Prisons and incarceration in fourteenth-century Venetian Crete

Though the evolution of prisons and the prison system in medieval Europe is a well-developed field in the history of law, little attention has been paid to prisons and incarceration on the frontiers of Latin Christendom. The present study makes use of archival and literary sources in order to examine how prisons functioned in Venice's most important colony, the island of Crete. As there has been no previous study of prisons and incarceration in medieval Greece, the article's first aim is to establish some basic facts about the prisons of Crete, such as their locations, their organization and their system of administration. More importantly, however, the study investigates the role that incarceration played in the legal system of the Venetian colony and attempts to set this role within the context of the juridical developments of the Late Middle Ages. Of particular interest is the question of how closely the legal system of the Venetian colony followed the judicial practice of the metropolis and whether it was influenced by the pre-existing legal institutions of Byzantium. Finally, the study also examines how the jurisprudence of the colonial regime dealt with offenders of different ethnic background and legal status.     

Fortresses and fashion statements: gentry castles in fourteenth-century Northumberland

The fourteenth century saw a dramatic upsurge of new castle building in northern England. Not unreasonably, historians have associated this with the Scottish wars, seeing this proliferation as a direct response to Scottish raiding, and assuming that these castles were designed and built solely to perform a defensive military function. However, recent work on castles has questioned such purely functionalist interpretations. This article examines the castles built in the fourteenth century by the ‘gentry’ of Northumberland, the most exposed of all the border counties to Scottish attack, and sets them in their local and national contexts. Were these castles just built as defensive fortresses, or did they also serve a more symbolic role, in a society which had rapidly become militarised with the onset of war in 1296? Were they in fact intended as much to keep up with the neighbours as to keep out the Scots?     

Fortresses and fashion statements: gentry castles in fourteenth-century Northumberland

The fourteenth century saw a dramatic upsurge of new castle building in northern England. Not unreasonably, historians have associated this with the Scottish wars, seeing this proliferation as a direct response to Scottish raiding, and assuming that these castles were designed and built solely to perform a defensive military function. However, recent work on castles has questioned such purely functionalist interpretations. This article examines the castles built in the fourteenth century by the ‘gentry’ of Northumberland, the most exposed of all the border counties to Scottish attack, and sets them in their local and national contexts. Were these castles just built as defensive fortresses, or did they also serve a more symbolic role, in a society which had rapidly become militarised with the onset of war in 1296? Were they in fact intended as much to keep up with the neighbours as to keep out the Scots?     

Glaze-paints,technological knowledge,and ceramic specialization in the fourteenth-century Pueblo Southwest

The advent of glaze-painted ceramics by Ancestral Pueblo peoples in the US Southwest occurred during an important period of cultural change. In east-central Arizona, potters used glaze-paints to decorate a striking, representational-style pottery during the early fourteenth-century AD. We evaluate the possibility that these vessels were manufactured by emergent specialists who possessed crafting-knowledge that was not widely shared with others in their communities. Time of flight-laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (TOF-LA-ICP-MS) was used to characterize the composition of a large sample of red ware sherds from sites in the Silver Creek area. This analytical approach precisely measures the chemical composition of paints, which can then be used to model ancient technological “recipes.” Our study highlights the complexities of craft production in small-scale societies and the utility of practice-based versus typological approaches to specialization.     

Contra damnationis filios: the Visconti in fourteenth-century papal diplomacy

This article seeks to reappraise the relationship between the Avignon papacy and the Visconti lords of Milan during the fourteenth century. Avignon popes generally viewed the Visconti as the major obstacle to papal temporal power in Italy and thus fashioned propaganda that demonised them. This mythic portrayal, that was re-framed by Florence to justify its own imperialistic ambitions in Tuscany, has been accepted uncritically by modern historiography. Documents from the Vatican archive reveal a more complicated diplomacy. Papal policy toward the Visconti was far from consistent, as the curia welcomed Visconti money and Avignonese popes regularly granted the Visconti papal vicariates. This article demonstrates that the papal-Visconti struggle was a key factor in the creation of the strategic alliance between Florence and the Visconti that made the War of Eight Saints possible and ended the Guelph alliance. This study further suggests that the political ambitions of Giangaleazzo Visconti were stoked in great measure by the Great Schism when partisans of both popes looked to him as the saviour of the Church and of Italy. Finally this article suggests that a re-evaluation of fourteenth-century diplomacy might accord closer scrutiny to the role played by the Church in destabilising Italy.     

