning against the Company's monopolies of trade with India and China, which were consequently abolished under the Charter Acts of 1813 and 1833. The spectacular growth of the British economy following industrialisation brought new forces to bear upon India, with the rise of manufactured exports to the east. But the course of commercial relations did not run smoothly, and economic crises in Britain and India in 1833 and 1848 swept away commercial firms in both countries, andcaused severe economic retrenchments. This instability severely hampered efforts to facilitate the export of capital to India during the first half of the century. Finally the rebellion of 1857 spelt the death knell for the Company, and ushered in a new phase of Anglo-Indian economic relations, in which British foreign investment grew substantially.
Anthony Webster is Head of the History Department at Liverpool John Moores University.
Adrian Jobson
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
Roger Knight
Sustaining the Fleet, 1793-1815
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An assessment of the work of the contractors who were commissioned by the Victualling Board to provision the fleet in this period.
Provisioning the fleet, and the army overseas, during the French Wars of 1793-1815 was a major undertaking. This book explains how the Victualling Board in London handled this enormous task, focusing in particular on contractors -that is the merchants and brokers, who provided a vast range of commodities including flour and biscuit, salt beef and pork, as well as huge quantities of fresh water and coal, and every other item needed. It shows how these merchants could be large or small concerns, and provides detailed case studies of different kinds of contractors, including examples of contractors based both in Britain and in the navy's overseas bases. The book demonstrates how, overall, the contracting system represented the mobilisation of a substantial part of the British economy for war; how the performance of contracting was effective, with little or no corruption; and how the contractors took considerable financial risks and made only reasonable margins. It assesses the performance of the Victualling Board, arguing that this was good, and that the problem in the major area of weakness - accounting - was quickly addressed following a major crisis in 1808-09. It concludes that this was "an impressive performance" by the state, but that the overwhelming advantage was the resilience of the market, and that it was "upon the success of the contractors that the war at sea was won."
For most of his career, ROGER KNIGHT was on the staff of the National Maritime Museum, leaving as Deputy Director in 2000. Since then he has taught at the Greenwich Maritime Institute at the University of Greenwich, where he is currently Visiting Professor of Naval History. MARTIN WILCOX completed a doctorate in maritime history at the University of Hull, and has been employed as postdoctoral research fellow at Greenwich Maritime Institute since 2006.
Stephen Bull
`The Furie of the Ordnance'
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Shows how new developments in guns and artillery played a decisive role in the English Civil War.
NEW LOW PRICE The English Civil War has frequently been depicted as a struggle between Cavaliers and Roundheads in which technology played little part. The first-hand sources now tell us that this romantic picture is deeply flawed - revealing a reality of gunpowder, artillery, and a grinding struggle of siege and starvation.
As with naval warfare, developments in gun technology drastically changed land warfare in the years leading up to 1642. The Civil War was itself shaped largely by the availability of munitions. A failure to procure them in 1643 and 1644 - combined with abortive attempts on London - ultimately proved the downfall of the Royalists. Moreover afinal move away from fortified local garrisons reshaped both the nature of warfare in England, and the country itself.
STEPHEN BULL is Curator of Military History and Archaeology, Lancashire Museums.
Mark J. Crowley
Women's Experiences of the Second World War
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Using a very wide range of detailed sources, the book surveys the many different experiences of women during the Second World War.
Many existing studies on the role of women in the Second World War concentrate on women's increasing participation in the workplace and on their struggles to cope with rationing and shortages. This book goes further, exploring women's wartime experiences much more fully. Drawing on a wide range of sources including oral interviews, scrapbooks, personal letters, diaries, newspaper articles, Mass Observation files and memoirs, the book illustrates some of the similarities and differences of women's wartime experiences in different situations in different countries. Specific subjects covered include experiences of exile and living under occupation, of coping with proximity to fighting and to the frontline, and of dealing with everyday life in trying circumstances. The book draws out how factors such as political beliefs, nationalism, economics, religion, ability, geography and culture all had an impact. Overall, the book reveals a great deal about the complexities and nuances of women's experiences in this period of enormous upheaval.
Contributors: Patricia Chappine, Nupur Chaudhuri, Sylvie Crinquand, Beth Hessel, Sarah Hogenbirk, Regina Lark, Bernice Lindner, Alexis Peri, Kelly Spring, Michael Timonin, Angela Wanhalla, Wai-Yin Christina Wong.
Tim Thornton
Prophecy, Politics and the People in Early Modern England
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A study of prophetic traditions in early modern England, their influence and popularity.
The influence of the non-Biblical vernacular prophetic traditions in early modern England was considerable; they had both a mass appeal, and a specific relevance to the conduct of politics by elites. Focussing particularly on Mother Shipton, the Cheshire prophet Nixon, and Merlin, this book considers the origins of these prophetic traditions, their growth and means of transmission, and the way various groups in society responded to them and in turn tried to control them. Dr Thornton also sheds light on areas where popular culture and politics were uneasily interlinked: the powerful political influence of those outside elite groups; the variations in political culture across the country; and the considerable continuing power of mystical, supernatural, and 'non-rational' ideas in British social and political life into the nineteenth century. Dr TIM THORNTON teaches at the University of Huddersfield where he is head of department, History, English, Languages and Media.
Sam Willis
Fighting at Sea in the Eighteenth Century
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Naval warfare is vividly brought to life, from first contact through how battles were won and lost to damage repair.
Our understanding of warfare at sea in the eighteenth century has always been divorced from the practical realities of fighting at sea under sail; our knowledge of tactics is largely based upon the ideas of contemporary theorists[rather than practitioners] who knew little of the realities of sailing warfare, and our knowledge of command is similarly flawed. In this book the author presents new evidence from contemporary sources that overturns many old assumptions and introduces a host of new ideas. In a series of thematic chapters, following the rough chronology of a sea fight from initial contact to damage repair, the author offers a dramatic interpretation of fighting at sea inthe eighteenth century, and explains in greater depth than ever before how and why sea battles (including Trafalgar) were won and lost in the great Age of Sail. He explains in detail how two ships or fleets identified each other to be enemies; how and why they manoeuvred for battle; how a commander communicated his ideas, and how and why his subordinates acted in the way that they did.
Anthony Richard Wagner
A Catalogue of English Mediaeval Rolls of Arms
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The editing is done with great skill . . . this is a masterly treatment of the subject. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW
Aspilogia' means materials of heraldry, and this first volume in the series on heraldry published by the Society of Antiquaries is a comprehensive listing of the known medieval rolls of arms of English origin. The rolls vary fromvery grand and luxurious painted manuscripts to simple records made by heralds using descriptive code, and this book is the best guide to them. It includes details of all known copies and variants, and includes rolls which are only known to us through later transcripts.
Nicholas Rogers
Blood Waters
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Far from the romanticised image of the swashbuckling genre of maritime history, the eighteenth-century Caribbean was a 'marchlands' in which violence was a way of life and where solidarities were transitory and highly volatile.
This book paints a picture of the eighteenth-century British Caribbean as a frontier zone in which war, international rivalry, disease and slavery are paramount themes. It explores the lure of the region as a vaunted site of potential wealth and derring-do, the fragility of tropical campaigns, the nature of slave insurrection, and the efforts of indigenous peoples (here, the Miskito of the Mosquito Coast and the Black Caribs of St Vincent) to carve out some autonomy from the British and Bourbon powers. It also explores the mutiny of a slave-ship and its unsuccessful raiding ventures in order to show how the dominant European powers sought to contain piracy in an expanding plantation complex. The book emphasizes the contrarieties of struggle, the difficulties preventing subaltern groups, whether slaves, free blacks, indigenous peoples or soldiers and sailors, from forging broader alliances, and the importance of tropical disease in shaping military outcomes. It warns against romanticizing resistance in the eighteenth-century Caribbean, showing that it was instead a 'marchlands' in which violence was a way of life and where solidarities were transitory and highly volatile.
Donald Mowbray
Pain and Suffering in Medieval Theology
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Examines the works of Paris theologians to show how they dealt with the questions of human pain and suffering.
Questions of pain and suffering occur frequently in medieval theological debate. Here, Dr Mowbray examines the innovative views of Paris's masters of theology in the thirteenth century, illuminating how they constructed notions ofpain and suffering by building a standard terminology and conceptual framework. Such issues as the Passion of Christ, penitential suffering, suffering and gender, the fate of unbaptized children, and the pain and suffering of souls and resurrected bodies in hell are all considered, to demonstrate how the masters established a clear and precise consensus for their explanations of the human condition.
DONALD MOWBRAY gained his PhD from the University of Bristol.
Elizabeth Noble
The World of the Stonors
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First full-length survey of the Stonors, an important gentry family during the middle ages, exploring the wide connections they fostered.
The Stonor letters and papers are second in quantity only to the Paston letters. Nevertheless, while studies of the parvenu Pastons of Norfolk abound, no historian has used the Stonor archive to write about this significantly longer-established gentry family from Oxfordshire, despite the fact that their letters and papers have been available in print since the early twentieth century and have been recently re-issued. This present study helps to rectify that oversight. It argues that lineage, land and lordship were crucial elements in the Stonors' world, both materially and culturally, providing them with status and identity. They asserted their gentle lineage using a range of symbolic and other means, but did not neglect the more mundane management of their scattered lands. Ties of lordship with the influential helped them to retain these lands, and it is clear that the Stonors worked hard to fosterrelationships with kin and neighbours: indeed, their letters and papers allow us a far more extensive yet intimate view of all these social ties [extending over several counties] than is usually possible for the gentry.
