Royal Archives Research Articles

Vernacular Story in and as Archives: (Re)MakingXingshi yanStories in Early Modern China and Korea

AbstractThis article examines literary texts both as records transmitted through archives and as cultural sites recording preferred knowledge. It focuses on the late Ming-era (1368–1644) Chinese vernacular short story anthology Xingshi yan 型世言 (Exemplary Words for the World, ca. 1632)—the only extant copy preserved in the Kyujanggak Archives in South Korea—and its Chosŏn (1392–1910) rendition in the Korean alphabet, Hyŏngse ŏn, housed in the Jangseogak Archives. Xingshi yan, taking seriously the Chinese vernacular literature’s claim of being “unofficial history,” provides its own historical narrative of the Ming at the end of the dynasty when it was threatened by the Manchus. Recording the notable Ming figures and affairs, this anthology creates a literary archive furnishing materials for Ming history. In addition, this article points out the significance of the Kyujanggak Xingshi yan in solving the ambiguous textual origins of several Chinese vernacular story anthologies that were previously associated with the famous Second Amazement. Eventually, it traces the trajectory of how Xingshi yan was preserved in the Korean royal archives and appreciated by royal family members, and how its stories were rendered into the Korean alphabet for reasons of cultural and literary preference as well as to address the intended audience of Chosŏn. The making and remaking of Xingshi yan stories in both China and Korea, this article argues, illuminate the varied knowledge preferences and selections in the forming of the two cultures’ respective literary archives.

Queen Charlotte’s 1789 Account Book

Queen Charlotte’s account book for part of 1789 is transcribed and annotated for the first time from her manuscript in the Royal Archives. It records payments made during the royal family’s seaside vacation in Wey-mouth and payments made after their return to Windsor. Almost all the payees mentioned in the book are identified.

Recent Books

Common Heritage: Documents and Sources Relating to German-British Relations in the Archives and Collections of Windsor and Coburg. Vol. 2: The Photograph Collections and Private Libraries. Ed. by Franz Bosbach, John R. Davis, and Karina Urbach; comp. by Oliver Walton, based on preliminary work by Sonja Schultheiss-Heinz. (Prinz-Albert-Forschungen / Prince Albert Research Publications, 7/2.) Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. 2018. 799 pp. €161.90. isbn 978 3 428 15190 5 (hardback); 978 3 428 55190 3 (ebook). The first volume in this series was devoted to documents in the Royal Archives and at coburg concerning Anglo-German relations. This one takes us to the libraries and photograph collections—at coburg (home of Prince Albert) and several in Britain. The history of the British libraries has long been confused, beginning with the incorrect assumption that George IV gave all his father’s books to the nation. In fact, some remain at Windsor. Later on, Queen Victoria and the Prince consort, in their separate apartments, gathered their own, also separate, libraries. This project is concerned with Britain and Germany, and thus focuses only on those parts of the various nineteenth-century libraries having some relation to the matter, whether literature, politics, travel, or the fine arts. The result is naturally imbalanced, but it gives a good idea of the breadth of reading that was expected, anticipated, or perhaps accomplished. The Queen’s private library in 1843 emerges as distinctly modest in its German holdings, with fewer than 150 titles. Prince Albert’s, fruit of determination to accustom himself to his new country and language, and reflecting an extraordinary range of interests, was a distinct contrast: over 600 in the 1843 catalogue, and almost 4,000 in about i860. ‘About’ is an important word, for there are books in this list at least as late as 1880, long after Albert’s death. These libraries were mostly dispersed among the royal palaces in the twentieth century, and their virtual reassembly in this volume is the result of a great deal of teamwork. It is a reminder of the complications lying behind the easy phrase ‘the royal library’, where there are several and where, naturally enough, books moved round buildings, towns, and family relatives. The first part of the volume contains a catalogue of part of the immense photograph collection in England and coburg. Both Victoria and Albert were eager in the new medium: Albert’s first experience of being photographed was in 1842 when he sat (unsuccessfully) to a photographer who had recently established himself in Brighton. In albums, cartes de visite, studio portraits, and landscapes, some bought and some commissioned, they assembled a collection that deserves much wider study.

Literature and Party Politics at the Accession of Queen Anne. Joseph Hone. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xi+209.

<i>Literature and Party Politics at the Accession of Queen Anne</i>. Joseph Hone. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xi+209.

