Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2022 i History Extra

EYE-OPENER Metal detective It’s a striking sight: a four-legged, high-tech robot patrolling the streets of the ancient city of Pompeii. The machine – nicknamed Spot, because of its dog-like appearance – is able to identify cracks, erosion and other signs of damage at the archaeological site. The ruins of the city, which was famously buried beneath volcanic ash after Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, have repeatedly been targeted by thieves, and the robot can also search for tunnels dug during attempts to steal historical artefacts. Weighing just 25kg and with 360-degree vision, “Spot” can be controlled remotely or programmed to follow set routes. The robot, created by American engineering firm Boston Dynamics, is not the only innovation being trialled in a bid to preserve the Unesco World Heritage Site. Its…

Alternative medicine Helen Rappaport’s article on Mary Seacole (April) was fascinating, but Seacole wasn’t the only “alternative” to Florence Nightingale. Betsi Cadwaladr, from Bala in north Wales, spent many months working with the troops on the front lines, providing warm food, bandaging wounds and caring for the men. Cadwaladr [seen below in a contemporary portrait] had travelled the world as companion and servant to various sea captains, and became convinced that cleanliness was an essential ingredient in the treatment of wounded and sick patients. She went out to Crimea as part of the second group of Nightingale Nurses, but clashed with Florence from the start. “I did not like the name Nightingale, ” she wrote. “When I learn a name I know by my feelings whether I shall like the…

This year Elizabeth II marks her platinum jubilee – the first time any monarch has completed 70 years on the throne in the history of the British crown. A raft of celebrations is planned across the UK, the Commonwealth and around the world: from street parties to a star-studded concert at Buckingham Palace, a new jubilee garden (“Superbloom”) in the Tower of London moat, and even a platinum pudding competition. While the scale of the celebrations is likely to eclipse any other in the history of the British monarchy, Elizabeth II is by no means the first sovereign whose jubilee has inspired their subjects to pull out all the stops. The history of official jubilee celebrations only goes back as far as George III (reigned 1760-1820). But the origin of…

Join me for a moment at a royal hunt in France, in 1737. Far ahead of the main pack of riders and dogs, one figure hurtles with incredible speed after fleeing hares and rabbits, bringing back prey to the main party before they can catch up. But look closer: the creature racing on all fours across the grass is not a dog but a girl of perhaps 15. Her name was Memmie le Blanc, known as “the wild girl of Songi” after the village Songy, in north-eastern France, where she was captured in 1731. At that time, she had apparently slept easily in the branches of a tree, sung like a bird, and flown up and down tree trunks with the ease of a squirrel. Local villagers (writes the author…

Phillipa Vincent-Connolly on Tudor disability “There was a strange mix of attitudes towards disability in the Tudor period. On the one hand, it was thought that if the mother had been involved in satanic worship, or the parents had sinned greatly, it might affect the baby in the womb. Yet, people with disabilities were also seen as being closer to God because they were already suffering on Earth. This meant that they were often cherished and honoured, as conduits to God and truth.” Leo Damrosch on Giacomo Casanova “Casanova had the most varied and extraordinary life. He invented a lottery for the French government and was a professional gambler, con man and spy, as well as a priest and a soldier. He even persuaded people he had magical powers! In…

What drew you to Nellie Bly’s story? Nellie Bly fascinated me from the start. I wondered what kind of woman could feign madness and commit herself to an asylum for the sake of a newspaper scoop. I began to research her and discovered that she overcame a traumatic childhood and went on to achieve the extraordinary – despite, or even because of, her early life. Bly possessed courage and humanity, and she changed America’s newsrooms and its mental institutions for the better. I wanted to tell the world about her. How did you research her time in the asylum, in 1887? I visited the site of the lunatic asylum on Blackwell’s Island, now Roosevelt Island, in the East river off Manhattan. All that’s left is an octagonal tower, now a…

