Search

Flails are one of the most contentious and misunderstood classes of medieval weaponry, despite their prevalence in popular media: some researchers question their existence entirely and the bulk of historians are skeptical of widespread temporal and geographical prevalence, while others, and a significant volume of period evidence, would argue the contrary. While the expansive use of flails in Eastern Europe and Byzantium is familiar, many Central, Western, and Southern European sources are less well known or largely forgotten, especially those stemming from the later-early and early high medieval eras (up to 1250). In this work, I collate and discuss the bulk of the available literary references and artistic depictions of flails and their use alongside some of the archaeological finds from Western, Central, and Southern Europe, with an emphasis on the 12th and 13th centuries. The significance of this volume of evidence is examined, and an assessment of flails as a part of medieval culture and warfare is considered. Collectively, this would suggest that knowledge of flails as instruments of war and associated cultural connotations, if not their actual prevalence and use in warfare, was far more widespread across Europe this time period than has been previously estimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores circular compositions in medieval and early modern art. Delving into the intersection of religious, philosophical, and scientific ideas, the text examines the prevalence of circular depictions in medieval and early modern aesthetics. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, the author draws from primary Hermetic and Neoplatonic sources, providing four reasons for this preference. Firstly, this essay explores the scientific understanding of the shape of the universe, planets, and stars. The second reason delves into the psychological, symbolic, and geometric aspects associated with circular compositions, connecting them to Christian cosmological diagrams and symbolism in the visual arts. Furthermore, the essay investigates the conceptualisation of the universe as a mirror reflecting the divine, emphasising the role of beauty in religious art. The essay concludes by examining the visual culture of medieval and early modern periods, tracing the evolution of circular representations from Roman coins and shields to illuminated manuscripts and paintings. The article sheds light on a hitherto underexplored aspect of medieval and early modern cultures, despite its significance in shaping symbolism and organizing iconographic programs within these periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the distance between their different communities and the difficulties of medieval travel, the Jews of northern Europe developed typical common legal and communal traditions. Rabbinic students traveled hundreds of kilometers to study with famous rabbis, rabbis themselves often relocated from one community to another, and questions were regularly sent to faraway rabbinic authorities and were quickly answered. This article sheds light on the movement and communication patterns of medieval Jewish scholars as a social group. It includes three sections; the first focuses on the movement patterns of prominent rabbis, the second on their forms of communication, and the third on the way these practices were reflected in the organization of larger communal structures. Overall, the article highlights the major role that networks of movement and communication played in the intellectual culture of the rabbinic elite (and other Jews as well) in high medieval northern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medieval custom has been variously described as old, long, repeated, remembered, or immemorial. These notions of the time of customary law can be traced to Fritz Kern's "good old law." While scholars have finessed or critiqued Kern's conception, the assumption that custom had to be viewed as old or ancient law remains. This article examines the temporal framework of custom in lawbooks from late antiquity to the fourteenth century, as well as in modern history and historiography, to trace how and when the language of age and antiquity came to frame custom. When and how, in other words, did a medieval myth of an old, ancient, and even immemorial customary law form? Jurists who tried to define the term, first in late antiquity and then in the high Middle Ages, deployed various notions of time to separate a legal custom that worked like law from habitual practice. The lawbooks that described custom, on the other hand, tended to see it as current or presentist, and it was only around the turn of the fourteenth century that learned definitions worked their way into customary lawbooks. The medieval myth that customary law necessarily had to be old law turns out not to be medieval but modern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mazers, drinking vessels often made of maple, were an important part of the material culture of medieval England from at least the first half of the twelfth century. They were significant for the range of meanings they brought to the consumption of drink. In some elite households, they had prestigious associations; elsewhere across society, they made important connections between families, in terms of inheritance and identity, and helped perpetuate memory and constitute memorial practices; as communal drinking vessels, they brought people together in common causes, in families, in gilds and chantries, even acting as a medium for conveying indulgences. They also marked a social distinction between those parts of society commonly drinking wine, who mainly used silver vessels, and those of lesser status, who more usually drank ale. The largest numbers were found in towns, and in monasteries, where the personal use of silver vessels by monks was discouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Death, Illness, Body and Soul in Written and Visual Culture in Byzantium and Late Medieval Balkans," edited by Vlada Stanković, explores the topics of death and illness, as well as the body and soul, in Byzantine and late medieval Serbian culture. The book is divided into two parts, with the first part examining the meaning of death and the afterlife in Byzantine history, and the second part discussing testimonies about death and related concepts. The contributors analyze various sources, including written texts, visual representations, and prayers, to understand how these themes were understood and experienced in Byzantium and medieval Serbia. The book provides valuable insights for researchers interested in the cults of saints, Christian attitudes toward death, and moral behavior in the Middle Ages, and it highlights the similarities between Eastern and Western religiosity. [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on the symbolic depiction of hell in C.S. Lewis's "The Great Divorce," exploring its representation as both substance and insubstantiality. Topics include the use of landscapes as containers of spiritual ideas, the influence of medieval traditions on the narrative, and the dialogue between spiritual and ghostly characters regarding spatial understanding.

