Review of 'The Cult of Thomas Becket: History and Historiography through Eight Centuries'

As an historian of religions Franz Cumont was an evolutionist. His publications on the origins and the evolution of the taurobolium-criobolium, and extracts from his correspondence with Alfred Loisy show to what extent his interpretation of this rite was influenced by the paradigm in which he worked. Mazdaism, Judaism and Greek philosophy were for him the motors of a spiritual interpretation of a primitive rite from Asia-Minor, and the success of this rite in the West was part of the history of the evolution of ancient cults stylized by the symbolism of the elements. Cumont saw this history dialectically, with alliances between different oriental religions. The telos of this evolution was a moral and universalist spirituality and belief in astral immortality. Loisy worked within a different paradigm (analogue genealogy) and the letters between these two scholars show that they combined the greatest respect and friendship for each other with the determination to think about the links between Christianity and the mystery cults from within their own paradigm.

The present thesis examines the history of Hagia Koiyphe, a mountain peak above the Monastery of Saint Catherine at South Sinai. It has been known for centuries as 'Mount Sinai,' the place where Moses received the Law from God, as described in Exodus. The thesis explores the ways in which the landscape of Hagia Koiyphe was experienced and transformed, using textual criticism, historical analysis, art historical appreciation and, for the first time, archaeological interpretation. The narrative begins in the third century AD, when the identification of the Biblical 'Mount Sinai' with Hagia Koiyphe was made, and extends to World War I. Chapter 1 deals with the aims, method and problems of the research, the toponymy and natural environment. Chapter 2 examines the Bedouin, the anchorites and their relationship. An analysis of the material record from and textual references to Hagia Koiyphe in the Early Christian period follows. Chapter 3 delves into the building programme of the emperor Justinian (mid-sixth century). It presents written sources on and describes the imperial foundations. Earlier research on the basilica of Hagia Koiyphe and the programme's impact on locals are discussed. Chapter 4 covers the years between the 630s and 1822: the continuation of earlier ways of life and the changes due to the coming of Islam, the importance of Hagia Koiyphe in Muslim tradition, the collapse of the summit basilica and the cult of Saint Catherine. The medieval period was dominated by the pilgrimage phenomenon and the patronage of Muslim rulers. In Ottoman times the Monastery was consolidated within Orthodox hierarchy and the era of pilgrimage ended. Chapter 5 examines the 'Mount of the Law controversy' and the scholarly, artistic and tourist phenomenon of nineteenth-century Sinai. The Epilogue focuses on the future of Hagia Koiyphe at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

The article is a review of the extensive six-volume Dictionary of the history of political doctrines elaborated by a wide group of Cracovian historians of political thought under the editorial guidance of Prof. Michal Jaskolski. I argue that The Dictionary of the history of political doctrines plays a double role: being a piece of a scholarship it is also a book which should be read by politically responsible citizens who intend to better understand processes and events in public life. In my opinion, the history of political doctrines in Poland was in need of such a work, which is neither a monograph nor a course book, but a reference book. The purpose of The Dictionary… – the same as in the case of the Oxford or Cambridge Companions to… – is to: conceptualize the issue, to indicate the controversies and the arguments within the intellectual debates, and, last but not least, to provide the reader with a basic bibliography. Beyond its ability to give information, the main asset of the reviewed dictionary consists in its interpretation of the discussed aspects of political thought, which is much more diffi cult and scientifi cally interesting. In order to complete the work on the six-volume dictionary successfully, one had to be conscious of the complex identity of the discipline, and one had to possess a sense of synthesis. In my opinion the scientifi c editor of the dictionary, Prof. Michal Jaskolski, is a scholar who possesses both these attributes. To sum up, although the book serves as an invitation to enter the labyrinth of the history of political thought, it also invites the reader to ‘walk’ through it critically.

