Monastic Property Research Articles

Conducting the census of 1701–1703 in monasteries: from revision to management

The article considers the question of how specifically the work on the state census of church property was organized in 1701-1703. The importance of this study is explained by the fact that the scribes sent by the Monastery Order (primarily the clerks) often remained in charge of the described monasteries after the census was completed. The author shows how the scribes obtained an exhaustive picture of the state of the entire monastic property, as well as accumulated data on the financial and economic documentation maintained in the monasteries, its accuracy and reliability, the people responsible for this or that property, estimated current income from various tangible assets, i.e. got acquainted with the entire system of organization of the monastic economy. This allowed them to manage church property at the next stage of the reform and effectively control the movement of financial flows

Морские суда Крестного Онежского монастыря в 1657–1660 гг.

The recent years have seen a growing scholars’ interest in the Russian North exploration, sea expeditions of the 16th–20th centuries, and fishing industry and maritime culture of the Pomor Russians. Northern monasteries, which owned salt and fishing industries along the shores of the White Sea, played an important role in the exploration of the North and in the development of traditional Russian shipbuilding and navigation. Thus, the Solovetsky Monastery had its own fleet in the 16th – 17th centuries. Unlike the Solovetsky Monastery’s fleet, ship economy of other Northern monasteries remains fragmentarily studied. The article analyzes first steps of the Onega Cross Monastery in creation of its own fleet: types of vessels, methods of their acquisition. The main sources are Transfer book (otvodnaya kniga) of the Onega Cross Monastery (1657) and account books for February 1657 – March 1661, stored in the fond of the Onega Cross Monastery in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA). While the Transfer Book (i.e. inventory of the monastic property) recorded presence or absence of ships in a certain year, the account books traced their movement. The monastery’s account books are a valuable source on the history of its ship economy, containing various data on the monastery’s vessels: they record ships purchase and fitting-out, construction orders, and sales; names of artisans and of sellers or buyers; hire and lease of ships; their repair; hiring of the so-called “Boat Cossacks” (hired workers) and captains; captains’ names. The study is based on historical-genetic method. It shows that the monastery bought sea vessels from its very founding. The earliest mention of a sea vessel (karbass) purchase is recorded in the monastery’s account book and dated May 1657. In 1657–60, the monastery used karbasses and boats (pavozkas) for shallow water deliveries. The monastery yearly ordered construction of several vessels of each type or bought them; names of sellers or craftsmen were indicated. All of them were residents of villages on the Onega. The monastery also sold several ships.

Great Northern War and Church reform of Peter the Great

The article presents historical research on the Church reform of Peter I, considering the Great Northern War (1700–1721) as one of the crucial transformational factors in church-state relations in Russia. The article introduces descriptive books of patriarchal estates in 17 counties of Russia. They were created during the audit of Church and monastic property in line with the decree of January 31, 1701. It considers features of the form and content of these documents and previously known descriptions of bishops' houses and monasteries, which were carried out according to the mandated memorials of the Monastic Order in 1701-1705. The article claims that the secularization of the patriarch's landholdings, in contrast to other church holdings, was complete and final already at the beginning of the 18th century. In this regard, there is an obvious need to reject historical parallels between the events of the early 18th century and the "monastic secularization" of 1764.Comparing the Alexei Kurbatov’s proposals to Peter I in a letter dated October 25, 1700, with the content of the personal decrees of January 24 and 31, 1701 on the restoration of the Monastic Order allows us to hypothesize that the defeat at Narva and preparation for the meeting with the Elector Augustus II that would result in the signing of the Biržai pact, significantly adjusted the plans of the Church reform. The novelty of the January decrees that presumably started the reform (in the then-common European sense of the concept) was the inclusion of the patriarch's estates in the list of the Church's possessions subject to the control of the state in the future.I conclude that the secularization of church-monastic possessions and property that followed at the beginning of the Great Northern War not only contradicted the centuries-old historical practice but was at that time organizationally overwhelming for the state, which was able to solve the problem of managing the escheat patriarchal lands but did not yet have the appropriate staffing and logistics capacities for control over all possessions of the Church.

