Lathom House: The Northern Court

Abstract

Thomas Stanley is credited with the creation of a fine new house at Lathom when he was made earl of Derby in 1485. This house, according to the poets and writers if the 16th and 17th centuries, was a sumptuous and well-defended place surrounded by moats and with as marry as eighteen towers. Indeed, it was claimed that Henry VII, stepson if the first earl if Derby, based his design for Richmond Palace on Lathom. After the house had fallen to the Parliamentarians it is usually accepted that the place was razed to the ground and, since the latter years of the 18th century, there has been considerable debate regarding its location. Recent archaeological work at the site if a later house, designed by Giacomo Leoni, is now providing evidence to show that Leoni's building probably lay on the site of the earlier structure and that some if the medieval masonry was incorporated into the rubble fill if the 18th-century walls. This study now examines the evidence for the first earl of Derby's house and argues that Lathom should be considered amongst the most important late 15th-century houses in England and Wales.     

The Medieval Village at Garrow Tor,Bodmin Moor,Cornwall

SUMMARY

The site chosen for excavation in the medieval village at Garrow proved to be a platform-house, a variant of the long-house, a widespread form of peasant dwelling. Both types provided for the shelter of man and his beasts under one roof; in its early form, as here, it consisted of a living-room and byre separated by a passage connecting with an entrance in each long side. The platform-house was suited to meet the hard conditions of life in a hilly country of heavy rainfall. It was built on an oblong platform constructed with its long axis at right angles to the contours of the hillside. Thus the house gained considerable protection from wind and rain.

Two outstanding features were the hearth with fireback centrally placed on the floor in the upper room and the manger which was in situ in the byre. Near the house was a small barn. The two buildings stood in a small enclosure. Pottery found in the house and barn and in the fields connected with the settlement showed that there was occupation from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. Inhabited farmhouses of this type can still be seen in Cornwall.¹     

The Armada Paintings in the New Palace of Westminster

In June 2008 a team of artists began the gargantuan task of creating the series of Armada mural paintings for the house of lords. They were embarking on a two-year project, which would bring to completion the original decorative scheme planned for the prince's chamber by the Royal Commission on Fine Arts ¹ during the 1840s. This, in turn, would reconnect the original historical association, which the Armada tapestries had held with the house of lords since the mid 17th century until their destruction by fire in 1834. This article places these Armada mural paintings within the historical context of this project at the Palace of Westminster and documents some of the methodology behind the programme of work to re-create this celebrated series for the walls of the house of lords.     

Une vie de cellule

The «cellular theory», elaborated during the 19^th century by researchers such as Lorenz Oken, Matthias Schleiden, Theodor Schwann and Rudolf Virchov, greatly modified the conception of life that Man had had up to then, since it asserted that the cell is the basic organic unit of all living beings and that every living being stems from a cell. Indeed, the study of the unicellular paramecium shows that a cell must be considered as a complete living form insofar as it illustrates by feeding, growing, defending and reproducing the general fate of all living creatures. Its living-space, generated by its movements, is relative to its needs and therefore to its behaviour.     

Indexing the great ledger of the community: urban house numbering, city directories, and the production of spatial legibility

Despite the recent focus on the spatial politics of calculation, few studies have explored the historical geography of house numbering, a spatial practice that has arguably been one of the principal strategies for rationalizing the geographic spaces of everyday life over the course of the last two centuries. This paper provides the beginnings of a critical spatial history of street and house numbering in the gridded cities of the United States since the eighteenth century. City directory publishers were among the leading proponents of numbering houses at a time when many local governments had yet to firmly commit to systematic house numbering as an essential responsibility of the local state. I therefore examine the connection between the publishing of city directories and the development of urban house numbering systems, both of which were integral to the production of spatial legibility and the individualization of the urban population. The notion of viewing the city as a ‘text’ is historicized through a critical analysis of the modernist comparison of urban space to a recordkeeping book. The paper concludes by tracing the institutionalization of house numbering as a practice of spatial governmentality.     

