Durham University History Society Journal 2012, Volume 5.

DURHAM UNIVERSITY HISTORY SOCIETY JOURNAL

VOLUME F I V E 2012

EDITORIAL TEAM Joel Butler (chief editor) Claire Bonello Danica Caddy Will Clement Bryan Gillingham Katherine Horrocks Lucy James Holly Rowe Sabine Schneider Nicole Stirk Joanna Vivian

2 CONTENTS

Editor’s Introduction Joel Butler

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Foreword: Thirty-five Years of History at Durham – Reminisces of a Grey-Beard Professor David Rollason

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PART ONE Subject Articles The Archaeology of Death: medieval monastic and nonmonastic institutions Elizabeth Wheeler 14 The Fourth Crusade: the diversion to Constantinople Hywel Thomas

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Post-Medieval Monuments in their Context: form, iconography, location and meaning Abigail Taylor

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Circular Reasoning: understanding evkaf in early Ottoman society Joel Butler 51 London in the Creation of a British National Culture, 15001700 Bryan Gillingham 62 National Regeneration, Social Radicalism and the Reconceptualisation of Chinese Womanhood in Late Imperial China, 1890-1911 Sabine Schneider 69 Forests and Conflict: an analysis of Sierra Leonean forestry Andrew Mackenzie 84

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Discussion Articles Myth and History in the Aztec Historiography: the return of Quetzalcoatl Benjamin Priest 94

‘A nation gets the heroes and rôle models it deserves’ Rachael Merrison

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Liberating Class: identity and New Class theory Lucy James

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PART TWO ‘Presidential address’ Tom Trennery

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‘Out of the bubble, into the past’: Hadrian’s Wall and beyond…

Caitlin Johnson

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Lumley Castle Ball Ryan Cullen

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About the DUHS Exec, 2011/12

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About the authors

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Editor’s Introduction

By Joel Butler This year is a landmark for the Durham University History Society Journal: for the first time, it has been physically published! This isn’t the only development that the journal has undergone. Building on the good work of Matt Wright in the previous volume of two years ago, we have continued to move in the direction of academia; this edition contains a number of thought-provoking articles from some highly talented students of history and society. However, the journal also contains an overview of this year in the life of the society. We have a presidential address from the perpetually suave Tom Trennery, and some entertaining reports on the comings and goings of the past 12 months from our vice-president, Caitlin Johnson, and our secretary (and 2012/13 president-elect), Ryan Cullen.

This year we also have the immense pleasure and privilege of being able to include a foreword by Professor David Rollason. Current first and second years have missed out on the opportunity to get to know (and love) Prof. Rollason, due to his research commitments.

However, I can assure you that to have been part of his infamous ‘Birth of Western Society’ module was the most enthralling, amusing, and terrifying experience that any undergraduate historian could hope to encounter. I still have nightmares about Beowulf.

It is inevitable that any editor’s note will eventually descend into a string of acknowledgements. I’ve decided to get the most esoteric out of the way first.

To begin, I would like to thank Johannes Gutenburg, without whom, printing might be impossible. In the same vein, I’d like to thank Charles Babbage, Joseph Marie Jacquard, Alan Turing, Bill Gates and Acer Incorporated of Taiwan, as well as my parents and ancestors.

For services to my sanity – fragile as it may be – my thanks go to James Dix for his unfaltering sense of friendship and his unique blend of everything Bristolian with The Police, The Pixies, Cider, Red Stripe, and vodka. Also deserving of a special mention here are Liam Day and Andrew Pridding, who are without doubt the kindest and most perceptive people I have ever met. I would also

5 like to give a shout out to my boys, Kris Hall, Mark Tarrant, Oliver Theaker, and Richard Yu, who, along with Dix, have been a pleasure to live with over the past two years. You have made this house our home. I’d also like to thank all my partners in historical crime over the past few years, particularly Becky Atkins, Stu Drayton and Martin Rotheram, and Andy Burn, my college tutor at Hatfield.

For getting the DUHS Journal project off the ground, a number of people deserve recognition. Firstly, thanks to Dr. Christine Woodhead, who gave the original version of my article in this volume an obscenely high grade and agreed to serve as my longsuffering dissertation supervisor. Secondly, thanks to Dr. Julian Wright, who has been invaluable in his support as head of the history department, and thirdly, the department secretaries, without whom early publicity would have been impossible.

Particular thanks go to all of the contributing authors, without whom we would have no material to publish, and to the many volunteers of the editing and publishing team, who have worked extremely hard in pursuit of perfection. Special recognition must go to Danica Caddy, who edited each article in tremendous detail, and to Sabine Schneider, who was a great help and inspiration in setting up an editorial board. Bryan Gillingham set admirably about the mammoth task of compiling the articles. Either he or Sabine would have made a worthy editor in my place. Claire Bonello and Lucy James are also worthy of a special shout out, having balanced MA commitments with careful editing of every article I sent out.

Finally, I would like to thank someone who was – for a time – a very close friend of mine. She is the unfathomable – and often infuriating – woman who geed me up, buttered me up, greased me up, and beat me up until I agreed to run for the position of editor.

She convinced me that I was perfect for the position, proposed me to the society, and sat beaming like a proud parent through my election at the AGM. She’d rather remain anonymous, but I give her my thanks regardless. She’s also the author of my second favourite article in this volume.

With that, there’s not much else left other than to declare the DUHS Journal open for business! Best of luck to next year’s editors, Ivan Yuen and Madeleine Michie, who I’m sure will maintain our high standards, and I hope you enjoy this year’s offering.

Joel Butler, Durham, 2012

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Thirty-five Years of History at Durham: Reminiscences of a Grey-Beard

By David Rollason The editors of this excellent journal have invited me, the longest established member of the Durham University History Department, to write a few words about the department and its work. As I look over the last thirty-five years in and around 43 North Bailey, you will have to bear with me if, like the old man I am, I reminisce.

I was appointed to a lectureship in Durham in late August of 1977 (a senior colleague would afterwards remark that you only made rotten appointments so late in the academic year), and I came to this little northern city fresh from a thrilling research studentship in Paris, and with three years as a research student in the bustling metropolis of Birmingham University behind me before that. The university and the department had the same broad shape that they have now, but in many ways they were very different. The department occupied the present buildings, but it had many fewer members of staff and dramatically fewer students. The then head of department, a very great scholar called Hilary Seton Offler, knew them all personally, and more or less managed the affairs of the department from a couple of box-files in his room. There were very few postgraduates indeed – one in medieval Irish history, a few in Tudor history, and that was about all. Many of our lectures were given in the small rooms on Palace Green, and all the books we needed were in the rambling spaces of the Palace Green Library.

Most striking, however, was the difference in aspirations. Even then, of course, Durham saw itself as an attractive and high-quality university, but on the day after my interview I had a meeting with Professor Reg Ward, who had taken over from Professor Offler as head of department (there were only two professors in the department in those days). He was a globally renowned scholar, and continued to publish important work until his recent death, but he nevertheless assured me that Durham was ‘not really a centre of historical research’ and that I would need to go elsewhere if I wanted to pursue my own work. He made no secret of the fact that, when he received expressions of interest in postgraduate work at Durham, he would direct the enquirers to consider other universities, particularly Oxford and Cambridge. Durham was not

7 where the action was, and an ambitious young lecturer was expected soon to want to migrate to the dreaming spires of the older universities.

It is hard to imagine such attitudes being current today. With the introduction of the Research Assessment Exercises and now the Research Excellence Framework, under which the university’s funding depends in part on the quality of research published, and the research leadership undertaken, by its academic staff, the university’s enthusiasm for promoting and fostering internationally important research in arts and humanities as well as in science has grown exponentially. With that growth in enthusiasm has come an increase in facilities and opportunities. Research leave has been made more frequent, and there are new opportunities for obtaining funding for major research projects and fellowships (such as the one I now hold) from bodies such as the Arts and Humanities Research Council (which did not exist in 1977) and the Leverhulme Trust (which certainly did and had just funded my studentship in Paris). Research seminars and conferences are now commonplace, whereas they scarcely existed in 1977. The university library, always a serious institution because of its collections of manuscripts and early printed books, has increasingly moved forward, partly in terms of the books and periodicals it buys, but particularly in terms of its commitment to electronic resources. When I came to Durham, for example, it was scarcely possible to pursue art history because the periodicals were not in the library; now, I can bring a wealth of material to my desk without even having to search the shelves. Nor have the special collections of the university library been neglected; quite the contrary, with the re-development of the Palace Green Library they are increasingly focal to the university’s work. The History Department has played its part in this by appointing staff whose research and teaching can use the library’s holdings to the full, especially the manuscript collections there and in the Cathedral Library which so enrich the History of the Book programme, and the Sudan and African archives which provided the germ for the department’s launch of African history.

This blossoming of Durham history research has been achieved in a way which has included and not excluded students. I myself have always seen the department as a community of people engaged in the pursuit of history and historical research, some as undergraduates, some as postgraduates, some as academic staff, but all learning together and teaching each other. When the pattern of six modules a year was introduced in place of a pattern of four courses a year as it was in 1977, the department moved to a much more research-led programme of undergraduate teaching. In 1977,

8 I was detailed to teach outline English history, and I laboured over the Norman Conquest, and Henry II, and Magna Carta, and the Barons’ Wars – all very interesting subjects but far from my research. Now, I had the possibility to explore with students what really interested me and I thought would really interest them.

Virtually all my publications since then have come out of teaching students, enjoying the cut and thrust of seminars with them, and understanding their reactions to the published scholarship. Just as research should be a form of teaching, so teaching must be informed by research and be part and parcel of it.

For students, the opportunities to pursue their own research are much greater than they were in 1977, partly through the enlargement of special subjects and the introduction of the ‘Conversations in History’ module as a preparation for research, but above all in the introduction of student dissertations which did not exist in 1977. The amazing quality of many of those dissertations across the years is a tribute to their authors and to the driving force of their curiosity about history. The more we have asked of Durham students, the more they have achieved, and in many ways their dissertations have been the climax of that process at undergraduate level, just as the expansion of postgraduate opportunities has developed the process beyond that. There were no MA programmes in 1977, but they are now central to much of the department’s work, while the importance of the community of doctoral students, its achievements and its self-confidence, are amply demonstrated by its seminars, conferences, and publications.

The present circumstances, however, have their risks as well as their opportunities. Of course, we must justify the pursuit of history in terms that the public and especially the government understand – in terms that is of the employability of our students, our contribution to tourism and cultural industries, our ability to generate research income and fee-income, and so on. But none of those are anything like the real reasons we do history. We do it, or so I believe, because of a curiosity about the past which is part of human nature, a fascination with ideas about how society and culture work, a love of the evidence surviving from the past whether it is old manuscripts, letters, diaries, government papers, or (in my case at present) the glittering palaces of ancient kings, and perhaps above all a driving sense of exploration which is every bit as compelling as the sense of exploration of unknown parts of the world. We must all of us keep these central to our vision of what history is about, as nearly thirty-five ‘generations’ of Durham students have helped me myself to do, with their unquestioning commitment to the subject, their enthusiasm, their willingness to tramp with me over Roman remains, to peer into dark early

9 medieval crypts, to explore the shape of medieval cities, and above all in their willingness to work with me on even the most difficult of historical problems in the community of scholarship which has, as I have seen it, been the department’s mission to create.

Durham University History Society has unquestionably made a major contribution to that. It had been founded long before 1977, and it was inviting lecturers from outside Durham, as well as holding social events, especially screening of films, and the annual dinner. But the developments over the last thirty-five years have mirrored the developments in the department and the university, and often run ahead of them. The lecture programme is the envy of scholars from other universities, and Durham students have hosted and argued with the most distinguished representatives of historical scholarship. The series of DUHS conferences, which began with one focused on the assassination of President Kennedy and a discussion of the then recent film devoted to it, was a major step forward for a student society and for the department at large. The historical dramas performed by the Pageant sub-group of DUHS were another breakthrough, even if the then vice-chancellor was bothered about nudity in the group’s production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The annual dinner took on an historical dimension with the Lumley Castle medieval banquets. And the series of DUHS expeditions, beginning one desperately cold day in Northumberland when gales prevented the planned visit to the Farne Islands and the group huddled instead in the ruins of Warkworth Castle to ponder the nature of late medieval courtly living, have seen a long series of explorations of monuments across the north of England. The membership has grown, the activities have changed (the present journal a vivid indication of that), but the commitment, the excitement, and the engagement have continued unabated. Long may they do so.

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PART ONE

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Subject Articles

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The Archaeology of Death: medieval monastic and nonmonastic institutions

By Elizabeth Wheeler It is extremely difficult to define a concrete set of criteria with which to compare and contrast the archaeology of death in the context of medieval monastic institutions and that in non-monastic institutions, for a number of reasons. The first obstacle concerns the semantics of words: one would expect a monastic institution to be established according to the church, and to represent a strictly religious lifestyle as followed by monks and nuns. With this in mind, one would expect a non-monastic institution to be secular.

However, this is not so clearly the case. In medieval England, both monastic and non-monastic institutions were governed by the same theology: ‘spiritual profit-making’ as influenced by the formalisation 1 of Purgatory and the writings of the theologian, Augustine. The same messages concerning repentance, Purgatory, and the afterlife can be found in the physical enactment: visual, literary and oral performances that both types of institution employed.

Consequently, both types of institution constructed relationships between the living and the dead according to the same theology, making them difficult to separate from one another. Where they do differ is in relation to wealth and status. Monastic institutions are often found in towns and cities catering for the sick poor; the dead were interred in the cemetery used by the hospital and the rituals performed were simple and standardised due to the reliance on charity. In non-monastic institutions, however, death and burial were discussed and planned. The welfare of the soul was of great importance to the individual and so wills would be used to denote the carefully considered and specific funerary requirements, and would be directly funded by the individual. Therefore, the main difference that separates the monastic institution from the nonmonastic institution is wealth and intention as opposed to function and it is these themes that I intend to explore.

A monastic institution in the late medieval period can be broadly defined as a hospital, infirmary or almshouse, with the majority of these institutions founded by wealthy Christian benefactors, or 1

Augustine, The Confessions (trans. H. Chadwick, Oxford, 2008).

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monks and nuns in towns and cities. Monastic institutions served a dual purpose: first, to care for the sick poor, with the aim of purifying the body and soul to help transport the patient on the road to the afterlife. Second, to shed a positive light on the founder(s), so that this may secure a limited duration in Purgatory as they could be seen to fulfil their side of the relationship between 2 themselves and the dead. The majority of the evidence I have employed has been obtained from the following monastic institutions: St. Mary Spital, London; St. Giles’s Hospital, Norwich; and Westminster Abbey, London.

A non-monastic institution within the same period is usually found to be a parish church or ancestral graveyard. These institutions are typically found in the countryside and, despite differences in location to monastic institutions, they served many of the same ritualistic functions in order to fulfil their obligations to the dead.

The majority of evidence I have used to underpin my argument with concerns to the non-monastic institutions has been based upon All Saints, Bristol; the Diocese of Salisbury; and any surviving documentary evidence such as wills and priory records. First, I will discuss the similarities these institutions held with regard to theology.

The similarities that can be found in both monastic and nonmonastic institutions are concerned with their adherence to the same theology, which can be seen to have created and underpinned the ideology of each institution. Late medieval burial traditions experienced dramatic development from the early fourth and fifth centuries AD. The early burial liturgy of these centuries was a conglomeration of late Roman practice, traditional Pagan rites, and early Christian ideas, before becoming a standardised body of 3 beliefs. It is, therefore, not until the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries AD that we can begin to see a more standardised burial liturgy spreading throughout England. This burial liturgy was defined by Christian beliefs as it promoted the personal questioning of mortality, death and the afterlife, in order 4 to relate to Christ and His teachings about life and salvation.

W. White, ‘Excavations at St. Mary Spital: Burial of the ‘Sick Poore’ of Medieval London, the Evidence of Illness and Hospital Treatment’ in S. Bowers (ed.), The Medieval Hospital and Medical Practice (Aldershot, 2007), p. 59.

3 C. Daniell, Death and Burial in Medieval England: 1066-1550 (London, 1997), p. 30.

4 C. Burgess, ‘Longing to be Prayed For: Death and Commemoration in an English Parish in the later Middle Ages’ in B. Gordon & P. Marshall (eds.), The Place of the Dead: Death and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2000), p. 44.

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The catalyst to this cohesive body of beliefs can be found in the formalisation of the notion of Purgatory. This Christian concept forced the stark realisation of the consequences of mortality and the afterlife, with the acknowledgment that it came to all and that ‘you would be next’. Purgatory was a place that all would have to experience; one would suffer and endure the pains of Purgatory to expiate their sins and be judged. It sounds very similar to the Christian concept of Hell, however, there is one vital difference: everyone wanted to escape Purgatory, and unlike Hell, this could happen. The duration spent in Purgatory depended upon how you had conducted your life, whether you had repented your sins, and how the living conducted your death, through purification rituals, 5 Mass, and prayer. This notion had the consequence of placing death at the forefront of Christian salvation: promoting the creation of a mutually reliant relationship between the living and the dead. Therefore, this relationship was based on reciprocity whereby the living and the dead would help one another to prevent a lengthy stay in Purgatory; and this can be seen through visual, 6 literary and oral depictions.

The many visual, oral, and literary depictions found across medieval England illustrate two prominent features of the Christian theology concerning the beliefs surrounding death, these being the notions that death came to everybody and the importance of repentance as a means of salvation to avoid a lengthy duration in Purgatory. The acknowledgement of the universality of death can be seen in the 7 artistic and allegorical representations of ‘The Dance of Death’.

These representations imply that the acknowledgement of death as the eventual occurrence is what unites the living in spite of status, wealth and position held by the individual. This idea is purported by the popular oral story in which three living men come across three dead men whilst they are out on a hunt. The three dead men inform the living that ‘what you are, we were, and what we are, you 8 will be’ (Appendix One). In addition, many inscriptions, tomb imagery and documentary evidence from funeral sermons were established to remind the populace of their mortality, sins, and failures as humans through the Latin words memento mori, with the P. Binski, Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation (New York, 1996), p. 24.

B. Gordon & P. Marshall, ‘Placing the Dead in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe’ in B. Gordon & P. Marshall (eds.), The Place of the Dead: Death and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2000), p. 4.

7 Ibid., p. 15.

8 R. Horrox, ‘Purgatory, Prayer, and Plague: 1150-1380’ in C. Gittings & P. C. Jupp (eds.), Death in England: an Illustrated History (Manchester, 1999), p. 93.

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direct translation being to be ‘mindful of death’ (Appendix Two).

From the many diverse mediums these messages were conveyed through, there is the implication that they were intended for the entire populace to acknowledge and understand since they catered for all levels of society.

The notion that death could not be escaped went hand in hand with the understanding that to avoid a ‘bad death’ and a lengthy duration in Purgatory, repentance was the means of salvation and 10 deliverance to purity. These ideas are conveyed through visual, oral, and literary representations, but can be also found in the physical enactment of rituals. The necessity of repentance and the implications of the failure to do so are encapsulated in the lines ‘All 11 too late, all too late/when the bier is as the gate’ (Appendix Two).

Furthermore, ‘Angel Coins’ have been recovered with the inscription: ‘Through your cross, save us, Christ. Redeemer’ 12 (Appendix Three). This implies the need to live every day as your last: living a virtuous and moral life according to the teachings of Christ because it is these teachings that will save you.

The medieval Christian theology, therefore, produced the eschatological path for the populace to follow, but also showed the consequences of what would happen if you did not endeavour along this path in the corporeal realm as well as the spiritual realm.

It was this message of the failure to repent and lead a just and moral life that affected the physical enactment of rituals to save the souls of the dead. First, disease and physical afflictions were viewed as punishments of God and would directly affect the journey through the afterlife as ‘an unhealthy soul, troubled with nagging sores, unhealed injuries and the pernicious infection of sin would 13 find the journey to heavenly bliss difficult, if not impossible’. This caused both monastic and non-monastic institutions to perform rituals that were concerned with purification. As the body and the soul were inextricably linked, the first logical step taken was to purify the body to aid the purification of the soul. Consequently, the treatment of the body included anointment, washing, cleansing, 14 and the covering in a shroud (Appendix Four). This treatment of Gordon & Marshall, ‘Placing the Dead’, p. 15.

Horrox, ‘Purgatory, Prayer and Plague’, p. 93; Binski, Medieval Death, p. 47.

11 Ibid., p. 92.

12 G. Egan, ‘Material Culture of Care for the Sick: Some Excavated Evidence from English Medieval Hospitals and Other Sites’ in S. Bowers (ed.), The Medieval Hospital and Medical Practice (Aldershot, 2007), p. 70.

13 C. Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society in Later Medieval England (Stroud, 1995), p. 5.

14 Binski, Medieval Death, p. 29.

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the body separated the living and the dead, which can be also shown by the prominence of doorway and portal motifs on 15 tombs. After this separation, the living still had a duty to the dead and they conducted this through Masses and prayers.

Masses and prayers were standard rites of the medieval Church, 16 originating as a communal responsibility to the dead. These rituals were spread through monastic institutions by their founders and the monks and clergymen who were employed to say the Last Rites.

This is known particularly for the monastic institution St. Giles’s Hospital, Norwich, which was founded in AD 1249 by Walter Suffield, the Bishop of Norwich. Suffield was extremely clear about the functions and obligations the staff at the hospital had to fulfil, and recorded them in statutes, some of which survive today. These highlight the importance of daily rounds of worship for those who ran the hospitals, as well as Masses and prayers conducted by the 17 clergy for the souls of the dead. These were so important that if a hospital fell into financial decline they would not be ceased: instead, the priestly and clerical workers would absorb a greater amount of the hospital’s income to fulfil these obligations, as opposed to the rituals being stopped so that a greater proportion could be spent on 18 the patients. Furthermore, hospitals were established along monastic guidelines to enable the commencement of Masses, confessionals and burials, and the monasteries and churches had a certain responsibility to the hospitals to inter their deceased patients, for example, as in St. Gregory’s, Canterbury, which buried 19 people from St. John’s Hospital.

Evidently, there was a certain level of standardised burial liturgy that everyone would receive despite social station or affiliation with a monastic or non-monastic institution, as a ‘cult of the living in the 20 service of the dead’ had been created. The monastic institutions largely relied on eleemosynary to perform these simple burial rites, and this marks the difference between monastic and non-monastic Ibid.

Ibid., pp. 32-3.

17 B. Harvey & J. Oeppen, ‘Patterns of Morbidity in Late Medieval England: A Sample from Westminster Abbey’, The Economic History Review, 54/2 (2001), pp. 2178.

18 Ibid., p. 219.

19 R. Gilchrist, ‘Christian Bodies and Souls: the Archaeology of Life and Death in Later Medieval Hospitals’ in S. Bassett (ed.), Death and Towns: Urban Responses to the Dying and Dead 100-1600 (Leicester, 1992), p. 103, p. 106.

20 A.N. Galpern, ‘The Legacy of Late Medieval Religion in Sixteenth-Century Champagne’ in C. Trinkaus & H. O. Oberman (eds.), The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion (Leiden, 1974), p. 149.

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institution, along the lines of wealth and status. Those interred in a monastic institution had to rely on charity and had little choice concerning their funerals, for example: the monastic institution, St. Mary Spital, was founded in AD 1197 by wealthy merchants to care for the ‘sick poore’, pilgrims, migrants, the elderly and homeless.

The majority of burials in the cemetery of this hospital were simple and standardised: they were individual burials with the interred shrouded and placed in an east-west orientation, without a coffin 21 (Appendix Four). Only some cases demarcate higher social status or position with the use of lead or stone-cut coffins, or priests having burial assemblages consisting of a Pectoral Cross, pewter 22 chalice and patten (wooden-soled footwear). In non-monastic institutions, this was very different, with every detail of one’s funeral being carefully considered and planned.

It becomes clear as to why those who were members of parish churches planned their burials so thoroughly when considering the role they played within late medieval society. The parish was the fundamental unit in creating a community in the face of subdivided 23 townships. The academically trained priesthood, emerging in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century, and the incumbent of its church meant that they had to teach their congregation the meaning of reverence and simple manners through the aweinspiring use of hope and ultimate retribution through intercession 24 and mercy. The laity, therefore, felt a responsibility to their parish and the parish community and this is most greatly shown through services of the dead. First, the alteration in England of the laws expressed in the papal codes stated that the parishioners had to 25 maintain the nave and other parts of their building. This was done by the living and by the dead through the endowments they left in wills to churches in the form of the opus or opera ecclesiae, a building fund, specific decorations, altar lights, books, or to the priest 26 himself. By bequeathing these gifts, one would maintain the parish they were a member of and also secure the welfare of their soul by their parish community, for example: Philip Marmynne left a virgate and messuage to the church of Westbury for a light to be established before the altar of St. Thomas ‘where the divine offices White, ‘Excavations at St. Mary Spital’, p. 60.

Ibid., p. 61.

23 E.F. Jacob, The Fifteenth Century: 1399-1485 (London, 1961), p. 280.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid., p. 246; A.D. Brown, Popular Piety in late Medieval England: the Diocese of Salisbury, 1250-1550 (Oxford, 1995), p. 92.

26 Jacob, Fifteenth Century, p. 280.

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of the dead were celebrated’ and for a chaplain to conduct Mass.

These wills are consequently a good indicator of the non-monastic medieval mind, as it is through these that we can begin to build a picture of how concerned the laity were with the welfare of the soul (Appendix Five). It appears that the place of burial and the significance of Mass and prayers were two of the most significant aspect found in wills, and in some cases there was no limit of expense to ensure the welfare of the soul in these contexts.

