Mid-twelfth Century Research Articles

Between Norman Administrators and Local Advocates: Archontes in Greek Archival Sources of Calabria in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

In both the Byzantine and Norman periods of rule, Greek notarial documents and other archival records from Southern Italy and Sicily frequently mention a group known as archontes, a collective term referring to local notables or potentates. While notoriously difficult to define with precision, this group encompassed a wide range of individuals and families, including those who held title or office (often originating in the Byzantine period) as well as those whose influence was more informal or due primarily to wealth or land ownership. Those families included among these archontes display a large degree of continuity between the early eleventh and mid-twelfth centuries, and they almost universally represent local, Greek-speaking elements rather than individuals appointed to administrative positions from elsewhere. This article argues that this group of families in Calabria played a specific role as intermediaries between the local, Greek-speaking population and the newly established Norman powers, particularly in the first century of the latter’s arrival in the region. This role is most visible in records of legal disputes, especially when land ownership was involved, when judicial decisions were made and issued jointly in the name of a Norman-appointed judge and an assembly of local archontes. I contend that this role can be more thoroughly understood through the comparative use of archival documents from Greek monasteries in the region and the legal handbook known as the Prochiron Legum or Prochiron Calabriae, which may suggest that this legal function quickly became quasi-formalized and supported by written legislation.

Shifting the Sands – Early Islamic Modification of the Caesarea Sandy Lowlands into Plot-and-Berm Water-Harvesting Agroecosystem

ABSTRACT During the Early Islamic period, several emerging agricultural innovations enabled the cultivation of summer crops in unproductive Mediterranean lands. This necessitated the development of water harvesting methods. This study delves into the creation of the Plot-and-Berm (P&B) agroecosystem along the sandy coast of Caesarea, Israel. From the early tenth century to the mid-twelfth century, coeval to the later part of the Early Islamic period and the beginning of the Crusader period, a 1.5 km2 P&B agroecosystem was constructed and maintained. Remarkably, this system still dominates the landscape. The agroecosystem’s expansion was controlled by regional hydrological, geological, and climatic factors. Anthropogenic sedimentary units include the anthrosol found within the plots and anthrosediment within the berms with densely added refuse. Sedimentological and mineralogical analysis of the anthrosol and anthrosediment unveils the additives of calcitic fine-grains, likely originating from nearby kilns. The arrangement of these fine grains amidst quartz particles fills pore spaces, reducing the hydraulic conductivity of the natural sand. Similar to other sandy agricultural systems, morphological and sedimentological adaptations were employed to sustain a pattern of annual crop yields, by capturing rainfall water for crop cultivation during the rainy season, while high groundwater levels facilitated summer cultivation.

ПОЛІТИЧНИЙ РОЗВИТОК СТОДОРЯНСЬКОГО КНЯЗІВСТВА В Х – ПЕРШІЙ ПОЛОВИНІ ХІІ ст.

The article analyzes the process of emergence, peculiarities of political development and decline of the Stodorian principality in the tenth – mid-twelfth centuries on the basis of narrative sources and specialized historical literature. The study is based on the principles of historicism, scientism, and authorial objectivity, as well as on the use of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, generalization, comparison) and specialized historical (typological and systematic historic) methods. It is noted that the formation of statehood among the Havolians (Stodorians) dates back to the first half of the 10th century, during the reign of Prince Tugumir, as a result of whose betrayal Stodorania became vassalage to the German king. To consolidate their power in the Polabia, the Ottons created three stamps here in the tenth century, one of which was given to Otto I’s comrade-in-arms from his youth, Count Geron, who in 939 deliberately invited 30 Slavic princes to his banquet and treacherously killed them all in one night. It is emphasized that Otto I sought to strengthen German rule across the Elbe by Christianization, and in order to organize the church, Otto I founded two bishoprics in Polabia, with the support of the Stodorian prince Tugumir: in Havelberg (946) and Brandenburg (948), which were subordinated to the Mainz metropolis. It is established that Christianization, which was forcibly carried out by the Germans in the Polabia territory, was primarily an instrument of political pressure, an instrument of enslavement, which led to the outbreak of a powerful anti-German uprising in Stodoriania in 983. The result of this victorious uprising was the liberation of the Stodorians from German rule and their return to paganism. It is emphasized that the Stodorian principality in the tenth – first half of the twelfth century was one of the most developed socio-political and economic regions of Polabia, occupying an important place in the system of international relations of Central Europe. It is established that the last princes of the Stodorians were Pribislav-Henry and Yaksa of Kepenik. The first of them bequeathed his principality to the margrave of the Northern Mark Albert the Bear, who eventually conquered Branibor in 1157 after heavy battles with Jaksa, finally subduing Stodorania.

