Before the discovery of ‘animal electricity’ by Galvani in 1780, the chemical battery of Volta in 1800 or the galvanic research of Ritter in the early 1800s (see Chapter 1), the German medical doctor Franz Anton Mesmer (1734– 1815) was engrossed in an area of scientific research that seemingly connected physics, metaphysics, spirituality and the healing power of magnets, resulting in a holistic system of medical care known as ‘animal magnetism’ (see Figure 2.1). The core of his philosophy was that the cosmos was saturated with an invisible magnetic fluid, what Galvani would later call ‘animal electricity’. This fluid heavily influenced all life and could be encouraged and strengthened by the use of magnets. Mesmer proposed that if an individual was physically or mentally ill, then there was a disruption or imbalance in their magnetic flow. With the application of magnets on the various ‘poles’ of the body, the simple touch of his hands and the penetrating gaze of his eyes, Mesmer could induce a ‘crisis’ (i.e., the turning point of an illness or a high fever) in the patient, which would restore the individual back to health. Along with the use of magnets, music – performed by a glass harmonica, a high wind instrument, a coloratura soprano or a fortepiano – was one of the chief agents needed to bring about a crisis within the patient. The combination of the high-pitched music and the magnets would often cause the patient to seize up violently and then collapse into a deep sleep, a ‘critical sleep’, whereupon the patient would be placed in a mattress-lined room known as the ‘chambre de crises’ and find there a restorative period of unconsciousness in order to reemerge cured (see Figure 2.2).

These two quotations, the first by Suzanne Necker (1737–94), the prominent French salonniere and mother of Germaine de Staël (1766–1817), and the second by Joseph Fiévée in a review of her daughter's novel Delphine (1802), pertinently evoke the elusiveness of the concept of patriotism. Suzanne Necker criticises a patriotism that is nothing but zealous, neglectful of the basic principles of human society: humanity and sympathy. In contrast, Fiévée contends that cosmopolites, such as Germaine de Staël, lack true sentiments of patriotism as mere ‘citizens of nowhere’.

The writer and journalist Fiévée was a pragmatic conservative ideologue whose post-revolutionary politics were supportive of Napoleon, and thus he opposed everything de Staël stood for: liberty of nations and freedom of citizens. Indeed, in her writing and political activism, de Staël promoted variants on patriotism and nationalism based on these principles.

The two prefatory quotations also indicate women's keen involvement in debates around patriotism. It is a central argument of this study that aristocratic women played a key role in eighteenth-century European social and political culture, moving the debate on patriotism out of the realm of abstract political philosophy or political rhetoric into the public sphere in the second half of the eighteenth century.

The Danish private trade had a number of distinguishing features. It resembled the British country trade and its relationship with the EIC insofar as the Danes operated in agreement and in parallel with their EIC equivalent, the Danish Asiatic Company, during the ‘boom years’ between 1772 and 1807. Unlike the British country trade, however, which, apart from special dispensation cases, was limited to operating between Asian ports east of the Cape of Good Hope, the Danish private trade operated freely between Europe and Asia. It was actually larger than the trade of the Danish Company itself: 271 private Danish East Indiamen set sail for the East between 1772 and 1807 compared with 132 Company vessels.

During the European wars of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Denmark adopted a policy of neutrality. British officials and trading houses, as well as British private traders themselves, took advantage of Danish neutrality in particular to circumvent the EIC monopoly and thus carry capital in the form of remittances, as well as cargo, back to Europe. Indeed, the British were involved so much through ownership in this ‘neutrality’ that it has even been referred to as ‘camouflage’. Sometimes Indian Agency Houses owned the ships but sailed them under neutral Danish colours with Danish subjects as sham owners. During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars this clandestine activity meant that British trade could be carried on with enemy-held territory such as Dutch Batavia, French Mauritius and Spanish Manila.

