Eastern Medieval Architecture

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Ousterhout
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Medieval Architecture ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Architectural Form ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Rich

The rich and diverse architectural traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and adjacent regions are the subject of this book. Representing the visual residues of a “forgotten” Middle Ages, the social and cultural developments of the Byzantine Empire, the Caucasus, the Balkans, Russia, and the Middle East parallel the more familiar architecture of Western Europe. The book offers an expansive overview of the architectural developments of the Byzantine Empire and areas under its cultural influence, as well as of the intellectual currents that lie behind their creation. The book alternates chapters that address chronological or regional developments with thematic studies that focus on the larger cultural concerns, as they are expressed in architectural form.

Regional Identities and Cultures of Medieval Jews

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Regional Identity ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Rich Variety ◽  
Regional Cultures ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Middle Ages

Though the existence of Jewish regional cultures is widely known, the origins of the most prominent groups, Ashkenaz and Sepharad, are poorly understood, and the rich variety of other regional Jewish identities is often overlooked. Yet all these subcultures emerged in the Middle Ages. Scholars contributing to the present study were invited to consider how such regional identities were fashioned, propagated, reinforced, contested, and reshaped — and to reflect on the developments, events, or encounters that made these identities manifest. They were asked to identify how subcultural identities proved to be useful, and the circumstances in which they were deployed. The resulting volume spans the ninth to sixteenth centuries, and explores Jewish cultural developments in western Europe, the Balkans, North Africa, and Asia Minor. In its own way, each chapter considers factors — demographic, geographical, historical, economic, political, institutional, legal, intellectual, theological, cultural, and even biological — that led medieval Jews to conceive of themselves, or to be perceived by others, as bearers of a discrete Jewish regional identity. Notwithstanding the singularity of each chapter, they collectively attest to the inherent dynamism of Jewish regional identities.

Medieval Jewry In Christendom

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ram Ben-Shalom
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Community Life ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
The Social

This article begins in the early Middle Ages, and specifically addresses questions concerning the economic and political situation of Jewry in Western Europe. The period of the high Middle Ages follows, with a focus on developments in community life and the character of Jewish society. The discussion considers the Jewish foundation myths that were born in the twelfth century in an attempt to explain and interpret the social and cultural changes of the time. It examines the nature of the interaction and the form of discourse that characterized the medieval relations between a Christian majority and a Jewish minority culture. It also describes the legal status of the Jews in Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire. The article also discusses Jewish life in Spain, since, for a significant segment of the period under study, Spain was under Muslim rule.

scholarly journals Local fauna of bumblebees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Bombus Latr.) in the outskirts of the town of Kandalaksha, southwest Kola Peninsula

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grigory Potapov ◽  
Yulia Kolosova ◽  
Alisa Vlasova
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Kola Peninsula ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Published Data ◽  
Local Fauna ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
European North ◽  
The Town ◽  
Meadow Species

This article presents the results of research focussed on the local bumblebee fauna in the southwest of the Kola Peninsula (near the town of Kandalaksha). In general, if we include the published data, the local fauna have 16 species of bumblebees. Among the species of the present study, the recent record for this region isBombuswurfleniiRadoszkowski, 1860. This species was previously unknown in the European North of Russia. It is typical for mountain ecosystems in Europe (Scandinavia, the mountains of Central and Western Europe, the Balkans, Northern Turkey and the Caucasus). We assume that the record ofB.wurfleniion the Kola Peninsula is the recent appearance of this species in the region. One of the possible reasons for the expansion of this species is climate change. Other species of bumblebees in the local fauna are typical for the region. The species present wide ranges, i.e., Transpalaearctic, Holarctic and one species of West-Central Palaearctic. In the outskirts of Kandalaksha, there are 2 species (B.distinguendusMorawitz, 1869 andB.veteranus(Fabricius, 1793)) which belong to the group of meadow species according to their habitat preference. They are not common for the taiga habitats in the European North of Russia. We can explain their presence in the local fauna by noting the presence of anthropogenic meadow habitats in the studied area.

