Pine-cones for moss: a late Byzantine/early modern Greek version of ATU 1525E, Thieves steal from one another

Fabula ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 353-366
Author(s):  
Tommaso Braccini
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Greek Version ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Pine Cones

Abstract Two Greek authors, Georgios Sphrantzes (fifteenth century) and Makarios Melissourgos-Melissenos (sixteenth century) refer to a variant of the type ATU 1525E, Thieves steal from one another. It is the oldest known version, and it is remarkably close to the variants later attested in Georgia and the Balkans (an area that clearly shows the features of the Byzantine cultural heritage). The comparison also makes it possible to clarify and confirm the meaning of an obscure word used in the oldest version, that of Sphrantzes, where pine-cones (koukoutzella) and moss are at the center of the exchange.

scholarly journals “Turkish” Textiles in South-Eastern and East-Central Europe in the Early Modern Period: The Evidence of Transylvanian Customs Accounts

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 363-382
Author(s):  
Mária Pakucs-Willcocks
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Serial Data

Abstract This paper analyzes data from customs accounts in Transylvania from the middle of the sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth on traffic in textiles and textile products from the Ottoman Empire. Cotton was known and commercialized in Transylvania from the fifteenth century; serial data will show that traffic in Ottoman cotton and silk textiles as well as in textile objects such as carpets grew considerably during the second half of the seventeenth century. Customs registers from that period also indicate that Poland and Hungary were destinations for Ottoman imports, but Transylvania was a consumer’s market for cotton textiles.

scholarly journals To Sing Upon the Book: Oral and Written Counterpoint in Early Modern Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-105
Author(s):  
Ronald Broude
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
New Music ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Music Printing ◽  
Musical Tradition ◽  
Alternative Means ◽  
Textual Form ◽  
The Relationship

During the fifteenth century, many musici thought of counterpoint as an improvisational practice in which certain procedures were employed to produce a musical texture in which interest lay in the interplay of two or more melodic lines. The improvisational practice was called singing upon the book (cantare super librum): it required one singer to realize a pre-existing melody (called a cantus firmus) inscribed in a text while one or more other singers (called concentors), reading from that same text, devised, ex tempore, a countermelody or melodies that obeyed the rules of counterpoint with respect to the cantus firmus. Similar procedures, applied in writing, produced res facta, contrapuntal texture in textual form. Counterpoint and res facta were alternative means of providing music for occasions both sacred and secular. During the sixteenth century, several factors combined to alter the relationship between improvised and written counterpoint, and by the end of the century the importance of the former was greatly diminished. The growth of music printing provided an abundance of music for a growing community of amateurs who could read music but were not interested singing upon the book. The composers responsible for this new music embraced emerging ideas that stressed the advantages of written music, which enjoyed permanence that improvised counterpoint lacked, which was usually more observant of the rules than improvised counterpoint could be, and which enhanced the reputations of the composers who created it. As a result of these developments, emphasis shifted from improvised to written counterpoint, from the procedures that produced a contrapuntal texture to the texture itself, and singing upon the book came to be seen by many not as an end in itself but as a way to sharpen composers’ skills. Marginalized by print, improvised counterpoint survived in a much reduced community, largely in Catholic France and Iberia, and eventually, for want of a musical community large enough to sustain it, ceased to be a living musical tradition.

The European Reception of Livy (1469–1600)

2020 ◽  
pp. 11-38
Author(s):  
John-Mark Philo
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Literary Fame ◽  
Critical Order

Chapter 1 explores Livy’s early reception and translation in Renaissance Europe, examining the first, key decades in which the history reached a wider audience through its publication on the continent. The chapter first examines the literary fame enjoyed by Livy in Europe towards the end of the fifteenth century as well as the attempts of his earliest editors in print to impose some kind of critical order onto this monolithic work. The focus then moves to the first vernacular translations of Livy to have appeared in Europe, including the first renderings of the history into French and Italian. The final section considers the various translation styles at work in early-modern England and how these manifest themselves in each of the sixteenth-century translations of Livy.

