The Medieval Housebook and Elias’s ‘Scenes from the Life of a Knight’: A case study fit for purpose?

Abstract: This extract is an introduction to the complete monograph which is a critical appraisal of Elias’s use and interpretation of The Medieval Housebook. It concludes that his approach was primarily aimed at supporting his broader thesis, with little attention given to its applicability. These conclusions are reached by highlighting omissions and discrepancies in Elias’s argument, researching the provenance of the codex and by a re-interpretation of its drawings. It argues that these limitations have remained unexposed for more than seven decades largely due to complacent acceptance by many respected figurational sociologists.

Key terms: Elias, data, interpretation, involvement—detachment

It is my understanding that the complete monograph ‘The Medieval Housebook and Elias’s “Scenes from the life of a knight”: a case study fit for purpose?’ as opposed to the present introduction is the first eBook to be published by the Norbert Elias Foundation. In my view the decision to publish this monograph reflects well on the Foundation. This is not because of any overblown notion I hold regarding the quality of this monograph, but because, while it is aimed at making a constructive contribution to the development of figurational sociology, it is highly critical of aspects of Elias’s approach to research. I have been asked by Katie Liston to provide a taster for this monograph and, after due reflection, I concluded that the most appropriate way of doing so is to re-produce the introduction, together with an abbreviated version of the abstract. Criss Jami expressed the view that, ‘The motive behind criticism often determines its validity. Those who care criticize where necessary. Those who envy criticize the moment they think that they have found a weak spot’ (Kil-los-o-phy 2015). It is my fervent hope that this extract, the monograph as a whole and my work in general fall into the former category.[1]

In 2007 I, together with my co-author, Daniel Bloyce, published a critical reappraisal of The Established and the Outsiders (Elias and Scotson 1965).[2] In it we claimed to identify certain shortcomings in the way in which Norbert Elias and John Scotson had compiled, interpreted and presented the evidence in support of their thesis. We also identified a number of relevant questions that remained unasked and avenues that were left unexplored. Our broad conclusion was that Elias had been so committed to demonstrating the heuristic value of his theory of established—outsider relationships that his selection and interpretation of the evidence came to form part of an exercise geared to confirmation rather than relatively detached appraisal. We also concluded that, in addition to ideological preoccupations, this type of theoretical commitment constitutes yet another obstacle in the way of achieving and maintaining a more effective level of detachment in one’s research. It is this final point that may, in the longer run, prove to be of more general relevance.[3]

We recognised that Elias was not responsible for gathering the evidence employed in The Established and the Outsiders. That task fell to John Scotson.[4] However, when the original project foundered, as supervisor and senior author, it was Elias who made the decision to use some of these data in the service of a study of a distinctively different order.[5] As such, there is little doubt where the primary responsibility lay. Nevertheless, while our reappraisal of The Established and the Outsiders may be seen as offering pointers as to the way in which Elias was capable of treating evidence, it does not constitute a demonstration of how he went about his own empirical research. In order to probe this issue further, there is a need to focus upon studies where Elias unquestionably gathered his own evidence. The work with which he is most closely associated is The Civilizing Process, now entitled On the Process of Civilization.[6] Therefore, in the monograph proper,[7] I examine an aspect of this seminal work—‘Scenes from the Life of a Knight’. It is principally based on his interpretation of fourteen pen and ink drawings that appear in Das mittelalterliche Hausbuch (The Medieval Housebook, circa 1475—80).[8] Hopefully, the choice of this case study for critical reappraisal will prove to be illuminating because all the pictorial evidence on which his interpretation rests—the fourteen selected pictures—can now be reproduced and laid before readers.[9] This will make it easier for them to form their own views on Elias’s assessment of the pictures, the reliability of the presented evidence and his conclusions. In this respect, this reassessment will be quite unusual in that it is normally very difficult to recreate the pool from which a researcher drew his/her selected data, what he/she decided to emphasise, marginalise or ignore. Indeed, it is very often impossible to reconstitute a research landscape in its entirety, unless the original focus has been on a short text or, as in this case, a collection of visual images that are now readily available.[10]

