Olney, Buckinghamshire
Olney is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Milton Keynes in South East England. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of around 6,500 people, it lies on the River Great Ouse close to the borders of Buckinghamshire with Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, equidistant from Northampton and Milton Keynes. It is accessed by the M1 at Junction 14, with the closest passenger rail service at Milton Keynes Central and Bedford railway stations, it is a popular tourist destination best known for the Olney Pancake Race and for the Olney Hymns by William Cowper and John Newton. First mentioned as Ollanege in 932, the town has a history as a lace-making centre. According to the Domesday Book the place called Olnei, was held in 1086 AD by Geoffrey de Montbray, Bishop of Coutances, as its overlord. During the English Civil War, Olney was the site of the Battle of Olney Bridge. In the late 18th century, William Cowper and John Newton collaborated here on what became known as the Olney Hymns. John Newton, author of the hymn "Amazing Grace," is buried here.
His guest was William Cowper. The town has the Newton Museum dedicated to them; the museum was adapted from Cowper's former residence, given to the town in 1905 by the publisher William Hill Collingridge. Newton was succeeded as curate in Olney by the biblical commentator Thomas Scott; the hamlet of Olney Park Farm to the north of the town of Olney derives its name from a park established in 1374 by Ralph, Third Baron Bassett of Sapcote in Leicester. In 1861 it attained civil parish status, but was subsequently incorporated into an enlarged Olney civil parish around 1931. Olney had its own railway station on the Bedford-Northampton line and the Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway, but passenger services were withdrawn in 1962. Since 1445, a pancake race has been run in the town on many Pancake Days, the day before the beginning of Lent. Tradition records that in 1445 on Shrove Tuesday, the "Shriving Bell" rang out to signal the start of the Shriving church service. On hearing the bell a local housewife, busy cooking pancakes in anticipation of the beginning of Lent, ran to the church, frying pan still in hand, tossing the pancake to prevent it from burning, dressed in her kitchen apron and headscarf.
The women of Olney recreate this race every Shrove Tuesday by running from the market place to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, a distance of over 400 yards; the traditional prize is a kiss from the verger. In modern times, Olney competes with the town of Liberal, Kansas in the United States for the fastest time in either town to win the "International Pancake Race". There is a children's race, run by children from the local schools; the children have to run a distance of about 20 yards. This competition has been run every year since 1950; the A509 road runs into the wide High Street bordered by historic town houses. The Market Place is the site of a general market on Thursdays and a farmers' market on the first Sunday each month; the vast majority of Olney shops are independents, attracting shoppers from further afield to find the galleries, antique and furniture sellers, as well as boutiques for interior design, fashionable clothes and perfumery. There are restaurants, pubs and takeaways offering a wide variety of British and international food.
As Olney continues to expand, with new housing estates, a secondary-level satellite campus, Ousedale School has opened for pupils from year 7 to year 11. Olney Infants School is for reception to year 2 children and Olney Middle School takes the children up to year 6, at the age of 11; the route for an A509 by-pass may continue to be an issue for the residents of the town, as are the various wind farm sites proposed in the locality. Olney is the northernmost town in the South East of England region, close to the boundary with the East Midlands. Olney has for many years been a rugby town, with its rugby team dating to 1877. Called Olney Rugby Football Club, it has four regular senior teams, they cater for Colts rugby, women's rugby, girls' rugby and mini rugby. The club holds many social events for the town, one of these being a Rugby 7s tournament, with teams attending from all over the country. Olney's rugby is played to a high standard in the English rugby union Leagues, winning the Lewis Shield in 2007, the Southern Counties North League in 2008, the Bucks Cup in 2010.
