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This volume presents the papers of the Admiral of the Fleet Sir Alexander Milne (1806–1896), who did not see action in war, but whose service career can be viewed as a microcosm of the Navy during the years 1815–1900, the so-called Pax Britannica, and whose papers illustrate how the Navy was employed on behalf of the liberal state. With a substantial introduction and notes. Publications of the Navy Records Society. Vol 162. No jacket.

With its high casualty count, Fromelles (19–20 July 1916) is generally considered a failure resulting from incompetent British generalship. By analysing the process of planning the battle, Lee gives a more nuanced picture of the command structure’s strengths and weaknesses.

Looking at developments in New York city’s character and identity prior to the outbreak of the First World War, and at how the war challenged and changed its politics, economics and citizens, this study demonstrates ‘the varied ways in which the conflict can be regarded as present in New York from August 1914 to its difficult denouement and remembrance’.

Concentrating on the late fourth and early fifth centuries, Vuolanto’s study examines how the rise of Christianity and, with it, asceticism raised issues of sexuality, marriage, family and celibacy, challenging the traditional norms and practices of a culture in which to remain unmarried had not been an option.

With 14 essays discussing topics including Thomas Hobbes’s atheism, definitions of blasphemy in the 18th century, and William Wollaston’s The Religion of Nature Delineated (1722), this volume argues that, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the contentious terms ‘atheism’ and ‘deism’ involved fine distinctions that have not always been preserved by later scholars.

While Andrew Melville is usually known as a leader of the radical wing of Scottish Protestantism, this volume of nine essays questions that reputation and shifts the focus to his intellectual contribution to the development of neo-Latin culture in early modern Britain. Appendices contain an edited text of Melville’s Conjuratio Pulverea (1605) and a bibliography of his works.

Tracing the development of antiquarian taste in France during the reigns of François I and Henri II, this study begins in the decades before the French took an interest in Italian antiquities, between 1500 and 1530, and includes chapters on French diplomats in Italy and how antiquarian art and artefacts were received at court and by artists and writers.

Exploring what it meant to live in a world in which Satan’s presence was believed to be ubiquitous, this study recreates the role of the Devil in the mental worlds of the Scottish people in the period between the Reformation and the late 18th century; in so doing, Michelle Brock raises questions of the relationship between evil and humanity that cut across time and space. St Andrews Studies in Reformation History.

Reprinted from scholarly journals, these 16 articles explore the history of the Jewish minority of Ashkenaz during the High Middle Ages, and include several studies illustrating aspects of the ‘Jewish-Christian symbiosis’. Variorum Collected Studies. No jacket.

Offering a fresh examination of Caesar’s Commentarii de Bello Civili, the only first-hand account of the civil war by one of the protagonists, Ayelet Peer examines how Caesar viewed his own engagement in the war, his manipulation of events, and the ways in which he presented himself and his interpretation of the conflict.

In a collection of 14 essays, this volume deals with classical Arabic poetry, defined here as covering a period from as early as c.500 CE to the consolidation of the High Ἁbbāsid court poetry in the late fourth/tenth century. Beginning with a study of oral composition in pre-Islamic poetry, the topics discussed include the uses of the form quaṣīda, animal nomenclature, and Ibn al-Rūmī’s singing slave-girl. No jacket.

Originally presented at the Mellon-Sawyer Seminar in Oxford, 2009-2010, these 15 papers offer a new comparative study of conversion: to Christianity, traditionally seen as a spiritual; to Islam, widely thought of as implemented ‘by the sword’; and to Buddhism. The study examines the principles of conversion, how it was handled by the state, ‘human ambiguities’, and symbols and institutionalization, with a final chapter on the effect of religious change on Jerusalem.

Examining the experience of charity and the complex motivations that prompted charitable endeavour in the period c.1100 to 1650, this volume of 13 essays includes case studies relating to England, France and the Low Countries. The topics under discussion include charity towards lepers; bequests for the poor in 15th-century Norwich wills; monastic poor relief in late medieval England; and Huguenot charity in London.

