Camilla Batmanghelidjh, founder of Kids Company. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. To anyone with even a passing knowledge of Victorian and Edwardian charities, the recent spectacular demise of Kids’ Company will have thrown up some strikingly familiar tropes. The charismatic, well-intentioned figurehead and founder, adept at using the media to build support, but then, virtually…
Category: Research News
Antrobus the cleric and Peter the cock: Dr James Mawdesley discusses civil war, ministry and animal baptism in mid-seventeenth century Cumberland
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. This cockerel is not, alas, historic; but it is a cockerel. What was the inspiration for this project? I came across the case of Isaac Antrobus during my doctoral research, about the political activisms of the clergy in Lancashire and Cheshire during the reign of Charles I (1625-1649). I had…
‘Every dynasty has within itself the seeds of its own downfall’? Dr Georg Christ discusses what economists can learn from the medieval writings of Ibn Khaldûn
Morroccan stamp featuring Ibn Khaldûn courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. In August last year, I attended the World Economic History Congress in Kyoto where I presented a paper on Ibn Khaldûn (1332-1406), the Arabic historian, lawyer and polymath. I was tasked to look at medieval thoughts on state intervention in the economic sector. I thought Ibn…
Unravelling the mystery of Queen Balthild: Professor Paul Fouracre on a ring that sparked a lot of head-scratching…
Saint Balthild statue at Luxembourg Garden. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Twenty years ago along with an American colleague I published a translation of and commentary on various Merovingian sources from seventh century Francia (France). Amongst them was the Life of a Queen Balthild who turned out to be very unusual. She had been a…
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