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Issue IX 2011Printed by Oxuniprint, a part of Oxford University Press

THE OXFORD

HISTORIANIssue IX 2011

Uzbekistan)

Hannibal & Carthage

7 nights full board from 545

A special tariff visiting the classical sites, ports, medinas, deserts and oases of Tunisia. Explore Carthage, Dougga, Tunis, Sousse, Tozeur, Douz, El Djem, Kairouan and Port El Kantaoui. Enjoy a VJV Special Event Lecture in Sousse's Ribat.

The Gradan Rnad to Samarkand

11 nights half board from 1595

Uzbekistan is an ethnic and cultural melting pot with a remarkable historic and architectural legacy. Travel the ancient Silk Road, one of the greatest trade routes in history, exploring Tashkent, Khiva, Bukhara, Shakhrisabz and Samarkand.

Classical Tour of Albania

7 nights from 895

A country protected by mountains and rich in biological diversity, revealing Ottoman fortresses, prehistoric dwellings and ancient citadels. Visit Apollonia, Antigonea, Durres, Kruja, Gjirokastra, Berat, Tirana and the UNESCO site of Butrint.

Discover Burma

14 nights from 1995

Explore this spiritual country visiting its pagodas and temples and cruise down the Irrawaddy. Staying in Rangoon, Pyin Oo Lwin, Mandalay, Pagan, Pindaya, Kalaw and on Inle Lake. VJV Special Event Private candle-lit dinner at a pagoda.

Treasures of the Nile

10 nights from 1195

Sail along the Nile visiting Cairo and Egyptian sites between Luxor and Aswan. Enjoy 7 nights full board on-board the deluxe MS Hamees or the SS Misr with 3 nights in Carlo at a 5-star hotel. Extend your stay at the Red Sea for 5 nights.

lamelmr.

8 nights from 995

A rewarding itinerary encompassing the historical treasures of Jordan. Explore the Dead Sea, Aqaba, Petra and Amman visiting Kerak Castle, Madaba & Mt. Nebo, Jerash and the Desert Castles'. VJV Special Event Rock Camp Petra Dinner.

VOYAGES JULES VERNE discovering a World of Wonders

Travelling with Voyages Jules Verne, with over 30 years of experience, opens the door to a World of Wonders, rich in history, culture and natural beauty. Our tours of limited-sized groups span the globe following

carefully devised itineraries by air, road, river and rail that capture the true essence of your destination.

Barry Coward Memorial Fund

The

Historical Association The voice for history

The Historical Association are starting a special fund in Barry Coward's name to support the Great Debate and, hopefully, to raise money to support adults returning to education.

Barry Coward was Emeritus Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London and author of the classic text book The Stuart Age.

As President of the HA from 2005 to 2008 he saw us through our Centenary Celebrations in 2006 and the first Great Debate. He was very supportive of education and was an A-level examiner for over 30 years.

Barry spent 40 years of his academic career at Birkbeck, a college dedicated to mature students doing their degree part-time in the evening. To support adults returning to education at Birkbeck would be a cause close to Barry's personal philosophy.

Barry Coward, historian, 1941 - 2011 Please help us realise this fund - donate today

Methods of Payment Cheque made payable to The Historical Association, please cite BarryCoward as a reference on the back of the cheque. Send to: The Historical Association, Orbital Park, Ashford, Kent TN24 OGA

Donate by phone: 0300 100 0223 For more information on these and other arrangements, please call or visit our award-winning website

Donate Online: visit www.history.org.uk/barrycoward

0845 404 3083 I 020 7616 1000 quoting OXHI WWW.V.N.COM/WOW lATh OABTA

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Sales & Information: 8am-8pm weekdays; 9am-5pm Saturdays; 10am-4pm Sundays ABTA No V1661 The Kuoni Travel Ltd. Group

history.org.uk

The Historical Association are starting a special fund in Barry Cowards name to support the Great Debate and, hopefully, to raise money to support adults returning to education.

Barry Coward was Emeritus Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London and author of the classic text book The Stuart Age.

As President of the HA from 2005 to 2008 he saw us through our Centenary Celebrations in 2006 and the first Great Debate. He was very supportive of education and was an A-level examiner for over 30 years.

Barry spent 40 years of his academic career at Birkbeck, a college dedicated to mature students doing their degree part-time in the evening. To support adults returning to education at Birkbeck would be a cause close to Barrys personal philosophy.

Barry Coward Memorial Fund

Barry Coward, historian, 1941 2011 Please help us realise this fund donate today

Methods of PaymentCheque made payable to The Historical Association, please cite BarryCoward as a reference on the back of the cheque.Send to: The Historical Association, Orbital Park, Ashford, Kent TN24 0GA

Donate by phone: 0300 100 0223

Donate Online: visit www.history.org.uk/barrycoward

Oxford historian advert Sept11.indd 1 15/09/2011 13:46:00

VOYAGES JULES VERNE

THE OXFORD HISTORIAN - Nov 2011

The Oxford Historian Dec 2011.indd 1 24/10/2011 16:07:33

Oxford Historian: A magazine of the Faculty of History for Oxford Historians

Contents How it looks from the chair Chris Wickham 3

The 'Tudors': or not? Cliff Davies 6

Russia and the Emigration Catherine Andreyev 12

The Origins of the Senate in Medieval Rome Chris Wickham 17

Writing Luther's Biography Lyndal Roper 22

History and Policing: How much use was that History Degree? Peter Neyroud 26

Go East, My Boy! Norman Davies 30

The Coburg Succession Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann 35

The Crimean War: The Battlefield Archaeology Patrick Mercer 40

The Humour of History and the History of Humour Robert Evans 44

Blog: Somerville Historian Natalia Nowakowska 59

Blog: A Corner of Tenth-Century Europe Jonathan Jarrett 60

Oxford History Faculty: Past and Present 69

Cover (detail from)

Pieter Breughel: The Battle of Carnival and Lent

Acknowledgements The Editor would like to thank, first of all, Sue Henderson for her expert organization and layout of this issue of the Oxford Historian, as for its predecessors.

The Editor is grateful too to other members of the History Faculty staff, and the Development Office for their advice and assistance. And to Archant Dialogue, particularly Lisa Parkinson, for arranging the advertising, to Oxuniprint for printing the Oxford Historian, and to Able Types for its distribution.

Producing this publication incurs considerable costs, and the Editor is greatly indebted to the gen-erosity of patrons who have supported it, including Edward Argar, Christopher Granville, Derek Peaple and Rupert White; and especially to Jeffrey Bonas for his splendid donation. We are happy too to acknowledge the generous support of the Dacre Trust.

Finally, and by no means least, he is proud to thank the Rose Foundation on behalf of all its readers for its munificent contribution towards the costs of publishing this edition of the Oxford Historian.

1


ContentsHow it looks from the chair Chris Wickham 3

The Tudors: or not? Cliff Davies 6

Russia and the Emigration Catherine Andreyev 12

The Origins of the Senate in Medieval Rome Chris Wickham 17

Writing Luthers Biography Lyndal Roper 22

History and Policing: How much use was that History Degree? Peter Neyroud 26

Go East, My Boy! Norman Davies 30

The Coburg Succession Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann 35

The Crimean War: The Battlefield Archaeology Patrick Mercer 40

The Humour of History and the History of Humour Robert Evans 44

Blog: Somerville Historian Natalia Nowakowska 59

Blog: A Corner of Tenth-Century Europe Jonathan Jarrett 60

Oxford History Faculty: Past and Present 69

AcknowledgementsThe Editor would like to thank, first of all, Sue Henderson for her expert organization and layout of this issue of the Oxford Historian, as for its predecessors.

The Editor is grateful too to other members of the History Faculty staff, and the Development Office for their advice and assistance. And to Archant Dialogue, particularly Lisa Parkinson, for arranging the advertising, to Oxuniprint for printing the Oxford Historian, and to Able Types for its distribution.

Producing this publication incurs considerable costs, and the Editor is greatly indebted to the gen-erosity of patrons who have supported it, including Edward Argar, Christopher Granville, Derek Peaple and Rupert White; and especially to Jeffrey Bonas for his splendid donation. We are happy too to acknowledge the generous support of the Dacre Trust.

Finally, and by no means least, he is proud to thank the Rose Foundation on behalf of all its readers for its munificent contribution towards the costs of publishing this edition of the Oxford Historian.