Copyright of Ayer: Revista de Historia Contemporánea is the property of Asociacion de Historia Contemporanea and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The following chapter intends to analyse what might be called the ontological status of Tolkien's non-human species, particularly concerning liminality. Remarkably, C.S. Lewis provides us with four medieval conceptions of fairies, two of which have a liminal character, while the other two are far less liminal, e.g. fairies are thought of as "a third rational species distinct from angels and men" (DI 134). Bearing in mind Tolkien's great familiarity with medieval culture, and also with Lewis's ideas, this paper will examine whether Lewis's classification of magical creatures works in the case of Tolkien's non-human and para-human species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the visual culture of Eastern Europe has been studied and often excluded from the grander narratives of art history and more specialized conversations due to political and cultural limitations, as well as bias in the field. The history and visual culture of Eastern Europe have been shaped by contacts with Byzantium, transforming, in local contexts, aspects of the rich legacy of the empire before and after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. This study expands and theorizes the eclectic visual cultures of Eastern Europe during the late medieval period by focusing on two ecclesiastical buildings of the 14th century built under princely and noble patronage in regions of North Macedonia and Wallachia, respectively: the Church of St George at Staro Nagoričane, near Skopje, modern-day North Macedonia (1315–17) and Cozia Monastery in Călimănești, Wallachia, modern-day Romania (founded 1388). The 14th century was a transformative period for the regions to the north and south of the Danube River, establishing the contacts that were to develop further during the 15th century and especially after 1453. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Author Chris Wickham responds to a critique of his article "How did the Feudal Economy Work? The Economic Logic of Medieval Societies," which was published in a previous issue.

