The Battlefield of Brunanburh

Antiquity ◽  
1937 ◽  
Vol 11 (43) ◽  
pp. 283-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. S. Angus
Keyword(s):  
Late Summer ◽  
The Other ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
William Of Malmesbury

Brunanburh was fought in the late summer of 937 between king Athelstan and all the might of England on one side, and the viking Olaf Guthfrithson, king of Dublin and claimant to the throne of York, and his ally Constantine II, king of Scots, upon the other. The thousandth anniversary of this British battle of the nations is an occasion for reviewing critically the evidence upon the disputed question of its site. The well-known poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, being impressionist rather than narrative, provides only two or three slight clues; the Latin poem preserved by William of Malmesbury,l of early but uncertain date, helps us only a little further; and the Northumbrian annals used by Symeon of Durham seem to have supplied him with an alternative name for the battlefield but no other indication of its locality. Judgment must therefore be based largely upon the names by which the battle was known and upon traditions preserved by writers who had no claim to be contemporary; and the reliability of such evidence must be tested.

scholarly journals XXIII.—On the Disruptive Discharge of Electricity: An Experimental Thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Science, Department A

1878 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 633-671 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Macfarlane
Keyword(s):  
Copper Wire ◽  
Late Summer ◽  
The Other ◽  
Straight Line ◽  
Summer Session ◽  
The Difference ◽  
A Chain ◽  
The One ◽  
Metallic Parts ◽  
The University

The experiments to which I shall refer were carried out in the physical laboratory of the University during the late summer session. I was ably assisted in conducting the experiments by three students of the laboratory,—Messrs H. A. Salvesen, G. M. Connor, and D. E. Stewart. The method which was used of measuring the difference of potential required to produce a disruptive discharge of electricity under given conditions, is that described in a paper communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1876 in the names of Mr J. A. Paton, M. A., and myself, and was suggested to me by Professor Tait as a means of attacking the experimental problems mentioned below.The above sketch which I took of the apparatus in situ may facilitate tha description of the method. The receiver of an air-pump, having a rod capable of being moved air-tight up and down through the neck, was attached to one of the conductors of a Holtz machine in such a manner that the conductor of the machine and the rod formed one conducting system. Projecting from the bottom of the receiver was a short metallic rod, forming one conductor with the metallic parts of the air-pump, and by means of a chain with the uninsulated conductor of the Holtz machine. Brass balls and discs of various sizes were made to order, capable of being screwed on to the ends of the rods. On the table, and at a distance of about six feet from the receiver, was a stand supporting two insulated brass balls, the one fixed, the other having one degree of freedom, viz., of moving in a straight line in the plane of the table. The fixed insulated ball A was made one conductor with the insulated conductor of the Holtz and the rod of the receiver, by means of a copper wire insulated with gutta percha, having one end stuck firmly into a hole in the collar of the receiver, and having the other fitted in between the glass stem and the hollow in the ball, by which it fitted on to the stem tightly. A thin wire similarly fitted in between the ball B and its insulating stem connected the ball with the insulated half ring of a divided ring reflecting electrometer.

Political Ethos Revisited

1971 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 1048-1062 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Q. Wilson ◽  
Edward C. Banfield
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
The Other ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Good Government

An effort to test the existence and correlates of the “unitarist” and “individualist” political ethos (first discussed in City Politics under the labels “middle-class Anglo-Saxon ethos” and “immigrant ethos”) in a sample of 1,059 mostly male Boston homeowners reveals that about one fifth of the respondents have one or the other ethos when defined by two sets of attitudes and about one eighth have one or the other when defined by three sets of attitudes. In general, the respondents displaying each attitude or two or more attitudes in the predicted combinations have the predicted ethnic, religious, income, and educational attributes. Jewish voters, however, are less likely than predicted to have the good government attitude, whereas Irish and Polish respondents are more likely to have it. Upper-income Yankees were strongly unitarist as defined by all three attitudes.

XVII.—Recent Translations of Old English Poetry.

PMLA ◽  
1903 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-458
Author(s):  
James M. Garnett
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
The Other ◽  
English Poetry ◽  
William Morris ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Old English Poetry ◽  
The Past

The desire was expressed some years ago that we might soon have in English a collection of translations of Old English poetry that might fill the place so well filled in German by Grein's Dichtungen der Angelsachsen. This desire is now in a fair way of accomplishment, and much has been done during the past ten years, the period embraced in this paper. As was naturally to be expected from the work previously done in criticism of both text and subject-matter, Beowulf has attracted more than ever the thoughts and efforts of translators, for we had in 1892 the rhythmical translation of Professor J. Lesslie Hall and the prose version of Professor Earle; in 1895 (reprinted in cheaper form in 1898) the poetical translation of William Morris and A. J. Wyatt, the editor of Beowulf; in 1901 the prose version of Dr. J. R. Clark Hall, author of A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary; and only the other day, in 1902, the handy prose version of Professor C. B. Tinker.

