Journal articles: 'Roman coins of South England' – Grafiati (2025)

Abstract:

Recent developments in the reading of Iron Age British coin-legends have added considerably to our knowledge of Latin in pre-conquest Britain. The picture that is now emerging is of the nuanced and sophisticated use of Latin over quite a wide area of South-Eastern England from the late first century B.C. onwards. The question that then arises is what the implications of this material are for our understanding of key developments in the culture, politics and societies of South-Eastern England in the decades before the Roman invasion. This paper argues that they are really rather significant.

Abstract:

The author publishes 82 coins from the 1971 and 1972 excavations at the Royal Road South, Knossos. As would be expected, most of the coins are bronze, and Cretan or late Roman. There are no particular surprises, except for an Alexandrian bronze of Augustus in a hitherto apparently unpublished denomination.

Abstract:

AbstractArchaeology, and in particular the study of ceramics, lies at the heart of the interpretive schemes that underpin Framing the Early Middle Ages. While this is to be welcomed, it is proposed that even more extensive use of archaeological evidence - especially that generated through the excavation of prehistoric burial-mounds and rural settlements, as well as the study of early medieval coins - would have produced a rather more dynamic and nuanced picture of the transformations in social and political structures that marked the passage from late Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England.

Abstract:

The site (map ref. ST4242 3951) lies on a small line of hills called the Nidons, which run EW along the N edge of the Polden ridge in mid Somerset (fig. 1). The crest of one of the Nidon ‘hills’ runs across the centre of the field containing the site. To the north, the land slopes down to the floodplain of the river Brue, which in the Roman period would have been a raised bog. To the south, the land dips slightly before rising again towards the top of the Polden ridge. The local geology is Jurassic Lower Lias, which is clay with some limestone; the soil (Evesham 1) is a well-drained calcareous clay.On September 14, 1998, two metal detectorists, Martin and Kevin Elliot, found a very large hoard of Roman silver denarii in a ploughed field on this ridge in Shapwick parish. The first coin find was made at the N edge of the field. The same plough furrow was then followed south across the field, yielding small numbers of coins until a group of about 70 coins was found; after half an hour the main body of coins was discovered quite close to the group of 70. The distribution of the coins across the field shows that the hoard had suffered considerable plough damage but some 9000 coins were still in situ with the corrosion products on their surfaces still intact (by contrast, the coins which had been moved by the plough had lost their corroded outer layers and therefore appeared cleaner). No photographs or other records were taken by the finders before they removed the coins, but their verbal description has proved useful. In the undisturbed main body the coins appeared to be arranged in neat individual rows on their sides, suggesting that they may have been deposited in small coin rolls or individually wrapped bundles made of an organic material such as textile or leather (since decayed). The individual rolls were probably contained within a larger sack also made of organic material (the roughly circular shape of the hoard argues against the use of a wooden box).

Abstract:

For a long time South-East Asia was thought to be out of the reaches of the influence of Hellenistic and Post-Hellenistic cultures. However these notions need to be changed now, especially due to new findings in Thailand and Cambodia. Analyzing different types of archaeological objects (some types of beads, Greco-Roman cameos, Roman coins etc.) we come to the conclusion that continental South-East Asia experienced various kinds of influence from Post-Hellenistic cultures, which can be traced not only on the sea shores, but also in the inner regions of the Indochina Peninsula. The relationship of some objects to Central Asia, gives us grounds to suppose that, together with India, this region could be one of the inter-links between both cultures, though we suppose the sea route as the main way of the spread of Post-Hellenistic cultural influence to South-East Asia.

Abstract:

The large hillfort at Hembury, near Honiton (Devon) is one of the most impressive late prehistoric sites in South-West England. Occupied in the Neolithic and Iron Age, it was taken over by a Roman force about or shortly before A.D. 50. Substantial timber buildings were constructed, including a probablefabrica, in which iron from the adjacent Blackdown hills was worked. The Roman site was abandoned by the early Flavian period and not reoccupied. Though not evidently a conventional fort, Hembury joins a list of hillforts in South-West England which were used by the Roman army in the early decades of conquest. These include Hod Hill and possibly Maiden Castle (Dorset), Ham Hill and South Cadbury (Somerset).

Abstract:

Abstract Sinopean imports ‐ coins, ceramic ware ‐ amphorae, mortars and tiles ‐ found in the south-western Georgian Black Sea littoral characterise different aspects of relationships in the south and eastern Black Sea littoral over a long period. The south-western coast of ancient Colchis seems to have been closely connected with Sinope from the fifth century BC. Sinopean finds become more and more frequent in fourth-third centuries BC contexts. From the last quarter of the fourth century BC, the leading role of trading with Colchis passed to Sinope. It was archaeologically expressed in the intensive circulation of Sinopean drachmas and hemidrachmas as well as in the import of Sinopean ceramic ware (amphorae, mortars, tiles) and production of their local imitations. In the Roman and early Byzantine periods, Sinope was a key base for the Roman army and fleet at the southern Black Sea coast. Finds of Sinopean ceramic products of this period are frequent during the excavations of the fortresses of the Roman and early Byzantine period on the eastern Black Sea littoral.

Abstract:

ABSTRACTIn 2012, a complete upper stone of a rotary quern with a projecting lug for a vertical handle was found at Hinkley Point in Somerset, south-western England. It is the first late Iron Age to early Roman period quern of this form to be found in England. This note describes its form in detail and discusses its closest parallels in north-eastern Ireland, south-western Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man and Spain. It shows how thin-section analysis demonstrates the quern to have been locally made in Somerset and discusses the movement of ideas about quern design during the late Iron Age to early Roman period.

Abstract:

This paper describes the discovery, by geological and archaeological fieldwork, of a major Iron Age and Roman quern quarry which was supplying much of south-east and south-midland England. The debitage from the site is described and the chronological development of querns from the quarry assessed in the light of material found on habitation sites. It is argued that production reached a peak the first century A.D. The broad distribution of Lodsworth products during the Iron Age, and to a lesser extent during the Roman period, is discussed.

Abstract:

AbstractPreviously unpublished Roman pottery from the Thames Estuary was studied by the author in 1985 and 1986 for the voluntary body Marine Archaeological Surveys (MAS) and is presented as a contribution to wider initiatives on the Roman archaeology of this important social and economic artery between South-East England and the wider world. The purpose of this paper is to complement the ongoing review by Michael Walsh of Roman wrecks in UK waters (a research partnership between Southampton University and the British Museum) and that of the ‘Pudding Pan’ assemblage, much of which is in private collections.

Abstract:

In 2012, in the village Davidovac situated in south Serbia, 9.5 km south-west from Vranje, archaeological investigations were conducted on the site Crkviste. The remains of the smaller bronze-age settlement were discovered, above which a late antique horizon was later formed. Apart from modest remains of a bronze-age house and pits, a late antique necropolis was also excavated, of which two vaulted tombs and nine graves were inspected during this campaign. During the excavation of the northern sector of the site Davidovac-Crkviste the north-eastern periphery of the necropolis is detected. Graves 1-3, 5 and 6 are situated on the north?eastern borderline of necropolis, while the position of the tombs and the remaining four graves (4, 7-9) in their vicinity point that the necropolis was further spreading to the west and to the south?west, occupying the mount on which the church of St. George and modern graveyard are situated nowadays. All graves are oriented in the direction SW-NE, with the deviance between 3? and 17?, in four cases toward the south and in seven cases toward the north, while the largest part of those deviations is between 3? and 8?. Few small finds from the layer above the graves can in some way enable the determination of their dating. Those are two roman coins, one from the reign of emperor Valens (364-378), as well as the fibula of the type Viminacium-Novae which is chronologically tied to a longer period from the middle of the 5th to the middle of the 6th century, although there are some geographically close analogies dated to the end of the 4th or the beginning of the 5th century. Analogies for the tombs from Davidovac can be found on numerous sites, like in Sirmium as well as in Macvanska Mitrovica, where they are dated to the 4th-5th century. Similar situation was detected in Viminacium, former capital of the roman province of Upper Moesia. In ancient Naissus, on the site of Jagodin Mala, simple rectangular tombs were distributed in rows, while the complex painted tombs with Christian motifs were also found and dated by the coins to the period from the 4th to the 6th century. Also, in Kolovrat near Prijepolje simple vaulted tombs with walled dromos were excavated. During the excavations on the nearby site Davidovac-Gradiste, 39 graves of type Mala Kopasnica-Sase dated to the 2nd-3rd century were found, as well as 67 cist graves, which were dated by the coins of Constantius II, jewellery and buckles to the second half of the 4th or the first half of the 5th century. Based on all above mentioned it can be concluded that during the period from the 2nd to the 6th century in this area existed a roman and late antique settlement and several necropolises, formed along an important ancient road Via militaris, traced at the length of over 130 m in the direction NE-SW. Data gained with the anthropological analyses of 10 skeletons from the site Davidovac-Crkviste don't give enough information for a conclusion about the paleo-demographical structure of the population that lived here during late antiquity. Important results about the paleo-pathological changes, which do not occur often on archaeological sites, as well as the clearer picture about this population in total, will be acquired after the osteological material from the site Davidovac-Gradiste is statistically analysed.

Abstract:

A settlement cluster around Kalisz first emerged in the Roman Period on a route leading from the south towards the Baltic coast. In the Early Middle Ages, a settlement centre connected with the Kalisz-Zawodzie stronghold developed at the crossroads of trade routes linking Wielkopolska with Silesia, Mazowsze, and Małopolska, with the earliest traces of early medieval occupation dating back to the 8th century. In the 10th century, oriental silver in the form of silver dirhams started to flow into the discussed region. These coins were part of deposits discovered in the sites of Kalisz-Szałe and Kalisz-Rajsków. Many years of research on artisanal settlement Kalisz-Stare Miasto produced a few fragments of Sāmānid dirhams minted between AH 279–343 (892–954). In 2018, during research at the Church of St. Adalbert located within the Kalisz-Zawodzie settlement accompanying the stronghold, a part of what was probably a larger silver deposit was found. In total, 13 dirham fragments were recovered, among which Sāmānid emissions dated to the first half of the 10th century were identified (8 pcs), as well as five pieces of undetermined dynastic attribution. As demonstrated by the stratigraphic analysis, the early medieval hoard had been discovered and dispersed at some point during the period when the church cemetery was used, between the 17th century and second half of the 18th century.

Abstract:

The archaeobotanical record of Britain in the Roman period is reviewed. The data are plotted against area of the country, phase of occupation, type of site, and mode of preservation. Lacunae in the dataset are identified and research priorities formulated. More data are needed, especially from South-Western and North-Western England, Wales and Scotland, from major towns (especially from waterlogged deposits), from rural sites with waterlogged preservation (all parts of the country), and from burials and temple/shrine sites. Matters of concern are the identification of a downward trend in the average number of samples analysed from the 1990s onwards, and poor access to unpublished archaeobotanical reports (grey literature). Possible solutions to redress these are offered.

Abstract:

When the Normans arrived in England in AD 1066 they found a kingdom divided into a distinctive and complicated administrative geography. In compiling Domesday Book, the great survey of holdings and liabilities over much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086, the assessors grouped information firstly into ‘shires’—districts that are in many cases the precursors of modern counties—and then into smaller divisions such as hundreds, wapentakes and vills (estates), with additional groupings such as multiple hundreds and regional ealdormanries also discernible in the source. These administrative entities clearly had a territorial composition. Using the boundaries of estates, parishes and hundreds mapped at later dates, numerous scholars have sought to reconstruct the administrative geography described in Domesday Book. The resulting maps have, in turn, been interpreted as the product of several centuries of developing territoriality and of continual social and political change. The shires of Norfolk and Suffolk (the ‘north’ and ‘south folk’), for example, appear to fossilise the extents of the kingdom of the East Anglians as it existed 300 or 400 years before Domesday survey; in other cases, clusters of hundreds have been argued to represent post-Roman tribal groupings.

Abstract:

AbstractCunobelinus was the most significant figure in Britain during the decades leading up to the Roman invasion, though his reign has received relatively little attention. Cunobelinus' coinage is of great importance to understanding the socio-political structure of South-East Britain prior to the Roman invasion and whilst studies of his gold and silver have been published in previous editions ofBritannia(Allen 1975; de Jersey 2001), his bronzes have been subject to surprisingly little work, particularly considering that they are by far the most common struck bronze issues known from Iron Age Britain, with a total of 2,608 examples currently recorded in the Celtic Coin Index and on the PAS database combined. This study proposes a broad typological scheme with which Cunobelinus' bronzes can be ordered and demonstrates that, like Cunobelinus' silver, but unlike his gold, they can be divided into three regional groupings, which it can be argued correspond to three different political sub-groupings under Cunobelinus' control. In addition, the bronze's metallurgy and metrology and the mints at which they were struck are investigated. This article examines the contribution of coinage to understanding Cunobelinus' political history, and how he used imagery to reinforce and legitimate his power in the different regions under his control at different times during his reign. The types of sites at which Cunobelinus' bronzes have been found are also outlined and the likely function of the coins discussed.

Abstract:

As is well known, Bede gives a biased account of the conversion of Anglo-Saxon England. He highlights the role of the Roman mission, initiated by Pope Gregory the Great and led by Augustine, the first bishop of Canterbury. Almost as important in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is the effort made by the Irish to Christianize Northumbria. The Frankish contribution to the missionary process, however, is not mentioned at all, though Frankish clerics certainly played an important role in the conversion of England. This role is attested by later contacts between England and the Frankish church. The letters of Gregory the Great relating to the mission of Augustine, moreover, make it clear that this mission also benefited greatly from help supplied by the Frankish church. The continuity of the British church seems to have been stronger than Bede suggests and his statement that the Britons did nothing to convert the Angles and the Saxons should be regarded as an overstatement. It has been argued recently that Bede left out an account of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons living west and south-west of the Mercians, the Hwicce, the Magonsæte and the Wreocensæte, not because of a lack of information, but because of the part the Britons played in it.

Abstract:

AbstractAnalytical earthwork and geophysical surveys have advanced our understanding of the lozenge-shaped Roman fort at Whitley Castle (Northumberland), which is notable for the exceptional depth of its outer defences. Built at a higher altitude than any other fort in England, it was almost certainly positioned to control the production and shipment of lead and silver from the Alston ore-fields. Its curious shape, tailored to that of the natural knoll, necessitated some adjustment of a standard fort plan, but accommodated six buildings to the rear of the central range and four to the front. An extramural settlement and terraced fields have been recorded to the west and north, and a swathe of ground to the south may have provided space for a parade ground. Post-Roman activity is evident from the cultivation and settlement remains that override the defences; two bastle-like buildings and an eighteenth-century farmhouse once stood within the fort itself.

Abstract:

AbstractThis article reviews the emergence and development of Romano-British glass bangles in southern Britain by providing a fresh analysis of finds that also considers recent theoretical and historical advances in interpreting the transition from the late Iron Age to the Roman period. By analysing the emergence of bangles in terms of technological and stylistic transfer, it suggests that the technology used in their production and their visual elements have continental lineage. It also situates bangles amid indigenous developments in bodily adornments in southern Britain before a.d. 43. By reconnecting British bangles with their continental European counterparts and contextualising them within political, social and cultural processes in south-western England during the late pre-Roman Iron Age, the article argues that the emergence of bangles in Britain did not occur in a vacuum after the Claudian invasion in a.d. 43 but formed an integral part of globalising networks of cross-Channel trade and connections with the European mainland in the early first century a.d.

Abstract:

In England, the contractual doctrine of economic duress is an important mechanism for curbing abuses of superior bargaining power. In contrast, in South Africa, the courts are yet to articulate a definitive doctrine. In this article, I argue for a twenty-first century South African doctrine of economic duress that is delineated primarily in terms of South Africa’s foundational constitutional value of equality. For this purpose, I consider English contract law and show how it is a concern for ‘equity’ that has been central to its treatment of economic duress. I then highlight the normative limitations of the English doctrine, but argue that the English legal experience of economic duress remains valuable for corresponding developments in the modern South African commercial context, especially in light of the latter’s post-apartheid constitutional framework, which provides the normative content of baseline standards that must inform its doctrine of economic duress.

Abstract:

The site of Olbasa was first identified by the discovery of two Latin imperial inscriptions near the modern village of Belenli in 1842 and even today the surviving evidence from Olbasa (including as it does both texts and coins) still belongs chiefly to the imperial period. Olbasa's prominence then stemmed from the fact that it was “refounded” by Augustus as a military colony. Very little has been pieced together of the history and development of the city prior to the arrival of the Romans and the present inscription, therefore, represents a large advance on our knowledge of Olbasa in the Hellenistic period as well as contributing to our understanding of developments in the region at large.Modern research on the area of south-western Asia Minor now known as Lycia and Pisidia has been greatly assisted by the work of George Bean and Alan Hall both of whom published major articles containing topographical discussions and many previously unknown inscriptions. The Pisidian Survey Project led by Stephen Mitchell has also contributed greatly to our historical understanding of the region in both the Hellenistic and Roman periods by the archaeological studies conducted at the cities of Antioch by Pisidia, Sagalassos, Cremna and Ariassos.

Abstract:

‘Woods, M. Joseph died ye 20 April 1822, the last of ye Ladies of ye Establishment’So ends the register of the convent founded in Hammersmith in 1669, and with the death of Sister Joseph the Institute of Mary became extinct in the south of England. But in distant Belfast the story of its revival was already taking shape. On 1st April 1812 a little girl, Mary Petronilla, was born there to a Protestant Doctor Barratt and his wife. We know nothing of her childhood, but it is thought that as a young woman she taught singing in a Loreto convent. About the year 1835 she was received into the Catholic Church, and so embarked upon a career that was to have far-reaching effects. The presence of a Roman Catholic daughter may have been embarrassing to the doctor’s household, or perhaps it was just the desire to learn German and to see the world that prompted Mary Barratt to follow the advice of the Loreto Sisters and to accept a teaching post advertised in Augsburg. There she not only learned German in return for giving English lessons, but she observed religious life as lived in the oldest house of the Institute. Strict as the régime was (the nuns rose at 4.30 am. all the year round) she fell in love with it and asked to be received into the novitiate. On 10th September 1844 she was clothed in the habit and given the name Sister Petronilla, though this was later changed to Sister Ignatius.

