bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Relations Between England and the Northern Powers, 1689–1697.: Part I.—Denmark
Authors: Lane M.
Published: March 2007

A notable feature of Baltic politics at the close of the seventeenth century was the rivalry of Sweden and Denmark, which had fought with each other during several centuries for supremacy, or even for existence. To the permanence and strength of this feeling, and its importance in the politics of the North, contemporary and modern authorities, the correspondence of Louis XIV and William III and their ministers, with Ranke, Bain, and the ‘Cambridge Modern History,’ equally bear witness. At this period, however, Denmark hankered after an alliance with Sweden, of course on her own terms. The explanation is that Denmark was a more purely Baltic Power than Sweden; If there had been peace in the Baltic, Denmark could have become powerful and wealthy; but her ministers, themselves wretchedly poor, were actuated by mercenary motives. Hence the dangerous policy of fleecing the merchants who passed the Oresund. Unfortunately, the refusal of Sweden to come to terms with her rival made it possible for the English and Dutch, especially the latter, to maintain a balance of power in the Baltic, and thus diminish Denmark's gains. Griffenfeld, who has been regarded as Denmark's greatest statesman, had seen how beneficial an alliance with Sweden, with the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp (whose efforts against Danish absorption were vigorously supported by Sweden) and France, the rival of the Sea Powers, would be to Denmark, provided she, and not Sweden, manipulated the policy of the league for her own benefit.
The Ballad History of the Reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII
Authors: Firth C. H.
Published: March 2007

Ballads are useful as a supplement to graver historical authorities, and throw a light upon the history of the past which we could not derive from other sources. It is generally not difficult to know what the great men of any day—the nobles, and statesmen, and men of letters—thought about the events which happened in their time. We have their letters, or their speeches, or their biographies; but it is difficult to know what the common people who formed the mass of the nation thought, and it is important to know this too. Here the ballads help us, because they were the literature of the populace, composed by men of the people for the people, reflecting popular feeling and helping to shape it. We may divide them roughly into three classes: firstly, there are the long narrative ballads which embody either traditional accounts of some past event or popular versions of some recent event, and show us what people believed to have happened; secondly, there is another class of ballads which express the feelings of the moment about the events of the day, and set forth the joy or sorrow of the people about something which was happening at the time. These are often satirical in their tone, and not easy to distinguish from the regular satirical poems of the period composed by professional writers.
The Two Sir John Fastolfs
Authors: Harcourt L. W. Vernon
Published: March 2007

It is now several years ago that Mr. James Gairdner wrote an essay on ‘The Historical Element in Shakespeare's Falstaff’ Since then many have ventured to gather where lie has strawed; only last year, for example, the public were presented with ‘The Case of Sir John Fastolf,’ by Mr. Duthie. I mention this instance because Mr. Gairdner himself reviewed the book, and therefore if he had by any chance changed his opinions, there was an opportunity for stating the fact, of which he would doubtless have availed himself. We may consequently assume that the views of the two recognised authorities on Falstaff remain unchanged. The other authority is of course the late Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, who penned a monograph on this subject.
The Reign of Henry III. Some Suggestions
Authors: Jacob E. F.
Published: March 2007

It is now nearly twenty years since Mr. G. J. Turner gave to the Royal Historical Society the second of those two papers that did much to change current ideas about the minority of Henry III. Due recognition was here at last given to the protective care of the Church for the kingdom of its infant ward, and the difficulties experienced by the Council in dealing with John's war-inured sheriffs and castellans were for the first time sympathetically examined in the light of record evidence. But the papers were notable in that they were the first serious English attempt to bring criticism to bear upon the St. Albans chronicler, Roger of Wendover, and his greater editor and successor, Matthew Paris. I say English, because in 1897 there had appeared the interesting and too little known dissertation of Dr. Hans Plehn upon the second of these writers, analysing with care and acumen the political sympathies of Paris, and anticipating some of the remarks made by the late Master of Balliol in his Ford Lectures. Mr. Turner's examination fixed chiefly upon the not always justifiable partiality of the St. Albans writers for Hubert de Burgh, and the foundations were now laid for Miss Norgate to continue, not long afterwards, this critical line in regard to the hero of the St. Albans' scriptorium.
The Development of the Study of Seventeenth-Century History
Authors: Firth C. H.
Published: March 2007

My purpose is to trace the development of the study of one particular century in our national history, to show how the knowledge we now possess of it was acquired; how gradually the darkness which overhung the time was dissipated and the truth part by part revealed, and finally by what hands this work was achieved; and by what general causes its progress was promoted or retarded.
Castlereagh's Instructions for the Conferences at Vienna, 1822
Authors: Green J. E. S.
Published: March 2007