Cover (detail from)

Pieter Breughel: The Battle of Carnival and Lent


HOW IT LOOKS The Oxford Historian is published by the Faculty of History of the University of Oxford for, in the first instance, the members of the university who have read an undergraduate or graduate degree in history or a joint subject including history, and secondly, for any other interested persons. It is intended to report on aspects of historical study at Oxford and its applications in the wider world, and in particular on new projects and developments in historical research.

The editor is currently Jeremy Catto, Oriel College, Oxford OX1 4EW (jeremy.cattohistory.ox.ac.uk). From December 2011 it will be Mark Whittow, Corpus Christi College, Oxford OX1 4JF (mark.whittowccc.ox.ac. uk), to whom communications should now be addressed.

We would be glad to hear from any Oxford historian whose address is not at present on the database with sufficient details to ensure this publication's prompt despatch. To ensure that our mailing list is kept up to date, please contact the Development Office (details below) with any new details.

* We look forward to hearing from you.

1998 Data Protection Act All data are securely held in the University Alumni/Development Office and will be treated confidentially and with sensitivity for the benefit of the University of Oxford and its members. The data are available to our international offices, colleges, faculties, academic and administrative departments, recognised alumni societies, sports and other clubs associated with the University, and to agents contracted by the University for alumni-related projects.

Data are used for a full range of alumni activities, including distribution of University publications, the promotion of benefits and services to alumni, notification of alumni events and for programmes involving academic and administrative departments. Data may also be used in fundraising programmes, which could include an element of direct marketing. The data will not be passed to external commercial organisations.

Under the terms of the Data Protection Act you have the right to object to the use of your data for any or all of the above purposes.

If you wish to do this or to notify us of an address change please contact the University Database Office quoting your 7 or 8 digit Alumni Card reference number by:

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (01865) 611600

Web: http://www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/

Mail: University of Oxford, Oxford Historian Mailing List, Development Office, Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JD

2


HOW IT LOOKSThe Oxford Historian is published by the Faculty of History of the University of Oxford for, in the first instance, the members of the university who have read an undergraduate or graduate degree in history or a joint subject including history, and secondly, for any other interested persons. It is intended to report on aspects of historical study at Oxford and its applications in the wider world, and in particular on new projects and developments in historical research.

The editor is currently Jeremy Catto, Oriel College, Oxford OX1 4EW ([email protected]). From December 2011 it will be Mark Whittow, Corpus Christi College, Oxford OX1 4JF ([email protected]), to whom communications should now be addressed.

We would be glad to hear from any Oxford historian whose address is not at present on the database with sufficient details to ensure this publications prompt despatch. To ensure that our mailing list is kept up to date, please contact the Development Office (details below) with any new details.

We look forward to hearing from you.

1998 Data Protection ActAll data are securely held in the University Alumni/Development Office and will be treated confidentially and with sensitivity for the benefit of the University of Oxford and its members. The data are available to our international offices, colleges, faculties, academic and administrative departments, recognised alumni societies, sports and other clubs associated with the University, and to agents contracted by the University for alumni-related projects.

Data are used for a full range of alumni activities, including distribution of University publications, the promotion of benefits and services to alumni, notification of alumni events and for programmes involving academic and administrative departments. Data may also be used in fundraising programmes, which could include an element of direct marketing. The data will not be passed to external commercial organisations.

Under the terms of the Data Protection Act you have the right to object to the use of your data for any or all of the above purposes.

If you wish to do this or to notify us of an address change please contact the University Database Office quoting your 7 or 8 digit Alumni Card reference number by:

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (01865) 611600

Web: http://www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/

Mail: University of Oxford, Oxford Historian Mailing List, Development Office, Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JD


How it looks from the chair

Chris Wickham

The Oxford History Faculty has had an interesting and rather exciting year, in a set of different ways. First, we recruited four new chairs. Lyndal Roper of Balliol college is the new Regius Professor of History, our flagship post, replacing Robert Evans; Pekka Hiimiiliiinen of University of California -Santa Barbara is the new Rhodes Professor of American history, replacing Richard Carwardine who is still with us, but is now President of Corpus Christi College; Kevin O'Rourke of Trinity college, Dublin is our new Chichele Professor of Economic History, replacing Avner Offer; and James Belich of Victoria University of Wellington is our new Beit Professor of Commonwealth History, replacing Judith Brown. All our new chairs are acclaimed and prize-winning historians: Lyndal works on early modern Germany, Pekka on the Comanche empire and on frontiers, Kevin on the economic history of the world, and Jamie Belich works on the white settler movement in recent world history and nor do these large areas exhaust their interests. They will make a remarkable team to add to our other research leaders as we move into the next decade. They make up for the sad loss to us of the retiring chairs, all of whom will be missed.

You will note that there is a strong global-history edge to the work of these new colleagues. That is chance, but it fits in excellently with a renewed commitment by Faculty members precisely to this area of history. When we had an away-day for the History Faculty Board after Christmas, I asked them where we needed to put the focus of our research strategy, and the Board was unanimous that it was high time that we took up the fact that we had so many postholders leading research into global historical questions, and that we should properly focus on the subject, as a research problem in its own right. So we have founded a Global History Centre, and have a generous endowment from the University for its first two years.

Our main objective is to establish a multi-stranded narrative for global history, which has often been considered simplistically, as a by-product of either empire or economic globalisation (or, even more fuzzily, as part of 'modernity). We aim to do this by developing a set of linked intellectual problems.

The dialogue between imperial, transnational and comparative history. These three are not the same, and it is important to get the differences between them out in the open, so that we can move on with the important insights which all three bring.

3


How it looks from the chair

The Oxford History Faculty has had an interesting and rather exciting year, in a set of different ways. First, we recruited four new chairs. Lyndal Roper of Balliol college is the new Regius Professor of History, our flagship post, replacing Robert Evans; Pekka Hmlinen of University of California - Santa Barbara is the new Rhodes Professor of American history, replacing Richard Carwardine who is still with us, but is now President of Corpus Christi College; Kevin ORourke of Trinity college, Dublin is our new Chichele Professor of Economic History, replacing Avner Offer; and James Belich of Victoria University of Wellington is our new Beit Professor of Commonwealth History, replacing Judith Brown. All our new chairs are acclaimed and prize-winning historians: Lyndal works on early modern Germany, Pekka on the Comanche empire and on frontiers, Kevin on the economic history of the world, and Jamie Belich works on the white settler movement in recent world history and nor do these large areas exhaust their interests. They will make a remarkable team to add to our other research leaders as we move into the next decade. They make up for the sad loss to us of the retiring chairs, all of whom will be missed.

You will note that there is a strong global-history edge to the work of these new colleagues. That is chance, but it fits in excellently with a renewed commitment by Faculty members precisely to this area of history. When we had an away-day for the History Faculty Board after Christmas, I asked them where we needed to put the focus of our research strategy, and the Board was unanimous that it was high time that we took up the fact that we had so many postholders leading research into global historical questions, and that we should properly focus on the subject, as a research problem in its own right. So we have founded a Global History Centre, and have a generous endowment from the University for its first two years.

Our main objective is to establish a multi-stranded narrative for global history, which has often been considered simplistically, as a by-product of either empire or economic globalisation (or, even more fuzzily, as part of modernity). We aim to do this by developing a set of linked intellectual problems.

The dialogue between imperial, transnational and comparative history. These three are not the same, and it is important to get the differences between them out in the open, so that we can move on with the important insights which all three bring.

Chris Wickham


The different meanings of the concept 'global , and of the balance in the dialogue just mentioned, in different historical periods (transnational relationships, for example, are by no means an invention of the later modern period, as the fourteenth-century career of Ibn Battata, Muslim judge in similar law-courts from Morocco to the Maldives, for example shows).

The global history of rights, and the history of global governance.

Cross-cultural and transnational histories of types of representative government and of public spheres (such as attitudes to public ethics and the global history of corruption).

The development of economic interdependence, and its non-linear relation to technological transfer and scientific interchange.

The movement of peoples as against the movement of ideas and practices. (All these last three are best understood as very long-term historical developments.)

The history of regions seen in a global context, and the study of intersecting local societies.

The roles of lingua francas in history. It is important that global history does not assume that western European languages are the only norms Swahili, Persian (in e.g. India) and Chinese are also part of our remit.

A history of the world which both decentres Europe and also includes it, as a part of the collective development of the world's peoples. This multi-angled vision is an important part of our project; Delhi and Beijing are as important vantage-points as is London; and a global perspective on history does not require the study of direct contact.

