Medieval Sources Research Articles

THE ROLE OF ACTIVITIES OF SHEIKH ZAYNIDDIN AND HIS MAUSOLEUM IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OF TASHKENT

In medieval sources, the city of Tashkent was called Shash. Many well-known scholars in the Islamic sciences, such as hadith, jurisprudence, and mysticism, emerged from Shash. Many great scientists from this region are known to the world by the nisbas of Shoshiy and Toshkandiy. Ancient Tashkent was one of the sacred places where great and pious scientists, muhaddis, and righteous people have been buried. Here, the noble bodies of Zangi ata, Sheikh Umar Vali Baghistani, Sheikh Khovand Tahur, Sheikh Zayniddin Kuyi Arifon, and others found eternal rest. In the second half of the XVIII century, Tashkent city was divided into four districts. According to the sources, these districts were known by the following names: the northern area - Kaffal Shashi, the southern part - Zangiota, the eastern part - Sheikh Hovand Tahur, and the western part - Sheikh Zayniddin Baba (grandfather). But the population of the city called them Sebzor, Beshyoghoch, Shaykhantakhur, and Kukcha, accordingly. There were also three gates (Saghbon, Chigatoy, and Kukcha), 57 mahallas, 47 mausoleums, 60 mosques, and two madrasahs. On the banks of the Nazarbek, Kuksaroy, and Keles rivers were located the gardens of the district. One of the most remarkable places in this part of the city is the mausoleum of Sheikh Zayniddin Baba in the village of Orifon (Scientists) outside the Kukcha Gate. Historical sources show that the district is also called Sheikh Zayniddin. The history of Kukcha mahallah is directly related to Sheikh Zayniddin Baba. His father was Sheikh Shahobiddin Suhrawardi (1145-1235), a well-known Sufi from Baghdad and one of the leaders of the Suhrawardiya tariqah. In this article, based on medieval sources, the activities of Sheikh Zayniddin Kuyi Orifon (1164-1259), the son of Shaykh Suhravardia (1145-1234) – the founder of the Suhravardian tariqah, are studied. The peacefulness of Shaykh Zayniddin and his role in spreading feelings of loyalty, generosity, mercy, and kindness among people are analyzed

A parte ficta totum fictum: Fanciful Illustrations of Sea Animals in the Liber de natura rerum and Other Medieval Encyclopedias*

Abstract Six of the twenty books of Thomas of Cantimpré’s thirteenth-century Liber de natura rerum are devoted to zoology, and two of them contain descriptions of strange sea animals whose names are often hard to make sense of, both etymologically and semantically. Illuminators had to work with textual descriptions lacking essential information, and in many cases the encyplopedist himself made matters worse by focussing on the most bizarre and peculiar traits of animals encountered in his antique and medieval sources. Consequently, some of the illuminators produced images fanciful enough to make it look like they got carried away by their own imagination. However, a detailed comparison between text and image reveals that artists did their best to follow textual descriptions – it is the literal interpretation of their sources that often strikes us as unexpected and perplexing.

The Illuminated World Chronicle: Tales from the Late Medieval City, by Nina Rowe

Chronicles charting world history are familiar to historians of medieval and early renaissance Europe. Of these perhaps the best known is the Liber Chronicarum (also known as the Nuremberg Chronicle or Die Schedelsche Weltchronik): a richly decorated World Chronicle produced in 1490s Nuremberg by Hartman Schedel. Less well-known are the manuscript world histories—Weltchroniken—of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and these are the focus of Nina Rowe’s delightful book. Blending biblical stories, classical myth and popular histories, the Weltchroniken were often richly decorated and it is these images which form the focus of Rowe’s analysis. As Rowe notes in her introduction, the majority of medieval sources available for art historians are devotional, but the Weltchroniken offer an insight into secular concerns. While the Weltchroniken do use scriptural stories (and Rowe argues that one fifteenth-century reader classified her Weltchronik as a bible), their focus is rather more temporal, casting...

