Academic literature on the topic 'Middle Irish Period; Ireland; 11th century'

From certain point of view a desperate defense of an aesthetic doctrine of classicism, undertaken by Jan Śniadecki, a Polish mathematician and astronomer of the eighteenth century, resembles the E. R. Curtius’ thesis on “Latinism” as a universal factor integrating European culture; it may be stated that post-Stanislavian classical writers in Poland were driven by the same “concern for the preservation of Western culture” which motivated Ernst Robert Curtius in the times of the Third Reich and after its collapse. But the noble-minded intentions were in both cases grounded on similarly distorted perspective, which ensued from a mistificatory attitude towards a non-Latin heritage of the European culture. The range of that mystification or delusion has been fully revealed by findings made by modern so-called new comparative mythology/philology. Another aspect of the problem is an uniform model of the Middle Ages, partially correlated with the Enlightenment-based stereotype of “the dark Middle Ages”, which despite of its anachronism existed in literary studies for a surprisingly long period of time. Although the Romantic Movement of 18th – 19th centuries has been quite correctly acknowledged as an anti-Latinistic upheaval, its real connections with certain traditions of Middle Ages still remain not properly understood. Some concepts concerning Macpherson’s The Works of ossian, put forward by modern ethnology, may yield clues to the research on the question. As suggested by Joseph Falaky Nagy, Macpherson’s literary undertaking may by looked into as a parallel to Acallam na Senórach compiled in Ireland between 11th and 13th centuries: in both cases to respond to threats to the Gaelic culture there arose a literary monument and compendium of the commendable past with the core based on the Fenian heroic tradition that was the common legacy for the Irish and Highlanders. Taking into consideration some other evidence, it can be ascertained that Celtic and Germanic revival initiated in the second half of 18th century was not only one of the most important impulses for the Romantic Movement, but it was also, in a sense, an actual continuation of the efforts of mediaeval writers and compilers (Geoffrey of Monmouth, Snorri Sturluson, Saxo Grammaticus, anonymous compilers of Lebor gabála Érenn and Acallam, Wincenty Kadłubek), who would successfully combine Latin, i.e. classical, and ecclesiastical erudition with a desire to preserve and adapt in a creative way their own “pagan” and “barbarian” legacy. A special case of this (pre)Romantic revival concerns Slavic cultures, in particular the Polish one. Lack of source data on the oldest historical and cultural tradition of Slavic languages, especially in the Western region, and no record about Slavic tradition in highbrow literary culture induced two solutions: the first one was a production of philological forgeries (like Rukopis královédvorský and Rukopis zelenohorský), the second one was an attempt to someway reconstruct that lost heritage. Works of three Romantic historians, W. Surowiecki, W. A. Maciejowski, F. H. Lewestam, shows the method. Seemingly contradicting theories they put forward share common ground in aspects which are related to the characteristics of the first Slavic societies: a sense of being native inhabitants, pacifism, rich natural resources based on highly-effective agriculture, dynamic demography, a flattened social hierarchy and physical prowess. The fact of even greater importance is that the image of that kind has the mythological core, the circumstance which remains hitherto unnoticed. Polish historians not only tended to identify historical ancient Slavs with mythical Scandinavian Vanir (regarding it obvious), but also managed to recall the great Indo-European theme of ”founding conflict” (in Dumézilian terms), despite whole that mythological model being far beyond the horizon of knowledge at that time. Despite all anachronisms, lack of knowledge and instrumental involvement in aesthetic, political or religious ideology, Romanticism really started the restitution of the cultural legacy of the Middle Ages, also in domain of linguistic and philological research. The consequences of that fact should be taken into account in literary history studies.

This essay analyses Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy and Waiting for Godot through the enabling theoretical lens of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time. Special attention shall be paid to key Heideggerian concepts: idle talk, authenticity, and inauthenticity. A Heideggerian reading of Beckett’s influential middle period allows for a rich exploration of how his works provide a vision of the psychological state of the formerly powerful Anglo-Irish in post-independence Ireland. A Beckettian reading of Heidegger demonstrates how Heideggerian thought has been at the forefront of elucidating key challenges posed in the Twentieth Century concerning ways of being-in-the-world and being-with-others that allows for the authenticity of individual subjectivities.

Unlike some members of his profession, Richard Hadsor (c. 1570–1635), a Middle Temple lawyer born in Ireland, has not been caught in the spotlight which historians have aimed at the dramatic political confrontations in England and Ireland during the early seventeenth century. Nor, since he was not a recusant, has he attracted the attention of Irish historians of the legal profession. Although canvassed for both, he never attained a seat in a parliament or a place on the English or Irish judiciary. He had no part in the ‘inflation of honours’ as either a broker or a recipient. Although he spent the whole of his professional life in London, nothing is known of his English social circle — apart from a single reference in his will to Sir lohn Bramston, a fellow Templar — or the value of his private practice, and only a little (which is, however, suggestive) of his clientèle. He wrote nothing for publication. He had no legitimate offspring and, therefore, none of the successful lawyer’s usual inclination to create a substantial patrimony. In consequence, it is hardly surprising that he does not figure in the standard works of biography or even in a commemoration of nearly one thousand Middle Templars straddling several centuries. Nevertheless, in his own time Richard Hadsor was no nonentity, and he deserves to be rescued from an entirely posthumous obscurity by something more generous than a scholarly footnote. His career as a devoted royal servant spanned a period in which the Old English were being relentlessly excluded from high office in Ireland, yet as crown counsel for Irish affairs he succeeded in establishing a distinctive niche in the Whitehall bureaucracy.

The recent accession to the Vatican Archives of registers of the Sacred Penitentiary, a category of business which remained closed when the general records of the papacy were opened to scholarly research at large in 1881, is an important development. It has especially exciting implications for late medieval Irish history The availability of the Penitentiary material will greatly facilitate an undertaking which is of prime importance but for which the sources are otherwise scanty the study of religious sentiment in Ireland in the period from about the second decade of the fifteenth century, when these registers begin, to the Reformation. This is an aspect of ecclesiastical history to which the legalistic and contentious documents of the beneficiary deposits, the principal point of contact between Ireland and the papacy in the middle ages — though immensely valuable in their own right — do not readily lend themselves.

This article looks at the early development of women’s football in Ireland, examining the cultural impact of the first women’s matches, and how this early heritage has laid foundations for future developments. Women took to playing association football not long after it was first established as a male bastion during the latter half of the nineteenth century. These early matches attracted large crowds, public and press criticism, and in some instances social disorder. The article first examines how the Irish press presented this sporting innovation and the first exposure to actual matches when the British Ladies Club arrived to play in Belfast in early June 1895. Beyond the expected disapproval, there is evidence that debate took place on women’s general role in society, and in particular how females could engage in sport. Also examined is the way British Ladies Club presented themselves as upper-middle-class, and how this contrasted with the way they were portrayed in the press. New research is presented, which casts doubt on the club’s middle-class image and shows how friction between the club and its main sponsor arose when a true picture of the players’ backgrounds came to light. In conclusion, the author contrasts the Irish response to the British Ladies Football Club with the women’s sides that played during World War I and the post-war period. It is shown that the early matches of the 1890s paved the way for a more appreciative and accepting audience.

