Thirteenth Century Research Articles

සිදත් සඟරාවේ ලිංග භේදය පිළිබඳ විමර්ශනාත්මක අධ්‍ය‍යනයක්

The only book currently available to learn Sinhala grammar is Sidath Sagara. This was written in the thirteenth century. Sidath Sagara talks about gender, only two genders as masculine and feminine nouns. Although Sidath Sagara says that there are two genders, according to the Sinhala practice, three genders are implemented. The third gender is the neuter gender. Sinhala gender has been introduced after paying attention to the gender difference in Pali and Sanskrit languages. Understand gender discrimination in Sidath Sagara without knowledge of Pali and Sanskrit languages. This is a problematic situation. Because of this, scholars refuse to explain the gender of the Sidath Sagara. Some people justify sidath Sagara's gender bias. This research was carried out in order to properly investigate Sidath Sagarava's gender examination and arrive at conclusions. why neuter gender is not valid in Sinhala in Sidath Sagarava's gender examination? is kept as the research problem. The main objective of the research was to study gender discrimination in Sidath Sagara. Studying the various ideologies that have been presented regarding gender discrimination, Sidath Sagara's research on gender and reaching balanced conclusions began. Sidath Sagara was kept as the primary source. Various editions of Sidath Sagara, Sinhala grammar books and Journals written in this regard, newspaper articles etc. were the secondary sources by studying the gender difference in Sidath Sagara and grammar tradition of Sinhala, it was kept as the basis of the research that the existing problems regarding gender discrimination in Sidath Sagara will be resolved. the research sample was only for the work of Sidath Sagara and Sinhala grammar tradition. From the data analysis of the research 1. Gender distiction as discrimination in Sidath Sagara is a gender discrimination used for poetry 2. the author of Sidath Sagara explains focusing on the gender distinction in Pali and Sanskrit languages and not focusing on the Sinhala language. 3. it is uncinded the three conclusions that Sidath Sagara's gender distinction is a traditional Sinhala grammatical tradition.

New Research on the Origin of Mosaic Gold

This article examines the origins of the golden pigment known as mosaic gold (SnS2), formed through the sublimation of tin with mercury, sulphur, and ammonium chloride. It explores the textual transmission of mosaic gold from the earliest known written testimonies, as well as the earliest material remnants of the pigment during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Additionally, the study introduces and analyses two new recipes from an earlier date: one comes from the Greek treatise known as the Anonymous of Zuretti; and the other from the Latin alchemical work attributed to pseudo-Avicenna, De anima. The analysis of these new recipes allows for a better understanding of the origin of the pigment and its connection with the medieval alchemical tradition inherited from the Arabic world. Based on these testimonies, the study proposes a new hypothesis about the origin, development, and etymology of mosaic gold.

EXCAVATIONS IN THE ANCIENT THEATRE OF SPARTA, 2008

This article presents the results of the 2008 excavation in the ancient theatre of Sparta conducted by the British School at Athens and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Laconia. Focused on the west side of the cavea, work aimed to locate the southern edge of the Late Antique settlement between the theatre and the sanctuary of Athena Chalkioikos; to establish the northern limits of the Late Antique settlement over the former orchestra; and to establish a more precise ceramic characterisation and chronology for the Early–Middle Byzantine period in Sparta. The area between settlement clusters on the acropolis and over the former orchestra was essentially open, with just a Byzantine terrace wall and path recorded. In the north-west part of the former cavea, a tomb built in the late eighth or early ninth century AD was used at least until the late thirteenth century for the burial of c. 29 individuals. This article presents the first results of a bioarchaeological study of the human remains, and studies of Byzantine pottery from the tomb interior and from the backfill of the pit in which the tomb was built (the latter including a notable quantity of Early Byzantine domestic ware). The 2008 findings are set in the larger context of research on post-antique phases in the theatre (drawing on the British School at Athens Archive) and on the material culture and urban topography of Byzantine Sparta. Almost all excavated contexts contained residual material of all periods. The article concludes with short catalogues of material which pre-dates the construction of the theatre and of inscriptions of all periods.

