bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Smugglers' Trade: A Neglected Aspect of English Commercial Development
Authors: Ramsay G. D.
Published: March 2007

Some share—fluctuating and uncertain, but assuredly significant—of English foreign trade in modern times is to be credited to smugglers, who were ever busy in evading customs regulations and prohibitions. Mere administrative watchfulness and thoroughness could never do more than damp their activities; it was only the triumph of free trade in the early Victorian age that deprived them of their livelihood, and until then they were able to match by increase of cunning and of organization the ever more elaborate network of the customs system—its spies, its coastguards and its cutters as well as its routine officials at the ports. The smuggler flourished right down to the end of the period of protection, despite sporadic seizures by the revenue officers. In the first half of the nineteenth century, French wines, brandies and luxury textiles were being punctually shipped across the Channel in the teeth of prohibitions. In the other direction, we know, for instance, of the existence in the same period of so remarkable á phenomenon as the muslin manufacture of Tarare, near Lyons, which relied for its raw material upon the assured supply of English yarn owled abroad. But it was probably the eighteenth century, when customs regulations were at their most burdensome and complicated, that marked the classic epoch of illicit trade, the period in which the technical skill of both breakers and defenders of the law might earn the highest rewards.
Richard of Ilchester, Royal Servant and Bishop
Authors: Duggan Charles
Published: March 2007

In his Ymagines Historiarum, Ralph de Diceto paused in his chronicle of Henry II's reign to reflect on the circumstances and significance of the appointment of three chief justices of the realm in 1179. Ever anxious for the efficient and impartial administration of the law, Henry had diligently sought out lovers of justice who would not be corrupted by high office; he tried, without success, many classes of men: abbots, earls, tenants-in-chief, members of his household, even his closest personal advisers. When at last all else had failed, he raised his eyes to heaven; and, passing over those who could be swayed by worldly influences, he resorted to the sanctuary of God, and appointed as archjusticiars of his realm the bishops of Winchester, Ely and Norwich. If his earlier choices had shown too little respect for him, an earthly king, these at least would act in careful fear of God, the King of kings. And if it should be argued that in assuming this task the bishops would act in despite of the strict letter of canon law, there could be urged in reply the constraint of the king and his good intentions, pleasing alike to God and men.
Scotland's Conservative North in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Authors: Donaldson G.
Published: March 2007

Some illustrations of the existence of a conservative north are at once apparent on even the most superficial examination of Scottish history in the seventeenth century. No historian has failed to notice, for instance, the fact that the strongest opposition to the National Covenant was concentrated in and around Aberdeen. It was in Aberdeen that the ‘doctors’, or theological professors of the university, denounced the Covenant and challenged its spokesmen to a debate in July 1638, and it was in Aberdeenshire that the Marquis of Huntly remained an unrepentant royalist during the years of the Covenanters' ascendancy.
The English Farmers of the Customs, 1343–51
Authors: Fryde E. B.
Published: March 2007

The story of the English farmers of the customs has hitherto concerned historians mainly because of its bearing on the history of the House of Commons. By their control over the customs and through the influence they exerted over the other English merchants, these financiers obstructed the efforts of the commons to establish parliamentary control over indirect taxation. The nature of this challenge has been clearly explained by George Unwin and Eileen Power. Edward III wished to finance the war with France by levying a heavy subsidy on exported wool (ultimately 40s. per sack) over and above the traditional light duty of 6s. 8d. per sack. The subsidy was disliked by the producers of wool, because they were convinced that it pushed down the price of wool in England. The commons who voiced this opposition were, however, powerless to prevent the collection of the subsidy as long as the wool merchants were willing to sanction its continuance and as long as the king could find English business men who would make satisfactory advances on the security of this revenue. Unwin has discussed in detail one set of developments that gradually ended this challenge to parliamentary control over indirect taxation. He was able to show how the leading financiers, by their selfish behaviour, destroyed the unity of the English wool merchants, made impossible further concerted action by merchant assemblies and forced the majority of the merchants to act in future ‘with and through the commons’.
Rank and Emolument in the British Diplomatic Service 1689–1789
Authors: Horn D. B.
Published: March 2007

From the institution of resident diplomatic missions in the fifteenth century a basic distinction has been drawn between ambassadors, either ordinary or extraordinary, and ministers of less eminence, often described as residents. By the late seventeenth century, however, various intermediate grades had become established. For example, a decree of the States of Holland, passed on 29 March 1651, mentions ‘ambassadors, resident envoys, agents or other ministers’. Much the most important intermediate rank was that of envoy extraordinary, which under Louis XIV became much commoner than before, while the gulf between the envoy and the mere resident grew steadily. The title of resident is said to have been degraded when the lesser German courts gave or even sold the title to persons who had no diplomatic functions at all. The increasing use made of envoys in the seventeenth century was partly due to a desire for economy, but at least as much to the desire of sovereigns to avoid or at least reduce the number of quarrels between ambassadors where there were several ambassadors at the same court and no generally accepted rules of precedence. Thus Frederick William, the great elector of Brandenburg, is said not to have appointed any ambassadors. There was a similar reluctance at Genoa and in Sweden and elsewhere in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. When Cobden proposed and carried in the Select Committee of 1850 on Public Salaries the abolition of embassies he was much less of a radical than his contemporaries thought.
War Propaganda and Historiography in Fifteenth-Century France and England
Authors: Lewis P. S.
Published: March 2007