Nacer en palacio. El ritual del nacimiento en la corte de los Austrias by María Cruz de Carlos Varona

Reviewed by: Nacer en palacio. El ritual del nacimiento en la corte de los Austrias by María Cruz de Carlos Varona Emilie L. Bergmann María Cruz de Carlos Varona. Nacer en palacio. El ritual del nacimiento en la corte de los Austrias. centro de estudios europa hispÁnica, 2018. 296 pp. nacer en palacio is a much-needed contribution to scholarship on early modern Spanish women's lives and a gendered historiography of the Spanish Habsburg court. The confluence of social science, obstetrical practices, and history of art in this generously illustrated study of royal pregnancy and childbirth makes a compelling argument for maternity as a field of research in its own right, with the potential to change academic approaches to the history of the family as well as material culture and court ritual. The authority and physical activity of women as midwives and birth attendants in Spanish accounts and visual depictions of these events challenge the models of feminine silence and passivity in literary and didactic texts, as well as the commonly accepted view of antagonism between midwives and medical men in early modern Europe. The author draws on documents in the royal archives, including letters, official accounts of religious observances during Habsburg pregnancies and births, and inventories of furnishings and religious objects brought to the queen's chambers in anticipation of the delivery. Among the portraits in chapter 1, "En busca de un heredero," are those of young women, some barely past puberty when the paintings were made, under consideration as possible progenitors of male heirs to the Spanish throne. Thus, verbal accounts emphasize their good health and disposition, the predominance of boy children born to their mothers and aunts, and measurements including the young women's height and the width of their hips. Objectifying as this process of selection was, de Carlos Varona's research also gives evidence of the emotional bonds between monarchs and their wives, citing, for example, Felipe III's grief at the death of Margarita de Austria. The approach to royal childbirth as a cultural system is most evident in chapters 2, "El espacio del parto regio," and 4, "El espacio simbólico de la maternidad regia: el oratorio de la reina," addressing the material culture of royal childbearing. These are also the most relevant chapters for scholars of the comedia, as they address the ways in which royal pregnancy and [End Page 247] childbirths were framed as performances, with processions to chapels within the palace and in the surrounding neighborhoods and with religious objects placed in the queen's personal oratory. The liturgical texts and devotional practices, together with paintings, sculpture, and other religious images, symbolized the identification of the dynastic role of the queen's pregnancy and delivery with key moments in the life of Christ's mother. This link is made explicit in the celebration of the Nativity matins for each royal birth and in two paintings by Juan Pantoja de la Cruz: the Annunciation (ca. 1604), in which Margarita de Austria is depicted as the Virgin Mary, and the Birth of the Virgin (1603), in which the queen's mother is depicted as the midwife and Margarita's sisters as attendants. De Carlos Varona's discussion of devotional practices and religious images in the oratory of Isabel de Borbón demonstrates the consistency of rituals surrounding royal pregnancy and childbirth, aspects of which continued into the reign of Isabel II. The detailed color reproductions of portraits of princesses and queens allow readers to examine significant jewels worn by these women in the belief that they could ensure a healthy pregnancy and birth. Particularly significant among such objects are the marten's heads fashioned from gold and decorated with precious stones, described in inventories and visible in portraits of Isabel de Valois and her daughter Catalina Micaela. The marten, believed to conceive through the ear and give birth through the mouth, was associated with fertility and childbirth as well as with the Immaculate Conception. Margarita de Austria's death at age twenty-six after giving birth to eight children in ten years, of whom only half reached adulthood, provides context for the justifiable anxiety underlying the use of...

Beethoven's Conversation Books. Volume 1. Nos. 1 to 8 (February 1818 to March 1820) ed. Theodore Albrecht

