Society In England Research Articles

Jerrold Seigel, Modernity and Bourgeois Life, Society, Politics and Culture in England, France, Germany since 1750

L’ouvrage de Jerrold Seigel merite attention par sa double inscription dans deux veines historiographiques actuelles, d’une part les reflexions, en partie renouvelees, sur les notions de bourgeoisie ou de vie bourgeoise, notamment elargies aux dimensions culturelles, d’autre part l’interet pour une histoire internationalisee ou comparative. Ce fort volume releve en effet le pari ambitieux de confronter les evolutions anglaise, francaise et allemande depuis le milieu du XVIIIe siecle, deux sie...

Hat Honour, Self-Identity and Commitment in Early Quakerism

Hat Honour, Self-Identity and Commitment in Early Quakerism Susan Wareham Watkins (bio) “[T]he … artificial, feigned, and strained art of compliment, consisting in bundles of fopperies, fond ceremonies, foolish windings, … and cringings with their bodies, uncovering their heads, [and] using multitudes of frothy … words…,”1 permeated all levels of English society in mid-seventeenth century England. Today we might view such foppish etiquette as quaint or old fashioned. But to the early Quakers the code of hat honour was seen as far more than mere etiquette. Hat honour went against the word of God as expressed in scripture, and impinged on religious and social freedoms, reinforced status and subordination in a sharply differentiated hierarchical society, and struck against foundational Quaker testimonies to the Light Within, truth, equality and personal simplicity. Opposing hat honour was “The first and most pressing motive upon our spirits,” wrote the Quaker leader William Penn in 1682, a “hidden treasure,”2 while Joseph Besse, who catalogued the “sufferings” of seventeenth century Quakers 50 years later,3 also noted the “great Weight and Consequence” the “Principal Point” hat honour meant to this first generation of converts.4 Over the years Puritan writers had targeted the “sinne of excess in Apparell,”5 and many people relinquished the prideful pursuit of fashion, instead seeking deeper inner values. George Fox, who is generally considered to be the founding organizer of the Society of Friends, and other Quaker leaders, and many who adopted the Quaker message, were deeply influenced by Puritanism.6 Like others who preceded them, new members to Quakerism sought to wean themselves from “the Things that are below” and move to a simpler more spiritual life, setting their goal on “Things that are above.”7 But more importantly for the Quakers, their witness against hat honour was part of the Lamb’s War—their fight against the forces of Satan and the false teachings of the world so as to prepare themselves and the world for the return of Christ.8 Their principled resistance to worldly honorifics was widespread in spite of their understanding of the social and political implications refusing to bear hat honour would entail, and many Quaker men were imprisoned, fined, or beaten, several dying from their injuries. Years of political, religious and social disorder after the turmoil of civil war heightened sensitivities surrounding law and order issues, and Quaker refusal of honorifics seemed to threaten the social order and undermine the basis of control. Adopting the “plain” attitude to hat honour and its associated etiquette, not just to clothing and language, soon became associated with Quakerism, and as the early converts strove to internalize the Quaker message this testimony helped [End Page 1] forge their identity as members of this new faith. However, writing of his personal Quaker convincement as a young man, Thomas Ellwood testified that this was not easy for them to do. By 1660 public testimony against the vanity of hat honour was a visible indicator of “membership” in the fast growing movement. Although viewed by the wider community as a contemptuous discourtesy and a threat to the stability of their localities, for the new Quaker convert opposition to the code of hat honour explicitly declared his faith to the world and was an integral part of his spiritual journey to self-identity and commitment. Because of the current minimal etiquette surrounding hat wearing, understanding the vitality and urgency associated with Quaker opposition to hat honour in mid-seventeenth century England has been lost in the mists of time with only occasional brief references appearing in modern literature. This review of the Quaker testimony against hat honour and the entrenched protocol of the period, seeks to give a deeper understanding of its major role in nascent Quakerism. Hats, History and Hat Honour A large hat-making industry supplied the annual demand for three million hats in a populace of just over five million.9 Hats, often made of expensive materials,10 were worn by most men in this period, with the style and visibility of the hat identifying the wearer’s status. Far more than a head covering for warmth or as a fashion statement, hats were an integral part...