Institutional ethical analysis of resident perceptions of tourism in two Chinese villages

Existing research on perceptions of tourism has mainly focused on the empirical study from the perspectives of management, sociology, statistics and other disciplines. However, the ethical or philosophical perspective has been relatively neglected. Many issues related to institutional ethics have not been given sufficient attention by tourism academics. This article will test the effect of tourism on institutional ethics from a new perspective: by comparing the residents’ perceptions and attitudes towards tourism's impact in the villages of Zili and Maxianglong in Kaiping County of Guangdong Province where they share similar geographical locations and demographic features. Findings show that due to different levels of tourism development, the residents’ pursuit of institutional ethics varies. In particular, citizen ethics cannot be derived from traditional Chinese ethics. In fact as the level of tourism increases, the awareness of being involved in public affairs becomes stronger and the pursuit of a fair distribution and a focus on public interest becomes more obvious. For example: (1) a more developed tourism industry results in a larger demand for equal distribution from residents; (2) as the tourism industry develops, resident awareness increases as well as the ability to participate in public management; (3) with the development, resident demands for democracy become more obvious; and (4) with the development of the tourism industry, residents pay more attention to public interests and the construction of public spaces, and they acquire more of a public spirit.     

Common good and private justice: letters of marque and the utilitas publica in fourteenth-century Marseilles

Political debate, even in medieval Europe, has often centred upon the relationship between individual liberties and the greater good. Fourteenth-century town councils had to think about protecting private property while ensuring the greater public good. The council registers of late medieval Marseilles offer the opportunity for insight into this public–private dichotomy through an examination of the council's decisions to suspend temporarily the execution of letters of marque. In fourteenth-century Marseilles, letters of marque helped citizens gain restitution from foreign debtors through a judicial authorisation to seize foreign assets. The suspensions, justified in the language of the utilitas publica, were declared for two reasons: to protect the integrity of the town's market by ensuring an ample supply of labourers and victuals, and to protect the town's honourable reputation when dignitaries visited. Study of these suspensions illustrates an overarching philosophy in urban government – that the public good must be safeguarded against private advantage.     

Papal pronouncements on legitimate lordship and the formulation of nationhood in early fourteenth-century Scottish writings

Early fourteenth-century Scotland produced some of the period's clearest expressions of nationhood, most famously with the so-called Declaration of Arbroath of 1320. Despite the letter's fame, its conceptual language and that of related Scottish texts has not hitherto been entirely recognised. The present article demonstrates that these writings are closely informed by contemporary legal ideas concerning lawful jurisdiction and just war. Their use of legal ideas can be shown to have been inspired by the concerns and outlook of the papacy, particularly with regard to its temporal lordship in Italy. It is this inspiration that can explain the clarity and force with which the Scottish texts of these decades present the kingdom as specifically Scottish and the nation as a political force, for which they have since become renowned.     

Tracing the ‘chemyn de Portyngale’: English service and servicemen in fourteenth-century Portugal

Three Anglo-Portuguese campaigns took English servicemen into Portugal in the 1380s. Two were largely guided by Plantagenet interests, in 1381–2 and 1386–7, respectively under the earl of Cambridge and the duke of Lancaster. The other, which began in 1384 under the regent João of Avis (later João I), involved entirely volunteer English forces. While the Lancastrian-led expeditions were largely political and military failures, servicemen recruited by the Portuguese in England achieved greater success, including victory at the Battle of Aljubarrota. This article compares these expeditions for the first time. It looks at their political, diplomatic, military, social and economic contexts, exploring motivations for English service in Portugal in particular, from that of the common soldier to that of the governments. By looking at the itineraries in Portugal of English soldiers, their presence is mapped and their continuance debated. The Anglo-Portuguese examples demonstrate how foreign military intervention and mercenary activity might be a driving force in social and economic relations between regions of Europe during the Hundred Years War.     

English villages in the Londonderry plantation

Abstract

The English adventurers who created a ‘plantation’ throughout much of Ulster in the first quarter of the 17th century did so by seeking to transform the cultural landscape. The flowering of English cultural institutions could be enhanced within the appropriate environment, reasoned the plantation planners, and the ‘planting’ of villages was perhaps the most fundamental element of the programme to create that environment. The Ulster plantation provides an excellent opportunity to define early 17th-century English standards for the creation of a domestic settlement abroad, and perhaps also at home.     

Punishing convicted ravishers: statutory strictures and actual practice in thirteenth and fourteenth-century England

Several thirteenth-century English statutes provided increasing sanctions for ravishment or abduction of wards and wives. The penalty for conviction as a ravisher came to include a term of “penal servitude”, as well as the payment of damages to the plaintiff and an amercement to the crown. The evidence of the cases decided in the common law courts indicates that the payment of damages precluded penal servitude and that arrangements to pay made while in jail effected the prisoner's release before the term ended. Disregard of the ‘penal’ provisions and the continued use of jail or its threat to ‘coerce’ a defendant into compliance with the award of the court illustrate the disjunction between legislation and legal practice. That statutes about ravishment cannot be taken as self-enforcing contributes to the growing body of scholarship reminding us that history cannot be written from the statute books alone.     