The art historian Fritz Saxl, Aby Warburg’s librarian and trusted friend, researched apart from art historical topics images of gods of late antiquity, Oriental and Greek mystery cults and the pictorial presentation of dialogue in early Christian art. This research led him to Mithraism, the images and practices of this mystery cult and in particular how Oriental thought flowed into Occidental thought. Saxl was engaged in this work for many years. In this article I touch upon Saxl’s extended correspondence with Aby Warburg in 1929, when Warburg was in Rome and was able to see Mithraic temples for himself. The exchange of their queries and tentative answers, their theoretical speculations and findings, their approach to understanding Mithraic monuments and sites, shed light on their unique method of scholarly collaboration.

At the beginning of the second millennium, Asia’s most venerable organisation, the Buddhist saṅgha, underwent a final and radical change. In the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal, the monastic order, long the preserve of celibate renunciants, began to accommodate noncelibate practitioners of tantric yoga and their partners. Today it survives among the Newars as a hereditary institution, the last bastion of the formerly widespread Sanskritic Buddhist tradition. When and in what form does this tantric monasticism begin to appear? The deepest transformations are generally accepted to have taken place between the late tenth and fourteenth centuries—the little-known Transitional Period, mythologised in Nepal’s native histories and rarely studied by historians. Attention is directed here towards the rapid evolution of an ancient monastic ritual, the fast or poṣadha, which is still celebrated in Newar Buddhism as a tantric aṣṭamīvrata. The poṣadha ceremony is shown to have been reshaped to accommodate the tantric ‘beginner practitioner’ (ādikarmika), who should take the eight abstemious poṣadha vows as a first step towards the sensuous praxis of the Buddhist tantras, as recommended in Hevajratantra II.8.9 and in later manuals of initiation (abhiṣeka). In being repurposed as a prelude to carnal tantrism, the poṣadha celebration superseded the old Prātimokṣa recitation that was formerly at its core, adopting in its place theist-oriented vrata ritual, kāvya genre storytelling and a reworked cult of Amoghapāśa Avalokiteśvara. Throughout the period the views of major South Asian authorities on tantric–monastic religiosity — Vāgīśvarakīrti, Bhavabhaṭṭa, Ratnākaraśānti, Puṇḍarīka, Dīpaṃkaraśrījnāna, Advayavajra, Kuladatta, Manjukīrti, Abhayākaragupta, Tatakaragupta, Jagaddarpaṇa and Vibhūticandra, in particular — are found to be circulating in the bāhāḥ and bahī monasteries of Nepal. A key document of the transition is the previously unstudied Poṣadhavidhāna handbook, preserved in a unique witness at the Royal Asiatic Society, London, which is edited and studied for the first time in the present thesis. Another fruitful source for the period is donor portraiture, which is mined here for new information on the lives of tantric monks. Several paintings portray their donors with both monastic and lay characteristics, and monks are often depicted in the company of worldly gurus, vajrācāryas and female partners. The iconography associated with these portraits — as explained in texts such as the sādhanas of the Saptākṣara form of Cakrasaṃvara — implicates them in erotic tantric practice. The growing trade in art on tantric subjects is also shown to coincide with the growth of tantric monasteries. From the late twelfth century onwards a habit of alternation between monastic and non-monastic behaviour is discerned in written dedications to so-called ‘householder monks’ as well as in contemporaneous tracts on how to go about in public as a tantric monk. These developments are identified as the forerunners of a largely uncodified form of Buddhism that persists in Nepal to the present day.

