Lead actors of Asian descent were rare exceptions in the early days of German-language cinema. Examples include Henry Sze—German film's first Chinese actor—who debuted in the initial installment of the eight-part adventure series Die Herrin der Welt. Die Freundin des gelben Mannes (The Mistress of the World. The Girlfriend of the Yellow Man, Joe May, 1919); Himansu Rai and Seeta Devi, the couple in the first Indo-German co-production Die Leuchte Asiens (The Light of Asia, Franz Osten, 1925) about Buddha, shot on location in present-day Pakistan; and Chinese American icon Anna May Wong, who came to Europe for the opportunity to star in three consecutive films by Richard Eichberg. Although early German filmmakers typically counted on the star power of well-known white actors, who would perform a different race through costuming and makeup, a select few Asian actors graced Western European silver screens and potentially challenged dominant regimes of spectatorship, simply by being protagonists with physical appearances and names that differed from conventions. This chapter follows this line of occasional Asian leads into the 1930s when the National Socialists took over Germany, including its film production.

Within the first two years of Nazi rule, two German-language films featuring Asian leads in romantic roles were released in pre-annexation Austria: Taifun (Typhoon, Robert Wiene, 1933), starring Valery Inkijinoff, and Letzte Liebe (Last Love, Fritz Schulz, 1935), starring Michiko Tanaka.

Some years ago, environmental historian Alfred W. Crosby asked, ‘What was medieval Europe's view of work in and of itself? Was it something to be done exclusively by the barely human “rustic”?’ Evidence from saintly vitae demonstrates clearly enough that the answer to this question, at least in the view of early medieval hagiographers, was a resounding ‘no.’ During this period, work was everyone's business. Hagiographical writers addressed this business through tales in which the saints ideally balanced productive, creative opus with the toilsome effort of labor, teaching others to do the same. Such ideals obviously contrasted with the realities of a world in which workers were certainly exploited, enslaved people remained in bondage, food and building materials did not miraculously appear, and work could easily result in injury or death. So what was the point of these hagiographical accounts of balanced, ideal work? What did they accomplish?

Saints’ lives, to my mind, functioned partly as fantasies, providing ‘recovery, escape, [and] consolation’ in a world whose people inevitably dealt with servitude, inequities, infelicitous work, shortages of food and supplies, illness, loss, and other misfortunes. Into the everyday struggles of work, saintly miracles brought ‘eucatastrophe,’ the ‘sudden joyous “turn,”’ the ‘sudden and miraculous grace,’ the ‘fleeting glimpse of Joy … beyond the walls of the world.’ Irish, English, and Frankish saints, however, lived their lives not in some ‘Secondary World’ of fantasy but in this one.

This chapter explores ancient Greek depictions of the force or pressure contained within the person and action of peithō by comparison with anankē (constraint, necessity). Literary and linguistic analyses of passages from Homer, Lysias, Xenophon, and Sappho, re-situate πείθω (to win over) as a causative verb that, while often paired with logos, can also induce compliance through nonverbal means. The chapter specifically explores presentations of peithō’s deceptive and constraining actions as compared with anankē in three fifth-century bce texts: Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, a passage from Herodotus’ Histories, and Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen. The juxtaposition of these two daemonic forces foregrounds the unscrupulous yet potentially resistible qualities of peithō’s power and how it operates upon individuals or groups. The chapter includes a brief analysis of texts containing the term peithanankē (winning constraint), to represent a form of menacing diplomatic coercion in military situations.

INTRODUCTION

Francis Stewart (1562–1612), fifth earl of Bothwell, was the highest-status person ever to be formally accused of witchcraft in Scotland. The so-called North Berwick witchcraft panic, beginning in 1590, rapidly developed into a perceived conspiracy against the king. In early 1591, Bothwell, the king’s cousin, began to be suspected as the ringleader of the conspiracy. However, he was not brought to trial until 1593, by which time the panic had abated, and he was acquitted. The document edited below relates to this acquittal.

The circumstances and even the date on which Bothwell's name was first brought into the North Berwick panic remain obscure, but the main accused witch to name him was Richard Graham. Graham was a magical practitioner and alleged necromancer with an aristocratic clientele, and his testimony was crucial in incriminating Bothwell. Bothwell admitted that he knew Graham, but denied involvement in witchcraft.