Parliament as Viewed Through a Woman's Eyes: Gender and Space in the 19th‐Century Commons

The 19th‐century house of commons is traditionally viewed as a masculine space overlooking the presence of female tourists, waitresses, housekeepers, servants, spectators, and residents. This essay demonstrates that, even when formally excluded from the Commons, women were determined to colonize spaces to witness debates. In the pre‐1834 Commons they created their own observation gallery in an attic high above the chamber, peeping through a light fitting to listen to parliamentary sessions. After 1834, they were accommodated in their own galleries in the temporary and new house of commons, growing increasingly assertive and protective of their rights to attend debates and participate in parliamentary political culture. Far from being exclusively male, parliament was increasingly viewed through women's eyes.     

美术馆:从展览馆向博物馆的回归

从博物馆的发展史来看,美术馆无疑是博物馆的重要类型之一。在我国,由于种种复杂原因的影响,美术馆与博物馆在体系上一度呈现分离状态,它们之间的业务联系也非常疏远。近年来,美术馆界开始了从"展览馆"向"博物馆"转变的路程,致力于使美术馆成为最具特色的博物馆类型之一。     

Authenticity challenged? The ‘plastic house’ at Çatalhöyük

Abstract

This paper focuses on the problems of identifying and conserving authenticity in an object or structure. Using a range of examples it discusses the effects of material change on the many values, both technical and social, which may be assigned to an object. In particular it looks atthe problems of repeated conservation treatment and whether gradually modifying the material of the object may eventually erode its authenticity. It explores these issues with reference to the earth structure known as Building 5 at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük Turkey. This house is often referred to by the excavation team as the ‘plastic house’ because over the last seven years it has been treated annually with an acrylic polymer. The paper concludes by proposing that, despite the presence of the acrylic, the authenticity of Building 5 will not be undermined unless the treatment reaches a stage where it radically changes the surface appearance of the earthen structure.     

Commemorating a Rural African-American Family at a National Battlefield Park

The Robinson House site is situated within the Manassas National Battlefield Park in northern Virginia. The original Robinson House was constructed in the 1840s and was occupied until 1936 by the same free African-American family. The National Park Service recognizes and interprets the Robinson House since it was part of the Civil War battlefield landscape during the First and Second Battles of Manassas. The original house went through a series of structural additions and alterations in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The house stood until 1993 when arsonists burned it, causing 60% damage to the structure. Today, the east chimney and the stone foundations remain. Amidst the many Civil War monuments at the battlefield park the interpretation of a century of occupation by the Robinson family through the remaining foundations adds meaning and depth to the area's local history. The Robinson House remains symbolize an African-American family's way of life as well as their struggle to survive during Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era. The foundations and site are a steadfast symbol of African-American cultural persistence that has prevailed for over 100 years on a battlefield landscape.     

DETERMINING THE SEASON OF MISSISSIPPIAN HOUSE CONSTRUCTION FROM PLANT IMPRESSIONS IN DAUB

Abstract

It has been suggested that Mississippian farmsteads in some parts of the Southeast were abandoned in the late fall/early winter, with concomitant population concentration in large, palisaded villages. This assertion is contradicted by published data on plant impressions in daub which indicate farmstead house construction during the fall. Missing from this debate has been information on the season of house construction at mound centers. Plant impressions in daub from a structure at the Lyon’s Bluff site (22OK520) in Mississippi indicate that house construction took place during early to midspring. When coupled with other data, year-round construction at this mound and village complex is suggested. Although these results do not solve the question of the season of house construction at farmsteads, they do suggest that house construction at mound sites was not confined to any particular season of the year, as might be expected with seasonal influxes of farmstead inhabitants.     

The Fall of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk and the Revival of Impeachment in the Parliament of 1621

The revival of impeachment in 1621 has tended to be viewed exclusively through the prism of parliament. However, this article, which builds on the work of Professor Allen Horstman, suggests that a key factor in impeachment's revival was the dismissal of Lord Treasurer Suffolk for corruption in 1618. Suffolk's removal caused widespread disquiet, since it was assumed that senior officials held office for life. In order to silence these criticisms it proved necessary for the king not only to put Suffolk on trial but also to justify by precedent the lord treasurer's removal. This latter task was performed by the former lord chief justice, Sir Edward Coke, himself not long disgraced, whose researches in the medieval parliamentary record revealed the following year that errant crown ministers had hitherto been held to account by means of impeachment. Coke subsequently put this discovery to good effect when parliament met in 1621. Against the backdrop of mounting criticism against his hated rival, the lord chancellor, Francis Bacon, Coke revealed the existence of impeachment to the house of commons, whose attention was then focused on finding a way to punish the monopolists, Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Michell. In so doing, Coke not only aided the lower House, which had been struggling since 1610 to find a way of punishing non‐members, but also sought to settle an old score.     

