Reconstructing Kirkstead Abbey,Lincolnshire: The Charters,Earthworks and Architecture of a Lost Cistercian House

Kirkstead abbey, in the Witham Valley of Lincolnshire, is a little-known but highly significant Cistercian house, both for its early history and architecture, and for the fact that it was treated unusually on being one of the monasteries seized by the Crown for the treason of its president after the Lincolnshire Rising of 1536. Substantially ruined and poorly preserved above ground, recent study has questioned its traditional interpretation. Its standing remains are sparse but extremely informative; its site at least partly marked by earthworks; and its home estate can be reconstructed from a late 13th-century cartulary and a remarkable series of loose charters.     

Ulysses and the Temptation of Idleness: Thinking about Politics through Poetry

Editorials in rhyme may make bad poetry, but the poetic still talks to the political in challenging ways. This paper takes a Victorian classic, Alfred Lord Tennyson's Ulysses , and explores its portrait of a tired and idle political leader, desperate for distraction. Tennyson's intentions are ambiguous, his message about aged leaders and power open to interpretation. His apparent warning about narcissists and power are provocative, but the poem might be valued more for its rhetoric than for its political import.