Sutton Publishing Research Articles

Authority and community in the Middle Ages. Edited by Donald Mowbray, Rhiannon Purdie and Ian Wei. Pp. xviii+187 incl. 6 figs. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1999. £55. 0 7509 1867 5

<i>Authority and community in the Middle Ages</i>. Edited by Donald Mowbray, Rhiannon Purdie and Ian Wei. Pp. xviii+187 incl. 6 figs. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1999. £55. 0 7509 1867 5

The Hell Fire Clubs: A History of Anti-Morality. By Geoffrey Ashe (Stroud, Gloucs: Sutton Publishing, 2000)

The Hell Fire Clubs: A History of Anti-Morality. By Geoffrey Ashe (Stroud, Gloucs: Sutton Publishing, 2000)

Timothy Mowl, Gentlemen and Players: Gardeners of the English Landscape, Stroud, Gloucestershire, Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2000. 218 pp, £25.00 hb, 0 7509 2342 5.

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St Augustine and the conversion of England. Edited by Richard Gameson. Pp. xii+436 incl. 103 ills+10 colour plates. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1999. £30. 0 7509 2087 4

<i>St Augustine and the conversion of England</i>. Edited by Richard Gameson. Pp. xii+436 incl. 103 ills+10 colour plates. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1999. £30. 0 7509 2087 4

The Great Irish Potato Famine (review)

The Great Irish Potato Famine, by James S. Donnelly, Jr., pp. 292. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 2001. $29.95. Distributed by National Book Network, Lanham.

Under the Red Flag. A History of Communism in Britain, c. 1849–1991. By Laybourn, Keith and Dylan Murphy. Sutton Publishing, Stroud 1999. xix, 233 pp. Ill. £25.00; $34.95.

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Book Reviews

Journal Article Book Reviews Get access STEPHEN PORTER. The Great Plague. Stroud, Gloucestershire, Great Britain, Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000. ix, 213 pp., illus. $21.95. ROBERT G. FRANK, JR. ROBERT G. FRANK, JR. Medical History Division, Department of Neurobiology, UCLA School of MedicineLos Angeles, California 90095–1763 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Volume 56, Issue 3, July 2001, Pages 296–298, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/56.3.296 Published: 01 July 2001

Stephen Haliday, The great stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the cleansing of the Victorian capital, Thrupp, Stroud, Sutton Publishing, 1999, pp. xiii, 210, illus., £19.99, $36.95 (0-7509-1975-2).

Stephen Haliday, The great stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the cleansing of the Victorian capital, Thrupp, Stroud, Sutton Publishing, 1999, pp. xiii, 210, illus., £19.99, $36.95 (0-7509-1975-2). - Volume 45 Issue 1

Book Review: John Southworth, &lt;em&gt;Fools and Jesters at the English Court&lt;/em&gt;. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1998.

Book Review: John Southworth, &lt;em&gt;Fools and Jesters at the English Court&lt;/em&gt;. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1998.

British Intelligence and the Turkish National Movement, 1919-22

Readers of Keith Jeffery and Alan Sharp's article 'Lord Curzon and Secret Intelligence', in Christopher Andrew and Jeremy Noakes (eds.) Intelligence and International Relations (University of Exeter, 1987), and Robin Denniston's Churchill's Secret War (Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 1997), might be excused for concluding that British intelligence regarding the Turkish national movement in Anatolia in the period of national struggle, 1919-22, was obtained almost entirely from intercepts of Turkish, Greek, French, Italian and other telegraphic and radio communications, decoded where necessary either by British Military Intelligence, Constantinople, or by the British Code and Cypher School (BCCS), set up in 1919, or its predecessors, Room 40, Old Building, Admiralty, and MI lb, War Office. Such was not the case. Throughout the period of national struggle MI lc, later known as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), and the other, associated British intelligence services, in particular Naval Intelligence, provided a great deal of information about events in Anatolia, most of which was obtained, not from intercepts, but from the more traditional sources of information available at the time. These included Turkish, Greek, Armenian and Arab agents, locally recruited by MI Ic, Constantinople, and the various British intelligence services, operating in Syria and Mesopotamia; members of the Ottoman government, the Turkish national movement and the Greek Orthodox Church, friendly to Britain; employees of the Levant Consular Service; reports published in the local and foreign press (Journal d'Orient, Yeni Gun, Ileri, Hakimiet-i-Millie, Ankara Press Agency, Chicago Tribune and many others); contacts in the French, Italian and Greek intelligence services; and British control officers and other personnel posted at strategic points in Anatolia, until the spring of 1920, when following the Allied (British, French and Italian) occupation of Constantinople (the previous occupation had been unofficial), British personnel were either arrested or expelled from the area. Until the spring of 1920, therefore, information regarding events in Anatolia was more than plentiful. Only following the