Bothwell was arrested on 15 April 1591 and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. Rather than face trial at the height of the panic, he escaped in June. He remained on the run for most of the next two years, carrying out various colourful exploits. In July 1593 he engineered a reconciliation with the king, though it would turn out to be only temporary. As part of this process, he agreed to undergo a trial on the charge of witchcraft, evidently hoping for an acquittal that would aid his rehabilitation.

Lawrence Normand and Gareth Roberts identified and printed three important documents relating to Bothwell's trial. There is a narrative of Richard Graham's evidence against Bothwell; a list of assizers at the trial; and the minutes of the trial itself, on 10 August 1593, with a dittay that closely follows the previous record of Graham's evidence, underlining its importance for the prosecution.

Epistemology of African Rivers

The history and dynamics of African river systems are an integral component of the life and culture of indigenous African communities from pre-modern times to the present. Africa, a continent endowed with a vast river system, has historically depended on these bodies of water for trade, subsistence, and cultural importance. African rivers, such as the Nile, Congo, and Niger, have variously contributed to the social, economic, and political developments of the communities and nations in which they flow. Rivers are relied upon as a source of water for drinking, irrigation, transportation, et cetera. Despite these various impacts, African rivers face numerous challenges that threaten both human and environmental health, such as pollution, over-extraction, damming, and climate change. As demonstrated copiously in the substantive chapters of this book, the interrelationship between Africa and her rivers manifests great significance in economic, cultural, and sociopolitical dimensions. The trends and future of African rivers show potential in the field and opportunities during debilitating challenges.

As demonstrated in the preceding chapters, there is a need to insert more riverine narratives in the existing literature on African environmental history. The development of riverine histories will balance the existing literature on the environment of Africa. Currently, environmental history in Africa is too land-centric. A mention of environmental history invokes ideas of land, its conservation, and the changing pattern of land use. However, there is more to environmental history than land. Recently, the literature has begun to witness the influx of other environmental features, which include rivers. The development of riverine history in Africa provides a balance in the environmental history of Africa.

After almost three months of providing medical relief work, shortly before their departure from the country in August 1946, Rajabali Jumabhoy (1898–1998), a prominent businessperson and philanthropist of Indian origin, praised the Congress Medical Mission at a tea party in Singapore for being a promoter of Indo-Asian unity. One year later, a book titled Congress Mission to Malaya was published by C. Siva Rama Sastry, one of the mission's members. The Indian National Congress (INC) politician and mission organiser Bidhan Chandra Roy (1882–1962) provided the foreword. Roy stated, ‘We the people of India, feel proud of their [the mission members’] achievement and appreciate with gratitude the services they rendered in the name of the Congress.’ In both instances, the work of the Congress Medical Mission to Malaya was presented as successful; this success was based partly, but not exclusively, on the mission's effective promotion of domestic and foreign policy objectives of the INC.

In the history of humanitarianism, the Congress Medical Mission to Malaya has been forgotten. It does not figure in the research on the transitional period between the end of the global Second World War, late colonial rule, and early decolonisation in South Asia, nor does it figure in the standard accounts of Indian nationalism, although it is at times mentioned in passing in the histories of Malaysia. Nevertheless, examining the humanitarian undertaking of the INC, the anticolonial organisation that would soon become the party leading India's postcolonial government, is crucial, as the mission represents the last instance of Indian non-state nationalist humanitarian aid provided to civilians in need outside the South Asian subcontinent during the period of colonial rule.