Abstract:

AbstractThe article surveys liturgical developments in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa from 1908 to 2010. The author uses numerous source documents from several Anglican archives to analyse the experimental and fully authorized liturgies, detailing the theological and sociological shifts which underpinned any significant changes. The author includes several sources which, until this point, have not been considered; particularly in relation to the reception of newer liturgies. These include letters, interviews and newspaper articles. Influences from the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of South India, the Church of England, the Episcopal Church in the USA and the Church of New Zealand all contributed to the authorized rites in the local church. Furthermore, the article shows that local, traditionally disenfranchised voices are now beginning to be included with liturgical transformation.

Abstract:

The fittings from the military belt—heavy semicircular buckles with inturned scrolls and rectangular mounts with relief or niello decoration—are common finds at Colchester, Hod Hill, Richborough and other early Roman sites in Britain. Identical pieces have been recovered in even greater numbers from the contemporary forts and fortresses along the Rhine and Danube frontiers. Although well known (Ritterling 1913, 148–55; Webster 1969, 122–3), they have yet to be studied and published as a group, a process which would yield valuable information about their spatial distribution, the relative popularity of different decorative schemes and, possibly, about the centres of manufacture. The following is a synthesis and discussion of the British finds only (fig. 1); it is based on a thorough search both of the published literature and of museum collections, particularly those in the south of England and the Midlands.

Abstract:

The Ecclesiastical Province of Cambrai may sound unfamiliar to modern readers. The bishopric of Cambrai dates to the sixth century but only became an archdiocese and, consequently, the centre of a church province in the sixteenth century. The elevation of the see resulted from the heavily contested reorganization of the diocesan map of the Low Countries by King Philip II in 1559. The new province included the medieval sees of Arras, Cambrai and Tournai, as well as the newly created bishoprics of Saint-Omer and Namur. Its borders were established to encompass the French-speaking Walloon provinces in the south of the Low Countries, territories that are now divided between France and Belgium.1 In the early modern period, this area was already a border and transit zone between France, the Low Countries, the Holy Roman Empire and the British Isles. The province’s history in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was deeply marked by recurrent and devastating warfare between the kings of Spain and France, eventually resulting in the transfer of significant territory to France.2 However, the Province of Cambrai was also the scene of frequent cross-border mobility, and a safe haven for Catholic exiles originating from the British Isles, France and other parts of the Low Countries.

Abstract:

Home to just over five million souls, Scotland is the most sparsely populated part of Britain. The people are overwhelmingly white (some 98.7%) and English speaking. Levels of deprivation vary considerably across the country as a whole. Some 20% of the school population was entitled to free school meals in 1995, though the figure was twice as high in the City of Glasgow, where life expectancy is 10 years below that of affluent parts of the south of England. In July 1997 proposals were presented for the creation of a Scottish parliament. Whilst the Westminster parliament would ‘remain sovereign’, many powers would be devolved to Edinburgh, including those relating to virtually every aspect of education. So today, the Scottish Executive Education Department (or SEED) administers Scottish Executive policy for pre-school and school education in co-operation with local authorities that are responsible for providing school education in their areas. No less than 96% of youngsters are educated in state schools. Schools associated with religious groups including the Roman Catholic Church were incorporated into the state system in the 1920s. The annual cost of running the whole education system is a little under £5 billion or some 9% of Scottish GDP [1, p. 17].

Abstract:

This paper will reveal the historical roots and Islamic development in British. The discussion covers various areas of study pertaining to historical situations. The study tends to focus on the search for the historical roots of Islam in the 7th to 15th and 16th-17th centuries, and also the development of Islamic institutions in British contemporer.The historical roots of Islam in Britain have existed since the discovery of several coins with the words 'laa ilaaha illallah' belonging to the King of Central England, Offa of Mercia, who died in 796. The history records that this Anglo Saxon King had trade ties with the peoples Muslim Spain, France and North Africa. In addition, also found in the 9th century the words 'bismillah' by Kufi Arabic on Ballycottin Cross. Indeed, in the eighth century history has noted that trade between Britain and the Muslim nations has been established. In fact, in 817 Muhammad bin Musa al-Khawarizmi wrote the book Shurat al-Ardhi (World Map) which contains a picture of a number of places in England. In the 12th century, when the feud with Pope Innocent III, King John established a relationship with Muslim rulers in North Africa. Later, in the era of Henry II, Adelard of Bath, a private teacher of the King of England who had visited Syria and Muslim Spain, translated a number of books by Arab Muslim writers into Latin. The same is done by Danel of Marley and Michael Scouts who translated Aristotle's works from Arabic. In 1386 Chaucer wrote in his book prologue Canterbury of Tales, a book that says that on the way back to Canterbury from the holy land, Palestine, a number of pilgrims visit physicists and other experts such as al-Razi, Ibn Sina and Ibnu Rusyd. At that time Ibn Sina's work, al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, had become the standard text for medical students until the seventeenth century.The development of Islam increasingly rapidly era after. In 1636 opened the Arabic language department at the University of Oxford. In addition, it is well known that the English King Charles I had collected Arabic and Persian manuscripts. In the era of Cromwell's post civil war, the Koran for the first time in 1649 was translated in English by Alexander Ross. In the nineteenth century more and more small Muslim communities, both immigrants from Africa and Asia, settled in port cities such as Cardif, South Shield (near New Castle), London and Liverpool. In the next stage, to this day, Islam in Britain has formally developed rapidly through the roles of institutions and priests, and the existence of Islam is also widely acknowledged by the kingdom, government, intellectuals, and the public at large.

Abstract:

This paper will reveal the historical roots and Islamic development in British. The discussion covers various areas of study pertaining to historical situations. The study tends to focus on the search for the historical roots of Islam in the 7th to 15th and 16th-17th centuries, and also the development of Islamic institutions in British contemporer.The historical roots of Islam in Britain have existed since the discovery of several coins with the words 'laa ilaaha illallah' belonging to the King of Central England, Offa of Mercia, who died in 796. The history records that this Anglo Saxon King had trade ties with the peoples Muslim Spain, France and North Africa. In addition, also found in the 9th century the words 'bismillah' by Kufi Arabic on Ballycottin Cross. Indeed, in the eighth century history has noted that trade between Britain and the Muslim nations has been established. In fact, in 817 Muhammad bin Musa al-Khawarizmi wrote the book Shurat al-Ardhi (World Map) which contains a picture of a number of places in England. In the 12th century, when the feud with Pope Innocent III, King John established a relationship with Muslim rulers in North Africa. Later, in the era of Henry II, Adelard of Bath, a private teacher of the King of England who had visited Syria and Muslim Spain, translated a number of books by Arab Muslim writers into Latin. The same is done by Danel of Marley and Michael Scouts who translated Aristotle's works from Arabic. In 1386 Chaucer wrote in his book prologue Canterbury of Tales, a book that says that on the way back to Canterbury from the holy land, Palestine, a number of pilgrims visit physicists and other experts such as al-Razi, Ibn Sina and Ibnu Rusyd. At that time Ibn Sina's work, al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, had become the standard text for medical students until the seventeenth century.The development of Islam increasingly rapidly era after. In 1636 opened the Arabic language department at the University of Oxford. In addition, it is well known that the English King Charles I had collected Arabic and Persian manuscripts. In the era of Cromwell's post civil war, the Koran for the first time in 1649 was translated in English by Alexander Ross. In the nineteenth century more and more small Muslim communities, both immigrants from Africa and Asia, settled in port cities such as Cardif, South Shield (near New Castle), London and Liverpool. In the next stage, to this day, Islam in Britain has formally developed rapidly through the roles of institutions and priests, and the existence of Islam is also widely acknowledged by the kingdom, government, intellectuals, and the public at large

Abstract:

Systematical archaeological excavations at the site Gamzigrad - Felix Romuliana continued in 2007-2008 in the south-eastern part of the fortified imperial palace, in the section of the thermae according to the plan of archaeological research for this site (2005-2009). In 2007, squares L'XXIV, M'XXIV, M'XXIH and M'XXII, which were investigated in 2005 to the horizon c, dated to the end of the 5th and the beginning of the 6th centuries, were completely excavated to the level of the porch of the earlier fortification of Romuliana (Plan 1). The stratigraphy of the cultural layers in these squares is as follows (Fig. 1): Below horizon c there is a layer of construction rubble mixed with brownish-yellow, clay like, sandy soil, 50-75 cm thick, comprising the finds dated in the last quarter of the 4th-5th centuries, layer D; The level of layer D is horizon d, where a structure destroyed in a conflagration, house 1/07, was discovered in squares M'XXII and M'XXIII. It could be dated, on the basis of the preserved household (pottery, metal and antler items, coins, etc.), from the last quarter of the 4th to the middle of the 5th century; Horizon d 1 is a mortar floor discovered beneath horizon d, which presents the earlier phase of house 1/07; Horizon d 2 is the earliest mortar floor inside the house 1/07, covered with a later mortar floor (horizon d 1) and a levelling layer of yellow sand and gravel, which comprises the finds dating also to the last quarter of the 4th to the middle of the 5th centuries; Layer E, 15-40 cm thick, is below horizon d, comprising dark brown soil with rubble and lenses of soot at the bottom, together with finds dated to the second half of the 4th century; Horizon e is covered with layer E, and spread across all the squares which were investigated to the south and to the east of Galerius' bath, where 8 large postholes, which outlined a space 7 x 3 m large and probably some kind of porch, were found along with two furnaces and two pits; Layer F, about 30 cm thick, is the substructure of horizon e and it comprises crushed stone and pebbles mixed with lime mortar, and in places has a levelling of reddish-brown sand. Finds here were dated to the end of the 3rd and the first half of the 4th centuries; Horizon f is a mortar floor of the later fortification of Felix Romuliana at a level of 184.75 m in the west and 184.55 m in the east (an average level of 184.64 m), which was interrupted by a trench running in an east-west direction along the southern section of squares L'-M'XXIV. The trench was filled with soot, small rubble and reddish-brown sand and comprised a large amount of artifacts, such as pottery and glass fragments, metal and bone items and coins dated to the second half of the 3rd century (Fig. 4). Layer G consists of dark brown and yellowish-brown clay with small rubble and soot. It was a levelling layer above the intense construction rubble from the previous horizon and a substructure of horizon f. This layer comprised archaeological finds dated to the end of the 3rd and the first half of the 4th centuries and to the prehistoric period (Early Iron Age); Horizon g is a mortar floor of the porch of the southern and eastern rampart of the earlier fortification of Romuliana. 4 pillars of the eastern porch (pillars 1-4, discovered in 2004-2005), a corner pillar in an L-shape (pillar 5) and one pillar of the southern porch (pillar 6) have been ascertained. From this level the water and sewage canals were dug (Fig. 5). In squares K'XXII-XXIII a trench, measuring 4 x 2 m, in an east-west direction, was opened which aimed to investigate the layers beneath the Roman horizon g. The stratigraphy in this trench is as follows: - Layer G at a level of about 184.53 m; - Layer H, about 35 cm thick, is greenish-yellow clay in which Roman canals were buried, comprising the fragments of the Early and Late Iron Age pottery and fragments of reddish rammed earth (Fig. 2); Layer I, about 20cm thick, is greenish-brown clay, comprising the scarce fragments of the Early and Late Iron Age pottery; Virgin soil consists of yellow clay starting from a level of 184.00 m in the west and of 183.60 m in the east. In 2008, the remains of an earlier building were discovered beneath the floor of the apodyterium of Galerius' bath found in 2002 and below the foundation of the sudatorium and the tepidarium of the same structure, which were found in 2005. Also, for the purposes of conservation and restoration of the thermae, an apsidal room next to the west wall of the apodyterium, so called 'Galerius' dressing room', was completely filled with construction rubble, among which was found a part of an abraded vault (Fig. 6). Excavations proved that the apsidal room had been a pool with cold water, a frigidarium, which was twice renovated and was decorated with mosaic made of black, white and grey stone cubes (Fig. 7). The phases of reconstruction of the frigidarium could also be noticed in its eastern wall (Fig. 8). Also in the rubble inside the pool, glass mosaic cubes of deep blue and golden colours were discovered, indicating the decoration of the vault. In the latest phase, two pillars were constructed to carry the stairs made of stone slabs (Fig. 8). The earliest phase of this room, which had a rectangular layout and a mortar floor, could be part of the building dating back to before Galerius' bath (Plan 2). During the cleaning of the eastern wall of the frigidarium, a semicircular niche with a fresco decoration of geometrical and figural motives, painted in black, dark red, orange and blue on an ochre surface, was discovered (Fig. 3). Under Galerius' bath, a large earlier building was investigated (trenches 1-5/08). Only its foundation zone is preserved. The walls of the Imperial bath were founded on the earlier walls, which were 0.65 m thick and had foundations which were 0.90 m thick (Plan 2). The pilaster of the west faeade of the thermae was also founded on the earlier wall, but it destroyed a water canal (canal A discovered inside the south room of Galerius' bath in 2004), which was constructed after the earlier structure and before the Imperial bath (Fig. 9). It is interesting that the part of the earlier building to the west of the thermae was not demolished during the construction of the Imperial residence. It was adapted and incorporated into the plan of the fortified palace. The original construction was a large public building, probably theprincipia, with a row of rooms around a large courtyard, the atrium. The entrance, which had a porch and a pylon with two square towers and thresholds made of stone slabs, was in the north. (Figs. 10-14) Previously, this building was mistakenly dated to the 4th-5th centuries, because it had been reused in Late Roman and Early Byzantine periods. (Figs. 15-18) However, based on the results of the new research, it could be dated to the 3rd century. .

Abstract:

A geological and geomorphological survey, combined with sedimentological results, has provided a detailed, trans-zonal famework in which to examine the significance of an eclectic variety of artefactual and documentary evidence relating to prolonged human activity on the tidal stream known as Magor Pill.The shoreline, underlain by estuarine silts and peats of the Flandrian Wentlooge Formation, has retreated by a minimum of some 800m since Iron Age-Roman times, leaving exposed on the modern foreshore the earlier but silted-up courses of Magor Pill. As the coast retreated, fishing stakes, one a double row from the tenth century, were set up on the widening lower foreshore. The palaeochannel deposits yielded small amounts of stratified Iron Age, Romano-British, medieval and early modern occupation debris, together with woven baskets and hurdles related to the early modern and probably also medieval fishing activities in the area. One of the palaeochannels contained the wreck of a medieval, clinker-built boat carrying high-grade iron ores. By far the largest amounts of occupation debris, however, were transposed and mixed into semi-mobile foreshore gravels. This material demonstrates that there was a thriving Romano-British settlement at Magor Pill, apparently in sea connection with the southern shores of the Bristol Channel. From the eleventh to the early fourteenth century, there existed a port to which much pottery from various English sources was imported. In early modern times at Magor Pill, a vigorous outward trade in store cattle to west and south-west England was balanced by pottery imports chiefly from Devon and Somerset. Coastal erosion not only destroyed the primary evidence for these activities, and the wetland landscapes in which they occurred, but also forced, probably in late medieval times, the repositioning inland of the (?) Romano-British sea defences of the area. As part of the general process of reorganizing the defences and drainage of the wetland, the seabanks along Magor Pill and its tributaries were shortened in a number of stages and the outfalls moved further seaward.