At its lowest and most popular, verity concerning the war between England and France in the fifteenth century was slipped into the minds of its recipients by such itinerant chansonniers as the one who, according to Louis XI, ‘se soit mis a aller par nostre royaume pour chanter et recorder chancons, dictez et records touchant les bonnes novelles et advantures qui nous sont survenues et surviennent chacun jour au bien de nous et de nostre seigneurie’; it could be found obfuscated in the mysteries of semi-heraldic prophecy, to which even so respectable a figure as Christine de Pisan in her old age contributed; its sediment settled in commonplace note-taking on both sides of the Channel.
Place Bills and the Separation of Powers: Some Seventeenth-Century Origins of the ‘Non-Political’ Civil Service
Authors: Aylmer G. E.
Published: March 2007

Montesquieu's misunderstanding of the British constitution has long been notorious among students of political history and theory. In so far as his error influenced the French constitution of 1791 and the American constitution of 1788, it must be accounted one of the most significant—and expensive–scholarly howlers of all time. Somewhat different, because it is avowedly normative whereas Montesquieu's purports to be descriptive, is Harrington's doctrine of separation.
The Union with England and the Identity of ‘Anglican’ Wales
Authors: Roberts P. R.
Published: March 2007

Thus the Venetian envoy wrote in his ‘Relation’ a few years after Henry Tudor's accession. The history of Tudor policy in Wales has often been interpreted by way of commentary on this assumption, that Henry Tudor, born at Pembroke Castle and descended from the family of Penmynydd, Anglesey, was considered a Welshman and was himself conscious of this heritage. The Welsh origins of the dynasty have been invoked by historians in the past to explain the relative success of its rule in Wales. Both the so-called ‘union’ with England and the reception of the Reformation were achievements in state and church which have been attributed to the general popularity of the dynasty in Wales and to the favour in which the Tudors (particularly the two Henrys and Elizabeth) regarded their Welsh subjects.
The Origins of the Politics of the Parliamentary Middle Group, 1625–1629
Authors: Thompson Christopher
Published: March 2007

Only twice in the early seventeenth century, in 1624 and 1640, was the ‘political nation’ in England united. On both occasions, the determination of policy was surrendered by an unwilling king and the assistance of Parliamentary leaders sought. Both led to war and a sharpening of domestic political conflict. But such similarities were no more than superficial. The war which was envisaged in 1624 was foreign and external; the one which ensued in 1642 was civil and internal. In 1624, the co-operation of the Parliamentary leaders was freely solicited; in 1640, there was no alternative. The initiative which lay with Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham at the earlier date was in the hands of the Earl of Bedford, Pym and St John in November 1640. One was a prelude to the period of ‘Personal Government’, the other, ultimately, to that of the Commonwealth and Protectorate.
The Gregorian Reform and the Visual Arts: A Problem of Method
Authors: Kitzinger Ernst
Published: March 2007

My lecture will start with a kind of prelude. I am going to show you a work of art which, though unconnected with Gregory VII and the movement of church reform that bears his name, will help to set the stage for our discussion proper. The scene of my prelude will not be eleventh-century Italy at all, but rather the court of the Norman kings of Sicily in the twelfth century. I hope you will not lose patience during what may seem a rather irritating detour and agree with me in the end that this is a case of the longest way round being the shortest way home.
Some Painters and the Counter-Reformation before 1600
Authors: Waterhouse Ellis
Published: March 2007

It was not until the twenty-fifth and last session of the Council of Trent, in 1563, that the assembled Fathers made reference to the arts, and that only in very general terms: ‘The Council forbids placing in churches any image which illustrates false doctrine and can mis-lead the simple … it forbids placing in any church even if it is not subject to diocesan visitation, any unusual image, unless it has been approved by the bishop’. The Council recommended the retention of images in churches, but otherwise its decree was purely negative. It did not contemplate using religious art as one of the weapons of controversy in its war against Protestantism. That was to come later.
Art and Society in England and France in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: Two Paintings before the Public
Authors: Bowness Alan
Published: March 2007

