RIPON AND THE SCOTTISH RAIDS, 1318–1322

Abstract

In the turbulent years following the English defeat at Bannockburn, Ripon was one of scores of towns and villages that were vulnerable to Scottish raiders. Most histories of the minster contain a similar version of events: the Scots enter the town and the townspeople take refuge in the minster, an agreement is reached whereby the Scots will spare the town for a ransom of one thousand marks, and later the Scots return to set fire to the town and the minster. While Ripon Minster’s historians have been quick to repeat this episode, none of them has ever produced physical evidence of fire damage to the minster. This evidence is not forthcoming because, as closer examination of textual evidence indicates, the nature of the Scottish raids has been exaggerated by Ripon’s historians. This article begins by showing how the accepted version of events passed from one author to the next, from the beginning of the eighteenth century down to the present. As the discipline of architectural history developed, the early claims for total destruction of the minster by the raiders should have been critically reconsidered. However, they were retained and simply modified to suit other evidence. Moreover, the partial destruction of the minster has been taken for granted by historians to the extent that they have used this assumption to interpret other evidence regarding the building and its history. Having demonstrated the persistence of this particular interpretation in the minster’s historiography, I will then re-examine all the textual and documentary evidence regarding the raids and offer a new interpretation.     

Partisan identity in the French civil war, 1405–1418: reconsidering the evidence on livery badges

This article examines the efficiency with which John the Fearless used his personal badges during his conflict with Louis of Orleans and the Armagnacs, and questions current thinking on the relationship between the emblems of both parties. As early as 1405, he began distributing emblems that corresponded directly to his ideology: first the carpenter's plane, and from 1410 onwards, his mason's level, two symbols that were representative of his platform for reform. In August 1411, his urban supporters in Paris and elsewhere began wearing crosses of St Andrew, his patron saint, as a means of identifying themselves as Burgundian partisans. This study argues that in making a conscious decision to link his symbols to his ideology, and in making them available to his vassals and urban supporters alike, John the Fearless forged a strong Burgundian community that transcended social barriers. In so doing, he also manufactured an Armagnac anti-community, a tangible entity against which his partisans' animosity was directed from 1411 onwards. As badges of allegiance, the symbols helped fuel a war that had, thus far, remained a private conflict between the princely houses of Burgundy and Orleans.     

Partisan identity in the French civil war, 1405–1418: reconsidering the evidence on livery badges

This article examines the efficiency with which John the Fearless used his personal badges during his conflict with Louis of Orleans and the Armagnacs, and questions current thinking on the relationship between the emblems of both parties. As early as 1405, he began distributing emblems that corresponded directly to his ideology: first the carpenter's plane, and from 1410 onwards, his mason's level, two symbols that were representative of his platform for reform. In August 1411, his urban supporters in Paris and elsewhere began wearing crosses of St Andrew, his patron saint, as a means of identifying themselves as Burgundian partisans. This study argues that in making a conscious decision to link his symbols to his ideology, and in making them available to his vassals and urban supporters alike, John the Fearless forged a strong Burgundian community that transcended social barriers. In so doing, he also manufactured an Armagnac anti-community, a tangible entity against which his partisans' animosity was directed from 1411 onwards. As badges of allegiance, the symbols helped fuel a war that had, thus far, remained a private conflict between the princely houses of Burgundy and Orleans.     

Soldiers under the Skin: Diversity of Race,Ethnicity, and Class in the Illinois National Guard, 1870–1916

A close examination of the Illinois National Guard (ING) between 1870 and 1916 demonstrates that contrary to the commonplace assumption of a homogeneous, white, middle class, native‐born membership, the ING had a very heterogeneous membership, drawing in rural and urban men, and men from an array of ethnicities, races and economic circumstances. Information on 2245 members drawn from enlistment data and the federal census, combined with evidence drawn from a wide variety of textual sources firmly establishes that this organization attracted men from a broad range of backgrounds. The ING stands out against other male‐only organizations of its time as an organization whose membership was consistently drawn from a broad cross‐section of the American population. The Illinois National Guard of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries offered an organization that could unite many American men across cultural and social boundaries at a time when there was much to divide them.     

Divided loyalties: Sovereignty,politics and public service in the Rhineland under French occupation, 1792–1801

In April 1792 the French Legislative Assembly declared war on the Habsburg Emperor Francis II. Within three years the forces of the Republic conquered the German‐speaking region to the west of the Rhine. Native public officials in the occupied areas faced the dilemma of whether or not to ‘collaborate’ with the invader. They confronted incompatible demands on their loyalties from the exiled Rhenish governments, the French, and the Rhineland's one‐and‐a‐half million inhabitants. The continuation of the revolutionary wars, and failure to reach an international settlement, placed public officials in the occupied areas in a state of limbo. Lacking any legal framework as a point of reference for their actions, and buffeted by the changing fortunes of war abroad and ideological conflict at home, Rhenish communities and the local officials who became their representatives were instead forced to rely on their own resources and strengths. Public officials in particular lived with the possibility of a return of the old regime and the threat of future investigation into their actions under occupation. These fears were only removed with the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801 and subsequent legal annexation of the left bank of the Rhine to the French Republic. Later attempts at assimilating the ‘New Frenchmen’ into the fabric of the Napoleonic state were nevertheless obstructed by continuing ties that bound former public officials to the German powers across the Rhine. The sovereign state's demand for an exclusive monopoly on the loyalty of all its subjects conflicted fundamentally with the Rhenish tradition of employment in the civil and military services of the major German dynasties and other European powers.     

Between Social Reformism and Conservatism: Soviet women under the Finnish occupation regime, 1941–1944

The article deals with the Finnish gender policies during the occupation of Soviet Karelia in 1941–1944. It explores the wartime occupation of Soviet Karelia as a clash of Bolshevik and Finnish visions of the woman's position in society, including the level of visual propaganda. Based on oral history interviews and former Soviet archival materials, it also demonstrates how the local population reacted to social visions imposed from above, thus combining the approaches from ‘above’ and from ‘below’.