Tapping into a Different Cultural Tradition: Sir William Temple's Aesthetic Innovations

Studies of Sir William Temple usually associate him with the English Battle of the Books. Since his defense of the old against the new in European arts and sciences was known even in his day to be inadequate, his role in the literary history of England has so far been largely trivialized. Challenging this conventional reading, this essay strives to show that the innovation and significance of Temple's aesthetics was closely connected with his somewhat known—but hitherto insufficiently scrutinized—longstanding interest in the cultural tradition of the Far East.     

“An Ægyptian darknesse”: pagan chronologies,historia sacra,and the hieroglyph in England, 1646-1690

ABSTRACT

In this article I consider the depiction of the Egyptian hieroglyph in several seventeenth-century English religio-historiographical works that engage with the problems posed by the Egyptian dynastic records – records that challenged the validity of biblical chronology. Critical tradition has been keen to view the hieroglyph in the context of esoteric European scholarship, while scholarship on the English Enlightenment has tended to overlook the importance of religious motivations in “secular” intellectual projects. I show here, however, that some of the first apparently “secular” approaches to the hieroglyphs in England were not in works that espoused proto-Enlightenment linguistics or other intellectual ideals, but in religiously-motivated projects that, seeking to buttress sacred history and the primacy of the Judaic tradition against the threat of pagan chronologies, aimed to discredit the hieroglyph as an icon of pagan learning.     

A Palaeolithic fishhook made of ivory and the earliest fishhook tradition in Europe

Prehistoric fishhooks have previously been described in northern Europe as being common since the Mesolithic. Here we present a Final Palaeolithic ivory fishhook from the site Wustermark 22 (north-eastern Germany), the raw material of which is about 19,000 years old. Five further fishhooks were discovered in situ at the same site one of which has a calibrated radiocarbon age of about 12,300 years. The tool industries of flint artefacts and bone/antler tools are associated with descendants of the Federmesser-culture and the palynological context indicates a Younger Dryas environment. Wustermark 22 represents the largest collection of Palaeolithic fishhooks so far found at a single European site. A comparison with other sites in Europe, containing Palaeolithic fishhooks suggests that the appearance and development of fishhooks may be associated with a general change in resource availability during the Greenland Interstadial 1 (Bølling/Allerød warming), which is also connected with a change from late Upper Palaeolithic to Final Palaeolithic industries in Northern Central Europe. We conclude that Mesolithic fishhook tradition has its roots in the Final Palaeolithic.     

The Real vs the Imaginary: Sir William Chambers on the Chinese Garden

Sir William Chambers was one of the most important English architects in the eighteenth-century, but both in his day and later his international recognition was closely connected with his admiration for and promotion of Chinese art, particularly Chinese landscaping. Between 1757 and 1773, Chambers published three treatises praising the ingenious mixture of nature and art in a Chinese pleasure ground, criticizing the then influential English gardener Lancelot (Capability) Brown, and trying to goad English garden design into the direction of China. He did not achieve his purposes mainly because he mixed what he knew as genuine about the Chinese gardening art with what he fantasized about it. While recent scholarship has focused on his fantasy, this article examines what Chambers knew or imagined about Chinese landscaping, what he and his detractors were for and against, and how the fiasco of his 1772 and 1773 treatises, which he brought upon himself, nevertheless helped to usher in a new phase in the English reception of Chinese landscaping ideas.     

New Perspectives on the English Reformation

The historiography of the English Reformation has been driven by several key themes for three or four decades: the chronology of religious change and the success or failure of Protestantism to establish itself, the position of Puritanism vis-à-vis Church conformity, the role of Arminianism (anti-Calvinism) in doctrinal and ecclesiological debates and its impact on ecclesiastical politics and, more latterly, the continuities of ideas and beliefs between medieval Catholicism and Reformation Protestantism. This survey article on six new books in the field of Reformation studies argues that while the current historiography is generating very exciting work on the religious mentalité of early-modern English people and the transmission of ideas across the Catholic-Protestant divide, as well as generating a thriving debate on Calvinist consensus (or not) and the rise of Arminianism (or not), there are further rich seams to mine that incorporate gender into the analysis and that add the Atlantic World perspective to that of the European context for Reformation.     