The town's football club, Olney Town, played in the United Counties League but closed down in 2018. The town has a junior football club, Olney Town Colts FC; the FA Charter Standard club has 27 teams ranging from U5s to U18s and an adult development team ensuring local players can continue playing beyond youth football. Other sports activities are supported by clubs for cricket and bowls, a hockey club for juniors. Thomas Armstrong and college administrator Moses Browne and clergyman William Cowper and hymn writer Clem Curtis, television personality, a member of The Foundations. Henry Gauntlett and composer Susannah Martin, a woman executed for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials John Newton, slave trader turned abolitionist and writer of "Amazing Grace" Dan Wheldon, racing driver, winner of the 2005 IndyCar Series and twice winner of the Indianapolis 500'Parishes: Olney with Warrington', Victoria History of the Counties of England, A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 4, pp. 429–439
Psalms
The Book of Psalms referred to as Psalms or "the Psalms", is the first book of the Ketuvim, the third section of the Hebrew Bible, thus a book of the Christian Old Testament. The title is derived from the Greek translation, ψαλμοί, meaning "instrumental music" and, by extension, "the words accompanying the music"; the book is an anthology of individual psalms, with 150 in the Jewish and Western Christian tradition and more in the Eastern Christian churches. Many are linked to the name of David; the Book of Psalms is divided into five sections, each closing with a doxology —these divisions were introduced by the final editors to imitate the five-fold division of the Torah: Book 1 Book 2 Book 3 Book 4 Book 5 Many psalms have individual superscriptions, ranging from lengthy comments to a single word. Over a third appear to be musical directions, addressed to the "leader" or "choirmaster", including such statements as "with stringed instruments" and "according to lilies". Others appear to be references to types of musical composition, such as "A psalm" and "Song", or directions regarding the occasion for using the psalm.
Many carry the names of individuals, the most common being of David, thirteen of these relate explicitly to incidents in the king's life. Others named include Asaph, the sons of Korah, Moses, Ethan the Ezrahite, Heman the Ezrahite; the LXX, the Peshitta, the Latin Vulgate each associate several Psalms with Haggai and Zechariah. The LXX attributes several Psalms to Ezekiel and to Jeremiah. Psalms are identified by a sequence number preceded by the abbreviation "Ps." Numbering of the Psalms differs -- by one, see table -- between Greek manuscripts. Protestant translations use the Hebrew numbering, but other Christian traditions vary: Catholic official liturgical texts follow the Hebrew numbering since 1969; the variance between Massorah and Septuagint texts in this numeration is enough due to a gradual neglect of the original poetic form of the Psalms. It is admitted that Pss. 9 and 10 were a single acrostic poem. Pss. 42 and 43 are shown by identity of subject, of metrical structure and of refrain, to be three strophes of one and the same poem.
The Hebrew text is correct in counting as one Ps. 146 and Ps. 147. Liturgical usage would seem to have split up these and several other psalms. Zenner combines into. 1, 2, 3, 4. A choral ode would seem to have been the original form of Pss. 14 and 70. The two strophes and the epode are Ps. 14. It is noteworthy that, on the breaking up of the original ode, each portion crept twice into the Psalter: Ps. 14 = 53, Ps. 70 = 40:14–18. Other such duplicated portions of psalms are Ps. 108:2–6 = Ps. 57:8–12. This loss of the original form of some of the psalms is allowed by the Biblical Commission to have been due to liturgical practices, neglect by copyists, or other causes; the Septuagint, present in Eastern Orthodox churches, includes a Psalm 151. Some versions of the Peshitta include Psalms 152–155. There are the Psalms of Solomon, which are a further 18 psalms of Jewish origin originally written in Hebrew, but surviving only in Greek and Syriac translation; these and other indications suggest that the current Western Christian and Jewish collection of 150 psalms were selected from a wider set.
