Swords into Plowshares: A Pilgrimage for the CSS Alabama

During the American Civil War, Britain sold ships to the Southern Confederacy in breach of neutrality obligations, triggering a dispute with the United States carrying threats of armed conflict. Some American politicians saw the dispute as an opportunity to annex Canada, then a weak assemblage of British colonies. Ultimately, arbitration in Geneva averted war, opening an era of long Anglo-American cooperation. The historical consequence of this landmark 1872 arbitration remains difficult to overstate. In addition to its diplomatic importance, the case introduced significant procedural precedents for international arbitration, including dissenting options, reasoned awards, party-appointed arbitrators, collegial deliberations, and arbitrators’ declarations on their own jurisdiction. The saga of the CSS Alabama, the vessel from which the arbitration took its name, provides a narrative as griping in detail as the arbitral proceedings prove meaningful in legal legacy.

’n Vraag ‘door de Christelijke predikanten uit Oost-Indië overgezonden’. Die Dordtse Sinode (1618–1619), die sending en die doop van kinders uit nie-Christelike ouers

A question sent over by the Christian ministers from East-India: The Synod of Dordt (1618–1619), mission and the baptism of children born of non-Christian parents: It is well-known that the renowned Synod of Dordt (1618–1619) decided that children, born of non-Christian (ethnici) parents, but adopted into Christian house holdings in East-India, should not be baptised, unless foundational teaching in the Christian doctrine and confession of faith occurred. It was a decision of theological, ecclesiastical and historical consequence, also for the church in Africa. The decision was taken by a majority vote, since the issue divided the Synod. It gave effect to one of the most significant theological debates in the Synod. The article traces the dispute, with consideration of the differentiating views that arose among the delegates as it was recorded in the original acts of the Synod. The decision had after-effects and repercussions. It would be instrumental in shaping the character of the church in a non-Christian colonial context. The article indicates that the effects of the decision were not necessarily carried by the theology of mission, formulated in such an inspiring way by the Canons of Dordt.

Some philological problems in the "Miracles" of Gabra Manfas Qeddus

The philological examination of the genealogical tree of the “Miracles” of Gabra Manfas Qeddus, based of course on the principle of conjunctive errors and not on that of marginal similarities, has shown two important phenomena: 1. that not just one, but at least six different stemmas (for miracles I, II‑VII, VIII, IX, X‑XIII) can be identified; and 2. that none of these stemmas has the slightest relationship with those already identified for the “Life”. This involves an important historical consequence, because it demonstrates the profound difference, which has always been supposed in hagiography, between the redaction of the “Life” and that of the “Miracles” of the same saint.

A. G. Dickens and the continental Reformation

This article assesses A. G. Dickens's contribution to the study of the continental Reformation, and of German Lutheranism in particular. Dickens's main theses, as formulated in a group of five thematically linked major works that were published between 1964 and 1974, concerned the cultural and historical significance of European Protestantism as an emancipatory national movement whose urban, ‘bourgeois’ variant was subject to constraints of far-reaching historical consequence in Germany. Dickens's further writings, war diaries and private papers are adduced to illustrate the conceptual assumptions underlying this interpretation, which are shown to have been influenced by his Protestant religious convictions and an apparent fascination with Oswald Spengler's theory of civilizations. The article questions Dickens's account of the link between humanism, Lutheran thought and incipient German nationalism, but stresses the relevance of his critique of contemporary German scholarship for adopting a too narrowly national perspective.

XV.—Garnier de Nablous, Prior of the Hospital in England, and Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem

It is by the kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's that I exhibit the charter on the table. This document is a grant, by the Prior of the Hospital of St. John in Jerusalem in England and the Chapter, of the church of Broxbourne, Herts, to the Bishop of London for a yearly payment of four marcs.The charter is sealed, and it bears the date of 1190, a date which, as I shall explain, is of some historical consequence. Although calendared so far back as 1883 by my friend Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte in his valuable report on the muniments at St. Paul's, the charter seems to have been overlooked, for it was not found in that great repertory of all the charters of the Order, published by M. Delaville Le Roulx, although he endeavoured to include all those that are in England.

XXXII. An Account of the Walls of Constantinople, in a Letter from the Rev. James Dallaway, M.B. F.A.S. to Samuel Lysons, Esq. F.R.S. Director

The detention of my papers for more than five years in the Levant, and the loss of the better part of them, will account for so late a communication of my survey of the great walls of Constantinople, accompanied by some sketches of them, which I beg leave, by your favour, to submit to the Society. They were made in 1795 from repeated examinations, and with a curiosity heightened by objects of so much historical consequence, and exhibiting a picturesque grandeur unequalled in any part of Europe.