Berlin: Town planning under particular conditions

The development of the Berlin conurbation as a unified living and economic area was interrupted for over 40 years. The reshaping of the old and new capital of Germany is not only to be seen under the aspects of continuity or discontinuity, but also in the context of the reinforced tradition of federalism and decentralism in Germany, and of competition with other European cities. The task of the reintegration of three different parts—West Berlin, East Berlin and the surrounding countryside—requires new concepts for the region and the city. Programmes and draft plans for the entire conurbation as well as the rebuilding and redesigning of the old city centre in accordance with both history and the future function are discussed. How and in what period of time the different plans and measures will be realized remains to be seen. In the meantime, well-thought out options for long-term development have to compete with propositions promising strong impulses for quick economic recovery.     

贵族话语与雅典民主政治的关系——以“刺杀僭主”叙事为中心

传统观点认为,虽然古典时期的雅典人创造了民主制,但并未发展出相应的民主政治话语,贵族的传统价值观和意识形态始终在民主政治中居于主导地位。然而,对"刺杀僭主"叙事的分析表明,贵族发明的话语传统可以在公共空间内被大众转化为城邦的政治话语,进而在新的历史语境中被民主化,为民主政治话语提供符号、仪式和形象,成为民主制的有机组成部分。这说明,古典时期雅典民主政治对旧时代政治符号的继承,并不等于贵族话语对民主政治的胜利。能够在新的政治语境中对旧叙事进行创造性改编,反而说明民主政治有能力利用旧传统的养分,创造出属于自身的政治话语。     

Franco Venturi's ‘crisis’ of the Old Regime

This paper discusses Franco Venturi's concept of a general European ‘crisis’ in the period 1768 – 89, which is covered in volumes III, IV and V of Settecento riformatore. With this concept Venturi allied himself with R. R. Palmer, A. Sorel, J. Juarès and others who sought to explore the larger context of the Enlightenment and French Revolution. Critics of the English translation of Venturi's volumes III and IV (1989?–?91) have failed to perceive a European political crisis in this period. However, Venturi's concept also involved a birth of European public opinion, a development that has been affirmed in English, French and Italian studies more recently, despite a tendency to substitute a cultural for a political history of the Enlightenment.     

Halford Mackinder's “new” political geography and the geographical tradition

This article re-examines Halford Mackinder's conception of geography in general and his practise as a political geographer in particular by placing his work in the context of the history of geography. The nature and politicisation of early modern (c.1600–1850) geography are depicted, and used as a contextual standard against which to assess Mackinder's claims to have propounded a “new” geography and a “new” form of political geography. Mackinder's conception of geography is found to have been a substantial departure from the early modern one, in terms of its definition of geography, its textual format and its placing of geography in a broader educative structure. By contrast, Mackinder's political geography is shown to effect a far less radical break, for whilst Mackinder's rhetoric suggests that geography will drive his political analysis, it is in fact his pre-existent politics as a tariff-reforming conservative which drove his political geography. To the extent that geography acted as a container for politics, Mackinder was still in the tradition of the early modern period, although he did change the form of that argument.     

英格兰教育旅行传统探析

英格兰人为精神、文化方面的需求而前往欧洲大陆游历的做法由来已久,可以追溯到中世纪之初、甚至更为遥远的时代。在中世纪,英格兰人除了因外交、军事和商业等原因而旅行外,还以朝圣者、骑士和学者等身份前往欧陆。近代之初,知识结构的变化、人文主义的影响、绅士教育重点的转变及国际外交实践的影响,催生了新型的教育旅行。到17世纪中叶,因英格兰社会上层的政治经济需求、绅士阶层提高自身素养的需要以及部分英格兰人对自身生活习性的反思,新的教育旅行（“大旅行”）开始得到认可和接受,逐渐成为一种广受欢迎的社会传统和习俗。     

Keeping the Devil at Bay: The Shoe on the Coffin Lid and Other Grave Charms in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-century America

Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century graves excavated archaeologically in the United States are occasionally found in association with objects beyond the typical clothing or coffin hardware, such as ceramic vessels, coins, and perhaps most mysterious of all, a single shoe placed on the lid of the coffin or casket. Not clearly described in archival accounts, the single shoe phenomenon within a mortuary context is argued here to be a creolized practice, combining an African cosmology and belief in the liminal state of the soul after death with a European and especially British Isles tradition of shoes as magical objects and potential traps for evil.     