While it is less likely in the context of Human Figurations, some readers will be unaware of Elias’s broader contribution to sociology and, consequently, they could interpret this monograph and the critique of The Established and the Outsiders as anachronistic attacks on the work of someone from a distant era. This lack of appreciation is unfortunate, but understandable, given the neglect shown to his work in many countries and departments of sociology. Again, while it is less likely in this context, there will also be those who are not well disposed to figurational sociology and, from the outset, I wish to distance myself from readers of this persuasion. Nevertheless, I have to concede that both these critiques would be exercises in futility if the issues raised in them had already been put to bed. However, both ‘Scenes from the Life of a Knight’ and The Established and the Outsiders are still highly regarded in figurational circles. And it is the fact they are still lauded and drawn upon in largely uncritical ways that serves to justify these reappraisals. There is also another dimension of the complete monograph that undermines any attempt to dismiss it on anachronistic grounds. While the reappraisal of Elias’s case study is the centre-piece of this monograph, this process has required that I go beyond him and focus on dimensions that he neglected or totally ignored. Among other things, this leads me to challenge the prevailing interpretations of the housebook drawings by the art cognoscenti and art historians. Obviously, it would be arrogant to assume that readers who go on to read the monograph proper will find my distinctive interpretation of these drawings more persuasive than those offered by experts in the field. However, at the very least, I hope they will recognise that, in the process of mounting this re-interpretation, I ask many questions that have not been previously raised. In sum, I hope I will provide readers with sufficient food for thought to discourage them from dismissing this monograph on the grounds that it is a critique of a soft and out-dated target or, conversely, because it is an unwarranted re-appraisal of an aspect of the work of a distinguished scholar. As I hope to demonstrate over a more extended period of time, both these critical pieces—the present monograph and The Established and the Outsiders critique—amount to little more than preliminary ground-cleaning exercises. The longer term aim, admittedly one that may prove to be a misguided, is to try to strengthen the figurational approach.

‘Scenes from the Life of a Knight’ originally occupied some ten pages, a mere fragment of a two-volume work that extends to more than five hundred pages.[11] Some readers may consider it inappropriate to take such a small fraction of the book as a measuring rod for assessing its other empirical dimensions, let alone the adequacy of Elias’s broader thesis. I agree on both counts. It does seem to be the case that, over the period on which he focused, the human figurations of Western Europe underwent a process of increasing internal pacification of relatively distinct territories, associated with an increasing concentration of control over the means of violence and taxation. I also find his argument that these socio-genetic processes fostered and, in turn, fed upon changes at the psychogenetic level to be equally plausible.[12] Nevertheless, if one is to move from a plausible theory to an explanation that has a high degree of object-adequacy, one also has to undertake a thorough, theoretically-guided and empirically rigorous assessment of the processes involved.[13] By a theoretically-guided enquiry, I do not mean one geared to the identification and presentation of confirmatory evidence. It would be more appropriate to characterise such an approach as being driven by ideological or heteronymous concerns, rather than being theoretically-guided. If one has developed a potentially illuminating hypothesis, a great disservice is performed if one then goes solely in search of ‘confirmatory’ evidence. Those who lay claim to rising above mundane heteronymous concerns and wish to conduct their research with an effective degree of detachment must surely be critical of any tendency to clothe one’s hypotheses in, what is, in effect, doctored evidence. Other than the heteronymous aspirations such an approach may serve, it is a pointless and, worse still, a disassembling exercise. Nevertheless, even if the empirical support that Elias presented in ‘Scenes from the Life of a Knight’ and, more specifically, the evidence he drew from The Medieval Housebook, can be shown to have its limitations, this would not demonstrate his broader thesis to be unsound or even allow us to extrapolate any detected empirical flaws to the rest of his presented evidence. At the same time, if it is possible to identify significant shortcomings in the way in which Elias employed and interpreted the drawings he selected from The Medieval Housebook, this would surely give rise to misgivings about the way in which he approached data-gathering in general and his interpretative predilections and, consequently, suggest that further exploration is warranted.

The Civilizing Process was first published in 1939 and ‘Scenes from the Life of a Knight’ constituted a small part of Volume I. However, the significance of this section cannot be measured purely in terms of the limited number of pages it occupies. Elias clearly held it to be central, if not pivotal, to his attempt to sustain empirically the contrast he drew between the heyday of the medieval knightly class and the era when court societies became dominant. And, as is shown in the monograph proper, it is equally clear that other, prominent, figurational sociologists are also persuaded of the centrality and the shrewdness of Elias’s judgement. The centrepiece of this section is Elias’s analysis of the pictures he selected from The Medieval Housebook. It is likely that Elias had long been acquainted with this manuscript. As has been observed elsewhere: ‘