‘The Rich and the Poor, the Lesser and the Great’

ABSTRACTThis article explores the intersection between society and culture in medieval England by examining the ways in which the social identities of female pilgrims were represented in twelfth-century miracle narratives. Miracle stories are written accounts of miraculous events associated with saints' shrines, and often include detailed sociological information about medieval pilgrims. The article focuses on women in these texts, and investigates the extent to which the social roles and labels attributed to female pilgrims by clerical writers suggest a hagiographical discourse of womanhood rather than an accurate reflection of women's social experiences in twelfth-century England.

After Jonathan Edwards: The Courses of the New England Theology. Edited by Oliver D. Crisp and Douglas A. Sweeney. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. xviii + 348 pp. $99.00 cloth; $35.00 paper.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)After Jonathan Edwards: The Courses of England . Edited by Oliver D. Crisp and Douglas A. Sweeney . York : Oxford University Press , 2012. xviii + 348 pp. $99.00 cloth; $35.00 paper.Book Reviews and NotesThis collection of seventeen essays is presented as a corrective to a position first articulated almost a ago by Joseph Haroutunian in Piety Versus Moralism: The Passing of England (New York: Henry Holt, 1932), a classic text that contributed in large part to twentieth-century resurgence of interest in academic study of Jonathan Edwards. Taking my copy of this text from shelf, where it had most likely rested unopened since graduate school, I was surprised to discover on flyleaf strong signature of influential Presbyterian theologian himself. I also easily located in its introduction a strong statement of view essays in After Jonathan Edwards aim to counter: seen from perspective of theology of Edwards, writes Haroutunian, the history of England is history of a degradation (xxii).Coined in nineteenth century, term New England Theology refers to a theological tradition whose diverse members promoted a style of evangelical Calvinism that, although doctrinally distinctive, claimed allegiance to thought of Jonathan Edwards. Following Haroutunian, growth of this theological tradition has commonly been framed not as development, but as decline. As collection's editors, Oliver D. Crisp and Douglas A. Sweeney, observe, the England theology is a tale of ever more arid and abstruse metaphysical theorizing on basis of an original, and intellectually dynamic, Edwardsian deposit (5). Contrary to this declension narrative, they assert this tradition is the most significant and enduring Christian theological school of thought to have originated in United States (4). The essays in this volume support this contention by considering not only development and importance of England in nineteenth-century America but also international reach of its theological vision.The collection is divided into three sections. The first places intellectual and theological concerns of Edwards's immediate successors, called Divinity, in a larger context. The essays written by Mark Valeri and James P. Byrd draw interesting connections between this theological school and issues of broader historical concern. Valeri shifts attention from doctrine to method by arguing that a distinguishing feature of Edwardsian thought was its promotion of the culture of gentility that defined rules of Anglo-American social discourse during second half of eighteenth century (18). Byrd explores theological roots of Edwardsian anti-slavery activism, which at times placed Divinity in conflict with genteel England society. Crisp's essay, by contrast, stands out for directly challenging a central element of declension thesis, development of a governmental doctrine of atonement, which Haroutunian considered symptomatic of degraded moralism of England theology. To undermine this claim Crisp argues that the seeds of England governmental view of atonement were sown by Edwards himself, and that precedents exist for this view in earlier Reform thought (78).The essays in volume's second section are each devoted to prominent representatives of England Theology, from Samuel Hopkins to Edwards Amasa Park. …

The age of affluence revisited: Council estates and consumer society in Britain, 1950–1970

Historians and sociologists have long had a fascination with the idea of the postwar British ‘affluent society’. Yet, up until now, most work in this area has been centred upon developments within the private and commercial sectors of the British economy. What this article shows is that rising levels of affluence, and the subsequent emergence of mass consumerism, also had quite profound effects upon the British public sector during the 1950s and 1960s. Using the public housing sector as the case study through which to explore these changes, this article shows how the increased emphasis upon consumer spending and consumer choice in this period not only resulted in heightened levels of consumption within the domestic sphere, but also fundamentally altered the shape and meaning of the council estate home.