Geographic longitude in Latin Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

This article surveys surviving evidence for the determination of geographic longitude in Latin Europe in the period between 1100 and 1300. Special consideration is given to the different types of sources that preserve longitude estimates as well as to the techniques that were used in establishing them. While the method of inferring longitude differences from eclipse times was evidently in use as early as the mid-twelfth century, it remains doubtful that it can account for most of the preserved longitudes. An analysis of 89 different estimates for 30 European cities indicates a high degree of accuracy among the longitudes of English cities and a conspicuous displacement eastward (by 5°–7;30°) shared by most longitudes of cities in Italy and France. In both cases, the data suggest a high level of interdependence between estimates for different cities in the same geographic region, although the means by which these estimates were arrived at remain insufficiently known.

Coacta voluntas est voluntas: Baptism and Return in Canon Law

Abstract Throughout the early Middle Ages, the border between Christianity and Judaism was comparatively permeable, and baptized Jews, particularly those baptized under duress, frequently returned openly to Judaism. While modern scholars of Jewish-Christian relations often assume that medieval canon law always forbade this, a single norm governing converts’ re-conversion, or reversion, did not begin to emerge until the mid-twelfth century with the Decretum Gratiani. The Decretum established the preeminence of the canon that barred Jewish baptizands’ reversion and acted as a catalyst for discussions about the limits of consent and coercion, baptism and conversion. These debates provided the foundation for the mandates of the early thirteenth century that did establish the legal boundary between Jew and Christian which lasted into modernity: so long as baptizands consented, even if under duress, they were Christians and could not return to Judaism.

Waltheof: The Journey from Warrior to Saint

The elevation to sainthood of the English earl, Waltheof, who was beheaded, ostensibly for rebellion against William the Conqueror, exemplifies the process by which non-elite and elite communities coalesced to construct a saintly cult in late eleventh- and twelfth-century England. This paper traces the development of Waltheof’s cult from the time of his execution and burial through the mid-twelfth century and seeks to place his path to sainthood within the context of the use of hagiographical material as exemplars for the lives of the laity.
 We have drawn heavily on the Passio Waldevi, a hagiographical account of Waltheof’s life and martyrdom, written at Crowland Abbey in the early twelfth century, along with other materials, most notably early miracles of Waltheof, contained in the same manuscript (Douai BM MS 852). This account, though written to promote the official cult of Waltheof, nevertheless gives hints of earlier, spontaneous veneration of Waltheof. As a point of comparison, we look at earlier hagiographical materials, most notably English and Latin accounts of the life of St. Guthlac and several saints that figure prominently in Bede. To put Waltheof’s death and cult in historical context we consider historical materials in Old English (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Easter Table Chronicle), Latin (Orderic Vitalis and William of Malmsbury, among others), and Norman French (Geoffrei de Gaimar), and we briefly consider the Norse evidence (Snorri Sturluson) for Waltheof’s wider reputation. While most of our evidence is textual, we have also considered archaeological evidence, particularly as it relates to burials, both saintly and deviant. We argue that this evidence, takentogether, indicates that Waltheof’s cult draws on long-standing practices and attitudes towards sanctity and the Christian life in the centuries before the Norman Conquest of England.

