Extant Sources Research Articles

The Making of Song Dynasty History: Sources and Narratives, 960–1279 CE by Charles Hartman

Every once in a long while, a book comes along that challenges the basic assumptions of an entire field. Hartman shows convincingly that much of what historians think happened during the Song dynasty (960–1279) did not occur as recorded, whether in surviving primary sources or in the English- and Chinese-language secondary sources based on them.His key insight? The sources reflect the time in which they were composed—not the times that they purport to describe. Why has it taken so long for Song historians to realize it? We have long known that the written record is heavily edited, as the standard descriptions of how the History Office, first established in the Tang dynasty (618–907), reveal. Every day, two court historians drew up records of the emperor’s actions (“The Diary of Activity and Repose,” qijuzhu), which they then revised into monthly summaries. Combining these summaries with records from other offices and biographical records of high officials, the History Office produced a daily calendar of events, which they then edited into a single Veritable Record, a chronological record of all the events that occurred in a given emperor’s reign (5–6).Hartman devotes a chapter to each of four major sources—The Recovered Draft of the Song State Compendium (Song huiyao jigao), The Long Draft Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror That Aids Administration (Xu zizhi tongjian changbian), The Chronological Record of Important Events since 1127 (Jianyan yilai xinian yaolu), and The Song History (Songshi). Carefully combining what is known about each book with a rigorous examination of the text, he reconstructs the stratigraphy, or different layers, of each book. This “archaeology” of texts is the book’s primary use of interdisciplinary method. An oft-cited anecdote tells how Song Taizu (reigned 960–976), the founder of the Song dynasty, persuaded his generals to cede their military power to the emperor and his civil administrators. Eight pages of textual archaeology demonstrate that the anecdote had no basis in contemporaneous sources and explain how historians reworded the anecdote to reflect the concerns of each generation (303–311). Throughout the book, Hartman’s reasoning is complex and detailed and his exposition clear and convincing.His findings are most surprising for The Song State Compendium, the source that has the appearance of being the closest to archival materials because it retains the precise formatting and feel of original entries—the very reason why Song historians have relied so heavily on this source. Hartman’s investigations show that the Compendium does not contain an equal number of entries for each year that it covers between 960 and 1224 (43, Figure 1.2). In this extraordinary discovery, Hartman identifies periods of more extensive and less extensive coverage, concluding that all diachronic comparisons are risky. Song historians are well aware that the Compendium was edited at regular intervals, but Hartman identifies some of the historians—including Li Tao (1115–1184), the author of The Long Draft Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror—who performed the editing. He also explains the nature of their interventions. This chapter alone makes Hartman’s book indispensable reading for anyone working with Song-dynasty sources.Three periods mattered to thirteenth-century historians because they subscribed to a moral narrative of Song dynasty history in which Song Taizu played an important role in creating the dynasty’s institutions (although little information about his reign survives). The second period, the rule of Emperor Renzong between 1041 and 1063, marked the high point of Song governance. In the third period, the machinations of various nefarious ministers (jianchen), starting with Wang Anshi (1021–1086) in the 1060s, led to the dynasty’s ultimate decline (244).By identifying these three tropes, Hartman alerts readers to the topics on which extant sources are least reliable. The question arises, What will the new version of Song history—the one that reads surviving sources against the moral narrative that Hartman has identified—be like? We are very fortunate that Hartman’s next book, entitled Structures of Governance in Song Dynasty China, 960–1279 CE, is already completed and should appear soon.

Emasculating healers. Medical castration practices in Greco-Roman antiquity*

AbstractIn the course of the human past the elimination of the testicles of boys and men – what we call castration – has taken place for a variety of reasons. Many times it was meant to deliberately hurt people. It is and was also performed, though, as a therapeutic measure by well-meaning physicians. Studying the motivations of medical practitioners involved in castration practices provides insight into the deontology and cultural context of these healers. This article explores the healing activities of the physicians of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds in this special field of surgery. In the extant literary sources we find medical indications for castration which are quite obvious to a modern eye, but also more mysterious and unexpected occasions which need to be explained from the historical context.

Palestine Solidarity Conferences in the Global Sixties

This article maps the internationalization of the Palestinian cause by studying the participants, groups, and themes at Palestinian solidarity conferences held in 1969–70. Examining such conferences reveals the extent of communication and ideological debate between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and international solidarity activists at an important juncture in the internationalization of the Palestinian liberation movement. The article makes the methodological point that international conferences organized by the PLO and other Palestinian institutions can function as an alternative archive that complements the traditional archives of diplomatic and intellectual history. Read in tandem with extant Palestinian sources, the paper trail left by international conferences mitigates the scattered and precarious status of Palestinian archives.

