The location of Justiniana Prima remains one of the most persistent problems in Balkan archaeology, sustaining scholarly interest since the first early modern translations of Procopius’ De Aedificiis in the sixteenth century. Two principal models dominate. The first situates Justinian’s foundation at the site of Caričin Grad near Lebane, close to Leskovac, a position underpinned by more than a century of investigation, especially of early Christian basilicas. The second, first articulated by Arthur Evans, places the city in the Skopje region, within the historical core defined by the Old Bazaar and Kale Fortress. This latter view draws on a multidisciplinary dossier: historical analysis; toponymic readings of the nearby villages of Badar and Taor – associated in the sources with Justin I and his nephew Justinian I; and roughly two decades of archaeological research at the fortress of Taor. Further contextual support derives from the Skopje aqueduct, described already by Evans and reexamined in recent rescue excavations in and around the Old Bazaar. On present evidence, any attempt to fix the site of Justiniana Prima must rest on a comprehensive appraisal of the full body of arguments and data. Selective reading skews the outcome. Ultimately, only an unequivocal epigraphic inscription can furnish secure identification of one candidate as the city founded by Justinian.

<i>Slavery and Race: Philosophical Debates in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries</i> , by Julia Jorati <i>Slavery and Race: Philosophical Debates in the Eighteenth Century</i> , by Julia Jorati

This article aims to examine the theological themes of mission in the works of John Calvin and their implementation in the 16th century, as well as their significance to the mission of the present-day church. This purpose contradicts the criticism of modern mission experts who consider Calvin to have made no contribution to the mission movement and even to have weakenedit. However, an in-depth study of Calvin’s works, using a theological-historical method, reveals the meaning of mission, the Bible as a missional book, the mission of the Trinity, the holistic mission of the kingdom of God, the church as the sole agent of mission, the missionary function of the apostles, holistic mission, and inclusive mission to the nations. All of these were implemented by Calvin in Geneva in the 16th century, continued and contextualised by Calvinist mission experts and missionaries in many countries, including Indonesia, in the 21st century.

ABSTRACT The Hausa city-states of northern Nigeria appear abruptly in written records only around the latter half of the second millennium AD when Islam linked them to a global network and a tradition of literacy but almost nothing is known about their various stages of growth. Surame, in the Kebbi River Valley and linked to the kingdom of Kebbi, is a key site that has excellent survival of both archaeological monuments and occupation layers corresponding to pre-and post-fifteenth-century phases. A new phase of work has used the plan of Surame as it existed in the sixteenth century and correlated this with the surviving traces that can be seen today. A total of thirteen test pits were dug across the site, while two that yielded the most cultural materials were chosen for more detailed excavation. The research reported here focuses on the changing characters of the ceramics, baked clay beads and subsistence economy from one occupational phase to the next. The Surame site was clearly settled before the foundation of the Kebbi kingdom in the sixteenth century and economic activity in terms of food production, storage, processing and consumption, as well as craft production, was well developed much earlier than previously thought. Archaeological evidence indicates that there is more continuity than change between the two settlement phases.

ABSTRACT Early modern Spanish culture and thought are said to be defined by an unequivocal epistemic trust in memory. This article challenges this view by surveying a neglected set of negative ideas of memory which enjoyed wide currency in the period, and whose analysis reveals the contours of an intellectual crisis of memory which took place between the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The article studies said crisis as a cross-sectional process of intellectual change steeped in the intellectual world of early modern humanism, whose contributors belonged to the European Republic of Letters, and whose turn away from memory contributed to the emergence of Enlightenment attitudes towards knowledge.

Abstract This article analyzes the environmental entanglements of the Mughal Empire in terms of the role of nonhuman animals in its formation under Emperor Akbar. The article studies the roles of animals in three broad spheres: military processes, royal authority, and gift economy. It argues that seen through the lenses of these animal functions, we can identify two broad transformations that the Mughal Empire underwent during the second half of the sixteenth century. First, the changing patterns of mobilization and the use of certain animals point to the gradual sedentarization of the Mughal polity. Second, certain forms of engagement with animals help us trace the emergence of increasingly hyperbolic visions of kingship and ultimately the articulation of universal sovereignty. This article challenges the anthropocentrism of existing Mughal historiography by recovering, highlighting, and analyzing the myriad material and cultural functions of animals in the functioning of the empire.