Bald's Leechbook i.35

XXXV. Be asweartedum 7 adeadedum lice. Sio adl cymð oftost of omum æfter adle welme on weg gewitenre weorþeð hwilum lic asweartod. þonne of þam frum welme sio adl mid cealdum þingum biþ to celanne 7 to lacnianne. 7 þonne sio adl cymð utan butan sweotolum tacne. þonne scealt þu ærest þa hæto celan mid cellendre getrifuladre mid hlafes cruman ofþendum mid ceald wætre oþþe mid þy selfan seawe þære cellendre oþþe mid æges þy hwite oþþe mid wine | oþþe mid oþrum þingum þam þe þæt ilce mægen hæbbe. Þonne se welma 7 sio hæto sie aweg gewiten 7 se dæl þas lichoman sie gewended hwon oððe blæc oþþe won oþþe swilces hwæt scearpa þonne þa stowe þonne betst þu ða. 7 drige mid onlegene swa swa mon on weax hlafe 7 of wearmum bere. 7 of swelcum þingum wyrc. Nis him blod to lætanne on ædre ac ma hira man sceal tilian mid wyrtdrencum utyrnendum oþþe spiwlum oþþe migolum mid þy þu meaht clænsian þæt omcyn 7 þæs geallan coðe þa readan. ge þeah þæt yfel cumen ne sie of þara omena welme swa þeah deah swilcum mannum se scearpa wyrtdrenc. Gif þa omihtan wannan þing oþþe þa readan syn utan cumen of wundum oþþe of sniþingum oððe of slegum sona þu þa þing lacna mid scearpinge 7 onlegena beres æfter þære wisan þe læcas cunnan wel þu hit betst.

Þonne scealt þu sona eal þæt deade 7 þæt ungefelde of asniþan oþ þæt cwice lic. þæt þær na nuht þæs deadan lices to lafe ne sie þæs þe ær ne isen ne fyr gefelde. Æfter þon lacnige mon þa dolh swa þu þone dæl þe þonne git hwilce hwega gefelnesse hæbbe.

To

The Reverend Dr. Mather,

At Boston, in New England.

Sir—

By Mr. Gale, returning to New England, I take the Opportunity to Salute you: and pay my Acknowledgements for your very civil Letter of the later End of last Summer. I must likewise assure you that, sooner, or later, I ever answer your Letters: & generally delivered my Answers to Mr. Dummer; so that I was not in Fault for so long Silence & Intermission. Then, as to what you Say of your Curiosa Americana, after I had carefully perused them my Self, I delivered them to the Roy. Society; that they might print any thing out of them, that they judgd proper, in the Philosophical Transactions. But the Editors, since Mr. Wallers Death, are very neglectfull & partial; by which the Society suffers not a little: and indeed things are very low with them at present. For my own Part I have not been wanting in Doing you Justice: and makeing the Curious here sensible of your great Diligence there. As to my own Studyes, as they find great Approbation from the Ingenuous, I am zealous in the Prosecution of them, so far as my Business in Physick will give way: & my Medical Undertakings, as well as the Natural History of the Earth, are ever going on. By what you write, you seem to have forgot how near I am to supplying all the Defects of my first Essay, in my Observations & Reflections in Answer to Camerarius, 8°.

Medieval Clothing and Textiles continues to showcase a selection of new research from a range of disciplines. This volume presents material which ranges in date from the fifth to the beginning of the seventeenth century. The geographical span extends from Scotland through to present-day Germany, France, and Italy. Authors use literary and archival material, visual sources including illuminated manuscripts and panel paintings, and—of course—archaeological evidence.

The opening essay, by Alexandra Lester-Makin, explores the sensory relationships people of early medieval Britain and Ireland had with textiles. It investigates how early medieval perceptions and culture(s) affected the ways in which people understood different fabrics and used them. To do so, the paper uses sensory archaeology as a vehicle for unlocking sensory interactions between human and fabric and in order to learn more about early medieval society's understanding of its world(s). Firstly, it introduces the available textiles from the period and outlines how they have been studied to date. It then explores the early medieval sensorium. Finally, a discussion of several case studies demonstrates how this fresh scholarly approach can give nuanced insights into our understanding of textile perception and use in Britain and Ireland between 450 and 1100.

Tania Kolarik examines the thirteenth-century green-and-white marble intarsia motifs on the facades of the Cathedral of San Martino and the church of San Michele in Foro in Lucca. She focuses on their likely inspiration by the textiles designed, made, traded, and worn within the city. Kolarik argues that the unified building campaign of the two facades functioned to assert the power of the bishop and cathedral canons within the old city center, organized around the cathedral, and the new city center at San Michele and the adjoining municipal palace.