The primary source material for the art historian is of course the work of art, and this in itself places him in a fortunate position because the permanent relevance of the work of art is, I take it, self-evident. For the art historian, the work of art is an historical fact, pre-selected for generally accepted aesthetic reasons. But the work of art has no absolute meaning: it does not exist in a vacuum. It has both what we might call a history and a geography—the history being that record of interpretation and evaluation which accrues to the work of art from the moment of its creation down to the present day; and the geography being the particular artistic and social context of its original creation. The history can at times be very misleading: it is obvious that each generation is going to interpret the past as it wishes, and no judgment can be objective. So it is the geography that is more important, and this is extremely difficult to define. But if we are to understand the work of art, we need to enquire into the circumstances of its creation: we must ask, what did this painting or sculpture or building signify when it first appeared? Only from such specific investigations can one proceed to general propositions about the state of art at any particular moment, and perhaps also about the state of society which produced the art.
Britain and France in 1940
Authors: Johnson D. W. J.
Published: March 2007

Few years in British and French history have received such an intensive scrutiny as the year 1940. It was the year when the war came alive in the West and when each of the two countries was to live particularly vital moments. It was a year too which saw dramatic changes in the relations between Britain and France. It is natural therefore that many historians should have sought to elucidate and to describe exactly what happened in 1940 and that many (if not most) of those who played some part in these events should have written their own accounts of them. And whilst the French archives remain difficult of access and incomplete, the recent opening of the British records for the year 1940 has provided us with a great mass of material. Whilst recognizing that one is not yet in a position to make an exhaustive and complete scrutiny, I nevertheless thought it could be useful to base oneself on the historical work that already exists and on the British evidence that is now available, in order to consider the nature of the Anglo-French alliance as it existed and as it developed in the course of 1940.
Presidential Address: Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 3. History as Prophecy
Authors: Southern R. W.
Published: March 2007

A Year ago I took as my theme the origin of that comprehensive but limited view of human progress which dominated European historical thought from the twelfth century to the eighteenth. This idea of historical development had the great merit of embracing every aspect of human life from the first moments of history to the last days. It brought together in a single pattern of development the improvement in man's material condition, the discovery and perfecting of the sciences, the movement of empires, and the enlargement of man's spiritual life. Taken as a whole it was one of the grandest expressions of the beneficent unity of nature, reason, and revelation, which has stamped the chief products of European culture during the greater part of its history. From the time of Hugh of St Victor to Voltaire, it continued despite many setbacks and aberrations to be refined and enlarged by scholarship–and never more confidently than in the last moments before its collapse. In the end the system collapsed as a result of a totally unexpected failure in the foundations on which it was based.
Empire And Papacy: The Last Struggle
Authors: Offler H. S.
Published: March 2007

Inthe early months of 1327 the communities of the Angevin kingdom of Sicily were ordered to send representatives to Naples, there to discuss means of opposing ‘the lord Lewis, duke of Bavaria:qui in Italiam transire disposuit et regnum Sicilie invadere, servans antiquum odium belli et interitus Corradini.’ The reference to the last Hohenstaufen in this contemporary comment on Lewis' Italian enterprise is at first sight surprising. During the half-century following Conradin's execution the prestige of the empire in German hands had fallen steeply in the estimation of western Europe; all the activity of Dante's emperor could not disguise that fact. From time to time the Angevins at Naples urged the abolition of the institution, as something of which the usefulness was now outworn. Other solutions were being talked of, such as the setting up of a separate hereditary kingdom in Lombardy or the transference by election or papal provision of the imperial title to the ruling house of France. Perhaps too much importance has been attributed to some of these schemes, though there is no reason to doubt the seriousness of French ambitions to acquire as much as possible of the western possessions of the empire. But their frequent recurrence, together with the known weakness of the German kingship, does indicate a climate uncongenial to a repetition of the themes of Hohenstaufen imperialism by a German ruler in the third decade of the fourteenth century. Consequently Lewis' conflict with the papacy has an anachronistic air. Long ago Gregorovius cast a stereotype destined to wear well, when he wrote that ‘this afterpiece’ was saved from being ‘an utterly unbearable caricature of a great past’ only by the ‘progress of human thought’ with which it was associated.
The English Hierarchy in the Reign of Edward III
Authors: Highfield J. R. L.
Published: March 2007

THE English hierarchy in the period between the Norman Conquest and the death of Edward II has attracted the attention of a number of modern scholars. Recently Mr. Pantin has extended those studies in an outline survey of the episcopate for the whole of the fourteenth century. The primary object here is to fill in with more detail the background of that out-line for the reign of Edward III. I shall, however, break up one of his categories into four. In general I shall suggest that care must be taken not to exaggerate the importance of bishops with experience in the royal administration or of those with high aristocratic connections. I shall seek to classify the 85 bishops in order to show their origin, their experience and, in the case of the aristocrats, their social class. In a century when civil servants might also be scholars like Richard of Bury, or when monks could hold great offices of state like Simon Langham, any attempt at an exclusive division into categories is bound to be artificial. Exclusive percentages will not, therefore, be relied on. Bishops may occur in one or more categories.
Bristol—Metropolis of the West in the Eighteenth CenturyThe Alexander Prize Essay
Authors: Minchinton W. E.
Published: March 2007