Reviewed by: Beethoven's Conversation Books. Volume 1. Nos. 1 to 8 (February 1818 to March 1820) ed. Theodore Albrecht Peter Höyng Theodore Albrecht, ed., Beethoven's Conversation Books. Volume 1. Nos. 1 to 8 (February 1818 to March 1820). Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2018. 384 pp. Despite the continuous flow of books on all aspects on Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) and his music—soon to be accelerated by the composer's 250th birthday in 2020—scholars have overlooked a remarkable, even unique, primary source: the so-called Konversationshefte, or conversation notebooks, which span the last decade of the composer's life, from February 1818 until his death in March 1827. Relatively early into his musical career, already celebrated for his virtuosity at the piano and his inventive compositions, Beethoven, at just twenty-seven years old, realized that his precious sensory organ, his auditory instrument, [End Page 89] was beginning to falter. This impending loss not only shook Beethoven as a private person but also destabilized his well-craft ed public persona. By 1818 Beethoven's hearing was so poor that even prostheses such as Mälzel's ear trumpet were no longer of much help to him in communicating with others. And so, writing became imperative when communicating with the composer, and the only option for Beethoven's circle of family and friends to verbally express themselves to him. As for the Aufschreibesysteme (F. Kittler), or writing tools, those used in conversation with Beethoven included a "slate and a slate pencil," and "a conversation book made by folding and stitching a large sheet of writing paper into octavo format, along with a pencil for conversing with the deaf invalid," as Gerhard von Breuning wrote in his memoirs. While both of these sets of utensils sufficed for basic daily communication, they differed categorically in their ability to preserve the written notes. Whereas the slate allowed for easy erasing of any jotted messages, the small books have retained their inscriptions up through the present. It is these penciled conversations that are of greatest value as cultural documentation of the first part of the nineteenth century, not despite their transience and quotidian prosaicness but precisely because of these traits. I am aware of no other source that allows us to eavesdrop on day-to-day conversations that are as unfiltered and as unedited as these random notes, unintended for any purpose beyond that of the immediate needs of the parties involved. The value of this premodern recording of daily discourse is only partly diminished by the fact that the disabled composer most oft en responded verbally and not in writing. As Jan Swafford, one Beethoven's latest biographers, correctly summarizes: "Of the entries he wrote in the books, most were items for himself: musical sketches [very few], marketing schemes, shopping lists, addresses, book recommendations." Anton Schindler, Beethoven's somewhat dubious late secretary (1822– 1824 and 1826–1827), sold 137 (out of a total of 139) of these notebooks to the Royal Archive in Berlin, today's Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, in 1846; among other things, the event marked the start of the composer's re-naturalization to Germany and of making him a German composer. Even though all major biographers since the late nineteenth century have quoted from or published parts of the notebooks, only in 1963 did Beethoven scholars undertake a full publication of the notebooks utilizing the latest forensic innovations and according to the highest standards of editing possible at the time. Previous attempts had been hampered by the Cold War, but in 1968, the first volume [End Page 90] reached publication. The strenuous and tedious nature of this work is evident in the fact that the last volume was published thirty-three years later in 2001. This German edition forms the core of Theodore Albrecht's monumental endeavor for providing an updated and translated English edition of which the first two volumes of a projected twelve volumes has been released. This licensed edition by Breitkopf & Härtel has a number of advantages compared to its original German version. Chief among them is that all explanatory end-notes in the German edition are now to be found as footnotes on...

The Ancient Near East

The Ancient Near East Christopher T. Begg and Joseph E. Jensen 1658. Abdalla Abdel-Raziq, "An Ointment Tablet from Deir el-Gebrawi," Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 143 (2016) 129-50. A.-R.'s article publishes an ointment tablet dating to the end of 6th Dynasty or later that is currently housed in the "magazine" at Shutb, located near the city of Assiut, Egypt. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1659. [Nineveh Inscriptions] Ali Y. Al-Juboori, "Recently Discovered Neo-Assyrian Royal Garden Inscriptions from the Review Palace and Nergal Gate of Nineveh," Iraq 79 (2017) 3-20. Between 1987 and 1992, Iraqi archaeologists working under the direction of the local Inspectorate of Antiquities undertook excavations at Nineveh. In particular, they excavated east of the mosque located on the smaller mound of Nebi Yunus and at the Nergal Gate, the middle gate of the northern city wall. At the Nergal Gate, an inscription of Sennacherib was [End Page 553] found on two bull colossi and two paving stones. At Nebi Yunus, the excavators discovered a few inscribed clay and stone objects in the ruins of the armory, the so-called "Rear Palace" (or "Review Palace"). These finds included a slab of Ashurnasirpal II, a prism fragment of Esarhaddon, two human-headed winged bull colossi of the same king, a winged bull of Ashurbanipal, and an unsculpted wall slab of this monarch. Subsequently, after the liberation of Mosul from ISIS/Daʾesh occupation in early 2017, seven further inscriptions of Esarhaddon were discovered in looters' tunnels under the destroyed mosque. All of these inscriptions are edited here. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1660. [Ashurnasirpal II Inscription, Nimrud] Ali Yaseen Al-Juboori, "An Inscription of Ashurnasirpal II from the Ištar-Šarrat-Niphi Temple at Nimrud," Iraq 80 (2018) 3-13. An inscription of Ashurnasirpal II (ruled 883–859 b.c.) was found in the temple of Ištar-Šarrat-niphi at Kalku (Nimrud) in 2015, during the excavations of the Nineveh inspectorate expedition (State Board of Antiquities and Heritage). The preserved text of the inscription—whose current whereabouts are unknown—duplicates RIMA 2 A.0.101.1 i 18-117. This article presents a transliteration of the text, a table of variants, and a translation into Arabic. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1661. [Drehem] Nawala Al-Mutawalli and Walther Sallaberger (with a contribution by Ali Ubeid Shalkham), "The Cuneiform Documents from the Iraqi Excavations at Drehem," Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 107 (2017) 151-217. Drehem, ancient Duzris-Dagan, is well known as the place where more than 15,000 cuneiform tablets from the Ur III period were found and sold on the antiquities market from 1909 onward. In 2007, the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage of Iraq undertook the first controlled excavations at the site under the direction of Ali Ubeid Shalkham. The cuneiform texts and fragments found during these excavations not only add to the corpus of already well-known royal archives from the site dealing with cattle, treasure, and shoes, but also provide many records of crafts and agriculture. On the basis of this evidence, we now have a clearer idea of the subsistence economy at the important administrative center and royal palace at Puzriz-Dagan during the Third Dynasty of Ur. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1662. Vitali Bartash, "Sumerian 'Child,'" JCS 70 (2018) 3-25. B. studies Sumerian terms for minors (dumu, di4 di4-la(2) and lu2 tur-ra) in texts of various genres in order to define their precise meaning and relationship to kinship and age-gradation terminologies. The word dumu ("son/daughter, own's own child, offspring") designates kinship regardless of age. In contrast di4-di4-la(2) ("children") implies age. The terms however often exchange their semantic domains. Another age-related term lu2 tur-ra ("minor") has a social connotation denoting those under patriarchal or professional authority, including children, youths, and the young unmarried, or even recently married individuals as well as junior...