Abstract:

AbstractThe nucleus of the collection of paintings in the Mauritshuis around 130 pictures - came from the hereditary stadholder Prince William v. It is widely believed to have become, the property of the State at the beginning of the 19th century, but how this happened is still. unclear. A hand-written notebook on this subject, compiled in 1876 by - the director Jonkheer J. K. L. de Jonge is in the archives of the Mauritshuis Note 4). On this basis a clnsor systematic and chronological investigation has been carried out into the stadholder's. property rights in respect of his collectcons and the changes these underwent between 1795 and 1816. Royal decrees and other documents of the period 1814- 16 in particular giae a clearer picture of whal look place. 0n 18 January 1795 William V (Fig. 2) left the Netherlands and fled to England. On 22 January the Dutch Republic was occupied by French armies. Since France had declared war on the stadholder, the ownership of all his propergy in the Netherlands, passed to France, in accordance with the laws of war of the time. His famous art collections on the Builerth of in. The Hague were taken to Paris, but the remaining art objects, distributed over his various houses, remained in the Netherlands. On 16 May 1795 the French concluded a treaty with the Batavian Republic, recognizing it as an independent power. All the properties of William v in the Netehrlands but not those taken to France, were made over to the Republic (Note 14), which proceeded to sell objects from the collections, at least seven sales taking place until 1798 (Note 15). A plan was then evolved to bring the remaining treasures together in a museum in emulation of the French. On the initiative of J. A. Gogel, the Nationale Konst-Galerij', the first national museum in the .Netherlands, was estahlished in The Hague and opened to the public on ,31 May 1800. Nothing was ever sold from lhe former stadholder's library and in 1798 a Nationale Bibliotheek was founded as well. In 1796, quite soon after the French had carried off the Stadholder, possessions to Paris or made them over to the Batavian Republic, indemnification was already mentioned (Note 19). However, only in the Trealy of Amiens of 180 and a subaequent agreement, between France ararl Prussia of 1 802, in which the Prince of Orarage renounced his and his heirs' rights in the Netherlands, did Prussia provide a certain compensation in the form of l.artds in Weslphalia and Swabia (Note 24) - William v left the management of these areas to the hereditary prince , who had already been involved in the problems oncerning his father's former possessions. In 1804 the Balavian Republic offered a sum of five million guilders 10 plenipotentiaries of the prince as compensation for the sequestrated titles and goods, including furniture, paintings, books and rarities'. This was accepted (Notes 27, 28), but the agreement was never carried out as the Batavian Republic failed to ratify the payment. In the meantime the Nationale Bibliolkeek and the Nationale Konst-Galerij had begun to develop, albeit at first on a small scale. The advent of Louis Napoleon as King of Hollarad in 1806 brought great changes. He made a start on a structured art policy. In 1806 the library, now called `Royal', was moved to the Mauritshuis and in 1808 the collectiorts in The Hague were transferred to Amsterdam, where a Koninklijk Museum was founded, which was housed in the former town hall. This collection was subsequertly to remain in Amsterdam, forming the nucleus of the later Rijksmuseum. The library too was intended to be transferred to Amsterdam, but this never happened and it remained in the Mauritshuis until 1819. Both institutions underwent a great expansion in the period 1806-10, the library's holdings increasing from around 10,000 to over 45,000 books and objects, while the museum acquired a number of paintings, the most important being Rembrandt's Night Watch and Syndics, which were placed in the new museum by the City of Amsterdam in 1808 (Note 44). In 1810 the Netherlands was incorporated into France. In the art field there was now a complete standstill and in 1812 books and in particular prints (around 11,000 of them) were again taken from The Hague to Paris. In November 1813 the French dominion was ended and on 2 December the hereditary prince, William Frederick, was declared sovereign ruler. He was inaugurated as constitutional monarch on 30 March 1814. On January 3rd the provisional council of The Hague had already declared that the city was in (unlawful' possession of a library, a collection of paintings, prints and other objects of art and science and requested the king tot take them back. The war was over and what had been confiscated from William under the laws of war could now be given back, but this never happened. By Royal Decree of 14 January 1814 Mr. ( later Baron) A. J. C. Lampsins (Fig. I ) was commissioned to come to an understanding with the burgomaster of The Hague over this transfer, to bring out a report on the condition of the objects and to formulate a proposal on the measures to be taken (Note 48). On 17 January Lampsins submitted a memorandum on the taking over of the Library as the private property of His Royal Highness the Sovereign of the United Netherlartds'. Although Lampsins was granted the right to bear the title 'Interim Director of the Royal Library' by a Royal Decree of 9 February 1814, William I did not propose to pay The costs himself ; they were to be carried by the Home Office (Note 52). Thus he left the question of ownership undecided. On 18 April Lampsins brought out a detailed report on all the measures to be taken (Appendix IIa ) . His suggestion was that the objects, formerly belonging to the stadholder should be removed from the former royal museum, now the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam and to return the 'Library', as the collectiort of books, paintings and prints in The Hague was called, to the place where they had been in 1795. Once again the king's reaction was not very clear. Among other things, he said that he wanted to wait until it was known how extensive the restitution of objects from Paris would be and to consider in zvhich scholarly context the collections would best, fit (Note 54) . While the ownership of the former collections of Prince William I was thus left undecided, a ruling had already been enacted in respect of the immovable property. By the Constitution of 1814, which came into effect on 30 March, the king was granted a high income, partly to make up for the losses he had sulfered. A Royal Decree of 22 January 1815 does, however, imply that William had renounced the right to his, father's collections, for he let it be known that he had not only accepted the situation that had developed in the Netherlands since 1795, but also wished it to be continued (Note 62). The restitution of the collections carried off to France could only be considered in its entirety after the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815- This was no simple matter, but in the end most, though not all, of the former possessions of William V were returned to the Netherlands. What was not or could not be recovered then (inc.uding 66 paintings, for example) is still in France today (Note 71)- On 20 November 1815 127 paintings, including Paulus Potter's Young Bull (Fig. 15), made a ceremonial entry into The Hague. But on 6 October, before anything had actually been returned, it had already been stipulated by Royal Decree that the control of the objects would hence forlh be in the hands of the State (Note 72). Thus William I no longer regarded his father's collections as the private property of the House of Orange, but he did retain the right to decide on the fulure destiny of the... painting.s and objects of art and science'. For the time being the paintings were replaced in the Gallery on the Buitenhof, from which they had been removed in 1795 (Note 73). In November 1815 the natural history collection was made the property of Leiden University (Note 74), becoming the basis for the Rijksmuseum voor Natuurlijke Historie, The print collection, part of the Royal Library in The Hague, was exchanged in May 1816 for the national collectiort of coins and medals, part of the Rijksmuseum. As of 1 Jufy 1816 directors were appointed for four different institutions in The Hague, the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (with the Koninklijk Penningkabinet ) , the Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen and the Yoninklijk Kabinet van Zeldzaamheden (Note 80) . From that time these institutions led independenl lives. The king continued to lake a keen interest in them and not merely in respect of collecting Their accommodation in The Hague was already too cramped in 1816. By a Royal Decree of 18 May 1819 the Hotel Huguetan, the former palace of the. crown prince on Lange Voorhout, was earmarked for the Koninklijke Bibliotheek and the Koninklijk Penningkabinet (Note 87) . while at the king's behest the Mauritshuis, which had been rented up to then, was bought by the State on 27 March 1820 and on IO July allotted to the Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen and the Koninklijk Kabinet van Zeldzaamheden (Note 88). Only the Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen is still in the place assigned to it by William and the collection has meanwhile become so identified with its home that it is generally known as the Mauritshui.s'. William i's most important gift was made in July 1816,just after the foundation of the four royal institutions, when he had deposited most of the objects that his father had taken first to England and later to Oranienstein in the Koninklijk Kabinet van Zeldzaamheden. The rarities (Fig. 17), curios (Fig. 18) and paintings (Fig. 19), remained there (Note 84), while the other art objects were sorted and divided between the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (the manuscripts and books) and the koninklijk Penningkabinet (the cameos and gems) (Note 85). In 1819 and 182 the king also gave the Koninklijke Bibliotheek an important part of the Nassau Library from the castle at Dillenburg. Clearly he is one of the European monarchs who in the second half of the 18th and the 19th century made their collectiorts accessible to the public, and thus laid the foundatinns of many of today's museums. But William 1 also made purchases on behalf of the institutions he had created. For the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, for example, he had the 'Tweede Historiebijbel', made in Utrecht around 1430, bought in Louvain in 1829 for 1, 134 guilders (Pigs.30,3 I, Note 92). For the Koninkijk Penningkabinet he bought a collection of 62 gems and four cameos , for ,50,000 guilders in 1819. This had belonged to the philosopher Frans Hemsterhuis, the keeper of his father's cabinet of antiquities (Note 95) . The most spectacular acquisition. for the Penninukabinet., however, was a cameo carved in onyx, a late Roman work with the Triumph of Claudius, which the king bought in 1823 for 50,000 guilders, an enormous sum in those days. The Koninklijk Kabinet van Zeldzaamhedert also received princely gifts. In 1821- the so-called doll's house of Tzar Peter was bought out of the king's special funds for 2.800 guilders (Figs.33, 34, ,Note 97) , while even in 1838, when no more money was available for art, unnecessary expenditure on luxury' the Von Siebold ethnographical collection was bought at the king's behest for over 55,000 guilders (Note 98). The Koninklijk Kabinel van Schilderyen must have been close to the hearl of the king, who regarded it as an extension of the palace (Notes 99, 100) . The old master paintings he acquzred for it are among the most important in the collection (the modern pictures, not dealt with here, were transferred to the Paviljoen Welgelegen in Haarlem in 1838, Note 104). For instance, in 1820 he bought a portrait of Johan Maurice of Nassau (Fig.35)., while in 1822, against the advice of the then director, he bought Vermeer' s View of Delft for 2,900 guilders (Fig.36, Note 105) and in 1827 it was made known, from Brussels that His Majesty had recommended the purchase of Rogier van der Weyden's Lamentation (Fig.37) . The most spectacular example of the king's love for 'his' museum, however, is the purchase in 1828 of Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp for 32,000 guilders. The director of the Rijksmuseum, C. Apostool, cortsidered this Rembrandt'sfinest painting and had already drawn attention to it in 1817, At the king'.s behest the picture, the purchase of which had been financed in part by the sale of a number of painlings from. the Rijksmuseum, was placed in the Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen in The Hague. On his accession King William I had left the art objects which had become state propery after being ceded by the French to the Batavian Republic in 1795 as they were. He reclaimed the collections carried off to France as his own property, but it can be deduced from the Royal Decrees of 1815 and 1816 that it Was his wish that they should be made over to the State, including those paintings that form the nucleus of the collection in the Mauritshuis. In addition, in 1816 he handed over many art objects which his father had taken with him into exile. His son, William II, later accepted this, after having the matter investigated (Note 107 and Appendix IV). Thus William I'S munificence proves to have been much more extensive than has ever been realized.

Abstract:

