Death Of King Research Articles

Shrek the Third dir. by Chris Miller (review)

reviews113 Perlesvaus (The Chapel Ride) as well as a similar episode from the Queste regarding a half-waking dream ofLancelot. These central characters are considered in terms of identity, vision, the 'gaze/ and ultimately desire. The final chapter, '"Si avoit son tens trespassé": The Final Sacrifice of the Gtail Hero?,' reflects upon the notion of closure, as Ramm puts it, 'the manner in which the Perlesvaus and the Queste attempt to deal with the remainder of/as their own discourse through their narrative closure or, more exactly, their inability to effect adequate closure owing to the persistence ofthe discursive objeta' (149). So although Ramm has shown us the possibilityoffourdifferent Grail discourses, theyultimately produce only a lack ofdiscourse, leading inevitably to the conclusion that the Grail is but an 'empty metaphor' (159). This study is well informed by historical and linguistic analysis, and the text improves upon second reading, as is truewith most densewritings. Although Ramm's knowledge and manipulation ofpsychoanalytic theories is notable, it is not always clearwhether Ramm is employing his own or Zizek's interpretation interpretation of Lacan. The footnotes, in some instances covering as much ofeach page as the text, can frequently be distracting. They tend to undercut the argument being made, leading this reader to question whether the text can be sufficient or ifthe footnotes must serve as excess to the text's deliberate lack! Often these footnotes might have been better integrated into the body of the text; at other times they, while always informative, appear to have only limited relevance to the discussion. Another distraction to reading is the author's not infrequent use ofitalics to emphasize his points. I found this attempt to master the interpretive attention ofthe reader more likely to undermine the author's intention than to sustain it. As an effective application ofLacanian theory to several medieval texts, Ramm's study will certainly be valued by many scholars. Whether the study will serve as an influential addition to the body of scholarship on the Gtail legend in the years to come remains to be seen. JOAN E. MCRAE Hampden-Sydney College Shrek the Third, Chris Miller, dir., Raman Hui, co-dir. Story by Andrew Adamson. Screenplay byJeffrey Price Sc Peter S. Seaman, Jon Zack, and Howard Gould. Based on William Steig's Shrek! DreamWorks Animation. 2007. 92 minutes. The Shrek franchise has flirted with Arthuriana since rhe 2001 premiere. Before Shrek enters Farquaad's castle, the ogte crosses the lord's parking lot, where a banner reminds potentially forgetful visitors that 'You are parked in Lancelot' as Donkey tells Shrek that they have arrived in 'Duloc' From the start, an Arthurian world exists somewhere only slightly beyond the periphery of Shrek's revisionist onceupon -a-time adventures. Shrek the Thirdattempts to enter that world directly with a tale that follows the hero as he seeks the teenage Arthur, reveals to the boy that he is an heir to the throne, teaches him lessons that he needs to gain self-confidence, and assists in recovering 114ARTHURIANA the kingdom from the usurping Prince Charming. As fatherless Arthur prepares to be king, Shrek also develops, readying himself for duties he will face as father of triplets by film's end. This latest film continues a storyline started in Shrek 2. Fiona's father, Harold, the Frog King ofFar Far Away, now lies ill. Shrek and Fiona 'fill in' for the ailing amphibian, an assignment Shrek dutifullyyet reluctantly accepts. The heavy-handed ogre proves especially ill-suited to his duties, killing a knight during a dubbing ceremony, sinking a ship while christening it, and lighting a hall on fire. Yet as Harold's life slips away, he nevertheless names Shrek his heir. (One must leave till another day consideration of why Fiona—also 'next in line' with Shrek—or the capable Queen Lillian could not rule.) At Shrek's insistence, Harold also reveals that there lives one other possible heir, Fiona's cousin, Arthur Pendragon. After the king's death, Shrek sets out to find Arthur, to whom he intends to cede the realm. Meanwhile, the opportunistic Prince Charming forms an army of fairy tale 'losers' to seize the throne. Another thread, following Fiona...

