Revenue Farming Reconsidered: Tenurial Rights and Tenurial Duties in Early Modern India, ca. 1556-1818

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 878-919
Author(s):  
Sudev Sheth

AbstractThe meaning of land revenue farming in Indian history has eluded consensus. Some view it as an administrative aberration indicating weak state control, while others see it as a strategy for consolidating authority. This essay traces the historical development ofiqṭāʻandijārah, two Perso-Arabic terms frequently translated from the sources as ‘revenue farming estate’. I then suggest that existing perspectives do not capture the broader structure and significance of various entitlements to land revenue. Instead, I suggest that entitlements be schematized according to how regularized the right was, whether it was permanent, and how duty-bound the right holder was. In this formulation, revenue farm refers to a complex of rights and duties secured by contract in which a sovereign transferred the temporary exploitation of a holding for rent in advance. It was one of four tenurial complexes under which entitlements fell, the others being estates from bureaucratic assignment, hereditary occupation or possession by grant/gift, and tributary or chieftaincy.

Author(s):  
Csilla Gabor

The study deals with 16th and 17th century Hungarian printed polemical works considering religious disputes a typical form of communication in the age of Reformation and Catholic renewal. Its conceptual framework is the paradigm or research method of the long Reformation as an efficient assistance to the discovery and appreciation of early modern theological-religious diversity. The analysis examines several kinds of communication which occurs in the (religious) dispute, and explores the rules and conventions along which the (verbal) fighting takes place. Research shows that the opponents repeatedly refer to the rules of dialectics refuting each other’s standpoints accusing them of faulty argumentation, i.e., the wrong use of syllogisms. Dialectics is, namely, in this context not the ars with the help of which truth is found but with which evident truth is checked and justified in a way that the opponents can also be educated to follow the right direction.


Author(s):  
Andrew Hadfield

Lying in Early Modern English Culture is a major study of ideas of truth and falsehood from the advent of the Reformation to the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot. The period is characterized by panic and chaos when few had any idea how religious, cultural, and social life would develop after the traumatic division of Christendom. Many saw the need for a secular power to define the truth; others declared that their allegiances belonged elsewhere. Accordingly there was a constant battle between competing authorities for the right to declare what was the truth and so label opponents as liars. Issues of truth and lying were, therefore, a constant feature of everyday life, determining ideas of identity, politics, speech, sex, marriage, and social behaviour, as well as philosophy and religion. This book is a cultural history of truth and lying from the 1530s to the 1610s, showing how lying needs to be understood in practice and theory, concentrating on a series of particular events, which are read in terms of academic debates and more popular notions of lying. The book covers a wide range of material such as the trials of Anne Boleyn and Thomas More, the divorce of Frances Howard, and the murder of Anthony James by Annis and George Dell; works of literature such as Othello, The Faerie Queene, A Mirror for Magistrates, and The Unfortunate Traveller; works of popular culture such as the herring pamphlet of 1597; and major writings by Castiglione, Montaigne, Erasmus, Luther, and Tyndale.


2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (03) ◽  
pp. 463-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth F. Cohen

In the English constitutional tradition, subjecthood has been primarily derived from two circumstances: place of birth and time of birth. People not born in the right place and at the right time are not considered subjects. What political status they hold varies and depends largely on the political history of the territory in which they reside at the exact time of their birth. A genealogy of early modern British subjecthood reveals that law based on dates and temporal durations—what I will call collectivelyjus tempus—creates sovereign boundaries as powerful as territorial borders or bloodlines. This concept has myriad implications for how citizenship comes to be institutionalized in modern politics. In this article, I briefly outline one route through whichjus tempusbecame a constitutive principle within the Anglo-American tradition of citizenship and how this concept works with other principles of membership to create subtle gradations of semi-citizenship beyond the binary of subject and alien. I illustrate two main points aboutjus tempus: first, how specific dates create sovereign boundaries among people and second, how durational time takes on an abstract value in politics that allows certain kinds of attributes, actions, and relationships to be translated into rights-bearing political statuses. I conclude with some remarks about how, once established, the principle ofjus tempusis applied in a diverse array of political contexts.