Dr ELIZABETH NOBLE teaches in the School of the Humanities, University of New England, New South Wales.
Tom Webster
The Diary of Samuel Rogers, 1634-1638
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Rogers's diary offers a direct and personal expression of the meaning of English Puritanism on the eve of the civil war.
Samuel Rogers began his diary just before his twenty-first birthday. He was a godly minister from godly stock - his grandfather, father and uncle were all part of the Puritan Movement - and his diary begins as Samuel finishes hiseducation at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Samuel expresses his intense loneliness as chaplain to the unsatisfactory Dennys of Bishops Stortford, and his efforts to obtain comfort from the nearby godly community - including visitsto Wethersfield, where his father was lecturer. His isolation eases, and his diary ends, shortly after he is appointed chaplain to the family of Lady Mary de Vere, whose contacts with prominent members of the godly he details in his pages. The diary's unrivalled view, from a day-to-day puritan perspective, of what the 1630s were like for a godly minister 'in the battlefield' makes it a valuable record. For Rogers, everything is of religious relevance: in addition to the social detail of the diary there is also a real and persuasive revelation of the spiritual meaning of Puritanism.
Prescott N. Dunbar
The History of the Normans by Amatus of Montecassino
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This translation of Amatus's L'Ystoire de li Normant identifies the events of the Norman conquest of southern Italy and Sicily as recorded in one of the earliest chronicles.
Amatus of Montecassino was the earliest historian of the Norman conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. His History of the Normans, written c.1080, includes the sieges of Bari and Salerno, the conquest of Sicily, Robert Guiscard'sbrigand's life, as well as tales of miracles and prophecies. It is also a text of great value for study of the Gregorian Reform and of the abbey of Montecassino, one of the most important cultural and religious centres of eleventh-century Christendom. This book provides a vivid translation of this intriguing contemporary history; while the introduction and extensive annotation locate the "History" securely in its contemporary context and provide a full discussion of its purpose and themes, and of the various problems of authorship and transmission associated with it.
Michael C Prestwich
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
Nick Harding
Hanover and the British Empire, 1700-1837
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A reappraisal of the links between Hanover and Great Britain, highlighting their previously un-explored importance.
The dynastic union which existed between Great Britain and Hanover between 1714 and 1837 is often seen as simply a subject for diplomatic historians, of not much consequence. In fact, as this book shows, the connection between Great Britain and Hanover was an important theme which featured significantly in political and intellectual writing at the time, both in Hanover and in Britain, especially in discourses, including in pamphlet literature, about the nature of "empire", Britain's empire and Hanover's place within it. The book traces the evolution of such thinking over the entire period of the union, demonstrating that there was a strong European element to British imperial thinking, alongside the well-recognised overseas maritime commercial element. It examines how Hanover affected British policy in Europe throughout the period, and how the British connection affected Hanover, both in periods of peace and periods of warfare, when Hanoverian mercenaries were used extensively by Britain, and when Hanover often felt that its interests were not best served by the British connection. Overall, the book shows that Britain's relationshipwith Hanover was much deeper and more complex than personal union, and that Europe and Hanover featured very significantly in British imperial thinking.
NICK HARDING is Visiting Assistant Professor at the University ofNorth Florida.
Dr Philippa M. Hoskin
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
Cathryn J. Pearce
Cornish Wrecking, 1700-1860
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Shows how the image of Cornish wreckers as villains deliberately luring ships on to the rocks is a myth.
Highly Commended in Class 6 - Non-Fiction: History and Creative Arts of the Holyer an Gof Awards 2011.
Although the popular myth of Cornish wrecking is well-known within British culture, this book is the first comprehensive, systematic inquiry to separate out the layers of myth from the actual practices. Weaving in legal, social and cultural history, it traces the development of wreck law - the right to salvage goods washed on shore - and explores the responses of a coastal populace who found their customary practices increasingly outside the law, especially as local individual rights were being curtailed and the role of centralised authority asserted. This groundbreaking study also considers the myths surrounding wrecking, showing how these developed over time, and how moral attitudes towards wrecking changed. Overall, the picture of evil wreckers deliberately luring ships onto the rocks is dispelled, to be replaced by a detailed picture of a coastal populace - poor and gentry alike - who were involved in a multi-faceted, sophisticated coastal practice and who had their own complex popular beliefs about the harvest and salvage of goods washing ashore from shipwreck.
CATHRYN J. PEARCE holds a PhD in Maritime History from Greenwich Maritime Institute. A former associate professor of history with the University of Alaska Anchorage's Kenai Peninsula College, she is now with University Campus Suffolk where she continues to research on the relationship of coastal people with the sea.
Margaret Makepeace
The East India Company's London Workers
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An assessment of how the East India Company managed the labourers in its London warehouses, which was one of the largest commercial workforces in its day.
The East India Company, which was by 1800 a commercial organisation of unrivalled size and complexity managing a vast empire in Asia, also played a crucial role in the British economy, particularly in London, where the Company wasthe largest employer of civilian labour in the early nineteenth century, with thousands of workmen in its metropolitan warehouses. This book provides a detailed examination of the management strategies used by the Company to control its London warehouse labourers and to maintain acceptable levels of commercial and corporate efficiency. It shows how benevolence formed an integral part of the Company's domestic business practices, with discipline, punishment, regulation and restriction counterbalanced by incentives, rewards and paternalistic practices, such as fair and regular wages, pensions, a comprehensive welfare scheme, free medical treatment and an in-house savings bank. The book also outlines how, when the Charter Act of 1833 brought about the closure of the vast majority of the Company's London warehouses, the directors instigated a pioneering redundancy compensation scheme for the labourers.
MARGARET MAKEPEACE is a Senior Archivist in the India Office Records at the British Library.
Christian D Liddy
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.
John D. Grainger
The First Pacific War
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Survey of the neglected naval campaign of the Crimean War highlights its impact on international relations with China and Japan as well as Russia.
The `Crimean War' was much more than a series of battles in the Crimea. One of the most neglected aspects has been the naval campaign in the Pacific Ocean - as highlighted in this full-scale survey, which brings out the involvement of China and Japan.
The campaign took a joint British and French squadron from Chile to Kamchatka, to be defeated in battle at Petropavlovsk - where the British Admiral committed suicide. Despite their victory, the Russians withdrew from all their Pacific coastal settlements, and the British and French concentrated on searching for the mouth of the Amur River, thought to be a Russian base. The Russians in turn also concentrated there, in order to build a base, sending repeated expeditions along the river. Both China, who claimed to rule along the Amur, and Japan, only just `opened up' by Commodore Perry's expedition, were involved - indeed, the British used a Japanese port as their advanced base. The United States had only recently reached the Pacific coast and several Americans had their eyes on Russian Alaska and Hawaii as territories for future acquisitions. All this meant the Allies hadto tread very delicately in Pacific waters. The war in Europe ended before a decisive action could take place in the Pacific. Ironically, having lost in the fighting, the Russians ended with a great advance in their territory.
David Sunderland
Managing British Colonial and Post-Colonial Development
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A survey of the Crown Agents during a turbulent and eventful period.
Britain's Crown Agents' Office is a unique development agency. Until the early 1960s, its clients were colonial governments, and, thereafter, the administrations of dependencies and newly independent countries. As well as purchasing a large proportion of its customers' imports, it provided them with finance and managed their investments. It was thus one of the largest buyers of goods in the UK, and, after, the Bank of England, the country's biggest financial institution. This book, the sequel to the author's Managing the British Empire: The Crown Agents, 1833 -1914 (Boydell, 2004), examines the Agents' various development roles, including the disastrous venture into secondary banking in 1967 which collapsed in 1974, then the largest bankruptcy in British financial history. The book contributes to a number of current debates in development studies, adds to our understanding of the London financial market and the competitiveness of British industry, and shows how present day aid agencies can learn much from the arrangements of the past.
W. G. Miller
British Traders in the East Indies, 1770-1820
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An in-depth study of the British traders who extended British commercial activity beyond the area controlled by the East India Company.
This book provides an in-depth analysis of the British private traders who engaged in the intra-Asian trade, known to contemporaries as the "country trade", between 1770 and 1820, providing much detail on who the traders were, howthey conducted their operations, and how they interacted with indigenous societies in a complex and very volatile region. It examines their relations with East India Company, and their moves beyond the Company's orbit to open upindependently new spheres of British commercial, political, and imperial influence. It discusses their social and political interaction with Malays, their good understanding of local societies, their use of the Malay language, their adoption of local practices and procedures, and their gathering of many forms of useful knowledge, all of which underpinned the growth in commercial activity and made the traders indispensable to East India Company officials. It explores their often fractious rivalry with the Dutch, and analyses the decline of the country trade following the establishment of Singapore in 1819. Throughout, the book provides many case studies of individual traders. W.G. Miller was Southeast Asian Studies Librarian at the Australian National University from 1974 to 1997 and a Visiting Fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University from 2004 to 2018.
