Late Fifteenth Century Research Articles

Exorcism and Religious Politics in Fifteenth-Century Florence

AbstractThis article examines a series of messages concerning politics and geography that the religious order of the Vallombrosans embedded within a series of exorcism manuscripts and addressed to Lorenzo de’ Medici in the late fifteenth century. The Vallombrosans crafted their manuscripts to negotiate a host of troubles: schism over reform, friction with Lorenzo, diminishing social status, increased marginality, competition with rival religious orders, new definitions of orthodoxy, and alternate forms of religious devotion. I frame Vallombrosan troubles and their turn to exorcism as symptomatic of the increased predominance of Mendicant Observants over older orders, and link this shift to a newly active and politicized demonology.

Benigno Zerafa (1726–1804) and the Neapolitan Galant Style by Frederick Aquilina

Reviewed by: Benigno Zerafa (1726–1804) and the Neapolitan Galant Style by Frederick Aquilina Guido Olivieri Benigno Zerafa (1726–1804) and the Neapolitan Galant Style. By Frederick Aquilina. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 2016. [xii, 335 p. ISBN 9781783270866 (hardback), $115.] Music examples, illustrations, facsimiles, bibliography, index. This study by Frederick Aquilina is a nice addition to the relatively scarce bibliography on the rich repertory of sacred music in eighteenth-century Malta. As the author clarifies in the preface, the book is "the product of twenty years of research" (p. ix) for his master and doctoral dissertations. While in some parts it still betrays the limits of its original purpose, this volume has the merit of presenting an accurate and detailed reconstruction of the biography and production of the maestro di cappella Benigno Zerafa (1726–1804), one of the main protagonists of the music activities at the Cathedral of Malta. Aquilina presents his study in ten chapters organized around three main focuses: discussion of Zerafa's life and career; research on the manuscript sources of sacred music written by Zerafa and still preserved in the archives (Archivium Cathedralis Melitensis) of the Mdina Cathedral (Mdina, Malta); and analysis of all 148 sacred vocal works written by Zerafa. The opening chapter provides the broadest and most substantial reconstruction of Zerafa's biography and career. Through a punctual reference to archival documents, often transcribed and translated, we learn that at age eight Zerafa was appointed as clericus chori in the cathedral and three years later as "'voce di soprano' to the Cappella musicale" (p. 3). Because of his talent—and perhaps also thanks to the high social status of his family—Zerafa received financial support from the Cathedral Chapter to study at the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo in Naples. The years of Zerafa's training there (1738–44) coincided with the activity of some of the leading Neapolitan composers, such as Francesco Durante, Leonardo Leo, Francesco Feo, and the Maltese Girolamo Abos, the last two certainly among Zerafa's teachers. Later in the volume, Aquilina suggests that "Zerafa may have been directly influenced by Abos's (and Leo's) music during his study years at the conservatory" (p. 151). Yet the author compares Zerafa's compositions with only a few sacred works by Leo and makes mere passing references to Abos and Feo. Nor does Aquilina provide further insights on the historical or cultural reasons for the close relationships between the Neapolitan and Maltese musical institutions. On the other hand, he discusses at length the second half of Zerafa's career after returning to Malta, with a detailed account of the [End Page 101] musician's forty-year employment as maestro di cappella at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Mdina. More problematic are the following two chapters, as the author evidently did not substantially revise them from their original purpose as general introductory overviews. Although the literature on sacred music in Malta is limited, a chapter like "A Concise History of Church Music in Malta: From the Late Fifteenth Century to the Eighteenth Century" presents the inevitable risk of being an overly generic digression from the volume's main focus. The first part of the chapter skims over the most important institutions and composers who cultivated sacred music in Malta in the four centuries under consideration. Slightly more useful is the second half, which deals with a description of the liturgical calendar and major festivities that included music performances in the Maltese churches. Analogous flaws affect the third chapter, which aims at presenting a description of "Naples during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries." The rapid summary of all genres of Neapolitan music (from opera to cantata, and instrumental music to serenata) and of the main music institutions that sustained the rich production of music in Naples (from the theaters to the Royal Chapel, and the four conservatories to the unspecified "twenty-three religious institutions" [p. 83]) does not seem particularly effective in the context of research on Maltese sacred music. Rather than trying to give a problematic overview of two centuries of Neapolitan music tradition, it would have been perhaps more useful to focus on those genres, musicians, and institutions...