The Judicial Bookshelf

Some may be surprised to realize that nearly a half century has lapsed since publication of The American Supreme Court by Robert G. McCloskey. ¹ One reviewer praised the book as “unique,” one that could be read “profitably by layman, student, lawyer, and constitutional lawyer.” ² Readers familiar with that compact volume will recall the antinomy that the author put forward as the defining theme of American constitutional history: the tension between fundamental law and popular sovereignty. The latter suggests will and the former restraint. The antinomy is reflected in the founding documents of the Republic. The Declaration of Independence trumpets “inalienable rights” in the same paragraph that it emphasizes “government by the consent of the governed.” The Constitution, “ordain[ed] and establish[ed]” by “We the people,” insisted in Article VI that it “shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” This conflict between equally valid principles lies at the heart of judicial review in the federal courts, where appointed and politically unaccountable judges sit in judgment on the actions of the politically accountable representatives of the people. In McCloskey's view, one principle “conjures up the vision of an active, positive state; the other emphasizes the negative, restrictive side of the political problem.” ³ Opposites though these principles are, Professor McCloskey emphasized that Americans have managed to cling simultaneously to both. “But like most successes in politics and elsewhere, this one had a price. The failure to resolve the conflict between popular sovereignty and fundamental law perhaps saved the latter principle, but by the same token it left the former intact. And this meant that fundamental law could be enforced only within delicately defined boundaries, that constitutional law, though not simply the creature of the popular will, nevertheless had always to reckon with it, that the mandates of the Supreme Court must be shaped with an eye not only to legal right and wrong, but with an eye to what popular opinion would tolerate.” ⁴     

The Function and Iconography of the Minstrels’ Gallery at Exeter Cathedral

The Minstrels’ Gallery of Exeter cathedral has received attention in almost every major account of the church’s fabric, but has never been taken as a subject in its own right. This paper seeks to review and assess existing interpretations of the gallery’s construction and purpose, along with those of the nave’s north entrance with which the gallery’s history is inextricably linked. In addition to evaluating existing scholarship, this paper will also propose three further theses: first, that the gallery was inserted into a finished nave bay, probably in the 1350s or 1360s, which already contained a north porch built entirely by the mason Thomas of Witney on the foundations of its Romanesque predecessor; secondly, that its function was to offer an inexpensive alternative to the singing-gallery which was planned but not built in the image-screen on the cathedral’s west front; and, thirdly, that the role of the gallery and the north entrance to the nave in the Palm Sunday liturgy has influenced the iconography of the nave and gallery. This paper seeks to gather together the wealth of interest which the gallery has attracted over the last two centuries and to contribute to this exceptional history of scholarship.     

Great Moor Farm,Sowton, Devon: the recording and excavation of a 16th- and 17th-century farmhouse

SUMMARY: The demolished Great Moor Farm provided a unique opportunity to study the development of a Devon farmhouse combining detailed fabric recording, excavation and documentary research. The building had a complex structural history, and neither the recording of the standing structure nor the excavation on its own provided sufficient information for the confident identification of the sequence of phases and their dating. The development of the house can be followed from its original construction in the early 16th century, as it was adapted, improved and enlarged following the prevailing fashions of comfort and style, to become a relatively large and comfortable house by c. 1700. Its growth coincided with a prosperous period for Devon farmers and with the evolution of the medieval to the modern house.     