Vessel use at the Mycenaean Palace of Ayios Vasileios, Laconia, using Organic Residue Analysis

Abstract In Mycenaean palaces a wide range of consumption activities took place, from the most exclusive to mass-consumption. Here we apply organic residue analysis to a typologically wide ceramic assemblage from the Mycenaean palace of Ayios Vasileios (early fourteenth to mid thirteenth century BC), and the succeeding settlement of the early twelfth century BC, with the aim of investigating the functions of common shapes and to observe patterns of chronological and spatial differentiation related to the palatial and post-palatial phases, the first study of its kind for a Mycenaean palace.

The Merchant Scene of Biblical Drama: Rehabilitating the Female Input

Abstract This paper examines a ground-breaking innovation to medieval Easter plays: the creation of the extra-biblical merchant scene, in which the Marys purchase spices prior to their Visitatio Sepulchri. The patron of its earliest known representation was the female religious leader Uta von Kirchberg. An illuminated roundel in the Uta Codex she commissioned towards the end of her term as abbess of Niedermünster (1002–25), depicts the Holy women purchasing spices from a spice merchant. Until the twelfth century, this remained the only representation of an Easter merchant scene, visual or textual. The only textual Easter merchant scene predating the thirteenth century is within the twelfth-century Latin/Catalan Ludus Paschalis of Vic Cathedral, near Barcelona, a highly influential Easter text whose transnational impact has been traced in numerous later Easter texts across Europe, including many with merchant scenes. Around 2000, musicologists David Wulstan and Constant Mews suggested the renowned composer and poet Heloise (c. 1090s–1164) as its author. Widely accepted by musicologists, their attribution’s significance for the female impact on the merchant scene is barely acknowledged. Here, I ask: ‘how did women influence the creation, promotion and development of the merchant scene’s visual, textual and performative manifestations?’ By repeatedly reattributing responsibility for decisive input into the development of the merchant scene from anonymous male scribes to identified female religious leaders, my interdisciplinary analysis moves women to the centre of this creative process.

Greek Poetry in a Multicultural Society: Sicily and Salento in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

Abstract In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, southern Italy experienced a period of relative political stability and economic prosperity under the Normans as well as the Hohenstaufen dynasty that succeeded them. These cultural conditions fostered a cultural resurgence, which included the composition of Greek poetry. Poets in Sicily wrote from within a multicultural context, including the presence of Arabic- and Latin-speaking communities. Many of their poems illustrate the generative intersections between the Byzantine-Constantinopolitan, Latin, and Arabic traditions. Later in Salento, poetry was written in a rather closed Greek-speaking, Orthodox society. Comparing Greek poetry from Sicily and Salento shows some differences between composition in the two regions. Whereas Sicilian poetry includes especially creative narrative poems, composed for the rich and sophisticated courts of the island, the Salentine poetry bears the stamp of the schoolroom. In fact, most poems from both Sicily and Salento survive in manuscripts that can be traced to a pedagogical environment. While the circulation of these poems was limited to their surrounding regions, their literary sophistication betrays remarkable creativity and the multicultural conditions of composition, further evidence of the vitality of Greek literary culture far from the heartland of the Byzantine Empire.

England’s Jews: Finance, Violence, and the Crown in the Thirteenth Century, written by John Tolan

England’s Jews: Finance, Violence, and the Crown in the Thirteenth Century, written by John Tolan

The Martijn Trilogy Manuscripts: An Open Dataset for Analyzing Scribal Variation

Abstract The authors present a dataset containing transcriptions of manuscripts of the Middle Dutch strophic poem Martijn Trilogy by the Flemish poet Jacob van Maerlant. Of his very large oeuvre, Maerlant’s Strophic Poems had the longest tradition: originally written in the thirteenth century, copyists and printers continued to disseminate them until about 1500. These ten shorter poems on social, religious, and ethical issues stand out for their unusual and complex stanza form. The Martijn Trilogy was his most successful strophic poem: 17 text witnesses are extant, and the trilogy was imitated and even translated into French and Latin. This dataset contains hyperdiplomatic transcriptions of all witnesses, amounting to a total of 15,814 verses or 79,337 tokens. This open-access dataset abides by the fair principles, is licensed under a cc-by-sa license, and is made available in multiple, complementary file formats. Since these transcriptions are strictly diplomatic, this corpus offers valuable possibilities for research on scribal attributions (scribal profiling), abbreviations, stemmatology, textual stability and more.

