Notice of Documents Preserved in the Record Office,at Malta

The recently found wall-paintings at North Mymms Park, Hertfordshire (a privately owned house, not open to the public), (TL 217042) are introduced, the history of the building and its relevant ownership is discussed, the paintings described, comparisons made, possible sources for the paintings considered, and date ranges suggested. An account of the subsequent conservation work is given.     

SIR THOMAS BROWNE AND ANTIQUITY

INTRODUCTION BY THE MASTER OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD
Pembroke College had for some time wished to commemorate one of its most distinguished members and at the same time contribute to the world of scholarship. The support of an anonymous member of the College made it possible this year for us to inaugurate the biennial lectures entitled 'The Sir Thomas Browne Lectures of Pembroke College'. Sir Thomas Browne has a very special significance for Pembroke. In 1624 he was the senior scholar of Broadgates Hall, the mediaeval hall on the site of Pembroke, when that year it received its new name and Royal Charter. To the scholars of Broadgates Hall he spoke of Pembroke College, 'rising like a phoenix out of the ashes'and called on them to show loyalty to the new College. Sir Thomas Browne was such a polymath that lecturers will find some connection between contemporary thought in the fields of religion, medicine, philosophy and archaeology, all having been illumined by his insatiable curiosity. However, taking a cue from the statue of Thomas Browne in Norwich, his home town, where this thoughtful figure holds a sherd of pottery in his right hand and sits on a pedestal of grey granite shaped to depict an urn, we decided that there could be no better start to the series than to invite one of the country's most distinguished archaeologists, Professor Stuart Piggott, to give our first lecture.     

Rock art and social geography in the Upper Paleolithic. Contribution to the socio-cultural function of the Roc-aux-Sorciers rock-shelter (Angles-sur-l’Anglin,France) from the viewpoint of its sculpted frieze

This article is about the contribution of rock art to current studies on the social geography of European Paleolithic populations. The socio-cultural function of the Roc-aux-Sorciers decorated and occupied rock-shelter is considered through its monumental sculpted frieze. This approach is based on the intended audience, analyzed through the perception of this rock art and the archaeological context of the associated occupations. The site is also considered with regard to the other local decorated sites dated to the Middle Magdalenian with which it shares strong similarities (La Marche, Les Fadets, Réseau Guy Martin).     

The invisible man: body and ritual in a fifteenth-century noble household

Ritual and gesture were central to medieval political cultures, yet few documents survive which attest to daily comportment in non-royal elite households. This article examines the late fifteenth-century ‘Harleian Ordinances’ (from British Library Harl. MS 6815), which describe in rare detail the ceremonies and servants' gestures used in an unnamed earl's house. It focuses on the para-liturgical elements of the household ceremony (notably the use of ritual kisses), argues that the Burgundian court provided direct inspiration for the ordinance, and suggests a connection to Richard, earl of Warwick (‘the Kingmaker’). More broadly, it explores aspects of the relationship between lord and noble servant in the later fifteenth century and contends that nobility – an essentially invisible quality – was in part conjured up through the gestures and deportment of a nobleman's servants. In their attempts to portray power and prestige, noblemen such as the invisible earl of this ordinance established secular household rites which required that their bodies be attended to with an almost religious reverence.     

Warwick: report on the excavation of an early 17th‐century English shipwreck in Castle Harbour,Bermuda

Warwick, a colonial merchantman owned and operated by Sir Robert Rich, Second Earl of Warwick, sank in Castle Harbour, Bermuda, in1619. Between 2010 and 2012, Warwick's hull remains and associated artefacts were excavated and recorded. Built early in the 17th century, Warwick’s structure revealed a traditional shipbuilding style. Covered with two layers of planking and a layer of sheathing, the ship was purpose‐built for extended transatlantic voyages. Not exceeding 200 tons, Warwick was an average‐size vessel with sufficient burthen to bring supplies and passengers to the colonies and return with tobacco.     

Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute,to be Held at Edinburgh in July, 1856

The following paper is based on work carried out between 1974 and 1984 in connection with J. T. Smith's survey for the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England of the domestic buildings of Hertfordshire. It deals principally with painted decoration on plaster and timber walls and ceilings, but also takes into consideration other decorative features such as moulded plasterwork and wooden panelling.     

Menzies' road map for Asia still guides us today

This is an excerpt from the 2014 Sir Robert Menzies Lecture, delivered by the Honourable Josh Frydenberg, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and the Federal Member for Kooyong, on August 14, 2014, in the Queen's Hall at the Parliament of Victoria, Melbourne.     

Legends of the Beauchamps' ancestors: the use of baronial propaganda in medieval England

From the early part of the eleventh century, legendary propaganda was generated by the Tosny family. The Warwickshire branch of the Beaumonts did likewise from the late twelfth century, their efforts culminating in the popular romance Guy of Warwick. Such material was designed to romanticize those activities of the families which had led to their acquiring landed power, and to reinforce a widespread acceptance of the status which they endeavoured to retain in face both of the growing powers of the monarchy, and of economic pressures. By contrast, the families of Beauchamp and Mauduit relied on growing royal power to enhance their position. Beauchamp dominance of Worcestershire through the hereditary enjoyment of the post of sheriff, and Manduit enjoyment of court influence through exercise of the hereditary office of chamberlain, obviated the need to generate a popular image, although both families attracted unfavourable notice in contemporary literature, generated by territorial or professional rivals. When the estates of all four families merged, at the end of the thirteenth century, to form the late medieval earldom of Warwick, the Guy image was consciously revived. John Rous, composing the Rous Roll in 1483, in order to glorify the lords of Warwick, suppressed unfavourable elements, both in this literature and in modern political history, while elaborating on others, reworking the material with the help of current literary themes.     

Parties in Parliament in the 18th Century: The Demolition of Robert Walcott and its Consequences*

The failure of Robert Walcott's attempted ‘Namierisation’ of Queen Anne's house of commons in the 1950s is now an accepted historiographical fact. Scholars working on late Stuart politics inevitably dismiss Walcott's work as misguided and misleading, and instead take as a given the existence of a two‐party structure as delineated by the standard authority on the subject, Geoffrey Holmes. This article returns to the controversy over ‘party’ in the 1960s, which reached a climax in 1967 with the publication of Holmes's magnum opus and J.H. Plumb's Ford Lectures. The purpose is not to revisit the debate, which was decided conclusively at the time, but to explore the context in which Walcott and his critics were writing; more specifically the connection between Walcott's work and the approach to 18th‐century political history pioneered by Sir Lewis Namier. Using private correspondence between the principals, it argues that Walcott did not properly follow Namier's methods, and was identified as a Namierite largely because Namier was unwilling, for personal reasons, to disown him. In the long run, this reluctance proved damaging, accelerating the decline in Namier's reputation in the 1960s and the shift towards different forms of political history.     

Behind the Romanesque Frieze at Lincoln Cathedral

The purpose of this short article is to put on record the archaeological observations made between 1990 and 2002 during the decade of stonework conservation on the northern run of the frieze panels on the west front of Lincoln Cathedral. It is not concerned with the frieze sculpture itself but with its stones and the spaces behind the stones. Equally, this article is not an assessment of the sculpture and its dating but is an archaeological investigation which potentially has wider implications for the sequence of construction and carving of the Romanesque frieze now visible at Lincoln.     

Managers and Agents: Conservative Party Organisation in the 1850s*

During the 1850s in the wake of the calamitous Peelite split, Britain's Conservative Party struggled to rebuild its numbers in the house of commons. The structure of the party's electoral organisation is well known‐parliamentary leaders, election managers such as Sir William Jolliffe and Philip Rose, plus local constituency based agents. Jolliffe's and Rose's 1859 election notebooks help understand this, but they also reveal serious gaps in the Conservatives' information networks. This article delineates the electoral activities of Sir John Yarde Buller (first Baron Churston) and his ally Samuel Triscott, who supplemented the spasmodic flow of information from small boroughs in at least two counties. Mid‐level or second‐tier managers, to whom no attention has previously been given, assisted the Conservatives in their gradual electoral recovery. Their roles also suggest that the party's organization may have been more complex than previously believed.     