Humanists and Travellers,Gorgons and Gorillas: Hanno the Navigator's Periplus and Early Modern Geography (1530–1630)

This article is concerned with early modern interpretations of Hanno the Navigator's Periplus, an ancient travel account of a Carthaginian voyage down the coasts of Africa. The early modern period saw a rise in interest in geographical knowledge, and the ways in which different authors used Hanno's voyage reflects their understanding of the role of geography in conceptualising the world. In these discussions, writers had to negotiate between the confusing portrayals of the voyage in the received classical tradition and new reports brought by voyages of exploration. Here, I will discuss how these syntheses between humanist methods and contemporary travellers' accounts were shaped by the economic and political concerns tied to the first wave of European overseas expansion. Amid this climate, ancient geographical knowledge found pragmatic applications in contemporary issues of navigation, commerce and claims of territorial possession, as well as shaping European perceptions of ‘self’ and ‘the other’. This paper thus seeks to situate humanist practices and classical knowledge within the wider context of overseas voyages and early modern political and economic developments.     

Mapping the Contours of Race: Griffith Taylor's Zones and Strata Theory

This article explores the ways in which cartography served as a tool to reinforce racial divisions in the context of late nineteenth and early twentieth century race science. Racial and anthropometric mapping was an endeavour in which both European and new world anthropologists and geographers were involved. The focus here is on the work of Thomas Griffith Taylor – regarded as one of the founders of modern geography in Australia – who deployed a number of cartographic techniques to reinforce his racial theorisations. This article explores Taylor's ‘zones and strata’ portrayal of racial evolution, and other geological‐ style maps of racial difference. These representations are investigated from two standpoints. Firstly, Taylor's theories are situated within the wider context of the Victorian tradition of classifying race, a tradition where physical race type was often correlated with moral and intellectual traits, and which was supported by the acceptance of environmental determinism within geographical circles. Secondly, his maps are considered from the perspective that, as J.B. Harley has argued, maps are social texts that contain power and, as such, can be deconstructed. Taylor's cartographic representations resulted from the manipulation of the internal elements of the map text, such as shading and projection, and were supported by the widely held belief that human racial groups could be delineated through physical anthropometry.     

The Fall of the Fall in Early Modern Political Theory

In this essay I offer a contribution to a political genealogy of secularization through the fading of the Fall in early modern political theory. I begin by giving a brief overview of the importance of the Fall in pre-modern Christian political thought. I then examine the fate of the Fall in early modern thought, briefly discussing Niccolò Machiavelli and Francisco de Vitoria, but concentrating on the English tradition most influential on our context, namely Thomas Hobbes, Robert Filmer, and John Locke. I show how and why the Fall is replaced by the “state of nature” as pre-historical justification of political power. I conclude with some comments on what is lost when Western society no longer uses the Fall to mark the difference between the way things are and the way things are meant to be.     

Schmitt and the Sovereignty of Roman Dictators: From the Actualisation of the Past to the Recycling of Symbols

The aim of this article is to analyse the complex roots of Carl Schmitt's theory on dictatorship in the classical world through the lens of classical receptions. It argues that Schmitt was deeply engaged with the classical tradition in formulating his theory on dictatorship. Knowingly or unknowingly, Schmitt legitimates his theory through a foundation in both the Roman idealisation of the virtuous dictators of the early Republic as well as the long tradition of the narrative of the enlightened sovereign as a guarantor of law, present in both Greek and Roman antiquity and in the subsequent European tradition. Schmitt skilfully repurposed the Roman historical tradition on dictators but glossed over the traditional antipathy of Roman republicanism towards sovereign rule. The claim that this article is presenting is that even though it has been overlooked by earlier scholars, Schmitt was both directly and indirectly influenced by the classical tradition of dictatorship and utilised their mythical and symbolic dimensions in the later Roman and the subsequent European legal and political traditions. The reason for this omission was that Schmitt, like his contemporaries, belonged to one of the last generations to be groomed in the classical tradition of literature.     

