The Frankish tradition and new perceptions of the monarchy: Louis XV—the new pharamond?

During the last century of the ancien régime in France, perceived notions of history, the rediscovery of the past, and the recourse to tradition were closely linked to each other as well as to political considerations or implications. Notions about the past and interpretations of tradition had relevance and meaning for the political élites, enabling them to explain the origins of the monarchy as well as its nature. The purpose here is to explore these links and to show how, in one particular instance, they came to affect the artistic representation of the monarch himself.     

Inventing the Victorian age: the Greville Diary and its Early Critics

The Journals of Charles Greville, clerk to the Privy Council from 1821 to 1859 are among the most well-known, well-respected and widely cited sources for the political and social history of their times. What is less well-known is the controversy they aroused among Greville's Victorian readers when first published (less than a decade after Greville's death) in 1874. The purpose of investigation here is to chart the course and extent of reader reaction as it unfolded during 1874–75, to explore ways of accounting for its intensity and, finally, to attempt evaluation of its impact as a cultural experience conducive to the emergence among readers of a conscious recognition of themselves as ‘Victorians’. When read in the context of the preoccupations of its first readers, Greville's Journals prove to be anything but a dead historical source. Instead, reader reaction is found to be driven by a series of contemporary concerns. They include the question of the degree of respect owing to hereditary authority; the definition of standards of honourable behaviour in protection of the private dealings of people of public reputation; and the very degree of reliability to be attributed to diary-based ‘memoirs’, given their contestable genre. Even so, participants in the controversies which broke out on all these fronts found themselves admitting common ground in acknowledging across their differences that the ‘Victorian’ age in which they lived was a decisive cultural and political break from the past world the Journals recorded.     

论先秦秦汉时期的两重君主观

《诗经·小雅·北山》中有一条学者经常引用的资料 ,即“溥天之下 ,莫非王土 ,率土之滨 ,莫非王臣”。似乎一元化的君臣名分在西周就确立了 ,其实这与事实不符。稽考史籍 ,先秦社会士的君主观绝非如此 ,甚至到秦汉时期封建大一统局面已经建立 ,君主专制政体已相当完善 ,一部分士大夫还没有把皇帝奉为自己唯一的君主。他们的君主观具有两重性 ,不仅认为皇帝是君 ,举主、府主等人亦可作为“君”。君臣名分多元化乃是先秦秦汉社会的普遍现象。     

Barriers to Co-Governance: Examining the "Chemistry" of Home-Care Networks in Germany, England, and Quebec

This article aims at studying the dynamics of organized home care and particular problems in the delivery of social services, analyzed against the background of the international recasting of welfare systems. Challenging an influential academic discourse on the advent of new forms of network governance thought to improve service provision, three jurisdictions—Germany, England, and Quebec—are compared with regard to how home-care networks are actually configured and the rationales which appear to shape the interaction between network members. The article argues that notwithstanding the extensive literature extolling the virtues of network governance or the possibility of reconciling different governance modes, home care operates through arrangements embracing conflicting rationales. Rather than providing for mutual adjustment and shared perspectives, contemporary home-care networks tend to produce tensions and outcome problems as a result of the "biased" interplay between various steering rationales within given institutional arrangements and different meta-governance regimes.     

The business relations,identities and political resources of Italian merchants in the early-modern Spanish monarchy: some introductory remarks

Abstract

This article offers a preliminary approach to the special volume entitled Business Relations, Identities, and Political Resources of the Italian Merchants in the Early-Modern Spanish Monarchy. It discusses the major issues and debates addressed in the five contributions collected here about the central role played by the Genoese, Florentine and Milanese commercial networks in the framework of a polycentric imperial structure as was the Spanish Monarchy.     