Given the circumstances under which The Civilizing Process was written and first published—above all with Europe on the eve of war—it is not surprising that Elias was unable to arrange for the inclusion of any of the drawings from the housebook in what came to be the first edition. The first time ‘Scenes from the Life of a Knight’ appeared in association with some of the pictures he had chosen for analysis was in 1947 in an edition of Neue Auslese aus dem Schrifttum der Gegenwart. This magazine was distributed by the Allied Information Service as part of a post-war re-education programme. In this context, the case study was accompanied by five miniaturised versions of pictures drawn from the housebook (Plates 2, 5 (part), 11, 12 and 13 (part)). For a list of these plates see the table in Part 1: Section 3 of the monograph). While Elias was aware of the fact that they were to be included, it is not clear whether or not he played any part in the selection process (2012: 617). For many years, this publication simply gathered dust and its existence has only recently been brought to light by Reinhard Blomert. His find was unveiled in Figurations 16 (Nov 2001: 5—6). The Figurations’ report contains some observations on the case study, together with a preface by Elias aimed at placing the extract in its broader context.[16] The Figurations’ coverage includes two pictures. One is from the housebook and depicts a coronal joust described in ‘Scenes from the Life of a Knight’ (Plate 8. See Table in Part 1: Section 3 of the monograph). However, it is not one of the pictures that appeared in conjunction with the Neue Auslesen piece. More puzzling, however, is the inclusion of a second picture. It is not part of The Medieval Housebook collection and is not mentioned in The Civilising Process. Therefore, understandably, it is not one of the five plates that appear in conjunction with the Neue Auslesen reprint.[17]

Between the publication of the Neue Auslesen article (1947) and the Figurations’ coverage of its rediscovery (2001), some of the pictures drawn from the housebook appeared in association with a paper by Eric Dunning. This paper includes three of the plates that were published in association with the 1947 reprint (1987: 363—65: Plates 13 (part), 12 and 11). These same three plates also appear in Norbert Elias: Civilization and the human self-image (Mennell 1989: Plates 13 (part), 12 and 11 on pages 41, 54, 108. respectively). The first time any of the housebook pictures appear in The Civilizing Process is in the revised 2000 edition, (513–16: Plates 2, 11, 12 and 13 (part)).[18] While this initiative is to be welcomed, it does give rise to a puzzle. Since the Neue Auslesen piece came to light through the efforts of Blomert and the auspices of Figurations in November 2001, what explains the high level of congruity between the plates selected for presentation in these various publications? None stray beyond the bounds set by those that appear in association with the Neue Auslesen version, save the two in the Figurations review. Given that Elias made reference to fourteen of the housebook drawings, this level of convergence would, on the face of it, seem to be somewhat at variance with the odds. The only explanation I can offer is a quantitative one. With the exception of Plate 5: The water-surrounded castle, the plates included in association with the Neue Auslesen article coincide with the greater space that Elias devoted to their interpretation. Therefore, while still something of a coincidence, one possibility is that the later publications may have employed the same broad selection criterion?[19] These problems are eased, if still not resolved, by the fact that On the Process of Civilization includes facsimiles of all fourteen of Elias’s selected drawings. They are embedded in ‘Scenes from the Life of a Knight’ (2012: between pages 202 and 203).

One further introductory comment seems in order. At this distance in time, it is not difficult to appreciate the pressures that Elias was under when writing The Civilizing Process: the recent loss of his father; his anxieties about the fate of his mother in Nazi Germany and the feeling that, in his late thirties, his chances of establishing an academic career in a strange country—when he only had a limited grasp of the language—may have seemed to be slipping away. It would have been surprising if some of these preoccupations and pressures had not influenced his work in the British Museum (Elias 2005: 49–52).[20] That having been said, after this traumatic phase in his life, he had ample opportunity to reflect upon and revise The Civilizing Process. He acknowledged as much in a note that first appeared in the English translation of Volume II of The Civilizing Process (1982) when he observed that ‘the exercise of checking the translation was in itself a most useful one for me as it enabled me to revise the text in minor, but important ways and to add notes which set the work in the context of my later thinking (2000 edition: xvi italics added). I take this to be an important statement because it was written forty-three years after the original publication of The Civilizing Process. And, moreover, what became the Postscript to the 2000 edition was written in 1968, some twenty-nine years after the book first saw the light of day. While justification is hardly needed, the later opportunities he had to re-appraise and revise his ideas support my decision to assess ‘Scenes from the Life of a Knight’ in terms of the standards of what I take to be his more mature figurational position. Some elaboration on this point would seem to be required. As this monograph unfolds, some readers may be puzzled as to how it is that I can be so critical of aspects of the work of a man I purport to admire. This impression may be reinforced if read in conjunction with the earlier reappraisal of The Established and the Outsiders. Let me try to anticipate and dispel any confusion that may arise in this regard. In my view, Elias, together with a number of others who have taken up his ideas, laid down the most productive path for the future development of sociology. However, this is a journey made step by step. His contribution was only a beginning. For example, and of particular relevance to the monograph proper, in Reflections on a Life he wrote:

