Hereditary Rights Research Articles

THE RISE OF THE CHINGGISID DYNASTY: PRE-MODERN EURASIAN POLITICAL ORDER AND CULTURE AT A GLANCE

Analyzing the messages and the responses that Chinggis Khan sent to and received from Ong Khan and his allies after his defeat at the hands of the latter at the battle of Qalaqaljit Elet in the spring of 1203, and explicating the terms of cimar (chimar) and törü that appear in the messages, this article looks at the political order and culture where the Chinggisid state rose. The article argues that pre-modern Mongolian and Inner Asian politics was guided by the idea of törü, which resembles the Indo-Buddhist idea of dharma, the Chinese idea of dao, and the European idea of natural law. It also argues that the hereditary divisional system that the Inner Asian state builders regularly employed to govern their nomadic populations, the institutions of dynastic succession, and the hereditary rights of princes and the nobility for inheritance fundamentally structured Inner Asian politics. Hence, it questions the conventional wisdom that depicts pre-modern Inner Asian politics not only as pragmatic, fluid, and fractious but also dependent on the personal charisma of leadership, and the personal bond and loyalty between leaders and followers, as if it were lacking enduring social, political institutions and order.

《大誥》尹氏及有關問題

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.
 本文結合傳世史料及出土材料，提出“尹氏”似並非由“作册尹”、“内史尹”省簡而來，“尹氏”中的“尹”當源於周初之人史佚的氏。史佚即作册逸，食采於尹，故以尹爲族氏。“尹氏”即指在周朝世官制度下，世爲史官之長的史佚子孫。周朝的尹氏一直傳流到東遷以後。
 It is generally believed that Yin Shi in Da Gao 大誥is an abbreviation of the titles Zuoce Yin 作册尹 and Neishi Yin 内史尹. However, this paper argues that Yin is the family name of Shi Yi 史佚, who was one of the Zuoce Yi 作册逸 dated back to the beginning of the Western Zhou Dynasty. Shi Yi owned his fief at the place of Yin, which became his family name. It was a hereditary right that the descendants of Shi Yi being the chief of court recorders, who had managed to keep this tradition after the capital was moved eastward to Luo Yang.

Eddie, S. A Freedom's Price: Serfdom, Subjection, and Reform in Prussia, 1648–1848 (review)

