What's Missing Here? Homing in on Haddington's Lost Defences

Abstract

The eighteen month occupation of Haddington 1548–1549 is said to be Scotland's longest siege. French, German and Scottish armies battered the defences of the burgh town trying to dislodge a stubborn and forlorn English garrison. In September 1549, the English relief column arrived unopposed and extricated the remaining plague-ridden defenders, leaving the fortifications to be levelled by the besiegers. The fortifications at Haddington were the first appearance in Scotland of the Trace Italienne, designed to defeat conventional siege tactics; bombardment, sapping and storming. Despite long-held assumptions that the fortifications are now lost to history, recent research indicates the survival of elements of the defences.     

The Two Earliest Maps of Hull

Abstract

This article seeks to date more accurately the two earliest-known maps of Hull. From both internal and external evidence, it is suggested that both are military engineers’ plans of fortifications, one probably drawn in 1538/9, the other in 1541/2.     

The Archaeological Heritage of the Jerusalem Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion

Abstract

Ever since the purchase of land in 1848 for the establishment of the Jerusalem Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion, the south-western brow of the hill has attracted the attention of scholars. Initiated by the discovery of a series of rock-hewn steps in a scarp that was traced for over 200 metres and thought to be the line of Jerusalem's ancient fortifications, archaeological investigation within the confines of the cemetery continued for some 150 years. In this paper, the results of a century and a half of excavations are summarized and synthesized, providing important evidence regarding the development and chronology of Jerusalem's fortifications from the Iron Age to the Ayyubid Period. Also, the idea of an Essene Quarter on Mount Zion during the Second Temple Period, based on the discovery of a gate believed to be Josephus' 'Gate of the Essenes', is re-examined in light of the rest of the archaeological evidence from the cemetery.     

The responsible government question in Natal, 1856–1893

ABSTRACT

The history of South Africa's Eastern Cape continues to attract considerable attention. Recent scholarship suggests that the Royal Engineers, as one of the executive arms of imperial colonisation, played a significant role in the colonisation and development of the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony. This article seeks to contribute to the discussion by examining the importance of surveying and mapping in underpinning and extending the colonial State in what is now the Eastern Cape. It attempts to disentangle and assess the impact of the activities of the Royal Engineers and other military officers. It briefly examines African responses to surveying and the construction of fortifications; and attempts to unravel the respective roles of imperial and colonial agencies in surveying, mapping, and construction of fortifications and establishment of towns.     

Gathering and using information at the fifteenth-century Church councils: the example of crusade

ABSTRACT

The discussion of crusade at the councils of Constance (1414–18) and Basel (1431–49) is used to test the hypothesis that in the fifteenth century increasing importance was attached to the gathering of information. At Constance the chief crusading topic was the past and future of the Baltic crusade; at Basel attention was given to the negotiation of peace with the Hussites and union with the Orthodox Greeks. The paper considers the origin and character of the information that reached the councils; how it was used in the discourse at Constance and Basel; and it then assesses the effect of information on collective decision-making at the councils. While it is only possible to see information exerting an impact in the case of peace with the Hussites, the overall value placed on it by the conciliar delegates was high, corroborating recent arguments that the fifteenth century was an ‘information age’.     

Ground truthing of remotely identified fortifications on the Central Coast of Perú

Remote imagery, including freely available satellite images viewed in Google Earth^® and historic aerial photographs, was used to identify anomalies in a 25,000 km² macroregion encompassing 13 river valleys along the Peruvian coast. These anomalies, located atop hills and mountains, were hypothesized prehispanic fortifications. A sample of remotely identified anomalies was ground truthed in the Huaura and Fortaleza Valleys on the Central Coast of Perú. 140 positive anomalies were documented and assessed using a simple defensibility index. Our results significantly increase the number of fortifications identified in both valleys. We demonstrate the efficacy of this method for locating fortifications in a very large region to facilitate the systematic documentation of these durable indicators of warfare.     

Assessing the cities of Messenia in the newly-founded Greek Kingdom: the medieval walled town of Koroni based on early nineteenth-century architectural plans

Abstract

The article examines the fortifications and the settlement of Venetian and Ottoman Koroni (it. Coron), through the accurate record of early nineteenth century engineers of the newly-established Greek Kingdom. The basic plan was conducted in 1835 by the military engineer Metaxas, who recorded all the buildings, their function and current owners, including a proposal for the urban re-planning of the city. His work proved its usefulness, since an exact copy was made in 1856 by lieutenant colonel Manitakis. It was supplemented by a second plan produced in 1842 by the surveyor Friedrich Zerse who focused on the settlement beyond the walls. These plans are set within the framework of the administration's endeavours to assess and reorganize the cities of Messenia following wider town-planning aspirations and policies.     