Each parish had a standardised layout and set of burial rites that were only extended when the deceased had provided specific requests and provided a satisfactory fund to undertake them. Every parish could be seen to have a funeral hearse, a wooden framework supported by a bier over which a pall was draped to shroud the 28 corpse, and light tapers to remind the living of the dead. Existing records of wills from All Saints, Bristol have provided the majority of information as it has an unusually detailed archive with between twenty and thirty will surviving and it is from these and others that 29 place of burial gains significance. It appears that place and location held particular importance in the late medieval mind because it conveyed power, through a personal connection and wider social standing in society, which was seen to promote the 30 welfare of the soul in the afterlife. This is demonstrated by the desire to be buried in an ancestral graveyard, catacomb or family 31 tomb within a parish church graveyard. For example: the Berkley family held patronage in a number of institutions, however, chose the Augustinian Abbey of St. Augustine, Bristol to house their 32 family mausoleum because it was the grandest. This example demonstrates that it was not just place of burial, but location that held importance. Furthermore, there came the increasing desire to be buried within a parish church or chapel, in the east end, Lady Chapel, north and south choir aisles or in the high altar, because it was important to be close to the community who were invoking prayers for your soul as well as demonstrating social status and 33 wealth.

Brown, Popular Piety, p. 93-4.

Ibid., p. 100.

29 Burgess, ‘Longing to be Prayed For’, p. 47.

30 K. Stober, Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons: England and Wales c. 1300-1540 (Woodbridge, 2007), p. 112.

31 Gordon & Marshall, ‘Placing the Dead’, p. 11.

32 Stober, Late Medieval Monastaries, p. 113.

33 Ibid., pp. 114-5.

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The significance of Masses and prayers can be further supported by the increase in chantries that emerged in the fifteenth century. A chantry is a service endowed by one or more benefactors at an altar 34 of a church or chapel to commemorate the soul of their choice.

These requests increased to the point where parish churches were being converted into colleges of a chantry chaplain, for example, 35 Cotterstock in Northamptonshire converted in 1337. Examples of chantries established in this period include Bishop Bubwith at Wells, of Beaufort at Winchester, and Humphrey, duke of 36 Gloucester at St. Albans. In addition, these chantries were considered so important that even humble villagers would group together to provide the funds or a yearly orbit or anniversary to be 37 maintained for their souls. Therefore, it seems that in the late medieval period what separated the archaeology of death within the context of monastic and non-monastic institutions were wealth, status and intention.

In conclusion, a majority of institutions in the late medieval period 38 centred on the teachings of the Church. This is evident as those in society who were seen to traverse its teachings were excluded and stigmatised, particularly within the context of the archaeology of death, for example, lepers were excluded because they presented cases of punishment from God, as well as Jews, heretics, suicides, and the non-baptised who were all separated from society by being 39 buried in a different location. This demonstrates how firmly the theology of the Church was held by society at least in the context of the archaeology of death. This theology and the formalisation of Purgatory pervaded every action within this context, which makes it very difficult to entirely separate the monastic from the nonmonastic institution. The only way which they can be really separated is in relation to wealth and intention: whereas for those sick poor who were buried in monastic institutions, receiving only a simple and standardised burial liturgy, those interred in nonmonastic institutions planned and chose the elaborate nature of rites. This shows that in the late medieval world, the relationship between the living and the dead created certain obligations to all within the burial liturgy; and the proliferation of wills illustrates the

Jacob, Fifteenth Century, p. 290.

Ibid., p. 291.

36 Ibid., p. 290.

37 Ibid., p. 291.

38 Burgess, ‘Longing to be Prayed For’, p. 46.

39 Gilchrist, ‘Christian Bodies’, p. 114.

34 35

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lengths that the wealthy would go to secure the welfare of their souls’ favoured place in the afterlife.

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Editor’s Note This piece originally included images of a number of documents and pictures that serve as primary illustrations of attitudes towards death. Unfortunately, due to copyright constraints, we were unable to include them in this journal.

I have left the text of the appendices intact, and I hope that the insights provided by the author give some impression of what the images were like. I have also left the references, so as any interested reader might be able to find the images for themselves.

Appendix One An image from C. Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society in Later Medieval England (Stroud, 1995) and references made in R. Horrox, ‘Purgatory, Prayer, and Plague: 1150-1380’ in C. Gittings & P. C. Jupp (eds.), Death in England: an Illustrated History (Manchester, 1999), pp. 90-119.

This image conveys the popular oral story of the three living men meeting the three dead men and being confronted by their inescapable mortality. Both the visual and oral depiction is chilling and demonstrates how death preoccupied the mind of the living.

Appendix Two An image from C. Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society in Later Medieval England (Stroud, 1995).

This visual representation [a piece of medieval artwork] conveys the message of the importance of repentance before death, because it can come around all too quickly and unexpectedly. This consequently put death at the forefront of the medieval mind.

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Appendix Three An image from C. Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society in Later Medieval England (Stroud, 1995).

This image is from the twelfth century AD Bible found at Winchester, and shows ‘Two historiated letter B’s for parallel texts from Psalm 1’. The left B illustrates David saving a lamb, by prising it from the jaws of a lion. The second illustrates casting out demons, and delivering souls at the Harrowing of Hell. This is evidently a commentary on the ‘correct’ way of life. The first image provides a moral and righteous example while the second suggests the destruction of sinners and its implication; revealing the ultimate doom of the afterlife. It is only by following the teachings of Christ, repenting, and following all the correct funerary customs that He can save your soul.

Appendix Four An image from C. Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society in Later Medieval England (Stroud, 1995).

Although this image is taken from a French Book of Hours, it demonstrates the simple standardised burial liturgy that occurred in medieval England. From the top left in a clockwise direction death is shown, then enshrouding, placement in a wooden coffin for transportation only (not burial), the vigil (act of observation, which eventually fell into disuse) and procession to the churchyard. What is clear is the care and precise nature with which death and burial is represented and this illustration provides the model to follow.

Appendix Five Appendices Five and Six show annotated sections of wills This is an example of a will that provides very specific details as to how Anne Lady Scrope of Harling would like to be buried. Note that she would like to be buried with her late husband to denote her status and powerful familial connection, all for the benefit of her soul.

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Appendix Six Appendices Five and Six show annotated sections of wills This example of the will of Katherine Mountfort of Doncaster is particularly interesting because it decrees how she will fund the specifics of her and her husband’s burial rituals, Masses and prayers.

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Bibliography Augustine, The Confessions (trans. H. Chadwick, Oxford, 2008).

Barrow, J., ‘Urban Cemetery Location in the High Middle Ages’ in S. Bassett (ed.), Death in Towns: Urban Responses to the Dying and Dead 100 – 1600 (Leicester, 1992), pp. 78-100.

Binski, P., Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation (New York, 1996).

Brown, A.D., Popular Piety in late Medieval England: the Diocese of Salisbury, 1250-1550 (Oxford, 1995).

Burgess, C., ‘Longing to be Prayed For: Death and Commemoration in an English Parish in the later Middle Ages’ in B. Gordon & P. Marshall (eds.), The Place of the Dead: Death and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 44-66.

Crawford, S., ‘Votive Disposition, Religion and the Anglo-Saxon Furnished Burial Ritual’, World Archaeology, 36/1 (2004), pp. 87-102.

Daniell, C., Death and Burial in Medieval England: 1066-1550 (London, 1997).

Egan, G., ‘Material Culture of Care for the Sick: Some Excavated Evidence from English Medieval Hospitals and Other Sites’ in S. Bowers (ed.), The Medieval Hospital and Medical Practice (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 65-74.

Galpern, A.N., ‘The Legacy of Late Medieval Religion in SixteenthCentury Champagne’ in C. Trinkaus & H. O. Oberman (ed.), The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion (Leiden, 1974), pp. 141-177.

Gilchrist, R., ‘Christian Bodies and Souls: the Archaeology of Life and Death in Later Medieval Hospitals’ in S. Bassett (eds.), Death and Towns: Urban Responses to the Dying and Dead 100-1600 (Leicester, 1992), pp. 101-119.

Gordon, B. & Marshall, P., ‘Placing the Dead in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe’ in B. Gordon & P. Marshall (eds.), The Place of the Dead: Death and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 1-17.

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Harvey, B. & Oeppen, J., ‘Patterns of Morbidity in Late Medieval England: A Sample from Westminster Abbey’, The Economic History Review, 54/2 (2001), pp. 215-239.

Horrox, R., ‘Purgatory, Prayer, and Plague: 1150-1380’ in C. Gittings & P. C. Jupp (eds.), Death in England: an Illustrated History (Manchester, 1999), pp. 90-119.

Jacob, E.F., The Fifteenth Century: 1399-1485, (London, 1961).

Lucy, S., The Anglo-Saxon way of death: Burial Rites in Early England (Stroud, 2000).

Rawcliffe, C., Medicine and Society in Later Medieval England (Stroud, 1995).

Stroud, G. & Kemp, R.L., The Cemeteries of the Church and Priory of St Andrew, Fishergate (York, 1993).

Stober, K., Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons: England and Wales c. 1300-1540 (Woodbridge, 2007).

White, W., ‘Excavations at St. Mary Spital: Burial of the “Sick Poore” of Medieval London, the Evidence of Illness and Hospital Treatment’ in S. Bowers (ed.), The Medieval Hospital and Medical Practice (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 59-64.

28

The Fourth Crusade: the diversion to Constantinople

By Hywel Thomas The actions of the armies of the Fourth Crusade are the subject of great historical debate. Their siege and eventual capture of Constantinople resulted in many great atrocities, both cultural and physical, in the later sack of the city, and never reached its stated destination in the Holy Land. In many cases the discussion around the reasons for diversion have gone beyond mere historical debate, and have taken on an almost emotional dimension, with a number of authors seemingly viewing their role as one of judgement and punishment for the capture of Constantinople, rather than as more detached observers. However impassioned these particular historians may be, it is not reasonable to blindly accept their argument that the Fourth Crusade was diverted to Constantinople as part of a Venetian (and in some cases German) led conspiracy intended to hijack a holy venture for their own means. Recent scholarship has argued, far more convincingly, for a theory revolving around a series of events that caught up the crusaders 1 and led them to Constantinople. Much of the blame in these accounts is placed upon the 1201 contract negotiated with Venice, and the subsequent financial problems that blighted the crusaders.

This is not to say that the Venetians played no role in the diversion of the crusade, but their influence must be considered from a more balanced perspective.

Relations between Byzantium and the west in this period were complicated, and had been for some time, oscillating between periods of close co-operation and periods of highly strained relations. It is to these periods of difficulty that many historians, especially Byzantinists, have looked to provide an explanation for the diversion of the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople in 1204.

Longer-term relations between the Byzantine Empire and the west are also looked upon as reasons for the crusade’s diversion.

Bradford talks of Byzantium as Venice’s ‘long-established rival’ and 2 ‘deadly enemy’. It is certainly true that long-term relations between the east and west had been strained at times. The Crusades in T. Madden, ‘Outside and Inside the Fourth Crusade’, The International History Review, 17 (November 1995), p. 733.

2 E. Bradford, The Great Betrayal (London, 1967), p. 29.

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particular had greatly heightened tensions at times, as conflicts arose between Latin crusaders motivated by religious zeal, and the more pragmatic Byzantine emperors, motivated by the needs of self-defence and survival. The arrival of crusaders at Constantinople, seeking aid and supplies for their campaign, arguing the holy duty of the Christian Greeks to assist in the recapture of the Holy Land, had occurred so frequently that the automatic response of Alexius III, when faced with the arrival of the crusading fleet, was to send out a message both offering monetary assistance, and yet also boasting of his ability to crush the 3 crusaders should it be necessary. This combination of offered reward and threat is somewhat typical of the Byzantine’s ‘Palmerstonian’ foreign policy, whereby their own material needs 4 took precedent over the ideology of the crusaders. This ideology caused its own tensions as well. Frederick I Barbarossa had come very close to invading Constantinople during the Third Crusade, and Bohemond I of Antioch expended much effort waging war 5 against Byzantium. However, relations between Byzantium and the west were not universally strained. Trade between east and west flourished, and political co-operation was common around issues 6 arising over Italy, the Balkans and Outremer, among other areas.

Indeed, it can be argued that there was no ‘western’ attitude towards Byzantium in this period. Relations were mixed, but it would have been highly unusual if this were not to have been the case. To argue that the conquest of Constantinople was inevitable because of ‘western’ relations with Byzantium is to take a very black and white approach towards medieval international relations.

Shorter-term relations, specifically between Byzantium and Venice, are also offered as motivating factors in the Venetian ‘conspiracy’ to capture Constantinople. It is certainly true that there were instances of very poor relations between Venice and Constantinople, the expulsion of 1171 and the massacre of 1182 being the two most commonly cited events. Nicol also mentions an incident during the 1148-9 siege of Corfu, a joint operation between Venice and Byzantium; fighting broke out between Greek and Venetian soldiers and sailors, culminating in the capture by Venetians of the Imperial flagship. This is used as an example of the fact that relations between the two powers were strained even G. Villehardouin, ‘The Conquest of Constantinople’ in M. Shaw (ed.), Chronicles of the Crusaders (London, 1963), p. 63.

4 C. Tyerman, God’s War (London, 2006), p. 533.

5 Madden, ‘Outside and Inside the Fourth Crusade’, p. 727.

6 Tyerman, God’s War, p. 533.

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while they were allied. It does seem to be stretching a point somewhat however, to suggest that the actions of soldiers and sailors, frustrated by a particularly long siege is in any way linked to Venetian attempts to divert the Fourth Crusade from its main target. The aforementioned later incidents, however, were somewhat more major occurrences. In 1171, Byzantium turned upon the large number of Venetian merchants living within the walls of Constantinople, seizing their assets and imprisoning or expelling all Venetians resident within the Byzantine Empire. 1182 was a far less discriminate act: the triumphal entry of the usurping Andronikos I resulted in violence breaking out against Latin inhabitants of the city, with women, children and priests being killed. However, the latter of these two incidents could in fact be said to have benefited the Venetians. The victims of the atrocities were largely Genoese and Pisan, who were major commercial rivals of Venice: the Venetians had yet to be re-admitted to the Empire and were thus spared. Furthermore, the expulsion of 1171, whilst undoubtedly a major diplomatic incident in itself, can hardly be held up as a major reason for Venetian desire to conquer Constantinople. The attempted Venetian remonstration resulted in the destruction of their fleet and the subsequent murder of the doge, who was replaced in 1172 by an administration willing to negotiate. In 1182 the Venetians were re-admitted, and in 1187 8 their quarter within the city was expanded. Even when Alexius III increased taxation on the Venetians and suspended reparation payments, Dandolo, so often held up as the villain of the crusade, attempted to negotiate. Relations by 1203 were no worse than they 9 could have been.

It has also been frequently argued that the Venetians were aiming to gain commercially from this venture as well as in terms of revenge. Constantinople was the centre of much trade in the Levant, and being able to place an emperor there who was favourable to the Venetians would have been a great boon for their trade. Indeed, it is conceivable that with a weak emperor on the throne in the person of Alexius IV, it would have been possible for Venice to take full advantage of the trade route through Constantinople, and also the trade in the surrounding Aegean

D. Nicol, Byzantium and Venice: a study in diplomatic and cultural relations (Cambridge, 1988) p. 87 8 T. Madden, ‘Vows and Contracts in the Fourth Crusade: The Treaty of Zara and the Attack on Constantinople’, The International History Review, 15 (August 1993), p.

444.

9 Ibid., p. 445.

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islands and Crete. Furthermore, Venice had trading links with Egypt, especially Alexandria, which was the supposed destination for the crusade, and it has been argued that a treaty was proposed by the Sultan to Venice, offering rewards if they were able to divert 11 the crusade from Egypt. However, Venice was certainly not alone in trading with Egypt: Alexandria was a major trading port, and conducted trade with Sicily, Genoa, Tuscany, Lombardy, and many 12 other Catholic states. Furthermore, as much as a Latin-influenced Constantinople would have been of benefit to Venice, so would a Latin-influenced Alexandria, perhaps even more so than Constantinople, given Venice’s already pre-eminent trading position within the Byzantine Empire.

The most plausible reasons behind the diversion of the Fourth Crusade come not from looking at external factors and attempting to portray the capture of Constantinople as simply another event within the continuing tradition of relations between Byzantium and the west, but from looking at the internal factors within the crusade. As Madden argues, the crusade was not driven by the past three decades of relations between Byzantium and Venice, but by the day-to-day running of the crusade, and taking what action they 13 saw as necessary to keep the enterprise from collapsing entirely.

In this context, it is not the repercussions of the 1171 expulsion of the 1182 massacre that take centre stage, but the financial hardships that blighted the crusade for the entirety of its course, and that almost exclusively resulted from the 1201 agreement with Venice over the provision of transport. The fleet was to cost the crusaders a total of 85,000 marks, the payment of which was calculated by each crusader paying his own way based on an army of 4,500 14 knights, 9,000 squires and 20,000 sergeants. Nowhere near this number arrived, and even when all money that could be raised had been, the crusaders were still short of 33,500 marks. Villehardouin places the blame for this shortcoming very firmly on those who chose to take their own route to the Holy Land, rather than gathering at Venice, but even had those forces made the rendezvous the army would have numbered approximately 14,000, 15 still well short of the required total. The over-estimation of the Bradford, The Great Betrayal, pp. 110-111.

Ibid., p. 55.

12 D. Queller, The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople 1201-1204 (Leicester, 1978), p. 8.

13 Madden, ‘Inside and Outside the Fourth Crusade’, p. 733.

14 Tyerman, God’s War, p. 512.

15 Villehardouin, ‘The Conquest of Constantinople’, p. 42; Queller, The Fourth Crusade, p. 43.

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size of the expedition crippled the crusade financially, and this factor shows very clearly the dangers inherent within crusading armies in this period. Far from being a large homogenous group under a single leader, the crusading army was formed of smaller groups of loyalties and allegiances, making it impossible to calculate in advance the numbers that would be undertaking the expedition.

The inability of the crusaders to pay for their fleet put the Venetians in as difficult a position as the crusaders. They had invested a great deal into outfitting the fleet, and to abandon the whole enterprise would be a terrible loss of both money and prestige. To suggest, as Bradford does, that the Venetians are to blame for constructing a fleet of an unnecessarily large size is ridiculous, and ignores the great financial risks taken by Venice in becoming involved with a crusade, ventures renowned for their 16 financial difficulties. Unable to pay, the crusading army was stuck on an island outside Venice, with little money and all supplies controlled by the Venetians. Disease was beginning to spread within the camp, and poor harvests led to increased food prices, 17 straining the crusaders’ finances further still. Under these circumstances, the diversion to Zara, and then Constantinople, can be seen as necessities, without which the crusade would have collapsed utterly, to the financial ruin of both the crusaders and the Venetians.

The responsibility for the decision to divert to Constantinople is somewhat unclear. Bradford claims that Dandolo was the first to 18 mention the idea, while the writings of Villehardouin seem to suggest that the idea was first proposed by the envoys of Phillip of 19 Swabia, brother in law of Alexius. Regardless of who it was that suggested the idea, however, by this point it must have seemed to both the crusaders and the Venetians that the generous offer made

by Alexius was the best chance possible of ensuring the survival of the crusade, and recouping their investment, respectively. In the writings of Villehardouin, and in the many historical works on the subject, it is quite clear that the crusaders did not go to Constantinople with the intention of besieging the city, but merely to put Alexius upon the throne. The reply given by the crusaders to the envoy of Alexius III clearly shows this, stating: ‘If your lord will consent to place himself at the mercy of his nephew and give him 20 back his crown and empire’. Even Bradford concedes that Bradford, The Great Betrayal, p. 58.

Queller, The Fourth Crusade, p. 48.

18 Bradford, The Great Betrayal, p. 65.

19 Villehardouin, ‘The Conquest of Constantinople’, p. 50.

20 Ibid., p. 63.

16 17

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Alexius had persuaded the barons of his support within the city.

The crusaders were intending to fulfil a bargain with Alexius in order to prevent the dissolution of the campaign, not to capture a Christian city.

The diversion of the Fourth Crusade, therefore, came about not as a result of an anti-Byzantine conspiracy, or as part of a longer-term pattern of relations between ‘east’ and ‘west’, but as a result of the financial needs of maintaining the crusade. Whatever hindsight may show, it seems unlikely that the crusaders were acting out of anything other than what they thought of as necessity. Within this framework, the Venetians certainly played a part in diverting the crusade to Byzantium, but not for any selfish desire to expand their own trading interests, or out of revenge, but merely to ensure that they were not financially ruined by the failure of the crusade.

21

Bradford, The Great Betrayal, p. 48.

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Bibliography Bradford, E., The Great Betrayal (London, 1967).

Madden, T., ‘Outside and Inside the Fourth Crusade’, The International History Review, 17 (November 1995), pp. 727-743. __________., ‘Vows and Contracts in the Fourth Crusade: The Treaty of Zara and the Attack on Constantinople’, The International History Review, 15 (August 1993), pp. 441-468.

Nicol, D., Byzantium and Venice: a study in diplomatic and cultural relations (Cambridge, 1988).

Queller, D., The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople 12011204 (Leicester, 1978).

Tyerman, C., God’s War (London, 2006).

Villehardouin, G., ‘The Conquest of Constantinople’ in M. Shaw (ed.), Chronicles of the Crusaders (London, 1963), pp. 29-162.

35

Post-Medieval Monuments in their Context, from the point of view of Form, Iconography, Location and Meaning : their Social, Dynastic and Religious Significance

By Abigail Taylor The word monument derives from ‘monere’, meaning to remind; making monuments about memory, they act as a bridge between 1 the past and present. During the medieval period they were intended to remind the living congregation to pray for the deceased’s soul, in conjunction with the doctrine of purgatory; the belief that the living could aid the dead, helping souls post-mortem 2 using the power of prayer. Protestant ideology in the postMedieval era abolished purgatory and transformed British churches: removing chantries, intercessory prayer inscriptions and associated items along with it. Although the focus of the monuments had changed, the emphasis upon memory still existed: ‘the presence of the remains of the dead still served the salutary purpose of 3 reminding the living of their own mortality’. Burial monuments were still intended to engage with the living: ‘monuments intended to reshape the remembered image of the dead both sought and made by the bereaved’, and they had an agenda to fulfil in expressing social, dynastic and religious significance through their form, iconography and location. The epitaph became an essential part in post-reformation burial monuments, promoting the deceased’s deeds, showing that their life was exemplary, therefore 4 indicating that they belonged to the elect. Erwin Panofsky argued that medieval monuments were ‘prospective’, encouraging an ongoing relationship with the dead but that post-medieval monuments shifted to ‘retrospective’, commemorating the life of 5 the deceased.

Richard Bradley, Altering the Earth: the origins of monuments in Britain and continental Europe (Edinburgh, 1993), p. 2.

2 D.M. Hadley, Death in Medieval England: an archaeology (Stroud, 2001), p. 43.

3 Ralph Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family in England, 1480-1750 (Oxford, 1998), p. 334.

4 Peter Vardy & Julie Arliss, The Thinker’s Guide to God (New Arlesford, 2004), p. 32.

5 Jonathon Finch, ‘A Reformation of Meaning: Commemoration and Remembering the Dead in the Parish Church, 1450-1640’ in D. Gaimster & R. Gilchrist (eds.), The Archaeology of the Reformation 1480-1580 (Leeds, 2003), p. 442.

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I will be examining two types of post-medieval burial monuments: those dedicated to women who died in childbirth, and children on monuments. The difficulty in discussing their social, dynastic and religious significance stems from the fact that these monuments have never really been studied from an archaeological viewpoint to any great extent. Literature associated with these monuments tends to consist of passing comments about church architecture and sculpture in general, coming from a predominantly art-historical viewpoint. There has been very little study on childbed tombs and next to none focused upon children’s monuments individually in their own right.

Children’s monuments arise predominantly from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries onwards. Beforehand children did sometimes appear, upon altar tombs in particular, usually in the form of ‘weepers’; and on later medieval brass memorials as generic male and female offspring, declining in size to indicate age differences 6 (Figure 1). On post-medieval monuments we see a shift away from these rows of emotionless offspring, used as testament to dynastic success and fruitfulness of marriage, towards a more social 7 emphasis upon parental sorrow and grief. Another group of monuments arising at this time are those depicting childbed deaths.

Peter Jupp argues that monuments to women were more experimental and open to innovation than those for males, and this could explain why new themes occur on women and children’s 8 tombs first, expressing grief and commemoration in new ways.

Childbed Monuments and the Growth of Affective Family Relations N.B. Penny divides childbirth monuments into two types: the first depicts the individual at point of death (Figures 3 & 5), the second 9 representing the woman ascending toward heaven (Figure 2).

These scenes first appear upon monumental brasses in the sixteenth century. An example belonging to Penny’s first group: Sylvester Lombarde’s brass shows her, propped up in bed, surrounded by her six children, including the newborn twins who survived her (Figure 3). Such scenes are common on these forms of brasses, which almost appear to be reflecting upon the medieval Hadley, Death in Medieval England, p. 154.

Eric Mercer, English Art 1553-1625 (Oxford, 1962), p. 242.

8 Peter Jupp & Clare Gittings (eds.), Death in England: An Illustrated History (Manchester, 1999), p. 167.

9 N.B. Penny, ‘English Church Monuments to Women Who Died in Childbed Between 1790-1835’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 38 (1978), p. 315.

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ideal of a ‘good’ death. In the Middle Ages deathbed scenes depict the dying surrounded by their loved ones, their worldly affairs 10 settled and at peace, just as Mrs Lombarde was. This is significant as the monuments are expressing lingering social ideals.

Interestingly, the fact that these childbed deaths first appear upon brasses, which were cheaper than stone monuments, suggests that this subject became popular in the lower social strata first and then influenced the upper classes; an unusual occurrence, making these types of monuments all the more interesting in the history of post11 medieval burials.

Some examples have come to light of childbed scenes upon gravestones in the churchyard. This sixteenth century example to Mary Traven (Figure 4) shows a midwife unsuccessfully attempting to chase death away. The majority of people could not afford burial inside the church; it was an exclusive and expensive right, so the appearance of this theme upon gravestones could suggest that death in childbirth was portrayed across a wider social scale than previously believed. However, study of churchyard motifs are few, predominantly concentrated upon monuments inside churches, and indeed this example came from a private online photograph collection, which is just highlighting the fact that there is still very little literature and comprehensive study of this theme.