REVIEWS 173 Eddie, S. A. Freedom’s Price: Serfdom, Subjection, and Reform in Prussia, 1648– 1848. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2013. xx + 356 pp. Maps. Tables. Notes. Bibliographical references. Index. £65.00. This is a book on Brandenburg-Prussia’s agrarian economy at the cusp of the modern age. The first section considers the long-term effects of the Thirty Years’ War, then concentrates on the reign of Frederick II and leads up to the Prussian defeat by Napoleon in 1806 and the October Edict of 1807, which granted personal freedom to subjects on the land. The second part focuses on the consequences of peasant liberation and agrarian reform in Prussia until 1821.After1648theHohenzollerndynastysteadilyexpanded,mostsignificantly through the conquest of Silesia (1740–56), the illegal seizure of Polish Prussia and other parts of Western Poland (1772–93) and the acquisition of the Rhineland (1815). Most economic historians have focused on micro-historical case studies spanning over several centuries, such as William Hagen’s study of the Stavenow estates or Hartmut Harnisch’s work on Boitzenburg. S. A. Eddie’s goal appears daunting in a different way: it aims at the relationship of lords, peasants and government across all of Brandenburg-Prussia’s provinces during two centuries. Moreover he aspires to replace a traditional, moralizing approach to peasant poverty, first championed in the 1880s by Georg Knapp’s influential work on peasant liberation, with a revisionist analysis of the distribution of capital and the effect of reform during a period of fundamental economic and demographic change. Such revisionism is not new. Almost a decade ago Hagen’s masterly study, Ordinary Prussians (Cambridge, 2007) set the tone by pointing out that peasants were anything but an amorphous, oppressed and passive mass of eternally suffering chattels. It owes much to the pioneering work by former East German social historians, whom Eddie’s book at times unjustly chastizes for not being what they never could have been under the constraints of a Marxist dictatorship. Eddie’s polemic against other historians who, despite enjoying full intellectual freedom, would not depart from the orthodox view that only the nobility, and never the peasantry, gained from manorialism and the Prussian reforms of 1807 and 1811, is refreshing at first. There is, however, an unnecessary relentlessness in Eddie’s polemical tone, when the book’s hard-headed analysis actually would do more to further his revisionist cause. Moreover, it is odd that another recent revisionist work, Markus Cerman’s Villagers and Lords in Eastern Europe, 1300–1800 (Basingstoke, 2012), was left unmentioned altogether. In the first part Eddie pays particular attention to Konservation, the duty of the landowner to protect subjects on his land in a mutual feudal relationship. Konservation, as a system of contractual insurance against inflation, natural catastrophes and penury, Eddie argues, must not be dismissed as cynical SEER, 94, 1, JANUARY 2016 174 noble paternalism. It particularly benefitted tenants with less secure rights and tenures such as Laß-peasants (on temporary leases to be cancelled at any time). Subjects with more secure hereditary rights to their property, larger plots and greater capital were happy to commute labour dues, employing labour themselves, lending money not least to struggling landlords and engaging in free trade. In fact, in the later eighteenth century, peasants’ income rose making many subjects wealthy, while fixed rent income mounted pressure on the noble economy. Here Eddie adds an important perspective. In contrast to more conventional approaches to lord-subject relations, his analysis focuses on capital as the most important driver of change from the second half of the eighteenth century. At the turn of the eighteenth century, over 80 per cent of tenants in East Prussia, for example, had secure (hereditary) tenure. Yet evidence also suggests that less secure tenure (e.g. common in Silesia) benefitted some peasants who had fallen on hard times but wanted to maintain flexibility through temporary leases. Voluntary ‘opting into serfdom’ was not unheard of. Life was ‘not a bed of roses, but neither a bed of nails’ (p. 89). Such seems the emphasis at times on the well-being of peasants that the author felt the need to dedicate a whole chapter on peasant...

Irish Nonhumanness and English Inhumanity in A Vewe of the Present State of Ireland

In Spenser’s Vewe, the Irish are fragmented, in flux, contingent: they are “barbarous” “relickes” or “scumme” who break upon the English “like a sudden tempest”; they deny hereditary rights to land and leadership; and their culture is a heterogeneous pastiche of multiple origins with no common birthright or ethnicity. Their communities are mobile; their rulers are situational; and their most recognizable trait is their shared opposition to colonialism. The Irish categorically reject Elizabethan governmentality, and the Vewe justifies England’s right to subjugate them by stripping them of their humanity. However, the text contrasts the nonhuman Irish with problematic accounts of the English as “obedient,” “cyvill,” “degenerate” subjects who have shouldered the Norman yoke and now impose it upon their colonized others, and whose inhumanity reveals itself in their willingness to commit atrocities. As it explores the intractable corporality of the Irish, the Vewe disrupts the machinery of colonial biopolitics...

La sucesión en las uniones de hecho

In this article, the author comments -from constitutional and civil perspectives- the scope of Law No 30007, whose purpose is to recognize inheritance rights between domestic partners. Similarly, the paper analyzes the practical problems faced when applying such Law. Among them, the author does not believe that the mere fact of concubines concurring is sufficient to determine inheritance rights. Consequently, in case of multiple domestic partnerships, and in case of several cohabitants having hereditary rights, the courts should make prevail the most stable domestic partnership and the one that most resembles a marital union.