Environments containing significant concentration of NaCl such as salt lakes harbor extremophiles microorganisms which have a great biotechnology interest. To explore the diversity of Bacteria in Chott Tinsilt (Algeria), an isolation program was performed. Water samples were collected from the saltern during the pre-salt harvesting phase. This Chott is high in salt (22.47% (w/v). Seven halophiles Bacteria were selected for further characterization. The isolated strains were able to grow optimally in media with 10–25% (w/v) total salts. Molecular identification of the isolates was performed by sequencing the 16S rRNA gene. It showed that these cultured isolates included members belonging to the Halomonas, Staphylococcus, Salinivibrio, Planococcus and Halobacillus genera with less than 98% of similarity with their closest phylogenetic relative. The halophilic bacterial isolates were also characterized for the production of biosurfactant and industrially important enzymes. Most isolates produced hydrolases and biosurfactants at high salt concentration. In fact, this is the first report on bacterial strains (A4 and B4) which were a good biosurfactant and coagulase producer at 20% and 25% ((w/v)) NaCl. In addition, the biosurfactant produced by the strain B4 at high salinity (25%) was also stable at high temperature (30-100°C) and high alkalinity (pH 11).Key word: Salt Lake, Bacteria, biosurfactant, Chott, halophiles, hydrolases, 16S rRNAINTRODUCTIONSaline lakes cover approximately 10% of the Earth’s surface area. The microbial populations of many hypersaline environments have already been studied in different geographical regions such as Great Salt Lake (USA), Dead Sea (Israel), Wadi Natrun Lake (Egypt), Lake Magadi (Kenya), Soda Lake (Antarctica) and Big Soda Lake and Mono Lake (California). Hypersaline regions differ from each other in terms of geographical location, salt concentration and chemical composition, which determine the nature of inhabitant microorganisms (Gupta et al., 2015). Then low taxonomic diversity is common to all these saline environments (Oren et al., 1993). Halophiles are found in nearly all major microbial clades, including prokaryotic (Bacteria and Archaea) and eukaryotic forms (DasSarma and Arora, 2001). They are classified as slight halophiles when they grow optimally at 0.2–0.85 M (2–5%) NaCl, as moderate halophiles when they grow at 0.85–3.4 M (5–20%) NaCl, and as extreme halophiles when they grow at 3.4–5.1 M (20–30%) NaCl. Hyper saline environments are inhabited by extremely halophilic and halotolerant microorganisms such as Halobacillus sp, Halobacterium sp., Haloarcula sp., Salinibacter ruber , Haloferax sp and Bacillus spp. (Solomon and Viswalingam, 2013). There is a tremendous demand for halophilic bacteria due to their biotechnological importance as sources of halophilic enzymes. Enzymes derived from halophiles are endowed with unique structural features and catalytic power to sustain the metabolic and physiological processes under high salt conditions. Some of these enzymes have been reported to be active and stable under more than one extreme condition (Karan and Khare, 2010). Applications are being considered in a range of industries such as food processing, washing, biosynthetic processes and environmental bioremediation. Halophilic proteases are widely used in the detergent and food industries (DasSarma and Arora, 2001). However, esterases and lipases have also been useful in laundry detergents for the removal of oil stains and are widely used as biocatalysts because of their ability to produce pure compounds. Likewise, amylases are used industrially in the first step of the production of high fructose corn syrup (hydrolysis of corn starch). They are also used in the textile industry in the de-sizing process and added to laundry detergents. Furthermore, for the environmental applications, the use of halophiles for bioremediation and biodegradation of various materials from industrial effluents to soil contaminants and accidental spills are being widely explored. In addition to enzymes, halophilic / halotolerants microorganisms living in saline environments, offer another potential applications in various fields of biotechnology like the production of biosurfactant. Biosurfactants are amphiphilic compounds synthesized from plants and microorganisms. They reduce surface tension and interfacial tension between individual molecules at the surface and interface respectively (Akbari et al., 2018). Comparing to the chemical surfactant, biosurfactant are promising alternative molecules due to their low toxicity, high biodegradability, environmental capability, mild production conditions, lower critical micelle concentration, higher selectivity, availability of resources and ability to function in wide ranges of pH, temperature and salinity (Rocha et al., 1992). They are used in various industries which include pharmaceuticals, petroleum, food, detergents, cosmetics, paints, paper products and water treatment (Akbari et al., 2018). The search for biosurfactants in extremophiles is particularly promising since these biomolecules can adapt and be stable in the harsh environments in which they are to be applied in biotechnology.OBJECTIVESEastern Algeria features numerous ecosystems including hypersaline environments, which are an important source of salt for food. The microbial diversity in Chott Tinsilt, a shallow Salt Lake with more than 200g/L salt concentration and a superficies of 2.154 Ha, has never yet been studied. The purpose of this research was to chemically analyse water samples collected from the Chott, isolate novel extremely or moderate halophilic Bacteria, and examine their phenotypic and phylogenetic characteristics with a view to screening for biosurfactants and enzymes of industrial interest.MATERIALS AND METHODSStudy area: The area is at 5 km of the Commune of Souk-Naâmane and 17 km in the South of the town of Aïn-Melila. This area skirts the trunk road 3 serving Constantine and Batna and the railway Constantine-Biskra. It is part the administrative jurisdiction of the Wilaya of Oum El Bouaghi. The Chott belongs to the wetlands of the High Plains of Constantine with a depth varying rather regularly without never exceeding 0.5 meter. Its length extends on 4 km with a width of 2.5 km (figure 1).Water samples and physico-chemical analysis: In February 2013, water samples were collected from various places at the Chott Tinsilt using Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of 35°53’14” N lat. and 06°28’44”E long. Samples were collected randomly in sterile polythene bags and transported immediately to the laboratory for isolation of halophilic microorganisms. All samples were treated within 24 h after collection. Temperature, pH and salinity were measured in situ using a multi-parameter probe (Hanna Instruments, Smithfield, RI, USA). The analytical methods used in this study to measure ions concentration (Ca2+, Mg2+, Fe2+, Na+, K+, Cl−, HCO3−, SO42−) were based on 4500-S-2 F standard methods described elsewhere (Association et al., 1920).Isolation of halophilic bacteria from water sample: The media (M1) used in the present study contain (g/L): 2.0 g of KCl, 100.0/200.0 g of NaCl, 1.0 g of MgSO4.7HO2, 3.0 g of Sodium Citrate, 0.36 g of MnCl2, 10.0 g of yeast extract and 15.0 g agar. The pH was adjusted to 8.0. Different dilutions of water samples were added to the above medium and incubated at 30°C during 2–7 days or more depending on growth. Appearance and growth of halophilic bacteria were monitored regularly. The growth was diluted 10 times and plated on complete medium agar (g/L): glucose 10.0; peptone 5.0; yeast extract 5.0; KH2PO4 5.0; agar 30.0; and NaCl 100.0/200.0. Resultant colonies were purified by repeated streaking on complete media agar. The pure cultures were preserved in 20% glycerol vials and stored at −80°C for long-term preservation.Biochemical characterisation of halophilic bacterial isolates: Bacterial isolates were studied for Gram’s reaction, cell morphology and pigmentation. Enzymatic assays (catalase, oxidase, nitrate reductase and urease), and assays for fermentation of lactose and mannitol were done as described by Smibert (1994).Optimization of growth conditions: Temperature, pH, and salt concentration were optimized for the growth of halophilic bacterial isolates. These growth parameters were studied quantitatively by growing the bacterial isolates in M1 medium with shaking at 200 rpm and measuring the cell density at 600 nm after 8 days of incubation. To study the effect of NaCl on the growth, bacterial isolates were inoculated on M1 medium supplemented with different concentration of NaCl: 1%-35% (w/v). The effect of pH on the growth of halophilic bacterial strains was studied by inoculating isolates on above described growth media containing NaCl and adjusted to acidic pH of 5 and 6 by using 1N HCl and alkaline pH of 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 using 5N NaOH. The effect of temperature was studied by culturing the bacterial isolates in M1 medium at different temperatures of incubation (4°C–55°C).Screening of halophilic bacteria for hydrolytic enzymes: Hydrolase producing bacteria among the isolates were screened by plate assay on starch, tributyrin, gelatin and DNA agar plates respectively for amylase, lipase, protease and DNAse activities. Amylolytic activity of the cultures was screened on starch nutrient agar plates containing g/L: starch 10.0; peptone 5.0; yeast extract 3.0; agar 30.0; NaCl 100.0/250.0. The pH was 7.0. After incubation at 30 ºC for 7 days, the zone of clearance was determined by flooding the plates with iodine solution. The potential amylase producers were selected based on ratio of zone of clearance diameter to colony diameter. Lipase activity of the cultures was screened on tributyrin nutrient agar plates containing 1% (v/v) of tributyrin. Isolates that showed clear zones of tributyrin hydrolysis were identified as lipase producing bacteria. Proteolytic activity of the isolates was similarly screened on gelatin nutrient agar plates containing 10.0 g/L of gelatin. The isolates showing zones of gelatin clearance upon treatment with acidic mercuric chloride were selected and designated as protease producing bacteria. The presence of DNAse activity on plates was determined on DNAse test agar (BBL) containing 10%-25% (w/v) total salt. After incubation for 7days, the plates were flooded with 1N HCl solution. Clear halos around the colonies indicated DNAse activity (Jeffries et al., 1957).Milk clotting activity (coagulase activity) of the isolates was also determined following the procedure described (Berridge, 1952). Skim milk powder was reconstituted in 10 mM aqueous CaCl2 (pH 6.5) to a final concentration of 0.12 kg/L. Enzyme extracts were added at a rate of 0.1 mL per mL of milk. The coagulation point was determined by manual rotating of the test tube periodically, at short time intervals, and checking for visible clot formation.Screening of halophilic bacteria for biosurfactant production. Oil spread Assay: The Petridis base was filled with 50 mL of distilled water. On the water surface, 20μL of diesel and 10μl of culture were added respectively. The culture was introduced at different spots on the diesel, which is coated on the water surface. The occurrence of a clear zone was an indicator of positive result (Morikawa et al., 2000). The diameter of the oil expelling circles was measured by slide caliber (with a degree of accuracy of 0.02 mm).Surface tension and emulsification index (E24): Isolates were cultivated at 30 °C for 7 days on the enrichment medium containing 10-25% NaCl and diesel oil as the sole carbon source. The medium was centrifuged (7000 rpm for 20 min) and the surface tension of the cell-free culture broth was measured with a TS90000 surface tensiometer (Nima, Coventry, England) as a qualitative indicator of biosurfactant production. The culture broth was collected with a Pasteur pipette to remove the non-emulsified hydrocarbons. The emulsifying capacity was evaluated by an emulsification index (E24). The E24 of culture samples was determined by adding 2 mL of diesel oil to the same amount of culture, mixed for 2 min with a vortex, and allowed to stand for 24 h. E24 index is defined as the percentage of height of emulsified layer (mm) divided by the total height of the liquid column (mm).Biosurfactant stability studies : After growth on diesel oil as sole source of carbone, cultures supernatant obtained after centrifugation at 6,000 rpm for 15 min were considered as the source of crude biosurfactant. Its stability was determined by subjecting the culture supernatant to various temperature ranges (30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 100 °C) for 30 min then cooled to room temperature. Similarly, the effect of different pH (2–11) on the activity of the biosurfactant was tested. The activity of the biosurfactant was investigated by measuring the emulsification index (El-Sersy, 2012).Molecular identification of potential strains. DNA extraction and PCR amplification of 16S rDNA: Total cellular DNA was extracted from strains and purified as described by Sambrook et al. (1989). DNA was purified using Geneclean® Turbo (Q-BIO gene, Carlsbad, CA, USA) before use as a template in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification. For the 16S rDNA gene sequence, the purified DNA was amplified using a universal primer set, forward primer (27f; 5′-AGA GTT TGA TCM TGG CTC AG) and a reverse primer (1492r; 5′-TAC GGY TAC CTT GTT ACG ACT T) (Lane, 1991). Agarose gel electrophoresis confirmed the amplification product as a 1400-bp DNA fragment.16S rDNA sequencing and Phylogenic analysis: Amplicons generated using primer pair 27f-1492r was sequenced using an automatic sequencer system at Macrogene Company (Seoul, Korea). The sequences were compared with those of the NCBI BLAST GenBank nucleotide sequence databases. Phylogenetic trees were constructed by the neighbor-joining method using MEGA version 5.05 software (Tamura et al., 2011). Bootstrap resembling analysis for 1,000 replicates was performed to estimate the confidence of tree topologies.Nucleotide sequence accession numbers: The nucleotide sequences reported in this work have been deposited in the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database. The accession numbers are represented in table 5.Statistics: All experiments were conducted in triplicates. Results were evaluated for statistical significance using ANOVA.RESULTSPhysico-chemical parameters of the collected water samples: The physicochemical properties of the collected water samples are reported in table 1. At the time of sampling, the temperature was 10.6°C and pH 7.89. The salinity of the sample, as determined in situ, was 224.70 g/L (22,47% (w/v)). Chemical analysis of water sample indicated that Na +and Cl- were the most abundant ions (table 1). SO4-2 and Mg+2 was present in much smaller amounts compared to Na +and Cl- concentration. Low levels of calcium, potassium and bicarbonate were also detected, often at less than 1 g/L.Characterization of isolates. Morphological and biochemical characteristic feature of halophilic bacterial isolates: Among 52 strains isolated from water of Chott Tinsilt, seven distinct bacteria (A1, A2, A3, A4, B1, B4 and B5) were chosen for further characterization (table 2). The colour of the isolates varied from beige, pale yellow, yellowish and orange. The bacterial isolates A1, A2, A4, B1 and B5 were rod shaped and gram negative (except B5), whereas A3 and B4 were cocci and gram positive. All strains were oxidase and catalase positive except for B1. Nitrate reductase and urease activities were observed in all the bacterial isolates, except B4. All the bacterial isolates were negative for H2S formation. B5 was the only strain positive for mannitol fermentation (table 2).We isolated halophilic bacteria on growth medium with NaCl supplementation