A Tale of Two Kings: Alfred the Great and Æthelred the Unready

1986 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 195-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Keynes
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
The Other ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
Apparent Contrast ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Alfred The Great ◽  
The People ◽  
The Status ◽  
Personal Qualities

IN the gallery of Anglo-Saxon kings, there are two whose characters are fixed in the popular imagination by their familiar epithets: Alfred the Great and ÆEthelred the Unready. Of course both epithets are products of the posthumous development of the kings' reputations (in opposite directions), not expressions of genuinely contemporary attitudes to the kings themselves: respective personalities. In the case of Alfred, it was the king’s own resourcefulness, courage and determination that brought the West Saxons through the Viking invasions, for it was these qualities, complemented by his concern for the well–being of his subjects, that inspired and maintained the people’s loyalty towards the king and generated their support for his cause. Whereas in the case of jEthelred, it was the king’s incompetence, weakness and vacillation that brought the kingdom to ruin, for it was these failings, exacerbated by his displays of cruelty and spite, that alienated the people and made them abandon his cause. Few historians, perhaps, would subscribe to such a view expressed as bluntly as that, and more, I suspect, would consider such comparisons to be futile and probably misconceived in the first place. I would maintain, however, that something is to be gained from the exercise of comparing the two kings in fairly broad terms: by juxtaposing discussions of the status of the main narrative accounts of each king’s reign we can more easily appreciate how their utterly different reputations arose, and see, moreover, that in certain respects the apparent contrast between them might actually be deceptive; by comparing the predicament in which each king was placed we can better understand how one managed to extricate himself from trouble while the other succumbed; and overall we can more readily judge how much, or how little, can be attributed to personal qualities or failings on the part of the kings themselves.

‘LESSER BREEDS WITHOUT THE LAW’: THE BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT AND THE DREYFUS AFFAIR, 1894–1899

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 495-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT TOMBS
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
The Other ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Queen Victoria ◽  
The Press ◽  
Dreyfus Affair ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Times

Queen Victoria, her court, the embassy in Paris, the prime minister, and the press, led by The Times, were early and impassioned sympathizers with Alfred Dreyfus and bitter critics of his persecutors. This article traces the development of their views and the information available to them, analyses the principal themes as they saw them, and attempts to explain how and why they formed their opinions. It considers why the Dreyfusard position was so congenial to them. It argues that their own principles and prejudices – conservative, patriotic, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant – were confirmed by a critique of French political culture, seen as corrupted by a combined heritage of absolutism, revolution, Catholicism, and demagoguery. This appears to be confirmed by contrast with the few dissenting voices in Britain, on one hand Catholic and Irish, on the other, anti-Semitic socialist, who showed little sympathy with the Dreyfusards, and even less with the views of their British supporters.

Linguistic politeness in Anglo-Saxon England? A study of Old English address terms

2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 140-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Kohnen
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Linguistic Politeness ◽  
Mutual Obligation ◽  
The One ◽  
Address Terms

This paper investigates Anglo-Saxon address terms against the background of politeness and face work. Using the Dictionary of Old English Corpus, it examines the most prominent Old English terms of nominal address associated with polite or courteous behaviour, their distribution, the typical communicative settings in which they are used and their basic pragmatic meaning. The results suggest that, at least in this field, politeness as face work may not have played a major role in Anglo-Saxon England. Rather, the use of the address terms may reflect accommodation to the overriding importance of mutual obligation and kin loyalty on the one hand, and obedience to the basic Christian ideals of humilitas and caritas on the other.

Two pre-Conquest manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey

1987 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 197-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
James P. Carley
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fine Collection ◽  
Irish School ◽  
William Of Malmesbury

The earliest identified surviving manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey date from the ninth and tenth centuries, but there are reliable post-Conquest traditions claiming that valuable books were found at the monastery as early as the reign of Ine, king of the West Saxons (688–726). By the tenth century at the latest there are reports of an ‘Irish school’ at Glastonbury, famous for its learning and books, and St Dunstan's earliest biographer, the anonymous. B., relates that Dunstan himself studied with the Irish at Glastonbury. During Dunstan's abbacy (940–56) – that is, at the period when most historians would place the beginnings of the English tenth-century reform movement – there was a general revival at Glastonbury which included a concerted policy of book acquisition and the establishment of a productive scriptorium. Not surprisingly, Dunstan's abbacy was viewed by the community ever afterwards as one of the most glorious periods in the early history of the monastery, especially since the later Anglo-Saxon abbots showed a marked falling off in devotion and loyalty to the intellectual inheritance of their monastery. Æthelweard and Æthelnoth, the last two Anglo-Saxon abbots, were especially reprehensible, and confiscated lands and ornaments for the benefit of their own kin. Nor did the situation improve immediately after the Conquest: the first Norman abbot, Thurstan, actually had to call in soldiers to quell his unruly monks. In spite of these disruptions, a fine collection of pre-Conquest books seems to have survived more or less intact into the twelfth century; when the seasoned traveller and connoisseur of books, William of Malmesbury, saw the collection in the late 1120s he was greatly impressed: ‘tanta librorum pulchritudo et antiquitas exuberat’.