No one in these days will be disposed to deny that Castle-reagh has not invariably encountered that fair play at the hands of historians to which a long record of devoted service should entitle him. It is the purpose of the present paper to contribute a discussion upon the original instructions drawn up for the use of the British minister at the meeting of the Allies in 1822, in so far as these instructions bear on the relations between France and Spain; to show that an examination of the premises upon which the conclusions drawn from those instructions are based must render those conclusions fallacious; and to exhibit this view in connexion with certain events.
Manuscripts at Oxford Relating to the Later Tudors, 1547–1603
Authors: Routledge F. J.
Published: March 2007

Though the materials for the reigns of Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth are very completely known, occasional sidelights may be thrown on this period from minor sources which have hitherto escaped notice. At Oxford, for example, there is a large number of manuscripts which have been little used. It is the object of this paper to give some indication as to their nature and relative importance. An exhaustive account is here impossible. As a rule the manuscripts described are inedited, but references to exceptions are given in the footnotes. At the outset, it must be confessed that the new information disclosed is neither large nor of great intrinsic value, yet nothing which will add to the primary sources of a period is unworthy of notice.
The English Establishments on the Gold Coast in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century
Authors: Martin Eveline C.
Published: March 2007

Among the many unexplored fields in the history of the Outer Empire, the British settlements on the West African coast, until the last twenty years of the eighteenth century, have been the most neglected. The main course of English relations with that coast from earliest times to the end of the nineteenth century has been told in an admirable survey by Sir Charles Lucas, and several histories of the Gold Coast exist. None of these sources, however, have provided more than an outline sketch of the English settlements in West Africa, and the method of government and organisation by which they were maintained in the eighteenth century has not been examined. The most recent history of the Gold Coast, published in 1910 by Mr. Walton Claridge, is mainly occupied with nineteenth-century history, and no attempt is made by him to give anything but a cursory description of government in the previous century. Many other surveys of European progress in Africa have been written, but in all of them the treatment of the eighteenth century is slight. It is easy to account for this neglect. The story of the coast is bound up with the most discreditable of undertakings that mark the expansion of the Empire—the negro slave [trade—and Lecky's brief account of the English relations with West Africa would not encourage research into a subject so humiliating to national pride.
Archbishop Wulfstan, Homilist and Statesman
Authors: Whitelock D.
Published: March 2007

When Wulfstan II, archbishop of York from 1002 and bishop of Worcester from 1002 to 1016, alias Lupus episcopus, died at York on 28 May 1023, his body was taken for burial to the monastery of Ely, in accordance with his wishes. From the twelfth-century historian of this abbey we get the only mediaeval account of the prelate, a brief, and in some respects unreliable, account. Among other things, it states that miracles were worked at his tomb, but there is no hint elsewhere that Wulfstan had any special claims to sanctity. There was certainly never any question of canonisation; hence there was little motive for the writing of his life by his contemporaries or successors. When we consider how little we should know of the activities of Dunstan or Oswold if we had been denied the contemporary lives of these saints, it is perhaps not remarkable that political historians of the period refer to Wulfstan, if at all, merely as the author of a sermon, the famous Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, revealing contemporary conditions in England, or as the consecrator of Cnut's church at Ashingdon. Even in ecclesiastical histories Wulfstan is given no prominent place. Some mention his appointment to York, some his refoundation of St. Peter's at Gloucester and his consecration of Ashingdon, none, except recently Professor Darlington, who calls him an ardent reformer, suggest that he had any influence on the Anglo-Saxon church of his time or later.
Some Aspects of Dynastic Policy in the Balkans
Authors: Seton-Watson R. W.
Published: March 2007

It was not until the very turn of the 18th and 19th centuries that the first faint signs of recuperation began to show themselves among the subject populations of the Balkan peninsula, and by that time a more than usually rigorous form of foreiga conquest seemed to have permanently imposed itself. And indeed, as we look back over the period of a century and a half in which the rebirth of the submerged nations has taken place, there is still little or nothing to explain the almost miraculous character of the change.
The Later History and Administration of the Customs Revenue in England (1671–1814)
Authors: Leftwich B. R.
Published: March 2007

I have chosen the dates covered by the title of this paper for two reasons which seem to me to be cogent. The earlier History of the British Customs has been dealt with already in considerable detail by Dr. Hall himself in his authoritative work on the subject, but he will be the first to admit that in his work the later developments are hardly more than touched upon and in addition there is the important work of Professor N. S. B. Gras on the subject, which, though some of his conclusions may be re-considered, yet contains a fund of information, and from these and the State Papers it may be possible at some future date to solve the remaining problems on this aspect of the Revenue.
Presidential Address: The Historical Bearing of Place-Name Studies; England in the Sixth Century
Authors: Stenton F. M.
Published: March 2007

