bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Monastic Learning and Libraries in Sixteenth-Century Yorkshire
Authors: Cross Claire
Published: February 2016

In July 1565 Edmund Skeltpn, clerk, left to the curate of Egton to remain in the parish for ever a book called Postella Cassiodorus, a Catholicon, and a Latin Bible, works distincdy at odds with the Protestant ethos which the new generation of bishops was striving to introduce into the Elizabethan Church. This bequest in itself singles Skelton out from the usual run of priests serving in Yorkshire villages at this rime. In fact, until his prior surrendered the house on 31 August 1 1539 he had been a monk of Grosmont Priory, and then, at the Dissolution, at the age of thirty-six, with a pension of £36s. 8d, he had apparendy settled in the adjoining parish of Egton. In his will he also gave a gown, tippet, and hat to Nicholas Morley, almost certainly the former prior of Whitby Abbey, and 20d. and certain other unspecified books to a former fellow canon, Robert Holland. Both the books destined for Egton church and those intended for Robert Holland may once have formed part of Grosmont monastic library. Although the evidence can only be reassembled with difficulty, sufficient records have survived to suggest that a significant number of erstwhile monks and friars were similarly redistributing medieval books around Yorkshire in the generation after the Henrician Reformation. An examination of the religious known to have attended the two English universities in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII, a survey of monastic schools and, in particular, an assessment of monastic libraries and books can together provide at least an impression of the state of learning within Yorkshire monasteries and friaries, and of the contribution they may still have been making to northern intellectual life at the close of the Middle Ages.
The Battle of Finsbury Field and Its Wider Context
Authors: Dickens A. G.
Published: February 2016

On 4 March 1554 some hundreds of London schoolboys fought a mock battle on Finsbury Field outside the northern wall of the city. Boys have always gratified their innate romanticism by playing at war, yet this incident, organized between several schools, was overtly political and implicitly religious in character. It almost resulted in tragedy, and, though scarcely noticed by historians, it does not fail to throw Ught upon London society and opinion during a major crisis of Tudor history. The present essay aims to discuss the factual evidence and its sources; thereafter to clarify the broader context and significance of the affair by briefer reference to a few comparable events which marked the Reformation struggle elsewhere. The London battle relates closely to two events in the reign of Mary Tudor: her marriage with Philip of Spain and the dangerous Kentish rebellion led by the younger Sir Thomas Wyatt. The latter’s objectives were to seize the government, prevent the marriage, and, in all probability, to place the Princess Elizabeth on the throne as the figurehead of a Protestant regime in Church and State. While Wyatt himself showed few signs of evangelical piety, the notion of a merely political revolt can no longer be maintained. Professor Malcolm R. Thorp has recendy examined in detail the lives of all the numerous known leaders, and has proved that in almost every case they display clear records of Protestant conviction. It is, moreover, common knowledge that Kent, with its exceptionally large Protestant population, provided at this moment the best possible recruiting-area in England for an attack upon the Catholic government. Though the London militia treasonably went over to Wyatt, the magnates with their retinues and associates rallied around the legal sovereign. Denied boats and bridges near the capital, Wyatt finally crossed the Thames at Kingston, but then failed to enter London from the west. By 8 February 1554 his movement had collapsed, though his execution did not occur until 11 April.
Exponents of Sovereignty: Canonists as Seen By Theologians in The Late Middle Ages
Authors: Meyjes G.H.M. Posthumus
Published: February 2016

One of the outstanding characteristics of the Church in the late Middle Ages consisted of its highly developed juridical structure. For the first time the Church was a strictly ordered legal body with, at the top, an absolute monarch. With its commandments and prohibitions it dominated all living creatures, from the highest to the lowest, both the whole community and the individual. It represented a closed, strictly disciplined, and organized corporation, with a highly developed system of law, a ‘state above the states’, in which the laymen were the ruled and the clerics were the rulers.
Political Languages In Later Medieval Europe
Authors: Black Antony
Published: February 2016

Certain aspects of both major and minor political writings in later medieval Europe remain intrinsically puzzling. Michael Wilks, in his seminal work on the ‘Problem of Sovereignty’ in this period called the later medieval and early modern epochs an ‘age of confusion’. One problem may be summed up as (1) What difference did Aristotle make? Ullmann argued that Aristotle made it possible to construct a plausible case for ‘the ascending’ (that is, quasi-democratic) view of authority. In that case, as Wilks persistently enquires: Why did defenders of papal monarchy make such free, prolific use of Aristotle?
Eugenius IV, Cardinal Kemp, and Archbishop Chichele: A Reconsideration of The Role of Antonio Caffarelli
Authors: Harvey Margaret
Published: February 2016

In 1961, as a contribution to a Festschrift for Aubrey Gwynn, Walter Ullmann drew learned attention to an argument about precedence which arose, probably in 1440, between Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, and John Kemp, Archbishop of York, and Cardinal Priest of S. Balbina. The question was whether Kemp as a cardinal took precedence in the councils of the kingdom over Chichele, who, though primate and legatus natus, was not a cardinal. According to Ullmann, Chichele took his case against Kemp to Rome and briefed Antonio Caffarelli, a famous lawyer, only to encounter formidable opposition in a bull Non mediocri dolore, issued by Eugenius IV, which remained until modern times the foundation of the papal view of the role of cardinals and their status.
Augustinus de Ancona as a Conciliar Authority: The Circulation of his Summa in the Shadow of the Council of Basle
Authors: Walsh Katherine
Published: February 2016