Surveillance, Spatial Compression, and Scale: The FBI and Martin Luther King Jr

Abstract: In 1976, the Church Committee, a Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, came to the conclusion that Martin Luther King Jr “was the target of an intensive campaign by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to ‘neutralize’ him as an effective civil rights leader”. This paper explores how the FBI surveilled Martin Luther King Jr between September 1957 and Dr King's death in 1968 and how such surveillance relates to both spatial compression and scale. First, using FBI internal memos, government documents, social movement archives, mass‐media accounts, and other sources, I reconstruct this history of state surveillance, partitioning it into three sequential phases. Then, I shift from description to analysis, exploring how surveillance—operating through the social mechanism of intimidation—compressed both the physical and tactical space that Dr King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference could comfortably inhabit. This paper also theorizes the relationship between state surveillance and scale within the larger process of state suppression of dissent since scale both demarcates the boundaries where socio‐political contestation occurs and also plays an important role in how these contests play out.

Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America (review)

Reviewed by: Judgment Days Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America Jack Bass (bio) Judgment Days Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America By Nick KotzHoughton Mifflin, 2006522 pp. Cloth $26.00 In contrast to the current emptiness of "compassionate conservatism," Nick Kotz has written an important book about a president from Texas and a preacher from Georgia who both understood civil rights for black Americans as a moral issue that the American people needed to confront with action. Judgment Days captures the soaring hopes and successes of the 1960s, when, in the wake of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, the vision and moral leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. and the collective Civil Rights Movement joined together with the masterful political leadership and skill of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. It forces a new look at LBJ as a man of moral courage who deeply understood and confronted the crippling effects of three centuries of racial discrimination and who suffered from the failure of his effort to succeed in his war on poverty. It also captures the heartbreaking conflicts and devastating impact of the expanding war in Vietnam, including the ultimate breach between King and Johnson over the war's morality as well as its commandeering of the resources that both recognized were needed to correct what Johnson would characterize as "the conditions that breed despair and violence" at home. He learned too late the fatal flaw in his belief that the country could afford guns and butter, a failure that fed bitter public divisiveness. Kotz has roots through his mother's family to the New Deal tradition of LBJ's Texas hill country, and he uses both the tools of journalists and historians to produce a fresh and vivid account of the combined role of Johnson and King in unlocking the legal barriers to equality. (At a time when Congress cuts back on food stamps and medical care for the poor as a means of financing tax cuts for the wealthy, this book provides clues to what another wave of reform would require.) Kotz may be viewed as a reporter interviewing sources or as an oral historian collecting revealing personal narratives; either way, his roughly 150 interviews of [End Page 110] men and women on the front lines of conflict and change add depth to our understanding of this traumatic era. The story of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's vendetta against King isn't new, but Kotz tells it with greater depth and nuance than ever before. He gained access to thousands of pages of previously closed FBI documents and interviewed contemporary top officials of the Bureau. We learn how one top Hoover aide finds out that the Ford Foundation is about to award $4 million to King's financially strapped Southern Christian Leadership Conference, calls a former FBI agent working for Ford Motor Company, and the grant is cut to $250,000. (The firewall separating the company and the foundation apparently came later.) The full story of Hoover's determination to destroy King is sordid. His top associates delivered to a receptive White House detailed reports filled with dubious counterintelligence and distorted interpretations of Communist influence over King, details of sexual exploits, and advance knowledge of his tactical moves. The approval for the initial wiretaps came from Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and Johnson devoured it all. Johnson emerges as a flawed giant, King as a brave and shrewd moral leader who becomes more radical as he's overcome by events and, finally, an assassin's bullet. Readers will learn how two lives, both well documented, intersect from the time LBJ moves into the White House until MLK is murdered in Memphis. We see in vivid detail Johnson cajoling, persuading, bribing with political favors, and using powerful moral arguments to move Congress to pass the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and then exploiting the climate of remorse after King's death to gain passage of the 1968 Civil Rights Act and outlaw housing and jury discrimination. Missing from this story is Johnson's failure, as a lame...