The mead-hall community

The paper provides background context to the Anglo-Saxon concept of the ‘mead-hall’, the role of conspicuous consumption in early medieval society and the use of commensality to strengthen horizontal and vertical social bonds. Taking as its primary starting point the evidence of the Old English verse tradition, supported by linguistic and archaeological evidence and contemporary comparative material, the paper draws together contemporaneous and modern insights into the nature of feasting as a social medium. The roles of the ‘lord’ and ‘lady’ as community leaders are examined, with particular regard to their position at the epicentre of radiating social relationships. Finally, the inverse importance of the mead-hall as a declining social institution and a developing literary construct is addressed.     

Cultural contacts and ethnic origins in Viking Age Wales and northern Britain: the case of Albanus,Britain's first inhabitant and Scottish ancestor

Albanus, an eponymous ancestor for the kingdom of Alba, provides an example of the extent to which the creation of an ethnic identity was accompanied by new ideas about origins, which replaced previous accounts. Through an analysis of the Historia Brittonum’s textual tradition and Welsh knowledge of early Roman history and medieval ethnic groups, this article establishes that Albanus was added to the Historia Brittonum in the late ninth or early tenth century as an ancestral figure for the new kingdom of Alba in northern Britain. This was potentially a result of shared political situations in Gwynedd, Alba (formerly Pictland) and Strathclyde in relation to Scandinavian power at this time, which encouraged contacts and the spread of Alba-based ideology to Gwynedd. The later development of this idea and its significance in Alba itself, Geoffrey of Monmouth's account and English claims to supremacy over Scotland are also traced.     

Rethinking the representation of Gustavus Adolphus: the case of William Watts and The Swedish Intelligencer, 1630–33

ABSTRACT

Between 1630 and 1633, English newsbooks resounded with tales of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden’s victories against the “popish” armies of Emperor Ferdinand II. Such literary praise has been widely associated with Calvinist disapprobation of Charles I’s pacific foreign policy. This article throws new light on the alternative, non-Calvinist sources of enthusiasm for Gustavus Adolphus in the newsbook, The Swedish Intelligencer, which portrayed the Swedish king as the figurehead of a broad, confessionally flexible, pan-Protestant cause. This has important implications for our understanding of the relationship between English and European Protestant nations in the context of the Thirty Years’ Wars. News from the military camp of the Lutheran King of Sweden offered a subtle way of promoting and normalising non-Calvinist forms of worship in England, and thus provides evidence that a range of Protestants were utilising the London news presses to advance their religious agenda in the early 1630s.     

Medieval Ireland and the Shannon Hydro-Electric Scheme: reconstructing the past in independent Ireland

This essay considers the position of Irish medieval buildings in the early years of the twentieth century. Focusing on the treatment of the oratory of St. Lua at Killaloe, it examines the ways in which the ruins of the medieval past were used to signify a range of political, religious and cultural ideas and attitudes. The rising water levels following the Shannon Scheme works (begun in 1925) meant that this stone oratory was moved from its original position on Friar’s Island to the grounds of St. Flannan’s Roman Catholic Church in 1929. The resulting paper trail reflects the complex processes of decision-making within a civil service in transition as the new Irish Free State calibrated its position with regard to the past and the treatment of medieval ruins throughout the countryside. The case study of St. Lua’s oratory is considered here in the context of the nineteenth-century tradition of scholarship on medieval buildings, the development of the idea of a national Irish architecture during this period, and the impact of this tradition on subsequent engagement with the buildings of the medieval past.     

Old English sǣte and the historical significance of ‘folk’ names

Old English s?te names survive in documentary sources and place‐names, and have been used in historical discourse as evidence for early and middle Anglo‐Saxon socio‐political organization. Earlier analyses, founded on incomplete datasets, have attempted to interpret the material in isolation from its onomastic context; this has led to confusion about the significance of such names. Here the analysis of s?te names is based on a more complete corpus, leading to a radically new interpretation of their distribution, chronology and historical context, with significant implications for our understanding of the evolution of Anglo‐Saxon administrative geography and the wider perception of so‐called ‘folk’ names.