Over thirty years ago the dedicatee of this volume argued that the ardent defender of the hierocratic doctrine of papal monarchy, the Augustinian friar-hermit Augustinus (Triumphus) de Ancona (d. 2 April 1328), anticipated a number of conciliarist positions adopted by William of Ockham, notably concerning the deposition of a heretical pope. Paradoxical as this claim might seem, Wilks could show how both thinkers tried to mould the very idea of popular sovereignty into the traditional concept of papal supremacy itself. Furthermore, as several commentators have pointed out, rigorous consistency was not a prime virtue of this Augustinian friar, who exhibited a tendency to adopt two quite distinct concepts of papal power and to apply them in different contexts.
William of Ockham and the Michaelists On Robert Grosseteste and Denis the Areopagite
Authors: Luscombe David
Published: February 2016

The investigation at Avignon of Ockham‘s suspected errors in the mid 1320s, the canonization by John XXII of Aquinas in July 1323, Ockham’s defiance of Pope John XXII for asserting in November 1323, heretically in Ockham’s view, that Christ and the apostles had held property and property rights, his association with Michael of Cesena and his followers at Avignon, and then at Pisa and Munich, are some of the well-known circumstances which brought Ockham, from 1327 onwards, to write polemics which have acquired the collective title of opera politica. The facility for searching by electronic means the new edition being made of the largest of these works, the Dialogus, has revealed a passage that I had not noticed in the edition made in 1614 by Melchior Goldast, nor have I seen any reference to it in modern scholarship. The passage, which is found in Part 1, Book 1, chapter 9, and which is reproduced below in Appendix 1, reads in English as follows:
Fund-Raising in a Fourteenth-Century Province
Authors: Hill Rosalind M. T.
Published: February 2016

In addition to dealing with its income from tithes and property, the Church in the Middle Ages, as today, recognized its responsibility for raising money for good causes by urging upon the faithful the need for charity. The collectors of such contributions, or pardoners (as they were known from the inducements which they were able to offer to pious donors) sometimes earned for themselves a bad name for rapacity and fraud, as a study of the Pardoner with his ‘pigges bones’ in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales will show. But the process of collection seems generally to have been carefully organized and supervised, as a study of the system in the province of York under Archbishop Melton indicates. A good bishop clearly regarded the supervision of fund-raising as an integral part of his responsibilities. He worked not only through his archdeacons and clergy, with a final right of citation before himself in person, but also through trustworthy laymen with experience in business.
John of Ayton’s ‘Grumbling Gloss’: A Northern Churchman’s View of Society
Authors: Wood Diana
Published: February 2016

The canonist John of Ayton was described by Maitland as being ‘a little too human to be strictly scientific’. His best-known work, the commentary on the legatine constitutions of Otto (1237) and Ottobuono (1268), was dubbed a ‘grumbling gloss’, which often became ‘a growl against the bad world in which he lives, the greedy prelates, the hypocritical friars, the rapacious officials’. But this, while it may not make him the ideal canonist, is precisely what makes a study of his view of society rewarding.
Performing the Word of God: Corpus Christi Drama in the Northern Province
Authors: Goldberg P. J. P.
Published: February 2016

The feast of Corpus Christi, as is well known, seems to have been widely and rapidly adopted from the time of its formal promulgation at the Council of Vienne. The feast was being celebrated in England from within a few years of the Council. Processions of the Sacred Host were invariably the focus of these celebrations, and these appear sometimes to have been accompanied by Corpus Christi Plays in the form of Creation to Domesday drama cycles. Such are recorded for the first time at Beverley in 1377 and, indirectly, at York a year later.
Reforming The Waters: Holy Wells and Healing Springs in Protestant England
Authors: Walsham Alexandra
Published: February 2016

All too often neglected and overgrown, holy wells still dot the AA English countryside. Many more are merely a distant memory: names recorded by dead antiquarians, folklorists, and topographers and since forgotten, sites marked on Ordnance Survey maps soon to be obliterated by the encroaching urban and industrial world. Despite the heroic efforts of a group of local historians, this aspect of British heritage is in rapid decline. Those which have survived represent only a tiny fraction of the vast number that were scattered across the rural landscape on the eve of the Henrician Reformation. Wells were an integral part of the late medieval geography of the sacred, a matrix of ancient holy places where ordinary people could approach and invoke the divine. Casual weekend visits by ramblers and picnicking families are almost all that remains of the thriving culture of pilgrimage to such hallowed spots.
The Last Days of Lenton Priory
Authors: Marcombe David
Published: February 2016