The cross of Christ in the Middle Ages was the most powerful symbol of God’s victory over sin, death and the forces of evil, while also representing the most abject suffering and degradation of Jesus Christ, the God-Man. A simplistic reading of the evolution of the theology of the cross during this period posits a transition from the early medieval victorious and heroic Christ figure, reigning and triumphant upon the cross, to a late medieval emaciated and tortured object of pity whose ignominious death was supposed to elicit heartfelt compassion for his plight and sincere sorrow for the sin which placed him on the beams of the tree of crucifixion. Of course, there is a great deal of value in this argument, and much evidence might be brought forward to support its central thesis. However, it should not be pushed too far; it might also be remembered that the essential paradox of Christ the victor-victim is a constant theme in Christian theology, expressed in the sixth-century Vexilla regis in its identification of the cross as ‘victim of the passion’s glory, by which life brought death to an end, and, by death, gave life again’ and in the hymn Victimae paschali laudes from the central medieval period: ‘Death with life contended, combat strangely ended, life’s own champion slain yet lives to reign’. The image of the victorious cross of Christ, conceived of as simultaneously an instrument of triumph and of torture, would persist right through the late medieval period, despite the development of a greater emphasis on the physical sufferings of Christ in his passion and their ever more graphic depictions. This essay, which examines the way in which the cross of Christ is presented in medieval Irish literature, provides sufficient examples to make this point clear; these are drawn from a variety of sources including religious verse, saints’ lives, medieval travel accounts and sermon material. Of course, these examples are best viewed within the context of a broader medieval European devotional culture from which Ireland was certainly not immune.

AbstractElizabeth Butler, marchioness of Ormonde, came to prominence during the middle years of the seventeenth century as a result of her care of Protestant refugees in the aftermath of the 1641 rebellion; her royalist exile in Caen; her successful claim to a portion of the confiscated Ormonde estate; and her subsequent retirement to Dunmore in County Kilkenny. Her letters from the 1650s and 1660 provide valuable insight on her role as an influential Irish royalist, and specifically reveal the importance of women in the social and political network that supported her through this tumultuous period. Prominent among the women in her network include the anonymous ‘JH’, a kinswoman who acted as Ormonde's intelligencer and spy in Cromwell's court in London in the early 1650s; Katherine, Lady Ranelagh, an acquaintance who wielded significant influence with the Cromwellian administration in Dublin and acted as Ormonde's intermediary in the mid 1650s; a group of pre-eminent British noblewomen from prominent royalist families with whom Ormonde maintained a relationship of mutual support from the 1650s into the 1660s; and finally Anne Hume, Ormonde's friend, confidante and long-serving waiting gentlewoman, who acted as her agent and messenger as Ormonde prepared for the Restoration in May 1660. Offering a more granular examination of Ormonde's activities during the 1650s than has been undertaken to date, this article shows that women were of primary importance to Ormonde's survival and indeed thriving through the Interregnum. More broadly, it indicates that female alliances were key to women's political agency in Cromwellian Ireland and that women were central to royalist political activity during the Interregnum.

Introduction Cookbooks are an exceptional written record of what is largely an oral tradition. They have been described as “magician’s hats” due to their ability to reveal much more than they seem to contain (Wheaton, “Finding”). The first book printed in Germany was the Guttenberg Bible in 1456 but, by 1490, printing was introduced into almost every European country (Tierney). The spread of literacy between 1500 and 1800, and the rise in silent reading, helped to create a new private sphere into which the individual could retreat, seeking refuge from the community (Chartier). This new technology had its effects in the world of cookery as in so many spheres of culture (Mennell, All Manners). Trubek notes that cookbooks are the texts most often used by culinary historians, since they usually contain all the requisite materials for analysing a cuisine: ingredients, method, technique, and presentation. Printed cookbooks, beginning in the early modern period, provide culinary historians with sources of evidence of the culinary past. Historians have argued that social differences can be expressed by the way and type of food we consume. Cookbooks are now widely accepted as valid socio-cultural and historic documents (Folch, Sherman), and indeed the link between literacy levels and the protestant tradition has been expressed through the study of Danish cookbooks (Gold). From Apicius, Taillevent, La Varenne, and Menon to Bradley, Smith, Raffald, Acton, and Beeton, how can both manuscript and printed cookbooks be analysed as historic documents? What is the difference between a manuscript and a printed cookbook? Barbara Ketchum Wheaton, who has been studying cookbooks for over half a century and is honorary curator of the culinary collection in Harvard’s Schlesinger Library, has developed a methodology to read historic cookbooks using a structured approach. For a number of years she has been giving seminars to scholars from multidisciplinary fields on how to read historic cookbooks. This paper draws on the author’s experiences attending Wheaton’s seminar in Harvard, and on supervising the use of this methodology at both Masters and Doctoral level (Cashman; Mac Con Iomaire, and Cashman). Manuscripts versus Printed Cookbooks A fundamental difference exists between manuscript and printed cookbooks in their relationship with the public and private domain. Manuscript cookbooks are by their very essence intimate, relatively unedited and written with an eye to private circulation. Culinary manuscripts follow the diurnal and annual tasks of the household. They contain recipes for cures and restoratives, recipes for cleansing products for the house and the body, as well as the expected recipes for cooking and preserving all manners of food. Whether manuscript or printed cookbook, the recipes contained within often act as a reminder of how laborious the production of food could be in the pre-industrialised world (White). Printed cookbooks draw oxygen from the very fact of being public. They assume a “literate population with sufficient discretionary income to invest in texts that commodify knowledge” (Folch). This process of commoditisation brings knowledge from the private to the public sphere. There exists a subset of cookbooks that straddle this divide, for example, Mrs. Rundell’s A New System of Domestic Cookery (1806), which brought to the public domain her distillation of a lifetime of domestic experience. Originally intended for her daughters alone, Rundell’s book was reprinted regularly during the nineteenth century with the last edition printed in 1893, when Mrs. Beeton had been enormously popular for over thirty years (Mac Con Iomaire, and Cashman). Barbara Ketchum Wheaton’s Structured Approach Cookbooks can be rewarding, surprising and illuminating when read carefully with due effort in understanding them as cultural artefacts. However, Wheaton notes that: “One may read a single old cookbook and find it immensely entertaining. One may read two and begin to find intriguing similarities and differences. When the third cookbook is read, one’s mind begins to blur, and one begins to sense the need for some sort of method in approaching these documents” (“Finding”). Following decades of studying cookbooks from both sides of the Atlantic and writing a seminal text on the French at table from 1300-1789 (Wheaton, Savouring the Past), this combined experience negotiating cookbooks as historical documents was codified, and a structured approach gradually articulated and shared within a week long seminar format. In studying any cookbook, regardless of era or country of origin, the text is broken down into five different groupings, to wit: ingredients; equipment or facilities; the meal; the book as a whole; and, finally, the worldview. A particular strength of Wheaton’s seminars is the multidisciplinary nature of the approaches of students who attend, which throws the study of cookbooks open to wide ranging techniques. Students with a purely scientific training unearth interesting patterns by developing databases of the frequency of ingredients or techniques, and cross referencing them with other books