The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia by W. F. s&gt; Ryan (review)

REVIEWS 157 terriblyconfusing, usuallywith fartoo many geographical,demographic, and political detailsthat arenever dealtwith in the text. They are also,with one or two exceptions, very poorly produced; some are nearly illegible. A bibliographicalessaywould have been a usefulway of pointing the interestedreader to further resources on Croatia, but the bibliography here is simply chronological and not annotated. Nearly three-quartersof the entries are in Croatian. This is a good book, but with only a bit more attention, the author and publishercould have made it a genuinelyexcellent one. School ofForeign Service CHARLES KING Georgetown University Ryan W. F. 7heBathhouse atMidnight: AnHistorical Survey ofMagicandDivination in Russia.Magic in History Series. Sutton Publishing, Stroud, I999. viii + 504 pp. Notes. Illustrations.Bibliography.Index. ?5o; f 1499. THEdustcover of thislargetome alluringlyproclaims7The Bathhouse atMidnight. MagicinRussia,and in so doing seems set to attracta largepopularreadership, certain of them with what might be called a dubious interest in the subject. Inside, the addition of the words 'an historical survey', especially the 'an' should frightenaway some. But though the amateur magic buff or part-time witch will find a good deal that is instructiveand entertainingin this account of a huge range of magic and divinatorytexts and practicesin Russia, it is the seriousand scholarlyreaderwho will be delighted by the comprehensiveness of the volume and the erudition of its author. With thirtyyears' experience studying 'scientific' and magic texts in Kievan and Muscovite Russia, Dr Ryan is uniquely qualified for the task, and his authority is stamped on the work, particularlythe sections devoted to Kievan and Muscovite texts, their historyand sources. For this is a compendium of magic and divinatory beliefs, practices and texts, treated, whenever the evidence will allow, historically.It opens with an outline highlighting the historico-culturalcontext as it affectedthe reception of magic texts and the practice of magic in Russia before the end of the eighteenth century. There then follow chapterson the varioustypes of magic and magic practitioners, moving in general terms from the popular to the 'literary', while recognizing that many practices such as dream divination featurein both traditions.The book thus begins with popularmagic, wizards and witches and ends with astrology, before being rounded off by a useful historicalsurveyof the attitudesof the ecclesiasticaland secularauthoritiesto magic and to those who delved in it. Each chapteris divided into subsections dealingwith specificformsof magic, makingforeasy accessto the evidence. The approach is inclusive and apart from historical evolution, openly emphasizesdescriptionand commentary,with particularattentionpaid to the interrelationship between folk and literary sources as well as sources (or parallels)to Russian materialin Classical,Byzantine,Arabic,West European and other traditions of magic and divination. Its emphasis is on the period before I8oo, thus including the westernizingeighteenth century, when magic and divinationwere stilltakenseriously(ifonly negatively)by the authorities. i58 SEER, 79, I, 2001 The oral material is drawn from ethnographic and other sources from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and there are some brief,wry comments on contemporaryRussianmagic, sorceryand divination. Writtenwith a familiaritywith Westernstudieson magic (hereinstitutional affiliation to the Warburg Institute in the University of London is an advantage), this wider perspective allows for a comparative approach which providesa usefulantidote to the narrowlyRussian or Slav approach of many scholars.Indeed Ryan is ever keen to puncture their speculativeballoons, as when, for the benefit of those convinced that the Russian spell or incantation (zagovor) is unique in its poetics and form, he quotes a spell from Kentucky which would hardly need adaptation if translated into Russian (p. i68). Another of the tenets held dear by many Russian and Soviet scholars is the good/bad binarycontrastbetween folkand literary.By confidentlybestriding the dividingline and treatingboth, Ryan not only givesus comprehensiveness, but is also able to temper assertionsof the distinctivelyRussiannatureof, say, many prognosticationsthroughcarefulanalysisof the manuscripttraditionof written divination. He is cautious in his conclusions, recognizing that coincidence of popular and literary magic does not necessarily mean that popular ones are therefore of literary origin (p. I44). However, where he considers parallels are extremely close, he inclines to accept the idea of borrowing.Forexample, he somewhataudaciouslypostulatesthattheYuletide folksongs (podbliudnyepesni) and accompanying magic practices,so beloved of all classes of Russians before the Revolution, derive from the Greek midsummerdivinationhokledonas because of theirclose similarity(p. 97). He is of course right to note that...

