‘Grace for the rebels’: the role of the royal pardon in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381

This article focuses on the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 as a means of examining some of the late medieval assumptions about the nature of royal mercy. Rather than adding to the weight of scholarship on the causes and characteristics of the Revolt, this article discusses the views on mercy (‘grace for the rebels’)1 1?The parliament rolls of medieval England [hereafter PROME], ed. C. Given-Wilson et al. (CD-ROM. Scholarly Digital Editions, Leicester, 2005), ‘Richard II: parliament of 1381, text and translation’, item 30. I would like to thank the audience of the Oxford Medieval History Seminar for their advice on an early version of this paper, and Mark Ormrod for his helpful comments on this essay in draft form. that were reportedly expressed by all parties during the course of the rebellion. The first section analyses the chronicles and their references to discussion of pardon and mercy during the revolt itself. The second section examines the role of the royal pardon in the subsequent judicial proceedings in the Home Counties — who were the first recipients of pardon, and how were they able to secure royal grace? The final section then discusses the formulation of the pardon in the autumn parliament, and the debate surrounding the course of government policy in the wake of revolt on an unprecedented scale. This article seeks to demonstrate that the Crown and commons shared a common language of pardon, and understood that by framing their discussion in terms of royal grace, they were alluding to a particular kind of idealised relationship between the king and his subjects.     

‘Raising Sand,Soil and Gravel’ Pardon Refusers On-Board Prison Hulks (1776–1815)

For a short period of time at the end of the eighteenth-century and the beginning of the nineteenth-century a small number of convicted felons refused the offer of a royal pardon. Drawing heavily on evidence from The National Archives this article considers the possible and actual fate of fifty convicted felons on-board prison hulks at the turn of the nineteenth-century who declined the offer of pardons on condition of serving in the army abroad. Who were these convicts and why did they refuse the offer of a pardon? What were the choices they faced and how successful a strategy was refusal in terms of survival, freedom and a return to friends and family? This article bridges the gap in literature that exists between work on discretion (King, Gatrell, Hay et al.); prison hulks (Branch-Johnson and Campbell) and transportation (Bateson, Hughes, Morgan and Rushton) while challenging and developing the understanding of the motivations of the pardon refuser, set out by Devereaux and MacKay, but within the context of the forgotten prison hulks.     

AROUND 1968 – DANISH HISTORIOGRAPHY

This article is divided into three parts. The first part outlines the cultural and political leftist revolt of the 1960s and 1970s in Denmark by presenting the different periodizations linked to various aspects of the revolt and by introducing a variety of perceptions of its causes, course and impact. In the next section, apart from pointing out some of the important lacunae, I provide an overview of the genres and topics that characterise the historiography. Studies of social movements and political parties, for example, are heavily overrepresented. In the third and concluding part, I propose that the thematic and methodological distinction in the historiography between the cultural and political aspects of the revolt should be blurred and deconstructed.     

The Carolingian response to the revolt of Boso, 879–887

The decade leading up to the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire in 887–8 is traditionally characterised by historians as a period when royal authority was in terminal decline, crippled by the deaths of three great rulers in the mid-870s and by the attempt of the non-Carolingian rebel Boso of Vienne to seize a throne in 879. This article challenges the conventional view, and argues that Boso's revolt actually inspired the four surviving Carolingian kings to enter into a period of successful and effective cooperation. They came to a sworn agreement which sealed a new mutually guaranteed succession plan and resolved several outstanding territorial disputes. The end of the empire was brought about neither by internal conflict nor by loss of faith in the royal house, but rather by the premature deaths of a series of heirless rulers and the failure of the last emperor Charles the Fat to organize his succession in 887.     

