Vessel Key: A=American, B=British, D=Danish, Dch=Dutch, H=Hamburg, M=Malay, P=Portuguese Tonnage and date of mishap are approximate.

poet, whose work had already attained written form by the late fourteenth century. He was the author of a ríma in honour of St Óláfr Haraldsson, which shares pride of place with Einarr Skúlason's GeisliVII [Light beam] on the same subject at the beginning of the compilation Flateyjarbók, generally dated c. 1387–95 and strongly associated with the intellectual milieu of late fourteenth-century northern Iceland. Einarr was also skilled in the composition of poetry in skaldic metres, like another probable fourteenth-century ríma poet, Kálfr Hallsson, the composer of Kátrínardrápa [Drápa about Catherine] (Kálfr KátrVII), comprising fifty-one hrynhent stanzas on the passion of St Catherine of Alexandria. By his own admission (Kálf Kátr 51/4), Kálfr was a monk, while, as we have seen, Einarr was not an ecclesiastic but a high-ranking lawman for the north and west of Iceland, who was most probably in close contact with the leading churchmen in the northern diocese of Hólar, and doubtless in that connection, as argued in Chapter 1, was involved in composing poetry to support the case for Guðmundr Arason's canonization.

The Zemene Mesafint (1769–1853), also known as the Era of the Princes, alternately as the Era of the Judges, was a time of incessant war and constant peacebuilding. The anomaly, as will be argued, has everything to do with trying to preserve the state. Those who challenged the emperor sought to revitalize the imperial court that they perceived was weak; those who supported the emperor professed loyalty to the man but more so to the institutions and political alliances he represented. Neither desired wholesale change, for eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Ethiopia was secluded and content in being so. Scholars have fixated on the struggles of the Zemene Mesafint: its military alliances, mobilizations, movement of armies, wanton plundering of the countryside for foodstuffs, and fierce battles with grossly high casualty counts. Their conclusion appears obvious, that war and the Zemene Mesafint are synonyms. In the recesses of their works, though, are indications that peacebuilding was also of paramount concern. Careful reading of the battles shows that the same cast of malcontent aristocrats and provincial rases challenged each other and the emperor time and time again. An obvious question is, how could this be?

Janáček's Sinfonietta had its world premiere on 26 June 1926, and this book coincides with its hundredth birthday. Given that the Sinfonietta is Janáček's most famous and successful orchestral work, it's perhaps surpris¬ing that this is the first book entirely devoted to it – particularly as its five movements represent such a thrilling microcosm of the composer's late musical style – but its centenary provided an ideal opportunity.

After informal discussions at the Brno Janáček Festival in November 2024, we decided to work together on a volume that would place the Sinfonietta in the context of Janáček's other compositions (Prologue), evaluate its inspiration, sources and first publication (Chapter 1 and its supplement listing sources), document its early performance history and reception (Chapters 2 and 3) and describe its subsequent success on records and CDs (Chapter 4). We were very fortunate that Jakub Hrůša was happy to share his insights on conducting the work, as well as considering the interpretations of some of his distinguished predecessors (Chapter 5). The structure and instrumentation of the Sinfonietta are both idiosyncratic and highly original, and they are examined in detail in the musical commentary (Chapter 6). An appendix discusses scores annotated by three conductors who performed the work during Janáček's lifetime (two of them in the composer's presence): František Neumann, Otto Klemperer and Henry Wood. Finally, the book includes a comprehensive discography.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the help and support of friends, colleagues and institutions.

First and foremost, our warmest thanks go to Jakub Hrůša. He has taken an enthusiastic interest in this project from the start, was extremely gen¬erous with his time for the ‘conductor's perspective’ (Chapter 5), and has kindly written the Foreword