Contibutuins of Muslims to Fundamental Research

The period spanning from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries, often referred to as the Islamic Golden Age, was marked by significant advancements in human knowledge attributed to Muslim scholars. The influence of this era is still evident today through various aspects of our daily lives, including the numeral system we use, terms such as algebra, algorithm, and almanac, as well as the nomenclature of celestial bodies. Unfortunately, much of this historical significance remains overlooked, as contemporary views of the Islamic world have largely diminished appreciation for its rich intellectual heritage. In contrast, this article aims to present an alternative viewpoint that diverges from the narratives commonly portrayed in 24-hour news cycles and online platforms. It is crucial to acknowledge the enduring legacy of Muslim contributions to intellectual progress, which have been recognized within Western society.

Ship pictures on the municipal seals of medieval seaports: Ship seals show notices to mariners on tokens of municipal identity

Many late-medieval western European seaports showed a ship in the central image of their municipal seal (a ship seal). Municipal seals to identify and authorize documents ranging from important supra-regional charters to local ephemera were widely used at the time, and probably also on trade contracts and (predecessors to) maritime bills of lading. This study of 115 ship seals from 80 seaports between ad 1200 and ad 1450 reveals that the central image of all ship seals contained striking details, strongly reminiscent of semiotic pictorial signals that conveyed information. The supposed signals were assigned a probable meaning by linking them to nautical aspects of the approach to each seaport and to the state of the harbour at the time. The results strongly suggest that the signals provided information about the risks and hazards in the approach to port, the water depth, and the facilities at the port in question. Compelling evidence comes from ports issuing successive ship seals over an extended period of time: updated images with properly adjusted signals were shown on subsequent seals when significant changes in the approach or port facilities had occurred, but the signals remained the same as long as the local situation stayed unchanged. These findings provide a clear explanation for the divergent ship portraits; ship seals served a dual purpose: first, to confirm the identity of the seaport and the authority of the council in its various actions and tasks, and, second, to provide up-to-date insight into the nautical challenges when approaching the port and in the local port facilities, in a manner similar to the current ‘notices to mariners’ from hydrographic offices. The rapidly increasing number of ports using ship seals in the thirteenth century and their continued use for two centuries supports the success of this late-medieval nautical information system. The study results also provide up-to-date impressions of the 80 seaports involved and of various nautical aspects of the hazardous maritime traffic in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, about which written archival information is scarce. The results may help to put the rare yield of maritime archaeology of this period into perspective. The ship seals lost their appeal as buoys and beacons made approaches safer, harbours became deeper and better equipped, and written information (‘rutters’) became widely available.

Early Renaissance Concepts of Time and the Invention of Mechanical Clocks

Mechanical clocks appeared in Europe at the end of the thirteenth century and became widespread during the fourteenth century. Clocks utilized a periodic process – the oscillation of a verge – for accurate time measurement, which is consistent with the Aristotelian concept of time defined by motion. The concept was at the center of debates among scholastics and theologians, which culminated in the Church's Condemnation of Aristotelian teaching in 1277. The debate also led to the discovery of Impetus (inertial motion) by Buridan and Oresme. Sand clocks became a popular device at about the same time. The pendulum clocks invented by Huygens in the 1650s utilized linear oscillations, which, unlike the earlier verge mechanism, had their natural frequency. Both mechanisms are analyzed to explain why the introduction of the linear oscillator led to a 30-times accuracy improvement of the clock.

Jewish exegesis and a vernacular translation of the Hebrew Bible

San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Real Biblioteca, MS. I.i.8 (=E8) and MS. I.i.6 (=E6) are complementary parts of an almost complete Bible, translated from Latin, and transmitting a Castilian version likely produced in the first half of the thirteenth century. Unlike the remaining books in this two-volume Bible, the Psalter’s heading indicates that the Psalms were translated from Hebrew, by Hermannus Allemanus, a scholar of German origin who took part in the projects sponsored by King Alfonso X. Both the attribution of the translation and its dependence on a Hebrew source have never convinced scholars entirely. In spite of the fact that the literature on the topic is vast, and that the text of the Psalter and its glosses have sparked renewed interest in recent years, the challenge of identifying Hebrew exegetical sources that might have influenced the translation has remained largely unaddressed. This article takes up that challenge and aims to contribute to furthering our understanding of the bearing of the Jewish medieval exegetical tradition on this translation of the Bible.