犹太集体记忆视域下的巴尔·科赫巴书信

20世纪五六十年代出土的巴尔.科赫巴书信,不仅是了解作为犹太史分水岭的巴尔.科赫巴起义唯一翔实的一手资料,而且是迄今为止发现的唯一一份由一个反抗罗马帝国的起义领袖留下的文书。书信中起义领袖的姓名表明后世普遍认为这次起义具有弥赛亚性质,犹太神学传统对弥赛亚学说的构建正是在起义后出现了重大变化。书信中所使用的语言表明,希伯来语在当时绝不仅仅限于宗教仪式,而使用希腊文在犹太巴勒斯坦也未必由社会等级决定。犹太传统对巴尔.科赫巴的历史记忆具有高度的选择性,视他为典型的假弥赛亚或力大无穷的战士。这说明记住巴尔.科赫巴的意义并不来自过去,而是源于当下。     

Treason,sodomy, and the fate of Adenolfo IV,count of Acerra

The article recounts the charges brought against Adenolfo IV, count of Acerra, a magnate of the Regno in the reigns of Charles I and Charles II, and his execution for sodomy in 1293. This is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, known cases of the death penalty being exacted for sodomy in Europe. Behind it lies a trial in which Adenolfo was convicted of treason but received a royal pardon five years later. The story casts light on relations between the rulers of the Regno and their overlords the popes, on the judicial methods employed in the Regno, and on the government of Charles II.     

Treason,sodomy, and the fate of Adenolfo IV,count of Acerra

The article recounts the charges brought against Adenolfo IV, count of Acerra, a magnate of the Regno in the reigns of Charles I and Charles II, and his execution for sodomy in 1293. This is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, known cases of the death penalty being exacted for sodomy in Europe. Behind it lies a trial in which Adenolfo was convicted of treason but received a royal pardon five years later. The story casts light on relations between the rulers of the Regno and their overlords the popes, on the judicial methods employed in the Regno, and on the government of Charles II.     

The beginnings of royal pardon in Scotland

The well attested (and comprehensively studied) animus that informed English attitudes towards the Gaelic-speaking peoples of the British Isles in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries has tended to obscure important developments in the legal landscape of contemporary Scotland. This article argues that soon after 1200, the king of Scots deliberately abandoned as barbaric, obnoxious and unbecoming a Christian prince the practice of mutilating high-status political enemies and ritually defiling their bodily remains. The transformation reflected influences from England and Europe in general, but the argument here is that ultimately the change reflected the maturation of the Scottish ideas about Christian kingship, royal justice and royal mercy.     

Metamorphoses of the early medieval signum of a ruler in the Carolingian world

This article uses the approach of diplomatic semiotics to explore early medieval signs of authority in charters and on coins, especially the monogram and the sign of the cross used as an individual ‘signature’. Coins and charters used these signs communicating royal or imperial authority differently, addressing diverse regional and social audiences. From the fifth through the ninth centuries, the early medieval signum of a ruler gradually transformed from the individualizing sign of a particular monarch, designed to differentiate him symbolically from other rulers, to the generalizing sign of the king by the grace of God, which as a visual attribute of authority could be shared by several rulers. This transformation signified the inauguration of a new ‘medieval’ tradition in the communication of authority in late Carolingian times.     

Locality,Mobility and Governmentality in Colonial/Postcolonial New Caledonia: The case of the Kouare tribe (xûâ Xârâgwii), Thio (Cöö)

The colonial history of New Caledonia has been one of dispossession, alienation, and racial segregation. Indigenous people did not experience a life of all‐embracing confinement and immobility. Instead, Kanak localities were historically shaped by the interplay of colonial projects, ideas, tensions, power relations, practices, representations, values, norms, and emotions. Based on the example of Thio, located on the south‐east coast of New Caledonia, this article explores these transformations, focusing on processes of localization and mobility in the colonial and postcolonial eras. The first section focuses on the encounter with and the interplay between different organisations in Thio: the missionary, mining, pastoral, and administrative frontiers. The second section explores the multilayered history of the landscape and settlement patterns in Xârâgwii/Kouare (a tribe located in the mountainous part of Thio), and the third section analyses the interplay of locality and mobility since World War II. The final section examines the ‘invention’ of the tribe as part of colonial governmental projects. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the meaning of this evolving dialectic in the current context of decolonization.     

