Medieval Past Research Articles

Социально-философская модель профессиональных компетенций специалиста в сфере животноводства АПК в контексте нужд Нового индустриального общества (НИО 2.0)

The purpose of the study is to reveal, through a socio-philosophical analysis, a system of fundamental features that will determine the activities of veterinarians and livestock specialists in a new type of industrial society (NIO 2.0). The scientific novelty of the study lies in the systematic presentation of the professional competencies of specialists in the field of animal husbandry, explicated from the set of requirements of R&D 2.0, structured by the author (by means of the method of comparison with the medieval past), for the economic aspect of human life. As a result, personal and professional qualities are presented that are necessary for specialists in the field of animal husbandry in order to be in demand by a new type of economy. The factors hindering the process of their successful adaptation to the realities of the digital industry are identified, and ways to eliminate them are outlined. As part of the prospects for further research, the need for a targeted study of the personal qualities and competencies of specialists in the field of animal husbandry is emphasized.

From Digital Prosopography to Social Network Analysis: Medieval People in the Twenty-First Century

This article traces the history of digital prosopography and its application to the medieval past, from the 1990s to the present. The principal outcome of this period of intense research has been the evolution of prosopography from static ‘facts’ on the printed page to an interactive model which allows historians to engage with ‘factoids’ that seek to represent the social relations and contexts involved in medieval lives. The ‘factoid model’ of digital prosopography, developed by John Bradley of King’s College London, has been applied to major databases dealing with medieval England, Scotland, France and Byzantium. The methods and concepts of Social Network Analysis, developed by social scientists and mathematicians over the course of the twentieth century, are increasingly being applied to digital prosopography and medieval studies more generally. This article discusses three recent medieval case studies, from France, the Holy Roman Empire, and Scotland, shining a light on potentially exciting new avenues of research on medieval people.

Of Saxons and spectres

ABSTRACT This note speculates on the possibility of re-assessing the form of medieval studies by seeing the discipline through the intersection of race and spectrality. I posit that for much of its history, medieval studies has been informed by race in ways that are spectral: visible, but fleeting. This analogy illustrates the uncanny hold medievalisms and medieval imaginaries have over Western psyches. I propose a counter-history as a move towards understanding and subverting the demands of this version of a medieval past. This note offers a brief critical reading of W. E. B. Du Bois’ use of the language of the ghostly and the spectral in terms of national guilt about slavery. More importantly, I highlight the broader possibility of using the hard-won perspectives of Black authors to see past white innocence and white chivalry to construct a different epistemological apparatus around what the past might signify.

“Alternative facts” and St. Thomas Becket in the waning days of the Trump Presidency

AbstractThis article examines the executive proclamation, issued by Donald Trump in late December 2020, celebrating the 850th anniversary of St. Thomas Becket's martyrdom. This executive proclamation is best seen as an example of the “alternative facts” that came to popularize the politics of the Trump era. Trump's Becket proclamation is an important text that represents the conservative push towards an understanding of history rooted in ideology but also in ahistorical and fictional representations of a medieval past. The Becket proclamation itself is medieval history filtered through the lens of conservative and grievance politics, which invoke the nebulous concept of personal or religious “liberty.”

Actualization of Medieval Heritage in a Present-Day English Town: the Case of Dunstable

The article discusses the handling of the medieval past of English town sat the beginning of the 21stcentury. It isa case-study of Dunstablein Bedfordshire where there was conceived and implemented the project “Medieval Dunstable”. This example allow susto demonstrate the way the Middle Ages can be recreated in a place where there is little in terms of tangible medieval heritage, despite a spectacular medieval history. It also brings attention to the issue of the interaction (if there is any) between popular and academic knowledge. This case is considered within the context of local interest in history in England, as there is abundant number of local societies of different kind engaged in researching, disseminating, and promoting historical knowledge. In order to better understand the Dunstable’s project and perspective, two other examples of towns with somewhat similar medieval past — development under monastic lordship (Faversham in Kent and Reading in Berkshire) — are examined for their strategies in presenting towns’ medieval history. This comparison makes possible to determine some common trends in the interpretations of the medieval past and heritage and its presentation to the general public. Aspecialroleisplayedbynewtechnologies.