THE FALL OF A CHINESE BUDDHIST MONK: LAW AND STATE GOVERNANCE OF BUDDHISM IN POST-IMPERIAL CHINA

AbstractIn August 2018, revelations of the sexual, financial, and administrative misconduct of a high-profile Chinese Buddhist monk named Xuecheng 學誠 were in the spotlight of domestic and international attention. The validity of the allegations and their social and religious impact have been widely debated, and this article focuses on the legal procedures used in handling the allegations and traces their source back to the Republican era (1911–1949). The state's governance of Buddhism and the efficacy of the Buddhist clergy's jurisdictional self-governance operating in Xuecheng's case in China today are significantly older than the People's Republic of China. As early as 1929, ordained Buddhists collectively denounced personal clerical privileges, in exchange for the state law's protection on monastic properties. Then, while protesting against unfavorable articles in the Charter of the Buddhist Association of China (Zhongguo fojiaohui zhang cheng中國佛教會章程) proposed by the Nationalist government in 1936, the Buddhist clergy lost their legal jurisdiction over adjudicating internal disputes among ordained Buddhists. These two events have come to define the relationship between the state and the Buddhist establishment in contemporary China, where state law is harsh on religion while enforcement through legal practice is lax.

La xarxa viària catalana a l’Alta Edat Mitjana. Una aproximació des de la cartografia

Après avoir exposé quels étaient les principaux types de voies existant entre le IX et le XIIeme siècles et les principales caractéristiques de ces chemins, les auteurs tentent d'aborder ce que l'on sait au sujet des différents aspects du réseau de voirie du Haut Moyen-Age en Catalogne. Cela se fait à partir de l'analyse des sources diverses et presque toujours grâce a l'aide complémentaire de la carro­graphie. Les auteurs font mention de voies qui portent des noms différents (vies francisques, vies cardoneses, etc.) et parlent aussi des chemins les plus importants en relation avec les marchés de l'époque et l'activité mercantile. De même, ils ratta­chent l'existence des voies a la répartition des domaines monastiques, aux itinérai­res que suivaient ceux qui portaient les clochettes mortuaires, à l’existence de for­tifications des premiers siècles médiévaux (les cluses) et a la manière dont s'organisait le peuplement dans les différents villages. Ils essaient aussi de mieux connaître les caractéristiques et l'ancienneté des chemins a l'aide des limites des paroisses, des affrontements au sujet de terrains, de la distribution, sur un terri­toire donné, des lieux où vivaient les membres d'une confrérie et finalement a tra­vers l’analyse des caractéristiques et de la réparation des patronymes avant l’an 1000.

ASPECTE DIN ISTORIA MĂNĂSTIRILOR ROMÂNEȘTI. PREZENȚA UNOR ÎNCHISORI ÎN PERIOADA MODERNĂ

Monastic detention has existed since the 6tth century, but the transformation of monasteries into prisons and other institution of confinement such as houses of correction, psychiatric hospitals, sanatoriums, asylums etc., arose at a time when the ideas of the Enlightenment were embodied in the society. This was a point of inflection of the pre-modern and modern world. The paradigm shift gradually began, in the 17th century in Western Europe, until the 19th century in the Romanian Principalities. With the secularization of monastic property in 1863, and delayed construction of new prisons, a number of monasteries changed their full function, becoming prisons. The consequences were disastrous: monastic ensembles, most of them of a priceless spiritual, architectural and historical value were in many cases irreversible destroyed and their mission altered.