Althought anticipated by earlier writers, the clearest formulation of the idea of a metropolis as the focus of economic activity is to be found in Professor N. S. B. Gras' The Evolution of the English Corn Market. There he writes:

The metropolitan market may be described as a large district having one center in which is focussed a considerable trade. Trade between outlying parts of course may take place, but it is that between the metropolitan town and the rest of the area that dominates all. This is chiefly the exchange of the raw pro-ducts of the country for the manufactured or imported goods of the town. The prices of all goods sent to the metropolitan center are ‘made’ there, or, in other words, prices diminish as the distance from the center is increased.
Trade with the Enemy in the Scandinavian and Baltic Ports during the Napoleonic War: for and against
Authors: Ryan A. N.
Published: March 2007

The French victories over Prussia and Russia in 1806–07 enabled Napoleon to impose upon the continent a peace diametrically opposed to the interests of Britain. An essential condition of it, as was made clear in the Berlin Decree and the Franco-Russian treaty of Tilsit, was that Britain should be banished from Europe. Within a few months of the Tilsit agreement in July 1807 all the northern powers, except Sweden which kept out of the French alliance until 1810, were formally at war with Britain and were pledged to break their commercial connexions with her. It appeared that Napoleon, with the aid of Russia, Prussia and Denmark–Norway, had finally shut the Baltic to British trade and had thus made the commercial exclusion of Britain from the continent a reality. As things turned out, trade between Britain and the north of Europe, though harassed by enemy commerce raiders and impeded by French agents, was not destroyed. The Scandinavian and Baltic ports, the last in Europe to come under French influence, were never firmly closed even when Napoleon''s continental system was most effectively enforced in 1811
The Ecclesiastical Patronage of the Lord Keeper, 1558–1642 (proxime accessit for the Alexander Prize, 1972)
Authors: O'Day Rosemary
Published: March 2007

It is perhaps surprising that no systematic study of the lord keeper's or chancellor's ecclesiastical patronage has been produced. In 1927 Jean Wilson dealt with the office of lord chancellor in the early seventeenth century but devoted a very few pages only to the exercise of his patronage. Professor Jones scarcely touched upon the matter. Yet at the very least there is a need to establish how the lord keeper administered his ecclesiastical patronage and to assess its importance. Did the various lord keepers adopt a policy? What influenced their distribution of patronage? The sources available have imposed limitations of their own: central records of presentations exist in overlapping blocks for the years 1559 to 1603; 1596 to 1616/17; and 1627 to 1640 alone. These papers are not of uniform format and the information which they can be made to yield varies in type. The papers of lord keeper Coventry, for example, are not lists of presentations but loose docquets of presentation, and these make no mention of petitioners or commenders other than the presentee. Wherever possible, however, the somewhat barren nature of the formal documentation has been supplemented by the use of diocesan and private papers.
Patrician Culture: Venice and Amsterdam in the Seventeenth Century
Authors: Burke Peter
Published: March 2007

In the seventeenth century, visitors to both cities were struck by the obvious physical similarities between Venice and Amsterdam. The social similarities were no less great. In a Europe mainly composed of monarchies, each was the greatest city of a republic. In a Europe where the ruling class still tended to identify with warriors, the patricians of Amsterdam and Venice were predominantly civilian. In a Europe whose political leaders usually despised trade, Venice and Amsterdam stood out as places where trade and politics could be combined with success, at least early in the seventeenth century. In a Europe whose ruling classes tended to spend most of their time on their country estates, the patricians of Venice and Amsterdam lived mainly in town.
The Pursuit of Happiness in the City: Changing Opportunities and Options in America (The Prothero Lecture)
Authors: Lampard Eric E.
Published: March 2007

In 1790 a population numbering less than four millions was said, according to a later census calculation, to be almost 95 per cent rural in residence and, by implication, proportionately agricultural in occupation. By 1970 a population well in excess of 204 millions was almost 75 per cent urbanized and, in terms of labour force, less than 5 percent involved in agricultural pursuits.
Ivan the Terrible in Russian Historiography
Authors: Bolsover G. H.
Published: March 2007