The family becomes much more of a focal point in post-medieval monuments in general at this time, and by including the surviving family it emphasises ‘the rupture of the family unit caused by the 12 death’. A similar brass to Anne Savage (Figure 5), also portrays her abed, her swaddled infant upon the coverlet. It could be argued that these children were only represented in relation to their mother’s death, rather than for their individual commemoration, and it is true that these newborns add an emotive level to these monuments. Indeed, Judith Hurtig does not believe there was a huge difference in attitude towards childbed deaths in this period, she claims they are simply expressing anxieties and concerns about 13 the perils of childbirth.

However, it can be seen that many post-medieval tombs do suggest a shift in social convention, accentuating personal grief over

Hadley, Death in Medieval England, p. 56.

Judith Hurtig, ‘Death in Childbirth: Seventeenth Century English Tombs and Their Place in Contemporary Thought’, The Art Bulletin, 65 (December 1983), p. 609.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid., p. 603.

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status. Expressions of grief arise around the same time as the childbirth monuments, which could support Penny’s belief that childbirth monuments occur at a time where marriages had more 15 freedom, when some of history’s greatest love matches occurred.

Examples can be seen in stone childbirth monuments too. These monuments can be seen as personal expressions of grief, such as the monument to Frederica Stanhope in 1823 (Figure 7) in which she and her dead child are emotively carved as if sleeping. Her husband was in fact so aggrieved by her death he committed suicide soon after. The tomb of Princess Charlotte, who died in 1817 (Figure 6), shows her with an angel ascending to heaven with her stillborn son. Her dead earthy body is hidden below beneath a shroud and her passing mourned by four figures representing the four quarters of the globe. Her death caused a great public outpouring of grief among the population at the time; thousands of people came to pay their respects to the Princess, demonstrating that mourning was becoming less restricted by convention and was 16 becoming a more powerful and public concept. It is also important to note that these two stillborn children were buried with their deceased mothers, showing that attitudes towards un-baptised and stillborn children had moved on from medieval and postmedieval views; which at their most extreme demanded postmortem caesarean to separate mother and child so they could be 17 buried apart according to church scripture.

Family Group Monuments With the family unit becoming a more prominent focus upon postmedieval monuments, it has been suggested that this arose from the promotion of ‘new men’ under the Tudors. The older more established families took their dynastic line for granted, but the newly promoted gentry wanted to prove themselves, and they used 18 burial monuments as a testament to their lineage. However, I would like to suggest that influence from childbed monuments seems to be penetrating through to these monuments as well. The monument to Sir Cope D’Oyley demonstrates this perfectly (Figure Jupp & Gittings, Death in England, p. 170.

Penny, ‘English Church Monuments’, p. 314.

16 Cowen Tracts, ‘An Account of the Interment of her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, on Wednesday November 19, 1817’ (1817), p. 3.

17 Roberta Gilchrist & Barney Sloane, Requiem: the Medieval Monastic Cemetery in Britain (London, 2005), p. 72.

18 Mercer, English Art, p. 219; Margaret Whinney, Sculpture in Britain 1530-1830 (London, 1964), p. 1.

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8). The family are presented as one group: children kneeling in pairs behind their parents appearing as a united whole; ‘the ideal of a loving united family was never more cogently expressed on an 19 English funerary monument’. All their children are included, even those who had already passed away, and there is effort here to distinguish between children, suggesting that there was attention paid to individuality here, value placed upon each one of their offspring. Including those who had already passed, alongside living siblings, shows that they were not forgotten and were still thought of as part of the family.

The point should be made that the focus upon the family unit does not just appear upon burial monuments at this time, it belongs to a wider English trend evident in painting (Figure 9), literature and poetry too (Figure 10). They all incorporate similar iconography; for example, the engraving of James I’s family (Figure 11) includes all his children, those who had already died are depicted holding a skull or rose, such as the Prince of Wales who died in 1612. This reflects the standardised ways of depicting a child’s age at death; stillborn or dead babies were shown in swaddling (Figure 12), young children in cradles (Figure 13), and older children hold skulls (Figure 11), which also holds true upon monuments. It must be highlighted that this trend is purely an English phenomenon; it does not become popular in mainland Europe, possibly because the experience in post-medieval England was very different to that on 20 the continent. In Europe it was in fact more common to find deathbed scenes depicted, which only occurs in a few examples in England, and they seem to have more dynastic significance rather 21 than social ones.

Children’s Monuments To analyse children upon burial monuments, it is necessary first to understand how children were treated in the post-medieval period.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, around a third of 22 all children died before the age of five. There has long been a preconception, amongst historians and archaeologists alike, that prior to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries children were not much valued as individuals, as high mortality rates were assumed to Brian Kemp, English Church Monuments (London, 1980), p. 105.

Philippe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood (Harmondsworth, 1973), p. 336.

21 Ann Sumner, ‘Venetia Digby on her Deathbed’, History Today, 45/10 (October, 1995), p. 20.

22 Steven Ozment, When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe (Cambridge, MA, 1983), p. 101.

19 20

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have made ‘emotional investment’ in young children undesirable.

Newborn children were believed to be tainted by original sin, and religious teaching required that ‘the heir of the sin of Adam and Eve must be cleansed of the sin of his conception and heritage 24 immediately after his birth’. Hence baptism tended to occur as soon as possible; religious law and practice followed that unbaptised children could not be buried within consecrated ground.

Separate plots of land, located away from the church, became used for the burial of un-baptised children, placed alongside other outcasts of Christian society such as suicide victims, executed persons, strangers, murderers, all of whom were not conventionally 25 permitted burial within sanctified ground. These designated burial locations, Killeens, were used sometimes even into the twentieth 26 century. Such cemeteries have been seen in the past as places of isolation, evidence for disregard of parents towards their offspring: ‘it was thought that the little thing which had disappeared so soon 27 in life was not worthy of remembrance’. These cemeteries were often located near areas of previous significance, for example, ruined churches, prehistoric barrows, old castles, and some argue that the marginal geographical siteing of these Killeens represented the belief in the concept of Limbo, which despite not being official doctrine, was a popular concept in medieval and early post28 medieval belief. However, perhaps locating them in areas with historical associations, could lend some unofficial sacred power to the un-baptised soul, perhaps drawing upon some other supernatural source.

In recent archaeological study, it can be seen across a wide spectrum of post-medieval burials that what was preached was not always practiced. In her study of Ireland, Murphy has also found this to be the case within children’s Killeens. Contrary to previous belief that these children were little valued or remembered, it could be seen that the burials respected each other and there was effort made to denote graves with small markers; some even contained Lynne McKerr, Eileen Murphy & Colm Donnelly, ‘I Am Not Dead, But I Do Sleep Here: The Representation of Children in Early Modern Burial Grounds in the North of Ireland’ in Eileen Murphy (ed.), Children in the Past, Volume 2, An International Journal, p. 110.

24 Julie Wileman, Hide and Seek: The Archaeology of Childhood (Stroud, 2005), p. 16.

25 Ibid., p. 75.

26 Eileen Murphy, ‘Children’s Burial Grounds in Ireland (Cillini) and Parental Emotions Toward Infant Death’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 15/2 (June 2011), p. 411.

27 Ariès, Centuries of Childhood, p. 37.

28 Murphy, ‘Children’s Burial Grounds’, p. 417.

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coffins which were an expensive commodity for the time. The fact that the markers were relatively simple, she argues, does not suggest lack of effort, and she reminds us that the majority of people in Ireland at this time could not afford elaborate grave markers and the standard at the time was for simple crosses. So even those buried within consecrated ground would have had similar anonymity to those buried within Killeens. Murphy concludes that the use and variety of coffins, stone lined graves and markers would suggest remembrance and respect for the individuality and 29 investment in provision for infants buried in this area. This highlights previous statements about relationships between children and their parents needing to be re-evaluated, since there is evidence that Catholic and Protestant law and teachings were not always followed by relatives, and we must look to archaeological evidence to pick out irregularities.

Such use of monumentality can be seen to continue within consecrated ground as well, but again very little study has been done. One project (McKerr et al, 2009) analysed monumentality 30 and children within three Irish graveyards. Their data showed that child gravestones generally increased between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, and 36% of all stones included epitaphs for children. They argued that the expense of erecting a monument or adding them to the family stone required monetary and emotional investment, and some youngsters were commemorated on parents’ memorials up to 50-60 years later; suggesting that these children were therefore considered a part of family life and history, despite 31 dying young. Although most children in those cemeteries probably did not represent children of poorer stock and were probably baptised, their findings suggest that children were not always marginalised in death. Monuments represented children of all ages, young children were equally commemorated with the older and their memory ‘wasn’t just a private loss to the parents, but a 32 loss worthy of public record and attention’.

Sometimes religious and social norms were completely bypassed by the deceased’s family. At Holy Trinity Church, Chester, some children who were publicly stated as un-baptised were found to have been buried within sanctified areas. Thomas Drinkwater died in 1637 and was buried in his family chancel within the church, his Ibid., pp. 419-23.

McKerr, Murphy, Donnelly, ‘I Am Not Dead’.

31 Ibid., p. 126.

32 Ibid., p. 129.

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epitaph stating that he died before being baptised. This was not a private deviation from custom; the family are publicly stating in front of the congregation that despite their son dying before his soul had been ‘cleansed’, he would be buried with his family, against religious and social conventions of the time. Examples such as this demonstrate that we cannot absolutely claim that specific categories of society were always excluded or treated according to the rules.

At this same church, evidence was found of babies located within graves of individuals completely unrelated to them. The daughter of Mr Chris Houle was buried with a Mr Rogerson who died the same day in 1599. Some would argue that this demonstrates previous belief in lack of attachment between parents and newborns, selecting a cheap burial alternative, quite alike pauper 34 burial. However, some of the adults appear to have been respected members of the community, so if un-baptised children were so undesirable, why would relatives allow a child to be buried alongside their loved ones? Some have suggested instead that interment alongside an infant acts as ‘a sure passport to heaven for the next person buried there’, and that innocence of the newborn 35 would be beneficial to the newly deceased adult’s soul. Building upon this concept, it would appear that some Catholic hints are surviving in post-medieval society here, as this seems to me to reflect the concept of purgatory; using a newborn child as a medium by which to aid the deceased’s soul post mortem.

It is common for archaeological investigation into burial practices of the past to show inconsistencies from what literary sources suggest should be occurring. This is true with these types of monuments; they suggest that children meant more to their parents than previously believed, evident in the treatment of youngsters in death. Despite Christian burials being traditionally without grave goods, many individuals have been shown to be buried with items 36 of ‘magical’ significance. Gilchrist’s study showed that children in particular were buried with items such as beads; protection against forces such as the ‘evil eye’, which could inflict death and illness upon children especially. She suggests that the over-representation of children buried with such magically associated items could Will Coster & Andrew Spicer, Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2005), p. 138.

34 Jupp & Gittings, Death in England, p. 166.

35 Coster & Spicer, Sacred Space, p. 138.

36 Roberta Gilchrist, ‘Magic for the Dead? The Archaeology of Magic in Later Medieval Burials’, Medieval Archaeology, 52 (2008), pp. 119-160.

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suggest family bonds, that parents were protecting their vulnerable 37 youngsters even in death. It would seem that children were valued as individuals, rather than cast off as wasted effort; parents were investing in their child’s afterlife and memory.

Evidence for children as valued individuals becomes evident in burial monuments; many were for individual deceased youngsters individually, and such treatment of children would seem to refute the claim that ‘the family was a moral and social, rather than 38 sentimental reality’. The fact that children were needed to continue the family lineage could suggest that monuments could be seen as dynastically significant, proving the marriage fruitful, and honouring all who had been born into that line, even if it was cut short. However, these groups of monuments seem to express more than dynastic sentiments, instead indicating wider social change. As with childbed deaths, child monuments appear to place emphasis upon the grief of the living, rather than promoting earthy glory and 39 heavenly prospects of the deceased.

One of the most moving child monuments of the time is that to Sir Henry Montague’s son, who died in 1625. The boy drowned in a well and his tomb plays upon religious symbolism of water in reference to his death. Nigel Llewellyn writes that drowning had 40 religious redeeming qualities associated with baptismal water. In the child’s hand is a cup with the inscription: ‘pour on me the joyes of thy salvation’, linking life, death and rebirth within this monument. Yet the monument is not primarily about religious iconography and significance here, as shown by the epitaph. The family are using this as an outlet for their grief in losing their son: ‘his unhappy father erected this out of love’. The monument erected to this child was not solely for dynastical, political or religious purposes, it expresses personal loss and memory for their ‘worthie and hopefull child, tender and deare in the sight of his parents’. This shows that children could be, and often were, valued assets in the family unit during the post-medieval period.

Ibid., p. 152.

Ariès, Centuries of Childhood, p. 356.

39 Penny, ‘English Church Monuments’, p. 314.

40 Nigel Llewellyn, Funeral Monuments in Post-Reformation England (Cambridge, 2000), p. 359.

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Conclusion Throughout this brief essay I have attempted to discuss these two types of understudied post-medieval monuments. It can be seen that their form, iconography, location and meaning might not always be as first appears, and that they could possibly challenge pre-conceived ideas about children and families in the past. They represent a new social meaning embodied within mortuary monuments, a portrayal of grief and emotion, which places new connotations within the relationships of the family. Expression of family bonds is more common at this time, with expression of social ties. There is evidence for the investment, of both monetary and emotional wealth, not only for beloved spouses, but to their children, even the ones who never drew a breath. It shows that historical and archaeological pre-conceptions about family and childhood cannot be concluded from textual evidence alone, and therefore, there is a need to recognise children within postmedieval burial monuments and assess their archaeological as well as artistic worth. While these monuments emphasise social, dynastic and religious themes of the period, the old pre-conceived ideas must be re-addressed before their significance can truly be assessed. However, it is clear that there was a shift in values at this time and new emotions were becoming stressed on their burial monuments.

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Editor’s Note This piece originally included images of a number of monuments and pictures that serve as primary illustrations of attitudes towards death. Unfortunately, due to copyright constraints, we were unable to include all of them in this journal.

I have left the text of the appendices intact, and I hope that the insights provided by the author give some impression of what the images were like. I have also left the references, so as any interested reader might be able to find the images for themselves.

Appendix Figure 1: The monumental brass to Nicholas Leveson, who died in 1539 and his wife, Denys who died in 1560. Their children are shown behind in descending height to represent age.

Location: St. Andrew Undershaft, London Source: David Gaimster & Roberta Gilchrist, The Archaeology of the Reformation 1480-1580 (Leeds, 2003), p. 388.

Figure 2: This shows the monument to Frances Mary Corey who died in childbirth in 1837. This monument belongs to Penny’s second category. She and her child are shown ascending towards heaven.

Source: www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@noo/galleries72157624359370 547 Figure 3: Monumental Brass to Sylvester Lombarde, dating to 1587.

Mrs Lombarde sits up in bed, her six children surrounding her, the twins to whom she gave birth in the cradle.

Located: Lower Haling, Kent Source: N.B. Penny, ‘English Church Monuments to Women Who Died in Childbed Between 1790-1835’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 38 (1978).

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Figure 4: Seventeenth century gravestone to Mary Traven. The image depicts the midwife attempting to chase death away from the dying woman and child.

Location: All Saints Church, Great Thurlow, Suffolk.

Source: www.flickr.com/photos/mdpettitt Figure 5: Monumental Brass dedicated to Anne Savage in 1605.

Seen sideways, lying in her bed at prayer. Her swaddled infant lies on the bed next to her.

Location: Wormington, Gloucester Source: Herbert W. Macklin, The Brasses of England (London, 1907), p. 285.

Figure 6: Monument to Princess Charlotte.

Location: St. George’s chapel, Windsor.

Source: N.B. Penny, ‘English Church Monuments to Women Who Died in Childbed Between 1790-1835’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 38 (1978).

Figure 7: Close up of Lady Frederica Stanhope’s monument, created by Sir Frances Chantrey.

Source: Penny, 1978, p. 46.

Figure 8: The monument to Sir Cope D’Oyley and his family, he died 1633. The monument is believed to have been created by William Wright.

Location: St. Mary’s, Hambleden, Buckinghamshire Source: Nigel Llewellyn, Funeral Monuments in Post-Reformation England (Cambridge, 2000), p. 47.

Figure 9: The painting by Mr John Souch, commemorating the death of Mrs Thomas Aston and her child in 1635. She is depicted as abed sleeping, but also alive at the foot of the bed looking at the viewer, her husband and surviving son on the left. The empty, black draped cradle topped with the skull showing that the newborn died.

Source: http://www.manchestergalleries.org/thecollections/search-thecollection/display.php?EMUSESSID=dd7133fb0a03b53887cf84f9 401ca441&irn=3461

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Figure 10: The poet John Milton composed an epitaph upon the tomb of the Marchioness of Winchester, 1631. This extract mourns the stillborn child who died with her.

Source: John Leonard, The Complete Poems by John Milton (London, 1998). “the hapless babe, Before his birth had burial, yet not laid in Earth And the languisht mother’s womb was not long a living tomb”

Figure 11: Engraving of James I’s family by William Passé.

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_I_and_his_royal_ progeny_by_Willem_van_de_Passe_cropped.jpg

Figure 12: An example of a deceased swaddled baby in tomb sculpture Source: Nigel Llewellyn, Funeral Monuments in Post-Reformation England (Cambridge, 2000).

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Figure 13: The monument to Princess Sophia in her cradle, died 1606, created by Maximilian Colt.

Location: Westminster Abbey, London Source: Judith Hurtig, ‘Death in Childbirth: Seventeenth Century English Tombs and Their Place in Contemporary Thought’, The Art Bulletin, 65 (December 1983), p. 608.

Sketch of the monument of the cradle from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Princess_Sophia_(1606). jpg

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Bibliography Ariès, P., Centuries of Childhood (Harmondsworth, 1973).

Bradley, R., Altering the Earth: the origins of monuments in Britain and continental Europe (Edinburgh, 1993).

Coster, W. & Spicer, A., Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2005).

Esdaile, K.A., English Church Monuments 1510 to 1830 (London, 1946).

Finch, J., ‘A Reformation of Meaning: Commemoration and Remembering the Dead in the Parish Church, 1450-1640’ in D. Gaimster & R. Gilchrist (eds.), The Archaeology of the Reformation 1480-1580 (Leeds, 2003), pp. 437-449.

Gaimster, D. & Gilchrist R., The Archaeology of the Reformation 14801580 (Leeds, 2003).

Gilchrist, R., ‘Magic for the Dead? The Archaeology of Magic in Later Medieval Burials’, Medieval Archaeology, 52 (2008), pp. 119-160.

Gilchrist, R. & Sloane, B., Requiem: the Medieval Monastic Cemetery in Britain (London, 2005).

Hadley, D.M., Death in Medieval England: an archaeology (Stroud, 2001).

Houlbrooke, R., Death, Religion and the Family in England, 1480-1750 (Oxford, 1998).

Hurtig, J., ‘Death in Childbirth: Seventeenth Century English Tombs and Their Place in Contemporary Thought’, The Art Bulletin, 65 (December 1983), pp. 603-615.

Jupp, P.C. & Gittings, C. (eds.), Death in England: An Illustrated History (Manchester, 1999).

Kemp, B., English Church Monuments (London, 1980).

Leonard, J., The Complete Poems by John Milton (London, 1998).

Llewellyn, N., Funeral Moments in Post-Reformation England (Cambridge, 2000).

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Macklin, H.W., The Brasses of England (London, 1907).

Mercer, E., English Art 1553-1625 (Oxford, 1962).

McKerr, L., Murphy, E. & Donnelly, C., ‘I Am Not Dead, But I Do Sleep Here: The Representation of Children in Early Modern Burial Grounds in the North of Ireland’, in Eileen Murphy (ed.)

Children in the Past, Volume 2, An International Journal, pp. 109-131.

Murphy, E.M., ‘Children’s Burial Grounds in Ireland (Cillini) and Parental Emotions Toward Infant Death’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 15/2 (June 2011), pp. 409-428.

Ozment, S., When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe (Cambridge, 1983).

Penny, N.B., ‘English Church Monuments to Women Who Died in Childbed Between 1790-1835’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 38 (1978), pp. 314-332.

Sumner, A., ‘Venetia Digby on her Deathbed’, History Today, 45/10 (October, 1995), pp. 20-25.

Tracts, C., ‘An Account of the Interment of her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, on Wednesday November 19, 1817’ (1817).

Vardy, P. & Arliss, J., The Thinker’s Guide to God (New Arlesford, 2004).

Wileman, J., Hide and Seek: The Archaeology of Childhood (Stroud, 2005).

Whinney, M., Sculpture in Britain 1530-1830 (London, 1964). http://www.manchestergalleries.org (viewed 15th November 2011). http://www.royalcollection.org.uk (viewed 1st December 2011). http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdpettitt (viewed 2nd December 2011). http://www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@noo/galleries72157624 359370547 (viewed 29th November 2011).

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Circular Reasoning: Understanding evkaf in early Ottoman society

By Joel Butler The institution of evkaf would appear to be omnipresent in Ottoman society. As a key facet of Islamic society, it naturally extended into Ottoman legal and social life. It would have been impossible for the Ottoman regime to avoid the development of evkaf within the Empire; upon receipt of the island of Cyprus in 1878, even the all-powerful British Empire was required to uphold 1 respect for and the administration of seria law, including evkaf. For an Islamic empire of the fifteenth century onwards – particularly following the conquest of Muslim heartlands and holy cities – opposition to the evolution of evkaf in society would have been dangerous to the extent of being potentially terminal. This article explores the ways in which those people in positions of authority in the Ottoman Empire harnessed vakıf foundations for political and social gain, as well as how the notables and poor of the reaya interacted with, and were affected by evkaf. Through this, the function of evkaf can be shown to be an expression of the complex relationship between the Ottoman regime and those it ruled, principally the maintenance of the Ottoman understanding of order 2 through the facilitation of the ‘circle of equity’.

The principal function of evkaf among Ottoman rulers and administrators was to present an image of piety and social responsibility, ensuring a favourable political reception. Sinan Pasa, a sixteenth century governor of Damascus, provides a good example of this. He gained popularity through building a large number of important buildings in Damascus, and several hostels 3 along the routes to Palestine and Aleppo within his province.

Despite the fact that his evkaf were riddled with irregularities and marred by abuse of power, local notables fought attempts to 4 confiscate them. Sinan Pasa clearly wished to present himself as a ‘Copy of an Imperial firman as recorded in sheri’ court of Nicosia’ in: Laws and Regulations Affecting Waqf Property (Nicosia, 1899), p. 2.

2 See appendix.

3 Jean-Paul Pascual, Damas à la fin du XVIe siècle d’après trois actes de waqf Ottomans (Damascus, 1983), p. 117.

4 Ibid.

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pious man, constructing a mosque in 1590, as well as showing his 5 social conscience in building karvansarays. This explains his popularity despite apparent corruption; the population of his province maintained his position because he was seen to have provided for them. It is also an expression of the symbiotic relationship envisioned by contemporaries such as Koçu Beğ, in which all factions of society ultimately support each other through 6 their actions. Evkaf can therefore be seen as an expression of this relationship. The governor supports his population through acts of charity and piety. In return, the governed population remains loyal.

The function of evkaf in Ottoman society can therefore be explained as a support for social cohesion and stability.

However, acts of piety cannot be underestimated, as acts of genuine piety would have helped to support positive reputations built up by Ottoman administrators. Sinan Pasa’s predecessor in Damascus, Murad Pasa, constructed a mosque and provided funds 7 for the poor of Mecca and Medina, seemingly out of genuine piety.

Sultans were known to sponsor medreses, with seemingly no benefit to themselves. This suggests they were acting largely in the name of 8 piety. Perhaps evkaf associated with the sultan or other administrative figures provided a tangible symbol of Ottoman rule, further supporting the notion that evkaf was a pillar upholding the ‘circle of equity’, helping the rulers and the ruled to interact.

Ottoman administration had to interact cautiously with vakıf foundations, however. While it was possible for administrators to use evkaf to their own political ends, it was equally politically sensible to manage their interactions with existing evkaf within the Empire carefully. For example, upon the conquest of Egypt, much of the land and buildings in Cairo had become involved in a vakıf of 9 some sort. As a result, there was the capacity for friction between 10 Istanbul, the kadı and the provincial government. Sultan Selim I’s primary concern was to produce an inventory of evkaf in Egypt, showing political sense in attempting to avoid an inadvertent clash 11 between secular Imperial concerns and seria local ones. This is particularly important as much of the wealth of Egypt was focused Ibid., p. 18, p. 117.

See appendix.

7 Pascual, Damas XVIe siècle, p. 18, p. 117.

8 Benjamin Lellouch, Les Ottomans en Égypte (Paris, 2006), p. 117-8.

9 Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Egypt’s Adjustment to Ottoman Rule: Institutions, Waqf and Architecture in Cairo (16th and 17th Centuries) (Leiden, 1994), p. 145.

10 Ibid.

11 Lellouch, Ottomans en Égypte, p. 64.

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in the Cairo evkaf, making their administrators relatively powerful 12 and potentially a threat to the stability of Ottoman rule in Egypt.

Careful management could therefore allow the Ottoman regime to harness (to some extent) these evkaf for Imperial benefit. This was the case when, in the early seventeenth century, the governor of 13 Egypt used the Cairo evkaf to sell on surplus copper. In this respect, evkaf can again be shown to have had an effect in facilitating the ‘circle of equity’. The Ottoman government showed its respect for the power of evkaf in Egypt, and in return, the vakıf administrators, rather than posing a significant threat, presented opportunity to the Ottoman administration. This is a further example of the symbiosis evident in the relationship between the Ottoman regime, its subjects, and evkaf.