‘Conscientious Attention to Publick and Family Worship of God’: Religious Practice in Eighteenth-Century English Households

Households were the basic units of society in England until well into the nineteenth century, providing the focus of much economic activity, as well as education and, as this essay will argue, religious and devotional life. Recent research has revealed the centrality of religious life in the home in early modern England, but the extensive research about eighteenth-century households over the past fifteen years has seldom made reference to the place and practice of religion in the domestic context. This essay, focusing on the corporate religious life of Anglican households rather than on the piety and devotions of individuals, suggests that religion remained at the heart of the home and family lives of Anglican laypeople throughout the period. It was not rediscovered by Evangelicals, nor was it a distinguishing feature of evangelical households, but was a continuing element throughout the period.

New England Society of Allergy (NESA) Fall Meeting Abstracts, October 5-6, 2013, Providence, RI.

New England Society of Allergy (NESA) Fall Meeting Abstracts, October 5-6, 2013, Providence, RI.

Estate management and institutional constraints in pre‐industrialEngland: the ecclesiastical estates ofDurham, c. 1400–1640

This article explores how far estate management and institutional constraints help to explain the transformations of rural society inEngland from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. The monks ofDurhamCathedralPriory and the bishops ofDurham faced many of the same exogenous pressures in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries but they responded differently to these challenges. By the seventeenth century all of the dean and chapter's lands were consolidated holdings on 21‐year leases, whereas a confused mixture of copyhold and leasehold land had developed on the bishops' estate. This had a significant impact upon the challenges and opportunities facing their tenants. Institutional constraints were often crucial factors in the transformation of the English countryside: these two neighbouring ecclesiastical estates faced broadly the same problems and yet the composition of their estates diverged significantly across this period, having a profound effect not only on levels of rent, but also on the tenure of holdings and ultimately their relative size; three of the most important factors in the formation of agrarian capitalism. This article also argues that how rural society adapted to the fifteenth‐century recession greatly affected the ability of their sixteenth‐century counterparts to respond to inflation.

Museum Politics in Industrial Britain

In this compelling book, Amy Woodson-Boulton tells several stories about cultural institutions in Victorian England's industrial cities. She maps the development of city museums in Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester, clarifying differences and similarities in their strategies for museum creation and collection development. She weaves into these stories additional material relating to class conflicts, John Ruskin's influence and the reasons for the kinds of art collected. Museum promoters argued for art as a public good in often conflicting terms, including the improvement of workers in the industrial North on the one hand, and the exclusive entitlements of the educated classes on the other. Woodson-Boulton also maps late-century changes in curators' professionalization, new art historical methods, and new justifications for art, from the moral to the educational. Woodson-Boulton's introduction surveys Victorian ideas about beauty, art and society in Britain, which lagged behind the earlier development of public museums on the Continent. She begins with Whistler's summary of two conflicting ways of viewing art: looking through a painting to its subject to retrieve moral or narrative content, or looking at a painting to understand its formal properties, brushwork and emotive or intellectual content. Both ways of looking were saturated with cultural, social and political meanings as museums became sites of social control, class conflict and urban identity. Ruskin's view of art as a window onto nature influenced the councilmen and museum administrators of Britain's industrial cities. Woodson-Boulton summarizes Ruskin's contribution to these cities' ‘vibrant cultural debate’ (p. 4), but does not refer to his political economy of art in which he ponders the value of public and private collections.

Inns, innkeepers and the society of later medieval England, 1350–1600

The inns and innkeepers of medieval England form a poorly documented and neglected group of institutions and individuals. Yet at a time of growing specialism, they were a crucial part of the economic infrastructure of the country. This study is focused on the documentation for central southern England but seeks to place this in a wider perspective. There was now a regular provision of inns in accordance with the size and importance of the towns. Inns generated substantial rent and were evidently felt to be worth considerable investment. Innkeepers were among the rich and influential members of the town. Inns played a vital role in the evolving and prospering economic, social and political life of the nation in this period.

The future of criminal legal aid

Linda Lee* a solicitor and former President of the Law Society of England and Wales, comments on the government proposals to reduce the number of firms offering criminal legal aid from over a thousand to around three hundred. Fee rates for legal aid have not been increased for over 20 years and last year some of the rates were cut. The government is proposing further cuts of 17.5%. Early plans to prevent client choice seem unlikely to proceed but given that the majority of work is acquired in the police station at the time of arrest it is unlikely that a sustainable business can be built on an existing client base.