The eventual aim is to redefine global history with a strong strategic vision, so that it becomes clear what we gain, in practice, from a global perspective which we could not gain from national/regional/ micro-analyses.

I have quoted here from our pitch to the University, but this is precisely where we aim to go. I personally find this highly exciting, and I have found, when talking about the Faculty's vision for the future, that it is remarkably easy to be excited about explaining how we aim to follow up all these strands at once a hard, but stimulating, task. We have already begun, by setting up a funded project on World peace and poverty, headed by Professor Patricia Clavin of Jesus College, which will explore the role of international and non-governmental organizations in their attempts to facilitate global security by fighting poverty. That project has been made possible by the great generosity of two donors, the Calleva Foundation and Tim Sanderson. We will have two conferences in the next two years which will push the challenge of all those bullet-points further on. You are all warmly invited!

The Faculty cannot be reduced to its global elements; there is plenty of space for people studying single countries 40% of our postholders study the United Kingdom, in particular, and so they should. But they too have wide perspectives for their research in many cases, and we aim to encourage that, among both our colleagues and, needless to say, our students as well. Students at present like studying the history of the whole world, we are finding, and my guess is that this trend, too, will continue. We hope to satisfy them.

Last year I gave some stress to our funding problems, and I also remarked that I would talk about the issue of research 'impact' on the wider community in my letter this year and about its implications for Oxford History. These are not necessarily dangerous implications, in fact, at all. But I would far rather talk about the exciting side of what we do, and so I have enjoyed focusing on that for this year. The government's 'impact agenda' is anyway still shaping up, and there will be more to say in 2012.

4


The different meanings of the concept global, and of the balance in the dialogue just mentioned, in different historical periods (transnational relationships, for example, are by no means an invention of the later modern period, as the fourteenth-century career of Ibn Battta, Muslim judge in similar law-courts from Morocco to the Maldives, for example shows).

The global history of rights, and the history of global governance.

Cross-cultural and transnational histories of types of representative government and of public spheres (such as attitudes to public ethics and the global history of corruption).

The development of economic interdependence, and its non-linear relation to technological transfer and scientific interchange.

The movement of peoples as against the movement of ideas and practices. (All these last three are best understood as very long-term historical developments.)

The history of regions seen in a global context, and the study of intersecting local societies.

The roles of lingua francas in history. It is important that global history does not assume that western European languages are the only norms Swahili, Persian (in e.g. India) and Chinese are also part of our remit.

A history of the world which both decentres Europe and also includes it, as a part of the collective development of the worlds peoples. This multi-angled vision is an important part of our project; Delhi and Beijing are as important vantage-points as is London; and a global perspective on history does not require the study of direct contact.

The eventual aim is to redefine global history with a strong strategic vision, so that it becomes clear what we gain, in practice, from a global perspective which we could not gain from national/regional/ micro-analyses.

I have quoted here from our pitch to the University, but this is precisely where we aim to go. I personally find this highly exciting, and I have found, when talking about the Facultys vision for the future, that it is remarkably easy to be excited about explaining how we aim to follow up all these strands at once a hard, but stimulating, task. We have already begun, by setting up a funded project on World peace and poverty, headed by Professor Patricia Clavin of Jesus College, which will explore the role of international and non-governmental organizations in their attempts to facilitate global security by fighting poverty. That project has been made possible by the great generosity of two donors, the Calleva Foundation and Tim Sanderson. We will have two conferences in the next two years which will push the challenge of all those bullet-points further on. You are all warmly invited!

The Faculty cannot be reduced to its global elements; there is plenty of space for people studying single countries 40% of our postholders study the United Kingdom, in particular, and so they should. But they too have wide perspectives for their research in many cases, and we aim to encourage that, among both our colleagues and, needless to say, our students as well. Students at present like studying the history of the whole world, we are finding, and my guess is that this trend, too, will continue. We hope to satisfy them.

Last year I gave some stress to our funding problems, and I also remarked that I would talk about the issue of research impact on the wider community in my letter this year, and about its implications for Oxford History. These are not necessarily dangerous implications, in fact, at all. But I would far rather talk about the exciting side of what we do, and so I have enjoyed focusing on that for this year. The governments impact agenda is anyway still shaping up, and there will be more to say in 2012.

8 Days: from 1475(1265 without flights)

Day 1 Arrive Naples and byprivate coach to our hotel

Day 2 Drive south to explore thetemples, site and museum atPaestum. This was the Greekcolony of Poseidonia, with someof the best preserved Dorictemples in the Mediterranean in abeautiful setting.

Day 3 Whole day exploring thecity of Pompeii, once a bustlingport and market town: streetsworn by the passing traffic, cornerbars, bakeries, brothels andpolitical graffiti. All of ancient lifeis here if you know where to look.

Day 4 Visit the exceptionalcollections of artefacts at theNational ArchaeologicalMuseum at Naples. Many of thebest wall-paintings were broughthere, saving them from

deterioration and decay. Pozzuolito see one of largest and bestpreserved amphitheatres in theworld.

Day 5 Phlegraean Fields; well-preserved bathing complex at Baia,terraced into the side of an extinctvolcanic crater; Cumae, home of theprophetic sibyl.

Day 6 Herculaneum perfectlycomplements a visit to Pompeii.Much less of the town has beenexcavated, but it was buried to a

much greater depth and amazingdetails are preserved, includingburnt wood, rope and otherorganic materials. Then to seeantiquarium at Boscoreal.

Day 7 The villa at Oplontis isone of many destroyed by theeruption, but is exceptional for thequality and preservation of itswall-paintings. Ascent ofVesuvius.

Day 8 Return flight from Naples -London.

Andante - Travel with expert Archaeologists all over the world+44 (0)1722 713800 | [email protected] | www.andantetravels.co.uk

Whats Included:

Flights - Scheduled flights fromLondon to Naples.

Local Travel - Private a/c coach.

Meals - All meals included(dinners with wine & water)except lunch Days 3, 5 & 8.Other lunches intrattorie/pizzerie.

Entry to all sites in programme;tips included.

25th Mar - 1st Apr 2012with Alan French MA Mlittwas formerly a lecturer inRoman archaeology at theUniversity of Winchester.

The Experts - Our Guide Lecturers

The Greek beginnings - asarchaeologists we want to tell youthe whole story of how cities such

as these came to be.

We know a great deal about thesecret rites and rituals of Romanpeople, and there is plenty of

evidence here.

The people of Pompeii who did notmanage to escape left their imprint- exactly - in the volcanic debris.

Our very Italian hotel in the hillsabove the busy coast. Good indoorpool with glass side overlookingvalley. Simple but excellent food.

discover POMPEIIwith the experts in archeology

Owned and run by PhDArchaeologists.

We have a taste for the goodthings in life.

Weve been creating our veryspecial holidays for the past 26years.

These are intellectual adventuresled by intelligent, articulate andengaging people.

7th - 14th May 2012 &22nd - 29th Oct 2012 withTony Wilmott is a SeniorArchaeologist with EnglishHeritage, specialising in theRoman period.

3rd - 10th Sep 2012 withGillian Shepherd PhD isLecturer in ClassicalArchaeology at theUniversity of Birmingham.She specialises in the Greekcolonisation of Italy & Sicily.

14th - 21st May 2012 withProfessor Valerie Higginsis Associate Professor andChair of Arts & Humanitiesat The American Universityof Rome where she teachesarchaeology.

17th - 24th Sep 2012 withTony King is Professor ofArchaeology at theUniversity of Winchester.He has excavatedextensively in Britain andabroad.

8th - 15th Oct 2012 withProfessor WilliamManning FSA is EmeritusProfessor of Archaeology atCardiff University,specialising in RomanArchaeology.

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We have a taste for the good things in life.

We've been creating our very special holidays for the past 26 years.

These are intellectual adventures led by intelligent, articulate and engaging people.

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DISCOVER POMPEII WITH THE EXPERTS IN ARCHEOLOGY

8 Days: from 1475 (1265 without flights)

Day 1 Arrive Naples and by private coach to our hotel

Day 2 Drive south to explore the temples, site and museum at Paestum. This was the Greek colony of Poseidonia, with some of the best preserved Doric temples in the Mediterranean in a beautiful setting.

Day 3 Whole day exploring the city of Pompeii, once a bustling port and market town: streets worn by the passing traffic, corner bars, bakeries, brothels and political graffiti. All of ancient life is here if you know where to look.