How the Past was Used: Historical Cultures, c. 750–2000 ed. by Peter Lambert and Björn Weiler

Reviewed by: How the Past was Used: Historical Cultures, c. 750–2000 ed. by Peter Lambert and Björn Weiler Sybil M. Jack Lambert, Peter, and Björn Weiler, eds, How the Past was Used: Historical Cultures, c. 750–2000, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017; hardback; pp. 330; 11 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. £90.00; ISBN 9780197266120. The pessimistic view of the manipulation of history might well be called the 1984 approach—that the story is re-written on a daily basis to create the image necessary for the moment. Editors Pater Lambert and Björn Weiler do not see changes as being as rapid as in this approach, but their introduction (p. 28) describes history as fragile, fraught, and fragmented. And this valuable volume, the result of many [End Page 218] years of discussion and conferences, brings together for comparison some of the distinctive approaches of various cultures to the formation and maintenance of their past. In many places, the concept of historical truth—as several of the contributors stress—was constructed in a way that was quite dissimilar to present-day academic belief. Dimitri Kastritsis, in analysing Ottoman narratives of the late fifteenth century, concludes that ‘historical memory was intimately intertwined with legends and apocalyptic expectations’ (p. 139). It was also, as Peter Lambert shows in his study of the way the Third Reich was used in the interwar period, a place where current debates that could not be directly treated, could be maintained as a form of historical fiction. Two chapters that consider alternative forms of establishing history in the minds of the people are critical to the collection. Matthew Phillips underlines the way in which ‘traditional’ practices—in this case Thailand’s royal barge processions that had been central from at least the sixteenth century—were revived and regenerated in the Cold War period to fulfil a present-day purpose of endorsing the legitimacy of the existing government of the state and Thai identity. This overturned the Thai past created in the interwar period. Richard Rathbone’s skilful unravelling of the significance of the yam festival in the ancient state of Ashante (now in Ghana) makes clear the historic manner in which it embodies ‘particular and partisan’ (p. 287) aspects of the former empire of Ghana, its culture and its institutions. It shows a re-statement of the past quite different from the usual employment of a literary record. Also different were many approaches in India, internally diverse with its many languages and religions. Allison Busch’s account of the neglected Hindi vernacular poetry of the early modern period—a genre that cannot be usefully classified in modern divisions as either literature or history but as the work of poet-historians—shows us the construction of a past that established normative emotions and the rules of honour, creating a community standard with real-life consequences. History was essential to that present. These distinctive pivots of memory which come from less familiar places give the chapters that re-examine forms of written presentation better known to Westerners a new viewpoint. The familiar trope that audience participation, which is central to an active performance, is absent from a narrative written and perhaps read aloud to groups of people, is examined afresh by Haki Antonsson in his chapter on the Norse sagas. Björn Weiler presents, through a careful examination of Matthew Paris’s Lives of the Two Offas, a new approach to the major type of narrative sources of medieval European history, the monastic chronicle. Not only is their purpose moral and ethical, it is also concerned with contemporary relevance to the institution promoting them. How history was legally defined and used in Spain in the beginning of the seventeenth century is revealed in a lawsuit examined by Richard Kagan. The position of the royal chronicler, Herrera, under attack for defaming the ancestor of a prominent aristocrat, uncovers exactly what was at issue, which was truth, the public good, and a guide to action. [End Page 219] Western historians have found the approach of Chinese professional historians and scholars writing since late antiquity problematic: their work was employed to shape particular ideas of cycles amongst parts...