Dos cartórios da Ordem Beneditina ao Real Archivo da Torre do Tombo: o périplo de Frei Francisco de São Luís Saraiva

Este artigo aborda a veia bibliófila de Frei Francisco de São Luís Saraiva evidenciada desde o seu ingresso na Ordem Beneditina, com apenas 14 anos de idade, e o seu percurso pelas bibliotecas e arquivos da Ordem enquanto visitador e cartorário até à sua nomeação para Guarda-Mor do Real Arquivo da Torre do Tombo. Essa vivência, bem como seu o gosto pela investigação histórica, tendo por base os documentos dos arquivos monásticos, permitiu-lhe conhecer o estado em que se encontravam esses arquivos o que o levou a manifestar uma preocupação constante com as instalações, a conservação e o “arranjo” dos documentos.

Hilary Ballon (1956–2017)

Hilary Ballon was an outstanding scholar, teacher, curator, and administrator who stood at the top of her field both nationally and internationally. She demonstrated her prowess repeatedly during a thirty-year career through her pioneering books and articles, the exhibitions she curated, the institutions she served, and her active engagement with teaching and community service. Ballon's profile in the field of architectural history is exceptionally broad. Her abiding interest was the formation of cities, and in particular the figures who shaped them. Trained in history at Princeton and architectural history at MIT, Ballon brought to each of her books a deep understanding of the political, social, and economic forces that historical planners must negotiate in shaping great urban design. Her first two books were dedicated to the formation of seventeenth-century Paris. In The Paris of Henri IV: Architecture and Urbanism (1991), Ballon traced the difficult rise of Henri of Navarre to the throne of France following the death of Henri III and the end of the Valois dynasty.1 To gain control over France in the period of the religious wars, Henri converted to Catholicism and rebuilt Paris as a capital city. To tell the story of his urban initiatives (the Place des Vosges and the Place Dauphine among others), Ballon had to find the papers. Previous scholars had been stumped because they sought the records in the royal archives. Ballon understood the pragmatic side of Henri and his minister the Duke of Sully and looked instead in the city archives, the Minutier central , correctly surmising that Henri would pass construction costs on to the merchants and the nobles. The book that came out of this research mapped the formation of the Paris we visit today and the shrewd strategies that underlie its present form. Describing her goal, which she …

Una perspectiva prosopogràfica dels oficis musicals de la Catedral de València en temps de Guillem de Podio, 1480-1505

La actividad musical anterior al siglo XVI en la catedral de Valencia es muy poco conocida. El presente estudio trata de avanzar en el conocimiento de la cuestión dirigiendo el foco de atención hacia los colectivos de personas que desempeñaron los diferentes oficios catedralicios con responsabilidad en la organización y la práctica de la música en este templo en el período 1480-1505, que enmarca el magisterio del tratadista Guillem de Podio en las escuelas de canto. La perspectiva que se ofrece es la aportada por la prosopografía, a partir de datos procedentes tanto de la misma institución como de otras similares, así como de fuentes de características diferentes tales como las notariales, las diocesanas y las conservadas en archivos civiles y reales. Por otra parte, el trabajo también ha permitido presentar suficientes evidencias para poder descartar la hipótesis de identificación, hasta ahora considerada, entre el compositor Juan Rodríguez de Sanabria y el cantor de Isabel la Católica Juan Rodríguez de la Torre. En apéndice se incluye un catálogo prosopográfico de todos los personajes estudiados. [ca] L’activitat musical anterior al segle XVI a la catedral de València és molt poc coneguda. El present estudi tracta d’avançar en el coneixement de la qüesti. dirigint el focus d’atenció cap als col·lectius de persones que exerciren els diferents oficis catedralicis amb responsabilitat en l’organització i la pràctica de la música en aquest temple en el període 1480-1505, que emmarca el magisteri del tractadista Guillem de Podio en les escoles de cant. La perspectiva que s’ofereix és aportada per la prosopografi a, a partir de dades procedents tant de la mateixa institució com d’altres semblants, així com de fonts de característiques diferents com ara les notarials, les diocesanes i les conservades en arxius civils i reials. D’altra banda, el treball també ha permés presentar sufi cients evidències per poder descartar la hipòtesi d’identificació, fins ara considerada, entre el compositor Juan Rodríguez de Sanabria i el cantor d’Isabel la Catòlica Juan Rodríguez de la Torre. En apèndix s’inclou un catàleg prosopogràfic de tots els personatges estudiats.