Day 4 Visit the exceptional collections of artefacts at the National Archaeological Museum at Naples. Many of the best wall-paintings were brought here, saving them from

deterioration and decay. Pozzuoli to see one of largest and best preserved amphitheatres in the world.

Day 5 Phlegraean Fields; well-preserved bathing complex at Baia, terraced into the side of an extinct volcanic crater; Cumae, home of the prophetic sibyl.

Day 6 Herculaneum perfectly complements a visit to Pompeii. Much less of the town has been excavated, but it was buried to a

much greater depth and amazing details are preserved, induding burnt wood, rope and other organic materials. Then to see antiquarium at Boscoreal.

Day 7 The villa at Oplontis is one of many destroyed by the eruption, but is exceptional for the quality and preservation of its wall-paintings. Ascent of Vesuvius.


THE EXPERTS - OUR GUIDE LECTURERS

25th Mar - 1st Apr 2012 with Man French MA Mlitt was formerly a lecturer in Roman archaeology at the University of Winchester.

7th - 14th May 2012 & 22nd - 29th Oct 2012 with Tony Wilmott is a Senior Archaeologist with English Heritage, specialising in the Roman period.

14th - 21st May 2012 with Professor Valerie Higgins is Associate Professor and Chair of Arts & Humanities at The American University of Rome where she teaches archaeology.

3rd - 10th Sep 2012 with Gillian Shepherd PhD is Lecturer in Classical Archaeology at the University of Birmingham. She specialises in the Greek colonisation of Italy &

17th - 24th Sep 2012 with Tony King is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Winchester. He has excavated extensively in Britain and abroad.

8th - 15th Oct 2012 with Professor William Manning FSA is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at Cardiff University, specialising in Roman Archaeology.

What's Included:

Flights - Scheduled flights from London to Naples.


Meals - All meals included (dinners with wine & water) except lunch Days 3, 5 & 8. Other lunches in trattorie/pizzerie.

Entry to all sites in programme; tips induded.

The Greek beginnings - as archaeologists we want to tell you the whole story of how cities such


The people of Pompeii who did not manage to escape left their imprint - exactly - in the volcanic debris.

We know a great deal about the secret rites and rituals of Roman

people, and there is plenty of evidence here.

Our very Italian hotel in the hills above the busy coast. Good indoor

pool with glass side overlooking valley. Simple but excellent food.

Andante - Travel with expert Archaeologists all over the world +44 (0)1722 713800 I [email protected] www.andantetravels.co.uk

ATo TRUST.

ITO Isss2I ssociation of Independent

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8 Days: from 1475(1265 without flights)

Day 1 Arrive Naples and byprivate coach to our hotel

Day 2 Drive south to explore thetemples, site and museum atPaestum. This was the Greekcolony of Poseidonia, with someof the best preserved Dorictemples in the Mediterranean in abeautiful setting.

Day 3 Whole day exploring thecity of Pompeii, once a bustlingport and market town: streetsworn by the passing traffic, cornerbars, bakeries, brothels andpolitical graffiti. All of ancient lifeis here if you know where to look.

Day 4 Visit the exceptionalcollections of artefacts at theNational ArchaeologicalMuseum at Naples. Many of thebest wall-paintings were broughthere, saving them from

deterioration and decay. Pozzuolito see one of largest and bestpreserved amphitheatres in theworld.

Day 5 Phlegraean Fields; well-preserved bathing complex at Baia,terraced into the side of an extinctvolcanic crater; Cumae, home of theprophetic sibyl.

Day 6 Herculaneum perfectlycomplements a visit to Pompeii.Much less of the town has beenexcavated, but it was buried to a

much greater depth and amazingdetails are preserved, includingburnt wood, rope and otherorganic materials. Then to seeantiquarium at Boscoreal.

Day 7 The villa at Oplontis isone of many destroyed by theeruption, but is exceptional for thequality and preservation of itswall-paintings. Ascent ofVesuvius.


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Whats Included:

Flights - Scheduled flights fromLondon to Naples.


Meals - All meals included(dinners with wine & water)except lunch Days 3, 5 & 8.Other lunches intrattorie/pizzerie.

Entry to all sites in programme;tips included.

25th Mar - 1st Apr 2012with Alan French MA Mlittwas formerly a lecturer inRoman archaeology at theUniversity of Winchester.

The Experts - Our Guide Lecturers

The Greek beginnings - asarchaeologists we want to tell youthe whole story of how cities such


We know a great deal about thesecret rites and rituals of Romanpeople, and there is plenty of

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The people of Pompeii who did notmanage to escape left their imprint- exactly - in the volcanic debris.

Our very Italian hotel in the hillsabove the busy coast. Good indoorpool with glass side overlookingvalley. Simple but excellent food.

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7th - 14th May 2012 &22nd - 29th Oct 2012 withTony Wilmott is a SeniorArchaeologist with EnglishHeritage, specialising in theRoman period.

3rd - 10th Sep 2012 withGillian Shepherd PhD isLecturer in ClassicalArchaeology at theUniversity of Birmingham.She specialises in the Greekcolonisation of Italy & Sicily.

14th - 21st May 2012 withProfessor Valerie Higginsis Associate Professor andChair of Arts & Humanitiesat The American Universityof Rome where she teachesarchaeology.

17th - 24th Sep 2012 withTony King is Professor ofArchaeology at theUniversity of Winchester.He has excavatedextensively in Britain andabroad.

8th - 15th Oct 2012 withProfessor WilliamManning FSA is EmeritusProfessor of Archaeology atCardiff University,specialising in RomanArchaeology.

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Oxford History 2011:Layout 1 25/10/11 12:18 Page 1


The 'Tudors': or not?

Clifford S.L. Davies questions the Tudor dynasty as a historical concept.

Cliff Davies was a Fellow of Wadham (1963-2001). Author of a successful but now superseded text-book, "Peace, Print, and Protestantism" (1974), his other academic work has taken the form of articles in periodicals and in the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography"

A few years ago I was reviewing a book on Henry VII. I found myself irritated by the author's frequent repetition of the phrase 'founding his dynasty' to describe Henry's major 'achievement'.1 It seemed more than a statement of fact; rather a value-judgement. What was involved? Obviously acquiring the throne, by means fair or foul, was a rather more difficult feat than succeeding by normal heredity, and retaining it against subsequent challenge. Nobody can deny that Henry, like Edward IV before him, succeeded in this. Yet there was also the unstated implication that Henry somehow deserved credit for the following 'Tudor Century', whereas in the case of Edward IV in a little over two years after his death his brother had displaced his son as king, and had met his own end in battle. It is of course possible to see strains in Edward's rule which brought about this outcome. But it is obvious that the prolongation of 'the Tudors' for almost a century after Henry's death was due to circumstances over which Henry could have had no control, beginning with leaving a son almost eighteen years old and no embarrassing close male relatives at the time of his death. Still less, of course, does either credit or blame for the events of the reigns of his son and grandchildren fall on Henry.

I initially queried the word 'dynasty'. I was surprised to find it was hardly used in England at the time except in the context of Egypt or China.2 More to the point, the concept of dynasty marks only rarely the creation of a royal line ex nihilo; most often it signifies little more than a change of surname due to the transmission of a claim through the female line. In that sense the 'Tudor dy-nasty' was doomed from the death of Edward VI in 1553, since if Mary I or Elizabeth I had had children, those children would have had a different surname. Henry's grandchild Elizabeth was

1 Sean Cunningham, Henry VII (2007). My irritation with the phrase, which is pretty well common form for Henry's biographers, should not blind the reader to the general merits of the book.

2 Oxford English Dictionary.

6 6


The Tudors: or not?

Clifford S.L. Davies questions the Tudor dynasty as a historical concept. Cliff Davies was a Fellow of Wadham (1963-2001). Author of a successful but now superseded text-book, Peace, Print, and Protestantism (1974), his other academic work has taken the form of articles in periodicals and in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

A few years ago I was reviewing a book on Henry VII. I found myself irritated by the authors frequent repetition of the phrase founding his dynasty to describe Henrys major achievement.1 It seemed more than a statement of fact; rather a value-judgement. What was involved? Obviously acquiring the throne, by means fair or foul, was a rather more difficult feat than succeeding by normal heredity, and retaining it against subsequent challenge. Nobody can deny that Henry, like Edward IV before him, succeeded in this. Yet there was also the unstated implication that Henry somehow deserved credit for the following Tudor Century, whereas in the case of Edward IV in a little over two years after his death his brother had displaced his son as king, and had met his own end in battle. It is of course possible to see strains in Edwards rule which brought about this outcome. But it is obvious that the prolongation of the Tudors for almost a century after Henrys death was due to circumstances over which Henry could have had no control, beginning with leaving a son almost eighteen years old and no embarrassing close male relatives at the time of his death. Still less, of course, does either credit or blame for the events of the reigns of his son and grandchildren fall on Henry.