Muslim Roma in the Balkans

2000 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Crowe
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Middle Ages

The Roma entered the Balkans from India during the Middle Ages. They reached Persia sometime in the ninth century and by the eleventh century had moved into the Byzantine Empire. According to the eleventh-century Georgian Life of Saint George the Athonite, the Emperor Constantine Monomachus asked the Adsincani to get rid of wild animals preying on the animals in his royal hunting preserve. Adsincani is the Georgian form of the Greek word Atsínganoi or Atzínganoi, from which the non-English terms for Roma (cigán, cigány, tsiganes, zigeuner) are derived. Adsincani means “ner-do-well fortune tellers” or “ventriloquists and wizards who are inspired satanically and pretend to predict the unknown.” “Gypsy” comes from “Egyptian,” a term often used by early modern chroniclers in the Balkans to refer to the Roma. Because of the stereotypes and prejudice that surround the word “Gypsy,” the Roma prefer a name of their own choosing from their language, Romani. Today, it is preferable to refer to the Gypsies as Rom or “Roma,” a Romani word meaning “man” or “husband.” Byzantine references to “Egyptians” crop up during this period as Byzantine political and territorial fortunes gave way to the region's new power, the Ottomans. There were areas with large Roma populations in Cyprus and Greece which local rulers dubbed “Little Egypt” in the late fourteenth century.

scholarly journals Ranosrednjovjekovni nalazi iz hrvatskog podmorja

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zdenko Brusić
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Cross Section ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Great Part ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Early Medieval Period ◽  
Triangular Cross Section ◽  
The 1960S

I will use the opportunity in the fourth number of the Archaeologia Adriatica journal which is dedicated to my friend and colleague J. Belošević to pay attention to the finds which were found at the sea bottom as a consequence of various shipwrecks or as discarded or lost objects in the Early Middle Ages period when Croatian state developed and existed. Monuments from this period belong to rich scope of the study and research of my colleague J. Belošević. In this case by underwater finds I refer to a specific category of monuments that I have already written about, and which can be dated to the mentioned period on the basis of analogies. Namely these are amphorae which exhibit considerable differences regarding their size, i.e. capacity from the earlier types dated from the 5th to 7th centuries. These Byzantine amphorae, as they are usually referred to, have characteristic massive handles which are usually higher than the vessel's opening whereas base of the amphora is oval in shape, without pointed end characteristic of the earlier amphorae. Forms are usually piriform or ovoid, and their height usually does not exceed 40 cm. Remains of a shipwreck with amphorae of this type were discovered near the island of Mljet in the mid-1970s and the site had already been devastated. I discovered another site with the remains of the Byzantine amphorae and some other objects in the sea in front of the Ždrijac site in the vicinity of Nin when I was working as a curator of a regional archaeological collection in Nin in the 1960s. Byzantine amphorae were also found in 1995 in the Bay of Pijan in Savudrija where rescue underwater archaeological excavations of an important ancient port near Aquileia were undertaken due to building and extending a quay. Great part of the remaining amphorae which I present in this paper are older finds without exact data about the findspot and circumstances of discovery, such as the upper segment of an amphora from Umag or an oblong amphora with large handles which are significantly higher than its opening from Poreč (presently in the Regional Museum in Poreč). Three almost identical amphorae have piriform bodies and massive handles with a triangular cross-section which are higher than the amphora's opening. One of them was found near the island of Žut long time ago, presently it is in the Šibenik City Museum, the second was taken out of the sea in a fishing net between the islands of Silba and Olib, and the third one is from the Trogir port. There are several more amphorae corresponding to these finds: upper segment of an amphora from Ždrijac in Nin and two somewhat larger amphorae, one of which was found near the island of Ošljak near Zadar long ago (presently in the Archaeological Museum in Zadar) and the other from the Kovačić collection on the island of Hvar. A larger segment of a smaller oblong amphora of the similar shape was found in the 1970s near the island of Vela Arta near Murter. An upper segment of an amphora with a distinct neck and opening and large massive handles with triangular cross-section was found in the sea near the cape of Gospa od Gradine in Rogoznica, presently also in the Šibenik City Museum. We also need to mention finds from the port of Hvar found in 1991 and amphorae from the churches of St. Michael in Ston, St. George on the island of Vis and St. Barbara in Trogir. Underwater explorations along the Asia Minor coastline and in the Black Sea brought to light similar examples of amphorae on the basis of which N. Günsenin and Ch. Bakirtzis created a chronology, classifying them into several types dated from the 9th to 13th centuries. For an amphora from the collection of the Franciscan Monastery on the island of Krapanj we can find closer analogies, and probably also production centers on Peloponnesus. Without individual analysis of each of our amphorae, we can easily notice difference in the height of the handles which are often higher than the amphora's opening. Other evident differences include size and forms of amphorae as well as their diversity in relation to amphorae from the same period found in Turkish/Pontic region and the remaing part of the Balkans. These insights about the typological differences between our amphorae and the aforementioned ones in the Asia Minor region open up possibilities for hypothesizing about other, possibly local workshop centers in the area of today's Albanian littoral or the rest of the eastern Adriatic coast. All together, our coast shows the most impressive picture of maritime trade in the early medieval period on the basis of density of finds of the mentioned amphorae. Trade with glass products was also present in this period along our coast as indicated by the remains of a shipwreck near Cape Stoba on the island of Mljet where a certain amount of glass sets was found together with amphorae. Some of complete glass items found on a shipwreck near Serçe Limani can be related to some finds from the terrestrial sites on the basis of analogies, such as a glass flask from the grave (no. 322) at the great necropolis from Ždrijac in Nin which can be related to the workshop centres of the eastern Mediterranean since similar flask was found on the shipwreck from Serçe Limani in Turkey.