Russian historians have taken a livelier interest in Ivan the Terrible than in any other Tsar except Peter the Great. But they have always been seriously handicapped in their treatment of him by grave deficiencies in the material at their disposal. These deficiencies are of two kinds. First, the material is very incomplete and scanty. The Moscow archives and many other Russian documentary records were destroyed during the ‘Time of Troubles’ and in the great fire of Moscow of 1626, and historians have had to try to reconstruct the history of sixteenth-century Russia from what have been called ‘accidental scraps and fragments of material’. Secondly, an appreciable part of even the material which survives, such as the Chronicles, the correspondence between Ivan and Kurbsky, and Kurbsky's History of the Grand Prince of Moscow, is partisan and has to be used with the greatest caution. By the sixteenth century, Russian Chronicles had begun to be written and revised to put an official gloss on events; the correspondence between Ivan and Kurbsky was polemical in tone and aim; and the History of the Grand Prince of Moscow was an able political pamphlet aimed at influencing opinion in Lithuania. With only fragmentary and partisan sources to draw on, Russian historians came to differ widely in their interpretation of Ivan the Terrible and his achievements, particularly in the pioneer days of historical writing. But in a penetrating sketch of Ivan's reign published in 1923 Platonov felt able to affirm that, in the course of the controversy, Ivan and his times had begun to be substantially understood, and that this ‘success’ was ‘one of the brilliant pages in (Russian) historiography, one of the decisive victories of the scientific method’.
Presidential Address: The Lierature of the Last Half-century of the Constitutional History of the United States
Authors: Bellot H. Hale
Published: March 2007

In order to render my subject manageable, I have excluded from it the literature dealing with legal history, with the general history of political ideas, and with the constitutional and political debates that preceded and accompanied the American Revolution. Each of these is a large subject in itself and would, require for its most summary treatment a separate paper. I limit myself to what has been written during the last fifty years or so about the constitutional history of the Union and of the states in their relation to the Union since the year 1783.
North Africa and Europe in the Early Middle Ages
Authors: Frend W. H. C.
Published: March 2007

Recent discussions about Mediterranean trade in the early Middle Ages have tended to be based on two main assumptions. First, trade has been regarded as trade between ports in the eastern and western parts of the Mediterranean. Secondly, as a result of this view, the attention of historians has concentrated on the advance of the Arab fleets in the seventh and eighth centuries, which disrupted regular commerce and temporarily diminished the importance of the trading cities of Italy and Provence.
Emigration and the State, 1833–55: an Essay in Administrative History
Authors: MacDonagh Oliver
Published: March 2007

This paper is concerned with an obscure and long defunct branch of the administration, which was instituted in 1833 and reached its climax by the middle 'fifties. The branch, which had not even a distinctive name, consisted at most of between twenty and thirty executive members, almost all half-pay naval officers, who were at first directly controlled by the colonial office, and, after 1840, subject immediately to the Colonial Land and Emigration Commission. Though the corps of emigration officers, or agents, as they were indifferently called, was established in the 1830's, it by no means belonged to a new race of administrators. It did not originate in political agitation, or Benthamic or parliamentary inquiry. Its purpose and function were scarcely defined; certainly it was innocent of doctrinaire intention. No celebrated public servant, except, indirectly, James Stephen, was concerned with its workings; no considerable attention was ever drawn upon its officers. Indeed, by and large, the British public was unaffected by, and probably ignorant of, its existence.
The Novelle of 1908: Necessities and Choices in the Anglo-German Naval Arms Race
Authors: Steinberg J.
Published: March 2007

THE Novelle of 1908, or to use its full title, ‘A Law to amend paragraph 2 of the Law concerning the German Fleet of 14 June 1900’, was not a very large piece of legislation. The entire text read as follows:

‘With the exception of ships destroyed, battleships and cruisers shall be replaced after 20 years. Active life extends from the year of appropriation of the first instalment on the ship to be replaced to the appropriation of the first instalment of the replacement ship. For the period 1908–1917, construction of replacement ships will follow the plan in Appendix B.’
What is Psycho-History?
Authors: Mazlish Bruce
Published: March 2007

I HAVE entitled my paper ‘What is Psycho-History’, in obvious imitation of an illustrious predecessor in analysing Clio’s nature and character. For reasons that will be clear later, I have come to think that psycho-social history may well be a better title than psycho-history for the inquiry that seems to be emerging, but since ‘tradition’, that is about ten years of effort by historians and psycho- analysts, has gone on under the latter rubric, I shall retain it here.
Sociological Methods in the Study of History
Authors: Wilson B. R.
Published: March 2007

SOCIOLOGY is a discipline that employs abstract concepts to express general propositions about social behaviour, relationships and processes. From its beginnings, sociology was as much concerned to interpret the past as to explain the present. The early sociologists were historicists and evolutionists who explained the past by imposing a pattern of order upon it, and who readily took the less developed contemporary societies of their own time as images of the remote past of their own societies. It is to those thinkers, Comte, Spencer and Marx, if not precisely to the issues that occupied them, that sociologists still turn in tracing their intellectual descent—not to the early social surveyors, Charles Booth or Frederic Le Play.
Historical Demography: Some Possibilities and Some Limitations
Authors: Schofield R. S.
Published: March 2007