I initially queried the word dynasty. I was surprised to find it was hardly used in England at the time except in the context of Egypt or China.2 More to the point, the concept of dynasty marks only rarely the creation of a royal line ex nihilo; most often it signifies little more than a change of surname due to the transmission of a claim through the female line. In that sense the Tudor dy-nasty was doomed from the death of Edward VI in 1553, since if Mary I or Elizabeth I had had children, those children would have had a different surname. Henrys grandchild Elizabeth was

1 Sean Cunningham, Henry VII (2007). My irritation with the phrase, which is pretty well common form for Henrys biographers, should not blind the reader to the general merits of the book.

2 Oxford English Dictionary.


succeeded by his great-great-grandson James I, but he represents a 'change of dynasty' as a Stu-art, and Henry's 'dynasty' is held to end in 1603.3 Given patrilineal assumptions at the time, that perception has some validity, but it also points up the artificiality of the concept. I then began to wonder if the word 'Tudor' was actually in common use. Did even well-informed English people know the surname of their monarchs? A wide-sampling investigation of the sources indicated, to my surprise, almost no trace of the word. Proclamations, statutes, coins, official communications of all sorts from the Crown carry the monarch's name and style, but not his or her surname. Liter-ary works - chronicles and histories, political treatises, poems, plays - do not use the word to refer to the ruling family. Contemporaries never referred to their rulers as 'Tudors', and would have been bewildered by the word. Even less did they think of themselves as 'Tudor people'. It was certainly possible to read in the chronicles of how about 1430 Henry V's widow, Queen Catherine (a French princess) had scandalously married a young Welsh gentleman, Owen Tudor, but the chroniclers did not go out of their way to make the point that these were the paternal grandparents of Henry VII. Henry claimed the throne through his mother's Lancastrian descent, not through his father. He called himself by his peerage title, Richmond, not 'Henry Tudor'; that appellation was used only by his opponents Richard III and Perkin Warbeck to denigrate him; never by his supporters. (It is 'Richmond' not 'Tudor' who triumphs in Shakespeare's Richard III.) Henry in fact seems to have been embarrassed by his Tudor grandfather. True, Henry made some play with an alleged descent from the seventh-century British king Cadwaldr whose descendants were supposed in prophecy to reunite the island, and also famously named his first-born 'Arthur', but this stress on Welsh roots was made without specific reference to Owen Tudor, and indeed as Professor Sydney Anglo has argued, was soon dropped .4 Henry's successors placed little emphasis on their Welsh ancestry. Indeed Henry VIII and Elizabeth valued their Yorkist ancestry through Henry VII's queen above the dubious Lancastrian claim of Henry himself, still less his paternal Tudor origins. They did not, contrary to the popular modern impression, flaunt their Tudorness; any more than Queen Elizabeth can be thought of as somehow 'middle-class' (as historians once claimed) because she had a great-great grandfather who was Lord Mayor of London. I am not arguing that 'Tudor' was not the correct surname; rather that it was not used, would not have been familiar to subjects, and certainly was not proudly flaunted as most historians seem to imply. This has, I argue, profound consequences for our image of sixteenth-century England.

There is one exception. The Tudor ancestry of the monarchs was celebrated, unsurprisingly, in Wales, and especially in the Welsh language. From there it re-entered English discourse in the last years of Elizabeth. In 1589 William Warner in Albion's England could celebrate Owen Tudor's mar-riage, by then perhaps sufficiently distant to be romantic rather than scandalous, and hail it as the origin

'Of that royal line that did, doth, and may still succeed In happy Empire of our Throne a famous line indeed'

and the theme was taken up more generally.' Even so I know (thanks to Katherine Duncan-Jones) of only one among the large number of poems and other commemorations of the death of Elizabeth and the advent of James in 1603 which alludes to the end of the Tudor line and the begin-ning of the 'Stuarts'; an occasion, one would have thought, on which the 'dynastic' term would

3 Curiously, James himself was only a 'Stuart' by accident. While he owed his claim to both the Scottish and English thrones to his mother, Mary [Stuart], Queen of Scots, his surname comes from his father, Henry Stuart [or Stewart] Lord Darnley, descended from a cadet branch of the Scottish royal family. Had his father been, say, Mary's subsequent husband James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, James's surname would presumably have been Hepburn and the dynastic continuity from Banquo through to Henry, Cardinal Duke of York (died 1807) would seem less striking.

4 Sydney Anglo, Images of Tudor Kingship (1992), which has a refreshingly sceptical approach to image-making, and trembles on the verge of making my own point

5 William Warner, Albion's England (1589 ed.), book 6, cap.29.

Henry's successors placed little emphasis on their

Welsh ancestry

7 7


succeeded by his great-great-grandson James I, but he represents a change of dynasty as a Stu-art, and Henrys dynasty is held to end in 1603.3 Given patrilineal assumptions at the time, that perception has some validity, but it also points up the artificiality of the concept. I then began to wonder if the word Tudor was actually in common use. Did even well-informed English people know the surname of their monarchs? A wide-sampling investigation of the sources indicated, to my surprise, almost no trace of the word. Proclamations, statutes, coins, official communications of all sorts from the Crown carry the monarchs name and style, but not his or her surname. Liter-ary works chronicles and histories, political treatises, poems, plays do not use the word to refer to the ruling family. Contemporaries never referred to their rulers as Tudors, and would have been bewildered by the word. Even less did they think of themselves as Tudor people. It was certainly possible to read in the chronicles of how about 1430 Henry Vs widow, Queen Catherine (a French princess) had scandalously married a young Welsh gentleman, Owen Tudor, but the chroniclers did not go out of their way to make the point that these were the paternal grandparents of Henry VII. Henry claimed the throne through his mothers Lancastrian descent, not through his father. He called himself by his peerage title, Richmond, not Henry Tudor; that appellation was used only by his opponents Richard III and Perkin Warbeck to denigrate him; never by his supporters. (It is Richmond not Tudor who triumphs in Shakespeares Richard III.) Henry in fact seems to have been embarrassed by his Tudor grandfather. True, Henry made some play with an alleged descent from the seventh-century British king Cadwaldr whose descendants were supposed in prophecy to reunite the island, and also famously named his first-born Arthur, but this stress on Welsh roots was made without specific reference to Owen Tudor, and indeed as Professor Sydney Anglo has argued, was soon dropped.4 Henrys successors placed little emphasis on their Welsh ancestry. Indeed Henry VIII and Elizabeth valued their Yorkist ancestry through Henry VIIs queen above the dubious Lancastrian claim of Henry himself, still less his paternal Tudor origins. They did not, contrary to the popular modern impression, flaunt their Tudorness; any more than Queen Elizabeth can be thought of as somehow middle-class (as historians once claimed) because she had a great-great grandfather who was Lord Mayor of London. I am not arguing that Tudor was not the correct surname; rather that it was not used, would not have been familiar to subjects, and certainly was not proudly flaunted as most historians seem to imply. This has, I argue, profound consequences for our image of sixteenth-century England.

There is one exception. The Tudor ancestry of the monarchs was celebrated, unsurprisingly, in Wales, and especially in the Welsh language. From there it re-entered English discourse in the last years of Elizabeth. In 1589 William Warner in Albions England could celebrate Owen Tudors mar-riage, by then perhaps sufficiently distant to be romantic rather than scandalous, and hail it as the origin

Of that royal line that did, doth, and may still succeed In happy Empire of our Throne a famous line indeed

and the theme was taken up more generally.5 Even so I know (thanks to Katherine Duncan-Jones) of only one among the large number of poems and other commemorations of the death of Elizabeth and the advent of James in 1603 which alludes to the end of the Tudor line and the begin-ning of the Stuarts; an occasion, one would have thought, on which the dynastic term would

3 Curiously, James himself was only a Stuart by accident. While he owed his claim to both the Scottish and English thrones to his mother, Mary [Stuart], Queen of Scots, his surname comes from his father, Henry Stuart [or Stewart] Lord Darnley, descended from a cadet branch of the Scottish royal family. Had his father been, say, Marys subsequent husband James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, Jamess surname would presumably have been Hepburn and the dynastic continuity from Banquo through to Henry, Cardinal Duke of York (died 1807) would seem less striking.