Simon de Montfort,Earl of Leicester,and the utility of sanctity in thirteenth-century England

Almost immediately after his death, Simon de Montfort, the leader of the Barons' Revolt against Henry III, was revered as a saint. Despite the received historical opinion that his cult was local, furtive, and brief, it actually received support throughout England, from the noble and clerical ranks as well as from the peasantry, and lasted into the reign of Edward I. The manifestations of Earl Simon's cult reveal that his revolt was popular as well as noble, that even illegal cults could be profitable for their home shrines, in this case the abbey of Evesham, and that sanctifying a rebel leader was an effective way of justifying both the continuation of a revolt and sympathy for the defeated rebels, in this case the Disinherited. On the hagiographical level, Montfort's cult shows the incredibly rich diversity of expression of devotion in medieval cults, and the more practical concerns with advertisement and profit. On the political level, the cult proves once again that the king did not control all means of political discourse. The merger of political and religious authority, the importance of which has been often demonstrated in studies of the king's touch and the laudes ceremonials, affected rebel leaders as well as kings.     

The Chief Rabbinate and Israel's Independence Day Religio‐National Rituals During the 1950s†

This article investigates the place of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate in the formation of Israel's national symbolic language during the country's first Independence Days. My main argument is that, like other state churches, the Rabbinate act as an important agent of memory that imparts collective myths and authenticate them. However, the Rabbinate was not willing to fully integrate the new national stance into the traditional ritual language and was therefore criticised accordingly. This criticism, and the alternative rituals it gave rise to, shows that certain circles of Israeli society were willing to go much further with the integration of national components into the traditional Jewish world. In addition, it demonstrates the necessity of the public's “approval” of the ritual, and therefore reveals the limits of memory agents. The first section of the article presents the background for the religious observance of the national holiday, the second section illustrates the nature of the first Independence Day synagogue services, the third section describes the criticism they had provoked, and the fourth section analyses the alternative rituals held on Mount Zion and the radical religious‐national integration they created. Finally, the conclusion seeks to place this case within the wider context of nation‐building and its religious aspects.     

Richard II and the church in the years of ‘tyranny’

The years 1396–1399 were critical ones in terms of European and English politics alike and, concomitantly, in the course of the Great Schism of the West. England's attitude to the Schism at this time has hitherto been considered primarily from a presupposition of Richard II's own attitude and authority and as an aspect of European politics. An examination of the direct relationship between Richard II and both the Urbanist papacy and the English Church raises some doubts about the extent of his authority in ecclesiastical affairs both before and after his emphatic reassertion of his prerogative in 1397. Particular consideration is given to his personal view of his proper interest. A discussion of the effect of royal policy on the English Church, especially in respect of the episcopate, suggests that, both in practice and in theory, his influence, whilst strong, rested on co-operation as much as coercion, and the nature of the Anglo-papal concordat of November 1398 is reconsidered in this light. It is suggested that greater stress should be laid on the spiritual considerations which weighed with all parties at the time alongside those of a more familiar secular kind.     

Longing for the New Jerusalem

Abstract

The following article is concerned with the changing nature of religion in Northern Europe. It considers first the concepts of "believing without belonging" and "vicarious religion," pointing out the limitations of each and drawing extensively on previously published work. The following section discusses in more detail a shift that is currently taking place—that is from forms of religion that are imposed or inherited to forms of religion that are primarily chosen. Particular attention is paid to the implications of these changes for the rites of passage. The final section reflects on the theological consequences of these changes, first with a more detailed discussion of notion of vicariousness and second by examining the complex relationship between the public and the private in religious life. It argues that forms of religion that are chosen rather than inherited have implications for the public as well as the private sphere. They are ill-served by an over-rigorous application of the concept of privatization.     