Warriors from the south? Arrowheads from the Tollense Valley and Central Europe

Investigations in the Tollense Valley in north-eastern Germany have provided evidence of a large and violent conflict in the thirteenth century BC. Typological analysis of arrowheads from the valley (10 flint and 54 bronze specimens) and comparison with type distributions in Central Europe, presented here for the first time, emphasise the supra-regional nature of the conflict. While the flint arrowheads are typical for the local Nordic Bronze Age, the bronze arrowheads show a mixture of local and non-local forms, adding to the growing evidence for a clash between local groups and at least one incoming group from southern Central Europe.

ART, MIRACLES AND THE CULT OF THE VIRGIN AT THETFORD PRIORY: EVIDENCE FROM CAMBRIDGE, CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE MS 329

This essay explores two texts in a fifteenth-century manuscript from Thetford Priory, Norfolk (now ms 329 in the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge). The first is an account of Marian miracles leading to the building of the Lady Chapel in the thirteenth century, and the second is an account of the formation of its relic collection in the twelfth century, which would be housed inside a statue of the Virgin Mary. The destruction of Thetford Priory at the Dissolution lends them a special significance since they offer evidence of a minor Marian cult that would be otherwise lost to us. The texts also highlight the interactions of aristocratic patrons – the Bigod family – and their Cluniac foundation. This essay explores the texts for the first time, offers a transcription and translation of them and considers their place in the cult of the Virgin at Thetford and in England generally.

In Search for the Better Sentence: Legal Fictions in Thirteenth Century Icelandic and Norwegian Laws

ABSTRACT This article posits the existence of legal fictions (Lat. fictio legis) in the customary and royal laws of Norway and Iceland. It argues that legal fictions played a significant role in the installation of the Norwegian king as a third party in all penal cases in Iceland, as well as in the introduction of a new idea of justice in the form of equity (Lat. aequitas, Gr. epikeia). In its treatment of the existence of Roman influences in Icelandic and Norwegian laws, this article argues that, regardless of the evidence in favour or against such influences, attention should be devoted to the creative process of adoption of legislative techniques and how these tools were appropriated in the process of administering justice and law-making in both Iceland and Norway.

Accounting for sustainability in water supply: the case of the ‘Bottini Aqueduct’ in medieval times

ABSTRACT Drawing motivation from the importance of water for life on Earth in current times and the past, this article investigates the role of accounting in favouring the sustainability of water supply in medieval times by discovering and integrating its financial, social, and environmental dimensions. This period was characterised by demographic and economic growth, which led to increasing water needs and interventions for water supply. We analyse a historical case study, whose conventional accounting is reinterpreted according to the ‘accounting for sustainability’ framework. The case of reference is the city of Siena (Italy) in medieval times with its peculiar water supply system, the ‘Bottini Aqueduct’, undertaken primarily during the thirteenth century. First, this article delves into the pivotal role of conventional accounting in unveiling and monitoring the financial, social, and environmental dimensions of water supply interventions; second, by proposing the metaphor of the ‘tree of life’, it emphasises the role of accounting in favouring the integration of these dimensions by supporting the incorporation of environmental resources – such as water – in the life of society and economy, as sap flows from the roots to the branches in a living tree.

The earliest evidence of large animal fossil collecting in mainland Greece at Bronze Age Mycenae

Fossils of large animals have long influenced social practices and ideologies in human societies, including the fantastic myths of giants, heroes, and gods in ancient Greece. It has been estimated that purposeful fossil collecting in Greece began in the Late Bronze Age. However, previous archaeological finds of fossils from mainland Greece were not well documented in secure contexts that dated this far back in time. Herein, we present a newly recognized fossilized astragalus bone recently found in the legacy collections of the archaeological site of Mycenae. It was originally recovered by excavations in the 1970s and recently reanalyzed at the Mycenae Museum. Our analysis explored the available evidence of the find location, the state of fossil preservation, and the species represented. The results suggest that a fossilized rhinoceros (Stephanorhinus) astragalus was collected in the past, possibly from afar. Evidence indicates it was brought to Mycenae, where it was deposited near an interesting array of artifacts in a basement storage area of the Southwest Quarter, sometime in the thirteenth century BCE. This find represents the earliest secure evidence of large animal fossil use by people in mainland Greece, dating to the Late Bronze Age.