Two miles west of Nottingham, where the road to Derby crossed the river Leen, stood Lenton Priory, its lofty spires easily viewed from the ramparts of Nottingham Castle. Indeed, the first constable of the royal castle, William Peveril, was also the founder of the priory, a fact which would not have escaped any visitor to the town in the twelfth century. Peveril, the archetypal Anglo-Norman grandee, was entrusted with the extensive Honour of Peveril as a reward for his services. Lenton was its liturgical showpiece. Founded between 1103 and 1114, it was a Benedictine house placed under the supervision of Cluny and dedicated to the Holy Trinity. It had the specific duty to pray for the souls of the first three Norman kings, along with those of Peveril and his family, an obligation still being carried out by five ‘needy men’ in the associated Hospital of St Anthony in 1535.
Community, Piety, and Family in Yorkshire Wills Between the Reformation and the Restoration
Authors: Coster Will
Published: February 2016

IN 1974 Margaret Spufford was able to describe wills as ‘largely unused by local historians’. Over the last quarter of a century this situation has changed radically, and wills have been called upon to provide evidence on subjects as diverse as popular piety, charity, literacy, economics, demography, and familial ties. In this process a divide has developed between religious historians, who have largely been concerned with the preambles of wills, and social historians, who have confined themselves to the content. This paper attempts to bridge that gap by examining the relationship of geography, status, and the life course, with the form and content of the wills.
Language, ‘Native Agency’, and Missionary Control: Rufus Anderson’s Journey to India, 1854-5
Authors: Porter Andrew
Published: February 2016

In the early years of the modern missionary movement there were many influences which turned minds towards support for the general principle and practice of reliance on ‘native agency’. Strategies of conversion such as those of the London Missionary Society and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at work in the Pacific, which aimed at kings or other influential local leaders, at least implicitly allotted important roles to the leadership and example of highly-placed converts. Awareness of the scale of the missionary task in densely-populated regions, contrasted with the limits of the western missionary input, pointed to the need for delegation as quickly as possible. The Serampore missionaries, Alexander Duff and Charles Gutzlaff, all travelled early down that road. Financial crisis – manifested either locally as Dr John Philip found in South Africa, or centrally as when the Church Missionary Society decided in the early 1840s to withdraw from the West Indies - prompted inevitable questions about the possibilities for deployment of local agents, who were far cheaper than Europeans.
Jean de Salisbury et le monde scolaire du xiiè siècle
Authors: Riché Pierre
Published: February 2016

Dans son Essor de la littérature latine au XIIè siècle, le père de Ghellinck écrivait: ‘sans avoir jamais professé dans une école, Jean de Salisbury est une des figures les plus représentatives du monde apparenté aux écoles dans la première moitié du XIIè siècle … C’est un agent de liaison entre l’école et le monde extra-scolaire’.
Jean de Salisbury et la lecture des philosophes
Authors: Jeauneau Edouard
Published: February 2016

Lecture dcs philosophes, lectio philosophorum: la formule, comme telle, ne semble pas se trouver chezjean de Salisbury. En revanche, on rencontre chez lui une allusion à la lecture des lois: lectio legum aut etiam canonum. Cependant, la lecture glosée et commentée des textes philosophiques était une pièce importante dans I’enseignement de son maître Guillaume de Conches.
The Chronology of John of Salisbury’s studies in France (Metalogicon, 11.10)
Authors: Weijers Olga
Published: February 2016

It seems unnecessary to describe once again the importance of the famous tenth chapter of the second book of the Metalogicon. Many others have done so before me. It is not only the main source of our knowledge of the early years and education of John of Salisbury, but is of importance in any discussion of the school of Chartres. However, in spite of all the attention paid to it by many scholars, no consensus has been reached up to now about its structure and significance. The aim of this paper is to give a consistent interpretation of the text, and thus to show which conclusions drawn from it may be valid and which not.
John of Salisbury and William of Malmesbury: currents in twelfth-century humanism
Authors: Thomson Rodney
Published: February 2016

In their excellent little book Scribes and Scholars Reynolds and Wilson comparejohn of Salisbury and William of Malmesbury as classicists. The fact that the two men have never before been so compared, and the fact that even Reynolds’s and Wilson’s account contains a good many errors, shows how much is yet to be learned about the humanistic scholarship of the twelfth century. William and John are comparable in a number of ways, but most particularly in their interest in Greco-Latin antiquity: it is central to their scholarship, it is a major preoccupation in their works, it provides a key (and if we add biblical and patristic antiquity as well, the key) to their thinking about their contemporary world.
John of Salisbury as historian
Authors: Chibnall Marjorie
Published: February 2016

Among the works of John of Salisbury the short, unfinished treatise that we call the Historia Pontificalis represents his only incursion into the writing of conventional history.’ Indeed even this, like the Metalogicon, Policraticus and Entheticus, bears the stamp of his unique individual approach to any branch of thought; and to call it conventional is little more than a polite bow of acknowledgement to the graceful preface in which he passes it off as merely another continuation of the world chronicle stretching from the Old Testament through Eusebius and Jerome to Sigebert of Gembloux and Hugh of Saint-Victor in his own age.
The use of exempla in the Policraticus of John of Salisbury
Authors: von Moos Peter
Published: February 2016