Croatia: A History by Ivo s&gt; Goldstein Nikolina Jovanović (review)

156 SEER, 79, I, 2001 Goldstein, Ivo. Croatia: A Histoy. Translated by Nikolina Jovanovic. Hurst, London, I999. iX+ 28I pp. Maps. Bibliography.Index. C4o.oo;LI 4.95. Ivo GOLDSTEIN is a respected medieval historianat the University of Zagreb and, duringmost of the period of Yugoslavia'sviolent disintegration,servedas director of the University'sInstitute of Croatian History. He was thus at the centre of the project to create a new Croatian national identity after Yugoslaviaand sawhisprofessionpoliticizedbytheforcesofFranjoTudjman's Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). To his credit, though, Goldstein managed to steerclearof the multifariouspoliticalpressuresin Croatiabefore I999 and produce a generally balanced narrative of Croatian history from aroundthe fourthcenturyBC untilthe late I990s. Goldstein is usually able to resist the temptation to read back on early Balkan history the ethnonational lines that emerged in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. But he is not always as careful as he might have been. For example, Fausto Veranzio's multilingual dictionary of European languages,publishedin the late sixteenth century, included entries in 'Dalmatian,'by which, Goldsteinsays, 'theauthormeant Croatian'(p. 38). It is difficultto know to what extent Veranzio might have meant 'Croatian'at all;he certainlydid not mean it in the sensethat otherwriterswould have used it later on, and certainly not in the sense that we mean it today. As in other points in the book, Goldstein failsto engage criticallywith the ways in which the political strugglesof the nineteenth century(andthe late twentieth)helped shape the present-day boundaries of both states and nations in Europe's southeast. In his most uncriticalmoments, Goldstein fallsback on the worst tropesof both nationalist and socialist writing about ethnic identity, speaking of the Croatian 'ethnic corpus' (p. 2), 'ethnogenesis' (p. I I), and 'Croatian blood' (p. 20). The author does not offer a completely teleological account of Croatian statehood; there is little of Tudjman's 'thousand-year dream' of Croatianindependence here, and Goldsteinopenly criticizesthe HDZ regime as criminal and an obstacle to Croatia's full integration into European structures.But the attempt to see modern Croatian statehood as, in some sense, the logical conclusion of an inexorable historicalprocess will earn this book plenty of critics,from Serbscertainly,but alsofromcriticalhistorians. The book has been very professionallytranslatedand its style is clear and straightforward:a chronological account of the emergence of the Croatian nation. That isalso, however, itschiefweakness.There isnot a singlefootnote, not even in areas where there is still considerable controversy (such as the number of victims during the Second World War, especially among Croatia's Jews). Figuresare given with no discussionof theirprovenance, or even of the fact that they are in dispute. The book thus reads more like a very long encyclopaedia entry than a historiographically engaged work of scholarship. It is, of course, possible to write both good historyand accessiblehistory,but Goldsteinhas unfortunatelyfocusedmore on the latterthan the former. The book is intended as a general introduction to Croatian affairs, an 'accessible history of the country and people,' as the back copy says. Yet the publisher has done a great deal to prevent its being such. The maps are REVIEWS 157 terriblyconfusing, usuallywith fartoo many geographical,demographic, and political detailsthat arenever dealtwith in the text. They are also,with one or two exceptions, very poorly produced; some are nearly illegible. A bibliographicalessaywould have been a usefulway of pointing the interestedreader to further resources on Croatia, but the bibliography here is simply chronological and not annotated. Nearly three-quartersof the entries are in Croatian. This is a good book, but with only a bit more attention, the author and publishercould have made it a genuinelyexcellent one. School ofForeign Service CHARLES KING Georgetown University Ryan W. F. 7heBathhouse atMidnight: AnHistorical Survey ofMagicandDivination in Russia.Magic in History Series. Sutton Publishing, Stroud, I999. viii + 504 pp. Notes. Illustrations.Bibliography.Index. ?5o; f 1499. THEdustcover of thislargetome alluringlyproclaims7The Bathhouse atMidnight. MagicinRussia,and in so doing seems set to attracta largepopularreadership, certain of them with what might be called a dubious interest in the subject. Inside, the addition of the words 'an historical survey', especially the 'an' should frightenaway some. But though the amateur magic buff or part-time witch will find a good deal that is instructiveand entertainingin this account of a huge range of...

