THE ANGLO-NORMAN ABBEY CHURCH OF ST ALBANS AND THE AISLELESS NAVE OF ITS CRUCIFORM PREDECESSOR: THE MATERIAL EVIDENCE

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Jill A Franklin

Within the Romanesque abbey church at St Albans (Hertfordshire), the vestiges of an earlier structure have been identified for the first time. A hitherto unrecorded feature in the transept, noted by the author in 2017, indicates that, at some stage, the nave lacked its existing arcade piers and instead had solid walls. The implications of this are considerable, calling for a thorough reassessment of the building’s history. For now, it is important to record the primary evidence, so as to make it available for further research. This article aims to provide a concise account of the evidence and a summary of what it might mean. According to the thirteenth-century chronicler, Matthew Paris, the existing church was begun in 1077 and completed in 1088. New evidence indicates, however, that the Romanesque building, with its aisled nave and presbytery, was preceded by a cruciform structure without aisles. The inference is that the existing building contains the fabric of this unaisled predecessor. The obvious conclusion – that it therefore represents the lost Anglo-Saxon abbey church – does not follow without question; as yet, excavation has yielded no conclusive evidence of an earlier church on the site. The critical diagnostic feature presented here for the first time adds substance to the view that the remodelling of unaisled buildings was not uncommon in the post-Conquest period, including large as well as minor churches, as identified long ago at York Minster and, more recently, at Worksop Priory.

2020 ◽  
pp. 128-138
Author(s):  
A. S. Bik-Bulatov

The article uses little known letters of M. Gorky, many of which were published for the first time in 1997, as well as findings of Samara-based experts in local history to shed light on the writer’s work as editor-in-chief of the Samarskaya Gazeta newspaper in 1895. The researcher introduces hitherto unstudied reminiscences of the journalist D. Linyov (Dalin) about this period, which reference a letter by Gorky, now lost. The paper details a newly discovered episode of Gorky’s professional biography as a journalist: it concerns his campaign against a Samara ‘she-wolf,’ the madam of a local brothel A. Neucheva. Linyov’s reminiscences turn out to be an important and interesting source, offering an insight into the daily grind of the young editor Gorky, providing new evidence of his excellent organizational skills, and describing his moral and social stance. The author presents his work in the context of a recently initiated broader discussion about the need to map out all Russian periodicals for the period until 1917, as well as all research devoted to individual publications.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Huang-Takeshi Kohda ◽  
Zhaojie Qian ◽  
Mei-Fang Chien ◽  
Keisuke Miyauchi ◽  
Ginro Endo ◽  
...  

AbstractPteris vittata is an arsenic (As) hyperaccumulator plant that accumulates a large amount of As into fronds and rhizomes (around 16,000 mg/kg in both after 16 weeks hydroponic cultivation with 30 mg/L arsenate). However, the sequence of long-distance transport of As in this hyperaccumulator plant is unclear. In this study, we used a positron-emitting tracer imaging system (PETIS) for the first time to obtain noninvasive serial images of As behavior in living plants with positron-emitting 74As-labeled tracer. We found that As kept accumulating in rhizomes as in fronds of P. vittata, whereas As was retained in roots of a non-accumulator plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Autoradiograph results of As distribution in P. vittata showed that with low As exposure, As was predominantly accumulated in young fronds and the midrib and rachis of mature fronds. Under high As exposure, As accumulation shifted from young fronds to mature fronds, especially in the margin of pinna, which resulted in necrotic symptoms, turning the marginal color to gray and then brown. Our results indicated that the function of rhizomes in P. vittata was As accumulation and the regulation of As translocation to the mature fronds to protect the young fronds under high As exposure.


Author(s):  
Gemma Almond

Abstract This study explores the representation and use of Victorian visual aids, specifically focusing on how the design of spectacle and eyeglass frames shaped ideas of the ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ body. It contributes to our understanding of assistive technologies in the Victorian period by showcasing the usefulness of material evidence for exploring how an object was produced and perceived. By placing visual aids in their medical and cultural context for the first time, it will show how the study of spectacle and eyeglass frames develops our understanding of Victorian society more broadly. Contemporaries drew upon industrialization, increasing education, and the proliferation of print to explain a rise in refractive vision ‘errors’. Through exploring the design of three spectacle frames from the London Science Museum’s collections, this study will show how the representations and manufacture of visual aids transformed in response to these wider changes. The material evidence, as well as contemporary newspapers, periodicals, and medical texts, reveal that visual aids evolved from an unusual to a more mainstream device. It argues that visual aids are a unique assistive technology, one that is able to inform our understanding of how Victorians measured the body and constructed ideas of ‘normalcy’ and ‘abnormalcy’.