Although Middle English lyrics recur throughout Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Brogyntyn ii.1, Quire 25 – now its penultimate quire – provides a valuable case study not only for considering the manuscript's approach to the lyric form, but also for reflecting on its complex nexus of scribal relations. Spanning folios 195r–202v, Quire 25 comprises seven Middle English lyrics (items that are the work of three scribes, designated by Daniel Huws as R, S, and O). The three scribes work in sequence: Scribe R records two poems at the quire's opening on folios 195r–198r; Scribe S, also recording two poems, follows on folios 198r–199v; and Scribe O records three poems on folios 200r–202v, completing the quire. The variation in the layout and appearance of texts suggests the scribes were working independently, or at least without any agreement as to consistencies in presentation. In this respect, it is worth noting that the hands of R and S occur only in Quire 25 and, in the words of Huws, they appear not ‘to have played a decisive part in the making of the book’. Although Scribes R and S remain rather opaque figures, the features of their respective hands, such as an unevenness of script and, as is particularly the case for S, a failure to maintain a consistent stanza format, may suggest that neither was an experienced scribe. The limited contributions of R and S stand in contrast to the work of O who, along with Scribe J, wrote the majority of items in the manuscript.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Gregory the Great to early medieval England in cultural, religious and historical terms. As famously related in the anonymous Whitby Life of Gregory, Pope Gregory I – who would become known as ‘the Great’ in the late ninth century – was considered by all who were aware of his instigation of the mission from Rome as ‘the Apostle of the English’, or ‘pater Anglorum, doctor et apostolus’. As such, a study devoted to an important text attributed to Gregory is appropriate for this volume which takes as its central theme the influence of the Continent on early English literature. The direct influence of the Old English translation of Gregory's Dialogi on other Old English texts is difficult to demonstrate, though the number of extant manuscripts of the Latin original suggests that it was popular and influential.

In addition to being a collection of stories illustrating the holy deeds of some of Italy's most pious priests, bishops and saints, Pope Gregory the Great's Dialogues would in the centuries following its publication prove valuable – especially, though not exclusively, in translation – as a conversion text, with its myriad illustrations of the basic tenets of the faith, from the importance of baptism and the Creed, to the efficacy of inter cessory prayer and descriptions of the fate of the soul after death.

Notes by Toyin Falola

Across the previous chapters of this book, we have explored historical and scholarly viewpoints on the rivers of Africa. Our focus has been to explore the multifaceted perspectives about the rivers’ origins, morphology, significance, economic and other benefits, as well as prospects and relevance in development. Beyond scholarly analysis of the significance and impacts of African rivers, we explored the metaphysics of rivers as a concrete reality, particularly as a natural and ecological set of ideas. In addition to the various critical evaluations of pre-existing works of literature on African rivers carried out in the substantial chapters of the book, we have also codified in this Appendix summaries of notes on expeditions undertaken toward select African rivers, particularly the Nile and the Niger. To present a more robust view of the morphology, geology, geography, and other physical features of the river, I shall herein recount my experiences from the expeditions of the rivers in the context of a geographical portfolio of the river as well as the accounts of previous expeditions by some other authors. This narrative provides first-hand primary evidence of the features, uses, and significance of African rivers as explored in the previous chapters.

The Nile

I have been particularly intrigued by the body of living history that the Nile River has over the millennia encompassed. From historical texts to archaeological artifacts, sociological discourses, literature, and arts, the Nile River has been of significant interest to historians and scholars from other fields. In fact, beyond scholarship, the dynamics of the Nile have sparked significant interest in various authors, policymakers, and other interested personalities.

Introduction

At Justice Hall in the Old Bailey in mid-October 1685, eight men and four women were sentenced to death. Samuel Smith, chaplain of Newgate prison, urged them to repent and use their few remaining days to be reconciled to God. His sermon to them assumed that crime was a moral failing and focused on the importance of obedience as an antidote to sin. He told his audience of convicted felons that it was:

impossible to be set free from the Law of Sin and Death, but only by the infinite Righteousness of Christ's Active and Passive Obedience, imputed to Sinners, by Gods free Grace upon timely Repentance, and a sincere Faith, deriving strength from the influences of Christ's Spirit, for the renovation of their Hearts, and universal Obedience to God's Commandments.

To be saved, individuals had to be regenerated, and the latter was based on “Faith, Repentance, and new Obedience.” Smith stressed that “obedience to his Laws” was essential to gain God's pardon. Not all the prisoners were as remorseful as the ordinary would have liked. Matthew Morgan, though, convicted of housebreaking, was a model penitent. He confessed that he “had been a Sinner many ways, but he was convinced now of his evil course of Life.” He “earnestly beg’d of God” the ability to repent, hate his sins, and to build “an obedient frame of heart unto his Laws.”

