The Battle of Agincourt: An Alternative location?

Abstract

The recent publicity surrounding the proposed construction of a wind farm close to the Medieval Agincourt battlefield in France has provoked an outcry suggesting that, once again, a European historic battlefield is at risk. A recent archaeological survey on the Agincourt battlefield has, however, failed to find positive artefactual evidence of the conflict on the officially designated battlefield site. Using the available historical and archaeological data from Agincourt and evidence from the successfully surveyed Medieval battlefield at Towton, England, an interpretation can be proposed, which highlights an alternative location for the French-English battle of 1415. Unfortunately, if this hypothesis was confirmed it is possible that, in attempting to protect an incorrect site, the correct site is more likely to be left unprotected and might eventually be destroyed.     

The Love Wars: Parisian Struggles (1962–68)

Studies of the 1960s continue to be dominated by the focus on the annus mirabilis of 1968. Given the traditional emphasis on key dates in French history—1789, 1848, 1871, 1936—the concentration on 1968 is understandable, but it is has had the regrettable effect of largely neglecting the early sixties. Consequently, this article examines the social/cultural changes that occurred in student dormitories of the Paris region between 1962 and 1968. These six years witnessed changes that comprised increasing tolerance of political activities and of hedonistic pleasures, resulting in the expansion of personal freedoms. Adult society—including Communists, Gaullists, and university administrators—was much less repressive and more tolerant than many students and radicals expected or believed. Historians and other observers have often pointed out that the first decade of Gaullist Fifth Republic witnessed the economic ‘modernization’ of France. Just as significantly, social and cultural mores also changed during this period.     

The Scottish Covenanters and the Borough of Sunderland, 1639–1647: A Hidden Axis of the British Civil Wars*

Few sources have survived relating to the borough of Sunderland in the seventeenth century. However, during the Civil Wars Sunderland was noticed for its support of Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters. A Puritan elite, led by George Lilburne, had established Sunderland as a radical borough by the 1630s. Good relations between Sunderland and the Covenanting Scots began in 1639 and continued throughout the Bishops’ Wars (1639–41) and the first British Civil Wars (1642–46). This was unusual in the North East of England as most of County Durham, Northumberland and Newcastle upon Tyne would remain loyal to King Charles I. A trade blockade of Newcastle, Sunderland and Blyth during 1643–44 was quickly lifted at Sunderland after the Scots garrisoned the town in March 1644. This gave Sunderland a temporary, but advantageous, lead over their rivals in Newcastle. Sunderland’s port was crucial for supplying the Scottish Covenanting army and Parliamentarian forces during 1644–46, and the coal mines along the River Wear proved a vital source of revenue for paying the army. The borough’s leaders were well rewarded for their loyalty and, unlike other leading supporters of Parliament in the North, they did not object to paying for the Scottish occupation of the North East.     

Making waves: The Royal Navy's management of invention and innovation in steam shipping, 1815–1832 1

Abstract

This paper explores the sources of invention and innovation in steam shipping, the distribution of funding and risk between the state and the private sector, and the Royal Navy's management of innovation, during the experimental period of steam power's adoption at sea. It identifies two intersecting channels through which steam‐related innovations reached the Royal Navy. First, “packages” of innovations were embedded in the marine engines that were commissioned by the Navy from private engine‐making firms. Secondly, the Navy was spontaneously offered a gamut of ideas and inventions, which varied enormously both in potential importance and in degree of development. Although the mechanisms for dealing with these two channels were different, the end result was much the same ‐ in minimizing both the expense and the risk borne by the public sector. It was principally the private sector that was funding scientific and technological development in this sphere. Recognizing its own lack of expertise and consequent hazard, the Navy Board was developing a systematic yet flexible method of assessing steam‐related inventions ‐ which appears to have served it well.     

The Weaponising of Women's Bodies in the Wars of Reform and French Intervention in Mexico, 1857–67

Acts of violence in war not only have individual effects on bodies, but they also have a social, collective impact on the social body. While recent works have recovered the participation of women in the War for Independence and the 1910 Revolution in Mexico, the role their bodies played in wartime has not been examined. Focusing on the decade of war between 1857 and 1867, which influenced the consolidation of national sovereignty and identity, this article explores how, while women's bodies can be targets themselves, they also can be transformed into weapons aimed at other targets. Consequently, their bodies were ‘weaponised’ and aimed at: women as individuals punished for transgressions, real or imagined, of traditional gender roles; at men, to damage or destroy their masculine honour, their failure to protect their women and the integrity of their families; and last, the survival of their vision of the nation (either Liberal or Conservative), or even the honour and survival of the nation itself in the case of a foreign intervention. However, which bodies were targeted, and how, depended on the intersection of gender, class, race, ethnicity, political identity and nationality.