Rewriting Eighteenth-Century Swedish Republican Political Thought: Heinrich Ludwig von Hess's Der Republickaner (1754)

This article provides the first comprehensive and historically genuine analysis of Heinrich Ludwig von Hess's (1719–1784) pamphlet Der Republickaner (1754). Hess was an important figure in both the German and Swedish eighteenth-century political context. Firstly, I will show that the proper historiographical context for Hess's pamphlet is Sweden. In previous historiography on the subject it has been argued that Der Republickaner was a comment on the constitutional reality of Hamburg. My article demonstrates that the original context of Hess's pamphlet was the power struggle between King Adolf Frederick of Sweden and the council of the realm. Secondly, I argue that Hess's pamphlet is the most elaborate defence of aristocratic republicanism written in Sweden in the Age of Liberty (1719–1772). As a result, Hess's pamphlet is the fiercest attack on absolutism written in German in the eighteenth century.     

Lost Palaces,Lost History: The Wang of Bangkok’s Rattanakosin

Siam’s practices of polygamy variously bemused and shocked European visitors to the kingdom in the nineteenth century; however, especially in the case of the early Chakri monarchy, there was always also a strong political rationale to such customs. Multiple liaisons would yield multiple sons who could subsequently serve as defenders of both realm and dynasty; later, as the nation evolved, they could form a pool of ministers and administrators. Multiple daughters, in turn, were always useful in shoring up support from a restive nobility. Sons in particular, however, presented a real estate challenge as they had to be housed in appropriate style and this called for a profusion of both small and large palaces, wang, throughout the old historic city of Rattanakosin. From the locations of wang and their degrees of splendour one might have been able to read the evolving politics and political economy of early Bangkok, also the always evolving role of the monarchy, except that most have been swept away for more mundane urban development. Yet enough evidence remains for the story still to be pieced together, thereby throwing some light on currently fraught debates over the political context and role of the monarchy.     

The Duke's Parrot: The Earl of Leicester,the King's Children and the English Revolution

This article examines neglected evidence regarding the ongoing captivity of the children of Charles I, at the hands of the republican regime, long after the regicide in January 1649. While it is well known that the Long Parliament was anxious to attend to the education of the royal children, and to exert authority over their upbringing, and also that there were rumours during the 1640s about plans to install the youngest prince, the duke of Gloucester, on the throne in place of a deposed king, little attention has been paid to voluminous and intriguing evidence about their fate during the interregnum. The aim of this essay is to survey such sources, and to recover evidence of a political and parliamentary debate about the children's fate, not least in a situation where it was thought possible that they might provide a rallying point for royalists, and a security threat. That debates about their fate were protracted and convoluted is used to flesh out rather sketchy evidence – much commented upon by historians, but not taken very seriously – that there was an ongoing debate over a possible monarchical settlement until 1653.     

从君宪到共和:袁世凯的一段心路历程

在辛亥传统叙事框架中,袁世凯重出江湖后一味搅局:先是利用武昌危机与清廷讨价还价攫取权利;继则用清军打压南方,威逼革命;终则利用南方革命党人逼退清帝,进而交换中华民国大总统宝座,"窃取"辛亥革命胜利成果。这个传统叙事框架在过去特殊年代自有其解读的合理性,但显然不是从史料发出,用事实论证,多少带有以袁世凯后来帝制自为倒推其重出江湖时的心情和作为,与历史事实具有相当差距。本文根据新旧史料最大限度还原袁世凯在武昌起义后的一段心路历程,重建袁世凯从君宪到共和的踌躇、无奈、顺势及转变的限度。本文认为,作为晚清重臣,袁世凯从维新到新政,再到仿行立宪,一路走来,基本上充当着晚清政治变革重要推手,他们那一代政治精英能够认同的也就是君主立宪,所以袁世凯重出江湖后的政治选择就是利用政治危机推动政治变革,实现君主立宪,只是当君主立宪被各方面抛弃后,袁世凯方才顺势而为,变成一个有限的共和主义者。     

律令制确立前的采女与日本古代王权

采女是日本古代地方豪族献给中央朝廷的贡女,是在宫廷主要负责天皇、皇后等饮食起居的下级女官。律令制国家时期的采女制度亦是后宫女官制度不可或缺的一部分,有些采女甚至被升为贵族阶层。然而律令制确立之前的采女并非如此,她们是古代王权专制过程中的产物,是连接中央朝廷与地方豪族之间的桥梁,其出现与演变体现了王权与地方势力双方博弈的过程。对该时期采女的考察,有助于从一个侧面加深对古代王权专制统治的认识。