4 Sydney Anglo, Images of Tudor Kingship (1992), which has a refreshingly sceptical approach to image-making, and trembles on the verge of making my own point.

5 William Warner, Albions England (1589 ed.), book 6, cap.29.

Henrys successors placed little emphasis on their

Welsh ancestry


have been inescapable.6 Even Francis Bacon's Henry VII, written in James's reign, while establishing what was to become the standard image of the king, did so without his 'founding a dynasty' or any mention of the word 'Tudor'.' Indeed I would maintain that the habitual, reflexive, almost Pavlovian, use of 'Tudor' in the modern fashion dates only from David Hume's History of England under the House of Tudor published in 1759.

I published these conclusions in the Times Literary Supplement (13 June 2008), and expected a massive refutation from fellow-histo-rians pointing out obvious sources I had overlooked. The refuta-tion conspicuously failed to materialise. I therefore conclude that I was right. But does it matter? As the Us itself seemed to imply by the headline they gave my article ('A Rose by any other Name'), surely the concept existed, even if the word itself was not in use? The general reaction seems to have been to treat my discovery as an amusing quirk, of no practical significance. The term seems too useful, somebody will find a refutation, meanwhile press on. "De- nial' is, I think, the word. But that is an odd reaction for a generation of historians which professes itself sensitive to the use of language, the proponents of the 'linguistic turn', of the belief that one ignores contemporary usage at one's peril. Francis Bacon in the Advancement of Learning (1605) observed that 'words, as a Tartar's bow, do shoot back upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightily entangle and pervert the judgement'.8 I can only try to indicate briefly here some of the ways in which our mistaken assumption about the prevalence of the 'Tudor' concept in sixteenth-century England entangles and perverts our historical interpretation. The absence of the word, and therefore the absence of the concept, has far-reaching implications.

First, there is a fundamental question of classification, of periodisation. All 'periods' are artificial constructs by historians. There can be no 'correct' periodisation. It is salutary to break out of ac-cepted classifications, to try alternatives, to play them off against each other as indeed has been done successfully in several textbooks. ( 1450-1558, 1450-1660, 1529-1660, 1509-1660.) A danger of the 'Tudor' label is to suggest, insidiously, a unity which did not exist over the years 1485 to 1603. Take, for instance, those familiar entities 'Tudor kingship' or 'Tudor government'. Once the con-cept is challenged, it seems obvious that there was very little in common between the governmen-tal methods of Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth I (let alone those of Edward VI and Mary I, which have generally been seen as special cases). Or again historians are now largely agreed that there was nothing inevitable about the Henrician Reformation. Without the question of the Kath-erine of Aragon divorce here would seem to be no pressing reason for the Crown to break with the Papacy. Reformation, if it had come, would have done so in a very different form and with a very different outcome. Yet both these points leave the years 1485-1529 in a kind of curious limbo. At best they figure as a sort of pre-determinant of what will follow later, rather than on their own terms. This is entirely due to the 'Tudor' dynastic label raising expectations of continuity, of har-monious development.

Oddly Geoffrey Elton, no less, in his little-noticed preface to that most influential of texts, England under the Tudors (1954), admitted the contradiction between his own argument (that fundamen-tal change did not take place until the 1530s) and the time-scale of the book he was writing. 'The fundamental difficulty arises from the attempt to treat the century as a unit, which it was not ... In the history of England nothing decisive happened in either 1485 or 1603', and more in the same vein, before rather lamely concluding 'But it is better to accept these old categories and make them do new work than attempt to set up new categories which will only create new confusions and

6 Henry Chettle, England's Mourning Garment (1603); see Duncan-Jones's letter to the Times Literary Supplement, 17 Sept, 2009. 1 am grateful for her reassurance that Chettle seems unique in making this point

7 Francis Bacon, The History of the Reign of Henry VII, ed. Brian Vickers (1998).

8 The Advancement of Learning, ed. Michael Kiernan (Oxford Francis Bacon, IV, 2000), 117-8.

8 8


have been inescapable.6 Even Francis Bacons Henry VII, written in Jamess reign, while establishing what was to become the standard image of the king, did so without his founding a dynasty or any mention of the word Tudor.7 Indeed I would maintain that the habitual, reflexive, almost Pavlovian, use of Tudor in the modern fashion dates only from David Humes History of England under the House of Tudor published in 1759.

I published these conclusions in the Times Literary Supplement (13 June 2008), and expected a massive refutation from fellow-histo-rians pointing out obvious sources I had overlooked. The refuta-tion conspicuously failed to materialise. I therefore conclude that I was right. But does it matter? As the TLS itself seemed to imply by the headline they gave my article (A Rose by any other Name), surely the concept existed, even if the word itself was not in use? The general reaction seems to have been to treat my discovery as an amusing quirk, of no practical significance. The term seems too useful, somebody will find a refutation, meanwhile press on. De-nial is, I think, the word. But that is an odd reaction for a generation of historians which professes itself sensitive to the use of language, the proponents of the linguistic turn, of the belief that one ignores contemporary usage at ones peril. Francis Bacon in the Advancement of Learning (1605) observed that words, as a Tartars bow, do shoot back upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightily entangle and pervert the judgement.8 I can only try to indicate briefly here some of the ways in which our mistaken assumption about the prevalence of the Tudor concept in sixteenth-century England entangles and perverts our historical interpretation. The absence of the word, and therefore the absence of the concept, has far-reaching implications.

First, there is a fundamental question of classification, of periodisation. All periods are artificial constructs by historians. There can be no correct periodisation. It is salutary to break out of ac-cepted classifications, to try alternatives, to play them off against each other as indeed has been done successfully in several textbooks. ( 1450-1558, 1450-1660, 1529-1660, 1509-1660.) A danger of the Tudor label is to suggest, insidiously, a unity which did not exist over the years 1485 to 1603. Take, for instance, those familiar entities Tudor kingship or Tudor government. Once the con-cept is challenged, it seems obvious that there was very little in common between the governmen-tal methods of Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth I (let alone those of Edward VI and Mary I, which have generally been seen as special cases). Or again historians are now largely agreed that there was nothing inevitable about the Henrician Reformation. Without the question of the Kath-erine of Aragon divorce here would seem to be no pressing reason for the Crown to break with the Papacy. Reformation, if it had come, would have done so in a very different form and with a very different outcome. Yet both these points leave the years 1485-1529 in a kind of curious limbo. At best they figure as a sort of pre-determinant of what will follow later, rather than on their own terms. This is entirely due to the Tudor dynastic label raising expectations of continuity, of har-monious development.

Oddly Geoffrey Elton, no less, in his little-noticed preface to that most influential of texts, England under the Tudors (1954), admitted the contradiction between his own argument (that fundamen-tal change did not take place until the 1530s) and the time-scale of the book he was writing. The fundamental difficulty arises from the attempt to treat the century as a unit, which it was not In the history of England nothing decisive happened in either 1485 or 1603, and more in the same vein, before rather lamely concluding But it is better to accept these old categories and make them do new work than attempt to set up new categories which will only create new confusions and

6 Henry Chettle, Englands Mourning Garment (1603); see Duncan-Joness letter to the Times Literary Supplement, 17 Sept., 2009. I am grateful for her reassurance that Chettle seems unique in making this point.

7 Francis Bacon, The History of the Reign of Henry VII, ed. Brian Vickers (1998).

8 The Advancement of Learning, ed. Michael Kiernan (Oxford Francis Bacon, IV, 2000), 117-8.


quarrels'. 9 Of course one might wish to dispute Elton's view of either 1485 or 1603; but I can only cheer his aspiration to 'free oneself of these schematic dynastic preoccupations', even if his own practice and that of his followers so frequently fell short of it.

The second point relates to self-identification on the part of the subject. The convenient use of 'Tudor' to refer to a period carries all sorts of insidious implications. There lurks an unfortunate but inescapable patina of glamour, general among the public at large, but lurking perhaps sub-consciously even in the minds of academic historians. Moreover 'Tudor Englishmen' (or 'women') carries an implication of conscious identity between subject and ruler, of an exceptional sense of loyalty, in implied contrast to what is believed to have come before or was to follow. The 'Tudor period' has become something of a 'golden age' in English history. In some sense that may be an arguable (in the real sense) proposition; but if so that needs to be demonstrated rather than being sold to the reader under a false label.

