The Chiming of Crack’d Bells: Recent Approaches to the Study of Artefacts in Archaeology

Abstract

CROSS PENDANTS, decorated with a ring-and-dot motif and made out of Whitby jet, have been found as far away as Norway and Greenland. This paper catalogues this unique group of artefacts and discusses their context. Their distribution is centred in Yorkshire, suggesting that they were made at Whitby Abbey in the late 12th century. Combining the power of the Christian cross with the magical properties of jet, they were likely worn as protective amulets.     

The Mills of Meaux

Abstract

The history of three monastic watermills and their water supplies in the marshlands of the Hull valley is traced from the records of Meaux Abbey in East Yorkshire. Occupying marginal sites where only a meagre head was available, and subsequently transformed into tide mills with an equally meagre supply of tidal water, they offer a rare insight into the medieval approach to water power in desperately unpromising circumstances.     

Le Décor Peint de la Maison Médiévale: Orner pour signifier en France avant 1350

Abstract

The remarkable survival of considerable elements of a large rose window at Elgin Cathedral allows an accurate reconstruction of its form. The design can be shown to be from the mainstream of rose window tracery patterns in northern Britain and can be related to the pre-1390 west front of the cathedral. When reconstructed the design of the front shows close affinities with the west front of Arbroath Abbey which also featured a large circular window. Certain elements of the tracery also show similarities with the eastern rose window reconstructed at Fountains Abbey and indicate strong links with sources in northern England.     

Direct Farming on the Estates of Cheshire Landowners c.1570–c.1700

Abstract

'Responses in the North of England to the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715'. The Jacobite Rebellion of 1715 resulted in significant activity among State, Church and society throughout the North of England, especially because the Jacobite army marched through most of the northern counties, Yorkshire and Durham excepted. Yet, though the responses made in opposition to the rebellion and to its adherents were far from uniform, often slow and piecemeal, they did indicate that Jacobitism had limited appeal as loyalist action outweighed that of the Jacobites.     

Redressing the balance — an archaeological evaluation of North Yorkshire's coastal alum industry

Abstract

Recent acquisitions of coastline by the National Trust in North Yorkshire and Cleveland have included important archaeological evidence of North Yorkshire's former alum industry. Owing to its remote marginal location this evidence has been little studied and there has previously been a bias towards the study of documentary sources as a means of understanding the alum industry. The archaeology of the alum industry is seriously threatened by relentless coastal erosion and there is an urgent need to record this evidence and thus redress this imbalance. The Yorkshire Region of the National Trust owns the partial remains of three important alum sites and the results of the detailed archaeological evaluation of these sites are presented. The archaeological implications of the Trust's continuing acquisition of threatened coastline are also considered.     

The problem of provenancing English post-medieval slipwares: a chemical and petrographic approach

Abstract

Trailed and combed slipwares are a common component of mid 17th- and 18th-century archaeological ceramic assemblages in England. Despite their widespread manufacture, pieces produced at different centres across England appear remarkably similar in terms of fabric and decoration. Inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry and petrography are employed to determine if chemical, mineralogical or technological traits can be used to indicate manufacturing provenance. Sherds from Bristol, North Staffordshire and South Yorkshire were analysed. The results reveal that they form cohesive chemical and petrographic groups that correlate with their place of manufacture, indicating potential for future studies of slipware production and distribution.     

On Ancient Chinese Vases

Abstract

Historic and place-name evidence suggests that a Roman road ran along the south-west flank of the Pennines from North Staffordshire to the Tame valley on the Lancashire–Yorkshire border. Place-names also suggest a series of camps or fort sites along the route. The hypothesis is supported by the context of a find of a coin of Augustus and by the probable remains of a camp rampart on Werneth Low at the entrance to Longdendale. It is proposed that the road was constructed for the pacification of Brigantia and afterwards was of little importance other than as a boundary which gave rise to the ‘lyme’ place-name elements found along the south-west Pennine edge.     

Medieval Floor and Roof Tiles from Melrose Abbey,Scottish Borders,and the ‘Westminster Tilers’

Abstract

AN ASSEMBLAGE OF more than 2500 fragments of tile was recovered from within the precinct of Melrose Abbey during excavations in 2009. The collection includes a large group of decorated floor tiles, the designs of which have links with the ‘Westminster School’, and which are unlike any other previously excavated at the abbey. This paper places the group in context and considers the implications of the find.     