Although the militant jihād remains one of the most popular topics in modern Islamic studies, most of the works focus on ideologies and actions, leaving out the popular perception of this phenomenon. Our study of the storylines about confronting the Franks (ifranj) in the Arabic folk epics, inspired by the Crusades, shows that the protagonists of the epics are presented in the narratives precisely as the holy warriors, i.e., mujāhidūn, whose key attributes are the power of faith, which often goes through tests in the fights against the infidels, as well as the divine support and readiness for martyrdom on the path of jihād. The widespread jihād and anti-Frankish rhetorics in the epics make them a valuable source for the study of the Crusades' memory in the Medieval Arab culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rutkin offers a description of the astrological activities of some scholars in the universities of Bologna, Padua, and Ferrara. H Darrel Rutkin's first monograph is the fruit of his doctoral research and post-doctoral studies on the philosophical and mathematical foundations of astrology and astral magic in medieval and early modern Europe. H Darrel Rutkin, I Sapientia Astrologica: Astrology, Magic and Natural Knowledge, ca. 1250-1800, I. Medieval Structures (1250-1500): Conceptual, Institutional, Socio-Political, Theologico-Religious and Cultural i , Berlin: Springer, 2019. [Extracted from the article]

The monastic tradition of St Benedict of Nursia inspired and influenced Iceland's medieval monasteries. Four communities, two each of men and women, which were identified in contemporary records as 'under the rule of Saint Benedict', endured for four hundred years, until the Protestant suppressions of the mid-sixteenth century. The monasteries of men emerged as Iceland's most important centres of literary production; each of the churches was the focus of public worship and popular cults, and at times in their history, they may also have maintained the largest monastic populations seen in the island. With no visible trace of their physical environment, material evidence only now being revealed in excavations and very few documentary records describing their form of Benedictinism, their observant customs and broader Benedictine culture remain elusive. Drawing on the inventories (máldagar) of their property made at intervals between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, together with the representation of their regular life in contemporary biskupa sögur, this paper reveals a monastic practice that did diverge from that of Benedictines elsewhere in northern Europe but that nonetheless expressed a powerful attachment to some of the principal ideals of the Benedictine Rule: abbacy, conventual fraternity and the interplay of contemplative and active occupation. Above all, these communities appear to have propagated a cult interest in the figure of Benedict himself, placing him at the centre of their worship life long after Benedictines elsewhere in Europe had allowed him to be eclipsed by national and regional cults of more recent creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, it has been a truism that the emergence of Protestantism was the main cause of the development of capitalism. However, a careful analysis of primary sources, especially in Latin countries, shows a quite different reality. Three centuries before the emergence of Protestantism, the Franciscans generated a discourse that made it possible to begin to legitimize the commercial practices that would later enable the emergence of capitalism. Based on these premises, this article aims to explore the discursive and juridical primary sources of medieval Barcelona—especially the testimonies of the Franciscan intellectual Francesc Eiximenis and merchant wills—to provide relevant new data and interpretations of how Franciscan charisma brought about a better understanding and legitimization of mercantile work. I intend to use the concept of charisma to better understand the great paradox of how those who aspired to a life of extreme poverty—the Franciscans—succeeded in legitimizing the work of those who aspired to a comfortable life, namely, the emerging merchant group. The merchants provided the Franciscans with the material capital necessary for their establishment in the city, while the Franciscans granted the merchants symbolic capital that was indispensable for the development of their mercantile work, social recognition, and religious legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the effects the new technology of printing had on the rich and multilingual textual culture of late medieval Britain. Before setting up his press in Westminster, William Caxton had books published in Latin, French and English. As soon as he relocated to England, however, he abandoned this multilingual business model and devoted all his energies to print books in English, as did his successors Richard Pynson and Wynkyn de Worde. Not only did they favour English over all other British languages, but promoted a London-based variety of English at the expense of other dialects. Hence, before giving to the press the Scots Contemplacioun of Synnaris by William Touris, Wynkyn de Worde chose to have it Anglicized. When Walter Chepman and Andrew Myllar established a printing press in Edinburgh in 1508, they replicated the choices of their English counterparts, promoting the standard form of Scots and even Scotticizing Middle English texts, such as Sir Eglamour of Artois. I conclude by arguing that the introduction of the printing press in Britain enhanced the prestige of the language variety used by the elite and became instrumental in eroding the balances existing in the British language ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Varia História is the property of Varia Historia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the workshop titled "New Research on Monasteries and Orders in the Baltic Sea Region," held on November 2-3, 2023, aimed at young scholars. Topics include interdisciplinary and international discussions on projects conducted by young researchers, featuring presentations from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, and Poland. The sessions covered diverse themes such as the reception of medieval texts, the post-war fate of book collections.

