England,France, the papacy and the Flemish succession, 1361-9

International politics in the 1360s were dominated by a diplomatic duel between England and France to secure the marriage of Margaret de Male, only child of the count of Flanders and ‘the richest heiress in christendom’. This struggle ultimately involved every major European power, including the papacy and the Empire, and resulted in wars in areas as far apart as Hainault, Castile and Lombardy. It was eventually won by the French, leaving the English with a bitter resentment both toward the Flemings and, more especially, towards the papacy, which had been instrumental in securing the victory for France.     

Excavations on Brightstone and Bowcombe Downs,Isle of Weight,Made in August 1854

Abstract

Not a single English Romanesque great cloister arcade survives in situ. Despite this, the existence of a number of 11th- and 12th-century rear walls, and the discovery of quantities of stonework likely to have originated in cloister arcades, make it possible to recover something of the likely appearance and character of the cloister in Anglo-Norman England. The following paper considers that evidence, and assesses how our understanding of the underlying topography and archaeology of Anglo-Norman cloisters might enable us to reconstruct their lost walks. It concludes with an appraisal of the chronology of English cloister building.     

弄玉、紫玉传说蕴含的历史“远景”

本文对弄玉、紫玉传说所蕴含历史价值的相似处作出分析,认为它们的历史“远景”是上古公女丧葬中的人殉制度。同时,本文亦辨析了在两则传说文本定型的过程中,后代所融入的文化元素：神鬼观念和墓葬风俗。     

Books received

This article examines the remarkable ‘changes and transpositions’ of form found in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle, an important Anglo-Norman estoire recounting the rebellion against Henry II in 1173–74. By reading these literary changes as accommodations of circumstances and persons, they can be used to locate the Chronicle in very specific historical and social contexts. Jordan, clerk of the bishop of Winchester and master of the city's grammar schools, places himself, both socially and discursively, within a community of administrative barons, who are very carefully remembered in the Chronicle as a coherent social affinity, or foedus amicitiae, both alienated from and seeking solidarity with the king. These conditions explain the Chronicle's central rhetorical impulses: to chastise the king, sometimes bitterly, and to persuade him to ‘love, cherish … and reward’ these specific barons. To achieve these rhetorical desires, Jordan draws upon the resources of contemporary literary education to imagine and perform persuasion. The Chronicle is thus a powerful illustration of John Baldwin's account of the ‘interpenetration’ of studium et regnum, institutional learning and political administration, in twelfth-century England. Because the Chronicle has in the past been understood as a panegyric, or even propaganda, for a royalist cause, this baronial reading represents a major re-assessment of its sociabilities and purposes.     

‘Faites le mien desir’: studious persuasion and baronial desire in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle

This article examines the remarkable ‘changes and transpositions’ of form found in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle, an important Anglo-Norman estoire recounting the rebellion against Henry II in 1173–74. By reading these literary changes as accommodations of circumstances and persons, they can be used to locate the Chronicle in very specific historical and social contexts. Jordan, clerk of the bishop of Winchester and master of the city's grammar schools, places himself, both socially and discursively, within a community of administrative barons, who are very carefully remembered in the Chronicle as a coherent social affinity, or foedus amicitiae, both alienated from and seeking solidarity with the king. These conditions explain the Chronicle's central rhetorical impulses: to chastise the king, sometimes bitterly, and to persuade him to ‘love, cherish … and reward’ these specific barons. To achieve these rhetorical desires, Jordan draws upon the resources of contemporary literary education to imagine and perform persuasion. The Chronicle is thus a powerful illustration of John Baldwin's account of the ‘interpenetration’ of studium et regnum, institutional learning and political administration, in twelfth-century England. Because the Chronicle has in the past been understood as a panegyric, or even propaganda, for a royalist cause, this baronial reading represents a major re-assessment of its sociabilities and purposes.     

King Stephen,the English church,and a female mystic: Christina of Markyate's Vita as a neglected source for the council of Winchester (August 1139) and its aftermath

One of the central reasons for the disintegration of royal authority (sometimes called ‘the Anarchy’) during the reign of King Stephen of England is generally thought to have been his troubled relationship with the English church. The king was summoned to appear before the legate in England, Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester (who was also Stephen's brother), at a church council called for Winchester on 29 August 1139, in order to show cause for his conduct in arresting several prominent bishops and in confiscating their property. Several major chroniclers discuss the events leading up to and occurring at the council of Winchester, especially William of Malmesbury in his Historia novella and the anonymous Gesta Stephani. The versions of events contained in these sources are not entirely consistent. The present paper examines yet another recounting of the events of the council, seldom appreciated by historians of twelfth-century England, presented in the Vita of Christina of Markyate (c.1096/98–c.1155/66), composed by an anonymous monk of St Albans between 1140 and 1146. Christina was close to the abbot of St Albans, Geoffrey de Gorham, who was probably the patron of the Vita and who quite likely attended the Winchester council and apparently became involved in its aftermath. These events are recorded in some detail in the Vita, presenting us with a vivid recounting of the council and the immediate consequences thereof. The narrative of the Vita contains a somewhat different picture of the personalities and occurrences surrounding the Winchester council than we encounter in the chronicles. The current essay compares the Vita to the standard accounts. We argue that the Vita may be the earliest and possibly most reliable source for the events of the council. Moreover, if we privilege the report of the Vita, the council becomes an especially significant moment in the breakdown of relations between Stephen and the English church.     