Eugene Costello
Transhumance and the Making of Ireland's Uplands, 1550-1900
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First full survey of how transhumance operated in Ireland from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth.
WINNER: American Conference for Irish Studies Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Book 2021 Special Commendation, Publication Prize in Irish History, NUI Awards 2021
SHORTLISTED: European Association of Archaeologists Book Prize 2023
The rearing of cattle is today a fairly sedentary practice in Ireland, Britain and most of north-west Europe. But in the not-so-distant past it was common for many rural households to take their livestock to hill and mountain pastures for the summer. Moreover, ethnographic accounts suggest that a significant number of people would stay in seasonal upland settlements to milk the cows and produce butter and cheese. However, these movements all but died out in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, meaning that today transhumance is mainly associated with Alpine and Mediterranean landscapes.
This book is the first major interdisciplinary approach to the diversity and decline of transhumance in a northern European context. Focusing on Ireland from c.1550 to 1900, it shows that uplands were valuable resources which allowed tenant households to maintain larger herds of livestock and adapt to global economic trends. And it places the practice in a social context, demonstrating that transhumance required highly organized systems of common grazing, and that the care of dairy cows amounted to a rite of passage for young women in many rural communities.
L. A. Botelho
Old Age and the English Poor Law, 1500-1700
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Based on documents from two Suffolk villages, this study examines the operation of the poor law and the individual effort the elderly poor needed to make to survive.
This study is a test-case of the old poor law. In its exploration of the virtually unknown world of the aged poor in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, it asks how the elderly poor managed to survive in a pre-industrial economy, and answers through focusing on the many factors that make up the experience of old age - status, health, wealth, and local culture - in two Suffolk villages. Botelho demonstrates that the poor law did not, nor did it intend to, provide complete support, and she documents the individual efforts of the poor as they made their own old age arrangements, drawing as heavily upon their own initiatives as upon charity and legislated relief.
LYNN BOTELHO is Associate Professor of History, Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Professor Donald Scragg
Edgar, King of the English, 959-975
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Fresh assessments of Edgar's reign, reappraising key elements using documentary, coin, and pictorial evidence.
King Edgar ruled England for a short but significant period in the middle of the tenth century. Two of his four children succeeded him as king and two were to become canonized. He was known to later generations as "the Pacific" or"the Peaceable" because his reign was free from external attack and without internal dissention, and he presided over a period of major social and economic change: early in his rule the growth of monastic power and wealth involved redistribution of much of the country's assets, while the end of his reign saw the creation of England's first national coinage, with firm fiscal control from the centre. He fulfilled King Alfred's dream of the West Saxon royalhouse ruling the whole of England, and, like his uncle King Æthelstan, he maintained overlordship of the whole of Britain.
Despite his considerable achievements, however, Edgar has been neglected by scholars, partly because his reign has been thought to have passed with little incident. A time for a full reassessment of his achievement is therefore long overdue, which the essays in this volume provide.
CONTRIBUTORS: SIMON KEYNES, SHASHIJAYAKUMAR, C.P, LEWIS, FREDERICK M. BIGGS, BARBARA YORKE, JULIA CRICK, LESLEY ABRAMS, HUGH PAGAN, JULIA BARROW, CATHERINE KARKOV, ALEXANDER R. RUMBLE, MERCEDES SALVADOR-BELLO.
Professor Karen Louise Jolly
Global Perspectives on Early Medieval England
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Interrogations of materiality and geography, narrative framework and boundaries, and the ways these scholarly pursuits ripple out into the wider cultural sphere.
Early medieval England as seen through the lens of comparative and interconnected histories is the subject of this volume. Drawn from a range of disciplines, its chapters examine artistic, archaeological, literary, and historical artifacts, converging around the idea that the period may not only define itself, but is often defined from other perspectives, specifically here by modern scholarship.
The first part considers the transmission of material culture across borders, while querying the possibilities and limits of comparative and transnational approaches, taking in the spread of bread wheat, the collapse of the art-historical "decorative" and "functional", and the unknowns about daily life in an early medieval English hall. The volume then moves on to reimagine the permeable boundaries of early medieval England, with perspectives from the Baltic, Byzantium, and the Islamic world, including an examination of Vercelli Homily VII (from John Chrysostom's Greek Homily XXIX), Hārūn ibn Yaḥyā's Arabic descriptions of Barṭīniyah ("Britain"), and an consideration of the Old English Orosius. The final chapters address the construction of and responses to "Anglo-Saxon" narratives, past and present: they look at early medieval England within a Eurasian perspective, the historical origins of racialized Anglo-Saxonism(s), and views from Oceania, comparing Hiberno-Saxon and Anglican Melanesian missions, as well as contemporary reactions to exhibitions of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and Pacific Island cultures.
Contributors: Debby Banham, Britton Elliott Brooks, Caitlin Green, Jane Hawkes, John Hines, Karen Louise Jolly, Kazutomo Karasawa, Carol Neuman de Vegvar, John D. Niles, Michael W. Scott, Jonathan Wilcox
Clifford J. Rogers
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
Alaric Hall
Elves in Anglo-Saxon England
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Elves and elf-belief during the Anglo-Saxon period are reassessed in this lively and provocative study.
Anglo-Saxon elves [Old English ælfe] are one of the best attested non-Christian beliefs in early medieval Europe, but current interpretations of the evidence derive directly from outdated nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholarship. Integrating linguistic and textual approaches into an anthropologically-inspired framework, this book reassesses the full range of evidence. It traces continuities and changes in medieval non-Christian beliefs with a new degree of reliability, from pre-conversion times to the eleventh century and beyond, and uses comparative material from medieval Ireland and Scandinavia to argue for a dynamic relationship between beliefs and society. Inparticular, it interprets the cultural significance of elves as a cause of illness in medical texts, and provides new insights into the much-discussed Scandinavian magic of seidr. Elf-beliefs, moreover, were connected withAnglo-Saxon constructions of sex and gender; their changing nature provides a rare insight into a fascinating area of early medieval European culture.
Shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award 2007
ALARIC HALL is a fellow of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies.
John France
Journal of Medieval Military History
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The leading academic vehicle for scholarly publication in the field of medieval warfare. Medieval Warfare
The articles here focus on activities in north-western Europe, with a reconsideration of the location of the battle of Stamford Bridge (1066), an examination of the role of open battles in the civil wars of the Anglo-Norman and Angevin kings, a re-assessment of the strategy of Edward I's war against Philip IV in 1297-98, and an analysis of the role of cavalry "coureurs" in late-medieval France. But regions further to the south and east are by no means neglected, with a dissection of the military rhetoric of Pere III of Aragon and his queen, Elionor of Sicily, and a discussion of the earliest European gunpowder recipes, from Friuli (1336) and Augsburg (1338- c. 1350). The volume also offers studies of the campaigns culminating in the battles of Firad in 634 and Qinnasrīn in 1134.
Paul A. Elliott
Erasmus Darwin's Gardens
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This first full study of Erasmus Darwin's gardening, horticulture and agriculture shows he was as keen a nature enthusiast as his grandson Charles.
Famous as the author of the Botanic Garden (1791) and grandfather of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) was a larger-than-life enlightenment natural philosopher (scientist) and writer who practised as a doctor across the English Midlands for nearly half a century. A practical gardener and horticulturist, Darwin created a botanic garden near Lichfield - which galvanised his poetry - and kept other gardens, an orchard and small "farm" in Derby. Informed by his medical practice and botanical studies, Darwin saw many parallels between animals, plants and humans which aroused hostility during the years of revolution, warfare and reaction, but helped him to write Zoonomia (1794/96) and Phytologia (1800) - his major studies of medicine, agriculture and gardening. Captivated by the changing landscapes and environments of town and country and supported by social networks such as those in Lichfield and Derby, Darwin avidly exchanged ideas about plants, animals and their diseases with family, patients, friends such as the poet Anna Seward (1742-1809), farmers, fellow doctors, huntsmen and even the local mole catcher. The is the first full study of Erasmus Darwin's gardening, horticulture and agriculture. It shows him as keen a nature enthusiast as his contemporary Rev. Gilbert White of Selbourne (1720-1793) or his grandson Charles, fascinated with everything from swarming insects and warring bees to domestic birds and dogs, pigs and livestock on his farm to fungi growing from horse dung in Derby tan yards. Ranging over his observations of plant physiology and anatomy to the use of plant "bandages" in his orchard and electrical machines to hasten seed germination to explosive studies of vegetable "brains", nerves and sensations, the book demonstrates the ways in which Erasmus Darwin's landscape and garden experiences transformed his understanding of nature. They provided him with insights into medicine and the environmental causes of diseases, the classification of plants and animals, chemistry, evolution, potential new medicines and foodstuffs and the ecological interdependency of the natural economy. Like the amorous vegetables of the Loves of the Plants (1789) which fascinated, scandalised and titillated late Georgian society, the many living creatures of Darwin's gardens and farm encountered in this book were for him real, dynamic, interacting and evolving beings who helped inspire and re-affirm his progressive social and political outlook.
A. B. Leonard
London Marine Insurance 1438-1824
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The first comprehensive history of marine insurance transacted in London from the industry's beginnings, to the early-nineteenth-century, when legislative change ended parliamentary monopolies over the business.