Abstract This text examines Jesuit involvement in inquisitorial activity in the Portuguese colony of Angola from the reopening of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1681 until the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from the colony in 1760. The Jesuits supported inquisitorial action in West Central Africa beginning in the late sixteenth century. Despite this long history, researchers have largely ignored the collaboration of the Jesuits with the Portuguese Holy Office in this part of the African continent. I demonstrate that investigating the relationship between the Society of Jesus and the Lisbon Inquisition in West Central Africa adds a unique perspective to our understanding of the globe-spanning activity and collaboration between both institutions. Through an analysis of the inquisitorial documentation produced by the Jesuits, this article not only explores the order’s involvement in inquisitorial activity but also the interaction of different spheres of Portuguese Angolan society with the Jesuits and the Inquisition.

Abstract The translation of long 龍 , a culturally loaded term in Chinese tradition, into Indo-European linguistic and cultural contexts has long posed a challenge for translators and scholars. In the sixteenth century, the Spanish Sinologist Juan González de Mendoza employed the term serpiente dorada (golden serpent) to signify the symbol of Chinese imperial power. While contemporary Chinese scholars have acknowledged early sinologists’ use of “serpent” in place of “dragon” for the rendition of long , they tend to interpret this choice as a pragmatic compromise: selecting the lesser of two evils, based on the assumption that “serpent” was the less culturally charged of two terms. This view, however, overlooks the fact that both terms bore strong negative associations in medieval and early modern Europe. This article argues that the key distinction lies not in the degree of negativity, but in the specific anti-Christian meaning of ‘dragon’ in the sixteenth-century European cultural memory. Depicting the Chinese emperor with the symbol of the dragon would have evoked an image of a pagan, anti-Christian tyrant, consequently undermining the evangelizing intent of Mendoza’s book, The History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China and the Situation Thereof . Instead, the choice of “serpent” served as a symbolic displacement aligned with the author’s ideological and textual goals. At the same time, his didactic agenda was subtly embedded within a utopian vision of China, giving rise to what may be seen as a new cultural paradigm. When interpreted through the concrete political and economic dynamics of Sino-European interaction, this paradigm can be seen as a historical reflection of the early modern development of Sino-Western relations.

Abstract This article explores how and why English armies changed between the mid-fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. It thereby addresses a topic that has hitherto not received the attention it deserves, especially the issue of change and continuity across the late medieval and early modern divide. Administrative sources, such as indentures of war and inventories, are examined to trace changes in the terminology used to describe soldiers, the weaponry with which they were equipped and ratios of different types of combatants. This evidence is used to demonstrate that the role of men-at-arms and archers changed markedly over the course of the fifteenth century, with the latter evolving into a form of hybrid infantry. The reign of Henry VII was especially significant, with key developments including the emergence of new categories of soldiers. Contrary to past assessments, the bill only became the preferred English melee weapon in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, with the pike used alongside it in large numbers. European influences were important in driving these changes, which were integrated into a distinctive English style of warfare.

The paper examines the dispersal of the Grimani family’s painting collection from Santa Maria Formosa during the first half of the nineteenth century. Drawing on archival sources and historical accounts, it highlights the process of musealization of the palace between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the subsequent sale of artworks, emphasizing the roles of Virginia Chigi Albani and Michele Grimani. Particular attention is given to an octagonal painting now housed at Kingston Lacy in England, acquired by its owner in 1851. The study proposes the painting’s original placement in the Sala del Camino of Palazzo Grimani, offering insights into the decorative and cultural layout of the residence during the sixteenth century.

Sweet bags were small, embroidered textile pouches used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to carry fragrant substances, money, books, sewing tools, mirrors, or other personal items. They were often exchanged as gifts, used to preserve clothing in wardrobes, or used to protect against contaminated air. Beyond their material function, both their name and some of their uses suggest an olfactory dimension, as they were typically filled with aromatic herbs—combinations frequently recorded in recipe books, medical, and household manuals, including Countrey Contentments, or The English Husvvife, Praxis Medicinæ, or The Physitian’s Practise, and Exenterata, among others. Through close reading and literary analysis of such primary sources combined with a sensory approach, this article traces the possible ingredients of these pouches in Early Modern recipes and argues that their olfactory content positions them as objects of the “olfactory gaze” (Verbeek), thereby transforming them into elements of olfactory heritage. Ultimately, the article seeks to recreate the olfactory component of sweet bags within recipe-related practices, and broader domestic traditions of Early Modern England.