Koçu Beğ’s ‘wheel of equity’ also provides a means of envisioning the Ottoman use of evkaf in the foundation – or to encourage the growth – of towns and city quarters. Ottoman governors were aware that their actions could stimulate a response on the ground, and, in this respect, evkaf provided a useful means of providing stimulus for city growth. Often in newly founded or newly conquered cities, the Sultan (or an official representative) would lay the first cornerstone of a new mosque to commence the founding 14 of vakıf endowments. Upon conquering Constantinople, Sultan 15 Mehmed II’s first concern was to repopulate and repair the city.

He ordered the construction of a great number of new buildings, including baths, karvansarays and a marketplace; buildings that were later echoed in the use of evkaf in newly conquered or newly 16 founded Balkan cities. Mehmed Pasa’s endowments in Belgrade while sancakbeyi of Semendire (a region that included the city of Belgrade) are a good example of this. He ordered the construction of a number of socially and economically beneficial buildings, 17 including a marketplace, mosque karvansaray, imaret and medrese.

Alumni of his medrese later went on to become muftis of Belgrade, and the marketplace, mosque and imaret helped fuel significant 18 development of the economy and society of the city. Similar developments occurred almost simultaneously in Sarajevo, where Behrens-Abouseif, Egypt’s Adjustment to Ottoman Rule, pp. 145-6.

Ibid.

14 Aleksandar Fotić, ‘Yahyapaşa-oğlu Mehmed Pasa’s Evkaf in Belgrade’, Acta Orientalia Scientiarum Hungaricae, 54/4 (2001), p. 438.

15 Kritovoulos, History of Mehmed the Conqueror (trans. Charles T. Riggs, Westport, 1970), p. 83.

16 Ibid., p. 104.

17 Fotić, ‘Evkaf in Belgrade’, p. 442.

18 Ibid., p. 443-4.

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the patronage of Hüsrev Bey, combined with a growth of Balkan land trade, saw the rise of Sarajevo from garrison town to regional 19 centre.

The deployment of marketplaces, mosques and karvansarays brought in an Islamic merchant class, trade from the 20 hinterland and growth of the town into an important city. This indicates a clear understanding – and to an extent expectation – on the part of Ottoman ruling officials that actions from above, usually in the form of evkaf, supported a great cross-section of the populations below, which in turn supported the empire and therefore their position and chances of promotion. This incentivised chain of charity and reciprocation embodies the contemporary Ottoman conception of ‘wheels of equity’. Though contemporary commentator Mustafa Ali did not have much beyond a limited experience of public office, he too comments in his ‘counsel for sultans’ on the need for equity in public charity, and directing favours to the places from which most benefit can be 21 reaped. The case for Ottoman understanding of this concept and its prevalence within official evkaf policy can therefore be strongly made.

Wealthy Ottoman notables could use evkaf for selfish, material reasons and yet still provide charitable assistance for the less well off as a consequence. In this manner, evkaf can further be argued to have promoted social cohesion through incentivising the sort of symbiotic behaviour inherent to the contemporary conception of the ‘circle of equity’. Richard Van Leeuwen suggests strongly that evkaf performed this dual role, benefiting the founder in social, religious and often material ways, but also benefiting others 22 equally. This links to Gabriel Baer’s argument suggesting that evkaf formed a prop for society, in which he goes some way towards showing that slaves and masters behaved in a somewhat symbiotic manner in the provision made for freed slaves through 23 the vakıf of the master. Evkaf was an accepted way for those lucky Colin Heywood, ‘Bosnia Under Ottoman Rule, 1463-1800’ in Pinson, M. (ed.), The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina: Their Historic Development from the Middle Ages to the Dissolution of Yugoslavia (Cambridge, MA., 1994), p. 31; York Norman, ‘Imarets, Islamization and Urban Development in Sarajevo, 1461-1604’ in N. Ergin, C.K. Neumann and A. Singer (eds.), Feeding People, Feeding Power: Imarets in the Ottoman Empire (Istanbul, 2007), p. 82.

20 Heywood, ‘Bosnia Under Ottoman Rule’, pp. 31-3.

21 Mustafa Ali, Mustafa Ali’s Counsel For Sultans of 1581 (Part I) (trans. Andreas Tietze, Vienna, 1979), p. 58.

22 Richard van Leeuwen, Waqfs and Social Structures: The Case of Ottoman Damascus (Leiden, 1999), p. 67.

23 Gabriel Baer, ‘The Waqf as a Prop for the Social System’, Islamic Law and Society, 4/3 (2007), p. 275.

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enough to own slaves to provide for them once they had been 24 freed. Though not a member of the reaya, Ridwan Bey al-Faqari provides a good seventeenth century example of a vakıf providing 25 for the welfare of freed slaves. There are also examples of merchants and other non-governmental individuals performing 26 similar acts. The provision for freed slaves via evkaf was certainly a prop for this sector of society that would otherwise have struggled to fully reintegrate economically into Ottoman life, which shows that evkaf certainly provided an important social function.

Furthermore, this provision transformed what would previously have been considered to be a markedly one-sided social relationship into a sort of ‘wheel of equity’ symbiosis: the slaves serve their masters, and then when they are freed their masters provide some support in return. This further goes to show that evkaf was an expression of the cycles of support and dependence illustrated by the concept of the ‘wheel of equity’.

On the other hand, the more well off members of Ottoman society could attempt to use evkaf for private or familial gain above all other concerns. Van Leeuwen argues that, although evkaf was a form of incentivised giving, the profit for the donor was far greater 27 in terms of social status, material profit and appearance of piety.

In pre-Ottoman Egypt, the aforementioned proliferation of foundations was symptomatic of a concerted effort on the part of the founders to form hereditary estates safe from taxation or confiscation, showing the way that evkaf could in fact be used as a 28 personal, rather than a societal prop. Islamic law has since evolved to combat this kind of debt or inheritance avoidance through evkaf, and Ottoman law certainly placed focus on the vakıf providing a quantifiable social function and being free from irregularities or facing confiscation, as was nearly the case with 29 Sinan Pasa. Despite this, a normal vakıf providing a charitable purpose could have significant benefit to the family designated for its administration. There are many examples of charitable evkaf – favouring causes as diverse as orphans and water supply – which 30 were also administered for the profit of one family. These, at

Ibid.

Ibid., p. 276.

26 Ibid.

27 Van Leeuwen, Waqfs and Social Structures, p. 67.

28 Behrens-Abouseif, Egypt’s Adjustment to Ottoman Rule, p. 145.

29 N.J. Coulson, Succession in the Muslim Family (Cambridge, 1971), p. 268, Pascual, Damas XVIe siècle, p. 117.

30 Baer, ‘Waqf as a Prop’, p. 265.

24 25

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Joel Butler

least, did perform a valid social function, and reinforce the assertion that evkaf was an expression of the ‘wheel of equity’.

To return to Van Leeuwen’s argument, a system encouraging personal profit and social status through charitable foundations is ultimately of great social importance. It can therefore be argued that even evkaf founded with the worst of possible intentions provided at least some social benefit to the wider community, and the profit of wealthy families therefore helped to support other groups: a clear example of the ‘wheel of equity’ in action. This is similar to Amy Singer’s argument that ‘family waqf’ and more charitable evkaf should not be seen as different because both still 31 provided a clear social and charitable function. Moreover, in attempting to protect family property and income from taxation by the government, wealthier families provided funds and services that the government may otherwise have been expected to provide.

This further shows the symbiotic relationship of the ‘wheel of equity’ as represented by evkaf.

The poorer members of the reaya, many of whom were provided for in some way by evkaf, are a clear example of its ‘social prop’ function, but also provide further evidence of the symbiotic, intertwined nature of society represented within the institution of evkaf. The case of peasants who farmed lands belonging to a vakıf is a perfect example of the role of evkaf in supporting an integrated society. The surplus produced by such peasants was, as a result, the 32 profit of the vakıf that contained the lands they farmed. This surplus would then go on to be sold to fund the functions of the vakıf, used to pay in kind wages for employment created by the vakıf, and generally contribute to the upkeep of the foundation and 33 its associated services. As a result, the peasants contributed partially to the profit of the vakıf administrators, and partly to the vakıf itself and the services that they and others like them were ultimately the beneficiaries of. This shows how evkaf was primarily concerned with providing a social patchwork, from both the position of the donor and the recipient. The donor engaged in the act of charity, forming an ‘interaction’ between the donor and the

Gottfried Hagen, ‘An Imperial Soup Kitchen Provides Food for Thought’ (2003) at http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=7578 (viewed 10th March 2011); Amy Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneficence: An Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem (Albany, 2002), p. 31.

32 Suraiya Faroqhi, ‘Vakıf Administration in Sixteenth Century Konya: The Zaviye of Sadreddin-I Konevî’, Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient, 17/ 2 (May, 1974), p. 146.

33 Ibid., pp. 160-161.

31

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Circular Reasoning 34

recipient. This is the obvious societal ‘prop’, linking the fortunes of the donor and the recipient on the most basic level, and providing for the vulnerable groups in society from the wealth of those who had enough. Their wealth was ultimately provided through commerce within – or employment by – the Empire, the wealth of which was ultimately based upon taxation of and food production by the lowest classes. The common reaya are the people who essentially provide the funds for and benefit most from evkaf, as the process comes full cycle. This is the deeper level upon which evkaf provides a form of social cohesion: it helps to uphold and represent a philosophy of social structure and interaction, the ‘wheel of equity’, obvious to contemporaries but often lost on modern scholars. It is, as a result, clear that the principal function of evkaf was to provide a ‘prop’ for this integrated societal model.

It is evident that evkaf played an important role in Ottoman society, as well as wider Islamic society in general. It provided an outlet for piety, as well as personal and political gain. The principal function that it served – albeit sometimes indirectly through acts of piety, political calculation or acts intended primarily for personal gain – was a social one. Through the institution of evkaf, the social model of the ‘wheel of equity’ could be realised and reinforced, providing an integrated and well-rounded society, based upon principles of order, balance and co-operation. It is clear that this was not always the reality, but this represents the underlying philosophy in religious and legal terms of evkaf, which was often borne out in small vakıf gestures, such as between masters and their freed slaves. The larger picture should also be recognised, with evkaf potentially showing the ‘wheel of equity’ relationship between administrators and those they ruled over. The maintenance of an ordered and cohesive society was ultimately the principal function of evkaf in Ottoman culture, and Koçu Beğ’s ‘wheel of equity’ an excellent paradigm for its understanding.

34

Hagen, ‘Soup Kitchen’.

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Joel Butler

Appendix ‘the power and authority of the sultanate is based on the military, the military are supported by the treasury, the treasury by the sultan's subjects, and the position of the people is maintained through justice and equity. But now [c.1630] this world is in ruins, the people are unhappy, the treasury depleted, and the military inadequate. No steps are being taken to prevent [Ottoman] territory being taken by the enemy, no remedy [for these ills] is being sought, excesses are not being curbed.’

Koçu Beğ on ‘circles of equity’ in Koçu Beğ risalesi (trans. Christine Woodhead, Durham).

‘King and subjects, especially army leaders and statesmen, all constitute one organism, serving in various ways, at times [the king’s] seeing eyes, his grasping hands, as his battle-ready shield, at times his wing and pinion ready to fly, at times as his speaking tongue or walking foot [but always] being bold enough to set aside fear and awe and to speak out the word of truth.’

Mustafa Ali on ‘circles of equity’ in Mustafa Ali’s Counsel For Sultans of 1581 (Part I) (trans. Tietze, A., Vienna, 1979), p. 25.

‘After that [Satan] entered Egypt, he copulated and spawned on the bed of wish-fulfilment and even hatched his offspring. This noble hadith reveals that most of the people of Egypt are of a devilish nature and not fit to associate with the human species.’

‘If the public treasury has to receive several thousand florins from one village, against a small tent each one of them embezzles the same exorbitant sum.’

Mustafa Ali on the failure of Egyptians to uphold Ottoman values of ‘equity’ in Mustafa Ali’s Description of Cairo of 1599 (trans. Andreas Tietze, Vienna, 1975), pp. 39-45

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Glossary of Ottoman terms Askeri –

‘Class’ of tax-exempt Ottoman officials

Bey –

Lord or commander; minor Ottoman governor or official

Beylerbeyi –

‘Bey of beys’; governor of an Ottoman administrative province

Evkaf –

(Arabic: awquf) See vakıf

Imaret –

‘Soup kitchen’ providing meals to groups made eligible by the vakıf deed

Kadı –

Judge of Islamic law, with responsibility for secular law in Ottoman provinces

Karvansaray –

Coach house, providing shelter for merchants

Medrese –

College teaching Islamic religious sciences and law

Müfti –

Interpreter of Islamic law

Pasa –

Title added to names of beylerbeyis and vezirs

Reaya –

Not askeri, nor slaves; can be of any religion; ‘commoners’

Sancak –

Division within a belyerbeyilik

Sancakbeyi –

Governor of a sancak

Seria(t) –

Islamic law

Sultan –

Ottoman leader and head of state

Vakıf –

(Arabic: waqf) Charitable endowment (in perpetuity) for public benefit

Vezir –

High ranking administrative and military officials; ‘minister’

60 Bibliography Ali, M., Mustafa Ali’s Counsel For Sultans of 1581 (Part I) (trans. A. Tietze, Vienna, 1979). __________., Mustafa Ali’s Description of Cairo of 1599 (trans. A. Tietze, Vienna, 1975).

Baer, G., ‘The Waqf as a Prop for the Social System’, Islamic Law and Society, 4/3 (2007), pp. 264-297.

Beğ, K., Koçu Beğ risalesi (trans. C. Woodhead, Durham).

Behrens-Abouseif, D., Egypt’s Adjustment to Ottoman Rule: Institutions, Waqf and Architecture in Cairo (16th and 17th Centuries) (Leiden, 1994).

‘Copy of an Imperial firman as recorded in sheri’ court of Nicosia’ in: Laws and Regulations Affecting Waqf Property (Nicosia, 1899).

Coulson, N.J., Succession in the Muslim Family (Cambridge, 1971).

Faroqhi, S., ‘Vakıf Administration in Sixteenth Century Konya: The Zaviye of Sadreddin-I Konevî’, Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient, 17/2 (May, 1974), pp. 145-172.

Fotić, A., ‘Yahyapaşa-oğlu Mehmed Pasa’s Evkaf in Belgrade’, Acta Orientalia Scientiarum Hungaricae, 54/4 (2001), pp. 437-452.

Hagen, G., ‘An Imperial Soup Kitchen Provides Food for Thought’ (2003) at http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=7578 (viewed 10th March 2011).

Heywood, C., ‘Bosnia Under Ottoman Rule, 1463-1800’ in M. Pinson (ed.), The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina: Their Historic Development from the Middle Ages to the Dissolution of Yugoslavia (Cambridge, MA., 1994), pp. 22-53.

Kritovoulos, History of Mehmed the Conqueror (trans. Riggs, C.T., Westport, 1970).

Lellouch, B., Les Ottomans en Égypte: Historiens et conquérants au XVIe siècle (Paris, 2006).

Norman, Y., ‘‘Imarets, Islamization and Urban Development in Sarajevo, 1461-1604’ in N. Ergin, C.K. Neumann and A. Singer

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Circular Reasoning

(eds.), Feeding People, Feeding Power: Imarets in the Ottoman Empire (Istanbul, 2007), pp. 81-94.

Pascual, J-P., Damas à la fin du XVIe siècle d’après trois actes de waqf ottomans (Damascus, 1983).

Singer, A., Constructing Ottoman Beneficence (Albany, 2002). van Leeuwen, R., Waqfs and Social Structures: The Case of Ottoman Damascus (Leiden, 1999).

62

London in the creation of a British national culture, 1500-1700

By Bryan Gillingham The idea of national culture in modern Britain conjures vivid images of the Union Jack, fish and chips, and persistent rain. To the Victorians it meant empire and the world map turned red. Yet applying this term to early modern Britain is problematic. Britain was barely an entity in this period, only becoming fully united in 1707. Since then Britain has gained Ireland and subsequently lost half of it. It has fought two world wars and pioneered the world’s first Industrial Revolution. Furthermore, the term ‘national identity’ needs to be dissected. ‘National’ is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as, ‘of or relating to a nation or a country, especially as a 1 whole; affecting or shared by a whole nation’. This statement is necessarily vague in an attempt to encapsulate the meaning of the word, which is essentially centred upon shared experience. The extent to which this is true for the British nation today is debatable.

It is an even more abstract construct in the early modern period.

Peter Burke gives a detailed description of culture, naming a more general theme of ‘attitudes and values’, before listing a series of institutions that come under this umbrella, such as art, theatre and 2 literature. Throughout British history exists one common thread; the importance of London and the role it plays has been essential from the Roman city to our current day capital. Naturally, the status it holds in our state has made it a subject of historiography.

Whereas A.L Beier and Roger Finlay have commented on the role London played in shaping the culture of early modern England, Keith Wrightson has attempted to argue against the city’s 3 importance. Despite this dispute, it is clear that London played a key role in shaping culture across England, though whether this represented British culture is much harder to determine.

Economic factors, with the emergence of a capitalist market system, play a key part in spreading London ideals to the provincial 1 Oxford English Dictionary, at www.oed.com.

2 Peter Burke, ‘Popular Culture in seventeenth century London’ in Barry Reay, Popular culture in seventeenth century England (London, 1985), p. 31.

3 A. Beier & R. Finlay (eds.), London 1500-1700: The Making of the Metropolis (London, 1986), p. 1; Keith Wrightson, Earthly Necessities: economic lives in early modern London (New Haven, 2000), pp. 6-7.

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areas. London’s population expanded quickly across the period, from 55,000 in 1520 to around 200,000 in 1600 and 675,000 by 4 1750. In 1520, London was already by far the largest city in Britain, and this expansive growth could only increase the influence of the capital more. The effect London had upon the rest of the county is best shown through economic factors. As such a large 5 city, the demand and consumption was going to be inevitably high.

The explosive nature of demographic growth meant that London could no longer rely on its traditional suppliers in the Home Counties, having to purchase produce from Berwick, Durham and 6 Wales. Consequences of this increased trade around the country naturally included increased contact with the capital. Farmers who would have solely concentrated on their local market, centred on the closest county or market town, now found a new, increasingly larger market. From this we can already see that London is diminishing the role of regional markets, with the effect of creating a more national economy. From a market based national economy would come national trends and fashions. Thirsk argues this point, suggesting that new consumer items in London soon found their 7 way to local village shops.

Wrightson is critical of this view, however. He suggests that life in the countryside was already evolving and changing before the bulk 8 of London’s growth from 1520 onwards. Although this may be true, it is hard to argue against the fact that London increased 9 growth and encouraged prosperity in regions outside the city. It also facilitated an increase in communications between areas previously isolated from the capital city, allowing the effect it had on country areas to increase. However, Wrightson does convincingly argue that London’s increasing population did not boost Scotland’s economy; which again demonstrated the 10 limitations of the term ‘national culture’. If this were to refer to England and Wales, the spread of culture through economic means would indicate the strong role of London. However, Scottish 4 Keith Wrightson, Earthly necessities, p. 37; E. A. Wrigley, ‘A simple model of London's importance in changing English society and economy 1650-1750’, Past and Present, 37 (1967), p. 44.

5 F. J. Fisher, ‘The London food market, 1540-1640’ in P. J. Corfield & N. B. Harte (eds.), London and the English Economy, 1500-1700 (London, 1990), p. 61.

6 Ibid., pp. 65-66.

7 J. Thirsk, ‘England’s Provinces: did they serve or drive material London?’ in Lena C. Orlin (ed.), Material London, ca. 1600 (Philadelphia, 2000), p. 98.

8 Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, p. 41.

9 Fisher, ‘London food market’, p. 70.

10 Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, p. 333.

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markets were largely still centred on Edinburgh and Glasgow. The fractured nature of the relationship between highland and lowland Scotland, coupled with increasing ideas of national identity south of the border, may have created a feeling of isolation, particularly amongst Scottish elites, potentially encouraging their positive views on the idea of a British state by union in 1707.

Fisher furthers the argument of the importance of economics in shaping the role of London, by suggesting that the demands of the 11 city encouraged specialisation in provincial areas. The idea here was that specific food needs of London would be best grown in certain areas, dependent on soil conditions and climate. However, Fisher overlooks the potentially divisive factor of this on a unified national culture. By creating specialised regions, regional culture was boosted at the expense of national ideas. People would draw their sense of identity from their local area and the produce that was grown there. Thus this could increase their connections to their local area rather than the national region. Despite this, another important factor is the shared experience between the regions.

They were often producing for a similar cause, as part of a growing capitalist market, with the aim of supplying their country’s largest city. This relates best to the so-called ‘middlemen’ who formed the bridge between traditional suppliers and the wholesalers in 12 London. Virtually becoming employees of the firms in London, these businessmen would have had large connections with both the city and the countryside, allowing a degree of cultural integration between the two.

Cultural integration between city and county is commonly linked to the emerging middle classes in this period. It had previously been argued by Hexter that the term ‘middle class’ is anachronistic to the 13 early modern period. However, Barry argues a view that seems prevalent in modern historiography, suggesting that the beginnings 14 of a ‘middling sort’ can be found during this period. Earle continues this argument, suggesting a series of different qualifying 15 factors of middle class society in the early modern period. The fact that ‘middle class’ is still a vague term today justifies Barry’s 11 Fisher, ‘London food market’, p. 71.

12 Ibid., p. 78.

13 Jonathan Barry, ‘Introduction’ in Jonathan Barry and Christopher Brooks (eds.), The Middling Sort of People: Culture, Society and Politics in England, 1550-1800 (Basingstoke, 1994), p. 1.

14 Ibid., p. 8.

15 P. Earle, ‘The middling sort in London’ in Barry and Brooks (eds.), The Middling Sort of People, p. 145.

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argument, as many of the roles considered in that class today existed back then, such as clerks and lawyers. The influence of this emerging class upon British culture is evident. Many of the rising middle classes who made their money in the city’s fledgling markets would then attempt to mirror the upper classes by purchasing land 16 in the countryside. Dispersing gentry from London into the country would naturally bring the capital’s mannerisms with them.

Thirsk argues that the villagers, who often would not be accustomed to such wealth, would often adapt by providing quality 17 goods for the gentry. Thus, as these products were often influenced by London fashions, the cultural spread emanating from the capital reached rural areas. This evidently encouraged a certain level of assimilation between the culture in the capital and the provinces, leading towards a more distinct idea of national culture.

Political participation was starting to form in the capital city. Its 18 importance as a political centre is highlighted by Beier and Finlay.

This is furthered by Griffiths and Jenner, who state that bills and 19 libels addressing national affairs were posted around the capital.

Ideas of increased political awareness and even involvement, in the case of Prince Charles’ proposed marriage to the daughter of the 20 Spanish King, become more frequent. The fact that it was not just local affairs that were pasted onto city walls and buildings, but also national ones, suggests London’s increasing role within the country.

Today London is clearly the political centre of the United Kingdom, and it seems that this can be traced back to the early modern period. In terms of national culture, one implication would have been the advancement of the idea of a national government.

Rather than looking to their local noble family or gentry as rulers, people would be encouraged to see London as the political centre.

This would clearly encourage a more unified sense of national culture, as political ideals from the capital would be dispersed across the nation.

However, there are still some fundamental criticisms of this view of national culture spreading from London. Archer states that within London there was still a large sense of local community based upon

16 Thirsk, ‘England's Provinces’, p. 100.

17 Ibid.

18 Beir and Finlay, London 1500-1700, p. 11.

19 Mark Jenner and Paul Griffiths, ‘Introduction’ in Mark Jenner and Paul Griffiths (eds.), Londinopolis: essays in the cultural and social history of early modern London (Manchester, 2000), p. 10.

20 Ibid.

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the parish that people belonged to. This suggests that migrants into the larger city still attempted to hold on to the ideas of local community that they had known in their rural homes. The theory of local culture coming to London is further advanced by Burke, who suggests that parts of the city had very distinct, unique 22 characteristics. Therefore, it is possible to argue that it was in fact the provinces that shaped national culture, rather than London itself. However, taking Archer’s and Burke’s view as true, there was still a clear role for London to play in creating any sort of national identity. The capital city became the meeting point of these different cultures from the various regions that constituted Britain.

Thus, it created an amalgamation of these ideas, forming a more unified idea of culture. For example, the major festivals, such as May Day and Ascension Day were celebrated in London just as they were in the countryside, but there would be many other events 23 in between these important days. This indicates that the capital city adopted many forms of regional entertainment, encouraging their infiltration into other areas.

From this it is possible to see the argument that London’s role in national culture was one of a hospitable breeding place. The figures provided by Wrigley show an increasing number of migrants flooding into the city from over the country, in a variety of 24 different roles, such as merchants, middlemen and apprentices.

With each migrant mixing in circles that would be alien to that of the countryside, it is highly probable that they would find comfort in their personally held ideals of culture. This would encourage a mix of the culture present in the countryside, with the result being the beginnings of the national culture we know today. There are still problems with this theory, especially in respect to the absenteeism of Scotland in national culture. Although the lowlanders may have attempted to align with the converging identity south of the border, the highlanders still lived in a very different sphere. However, in national culture there is still room for certain elements of regional culture. In many ways, the diversity within a nation and the variety prevalent in this can help shape national culture itself. London, therefore, may not have been solely responsible for creating a national culture but despite this, it 21 I. Archer, ‘Social Networks in Restoration London’ in Alexandra Shepard & Phil Withington (eds.), Communities in early modern England: networks, place, rhetorics (Manchester, 2000), p. 78.

22 Burke, ‘Popular culture’, p. 33.

23 Ibid., p. 39.

24 Wrigley, ‘A simple model of London’, p. 46.

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certainly played a central role in spreading a more assimilated view on national culture and identity.

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Bibliography Archer, I., ‘Social networks in restoration London’ in A. Shepard and P. Whitington, Communities in early modern England: networks, place, rhetorics (Manchester, 2000), pp. 76-95.

