- Woodbridge, Suffolk, United Kingdom
Nicola Whyte
University of Exeter, History, Faculty Member
ABSTRACT The paucity of female deponents asked to give evidence before the Westminster equity courts has led some historians to conclude that women were marginal figures in disputes concerning local customary law and land use rights. This... more
ABSTRACT The paucity of female deponents asked to give evidence before the Westminster equity courts has led some historians to conclude that women were marginal figures in disputes concerning local customary law and land use rights. This article adopts a qualitative approach, examining the oral testimonies provided by women to gain insight into the parameters of female knowledge and experience of landscape and the division of local resources. It is argued that women played a central role as informal brokers of economic power, mediated through the construction, maintenance and longevity of household knowledge and memory.
Research Interests:
The early modern age, conceived in this volume as a period spanning from 1450 to 1700, was an epoch of dramatic cultural and social developments. It witnessed major cultural encounters that produced what is currently labeled the first... more
The early modern age, conceived in this volume as a period spanning from 1450 to 1700, was an epoch of dramatic cultural and social developments. It witnessed major cultural encounters that produced what is currently labeled the first globalization, and intensified the worldwide circulation of a variety of cultural artifacts—as well as of people, knowledge, and ideas. Taking all these developments into account, it seems inevitable that many human groups in a variety of changing historical circumstances should have produced and practiced, over that period, distinctive forms of memory which it would not be fruitful to amalgamate into one unifying category. Rather than attempting that, the essays in this volume aim to explore a stimulating selection of a wide range of experiences of remembering and forgetting in early modern Europe.
Research Interests: Art and Popular Culture
Abstract:This essay asks what insights the experiences described, the views expressed, and the imagination of energy in Pandaemonium, Humphrey Jennings’s anthology of eyewitness accounts of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, afford... more
Abstract:This essay asks what insights the experiences described, the views expressed, and the imagination of energy in Pandaemonium, Humphrey Jennings’s anthology of eyewitness accounts of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, afford into the processes and consequences of energy-system change, and it explores their significance for the transition to renewable energy today. Conceived as an experiment in interdisciplinary collaboration, this essay demonstrates how examination of energy narratives from the perspective of the historian (traditionally concerned with processes of change, including their causes, consequences, agents, and objects) and from that of the literary critic (concerned principally with matters of aesthetics, form, ethics, and the framing of issues through cultural tropes) can complement each other and contribute to research in energy humanities, by enhancing familiarity with historical processes and critical awareness of their framing in narratives.
Research Interests:
He has considered how the landscape provided a vital resource of mnemonic devices that structured local memories, customs and practices. He goes on to propose that the physical manifestations of capitalism enclosure and the... more
He has considered how the landscape provided a vital resource of mnemonic devices that structured local memories, customs and practices. He goes on to propose that the physical manifestations of capitalism enclosure and the privatization of land severed the intricate ties that had ...
Research Interests:
Processes of memorialisation and memory work have long been a focus of academic debate across disciplines. A growing body of literature is now concerned with acts of commemoration and memorialisation not as a means of preserving some... more
Processes of memorialisation and memory work have long been a focus of academic debate across disciplines. A growing body of literature is now concerned with acts of commemoration and memorialisation not as a means of preserving some authentic version of history, as valued by the nation-state, but rather as a social process that realises the operations of memory as a blend of official, yet also deeply personal engagements with the past. Halbwachs noted long ago how official narratives of the past can provide a framework through which people find a language to express their memories and personal experiences. Halbwachs was concerned with how autobiographical memory dialectically relates to the collective memory of a social group and to the broader historical memory of society. As later work has shown, to subsume all memories and experiences into a shared narrative overlooks the possibility of alternative memories, and conflictual meanings of the past. Formal narratives are continuously interrogated and disrupted by individuals in their day-to-day practices and, as Frentress and Wickham note, opposition movements that employ prescribed historical narratives commemorate the past with different emphases and political valencies. Historical memory can therefore provide a prompt for alternative, less consensual sometimes conflictual responses and meanings, and can act as a conduit for the expression of alternative values and associations. In his writing on the production of space Lefebvre suggests the creation of ‘counter-space’, formed in opposition to hegemonic spaces. This he argues is central to the functioning of the political economy and realisation of the potential for revolutionary change by overthrowing the prescribed socio-political order.
