Shifting to horror, this chapter deals with how the civil war is represented by the Mexican-born filmmaker, Guillermo del Toro, concentrating particularly on El espinazo del Diablo/The Devil's Backbone, presenting a ghost story set in the civil war's closing months, and the relationship between the figure of the ghost and the past. Although by 1995 the civil war had been the subject of numerous Spanish films, even the free-wheeling post-Franco Spanish cinema has been extremely reluctant to tackle some of the thornier issues of the Civil War period. The chapter considers debates about the figure of the ghost in popular culture and its relationship to debates over the historical process, before examining the use of ghosts in this specific film.

The extracts in this chapter cover the personnel of justice. The task of law enforcement and the staffing of the legal system required a large number of full-time and part-time officials, ranging from the royal judges of the central courts down to village constables. There was a general impression that judges and lawyers made considerable sums from their professional activities. This perception may have elements of truth, but masks some of the realities of royal judicial service: there was a profound shift during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries from clerical to lay justices, which altered the way in which their service could be rewarded. Royal justices had sworn oaths before taking office since at least the thirteenth century. Much of the day-to-day lesser work in the field of criminal justice was carried out by lower-ranking officials working in the hundreds and townships.

Steve Marsh explores political culture by foregrounding the contribution that diplomatic pageantry has made to official representations of Anglo-American relations. Through analysis of bilateral summit meetings between presidents and prime ministers, the informal ambassadorship of the British royal family, and the forthcoming 400th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage in 2020, Marsh demonstrates that such events are designed and choreographed to assure elite, media, and popular attention. His work illuminates how the official deployment of a selective narrative of Anglo-American relations serves to (re-)legitimize the concept of the special relationship and enhance its ability to adapt to changed circumstances.

Initiating litigation could be regarded as a preliminary stage in the arbitration process; and could be threatened or continued if the parties were unable or unwilling to agree to terms. The extracts in this chapter examine the extra-judicial forms employed in the later Middle Ages, namely negotiation, mediation and arbitration. This chapter acts as a corrective to the traditional preoccupation with formal legal proceedings. Arbitration involved the surrender of negotiating and adjudicating powers to a panel of arbiters and/or an impartial umpire. Arbitration's procedures bear the imprint of legal practice, while legal thought frequently influenced deliberations. Litigants recognised the benefit of utilising both law courts and arbitrament. Undoubtedly a key resource employed by all levels of society, mediation and arbitration constituted a significant response to the breakdown in social relations in potentially providing for amicable and non-confrontational approaches.

Conflict over the Immaculate Conception was one part of the debate about theology among Victorian Christians; it was also an aspect of the conversation about the nature of woman. Roman Catholics, who were required to believe in the Immaculate Conception, defined a woman who was unchanging in her sinlessness, while Protestants asserted that sinfulness was integral to each human being. This key moment in Victorian religious history, which has been largely overlooked, shows how English Christians reacted to a religious dogma with no direct scriptural evidence. This controversial topic was the one most likely to encourage broad participation from non-Anglican Protestants. Roman Catholics had a generally positive response, especially after some initial hesitation, but Protestants resoundingly rejected it. Advanced Anglicans were ambivalent: many believed the Virgin Mary to be without sin but were hesitant to declare dogmatic a belief with no scriptural basis. This debate also helps illuminate attitudes of Victorian Christians about the relationship between sexual intercourse, the body, and sin.

This chapter discusses the situation of Irish units and Special Reserve units deployed for home services. Sinn Fein, unlike previous Republican groups, did not seek to infiltrate Irish units in the British army, and there is no evidence to suggest that Irish battalions serving on the Western Front were subverted. However, the decision to remove Irish Special Reserve battalions from Ireland in late 1917 and early 1918 is discussed in more detail. The chapter also demonstrates that there were some doubts regarding the reliability of Irish soldiers. The strengths and weaknesses of the Irish reserve battalions appeared most starkly during the Easter Rising of 1916, although no hints of disloyalty were detected. The widest inference suggests that the decision to restation the Irish reserve battalions to England was informed mostly by problems of discipline and a dire want of quality training. There is little to suggest that reserve battalions harbored Sinn Fein sympathies. The disciplinary problems in reserve units had mostly to do with incompetent officers and the high turnover of personnel. Relocating these troops to England was informed by recruiting and technical needs rather than the apprehension of Senn Fein infiltration.

The Life of Pietro Pettinaio presents problems akin in some respects to those raised by that of Raimondo Palmario. The original Latin version by the Franciscan Pietro da Montarone was written in 1330, over forty years after the death of the saint. The manuscript was lost in a fire at San Francesco in the sixteenth century, but by 1507 it had been translated into Italian by Serafi no Ferri, an Augustinian hermit of Lecceto near Siena, and in this form it was printed in 1529. In 1802 Maestro de' Angelis, a Sienese Franciscan, republished this Italian text, embellishing it with footnotes mostly of a doctrinal and devotional character. Pietro had sought out surviving witnesses to Pier's life and presents him as an exemplar of a particular kind of holy life, lived by a layman under the aegis of the Franciscan order and firmly embedded in the urban society around him.

This chapter analyses The Faerie Queene’s images of Elizabeth I in detail. It acknowledges that grotesque caricature is not necessarily closer to what ‘Spenser really thought’ than idealisation, and finds that both distortions can be equally funny. Distinguishing between veiled, critical satire and the more self-inclusive tendencies of Spenserian humour, it argues that while Elizabeth I is not exempt from comic treatment in The Faerie Queene, neither is Spenser himself. Perhaps in recognition that his own ambitions as a poet depended upon panegyric, Spenser’s images of the queen often incorporate elements of self-satire.

Sam Edwards describes the period 1890–1925 as the first age of transatlantic memory diplomacy, a period in which the potential of commemoration as a mechanism through which to strengthen Anglo-American ties was first explored. Focusing on British efforts to re-Anglicize George Washington, he analyzes the placement of a new statue of the first US president outside London’s National Gallery as well as the rededication and memorialization of Sulgrave Manor, Washington’s ancestral family estate in Northamptonshire. Of particular interest to Edwards is the agency of both government elites and private associations, particularly the US National Society of Colonial Dames, and he perspicaciously dissects the intersections of gender roles, racial constructs, social class, strategic objectives, and patriotic identities that determined the goals and methods of commemoration in this era.

The Life of Umiliana de' Cerchi was written by the Franciscan Vito of Cortona, in 1246, the year of the saint's death. However, it contains references to several later events, for example a vision of the saint which another member of the Florentine Franciscan community, Fra Buonamico, experienced in July 1247. Several of the miracle stories implicate individuals who are mentioned among Umiliana's associates in the Life. They thus amplify the picture of the pious network of which the saint formed a part during her lifetime. The witness-list which prefaces the Life is headed by the names of three Franciscans: Fra Michele, Umiliana's confessor and confidant; Vigor, another friar of Cortona; and Buonamico of Florence. Umiliana lived the feminine version of the Franciscan life to perfection, but the important thing was precisely that she did so, not enclosed in a convent, but living in a room in her father's tower.