Introduction

Water is an essential natural resource that is crucial for sustaining life and improving human well-being. Water constitutes 70% of the human body and about two-thirds of Earth's surface; hence, it is a vital resource not only for the sustenance of human body systems but also for livelihood and sustainable development of societies. Throughout history, humans have strived to improve their standard of living by enhancing their access to basic needs, mostly food, water, and raw materials. Thus, to make the best use of water resources, human societies since ancient times have endeavored to explore the meaning and significance of rivers and obtain a better understanding of their dynamics and processes. In ancient history, rivers such as Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile have been associated with the emergence of civilizations such as Egypt and Mesopotamia. Notably, rivers have profound spiritual and cultural epistemological value. Not only are they understood from the lens of spiritual and cultural ethos, but rivers are also considered a repertoire of knowledge about spirituality and culture. In this chapter, we shall explore rivers as sources of knowledge. The chapter is divided into three substantive parts: the first section explores the meaning and knowledge of rivers with a particular focus on African Indigenous communities; the second section explores African Indigenous knowledge about the utilization and conservation of rivers; and the third examines the evolving science of hydrological research and its future in Africa.

While Brigid of Kildare was known primarily as a dairy worker, she also engaged in textile work in her Vita Prima, making ‘with her own hands a linen [burial] shroud’ for St. Patrick at his request (suis manibus faceret linteamen). Brigid further supported the textile work of other women, providing miraculous assistance in the release of a gifted young weaver of Mag Cliach from bondage. When Brigid asked the weaver's mistress to grant her freedom, the mistress refused, because ‘the maidservant used to weave [many] clothes’ (ancilla enim multas vestes texebat) and was therefore highly valuable. The mistress then ‘displeased’ the saint (displicuit) by roughly grasping the weaver's skilled hand and ‘[dragging] her violently away from Brigit's side’ (tenuit manu ancillae suae, et traxit violenter a latere Brigidae eam). The mistress's ‘right hand … withered’ (manus dextera dominae aruit) and was restored only when she repented, after which the young weaver, no longer enslaved, followed Brigid and practiced her work productively in freedom. By joining in solidarity with the weaver, Brigid followed her consistent habit, liberating the young woman and her opera manuum, the work of her hands. Brigid's Vita Prima thus emphasizes two important aspects of textile-making, the province of women during the early medieval period: first, women of all social ranks participated in this art, making everything from rough cloth to elaborate luxury textiles; and second, women forged beneficial relationships through their textile work, both with their co-workers and with other supporters, friends, and associates.

The director of the Opéra pilloried in this article was Henri Duponchel (1794–1868), director between November 1847 and November 1849. He was an architect and stage designer and seems to have had no musical training. After Louis-Philippe's departure, the Académie royale de musique was renamed ‘Théatre de la Nation’ on 26 February 1848, then ‘Opéra-Théâtre de la Nation’ on 29 March. Berlioz had recently returned from London.

I always get in a muddle when it's a question of using their new title to mean the Opéra and the hitherto third opera house founded by M. Adam. I dare say other people will have the same problem. It seems to me difficult to work out in what sense ‘The Theatre of the Nation’ is not ‘national’, and how ‘The National Theatre’ can't be the theatre of the nation. Happily, the question is no more serious than knowing whether one should say ‘the shape’ or ‘the form’ of a hat; the great thing, at the moment, is to have both a hat and a head; because many people, in theatre and elsewhere, don't have a hat to put on their head, while heads, even in certain places where they’re of ultimate necessity, seem to be rarer than hats. As for the Opéra, we shall refrain from deciding whether it's in the same category as those places. We were there at its ‘opening’. One unimpressed wit claimed this word should be understood in the sense of ‘autopsy’. After the corpse's innards had been examined, the doctors unanimously attributed the cause of death far less to the wounds, dislocations, and contusions it received in the recent catastrophe which is still making Paris tremble, and more to an organic failure that had become incurable through its longevity.

