Abstract As a well-established practice, alcohol distillation represented a major technical development in the late Middle Ages. This analysis aims to interpret the alchemical instructions attributed to a certain Johannes Ungariae probably in the early fourteenth century, whose recipe circulated as far as Rome in the early modern period, attracting the interest of both a sixteenth- and an eighteenth-century collector. The manuscript with the incipit ‘Sic extrahendum quintam essentiam vini’ (Fol. 217, Sloan MS 3661.) has survived under the name of ‘John of Hungary’ as an alchemical recipe written in Latin, probably in 1322, as Ernő Simonyi has noted. In a comprehensive and coherent description of the underlying technology, Johannes Ungariae details the process of extracting the ‘quinta essentia’ of wine, a method conceived to operate at the boundary between spirit and matter. John Elyott's copy preserved in the Sloane Collection stands as a rare example of the tradition of alchymia operativa, the applied, hands-on alchemy, first brought to light by Simonyi in political exile in London in 1859. Studying the manuscript is the initial stage of a broader project that aims to contribute to our understanding of the networks of knowledge transmission.

Abstract This article is devoted to a stylistic analysis of the Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Famagusta, Cyprus, known as Famagusta Cathedral (now the Lala Mustafa Paşa Mosque), begun around 1300. The special relevance of the cathedral comes from the fact that it owes its shape to masters well acquainted with the buildings of both France and Germany, and thus it demonstrates the complex and at the same time ambiguous stylistic character of the architecture around the year 1300. This study goes beyond purely formal analysis of the church, however: The case of Famagusta Cathedral and its anonymous designer provides a starting point for a discussion of the modes of long-distance transfer of architectural forms in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, which in turn are inextricably linked to the question of the education and career patterns of master masons and to the ways in which they were employed by clients from distant countries.

ABSTRACT The article investigates gifts made for pious purposes by Stockholm Burgomaster Everhard Kansten, Gertrud Kansten, most likely Everhard’s mother, and her sister Kristina Skörbytta during the last three decades of the fourteenth century. Together, they established an elaborate network of pious foundations spanning five chantries and an anniversary mass celebrated in three different churches in Stockholm, Uppsala, and Lübeck. These patterns of pious gift-giving are analysed in comparison with those observed in other Baltic towns and cities before the Reformation. However, the fragmented and incomplete nature of the available source material obscures the broader image of giving to the Church and the needy in late medieval Stockholm. Furthermore, the Swedish Town Law and the administrative practices of the local municipal authorities arguably imposed greater challenges for Stockholm burghers when making donations to ecclesiastical institutions, compared to other major towns of the Baltic region. Nevertheless, the pious gifts made by the three relatives demonstrate the influence of more universal commemorative practices, commonly observed in late medieval towns and cities outside the Swedish realm, as well as the mentalities behind them. These practices, while subject to local laws and customs, nonetheless permeated Stockholm’s religious landscape.

ABSTRACT In late-medieval Florence, the confraternity of the Compagnia della Madonna di Orsanmichele met every weeknight in the oratory of Orsanmichele to sing devotional songs directly in front of a painting of the Virgin and Child that was believed to be capable of performing miracles. This oratory was once a grain market, which over the course of the fourteenth century was transformed into a grain repository and a lavishly-decorated and important devotional location, filled with sculptures, frescos and stained-glass windows, thus becoming a veritable feast for the senses. Focusing specifically on the windows, this article will examine the relationship between the visual environment and the devotional rituals practiced by the Compagnia. I will argue that the visual imagery of the windows resonated with the themes, emotions and desires expressed in the laude, and in so doing, encouraged devotees to reflect on their individual morality in such a way that might persuade the Virgin to protect the well-being of the city, and specifically their access to nourishment. I will also show how the windows draw attention to the power of repeated vocalizations and prayer, thus making the windows literally about the kinds of acts being performed by confraternity members.

Ostrów Lednicki was a centre of the Piast dynasty (tenth–fourteenth centuries AD), laying the foundations for the development of the Polish state. A collapsed tenth-century wooden fortification associated with Bolesław the Brave (the first king of Poland) and its unique sculptural element provide insights into early-medieval construction techniques.