Hospitales urbanos en La Rioja en los siglos XVI y XVII. Estructuras administrativas y financiación

A raíz de la inclusión de elementos seculares en las estructuras administrativas de las instituciones de beneficencia y los primeros pasos en la unificación y racionalización de los establecimientos asistenciales por mandato real a finales del siglo XV, se produce un punto de inflexión en la evolución del sistema hospitalario a nivel nacional que en el caso de La Rioja supone una rápida municipalización de la asistencia hospitalaria centrada en los núcleos urbanos gracias a la existencia previa de un elevado número de hospitales en relación al Camino de Santiago y las características político-económicas de la región.

Dasa Sahitya

Dasa Sahitya is a literary genre in Kannada, first seen in the late fifteenth century. Making its mark both in literature and in Indian classical music, Dasa Sahitya attracted the attention of missionaries and other colonial functionaries, and was one of the first genres to be edited and published in Kannada in the mid-nineteenth century. Very soon, native editors and publishers started working on the genre. Usually classified under bhakti literature in the literary historiography of Kannada literature, Dasa Sahitya was published by individuals of varying interests. This article makes a survey of some of the early publications of the genre, and notes varying concerns and interests with which they were produced. We refrain from classifying these works as either 'colonial' or 'nationalist', while noting that the genre and the associated works were inextricably linked to the brahmin community from the days of the early publications, even as this community projected it as part of 'Kannada' culture. We also note evidence of cultural opposition to the change from manuscript to print.

La evolución del género de las vidas de María en el siglo XVI

Although the genre of the lives of Mary was consolidated in the late fifteenth century in the Hispanic context, it evolved significantly throughout the next century, influenced directly by the controversies and theological discourses surrounding the cult of the Virgin and the saints. After reviewing the characteristics of the genre, this paper focuses on the main causes that fostered and conditioned its evolution. The features that differentiate the main Marian texts appearing after the celebration of the Council of Trent from the previous ones are then analyzed. The aspects that reflect the continuity and the consolidation of the genre, as well as its main changes (in terms of subject matter, form, diffusion and language) due to the adaptation to the new doctrinal precepts are also discussed.

Fr Mažvydas, Žemaitija and the Gniezno Consistory Court of Appeal, 1525–1539

By the late fifteenth century, more notably after 1477, appeal cases from Catholics in the Grand Duchyof Lithuania began to appear before the Consistory Court in Gniezno in increasing numbers. Thesecases involved quite a wide social group, and dealt with a broad range of issues (not just matrimonialdisputes or the hiring out of parish churches between priests). Appellants came before the judgesfrom across the Grand Duchy. This article covers cases from 1524 to 1539. Even when court materialgives few details of cases, it can help solve issues of parish church and chantry foundations andpatronage. The most striking feature of the records between 1524 and 1538 is the predominance ofcases from Žemaitija, a diocese which previously featured only in disputes involving the bishop. Thisconfirms the deepening of Catholic practice across the diocese of Medininkai (Žemaitija) as reflectedin particular in the increasingly predominant use of Christian forenames from the last quarterof the fifteenth century. Most interesting perhaps for those studying the rise of Protestantism inLithuania will be the occurrence of one Fr Andriejus Mažvydas, parish priest of Alsėdžiai, among theappellant litigants of 1536. This information about a very probable kinsman (uncle, cousin, brother?)of Martynas Mažvydas offers new insights into the Lutheran’s family background and geography. KEY WORDS : Catholic Church, consistory court, appeal, Gniezno, Lithuania, Žemaitija, Andriejus Mažvydas.

New Bibles and Old Reading Habits Around 1522.

The medieval Northern Dutch New Testament translation, which originated in the context of the Devotio Moderna movement, was used by printers and readers well into the sixteenth century. This contribution demonstrates that studying copies of this translation is of vital importance for understanding Bible production in print in the Low Countries in the transitional period between the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. From the publication of the first Dutch Bible editions in 1477 on, printers let themselves guide by readers’ preferences, which meant reading the Bible according to the liturgical calendar. These long existing reading habits continued to guide printers’ choices after the introduction of new humanist and reform-minded complete Bible translations from 1522 on. In competing to publish these new and complete Dutch Bibles, printers were taking over textual and paratextual elements from existing medieval translations.

