Rural response to urban penetration: Baltimore and St Mary's County,Maryland, 1790–1840

Viewed from a city, urban penetration appeared to benefit the economy of a rural hinterland by expanding markets for a wide range of farm produce and by offering in return a wide variety of cheap consumer goods. From a rural viewpoint, cheap goods from cities took trade away from local craftsmen. The probate records of St Mary's County, Maryland, provide evidence for the effects of Baltimore's penetration into a tobacco-growing rural community during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As Baltimore expanded, farmers not only grew more tobacco but also began to supply the city with wheat. A prosperous and diversified agriculture supported millers, merchants and mariners. Up to 1820 an increasing number of young men were recruited as bay pilots, but the introduction of steamships drove sailing ships out of business. After 1820 not only did maritime employment decrease, but most craft industries declined. By 1833, the county's sole cotton mill closed and Baltimore's industrial supremacy was assured.     

Venezuela's national colonization programme: the Tovar colony,a German agricultural settlement

A decision by the Council of the Indies in 1801 authorizing the colonies to accept overseas immigrants cleared the way for the colonization of Spanish America by foreign settlers. In Venezuela, the first practical attempt to promote immigration came ten years later, when the Marquis del Toro offered to donate land to incoming white immigrants. Immigration schemes were planned and executed by private agents, most of whom were closely connected with the Caraqueño landowners. However, it proved very difficult to attract Europeans because Venezuela offered potential immigrants few economic advantages, and most outsiders viewed the country as politically unstable. There was, however, one exception to encourage European immigration, the Tovar colony, founded by one of the oldest and most powerful families within the government, which awarded the Tovars, through their intermediary and project director, General Codazzi, the largest loan ever granted under the immigration programme. The Tovars were ably assisted in this task by Codazzi, whose geographical knowledge and experience were crucial to the success of the Tovar colony. The project dovetailed perfectly within the ideological interest of the government. Although the scheme benefited only the Tovar family, in public, it was presented as essential to the national economic interest.     

Roses in January: a neglected dimension in Gregory of Tour's historiae

Gregory of Tours was a sixth-century bishop who wrote Ten books of histories, our only detailed source of information for that period in Gaul. A great deal of attention has been paid to his vivid portrayal of Merovingian society and politics. Apart from his often obscure Latin, the strictly chronological composition and the absence of clear co-ordinating statements give his work the appearance of a jumbled, if lively, mosaic. The following study is an attempt to follow one strand through the many-coloured texture of the Histories, that of extraordinary natural events and the context in which Gregory places them, since this seemed to reveal an up to now not so apparent dimension of his thinking about time and, history: his concept of contemporaneity.     

The children's crusade of 1212

The touching story of innocent children setting out to recover the Holy Sepulchre but suffering a tragic fate was becoming a popular legend within half a century of the actual expedition. Linguistic and social analysis, however, suggests that the crusaders of 1212 were not children, but rather were poor persons on the margins of rural society who were thoroughly imbued with the ideals of the cult of apostolic poverty. They believed that after the failure of the armed crusades, God had judged the powers of this world unworthy to rescue the holy places, and had instead made the poor a divine elect to accomplish this task.     

St-Germain des-Prés, St Vincent and the martyrs of Cordoba

The Translatio Georgii, Aurelii et Nathaliae , in which Aimoin recounts the journey of Usuard of St-Germain to Cordoba in search of relics, and the use which Usuard made of Spanish material in his Martyrology , reveal many inconsistencies. These are explained, by comparing these texts with Aimoins's Translatio Beati Vincentii and other evidence for St-Germain, as the result of attempts to bolster the monastery's standing with Charles the Bald at a time of political difficulty.     

The historicity of Jordan Fantosme's chronicle

A reassessment of the literary and aesthetic value of his Chronicle, undertaken in the course of preparing a new edition of that work, shows Jordan Fantosme to be vastly different from the feeble versifier, unable even to dispense accurately the twelve syllables of an Alexandrine line, he has sometimes been taken for. He is a highly competent and innovating prosodist and a talented story-teller quite capable of inventing or manipulating episodes for stylistic reasons, as is shown by reference to three of the vivid historical vignettes for which the Chronicle is frequently and somewhat misleadingly praised. It is suggested that historians should show caution before accepting as factually true incidents detailed by Jordan Fantosme which are not supported from other sources.     

French jurisdictional supremacy in Gascony: one aspect of the ducal government's response

As a result of the 1259 treaty of Paris, the king of England resumed a feudal relationship with the French monarch, thus holding his duchy of Gascony as a fief. This meant that Capetian officials could exercise their master's jurisdictional authority in the duchy, in part because of the supreme appellate powers of the royal court, the Parlement of Paris. This they did with enthusiasm and skill, causing considerable disruption to English power in the duchy. Accepting the challenge, ducal officials devised a number of tactics to thwart the exercise of French jurisdiction in Gascony. These methods were altogether illegal or even criminal in nature, but the officials felt they were necessitated by the critical threat of Capetian authority to Plantagenet control of Gascony. Unfortunately, such tactics did little to alleviate their jurisdictional problems. Ducal authorities failed to create any consistent and systematic program for ending permanently Gascon judicial appeals to the French court, and they were hamstrung both theoretically and physically in the haphazard efforts they did make. Far from halting the advancement of Capetian jurisdictional authority in the duchy, the unlawful methods merely underscored the precarious nature of the English position there.