Hermann Gunkel's pioneering form-critical work on the psalms sought to provide a new and meaningful context in which to interpret individual psalms—not by looking at their literary context within the Psalter, but by bringing together psalms of the same genre from throughout the Psalter. Gunkel divided the psalms into five primary types: Hymns, songs of praise for God's work in creation or history, they open with a call to praise, describe the motivation for praise, conclude with a repetition of the call. Two sub-categories are "enthronement psalms", celebrating the enthronement of Yahweh as king, Zion psalms, glorifying Mount Zion, God's dwelling-place in Jerusalem. Gunkel described a special subset of "eschatological hymns" which includes themes of future restoration or of judgment. Communal laments. Both communal and individual laments but not always include the following elements: address to God, description of suffering, cursing of the party responsib
Pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound book. It may consist of a single sheet of paper, printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths, called a leaflet, or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book. For the "International Standardization of Statistics Relating to Book Production and Periodicals", UNESCO defines a pamphlet as "a non-periodical printed publication of at least 5 but not more than 48 pages, exclusive of the cover pages, published in a particular country and made available to the public" and a book as "a non-periodical printed publication of at least 49 pages, exclusive of the cover pages"; the UNESCO definitions are, only meant to be used for the particular purpose of drawing up their book production statistics. The word pamphlet for a small work issued by itself without covers came into Middle English ca 1387 as pamphilet or panflet, generalized from a twelfth-century amatory comic poem with an old flavor, seu de Amore, written in Latin.
Pamphilus's name is derived from the Greek name Πάμφιλος, meaning "beloved of all". The poem was popular and copied and circulated on its own, forming a slim codex, its modern connotations of a tract concerning a contemporary issue was a product of the heated arguments leading to the English Civil War. In some European languages, this secondary connotation, of a disputatious tract, has come to the fore: compare libelle, from the Latin libellus, denoting a "little book". Pamphlets can contain anything from information on kitchen appliances to medical information and religious treatises. Pamphlets are important in marketing because they are cheap to produce and can be distributed to customers. Pamphlets have long been an important tool of political protest and political campaigning for similar reasons. A pamphleteer is a historical term for someone who produces or distributes pamphlets for a political cause. Ephemeral and to wide array of political or religious perspectives given voice by the format's ease of production, pamphlets are prized by many book collectors.
Substantial accumulations have been amassed and transferred to ownership of academic research libraries around the world. Comprehensive collections of American political pamphlets are housed at New York Public Library, the Tamiment Library of New York University, the Jo Labadie collection at the University of Michigan; the pamphlet has been adopted in commerce as a format for marketing communications. There are numerous purposes for pamphlets, such as product descriptions or instructions, corporate information, events promotions or tourism guides and they are used in the same way as leaflets or brochures. Long-form journalism Flyer Randy Silverman, 1987. "Small, Not Insignificant: a Specification for a Conservation Pamphlet Binding Structure", The Book and Paper Group Annual 6. Historical overview focusing on pamphlet binding. 19th Century British Pamphlets Online. Information about a project that digitised 26,000 19th century pamphlets from UK research libraries. 19th Century Pamphlet Collection.
Collection of 19th-century pamphlets, predominantly of Irish interest and covering a broad spectrum of subjects. A UCD Digital Library Collection. 19th Century Social History Pamphlets Collection. Collection of pamphlets relating to 19th century Irish social history the themes of education, famine, poverty and communications. A UCD Digital Library Collection. Tedder, Henry Richard. "Pamphlets". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 20. Cambridge University Press. Pp. 659–661. This contains an extensive history of the pamphlet form from the 14th century, in England and Germany
Bagpipes
Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Scottish Great Highland bagpipes are the best known in the Anglophone world; the term bagpipe is correct in the singular or plural, though pipers refer to the bagpipes as "the pipes", "a set of pipes" or "a stand of pipes". A set of bagpipes minimally consists of an air supply, a bag, a chanter, at least one drone. Many bagpipes have more than one drone in various combinations, held in place in stocks—sockets that fasten the various pipes to the bag; the most common method of supplying air to the bag is through blowing into a blowstick. In some pipes the player must cover the tip of the blowpipe with their tongue while inhaling, but most blowpipes have a non-return valve that eliminates this need. In recent times, there are many instruments that assist in creating a clean air flow to the pipes and assist the collection of condensation. An innovation, dating from the 16th or 17th century, is the use of a bellows to supply air.
