Law,memory, and priestly office in Rome,c.500

This essay sets the development of Christian thinking about law and clerical office in the wider context of the discussion of office in the later Roman empire. It offers a reassessment of the work of Dionysius Exiguus, a well‐known translator from Greek into Latin of the Acts of the fourth‐ and fifth‐century church councils, and a compiler of papal decretals. The essay attempts to place Dionysius’ work in its immediate Roman context, in the context of fifth‐century canonical activity, especially in North Africa, and in the more general context of the political culture of office‐holding in the late Roman polity. Central here is the tension between bureaucratic regulation and autocratic room for manoeuvre. Dionysius did not attempt fully to resolve this tension, though he did attempt to contain it.     

Stumbling towards Empire: The Shanghai Local Post Office,the Transnational British Community and Informal Empire in China, 1863–97

In the second half of nineteenth century, a small transnational British and foreign community grew up in the treaty ports scattered along China’s coast, a community literally caught between the great inner Asian empire of the Manchu Qing and British-dominated informal empire in Asia. Although scholars often contend that few major developments occurred in the foreign sector of the treaty port world until the very end of the nineteenth century, this article joins recent revisionist scholarship seeking to better understand the growth of this transnational treaty port community through a study of the Shanghai Municipal Council’s local post office in the context of informal empire prior to the rise of muscular Chinese nationalism in the early twentieth century.

As an institutional history of the virtually unknown local post office, this article is a study of the decades-long process by which the foreign settler community of Shanghai slowly built up the administrative capacity, trading networks and communications infrastructure of informal empire and semi-colonial order in the nineteenth-century treaty ports. The history of the local post office is largely unknown not because of its insignificance, but because we have not paid enough attention to the institutions that facilitated the emergence of transnational expatriate and settler communities throughout the world of British informal empire and the global and local influences that shaped them.     

Gender,work and technology in the information workplace: from typewriters to ATMs

We consider the relations between gender and technology in the workplace, focusing on clerical work in the information workplace, especially the finance and insurance sector. Our goal is to excavate a ‘hidden history’ of how clerical work and the artifacts which sustain it have been understood and deployed under different cultural and economic circumstances. We employ an analysis of technosocial relations developed in Science and Technology Studies in which meanings about ‘technology’ and ‘society’ are mutually constitutive, changeable, and in need of maintenance in order to sustain their conceptual coherence. By drawing on examples from the USA and Canada, we argue that at various points over the twentieth century particular office technologies became ‘feminized’, or associated with characteristics coded as feminine, as a means of shaping spatial practice and social relations in the workplace.     

‘Disgusting acts of shamelessness’: sexual misconduct and the deconstruction of royal authority in the eleventh century

That the sexual misconduct of a king had political ramifications is clear from a large number of texts from throughout the entire Middle Ages. At no point, however, was royal sexuality more salient in political writing than in the second half of the eleventh century. This was not simply a reflection of contemporary efforts to reform sexual morality. Neither can charges of sexual immorality be dismissed as mere rhetorical devices, intended to blacken a king's character (although they certainly did that). On the contrary, sex was doing important ideological work in political texts from this period. This article focuses on the particularly savage set of sexual accusations made against King (after 1084, Emperor) Henry IV of Germany (1056–1106). It argues that the long‐standing association between sexual desire and privacy, shame and disorder worked powerfully in the eleventh century to justify rebellion, and to separate the king, as libidinous individual, from the ‘majesty’ of the office he held.     

‘Uproot and destroy,build and plant’: legatine authority under Pope Gregory VII

Confronted with the need for scholarly criteria in properly defining the ad hoc papal institution existent under Pope Gregory VII (1073–85), this paper seeks to clarify the title, office, and jurisdiction of the eleventh-century reforming legate. Discussing the Roman origins of this office through to the twelfth century – taking into account the political, ecclesiastical and legal constraints of the period – questions are raised concerning the extent and nature of legatine authority (especially as the reformers understood it). Contemporary criteria are unclear, but modern scholars can infer some regularities from Gregory VII's Register and other contemporary sources as to how this office operated in the last quarter of the eleventh century, and ultimately, to understand more clearly how reform was being implemented in the provinces.     

‘Uproot and destroy,build and plant’: legatine authority under Pope Gregory VII

Confronted with the need for scholarly criteria in properly defining the ad hoc papal institution existent under Pope Gregory VII (1073–85), this paper seeks to clarify the title, office, and jurisdiction of the eleventh-century reforming legate. Discussing the Roman origins of this office through to the twelfth century – taking into account the political, ecclesiastical and legal constraints of the period – questions are raised concerning the extent and nature of legatine authority (especially as the reformers understood it). Contemporary criteria are unclear, but modern scholars can infer some regularities from Gregory VII's Register and other contemporary sources as to how this office operated in the last quarter of the eleventh century, and ultimately, to understand more clearly how reform was being implemented in the provinces.     

