Mid-fourteenth Century Research Articles

"It All Depends on the Dose": Poison and Medicines in European History ed. by Ole Peter Grell, Andrew Cunningham, and Jon Arrizabalaga

Reviewed by: "It All Depends on the Dose": Poison and Medicines in European History ed. by Ole Peter Grell, Andrew Cunningham, and Jon Arrizabalaga Frederick W. Gibbs Ole Peter Grell, Andrew Cunningham, and Jon Arrizabalaga, eds. "It All Depends on the Dose": Poison and Medicines in European History. The History of Medicine in Context. London: Routledge, 2018. xiv + 244 pp. Ill. $150.00 (978-1-138-69761-4). "It All Depends on the Dose" presents a dozen workshop papers to illustrate the complex relationship between medicine and poison in the Western medical tradition from classical Rome through the twentieth century. The first chapter, from Toine Pieters, canvases a handful of strong and dangerous drugs including arsenic, opium, morphine, warfarin, and even chemotherapy, to "pinpoint a remarkable continuity in the blurred boundaries between medicine and poison" (p. 22). This sweeping overview, with its abundant anecdotal evidence, perfectly sets the stage for the collection and its stated purpose. In the lone pre-thirteenth-century chapter Helen King provides a clear and concise summary—perhaps the best anywhere—of Galen's various comments about poison and antidotes across his corpus. She pays particular attention to the number and diversity of sources of Galen's knowledge about poisons and remedies and how they worked their way into so many of Galen's texts. Montserrat Cabré and Fernando Salmón present a surprisingly unique tale from a thirteenth-century collection of miracles from Castile, the Cantigas de Santa María. One of these (cantiga 188) suggests that a young woman's death was caused by an internal poison and describes an unusually early postmortem dissection of her heart (to which she continually pointed as her health waned). The chapter demonstrates the intriguing potential for examining religious and medical discussions about poisoning in conjunction with each other. Moving on to the mid-fourteenth century, Jon Arrizabalaga details numerous examples manufactured poisons reputedly used to spread pestilential disease. By considering accusations of poisoning water, food, and air alongside accusations of deliberately spreading plague, the chapter nicely shows how prominent medical theories about the nature of poison convincingly explained the possible mechanisms of poison and plague spreading, both accidental and intentional. Georgiana D. Hedesan provides a spectacularly clear and systematic overview of Paracelsus's many comments throughout his works on the relationship between poison, medicine, and disease. Her chapter will be essential reading for a long time, not least because it shows how Paracelsus's contribution to toxicology was far more sophisticated than a slogan about the importance of dose. Particularly useful is Hedesan's attention to Paracelsus's dual approach to poison both as a spiritual essence and as a discrete physical substance. Ole Peter Grell outlines how Martin Luther's views on sexual abstinence and prostitution—both to be avoided—may have been anchored in both classical and [End Page 451] contemporary medical theory. Celibacy could encourage a kind of self-poisoning according to Galenic ideas about the poisonous nature of retained semen or menses; prostitution could help spread the poison that acted as cause of pox (later known as syphilis). The chapter also raises important questions about how religious reformers and doctrine could be informed by medical authority, even without direct attribution. No book on the history of poison could be complete without attention to political assassination in Italian Renaissance courts, and Alexander Pastore's chapter provides a fine specimen. While readers will hardly be surprised by its conclusion that we can "verify the strong presence . . . of poison in Renaissance Italy" (p. 128), its dense collection of anecdotes from a wide array of sources provides an intriguing starting point. Taking up a different social lens in the early modern world, Alisha Rankin surveys the relationship between gender, poison, and antidotes in terms of authorial attribution. She shows how, on one hand, exotic or complex poison remedies intended for courtly use were usually ascribed to highly elite men rather than women; yet on the other hand, such strong gender differences seem to dissolve in the context of medicinal recipes for antidotes generally, to which women were clearly important contributors. José Ramón Bertomeu-Sánchez argues that the pioneering toxicological work of Mateu Orfila in the...

