Apprenticeship Indentures and Apprentices in Medieval England, 1250–1500

This thesis uses apprenticeship indentures to offer a novel insight into guilds and apprenticeship in medieval England. Indentures offer a unique view of idealised master-apprentice relationships, which are otherwise only visible in official records. A collection of 82 surviving indentures forms a starting point for exploring social, economic, and legal aspects of apprenticeship in medieval England, both within and outside the guild system. Chapter 1 outlines the content of indentures and provides a guide to their general form. Indentures developed gradually in response to social, economic and legal factors; these are explored in subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 discusses the enforceability and enforcement of legislation pertaining to apprenticeship, as well as exploring the legal complexities of indentures as binding legal agreements made by minors. Chapter 3 considers apprenticeship in three ways in the context of the guild system: as a means of exploitation, as a means of exclusion, and as a means of providing technical training. No single model prevails, but the influence of each depends on geographical, economic, and temporal factors. Subsequent chapters provide an overview of the reality of apprenticeship. Chapter 4 discusses the use of behavioural clauses in indentures, which controlled apprentices’ behaviour with the primary aim of protecting masters’ reputations. Chapter 5 explores apprentices’ expectations of the apprenticeship, including provision of training. Chapter 6 presents novel estimates, based on surviving records, of the cost of maintaining an apprentice, concluding that they were not ‘cheap’ labour. Historians have not previously considered this cost. Chapter 7 uses testamentary evidence to examine close master-apprentice relationships, highlighting the importance of fictive kinship. Civic enfranchisement and its relative importance is also discussed. Overall, this thesis provides an original survey of apprenticeship in medieval England, based mainly on evidence from a previously neglected document type.

A válságok hatása a politikai rendszerekre

Összefoglaló. A második világháborút követően talán nem volt egyetlen esemény sem, amely olyan hatást gyakorolt a világ országaira, mint a koronavírus-járvány kirobbanása. A vírus-válság felgyorsította a liberális világrend erózióját, kiélezte a nagyhatalmak közötti ellentéteket, válságforgatókönyvek és prognózisok készültek. A válság rávilágított arra is, hogy kudarcra vannak ítélve azok a kormányzatok, amelyek nem ruháztak be a közösségi infrastruktúrába, és elhanyagolták a közszolgálati tudást. Az is kiderült, hogy a kormányzati intézményeknek szakértőkre és nem lojális mamelukokra van szüksége a válsághelyzetből fakadó közpolitikai gondok megoldása során. Egy világméretű és példátlan sebességgel terjedő válság elleni eredményes fellépés elsődleges frontvonala tehát a nemzetállam maradt. Summary. In times of crisis, all political systems give the executive exceptional powers, as it is not possible to face new and rapidly changing challenges within the framework of existing laws. One of the American founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, who feared the excessive power of central government, believed that in times of emergency the system of checks and balances should be suspended. Constitutional democracy will be threatened if the rule of law is not restored after the emergency has passed. Perhaps no event since the Second World War has had such an impact on the countries of the world as the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic. The virus crisis accelerated the erosion of the liberal world order, sharpened the antagonism between the great powers, especially the US and China, and highlighted the vulnerability of the production chains that had been outsourced to the Far East in the hope of cheap labour. Crisis scenarios and forecasts were drawn up, and prominent scientists and researchers expressed the view that there would be no return to the world before the virus. The virus crisis has also highlighted the failure of governments that have not invested in community infrastructure and have neglected public knowledge. It has also shown that government institutions need experts, not loyal mamelukes, to solve public policy problems arising from the crisis. The coronavirus is the most pressing challenge of this century so far, and in responding to it, localism is being valorised as a crucial centre of solidarity and problem-solving. Forecasters fear that rising inequalities and the erosion of family savings could trigger a wave of political discontent that is more angry and violent than ever before. The majority of people will not be able to manage their children’s digital education and work from home without a separate room and computing infrastructure, so governments will need to develop special programmes to address this, and people’s health and the capacity of public health to cope will come to the fore. The pandemic crisis has provided a new argument for those who argued for the reinvention of the state and the importance of governments’ ability to act quickly to deal effectively with natural and economic crises. In recent decades, many have buried the nation state, arguing that successful responses to global problems in a globalised world cannot be found within the framework of a nation state. The Covid-19 crisis has shown that the nation state remains the first front line for effective action against a crisis that is spreading at an unprecedented global scale and speed. Different countries have followed different crisis management strategies and very significant differences in contagion rates have emerged. The crisis has reassessed the role of nation states and borders, which already played an important role in receiving migration flows.

