Innholdsfortegnelse for Christmas 2019 i History Extra

“ Britain’s history is often divided into neat sections, separated by dates such as 1485 or 1901, when people apparently decided to stop being medieval or Victorian and embrace the new way of things. One of the most dramatic junctures is AD 410, traditionally seen as the end of the Roman era and the start of what was once widely known as ‘the Dark Ages’. But, as with all such dates, the reality was rather more complex. In our cover feature, Will Bowden considers what really happened when the legions departed. You’ll find that on page 20. There is complexity too in the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine – the medieval queen consort whose remarkable life has inspired numerous legends: serial adulterer, scheming rebel, and 12th-century superwoman, to name just…

Wherever we stand on the political debates that are currently consuming our national consciousness, we can all agree that historians of the future won’t look back and conclude that we are living through halcyon days. Yet perhaps those living in Victorian Britain might have thought something similar. Or perhaps they would have had a much brighter outlook. That’s certainly the claim of a new study reported in The Times in October. The headline was stark: “Victorian times were happiest, study of the national mood finds.” Researchers from the universities of Warwick and Glasgow and the Alan Turing Institute tracked the nation’s happiness by analysing the tone of the language used in millions of titles contained in the Google Books corpus. From this, they concluded that, despite the era being noted…

Museum to return sacred items Manchester Museum is set to be the first in the UK to repatriate indigenous Australian artefacts to their communities of origin. The 43 ceremonial objects, which include musical instruments and body ornaments, will be returned as part of an initiative sponsored by the Australian government. The items have been at the museum since the 1920s. Spain exhumes Franco body The remains of General Francisco Franco have been moved following concerns that his lavish mausoleum had become a shrine for the far-right. The embalmed body of the fascist dictator, who ruled Spain from 1939–75, was transferred from his tomb in the Guadarrama Mountains to a small municipal cemetery on the edge of Madrid. The exhumation had been a key policy pledge of Spain’s socialist government, despite…

25 DECEMBER 820 A Byzantine leader is butchered Assassins knife Leo V to death during morning prayers It was dawn on 25 December 820 when the Byzantine emperor Leo V made his way into the imperial palace church for morning prayers. An experienced former general who had ruled in Constantinople for the last seven years, Leo prided himself on his singing voice, and at the first hymn’s refrain – “They poured contempt on the yearning of the king of all kings” – he raised his voice with gusto. Unfortunately, Leo did not realise that this was the signal for a group of plotters, allied with his imprisoned rival Michael the Armorian, to make their move. Drawing their knives, the conspirators rushed towards the emperor – but in the gloom, and…

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In late July 1933, six months after the Nazi regime came to power in Germany and forced many distinguished German Jews to leave their native land, Albert Einstein paid his one and only visit to the House of Commons in Britain. Born Jewish in Germany in 1879, the world’s most famous scientist had observed closely the rise of Nazism from his home in Berlin in the 1920s while enduring vitriolic public criticism and even death threats. In March 1933, he had anticipated the German-Jewish exodus and, returning to Europe from the US, gone into voluntary exile in Belgium with his second wife, Elsa. Now he found himself in London on a political mission to help Germany’s Jews, looking down from the Distinguished Visitors’ Gallery of the House and listening to…

The Song of Simon de Montfort: England’s First Revolutionary by Sophie Thérèse Ambler Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War by Tim Bouverie The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple Chastise: The Dambusters Story 1943 by Max Hastings Normandy ‘44: D-Day and the Battle for France by James Holland Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind by Tom Holland Crusaders: An Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands by Dan Jones The Mountbattens: Their Lives and Loves by Andrew Lownie Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume Three: Herself Alone by Charles Moore The Brothers York: An English Tragedy by Thomas Penn Accurate at time of printing…

Across: 7 Poole 8 Guernica 10/25 Forbidden City 12 Bronze 13 Coolidge 15 Knossos 17 Molotov 20 Geronimo 22 Spain 24 Acre 26/11/1 Dumbarton Oaks Conference 27 Thatcher 28 Pinta. Down: 2 Florin 3 Murdoch 4 Franco 5 Hirohito 6 Rack 9 Cicero 14 Groundnuts 16 Stokesay 18 Ossian 19 Tommies 21 Il Duce 23 Artois. Five winners of Of Gods and Men D Johnson, North Yorkshire; R Fletcher, Bedfordshire; JM Foxall, West Midlands; S Adams, Portree; A Wilson, Greater Manchester…