In 1165 the deanery of Salisbury was the object of royal jobbery. A long dispute followed in which John tried to mediate by means of several letters. In one of them he wrote: ‘If my advice is asked… I reply that in all cases of stubborn doubt one should act as follows: First let us enquire and follow the prescriptions of Divine Law on the matter; if this gives no certain solution, one should go back to the canons and (then) to the examples of the saints; if nothing certain is to be found there, one should finally investigate the mind and counsel of men wise in the fear of the Lord …’. In this enumeration of means to enlighten problems of practical life, the exempla sanctorum are placed along with the authorities of the Bible and of Canon Law, although ranking lower than these precepts. They complement the abstract rules by concrete comparison, like legal precedents they were meant to explain special cases or fill gaps in the law.
John of Salisbury and the tyranny of nonsense
Authors: Wilks Michael
Published: February 2016

If you want to be a philosopher-shut up! Otherwise everyone will know that you are talking nonsense’. In the eleventh passus of Piers Plowman Imagination tells Will (the Dreamer) that he has been deserted by the learning of the clerks and bereft of the reason of his own mind because he could not stop himself from interfering and, puffed up with pride and presumption, had acted in matters where it was not appropriate for him to be the judge. ‘Philosophus esses si tacuisses’, as both the Bible and Boethius teach us: you might be a philosopher if only you could hold your tongue. Adam had had all Paradise to enjoy so long as he kept quiet. But when he ‘mamelede about mete’, when he began to talk nonsense, babbling about forbidden fruit when he should have kept mum—when he forgot that he was a man and began to pry into the mind and wisdom of God himself, to meddle with divine things-he was turned out of the garden. It is a passage which might have been taken straight from John of Salisbury, and indeed John was not a prophet without honour in the England of the fourteenth century. In many ways it is the theme tune of the Metalogicon and the Policraticus; and an ability to keep quiet was an understandably valuable attribute for a political agent of archbishop Theobald to possess as much as anybody else caught up in the ecclesiastical politics of the 1150s. But John of Salisbury would have us believe that the virtues of silence and non-interference had been one of the main lessons that he had learnt in the Parisian schools, which were cursed with the plague of words, and where he had been subjected to the relentless outpourings of those who talked too much and thereby created nonsensical things in profusion.
What is the Entheticus?
Authors: Thomson Rodney
Published: February 2016

John of Salisbury’s Entheticus de Dogmate Philosophorum (the so-called ‘longer Entheticus’) is a philosophical and satirical poem of 1,850 lines, in Latin elegiac couplets. It is the most enigmatic of John’s major works, and the least well understood. It has never attracted much attention, and such judgements as have been passed upon it have been, on the whole, cursory and dismissive. Yet the work must be closely scrutinized, if only that the evolution of John’s thought may be better understood. I hope to make a modest beginning in this enterprise by using the techniques of palaeography and textual criticism to throw light on the genesis and purpose of the Entheticus, and on its connection with the Policraticus and Metalogicon.
The importance of the organism in the political theory of John of Salisbury
Authors: Struve Tilman
Published: February 2016

The comparison of the State with an animate organism was of outstanding importance in the political theories of the Middle Ages. Despite all its various forms of appearance this comparison always served to define the place and function of each individual in particular, as well as in relation to a superior whole. John of Salisbury deserves the credit for having helped this organological view of the State to breakthrough in writing the Policraticus.
Bede’s Notes on Genesis and the Training of the Anglo-Saxon Clergy
Authors: Mcclure Judith
Published: February 2016

It has long been recognized that the mainspring of Bede’s intellectual work throughout his life was pastoral. Recently it has become increasingly apparent that his dedication to the continuing demands of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons was stimulated and informed by the ideas of Gregory the Great. What is less clear is the relationship between the great bulk of Bede’s exegetical writings and his conception of the precise needs of those priests and monks whom he was seeking to prepare for pastoral responsibility. He had a certain amount of immediate personal experience of the range of technical problems involved in communicating the essentials of Christian doctrine and liturgy to an illiterate people who were ignorant of Latin.
The Bible in the Investiture Contest: The South German Gregorian Circle
Authors: Robinson I.S.
Published: February 2016

Beryl Smalley has often pointed to the importance of the eleventh-century cathedral schools in the history of biblical studies, but she has also emphasized the difficulties of investigating the study of the sacred page in this century. ‘We have to eke out our knowledge by guesswork …. We are beginning to see a great movement. Though we cannot yet discern the detail, we can trace its outline, at least provisionally’. At first the outlook appears bleak. Abbot Williram of Ebersberg is found complaining c. 1060 that scholars concentrate on grammar and dialectic and neglect the Scriptures: a charge echoed a few years later by Otloh of St. Emmeram in Regensburg. However, the complaints of these monastic polemicists run directly contrary to the information coming out of the cathedral schools. Here the news is of masters abandoning profane learning in favour of sacred studies.
Similitudines et Exempla dans les Sermons du XIIIe Siècle
Authors: Bataillon Louis-Jacques
Published: February 2016

La Publication parmi les fascicules de la Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental du volume de Cl. Bremond, J. Le Goff, et J.-Cl, Schmitt sur l’exemplum montre les progrès qui ont été faits dans ce domaine depuis 1927, date à laquelle était parue la thèse de J.-Th. Welter du même titre. Si ce dernier reste encore un remarquable instrument, toujours utile et sou vent nécessaire à consulter, c’est dans le récent livre collectif que l’on trouvera désormais des définitions plus élaborées et des études plus précises sur la place et le rôle de l’exemplum dans le sermon, des analyses plus affinées de sa structure, des appréciations plus fournies et plus nuancées sur la portée historique et sociologique de ce genre littéraire.
The Gospel of the Marriage Feast of Cana and Marriage Preaching in France
Authors: d’Avray David
Published: February 2016

