Fourteenth Century Research Articles

Polemic, Diatribe, and Farce: Jaina Postures vis-à-vis Sectarian Others in the Kannada Texts of Nayasēna, Brahmaśiva, and Vṛttavilāsa

The Deccan in the first half of the second millennium is marked by political and religious ferment. The Cōḻas, Gaṅgas, Rāṣṭrakūṭas, and Cāḷukyas are contesting its mundane territory, while the Śaivas, Jainas, and Vaiṣṇavas are contesting its spiritual geography. Unlike the interactions of the earthly rulers which spill real blood, the bloodshed of the spiritual gurus is merely metaphorical. But, the animosity driving their interactions is no less intense, for survival is at stake for them just as it is for their secular counterparts. In this essay, I explore the Jaina point of view in sectarian contestations between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries through the texts of three Kannada authors: Dharmāṁṛtam of Nayasēna (1112CE), Samayaparīkṣe of Brahmaśiva (c.1200CE), and Dharmaparīkṣe of Vṛttavilāsa (c.1360CE). My objective is to identify the sectarian ‘other’ that these authors address, dispute with and vilify, and to explore the changing nature of this sectarian ‘other’ and the shifting attitudes of these authors towards their opponents.

“All knowledge is either conception or assent”. On the history and significance of a fundamental distinction in Islamic philosophy

ABSTRACT Following Aristotle, classical Islamic philosophers distinguished between two types of knowledge: conception and assent. This paper argues that the discussions elicited by this distinction are an essential feature of postclassical Islamic philosophy (ca. 1200–1800). The early postclassical philosophers made the distinction central to logic and thereby to epistemology and scientific inquiry at large. As the distinction came to be perceived as problematic, it sparked philosophical arguments about a range of issues in logic and epistemology. One particularly pertinent problem was the nature of the distinction itself: it was understood as an exclusive disjunction, but it seemed impossible to define one notion without recourse to the other. In the fourteenth century this led to the emergence of a new genre of philosophical writings exclusively dedicated to discussing the precise nature of the distinction. This paper discusses some of the central arguments of these writings, showing how philosophers grappling with that problem devised new theories of judgement and new forms of the proposition as they were continuously developing their theory of knowledge.

New Research on the Origin of Mosaic Gold

This article examines the origins of the golden pigment known as mosaic gold (SnS2), formed through the sublimation of tin with mercury, sulphur, and ammonium chloride. It explores the textual transmission of mosaic gold from the earliest known written testimonies, as well as the earliest material remnants of the pigment during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Additionally, the study introduces and analyses two new recipes from an earlier date: one comes from the Greek treatise known as the Anonymous of Zuretti; and the other from the Latin alchemical work attributed to pseudo-Avicenna, De anima. The analysis of these new recipes allows for a better understanding of the origin of the pigment and its connection with the medieval alchemical tradition inherited from the Arabic world. Based on these testimonies, the study proposes a new hypothesis about the origin, development, and etymology of mosaic gold.

Þat Ʒet þe wynd & þe weder & þe worlde stynkes: The Sins of Richard II and the Corruption of the Crown

Many writings from late fourteenth century England reflect a popular conception that English society had deteriorated into serious dysfunction. Four literati who discussed this problem are Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, William Langland, and the Gawain Poet. All four agreed that somehow King Richard II bore responsibility for the kingdom’s travails. The writers disagreed vis-à-vis which exact sins the king had committed to cause society to degrade, but all did concur that whatever exact sins the king had engaged in, those sins had damaged the construct of the Crown of England, and thereby the realm.

Hebrew Panegyric of the Late Middle Ages: Shemaryah, Son of Elijah, and His Praise Poems

Abstract Late medieval Byzantine Hebrew poetry unfortunately belongs to a rather neglected field of Hebrew poetry. Only a few authors have been studied in-depth. This article will examine the poetic work of the fourteenth century exegete and philosopher Shemaryah son of Elijah who produced panegyrics and liturgical poetry alongside exegetical and philosophical writings. Shemaryah’s panegyric pieces were dedicated to the leader of the Jews in Egypt and the grandson of Maimonides, David ha-Nagid. Although spending most of his life in Negroponte or Chalkis on the island of Euboea, Shemaryah was in contact with leading figures of Egyptian Jewry around 1300 as well as with the Angevin King Robert of Anjou in Naples in the 1330s. These contacts to the east and to the west reflect Byzantium’s role as a cultural hub between Europe and the Middle East.