Lov og lovgivning i middelalderen. Nye studier av Magnus Lagabøtes landslov

Lov og lovgivning i middelalderen. Nye studier av Magnus Lagabøtes landslov

Violence and Risk in Medieval Iceland: This Spattered Isle, by Oren Falk

Medieval Iceland was, according to its sagas, a society riven with feud. Numerous prose narratives composed from the thirteenth century onwards related narratives that focused on feud, set in the centuries from the island’s settlement (around 870) to just after its conversion to Christianity (roughly 1030). These are conventionally known as the ‘sagas of Icelanders’ (Íslendingasögur). During the same period, a further set of sagas was composed, dealing with more recent history, from the mid-twelfth century up until a few decades before the date of composition: these are known as the ‘contemporary sagas’ or samtíðarsögur. Both saga genres derive their narrative material and dramatic impetus from stories of kin-group-based reciprocal violence. Much has been written, by historians, literary scholars, legal historians and anthropologists about the violence apparently endemic in medieval Icelandic society. Can anything new be said about it? The answer to this question turns out to be an emphatic ‘yes’. This new book, by Oren Falk, takes a fresh look at violence as a phenomenon in the saga corpus. Falk propounds a complex and persuasive analysis of violence, as being concerned not only with the exercise of power and the creation of symbolic significance, but also—as his title signals—with risk. Falk nuances standard theories of violence as instrumental or expressive with a sophisticated understanding of the ways in which violent actors assess risk; he incorporates notions of jeopardy with regard to multiple factors, and ‘edgework’—the recognition that some actors do not care about minimising risk, but rather take pleasure in exhibiting their particular skills in risky situations.

The Commune of Benevento (1128–1131): A South Italian Contribution to the Communal Movement

Abstract This article examines the formation of a commune at Benevento in the twelfth century. In this south Italian city, which was under papal overlordship, a commune emerged, briefly but spectacularly, in the years 1128–31. Its existence has been almost completely overlooked in the wider narrative of the rise of medieval urban communes and in Beneventan scholarship itself. The particular value of an understanding of the Beneventan Commune is threefold. Firstly, the timing of its creation situates it firmly within an important formative and contested stage in the wider communal movement. Secondly, the Commune’s emergence was recorded in a contemporary chronicle by Falco of Benevento. Thirdly, Falco, a layman, was a highly acute observer of and participant in urban affairs, and was arguably the ‘first notary-chronicler of Christian Europe’. His chronicle precedes the more recognised body of works by notary-chroniclers produced from around the mid-twelfth century onwards in northern and central Italy, the hotbed of the communal movement. As a city notary (and judge) Falco was a well-informed observer, close to several of the key actors in the dramatic events he records. Moreover, his perspective on the communal movement deviates from other dominant contemporary discourses disseminated in often hostile ecclesiastical narratives. His voice on the commune is well worth listening to. An analysis of the Beneventan Commune—of its origins, agenda, organisation, and Falco’s perspective on it—therefore offers a unique contribution to the narrative of the wider emergence of the medieval commune.

A CORRECTNESS PROOF FOR AL-BARAKĀT’S LOGICAL DIAGRAMS

AbstractIn Baghdad in the mid twelfth century Abū al-Barakāt proposes a radical new procedure for finding the conclusions of premise-pairs in syllogistic logic, and for identifying those premise-pairs that have no conclusions. The procedure makes no use of features of the standard Aristotelian apparatus, such as conversions or syllogistic figures. In place of these al-Barakāt writes out pages of diagrams consisting of labelled horizontal lines. He gives no instructions and no proof that the procedure will yield correct results. So the reader has to work out what his procedure is and whether it is correct. The procedure turns out to be insightful and entirely correct, but this paper may be the first study to give a full description of the procedure and a rigorous proof of its correctness.

