‘Un engin de torture,une baïonnette à crochets; une arme blanche déshonorée’: an historical-archaeological evaluation of the Sawback bayonets of the Deutsches Heer

ABSTRACT

The Imperial German Army (Deutsches Herr) was unique among the combatants in World War One (WW1) in issuing to a proportion of its soldiers a bayonet whose blade back was fashioned as a saw. A common belief developed quickly among the Allies that these sawback bayonets were weapons specifically intended to inflict a particularly vicious type of wound. After setting out the origins of this class of weapon and explaining their real purpose, the two main types of sawback bayonet available to the Deutsches Heer during WW1 are then concisely described. Its reputation as a weapon of especial barbarity is outlined, along with an overview of bayonet use in combat between the mid-nineteenth century and 1918, as evidenced by official sources, highlighting the lack of any specific contemporary references to the use of or the wounds caused by sawback bayonets. The article concludes by detailing the contemporary German sources relevant to its withdrawal from service use in 1917.     

The State and the Left in modern France

French historians have recently begun to pursue the historyof left-wing politics in a manner which suggests that the Marxistframe of reference has begun to disappear, even in this fieldof history. The eminent historian and public intellectual PierreRosanvallon is leading the way in the field of political andintellectual history, through his sustained examination of theState and the ongoing debate about French democracy. The connectionbetween history and current political discourse is important,and it is significant that historians are attempting to revisecommon perceptions of the evolution of French political institutions.Wide areas of new research have been opened out and this articlehopes to offer some reflections on how these new approachesto French political history may be used in future research.     

Recording and curating relics at Westminster Abbey in the late Middle Ages

ABSTRACT

Westminster Abbey’s relics, and objects functionally related to them, were kept in the shrine chapel of St Edward the Confessor, where the kings and queens of England were customarily buried. They constituted a discrete collection, curated by a dedicated monastic officer titled ‘the keeper of St Edward’s shrine and the relics of St Peter’s church’. Inventories of the chapel, made when the office changed hands, survive from 1467, 1479 and 1520. These documents are analysed here for what they reveal of the contents of the collection, monastic interest in it, and the way the relics and related objects were cared for. As an important aspect of the chapel’s spatial configuration, the problem of where precisely the relics were located is also investigated. By examining the routine management of a single, important collection, the article aims to contribute to a more holistic understanding of the cult of relics in the late Middle Ages.