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Abstract This article examines the geographical and historical context of gibbets in Norfolk at the end of the eighteenth century. By adopting a broad chronological perspective it is argued that a deep-rooted knowledge existed among local... more
Abstract This article examines the geographical and historical context of gibbets in Norfolk at the end of the eighteenth century. By adopting a broad chronological perspective it is argued that a deep-rooted knowledge existed among local communities; parish boundaries, and the tracts of commonland that they crossed, carried symbolism and meaning if used for the purpose of burying or displaying the bodies of executed criminals and other 'deviant' deaths. The memory of this practice was created and sustained through the naming of the landscape, and in the interpretation of the material remains of the past, in particular, prehistoric burial mounds. While important strands of continuity can be traced in the landscape context of the 'deviant' dead, it is also argued that these meanings and associations changed across time. Finally the article considers the impact of large-scale Parliamentary enclosure on popular memory and perceptions of the landscape.
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ABSTRACT This paper considers the function and meaning of Bronze Age burial mounds in the later medieval and post-medieval periods. Far from being the redundant relics of a distant past, it is argued that these monuments were integral to... more
ABSTRACT This paper considers the function and meaning of Bronze Age burial mounds in the later medieval and post-medieval periods. Far from being the redundant relics of a distant past, it is argued that these monuments were integral to the organisation and interpretation of the physical environment. The perceived antiquity and permanence of barrows ensured their recurrent use as boundary markers, and as places of meeting and execution, and new monuments created for these purposes often mimicked them in appearance. It is argued that the present distribution of barrows may reflect something more than original location, modified by subsequent land-use patterns: because these monuments continued to have a use in late centuries they were often retained and preserved in places where they might otherwise have been swept away.
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Abstract A vast and varied literature exists on the history and archaeology of vernacular landscapes, yet still heritage ‘value’ is often weighted towards the extravagant landscapes created by powerful elites. This article is concerned to... more
Abstract A vast and varied literature exists on the history and archaeology of vernacular landscapes, yet still heritage ‘value’ is often weighted towards the extravagant landscapes created by powerful elites. This article is concerned to bring the wealth of historic landscape and archival research closer together with recent theoretical writing on landscape and dwelling, by focusing on the early modern period in particular. Recent theoretical approaches open up creative space for thinking through the archival material and invites landscape historians to think in terms of movement and dwelling as essential to understanding landscape at the human scale. As this article attempts to show, this is by no means a one-sided dialogue; rather historical landscape research can inform theoretical work in new and productive ways. Bridging the gaps between research areas has the potential to enrich our understanding of everyday landscapes as heritage, created by ordinary people going about their day-to-day activities. The paper argues for the importance of recasting mundane, commonplace features of the landscape—roads, fields and boundaries—as an essential part of our social and cultural landscape heritage. Read in this light, the archival sources suggest that the meanings afforded to the extant remains of the past in the landscape were made through intangible heritage practices, customs, memories, naming, rituals and performances by ‘ordinary’ people.
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EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo
The early modern age, conceived in this volume as a period spanning from 1450 to 1700, was an epoch of dramatic cultural and social developments. It witnessed major cultural encounters that produced what is currently labeled the first... more
The early modern age, conceived in this volume as a period spanning from 1450 to 1700, was an epoch of dramatic cultural and social developments. It witnessed major cultural encounters that produced what is currently labeled the first globalization, and intensified the worldwide circulation of a variety of cultural artifacts—as well as of people, knowledge, and ideas. Taking all these developments into account, it seems inevitable that many human groups in a variety of changing historical circumstances should have produced and practiced, over that period, distinctive forms of memory which it would not be fruitful to amalgamate into one unifying category. Rather than attempting that, the essays in this volume aim to explore a stimulating selection of a wide range of experiences of remembering and forgetting in early modern Europe.
Research Interests:
Discussion of the place-name `Smithdon Hill', recorded on a map of c. 1625, and of the possibility of it being the hundred meeting place for Smethdon Hundred in north Norfolk.