at pH 7 and temperature of 30°C. We studied the effect of NaCl, temperature and pH on the growth of bacterial isolates. All the isolates exhibited growth only in the presence of NaCl indicating that these strains are halophilic. The optimum growth of isolates A3 and B1 was observed in the presence of 10% NaCl, whereas it was 15% NaCl for A1, A2 and B5. A4 and B4 showed optimum growth in the presence of 20% and 25% NaCl respectively. A4, B4 and B5 strains can tolerate up to 35% NaCl.The isolate B1 showed growth in medium supplemented with 10% NaCl and pH range of 7–10. The optimum pH for the growth B1 was 9 and they did not show any detectable growth at or below pH 6 (table 2), which indicates the alkaliphilic nature of B1 isolate. The bacterial isolates A1, A2 and A4 exhibited growth in the range of pH 6–10, while A3 and B4 did not show any growth at pH greater than 8. The optimum pH for growth of all strains (except B1) was pH 7.0 (table 2). These results indicate that A1, A2, A3, A4, B4 and B5 are neutrophilic in nature. All the bacterial isolates exhibited optimal growth at 30°C and no detectable growth at 55°C. Also, detectable growth of isolates A1, A2 and A4 was observed at 4°C. However, none of the bacterial strains could grow below 4°C and above 50°C (table 2).Screening of the halophilic enzymes: To characterize the diversity of halophiles able to produce hydrolytic enzymes among the population of microorganisms inhabiting the hypersaline habitats of East Algeria (Chott Tinsilt), a screening was performed. As described in Materials and Methods, samples were plated on solid media containing 10%-25% (w/v) of total salts and different substrates for the detection of amylase, protease, lipase and DNAse activities. However, coagulase activity was determined in liquid medium using milk as substrate (figure 3). Distributions of hydrolytic activity among the isolates are summarized in table 4.From the seven bacterial isolates, four strains A1, A2, A4 and B5 showed combined hydrolytic activities. They were positive for gelatinase, lipase and coagulase. A3 strain showed gelatinase and lipase activities. DNAse activities were detected with A1, A4, B1 and B5 isolates. B4 presented lipase and coagulase activity. Surprisingly, no amylase activity was detected among all the isolates.Screening for biosurfactant producing isolates: Oil spread assay: The results showed that all the strains could produce notable (>4 cm diameter) oil expelling circles (ranging from 4.11 cm to 4.67 cm). The average diameter for strain B5 was 4.67 cm, significantly (P < 0.05) higher than for the other strains.Surface tension and emulsification index (E24): The assimilation of hydrocarbons as the sole sources of carbon by the isolate strains led to the production of biosurfactants indicated by the emulsification index and the lowering of the surface tension of cell-free supernatant. Based on rapid growth on media containing diesel oil as sole carbon source, the seven isolates were tested for biosurfactant production and emulsification activity. The obtained values of the surface tension measurements as well as the emulsification index (E24) are shown in table 3. The highest reduction of surface tension was achieved with B5 and A3 isolates with values of 25.3 mN m−1 and 28.1 mN m−1 respectively. The emulsifying capacity evaluated by the E24 emulsification index was highest in the culture of isolate B4 (78%), B5 (77%) and A3 (76%) as shown in table 3 and figure 2. These emulsions were stable even after 4 months. The bacteria with emulsification indices higher than 50 % and/or reduction in the surface tension (under 30 mN/m) have been defined as potential biosurfactant producers. Based on surface tension and the E24 index results, isolates B5, B4, A3 and A4 are the best candidates for biosurfactant production. It is important to note that, strains B4 and A4 produce biosurfactant in medium containing respectively 25% and 20% (w/v) NaCl.Stability of biosurfactant activities: The applicability of biosurfactants in several biotechnological fields depends on their stability at different environmental conditions (temperatures, pH and NaCl). For this study, the strain B4 appear very interesting (It can produce biosurfactant at 25 % NaCl) and was choosen for futher analysis for biosurfactant stability. The effects of temperature and pH on the biosurfactant production by the strain B4 are shown in figure 4.biosurfactant in medium containing respectively 25% and 20% (w/v) NaCl.Stability of biosurfactant activities: The applicability of biosurfactants in several biotechnological fields depends on their stability at different environmental conditions (temperatures, pH and NaCl). For this study, the strain B4 appear very interesting (It can produce biosurfactant at 25 % NaCl) and was chosen for further analysis for biosurfactant stability. The effects of temperature and pH on the biosurfactant production by the strain B4 are shown in figure 4. The biosurfactant produced by this strain was shown to be thermostable giving an E-24 Index value greater than 78% (figure 4A). Heating of the biosurfactant to 100 °C caused no significant effect on the biosurfactant performance. Therefore, the surface activity of the crude biosurfactant supernatant remained relatively stable to pH changes between pH 6 and 11. At pH 11, the value of E24 showed almost 76% activity, whereas below pH 6 the activity was decreased up to 40% (figure 4A). The decreases of the emulsification activity by decreasing the pH value from basic to an acidic region; may be due to partial precipitation of the biosurfactant. This result indicated that biosurfactant produced by strain B4 show higher stability at alkaline than in acidic conditions.Molecular identification and phylogenies of potential isolates: To identify halophilic bacterial isolates, the 16S rDNA gene was amplified using gene-specific primers. A PCR product of ≈ 1.3 kb was detected in all the seven isolates. The 16S rDNA amplicons of each bacterial isolate was sequenced on both strands using 27F and 1492R primers. The complete nucleotide sequence of 1336,1374, 1377,1313, 1305,1308 and 1273 bp sequences were obtained from A1, A2, A3, A4, B1, B4 and B5 isolates respectively, and subjected to BLAST analysis. The 16S rDNA sequence analysis showed that the isolated strains belong to the genera Halomonas, Staphylococcus, Salinivibrio, Planococcus and Halobacillus as shown in table 5. The halophilic isolates A2 and A4 showed 97% similarity with the Halomonas variabilis strain GSP3 (accession no. AY505527) and the Halomonas sp. M59 (accession no. AM229319), respectively. As for A1, it showed 96% similarity with the Halomonas venusta strain GSP24 (accession no. AY553074). B1 and B4 showed for their part 96% similarity with the Salinivibrio costicola subsp. alcaliphilus strain 18AG DSM4743 (accession no. NR_042255) and the Planococcus citreus (accession no. JX122551), respectively. The bacterial isolate B5 showed 98% sequence similarity with the Halobacillus trueperi (accession no. HG931926), As for A3, it showed only 95% similarity with the Staphylococcus arlettae (accession no. KR047785). The 16S rDNA nucleotide sequences of all the seven halophilic bacterial strains have been submitted to the NCBI GenBank database under the accession number presented in table 5. The phylogenetic association of the isolates is shown in figure 5.DICUSSIONThe physicochemical properties of the collected water samples indicated that this water was relatively neutral (pH 7.89) similar to the Dead Sea and the Great Salt Lake (USA) and in contrast to the more basic lakes such as Lake Wadi Natrun (Egypt) (pH 11) and El Golea Salt Lake (Algeria) (pH 9). The salinity of the sample was 224.70 g/L (22,47% (w/v). This range of salinity (20-30%) for Chott Tinsilt is comparable to a number of well characterized hypersaline ecosystems including both natural and man-made habitats, such as the Great Salt Lake (USA) and solar salterns of Puerto Rico. Thus, Chott Tinsilt is a hypersaline environment, i.e. environments with salt concentrations well above that of seawater. Chemical analysis of water sample indicated that Na +and Cl- were the most abundant ions, as in most hypersaline ecosystems (with some exceptions such as the Dead Sea). These chemical water characteristics were consistent with the previously reported data in other hypersaline ecosystems (DasSarma and Arora, 2001; Oren, 2002; Hacěne et al., 2004). Among 52 strains isolated from this Chott, seven distinct bacteria (A1, A2, A3, A4, B1, B4 and B5) were chosen for phenotypique, genotypique and phylogenetique characterization.The 16S rDNA sequence analysis showed that the isolated strains belong to the genera Halomonas, Staphylococcus, Salinivibrio, Planococcus and Halobacillus. Genera obtained in the present study are commonly occurring in various saline habitats across the globe. Staphylococci have the ability to grow in a wide range of salt concentrations (Graham and Wilkinson, 1992; Morikawa et al., 2009; Roohi et al., 2014). For example, in Pakistan, Staphylococcus strains were isolated from various salt samples during the study conducted by Roohi et al. (2014) and these results agreed with previous reports. Halomonas, halophilic and/or halotolerant Gram-negative bacteria are typically found in saline environments (Kim et al., 2013). The presence of Planococcus and Halobacillus has been reported in studies about hypersaline lakes; like La Sal del Rey (USA) (Phillips et al., 2012) and Great Salt Lake (Spring et al., 1996), respectively. The Salinivibrio costicola was a representative model for studies on osmoregulatory and other physiological mechanisms of moderately halophilic bacteria (Oren, 2006).However, it is interesting to note that all strains shared less than 98.7% identity (the usual species cut-off proposed by Yarza et al. (2014) with their closest phylogenetic relative, suggesting that they could be considered as new species. Phenotypic, genetic and phylogenetic analyses have been suggested for the complete identification of these strains. Theses bacterial strains were tested for the production of industrially important enzymes (Amylase, protease, lipase, DNAse and coagulase). These isolates are good candidates as sources of novel enzymes with biotechnological potential as they can be used in different industrial processes at high salt concentration (up to 25% NaCl for B4). Prominent amylase, lipase, protease and DNAase activities have been reported from different hypersaline environments across the globe; e.g., Spain (Sánchez‐Porro et al., 2003), Iran (Rohban et al., 2009), Tunisia (Baati et al., 2010) and India (Gupta et al., 2016). However, to the best of our knowledge, the coagulase activity has never been detected in extreme halophilic bacteria. Isolation and characterization of crude enzymes (especially coagulase) to investigate their properties and stability are in progress.The finding of novel enzymes with optimal activities at various ranges of salt concentrations is of great importance. Besides being intrinsically stable and active at high salt concentrations, halophilic and halotolerant enzymes offer great opportunities in biotechnological applications, such as environmental bioremediation (marine, oilfiel) and food processing. The bacterial isolates were also characterized for production of biosurfactants by oil-spread assay, measurement of surface tension and emulsification index (E24). There are few reports on biosurfactant producers in hypersaline environments and in recent years, there has been a greater increase in interest and importance in halophilic bacteria for biomolecules (Donio et al., 2013; Sarafin et al., 2014). Halophiles, which have a unique lipid composition, may have an important role to play as surface-active agents. The archae bacterial ether-linked phytanyl membrane lipid of the extremely halophilic bacteria has been shown to have surfactant properties (Post and Collins, 1982). Yakimov et al. (1995) reported the production of biosurfactant by a halotolerant Bacillus licheniformis strain BAS 50 which was able to produce a lipopeptide surfactant when cultured at salinities up to 13% NaCl. From solar salt, Halomonas sp. BS4 and Kocuria marina BS-15 were found to be able to produce biosurfactant when cultured at salinities of 8% and 10% NaCl respectively (Donio et al., 2013; Sarafin et al., 2014). In the present work, strains B4 and A4 produce biosurfactant in medium containing respectively 25% and 20% NaCl. To our knowledge, this is the first report on biosurfactant production by bacteria under such salt concentration. Biosurfactants have a wide variety of industrial and environmental applications (Akbari et al., 2018) but their applicability depends on their stability at different environmental conditions. The strain B4 which can produce biosurfactant at 25% NaCl showed good stability in alkaline pH and at a temperature range of 30°C-100°C. Due to the enormous utilization of biosurfactant in detergent manufacture the choice of alkaline biosurfactant is researched (Elazzazy et al., 2015). On the other hand, the interesting finding was the thermostability of the produced biosurfactant even after heat treatment (100°C for 30 min) which suggests the use of this biosurfactant in industries where heating is of a paramount importance (Khopade et al., 2012). To date, more attention has been focused on biosurfactant producing bacteria under extreme conditions for industrial and commercial usefulness. In fact, the biosurfactant produce by strain B4 have promising usefulness in pharmaceutical, cosmetics and food industries and for bioremediation in marine environment and Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) where the salinity, temperature and pH are high.CONCLUSIONThis is the first study on the culturable halophilic bacteria community inhabiting Chott Tinsilt in Eastern Algeria. Different genera of halotolerant bacteria with different phylogeneticaly characteristics have been isolated from this Chott. Culturing of bacteria and their molecular analysis provides an opportunity to have a wide range of cultured microorganisms from extreme habitats like hypersaline environments. Enzymes produced by halophilic bacteria show interesting properties like their ability to remain functional in extreme conditions, such as high temperatures, wide range of pH, and high salt concentrations. These enzymes have great economical potential in industrial, agricultural, chemical, pharmaceutical, and biotechnological applications. Thus, the halophiles isolated from Chott Tinsilt offer an important potential for application in microbial and enzyme biotechnology. In addition, these halo bacterial biosurfactants producers isolated from this Chott will help to develop more valuable eco-friendly products to the pharmacological and food industries and will be usefulness for bioremediation in marine environment and petroleum industry.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSOur thanks to Professor Abdelhamid Zoubir for proofreading the English composition of the present paper.CONFLICT OF INTERESTThe authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.Akbari, S., N. H. Abdurahman, R. M. Yunus, F. Fayaz and O. R. Alara, 2018. Biosurfactants—a new frontier for social and environmental safety: A mini review. Biotechnology research innovation, 2(1): 81-90.Association, A. P. H., A. W. W. Association, W. P. C. 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Abstract:

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This paper offers a descriptive overview of the way in which New South Wales water law has developed and in so doing briefly considers Roman law, the common law of England, the common law of Australia and various statutory regimes for the public management of water. The paper also raises the issue of water regulation and management by reference to Garret Hardin’s work, on the need to regulate a commons.