Previously Unknown Sources for Johann Philipp Kirnberger’s Flute Sonatas Found in the Former Rzewuski Music Collection from Podhorce (Pidhirtsi)

The music-related sources kept at Tarnów Municipal Library (Department of Early Prints and Nineteenth-Century Books) include manuscripts (PL-TAb 44, PL-TAb 45) which once belonged to the music collection of Wacław Rzewuski’s court ensemble in Podhorce (Pidhirtsi in Ukrainian). These manuscripts contain anonymously entered sonatas for flute and basso continuo, one of which has been recognised as the Sonata in E flat minor by Johann Philipp Kirnberger, previously only known from a Berlin copy. On the basis of comparative analysis with other extant sources, the Sonata in F sharp major found in the same manuscripts can also be attributed to Kirnberger.

Chevalier mult estes guariz and the ‘pre-chansonnier’ vernacular lyric

ABSTRACTChansonniers copied from the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries are the earliest extant sources to include an extensive corpus of lyrics in European vernacular languages. However, contemporary literary sources refer to the existence of earlier books of vernacular lyrics, and a handful of notated lyrics survive from as early as the twelfth century. This article explores a certain type of notated song that predates the relatively well-documented chansonnier tradition by some decades, specifically focusing on the case study of the crusader recruitment song Chevalier mult estes guariz (RS 1548a), composed around the mid-1140s. Probably the earliest extant copy of an Old French lyric (with or without musical notation), this unicum is distinct from songs of the kind preserved in the chansonniers in several respects, especially in its musical form, its manuscript appearance and its intended use in the Middle Ages. I examine this song from several angles, including its crusading theme, provenance, authorship, manuscript presentation, musical construction, intended audience, and the broader contexts of its composition and copying. Such close examination of a single song not only offers insights into the context of an early tradition of written-out vernacular monophony but also casts new light on the origins of the later chansonnier tradition.

Early Medieval Commons? Or How the History of Early Medieval Europe Could Benefit from a Necessary Conversation: The Case From NW Iberia

In 2016, M. Laborda-Pemán and T. De Moor issued a call to advance the conversation between commons scholars and historians. This paper argues that in order to further this conversation, in the case of Western Europe more attention needs to be paid to the centuries preceding the blossoming of the commons in the high Middle Ages. It focuses on NW Iberia to show that in this case, as in others, such developments need to be assessed against the processes triggered by the collapse of the Roman Empire. On the basis of the extant sources, and building upon some of the concerns of critical institutionalism, it then considers some of the theoretical avenues that could facilitate such a dialogue: addressing the multifunctional, socially embedded nature of institutions; the weight of social inequalities and power relations in their configuration and functioning; the role of conflict in the definition of norms and their transformation over time; and the discursive practices aimed at legitimising specific institutional arrangements.

Some reflections on the legend of the Marathon runner (hdt. 6.105, Aristoph. nub. 63–67, Plut. de glor. ath. 347c, Lucian. laps. 3 and the Roman Tradition)

A well-known tradition has it that after the victory of the Greeks over the Persian army at the battle of Marathon (490 B.C.E.) one of the Athenians ran forty kilometres from Marathon to Athens and died soon after his arrival in the city, after giving the good news. However, the story is more complicated than it seems, and several issues have claimed the attention of scholars, such as what the Marathon runner’s name was, what form of greeting he used and whether the episode really happened or not. The first part of my paper offers a reconsideration of the extant sources in order to express my point of view on the abovementioned issues. The second part aims at showing a selection of parallel passages which could possibly prove useful in trying to illustrate how the legend of the Marathon runner evolved into the shape it assumed in the Lucianean account, which is still considered as the ‘official’ version of the story.

Herodotus, the Old Sappho and the Newest Sappho

This paper focuses on Herodotus’ mention of Sappho in the Histories (2.134-5). Through the analysis of some of the extant sources on the involvement of her brother Charaxus with the hetaira Doricha/Rhodopis, it advances an interpretation of Sappho’s fr. 55 V as relevant to the affair. It then draws attention to Herodotus’ description of courtesans, in the same context, with the poetic term ἀοίδιμος. The adjective occurs only once in Homer, in the self-deprecating words that Helen speaks to Hector (Il. 6.354-8). Such Homeric echo might be understood as triggering an allusion to Sappho’s own treatment of Helen in fr. 16 V: Helen’s behaviour in that poem in fact closely matches no one other’s than Charaxus’ own. The possibility that Herodotus might be engaging with more than one Sapphic poem in this context finds a parallel in his engagement with Pindar’s poetry in 3.38, where, it has been argued, he ‘contaminates’ two distinct Pindaric intertexts (frr. 169a and 215 S.-M.). The contamination of thematically linked poems might in turn suggest, in both cases, sympotic reperformances as possible contexts for Herodotus’ reception of Greek lyric poetry.

