Monthly London Meeting

When the Catholic Mass was outlawed by Edward VI, ‘The sacrifice of Masses, in which it was commonly said that the Priests did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits’—the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, 1553, Article Thirty-one (Bickwell 1955, 410), not only were priests loyal to Rome forced underground, but altars, vestments and chalices used in the Mass were destroyed. Clandestine priests had to either rescue and hide such items or purchase new ones.

Few chalices survived this iconoclasm and most Catholic priests must have had to purchase new plate, and there is evidence that some such plate was made in base-metals, an area which has so far been little researched.     

Standing buildings and built heritage

SUMMARY: This essay examines the available archive of articles on standing buildings published in Post-Medieval Archaeology. After setting out some general trends evident in a brief analysis of the number of buildings archaeology articles published over the last 50 years, their subjects and authors, this essay places these articles in three key wider contexts: the relationship of buildings archaeology to architectural history; buildings archaeology in Post-Medieval Archaeology in an international context; and the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology’s relative lack of engagement with modern buildings and contemporary built heritage.     

Seeing what you know: Changing constructions and perceptions of landscape in Epirus,Northwestern Greece, 1945 and 1990

This paper considers how current understandings of historical events, past practices and movements of the people of Pogoni in Epirus, Northwestern Greece, informs the way they currently visually perceive their physical and social landscape. Taking two periods, marked as prior to 1945 and up to 1990, the paper explores, with the use of maps showing different temporal versions of the visual perception of the area, the combination of social, historical and spatial elements which combined to generate Pogoni people's perception of their “place”;. It argues that the current experience of place emphasises both the visual and historical aspects of it (through notions such as “cultural heritage"). In this context, what people “see”; is the combined outcome of particular reconstructions of past relations and movements around the place, overlaid with current practices, experiences and movements through the place.     

The Cutting Edge of Accumulation: Neoliberal Risk Mitigation,the Baku‐Tbilisi‐Ceyhan Pipeline and its Impact

Abstract: Adopting a historical materialist position, this article looks at new methods deployed to expand processes of accumulation and the impact that this has at different scales. Focusing upon the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline (traversing Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey), the article pays particular attention to the technocratic tools of “social neoliberalism” and corporate social responsibility, which variously incorporate environmental and social impact assessments, community investment programmes and voluntary codes of conduct. While such approaches seek to relegitimise the efforts of capital and its assistants and mitigate their risks, the assessment below details how these approaches actually assist in facilitating an increase in risk for many people. The article begins by looking at the accumulation drive pushing BTC and then provides an account of how new approaches to pipeline governance have both emerged and been incorporated into the project. The article then details what it is that these approaches have actually facilitated at four scales—the local, the national, the regional and the supra‐regional.     

Evaluation of underwater surveying techniques

The paper discusses the application of a number of manual trilateration surveying systems, an acoustic surveying system and a photogrammetric system applied to a rigid test frame. Results and relative merits are compared and discussed.     

The trial of Floreta d'Ays (1403): Jews,Christians, and obstetrics in later medieval Marseille

In 1403, a Jewish midwife, Floreta, widow of Aquinon d'Ays, was brought before the criminal court of Marseille to answer for the death in childbirth of a Christian woman. Floreta was charged with having performed a procedure that precipitated the patient's haemorrhaging and death. This is the first known case of a malpractice trial against a midwife and an unusual case of anti-Judaic sentiment in a city hitherto quite tolerant of its Jewish minority population. Aside from Floreta's statements in her own defence, all the recorded testimony comes from Christian women who were present in the birthroom, giving us a rare glimpse inside that female preserve. Although the final outcome of the case is not known, Floreta vigorously appealed the ruling that she be tortured to elicit a confession. This essay presents an edition and translation of a portion of the trial record, setting it into the context of Marseille legal procedure, obstetrical knowledge of the time, and changes in anti-Judaic sentiment in early fifteenth-century Marseille.