Approaches to Coptic History after 641

2010 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-485
Author(s):  
Febe Armanios

The study of Coptic history usually brings to mind gnostic texts, remote monastic enclaves, archeological ruins, conflicts with Byzantium, or a long-forgotten language. Until recently, a disproportionate focus on early Christianity has bound Copts to an ancient and seemingly timeless heritage, which explains the dearth of critical examinations on Coptic life from the Islamic conquests to the early modern period. In general, Coptic experiences after 641 have been overshadowed by other themes in Egyptian history writing, in particular political and military changes. Although the latter are as relevant for a better understanding of the Coptic past, they have been predominately examined from the perspective of the Muslim majority, exclusive of Coptic concerns, perspectives, and beliefs. Only in recent years has scholarship on Copts begun to expand. Scholars have drawn from fields such as papyrology, gender studies, art history, and law in pursuit of a more comprehensive historical narrative. We are increasingly encouraged to evaluate the Coptic experience not only as a missing cog in Egyptian historiography but also as one that complicates canonical studies of postconquest Egypt and enriches our understanding of Middle Eastern history in general.

Author(s):  
Laurence Lux-Sterritt

This introduction provides an overview of the historiography of English Catholicism in the early modern period and highlights the absence, until recently, of substantial academic work on the place and role of enclosed nuns in the survival and the Catholic mission. In an effort to contextualise the English convents in exile on the Continent, it asks the question of the national specificities of institutions which belonged to the same Church and the same Orders as continental monasteries yet were the product of very different circumstances at home. Moreover, the introduction highlights the interdisciplinarity of the study of convents, which is at the crossroads of prosopography, religious history, social history, political history, but can also be approached through the prisms of art history, literary studies, gender studies or emotion studies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-79
Author(s):  
Sara Zandi Karimi

This article is a critical translation of the “History of the Ardalānids.” In doing so, it hopes to make available to a wider academic audience this invaluable source on the study of Iranian Kurdistan during the early modern period. While a number of important texts pertaining to the Kurds during this era, most notably the writings of the Ottoman traveler Evliya Chalabi, focus primarily on Ottoman Kurdistan, this piece in contrast puts Iranian Kurdistan in general and the Ardalān dynasty in particular at the center of its historical narrative. Thus it will be of interest not only to scholars of Kurdish history but also to those seeking more generally to research life on the frontiers of empires.Keywords: Ẕayl; Ardalān; Kurdistan; Iran.ABSTRACT IN KURMANJIDîroka Erdelaniyan (1590-1810)Ev gotar wergereke rexneyî ya “Dîroka Erdelaniyan” e. Bi vê yekê, merema xebatê ew e ku vê çavkaniya pir biqîmet a li ser Kurdistana Îranê ya di serdema pêş-modern de ji bo cemawerê akademîk berdest bike. Hejmareke metnên girîng li ser Kurdên wê serdemê, bi taybetî nivîsînên Evliya Çelebî yê seyyahê osmanî, zêdetir berê xwe didine Kurdistana di bin hukmê Osmaniyan de. Lê belê, di navenda vê xebatê de, bi giştî Kurdistana Îranê û bi taybetî jî xanedana Erdelaniyan heye. Wisa jî ew dê ne tenê ji bo lêkolerên dîroka kurdî belku ji bo ewên ku dixwazin bi rengekî berfirehtir derheq jiyana li ser tixûbên împeretoriyan lêkolînan bikin jî dê balkêş be.ABSTRACT IN SORANIMêjûy Erdellan (1590-1810)Em wutare wergêrranêkî rexneyî “Mêjûy Erdellan”e, bew mebestey em serçawe girînge le ser Kurdistanî Êran le seretakanî serdemî nwê bixate berdest cemawerî ekademî. Jimareyek serçawey girîng le ser kurdekan lew serdeme da hen, diyartirînyan nûsînekanî gerîdey ‘Usmanî Ewliya Çelebîye, ke zortir serincyan le ser ‘Kurdistanî ‘Usmanî bûwe. Em berheme be pêçewanewe Kurdistanî Êran be giştî, we emaretî Erdelan be taybetî dexate senterî xwêndinewekewe. Boye nek tenya bo twêjeranî biwarî mêjûy kurdî, belku bo ewaney le ser jiyan le sinûre împiratoriyekan twêjînewe deken, cêgay serinc debêt.