Implications of the Verdict of Constitutional Court Number 46/PUU-VIII/2010 on the Hereditary Right of Illegitimate Children Born of Mixed Couple in Islamic Law Perspective

The differences in regulation of position of heir illegitimate (outside marriage) child that born from mixed couples has led to legal issues, particularly rules of law which should be chosen for interested party (illegitimate child) when he had to use his rights as citizen and legal resident. According to Civil Code, illegitimate children born of mixed couples, just have a legal relationship with her mother and her mother’s family, unless recognized by biological It means that children born outside marriage of mixed couples that are recognized by biological father have hereditary rights from both father and mother. However, illegitimate children’s inheritance right that is recognized by father or mother is not same as legitimate children. According to Law No. 1/1974 which essentially adopted Islamic law, says that outside marriage children can not be recognized and separated by a father (natural father). The children only have a legal relationship with their mother but children still have a mother who gave birth to them, with understanding that between children and mother have legal relationship as well as legitimate children who have a The nature of Islamic law says that that children outside marriage are illegitimate children. Although their parents have made recognition or endorsement but because of children were born outside of their parent’s marriage, but still society views that children were illegitimate. Based Constitutional Court Decision No. 46/PUU-VIII/2010 dated February 12, 2012, that the child's relationship with a man as father is not solely because of marriage bond, but can also be based on evidence of blood relationship between children and men as father. This provision implicates heritage status of child. This means that illegitimate children born of mixed couples still have inheritance rights from biological father as existence can be proven through a series of proving both technologically and legally.

Diamond mining, urbanisation and social transformation in Sierra Leone

This contribution critically explores changing relationships between diamond mining and patterns of urbanisation in Sierra Leone. In providing an historical overview of mining expansion and contraction, the paper highlights the significant impacts that mining has had on the rural–urban continuum, and how this has shaped political, economic and social change in diamondiferous regions. Focusing on Kono District, the effects of diamond mining on populations are evaluated before, during and after the civil war, demonstrating how diamonds have had diverse and varying impacts on both population mobility and urban agglomeration at different points in time. While much attention has focused on the social consequences of wartime displacement from diamondiferous areas to the capital city, Freetown, recent research suggests that the post-war return of young people to diamond mining regions has had unexpected consequences. Most significantly, a decline in artisanal mining activities and the rise of large-scale industrial mining has reawakened the interest of young ex-miners in farming, especially those who enjoy hereditary land rights. While one consequence of the war may be that the population is now more urban and more mobile, the paper concludes that the return of young people to their villages of origin, and rapprochement with local chiefs, may be helping to drive a resurgence of community-based cooperation in Kono District, a development which could provide a more durable basis for sustainable and democratic development in the years to come.

Iconicizing Kingship in Elizabethan England: Strategic Acting by Queen Elizabeth I

Abstract Renaissance England is often discussed in the context of theatre and theatrical acting. The fact is that Renaissance monarchs, too, viewed kingship in terms of theatrical display and public performance. Such is the nature of royalty presented by King James I in Basilicon Doron. Queen Elizabeth I was playing all her life. Faced with the problem of her femininity in the world of men, as well as her ambivalent hereditary rights as a member of the Tudor dynasty, she focused on legitimizing her reign through playing different roles - she played the fearful king, the loving queen, she even played Virgin Mary. But Elizabeth emerges as the most stunning actress when she plays herself. On her summer visit to Wanstead in 1578 she took an active part in the pageant “The lady of May”, playing herself, “Good Queen Bess”, which Sir Philip Sidney depicted in his pastoral romance The lady of May. In this way, Elizabeth became her own icon. This paper provides instances of the Queen’s political role play in a historical and socio-cultural context of the time.