Big Arms - The Transformation of an Indigenous Name

This article examines how personhood was shaped in the routine dispositional relations of longhouse life among the Iroquoian societies of eastern North America. Drawing on scholarship that situates the emergence of culturally-specific modes of personhood within relational networks of people and things, I present evidence that over seven centuries, a deep resonance developed between the ‘polyvalence’ of Iroquoian domestic spaces and a broadly ‘fractal’ (sensu Fowler 2004) or ‘part-in-whole’ sense of personhood in Iroquoian societies. An ethnohistoric review of seventeenth-century Ontario Iroquoian concepts of personhood is followed by an archaeological analysis of the development of longhouses between the tenth and sixteenth centuries. I report the results of a kernel density estimation (KDE) analysis of the spatial distribution of post and pit features across longhouse living floors in a diachronic study of 45 hearth areas. The results indicate that everyday practices within the longhouse came to follow several characteristic patterns by the mid-twelfth century ad. These patterns served to define ‘polyvalent’ relationships in which resident persons and nuclear families were at once identifiable as distinct social atoms and as inextricable components of larger hypostatic wholes — most especially house and lineage. A fundamental coherence was thereby established between the embodied experience of domestic taskscapes and a mode of personhood in which any social whole was understood as a dynamic and partible alliance of elements.

Medieval Historical Writing: Britain and Ireland, 500–1500. Edited by Jennifer Jahner, Emily Steiner, and Elizabeth M. Tyler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xvi+581.

<i>Medieval Historical Writing: Britain and Ireland, 500–1500</i>. Edited by Jennifer Jahner, Emily Steiner, and Elizabeth M. Tyler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xvi+581.

Retour sur la ‘crise du cénobitisme’: Émergence et expansion des Cisterciens et des chanoines réguliers en Normandie (xiie siècle-début xiiie siècle)

In the twelfth century, the religious Reformed Orders, Cistercians, and Regular Canons, settled in Normandy. The result, after two decades, is surprising: by 1146, there were seventeen communities of Regular Canons but only four Cistercian abbeys. In this essay the reasons for the discrepancy are investigated, including the role of the Archbishop of Rouen, Hugh of Amiens († 1164). The development of both Orders is then examined. Starting in the mid-twelfth century, the Cistercians began incorporating abbeys which were already in existence, as a way to foster growth, while for Regular Canons, the main question is that of choice between the orders of Saint-Victor and Prémontré.

Nicola Polloni, The Twelfth-Century Renewal of Latin Metaphysics: Gundissalinus’s Ontology of Matter and Form. Durham Medieval and Renaissance Monographs and Essays, 6. Durham: Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Durham University; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2020, 318 pp.

Abstract: The study of metaphysics in the medieval era most often evokes figures like thirteenth and fourteenth centuries luminaries such as Thomas Aquinas, William Ockham, or Duns Scotus. But even before that time, an important meeting of Western philosophy with Arabic ideology established an early attempt to systematize Latin metaphysics. Such a project was enhanced by a team of translators working principally in peaceful Toledo, Spain, in the mid-twelfth century. The focus of the work to hand regarding the renewal of Latin metaphysics is on a groundbreaking figure in this dizzying and far-reaching context, one Dominicus Gundissalinus, at once a reconciler and synthesizer of a stream of thought traceable to Plato and Boethius.

The Presence of the Bishop of Liège, the Bishop of Utrecht, and the Archbishop of Cologne in Texandria (c. 1000-1150)

In 1992, Bas Aarts proposed that the bishop of Utrecht could have exercised public authority in the pagus Texandria in the twelfth century. Most of the more recent historical literature neglects his arguments and focuses on the power of the bishop of Liège in this region. In this article, we support Aarts’s hypothesis. The bishop of Liège owned some property in the interior of Texandria, illustrating his interest in this region as being part of his diocese. However, there is no indication that the bishop of Liège had secular public authority anywhere in Texandria before the mid-twelfth century. Kupper shows that Bishops Notger of Liège (972-1008) and Baldrick II (1008-1018) contributed much to strengthen the secular authority of the bishop in other parts of the diocese. It is quite possible that these bishops had similar aspirations for Texandria. We point at the possibility that the bishop failed to acquire secular power or counts’ rights in Texandria because these rights were already in the hands of someone else. Around 1200, in the former area of Texandria, a large area of public jurisdiction existed, called the Eninge of the Kempen. There are reasons to believe that we are dealing with the successor of a former county in Texandria. Sources suggest that in the twelfth century, the bishop of Utrecht had authority here. Perhaps he acquired these rights from Count Ansfried junior, who became bishop of Utrecht in 995.