Seeing Green in San Francisco: City as Resource Frontier

The early 21st century witnessed a boom in green building in San Francisco and similar cities. Major downtown property owners and investors retrofitted office towers, commissioned green certification, and critically, explored how greening might pay. Greening initiatives transcend corporate social responsibility: they represent a new attempt to enclose and speculate upon “green” value within the second nature of cities. However, this unconventional resource discovery requires a highly partial view of buildings’ socio‐natural entanglements in and beyond the city. I illuminate these efforts and their obscurities by exploring the experience of an exemplary green building in San Francisco, an office tower that has successively served as a headquarters organizing a vast resource periphery in the American West, a symbol and driver in the transformation of the city's own second nature, a financial “resource” in its own right, and most recently, an asset in an emerging global market for green property.     

The Office of Housekeeper of the House of Lords

This note illustrates one aspect of the process whereby the palace of Westminster evolved from a royal residence into the seat of parliament, explains how the housekeeper of that palace came to be associated with the house of lords and lists the holders of the office from the 16th to the 19th century.     

‘One Chief Letter Office at New-York’: Packet Ships,Imperial Administration,and the Geography of the American Post, 1692–1783

ABSTRACT

The postal system in the American colonies is an understudied arm of the first British Empire. Although outside the main institutions of colonial administration, the post office followed the overall periodisation of imperial affairs, as America waxed and waned in London’s attention. This directly shaped the geography of the post office, because American officials focused on the post’s ability to connect American towns, while British officials emphasised the transatlantic connection of the postal packet ships. The packets, however, were not as important to transatlantic communications as they imagined, which led the American officials to resist when London wanted to make New York City the headquarters of the American post.     

Household knights,chamber knights and king’s knights: the development of the royal knight in fourteenth-century England

The fourteenth century witnessed a considerable change in the way in which knights were retained in royal service in England. The system of retaining ‘household knights’, which had been in operation since at least the twelfth century, gave way to a new system based around the retaining of ‘chamber knights’ and ‘king’s knights’. These new ranks were retained in different ways to the household knights and often performed different functions. Consequently, the place they occupied in fourteenth-century kingship was markedly different. Despite the significance of this development, the scholarship on it has been limited and often contradictory. This article offers a detailed reassessment of how and why this development occurred and what its impacts were for the fourteenth-century polity.     

The House of Commons Serjeant 1640–93

The conflict between the crown and parliament in the 17th century inevitably disrupted the orderly succession to the offices of the house of commons, as is illustrated by the case of the serjeant‐at‐arms. Existing lists of the holders of this office tend to oversimplify the situation. This note brings together the available facts with the object of identifying those who actually carried out the duties of the office between 1640 and 1693.     

明清两淮盐务道员建置新考

盐务道员是明清政府为管理食盐产销设立的重要职官。万历末年,明廷为催征盐课以供辽饷,先后创设整饬、疏理两淮盐法道。天启以后,党争剧烈,道臣清理盐法成效不彰,崇祯朝致力恢复运司专管盐法的旧制。清代重新调整盐官制度,合并运使、盐道为“管盐法道运使”,又新设监管场产的“分巡盐务道”和职司岸销的“通省盐法道”。盐务道员由朝廷差遣官变为地方盐务机构,与专管盐课钱粮的运司衙门共同成为包衣盐差的直属办事机构。皇帝为独揽两淮利权,又令两江总督兼总理盐法,与包衣盐差相互制约。道光年间,盐差因整顿不力奉裁,盐政改归总督管理。咸同军兴以后,运司、盐道的职权被招商、督销等局侵夺,两淮利权遂归总督,成为晚清督臣专权的财政基础。     

Spies and Postmen: Communications Liaisons and the Evolution of the Qing Bureaucracy

This article introduces the “communications liaison” (titang guan)—an official category little acknowledged in past scholarship on the late imperial Chinese state. Communications liaisons stationed at garrisons and administrative seats compiled intelligence and news reports for supervising officials in distant locations. In Beijing, capital liaisons compiled documents into court gazettes and supervised the distribution of documents, seals of office, and imperial gifts to the provinces. Besides these responsibilities, capital liaisons acquired reputations for following personal and patronage agendas that undermined the integrity of the bureaucratic state. Longstanding financial and administrative inconsistencies within the Qing bureaucracy induced liaisons to misbehave. Still, characterizations of liaison malfeasance transformed over the course of the dynasty due to institutional developments including the implementation of new communications systems, the standardization of provincial administrations, and the expansion of office sales. Whereas liaisons in the early and mid-Qing periods were parties to political exchanges among the bureaucratic elite, by the dynasty’s waning years, liaisons provided services for the larger population of bureaucratic personnel. The liaisons’ transformation from spies into postmen, as seen through the eyes of official critics, offers an opportunity to evaluate the impact of major changes in the Qing bureaucracy upon some of its least known officeholders.     