‘Bound from Either Side’: The Limits of Power in Carolingian Marriage Disputes, 840–870

The article discusses four marriage disputes in ninth‐century Francia which involved noblemen: Count Stephen of the Auvergne, Count Boso of Italy, Baldwin of Flanders and the royal vassal Falcric. All these men were affected by Carolingian reforming measures on consanguineous marriage, divorce and raptus (abduction). The article examines how gender and social status affected the forms of power and the strategies used by different parties in the cases: archbishops and popes, kings, the women involved and the noblemen themselves. A paradoxical situation is revealed: despite the patriarchal basis of Carolingian society, the power even of elite men over women and marriage was often highly contingent. Yet such restrictions on power did not imperil the gender order: the masculinity of the men involved in these marriage disputes was not questioned.     

Men in the Communities of Dominican Nuns – Sister‐Books Discussing Priests and Friars

This article discusses the relationship between Dominican nuns and their caregivers (priests and friars) with the help of sister‐books written by the Dominican nuns themselves in the first half of the fourteenth century. My main focus will be on analysing the way religious men were described in these books and asking how this discussion was related to the everyday life of the nuns in the Dominican convents. I will suggest that the sister‐books can give a new and perhaps unexpected view of the relationships between Dominican nuns and their spiritual caregivers, as these texts suggest that nuns preferred local secular priests over the friars, even though they accepted the religious authority of the latter. I will argue that although the sister‐books were literary products, they had a close connection to the lived reality of nuns and that they can tell us about the interaction between nuns and religious men in their service. However, these texts also formed the ideas of nuns and kept the old attitudes towards priests and friars live, even when the interaction might have already taken other forms in practice.     

Techniques of seigneurial war in the fourteenth century

Despite the many studies devoted to medieval military history, most work has concentrated on royal wars, neglecting the petty seigneurial wars that made up most of the large-scale, organised violence of the middle ages. This article, based on judicial records for dozens of seigneurial wars waged in fourteenth-century southern France, shows that lords' tactics were not keeping up with those of royal commanders. Although royal wars increasingly involved large numbers of foot soldiers, large siege engines, and artillery, local lords' bureaucratic and financial limitations restricted their adoption of new techniques. As had been the case for centuries, most lords' wars were focused on causing economic damage and affective trauma through raiding. After the first phase of the Hundred Years War, local lords began to employ significant numbers of mercenaries, allowing them to wage war more frequently and perhaps making their wars more violent, a development which partly reflects the economic pressures of the period.     

Forgiveness and reconciliation in Hobbes’s natural law theory

Thomas Hobbes’s laws of nature dictate the making and keeping of the social contract. In addition, Hobbes’s natural law theory considers traditional moral virtues, such as mercy and gratitude, as being conducive to peace. Some Hobbes scholars have argued that these other natural laws call for ‘forgiveness’ and facilitate ‘reconciliation’. However, as this essay shows, Hobbes does not use these terms to mean the reparation of broken relationships between victims and perpetrators. Rather, Hobbesian reconciliation refers to efforts to propitiate enemies in order to win their favour, while forgiveness is a synonym for pardon, in the sense of punishment-forbearance. It is argued that neither of these requires true remorse and reparation of the wrong done. By contrasting Hobbes’s conception of anger with that of Aristotle, the article provides an explanation for why Hobbes maintains that the rage of enemies could be appeased by instrumental calculations of expected benefits, thus ignoring more deep-seated resentments caused by moral wrongs.     

Techniques of seigneurial war in the fourteenth century

Despite the many studies devoted to medieval military history, most work has concentrated on royal wars, neglecting the petty seigneurial wars that made up most of the large-scale, organised violence of the middle ages. This article, based on judicial records for dozens of seigneurial wars waged in fourteenth-century southern France, shows that lords' tactics were not keeping up with those of royal commanders. Although royal wars increasingly involved large numbers of foot soldiers, large siege engines, and artillery, local lords' bureaucratic and financial limitations restricted their adoption of new techniques. As had been the case for centuries, most lords' wars were focused on causing economic damage and affective trauma through raiding. After the first phase of the Hundred Years War, local lords began to employ significant numbers of mercenaries, allowing them to wage war more frequently and perhaps making their wars more violent, a development which partly reflects the economic pressures of the period.