The Representation of Dynasty and "Fundamental Laws" in the Evolution of Russian Monarchy

[Alexander] was never without an ideology, whether real or pretended. This merely reflected his education and the influence of his mentor [La Harpe]. No one would believe, [Alexander] told me, what I had to debate with him. Alexander held that heredity was an abuse of sovereignty, and I had to spend more than an hour and use all of my eloquence and logic to convince him that it was heredity that comprised the tranquillity and happiness of peoples. --Napoleon Bonaparte, recalling his conversation with Alexander I at Tilsit during an interview on St. Helena, 1816 (1) In this country, the memory of a deceased emperor is little honored, but in the present instance, inclination accords with a policy that would have the preceding reign forgotten. --The Marquis de Custine, La Russie en 1839 (2) In contrast with the evolution of the absolute monarchies of Europe, the history of Russian monarchy is notable for the weakness of a concept or tradition of legal dynastic succession. The explanations for this situation may take into consideration the weakness of the early Russian state's grounding in feudal and Roman law, compounded by the traumatic upheavals of the 17th century that left Russian monarchy without a generally accepted procedure for succession when Peter the Great adopted the principle of designation in 1722. Peter's law left succession in doubt, leading to the frequent court coups in the succeeding decades. But even after Emperor Paul I promulgated a law of hereditary succession in 1796, inherited right remained an insufficient justification for a new monarch's claim to absolute authority. In the 19th century, succession followed the hereditary line without serious challenge, but hereditary right was never deemed sufficient to justify the rulers' claims to the throne. These claims rather took the form of narratives of conquest and triumph introduced by Peter, a culture incorporating the imagery and ceremonies of the Baroque and 18th-century conceptions of the role of the enlightened monarch. (3) The rulers of Russia continued to dramatize their assumption of power, presenting themselves as Peter's successors, mythical heroes, breaking with the previous reign, transcending human limits, and bringing enlightenment and order to the Russian state--emphasizing renewal and change rather than dynastic continuity. The public presentation of the mythical image of the monarch and the exercise of absolute power were reciprocal processes: absolute rule sustained an image of transcendent monarch, which in turn warranted the exercise of his unlimited power. This article discusses not the accession of one or another ruler but the effects of the preponderance of a representative rather than a legal tradition of dynastic succession on the mentality and workings of the monarchy, and particularly on the role of law in the Russian state. The legalization of dynasty proceeded within the framework of the imperial myth, which in the 19th century presented the advancement of Russian law as an attribute of the supreme image of ruler. It was embodied in the Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire decreed by Paul I and Nicholas I, which provided laws of state that could regulate and legitimize the growing Russian administration but ensured that legal restraints would remain subordinate to the will of the sovereign. In this way legality issued from the will of a transcendent ruler and evolved at his discretion and his mercy. Dynastic Succession in Europe and Russia The connection between traditions of dynastic succession and the evolution of the law has been a theme in the literature of the past few decades on the consolidation of state power in the West. The early 18th century witnessed the culmination of a long development of European dynastic traditions. Enshrined in law, such traditions provided a core of state power and made possible a continuity of rule that sustained the state during periods of crisis. …

Saint Bavon au service de l’héritage bourguignon: Philippe le Beau et sa propagande politique

Among the numerous extant portraits of Philip the Handsome (1478-1506), son of Mary of Burgundy and of Maximilian of Austria, created in his lifetime, one in particular attracts the imagination of a modern viewer: on the right external wing of Hieronymus Bosch’s famous “Last Judgement” triptych (now in Vienna), the young duke is represented as St Bavo. Introduced by Dirk Bax as early as 1983, this curious iconography has still not received a conclusive explanation. In the Middle Ages the religious metaphor was one of the most powerful means of the princely propaganda, and some of Philip’s ancestors were represented as or compared to various saints or personages of the sacred history. Nevertheless, no one of them was ever depicted as St Bavo, and the choice of this local Ghent and Haarlem saint does not seem to have been evident for Philip. This paper argues that the choice of St Bavo was caused mainly by his attribute – a falcon that can also be found in some childhood portraits of Philip and that played an essential part in the lifetime iconography of Mary of Burgundy, being a symbol of her rights to the heritage of her forefathers and of her power as a duchess suo jure. Employing falcon as his mother’s attribute to stress his origins and hereditary rights, Philippe might also have been governed by the desire to create a synthetic image charged with the sacred as well as political meaning: establishing the “visual” continuous line of succession from the Dukes of Burgundy to the House of Habsburgs, it conveyed at the same time the idea of a perfect sovereign, benefactor and pacificator.