The sack that never happened: Little Gidding,puritan soldiers,and the making of a myth

It is commonly asserted that the manor at Little Gidding was deliberately sacked by puritan soldiers in 1646, dispersing the Ferrar family, and abruptly bringing to a permanent end their communal life of formal religious devotion. In his poem Little Gidding, T. S. Eliot used this shutting down of the Ferrars’ religious life to contrast worldly failure with the permanence of spiritual values, and the violent closure of Little Gidding and the destruction of the house is generally seen as emblematic of the religious disputes of the 1640s. But, as this paper shows, the sack never happened, and many of the supporting elements of the story are also imaginary. The myth of the sack can be traced back to one eighteenth-century account of soldiers plundering the house to steal valuables, and the paper examines the way it has since evolved and been embellished to create a compelling but untrue narrative.     

EMPIRICAL IMPLICATIONS OF ADVANCES IN CANONICAL THEORY*

Canonical correlation has seen growing acceptance in geographical research as a tool for analysing the interrelationships between two sets of variables.¹ It provides a natural extension to the multivariate case of simple correlation analysis introduced into the discipline in the fifties for measuring the degree of areal association between two individual variables.² It has also proved valuable for forging a link between traditional geographic variables measuring the attributes of places and those indicating interactions among them.³ Recently, major developments in canonical theory have occurred which provide two major benefits for geographical research.⁴ First, asymmetrical regression relationships in addition to symmetrical correlation relationships between two variable sets can be determined. Researchers can use canonical regression to examine the degree to which one variable set is capable of predicting the other, in addition to canonical correlation which examines the symmetrical interrelationships between the two.⁵ Secondly, much improved methods are available for measuring the number, strength, and nature of the interrelationships between the two variable sets, and for assessing the adequacy of the canonical model in general.⁸ The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of these developments and, more particularly, to explore their implications for the validity of empirical results obtained in earlier applications of canonical analysis. This is not intended as a criticism of these studies but rather as an attempt to further our understanding of spatial structure and process through re-examination of existing data in the light of refined techniques.     

LEAD ISOTOPE RATIOS AS A MEANS OF SOURCING ANTHROPOGENIC LEAD IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOILS: A PILOT STUDY OF AN ABANDONED SHETLAND CROFT*

Results from soil chemical analysis have demonstrated enhanced concentrations of lead (Pb) associated with archaeological sites. However, interpretation of these Pb concentrations is difficult because of the multitude of possible Pb sources. This pilot study of an abandoned croft in Shetland suggests that Pb isotope ratios have the potential to identify sources of anthropogenic Pb. The results highlight two different Pb associations. The first includes hearth, house floor and house overburden soils, with end members of fuel materials and an unidentified material with a low (< 1.126) ²⁰⁶ Pb/ ²⁰⁷ Pb ratio. The second includes byre, kailyard (garden) and arable soils, with end members of hearth materials and local wind‐blown sand.     

The Critical Edition of the Medieval Waldensian Sermons

Early Waldensian literature is an outstanding source for the study of the Waldensian movement, as it is a rare direct testimony of a dissident medieval religious movement. One of the most important genres of that literature is represented by the as yet unpublished collection of about two hundred sermons, which is one of the main sources for the reconstruction of Waldensian preaching. The critical edition of this important corpus is the aim of a research group led by Luciana Borghi Cedrini (Professor of Romance Philology at the University of Turin). Established at the beginning of the millennium by the publishing house Claudiana in Turin, together with the Waldensian Studies Society and the Waldensian Church, the project is expected to be active at least until 2018 and it is officially supported by the Waldensian Faculty of Theology of Rome.     

Gendering places: residential technology and changing family relations in Korea

This research is based on the understanding that the house form shapes and is shaped by predominant socio-cultural values and norms. The study outlines how the physical evolution of the Korean house form, specifically its heating system called the ondol, has been part of Korean women's lives since the fourteenth century. In particular, however, I focus on the twentieth century. I first describe how the physical structure of the Korean house and the ondol evolved in conjunction with larger societal changes during this period, arguing that these technological changes have substantially influenced the everyday practices of women, the social interactions among family members at home, and women's experiences of being at home. Second, and in order to provide more in-depth analysis of these interactions, I look to the results of 30 interviews with Korean American seniors. This study suggests that the living experiences of the residents were variously affected by their gender and generational relationships within the family.