During the last twenty years, the study of English place names has placed a large body of new evidence at the service of those who are interested in the earliest phases of Anglo-Saxon history. It may at once be admitted that the study has sometimes shown its vitality by becoming controversial, and that much of the evidence may be interpreted in more than one way. It is gradually becoming clear that when all the available material has been collected and discussed, there will remain a very large number of place-names of which no conclusive interpretation is ever likely to be given.
The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance
Authors: Prestage Edgar
Published: March 2007

The existing alliance between England and Portugal is usually said to date from the Treaty of Windsor of 9 May, 1386, celebrated between our Richard II and John I, or even from that of 16 June, 1373, between our Edward III and Ferdinand and to be the most enduring pact between two countries, but as it was in abeyance from 1580 to 1640, if not earlier, during the reign of Elizabeth and suffered a brief interruption in the time of Cromwell, the former statement seems to need qualification. Long before these conventions, however, perennial trading and intermittent political relations existed and they followed on a common brotherhood in arms arising out of an incident in the Crusades.
Presidential Address: English Families and the Norman Conquest
Authors: Stenton F. M.
Published: March 2007

There can be no question that the redistribution of land after the Norman Conquest amounted to a tenurial revolution of the most far-reaching kind. It affected the lower classes of society less than their superiors. The Normans possessed no clear-cut system of manorial economy which could be applied as a whole to a conquered country. The later history of England proves that no attempt was ever made to apply a uniform method of estate-management to the various forms assumed by English rural life. The social differences between Anglo-Danish and Anglo-Saxon England were as strongly marked in 1150 as in 1066. But it is equally clear that the Conquest had come to the higher orders of English society as a catastrophe from which they never fully recovered. It was completed within twenty years from the landing of Duke William, and Domesday Book, which is its record, gives conclusive evidence of its intensity and range. In 1086, although many Englishmen were still in possession of considerable estates, it was the rarest of exceptions for an Englishman to hold a position which entitled him to political influence or gave him military power. Two Englishmen only, Thurkill of Arden and Colswein of Lincoln, held tenancies of the first order under the king himself. The English lords of 1086 are clearly survivals from a society which had been shattered by foreign conquest and their place in the new order which had superseded it was obviously insecure.
Some Developments in English Monastic Life, 1216–1336
Authors: Knowles Dom David
Published: March 2007

The history, as distinct from the antiquities, of English monastic life in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries has received far less attention than has the story of the earlier times or that of the Dissolution. The reasons for this neglect are not far to seek: it is enough to mention the lack of personalities of outstanding influence or sanctity and the absence of literary records at all comparable in number and interest to those of the Anglo-Norman or Angevin periods. As a result, the whole sweep of time between Magna Carta and the accession of Henry VIII is often treated in handbooks and essays as one long slow decline unrelieved by developments or changes of any kind.
Anglo-Russian Relations during the First English Revolution
Authors: Lubimenko Inna , Lres D. Ès
Published: March 2007

At a time when Anglo-Russian relations show a great difficulty in being re-established after the Russian revolution of 1917, it may be of special interest to look back to a very far past in English history, when England, after having fought for freedom under the leadership of Parliament against the Stuart despotism, had created by a bloody act a republic, which was taken by Protector Cromwell into his strong hands and existed for years, until death removed his grip. Then another Charles Stuart was restored to the throne which his father had left for the scaffold.
The Origins of Parliament
Authors: Richardson H. G.
Published: March 2007

The antiquities of the word parliament have not been neglected either by lexicographers or by constitutional historians. The latter usually mention Jordan Fantosme and various thirteenth-century chroniclers; while the articles parlamentum in the Glossarium of Ducange and parlement in Godefroi's Dictionary are instructive although meagre in their references to record sources. But after he had studied all the references of historians and dictionary-makers, the enquirer might well be puzzled to know why certain sessions of the English king's court should in particular be called parliaments by the royal clerks. We may, however, get some way towards a plausible explanation by filling in a few of the gaps in the chain of references. For a full explanation we need to look at the working of parliamentary institutions; but that is a further step.
Presidential Address: The Impeachments of 1376
Authors: Plucknett T. F. T.
Published: March 2007

Nearly ten years ago I ventured to lay before you some speculations upon the origin of impeachment, and to suggest that the classical view of its nature was not a sure guide to its historical origins. In its developed form it could be reasonably described as a trial by the lords of a person whom the commons had indicted (or nearly so) of high crimes and misdemeanours. Thus linked up with the age-old criminal procedure of the common law, the parliamentary impeachment could cast a decent veil of legality over the political realities which too often disgraced it, and could pose before the world in the reassuring robes of justice.
Petitions for Benefices from English Universities during the Great Schism
Authors: Jacob E. F.
Published: March 2007