The history of attitudes to marriage is a fashionable subject and has been so for some time. This does not mean that it is an overworked subject, for the field is large enough to provide work for many labourers. A corner of it which has scarcely been touched is the development of marriage doctrine in bible commentaries and sermons, two types of source which medievalists will always associate with Beryl Smalley. This paper deals only with the second class of source, but it is nevertheless about exegesis, since the sermons which will be examined have the pericope or Gospel reading of the marriage feast of Cana as their starting-point.
The Bible and Rights in the Franciscan Disputes Over Poverty
Authors: Leff Gordon
Published: February 2016

Among the more far-reaching consequences of the disputes over absolute poverty in the Franciscan Order was the emergence of a doctrine of natural rights. Or rather conflicting doctrines, drawn from conflicting interpretations of the life of Christ and the apostles, which crystallized in the debates between Pope John XXII and members of the Order in the 1320s and 1330s over Christ’s absolute poverty. Both the Pope, in denying that Christ had ever lived in absolute poverty, and his Franciscan opponents, who upheld the Franciscan doctrine that he had, arrived at rival conceptions of the rights involved in either possessing or renouncing temporal things.
… novo sensu sacram adulterare Scripturam: Clement VI and the Political use of the Bible
Authors: Wood Diana
Published: February 2016

Medieval biblical commentators traditionally interpreted the Bible in terms of the ‘four senses’ of Scripture—the literal-historical and the three ‘spiritual’ senses, the allegorical, the tropological or moral, and the anagogical. Recently attention has been focused on the use of a variation of the allegorical sense, namely, political allegory. This was the application of a biblical text to a current political situation or argument. The Roman revolutionary Cola di Rienzo, after hearing Pope Clement VI preach in consistory, gave it another name altogether—sensum adulterum. Clement had apparently delivered the customary papal allegorization of the two-swords passage (Luke, xix. 38), according to which both swords, that of spiritual authority and of physical power, were in the hands of the priesthood.
Preaching, Pastoral Care, and Sola Scriptura in Later Medieval Ireland: Richard Fitzralph and the use of the Bible
Authors: Walsh Katherine
Published: February 2016

In the preface to the third edition of The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages Beryl Smalley pointed out the dilemma posed by the apparently simple solution contained in the mature teaching of Thomas Aquinas, whereby the literal sense of biblical interpretation was all that the sacred writer intended. Her question as to what should be included under ‘all’ preoccupied many medieval students of Scripture.
Scottish Catholic Correspondence Networks in Eighteenth-Century Europe
Authors: Prunier Clotilde
Published: February 2016

This is a ‘work-in-progress’ essay. I am making an inventory of eighteenth-century Scottish Catholic correspondence with ARCANE, a database management system which, once the letters are processed, will enable me to give a material representation of this correspondence and of the networks, both human and epistolary, which it reveals. My hypothesis is that links of all kinds – the correspondence itself to start with – enabled the Scottish Catholic community to weather the penal laws in the eighteenth century. What the mission needed most was money and priests; both came from outside Scotland, which is why I have decided to deal with the continental network first.
Transatlantic Visitors and Evangelical Networks, 1829–61
Authors: Wolffe John
Published: February 2016

In June 1829 John Angell James, minister of Carr’s Lane Congregational Church in Birmingham, wrote to his friend William Wilson Patton, minister of a Presbyterian congregation in New York, thanking him for his congregation’s interest in the spiritual welfare of the British churches.
An Englishman Abroad: The International Networks of a Nineteenth-Century Congregationalist
Authors: Shaw Ian J.
Published: February 2016

Between the years of 1811 and 1861, Andrew Reed (1787–1862 served in the East End of London as minister of New Road Independent Chapel, Stepney, which was rebuilt on a nearby site in 1829 and renamed Wycliffe Chapel. There were only sixty members of the church on Reed’s arrival, but the congregation grew during his ministry to regularly number two thousand in the 1840s and 1850s. Alongside his preaching and pastoral work, Reed conducted an extensive ministry at an exacting pace, becoming involved in a range of philanthropic projects, as well as organizations for evangelism and overseas mission, a number of which he founded. He also contributed to the development of Congregationalism as an English denomination, and was engaged in moves for general union amongst Evangelicals. In addition to his wide-ranging work in Britain, Reed maintained an extensive international network of relationships through organizational activities, regular correspondence and personal visits. His work offers insights into how broader trends and patterns were played out at an individual and local level. Although his ecclesiology was rooted in English Independency, Reed was no isolationist. Indeed the extent of his international involvement takes this study well beyond the particular, to demonstrate the wider significance of both personal and institutional religious networks in the first half of the nineteenth century. His work also shows how sustainable structures could be created from dynamic personal networks, but that such a process was often fraught with difficulties. The following discussion will concentrate upon four broad areas of Reed’s international relationships.
‘A nation of town criers’: civic publicity and historical pageantry in inter-war Britain
Authors: HULME TOM
Published: February 2016