It might seem preordained that I, born and raised on a marshland farm in Zeeland Flanders, and descendant of a family that had farmed in the reclaimed marshes since 1667, would end up writing a history of farming in the North Sea Lowlands. However, my career as a historian has been a succession of – mostly lucky – coincidences and for decades I never imagined I would ever write a book like this. Yet, over the years two themes kept popping up in my research, agriculture and drainage, and by 2015 I realised they might be combined in a book. The inspiration came to me during a workshop in Ascona organised by Gérard Béaur. I am grateful to Gérard for that opportunity. The good food and the great view of Lago Maggiore may have contributed to the inspiration.

Once I started working it became apparent that although I knew a lot already, I needed to know even more, and so a period of nine years of voracious reading and not always enthusiastic writing ensued. I could never have accomplished that alone and many people are to thank for the fact that I managed to bring it to a good end. Two people need to be mentioned especially. Firstly, Ewout Frankema, who encouraged me to write this book, read much of the manuscript, and let me work on it for all these years. Secondly, Petra van Dam, who patiently read all my texts, kept me on the right track and urged me to go on when I felt like giving up.

It is no secret that documentary forgeries abound in the archives surviving from the early and high Middle Ages. There is a large historiography which examines examples of forgery and explains them in their local contexts. In this essay, I want to do something slightly different, to think about some of the ideas we use for understanding forgery and the assumptions we bring to them. For there is a dominant model for understanding documentary forgeries, and it has both shaped thinking about them and helped to decide what kinds of forgery get studied. The model is, of course, that in Michael Clanchy's seminal From Memory to Written Record, first published in 1979 and with a third edition in 2013. It is among the most read and most cited works on English medieval history over the last half century, and is consistently prominent in works on forgery.

The Clanchy model starts with an old debate from the first half of the twentieth century: most forgeries were produced in churches, so how could people with religious commitments and beliefs – monks, nuns, and priests – produce documents which were fraudulent, and which they knew were fraudulent? Clanchy's response was that much forgery was more subtly linked to the idea of fraud: ‘In England the greatest period for forging documents was the century after the Norman Conquest, when the old houses of Black monks had to convince the incomers of their ancient dignities and privileges.’

Interpretations surrounding the Battle of Segale fall into a deep sinkhole in Ethiopian historiography. Briefly stated, the Battle of Segale marks the beginning of Ras Tafari/Emperor Haile Selassie's fifty-eight years at the helm of the Ethiopian state, and, not coincidentally, the end of Lij Iyasu's brief interregnum. A coup d’état by the leading dignitaries including Lij Iyasu's second cousin, Ras Tafari, brought him down but not without a fight. For decades historiography reflected Ras Tafari/Emperor Haile Selassie's triumphalism arguing that Lij Iyasu's indiscretions, administrative mismanagement, and apostasy justified regime change. As new primary sources are unearthed, a reappraisal of Lij Iyasu's politics and administration sketches a different picture, one in which he assiduously pursued modern tax and customs reforms to ensure a solvent national treasury as well as attempts to sever the religious tie between church and state in order to bring about reconciliation between Christians and Muslims. Through a twenty-first century lens those pursuits appear prescient. The fault line separating the pro-Lij Iyasu camp from the pro-Tafari camp centers on a reassessment of the coup d’état, the Battle of Segale and Lij Iyasu's treatment afterwards. This chapter treads on firmer ground focusing on measures the coup-makers took to validate their rule by conforming to conventional political practices, ensuring economic stability and following accepted restorative justice modalities.

One further issue, the Battle of Segale was the last time the Ethiopian government resorted to using traditional forms of restorative justice exclusively to settle a dispute that easily could have torn the country apart. As Chapters 6 and 7 will demonstrate, in subsequent decades appropriated Western legal systems were used to administer justice at the expense of socio-political reconciliation.

The Reverend David Chamba was a man we all loved. In our little town of Mundemba in Cameroon, good deeds did not go unnoticed. Especially by the children. Everywhere Father Chamba passed on his mini-scooter motor bike children would scream out his name, or rather his title which had become his name.

‘Father … Father … Father…!’

The children would scream and wave and Father would wave back at them in double measure, smiling all the way through. Many times we worried if the children would not bring bloodguilt upon our heads. What if the reverend caused an accident trying to wave with one hand and control his motor bike with the other? What is all this waving at the priest for? The children really made us angry sometimes. They were distracting the man of God from meditating on the message of comfort he was going to deliver to the spiritually disabled in our neighbourhood.