Few topics in ecclesiastical history have demanded so much revision and revaluation as the papal collation of benefices. Earlier generations of historians, even if they treated with reserve the criticism of provisions voiced by Matthew Paris, nevertheless regarded the successive general reservations from 1265 to 1362 as a glaring invasion of the rights of ordinary collators: juris ordinariorum locorum usurpacio, as Dietrich of Niem called them in 1410. Papal provisions of whatsoever category were represented as acts of administrative intervention which aroused national feeling, especially in this country, to statutory counter-measures; as an abuse, not only because they introduced the non-resident alien into the English dioceses, but also because they diverted the normally resident incumbent from his cure in order to defend his title at the Court of Rome.
Presidential Address: The Historical Bearing of Place-Name Studies: The English Occupation of Southern Britain
Authors: Stenton F. M.
Published: March 2007

There are three main questions relating to the first phase of English history on which the evidence supplied by place-names may be expected to throw a faint ray of light. On the first of them—the fate of the native inhabitants of southern Britain—I offered a few suggestions to the Society in my presidential address last year. I propose this evening to confine myself to place-names of English origin, and to consider them in relation to the two fundamental problems which remain—the credibility of Bede's analysis of the English peoples, and the general chronology of the English conquest.
The Lincoln Diocesan Records
Authors: Major Kathleen
Published: March 2007

The Lincoln diocesan records have long been well known to historians both for their great bulk and importance and for their accessibility. Before the Reformation the diocese covered eight and a half counties; even in 1541 it lost only Northampton, Rutland and Oxford, with the result that it was divided into completely separate portions, Lincolnshire and Leicester in the north, Buckingham, Bedford, Huntingdon and part of Hertfordshire in the south. Its size alone will account for the vastness of the collection. That the muniments are accessible is due to the work of the late Canon Foster, in recognition of which the Pilgrim Trust established the present record office, as the result of a request for assistance by the bishop of Lincoln. In this Society the work of Canon Foster is so famous as to make any comment on it by me superfluous, if not impertinent, but it would be impossible to speak of the records without reference to him. For my own part, I regard it as my chief privilege to attempt to carry on his work: to try to continue on the lines laid down by him is in itself a liberal education in the care and use of manuscripts.
Some Factors in the Beginnings of Parliament
Authors: Jolliffe J. E. A.
Published: March 2007

I must begin this paper by disclaiming any intention of entering into the detail of parliamentary procedure, a matter with which I am not qualified to deal. It has, however, occurred to me that certain changes in the administration of law, changes which begin early in the reign of Henry III, have some relevance to the origin of parliamentary jurisdiction. These changes arise from a new and more severe attitude on the part of the Crown towards franchise, and make necessary important modifications in the exchequer's methods of dealing with it. In time, I think, the many disputes between the Crown and the magnates about privilege, debt, and so forth, gave rise to a volume of petitions and subsequent trials which called for some tribunal in the nature of parliament, and these trials found a nucleus about the exchequer and the council. That is my thesis, and it is with these legal changes and their reaction upon the constitution that I propose to deal. The greater part of this paper is, therefore, concerned with the period before direct parliamentary record, and, indeed, before there is any true court of parliament. It goes very little beyond matters of law, and, if I am forced here and there to refer to the structure and procedure of parliament in later days, I do so very much subject to correction. Even for the early period with which I am concerned, I cannot attempt to assess the importance of that part of parliament which came from the commune consilium of the realm.
Richard De Bury (1287—1345)
Authors: Denholm N.
Published: March 2007

This résumé of some of the problems connected with the life of Richard de Bury is complementary to three noteworthy articles by Father Ghellinck in theRévue d'Histoire Ecclésiastiquefor 1922-3, in which he used thePhilobiblonand an abundance of other literary and record sources to place the Bishop in his setting as the greatest bibliophile of medieval Europe. That admirable contribution to the history of literature and manuscripts still leaves room, however, for some remarks on the history of Bury's life, as civil servant, diplomat, and patron of letters; and this will involve a discussion of hisLiber Epistolaris.
The Study and Use of Archdeacons' Court Records: Illustrated From the Oxford Records (1566–1759)
Authors: Brinkworth E. R.
Published: March 2007

There can be no doubt that the records of archdeacons' courts, and, indeed, of all ecclesiastical courts, have been very generally neglected by both custodians and students. This is evident from the comparatively small amount of work that has appeared based upon records of this sort: only rarely are they drawn upon for evidence. And but an infinitesimal fraction of what is known to exist has ever been published in any form. In short, the field is almost untouched.
Presidential Address: Early English History, 1895–1920
Authors: Stenton F. M.
Published: March 2007

