‘Faites le mien desir’: studious persuasion and baronial desire in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle

This article examines the remarkable ‘changes and transpositions’ of form found in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle, an important Anglo-Norman estoire recounting the rebellion against Henry II in 1173–74. By reading these literary changes as accommodations of circumstances and persons, they can be used to locate the Chronicle in very specific historical and social contexts. Jordan, clerk of the bishop of Winchester and master of the city's grammar schools, places himself, both socially and discursively, within a community of administrative barons, who are very carefully remembered in the Chronicle as a coherent social affinity, or foedus amicitiae, both alienated from and seeking solidarity with the king. These conditions explain the Chronicle's central rhetorical impulses: to chastise the king, sometimes bitterly, and to persuade him to ‘love, cherish … and reward’ these specific barons. To achieve these rhetorical desires, Jordan draws upon the resources of contemporary literary education to imagine and perform persuasion. The Chronicle is thus a powerful illustration of John Baldwin's account of the ‘interpenetration’ of studium et regnum, institutional learning and political administration, in twelfth-century England. Because the Chronicle has in the past been understood as a panegyric, or even propaganda, for a royalist cause, this baronial reading represents a major re-assessment of its sociabilities and purposes.     

Plant-food preparation area on an Upper Paleolithic brush hut floor at Ohalo II,Israel

While a division of domestic space into separate sectors dedicated to different activities has been suggested for a number of Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherer sites, it has never been demonstrated based on plant remains from this period. Moreover, due to the usual scarcity of plant macrofossils in archaeological deposits, only animal food preparation activities associated with hearths have been reported in the literature on Near Eastern prehistory. Ohalo II (Israel) is the first Upper Paleolithic site where such a patterned use of interior space and plant processing are evidenced by the distribution of plant remains on a sealed floor of a brush hut. This paper describes and interprets the distribution of almost 60,000 identified seeds and other plant remains on that floor, proposing a reconstruction of three activity areas in the interior of the 12-m² hut: processing of food centered on a grinding stone; a flint knapping area; and an access area in between. Finally, it is suggested that these activity areas might represent male-female division of labor.     

The 2004 Deepwrecks Project: Analysis of World War II Era Shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico

In July and August 2004, C & C Technologies, Inc. of Lafayette, LA, USA partnered with scientists and film makers from across the United States and Canada to assess and document archaeological and biological aspects of six World War II shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico. The depth of the shipwrecks ranged from 285–6,444 ft (87–1,964 m) below sea level. All six shipwrecks were found during oil and gas related surveys. The United States Department of the Interior, Mineral Management Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Ocean Exploration under the auspices of the National Oceanographic Partnership Program sponsored this multidisciplinary study.     

War-related excess mortality in The Netherlands, 1944–45: New estimates of famine- and non-famine-related deaths from national death records

Despite there being several estimates for famine-related deaths in the west of The Netherlands during the last stage of World War II, no such information exists for war-related excess mortality among the civilian population from other areas of the country. Previously unavailable data files from Statistics Netherlands allow researchers to estimate the number of war-related excess deaths during the last stage of the war in the whole country. This study uses a seasonal-adjusted mortality model combined with a difference-in-difference approach to estimate the number of excess deaths in the period between January 1944 and July 1945 at a total of close to 91,000 (75%) excess deaths. Almost half of all war-related excess mortality during the last year of the war occurred outside the west.     

Treason,sodomy, and the fate of Adenolfo IV,count of Acerra

The article recounts the charges brought against Adenolfo IV, count of Acerra, a magnate of the Regno in the reigns of Charles I and Charles II, and his execution for sodomy in 1293. This is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, known cases of the death penalty being exacted for sodomy in Europe. Behind it lies a trial in which Adenolfo was convicted of treason but received a royal pardon five years later. The story casts light on relations between the rulers of the Regno and their overlords the popes, on the judicial methods employed in the Regno, and on the government of Charles II.     

Literacy,reading, and writing in the medieval West

Over the last quarter century, a plethora of studies on literacy, reading, and writing in medieval Europe have contributed significantly to our understanding of medieval society and culture. Nevertheless the sheer number of these studies and their authorship by scholars in several different disciplines have obscured the relationships between these studies, their common themes and their differences. This essay seeks to survey this literature and its background, to explicate its contributions to the field of medieval history, and to suggest avenues for future study. It also reveals how approaches developed outside medieval studies were borrowed and adapted by medievalists, and how the study of literacy, reading, and writing in the Middle Ages has, in turn, influenced the work of ancient and modern historians.     

Report on Underwater Excavation at the Phoenician Harbour,Atlit, Israel

Atlit is a small Phoenician settlement on the Carmel coast, with an artificial harbour, built during Iron Age II, before the Assyrian occupation, and used until the end of the Persian era. There are no remains of any later construction, in contrast to other Phoenician ports such as Sidon and Tyre. The study of Atlit harbour has therefore provided invaluable information on the positioning, planning and construction of Phoenician harbours in the Levant. This article is a summary of the most recent underwater excavation seasons at the harbour, and presents our conclusions on construction techniques and their historical implications. © 2009 The Author     

The Mediterranean Group II: analyses of vessels from Etruscan contexts in northern Italy

A large number of Mediterranean Group vessels were recovered at the Etruscan site of Spina in northern Italy and dated from the 6th to the 3rd century BC. In this work a number of vessels belonging to the so-called “Group II” were analysed. The samples are mainly Alabastra, Oinochoai, Amphoriskoi, and Hydriai, in general opaque and deeply coloured. The aims of this study are: 1) to characterize these samples since there is a lack of data in literature regarding Mediterranean Group II; and 2) to compare the data obtained with that of glass for previous centuries (Mediterranean Group I) recovered at the same site in order to establish whether they could have the same origin. The chemical analyses of major and minor elements were carried out by electron microprobe and the nature of the opacifying and colouring agents was determined by X-ray diffraction. The sample set is relatively homogeneous and most of the samples can be classified as Low Magnesium Glass produced with natron and a calcareous silicatic sand. The XRD analyses proved the use of lead antimonates in the manufacture of yellow decorations and of calcium antimonates in the white and light blue decorations. The consistency of the chemical compositions of Mediterranean Groups I and II samples makes it possible to hypothesize a common origin.     

Supply routes and the consumption of glass in first millennium CE Butrint (Albania)

Archaeological, historical and analytical evidence can identify trade patterns and the movement of people and products and thus reveal the cultural and economic connections that existed at a given time. In the case of first millennium CE glass, the manufacture of raw glass in a limited number of glass making installations with unique compositional characteristics makes it possible to trace the likely origin of the raw materials at consumption sites. In this way the analytical characterisation of a large corpus of glass finds can identify changes in the supply routes of high-end industrial products from the Roman to the middle Byzantine period.