In 1930, my Burgundy almanac tells me, the civil court in Dijon ruled that for the purposes of naming wine, vinyards in the departments of the Yvonne, the Cote d’Or, Saone and Loire and the Rhone (the arrondisements of Villefranche-sur-Saone and Beauujolais, could use the name. It has remained thus since.
Ancient verities – so often they aren’t…
Some scholars might doubt the needs to devote a book to female political thinkers alone. They might argue that it is easier to assess the significance and coherence of women’s political ideas when they are placed alongside those of the other sex; and they might point out that apart from their gender, these women have very little in common … But these observations might be made about the majority of histories of political thought – histories that are seriously incomplete because they ignore women thinkers. (p2)
A History of Women’s Political Thought in Europe, 1400-1700, Jacqueline Broad and Karen Green, Cambridge Uni Press, 2009
If you wanted to identify a book that David Starkey, the historian who claims that history has been falsely “feminised”, then Melissa Franklin Harkrider’s Women, Reform and Community in Early Modern England: Katherine Willoughby, duchess of Suffolk, and Lincolnshire’s Godly Aristocracy, 1519-1580 could well be a perfect example.
Women, in Starkey’s world, had no significance in the 16th century, and writing a biography of a woman, even one who was high-ranking, with access to royalty, would be a pointless exercise. Read this slim monograph, however, and you’ll realise just how silly this stance is.
Take even the start of her life: when her father, Lord Willoughby, died in 1526, leaving her as his sole heir, her mother (note that point Starkey) successfully defended the lands and goods against a bid , this despite her mother, Maria, not even being English, but a noblewoman who had arrived as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon.
Certainly, when at age 14, she became the fourth wife of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, she wouldn’t have had much chance for independent action or influence, but when Brandon died in 1545, she was left a wealthy and powerful widow, a position that scarcely weakened when in 1552 she married her gentleman usher, Richard Bertie.
But she wasn’t just living a comfortable life of privilege; like pretty well everyone at this time she was caught up in the virulent religious controversies that saw England swinging backward and forward between Catholicism and “godly Protestantism”.
Harkrider shows how she worked to promote the gospel among her relatives, servants and other dependents, noting: “She has been variously been described as an ‘evangelical firebrand’ and ‘champion of the godly’ at Henry VII’s court, the ‘doyenne of the evangelicals’ during Edward IV’s rule, and the head of a ‘pious menage’ in Elizabeth I’s reign.”
The author is particularly interested in how Katharine’s experience of religion differed from that of other Protestants, and the unusual survival of documents relating to her flesh out the story of her “zeal and her beliefs on communion, liturgy, and ceremonialism in detail” and suggest “the diversity of Protestantism” as it emerged in the later 16th century”.
This is only a slim monograph, which is perhaps a good job, since Harkrider’s prose could be at best described as pedestrian, and the structure rather repetitive, but the interest of the tale makes the reading worth the effort. And the tale of Katherine, and women like her, need to be recovered for woman today, to understand that their foremothers might have faced even greater restrictions than women today, but they still found ways to make an impact on their world. And to counteract misogynists such as Starkey….
You might have thought with a long Easter holiday weekend, spring finally arriving to encourage bloggers off their sofas, and the world of practical politics starting to gear up for the European elections, that this would be a quiet period in the British blogosphere.
You’d have been very, very wrong. For it’s a blogger, Guido Fawkes, who’s been providing newspapers and television news shows with a flood of material arising from his revelations about Damian McBride. This was one of his early accounts of the story.
And plenty of other bloggers have been doing sterling political writing on other subjects:
* Longrider has been examining the effects of the egregious collection of our pesonal data and L’Ombre de l’Oliver is offering practical help in clogging up the system.
* Dodgeblodgium has been following the clunking footsteps of our police state.
* And Senator Stuart Syyret of Jersey has been experiencing it first hand – astonishing treatment of an elected representative.
* The People’s Republic of Mortimer provides a collection of links on reactions to the death of Ian Tomlinson, and analyses the way old alliances have apparently been broken. (And Mr Eugenides summarises the feelings of the “right” (his quote marks), while Quaequam Blog also considers the reactions of the blogosphere.)
