Thirteenth Century Research Articles

Blending Pilgrimage and Learning or the Literary Genres of Riḥla and Muʿjam: Al-Tujībī’s Travelogue to Egypt and Ḥijāz

From the early centuries of Muslim history, one of the most popular pilgrimage routes for the Andalusian and Maghribī pilgrims involved traveling through Alexandria to Cairo, then onward to Upper Egypt, followed by a sea journey to Jidda and finally reaching Makka. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, several Maghribī scholars followed this route, combining the pilgrimage journey with scholarly pursuits. Among them, al-Qāsim b. Yūsuf al-Tujībī (d. 730/1329) compiled a travelogue titled Mustafād al-Riḥla wa-l-Ightirāb (The Benefits of Travel and Being Abroad), in which he blended the literary genres of riḥla (travelogue) and muʿjam al-shuyūkh (biographical dictionary of one’s teachers). This article spatializes al-Tujībī’s journey, as depicted in Mustafād al-Riḥla, by employing geographical information systems software to map the locations and routes described in his travelogue. Additionally, the paper examines the structure and style of the travelogue, which blends the riḥla and muʿjam genres, highlighting the combination and hybridization of literary forms. This analysis considers al-Tujībī’s engagement with encyclopedic compilations in Mamluk Cairo and the influence of this intellectual environment on his work. Finally, by highlighting the scholarly network that al-Tujībī established in Egypt and Ḥijāẓ, the paper explores the role of pilgrimage journeys in merging religious duty with scholarly pursuits.

Azurite for a Kingdom. An overview of the pigments, binders and painting technique used in the craft of mural painting in the Kingdom of Navarre from the 12th to the 14th century and the symbolic implications of blue color

The importance of the Navarrese mural painting in the thirteenth and fourteenth century has been already pointed by art historians in the past. But in the last three decades, many unrevealed sets of medieval mural paintings have been discovered behind altarpieces or whitewash layers. In Navarre, since 1993, for each new finding of a wall painting a restoration report has been carried out. Since 2002 samples of pigments were send to laboratories to be analyzed. Such corpus of scientific data brings a new source of study for the art historian, added to the previous style-based and iconographical analysis. This article pretends to gather all these data from twenty restoration —with the available data up to 2022—reports and draw a small history of the use of pigments and binders in Navarrese mural painting from the thirteenth to the fourteenth centuries. From those reports, it is clear that there is a shift in the pigments used during the fourteenth century, when the gothic linear style arrives to the cloisters of the Cathedral of Pamplona, and later to parish churches through the kingdom. Among these new pigments is significative the presence of azurite. Through the rich documental sources of the Archivo General de Navarra, we find that a local Navarrese painter was send to the Pyrenees mine of Urrobi, to gather silver, copper and azurite. As such, combining the data of the restoration reports and archival documentation, in the last part of this article I discuss the importance that this pigment had in the Navarrese painting scenario of the fourteenth century. Such importance was not material, but symbolic too, as the 14th century blue color was highly esteemed as a sacred color.

Extension and division: the ontological status of quantity in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries

Extension and division: the ontological status of quantity in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries

Monastic Estates in the Wachau Region: Nodes of Exchange in Past and Present Days

Abstract In the Lower Austrian part of the Danube region, known as the Wachau, viticulture as an agrarian form of economy was established to a large extent by monastic estates. From the ninth century onwards at the latest, numerous monasteries in Austria, Salzburg, Bavaria, and Bohemia came into possession of vineyards in the Wachau by donation or purchase. Charters, urbaria, and tax lists document the importance of these mostly far-off properties from the beginning of the thirteenth century. Viticulture played a special role in this process. This is even more remarkable because the distances between the monastery and the estates – the so-called “Lesehöfe” – were sometimes considerable, for example, in the case of the Augustinian canons’ monasteries of Herrenchiemsee (Traunstein, Bavaria) and Höglwörth (Berchtesgaden, Bavaria) or the Benedictine monasteries of Prüfening (Regensburg, Bavaria) and Tegernsee (Miesbach, Bavaria) and the Hochstift Freising. These far-off estates served as an interface for the interests of both local and foreign actors, still visible today in the form of surviving buildings and historical documents and objects. As part of a project, the monastery estates and their historical documents were catalogued to establish a basis for an interdisciplinary analysis of the phenomenon. The essential goal of the project was to record the monastic estates as broadly as possible to create a basis for an interdisciplinary analysis of the phenomenon. Basic groundwork was laid to make the various estates available for the interests of cultural tourism within the Wachau World Heritage region.