The Armenian Collection Tōnapatchaṛ: Kamrjadzor and Haghpat School Recension Brunches

Abstract The Tōnapatchaṛ (Տօնապատճառ, literally “the causes of feast days,” or “commentaries on feast days”) is a collection that has no equivalent in other ecclesiastical traditions. It survived in many copies that might be grouped into the Kamrjadzor and the Haghpat school recension brunches. The Tōnapatchaṛ has long been considered a mere commentary on the Lectionary of the Armenian Church – an exegetical work for didactic purposes only. By indexing the historical development of these recensions and their enrichment between the seventh and fourteenth centuries, the present article argues that despite its exegetical character, the Tōnapatchaṛ served polemical purposes, focusing on the calendar differences between the non-Chalcedonian Armenian and Chalcedonian Byzantine Churches. The article further discusses the intensification of the polemical function of the Haghpat school recensions in the twelfth-thirteenth centuries due to the unity attempts between the Byzantine and Armenian Churches initiated by the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143–1180) and the Armenian Catholicos Nersēs Shnorhali (the Gracious, 1166–1173), which generated theological debates concerning the Dominical feasts and their exact days of celebration.

Ship pictures on the municipal seals of medieval seaports: Ship seals show notices to mariners on tokens of municipal identity

Many late-medieval western European seaports showed a ship in the central image of their municipal seal (a ship seal). Municipal seals to identify and authorize documents ranging from important supra-regional charters to local ephemera were widely used at the time, and probably also on trade contracts and (predecessors to) maritime bills of lading. This study of 115 ship seals from 80 seaports between ad 1200 and ad 1450 reveals that the central image of all ship seals contained striking details, strongly reminiscent of semiotic pictorial signals that conveyed information. The supposed signals were assigned a probable meaning by linking them to nautical aspects of the approach to each seaport and to the state of the harbour at the time. The results strongly suggest that the signals provided information about the risks and hazards in the approach to port, the water depth, and the facilities at the port in question. Compelling evidence comes from ports issuing successive ship seals over an extended period of time: updated images with properly adjusted signals were shown on subsequent seals when significant changes in the approach or port facilities had occurred, but the signals remained the same as long as the local situation stayed unchanged. These findings provide a clear explanation for the divergent ship portraits; ship seals served a dual purpose: first, to confirm the identity of the seaport and the authority of the council in its various actions and tasks, and, second, to provide up-to-date insight into the nautical challenges when approaching the port and in the local port facilities, in a manner similar to the current ‘notices to mariners’ from hydrographic offices. The rapidly increasing number of ports using ship seals in the thirteenth century and their continued use for two centuries supports the success of this late-medieval nautical information system. The study results also provide up-to-date impressions of the 80 seaports involved and of various nautical aspects of the hazardous maritime traffic in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, about which written archival information is scarce. The results may help to put the rare yield of maritime archaeology of this period into perspective. The ship seals lost their appeal as buoys and beacons made approaches safer, harbours became deeper and better equipped, and written information (‘rutters’) became widely available.

Ruin and Knowledge in Pera: Discovering Istanbul’s Genoese Heritage at the Moment of Its Destruction

Abstract The 1860s and 1870s saw a massive campaign of reordering of Galata and Pera’s urban space, led by the newly founded district municipality of Altıncı Daire-i Belediye (the Sixth District)—the model municipal organization for the rest of the Ottoman Empire. The most striking and widespread part of this campaign was the destruction of the district’s medieval Genoese walls, dating back to the fourteenth century. The walls and the attached moats were replaced by wider streets and modern apartment buildings, owned mostly by the local elites. This episode in the history of Istanbul has conventionally been narrated as a careless – albeit necessary—case of urban modernization, often in relation to the similar and roughly contemporary destruction of city walls in European cities. In this article, I rather argue that the destruction of the city walls was actually framed as a project of heritage and knowledge production from the very start. I trace how the history of the Genoese Pera was produced in the popular and scientific circles amidst the destruction of its most important physical manifestation, by concentrating especially on the central role played by the municipal archivist Victor-Marie de Launay. Launay’s later collaborations with Osman Hamdi Bey are relatively well known, but his contributions to the history of the district and an early discourse on urban heritage and archaeology are underappreciated, and, I argue, critical to understanding how the ruins of the district’s past were instrumentalized in making of a space for historical expertise. Launay was a central figure in the emergent antiquarian and archaeological networks in the Ottoman capital in the second half of the nineteenth century, the scholarly output produced in these circles had a lingering effect on the modern history-writing of Pera that has conventionally underlined its “European” heritage at the expense of its Ottoman past.