1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (112) ◽  
pp. 390-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Hadfield

It is a commonplace of recent British historiography that in the early modern period a sophisticated and sceptical concept of writing history began to develop which involved, among other things, historians becoming significantly less credulous in their use of sources. Often the crucial break with medieval ‘chronicles’ is seen to have been brought about by the triumph of the exiled Italian humanist, Polydore Vergil, over the fervently nationalistic band of British historians and antiquarians led by John Leland, establishing that the Arthurian legends were no more than an origin myth. Jack Scarisbrick, for example, has argued that ‘early Tudor England did not produce a sudden renewal of Arthurianism … As the sixteenth century wore on, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s patriotic fantasies received increasingly short shrift from reputable historians.’ However, this comforting narrative of increasingly thorough and careful scholarship ignores the fact that there was a form of history writing in which the reliance upon origin myths such as the Arthurian legends and the ‘matter of Britain’ actually increased dramatically after the Reformation, namely English histories of Ireland.


Author(s):  
Dmitriy Polyvyannyy

The article is dedicated to three Bulgarian historical works created at Athos in the second half of the 18th c. – "Slavo-Bulgarian History" by Saint Paisius of Hilendar, anonymous "Zograf History" and "Brief History of the Bulgarian Slav People" by monk-priest Spyridon of Gabrovo. By the author’s opinion, these works, on the one hand, were born in the atmosphere of rivalry between the monasteries of Athos and their Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian clergy, and on the other, were actualised by the strengthening contacts of Hilandar and Zograf with Bulgarian lands. If the first affected the contents of the mentioned works, the second lead to sufficient enlargement of their audience, which, in its turn, became a precondition of the growing interest to the national history among the Bulgarian population of Rumelia in the first half of the 19th c.


2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (158) ◽  
pp. 171-191
Author(s):  
Eamon Darcy

AbstractThe draft notes for a proposed history of Ireland compiled by Arthur Annesley, the first earl of Anglesey, and letters to Edmund Borlase, author of The history of the execrable Irish rebellion (London, 1680), which describe the reception of his work in England and Ireland, offer a convenient keyhole through which historians can investigate the craft of history writing in the early-modern period. While there has been much discussion of these authors and their contribution to wider political (and highly partisan) debates concerning the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Crisis, less has been said about the historical methods they employed to understand the past. While this article does not deny that both authors attempted to defend their own political factions and views, it argues that a focus on the partisan nature of their contributions neglects the historiographical context to what they produced. Both Anglesey’s and Borlase’s research and writing occurred at a time of profound change in history writing as readers were becoming increasingly critical of works they read and authors engaged in sustained attempts to understand deep-lying causes of the various crises that engulfed the three kingdoms. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to illustrate how both Anglesey and Borlase’s ‘histories’ reflected this historiographical turn in the late-seventeenth century.


2017 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 153-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
John-Paul A. Ghobrial

ABSTRACTFrom Lebanese politicians in Argentina to Iraqi immigrants in Sweden, Middle Eastern Christians can be found today scattered across the entire world. Too often, however, this global migration has been seen purely as a modern development, one arising from contemporary political and religious tensions in the Middle East. In fact, this type of mobility had earlier manifestations in the early modern period. From the sixteenth century onwards, Christians from the Ottoman Empire set out for distant worlds and foreign lands, travelling as far as Europe, India, Russia and even the Americas and leaving traces of themselves in countless European and Middle Eastern archives, chanceries and libraries. This paper lays out a framework for understanding movement in the early modern world in a way that pays as much attention to how migrants understood their own travels as to contemporary European ideas about Eastern Christian mobility. Focusing on the intersection of two traditions of sources, I explore here how European and Eastern Christian perspectives about migration drew from one another, reinforcing and feeding on each other in powerful, mutually constitutive ways. In doing so, this paper seeks to make a contribution to our understanding of the everyday experience of circulation and mobility in the early modern world.


2012 ◽  
pp. 135-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Volkova

The article describes the evolution of accounting from the simple registration technique to economic and social institution in medieval Italy. We used methods of institutional analysis and historical research. It is shown that the institutionalization of accounting had been completed by the XIV century, when it became a system of codified technical standards, scholar discipline and a professional field. We examine the interrelations of this process with business environment, political, social, economic and cultural factors of Italy by the XII—XVI centuries. Stages of institutionalization are outlined.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-50
Author(s):  
Camilla Russell

The Jesuit missions in Asia were among the most audacious undertakings by Europeans in the early modern period. This article focuses on a still relatively little understood aspect of the enterprise: its appointment process. It draws together disparate archival documents to recreate the steps to becoming a Jesuit missionary, specifically the Litterae indipetae (petitions for the “Indies”), provincial reports about missionary candidates, and replies to applicants from the Jesuit superior general. Focusing on candidates from the Italian provinces of the Society of Jesus, the article outlines not just how Jesuit missionaries were appointed but also the priorities, motivations, and attitudes that informed their assessment and selection. Missionaries were made, the study shows, through a specific “way of proceeding” that was negotiated between all parties and seen in both organizational and spiritual terms, beginning with the vocation itself, which, whether the applicant departed or not, earned him the name indiano.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document