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After many years at the margins of historical investigation, the late medieval English gentry are widely regarded as an important and worthy subject for academic research. This book aims to explore the culture of the wide range of people whom we might include within the late medieval gentry, taking in all of landed society below the peerage, from knights down to gentlemen, and including those aspirants to gentility who might under traditional socio-economic terms be excluded from the group. It begins by exploring the origins of, and influences on, the culture of the late medieval gentry, thus contributing to the ongoing debate on defining the membership of this group. The book considers the gentry's emergence as a group distinct from the nobility, and looks at the various available routes to gentility. Through surveys of the gentry's military background, administrative and political roles, social behaviour, and education, it seeks to provide an overview of how the group's culture evolved, and how it was disseminated. The book offers a broad view of late medieval gentry culture, which explores, reassesses and indeed sometimes even challenges the idea that members of the gentry cultivated their own distinctive cultural identity. The evolution of the gentleman as a peer-assessed phenomenon, gentlemanly behaviour within the chivalric tradition, the education received by gentle children, and the surviving gentry correspondence are also discussed. Although the Church had an ambivalent attitude toward artistic expression, much of the gentry's involvement with the visual arts was religious in focus.
family connections, I had no idea.’ Some Congolese staff admitted that they had not disclosed their military background to their colleagues: although many foreigners have military histories, Congolese staff argued that their own military experience was viewed with suspicion. This distrust was aggravated by instances when foreign MSF staff felt that the organisation’s neutrality had been ‘compromised’ by local staff. I was told about cases of local staff socialising publicly with armed actors, or using MSF equipment for the administrative tasks of armed groups – ‘some
of, and influences on, the culture of the late medieval gentry, thus contributing to the ongoing debate on defining the membership of this group. It considers the gentry’s emergence as a group distinct from the nobility, and looks at the various available routes to gentility. Through surveys of the gentry’s military background, administrative and political roles, social behaviour, and education, it
This chapter assesses the changing bedrock upon which officials’ sense of confidence in their ability to govern African societies rested. A desire for knowledge was not an inherent product of the colonial encounter, but the result of a particular metropolitan mentality. Officials from military backgrounds were more inclined to rely upon force and the use of prestige, and more at ease with their not knowing everything about those they governed, than civilian officials. For officials from civilian backgrounds, the process of collecting information about Africa meant that imperial authority increasingly rested on real power, rather than symbolic power. This underpinned the confidence that meant civilian officials accepted the post-1918 expansion of the imperial remit more readily. There were distinct limits as to how far experiences of the continent were able to re-shape officials’ attitudes towards imperial confidence.
incidents with bombs going off, bomb hoaxes, strikes with the railways, and the trains were often delayed for various reasons. It got to the point where I didn’t feel safe travelling by train, so I decided to look for another job nearer home. I successfully applied for and accepted the role of physiotherapist at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court. I think my military background helped to secure the job. I commenced my new role in 1996, and completed thirteen years. I was heavily involved in the physiotherapy treatment of our young lads and lasses
, Kell’s immediate superior was the Secretary of State for War. Throughout these early years, the quasi-military ethos of MI5 was pervasive, most of its recruits coming, like Vernon Kell himself, from a military background. This ethos was echoed in the Service’s structure, in which intelligence officers were assigned military rank, whether or not they were entitled to it on the basis of military service. The military ethos of MI5 remained pervasive during the 1920s and 1930s. In the jargon of the Service, only those who worked in the ‘Office’ were 03_Charmian_Ch-1
This book presents new research on the histories and legacies of the German Expressionist group, Der Blaue Reiter, the founding force behind modernist abstraction. For the first time Der Blaue Reiter is subjected to a variety of novel inter-disciplinary perspectives, ranging from a philosophical enquiry into its language and visual perception, to analyses of its gender dynamics, its reception at different historical junctures throughout the twentieth century, and its legacies for post-colonial aesthetic practices. The volume offers a new perspective on familiar aspects of Expressionism and abstraction, taking seriously the inheritance of modernism for the twenty-first century in ways that will help to recalibrate the field of Expressionist studies for future scholarship. Der Blaue Reiter still matters, the contributors argue, because the legacies of abstraction are still being debated by artists, writers, philosophers and cultural theorists today.
undertook fieldwork at Stonehenge. Among his interpretations of the latter was that its circuits related to a fortified settlement, which is obviously not now a widely held explanation of that great ritual monument; this likely reflected his military background. 31 The role of archaeologist as spy, variously informing military operations, should not be overlooked. Most famously there were Sir Leonard Woolley and T. E. Lawrence’s ‘Wildness of Zin’ surveys in the Negev Desert immediately prior to the First World War. 32 Sponsored by the army, while the archaeologists
noticeable difference in the proportion of defectors and loyalists are politicians whose career outside parliament was in the armed forces: they are over-represented among the defectors. Possible reasons for this can be speculated. People with a military background typically tend to be self-confident, to be willing to take decisive actions and not be prepared to tolerate a lack of clarity or weak leadership. Conversely, educationalists and ministers of religion, who were perhaps more likely to have been conciliatory and tolerant by professional training and personality
. 37 The Horse guards wanted as much influence as possible over the colonies where troops were stationed, including, if possible, either a commander-in-chief who was also governor, or a governor with a military background. Historians have not examined the military’s desire for imperial control sufficiently; as Hew Strachan has observed, although the empire was the ‘most