The new historiography is a general mark for the historiographical society to challenge the old historiography. Under the continuous developing of new historiography, gradually, the new historiography has become the target challenged by the newer historiographical theories. Therefore, in the slogan of new historiography, the new historiography marches toward postmodernism step by step, overturns all theoretical bases of historiography, and makes historiography face the predicament of ”the death of history.”The challenge from postmodernism reveals a common defect of new and old historiography, i.e., lack of theoretical base and consistency on the basic questions about ”What is history?”, ”What function can history have?”, ”What is the scope of subject of history?”, etc. However, the historiography of postmodernism neither solves the basic questions nor discovers the fact that its defect does not differ from the defect of new historiography; on the contrary, it continues going forward according to the original wrong base and direction of new and old historiographies, and thus results in the predicament of ”the death of history.”This article finds both new and old historiographies are wrong, false historiographies because they are all based on the wrong start and end points of logic.The article tries to explore the basic questions of historiography and fundamentally corrects the common defect of new and old historiographies so that the historiography can become alive again and marches toward the stage of the true historiography. This article discovers that both new and old historiographies confuse the definition of history with that of historical book, and wrongly claim that history only has the past characters, neglecting it in fact having the present and future characters at the same time.The argument between new and old historians about the scope of historical subject is only the argument for the minority or majority of human beings; both historians do not correctly recognize that the scope of historical subject in fact includes all sentient beings of the ten dharma-realms. Therefore, the object that the new and old historians pledge themselves to and the functions of history they recognize are also totally wrong due to this narrow scope of subject.The various mistakes which new and old historians make all result from the fact that they build the logical start point of history on the relationship of name and form dharmas, and neglect the correct start and end points of history should be based on the eighth consciousness, the embryo-entering consciousness, Tathagatagarbha, which gives birth to both name and form dharmas. Only the true historiography based on Tathagatagarbha can conform to the fact of the dharma-realm and make full play of the functions of science and rationality so that the sentient beings can understand their own positions in the dharma-realm and endeavor to practice for Buddhahood.Consequently, the historians who possess the real professional knowledge and capability exist in Buddhism only; the non-Buddhist historians are not professional. The fifty-two practice stages of the Bodhisattva-Way are the normalized strict training and procedure for the professional historian. Only those Mahayana bodhisattvas who have personally realized the eighth consciousness Tathagatagarbha qualify for becoming professional historians and thus can get the normalized strict training and procedure. The Buddha, who has completed the training of the fifty-two stages and attained Buddhahood in the dharma-realm, is the greatest historian. Therefore, Buddhism is the ”general government and nervous system” of historiography.

Contents: Introduction, Antony Eastmond The decline of medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the process of Islamization from the 11th through the 15th century: the book in the light of subsequent scholarship, 1971a 98, Speros Vryonis Jr Byzantiuma (TM)s eastern frontier: Constantine VII, Caucasian openings and the road to Aleppo, Jonathan Shepard a /How the east was wona in the reign of Basil II, Catherine Holmes La conception militaire de la frontiAre orientale (IXea XIIIe siAcle), Jean-Claude Cheynet History writing in the east: Some reflections on Seljuq historiography, Carole Hillenbrand a /The concept of historya in medieval Armenian historians, Robert W. Thomson From bumberazi to basileus: writing cultural synthesis and dynastic change in medieval Georgia (Ka (TM)arta (TM)li), Stephen H. Rapp Jr Byzantines: Bearing gifts from the east: imperial relic hunters abroad, Liz James Art chrA(c)tien en Anatolie turque: le tA(c)moignage de peintures inA(c)dites A Tatlarin, Catherine Jolivet-LA(c)vy Georgians: Newly discovered early paintings in the Gareja desert, Zaza Skhirtladze Byzantium and its eastern barbarians: the cult of saints in Svaneta (TM)i, Brigitta Schrade Georgian perceptions of Byzantium in the 11th and 12th centuries, Giorgi Tcheishvili Stalin and Georgian enamels, David Buckton Armenians: The visual expression of power and piety in medieval Armenia: the palace and palace church at Aghtamar, Lynn Jones Imperial aspirations: Armenian Cilicia and Byzantium in the 13th century, Helen C. Evans Seljuqs and Turkomans: Turkoman and Byzantine self-identity. Some reflections on the logic of title-making in 12th- and 13th-century Anatolia, Rustam Shukurov Seljuqs before the Seljuqs: nomads and frontiers inside Byzantium, Pamela Armstrong Index.