Ole J Benedictow, The Black Death 1346–1353: the complete history, Woodbridge and Rochester, Boydell Press, 2004, pp. xvi, 433, illus., £30.00 (hardback 0-85115-943-5).

At first sight the subtitle of this book may seem somewhat pretentious. The author hastens to explain that this is not the case: the book is not and cannot be a definitive history. It is complete in the sense that it seeks to sum up present knowledge of the Black Death, how and when it spread, the mortality and the consequences. It aims at presenting the “Stand der Forschung”. It is, however, not a very reliable guide. Even in the first part of the book, which considers the nature of the plague, this becomes apparent. Benedictow has always been a strong advocate of the conventional retrospective diagnosis, which identifies late medieval and early modern plague with modern bubonic plague, a primarily tropical disease spread by rats and fleas, a diagnosis which originated with Alexandre Yersin himself. And Benedictow's dissertation (Plague in the late medieval Nordic countries, Oslo, 1992) was exactly an attempt to explain how this tropical disease could actually spread in a sparsely inhabited (and rather cold) country such as late medieval Norway. At no point, however, is there any indication in Benedictow's new Complete history that this diagnosis has been called in question over the last thirty years and that many (if not most) specialists today consider the diagnosis untenable and refrain from trying to identify historical plague with any modern disease. It is, of course, quite legitimate to uphold the traditional diagnosis and to disagree with biologists and historians such as Graham Twigg (The Black Death: a biological reappraisal, London, 1984), Susan Scott and Christopher Duncan (Biology of plagues: evidence from historical populations, Cambridge, 2001), Samuel K Cohn Jr (The Black Death transformed: disease and culture in early Renaissance Europe, London, 2001) and other critics of the traditional diagnosis, but it is not—to put it charitably—an acceptable scholarly approach simply to pretend that they do not exist. They do not figure even in the bibliography. The reader is left wondering what else Benedictow may have ignored because it does not agree with his points of view. Further suspicions are raised when you turn to the chapters on Scandinavia. Janken Myrdal's thorough research on the plague in Sweden (Digerdoden, pestvagor och odelaggelse. Ett perspektiv pa senmedeltidens Sverige, Stockholm, 2003) may have been too recent for consideration by Benedictow, but he consistently disregards any modern Norwegian historian who disagrees with him. The book certainly contains a lot of information, some of it easily available elsewhere. The chapter on the Middle East is really not much more than a paraphrase of Michael Dols' The Black Death in the Middle East (Princeton, 1976). For Eastern Europe and France, Benedictow relies on Jean-Noel Biraben's great (but also dated) Les hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays europeens et mediterraneens (Paris, 1975). Among the sources for the British Isles are, besides Charles Creighton's A history of epidemics in Britain (Cambridge, 1891), J F D Shrewsbury, A history of bubonic plague in the British Isles (Cambridge, 1970), and Philip Ziegler, The Black Death (Harmondsworth, 1970), all dated as well. Benedictow assures the reader that all efforts have been done to consult original sources, yet Byzantium is covered by referring to Biraben's paraphrase of the Italian Matteo Villani's account, even though the chief contemporary Greek sources such as John Cantacuzenos and Nicephoros Gregoras are available in translation. In the final bibliography of almost twenty pages one misses several recent publications such as David Herlihy, The Black Death and the transformation of the west (Cambridge, MA, 1997), and Colin Platt, King Death: the Black Death and its aftermath in late-medieval England (London, 1996). Oversights and omissions can hardly be avoided in a work of synthesis. Also, synthesis involves questions of priorities. What makes Benedictow's book incomplete, however, is that it is biased. So biased, in fact, that it can be used only with great caution.