Early Renaissance Concepts of Time and the Invention of Mechanical Clocks

Mechanical clocks appeared in Europe at the end of the thirteenth century and became widespread during the fourteenth century. Clocks utilized a periodic process – the oscillation of a verge – for accurate time measurement, which is consistent with the Aristotelian concept of time defined by motion. The concept was at the center of debates among scholastics and theologians, which culminated in the Church's Condemnation of Aristotelian teaching in 1277. The debate also led to the discovery of Impetus (inertial motion) by Buridan and Oresme. Sand clocks became a popular device at about the same time. The pendulum clocks invented by Huygens in the 1650s utilized linear oscillations, which, unlike the earlier verge mechanism, had their natural frequency. Both mechanisms are analyzed to explain why the introduction of the linear oscillator led to a 30-times accuracy improvement of the clock.

Zhèng Hé's Indirect Impact on Europe: On Revolutionary Focal Groups of Production Revolutions

According to the model on production revolutions, elaborated by Leonid and Anton Grinin, the Covid-19 pandemic and the fourteenth century's Black Death have similar impacts on economic trajectories in terms of production principles. Andrea Komlosy added the spatial dimension to the model, which allows the identification of the ‘focal groups’ of revolutionists and their seedling nurseries of a new production principle in late fourteenth and early fifteenth century Europe. Ming Admiral Zhèng Hé's voyages across the Indian Ocean (1405–1433) had an indirect impact on the European economy: Trading on the re-established ‘Maritime Silk Road’ required silver for payment, whose eventual shortage caused a credit crunch in Europe, jeopardizing the phase transition to the mercantile-industrial production principle. Renaissance Humanists promoted a revolutionary epistemology in the fifteenth century. Christopher Columbus's discovery of America, a by-product of efforts to reconnect Europe to the Maritime Silk Road in response to the credit crunch was portrayed as a revolutionary achievement. The author's participation at a focal group of the Cybernetic Revolution before Covid-19 motivated his tracing the Renaissance Revolution.

Garden Travelogues

In this article I introduce the alien view of the traveller, the view from outside, as presented in a number of travel narratives describing the type of the domestic enclosed garden in Nicosia. I focus on three books published between the fourteenth and twentieth century, and do a comparative analysis of the narratives based on the information they provide about Nicosian gardens. I investigate how this knowledge can be used to develop design strategies for gardens as a typology in architectural and urban design. As a demonstration, I discuss the project ‘Nicosian Garden Network’, which uses the historically iconic element of the garden and its narrated spatial qualities as an answer to the problem of urban fragmentation and the presence of a large number of unused plots in the city of Nicosia. The project incorporates unused sites of different sizes into a network of shared semi-public urban spaces that could reconnect the landscape, create conditions of sharing by the different communities on a daily basis, and regain its iconic presence in the contemporary city. The article aims to contribute to the discussion about ways in which travelogues, guides and other forms of travel literature can construct a field of knowledge about vernacular architecture and implement contemporary approaches to architectural design.

Nonsense Syllables in Byzantine Chant Tradition

This article examines the historical phenomenon of nonsense syllables in the chant of the Byzantine church. This practice of non-lexical singing upon the extended use of vocables, appears already in ancient Greek music and has gone by many terms, including kratēmata or teretismata. Three different hypotheses as to the historical roots and development of this singing practice are predominant, namely those of Gregorios Stathis (1979, 2014), Diane Touliatos (1989), and Gregorios Anastasiou (2005). The foundations, results and consequences of these theories are reassessed in the light of critical examination of the fourteenth century treatise Ἁρμονικά (Harmonika) of Manuel Bryennios (Magdalen College MS Gr 13), the tenth century Book of Ceremonies (in Latin cited as De cerimoniis aulae Byzantinae and in Greek cited as Ἔκθεσις τῆς βασιλείου τάξεως) of the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos, and different versions of the liturgy of the so-called “Service of the Furnace” (Athens, National Library, EBE 2047; Athens, National Library, EBE 2406; Iviron Monastery, MS 1120; S-Sinai, Mt. Sinai, MS 1527; and Lavra Monastery, MS 165). The critical examination and synthesis of previous theories of the origin and development of Byzantine nonsense-syllable singing offers a number of conclusions, where I argue for new, qualified hypotheses that may be laid as foundations for further research. It is concluded that the nonsense syllables seem to have served a number of semiotic functions and purposes: as incantations (sometimes with pagan and ritual associations), as mimesis of nature (birds and cicada), for the intonation of texted chant, as well as for singing practice and solmization purposes. It is also argued that the non-semantic vocalization that this singing constitutes, amounts to a type of proto-programmatic music, with layers of mimetic singing and a rare sense of heightened expression in a context which otherwise focuses strongly on a religious text and its context. Finally, the term “mental representations” is proposed for describing the semantic function of nonsense syllables.