This book describes the development and evolution of the customary, legal, and commercial institutions of marine insurance, alongside its developing organisational structures. It analyses major market interventions during the period, including state-sponsored initiatives in the late sixteenth century, the introduction of new corporate forms in the early eighteenth century, and the formation and maturation of Lloyd's of London. The book examines the impact of crises such as the Smyrna catastrophe of 1693 and the South Sea Bubble, and makes comparisons with developments in other marine insurance markets. In revealing how the London insurance market changed over centuries, the book discusses issues of risk and uncertainty, the financial revolution, the development of trade, and the reciprocal developmental roles of markets and the state. Overall, it highlights the ways that efficient and effective marine insurance capable of adapting according to circumstance was vital to the growth of trade and the economy.
Susan Rose
Calais: An English Town in France, 1347-1558
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The first comprehensive history of Calais under English rule, casting new light on the development of its vigorous political and commercial society.
The capture of Calais by Edward III was an exploit which, coming shortly after his victory at Crecy, carried his fame as a warrior to the furthest corners of Europe. The melodramatic incident at the end of the siege with the leading citizens pleading for their lives brought the king even more public notice. Equally well known is the sad remark of Mary Queen of England in 1558 that, following its loss to the French, the name of Calais would be graven on herheart. This book fills in the gap between these two milestones. It allows the reader to understand not only the military and political importance of the town for the English but also its key role in the English economy. Utilising the richness of the personal sources surviving, from the mid fifteenth century to the last years of English rule, it also provides a more intimate picture of the vibrant life of the town with its crowds of courtiers, soldiers and merchants all enjoying and profiting from the opportunities offered by 'an English town in France'.
Dr SUSAN ROSE is an Associate Lecturer at the Open University.
Edward Vallance
Revolutionary England and the National Covenant
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An assessment of the importance of oaths, and the taking of, and the idea of national covenants during a turbulent time in English history.
This book studies the oaths and covenants taken during the late sixteenth to the late seventeenth century, a time of great religious and political upheaval, assessing their effect and importance. From the reign of Mary I to the Exclusion crisis, Protestant writers argued that England was a nation in covenant with God and urged that the country should renew its contract with the Lord through taking solemn oaths. In so doing, they radically modified understandings of monarchy, political allegiance and the royal succession. During the civil war, the tendering of oaths of allegiance, the Protestation of 1641 and the Vow and Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant of 1643 (all describedas embodiments of England's national covenant) also extended the boundaries of the political nation. The poor and illiterate, women as well as men, all subscribed to these tests of loyalty, which were presented as social contracts between the Parliament and the people. The Solemn League and Covenant in particular continued to provoke political controversy after 1649 and even into the 1690s many English Presbyterians still viewed themselves as bound by itsterms; the author argues that these covenants had a significant, and until now unrecognised, influence on 'politics-out-of-doors' in the eighteenth century.
EDWARD VALLANCE is Lecturer in Early Modern British History, University of Liverpool.
Dr Neil McIntyre
Scotland and the Wider World
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Provides for a historical perspective of Scotland's interaction with the world beyond its borders.
As one of the most prolific historians of his generation, Allan I. Macinnes, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Strathclyde, has been foremost in promoting an international rather than insular approach to the study of Scotland. In a distinguished career he has written extensively on the Scottish Highlands, the British revolutions, the formation of the United Kingdom, the Jacobite movement, and Scottish involvement in the British Empire. The chapters collected here reflect the extent of these interests and a commitment to understanding Scotland - or indeed, other territorial units - in an international or global context. Covering a period from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, essays examine the complex interaction of the peoples of the British and Irish isles; they consider Scottish participation in Britannic and European conflict; and they explore Scottish involvement in business networks, political unions, and maritime empires. From intellectual and cultural exchange to political and military upheaval, Scotland and the Wider World will be key reading for anyone interested in the antecedents to Scotland's current international standing.
Professor John France
Journal of Medieval Military History
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The Journal of Medieval Military History continues to consolidate its now assured position as the leading academic vehicle for scholarly publication in the field of medieval warfare. Medieval Warfare
This volume continues to reflect the vibrancy and diversity of the field, through the rich variety of topics and methodologies its chapters treat, and its geographical and chronological range. It includes an analytical narrative of the eastern campaigns of Henry II (1003-1017), demonstrating the strength and sophistication of German military institutions in this early period; a social-history approach to the First Crusade, looking at how European trends towards increasing political participation by the common people played out in the crusading army; an argument for radical change in Scandinavian naval warfare in the thirteenth century, including tactical innovations and the use of new types of large warships; and a toponymonographical approach to the continued presence of Pecheneg soldiers employing steppe tactics in Hungary in the thirteenth century. There are also essays on the sources used by English and French chroniclers to describe battles; the use of practical experimentation to determine the importance of different types of soft armor in helping mail to resist arrows; the role and importance of cavalry in the siege-based warfare of the later Hundred Years War; and the siege of Pisa in 1499, drawing on archival records to illustrate the logistical challenges facing the besiegers. The volume also includes freshly re-examined and re-edited manuscript texts of late-medieval gunpowder recipes.
Catherine Rice
Cottage Gardens and Gardeners in the East of Scotland, 1750-1914
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This pioneering study tells the story of the emergence of rural workers' gardens during a period of unprecedented economic and social change in the most dynamic and prosperous region of Scotland.
Much criticised as weed-infested, badly cultivated and disfigured by the dung heap before the cottage door, eighteenth-century cottage gardens produced only the most basic food crops. But the paradox is that Scottish professional gardeners at this time were highly prized and sought after all over the world. And by the eve of the First World War Scottish cottage gardeners were raising flowers, fruit and a wide range of vegetables, and celebrating their successes at innumerable flower shows.
This book delves into the lives of farm servants, labourers, weavers, miners and other workers living in the countryside, to discover not only what vegetables, fruit and flowers they grew, and how they did it, but also how poverty, insecurity and long and arduous working days shaped their gardens. Workers' cottage gardens were also expected to comply with the needs of landowners, farmers and employers and with their expectations of the industrious cottager. But not all the gardens were muddy cabbage and potato patches and not all the gardeners were ignorant or unenthusiastic. The book also tells the stories of the keen gardeners who revelled in their pretty plots, raised prize exhibits for village shows and, in a few cases, found gardening to be a stepping-stone to scientific exploration.
Nicholas Black
The British Naval Staff in the First World War
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Reassesses the role of the British Naval Staff during the First World War, challenging many widely-held views, and casting much new light on controversial issues and individuals.
Winner of the Society for Nautical Research's prestigious Anderson Medal, 2010. Nicholas Black examines the role of the Naval Staff of the Admiralty in the 1914-18 war, reassessing both the calibre of the Staff and the function and structure of the Staff. He challenges historians such as Arthur Marder and naval figures such as Captains Herbert Richmond and Kenneth Dewar who were influential in creating the largely bad press that the Staff has receivedsubsequently, showing that their influence has, at times, been both unhealthy and misinformed. The way in which the Staff developed during the war from a small, overstretched and often manipulated body, to a much more highly specialised and successful one is also examined, reassessing the roles of key individuals such as Jellicoe and Geddes, and suggesting that the structure of the Staff has been misunderstood and that it was a rather more sophisticated body than historians have traditionally appreciated. Black also looks at how the Staff performed in various major naval issues of the war: the role of the Grand Fleet, the war against the U-boat, the Dardanelles Operation and the implementation of the economic blockade against Germany. Overall, the book complements, and at times challenges, both operational histories of the war and biographies of the leading individuals involved.
NICHOLAS BLACK is Head of History at Dulwich College.
Mark Bailey
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.
John D. Grainger
The Battle of Yorktown, 1781: A Reassessment
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An accessible and authoritative account of the battle of Yorktown (1781), the last major battle in the American War of Independence, where an outnumbered British Army surrendered to American forces under George Washington and their French allies.
Yorktown [1781], where a British Army, commanded by Lord Cornwallis, surrendered to the American forces under George Washington and their French allies, has generally been considered one of the decisive battles of the American Warof Independence. This accessible and authoritative account of the battle and the wider campaign goes back to original source material [diaries, letters, speeches, and newspapers], offering both a narrative of the events themselves, and an analysis of how the defeat came about and why it came to be seen as crucial. It shows that the battle was really a siege, that it involved relatively few numbers, and relatively little fighting, and was not immediately seen as decisive, with the war continuing for a further two years. It sets the battle and campaign in the wider context of a war which included action in the West Indies, Europe, Africa, Asia, and at sea; shows how movements of theFrench and British navies were a crucial factor; and, overall, reassesses the causes and significance of the battle.
JOHN D. GRAINGER, a former school-teacher, is the author of numerous books on military history, rangingfrom the Roman period to the twentieth century.
Brian Short
"Turbulent Foresters"
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A richly detailed history of Ashdown Forest -- home of Winnie-the-Pooh.