In 1553 Catholic England staged a successful counter-coup to block the installation of the Protestant claimant Jane Grey and made Mary Tudor queen. Five years later, when Catholic renewal was abruptly cut short by Mary's premature death, Catholic England failed to block the succession of the Protestant Elizabeth and the immediate, non-violent, transfer of power to ministers of the opposite tendency. If history is the circulation of elites, 1558–9 was the uncontested recovery of power by survivors of the ‘evangelical’ political elite of Edward's reign, the men of 1552. By the narrowest of parliamentary margins and a degree of sharp practice, the Marian settlement was then reversed and a Protestant religion of state re-established. Enforcing this settlement on communities attached to the ‘old faith’ substantially revivifed by Marian restoration and reform became the principal domestic challenge of Elizabeth's reign. As leading evangelicals returning from Geneva, Strasbourg, or Zurich, were the frst to testify, England was still a nation overwhelmingly Catholic at its grassroots. Tere would be no swift Protestant walkover. Contrary to the parallel French experience, for a decade both sides settled for restrained hostilities, a kind of sitzkrieg, ‘phoney war’, in contemporary parlance a ‘hodge podge’.

In the sixteenth year, Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury and legate of the apos¬tolic see, held a general council in London in the middle of Lent [18 March 1151], at which King Stephen, his son Eustace, and the nobility of England were present, and the whole of that council was anguished with new appeals. Now appeals were not in use in England until Henry, bishop of Winchester, while he was legate, brutally introduced them, to his own disadvantage.

Henry of Huntingdon's description of the introduction of appeals to papal authority in England is known to be an exaggeration motivated by his disapproval of Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester (1129–71). Appeals had been made to the papal curia from England during the reign of Henry I (1100–35). What his remark reflects, however, is an increase in appeals made to the pope during King Stephen's reign. Typically attributed to the condition of the kingdom arising from the civil war, histo¬rians have used appeal as an illustration of both royal weakness and the increased strength of the papacy. What has been neglected is what followed many of these appeals: the delegation of papal jurisdiction to local churchmen as papal judg¬es-delegate. Stubbs argued long ago that the civil war of Stephen's reign allows us to see the underlying realities of the twelfth-century world. He was talking about royal-aristocratic relations, but an investigation into papal judges-delegate in Stephen's reign illuminates similar complexities and can contribute both to our understanding of the early years of this new office and of the reign itself.

Introduction

Due to disease, unfavourable climatic conditions, and political unrest, the late Middle Ages was a time of contraction for European agriculture. Reduced demand for bread grains caused farming to become less intensive and more oriented towards animal production. This is even more true for the North Sea Lowlands, which in addition to all these problems also had to deal with the consequences of peat shrinkage, coastal erosion, and storm surges. Changes in agricultural technology and productivity remained limited in this period. There was considerable change in property relations and holding size in the countryside, however, and the more abundant sources of the late Middle Ages and sixteenth century enable tracking of those changes for several regions. For water management these changes were crucial, because the landowners, and especially the larger ones, determined the way in which water management was organised as well as who was liable for maintenance. Therefore, this chapter on late medieval agriculture will focus mostly on property relations.

During the late medieval and early modern periods, farming in the North Sea Lowlands went through profound changes. Until the sixteenth century unspecialised smallholdings mostly producing for subsistence were predominant. Then, here earlier, there later, larger farms producing for the market and employing wage labourers emerged. Often these large farms were run by tenants, but sometimes also by owner-occupiers or a combination of both. The rise of this class of independent, commercial producers had a profound impact on rural society.

Introduction

The Second Reclamation strengthened and accelerated a process that was already discernible in several regions in the late Middle Ages: the development towards large-scale, commercial, ‘capitalist’ farming. Of course, this tendency was strongest in the areas that had been reclaimed after c. 1550 and where new property relations emerged. Therefore, they will receive most attention, but the important question of whether this development also reached earlier reclaimed wetland regions such as the Holland–Utrecht fenlands will not be neglected. For this period, the development can be traced in more detail than for the Middle Ages, because, for the Dutch/Flemish regions in particular, data on holding size and distribution of landownership becomes much more abundant. This provides an opportunity to examine the progress of large-scale commercial farming in the wetlands and its causes. In particular, the case of Holland is interesting in this respect. According to Bas van Bavel property relations in the long run tended to be stable, although Holland in his view, was the exception to this rule, due to an impressive shift which took place there towards urban landownership. He assumes that those urban landowners introduced capitalist farming. Or is Jan de Vries right and did the ‘rural population [play] an active and major role’ in the transformation of the countryside? Five regions will be discussed: Flanders, Zeeland and the South Holland Islands; Holland; Guelders and Overijssel; the Wadden coast; and the English marshes and fens. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the question of whether the developments in these lowland areas can be characterised as the emergence of agrarian capitalism.

