King John and St Wulfstan

In accordance with the terms of his will, King John was buried near to the shrine of St Wulfstan in Worcester cathedral despite his apparent intention earlier in the reign to be buried in a Cistercian house. When and why John might have developed his particular interest in Wulfstan, the last Anglo-Saxon bishop, are considered and attention is drawn to the relevance of a famous legend linking Wulfstan and Edward the Confessor to King John's dispute with Innocent III over the king's authority in the appointment of bishops. The revival of Wulfstan's cult, which led to his formal canonisation in 1203, is seen as part of a general interest in indigenous saints, both Anglo-Saxon and contemporary, in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The suggestion is made that this concern with national saints provides the context for John's devotion to St Wulfstan and for the significant choice of his place of burial.     

King John and St Wulfstan

In accordance with the terms of his will, King John was buried near to the shrine of St Wulfstan in Worcester cathedral despite his apparent intention earlier in the reign to be buried in a Cistercian house. When and why John might have developed his particular interest in Wulfstan, the last Anglo-Saxon bishop, are considered and attention is drawn to the relevance of a famous legend linking Wulfstan and Edward the Confessor to King John's dispute with Innocent III over the king's authority in the appointment of bishops. The revival of Wulfstan's cult, which led to his formal canonisation in 1203, is seen as part of a general interest in indigenous saints, both Anglo-Saxon and contemporary, in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The suggestion is made that this concern with national saints provides the context for John's devotion to St Wulfstan and for the significant choice of his place of burial.     

Articulating national identity in Turkmenistan: inventing tradition through myth,cult and language

A study of myth, cult, and language as tools of state power, this paper analyzes ways national identity was constructed and articulated in one state. When Türkmenistan became independent in 1991 its first president, Saparmyrat Nyýazow, promoted himself as the ‘savior’ of the nation by reconceptualising what it meant to be Türkmen. Myth, public texts and language policy were used to construct this identity. While they were the targets of the state's cultural products, Türkmen citizens contributed to the processes of cultural production. Nyýazow legitimised his authoritarian leadership, first by co‐opting Türkmen citizens to support his regime, and then by coercing them as participants in his personality cult. The paper concludes that Nyýazow used the production of culture, ‘invented tradition’ in Hobsbawm's sense, to bolster his agenda and further his own power. It also argues that the exaggerated cult of personality Nyýazow cultivated limited his achievements, rather than solidifying them.     

Putting the Roman periphery on the map: the geography of Romanness,orthodoxy, and legitimacy in Victricius of Rouen's De Laude sanctorum

Victricius of Rouen's De laude sanctorum (c.396) contains an original discussion of the cult of relics, introduced by a brief excursus on his recent trip to Britain. In this article, I argue that the author used both sections to define two symbolic territories, Britain and the centre of the empire, which invited his audience to think geographically about the concepts of Romanness, orthodoxy, and legitimacy. Exploiting a long‐standing tradition of stereotypes and geographical imaginations, Victricius used his argument of the unity of relics to justify his position in the Felician controversy, a contemporary episcopal and political conflict.     

The Sun and the Shakers,Again: Enga,Ipili, and Somaip Perspectives on the Cult of Ain Part One

ABSTRACT In the middle 1940s, at a time when white people were just beginning to penetrate the western highlands of what would become Papua New Guinea, a cult spread quickly among Engas, Ipili speakers, and Somaips. In the seminal article ‘The Sun and the Shakers' published almost 40 years ago, Mervyn J. Meggitt would call this cult the ‘Cult of Ain.’ The cult's core feature involved a massive sacrifice of pigs to the sun in an attempt to enlist the sun's aid. Participants stared at the sun and shook, entering a trance‐like state. While massive pig sacrifices to the sun occurred in all cult variants, local versions of the cult differed in emphasizing one or two themes: acquiring wealth (pigs and pearlshells but also white manufactured goods) and/or ascending to the sky. Interpretations of the cult reflect this variation, some focusing on apparent cargo cultic dimensions while others train on the cult's millenarian aspects. This reprise of Meggitt's article argues that the themes of wealth acquisition and ascent to the sky were at base the same, intelligible with respect to the cosmological discourse that so clearly informed all the cult's manifestations (hence the emphasis upon the sun), a discourse that this article attempts to interpret. This, the first of a two‐part article, summarizes what is known of Cult of Ain variants, highlighting the features other reporters have emphasized as well as those that may provide insight into underlying cultural and even transcultural logics.     