The Royal Chapel at Pyrga: Art, Agency, and Appropriation in Fourteenth-Century Cyprus

Scholars have traditionally dated the Royal Chapel at Pyrga, Cyprus to the year 1421 and attributed it to the patronage of the island’s Latin ruler Janus de Lusignan (r. 1398-1432). However, more recent stylistic, iconographic, and epigraphic analyses present a convincing argument for dating the chapel to the mid-fourteenth century. Ironically, though the chapel is most frequently associated with the death of Janus’s wife Queen Charlotte, the portraits of a Latin king and queen both appear as living, albeit anachronistic, attendants at Christ’s death in the chapel’s decoration. Their prayerful attitude at the base of the Cross on Golgotha, in conjunction with programmatic emphasis on sickness/death, salvation, and intercession, implies that the foundation was intended to be something other than a memorial funerary chapel for a specific royal person. This article, which supports a mid-fourteenth-century date, will argue that the chapel instead functioned as an ex-voto or visual prayer for the salvation of the Cypriot people from an outbreak of plague on the island. Evidence points to King Peter I de Lusignan (r. 1358-1369) and Queen Eleanora as likely patrons of the chapel and the role of St. Peter Thomas—monk, papal procurator, and bishop—as instigator of royal penitential display as a means of countering the spread of plague. Important to this revised date and context is the clear invocation of the True Cross—relic and palladium par excellence of the Crusades—that held special importance in the religious culture of Cyprus and for its royal dynasty.

Virtues and Vices Reformed? Visual Pastoralia in Fourteenth-Century Bohemian Art

Depictions of didactic-dogmatic images in the mural paintings in two Bohemian parish churches are unique in the Czech environment, and their possible meaning, function, and use in pastoral practice (cura animarum) have to be undrestood, particularly in the context of religious reform and devotional-moral transformation initiated by the Fourth Lateran Council. The first example is the image of scutum fidei, which appears next to the prominent Bohemian saint and Přemyslid dux St Wenceslaus in the former chapel of the Hradec Králové parish church, that was painted shortly after the mid-fourteenth century. The scutum fidei in Hradec Králové represents the oldest known Central European example of such a Trinitarian diagram, and it is considered here in its original visual context. The scutum in the Hradec Králové chapel should be understood as a multi-layered image with strong pastoral-educational power. It is "Bohemianized" by being the protective attribute of the Czech holy patron, St Wenceslaus, and part of his arma virtutum. The second case represents All Saints parish church in Zdětín; its presbytery is decorated with two unprecedented monumental paintings depicting the Seven Sacraments and the Seven Works of Mercy, together with a scene with preaching Christ and Mary Magdalene accompanied by the Czech-Latin text of the Decalogue. The iconographic conception of the Zdětín paintings is unique in Bohemian medieval art and was inspired by the period's catechetic handbooks.

GuidoAlfani and Cormac ÓGráda (eds.) Famine in European HistoryCambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. xi + 325 p. $89.99; $29.99 (pbk.).

This impressive volume presents a series of quantitatively rich historical studies by leading scholars that together offer a broad picture of famine in Europe—scale, context, and cause and effect—from medieval times onward. Eight chapters cover specific countries or regions of Western Europe; another treats the European areas of the former Soviet Union. Only a north–south segment of the continent from Poland to the Balkans is not accorded this specialized attention. The main period is from the late Middle Ages (earlier for the Nordic countries) to the nineteenth century. A final chapter focuses on the famines of the two world wars. The definition of famine used by the contributors is Cormac Ó Gráda's: “a shortage of food or purchasing power that leads directly to excess mortality from starvation or hunger-induced diseases.” This formulation combines Amartya Sen's (and Adam Smith's) view of famine as largely an entitlement failure—a man-made event—with simpler notions of “natural” causes such as crop failure. In each chapter the basic data drawn on to statistically identify famine years are recorded time series of deaths or burials and food prices, especially wheat. These materials are supplemented from contemporary accounts and case studies. The consistent definition and roughly uniform approach of the regional studies allow the editors to present, in their introductory overview, “the first truly comparative chronology of European famines.” Their listing ranges from the famines of the mid-thirteenth century in Italy, Spain, and Britain to those of the 1860s in the Nordic countries, Ukraine, and Russia. The three most widespread European famines over this period occurred in 1315–17 (the so-called Great Famine, “the worst food crisis of the late Middle Ages”), 1590–98 (the trough of the Little Ice Age, though its link to the famine is contested), and 1693–97 (affecting Scandinavia, France, and Italy especially). More regionally limited famines, describing most of those identified, could be just as devastating. The Great Irish Famine of 1845–50, though it “hardly qualifies for inclusion in a shortlist of the main European famines of all times,” killed a million people and forced the emigration of even more. The discussions of the causes of famine in the volume emphasize the range of factors involved. Weather, of course, figures prominently, especially harvest failures due to heavy spring and summer rains, with distant volcanic eruptions, sunspot cycles, and climate trends contributing as well. Crop and cattle diseases also play a role: New World crops—maize in Italy, the potato in Ireland—proved particularly susceptible. Man-made famine has mostly been war-related. Recent research has not supported earlier charges of intentional British and Soviet policy, beyond mere callousness, behind the Great Irish Famine or the Ukrainian and Moldovan famines of the 1930s and 1940s. Revisionist interpretations point rather to ignorance and poor judgment. Contributors also explore the consequences of famine. Demographically, even massive famine death tolls seemingly left overall population trends little affected—the conclusion reached by Watkins and Menken in PDR, 11, no. 4. Ireland is the chief exception to this. (Epidemic disease for the most part is similarly hard to discern in the aggregate population record, though here the main exception is spectacular: the Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century, which by a recent estimate killed over half of Europe's population.) Political instability is a surer famine outcome; indeed, by some accounts, food crises helped trigger the revolutionary events of 1789, 1848, and 1917. Famine in Europe had largely ended in the nineteenth century, only to return in strikingly man-made form in the disruptions of food supplies in World Wars I and II. The authors of this chapter, Stephen Wheatcroft and Ó Gráda, remark that in both situations, “the threat of massive continental mortality caused by food shortages was only narrowly averted by an unusually active international aid policy.” The volume's editors, noted experts in famine studies, are economic historians at Bocconi University, Milan and University College Dublin. Comprehensive bibliography, index.

