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English Local Prisons, 1860-1900: Next Only to Death
by Sean McConville Professor Sean McconvilleThe local prisons of the latter half of the nineteenth century refined systems of punishment so harsh that one judge considered the maximum penalty of two years local imprisonment to be the most severe punishment known to English law: "next only to death". This work examines how private perceptions and concerns became public policy. It also traces the move in English government from the rural and aristocratic to the urban and more democratic. It follows the rise of the powerful elite of the higher civil service, describes some of the forces that attempted to oppose it, and provides a window through which to view the process of state formation.
The English Marriage
by Maureen WallerThe story of the English marriage is unique and eccentric. Long after the rest of Europe and neighbouring Scotland had reformed their marriage laws, England clung to the chaotic and contradictory laws of the medieval Church, making it all too easy to enter into a marriage but virtually impossible to end an unhappy one. If England was a 'paradise for wives' it could only have been through the feistiness of the women. Married women were placed in the same legal category as lunatics. While Englishmen prided themselves on their devotion to liberty, their wives were no freer than slaves. It was a husband's jealously guarded right to beat his wife, as long as the stick was no bigger than his thumb. Only after 1882 could a married woman even retain her own property. But then marriage was all about property in a society which was both mercenary and violent, where a girl was virtually sold into marriage and a price was put on a wife's chastity. With a cast of hundreds, from loyal and devoted wives in troubled times to those who featured in notorious trials for adultery, from abusive husbands whose excesses were only gradually curbed by the law to the modern phenomenon of the toxic wife, acclaimed historian Maureen Waller draws on intimate letters, diaries, court documents and advice books to trace the evolution of the English marriage. It is social history at its most revealing, astonishing and entertaining.
The English Marriage
by Maureen WallerThe story of the English marriage is unique and eccentric. Long after the rest of Europe and neighbouring Scotland had reformed their marriage laws, England clung to the chaotic and contradictory laws of the medieval Church, making it all too easy to enter into a marriage but virtually impossible to end an unhappy one. If England was a 'paradise for wives' it could only have been through the feistiness of the women. Married women were placed in the same legal category as lunatics. While Englishmen prided themselves on their devotion to liberty, their wives were no freer than slaves. It was a husband's jealously guarded right to beat his wife, as long as the stick was no bigger than his thumb. Only after 1882 could a married woman even retain her own property. But then marriage was all about property in a society which was both mercenary and violent, where a girl was virtually sold into marriage and a price was put on a wife's chastity. With a cast of hundreds, from loyal and devoted wives in troubled times to those who featured in notorious trials for adultery, from abusive husbands whose excesses were only gradually curbed by the law to the modern phenomenon of the toxic wife, acclaimed historian Maureen Waller draws on intimate letters, diaries, court documents and advice books to trace the evolution of the English marriage. It is social history at its most revealing, astonishing and entertaining.
English Masculinities, 1660-1800 (Women And Men In History)
by Tim Hitchcock Michelle CohenThis collection of specially commissioned essays provides the first social history of masculinity in the ‘long eighteenth century’. Drawing on diaries, court records and prescriptive literature, it explores the different identities of late Stuart and Georgian men. The heterosexual fop, the homosexual, the polite gentleman, the blackguard, the man of religion, the reader of erotica and the violent aggressor are each examined here, and in the process a new and increasingly important field of historical enquiry is opened up to the non-specialist reader.The book opens with a substantial introduction by the Editors. This provides readers with a detailed context for the chapters which follow. The core of the book is divided into four main parts looking at sociability, virtue and friendship, violence, and sexuality. Within this framework each chapter forms a self-contained unit, with its own methodology, sources and argument. The chapters address issues such as the correlations between masculinity and Protestantism; masculinity, Englishness and taciturnity; and the impact of changing representations of homosexual desire on the social organisation of heterosexuality. Misogyny, James Boswell's self-presentation, the literary and metaphorical representation of the body, the roles of gossip and violence in men's lives, are each addressed in individual chapters. The volume is concluded by a wide-ranging synoptic essay by John Tosh, which sets a new agenda for the history of masculinity. An extensive guide to further reading is also provided.Designed for students, academics and the general reader alike, this collection of essays provides a wide-ranging and accessible framework within which to understand eighteenth-century men. Because of the variety of approaches and conclusions it contains, and because this is the first attempt to bring together a comprehensive set of writings on the social history of eighteenth-century masculinity, this volume does something quite new. It de-centres and problematises the male ‘standard’ and explores the complex and disparate masculinites enacted by the men of this period. This will be essential reading for anyone interested in eighteenth-century British social history.