Missing Queens: Gender, Dynasty and Power in Vandal Africa

AbstractThis paper reconsiders a curious aspect of the Vandal kingdom of North Africa (439–533 ce): the total absence of women called Vandals in extant sources. It argues that these missing Vandal women are the women of the Hasding royal dynasty. The non‐application of the ethnic terminology to the consorts, sisters and daughters of kings and princes corresponds to a broader dearth of contemporary discussions of their political agency. This reduced visibility reflects particular structural features of Vandal kingship – and, in particular, its succession arrangements – which reduced the significance of queens and princesses in both the representation and practice of governance at the royal court in Carthage.

‘Remplis l’air d’alegresse pour ce seigneur chery des cieux’: Music in the Entries of Nobility and Other Dignitaries in Late Renaissance France (c.1585–c.1615)

AbstractAlthough royal entries have long been studied by scholars, those undertaken by nobles and other political figures have generally attracted less attention. This is particularly true in musicological literature, a fact undoubtedly attributable to the paucity of surviving documentation on this topic. Yet music often played an important part in these spectacles, both by underlining the dignitary’s status and by enhancing key components of the symbolism deployed. Rather than concentrating on one particular event, this article brings together information about as many entries as possible made by such figures into French cities in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This enables us to make general observations about the types of music used in these events (such as fanfares, Te Deums and dance music) in order to draw possible connections with extant musical sources, and also to ponder why certain musical elements mattered more than others to the contemporaries describing these occasions.

John the Baptist in Memory, Judaism and Historical Materialism

Abstract Joel Marcus’s JBHT argues that John would have seen himself not as forerunner to Jesus but rather that he, and not Jesus, was the proclaimer and inaugurator of God’s apocalyptic kingdom. The historical Baptist, originally part of the Qumran community, broke away from this group due to his belief that he himself was the prophet Elijah and that his own ministry was central to God’s purposes. This article raises three methodological and historiographical questions concerning where Marcus might reconsider and/or expand the results of his study. First, can we really get at John’s self-understanding beyond the subjective memory impressions left in our extant sources? Second, does Marcus’s connection of John to the Qumran community rely on (mis)characterizations of the community as a marginal sect? Third, what social and economic forces prompted John’s ‘individual decision’ to relocate to the wilderness?

Извлечения по истории Золотой Орды из «Шаджара-йи турк ва мугӯл»

The article analyzes information on the history of the Golden Horde, contained in the seventh article of historical work of Abū al-Gāzī khan Chīngīzī Khvārazmī the Shajara-yi turk va mugūl, which is one of the most significant monuments of Turkic written heritage. The purpose of the study is the introduction into scientific circulation of a new translation of valuable material on the history of the Chingizids. The work Shajara-yi turk va mugūl is well known to scientists as the text of the manuscript. Its translations have been being published numerously in European, Asian countries, and in Russia since the second quarter of the 18th century. Translations by J. J. P. Desmaisons and G. S. Sablukov into French and Russian published in 1874 and 1906 are still recognized by scientists to a certain extent acceptable for critical use. However, it should be emphasized that in the text of these two publications, there are some errors and semantic distortions of the source’s text. In this regard, the article provides a commented translation of the seventh chapter of Abū al-Gāzī khan’s work under the title “Mention of the reign of Jochi Khan, the eldest son of Genghis Khan, and his descendants in Desht-i Kipchāk”. The comparative-critical analysis of the information of the Shajara-yi turk va mugūl with the data of the works of Rashīd ad-Dīn, Mu’īn al-Dīn Natanzī, Mirza Ulūgbek, Fasih Ahmad al-Khawāfī made it possible to reveal the similarities and differences in the account of the historical events described by the authors. Abū alGāzī khan, using extant sources, supplemented the history of the rulers of the Golden Horde with individual facts; the Khiva work contains information missing from other authors.