Late Byzantium in the Works of Margarita A. Poljakovskaja

This paper commemorates Margarita Adol’fovna Poljakovskaja (1933–2020), the head of the Ural school of Byzantine studies and the respected authority in the history and culture of late Byzantium. The author makes the reader acquainted with Professor Poljakovskaja’s academic biography, the topics of her researches, and the results of her studies in various aspects of the Byzantine history from the thirteenth to fifteenth century. The paper has revealed a few key topics studied by Professor Poljakovskaja: monastic properties in late Byzantine cities; Byzantine rhetoric and epistolography; social and political thought; intellectual life; social structures in the Byzantine society; palace ceremonies and court culture; and the Byzantines’ emotional world and daily life. It has been stated that although Professor Poljakovskaja used abundant and varied methodology produced by historical and philological researches, she preferred the anthropological approach. Her attention concentrated on a person and the person’s notion of the time and self. Reconstructions of intellectual and social life in the period of decline of the Byzantine empire loomed large in the historian’s studies, and the key topic of her researches was the problem of the “person, society, and power”.

The Road to Redemption: Killing Snakes in Medieval Chinese Buddhism

In the medieval Chinese context, snakes and tigers were viewed as two dominant, threatening animals in swamps and mountains. The animal-human confrontation increased with the expansion of human communities to the wilderness. Medieval Chinese Buddhists developed new discourses, strategies, rituals, and narratives to handle the snake issue that threatened both Buddhist and local communities. These new discourses, strategies, rituals, and narratives were shaped by four conflicts between humans and animals, between canonical rules and local justifications, between male monks and feminized snakes, and between organized religions and local cultic practice. Although early Buddhist monastic doctrines and disciplines prevented Buddhists from killing snakes, medieval Chinese Buddhists developed narratives and rituals for killing snakes for responding to the challenges from the discourses of feminizing and demonizing snakes as well as the competition from Daoism. In medieval China, both Buddhism and Daoism mobilized snakes as their weapons to protect their monastic property against the invasion from each other. This study aims to shed new light on the religious and socio-cultural implications of the evolving attitudes toward snakes and the methods of handling snakes in medieval Chinese Buddhism.

THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES IN SOMERSET: THE RECORDS OF THE COURT OF AUGMENTATIONS AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES, KEW (E 321)

In 1536, following the onset of the English Reformation, Thomas Cromwell established the Court of Augmentations to manage the large-scale accumulation of former monastic property. These documents, ...

Secularization reform in the Russian Empire in the 18th century and closing of Sloboda-Ukrainian monasteries of the Belgorod Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church

The article is devoted to the historically determined process of closing of Sloboda-Ukrainian monasteries of the Belgorod diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church during the so-called secularization reform of the 18th century in the Russian Empire. The general historical context of church secularization in Russia in the 18th century is analyzed. It is shown that Russian secularization was a logical consequence of establishment of state control over church, which was done by Peter I. Church became an integral part of the state apparatus of Russia. Since then, state intervention in church affairs has became a legal norm. In fact, the power over the Russian Orthodox Church was concentrated in the emperor’s hands. Given the strengthening of the absolutist imperial power under Catherine II, any struggle of church against the state church became hopeless. Thus, the Russian secularization reform of the 18th century actually turned out to be persecution of the church. It is noted that with the loss of independence by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and its transfer by the Patriarch of Constantinople Dionysius IV to the Moscow Patriarchs, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church became trapped between the hammer and the anvil of state-church opposition in Russia. The author sought to show that the events of the second half of the 80s of the 18th century during the closure of the Sloboda-Ukrainian monasteries were closely related to the general situation of the enslaved Ukrainian lands within the Russian Empire. The destruction of the Orthodox monastic environment of the Sloboda Ukraine (Slobozhanshchyna) concerned not only the church life. It directly affected the basics of the Ukrainian colonization of the “Wild Field” lands. According to the author, the Ukrainians made not only a military and economic contribution to the development of the future of Sloboda Ukraine during the colonization of the “Wild Field” lands, but also a spiritual and religious one. The author states that it completed the institutionalization of the concept of “Ukrainian Slobozhanshchyna”. The article states that in 1786–1788 the secularization measures were extended to the Ukrainian lands of the Russian Empire. The peculiarity of the religious life of Slobozhanshchyna at that time was that it was administratively subject to management by the Belgorod bishops. Despite this subordination to the ROC, certain Ukrainian peculiarities in the organization of life and ritual were preserved in the Sloboda-Ukrainian lands. The secular and ecclesiastical authority of the empire sought to eliminate this difference. The policy of secularization of the suburban monasteries with their massive closures was intended to establish complete uniformity in the Orthodox-religious sphere throughout the empire. In 1787 the Russian authorities began to close the Sloboda-Ukrainian monasteries of the Belgorod diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church. The closure of the Sloboda-Ukrainian monasteries was accompanied by a sharp reduction in the number of Orthodox monasteries on the territory of the Ukrainian Slobozhanshchyna with a simultaneous sharp decrease in the number of monks. As a result of the secularization reform of the Russian model, the monastic life of Slobozhanshchyna was almost destroyed. The leading Orthodox monasteries of the region did not escape the closure either. Due to confisc ated monastic property, the Russian treasury was replenished with land, crafts and considerable finances. As in the Russian lands, in Slobozhanshchyna enhanced state control over monastic life was provided, more strict church orders were established and the remnants of Ukrainian Orthodox traditions were destroyed.Keywords: Sloboda Ukraine, monasteries, secularization, orthodoxy, church, state, power