Reconstruction Housing in North Norway: Gender and the Reception of the Modern Era

Abstract

At the end of the Second World War, large areas of North Norway had to be rebuilt as a result of war damage. It is estimated that 12,000 dwellings housing 60,000 people were ruined. The limited funds available necessitated a low-budget form of housing when the area was rebuilt. The government perceived in this situation the possibility of house modernization, for which standardized, pre-approved drawings were a solution. This paper focuses on the reconstruction houses and the discussion about what kind of house was most suited to the area. It refers to the housing involvement of one of the female architects, and to the architects in general as mediators between the central authorities in the south and the people/local government in the north. It also sheds some light on the decisions made at a family level concerning the question of housing. Gender differences in the acceptance of, or resistance to, the modernization of these dwellings during the reconstruction period (1945–1960) in North Norway form the main topic of this article.     

A Matter of Judgment: Politics,Law and the Trial of Bishop Thomas Watson

Thomas Watson's controversial expulsion from the bishopric of St David's – and hence from the house of lords – after a long and bitterly‐fought series of legal actions, raised fundamental and difficult questions about the right to control membership of the house of lords and about the relationship between politics and the law, as well as between church and state. This article explores both the local and the national political contexts that prompted Watson's ordeal, suggesting that subsequent demonisation by Gilbert Burnet has obscured the extent to which Watson was the casualty of William III's determination to cow his political opponents. It concludes that Watson was marked out for opprobrium precisely because, like Sir John Fenwick, his political and social insignificance enabled him to be victimised without risking a backlash of opposition from the social and political elite.     

Communities of kin and English landed gentry families of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

This article focuses on the kinship networks of the landed gentry of Devon, Lincolnshire and Hertfordshire in the modern period. Using national census household returns, the visitors’ books of a Devon gentry family and correspondence the article reveals dense and meaningful kinship networks centred on the main country house but also woven into the wider familial world of the gentry. Whenever possible, the inheritance of landed estates passed through the male line. But kin networks were bilateral, founded on both birth and marriage, on relations both through the male and the female line. Kin relations provided a range of services within a culture of visiting, epistolary practice and affection, which generated close and cherished family ties.     

仙人好楼居:襄阳新出相轮陶楼与中国浮图祠类证

湖北襄阳东汉—三国蔡越墓出土的相轮陶楼,在建筑形制上为汉式陶楼和印度式相轮塔刹的结合,在装饰母题上同时兼有汉地神仙瑞兽与印度—犍陀罗式有翼天人的图像,明显带有佛教初传时期汉、印文化杂糅的特点。本文在讨论陶楼形制的过程中,分别联系同期北方墓葬中出土的陶楼明器和汉晋之际江南地区的佛饰堆塑重楼魂瓶进行类比分析,证明这两类墓葬明器都与文献记载的"浮图祠"相关联。在佛教初传汉地时,由"仙人好楼居"的汉式重楼过渡到高层佛塔,浮图祠是初期的标志,襄阳蔡越墓陶楼或可看作是浮图祠的标准器。浮图祠用作明器进入墓葬,反映了汉地民间埋葬方式因佛教传入而起的新变化,并在随后长江中游六朝砖墓的建造中留下了印记。     

The manor houses of the 1st Lord Baltimore in an English Atlantic World

SUMMARY: While much is known about the colonial activities of Sir George Calvert, 1st Lord Baltimore in Newfoundland and Maryland during the 1620s and early 1630s, less is known about his efforts to develop a settlement in one of the plantation schemes that was implemented in Ireland. At the time, he contemporaneously managed his various estates in England, Ireland and Newfoundland, which included the patronage of elite residences in Kiplin Hall in North Yorkshire; Clohamon, Co. Wexford, in Ireland; and Ferryland on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland. This article will trace the development of these manor houses in their differing geographical and cultural contexts. Differences in the form and layout of these buildings reflected the challenges and opportunities posed in developing settlements in the various regions, and offers insights into the commonalities and divergences experienced in the English colonization of the Atlantic world in the early 17th century.     