Scenes from the life of a rich widow (Reval in the mid-fourteenth century)

Studia z Dziejów Średniowiecza » 2018 » Nr 22 (2018) » Scenes from the life of a rich widow (Reval in the mid-fourteenth century) A A A

Correction: Comparison of French and Worldwide Bacillus anthracis Strains Favors a Recent, Post-Columbian Origin of the Predominant North-American Clade

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0146216.].

A Map of Cyprus in Two Fourteenth-Century Byzantine Manuscripts

ABSTRACTA schematic map of Cyprus, unique in the Byzantine world, is found in two Greek manuscripts of the mid-fourteenth century (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS A 95 sup.) and its copy (Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, MS gr. XI.21 (coll. 453)). The article examines the context of its creation, possibly by the physician who collected the medical texts copied in the manuscripts. The map testifies to the perception of a man who is able to sketch the shape of the littoral freehand. He exaggerates the bays and headlands, and notes almost exclusively localities on the coast; inland, only Nicosia, the capital of the island, is shown. In particular, two religious monuments, considered the oldest and most visited on the island (the Basilica of St Epiphanius in Salamis and the Monastery of the Holy Cross–Stavrovouni) are marked, indicating that the author also wanted to celebrate the Christian antiquity of Cyprus and its relics.

Rethinking the Late Koryŏ in an International Context

In the mid-fourteenth century, the Mongol empire collapsed. People and polities across east Eurasia reconsidered their alliances. For the kingdom of Koryŏ, the collapse of the Yuan dynasty and the rise of the Ming dynasty represented both danger and opportunity. Examining how the Koryŏ court navigated these challenges, this essay argues that Koryŏ’s diplomatic recognition of the Yuan and Ming courts was just as important as was their recognition of Koryŏ.

The influence of the Holy Mountain on the literary activity of the Trinity Monastery in the fifteenth century

The article is devoted to the influence that Athos had on the Russian books of the fifteenth century. The object of study is a collection of manuscripts of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, which is now stored in the funds of the Research Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library (NIOR RSL). The authority of the Holy Mountain had a direct impact on the spiritual and scientific development of the Slavic brothers closest to Russians - the Serbs. Byzantine education influenced the Serbian literature mainly through translations from the Greek language. Serbs took a great part in the literary activities of Athos in the fifteenth century. This can be judged from the fact that most of the manuscripts of this time bear the signs of Serbian editing. The results which strengthened the ties between the Russians and Athos appeared in the field of Russian writings, which were exposed to South Slavic influence from the mid-fourteenth century to the mid-fifteenth century. After acquainting themselves with the South Slavic books, the Russians began to emulate them. This imitation can be recognized in the fact that the so-called Russian half-word (poluustav) was replaced by a half-word (poluustav) of the South Slavic type, while the teratological ornament in the manuscripts gave way to the geometric ornament. It can be concluded that the fifteenth-century blossoming of literary activities of the Trinity Monastery in Russia is closely associated with the Balkans.