Historical pageantry emerged in 1905 as the brainchild of the theatrical impresario Louis Napoleon Parker. Large casts of volunteers re-enacted successive scenes of local history, as crowds of thousands watched on, in large outdoor arenas. As the press put it, Britain had caught ‘pageant fever’. Towards the end of the 1920s, there was another outburst of historical pageantry. Yet, in contrast to the Edwardian period, when pageants took place in small towns, this revival was particularly vibrant in large industrial towns and cities. This article traces the popularity of urban pageantry to an inter-war ‘civic publicity’ movement. In doing so, it reassesses questions of local cultural decline; the role of local government; and the relationship of civic responsibility to popular theatre.
Rationally engineered Troponin C modulates in vivo cardiac function and performance in health and disease
Authors: Shettigar Vikram , Zhang Bo , Little Sean C. , Salhi Hussam E. , Hansen Brian J. , Li Ning , Zhang Jianchao , Roof Steve R. , Ho Hsiang-Ting , Brunello Lucia , Lerch Jessica K. , Weisleder Noah , Fedorov Vadim V. , Accornero Federica , Rafael-Fortney Jill A. , Gyorke Sandor , Janssen Paul M. L. , Biesiadecki Brandon J. , Ziolo Mark T. , Davis Jonathan P.
Published: February 2016

Treatment for heart disease, the leading cause of death in the world, has progressed little for several decades. Here we develop a protein engineering approach to directly tune in vivo cardiac contractility by tailoring the ability of the heart to respond to the Ca2+signal. Promisingly, our smartly formulated Ca2+-sensitizing TnC (L48Q) enhances heart function without any adverse effects that are commonly observed with positive inotropes. In a myocardial infarction (MI) model of heart failure, expression of TnC L48Q before the MI preserves cardiac function and performance. Moreover, expression of TnC L48Q after the MI therapeutically enhances cardiac function and performance, without compromising survival. We demonstrate engineering TnC can specifically and precisely modulate cardiac contractility that when combined with gene therapy can be employed as a therapeutic strategy for heart disease.
FAT1 mutations cause a glomerulotubular nephropathy
Authors: Gee Heon Yung , Sadowski Carolin E. , Aggarwal Pardeep K. , Porath Jonathan D. , Yakulov Toma A. , Schueler Markus , Lovric Svjetlana , Ashraf Shazia , Braun Daniela A. , Halbritter Jan , Fang Humphrey , Airik Rannar , Vega-Warner Virginia , Cho Kyeong Jee , Chan Timothy A. , Morris Luc G. T. , ffrench-Constant Charles , Allen Nicholas , McNeill Helen , Büscher Rainer , Kyrieleis Henriette , Wallot Michael , Gaspert Ariana , Kistler Thomas , Milford David V. , Saleem Moin A. , Keng Wee Teik , Alexander Stephen I. , Valentini Rudolph P. , Licht Christoph , Teh Jun C. , Bogdanovic Radovan , Koziell Ania , Bierzynska Agnieszka , Soliman Neveen A. , Otto Edgar A. , Lifton Richard P. , Holzman Lawrence B. , Sibinga Nicholas E. S. , Walz Gerd , Tufro Alda , Hildebrandt Friedhelm
Published: February 2016

Steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome (SRNS) causes 15% of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Here we show that recessive mutations in FAT1 cause a distinct renal disease entity in four families with a combination of SRNS, tubular ectasia, haematuria and facultative neurological involvement. Loss of FAT1 results in decreased cell adhesion and migration in fibroblasts and podocytes and the decreased migration is partially reversed by a RAC1/CDC42 activator. Podocyte-specific deletion of Fat1 in mice induces abnormal glomerular filtration barrier development, leading to podocyte foot process effacement. Knockdown of Fat1 in renal tubular cells reduces migration, decreases active RAC1 and CDC42, and induces defects in lumen formation. Knockdown of fat1 in zebrafish causes pronephric cysts, which is partially rescued by RAC1/CDC42 activators, confirming a role of the two small GTPases in the pathogenesis. These findings provide new insights into the pathogenesis of SRNS and tubulopathy, linking FAT1 and RAC1/CDC42 to podocyte and tubular cell function.
Polarization Drift Channel Model for Coherent Fibre-Optic Systems
Authors: Czegledi Cristian B. , Karlsson Magnus , Agrell Erik , Johannisson Pontus
Published: February 2016

A theoretical framework is introduced to model the dynamical changes of the state of polarization during transmission in coherent fibre-optic systems. The model generalizes the one-dimensional phase noise random walk to higher dimensions, accounting for random polarization drifts, emulating a random walk on the Poincaré sphere, which has been successfully verified using experimental data. The model is described in the Jones, Stokes and real four-dimensional formalisms and the mapping between them is derived. Such a model will be increasingly important in simulating and optimizing future systems, where polarization-multiplexed transmission and sophisticated digital signal processing will be natural parts. The proposed polarization drift model is the first of its kind as prior work either models polarization drift as a deterministic process or focuses on polarization-mode dispersion in systems where the state of polarization does not affect the receiver performance. We expect the model to be useful in a wide-range of photonics applications where stochastic polarization fluctuation is an issue.
Locating influential nodes via dynamics-sensitive centrality
Authors: Liu Jian-Guo , Lin Jian-Hong , Guo Qiang , Zhou Tao
Published: February 2016