from similar or different timelines or geographical regions. Patterns are displayed in graphs or charts. Linguists offer their own unique lens to study cookbooks, whereas anthropologists and historians ask what these objects can tell us about how our ancestors lived and drew meaning from life. This process is continuously refined, and each grouping is discussed below. Ingredients The geographic origins of the ingredients are of interest, as is the seasonality and the cost of the foodstuffs within the scope of each cookbook, as well as the sensory quality both separately and combined within different recipes. In the medieval period, the use of spices and large joints of butchers meat and game were symbols of wealth and status. However, when the discovery of sea routes to the New World and to the Far East made spices more available and affordable to the middle classes, the upper classes spurned them. Evidence from culinary manuscripts in Georgian Ireland, for example, suggests that galangal was more easily available in Dublin during the eighteenth century than in the mid-twentieth century. A new aesthetic, articulated by La Varenne in his Le Cuisinier Francois (1651), heralded that food should taste of itself, and so exotic ingredients such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger were replaced by the local bouquet garni, and stocks and sauces became the foundations of French haute cuisine (Mac Con Iomaire). Some combinations of flavours and ingredients were based on humoral physiology, a long held belief system based on the writings of Hippocrates and Galen, now discredited by modern scientific understanding. The four humors are blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. It was believed that each of these humors would wax and wane in the body, depending on diet and activity. Galen (131-201 AD) believed that warm food produced yellow bile and that cold food produced phlegm. It is difficult to fathom some combinations of ingredients or the manner of service without comprehending the contemporary context within they were consumeSome ingredients found in Roman cookbooks, such as “garum” or “silphium” are no longer available. It is suggested that the nearest substitute for garum also known as “liquamen”—a fermented fish sauce—would be Naam Plaa, or Thai fish sauce (Grainger). Ingredients such as tea and white bread, moved from the prerogative of the wealthy over time to become the staple of the urban poor. These ingredients, therefore, symbolise radically differing contexts during the seventeenth century than in the early twentieth century. Indeed, there are other ingredients such as hominy (dried maize kernel treated with alkali) or grahams (crackers made from graham flour) found in American cookbooks that require translation to the unacquainted non-American reader. There has been a growing number of food encyclopaedias published in recent years that assist scholars in identifying such commodities (Smith, Katz, Davidson). The Cook’s Workplace, Techniques, and Equipment It is important to be aware of the type of kitchen equipment used, the management of heat and cold within the kitchen, and also the gradual spread of the industrial revolution into the domestic sphere. Visits to historic castles such as Hampton Court Palace where nowadays archaeologists re-enact life below stairs in Tudor times give a glimpse as to how difficult and labour intensive food production was. Meat was spit-roasted in front of huge fires by spit boys. Forcemeats and purees were manually pulped using mortar and pestles. Various technological developments including spit-dogs, and mechanised pulleys, replaced the spit boys, the most up to date being the mechanised rotisserie. The technological advancements of two hundred years can be seen in the Royal Pavilion in Brighton where Marie-Antoinin Carême worked for the Prince Regent in 1816 (Brighton Pavilion), but despite the gleaming copper pans and high ceilings for ventilation, the work was still back breaking. Carême died aged forty-nine, “burnt out by the flame of his genius and the fumes of his ovens” (Ackerman 90). Mennell points out that his fame outlived him, resting on his books: Le Pâtissier Royal Parisien (1815); Le Pâtissier Pittoresque (1815); Le Maître d’Hôtel Français (1822); Le Cuisinier Parisien (1828); and, finally, L’Art de la Cuisine Française au Dix-Neuvième Siècle (1833–5), which was finished posthumously by his student Pluméry (All Manners). Mennell suggests that these books embody the first paradigm of professional French cuisine (in Kuhn’s terminology), pointing out that “no previous work had so comprehensively codified the field nor established its dominance as a point of reference for the whole profession in the way that Carême did” (All Manners 149). The most dramatic technological changes came after the industrial revolution. Although there were built up ovens available in bakeries and in large Norman households, the period of general acceptance of new cooking equipment that enclosed fire (such as the Aga stove) is from c.1860 to 1910, with gas ovens following in c.1910 to the 1920s) and Electricity from c.1930. New food processing techniques dates are as follows: canning (1860s), cooling and freezing (1880s), freeze drying (1950s), and motorised delivery vans with cooking (1920s–1950s) (den Hartog). It must also be noted that the supply of fresh food, and fish particularly, radically improved following the birth, and expansion of, the railways. To understand the context of the cookbook, one needs to be aware of the limits of the technology available to the users of those cookbooks. For many lower to middle class families during the twentieth century, the first cookbook they would possess came with their gas or electrical oven. Meals One can follow cooked dishes from the kitchen to the eating place, observing food presentation, carving, sequencing, and serving of the meal and table etiquette. Meal times and structure changed over time. During the Middle Ages, people usually ate two meals a day: a substantial dinner around noon and a light supper in the evening (Adamson). Some of the most important factors to consider are the manner in which meals were served: either à la française or à la russe. One of the main changes that occurred during the nineteenth century was the slow but gradual transfer from service à la française to service à la russe. From medieval times to the middle of the nineteenth century the structure of a formal meal was not by “courses”—as the term is now understood—but by “services”. Each service could comprise of a choice of dishes—both sweet and savoury—from which each guest could select what appealed to him or her most (Davidson). The philosophy behind this form of service was the forementioned humoral physiology— where each diner chose food based on the four humours of blood, yellow bile, black bile, or phlegm. Also known as le grand couvert, the à la française method made it impossible for the diners to eat anything that was beyond arm’s length (Blake, and Crewe). Smooth service, however, was the key to an effective à la russe dinner since servants controlled the flow of food (Eatwell). The taste and temperature of food took centre stage with the à la russe dinner as each course came in sequence. Many historic cookbooks offer table plans illustrating the suggested arrangement of dishes on a table for the à la française style of service. Many of these dishes might be re-used in later meals, and some dishes such as hashes and rissoles often utilised left over components of previous meals. There is a whole genre of cookbooks informing the middle class cooks how to be frugal and also how to emulate haute cuisine using cheaper or ersatz ingredients. The number dining and the manner in which they dined also changed dramatically over time. From medieval to Tudor times, there might be hundreds dining in large banqueting halls. By the Elizabethan age, a small intimate room where master and family dined alone replaced the old dining hall where master, servants, guests, and travellers had previously dined together (Spencer). Dining tables remained portable until the 1780s when tables with removable leaves were devised. By this time, the bread trencher had been replaced by one made of wood, or plate of pewter or precious metal in wealthier houses. Hosts began providing knives and spoons for their guests by the seventeenth century, with forks also appearing but not fully accepted until the eighteenth century (Mason). These silver utensils were usually marked with the owner’s initials to prevent their theft (Flandrin). Cookbooks as Objects and the World of Publishing A thorough examination of the manuscript or printed cookbook can reveal their physical qualities, including indications of post-publication history, the recipes and other matter in them, as well as the language, organization, and other individual qualities. What can the quality