Barry, J., ‘Introduction’ in J. Barry and C. Brooks (eds.), The Middling sort of people: culture, society and politics in England, 1550-1800 (Basingstoke, 1994), pp. 1-23.

Beier, A. & Finlay, R. (eds.), London 1500-1700: the making of the metropolis (London, 1986).

Burke, P., ‘Popular culture in seventeenth century London’ in B. Reay (ed.), Popular culture in seventeenth century England (London, 1985), pp. 31-58.

Earle, P., ‘The middling sort in London’ in J. Barry and C. Brooks (eds.), The Middling sort of people: culture, society and politics in England, 1550-1800 (Basingstoke, 1994), pp. 141-158.

Fisher, F. J., ‘The London food market, 1540-1640’ in P.J. Corfield and N.B. Harte (eds.), London and the English economy, 1500-1700 (London, 1990), pp. 61-81.

Jenner, M. and Griffiths, P., ‘Introduction’ in M. Jenner and P. Griffiths (eds.), Londinopolis: essays in the cultural and social history of early modern London (Manchester, 2000), pp. 1-14.

Oxford English Dictionary, at www.oed.com.

Thirsk, J., ‘England’s provinces: did they serve or drive material London?’ in L.C. Orlin, (ed.), Material London, ca.1600 (Philadelphia, 2000), pp. 97-108.

Wrightson, K., Earthly necessities: economic lives in early modern London (New Haven, 2000).

Wrigley, E. A., ‘A simple model of London’s importance in changing English society and economy 1650-1750’, Past and Present, 37 (1967), pp. 44-70.

69

National Regeneration, Social Radicalism and the Reconceptualisation of Chinese Womanhood in Late Imperial China, 1890-1911

By Sabine Schneider

In the tumultuous decades preceding the overthrow of the Qing, China’s last imperial dynasty, radical cultural and political transformations, from conceptions of national sovereignty to collective values, propelled the women’s emancipation movement 1 forward. In this time of national crisis, the women’s question became invested with the task of re-theorising and realigning traditional Chinese values and social practices with modern ideas of nationhood, individual rights and Western-style economic and institutional modernisation. As a result, women’s maternal role in society was equated with a strong and prosperous Chinese state. In his recent studies of nationalism in Rescuing the Nation (1995) and Authenticity and Sovereignty (2003) Prasenjit Duara has emphasised how political discourse in emerging nation-states conventionally overrides or emulates established social identities with regard to 2 religion, gender or class. Duara’s mode of analysis, bifurcated history, offers a gateway to exploring the multiple approaches and strategies through which different self-conscious groups incorporated the women’s question into the fast-changing political 3 discourse of late imperial China. As an analytical concept, bifurcated history seeks to discover the causes, conditions, and agents involved in the transformation of political discourse, by highlighting reappropriated, repressed, and dispersed meanings of 4 the past. In this sense, the modernizing discourse of the Reform era (1897-1898) conveys a mirror image of China’s struggle with ‘modernity’ and its search for a national identity under the

Lu Meiyi, ‘The Awakening of Chinese Women and the Women’s Movement in the early twentieth century’ in Tao Jie, Zheng Bijun & Shirley L. Mox (eds.), Holding up half the sky: Chinese women Past, Present and Future (New York, 2004), p. 58.

2 Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation (Chicago, 1995), pp. 10-11.

3 Ibid., p. 11.

4 Ibid., p. 234.

1

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Sabine Schneider 5

precarious conditions of semi-colonialism. This paper thus argues that the reconceptualisation of Chinese ‘womanhood’ emerged, from the interaction of nationalist and Social Darwinist concerns, as the predominant metadiscourse about China’s state-building 6 project.

In the late 1890s, two of the most influential male thinkers of the period, Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei, initiated the first steps towards female emancipation by challenging existing gender prescriptions. In ‘On Education for Women’ (1897), Liang identified the root-cause of China’s perceived backwardness in the ill-educated, weak and allegedly unproductive state of Chinese 7 women. In spite of his disregard for the social realities of peasant women, female factory workers and the traditional contribution of women in the household, Liang’s reasoning greatly appealed to many of his contemporaries. Most progressive men still understood woman’s role exclusively in terms of her reproductive function, which effectively excluded her from public life and thus from 8 sexual equality. The utilitarian thrust of the reformers’ agenda comes out most clearly in Liang’s writings about the difference between men and women: the equality of men and women meant not that women could do whatever men could, but that the different endowments of the sexes – modesty, gentleness, tenacity and patience on the part of women; boldness, strength, and grasp of general principle on the part of men – were to be equally respected, and made an equally important 9 contribution to society.

In the wake of 1898, male reformers, reform-minded Manchu officials and local elites founded the first non-missionary girls’ schools. They advocated that by educating Chinese girls in Joan Judge, The Precious Raft of History: the Past, the West and the Woman Question in China (Stanford, 2008), p. 6.

6 Joan Judge, ‘Citizens or Mothers of Citizens? Gender and the Meaning of Chinese Citizenship’ in Merle Goldman & Elizabeth J. Perry (eds.), Changing Meanings of Citizenship in Modern China (Cambridge, MA, 2002), p. 42.

7 Nanxiu Qian, Grace S. Fong, Richard J. Smith (eds.), Different worlds of discourse: transformations of gender and genre in late Qing and early republican China (Leiden, 2008), pp.

8-9.

8 Fan Hong, Footbinding, Feminism and Freedom: The Liberation of Women’s Bodies in Modern China (London, 1997), pp. 78-79.

9 Ibid., p. 80.

5

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domestic science, modern knowledge in hygiene, child psychology and accountancy, as well as incorporating physical exercise into the curriculum, Chinese women would become healthier, and more 10 productive elements of society.

The regenerative discourse of the male reformers, which served as a vehicle of female emancipation, was re-appropriated by some elite women to radically challenge the traditional Confucian moral code.

From 1903, small groups of female Chinese students travelled to Japan – often under the auspice of a male relative - to enrol in private schools, most notably Shimoda Utako’s Practical Women’s 11 School (Jissen jogakkô) in Tokyo. Among this privileged group of women, many took advantage of the absence of strict gender divides and joined radicalised student associations where they could freely voice their opinions and learn the skills of political battle.

Heavily influenced by the hothouse atmosphere of Tokyo’s radical student associations, they returned to China to take up the struggle for women’s emancipation as educators, journalists and revolutionary activists. Qui Jin, a progressive educator and ardent nationalist, is the most prominent example; she put her life into the service of female education and national strengthening, and died a martyr, executed for her involvement in a revolutionary uprising in 1907. To the young female students who formed The United Women’s Army to participate in the 1911 Revolution, Qui was 12 already a paragon of female heroism and self-sacrifice. The year of Qui’s death coincided with the official introduction by the Qing court of elementary school education for girls and normal schools 13 for training teachers. For the year 1907, 434 girls’ schools were recorded to teach 15,324 female students; this number would rise to 722 girls’ schools and 26,465 students by 1909 – still only 14 marginal compared to the number of male students in education.

Due to the growing radicalisation of Chinese students overseas, Qing officials were particularly concerned about the importation of Western feminist ideas, notions which carried the danger of contesting and undermining conventional public morals, resulting

Paul John Bailey, Gender and Education in China (London, 2007), p. 45.

Ibid., p. 35.

12 Catherina Gipoulon, ‘The Emergence of Women in Politics in China, 1898 – 1927’, Chinese Studies in History, 23 (1989), p. 62.

13 Judge, The Precious Raft of History, p. 9.

14 Bailey, Gender and Education, pp. 34-35.

10 11

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in the destabilization of China’s established social order. In the Ministry of Education’s instructions of 1907 these concerns are openly addressed: All evil talk of allowing them [normal school students] to run wild, or of liberty (such as not heeding the distinction between male and female, selecting one’s own spouse, holding meetings and giving speeches on political matters) must be strictly 16 eliminated to maintain public morality.

Prior to the sanctioning of state-funded education for girls, Empress-Dowager Cixi had issued an official ban in 1902 on the centuries-old tradition of footbinding. During the 1890s reform era, anti-footbinding societies were being launched by reform-minded elites, first in the coastal regions, and spreading from there to all parts of the Empire. Anti-footbinding campaigns had initially been introduced by Western missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century, in an attempt to raise awareness of its detrimental effect on 17 women’s health. By the close of the century, reform-minded intellectuals had successfully popularised the view that footbinding was an arbitrary fashion and embarrassing symbol of China’s backwardness as well as being responsible for weakening the 18 ‘yellow race’.

Significantly in this period, Social Darwinist assumptions were introduced to China by Qing reformers who had absorbed these pseudo-scientific concepts on their travels abroad. Social Darwinist rhetoric and language helped to rationalise the urgency of their claims for modernizing reform. As Duara has noted, the construction of the hybrid narrative of the ‘survival of the nation’ should be understood as an effort ‘to mobilise societal initiative and construct a modern society’ capable of withstanding further assaults 19 on China’s sovereignty.

Its application to the Confucian Charlotte Beahan, ‘In the Public Eye: Women in Early Twentieth-Century China’ in Richard W. Guisso & Stanly Johannesen (eds.), Women in China: Current Directions in Historical Scholarship (Youngstown, NY, 1981), pp. 234-235; Bailey, Gender and Education, p. 43.

16 Ch’en Tung-yuan, Chung-kuo fu-nü sheng-huoshih [History of the Lives of Chinese Women], Shanghai (1928), p. 342, transl. in: Beahan. ‘In the Public Eye’, p.

235.

17 Lu, ‘The Awakening of Chinese Women,’ pp. 57-58.

18 Cited in Patricia Buckley-Ebrey, Women and the Family in Chinese History (London, 2002), p. 219, p. 251.

19 Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation, p. 235.

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communitarian understanding of social relations had the effect of instrumentalising the family – classically perceived as a microcosm 20 of the nation – as a social machine. Women’s role in the family as moral educators of their sons and subservient consorts found its expression in the educative formula of ‘Good wives and wise mothers’ (xianmu liangqi). State-funded girls’ schools were instructed to teach calisthenics, sports, history and geography alongside courses in ethics, based on the Confucian classics with the objective to implant patriotic ideas and preserve Confucian virtues of role21 fulfilment, obedience and self-sacrifice. For the past two thousand years, Confucian state philosophy had provided the yardstick for Chinese conceptions of womanhood. From the mid to late 19th century, Confucian norms of femininity and morality – formerly the most prominent emblem of Chinese high culture – had come under severe scrutiny by moderate reformers and radicals 22 alike. Sexual inequality had generally been accepted by virtue of the prevailing patriarchal interpretations of Confucian and Mencian doctrines, stressing that women were inferior to men as yin is inferior to yang, and expected to observe the ‘Three Bonds’ 23 (obeying the father, husband, and son). Physiological and psychological characteristics such as passivity, gentleness, deference, and diligence were integral to Confucian feminine norms and had been used to justify the inferiority of women and their retreat to the domestic realm. Hence, the Qing’s endorsement of female education – legitimising women’s entry into the public sphere – created considerable doctrinal tensions.

In a recent study on the Worthy Ladies Tradition (xianyuan) in late imperial China, however, Nanxiu Qian has argued that female reformers of the 1890s followed a different rationale for self24 cultivation and national regeneration to their male counterparts.

Members of the Worthy Ladies founded a girls’ school and study societies in Shanghai alongside a journal for women’s selfPrasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (Oxford, 2003), p. 140.

21 Fan Hong & J. A. Mangan, ‘Enlightenment Aspirations in an Oriental Setting: Female Emancipation and Exercise in Early Twentieth-Century China’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 12/3 (March 2007), p. 86; Beahan, ‘In the Public Eye,’ p.

234.

22 Judge, The Precious Raft of History, pp. 7-8; Li-Hsiang & Lisa Rosenlee, Confucianism and Women (New York, 2007), p. 146.

23 Xinyuan Jiang, ‘Confucianism, Women, and Social Context,’ Journal of Chinese Philosophy: Femininity and Feminism: Chinese and Contemporary, 36/2 (2009), pp. 229-235.

24 Nanxiu Qian, ‘Revitalizing the Xianyuan (Worthy Ladies) Tradition; Women in the 1898 Reforms’, Modern China, 29/4 (October 2003), pp. 399-440.

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strengthening, which advocated education as a means ‘for cultivating one’s self, assisting one’s husband, educating children, and harmonising with others’, an agenda which infused classical 25 traditions of Chinese learning with Western knowledge. Rather than preparing women to become independent and economically productive elements of society, they regarded women’s education primarily as a means ‘for cultivating one’s self, assisting one’s husband, educating children, and harmonizing with others’.

Xue Shaohui (1866-1911), translator, poet and biographer, contributed to the thought of the Worthy Ladies tradition by compiling, together with her husband Chen Shoupeng, the Waiguo 26 Lienü Zhuan (Biographies of Foreign Women). First published in 1906, the Waiguo Lienü Zhuan was devoted to cultivating new heroic identities (nü yingxiong), by reproducing life stories of outstanding European and American women. Radical female activists such as Qui Jin (1877-1907) and Chen Xiefen (1883-1923) regarded Confucianism and female emancipation as incompatible by arguing that Confucian state philosophy created the social conditions that 27 restrict women’s role to the domestic sphere. Xue, in contrast, grafted an alternative discourse of female virtue – joining ci, motherly love, with xue, learning – to replace China’s patriarchal value system with a morally superior ideal of women as ‘nurturers 28 of the nation’. Joan Judge and Rebecca Karl have emphasised that the portrayal of women as ‘mothers of the nation’ is a phenomenon, not uncommon to China and Japan, but part of a 29 transnational current in the history of women’s emancipation. In the case of China, educated elites emulated the gender ideology and 30 modernizing program of the Japanese Meiji Restoration. Thus,

Ibid., p. 400; Bailey, Gender and Education, p. 66; Susan Brownell & Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom (eds.), Chinese femininities, Chinese masculinities: a reader (Berkley, 2002), pp.

99-100.

26 Nanxiu Qian, ‘‘Borrowing foreign mirrors and candles to illuminate Chinese civilization’: Xue Shaohui’s moral vision in the biographies of foreign women’, Nan Nu (Men, Women and Gender in Early and Imperial China), 6/1 (March 2004), p. 60.

27 Rosenlee, Confucianism and Women, p. 149.

28 Joan Judge, ‘Talent, Virtue and the Nation: Chinese Nationalisms and Female Subjectivities in the Early Twentieth Century’, American Historical Review, 106/3 (June 2001), p. 767; Brownell & Wasserstrom (eds.), Chinese femininities, Chinese masculinities, p. 100; Nanxiu, ‘Borrowing foreign mirrors,’ pp. 64-77.

29Joan Judge, ‘Citizens or Mothers of Citizens? Gender and the Meaning of Chinese Citizenship’ in Merle Goldman & Elizabeth J. Perry (eds.), Changing Meanings of Citizenship in Modern China (Cambridge, MA, 2002), p. 25, p. 42; Grace S. Fong, Nanxiu Qian & Harriet T. Zurndorfer (eds.), Beyond Tradition and Modernity: Gender, Genre and Cosmopolitanism in Late Qing China (Leiden, 2004), p. 4.

30 Beahan, ‘In the Public Eye’, p. 232; Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity, pp. 134-135.

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between 1894 and 1911 alone, no less than 512 tracts and textbooks were translated from Japanese into Chinese, close to 80 treating issues of modern education and specifically female education.31 Some of this educational literature, such as the books of the famous Japanese educator Shimoda Utako, particularly her ‘Domestic Science’, or Naruse Jinzō’s ‘Women’s Education’, were 32 eagerly received by Chinese educators at the time.

Simultaneously, revolutionary nationalists also promoted female emancipation but for rather different reasons: their nationalism was directed at overthrowing the alien Qing dynasty, and the creation of a Republic of largely Han Chinese descendants. As the end of the dynasty drew near, links between Sun Yatsen’s Revolutionary Alliance (Tongmenhui) and private girls’ schools, as reservoirs of political agitation, became increasingly more important. One of the first revolutionary girls’ schools, the Shanghai Patriotic Girls’ School, had been founded in 1902 by the future president of 33 Beijing University, Cai Yuanpei. The school’s curriculum included physical exercise, a philosophy course on nihilism, history lessons on the French Revolution and chemistry courses in bomb34 making. Some female education facilities are recorded to have put on military parades, engaged in charitable projects, and participated in protest movements, most notably the anti-American boycott 35 (1905) and the Rights Recovery Campaign (1907). Throughout this period, anti-Manchu literature penetrated China from Japan, the centre of radical nationalist student groups and the power base of the Tongmenhui. Jin Songcen’s ‘Warning Bell for Women’ (Nüjie zhong), the classic ‘The Revolutionary Army’, and ‘Alarm Bell’ (Jingshi Zhong) by Chen Tianhua explicitly advocate sexual equality 36 for defeating the alien Manchu rulers. Emphatically embracing Western ideals of individualism and egalitarianism, Jin envisioned a fully emancipated future for Chinese women, where they ‘would study, work, own property, choose their own friends and husbands, Judge, ‘Talent, Virtue and the Nation’, p. 775.

Ibid., pp. 774-775.

33 Peter Zarrow, ‘He Zhen and Anarcho-Feminism in China’, Journal of Asian Studies, 47/4 (November 1988), p. 798; Fan, Footbinding, Feminism and Freedom, pp. 87-88.

34 Fan, Footbinding, Feminism and Freedom, pp. 87-88.

35 Bailey, Gender and Education, p. 72; Lu, ‘The Awakening of Chinese Women’, p. 59.

36 Elizabeth Croll, Feminism and Socialism in China (London, 1978), pp. 56-57; Hershatter, Women in China’s long Twentieth Century, p. 82.

For translations of the original works see: Zou Rong, The Revolutionary Army: A Chinese nationalist tract of 1903 (trans. John Lust, Paris, 1968). Jin Songcen used the pseudonym Ai ziyou (Lover of Freedom); for a detailed discussion of his reformist thought see: Louise Edwards, Gender, Politics, and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage in China (Stanford, CA, 2008).

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and participate in politics’. Following Kang Youwei’s and Liang Qichao’s example, Jin, however, continued to blame women’s moral failings, rather than social, political or cultural factors, for 38 China’s sorry state.

Advances in mass publishing facilitated the dissemination of modernising discourses that represented widely different approaches to women’s emancipation at the time. Between 1897 and 1912, forty women’s publications emerged as novel platforms for reformers and radicals to urge their compatriots to propel China out of the backwardness of feudalism and imperialist 39 oppression. As Judge has pointed out, this new-style women’s literature, including newspapers, journals and magazines, as well as textbooks, and education primers, represents an attempt on the part of elite women to combine the Confucian cultural tradition with Western philosophy from the Enlightenment to the late 19 th century, including conceptions of nationhood and women’s 40 rights. In their essays and speeches, Qui Jin and Chen Xiefen echo the ideas and rhetoric of the male reformers of 1897/1898; particularly striking, however, is the recurrence of the theme of 41 ‘enslavement’ throughout their writings. Whereas the male reformers had used the term to describe China’s subjugation in the global sphere, radical female activists now extended this 42 phenomenon to male-female relations. The inaugural issue of Qui Jin’s Chinese Women’s Journal (Zhongguo nübao), founded in 1907, for instance, opens with: While our two hundred million male compatriots have already advanced, our two hundred million female compatriots are still mired in the utter darkness of the 18 layers of hell … They pass their Bailey, Gender and Education, p. 60; Gail Hershatter, Women in China’s long Twentieth Century (Berkeley, 2007), p. 82.

38 Mizuyo Sudo & Michael G. Hill, ‘Concepts of Women’s Rights in Modern China’, Gender & History, 18/3 (April 2007), p. 476.

39 Gipoulon, ‘The Emergence of Women in Politics in China,’ p. 58; Lu, ‘The Awakening of Chinese Women’, p. 57; Hershatter, Women in China’s long Twentieth Century, p.79.

40 Judge, The Precious Raft of History, pp. 8-12, 17-21.

41 Rebecca E. Karl, ‘Slavery, Citizenship, and Gender in Late Qing China’s Global Context’ in Rebecca E. Karl & Peter Zarrow (eds.), Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China (Cambridge, MA, 2002), p. 242; Fong, Nanxiu & Zurndorfer (eds.), Beyond Tradition and Modernity, p. 4; Hershatter, Women in China’s long Twentieth Century, p. 82; Croll, Feminism and Socialism in China, pp. 16-17.

42 Karl, ‘Slavery, Citizenship, and Gender’, p. 242.

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Chinese Womanhood entire lives knowing only how to depend on men …

They are meek, subservient and fawning … They 43 live the life of obsequious servility.

In spite of apparent class separations, Chen and Qui endeavoured to construct a common notion of collective identity, addressing their female readers on egalitarian terms as conveyed in phrases 44 such as ‘we fellow sisters of China’. Propagating an androcentric vision of the ‘new woman’ as intelligent, militaristic, strong and determined, Chen asserted that in order to win sexual equality: Chinese women [must] join together and seize the opportunity, develop their strength and fill their hearts with venomous hatred, destroying and then erecting [so that] those who shed blood … will be 45 equal to men.

Judge has explored the writings of female Chinese activists, and maintains that such ‘paradoxes that arise when women use nationalism as their own authorizing discourse’, are part of a complex process of mediating between new personal identities or 46 subjectivities, and ‘patriotic femininity’.

Until 1907, any calls for female emancipation were absorbed by the struggle for national independence, with the exception of a nascent anarchist movement in Japan, spearheaded by the exceptional 47 female scholar He Zhen. He Zhen organised the Nüzi Fuquan Hui (Women’s Rights Recovery Association), after having fled into exile to Tokyo, as well as the anarchist journal Tianyi (Heavenly 48 Justice). Within the radical Chinese student community in Japan the anarchist movement formed a left-wing avant-garde. He Zhen’s Qui Jin, ‘Jing’gao jiemei men’ [An urgent announcement to my sisters], Zhongguo nübao 1907, 1. transl. in: Bailey, Gender and Education, p. 59.

44 Sudo, Hill, ‘Concepts of Women’s Rights in Modern China’, pp. 478-481; Haiping Yang, Chinese women writers and the female imagination, 1905-1948 (London, 2006), pp.

27-32; Karl, ‘Slavery, Citizenship, and Gender,’ p. 232; Judge, ‘Citizens or Mothers of Citizens?’, p. 42; Charlotte Beahan, ‘Feminism and Nationalism in the Chinese Women’s Press, 1902-1911’, Modern China, 1/4 (1975), p. 380.

45 Chen Xiefen, ‘Gong xi yao pingdeng’ [Daughters-in-law must be equal], Nuxue bao [Journal of Women’s Education] April 1903, transl. in: Fan, Footbinding, Feminism and Freedom, p. 90.

46 Judge, ‘Talent, Virtue and the Nation’, p. 765; Hershatter, Women in China’s long Twentieth Century, p. 84.

47 Zarrow, ‘He Zhen and Anarcho-Feminism in China’, p. 796.

48 Zarrow, ‘He Zhen and Anarcho-Feminism in China’, pp. 799-800; Beahan, ‘Feminism and Nationalism in the Chinese Women’s Press’, p. 412.

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social revolutionary thought put China’s economic system, with its traditional division of labour, according to Confucian doctrines, at 49 the core of female oppression. Labour, class and sex combined to form a patriarchal class society from which woman could only liberate herself by actively participating in the overthrow of the government and its replacement with a communist political system under which gender and racial inequalities would be fully 50 resolved. He Zhen’s contribution to the struggle for women’s rights was de facto minimal, but her intellectual legacy is nonetheless remarkably progressive: her original application of Marxian theories and anarchist ideas to China’s women’s question led her to the view that the hierarchical structure of capitalism, dominated by male ruling elites, condemns women to the twin-role of subservient wife, 51 and commodified object of male desire. As is commonly known, th the China of the early 20 century still displayed a largely agrarian economy; however, in the metropolitan centres of Shanghai and Beijing, a consumer-oriented sub-culture was slowly emerging and 52 thriving on innovations in photography and print culture.

Prototypes of modern-day lifestyle magazines, for instance, reported on the love lives, fashions and mannerisms of actresses and celebrated courtesans, and therefore contributed to the 53 challenge of traditional perceptions of Chinese womanhood.

Female emancipation, then, was an intricate part of the Republican nation-building project. The reinvention of gender visions in this period was a reflection of the pragmatics of hierarchical rule and 54 the reformers’ agenda for revitalizing the nation. The multidimensional approaches of different self-conscious groups and individuals during China’s turn of the 20th century crisis are paradigmatic responses to new geopolitical realities and the spread of imported political concepts. As male reformers linked the narrative of the ‘survival of the nation’ to the women’s question, Arif Dirlik, ‘Vision and Revolution: Anarchism in Chinese Revolutionary Thought on the eve of the 1911 Revolution’, Modern China, 12/2 (April 1986), pp. 127-128; Sudo, Hill, ‘Concepts of Women’s Rights in Modern China’, pp. 484-486.

50 Zarrow, ‘He Zhen and Anarcho-Feminism in China,’ p. 802.

51 Dirlik, ‘Vision and Revolution: Anarchism in Chinese Revolutionary Thought on the eve of the 1911 Revolution’, Modern China, 12/2 (April 1986), pp. 147-154.

52 Weikun Cheng, ‘The Challenge of the Actresses: Female Performers and Cultural Alternatives in Early Twentieth Century Beijing and Tianjin’, Modern China, 22/2 (April 1996), p. 206; Nanxiu, Fong & Smith (eds.), Different worlds of discourse, pp. 4-5.

53 See: Weikun Cheng, ‘The Challenge of the Actresses’; Laikwan Pang, ‘Photography, Performance and the Making of Female Images in Modern China’, Journal of Women’s History, 17/4 (2005); Catherine Vance Yeh, Shanghai love: courtesans, intellectuals, and entertainment culture, 1850-1910 (Seattle, 2006).