Labour in Wonder Woman: A Marxist Feminist Reading

An Amazonian Goddess who was raised a warrior set in World War I, screams the impact of Marxism. Wonder Women (2017), produced by DC, has a nominal heroine who seems like an icon of Feminism but is instead the opposite in close observation. Though the character seems vigorously empowered, she is reduced to a commodity in the clutches of capitalism. Wonder Woman’s labour was tried to fit into the domestic sphere. This paper would explore the film from the focal lenses of Marxist Feminism. The investigative questions revolve around ‘cheap labour,’ ‘reserve labour,’ and ‘reproduction.’ Also, the marginalized status of other proletariats is examined. How the character becomes a target of capitalism by pushing her into the domestic sphere and objectification is the paper’s primary concern. The paper would use a qualitative approach to achieve the desired result. The analysis will be a subjective judgment based on the film text. The characters’ cognitive behavior and the surrounding are a central element that will be explored through the narrative analysis. The research methodology will employ conceptualization and qualitative design and methodology.

Unfortunate Strangers: Lascars in the British Maritime World c. 1849-1912

<p>In 1903, there were 36,893 lascar sailors out of the 247,448 seamen working on British merchant ships. Lascars were non-white workers mostly recruited from Asia. As a result of changes to the British maritime industry in the second half of the nineteenth century, notably the shift from sail to steam, lascar numbers increased. Lascars became critical to the success of the British shipping fleet. They filled the gap that had formed because of the lack of British sailors to crew ships. Lascars were characterised as cheap, lazy, and dirty, as well as being regarded as poor sailors. Lascars were essentially perceived as everything the British sailor was not. Although lascars were British subjects, they were paid less than British sailors, ate inferior food, and slept in substandard accommodation. Once in British ports, after their voyages had ended lascars enjoyed fewer settlement rights, access to welfare and resources than their counterparts. As a result, lascars struggled to survive in Britain. Strategies that created a racial division of labour and hierarchy entrenched a low social status for lascars compared to that of their British counterparts. This thesis discusses how and why some groups of non-white sailors were given the label lascar. It analyses how the label lascar became a term to represent and enforce difference. Being cheap labour, and non-white was the basis for lascar difference, but the strict regulation and control of their conditions put these men in a much more subordinate position than their British counterparts. The strict conditions and tight regulation that lascars experienced became characteristics of the label they were tagged with. Many lascars were abandoned or chose to stay in Britain where the strategies they employed to survive further enforced their difference. This thesis highlights the period 1849-1912 because of the significant increase in lascar numbers during this period. Chapter one discusses who a lascar was and the interchangeable nature of the term lascar with other labels that describe non-white maritime workers. Chapter two draws on newspaper evidence, plus the works of Gopalan Balachandran and Michael Fisher to examine the effects on lascar recruitment and employment practices that reinforced difference. Chapter 3 focuses on lascars in Britain and what strategies they employed to survive and how they reinforced difference. The majority of the discussion will focus on examples from port cities of London, Glasgow, and Dundee because lascars were a visible part of the social diversity of these cities. Between 1849 and 1912 lascars contributed significantly to the economic success of Britain’s maritime industry.</p>