King Stephen,the English church,and a female mystic: Christina of Markyate's Vita as a neglected source for the council of Winchester (August 1139) and its aftermath

One of the central reasons for the disintegration of royal authority (sometimes called ‘the Anarchy’) during the reign of King Stephen of England is generally thought to have been his troubled relationship with the English church. The king was summoned to appear before the legate in England, Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester (who was also Stephen's brother), at a church council called for Winchester on 29 August 1139, in order to show cause for his conduct in arresting several prominent bishops and in confiscating their property. Several major chroniclers discuss the events leading up to and occurring at the council of Winchester, especially William of Malmesbury in his Historia novella and the anonymous Gesta Stephani. The versions of events contained in these sources are not entirely consistent. The present paper examines yet another recounting of the events of the council, seldom appreciated by historians of twelfth-century England, presented in the Vita of Christina of Markyate (c.1096/98–c.1155/66), composed by an anonymous monk of St Albans between 1140 and 1146. Christina was close to the abbot of St Albans, Geoffrey de Gorham, who was probably the patron of the Vita and who quite likely attended the Winchester council and apparently became involved in its aftermath. These events are recorded in some detail in the Vita, presenting us with a vivid recounting of the council and the immediate consequences thereof. The narrative of the Vita contains a somewhat different picture of the personalities and occurrences surrounding the Winchester council than we encounter in the chronicles. The current essay compares the Vita to the standard accounts. We argue that the Vita may be the earliest and possibly most reliable source for the events of the council. Moreover, if we privilege the report of the Vita, the council becomes an especially significant moment in the breakdown of relations between Stephen and the English church.     

Ghostliness in Asian Diasporic Film and Literature

This paper examines the ways in which tropes of ghostliness and haunting are deployed in three recent books to describe the cultural effects of globalisation, modernisation and transnational movement in contemporary Asian and Asian diasporic film and literature.     

Britische Politiker als Liebhaber der Wissenschaft (ca. 1850–1914) — Zur Ideologie des Amateurismus

The various scholarly and scientific endeavours — comprising both arts and sciences —, which British statesmen persued in their leisure time, transcend the mere biographical aspect. In the light of the slow, yet steady professionalisation of educational and political institutions, many of them modernised or newly created in order to achieve what came to be called “National Efficiency”, the literary and scientific pastimes of men, like Gladstone, Morley, Salisbury, Balfour or Haldane, seemed soon to become somewhat obsolete. Yet, it is argued, that the often professedly amateurish activities did not merely display the traditional hobby attitude to the sciences, so characteristic of the wealthy aristocrat, but in some cases revealed a good understanding of the scientific and educational needs of society, leading up to their active advancement. The British amateurs, it would seem, were pleading for providing a balanced higher education and training, rather than going for the technical excellence of the political rival Imperial Germany, which dazzled and, at the same time, intimidated some of them.     

Playing with Fire: The 4th Duke of Hamilton's Jacobite Politics and the Union

James Hamilton, duke of Hamilton and the Scots jacobites are generally linked in analyses of the final years of the Scots polity. Indeed, Hamilton is often presented as the leader of the jacobite party in the Scottish parliament. Yet both contemporaries and historians have been unsure what to make of his on-again, off-again, conduct with respect to the exiled Stuarts and France. This has fuelled an ongoing debate about Hamilton's erratic and highly enigmatic behaviour during the winter of 1706–7, when the Union was passing the Scottish parliament. Was he genuinely opposing the Union? Was he duped by the court? Or was he, ‘bought and sold for English gold ’? This essay takes a fresh look at the duke and his part in the Union crisis in the light of new and previously underused jacobite sources with a view to better understanding Hamilton's aims, objectives, and influence with this crucial group. Only the jacobites and the Cameronians were potentially willing to take their opposition to the Union to God's Acre. But neither party immediately flew to arms in response to passage of a union they both believed was a betrayal of everything they held dear, and Hamilton was a major factor in their failure to do so. This essay thus takes a close look at the duke's part in preventing a major national uprising against the Union in the winter of 1706–7 and advances a new interpretation of his conduct and significance throughout the Union crisis.     

英格兰与苏格兰合并的历史渊源

13世纪末,苏格兰与英格兰的对手法国结成联盟,此联盟严重影响了英格兰的对法战争。在对法关系中剔除苏格兰因素,成为中世纪后期及近代早期英格兰努力征服、控制苏格兰的主要原因。1603年英格兰与苏格兰实现王位联合,通过王位联合英格兰达到了控制苏格兰的目的,但这只是暂时地解决了苏格兰问题。17世纪末18世纪初,英格兰与法国不可避免地成为近代争霸的两个主角,而此时的苏格兰议会已取代共主国王成为苏格兰的权力中心,英格兰无法再通过王位联合达到控制苏格兰的目的。为防止苏格兰与法国再度结盟,英格兰最终选择与苏格兰合并为大不列颠联合王国。     

Rethinking “Resistant Accommodation”: Toward an Archaeology of African-American Lives in Southern New England, 1638–1800

Scholarship concerning the lives of enslaved African Americans in southern New England has shifted rapidly from outdated models of acculturation to conflict-driven models of domination and resistance. With the assumption of conflict as the outcome of all power relations, both economic production and historical contextuality have been overlooked, with slavery systems in New England simply equated with other regions of the Atlantic world, rather than compared and contrasted. This essay reconsiders contests over power in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New England. Drawing on the work of Greene (1966), Piersen (1988), and others, I argue that the system of slavery in the region may represent an anomalous case in terms of the means of control or the means of resistance. By examining demographic patterns, economic production, and agricultural landscapes in Rhode Island's East Bay, I argue that there may be more to be learned from William D. Piersen's (1988, p. 143) concept of resistant accommodation as a middle ground between the two extremes of the theoretical spectrum. The essay concludes with suggestions for further research on the archaeology of African-American lives in the region.