There is always an artificial character about the anniversary of a publication. However original a book or article may be, it never appears out of a void. If its subject is history, it is bound to reflect conclusions reached through previous research, and ideas which are the common property of scholars. It is in a sense the product of its time, and the moment of its appearance is an accident. But for all this, a series of publicationdates provides a rough index to the course of historical inquiry, and it becomes of more than bibliographical interest when it shows a number of independent but related lines of research brought to their conclusion within a single year. It is, no doubt, easy to exaggerate the significance of such dates, but the end of one set of investigations is commonly the beginning of another, and each of these fortunate years is in fact a cardinal point in the chronology of historical writing. By those whose interests lie in early English history it should certainly be reckoned a fortunate year which produced, exactly half a century ago, The Crawford Collection of early Charters and Documents edited by A. S. Napier and W. H. Stevenson, The History of English Law by F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, and Feudal England by J. H. Round.
Industrial Organisation and Economic Progress in the Eighteenth-Century Midlands
Authors: Court W. H. B.
Published: March 2007

British intustry is so wide and varied that there will always be danger of narrowness in studying it in the form of regional history. Local patriotism and the antiquarian spirit judge many details interesting which no one unfamiliar with the district can by any stretch of the imagination find instructive or profitable. Besides, the causes of economic progress or decay, which are, or ought to be, the main object of investigations of this sort, cannot be pieced out wholly from the experience of anyone part of the country or any particular industry or group of industries. The most that can reasonably be hoped is that the history of the district chosen will bring into relief some special angle of the general economic problem.
Some Aspects of The Recent History of American Historiography
Authors: Bellot H. Hale
Published: March 2007

My title is already long. Yet it does not say all that it should. My proper subject is certain aspects of the writing of American history in the United States during the last three-quarters of a century. But in order to deal with that I must say much that applies with equal force to American historiography at large during that period. In so doing, I run the risk of leaving, a false impression. There is a danger that I may suggest that the events of the earlier years, where I am speaking of what is more general, had issue in the later in something much narrower than was in fact the case. But that which I leave out will be much more familiar to my audience than it is to me; and it may be sufficient if I say that when I turn away from the general subject of the writing of history in the United States to the more particular one of the writing of American history, I do so not unaware, and trusting my audience to be much more fully aware, of the parallel cultivation by American historians of other fields of historical investigation.
Lord Burghley as Master of the Court of Wards, 1561–98
Authors: Hurstfield J.
Published: March 2007

A feature of English social life in the sixteenth century which aroused the curiosity of foreigners and the bitterness of Englishmen was the royal right of wardship and marriage. Since 1540 this right had been safeguarded with the full apparatus of a specially constituted court of law under the direction of a high official as its master and judge. Twenty years after the creation of the Court of Wards and Liveries, William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, became its master; and he held that office from January 1561 until his death in August 1598, a period of more than thirty-seven years. The court itself remained in existence, in spite of an increasing volume of criticism, until the Civil War, when it was formally abolished by the Long Parliament in 1646. Thus, for more than a third of its existence of 106 years Burghley was its master; and since, after an interregnum of nine months, he was succeeded by his son Robert, the Cecil family in effect controlled its destinies for more than half a century. In the process they, and the court they directed, left their mark upon the society and economy of their age.
Currency Manipulation in the Middle Ages: The Case of Louis de Male, Count of Flanders
Authors: Werveke H. Van
Published: March 2007

It is well known that, in contrast to the nineteenth century, the Middle Ages, and especially the later Middle Ages, suffered from great coinage instability. Now that we, in our turn, are confronted with identical difficulties, some historians would explain the currency manipulations of the Middle Ages by motives of the same kind as those that have inspired some devaluations in the twentieth century. They ask themselves if perhaps the princes of that time were not trying, as some modern governments have tried, to influence economic life and in particular to stimulate international commerce by devaluation of the currency.
Wilkins's Concilia and the Fifteenth Century
Authors: Jacob E. F.
Published: March 2007