How the Heptaméron Became Erotica

Abstract: This article examines a distinct trend in illustrated editions of the Heptaméron , which date back to 1698 but become increasingly common starting in the 1860s. Whereas illustrated Heptamérons from the second half of the nineteenth century tend to foreground displays of passion in the nouvelles and foster a nostalgic vision of France’s medieval past, around the turn of the twentieth century, they go in a direction that specialists of Marguerite might find surprising. The collection could not be considered pornographic or even obscene by today’s standards or those of its time, and if Marguerite foregrounds erotic desire, it is because it is an indelible part of the postlapsarian human condition. However, erotic desire becomes an end in and of itself in illustrated Heptamérons beginning with the fin de siècle . From this point on, the majority of illustrated Heptamérons may be classified as erotica: material designed to provide sexual stimulation but accompanied by more or less lofty artistic ambitions and marketed to wealthy men with bibliophilic inclinations. In other words, there exists alongside the tradition of scholarly editions of the Heptaméron a tradition in which the collection essentially becomes high-class pornography. I will consider what these illustrated editions teach us about erotica in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as about how Marguerite’s magnum opus has been understood and received outside of academia.

"A kysse onely": The Problem of Female Socialization in William Caxton's Blanchardyn and Eglantine

"A kysse onely":The Problem of Female Socialization in William Caxton's Blanchardyn and Eglantine Jennifer Alberghini In 2018, Babe magazine's article "I Went on a Date with Aziz Ansari. It Turned into the Worst Night of My Life" told the story of a woman known only as "Grace" and her experience with the actor/comedian/self-proclaimed feminist. After rushing through dinner, Ansari brought Grace back to his home and made sexual advances. She resisted, both through body language and speech. The actor initially complied with her request, but he soon resumed his attempts until Grace went home. The experience highly unsettled her, though at first she did not understand why. It took discussions with other women for Grace to understand her feelings of violation fully. When she did, she communicated them to the actor; however, he felt that he had done nothing wrong. Later, he wore a #TimesUp pin at the 2018 Golden Globes to show support for the #MeToo movement. Horrified to see him on TV claiming to be a champion of women, knowing what had happened between them, Grace decided to go public with her story.1 The article provoked outrage: against Grace rather than Ansari. One critic called it "3,000 words of revenge porn."2 A New York Times opinion piece lamented society's failure to educate women how to exit difficult situations, pressing "for women to be more verbal" despite acknowledging that "women are socialized to be docile and accommodating and to put [End Page 347] men's desires before their own."3 The paradox is clear: if society teaches women to say "Yes," how can they be "more verbal" in saying "No?" Exploring the negative responses to the story by female writers, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan and Naomi Snider show how cultural standards make women, in Snider's words, "perpetuat[e] the very systems of oppression that cause the harm."4 Looking to the medieval past, we can see that this phenomenon is part of a long-standing pattern. In particular, medieval literary texts, such as William Caxton's 1489 English translation of the French romance Blanchardyn and Eglantine, were used as a vehicle for women to teach other women submission to men's desires.5 In this essay I will consider this version of the romance, for which the critical focus has thus far been limited to its patronage by Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII's mother. Scholars have suggested that she originally purchased the French book for the king's 1486 marriage to Elizabeth of York; however, they are limited in the reasons for why this particular romance.6 After a brief overview of what we know of the book's historical circumstances from its paratexts, in which Caxton emphasizes that the romance has a pedagogical function, I will examine the text's plot with a focus on two key scenes of sexual violence. The first, the hero Blanchardyn's forcible kissing of the heroine Eglantine, is most notable for a conversation between her and her nurse in its aftermath. I suggest that the latter character, who serves as a kind of counselor figure, may have resonated with Beaufort based on her own experiences. The second scene is the kidnapping of Beatrice, daughter of the romance's non-Christian villain Alymodes.7 Looking at both of these incidents perpetrated by the Christian nobleman Blanchardyn [End Page 348] compared to the modern act of sexual misconduct by Aziz Ansari and the backlash Grace received for publicizing it, I argue that the text's lessons about consent depend on the social position of the man who commits the act of aggression. Like the popular responses to Grace's account, the romance shows how women encourage other women to downplay a bodily violation by an important man and not only to forgive but to love him for it. Before exploring the examples of female-centered pedagogy within both the plot of the story and the better-known context of the book's patronage, some background on both the plot and the patron will be useful. The patroness, Margaret Beaufort, descended from John of Gaunt and his mistress-turned-third-wife, Katherine Swynford. This...