The English Master of Arms: From the Twelfth to the Twentieth Century (Routledge Revivals)
by J.D. AylwardFirst published in 1956, The English Master of Arms presents a fascinating chapter of social history, not merely of fencing. It was the common custom of gentlemen to bear arms, and the background to this custom is an important aspect of history of manners and conduct. Changes in social condition made the weapon an accessory to dress rather than a protective equipment; but the enthusiasm for the cult of arms increased. Amply encouraged, the Master of Arms brought his art ever nearer to perfection; at the same time, he became a recognised arbiter of conduct, for he insisted upon the exact observance of a strict code of honour, of courtesy, and of self-restraint. Essentially unassuming, he relied for his social influence upon his own example, and he seemed to his contemporaries such an unchanging unit in the established order of life that it did not occur to them to hand down their impressions to succeeding generations. This book is an effort to remedy their omission by recording from widely scattered sources the simple annals of the English Master of Arms, of how he emerged, established his schools, and taught his art.
English Mediaeval Pilgrimage (Routledge Library Editions: The Medieval World #17)
by D. J. HallOriginally published in 1965, English Medieval Pilgrimage provides a detailed overview of the history of pilgrimage during the medieval period. The book looks at how the process of pilgrimage was more than a religious exercise, acting as a custom, a means of escape and a form of entertainment, as well as being an act of profound faith. The book argues that the medieval pilgrimage cannot be viewed in isolation, but indeed needs to be viewed in the context of the social and religious life of the people of the medieval age, across all social classes – from king to beggar. The book examines how the different attitudes towards pilgrimage were an expression of different attitudes towards living and indeed every aspect of the temporal and spiritual worlds. The book argues that the story of medieval pilgrimage can only be fully understood when viewed in light of the whole history of the country.
The English Medieval Feast (Routledge Library Editions: The Medieval World #35)
by William Edward MeadOriginally published in 1931, The English Medieval Feast examines the act of feasting and food during the medieval period. The book provides a scholarly look at the human detail involved in the variety of medieval manners and customs which make up the medieval feast. The book introduces the scene of the feast and its service, providing explanations of the food, drink and preparation that comprised the act of the medieval feast. The book also describes in full, certain and notable feasts of the period. The book also includes some historical examination of medieval dietetics which will be of interest to the modern reader.
The English Medieval Landscape (Routledge Revivals)
by Leonard CantorFirst published in 1982, The English Medieval Landscape was written to recreate and analyse the development of the major elements of the medieval landscape. Illustrated with maps and photographs, the book explores the nature of the English landscape between 1066 and 1485, from farms and chases to castles, monastic settlements, villages, roads, and more. The English Medieval Landscape will appeal to those with an interest in medieval history and British social history.
English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture (Routledge Library Editions: Science and Technology in the Nineteenth Century #2)
by Francis GaltonThis edition first published in 1970. Francis Galton has been honoured as the founder of biostatics and one of the creators of modern psychology. His principal aim was to establish a body of statistical knowledge about mental heredity which would result in a new pattern of behaviour for society. The relationship between outstanding men had led him to conclude that mental traits are inherited, and that an ideal society would take advantage of this "fact". In this particular work, which he termed a "Natural History of the English Men of Science of the present day", he examined at great length the antecedents, environment, education and hereditary features of the most prominent men of science in order to establish certain laws relating to heredity. It is a landmark in the transition from introspective to objective methods in biological and psychological research, and the author’s statistical, nonanecdotal approach was to prove immensely fruitful for the development of psychology. Indeed the questionnaire included in the work is probably the earliest in existence. As Professor Cowan points out in her introduction, historians as well as scientists intent upon a deeper understanding of the Victorian mind will find much of interest in this remarkable book.
