The English Historical Review articles from February 1998

The English Historical Review archives from February 1998

Murder, motive and punishment in fifteenth-century England: two gentry case-studies.
February 1, 1998... As a class, late medieval landholders had a passion for disputing the ownership of real property. While an earlier generation of historians saw these disputes as violent confrontations profoundly destructive of public order, modern students take...

The fall of Cromwell's major-generals.
February 1, 1998... In the summer of 1656 the rule of Cromwell's major-generals over the English provinces appeared to be well embedded. Between October 1655 and the late spring of 1656 the fifteen major-generals and deputy major-generals(1) who had been active in...

'Class traitors': Conservative recruits to Labour, 1900-30.
February 1, 1998... In January 1924, when the indecisive result of the general election in September 1923 made a Labour government a serious possibility for the first time, the reactionary Conservative backbencher, Sir Frederick Banbury, felt sufficiently moved by...

Charles Spencer, Third Earl of Sunderland, and Jacobitism. (response to an article by Clyve Jones, English Historical Review, vol. 109, p. 52, 1994)
February 1, 1998... In his article Whigs, Jacobites and Charles Spencer, Third Earl of Sunderland (ante, cix [1994], 52-73), Mr Clyve Jones casts doubts on the scholarship of Romney Sedgwick in the History of Parliament and on my work on the Tories in these...

Evidence, interpretation and definitions in Jacobite historiography: a reply to Eveline Cruickshanks. (response to an article by Eveline Cruickshanks in this issue, p. 65)
February 1, 1998... History is about evidence. It is also about other things: hunches, imagination, interpretation, guesswork. First and foremost, though, comes evidence: no evidence, no history. . . . It is also about intrinsically fallible evidence. . . . And it...

Bor'ba, a workers' journal in St Petersburg on the eve of World War One.
February 1, 1998... In both Western and Soviet literature the journal Bor'ba (Struggle) has been described as Trotsky's publication. Its general aims, and Trotsky's contributions to it, have been examined elsewhere.(1) These can be briefly summarized as follows. For...

Lietuvos Metrika, 1427-1506. Knyga Nr. 5. Uzrasymu Knyga 5.
February 1, 1998... The Lithuanian Metrica represents the main archival record of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries and is the most important single complex of source material for early modern east central Europe. The...

Lietuvos Metrika, 1528-1547. 6-oji teismu bylu knyga.
February 1, 1998... The Lithuanian Metrica represents the main archival record of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries and is the most important single complex of source material for early modern east central Europe. The...

Lietuvos Metrika, 1553-1567. Nr. 564. Viesuju reikalu knyga 7.
February 1, 1998... The Lithuanian Metrica represents the main archival record of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries and is the most important single complex of source material for early modern east central Europe. The...

Lietuvos Metrika, 1499-1514. Nr. 8. Uzrasymu knyga 8.
February 1, 1998... The Lithuanian Metrica represents the main archival record of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries and is the most important single complex of source material for early modern east central Europe. The...

A Monarchy Transformed: Britain, 1603-1714.
February 1, 1998... Mark Kishlansky's volume is one of the first two in the new nine-volume Penguin History of Britain series to be published. The general editor of the series, David Cannadine, has described the tenor of its predecessor, the Pelican History of...

Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe.
February 1, 1998... Demonology was once the subject of scorn from virtually all intellectual historians, with its practitioners condemned as credulous or mentally unbalanced. It was also thought, just as casually, that theory had driven practice, so that these...

Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy, 1650-1668.
February 1, 1998... At a time when a number of fine younger historians are working on the Restoration, Steve Pincus has emerged as one of the brightest talents. Having set out some of his arguments in a series of articles, they are now developed at length in this...

English Population History from Family Reconstitution: 1580-1837.
February 1, 1998... It is now more than a quarter of a century since the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure began its attempt to cast much-needed, further light on the population history of early modern England by applying the...

Economic Policy of the State and the Economic Development of the First Czechoslovak Republic.
February 1, 1998... After the Second World War Czech and Slovak economic historians have been concerned with the development of the economy and society of the First Republic of Czechoslovakia, which arose from the ruins of the Habsburg Monarchy on 28 October 1918,...

Shaping of the Czechoslovak Economy: 1918-1923.
February 1, 1998... After the Second World War Czech and Slovak economic historians have been concerned with the development of the economy and society of the First Republic of Czechoslovakia, which arose from the ruins of the Habsburg Monarchy on 28 October 1918,...