"Le style paraît simple, mais il a une force merveilleuse": The Mémoires et lettres de voyage of Sophie de Hanovre (1630–1714)

"Le style paraît simple, mais il a une force merveilleuse"1:The Mémoires et lettres de voyage of Sophie de Hanovre (1630–1714) Christine McCall Probes (bio) In Le Siècle de Louis XIV (1751), Voltaire declared that French has become "la langue de l'Europe," reminding his readers of the great authors of the seventeenth century and the Calvinist pastors and refugees, among others, who took the language to foreign countries. Voltaire praised the French "esprit de société" linking it to the qualities of the language itself: "La langue française est de toutes les langues celle qui exprime avec le plus de facilité, de netteté, et de délicatesse, tous les objets de la conversation des honnêtes gens; et par là elle contribue dans toute l'Europe à un des plus grands agréments de la vie" (4: ch. 33, 244). Pierre Bayle, one of the authors singled out by Voltaire for the dissemination of the French language, had affirmed in his preface to Furetière's Dictionnaire universel (1690) that French is heard and spoken in all the courts of Europe, "et il n'est point rare d'y trouver des gens qui parlent français et qui écrivent en français aussi purement que les Français mêmes" (Van der Cruysse, Mémoires 22). Such was the case of Princess Sophie de Hanovre of the Orange-Nassau court whose German father and English mother "ne se parlaient et ne s'écrivaient qu'en français" (Van der Cruysse, Mémoires 22). As Van der Cruysse specifies, "leurs nombreux enfants parlaient l'allemand, l'anglais et même le néerlandais, mais s'exprimaient de préférence en français" ("La cour" 769–70). [End Page 85] In this essay I examine Sophie's style, focusing on qualities of her écriture in the context of the narration of her voyages, both compulsory and voluntary. My analysis of her reflections on the past in the Mémoires and of her essentially instantaneous recounting to her brother the voyages to France and Italy will highlight, as well, distinguishing characteristics of Sophie's narration as letter writer. I treat the memoirs and the letters together because of thematic considerations, that is, the voyages and the events recounted in each. Furthermore, only a year separates the letters from France and the writing of the Mémoires; examining them together also allows us to better appreciate "deux registres complémentaires d'une écriture à la fois intelligente, élégante et naturelle" (Van der Cruysse, Mémoires, Introduction 29). Sophie de Hanovre was the mother of the future George I of England and the adored aunt of Elisabeth Charlotte, duchesse d'Orléans, Madame Palatine, second wife of Monsieur. Her Mémoires et lettres de voyage have been preserved thanks to a copy made by Leibniz who praised them, as my title indicates, for their style. The Mémoires were never published in France until Dirk Van der Cruysse's recent edition (1990), complete with critical apparatus.2 Discovered in the nineteenth century in the royal archives of Hanovre, the Mémoires were published once in Germany (Köcher 1879), then translated into English (Forester 1888). The manuscript copy of Leibniz whose extensive service to Sophie included several roles, "secrétaire, bibliothécaire, conseiller, correspondant et confident," dates from 1709 (Van der Cruysse, Mémoires, Introduction 14). Scholarship on Sophie de Hanovre has focused on her biography and her role in history.3 Only a few studies have concentrated on the Mémoires, notably on the sections where she narrates her travels to Italy and France, for example: Van der Cruysse, "La cour," Requemora-Gros, Nolde and Probes. For Nolde, traveling princesses were often both political mediators and cultural brokers. She encourages the examination of memoirs and correspondence to assess this "mobilité fondamentale mais peu étudiée": "Il suffit de s'intéresser aux mémoires écrits par des femmes pour se rendre compte à quel point le voyage faisait partie de la vie de nombreuses dames de la haute noblesse" (60).4 [End Page 86] Sophie tells us that she wrote the Mémoires "pour éviter la mélancolie...