In the office of Lloyd’s of London, the pioneers of marine insurance, hangs the Lutine bell, recovered from the wreck of the ship Lutine in 1858. From Georgian ship deck to sea floor to modern city office, Tom Nancollas documents the life and afterlife of the bell and 10 other relics to tell the story of Britain’s maritime past from the Bronze Age to the 20th century. These fragments of maritime Britain offer a portal into everyday nautical life via the remains of a Cornish fishing vessel and the ropery of Chatham Dockyard, but also give insight into a broader maritime culture manifested in 16th-century seafaring “trophies” and imposing Victorian figureheads. Nancol-las conveys a sense of yearning for a lost way of life, but simultaneously provides an honest reckoning with…

DR ERICA MCALISTER (left), fly expert and senior curator at the Natural History Museum, tells us about her returning series Metamorphosis: How Insects Transformed Our World “We’ve been sending vinegar flies into orbit since 1947. I wish they went up in little space suits” What’s the premise of the series? There’s looking at nature for its beauty or for its ecological value, but there’s also looking at nature for inspiration. Insects have been around for millions of years, and the idea behind the series is that successful insect species have evolved to be amazing in their environments. The series also looks at pioneering entomologists – not necessarily people who are trained in entomology, but people who look at insects in a completely different way. They examine something obscure about a…

1. Linear B on Radio 3 One fascinating fact from David Hendy’s BBC series is that the discovery of how to translate the ancient Minoan script known as Linear B was first announced live on the Third Programme in 1952 (page 47). 2. An unlikely assassin There have been many royal assassination attempts over the centuries, but the story of Margaret Nicholson, who planned to murder George III with a dessert knife, was definitely new to me (page 32). 3. Top of the class I expect few schoolboys can claim an achievement as impressive as Robert G Heft, who came up with the design for the current flag of the USA as part of a school project. It was officially introduced in I960 (page 35).…

Following recent news stories about British policies towards refugees and asylum seekers, Twitter users reflected on the history of Britain’s relationship with those in need. Journalist Jonathan Freedland (@Freedland) kicked off the debate, noting that “People keep saying that Britain has a ‘noble tradition’ of taking in refugees, citing the [pre-Second World War] Kindertransport as proof... But here’s the problem... To quote the late, much-missed [historian] David Cesarani, Britain ‘was prepared to allow refuge for children, but not for adults who might enter the labour market’.” Understandably, Freedland’s comments prompted much discussion. Alex Sufit (@AlexSufit) noted that “many of the adults who made it to our shores, Jews and others escaping persecution, were interned as ‘enemy aliens’ – alongside Nazis and Nazi sympathisers. Some were shipped as far as Australia…

“We lament the loss of all the good things that come with city life” Watching with horror the destruction of Mariupol in Ukraine – the obliteration of a city of more than 400,000 people – my mind went to other cities, other times. More than 30 years ago, in the aftermath of the war with Iran, I went to southern Iraq, the heartland of ancient Sumer, and the sites of Nippur, Eridu and Uruk – the first true cities on Earth. Today the ruins of Uruk lie out in a windswept desert. Walking its six-mile circuit leaves an unforgettable feeling of the transience of human achievement. The site is 100-feet deep in debris; one’s feet crunch Ubaid pottery and Sasanian glass, the detritus of more than 5,000 years of city…

“The strike has links to a far longer story of female south Asian protest” It’s late on a Sunday evening in a street in west London, and the air is thick with the smell of freshly fried pakoras. Pammi Bains, who lives in one of the terraced houses, has been cooking. Pammi was part of a strike action that disrupted Heathrow airport for two days in the summer of 2005. It was an act of resistance with links to a far longer history of female south Asian protest in Britain. She says it changed her life, but few know the story of her and her fellow strikers. Pammi was part of a workforce of predominantly Indian Punjabi women, who were employed at Gate Gourmet preparing food trays for British Airways…

“The Third Programme’s first head put it bluntly: there would, he warned, be few props. Listeners would need to ‘make an effort’” At 6pm on 29 September 1946, when the Third Programme took to the air for the first time, it seemed as if the BBC was dramatically abandoning one of its core “Reithian” principles. The corporation’s “founding father”, John Reith, had always insisted that the broadcaster’s purpose had been to make “all that is best” available to “the greatest number”. Yet here was the Third, apparently threatening to ring-fence high culture for a minority. Reith, already long departed from the role of director general, harrumphed from the sidelines. True, the very first item in that first Sunday’s schedule was accessible enough. How to Listen was a “satirical review” that…

