Charmers and Charming in England and Wales from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century

Charmers have long been recognised as an important aspect of folk medicine. Unfortunately, however, they have usually been conflated with cunning-folk and consequently the welldefined tradition of charming has been rather obscured. Charmers were quite a diverse group of healers but, in general, they all shared several characteristics that separated them from other practitioners of folk medicine. Popular faith in charmers was undoubtedly very strong, and several traditional forms of charming have continued up till recently. The present article not only examines the question of who the charmers were, but also explores their practices and their place in a wider religious and medical context. It is a companion-piece to the author's previous article published in Folklore 107 (1990):19–31.     

The Nightmare Experience,Sleep Paralysis,and Witchcraft Accusations

Witch-trial records, and other early-modern writings on witchcraft, reveal that in various European societies people complained of being physically oppressed at night by witches and other supernatural beings, the victims of these nocturnal assaults describing a similar set of symptoms. Contemporary English authors termed the experience the "mare" or "nightmare." In the twentieth century, it has been identified as a manifestation of "sleep paralysis." Medical studies and surveys of the condition help us make better sense of the historical accounts, while an awareness of the historical evidence illuminates modern reports of sleep paralysis experiences. [1]     

Towyn-y-Capel,and the Ruined Chapel of St. Bride,on the West Coast of Holyhead Island: with Notices of the Curious Interments there Discovered

Conservation of the Cosmati pavement in Westminster Abbey included the compilation of a record of remains first revealed in 1868–70. Study of these showed two phases of building dating to the mid-eleventh century and the reconstruction of the Abbey in the mid-thirteenth century. Parts of the plan of the mid-eleventh-century eastern end and the presbytery were recovered, including details of the pier bases. A reconstruction of the profiles show that there must have been two steps between the presbytery and the sanctuary.     

The Cripps mission of 1942: A reinterpretation

In 1926, the Empire Marketing Board (EMB) was established to foster empire trade without the use of tariffs. It was to simulate imperial preference by redirecting consumer choice away from ‘foreign’ goods and towards the produce of ‘home and empire’. Using newspapers, pamphlets, film, exhibitions and poster displays, the EMB aimed to ‘bring the empire alive’ to British consumers. This paper analyses the presentation of three settler dominions—Australia, New Zealand and Canada—in the EMB's advertising campaigns. The EMB's large visual archive has been the subject of only limited study, most of which has focused on a homogeneous reading of empire. This article argues that the work of the EMB reveals the presence of a separate discourse of empire—a ‘dominion discourse’—that has not been recognised in cultural histories of empire, which, with the recent exception of ‘British world’ studies, have been more interested in mapping and conceptualising the formation of identities in other colonial settings. The ‘dominion discourse’ emphasised the familiar, white and ‘British’ nature of the former colonies of settlement, attributes that are clearly displayed in the campaigns of the EMB, but can also be found in settler culture much more widely. In doing so, the white dominions stressed not only their difference from the dependent colonies, but their similarity to Britain. Though the inter-war period is often associated with the rise of distinctive national identities and the loosening of imperial bonds, the production of these attributes in an imperial and metropolitan context draws attention to both the transnational nature of identity formation and the continuing importance of Britain and empire in the construction of settler culture in this period.     

The print depiction of King William III’s masculinity

This article examines both positive and negative print depictions of King William III, specifically how William’s masculine identity was produced and perceived in relation to readily accessible norms of manhood. That commentators invoked discourses of masculinity to both legitimate and denounce William’s regime suggests the importance of masculinity to kingly meaning. By discussing the ways in which William does or does not conform to gender ideals, commentators reveal that, although freighted differently, normative models of kingship and masculinity shared common expectations and overlapped in easily recognisable ways. As his critics reminded, William III neither achieved the supposed “hegemonic” patriarchal form of masculinity nor that of the ideal monarch because he remained childless. As such, William’s print portrayal sheds light on codes of masculinity in early modern Britain that were constructed in a variety of settings outside of the problematic paragon of patriarchal manhood.