Chinese and Persian Muslim influences emerge vividly in the performance traditions of West Java’s coastal and highland regions. Narratives surrounding the Wali Songo, the formation of wayang golek, the appearance of a Chinese woman in Javanese Islamic royal lore, and leonine figures in martial and ceremonial contexts reveal deep layers of cultural hybridity. Interactions among Sufi, Shi’a, Chinese, and Persian diasporic communities shaped the aesthetic and religious life of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Java, leaving traces that remain embedded in contemporary arts. Despite periodic fundamentalist pressures that seek to narrow Southeast Asian Islamic expression, performance traditions continue to act as repositories of plural histories and intercultural encounters. Analysis of textual sources, oral narratives, and performative forms demonstrates how artistic practices embody long-term exchanges across trade, religion, and community life. The argument situates West Javanese performance as a living archive that preserves and re-enacts complex histories of contact, mobility, and Islamic diversity in the archipelago. Abstrak Pengaruh Islam Tionghoa dan Persia tampak kuat dalam tradisi pertunjukan di wilayah pesisir dan pegunungan Jawa Barat. Narasi Wali Songo, pembentukan wayang golek, kisah perempuan Tionghoa dalam sejarah istana Islam Jawa, serta figur singa dalam konteks bela diri dan upacara mengungkap lapisan hibriditas budaya yang panjang. Interaksi komunitas Sufi, Syiah, Tionghoa, dan Persia membentuk kehidupan estetik dan religius Jawa abad ke-15–16, meninggalkan jejak yang bertahan dalam kesenian kini. Meskipun ada tekanan fundamentalis yang berupaya mempersempit ekspresi Islam Asia Tenggara, tradisi pertunjukan tetap menjadi penyangga sejarah plural yang memperlihatkan perjumpaan antarbudaya. Kajian terhadap sumber tekstual, narasi lisan, dan bentuk pertunjukan menunjukkan bagaimana praktik seni menghidupkan kembali sejarah kontak dan keberagaman Islam di Nusantara.

ABSTRACT Narva, located in eastern Estonia by the Narva River between the Baltic Sea and Lake Peipus, was a locus of commerce and active power struggles during the medieval and early modern periods. Although prehistoric faunal deposits show a large diversity in consumption, our knowledge of fish at Narva during the medieval and early modern period is, however, limited. Examining an assemblage of small fish bones together with castle records and customs ledgers from the town of Narva from the late sixteenth century provides a picture of the available fish resources for Narva consumers. The materials show that multiple fish species and products were available to the residents of Narva. While most of the species could be fished nearby, long-distance trade occurred with these species. Seasonal patterns of availability and the use of certain species and products could be identified in this study, as well as social differences regarding fish consumption. This small-scale study shows the research potential in combining primary zooarchaeological data with targeted information from archive records, for the purpose of furthering the environmental and social history of fish; this research method could be more widely adapted to other groups of animals.

Abstract The Uskoks of Senj (Croatia), Christian refugees active in the sixteenth-century Adriatic, are often portrayed as Habsburg-supported privateers displaced from Balkan regions conquered by the Ottomans and driven by anti-Muslim motives. This article argues that by the late sixteenth century, the Uskoks had become pirates acting against all imperial powers – a transformation rooted in frontier migrations and class conflicts aboard Venetian galleys. Drawing on unpublished judicial records from the State Archive in Venice, it shows that both Venetian and Habsburg authorities pursued them, as Senj became a refuge for Dalmatian deserters escaping naval coercion. For these galley workers, joining the Uskoks offered an alternative to conversion to Islam as a means of emancipation. Trial records reveal that galley crews engaged in theft and smuggling, adopting pirate behaviors that prefigured the Uskoks’ broader shift from privateering to piracy.

The article investigates the development of towns in the Principality of Moldavia during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, highlighting the mixed character of the urban economy, in which agriculture coexisted alongside crafts and trade, maintaining a vital role in the economic life of towns. It analyzes the legal framework, the distribution of land ownership, and the proportion of the urban population engaged in agriculture, as well as the main branches of agrarian activity (cereal cultivation, viticulture, animal husbandry, horticulture, vegetable growing, and beekeeping), including the techniques and tools employed. The study also explores crafts related to the processing of agricultural products and both internal and external trade networks. The methodology combines documentary and archival source analysis with an interdisciplinary approach that integrates economic and urban history. The findings confirm that urban agriculture was a widespread phenomenon and that Moldavian towns functioned as resilient economic hubs, integrated into regional trade circuits. The article offers relevant conclusions for understanding the particularities of eastern European urbanization in the pre-modern era and serves as a foundation for future research in economic and urban history.