Review: The Architecture of Lucknow and Oudh, 1722–1856: Its Evolution in an Aesthetic and Social Context, by Banmali Tandan

The architecture of Oudh, and particularly its capital city of Lucknow—legendary for its magnificence and the refinement of Indo-Islamic high culture under its rulers, the nawabs of Oudh—is the subject of Banmali Tandan's The Architecture of Lucknow and Oudh, 1722-1856: Its Evolution in an Aesthetic and Social Context. Starting in the thirteenth century in northwestern India, the region known as Oudh came under the rule of a sequence of Delhi-based Muslim dynasties. By the late sixteenth century the area became part of the mighty Mughal empire. In 1722 Saadat Khan, a Shi'a nobleman from Persia who was employed by the Mughal emperor, was appointed Subahdar (governor) of Oudh. From 1722 to 1856, these rulers and their successors came to be known as the nawabs of Oudh.While putatively remaining loyal to the Mughal emperor, Saadat Khan worked to consolidate his position and assert control over his domain by undertaking campaigns against the largely Hindu landlords of Oudh. These semi-independent feudal barons were not entirely suppressed. They were forced to pay tax on a regular basis even as their hereditary rights to their lands remained undisturbed. Some of the landed chieftains would become Nawabi courtiers and officials. Despite the Nawabi overlordship, most continued to grow in strength under Nawabi rule. Their belief that they were independent rulers of their domain was signaled by the construction of numerous mud-forts in their lands during this period. After his death in 1739, Saadat Khan's nephew and son-in-law Safdar Jang (1739–1753) succeeded him as governor.At this time Oudh had grown to be a rich province; one that yielded vast revenues, estimated in the 1750s to be twice that of the Mughal empire at its zenith. As governor, Safdar Jang resided in the Mughal capital of Delhi or Shahjahanabad, but also in the cities of Faizabad and Lucknow in Oudh. When Asafuddaula (1775–1797) became nawab of Oudh, he made Lucknow his permanent capital in 1775. Safdar Jang's successor Shujauddaula (1754–1775) came into conflict with the East India Company and was defeated by the latter (in 1764, in Buxar and 1765 in Jajmau) While Oudh was informally independent of the Mughal emperor before 1765, after this date, through treaties and other agreements, it was progressively shaped by the control of the East India Company. The influence of European architectural styles on the local architecture was increasingly evident after the 1770s, and these Indo-European and even Indo-Islamic buildings have come under much criticism. In 1856 the British deposed Wajid Ali Shah, the last nawab, and annexed Oudh, making this once vibrant independent region just one part of the global possessions of the expanding British empire.This is the context and background to Banmali Tandan's ambitious book. In it the author examines a vast terrain as well as a great number of diverse buildings and other elements of the built environment. In doing so, he explores the architectural patronage of the nawabs and their courtiers—including Europeans, Muslims, Hindus, and Jains—in Oudh in the changing political climate of over a century and a quarter of nawabi rule. This book is the author's second on the subject. According to the author, they can be read independently. However, this book builds on The Architecture of Lucknow and Its Dependencies, 1722–1856: A Descriptive Inventory and an Analysis of Nawabi Types (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 2001) and is the product of the perusal of a greater array of sources and intensive fieldwork.Throughout this book Tandan shows a strong commitment to observing and describing the built environment: spatial and living arrangements, gender segregation, response to tropical climate, materials, native building technologies, construction details, finishes, and stylistic and spatial genealogies. The book also discusses an impressive range of secular and sacred building types. Many of the buildings have been documented and drawn by the author, a valuable resource for future scholars.According to the author,