Du tribut à l’impôt. Un héritage de l’époque mongole dans le système fiscal de la Moldavie médiévale

The article addresses the origins of the most important tax levied by the Moldavian voivodes during the Middle Ages. This particular tax, named dan’ in the fifteenth-century Slavonic diplomas written by the princely chancellery of Moldavia, has most probably its roots in the tribute that the inhabitants east of the Carpathians paid to the Mongol conquerors from the middle of the thirteenth century onwards. Two centuries later, besides its newer meaning of tax charged on one’s subjects, the Slavonic term dan’ still retains its old meaning of tribute imposed by a foreign power, as attested both by a document from 1456 describing the acceptance of Moldavia’s submission to the Ottoman Empire, and by a series of diplomas issued on behalf of the Podolian rulers in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. It is widely known that the term dan’ is generally utilized in late medieval Slavonic sources of Eastern Europe to denote the tribute paid to the Mongols. The author calls attention to a phenomenon labelled “fiscal substitution” that has taken place since the fourteenth century almost everywhere in Eastern Europe, providing significant fiscal benefits to the local administrations, to the detriment of the Mongols. This “fiscal substitution” consists of revenues taken over by the indigenous governance from its own subjects through the medium of the fiscal structures set up by the Mongols a century earlier. After the downfall of the Golden Horde, the already traditional collection of the Mongol tribute continued successfully in various regions as a regular tax paid by subjects in favour of the local lordships. As far as Moldavia is concerned, the long Mongol domination had two main consequences: on the one hand, it favoured the strengthening of its ties with the Slavic regions of Eastern Europe, all placed under the same political hegemony of the Golden Horde, and on the other hand, it allowed the formation of several political and fiscal structures appropriated subsequently by the Moldavian voivodes.

Missae per titulos: the emergence of the “titular” liturgies during the triduum in the Old Hispanic Rite

ABSTRACT The Old Hispanic Rite contains two liturgies for “titular” churches on Holy Thursday and Saturday in addition to the expected liturgies of the commemoration of the Lord’s Supper and the Easter Vigil. The identity of these “titular” churches and the emergence of masses specifically for these churches during the Triduum has been the subject of limited scholarly analysis. The traditional scholarly narrative is that the titular mass on Holy Thursday, at least, duplicated the main mass on that day for those who could not celebrate the liturgy in the cathedral. It is thought to have developed around the seventh century in Toledo. However, the relationship between the readings, prayers, and chants in the various sources, suggests that the emergence of these masses is much more complex and may have occurred sometime between the seventh and eleventh centuries with further developments possibly as late as the thirteenth century. Their establishment indicates that significant changes were being made to the Triduum in the Old Hispanic Rite in this period, something that also occurred during the late patristic and early medieval period throughout the other liturgical Rites of the East and West.

Between Modesty and Modernity: The Transformations of the Architecture of the Franciscan Church in Zagan Between the Second Half of the Thirteenth Century and the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century

The aim of this article is to present the main phases of transformation of the Franciscan church in Zagan. This church is one of the best-preserved mendicant order churches in Central Europe and Silesia. Until now, it has not been the subject of detailed research. Based on the findings, it was possible to identify the oldest church as a model example of the principles described in the Narbonne Constitutions. The late Gothic vaulting introduced during the reconstruction represents avant-garde solutions from the late 15th century. The evolution of the church interior’s forms in Zagan is presented against the backdrop of other churches in Central Europe and Poland. Special attention is given to the uniqueness of the church, which stands out among other conventual churches with its use of diamond and net vaults in the chancel and nave.

