This thesis considers late thirteenth and early fourteenth century insular history writing in the vernaculars in its multilingual, codicological, and historical contexts. It seeks to explicate the changes in insular historiography after the conquest of Wales and amidst the ongoing Scottish wars. The dominant mode of history writing during this period shifted: the texts examined in the thesis are 'derivative texts', complex assemblages of translations from numerous source texts, compiled and combined into unique, original works. Revising current notions of scribal competency, and arguing for a wider consideration of scribal authorship are fundamental aims of the thesis. By demonstrating the diverse and sophisticated textual lexicons of the authors of derivative texts, the thesis exposes vernacular historiographies as learned productions, written for learned audiences, engaged in intertextual dialogue with more 'authoritative' Latin historiography. Medieval translation is explored throughout, in an attempt to broaden an understanding of the term to include textual and ideological transposition, and overwrite 'compilation' as an acceptable description of these sophisticated and politically engaged texts. Chapter 1 examines the Anonymous Short English Metrical Chronicle as a derivative text, situating the work in its historical context of Edward I's appeals to historiography on the Scottish question at the end of the thirteenth century. Chapter 2 is a detailed study of the chronicles of Robert Mannyng and Pierre Langtoft, arguing for the sophistication of the texts, and complexifying previously monolithic ideas of ethnicity and 'Englishness' in the chronicles. Chapter 3 focuses on the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, providing a comprehensive introduction to the text, and offering readings of the ideological agenda of its derivative methodology. Chapter 4 investigates London, College of Arms, MS Arundel 58, a mid-fifteenth century manuscript of Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle with unique and substantive prose interpolations, considering the physical processes by which derivative texts were written.

This thesis is a study of the use of the ars dictaminis (the art of letter-writing) in fourteenth and early fifteenth century England. It has three aims: firstly to examine the extent to which the ars was an integral and important part of professional administration, ecclesiastical and secular; secondly to describe the nature of eloquent epistolary composition and compare this to the traditional requirements of the ars; and thirdly to investigate in the context of the preceding discussion the relationship between medieval rhetoric, middle English literature and renaissance humanism. The well documented career of Gilbert Stone, an episcopal chancellor, is used to initiate a wider investigation into those of his secretarial contemporaries. There is no evidence in later medieval England of a highly self conscious secretarial profession nor of a cult of eloquence. Letter collections point however to the importance of form and style, and an examination of their contents suggests that the rules of the ars. and particularly of the cursus, were used, adapted and developed, sometimes in quite routine documents, but more especially in 'eloquent' letters of persuasion. The ars, it is argued, was more vibrant, flexible and appropriate to its context than later critics have imagined. The ars, notably through Thomas Hoccleve, exercised an influence on poetic form and style; and even in a case such as that of Chaucer where there was not such a strong direct influence, it is possible that the ars may be seen as part of a complex conditioning literary environment. Finally the professional-literary structure underlying the use of the ars provided a motive and a means for the introduction of humanism into England.

This Thesis examines the emergence of party patronage trusts in the nineteenth-century Church of England, their relation to, and their effect upon patronage reforms of the period; and their increasing unpopularity in the twentieth century. It suggests that their existence was a necessary precaution for the free development of the religious movements within Victorian Anglicanism, and that they contributed to the improvement in clerical standards, which helped to fuel the call for patronage reform in the final quarter of the century. Arguing that the Church of the early days of the Enabling Act was idealistic in its attempts to end sales of patronage, it attempts to demonstrate that the increase in sales of patronage was not the fault of trusts in general, but of one in particular, and qualifies some of the statements which have been made about patronage in this period. Various holders of party patronage are examined, in a more fully comprehensive survey than has been attempted before. Following the Introduction, Chapter 1 describes the origins of patronage in England, and its state at the start of the nineteenth century. Chapter 2 deals with the calls for reform of that century, culminating in the Benefices Act 1898. In Chapter 3 the story is continued to 1945, and the Benefices Measures of the 1920s and 30s are analysed. This legislative background supports the material in later chapters. Chapter 4 is concerned with Simeon's Trust as the earliest patronage trust, and Chapter 5 analyses the other trusts, and their rates of expansion. Chapter 6 examines the rise and fall of the Martyrs' Memorial Trust under the Rev. Percy Warrington, demonstrating its responsibility for much of the bad feeling towards trusts in the 1920s, and suggesting that the more controversial views of patronage at the time, and later, derive from a misunderstanding of the nature of trust patronage. In Chapter 7, the patronage of Keble College is used as an example of the day-to-day workings of trust patronage, and to indicate that party trusts were and are, in general, no more open to accusations than any other holders of patronage. The thesis is the first attempt to offer an overall view of party patronage, and concludes that opponents of such patronage have, perhaps, more of a case to establish than they might like to think.