HISTORIANS have long been interested in the subject of population, but it is only recently that they have begun to apply the formal techniques of demography to the study of population in the past. This has happened because historians have begun to ask questions about population and its relationship with the historical, social and economic environment which can only be answered if the demographic components of fertility, nuptiality and mortality can be identified and measured. Originally historians were concerned with relatively straightforward questions about population, such as the number of people alive at a given time. But knowledge of the size of a population is in itself seldom informative; it becomes meaningful when it is compared with other information, for example with the size of the population at another date, so that the direction and rate of population change can be inferred. Sometimes the bare facts of population change are all that the historian needs to know; for example some independent evidence on changes in the size of the population of England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries would be a welcome addition to the current debate on the sixteenth-century price rise. But historians have seldom remained satisfied with the knowledge that population is growing or declining; very properly they have wanted to know why this was so.
The Tribal Hidage
Authors: Hart Cyril
Published: March 2007

THE term ‘heptarchy’, coined by John Selden in the seventeenth century to describe the political sub–divisions of England at the time of the conversion, has been handed down by successive generations of historians and still colours our thinking today. Fascinating though the word may be to the historiographer, from a strictly historical point of view it is high time it was given a decent burial, for its inadequacy has been apparent ever since Sir Henry Spelman, Selden's illustrious contemporary, edited the document known as the Tribal Hidage.
The Progressive Movement in England
Authors: Clarke P. F.
Published: March 2007

On the centenary of the birth of C. P. Scott, the political outlook of theManchester Guardianunder his editorship was explained thus: ‘He, and those who wrote under him, thought always in terms of what he called “the progressive movement”. What was important was that those who were agreed on reforming measures should work together to secure them’. In its use of the rather imprecise label ‘progressive’, in its conception of a reform movement wider than strict party boundaries, in its distinctive flowering in the press—in all these respects the progressive movement of early twentieth-century America gives us some notion of what Scott had in mind. And indeed American historiography can, I believe, suggest valuable lines of analysis which have not been fully applied in England. Perhaps the most obvious would entail giving closer attention to the intellectuals and publicists and asking more searching questions about their role in politics. A few years ago the late Charles Mowat pointed to the broadly similar problems in social policy which Britain and the United States faced at this time; and he commented on how, despite these similarities, the history of social reform in the United States had been written with due attention to the history of ideas: in Britain, by contrast, almost exclusively in terms of political and administrative history. It would not, perhaps, be fair to extend Mowat's observation by saying that in England we purposely write history with the ideas left out.
Josiah Wedgwood and Thomas Bentley: An Inventor-Entrepreneur Partnership in the Industrial Revolution
Authors: McKendrick Neil
Published: March 2007

The importance of the rôle of the industrial inventor in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution is recognized by everybody: Richard Arkwright, Samuel Crompton, John Kay, James Watt, James Neilsen, George Stephenson, William Murdoch, Josiah Wedgwood, even schoolboys can reel off their names with glee, and their careers have mostly been investigated in satisfactory detail by economic historians. But the rôle of the merchant entrepreneur—their natural partner and alter ego—has been far less exhaustively studied. Those who are well known are few, and those whose careers have been examined in detail even fewer. As a class they do not even occur in the indices of the two standard text-books on the Industrial Revolution—those by Mantoux and Ashton; Matthew Boulton is one of the few individuals amongst them who have avoided total obscurity, and he is now receiving adequate treatment.
The Social Causes of the British Industrial Revolution
Authors: Perkin H. J.
Published: March 2007

‘It is not more than seventy or eighty years since,’ wrote ‘A Member of the Manchester Athenaeum’ in 1844, ‘that a few humble mechanics in Lanarkshire, distinguished by scarcely anything more than mechanical ingenuity and perseverance of character, succeeded in forming a few, but important mechanical combinations, the effect of which has been to revolutionize the whole of British society, and to influence, in a marked degree, the progress of civilization in every quarter of the globe.’
The Common Lawyers in Pre-Reformation England
Authors: Ives E. W.
Published: March 2007

On Monday, 16 November, 1495, Henry VII, accompanied by his queen and court, attended a banquet at Ely Place to mark the promotion of nine barristers to the rank and dignity of serjeant-at-law. A glittering occasion, the feast was carefully noted by the chroniclers as the social event of the year. But to Francis Bacon, writing over a century later, Henry VTTs presence at Ely Place was more than an event in the court calendar, it was symbolic. Henry VII, he wrote:

to honour the feast was present with his Queen at the dinner; being a Prince that was ever ready to grace and countenance the professors of the law; having a little of that, that, as he governed his subjects by his laws, so he governed his laws by his lawyers.
Monasticism and Society in the Diocese of York 1520–1540
Authors: Cross Claire
Published: March 2007