Consistent with this position, the figurational approach was not born fully formed in Elias’s mind. While I am not suggesting a lineal progression in terms of the growing object-adequacy of his publications, I feel justified in assuming that his earlier work is unlikely to have been as consistently informed by the principles he enunciated in his more mature years. To argue otherwise would be to deny that he experienced any sociological development during the course of his life. Clearly, identifying these variations in his work at different stages in his life is a theoretically-informed empirical problem, not one amenable to a priori assertion. While, in my judgement, the contribution he was able to make has many strengths it also contains flaws which, if unrecognised, are a drag on the speed with which we can advance our broader understanding. Rather than travelling with the burden of this baggage, I think it preferable to expose and dispose of it. If one wants to trace the development of figurational sociology, central to this task is an understanding of Elias’s own intellectual development. This, however, does not preclude distinguishing between, on the one hand, his intellectual journey and, on the other hand, distilling the premises informing a figurational perspective. It must, therefore, be possible to apply these principles with a view to assessing the extent to which Elias adhered to them in practice at the different stages of his life. In a limited way, this is one of the objectives of this monograph. Of course, it goes without saying that the extent to which I have managed to maintain a consistently figurational line is itself open to question and critical appraisal.

Notes

1. Acknowledgements: It was not my intention to pursue the issues that are the focus of this monograph at this time. This reorientation came about as a result of comments I made to Stephen Mennell in the course of our collaboration on the Appendix XXX: Notes on the plates from Das mittelalteriche Hausbuch in On the Process of Civilisation (2012). From the outset I expressed reservations about the way in which Elias had interpreted The Medieval Housebook, the source which forms the centrepiece of ‘Scenes from the Life of a Knight’ in the book previously known as The Civilizing Process. He correctly pointed out that this book’s Appendix was not an appropriate context in which to raise this type of issue and he encouraged me to explore my concerns in a separate paper. I would like to express my gratitude to him for this encouragement and guidance. I also have to thank Stephen for his reading of a draft of this monograph and his constructive comments. Thanks are also due to Peter Burke for taking the time to read the manuscript. In addition, I must thank Huigen Leeflang, curator of prints at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam for his help and advice, while at the same time exonerating him and, indeed, everyone else from any responsibility for the contents of the complete monograph. Thanks are also due to Nigel Palmer for his help in tracing to present whereabouts of The Medieval Housebook and for his assistance in translating medieval German and to Mike Hearn for his technical assistance. Finally, I would also like to take this opportunity to register my gratitude to Eric Dunning and Ivan Waddington for their friendship and the unstinting support they have given me over some forty years.

2. We were concerned with a rather detailed analysis in our reappraisal of The Established and the Outsiders and the present monograph is characterised by a similar focus. However, as far as the present author is concerned both pieces of work are conceived of as building blocks in the service of a longer term and broader programme of work, mind and body permitting with no dichotomy implied.

3. My interest in the influence of heteronymous and ideological concerns on the research process goes back to when I published a paper on the way in which historians have interpreted the British engineers lock-out of 1852 (Murphy 1978).

4. This point is made by Stephen Mennell and Johan Goudsblom (1998: 25).

5. The original research focused on the uneven distribution of delinquency in Winston Parva. Elias and Scotson explain why this project became non-viable in the following terms: ‘In the third year of the research the delinquency differentials between the two larger neighbourhoods (which had supported the local idea that one of them was a delinquency area) practically disappeared’ (1965: ix). I am grateful to Stephen Mennell for pointing out that John Scotson’s son, Tim, has said that his father was really only interested in doing good and he implied that his father had lost interest in the project after he had obtained his degree. Therefore, it is possible that the published reason for the change of focus may contain an element of rationalisation.

6. For the purposes of this monograph I have relied largely upon On the Process of Civilisation. However, on occasions, where I have felt it to be contextually appropriate, I have employed the original title—The Civilizing Process.