ABSTRACT This article analyses Ibn Taymiyya’s theological discourse on the precedence of frontier garrisoning (murābaṭa) over pious residence in Mecca (mujāwara), situating his argumentation within the tumultuous milieu of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Amid Mongol incursions, Crusader campaigns and pervasive internal discord, Ibn Taymiyya advocates for active frontier defence, arguing that genuine spiritual merit resides not in contemplative retreat within sacred precincts but in actions that safeguard and fortify the Muslim ummah (nation). Drawing upon Qurʾānic injunctions, Prophetic traditions and juristic consensus, he conceives murābaṭa as an essential dimension of jihad, whilst privileging communal welfare above individualistic devotional observances. His treatise challenges conventional notions of sanctity, demonstrating that spatial holiness emanates from virtuous conduct rather than from any intrinsic qualities. Through integrated historical and theological analysis, this article explores Ibn Taymiyya’s enduring intellectual legacy and examines how his reflections on religious obligation, spiritual excellence and collective responsibility continue to resonate within Islamic jurisprudential and theological discourse.

Between 400 to 1450 CE, the Trincheras tradition spanned north-central Sonora and extreme southern Arizona. Since the 1950s, archaeologists have argued that dramatic transformations around 1300 CE impacted the Trincheras heartland. These transformations included a proposed influx of Papaguerían Hohokam migrants, the adoption of new cultural practices, expansive trade networks, and changes to local lifeways. Scholars have also suggested that local Trinchereños gradually depopulated the region; however, sites in the Altar Valley have never been subject to excavation or critical evaluation. This paper utilizes a multivariate approach on two newly excavated sites within the Altar Valley. We argue for the presence of migrant-brought materials during the late 1200s/early 1300s and suggest that groups from the southeastern Papaguería gradually entered the region and coalesced with Indigenous Trinchereños. This paper contributes to migration studies across the late precolonial Southwest/Northwest and offers a much-needed reevaluation of the late prehistoric period within the Trincheras heartland.

The history of the Mahuris, a trading community from Mathura that migrated in large numbers to Bihar in the fourteenth century, remains largely understudied in scholarship. This might be due to the absence of written records on the history of the Mahuris. However, for the Mahuris, their oral tradition served as a source of collective memory and didactic lessons. Their oral tradition was compiled by Munshi Gaya Ram in Mahuri Bhushan (1888), which records their migration, social organisation and cultural practices. This article examines the processes of migration, cultural adaptation and community self-representation of the Mahuris as apparent from the Mahuri Bhushan as well as other epigraphic and documentary sources. It analyses Mahuri Bhushan as an internally authored repository of memory that records migration, social organisation and cultural practices, thus situating Mahuri history within wider debates on oral traditions in historiography.

Abstract According to a venerable historical narrative, a crucial step in the development of the modern picture of the mind occurred when Descartes argued that sensing occurs in the immaterial human mind, together with thought and volition. The mind, the story goes, had once been the home only of rational thought and volition, with sensations being embodied phenomena, much like digestion, growth, or weaving. However, I show in this article that the view that human sensations are immaterial, non‐extended modifications of the immaterial human intellect rose to prominence in the second quarter of the fourteenth century. In Section 1, I examine the background for this fourteenth‐century immaterial turn in the more familiar views of sensation prominent in the thirteenth century. In Section 2, I show how the view that human sensation is just as immaterial as thought emerged in the work of some of William of Ockham's associates in England. In Section 3, I bring to light two important developments in the way philosophers thought about the nature of sensation that led to the Immaterial Turn. In Section 4, I briefly discuss a puzzle about the way scholastics in the Immaterial Turn conceived of sensation.

Agriculture constituted the backbone of the medieval Indian economy, and the stability of the Delhi Sultanate largely depended upon agrarian prosperity. In the fourteenth century, northern India frequently suffered from irregular rainfall, droughts, and declining agricultural productivity. These challenges adversely affected state revenue and the livelihood of the rural population. Recognizing the centrality of agriculture to political stability and economic growth, Sultan Firoz Shah Tughlaq (1351–1388 AD) adopted a systematic and welfare-oriented irrigation policy. Canal irrigation emerged as the cornerstone of his agrarian reforms and represented one of the most significant public works of his reign. This paper examines the development of canal irrigation under Firoz Shah Tughlaq and analyzes its role in agricultural expansion, rural prosperity, and economic stabilization. It also evaluates the administrative framework supporting irrigation and assesses the long-term significance of these initiatives in medieval Indian history.