Le dossier épigraphique d’Hefzibah (202/1-195 a.C.) : chronologie, histoire, diplomatique

The Hefzibah-Stele displays a selection of royal archives of the reign of Antiochos III concerning the villages that Ptolemaios son of Thraseas, governor and ἀρχιερεύς of Koile‑Syria and Phoenicia, possessed near the city of Skythopolis. Several dates were read differently since the editio princeps of Y. H. Landau (1966) up to the recent study of J. Heinrich (2018). It is proven today that the readings of Landau were exact and that the oldest documents date of 202-200 BC., at the beginning of the Fifth Syrian War, whereas the most recent documents date of 195 BC. This chronology leads to revise the accepted date of the taking of the title Βασιλεὺς μέγας by Antiochos III and to revisit the constitution of the archives and the genesis of their publication.

The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris: Artisanal Migration, Technological Innovation, and Gendered Experience by Sharon Farmer

Reviewed by: The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris: Artisanal Migration, Technological Innovation, and Gendered Experience by Sharon Farmer Daryl M. Hafter (bio) The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris: Artisanal Migration, Technological Innovation, and Gendered Experience. By Sharon Farmer. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Pp. 368. Handcover $69.95. This splendid book is a model of history and technical writing. Its author, a highly respected historian and scholar of textile technologies, seeks to verify the long-surmised existence of a silk industry in medieval Paris. The extreme lack of documentation has kept historians from learning about silk making in medieval Paris before now. But samples of woven and embroidered silk in museums and notes in royal archives labeled "silk of Paris" kept alive the idea that a silk industry had existed. Farmer has used the Livre de métiers, tax rolls from the twelfth-fifteenth centuries, royal and aristocratic budget books, as well as examples of luxury silk products to reconstruct a vivid portrait of this industry. In addition, she has supplemented her archival research with a thorough study of the period. Farmer's intent is not only to show that twelfth-fifteenth century Paris had a flourishing silk industry, but that it was fostered by immigrants from Italy and other countries, some of whom became thoroughly integrated into French society. In the course of doing so, she paints a broad picture of silk in Western Europe, the consumption patterns of wealthy individuals, and the unusual opportunities for women working in the Paris silk trade. To help readers who are not familiar with its technology, Farmer gives the clearest and most helpful description of the trajectory of silk from cocoon to woven cloth that I have seen. She leaves us with an understanding of the hierarchy of mercers selling the textile, to highly skilled weavers of soie de Paris and velvet, to female throwsters (spinners) preparing the thread for bobbins. What is most extraordinary about her work is her ability to extrapolate economic relations and lived experience from the small clues in the sources. Though there are only traces, the author suggests that some mercers established their own workshops. From the tax rolls, she recreates neighborhoods of various kinds of silk workers, moneylenders, and mercers who sold the cloth. From guild statutes she concludes that spinners stole from the silk yarn they processed, and pawned it to pay for daily necessities. Since these thread makers lived closest to the Jewish lenders, it was natural to use them. Besides, the Jewish lenders were mostly women who imposed easier terms than the Lombard lenders. From a few records of [End Page 475] throwsters impregnated by Lombard lenders, Farmer deduces that women were more likely to borrow from the Jewish women because while Lombards (accused of half the rapes in Paris) left wives at home, the Jews lived in families. Not only were Jewish women able to participate in the economy, Farmer estimates that there were 1,400 other women manufacturing silk. Of the 241 women listed on tax rolls with their profession, 26 percent were in silk. Even though most were spinners with incomes too low to appear on tax rolls, in general female silk workers' incomes were higher than those of other women working at textiles in northern France and the Lowlands. Chapter 1 sets the stage by showing medieval Paris as a highly cosmopolitan center of royal residence and administrative officials who stimulated silk and other luxury trades. Chapter 2 details the manufacture of silk, and the important role of Lombard merchants in providing raw silk. The mostly female makers of prestigious "narrow goods" and the less-prestigious all-female guild weaving veils together constituted some forty-five weavers. Chapters 3 and 4 show that many mercers came from Italy, a few from Germany and the South of France. Their entrance to Paris is important because it helps to substantiate Farmer's claim that the technology was imported into Paris. As Chapter 5 indicates, silk industries through time have always been founded by skilled workers migrating. The mercers coming to France presumably brought such workers from northern Italy, enabling mercers to establish their own ateliers. Aware that her method of...