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Celtic spirituality has a long and distinguished ancestry with its origins in pre-Christian times. It was inculturated among peoples in the far west of Europe, particularly in Ireland, Scotland and the north and south-west of England. It was different from Roman Christianity in distinct ways until the mid-7th century CE when Roman Christianity became the norm in Britain and Ireland. This spirituality has endured throughout the centuries and has experienced a revival from the latter half of the 20th century. From its inception, it has been closely linked to the environment. Over the years many key aspects of Celtic spirituality have been integrated in many religious traditions and shows similarities with and can contribute to a new ethical perspective on environmental issues. This article investigates the current environmental crisis from a faith perspective and attempts to draw lessons from Celtic traditions of spirituality in a scientific age.

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The ‘Celts Beneath the Pálava Hills’ exhibition was installed at the end of the summer of 2020 at the Regional Museum in Mikulov. The museum prepared the exhibition in cooperation with the Moravian Museum and the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno. Along with other unique exhibits, an assemblage of 70 metal artefacts stored in Dolní Dunajovice in the study collection of the Research Centre for the Roman and Great Migration periods of the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, was chosen to be displayed for this event. The article presents 47 small artefacts made of copper alloys, 18 coins and five glass artefacts from 17 cadastral units, which enriched the exhibition with a variety of characteristic LT C and D1 finds. They do not form a complete collection, as their common denominator is that they were found in 2011–2017 solely by metal detectorists working together with the archaeologists from the workplace where the finds are stored. These never-before-published artefacts and the qualities of each deserve to be presented both to the public and the professional community. These artefacts include finds which, in the context of the Late Iron Age of south Moravia, are unique objects (including two bronze figurines) that are significant contributions to the clarification and differentiation of the topography of the La Tene settlement structure in the studied region.

Abstract:

Introduction Ireland did not have a tradition of printed cookbooks prior to the 20th century. As a consequence, Irish culinary manuscripts from before this period are an important primary source for historians. This paper makes the case that the manuscripts are a unique way of accessing voices that have quotidian concerns seldom heard above the dominant narratives of conquest, colonisation and famine (Higgins; Dawson). Three manuscripts are examined to see how they contribute to an understanding of Irish social and culinary history. The Irish banking crisis of 2008 is a reminder that comments such as the one in the title of this paper may be more then a casual remark, indicating rather an underlying anxiety. Equally important is the evidence in the manuscripts that Ireland had a domestic culinary tradition sited within the culinary traditions of the British Isles. The terms “vernacular”, representing localised needs and traditions, and “polite”, representing stylistic features incorporated for aesthetic reasons, are more usually applied in the architectural world. As terms, they reflect in a politically neutral way the culinary divide witnessed in the manuscripts under discussion here. Two of the three manuscripts are anonymous, but all are written from the perspective of a well-provisioned house. The class background is elite and as such these manuscripts are not representative of the vernacular, which in culinary terms is likely to be a tradition recorded orally (Gold). The first manuscript (NLI, Tervoe) and second manuscript (NLI, Limerick) show the levels of impact of French culinary influence through their recipes for “cullis”. The Limerick manuscript also opens the discussion to wider social concerns. The third manuscript (NLI, Baker) is unusual in that the author, Mrs. Baker, goes to great lengths to record the provenance of the recipes and as such the collection affords a glimpse into the private “polite” world of the landed gentry in Ireland with its multiplicity of familial and societal connections. Cookbooks and Cuisine in Ireland in the 19th Century During the course of the 18th century, there were 136 new cookery book titles and 287 reprints published in Britain (Lehmann, Housewife 383). From the start of the 18th to the end of the 19th century only three cookbooks of Irish, or Anglo-Irish, authorship have been identified. The Lady’s Companion: or Accomplish’d Director In the whole Art of Cookery was published in 1767 by John Mitchell in Skinner-Row, under the pseudonym “Ceres,” while the Countess of Caledon’s Cheap Receipts and Hints on Cookery: Collected for Distribution Amongst the Irish Peasantry was printed in Armagh by J. M. Watters for private circulation in 1847. The modern sounding Dinners at Home, published in London in 1878 under the pseudonym “Short”, appears to be of Irish authorship, a review in The Irish Times describing it as being written by a “Dublin lady”, the inference being that she was known to the reviewer (Farmer). English Copyright Law was extended to Ireland in July 1801 after the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland in 1800 (Ferguson). Prior to this, many titles were pirated in Ireland, a cause of confusion alluded to by Lehmann when she comments regarding the Ceres book that it “does not appear to be simply a Dublin-printed edition of an English book” (Housewife 403). This attribution is based on the dedication in the preface: “To The Ladies of Dublin.” From her statement that she had a “great deal of experience in business of this kind”, one may conclude that Ceres had worked as a housekeeper or cook. Cheap Receipts and Hints on Cookery was the second of two books by Catherine Alexander, Countess of Caledon. While many commentators were offering advice to Irish people on how to alleviate their poverty, in Friendly Advice to Irish Mothers on Training their Children, Alexander was unusual in addressing her book specifically to its intended audience (Bourke). In this cookbook, the tone is of a practical didactic nature, the philosophy that of enablement. Given the paucity of printed material, manuscripts provide the main primary source regarding the existence of an indigenous culinary tradition. Attitudes regarding this tradition lie along the spectrum exemplified by the comments of an Irish journalist, Kevin Myers, and an eminent Irish historian, Louis Cullen. Myers describes Irish cuisine as a “travesty” and claims that the cuisine of “Old Ireland, in texture and in flavour, generally resembles the cinders after the suttee of a very large, but not very tasty widow”, Cullen makes the case that Irish cuisine is “one of the most interesting culinary traditions in Europe” (141). It is not proposed to investigate the ideological standpoints behind the various comments on Irish food. Indeed, the use of the term “Irish” in this context is fraught with difficulty and it should be noted that in the three manuscripts proposed here, the cuisine is that of the gentry class and representative of a particular stratum of society more accurately described as belonging to the Anglo-Irish tradition. It is also questionable how the authors of the three manuscripts discussed would have described themselves in terms of nationality. The anxiety surrounding this issue of identity is abating as scholarship has moved from viewing the cultural artifacts and buildings inherited from this class, not as symbols of an alien heritage, but rather as part of the narrative of a complex country (Rees). The antagonistic attitude towards this heritage could be seen as reaching its apogee in the late 1950s when the then Government minister, Kevin Boland, greeted the decision to demolish a row of Georgian houses in Dublin with jubilation, saying that they stood for everything that he despised, and describing the Georgian Society, who had campaigned for their preservation, as “the preserve of the idle rich and belted earls” (Foster 160). Mac Con Iomaire notes that there has been no comprehensive study of the history of Irish food, and the implications this has for opinions held, drawing attention to the lack of recognition that a “parallel Anglo-Irish cuisine existed among the Protestant elite” (43). To this must be added the observation that Myrtle Allen, the doyenne of the Irish culinary world, made when she observed that while we have an Irish identity in food, “we belong to a geographical and culinary group with Wales, England, and Scotland as all counties share their traditions with their next door neighbour” (1983). Three Irish Culinary Manuscripts The three manuscripts discussed here are held in the National Library of Ireland (NLI). The manuscript known as Tervoe has 402 folio pages with a 22-page index. The National Library purchased the manuscript at auction in December 2011. Although unattributed, it is believed to come from Tervoe House in County Limerick (O’Daly). Built in 1776 by Colonel W.T. Monsell (b.1754), the Monsell family lived there until 1951 (see, Fig. 1). The house was demolished in 1953 (Bence-Jones). William Monsell, 1st Lord Emly (1812–94) could be described as the most distinguished of the family. Raised in an atmosphere of devotion to the Union (with Great Britain), loyalty to the Church of Ireland, and adherence to the Tory Party, he converted in 1850 to the Roman Catholic religion, under the influence of Cardinal Newman and the Oxford Movement, changing his political allegiance from Tory to Whig. It is believed that this change took place as a result of the events surrounding the Great Irish Famine of 1845–50 (Potter). The Tervoe manuscript is catalogued as 18th century, and as the house was built in the last quarter of the century, it would be reasonable to surmise that its conception coincided with that period. It is a handsome volume with original green vellum binding, which has been conserved. Fig. 1. Tervoe House, home of the Monsell family. In terms of culinary prowess, the scope of the Tervoe manuscript is extensive. For the purpose of this discussion, one recipe is of particular interest. The recipe, To make a Cullis for Flesh Soups, instructs the reader to take the fat off four pounds of the best beef, roast the beef, pound it to a paste with crusts of bread and the carcasses of partridges or other fowl “that you have by you” (NLI, Tervoe). This mixture should then be moistened with best gravy, and strong broth, and seasoned with pepper, thyme, cloves, and lemon, then sieved for use with the soup. In 1747 Hannah Glasse published The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy. The 1983 facsimile edition explains the term “cullis” as an Anglicisation of the French word coulis, “a preparation for thickening soups and stews” (182). The coulis was one of the essential components of the nouvelle cuisine of the 18th century. This movement sought to separate itself from “the conspicuous consumption of profusion” to one where the impression created was one of refinement and elegance (Lehmann, Housewife 210). Reactions in England to this French culinary innovation were strong, if not strident. Glasse derides French “tricks”, along with French cooks, and the coulis was singled out for particular opprobrium. In reality, Glasse bestrides both sides of the divide by giving the much-hated recipe and commenting on it. She provides another example of this in her recipe for The French Way of Dressing Partridges to which she adds the comment: “this dish I do not recommend; for I think it an odd jumble of thrash, by that time the Cullis, the Essence of Ham, and all other Ingredients are reckoned, the Partridges will come to a fine penny; but such Receipts as this, is what you have in most Books of Cookery yet printed” (53). When Daniel Defoe in The Complete English Tradesman of 1726 criticised French tradesmen for spending so much on the facades of their shops that they were unable to offer their customers a varied stock within, we can see the antipathy spilling over into other creative fields (Craske). As a critical strategy, it is not dissimilar to Glasse when she comments “now compute the expense, and see if this dish cannot be dressed full as well without this expense” at the end of a recipe for the supposedly despised Cullis for all Sorts of Ragoo (53). Food had become part of the defining image of Britain as an aggressively Protestant culture in opposition to Catholic France (Lehmann Politics 75). The author of the Tervoe manuscript makes no comment about the dish other than “A Cullis is a mixture of things, strained off.” This is in marked contrast to the second manuscript (NLI, Limerick). The author of this anonymous manuscript, from which the title of this paper is taken, is considerably perplexed by the term cullis, despite the manuscript dating 1811 (Fig. 2). Of Limerick provenance also, but considerably more modest in binding and scope, the manuscript was added to for twenty years, entries terminating around 1831. The recipe for Beef Stake (sic) Pie is an exact transcription of a recipe in John Simpson’s A Complete System of Cookery, published in 1806, and reads Cut some beef steaks thin, butter a pan (or as Lord Buckingham’s cook, from whom these rects are taken, calls it a soutis pan, ? [sic] (what does he mean, is it a saucepan) [sic] sprinkle the pan with pepper and salt, shallots thyme and parsley, put the beef steaks in and the pan on the fire for a few minutes then put them to cool, when quite cold put them in the fire, scrape all the herbs in over the fire and ornament as you please, it will take an hour and half, when done take the top off and put in some coulis (what is that?) [sic]. Fig. 2. Beef Stake Pie (NLI, Limerick). Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland. Simpson was cook to Lord Buckingham for at least a year in 1796, and may indeed have travelled to Ireland with the Duke who had several connections there. A feature of this manuscript are the number of Cholera remedies that it contains, including the “Rect for the cholera sent by Dr Shanfer from Warsaw to the Brussels Government”. Cholera had reached Germany by 1830, and England by 1831. By March 1832, it had struck Belfast and Dublin, the following month being noted in Cork, in the south of the country. Lasting a year, the epidemic claimed 50,000 lives in Ireland (Fenning). On 29 April 1832, the diarist Amhlaoibh Ó Súilleabháin notes, “we had a meeting today to keep the cholera from Callan. May God help us” (De Bhaldraithe 132). By 18 June, the cholera is “wrecking destruction in Ennis, Limerick and Tullamore” (135) and on 26 November, “Seed being sown. The end of the month wet and windy. The cholera came to Callan at the beginning of the month. Twenty people went down with it and it left the town then” (139). This situation was obviously of great concern and this is registered in the manuscript. Another concern is that highlighted by the recommendation that “this receipt is as good as the bank. It has been obligingly given to Mrs Hawkesworth by the chief book keeper at the Bank of Ireland” (NLI, Limerick). The Bank of Ireland commenced business at St. Mary’s Abbey in Dublin in June 1783, having been established under the protection of the Irish Parliament as a chartered rather then a central bank. As such, it supplied a currency of solidity. The charter establishing the bank, however, contained a prohibitory clause preventing (until 1824 when it was repealed) more then six persons forming themselves into a company to carry on the business of banking. This led to the formation, especially outside Dublin, of many “small private banks whose failure was the cause of immense wretchedness to all classes of the population” (Gilbert 19). The collapse that caused the most distress was that of the Ffrench bank in 1814, founded eleven years previously by the family of Lord Ffrench, one of the leading Catholic peers, based in Connacht in the west of Ireland. The bank issued notes in exchange for Bank of Ireland notes. Loans from Irish banks were in the form of paper money which were essentially printed promises to pay the amount stated and these notes were used in ordinary transactions. So great was the confidence in the Ffrench bank that their notes were held by the public in preference to Bank of Ireland notes, most particularly in Connacht. On 27 June 1814, there was a run on the bank leading to collapse. The devastation spread through society, from business through tenant farmers to the great estates, and notably so in Galway. Lord Ffrench shot himself in despair (Tennison). Williams and Finn, founded in Kilkenny in 1805, entered bankruptcy proceedings in 1816, and the last private bank outside Dublin, Delacours in Mallow, failed in 1835 (Barrow). The issue of bank failure is commented on by writers of the period, notably so in Dickens, Thackery, and Gaskill, and Edgeworth in Ireland. Following on the Ffrench collapse, notes from the Bank of Ireland were accorded increased respect, reflected in the comment in this recipe. The receipt in question is one for making White Currant Wine, with the unusual addition of a slice of bacon suspended from the bunghole when the wine is turned, for the purpose of enriching it. The recipe was provided to “Mrs Hawkesworth by the chief book keeper of the bank” (NLI, Limerick). In 1812, a John Hawkesworth, agent to Lord CastleCoote, was living at Forest Lodge, Mountrath, County Laois (Ennis Chronicle). The Coote family, although settling in County Laois in the seventeenth century, had strong connections with Limerick through a descendent of the younger brother of the first Earl of Mountrath (Landed Estates). The last manuscript for discussion is the manuscript book of Mrs Abraham Whyte Baker of Ballytobin House, County Kilkenny, 1810 (NLI, Baker). Ballytobin, or more correctly Ballaghtobin, is a townland in the barony of Kells, four miles from the previously mentioned Callan. The land was confiscated from the Tobin family during the Cromwellian campaign in Ireland of 1649–52, and was reputedly purchased by a Captain Baker, to establish what became the estate of Ballaghtobin (Fig. 3) To this day, it is a functioning estate, remaining in the family, twice passing down through the female line. In its heyday, there were two acres of walled gardens from which the house would have drawn for its own provisions (Ballaghtobin). Fig. 3. Ballaghtobin 2013. At the time of writing the manuscript, Mrs. Sophia Baker was widowed and living at Ballaghtobin with her son and daughter-in-law, Charity who was “no beauty, but tall, slight” (Herbert 414). On the succession of her husband to the estate, Charity became mistress of Ballaghtobin, leaving Sophia with time on what were her obviously very capable hands (Nevin). Sophia Baker was the daughter of Sir John Blunden of Castle Blunden and Lucinda Cuffe, daughter of the first Baron Desart. Sophia was also first cousin of the diarist Dorothea Herbert, whose mother was Lucinda’s sister, Martha. Sophia Baker and Dorothea Herbert have left for posterity a record of life in the landed gentry class in rural Georgian Ireland, Dorothea describing Mrs. Baker as “full of life and spirits” (Herbert 70). Their close relationship allows the two manuscripts to converse with each other in a unique way. Mrs. Baker’s detailing of the provenance of her recipes goes beyond the norm, so that what she has left us is not just a remarkable work of culinary history but also a palimpsest of her family and social circle. Among the people she references are: “my grandmother”; Dorothea Beresford, half sister to the Earl of Tyrone, who lived in the nearby Curraghmore House; Lady Tyrone; and Aunt Howth, the sister of Dorothea Beresford, married to William St Lawrence, Lord Howth, and described by Johnathan Swift as “his blue eyed nymph” (195). Other attributions include Lady Anne Fitzgerald, wife of Maurice Fitzgerald, 16th knight of Kerry, Sir William Parsons, Major Labilen, and a Mrs. Beaufort (Fig. 4). Fig. 4. Mrs. Beauforts Rect. (NLI, Baker). Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland. That this Mrs. Beaufort was the wife of Daniel Augustus Beaufort, mother of the hydrographer Sir Francis Beaufort, may be deduced from the succeeding recipe supplied by a Mrs. Waller. Mrs. Beaufort’s maiden name was Waller. Fanny Beaufort, the elder sister of Sir Francis, was Richard Edgeworth’s fourth wife and close friend and confidante of his daughter Maria, the novelist. There are also entries for “Miss Herbert” and “Aunt Herbert.” While the Baker manuscript is of interest for the fact that it intersects the worlds of the novelist Maria Edgeworth and the diarist Dorothea Herbert, and for the societal references that it documents, it is also a fine collection of recipes that date back to the mid-18th century. An example of this is a recipe for Sligo pickled salmon that Mrs. Baker, nee Blunden, refers to in an index that she gives to a second volume. Unfortunately this second volume is not known to be extant. This recipe features in a Blunden family manuscript of 1760 as referred to in Anelecta Hibernica (McLysaght). The recipe has also appeared in Cookery and Cures of Old Kilkenny (St. Canices’s 24). Unlike the Tervoe and Limerick manuscripts, Mrs. Baker is unconcerned with recipes for “cullis”. Conclusion The three manuscripts that have been examined here are from the period before the famine of 1845–50, known as An Gorta Mór, translated as “the big hunger”. The famine preceding this, Bliain an Áir (the year of carnage) in 1740–1 was caused by extremely cold and rainy weather that wiped out the harvest (Ó Gráda 15). This earlier famine, almost forgotten today, was more severe than the subsequent one, causing the death of an eight of the population of the island over one and a half years (McBride). These manuscripts are written in living memory of both events. Within the world that they inhabit, it may appear there is little said about hunger or social conditions beyond the walls of their estates. Subjected to closer analysis, however, it is evident that they are loquacious in their own unique way, and make an important contribution to the narrative of cookbooks. Through the three manuscripts discussed here, we find evidence of the culinary hegemony of France and how practitioners in Ireland commented on this in comparatively neutral fashion. An awareness of cholera and bank collapses have been communicated in a singular fashion, while a conversation between diarist and culinary networker has allowed a glimpse into the world of the landed gentry in Ireland during the Georgian period. References Allen, M. “Statement by Myrtle Allen at the opening of Ballymaloe Cookery School.” 14 Nov. 1983. Ballaghtobin. “The Grounds”. nd. 13 Mar. 2013. ‹http://www.ballaghtobin.com/gardens.html›. Barrow, G.L. “Some Dublin Private Banks.” Dublin Historical Record 25.2 (1972): 38–53. Bence-Jones, M. A Guide to Irish Country Houses. London: Constable, 1988. Bourke, A. Ed. Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing Vol V. Cork: Cork UP, 2002. Craske, M. “Design and the Competitive Spirit in Early and Mid 18th Century England”, Journal of Design History 12.3 (1999): 187–216. Cullen, L. The Emergence of Modern Ireland. London: Batsford, 1981. Dawson, Graham. “Trauma, Memory, Politics. The Irish Troubles.” Trauma: Life Stories of Survivors. Ed. Kim Lacy Rogers, Selma Leydesdorff and Graham Dawson. New Jersey: Transaction P, 2004. De Bhaldraithe,T. Ed. Cín Lae Amhlaoibh. Cork: Mercier P, 1979. Ennis Chronicle. 12–23 Feb 1812. 10 Feb. 2013 ‹http://astheywere.blogspot.ie/2012/12/ennis-chronicle-1812-feb-23-feb-12.html› Farmar, A. E-mail correspondence between Farmar and Dr M. Mac Con Iomaire, 26 Jan. 2011. Fenning, H. “The Cholera Epidemic in Ireland 1832–3: Priests, Ministers, Doctors”. Archivium Hibernicum 57 (2003): 77–125. Ferguson, F. “The Industrialisation of Irish Book Production 1790-1900.” The Oxford History of the Irish Book, Vol. IV The Irish Book in English 1800-1891. Ed. J. Murphy. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. Foster, R.F. Luck and the Irish: A Brief History of Change from 1970. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Gilbert, James William. The History of Banking in Ireland. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1836. Glasse, Hannah. The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by a Lady: Facsimile Edition. Devon: Prospect, 1983. Gold, C. Danish Cookbooks. Seattle: U of Washington P, 2007. Herbert, D. Retrospections of an Outcast or the Life of Dorothea Herbert. London: Gerald Howe, 1929. Higgins, Michael D. “Remarks by President Michael D. Higgins reflecting on the Gorta Mór: the Great famine of Ireland.” Famine Commemoration, Boston, 12 May 2012. 18 Feb. 2013 ‹http://www.president.ie/speeches/ › Landed Estates Database, National University of Galway, Moore Institute for Research, 10 Feb. 2013 ‹http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/family-show.jsp?id=633.› Lehmann, G. The British Housewife: Cookery books, cooking and society in eighteenth-century Britain. Totnes: Prospect, 1993. ---. “Politics in the Kitchen.” 18th Century Life 23.2 (1999): 71–83. Mac Con Iomaire, M. “The Emergence, Development and Influence of French Haute Cuisine on Public Dining in Dublin Restaurants 1900-2000: An Oral History”. Vol. 2. PhD thesis. Dublin Institute of Technology. 2009. 8 Mar. 2013 ‹http://arrow.dit.ie/tourdoc/12›. McBride, Ian. Eighteenth Century Ireland: The Isle of Slaves. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2009. McLysaght, E.A. Anelecta Hibernica 15. Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1944. Myers, K. “Dinner is served ... But in Our Culinary Dessert it may be Korean.” The Irish Independent 30 Jun. 2006. Nevin, M. “A County Kilkenny Georgian Household Notebook.” Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 109 (1979): 5–18. (NLI) National Library of Ireland. Baker. 19th century manuscript. MS 34,952. ---. Limerick. 19th century manuscript. MS 42,105. ---. Tervoe. 18th century manuscript. MS 42,134. Ó Gráda, C. Famine: A Short History. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 2009. O’Daly, C. E-mail correspondence between Colette O’Daly, Assistant Keeper, Dept. of Manuscripts, National Library of Ireland and Dorothy Cashman. 8 Dec. 2011. Potter, M. William Monsell of Tervoe 1812-1894. Dublin: Irish Academic P, 2009. Rees, Catherine. “Irish Anxiety, Identity and Narrative in the Plays of McDonagh and Jones.” Redefinitions of Irish Identity: A Postnationalist Approach. Eds. Irene Gilsenan Nordin and Carmen Zamorano Llena. Bern: Peter Lang, 2010. St. Canice’s. Cookery and Cures of Old Kilkenny. Kilkenny: Boethius P, 1983. Swift, J. The Works of the Rev Dr J Swift Vol. XIX Dublin: Faulkner, 1772. 8 Feb. 2013. ‹http://www.google.ie/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=works+of+jonathan+swift+Vol+XIX+&btnG=› Tennison, C.M. “The Old Dublin Bankers.” Journal of the Cork Historical and Archeological Society 1.2 (1895): 36–9.