The seeming tranquility of many rural landscapes can hide a combative history. This biography of one such landscape, Ashdown Forest in the Weald of Sussex, exemplifies the evolving conflicts that have taken place over many centuries. Wealth and poverty, power and exclusion, have all characterised this landscape through the ages. When a thirteenth-century boundary was erected to form a hunting park it was imposed upon a landscape which for centuries had provided sustenance for peasant families, for swine herds, for itinerant groups, all of whom had developed grazing and collecting rights and customary ties with the area. Conflict between manorial lords and commoners, "turbulent foresters", was born, and the evolution of this conflict over succeeding centuries is the recurring motif of this book. We move through the exploitation of iron ore and timber during the Tudor period, learn of the real threats of enclosure, of military occupation, to be followed by a landscape aesthetic bringing wealthy incomers, attracted by scenery easily reachable from London by train. All sides felt that the Forest was theirs by right. Victorian law-suits, twentieth-century protective legislation and a growing environmental consciousness have all left their mark. And the struggle for Ashdown continues amid ongoing development pressures. This book demonstrates that multi-layered conflict has been a characteristic feature of what still miraculously remains the largest area of internationally recognised heath in the South-East of England.
Simon McVeigh
The Italian Solo Concerto, 1700-1760
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The composition of the solo concerto studied as an evolving debate (rather than a static technique), and for its stylistic features.
The solo concerto, a vast and important repertory of the early to mid eighteenth century, is known generally only through a dozen concertos by Vivaldi and a handful of works by Albinoni and Marcello. The authors aim to bring thisrepertory to greater prominence and have, since 1995, been involved in a research programme of scoring and analysing over nine hundred concertos, representing nearly the entire repertory available in early prints and manuscripts.Drawing on this research, they present a detailed study and analysis of the first-movement ritornello form, the central concept that enabled composers to develop musical thinking on a large scale. Their approach is firstly to present the ritornello form as a rhetorical argument, a musical process that dynamically unfolds in time; and secondly to challenge notions of a linear stylistic development from baroque to classical, instead discovering composers trying out different options, which might themselves become norms against which new experiments could be made.
SIMON McVEIGH is Professor of Music, Goldsmiths College, University of London; JEHOASH HIRSHBERG is Professor in the Musicology Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Terje Spurkland
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.
Donald F. Fleming
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.
Roger Dalrymple
Crippen
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How did the case of the 'mild mannered murderer', Hawley Harvey Crippen, come to have such an enduring cultural resonance?
Almost as notorious as Jack the Ripper, US citizen and homeopath Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen was forty-eight years old when he was hanged in London in November 1910 for the murder and mutilation of his wife. When Cora Crippen vanished in February 1910, he claimed that she had returned to the United States. Yet the discovery of a dismembered body, buried beneath the cola cellar of their house, and Crippen's attempt to flee to Canada with his cross-dressed mistress exposed and convicted him. The case aroused enormous public interest at the time, and it has remained in the popular imagination ever since, memorialised in crime history, fiction, film and even musical theatre. As late as 2007, some American academics were claiming that the dead body was not Cora's and that Crippen was in fact innocent. This book aims to account for the endurance of the Dr Crippen murder case in the cultural imagination. Highlighting the case's disruptive blending of cultural traditions, it discusses historical precedents, analyses diverse literary traditions, looks at broadside balladry and music-hall repertoire and addresses queer theory discourses. The book shows how the case, part throwback to earlier crime sensations and part presage of a new understanding of criminality, represents a watershed in the representation of criminality and played a distinctive role in the development of crime fiction.
C P Lewis
Anglo-Norman Studies XXX
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The latest collection of articles on Anglo-Norman topics, with a particular focus on Wales.
The 2007 conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, the thirtieth in the annual series, was held in Wales, and there is a Welsh flavour to the proceedings now published. Five of the thirteen papers cover Welsh topics in the long twelfthcentury: Church reform, political culture, the supposed resurgence of Powys as a political entity, and interpreter families in the Marches, besides a broad and compelling historiographical survey of the place of the Normans in Welsh history. Twelfth-century England is represented by papers on chivalry and kingship [in literature and life], the Evesham surveys, lay charters, and Henry of Blois and the arts. Essays which focus on the southern Italian city ofTrani and on the crusader history of Ralph of Caen explore wider Norman identities. Finally, there are two broad surveys contextualizing the Anglo-Norman experience: on the careers of the clergy and on how warriors were identified before heraldry.
CONTRIBUTORS: HUW PRYCE, LAURA ASHE, JULIA BARROW, HOWARD B. CLARKE, JOHN REUBEN DAVIES, JUDITH EVERARD, NATASHA HODGSON, CHARLES INSLEY, ROBERT JONES, PAUL OLDFIELD, DAVID STEPHENSON, FREDERICK SUPPE,JEFFREY WEST.
Cordelia Warr
Medieval Clothing and Textiles 17
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The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a variety of angles and approaches.
The essays here take us from the eleventh century, with an exploration of the Bayeux Tapestry, into an examination and reconstruction of an extant thirteenth-century sleeve in France which provides a rare and early example of medieval quilted armour, and finally on to late medieval Sweden and the reconstruction of gilt-leather intarsia coverlets. A study of construction techniques and the evolution of form of gable and French hoods in the late medieval and the early modern periods follows; and the volume also includes a study of the Great Wardrobe under Edward I of England, and what it can tell us about textiles at the time.
John D. Grainger
The British Navy in Eastern Waters
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Provides a comprehensive overview of the activities of the British navy in the Indian and Pacific Oceans from the earliest times to the present.
This book outlines the early voyages of the English East India Company, its building of its own naval forces and its conflicts with Indian states. It examines the opening up of the Pacific Ocean, the wars with the French in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and the activities of the British navy in the later nineteenth century, both off the coasts of China and Japan, and also in the many other places to which the navy's very great power extended. It goes on to consider the wars of the twentieth century, Britain's withdrawal from east of Suez, and Britain's continuing relative decline. Throughout, the book provides accounts of battles and other actions, and relates the activities of the British navy to the wider political situation and to the activities of other European and Asian navies.
Rosie Llewellyn-Jones
The Great Uprising in India, 1857-58
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The events of the 1857-8 uprising in India as seen through the eyes of British and Indian eye-witnesses, giving a vivid picture of life in the midst of what one called 'the wind of madness.'
A volume in the Worlds of the East India Company series, edited by Huw Bowen The events of 1857-58 in India are seen here through a series of untold stories which show that they were much more complex than hitherto thought.Drawing on sources in Britain and India, including contemporary East India Company records, together with oral memories from India illustrated with a number of nineteenth century photographs, the author tells of the murder of the British Resident in the princely state of Kotah; of Indians who opposed the Mutiny, and suffered at the hands of the "mutineers"; of a small, but significant, number of Europeans who fought with the Indians against the British;and of the infamous "prize agents" of the East India Company - licensed looters whose rapacity seemed limitless. The book conveys vividly what it was like for different kinds of participants to live through these traumatic events, bringing to life their anxiety and desperation, the grisly bloodshed, and the vast devastation - illustrating overall, as one Indian soldier who served in the East India Company's army put it, "the wind of madness".
Dr ROSIE LLEWELLYN-JONES is author and editor of numerous books on India, the most recent being 'Empire Building: The Construction of British India 1690 to 1860' published in 2023 by Penguin/Viking India.
She is the editor of 'Chowkidar' the Journal of the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA) and was awarded an MBE in 2015 for British Indian Studies
Dustin M. Frazier Wood
Anglo-Saxonism and the Idea of Englishness in Eighteenth-Century Britain
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The importance of the Anglo-Saxon past to England in the eighteenth century, politically and culturally, is here brought out.
A valuable addition to both our understanding of Anglo-Saxonism, and of eighteenth-century culture. Eloquently written, the book will be the key reference for any future understanding of the way in which eighteenth-century culture received the Anglo-Saxon period. David Matthews, Professor of Medieval and Medievalism Studies, University of Manchester.
Long before they appeared in the pages of Ivanhoe and nineteenth-century Old English scholarship, the Anglo-Saxons had become commonplace in Georgian Britain. The eighteenth century - closely associated with Neoclassicism and the Gothic and Celtic revivals - also witnessed the emergence of intertwined scholarly and popular Anglo-Saxonisms that helped to define what it meant to be English. This book explores scholarly Anglo-Saxon studies and imaginative Anglo-Saxonism during a century not normally associated with either. Early in the century, scholars and politicians devised a rhetoric of Anglo-Saxon inheritance in response to the Hanoverian succession, and participants in Britain's burgeoning antiquarian culture adopted simultaneously affective and scientific approaches to Anglo-Saxon remains. Patriotism, imagination and scholarship informed the writing of Enlightenment histories that presented England, its counties and its towns as Anglo-Saxon landscapes. Those same histories encouraged English readers to imagine themselves as the descendants of Anglo-Saxon ancestors - as did history paintings, book illustrations, poetry and drama that brought the Anglo-Saxon past to life. Drawing together these strands of scholarly and popular medievalism, this book identifies Anglo-Saxonism as a multifaceted, celebratory and inclusive idea of Englishness at work in eighteenth-century Britain.
Laura Napran
Chronicle of Hainaut by Gilbert of Mons
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First full English translation of the 12C Chronicle of Hainaut, offering fascinating insights into European history of the time.