of the paper tell us about the book? Is there a frontispiece? Is the book dedicated to an employer or a patron? Does the author note previous employment history in the introduction? In his Court Cookery, Robert Smith, for example, not only mentions a number of his previous employers, but also outlines that he was eight years working with Patrick Lamb in the Court of King William, before revealing that several dishes published in Lamb’s Royal Cookery (1710) “were never made or practis’d (sic) by him and others are extreme defective and imperfect and made up of dishes unknown to him; and several of them more calculated at the purses than the Gôut of the guests”. Both Lamb and Smith worked for the English monarchy, nobility, and gentry, but produced French cuisine. Not all Britons were enamoured with France, however, with, for example Hannah Glasse asserting “if gentlemen will have French cooks, they must pay for French tricks” (4), and “So much is the blind folly of this age, that they would rather be imposed on by a French Booby, than give encouragement to an good English cook” (ctd. in Trubek 60). Spencer contextualises Glasse’s culinary Francophobia, explaining that whilst she was writing the book, the Jacobite army were only a few days march from London, threatening to cut short the Hanoverian lineage. However, Lehmann points out that whilst Glasse was overtly hostile to French cuisine, she simultaneously plagiarised its receipts. Based on this trickling down of French influences, Mennell argues that “there is really no such thing as a pure-bred English cookery book” (All Manners 98), but that within the assimilation and simplification, a recognisable English style was discernable. Mennell also asserts that Glasse and her fellow women writers had an enormous role in the social history of cooking despite their lack of technical originality (“Plagiarism”). It is also important to consider the place of cookbooks within the history of publishing. Albala provides an overview of the immense outpouring of dietary literature from the printing presses from the 1470s. He divides the Renaissance into three periods: Period I Courtly Dietaries (1470–1530)—targeted at the courtiers with advice to those attending banquets with many courses and lots of wine; Period II The Galenic Revival (1530–1570)—with a deeper appreciation, and sometimes adulation, of Galen, and when scholarship took centre stage over practical use. Finally Period III The Breakdown of Orthodoxy (1570–1650)—when, due to the ambiguities and disagreements within and between authoritative texts, authors were freer to pick the ideas that best suited their own. Nutrition guides were consistent bestsellers, and ranged from small handbooks written in the vernacular for lay audiences, to massive Latin tomes intended for practicing physicians. Albala adds that “anyone with an interest in food appears to have felt qualified to pen his own nutritional guide” (1). Would we have heard about Mrs. Beeton if her husband had not been a publisher? How could a twenty-five year old amass such a wealth of experience in household management? What role has plagiarism played in the history of cookbooks? It is interesting to note that a well worn copy of her book (Beeton) was found in the studio of Francis Bacon and it is suggested that he drew inspiration for a number of his paintings from the colour plates of animal carcasses and butcher’s meat (Dawson). Analysing the post-publication usage of cookbooks is valuable to see the most popular recipes, the annotations left by the owner(s) or user(s), and also if any letters, handwritten recipes, or newspaper clippings are stored within the leaves of the cookbook. The Reader, the Cook, the Eater The physical and inner lives and needs and skills of the individuals who used cookbooks and who ate their meals merit consideration. Books by their nature imply literacy. Who is the book’s audience? Is it the cook or is it the lady of the house who will dictate instructions to the cook? Numeracy and measurement is also important. Where clocks or pocket watches were not widely available, authors such as seventeenth century recipe writer Sir Kenelm Digby would time his cooking by the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. Literacy amongst protestant women to enable them to read the Bible, also enabled them to read cookbooks (Gold). How did the reader or eater’s religion affect the food practices? Were there fast days? Were there substitute foods for fast days? What about special occasions? Do historic cookbooks only tell us about the food of the middle and upper classes? It is widely accepted today that certain cookbook authors appeal to confident cooks, while others appeal to competent cooks, and others still to more cautious cooks (Bilton). This has always been the case, as has the differentiation between the cookbook aimed at the professional cook rather than the amateur. Historically, male cookbook authors such as Patrick Lamb (1650–1709) and Robert Smith targeted the professional cook market and the nobility and gentry, whereas female authors such as Eliza Acton (1799–1859) and Isabella Beeton (1836–1865) often targeted the middle class market that aspired to emulate their superiors’ fashions in food and dining. How about Tavern or Restaurant cooks? When did they start to put pen to paper, and did what they wrote reflect the food they produced in public eateries? Conclusions This paper has offered an overview of Barbara Ketchum Wheaton’s methodology for reading historic cookbooks using a structured approach. It has highlighted some of the questions scholars and researchers might ask when faced with an old cookbook, regardless of era or geographical location. By systematically examining the book under the headings of ingredients; the cook’s workplace, techniques and equipment; the meals; cookbooks as objects and the world of publishing; and reader, cook and eater, the scholar can perform magic and extract much more from the cookbook than seems to be there on first appearance. References Ackerman, Roy. The Chef's Apprentice. London: Headline, 1988. Adamson, Melitta Weiss. Food in Medieval Times. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood P, 2004. Albala, Ken. Eating Right in the Renaissance. Ed. Darra Goldstein. Berkeley: U of California P, 2002. Beeton, Isabella. Beeton's Book of Household Management. London: S. Beeton, 1861. Bilton, Samantha. “The Influence of Cookbooks on Domestic Cooks, 1900-2010.” Petit Propos Culinaires 94 (2011): 30–7. Blake, Anthony, and Quentin Crewe. Great Chefs of France. London: Mitchell Beazley/ Artists House, 1978. Brighton Pavilion. 12 Jun. 2013 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/interactive/2011/sep/09/brighton-pavilion-360-interactive-panoramic›. Cashman, Dorothy. “An Exploratory Study of Irish Cookbooks.” Unpublished Master's Thesis. M.Sc. Dublin: Dublin Institute of Technology, 2009. Chartier, Roger. “The Practical Impact of Writing.” Trans. Arthur Goldhammer. A History of Private Lives: Volume III: Passions of the Renaissance. Ed. Roger Chartier. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap P of Harvard U, 1989. 111-59. Davidson, Alan. The Oxford Companion to Food. New York: Oxford U P, 1999. 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IntroductionThe common origin of the adjective “corporeal” and the noun “corpse” in the Latin root corpus points to the value of mortuary practices for investigating how the human body is objectified. In post-mortem rituals, the body—formerly the manipulator of objects—becomes itself the object that is manipulated. Thus, these funerary rituals provide a type of double reflexivity, where the object and subject of manipulation can be used to reciprocally illuminate one another. To this extent, any consideration of corporeality can only benefit from a discussion of how the body is objectified through mortuary practices. This paper offers just such a discussion with respect to a selection of two contrasting mortuary practices, in the context of the prehistoric past and the Classical Era respectively. At the most general level, we are motivated by the same intellectual impulse that has stimulated expositions on corporeality, materiality, and incarnation in areas like phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty 77–234), Marxism (Adorno 112–119), gender studies (Grosz vii–xvi), history (Laqueur 193–244), and theology (Henry 33–53). That is to say, our goal is to show that the body, far from being a transparent frame through which we encounter the world, is in fact a locus where historical, social, cultural, and psychological forces intersect. On this view, “the body vanishes as a biological entity and becomes an infinitely malleable and highly unstable culturally constructed product” (Shilling 78). However, for all that the cited paradigms offer culturally situated appreciations of corporeality; our particular