Abstract:

Introduction Crime fiction is one of the world’s most popular genres. Indeed, it has been estimated that as many as one in every three new novels, published in English, is classified within the crime fiction category (Knight xi). These new entrants to the market are forced to jostle for space on bookstore and library shelves with reprints of classic crime novels; such works placed in, often fierce, competition against their contemporaries as well as many of their predecessors. Raymond Chandler, in his well-known essay The Simple Art of Murder, noted Ernest Hemingway’s observation that “the good writer competes only with the dead. The good detective story writer […] competes not only with all the unburied dead but with all the hosts of the living as well” (3). In fact, there are so many examples of crime fiction works that, as early as the 1920s, one of the original ‘Queens of Crime’, Dorothy L. Sayers, complained: It is impossible to keep track of all the detective-stories produced to-day [sic]. Book upon book, magazine upon magazine pour out from the Press, crammed with murders, thefts, arsons, frauds, conspiracies, problems, puzzles, mysteries, thrills, maniacs, crooks, poisoners, forgers, garrotters, police, spies, secret-service men, detectives, until it seems that half the world must be engaged in setting riddles for the other half to solve (95). Twenty years after Sayers wrote on the matter of the vast quantities of crime fiction available, W.H. Auden wrote one of the more famous essays on the genre: The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the Detective Story, by an Addict. Auden is, perhaps, better known as a poet but his connection to the crime fiction genre is undisputed. As well as his poetic works that reference crime fiction and commentaries on crime fiction, one of Auden’s fellow poets, Cecil Day-Lewis, wrote a series of crime fiction novels under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake: the central protagonist of these novels, Nigel Strangeways, was modelled upon Auden (Scaggs 27). Interestingly, some writers whose names are now synonymous with the genre, such as Edgar Allan Poe and Raymond Chandler, established the link between poetry and crime fiction many years before the publication of The Guilty Vicarage. Edmund Wilson suggested that “reading detective stories is simply a kind of vice that, for silliness and minor harmfulness, ranks somewhere between crossword puzzles and smoking” (395). In the first line of The Guilty Vicarage, Auden supports Wilson’s claim and confesses that: “For me, as for many others, the reading of detective stories is an addiction like tobacco or alcohol” (406). This indicates that the genre is at best a trivial pursuit, at worst a pursuit that is bad for your health and is, increasingly, socially unacceptable, while Auden’s ideas around taste—high and low—are made clear when he declares that “detective stories have nothing to do with works of art” (406). The debates that surround genre and taste are many and varied. The mid-1920s was a point in time which had witnessed crime fiction writers produce some of the finest examples of fiction to ever be published and when readers and publishers were watching, with anticipation, as a new generation of crime fiction writers were readying themselves to enter what would become known as the genre’s Golden Age. At this time, R. Austin Freeman wrote that: By the critic and the professedly literary person the detective story is apt to be dismissed contemptuously as outside the pale of literature, to be conceived of as a type of work produced by half-educated and wholly incompetent writers for consumption by office boys, factory girls, and other persons devoid of culture and literary taste (7). This article responds to Auden’s essay and explores how crime fiction appeals to many different tastes: tastes that are acquired, change over time, are embraced, or kept as guilty secrets. In addition, this article will challenge Auden’s very narrow definition of crime fiction and suggest how Auden’s religious imagery, deployed to explain why many people choose to read crime fiction, can be incorporated into a broader popular discourse on punishment. This latter argument demonstrates that a taste for crime fiction and a taste for justice are inextricably intertwined. Crime Fiction: A Type For Every Taste Cathy Cole has observed that “crime novels are housed in their own section in many bookshops, separated from literary novels much as you’d keep a child with measles away from the rest of the class” (116). Times have changed. So too, have our tastes. Crime fiction, once sequestered in corners, now demands vast tracts of prime real estate in bookstores allowing readers to “make their way to the appropriate shelves, and begin to browse […] sorting through a wide variety of very different types of novels” (Malmgren 115). This is a result of the sheer size of the genre, noted above, as well as the genre’s expanding scope. Indeed, those who worked to re-invent crime fiction in the 1800s could not have envisaged the “taxonomic exuberance” (Derrida 206) of the writers who have defined crime fiction sub-genres, as well as how readers would respond by not only wanting to read crime fiction but also wanting to read many different types of crime fiction tailored to their particular tastes. To understand the demand for this diversity, it is important to reflect upon some of the appeal factors of crime fiction for readers. Many rules have been promulgated for the writers of crime fiction to follow. Ronald Knox produced a set of 10 rules in 1928. These included Rule 3 “Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable”, and Rule 10 “Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them” (194–6). In the same year, S.S. Van Dine produced another list of 20 rules, which included Rule 3 “There must be no love interest: The business in hand is to bring a criminal to the bar of justice, not to bring a lovelorn couple to the hymeneal altar”, and Rule 7 “There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better” (189–93). Some of these directives have been deliberately ignored or have become out-of-date over time while others continue to be followed in contemporary crime writing practice. In sharp contrast, there are no rules for reading this genre. Individuals are, generally, free to choose what, where, when, why, and how they read crime fiction. There are, however, different appeal factors for readers. The most common of these appeal factors, often described as doorways, are story, setting, character, and language. As the following passage explains: The story doorway beckons those who enjoy reading to find out what happens next. The setting doorway opens widest for readers who enjoy being immersed in an evocation of place or time. The doorway of character is for readers who enjoy looking at the world through others’ eyes. Readers who most appreciate skilful writing enter through the doorway of language (Wyatt online). These doorways draw readers to the crime fiction genre. There are stories that allow us to easily predict what will come next or make us hold our breath until the very last page, the books that we will cheerfully lend to a family member or a friend and those that we keep close to hand to re-read again and again. There are settings as diverse as country manors, exotic locations, and familiar city streets, places we have been and others that we might want to explore. There are characters such as the accidental sleuth, the hardboiled detective, and the refined police officer, amongst many others, the men and women—complete with idiosyncrasies and flaws—who we have grown to admire and trust. There is also the language that all writers, regardless of genre, depend upon to tell their tales. In crime fiction, even the most basic task of describing where the murder victim was found can range from words that convey the genteel—“The room of the tragedy” (Christie 62)—to the absurd: “There it was, jammed between a pallet load of best export boneless beef and half a tonne of spring lamb” (Maloney 1). These appeal factors indicate why readers might choose crime fiction over another genre, or choose one type of crime fiction over another. Yet such factors fail to explain what crime fiction is or adequately answer why the genre is devoured in such vast quantities. Firstly, crime fiction stories are those in which there is the committing of a crime, or at least the suspicion of a crime (Cole), and the story that unfolds revolves around the efforts of an amateur or professional detective to solve that crime (Scaggs). Secondly, crime fiction offers the reassurance of resolution, a guarantee that from “previous experience and from certain cultural conventions associated with this genre that ultimately the mystery will be fully explained” (Zunshine 122). For Auden, the definition of the crime novel was quite specific, and he argued that referring to the genre by “the vulgar definition, ‘a Whodunit’ is correct” (407). Auden went on to offer a basic formula stating that: “a murder occurs; many are suspected; all but one suspect, who is the murderer, are eliminated; the murderer is arrested or dies” (407). The idea of a formula is certainly a useful one, particularly when production demands—in terms of both quality and quantity—are so high, because the formula facilitates creators in the “rapid and efficient production of new works” (Cawelti 9). For contemporary crime fiction readers, the doorways to reading, discussed briefly above, have been cast wide open. Stories relying upon the basic crime fiction formula as a foundation can be gothic tales, clue puzzles, forensic procedurals, spy thrillers, hardboiled narratives, or violent crime narratives, amongst many others. The settings can be quiet villages or busy metropolises, landscapes that readers actually inhabit or that provide a form of affordable tourism. These stories can be set in the past, the here and now, or the future. Characters can range from Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin to Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade, from Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple to Kerry Greenwood’s Honourable Phryne Fisher. Similarly, language can come in numerous styles from the direct (even rough) words of Carter Brown to the literary prose of Peter Temple. Anything is possible, meaning everything is available to readers. For Auden—although he required a crime to be committed and expected that crime to be resolved—these doorways were only slightly ajar. For him, the story had to be a Whodunit; the setting had to be rural England, though a college setting was also considered suitable; the characters had to be “eccentric (aesthetically interesting individuals) and good (instinctively ethical)” and there needed to be a “completely satisfactory detective” (Sherlock Holmes, Inspector French, and Father Brown were identified as “satisfactory”); and the language descriptive and detailed (406, 409, 408). To illustrate this point, Auden’s concept of crime fiction has been plotted on a taxonomy, below, that traces the genre’s main developments over a period of three centuries. As can be seen, much of what is, today, taken for granted as being classified as crime fiction is completely excluded from Auden’s ideal. Figure 1: Taxonomy of Crime Fiction (Adapted from Franks, Murder 136) Crime Fiction: A Personal Journey I discovered crime fiction the summer before I started high school when I saw the film version of The Big Sleep starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. A few days after I had seen the film I started reading the Raymond Chandler novel of the same title, featuring his famous detective Philip Marlowe, and was transfixed by the second paragraph: The main hallway of the Sternwood place was two stories high. Over the entrance doors, which would have let in a troop of Indian elephants, there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armour rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn’t have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the visor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him. He didn’t seem to be really trying (9). John Scaggs has written that this passage indicates Marlowe is an idealised figure, a knight of romance rewritten onto the mean streets of mid-20th century Los Angeles (62); a relocation Susan Roland calls a “secular form of the divinely sanctioned knight errant on a quest for metaphysical justice” (139): my kind of guy. Like many young people I looked for adventure and escape in books, a search that was realised with Raymond Chandler and his contemporaries. On the escapism scale, these men with their stories of tough-talking detectives taking on murderers and other criminals, law enforcement officers, and the occasional femme fatale, were certainly a sharp upgrade from C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia. After reading the works written by the pioneers of the hardboiled and roman noir traditions, I looked to other American authors such as Edgar Allan Poe who, in the mid-1800s, became the father of the modern detective story, and Thorne Smith who, in the 1920s and 1930s, produced magical realist tales with characters who often chose to dabble on the wrong side of the law. This led me to the works of British crime writers including Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy L. Sayers. My personal library then became dominated by Australian writers of crime fiction, from the stories of bushrangers and convicts of the Colonial era to contemporary tales of police and private investigators. There have been various attempts to “improve” or “refine” my tastes: to convince me that serious literature is real reading and frivolous fiction is merely a distraction. Certainly, the reading of those novels, often described as classics, provide perfect combinations of beauty and brilliance. Their narratives, however, do not often result in satisfactory endings. This routinely frustrates me because, while I understand the philosophical frameworks that many writers operate within, I believe the characters of such works are too often treated unfairly in the final pages. For example, at the end of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Frederick Henry “left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain” after his son is stillborn and “Mrs Henry” becomes “very ill” and dies (292–93). Another example can be found on the last page of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four when Winston Smith “gazed up at the enormous face” and he realised that he “loved Big Brother” (311). Endings such as these provide a space for reflection about the world around us but rarely spark an immediate response of how great that world is to live in (Franks Motive). The subject matter of crime fiction does not easily facilitate fairy-tale finishes, yet, people continue to read the genre because, generally, the concluding chapter will show that justice, of some form, will be done. Punishment will be meted out to the ‘bad characters’ that have broken society’s moral or legal laws; the ‘good characters’ may experience hardships and may suffer but they will, generally, prevail. Crime Fiction: A Taste For Justice Superimposed upon Auden’s parameters around crime fiction, are his ideas of the law in the real world and how such laws are interwoven with the Christian-based system of ethics. This can be seen in Auden’s listing of three classes of crime: “(a) offenses against God and one’s neighbor or neighbors; (b) offenses against God and society; (c) offenses against God” (407). Murder, in Auden’s opinion, is a class (b) offense: for the crime fiction novel, the society reflected within the story should be one in “a state of grace, i.e., a society where there is no need of the law, no contradiction between the aesthetic individual and the ethical universal, and where murder, therefore, is the unheard-of act which precipitates a crisis” (408). Additionally, in the crime novel “as in its mirror image, the Quest for the Grail, maps (the ritual of space) and timetables (the ritual of time) are desirable. Nature should reflect its human inhabitants, i.e., it should be the Great Good Place; for the more Eden-like it is, the greater the contradiction of murder” (408). Thus, as Charles J. Rzepka notes, “according to W.H. Auden, the ‘classical’ English detective story typically re-enacts rites of scapegoating and expulsion that affirm the innocence of a community of good people supposedly ignorant of evil” (12). This premise—of good versus evil—supports Auden’s claim that the punishment of wrongdoers, particularly those who claim the “right to be omnipotent” and commit murder (409), should be swift and final: As to the murderer’s end, of the three alternatives—execution, suicide, and madness—the first is preferable; for if he commits suicide he refuses to repent, and if he goes mad he cannot repent, but if he does not repent society cannot forgive. Execution, on the other hand, is the act of atonement by which the murderer is forgiven by society (409). The unilateral endorsement of state-sanctioned murder is problematic, however, because—of the main justifications for punishment: retribution; deterrence; incapacitation; and rehabilitation (Carter Snead 1245)—punishment, in this context, focuses exclusively upon retribution and deterrence, incapacitation is achieved by default, but the idea of rehabilitation is completely ignored. This, in turn, ignores how the reading of crime fiction can be incorporated into a broader popular discourse on punishment and how a taste for crime fiction and a taste for justice are inextricably intertwined. One of the ways to explore the connection between crime fiction and justice is through the lens of Emile Durkheim’s thesis on the conscience collective which proposes punishment is a process allowing for the demonstration of group norms and the strengthening of moral boundaries. David Garland, in summarising this thesis, states: So although the modern state has a near monopoly of penal violence and controls the administration of penalties, a much wider population feels itself to be involved in the process of punishment, and supplies the context of social support and valorization within which state punishment takes place (32). It is claimed here that this “much wider population” connecting with the task of punishment can be taken further. Crime fiction, above all other forms of literary production, which, for those who do not directly contribute to the maintenance of their respective legal systems, facilitates a feeling of active participation in the penalising of a variety of perpetrators: from the issuing of fines to incarceration (Franks Punishment). Crime fiction readers are therefore, temporarily at least, direct contributors to a more stable society: one that is clearly based upon right and wrong and reliant upon the conscience collective to maintain and reaffirm order. In this context, the reader is no longer alone, with only their crime fiction novel for company, but has become an active member of “a moral framework which binds individuals to each other and to its conventions and institutions” (Garland 51). This allows crime fiction, once viewed as a “vice” (Wilson 395) or an “addiction” (Auden 406), to be seen as playing a crucial role in the preservation of social mores. It has been argued “only the most literal of literary minds would dispute the claim that fictional characters help shape the way we think of ourselves, and hence help us articulate more clearly what it means to be human” (Galgut 190). Crime fiction focuses on what it means to be human, and how complex humans are, because stories of murders, and the men and women who perpetrate and solve them, comment on what drives some people to take a life and others to avenge that life which is lost and, by extension, engages with a broad community of readers around ideas of justice and punishment. It is, furthermore, argued here that the idea of the story is one of the more important doorways for crime fiction and, more specifically, the conclusions that these stories, traditionally, offer. For Auden, the ending should be one of restoration of the spirit, as he suspected that “the typical reader of detective stories is, like myself, a person who suffers from a sense of sin” (411). In this way, the “phantasy, then, which the detective story addict indulges is the phantasy of being restored to the Garden of Eden, to a state of innocence, where he may know love as love and not as the law” (412), indicating that it was not necessarily an accident that “the detective story has flourished most in predominantly Protestant countries” (408). Today, modern crime fiction is a “broad church, where talented authors raise questions and cast light on a variety of societal and other issues through the prism of an exciting, page-turning story” (Sisterson). Moreover, our tastes in crime fiction have been tempered by a growing fear of real crime, particularly murder, “a crime of unique horror” (Hitchens 200). This has seen some readers develop a taste for crime fiction that is not produced within a framework of ecclesiastical faith but is rather grounded in reliance upon those who enact punishment in both the fictional and real worlds. As P.D. James has written: [N]ot by luck or divine intervention, but by human ingenuity, human intelligence and human courage. It confirms our hope that, despite some evidence to the contrary, we live in a beneficent and moral universe in which problems can be solved by rational means and peace and order restored from communal or personal disruption and chaos (174). Dorothy L. Sayers, despite her work to legitimise crime fiction, wrote that there: “certainly does seem a possibility that the detective story will some time come to an end, simply because the public will have learnt all the tricks” (108). Of course, many readers have “learnt all the tricks”, or most of them. This does not, however, detract from the genre’s overall appeal. We have not grown bored with, or become tired of, the formula that revolves around good and evil, and justice and punishment. Quite the opposite. Our knowledge of, as well as our faith in, the genre’s “tricks” gives a level of confidence to readers who are looking for endings that punish murderers and other wrongdoers, allowing for more satisfactory conclusions than the, rather depressing, ends given to Mr. Henry and Mr. Smith by Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell noted above. Conclusion For some, the popularity of crime fiction is a curious case indeed. When Penguin and Collins published the Marsh Million—100,000 copies each of 10 Ngaio Marsh titles in 1949—the author’s relief at the success of the project was palpable when she commented that “it was pleasant to find detective fiction being discussed as a tolerable form of reading by people whose opinion one valued” (172). More recently, upon the announcement that a Miles Franklin Award would be given to Peter Temple for his crime novel Truth, John Sutherland, a former chairman of the judges for one of the world’s most famous literary awards, suggested that submitting a crime novel for the Booker Prize would be: “like putting a donkey into the Grand National”. Much like art, fashion, food, and home furnishings or any one of the innumerable fields of activity and endeavour that are subject to opinion, there will always be those within the world of fiction who claim positions as arbiters of taste. Yet reading is intensely personal. I like a strong, well-plotted story, appreciate a carefully researched setting, and can admire elegant language, but if a character is too difficult to embrace—if I find I cannot make an emotional connection, if I find myself ambivalent about their fate—then a book is discarded as not being to my taste. It is also important to recognise that some tastes are transient. Crime fiction stories that are popular today could be forgotten tomorrow. Some stories appeal to such a broad range of tastes they are immediately included in the crime fiction canon. Yet others evolve over time to accommodate widespread changes in taste (an excellent example of this can be seen in the continual re-imagining of the stories of Sherlock Holmes). Personal tastes also adapt to our experiences and our surroundings. A book that someone adores in their 20s might be dismissed in their 40s. A storyline that was meaningful when read abroad may lose some of its magic when read at home. Personal events, from a change in employment to the loss of a loved one, can also impact upon what we want to read. Similarly, world events, such as economic crises and military conflicts, can also influence our reading preferences. Auden professed an almost insatiable appetite for crime fiction, describing the reading of detective stories as an addiction, and listed a very specific set of criteria to define the Whodunit. Today, such self-imposed restrictions are rare as, while there are many rules for writing crime fiction, there are no rules for reading this (or any other) genre. People are, generally, free to choose what, where, when, why, and how they read crime fiction, and to follow the deliberate or whimsical paths that their tastes may lay down for them. Crime fiction writers, past and present, offer: an incredible array of detective stories from the locked room to the clue puzzle; settings that range from the English country estate to city skyscrapers in glamorous locations around the world; numerous characters from cerebral sleuths who can solve a crime in their living room over a nice, hot cup of tea to weapon wielding heroes who track down villains on foot in darkened alleyways; and, language that ranges from the cultured conversations from the novels of the genre’s Golden Age to the hard-hitting terminology of forensic and legal procedurals. Overlaid on these appeal factors is the capacity of crime fiction to feed a taste for justice: to engage, vicariously at least, in the establishment of a more stable society. Of course, there are those who turn to the genre for a temporary distraction, an occasional guilty pleasure. There are those who stumble across the genre by accident or deliberately seek it out. There are also those, like Auden, who are addicted to crime fiction. So there are corpses for the conservative and dead bodies for the bloodthirsty. There is, indeed, a murder victim, and a murder story, to suit every reader’s taste. References Auden, W.H. “The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on The Detective Story, By an Addict.” Harper’s Magazine May (1948): 406–12. 1 Dec. 2013 ‹http://www.harpers.org/archive/1948/05/0033206›. Carter Snead, O. “Memory and Punishment.” Vanderbilt Law Review 64.4 (2011): 1195–264. Cawelti, John G. Adventure, Mystery and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1976/1977. Chandler, Raymond. The Big Sleep. London: Penguin, 1939/1970. ––. The Simple Art of Murder. New York: Vintage Books, 1950/1988. Christie, Agatha. The Mysterious Affair at Styles. London: HarperCollins, 1920/2007. Cole, Cathy. Private Dicks and Feisty Chicks: An Interrogation of Crime Fiction. Fremantle: Curtin UP, 2004. Derrida, Jacques. “The Law of Genre.” Glyph 7 (1980): 202–32. Franks, Rachel. “May I Suggest Murder?: An Overview of Crime Fiction for Readers’ Advisory Services Staff.” Australian Library Journal 60.2 (2011): 133–43. ––. “Motive for Murder: Reading Crime Fiction.” The Australian Library and Information Association Biennial Conference. Sydney: Jul. 2012. ––. “Punishment by the Book: Delivering and Evading Punishment in Crime Fiction.” Inter-Disciplinary.Net 3rd Global Conference on Punishment. Oxford: Sep. 2013. Freeman, R.A. “The Art of the Detective Story.” The Art of the Mystery Story: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Howard Haycraft. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1924/1947. 7–17. Galgut, E. “Poetic Faith and Prosaic Concerns: A Defense of Suspension of Disbelief.” South African Journal of Philosophy 21.3 (2002): 190–99. Garland, David. Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993. Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. London: Random House, 1929/2004. ––. in R. Chandler. The Simple Art of Murder. New York: Vintage Books, 1950/1988. Hitchens, P. A Brief History of Crime: The Decline of Order, Justice and Liberty in England. London: Atlantic Books, 2003. James, P.D. Talking About Detective Fiction. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. Knight, Stephen. Crime Fiction since 1800: Death, Detection, Diversity, 2nd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2010. Knox, Ronald A. “Club Rules: The 10 Commandments for Detective Novelists, 1928.” Ronald Knox Society of North America. 1 Dec. 2013 ‹http://www.ronaldknoxsociety.com/detective.html›. Malmgren, C.D. “Anatomy of Murder: Mystery, Detective and Crime Fiction.” Journal of Popular Culture Spring (1997): 115–21. Maloney, Shane. The Murray Whelan Trilogy: Stiff, The Brush-Off and Nice Try. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 1994/2008. Marsh, Ngaio in J. Drayton. Ngaio Marsh: Her Life in Crime. Auckland: Harper Collins, 2008. Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Penguin Books, 1949/1989. Roland, Susan. From Agatha Christie to Ruth Rendell: British Women Writers in Detective and Crime Fiction. London: Palgrave, 2001. Rzepka, Charles J. Detective Fiction. Cambridge: Polity, 2005. Sayers, Dorothy L. “The Omnibus of Crime.” The Art of the Mystery Story: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Howard Haycraft. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1928/1947. 71–109. Scaggs, John. Crime Fiction: The New Critical Idiom. London: Routledge, 2005. Sisterson, C. “Battle for the Marsh: Awards 2013.” Black Mask: Pulps, Noir and News of Same. 1 Jan. 2014 http://www.blackmask.com/category/awards-2013/ Sutherland, John. in A. Flood. “Could Miles Franklin turn the Booker Prize to Crime?” The Guardian. 1 Jan. 2014 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/25/miles-franklin-booker-prize-crime›. Van Dine, S.S. “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories.” The Art of the Mystery Story: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Howard Haycraft. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1928/1947. 189-93. Wilson, Edmund. “Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd.” The Art of the Mystery Story: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Howard Haycraft. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1944/1947. 390–97. Wyatt, N. “Redefining RA: A RA Big Think.” Library Journal Online. 1 Jan. 2014 ‹http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2007/07/ljarchives/lj-series-redefining-ra-an-ra-big-think›. Zunshine, Lisa. Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2006.

Abstract:

