Heresy, Law and the State: Forfeiture in Late Medieval and Early Modern England
As a punishment for heresy, forfeiture of property had originated in Roman law, was decreed by canon law, and applied across late medieval Europe. English ecclesiastical and secular legislation of the early fifteenth century formally adopted confiscation in response to the threat of Lollardy. Prompted by Oldcastle’s rising, in 1414 an Act of Parliament ordered that heretics should henceforth suffer the penalty of felony forfeiture. This identification of heresy with criminality justified greater lay involvement in the suppression of religious dissent. Because heresy was designated as a type of felony, the Crown claimed offenders’ personal possessions and lords their real property; the Church had no right to heretics’ estates. Although the Act provided the common-law basis for forfeiture, the penalty was imposed in other circumstances that paralleled practice outside England. Notwithstanding the Richard Hunne affair, forfeiture for heresy generated little controversy during the break with Rome. Legislation in the 1530s, in fact, extended the use of forfeiture as a punishment for religious dissent. The Act of 1414 was repealed under Edward VI, revived under Mary I, and again repealed under Elizabeth I. Following this second repeal in 1559, forfeiture lapsed as a penalty for heresy. The association between heresy and crime was thus loosened.
Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/129/537/270?rss=1
‚A Memorial and a Pledge of Faith‘: Portraiture and Early Modern Diplomatic Culture
Portraits of rulers, medals, and other images of politicians were widely used within early modern diplomatic practice. Historians have long appreciated the role of portrait exchange in early modern royal marriage negotiations. Far less appreciated are the prevalence of portrait exchanges between European monarchs outside of marriage negotiations and the diplomatic uses made of these, and other, royal portraits. Diplomatic art operated within a ceremonial and symbolic system where even small distinctions were imbued with considerable significance and where reciprocity, honour, prestige, magnificence, friendship, and concepts of gift-giving were crucial components in constructing its diplomatic meaning. Rulers’ images played an important role in diplomatic strategy; their display advertised current and past political alliances and suggested the direction of future policy, while portrait gifts and personal interactions with portraits during diplomatic audiences created political intimacies, established confidences, and helped to maintain relations in strained circumstances.
Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/129/537/296?rss=1
‚An Experiment in Constructive Unionism‘: Isaac Butt, Home Rule and Federalist Political Thought during the 1870s
Federalism has a rich, if chequered, history within the political discourse of the British and Irish Isles. This article examines the political thought of one much misunderstood advocate of federalism, Isaac Butt, and the debate that his proposal to transform the British constitution prompted. It seeks to recast Butt, the founding father of Irish Home Rule, as a champion of the Union. Historians of Ireland, Britain and federalism, like many of Butt’s contemporaries, struggle to position him within the spectrum of nineteenth-century political thought. The most important work on Isaac Butt and the early Home Rule movement in Ireland remains David Thornley’s study from 1964, which skews its subject matter by framing Butt as representative of ‘a curious imperial nationalism’. This article argues that there was nothing ‘curious’ about Butt’s political thought, and that his conception of a distinct Irish identity within the broader rubric of the Union has been under-appreciated.
For Butt, Home Rule was the mechanism to bind Ireland to Britain and its Empire, thus resolving the ambiguities of the Act of Union of 1800. Butt’s formulation of Home Rule in 1870 envisaged a federalised United Kingdom, which would have weakened Irish exceptionalism within a broader British context. The article positions Butt as representative of a constructive national unionism, and explores the implications of this for Ireland’s relationship with British identity and the Union during the nineteenth century.
Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/129/537/332?rss=1