English Merchant Shipping: 1460-1540
by Dorothy BurwashBetween 1460 and 1540 the development of merchant shipping was of vital importance to the growth of England as a European power. In this work Miss Burwash offers a complete history of the English merchant marine in the late middle ages and early renaissance period. Her account includes a description of the size and design of the ships, the trades in which they engaged, the business arrangements under which they sailed and the codes of maritime law which governed them, the wages and conditions of work of the common seaman and the degree of navigational skill of the shipmasters and pilots. This was the time when seamen and merchants of northern Europe were beginning to venture out of the familiar home waters and undertake voyages of discovery such as the Bristol expeditions 1501-1504 which in all probability reached Labrador and possibly Greenland. The author concludes that, although English shipping faced stiff competition from traders and seamen of other countries in northern Europe--most particularly the Dutch--the period was one of healthy growth which laid a good foundation for the more brilliant and better known exploits of the Elizabethan age.Based on extensive and detailed research in manuscript sources preserved in the Public Record Office, British libraries and the British Museum, this study is an essential one for serious students of English history.
The English Militia in the Eighteenth Century: The Story of a Political Issue 1660-1802 (Routledge Revivals)
by J. R. WesternFirst published in 1965, The English Militia in the Eighteenth Century directs light on English politics and government, through studying the militia, from the Restoration to the days of the younger Pritt. The militia occupied a significant place both in the quarrels between king and parliament in the later seventeenth century and in the struggle for power between the elder Pitt and the Duke of Newcastle. Raised and officered by the county and parish authorities, its maintenance constantly posed the problem of how to harness the machinery of local government to national purposes. The gentry had to be induced to help and the militia, like other institutions national and local, was shaped by the fashion and extent to which they responded. The book will be of interest to students of history, political science, and literature.
The English Ministers and Jacobitism between the Rebellions of 1715 and 1745
by Paul S. FritzSince the rise of the modern nation state in Europe, political leaders have had to cope with the problems of conspiracy and internal security. The English Ministers and Jacobitism between the Rebellions of 1715 and 1745 is a study of the response made to these twin problems by the British central government, under Stanhope, Sunderland, and Walpole. Faced with the prospect of assassination, internal rebellion, and conspiracy, the ministers naturally took all necessary measures to protect the security of the state. Nor did their worries end with the successful defeat of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715; an examination of the anti-Jacobite campaign after this date clearly demonstrates a continuing dread of Jacobitism. At the same time, their action in the years 1715-45 against Jacobite plots for a restoration betrays an acute awareness on their part of the political advantages to be reaped through careful exploitation of those fears. Professor Fritz's study is a valuable addition to the existing literature on Jacobitism. It uncovers new documents revealing the workings of the conspirators, and it illuminates how the threat of conspiracy was used successfully by imaginative politicians to retain power.
The English Monster: or, The Melancholy Transactions of William Ablass
by Lloyd ShepherdTwo moments in England's rise to empire, separated by centuries, yet connected by a crime that cannot be forgiven . . . London, 1811. Along the twisting streets of Wapping, bounded by the ancient Ratcliffe Highway and the modern wonder of the London Dock, many a sin is hidden by the noise and glory of Trade. But now two families have fallen victim to foul murder, and Charles Horton, a senior officer of the newly formed Thames River Police Office, must deliver revenge to a terrified populace. Plymouth, 1564. Young Billy Ablass arrives in the busy seaport with the burning desire of all young men: the getting and keeping of money. Setting sail on a ship owned by Queen Elizabeth herself seems the likely means to a better life. But the kidnapping of hundreds of human souls in Africa is not the only cursed event to occur on England's first official slaving voyage. On a sun-blasted Florida islet, Billy too is to be enslaved. Based on the true story of the gruesome Ratcliffe Highway murders, The English Monster is a breathtaking voyage across centuries, from the Age of Discovery to the Age of Empire, illuminating what happens to Britain as she gains global power but risks losing her soul.