Ellie Cawthorne As a leading expert in the field of Black Death studies, how would you say science has changed the picture for research into this dark episode in human history? Monica Green I have to be able to talk about the Black Death – it’s part of the remit of my job. But the problem with the Black Death was that, for 30 years, there was an intense debate about what caused it. And when you don’t know the biological cause of a pandemic, it becomes a black hole in the story that you can throw all kinds of theories into. So I had spent most of my career being frustrated about not being able to tell a coherent story about what was clearly a major historical event. But…

Rhiannon Davies: Your new book. Queens of the Wild, explores four goddesses who evolved into hugely popular cultural figures in the Middle Ages. Can you introduce us to them? Ronald Hutton: First up, there’s the figure of Mother Nature, or Mother Earth, who’s mostly discussed by elite writers in the Middle Ages. Then there’s the exact opposite – a charismatic female figure whom I call the Lady of the Night, who is very much part of the popular imagination or experience. What she does, basically, is scoot around with a retinue of fellow spirits and favoured human beings. Sometimes she and her friends just party; sometimes they visit the houses of particular worthy people and bless them and have a feast there. But they restore all the food and drink…

Unless most life as we know it has been wiped off the face of the planet by the time this review comes out, I’d urge you to pick up this book – and, as its author warns in his stark preface, be terrified. Serhii Plokhy is one of those historians whose finger seems to be unerringly on the pulse of current events. Just a year ago, he gave us Nuclear Folly, a dramatic retelling of when the world came close to nuclear Armageddon during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Now in Atoms and Ashes, he takes a truly chilling look at nuclear weaponry’s twin – nuclear power. In a series of shocking, hour-by-hour snapshots, he details exactly what happens when nuclear power plants, ostensibly designed for peace and plenty, abruptly…

The formal history of the Church of England begins with the Act of Supremacy of 1534, which declared King Henry VIII to be “the only Supreme Head in earth of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia”. Yet, as Jeremy Morris demonstrates in this accessible and engaging book, the roots of Henry’s church lay firmly in the early Middle Ages. So much so that his Church of England could be understood “as the Church in England as it had been from time immemorial”. Morris deftly guides the reader through the complex narrative of the church’s shifting fortunes, moving from the turmoil of the Reformation years, through evangelical and high church revivals, constitutional reform and the church’s responses to world wars, to the religious “crisis” of the 1960s and beyond. After…

FICTION Lion by Conn Iggulden (Michael Joseph, 400 pages, £20) Ancient bloodbath Conn Iggulden is no stranger to the ancient world, having written bestsellers set in Rome and Sparta. In Lion he revisits Greece, this time following the fortunes of Pericles, famous statesman of Athens. The action sees Athenian soldiers fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Spartans to take on the forces of the mighty Persians, but trouble is brewing between the allies – threatening to boil over into all-out war. CULTURAL Five Love Affairs and a Friendship by Anne de Courcy (W&N, 336 pages, £22) Artists’ muse With her kohl-ringed eyes and scarlet slash of lipstick, Nancy Cunard captured the hearts and minds of a string of creatives, from the poet Ezra Pound to the novelist Aldous Huxley. Here…

The real musketeers The three musketeers, made famous by Alexandre Dumas and the many films his stories inspired, are among the best-known figures from ancien regime France. Moreover, the heroes of Dumas’ stories – d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis – have real historical counterparts. Historian Dr Josephine Wilkinson separates their lives from legend. historyextra.com/three-musketeers Clara Barton: the “angel of the battlefield” A self-taught nurse who travelled to the frontlines of the American Civil War and established the American Red Cross, Barton was a visionary in the world of medical care. Jonny Wilkes traces her remarkable career. historyextra.com/clara-barton How WWI soldiers found hope in nature Many troops used nature as a form of solace during the 1914-18 Conflict. Cultural historian Bethany Wyatt considers the emotional connections of servicemen to the flora…