Establishing Communication Patterns in a Frontier Zone: The Jewish Communities in the Early Kingdom of Valencia

ABSTRACT The conquest of eastern al-Andalus and its transformation into the Kingdom of Valencia in the first half of the thirteenth century mark a turning point in the history of the Crown of Aragon. Into a region inhabited almost exclusively by Muslims now poured a steady influx of immigrants from the north, among them many Jews settling in their own newly-formed communities. In the fluid environment of a shifting frontier zone where the overarching administrative system was still being reorganised, these communities likewise had to establish patterns of communication with the outside world. On the basis of representative examples from the conquest period and subsequent decades, this article gives an overview over the variety of patterns utilised in processes of communication between institutions and individuals on different levels. The complexity of these processes, it is argued, can only be grasped very rudimentarily through the limited perspectives of the surviving documentation.

Views of the Baltic German Press on the Traditions of Other Nationalities in Riga’s Music Life in the 1870s–1880s: The Influence of the Political Context

Abstract The history of German presence in the territory of Latvia began in the thirteenth century, when Germans arrived here as crusaders. From that time until the nineteenth century, they played the dominant role in the economic and political life of the region. In the second half of the nineteenth century, however, the situation changed. After the abolition of serfdom (1817–1819), Latvians greatly improved their economic and educational status, and the new Latvian intelligentsia expressed its opposition to German dominance in the region. The Latvian national revival of that period was supported by the Russian authorities with a somewhat selfish interest. The aim of this paper is to answer the question: how did these processes affect the descriptions of music life in the press, or, more precisely, one aspect of press commentaries – the Baltic Germans’ views on the traditions of other nationalities? It has been found that many reviews confirm the Baltic Germans’ interest and openness towards other national traditions. At least some of the German music critics do not deserve to be criticised for ignoring the music life of ethnic Latvians as described in Latvian periodicals. The political context, however, comes to the fore when discussing not the music itself, but the press publications or speeches that include some ‘provocative’ elements – be it claims to the premises of the Rigaer Stadttheater voiced in a Russian newspaper, or efforts to deny the inspiring role of Germans in Latvian cultural history.

Two hundred barrels of manure: Fertilisation, environmental stewardship, and short-term leasehold in Cambrésis, 1330–1400

Abstract From its spread in the thirteenth century onwards, short-term leasehold became one of the most common and powerful institutions of land management in Western Europe. Its rise is often strongly connected to the commercialisation of agriculture and short-term profit-seeking, with overexploitation of the soil as a consequence. However, when looking closely at short-term lease contracts of the fourteenth century, these extensive documents often contain a multitude of clauses on the upkeep of the soil, water management, and care for the present fauna and flora. This paper aims to investigate how the management of the soil was regulated through a leasehold in Cambrésis, currently in the north of France, through an in-depth study of the clauses on fertilisation by manure and care for the soil, as recorded in two rather unique fourteenth-century lease ledgers. What can these contracts reveal about contemporary agricultural practices, such as fertilisation? How did the administrators of the Saint-Julien hospital and the collegial chapter of Saint-Géry in Cambrai safeguard the long-term health and value of their leased-out properties in a period of severe crises and rising commercial pressure? Through this research, this paper proposes that short-term leasehold could, in certain conditions, stimulate forms of environmental stewardship.

The Role of Frontier Territories in Geopolitics

More than two-thirds of all the world’s states are involved in at least one territorial dispute. Overall, there are approximately 175 disputes involving competing claims to more than 100 distinct territories. If maritime boundaries are included, the number of disputes multiplies more than two-fold. Since at least the thirteenth century, frontier buffer zones with length and breadth have been an important mechanism in managing territorial disputes along contested borders. These historical examples have much to teach us about containing contemporary territorial disputes.

What Rights for Criminals Condemned to Death? Jurisdictional Dialogue and Clash Between Religious and Secular Authorities, c.1250–1320

ABSTRACT Between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a variety of legal actors became involved in disputes regarding the right of criminals condemned to death to access religious comforts such as sacraments, Christian burial, and the possibility to make bequests pro anima. These debates centred around important questions such as: which authorities held the right to grant or deny spiritual assistance to executed criminals? What normative bases could be invoked to support these claims? This paper argues that, in the period c.1250–1320, lay and religious authorities reiterated norms deriving from a multiplicity of pre-existing systems (canon law, Roman law, theological principles) to answer these questions. The underlying agenda of these debates, however, was a struggle for power regarding whose ultimate authority it was to decide who could be considered a member of the community and to what extent. In time, this struggle contributed to a gradual separation between the political community and a previously all-encompassing Ecclesia.