Supplementary Notices,Relating to a Gold Cup Found in a Sepulchral Cist Near the Cheese-Wring,and also to Some Other Gold Relics in Cornwall

The architectural development of Maxstoke Castle is described, in the light of its historical background and of relevant documents. It began as a meticulously planned fortified quadrangular house of the Earl of Huntingdon in c c.1345, and continued as a major residence of the Stafford family until 1521. After neglect in the sixteenth century, it was refurbished following its purchase by Sir Thomas Dilke in 1599. Despite further alterations, its total architectural history can be followed very clearly.     

Richard II's knights: chivalry and patronage

Research on late medieval England has tended in two directions. There has been a great renewal of interest in matters chivalric and in the conflicts between the chivalric ideal and reality as interpreted by chroniclers such as Froissart. Quite divorced from such inquiry, the study of pelf and place has proceeded apace. A study of Richard II's conferments of knighthood provides an interesting opportunity to unite these disparate strands of inquiry.Richard II, who ended his life as the simple knight Sir Richard of Bordeaux, had afar deeper sense of chivalric values than many historians have allowed. Chivalry was a vital component in the outlook of the man.Yet, Richard II found himself in this position as a result of intense factional rivalries in which he had been a leading if ultimately losing player. Records of the order of the Garter provide one source of material for this study, but the article also looks at Richard's conferments in more general terms. Clearly, Richard manipulated the chivalric ideal for practical ends, but a tarnished ideal is not a repudiated ideal. Richard II made use of knighthood within his system because he - and his clients —continued to operate within the chivalric code for which such knighthood stood.     

The Fall of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk and the Revival of Impeachment in the Parliament of 1621

The revival of impeachment in 1621 has tended to be viewed exclusively through the prism of parliament. However, this article, which builds on the work of Professor Allen Horstman, suggests that a key factor in impeachment's revival was the dismissal of Lord Treasurer Suffolk for corruption in 1618. Suffolk's removal caused widespread disquiet, since it was assumed that senior officials held office for life. In order to silence these criticisms it proved necessary for the king not only to put Suffolk on trial but also to justify by precedent the lord treasurer's removal. This latter task was performed by the former lord chief justice, Sir Edward Coke, himself not long disgraced, whose researches in the medieval parliamentary record revealed the following year that errant crown ministers had hitherto been held to account by means of impeachment. Coke subsequently put this discovery to good effect when parliament met in 1621. Against the backdrop of mounting criticism against his hated rival, the lord chancellor, Francis Bacon, Coke revealed the existence of impeachment to the house of commons, whose attention was then focused on finding a way to punish the monopolists, Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Michell. In so doing, Coke not only aided the lower House, which had been struggling since 1610 to find a way of punishing non‐members, but also sought to settle an old score.     

Accommodation in the Painted Chamber for Conferences between the Lords and the Commons from 1600 to 1834

The Painted Chamber, adjacent to the old house of lords at Westminster, was the venue for conferences between the house of lords and house of commons designed to settle any disagreements between the two Houses. Information about the accommodation in the Painted Chamber and its furnishings is provided by a study of a plan by Sir Christopher Wren dated about 1703 and a painting by William Capon of 1799. This note discusses the layout of the accommodation in the early 17th century and how it changed after the Restoration in 1660 and again at the union with Ireland in 1801. It further considers how the furnishings dictated the use of the space by the managers of the conferences, and how the gentleman of the black rod regulated the use of the Painted Chamber by the public.