The Wapentake Courts of The Honour of Pontefract, 1427–1877

Wapentake courts continued to play an important role in the administration of the West Riding throughout the early-modern period and for much of the nineteenth century. This can be demonstrated from the surviving court records of the six wapentake courts of the honour of Pontefract. These show that wapentake courts, acting as sheriff's tourns, performed a central function in early-modern local administration. All the township officers within their jurisdictions, including constables, sworn men (bye-law men) and pinders, were sworn into office at sittings of these courts. The roles of these different township officers are made clear. These courts and the seigneurial courts with jurisdiction over civil suits were inter-dependant, as were the wapentake courts and the courts of quarter sessions. Evolutionary changes in the sittings and functions of these courts are described. The wapentake courts were undermined by nineteenth century reforms of policing and to courts for debt litigation, which eventually led to the final abandonment of these courts despite local support for their continuation.     

The Baha'is and the Constitutional Revolution: The Case of Sari,Mazandaran, 1906–1913

Accounts of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran have tended to ignore the role of the Baha'is in that event. This paper looks at the case of Sari, capital of Mazandaran province, where the Baha'is of the city played a major part in initiating the move towards Constitutionalism and in educating people about the reforms envisaged and about the modern world. They also led the way in carrying out some of these reforms. In particular, the Baha'is established the first modern schools in the town. In this process, they were opposed by the Muslim ‘ulama in the town, who equated Constitutionalism and the Baha'i Faith, and persecuted the Baha'is of the town relentlessly for both reasons, leading eventually to the killing of five of the leading Baha'is of Sari in 1913. A brief account is also given of the attitude of the Baha'i leader ‘Abdu'l-Baha (1844–1921) towards the Constitutional Movement and the role of the Baha'is in it. This paper follows the events of the seven years 1906–13 in Sari and describes seven swings of the pendulum of power in the town alternating between the Baha'is and Constitutionalists on the one hand and the ‘ulama and the royalist forces supporting Muhammad ‘Ali Shah on the other. It points out that the neglect of the Baha'i aspect of these events by historians has led to a failure to account adequately for some of the events of these years.     

The atomic meal: The cold war and irradiated foods, 1945–1963

Following World War II, food technologists in the US participated in an Army‐led program to develop food irradiation technology. The program involved over 120 military, government, industrial, and academic institutions. Focusing on the MIT Department of Food Technology, I trace the networks that formed between these groups and their motivations for developing the technology. I argue that food irradiation was Cold War science directed towards the development of a consumer product, and that it highlighted the links between large‐scale military‐funded research and consumers' everyday lives. I suggest that researchers advocated for irradiation not because the technology produced better processed food, but because the development of the technology produced a number of valuable benefits for the researchers. These included increases in funding, materials, and prestige.     

The Search for A,otonatendïe

Abstract

Equivocal clues in the Jesuit Relations and the few other historical documents relating to A,otonatendie, an important, but short-lived, mid-17th-century, inter-tribal, anti-Iroquois coalition beyond “the Great Lake of the Hurons,” are now supplemented by archaeological evidence at Rock Island at the mouth of Green Bay in Door County, Wisconsin, suggesting a positive resolution to uncertainty about its location.