“This is someone who lived at a time of horror and navigated the darkest of waters to save hundreds people” When did you first hear about Schindler? It was when I was about 13. Schindler’s Ark [by Thomas Kenneally] was one of our set books at school and it made an enormous impact on me. Our English teacher put it down, saying: “This just might change your lives.” In a way it did because it was such an extraordinary story. What kind of person was he? He was a hugely complicated but extraordinary man – an incredible hero at the same time as being a drunkard and a philanderer. That duality of character only serves to make him a more interesting figure. Good people can do bad things just as…

Will Bowden Although, as an archaeologist, I’ve dug on a number of sites across the Mediterranean, I’m still always drawn back to this small island on the very edge of the Roman empire. Will explores what happened in Britain as Roman rule collapsed and the legions left on page 20 Sara Cockerill While I was writing about Eleanor of Aquitaine for this issue, I was surprised to keep finding other women exercising real power during the Middle Ages – none of whom have anything like Eleanor’s profile. Sara busts some of the myths surrounding the ‘medieval superwoman’ on page 34 Caitlin Green The evidence for long-distance travel and trade in the Middle Ages is fascinating, and the establishment of a ‘New England’ on the Black Sea by exiles fleeing the…

The United Kingdom is heading for its third general election since 2015. Given that the executive and parliament are in a state of deadlock, this is no great surprise, but the exact timing has caused comment. Voting will take place on 12 December, and it may be difficult to obtain a high turnout during the festive season. There might also be other knock-on effects. “December election could bring down curtain on nativity plays,” warned The Times when the date was under discussion, as schools and church halls may be needed as polling stations. Historically, though, winter elections, which we define here as those held between November and February, are not particularly unusual, even if every election over the last four decades has been held in April, May or June. In…

“It’s behind you! The Christmas panto has Renaissance roots” The traditional British Christmas is not as British or as traditional as we often imagine. The Christmas tree is a relatively recent innovation: a German import, popularised in Britain during the 1840s by Prince Albert. The Christmas card is another Victorian invention, and turkey only caught on in the 20th century. Before that, goose was the traditional Christmas dish. Another foreign import is pantomime. Its origins lie in the commedia dell’arte, the ‘comedy of the artists’, performed in Renaissance Italy by travelling street entertainers. The players wore masks and told tales through improvised sketches, slapstick comedy, singing and dancing. Their shows revolved around a number of stock characters: disreputable old men, young lovers, harlequins and clowns. The troupes of the commedia…

The CV of Eleanor of Aquitaine (c1122–1204) is one you wouldn’t dare to make up. An heiress to half of France at 13, who became queen, first of France (as wife of Louis VII) and then of England (thanks to her marriage to Henry II). A survivor of battles on crusade, and in France of at least four abduction attempts. A wife divorced by Louis for barren- ness, who bore at least 10 children. A mother of three kings (Henry the Young King, Richard I and John) and two queens, not to mention the great-grandmother of two saints. A reputed rebel against Henry, and his prisoner for 15 years, who ruled his lands for her sons. A woman who, at 80, commanded the defence of a castle against the attacks…

Wolfson History Prize Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice by Mary Fulbrook OUP, 672 pages, £25 The Holocaust gave rise to a complex web of traumatic experiences. Mary Fulbrook’s book aims to untangle that web, exploring how the legacies of Nazism echoed down through successive generations of both victims and perpetrators. The Wolfson judges lauded Reckonings as “a masterly work which explores the shifting boundaries and structures of memory”. Longman-History Today Award Our Boys: The Story of a Paratrooper by Helen Parr Allen Lane, 416 pages, £20 In Our Boys, Helen Parr explores the lasting impact of the Falk- lands War through the story of her Uncle Dave, a 19-year-old paratrooper who died in the conflict in 1982. The Longman-History Today judges weren’t the only ones…