The cult of St Minias and the struggle for power in the diocese of Florence, 1011–1018

Foundation of churches and monasteries in the tenth and eleventh centuries often have more to do with economic and political concerns than they have to do with religious motivation. Though historians have long recognized the importance of the basilica of San Miniato al Monte in Florence for the history of the Tuscan romanesque, they have largely failed to see that its foundation stemmed from conflicts over competing interests between rival families in the northern Tuscan elite. The tenth and early eleventh centuries saw the formation of several powerful family lineages (consorterie) in northern Tuscany, which organized their regional patrimonies into proprietary monasteries. Two of those lineages — the Guidi and the Cadolingi — derived much of their wealth from the seizure of properties formerly held by the bishops of Florence. Endowing its two proprietary monasteries at Fucecchio and Settimo at the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh centuries with a patrimony which may have included lands claimed by the bishop, the Cadolingi patronized a faction within the Florentine clergy that challenged the moral qualifications of Bishop Hildebrand to be bishop.In order to defend episcopal properties from usurpation by the Caldolingi and Guidi and to provide a cover for his own family's appropriation of ecclesiastical property, Bishop Hildebrand consciously orchestrated after 1014 the revival of the cult of the first martyr of Florence, St Minias. The core of that program was the construction of the basilica and monastery of San Miniato. Endowing the basilica with the episcopal properties he sought to protect, the bishop appointed a loyal abbot who agreed to write a new Passio of the saint. Bishop Hildebrand managed to hold on to his office in spite of the challenges to his prelacy, but shortly after his death his sons lost control of the church property bequeathed to them by their father.     

Arnulf of Lisieux and the crisis at Grestain 1164–6: brother bishops,inherited policies and failed leadership

ABSTRACT

This article examines the failed reform of the abbey of Grestain by Arnulf, bishop of Lisieux (r. 1141–81). Faced with a disobedient abbot, in whose absence the monks had resorted to violence and murder, Arnulf saw an opportunity to stamp his authority on his diocese by turning the monastery into a house of canons regular. Arnulf’s policies were shaped by the example of his older brother John, bishop of Sées (r. 1124–44), and his uncle and predecessor in his own bishopric John of Lisieux (r. 1107–41), as well as his mentor Geoffrey of Lèves, bishop of Chartres (r. 1116–49). A close reading of Arnulf’s letters demonstrates that Arnulf's conception of religious leadership and his representation of the crisis at Grestain were formed not only by familial networks, but also by the wider social and educational ideals of the eleventh and twelfth centuries filtered through the Victorines.     

Countryside-versus-City in European Thought: German and British Anti-Urbanism between the Wars

The idea that the city is a place of sin and immorality is as old as urban civilization. But what does anti-urban thought mean in societies which are highly urbanized under the conditions of modern industrialism? Furthermore, is anti-urbanism in the interwar period a German völkisch phenomenon––one further stride on Germany's special path? And what does rural revival and the “back-to-the-land” cult mean in Great Britain, the first industrial nation? This article seeks to provide an answer to these questions by exploring anti-urbanist writing between the End of the First World War and 1933 in Germany, and 1939 in Britain. By examining two key themes it aims to show that the clear-cut distinction between German anti-urban radicalisation and the West's coming to terms with urbanisation cannot be maintained. Firstly, attention will be drawn to the ambiguity of perceptions of the city in the writings of “Conservative Revolutionary” authors in the Weimar Republic. In a second step, the British “back-to-the-land” movement, whose advocates developed comprehensive anti-urban third-way theories in the interwar period and were themselves part of a broader popular anti-industrial movement and a rural cult throughout the 1930s, will be examined.     

Texts,topoi and the self: a reading of Alfredian spirituality*

Challenging the allegation that Alfred's spirituality as Asser presents it is no more than a string of textual fictions, this article outlines a context for understanding Alfred's spirituality as a functional process of living texts, or of ‘textualizing’ the self. The discussion first draws support for this view from the history of early medieval spirituality and then demonstrates the theme's relevance both to Asser's representation of Alfred and to the king's own writings. Attention is given especially to the congruence between Alfred's depiction in the Life and Gregory the Great's teachings on the ideal rector as propounded in the Pastoral Care, a text carefully read and famously translated by Alfred himself. The comparison suggests that the main spiritual models for Alfred's kingly piety may be understood to reside in, and to involve assimilation of, this work of Gregory, making it possible to conceptualize the king's self‐presentation in terms of a conscious project to ‘live’ Gregory's text by bringing the ideals of the Gregorian rector to life in his own person. Such an argument helps to explain Alfred's interest in Gregory, to account for his concern to translate the Pastoral Care, and to legitimize the predominant images associated with the king's spirituality as indicative of a kind of functional piety grounded in the reading of texts, rather than simply reflected, perhaps falsely, in Asser’s Life.     