In these pipes, sometimes called "cauld wind pipes", air is not heated or moistened by the player's breathing, so bellows-driven bagpipes can use more refined or delicate reeds. Such pipes include the Irish uilleann pipes; the bag is an airtight reservoir that holds air and regulates its flow via arm pressure, allowing the player to maintain continuous sound. The player keeps the bag inflated by blowing air into it through a blowpipe or pumping air into it with a bellows. Materials used for bags vary but the most common are the skins of local animals such as goats, dogs and cows. More bags made of synthetic materials including Gore-Tex have become much more common. A drawback of the synthetic bag is the potential for fungal spores to colonise the bag because of a reduction in necessary cleaning, with the associated danger of lung infection. An advantage of a synthetic bag is that it has a zip which allows the user to fit a more effective moisture trap to the inside of the bag. Bags cut from larger materials are saddle-stitched with an extra strip folded over the seam and stitched or glued to reduce leaks.
Holes are cut to accommodate the stocks. In the case of bags made from intact animal skins, the stocks are tied into the points where the limbs and the head joined the body of the whole animal, a construction technique common in Central Europe; the chanter is the melody pipe, played with two hands. All bagpipes have at least one chanter. A chanter can be bored internally so that the inside walls are parallel for its full length, or it can be bored in a conical shape; the chanter is open-ended, so there is no easy way for the player to stop the pipe from sounding. Thus most bagpipes share a legato sound where there are no rests in the music; because of this inability to stop playing, technical movements are used to break up notes and to create the illusion of articulation and accents. Because of their importance, these embellishments are highly technical systems specific to each bagpipe, take many years of study to master. A few bagpipes have closed ends or stop the end on the player's leg, so that when the player "closes" the chanter becomes silent.
A practice chanter is a chanter without bag or drones, allowing a player to practice the instrument and with no variables other than playing the chanter. The term chanter is derived from the Latin cantare, or "to sing", much like the modern French word chanteur; the note from the chanter is produced by a reed installed at its top. The reed may be a double reed. Double reeds are used with both conical- and parallel-bored chanters while single reeds are limited to parallel-bored chanters. In general, double-reed chanters are found in pipes of Western Europe while single-reed chanters appear in most other regions. Most bagpipes have at least one drone: a pipe, not fingered but rather produces a constant harmonizing note throughout play. Exceptions are those pipes which have a double-chanter instead. A drone is most a cylindrically-bored tube with a single reed, although drones with double reeds exist; the drone is designed in two or more parts with a sliding joint so that the pitch of the drone can be adjusted.
Depending on the type of pipes, the drones may lie over the shoulder, across the arm opposite the bag, or may run parallel to the chanter. Some drones have a tuning screw, which alters the length of the drone by opening a hole, allowing the drone to be tuned to two or more distinct pitches; the tuning screw may shut off the drone altogether. In most types of pipes, where there is one drone it is pitched two octaves below the tonic of the chanter. Additional drones add the octave below and a drone consonant with the fifth
The Diverting History of John Gilpin
The Diverting History of John Gilpin Shewing how he went Farther than he intended, came safe Home again is a comic ballad by William Cowper written in 1782. The ballad concerns. Cowper heard the story from Lady Anna Austen at a time of severe depression, it cheered him up so much that he put it into verse; the poem was published anonymously in the Public Advertiser in 1782, published with The Task in 1785. It was popular, to the extent that "pirate copies were being sold all across the country, together with Gilpin books and toys."The poem was republished in 1878, illustrated by Randolph Caldecott and printed by Edmund Evans. Caldecott's image of Gilpin riding the horse is the basis for the design of the obverse of the Caldecott Medal. John Gilpin was a citizen Of credit and renown, A train-band captain eke was he, Of famous London town. John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear, "Though wedded we have been These twice ten tedious years, yet we No holiday have seen. "To-morrow is our wedding-day, And we will repair Unto the'Bell' at Edmonton, All in a chaise and pair.