Ethnicity, Archaeology and Nationalism: Remarks on the Current State of Research

While in the modern world, ethnicity has become the politicization of culture, the old controversy over the relation between ethnicity and archaeology refuses to die. The first studies of that relation dealt primarily with what made the historical interpretation of the archaeological material dependent upon the political situation. Soon, the emphasis shifted to the link between archaeology and the beginnings of nationalism, especially the influence of Romanticism, the rise of the culture-history paradigm, and of the historical interest in ethnogenesis. Now, the emphasis is more on the role of archaeology in the shaping of social memory as past that may be used politically. This study focuses on the new trends in this research field, particularly those concerned with the social mobilization by means of the ancestors’ myths, with pseudo-archaeology, and the staging of historical authenticity through heritage tourism. The second part of the article highlights differences between approaches to ethnogenesis in the European and American archaeology and illustrates the latter by means of three key studies by Christopher Stojanowski, Scott Ortman, and Laurie Wilkie. To judge from the titles of the publications that came out in Eastern Europe and the United States over the last year, several common trends are apparent, along with significant divergences. Archaeology is increasingly perceived as the most important, if not the only way to understand the ethnicity of immigrants in the (medieval) past. Archaeologists have taken a front seat in all debates about ethnic identities. Instead of state authorities or the ideological pressure of various political regimes, the emphasis in Eastern Europe is now on individual archaeologists, the role of their life experience and of their education in the ethnic interpretation of the archaeological record. Meanwhile, in the Unites States, it is the ethnic identity of the archaeologists themselves that has now come under lens. In other words, agency is restored to archaeologists, who are now regarded as much more capable of original work and decision making than before. Finally, gender perspectives are now applied to the study of the relations between ethnicity, archaeology, and nationalism. In both Eastern Europe and the United States, there is a conspicuous interest in women archaeologists.

Ravenne de la Zona dantesca à la Zona del silenzio

Based on archival material and the available bibliography, this article traces the complex history of the area surrounding the tomb of Dante Alighieri and the Basilica of San Francesco in Ravenna. It focuses on the period running from the commemorations of the sixth centenary of Dante’s birth in 1865 to the inauguration of the Zona del silenzio in 1936. The end of the 19th century was marked by the failure of important monumental projects. The sixth centenary of Dante’s death in 1921 was the first important phase of transformation, seeking to recreate the appearance of a medieval past. Subsequently, during the Fascist period, several projects, notably those by Giulio Ulisse Arata and Gustavo Giovannoni, attempted to extend the intervention to the urban scale, which, through aborted projects and partial realisations, led to the creation of the Zona del Silenzio. Through the interplay of local and national actors and the key role of Corrado Ricci, the article analyses the difficulties of developing an area that symbolically embodies Italy’s tribute to the national poet.

Why Medieval Allegory?

Why Medieval Allegory?

The Project of Return to Sepharad in the Nineteenth Century by Mónica Manrique (review)