The idea that England was blessed by the goodness of its monarch, the truth of its church, and the happiness of its condition proved unsustainable by the end of Charles I's personal rule. Stresses had become cracks, and cracks had become fissures, as the polity sought to contain its contradictions. Social leaders and consumers of news developed sharp opinions about the wisdom and direction of the king's foreign policy, his raising and spending of revenue, and his policies and patronage in religion. Though consensual constitutional arrangements underpinned a hereditary monarchy and a national protestant church, political and religious disagreements made enemies of neighbours, and spilled over into civil war.

The people featured in this book were caught up in these troubles. Their stories reflect and augment the well-known history of the reign of Charles I. They demonstrate, too, the possibility of exploring relationships between individual lives and the constraints and opportunities of larger historical forces. Chance and circumstances created and preserved unique documents, including revealing but neglected material in the National Archives. Creative enquiry yields fresh insights and connections, with many questions remaining. How limiting, how empowering, for example, were the social, economic, and demographic conditions of a person's origins and environment? What choices could people make that would relieve or exacerbate the tensions of their time? To what degree were the subjects of this study, and those connected to them, complicit in, or innocent of, the disruptions that eventuated in revolution?

The vast majority of the king's subjects conceived themselves as dutiful, orderly, and devout, and coped as best they could with the challenges of their age. Most, like their countrymen today, lived in the shadow of great events, and operated with local expectations.

At the time, the thirty-three-year-old dreamer did not yet know where his intuitions would lead him. Émile Jaques-Dalcroze had been hired a few years earlier as professor of harmony and solfège at the Geneva Conservatory, where he first discovered and tested what would become known in English as Eurhythmics. Initially called “la Gymnastique Rythmique” (Rhythmic Gymnastics), the name later became “la Rythmique” (Eurhythmics or Rhythmics). A musician through and through, he was extremely perceptive and had an exceptional gift for communication and a passionate interest in human behavior. Jaques-Dalcroze, however, was distressed by the absence of true musicality in many of his students. He felt that the primordial elements for musicians – consciousness of sound and rhythmic sensitivity – were underdeveloped; he confronted these obstacles continually in teaching music theory.

He thus remarked that “it is impossible to dictate correct chord progressions if the inner ear cannot evoke the anticipated echo of their resonance.” For Jaques-Dalcroze, the root of the problem lay in inappropriate teaching methods that overlooked the fact that students were not all born musicians, and consequently neglected ear training. He took it upon himself to find appropriate methods for his students to generate and develop those qualities that they did not demonstrate spontaneously, in particular the discerning ear and capacity to hear internally that were for him the most useful aptitudes for a musician.

The Welsh revivalist poet and forger Iolo Morganwg styled himself the ‘Bard of Liberty’, and a not insignificant part of the liberty he espoused was a vociferous opposition to slavery. From c.1790, Iolo wove together his ancient bardic and contemporary abolitionist identities as though they were natural complements to one another, just as he inserted elements of French Revolutionary politics into his recreated bardo-druidism. In various poems, his bardic mouthpieces ‘weep for AFRIC's injured race’, sing the praises of ‘Great WILBERFORCE’ (PLP, ii, pp. 209–10), and inveigh against ‘Vile Britons!’ (PLP, i, p. 145) and ‘lovers of blood’ who prop up the systems of enslavement. Iolo also took some practical steps to divest himself from the proceeds of slavery, vowing to refuse book subscriptions from Bristol enslavers, engaging in the boycott of West Indian sugar, and apparently refusing some of the proceeds of enslavement he could have received from his brothers in Jamaica. Though recognized in recent scholarship as a flawed adherent to his own abolitionist principles – particularly thanks to his eventual acceptance of an inheritance from his brothers’ Jamaican holdings – his bardic anti-slavery has become a foundational aspect of his modern reputation.

Some might interpret this neo-bardic abolitionism as a foretaste of the subsequent union between the Welsh national idea and the abolitionist cause. As Daniel G. Williams has argued, ‘an ethnic conception of Welshness developed in the nineteenth century, rooted in Nonconformity and temperance, with abolitionism also appearing as a fundamental political belief’. Still others might see Iolo's abolitionism as evidence of a Welsh tradition of identification with/as colonial victims (also explored in the previous chapter, pp. 171–2).