As a new and evolving polity in South Asia during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Sultanate of Delhi experienced rapid regime changes and contested social hierarchies. Discussing social implications of political transition and disruption during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, this paper examines Persian advice literature, chronicles and inshā (letters) to analyse how social categories of ḵẖāṣṣ (elite) and ‘āmma (commoners) were constituted, contested and reconfigured. It explores how Persian literati advised new rulers on recognising the rights of subjects to maintain social order, and how this guidance contrasted with actual disruptions, when established ḵẖāṣṣ were displaced to create a new ruling elite. It is argued that literary representation of ideal social hierarchies provides critiques of the contemporary social milieu, as well as the expectations and anxieties of the authors. The paper also argues that social hierarchies under the Delhi Sultanate were neither stable nor predetermined, but historically contingent and actively negotiated. In light of this, the Persian literature of the Delhi Sultanate period becomes records of both social disruptions and social-political order, situated amid the tension between idealised norms and historical realities.

This article examines the life of fourteenth century mystic Margery Kempe and how she has used her body to defy immobility – concretization of domesticity and chastity. In the process, attempts have been made to look into the connection between food and body – what happens when one stops having food, what significance a body with empty stomach carries socially. Is starvation an escape from the way the body is perceived in Medieval Times? Mystics like Margery Kempe and her contemporaries St. Bridget of Sweden, Julian of Norwich used to starve day in and day out to do penance. Does a starved human body serve another purpose besides doing penance? Particular roles are set for particular bodies in society. When the very image of the body does not excite temptation, the body somehow bypasses the very rules prescribed for it. Critics have argued such a body creates a space for an alternative existence. The body becomes sacred, like the body of Christ. This process of creating a haloed body is achieved through performance. These ritualistic acts, performed by the body, enable the person in creating a space which is transgressive in nature. Margery seems to escape the roles of her gender - she stops being the wife of John Kempe; she stops being the mother of fourteen children; she even stops sleeping with her husband, however John often forced her to pay the marital debt. But it becomes problematic when she, having refused her husband’s body, desires the holy body of Christ. Therefore, a sacred body proves to be tempting. She, having escaped from the very roles which her gender sets for her, ends up following the same, only this time with a more masculine man, Christ himself. Now, does she really escape from her gendered body?

Literature is one of the highest manifestations of human thought, aesthetic sensibility, and spiritual life. In the cultural heritage of every nation, literature occupies a special place, and classical literature, in particular, represents an invaluable treasury. Among the various genres formed within classical literature, the mushoara genre stands out for its distinctive artistic and aesthetic features, its spirit of creative competition, and its high regard for poetry. This genre served not only as a means for poets to demonstrate their artistic mastery, but also as a platform for testing the depth of their thought, richness of vocabulary, level of literary knowledge, and creative potential. Mushoara gatherings were commonly held at literary assemblies, royal courts, and creative circles, and they were regarded as significant cultural events of their time. This article examines the role and artistic-aesthetic characteristics of the mushoara genre in the works of Sayfi Sarayi, one of the prominent representatives of fourteenth-century classical Turkic literature. In the course of the study, the formal and thematic features of the genre are analyzed through examples of mushoaras included by Sayfi Sarayi in his translation of Saʿdi Shirazi’s Gulistan. In particular, the use of poetic devices such as meter, rhyme, radif, simile, metaphor, and tajnis, as well as the harmony of mystical and amorous themes in mushoaras conducted with poets such as Mawlana Qazi Muhsin, Mawlana Ishaq, Mawlana Imad Mawlavi, and Ahmad Khoja al-Sarayi, is examined on a scholarly basis. The article reveals the role of the mushoara genre in fostering creative competition, literary dialogue, and the continuity of artistic traditions. The findings demonstrate that Sayfi Sarayi’s mushoaras constitute an important source reflecting the literary milieu of the fourteenth century and play a significant role in the development of the mushoara genre within classical Turkic literature.

This article examines how Byzantine political theology was transmitted and transformed within African Christian kingdoms of Nubia and Ethiopia particularly through religious art. Drawing on theological concepts such as taxis (order of the Nature) and oikonomia (divine management), the study explores how African rulers appropriated and adapted politically Byzantine models of divine kingship while embedding them in local traditions of authority. Including syncretic continuities with older African kingship practices, social interaction embodied personal worth, and authority of a monarch with presumed qualities and abilities society expects them to possess, defined as charisma. Texts in Ge´ez, such as the religious epic story Kebra Negast and the legal code Fetha Negast (fourteenth century) illustrate the interweaving of biblical, Roman-Byzantine, and Ethiopian theological–political thought, while iconographic traditions in Faras and Aksum reveal how art functioned as a medium of divine legitimation and as a visual enactment of the protector–protected relationship central to Afro-Byzantine kingship. Drawing on a combined historical, politico-cultural and artistic methodological approach, the article argues that Afro-Byzantine political theology was not a submissive, passive imitation of imperial ideology but an active creative synthesis that combined Christian universality with African specificity. Foregrounding a process of syncretism, the study highlights divine protection, sacred kingship, legalised hegemonic authority as well how African Christianity contributed to the global history of Christian political thought. This comparative perspective advances scholarship by reframing Africa as an active site of theological, political and artistic development through social acculturation and syncretic spirituality.