With continuous issuance that covers a wide time span, newspapers and periodicals are not only documents of historical events, but also valuable for the study of history and social change. Although there has recently been an increasing academic interest in musical events in Japanese colonial Taiwan, a newspaper database about music is still desirable. The only existing database of similar nature is Operatic Resources in Newspapers during the Japanese Colonial Period in Taiwan, compiled by Hsu Ya-hsiang from a variety of newspapers printed in the Chinese language. In order to compile all the texts and images about music in Taiwan Daily News, the longest running newspaper with the highest circulation published during almost the entire colonial period, in summer 2008 the Graduate Institute of Musicology at the National Taiwan University undertook to construct the database ”Music Resources in Taiwan Daily News.” This construction project has presently collected 26,370 clippings from Taiwan Daily News issued between 1898~1911 of the Meiji era. The news clippings indicate that Taiwan Daily News covers a wide range of musical activities of different ethnic groups in Taiwan, together with issues on musical exchanges within East Asia and on performance and dissemination of Western music in this region. In addition to musical materials, this newspaper encompasses those associated with a diversity of performing arts, social culture and new media such as gramophone records and cinema in the first half of the twentieth century. As more clippings from Taisho and Showa eras will be added to complete the ”Music Resources in Taiwan Daily News” in due course, an abundance of multi faceted historical materials will be available for the study of music and socio-cultural history.

Professor T'ang Chun-I is a philosopher, idealist, humanist and neo-Confucianist. He commands a great variety of different kinds of knowledge. His concern of the different aspects of culture, of the development of human history as well as of the science of history is noteworthy. However, his consideration of the latter is not well known. By the way, as a historian, I am very interested in his discussion on the topic of the science of history, especially on his discourse on the value judgement of the science of history. The present article thus serves as a tentative attempt to elaborate his theory relative to the historical value judgement. It contains the following four parts: (1) Introduction I am of the opinion that if we accept the weather reporter, whose very aim is to provide the best service to the spectators, to use the terms ”very hot”, ”very cold”, etc. which are actually value orientated, to forecast next day's weather, we should, due to the same reason (to provide the best service to the readers), accept the historians to pass the value judgement on the past events as well as on the historical figures. (2) The Chinese historians' tradition of passing value judgement The author of the present article gives a brief account on the Chinese historians' tradition of passing value judgement, which has lasted more than two thousand or even three thousand years. (3) T'ang Chun-I's theory of passing historical value judgement (a) Firstly, the author of the present article identifies the following terms: historical opinion, historical discourse and historical value judgement, due to the reason that they have roughly the same meaning. (b)The content of the philosophy of history is rather rich. Among the different ”ingredients”, historical value judgement is without any doubt part of it; and it is this very part which is most noteworthy in the Chinese historical tradition. As a result, T'ang Chun-I pays great attention to it. (c) T'ang Chun-I is of the opinion that to pass historical value judgement is a quite natural human behavior. Furthermore, he states that it is actually a historian's obligation and duty to do so. (d) T'ang Chun-I argues that those historians who object to pass historical value judgment is ridiculous and is actually a dereliction of duty. (e)T'ang Chun-I claims that the historical value judgement actually plays an important role of promoting the valuable human performances and transforming the performances contrary to the human values. (f) T'ang Chun-I states that historians should anyhow pass value judgement, but strongly suggests that it should be passed after factual judgement has been made, because this is the very way of training and cultivating oneself to be a cognitive subject. (4) Conclusion The author of the present article finally affirms that T'ang Chun-I is a philosopher full of wisdom and benevolence, his discussion on the issue of the historical value judgement serves as a good example.