Death in Fifteenth-Century Castile: Ideologies of the Elites (review)

Reviewed by: Death in Fifteenth-Century Castile: Ideologies of the Elites Simone Pinet Vivanco, Laura . Death in Fifteenth-Century Castile: Ideologies of the Elites. London: Tamesis, 2004. 211 pages. The subject of death and its perception, the rituals both secular and religious surrounding it, and the artistic elaborations on the topic have been the focus of numerous studies, especially in the past few decades. Perhaps such a trend falls within the field of influence of what Paul Freedman and Gabrielle Spiegel saw as a consequence within American medieval historiography of a "postmodern agenda," which determined from the 1970s onward an emphasis on the marginal and particularly on the grotesque (Freedman and Spiegel, 699, see note 73 to same page).1 Laura Vivanco's study is not within American medievalism proper, does not concern herself exclusively with historical sources, and specifically distances itself from the macabre and the grotesque (23). A theoretical framework, which postmodernism has given to most of those other studies referred to by Freedman and Spiegel, would have been here a welcome structuring device for what is otherwise an exhaustive collection of quotations from various sources on different aspects surrounding death in the fifteenth century. The book is divided into three chapters, "Types of Death," "The Afterlife," and "The Bereaved," framed by an introduction and a conclusion. Vivanco's focus is on the differences and possible conflicts arising from views and attitudes of oradores and defensores. Each chapter provides a wealth of materials for each estate. The strength of this book is precisely the number of sources brought together [End Page 220] under specific rubrics, confirmed by the impressive bibliography (particularly for the primary sources). Beyond the extraordinary labor of compilation, for which the author should be commended, the book, however, does not fully justify its being presented as a unified work—aside from suffering from a series of minor problems as well. In the Introduction, Vivanco reviews all the literature produced on the subject of death—with emphasis on the work of historians—for the Middle Ages in general, and for Spain in particular. The author also focuses on particular regions and with different source materials, argued as a response to Johan Huizinga's suturing of the theme of death and the fifteenth century as part of his argument on the waning epoch. Vivanco surveys such literature arguing that it was first produced under the influence of Huizinga, but later took on the task, as numerous historians felt the need to nuance and, at times, to contradict Huzinga—of emphasizing continuity in the practices and attitude towards death both before and after the fifteenth century.Vivanco cites primary and secondary sources that support and contest a particular emphasis on death in the fifteenth-century (1–7), to support these claims. The author goes on to explain that the subject has been the focus of general studies, as well as of specific topics, and cites those devoted to medieval Castile: three different wide-ranging studies on death in late-medieval Castile, along with a series of more specialized works on topics such as the deaths of kings. Beyond these historical approaches, only some of which consider literature as source material, Vivanco provides a review of critical works devoted to death in art and literature, focusing on pieces such as the Danzas de la muerte and the Ars moriendi, along with the privileged focus on a play such as Celestina or even on a particular character, such as Leriano in Cárcel de amor (8–10). After this, it is hard to take Vivanco's word when she claims that "there is still a need for a study that focuses on a single century and uses evidence provided by literary and other written sources" (10). Hence, my first general concern: Vivanco writes that she has "attempted to demonstrate the extent to which literature was indeed informed by contemporary ideas and practice" (a needless demonstration, for who thinks of literature as divorced from its context), and, "in so doing, I have not analysed death in literature in terms of its psychological and plot functions" (22). If Vivanco's original contribution to the study of attitudes concerning death in fifteenth-century...