Bell Names in the History of the Russian Language (Linguistic and Cultural Aspect)

The paper considers principles of naming the bells and the main features, according to which the bell could get either name. Scientists believe that to a greater extent the structure of such onym units characterizes the specifics of how the bells were treated in Kievan Rus and the overall attitude of the Russians to them. The study was based on the analysis of the unique catalogue containing linguistic units and reflecting the history of bells, bell ringing and bell casting. The main sources of the study included compiled chronicles, archive materials, register of monastic and temple property, inscriptions on bells, and church charters. The study was conducted through comparative-historical, linguistic and cultural analysis, as well as field analysis within the cognitive stylistics. As a result, 51 bell names and their historical background were analyzed. The authors conclude that the study of linguistic units related to the history of bells and bell ringing in Russia alongside with their casting features will make it possible to bridge the historical knowledge gap and to draw some conclusions on the way the Russians perceive the linguistic worldview of this unique element of the Russian culture.

Konfiskata czy sekwestr nieruchomości klasztornych w Królestwie Polskim w 1864 r.?

After the fall of the January Uprising (1863/1864), the Tsarist government abolished the last elements of political and administrative autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland, transforming it into the Vistula Land. Insurgents and their families as well as the Catholic Church, as a major mainstay of Polishness, were most affected by the Tsarist repressions. One of the major points of these anti-Church repressions conducted by the Tsarist government was the dissolution and reorganization of monasteries carried out under the ukase issued by Tsar Alexander II on October 27/November 8, 1864. The dissolution of the monastery entailed the occupation of the whole monastic property. The monastery church was turned over to the nearest parish administration as a parish or rectorial church. Land and other properties were transferred to the management of the State Treasury. In historical literature, the question of secularization of the properties which belonged to the abolished and closed monasteries in 1864 is neither clear-cut nor free from doubts. Was it really about taking over monastic goods by the State Treasury? In the article, the author proves that the Tsar’s ukase of 1864 did not claim the state-owned property towards the occupied monastic land. The land remained the property of the Church, staying under indefinite State Treasury management (the so-called sequestration). The question arises, however, as to which ecclesiastical legal person that property belonged to, since the current holder of property law, namely the monastery was disbanded. The answer to this question can be found in the Ukase which states that the property is under “diocesan sovereignty”, namely the bishop or archbishop relevant for the particular monastery’s location. It also remained in line with the regulations of canon law of the Catholic Church. The principle of canon law has been and still is that in case of the liquidation of an ecclesiastical moral (legal) person, its assets automatically, by virtue of law, become the property of the legal (directly superior) person. This principle was established by a canon 1501 of the Code of Canon Law of 1917, whose regulation was a repetition of the principles of the Corpus Juris Canonici which was used in the 19 th century. Tsar of Russia and his officials were obliged to respect the norms of canon law of the Catholic Church in the Kingdom of Poland (Congress Poland) under the Concordat of August 3, 1847 concluded between Tsar Nicholas I and Pope Pius IX. In case of the liquidation of the monastery under the Ukase of 1864 with simultaneous taking over the monastic properties by the State management, they did not become no one’s property. Under canon law, this property was automatically transferred to the ecclesiastical, legal (directly superior) person.