The Cuneiform Documents from the Iraqi Excavation at Drehem

Abstract: Drehem, ancient Puzriš-Dagān, is well known as the place of origin of more than 15,000 cuneiform tablets from the Ur III period that were sold on the antiquities markets from 1909 onwards. The State Board of Antiquities and Heritage of Iraq undertook the first controlled excavations at the site in 2007 under the direction of Ali Ubeid Shalkham. The cuneiform texts and fragments found there not only add to the well-known royal archives dealing with cattle, treasure or shoes, but they include many records on crafts and agriculture. With this evidence, the subsistence economy behind this important administrative center and royal palace of the Third Dynasty of Ur becomes more evident. We thank the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, the Iraq Museum Baghdad and Mr Ali Ubeid Shalkham for the permission to publish the tablets from the excavation season of 2007. The stays of Nawala Al-Mutawalli at LMU Munich in 2015 and 2016 in order to prepare this article were generously funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung. We are grateful to Margarete van Ess for the invitation to a first meeting in 2013 at the DAI Orientabteilung, Berlin. Thanks are owed to Manuel Molina for his careful reading of this article and his helpful remarks and Frans van Koppen for his editorial care. Walther Sallaberger’s work also contributes to his “Sumerisches Glossar” project. – All photos and plans of the excavation were made by Ali Ubeid Shalkham, the tablets in the Iraq Museum were photographed by Nawala Al-Mutawalli Mahmood. The abbreviations follow the Reallexikon für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie. The online digital resources CDLI (cdli.ucla.edu) and especially BDTNS (bdtns.filol.csic.es) have proven once more to be indispensable for our studies of lexicography and prosopography.

La Real cancelleria siciliana nel tardo medioevo e l’inquisitio di Giovan Luca Barberi (secoli XIV-XVI)

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Giovan Luca Barberi, Magister notarius of the Sicilian Royal chancery, led an intense and long-lasting inquisitio on the royal patrimony of the island and on the possessions of local lords on behalf of King Ferdinand II of Aragon. This well-known inquiry arouse the interest of a number of scholars, who have especially stressed the aspects connected to its importance in the history of law, as well as its political consequences. However, by analysing Barberi’s work (a system of books known as capibrevi) through an administrative perspective, it can now be understood as the result of an “archival enterprise” and, at the same time, strictly connected to the role of Magister notarius that Barberi had in the Sicilian chancery. On the one hand, this study describes the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century dynamics that influenced the functioning of the Regia cancelleria and the tasks of its personnel, as well as to define the methods for producing, recording and preserving documentation. On the other hand, this study promotes a new explanation of Barberi’s inquisitio, illustrating in detail how the Magister notarius worked in royal archives and how carried out his inquiry, in other words, how he retrieved, used and organised information for compiling the capibrevi.

Archives of the Mediterranean: Governance and Record-Keeping in the Crown of Aragon in the Long Fifteenth Century

From the late medieval period the Crown of Aragon was at the forefront of archival innovation. Culminating in the establishment of the Royal Archive of Barcelona in 1318, this development was not, as is traditionally stated, a mere imitation of external models but the result of an innovative historical process that had its roots in local history and reflected the structure of the Aragonese monarchy. As a result of the later enlargement and decentralization of the Crown, and especially after the advent of the House of Trastámara in 1414, the Aragonese developed an extensive system for record-keeping across the Mediterranean. By focusing on what I describe as a complex archival network, this article analyses a series of administrative developments, which are generally studied in isolation, as interrelated responses to similar needs across disparate and far-flung territories. The results differed within the Iberian dominions (Aragon, Majorca and Valencia) and in the Italian kingdoms of Sicily and Naples, with Sardinia somewhere in between. For all these differences, however, the establishment of a number of financial archives shows that this network had an especially crucial role in defending the royal patrimony in all the territories under the rule of the Crown of Aragon. The authorities also tried to use archives as tools for exercising pressure upon local political elites, as demonstrated, for instance, by the systematic inquiry into feudal possessions and pecuniary rights instigated by King Ferdinand II in early sixteenth-century Sicily. The outcome, however, was totally unexpected.

The Censorship of British Drama 1900–1968, Volume Two: 1933–1952 by Steve Nicholson, and: The Censorship of British Drama 1900–1968, Volume Three: the Fifties by Steve Nicholson, and: The Censorship of British Drama 1900–1968, Volume Four: the Sixties by Steve Nicholson