This article examines the living images of the Virgin through the illustration of one of the most important collections of miracles of the 13th century, Les Miracles de Nostre Dame by Gautier de Coinci. In this case, I will focus my attention on manuscript 551 of Besançon (Besançon, BM, MS 551), which, although it has many flaws in its manufacture, offers an interesting presentation of living images. The study of these miniatures reflects the importance of devotion, the set of gestures, words, and gazes, in the medieval spectator's experience of Marian images. At a time when these images' legitimacy as sacred objects was still being debated, the artists in this manuscript show their power without censorship, presenting them as if they were the Virgin herself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medieval male friendship, at the intersection of sociopolitics, rhetoric, and philosophy, is both a habitus of affect and a possibility for unification. In Diego de San Pedro's Cárcel de amor (1483–1492), the bonding between el auctor and Leriano represents an Iberian late-medieval secretary–lord friendship that both constitutes el auctor 's persona and persists throughout the story as the only certainty against passionate love, courtly enmity, and injustice. This article studies this friendship from the perspective of "virtue" and "unification," or "becoming one," the two principle dimensions of amiçiçia discussed by fifteenth-century moral philosophers—especially Alfonso Fernández de Madrigal and Ferrán Núñez. It argues that Cárcel incorporates these philosophical thoughts into its narrative-rhetorical design. By reading the paratexts of Cárcel , this article further contends that the pervasiveness of friendship creates a space of boundary-crossing in which the author, el auctor , and Leriano mirror each other and produce a conflated literary subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ottomans established their administration on a dynamic and powerful system under the influence of the governing structure of medieval civilizations. Loyalty to the Great State, justice, and merit were the load-bearing columns of the system. Osman Bey, by assigning qadis and beys, and Orhan Bey, by establishing Divân-ı Hümâyûn, which was the highest bureaucratic institution, realized the first bureaucratic structuring and the network of administration. Murat the second identified the functions of the council and the organizational structure of the state. Dismissals, appointments, and promotions would be debated in Divân-ı Hümâyûn and presented to the sultan or to his absolute deputy for final decision. The period of Mehmet the Conqueror witnessed the developmental era of the institutions, and the madrasa of Sahn-ı Seman, an institution of higher education, to educate bureaucratic staff. Appointments to and dismissals from the central and provincial administrative units were regulated for the first time with legal code. Selim the Resolute and Suleiman the Magnificent sustained the same understanding. However, deteriorations in the administrative structure occurred towards the end of the Suleiman the Magnificent period. Arbitrariness in appointments and dismissals rose to prominence in the second half of the 16th century. Those who were assigned to the positions left by those who were dismissed could often receive a letter of dismissal even before taking office. The lack of foresight and the inconsistency of the administration, in a tangle of discrepancies, brought about some problems. The citizens harassed by the lawlessness of the incompetent provincial administrators would apply to Divân-ı Hümâyûn to present their situations. Although a multitude of studies have been done on the central and provincial administrations, the absence of distinct studies on the appointments and dismissals has required this subject to be researched. Use has been made of mühimme records -- records of the decisions taken by the sultan, or his deputy, on important issues -- travel books, and the chronicles of the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of medieval arms and armour abounds with terms whose meanings are, as yet, lost to us. Of these, none is perhaps as recurrent or as widespread as the term musekin, amply present in a variety of European sources and languages between the 13th and the 16th centuries. Although familiar to experts, and included in a number of seminal works, no one source has of yet provided a definite, well-researched answer as to what musekins might be. This paper's aim is therefore to try and work out what object or objects musekins might have corresponded to, by bringing together a considerable number and typology of sources—textual, artistic, and archaeological—from a wide variety of medieval European cultures, which are then analysed in a multi-pronged, multi-lingual, interdisciplinary approach. Possible identifications are then presented, in a process which highlights the potential for complementarity between different European languages and archives in researching medieval arms and armour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we explore the contexts