Jerrold Seigel. Modernity and Bourgeois Life: Society, Politics, and Culture in England, France, and Germany since 1750.

Modernity and Bourgeois Life is the fifth major book by Jerrold Seigel on the subject of modern life, and it is his most accessible thus far. The book's argument helps explain the internet's success and thus offers a point of entry into the history of Europe to students and others who grew up within its reach. Modernity is defined, Seigel argues, by its web of impersonal long-distance networks. Markets, states, and exchanges of information are described here as “networks of means,” “structures through which scattered people, objects and implements can be linked together by way of ”chains of purposive action“ allowing the diverse elements of social power to be exchanged and gathered at some chosen point” (p. 8). With “chains of purposive action” Seigel is quoting Georg Simmel, whose understanding of “social tools”—such as money—as the means by which people ”assemble and make available diffused and distant resources and assets, generating powers [they] would not otherwise possess“ has influenced Seigel's thinking about networks and modernity (p. 7).

Punishment and the Political Technologies of the Body

In important respects the 1970s was the foundational moment for the revival of punishment and society as a distinct and productive intellectual field at the intersection of criminology, sociology, political science and history. We can point to multiple intellectual sources of emergence in the decade. In the UK, and the USA British cultural studies (Cohen, 1973; Hall et al.), radical criminologies (Platt, 1977; Taylor et al., 1973) and historians studying crime and society in 18th century England (Hay et al., 1975; Thompson, 1976) all rediscovered Durkheim’s interest in the relationship between crime and social order (Garland, 1990).

NEWCASTLE IN THE LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

THE THESIS OF A ‘LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY’, which has been so influential in altering traditional periodisation, conceives of the social, political, economic, and cultural developments of the later decades of the seventeenth century, as creating a viable political and social order which largely endured until the 1830s. Contrary to historians, who have been eager to ante-date the changes to the economy and society of Britain associated with an ‘Industrial Revolution’ and have seen the eighteenth century as a preparation for parliamentary reform and extensive urbanisation, it posits a pre-industrial economy that was viable and dynamic in its own right, and a social order which demonstrated considerable cohesion in that, despite acute social tensions, ‘acceptable compromises could be negotiated, compromises which safeguarded the social fabric’.1 Continuity in constitutional and political spheres and in the social hierarchy, rather than stifling economic and cultural change, provided the context for innovation and development. Few towns in Britain better exemplify this than Newcastle, a town which saw little change in its institutions and social fabric, but increased in prosperity and became a thriving cultural centre with a ‘polite society’. Continuity was most basically expressed in the physical town, which remained between 1688 and the 1830s largely confined within its medieval town walls, only cautiously venturing beyond them in the early nineteenth century,2 while the Keelmens’ crowded Sandgate remained the only substantial quarter outside the old boundaries. The walls, themselves, remained intact, if somewhat dilapidated, until, after the 1745 Rebellion, the lingering feeling that they might yet be needed for defence disappeared, and the demolition of the section along the Quayside began in 1763.

Association Roundtable

Insights and advice from leaders of local and state biomedical associations“We at the California Medical Instrumentation Association have provided some basic educational opportunities to address cybersecurity concerns in healthcare to our members through individual chapter meetings. Speakers and presenters from healthcare systems associated with both healthcare technology management and information technology (IT) have shared their experiences. Original equipment manufacturers also have been involved in some meetings with their experiences on cybersecurity concerns in healthcare.”Gus Sakis, State Board Chair, California Medical Instrumentation Association“The HTMA-SC is doing nothing in this area. Our members are struggling with mundane issues, such as training budgets. We have little support or time except for trying to get our PMs done and saving money. IT has this responsibility.”Patrick Lynch, President, Healthcare Technology Management Association of South Carolina“The Healthcare Technology Management Association of the Mid-West (HTMA-MW, formerly the Kansas City Biomed Society) has been holding classes to expand the base knowledge of the members to include more IT topics. These classes include A+ certification, Network+ certification, and planned network security topics. The association is looking to have its members more active in cooperating with hospital IT departments to prevent breaches in security through the network, as well as giving them the ability to recognize when someone is attempting to access the network inappropriately.”Robin N. Faut, Educational Coordinator, Healthcare Technology Management Association of the Mid-WestThe New England Society of Clinical Engineering (NESCE) has addressed cybersecurity in several ways, most notably through education, networking, and discussions. The society has provided subsidized network training courses for several years that have aspects delving into network security.Barrett Franklin, President, New England Society of Clinical Engineering