The temptations of cult: Roman martyr piety in the age of Gregory the Great

Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) was arguably the most important Roman writer and civic leader of the early middle ages; the Roman martyrs were certainly the most important cult figures of the city. However modern scholarship on the relationship between Gregory and the Roman martyrs remains curiously underdeveloped, and has been principally devoted to comparison of the gesta martyrum with the stories of Italian holy men and women (in particular St Benedict) told by Gregory in his Dialogues; in the past generation the Dialogues have come to be understood as a polemic against the model of sanctity proposed by the Roman martyr narratives. This paper explores Gregory's role in the development of Roman martyr cult in the context of the immediate social world of Roman clerical politics of the sixth and seventh centuries. Gregory's authority as bishop of Rome was extremely precarious: the Roman clerical hierarchy with its well-developed protocols did not take kindly to the appearance of Gregory and his ascetic companions. In the conflict between Gregory and his followers, and their opponents, both sides used patronage of martyr cult to advance their cause. In spite of the political necessity of engaging in such 'competitive generosity', Gregory was also concerned to channel martyr devotion, urging contemplation on the moral achievements of the martyrs – which could be imitated in the present – as opposed to an aggressive and unrestrained piety focused on their death. Gregory's complex attitude to martyr cult needs to be differentiated from that which was developed over a century later, north of the Alps, by Carolingian readers and copyists of gesta martyrum and pilgrim guides, whose approach to the Roman martyrs was informed by Gregory's own posthumous reputation.     

British Muslims,multiculturalism and UK foreign policy: ‘integration’ and ‘cohesion’ in and beyond the state

After the 7 July and 21 July 2005 attacks on London the government‐sponsored effort to ‘prevent extremism together’ has repeatedly acknowledged the central role of anger at UK foreign policy in the radicalization of some British Muslims. This acknowledgement has been incorporated into a ‘comprehensive framework for action’ centring upon the need for increased ‘integration’ and an effort, critically, to re‐work British multiculturalism as a means to combat terrorism. Examining the history of multiculturalism in Britain and the tradition of living and acting ‘together’ that it suggests, however, raises a set of questions about the society into which integration is supposed to occur, what integration might involve and its real efficacy for combating terrorists. In addressing these issues, this article suggests that the debate over contemporary multiculturalism should be situated within a much wider social and political crisis over the meaning of ‘community’ in the UK, to which questions of global order and foreign policy are central. Comparing the ‘ethical’ basis of Al‐Qaeda's attacks with Tony Blair's invocation of ‘values’ as the foundation for military intervention reveals that both seek to realize models of community through violence and a shared process of ‘radicalization’ which in both cases precedes 9/11 and which might be traced back to the Gulf War of 1991. The article concludes that debate over the future of multiculturalism in the UK is being conducted alongside and is implicated within a second, violent global conflict over community: one which is central to, but essentially unarticulated within the domestic context.     

St John's Ambulance Brigade and the Gendering of ‘Passive Defence’ in British Malaya, 1937–42

The St John's Ambulance Brigade established itself in British Malaya in the 1930s, as part of efforts to mobilise and train the colony's subjects for civil defence as the geo‐strategic climate in the Pacific deteriorated. This article demonstrates how the provision of emergency medical care was a gendered and racialised undertaking in the colonial context. Unlike the military, comprising mainly European and ‘trusted’ ethnic Indian soldiers, the realm of ‘passive defence’ was identified as a feminised undertaking for women and ethnic Chinese men who were considered to be either too vulnerable or too disloyal to bear arms. The rapid advance of Japan's military in south‐east Asia violently shattered such social boundaries, as many women and non‐European volunteers found themselves exposed by retreating Allied forces to the Japanese offensive and took up duties at posts from which their European supervisors had been forced to desert. Mainstream military historiography has often been highly gendered towards what is considered as the male‐dominated public domain of the battlefield. In this respect, the involvement of the St John's Ambulance Brigade reveals the process in which colonial ethno‐gender identities and hierarchies were being established, appropriated and subsequently subverted by the exigencies of the war in British Malaya.     