Thomistic-Balthasarian Comments on Thomas Joseph White’s The Incarnate Lord

Thomistic-Balthasarian Comments on Thomas Joseph White’s The Incarnate Lord Angela Franks Reading thomas Joseph White’s The Incarnate Lord is a very great pleasure. His carefully argued and measured theology draws on the thinking of St. Thomas Aquinas in original and fruitful ways. As a lover of the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, however, I must confess that my enjoyment was occasionally tempered with suffering—but, shall we say, only in the lower parts of my soul. Among the many things I appreciate in this book is Fr. White’s love of patristic and medieval sources. Following his guide, St. Thomas Aquinas, he combines precision with breadth of knowledge and depth of thought. Further, like St. Thomas’s generous reading of manifold sources, Fr. White makes frequent irenic gestures. I am thinking in particular of the emphasis on the filial mode of Christ’s obedience throughout, plus the gentle reading of Karl Barth’s treatment of obedience and the end of chapter 8 on the death of Christ. He and I share many points of agreement, almost too many to mention: the enduring importance of Chalcedonian Christological metaphysics; a suspicion of liberal historicism; and an opposition to theological anachronisms, in which the Person of Christ is interpreted according to contemporary mores rather than through revelation. I will expand on two areas of particular agreement (on analogy and on the Son’s obedience), before raising a question concerning the beatific vision, and then recording some criticisms regarding soteriology (specifically, regarding Christ’s abandonment and descent). [End Page 575] Praise for White’s Treatment of Analogy and Obedience Analogy The chapters pertaining to analogy, natural theology, and human nature continue the Catholic theological dialogue with Barth begun by thinkers such as Erich Przywara, Gottlieb Söhngen, and Balthasar. White reiterates many of the points that they made in the mid-twentieth century, in particular the necessity of some sort of similarity between human nature and God (200–201), and therefore between human language and revelation (228–32) for the Incarnation and revelation to occur at all.1 Given that these proposals have been rehearsed before, although too often lacking the careful argumentation that White brings to the question, I will merely indicate my appreciation for these pages and move to developing White’s overriding concern for the defense of metaphysics in general for the very possibility of Christology. As White points out in his chapters most dedicated to Barth, one’s rejection of analogy does not mean that one ceases to speak of God. On the contrary, the rejection of analogy only means that one speaks either equivocally or univocally—or, even more likely, oscillating between the two. A pure equivocity, also manifested as an extreme apophaticism, is well-nigh impossible to maintain, because the pole that is remote (the divine) usually becomes forgotten, practically speaking. And why would it not be? That of which we never speak, even if because we believe we cannot speak of it, becomes that which we forget. The pole that is close at hand fills our language and hence our thoughts. It becomes the only terrain we explore conceptually. This practical univocity manifests itself theologically as a reduction of God to our world when our world is all of which we can speak. Thus, it is no accident that White sniffs out some Spinozism in Barth’s metaphysics. Spinozistic univocity is the great alternative to analogical thinking. As Catherine Pickstock puts it, regarding the greatest recent exponent of such univocity, Gilles Deleuze, “the two philosophical options in consequence would appear to be Deleuzian [univocity] or Platonic [analogy], respectively.”2 One might argue that it is mere human reflection that has created these [End Page 576] alternatives of equivocity, univocity, and analogy. The Christian approach, it is argued, involves rejecting the commencement of thought on the human level and instead beginning with the divine, such that these alternatives are surpassed with the super-abundance of God as revealed in Christ. Indeed, one might see Barth’s project as precisely this attempt to bypass human constructions in pursuit of the divine excess. One might reply that such a method does not escape...