The Last Battle of Hadadezer

The recently discovered stele at Tel Dan consists of three fragments that join together to present thirteen partial lines of Old Aramaic text.1 Most interpreters classify it as a memorial inscription and ascribe it to Hazael, king of Aram-Damascus ca. 844-800 B.C.E. The text divides into two sections, (1) Lines l-4a review events during reign of a previous Aramean king, whom Hazael calls The reference presumably is to Hadadezer, who is attested repeatedly in Assyrian inscriptions of Shalmaneser III.2 (2) Lines 4b-13 report Hazael's rise to kingship and his subsequent campaign against Jehoram of Israel and Ahaziah of the House of David, that is, Judah. Biblical scholars have concentrated on second section, since it appears to contradict 2 Kgs 9:15-27. The text in 2 Kings 9 claims that Israelite general Jehu, commissioned by prophet Elisha, executed Jehoram and Ahaziah in vicinity of Jezreel and Iblearn. In contrast, Tel Dan stele asserts in lines 7-9 that Hazael killed two kings in battle. In a separate article, I have argued for historical reliability of inscription's report over against pro-Jehu account in 2 Kings 9.3 The present essay concerns first section of stele. It is of equal historical interest, since it also appears to bear on question of Aramean-Israelite relations during mid-ninth century B.C.E,, as well as issue of Hazael's background and manner of his ascendance to throne in Damascus.4 I will focus specifically on meaning and historical value of statements about military conflicts in lines 2 and 3b-4a. Avraham Biran and Joseph Naveh published editio princeps of inscription, and following translation rests largely on their transcription of Aramaic text.5 Since very little of line 1 is preserved, any restoration of text here is highly conjectural.6 I begin, accordingly, with line 2. 2. ... aga[inst] my father, he went up7 [against him when] he fought at Ab[el].8 3. my father lay down, he went to his [ancestors]. Now king of I[s]rael had entered 4. previously into land of my father. [And] Hadad made me king.9 If last word of line 2 is restored correctly, text here reports a battle at Abel between Hadadezer and a certain enemy whose name is lost. Several scholars assume that enemy was a king of Israel, and they identify Abel as Abel-Beth-Maacah (Abil al-Qamh), just west of biblical Dan (Tell al-Qadi) in border area between Aram-Damascus and Israel.10 Presumably Jehoram, Ahab, or Omri encroached on southern fringe of Hadadezer's kingdom. After a notice on death of Hadadezer (line 3a), inscription refers to an Israelite invasion of Aramean territory (lines 3b-4a). The Aramaic reads: wy'l.mlky[s].qdm.b'rq.'by. The meaning of qdm in line 4a is crucial. Following Biran and Naveh, most scholars render term as a temporal adverb, formerly, previously. Lines 3b-4a thus appear to describe an attack by a king of Israel during Hadadezer's time, presumably same attack as one noted in line 2.11 Nadav Na'aman recently has challenged this interpretation, arguing that, as a temporal adverb, qdm does not fit immediate context.12 He asks: Why should Hazael report [in lines 3b-4a] what he already said about Israelite aggression (line 2)? To eliminate repetition, Na'aman construes qdm as a verb specifying preceding verb wy'l.13 He thus translates sentence: And king of Israel invaded, advancing in my father's land. The report supposedly explains that Israel's aggression began during Hadadezer's reign (line 2) and subsequently resumed between king's death and Hazael's enthronement (lines 3b-4a). Although this proposal is not impossible, there is good reason to doubt it. Among Northwest Semitic inscriptions, qdm as a verb does not occur in Old Aramaic. It is attested in Official Aramaic, but its meanings there are precede (in time), rise, stand up, present oneself, be brought. …

Przykłady „dobrej śmierci" u Aelreda z Rievaulx

Inquiring into the historical works of Aelred of Rievaulx one can find a description of the exemplary 'good' death of kings and other important persons. At the same time, they show that these descriptions deal with the phenomenon which would, in the XV century, later be called ars moriendi.

:The Death of Kings: Royal Deaths in Medieval England

:<i>The Death of Kings: Royal Deaths in Medieval England</i>

The death of kings. Royal deaths in medieval England. By Michael Evans. Pp. xx+289+8 ills. London–New York: Hambledon and London, 2003. £19.95. 1 85285 268 2

<i>The death of kings. Royal deaths in medieval England</i>. By Michael Evans. Pp. xx+289+8 ills. London–New York: Hambledon and London, 2003. £19.95. 1 85285 268 2

The death of kings: royal deaths in medieval England

Illustrations Introduction Acknowledgements 1 Death and Burial 2 Divine Punishment 3 The Corruption of the Body 4 Father and Son 5 Killing the King 6 Once and Future Kings 7 Royal Saints and Martyrs 8 Queens Notes Bibliography Index.