Settlement fortification in village and ‘tribal’ society: Evidence from contact-era New Guinea

Using ethnographic data from contact-era New Guinea, this paper seeks to advance an understanding of the logic of settlement fortifications—i.e., the principles governing their design and operational functioning. This issue has been largely neglected because the principles involved seem so obvious: fortifications function to improve the security of a position by impeding an attacker’s efforts to penetrate it. For village and tribal societies, though, this can be an oversimplification. In these communities, people are generally most dependent on their settlement fortifications at night, when they are home and asleep; yet the cover of night is precisely when settlement fortifications are at their most vulnerable to penetration. What the New Guinea evidence reveals is that settlement fortifications were designed not just to keep attackers out but, even more important, to keep them in once they had penetrated and launched their attack. Defenders could then rally and annihilate their assailants, creating a powerful deterrent against attack in the first place—the best defense of all. These findings are applied to an early Late Woodland site in Ohio to illustrate their potential for informing an archeology of war.     

Assessment of the Lines of Torres Vedras defensive system with visibility analysis

A method to assess the coherence of defensive systems based on the individual and combined visual coverage of fortifications is presented. The case study is the complex fortification system of Lines of Torres Vedras, around Lisbon, Portugal, activated in the first decade of the 19th century to halt the French armies of Napoleon in the Peninsular War. As messages between fortifications are known to have been exchanged visually by semaphore, GIS-based viewshed calculations enabled the assessment of the system's coherence and the exploration of how the undocumented communication with the defensive forces' headquarters in Lisbon might have been achieved. Results show that the defensive system with its two lines was highly effective per se with respect to the visual coverage of the terrain and the exchange of messages between fortifications, but it could have been improved with minor changes to the location of communication devices. It is also found that communication with the headquarters in Lisbon was not adequate, suggesting that additional devices were needed.     

Shining a Light on Dark Tourism: German Bunkers in the British Channel Islands

Abstract

Lying at the heart of Tonbridge and Ashworth's 'dissonant heritage' are issues of disinheritance and the subsequent discord that this can cause. Implicit in this is the lesson for heritage professionals to make sure that the heritage they manage is presented in an honest, ethical and inclusive manner that minimises dissonance. But what, precisely, does this mean in practice? What if those who 'own' the heritage are not professionals, but deeply committed and interested amateur volunteer enthusiasts who have made it their life's work over decades to conserve and look after the heritage, but who are not particularly interested in, or actively resistant to, issues that so concern professionals? These are some of the issues which periodically arise in the British Channel Islands over the most visible heritage of Occupation — the German fortifications, or 'bunkers'.     

Notices of New Publications

Abstract

This paper reviews an article by Francis Woodman confirming his conclusion that it was originally intended to extend the retrochoir one bay further west and to demolish the Norman apse but questioning whether this intention was carried out before the rebuilding of the presbytery in the fourteenth century. Some errors of fact and misleading indications in Woodman's diagrams are also corrected and his argument that the central vault of the retrochoir was rebuilt in the fifteenth century is refuted.     

Some manuscript maps recently acquired by the departement des Cartes et plans of the bibliotheque nationale,Paris

Abstract

This paper examines the significance of a rediscovered medieval map (Public Record Office, MPCC 7) of part of the Fenlands of eastern England, previously dated to the mid‐sixteenth century but now recognized as mid‐fifteenth century. The map portrays realistically two important monastic churches, Sempringham Priory and Spalding Priory, which did not survive the Reformation and for which no other contemporary representations are known to exist. Documentary evidence suggests that the map was made at Spalding Priory to record rights to pasture animals in Pinchbeck Fen, and that it passed to the Duchy of Lancaster at the dissolution of the monasteries.     

American spies at Bermuda’s forts, 1842–52

Abstract

In 1809, a dockyard was established by the Royal Navy at Bermuda. Over the next decades, Bermuda was refortified by the Royal Engineers. This paper describes the visits of two American officers to Bermuda for the purpose of spying on the new fortifications. Further material on the forts at Bermuda is also presented as the preliminary results of a survey of Bermuda’s forts being undertaken by the author under the auspices of the Bermuda Maritime Museum.     