Posthumous reproduction and its hereditary legal effects

Permissibility of posthumous reproduction, i.e. conception and birth of children after the death of one or both parents, and determining its hereditary legal consequences, today undoubtedly represents issues of great importance in the field of biomedical assisted reproduction. This paper discusses the following issues: 1) the way of the legal regulation of posthumous reproduction in modern European legislations and the hereditary status of the children conceived by posthumous reproduction, 2) attitudes of case law regarding the permissibility of the posthumous reproduction and hereditary rights of the children conceived in this way and 3) to some extent the question of justification of posthumous reproduction. In the conclusion it is pointed out that today a very small number of modern legislations regulate the issue of posthumous reproduction, whereby there are no unique and universally accepted solutions in the legislations which regulate this question. Bearing in mind that this is a very important issue, leading to the expansion of the boundaries of fatherhood, motherhood, parenting and family, we may conclude that there will be an increase in legislations faced with the need for its appropriate legal regulations.

The Invention of Tradition: Illyrian Heraldry

The “Illyrian heraldry”, as a phenomenon of the invented tradition, encompasses the rolls of arms - armorials, which appear in Dalmatia, Italy, Spain and Austria at the end of the XVI and beginning of the XVII century. These armorials contained Serbian and other southern Slav monarchic, territorial and family coats of arms. The authenticity, heraldic sources and origins of these armorials are extremely complex problems that can be traced back to the medieval heraldic heritage of the Serbs, on the one hand, and reveal the intricate web of political circumstances in the XVI and XVII centuries. Illyrian heraldry is also closely linked to the personal and political ambitions of the Spanish admiral, Don Pedro Ohmučević Grgurić, from Slano near Dubrovnik. One cannot, however, link the entire Illyrian heraldry movement only to the daring ambitions of Petar Ohmučević Grgurić. In in the XVI and XVII centuries historical constructions, inspired for the most part by sincere Slav patriotism, emerged that proved the unity of the Illyrians and the Slavs, revealed the alleged Slav origins of famous figures (Alexander the Great, Justinian), or simply extolled the splendor and magnitude of a lost Slav kingdom, that could be restored again. Much as it was developing within the spiritual scope of the Catholic church, this “Slovine” movement found its historical basis in the medieval statehood of Serbia and Bosnia, particularly in the powerful empire of Stephan Dushan (1331-55), in the Serbian potentates, heroes, their glitter and opulence, which used to glorify the Slav world. Since the XVII century till today, despite their doubtful authenticity, the Illyrian armorials have been considered important genealogical and heraldic documents. Many families relied on the information in Illyrian heraldic collections when claiming their true, or, more often purported, ancient hereditary rights, titles and lands. The Illyrian armorials were transcribed and reprinted in books that were important for the national identity of the southern Slav peoples, such as Orbini's Kingdom of the Slavs (1601), Stemmatographia or the Drawing, Description and Renewal of Illyrian Coats of Arms by Pavao Riter Vitezović, published in Vienna in 1701, and Stemmatographia by Hristifor Žefarović, published in 1741. After the liberation of Serbia and Montenegro from the Turks, heraldry was granted official sanction, and the coats of arms are based on the tradition preserved in Illyrian heraldry.

Mehmed Ali Paşa and Sultan Mahmud II: the genesis of a conflict

The war that Mehmed Ali Pasa of Egypt waged against his suzerain, Sultan Mahmud II in 1831 is often presented as motivated by the Pasa's intention to annex Syria. This paper argues that it was a war for self defence and for achieving tenure in Egypt for himself and hereditary rights for his descendents. Sultan Mahmud forced the restoration of centralization into the Ottoman system, which entailed the destruction of the ayan and derebeys and the subjugation of their domains to direct government from Istanbul. In order to avoid a similar fate, Mehmed Ali established a modern army which would serve him in due course to achieve his other goal. In this endeavour he enjoyed full cooperation of the Turco-Egyptian elite to whom the survival of the socio-political order which he established in Egypt, was of paramount interest. When Mehmet Ali felt that the sultan was planning to attack Egypt he attacked first. His victorious army was one week away from Istanbul when he ordered it to halt its march following Russian intervention. Only after the death of Sultan Mahmud, did the Porte grant him tenure in Egypt and hereditary rights for his descendents, an offer confirmed by the Protocol of London in July 1840.