The English Morality Play: Origins, HIstory, and Influence of a Dramatic Tradition (Routledge Revivals)
by Robert A PotterFirst published in 1975, The English Morality Play is the extended history of the English morality play, its persistence and flourishing as a dramatic tradition. The book sheds light on the intellectual and social origins of the morality play, its relationship to the medieval Corpus Christi cycle plays, its subject, purpose, conditions of original staging, and the abstract characters of its dramatis personae. The changing tradition is revealed within Renaissance drama, in the works of Skelton and Medwall, and the Reformation plays of Lindsay, Bale and Udall, as the morality play altered under the pressure of political events, escaped from the general suppression of religious drama, and in complex ways came to influence the dramatic conceptions of Marlowe, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Contemporary parallels to the English morality tradition in European drama are investigated, as is the rediscovery of the texts of the plays by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century critics. In the final chapter, Dr. Potter examines the revival of the morality tradition on the twentieth-century stage and its influence on such dramatists as Bernard Shaw, T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats and Bertolt Brecht. This book will be of interest to students of literature and drama.
English Mystery Plays
by Peter HappéHumour, pathos and suffering, and the culminating drama of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, give these plays a wonderful immediacy. Their action was conceived on a cosmic scale and all the enthusiasm and vitality of their writing is retained to this day. The energies of whole communities, notably at Chester, York and Wakefield, were devoted to their production and they were to influence later dramatists significantly. The grand design of the mystery plays was to celebrate the Christian story from 'The Fall of Lucifer' to the 'Judgement Day', and this volume contains thirty-eight plays, forming in itself a composite cycle and including almost all the incidents common to the extant cycles.
English National Identity and the Image of the Dutch: From the Armada to the Glorious Revolution (Early Modern Literature in History)
by Andrew FleckThis book makes newly visible the sustained engagement of the English and the Dutch throughout a critical century in their cultural and national development. It reads a broad selection of early modern literary texts, some never before treated in Anglophone scholarship, in which the Dutch and the English wrote about each other and themselves. This interdisciplinary study brings to light the key affinities of these two nations: their embrace of liberty, turn toward Protestantism, and pursuit of commerce. It shows that as Catholic, colonial powers worked to prevent the rise of early modern Europe’s two great Protestant states, those similarities—as well as a combination of English admiration, envy, and distrust of the Dutch—produced an emulous rivalry that remade the two nations and their literature.
The English New England Voyages, 1602–1608 (Hakluyt Society, Second Series)
by David B. QuinnThe publication of the narrative accounts of the voyages of Gisnold (1602) and Waymouth (1605) opened up for English readers what was then known as Norumbega, the later New England; They are the first documents of exploration of that region to have been published since that of Verrazzano's voyage (1524) in 1556. To the accounts of these voyages by John Brereton and James Rosier there was added by Purchas in 1625 the material of Martin Pring's voyage of 1603 and some scraps of information on the attempted colony by the Virginia Company of Plymouth at Sagadahoc on the Kennebec River in 1607-1608. The narrative of the voyage of the Mary and John, discovered in the 19th century, and now attributed to Robert Davies, remains our main authority for the 1607 voyage. Many ancillary documents are added to these essential sources. Most of these narratives have been edited in the distant past but they are now furnished with full information on fauna, flora, and above all, ethnography. The material which has become available on Indians of both northern and southern New England has enabled a full account to be given of them, while expert advice has been obtained in the edition of the Eastern Abenaki vocabulary of 1605. Considerable attention has been paid to topographical problems, to which new solutions are offered in a number of cases (though conflicting views are discussed in an appendix). The volume thus makes up a collection which is basic for the understanding of how Englishmen began to explore New England (and how its inhabitants learnt something of the English) and on how that important territory first came to light in detail. The narratives are of great interest in themselves and the biographical information which it has been possible to assemble in the introduction about a number of the authors and actors in the voyages and the colonising attempt of 1607 is valuable in enabling the reader to understand what they wrote and what they omitted. Professor and Mrs Quinn have worked on this volume for a number of years and their introduction and notes constitute an important addition to our knowledge.