The production, symbolization and socialization of gentrification: impressions from two Berkshire villages

Gentrification has long been the subject of considerable interest and debate amongst geographers. A range of differing ontological and epistemological conceptions of gentrification have been advanced, with attempts often being made to legislate between them to establish some definitive categorizations of gentrification. The majority of gentrification studies are also highly urbanized: gentrification is seen explicitly or implicitly as a phenomenon that occurs in urban space. This paper questions both the legislative and urban foci of gentrification studies, by outlining an interpretative study of material, social and symbolic dimensions of gentrification within two villages in rural Berkshire.     

Punishing convicted ravishers: statutory strictures and actual practice in thirteenth and fourteenth-century England

Several thirteenth-century English statutes provided increasing sanctions for ravishment or abduction of wards and wives. The penalty for conviction as a ravisher came to include a term of “penal servitude”, as well as the payment of damages to the plaintiff and an amercement to the crown. The evidence of the cases decided in the common law courts indicates that the payment of damages precluded penal servitude and that arrangements to pay made while in jail effected the prisoner's release before the term ended. Disregard of the ‘penal’ provisions and the continued use of jail or its threat to ‘coerce’ a defendant into compliance with the award of the court illustrate the disjunction between legislation and legal practice. That statutes about ravishment cannot be taken as self-enforcing contributes to the growing body of scholarship reminding us that history cannot be written from the statute books alone.     

‘I call the people.’ Church bells in fourteenth-century Catalunya

Bells were an inescapable part of fourteenth-century urban life. They signalled the hours of the day and times for prayers; they warned of tempests and enemy armies; they heralded masses, funerals, and deaths. The pealing of bells brought men, women, and children together, choreographing communal behaviour in time and space. Bells echoed the vox Domini, calling out the deaths of holy men and women, celebrating the working of miracles. The ubiquitous presence of bells reflected the omnipresence of God in the medieval world. Their echoes transformed private moments into collective experiences, elevating the mundane into the miraculous. Scholars have rarely examined the religious aspects of bells, looking instead at their more practical side, especially their utilisation as markers of time and the allegedly concurrent rise of mercantile culture. This article approaches bells from the viewpoints of those men and women who heard them and wanted them rung. Focusing on sources from Christian clerics, we see that medieval men rang the bells with clear, but many possible, purposes in mind. By marking time and prayers, Christian church bells helped to create and facilitate communities within dioceses, spurring and choreographing their actions. During funerals, bells broadcast private moments, giving them communal significance. The transformative, creative function of bells is clearest in their role in miracles. In Manresa, the vision experienced by a few became a community affair when the church bells gathered the people; the bells transformed an ordinary day into one where the people, as a community, received divine favour. Finally, with the deaths of holy persons, the tolling of bells transformed private, even anonymous deaths, into moments of wonder as God’s hand touched the world.The pealing of bells defined Christian communities in the Mediterranean and, at the same time as rulers and elites throughout the region were seeking to control minority groups, those same groups were seeking to exercise control over the sounds within their own communities. Through the pealing of bells, churchmen across Catalunya sought to direct the thoughts and prayers of their listeners. When the Christian clerics of Catalunya rang their churches’ bells, they had specific aims in mind, yet, as the evidence demonstrates, the pealing of the bells never meant just one thing. This article demonstrates that there is much more to understanding medieval bells than knowing ‘for whom the bell tolls’; we have to look at the listeners as much as the ringers in order to understand their cultural significance in medieval Europe. This article is a first step in how such a study could be begun.     

Social control,structure and practice

Black, Donald, ed. Toward A General Theory of Social Control. Volume 1: Fundamentals. New York: Academic Press, 1984. xvi + 363 pp. including author and subject indexes, bibliographies, list of contributors. $45.00 cloth.

Black, Donald, ed. Toward A General Theory of Social Control. Volume 2: Selected Problems. New York: Academic Press, 1984. x + 310 pp. including author and subject indexes, bibliographies, list of contributors. S39.50 cloth.     

Making the Lancastrian capital at Leicester: the battle of Boroughbridge,civic diplomacy and seigneurial building projects in fourteenth-century England

Though a community of some note throughout the Middle Ages, Leicester really came to the forefront of England's consciousness following a series of political and economic crises in the first decades of the fourteenth century. Thereafter the relationship between the town and its Lancastrian lords was forced to shift from one of sometimes indifferent, sometimes overwhelming, clientage to a more balanced and mutually beneficial association. This increasingly positive relationship found physical expression in two projects in particular: the renovation of Leicester Castle and the foundation of the Newarke Hospital and College. This building programme gave the Lancastrian dynasty not only a place to stay, entertain and pray in southern England, but also a solid base from which to face the political and economic turmoil of the fourteenth century. This fact, along with Leicester's growing connection to the English royal family, would distinguish the town, and bequeath it an importance even once its Lancastrian lords had become kings of England. Leicester exemplifies important themes in later-medieval urban history. The town not only derived concord out of conflict with its lords in the face of difficult economic circumstances; it also brought some of the most potent aspects of both the English and continental traditions of urban-seigneurial relations together, especially in terms of the lord's political and physical connections with the town under his control.