Propiedad monástica y sustento alimentario: el patrimonio productivo del monasterio de Sant Cugat del Vallès (siglos X y XI)

This paper aims to study the productive assets of the monastery of Sant Cugat del Valles between the 10th and 11th centuries from a territorial perspective. Georeferencing the information in its rich cartulary and through the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), we intend to approach to the progressive increase of its possessions in the county of Barcelona and to the diversity of productive spaces (farmland, livestock, fisheries, food processing areas: mills and bread furnaces) that constituted their heritage. The maps resulting from this process will allow us to know the territorial evolution of the monastic property and their asset management strategies, designed to ensure both food sustenance of the monks and economic development of the community.

Le « vakf chrétien » : une institution ottomane adaptée aux besoins de la Grande Église

The institution of vakf or wakf (pious foundations) has always played a very important role in Islamic law. The vakf designs an inalienable religious endowment or a donated property (a plot of land, a building or even cash) for Muslim religious or charitable purposes. The donated assets are held by a charitable trust. Its legal consequences run across public and private law. Surprisingly, vakf was accepted as a practice by the Orthodox Church. It was applied by the Ottoman religious courts to Christian religious foundations i.e. monasteries and monastic properties through the centuries. Two Ottoman judicial acts (vakifname) establishing “Christian vakfs”, from 1569 and 1846 that are kept in the archives of the Mount Athos monastery of Simonopetra, reveal the complexity of the issues raised by this legal transplant.

The Poor Sisters of Söflingen: Religious Corporations as Property Litigants, 1310–1317

The Poor Sisters of Söflingen:Religious Corporations as Property Litigants, 1310–1317 Heidi L. Febert The convent of sisters of the Order of St. Damian and St. Clare of Söflingen, initially established just outside the city of Ulm in what is today the state of Baden-Württemberg in Germany, moved to the village of Söflingen, slightly west of its first home, sometime in the early 1250s, and survived there until 1814 when it was finally dissolved.1 During the centuries of activity, the convent maintained a large archive of documents including charters, privileges, and other letters. The history of the foundation was already discussed in 1488 in the work of a local Dominican, Felix Fabri.2 But the modern historian responsible for cataloging much of the extant documentation was Max Miller (1901–1973).3 Miller, a Catholic priest and the director of the Staatsarchiv Stuttgart from 1951 until his retirement in 1967, produced a register of the Söflingen documents starting with the earliest land donations and continuing to 1550. He organized and numbered all of them according to date and included brief descriptions and abbreviated notes concerning their location in his register. It is still used as the finding tool, or Findbuch, for Söflingen’s documents at the state archive in Ludwigsburg, and Miller’s numbering [End Page 327] system gives most items their current call number. Many of the items he listed can be found at the Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg as well.4 The key source for this essay is located under the call number B509 U175. Recently digitized and made available through the website of the Staatsarchiv, it is a transcript of all court documents produced during a property suit held in Zurich and brought in 1310 against the sisters by the Benedictine monastery of Reichenau. The text is written in one hand, in Latin, and by a named scribe, on a roll of parchment 406 cm long and 23.5 cm wide, of which the text column covers 19.5 cm. The inner five of the seven folios of parchment making up the roll have a series of slits at the top and bottom. The slits on the adjoining sheets were aligned and tied together by lacing a strip of scrap parchment through the openings. Seals were appended to the ends of the strips that bound each sheet to the next, connecting them and also ensuring the authenticity of the transcripts. On the left side of the document roll the seals of the cantor of the cathedral of Zurich, one of the judges subdelegated to hear the suit, were affixed, and, on the right side, the seals of the treasurer of the cathedral of Zurich, the other subdelegated judge, were appended.5 Additional court records, found in the Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg and in the Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, help retrace the trajectory that led to the final resolution of the conflict in 1317.6 Examination of the document roll and related materials allows for an in-depth exploration of three closely related matters. The first concerns the judicial wrangling between Reichenau and Söflingen, which illustrates in revealing detail the typical procedural formalities and tactics of monastic property suits. The litigation went forward in accordance with the rules of late medieval church law, and a close description and thorough technical analysis of the original Latin record (fully transcribed in Appendix Two) will offer the English reader a rare glimpse of how ownership quarrels were handled by the ecclesiastical judges of the period. The painstaking reconstruction of the respective lines of juristic argument shows, secondly, the extraordinary focus that plaintiffs and defendants [End Page 328] placed on what might otherwise appear as a minor legal issue, namely, the religious affiliation the nuns of Söflingen would claim for their particular mode of collective existence: Were they Clares? Were they from the order of Saint Damian? Or could they simultaneously be both? As late as 1312, the corporate self of the enclosed sisters was adversely affected by uncertain naming practices. Third and last, the examination will suggest that it was frequently mundane factors and especially the desire to protect rights to property and income that prompted women...