Hearne greatly disliked Wilkins. His diaries have many severe reflections upon the Prussian upholder of the dynasty he hated; to him ‘that rascal David Wilkins’, vain, mercenary and pushing, was the type of industrious pedant with little judgment who would edit and publish anything that he found remunerative, and spoil good material in the process. This waspish temper, that at times vents itself in scandalous comments on Wilkins's private life, may have partly resulted from the fact that Wilkins took up two enterprises with which Hearne had been in some degree concerned: a second edition of Humphrey Prideaux's Marmora Oxoniensia (which he never carried out, the work being ultimately entrusted to Michael Mattaire and published by him in 1732), and a new edition of Spelman's Concilia, ‘ the Councils’, as Hearne always called them. The antiquary had been anxious to do both. He curtly refused help to Wilkins over the Marmora, and in regard to the Councils he tells us that Atterbury had originally proposed the editing of Spelman to himself, “ but it was after my retirement upon account of the oaths; and so I thought fit to decline and waive it “. Naturally he was still interested in the project, and rather apprehensive about it after the way in which Wilkins had edited Selden's works (1726). ‘This vile editor ‘was his comment then, and he acidly notes that Wilkins had been working upon the Concilia at a much earlier date, but had been ‘put by ‘by the Archbishop in favour of some other man.
Edmund Dudley: Minister of Henry VII
Authors: Brodie D. M.
Published: March 2007

To the historian of the late fifteenth century interest is centred on the transitional character of the times. Throughout Europe medieval thought and institutions were decaying. The dream of Christendom was fading, and the development of non-moral national states was quickened by the policy of despotic rulers in many countries. Medieval “liberties“ appeared only as bars in the path of progress, and in most countries fell before the new centralized administrations. Economic changes spread more rapidly and defeated that apparent inertia which had afflicted the countryside during the rule of the feudal baron. New conditions meant an age of distress and turbulence, and new opportunities meant the rise of strong, vigorous personalities who were left without authoritative guidance to work out their country's salvation. Of such were Henry VII and his council of the “ablest men that were to be found”. They were typical examples of the age; men brought up with medieval traditions, using medieval forms, yet treating many problems in an independent spirit, cautiously feeling their way to a development that is only clear at the close of the sixteenth century when the modern state had been almost created. Of the importance of this formative period there can be no doubt, but not much can be learnt about the men who guided England at this very critical time, for they have left only scattered and often but fragmentary records behind them. For the sake of the light that theTree of Commonwealththrows on the views that Edmund Dudley must have shared with his colleagues, as well as for its own original and lively expression of opinion on many political and social questions, the work and its author seem to deserve more serious consideration than they have yet received.
Queen Elizabeth and the Siege of Rouen, 1591
Authors: Wernham R. B.
Published: March 2007

The foreign policy of England from 1589 until 1595 was dominated by the fear that Spain would take advantage of the French civil wars and the friendship of the Catholic League to secure control of the Channel coast from Brest to Calais. How dangerous this would be to England, we may easily judge from the fact that, years earlier, Menendez had seen in the establishment of a Spanish naval base at the Scilly Isles a means at once of crippling English sea-power and commerce and of rendering easy an invasion of the country. Indeed, the least to be feared should the French ports fall into Spanish hands would be, as the veteran English captain Sir Roger Williams said, that “then must we at the least keep garrisons in all our port towns and send our ships royal in good numbers always to convoy our merchants.” The danger was most acute between 1590 and 1592, when the invasions of France by Parma from the east and the presence of a Spanish army in Brittany to the westward confronted English statesmen with a peculiarly difficult and complex problem. It was this problem that the expedition to Rouen in 1591 was intended to solve.
Presidential Address
Authors: Tout T. F.
Published: March 2007

When I last had the honour to address this Society, I was on the point of starting for a tour in America. During some eight months I traversed the United States from sea to sea, from Boston to Virginia and from New York to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, finishing up in Canada, which I crossed from Victoria and Vancouver to Quebec and Montreal. I visited many universities and colleges and lectured at some thirty of them. I inspected numerous libraries and had speech with many score of historians. There was much that was. wonderful and strange to see and hear, but it was seldom that I could realise that it was a foreign country. If Quebec seemed a city of a France that had known no Revolution, and Santa Fe took one back to a small Spanish city with an intrusive Anglo-American element, the common tongue was a great link between the wanderer and his new friends, and he was never more bucked up than when he was assured by a leading newspaper of no mean city that, despite his strong English accent, his public orations were nearly always easily intelligible!
The Transformation of the Keepers of the Peace into the Justices of the Peace 1327–1380
Authors: Putnam Bertha Haven
Published: March 2007

For an adequate understanding of the significance of the “keepers” and the “justices” of the peace, precise answers are needed to several questions. How frequent were breaches of the peace and crimes of violence in the reign of Edward III? Was the situation worse than in the reign of his father or than in the time of the Paston Letters? The orthodox view of the universal prevalence of violence, long ago vividly presented by the late L. Owen Pike, has been recently challenged in an article on the internal commerce of fourteenth-century England. Professor Willard's conclusion, based largely on transportation records, is that the “danger of the morrow's journey need not disturb the rest of travellers in an inn” and that “the transportation of goods (other than money) was to a high degree free from danger.” The material used by Pike, and other similar material, certainly afford arguments against so optimistic a theory. The speeches and petitions in parliament and the language of the commissions of Trailbaston, of oyer and terminer, and of the peace, imply persistent attacks on travellers, especially when going to fairs and markets, and innumerable instances of highway robbery, mayhem and homicide. Nor does the language seem exaggerated as one examines the records of courts and the cases appearing on Close and Patent Rolls. Without a quantitative analysis of all possible evidence, it is difficult to ascertain the truth as between these two conflicting opinions.
The Administration of the Diocese of Ely During the Vacancies of the See, 1298–9 and 1302–3
Authors: Graham Rose
Published: March 2007