With great theoretical and practical significance, locating influential nodes of complex networks is a promising issue. In this paper, we present a dynamics-sensitive (DS) centrality by integrating topological features and dynamical properties. The DS centrality can be directly applied in locating influential spreaders. According to the empirical results on four real networks for both susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) and susceptible-infected (SI) spreading models, the DS centrality is more accurate than degree,k-shell index and eigenvector centrality.
Crysalis: an integrated server for computational analysis and design of protein crystallization
Authors: Wang Huilin , Feng Liubin , Zhang Ziding , Webb Geoffrey I. , Lin Donghai , Song Jiangning
Published: February 2016

The failure of multi-step experimental procedures to yield diffraction-quality crystals is a major bottleneck in protein structure determination. Accordingly, several bioinformatics methods have been successfully developed and employed to select crystallizable proteins. Unfortunately, the majority of existing in silico methods only allow the prediction of crystallization propensity, seldom enabling computational design of protein mutants that can be targeted for enhancing protein crystallizability. Here, we present Crysalis, an integrated crystallization analysis tool that builds on support-vector regression (SVR) models to facilitate computational protein crystallization prediction, analysis, and design. More specifically, the functionality of this new tool includes: (1) rapid selection of target crystallizable proteins at the proteome level, (2) identification of site non-optimality for protein crystallization and systematic analysis of all potential single-point mutations that might enhance protein crystallization propensity, and (3) annotation of target protein based on predicted structural properties. We applied the design mode of Crysalis to identify site non-optimality for protein crystallization on a proteome-scale, focusing on proteins currently classified as non-crystallizable. Our results revealed that site non-optimality is based on biases related to residues, predicted structures, physicochemical properties, and sequence loci, which provides in-depth understanding of the features influencing protein crystallization. Crysalis is freely available at http://nmrcen.xmu.edu.cn/crysalis/.
Time related variations in stem cell harvesting of umbilical cord blood
Authors: Mazzoccoli Gianluigi , Miscio Giuseppe , Fontana Andrea , Copetti Massimiliano , Francavilla Massimo , Bosi Alberto , Perfetto Federico , Valoriani Alice , De Cata Angelo , Santodirocco Michele , Totaro Angela , Rubino Rosa , di Mauro Lazzaro , Tarquini Roberto
Published: February 2016

Umbilical cord blood (UCB) contains hematopoietic stem cells and multipotent mesenchymal cells useful for treatment in malignant/nonmalignant hematologic-immunologic diseases and regenerative medicine. Transplantation outcome is correlated with cord blood volume (CBV), number of total nucleated cells (TNC), CD34+ progenitor cells and colony forming units in UCB donations. Several studies have addressed the role of maternal/neonatal factors associated with the hematopoietic reconstruction potential of UCB, including: gestational age, maternal parity, newborn sex and birth weight, placental weight, labor duration and mode of delivery. Few data exist regarding as to how time influences UCB collection and banking patterns. We retrospectively analyzed 17.936 cord blood donations collected from 1999 to 2011 from Tuscany and Apulia Cord Blood Banks. Results from generalized multivariable linear mixed models showed that CBV, TNC and CD34+ cell were associated with known obstetric and neonatal parameters and showed rhythmic patterns in different time domains and frequency ranges. The present findings confirm that volume, total nucleated cells and stem cells of the UCB donations are hallmarked by rhythmic patterns in different time domains and frequency ranges and suggest that temporal rhythms in addition to known obstetric and neonatal parameters influence CBV, TNC and CD34+ cell content in UBC units.
Basin stability in delayed dynamics
Authors: Leng Siyang , Lin Wei , Kurths Jürgen
Published: February 2016

Basin stability (BS) is a universal concept for complex systems studies, which focuses on the volume of the basin of attraction instead of the traditional linearization-based approach. It has a lot of applications in real-world systems especially in dynamical systems with a phenomenon of multi-stability, which is even more ubiquitous in delayed dynamics such as the firing neurons, the climatological processes and the power grids. Due to the infinite dimensional property of the space for the initial values, how to properly define the basin’s volume for delayed dynamics remains a fundamental problem. We propose here a technique which projects the infinite dimensional initial state space to a finite-dimensional Euclidean space by expanding the initial function along with different orthogonal or nonorthogonal basis. A generalized concept of basin’s volume in delayed dynamics and a highly practicable calculating algorithm with a cross-validation procedure are provided to numerically estimate the basin of attraction in delayed dynamics. We show potential applicabilities of this approach by applying it to study several representative systems of biological or/and physical significance, including the delayed Hopfield neuronal model with multistability and delayed complex networks with synchronization dynamics.
Development of Spexin-based Human Galanin Receptor Type II-Specific Agonists with Increased Stability in Serum and Anxiolytic Effect in Mice
Authors: Reyes-Alcaraz Arfaxad , Lee Yoo-Na , Son Gi Hoon , Kim Nam Hoon , Kim Dong-Kyu , Yun Seongsik , Kim Dong-Hoon , Hwang Jong-Ik , Seong Jae Young
Published: February 2016