2018 ◽  
Vol 136 (4) ◽  
pp. 223-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Young

St Edmund, king and martyr (an Anglo-Saxon king martyred by the Vikings in 869) was one of the most venerated English saints in Ireland from the 12th century. In Dublin, St Edmund had his own chapel in Christ Church Cathedral and a guild, while Athassel Priory in County Tipperary claimed to possess a miraculous image of the saint. In the late 14th century the coat of arms ascribed to St Edmund became the emblem of the king of England’s lordship of Ireland, and the name Edmund (or its Irish equivalent Éamon) was widespread in the country by the end of the Middle Ages. This article argues that the cult of St Edmund, the traditional patron saint of the English people, served to reassure the English of Ireland of their Englishness, and challenges the idea that St Edmund was introduced to Ireland as a heavenly patron of the Anglo-Norman conquest.


Author(s):  
Marta Marson ◽  
Matteo Migheli ◽  
Donatella Saccone

AbstractAmong the determinants of economic freedom, the presence of different ethnic groups within a country has sometimes been explored by the empirical literature, without conclusive evidence on the sign of the relation, its drivers, and the conditions under which it holds. This paper offers new evidence by empirically modelling how ethnic fragmentation is related to economic freedom, as measured by the Economic Freedom Index and by each of its numerous areas, components and sub-components. The results provide insights on the components driving the effect and, interestingly, detect notable differences between developed and developing countries.


PMLA ◽  
1916 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-160
Author(s):  
Josephine D. Sutton

The relationship of the manuscripts of the Middle-English poem Ipotis has been studied in detail by Dr. Hugo Gruber on the basis of the nine mss. known to him. In addition to these there are five others, four of which are printed for the first time below. One of these, unfortunately a fragment, is of the greatest importance, since it carries back the date of the poem at least fifty years. On the basis of the earliest manuscript known to him—ms. Vernon, written about 1385—Gruber assigned the Ipotis to the second half of the fourteenth century. But in the light of the new evidence, the composition of the poem is pushed back to the very beginning of the century.


Traditio ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 45-86
Author(s):  
Benjamin Pohl

This article investigates a specific twelfth-century hand that occurs in a group of manuscripts connected to the Norman abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel and identifies it as the hand of Robert of Torigni, the famous Anglo-Norman historian who became abbot of that monastery in 1154. The manuscripts used as evidence all contain corrections and interlinear glosses in what I contend constitutes Robert's own hand, and have neither been studied comparatively nor had their relationships scrutinized. Indeed, scholarship to date has actually argued for different examples of handwriting altogether as belonging to Robert and has not inquired as to whether the glosses and annotations contained within the codices discussed here could be indicative of Robert's scribal activity in the scriptorium of Mont-Saint-Michel during the period of his abbacy (1154–86). This article, therefore, seeks to challenge the prevailing notions concerning Robert's characteristic handwriting, both in terms of its supposed shape and character, and with regard to the manuscripts in which it is thought to survive. This fundamental reassessment of previous scholarship will be achieved by combining, for the first time, a comprehensive paleographical analysis of the manuscripts with a discussion of their broader historical and institutional contexts. Furthermore, and perhaps more significantly, in identifying Robert's hand and the contexts in which it survives, this article aims to enhance our knowledge concerning the person behind the script. It will present new and important insights into Robert's activities as head of his monastic community, as well as into his methods as a monastic historian who, as will be shown, was intimately involved in the processes of manuscript production at Mont-Saint-Michel during the second half of the twelfth century. Ultimately, this article argues that Robert, despite being the author and intellectual architect of complex and influential historical works, had in fact very little training as a book scribe, which is evidenced by his handwriting.


Quaerendo ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 247-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Valkema Blouw

AbstractFrom the chronicles of the Family of Love we know that, besides printers in Deventer and later in Cologne, both Plantin and Augustijn van Hasselt printed for this religious sect. On the basis of this information quite a large number of publications have hitherto been attributed to Plantin, while only one single edition in Latin was reckoned to be the work of Augustijn. An analysis of the typography, however, shows that apart from Hendrik Niclaes's chief work, Den Spegel der Gherechticheyt, Plantin only printed two of his minor writings and that all the other ascriptions to Plantin must be revised in favour of Augustijn van Hasselt. In 1561-2 Augustijn was running a printing shop in the Dutch town of Kampen, specially set up by HN for the purpose of publishing those of his works that had not previously been printed. Plantin, who was partly involved in this enterprise, took the opportunity to have a book printed on this press for his publishing business. The analysis providing the typographical evidence of this collaboration proves for the first time the accuracy of the literary sources as regards Plantin's involvement in the publication of the works of Hendrik Niclaes. In the presentation of the new evidence it was necessary to establish more clearly the date of Plantin's '[1561]' inventory and which roman and German types he owned at what times. The article ends with some notes regarding the end of the 'Bohmbargen' press at Cologne.


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