Mithradates' Antidote – A Pharmacological Ghost

AbstractTwo kinds of sources are available to the historian to reconstruct the first centuries of the history of Mithradates' antidote: biographical information on Mithradates' interests in medicine, and a series of recipes. In this paper I argue that we cannot reconstruct the original recipe of Mithridatium from our existing sources. Instead, I examine how the Romans remodelled the history of the King's death and used the royal name to create a "Roman" drug. This drug enjoyed a huge popularity in the first centuries of the Roman Empire. An Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, consumed it as well as members of the upper class; and many highly literate physicians recommended it notwithstanding the medical sect they were belonging to. With all its expensive ingredients, and its claim to work as a panacea, Mithridatium responded to a real demand in a Roman Empire at its commercial and political apogee.

Burke, Paine, and the Newspapers: An "Archaeology" of Political Knowledge 1789-93

The MURTHER took place at four o'clock this morning, and was conducted in the most private manner. The Guillotine was erected in ya court of the Temple--a hole was dug in it, into which the King's head fell, and his body precipitated afterward .... (This must be understood as the prevailing report of the moment. It is impossible vouch for its absolute truth.) This scene of infernal assassination, which a base and cowardly faction have now degraded human nature by executing calls for a marked execration which it is not in the power of language convey .... Almighty vengeance must be the portion of who have thus step by step arrived at this damnable crisis. To that awful moment, when the great King of Kings shall sit in tremendous judgement of men and daemons, do we consign the diabolic spirits. It will come, and in thunders speak terrors their hearts, now hardened in human iniquity. THIS DESCRIPTION OF THE FRENCH REGICIDE FIRST APPEARED IN THE St. James' Chronicle on 24th January 1793, and was copied during the next few days in a number of other pro-ministerial newspapers. Its publication was a few days after the execution of Louis Capet, and clearly uses and elaborates upon a rumor suit the political purposes of that newspaper; the French King, murdered at night, in private, the perpetrators using all the cunning of a villain in a Gothic novel keep their crime secret. The Gothic tropes are built up so that, despite the partially-admitted dubiousness of the narrative being reported, a number of eschatological prophesies are made about the results. Today we would probably respond this passage by claiming that it is journalism, as it draws conclusions from facts not yet established, and accepts rumor as fact simply because it suits a particular political agenda. Against this, intend in the following pages argue that the imagination of political action, in this case imagining the King's death, cannot be read as simply bad journalism in the early 1790s; that in fact the equivocal nature of political factuality and truth steins from the whole system of the representation of political events at this time, and that this act of creative imagining is one of the ways in which political activity could legitimately be construed during the 1790s. I hope you do not think me weak enough, wrote Burke in a letter of January 1790, to form my of what is doing here [i.e., in France] upon the representations of newspapers, much less upon of a country in which the true spirit of the several transactions cannot be known. (1) The letter was probably intended for Thomas Paine, or at least reads very like a reply a letter that Burke had received from him a few days before, in which Paine assumes of his addressee an over-reliance on the London press for knowledge of the situation in France. Paine had stated, in the English papers is either untrue or misrepresented (75). So the writers of the most famed political appropriations of the events of the French Revolution, upon which so much debate turned, did not think much of the reporting be found in newspapers. Instead, they claimed more privileged access information, Paine through his friendship with Lafayette and his late presence in France, Burke by a more general appeal men of quality, or, those who have a considerable share in the formation of public measures (79). You really shouldn't believe everything you read in the papers-hardly a surprising sentiment find in the correspondence of two men of letters and active politicians such as Burke and Paine. It is perhaps statements such as these, and also the apparent disparities throughout the eighteenth century between government policy and opinion as expressed in the newspapers, that have led certain historians claim that the influence of the press on political affairs at this time was strictly limited; that the newspapers were much more concerned with the commercial interests of their readers; that people in reality did not believe what they read, or that they did not form effective critical based on what they read; and even if they did, the executive powers worked in a rarefied world that was not influenced by, or rather did not need be particularly bothered with, the formation of outside a relatively small circle attached the court and the cabinet. …