Nuncius ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Marinozzi

In the early 1980s a systematic investigation was begun by G. Fornaciari and his staff of a series of mummies from central and southern Italy, and in particular of important Renaissance remains. The study of a substantial number of artificial mummies has shed light on the human embalming techniques connected with the methods and procedures described by medical and non-medical authors in the early modern period. This has made it possible to reconstruct the history of the art of mummification, from the ‘clyster’ techniques to the partial or total evisceration of the corpse, to the intravascular injection of drying and preserving liquors. In addition to the bodies of Aragonese princes and members of the Neapolitan nobility, interred in the Basilica of San Domenico in Naples are the remains of important French personages dating to the modern age. Among the tombs arranged in two parallel rows to the right of the balcony are four sarcophagi containing the bodies of the wife and three children of Jean Antoine Michel Agar, who served as the Minister of Finance of the Kingdom of Naples from 1809 to 1815. The type of wrapping used for the corpses of the children presents strong analogies to those of ancient Egyptian mummies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 138 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-114
Author(s):  
Thino Bekker

The summary judgment procedure in South African law provides for a speedy judgment in favour of a deserving plaintiff where it can be shown that the defendant does not have a triable defence. In 2019 the Rules Board made certain drastic amendments to the procedure of summary judgment in the high court. In this article the historical development of the procedure of summary judgment will be discussed, and the new amendments to rule 32 of the Uniform Rules of Court critically evaluated. It will be argued that the amendments to rule 32 were unnecessary and that it may diminish the right to access to justice in civil disputes. It will, however, also be argued that there are some merits in the critique raised by the Rules Board in relation to rule 32 and that the Rules Board missed a golden opportunity to overhaul the entire summary judgment procedure in a more sensible manner and in line with the core constitutional values of s 34 of the Constitution. It will be argued that rule 32 should be replaced in its entirety by a new, more streamlined procedure, and some recommendations for legal reform will be made in this regard.


Author(s):  
Thomas Leinkauf

This article tries to point out that in the early modern period, including the Renaissance, philosophy increasingly developed a certain kind of thinking and arguing that needed to be sustained by ›icons‹, ›pictures‹ or ›signs‹. Following a suggestion made by Stephen Clucas in inviting a group of scholars to discuss the topos of ›silent languages‹ at Birbeck College (University of London), this paper discusses 1. a general possible meaning of ›silent language‹, divided into three modes of symbolic and geometric representation, and introducing 2. three ›stages‹ in the historical development of philosophical systems representing these three modes: Plotinus, Cusanus, the philosophy of the 16th and 17th century.


Author(s):  
Radomír Boháč

The centre of gravity of international trade has been shifting eastwards; 2 of 3 largest economies come from Asia. It witnessed 6.9% growth in 2014, much above the 2.6% on the global level. Credit goes in full to continent’s hard working population. It is presumed that 90% of the global growth within the next 10 – 15 years will be generated outside Europe; the majority of it in Asia. By 2050 a half of the global GDP will be generated there. Asia represents the global model in promoting R&D and innovations; it has become the key trading partner of the EU, with strategic partners in China, India, Japan, and South Korea. Numerous EU´s FTAs are being negotiated, hopefully eliminating remaining barriers to trade. The contribution focuses on prospects which are emanating for Slovakia and the Western liberal economic model vis-a-vis state control. It discusses the China’s economic downturn as a risk but also as a new opportunity. Slovak prosperity is vitally interlinked with the performance of export. It disproportionately depends on the EU. Out of the first eight countries within Slovakia‘s negative trade balance statistics, six come from Asia. Thus Asia should imperatively facilitate diversification of Slovak economy. The paper attempts to establish a frank and open picture of the state of the game, with the right balance between theory and authentic professional experience of the author. It assesses key Slovak strengths and weaknesses, identifies opportunities and offers a “food for thought”.


Author(s):  
Payal Bhardwaj ◽  
Vikas Sharma

The right to live a dignified life is one of the basic necessities of human beings. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-esteem and being respected takes almost the topmost position in a person’s psychological needs. Women’s suffragette, the civil movements for equality of African- American’s and other such movements in history are a testament of the same. However, Indian history reeks of a dark past, a past that not only differentiated amongst people, but treated them worse than animals. The Indian society’s ‘Chaturvarna’ system placed the untouchables in the lowest social category. They are also called ‘Dalits’, which literally translates to ‘broken men’. The untouchables were forced to inhumane treatment and atrocities for no fault of their own. Basic rights such as drinking water, food, proper accommodation and even walking on roads were not allowed to them. With the efforts of visionaries and social workers, the condition improved; but it is still not a complete victory. This paper is but a feeble light shining on the struggles that come with unfair castigation of this social hierarchy. It also points out how plight of Dalits is addressed in writings of the Dalit writers. Dalit writers suggested that the plight of Dalits can only be addressed through social consciousness, which can only come with education and legal empowerment.


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