This thesis addresses the unresolved question of whether industrialisation helps or hinders progress in the peripheral regions of developing economies. Devon is seen as a 'sample of space' within which the breaking down of regional identities by changes in the Victorian transport infrastructure can be monitored. As the county's fortunes were thus primarily dependent upon the course of development in the wider national economy the survey of changes in economic activity within Devon is concerned mainly with relating internal adjustments to external pressures and opportunities. The balance of these appears to have resulted in a demand 'leakage* from the county's economy, and a net outwards flow of migrants, for there was a chronic deficit in Devon's balance of payments with the rest of Britain. This was probably exacerbated by an outflow of capital. But the relative contraction of employment within the county took a selective form in accordance with the developing specialisation of activity across the' national economic space. On the evidence of comparative wages in agriculture it seems that direct external demand was of central importance to the elimination of spatial differentials after 1870. But for the county as a whole there was no narrowing of the large shortfall between local wages and the national average before 1914. Sectors that benefited from external demand were few in number and their linkages with the rest of Devon's economy were too weak to stimulate general growth in the county, and the relatively unchanging distribution of demand throughout the nation that this refle-cted helped to maintain residual regional barriers to internal adjustment. The British economy was mature enough to pull the least developed regions away from pre-industrial levels of poverty but there was no inherent tendency to eliminate the broad tail which lagged behind the cutting edge of industrialisation.

This thesis explores the contemporary management of death in an urban setting. It provides a long overdue empirical re-appraisal of the way in which groups within society process the dead and continue to surround death with rituals. In particular, it addresses itself to a totally neglected area within British sociology, since the last major work, Geoffrey Gorer's Death Grief and Mourning in Contemporary Britain, appeared in 1965. Researcher presence a few hours after death had occurred and participant observation and interviews throughout the subsequent actions of the bereaved, funeral directors, clergy and others within the death system, illuminated the production of ritual from a number of different standpoints. This has thrown into relief, the ordinary 'common' or 'folk religious' understandings by which actors make sense of the trauma, as well as the official interests and constraints. There was substantial recourse to secondary data in occupational journals to cross check themes and inferences. The work takes account of the main theoretical perspectives within the literature which concentrate upon a perception of death as a 'taboo' subject, suggesting that modern society 'fears' or 'denies' it and that it has became 'dirty', 'medicalised' and 'invisible'. The thesis concludes that groups within the death system promulgate a number of differing orientations towards death so that it has been 'decontextualised' rather than denied and that there is 'ignorance' rather than 'fear'. There was an increasing trend towards the personalisation of ritual by the bereaved. This study contributes to the sociological understanding of funeral directors and clergy as occupational groups. It also goes beyond the narrowly economic critiques and surveys to reveal the nature of the relationships and work routines underlying the production of funeral ritual in the city. The information has important implications for decision makers within many areas of death and bereavement, particularly in the light of the recent Office of Fair Trading Survey (1989) which suggests that government intervention may be necessary within the Funeral Industry in order to achieve a better standard of service for the bereaved.

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