54 Fan, Footbinding, Feminism and Freedom, p. 175.

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they conveniently overlooked the realities of women’s cultural and political repression. They did so in order to assert that educating females would produce well-managed households, and thus contribute to national progress and wealth - an approach that could be described as ‘utilitarian paternalism’. Faced with a growing tide of reformist thought among its gentry elite, conservative monarchists and Manchu officials at court assisted women’s education in the hope of securing popular support for its 55 monarchy. In an attempt to minimise the challenges to China’s traditional value system caused by the introduction of stateeducation for girls, officials, educators, and female reformers of the Worthy Ladies Tradition adopted the reformers’ rationale and produced sophisticated reconfigurations of the Confucian moral code. This strand of thinking about women’s education, which Paul Bailey defines as ‘modernizing conservatism’, was certainly the 56 most influential up to the 1911 Republican Revolution. By paying lip service to women’s natural right to sexual equality, revolutionary nationalists such as Jin Songcen supported female education as a means of recruiting women for their cause. At the same time, female revolutionaries, regardless of whether they followed a nationalist agenda like Qui Jin and Chen Xiefen or were motivated by anarchist and socialist beliefs like He Zhen, exhorted their female compatriots to liberate themselves from man-made, and hence socially constructed, oppression. During the next interval of female activism in the May Fourth era, women’s demands were again linked to nationalist or anti-imperialist concerns, thus indicating that women’s emancipation in early twentieth century China crystallised around intellectual developments at the political epicentre of the nation.

55 56

Beahan, ‘In the Public Eye,’ pp. 231-232.

Bailey, Gender and Education, pp. 44-46.

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Beahan, C., ‘In the Public Eye: Women in Early Twentieth-Century China’ in R.W. Guisso & S. Johannesen (eds.). Women in China: Current Directions in Historical Scholarship (Youngstown, NY, 1981), pp. 215-238. __________., The Women’s Movement and Nationalism in Late Qing China (New York, 1976). __________., ‘Feminism and Nationalism in the Chinese Women’s Press, 1902-1911’, Modern China, 1/4 (1975).

Brownell, S. & Wasserstrom, J.N. (eds.), Chinese femininities, Chinese masculinities: a reader (Berkley, 2002).

Buckley-Ebrey, P., Women and the Family in Chinese History (London, 2002).

Ch’en Tung-yuan; Chung-kuo fu-nü sheng-huoshih [History of the Lives of Chinese Women]. Shanghai (1928), transl. in: Beahan, Charlotte, ‘In the Public Eye: Women in Early Twentieth-Century China’ in R.W. Guisso & S. Johannesen (eds.), Women in China: Current Directions in Historical Scholarship (Youngstown, NY, 1981).

Chen Xiefen, ‘Gong xi yao pingdeng’ [Daughters-in-law must be equal]. Nuxue bao [Journal Women’s Education] April 1903, transl. in: Fan Hong, Footbinding, Feminism and Freedom: The Liberation of Women’s Bodies in Modern China (London, 1997).

Croll, E., Feminism and Socialism in China (London, 1978).

Database of Chinese Women’s Magazines in the Late Qing and Early Republican Period, provided by the Institute for Chinese Studies, Center for East Asian Studies, Heidelberg University, available online via: http://www.womag.uni-hd.de/index.php.

Duara, P., Rescuing History from the Nation (Chicago, 1995). __________., Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (Oxford, 2003).

Dirlik, A., ‘Vision and Revolution: Anarchism in Chinese Revolutionary Thought on the eve of the 1911 Revolution’, Modern China, 12/2 (April 1986), pp. 123-165.

Edwards, L., Gender, Politics, and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage in China (Stanford, 2008)

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Fan Hong & Mangan. J.A., ‘Enlightenment Aspirations in an Oriental Setting: Female Emancipation and Exercise in Early Twentieth-Century China’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 12/3 (March 2007), pp. 80-104.

Fan Hong, Footbinding, Feminism and Freedom: The Liberation of Women’s Bodies in Modern China. (London, 1997).

Fong, G.S., Nanxiu Qian & Zurndorfer, H.T. (eds.), Beyond Tradition and Modernity: Gender, Genre and Cosmopolitanism in Late Qing China (Leiden, 2004).

Gipoulon, C., ‘The Emergence of Women in Politics in China, 1898-1927’, Chinese Studies in History, 23 (1989), pp. 46-67.

Haiping Yang, Chinese women writers and the female imagination, 1905 – 1948 (London, 2006).

Hershatter, G., Women in China’s long Twentieth Century (Berkeley, 2007).

Jaschok, M. & Miers, S., Women and Chinese Patriarchy: Submission, Servitude and Escape (London, 1994).

Judge, J., The Precious Raft of History: the past, the West and the woman question in China (Stanford, 2008). __________., ‘Citizens or Mothers of Citizens? Gender and the Meaning of Chinese Citizenship’ in M. Goldman & E.J. Perry (eds.), Changing Meanings of Citizenship in Modern China (Cambridge, MA, 2002), pp. 23-43. __________., ‘Reforming the Feminine: Female Literacy and the Legacy of 1898’ in R.E. Karl & P. Zarrow (eds.), Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China (Cambridge, MA, 2002), pp. 158-179. __________., ‘Talent, Virtue and the Nation: Chinese Nationalisms and Female Subjectivities in the Early Twentieth Century’, American Historical Review, 106.3 (June 2001), pp. 765-803.

Karl, R.E., ‘Slavery, Citizenship, and Gender in Late Qing China’s Global Context’ in R.E. Karl & P. Zarrow (eds.), Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China (Cambridge, MA, 2002), pp. 212-244.

Laikwan Pang, ‘Photography, Performance and the Making of Female Images in Modern China’, Journal of Women’s History, 17/4 (2005), pp. 56-85.

Lu Meiyi, ‘The Awakening of Chinese Women and the Women’s Movement in the early twentieth century’ in Jie Tao, Bijun Zheng

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Nanxiu Qian, Fong, G.S. & Smith, R.J. (eds.), Different worlds of discourse: transformations of gender and genre in late Qing and early republican China (Leiden, 2008).

Nanxiu Qian, ‘Borrowing foreign mirrors and candles to illuminate Chinese civilization: Xue Shaohui moral vision in the biographies of foreign women’, Nan Nu (Men, Women and Gender in Early and Imperial China), 6/1 (March 2004), pp. 60-101. __________., ‘Revitalizing the Xianyuan (Worthy Ladies) Tradition; Women in the 1898 Reforms’, Modern China, 29/4 (October 2003), pp. 399-454.

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Rankin, M., ‘The Emergence of Women at the End of the Ch’ing: The Case of Ch’iu Chin’, in M. Wolf & R. Witke (eds.), Women in Chinese Society (Stanford, 1975), pp. 39-66.

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Weikun Cheng, ‘The Challenge of the Actresses: Female Performers and Cultural Alternatives in Early Twentieth Century Beijing and Tianjin’, Modern China, 22/2 (April 1996), pp. 197-223.

Xinyan Jiang, ‘Confucianism, Women, and Social Contexts’, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 36/2 (June 2009), pp. 228-242.

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Zarrow, P., ‘He Zhen and Anarcho-Feminism in China’, Journal of Asian Studies, 47/4 (November 1988), pp. 796-813.

Zou Rong, The Revolutionary Army: A Chinese nationalist tract of 1903, (trans. Lust, J., Paris, 1968).

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Forests and Conflict: An analysis of Sierra Leonean forestry

By Andrew Mackenzie Forests have been crucial in the execution of warfare, whether they have been materially advantageous or tactically disadvantageous.

The forests of Sierra Leone bear no exception; for centuries they have influenced, and often furthered the course of warfare. Armies, factions and civilians have used the Sierra Leonean forests for strategic, insurgent and escapist purposes. For succour and sanctuary, Sierra Leonean society has depended on their forestry.

There has been much scholarship concerning the role that forestry played in Sierra Leonean military and social circles. Cole has written that forest patches outlying the deserts, ‘a sea of grass or derived 1 savanna,’ served use as refuges or social and spiritual places. LanePoole reiterates, describing how a ‘piece of forest is preserved around each town’ and sanctified for the usage of the Porro secret 2 society ‘which is used as Porro bush.’ The parallel with military usage is also evident. Indeed, Blyden noted the advantage of such forests; the villages themselves were ‘always built on difficult and scarcely accessible highlands and protected by the cover of high 3 forests.’ Moreover, Migeod notes that certain patches of forest may have originated from previous wooden fortifications: It is no uncommon thing to see a small forest round towns and villages, when there is none surviving anywhere else. Chief among the trees is the kola...The Bombaces rear themselves above all the others covering much ground with their enormous buttresses. The origin of thick timber growth round a town was defensive purposes. The old stockades

N. H. A. Cole, The Vegetation of Sierra Leone (Njala, 1968), p. 81.

C. E. Lane-Poole, Report of the Forests of Sierra Leone (Freetown, 1911), p. 6. For further information on the Porro society refer to A. R. Wright, ‘Secret societies and fetishism in Sierra Leone’, Folklore, 18 (1907), pp. 423-427.

3 E. W. Blyden, ‘Report on the expedition to Falaba’, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 17 (1872), p. 12.

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Forests and conflict have taken root, and one may trace the lines of them 4 in the big trees at present day.

The settlement of Falaba was described as having been ‘surrounded by a natural stockade of over five hundred huge trees – one hundred and ninety of which are very old, and enormous silk 5 cotton trees.’ Major Laing noted further that ‘The whole 6 settlement was surrounded by a thick stockade of hardwood.’

There have been other settlements that owe great solace to the presence of woodland surrounding their villages. Siddle described how ‘in the forested lowlands, every village was a ‘small fortress’ 7 maintaining several lines of defence.’ Essentially, one can infer that forests provide not only social support; they can act further in providing fortification and tactical superiority over potential invaders. Forests provided more than simple timber resource centres; they offered many Sierra Leoneans sanctuary. Forests often played a substantial role during the exodus of civilians during the civil war of 1991. They can be seen as refuges, offering sustenance and fuel-wood as well as shelter and camouflage. Concerning the context of the 1984-1992 Mozambique war, McGregor states that ‘Operating in a war-zone [the Maputo charcoal burners] were concerned with short term gain and minimising personal risk, so they clear-felled the areas where they were based. As trees were cut, burners moved out during the day, withdrawing in the evening to 8 avoid attack.’

In 1991, as many as 100,000 Sierra Leonean refugees fled to the neighbouring Forest Region of Guinea, most were from the Kissi and Mende groups. The majority moved to Guéckédou prefecture during March and April 1991, with 26,000 establishing a de facto camp at Kouloumba. Richard Black and Mohamed Sessay (1998) relate this sudden influx of refugees to significant levels of 9 deforestation in the Guinea Forest Region. The assessment of Van Damme, et al. shows that Guinean forestry had a significant influence over the population of Sierra Leone, in that it attracted F. W. H. Migeod, A View of Sierra Leone (London, 1926), p. 334.

Blyden, ‘Report on the expedition to Falaba’, p. 12.

6 A. G. Laing, Travels in the Timannee, Kooranko, and Soolima Countries in Western Africa (London, 1825), pp. 352-353.

7 K. Little, The Mende of Sierra Leone: A West African People in Transition (London, 1967), p. 27.

8 J. McGregor, ‘Violence and social change in a broader economy: war in the Maputo hinterland, 1984-1992’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24 (1998), p. 58.

9 R. Black and M. Sessay, ‘Refugees and Environmental Change in West Africa: The Role of Institutions’, Journal of International Development, 10 (1998), p. 703.

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many thousands to flee there. Figure 1 demonstrates the increasing numbers of refugees residing in the Guinea Forest during the years 10 1991-1996 compared to Guinean citizens:

The Sierra Leonean requirement for a ‘Porro Bush’ during the civil war transcended, even ignored, the concept of international boundaries. The use of forest resources for sanctuary went beyond simple politics and international borders.

Historically speaking, West African military tactics have been influenced principally by woodland locations. Although they had access to muskets, West African armies preferred not to use volley fire tactics or drill practice. Indeed, the armies of Akyem and Asante preferred to clear woodland in preparation for a major battle in 1741 rather than to actually engage in confined and 11 precarious forest. More recently, tacticians preferred forest locations to adopt the ‘indirect approach,’ choosing guerrilla warfare over the conventional usage of cavalry and artillery, which proved near impossible to operate in woodland locations. Basil Liddell-Hart, architect of the ‘indirect approach’, has written that W. Van Damme, V. De Brouwere, M. Boelaert, et al., ‘Effects of a refugeeassistance programme on host population in Guinea as measured by obstetric interventions’, The Lancet, 351 (1998), p. 1610.

11 J. R. McNeill, ‘Forests and Warfare in World History’, (2002) at www.foresthistory.org/Events/McNeill%20Lecture.pdf (viewed 20th August 2009), p. 24.

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‘Natural hazards, however formidable, are inherently less dangerous and less uncertain than fighting hazards. All conditions are more calculable, all obstacles more surmountable than those of human 12 resistance.’ It was thus common practise in military circles to engage the enemy on forest paths using small bands of infantry in 13 scouting missions rather than to engage directly. In the civil war of 1991 battles were being fought in the more heavily forested parts of eastern Sierra Leone. Following the failure of its direct campaign, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) tactically withdrew into the forests themselves to continue their guerrilla warfare: Frankly, we were beaten and on the run but our pride...would not let us face the disgrace of crossing back into Liberia as refugees...We now relied on light weapons and on our feet, brains and knowledge of the countryside. We moved deeper into the comforting bosom of our mother earth – the forest. The forest welcomed us and gave us 14 succour...

The RUF particularly prized their disconnection from conventional society; new recruits chose to emulate those who were shunned by the social and political machinations of Sierra Leone: ‘The forest welcomed us...We regained our composure and engaged ourselves in a sustained period of intensive self-examination and self15 criticism’. Thus, marginalisation became a process that would change the course of warfare, rather than a struggle for material or vengeance. The civil war was ‘part of a larger drama of social 16 exclusion’. In essence, these fighters were to fight on the sidelines, unencumbered by the restraints that plague conventional armies. One particular example involved a 500 strong Zambian army accompanied by twenty-five armoured vehicles en route to Makeni which were ambushed and captured by the RUF: The road to Makeni, though made of tarmac, was narrow with jungle on both sides. So, unable to Military Quotes, ‘Sir Basil Henry Liddel-Hart Quotes/Quotations’, at http://www.military-quotes.com/Liddelhart.htm (viewed 20th August 2009).

13 J. Thornton, Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1800 (London, 2000), p. 71.

14 RUF/SL, Footpaths to democracy: toward a new Sierra Leone (The Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone: no stated place of publication, 1995), p. 7.

15 Ibid.

16 M. Bøås, ‘Liberia and Sierra Leone – dead ringers? The Logic of Neopatrimonial Rule’, Third World Quarterly, 22 (2001), p. 23.

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Andrew Mackenzie move off the road, only the front vehicle in the column could engage targets ahead. In effect, the firepower of twenty-five armoured cars was reduced to one. If the rebels could physically block the road, the column...would get stuck like a lobster caught in 17 a lobster pot...

In light of this, Kingsley Lington of the Concord Times (Freetown) has written of the base camp of the Westside Boys, Occra Hills: ‘It invites nausea; it is the hangover of years of carelessness, ruthlessness and mindlessness that has swept this country since 18 independence.’ One can thus infer from the background of Lington’s article (i.e. the capture of 11 British soldiers by the Westside Boys militia) that, despite the apparent backwardness of rebel tactics, the RUF still prevailed as a formidable force: The Westside Boys would take time to teach the British military instructors military strategy the jungle style. Take an ambush for example...Our boys talk about V-shape ambushes or One-MileGraveyard ambushes or Shortsleeve amputation or Self-Beat beating or Jaja etc...Many people have wondered why the Brits got near the Brutes. In our 19 kind of war, Gen Bomblast can floor Gen Powell.

The role of forests in the RUF military campaign proved both tactically advantageous and ideologically grounded. Indeed, forest resources and deforestation were used as propaganda by the RUF who claimed that ‘Sierra Leone has been robbed of its mineral and forest resources...No more shall the rural countryside be reduced to 20 hewers of wood and drawers of water for urban Freetown.’

Richards explains that the RUF used such propaganda to rally against ‘the raping of the countryside,’ an attack on the supposed influence of western markets and the social elite within Sierra 21 Leone itself, namely Freetown. However, Abdullah’s assertions contend with those of Richards stating that the RUF were nothing but armed thugs with no real ideology of their own, rallying people through ‘the indiscriminate use of drugs, forced induction, and

P. Ashby, Unscathed: Escape from Sierra Leone (London, 2002), p. 169.

K. Lington, Concord Times, 30 August 2000, pp. 1-2.

19 Ibid.

20 RUF/SL, Footpaths to democracy, p. 5.

21 Ibid.

17 18

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violence – to further their ultimate goal of capturing power.’

Though it is unclear whether motives of resource stripping actually contributed to the outbreak of war, it none the less shows how politically orientated attitudes to the forest could be, and how conceptions of the forest might rally popular support.

The parallel between the RUF and civilian context of forest usage is striking, if not merely on ideological grounds. Both saw the forest as a means of survival, and as a means of averting direct military action. Both recognised the importance of the sanctity of traditional forest practice, the Porro bush, for asylum, ideology and insurrection. Essentially, the role of forestry in Sierra Leone went beyond trees and timber, affecting all levels of Sierra Leonean society, transcending the division between civilian and combatant.

Forests became a symbol of both ambush and exodus.

I. Abdullah, ‘Bush path to destruction: the origin and character of the Revolutionary United Front/Sierra Leone’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 36 (1998), p. 223.

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Bibliography Abdullah, I., ‘Bush path to destruction: the origin and character of the Revolutionary United Front/Sierra Leone’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 36 (1998), pp. 203-235.

Ashby, P., Unscathed: Escape from Sierra Leone (London, 2002).

Black, R., and Sessay, M., ‘Refugees and Environmental Change in West Africa: The Role of Institutions’, Journal of International Development, 10 (1998), pp. 699-713.

Blyden, E. W., ‘Report on the expedition to Falaba’, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 17 (1872).

Bøås, M., ‘Liberia and Sierra Leone – dead ringers? The Logic of Neopatrimonial Rule’, Third World Quarterly, 22 (2001), pp. 697-723.

Cole, N. H. A., The Vegetation of Sierra Leone (Njala, 1968).

Fairhead, J., and Leach, M., Reframing Deforestation: Global analyses and local realities - studies in West Africa (London, 1998).

Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), ‘Forests and War, Forests and Peace’, at ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/007/y5574e/y5574e12.pdf (Viewed

20th August 2009).

Laing, A. G., Travels in the Timannee, Kooranko, and Soolima Countries in Western Africa (London, 1825).

Lane-Poole, C. E., Report of the Forests of Sierra Leone (Freetown, 1911).

Lington, K., Concord Times, 30 August 2000, pp. 1-2.

Little, K., The Mende of Sierra Leone: A West African People in Transition (London, 1967).

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McGregor, J., ‘Violence and social change in a broader economy: war in the Maputo hinterland, 1984-1992’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24 (1998), pp. 37-60.

McNeill, J. R., ‘Forests and Warfare in World History’, at www.foresthistory.org/Events/McNeill%20Lecture.pdf (Viewed

20th August 2009).

Migeod, F. W. H., A View of Sierra Leone (London, 1926).

Military Quotes, ‘Sir Basil Henry Liddel-Hart Quotes/Quotations’, at http://www.military-quotes.com/Liddelhart.htm (Viewed 20th August 2009).

Richards, P., Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth & Resources in Sierra Leone (Cambridge, 1998).

RUF/SL, Footpaths to democracy: toward a new Sierra Leone (The Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone: no stated place of publication, 1995).

Thornton, J., Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1800 (London, 2000).

Van Damme, W., De Brouwere, V., Boelaert, M., et al., ‘Effects of a refugee-assistance programme on host population in Guinea as measured by obstetric interventions’, The Lancet, 351 (1998), pp.

1609-16.

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94

Myth and History in the Aztec Historiography: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

By Benjamin Priest Debate on why Cortés was permitted to enter Tenochtitlan has often been centred upon an Aztec myth. According to this myth Quetzalcoatl, a former Aztec King, was to return in 1519, the year in which the Spanish arrived. Many historians have argued that Moctezuma, the leader of the Mexica, permitted Cortés to enter due to the belief that the invaders were Quetzalcoatl and his army.

However, in recent years this line of argument has been criticised by scholars such as Gillespie and Smith. They argue that military weakness was a more important cause of Aztec defeat, as well as questioning the legitimacy of the myth. Therefore this essay will assess the validity of the myth before analysing the arguments of the revisionist historians.

According to the myth the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl was once the ruler of the Toltec people – of whom the Aztecs believed themselves to be descendants – until he had a disagreement with another god, who then forced him to flee with a contingent of followers. It was believed that Quetzalcoatl travelled towards the Yucatan peninsula by sea and that he would return from that direction to take his rightful place as ruler. The origins of the myth are unknown, believed to be around the sixteenth century, but it was argued that the Aztecs had predicted when Quetzalcoatl would 1 return (1519) and that he would return from the east. Thus, when Cortés arrived from this direction it is argued then that the Aztecs mistook him for Quetzalcoatl and therefore allowed him to approach and enter Tenochtitlan.

During the 1960s, the belief that the Mexica mistook Cortés for a god dominated the historiography and was accepted as a probable cause of Spanish victory. For example, in Sara E. Cohen’s article ‘How the Aztecs Appraised Montezuma’, she accepts the myth as a major factor:

1

Richard F. Townsend, The Aztecs (London, 2000), p. 18.

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Return of Quetzalcoatl It is therefore understandable that Montezuma, who had been brought up within this mythological and religious tradition, was entirely convinced that Cortez and his men were none other than the god Quetzalcoatl and his divine retinue making their return, as had been related and expected for so 2 long.

She argues that Cortés used this idea to his own advantage and used the legend of Quetzalcoatl to scare Moctezuma and the Aztecs into submission by emphasising “how strong and powerful 3 these newly arrived Gods were”. She argues that it was Moctezuma and his belief that Cortés was Quetzalcoatl that ultimately caused the destruction of Tenochtitlan and his own 4 death, as he was a deeply spiritual figure.

R.C. Padden reinforces this view that Moctezuma believed that Cortés was Quetzalcoatl in his work The Hummingbird and the Hawk.

He argues that Moctezuma’s belief in Quetzalcoatl’s return caused the Aztecs to put up very little resistance. Furthermore, the Aztecs’ belief that history was circular certainly tended itself towards a 5 myth of a returning King.

This Belief that Cortés was Quetzalcoatl was challenged during the 1980’s. Revisionist arguments have been so successful that it is now widely accepted that Moctezuma did not believe that Cortés was Quetzalcoatl with the debate now centring on how and why this myth came to be so well believed. The most influential work in this field is Camilla Townsend’s article Burying the White Gods: New Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico. In this article, Townsend argues that it was the Spaniards who created this myth and that the Mexica did not believe Cortés to be a god. She also argues that the Spanish, when writing their sources and codices, either misunderstood what they were being told by the natives or the natives had lied to boost the ego of the conquerors: ‘It is, however, apparently true that the nahuas frequently referred to the Spanish as teotl or teutl (plural Sara E. Cohen, ‘How the Aztecs Appraised Montezuma’, The History Teacher, 5/3 (March 1972), p. 26.

3 Ibid., p. 27.

4 Ibid., p. 29.

5 R.C. Padden, The Hummingbird And The Hawk: Conquest and sovereignty in the Valley of Mexico (London, 1970), pp 118-127; Camilla Townsend, ‘Burying the White Gods: New Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico’, The American Historical Review, 108/3 (June 2003), pp. 659-687.

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teteo’ or teteu’), which the Spanish rendered in their own texts as 6 teul (plural teules); they translated this word as ‘god’’. This suggests that origins of the legend lie in a mistake made during translation.

Susan Gillespie is also influential with her work The Aztec Kings, in which she agrees with Townsend, suggesting that the Quetzalcoatl myth was created after the conquest. According to Gillespie it was the Aztec historians attempting to understand how their Empire had collapsed so rapidly who created the myth: ‘the whole story of Cortés as Quetzalcoatl was created after the conquest by native historians, in an attempt to make sense of the Spaniard’s arrival and victory, interpreting it as the outcome of a pattern of events 7 established long ago, in the remote Toltec past’. This fits in with Richard Townsend’s argument that that the Aztec saw life as a circle of events that would eventually repeat themselves and that their historians used this to explain what had happened: ‘Given that the Aztecs viewed history as a cycle of repeated events, it is highly plausible that their historians should have sought to explain the Aztec defeat as an inevitable event, pre-ordained by the cosmic 8 pattern of history’. However, Townsend criticises Moctezuma’s handling of events, even if he did not believe that Cortés was a God: It can therefore no longer be said with any assurance that Motechuzoma “trembled on his throne in the mountains” at the thought of meeting Cortés as a supernatural being. Nevertheless there can be no doubt that the Spanish landing sounded a note of 9 warning in the Aztec capital.

Michael E. Smith’s book The Aztecs is another monograph that argues in favour of the belief that Moctezuma did not believe that Cortés was Quetzalcoatl. He argues that it was the Mexica nobility who created the myth after the conquest to explain Moctezuma’s indecision. By creating the myth and claiming that Moctezuma had believed it at the time, the nobility could attempt to understand their former leaders’ mistake: ‘[Moctezuma]’s actions puzzled and troubled the Nahua nobility that, after the conquest, they contrived

Camilla Townsend, ‘Burying the White Gods’, p. 670.

Richard F. Townsend, The Aztecs, p. 18.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

6 7

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a story to account for them’. The revisionist historians therefore do not believe the Quetzalcoatl myth was the main cause of the Aztec defeat. There are, however, conflicting theories as to where and how the myth was started.