The Dunfermline Vita of St. Margaret of Scotland: Hagiography as an Articulation of Hereditary Rights

The unique and purposefully placed narratives in the Dunfermline Vita of St. Margaret of Scotland articulate the hereditary claim of the kings of Scotland to a Scoto-Northumbrian realm by associating St. Margaret’s husband, Malcolm III, with previous Anglo-Saxon rulers of Northumbria in terms of his noble character and martyr’s death.

Were king Stefan the First-Crowned and his son Radoslav co-rulers?

Were king Stefan the First-Crowned and his son Radoslav co-rulers?

Sopocani and Gradac: About the relation of funerary programmes of the two churches

King Uros (1243-1276) erected the Church of the Holy Trinity in the Sopocani monastery in about 1270 and, in it, he prepared tombs for the first hegoumenos of Sopocani, his mother Queen Ana, for himself and the then archbishop, Joanikije (Fig. 1). Over each tomb there is a marble sarcophagus surrounded by appropriate wall paintings. The tombs of Uros and Joanikije were located in the western bay of the naos. Thus, the recently announced hypothesis, that the endowed did not intend to be buried in Sopocani, is unfounded. The intention of King Uros was only brought into question in 1276 when he was driven from the throne by his older son, Dragutin. The overthrow caused a major drama in the family, the state and the Church. King Uros retired to the southern part of the state (Hum), where he became a monk and subsequently died (perhaps in 1277). His wife Jelena received vast territories from her son, the new king, which she practically ruled independently, while Archbishop Joanikije, after having denied Dragutin his blessing, retired with the former king and died in the region of Pilot in 1279. King Dragutin (1276-1282) made a great effort to mitigate the negative effects of the overthrow: he continued his father's foreign policy established good relations with neighboring Dubrovnik, took pains to appease his mother, Queen Jelena, by granting her vast territories, and to win the support of the Church by erecting, repairing or presenting gifts to several churches and monasteries. He certainly obtained the Sopocani monastery through hereditary ktetorial rights.