Beyond royal estates and monasteries: landownership in the early medieval Ardennes

Most historians who have studied the medieval Ardennes have focused exclusively on royal and monastic properties, assuming that every early reference to land in the area is either to the property of royal monasteries or to fiscal land. Actually, the evidence from the region around Bastogne (Belgium), the centre of what would later be called pagus Ardennensis, shows that as early as the seventh century ‘private’ landowners were present and active in the area. This observation leads to a new reading of the rural economy and society, the formation of monastic property and the links between local and royal power in the early medieval Ardennes.

Polish Encounters, Russian Identity by David L. Ransel , Bozena Shallcross (review)

16o SEER, 86, I, 2008 the often virulent theological divergences, rose above controversies by refusing to take sides, thus preserving their friendshipwith both conflicting parties. The last paper, twelve, by Christopher Giros, 'Pr?sence athonite ? Thessalonique, XIIIe-XVe si?cles' (pp. 255-78) deals with the property and administration of dependencies owned by differentmonastic foundations, known as metochia,used for the lodging of themonks who visited Thessalonike for the affairs of themonastery. The metochiausually comprised a church, lodgings for themonks, other annexes and a well, all these in an enclosed courtyard. The management of this property was in the hands of monks, though, when necessary, assisted by lay administrators. In the course of time these properties increased through donations, exchange, purchase, or con fiscation for non-repayment of loan. This expansion of monastic property, dating from the middle of the thirteenth centuiy onwards, and ranging from houses and shops, to vineyards, orchards and wine presses, encountered complications often leading to litigation. At other times the upkeep of immovable property proved too expensive, forcing themonastery to transfer these metochiato individuals for a specific time on condition that repairs were undertaken and completed before they were restored to the monastery. Giros's paper provides a wealth of detail that casts light not only on the actual management and holdings of the Athonite monasteries, but also on the topography of the city, the shape of itshouses, shops, open spaces and the occupation of its inhabitants, who ranged from doctors and lawyers, to master builders, masons, painters and saddlers. No less valuable is the information on cost of labour and materials. The volume ends with twoArchaeological Reports, 'The Amorium Project: Research and Excavation in 2000', by C. S. Lightfoot, Y. Mergen, B. Y. Olcay, and J. Witte-Orr, (pp. 279-97 w^m illustrations), and 'Excavations and Survey at Androna, Syria: The Oxford Team 2000', byMarlia Mundell Mango (pp. 293-97 with illustrations), followed by a brief report on the themes and conclusions of the Dumbarton Oaks Symposium held in 2002, entitled 'Realities in the Arts of theMedieval Mediterranean, 800-1500 (PP- 299-301). This volume on Late Byzantine Thessalonike, important and often thought provoking, is a most welcome contribution to scholarship. The Hellenic Institute J. Chrysostomides Royal Holloway, Universityof London Ransel, David L. and Shallcross, Bozena (eds). Polish Encounters, Russian Identity.Indiana-Michigan Series inRussian and East European Studies. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2005. vii + 218 pp. Maps. Notes. Index. $22.95 (paperback). The book under review is a collection of diverse essays set in different time periods and differentfields but nevertheless well connected through theirfocus on one important topic: the role of Poland and Poles in the development of Russian (as well as Soviet) identity. Poland and Russia are important as 'significantothers' which played key roles in their respective histories. Even if REVIEWS l6l one could argue thatRussia was more important forPoland than Poland for Russia, at least during the last two centuries, there seems to be a dispropor tionately stronger interest in the role of Russia in the construction of Polish identity than in the functionswhich Poland had for the development ofmodern Russian identity.Thus the book can be viewed as an important step in balancing an inequality in the study ofmutual perceptions of nations in Central and Eastern European culture. As all the essays in the volume demonstrate, for centuries, up until the time of the late Soviet Union, in cultural termsPoland was Russia's closest signifi cant European neighbour as well as a key intermediary in its relations with West European culture. Like Western Europe, Poland isperceived inRussia in a very ambivalent way, both as arrogant, haughty and often domineering but also as fascinating and culturally attractive. This collection of studieswell illustrates how, on the one hand, Poland was an important face of theWest toRussia, but on the other hand, as a Slavic country which had profound cultural and historical tieswith Russia, itwas not perceived as truly Western and alien. Paradoxically, Poland was, at least since the late eighteenth cen tury, not only a nation dominated by Russia, seen as a minor, often ignored actor, but also perceived at the same time as a dangerous, covert enemy...