“聖賢”與“聖徒”：儒教從祀制與基督教封聖制的比較

This thesis is about plant breeding in Early 20th-Century Italy. The stories of the two most prominent Italian plant-breeders of the time, Nazareno Strampelli and Francesco Todaro, are used to explore a fragment of the often-neglected history of Italian agricultural research. While Italy was not at the forefront of agricultural innovation, research programs aimed at varietal innovation did emerge in the country, along with an early diffusion of Mendelism. Using philosophical as well as historical analysis, plant breeding is analysed throughout this thesis as a process: a sequence of steps that lays on practical skills and theoretical assumptions, acting on various elements of production. Systematic plant-breeding programs in Italy started from small individual efforts, attracting more and more resources until they became a crucial part of the fascist regime's infamous agricultural policy. Hybrid varieties developed in the early 20th century survived World War II and are now ancestors of the varieties that are still cultivated today. Despite this relevance, the history of Italian wheat hybrids is today largely forgotten: this thesis is an effort to re-evaluate a part of it. The research did allow previously unknown or neglected facts to emerge, giving a new perspective on the infamous alliance between plant-breeding programs and the fascist regime. This thesis undertakes an analysis of Italian plant-breeding programs as processes. Those processes had a practical as well as a theoretical side, and involved various elements of production. Although a complete history of Italian plant breeding still remains to be written, the Italian case can now be considered along with the other case-studies that other scholars have developed in the history of plant breeding. The hope is that this historical and philosophical analysis will contribute to the on-going effort to understand the history of plants.

During the long course of Chinese history, Chinese historians always added comments after narrating historical events in order to draw didactic lessons from the forge of history. From ＂the gentleman says＂ of the ＂Zuozhuanto＂ the ＂Grand Historian says＂ of Historian's Records, the ＂measured discourses＂ of the official Han History, the ＂assessments＂ of the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, the ＂Your Servant Sima Guang says＂ of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government to Wang Fuzhi's (1619-1692) Reading the General Mirror of Historical Discourses and Discourses on Song History, these historians all examined the concrete ＂events＂ of history in detail in order to discourse on the ＂principle＂ or ＂moral norm＂ at stake. They thus followed the traces of history in order to seek the root causes; they followed upstream in order to reflect on the well-spring, the source, thus producing the synthesis of history and philosophy that characterizes traditional Chinese scholarship. This paper examines the complex relationship between ＂events＂ and ＂principles＂ in traditional Chinese historical writings, and discusses how traditional Chinese historiography orchestrates a synthesis of history with philosophy in which history operates as the function of philosophy. The present paper consists of five sections: besides section one, the introduction, section two traces the development of the relationship between ＂events＂ and ＂principles＂ in Chinese historiography, stressing that before the 10^(th) century CE (Northern Song), principle was regarded as parasitic on real events, i.e., as not really essential for understanding. After the rise of Song Neo-Confucianism, the principles identified in history gradually came to be viewed as the driving forces of historical events. This change reflected the gradual immersion of Confucian values into historical reflection, by which events and principle became ever more intimately connected. Sections three and four analyze two main uses that Chinese historical discourses started to have. Section three discusses how the forge of historical particularity was thought to produce universal significances, thus making the generalities in the works of Chinese history start to take on the appearance of Georg W. F. Hegel's (1770-1830) so-called ＂concrete universals.＂ Section four discusses the second use of the discourses in Chinese historiography; that is, the synthesis of the historian's ＂factual judgments＂ and ＂value judgments＂ or ＂moral judgments.＂ Chinese traditional historical narratives mostly tended to be what Jorn Rusen calls ＂exemplary narratives.＂ The Chinese historians fully approved of the notion that the actors in history were exercising their free will, that the movers and shakers in history held ultimate historical responsibility for the fruits of their actions and the broader historical impact. In Chinese culture, historians used historical judgment in place of the Final Judgment which is fundamental in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Section five summarizes the main points made in the paper, stressing the special feature of the unity of literature, history, and philosophy in traditional Chinese learning, through which the traditional discourses of Chinese historiography revealed a Gospel for their own tradition.