The English Nobility in the Late Middle Ages: The Fourteenth-Century Political Community
by Chris Given-WilsonFirst Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages (The Medieval World)
by Jennifer WardThis vivid and pioneering study illuminates the different roles played in late medieval society by noblewomen - the most substantial group of women to survive as individuals in medieval documents. They emerge (despite limited political opportunities) as figures of consequence themselves in a landowning society through estate management in their husbands' frequent absences, and through hospitality, patronage and affinity.
English Opera from 1834 to 1864 with Particular Reference to the Works of Michael Balfe (Routledge Library Editions: Art and Culture in the Nineteenth Century #2)
by George BiddlecombeFirst published in 1994. This study sets out to investigate English opera from 1834 to 1864. The author attempts to understand the circumstances influencing the development of English nineteenth-century opera, its characteristic features, and the reasons why these traits held sway. This title will be of great interest to students of art and cultural history.
The English Opium-Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey
by Robert MorrisonA masterful biography of England's most notorious literary figure. Author of the scandalous Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) has long lacked a full-fledged biography. His friendships with leading poets and men of letters in the Romantic and Victorian periods-- including William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge--have long placed him at the center of nineteenth century literary studies. His writing was a tremendous influence on Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, and William Burroughs. De Quincey is a topical figure for other reasons, too: a self-mythologizing autobiographer whose attitudes to drug-induced creativity and addiction strike highly resonant chords for a contemporary readership. Robert Morrison's biography passionately argues for the critical importance and enduring value of this neglected icon of English literature.
The English Parish Clergy on the Eve of the Reformation
by Peter HeathThis detailed study of the parish clergy in England on the Eve of the break with Rome is based on a wide variety of documentary sources, both ecclesiastical and secular, ranging from diocesan records to sworn evidence offered in litigation and acc
English Passengers
by Matthew KnealeNarrated by over twenty distinct voices and full of dangerous humour, English Passengers combines wit, adventure and historical detail in a mesmerizing display of storytelling. When Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley and his band of smugglers have their contraband confiscated they are forced to put their ship, Sincerity, up for charter. The only takers are two Englishmen, the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson, who believes that the Garden of Eden was on the island of Tasmania, and Dr. Thomas Potter who is developing his sinister thesis concerning the races of man. Meanwhile an aboriginal in Tasmania, Peevay, recounts his people's struggles against the invading British. As the English passengers haplessly approach his land, their bizarre notions ever more painfully at odds with reality, we know a mighty collision is looming.From the Trade Paperback edition.
English Pastoral Music: From Arcadia to Utopia, 1900-1955
by Eric SaylorCovering works by popular figures like Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst as well as less familiar English composers, Eric Saylor's pioneering book examines pastoral music's critical, theoretical, and stylistic foundations alongside its creative manifestations in the contexts of Arcadia, war, landscape, and the Utopian imagination. As Saylor shows, pastoral music adapted and transformed established musical and aesthetic conventions that reflected the experiences of British composers and audiences during the early twentieth century. By approaching pastoral music as a cultural phenomenon dependent on time and place, Saylor forcefully challenges the body of critical opinion that has long dismissed it as antiquated, insular, and reactionary.
The English Patient (Vintage International)
by Michael OndaatjeWith ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal,and rescue illuminates this book like flashes of heat lightening.<P><P> Man Booker Prize winner