The rich in historical perspective: evidence for preindustrial Europe (ca. 1300–1800)

This article provides an overview of long-term changes in the relative conditions of the rich in preindustrial Europe. It covers four pre-unification Italian states (Sabaudian State, Florentine State, Kingdom of Naples and Republic of Venice) as well as other areas of Europe (Low Countries, Catalonia) during the period 1300–1800. Three different kinds of indicators are measured systematically and combined in the analysis: headcount indexes, the share of the top rich, and richness indexes. Taken together, they suggest that overall, during the entirety of the early modern period the rich tended to become both more prevalent and more distanced from the other strata of society. The only period during which the opposite process took place was the late Middle Ages, following the Black Death epidemic of the mid-fourteenth century. In the period from ca. 1500 to 1800, the prevalence of the rich doubled. In the Sabaudian State, the Florentine State and the Kingdom of Naples, for which reconstructions of regional wealth distributions exist, in about the same period the share of the top 10 % grew from 45–55 to 70–80 %—reaching almost exactly the same level which has recently been suggested as the European average at 1810. Consequently, the time series presented here might be used to add about five centuries of wealth inequality trends to current debates on very long-term changes in the relative position of the rich.

Stability and change in the composition of a ‘Plague Mass’ in the wake of the Black Death

ABSTRACTIn the mid-fourteenth century the Black Death inflicted one of the most devastating losses of life in human history. This was met by exercises of collective piety such as the singing of psalms and the celebration of special votive masses, which encouraged social cohesion in the face of the tragedy. This article presents results from an analysis of fifty-seven manuscripts containing copies of the monophonic ‘Recordare domine’ Mass, reportedly created at the behest of Clement VI at Avignon during his Black Death-spanning pontificate. Of these, seven manuscripts contain fully notated renditions of each of the chants for the Mass Propers, enabling us to decouple questions concerning the organisation and transmission of the melodies from those of the texts set to them. When the different versions of the Mass are compared, two major findings emerge. First, differential patterns of consistency within the texts and melodies suggest that the texts of the ‘Recordare domine’ Mass may have circulated separately from the melodies set to them, with the choice of music left to the discretion of the local performing clergy. Second, the patterns of variation between different versions of the Proper texts and melodies allow us to see how a variety of composition strategies (including mnemonic processes) were used to create new music for the mass. The ‘Recordare domine’ Mass thus sheds light not only on the performance of organised sacred music at a pivotal point in European history, but also more generally on the processes of chant composition as a tool for use in response to social stress.

Les rubriques du remaniement de “Lion de Bourges” (ms BnF fr. 351)

The old “chanson de geste” of Lion de Bourges (mid-fourteenth century) was recast at the end of the fifteenth or at the first sixteenth century. Preserved in a unique manuscript (Paris, BnF fr. 351), this version is composed principally in octosyllables, often irregular, but furthermore includes “laisses” of alexandrines, more or less faithful to the earlier version of the poem, and a section of decasyllabic lines. The text is organised into 62 chapters of varied length introduced, the first one excepted, by rubrics in prose. The paper analyses the main stylistic and diegetic characteristics of these rubrics and provides an edition.

Review of Ruth I. DeFord,Tactus, Mensuration, and Rhythm in Renaissance Music(Cambridge University Press, 2015)