The Semantic Constellation of Byzantine asteiotēs

Abstract Modern scholars have emphasized the importance of the study of asteiotēs ( literally, ‘urbanity’ ) for a better understanding of the socio-cultural history of Byzantium. This multifaceted concept is generally described as a canon of urbane refinement, increasingly linked to the notion of wit. But does this definition apply to all the sources dealing with asteiotēs? While not claiming to provide a definitive answer, this paper illustrates a methodological approach that may help to address this and other questions in a more comprehensive way than has been attempted so far. Relying on the combination of hermeneutic approach to the sources and quantitative investigation that is the hallmark of historical semantics, this study traces a provisional semantic constellation of asteiotēs. The latter, in turn, is instrumental in locating some relevant case studies ( eleventh to fourteenth centuries ). A comparative analysis of these texts reveals some significant trends in the diachronic evolution of asteiotēs, which are already sufficient to nuance previous scholarly assumptions and to point to new avenues of research.

Teniky: enigmatic architecture at an archaeological site in southern Madagascar

ABSTRACT Teniky is an isolated inland archaeological site in the Isalo massif of southern Madagascar, with enigmatic rock-cut architecture that is unique in all of Madagascar and the wider East African coast. In the first half of the twentieth century visitors described archaeogical structures within a fluvial cirque (i.e. an amphitheatre-shaped valley formed by fluvial erosion), which included man-made terraces, rock-cut niches in the steep cliffs and a rock shelter delimited by walls consisting of carved sandstone blocks. Our investigations at Teniky have led to the discovery of further archaeological structures beyond the cirque. These structures include further terraces, rock-cut niches, stone basins and carved sandstone walls on a hill 2.5 km to the west, as well as sandstone quarries and dry stone walls in the valley in between. AMS radiocarbon dating of charcoal found during excavations at the newly discovered rock-cut niches and carved sandstone walls indicates that they were constructed in the late first millennium/early second millennium c. tenth to twelfth century AD. Pottery sherds at Teniky include Chinese and Southeast Asian ceramics dating to broadly the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, concordant with the radiocarbon ages. The presence of imported ceramics indicates that those living at Teniky participated in Indian Ocean trade networks in medieval times, despite being over 200 km from the nearest coast. The closest stylistic parallels to the enigmatic rock-cut architecture at Teniky are found in present-day Iran, particularly in the Fars region, where rock-cut niches dating to the first millennium AD or earlier have been attributed to Zoroastrian communities. We tentatively interpret the rock-cut architecture at Teniky as part of a former necropolis made by settlers with Zoroastrian origins. More archaeological research is required to test this hypothesis and to address questions such as: where and when did these settlers first arrive on the coast of Madagascar; why and when did they move inland; how did they live and how did they interact with other populations on the island; and why and when was the site deserted?

Third Information Day: Research Infrastructure Services in the Humanities and Social Sciences

The main results of the work of the team of the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences on the research projects CLaDA-BG – the Bulgarian National Interdisciplinary Research e-Infrastructure for Resources and Technologies in Favor of the Bulgarian Language and Cultural Heritage, Part of the EU Infrastructures CLARIN and DARIAH and No KP-06-N50/4 30.11.2020 “Fourteenth Century South Slavonic Scribes and Scriptoria (Palaeographical Attribution and Online Repertorium)”, will be presented during the Information Day within the DiPP2024 conference. The main emphasis will be placed on developments and implementations of CultIS – a webbased software platform for intelligent digital management and presentation of large data sets and knowledge from the fields of culture, humanities, and social sciences.

