|
Books > History > History of specific subjects > Genealogy, heraldry, names and honours > General
This authoritative volume provides a beautifully illustrated guide
to the most influential composers of classical music. Starting from
medieval times, the book gives detailed biographies covering the
life and times of each composer, listing their most important works
and placing them in their historical context. There are over 100
individual entries, from the pre-eminent Bach, Mozart and
Beethoven, continuing up to modern composers such as Carter, Boulez
and Stockhausen. The entries are accompanied by portraits or
photographs of each composer, illustrations of the places where
they lived and worked, and examples of their original manuscripts.
From decade to decade, significant changes occur in the choice of
first names for children. One-time favorites are perceived as old
fashioned and replaced by new choices. In "The Name Game," Jrgen
Gerhards shows that shifts in the choice of names are based on more
than arbitrary trends of fashion. Instead, he demonstrates, they
are determined by larger currents in cultural modernization.
Using classic tools of sociology, Gerhards focuses on changing
atterns of first names in Germany from the end of the nineteenth
century to the end of the twentieth, using these as an indicator of
cultural change. Among the influences he considers are religion,
and he notes a trend toward greater secularization in first names.
He considers the extent to which Christian names have been
displaced, and whether the process is similar for Catholics and
Protestants. He traces the impact of different political regimes
(Second Empire, Weimar Republic, Third Reich, West Germany, East
Germany) and the accompanying rise and fall of German nationalist
sentiment. He also investigates the dissolution of the family as a
unit of production, and its impact on the naming of children. He
shows that the weakening of traditional ties of religion, nation,
and family has led to greater individuation and greater receptivity
toward foreign first names. Gerhards concludes with a discussion of
whether the blurring of gender and sex roles is reflected in the
decrease of gender-specific names.
Written in a lucid, approachable style, "The Name Game" will be of
interest not only to sociologists and cultural studies specialists,
but also non-professionals, especially parents who are interested
in reflecting on the process of name giving.
Jrgen Gerhards is professor of sociology at the Free University of
Berlin. He was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in
Berlin and at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the
Social Sciences. He is co-author with Myra Marx Ferree, William A.
Gamson, and Dieter Rucht of "Shaping Abortion Discourse: Democracy
and the Public Sphere in Germany and the United States."
This is essential reading for parents-to-be. It reveals the
meanings of over four thousand names, both well known and less well
known, and explains their origins from many languages, ancient and
modern. With this book you can satisfy your curiosity about the
names of other people, discover the real meaning of your own name,
and find the perfect name for your baby.
The popularity of amateur genealogy and family history has soared
in recent times. Genealogy, Psychology and Identity explores this
popular international pastime and offers reasons why it informs our
sense of who we are, and our place in both contemporary culture and
historical context. We will never know any of the people we
discover from our histories in person, but for several reasons we
recognize that their lives shaped ours. Paula Nicolson draws on her
experiences tracing her own family history to show how people can
connect with archival material, using documents and texts to expand
their knowledge and understanding of the psychosocial experiences
of their ancestors. Key approaches to identity and relationships
lend clues to our own lives but also to what psychosocial factors
run across generations. Attachment and abandonment, trusting, being
let down, becoming independent, migration, health and money, all
resonate with the psychological experiences that define the
outlooks, personalities and the ways that those who came before us
related to others. Nicolson highlights the importance of genealogy
in the development of identity and the therapeutic potential of
family history in cultivating well-being that will be of interest
to those researching their own family tree, genealogists and
counsellors, as well as students and researchers in social
psychology and social history.
Contents: An introduction to "Perspectives on the Renaissance Medal", Stephen K.Scher. Giovanni Bernardi and the question of medal attributions in sixteenth century Italy, Philip Attwood. Changing patterns of antiquarianism in the imagery of the Italian Renaissance medal, John Cunnally. Correct and incorrect: the composition of medallic reverses in late seventeenth century France, Mark Jones. 'Un gran pelago': the impresa and the medal reverse in fifteenth century Italy, Kristen Lippincott. Ancient themes on Erzgebirgishen Medals, Hermann Maue. Text and image: themes on reverses of fifteenth and sixteenth century medals, Graham Pollard. A creative moment: thoughts on the genesis of the German portrait medal, Jeffrey Chipps Smith. Mint and medal in the Renaissance, Alan Stahl. Pisanello's Paragoni, Raymond Waddington. "The Modern Lysippus": A Roman quattrocento medalist in context, Louis Alexander. Visual constructions of the art of war: images for Machiavelli's Prince. Joanna Woods-Marsden.