* “A Tory” has been questioning NHS spending – and (and this is something I won’t say often), I entirely agree with him. Why should we all be paying for chaplains?
* Cath has been explaining that chimp behaviour can’t actually lead to the conclusion that women should wear unisex clothes at work. In an entirely related post, Penny Red explins why women are angry and why it is so hard to express that anger.
* The NHS Blog doctor has been looking at “social care” and the fate of NHS whistleblowers, the former topic also of concern on Suz Blog.
Also: K.T. Dodge questions “socialised medicine; Amused Cynicism considers what’s politics for?; Matt Wardman is designing satirical billboards, and the very same billboard inspired A Geek in Oxfordshire.
* And Liberal England was less than impressed by the Diocese of Rochester’s account of the drugging of girls in its care, a subject on which Suz Blog has also been exercised.
* Finally, for something very different, Roe Valley Socialist analyses the SDLP’s budget proposals.
Heading into a category you might simply call life, Blognor Regis writes powerfully of his emotions in witnessing the aftermath of a collision between car and cycle.
Croila tells a tale that many a parent will no doubt relate to: how far do you trust your kids?.
Lady Bracknell explains some of the challenges of living with diabetes.
And Rebecca Laughton guest blogs on Transition Towns on what smallholders can teach the rest of us.
Looking at business, Jim on The Daily (Maybe) is considering ethics and the price thereof, with reference to the sale of Innocent Smoothies to Coke.
Going geopolitical, Is There More to Life than Shoes? considers the push to get Turkey into the European Union, as does Archbishop Cranmer. And Charles Crawford considers the issues around the US’s envoy to the Vatican.
And we might as well take on a spot of religion as well: Heresy Corner lives up to its name, taking apart Marilyn Bunting’s attack on the New Atheists, although Stumbling and Mumbling has another view.
Heading into the arts and humanities side, on Pickled Politics Rumbold tears into David Starkey’s views on the insignificance of women in the 16th century. Elizabeth I anyone? (Actually imagining Starkey in that court is quite fun – somehow I don’t think he’d have made the grade…)
For something different, Catherine on The F Word reviews Being Human BBC Three’s drama about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost in a flat share.
Living for Disco offers a range of Twitter-style book reviews (I can see it taking off).
And SwissToni is considering racism in the James Bond novels.
Finally, the inimitable Diamond Geezer has been visiting the newly reopened Whitechapel Gallery and Ornamental Passions is testing fire brigade sculptures against reality.
And that’s all for a very full week this week: don’t forget to get in your nominations at britblog AT gmail DOT com for next week’s roundup, which will be on Redemption Blues. For more about how it works, see Britblog Central.
A belated report from last month’s meeting, as I dig into my to-do pile.
We heard about the planned bicycle hire scheme for Zone 1 in London (along the line of Paris’s Velib). Although no contractor has yet been selected, it is planned to begin in May 2010.
There will be 400 sites in all, the majority in Westminster, with 39 in Camden. The main theory is to alleviate Tube congestion.
Camden has 4.24 suqare km in Zone 1, and there is to be 9 docking stations per square kilometre, and a total of 1064 bicycles.
The theory goes that space will not be taken from pedestrians or existing cycle parking, but will be “buildouts” into the road. (Except that we were then told that of the four proposed locations in Somers Town one was on an existing carriageway and three were on footway.)
Two are on St Pancras Road just north of St Pancras station, on either side of the footway, one in Doric Way and one near the top of Eversholt St.
We then heard a briefing about the demographics of Somers Town: 56% of local people are from ethnic minority backgrounds, (compared to 40% London and 13% England). A total of 120 languages are spoken in the ward. 25% of the population is under 16 (17% London, 20% England). 87% are under 65 (85, 67). 64% of men and 48% of women are economically active (London 75/60, England 74/60). 3.6% of people are longterm unemployed (Camden average 2%). 55% of Somers Town children get 5plus good GCSEs (Camden 50.7%).
Male life expectancy is 70.3, the lowest in London – 11 years younger than Hampstead. (Women 78 – London average 81.2).
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