Resumen: El trabajo presenta una revisión historiográfica del culto a los emperadores romanos y su domus en las publicaciones más destacadas de los siglos XX y XXI principalmente. Se aborda un análisis que comienza con el examen de las aportaciones más importantes sobre la materia, de la centuria pasada, que pueden enmarcarse en el paradigma positivista, y finaliza con la influencia de las concepciones postmodernas en el estudio de la adoración a los emperadores. Así, se pretende mostrar de qué modo la interpretación del culto imperial está ligada tanto a la adscripción a determinadas escuelas historiográficas, como a las posturas individuales de cada historiador, marcadas por sus propias convicciones religiosas.Palabras clave: culto imperial, domus imperatoria, historiografía, paradigma interpretativo, religión romana.Abstract: This document presents a historiographical review of the most relevant publications in the 20th and 21st centuries in the cult to the Roman emperors and their domus. The study begins with an examination of the most important contributions on the subject matter that can be framed in the positivist paradigm and ends by exploring the influence of postmodern conceptions in the studies on emperor worship. The paper thereby aims to explain how the interpretation of the imperial cult is linked to both the affiliation with certain historiographical schools and to the individual positions of historians, marked by their own religious convictions.Key words: imperial cult, domus imperatoria, historiography, interpretative paradigm, Roman religion.

Historic schools are the building types where climatic comfort requirements of students, influencing the learning process have to be maintained. These buildings face deteriorations in long periods by especially climatic parameters, causing insufficient conditions for the students. The diagnostic process for historic school buildings is important in order to investigate the existing problems on the envelope and climatic comfort conditions before implementation of intervention strategies. The combined effect of climatic parameters, changing heat gain and losses, thermal sensation and energy efficiency have to be examined in order to lower the energy consumption, create comfortable climatic environment for students which directly influence their concentration and health in the classrooms. In this context the level of climatic conditions in different oriented classrooms are investigated by thermal measurements and concurrently conducted survey with questionnaires in historic Ulugazi Primary School in Izmit, Turkey. During the measurement process of climatic parameters, a survey was conducted among 40 students in two classrooms, located on North-northwest, (NNW) and South-southeast, (SSE) orientations. The findings on distribution of individual thermal satisfaction sensation of the students obtained by the questionnaires were compared to the graphics of distribution of temperature, air velocity, humidity measurement values.

Introduction: The Project of Historiography Section 1: Beginnings - East and West Introduction 1.1 Asian Historiography: Two Traditions 1.2 Historiography and Greek Self-Definition .3 Re-Reading the Roman Historians 1.4 The Historiography of Rural Labour 1.5 Towards Late-Antiquity Section 2: The Medieval World Introduction 2.1 The Historiography of the Medieval State 2.2 Saladin and the Third Crusade 2.3 Family and Household 2.4 The Medieval Nobility 2.5 Armies and Warfare 2.6 Popular Religion Section 3: Early-Modern Historiography Introduction 3.1 The Idea of Early Modern History 3.2 The Scientific Revolution 3.3 Intellectual History 3.4 The English Reformation 3.5 Popular Culture in the Early-Modern West 3.6 Revisionism in Britain Section 4: Reflecting on the Modern Age Introduction I: Revolution and Ideology 4.1 The French Revolution 4.2 The Soviet Revolution 4.3 National Socialism in Germany 4.4 Fascism and Beyond in Italy 4.5 Orientalism London: II Area Studies 4.6 China 4.7 Japan 4.8 India 4.9 Africa 4.10 North America 4.11 Latin America Section 5: Contexts for the Writing of History I: Hinterlands 5.1 History and Philosophy 5.2 History and Anthropology 5.3 History and Archaeology 5.4 History of Art II: Approaches 5.5 The Historical Narrative 5.6 The Annales School 5.7 Marxist Historiography 5.8 Women in Historiography 5.9 Comparative World History 5.10 Archives and Technology