Effects of age and state of incisor dentition on faecal output of dry matter and on faecal and urinary output of nitrogen and minerals, of sheep grazing hill pastures

1974 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. C. Field ◽  
A. R. Sykes ◽  
R. G. Gunn
Keyword(s):  
Body Weight ◽  
Urine Volume ◽  
Late Summer ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Urinary Output ◽  
Sheep Grazing ◽  
Total N ◽  
P Deficiency ◽  
Daily Intakes

SUMMARYExcretion of D.M., N, Ca, P and Mg in faeces, and N, P and Mg in urine were measured at intervals over 12 months in breeding Scottish Blackface sheep grazing hill pastures. These values were used with data on reproductive performance and body compositional changes, to calculate the energy, nitrogen and mineral balances. The sheep were: 11 6½-year-old with sound mouths (SM), 16 6½-year-old with broken mouths (BM), 16 5½-year-old with all permanent incisors clipped to gum level (CM) and 16 2½-year-old (Y). An energy supplement was given at the end of gestation and during early lactation. All faeces were collected and creatinine was used as an internal marker to estimate urine volume.Faecal D.M. output ranged from 443 to 662 g/day, with highest values in November and lowest in May. Average values for the BM sheep were lower than those for the other groups but when output was expressed as a power function of body weight, the values for the Y sheep were 15% higher than those for the other groups. Faecal excretions of Ca and P in January and February were very low and the values for P were half the expected endogenous faecal loss.Urinary output ofN ranged from 6·0 g/day in February to 22·2 g/day in August and the corresponding urinary urea N: total N ratios were 0·24 and 0·69. Urinary Mg output was highest in late summer and early winter but urinary P showed no consistent trends.The estimated daily intakes of DOM (g) were 936 in November 1969, 599 in January, 414 in February, 1075 in May, 1150 in August and 946 in November 1970.The loss of energy from the body between mating (November) and mid-lactation (June) ranged from 9·5 to 16·8% of the total calculated ME requirements in the Y and BM sheep, respectively. Maintenance requirements averaged 204 kJ/kg body weight/day and the value for the Y sheep was 12% higher than the mean for the older sheep.Nitrogen and mineral balances were calculated for February, May, August and November. The sheep were protein-deficient in winter, not from a shortage of crude protein in the diet but because of its low digestibility (34%). Intakes of Ca and P in winter were low and a real possibility of a P deficiency exists. Estimates of the concentrations of N and of minerals in the herbage consumed by the sheep were made and compared with those obtained for cut herbage from the same pastures. It would appear that the sheep selected herbage of a higher protein content than that of the cut herbage. Herbage selection was greatest in November.

An Anglo-Saxon Disc Brooch from Northamptonshire

1962 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-56
Author(s):  
Vera I. Evison
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Disc Diameter ◽  
Thin Disc ◽  
Lower Jaw ◽  
Upper Jaw

A small gilt-bronze disc brooch was found at Little Houghton, Northants., in 1957, a surface find on a Roman site, and was acquired by Northampton Museum (pl. xv b, fig. 1). It is a thin disc, diameter 2·5 cm., tapering at the border, with remains of pin holder and catch at the back and shallow pattern in relief on the front. The gilding has rubbed off the higher parts of the pattern, and has disappeared entirely in places where the brooch has been damaged and bent, possibly by fire. The ornament consists of two Style II animals, identical except for the shape of the jaw. They are S-shaped, turning round to bite their own backs; the body continues directly into the angle of a back leg which crosses the body and ends at the border in the rudiments of a foot; a front limb shoots forward to interlock with the hind curve of the other animal; the head is an eye framed by a right-angle; in one case the upper jaw passes below the body and the lower jaw is short and curves only slightly outwards; in the other the upper jaw again runs below the body, and the lower jaw swings round and seems to meet the upper jaw behind in a complete loop. There is damage at this point, however, and on analogous evidence it is quite likely that the lower jaw did not join the upper, but swept on independently.

An English Romanesque Mount and Three Ninth-Century Strap-Ends

2003 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 433-441
Author(s):  
Richard Jewell
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Silver Wire ◽  
The Other ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Open Work

This note discusses several recent English finds of early medieval ornamental metalwork shown at the Society of Antiquaries on 16 May 2002: most notably, a Romanesque mount with open-work foliate decoration having clear parallels with Norman and Anglo-Norman ornament of c 1100–25. Four ninth-century Anglo-Saxon strapends are also described and illustrated, two of which have decorative features with links to contemporary larger-scale works but rarer within the corpus of strap-ends; the other two being unusual examples of East Anglian niello and silver-wire inlay.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document