DUHS Journal 2011-2012 - Andrew James John Mackenzie

Transcription

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
4
Foreword: Thirty-five Years of History at Durham –
Reminisces of a Grey-Beard
Professor David Rollason
6
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
28
Post-Medieval Monuments in their Context: form,
iconography, location and meaning
Abigail Taylor
35
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
3
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
100
Liberating Class: identity and New Class theory
Lucy James
109
PART TWO
‘Presidential address’
Tom Trennery
122
‘Out of the bubble, into the past’: Hadrian’s Wall and
beyond…
Caitlin Johnson
124
Lumley Castle Ball
Ryan Cullen
126
About the DUHS Exec, 2011/12
128
About the authors
130
4
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
6
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.
10
11
PART ONE
12
13
Subject Articles
14
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).
15
Archaeology of Death
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.
2
16
Elizabeth Wheeler
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.
5
6
17
9
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.
9
10
18
Elizabeth Wheeler
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.
15
16
19
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.
21
22
20
Elizabeth Wheeler
27
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.
27
28
21
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
22
Elizabeth Wheeler
lengths that the wealthy would go to secure the welfare of their
souls’ favoured place in the afterlife.
23
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
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.
24
Elizabeth Wheeler
Appendix Three
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
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.
25
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.
26
Elizabeth Wheeler
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.
27
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.
1
29
Fourth Crusade
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.
3
30
Hywel Thomas
7
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.
7
31
Fourth Crusade
10
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.
10
11
32
Hywel Thomas
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
33
Fourth Crusade
21
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.
34
Hywel Thomas
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.
1
36
Abigail Taylor
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.
6
7
37
Post-Medieval Monuments
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.
10
11
38
Abigail Taylor
14
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.
14
15
39
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
40
Abigail Taylor
23
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.
23
41
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.
29
30
42
Abigail Taylor
33
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.
33
43
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.
37
38
44
Abigail Taylor
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.
45
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).
46
Abigail Taylor
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
47
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).
48
Abigail Taylor
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
49
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).
50
Abigail Taylor
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).
51
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.
1
52
Joel Butler
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.
5
6
53
Circular Reasoning
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.
12
13
54
Joel Butler
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.
19
55
Circular Reasoning
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
56
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
57
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’.
58
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
59
Circular Reasoning
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
61
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.
63
British National Culture
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.
64
Bryan Gillingham
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.
65
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
20 Ibid.
66
Bryan Gillingham
21
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
22 Burke, ‘Popular culture’, p. 33.
23 Ibid., p. 39.
24 Wrigley, ‘A simple model of London’, p. 46.
67
certainly played a central role in spreading a more assimilated view
on national culture and identity.
68
Bryan Gillingham
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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
70
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
71
Chinese Womanhood
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
72
Sabine Schneider
15
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.
15
73
Chinese Womanhood
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.
20
74
Sabine Schneider
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.
25
75
Chinese Womanhood
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).
31
32
76
Sabine Schneider
37
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.
37
77
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.
43
78
Sabine Schneider
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.
49
79
Chinese Womanhood
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.
80
Sabine Schneider
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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
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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 –
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Hershatter, G., Women in China’s long Twentieth Century (Berkeley,
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Jaschok, M. & Miers, S., Women and Chinese Patriarchy: Submission,
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Judge, J., The Precious Raft of History: the past, the West and the woman
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__________., ‘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,
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__________., ‘Reforming the Feminine: Female Literacy and the
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(Cambridge, MA, 2002), pp. 158-179.
__________., ‘Talent, Virtue and the Nation: Chinese
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Chinese Womanhood
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84
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.
1
2
85
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.
4
5
86
Andrew Mackenzie
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.
10
87
‘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.
12
88
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
89
22
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.
22
90
Andrew Mackenzie
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).
91
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.
92
93
Discussion Articles
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.
95
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.
2
96
Benjamin Priest
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
97
10
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.
10
11
98
Benjamin Priest
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.
99
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).
100
‘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.
101
Heroes and Rôle Models
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
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid., p. 21.
7 Inception. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Prod. Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas. Dist.
Warner Bros. Pictures, 2010.
3
102
Rachael Merrison
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.
8
103
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.
12
13
104
Rachael Merrison
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).
15
16
105
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.
106
Rachael Merrison
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.
107
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.
108
Rachael Merrison
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).
109
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
110
Lucy James
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.
2
111
Class Identity
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.
8
112
Lucy James
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
113
Class Identity
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.
17
114
Lucy James
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
115
Class Identity
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.
23
116
Lucy James
29
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
117
34
Class Identity
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).
119
Class Identity
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).
120
121
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
128
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.

DUHS Journal 2011-2012 - Andrew James John Mackenzie

Transcription

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