Germany - the Dilemma of Edvard Benes's Foreign Policy.
February 1, 1998... After the Second World War Czech and Slovak economic historians have been concerned with the development of the economy and society of the First Republic of Czechoslovakia, which arose from the ruins of the Habsburg Monarchy on 28 October 1918,...

The Archaeology of Early Christianity: A History.
February 1, 1998... Christianity has been the dominant cultural influence on Western society for at least a millennium and a hall and it is remarkable that we have had to wait until now for a survey of material evidence such as William H. C. Frend's The Archaeology...

After Empire, Towards an Ethnology of Europe's Barbarians.
February 1, 1998... After Empire. Towards an Ethnology of Europe's Barbarians, ed. G. Ausenda (Woodbridge: Boydell P., 1995; pp. 317. [pounds]39.50), is the first volume of results from a new project sponsored by CIROSS (Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on...

Early Medieval Ireland: 400-1200.
February 1, 1998... Daibhi O Croinin was given a hard task in Early Medieval Ireland, 400-1200 (London: Longman, 1995; pp. xvi + 379. [pounds]48; pb. [pounds]18.99) when asked to survey the better part of a thousand years of Irish history in a single volume. Worse...

The Age of the Picts.
February 1, 1998... W. A. Cummins's The Age of the Picts (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1995; pp. 166. [pounds]18.99) cannot be described as a scholarly book. It claims to give 'an assessment of the problem of the Picts as its stands today' (p. 6), but fails to refer to any...

Abbayes, eveques et laiques. Une politique du pouvoir en Hainault au moyen age,, VII-XI siecle.
February 1, 1998... In Abbayes, eveques et laiques. Une politique du pouvoir en Hainault au moyen age, VIIe-XIe siecle (Brussels: Credit Communal, 1994; pp. 367. Pb. n.p.), Anne-Marie Helvetius makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the evolution...

Women in Old Norse Society.
February 1, 1998... 'I attempt to do for Germanic Norse women what the Dane Vilhelm Gronbech did primarily for men... in The Culture of the Teutons' announces Jenny Jochens in the preface to Women in Old Norse Society (Ithaca/London: Cornell U.P., 1995; pp. xiii +...

The Book of Sainte Foy.
February 1, 1998... 'You must know that Bernard who came to Conques this year. How many lies about Ste. Foy he wrote down there! For how could any reasonable person believe things about eyeballs torn out and afterwards restored, and animals brought back to life?'...

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, vol. 10, The Abingdon Chronicle, AD 956-1066.
February 1, 1998... Patrick W. Conher's addition to the current series of editions of the various manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Vol. X: The Abingdon Chronicle, AD 956-1066 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996; pp. xc + 45....

Three Eleventh-Century Anglo-Latin Saints' Lives.
February 1, 1998... The immense and scrupulous scholarship with which Rosalind C. Love has edited and translated Three Eleventh-Century Anglo-Latin Saints' Lives. Vita S. Birini, Vita et Miracula S. Kenelmi, and Vita S. Rumwoldi (Oxford: Clarendon P., 1996; pp. cxc...

La Terreur du monde. Robert Guiscard et la conquete normande en Italie. Mythe et histoire.
February 1, 1998... Huguette Taviani-Carozzi's La Terreur du monde. Robert Guiscard et la conquete normande en Italic. Mythe et histoire (Paris: Fayard, 1996; pp. 559. Pb. F170) provides a thoughtful, if somewhat leisurely, narrative account of one of the seminal...

Remembering Kings Past: Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval Southern France.
February 1, 1998... Monastic foundation legends as a form of 'imaginative memory' for rediscovering the past and legitimizing the present have recently attracted considerable attention from scholars. The most recent contribution to these studies (with a Proustian...

A Monk's Confession: The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent.
February 1, 1998... The Memoirs (Monodiae) of Guibert of Nogent are among the most widely read twelfth-century texts. Their popularity has been steadily increasing since they attracted the interest of Guizot and Thierry in the 1820s; more recently, critical...

The Boundaries of Charity: Cistercian Culture and Ecclesiastical Reform, 1098-1180.
February 1, 1998... Long running debates about the nature of the new monasticism of the twelfth century receive powerful stimulus from Martha G. Newman in The Boundaries of Charity. Cistercian Culture and Ecclesiastical Reform, 10981180 (Stanford: U.P., 1996; pp. xx...