Abstract During the Renaissance, two ancient granite columns in the form of Egyptians stood in Tivoli. Depictions of the two monoliths reveal the networked exchanges of artistic ideas in the sixteenth century that engaged architecture within a long history of the reception of imperial conquest, including the subjugation of bodies under empire. Receptions of ancient, anthropomorphized columns flourished in sixteenth-century Europe, and the resulting discourse determined an iconography of these columns as architecture’s enslaved captives. The columns at Tivoli bore meaning as architectural fragments made of quarried and extracted African stone that attested to imperial Rome’s vast reach into its provinces. Processing the materiality of their stone medium along with the durational emergence of their sculptural becoming, this article advances the concept of the “bodying column” as a way to find the human in architectural fragments that are sculpted in the shape of human bodies.

Trioedd y meirch (the triads of the horses) make up a coherent sub-group within the corpus of Trioedd Ynys Prydain, or the Triads of the Island of Britain. Ten texts of trioedd y meirch survive from between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries; this article seeks to better understand the transmission and development of these texts. It identifies five main versions of trioedd y meirch which circulated within Wales during the medieval period and argues that the corpus as it survives today represents the contributions of the many scribes and copyists who encountered this material over a period of centuries and must be understood in its written context. This article also considers trioedd y meirch’s relationship to Canu y Meirch, a poem which survives in the Book of Taliesin (NLW Peniarth 2) and develops a relative choronology for the development of the expanded narrative triad Tri marchlwyth Ynys Prydain (‘Three horse-burdens of the Island of Britain’, TYP no. 44).

Abstract This article examines the little-known case of the Vistula Delta, where peasant communities independently introduced Lutheranism in the sixteenth century and preserved it for over two centuries despite the pressures of the Counter-Reformation. Unlike most rural populations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, bound by serfdom and deprived of rights, the peasants of the Vistula Delta enjoyed unusual autonomy rooted in their affluence and in the structures of the dyke associations, originally created for flood control. These organizations provided a framework for collective decision-making, enabling villagers to appoint and dismiss clergy, oversee church finances, and sustain schools. The article asks why these communities opted for the Reformation and why they were willing to bear its heavy financial costs. It situates their experience in comparison with other examples of the “Reformation from below,” including the German Peasants’ War. By analysing this case, the article highlights the interplay between environmental risk, communal self-governance, and religious autonomy, and argues that the Vistula Delta peasants created a distinctive form of peasant Lutheranism—independent, durable, and deeply embedded in local society.

Abstract This article approaches the possibilities of researching regional demographic and economic differences in the Ottoman-controlled areas of the medieval Hungarian Kingdom proper in two very different settings. First, it provides research options on sixteenth-century dually ruled Hungary in the southeastern area between the Drava and the Danube. This region was the Habsburg-Ottoman border zone in this period. The second section of the article focuses on case studies of the subprovinces of Požega and Szeged and the possibilities of their comparison. Both of these sanjaks were positioned in the interior of Ottoman territory and shared similarities, but they were also very different in certain aspects, particularly the presence of Muslims. The data for this article is provided by several Hungarian and, to a more considerable extent, Ottoman surveys, which are to a large degree digitized. The authors use the data on settlements, population, landholding, and state income from taxes preserved in these sources to provide various indicators that can outline the possibilities for further research.

During the voyages that led him to discover the new continent bearing his name, Amerigo Vespucci made interesting astronomical observations of the Southern sky. In the past, his data have been interpreted with criteria that do not follow Vespucci’s indications, resulting in identifications that are not credible or even leading to the assertion that the data themselves are incomprehensible. However, it is possible to construct a coherent picture of all the information, arriving at an identification that is in some cases very probable, in other cases almost certain, of the stars described by Vespucci. Analysis of documents shows that he made good-quality measurements, but his incomplete knowledge of ancient texts prevented him from distinguishing the new stars from the already known ones, giving rise to a period of confusion in sixteenth century celestial cartography.