Reviewed by: The Project of Return to Sepharad in the Nineteenth Century by Mónica Manrique Nitai Shinan Mónica Manrique. The Project of Return to Sepharad in the Nineteenth Century. Translated by Justin Peterson. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2020. 96 pp. doi:10.1017/S036400942100043X Contemporary Spain (1808 to the present) has dealt with two main "Jewish questions": the reevaluation or rehabilitation of the Jewish medieval past by historians and intellectuals, and the process of establishment, legalization, and legitimization of newly founded Jewish communities in a predominantly Catholic country, which until 1869 outlawed all other religious faiths. These questions were only on rare occasions investigated by academic research until the last two decades of the twentieth century. Historians of the Jewish people had not been interested in researching Spanish history of the period after the Spanish Crown burnt the last Judaizers in the second and third decades of the eighteenth century, which left the country without any trace of Judaism. Historians of contemporary Spain, on the other hand, have not viewed the Jewish question as vital to understanding the transformations and vicissitudes which befell the troubled state. In other words, nineteenth-century Spanish Jewish history has been neglected. More recently, the shift in academic research towards issues related to the representation of historical minorities in Spanish historical thought started to draw investigators to researching the place of Jews and Judaism in contemporary Spain. While considerable interest has focused on the contemporary Spanish reinterpretation of the Jewish medieval past, as much as to the history of the establishment of Jewish communities on Iberian soil, very few studies raised the question of how the changes in nineteenth-century Spain were interpreted by European Jewish communities. Apart from the pioneering articles of Joseph Lichtenstein, [End Page 505] which were published in Hebrew in the beginnings of the 1970s,1 I do not know of any study of the subject. Mónica Manrique therefore should be praised for her innovative decision to dedicate her research to an almost unknown subject. The author limited her monograph to a very short time period, no longer than two years (1868–1869), and for good reason. These two years hold great significance in Spanish history, as they were the first of the so-called Six Democratic Years, a period when Spain endeavored but failed to establish a stable liberal democratic regime. The overthrow of Queen Isabel II's regime in September 1868 encouraged the Spanish liberals to implement democratic and liberal reforms even before the Spanish revolutionary parliament (the Cortes) sanctioned them. The principle of religious freedom was thus fully implemented and the Protestant religion was exercised in public in the months following the revolution. Even the new conservative regime of 1876 did not relinquish the worship rights of other religions and only limited them to the private sphere. Noticing the changes in the Protestant camp, Manrique endeavored to find Jewish reactions to these political changes in Spain. Did Jewish communities or organizations seek to encourage Jewish immigration to Spain in light of this newly proclaimed religious liberty? Did they assist those Jews already in Spain to establish new communities, or were their reactions less enthusiastic and more cautious? In order to answer the questions, the author made extensive use of the main organs of the French and German Jewish press, mainly the periodicals Archives israélites or L'univers israélite, and to a lesser extent some archival material. Reading this interesting analysis leaves the reader disappointed. It seems that the new period of openness between the Spanish government and the Jews did not bring changes in the life of the Jews in Spain. After the revolution, enthusiastic or positive views of the political changes in Spain were expressed by commentaries in the Jewish press. However, as time passed the tone of articles became much more cautious and skeptical. While some authors speculated about the possibility of the Jews returning to Spain, later articles warned about the negative attitudes of the Spanish people towards Jews and their religious fanaticism. The author also encountered this opinion in an original letter written by an unknown French Jewish traveler, Agustín Schwob. He warned Adolphe Cremieux, president of the...

Bewilderment between Might and Right: Tawfiq al-Hakim’s The Sultan’s Dilemma (al- Sulṭan al-Ha’ir)

The Egyptian writer Tawfiq al-Hakim (1898- 1987) is one of the leading figures in Arabic literature and drama. In his masterpiece, The Sultan’s Dilemma (1960), al-Hakim discusses an eternal question, which is mightier and has a lasting, influential role. Is it the power of authority or the power of the principles? Is it the sword or the law? The play is set in the medieval past, but its moral is addressed to the modern world. It explores the legitimacy of power through the character of a Mamluk Sultan raised into power. Suddenly, this Sultan faced a dilemma that he is neither a legible ruler nor released from the slavery of the earlier Sultan. Hence, the Sultan finds himself trapped between using forceful authority to establish his kinghood or applying the rightful law that might be difficult to be achieved, and it might take time. Sultan’s dilemma symbolizes the political predicament that the modern world is facing.