ABSTRACT The civic clerk was a key figure within medieval urban government. However, due to the scarcity of early civic records, the identity, titles, and functions of York’s early civic clerks remain insufficiently understood. This article addresses these issues through an extensive examination of external sources. The findings show that by the late thirteenth century, numerous clerks were active in York’s city court, though they should not be identified as civic clerks. Early civic clerks were referred to as clerici civitatis, and it was not until the 1370s – amid shifts in the city’s political landscape – that the title clericus communis began to appear. In the early fourteenth century, civic clerks played a prominent role in external affairs, including parliamentary representation and financial administration.

The Renaissance Wound Man: Parallels with today's understanding of wound repair.

ABSTRACT This article examines patterns of status, legal rights, and property possession among the indigenous Baltic population living under Christian rule in Prussia during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. After arriving in the region in the 1230s, the Teutonic crusading order had begun stabilising its rule by the 1280s. The Order undertook a mass effort to oversee the settlement or resettlement of a heterogeneous population of western (mainly German-speaking) migrants and native Balts. Narrative chronicles and charter records reveal a spectrum of relations between Teutonic colonisers and indigenous subjects, from violent resistance to close collaboration. This study draws on postcolonial and Indigenous scholarship to argue that even as many Baltic elites secured their social status and legal privileges under Christian rule in accordance with ecclesiastical ideals of parity and liberty, colonial fear of native resistance structurally disadvantaged native Balts as naturally, or even racially, predisposed to treachery and apostasy.

This article presents the reforming activities of the last patriarch of medieval Bulgaria in the context of the political changes that took place in the Balkans in the fourteenth century. The study shows how the orthographic arrangement of Slavic books influenced the condition of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, and thus its approach to Greek writings. It also takes into account the consequences of Euthymius’ reform for Slavic writings – both religious and secular – under the conditions of Ottoman rule.

This paper discusses Oghuz origin of the Samanids dynasty. The ancestor of the Samanids was originated from the Oghuz tribes of Khurasan, which were in military service of the Sasanids. Another ancestor of the Samanids Saman Khudat is mentioned in “Oghuz-Nama” as Saman Yabghu among ancestors of the Oghuz tribes. The Samanids dynasty relied on the military power of the Oghuz tribes throughout their rule. The Oghuz Turks were the closest, most trusted, and most loyal people of the Samanids dynasty. The Samanid Amir Mansur ibn Nuh was married a daughter of “malik al-Sin” the king of the Qarakhanids Khanate in the East Turkistan, who was originated from the Toquz-Oghuz Turks. The last Samanid Amir Abu Ibrahim Isma‘il ibn Nuh, known as al-Amir al-Muntasir (died in 395/1004-05) married a daughter of Yabghu, the leader of the Ghuzz Turks, and became related to him. In the sources of the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries, a certain Jandi Bek is mentioned as “a descendant of Isma‘il al-Samani”, who became related to the Juchids, marrying his daughter to Ming Timur Khan, who was the grandson of Juchi Buka and a descendant of Shaiban Khan in the fourth generation. Believes that this Jandi Bek, who lived in the fourteenth century, was a descendant of the last Samanid Amir al-Muntasir from his marriage with the daughter of Yabghu, the leader of the Ghuzz Turks. A descendant of Ming Timur Khan from the daughter of Jandi Bek in the fourth generation, Abu-l-Khair Khan (1412 – 1468), was the founder of the state of nomadic Uzbeks in Dasht-i Qipchaq. His grandson Muhammad Shaibani Khan (1451 – 1510) was the founder of the Uzbek dynasty of Shaibanids, who ruled in Central Asia in 1501 – 1601.

Five income registers documenting transactions of the seventeenth century at the Jesuit College in Luxembourg have been found to be partially covered by fragments of a manuscript containing Henry of Langenstein’s commentary on the Sentences from Paris and the academic year 1371–1372. The discovery includes eight parchment bifolia and approximately 20 paper folios, a sizeable fragment of a previously unknown copy of a significant text for both the University of Paris and the new University of Vienna at the end of the fourteenth century. The recoverable text includes portions of book I, questions 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6, as well as book II, question 1, by one of the founding figures of the Faculty of Theology at Vienna.