Ancient Monuments of Abkhazia as a Means of Its History’s Falsification

There are a lot of facts of deliberate falsification of history. Abkhazia and Georgia are neighbors geographically having a common history. In Georgian historiography, the denial of the Abkhaz people and Abkhazia’s existence became the norm: attempts are being made to prove that Apsua and Abkhaz are two different ethnic groups, that Abkhaz and Abkhaz language in medieval sources were used in the meaning of Georgian and Georgian language. Nowadays, Georgia claims that there are 1,100 Georgian architectural monuments on the territory of Abkhazia which include such ancient temples as the Church of Dormition of Lykhny of the 10th century, the Church of St. Simon the Canaanite (New Athos), the Dranda Cathedral (6th–8th centuries), and other religious objects, pieces of art. However, these political statements are not true. At various times, temple objects from Abkhazia surfaced in Georgia, storing the icon of the Pitsunda Mother of God in the Gelat Monastery, located near Kutaisi; the Golden Cup from the Bedia Church; the Gospel which belonged to the Mokva Archbishop’s Seat and is held now in the Museum of Art of Georgia in Tbilisi. Georgia considers these artifacts Georgian and refuses to return them to Abkhazia. The falsification also affected the Besleti Bridge, one of the ancient architectural monuments of Abkhazia located on the river Basla near Sukhumi. According to Abkhaz scientists, the date of the bridge’s construction was falsified in 1935 during the restoration work carried out by Georgian researchers. The biographies of well-known figures of science and culture of Abkhazia were also falsified. All these examples show that modern Abkhazia has a lot of work to do to rewrite its state history.

A török defterek topográfiai adatainak felhasználása, mint a településhálózat rekonstruálásának eszköze

The National Archives of Hungary, the Research Centre for the Humanities and the Katona József Museum of Kecskemét have collaborated with the aim of reconstructing the medieval and early modern period settlement network and administration of the southern part of the Danube–Tisza Interfluve region. During the works all available medieval sources and Ottoman tax registers (including four sanjak surveys, four poll tax defters, three timar defters, and about eighty daybook registers) were processed. In parallel, a profound analysis of the medieval charters was carried out, as well as the topographic identification of the settlements with the help of historical maps and satellite images. The selected sample area was the Nahiye of Zombor and the Nahiye of Baja, which existed in the western part of the Sanjak of Szeged, roughly covering the territory of the medieval Bodrog county. Research has shown that mass analysis of defters results in far more topographic data than examination of individual defters. Using both medieval charters and Ottoman sources, we can reconstruct a more accurate picture of the settlement network of the sample area.

Tolkien and the Classical World ed. by Hamish Williams, and: Tolkien and the Classics ed. by Roberto Arduini

Reviewed by: Tolkien and the Classical World ed. by Hamish Williams, and: Tolkien and the Classics ed. by Roberto Arduini Victor Parker Tolkien and the Classical World, edited by Hamish Williams. Zurich: Walking Tree Publishers, 2021. Cormarë series no. 45. xxvi, 414 pp. $32.00 (softcover). ISBN 978-3-905703-45-0. Tolkien and the Classics, edited by Roberto Arduini, Giampaolo Canzonieri, and Claudio A. Testi. Zurich: Walking Tree Publishers, 2019. Cormarë series no. 42. xix, 245 pp. $24.30 (softcover). ISBN 978-3-905703-42-9. Investigation of Tolkien's quarrying of medieval literature for his own works has been proceeding apace with good results for some time now. Tolkien and the Classical World focuses on the less developed study of Tolkien's use of classical (i.e., Greek and Roman) literature.1 Unfortunately, two methodological problems stand in the way. The first has to do with classical literature's pervasive influence during the medieval period. When Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings describes the siege of a great, walled city ruled by an aging man who does not himself fight and therefore relies on his son(s) to defend it, of course one thinks of Troy. But did Tolkien have in mind the Iliad itself or Roman retellings (e.g., that in Vergil's Aeneid) or medieval retellings (e.g., the Geste Historial of the Destruction of Troy on which he worked when compiling the glossary for Kenneth Sisam's Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose)? Or all of them at once or some combination thereof?2 Second, even when there is no direct link between a potential classical and a medieval source, either is often just as likely to have been an inspiration as the other. In The Lord of the Rings the Stewards of Gondor maintain a network of beacons. So did the kings of classical Persia ([Aristotle], De mundo, 398a), but then again so did the kings of medieval Norway (Snorri, Heimskringla, 4, 21); and Tolkien could have been thinking of either (or both).3 Before turning to commentary on specific essays, let me first characterize the volume as a whole. After a spirited introduction by Hamish Williams, it is divided into five sections: "Classical Lives and Histories" (Tolkien as a classical scholar as well as the influence on Tolkien of interpretations of classical history in regard to Númenor); "Ancient Epic and Myth" (focusing on Homer, Vergil, and the myth of Orpheus); "In Dialogue with Greek Philosophers" (Plato and [End Page 205] Aristotle); "Around the Borders of the Classical World" (largely the interactions of the Germanic world with the classical); and "Shorter Remarks and Observations" (one essay on pastoralism and one on music). Apart from the last catch-all these divisions are logical and hang together well. A useful Afterword closes the collection; there is also an index. Each individual essay at least shows that Tolkien could have drawn on the classical sources discussed, whether directly or indirectly; and all the essays are conducive to further discussion. In this way already the authors collectively provide a useful companion to Tom Shippey's studies on Tolkien's use of medieval literature, though there is still some distance to go before scholarship on Tolkien's use of classical sources reaches the level found there or in the volume edited by Jane Chance, Tolkien the Medievalist. That said, the essays in the volume here under review are much stronger when they discuss the classical sources directly (see, e.g., Peter Astrup Sundt's essay on Orpheus and Michael Kleu's on Plato and Atlantis) than when they rely on generalizations and summary analyses drawn from recent secondary scholarship which Tolkien himself could not possibly have known. It is, however, a different matter entirely when, for instance, Philip Burton discusses scholarship which Tolkien almost certainly worked with professionally (275). More work probably needs to be done on what sorts of secondary books on the Classical world Tolkien is likely to have read before this approach becomes fruitful. Finally, some of the essays content themselves with merely pointing to the presence of possible classical sources of inspiration, whereas the stronger ones attempt to demonstrate direct use.4 Under this...

