The cult of St Minias and the struggle for power in the diocese of Florence, 1011–1018

Foundation of churches and monasteries in the tenth and eleventh centuries often have more to do with economic and political concerns than they have to do with religious motivation. Though historians have long recognized the importance of the basilica of San Miniato al Monte in Florence for the history of the Tuscan romanesque, they have largely failed to see that its foundation stemmed from conflicts over competing interests between rival families in the northern Tuscan elite. The tenth and early eleventh centuries saw the formation of several powerful family lineages (consorterie) in northern Tuscany, which organized their regional patrimonies into proprietary monasteries. Two of those lineages — the Guidi and the Cadolingi — derived much of their wealth from the seizure of properties formerly held by the bishops of Florence. Endowing its two proprietary monasteries at Fucecchio and Settimo at the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh centuries with a patrimony which may have included lands claimed by the bishop, the Cadolingi patronized a faction within the Florentine clergy that challenged the moral qualifications of Bishop Hildebrand to be bishop.In order to defend episcopal properties from usurpation by the Caldolingi and Guidi and to provide a cover for his own family's appropriation of ecclesiastical property, Bishop Hildebrand consciously orchestrated after 1014 the revival of the cult of the first martyr of Florence, St Minias. The core of that program was the construction of the basilica and monastery of San Miniato. Endowing the basilica with the episcopal properties he sought to protect, the bishop appointed a loyal abbot who agreed to write a new Passio of the saint. Bishop Hildebrand managed to hold on to his office in spite of the challenges to his prelacy, but shortly after his death his sons lost control of the church property bequeathed to them by their father.     

Police–public relations in transition in Antwerp, 1840s–1914

This article examines how police–public relations have evolved during the nineteenth-century expansion of formal policing. Following recent critiques of the ‘state monopolization thesis’, it dismisses the idea of a ‘policeman-state’ progressively assuming dominion over the governance of crime, generating vicious antagonism between police and public, and effectively coercing the latter into obedience. In order to chart changes in police–public relations across the ‘long’ nineteenth century, the analysis draws on Antwerp police statistics from 1842 until 1913. It assumes that movements in different types of offences reflect the initiative of different actors and also constitute a valuable index of conflicts between police and public. The article argues that although police activity in Antwerp did significantly increase towards the end of the nineteenth century, priorities in crime control were not merely dictated from ‘above’ (the police and authorities) but also delivered from ‘below’ (the people). It shows how police interventions were shaped by shifting policy concerns, by the interests of different urban interest groups, and by the practical constraints of police work. Finally, it counters the idea of a repressive police disciplining a hostile public with evidence of growing public use of the police and of complex popular attitudes towards the ‘blue locusts’.     

The growth of the pottery industry in England, 1660–1815

This paper summarizes the author's attempts to quantify the growth of the pottery industry in England before 1815. It begins by considering the nature and limitations of the large body of miscellaneous data about trade, including the exports of glass and earthware and the imports of china-ware. It continues by presenting some new calculations of the growth of the industry based on a count, at five-yearly intervals, of the numbers of potteries at work and their sizes. The results of these estimates are presented in nine tables in the appendix. The third part of the article uses this new evidence to analyse the patterns of growth from 1660–1815 and concludes that this provides a framework for further, and more detailed, studies.