The story of arms in Western Europe from the Renaissance to the
Industrial Revolution. A treasury of information based on solid
scholarship, anyone seeking a factual and vivid account of the
story of arms from the Renaissance period to the Industrial
Revolution will welcome this book. The author chooses as his
starting-point the invasion of Italy by France in 1494, which sowed
the dragon's teeth of all the successive European wars; the French
invasion was to accelerate the trend towards new armaments and new
methods of warfare. The authordescribes the development of the
handgun and the pike, the use and style of staff-weapons, mace and
axe and war-hammer, dagger and dirk and bayonet. He shows how
armour attained its full Renaissance splendour and then suffered
itssorry and inevitable decline, culminating in the Industrial
Revolution, with its far-reaching effects on military armaments.
Above all, he follows the long history of the sword, queen of
weapons, to the late eighteenth century, when it finally ceased to
form a part of a gentleman's every-day wear. Lavishly illustrated.
EWART OAKESHOTT was one of the world's leading authorities on the
arms and armour of medieval Europe. His other works on the subject
include Records of the Medieval Sword and The Sword in the Age of
Chivalry.
This is a handy and colourful illustrated guide to reading, writing
and understanding ancient Egyptian names, epithets, titles and
phrases. The Egyptians believed that the creator god Ptah brought
the world into being by naming everything in it. Names had great
power, and kings often over-wrote their own names on the monuments
of earlier rulers. A person's name was a vitally important part of
them, and the Egyptians were very concerned that their names should
be recorded, remembered and spoken. Criminals and those who had
fallen out of favour could be punished - wiped out of history - by
having their names destroyed or defaced. The hieroglyphic script
provided a beautiful, flexible and expressive means to write the
names of humans, gods and animals. Angela McDonald explains the
meanings of Egyptian personal names and how they were made up
(Rameses = 'Ra has given birth to him') and demonstrates how they
were written in different ways to convey various shades of meaning.
Royal and divine names are always given special treatment. The
Egyptians were not always formal, and nicknames were common. Even
the names of pet animals are recorded in tomb paintings.
Based on narrative, iconographical, and liturgical sources, this is
the first systematic study to trace the story of the ritual of
royal self-coronations from Ancient Persia to the present. Exposing
as myth the idea that Napoleon's act of self-coronation in 1804 was
the first extraordinary event to break the secular tradition of
kings being crowned by bishops, Jaume Aurell vividly demonstrates
that self-coronations were not as transgressive or unconventional
as has been imagined. Drawing on numerous examples of royal
self-coronations, with a particular focus on European Kings of the
Middle Ages, including Frederic II of Germany (1229), Alphonse XI
of Castile (1328), Peter IV of Aragon (1332) and Charles III of
Navarra (1390), Aurell draws on history, anthropology, ritual
studies, liturgy and art history to explore royal self-coronations
as privileged sites at which the frontiers and limits between the
temporal and spiritual, politics and religion, tradition and
innovation are encountered.
Coronations are very public occasions, typically seen as
meticulously planned formal ceremonies where everything runs
smoothly. But behind the scenes at Westminster Abbey lie
extraordinary but true stories of mayhem, confusion and merriment.
In this book we travel through over a thousand years of England's
history to reveal the real character of its kings and queens. Also
packed with facts about how the service, traditions and accessories
have changed over the years, Crown, Orb & Sceptre provides both
a compelling read and an accessible and irreverent reference guide
to one of the most spectacular ceremonies in England's heritage.
By the early 13th century the use of seals in Northern Europe was a
generalized phenomenon which involved society as a whole, crossing
boundaries of gender, age, religion, and social and professional
status. The function traditionally ascribed to seals is the
validation of the documents to which they were affixed, but the
phenomenon has far wider implications, as is brought out in this
collection of studies by Brigitte Bedos-Rezak. In itself a seal
could serve as a quasi-amuletic object or a personal adornment, the
image impressed from it functioned as a sign conveying identity and
power, and the ritual of sealing provided an occasion for the
affirmation of status. In her work the author has aimed to use the
approaches of statistics, cultural and women's history and
semiotics, as well as the 'traditional' skills of art history, law
and diplomatics, to show the numerous surviving seals can be used
to reach into the history of the Middle Ages, and at the same time
to explore and test the interpretative models suggested by
semiotics and postmodern theories on symbols, representation and
meaning.