Chinggisid and Persian Office Culture in the Work of Muhammad Nakhchivani “Dastur al-katib”

Based on analysis of samples of yarliqs from the Persian medieval treatise “Dastur al-Katib” by Muhammad Nahchivani, the article reveals the peculiarities of the interaction of Persian and Chinggisid chancellery traditions preserved in the state of Jalairids. The aim of the study is to consider the correlation of local Persian, Muslim traditions of office work and office culture of the Chinggisid and post-Chinggisid states in the process of documenting power decisions. The objectives of the study are to determine the structure of the yarliq samples presented in “Dastur al-katib”, compare them with the forms of Chinggisid act materials, as well as to determine the degree of influence of Chinggisid chancellery rules on the Persian chancellery traditions. The source base consists primarily of samples of yarliqs, as well as other materials from “Dastur al-Katib”, other medieval sources about Mongol Iran and other Chinggisid states, including the writings of Rashid al-Din etc., the materials of medieval Chinggisid chancelleries. In the study, the authors use source studies, diplomatic and comparative historical methods. The analysis of these materials indicates that the Hulaguids, thanks to their military and political power, managed to introduce the Chinggisid canons proper into the chancellery practice of Iran, which turned out to be very stable and persisted even after the fall of the Ilkhans’ power. Muhammad Hindushakh organically connects the Jalayirs with the Hulaguids and builds this connection to Genghis Khan, which allows us to consider his work as one of the most recent monuments of Mongol imperial ideology. The authors conclude that in Iran in 13–14 cc. the old Persian chancellery tradition and Chinggisid chancellery norms coexisted, and the latter symbolized the dominance of the ruling dynasty and adherence to political traditions laid down by Chinggis Khan.

Functioning of some religious concepts in the ancient Turkic written monuments

The Ancient and medieval Turkic monuments affecting language, history, religion, mentality, and other key issues of the Turkic peoples have great importance in the Turkic studies. The samples of the ancient Turkic heritage engraved on the stone represents a whole treasure that 210 has not yet been fully explored. In addition to the historical and archaeological value of these stones, there is no doubt that they can provide information about the spiritual culture of the Turkic peoples of that time, including their way of life, customs, and religious beliefs. The article considers several religious concepts that existed in the ancient Turkic society. They are an integral part of its religious beliefs. Compared to the medieval written monuments, ancient Turkic inscriptions are based on the "eternal stones" of the Turkic kagans. The main purpose of writing on stones is to pass on from generation to generation and preserve this message addressed to the Turkic peoples. However, the cracks that appeared on the sites led researchers to different conclusions, and also contributed to the formation of several versions of the translations. When studying the ancient Turkic monuments in Kazakh Turkology, first of all, the article considers the small and large inscriptions in honor of Kultegin, as well as the inscription in honor of Tonyukuk. The significance of the religion is described in the first lines of the two inscriptions of Kultegin, where the kagan begins with the name of the Creator “Tengri like and Tengri born” and “When the blue sky is above” (in the meaning Tengri). It should be noted that the word “Tengri”, which is also found in the medieval Turkic sources, goes back precisely to the ancient Turkic writings. The study examines concepts such as Tengri, Umai, eternity, death, and the nature of humanity

