The Mercenary Companies, the Papacy, and the Crusades, 1356–1378

Traditio ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 253-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Housley
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Holy War ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Leading Role

During the second half of the fourteenth century most of France and many parts of Italy faced a social problem of massive proportions in the activities of the routiers, unemployed and rampaging mercenary soldiers. The popes of the period, Innocent VI, Urban V, and Gregory XI, took a leading role in attempts to deal with this daunting problem, and the purpose of this article is to examine one of the chief instruments which they employed, the crusade. The place of the mercenary companies in the crusading movement was paradoxical. On several occasions from 1357 onwards the popes issued crusading indulgences to those who fought against the routiers on the grounds that they presented a serious threat to the well-being of the Christian community, the populus christianus. But the popes also hoped to use the companies in the service of Christian Holy War by persuading them to travel to the eastern Mediterranean, to Hungary or to Granada, to fight the Muslims. Both approaches sprang from long-established papal policy towards those considered as Christendom's internal foes. When the curia tried to bring about the destruction of the routiers by offering spiritual rewards to their opponents it placed the mercenaries in the roll-call of Christian rebels and excommunicates combatted by means of the crusade, alongside the emperor Frederick II, Peter II of Aragon, the Visconti, and others. And when it attempted to send the companies beyond the frontiers of Christendom, it was adopting a strategy which dated back at least as far as the First Crusade. So both aspects of papal policy towards the routiers were highly traditional. They were also unsuccessful, which raises important questions about the way the later Avignon popes thought about and exercised their power. In the mid-thirteenth century the popes successfully resisted the ambitions of the Staufen and destroyed their might; a century later they proved unable to contain the companies. Was this because the Avignon papacy was out-of-date in its policies, because it failed to appreciate and adjust to the profound changes which had occurred in society and government? In broader terms, does traditionalism in this instance betoken the ideological bankruptcy which some scholars have seen as a leading characteristic of the papacy in the fourteenth century? In order to answer these questions I shall first examine the nature of the threat which was posed by the companies, then look in detail at the two aspects of the policy adopted by the curia in response to it.

Assertions of Cultural Well-being in Fourteenth-Century Vietnam: Part I

1979 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 435-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
O.W. Wolters
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Vietnamese History

I am interested in ways in which some Vietnamese in the fourteenth century were thinking about their fellow-countrymen. The writings of only a few of them are extant, but their understanding of a well-ordered society survived. For this reason, the fourteenth century may be a watershed in Vietnamese history. Thoughtful men during that century were concerned with more than reaffirming their country's independence, which was never in doubt and had been triumphantly vindicated during the three Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century. Their preoccupation was Vietnam's cultural well-being.

scholarly journals A intolerância contra os judeus. Violência e conversões no Reino de Castela

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Kellen Jacobsen Follador
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anti Jewish ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Black Plague

Resumo: O presente artigo aborda momentos da história do reino de Castela nos quais os judeus estiveram de, alguma forma, submetidos à violência e, como desmembramento, à conversão forçada. No reino de Castela, desde os tempos mais remotos os judeus eram considerados como uma comunidade à parte da cristã, sendo apenas tolerados pela mesma. A partir do século XIII essa tolerância sofre modificações que se acentuam ao longo do século XIV. No primeiro caso destacamos a participação de grupos religiosos como franciscanos e dominicanos no combate àquilo que consideravam as heresias judaicas contidas no Talmude e, no século XIV, episódios de violência relacionados à peste negra, conflito dinástico e pregações antijudaicas. Todos esses momentos de materialização da intolerância contra a comunidade judaica tiveram dentre suas consequências a morte ou a conversão de muitos judeus. Com o passar das décadas a intolerância contra os judeus foi estendida aos conversos que presenciaram o surgimento de um preconceito religioso e de uma intolerância que desacreditavam a religiosidade dos conversos. Palavras-chave: Antijudaísmo. Intolerância. Violência. Conversões. Abstract: This paper presents some moments in the history of Castile Kingdom in which Jewish people in some ways were subjected to violence and consequently to forced conversion. Since the earliest times Jewish people were regarded as a part of the Christian community in Castile Kingdom, just being tolerated by it. In the beginning in the thirteenth century this tolerance changed, and these changes increased throughout the fourteenth century. So, firstly, we emphasize the participation of religious groups such as Franciscans and Dominicans in fighting against what they considered Jewish heresies contained in the Talmud, and, secondly, in episodes of violence related to the Black Plague, dynastic conflict and anti-jewish sermons in the fourteenth century. All these moments of realization of intolerance against the Jewish community had among its consequences the death or conversion of many Jews. Over the decades intolerance against Jews was extended to converts who have witnessed the emergence of a religious prejudice and intolerance that discredited the religious converts. Keywords: Anti-Judaism. Intolerance. Violence. Conversions.