Pleadable Brieves, Pleading and the Development of Scots Law

1986 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 403-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hector L. MacQueen
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Legal History ◽  
English Text ◽  
Civil Court ◽  
Substantive Law

Until recently there was a depressing consensus about Scottish legal history in the medieval and early modern periods. It was accepted that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Scots had gone some way to building a legal system on the model found in contemporary England, involving the holding of courts in the localities by sheriffs and justiciars on ayres, the use of royal writs or brieves to commence litigations, and the determination of cases by juries or assizes. The fullest account of Scottish law, Regiam Majestatem, was based on the twelfth century English text Glanvill. The wars and other skirmishes with England which began in 1296 and continued into the sixteenth century brought an end to the development of the ‘Scoto-Norman’law and legal system however. Cut off from its basic inspiration and lacking either a central court structure or a legal profession, Scots law regressed throughout the later middle ages. Demands for better justice led the king by the end of the fifteenth century to establish a group of royal councillors to hold judicial sessions or sittings at which such complaints might be heard. The councillors—the lords of council and session—might be either ecclesiastics or laymen; the former were more numerous and possessed greater legal skills. The procedure of the emerging court thus followed that of the ecclesiastical courts and the substantive law which developed was also canonical and civilian in character. By the mid-sixteenth century the Session was established as the main civil court in Scotland and Scots law had made a fresh start, severed from its original roots.

Wangara, Akan and Portuguese in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. I. The matter of Bitu

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivor Wilks
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The World ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
Late Fifteenth

In late medieval and early modern times West Africa was one of the principal suppliers of gold to the world bullion market. In this context the Matter of Bitu is one of much importance. Bitu lay on the frontiers of the Malian world and was one of its most flourishing gold marts. So much is clear from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writings, both African and European. A review of this body of evidence indicates that the gold trade at Bitu was controlled by the Wangara, who played a central role in organizing trade between the Akan goldfields and the towns of the Western Sudan. It is shown that Bitu cannot be other than Bighu (Begho, Bew, etc.), the abandoned Wangara town lying on the northwestern fringes of the Akan forest country, which is known (from excavation) to have flourished in the relevant period. In the late fifteenth century the Portuguese established posts on the southern shores of the Akan country, so challenging the monopolistic position which the Wangara had hitherto enjoyed in the gold trade. The Portuguese sent envoys to Mali, presumably to negotiate trade agreements. The bid was apparently unsuccessful. The struggle for the Akan trade in the sixteenth century between Portuguese and Malian interests will be treated in the second part of this paper.

Remembering the Death of Turnus: Spenser'sFaerie Queeneand the Ending of theAeneid*

2011 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 430-471
Author(s):  
Lars-Håkan Svensson
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Faerie Queene ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Faerie Queene

AbstractMost of the key episodes in book 1 of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene (1590) replay famous passages in Virgil's Aeneid. However, the concluding canto, describing the Redcrosse knight's betrothal to Una, is based on Maffeo Vegio's fifteenth-century Supplementum to the Aeneid, while, surprisingly, the Aeneid's much-disputed ending appears in triplicate in early sections of book 1. This article examines the place and function of book 1’s three imitations of the Aeneid's ending, while also relating them to Spenser's appropriations of the ending in later books of The Faerie Queene. It argues that, in making Redcrosse assume the position of Aeneas in largely negative contexts, book 1 opposes standard sixteenth-century interpretations of Aeneas's pietas, whereas later books of The Faerie Queene usually conform to prevalent early modern interpretations of the moral import of this powerful cultural memory.