Central administration versus provincial arbitrary governance: Patmos and Mount Athos monasteries in the 16th century

The confiscation of monastic properties ordered by Selim II in 1568 served as a catalyst precipitating a process of negotiation and mutual accommodation between the centre – represented by the sultan and his jurisconsult- and the periphery articulated by the monks. Even in formulaic imperial orders, it is apparent that the monastic communities successfully negotiated the terms for the normalisation of the affair, whereas the jurisconsult accommodated the Porte’s interests to the local society’s needs. On the local level, the judge functioned as a mediator, addressing the monks’ requirements, even if he had to transgress a number of Islamic rules and imperial orders. Thus, this case study illustrates the gradual transformation of a polity in dialogue with local communities.

Guardians of the Sacred: The Nuns of Soissons and the Slipper of the Virgin Mary

What could it mean to a medieval monastic community to own a valuable object? Certainly, property in general was crucial to the survival of a stable community, ideals of poverty and the thirteenth-century Franciscan experiment in radical poverty notwithstanding. More specifically, what did it mean to own not simply a field or mill that generated revenue, but an object that was believed to have power beyond its material qualities? Such objects—saints’ relics and wonder-working images—did of course also generate revenue, but their meaning and role for the monastic community and the wider society could be much richer than that. And what if the monastic community was a convent of nuns, of professed religious women whose lives were shaped not just by the rule they shared with their male counterparts, but also by the codes, both implicit and increasingly explicit, that constrained the range of women's religious activities?Although the first two of these questions—about monastic property and the religious value of sacred objects—have been extensively discussed in scholarship on the Middle Ages, a specific focus on gender in relation to monastic ownership of sacred objects has not been widely examined. My focus on gender here is generated by two salient aspects of religious life in the twelfth century, the period of this study. First, there was an increasing articulation of the priesthood as the sole means of mediating divine presence, and of that priesthood as exclusively male.

Transforming Monumental Landscapes in Late Antique Egypt: Monastic Dwellings in Legal Documents from Western Thebes

The conversion of temples into churches may offer the most vivid portrayal of cultural transformation in the architectural environment of late antique Egypt; however, the landscape was arguably more radically reworked when early Christian ascetics adapted earlier funerary architecture to domestic and other purposes. The rich archaeological remains of late sixth-eighth century Western Thebes, together with literary texts concerning the region's inhabitants, allow us to explore the practical and ideological implications of adaptive reuse of funerary architecture in a single circumscribed region. This paper concentrates on the vocabulary of space used in one genre of legal documents unearthed at Western Thebes. Wills (διαθήκαι) describe monastic property located in the region and offer one point of access by which we may explore how the region's inhabitants understood their monumental landscape.