The importance of the late twelfth-century Chronicle of Hainaut (Chronicon Hanoniense) as an historical record cannot be overestimated. Gilbert of Mons was an eye-witness to important events affecting Count Baldwin V of Hainaut, and provides much significant information about persons and affairs within France and the Empire, particularly Count Philip of Flanders, King Philip Augustus and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa; he had a keen interest in noble marriages, making his chronicle an unmatched source for genealogical and prosopographical material for this region. Moreover, his work is a mine of information on a great many subjects, such as the crusades, political events, noble women, the lives of saints, lord-tenant relationships, customary practices and the association of churches with lay advocates; it is particularly informative on military matters, giving detailed accounts of sieges, campaigns and tournaments. This volume presents a clear translation, accompanied by detailed annotations, clarifying the text, and identifying people, events and concepts, an introduction, and bibliography.
Helen Maurer, B.M. Cron
The Letters of Margaret of Anjou
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2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award Winner
New study and edition of the remarkable letter collection of Margaret of Anjou, bringing all her correspondence together in one volume for the first time.
Margaret of Anjou remains a figure of controversy. As wife to the weak King Henry VI, she was on the losing side in the first phase of the Wars of the Roses. Yorkist propaganda vilifying Margaret was consolidated by Shakespeare: his portrait of a warlike and vengeful queen - "a tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" - became the widely-accepted view, which up until recently had been little questioned.
However, Margaret's letters, collected here in full for the first time, have their own story to tell - and present a rather different picture. In her words and the words of her contemporaries, both friend and foe, they reveal a woman who lived according to the noble standards of her time. She enjoyed the hunt, she practised her faith, and she tried to help or protect those who called upon her for assistance, as was expected of a queen and "good lady". Henry's mental breakdown, the birth of their son and growing tensions among the lords of the land forced her to step outside the life she would have expected to live. This study of Margaret's letters establishes the scope of a late medieval queen's concerns, while providing a unique account of this extraordinary woman.
HELEN MAURER and B.M. CRON are both independent scholars; their work has focussed on Margaret of Anjou for many years.
Samuel Barnish
The Ostrogoths from the Migration Period to the Sixth Century
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Essays examining the Ostrogoths, the richest and most powerful Germanic tribe to emerge after the fall of the Roman Empire, and their role in the evolution of medieval Europe.
Among the Germanic tribes who ruled the fragments of the western Roman empire, the Ostrogoths enjoyed the greatest wealth and splendour. Conquering Italy itself from the warlord Odoacer, they inherited the buildings, traditions, and administrative apparatus of imperial rule, and revived the empire in Spain, southern Gaul and the northwest Balkans. Aspects of their history and empire examined here include their ethnic identity in Italy and relations (as Asian heretics) with the Catholic Church; the vicissitudes of sixth century Rome, the monuments of the period in Ravenna; their influence on the economy, settlements, and social structures throughout Italy; the interweaving of society and administration with their internal and external politics; and the history of their Spanish empire. There are also studies of the Goths in eastern Europe before the emergence of the Ostrogoths, and under Hunnic rule. The whole significantly advances an understanding of how medieval Europe evolved from the combination of Roman civilisation with Germanic outsiders.
Contributors: S. BARNISH, G.P. BROGLIO, T.S. BROWN, P.C. DIAZ, D.H. GREEN, W. HAUBRICHS, P. HEATHER, M. KAZANSKI, A. KOKOWSKI, F. MARAZZI, G. NOYE, I. WOOD
Christopher Magill
Political Conflict in East Ulster, 1920-22
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Reassesses the context in which the state of Northern Ireland was created.
Most studies of the Irish Revolution focus on republican violence and on the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. This book, on the other hand, based on extensive original research, considers the situation in the north of Ireland, which was predominantly unionist and affected much less by republican violence. The book examines unionist violence, including the riots during which Catholic homes and businesses in Lisburn were burned, discusses the establishment of the state of Northern Ireland and its security forces, and explores largely constitutional response of Northern Ireland's nationalist community and how this community was affected. It discusses the relationship between politicians, the British government and local communities, assesses the degree to which unionist violence was a reaction to republican violence, and provides a detailed analysis of the Northern Irish security force, the Ulster Special Constabulary. The book concludes that although the Ulster Special Constabulary was clearly drawn from one community, claims that its membership was deliberately recruited according to its ability to inflict havoc on the Catholic population are not correct.
James G. Clark
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.
Professor Stephen D. Church
Anglo-Norman Studies XLII
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A series which is a model of its kind: Edmund King
The wide-ranging articles collected here represent the cutting edge of recent Anglo-Norman scholarship. There is a particular focus on historical sources for the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and especially on the key texts which are used by historians in understanding the past. There are articles on Eadmer's Historia Novorum, Dudo of Saint-Quentin's Historia Normannorum, the historical profession at Durham, and the use of charters to understand the role of women in the Norman march of Wales. Other contributions examine canon law in late twelfth-century England, and Angevin rule in Normandy in the time of Henry fitz Empress. The Old English world is also represented in the volume: there is a fresh investigation into Harold Godwineson's posthumous reputation, and a new interpretation of the reign of Aethelred the Unready.
S.D. CHURCH is Professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia.
Contributors: Emma Cavell, Catherine Cubitt, John Gillingham, Mark Hagger, Fraser McNair, Charles C. Rozier, Nicholas Ruffini-Ronzani, Danica Summerlin, Ann Williams
Alan V. Murray
The Medieval Tournament as Spectacle
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Fresh insights into the development of the tournament as an opportunity for social display.
The period from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century witnessed a rapid development of the tournament. Alongside the original tourney - a mass battle fought between opposing armies of knights with minimal and rudimentary regulation - new forms of chivalric military contests emerged, in which entertainment featured alongside the necessity of practice for war. The joust featured individual combats, with increasingly elaborate rules and variations in form and accompanying pageantry, while the passage of arms placed tournaments within theatrical and allegorical formats. This volume brings together the latest research on the late medieval tournament, demonstrating how such events, particularly at the courts of France, Burgundy, England and the German principalities, were increasingly integrated in wider festivities, ceremonies and diplomatic negotiations. Published in association with the Royal Armouries, it will appeal to all those interested in chivalric culture and medieval warfare.
Kevin Linch
Redcoats to Tommies
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An examination of the lifecycle of soldiers, including enlistment, experiences of military life, the soldier's place in society and in politics, and military identity, memory and representation.
This book surveys and examines the history of Britain's soldiers from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. It focuses on the lifecycle of a soldier, including enlistment and experience, and on identity, representations and place in society. It covers the diverse military forces of the British crown - the regular army, home defence forces, part-time soldiers, auxiliaries, officers, non-commissioned officers and rank and file - across times of conflictand peace and their wider relationship to families, communities, government and society. Additionally, it considers both British troops, and, recognising Britain's soldiers as a transnational phenomenon, forces raised outside ofBritain and Ireland. By assessing the evolution of Britain's soldiers across three centuries, the book highlights continuity and change and gauges how far the basic fundamentals, principles and priorities of army life have endured or been transformed during the existence of a continual standing army. The book includes up-to-date research from a new generation of early-career researchers and reflections from established scholars.
CONTRIBUTORS: Ian Beckett, Timothy Bowman, Gavin Daly, Peter Doyle, Edward Gosling, George Hay, Kevin Linch, Matthew Lord, Eleanor O'Keeffe, Adam Prime, Michael Reeve, Jacqueline Reiter, Robert Tildesley, and Christina Welsch.
Stephen R Morillo
The Haskins Society Journal 13
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Recent research on the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Viking and Angevin worlds of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
The latest volume presents recent research on the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Viking and Angevin worlds of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Its ten papers includes articles on the origins of the Cistercian order, the coronationof Mathilda of Flanders, the rebel Owain ap Cadwgan, miracle stories and the anarchy of Stephen's reign, miracles at Sempringham, family and inheritance in the twelfth century, and contemporary views of secular clergy.
Contributors: CONSTANCE BERMAN, LAURA GATHAGAN, DAVID CROUCH, CLAIRE DE TRAFFORD, K.L. MAUND, EDMUND KING, RICHARD SHERMAN, HUGH THOMAS, MARYLOU RUUD, JOHN COTTS, RALPH TURNER.
Gale R Owen-Crocker
Textiles of Medieval Iberia
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An examination of the fabrics, garments and cloth of the Iberian Middle Ages, bringing out in particular the international context.
The Medieval Iberian Peninsula, encompassing various territories which make up present-day Spain and Portugal, was an ethnic and religious melting pot, comprising Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities, each contributing to a vibrant textile economy. They were also defined and distinguished by the material culture of clothing and dress, partly dictated by religious and cultural tradition, partly imposed by rulers anxious to avoid cross-ethnic relationships considered undesirable. Nevertheless, textiles, especially magnificent Islamic silks, crossed these barriers.
The essays in this volume offer the first full analysis of Iberian textiles from the period, drawing on both material remains and historical documents, supported by evidence from contemporary artwork. Chapters cover surviving textiles, many of them magnificent silks; textile industries and trade; court dress and its use as a language of power and patronage; the vast market in utilitarian textiles for lower-status clothing and furnishings; and Muslim and Jewish dress. It also considers Arabic and Jewish texts as sources of information on textiles and the Arabic garment-names which crossed into Spanish. Particular emphasis is given to the the different ethnicities of Iberia and their influences on the use and trade of garments (both precious and common-place) and textiles.
Kevin Quinlan
The Secret War Between the Wars: MI5 in the 1920s and 1930s
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The methods developed by British intelligence in the early twentieth century continue to resonate today. Much like now, the intelligence activity of the British in the pre-Second World War era focused on immediate threats posed by subversive, clandestine networks against a backdrop of shifting great power politics.