How to do multilingual literary history? Lessons from fifteenth- and sixteenth-century north India

2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Orsini
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
North India ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
A Site ◽  
Culture And Language

How can we conceptualise multilingual literary culture, and how can we research it? Using the turbulent ‘long fifteenth century’ in north India as a site, this article questions research models based on single languages (Hindi, Urdu) and engages critically with early modern taxonomies and archives. The article focuses on the materiality of the archive—the language, script and format in which texts were written down and copied—on the spaces and locations in which literature was produced and performed, and on the oral-performative practices and agents that made texts circulate to audiences in ways not bound by the script in which the texts appear to us. Not only are the models of composite culture and language-specificity questioned as a result, but the sites of literary production move from the court to a series of intersections, and areas that were peripheral move into view and connect with others.

scholarly journals Architectural framing in the iconostasis as an instrument of commenting on the sacred image

2019 ◽  
pp. 44-49
Author(s):  
S. Olianina
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Multilevel Structure ◽  
Christian Origins ◽  
Sacred Image ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Written Sources

Before the seventeenth century, the icons in the Ukrainian iconostasis did not have frames as an arch or a blind arcade. The epistyles with images of Deesis of fourteenth – sixteenth century have not frames at all or the figures are divided by the rectangular pictorial frames. However, from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the icons of apostles in a Deesis row had already framing by carved frames like as the blind arcade. This practice quickly spreads and becomes the rule for the representation of apostles at the iconostasis throughout the seventeenth century. The Christian origins of tradition to decorate sacral images by blind arcade to be continue from Byzantium. It is very important that this design of the icons is characteristic of the Byzantine templons. The epistyles of templons from the twelfth – fifteenth century are mostly framing by blind arcade. The same principle of decoration is passed to the Balkans, where the blind arcade also is fixed in the design of the Deesis row. I argue that the blind arcade in the Ukrainian iconostasis in the design of the Deesis row comes from the Balkans The introduction of frames in the form of a blind arcade for icons of the Deesis row created compositional parallels between Ukrainian iconostasis and the iconostasis of the Balkans. This unity of the used compositional formulas reinforced the relationship of the Ukrainian iconostasis with the Balkan, and visually showed its Byzantine origins. On the basis of artistic and written sources, I demonstrate that blind arcade emphasized the eschatological meanings of the Deesis row. It was also a kind of marker that indicated the presence of this row in the multilevel structure of the monumental Ukrainian iconostasis of the seventeenth century.

scholarly journals Annotating the Affections

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-216
Author(s):  
Kirk Essary
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New Testament ◽  
History Of Emotions ◽  
Emotion Words ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Historical Semantics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Shed Light

A key problem in the history of emotions arises from the shifting meaning of emotion terms throughout history and from the difficulty in translating emotion terms from one language to another. Erasmus’ New Testament and Annotations offer scholars interested in the ‘historical semantics of emotion’ invaluable insights into sixteenth-century emotions discourse and the translation of emotion terms from Greek into Latin. This paper examines some of the more problematic cases in order to shed light on how Erasmus handles the difficulties that are attendant to translating emotion words, and also considers the influence of Erasmus’ NT and Annotations in early modern Greek-to-Latin lexicons, a feature of his reception that has not been acknowledged to date.

Sixteenth-Century Jewish Makers of Printed Books and the Shaping of Late Renaissance Jewish Literacy

2019 ◽  
pp. 45-68
Author(s):  
Pavel Sládek
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Printing Press ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Late Renaissance

This chapter looks at the medium of printed books that was introduced into Jewish culture soon after its emergence in the mid-fifteenth century. It discusses the arrival of the presses that were run by different members of the Jewish Soncino family in Italy and elsewhere at the beginning of the 1480s, wherein a wide variety of genres appeared in print. It also describes the Soncino editions that were distinguished among printers by the accuracy and beauty of their typefaces. The chapter mentions the early printed book that was seen as a radical innovation in the age of complex cultural transformations both within and outside Jewish society. It recounts how the 'knowledge explosion' that was spurred by the rise of the printing press was a key factor in the formation of early modern Jewish cultural history.

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