The 1790s - Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793–1796. By John Barrell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 737+xvii pp. $125.00 (cloth). - Cultural Politics in the 1790s: Literature, Radicalism and the Public Sphere. By Andrew McCann. London: Palgrave, 1999. 226+xi pp. $59.95 (cloth). - A War of Ideas: British Attitudes towards the Wars against Revolutionary France,

The 1790s - Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793–1796. By John Barrell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 737+xvii pp. $125.00 (cloth). - Cultural Politics in the 1790s: Literature, Radicalism and the Public Sphere. By Andrew McCann. London: Palgrave, 1999. 226+xi pp. $59.95 (cloth). - A War of Ideas: British Attitudes towards the Wars against Revolutionary France,

The Council of Bourges, 1225: A Documentary History (review)

The Council of Bourges, 1225:A Documentary History.By Richard Kay. [Church, Faith and Culture in the Medieval West.] (Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company. 2002. Pp. xxviii, 599. $114.95.) Except only for the Fourth Lateran Council, the Council of Bourges that met in 1225 was the largest church assembly held in the West up to that time. Summoned by the cardinal-legate Romanus Bonaventura, it was attended by 112 archbishops and bishops, more than 500 abbots, many deans and archdeacons, and over 100 representatives of cathedral chapters. In this important work, the fruit of many years of scholarly labor, Richard Kay explains that the council deserves study, not only because of its size, but the earliest record of representative government in action; as an extended example of counsel and consent in medieval assemblies; and as an episode in the second Albigensian Crusade .The author provides a thorough treatment of all these themes. The first task of the council was to adjudicate the competing claims of Raymond of Toulouse and Amaury of Montfort to the County of Toulouse. When the case had gone against Raymond, the next order of business was to authorize a tax the Church intended to finance a new Albigensian crusade to be undertaken by King Louis VIII. This seems to have been carried through without difficulty, and in January, 1226, Romanus granted to the king a tenth of clerical incomes for five years. But it is not clear who exactly consented to the tax. This contentious issue arose sixteen months later (after the king's death) when the cathedral chapters of four French provinces-Reims, Sens, Rouen, and Tours-balked at paying future installments of the tax the ground that they had not consented to it. Romanus wrote that he had granted the tax on behalf of their proctors and of almost the entire council; the chapters, however, maintained that they had sent nuncios to the council to report back to them concerning its proceedings but without any power to consent their behalf. When the pope decided the case against the chapters he did not address this particular issue, though a few years earlier he had decreed that cathedral chapters did indeed have a right to be represented at provincial councils. In the matter of the tax approved at Bourges he declared that Romanus was empowered to act by virtue of his legatine authority, adding however that the tax had been granted on the advice of almost the entire council. …

Review: Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793-1796

Review: Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793-1796

John Barrell's Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793–1796 and William R. Everdell's The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans

John Barrell's <i>Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793–1796</i> and William R. Everdell's <i>The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans</i>

Imagining the king's death: figurative treason, fantasies of regicide, 1793-1796

PART ONE: SAD STORIES PART TWO: THE INVENTION OF MODERN TREASON PART THREE: ALARMS AND DIVERSIONS PART FOUR: PHANTOMS OF IMAGINATION

Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793–1796, John Barrell

Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793–1796, John Barrell

The Ghost of Saint Desiderius

THE GHOST OF SAINT DESIDERIUS Andrew Fear University of Keele Perhaps the most striking thing about the life of the Visigothic King Sisebut (ruled 612-621) was his decision to write a Life ofSt. Desiderius of Vienne.1 It is not so much the act of writing itself which is curious. The King was an aspirant intellectual, as can be seen by his friendship with Isidore ofSeville who referred to his monarch, albeit perhaps backhandedly , as "seientia litterarum magna ex parte imbutus" (LasHistorias de losgodos 60) . He was also a highly devout man as the naming of his ill-fated son Reccared shows. His zeal led him to order the forceful conversion ofallJews in his realm to Christianity, a policy denounced as overzealous by Isidore of Seville (Las historias de los godos 60) , and abandoned after his death. His poem De Eclipsi Lunae may have been intended in part to clear away pagan superstition about celestial phenomena which had been exacerbated in Spain after eclipses in 611 and 612, and one of his letters to Isidore is highly supportive of the decision ofhis illegitimate son, Theudila, to enter the cloister, which is byno means a normal reaction for the time.2 Later Spaniards also noted his piety; Canon 56 of the Fourth Council of Toledo convened in 633 soon after the King's death refers to him as a religiosissimusprinceps. While these incidents could individually be explained away as acts ofpolitics masked by religion, their combination should suggest that we ought to agree with José Orlandis that "[l]a religiosidad personal de Sisebuto fue sincera y profunda" (128) and call into question neither Sisebut's personal initiative nor his integrity in writing hagiography. 1 (= VSD) , editions inJ.-P.Migne and byJuan Gil (1974, 1991), translation in Andrew Fear (1997). 2 Sisebut Epistola 7(editions in Migne and byJacques Fontaine in Isidore de Seville, Traité delà nature...) ; a cynic might contend that this pious practice would have resolved some problems of royal succession. La corónica 29.2 (Spring, 2001): 79-93 80AndrewFearLa corónica 29..2, 2001 Ifthe motive for writing poses no problem, the work itselfdoes. Both its style and Latinity are poor. The Vita is written in highly contorted Latin which while high on rhetoric is low on content (José C. Martín), and whose syntax not infrequendy breaks down all together. This is a striking contrast to Sisebut's other works which show, especially his poetry , a fair degree of competence in Latin and has led to some scholars to question whether Sisebut was in fact the author of the Vita at all (BaldomeroJiménez Duque 109). It would however seem odd to posit a ghost writer for the king as he would have had more compentent secretaries at hand. We should rather see this work as an act of personal piety and assume that his official correspondence would have been handled by a Chancery scribe. Quite apart from the Life 's linguistic weaknesses, there is a second problem: Sisebut's chosen subject. Desiderius, the 28th bishop ofVienne, had been executed within living memory (607) by the Frankish monarchs Brunhilda and Theuderic II of Burgundy (ruled 596-613) with whom he had a protracted quarrel provoked by his unwillingness to bless Theuderic's illegitimate sons.3 He had only a minor cult in Gaul and none whatsoever within Spain: a glance at the festivals celebrated by the Visigothic Church will show that there were no prayers said for Desiderius, and his day, the 23rd May, was not kept.4 This cannot have been because Visigothic Spain was hostile to the veneration of foreign saints. Venerable figures such as St. Adrian of Nicomedia and St. Babilas of Antioch were honoured, even saints coming from the lands of the hated Franks had their place in Visigothic worship - the most obvious example being St. Martin ofTours (Carmen García Rodriguez) . Why Sisebut should pick on such an obscure individual, and especially one about whom he apparendy knew litde, as the subject of a hagiography when more obvious Spanish saints were in the field remains mysterious. A prime Iberian candidate , for example, would surely have been St. Leocadia, martyred at the...

Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide 1793-1796. John Barrell.

Previous articleNext article No AccessImagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide 1793-1796. John Barrell.Nicola TrottNicola Trott Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Wordsworth Circle Volume 31, Number 4Autumn 2000Annual Review Issue Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/TWC24044804 Views: 1Total views on this site © 2000 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.