Late Helladic Imported Pottery at Tell eṣ-Ṣâfi/Gath

Fragments of thirty-six Aegean-type vessels were found at Tell eṣ-Ṣâfi/Gath in Areas A, E, F, and P between 1996 and 2014, some of which have already been published (Gadot, Yasur-Landau, and Uziel 2012; Shai et al., this issue) and then subsequently revaluated in a broader context (Stockhammer in press). The earliest import so far can be dated to the Mycenaean pottery phase Late Helladic (LH) IIIA1, which is the late fifteenth and early fourteenth centuries B.C.E. This closed vessel of unclear shape can be considered as one of the early Mycenaean imports to the southern Levant. It reached this region in a time when the spectrum of imports was still dominated by Aegean-type pottery from Crete.

Review: A Paradise of Priests: Singing the Civic and Episcopal Hagiography of Medieval Liège, by Catherine Saucier

A Paradise of Priests: Singing the Civic and Episcopal Hagiography of Medieval Liege , by Catherine Saucier. Eastman Studies in Music. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press; Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2014. xv, 299 pp. The music history of the Low Countries remains unevenly charted territory. A great deal of attention has been lavished, often with outstanding results, on the composers and polyphonic works of what was once called the “Netherlandish school” of the late fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. From the mid-1600s onward, however, there is a historiographic gap in the general public's as well as musicologists’ consciousness, caused mainly by the absence of composers of internationally recognized stature. The gap extends well into the twentieth century and started to close only after World War II, with the arrival of composers such as Henri Pousseur, Karel Goeyvaerts, or Louis Andriessen. Working in the Low Countries one quickly learns that this narrative is misleading—the region offers a uniquely rich, complex, and diverse landscape to the historian of music. Given the historically engrained bias in favor of polyphony, it might be argued that there is an even more critical historiographic gap in the history of monophonically notated repertories in the region, which to this day claim the attention of but a few dedicated scholars.1 Even defining what exactly is to be understood by the term “Low Countries” is not without its challenges. The most neutral option is to resort to geography, and define the Low Countries as the landscape formed by the delta of …

‘To Avoide All Envye, Malys, Grudge and Displeasure’: Sociability and Social Networking at the London Wardmote Inquest, c.1470–1540

This study considers the London wardmote inquest as a venue for social networking in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. It uses a combination of social network analysis (SNA) of wills and a set of ordinances for the conduct of wardmotes written by the jurors of Aldersgate ward in 1540. Wardmotes were an important venue for men to accrue social capital and ‘respectability’ in the eyes of their neighbours and develop personal connections which were crucial for social and economic advancement in the pre-modern city. Such advancement is evidenced in the later office holding careers of jurors and their importance in parish social networks. The meeting of the inquest was a potentially fraught occasion of conflicting loyalties which required close policing in order to engender the sociability key to its role as a venue for networking.

Maps and Beyond: An Excursus on Sixteenth-Century Maps of American Coastlines, Collected in Italy, a GIS Approach

In the late fifteenth and throughout the sixteenth century, European intellectual, scientific, and industrial influences manifested themselves brilliantly in the fields of geography, cartography, and printing and in improving maritime technologies. These areas of expertise came together in a fashion that made possible a rapid transference of information, in printed form, of the discoveries that Italian, Iberian, and later French, Dutch, and English explorers made. At that time, European scholars, wealthy patrons, and political and business figures attempted to understand the new discoveries, such as the Americas, through charts. In this article, the Italian cartographers and map publishers are considered to have shown a remarkable ability to depict North America, the challenge of placing these documents in the contemporary context is met through a GIS that solves the difficulty of viewing them through the rear-view mirror, 500 years later. The time frame chosen is from 1502 to 1536. Through a process of comparing and adjusting the original old maps with current maps, the GIS approach shows a geographical overview of the navigator's consciousness. The study tackles the time considered by studying five Italian maps and one Spanish map: the maps of Cantino, Maggiolo, Oliveriana of Pesaro, Castiglioni, Verrazzano, and Battista Agnese. Importing the maps into a geodatabase revealed significant geographical differences.