The costs of transporting goods by different modes: A case study of pottery movement in late Roman Britain

There is a long-standing view that, in the Roman world, transport by sea and river was very much cheaper than by land. Previous analyses of transport costs have relied primarily on a few surviving historical records, notably the Edict on Maximum Prices issued by Diocletian in 301 CE. Here we outline an alternative method for deriving relative costs of transportation by different modes using materials recovered in archaeological excavations. We apply this to the distribution of Late Romano-British pottery (c. 250–400 CE) to calculate the cost ratios of transportation by road, river and sea to rural settlements and towns in lowland Britannia. The analysis suggests a best fit cost ratio of road to rivers and sea of 1:3:4 (i.e. transport by road was three times as costly as by river and four times that by sea), with 95% confidence interval of roads to rivers 1:1–5 and roads to sea of 1:1–9. These values are broadly consistent with transport cost ratios of 1:4:8 in England in the first half of the fourteenth century, when the country's transport network had reached a degree of integration comparable with late Roman Britain.

Pickles, Hiccups, and an Upside-Down Gloss: Two Fragments of Judeo-Arabic Medical Treatises in the Stanford University Collections

Abstract: This article reconstructs the history of two fragments in the Stanford University Collections. Although they once belonged to different manuscripts, they share much in common: both were copied in the western Mediterranean sometime around the fourteenth century, both contain excerpts of Arabic medical treatises transliterated into Hebrew characters, both contain marginal glosses in other languages (Latin in the one case; Hebrew and Romance vernaculars in the other), and both were subsequently reused as book bindings. Thanks to the insights gleaned from tools both old and new (the latter ranging from multispectral imaging to Twitter), the fragments together attest to the circulation of knowledge from Iran to Iberia, the material frameworks that enabled exchanges across religious and linguistic divides, and the violent dismemberment of manuscripts and communities alike in the closing decades of the Middle Ages.

Title

During the fourteenth century, the bubonic plague or Black Death killed more than one third of Europe or 25 million people. Those afflicted died quickly and horribly from an unseen menace, spiking high fevers with suppurative buboes (swellings). Its causative agent is Yersinia pestis, creating recurrent plague cycles from the Bronze Age into modern-day California and Mongolia. Plague remains endemic in Madagascar, Congo, and Peru. This history of medicine review highlights plague events across the centuries. Transmission is by fleas carried on rats, although new theories include via human body lice and infected grain. We discuss symptomatology and treatment options. Pneumonic plague can be weaponized for bioterrorism, highlighting the importance of understanding its clinical syndromes. Carriers of recessive familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) mutations have natural immunity against Y. pestis. During the Black Death, Jews were blamed for the bubonic plague, perhaps because Jews carried FMF mutations and died at lower plague rates than Christians. Blaming minorities for epidemics echoes across history into our current coronavirus pandemic and provides insightful lessons for managing and improving its outcomes

The Most Prominent Kurdish Merchants and Craftsmen in Al-Jazeera Region in The Eight Century AH/ Fourteenth Century AD

The Most Prominent Kurdish Merchants and Craftsmen in Al-Jazeera Region in The Eight Century AH/ Fourteenth Century AD

Scientific analysis of folk contract documents from Tianshui region: insights of fiber use and preservation state

Folk contract documents (FCD) are valuable materials for studying social history, and the paper they use reflects the social realities of different eras and social classes. Research and scientific analysis of numerous FCD samples after the fourteenth century are rare. We conducted a study on 96 Tianshui folk contract documents (TFCD, 107 paper samples) from the Tianshui area of Gansu Province, Northwest China, taking into account both the textual content and the materiality of paper carriers, and interpreted the results from multiple lines of evidence and discussion. Physical performance analysis revealed that the paper used by the northern folk exhibits a lower apparent density, which is not conducive to the long-term preservation of paper. The preservation status investigation, curtain pattern analysis, and fiber analysis show that the paper used in the TFCD differs from traditional cultural paper regarding disease types, production precision, and fiber materials, providing a basis for its protection and restoration. The analysis of chemical components indicated that the aging and yellowing of paper can be correlated with the content of sulfur and carbonyl groups. The feasibility of using pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) analysis to quickly identify papermaking fibers in a large number of paper samples was proposed. By utilizing various techniques to inspect the paper of documents, this study helps to enhance the academic understanding of FCD materials. In addition, it expands the knowledge base of Northwest handmade paper.