Unfortunate Strangers: Lascars in the British Maritime World c. 1849-1912

<p>In 1903, there were 36,893 lascar sailors out of the 247,448 seamen working on British merchant ships. Lascars were non-white workers mostly recruited from Asia. As a result of changes to the British maritime industry in the second half of the nineteenth century, notably the shift from sail to steam, lascar numbers increased. Lascars became critical to the success of the British shipping fleet. They filled the gap that had formed because of the lack of British sailors to crew ships. Lascars were characterised as cheap, lazy, and dirty, as well as being regarded as poor sailors. Lascars were essentially perceived as everything the British sailor was not. Although lascars were British subjects, they were paid less than British sailors, ate inferior food, and slept in substandard accommodation. Once in British ports, after their voyages had ended lascars enjoyed fewer settlement rights, access to welfare and resources than their counterparts. As a result, lascars struggled to survive in Britain. Strategies that created a racial division of labour and hierarchy entrenched a low social status for lascars compared to that of their British counterparts. This thesis discusses how and why some groups of non-white sailors were given the label lascar. It analyses how the label lascar became a term to represent and enforce difference. Being cheap labour, and non-white was the basis for lascar difference, but the strict regulation and control of their conditions put these men in a much more subordinate position than their British counterparts. The strict conditions and tight regulation that lascars experienced became characteristics of the label they were tagged with. Many lascars were abandoned or chose to stay in Britain where the strategies they employed to survive further enforced their difference. This thesis highlights the period 1849-1912 because of the significant increase in lascar numbers during this period. Chapter one discusses who a lascar was and the interchangeable nature of the term lascar with other labels that describe non-white maritime workers. Chapter two draws on newspaper evidence, plus the works of Gopalan Balachandran and Michael Fisher to examine the effects on lascar recruitment and employment practices that reinforced difference. Chapter 3 focuses on lascars in Britain and what strategies they employed to survive and how they reinforced difference. The majority of the discussion will focus on examples from port cities of London, Glasgow, and Dundee because lascars were a visible part of the social diversity of these cities. Between 1849 and 1912 lascars contributed significantly to the economic success of Britain’s maritime industry.</p>

"Matekoane ke bophelo" Cannibis is Life: Marginality and survival, a historical analysis of illicit cannabis production by the communities of Mokhtlong District of Lesotho

<p> </p><p> This study examines the evolving historical, geopolitical and economic context of illicit cannabis cultivation by the marginalised highlands communities of Mokhotlong district of Lesotho. Mokhtlong is one of the most impoverished districts of Lesotho with a population that has historically operated on the margins of the state and SouthAfrica as either providers of cheap sheep products to the rest of Lesotho or as suppliers of cheap labour to the mines in SouthAfrica. It considers the implications of the supply of cannabis to mainly the Gauteng metropolitan area in South Africa to the Mokhotlong district’s inhabitants’ state of marginalisation. Historically, cannabis production in the highlands resulted in a reproduction of the asymmetrical relations between and inside the metropolitan and mountain areas of both countries. Coalitions of actors merged from these new relations that the cultivation produced, and as such, this article should be analysed as an assemblage in which three distinct scales of territorialities were clashing or cooperating with each other. The article argues that the irregular migrants from Lesotho to South Africa took advantage of the fluctuations of their legal status as they moved between South Africa and Lesotho and the fluidity of the movement across the mountainous border to the migrants and smugglers to traffic cannabis across Lesotho into South Africa. In essence, the article makes the bold claim that cannabis production was one of the key ways in which the borderland communities of Mokhtlong dealt with their economic and social marginalisation.</p>

"Matekoane ke bophelo" Cannibis is Life: Marginality and survival, a historical analysis of illicit cannabis production by the communities of Mokhtlong District of Lesotho