and appearances of what we argue is a Norwegian version of the Green Man - the Glibb - in vernacular settings. We also discuss the figure's possible meanings in Norwegian secular culture. Most of the objects are part of the digital artifact collection called DigitaltMuseum (Digital Museum), which is a common database for Norwegian and Swedish museums and collections. Our collection and analysis of this material provides an initial step toward documenting the figure's appearances and uses beyond the ecclesial material culture; however, it does not represent an exhaustive list of sources. We investigate the appearance of this particular 'Green Man' figure, discussing its material form and iconographical features and analysing its placement and occurrence. We argue that the Glibb's ambiguous and flexible imagery is also a flexible symbol. Over the centuries, such symbols can enter into new constellations and interpretations of meaning with is new generation that continues to use their material forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to commence seeking an answer to the following question: What function did the developed parabiblical (pseudepigraphical) literature play in medieval Armenian culture? The question is approached by the examination of markers in the texts that might show the use to which they were put and reveal the contexts in which the various types of literature were composed, or preserved, or developed. The issues of folk tales and oral transmission are raised. The use of iconographic sources and their relationship to literary documents, oral or written, are investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estonian Journal of Archaeology is the property of Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Scripta is the property of Scripta and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Using modern terms of morality to evaluate the sexual attitude of Humbert towards Lolita, which constitutes the central subject matter of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (2005), most readers view the novel as erotica, a piece of literature that glamorizes amoral sexuality and rebels against humans' morality. This view feasibly condemns the sexual relationship between a forty-year-old male and a twelve-year-old girl-child nymphet; nevertheless, it overlooks the insistence of the novel's fictitious narrator and editor that the narrative is ethical and heavily loaded with pro morality messages. To resolve this perspectival dichotomy, this article revisits Humbert's love of Lolita contending that the relationship between Humbert and Lolita constitutes a form of courtly love, not rape or pedophilia. Relying on the medieval definition of courtly love, the article argues that Humbert is better viewed as a medieval lover whose love-based sexuality towards Lolita is ennobling and transcendent. By so doing, the article discharges Humbert’s love of Lolita from any modern connotations of animalistic carnality, thus maintaining the narrative’s obsessive involvement in the medieval culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jahrhundert vollzogen wird, sondern auch textseitig durch die nur schwerlich zu bestreitende Eindeutigkeit der begrifflichen Zuordnung negiert wird (die vermeintliche Trophäe wird stets als I houpt i , das Trinkgefäß stets als I chopf i bezeichnet, während die wenigen Ausnahmen in V. 4751 und V. 6307, die die Verfasserin geltend zu machen versucht, I chopf i in der abgeleiteten Bedeutung ›Hirnschale‹ gebrauchen). Dass diese Einsicht im Hinblick auf die Literatur des Mittelalters nicht allein dort gilt, wo die Erzählinstanz zugunsten poetologischer Exkurse aus der Handlung ausschert, sondern dass gerade auch die Beschreibung von Kunstgegenständen, Textilien, Wappen und Figuren für die Suche nach der ›impliziten Poetik‹ der frühen volkssprachigen Dichtung produktiv gemacht werden kann, wurde und wird jüngster Zeit immer deutlicher gesehen. Als entscheidend stellt sich dabei für Geisthardt heraus, dass sich der überdeterminierte Hybridkörper des Hauptmanns, der mit Schmid in der Tradition der ›Ars Poetica‹ verortet wird, durch die Ausrichtung der Figur auf die I âventiure i sowie auf das textseitig formulierte Leitbild der I tugent i auf das literarische Feld hin ausdeuten lässt. [Extracted from the article]

Material Aspects of Reading in Ancient and Medieval Cultures: Materiality, Presence and Performance, by Anna Krauß, Jonas Leipziger, and Friederike Schücking-Jungblut (eds.) Continuing with the same medium, Jonas Leipziger explores Jewish reading practices in antiquity, troubling rabbinic projections about Jewish reading culture. This praxeologically oriented analysis of written texts exemplifies the possibilities and limitations of a material approach to lived religious practice and deepens our understanding of the ways in which people read (or did not read) in community. [Extracted from the article]