Pugnas entre monarquía y aristocracia por el control de los <em>almojarifazgos</em> costeros y otros derechos aduaneros de la Andalucía atlántica en el reinado de los Reyes Católicos

Entre la conquista a los musulmanes, a mediados del siglo XIII, y la primera mitad del siglo XV, la práctica totalidad de la costa atlántica andaluza fue entregada por la monarquía castellana a poderosos señores. En su mayor parte, se trató de grandes aristócratas que pretendieron recaudar en sus señoríos, además de otras rentas, el impuesto sobre el comercio exterior por vía marítima conocido como almojarifazgo. Éste, en teoría, pertenecía a la Corona y su cobro se hallaba centralizado en la cercana ciudad de Sevilla y en su aduana. Tras varias centurias de debilidad monárquica, a finales del siglo XV los Reyes Católicos consiguieron, a través de numerosos y largos procesos judiciales, recuperar para la Hacienda real estos gravámenes y retornar el control fiscal a la Corona de forma casi completa.

Origins of Impersonal Markets in Commercial and Communication Revolutions of Europe

In the sixteenth century some northwest European cities underwent institutional change. These cities removed privileges that members of certain merchant guilds enjoyed, and began to develop contractual infrastructure necessary for the functioning of modern impersonal markets. I find that these modernizing cities became distinct in their consumption of ``bourgeois trade-related content only in the late sixteenth century and had peculiar geographic characteristics. They were at the Atlantic coast, and had an early lead in adoption of printing, influenced by their closeness to Mainz where the movable type printing press was invented. Such geographical features exposed these cities to the simultaneous trade and information shocks of Atlantic trade and the Gutenberg printing press, in the late fifteenth century. These shocks made market opportunities outside of guilds lucrative and provided precise private information about these opportunities triggering market development and the endogenous evolution of supporting economic institutions. By examining the factors that triggered a structural change in northwestern Europe - at a disruptive period in history - the paper contributes to the understanding of how modern markets evolve.

Zaccaria Lilio and the shape of the earth: A brief response to Allegro's "Flat earth science".

This is a response to James J. Allegro's article "The Bottom of the Universe: Flat Earth Science in the Age of Encounter," published in Volume 55, Number 1, of this journal. Against the solid consensus of modern scholars, Allegro contends that the decades around 1500 saw a resurgence of popular and learned doubts about the existence of a southern hemisphere and the concept of a spherical earth more generally. It can be shown that a substantial part of Allegro's argument rests on an erroneous reading of his main textual witness, Zaccaria Lilio's Contra Antipodes (1496), and on a failure adequately to place this source in the context of the cosmographical debate of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Once this context is taken into account, the notion that Lilio was a flat-earther falls flat.

On fault evidence for a large earthquake in the late fifteenth century, Eastern Kunlun fault, China

The EW-trending Kunlun Fault System (KFS) is one of the major left-lateral strike-slip faults on the Tibetan Plateau. It forms the northern boundary of the Bayan Har block. Heretofore, no evidence has been provided for the most recent event (MRE) of the ~70-km-long eastern section of the KFS. The studied area is located in the north of the Zoige Basin (northwest Sichuan province) and was recognized by field mapping. Several trenches were excavated and revealed evidence of repeated events in late Holocene. The fault zone is characterized by a distinct 30–60-cm-thick clay fault gouge layer juxtaposing the hanging wall bedrock over unconsolidated late Holocene footwall colluvium and alluvium. The fault zone, hanging wall, and footwall were conformably overlain by undeformed post-MRE deposits. Samples of charred organic material were obtained from the top of the faulted sediments and the base of the unfaulted sediments. Modeling of the age of samples, earthquake yielded a calibrated 2σ radiocarbon age of A.D. 1489 ± 82. Combined with the historical earthquake record, the MRE is dated at A.D. 1488. Based on the over ~50 km-long surface rupture, the magnitude of this event is nearly M w ~7.0. Our data suggests that a ~200-km-long seismic gap could be further divided into the Luocha and Maqu sections. For the last ~1000 years, the Maqu section has been inactive, and hence, it is likely that the end of its seismic cycle is approaching, and that there is a potentially significant seismic hazard in eastern Tibet.

