The Power of Distance: The Transformation of European Perceptions of Self and Other, 1100-1600

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 434-480
Author(s):  
Adam Knobler
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Great Distance ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
The West ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Middle Ages

Abstract Anthropologists such as Mary Helms have noted a historical linkage between the phenomena of perceived distance and perceived power. In this article I apply this paradigm to the history of European imperial expansion between the twelfth and the sixteenth century. In the Middle Ages, European popes and kings imbued the mythic ruler Prester John with great power in part because he was unseen and believed to live at a great distance. By associating the Mongols, and the Ethiopians after them, with Prester John, both of these peoples became an embodiment of this distance/power paradigm in Western European eyes. Latins hoped that the Mongols or Ethiopians would use their “power” to assist the West in their crusading battles in the Holy Land. When the Portuguese and Spanish began their voyages of expansion, they applied the same paradigm to the peoples they encountered in Asia, Africa and the Americas. When distance between Europe and these other continents was breached, however, the Iberian view of the others’ power diminished. Simultaneously, the Spanish and Portuguese perception of their own power increased as they, not “Prester John”, became the conquerors of distance.

II.—The Sources and Mediæval Versions of the Peace-Fable

PMLA ◽  
1907 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-55
Author(s):  
H. Carrington Lancaster
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Middle Ages

Although the Middle Ages usually drew upon Classic tradition in the formation of their fable literature, they at times created new themes whose popularity equalled that of many older rivals. Of no small importance among such stories are those that deal with the false peace declared by a fox in order to deceive a seemingly simple-minded bird. The numerous versions of this fable that have come down to us since the middle of the eleventh century evidence strong interrelation, in spite of individual differences of character, scene, or action. The various forms become so well established by the beginning of the sixteenth century that a history of the fable is sufficiently complete if it comes down to the end of the Middle Ages. It is the object of this article to show what versions of the Peace-Fable existed before the sixteenth century, whence they arose, and what are their relations to one another. The following is a list of the mediaeval versions:—

The Early Medieval Textiles at Maaseik, Belgium

1985 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mildred Budny ◽  
Dominic Tweddle
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
The West ◽  
Missing Link ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western European ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

This article offers an account of the components, the structure and the history of the so-calledcasulaandvelaminaof Sts Harlindis and Relindis preserved at the Church of St Catherine at Maaseik in Belgium as relics of the two sisters who founded the nearby abbey of Aldeneik (where the textiles were kept throughout the Middle Ages). The compositecasulaof Sts Harlindis and Relindis includes the earliest surviving group of Anglo-Saxon embroideries, dating to the late eighth century or the early ninth. Probably similarly Anglo-Saxon, a set of silk tablet-woven braids brocaded with gold associated with the embroideries offers a missing link in the surviving corpus of Anglo-Saxon braids. The ‘David silk’ with its Latin inscription and distinctly western European design dating from the eighth century or the early ninth offers a rare witness to the art of silk-weaving in the West at so early a date. Thevelamenof St Harlindis, more or less intact, represents a remarkable early medieval vestment, garment or cloth made up of two types of woven silk cloths, tablet-woven braids brocaded with gold, gilded copper bosses, pearls and beads. Thevelamenof St Relindis, in contrast, represents the stripped remains—reduced to the lining and the fringed ends—of another composite textile. Originally it was probably luxurious, so as to match the two other composite early medieval textile relics from Aldeneik. As a whole, the group contributes greatly to knowledge of early medieval textiles of various kinds.