In May 1677, James Houblon, a London merchant, wrote to his friend Samuel Pepys about the practices of officers in King Charles II's navy in the Mediterranean. He complained about excessive drinking, feasting, gaming and swearing within the fleet. In particular Houblon warned that the ‘Kings ships may not be made Baudyhouses nor the Captaines publiquely carry and entertaine their whores on bord As some of them have formerly Done’ and that this behaviour caused ‘Greate scandall of our religion and Government’ in the region. At sea, away from scrutiny by their superiors, some naval officers believed they could act as they wished. This 1677 complaint was not the first or last time that allegations surfaced about inappropriate interactions between seamen and women who visited, or travelled on, seventeenth-century British warships. As many sailors adopted what Bernard Capp describes as a ‘casual attitude to marriage’ and an ‘opportunist attitude to sex’, incidents of this type are hardly surprising. The crews of Stuart warships received leave to go ashore with reasonable frequency, and J. D. Davies argues that their sex lives were ‘in the main, confined to the shore’. Studies of mariners’ heterosexual sexual activities generally concentrate on their time in port towns rather than at sea. Research into homosexuality and sailors, on the other hand, such as by B. R. Burg and Seth LeJacq, focuses more on instances at sea. As Houblon's letter demonstrates, British sailors engaged in sexual relationships with women who spent time on their vessels, and the propriety of some of these interactions was questionable.

This essay seeks to examine some of the different types of sexual liaison that took place on Stuart men-of-war. It begins by looking at the women who went on board these ships and their connections to the crew members they called on.

In this article I offer a glance into the life of a composer in time of war, through a firsthand account of the genesis of my most recent album Resonating Voices, an art song collection in three sections for alto, baritone and piano, the digital release entitled Songs and Interludes of Love, Loss and Hope.

Background

The war caught me at a very busy time: the beginning of my second tenure as chair of the music department at the University of Haifa, which I established in 1995. The season promised a wealth of international activity with the Cleveland Orchestra, Brussels Chamber Orchestra, and London's Opera Holland Park as well as domestic projects with orchestras and chamber musicians. I was starting to work on several new commissions while continuing my life as a composer, teacher, husband, and father. The war changed everything. On October 7, 2024, the State of Israel was attacked. Within hours, the southern region of the country suffered catastrophic loss of life as the country entered what was to become the lengthiest war in its history. The harsh reality of living under fire is difficult to explain to those who haven't experienced it. Besides the uncertainties regarding the safety of family, friends, and colleagues, any attempt to create a normal routine has been nearly impossible. A major factor in this new reality, up until the January 2025 ceasefire (this article was written at the end of February 2025), was that air raid sirens sounded three to four times a day as missiles were launched from Gaza, Syria, Lebanon and Iran, which created a nervous anticipation of the next interruption at work and at home, every day and every night at all hours.

As John Tolan's Saracens demonstrates, medieval Latin Christendom expressed varied and ultimately ambivalent attitudes towards the world of Islam. In historical terms, medieval Christians struggled to rationalise the expansion of Muslim control into Asia, Africa and Europe, while maintaining their belief that God's will determined victories. Despite this experience, late medieval Latin Christendom's representations of Islam tended to develop independently from personal encounters. These latter, fictional representations produced stereotypes that Suzanne Conklin Akbari relates to Edward Said's Orientalism, an interpretive framework that explains how human agency circumscribes the East and its occupants in order to define the West. However, Akbari also notes that some rather significant disparities emerge in a comparison of medieval with modern Orientalism: despite all its differences, the Middle Ages’ East existed as a point of origin for the whole world (in the Garden of Eden) and as a physical and temporal end (during the Apocalypse). When reevaluating Orientalism himself in 2001, Said noted that Islam cannot readily be located as an external other; it emerged within the geographical borders formed by classical antiquity.