William ofLouth, Bishop of Ely, died on 25 March, 1298, and was buried on the south side of the choir of the cathedral church between two pillars near the high altar, on the spot on which a magnificent altar tomb under a canopy was set up in his memory. After the funeral, as was the custom, the prior and monks assembled in the chapter-house and chose proctors to carry the news of the bishop's death to Edward I and to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The Imprisonment of Lord Danby in the Tower, 1679–1684
Authors: Evans A. M.
Published: March 2007

There are few statesmen in English history who have been so completely the victim of their circumstances as Thomas Osborne, Lord Danby. He was Lord High Treasurer of England 1673–1679, an office which combined those of the Modern Chancellor of the Exchequer and Minister of Foreign Affairs, as well as that of the Chief Executive Officer of the Realm. In all these duties Lord Danby displayed conspicuous ability, and attained considerable success. He was certainly one of the most able financiers of those times. He entered office just after the responsible government of the day had repudiated its national obligation to its creditors, and declared a “Stop of the Exchequer.” Trade was almost stagnant; every channel of revenue was drained at its source by Royal gifts and pensions; the financial ability of the Government was thoroughly discredited in commercial circles; the ordinary revenue of the country was inadequate to meet its needs. Yet out of this chaotic and insolvent condition Danby produced order, solvency, credit and prestige in the commercial world. His work in the Treasury would bear comparison with the ablest of the Chancellors of the Exchequer of England.
Presidential Address
Authors: Powicke F. M.
Published: March 2007

The literature about the medieval state is enormous. Many very distinguished scholars, especially in Germany, have given their ripest thought to the problems which the word “state” suggests when it is applied to medieval society. In recent years several manful efforts have been made to extricate the subject from the trammels of law and philosophy. In Germany, for example, Georg von Below, Fritz Kern and, latest of all, Heinrich Mitteis, have, each in his own way, tried to deal with it as earlier writers, like Waitz, Ranke and Ficker, dealt with it. They have approached it from a political or social or economic point of view, and have made themselves independent, so far as they could, of the categories of the jurists and the generalisations suggested by a study of medieval political thought. Even these exceptional men have not found it easy to avoid categories of their own.
The Diplomacy of Dr. John Robinson at the Court of Charles XII of Sweden, 1697–1709
Authors: Milne June
Published: March 2007

IT is not possible to study the diplomacy of the war of the Spanish Succession without taking into account the Northern war which threatened in 1707 to upset the whole strategy of the Grand Allies. Ever since the formation of the League of Augsburg France had tried to win Sweden to her side, and the apparent military genius of Charles XII made her an even more desirable ally. Sweden might have seen much to recommend such an alliance, particularly in 1707 when Swedish disputes with the Empire took on a new importance, and when the prestige of the Grand Allies had suffered by the defeat at Almanza and the failure of the Toulon expedition. But this turning-point in the Spanish Succession war came and passed, Charles XII turned eastwards against Russia and disputes with the Empire ended in agreement. Never again were the two separate wars in danger of becoming one.
The Writers of Tudor Yorkshire
Authors: Dickens A. G.
Published: March 2007

The title of my paper may well seem to threaten a mere essay in local antiquarianism, yet I shall have failed to achieve my main purpose should nothing more than this emerge. The purpose at least does not lack ambition, since I seek to outline a fresh scheme of attack upon some important and neglected problems of Tudor social history. No one would dispute our need to know more of the nation's mental interests, of the dissemination of ideas, of Tudor culture within its social setting, than may be gleaned from the histories of English literature. Of their nature, such works afford relatively little provender to the social historian. From the many hundreds of Tudor writers, they must select meagre samples upon an aesthetic basis, whereas to the historian the great mass of mediocre literature reveals more than do the few works of genius. Knowing the ordinary Elizabethans, one finds ‘the Age of Shakespeare’ among the more misleading of labels. Again, the literary observers tend to unbalance a period by concentrating upon its forward-looking as opposed to its declining elements. For similar reasons, their attentions stray too seldom from the letters of the metropolis and hence must underweight that majority of literate Englishmen who read and wrote in the provinces. Yet from our viewpoint, the most serious of all their limitations is their tendency to focus too narrowly upon vernacular literature. For the historian of ideas, the very concept ‘English literature’ represents a most violent abstraction from an age when so many readers and writers still operated in the Latin language.
Some Trends in Scholarship, 1868–1968, in the field of Medieval History
Authors: Knowles M. D.
Published: March 2007