Reviewed by: The Censorship of British Drama 1900–1968, Volume Two: 1933–1952 by Steve Nicholson, and: The Censorship of British Drama 1900–1968, Volume Three: the Fifties by Steve Nicholson, and: The Censorship of British Drama 1900–1968, Volume Four: the Sixties by Steve Nicholson Melissa Dana Gibson The Censorship of British Drama 1900–1968, Volume Two: 1933–1952. By Steve Nicholson. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2005; pp. 400. The Censorship of British Drama 1900–1968, Volume Three: the Fifties. By Steve Nicholson. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2011; pp. 288. The Censorship of British Drama 1900–1968, Volume Four: the Sixties. By Steve Nicholson. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2015; pp. 368.1 Official theatre censorship in England was instituted in 1737 and lasted until 1968. All plays intended for public performance were vetted by readers in the Lord Chamberlain’s offices in St. James Palace. Wielding their blue pencils, readers could demand cuts or changes to dialogue or stage directions; they [End Page 494] could even ban a play outright, although this was a rarity. While negotiations over changes often occurred between the Lord Chamberlain’s officers and theatre managers or playwrights, there was no appeal process; issues of particular controversy were referred to the Lord Chamberlain himself and his decision was final. One unexpected legacy of this centralized bureaucratic system is a huge trove of documents, first made public in 1999, tracing the history of drama censorship in Britain. Since the 2003 publication of the first volume in this series, Steve Nicholson has performed the herculean task of mining the 50,000 files in the British Library and another mountain of information in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle to provide a comprehensive history of twentieth-century theatre censorship. The thoroughness of his accomplishment is clear in the ballooning size of the series—originally intended for two volumes, it has grown to four (plus another book reprinting primary documents, The Lord Chamberlain Regrets, published by the British Library, which Nicholson coedited with Dominic Shellard and Miriam Handley). The result of this expansion is a telescoping survey: volume 1 covers thirty-two years; volume 2, twenty-one years; and volumes 3–4, only eight years each. Nicholson has impressively shaped a pile of bureaucratic policy memos into an engaging narrative through his clear, lively prose; his text is more accessible, for instance, than the specialist’s Theatre Censorship from Walpole to Wilson by David Thomas, David Carlton, and Anne Etienne, which focuses on the legislative history of censorship. Nicholson also has a keen eye for the telling detail or entertaining quotation: a play that imagined a black US president was allowed only “on the understanding that the ‘United States’ is changed to ‘Utopia’” (3:164); on the issue of sexual perversion in Giraudoux’s Judith: “We must draw the line at a donkey” (3:181). Volume 2 covers the years 1933 to 1952. It is slightly disappointing that, given the political tensions of the era, this volume lacks the spirited jousting between committed playwrights and the Lord Chamberlain’s office that animate volume 1, encompassing the years 1900 to 1932. Instead, Foreign Office policies practically dictated censorship decisions, quashing any debate. In this absence, the most interesting part of the second volume concerns the culture wars of the era, particularly the Lord Chamberlain’s dealings with the Public Morality Council (and fellow travelers like “the terrifyingly named British Women’s Total Abstinence Union” [2:75]). Staffed largely by clergy though also politically well-connected, the council, which lasted through the 1960s, could not be entirely ignored, although the Lord Chamberlain clearly regarded it as a nuisance. Reading their correspondences gives some credence to fears later expressed by theatre producers in the 1960s that the abolition of official state censorship would expose productions to even harsher local censorship bodies: the assessments issued from St. James Palace are certainly more sophisticated and liberal than the narrow-minded, racist, and homophobic letters from the Public Morality Council and its ilk complaining of lax censorship standards. These tensions heat up in volume 3, “The Fifties,” which is anchored by the complicated battle over the policy on representations of homosexuality. Although...

D.W. Griffith’s Foray Into Eastern Europe: A Recuperation of History

A film proposal on D.W. Griffith letterhead exists, virtually unknown, in the Royal Archives of HRH Prince Paul of Romania. This film proposal centers on the Odessa marriage and tragic aftermath of Crown Prince Carol II of Romania and Ioana Marie Valentino Lambrino. While the film was never made, the backstory of the contract is marked by the intersection of radical shifts in the film industry, due to transatlantic activity and industrialization, and in political dynasties in the face of Republican sentiments. This contract proposal furthers The Griffith Project’s investigation into the European interests of the American director at a time when he was becoming out of step with the industry he helped to create. It reinforces the important role of film in the writing of history, as it recuperates and also influences one of the buried stories of passion, a story not only of love but of casualties of war, dramatic intrigue and governmental cover-ups.

The archives and the exercise of power. The archives of the Royal Fortress of the Alhambra in the 18th century. Legal disputes and competition problems among the conservative judge and the governor, the overseer and notaries

The present study analyses the management of an archive of the XVIIIth century, the Royal Archive oftheAlhambra, it is to say the archivists tasks that were on duty and the administrative use of this record office to join the Crown Land. Also it is shown how the Royal Archive and other public records offices of the Alhambra are an instrument to exercise the power in a period of political and administrative changes. Once more the study of an archive allows to knowledge the institutions that produce the records, in the present analysis the Alcaidía, Juez Conservador, veedor and notary publics, between others.

Prophecy and the Royal Court in the Ancient Near East

AbstractMost ancient Near Eastern prophetic texts were found in royal archives, and therefore, they largely deal with the figure and person of the king in his interaction with the world around him. There is a great emphasis on war and succession, two key crisis moments for ancient Near Eastern monarchs. While the Neo‐Assyrian oracles focus on these two areas using a lot of metaphors, the Old Babylonian texts from Mari also show an interest in the diplomatic relationships of the king.