W. B. Yeats,the Abbey Theatre,and the Cinema, 1909–1939

ABSTRACT

Given the significance of new technologies to the literary and visual cultures of the early-twentieth century, it is surprising how little has been written about W. B. Yeats and cinema. Viewed by some scholars as emphatically resistant to what he termed “the leprosy of the modern,” Yeats has long been a difficult writer to situate in relation the progressive impulses of modernity. Building on Kevin Rockett’s identification of the parallels between the work of Abbey Theatre and a nascent Irish cinema culture, this article argues that Yeats played a prominent role in early attempts to develop an indigenous film industry, and to cultivate representations of Ireland on screen abroad. During the period I consider, the Abbey Theatre and the film industry were similarly affected by state censorship programmes and various forms of cultural nationalism. Exploring the Abbey Theatre Minute Books and archival materials discovered in Trinity College Dublin, I suggest that Yeats’s Abbey was a shaping force in Irish cinema history, despite the fact that most attempts to create a national cinema met with limited success.     

Annual Report and Accounts for 2015

Abstract

This paper presents a case for identifying the Westminster Retable as the thirteenth-century high altarpiece of Westminster Abbey. It considers the evidence of the construction and size of the panel, and argues for the suitability of a panel painting for the high altar dossal at so comparatively early a date. The apostolic and eucharistic iconography of the paintings is also held to argue for such a function.     

Bishop Bickersteth’s Visitation Returns for the Archdeaconry of Craven,Diocese of Ripon, 1858

Abstract

In 1868, an article in the Yorkshire Post about the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum drew attention to Yorkshire's pivotal role in the history of mental health care. It was because of this history, it was claimed, that Yorkshiremen had a special interest in the treatment of the insane. The purpose of this paper is to explore critically this assumption in light of the recent work on the Poor Law's relationship with the asylum. The growth and development of two asylums in the neighbouring North and West Ridings of Yorkshire will be compared and contrasted. The first part of the paper offers a brief explanation of Yorkshire's pivotal role in the history of the institutional approach to the problems of mental health and the growth of institutions in the counties. Central to the paper will be an examination of how each county responded to the differing demands on its resources and how this impacted on the nature of care at each institution. Ultimately, this paper aims to show how Poor Law finances contributed significantly to the development of each institution.     

The Thesaurus Exemplorum Medii Aevi (ThEMA): An Introduction

Abstract

Johannes Borquardi was a priest-brother at Vadstena Abbey from 1428 until his death in 1447. He was a renowned preacher and has left three extant volumes of sermons. At the end of many of his sermons, he writes suggestions for yet another sermon on the same theme or for the same day. There are some 60 such short texts, some mentioning only one or two suitable sources, others listing many books; sometimes they even give a Vadstena shelf-mark. These texts are invaluable for our knowledge of the Abbey library in many aspects. In some cases, we can check how Johannes himself used his own suggestions, since we also have his next product for the same feast. In this paper, I have studied how Johannes used one of his 'endnotes' to compose a sermon for St Matthias by cribbing from Peregrinus de Oppeln and Guilelmus Peraldus. I hope to show just how skilfully he uses his sources and how elegantly he pastes in his quotations, so that the sermon becomes a new, consistent and homogeneous text.     

Post-Medieval Britain in 1966

Abstract

Fieldwork and excavation between 1967 and 1971 disclosed the sites of two glass furnaces in valleys running southwards from the North Yorkshire Moors. At Hutton Common (SE 706883) a vessel-producing furnace was excavated, revealing three main phases of operation, the last of which had a magnetic date late in the 16th century. There was also fragmentary evidence for an auxiliary furnace, perhaps used for annealing. In the Rosedale valley (SE/745932) another complex was excavated; this included a winged melting furnace similar to the Hutton example and also producing vessel glass, and at least two auxiliary furnaces. The dating evidence for this melting furnace was similar, and pottery in and near an adjacent ruined cottage showed that this had been occupied about 1600. There was no documentation directly relating to these sites apart from a glassmaker referred to in the Lastingham parish register for 1593.     

Herbert Heaton and Five Principles of The Yorkshire Coal-miners

Abstract

'Herbert Heaton and Five Principles of the Yorkshire Coal-Miners'. Herbert Heaton, born in 1890, was the son of a Yorkshire coal-miner. He obtained his schooling with scholarships from the age of twelve, including an undergraduate career at the University of Leeds. He went on to become a leading economic historian. He taught on three Continents, spending the last thirty years of his career at the University of Minnesota in the United States. His father was not only a coal-miner, but also a lay preacher in the Primitive Methodist Church and active in the governance of his local co-operative. Heaton wrote and lectured about five principles he had learned and adopted as his own, growing up in the Yorkshire coalfields. The five principles reflect how many coal-miners before 1914 believed economic and social justice could be achieved. While the miners changed their beliefs after 1918, Heaton, who never lived in Britain after 1914, retained the Yorkshire principles of his youth.     

