The development of the longbow in late medieval England and ‘technological determinism’

Traditional understandings of the development of the medieval English longbow and its role in the fourteenth-century ‘infantry revolution’ have recently been challenged by historians. This article responds to the revisionists, arguing based on archaeological, iconographic and textual evidence that the proper longbow was a weapon of extraordinary power, and was qualitatively different from – and more effective than – the shorter self-bows that were the norm in England (and western Europe generally) before the fourteenth century. It is further argued that acknowledging the importance of the weapon as a necessary element of any credible explanation of English military successes in the era of the Hundred Years War does not constitute ‘technological determinism’.     

SPACES OF ENCOUNTER–DISPLACEMENT: CONTEMPORARY LABOUR MIGRANTS' RETURN VISITS TO LATVIA

The context of this paper is return visits to the homeland of labour migrants in Europe. The paper draws on data from the author's ethnographic fieldwork on the island of Guernsey and in Latvia during 2010–2012. By theorizing the relevance which the research participants attached to the phenomenon of corporeal co‐presence in relation to these visits, the paper bridges a timegeographic perspective with phenomenological interpretations. It explains how actual experience during the return path is influenced by both past trajectories and future anticipation. Return visits are conceptualized as spaces of encounter‐displacement and illustrated through examples of sensory and emotional experiences of anticipating for the return, the actual travel, time spent in the home area, and departure. The paper suggests that a focus on the body scale can help researchers to gain important insights into how the path is shaped through the corporeal experiences and how it shapes interpretations about home and possible future orientations.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
M. Steiner (ed.), Clusters and Regional Specialisation. On Geography,Technology, and Networks
Denis J.B. Shaw, Russia in the Modern World. A New Geography
Ron Martin, Money and the Space Economy     

20世纪七八十年代引滦工程决策历程

水资源短缺一直制约着京津唐地区经济和社会的发展。20世纪70年代,因缺水引发的经济、社会问题逐渐凸显,促使中央和地方政府开始考虑实施跨流域调水工程。引滦工程作为北方最大的跨流域调水工程,其决策经历了曲折的过程。1958年,北京和唐山曾分别提出引滦河水的设想,唐山还实施了引滦入还和引还入陡工程。1972年,海河流域大旱促使中央做出加快实施引滦工程的决定,但由于地质情况复杂等原因,引滦工程设计方案被反复修改。1981年,天津提出了单独引滦济津路线并得到了中央的支持。引滦工程对缓解京津唐用水紧张发挥了重要作用,天津是引滦工程受益最大的地区。     

Consociationalism and the politics of the census in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Northern Ireland

Population censuses have symbolic and instrumental importance for ethnic, national, linguistic or religious groups and their political representatives. This is particularly apparent in deeply divided societies, where political institutions are designed to accommodate groups through forms of power sharing. Existing literature posits that consociational power-sharing institutions, which are commonly employed to manage inter-group conflict, are likely to incentivise contestation and mobilisation in relation to the census, but this claim has not been tested empirically. Employing the case studies of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Northern Ireland, this article tests a proposition about the relationship between consociationalism and the politics of the census: that it is corporate consociational designs that are likely to result in contestation of the census and mobilisation of groups during enumeration, whereas liberal consociational designs will not. The analysis offers support for this proposition, but also suggests that other features of power-sharing settlements, such as the federal nature of the Bosnian state and the majoritarian provision for a ‘border poll’ in the Northern Irish settlement, also play an important role in shaping census politics. These insights contribute to political geographic debates about the census by highlighting the influence of institutional design on struggles over how and where populations get counted, which are applicable beyond the immediate context of deeply divided societies.     

Java's forgotten pearls: the history and disappearance of pearl fishing in the Segara Anakan lagoon, South Java, Indonesia

Pearls have been a valued resource in most cultures that had access to them. A number of historically important pearling grounds were situated in the waters around today's Indonesia. One of these areas, now largely forgotten, was the Segara Anakan lagoon in South Java. In the seventeenth century, Dutch colonists exploited the lagoon's pearls. Afterwards, the lagoon's oysters were locally exploited as a food item until the late 1970s. While the pearl fishery attracted considerable attention in the colonial literature, its disappearance, by contrast, went largely undocumented. Nowadays, the oysters no longer are found in the lagoon as a result of extensive sedimentation processes. Their former existence is only preserved in the memory of local people. This article examines the history and fate of the pearls of Segara Anakan, providing an example of a formerly valued species whose existence simply became forgotten outside the area.     