Despite the now-traditional tendency of noir scholarship to call attention to the retrospective and constructed nature of this genre— James Naremore argues that film noir is best regarded as a “mythology”— one feature that has rarely come under question is its association with the city (2). Despite the existence of numerous rural noirs, the depiction of urban space is associated with this genre more consistently than any other element. Even in critical accounts that attempt to deconstruct the solidity of the noir genre, the city is left as an implicit inclusion, and the country, an implict exclusion. Naremore, for example, does not include the urban environment in a list of the central tenets of film noir that he calls into question: “nothing links together all the things described as noir—not the theme of crime, not a cinematographic technique, not even a resistance to Aristotelian narratives or happy endings” (10). Elizabeth Cowie identifies film noir a “fantasy,” whose “tenuous critical status” has been compensated for “by a tenacity of critical use” (121). As part of Cowie’s project, to revise the assumption that noirs are almost exclusively male-centered, she cites character types, visual style, and narrative tendencies, but never urban spaces, as familiar elements of noir that ought to be reconsidered. If the city is rarely tackled as an unnecessary or part-time element of film noir in discursive studies, it is often the first trait identified by critics in the kind of formative, characteristic-compiling studies that Cowie and Naremore work against.Andrew Dickos opens Street with No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir with a list of noir’s key attributes. The first item is “an urban setting or at least an urban influence” (6). Nicholas Christopher maintains that “the city is the seedbed of film noir. […] However one tries to define or explain noir, the common denominator must always be the city. The two are inseparable” (37). Though the tendencies of noir scholars— both constructive and deconstructive— might lead readers to believe otherwise, rural locations figure prominently in a number of noir films. I will show that the noir genre is, indeed, flexible enough to encompass many films set predominantly or partly in rural locations. Steve Neale, who encourages scholars to work with genre terms familiar to original audiences, would point out that the rural noir is an academic discovery not an industry term, or one with much popular currency (166). Still, this does not lessen the critical usefulness of this subgenre, or its implications for noir scholarship.While structuralist and post-structuralist modes of criticism dominated film genre criticism in the 1970s and 80s, as Thomas Schatz has pointed out, these approaches often sacrifice close attention to film texts, for more abstract, high-stakes observations: “while there is certainly a degree to which virtually every mass-mediated cultural artifact can be examined from [a mythical or ideological] perspective, there appears to be a point at which we tend to lose sight of the initial object of inquiry” (100). Though my reading of these films sidesteps attention to social and political concerns, this article performs the no-less-important task of clarifying the textual features of this sub-genre. To this end, I will survey the tendencies of the rural noir more generally, mentioning more than ten films that fit this subgenre, before narrowing my analysis to a reading of Moonrise (Frank Borzage, 1948), Thieves’ Highway (Jules Dassin, 1949), They Live By Night (Nicholas Ray, 1949) and On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, 1952). Robert Mitchum tries to escape his criminal life by settling in a small, mountain-side town in Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947). A foggy marsh provides a dramatic setting for the Bonnie and Clyde-like demise of lovers on the run in Gun Crazy (Joseph Lewis, 1950). In The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950), Sterling Hayden longs to return home after he is forced to abandon his childhood horse farm for a life of organised crime in the city. Rob Ryan plays a cop unable to control his violent impulses in On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, 1952). He is re-assigned from New York City to a rural community up-state in hopes that a less chaotic environment will have a curative effect. The apple orchards of Thieves’ Highway are no refuge from networks of criminal corruption. In They Live By Night, a pair of young lovers, try to leave their criminal lives behind, hiding out in farmhouses, cabins, and other pastoral locations in the American South. Finally, the location of prisons explains a number of sequences set in spare, road-side locations such as those in The Killer is Loose (Budd Boetticher, 1956), The Hitch-Hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953), and Raw Deal (Anthony Mann, 1948). What are some common tendencies of the rural noir? First, they usually feature both rural and urban settings, which allows the portrayal of one to be measured against the other. What we see of the city structures the definition of the country, and vice versa. Second, the lead character moves between these two locations by driving. For criminals, the car is more essential for survival in the country than in the city, so nearly all rural noirs are also road movies. Third, nature often figures as a redemptive force for urbanites steeped in lives of crime. Fourth, the curative quality of the country is usually tied to a love interest in this location: the “nurturing woman” as defined by Janey Place, who encourages the protagonist to forsake his criminal life (60). Fifth, the country is never fully crime-free. In The Killer is Loose, for example, an escaped convict’s first victim is a farmer, whom he clubs before stealing his truck. The convict (Wendell Corey), then, easily slips through a motorcade with the farmer’s identification. Here, the sprawling countryside provides an effective cover for the killer. This farmland is not an innocent locale, but the criminal’s safety-net. In films where a well-intentioned lead attempts to put his criminal life behind him by moving to a remote location, urban associates have little trouble tracking him down. While the country often appears, to protagonists like Jeff in Out of the Past or Bowie in They Live By Night, as an ideal place to escape from crime, as these films unfold, violence reaches the countryside. If these are similar points, what are some differences among rural noirs? First, there are many differences by degree among the common elements listed above. For instance, some rural noirs present their location with unabashed romanticism, while others critique the idealisation of these locations; some “nurturing women” are complicit with criminal activity, while others are entirely innocent. Second, while noir films are commonly known for treating similar urban locations, Los Angeles in particular, these films feature a wide variety of locations: Out of the Past and Thieves’ Highway take place in California, the most common setting for rural noirs, but On Dangerous Ground is set in northern New England, They Live by Night takes place in the Depression-era South, Moonrise in Southern swampland, and the most dynamic scene of The Asphalt Jungle is in rural Kentucky. Third, these films also vary considerably in the balance of settings. If the three typical locations of the rural noir are the country, the city, and the road, the distribution of these three locations varies widely across these films. The location of The Asphalt Jungle matches the title until its dramatic conclusion. The Hitch-hiker, arguably a rural noir, is set in travelling cars, with just brief stops in the barren landscape outside. Two of the films I analyse, They Live By Night and Moonrise are set entirely in the country; a remarkable exception to the majority of films in this subgenre. There are only two other critical essays on the rural noir. In “Shadows in the Hinterland: Rural Noir,” Jonathan F. Bell contextualises the rural noir in terms of post-war transformations of the American landscape. He argues that these films express a forlorn faith in the agrarian myth while the U.S. was becoming increasingly developed and suburbanised. That is to say, the rural noir simultaneously reflects anxiety over the loss of rural land, but also the stubborn belief that the countryside will always exist, if the urbanite needs it as a refuge. Garry Morris suggests the following equation as the shortest way to state the thematic interest of this genre: “Noir = industrialisation + (thwarted) spirituality.” He attributes much of the malaise of noir protagonists to the inhospitable urban environment, “far from [society’s] pastoral and romantic and spiritual origins.” Where Bell focuses on nine films— Detour (1945), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Out of the Past (1947), Key Largo (1948), Gun Crazy (1949), On Dangerous Ground (1952), The Hitch-Hiker (1953), Split Second (1953), and Killer’s Kiss (1955)— Morris’s much shorter article includes just The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and Gun Crazy. Of the four films I discuss, only On Dangerous Ground has previously been treated as part of this subgenre, though it has never been discussed alongside Nicholas Ray’s other rural noir. To further the development of the project that these authors have started— the formation of a rural noir corpus— I propose the inclusion of three additional films in this subgenre: Moonrise (1948), They Live by Night (1949), and Thieves’ Highway (1949). With both On Dangerous Ground and They Live by Night to his credit, Nicholas Ray has the distinction of being the most prolific director of rural noirs. In They Live by Night, two young lovers, Bowie (Farley Granger) and Keechie (Cathy O’Donnell), attempt to escape from their established criminal lives. Twenty-three year old Bowie has just been released from juvenile prison and finds rural Texas refreshing: “Out here, the air smells different,” he says. He meets Keechie through her father, a small time criminal organiser who would be happy to keep her secluded for life. When one of Bowie’s accomplices, Chicamaw (Howard DaSilva), shoots a policeman after a robbing a bank with Bowie, the young couple is forced to run. Foster Hirsch calls They Live by Night “a genre rarity, a sentimental noir” (34). The naïve blissfulness of their affection is associated with the primitive settings they navigate. Though Bowie and Keechie are the most sympathetic protagonists of any rural noir, this is no safeguard against an inevitable, characteristically noir demise. Janey Place writes, “the young lovers are doomed, but the possibility of their love transcends and redeems them both, and its failure criticises the urbanised world that will not let them live” (63). As indicated here, the country offers the young lovers refuge for some time, and their bond is depicted as wonderfully strong, but it is doomed by the stronger force of the law.Raymond Williams discusses how different characteristics are associated with urban and rural spaces:On the country has gathered the idea of a natural way of life: of peace, innocence, and simple virtue. On the city has gathered the idea of an achieved center: of learning, communication, light. Powerful hostile associations have also developed: on the city as a place of noise, worldliness and ambition; on the country as a place of backwardness, ignorance, limitation. (1) They Live By Night breaks down these dichotomies, showing the persistence of crime rooted in rural areas.Bowie desires to “get squared around” and live a more natural life with Keechie. Williams’ country adjectives— “peace, innocence, and simple virtue”— describe the nature of this relationship perfectly. Yet, criminal activity, usually associated with the city, has an overwhelmingly strong presence in this region and their lives. Bowie, following the doomed logic of many a crime film character, plans to launch a new, more honest life with cash raised in a heist. Keechie recognises the contradictions in this plan: “Fine way to get squared around, teaming with them. Stealing money and robbing banks. You’ll get in so deep trying to get squared, they’ll have enough to keep you in for two life times.” For Bowie, crime and the pursuit of love are inseparably bound, refuting the illusion of the pure and innocent countryside personified by characters like Mary Malden in On Dangerous Ground and Ann Miller in Out of the Past.In Ray’s other rural noir, On Dangerous Ground, a lonely, angry, and otherwise burned out cop, Wilson (Rob Ryan), finds both love and peace in his time away from the city. While on his up-state assignment, Wilson meets Mary Walden (Ida Lupino), a blind woman who lives a secluded life miles away from this already desolate, rural community. Mary has a calming influence on Wilson, and fits well within Janey Place’s notion of the archetypal nurturing woman in film noir: “The redemptive woman often represents or is part of a primal connection with nature and/or with the past, which are safe, static states rather than active, exciting ones, but she can sometimes offer the only transcendence possible in film noir” (63).If, as Colin McArthur observes, Ray’s characters frequently seek redemption in rural locales— “[protagonists] may reject progress and modernity; they may choose to go or are sent into primitive areas. […] The journeys which bring them closer to nature may also offer them hope of salvation” (124) — the conclusions of On Dangerous Ground versus They Live By Night offer two markedly different resolutions to this narrative. Where Bowie and Keechie’s life on the lam cannot be sustained, On Dangerous Ground, against the wishes of its director, portrays a much more romanticised version of pastoral life. According to Andrew Dickos, “Ray wanted to end the film on the ambivalent image of Jim Wilson returning to the bleak city,” after he had restored order up-state (132). The actual ending is more sentimental. Jim rushes back north to be with Mary. They passionately kiss in close-up, cueing an exuberant orchestral score as The End appears over a slow tracking shot of the majestic, snow covered landscape. In this way, On Dangerous Ground overturns the usual temporal associations of rural versus urban spaces. As Raymond Williams identifies, “The common image of the country is now an image of the past, and the common image of the city an image of the future” (297). For Wilson, by contrast, city life was no longer sustainable and rurality offers his best means for a future. Leo Marx noted in a variety of American pop culture, from Mark Twain to TV westerns and magazine advertising, a “yearning for a simpler, more harmonious style of life, and existence ‘closer to nature,’ that is the psychic root of all pastoralism— genuine and spurious” (Marx 6). Where most rural noirs expose the agrarian myth as a fantasy and a sham, On Dangerous Ground, exceptionally, perpetuates it as actual and effectual. Here, a bad cop is made good with a few days spent in a sparsely populated area and with a woman shaped by her rural upbringing.As opposed to On Dangerous Ground, where the protagonist’s movement from city to country matches his split identity as a formerly corrupt man wishing to be pure, Frank Borzage’s B-film Moonrise (1948) is located entirely in rural or small-town locations. Set in the fictional Southern town of Woodville, which spans swamps, lushly wooded streets and aging Antebellum mansions, the lead character finds good and bad within the same rural location and himself. Dan (Dane Clark) struggles to escape his legacy as the son of a murderer. This conflict is irreparably heightened when Dan kills a man (who had repeatedly teased and bullied him) in self-defence. The instability of Dan’s moral compass is expressed in the way he treats innocent elements of the natural world: flies, dogs, and, recalling Out of the Past, a local deaf boy. He is alternately cruel and kind. Dan is finally redeemed after seeking the advice of a black hermit, Mose (Rex Ingram), who lives in a ramshackle cabin by the swamp. He counsels Dan with the advice that men turn evil from “being lonesome,” not for having “bad blood.” When Dan, eventually, decides to confess to his crime, the sheriff finds him tenderly holding a search hound against a bucolic, rural backdrop. His complete comfortability with the landscape and its creatures finally allows Dan to reconcile the film’s opening opposition. He is no longer torturously in between good and evil, but openly recognises his wrongs and commits to do good in the future. If I had to select just a single shot to illustrate that noirs are set in rural locations more often than most scholarship would have us believe, it would be the opening sequence of Moonrise. From the first shot, this film associates rural locations with criminal elements. The credit sequence juxtaposes pooling water with an ominous brass score. In this disorienting opening, the camera travels from an image of water, to a group of men framed from the knees down. The camera dollies out and pans left, showing that these men, trudging solemnly, are another’s legal executioners. The frame tilts upward and we see a man hung in silhouette. This dense shot is followed by an image of a baby in a crib, also shadowed, the water again, and finally the execution scene. If this sequence is a thematic montage, it can also be discussed, more simply, as a series of establishing shots: a series of images that, seemingly, could not be more opposed— a baby, a universal symbol of innocence, set against the ominous execution, cruel experience— are paired together by virtue of their common location. The montage continues, showing that the baby is the son of the condemned man. As Dan struggles with the legacy of his father throughout the film, this opening shot continues to inform our reading of this character, split between the potential for good or evil.What a baby is to Moonrise, or, to cite a more familiar reference, what the insurance business is to many a James M. Cain roman noir, produce distribution is to Jules Dassin’s Thieves’ Highway (1949). The apple, often a part of wholesome American myths, is at the centre of this story about corruption. Here, a distribution network that brings Americans this hearty, simple product is connected with criminal activity and violent abuses of power more commonly portrayed in connection with cinematic staples of organised crime such as bootlegging or robbery. This film portrays bad apples in the apple business, showing that no profit driven enterprise— no matter how traditional or rural— is beyond the reach of corruption.Fitting the nature of this subject, numerous scenes in the Dassin film take place in the daylight (in addition to darkness), and in the countryside (in addition to the city) as we move between wine and apple country to the market districts of San Francisco. But if the subject and setting of Thieves’ Highway are unusual for a noir, the behaviour of its characters is not. Spare, bright country landscapes form the backdrop for prototypical noir behaviour: predatory competition for money and power.As one would expect of a film noir, the subject of apple distribution is portrayed with dynamic violence. In the most exciting scene of the film, a truck careens off the road after a long pursuit from rival sellers. Apples scatter across a hillside as the truck bursts into flames. This scene is held in a long-shot, as unscrupulous thugs gather the produce for sale while the unfortunate driver burns to death. Here, the reputedly innocent American apple is subject to cold-blooded, profit-maximizing calculations as much as the more typical topics of noir such as blackmail, fraud, or murder. Passages on desolate roads and at apple orchards qualify Thieves’ Highway as a rural noir; the dark, cynical manner in which capitalist enterprise is treated is resonant with nearly all film noirs. Thieves’ Highway follows a common narrative pattern amongst rural noirs to gradually reveal rural spaces as connected to criminality in urban locations. Typically, this disillusioning fact is narrated from the perspective of a lead character who first has a greater sense of safety in rural settings but learns, over the course of the story, to be more wary in all locations. In Thieves’, Nick’s hope that apple-delivery might earn an honest dollar (he is the only driver to treat the orchard owners fairly) gradually gives way to an awareness of the inevitable corruption that has taken over this enterprise at all levels of production, from farmer, to trucker, to wholesaler, and thus, at all locations, the country, the road, and the city.Between this essay, and the previous work of Morris and Bell on the subject, we are developing a more complete survey of the rural noir. Where Bell’s and Morris’s essays focus more resolutely on rural noirs that relied on the contrast of the city versus the country— which, significantly, was the first tendency of this subgenre that I observed— Moonrise and They Live By Night demonstrate that this genre can work entirely apart from the city. From start to finish, these films take place in small towns and rural locations. As opposed to Out of the Past, On Dangerous Ground, or The Asphalt Jungle, characters are never pulled back to, nor flee from, an urban life of crime. Instead, vices that are commonly associated with the city have a free-standing life in the rural locations that are often thought of as a refuge from these harsh elements. If both Bell and Morris study the way that rural noirs draw differences between the city and country, two of the three films I add to the subgenre constitute more complete rural noirs, films that work wholly outside urban locations, not just in contrast with it. Bell, like me, notes considerable variety in rural noirs locations, “desert landscapes, farms, mountains, and forests all qualify as settings for consideration,” but he also notes that “Diverse as these landscapes are, this set of films uses them in surprisingly like-minded fashion to achieve a counterpoint to the ubiquitous noir city” (219). In Bell’s analysis, all nine films he studies, feature significant urban segments. He is, in fact, so inclusive as to discuss Stanley Kubrick’s Killer’s Kiss as a rural noir even though it does not contain a single frame shot or set outside of New York City. Rurality is evoked only as a possibility, as alienated urbanite Davy (Jamie Smith) receives letters from his horse-farm-running relatives. Reading these letters offers Davy brief moments of respite from drudgerous city spaces such as the subway and his cramped apartment. In its emphasis on the centrality of rural locations, my project is more similar to David Bell’s work on the rural in horror films than to Jonathan F. Bell’s work on the rural noir. David Bell analyses the way that contemporary horror films work against a “long tradition” of the “idyllic rural” in many Western texts (95). As opposed to works “from Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman to contemporary television shows like Northern Exposure and films such as A River Runs Through It or Grand Canyon” in which the rural is positioned as “a restorative to urban anomie,” David Bell analyses films such as Deliverance and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that depict “a series of anti-idyllic visions of the rural” (95). Moonrise and They Live By Night, like these horror films, portray the crime and the country as coexistent spheres at the same time that the majority of other popular culture, including noirs like Killer’s Kiss or On Dangerous Ground, portray them as mutually exclusive.To use a mode of generic analysis developed by Rick Altman, the rural noir, while preserving the dominant syntax of other noirs, presents a remarkably different semantic element (31). Consider the following description of the genre, from the introduction to Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide: “The darkness that fills the mirror of the past, which lurks in a dark corner or obscures a dark passage out of the oppressively dark city, is not merely the key adjective of so many film noir titles but the obvious metaphor for the condition of the protagonist’s mind” (Silver and Ward, 4). In this instance, the narrative elements, or syntax, of film noir outlined by Silver and Ward do not require revision, but the urban location, a semantic element, does. Moonrise and They Live By Night demonstrate the sustainability of the aforementioned syntactic elements— the dark, psychological experience of the leads and their inescapable criminal past— apart from the familiar semantic element of the city.The rural noir must also cause us to reconsider— beyond rural representations or film noir— more generally pitched genre theories. Consider the importance of place to film genre, the majority of which are defined by a typical setting: for melodramas, it is the family home, for Westerns, the American west, and for musicals, the stage. Thomas Schatz separates American genres according to their setting, between genres which deal with “determinate” versus “indeterminate” space:There is a vital distinction between kinds of generic settings and conflicts. Certain genres […] have conflicts that, indigenous to the environment, reflect the physical and ideological struggle for its control. […] Other genres have conflicts that are not indigenous to the locale but are the results of the conflict between the values, attitudes, and actions of its principal characters and the ‘civilised’ setting they inhabit. (26) Schatz discusses noirs, along with detective films, as films which trade in “determinate” settings, limited to the space of the city. The rural noir slips between Schatz’s dichotomy, moving past the space of the city, but not into the civilised, tame settings of the genres of “indeterminate spaces.” It is only fitting that a genre whose very definition lies in its disruption of Hollywood norms— trading high- for low-key lighting, effectual male protagonists for helpless ones, and a confident, coherent worldview for a more paranoid, unstable one would, finally, be able to accommodate a variation— the rural noir— that would seem to upset one of its central tenets, an urban locale. Considering the long list of Hollywood standards that film noirs violated, according to two of its original explicators, Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton— “a logical action, an evident distinction between good and evil, well-defined characters with clear motives, scenes that are more spectacular than brutal, a heroine who is exquisitely feminine and a hero who is honest”— it should, perhaps, not be so surprising that the genre is flexible enough to accommodate the existence of the rural noir after all (14). AcknowledgmentsIn addition to M/C Journal's anonymous readers, the author would like to thank Corey Creekmur, Mike Slowik, Barbara Steinson, and Andrew Gorman-Murray for their helpful suggestions. ReferencesAltman, Rick. “A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre.” Film Genre Reader III. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. 27-41.The Asphalt Jungle. Dir. John Huston. MGM/UA, 1950.Bell, David. “Anti-Idyll: Rural Horror.” Contested Countryside Cultures. Eds. Paul Cloke and Jo Little. London, Routledge, 1997. 94-108.Bell, Jonathan F. “Shadows in the Hinterland: Rural Noir.” Architecture and Film. Ed. Mark Lamster. New York: Princeton Architectural P, 2000. 217-230.Borde, Raymond and Etienne Chaumeton. A Panorama of American Film Noir. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2002.Christopher, Nicholas. Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir and the American City. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.Cowie, Elizabeth. “Film Noir and Women.” Shades of Noir. Ed. Joan Copjec. New York: Verso, 1993. 121-166.Dickos, Andrew. Street with No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2002.Hirsch, Foster. Detours and Lost Highways: A Map of Neo-Noir. New York: Limelight Editions, 1999.Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden. New York: Oxford UP, 1964.McArthur, Colin. Underworld U.S.A. London: BFI, 1972.Moonrise. Dir. Frank Borzage. Republic, 1948.Morris, Gary. “Noir Country: Alien Nation.” Bright Lights Film Journal Nov. 2006. 13. Jun. 2008 http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/54/noircountry.htm Muller, Eddie. Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir. New York: St. Martin’s P, 1998.Naremore, James. More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts. Berkeley, C.A.: U of California P, 2008.Neale, Steve. “Questions of Genre.” Film Genre Reader III. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. 160-184.On Dangerous Ground. Dir. Nicholas Ray. RKO, 1951.Out of the Past. Dir. Jacques Tourneur. RKO, 1947.Place, Janey. “Women in Film Noir.” Women in Film Noir. Ed. E. Ann Kaplan. London: BFI, 1999. 47-68.Schatz, Thomas. Hollywood Genres. New York: Random House, 1981.Schatz, Thomas. “The Structural Influence: New Directions in Film Genre Study.” Film Genre Reader III. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. 92-102.Silver, Alain and Elizabeth Ward. Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. London: Bloomsbury, 1980.They Live by Night. Dir. Nicholas Ray. RKO, 1949.Thieves’ Highway. Dir. Jules Dassin. Fox, 1949.Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. New York: Oxford UP, 1973.