[1] Though the changing nature of pitch organization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has been the subject of significant scholarly debate, few studies address analogous changes in rhythmic organization in this period.(1) Two recent books, Ruth I. DeFord's Tactus, Mensuration, and Rhythm in Renaissance Music (2015) and Roger Matthew Grant's Beating Time and Measuring Music in the Early Modern Era (2014) have begun to fill this void. Both studies explore how hierarchy accrues in mensural structures, providing a compelling link to our understanding of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century meter (i.e. Lerdahl and Jackendoff 1983, Hasty 1997, London 2004). For his part, Grant synthesizes the intellectual foundations of theories of musical time from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries and documents technologies (including the tactus, the timepiece, and the metronome) that correspond with changing articulation of musical time. In his discussion of mensural music, Grant draws on an Aristotelian notion of time to argue that tactus articulates a mensural hierarchy.(2) DeFord similarly focuses on tactus and takes a more practical approach, examining in detail the theory and practice of temporal organization in Renaissance music.(3) DeFord provides a compelling account of the nuances of mensuration, illuminating the unique contributions of mensural organization to fifteenth- and sixteenth-century music and revealing the vibrant hierarchical patterns that mensural theory and practice encourage.[2] DeFord begins her study by debunking the false binary between meter and mensuration:The term "mensural music" (musica mensurabilis) means simply "measured music." In the period under consideration, it was the opposite of "plainchant" (musica plana). Modern scholars sometimes treat it as the opposite of "metrical music." This is a false dichotomy based on an oversimplified view of the difference between "Renaissance rhythm," in which the system of measurement is sometimes alleged to have no relation to rhythmic structure, and later styles, in which time signatures and barlines are sometimes assumed to prescribe structures in a straightforward manner. This reductive opposition does not do justice to the music of either era. (2)The book demonstrates this point exquisitely, illustrating the analytical potential of mensural structure and emphasizing critical commonalities between so-called mensural and metrical music. DeFord defines rhythm as "a more complex concept than mensuration or tactus. It includes all aspects of the perceptible organization of musical time, especially on the relatively small scales in which durations can be directly compared in memory. Since all musical events take place in time, all of them contribute to rhythm" (3). Her book aims "to shed light on the theory and practice of rhythm in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by examining them in relation to each other" (1). She undertakes this project in two parts: chapters 1-7 consist of close readings of over 100 theoretical sources, and chapters 8-14 provide seven case studies ranging from the early songs of Du Fay through the virtuosic L'homme arme masses of Ockeghem, Busnoys, and Josquin to the popular songs that flourished through the second half of the sixteenth century. DeFord's exploration of disparate sources reveals a rich tapestry of rhythmic practices that affect details ranging from large-scale organization of a mass movement to nuances of text setting at the level of the single word.[3] Building on the groundwork of Berger 1993, DeFord untangles the often contradictory details of theoretical writing on mensuration, ranging from the mid-fourteenth century Ars practica mensurabilis cantus of Johannes de Muris through Michael Praetorius's Syntagma musicum (1618-19). She argues that "the functional mensural structure of a piece depends on regularities in the audible rhythmic structure, not on the notated mensuration" (50). …

University Education of the Parochial Clergy in Medieval England: The Lincoln Diocese, c. 1300–c. 1350 by F. Donald Logan

University Education of the Parochial Clergy in Medieval England: The Lincoln Diocese, c. 1300-c. 1350, by F. Donald Logan. Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2014. xiv, 197 pp. $80.00 Cdn (cloth). Later medieval churchmen, reaching all the way to the top of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, recognized the need for an educated clergy. Over half a century ago, in an article in Mediaeval Studies (subsequently reprinted in the collection, Pastoral Care, Clerical Education, and Canon Law, London, 1981), Leonard Boyle showed how Pope Boniface VIII's 1298 apostolic constitution Cum ex eo allowed for a rector to be absent from his parish and use its revenues to study at university. How well was this apostolic constitution implemented? The question has received attention only from smaller pieces by Roy Martin Haines and R.N. Swanson. F. Donald Logan's little book thus fills an important lacuna in the scholarship. Logan employs the Lincoln Diocese as a case study--useful because of both its size and the efficiency of its bishops as record-keepers--to examine how the clergy took advantage of Cum ex eo. Starting just after the 1298 Cum ex eo and ending in the years around the Plague in the mid-fourteenth century, Logan shows that the apostolic constitution largely served its purpose, giving a broad range of parish priests access to a university education. Logan opens with a description of the canonical requirements for clerical learning in both the western Catholic Church as a whole and the provinces of Canterbury and York, particularly the rather vague requirement that ordinands be examined on their learning. Logan explains that Pope Honorius Ill's 1219 Super specula already allowed promising candidates to be absent from their parishes for study before the 1298 Cum ex eo. Logan is admirably precise in distinguishing the difference between Super specula and Cum ex eo, with the former giving a license to an already ordained priest to study, and the latter a dispensation for a rector to study before his ordination. This distinction is particularly valuable for scholars working with bishops' registers: both Cum ex eo and Super specula operated through the fourteenth century, and so one needs to take care to note which sort of permission to study a particular rector received. In subsequent chapters, Logan examines the registers of the bishops following Cum ex eo for the number of clergy dispensed and licensed to study. In his conclusion, he examines other questions raised by permissions to study: what and where a dispensee (or licensee) studied, how finances were arranged, whether rectors returned to their parishes, and the like. …

Comparison of French and Worldwide Bacillus anthracis Strains Favors a Recent, Post-Columbian Origin of the Predominant North-American Clade.