The novel neuropeptide spexin (SPX) was discovered to activate galanin receptor 2 (GALR2) and 3 (GALR3) but not galanin receptor 1 (GALR1). Although GALR2 is known to display a function, particularly in anxiety, depression, and appetite regulation, the further determination of its function would benefit from a more stable and selective agonist that acts only at GALR2. In the present study, we developed a GALR2-specific agonist with increased stability in serum. As galanin (GAL) showed a low affinity to GALR3, the residues in SPX were replaced with those in GAL, revealing that particular mutations such as Gln5 → Asn, Met7 → Ala, Lys11 → Phe, and Ala13 → Pro significantly decreased potencies toward GALR3 but not toward GALR2. Quadruple (Qu) mutation of these residues still retained potency to GALR2 but totally abolished the potency to both GALR3 and GALR1. The first amino acid modifications or D-Asn1 substitution significantly increased the stability when they are incubated in 100% fetal bovine serum. Intracerebroventricular administration of the mutant peptide with D-Asn1 and quadruple substitution (dN1-Qu) exhibited an anxiolytic effect in mice. Taken together, the GALR2-specific agonist with increased stability can greatly help delineation of GALR2-mediated functions and be very useful for treatments of anxiety disorder.
Cytotoxic and mutagenic potential of solutions exposed to cold atmospheric plasma
Authors: Boehm Daniela , Heslin Caitlin , Cullen Patrick J. , Bourke Paula
Published: February 2016

The exposure of aqueous solutions to atmospheric plasmas results in the generation of relatively long-lived secondary products such as hydrogen peroxide which are biologically active and have demonstrated anti-microbial and cytotoxic activity. The use of plasma-activated solutions in applications such as microbial decontamination or anti-cancer treatments requires not only adequate performance on target cells but also a safe operating window regarding the impact on surrounding tissues. Furthermore the generation of plasma-activated fluids needs to be considered as a by-stander effect of subjecting tissue to plasma discharges. Cytotoxicity and mutagenicity assays using mammalian cell lines were used to elucidate the effects of solutions treated with di-electric barrier discharge atmospheric cold plasma. Plasma-treated PBS inhibited cell growth in a treatment time-dependent manner showing a linear correlation to the solutions’ peroxide concentration which remained stable over several weeks. Plasma-treated foetal bovine serum (FBS) acting as a model for complex bio-fluids showed not only cytotoxic effects but also exhibited increased mutagenic potential as determined using the mammalian HPRT assay. Further studies are warranted to determine the nature, causes and effects of the cyto- and genotoxic potential of solutions exposed to plasma discharges to ensure long-term safety of novel plasma applications in medicine and healthcare.
The Lungfish Transcriptome: A Glimpse into Molecular Evolution Events at the Transition from Water to Land
Authors: Biscotti Maria Assunta , Gerdol Marco , Canapa Adriana , Forconi Mariko , Olmo Ettore , Pallavicini Alberto , Barucca Marco , Schartl Manfred
Published: February 2016

Lungfish and coelacanths are the only living sarcopterygian fish. The phylogenetic relationship of lungfish to the last common ancestor of tetrapods and their close morphological similarity to their fossil ancestors make this species uniquely interesting. However their genome size, the largest among vertebrates, is hampering the generation of a whole genome sequence. To provide a partial solution to the problem, a high-coverage lungfish reference transcriptome was generated and assembled. The present findings indicate that lungfish, not coelacanths, are the closest relatives to land-adapted vertebrates. Whereas protein-coding genes evolve at a very slow rate, possibly reflecting a “living fossil” status, transposable elements appear to be active and show high diversity, suggesting a role for them in the remarkable expansion of the lungfish genome. Analyses of single genes and gene families documented changes connected to the water to land transition and demonstrated the value of the lungfish reference transcriptome for comparative studies of vertebrate evolution.
Production of hepatitis E virus-like particles presenting multiple foreign epitopes by co-infection of recombinant baculoviruses
Authors: Shima Ryoichi , Li Tian Cheng , Sendai Yutaka , Kataoka Chikako , Mori Yoshio , Abe Takayuki , Takeda Naokazu , Okamoto Toru , Matsuura Yoshiharu
Published: February 2016

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) causes not only endemics via a fecal-oral route but also sporadic cases via zoonotic transmission or blood transfusion. HEV-like particles (HEV-LP) produced by using a baculovirus expression system are considered a candidate for mucosal vaccines for HEV infection. In this study, we attempted to produce a chimeric HEV-LP presenting various foreign epitopes on its surface. Expression of the recombinant capsid proteins carrying a myc- or FLAG-tag inserted between amino acid residues 488 and 489, which are located in the exterior loop on the protruding domain of the HEV capsid, resulted in the production of recombinant HEV-LP. Although expression of the recombinant capsid protein carrying the HA-tag inserted at the same site failed to produce any particles, co-expression with the myc-tagged capsid protein successfully yielded a chimeric HEV-LP consisting of both recombinant capsid proteins. Immunoprecipitation analyses confirmed that the chimeric particles present these foreign epitopes on the surface. Similar results were obtained for the expression of the recombinant capsid proteins carrying neutralizing epitopes of Japanese encephalitis virus. These results suggest the chimeric HEV-LP system provides a novel vaccine carrier that can accommodate multiple neutralizing epitopes on its surface.