Tracking Transformations in Health Movement Organisations: Alzheimer's Disease Organisations and their Changing ‘Cause Regimes’

In this paper, we aim to contribute to the elaboration of a framework for the systematic periodisation of health social movement organisations (HSMOs). Drawing on historical and contemporaneous data on two organisations that identify as Alzheimer's disease movement organisations (the Alzheimer's Society in Britain and the Alzheimer Society of Ireland), we consider transformations in these organisations' ‘cause regimes’. By cause regime, we refer to who and what an HSMO is fighting for, as articulated in its public self-identifications; to the broader framing of the cause and to how organisations' public self-identifications of their cause can govern or regulate their operation, including their interactions with and representations of those on whose behalf they advocate. We show that the transformation of HSMOs' cause regime can give rise to a series of organisational tensions and challenges, including the alignment of the public identification of its cause with the patient identities it promotes, or its day-to-day ‘patient identity work’.

Environment, society and landscape in early medieval England: time and topography

The Anglo-Saxon period was crucial in the development of England's character: its language, and much of its landscape and culture, were forged in the period between the fifth and the eleventh centuries. Historians and archaeologists have long been fascinated by its regional variations, by the way in which different parts of the country displayed marked differences in social structures, settlement patterns, and field systems. In this controversial and wide-ranging study, the author argues that such differences were largely a consequence of environmental factors: of the influence of climate, soils and hydrology, and of the patterns of contact and communication engendered by natural topography. He also suggests that such environmental influences have been neglected over recent decades by generations of scholars who are embedded in an urban culture and largely divorced from the natural world; and that an appreciation of the fundamental role of physical geography in shaping human affairs can throw much new light on a number of important debates about early medieval society. The book will be essential reading for all those interested in the character of the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian settlements, in early medieval social and territorial organization, and in the origins of the England's medieval landscapes. Tom Williamson is Professor of Landscape History, University of East Anglia; he has written widely on landscape archaeology, agricultural history, and the history of landscape design.

The Problem of Tyranny in Fifteenth Century England

Was tyranny a crucial political problem in late medieval England? To answer this question, we examine which political texts were most widely read at that time. It is then possible to survey these texts and this reveals the two main meanings of tyranny: the king becomes a tyrant when he is unfair or/and when he is a predator. This second meaning is related to the development of royal taxation. However, the tyrants who are usually described by English authors are those of the ancient times. Tyranny is generally close to cruelty, and rarely referred to in a political context. The immediate preoccupations of the members of the political society in 15th century England were centred upon the problems of disorder and of legitimacy.

Music and Society in Early Modern England. By Christopher Marsh. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History. Edited by John Morrill, Ethan Shagan, and Alexandra Walsham.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. xiv+609, with audio CD. $110.00.

<i>Music and Society in Early Modern England</i>. By Christopher Marsh. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History. Edited by John Morrill, Ethan Shagan, and Alexandra Walsham.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. xiv+609, with audio CD. $110.00.

Zionism: revolt against historic destiny

The following essay is based on a lecture given by Dr. Wistrich at the Jewish Historical Society of England in December, 1976. The origins and aims of Zionism are often forgotten when its ideology and practice relating to the present are being discussed. The gap between the promise and its fulfilment becomes clear when confronted with today's reality. The author concludes his searching analysis with the observation that “in many respects the insistence of the Arabs on the de-Zionisation of Israel is analogous to the demand of European Christian societies for the de-judaisation of the Jews as a price for their acceptance”. If by ‘de-Zionisation’ is meant that the Israelis should cease to be an ethnic entity, does this mean that they would be accorded the status of Jewish Arabs in the same way as there are Christian Arabs distinguished from other Arabs by their religious affiliations only? The Zionist Revolution intended to put an end to the division between religion and nationality or, as some would say, t...