The largest-ever Bronze Age hoard discovered in London is to go on public display next year. Unearthed on a building site in Havering in 2018, the collection of 453 artefacts – including axe heads and fragments of swords – will be exhibited at the Museum of London Docklands from April. Due to the way in which the weapons were buried together in close groups, archaeologists believe the site was a metal workers’ vault or an armoury ‘recycling bank’. Have a story? Please email Jon Bauckham at jon.bauckham@immediate.co.uk…

“Why Britons need a monument to the victims of the slave trade” “You can’t hug your way through history,” said historian David Cannadine recently. We read history for entertainment and enjoyment as well as illumination, but it is not a comfort blanket. Sometimes its lessons are stark and unavoidable. That came to mind earlier this year when the historian Lonnie Bunch became the first African-American to head the Smithsonian in Washington. Founder director of the wonderful and shattering National Museum of African American History and Culture, Bunch spoke of “not what people want to remember, but what they need to remember”. In the States, slavery is at the centre of the national narrative – America’s ‘original sin’, as it’s been called. For Britons, it has proved more easy to ignore…

Anglo-Saxon resistance had been resourceful and determined. It had seriously troubled the new Norman regime. But, by the mid-1070s, it had become clear even to the most optimistic of rebels that William the Conqueror had won the battle for England. The Anglo-Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis tells us that, in the wake of their defeat at Hastings, “the English groaned aloud for their lost liberty and plotted ceaselessly to find some way of shaking off a yoke that was so intolerable”. That yoke remained firmly in place, however, and so, a little under 10 years after William’s invasion, the Anglo-Saxon lords were left with a stark choice. The options they faced were two-fold: they could stay and see what Norman rule would bring, or they could abandon England to its conquerors…

Beside my desk is a letter from Aldous Huxley, written from Los Angeles in November 1959, which states: “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of the lessons that history has to teach us.” One group of people who do try to learn from history are war leaders, although they do not always learn the correct lessons. As politicians and statesmen, they tend to be more interested in history than most people, and they often see themselves in historical roles that they recognise have been played in the past. Like modern-day actors watching films and videos of people playing the same parts that they themselves are about to take on, war leaders try to learn from those who went before. It’s…

In the postroom of our office in Bristol, BBC History Magazine’s pigeonhole is easy to spot. It’s the one overflowing with book-shaped packages, surrounded by a landslide of jiffy bags and bubble-wrapped historical fiction. One thing is for sure, there is no shortage of new history books to explore. And as we move into 2020, this shows little sign of letting up: there are already a raft of fresh titles to look forward to. Next year marks 400 years since the Mayflower set sail, and I’ll be kicking off 2020 by speaking to author Stephen Tomkins about the religious intolerance that led to its launch. Later in 2020, the social history of domestic life will be getting a much-needed overhaul: Annie Gray (below) will be rustling up a ‘culinary biography’…

“You have two powerful men, both of whom believe that God is on their side – yet only one of them can win” Why did you decide to focus on the final few days of Charles I’s reign? The Civil Wars were over and Charles had been defeated. Nonetheless, the idea of regicide was something that had simply never been done before, certainly in the history of Europe. Taking legal and public measures to execute a king in the name of parliament, on behalf of the people, was completely revolutionary – it was the most radical act. There was no provision in the law for it, there was no public consensus for it to happen, and yet happen it did. So overall, we were interested in going through how and…

2020 Anniversaries 1. 850th What links William de Tracy, Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh de Morville and Richard le Breton? 2. 700th It was issued in April 1320 and asserted Scottish independence from England. What was it called? 3. 600th Who did King Charles VI of France acknowledge as his heir in May 1420? 4. 500th Who met who at Balinghem near Calais in June 1520? 5. 400th Which ship originally set off with the Mayflower on its voyage to the New World but was forced to turn back after being found to be unseaworthy? 6. 300th What burst in the autumn of 1720? 7. 250th Which pottery company, which is celebrating the 250th anniversary of its foundation next year, produced this iconic ‘Blue Italian’ design (below)? 8. 200th In February 1820…