The Boxted Bombard

1987 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-96
Author(s):  
Howard L. Blackmore

In 1792 the Society published in Archaeologia an engraving of ‘An antient Mortar at Eridge Green’, with the claim that it was the first gun made in England. Subsequent writers on the history of artillery, while noting the gun's importance as one of the first examples of a wrought-iron cannon or bombard (to give it its correct name), believed that it had been destroyed. In fact, by the date of its publication, the bombard had been removed to Boxted Hall, Suffolk, where it remained unrecognized until its transfer to the Royal Armouries, H. M. Tower of London, in 1979. This article traces the history of the bombard, the method of its construction and concludes that it was probably made in England, in the Weald, during the fifteenth century.

Author(s):  
Michael H. Gelting

One sentence in the Prologue of the Law of Jutland (1241) has caused much scholarlydiscussion since the nineteenth century. Did it say that “the law which the king givesand the land adopts, he [i.e. the king] may not change or abolish without the consentof the land, unless he [i.e. the king] is manifestly contrary to God” – or “unless it [i.e.the law] is manifestly contrary to God”? In this article it is argued that scholarly conjectures about the original sense of the text at this point have paid insufficient attentionto the textual history of the law-book.On the basis of Per Andersen’s recent study of the early manuscripts of the Lawof Jutland, it is shown that the two earliest surviving manuscripts both have a readingthat leaves little doubt that the original text stated that the king could not change thelaw without the consent of the land unless the law was manifestly contrary to God. Theequivocal reading that has caused the scholarly controversy was introduced by a conservativerevision of the law-book (known as the AB text), which is likely to have originatedin the aftermath of the great charter of 1282, which sealed the defeat of the jurisdictionalpretensions of King Erik V. A more radical reading, leaving no doubt that the kingwould be acting contrary to God in changing the law without consent, occurs in an earlyfourteenth-century manuscript and sporadically throughout the fifteenth century, butit never became the generally accepted text. On the contrary, an official revision of thelaw-book (the I text), probably from the first decade of the fourteenth century, sought toeliminate the ambiguity by adding “and he may still not do it against the will of the land”,thus making it clear that it was the law that might be contrary to God.Due to the collapse of the Danish monarchy in the second quarter of the fourteenthcentury, the I text never superseded the AB text. The two versions coexistedthroughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and soon produced a number ofhybrid versions. One of these gained particular importance, since it was the text thatwas used for the first printed editions of the Law of Jutland in 1504 and 1508. Thus itbecame the standard text of the law-book in the sixteenth century. The early printededitions also included the medieval Latin translation of the Law of Jutland and theLatin glosses to the text. The glosses are known to be the work of Knud Mikkelsen,bishop of Viborg from 1451 to 1478. Based on a close comparison of the three texts, itis argued here that Bishop Knud was also the author of the revised Danish and Latintexts of the law-book that are included in the early printed editions, and that the wholework was probably finished in or shortly after 1466. Bishop Knud included the I text’saddition to the sentence about the king’s legislative powers.An effort to distribute Bishop Knud’s work as a new authoritative text seems tohave been made in 1488, but rather than replacing the earlier versions of the Lawof Jutland, this effort appears to have triggered a spate of new versions of the medievaltext, each of them based upon critical collation of several different manuscripts.In some of these new versions, a further development in the sentence on the king’slegislative power brought the sentence in line with the political realities of the late fifteenthcentury. Instead of having “he” [i.e. the king] as the agent of legal change, theyattribute the initiative to the indefinite personal pronoun man: at the time, any suchinitiative would require the agreement of the Council of the Realm.Only the printing press brought this phase of creative confusion to an end in theearly sixteenth century.Finally, it is argued that the present article’s interpretation of the original senseof this particular passage in the Prologue is in accordance with the nature of Danishlegislation in the period from c.1170 to the 1240s, when most major legislation happenedin response to papal decretals and changes in canon law.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duchowny Aléxia ◽  
Pereira Luíza

El objetivo de este trabajo es identificar la fecha aproximada de la producción del texto del manuscrito Lybro de magyka, la tercera parte de una obra sobre astrología, en espanõl, comprada por Hernando Colón en 1527, que se conserva hoy en la Biblioteca Colombina, Sevilla, bajo la inscripción Ms. 5-2-32. Nuestra hipótesis es que el texto fue escrito entre los siglos XIII y XVI. Por lo tanto, la base teórica está constituida por gramáticas históricas de la lengua española que traen las siguientes características representativas del español medieval que nos permitieran elaborar criterios para el análisis que comprobarían o no la hipótesis inicial: 1) la formación de adverbios con el sufijo -mientre; 2) los masculinos hechos en -a que adoptan concordancia femenina; 3) la aspiración de la f- inicial; 4) el cambio de la copulativa et para y; 4) el adverbio suso. Los resultados permiten observar que la lengua del manuscrito fecha probablemente de finales del siglo XIV o del siglo XV, lo que se encuentra de acuerdo con las hipótesis de autoría propuestas por los trabajos acerca del Lybro de magyka hasta el momento. Así, el presente estudio contribuye para la reconstrucción de la historia del códice y para los estudios acerca de la lengua española. The objective of this work is to identify the approximate date of the production of the text of the manuscript Lybro de magyka, the third part of a work on astrology, in Spanish, purchased by Hernando Colón in 1527, which is preserved today in the Biblioteca Colombina, Seville, Spain, under the registration Ms. 5-2-32. Our hypothesis is that the text was written between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, and is a copy of a Catalan translation. Therefore, the theoretical basis is constituted by works of internal and external history of the Spanish language that bring representative characteristics of the medieval Spanish. The characteristics below allow to elaborate criteria for the analysis that would verify or not the initial hypothesis: 1) the formation of adverbs with the suffix -mientre ; 2) the masculine ones made in -a that adopt feminine concordance; 3) the change of the copulative et to y; The results show that the language of the manuscript probably dates from the fifteenth century, which is in accordance with the hypotheses of authorship proposed by the works on the Lybro de Magyka so far. Thus, the present study contributes to the reconstruction of the history of the codex and to the studies about the Spanish language.