<p> </p><p> This study examines the evolving historical, geopolitical and economic context of illicit cannabis cultivation by the marginalised highlands communities of Mokhotlong district of Lesotho. Mokhtlong is one of the most impoverished districts of Lesotho with a population that has historically operated on the margins of the state and SouthAfrica as either providers of cheap sheep products to the rest of Lesotho or as suppliers of cheap labour to the mines in SouthAfrica. It considers the implications of the supply of cannabis to mainly the Gauteng metropolitan area in South Africa to the Mokhotlong district’s inhabitants’ state of marginalisation. Historically, cannabis production in the highlands resulted in a reproduction of the asymmetrical relations between and inside the metropolitan and mountain areas of both countries. Coalitions of actors merged from these new relations that the cultivation produced, and as such, this article should be analysed as an assemblage in which three distinct scales of territorialities were clashing or cooperating with each other. The article argues that the irregular migrants from Lesotho to South Africa took advantage of the fluctuations of their legal status as they moved between South Africa and Lesotho and the fluidity of the movement across the mountainous border to the migrants and smugglers to traffic cannabis across Lesotho into South Africa. In essence, the article makes the bold claim that cannabis production was one of the key ways in which the borderland communities of Mokhtlong dealt with their economic and social marginalisation.</p>

​​Preceding Maize Crop Herbicide Residual Effect on Germination, Growth and Vigour of Succeeding Blackgram

Background: Weeds are the most critical pest, which cause the highest yield reduction in food grain crops. Weeds interfere with maize growth by competing one or more growth limiting factors, controlling of weeds in maize during the critical period assumes great importance for realizing higher yield. Unavailability of relatively cheap labour in time necessitated the use of herbicides in maize. Residual impact of herbicides caused significant influence on germination and growth of succeeding crop. Methods: The field experiment was carried out during kharif 2019 at Agricultural College and Research Institute, Madurai to evaluate the residual effect of herbicides used in preceding maize on succeeding blackgram. Treatments were application of pre emergence herbicide atrazine at 0.25 kg ha-1 or pendimethalin 1 kg ha-1 applied singly on 3 days after sowing and in combination with post emergence herbicide tembotrione 120 g ha-1 or halosulfuron methyl 90 g ha-1 on 25 DAS, weed free check, unweeded check in maize crop. Result: Among the weed control treatments, pre emergence herbicides atrazine 0.25 kg ha-1 or pendimethalin 1 kg ha-1 singly and in combination with post emergence herbicides tembotrione 120 g ha-1 or halosulfuron methyl 90 g ha-1 applied in maize crop did not caused any phyotoxicity and residual impact on succeeding blackgram. However, the highest plant height (29.5 cm), dry matter production (1.17 g plant-1) and seedling vigour index (1473) of succeeding blackgram was recorded in atrazine at 0.25 kg ha-1 as pre emergence at 3 DAS followed by tembotrione at 120 g ha-1 as post emergence at 25 DAS.

African Continental Free Trade Agreement: the Pros and Cons on the Oil and Gas Industry in Nigeria

Nigeria has oil and gas as her major source of revenue, accounting for more than 80% of her foreign exchange, with the AfCFTA, that has been signed and ratified not just by Nigeria but by other African countries taking away tariffs on goods and services produced across the continent irrespective of the market where it's been sold. The AfCFTA being the second largest free trade agreement in the history of World Trade Organization is aimed at uniting African markets. This paper aims to review the framework of the continental free trade agreement, it pros and cons, its grey area, and its impact on the Oil and Gas Industry in Nigeria. The impact of the agreement on the local industries servicing the oil and gas industry is considered as well. The paper reviews the possible advantage of the AfCFTA on the Nigerian oil and gas market. The possible threats to nationalization in the oil and gas industry due to the availability of cheap labour and technical expertise across the continent in the country is analyzed. Solutions to protect the oil and gas industry in Nigeria is recommended as well.

Clements Kadalie, the trade unionist, and prophet Shepherd Bushiri

The gold rush in South Africa required many workers, both skilled and unskilled, to work on the surface and underground in the recently discovered gold deposits on the Witwatersrand. Mining companies ventured to lure such labour across South(ern) Africa. As such, in the past century, trade union leadership and religious leadership in South Africa shared similar objectives. Clements Kadalie is one of those workers who reached South Africa to offer cheap labour and ended as a union leader. The post 1994 South African democratic dispensation attracted many people to pursue better economic opportunities. Shepherd Bushiri is one of them. This article engages in some theological reflections on these two leaders and their influence among the poor and destitute in South Africa, and by employing case study analysis.