Many poets writing after World War II felt a sense of diffidence towards the great ideals of history and religion. They offer a satiric interpretation of their time, and their work often perverts the typological reading of history illustrated in the Bible by opposing the promises of a second coming by Christ with the horrors of the war and the Holocaust, suggesting that the concept of "sacrifice" has no redemptive value. Anthony Hecht, an American post-war formalist, expresses this message through an ekphrastic medium, specifically emblems, inspired by mediaeval culture and Renaissance poetry. One of his early works, The Seven Deadly Sins, in collaboration with the engraver Leonard Baskin, presents a modern collection of emblem poems featuring the figure of Christ, which like the emblematic form can be seen as "word made flesh". Through their combinations of icons and words, the emblems become the perfect form to assess the dialectical opposition between God and man, body and soul, past and present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the article is to consider the miniature as a pictorial interpretation of the text, as one of the elements of «entertainment» in the context of the development of medieval culture. The research methodology. An analytical method is used to collect theoretical material about the miniatures of the Mirovingian period (V-VII centuries), on the example of the Sacramentarium Gelasianum and Gellon Sacramentarium; the miniatures from the times of the Carolingian revival of the VIII-IX centuries, («Gospel of Godescalk», «Gospel of Ada», «Gospel from the monastery of St. Medard in Soissons»). A historical and cultural method is applied to analyse the role of the miniature in the socio-cultural life of Medieval Europe as one of the elements of ceremonial and ritual «entertainment». An art historical method that involves a detailed examination and description of a medieval book miniature, and a theoretical method are used to summarise the findings. The scientific novelty of the work is that for the first time the miniatures are considered as a pictorial interpretation of the text in the context of the development of the medieval culture, as a sensual form of knowledge of an ideal model, and one of the elements of the personification of ritualistic "entertainment" in the socio-cultural life of this historical period. Conclusions. The article examines the miniature as a visual interpretation of the text in the context of the development of the culture of the Middle Ages. It has been proven that since ancient times the miniature, on the example of the "Ambrosian Iliad", was the personification of ceremonial and ritual, and partly artistic "entertainment", which made it possible to outline the miniature as a pictorial component of this phenomenon, as well as a pictorial interpretation of the handwritten text which reflects the most current events of this historical era. The brightest examples of the miniatures in the early Christian tradition of Western Europe, which are presented in the Merovingian manuscripts of the V-VIII centuries, are considered using the example of the Sacramentarium Gelasianum and Gellon Sacramentarium. Graphic miniature decoration becomes not just a pictorial interpretation of the text, but turns into an element of worship. There are many images of birds, fish, animals, and plant ornaments, the emphasis is on red, yellow, and green. Great attention is paid to the decorative design of the capital letters of the sections, they become special symbolic signs that are even attributed with magical meaning. The miniature begins to act as a sensual form of knowledge of the ideal model, which is available to the chosen ones. This tradition continues on the example of Carolingian manuscripts, the miniatures «Source of Life» («Gospel of Godescalcus»), «Adoration of the Lamb» and «Source of Life» («Gospel from the Monastery of St. Medard in Soissons») are symbolic, personifying the theocentric worldview, that the Gospel is the source of eternal life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contains an introductory presentation of the medieval text Vision of Tnugdalus, a description of the context of its emergence and its discursive genre, and a theoretical reflection on its content from the Bakhtinian concept of carnivalization and other concepts of historical approach that are part of the reflection of scholars who describe medieval popular culture and the phenomena correlated with this text. The part of the Vision of Tnugdalus that narrates the visionary's passage through hell is exclusively delimited. In this study, the synchronic aspect stands out and the proposed discussion applies to the depth of the imaginary, to the cultural phenomenon that manifests itself in the narrative. From the Cassirerian cultural point of view, on which Bakhtin is based, texts of this kind, very common in the Middle Ages, represent a symbolic resource to overcome the fear of death, which is intrinsically part of the cosmovision of the human being endowed with culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contains an introductory presentation of the medieval text Vision of Tnugdalus, a description of the context of its emergence and its discursive genre, and a theoretical reflection on its content from the Bakhtinian concept of carnivalization and other