Egyptian Hieroglyphs in the Late Antique Imagination by Jennifer Taylor Westerfeld

Jennifer Westerfeld has produced a most agreeable study of how, whether as sources of wisdom by classical authors to be interpreted or idolatrous images by Christian commentators to be supplanted, the discourse on in the late antique imagination reflects the appraisal of as a source of authority, manipulated accordingly for the intellectual, theological, and ideological ends of those authors/commentators. In Chapter Five, Westerfeld interprets sources describing the translation of as revealing that this translation constructed authority for the translators in different ways: from Ammianus Marcellinus's enlisting of (Herm)Apion to translate the Flaminian obelisk in Rome as a further means of expressing Rome's hegemony over Egypt, to three accounts of the destruction of the Serapeum in Alexandria where the reading of a cross-shaped hieroglyph leads to mass conversions to Christianity, or Theophilus's reading of three thetas on the temple of Alexander unlocking that temple's wealth for church-building. [...]although she concedes in the conclusion that it is at best difficult to isolate a specifically Christian discourse on in the Late Antique (170), Westerfeld's book, while—admirably—highlighting limitations and thereby routes of future inquiry (173–74), goes about as far as the limited, diverse, and dispersed extant sources allow for understanding the conceptualisation of in the late antique imagination. While appraising Westerfeld's book as most agreeable, I nevertheless must address our principal disagreements: the absence of a clear understanding of (i) the diversity of domains of script use and their shift, specifically in Graeco-Roman Egypt, and of (ii) what exactly constitutes a term for hieroglyphs (or not) in Greek, Egyptian, and Coptic, along with (iii) the assumption that certain authors are describing specifically hieroglyphs, introduces various problems

A socio-technological model of search information divide in US cities

PurposeThe purpose of the current study is to theorize and apply a socio-technological model – the powerful influence of social determinants in conditioning the effects of information attention on social outcomes. Fundamentally, this study is motivated by the idea that the social determinants of information flow can be used as a predictive tool to inform public socio-policy decisions.Design/methodology/approachThis study draws upon digital disparity literature and uses publicly available Google search queries in exploring online information attention and its relationships to the HIV/AIDS diffusion in US cities. This study’s secondary data collected from extant sources is used to draw attention to a holistic urban ecology under which online search attention represents the variation of information access at the aggregate level.FindingsThe main finding shows that online information attention, as indicated by search trend, is far from being a simple predictor, but operates in complex interactions with existing social environments. A bivariate correlation between AIDS information search and AIDS diffusion rate was found to be significant. However, predictive multivariate models displayed robust effects of social contextual variables, such as income level and racial composition of cities, in moderating the effect of online search information flow.Practical implicationsThe importance of these insights is discussed for reducing socio-health disparities at the macro-social level, and policymakers and health administrators are recommended to incubate supportive online infrastructure as an effective preventive measure at the time of a crisis.Originality/valueThe unique contribution of this study is the premise that looks at the aggregate-ecological contour of cities within which the potential benefits of information occur, instead of examining the isolated function of mediated information per se. In this vein, online information search, in lieu of the exposure to mass media message that is often measured via self-reported items, is a particularly unique and fruitful area of future inquiry that this study promotes.

The Characters (Χαρακτῆρες) of the Glagolitic Alphabet: New Light on an Old Puzzle

The article calls attention to a neglected source for the over-all “look and feel” of the Glagolitic alphabet as it was first created by Constantine the Philosopher circa 863 ad. This source is the variant forms of the Greek and other alphabets (including Hebrew and Arabic) that consist of so-called Brillenbuchstabe (otherwise charactères à lunettes or ring-letters). These variant alphabets were employed chiefly for esoteric purposes, including astrological and magical ones. Because of their limited use, they have largely been overlooked in standard handbooks of Greek and Oriental paleography. An interest in such subjects as astrology and magic comports poorly with routine assumptions about the inner lives of Medieval Saints such as Constantine. Relying on the extant primary sources for Constantine’s life, however, the article shows that his education, interests and mystical inclinations make a familiarity with some of these esoteric alphabets virtually certain. Thus it is historically plausible that such alphabets were among the inspirations for the general style, that is, the “look and feel”, of the letters of Constantine’s original glagolitic alphabet. (This article supplements the author’s earlier study from 2014, “A New Reconstruction of the Original Glagolitic Alphabet”.)

Could Happiness Be an Assessment Tool in Sustainable Tourism Management?

The continuous commitment of companies from different sectors to demonstrate ethical demeanor of their business activities and bring about development of the respective economy, while maintaining the society’s wellbeing, has seen enormous activism in the last years. This has been very much evident in the tourism sector where the responsibility towards the society takes many forms, ranging from initiatives to promote activities for cleaner environment to programs for supporting quality of life and fair payment for employees and their families. Given this shift in policy making and execution of tourism market players, this paper aims to critically evaluate the extant sources of literature in the field of sustainable management of tourism, happiness concept in sustainable development and tourism, and on this premise – to blueprint a conceptual model that can serve entities in the industry for effective running of their sustainability courses of action. Happiness was accepted as one of the important goals of Sustainable Development with some United Nations resolutions. In this relation, happiness became an up-to-date topic in the Sustainable Development agenda as a way for holistic measure of success on the national and international levels. So, the authors would like to propose Business Gross Happiness as an indicator for companies in the sustainable tourism industry to measure their success in their course to sustainable development goals.