scholarly journals Through the Eyes of a Mapmaker: Maritime Shrines on Cyprus during the Late Middle Ages

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1022
Author(s):  
Ourania Perdiki
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Special Importance ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Local Dimension ◽  
Sacred Sites ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
Late Middle Ages

Cyprus acquired special importance, especially from the thirteenth century onwards, on the Eastern Mediterranean’s pilgrimage network. Described by contemporary pilgrims as “Terra christianorum ultima”, the island was considered to be the last Christian land in the south-eastern Mediterranean on the pilgrims’ itinerary on their journey to the Holy Land. This study is concentrated on two maps of Cyprus dated to the fourteenth century and preserved in Milan: Biblioteca Ambrosiana, A95 sup. and Venice: Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, gr. XI.21. It aims to explore the physical and spiritual mobility and interconnectivity in Cyprus during the late Middle Ages and to consider how these contribute to the development of pilgrimage sites directly related with maritime routes, seamen and travellers. These unique nautical maps captured the sea voyage which had Cyprus as a stopover, bringing to light new insights into fourteenth century Cyprus. The maritime shrines discussed in this article, which are usually “mixed” sacred sites, are directly related with sailors’ needs. They integrate into a wide network of communication, removing them partially from their local dimension.

Anthology of texts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven N. Dworkin
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Don Juan ◽  
Alfonso X ◽  
Conde Lucanor ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
General Estoria

This short anthology contains extracts from three Castilian prose texts, one from the second half of the thirteenth century (General estoria IV of Alfonso X the Wise), one from the first half of the fourteenth century (El conde Lucanor of don Juan Manuel), and one from near the mid-point of the fifteenth century (Atalaya de las corónicas of Alfonso Martínez de Toledo, Arcipreste de Talavera). These passages illustrate in context many of the phonological, orthographic, morphological, syntactic, and lexical features of medieval Hispano-Romance described in the body of this book. A linguistic commentary discussing relevant forms and constructions, as well as the meaning of lexical items no longer used or employed with different meanings in modern Spanish, with cross references to the appropriate sections in the five main chapters, accompanies each selection.

scholarly journals The birth of oppida: small towns in Hungary in the Angevin period

Urban History ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Katalin Szende
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Development Strategies ◽  
Private Landowners ◽  
Private Lands ◽  
Private Interests ◽  
The Right ◽  
Mendicant Orders ◽  
Century Development

Abstract This article revisits the origins of small towns in medieval Hungary from the perspective of their owners and seigneurs. The fourteenth-century development of small towns on the estates of private landowners resulted from the coincidence of several factors. Among these, the article considers the intersection of royal and private interests. The aristocrats’ concern to endow their estate centres with privileges or attract new settlers to their lands was dependent on royal approval; likewise, the right to hold annual fairs had to be granted by the kings, and one had to be a loyal retainer to be worthy of these grants. The royal model of supporting the mendicant orders, which were gaining ground in Hungary from the thirteenth century onwards, added a further dimension to the overlords’ development strategies. This shows that royal influence, directly or indirectly, had a major impact on the development of towns on private lands in the Angevin period (1301–87).

scholarly journals Plague and the Fall of Baghdad (1258)

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-177
Author(s):  
Nahyan Fancy ◽  
Monica H. Green
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Epidemic Disease ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
Abbasid Caliphate ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
A Minor

AbstractThe recent suggestion that the late medieval Eurasian plague pandemic, the Black Death, had its origins in the thirteenth century rather than the fourteenth century has brought new scrutiny to texts reporting ‘epidemics’ in the earlier period. Evidence both from Song China and Iran suggests that plague was involved in major sieges laid by the Mongols between the 1210s and the 1250s, including the siege of Baghdad in 1258 which resulted in the fall of the Abbasid caliphate. In fact, re-examination of multiple historical accounts in the two centuries after the siege of Baghdad shows that the role of epidemic disease in the Mongol attacks was commonly known among chroniclers in Syria and Egypt, raising the question why these outbreaks have been overlooked in modern historiography of plague. The present study looks in detail at the evidence in Arabic sources for disease outbreaks after the siege of Baghdad in Iraq and its surrounding regions. We find subtle factors in the documentary record to explain why, even though plague received new scrutiny from physicians in the period, it remained a minor feature in stories about the Mongol invasion of western Asia. In contemporary understandings of the genesis of epidemics, the Mongols were not seen to have brought plague to Baghdad; they caused plague to arise by their rampant destruction. When an even bigger wave of plague struck the Islamic world in the fourteenth century, no association was made with the thirteenth-century episode. Rather, plague was now associated with the Mongol world as a whole.