concepts of historical approach that are part of the reflection of scholars who describe medieval popular culture and the phenomena correlated with this text. The part of the Vision of Tnugdalus that narrates the visionary's passage through hell is exclusively delimited. In this study, the synchronic aspect stands out and the proposed discussion applies to the depth of the imaginary, to the cultural phenomenon that manifests itself in the narrative. From the Cassirerian cultural point of view, on which Bakhtin is based, texts of this kind, very common in the Middle Ages, represent a symbolic resource to overcome the fear of death, which is intrinsically part of the cosmovision of the human being endowed with culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is highly fashionable today to project either a very negative or a very positive image of the Middle Ages. The invention of the printing press has hence often been associated with a radical change in literature, religion, politics, and generally the public media. Indeed, we can observe an imminent paradigm shift, ultimately leading, above all, to the Protestant Reformation, which would not have been possible without the printing press. However, technological revolutions do not necessarily transform the Zeitgeist or the history of mentality, the general value systems, and hence the fundamental concepts of literature. Although many medieval romances and heroic epics were soon eclipsed by new types of prose novels, for instance, printed and sold on the early modern book markets, in many other cases the medieval narratives, such as the various versions of the Melusine novel and the jest narratives of Till Eulenspiegel, experienced an astounding afterlife and renewed interests through the printed versions, and this far into the seventeenth century. This article does not intend to diminish the huge impact of the printing press on late medieval culture, but wants to qualify further and discriminate more in detail what really changed and what remained the same within the history of literature. Both the narratives discussed here and their accompanying woodcuts demonstrate a smooth continuation of late medieval topics well into the early modern period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mythic Tales side quests in Ghost of Tsushima (2020) explore folkloric and supernatural narratives using the themes from legends and lore surrounding Tsushima Island. However, as a historical video game that reimagines a thirteenth-century medieval Japanese society during the events of the Mongol invasion of Japan in 1274, careful examination of its represented form is necessary since it can tell us how a player is instructed to play with the reimagined past or what about the past is deemed important (Chapman; Balela and Mundy; McCall). Furthermore, the side quests provide a deeper exploration of the game-world setting, which can provide a historical and sociocultural understanding of the represented past through gameplay. In line with this, this paper examines the Mythic Tales experience by exploring the representations of the in-game version of a Japanese traditional performance art called the heikyoku, performed by a medieval storyteller known as the biwa hōshi. This includes a discussion of the tradition and how it translates into a video game format, highlighting the special audiovisual spectacle that relies on familiar Japanese imageries such as the sumi-e and ukiyo-e, which are unique to this part of the game. A case study of one of the Mythic Tales, "The Curse of Uchitsune," will serve as critical analysis toward the kind of in-game mythic narrative and experience the game provides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chrétien de Troyes's Yvain does not seem too preoccupied with sexual consent. Indeed, as feminist critics have notably underscored, Yvain's wife is twice pressured and tricked into accepting his pretensions. Yet by looking to points of confluence between this romance and reflections on consent in both medieval learned culture—in particular, canon law and Abelardian philosophy—and modern theory, this article counters that the romance is not so much uninterested in consent as it is interrogating the concept, exploring its limitations and contradictions in powerful ways that even prove instructive for modern theory. The article proceeds in three movements. First, it wades into the heated critical debate over the literary and ethical satisfactoriness of the romance's abrupt conclusion. I suggest that we can read the romance's dénouement as treating the problem of how well the concept of consent can distinguish legally or morally tolerable relations from intolerable ones. Second, it backs up this counterintuitive notion that the romance is concerned with the concept of consent by showing how different adventures intersect with important issues in medieval and modern thinking on the subject. Finally, it focuses on the romance's most profound, and profoundly ambivalent, representation of consent: the elaborate episode in which Yvain chases a mortally wounded Esclados into his castle and comes out married