Historians and broadcasters Peter Snow and Ann MacMillan tell the
real stories of the most powerful men and women in British history.
Kings & Queens explores the lives, loves, triumphs and
disasters of a monarchy that is the envy of the world. Snow and
MacMillan offer a unique insight into those born to rule, whether
villains or heroes - from cruel King John and warrior-king Edward
III, to our own Elizabeth II: dutiful, discreet and the
longest-reigning queen in the world. This is the story of modern
civilization through the lens of those who have ruled.
It was only in 1547 that the ruler of Moscow, Ivan the Terrible,
was formally proclaimed tsar, emperor, yet in reality the title had
long been in use. Professor Vodoff's concern in these articles has
been to uncover the significance of such usages, as part of the
political vocabulary of medieval Russia, and to reveal the ideolgy
behind them. The period covered extends from Kievan times, when the
titulature reflects the close relationship - and rivalry - with the
Byzantine empire, but the main focus is on the later period, when
the different princes competed for the heritage of the Kievan state
and the notion of 'Russia' itself became part of the political
conflict. This struggle was won by the rulers of Moscow, though
only in the face of determined opposition from the neighbouring
principality of 'Tver', and its history effectively suppressed or
neglected in suceeding centuries, is a major theme in this volume.
It took Henry VIII twenty-eight years, three wives, and a break
with Rome before he secured a legitimate male heir. Yet he already
had a son - the illegitimate Henry Fitzroy. Fitzroy was born in
1519 after the King's affair with Elizabeth Blount. He was the only
illegitimate offspring ever acknowledged by Henry VIII, and
Cardinal Wolsey was even one of his godparents. So just how close
did he come to being Henry IX?
The Paston letters viewed in the context of medieval women's
writing and medieval letter writing. The Paston letters form one of
only two surviving collections of fifteenth-century correspondence,
in their case especially rich in letters from the women of the
family. Clandestine love affairs, secret marriages, violent family
rows, bickering with neighbours, battles and sieges, threats of
murder and kidnapping, fears of plague: these are just some of the
topics discussed in the letters of the Paston women. Diane Watt's
introduction seeks to place these letters in the context of
medieval women's writing and and medieval letter writing. Her
interpretive essay reconstructs the lives of these women by
examining what the letters reveal about women's literacy and
education, lifein the medieval household, religion and piety,
health and medicine, and love, marriage, family relationships, and
female friendships in the middle ages. Professor Diane Watt is Head
of the School of English and Languages, University of Surrey.
This fully revised and updated fourth edition of Scottish Genealogy
is a comprehensive guide to tracing your family history in
Scotland. Written by one of the most authoritative figures on the
subject, the work is based on established genealogical practice and
is designed to exploit the rich resources that Scotland has to
offer. After all, this country has possibly the most complete and
best-kept set of records and other documents in the world.
Addressing the questions of DNA, palaeography and the vexed issues
of clans, families and tartans, and with a new chapter on DNA and
genetic genealogy, Bruce Durie presents a fascinating insight into
discovering Scottish ancestors. He covers both physical and
electronic sources, explains how to get beyond the standard
'births, marriages and deaths plus census' research, and reminds
the reader that there are more tools than just the internet.
Comparisons are made with records in England, Ireland and
elsewhere, and all of the 28 million people who claim Scottish
ancestry worldwide will find something in this book to challenge
and stimulate. Informative and entertaining, this new edition is
the definitive reader-friendly guide to genealogy and family
history in Scotland.
A study of the lived history of nineteenth-century British
imperialism through the lives of one extended family in North
America, the Caribbean and the United Kingdom. The prominent
colonial governor James Douglas was born in 1803 in what is now
Guyana, probably to a free woman of colour and an itinerant
Scottish father. In the North American fur trade, he married Amelia
Connolly, the daughter of a Cree mother and an Irish-Canadian
father. Adele Perry traces their family and friends over the course
of the 'long' nineteenth-century, using careful archival research
to offer an analysis of the imperial world that is at once intimate
and critical, wide-ranging and sharply focused. Perry engages
feminist scholarship on gender and intimacy, critical analyses
about colonial archives, transnational and postcolonial history and
the 'new imperial history' to suggest how this period might be
rethought through one powerful family located at the British
Empire's margins.