Englishmen,Scots and Marchers: National and Local Identities in Thomas Gray's Scalacronica

Abstract

The abortive Wakefield Plot of March 1541 against Henry VIII was followed by a massive — and armed — royal progress to the North that summer. Historians have, however, tended to see the progress as being more concerned with a projected meeting between Henry and James V of Scotland at York. This article re-examines both the Wakefield Plot and the progress. It argues the Plot did indeed present great danger to Henry VIII. It was well planned, involved unprecedented inter-class collaboration, and envisaged a bloody conflict to overthrow the 'tyrant' Henry. It also envisaged aid from the Scots, with whom the conspirators may have had links. The Plot is set in the context of serious discontent about taxation in early 1541, and severe local economic problems in Yorkshire. The progress bound the northern elites to the King through a succession of choreographed supplications from the northern gentry and yeomen. Despite serious fears that the progress might meet trouble in the North, it succeeded in pacifying the region. Meanwhile, the possibility of a meeting with James at York emerged only during the progress, and James's failure to appear was of little importance in the slide to war between England and Scotland in 1542.     

Rutherford – Simple Genius

Abstract

From a superficial glance, it might be thought that men of science are barely represented in Westminster Abbey, among the kings, courtiers, naval and military men, poets, statesmen and heroes of Empire. This is not so. One of the most splendid works of sculpture of the 18th century is the monument, adjacent to his grave, to Sir Isaac Newton. Many Fellows of the Royal Society are there as well, though this might be coincidental as they were also bishops or deans. Not all might be buried in the Abbey, but physicians, astronomers, and engineers are commemorated by marble statues or tablets, in stained glass, by monumental brass, or, like the Herschels, only by their gravestones. It is true that some have had to wait a long time for a memorial: Edmond Halley's stylised comet appeared only four years ago. These are, however, in good company, for even Shakespeare (buried at Stratford-on-Avon) had no memorial in the Abbey until well over a century after his death. Nor should men of science feel that they have been overlooked, because of all the country's architects, only one or two are represented, and only one painter is commemorated, and he is not John Constable.     

A Fading Memory: The North Yorkshire Coastal Alum Industry in the Light of Recent Analytical Field Survey by English Heritage

Abstract

For over 250 years from 1604, the North York Moors were the centre of the English alum industry. The principal use of alum was as a mordant to fix and enhance the colour of dyed cloth. It was made by quarrying, burning and steeping vast quantities of shale to produce an impure solution of aluminium sulphate; then, at alum houses, the liquor was concentrated by boiling, and an alkali added to form alum. The North Yorkshire quarries exploited both inland and coastal shale exposures, but the most successful quarry/alum house complexes (alum works) were situated on or near the coast. Even when operational, the latter had to contend with periodic infrastructure losses from landslips and cliff falls; with closure, they now form a diminishing archaeological resource steadily sliding into the sea. This paper reviews the present understanding of the industrial process in the light of recent analytical field survey by English Heritage of four hitherto poorly recorded works, three of which are coastal. In so doing, it highlights the disproportionate loss of certain classes of features at the coastal sites, and advocates the need to do more to compare the latter to their inland counterparts, to place the industry in its wider British and European context, and to examine it from an economic as well as a technological perspective.     

The 'Coiled-Tube' Pump

Abstract

The remains of the lead industry are now recognised as an integral part of the 'natural beauty' of the Yorkshire Dales which the Yorkshire Dales National Park Committee has a statutory duty to preserve and enhance. The landscape impact of the industry, on woodland, settlement and communications as well as at mining and processing sites themselves, is briefly described, together with threats to the remains and protective measures taken. The latter include the National Park's management agreements and consolidation programmes at Grinton, Old Gang and Surrender Lead Smelting Mills in Swaledale.     

Observations on the Ancient City Walls of Rochester

Abstract

A recent survey of the floor-tiles of Cleeve Abbey has revealed a much larger range of designs and fabric groups than had previously been assumed. The style of the earliest pavements derive from those laid at Clarendon Palace in the first half of the 13th century, and may have been made on site. In the late 13th century tiles of high quality were imported from the Gloucester region to pave the frater. The next group of tiles came from a Somerset tilery operating at the same time or just after the Gloucestershire tilery. By c. 1330 the entire church was paved along with the sacristy and chapterhouse, using tiles made by a local industry. There was no revival of tile-making after the mid-14th century.