to his wife. I argue that this scene is calling attention to the complex and contradictory relationship of consent to compulsion; it casts consent as the meaningful alternative to the injustice of physical force but simultaneously shows that consent is complicit with force. By so doing, Yvain invites the modern critic to confront, not to dodge, the intractable ambivalence of consent's relationship to sexual justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Books of the Parish Church-project is an ERC-funded project that launched in January 2021 and is hosted by the Finnish National Library. The project seeks to shed new light on the book provision of the parish churches, in the Swedish realm and in Europe overall, c. 1150–c. 1500. To do this, it utilizes the exceptionally rich collections of fragments of liturgical books from medieval Sweden that were systematically recycled and preserved by the royal tax administration in the early modern period. Here we offer a history of this unique source material and the objectives of the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I challenge the increasing emphasis on digital technologies to enhance encounters with the past in heritage landscapes. Beginning with a memory from my childhood, I conceptualise presence as being there and review recent approaches in heritage studies that highlight the wide range of benefits derived from embodied experiences in heritage places including reinforcing feelings of wellbeing and ontological security. Outlining enduring limitations of high-tech digital heritage tools, particularly the lack of critical perspectives assessing the ethical and methodological challenges of employing them in heritage landscapes, I argue there is a recurring theme of grasping for presence. Drawing on fieldwork in four heritage sites associated with the Viking Age in Sweden and Germany, I suggest a renewed focus on 'high touch' will encourage more meaningful, multisensory encounters within the fabric of the heritage landscape. As our lives become increasingly high tech, I return to the foundational values and motivations of being there in heritage places, concluding that heritage landscapes serve as important spaces of interaction where past, present, and future imaginaries can be negotiated beyond the reach of the digital world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

V. L. Ménage, who died in 2015, was Lecturer and then Professor at the University of London's School of Oriental & African Studies from 1955 until 1983, and one of the pioneers of Ottoman history in the United Kingdom. Ottoman Historical Documents: The Institutions of an Empire By V. L. Ménage, edited by Colin Imber The great majority of the translated sources are as Ménage wrote them, although in a few cases Imber has provided new translations where the original was missing, or replaced one of Ménage's sources with a more suitable alternative. [Extracted from the article]

A particular pleasure is Grzegorz Pac's essay (pp. 119-138) on the calendar of the I Codex Gertrudianus i , an eleventh-century psalter once belonging to Gertruda (d. 1108), wife of Iziaslav I of Kyiv. It is this legacy that is discussed throughout I Political Liturgies in the High Middle Ages i , a much-needed collection that builds upon Kantorowicz's championing of medieval liturgy as a viable historical source while questioning his secularisation thesis. The funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022 saw the mystical and emotive power of Christian liturgy broadcast to millions of people around the globe, serving as a reminder of the close connections between kingship (or, in this case, queenship) and the liturgy that has long operated as a political legitimisation of monarchy. [Extracted from the article]

The article considers the notion of the Corpus Christianorum, or Christian body politic, during the High Medieval period (c. 950–c 1350), tries to understand the longstanding tradition of anti-Jewish sentiment and stereotyping of non-Christians, and discusses the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 by King Edward I, almost exactly 100 years after the Palm Sunday 1190 pogrom and expulsion of Jews by Abbot Samson of Bury St. Edmunds, England which was approved by King Richard I.

Utopian novels envisioning such utopias included those penned by a number of American authors: I The Age of Progress i (1856), I The Cooperative Commonwealth in its Outlines i (1884), I Rational Communism i (1885), and I A Cityless and Countryless World i (1893). These developments were mirrored in numerous literary visions of a far more sprawled populace: I The Eden of Labor i (1876), I Sociology i (1877), I Utopia i (1884), I How They Lived at Hampton i (1888), I The Story of Happinolande i (1889), I The Birth of Freedom i (1891), I Earth Revisited i (1893), I A Traveler from Altruria i (1894), and I Daybreak i (1896). Walker shows how such imagined perfection was often achieved through incredible violence; authors' descriptions of selective breeding or racial apartheid foreshadow brutal state projects of the twentieth century. [Extracted from the article]