Margaret McNair Stokes (1832–1900): Negotiating Cultural Values Within Nineteenth‐Century Irish Antiquarian Discourse

AbstractIn her own time, Margaret McNair Stokes (1832‐1900) was an esteemed antiquarian and artist. Her work on early Christian architecture and monumental sculpture in Ireland was pioneering and foundational and continues to inform contemporary research on these topics. Facilitated by her family and their social networks, Stokes was part of an active antiquarian culture based in Dublin which involved membership of scholarly associations as well as social events both at home and on tour throughout the country. Stokes played an important role within these circles, taking on significant editorial projects as well as advancing her own research interests. However, in order to critically assess Stokes's specific contribution to Irish antiquarianism, this article examines two key aspects of her work – the development of new methodologies for the study of Irish sculptured stone monuments, and her advancement of a specific model of periodisation in relation to Irish medieval art and architecture, one which was highly nationalistic, focused on ideas of cultural purity, and which eschewed the prevailing trends within Irish antiquarianism and historiography away from politicised interpretations of the Irish early Christian and medieval past. In considering these facets of Stokes's contribution to Irish antiquarianism and historiography, this article repositions her as a pivotal figure, forging and heralding significant changes of scholarly direction in relation to the fields of research in which she engaged.

From Civil Conflict to Crusade: Mobilisation and National Identity in the Spanish Civil War

Abstract For decades after its conclusion, the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) was officially described by the newly imposed dictatorship as a Crusade. However, the appropriation of a mythologised medieval past was not just the product of post-war legitimisation. This article explores how, using “crusade” as a placeholder for Reconquista, the rebel army and its supporters responded to three distinct developments: a reaction to Republican anticlericalism; the imposition of a national identity in which Catholicism was understood as an essential element of Spanishness and the basis for its greatness; and a very practical need for popular mobilisation both at home and abroad. However, as this study demonstrates, the adoption of a crusading rhetoric and medieval mythology was a transnational development, in which distinct anti-Bolshevik campaigns, with origins in Rome and Spain, fed off each other and intersected, sometimes in intricate and hidden ways, within the increasingly polarised international context of the 1930s.

Review: The Devil’s Historians: How Modern Extremists Abuse the Medieval Past, by Amy S. Kaufman and Paul B. Sturtevant

Review: <i>The Devil’s Historians: How Modern Extremists Abuse the Medieval Past</i>, by Amy S. Kaufman and Paul B. Sturtevant

РИСУВАНЕ ВЪРХУ КАМЪК. ДРЕВНИТЕ КАМЕННИ НАДПИСИ – ИНТЕРДИСЦИПЛИНАРЕН УРОК ЗА ПРИЕМСТВЕНОСТ III – VII КЛАС

The lesson „Drawing on a stone. The ancient stone inscriptions“ is a successful combination of knowledge in the subjects Bulgarian language and literature, Natural sciences, History with the ability to draw and the desire to have fun. Elementary stage students love to draw. By their drawings, children express thoughts, emotions, experiences. Drawings reflect the child’s imagination, represents its dreams and desires. During classes by interests, the third graders gladly accepted to draw about a certain topic. We used their enthusiasm to present to them the basis of medieval Bulgarian country in a fascinating way. For the lesson we chose to do painting on stones. That way we could connect painting with ancient stone inscriptions. The lesson is considered to be interdisciplinary because it combined the subjects Arts, Bulgarian language and literature, Natural sciences, and History. Starting with a discussion about the stone as part of inanimate nature, we moved to the meaning of the word stone and ended with the purpose of the stone in antiquity and in the Middle Ages. Leading the lesson are the elementary school teacher, the history teacher and three seventh-graders, who with fun and games direct the attention of third-graders to the Bulgarian Middle Ages. The main goal of the lesson is the third grade students to comprehend the role of arts and the power of speech by making a connection between historical events and their reflection in art. The idea is to make third-graders feel like they’re creators of history by painting on stone, to consolidate their knowledge of the medieval Bulgarian country and to receive new information about the importance of the stone inscriptions in the Bulgarian medieval past.