BackgroundBacillus anthracis, the highly dangerous zoonotic bacterial pathogen species is currently composed of three genetic groups, called A, B and C. Group A is represented worldwide whereas group B is present essentially in Western Europe and Southern Africa. Only three strains from group C have been reported. This knowledge is derived from the genotyping of more than 2000 strains collected worldwide. Strains from both group A and group B are present in France. Previous investigations showed that the majority of sporadic French strains belong to the so-called A.Br.011/009 group A clade and define a very remarkable polytomy with six branches. Here we explore the significance of this polytomy by comparing the French B. anthracis lineages to worldwide lineages. We take advantage of whole genome sequence data previously determined for 122 French strains and 45 strains of various origins.ResultsA total of 6690 SNPs was identified among the available dataset and used to draw the phylogeny. The phylogeny of the French B group strains which belongs to B.Br.CNEVA indicates an expansion from the south-east part of France (the Alps) towards the south-west (Massif-Central and Pyrenees). The relatively small group A strains belonging to A.Br.001/002 results from at least two independent introductions. Strikingly, the data clearly demonstrates that the currently predominant B. anthracis lineage in North America, called WNA for Western North American, is derived from one branch of the A.Br.011/009 polytomy predominant in France.Conclusions/SignificanceThe present work extends the range of observed substitution rate heterogeneity within B. anthracis, in agreement with its ecology and in contrast with some other pathogens. The population structure of the six branches A.Br.011/009 polytomy identified in France, diversity of branch length, and comparison with the WNA lineage, suggests that WNA is of post-Columbian and west European origin, with France as a likely source. Furthermore, it is tempting to speculate that the polytomy’s most recent common ancestor -MRCA- dates back to the Hundred Years' war between France and England started in the mid-fourteenth century. These events were associated in France with deadly epidemics and major economic and social changes.

Pak Tonji and the Vagaries of Government Service in Koryŏ and Chosŏn, 1360–1412

Pak Tonji (1342.1.6–1412.9.2) served in both the Koryŏ and Chosŏn governments during his career as an official. His Miryang Pak descent group emerged in the mid-fourteenth century as an influential participant in court politics. At that time, six Miryang Pak men already served in the government, three of them as chaech’u. Marriage relations with other elite families were another aspect of the family’s growing influence. Although Kyeyang was his adult given name, ‘‘Tonji’’ became his public name. A false accusation amid Koryŏ court politics resulted in his spending several years out of government service. Nevertheless, throughout his later career Pak was close to Chŏng Mongju, Yu Sungin, Yi Ch’ŏm, Yi Sayŏng, Yi Haeng, and Kwŏn Kŭn. Recognized for his abilities and skills, Pak served the Koryŏ and Chosŏn governments in their respective diplomatic relations with Ming China and Japan in the late fourteenth century and the early fifteenth century. He served in embassies bound for Ming China in 1388, 1402, and 1410, and to Japan in 1397 (as Reciprocation Envoy). In the latter service, Pak met the retired shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and gained Japanese assistance, especially through the Ōuchi family, in slowing pirate raids along the Korean coast. He returned to Chosŏn bearing a map of Japan that he submitted to the government. His contributions to diplomatic relations with Ming China and Japan were unique among officials of the Chosŏn government.

Repercussions from the Far East: A Comparison of the Catholic and Nestorian Presence in China

In the middle ages, Franciscan monks from Western Europe and Nestorian monks from Syria traveled to the Far East to spread the gospel and to establish their churches in the region. Although they shared similar goals, Franciscans and Nestorians employed different methods of persuasion, so the results and legacy of their missionary work differed considerably. The Nestorians were remarkably successful in the Far East, as proven by the gravestones in the Mongolian steppes; in their home countries, ironically, they were increasingly marginalized. In contrast, the Franciscans and other European travelers to the Far East did not achieve similar missionary success and scarcely left a mark on the region after the mid-fourteenth century. The travelogues and letters they composed for their audiences at home, however, had a great impact, both on late-medieval European ambitions to open up the world and on the return of the Catholic mission in seventeenth-century China. In summary, the Nestorians’ legacy was stone monuments in the East and the Franciscans left inspiring texts in the West. A comparison of the respective practices of Christian missionary activity in the Far East may further recognition of how medieval cross-cultural travel affected both the regions of origin and the regions of destination in various ways. Therefore, even though the Christian presence in the Far East vanished in the late middle ages, it had lasting consequences for the societies from whence the missionaries came. It not only broadened the West’s knowledge of the Far East but also influenced the renewal of Christian missions in the region from the seventeenth century onwards.