intellectual framework will be provided by cognitive science. Two reasons impel us towards this methodological choice.In the first instance, the study of ritual has, after several decades of stagnation, been rewarded—even revolutionised—by the application of insights from the new sciences of the mind (Whitehouse 1–12; McCauley and Lawson 1–37). Thus, there are good reasons to think that ritual treatments of the body will refract historical and social forces through empirically attested tendencies in human cognition. In the present connection, this means that knowledge of these tendencies will reward any attempt to theorise the objectification of the body in mortuary rituals.In the second instance, because beliefs concerning the afterlife can never be definitively judged to be true or false, they give free expression to tendencies in cognition that are otherwise constrained by the need to reflect external realities accurately. To this extent, they grant direct access to the intuitive ideas and biases that shape how we think about the world. Already, this idea has been exploited to good effect in areas like the cognitive anthropology of religion, which explores how counterfactual beings like ghosts, spirits, and gods conform to (and deviate from) pre-reflective cognitive patterns (Atran 83–112; Barrett and Keil 219–224; Barrett and Reed 252–255; Boyer 876–886). Necessarily, this implies that targeting post-mortem treatments of the body will offer unmediated access to some of the conceptual schemes that inform thinking about human corporeality.At a more detailed level, the specific methodology we propose to use will be provided by conceptual blending theory—a framework developed by Gilles Fauconnier, Mark Turner, and others to describe how structures from different areas of experience are creatively blended to form a new conceptual frame. In this system, a generic space provides the ground for coordinating two or more input spaces into a blended space that synthesises them into a single output. Here this would entail using natural or technological processes to structure mortuary practices in a way that satisfies various psychological needs.Take, for instance, W.B. Yeats’s famous claim that “Too long a sacrifice / Can make a stone of the heart” (“Easter 1916” in Yeats 57-8). Here, the poet exploits a generic space—that of everyday objects and the effort involved in manipulating them—to coordinate an organic input from that taxonomy (the heart) with an inorganic input (a stone) to create the blended idea that too energetic a pursuit of an abstract ideal turns a person into an unfeeling object (the heart-as-stone). Although this particular example corresponds to a familiar rhetorical figure (the metaphor), the value of conceptual blending theory is that it cuts across distinctions of genre, media, language, and discourse level to provide a versatile framework for expressing how one area of human experience is related to another.As indicated, we will exploit this versatility to investigate two ways of objectifying the body through the examination of two contrasting mortuary practices—cremation and inhumation—against different cultural horizons. The first of these is the conceptualisation of the body as an object of a technical process, where the post-mortem cremation of the corpse is analogically correlated with the metallurgical refining of ore into base metal. Our area of focus here will be Bronze Age cremation practices. The second conceptual scheme we will investigate focuses on treatments of the body as a vegetable object; here, the relevant analogy likens the inhumation of the corpse to the planting of a seed in the soil from which future growth will come. This discussion will centre on the Classical Era. Burning: The Body as Manufactured ObjectThe Early and Middle Bronze Age in Western Europe (2500-1200 BCE) represented a period of change in funerary practices relative to the preceding Neolithic, exemplified by a move away from the use of Megalithic monuments, a proliferation of grave goods, and an increase in the use of cremation (Barrett 38-9; Cooney and Grogan 105-121; Brück, Material Metaphors 308; Waddell, Bronze Age 141-149). Moreover, the Western European Bronze Age is characterised by a shift away from communal burial towards single interment (Barrett 32; Bradley 158-168). Equally, the Bronze Age in Western Europe provides us with evidence of an increased use of cist and pit cremation burials concentrated in low-lying areas (Woodman 254; Waddell, Prehistoric 16; Cooney and Grogan 105-121; Bettencourt 103). This greater preference for lower-lying location appears to reflect a distinctive change in comparison to the distribution patterns of the Neolithic burials; these are often located on prominent, visible aspects of a landscape (Cooney and Grogan 53-61). These new Bronze Age burial practices appear to reflect a distancing in relation to the territories of the “old ancestors” typified by Megalithic monuments (Bettencourt 101-103). Crucially, the Bronze Age archaeological record provides us with evidence that indicates that cremation was becoming the dominant form of deposition of human remains throughout Central and Western Europe (Sørensen and Rebay 59-60).The activities associated with Bronze Age cremations such as the burning of the body and the fragmentation of the remains have often been considered as corporeal equivalents (or expressions) of the activities involved in metal (bronze) production (Brück, Death 84-86; Sørensen and Rebay 60–1; Rebay-Salisbury, Cremations 66-67). There are unequivocal similarities between the practices of cremation and contemporary bronze production technologies—particularly as both processes involve the transformation of material through the application of fire at temperatures between 700 ºC to 1000 ºC (Musgrove 272-276; Walker et al. 132; de Becdelievre et al. 222-223).We assert that the technologies that define the European Bronze Age—those involved in alloying copper and tin to produce bronze—offered a new conceptual frame that enabled the body to be objectified in new ways. The fundamental idea explored here is that the displacement of inhumation by cremation in the European Bronze Age was motivated by a cognitive shift, where new smelting technologies provided novel conceptual metaphors for thinking about age-old problems concerning human mortality and post-mortem survival. The increased use of cremation in the European Bronze Age contrasts with the archaeological record of the Near Eastern—where, despite the earlier emergence of metallurgy (3300–3000 BCE), we do not see a notable proliferation in the use of cremation in this region. Thus, mortuary practices (i.e. cremation) provide us with an insight into how Western European Bronze Age cultures mediated the body through changes in technological objects and processes.In the terminology of conceptual blending, the generic space in question centres on the technical manipulation of the material world. The first input space is associated with the anxiety attending mortality—specifically, the cessation of personal identity and the extinction of interpersonal relationships. The second input space represents the technical knowledge associated with bronze production; in particular, the extraction of ore from source material and its mixing with other metals to form an alloy. The blended space coordinates these inputs to objectify the human body as an object that is ritually transformed into a new but more durable substance via the cremation process. In this contention we use the archaeological record to draw a conceptual parallel between the emergence of bronze production technology—centring on transition of naturally occurring material to a new subsistence (bronze)—and the transitional nature of the cremation process.In this theoretical framework, treating the body as a mixture of substances that can be reduced to its constituents and transformed through technologies of cremation enabled Western European Bronze Age society to intervene in the natural process of putrefaction and transform the organic matter into something more permanent. This transformative aspect of the cremation is seen in the evidence we have for secondary burial practices involving the curation and circulation of cremated bones of deceased members of a group (Brück, Death 87-93). This evidence allows us to assert that cremated human remains and objects were considered products of the same transformation into a more permanent state via burning, fragmentation, dispersal, and curation. Sofaer (62-69) states that the living body is regarded as a person, but as soon as the transition to death is made, the body becomes an object; this is an “ontological shift in the perception of the body that assumes a sudden change in its qualities” (62).Moreover, some authors have proposed that the exchange of fragmented human remains was central to mortuary practices and was central