Playing with Fire: The 4th Duke of Hamilton's Jacobite Politics and the Union

James Hamilton, duke of Hamilton and the Scots jacobites are generally linked in analyses of the final years of the Scots polity. Indeed, Hamilton is often presented as the leader of the jacobite party in the Scottish parliament. Yet both contemporaries and historians have been unsure what to make of his on-again, off-again, conduct with respect to the exiled Stuarts and France. This has fuelled an ongoing debate about Hamilton's erratic and highly enigmatic behaviour during the winter of 1706–7, when the Union was passing the Scottish parliament. Was he genuinely opposing the Union? Was he duped by the court? Or was he, ‘bought and sold for English gold ’? This essay takes a fresh look at the duke and his part in the Union crisis in the light of new and previously underused jacobite sources with a view to better understanding Hamilton's aims, objectives, and influence with this crucial group. Only the jacobites and the Cameronians were potentially willing to take their opposition to the Union to God's Acre. But neither party immediately flew to arms in response to passage of a union they both believed was a betrayal of everything they held dear, and Hamilton was a major factor in their failure to do so. This essay thus takes a close look at the duke's part in preventing a major national uprising against the Union in the winter of 1706–7 and advances a new interpretation of his conduct and significance throughout the Union crisis.     

Island Biocultural Assemblages — The Case of Kinmen Island

ABSTRACT A growing mass of research contributes to our understanding of how biological and cultural diversity are related in complex and important ways. This paper presents an assembling process of biodiversity and cultural diversity on an island, Kin‐men (Quemoy), based on 1600 years of its environmental history. The study shows that the island's biocultural assemblages are a result both of external relations with the island's surrounding environment and internal relations within the island's changing human ecology. Distant political powers and economic forces are the two major external influences that have affected the flow of natural and cultural elements to and from the island, while ‘screening effects’ and ‘isolation effects’ are two factors that explain internal interactions. The island's biocultural assembling processes reveal that the openness of the island facilitates increase in the diversity of biocultural elements, while its less disturbed isolated condition fosters natural succession and co‐evolution. The study suggests that biocultural assemblages and the associated processes of co‐evolution and nature–society interactions are accomplished through the intermittent opportunities purposively provided by or inadvertently found in the openings and closures of boundaries, setting the scene for both boundary crossings and bounded shelter, by intent or chance.     

Robert d'Arbrissel: Aristocratic patronage and the question of heresy

Robert d'Arbrissel, first of the wandering preachers of the late eleventh century in northwestern France, often skirted the edges of heresy. Scholars have wondered what separated Robert from similar figures, such as Henry of Lausanne, who were in fact condemmed as heretics. Since Robert came from a modest family in a region of Brittany dominated by the Angevin counts, his career was always oriented towards Anjou. One possibility, then, is to examine Robert's career within the context of the Angevin nobility. His first patron, Bishop Silvester of Rennes, was a member of the count of Anjou's entourage, as were many other powerful figures who later supported him. Chief of these was Rainald, Lord of Craon. Under Reinald's patronage, Robert was able to establish the church of La Roë with the personal approval of Pope Urban. When Robert left to preach to crowds of followers, powerful Angevin churchmen recalled him to his duty. Once again it was the Angevin nobility, many related to the house of Craon, who provided Robert with the means to establish a monastery at Fontevraud. This establishment, backed by the Angevin nobility, kept Robert within the good graces of the Church.     

Inns,innkeepers and the society of later medieval England, 1350–1600

The inns and innkeepers of medieval England form a poorly documented and neglected group of institutions and individuals. Yet at a time of growing specialism, they were a crucial part of the economic infrastructure of the country. This study is focused on the documentation for central southern England but seeks to place this in a wider perspective. There was now a regular provision of inns in accordance with the size and importance of the towns. Inns generated substantial rent and were evidently felt to be worth considerable investment. Innkeepers were among the rich and influential members of the town. Inns played a vital role in the evolving and prospering economic, social and political life of the nation in this period.