Even though the First World War had ended, the battle against Britain's enemies continued unabated during the period of the 1920s and 1930s. Buffeted by political interference and often fighting for their very survival, Britain's intelligence services turned to fight a new, clandestine war against rising powers Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany.
Using recently declassified files of the British Security Service (MI5), The Secret War Between the Wars details the operations and tradecraft of British intelligence to thwart Communist revolutionaries, Soviet agents, and Nazi sympathizers during the interwar period. This new study charts the development of British intelligence methods and policies in the early twentieth century and illuminates the fraught path of intelligence leading to the Second World War. An analysis of Britain's most riveting interwar espionage cases tells the story of Britain's transition between peace and war.
The methods developed by British intelligence in the early twentieth century continue to resonate today. Much like now, the intelligence activity of the British in the pre-Second World War era focused on immediate threats posed by subversive, clandestine networks against a backdrop of shifting great power politics. As Western countries continue to face the challenge of terrorism, and in an era of geopolitical change heralded by the rise of China and the resurgence of Russia, a return to the past may provide context for a better understanding of the future.
Kevin Quinlan received his PhD in History from the University of Cambridge. He works in Washington, DC.
John Reuben Davies
The Book of Llandaf and the Norman Church in Wales
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The post-Norman ecclesiastical and political transformation of south-east Wales, recorded in early C12 manuscript.
This book explores the ecclesiastical and political transformation of south-east Wales in the later eleventh and early twelfth centuries. Ecclesiastical and administrative reform was one of the defining characteristics of the Norman regime in Britain, and the author argues that a new generation of clergy in South Wales was at the heart of this reforming programme. The focus of this volume is the early twelfth-century Book of Llandaf, one of the most perplexing but exciting historical works from post-Conquest Britain. It has long been viewed as a primary source for the history of early medieval Wales, but here it is presented in a fresh light, as a monument to learning and literature in Norman Wales, produced in the same literary milieu as Geoffrey of Monmouth. As such, the Book of Llandaf provides us with valuable insights into the state of the Norman Church in Wales, and allows us to understand how it thought about its past.
JOHN DAVIES is Research Fellow in Scottish History, University of Edinburgh
Anthony Webster
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.
Terence Zuber
German War Planning, 1891-1914: Sources and Interpretations
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Germany's Schlieffen Plan of the First World War is much talked of but little understood. Translations of primary sources recently available clarify the issues involved.
The great deficiency in the discussion of German war planning prior to the Great War has been the dearth of reliable primary sources. Practically nothing was made public before the German Reichsarchiv was destroyed in April 1945,and this problem is compounded for Anglophone historians by the fact that the most interesting secondary literature was printed in German periodicals in the early 1920s.
This book makes available in English translationmany of the documents concerning German war planning before 1914 that survived the war, but were kept closely guarded by the East German army archives, and only became available with the fall of the wall. Included are the only archival history of German war planning, Wilhelm Dieckmann's Der Schlieffenplan, Hellmuth Greiner's secret history of the German west front intelligence estimate from 1885 to 1914, and two of the younger Moltke's General Staff exercises. The book also presents other little-known documents found in other German archives as well as the most important parts of the 1920s literature concerning the debate on the German war plan.
The picture ofGerman war planning which now emerges is both more complex and more credible than the previous single-minded emphasis on the 'Schlieffenplan'.
TERENCE ZUBER has also written Inventing the Schlieffen Plan and The Moltke Myth; born in Cleveland, Ohio, he is currently living in Wurzburg, Germany.
Julie Farguson
Visualising Protestant Monarchy
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The first comprehensive, comparative study of the visual culture of monarchy in the reigns of William and Mary and Queen Anne
This book provides the first comprehensive, comparative study of the visual culture of monarchy in the reigns of William and Mary and Queen Anne. It makes innovative use of material evidence and new primary sources to re-evaluate the practice of kingship and queenship to produce an original interpretation of the British monarchy during a period of vital transformation. The quarter century between the Glorious Revolution and the Georgian era witnessed prolonged military conflict with France and the birth of what we now call Great Britain. This book argues that a new style of monarchy likewise emerged in this period and that its survival largely depended on the efforts of the royal family: two English queens, a Dutch king and a Danish prince. Through a study of art and material culture (paintings, prints, the decorative arts, architecture, dress and royal insignia) within the broader political context, the book explores how the English people were persuaded to transfer their loyalties from a traditional style of kingship, centred on ideas of divinely appointed rule and hereditary right, to one rooted in Protestantism and Parliament. The book argues that both ceremony and art played a vital role in the way the monarchy functioned after the Glorious Revolution. Crucially, it examines not only the production of images and use of ceremony but also the ways in which they were received by audiences, both in England and abroad. The book sets the on-going changes in the ideology of British monarchy within the wider context of royal politicking in Europe and pays close attention to gender and the practice of queenship as well as the ways in which military conflict shaped royal representational culture. Using a method that is centred on the visual - ceremonies and art - and on visuality, the study makes an original and important contribution to our understanding not only of the monarchy but also the political culture of the post-Glorious Revolution era.
Kathleen Walker-Meikle
Medieval Pets
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An engaging and informative survey of medieval pet keeping which also examines their representation in art and literature.
Animals in the middle ages have often been discussed - but usually only as a source of food, as beasts of burden, or as aids for hunters. This book takes a completely different angle, showing that they were also beloved domesticcompanions to their human owners, whether they were dogs, cats, monkeys, squirrels, and parrots. It offers a full survey of pets and pet-keeping: from how they were acquired, kept, fed, exercised, and displayed, to the problems they could cause. It also examines the representation of pets and their owners in art and literature; the many charming illustrations offer further evidence for the bonds between humans and their pets, then as now. A wide range of sources, including chronicles, letters, sermons and poems, are used in what is both an authoritative and entertaining account.
Dr KATHLEEN WALKER-MEIKLE gained her PhD at University College London.
D.W. Hayton
Ruling Ireland, 1685-1742
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Essays offer a chronological survey of the development of English policy towards Ireland in the late 17th - early 18th century.
In a series of studies, David Hayton offers a comprehensive account of the government of Ireland during the period of transformation from "New English" colonialism to Anglo-Irish "patriotism", providing a chronological survey of the development of English policy towards Ireland and an account of the changing political structure of Ireland; particular attention is paid to the emergence of an English-style party system under Queen Anne. The Anglo-Irish dimension is also explored, through crises of high politics, and through an examination of the role played by Irish issues at Westminster. In his introduction Professor Hayton provides historical perspective, and establishes Irish political developments firmly in their British context.
Professor D.W. HAYTON is Reader in Modern History at Queen's University, Belfast.
C. P. Lewis
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
Andrew Wareham
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.
John D. Grainger
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.
Richard E. Barton
Lordship in the County of Maine, c.890-1160
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A study of the operation of lordship in western France, emphasising its continuity, rather than recent suggestions of major changes in practice.
The social and political meaning of lordship in western France in the tenth and eleventh centuries is the focus of this study. It analyses the development and features of lordship as it was practised and experienced in Maine and the surrounding regions of France, emphasizing the social logic of lordship (why it worked as it did, and how it was socially justifiable and even necessary) and the role of honour and charisma in shaping lordship relationships. The vision and chronology of tenth- and eleventh-century lordship on offer here departs from the model of "feudal mutation", and emphasizes two major themes - the centrality of intangible, charismatic elements of honor, prestige andacclamation, and the lack of foundation for any notion of "feudal transformation": while acknowledging changes in the geography of power across the tenth and eleventh centuries, the argument insists that the practicalities of thepractice of lordship remained essentially the same between 890 and 1160.
RICHARD E. BARTON is assistant Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
David S. Bachrach
The Foundations of Royal Power in Early Medieval Germany
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Provocative interrogation of how the Ottonian kingdom grew and flourished, focussing on the resources required.
The Ottonians were the most powerful monarchs in Europe during the tenth and early eleventh century, exercising hegemony in West Francia, Burgundy, and much of Italy in addition to ruling the German realm. Despite their enormous political and military success, however, the foundations of Ottonian royal power remain highly contested and largely misunderstood, with previous scholarship tending to have considered it as depending upon the ability of the king to shape and harness the power of the nobles.
This study challenges the dominant historiographical paradigm, rebutting the notion of putative power-sharing between the king and the nobility, which simply did not exist as a legal class in the Ottonian century. Rather, it argues that the foundations of royal power under the Ottonians comprised not only their own enormous wealth, but also their unique authority and ability, through the royal bannum, the authority inherent in the office of the king, to make use of the economic resources and labour of the broad free population of the realm, as well as from the Church. In so doing, the Ottonians drew upon and further developed the administrative, institutional, and ideological inheritance of their Carolingian predecessors, in the process creating the dominant polity in tenth-century Europe.
Jun-Prof Dr Christine Fertig
Landless Households in Rural Europe, 1600-1900
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First comparative study of landless households brings out their major role in European history and society.