ON TRIAL for his life in the spring of 1537 for his part in the Pilgrimage of Grace Robert Aske from the Tower supplied a retrospective explanation of northen resentment at the dissolution of the monasteries, at that stage still very much in progress and nowhere near completion. Of all the recent changes in religion, he in particular grudged against the statute of suppressions, and so did all the country, because the abbeys in the north gave great alms to poor men and laudably served God: in which parts of late days they had small comfort by ghostly teaching. And by the said suppression the service of God is much minished, great number of masses unsaid and consecration of the sacrament now not used in those parts, to the decrease of the faith and spiritual comfort to man's soul, the temple of God ruffed and pulled down, the ornaments and relics of the church irreverently used, tombs of honourable and noble men pulled down and sold, no hospitality now kept in those parts…

Also the abbeys was one of the beauties of this realm to all men and strangers passing through the same; also all gentlemen much succoured in their needs with money, their younger sons there succoured and in nunneries their daughters brought up in virtue, and also their evidences and money left to the uses of infants in abbeys' hands, always sure there…
Anglo-Scottisch Union and the Court of James I, 1603–1625 (The Alexander Prize Essay proxime accessit)
Authors: Cuddy Neil
Published: March 2007

WHEN in 1629–30 Rubens gave James I his conventional apotheosis on the Banqueting House ceiling, he also, more originally, depicted his reign's major achievements. Two stood out: the general benefits of James's rule, peace and plenty; and, given pride of place, the Union of England and Scotland.
England and Northern Italy in the Early Fourteenth Century: the Economic Contrasts
Authors: Britnell R. H.
Published: March 2007

We know almost as much about the operations of big Italian companies in England as about those in Italy itself during the early fourteenth century. Tuscan trade here engaged some of Europe's most celebrated businesses, attracted by the kingdom's fine wool and the credit-worthiness of her crown and nobility. Historians have some-times drawn an analogy with international lending from richer to poorer countries in the modern world, both to create a point of contact with their readers and to meet the need for deep-lying explanations. The analogy usually carries the implication that Italy had a more advanced economy than England, and there are authors who say so explicitly. Some use terms designed to describe international economic growth during the last two hundred years, and represent medieval Italy as a pole of development, or a core economy. Others, borrowing the language of power, describe Italy as a dominant economy. Professor Cipolla uses a number of these ideas at once in his observation that ‘in the early years of the fourteenth century Florence represented a dominant and developed economy, while England and the kingdom of Naples were two decidedly underdeveloped countries: the periphery, to use Wallerstein's expression’.
Ideas of the State in Thirteenth and Fourteenth-Century Commentators on the Roman Law
Authors: Canning Joseph P.
Published: March 2007

The late thirteenth and fourteenth-century civilians made a distinctive contribution to the theory of the state, because they were seeking to apply a specific juristic language to account for the existence of contemporary territorial states. Fully worked out state concepts are to be found in the works of Bartolus and Baldus, although elements necessary for the construction of a concept of the state exist in earlier Commentators. The theories of Bartolus and Baldus are prime illustrations that the concept of the state is historically fluid: they do not possessourconcept of the state; indeed their theories are highly complex, combining aspects which are distinctively late medieval with others which can justifiably be termed elements of a modern idea of the state.
Beyond the Market: Books as Gifts in Sixteenth-Century France (The Prothero Lecture)
Authors: Davis Natalie Zemon
Published: March 2007

‘Since he isn't able to sell his books,’ Erasmus said of a fellow scholar in 1518, ‘he goes about offering them as gifts to important people; he makes more that way than if he had sold them.’ Erasmus's shrewd observation to his friend Tunstall has considerable currency among historians today, anxious as we are about the book market. But writing hisColloquiesa few years later, the great humanist also envisaged other purposes for giving books. At the end of a banquet, during which the gifts of God and human charity have been discussed, the host presents books to his guests, suiting each one to their learning, piety or vocation. His friends thank him not only for the gifts, but for the advice and compliments that went with them. ‘It is I who thank you,’ the host insists, ‘for being so good about my simple style of living and for refreshing my mind with your conversation.’
The Origins of the Crime of Conspiracy
Authors: Harding Alan
Published: March 2007

‘The criminal law’, said Sir James Fitzjames Stephen with his usual trenchancy, ‘stands to the passion of revenge in much the same relation as marriage to the sexual appetite’. The basic reason for the existence of the criminal law is not to punish ‘offences against society’ (whatever they might be) but to allow the private passion for revenge to be released in a controlled way.
History and the Irish Question
Authors: Foster R. F.
Published: March 2007

‘History is more backward in Ireland than in any other country’, wrote J. R. Green's Anglo-Irish widow fiercely in 1912. Here alone there is a public opinion which resents its being freely written, and there is an opinion, public or official, I scarcely know which to call it, which prevents its being freely taught. And between the two, history has a hard fight for life. Take the question of writing. History may conceivably be treated as a science. Or it may be interpreted as a majestic natural drama or poem. Either way has much to be said for it. Both ways have been nobly attempted in other countries. But neither of these courses has been thought of in Ireland. Here history has a peculiar doom. It is enslaved in the chains of the Moral Tale—the good man (English) who prospered, and the bad man (Irish) who came to a shocking end.
Books of Orders: the Making of English Social Policy, 1577–1631
Authors: Slack Paul
Published: March 2007