Latin Authors Discuss the Jewish Calendar

Why would Latin authors between twelfth and fifteenth century take an interest in Jewish calendar? Mainly for two reasons. Its times for mean conjunctions of Sun and Moon (molad s) were much more precise than could be had from Christian ecclesiastical computus, so they would contribute to a better determination of Easter. Also, Jewish calendar (known in its present form since tenth century) was believed to have been valid already in biblical times, so that it was proper one to use for determining biblical datings, rather than Roman calendar. In short, main fields of interest were calendar reform and biblical chronology, topics touched on very often in medieval literature (cf. luminaries like Roger Bacon). There are also several Latin texts especially dedicated to Jewish chronology for one purpose or other. The earliest of these (Reinher of Paderborn, Compotus emendatus , composed in 1171) saw its first printing as recently as 1951, and again in 2011.The present work edits five further special treatises, apparently only ones of their kind before sixteenth century. They are so varied in form and content that each requires special editing, which this editor has done very conscientiously. The diverse texts includeLiber erarum (1188/91), a 12-page anonymous tract known from six manuscripts (thirteenth to fifteenth century) and a print from 1549; there is no modern edition until now. It contains a list of traditional eras (Spanish, Seleucid, Persian, Christian, Arab) relative to date 23 March 1191. It also offers data for Cremona, suggesting a connection with Gerard translator. However, editor judges it to be reworked from an original in Hebrew by a Jewish author. The text is purely computational, describing Hebrew chronological system and giving rules for finding molad for beginning of each lunar year and for various other times.Robert of Leicester, De compoto Hebreorum aptato ad kalendarium (1294), 65 pages in edition, known from two manuscripts of early to mid-fourteenth century. Not previously printed. It is the lengthiest and most sophisticated Latin treatise on Jewish calendation to be extant from Middle Ages, according to editor (p. 13), and edition is elaborate, including extensive notes on sources. The author's stated intention is to obtain knowledge of bygone ages, i.e., Biblical chronology, with Jewish calendar as a tool. So first we get a technical account of Jewish time reckoning, rules for converting Jewish into Julian dates, and finally datings of Creation, Noah's flood, exodus from Egypt, destruction of First Temple, conception of John Baptist and incarnation and crucifixion of Jesus. Robert also discusses controversy about whether Last Supper was performed with leavened or unleavened bread, a factor in Great Schism of 1054.Nicholas Trevet O.P., Compotus Hebreorum (1310), 13 pages in edition, known from one, early fourteenth-century manuscript. Not previously printed. The text is appended to a commentary on Leviticus and is meant to put feasts mentioned there into a calendrical framework. In fact, it mainly gives rules for finding weekdays for these feasts in a particular year of Jewish era. …

Exploring the elite world in the Siyar al-Awliyā’: Urban elites, their lineages and social networks

Composed by Amīr Khwurd around the middle of the fourteenth century, the Siyar al-Awliyā’ presents a coherent history of the Chishti spiritual order (silsilah) in the Indian subcontinent from the early thirteenth to the mid-fourteenth century. Historians have mined the text for information on Sufis and Sufism while ignoring its special attributes. This article makes a historiographical and methodological intervention by showing how a Sufi biographical compendium (tazkira) can be used to write a history of the Muslim society and an incipient Chishti fraternity.

Criticism of Aristotelian science in fourteenth-century Jewish thought

Modern scholarship has observed that the New Science did not emerge ex nihilo , but had its roots in the scholastics’ criticism of Aristotelian science in the fourteenth century. Until about a decade ago, the dominant view in the literature was that the Jewish philosophers did not participate in this scholastic trend until Hasdai Crescas (1340–1410), who was the first Hispano-Jewish philosopher to elaborate a basic and systematic criticism of Aristotelian physics and propose an alternative to it. The present article demonstrates that Jewish criticism of Aristotelian science was more widespread than has been thought and touched on much broader issues. We will look at two fourteenth-century Spanish thinkers, Abner of Burgos (1260/70–1348) and Moses ben Judah (mid-fourteenth century), and their critiques of two elements of Aristotelian physics: (1) the status of prime matter, and (2) natural place and its relations to motion.