Macbeth: Man and Myth (review)

Journal Article Nick Aitchison. Macbeth: Man and Myth Get access Macbeth: Man and Myth. By Nlck Altchison. Stroud: Sutton Publishing 1999. Illus. $34.95 cloth. Kathleen McLuskie Kathleen McLuskie Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Shakespeare Quarterly, Volume 52, Issue 2, Summer 2001, Pages 293–296, https://doi.org/10.1353/shq.2001.0030 Published: 01 July 2001

Stones of witness. Church architecture and function. By Colin Cunningham. Pp. x+180 incl. 109 black-and-white+19 colour plates. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1999. £25. 0 7509 1225 1

<i>Stones of witness. Church architecture and function</i>. By Colin Cunningham. Pp. x+180 incl. 109 black-and-white+19 colour plates. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1999. £25. 0 7509 1225 1

New biography of Sir Harry Ricardo: “Engines and Enterprise – the Life and Work of Sir Harry Ricardo”

New biography of Sir Harry Ricardo: “Engines and Enterprise – the Life and Work of Sir Harry Ricardo”

Wells Cathedral west front. Construction, sculpture and conservation. By Jerry Sampson, foreword HRH The Prince of Wales, preface Peter Lasko, Pp. xix+298 incl. numerous ills+8 colour plates. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998. £45. 0 7509 1450 5

Wells Cathedral west front. Construction, sculpture and conservation. By Jerry Sampson, foreword HRH The Prince of Wales, preface Peter Lasko, Pp. xix+298 incl. numerous ills+8 colour plates. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998. £45. 0 7509 1450 5 - Volume 51 Issue 1

Prayer book and people in Elizabethan and early Stuart England. By Judith Maltby. (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History.) Pp. xvii+313 incl. 6 plates, 12 figs and 28 tables. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. £40. 0 521 45313 5. The private life of an Elizabethan lady. The diary of Lady Margaret Hoby, 1599–1605. Edited by Joanna Moody. Pp. lvii+254

<i>Prayer book and people in Elizabethan and early Stuart England</i>. By Judith Maltby. (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History.) Pp. xvii+313 incl. 6 plates, 12 figs and 28 tables. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. £40. 0 521 45313 5. <i>The private life of an Elizabethan lady. The diary of Lady Margaret Hoby, 1599–1605</i>. Edited by Joanna Moody. Pp. lvii+254

Lollardy and the Gentry in the Later Middle Ages (review)

