This thesis investigates the experience of war widows in mid seventeenth-century England by examining the county pension and sequestration schemes during the Civil Wars. It focuses on how these processes impacted the lives of women who lost their husbands in war, and how they negotiated their financial subsistence by presenting petitions. In order to demonstrate how the lives of ordinary women were changed by the wars it presents a local history of these processes, with special reference to Kent and Sussex. Additionally, the thesis considers the contemporary representations of widows in Civil-War print material and examines how this shaped the ways in which they fashioned themselves. In doing so, it underlines the importance of county studies and local history to Civil War research. It broadens historians’ understanding of the experience of women in the Civil Wars by illuminating how they lived through, and survived, the wars. Furthermore, it specifically analyses the significant role of widows in early modern society. Finally, this thesis demonstrates the impact of the petition as a tool of the needy in early modern society. It emphasises how the presentation of supplications to higher authorities, in the form of a written petition, became an essential tool of subsistence for war widows in this period.

This thesis attempts to trace the history of the area now known as Regent's Park from its origins as a part of the Manor of Tybum and its enclosure as a hunting park by Henry VIII, through its disparking during the Civil War and its subsequent use as farmland, to its development as London's first Garden City under the genius of John Nash and its later history as one of the best-managed and most profitable of the Crown Estates. The Park's royal associations and its proximity to London have profoundly affected its development.

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Founded in 1865, the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) was for the first 20 years of its existence both the principal British exploration society in the Holy Land and a surveying organisation which was heavily dependent upon the work of and support of the Royal Engineers. From 1865 to 1886 PEF functioned as an independent organisation dependent for its work and existence upon the intelligence department of the War Office. Employing Royal Engineers, men and officers, the Fund surveyed western and eastern Palestine, Sinai, and completed a geographical survey around the Dead Sea. Its surveyors included Charles Wilson (later Sir Charles Wilson), Charles Warren (later Sir Charles Warren), Claude Conder and H. H. Kitchener (later Lord Kitchener), and its supporters and organisers included many notable men of the day. The survey operation linked closely with the need for a full map of the Holy Land area in order to protect and police the eastern hinterland to the Suez Canal. After 1890 the PEF became an archaeological organisation employing William Flinders Petrie (1891), Frederick Jones Bliss (1891-1900), R. A. Macalister (1900-09) and lastly Duncan Mackenzie (1910-1912). From 1913 to 1914 the PEF reverted to its former role of intelligence gathering for the War Office and employed Leonard Woolley and T. E. Lawrence as archaeologists and as a cover for Royal Engineers under Captain Newcombe who surveyed the Wilderness of Zin area. After 1918 the British Mandate in Palestine rendered such uses of the PEF obsolete. This thesis examines the composition of the PEF, its foundation, the involvement of the military intelligence departments with PEF, its financial basis and its relationship to the British involvement in the Middle East. It does not examine the PEF's role in archaeological history, but concentrates upon its work as a Victorian imperial institution.

Charnwood Forest is an upland area in north-west Leicestershire characterised by areas of woodland and distinctive outcrops of pre-Cambrian rocks. The literature to date suggests that medieval Charnwood Forest was a marginal and inhospitable environment which discouraged human interaction with the landscape. This study challenges those perceptions. It identifies the boundaries of medieval Charnwood Forest and explores the ways in which boundaries reflected relationships between people and place. A range of landscape, archaeological, place-name, documentary, and cartographical sources are examined. Many of the sources are post-medieval in origin; they reveal the location of medieval boundaries and the continuing significance of medieval boundaries in later periods. In this way, the boundaries of medieval Charnwood Forest are seen through the lens of the longue durée. Findings indicate that medieval Charnwood Forest was itself a boundary, but a permissive boundary which facilitated cultural interaction. The external boundaries of medieval Charnwood Forest are seen as a broad band formed by concentric circles of human activity surrounding an inner core of valued resources. Two foci of medieval encroachment are identified, one in the north of the study area, and one in the south. Encroachment was facilitated by the forest's status as a seigneurial hunting ground or chase. Internal administrative divisions converged upon the two foci of encroachment. Other internal spatial divisions, such as those between elite and peasant space, private and public space, religious and secular space, and economic and recreational space, are less clearly defined. This study reveals that medieval Charnwood Forest was a familiar and utilised landscape demarcated by boundaries that were often broad bands of intercultural activity. The finding that many of Charnwood's medieval boundaries were spatial rather than linear units is one that might have implications for the study of similar medieval landscapes.

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The image of the serpent is pervasive in the art and literature of Anglo-Saxon England. In Old English medical literature the serpent is by far the most frequently represented animal, often as an adversary of humans and human health. In poetry, too, the serpent appears often; although it is primarily about the exploits of its outlandish hero, Beowulf is littered with serpentine adversaries, including the dragon of the poem’s conclusive battle. In scriptural poetry, the Anglo-Saxon understanding of the biblical serpent is illuminated and elaborated upon, and in exegesis the serpent plays a key symbolic role as tempter, diabolical agent and heretic. Anglo-Saxon visual art is populated by a multitude of serpentine creatures, ranging from the snake-like zoomorphic interlace to the winged dragons of the Sutton Hoo helmet. It is generally agreed upon that the image of the serpent is symbolically charged, and there has been scholarly speculation on how the image of the serpent operated symbolically in each of these contexts. However, there has been no single study of the image across genres and across media. This thesis aims to survey and interpret the symbolic role of the serpent in a number of different, clearly defined contexts and look for common associations and continuities between them. In finding these continuities, it will propose a underlying, fundamental symbolic meaning for the image of the serpent in Anglo-Saxon England. It will argue that this fundamental meaning is death; the transience of mortal life, physical decay and transition.

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No description available.

A Beth Din - a Rabbinical Court - has been the traditional vehicle for dealing with matters of Jewish status such as conversion, divorce and adoption according to Jewish Law. In Britain, where the Jewish community had belonged mainly to Orthodox synagogues, all Rabbinical Courts were under the Orthodox authorities. In 1948 the Reform Beth Din was founded. It was the first time that a non-Orthodox Rabbinical Court had been established in Britain. The Reform Beth Din represented a turning point in the religious life of Anglo-Jewry, for although it was intended purely to serve members of Reform synagogues it came to be used by many in the wider community as an alternative to the Orthodox courts. It reflected a changing pattern of religious allegiance due to a variety of factors: the increasingly reactionary nature of the previously tolerant Orthodox rabbinate; the estrangement between them and the laity within Orthodox synagogues; the disruption to communal life caused by the Second World War; and growing assimilation amongst Anglo-Jewry. The Reform Beth Din fulfilled a need for a Rabbinical Court whose liberal approach corresponded to the attitude of many British Jews. Initially the Orthodox authorities ignored the Reform Beth Din but their fierce condemnation of it subsequently indicated their awareness of the important role it had attained for the whole of Anglo-Jewry. The Reform Beth Din also had a great impact on the Reform movement in Britain. The movement had come into existence only six years earlier and although it linked together the Reform synagogues they were jealous of their individual autonomy. The creation of the Reform Beth Din necessitated them agreeing on a common policy and subordinating their local authority to a central institution. The Reform Beth Din acted as an important catalyst in the development of the character and structure of the Reform movement, and was partly responsible for its emergence as a significant force within Anglo-Jewry.