Basset Charter, c. 1120 to 1250.
February 1, 1998... Historians of the Anglo-Norman and Angevin aristocracies are reasonably well provided with sources for the greater magnates: editions exist of the charters of the Earls of Chester and Gloucester, for instance. Further down the baronial scale,...

Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction.
February 1, 1998... For more than a thousand years the piety of western Christians revolved around the relics of saints and martyrs, the Eucharist and, above all, ceremonies connected with the Mass. G. J. C. Snoek's Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist. A...

The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades.
February 1, 1998... The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, ed. Jonathan Riley-Smith (Oxford/New York: Oxford U.P., 1995; pp. xi + 436. [pounds]25), brings together contributions by a panel of leading Anglophone experts. The period covered goes down even...

The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women.
February 1, 1998... The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women, ed. June Hall McCash (Athens/London: U. of Georgia P., 1996; pp. xix + 402. $60), is a valuable collection of papers covering the cultural patronage of women in Christendom during a millennium, with...

Medieval Studies in Honour of Avrom Saltman.
February 1, 1998... Avrom Saltman's distinguished career as a historical editor began with his authoritative edition of the Acta of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury. His contributions to scholarship, and his leadership of the Department at BarIlan University, are...

The Journey to Wisdom: Self-Education in Patristic and Medieval Literature.
February 1, 1998... In Paul A. Olson's The Journey to Wisdom. Self-Education in Patristic and Medieval Literature (Lincoln/London: U. of Nebraska P., 1995; pp. xx + 297. [pounds]38), the author examines the educational ideas of a series of writers, extending from...

The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature.
February 1, 1998... All conscious creatures - say a dog waiting for its master to throw a stick have a sense of time. But in man the sense is more developed, especially so in cultures which articulate history and map their own place in it. When they do, a problem...

Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertine Order: c. 1130- c. 1300.
February 1, 1998... As the only medieval religious order of exclusively English origins, the Gilbertines can hardly not arouse the curiosity of English monastic historians. With the publication of Brian Golding's long and exceptionally learned Gilbert of Sempringham...

The Medieval Church in Scotland.
February 1, 1998... The Medieval Church in Scotland, by Ian B. Cowan and edited by James Kirk (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic P., 1995; PP. xvi + 254. N.p.), is a collection of twelve of the author's more substantial articles and chapters on a huge range of topics...

From Muslim Fortress to Christian Castle: Social and Cultural Change in Medieval Spain.
February 1, 1998... The subject matter of Thomas F. Glick's From Muslim Fortress to Christian Castle. Social and Cultural Change in Medieval Spain (Manchester: U.P., 1995; pp. xxi + 201. [pounds]45; pb. [pounds]16.99) is indicated by its subtitle. It represents an...

The Reluctant Emperor: A Biography of John Cantacuzene, Byzantine Emperor and Monk, c. 1295-1383.
February 1, 1998... Narrative history focused on an individual proves its worth in Donald M. Nicol's The Reluctant Emperor. A Biography of John Cantacuzene, Byzantine Emperor and Monk, c. 1295-1383 (Cambridge: U.P., 1996; pp. xiii + 203. [pounds]22.95). John VI...

Agriculture in the Middle Ages: Technology, Practice and Representation.
February 1, 1998... Under the editorship of Del Sweeney, Agriculture in the Middle Ages. Technology, Practice and Representation (Philadelphia: U. of Pennsylvania P., 1995; pp. xxiii + 371. [pounds]46.50; pb. [pounds]17.50) brings together papers from two...

Histoire litteraire de la France, vol. 42, Fasc. I: Suite du quatorzieme siecle.
February 1, 1998... Histoire littiraire de la France. Vol. XLII, Fast. I: Suite du quatorzieme siecle (Paris: A Bontemps, for the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1995; pp. 232. Pb.n.p.) is a monograph devoted to the life and works of Nicolas...

Contemplation and Action: The Other Monasticism.
February 1, 1998... Roberta Gilchrist's Contemplation and Action. The Other Monasticism [Leicester: U.P., 1995; pp. xv + 250. [pounds]45] is a study of several less well-known aspects of the religious life in the Middle Ages. Written by an archaeologist, it brings...