Mother Knows Best: The Empress Matilda in the Becket Controversy*

Abstract Matilda, the mother of King Henry II, was a formidable presence in mid-twelfth century England (and in the sprawling continental empire of which it was a part). Her father, Henry I of England, left with no legitimate male issue, arranged for his nobles to swear allegiance to her claim to the English throne. Deprived of the crown as a result of its usurpation by her cousin Stephen of Blois, she eventually raised an army and invaded England to press her cause. After a period of fourteen years, the conflict was resolved by an agreement that Stephen would retain the crown for the remainder of his life, after which the monarchy would be transferred to her son, Henry, which occurred in 1154. The new king would initially become close to his chancellor, Thomas Becket. But Henry’s selection of Becket to be archbishop of Canterbury would lead to a monumental conflict between church and crown that culminated—as we all know—in the “murder in the cathedral.” For all that has been written about these myriad events, no systematic study has been undertaken of the relations (direct and indirect) between Henry II’s mother and Becket. The paper brings together the available evidence concerning the linkages of Matilda with Becket. I examine the period of Becket’s exile from England up until Matilda’s death in 1167. In my view, surveying Becket’s world from the perspective of Matilda provides unique insight into the volatile English ecclesiastical and secular politics during their respective lifetimes.

BROTHERLY RIVALS: TEMPLARS, HOSPITALLERS AND THE ARCHITECTURAL EXPANSION OF THE TEMPLE CHURCH IN LONDON

The Temple Church, founded as the chapel of the motherhouse of the English Templars around 1160, is among the most intriguing medieval churches in London. Utilising a wide range of textual, archaeological and architectural evidence, this paper provides a new account of the evolution of the ecclesiastical complex from the mid-twelfth century to the mid-thirteenth century, focusing in particular on the form and the function of a series of now largely obliterated auxiliary structures. It argues that one of the driving forces for the construction of these buildings was a competition for both patrons and prestige that existed between the two preeminent military orders of the period: the Templars and the Hospitallers.

The Mendicant Equilibrium in Medieval Lisbon: Religious Houses and Urban Growth

From the mid-twelfth century to the end of the fifteenth century, a total of eleven religious houses were founded in Lisbon, in addition to those located in the city’s surrounding area. This set of buildings belonged to different religious communities, but the majority of them represented the mendicant orders. This article analyses the chronological and spatial process of the installation of the mendicant orders in Lisbon and its impacts on the urban development of the city. The objective is to demonstrate how the equilibrium in the distribution of mendicant order’s edifices in the urban space was established in conjunction with the houses of the other religious communities and the growth of the city itself, and to examine the large-scale impacts for the city’s development.

Making and Remaking Silla Origins

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; The official narrative on the early history of the Korean state of Silla (trad. 57 BCE–935 CE) was constantly under revision and probably not initially charted until the late seventh or early eighth century. This narrative continued to evolve throughout the remainder of the Silla and early Koryŏ period (918–1392), achieving its final form in the mid-twelfth century with the publication of the Samguk sagi. King Mich’u (trad. r. 262–284) was modeled closely on King Pŏphŭng (r. 514–540) to push Silla origins back several hundred years. Sŏk T’arhae (trad. r. 57–80) and Naemul (trad. r. 356–402) were crafted based on Chinese historiography. The late emergence of the legend of Pak Hyŏkkŏse (trad. 57 BCE–4 CE) as the ultimate founder of Silla in the Koryŏ period reflects the relevance of the Pak descent group in the Silla-Koryŏ transition period and rise of the Pak lineage in the early Koryŏ period.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;

Rogue Bishops Around the Irish Sea Before the Mid-Twelfth Century

This article argues for a common episcopal culture in the pre-Norman Irish Sea region in which clerical fighting was relatively unproblematic. Several factors caused previously acceptable clerical ...