in establishing and maintaining social relations (Brück, Death 76-88). It is suggested that in the Early Bronze Age the perceptions of the human body mirrored the perceptions of objects associated with the arrival of the new bronze technology (Brück, Death 88-92). This idea is more pronounced if we consider the emergence of bronze technology as the beginning of a period of capital intensification of natural resources. Through this connection, the Bronze Age can be regarded as the point at which a particular natural resource—in this case, copper—went through myriad intensive manufacturing stages, which are still present today (intensive extraction, production/manufacturing, and distribution). Unlike stone tool production, bronze production had the addition of fire as the explicit method of transformation (Brück, Death 88-92). Thus, such views maintain that the transition achieved by cremation—i.e. reducing the human remains to objects or tokens that could be exchanged and curated relatively soon after the death of the individual—is equivalent to the framework of commodification connected with bronze production.A sample of cremated remains from Castlehyde in County Cork, Ireland, provides us with an example of a Bronze Age cremation burial in a Western European context (McCarthy). This is chosen because it is a typical example of a Bronze Age cremation burial in the context of Western Europe; also, one of the authors (MG) has first-hand experience in the analysis of its associated remains. The Castlehyde cremation burial consisted of a rectangular, stone-lined cist (McCarthy). The cist contained cremated, calcined human remains, with the fragments generally ranging from a greyish white to white in colour; this indicates that the bones were subject to a temperature range of 700-900ºC. The organic content of bone was destroyed during the cremation process, leaving only the inorganic matrix (brittle bone which is, often, described as metallic in consistency—e.g. Gejvall 470-475). There is evidence that remains may have been circulated in a manner akin to valuable metal objects. First of all, the absence of long bones indicates that there may have been a practice of removing salient remains as curatable records of ancestral ties. Secondly, remains show traces of metal staining from objects that are no longer extant, which suggests that graves were subject to secondary burial practices involving the removal of metal objects and/or human bone. To this extent, we can discern that human remains were being processed, curated, and circulated in a similar manner to metal objects.Thus, there are remarkable similarities between the treatment of the human body in cremation and bronze metal production technologies in the European Bronze Age. On the one hand, the parallel between smelting and cremation allowed death to be understood as a process of transformation in which the individual was removed from processes of organic decay. On the other hand, the circulation of the transformed remains conferred a type of post-mortem survival on the deceased. In this way, cremation practices may have enabled Bronze Age society to symbolically overcome the existential anxiety concerning the loss of personhood and the breaking of human relationships through death. In relation to the former point, the resurgence of cremation in nineteenth century Europe provides us with an example of how the disposal of a human body can be contextualised in relation to socio-technological advancements. The (re)emergence of cremation in this period reflects the post-Enlightenment shift from an understanding of the world through religious beliefs to the use of rational, scientific approaches to examine the natural world, including the human body (and death). The controlled use of fire in the cremation process, as well as the architecture of crematories, reflected the industrial context of the period (Rebay-Salisbury, Inhumation 16).With respect to the circulation of cremated remains, Smith suggests that Early Medieval Christian relics of individual bones or bone fragments reflect a reconceptualised continuation of pre-Christian practices (beginning in Christian areas of the Roman Empire). In this context, it is claimed, firstly, that the curation of bone relics and the use of mobile bone relics of important, saintly individuals provided an embodied connection between the sacred sphere and the earthly world; and secondly, that the use of individual bones or fragments of bone made the Christian message something portable, which could be used to reinforce individual or collective adherence to Christianity (Smith 143-167). Using the example of the Christian bone relics, we can thus propose that the curation and circulation of Bronze Age cremated material may have served a role similar to tools for focusing religiously oriented cognition. Burying: The Body as a Vegetable ObjectGiven that the designation “the Classical Era” nominates the entirety of the Graeco-Roman world (including the Near East and North Africa) from about 800 BCE to 600 CE, there were obviously no mortuary practices common to all cultures. Nevertheless, in both classical Greece and Rome, we have examples of periods when either cremation or inhumation was the principal funerary custom (Rebay-Salisbury, Inhumation 19-21).For instance, the ancient Homeric texts inform us that the ancient Greeks believed that “the spirit of the departed was sentient and still in the world of the living as long as the flesh was in existence […] and would rather have the body devoured by purifying fire than by dogs or worms” (Mylonas 484). However, the primary sources and archaeological record indicate that cremation practices declined in Athens circa 400 BCE (Rebay-Salisbury, Inhumation 20). With respect to the Roman Empire, scholarly opinion argues that inhumation was the dominant funerary rite in the eastern part of the Empire (Rebay-Salisbury, Inhumation 17-21; Morris 52). Complementing this, the archaeological and historical record indicates that inhumation became the primary rite throughout the Roman Empire in the first century CE. Inhumation was considered to be an essential rite in the context of an emerging belief that a peaceful afterlife was reflected by a peaceful burial in which bodily integrity was maintained (Rebay-Salisbury, Inhumation 19-21; Morris 52; Toynbee 41). The question that this poses is how these beliefs were framed in the broader discourses of Classical culture.In this regard, our claim is that the growth in inhumation was driven (at least in part) by the spread of a conceptual scheme, implicit in Greek fertility myths that objectify the body as a seed. The conceptual logic here is that the post-mortem continuation of personal identity is (symbolically) achieved by objectifying the body as a vegetable object that will re-grow from its own physical remains. Although the dominant metaphor here is vegetable, there is no doubt that the motivating concern of this mythological fabulation is human mortality. As Jon Davies notes, “the myths of Hades, Persephone and Demeter, of Orpheus and Eurydice, of Adonis and Aphrodite, of Selene and Endymion, of Herakles and Dionysus, are myths of death and rebirth, of journeys into and out of the underworld, of transactions and transformations between gods and humans” (128). Thus, such myths reveal important patterns in how the post-mortem fate of the body was conceptualised.In the terminology of mental mapping, the generic space relevant to inhumation contains knowledge pertaining to folk biology—specifically, pre-theoretical ideas concerning regeneration, survival, and mortality. The first input space attaches to human mortality; it departs from the anxiety associated with the seeming cessation of personal identity and dissolution of kin relationships subsequent to death. The second input space is the subset of knowledge concerning vegetable life, and how the immersion of seeds in the soil produces a new generation of plants with the passage of time. The blended space combines the two input spaces by way of the funerary script, which involves depositing the body in the soil with a view to securing its eventual rebirth by analogy with the sprouting of a planted seed.As indicated, the most important illustration of this conceptual pattern can be found in the fertility myths of ancient Greece. The Homeric Hymns, in particular, provide a number of narratives that trace out correspondences between vegetation cycles, human mortality, and inhumation, which inform ritual practice (Frazer 223–404; Carney 355–65; Sowa 121–44). The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, for instance, charts how Persephone is abducted by Hades, god of the dead, and taken to his underground kingdom. While searching for her missing daughter, Demeter, goddess of fertility, neglects the earth, causing widespread devastation. Matters are resolved when Zeus intervenes to restore Persephone