scholarly journals ON THE ALANIAN HERITAGE IN THE WEST

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Р.Г. ДЗАТТИАТЫ
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
The West ◽  
The Social ◽  
Gold Silver ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Great Migration ◽  
The Military

В результате процессов, сопровождавших Великое переселение народов, аланы, попав в Западную Европу, были ассимилированы, оставив во Франции, Северной Италии, Испании, Англии несколько сотен топонимов, связанных с ними. Следы пребывания алан на Западе впервые были обобщены В.А. Кузнецовым и В.К. Пудовиным. Появление труда американского ученого Б. Бахраха «Аланы на Западе» сняли скептицизм по отношению к роли алан в истории народов Западной Европы. О роли алан в исторических событиях Западной Европы раннего и зрелого Средневековья было отчетливо заявлено в трудах В.Б. Ковалевской, Франко Кардини, Говарда Рида, Скотта Литлтона, Линды Малкор. Особенно замечательна объемная работа Агусти Алемани «Аланы в древних и средневековых письменных источниках». У алан было заимствовано устройство конного войска, а вместе с этим, вероятно, и экипировка всадника, важной деталью которой был воинский пояс. Пряжка со щитком такого пояса служила у алан маркером статуса: в зависимости от того, из какого материала она была изготовлена (золото, серебро, бронза), она указывала на место в социальной иерархии. Трехлепестковый орнамент в результате модификаций вполне мог стать основой или прообразом особого знака-символа – так называемой «королевской лилии». Схему трансформации трехлепесткового узора в лилию можно проиллюстрировать рисунками пряжек. Надо полагать, что аланы оставили свой след не только в топонимике, организации конного войска, но и в орнаментике, фольклоре, антропонимике и других проявлениях культуры, которые необходимо тщательно исследовать. As a result of the processes that accompanied the Great Migration of Nations, the Alans, having fallen into Western Europe, were assimilated, leaving several hundred place names associated with them in France, Northern Italy, Spain, and England. The traces of the Alans' stay in the West were first generalized by V.A. Kuznetsov and V.K. Pudovin. The appearance of the work of the American scientist B.S. Bachrach "Alans in the West" removed skepticism regarding the role of the Alans in the history of the peoples of Western Europe. The role of the Alans in the historical events of Western Europe of the early and mature Middle Ages was clearly stated in the works of V.B. Kovalevskaya, Franco Cardini, Howard Reed, Scott Littleton, Linda Malkor. Particularly remarkable is the voluminous work of Agusti Alemany "Alans in ancient and medieval written sources." The Alans borrowed the device of the horse army, and with it, probably, the equipment of the horseman, an important detail of which was the military belt. The buckle with the shield of such a belt served as a status marker for the Alans: depending on what material it was made of (gold, silver, and bronze) it indicated a place in the social hierarchy. As a result of modifications, the three-petal ornament could very well become the basis or prototype of a special sign-symbol – the so-called “royal lily”. The transformation pattern of a three-petal pattern into a lily can be illustrated with buckle patterns. It must be assumed that the Alans left their mark not only in toponymy, organization of the cavalry army, but also in ornamentation, folklore, anthroponymy and other cultural manifestations, which must be carefully studied.

scholarly journals Ethnographic Trailblazers: Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Robert Prus ◽  
Matthew Burk
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Participant Observer