"My sister, my sister's child and children three, Will fill the chaise. The poem is the inspiration for a sculpture entitled Gilpin's Bell by Angela Godfrey in Fore Street, which commemorates Gilpin's journey; the Diverting History of JOHN GILPIN at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive Complete text
Charles II of England
Charles II was king of England and Ireland. He was king of Scotland from 1649 until his deposition in 1651, king of England and Ireland from the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 until his death. Charles II's father, Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War. Although the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king on 5 February 1649, England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth, the country was a de facto republic, led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, Charles fled to mainland Europe. Cromwell became virtual dictator of England and Ireland. Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands. A political crisis that followed the death of Cromwell in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy, Charles was invited to return to Britain. On 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, he was received in London to public acclaim.
After 1660, all legal documents were dated as if he had succeeded his father as king in 1649. Charles's English parliament enacted laws known as the Clarendon Code, designed to shore up the position of the re-established Church of England. Charles acquiesced to the Clarendon Code though he favoured a policy of religious tolerance; the major foreign policy issue of his early reign was the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In 1670, he entered into the Treaty of Dover, an alliance with his first cousin King Louis XIV of France. Louis agreed to aid him in the Third Anglo-Dutch War and pay him a pension, Charles secretly promised to convert to Catholicism at an unspecified future date. Charles attempted to introduce religious freedom for Catholics and Protestant dissenters with his 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence, but the English Parliament forced him to withdraw it. In 1679, Titus Oates's revelations of a supposed Popish Plot sparked the Exclusion Crisis when it was revealed that Charles's brother and heir, Duke of York, was a Catholic.
The crisis saw the birth of anti-exclusion Tory parties. Charles sided with the Tories, following the discovery of the Rye House Plot to murder Charles and James in 1683, some Whig leaders were executed or forced into exile. Charles dissolved the English Parliament in 1681, ruled alone until his death on 6 February 1685, he was received into the Catholic Church on his deathbed. Charles was one of the most popular and beloved kings of England, known as the Merry Monarch, in reference to both the liveliness and hedonism of his court and the general relief at the return to normality after over a decade of rule by Cromwell and the Puritans. Charles's wife, Catherine of Braganza, bore no live children, but Charles acknowledged at least twelve illegitimate children by various mistresses, he was succeeded by his brother James. Charles II was born at St James's Palace on 29 May 1630, his parents were Charles I, who ruled the three kingdoms of England and Ireland, Henrietta Maria, the sister of the French king Louis XIII.
Charles was their second child. Their first son died within a day. England and Ireland were predominantly Anglican and Catholic. Charles was baptised in the Chapel Royal, on 27 June, by the Anglican Bishop of London, William Laud, he was brought up in the care of the Protestant Countess of Dorset, though his godparents included his maternal uncle Louis XIII and his maternal grandmother, Marie de' Medici, the Dowager Queen of France, both of whom were Catholics. At birth, Charles automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay, along with several other associated titles. At or around his eighth birthday, he was designated Prince of Wales, though he was never formally invested. During the 1640s, when Charles was still young, his father fought Parliamentary and Puritan forces in the English Civil War. Charles accompanied his father during the Battle of Edgehill and, at the age of fourteen, participated in the campaigns of 1645, when he was made titular commander of the English forces in the West Country.
By spring 1646, his father was losing the war, Charles left England due to fears for his safety. Setting off from Falmouth after staying at Pendennis Castle, he went first to the Isles of Scilly to Jersey, to France, where his mother was living in exile and his first cousin, eight-year-old Louis XIV, was king. Charles I surrendered into captivity in May 1646. In 1648, during the Second English Civil War, Charles moved to The Hague, where his sister Mary and his brother-in-law William II, Prince of Orange, seemed more to provide substantial aid to the royalist cause than his mother's French relations. However, the royalist fleet that came under Charles's control was not used to any advantage, did not reach Scotland in time to join up with the royalist Engager army of the Duke of Hamilton before it was defeated at the Battle of Preston by the Parliamentarians. At The Hague, Charles had a brief affair with Lucy Walter, who falsely claimed that they had secretly married, her son, James Crofts, was one of Charles's many illegitimate children who became prominent in British society.