British hospitality for an unfortunate prince: the Duc de Bordeaux's visit to Britain as an early test of the entente cordiale, 1843–4

In the summer of 1843, Anglo-French relations thawed in the wake of the British and French royal families' meeting at the Château d'Eu in Normandy. Members of both governments began to speak of the good understanding, or entente cordiale, between them, and much of the existing historiography points out that by 1844, what proved to be a fragile arrangement was under some pressure. However, mere months after the Eu visit, another royal visit threatened the entente, that of King Louis Philippe's exiled great-nephew, the Bourbon pretender Henri, Duc de Bordeaux (later known as the Comte de Chambord), to Britain. Owing to Britain's tradition of allowing entry to foreigners, Bordeaux was able to enter Britain freely, whilst the British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen, argued that his visit would have little political consequence. Rather, Bordeaux and his suite intended to make political demonstrations. These activities and Aberdeen's willingness to believe professions to the contrary deeply offended the French government. Aberdeen was eventually forced to admonish Bordeaux and his suite. Although the dispute was amicably resolved, it almost fatally undermined the entente soon after its inception.     

Womanliness in the Slums: A Free Kindergarten in Early Twentieth‐Century Edinburgh

This paper considers the intersection of Spiritual Motherhood, early childhood education and child welfare in early twentieth‐century Edinburgh. Its focus is St Saviour's Child Garden (SSCG), which opened in the Canongate, in November 1906, part of the Free Kindergarten movement that emerged in Europe and North America in the late nineteenth century. The paper focuses on the SSCG's founder Lileen Hardy, in order to trace the development of this new approach to child welfare and women's work in Britain. It discusses her training at the Sesame House for Home‐Life Training in London, her move to Edinburgh, and the network of predominantly women reformers, whose interests ranged from urban reform to medical welfare, she found there. It shows how this network facilitated the founding of the SSCG and discusses the form it took and Hardy's implementation of a modified form of Froebelian praxis. In so doing its concern is to show how Free Kindergarten forms part of a wider history of social welfare and urban reform as well as to the history of early childhood education, and to move attention away from the men usually associated with innovations in Scottish social reform like Patrick Geddes, and onto a group of women who created a women and child‐centred proto‐Welfare State in pre‐First World War Edinburgh.     

Robespierre's Éloge De Gresset: Sources of Robespierre's Anti‐Philosophe Discourse

One of the most important debates in the field of eighteenth‐century French intellectual history concerns the ideological significance of the rise of the cult of the Great Frenchmen. Taking this debate as a frame of reference, the paper attempts a close reading of Robespierre's Éloge de Gresset (written in 1784, published in 1785). Usually dismissed by Robespierre scholars, this text is, in fact, a very important document offering clues not only to Robespierre's intellectual formation, but also his appropriation of what he regarded as the official and conventional rhetoric of his age. These questions engage the larger debate regarding the origins of the French Revolution, in particular its ‘cultural origins’, and its intellectual origins, defined as the distillation of and interactions between competing representations of society and its relation to the public sphere. The thesis proposed is that Robespierre's eulogy of Gresset indicates that his anti‐philosophical ideas came from a much broader array of sources than previously believed. Among these sources, Gresset's 1740s–1750s polemics against the philosophes pointed the way towards the type of criticism of the Enlightenment that underpinned Robespierre's cultural revolutionary politics.     

The bishop and the monk: Desiderius of Vienne and the Columbanian movement

This paper analyses the uses made by hagiographers and chroniclers of the character of Desiderius of Vienne. Desiderius, a bishop in Merovingian Burgundy, was the protagonist of two seventh‐century Lives, and appears in numerous other hagiographical works and chronicles. Desiderius also figures prominently in works composed within the context of Columbanian monasticism, most notably Jonas of Bobbio's Vita Columbani. His appearance in these works paints a multifaceted picture not only of his own political activities, but also of the agendas of the hagiographers themselves, who exploited his literary image to further their ends. It is the contention of this paper that despite the frequent mentions of Desiderius in Columbanian compositions, he did not, in fact, play a part in the Columbanians' success.     

Preaching,politics and episcopal reform in Wulfstan's early writings

Putting Wulfstan's earliest legal texts – the Canons of Edgar and the so‐called Peace of Edward and Guthrum – in dialogue with his homilies on the role of the bishop, this article argues that, from his earliest writings, Wulfstan adapted approaches from Kings Alfred and Edgar as well as from the Benedictine reform to make ambitious claims concerning the role of the bishop in the secular sphere. These claims went beyond the contemporary understanding of the relationship between bishop and king both in England and on the Continent, to frame the bishop as the primary authority in the nation because he is the teacher of teachers.