1964 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 35-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.L. Kirby

The one important, indeed invaluable, source for the history of the council in the early-fifteenth century is the Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, 10 Richard II–33 Henry VIII, edited by Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas and published by the Record Commission in seven volumes in the years 1834 to 1837, but in so far as the title of this work implies a formal and continuous record of proceedings it is misleading, for, unlike parliament, the council left no regular account of its activities. The Rolls of Parliament, even though their account of the proceedings is one-sided, official and incomplete, do at least record such bare facts as the dates of meeting, the names of the Speakers, and usually the dates of adjournment; but there are no similar rolls for the council. The phrase ‘privy council’ in Nicolas's title is also something of an anachronism, at least for the early part of the period covered. At this time the future privy council was generally known simply as the council or the king's council, although it was sometimes called the continual council to distinguish it from the larger body known to contemporaries as the great council. This distinctionis usually made in official records, but chroniclers often referred indifferently to either body as the council, and the differences are not now always apparent to us.


Balcanica ◽  
2014 ◽  
pp. 107-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sima Cirkovic

The fact that ban Tvrtko of Bosnia had maternal ties with Nemanjic dynasty and seized certain areas of the former Serbian Empire was used as a basis for him to be crowned king of the Serbs and Bosnia in 1377 in the monastery of Mileseva over the grave of Saint Sava. His charter issued to the Ragusans in 1378 contains the term ?double wreath? which figuratively symbolized the rule of Tvrtko I over two Serb-inhabited states, Bosnia and Serbia. Tvrtko?s choice not to annex the conquered territory to his own state, Bosnia, but to be crowned king of Serbia as well required the development of a new ideology of kingship and a new form of legitimation of power. Although his royal title was recognized by his neighbours, including probably the rest of the Serbian lands, that the project was unrealistic became obvious in the aftermath of the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. What remained after his death was only the royal title, while the state ruled by his successors became exclusively related to Bosnia. Yet, echoes of his coronation in medieval Bosnia can be followed in the further development of the title and of the concept of crown and state. Interestingly, an attempt to revive the double crown concept was made in the early fifteenth century by the king Sigismund of Hungary, who requested that the Bosnians crown him the way Tvrtko had been crowned.


1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-291
Author(s):  
P.S.M. PHIRI ◽  
D.M. MOORE

Central Africa remained botanically unknown to the outside world up to the end of the eighteenth century. This paper provides a historical account of plant explorations in the Luangwa Valley. The first plant specimens were collected in 1897 and the last serious botanical explorations were made in 1993. During this period there have been 58 plant collectors in the Luangwa Valley with peak activity recorded in the 1960s. In 1989 1,348 species of vascular plants were described in the Luangwa Valley. More botanical collecting is needed with a view to finding new plant taxa, and also to provide a satisfactory basis for applied disciplines such as ecology, phytogeography, conservation and environmental impact assessment.


Moreana ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 42 (Number 164) (4) ◽  
pp. 187-206
Author(s):  
Clare M. Murphy

The Thomas More Society of Buenos Aires begins or ends almost all its events by reciting in both English and Spanish a prayer written by More in the margins of his Book of Hours probably while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London. After a short history of what is called Thomas More’s Prayer Book, the author studies the prayer as a poem written in the form of a psalm according to the structure of Hebrew poetry, and looks at the poem’s content as a psalm of lament.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 74-78
Author(s):  
hank shaw

Portugal has port, Spain has sherry, Sicily has Marsala –– and California has angelica. Angelica is California's original wine: The intensely sweet, fortified dessert cordial has been made in the state for more than two centuries –– primarily made from Mission grapes, first brought to California by the Spanish friars. Angelica was once drunk in vast quantities, but now fewer than a dozen vintners make angelica today. These holdouts from an earlier age are each following a personal quest for the real. For unlike port and sherry, which have strict rules about their production, angelica never gelled into something so distinct that connoisseurs can say, ““This is angelica. This is not.”” This piece looks at the history of the drink, its foggy origins in the Mission period and on through angelica's heyday and down to its degeneration into a staple of the back-alley wino set. Several current vintners are profiled, and they suggest an uncertain future for this cordial.


2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-100
Author(s):  
Benjamin Houston

This article discusses an international exhibition that detailed the recent history of African Americans in Pittsburgh. Methodologically, the exhibition paired oral history excerpts with selected historic photographs to evoke a sense of Black life during the twentieth century. Thematically, showcasing the Black experience in Pittsburgh provided a chance to provoke among a wider public more nuanced understandings of the civil rights movement, an era particularly prone to problematic and superficial misreadings, but also to interject an African American perspective into the scholarship on deindustrializing cities, a literature which treats racism mostly in white-centric terms. This essay focuses on the choices made in reconciling these thematic and methodological dimensions when designing this exhibition.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-77
Author(s):  
Akmal Marozikov ◽  

Ceramics is an area that has a long history of making clay bowls, bowls, plates,pitchers, bowls, bowls, bowls, pots, pans, toys, building materials and much more.Pottery developed in Central Asia in the XII-XIII centuries. Rishtan school, one of the oldest cities in the Ferghana Valley, is one of the largest centers of glazed ceramics inCentral Asia. Rishtan ceramics and miniatures are widely recognized among the peoples of the world and are considered one of the oldest cities in the Ferghana Valley. The article discusses the popularity of Rishtan masters, their products made in the national style,and works of art unique to any region


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