New Books across the Disciplines

New Books across the Disciplines

Staff and Activity of the Section of Medieval History at the Institute of History of the Russian Association of Scientific Research Institutes (1921–1929)

This article is devoted to the activities of the Section of Medieval History which was a structural department of the Institute of History at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Moscow State University (1921–1925) and later joined the Russian Association of Research Institutes of Social Sciences (RANION) (1925–1929). Relying on minutes of the section and records and reports of the Institute of History, the authors demonstrate that the staff of the section headed by D. M. Petrushevsky remained faithful to the high academic standards of the Russian pre-revolutionary school, which was formulated in the aims and tasks of the section and was reflected in the research problems, as well as the level and quality of publications and the reports made. The scholars and instructors of the section did not teach classes to students but were focused on their research and postgraduate work. There were only minor changes in the composition of the Section, which included seven members and five postgraduate students. At the same time, the Medieval History Section was one of the most productive in the Institute, actively publishing monographs, translations of medieval sources, articles, and reviews. The topics and content of the publications, papers, and discussions show that the section’s research agenda was dominated by the socioeconomic issues of the early Middle Ages, the history of the medieval city, and debatable and topical issues of medieval studies. The authors of the article also pay attention to papers of graduate students not assigned to the Section, some of which had academic merit and were subsequently published. The academic discourse and research fields of the Section’s historians testify to their neglect of topics and approaches relevant for Soviet Marxism.

Note sul paesaggio medievale. Cicli scultorei dei mesi nella Toscana del xii e xiii secolo

Notes on Medieval Landscape. Sculptural Cycles of Months in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Tuscany - Starting from the cycle of Months depicted on twelfth- and thirteenth-century Tuscan monuments, this paper seeks to discern whether and, if so, how medieval representations inform later generations about actual rural terrain and agrarian practices during the Middle Ages. Combining visual and written medieval sources (notably, the writings of Hugh of St Victor, ca 1096-1141) with studies of historical agricultural production reveals how iconographic choices were informed by both theological conceptualizations and first-hand experience of the physical environment.