7. The initial intention was to produce a normal length paper. However, as is sometimes the way with research, the project became far more complex than I originally envisaged. It ‘grow’d like topsy’. Notwithstanding its length, the specific nature of the subject-matter means that it more apt to characterise it as a monograph, rather than a book. This narrow focus also means that it is unlikely to have appealed to a publisher, hence, the decision to publish the manuscript in this form.

8. Elias did not regard The Medieval Housebook as a very appropriate title for the codex (2012:200). While he did not specify his reasons for these reservations, it is readily apparent to anyone with access to a facsimile edition of the housebook that a substantial part of its contents has a tenuous connection with the running of a domestic household. Much of the text and illustrations relate to technology and military equipment. This is certainly the view of both K.G. Boon and Jane Campbell Hutchinson (see Part III: Section 8of the monograph proper). It is safe to assume that most of Elias’s readers will not have had a facsimile copy ready to hand. It is also likely that they have not been inclined to consult one or felt it necessary to do so.

9. For the purposes of this monograph I have reproduced the fourteen plates that Elias drew upon and also some supplementary plates that are felt to be relevant to this analysis. It was not practical to reproduce all the drawings in the housebook. For those who wish to gain an overview of the range of plates from which Elias selected his fourteen a useful source is Waldburg (1998). Another readily accessible source is the website: (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mittelslterliches_Hausbuch_von...). If readers only want to view the fourteen drawings that Elias selected for his case study they are all included in On the Process of Civilisation (2012: between 202–03).

10. Even the famous case of the two contrasting studies of the same Mexican Village, Tepoztlán, by Robert Redfield (1930) and Oscar Lewis (1951) were separated by two decades. This at least raises the possibility that changes occurred in the intervening period. For a more detailed discussion of these studies see Gouldsblom (1977: 66–67).

11. In the 2000 edition four drawings were contained in an appendix (513–16).

12. The extent to which our understanding of this process is advanced by the Freudian inspired psychic model Elias employed most extensively in On the Process of Civilization is, in my view, problematic. However, this is an issue that is not explored in the context of the monograph.

13. In accordance with his figurational principles, Elias did not conceive of theory and empirical research as distinct activities. Empirical research has to be theoretically guided and the relative object-adequacy of theories and models need be demonstrated by assessing their ability to accommodate the available evidence. As Elias put it: ‘An examination of theoretical concepts [...] is apt to remain sterile unless it is undertaken in close contact with empirical studies’ (Goudsblom and Mennell 1998: 105). If research is not explicitly guided by theory then it is based either on undeclared premises and/or blind assumptions. It cannot be free of premises or assumptions.

14. As Waldburg points out ‘Helmuth T. Bossert & Willi F. Storck published a facsimile edition of almost all the pages of the Housebook’ in 1912, (1998: 14).

15. I was unable to gain access to the two volume publication which accompanied the public exhibition of the housebook in select museums and art galleries in 1998. The first of these volumes is the first coloured facsimile edition of the housebook and Volume II is a collection of academic studies of the codex. These two volumes carried a price tag of $2,000, a sum way beyond my means. I had to settle for the slimmer, cut-price version by Christoph Graf zu Waldburg Wolfegg Venus and Mars: The World of the Medieval Housebook, a publication no doubt aimed at mopping up the lower end of the market. Again, I am grateful to Huigen Leeflang, Curator of prints at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, for providing me with extracts from the Bossert and Storck book.

16. This preface to the Neue Auslesen piece is included in On the Process of Civilisation, Collected Works Vol 3. 2012: 617–18.

17. The maverick picture in question is entitled The Stag Hunt and is held to be the work of the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, an artist widely assumed to be the Housebook Master (Filedt Kok: 1985, 165).I have not been able to determine how it came to be selected for inclusion in the Figurations’ review. The only explanation I can offer is that this particular drawing features as the jacket illustration of a book compiled by J.P. Filedt Kok which was published on the occasion of the 1985 exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam of ‘the Master’s complete production’, save a single print located in the German Democratic Republic (Filedt Kok 1985: 7). In other words, The Stag Hunt has been prominently displayed and is ready to hand in Amsterdam where Figurations was published at the time.

18. As already mentioned, in the 2012 edition—On the Process of Civilization—all fourteen of the drawings to which Elias referred in his analysis of The Medieval Housebook are reproduced.