Elizabeth I 1533-1603 IN PROFILE Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, was queen of England from 1558 until her death, which marked the end of the Tudor dynasty. One of her first acts as monarch was to restore England to Protestantism; she also had Mary, Queen of Scots imprisoned and executed, and the Spanish Armada was defeated during her reign. “Elizabeth wouldn’t let herself be pushed around by her male advisors – I get the sense of her as a sort of chair of the board” When did you first hear about Elizabeth I? Probably at school, learning about the kings and queens of England in history lessons. But I suppose my interest was rekindled by watching big-screen dramatisations such as Elizabeth (1998), in…

Helen Hackett “I’ve found that exploring Elizabethan ideas about the mind sheds light on the extraordinary literature of the period, and on still unresolved questions about the mind and the self.” Helen untangles the Elizabethans’ complex relationship with their mental wellbeing on page 60 Jessie Childs “I’ve always been fascinated by sieges. They offer dangerous vistas, incongruous meetings and, most dauntingly, an unflinching look at the human condition. The siege of Basing House threw up some extraordinary characters.” Jessie charts the savage siege that helped win the Civil War on page 20 Monica H Green “I think people haven’t been as interested in the Black Death as perhaps they should have been. If they had been, I think we might be in a better situation right now.” Monica explains how…

Two decades after they disappeared from Cambridge University Library, a pair of notebooks compiled by Charles Darwin have been returned – deposited anonymously in a pink gift bag in a section of the building with no CCTV coverage. The leather-bound manuscripts, which date from the 1830s and contain a sketch of the “tree of life” that is thought to mark a key point in the scientist’s development of his theory of evolution by natural selection, were last seen in November 2000. They went missing following an internal request to remove them from storage to be photographed, though their absence wasn’t noted until two months later. Despite a series of searches they were not found; finally, in 2020, university librarian Dr Jessica Gardner reported them as stolen and launched a worldwide…

29 JUNE 1613 The Globe theatre burns to the ground Cannon fire sparks a blaze during a Shakespeare play It’s fair to say that All Is True isn’t one of Shakespeare’s best-known plays – not least because it’s now more widely called Henry VIII, and is believed to have been co-written with another playwright, John Fletcher. So its first recorded performance – at the Globe theatre on the banks of the Thames in June 1613 – might have sunk into obscurity had it not been for the disaster that brought it to an untimely end. The production company clearly wanted the play – which centres on Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon – to go off with a bang. And so, at a climactic moment in the performance, a cannon…

Professor Alice Roberts opens her warm and illustrative history of Britain’s first millennium AD with an enigma. The enigma is, of course, made of bones, because Roberts is a broadcaster and author who has shared many of the best stories of British archaeology in the last 20 years by using the tools of her academic trade – most especially, her up-close and personal knowledge of the anatomy of death. Roberts’ experience in parsing the complex scientific research behind the work of digging up the dead stands her in good stead here, as she takes the reader hundreds of years into the distant past. The chapters flow through the centuries, occasionally eddying back and forth, but always taking in the vast number of ways to dispose of the dead in Britain.…

At the heart of one of the world’s great store-houses of knowledge, the rooms built by Pope Sixtus V in the Vatican Library, are a series of pillars which literally prop up the library. Dating from the 1590s, the pillars are decorated with frescoes that celebrate “The Inventors of Alphabets” and depict mythical, biblical or historical figures as creators of alphabetic writing systems. The symbolism is clear: alphabets are critical to the development of western civilisation. Johanna Drucker, a distinguished scholar at UCLA, provides a rich, detailed account of how western thinkers have understood the origins and development of the alphabet. Equally at home discussing medieval scholars, the learned divines of 17th-century England or archaeologists of more recent times, Drucker leads us through a complex series of intellectual approaches to…

Approaching from a distance, down a pathway and across a wooden bridge, Hever Castle looks as though it has had an enormous can of green paint thrown at it. A joyous splash of ivy brings to life the light stone walls above and around the portcullis, setting the tone for a visitor attraction whose keynote is the sensuous, minimally selfconscious enjoyment of a rich history. That history began in earnest in the early 1500s when the castle, near Edenbridge in Kent, became the childhood home of Anne Boleyn. Even under her ambitious, up-and-coming family, a building whose earliest structures date back to the 13th century was never allowed to sprawl. It remained the stuff of childish fancy: small and symmetrical, from its delicate crenellations to the drawbridge over a modest…