Robin Hood: Legend and Reality by David Crook

Reviewed by: Robin Hood: Legend and Reality by David Crook Mark-Allan Donaldson David Crook, Robin Hood: Legend and Reality ( Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020), 298 pp., 14 ills. Medieval studies is often a difficult place to inhabit. Whether it be a stray lacunae, singed page, or unfinished manuscript, there is an almost constant sense that the information being dealt with and studied comes secondhand or clouded in an esotericism that previous generations of scholars found romantic. This is accompanied by the general fictionalization of the Middle Ages by the periods that follow, with researchers having to simultaneously grapple with the task of getting at the truth of the matter while also figuring out what exactly truth may have meant to the people, objects, and literatures they are studying. It is into this quagmire that David Crook steps with his interrogation into the pseudo-historical/semi-mythical figure of Robin Hood. Crook, an archivist who has been building interest in his subject since incidentally encountering a reference to the thirteenth-century criminal William Robehod, sets out in this work to formulate a distinct approach to discussing the category of medieval personage into which Robin Hood fits. There is a tension throughout the book between previous literary and historical approaches. The former, in Crook's opinion, while giving the canon of Robin Hood texts apt attention, focuses too much on the text as an object removed from its historical contexts in the same way a physicist may ignore friction to make an equation work; while the latter, despite approaching the interrogation of Robin Hood's reality in a more familiar manner to an archivist, tends to write off the interrogation itself as illogical given the minimal hard evidence for the figure's historicity based on the surviving medieval material. This tension is somewhat resolved by the method Crook utilizes, which, while not explicitly labeled, is a type of synergistic approach to literary and historical criticism that utilizes the meticulous nature of archival work to build a supposition based on textual evidence and effect. The text is separated into two main parts, each with its own chapters. The first part, "The Legend and Its Interpreters," is split into chapters that first move chronologically through the significant texts that make up the canon of Robin Hood literature. In this part, Crook manages to create a wonderful and referenceable survey of major works that details when they are thought to have been produced, their significance in terms of what is contributed to the legend textually (characters, locations, plot points, etc.), and how each text aids the development of the literature metatextually. This literary survey is injected with moments of historical analysis wherein Crook discusses elements of various texts that could hint at an accurate dating for a story's composition, or for a possible historical Robin Hood. The only drawback to this part is that Crook does not spend much [End Page 243] time analyzing the nuance of the medieval perspective. For instance, when drawing attention to A Lyttel Gest of Robin Hood's assumption that Robin was a real figure, Crook does not aptly consider the tradition of false truth claims or fictions that begin medieval texts. He does not allow for the medieval text and reader to participate in creating/absorbing fiction; nor is there an acknowledgement of the medieval phenomena of truth as something separate from fact, nor of a text's ability to create and disseminate a truth that is outside of modernity's notion of "objective truth." Following the survey of primary medieval sources, Crook then moves into a similarly chronological overview of the academic interest surrounding Robin Hood and the relative increase or lack of interest in his historicity depending on the time and academic discipline. The final chapter of this part moves away from the predominantly textual foundation of Crook's discussion and into an analysis of place names connected to the Robin Hood legend. Functionally, this chapter explores the possible dissemination of information about Robin Hood and charts the rise of the popularity of his person and legend. More importantly to Crook's methodology, this discussion of places serves as a means of connecting Robin Hood to reality...

Topic of Family Relations in the Correspondence of the Austrasian Court and Representatives of the Byzantine Empire

Topic of Family Relations in the Correspondence of the Austrasian Court and Representatives of the Byzantine Empire

The Sword with the Sleeve Cross-Guard in the Fresco from the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Aghtamar Island

There is an indisputable fact that in Medieval Armenia, as in most countries of the Middle Ages, the sword was a popular (but expensive) type of weapon. However, what did these “swords” look like? The aim of the article is to analyse one internal fresco called “Massacre of the Innocents” from Aghtamar Church (915–921), where a depiction of the sword with the sleeve cross-guard could be found.Comparisons of the known archaeological finds of “Byzantine” type swords from Eastern Europe and Near East have been made, proving the idea that such type of swords actually existed. The authors, with the following analysis, would like to support the idea that medieval figurative sources are a very accurate for studying medieval military history.

Resilience and adaptation to volcanoes in Late Middle Ages in Lipari island (Aeolian, Italy)

Volcanic activity resumed during early Middle Ages times at Lipari following at least 6000 years of quiescence. This phenomenon occurred in a social context that had continuously developed from prehistoric times to the Roman age and was burdened by a demographic crisis that involved the archipelago between the 6th and 11th century AD. The rare archaeological records relating to the 6th - 11th centuries suggest abrupt changes in the population of the islands. The medieval sources are rich in religious and fantastic references to volcanic events linked to Lipari and Vulcano, testifying the uneasy condition for the human communities. This work concerns the resilience and adaptation of the communities to volcanic activity during the Late Middle Ages in Lipari. Starting from 1083 the Aeolian archipelago was involved in a repopulation program, implemented in 1095 by the Constitutum and organized by the Benedictine Monastery with the annexed S. Bartolomeo Cathedral on the castle. From the 13th century the volcanic phenomena, strictly limited to the northern sector of the island, did not interfere as previously with the anthropic activities. The Monastery will be enlarged in the Norman phase during the first half of the 12th century with the construction of the cloister. New historical documents relating to the 1264, report news of fires and land movements on Lipari. Recent age determinations obtained for the obsidian flow of Rocche Rosse at 1220 ± 30 AD (archaeomagnetic dating) and for an obsidian block of the Lami pyroclastic cone at 1243 ± 190 (fission-track dating) allow to define the age of the last phase of activity of the Monte Pilato-Lami-Rocche Rosse complex, and to associate it the events reported on 1264’s historical documents. This work makes in comparison volcanological, archaeological and historical dates and described an updated summary of one of the lesser known phases of the history of the archipelago. The main consequence of the medieval volcanic activity at Lipari caused a clear division of the territory with the population confined in the southeast quadrant, protected to the north by Serra and Monte Rosa which represented a natural orographic barrier.