to Demeter. However, having ingested part of Hades’s kingdom (a pomegranate seed), Persephone is obliged to spend half the year below ground with her captor and the other half above ground with her mother.The objectification of Persephone as both a seed and a corpse in this narrative is clearly signalled by her seasonal inhumation in Hades’ chthonic realm, which is at once both the soil and the grave. And, just as the planting of seeds in autumn ensures rebirth in spring, Persephone’s seasonal passage from the Kingdom of the Dead nominates the individual human life as just one season in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. A further signifying element is added by the ingestion of the pomegranate seed. This is evocative of her being inseminated by Hades; thus, the coordination of vegetation cycles with life and death is correlated with secondary transition—that from childhood to adulthood (Kerényi 119–183).In the examples given, we can see how the Homeric Hymn objectifies both the mortal and sexual destiny of the body in terms of thresholds derived from the vegetable world. Moreover, this mapping is not merely an intellectual exercise. Its emotional and social appeal is visible in the fact that the Eleusinian mysteries—which offered the ritual homologue to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter—persisted from the Mycenaean period to 396 CE, one of the longest recorded durations for any ritual (Ferguson 254–9; Cosmopoulos 1–24). In sum, then, classical myth provided a precedent for treating the body as a vegetable object—most often, a seed—that would, in turn, have driven the move towards inhumation as an important mortuary practice. The result is to create a ritual form that makes key aspects of human experience intelligible by connecting them with cyclical processes like the seasons of the year, the harvesting of crops, and the intergenerational oscillation between the roles of parent and child. Indeed, this pattern remains visible in the germination metaphors and burial practices of contemporary religions such as Christianity, which draw heavily on the symbolism associated with mystery cults like that at Eleusis (Nock 177–213).ConclusionWe acknowledge that our examples offer a limited reflection of the ethnographic and archaeological data, and that they need to be expanded to a much greater degree if they are to be more than merely suggestive. Nevertheless, suggestiveness has its value, too, and we submit that the speculations explored here may well offer a useful starting point for a larger survey. In particular, they showcase how a recurring existential anxiety concerning death—involving the fear of loss of personal identity and kinship relations—is addressed by different ways of objectifying the body. Given that the body is not reducible to the objects with which it is identified, these objectifications can never be entirely successful in negotiating the boundary between life and death. In the words of Jon Davies, “there is simply no let-up in the efforts by human beings to transcend this boundary, no matter how poignantly each failure seemed to reinforce it” (128). For this reason, we can expect that the record will be replete with conceptual and cognitive schemes that mediate the experience of death.At a more general level, it should also be clear that our understanding of human corporeality is rewarded by the study of mortuary practices. 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(Benjamin Müsegades, Heidelberg) Berndt, Rainer SJ (Hrsg.), Der Papst und das Buch im Spätmittelalter (1350 – 1500). Bildungsvoraussetzung, Handschriftenherstellung, Bibliotheksgebrauch (Erudiri Sapientia, 13), Münster 2018, Aschendorff, 661 S. / Abb., € 79,00. (Vanina Kopp, Trier) Eßer, Florian, Schisma als Deutungskonflikt. Das Konzil von Pisa und die Lösung des Großen Abendländischen Schismas (1378 – 1409) (Papsttum im mittelalterlichen Europa, 8), Wien / Köln / Weimar 2019, Böhlau, 874 S., € 120,00. (Bernward Schmidt, Eichstätt) Baur, Kilian, Freunde und Feinde. Niederdeutsche, Dänen und die Hanse im Spätmittelalter (1376 – 1513) (Quellen und Darstellungen zur Hansischen Geschichte. Neue Folge, 76), Wien / Köln / Weimar 2018, Böhlau, 671 S., € 85,00. (Angela Huang, Lübeck) Pietsch, Tobias, Führende Gruppierungen im spätmittelalterlichen Niederadel Mecklenburgs, Kiel 2019, Solivagus-Verlag, 459 S. / graph. Darst., € 58,00. (Joachim Krüger, Greifswald) Putzer, Katja, Das Urbarbuch des Erhard Rainer zu Schambach von 1376. Besitz und Bücher eines bayerischen Niederadligen (Quellen und Erörterungen zur bayerischen Geschichte. Neue Folge, 50), München 2019, Beck, 318 S., € 56,00. (Wolfgang Wüst, Erlangen) Drossbach, Gisela / Klaus Wolf (Hrsg.), Reformen vor der Reformation. Sankt Ulrich und Afra und der monastisch-urbane Umkreis im 15. Jahrhundert (Studia Augustana, 18), Berlin / Boston 2018, VII u. 391 S. / Abb., € 99,95. (Thomas Groll, Augsburg) Ricci, Giovanni, Appeal to the Turk. The Broken Boundaries of the Renaissance, übers. v. Richard Chapman (Viella History, Art and Humanities Collection, 4), Rom 2018, Viella, 186 S. / Abb., € 30,00. (Stefan Hanß, Manchester) Böttcher, Hans-Joachim, Die Türkenkriege im Spiegel sächsischer Biographien (Studien zur Geschichte Ungarns, 20), Herne 2019, Schäfer, 290 S., € 19,95. (Fabian Schulze, Elchingen / Augsburg) Shaw, Christine, Isabella d’Este. A Renaissance Princess (Routledge Historical Biographies), London / New York 2019, Routledge, 312 S., £ 90,00. (Christina Antenhofer, Salzburg) Brandtzæg, Siv G. / Paul Goring / Christine Watson (Hrsg.), Travelling Chronicles. News and Newspapers from the Early Modern Period to the Eighteenth Century (Library of the Written Word, 66 / The Handpress World, 51), Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, XIX u. 388 S. / Abb., € 129,00. (Andreas Würgler, Genf) Graheli, Shanti (Hrsg.), Buying and Selling. The Business of Books in Early Modern Europe (Library of the Written Word, 72; The Handpress World, 55), Leiden / Boston 2019, Brill, XXIII u. 559 S. / Abb., € 159,00. (Johannes Frimmel, München) Vries, Jan de, The Price of Bread. Regulating the Market in the Dutch Republic (Cambridge Studies in Economic History), Cambridge [u. a.] 2019, Cambridge University Press, XIX u. 515 S. / graph. Darst., £ 34,99. (Justus Nipperdey, Saarbrücken) Caesar, Mathieu (Hrsg.), Factional Struggles. 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(Tobias Schenk, Wien) Rittgers, Ronald K. / Vincent Evener (Hrsg.), Protestants and Mysticism in Reformation Europe (St Andrews Studies in Reformation History), Leiden / Boston 2019, Brill, XIV u. 459 S., € 156,00. (Lennart Gard, Berlin) Temple, Liam P., Mysticism in Early Modern England (Studies in Modern British Religious History, 38), Woodbridge 2019, The Boydell Press, IX u. 221 S. / Abb., £ 60,00. (Elisabeth Fischer, Hamburg) Kroll, Frank-Lothar / Glyn Redworth / Dieter J. Weiß (Hrsg.), Deutschland und die Britischen Inseln im Reformationsgeschehen. Vergleich, Transfer, Verflechtungen (Prinz-Albert-Studien, 34; Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte Bayerns, 97), Berlin 2018, Duncker &amp; Humblot, X u. 350 S., € 79,90. (Andreas Pečar, Halle a. d. S.) Breul, Wolfgang / Kurt Andermann (Hrsg.), Ritterschaft und Reformation (Geschichtliche Landeskunde, 75), Stuttgart 2019, Steiner, 374 S., € 63,00. (Andreas Flurschütz da Cruz, Bamberg) Niederhäuser, Peter / Regula Schmid (Hrsg.), Querblicke. Zürcher Reformationsgeschichten (Mitteilungen der Antiquarischen Gesellschaft in Zürich, 86), Zürich 2019, Chronos, 203 S. / Abb., € 48,00. (Volker Reinhardt, Fribourg) Braun, Karl-Heinz / Wilbirgis Klaiber / Christoph Moos (Hrsg.), Glaube‍(n) im Disput. Neuere Forschungen zu den altgläubigen Kontroversisten des Reformationszeitalters (Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, 173), Münster 2020, Aschendorff, IX u. 404 S., € 68,00. (Volker Leppin, Tübingen) Fata, Márta / András Forgó / Gabriele Haug-Moritz / Anton Schindling (Hrsg.), Das Trienter Konzil und seine Rezeption im Ungarn des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, 171), Münster 2019, VI u. 301 S., € 46,00. (Joachim Werz, Frankfurt a. M.) Tol, Jonas van, Germany and the French Wars of Religion, 1560 – 1572 (St Andrews Studies in Reformation History), Leiden / Boston 2019, Brill, VIII u. 274 S. / Abb., € 125,00. (Alexandra Schäfer-Griebel, Mainz) Lipscomb, Suzannah, The Voices of Nîmes. Women, Sex, and Marriage in Reformation Languedoc, Oxford / New York 2019, Oxford University Press, XIV u. 378 S., £ 30,00. (Adrina Schulz, Zürich) Kielinger, Thomas, Die Königin. Elisabeth I. und der Kampf um England. Biographie, München 2019, Beck, 375 S. / Abb., € 24,95. (Pauline Puppel, Aumühle) Canning, Ruth, The Old English in Early Modern Ireland. The Palesmen and the Nine Years’ War, 1594 – 1603 (Irish Historical Monograph Series, [20]), Woodbridge 2019, The Boydell Press, XI u. 227 S., £ 75,00. (Martin Foerster, Düsseldorf) Bry, Theodor de, America. Sämtliche Tafeln 1590 – 1602, hrsg. v. Michiel van Groesen / Larry E. Tise, Köln 2019, Taschen, 375 S. / Abb., € 100,00. 