Attractive selection conveys well their recurrent concerns with
land, money, civil violence, flirtation, marriage, and the purchase
of ginger and lace. MEDIUM AEVUM Vivid first-hand accounts of life
in England at the time ofthe Wars of the Roses, presented in their
historical context. Essential reading on the English middle ages.
Within three generations (1426 to 1485), and through the dark
anddangerous years of the Wars of the Roses, the Pastons
establishedthemselves as a family of consequence, both in their
native Norfolk andwithin court circles. Ambitious and highly mobile
- womenfolk as wellas men - they kept in touch by correspondence,
usually but notinvariably through the medium of a clerk. These
letters, a raresurvival, break upon us across the centuries with
the urgency, andsometimes the violence, of their preoccupations:
defending property,fighting court cases, making the right
alliances, and, on the domesticside, managing their estates,
conducting their courtships, stockingtheir cupboards. Selected and
presented here with Richard Barber'sinvaluable linking narrative,
they bring the middle ages triumphantlyto life.
Dissolving Royal Marriages adopts a unique chronological and
geographical perspective to present a comparative overview of royal
divorce cases from the Middle Ages through to the Reformation
period. Drawing from original translations of key source documents,
the book sheds new light on some of the most prominent and elite
divorce proceedings in Western history, including Henry VIII's
divorce from Catherine of Aragon. The comprehensive commentary that
accompanies these materials allows readers to grasp, for the first
time, how the constructs of canon law helped shape the legal
arguments on which specific cases were founded, and better
understand the events that actually unfolded in the courtrooms. In
his case-by-case exploration of elaborate witness statements,
extensive legal negotiations and political wrangling, d'Avray shows
us how little the canonical law for the dissolution of marriage
changed over time in this fascinating new study of Church-state
relations and papal power over princes.
Imagine you are standing in a line. Your father is behind you, his
father behind him, his father behind him, his father behind him and
so on back 1000 generations.... This group of people wouldn't fill
the average pop concert venue, yet the last man in the line would
have lived in around 30,000BC. What would each man in the line look
like? Where would he live? Who else would he be the ancestor of?
Discovery of this lineage cannot be found in church records, census
documents, ancient histories or hieroglyphics. This knowledge is
found within your own DNA. It is encrypted into the genetic code
that each of us carry. In unlocking that code, we can go on a
journey through time back to the very beginning of human history.
This book begins with one such line. An old Irish family (Keegan or
Clann MacAodhagain) with a Celtic pedigree. In it we discover
kings, shamans, sorcerers, fathers of entire nations - and the
first King of the Celts. For the first time, a single family's
origins is traced back to our most distant ancestors. This is the
story of a DNA journey that began with looking for information on a
simple stone mason, and ended up with the discovery of the first
king of the Celts and a bloodline back to the start of human
history. Simon Keegan (author of Pennine Dragon and The Lost Book
of King Arthur) was researching his family history but he reached
an obstacle that could not be negotiated through the usual Family
Tree Detective methods - of tracking down census documents and
marriage certificates. So instead he took a series of DNA tests and
working with other Keegans around the world, he demonstrated how a
family can trace its family history not just back to their clan
founder about a thousand years ago, but to the very beginning of
human history - and he shows how you might be able to do the same.
Frederick Levi Attenborough (1887-1973) studied at Cambridge and
was a Fellow of Emmanuel College between 1920 and 1925. He later
became the Principal of University College, Leicester. In 1922
Cambridge University Press published his edition of the early
Anglo-Saxon laws, with a facing-page modern English translation. A
few years earlier, Felix Lieberman had published his monumental
three-volume Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, which is still the
definitive specialist edition of the laws (as Attenborough rightly
predicted), and which is also reissued in the Cambridge Library
Collection. Attenborough explains that his work is for social and
legal historians who do not read German, or do not require the full
critical apparatus and contextual material provided by Lieberman.
Attenborough's book covers the laws from Aethelbert to Aethelstan;
in 1925 Cambridge published a continuation by Agnes Robertson, The
Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I, which is also
available.
|
|