19. The computer word count of Elias’s analysis of the selected pictures based on the extracts presented in Section 3 is as follows: Plate 1: Mercury and his children—63 words; Plate 2: Saturn and his children—214 words; Plate 3: The noble hunt—124 words; Plate 4: In pursuit of less game—107 words; Plate 5: The water-surrounded castle—52 words; Plate 6: The mining panorama—122 words; Plate 7: Interior of a smelting plant with cupel furnace, bellows and workers—30 words; Plate 8: The coronel joust—75 words; Plate 9: The Tilt—74 words; Plate 10: The army encampment—125 words; Plate 11: Mars and his children—193 words; Plate 12: Venus and her children—259 words and Plate 13: The bathhouse—303 words and, finally, Plate 14: The obscene garden of love—93 words. This word count does not include the later fleeting references that Elias made to certain plates. The Plates that appear in conjunction with the Neue Auslesen version are bolded.

20. In fact, he obtained his first academic appointment in England—in the department of sociology at the University of Leicester—in 1954, at the remarkably advanced age of 57 (Elias 2005: 65).

References

• Bloyce, Daniel & Murphy, Patrick (2007) ‘Involvement and detachment, from principles to practice: A critical reassessment of The Established and the Outsiders’. Irish Journal of Sociology, Vol 16.1, pages 3–21.
• Bossert, Helmuth T. & Storck Willi F. (eds) (1912) Das Mittelalterliche Hausbuch. E.A. Seemann. Leipzig.
• Dunning, Eric (1987) ‘Comments on Elias’s “Scenes from the Life of a Knight”’. Theory, Culture & Society, SAGE, London, Newbury Park, Beverly Hills and New Delhi, Vol 4, pages 363–71.
• Elias, Norbert and Scotson, John L. (1965) The Established and the Outsiders: A sociological enquiry into community problems. Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, London.
• Elias, Norbert (1998) ‘Group Charisma and Group Disgrace’, The Norbert Elias Reader. Goudsblom, Johan and Mennell, Stephen (eds), Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, pp. 104–12.
• Elias, Norbert (2000) The Civilising Process. Basil Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.
• Elias, Norbert (2001) ‘1947 Publication by Elias’. Figurations Issue 16 Nov, Amsterdam, pp. 5–6.
• Elias, Norbert (2005) Reflections on a life. Polity Press, Cambridge and Malden.
• Elias, Norbert (2012) On the Process of Civilisation. Collected Works 3 UCD Press.
• Elias, Norbert (2012) ‘Preface to Scenes from the life of a knight, 1947’ Appendix XXXI. On the Process of Civilisation Collected Works 3 UCD Press.
• Filedt Kok, J. P. (ed) (1985) The Master of The Amsterdam cabinet, or The Housebook Master, ca. 1470–1500. Princeton University Press, New Jersey.
• Goudsblom, Johan (1977) Sociology in the Balance. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
• Jami, Criss (2015) Kil-los-o-phy: Killing Knowledge. Loving Wisdom, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Charleston, South Carolina.
• Lewis, Oscar (1951) Life in a Mexican Village: Tepoztlán Restudied. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
• Mennell, Stephen (1989) Norbert Elias: Civilization and the Human Self-Image. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
• Murphy, Patrick (1978) ‘The origins of the 1852 lock-out in the British engineering industry reconsidered’. International Review of Social History Vol. XXIII—part 2, pp. 242–66.
• Murphy, Patrick & Mennell, Stephen (2012) ‘Appendix XXX: Notes on the plates from ‘Das mittelalterliche Hausbuch’ 613–16 in Elias, Norbert, On the Process of Civilisation. University College Dublin Press, Chippenham.
• Redfeld, Robert (1930) Tepoztian, A Mexican Village: A Study of Folklife. University of Chicago, Chicago.
• Waldburg Wolfegg, C. Graf zu. (1998) Venus and Mars: The World of the Medieval Housebook. Prestel, Munich, New York.
• Wikipedia commons (2012) ‘Mittelalterliches Hausbuch’. (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mittelalterliches_Hausbuch_von_Schloss_Wolfegg —retrieved 11—01—2012).

Biographical Note

Patrick Murphy was a member of the Department of Sociology, University of Leicester from 1974 to 2005. He was a Senior lecturer, and one of the directors of the Sir Norman Chester Centre and the  Centre for Research into Sport and Society. He was also one of a group that conducted research into football hooliganism, research which led to four books and numerous papers. From 2005 to 2009, he was visiting professor at the University of Chester where he was centrally involved in the Chester Centre for Research into Sport and Society, along with Visiting Professors Ivan Waddington and Eric Dunning, and Chester academics Professor Ken Green, Dr. Daniel Bloyce, Dr Katie Liston (now at Ulster) and Prof. Andy Smith (now at Edge Hill).