On the Aramaic Onomasticon in the Cuneiform Text Corpus

Most of the Aramaic onomasticon is not located in extant alphabetic sources, but instead can be found in cuneiform sources. In order to learn more about the reach of Aramaic through the individuals using it as a spoken language during the first half of the first millennium BCE, we must attend to the Aramaic personal names that appear in this much larger corpus of texts and inscriptions. Using a method that considers both linguistic and conceptual criteria, this paper compiles and analyzes possible Aramaic names that appear in the cuneiform text corpus and culminates with an updated list of the genuine Aramaic onomasticon. Ultimately, this paper provides insight that may be used in identifying West Semitic and other foreign onomastica in the cuneiform text corpus. My talk presents the results of this paper, which emerges from a much larger study of Aramaic names in the first millennium BCE.

(Dis)concordance of comorbidity data and cancer status across administrative datasets, medical charts, and self-reports

BackgroundBenchmarking outcomes across settings commonly requires risk-adjustment for co-morbidities that must be derived from extant sources that were designed for other purposes. A question arises as to the extent to which differing available sources for health data will be concordant when inferring the type and severity of co-morbidities, how close are these to the “truth”. We studied the level of concordance for same-patient comorbidity data extracted from administrative data (coded from International Classification of Diseases, Australian modification,10th edition [ICD-10 AM]), from the medical chart audit, and data self-reported by men with prostate cancer who had undergone a radical prostatectomy.MethodsWe included six hospitals (5 public and 1 private) contributing to the Prostate Cancer Outcomes Registry-Victoria (PCOR-Vic) in the study. Eligible patients from the PCOR-Vic underwent a radical prostatectomy between January 2017 and April 2018.Health Information Manager’s in each hospital, provided each patient’s associated administrative ICD-10 AM comorbidity codes. Medical charts were reviewed to extract comorbidity data. The self-reported comorbidity questionnaire (SCQ) was distributed through PCOR-Vic to eligible men.ResultsThe percentage agreement between the administrative data, medical charts and self-reports ranged from 92 to 99% in the 122 patients from the 217 eligible participants who responded to the questionnaire. The presence of comorbidities showed a poor level of agreement between data sources.ConclusionRelying on a single data source to generate comorbidity indices for risk-modelling purposes may fail to capture the reality of a patient’s disease profile. There does not appear to be a ‘gold-standard’ data source for the collection of data on comorbidities.

…The French king wrote to our Sovereign about love: Henry III de Valois and the Emperors of Muscovy

This article is an analytical review of five letters by King Henry III of France and Poland to the Russian tsars Ivan IV and Fyodor I between 1574 and 1588. The author reconstructs their content based on extant sources from archive collections in Russian and French libraries. The appendix provides evidence about the attribution of one of Henry III’s letters from 1588, which was previously considered to have been addressed to Fyodor by Henry IV de Bourbon in 1589: its transcription based on three copies with a Russian translation. Based on the materials of royal and diplomatic correspondence, the article also traces the evolution of relations between the monarchs of the two countries in the second half of the sixteenth century.

The Many Deaths of the Last ‘Abbāsid Caliph al-Musta‘ṣim bi-llāh (d. 1258)

AbstractThe death of the last ‘Abbāsid Caliph al-Musta‘ṣim bi-llāh (d. 1258) has been the object of contradictory historical accounts by medieval historians both in the East and the West. Was he put to death by starvation? Did he have melted gold poured down his throat? Was he executed by Hülegü's own hands, or even by a Georgian Prince? Was he rolled in a carpet and kicked to death, hanged, or strangled? Writers of the period offer colourful portrayals of this event. Some saw it as martyrdom, others as a humiliating death preceded by moral admonishment and blame by Hülegü. Building upon earlier studies, this article offers a comprehensive view of the extant sources on the topic produced both in the Abode of Islam and Western Europe, as well as in Armenia and Georgia. Rather than seeking the “facts” behind the accounts, this article adopts a literary-critical and socio-political approach, arguing that the accounts are replete with symbolism targeting their specific audiences, and that the choices made by the historians on the manner of the Caliph's death were meant to offer commentary on—and evaluation of—‘Abbāsid rule.