La Corona de Aragon y el Magreb en el siglo XIV, 1331-1410.
February 1, 1998... Two new books from Barcelona clearly fill perceived gaps, but both do rather more. Maria Dolores Lopez Perez has produced a study of La Corona de Aragon y el Magreb en el siglo XIV, 1331-1410 (Barcelona: CSIC, 1995; pp. x + 968. Pb.n.p.). This...

Diplomatario del Cardenal Gil de Albornoz, vol. 3, Cancillaria Pontifica, 1357-1359.
February 1, 1998... Two new books from Barcelona clearly fill perceived gaps, but both do rather more. Maria Dolores Lopez Perez has produced a study of La Corona de Aragon y el Magreb en el siglo XIV, 1331-1410 (Barcelona: CSIC, 1995; pp. x + 968. Pb.n.p.). This...

The Life and Times of John Trevisa, Medieval Scholar.
February 1, 1998... The work and personality of John Trevisa, the translator contemporary of Chaucer, has titillated scholars since Caxton stated - but without giving any evidence - that he had translated the Bible into English. In recent years no scholar has done...

Political Life in Medieval England: 1300-1450.
February 1, 1998... W. M. Ormrod's Political Life in Medieval England, 1300-1450 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995; pp-168. [pounds]35; pb. [pounds]9.99) is a work of high intelligence whose modest brevity belies its importance and interest. It is not another political...

What Nuns Read: Books and Libraries in Medieval English Nunneries.
February 1, 1998... The core of David N. Bell's third index of medieval English libraries, What Nuns Read. Books and Libraries in Medieval English Nunneries (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1995; pp. 300. [pounds]31.22), is a list of all known books and...

Master of Death: The Lifeless Art of Pierre Remiet, Illuminator.
February 1, 1998... Medieval manuscript illuminators are usually anonymous. Although their work was highly valued, they were not personalities. The accidental preservation of a scribbled instruction to the illuminator, in the margin of Paris BN. MS. Fr. 823, has...

A Brotherhood of Canons Serving God: English Secular Cathedrals in the Later Middle Ages.
February 1, 1998... David Lepine's authoritative survey of A Brotherhood of Canons Serving God. English Secular Cathedrals in the Later Middle Ages (Woodbridge: Boydell P., 1995; pp. xii + 240. [pounds]35) is an admirable contribution to the series of 'Studies in...

Spatmittelalterlicher Nationalismus. Die Burgunderkriege am Oberrhein und in der Eidgenossenschaft.
February 1, 1998... The double title Spatmittelalterlicher Nationalismus. Die Burgunderkriege am Oberrhein und in der Eidgenossenschaft, by Claudius Sieber-Lehmann (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995; pp. 488. DM102) indicates that we are asked, not to...

Art and Authority in Renaissance Milan.
February 1, 1998... The city of Milan has been relatively neglected by scholars of the Renaissance for various reasons, so Evelyn S. Welch's Art and Authority in Renaissance Milan (New Haven/London: Yale U.P., 1995; pp. x + 358. [pounds]40) is very welcome. The...

The Politics of Fifteenth-Century England: John Vale's Book.
February 1, 1998... The Politics of Fifteenth-Century England. John Vale's Book, ed. Margaret Lucille Kekewich et al. (Stroud: Alan Sutton, for Richard III & Yorkist History Trust, 1955; pp. xiii + 289. [pounds]40), is a publication of major importance for...

Gender and Heresy: Women and Men in Lollard Communities, 1420-1530.
February 1, 1998... Even when they have not emphasized the part played by women in the sect in late medieval England, most recent historians have tended to see Lollardy as very much a family centred form of heresy. In Gender and Heresy. Women and Men in Lollard...

The Reign of Henry VII: Proceedings of the 1993 Harlaxton Symposium.
February 1, 1998... The Reign of Henry VII. Proceedings of the 1993 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Benjamin Thompson (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1995; pp. xiv + 279. [pounds]40), is a good advertisement for the inter-disciplinary approach of the Harlaxton Symposia. What the...

Rhys ap Thomas and His Family: A Study in the Wars of the Roses and Early Tudor Politics.
February 1, 1998... In Rhys ap Thomas and his Family. A Study in the Wars of the Roses and Early Tudor Politics (Cardiff: U. of Wales P., 1993; pp. xi + 333. [pounds]35), Ralph A. Griffiths brings to this authoritative study of the rise and fall of the house of...