Floods are a threat to livelihoods and landscapes in many places around the world and at many points in history. Yet, they also seem to be an intrinsic component of many landscapes and livelihoods. This article explores the... more
Floods are a threat to livelihoods and landscapes in many places around the world and at many points in history. Yet, they also seem to be an intrinsic component of many landscapes and livelihoods. This article explores the interconnection of multi-directional narratives of flooding through the representation of the memories of inhabitants of wet landscapes in past and present England. The article will illustrate three aspects of the relationship between floods and memory: first, the contextual mediation of flood memories in the contemporary moment. Here audio-visual and textual media (photographs, newspapers articles, television news broadcasts) of present and past flooding compete for our attention; second, the documentation of the early modern English treatment of a changing ‘wateryscape’ and whether we can discern dis/continua with and in contemporary media; and third, the dis/connecting narratives of living with floods in the present day. We emphasize that remembering and forgetting floods is an active and creative process for both flooding communities and those who research them. Stories and experiences of past floods are strategically used within, between and across communities to construct a particular sense of self and a statement on vulnerability and resilience to floods. Thereby the article contributes to developing a creative engagement between past and present, which goes beyond encompassing hegemonic narratives of historical and environmental change by reinforcing the potential of researching everyday, experiential landscapes beyond arbitrary periodization.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Processes of memorialisation and memory work have long been a focus of academic debate across disciplines. A growing body of literature is now concerned with acts of commemoration and memorialisation not as a means of preserving some... more
Processes of memorialisation and memory work have long been a focus of academic debate across disciplines. A growing body of literature is now concerned with acts of commemoration and memorialisation not as a means of preserving some authentic version of history, as valued by the nation-state, but rather as a social process that realises the operations of memory as a blend of official, yet also deeply personal engagements with the past. Halbwachs noted long ago how official narratives of the past can provide a framework through which people find a language to express their memories and personal experiences. Halbwachs was concerned with how autobiographical memory dialectically relates to the collective memory of a social group and to the broader historical memory of society. As later work has shown, to subsume all memories and experiences into a shared narrative overlooks the possibility of alternative memories, and conflictual meanings of the past. Formal narratives are continuousl...
Abstract:This essay asks what insights the experiences described, the views expressed, and the imagination of energy in Pandaemonium, Humphrey Jennings’s anthology of eyewitness accounts of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, afford... more
Abstract:This essay asks what insights the experiences described, the views expressed, and the imagination of energy in Pandaemonium, Humphrey Jennings’s anthology of eyewitness accounts of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, afford into the processes and consequences of energy-system change, and it explores their significance for the transition to renewable energy today. Conceived as an experiment in interdisciplinary collaboration, this essay demonstrates how examination of energy narratives from the perspective of the historian (traditionally concerned with processes of change, including their causes, consequences, agents, and objects) and from that of the literary critic (concerned principally with matters of aesthetics, form, ethics, and the framing of issues through cultural tropes) can complement each other and contribute to research in energy humanities, by enhancing familiarity with historical processes and critical awareness of their framing in narratives.
Research Interests:
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... their 'p[er]fect knowledg' of Rogationtide. Alice Rumbold told the court that she went on perambulation just as Thomas Chapman had deposed, 'saving onely to the carrying of the holly water... more
... their 'p[er]fect knowledg' of Rogationtide. Alice Rumbold told the court that she went on perambulation just as Thomas Chapman had deposed, 'saving onely to the carrying of the holly water stopp'. In the same case Emma Cley ...
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Floods are a threat to livelihoods and landscapes in many places around the world and at many points in history. Yet, they also seem to be an intrinsic component of many landscapes and livelihoods. This article explores the... more
Floods are a threat to livelihoods and landscapes in many places around the world and at many points in history. Yet, they also seem to be an intrinsic component of many landscapes and livelihoods. This article explores the interconnection of multi-directional narratives of flooding through the representation of the memories of inhabitants of wet landscapes in past and present England. The article will illustrate three aspects of the relationship between floods and memory: first, the contextual mediation of flood memories in the contemporary moment. Here audio-visual and textual media (photographs, newspapers articles, television news broadcasts) of present and past flooding compete for our attention; second, the documentation of the early modern English treatment of a changing `wateryscape' and whether we can discern dis/continua with and in contemporary media; and third, the dis/connecting narratives of living with floods in the present day. We emphasize that remembering and forgetting floods is an active and creative process for both flooding communities and those who research them. Stories and experiences of past floods are strategically used within, between and across communities to construct a particular sense of self and a statement on vulnerability and resilience to floods. Thereby the article contributes to developing a creative engagement between past and present, which goes beyond encompassing hegemonic narratives of historical and environmental change by reinforcing the potential of researching everyday, experiential landscapes beyond arbitrary periodization.
Research Interests:
He has considered how the landscape provided a vital resource of mnemonic devices that structured local memories, customs and practices. He goes on to propose that the physical manifestations of capitalism enclosure and the... more
He has considered how the landscape provided a vital resource of mnemonic devices that structured local memories, customs and practices. He goes on to propose that the physical manifestations of capitalism enclosure and the privatization of land severed the intricate ties that had ...