This volume from the Medicine in the Medieval Mediterranean series comprises eleven essays ranging across time from pharmacology and toxicology at the court of Cleopatra VII to the possible use of ancient therapeutic information as a source for new pharmacological studies.

Elana Pavlovna Romanova was born Charlotte of Württemberg, a royal princess, in 1807; in 1823, aged 16, she went to Russia to marry the Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich. This biography describes the life of the grand duchess and her significant contributions to social welfare, medicine, science, music and the emancipation of serfs in 1861.

Presenting in full the correspondence between President Lyndon B Johnson and Harold Wilson over the four years between Wilson becoming Prime Minister in 1964 and LBJ leaving the White House in 1969, this volume illuminates the two leaders’ stated hopes of Anglo-American ‘close and friendly cooperation’ and how they were challenged by issues including the Vietnam War, Rhodesia, the Middle East, relations with the USSR and the Monetary crisis.

The nine studies in this volume broaden the understanding of the term ‘Bluestocking’ from its narrow origins in the 1750s, arguing that these women are a phenomenon of modernity that persists into the present day.

Over the course of the 16th century, the House of Guise rose from a provincial power to a dominant political player in France and other parts of Europe. In nine essays, this volume explores the most prominent of the Dukes of Guise, particularly Henry of Lorraine, and the ambition that drove them to make claims on the thrones of Jerusalem and Naples.

‘Everyone wanted a piece of Avicenna’, writes Dmitri Gutas, and in this collection of 17 articles he places the great Persian philosopher in historical, social and philosophical context as a framework for reading his philosophical works, but also to recover the ‘historical Avicenna’. Variorum Collected Studies. No jacket.

Sometimes referred to as magistrates’ courts, police courts in 19th-century Scotland dealt with around 85 percent of all civic and criminal offences and they were where urban dwellers were most likely to experience and interact with the law. This volume provides an institutional, social and cultural history of the courts’ establishment, development and functioning. .

As Bishop of London, then Archbishop of Canterbury, William Howley (1766–1848) was influential in church, educational and political reform. This study discusses the issues that he faced and explores his theological views in the context of the emerging Oxford Movement.

Illuminating tensions that lurked within the religious culture of a remote and unremarkable town, this book examines the events that provoked the friary trial of Körmend, when the Augustinian friars of the town were accused of drunkenness, sexual abuse and liturgical negligence, then driven out and replaced by Franciscans in the name of ‘cloister reform’.

Robert J Knect, the biographer of Francis I, extends his study of the French king with this collection of 17 essays, seeking to illuminate certain major aspects of the reign (1515–47), including the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the early Reformation in France, and the king’s favourite residence, Fontainebleau. Linen covers. No jacket.

This third volume of The Pacific World: Land, Peoples and History of the Pacific, 1500–1900 brings together 26 papers written between 1817 and 1994 and covering the history of the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands from first colonization to the spread of European colonial rule in the late 19th century. No jacket

With topics ranging across art, architecture and military and naval matters, including the Portuguese Orders’ involvement in oceanic navigation, these 27 papers reflect the wealth, power and breadth of influence of the military orders throughout medieval Europe. Proceedings of the Fourth Conference on the history of the Military Orders, 2005.

Bringing together 27 articles, this volume from The International Library of Essays on Military History covers the final two centuries of medieval warfare in sections on military theory and practice; late medieval armies; war and late medieval society; popular rebellions; crusading and the Ottoman threat; changes in military technology; and a final essay by Richard Bean, ‘War and the Birth of the Nation State’ (1973). No jacket.

In 1546, at a crucial point in the history of the navy, Anthony Anthony, an officer of the ordnance, compiled a complete visual record of the royal ships in three separate rolls. In this volume, all 58 ship illustrations are reproduced in colour, with their accompanying texts on the facing pages. There is also a full transcript of an inventory of the King’s ships from 1514 and essays on topics including Anthony’s artworks and the Ordnance.