The Festival of San Giovanni: Imagery and Political Power in Renaissance Florence.
February 1, 1998... Renaissance festivals have long been a fruitful subject of study for historians and art historians alike, and the celebrations in Florence surrounding the feastday of St John the Baptist on 24 June in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had...

Persuasive Fictions: Faction, Faith and Political Culture in the Reign of Henry VIII.
February 1, 1998... Greg Walker's Persuasive Fictions. Faction, Faith and Political Culture in the Reign of Henry VIII (Aldershot: Scolar P., 1996; pp. xiv + 213. [pounds]45) is a collection of eight essays. Three of the chapters, along with the introduction, have...

Austro-Turcica, 1541-1552. Diplomatische Akten des habsburgischen Gesandtschaftsverkehrs mit der Hohen Pforte im Zeitalter Suleymans des Prachtigen.
February 1, 1998... Drawn largely from holdings in Vienna, Austro-Turcica, 1541-1552. Diplomatiscbe Akten des habsburgischen Gesandtschaftsverkehrs mit der Hohen Pforte im Zeitalter Sideymans des Prachtigen, ed. Karl Nehring (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1995; PP. xi +...

Antwerp in the Age of Reformation: Underground Protestantism in a Commercial Metropolis, 1550-1577.
February 1, 1998... There was scarcely a city in Europe that would have been more open to the new intellectual and religious movements of the sixteenth century than Antwerp. Long an important centre of international trade in northern Europe, in the second half of...

Monarchy and Matrimony: The Courtships of Elizabeth I.
February 1, 1998... When did Elizabeth decide not to marry, and why? Every possible explanation has been offered, from the traumas of an abused childhood to the extreme shrewdness of a mistress of political image making. Was it aut Dudley aut nihil, a kind of...

God Speed the Plough: The Representation of Agrarian England, 1500-1660.
February 1, 1998... In God Speed the Plough. The Representation of Agrarian England, 1500-1660 (Cambridge: U.P., 1996; pp. xv + 335. [pounds]40), Andrew McRae offers a comprehensive analysis of changing images of the countryside both in literary and non-literary...

The World of Rural Dissenters: 1520-1725.
February 1, 1998... It is an unusual volume that eases the reviewer's task by including its own critical commentary. In the concluding essay in The World of Rural Dissenters, 1520-1725, ed. Margaret Spufford (Cambridge: U.P., 1995; pp. 459. [pounds]50), Patrick...

Explorations in Law and History: Irish Legal History Society Discourses, 1988-1994.
February 1, 1998... Explorations in Law and History. Irish Legal History Society Discourses, 1988-1994, ed. W. N. Osborough (Dublin: Irish Academic P., in assoc. with Irish Legal History Soc., 1995; pp. xiv + 191. [pounds]24.95), the fourth volume issued by the...

The German Book: 1450-1750, Studies Presented to David L. Paisey in His Retirement.
February 1, 1998... For over thirty years, David Paisey managed and extended the older collections of German books in the British Library. The monumental listing of the Library's seventeenth-century holdings in this field, published in 1994, was his work. The German...

Learning, Law and Religion: Higher Education and Welsh Society, c. 1540-1640.
February 1, 1998... Until the nineteenth century, institutions of higher education open to the Welsh were all situated outside the borders of Wales. Did the growth of such institutions in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries threaten Welsh culture and draw...

The Rhetorics of Life-Writing in Early Modern Europe: Forms of Biography from Cassandra Fedele to Louis XIV.
February 1, 1998... The fourteen essays collected in The Rhetorics of Life-Writing in Early Modern Europe. Forms of Biography from Cassandra Fedele to Louis XIV, ed. Thomas F. Mayer and D. R. Woolf (Ann Arbor: U. of Michigan P., 1995; pp. 39x. 154.50), stand at the...

An Archaeology of Capitalism.
February 1, 1998... Studies which set out to give new perspectives on traditional themes from a cross-disciplinary viewpoint are always welcome. Matthew Johnson's An Archaeology of Capitalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996; pp. xiv + 244. [pounds]45; pb. [pounds]14.99)...

Faction and Faith: Politics and Religion of the Cornish Gentry before the Civil War.
February 1, 1998... Anne Duffin's Faction and Faith. Politics and Religion of the Cornish Gentry before the Civil War (Exeter: U.P., 1996; pp. xv + 278. [pounds]27.50) and John Gwynfor Jones's Law, Order and Government in Caernarfonshire, 1558-1640. Justices of the...