Despite his son's diplomatic efforts to save him, King Charles I was beheaded in January 1649, England became a republic. On 5 February, the Covenanter Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II "King of Great Britain and Ireland" at the Mercat Cross, but refused to allow him to enter Scotland unless he accepted the imposition of Presbyterianism throughout Britain and Ireland; when negotiations with the Scot
Market town
Market town or market right is a legal term, originating in the Middle Ages, for a European settlement that has the right to host markets, distinguishing it from a village and city. On the European continent, a town may be described as a "market town" or as having "market rights" if it no longer holds a market, provided the legal right to do so still exists. In Britain it remains in common use as a loose descriptive term for small rural towns with a hinterland of villages, it is sometimes reflected in their names, as with Market Rasen, or Market Drayton. Modern markets are in special halls, but this is a recent development; the markets were open-air, held in what is called the market square, centred on a market cross. They were and are open one or two days a week; the primary purpose of a market town is the provision of goods and services to the surrounding locality. Although market towns were known in antiquity, their number increased from the 12th century. Market towns across Europe flourished with an improved economy, a more urbanised society and the widespread introduction of a cash-based economy.
The Domesday Book of 1086 lists 50 markets in England. Some 2,000 new markets were established between 1200 and 1349; the burgeoning of market towns occurred across Europe around the same time. Market towns most grew up close to fortified places, such as castles or monasteries, not only to enjoy their protection, but because large manorial households and monasteries generated demand for goods and services. Historians term these early market towns "prescriptive market towns" in that they may not have enjoyed any official sanction such as a charter, but were accorded market town status through custom and practice if they had been in existence prior to 1199. From a early stage and administrators understood that a successful market town attracted people, generated revenue and would pay for the town's defenses. From around the 12th century and European kings began granting charters to villages allowing them to create a market on specific days. Framlingham in Suffolk is a notable example of a market situated near a fortified building.
Additionally, markets were located where transport was easiest, such as at a crossroads or close to a river. When local railway lines were first built, market towns were given priority to ease the transport of goods. For instance, in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, several market towns close together were designated to take advantage of the new trains; the designation of Halifax, Sowerby Bridge, Hebden Bridge, Todmorden is an example of this. A number of studies have pointed to the prevalence of the periodic market in medieval towns and rural areas due to the localised nature of the economy; the marketplace was the accepted location for trade, social interaction, transfer of information and gossip. A broad range of retailers congregated in market towns – peddlers, hucksters, stallholders and other types of trader; some were professional traders occupied a local shopfront such as a bakery or alehouse, while others were casual traders who set up a stall or carried their wares around in baskets on market days.
Market trade supplied for the needs of local consumers whether they were visitors or local residents. Braudel and Reynold have made a systematic study of European market towns between the 13th and 15th century, their investigation shows that in regional districts markets were held once or twice a week while daily markets were common in larger cities. Over time, permanent shops began opening daily and supplanted the periodic markets, while peddlers or itinerant sellers continued to fill in any gaps in distribution; the physical market was characterised by transactional exchange and bartering systems were commonplace. Shops had higher overhead costs, but were able to offer regular trading hours and a relationship with customers and may have offered added value services, such as credit terms to reliable customers; the economy was characterised by local trading in which goods were traded across short distances. Braudel reports. However, following the European age of discovery, goods were imported from afar – calico cloth from India, porcelain and tea from China, spices from India and South-East Asia and tobacco, sugar and coffee from the New World.
The importance of local markets began to decline from the mid-16th century. Permanent shops which provided more stable trading hours began to supplant the periodic market. In addition, the rise of a merchant class led to the import and exports of a broad range of goods, contributing to a reduced reliance on local produce. At the centre of this new global mercantile trade was Antwerp, which by the mid-16th century, was the undisputed largest market town in Europe. A good number of local histories of individual market towns can be found. However, more general histories of the rise of market-towns across Europe are much more difficult to locate. Clark points out that while a good deal is known about the economic value of markets in local economies, the cultural role of market-towns has received scant scholarly attention. In Denmark, the concept of the market town has existed since the Iron Age, it is not known, the first Danish market town, but Hedeby and Ribe were among the first. Per 1801, there were 74 market towns in Denmark.
The last town to gain market rights was Skjern in 195