In Britain, William III is mostly remembered in relation to the overthrow of James II. This book considers his career holistically, explaining that his acceptance of the English throne arose from a need to strengthen Holland against the might of France.

This study provides a survey and description of the extant sources for the Use of Hereford (the liturgical customs peculiar to Hereford Cathedral), one of the principal diocesan liturgies of medieval England, and one that exemplified local expression of the Roman rite. No jacket.

With case studies ranging from alchemist John Dee at the Elizabethan Court to popular pamphlets describing witches’ sexual behaviour, this interdisciplinary collection explores how early modern ideas about the supernatural threatened authority but were also used to reinforce social norms.

Between the late 9th and mid-14th centuries, the culture of Latin Christendom spread outwards in all directions from the heartland of Western Europe, despite resistance at the frontiers, the Black Death and the growth of Islam. The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000–1500 series focuses on this process within geographical areas, tracing the origins of the later era of global expansion. Volume 11 begins with essays on the Crusades before going on to discuss the missionaries’ discovery of Asia and missions within the Mongol Empire. No jacket.

Between the late 9th and mid-14th centuries, the culture of Latin Christendom spread outwards in all directions from the heartland of Western Europe, despite resistance at the frontiers, the Black Death and the growth of Islam. The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000–1500 series focuses on the process within geographical areas, tracing the origins of the later era of global expansion. The 19 essays in Volume 8 deal with the Iberian Peninsula, including its re-conquest from Muslim rule and, within the Castilian and Portuguese ‘oceans’, topics such as the Canary Islands, the slave trade and Madeira. No jacket.

Exploring the part played by music, especially group singing, in the unfolding of the Protestant reforms in Strasbourg, this study considers both religious and ‘popular’ songs in the city, looking at how both genres fitted into people’s lives during a time of strife and how this music affected, and was affected by, the new ecclesiastical arrangements.

With 13 essays ranging chronologically from the submission of the English to William of Normandy in 1066, to the 25 barons of Magna Carta in 1215, this volume investigates aspects of rulership and rebellion including the role of diplomacy and peace-making in overcoming resistance, the purpose of Domesday Book, and the nature of baronial behaviour during the reign of Stephen.

Forming an overview of ecclesiastical history in West Wales, the contributions in this volume cover not only the religious movements and controversies associated with St Davids but also the Church’s role in education and the revival of Welsh cultural identity.

Between the late 9th and mid-14th centuries, the culture of Latin Christendom spread outwards in all directions from the heartland of Western Europe, despite resistance at the frontiers, the Black Death and the growth of Islam. The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000–1500 series focuses on this process within geographical areas, tracing the origins of the later era of global expansion. Volume 4 covers territories stretching from Finland, south to what is now north-eastern Poland, and deals with topics including crusade, conquest and conversion, state formation, and economy. No jacket.

Commissioned by the Hospitallers to raise money for rebuilding, Guillaume Caoursin’s eyewitness account of the Ottoman siege of their main convent on Rhodes became a 15th-century bestseller in a Europe hungry for news of Christian victories. This volume presents a new critical edition of the Descriptio, with modern English translation en face, a substantial introduction and translations of related documents.

As she examines interactions between theology and its social context in early medieval England, Foxhall Forbes uses a diverse range of evidence to demonstrate how theological debate affected the lives, values and personal perspectives of religious and lay people.

During the 123-year rule of the four Georges and William IV, Britain acquired an empire and began to forge its parliamentary democracy. These essays examine their self-presentation as a stable Protestant dynasty, and their relation to the aristocracy, the military and the Church.

David Pennington argues that women were central to the commercial life of early modern English towns. His study attempts to reconstruct the kinds of work trading women did and their official, business and personal relationships. The History of Retailing and Consumption series.

