Choiseul: The Making of a Diplomat

ROHAN BUTLER. Choiseul, Volume i: Father and Son, 1719–54. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. Pp. xxxv, 1133. $135.00 (US).     

Reconstructing the massacre at Fort William Henry,New York

Fort William Henry, in upstate New York, was the site of a legendary siege and massacre in 1757 during the French and Indian War. As part of the terms of surrender, the British garrison was to retreat with all their arms and possessions, thus denying the Indian allies of the French their spoils of war. Contemporaneous and fictionalized accounts of the resulting massacre have often been regarded as exaggerations of actual events. Five men buried in a mass grave within the fort, known as the crypt, however, were clearly victims of the massacre. These men were among the sick and wounded who were unable to make the 15 mile (24 km) journey to Fort Edward and were left in the care of the French. Four of the five men sustained pre-mortem leg trauma that would have resulted in their hospitalization and prevented them from walking. The other massive perimortem trauma on these remains vividly depicts the results of the massacre. Three of the five men were shot in the knee; two of these three were shot elsewhere as well. One man was decapitated. Both the front and back of all the bodies bear cut marks, probably from the use of both axes and long-bladed knives as weapons. The numerous gashes in the thoracic and pelvic regions indicate the men were mutilated. Our analysis of the remains from this mass grave confirms and enhances the historical accounts of the massacre at Fort William Henry. The skeletons of these five men provide gruesome testimony of the assault to which they were subjected.     

The hanging of William Cragh: anatomy of a miracle

This paper is a case study of a miracle story, the hanging and resuscitation of William Cragh. It studies the metamorphosis from a historical event to a miracle story. The miracle itself, on the first impression, seems to be relatively insignificant. Most of the persons involved are unknown from other sources, and the story was rejected in the final phase of canonisation. It is the very weakness of the story that makes it important. The testimonies of the witnesses are often contradictory and there are obvious deviations from the truth.Why were the witnesses economical with the truth? Some stood to gain, some simply did not remember correctly, some wanted to emphasise their own role, and some wanted to meet the expectations of the papal commission. There is, however, no evidence that the witnesses would have been manipulated by the proctors of the Hereford chapter which stood to gain from the canonisation. It is also evident that the papal commission was not satisfied with merely having the witnesses' statements written down. The commissioners did everything possible to produce an objective and informative file of each miracle for the use of the pope and cardinals.     

Michel Henry: The Affects of Thought

BLANCHOT, M. Awaiting Oblivion translated with an introduction by John Gregg University of Nebraska Press, 1997 85 pp., no price indicated, ISBN 0 8032 1257 7

CENDRON, J.‐P. Le Monde de la protection sociale Nathan, 1996 189 pp., no price indicated, ISBN 2 09 190135 0

CHAVANCE, B. Marx et le capitalisme Nathan, 1996 191 pp., no price indicated, ISBN 2 09 190100 0

MARCEL, B. and TAIEB, J. Le Chômage aujourd'hui Nathan, 1997 (2nd edition) 190 pp., ISBN 2 09 190140 0

La ville des sciences sociales Enquête, 4, 1996, pp. 1–280 Parenthçses, ISSN 1245 2084     

Criticism of Henry II's expedition to Ireland in William of Canterbury's miracles of St Thomas Becket

The long collection of miracles of St Thomas Becket written by William, a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, between 1172 and c.1179 is, like many other examples of the genre, a rich source for attitudes towards sanctity, relics, and pilgrimage. A far more unusual feature of William's text is the author's criticism of the recent English presence in Ireland. William's comments on this score amount to a loaded stretching of the normal parameters of his textual medium, resulting in an evaluative engagement with current affairs of the sort that we would more normally associate with reflective forms of history-writing. William's criticism focused in particular upon the expedition to Ireland undertaken by King Henry II (October 1171–April 1172), inverting the very rhetoric that Henry had used to justify his Irish adventure. William was not himself Irish, as has sometimes been supposed, nor was he registering his institution's frustrations about its exclusion from the new ecclesiastical order in Ireland, as might be implied by the traditional but questionable ‘Canterbury plot’ interpretation of the much-debated papal bull Laudabiliter. Instead, William was skilfully engaging with current debates about the rectitude of Henry II's Irish expedition, and more broadly contesting emerging prejudices about England's ‘uncultivated’ neighbours, in order to effect a subtle critique of the king's involvement in Becket's murder.