A History of Women in the West. Vol II: Silences of the Middle Ages

1994 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 358
Author(s):  
James Eastgate Brink ◽  
Christiane Klapisch-Zuber
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Middle Ages

The Sense of the Horizon

Philosophy ◽  
1933 ◽  
Vol 8 (31) ◽  
pp. 301-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Delisle Burns
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Other ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
The West ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Form ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Middle Ages

Not for the first time in the history of our tradition, we are conscious of the defects of our inheritance and look doubtfully forward to a future whose structure we can hardly surmise. There was a Decline of the West in the first years of our era and again at the close of the Middle Ages. Now once more the beliefs and customs are shaken, on which our tradition is based; and there is no certainty that we shall carry forward what that tradition has so far achieved into a new form of civilized life. But, on the other hand, there is no reason to suppose that Western Civilization will disappear.

scholarly journals Doubt & Social Policy: The Long History of Malingering in Modern Welfare States

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-393
Author(s):  
Daniel S. Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
The West ◽  
Western History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Middle Ages

AbstractThis essay explores the long Western history of anxieties about feigned illness connected specifically to social policy. There is a remarkable consistency of such anxieties across time, as they appear in almost every major historical period in the West since the Middle Ages.

scholarly journals Issykhasm in the culture of Kievan Rus and Tauris

1999 ◽  
pp. 10-16
Author(s):  
N. Zhyrtuyeva
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
The West ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Middle Ages

The foundations of Christian culture were formed by Byzantium, which became a kind of "bridge" between the West and the East, between antiquity and the Middle Ages. For the Byzantine culture of the IV-XII centuries, there was a characteristic existence of three directions - the official theology (patristic), ascetic (intrinsic) and "anti-knitting" (oriented to dialogue with the ancient culture). The relationship between them varied in different ways during the history of Imperialism, which was reflected in its culture. In the IV-VI centuries dominant were patristic and ascetic directions. The official (moderate) theology at this stage of history was closely connected with the "anti-knotting" and sought dialogue with the ancient tradition. Only during the "Comnenian Renaissance" in the XI-XII centuries was the confrontation between ascetic and "anti-knitting" directions

The Merchant Adventurers of Bristol in the Fifteenth Century

1928 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 61-82
Author(s):  
E. M. Carus-Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
New World ◽  
The South ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Middle Ages ◽  
At Home

Ashrewd Italian visitor, writing of England more than four hundred years ago, remarked:—“There are scarcely any towns of importance in the kingdom excepting these two: Bristol, a seaport to the West, and Boraco, otherwise York, which is on the borders of Scotland; besides London to the South.” Now York was not a port, though it traded far afield through Hull; London was a port, but it was so much else that its story is confusingly complex; moreover it was not by the Thames but by the Severn that Englishmen first found a pathway to the New World at the end of the Middle Ages. Hence Bristol, then the second port in England, is of peculiar interest to the student of the still unwritten history of English commerce in the fifteenth century—a history unchronicled, but not unrecorded, and quite as significant as the wars abroad and the strifes at home which have too often earned for the century a character of futility.

scholarly journals Historia formularza mszalnego uroczystości Wszystkich Świętych

2009 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 195
Author(s):  
Jan Szczych
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Close Relation ◽  
Natural Process ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
The Middle Ages

The cult of the saints had its beginning in the Christian ancient times. Since then it was transformed in its own celebrations in honour of All the Saints. The official liturgy of the feast-day of Omnium Sanctorum (All Saints) was stabilized in close relation to the development of collective worship of the saints in the West. The historical liturgical witnesses from the Middle Ages and of the Trident Council time demonstrate a progressive and very natural process of establishment the missal texts of this liturgical celebration. The form of some liturgical directions in the current Missale Romanum (Latin Missal), unchanged for ages, confirms the continuity and constancy of this celebration in the history of Catholic Church. These missal directions explicitly show the same idea of celebration and timeless meaning of the All Saints Solemnity.

Inuit-European Interactions in Greenland

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Christian Gulløv
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
West Coast ◽  
East Coast ◽  
The West ◽  
Southwestern Part ◽  
West Greenland ◽  
The Middle Ages

In every century since the Middle Ages there have been Europeans in Greenland. Medieval Norse farmers settled in the southwestern part of the country and met with Native Greenlanders from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. From the sixteenth century onward, English and Danish explorers, followed by primarily Dutch whalers, met the Inuit on the west coast of Greenland. In 1721, Greenland was colonized from the double monarchy Denmark-Norway. During the eighteenth century, permanent settlements were established throughout west Greenland, and in the nineteenth century contacts were established with the Inuit on the east coast and in the Thule area.

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