Political parties and the eclipse of the Scottish Privy Council

ABSTRACT In 1708 the executive arm of Scottish pre-modern government, the Scottish Privy Council, was abolished, in a decision that disregarded the national interest. The competencies of this body were very wide. It engaged in policy formation and delivery, sometimes following decisions by the legislature, the Scottish Parliament, over a range of social, economic, religious, political, judicial and security concerns and did so, we must assume, back at least to the thirteenth century. There is little consideration of the circumstances of the abolition in the existing historiography, even though the Scottish Privy Council has something of a unique position. Given the more common arrangements found in European composite monarchies, such as in Catalonia where a viceroy located in Barcelona was kept separate from the decision-making council in Madrid, or the option of an independent provincial governor as in the French model, it is remarkable that the Scottish Privy Council was maintained in Edinburgh after the monarch moved to London in 1603. This article seeks to explain the successful campaign to eliminate the Council in the light of progressive moves in the early modern period towards a political culture dominated by party.

The Bishop’s Jurisdictional Boundaries: Proceedings, Legal Actors and Strategies from a Local Church Court (Pistoia, 1287–1301)

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the records of an Italian Church court from the late thirteenth century. This material allows us to know not only the daily working of a pre-modern Church court but also the nature of the litigants' legal skills and strategies. The first part of the article examines the pre-existing boundaries of this Church court jurisdiction and the matters with which it was dealing. Whereas the Church claimed jurisdiction over various ‘spiritual' matters, such as marriage, priests' offences and ecclesiastical benefices, its jurisdiction sometimes overlapped with the competencies of secular courts. In the second part, the article focuses on the judicial proceedings themselves and thus on the interactions between judges, plaintiffs, defendants and witnesses. As with many other courts at that time, this court systematically sought witnesses’ own definitions of the offences or accusations they testified about and the relevant fama. In sum, by drawing on three different caseloads, this article explains why fama played such a key role in ecclesiastical trials and how; therefore, norms other than strictly legal ones were key to the functioning of ecclesiastical courts, and should, therefore, be understood as key in the appeal to ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

DNA and spores from coprolites reveal that colourful truffle-like fungi endemic to New Zealand were consumed by extinct moa (Dinornithiformes).

Mycovores (animals that consume fungi) are important for fungal spore dispersal, including ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi symbiotic with forest-forming trees. As such, fungi and their symbionts may be impacted by mycovore extinction. New Zealand (NZ) has a diversity of unusual, colourful, endemic sequestrate (truffle-like) fungi, most of which are ECM. As NZ lacks native land mammals (except bats), and sequestrate fungi are typically drab and mammal-dispersed, NZ's sequestrate fungi are hypothesized to be adapted for bird dispersal. However, there is little direct evidence for this hypothesis, as 41% of NZ's native land bird species became extinct since initial human settlement in the thirteenth century. Here, we report ancient DNA and spores from the inside of two coprolites of NZ's extinct, endemic upland moa (Megalapteryx didinus) that reveal consumption and likely dispersal of ECM fungi, including at least one colourful sequestrate species. Contemporary data from NZ show that birds rarely consume fungi and that the introduced mammals preferentially consume exotic fungi. NZ's endemic sequestrate fungi could therefore be dispersal limited compared with fungi that co-evolved with mammalian dispersers. NZ's fungal communities may thus be undergoing a gradual species turnover following avian mycovore extinction and the establishment of mammalian mycovores, potentially affecting forest resilience and facilitating invasion by exotic tree taxa.