The Establishment of the Mathematical Bookshelf of the Medieval Hebrew Scholar: Translations and Translators

1997 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 431-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony LÉvy
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Major Part ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Mathematical Activity ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Original Works ◽  
Wide Readership ◽  
Medieval Hebrew

The ArgumentThe major part of the mathematical “classics” in Hebrew were translated from Arabic between the second third of the thirteenth century and the first third of the fourteenth century, within the northern littoral of the western Mediterranean. This movement occurred after the original works by Abraham bar Hiyya and Abraham ibn Ezra became available to a wide readership. The translations were intended for a restricted audience — the scholarly readership involved in and dealing with the theoretical sciences. In some cases the translators themselves were professional scientists (e.g., Jacob ben Makhir); in other cases they were, so to speak, professional translators, dealing as well with philosophy, medicine, and other works in Arabic.In aketshing this portrait of the beginning of Herbrew scholarly mathematics, my aim has been to contribute to a better understanding of mathematical activity as such among Jewish communities during this period.

Some Thoughts About Genre in Old Javanese Literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter John Worsley
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Poetic Work

Robson in 1983 and 1988 in his reconsideration of the poetics of kakawin epics and Javanese philology drew readers’ attention to the importance of genre for the history of ancient Javanese literature. Aoyama in his study of the kakawin Sutasoma in 1992, making judicious use of Hans Jauss’s concept of “horizon of expectation”, offered the first systematic discussion of the genre of Old Javanese literary works. The present essay offers a commentary on the terms which mpu Monaguna and mpu Prapañca, authors of the thirteenth century epic kakawin Sumanasāntaka and the fourteenth century Deśawarṇana, themselves, employ to refer to the generic characteristics of their poems. Mpu Monaguna referred to his epic poem as a narrative work (kathā), written in a prakṛt, Old Javanese, and rendered in the poetic form of a kakawin and finally as a ritual act intended to enable the poet to achieve apotheosis with his tutelary deity and his poem to be the means of transforming the world, in particular to ensure the wellbeing of the readers, listeners, copyists and those who possessed copies of his poetic work. Mpu Prapañca described his Deśawarṇana differently. Also written in Old Javanese and in the poetic form of a kakawin—he refers to his work variously as a narrative work (kathā), a chronicle (śakakāla or śakābda), a praise poem (kastawan) and also as a ritual act designed to enable the author in an ecstatic state of rapture (alangö), and filled with the power and omniscience of his tutelary deity, to ensure the continued prosperity of the realm of Majapahit and to secure the rule of his king Rājasanagara. The essay considers each of these literary categories.

LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND POWER IN GUILLEM DE TORROELLA’S LA FAULA

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
JILL ROSS
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
French Language ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Appropriation ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The Third ◽  
Cultural Power

This article examines the role of French language and culture in the fourteenth-century Arthurian text, La Faula, by the Mallorcan, Guillem de Torroella. Reading the appropriation of French language and literary models through the lens of earlier thirteenth-century Occitan resistance to French political and cultural hegemony, La Faula’s use of French dialogue becomes significant in light of the political tensions in the third quarter of the fourteenth century that saw the conquest of the Kingdom of Mallorca by that of Catalonia-Aragon and the subsequent imposition of Catalano-Aragonese political and cultural power. La Faula’s clear intertextual debt to French literary models and its simultaneous ambivalence about the authority and reliability of those models makes French language into a space for the exploration of the dynamics of cultural appropriation and political accommodation that were constitutive of late fourteenth-century Mallorca.

Late Helladic IIIA 2 Pottery from Mycenae

1965 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 159-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth French
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Previous Article ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of

The L.H. IIIA 2 period according to Furumark's chronology covers the fourteenth century, a crucial phase in Mycenaean history and, whatever absolute dates are eventually assigned to the period, the pottery belonging to it marks the vast expansion of Mycenaean trade throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. It is therefore extremely important to determine what pottery must and what pottery may belong to L.H. IIIA 2. The definition of L.H. IIIA 1 pottery adopted in a previous article enables us to deal with the beginning of the period. The division between L.H. IIIA 2 late and L.H. IIIB 1 can be placed, in terms of the pottery from settlement sites, at one of two points. The earlier would be the introduction of the vertical (as compared with horizontal or diagonal) Whorl-Shells. This was suggested by Mackeprang. The later point, and the one adopted in this discussion, is the introduction of the Deep Bowl (FS 284) and in unpainted ware the Conical Kylix (FS 274). This later terminus seems preferable as a more radical and easily recognizable development.

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