Llong Casnewydd: the Newport Ship—a Personal View

The discovery of a late medieval ship on a building site at Newport (Casnewydd) in south Wales, UK, in 2002 raised public awareness of the fragility of such discoveries where they interrupt municipal building programmes. Within a tight schedule the ship remains were recovered and now await further work. The origins of the ship are unknown since the dendrochronology is as yet unmatched, though the structure indicates Scandinavian and possibly Basque influences. Artefacts indicate trading with Iberia during the first half of the 15th century. Much of the ship had been salvaged at the end of her useful life about 1467.
© 2004 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

A 14th-century vessel from Immenstaad (Lake Constance, southern Germany)

The following article provides a preview of a recent find from the Bodensee (Lake Constance). It can be dated dendrochromologically to the second quarter of the 14th century and is to date the only material evidence, for Medieval shipping on Lake Constance^[1]. A final publication is currently in preparation .     

Clarke Hall,Wakefield; architectural innovations in 17th-century West Yorkshire

Abstract

Clarke Hall stands one mile north-east of Wakefield (SE 342222) at the side of the A642 Aberford Road. Believed to be of early Elizabethan date, the house was purchased by the West Riding County Council in 1971 for conversion into a schools museum. Over the following three years the writer undertook a programme of documentary research and excavation which established that the building was entirely renewed in the late 1670s, its materials and plan clearly illustrating the transformation from medieval to post-medieval building practices in West Yorkshire.     

The 18th-century traditions of representation in a new age of revolution

What happened to shared historical experiences in the discursive processes of constitutional reform in Sweden and Finland? This article examines the use of 18th-century history in early 20th-century politics. Building on a long-term survey of Swedish and Finnish estate and parliamentary debates, it analyses the political implications of differing national historiographies in the two successor states of the 18th-century Swedish realm, focusing on how the ancient past and collective (and often selective) memories of the Age of Absolutism, the Age of Liberty and the Gustavian Age were used by parliamentarians in constitutional debates. The analysis demonstrates how the Finnish polity continued to be profoundly influenced by these 18th-century constitutions even after the Russian Revolution, while Sweden took the post-French Revolution constitution of 1809 as its point of departure. In both countries, interpretations of the long 18th century were ideologically motivated in an age of the parliamentarization of government and the democratization of the representative system. This leads us to a discussion of the history-political significance of the common and differing understandings of representative government in the two interconnected countries.     

The Sandford Orleigh overmantle: a 19th-century Tudor puzzle

In the 1830s a colourful Devon landowner and industrialist, George Templer, had a new house built for himself at Sandford Orleigh, on the outskirts of Newton Abbot, Devon. One of the principal rooms within was furnished with an imposing overmantle that was created from his collection of antique oak carvings. The overmantle, much neglected, was donated to the local museum in 2008, whereupon a conservation and research project exploring it was launched. This resulted in the discovery that at the heart of this piece lay a Tudor-period reredos, created in the then-fashionable Renaissance style: all’antica. The style of work seen in this overmantle compares closely to a screen in nearby Bradley manor and the south door of Totnes church.     

Children accused of witchcraft in 17th-century Finnmark

This article deals with six children accused of witchcraft in the district of Finnmark, Northern Norway, during a witchcraft panic in 1663. Through a narratological approach, the article presents close-readings of court records, trying to detect the various voices heard in the documents: the voice of the accused person, the voice of the law and the voice of the scribe. The article draws attention to four points discussed within ongoing witchcraft research: the role of the scribe, the individualized character of the children's confessions, oral transference of witchcraft ideas and the speed of transmission of ideas about witchcraft. The analyses show that children confessed to similar demonological elements as adults, similarly seen in other European countries. The contents must be known before the children were brought before the court, as their answers to leading questions were detailed. The voices of the children are individualized, there is no indication that the confessions are constructions made by the scribe. The influence of specific persons had great influence on transference of demonological ideas.     

Three 19th-century house sites in rural Ireland

Abstract

This report describes archaeological research at three house sites in rural Ireland. The anthropologically-based research began in 1994 with the goal of attempting to understand the material conditions of daily life in the 19th-century Irish countryside. The excavation results presented here were obtained from individual households in counties Roscommon, Sligo and Donegal, at sites dating from the early to mid-19th century. Two of the sites are known to have been abandoned as a result of forced eviction. Particular attention is paid to the ceramics found.     

An 18th-century timber wharf in Copenhagen Harbour

Abstract

An archaeological investigation prior to the building of Copenhagen's new Opera House examined an impressive wooden wharf built in the 1780s around Ankerøen, the island on which the Danish navy stored its anchor stocks. When considered with documentary evidence, the excavated structure can be shown to employ a distinctive method of construction, comparable to that used in the so-called 'Hamburg' type of wharf, with a heavy box-like frame fronted with slanting storm posts. It was abandoned by the mid-19th century, when the shape of ships' hulls changed.     

Two 12th-century Wich Houses in Nantwich,Cheshire

EXCAVATIONS in Wood Street, Nantwich uncovered two salt or wich houses, the first medieval wich houses belonging to an inland production centre to be thoroughly investigated. From the excavation a picture emerges of a highly structured and ordered organization, with each stage in the production of salt clearly defined and demarcated. The two wich houses were approximately the same size and both included amongst their equipment a trough, either clay-puddled or, in the later periods, a hollowed-out tree trunk, technically called a ‘ship’. These were used for storing the brine, once it had been carried across the river in wooden pipes. There was no trace of this aqueduct network. The brine was then boiled in lead pans over an open fire. There were six hearths to each wich house. The houses are dated to the late 12th century. One was pulled down shortly after it was built; for the other the last recorded date is in the 16th century.