While ethnographic research is often envisioned as a 19th or 20th century development in the social sciences (Wax 1971; Prus 1996), a closer examination of the classical Greek literature (circa 700-300BCE) reveals at least three authors from this era whose works have explicit and extended ethnographic qualities. Following a consideration of “what constitutes ethnographic research,” specific attention is given to the texts developed by Herodotus (c484-425BCE), Thucydides (c460-400BCE), and Xenophon (c430-340BCE). Classical Greek scholarship pertaining to the study of the human community deteriorated notably following the death of Alexander the Great (c384-323BCE) and has never been fully approximated over the intervening centuries. Thus, it is not until the 20th century that sociologists and anthropologists have more adequately rivaled the ethnographic materials developed by these early Greek scholars. Still, there is much to be learned from these earlier sources and few contemporary social scientists appear cognizant of (a) the groundbreaking nature of the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon and (b) the obstacles that these earlier ethnographers faced in developing their materials. Also, lacking awareness of (c) the specific materials that these scholars developed, there is little appreciation of the particular life-worlds depicted therein or (d) the considerable value of their texts as ethnographic resources for developing more extended substantive and conceptual comparative analysis.  Providing accounts of several different peoples’ life-worlds in the eastern Mediterranean arena amidst an extended account of the development of Persia as a military power and related Persian-Greek conflicts, Herodotus (The Histories) provides Western scholars with the earliest, sustained ethnographic materials of record. Thucydides (History of the Peloponnesian War) generates an extended (20 year) and remarkably detailed account of a series of wars between Athens and Sparta and others in the broader Hellenistic theater. Xenophon’s Anabasis is a participantobserver account of a Greek military expedition into Persia. These three authors do not exhaust the ethnographic dimensions of the classical Greek literature, but they provide some particularly compelling participant observer accounts that are supplemented by observations and open-ended inquiries. Because the three authors considered here also approach the study of human behavior in ways that attest to the problematic, multiperspectival, reflective, negotiated, relational, and processual nature of human interaction, contemporary social scientists are apt to find instructive the rich array of materials and insights that these early ethnographers introduce within their texts. Still, these are substantial texts and readers are cautioned that we can do little more in the present statement than provide an introduction to these three authors and their works.

Reforms and Deficits: Ottoman Response to European Challenges

2018 ◽  
pp. 90-111
Author(s):  
Şevket Pamuk
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
The One ◽  
Independence Movements

This chapter discusses the Ottoman reforms as well as the efforts to finance them. The Ottoman government, faced with the challenges from provincial notables and independence movements that were gaining momentum in the Balkans, on the one hand, and the growing military and economic power of Western Europe, on the other, began to implement a series of reforms in the early decades of the nineteenth century. These reforms and the opening of the economy began to transform the political and economic institutions very rapidly. The chapter shows the social and economic roots of modern Turkey thus need to be sought, first and foremost, in the changes that took place during the nineteenth century.

Educated Wandering Jews, 800–1250

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maristella Botticini ◽  
Zvi Eckstein
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Jewish Diaspora ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Business Opportunities ◽  
Vast Territory

This chapter shows that once the Jews became literate, urban, and engaged in skilled occupations, they began migrating within the vast territory under Muslim rule—stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to India during the eighth through the twelfth centuries, and from the Byzantine Empire to western Europe via Italy and within western Europe in the ninth through the thirteenth centuries. In early medieval Europe, the revival of trade concomitant with the Commercial Revolution and the growth of an urban and commercial economy paralleled the vast urbanization and the growth of trade that had occurred in the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates four to five centuries earlier. The Jewish diaspora during the early Middle Ages was mainly the outcome of literate Jewish craftsmen, shopkeepers, traders, scholars, teachers, physicians, and moneylenders migrating in search of business opportunities to reap returns on their investment in literacy and education.

The Conquering Balkan Orthodox Merchant

1960 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Traian Stoianovich
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Aegean Islands ◽  
Merchant Class ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Business Concentration

The origins of a Balkan Orthodox merchant class or classes may be traced back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Not until the eighteenth century, however, did it become sufficiently strong in wealth and number to capture the trade of Hungary, South Russia, and the eastern Mediterranean. The eighteenth century was a time of expansion of French, German, English, and Russian trade in the Balkans. It was also a time of growth of the trade of Moslem Albanian and Bosnian merchants. But, in terms of its significance to the cultural, political, and general historical evolution of the Balkan peoples, most important of all was the expansion of the Balkan Orthodox merchant: the Greek trader of Constantinople, Salonika, and Smyrna, the Greek and Orthodox Albanian merchant, sailor, and shipper of the smaller Aegean islands, the Greek, Vlach, and Macedo-Slav muleteer and forwarding agent of Epirus, Thessaly, and Macedonia, the Serbian pig-merchant of Šumadija, the “Illyrian” muleteer and forwarding agent of Herzegovina and Dalmatia, who set up business in Ragusa (Dubrovnik) or Trieste, the “Rascian” of Pannonia, and the Greek or Bulgarian of the eastern Rhodope. The Balkan Orthodox merchants were Ottoman, Habsburg, and Russian subjects, but their principal business was to bring goods into or out of the Ottoman Empire. The area of their primary business concentration stretched north and west of the political limits of the Ottoman Empire to Nezhin in South Russia, Leipzig in Germany, Vienna in Austria, and Livorno and Naples in Italy. In western Europe, they succeeded in creating an area of secondary commercial penetration.

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