Reverend Sir, Since my last, I am favour’d with two Letters from you, one of Oct. 5th & the other of Dec. 15th by Dr. Boylston, whom I shall be so glad to serve upon all occasions on account of his own Merit, that he stands in no need of your Recommendation, tho’ that will always have the greatest weight with me. Besides these, I have received your large Packet of Letters to Dr. Woodward myself, which I have at times communicated to the Royal Society, & am commanded to return you their thanks for the several curious relations contain’d therein. I have likewise received several small Pieces publish’d by you upon different subjects, for which I return you my hearty thanks & beg you will accept of my account of Inoculation herewith enclos’d, as a poor return for so many favours. Give me leave to hope for some assistance from you with regard to my Proposal for Observations upon the Weather. If you cannot conveniently take in the whole, any part of it, as the Winds, Weather, and the heights of the Barometer, will be very acceptable. In the mean time, I have orders to make a request to you in the name of the Royal Society, on the following occasion.

In Phil. Trans. No 339 is published an Extract of one of your Letters to Mr. Waller, containing the following remarkable passage.

The weekly chronicle as a combat weapon Carmen Dolores was the pseudonym of Emília Moncorvo Bandeira de Melo (São Paulo, 11 March 1852 – Rio de Janeiro, 16 August 1910), a writer from Rio de Janeiro of aristocratic descent, the great-niece of the viscount of Sepetiba, who had been minister of state and senator of the empire, and daughter of Carlos Honório de Figueiredo, a member of the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute, a scientific institution supported by Dom Pedro II. Her first son, from her marriage in 1867 to Jerônimo Bandeira de Melo, was baptised by Minister João Alfredo, and the Bandeira de Melo family had lived with Joaquim Nabuco, the baron of Cotegipe, the viscount of Saboia, and the baron of Sousa Lima, as well as frequenting the imperial residences. Her children were students at the traditional Pedro II school. Despite her express interest in culture in general and literature in particular, which may have been partly the result of the upbringing typical of her social class, she decided to publish her writings late in life, having debuted with Gradações, a book of short stories, in 1897, at the age of forty-five.

After making sparse contributions to periodicals, Carmen Dolores achieved genuine public prominence when she was invited by journalist Alcindo Guanabara to write the weekly chronicle for the morning newspaper O País (Rio de Janeiro, 1884–1934), one of the most important Brazilian periodicals, and a bastion of the governments of the First Republic. This was the most traditional type of chronicle in Brazilian journalism and had been practised in the 1850s by pioneers Francisco Otaviano and José de Alencar, who were expected to provide humorous commentary on the main events of the past week in all fields: politics, behaviour, festivities, social and artistic events, book releases, police events, etc.

Imperialism came to the region as a hydra with many different heads: it came as the warlordism of buccaneers of the frontier zone of global trade; in the 1870s it came with officials of an Egyptian state inspired by European models and whose representatives were often Europeans. It came in the shape of missionaries, who were preaching the gospel and were trading in political influence and even arms; and it came with scientific explorers, who were often rather adventurers than scientists. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, it came as a hybrid being of the chartered company, half colonial state, half capitalist enterprise. Finally, it first evolved into a colonial state in the figure of a man who had incorporated all these roles for much of the time: Emin Pasha, an explorer turned into the representative of the Egyptian state, who finally became the first German colonial official in 1890 when he established a German outpost at Lake Victoria in 1890.

This multiheaded hydra was what interlacustrine elites had to deal with. Its contours were not always clear, its agenda ambivalent and hard to assess. As we have seen, interlacustrine societies were already in the midst of a profound transformation caused by the rebalancing of the regional power system and the growing engagement in international trade. The underlying argument of this chapter is that regional politics played a decisive part in African reactions to the arrival and different incarnations of the colonial hydra. In the 1870s, when the Egyptians tried to impose themselves as a new hegemon, Buganda was still at the height of its power.

In 1555, Mary I – the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, and first Queen regnant of England – appeared to be pregnant with her first heir. At this moment, a few years after her coronation, the need to produce heirs was urgent for Mary, who was now in her late thirties. Royal and noble women faced significant pressures to reproduce in early-modern England, because their central duty was to continue the family line and ensure legitimate heirs, preferably male ones. This pressure was intensified for Mary because her reign was perceived by many as illegitimate. There was strong political anxiety surrounding Mary's accession to the throne and her rule, as she was the first woman to rule England since Empress Matilda's failed reign in the twelfth century. Her enthronement was the subject of much criticism, owing to the fact that female rule was seen as unnatural. This was epitomised by the Scottish Protestant minister John Knox's well-known polemical tract, published in 1558, where Knox described female rule as ‘a thing most repugnant to nature’. Not only was Mary a woman, she was also Catholic, and heavily criticised for her role in the persecution of Protestants, as well as her controversial marriage to Prince Philip of Spain, whom many feared was a ‘potential conqueror and tyrant’. Historians suggest that Mary may have been able to quell the criticism and anxiety surrounding her reign with the birth of a male heir. As Carol Levin contends, when Mary took the throne in October 1553 she was unmarried and in her late thirties, thus, a marriage and procreation were central to her being seen as rightful ruler in the eyes of the Privy Council and the public.

In a cave in Bárðardalr, in the middle of Grettis saga, a duel takes place between Grettir ‘the Strong’ or ‘the Outlaw’ and a giant whose weapon is called a heptisax. Grettir has already fought a monster before this one. A few days earlier in a house nearby at Sandhaugar, he wrestled all night with a troll-wife who had abducted a man from there on Christmas Eve in each of the two years before. Grettir pursued this monster to the edge of a gorge, where he lopped off her arm at the shoulder with his weapon, a sax or long cutting knife, whereupon she toppled into the river. Now, with the priest of the parish Grettir has followed her trail back to the same place. Diving sixty feet into the water below and then up behind a mighty waterfall, Gretttir climbs into a cave to see a ‘jǫtunn ógurliga mikill’ (‘monstrously big giant’), clearly the troll-wife's partner or dependent, sitting by a log fire:

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.

I have spent a great deal of time detailing the widespread and deeply engrained association of the north with evil and opposition to the Christian world. Yet as we have just seen with the west, the general associations of the cardinal points were never simply determinative. Instead, these spatial systems provided a conceptual vocabulary that allowed authors to conceptualise and describe the world in which they lived. As research over the last forty years has stressed, identity construction is an inherently contextual and multi-faceted process, and this is no less true for spatial identities than it is for the ethnic identities that previous research has largely focused on. With the west we saw how space could provide a stage for moral, political and religious activity as well as a framework to imbue this activity with prophetic meaning. But space could also serve to ground identities of origin, be it geographical, genealogical or ethnic. It is in this context that new evaluations of the north appear in the early twelfth century.

With the progressive Christianisation of the north and its opening to the Latin world over the tenth and eleventh centuries, it was perhaps only a matter of time before these more immediately northern peoples would seek to reframe their geography of origin in a positive light. This chapter will consider one such reevaluation: the etymology of Normannus as ‘north man’ and its sudden adoption among historians within the Duchy of Normandy from the mid-1130s.