Taylorian 2020

49 W hen, as a young man, Bulstrode Whitelocke met the great polymath John Selden, he was given the following piece of advice: ‘Not to neglect the study of men, but to be as often as he could in the company of ‘ingenious’ and learned men, from whom he might gain as much by conversation as he could by the study of books.’ It is very much in the spirit of this golden rule, as Bulstrode refers to it, that the Bulstrode Whitelocke Society continues to invite leading historians to speak to Taylorians. The year began with a masterful lecture by Dr Nigel Bowles, Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on the constitutional and historical structure of the US government. Dr Bowles’s central contention was that ‘the constitution constitutes conflict’, and that it was only by understanding how the constitution structures political conflict in American politics that one can hope to comprehend America’s political history. Dr Bowles’s lecture was also a powerful argument for the importance of conceptual precision in the study of history and of the danger of conflating concepts such as power and authority, the president and the executive branch, ability and capability, and it has been pleasing to see that many of the boys have taken this instruction to heart in their own writing this year. The focus then shifted to the founding of the Kingdom of Jerusalem under King Baldwin I, with a talk by Dr Susan Edgington, Senior Research Fellow at Queen Mary University. Dr Edgington certainly ensured that the study of men was not being neglected, and offered a detailed analysis of Baldwin’s motives for joining the First Crusade and for his so-called ‘Cilician adventure’. The talk concluded by considering Baldwin’s extraordinary achievements as King of Jerusalem, in particular his conquest of the Littoral and the creation of an administrative structure capable of defending the new Latin East. Jonathan Phillips, Professor of History of the Crusades at Royal Holloway University, gave what would turn out to be the final lecture of the year, with an account of the life and legend of the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s greatest foe, Saladin. Not only did Phillips provide a detailed account of Saladin’s skills as a political leader and his shortcomings as a military commander, but he also contextualised Saladin’s rise, explaining just how much it was made possible by Nur ad-Din’s intellectual and military efforts in the 1150s and 1160s. Pupils were also offered a wonderful insight into the joys that the study of the Crusading era offers through Phillips’s discussion of the role of poetry in the Arabic world of the twelfth century, and the importance attached to it by both Nur ad-Din and Saladin. The Bulstrode Whitelocke Society would like to thank all of our speakers this year, including Dr Andrew Spencer and Dr Lawrence Goldman, whose talks had to be postponed, for being so generous with their time and expertise. Thanks to this generosity, intellectually curious young historians receive the opportunity to meet masters in their field, and learn just what is required of them if they are to achieve a similar mastery of the discipline. It is in these meetings that the true value of the Bulstrode Whitelocke Society resides, and it is in this way that the Society obeys the fifth, final, and most important golden rule that Selden gave to Bulstrode: to study history. Mr P D Hoyle S&A Societies & Activities Bulstrode Whitelocke Society