Istoria timpurie a unui oraș contemporan. Ghiriș-Sâncrai și Ghiriș în Evul Mediu până în zorii Epocii Premoderne

The study revolves around the question of the formation of modern Câmpia Turzii (Aranyosgyéres), highlighting the medieval roots of the town. Today’s city has two historical components, Sâncrai (Szentkirály) and Ghiriș (Gyéres). Thus, the paper examines the history of these settlements from the Middle Ages (thirteenth century) to the dawn of the Early Modern Period (beginning of the seventeenth century). Due to the availability of sources, we can primarily discuss an exploration of the history of ownership, but at the same time, the study aims to reflect on the exploitation of the local nobility’s opportunities to assert themselves and the possibilities of maintaining contact with the central power, which in the case of Ghiriș culminated in the acquisition of market town (oppidum) status at the end of the examined period, in 1610. However, the fate-changing event opens a new era in the history of the settlement, which is the subject of a future study.

The Role of the Beguine Movement in the Commemoration of the Dead in Douai, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

Commemoration and caritas were deeply intertwined and in Douai, this relationship was evident in the strategies that testators employed between 1228 and 1362. During this period, Douaisiens’ commemorative strategies brought together existing and new religious institutions and intercessors responsible for the salvation of the parish community. At a time when the penitential movement in the town was flourishing, testators considered beguines as among those efficacious in interceding for their souls. Testators requested pittances, simple prayers, and funerary services. The women performed these services alongside many other intercessors, including the parish church and its personnel, the mendicant orders, and the common poor. Thus, this period in Douai involved the formation of a network of commemoration in which intercessors, including beguines, contributed to the salvation of parishioners.

The Oldest Middle Dutch Translation of the Psalms (c. 1275–1400). Context of Origin, Functions, and Nachleben

This article presents a new perspective on the oldest Middle Dutch translation of the Psalter. The region of origin of this influential translation has remained uncertain for a long time, but current assumptions suggest that it likely originated in the western part of the medieval county of Flanders, probably in the last decades of the thirteenth century. A recent and noteworthy discovery, discussed here for the first time, comprises a bifolio from a Latin psalter dating from the late thirteenth century, featuring an interlinear version of the oldest Psalter translation added in the late fourteenth century. This introduces a new use for the West Flemish Psalter translation, in addition to those already known and briefly discussed in this article. Furthermore, this finding sheds light on the likely end of the textual tradition associated with this specific Psalter translation. By the first decades of the fifteenth century, newer or hybrid versions emerged, suggesting a decline in the influence of the West Flemish Psalter translation during that period.

Marrying heiresses in the reign of Philippe Auguste: aristocratic marital strategy in the counties of Nevers, Auxerre and Tonnerre

Abstract The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw a number of aristocratic women inheriting important lands in France. Their marriages carried the highest political importance. King Philippe Auguste (1180–1223) is often credited as the first king to use these heiresses and their marriages to control the aristocracy and extend the Capetian realm, with the families exercising no agency. This article questions the extent of this control by focusing on one family, the comital family of Nevers, who experienced almost a century of female inheritance. Charters and letters show each member of the comital family reacting to local circumstances through its marital strategies. At a tumultuous time in the family’s history, it was able to manipulate the secular and ecclesiastical rules concerning marriage to navigate an intra-familial inheritance dispute. The family’s marital strategy reveals multiple layers of control: marriage played an essential role in the comital family’s strategies, with important roles for all members.

THE COEXISTENCE OF WRITING MEDIA IN THE IBERIAN PENINSULA DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. THE STORY OF A LEGACY

China offered humanity a cheap and highly durable material that, after six hundred years of adaptation through the Silk Road, would reach Europe via the Iberian Peninsula in the hands of the Arabs. Hispano-Arabic paper, as the paper produced in the peninsula was called in the Middle Ages, would soon replace the papyrus and parchment, with which it had coexisted in the beginning. The historical context of each kingdom, as well as the devastation caused by the Black Death and the opening of trade with Italy after the expansion of the Crown of Aragon, would determine the origins and techniques used in the manufacturing of Hispanic paper. Three types of paper coexisted in the peninsula: Hispano-Arabic paper, a new type of paper imported from Italy and a third type with mixed characteristics. The codices and the various documents preserved reflect not only the artistic trend of the place where they were produced, but also the technique of paper production, which was subject to the tradition inherited from the Hispano-Arab papermakers and improved from the thirteenth century onwards by the craftsmen of Fabriano, with great value as witnesses of a historical context.