The lack of references to the myth in sources written at the time of the conquest has become another cause of scepticism amongst historians. One such source is Cortés’ own letters that he wrote to the King of Spain explaining his actions in Mexico. In the second letter Cortés only mentions they myth in a record of Moctezuma’s speech. Cortés is hardly an impartial bystander and, thus, is likely to have embellished his tale for the benefit of the King. Also, later in the speech, Montezuma makes a reference to Cortés’ King or leader: ‘So because of the place from which you claim to come, namely, from where the sun rises, and all the things you tell us of 11 the great lord or king who sent you here’. This indicates that Montezuma did not believe that Cortés was Quetzalcoatl because he knew that Cortés himself was subject to a King and therefore he could not be the returning god who was seeking to reclaim his throne. Even Camilla Townsend argued that Cortés never claimed 12 that he was a god. Book Twelve of the Florentine Codex also explains the actions of Moctezuma from when he first hears of the Spanish until the conquest. In the book it clearly argues in favour of Moctezuma fearing the Spanish and believing that they were gods. However, Townsend points out that when the Florentine codex was written Moctezuma and all his closest aides were dead.

Thus, the natives used for the work were old warriors who didn’t 13 have intimate knowledge of Moctezuma’s inner court.

There are some historians who believe that Moctezuma may have at first believed Cortés to be a god but argue that he altered this belief soon after the Spanish forces began to make their way to Tenochtitlan. One such historian is Francis F Berdan who argued: ‘The Belief that Cortés may have been the god Quetzalcoatl may have caused some initial hesitation on the part of the indigenous 14 rulers, but they must not have had held this view for long’’. There are also some historians who argue there were no mentions of any Michael E. Smith, The Aztecs (Oxford, 2003), p. 278.

Hernán Cortés, ‘Second Letter’ in Pagden, A. and Elliott, J.H. (eds.), Letters from Mexico (London, 2001), p. 86.

12 Camilla Townsend, Burying the White Gods, p. 664.

13 Ibid., p. 667.

14 Francis F. Berdan, The Aztecs of Central Mexico: An Imperial Society (London, 2005), p. 180.

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prophecy throughout native accounts of the myth. Nigel Davies, for example, states that: ‘in “native” versions of the myth there is no mention of any prophesy about the return of Quetzalcoatl in the 15 year I reed, or any other year’. This shows that even in the natives’ accounts no such claims of a myth exist, and reinforces the argument that the Quetzalcoatl myth was a product of the postconquest society.

Apart from the myth, there are many reasons as to why the Mexica were conquered by the Spanish. The most plausible and widely accepted explanation is the idea that the Spanish weaponry and technology were too advanced for the Aztecs, who had not only never seen or used a horse but also came up against a well organised Spanish force equipped with guns, cannons and stronger armour. Camilla Townsend argues that ‘the Mexicans themselves immediately became aware of the technology gap and responded to it with intelligence and savvy rather than wide-eyed talk of gods’.

She argues that the defeat of the Aztecs by a group of colonists – if 16 not necessarily Cortés himself – was inevitable. Having looked at all the arguments and evidence that is available, it is clear that the conquest of Mexico cannot just be blamed on a myth that many agree was created after the fall of Tenochtitlan. The fact that many believe that it was created not by the Spanish – as many may have suspected – but by the natives themselves as a way of explaining why Tenochtitlan was able to fall to such a small group of Spaniards, would suggest that the Quetzalcoatl myth is an unreliable paradigm through which to view the events of 1519.

With this and the clear evidence that there were other, military factors that led to the collapse of the Aztec Empire in mind, it would appear that the Aztecs most likely knew that the Spaniards were not gods and were under no illusions as to who they actually may have been. In this respect, the historiography of the fall of the Aztec Empire has taken great strides forward.

15 16

Richard F. Townsend, The Aztecs, p. 18.

Camilla Townsend, Burying the White Gods, p. 660, p. 673.

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Bibliography Berdan, F.F. The Aztecs of Central Mexico: An Imperial Society (London, 2005).

Cohen, S.E., ‘How the Aztecs Appraised Montezuma’, The History Teacher, Vol. 5, No. 3 (March, 1972), pp. 21-30.

Cortés, H., Letters from Mexico (London, 2001).

Padden, R.C., The Hummingbird And The Hawk: Conquest and sovereignty in the Valley of Mexico (London, 1970).

Smith, M.E. The Aztecs (Oxford, 2003).

Townsend, C., ‘Burying the White Gods: New Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico’, The American Historical Review, Vol. 108, No. 3 (June, 2003), pp. 659-687.

Townsend, R.F., The Aztecs (London, 2000).

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‘A nation gets the heroes and rôle models it deserves’

by Rachael Merrison Before embarking on a discussion of this statement it is essential to define firstly what is meant by the term nation. Considering the focus on a nation's heroes and rôle models, this essay will draw on Anthony Smith's definition, which, among other things, highlights a nation as ‘a named human population sharing an historic territory, common myths and historical memories, [and] a mass, public culture’.1 The discussion will be limited to British heroes and rôle models, although it is important to be aware that Britain as a nation is often held to be synonymous with England. Krishan Kumar highlights that not only is there confusion amongst foreigners concerning the difference between England and Britain: England ‘has served, in a way never attained by 'Britain' or any of the British derivatives, to focus [the] ideas and ideals’ of the English people, particularly via literary works.2 Another difficult challenge is determining what heroes and rôle models are, and importantly, how to distinguish between them. And, if there is no exact definition, then is it possible to state that a nation deserves them? Does deserve indicate that heroes and rôle models are meant to reflect the nation's beliefs and aspirations, and are these characters required to be realistic representations? In addition, ‘a nation gets’ may imply that heroes and rôle models are there to be 'given', which does not highlight the complexity and involvement of said nations in the creation of these figures.

Firstly, what is a suitable definition for heroes and rôle models?

Simply looking at the types of people who tend to achieve a status others aspire to, and attempting to find some common feature is not as easy as it may at first seem. For instance, popular leaders, military and religious figures, philanthropists, sports and musical men and women, celebrities, explorers, fictional characters, authors, those belonging to groups who are seen to suffer much hardship, and even those performing good deeds within their local community (away from the public gaze), can – and have – all been termed ‘heroic’ and ‘rôle models’. If so many individuals can be 1 2

Anthony D. Smith, National Identity (Reno, 1991), p. 14.

Krishan Kumar, The Making of English National Identity (Cambridge, 2003), p. 7.

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considered as such, perhaps it is more unusual not to be seen as either! It is possible, however, to see differences between the individuals seen to be heroes, and rôle models in different generations or periods of history. For instance, those heroes of the 'Great British Empire' were often public school educated, individualist, honourable men of character, and this strength of character was above all seen to be indicative of the British at their best.3 This notion seems to have been widely accepted, or at the very least amongst those with authority, and this is particularly apparent when looking at a prominent figure such as Sir Ralph Furse. During the first half of the twentieth century his role was to select colonial administrators who were chosen ‘specifically on the basis of character and [recruited] mainly from public schools’. 4 The appropriate behaviour of heroes and rôle models was clearly laid down; such figures included Sir John Nicholson, James Brooke, and the later representations of imperial characters common particularly in 1930s film.5 Compare this idea of heroism with what Jeffrey Richards suggests the modern hero has become: ‘culturally and socially there has come to be greater interest in, and sympathy with, criminals than victims; and the mad have come to be regarded as more sane than the sane’.6 To take the recent film Inception as a case in point, the 'heroes' of the narrative are effectively thieves, stealing information from the minds – and also manipulating the thoughts – of successful or important individuals.7 Surely these figures have more in common with villains than heroes; they typically emphasise values focusing on personal and financial gain and couldn't be further than representing 'King and country'. What correlation could these figures possibly have with the likes of Phileas Fogg or Sir Percy Blakeney? Perhaps then, given this difficulty in determining what they are, the wrong questions are being asked?

Instead of specifying exactly what heroes and rôle models do, the emphasis should be how what they stand for is perceived by the nation?

Orrin Klapp suggested that ‘the fame of a hero is a collective product, being largely a number of popular imputations and Eric J. Evans, The Forging of the Modern State: Early industrial Britain, 1783-1870 (London, 1983), p. 279.

4 Jeffrey Richards, Films and British National Identity: From Dickens to Dad's Army (Manchester, 1997), p. 34.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid., p. 21.

7 Inception. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Prod. Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas. Dist.

Warner Bros. Pictures, 2010.

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interpretations’ and this is further developed by Mary Pleiss & John Feldhusen who highlight their symbolic representation of the values and struggles of a community.8 The hero or rôle model's actions could be considered less important compared to the values they are judged to represent. Pleiss & Feldhusen also point out a way to distinguish heroes from rôle models, although, it is important to note that heroes may still be rôle models and vice versa; the distinction is only a rough guideline. They pick up on Maxine Singer's work, stating that: ‘rôle model's proximal reality encourages too close a scrutiny’, while heroes provide the broad values society favours and learns from, ‘about courage, about noble purpose, about how to reach within and beyond ourselves to find greatness’.9 In other words, a rôle model is more likely to be a figure the perceiver knows or has contact with, whereas a hero is a distant inspirational figure who is usually known through mediums such as film, newspapers, books, and television. Arguably the advantage of heroes is that they do not necessarily have to be tied down to any one period. They are distant and the values they represent are to a great extent determined by the perceivers; as the values of a nation change, so too can the character of a nation's heroes alter to mirror these changes.

Robin Hood is an excellent example of a hero who has changed as the nation has changed, especially when considering how he is typically portrayed in modern dramas and film. The modern version of Robin Hood is often seen as the heroic individual, victorious in conflict against all the odds, and seen as the problem 10 solver by his band of merry men. However, this individual is radically different to the Robin of old: ‘indeed he is usually beaten in combat... he is part of a band formed for the mutual selfprotection but also, on grounds of his mythic significance, its 11 leader’. The rhymes and songs written in this early period appear to have a perhaps more realistic idea of this hero's ability and the Orrin Klapp, ‘The Creation of Popular Heroes’, The American Journal of Sociology, 54/2 (September 1948), p. 135; Mary Pleiss & John Feldhusen, ‘Mentors, Role Models and Heroes in the lives of Gifted Children’, Educational Psychologist, 30/3 (1995), pp. 151-169.

9 Maxine Singer, ‘Heroines and Role Models’, Science, 253/5017 (July 1991), p. 249; Pleiss & Feldhausen, ‘Mentors, Role Models and Heroes’, p. 164.

10 Stephanie Barczewski, ‘Review: Images of Robin Hood: Medieval to Modern’, Journal of British Studies, 48/4 (October 2009), pp. 1011-2; Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Dir. Kevin Reynolds. Prod. Pen Densham, Richard Barton Lewis, John Watson.

Dist. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1991; Robin Hood. Prod. Dominic Minghella, Foz Allan.

BBC. Tiger Aspect Productions, 2006-2009.

11 Stephen Knight, ‘Outlaw myths; or, was Robin Hood alone in the woods?’ in N. Thomas & F. Le Saux (eds.), Myth and its legacy in European literature (Durham, 1996), pp. 39-40.

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role of his band, which suggests that our modern version may have more akin with the great imperial heroes of the British Empire. The actions of the individual in combating a hostile force take on a greater importance. It is also important to highlight that Robin Hood ‘was never [previously] nationally associated’; rather his conflicts took place between regions, and this is not even taking into consideration that the term nation has modern implications not 12 applicable to the medieval period. In addition, Stephen Knight highlights how the notion of the merry men's lifestyle being one of getting back to nature and simple living is a Victorian development in response to their increasingly industrialised urban environment.

A final point, which Green picks up on, is how Robin's behaviour seems to have changed, emphasising the radically different standards and rules between then and now. In the Gest of Robyn Hode (see appendix) we see Robin decapitate the sheriff lying helpless on the ground after shooting him. This sort of behaviour stands in a stark contrast to the chivalry and honour emphasised in more modern heroes, and couldn't be further than the brave and resourceful Robin Hood who appears in films such as The Prince of 13 Thieves.

From this the conclusion can be reached that no hero can ever be fully formed when an individual is marked as such, and a nation certainly never simply gets a hero or rôle model. Instead the nation is always involved, whether actively or passively, in the gradual development of interpreting and imposing the dominant values of the time upon the figure. Neither nations nor their heroes and rôle models remain static. As this is the case, and it is accepted that heroes and rôle models like Robin Hood have altered from the earlier versions that were possibly closer to reality, does this result in heroic individuals having any real significance? Paul Sant Cassia suggests that they do, and in particular highlights that although ‘bandits are often romanticised afterwards through nationalistic rhetoric and texts’ this has the effect of ‘giving them a permanence and potency which transcends their localized domain and transitory nature’.14 In other words, the heroic figure(s) become more than the sum of their parts and incorporate the values and aspirations of the population perceiving them.

The issue with heroes and rôle models not being realistic representations of the nation is that it becomes questionable as to Ibid., p. 39.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

14 Paul Sant Cassia, ‘Banditry, Myth, and Terror in Cyprus and Other Mediterranean Societies’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 35/4 (October 1993), p. 774.

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whether the nation deserves these figures. As Richards points out, a great hero like Clive of India can, superficially at least, be seen as representing the best of the nation. 15 However, upon closer inspection we see him accept bribes, forge a significant treaty, and his suicide has been conveniently brushed over. Is this distortion of truth justified? It is possible to argue in favour of such heroes by suggesting that ‘the heroes chosen by society, or by groups within a society, are reflective of the group's needs as well of its values’. 16 The nation needs individuals to act as examples or aspirational standards, encouraging the adoption of particular values amongst future generations so that the values they stand for become – to all intents and purposes – reality. Therefore, a hero (as already mentioned rôle models may have more contact with their observers resulting in faults becoming increasingly obvious) does not need to be a three-dimensional character. In promoting these figures film and literature is particularly influential. For example, in the eighteenth century there was a move against the Enlightenment in order to propagate a national character, and this involved a ‘search for national literary heroes... representatives of the national spirit and embodiments of the English genius’. 17 Popular entertainment also plays a significant role in times of crisis, when a nation becomes disillusioned with the old heroes and rôle models. A good example of this is the reaction to the First World War. The 1928 theatre drama, Journey's End: ‘charts the cowardice and moral disintegration which characterized the last days of many more ordinary members of the officer-class in the muddy squalor of the trenches’.18 These characters, raised through the public school system, are seen to be put to the test, and defeated, by a war of annihilation.19 The play presents clearly the beginnings of a nation's change in perception concerning its heroes and rôle models; their flaws become increasingly apparent and new heroes begin to come to the fore to reflect the nation's aims and impressions of itself. Perhaps this does imply that a nation gets the heroes and rôle models it deserves; it would certainty appear that those figures that are retained by nations for significant periods of time, Robin Hood being an excellent example, are those which are most suited to continual development and changing values.

Richards, Films and British National Identity.

Pleiss & Feldhausen, ‘Mentors, Role Models and Heroes’, p. 164.

17 Richards, Films and British National Identity, pp. 9-10.

18 H. David, Heroes, Mavericks and Bounders: The English Gentleman from Lord Curzon to James Bond (London, 1991), p. 79.

19 Robert Cedric Sherriff, Journey’s End (Harlow, 1993).

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To conclude, as a nation responds to events and pressures, the values it needs and aspires to will come to the fore resulting in new and developed heroes and rôle models. As Klapp asserts: ‘An age of mass hero worship is an age of instability. The contemporary heroes who are emerging... are a focus of social reorientation in a time of rapid change’.20 To an extent it can be said that these a nation deserves these heroes, as these have arisen through popular consensus as necessary and thereby best present the attitudes of the nation. However, the idea that a nation gets its heroes and rôle models implies that they exist as fully formed entities to be given, and ignores the role of a nation in interpreting and manipulating the character of such figures, particularly via media such as film and television. This is very apparent when looking at a hero like Robin Hood, who, after centuries of popularity in a constantly developing nation, now stands for values radically different from those espoused by older audiences.

20

Klapp, ‘The Creation of Popular Heroes’, p. 135.

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Appendix Robyn bent a full good bowe, An arrowe he drove at wyll; He hit so the proude sherife, Upon the grounde he lay full still.

And or he myght up aryse, On his fete to stonde, He smote of the sherifs hede, With his bright bronde. (sword) Gest of Robyn Hode, stanzas 347 – 348, quoted in R.F. Green, ‘Violence in the early Robin Hood poems’ in M.D. Meyerson, D. Thiery & O. Falk (eds.) 'A great effusion of blood'?: interpreting medieval violence (Toronto, 2004), p. 268.

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Bibliography Barczewski, S., ‘Review: Images of Robin Hood: Medieval to Modern’, Journal of British Studies, 48/4 (October 2009), pp. 1011-2.

Cassia, P.S., ‘Banditry, Myth, and Terror in Cyprus and Other Mediterranean Societies’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 35/4 (October 1993), pp. 773-795.

David, H., Heroes, Mavericks and Bounders: The English Gentleman from Lord Curzon to James Bond (London, 1991).

Evans, E.J., The Forging of the Modern State: Early industrial Britain, 1783-1870 (London, 1983).

Green, R.F., ‘Violence in the early Robin Hood poems’ in M.D. Meyerson, D. Thiery & O. Falk (eds.), 'A great effusion of blood'?: interpreting medieval violence (Toronto, 2004), pp. 268-286.

Inception. Dir. Nolan, C. Prod. Nolan, C., Thomas, E. Dist. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2010.

Klapp, O., ‘The Creation of Popular Heroes’, The American Journal of Sociology, 54/2 (September 1948), pp. 135-141.

Knight, S., ‘Outlaw myths; or, was Robin Hood alone in the woods?’ in N. Thomas & F. Le Saux (eds.), Myth and its legacy in European literature (Durham, 1996), pp. 37-48.

Kumar, K., The Making of English National Identity (Cambridge, 2003).

Pleiss, M.K. & Feldhusen, J.F., ‘Mentors, Role Models and Heroes in the lives of Gifted Children’, Educational Psychologist, 30/3 (1995), pp. 151-169.

Richards, J., Films and British National Identity: From Dickens to Dad's Army (Manchester, 1997).

Robin Hood. Prod. Minghella, D., Allan, F. BBC. Tiger Aspect Productions, 2006-2009.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Dir. Reynolds, K. Prod. Densham, P., Lewis, R.B., Watson, J. Dist. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1991.

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Sherriff, R.C., Journey’s End (Harlow, 1993).

Singer, M., ‘Heroines and Role Models’, Science, 253/5017 (July 1991), p. 249.

Smith, A.D., National Identity (Reno, 1991).

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Liberating class identity and New Class Theory

By Lucy James Since Karl Marx first articulated his theory of historical materialism, societies have been discussed in terms of class structures. However, in the past half Century, historians have questioned the relevance of class interpretations to socio-historical analysis. Such challenges assume either that social classes no longer exist, or no longer influence behaviour. Conversely, this paper will argue that class remains central to understanding social dynamics. To appreciate this, we must address the underlying motivation for repositioning class discourse and better define the term itself. In so doing, the importance of class as a social force and a marker of identity can be restated. The focus will be on Britain, where the case for class analysis is most compelling. Considering identity creates distance from class theories tied too closely to either historical materialism, or ill-formed notions of modernity. Instead, in this brief space, a repositioning of class analysis will be attempted, that is both historically relevant and capable of enduring the current postmodern haze.

Before this can be achieved, the underlying motivation for the attempt must be addressed. In Britain, class is often a divisive social element — at best empty semantics and at worst a barrier to the paradisal meritocracy. However, before we cast class analysis onto the pyre, there are two important issues to consider. Firstly, class represents a useful category of long-term analysis. Hobsbawm stated: writing history is about ‘discovering the patterns and 1 mechanism of change’. Class is one such mechanism and can be used to examine — if crudely — most historical societies. This is important when we consider the magnitude of the historian’s task and the wealth of information to decipher. Without general frameworks from which to construct more sophisticated arguments, academia would grind to a halt. Class interpretations are riddled with generalisations and oversights. However — like the Marxist theory from which they spring — they offer a ‘coherent, well-articulated pattern’, which may be the best option yet available.

1

Eric Hobsbawm, On History (London, 1997), p. 8

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Secondly, we must acknowledge the fissiparous nature of the society we are examining. As Marshall states: ‘class represents a specific way of investigating interconnections between historically formed macro-social structures… and the everyday experience of 2 individuals within their particular social milieux’. Historians are not authors of utopian fiction but — as objectively as is possible within their temporal confines — reconstructors of past realities. Class may be a social embarrassment or taboo, but the concept cannot be purged from reality by sheer willpower. Moreover, class remains an 3 English preoccupation. In 1845, Benjamin Disraeli declared Britain 4 to be two nations — one rich, one poor. In 1990, John Major 5 announced that Britain would soon be ‘classless’. Critics of class theory attempt to persuade us that the numerous cultural revolutions of those 145 years purged class from public consciousness. However, social inequality and barriers to social mobility remain part of our social reality. Yet we cannot continue employing class discourse because it is convenient or resonant. Its endurance relies on our ability to create a historically accurate and socially relevant framework within which different theories of class can rationally co-exist.

The greatest obstacle to this task is lack of a single, coherent definition of class itself. Stedman-Jones identifies four approaches to class: a description of social circumstances; a term for discourse about production; a ‘cluster of culturally significant practices’ and a 6 term of political and ideological self-definition. While strands of similarity entwine them, these definitions essentially prioritise competing aspects of class. The first lacks analytical substance; the second is irrelevant to our current predicament. The third is interesting – highlighting unity through common behaviour and practices. However, identifying individuals based on making decisions fails to grapple with why they make them. The general ambiguity over the concept in social consciousness is therefore 7 unsurprising. If any semblance of class analysis is to survive then

Gordon Marshall, Repositioning Class: social inequality in industrial societies (London, 1997), p. 50.

3 David Cannadine, Class in Britain (London, 2000), p. 28.

4 Linda Colley, ‘Whose Nation? Class and National Consciousness in Britain 17501830’, Past and Present, 113 (1986), p. 99.

5 Klaus Eder, The New Politics of Class, (London, 1993), p. 27.

6 Gareth Stedman-Jones, Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History (Cambridge, 1983), p. 26.

7 Erik Wright (ed.), Approaches to Class Analysis (Cambridge, 2005), p. 3.

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we must be confident in our definition, and the fourth option has the greatest potential for endurance.

This is because the precepts of class membership have changed.

Eley and Nield correctly label Marx’s link between economic conditions and political behaviour ‘reductionist’, not because economic conditions no longer impact political allegiance, but because — to borrow from the Weberian concept of life-chances — education, communication and legislative equality have 8 encouraged a uniformity of lifestyle that weakens class restrictions.

Jan Pakulski condemns attempts to relocate class analysis as ‘grandchildren of Marx… seeking conflict generating economic 9 cleavages’ , instead of accepting social inequality, as delineated by 10 class, as no longer an ‘empirically useful category’. Such criticisms cannot be disregarded, because Thompson’s seminal work held its place in the academic milieu by describing a time in history when class was a salient force and class-consciousness directed social behaviour. However, today we are far less contained by birth, wealth or upbringing and so are able to construct identities that draw on our families’ values, but also global and personal ones as we see fit. The nexus of these choices with class analysis lies in word ‘self-definition’. Class membership has come to be defined by personal preference and unconscious conditioning, so it is an identitarian approach to class analysis that is required.

Moreover, current challenges to class interpretations fail to account for the persistence of class as a social force. ‘Old Class theory’ — to borrow a convenient term — explains social relationships in an industrial age, when economic upheaval informed social change.

However, with modernisation have come technological advancement, communicative revolution and legislative change, which have diluted the power of economic conditions to determine social values and opportunities. Gordon Marshall, in Repositioning Class, valiantly defends class as an analytical category, stressing its importance in explaining relationships among social structures; mobility; inequality and action. However, he immediately defines these structures based on ‘employment relations’ and ‘labour 11 markets’. Class as defined wholly in economic terms loses its Geoff Eley and Keith Nield, ‘Why does social history ignore politics?’, Social History, 5 (1980), 249-71, p. 261; Richard Breens, in Wright (ed.), Approaches to Class Analysis, p. 84.

9 Jan Pakulski, ‘Foundations of a post-class analysis’ in Wright (ed.), Approaches to Class Analysis, p. 152.

10 Ibid., p. 153.

11 Marshall, Repositioning Class, p. 49.

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salience when applied to the last half decade, in which most challenges have emerged. Critics of class analysis brand class as a mere phantasm of the rhetorical sphere, yet such claims fail to deal with the ubiquity of class discourse. As Klaus Eder explains, modern society is fixated with social inclusion, yet ‘antagonisms 12 persist over who should be included.’ We grumble that 97 of our current MPs are ex-Etonians and condemn Free Schools on the grounds they benefit middle-class families at the expense of working-class ones. Thus, we require a ‘New Class theory’ that deals with the tension of a society as convinced of the irrelevance of class as it is obsessed with its existence.

Eder clarifies this apparent contradiction by examining the changing role of class-consciousness. He suggests that in industrial Europe, class-consciousness mediated between class structure and collective action — thus economics directly influenced social direction. However, today we must look to the richer, more 13 complex ‘texture’ of ‘culture’ as this mediator. Craig Martin coined the term ‘cultural omnivorousness’ to describe the erosion of social boundaries through broader participation in cultural 14 activities, such as sport or school attendance. Yet Eder’s insight went further than this. By stressing the role of culture, he conveniently contends with the most persistent criticism of class interpretation — why class membership no longer determines social action. He defines ‘culture’ as a series of ‘dynamic social processes’ involving social ideologies; attitudes; beliefs; laws; norms 15 and goals. As such, ‘culture’ is a cloud within which social dissatisfaction is diffracted and absorbed, so that sometimes its point of emergence hides or confuses the motivations of its entrance, and sometimes it never reappears at all. This analogy seems simplistic, but it is actually a more refined explanation than historical materialism offers — when social revolution failed to materialise as predicted, Marx blamed the ‘false consciousness’ of the leadership, rather than questioning the premise of his 16 argument. Thus, the idea of ‘class-consciousness’ has become problematic, not because it is inherently incorrect, but because the existence of class-consciousness presupposes a level of social Eder, Politics of Class, p. 158.

Ibid., p.170.