Father visited our neighbourhood at least every fortnight. He was always carrying a message of hope to someone. You see, there were many deaths in our community. People died all the time. Ours was a town where witches and wizards contested for supremacy. And we had come to accept that there would always be casualties. Even when children did not die mysteriously at noon time or old men just never woke up from their sleep, people still needed comfort. Life was hard. Business was bad. The rainy season had stayed for too long. We were getting irritated. Father came around to make us smile. We felt less agitated after listening to his words, and we complained less about the daily increase in the price of salt.

This is a book about a teacher, written by one who is himself a teacher. Teaching, the act or art of it, thus figures centrally in what follows— though it is by no means the sole concern. Some readers may even find various other matters treated here to be of greater interest or value. Still, there's no way around it: Teaching is an important subject throughout these pages, and the very word is plain. One could even call it dull. In a world where the only actions that truly count are those whose effects are by some means countable, the actions of a teacher count for little. Of course, everybody likes to talk up teachers: admire their dedication and laud their sacrifices, occasionally even credit their influence. More often, though, people like to blame teachers: for being too tough, for not being tough enough, for not making learning “fun,” or for why the US ranks just below the Slovak Republic on the latest PISA results.

University professors have it significantly better, especially those whose field of research makes them attractive to corporate sponsorship, or those whose expert opinions on matters of the day are sought by the media. These scholars reap the rewards of their profession, where success is measured in terms of the number of publications, grants, fellowships, prizes, and conference papers delivered. Such distinctions bring career advancement and higher salaries. All this belongs to the business of education, however, and may have little or nothing to do with teaching. Good teaching is generally the least rewarded activity at major academic institutions today.

A young woman clasps her hands in prayer, embodying piety and an elegant symmetry that displays her fashionable gown, made from a green-and-gold patterned silk with tight-fitted, set-in sleeves embellished with buttons from above the elbow to the wrist, as well as a red band of trim decorated with gold floral swirls along the neckline. However, the body wearing these garments is crafted of polychromed walnut, not flesh and blood. She represents one of the Virgin Martyrs of Cologne and served as a reliquary container for bones associated with the cult (fig. 3.1). The sculpture was produced in the mid-fourteenth century and is now in the collection of the Schnutgen Museum in Cologne, where it is identified with the record A 974. It is one of hundreds of wooden reliquary busts made for the relics of Cologne's Virgin Martyrs, although the half-length torso with arms and hands is a more unusual form. The majority of busts extend only to the shoulders.

The Virgin Martyrs of Cologne did not always number eleven thousand or follow a leader named Ursula. The canonical number of eleven thousand virgin martyrs and the designation of St. Ursula as their leader gained acceptance in the centuries after their mid-fourth-century martyrdom near Cologne. The earliest descriptions of the massacre of an unknown number of virgin martyrs came from a dedicatory plaque installed in the early fifth century by a devotee named Clematius who restored the basilica dedicated to their martyrdom.

Mindful of the identity created for them in London and the part played in enabling this migration by Sir Alexander Cairnes, members of the SPCK and the Whigs, it is possible to find Palatine families in Ireland outside of those who settled in known colonies in Limerick, Carlow and Wexford. After all, there was little to prevent migrants joining the multiplicity of nonconforming churches which sprang up in Ireland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For migrants whose orthodoxy was Reformed an easy alternate identity available was Huguenot. This was an option taken in New York in 1725 by Daniel Champenois, one of the Palatine signatories of the September 1709 petition to Henry Boyle, who along with his wife Marguerite, became members of the French church of New York. Although registers of the Irish Huguenot Churches suggest that ministers were keen to identify migrants as a separate subset of Palatine ‘other’, at least initially, it seems likely that over time Palatine families became integrated into Huguenot faith communities.

Huguenots fleeing persecution in France found an unlikely refuge in Ireland. As early as 1677 the 1st duke of Ormond encouraged 500 families of Walloon and French weavers to settle in Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary. A draft agreement dated 1698 survives between Lord Massereene and Baron De Luttichau for the settlement of continental Protestants on Massereene's Monaghan estates. Massereene later appeared on the list of gentlemen who drew Palatines to his estates in 1710, purportedly retaining five families of twenty drawn the following year.