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(Olaf Mörke, Kiel) Geraerts, Jaap, Patrons of the Old Faith. The Catholic Nobility in Utrecht and Guelders, c. 1580 – 1702 (Catholic Christendom, 1300 – 1700), Leiden / Boston 2019, Brill, XIII, 325 S. / Abb., € 129,00. (Johannes Arndt, Münster) Arnegger, Katharina, Das Fürstentum Liechtenstein. Session und Votum im Reichsfürstenrat, Münster 2019, Aschendorff, 256 S., € 24,80. (Tobias Schenk, Wien) Marti, Hanspeter / Robert Seidel (Hrsg.), Die Universität Straßburg zwischen Späthumanismus und Französischer Revolution, Wien / Köln / Weimar 2018, Böhlau, VII u. 549 S. / Abb., € 80,00. (Wolfgang E. J. Weber, Augsburg) Kling, Alexander, Unter Wölfen. Geschichten der Zivilisation und der Souveränität vom 30-jährigen Krieg bis zur Französischen Revolution (Rombach Wissenschaft. Reihe Cultural Animal Studies, 2), Freiburg i. Br. / Berlin / Wien 2019, Rombach, 581 S., € 68,00. (Norbert Schindler, Salzburg) Arnke, Volker, „Vom Frieden“ im Dreißigjährigen Krieg. Nicolaus Schaffshausens „De Pace“ und der positive Frieden in der Politiktheorie (Bibliothek Altes Reich, 25), Berlin / Boston 2018, de Gruyter Oldenbourg, IX u. 294 S., € 89,95. (Fabian Schulze, Elchingen / Augsburg) Zirr, Alexander, Die Schweden in Leipzig. Die Besetzung der Stadt im Dreißigjährigen Krieg (1642 – 1650) (Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Stadt Leipzig, 14), Leipzig 2018, Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 939 S. / Abb., € 98,00. (Philip Hoffmann-Rehnitz, Münster) Fehler, Timothy G. / Abigail J. Hartman (Hrsg.), Signs and Wonders in Britain’s Age of Revolution. A Sourcebook, London / New York 2019, Routledge, XVII u. 312 S. / Abb., £ 110,00. (Doris Gruber, Wien) Dorna, Maciej, Mabillon und andere. Die Anfänge der Diplomatik, aus dem Polnischen übers. v. Martin Faber (Wolfenbütteler Forschungen, 159), Wiesbaden 2019, Harrassowitz in Kommission, 287 S. / Abb., € 49,00. (Wolfgang Eric Wagner, Münster) Kramper, Peter, The Battle of the Standards. Messen, Zählen und Wiegen in Westeuropa 1660 – 1914 (Veröffentlichungen des Deutschen Historischen Instituts London / Publications of the German Historical Institute London / Publications of the German Historical Institute, 82), Berlin / Boston 2019, de Gruyter Oldenbourg, X u. 599 S., € 69,95. (Miloš Vec, Wien) Schilling, Lothar / Jakob Vogel (Hrsg.), Transnational Cultures of Expertise. Circulating State-Related Knowledge in the 18th and 19th Centuries (Colloquia Augustana, 36), Berlin / Boston 2019, de Gruyter Oldenbourg, X u. 201 S., € 59,95. (Justus Nipperdey, Saarbrücken) Carhart, Michael C., Leibniz Discovers Asia. Social Networking in the Republic of Letters, Baltimore 2019, Johns Hopkins University Press, XVI u. 324 S. / Abb., $ 64,95. (Markus Friedrich, Hamburg) Wolf, Hubert, Verdammtes Licht. Der Katholizismus und die Aufklärung, München 2019, Beck, 314 S., € 29,95. (Wolfgang Reinhard, Freiburg i. Br.) 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The familiar narrative in this field has focused on playwrights: from the foundational work of W. B. Yeats, Augusta Gregory, and J. M. Synge of the early twentieth-century national theatre movement to contemporary figures such as Martin McDonagh, Marina Carr, and Enda Walsh, sometimes including Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, and Samuel Beckett. These playwrights are all given detailed analysis in this volume, while extending the conspectus to the full phenomenon of modern Irish theatre. Two sections of the book are devoted to performance, examining the neglected work of directors and designers, as well as exploring acting styles and playing spaces. While the Abbey, as Ireland’s national theatre, has been of central importance, individual chapters bring out the contesting voices of women in a male-dominated arena, the position of Irish-language theatre, and ‘little theatres’ that challenged the hegemony of the Abbey. The middle of the twentieth century saw what amounted to a new revival of Irish drama with the emergence of a generation of playwrights responding in innovative ways to a modernizing Ireland, again diversified by the establishment of regional companies and alternative dramaturgical directions from the 1970s. The contemporary period in Irish theatre has featured a movement beyond scripted plays to more experimental work. The impact and interactions of Irish theatre are finally placed within the wider world of the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. The forty-one chapters of the volume offer the most comprehensive analysis to date of modern Irish theatre.

In the early Middle Ages Europe’s political landscape was significantly shaped by the emergence of new fundamental modes of identification, both ethnic and religious. These processes created new forms of social cohesion and conflict. The world into which the Irish ascetic exile and monastic founder Columbanus entered when he left Ireland toward the end of the sixth century was a world of gentes, new constellations of peoples. The pluralistic political landscape of the gentes had replaced a world of empire. This chapter introduces the themes and approach of this volume, which explores Columbanus’s influence on Robert Schuman, one of the founding fathers of the modern European Union; the emerging idea of Europe in the early Middle Ages, which Columbanus gave voice to; and how reciprocity and cultural hybridity can be useful lenses through which to study this period of transformation from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages.

The nineteenth century was a very good century for Congregationalism in England and Wales. This chapter documents the significant numerical growth it achieved during this period, and its energetic efforts in the area of missions, both foreign and domestic. Congregationalists provided the lifeblood of the large, well-funded London Missionary Society, and the most celebrated missionary of the age, David Livingstone, was a Scottish Congregationalist. Throughout this chapter the question of whether generalizations about Congregationalism in England were also true of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland is kept in view. This chapter explores the denomination’s raison d’être in its distinctive view of church polity as local and the way that it was increasingly in tension with the strong trend towards greater union among the churches. Founded in 1831, the Congregational Union of England and Wales waxed stronger and stronger as the century progressed, and Congregational activities became progressively more centralized. Although women were excluded from almost all official positions in the churches and the Congregational Unions and generally were erased from denominational histories, they were nevertheless often members with full voting rights at a time when this was not true in civic elections. Women were also the force behind the social life of the congregations, including the popular institutions of the church bazaar and tea meeting. They were the main energizing power behind works of service and innumerable charitable and outreach efforts and organizations, as well as playing a significant part in fundraising. The self-image of Victorian Congregationalism as representing the middle classes is explored, including the move towards Gothic architecture and the ideal of the learned ministry. A mark of their social aspirations, the Congregational Mansfield College, founded in 1886, was the first Protestant Dissenting Oxbridge college. Congregationalists also gave leadership to the movement towards a more liberal theological vision, to an emphasis on ‘Life’ over dogma. English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish Congregationalists all participated in a move away from the Calvinist verities of their forebears. Increasingly, many Congregational theologians and ministers were unwilling to defend traditional doctrines in regards to substitutionary atonement; biblical inspiration, historicity, authorship, dating, and composition; and eternal punishment. A particularly important theme is Congregationalism’s prominent place of leadership in Dissenting politics. The Liberation Society, which led the campaign for the disestablishment of the Church of England, was founded by the Congregational minister Edward Miall in 1844, and Dissenting Members of Parliament were disproportionately Congregationalists. Many Christians emphatically and passionately knew themselves to be Dissenters who were relatively indifferent about which Nonconformist denomination they made their spiritual home. In such an environment, Congregationalism reaped considerable, tangible benefits for being widely recognized as the quintessential Dissenting denomination.