Heretical networks between East and West: the case of the Fraticelli

ABSTRACT

This article explores the links between the Franciscan heresy of the Fraticelli and the Latin territories of Greece in the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. It argues that the early involvement of Franciscan dissidents, like Angelo Clareno, with the lands of Latin Romania played an important role in the development of the Franciscan movement of dissent, on the one hand by allowing its enemies to associate them with the disobedient Greek Church and on the other by establishing havens where the dissidents were relatively safe from the persecution of the Inquisition and whence they were also able to send missionaries back to Italy to revive the movement there. In doing so, the article reviews all the known information about Fraticelli communities in Greece, and discovers two hitherto unknown references, demonstrating that the sect continued to exist in Greece during the Ottoman period, thus outlasting the Fraticelli communities of Italy.     

Ottoman Merchants in Constantinople During the First Half of the Fifteenth Century

Abstract

Despite growing interest among both Byzantinists and Ottoman scholars in the respective long-distance commercial ventures of Byzantine Greek and Ottoman Muslim merchants, studies focusing on the trade relations between these two groups have not yet been undertaken. This article, which examines some sources that document the presence and economic activities of Ottoman Turks in Constantinople during the first half of the fifteenth century, is intended to serve as a contribution to this neglected field of study. Moreover, by means of an examination of commercial relations, the article aims to shed further light on the daily, informal contacts between the Byzantines and the Ottomans which remains a relatively unexplored aspect of Byzantine-Ottoman relations.     

An exile's hopes: the search for a liberator in Michael Marullus

Abstract

Michael Marullus, fifteenth-century Greek, soldier and Latin poet, lived almost all his life in exile. In his earliest poetry revanchist thoughts directed at his country's Ottoman conquerors are hardly present, and superhuman powers are held responsible for the catastrophe. Later, Byzantine reliance on foreign forces is blamed. With time however and political developments in central and western Europe, a crusade or Türkenzug seemed to become more likely, and Marullus turned to the Habsburg Maximilian I and Charles VIII of France as possible liberators. This paper attempts to describe the poet's developing treatment of the themes of defeat and exile and his response in the last decade of the fifteenth century to the possibility of military action against the Ottomans.     

Ahvola 1918: Archaeological Reconnaissance of a Finnish Civil War Battlefield

Abstract

The Finnish Civil War (1918) has received very little attention from the archaeologists until recently. This paper describes the first archaeological investigation of a Civil War battlefield in the Karelian Isthmus, nowadays northwest Russia. The battlefield of Ahvola, which saw one of the decisive battles of the war, was surveyed briefly in November 2007. With relatively little subsequent landuse, the general landscape has remained roughly similar to that of the early twentieth century, and the remains of field fortifications have been preserved unexpectedly well. Thus the fields of Ahvola hold high potential for more widespread archaeological studies in future. The present survey, along with two earlier surveys of Finnish Civil War battlefields, provides important base data for future research on the subject.     

The Date of the Gough Map

ABSTRACT

The date commonly given for the Gough map of Britain, about 1360, is, in the author's opinion, wrong. Arguments that have been offered to support such a dating are invalid. The best indication of the date of the map is the writing on it, which is essentially in a hand of about 1400, a dating endorsed by expert palaeographical opinion. Indeed, a few exceptional features of the handwriting may suggest a slightly later date. A few specific non-palaeographical features of the map confirm a date of production close to, or a little after, 1400. Comparison with other late medieval maps of large inland areas from any part of Europe shows how precocious or advanced the Gough Map is, even for the beginning of the fifteenth century. Arguments suggesting that the map had an earlier ‘prototype’, reflecting the affairs of King Edward I, are also found to be without merit.     

Leonardo Bruni and the Poetics of Sovereignty

Abstract

Leonardo Bruni’s well-known oration, the Laudatio Florentinae urbis, has long stood at the center of discussions on the emergence of the modern republican state. Recent historiographical trends have emphasized the degree to which Bruni’s oration represents a propagandistic attempt both to portray Florence as a territorial power of Northern Italy keen to impose its sovereign authority on neighboring polities and as a republic intent on fashioning an image of itself as a popular sovereignty. It is in this second element of Bruni’s oration that we can discover his rhetorical purposes: he needed to give a distorted image of Florence as enjoying “popular” rule precisely because Florence was in fact moving in the opposite direction towards a more oligarchic concentration of political authority. The essay investigates the changes contemplated in revisions to Florence’s juridical codes at precisely the time of the oration’s composition, suggesting that when these two sources are juxtaposed, Bruni’s oration appears as a strongly ideological literary work the rhetorical gestures of which camouflage the actual historical and legal developments of Florence’s political life in the early fifteenth century.