156 Reviews of the last book of the Morte Darthur. By reducing Malory'sfictionalworld to a person-by-person analogy with a real-time world, Astell's approach ignores the extent to which the Morte Darthur deals with overtly political issues—of power, hierarchy, loyalty and leadership—which have significance beyond individual personalities. Ultimately, Astell's readings, like all hermeneutic endeavours, are a matter of opinion. Her book is itself a comment on its o w n time, on the millennial vogue for seeking explanations in the behaviour of individuals rather than in the workings of social institutions. But the book is to be recommended for its n e w look at some familiar texts and its reminder that their authors must have been engaged, at some level, with the politics of their contemporary worlds. Helen Fulton Department ofEnglish University of Sydney Aston, Margaret and Colin Richmond, ed., Lollardy and the Gentry in the Later Middle Ages, Stroud, Sutton Publishing and N e w York, St. Martin's Press, 1997; cloth; pp. viii, 280; 6 b / w illustrations, 10 maps and tables; R.R.P. not known. The twelve papers collected here were written to mark the 600th anniversary of the affixing of a Lollard libel (libellus) to the doors of Westminster Hall during the Parliamentary session of 1395, to 'denuncyn to the lordis and the comunys of the parlement certeyn conclusionis and treuthis for the reformaciun of holi chirche of Yngelond' (Twelve Conclusions, ed. Anne Hudson, Selectionsfrom English Wycliffite Writings, Cambridge, 19 p. 24). Margaret Aston and Colin Richmond claim in their introduction that 'this bold move amounted to an open declaration of [the fact that] the issues raised by Wycliffe had moved outside the university of Oxford' (p. 1), although not outside the world of learning: the fourth conclusion (in the English version preserved in Roger Dymmok's refutation of the Conclusions) quotes Wycliffe on the Eucharist in Latin (Selections, p. 25). Aston and R i c h m o n d invite particular attention to the parliamentary gentry addressed by the Conclusions of 1395. Did the anti- Reviews 157 clericalism of Lollardy speak to the worldly interests of this group? Anne Hudson argues that the sixth conclusion, concerning the perverse union of temporal and spiritual estates that results in an as-it-were 'hermofrodita or ambidexter', could be so read (pp. 41-51). Specifically, it might be read as addressing 'the interest of the lesser gentry, those w h o might, or whose sons might, fill the offices vacated by the clergy' (p. 48). Insofar as Dymmok, a Dominican friar, is refuting the Conclusions on the clergy's behalf, Hudson finds the clerical reply to conclusion 6 unpersuasive (pp. 42-3). Fiona Somerset makes the case that D y m m o k would like to be accessible to lay readers, but only if, like Chaucer's Monk, they 'seyn his opinioun is good'. In fact, however, his logic is specious and his intellectual arrogance overweening (pp. 52-76). Not only D y m m o k but perhaps, Aston and Richmond suggest, the late fourteenth-century Church as a whole 'underestimate[d] the literate layman' (p. 5), leaving it to Lollardy to occupy the devotional and spiritual, as opposed to philosophical and theological, high ground. But, i f so, why was 'the idea that religious life was very m u c h the laity's business' not widely accepted among the gentry between 1395 and the Reformation (p. 10)? H o w m a y expressions of orthodox and non-orthodox gentry-piety be mapped, and which of their cultural practices deterred or favoured the dissemination of Lollardy? If popular religion inclined naturally to orthodoxy, as Eamon Duffy maintains, were the gentry more prepared to question what the Church told them? Of course this volume does not answer these questions, but it makes available a wealth of n e w material, chiefly from historians, legal, religious and social, but also from literary historians. Happily, 'literary' Lollardy (the study of Lollard texts) and 'historical' Lollardy (what Lollardy was and w h o were Lollards) are no longer perceived as separate enterprises. Geoffrey Martin firmly restores to Henry...

John Peddie. Alfred: Warrior King. New York: Sutton Publishing. 1999. Pp. xvi, 224. $39.95. ISBN 0-7509-2105-6.

Alfred of Wessex devils of the sea the opposing forces Wessex under siege that oft-defeated King Wessex reconquered fortress Wessex the final campaign warrior king. Appendices: the Lothbrok family main Roman and ancient roads in England militarily in use by Vikings the Isle of Athelney the garrisons of the Shires.

Stuart Hylton, Reading: The 1950s. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1997. vii + 120pp. Illustrations. £9.99.

Stuart Hylton, <i>Reading: The 1950s</i>. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1997. vii + 120pp. Illustrations. £9.99.