La conquista cristiana de al-Andalus, los ulemas y el destino de la población musulmana en las fuentes árabes (siglos XI–XIII)

ABSTRACT Population movements were a regular feature in Iberia across the medieval period, especially due to the conflicts for land control between the northern Christian states and Islamic powers in the south. Movements of Muslim populations caused by the Christian expansion rose sharply from the eleventh century and peaked over the following two centuries. Drawing on the Arabic sources, this article explores how, when, and where the Muslims had to leave their homelands following the arrival of Christian conquerors. While documentary information is scarce and lacking in detail, these sources are key to understanding the real demographic impact caused by the expansion of Christian kingdoms into Islamic territory in Iberia across the eleventh through thirteenth centuries.

Popular Control through Public Accountability in Iberia (Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries)

Abstract This article analyzes the participation of the people in the Castilian procedure of accountability called juicio de residencia (comparable to the Italian sindacato) as a fertile ground for the development of popular control in urban settings. It adopts a longue-durée approach considering its transformations from its origins in the thirteenth century to the sixteenth century and from Castile to the Spanish Monarchy. In addition, it draws on a bottom-up approach and makes a case for qualitative instead of quantitative research, taking into account the massive but heterogeneous archival material related to residencias from the fifteenth century to the sixteenth century in the Hispanic Monarchy. In order to prove the main hypothesis, after presenting the limits and virtues of the Hispanic sources, I focus on two aspects. The first part presents evidence of people of all sorts consistently participating in the juicios de residencias that held officials accountable, as well as the development of a modality of collective action that was propitious for popular control: the presentaciones de capítulos. The second part shifts from the actors to the effects of that participation, testing different indicators of the potential of residencias for popular control. Ultimately, this article argues that officers’ accountability under the form of residencias was a consistent instrument for Castilian people to exert pressure on authorities and a habitual resource for popular actions.

Musical Contacts Between the Polish and Jewish Communities and the Image of Jewish Culture in Nineteenth-Century Polish Popular Music

Enduring contacts between Polish and Jewish communities on Polish soil began to take shape around the turn of the thirteenth century, initiating a period of many centuries of mutual cultural and musical influence. Extant sources, although few and far between (normative documents, chronicles, journalistic accounts, commentaries from observers and scholars, iconography, sheet music, recorded music and films), enable us to follow the development of the mutual musical relations between the two national groups over time. Yet this article concentrates primarily on the state of those relations during the nineteenth century, limited to popular culture. Taking the works of Oskar Kolberg as an example, we will discuss the repertoire of the Jewish community at that time, as perceived and received by the Polish community. This will be followed by a presentation of Jewish music groups that played for Poles as well, and also of particularly popular Jewish musicians who were singled out by journalists at that time. The article also presents the way in which Jews and their musical culture were depicted by Polish journalists and portrayed in the musical expression of representatives of rural and urban communities.The article shows that the image of Jews and their musical culture among different strata of Polish society during the nineteenth century varied a great deal. The virtuosity of Jewish musicians aroused interest and admiration among the Polish intelligentsia and acquired a mythologised personification in the literary figure of Jankiel. Lower social strata, when taking up Jewish strands in their musical expression, were often reacting to conflicts of interest experienced in their contacts with Jews representing a pre-capitalist economy. Jews in ritual and everyday situations constituted important ritual symbols bringing in wealth, and their very presence in theatrical forms was perceived partly as evidence of the veracity of biblical events. References to Jewish culture in the musical expression of the Polish community were confined to the most common stereotypes, which attests to the superficiality of the contacts between the two communities. Against that background, the actual idiom of Jewish music was far better understood, imitated and copied.