The numbers of landless people - those lacking formal rights to land, or possessing only tiny smallholdings - grew rapidly across post-medieval Europe, as rural population and economic growth divided landowners and farmers from (increasingly) landless rural workers. But they have hitherto been relatively neglected, a gap which this volume, covering Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Britain, France and Spain from the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries, aims to fill, making creative use of a diverse range of unexplored sources. Instead of concentrating on the well-documented cases of landholding peasants, it explores the many different experiences of the numerous rural landless. It explains how their households were formed (often in the face of economic difficulties and official hostility), how all the members of a family contributed to its survival, how the landless related to other social groups and negotiated access to vital resources, and how they adapted as rural society was changed by war, politics, agrarian and industrial development, government policy and welfare systems.
Contributors: Arnau Barquer i Cerdà, John Broad, ⴕ Dieter Bruneel, Christine Fertig, Henry French, Margareth Lanzinger, Jonas Lindström, Riikka Miettinen, Richard Paping, Wouter Ronsijn, Merja Uotila, Nadine Vivier
Laura L Gathagan
The Haskins Society Journal 32: 2020. Studies in Medieval History
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Essays illuminate a wide range of topics from the Middle Ages, from the seals of an empress to priests' wives and the undead.
This volume of the Haskins Society Journal demonstrates the Society's continued engagement with historical and interdisciplinary research from the early to the central Middle Ages on a broad range of topics including militarism, piety, the miraculous and the monstrous. Chapters explore material culture through a mythic eleventh-century papal banner and the seals and coins of the Empress Matilda; offer new insights into Carolingian hagiography and into the undead in the Historia rerum Anglicarum. Further chapters feature new evidence on the role of priests' wives, the tensions of multiple lordships, shifting identities in the Irish Sea world, and the didactic use of royal anger. A fresh examination of Aelred of Rievaulx's Relatio de Standaro and a re-assessment of Flemish documentary practice continue the Haskins Society's commitment to primary source analysis. Two essays on the thirteenth century, including links between Crusade spirituality and lay penitential strategies and an investigation into the economic costs of waging war, round out the volume. Contributors: DAN ARMSTRONG, DAVID S. BACHRACH, DANIEL M. BACHRACH, JILLIAN M. BJERKE, HANNAH BOSTON, MARIAH COOPER, FIONA J. GRIFFITHS, JESSE M. HARRINGTON, JEAN-FRANÇOIS NIEUS, ALICE RIO, CHARITY URBANSKI, PATRICK WADDEN, MEGHAN WOOLLEY, LU ZUO
Ellie Gebarowski-Shafer
Contesting Orthodoxies in the History of Christianity
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Examines the pursuit of orthodoxy, and its consequences for the history of Christianity.
Christianity is a hugely diverse and quarrelsome family of faiths, but most Christians have nevertheless set great store by orthodoxy - literally, 'right opinion' - even if they cannot agree what that orthodoxy should be. The notion that there is a 'catholic', or universal, Christian faith - that which, according to the famous fifth-century formula, has been believed everywhere, at all times and by all people - is itself an act of faith: to reconcile it with the historical fact of persistent division and plurality requires a constant effort. It also requires a variety of strategies, from confrontation and exclusion, through deliberate choices as to what is forgotten or ignored, to creative or even indulgent inclusion. In this volume, seventeen leading historians of Christianity ask how the ideal of unity has clashed, negotiated, reconciled or coexisted with the historical reality of diversity, in a range of historical settings from the early Church through the Reformation era to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These essays hold the huge variety of the Christian experience together with the ideal of orthodoxy, which Christians have never (yet) fully attained but for which they have always striven; and they trace some of the consequences of the pursuit of that ideal for the history of Christianity.
Björn Weiler
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
John D. Grainger
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.
Chris R. Langley
The National Covenant in Scotland, 1638-1689
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What did it mean to be a Covenanter?
From its first subscription in 1638, the National Covenant was an aspect of life that communities across Scotland encountered on a daily basis. However, how contemporaries understood its significance remains unclear. This edited collection assesses how people interacted with the National Covenant's infamously ambiguous text, the political and religious changes that it provoked, and the legacy that it left behind. This volume contains eleven chapters divided between three themes that reveal the complex processes behind Covenanting: the act of swearing and subscribing the Covenants; the process of self fashioning and identity formation, and, finally, the various acts of remembering and memorialising the history of the National Covenant. The collection reveals different narratives of what it meant to be a Covenanter rather than one, uniform, and unchanging idea. The National Covenant forced contortions in Scottish identities, memories, and attitudes and remained susceptible to changes in the political context. Its impact was dependent upon individual circumstances. The volume's chapters contend that domestic understanding of the National Covenant was far more nuanced, and the conversations very different, from those occurring in a wider British or Irish context. Those who we now call 'Covenanters' were guided by very different expectations and understandings of what the Covenant represented. The rules that governed this interplay were based on local circumstances and long-standing pressures that could be fuelled by short-term expediency. Above all, the nature of Covenanting was volatile. Chapters in this volume are based on extensive archival research of local material that provide a view into the complex, and often highly personalised, ways people understood the act or memory of Covenanting. The chapters explore the religious, political, and social responses to the National Covenant through its creation in 1638, the Cromwellian invasion of 1650 and the Restoration of monarchy in 1660.
Samuel A. Claussen
Chivalry and Violence in Late Medieval Castile
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First full investigation in English into the role played by chivalric ideology, and its violent results, in late medieval Castile.
The Kingdom of Castile in the late Middle Ages suffered from regular civil strife, warfare, dynastic contests, and violence, such that only a century before the birth of the Spanish Empire, it is difficult to imagine a successfulworld empire centered in this tumultuous realm. The chaos that marked this period of Castilian history was not mere chance, but the result of key historical developments which have not been fully examined in Anglophone scholarship. This book explores the roots of the disorder that plagued Castile in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, identifying the ideology of chivalry and its knightly practitioners as the chief instigators of the violence thatdestabilized the kingdom. The author argues that chivalry was far from being a code of good behaviour, scrupulously observed, but rather encouraged knights to avenge themselves violently upon their neighbours, pursue a zealous holy war against Islam, and tear at the social fabric of Castilian society. Their powerful ideas and values shaped the course of Castilian history in the crucial years before the unification of the Spanish kingdoms.
David Crook
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.
Linda Clark
The Fifteenth Century VII
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A range of important issues in current research are debated in the latest volume in the series, with a special focus on warfare.
The theme of conflict is central to the essays gathered in this volume. Apart from the renewed armed struggle with France in the final stages of the Hundred Years War, subjects covered include the theoretical foundations of the Wars of the Roses, the impact of this conflict in the provinces, the frequently strained relationship between the English, the Irish and the Welsh, and the effects of intermittent warfare between England and Scotland. Other themesthat emerge include the evolution of the English constitution, clerical practice at the centre and in the regions, and the competence (or otherwise) of Italian bankers when dealing with men at war.
Contributors: JIM BOLTON, LUCY BROWN, MICHAEL BROWN, CHRISTINE CARPENTER, ANNE CURRY, GILLIAN DRAPER, PETER FLEMING, ANTHONY GOODMAN, HANNES KLEINEKE, CATHERINE NALL AND JAMES ROSS
Sergio Boffa
Warfare in Medieval Brabant, 1356-1406
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An account of the causes, combatants and course of events in the successive conflicts which troubled the duchy for half a century.
The medieval duchy of Brabant was one of the most powerful principalities of the Low Countries. During the second half of the fourteenth century, it underwent a particularly dramatic period in its history: the House of Leuven wason the point of disappearance, the duchy was coveted by Philip the Bold of Burgundy, who was already dreaming of extending the "Burgundian Empire" and, by a network of alliances, Brabant was drawn into the Hundred Years' War. Theauthor reviews the successive conflicts which troubled the duchy between 1356 and 1406; the different authorities which influenced the course of military operations (the duchess and the duke, their officers, and the Estates of Brabant); describes the combatants, in particular the nobility and the urban militias; considers the practical aspects of warfare; and analyses the military obligations and contracts which bound the men at arms to the duke.
SERGIO BOFFA is currently researching in the department of Maps and Plans, Bibliotheque Royale de Belgique, Brussels.
Jason McElligott
Royalism, Print and Censorship in Revolutionary England
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A study of the content and methods of royalist propaganda via newsbooks in the crucial period following the end of the first civil war.
This is a study of a remarkable set of royalist newsbooks produced in conditions of strict secrecy in London during the late 1640s. It uses these flimsy, ephemeral sheets of paper to rethink the nature of both royalism and Civil War allegiance. Royalism, Print and Censorship in Revolutionary England moves beyond the simple and simplistic dichotomies of 'absolutism' versus 'constitutionalism'. In doing so, it offers a nuanced, innovative and exciting visionof a strangely neglected aspect of the Civil Wars. Print has always been seen as a radical, destabilizing force: an agent of social change and revolution. Royalism, Print and Censorship in Revolutionary England demonstrates, bycontrast, how lively, vibrant and exciting the use of print as an agent of conservatism could be. It seeks to rescue the history of polemic in 1640s and 1650s England from an undue preoccupation with the factional squabbles of leading politicians. In doing so, it offers a fundamental reappraisal of the theory and practice of censorship in early-modern England, and of the way in which we should approach the history of books and print-culture. JASON McELLIGOTT is the J.P.R. Lyell Research Fellow in the History of the Early Modern Printed Book at Merton College, Oxford.
Aleksander Pluskowski
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,
Paul Brassley
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