Although the formation of our Society was not directly due to movements in the academic world, it did in fact take place shortly before a new epoch opened in English historiography. In 1868 the study of history as an academic discipline was non-existent in England save as part of a classical education. In that field those who seriously attempted to portray the ancient civilization were controlled by an austere literary tradition, and by the excellence and relatively small bulk of their sources. In addition to this, the work of the great Germans from Niebuhr to Mommsen penetrated to England long before Ranke and his seminar, or the early Monumentists, were known and imitated at Oxford and Cambridge. Consequently, the classical historians such as Thirlwall, Grote, Arnold and Finlay were far more sober, critical and quellenmässig than their contemporaries in English history. But they had no direct influence on historians in other fields or on academic practice, and they were all in a sense amateurs: Thirlwall was a bishop, Grote a banker, Finlay a man of private means and Arnold primarily a headmaster. In other fields of history the four principal names—and admittedly very great names—are of men who wrote either all or at least a principal part of their works as individuals at home and without academic position
Some Trends in Scholarship 1868–1968, in the field of Modern History
Authors: Butterfield Herbert
Published: March 2007

Because of paradoxes which lie in the very nature of historical knowledge, our branch of scholarship was two centuries late in accomplishing the equivalent of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. Only in the nineteenth century was it possible to establish, and to put into general practice, those techniques of discovery and verification which enable the student really to feel his feet. And only after this could the subject itself take the leap into that course of ever-accelerating development which the scientist had achieved at an earlier date. In the 1850's the young Acton was entranced by the tremendous awakening of the historical consciousness that had occurred in Germany. He was exultant because history had come to preside over so many branches of thought and activity. But the experience that really changed his outlook, and was to hold the prior place in his memory, was a later one—the result of that wider opening of the archives which took place in the region of the year 1860. This was the key that seemed to unlock the last drawer, making men feel that, now at last, they could really get down to the study of history. We may wonder whether anybody will ever again have quite the exhilaration of those who had the run of the newlyopened archives. A quick hunt through the papers would at least give them a story to tell, and they might hope soon to expose the things which governments or churches had managed to hide in days when significant secrets could be kept.
John of Ford and English Cistercian Writing 1167–1214
Authors: Holdsworth C. J.
Published: March 2007

Cistercian writing produced in the half-century after the death of Ailred of Rievaulx seems in comparison with that of the earlier generation unattractive and undistinguished. This impression is, however, largely caused by the lack of any one figure comparable with the abbot of Rievaulx who might arrest our attention and then stimulate an appreciation of the whole scene. In addition, the brightness coming from that great light, to adopt a figure from Walter Daniel, has almost effaced the memory of those lesser lights who came after him. Yet it must be confessed at the outset that by literary standards little of their work is distinguished. None of it, however, is devoid of interest for the historian. It comes from a period whose course is difficult to trace, and besides helping us to understand better the order's intellectual and spiritual life, it shows us some of the connexions between this and Cistercian prosperity.
Florence and the Despots Some Aspects of Florentine Diplomacy in the Fourteenth Century
Authors: Rubinstein N.
Published: March 2007

During the fourteenth century, Florence was one of the main centres of the republican regime in Italy, and the Florentines were increasingly aware of this position in a country which had come to a large extent under the sway of the Signoria. Florence herself had, on two occasions during the first half of the century, direct experience of the new regime: in a moderate form during the rule of the duke of Calabria (1325–8), and in its full strength during the short-lived Signoria of the duke of Athens (1342–3). The reaction in favour of the traditional communal form of government had been vigorous in both cases, but particularly so after the expulsion of the duke of Athens. The shock which the Florentines received from the events of 1342–3 helped to strengthen their loyalty to their traditional institutions and liberties for a long time to come.
Edward III and the Beginnings of the Hundred Years War
Authors: Templeman G.
Published: March 2007

Historians have long been concerned with the circumstances in which the Hundred Years War began, and their interest shows no sign of slackening. During the present century not a little has been added to our knowledge of the matter through the labours of scholars in this country, in the United States and on the continent. This means that by now a formidable array of evidence bearing on the subject has been brought to light, while numerous books and articles, packed with comment and explanation, lie ready to hand. It is true that important sources still remain unprinted, although not unused, but the scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made available most of the chronicles and some of the records, while more documents have steadily found their way into print during the last fifty years