In the late 12th century the chancery clerk, envoy and chronicler Godfrey of Viterbo wrote a series of historical works that gained considerable and lasting popularity. This volume of nine essays provides a systematic survey of the wide readership enjoyed by Godfrey’s works and the influence of his political ideas during the late Middle Ages.

Published in the Catholic Christendom, 1600–1700 series, Smith’s study explores the promotion of one type of fidelity – fealty to the sovereign – in Bourbon France, and the clash of that fealty with the religious creeds of the Lazarists, the followers of Vincent de Paul, in the years after his death in 1660.

Between the late 9th and mid-14th centuries, the culture of Latin Christendom spread outwards in all directions from the heartland of Western Europe, despite resistance at the frontiers, the Black Death and the growth of Islam. The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000–1500 series focuses on the process within geographical areas, tracing the origins of the later era of global expansion. Volume 5 comprises 20 essays covering the regions of Germany, Bohemia, Hungary and Poland. No jacket.

This volume collects 20 previously published papers in which Young developed her ideas on patristic exegesis. They focus on themes including religious language, metaphor and allegory and early Christianity’s creative interactions with its cultural and intellectual environment.

Between the late 9th and mid-14th centuries, the culture of Latin Christendom spread outwards in all directions from the heartland of Western Europe, despite resistance at the frontiers, the Black Death and the growth of Islam. The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000–1500 series focuses on the process within geographical areas, tracing the origins of the later era of global expansion. Volume 6 covers the frontier regions of the East Mediterranean, with 22 essays discussing travel, trade and economy; migration and colonization; the Crusades; the military orders; and cross-cultural encounters. No jacket.

Robert L Patten introduces a collection of 28 essays, written between the 1960s and 2010, on 19th-century print culture and on Dickens’s place within it. The essays are in eight sections: on Victorian book culture; serialization; illustration; circulation; readers; Dickens as editor; contemporaneity; and social, cultural and political impact. Part of Ashgate’s Library of Essays on Dickens series. No jacket

In sections on religious, intellectual, legal, and political and aristocratic culture, this collection of 16 essays in English brings Danish medieval history to a wider audience and integrates it with contemporary international discussions of the European Middle Ages.

The mid-18th century was a testing time for the British government, with a series of military and diplomatic failures abroad and Jacobite rebellion at home. Black charts the period’s significant political changes and their links to foreign policy developments.

In the first work to tackle this facet of children’s history, Clapp-Itnyre examines how hymn singing and the reading of hymns were an integral part of Victorian childhood experience, and she describes how hymn-book production for the young intersected with the major aesthetic movements of the 19th century. The unique qualities of children’s hymnody, she argues, were the context for empowerment of the child over the course of the century. Ashgate Studies in Childhood, 1700 to the Present.

Professor Hunter, the leading expert on Robert Boyle (1627–1691), presents a collection of papers exploring aspects of Boyle’s life and thought, including his early intellectual evolution, his attitude to secrecy, his interest in supernatural phenomena, and the Anglo-Irish intellectual scene in the late 17th century.

Starting with ‘Why did Bede Write a Commentary on Revelation?’ this collection of eight essays shifts the focus away from Bede as an historian concerned purely with the past and considers his concerns with God’s divine plan, with reforms, and with threats to Christianity.

After an overview of Professor Prache’s career and intellectual legacy, this volume of 13 illustrated essays by her former colleagues and students encompasses a range of approaches including technology-based and geometry-centred studies of architecture, stained glass read as an essential part of a building’s history, and the search for meaning in portal sculptures.

Bringing together 21 papers delivered at two conferences celebrating the 1100th anniversary of the death of King Alfred of Wessex, this volume covers the sources for Alfred’s reign, the literature of his era and Alfredian government and society; it examines the king in comparison to contemporary rulers on the continent; and a final essay by Barbara Yorke discusses the use and abuse of Alfred’s reputation in later centuries. No jacket.