Law, Order and Government in Caenarfonshire: 1558-1640, Justices of the Peace and the Gentry.
February 1, 1998... Anne Duffin's Faction and Faith. Politics and Religion of the Cornish Gentry before the Civil War (Exeter: U.P., 1996; pp. xv + 278. [pounds]27.50) and John Gwynfor Jones's Law, Order and Government in Caernarfonshire, 1558-1640. Justices of the...

Trumpets from the Tower: English Puritan Printing in the Netherlands.
February 1, 1998... Keith L. Sprunger's Trumpets from the Tower. English Puritan Printing in the Netherlands, 1600-1640 (Leiden/New York: E. J. Brill, 1994; pp. xvi + 240. NLG 125) is a useful survey of books in the English language published in the Netherlands in...

Devon Household Accounts: 1627-59, Part I, Sir Richard and Lady Lucy Reynell of Forde, 1627-48, John Willoughby of Leyhill, 1644-6, and Sir Edward Wise of Sydenham, 1655-9.
February 1, 1998... With the increasing interest in material culture and consumerism in the early modern period, detailed account books will be increasingly sought after, especially good published editions. With reference to the gentry, we have been better informed...

Absolute Monarchy and the Stuart Constitution.
February 1, 1998... Glenn Burgess's Absolute Monarchy and the Stuart Constitution (New Haven/London: Yale U.P., 1996; pp. x + 224. [pounds]25) is a clever and thought-provoking work which re-ploughs some of the author's earlier writing in a reflective and engaging...

Winter Fruit, English Drama: 1642-1660.
February 1, 1998... Winter Fruit. English Drama, 1642-1660 (Lexington: U.P. of Kentucky, 1995; pp. xiv + 454. $39.95), by Dale B. J. Randall, belongs with a series of recently published studies that have resurrected much minor literature from the Civil War and...

Divided Empire: Milton's Political Imagery.
February 1, 1998... Robert Thomas Fallon's Divided Empire. Milton's Political Imagery (University Park: Pennsylvania State U.P., 1995; pp. xviii + 190. [pounds]35.95) is a follow-up to his award-winning Milton in Government. In this he suggested that Milton may,...

Liberty Against Law, Some Seventeenth-Century Controversies.
February 1, 1998... One of the more interesting trends in the recent historiography of seventeenth-century England has been the increasing marginalization, among academic historians, of the work of Christopher Hill. Hill's work was tremendously influential a...

Domestic Dangers, Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London.
February 1, 1998... One of the more interesting trends in the recent historiography of seventeenth-century England has been the increasing marginalization, among academic historians, of the work of Christopher Hill. Hill's work was tremendously influential a...

Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes.
February 1, 1998... Hobbes is famous as the theorist who founded a science of politics. Yet what strikes this reader of Leviathan as much as the mathematical logic is the figurative language, the imagery, and the poetics of the text. In Reason and Rhetoric in the...

The Jewish Question in 1655: Studies in Prynne's Demurrer.
February 1, 1998... As a personality, William Prynne does not appeal. His vituperative hostility toward Catholics and Jews was extreme even by the standards of the seventeenth century. Even contemporaries who shared his prejudices disliked him, while neither his...

Paper Bullets, Print and Kingship Under Charles II.
February 1, 1998... Harold Weber's Paper Bullets. Print and Kingship under Charles II (Louisville: U.P. of Kentucky, 1996; pp. x + 292. [pounds]39.95) consists of five chapters. Three are discrete essays on different seventeenth-century representations of Charles...

The Evolution of the Sailing Navy: 1509-1815.
February 1, 1998... In the preface to The Evolution of the Sailing Navy, 1509-1815 (London: Macmillan, 1995; pp. ix + 181. Pb. [pounds]9.99), Richard Harding defines his aim as to provide 'a manageable overview' of recent research, viewing the navy 'as an evolving...

Les Intendants de Louis XIV.
February 1, 1998... Some years ago Anette Smedley-Weill was responsible for a three-volume resume of correspondence between the intendants and the controleur-general over the period 1677-89. Her book on Les Intendants de Louis XIV (Paris: Fayard, 1995; pP. 370. Pb....

William III and the Godly Revolution.
February 1, 1998... Tony Claydon's impressive monograph, William III and the Godly Revolution (Cambridge: U.P., 1996; pp. xiv + 272. [pounds]35), seeks to explore how the post-Revolution regime sold itself to the English public. The problems facing William were...