Did sixteenth-century English people think of themselves as living in a new era; crudely, that the 'middle ages' were behind them? There seems little evidence that they did. ('Medieval' was of course another concept which was conspicuously absent.) I do not deny that there was a consciousness of important changes. The most widespread was the belief that the world had changed irrevocably, for good or ill, with Luther's protest in 1517, and, in England, with Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy; and that those changes had been consolidated with the accession of Elizabeth. Exami-nation of almanacs show these dates featuring prominently, 1485, by contrast, rarely. No doubt the distinctive visual images of Henry VIII and of Elizabeth I, the former perhaps especially famil-iar from the title-page of the Great Bible of 1539, helped to strengthen this perception. Certainly the governments of Edward, Mary and Elizabeth made much of their being the children of Henry VIII. No doubt this was to counter the potential weaknesses in their position, in Edward's case his youth, in those of Mary and Elizabeth the awkward fact that they were technically illegitimate 11, allowed into the succession by special dispensation of Act of Parliament. A much-quoted proverb coupled religious and material change;

'Turkey, heresy, hops and beer Came into England all in one year'.12

Technical progress was singled out in various forms; in Bacon's influential version (Novum Or-ganum book 1, aphorism 129), as 'printing, gunpowder and the mariner's compass', with their far-ranging political and social consequences." 'Humanists' rejoiced in the alleged rediscov-ery of 'pure' classical Latin in place of linguistic 'barbarism'. My point is not that there was no consciousness of change, but rather that various perceptions did not consolidate into a unified concept of a new era beginning around 1500. There is little sense of a 'different period' in the sequence of Shakespeare's history plays through from Richard II to Richard III; so little, in fact, that the low-life cast of Henry IV could be transplanted, with no sense of incongruity, to the Elizabe-than setting of Merry Wives of Windsor. Even Hotspur's mockery of the effete lord who professed to believe that -

And that it was great pity, so it was, This villainous saltpetre should be digg'd Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd So cowardly; and but for these vile guns, He himself would have been a soldier

9 G.R. Elton, England under the Tudors (first ed., 1955, preface). He may have felt uneasy about having published his thesis as The Tudor Revolution in Government (1953), in spite of his argument that the supposed revolution was begun and completed within ten years of Henry VM's reign.

10 Bernard Capp, English Almanacks 1500-1700 (1979), 218.220-4.

11 Novum Organum, eds. Graham Rees and Marie Wakely (Oxford Francis Bacon, XI, 2004), 105.

12 Oxford Dictionary of Quotations , ed. Elizabeth Knowles (7th ed. 2009), 645.


9


quarrels. 9 Of course one might wish to dispute Eltons view of either 1485 or 1603; but I can only cheer his aspiration to free oneself of these schematic dynastic preoccupations, even if his own practice and that of his followers so frequently fell short of it.

The second point relates to self-identification on the part of the subject. The convenient use of Tudor to refer to a period carries all sorts of insidious implications. There lurks an unfortunate but inescapable patina of glamour, general among the public at large, but lurking perhaps sub-consciously even in the minds of academic historians. Moreover Tudor Englishmen (or women) carries an implication of conscious identity between subject and ruler, of an exceptional sense of loyalty, in implied contrast to what is believed to have come before or was to follow. The Tudor period has become something of a golden age in English history. In some sense that may be an arguable (in the real sense) proposition; but if so that needs to be demonstrated rather than being sold to the reader under a false label.

Did sixteenth-century English people think of themselves as living in a new era; crudely, that the middle ages were behind them? There seems little evidence that they did. (Medieval was of course another concept which was conspicuously absent.) I do not deny that there was a con-sciousness of important changes. The most widespread was the belief that the world had changed irrevocably, for good or ill, with Luthers protest in 1517, and, in England, with Henry VIIIs Act of Supremacy; and that those changes had been consolidated with the accession of Elizabeth. Exami-nation of almanacs show these dates featuring prominently, 1485, by contrast, rarely.10 No doubt the distinctive visual images of Henry VIII and of Elizabeth I, the former perhaps especially famil-iar from the title-page of the Great Bible of 1539, helped to strengthen this perception. Certainly the governments of Edward, Mary and Elizabeth made much of their being the children of Henry VIII. No doubt this was to counter the potential weaknesses in their position, in Edwards case his youth, in those of Mary and Elizabeth the awkward fact that they were technically illegitimate 11, allowed into the succession by special dispensation of Act of Parliament. A much-quoted proverb coupled religious and material change;

Turkey, heresy, hops and beer Came into England all in one year.12

Technical progress was singled out in various forms; in Bacons influential version (Novum Or-ganum book 1, aphorism 129), as printing, gunpowder and the mariners compass, with their far-ranging political and social consequences.13 Humanists rejoiced in the alleged rediscov-ery of pure classical Latin in place of linguistic barbarism. My point is not that there was no consciousness of change, but rather that various perceptions did not consolidate into a unified concept of a new era beginning around 1500. There is little sense of a different period in the sequence of Shakespeares history plays through from Richard II to Richard III; so little, in fact, that the low-life cast of Henry IV could be transplanted, with no sense of incongruity, to the Elizabe-than setting of Merry Wives of Windsor. Even Hotspurs mockery of the effete lord who professed to believe that -

And that it was great pity, so it was, This villainous saltpetre should be diggd Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good tall fellow had destroyd So cowardly; and but for these vile guns, He himself would have been a soldier

9 G.R. Elton, England under the Tudors (first ed., 1955, preface). He may have felt uneasy about having published his thesis as The Tudor Revolution in Government (1953), in spite of his argument that the supposed revolution was begun and completed within ten years of Henry VIIIs reign.

10 Bernard Capp, English Almanacks 1500-1700 (1979), 218. 220-4.


12 Oxford Dictionary of Quotations , ed. Elizabeth Knowles (7th ed. 2009), 645.



has a distinctly Elizabethan resonance. 14 Shakespeare's works indeed suggest that many people took recent religious changes as less than epoch-making. Priests, friars, nuns, even bishops appear per-forming their traditional functions, without being depicted as either deceiving villains or as holy men set apart. True there is an anti-papal and royal supremacy line, particularly apparent in King John. But Shakespeare seems immune to the core Protestant concept of justification by faith alone, espousing a common-sense belief in charitable disposition and divine mercy which Protestant theologians would have scorned as 'Pelagian'.

In decrying the all-pervasive use of 'Tudor' I am not insisting that historians can avoid making use of anachronistic terms, can confine themselves entirely to terminology current in the period they are studying. Readers will have noticed my use of 'Elizabethan', which was no more current than 'Tudor'. I can only plead that in this case the term would at last have been comprehensible, in that the name (as opposed to the surname) of the monarch was widely diffused, not least on coins. More difficult is my use of 'sixteenth-century', since the modern habit of classifying oneself auto-matically by century did not exist before the 'quarrel of the ancients and moderns' in the XVIIth Century, and does not seem to have become general until the XIXth Century. In this case, I would plead in mitigation that at least 'sixteenth-century' does not carry with it quite the baggage and ex-pectations of 'Tudor'. It would be impossible to make sense the workings of the sixteenth-century economy using only terms in use at the time. My point is rather that the historian should make clear to the reader when he or she is using an anachronistic term and not give the impression that it was in use at the time and coloured people's thoughts or helped form their ideas. That misap-prehension is, I maintain, general about 'Tudor'. The term is probably too deeply entrenched to be banished from the historical court. But I would plead that at least its users should issue a health-warning to their readers, should make clear that it was not a contemporary term.

I am not blaming my colleagues for their blindness on this matter. I had been studying the period for some fifty years when I stumbled on this insight by chance But I am convinced that the implica-tions are far-reaching. Some of them I have suggested, necessarily rather crudely, above. There is a need to work out the possible implications. I have made a start in an article, to appear shortly in Historical Research , in which I argue that Henry VII, far from being the master-mind of the 'Tudor myth', preferred a policy of reticence about his claim to the throne, his own life prior to Bosworth and his lineage, and even about the events of Richard III's reign." Another article, in History, will outline and, I hope, ignite the debate which, I believe, my insight deserves. and which may extend, modify, or possibly annihilate my suggestions.16 I only wish I had stumbled on the point before hitting my seventies.

14 Henry IV part 1, 1.iii.

15 'Information, Disinformation, and Political Knowledge under Henry VII and early Henry VIII', Historical Research, 85, 2012.

16 'Tudor; What's in a Name?', History, 97 , 2012.