The importance of the Caroline Book of Orders has not gone unrecognized by historians of early Stuart England. Admirers of the personal rule of Charles I saw in it a cornerstone of that regime's paternalism. Historians of county government, while noting doubts about its centralizing tendencies, have shown it pushing local magistrates towards more efficient methods of poor relief and social welfare. Students of popular attitudes and the moral assumptions of the crowd find the Book of Orders confirming traditional values which helped to guarantee social cohesion in periods of economic crisis. Yet the origins of so remarkable an enactment have attracted little attention, beyond the unfounded assumption that it owed much to Laudian policies of ‘Thorough’. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that its genesis has no less historical interest than its impact; and that we shall better appreciate its social and political implications if we are aware of the complex forces which shaped it.
Public and Private Bureaucracies in England and Wales in the Fifteenth Century
Authors: Griffiths R. A.
Published: March 2007

It is just fifty years since Thomas Frederick Tout died on 23 October 1929. Apart from a few formative years at St. David's College, Lampeter, Tout spent the whole of his academic career in Manchester. It was there that in 1908 he read and reviewed Eugène Déprez's Etudes de diplomatique anglaise and soon afterwards conceived the monumental work of a lifetime, modestly entitled Chapters in the administrative history of Mediaeval England. This six-volume work describes the organization of the household of England's medieval kings between the Norman conquest and the revolution of 1399, and the way in which the great administrative departments of state sprang from it. Beginning as a study of the king's personal chamber and wardrobe, it blossomed into a study, first, of the principal and less personal offices of the chancery, the exchequer and the privy seal—their growing complexity and bureaucratization, their increasing professionalism and specialization, and their eventual permanent settlement in or near London—and, second, of the way in which these offices affected, and were affected by, the relationship between individual kings and their subjects. The focus of Tout's work was the court and the central government, institutions and administration.
‘Toward the Iron Cage of Future Serfdom’? On the Methodological Status of Max Weber's Ideal-Typical Concept of Bureaucratization
Authors: Mommsen Wolfgang J.
Published: March 2007

The terms bureaucracy and bureaucratization are altogether loaded with emotional connotations. In order to get beyond this and to reach an understanding of what is actually meant when we talk of bureaucracy and bureaucratization it is worth while turning to Max Weber. Weber was among the first sociologists to discuss systematically the consequences of bureaucratization for Western societies. He developed an ideal-typical theory bureaucratization which has been extremely influential far beyond the confines of sociology as such. Undoubtedly it is of major interest to historians as well, for though systematic in its intent, it draws on a wide range of historical cases; furthermore, it was intended to throw light on significant historical developments, in particular the processes nowadays associated with the concept of modernization. Indeed, Günther Roth pointed out recently with good reason that Max Weber's retreat from history was in fact strategic rather than fundamental; his ideal-typical systematizations were meant to serve as tools and guidelines for empirical historical research just as much as for sociological analysis. ‘Socio-historical models (such as bureaucracy, patrimonialism, feudalism or the charismatic community) are useful to us in so far as they organize historical knowledge in a specifically sociological way, that is, in the form of generalizations that emphasize the general and repetitive side of history without assuming the existence of laws in any strict sense.’ Moreover, in Weber's methodology ideal types are then used in a genuine historical manner.
‘Bons Bretons et Bons Francoys’: The Language and Meaning of Treason in Later Medieval France
Authors: Jones Michael
Published: March 2007

‘Men dred tresson wher they it finden’ wrote an anonymous fifteenth-century translator of theSong of Roland, the earliest and greatest of allchansons de gestewhich take treason as their major theme. In later medieval France men did not have far to search before they found evidence justifying concern with that particular topos. Treason was often associated with its sister sedition in contemporary chronicles, memoirs, pamphlets, sermons and political allegories, even in figurative representations of that betrayal, most notorious to medieval men, by Judas of his Lord. The long war with England naturally posed delicate problems over the loyalty and allegiance of many involved in conflict through no choice of their own. Aspects of what happened when individuals changed sides and whole provinces bentbefore force majeurein recognizing a new sovereign, thereby incurring the stigma of rebellion against a former lord, have recently been much discussed. Plots to deliver castles and towns are without number. Siege warfare, so characteristic of the period, encouraged such behaviour. Surviving interrogations reveal both serious and improbable schemes to over-throw royal authority, in which great provincial princes were often implicated. Thousands of letters of pardon recite, frequently in the graphic words of the guilty, the extent of innumerable individual acts of treachery towards the French crown. The use of spies and informers, coded and cryptic messages, poisoning, assassination, torture, bribery and blackmail, pre-arranged meetings with mysterious figures and also the invocation of intangible occult forces, sorcery, divination and black magic, to attain political ends, all these are integral to the most notorious cases of treachery.