14 Martin, Craig, ‘Class still matters: a report from three studies’, Sociology, 44 (2010), pp. 1019-1037, p. 1223.

15 Nira Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation (London, 1997), p. 41.

16 Karl Marx, Philosophical underpinning of class analysis, The German Ideology, (1845), at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ (viewed 15.10.11).

12 13

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cohesion difficult to find in twenty-first century Britain. These shortcomings are manna from heaven for historians professing the fall of class theory, but need not mark the death of class analysis.

By following Eder’s line of argument, we can acknowledge the chinks in class loyalty without diminishing the impact of economic disparity on social structures.

However, Eder’s emphasis on ‘culture’ is problematic. Firstly, we risk replacing one imprecise notion — that of class-consciousness — with another and restarting the cycle. Secondly, it situates the notion of class within the context of modernity. While this offers a temporary reprieve for class analysis, it creates new inconsistencies.

‘Modernity’ connotes a teleological social progression in which challenges to class analysis become part of social evolution — part of ‘understanding the dynamics of the ‘modern world’, which is 17 itself the subject of intense debate. Thus, employing ‘culture’ to study class helps us understand the dissolution of classconsciousness, but used alone it makes class relevant only to a static temporal phase. In this context, ‘New Class theory’ still relies on a specific set of social circumstances to derive analytical relevance. As the acceleration of social time is likely to persist, a perpetual restructuring of the concept of social class would be necessary and the utility of class theory would continue to wane. To liberate class analysis from the current post-modernist, anti-Marxist, social equalitarian quagmire in to which it has sunk, class discourse must be rooted in the concept of identity.

There are two interrelated forces at work when we discuss class in terms of identity. Firstly, class as a means of self-identification, and second, as an identity imposed on us by external social structures. It is imperative to note that class is simply one word on a very long list. Race, gender, religion, ethnicity, age — to name but a few — impact the identity of individuals and social groups. Today, we can draw a personal identity or have one prescribed to us on the shallowest grounds. Moreover, we must accept that certain social forces — for example Nationalism — cut definitively across class 18 boundaries and dilute the potency of class membership. Yet regardless of the politico-economic context or ethnic makeup of communities historically, social divisions are a perpetual part of human self-definition. As David Cannadine explains, throughout history we have fashioned the same three basic models for John Scott, ‘Social class and stratification in late modernity’, Acta Sociological, 45 (2002), p. 24.

18 Anthony Smith, National Identity (London, 1991), p. 5.

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describing society — a hierarchical web based on prestige; a triadic view with collective groups based on wealth and a dichotomous, 19 adversarial view of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Such urges, however unpalatable their extreme manifestations might be, must be acknowledged. Recognising class as an element of identity allows the constructive incorporation of social hierarchy into historiography. Here, we can return to Marshall’s assessment of class discourse in terms of social structures; mobility; inequality and action.

First, we must deal with class as part of self-identification and its impact on social action and equality. Social action can be discussed in terms of class interest when we perceive it as an extension of self-interest — a logical assumption that improving the position of those similar to you improves your own. However, for individuals to align themselves, whether on a local or international scale, they must first identify themselves as like each other. Social action relies predominantly on enough individuals aligning themselves together 20 and choosing the same course of action. This decision is of course impacted by the culture they live in, the rhetoric espoused around them and compatibility with competing loyalties — to gender, race, religion, family, nationality or any number of other things.

However, it is also affected by a person’s desire to belong and to surround themselves with people they understand and empathise with — hence even when material circumstances change, personal perception of class membership is not necessarily affected.

Similarly, social inequality, in a material sense, is still based on economic distribution and educational disparity. However, the perceived ‘classlessness’ of the modernised age is testament to the disentanglement of wealth and employment from class 21 membership.

Social equality — or lack therefore — is just as tightly bound to a perceived social order that is challenged or confirmed by social identity. David Weakliem highlights the unifying force of hardship, but we must also consider the unifying effect of prosperity and the role of class solidarity as a defensive 22 strategy over finite resources. We must accept individuals as products of their environments; cultural norms; attitudes; national laws and ambitions. We must also recognise that social perceptions Cannadine, Class in Britain, p. 19.

Jon Elster, ‘Three Challenges to Class’ in J. Roemer (ed.), Analytical Marxism, (1986), p. 53.

21 Pakulski, in Wright, p. 154.

22 David Weakliem and Anthony Heath, ‘The Secret Life of Class Voting: Britain, France and the United States since the 1930s’ in Geoffrey Evans (ed.), The End of Class Politics? Class voting in comparative context (Oxford, 2002), p. 100.

19 20

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vary across time and decisions are made within the confines of a particular temporal space. However, we must comprehend the power of agency. Some historians shy away from agency, but as Christopher Bayly argues: an essential part of being something is 23 thinking you are something. Class awareness fluctuates not as a result of political rhetoric, but because individuals act ‘within the terms of class hierarchy or without regard for it’, depending on self24 perception. Thus, the place we ascribe ourselves within our own social reality directly impacts the ‘transformation and reproduction’ 25 of social inequalities.

Yet self-perception is but one side of the coin. Class discourse rooted in historical materialism will always prioritise economic conditions in social explanation. The erosion of this economic basis is assumed inimical to class interpretations, when it can actually liberate the concept of class from its Marxist shackles, if we understand how class identities are imposed on us by external social structures and shaped by issues of social mobility. As Tony Bennet explains: ‘classes are force fields, from within which the individuals vary greatly’, but the boundaries of those force fields impact the 26 perspective of those inside them. These boundaries are created, maintained and altered by culture, which exerts inclusive and 27 exclusive pressures on society’s members. Individuals can choose to step outside of these boundaries, but the legitimacy of their choice depends on wider social norms. The rigidity of social hierarchies and degree of overlap between them determine the ease within which individuals can alter external perceptions. Similarly, social mobility relies on the flexibility of these structures and 28 attainability of their entrance requirements. An individual can identify themselves with the upper class, but their choice means little if birthright, wealth or prestige predetermine acceptance.

Conversely, an individual can think of themselves as middle class or having no class, but this does not preclude their peers from mentally positioning them as working class based on their employment, values or life-style. Such judgments depend on ‘internalised structures’ encompassed in Bourdieu’s idea of ‘habitus’ — or socialisation in early life — but are also influenced by Christopher Bayly, in F. Gluck (ed.), ‘Introduction to Roundtable Discussion on Modernity’, American Historical Review, 116 (2011), p. 635.

24 Ibid., p. 669.

25 Andrew Sayer, The Moral Significance of class (Cambridge, 2005), p. 6.

26 Martin, ‘Class Still Matters’, p. 1201.

27 Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation, p. 67.

28 Marshall, Repositioning Class, p. 75.

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chimerical concepts of our society. Thus, forces detached from economic determinants directly impact life-chances. By understanding the role of externally imposed identities, we can account for the rise and fall of class in social discourse, without presuming its departure from social reality. By coupling these identitarian frameworks we can consider multiple approaches to class analysis — whether broadly conceptual like the one attempted here, or narrowly empirical — without sacrificing rigour.

Once class interpretation has been salvaged, it can again become a functional method of social analysis. Historical materialism is about exploitation and resistance — giving class a negative connotation 30 from which historians have tried to distance themselves. Class discourse is fundamentally concerned with hierarchy, so such associations will likely never disappear. However, they need not be a staple of any ‘New Class theory’. Arif Dirlik argues that the future of global development relies on transnational co-operation of elites — that global class interests can ‘bridge ethnic, national, religious31 civilisational and other cultural differences’. This is strengthened

by Yuval-Davis, who argues in Gender and Nation that the future of global politics will be defined by ‘boundaries of coalition set not in 32 terms of ‘who’ we are, but in terms of what we want to achieve’.

Here, she is not concerned with social class, but her argument offers a pertinent framework within which class can become a source of positive social distinction. Thus, by understanding class membership as one dimension of identity, class interpretations of the past, the present and the future can operate constructively without becoming reductionist or prescriptive.

The onslaught of postmodernism has left historical class interpretations lost in an epistemological daze, from which few elements have emerged unscathed. Consequently, it is not surprising that many deem class analysis irrelevant to contemporary historiography. However, class remains central to understanding life-chances and social values — indeed, the existence of social 33 inequality is the foundation of our egalitarian sentiment. Wright suggests the future of class analysis depends on the questions we

Sayer, Moral Significance, p. 24.

Patrick Joyce, Visions of the people (Cambridge, 1991), p. 16.

31 Arif Dirlik, ‘Specters of the Third World: Global Modernity and the end of the three worlds’, Third World Quarterly, 25 (2004), p. 146.

32 Yural-Davis, Gender and Nation, p. 126.

33 Sayer, Moral Significance, p. 171.

29 30

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ask. He is correct. If we continue to ask how society can be dissected along economic fault lines; how social movements can be measured by material inequalities; or how class-consciousness creates homogenous political allegiances, the saliency of class analysis will continue to weaken. If this is permitted, historians will lose a potent category of social analysis. The efficacy of class analysis relies on asking how class acts as a prism through which we arrange ourselves within a structure of social inequality, and through which others arrange us. By understanding class as an element of social identity we can deal with the flaws in class discourse without irreverently rejecting its insights into our sociopolitical reality.

34

Wright, Class Analysis, p. 180.

118 Bibliography Primary Sources Marx, K., Philosophical underpinning of class analysis, The German Ideology, (1845), at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/germanideology/ (Viewed 15 October 2011).

Marx, K. and Engels, F., The Communist Manifesto, (1848), at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communistmanifesto/ (Viewed 15 October 2011).

Secondary Sources Journal Articles Colley, L., ‘Whose Nation? Class and National Consciousness in Britain 17501830’, Past and Present, 113 (1986), pp. 97-117.

Dirlik, A., ‘Specters of the Third World: Global Modernity and the end of the three worlds’, Third World Quarterly, 25 (2004), pp. 131148.

Eley, G. and Nield, K., ‘Why does social history ignore politics?’, Social History, 5 (1980), pp. 249-71.

Gluck, F. (ed.), ‘Introduction to Roundtable Discussion on Modernity’, American Historical Review, 116 (2011), pp. 577-928.

Martin, C., ‘Class still matters: a report from three studies’, Sociology, 44 (2010), pp. 1019-1037.

McKibbin, R., ‘Why was there no Marxism in Britain?’, English Historical Review, 99 (1984), pp. 287-331.

Scott, J., ‘Social class and stratification in late modernity’, Acta Sociological, 45 (2002), pp. 23-35.

Books Cannadine, D., Class in Britain (London, 2000).

Eder, K., The New Politics of Class, (London, 1993).

Evans, G., The End of Class Politics: Class Voting in Comparative Context (Oxford, 2003).

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Hobsbawm, E., On History (London, 1997).

Joyce, P., Visions of the people (Cambridge, 1991).

Marshall, G., Repositioning Class: social inequality in industrial societies (London, 1997).

Roemer, J., (ed.), Analytical Marxism, (1986).

Sayer, A., The Moral Significance of Class (Cambridge, 2005).

Smith, A., National Identity (London, 1991).

Stedman-Jones, G., Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History, 1832-1932 (Cambridge, 1983).

Thompson, E., The Making of the English working class, (London, 1983).

Wright, E. (ed.), Approaches to Class Analysis, (Cambridge, 2005).

Yuval-Davis, N., Gender and Nation (London, 1997).

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PART TWO

122 ‘Presidential address’

By Tom Trennery My fellow historians, As I write this, the world is witnessing a belated epochal shift worthy of the turn of the millennium over a decade ago. The semantics of democracy are being increasingly challenged across the world by governments wishing to extend the long-past expiry date on their sprawling regimes or justify glaring inequalities in their societies with empty talk of legitimacy; economic power is moving steadily from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific signifying an impending cultural transformation worldwide; and, even after the world’s sole superpower has washed its hands of two costly and inconclusive conflicts, increasing hostility between two strategically significant nations threatens to drag the country into yet another war.

On a slightly smaller scale, there are grounds to argue that this year the Durham University History Society has upheld a model of consistency and stability that has admirably bucked the global trend for tumultuous upheaval. We have continued to offer our excellent and informative series of talks as coordinated this year by our fantastically organised Secretary Ryan Cullen. Alongside this, the lovely summer trip to Alnwick Castle, the reassuringly traditional Michaelmas trip to Hadrian’s Wall, and the notorious History Society Ball at Lumley Castle went off without a hitch thanks to our wonderful Social Secretaries Loren Meek and Jade Bestley and tremendous Vice President Caitlin Johnson. Publicity for these talks was handled expertly by Catherine Hodgson, and underpinning all of our activities was the financial stability of the society, secured against all odds by our remarkable Treasurer Madeleine Leaf. The society has not stagnated, however - of course you’ll be reading this in our journal, somewhat elusive in previous years but now, for the first time ever, present in all its glory in print form, thanks to our outstanding Journal Editor Joel Butler.

As an academic society with a concrete raison d’être, DUHS does not need to come up with new and tenuous attempts at student participation in order to stay relevant. Instead, I would argue that our society thrives by making sure that it does a fantastic job in those spaces that it exists to fill: the showcasing of historical excellence through its year-round series of talks and making sure that historians at Durham are provided with opportunities to come together as a peer group.

123

It has been a pleasure to serve as President of the society this year.

I have to give my utmost thanks to my excellent Executive, and to the faculty and students who help to provide the society with the resources it needs to carry on in its important role. In a culture where the keywords are innovation and change, there is still a lot to be said for stability and consistency.

Tom Trennery DUHS President 2011/12

124

Out of the bubble, into the past: Hadrian’s Wall and Beyond…

By Caitlin Johnson On a grey October morning, around forty DUHS members ventured with anticipation into the Northumberland countryside.

Joined by Classics and Archaeology students, we shook off the Friday night hangovers and braved the wind and rain for our annual Hadrian’s Wall trip. Despite the inclement weather, we were full of enthusiasm and ready for a day out.

Vindolanda – Treasure of the North-East We spent the morning exploring one of the North-East’s most prized tourist attractions, Roman Vindolanda. A Roman fort and settlement, Vindolanda is the home to Britain's 'Top Treasures' the Vindolanda Writing Tablets - and is considered to be one of Europe's most important Roman archaeological sites, with live excavations taking place annually.

We took the exciting opportunity to visualise life in a Roman settlement. With the power of imagination, a casual saunter about the ruins of the fort brought the ancient history back to life. It was here that we were able to find out about what life was like at Roman Vindolanda.

Although the conditions were extremely difficult, community life in the forts was supported by the basic provision of hospitals, granaries and latrines.

The wealth and range of artefacts found at Vindolanda was incredible. Take, for example, the many pairs of footwear displayed in the museum cabinets: it really did have the bizarre effect of bringing a Clarks shoe shop to mind. Along with endless shoes, the cabinets were filled with coins, weapons, fractured skulls, pots, and cutlery and more. Images of these artefacts can be found on the Vindolanda website – have a look if you didn’t make it on the trip!

For the historian, archaeologist and the generally curious, Vindolanda is a fascinating site. This is reflected in the many enthusiastic comments made on the day. Exploration of the fort had a particularly important impact on second-year Chad’s archaeologist, Martha Bateman, who later said "I really enjoyed the trip to Hadrian's Wall. It was nice to see part of Northumbria. The trip also helped me to decide I wanted to do a Roman topic for my

125 dissertation. It was a good trip for archaeologists like myself as well as the historians."

Walking the Talk along the Wall A few hours later it was time to move on. Pictures taken, gift shop raided and sandwiches eaten, we made our way back to the coach and set off for Part Two of the trip: the Wall! Jazzing up the annual trip, we branched out with a new route, this time strolling along one of the best preserved areas of the Wall, at Walltown Craggs.

For future reference, it’s located nearby the highly recommended ‘Twice Brewed Inn’ pub: perhaps the next trip should include a brief diversion… This year, the tour of the Wall was delivered superbly by Durham’s Dr. John Clay. By this point, we were lucky enough to enjoy a modest amount of sunshine. The rain held off as Dr. Clay filled us in on the strategic importance of the Wall’s location.

Another dimension to Roman History For the final part of the trip, we visited the Roman Army Museum. Within walking distance of the Wall, the museum provides further insight on the life of a Roman soldier. This is perhaps an understatement. The physical proximity to the ancient history is astonishing. The museum is home to many more Vindolanda artefacts, including the only Roman helmet crest ever discovered. In addition to viewing the artefacts, we had the chance to view the Wall from an eagle-eye perspective in a twenty-minute, awardwinning 3D film, ‘Edge of Empire’. Fear not if you missed out on this: the museum’s website includes a sneak-preview and ‘Making Of’ video for the film!

Well worth the visit

As the day drew to a close, we made our way back to the coach and headed home. It had been a fun day out, with much seen and learned. Many thanks go to Dr John Clay, the museum staff, Durham City Coaches and DUHS members for making this happen! Yet there is so much more to see. The museums and the Wall really are the tip of the iceberg with local tourist attractions.

As the North-East is rich in history, who knows where future trips may take us…perhaps a visit to Holy Island? DUHS look forward to stepping back in time once more - watch this space!

Caitlin Johnson DUHS Vice-President 2011/2012

126 Lumley Castle Ball

By Ryan Cullen First built in the late fourteenth century, Lumley Castle once played host to lavish medieval banquets and its usage continued into the Tudor period and beyond. Now a hotel, the castle nonetheless retains its late medieval associations. Each year, history students from Durham are granted the opportunity to witness what life might have been like in the castle during Elizabethan times. After extensive preparations, the evening of November 23 marked the date of this annual Lumley Castle Ball, one of the most prestigious highlights of the Durham University History Society calendar. This fantastic event is now firmly rooted in the memories of first, second and third year historians alike, along with many history alumni.

In keeping with the location, the evening took the form of a fivecourse Elizabethan banquet. Beginning with their arrival to this picturesque site, the ball guests proceeded from the ornate grounds into the castle itself, where they found a champagne reception, the opportunity to be photographed in the dungeon and were greeted by the boisterous castle chamberlain. He proceeded to announce the names of all the guests from his scroll and they made their way into the great hall for the banquet. Finally, it was time for the exec committee to enter and take their place on the high table, led by the newly-appointed castle ‘Baron’, History Society President Tom Trennery.

The meal began shortly afterwards, but not before the guests were all encouraged to follow the example of their Baron, join arms and sing: Heigh ho A feasting we go Bring on the next flowing bowl Bravo!

This chant was repeated with ever more vigour in between each of the meals, along with music and other theatrical entertainments to recreate the atmosphere of a Tudor great hall. Each of the removes allowed the guests to experience a taste of Elizabethan cuisine, all without the aid of conventional cutlery. These ranged from a simple ‘baron’s brose’ to ‘fyshe with potato’ served inside a scallop shell, all washed down with wine and plenty of mead.

127 Once the meal was over, most people moved into the dungeon.

Here, they were transported from the Tudor environment back into an atmosphere much more familiar for the ‘disco in the dungeon’.

This marked the guests’ return to the twenty-first century, and as the night progressed and the music requests from the 1990s became more frequent, it increasingly marked a return to the end of the twentieth century in particular.

The night ended with the coach journey back to Durham, ending this evening in an historic castle by returning to a city even more steeped in history.

Ryan Cullen DUHS Secretary 2011/2012

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About the DUHS Exec, 2011/12 Tom Trennery, President Tom graduated from Grey College in June 2012 with a degree in English and History. Before becoming DUHS President, he also served as publicity officer and sponsorship secretary under Matt Wright on the 2010/11 exec. His highlight of his tenure as president was being promoted to 'Baron Tom Tyranny' at the Lumley Castle Ball. He plans to pursue a career of some sort.

Caitlin Johnson, Vice President Caitlin is about to start the final year of her degree in History.

Having loved being on the exec for DUHS, she is excited about becoming the next Secretary for the St. Chad’s College Charity Committee. Dancing to S Club’s ‘Reach’ under the ‘fairy lights ceiling’ of the Lumley Castle dungeon, following the extravagant Elizabethan banquet, is one among many good memories so far.

An evening of chatting to a ‘Clifford Chance’ rep at their annual DUHS dinner and presentation sparked her interest in a career in law.

Ryan Cullen, Secretary Ryan is a second year about to go into his final year of studying History. He has thoroughly enjoyed being on the DUHS exec this year, particularly the opportunity to participate in a five-course Elizabethan banquet at the annual Lumley Castle ball. He also found arranging the programme of guest speakers very rewarding and is looking forward to becoming DUHS President next term.

Madeleine Leaf, Treasurer Madeleine is about to enter the final year of her History degree. She has enjoyed her time on the DUHS exec, meeting new people and getting the chance to enjoy the Summer trip to Alnwick, where she dressed up as a princess and fought some knights, and the wonderful Lumley Castle Ball, which presented an evening of good food, fine clothes and hilarious dancing. She is looking forward to pursuing new opportunities, enjoying her final year of degree and no longer having to chase people for money!

129 Catherine Hodgson, Publicity Officer and Sponsorship Secretary Catherine is currently in her second year at Durham studying Joint Honours English and History. She has thoroughly enjoyed being on the DUHS exec over the course of the last year, meeting new people, making lots of posters to advertise events and sending countless e-mails! She especially enjoyed the DUHS 'I love history' T-shirt social and the Lumley Castle Ball... eating a five course meal without cutlery was definitely an interesting experience! After leaving University, Catherine hopes to pursue a career in marketing.

Jade Bestley, co-Social Secretary Jade is graduating from Josephine Butler College in June 2012 with a degree History (hopefully...). Having been motivated, with Loren Meek, to run for the position of Social Sec with the ambition of sitting on high table at the annual ball, she has thoroughly enjoyed being on the exec, with Lumley Castle (and its mead) being an obvious highlight! Another memorable moment was running around the gardens of Alnwick Castle... She plans to pursue a career in advertising or marketing, or failing that, cupcakes.

Loren Meek, co-Social Secretary Loren is a History finalist at Durham (graduated from Trevelyan College, 2012) and has thoroughly enjoyed her year being part of the DUHS. With intentions of studying the GDL next year, Loren hopes to pursue a career as a solicitor, specialising in family law.

Having attended the annual Lumley Castle Ball for three years, Loren had great fun organising the ball last winter (and being presented with the most amazing mead!!) Other highlights of the year include organising the 'We Love History' social and participating in broomstick lessons at Alnwick Castle during the trip last summer.

Joel Butler, Journal Editor Joel graduated from Hatfield College in June 2012 with a degree in History. He ran for editor at the behest of an enthusiastic friend who he often accompanied to talks, having not previously been active within the society. Though he eventually failed in his attempt at attending every pre-talk meal, his shaggy dog stories adorned a good number of dinner conversations. He hopes that the efforts that he and his capable volunteers have put into this year’s journal have set the highest standard for future editions to be judged against.

130 About the authors Joel Butler Joel graduated from Hatfield College, Durham University in June 2012, with a degree in History. His undergraduate dissertation is titled 'From Piety to Politics: The role of evkaf in early Ottoman governance' and considers the position of Ottoman beneficence in administration. His interests include early Ottoman social and political history and the modern history of Palestine and Zionism.

He will be studying for an MLitt in Middle Eastern History and Culture at the University of St Andrews from September 2012.

Bryan Gillingham Bryan is set to begin his third year as an undergraduate at St. John’s College, Durham University, with a dissertation focused on nineteenth century Armenian nationalism. Other interests include socialism in the USSR and slavery in the Ottoman Empire.

Lucy James Lucy graduated from the University of St Andrews in 2011 with a degree in History, after having completed a dissertation focused on early interactions between the Powhatan Native Americans and the Jamestown settlers. She went on to study an MA in Modern History at Durham University and maintains an interest in early colonial history.

Andrew Mackenzie Andrew graduated from Hatfield College, University of Durham in January 2012 with a postgraduate degree in Modern History.

Following the long and exhaustive process of writing a dissertation focused on the Sierra Leone Forestry Department, he went on to join the Lloyd's of London Claims Management Graduate Scheme.

He still maintains a strong interest in African history as well as the beautiful continent itself.

Rachael Merrison Rachael graduated with a degree in Education Studies and History from Hatfield College, Durham University in June 2012. Research interests include the modern history of citizenship and national identity (particularly concerning Israeli-Arab citizenship), and postmodernist philosophy in popular culture. She is working at Palace Green Library (Archives and Special Collections) in Durham, with the aim of applying for an MA in Archives and Records Management.

131 Ben Priest Ben is currently studying History at Nottingham Trent University, and will graduate in July 2012. He is currently working on a dissertation that explores the use of idols within Aztec society and their persecution, after the Spanish Conquest of Mexico in 1521 and throughout the colonial period. His interests include the ancient Mesoamerican empires, with particular interest in the Aztec and Mayan empires, and Mexico after the conquest. He is also interested in modern European history from 1848 to 1945.

Sabine Schneider Sabine is set to begin her third year as an undergraduate at St. John’s College, studying History alongside Politics and International Relations. Her interests include comparatives between the social, economic, and political contexts of consumption and commercialization in Britain and Germany from 1850-1950.

Sabine’s essay ‘Towards a Modern Consumer Society: The British Retailing Trade, 1850-1914’ was selected for publication in Symeon, an academic journal published for the alumni and friends of the Durham University History Department. On obtaining her BA, Sabine hopes to begin postgraduate study in Economic and Social History, with a view to pursuing a career in academia.

Abigail Taylor Abigail graduated from St. Aidan’s College, Durham University in June 2012, with a degree in Archaeology and Ancient Civilisations.

Her research interests include society and sex within Ancient Egypt and the European High Medieval period. She will be studying for an MA in Museum Studies from October 2012.

Hywel Thomas Hywel graduated from Trevelyan College, Durham in the summer of 2012 with a degree in history. After spending two and a half years hiding from work inside a theatre, he focussed on medieval history, with a particular interest in the history of Byzantium. He will be putting this historical knowledge to good use by converting to law next year.

Elizabeth Wheeler Elizabeth graduated from St. Aidan's College, Durham University in June 2012, with a degree in Ancient History and Archaeology.

Her research interests include ancient philosophy, classical literature, and religious studies. She will be studying for an MA in Classics at the University of Durham from September 2012.