Original DocumentsCharter of Hugh of Bayeux to the Church and Canons of St. Mary of Torrington,temp. Henry II

The ‘Northern British Cooking-Pot’ stems from Saxo-Norman antecedents, and is found in two basic light-coloured fabrics, the ‘Gritty Northern’ and the ‘Staxton Ware Type’. From Yorkshire the type spread in the early thirteenth century west over the Pennines to Carlisle and thence to south-west Scotland. Present evidence suggests that while ‘Gritty Northern’ ware traditions may have spread to eastern Scotland by an overland route, there is reason to suppose there was close contact between the potteries of Fife and Angus and those of the Scarborough district in the late thirteenth century. While in Scotland there is a considerable hybridization of forms and fabrics, ‘Gritty Northern’ ware appears predominant north of the Forth, ‘Staxton Type’ ware to the south. In the fourteenth century distinctively Scottish local variants occur. French and Low Countries influences on early Scottish pottery are discussed, a tentative Scottish cooking-pot type-series put forward, and a gazetteer of sites producing rim-sherds given.     

Perceptions of office rent determinants by real estate brokerage firms in Istanbul

Studies on the office rent prediction models have been on the rise for the last quarter of this century. The extent of variables used in the proposed models changes significantly, reflecting variations in locational and/or economical conditions of the region. The viewpoint of brokerage firms on the effectiveness of these academically defined variables is important. The benefit of obtaining these viewpoints is two-fold. Firstly, it will provide some evidence on whether or not the reported influences of these variables remain the same in different markets, in this case, in the I˙stanbul office market. Secondly, it may define how well practitioners' criteria fit academically defined variables during the decision-making process for a new office investment, especially in the I˙stanbul office market. The study derives the currently well established locational, building, econometric and contract variables from previously published research. Two different influence scales of these variables were constructed. The first scale was based on the result of a survey study administrated to 10 leading real estate brokerage firms in I˙stanbul and the second was based on the reported influences from previous publications. Comparing the influence scales, contradictory and parallel findings were determined, indicative conclusions, revealing the unique structure of I˙stanbul, were drawn. Among the 47 comparable office rent variables, the influence of 17 was found to agree well in both scales. Except econometric variables, most variables in I˙stanbul revealed different influences than globally determined influences.     

Tesserae Recycling in the Production of Medieval Blue Window Glass

The purpose of this paper is to develop a means of quantifying glass recycling and to discuss the ‘anachronistic’ chemical composition of medieval blue window glass. This method relies on a new numerical method using kernel density estimates and is based on a database of published glass chemical compositions. It seeks to reveal when, to what extent and why blue tesserae were recycled for the production of French and English blue glass. First, it is suggested that blue glass had an ‘anachronistic’ chemical composition only before the 13th century. Second, the ‘anachronistic’ chemical composition of 12th‐century blue glass comes from the recycling of both blue tesserae and non‐coloured glass. Finally, this recycling was motivated by the scarcity of cobalt sources until mines were found in the 13th century.     

Two millennia of male stature development and population health and wealth in the Low Countries

This paper offers a review of shifts in average male stature and their relationship with health and wealth in the Low Countries from AD 50 to 1997. Twenty‐one population samples were studied to cover the full time span. To make data compatible, so‐called ‘virtual statures’ were used, i.e. the statures which adult males were supposed to have had at the end of their growth period, before they started shrinking by ageing. Original data were extracted from ‘in situ measured statures’, ‘calculated statures’ and ‘corrected cadaveric statures’. If possible, maximum femoral lengths were also collected from the same population samples to check whether trends in stature development were in agreement with raw skeletal data. A long phase of stature decrease from ca. 176 cm to 166 cm, a so‐called ‘negative secular trend’, was noticed from the Roman Period up to and including the first half of the 19th century. This was followed by a sharp and still ongoing increase in stature to 184 cm, a typical ‘positive secular trend’, from the second half of the 19th century to the present time. General shifts in stature and ‘outliers’ illustrative for the process are viewed in the context of socio‐economic, demographic, health and nutritional factors. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Johnson Club and Late Victorian Literary Culture

In 1902 both the Order of Merit and the British Academy came into being. As David Cannadine has noted, Gladstonian liberals including Lord Rosebery, John Morley and Sir G.O. Trevelyan occupied a key segment of the newly formed elite with several others who were admitted to one or both of the new groups, belonged to the Club, the private society founded by Samuel Johnson and Joshua Reynolds in 1764. In fact several members took a leading part in the negotiations leading to the establishment of the Academy. The article seeks to demonstrate the significance of the Club in promoting what Cannadine terms ‘liberal and literary culture’ in the later nineteenth century. A detailed examination of the membership shows a broad array of high achievers in the arts and sciences, as well as many individuals who held important public office. In particular, the Club elected a remarkable group of distinguished Victorian historians, including Macaulay, Grote, Froude, Lecky, Acton, Maine, Stubbs and Creighton. At the end of the century, several members had served in Gladstone's administrations, and as a solid phalanx of liberal politician/writers they provided the base from which the new recipients of the Order of Merit and Fellows of British Academy would be chosen. My conclusion is that the group held a central place in the intellectual and literary world of Britain around 1900, with its extensive connections to the political power base, and understandably provided a nucleus of members for both the Order of Merit and the British Academy