A New Star Shining over Bath

The paper is concerned with some previously neglected features of the pediment of the temple of Sulis Minerva. It is argued that the star (related to the sidus Iulium), oak-wreath (corona civica) and armillary globe as well as the victories and tritons were all well-established aspects of Imperial iconography and consequently the work can be regarded as a sort of ' State relief '. The Bath temple appears to be the only major surviving monument concerned with the events of AD 43 and may have been dedicated in the time of the emperor Vespasian by the Great King, Togidubnus, at the western limit of his realm to mark the victory of the Atrebates/Regni and the Romans over a common foe. As such it should be viewed alongside other evidence from Chichester, including a sculptured base, as an indication of his vigorous attachment to the Imperial family and to Roman culture.     

UKIP and the rise of populist politics (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

This editorial looks at the underlying factors of the ‘earth quake’ victory of UKIP in the British local and European elections, the first time a party other than the Conservatives or Labour has topped a UK nationwide elections in 108 years.     

St Mary’s,Southwell, and the archbishops of York,c. 1100–15401

Although there may have been contacts between Southwell and York from the seventh century onwards, it was a royal grant to Archbishop Oscytel in 956 AD that formalised the relationship and led to the creation within the archbishopric of the Peculiar of Southwell. This centred on an impressive minster church, described by A. Hamilton Thompson as ‘the greatest of all the medieval collegiate foundations of England’. This paper considers aspects of its institutional organisation, its place in the archdiocese of York and its long enduring relationship with the archbishops, for several of whom Southwell was a favoured place of residence and burial. It particularly concentrates on the period from c. 1100 to the Reformation, exploiting the Minster's recently published main medieval cartulcary, The White Book of Southwell, to follow developments. It pays particular attention to the Chapter and its personnel, whose careers are set in a wider context by comparison with the experience of canons and prebendaries elsewhere, particularly at Beverley and Ripon, the other two major Minsters of the archdiocese.