The Mediaeval Background of Self-Identification in Relation to the Filioque Controversy

Abstract The study at hand is not focused on the mediaeval theological history of the Filioque controversy but aims to examine how the mediaeval (particularly the Palamite) doctrine of procession has become an ideological element of identity in presentday interpretation. Based on the assumption that religious elements have become part of the political identity primarily in south-eastern Europe, the present paper makes reference first of all to representatives of Orthodox theology, without seeking to criticize, however, the Orthodox standpoint on the Filioque. Provided that it can be demonstrated that contemporary authors make use of mediaeval sources not merely theologically but also ideologically, then we can ascertain that the mediaeval Filioque controversy inşuences the present-day interpretation of self-identity.

Alans in Mongol Service in First Third of 13th Century

The author considers actual and, despite the presence of a number of written medieval sources and a wide consideration of the topic in scientific literature, discussion questions about the Alans who were in the service of the Mongol Kaans and emperors of the Yuan dynasty, and about the time of the first appearance of the Alans in the Mongol service. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that the question of establishing the time of the first appearance of the Alans in the service of the Mongols is solved in it through determining the time of the introduction of Mongol rule in the territory of the Ciscaucasia. Particular attention is paid to the analysis and correlation of information from the main medieval written sources about this event: Mongolian, Persian, Arab and Khorezm. The result of the study was the conclusion that the raid of the Mongol commanders Jebe and Subeday in the Ciscaucasia did not have any political consequences for Alania, and the information from written sources reporting that the Alans became part of the Jochi ulus in 1224 is either a form of a declaration about the intentions of the Mongol house that ruled at that time, or late chronicle inserts reflecting the state of affairs that developed after the Western campaign of the Mongols.

Natural Disasters and Time: Non-eschatological Perceptions of Earthquakes in Late Antique and Medieval Historiography

Abstract This contribution analyzes the rhetoric surrounding natural disasters in historiographic sources, challenging our assumptions about the eschatological nature of late antique and medieval historical consciousness. Contrary to modern expectations, a large number of late antique and medieval sources indicate that earthquakes and other natural disasters were understood as signs from God, relating to theophanic encounters or divine wrath in the present time. Building on recent research on premodern concepts of time and historical consciousness, the article underscores the fact that eschatological models of time and history-that is, the relentless linear, teleological progression of time towards the End of Days-was not how premodern people perceived the relationship between past, present, and future. The textual evidence presented here is supported by a fragmented and littleknown illuminated historiographic text, the Ravennater Annalen, housed today in the cathedral library in Merseburg. This copy of a sixth-century illustrated calendar from Ravenna contains unique depictions of earthquakes in the form of giants breathing fire. Like the textual sources, this visual document should not be read as a premonition of the End of Days, rather it visualizes the belief that divine agency and wrath caused natural disasters.

Wer ist Fra Dolcino?

Abstract This paper investigates the image of the heretic fra’ Dolcino as presented in both medieval documentary sources and modern literature. Using a wide range of documentary and literary sources, at least two images of fra’ Dolcino can be outlined: the first is the ‚sharply defined‘ image of the legendary figure featuring in literary texts such as the „Divine Comedy“ by Dante Alighieri or „The Name of the Rose“ by Umberto Eco. The second, which emerges from historical documents, is the ‚blurred‘ image of Dolcino from Novara, the leader of a heretical sect that prospered between the 13th and the 14th centuries. This paper offers a study of the events linked to the figure of fra’ Dolcino and to his group of heretics, considering both the historical perspective and the quality of the information conveyed by literary and documentary sources.