Regulated Loyalty: Jacobitism and Johnson's Lives of the Poets

Regulated Loyalty: Jacobitism and Johnson’s Lives of the Poets Dustin Griffin Most discussions of Jacobitism—whether in English political culture at large or in the writings of particular authors—sensibly focus on the period prior to 1760. For when George III reached the throne, fourteen years after Culloden, Jacobitism was pretty much a dead letter, and the new king, who reminded his subjects that he was a Briton born and bred, proclaimed himself a patriot, and invited the Tories into government, won the loyalty—if not, until his later years, the affection—of the great part of his subjects. But even if a Jacobite restoration was no longer a political possibility, sympathy for the old cause survived, whether as “sentimental Jacobitism,” or in the popular celebrations of the birthday of James III and occasional riots against the Hanoverians that Paul Monod has noted took place as late as 1779. 1 But by then the Hanoverians had been on the throne for 65 years, and Johnson thought that they had “established as good a right as the former family, by the long consent of the people.” 2 One family in effect had the consent of the people, and the other (in the minds of many people) an equal “hereditary right.” Most people (Johnson declared in the course of an animated argument with a Whig friend, John Taylor) would in 1777 have restored the Stuarts, if it were simply a matter of peacefully casting a ballot, but nobody, he maintained, would actually “risk any thing to restore the exiled family.” Even Taylor conceded that “the people of England,” if asked to vote which family had the hereditary right, would, from the point of view of “abstract doctrine,” choose the Stuarts. Taylor thought, however, that “the conduct of that family, which occasioned their expulsion, was so fresh in the minds of the people, that they would not vote for a restoration.” 3 The lively and perhaps overstated exchange partly conceals two interesting points: the decisive events of 1688 and 1746 were still “fresh in the minds of the people” in the 1770s, and the “people of England” were capable of holding strikingly ambivalent views of dynastic matters and of making subtle political judgments. [End Page 1007] This was hardly the only conversation in which Johnson in his final decade remarked upon the rival merits of the Stuarts and the kings who succeeded them, and by selective quotation one can make out a case that Johnson retained a “partiality” for the Stuarts. 4 It is easy to show that he could on occasion quite intemperately denounce kings of whom he disapproved. In 1775 Boswell reports that he “roared with prodigious violence against George the Second,” and that he regarded William III as “one of the most worthless scoundrels that ever existed.” 5 In 1783 he made an apparently invidious comparison between the Stuarts and Hanoverians: “this Hanoverian family [the contemptuous phrase makes them sound like not like a dynasty but a rabble of carpetbaggers] is isolée here. They have no friends. Now the Stuarts had friends who stuck by them so late as 1745.” 6 One can also demonstrate that in conversation Johnson considered that the Revolution of 1688 had some very unfortunate consequences. What he saw as a “relaxation” of “reverence for government” he imputed, “as its grand cause, to the shock which our monarchy received at the Revolution, though necessary.” 7 Indeed, “factious opposition” to the Hanoverians he traced “in a great measure, to the Revolution.” Even if the Revolution were “necessary”—to forestall the imposition of popery—“it broke our constitution.” 8 Before we conclude from such conversations as recorded in the Life that Johnson harbored Jacobite opinions in the 1770s, we should remember that the “conversations” are selected and reconstructed by Boswell for his own biographical and perhaps political purposes. 9 We should also recall the well-established point that the opinions Johnson expressed in spirited conversation and debate were not necessarily his settled views. Such caveats apart, it is crucial that even in the casual remarks about disaffection from the Hanoverians, Johnson’s main point is not that the Hanoverians are illegitimate or wicked, but that such...

A Woman Timar Holder in Ankara Province During the Second Half of the 16th Century

AbstractThis article, in essence a microscopic study of an area around Ankara deals with a long lasting family quarrel about a Timar property (associated with military service during wartime) focusing on the question of hereditary rights for women. The family involved can be traced back almost two hundred and fifty years: in the sixteenth century they were modest Timar holders, but had once belonged to the wealthy ahi-patricians of Ankara. The remarkably rich archival material also allows us to track the different structures of the Timar in course of time. The development of the court proceedings reveals that the legal position was not unequivocal, especially concerning the succession rights of women during this period. The final decision in favour of Şakire, the heroine of the story, is primarily examined in the article in the context of social changes during the 16th century, when succession rights of women in rural as well as in urban strata of society underwent alterations. The picture which emerges is that of continuous change in the social status of Muslim-Turkish women, a status which too often has been regarded as static and unchangeable.

Gifts in Frankalmoign, Warranty of Land, and Feudal Society

In recent discussion, gifts to the religious have been perceived as exercising a formative influence in the forging of some norms and customs of feudal tenure during the twelfth century. On the one hand, it has been suggested that gifts to the church assisted the clarification in the mind of lay feudal society of the concept of heritability—that is, the future enjoyment of inheritance—since donors could not alienate in perpetuity that which was not already heritable. This suggestion is extremely important in view of the different perceptions of political and legal historians concerning the development of heritability of tenures and tenant right during the twelfth century, which are seen variously to have existed as social or legal norms from varying times and from different causes. A related argument runs that, whilst the warranty clause in charters (but not warranty per se) was initially conceived within the framework of the personal relationship between lord and man, its more widespread diffusion in charters was stimulated largely through the auspices of these religious beneficiaries of gifts in frankalmoign. The introduction of warranty into charters at the instance of religious beneficiaries is thus related to their concern to secure their own perpetual rights in the land at a time of a nascent realisation of hereditary tenant right, and the religious were thus foremost in the insertion of warranty clauses in charters which they, as beneficiaries, wrote or influenced, to secure their own unbridled tenure in perpetuity.