Fictive Protrait of the King Vakhtang VI

From the medieval past we can single out several kings-poets, kings-scientists and scholars, education reformers, of whom Vakhtang VI deserves great respect.Versatile and varied turned out to be his genius and spectacle as well. King Vakhtang's intellect was accessible to completely different fields of science, such as history, jurisprudence, philosophy, astronomy-astrology, chemistry, medicine, grammar, textology, pedagogy. Not to mention the writing, where he said a decent word. Despite the difficult political situation, King Vakhtang VI still managed to create a prosperous cultural and educational environment in the country. With his initiative and support, the first printing house was established in Georgia in 1709. With the revival of the printed word, writing opened up vital space, giving more thought to thinking.By printing "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" the foundation was laid for the scientific study of the text of the poem - the work of restoration, the foundation was given to the most important field - Rustvelology.The literature of the Renaissance period is characterized by a number of novelties associated to the name of the King Vakhtang VI. The King, endowed with creative talent, contributed in every way to the development of new fields of science, the introduction of new themes and genres in literature. Understanding the national problem, trying to establish it and turning it into a spiritual need is the niche of Vakhtang's creativity.The only spiritual refuge of the king tired of life was the Christian faith. "The elaboration of religious themes, the cry to God, in addition to bringing spiritual peace to the deeply believing poet, at the same time he promoted the ideas of Christianity among the people and strengthened the religious faith.King Vakhtang VI not only enriched the Georgian literature with his original works, but also greatly contributed to his translation activities. His role in the development of lexicography was also great.The genius of Vakhtang VI can be discussed endlessly. It means a lot even to the fact that the history has survived in the name of the "lawgiver" king.

Temporal Emotions and Historical Vulnerability: Music as a Vehicle of Ideology in Cold War and Peste Noire

Abstract This essay focuses on the Polish film Cold War and the oeuvre of the French nationalist black metal band Peste Noire, examining them as twenty-first-century texts that disclose music’s capacity to solicit emotion in the service of ideology. Despite their aesthetic and ideological differences, each text demonstrates the importance of temporal emotions – that is, emotions that register a heightened sense of the relationship between present, past and future. Each text portrays these emotions’ ideological significance when attached to ideas of a national past. Dwelling on Peste Noire’s racist-nationalist use of the medieval past, the essay explores music as a medium for emotional performances in which white people appear to convey vulnerability while actually reconfirming white supremacy. Peste Noire’s idiosyncratic performance of aggressive vulnerability is a temporal emotion that self-consciously lays claim to a long emotional tradition reaching back to the French Middle Ages.

The Uses of the ‘Anglo-Saxon Past’ between Revolutions, Imperialism and Racism

The past is commonly summoned in political speeches and projects. The medieval past has been used as the cradle of nation-states and ‘the West’. This article will address how the Anglo-Saxon past has been used, from the seventeenth century to contemporary discourse. It will discuss how the view(s) and use(s) of this past have changed significantly over time, to the point that its very name has recently been challenged. The main hypothesis of the article is that despite all the debates about early medieval society in Britain, there is still a great need to highlight the connection between the interpretation of this past and racial discourses. The study of such societies in a new light is crucial for rescuing the Middle Ages from its uses by the far right.

New Histories for the Age of Speed: The Archaeological–Architectural Past in Interwar Afghanistan and Iran

By conceiving two emergent nation-states as a single region linked by conjoining roads, shared technologies and circulating researchers, this essay traces the emergence of a common “intellectual infrastructure” that during the interwar decades enabled European, American, Iranian, Afghan and Indian scholars to promote archeological and architectural interpretations of the Iranian and Afghan past. Taking Robert Byron’s Road to Oxiana as a fixed point of reference, the following pages survey the motor-linked sites where these new disciplinary approaches were developed and disseminated. By positioning Byron amid a larger cadre of investigators publishing in Farsi, Dari and Urdu no less than English, French and German, the essay shows how shifts in Iranian perceptions of the ancient and medieval past were part of a larger regional development, unfolding not only in familiar dialogue with Europe, but also in conversation and to some degree competition with nationalist scholarship in Afghanistan and India. Together with the journals, museums, learned societies and congresses which were launched in the 1920s and 1930s, cars and cameras—those key tools of the “age of speed”—were central to these learned ventures. Far from generating uniformity, this shared intellectual infrastructure enabled multiple interpretations of the archaeological and architectural past that were nonetheless mutually intelligible and methodologically consistent.