Death on the Seine: The mystery of the pagan king Setric

In 943, a pagan king called Setric arrived with a fleet on the Seine, seeking to ‘take over the whole area without a grant from the king’ and to bring the young Richard and his Rouen Northmen back ‘to the worship of idols, and to bring back pagan rites’. But this was not to be because the young Carolingian king Louis IV d’Outremer was quickly on the scene and engaged Setric and his dux Turmod in battle. Louis’s mounted forces were victorious and both Setric and Turmod were killed. As the great French historian Philippe Lauer said: ‘La défaite du viking Setric et du renégat Turmod est un événement important dans l’histoire de l’établissement des Normands en Neustrie’. The mystery examined in this article is, who was this pagan king Setric (ON Sigtryggr) who had been sent to Valhalla? And where had he come from —York or Denmark? It is shown that whilst a Danish origin for King Setric cannot be completely excluded, the equation of a King Sihtric of York with King Setric on the Seine is more likely and is supported by a plethora of onomastic, chronological, numismatic and contextual evidence.     

Franz Boas and Friends? Not Really

Blackhawk, Ned, and Isaiah L. Wilner. 2018. Indigenous Visions: Rediscovering the World of Franz Boas. New Haven: Yale University Press.

The editors of this volume proclaim their intention to demonstrate the revolutionary influence of Indigenous thinkers on the ideas of Franz Boas, but the work falls far short of their aim. Despite the inclusion of a number of interesting contributions dealing with remarkable individuals, with one exception none of the fourteen papers attempts to make such a case.     

Exhibition review

Defining the Americas: Accounts and Images of Latin America from the European Encounter through Independence. Co‐curators Patrick Lenaghan and Mitchell A. Codding. The Hispanic Society of America, March 1‐May 30, 1997.     

Household Incomes in Cuban Agriculture: A Comparison of the State,Co-operative,and Peasant Sectors

This article presents the results of a 1991 household income survey of the three main groups in Cuban agriculture: wage workers on state farms, members of production co-operatives, and peasant producers. It is shown that since the 1959 revolution household income levels in the agricultural sector have improved dramatically, while regional differences have been ameliorated considerably. Households in the private sector of Cuban agriculture have fared the best. It is also demonstrated that agricultural households rely on multiple sources of income to generate their livelihood. Rather than being strictly proletarian, collective, or petty commodity producers, these households are best characterized by the multiple class relations in which they participate.     

Book reviews

The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain. By FERNANDO CERVANTES. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Pp. x, 182.

An Evil Lost to View? An Investigation of Post‐Evangelisation Andean Religion in Mid‐Colonial Peru. By KENNETH MILLS. Liverpool: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Liverpool, Monograph Series No. 18, 1994. Pp. 147.

The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660–1720. By R. DOUGLAS COPE. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994. Pp. xiii, 220.

Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico: From the Aztecs to Independence. By ENRIQUE FLORESCANO. Trans, by Albert G. Bork and Kathryn R. Bork. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Pp. ix, 282.

Fuentes manuscritas para la historia de Iberoamérica. Guía de instrumentos de investigación. Por SYLVIA L. HILTON e IGNACIO GONZALEZ CASASNOVAS. Madrid: Fundación Mapfre América‐Instituto Histórico Tavera, 1995. Pp. 617.

The Town of San Felipe and Colonial Cacao Economies. By EUGENIO PINERO. Philadelphia: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 84, 1994. Pp. 189.

Imperial Panama: Commerce and Conflict in Isthmian America 1550–1800. By CHRISTOPHER WARD. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993. Pp. xii, 272.     

The Paradox of Narrowing Wage Differentials and Widening Wage Inequality in Mexico

This article examines the parallel phenomena of narrowing wage differentials among major groups of workers and widening wage inequality in general in Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s. In trying to understand this paradox, it finds that a human-capital model cannot explain wage determination in the 1990s. Although employees with higher skills and education have enjoyed increasingly higher relative returns to their human capital, much of the variance in wages is not attributable to differences in human capital or rates of return. Discriminatory wage policies have combined with policies of trade liberalization to markedly widen the wage gap between lower-paid and higher-paid workers.     

The Demand for and Supply of Technical Information and Analysis in State Legislatures

With states making more substantive decisions in technically complex policy areas, the capacity of state legislatures to gather and use technical information and analysis is crucial. Applying a "market" metaphor, the article examines the demand for and the supply of technical information and analysis in state legislatures. The demand among legislators and staff is widespread and increasing, and the supply is varied in origin, importance, and quality. Reliance on sources external to the legislature—usually perceived as biased—is related to a lack of professionalization in legislatures, although the level of satisfaction in the available technical information and analysis is not. Identifiable barriers on both the demand side and the supply side prevent better use of technical information and analysis. There are ways to strengthen the relationship between state legislatures and a broad array of sources, as well as to educate the legislative consumer of technical information and analysis.     

A CITY OF TENANTS: HOMEOWNERSHIP AND SOCIAL CLASS IN MONTREAL, 1847–1881

Over the years 1847 to 1881, as Montreal industrialized, the rate of homeownership declined from 31.6 per cent to 14.7 per cent. From a selection of occupations representative of social classes, it is shown that the large working class was dispossessed, while homeownership increased among the bourgeoisie. Distinctive occupational profiles are reported for homeowners, absentee owners, and resident owners of duplexes and their tenants.
Au cours de la période d'industrialisation des années 1847 à 1881, Montréal est devenue une ville de loca-laires. Le pourcentage de propriétaires-occupants a chuté de 3 7,6 pour cent à 14,7 pour cent. A partir d'un èchantillon des occupations qui caractérisent chaque classe sociale, on découvre que chez les ouvriers le taux a fortement diminué, alors que dans la bourgeoisie il a augmenté. On trace le profil socio-professionnel de plu-sieurs catégories de propriétaires et de locataires, en dis-tinguant le propriétaire-occupant du non-occupant, I'habitat unifamilial du duplex.     

SERVICE NEEDS AND MUNICIPAL EXPENDITURES*

The difficulties involved in assessing the meaning of municipal expenditures are examined in view of the fact that dependency upon municipal services varies among and within jurisdictions. A cross-sectional analysis of spending in the five largest cities in Connecticut illustrates how considerations of human needs can affect the interpretation of spending (although they do not alter legal obligations or the financial reality of fiscal conditions). The possibilities and limitations associated with this approach to municipal expenditures are conveyed in terms of questions of public policy.