Henry VII’s Letter to Carlisle in 1498: His Concerns about Retaining in a Border Fortress

Henry VII’s reign has been the subject of increased study in recent years, in particular his relationship with the nobility and his determination to ensure the loyalty of his subjects. Henry VII was adept at utilising the numerous methods at his disposal in order to keep his crown. This article makes a contribution to this broader understanding of Henry VII’s reign by focusing on one document, a letter to the city of Carlisle dated 15 February 1498, which ordered that the statutes relating to retaining and the distribution of liveries should be upheld. While the letter has been noted by previous historians, it has not been the subject of a detailed examination. This article explains the significance of the document for understanding the reign of Henry VII, his attitude towards retaining and the relationship between royal and urban governments in the late fifteenth century. This particular letter includes two novel features not found in other letters to towns about retaining. First, there is an explicit reference to the possibility of a Scottish invasion. Second, the city’s government were all required to swear oaths of fealty to Henry VII. Although the letter confirms the general picture that Henry VII was keen to remind his subjects of their duties and obligations to the Crown and that he built on and adapted Yorkist innovations, it highlights his specific concern in early 1498, in the aftermath of the Perkin Warbeck conspiracy, that James IV of Scotland might still invade.

15世紀後半フィレンツェ毛織物会社のオスマン帝国における代金徴収 : ブルサ駐在員バルトロメーオ・グワンティの会計帳簿から

15世紀後半フィレンツェ毛織物会社のオスマン帝国における代金徴収 : ブルサ駐在員バルトロメーオ・グワンティの会計帳簿から

THE ORIGIN OF THE SIJO (時調) POETIC FORM IN RELATION TO OLD KOREAN MUSIC SCORES

This article examines the origin of the sijo form based on the traditional Korean music scores such as mandaeyŏp (慢大葉, fifteenth to sixteenth century music) and chinjak 1 (眞勺一, twelfth to fifteenth century music) and estimates that sijo originated in the late fifteenth to sixteenth centuries. It is commonly believed that sijo originated in hyangga or Koryŏ kayo and has been sung and enjoyed since the late Koryŏ dynasty (高麗, 918–1392). However, this common perception lacks empirical evidence. Sijo is a sung form and its music originated from the mandaeyŏp (慢大葉) song, so an examination of its musical background is necessary to provide solid evidence to determine its origin. Some researchers have argued that the first sijo song, mandaeyŏp (慢大葉), originated from chinjak 3, but have not provided specific evidence of the relationship between the two compositions. This research investigates the derivation of mandaeyŏp from chinjak 1 (眞勺一) rather than chinjak 3 (眞勺三) on the basis of clear similarities in form and melody between the two types of composition. Because mandaeyŏp shows such concrete influences from chinjak 1 in Taeak hubo (大樂後譜), a collection of popular songs during King Sejo’s reign (世祖, r. 1455–1468), readers have inferred that the time of derivation of mandaeyŏp is close to that of chinjak 1. In fact, mandaeyŏp scores did not emerge before King Sejo’s reign, during the late fifteenth century, but appeared continuously after his reign. Looking at the problem from a literary perspective, sijo poems initially emerged in munjip (文集), or literati’s private collections, and their poetic form is intricately connected with the mandaeyŏp score. This consistent evidence clearly shows that the sijo form originated and developed under the influence of mandaeyŏp scores around the late fifteenth century.

John Mower, Vicar of Tenterden in the Late Fifteenth Century: His Will, His Career and His Library

John Mower, Vicar of Tenterden in the Late Fifteenth Century: His Will, His Career and His Library