10 10


has a distinctly Elizabethan resonance. 14 Shakespeares works indeed suggest that many people took recent religious changes as less than epoch-making. Priests, friars, nuns, even bishops appear per-forming their traditional functions, without being depicted as either deceiving villains or as holy men set apart. True there is an anti-papal and royal supremacy line, particularly apparent in King John. But Shakespeare seems immune to the core Protestant concept of justification by faith alone, espousing a common-sense belief in charitable disposition and divine mercy which Protestant theologians would have scorned as Pelagian.

In decrying the all-pervasive use of Tudor I am not insisting that historians can avoid making use of anachronistic terms, can confine themselves entirely to terminology current in the period they are studying. Readers will have noticed my use of Elizabethan, which was no more current than Tudor. I can only plead that in this case the term would at last have been comprehensible, in that the name (as opposed to the surname) of the monarch was widely diffused, not least on coins. More difficult is my use of sixteenth-century, since the modern habit of classifying oneself auto-matically by century did not exist before the quarrel of the ancients and moderns in the XVIIth Century, and does not seem to have become general until the XIXth Century. In this case, I would plead in mitigation that at least sixteenth-century does not carry with it quite the baggage and ex-pectations of Tudor. It would be impossible to make sense the workings of the sixteenth-century economy using only terms in use at the time. My point is rather that the historian should make clear to the reader when he or she is using an anachronistic term and not give the impression that it was in use at the time and coloured peoples thoughts or helped form their ideas. That misap-prehension is, I maintain, general about Tudor. The term is probably too deeply entrenched to be banished from the historical court. But I would plead that at least its users should issue a health-warning to their readers, should make clear that it was not a contemporary term.

I am not blaming my colleagues for their blindness on this matter. I had been studying the period for some fifty years when I stumbled on this insight by chance But I am convinced that the implica-tions are far-reaching. Some of them I have suggested, necessarily rather crudely, above. There is a need to work out the possible implications. I have made a start in an article, to appear shortly in Historical Research , in which I argue that Henry VII, far from being the master-mind of the Tudor myth, preferred a policy of reticence about his claim to the throne, his own life prior to Bosworth and his lineage, and even about the events of Richard IIIs reign.15 Another article, in History, will outline and, I hope, ignite the debate which, I believe, my insight deserves. and which may extend, modify, or possibly annihilate my suggestions.16 I only wish I had stumbled on the point before hitting my seventies.

14 Henry IV part 1, 1.iii.

15 Information, Disinformation, and Political Knowledge under Henry VII and early Henry VIII, Historical Research, 85, 2012.

16 Tudor; Whats in a Name?, History, 97 , 2012.

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Russia and the Emigration

Catherine Andreyev puts the Russian emigres of the twentieth century back into the mainstream of Russian history

When listening to analyses of Russia by Western experts and comparing this with what was said by Russians themselves, you could - and this happened very frequently indeed during the Cold War - be forgiven for assuming that these two groups of people were talking about two completely different entities. This might be explained by examining the wider context of the relationship between Russia and the West and assessing why such commentators found it so difficult to under-stand one another. Russian emigres, who had more experience of the West than their compatriots have been able to provide a bridge between their own and other cultures but even here there is of-ten a tendency to allow stereotypes to predominate. Soviet caricatures were of wealthy bloodsuck-ing capitalists out to oppress the masses. The Western stereotype of a Russian emigre tends to be of comic characters with tragic overtones from Chekhov's plays or Nabokov's novels, who constantly sigh about going to Moscow, but never get there. Out of touch with reality, obsessed by conspiracy theory, they appear to live in some fantasy world of their own. Oddly enough, this caricature seems to apply particularly to Russian emigres in the twentieth century, which saw more exiled Russians than ever before. Exiles of earlier periods are accepted as part of Russian cultural and political history. I would argue that the twentieth century exiles should also be seen as an intrinsic part of Russian history even when domiciled abroad.

Early Russian exiles include Prince Andrei Kurbsky, an erstwhile favourite of Ivan IV, (the Ter-rible), who fled to escape the Tsar's wrath and whose letters criticising the Tsar's policies are an important source for understanding sixteenth-century Muscovy. Similarly, the radicals of the nine-teenth century are seen to have had an important influence at home. Alexander II is supposed to have read Herzen's newspaper 'Kolokol' (the Bell) which was published in London, and his deci-sion to emancipate the serfs in 1861 was influenced by what he had read. The Bolsheviks at the end of the nineteenth century may have seemed to their contemporaries to be a small unrepresentative minority, but no history of the period would be complete without a discussion of their ideas. Yet the twentieth century still seems to be treated far more dismissively, as if Russian culture abroad was completely irrelevant both to an understanding of Russia and of Western policies towards her.

The twentieth century saw different waves of Russian refugees leaving their country and in much larger numbers. The so-called "first wave" were those who left Russia after 1917 and as a result of the Russian Civil War. This was an enormous humanitarian problem for the League of Nations. The Russians, rapidly followed by Armenian refugees, were the first refugees who could not be

12


Russia and the Emigration

Catherine Andreyev puts the Russian emigrs of the twentieth century back into the mainstream of Russian history

When listening to analyses of Russia by Western experts and comparing this with what was said by Russians themselves, you could and this happened very frequently indeed during the Cold War be forgiven for assuming that these two groups of people were talking about two completely different entities. This might be explained by examining the wider context of the relationship between Russia and the West and assessing why such commentators found it so difficult to under-stand one another. Russian migrs, who had more experience of the West than their compatriots have been able to provide a bridge between their own and other cultures but even here there is of-ten a tendency to allow stereotypes to predominate. Soviet caricatures were of wealthy bloodsuck-ing capitalists out to oppress the masses. The Western stereotype of a Russian migr tends to be of comic characters with tragic overtones from Chekhovs plays or Nabokovs novels, who constantly sigh about going to Moscow, but never get there. Out of touch with reality, obsessed by conspiracy theory, they appear to live in some fantasy world of their own. Oddly enough, this caricature seems to apply particularly to Russian migrs in the twentieth century, which saw more exiled Russians than ever before. Exiles of earlier periods are accepted as part of Russian cultural and political history. I would argue that the twentieth century exiles should also be seen as an intrinsic part of Russian history even when domiciled abroad.

Early Russian exiles include Prince Andrei Kurbsky, an erstwhile favourite of Ivan IV, (the Ter-rible), who fled to escape the Tsars wrath and whose letters criticising the Tsars policies are an important source for understanding sixteenth-century Muscovy. Similarly, the radicals of the nine-teenth century are seen to have had an important influence at home. Alexander II is supposed to have read Herzens newspaper Kolokol (the Bell) which was published in London, and his deci-sion to emancipate the serfs in 1861 was influenced by what he had read. The Bolsheviks at the end of the nineteenth century may have seemed to their contemporaries to be a small unrepresentative minority, but no history of the period would be complete without a discussion of their ideas. Yet the twentieth century still seems to be treated far more dismissively, as if Russian culture abroad was completely irrelevant both to an understanding of Russia and of Western policies towards her.

The twentieth century saw different waves of Russian refugees leaving their country and in much larger numbers. The so-called first wave were those who left Russia after 1917 and as a result of the Russian Civil War. This was an enormous humanitarian problem for the League of Nations. The Russians, rapidly followed by Armenian refugees, were the first refugees who could not be


returned to their countries of origin. Institutions and structures had to be developed to deal with questions of legal status and delivering aid to those in need. The "second wave" were those who left the USSR as a result of the Second World War. Many left as a result of being caught up in hostilities or being deported from the occupied territories of the Soviet Union to work as forced labourers by the Nazi regime rather than of their own volition. At the end of the war, many spent time in the Displaced Persons camps before being allowed to leave Europe. This group of refugees differed from their predecessors in that they had experience of living in the USSR, and that they were more realistic about the possibility of a return home. In the 1970s, those leaving the USSR, the "third wave" did so mainly on the basis of being Jewish and once again differed from previous exiles. Finally, Russians who are now in the West and are investing in Western newspapers, foot-ball clubs and other enterprises have often been designated as 'new Russians' and should perhaps be understood as economic migrants rather than as political emigres.

The first "High Commissioner on behalf of the League [of Nations] in connection with the problem of Russian refugees in Europe" was the Norwegian explorer Dr Fridtjof Nansen after whom the Nansen passports, legal documents for stateless people were named. One author has argued that some of these policies made immediately after the end of World War I were forgotten very quickly

with the result that "refugee practitioners have had to reinvent th

oxford historian 2011 ver2

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