scholarly journals Seal of Nikephoros, the Metropolitan πάσης Ῥωσίας, from Byzantine Cherson

Author(s):  
Nikolai A. Alekseienko ◽  

This research republishes an interesting sigillographic find from Byzantine Cherson (Shumen, 2011), which first attribution was tentative, suggesting subsequent clarifications and corrections. Oleksandr Alf’orov has provided a new reading of the place-name on the seal reverse, thus indicating the necessity of setting aside the initial attribution of the seal to one of the bishoprics in Bulgaria and allowing one to relate the find from Cherson with the metropolis of Rus’. Now the obverse legend has been successfully reconstructed, uncovering that the seal certainly shows not the traditional image of St. Nikephoros, but rather that of the homonymous saint, the glorified patriarch of Constantinople in the ninth century. The image of St. Nikephoros is among the rarest pieces of Byzantine sigillography, though the image of St. Patriarch Nikephoros of Constantinople does not meet with any analogies. The chronology of the seal depends on the specific script and abbreviations in the legend, typical of the period from the twelfth to fourteenth century. Taking stylistic and epigraphic features of the find from Cherson and the term πάσης Ῥωσίας (“of all Rus’) used in the legend into account, there are reasons to consider that, among two metropolitans of Kiev bearing the same name in the twelfth century, the owner of the seal in question was Nikephoros (Nikifor) II who headed the Rus’ian Orthodox church in the late twelfth and the very early thirteenth centuries. The new attribution of this seal clarifies the list of church figures who received letters from Byzantine Cherson in the Late Byzantine period and uncovers this seal’s role of a source valuable and important for the history of the region, which testifies to the existence of inter-church connections between Cherson and Rus’ at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth century.

Vivarium ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 340-366
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Martin

Abstract The history of thinking about consequences in the Middle Ages divides into three periods. During the first of these, from the eleventh to the middle of the twelfth century, and the second, from then until the beginning of the fourteenth century, the notion of natural consequence played a crucial role in logic, metaphysics, and theology. The first part of this paper traces the development of the theory of natural consequence in Abaelard’s work as the conditional of a connexive logic with an equivalent connexive disjunction and the crisis precipitated by the discovery of inconsistency in this system. The second part considers the accounts of natural consequence given in the thirteenth century as a special case of the standard modal definition of consequence, one for which the principle ex impossibili quidlibet does not hold, in logics in which disjunction is understood extensionally.


Author(s):  
George Garnett

Chapter 5 analyses three genres of historical writing about England in the later middle ages: histories of individual churches, universal histories, and histories of the kingdom. It confirms the provisional judgement reached in Chapter 4: that with respect to the Conquest and earlier England, historical writing fossilized. There were, however, exceptions, most of which could be categorized in the first genre. These are examined in great detail, and follow on from the treatment of the unusual episodes recorded during the thirteenth century at St Augustine’s, Canterbury and Burton Abbey which were considered in Chapter 4. The first is the problematic, neglected Historia Croylandensis attributed to (Pseudo-)Ingulf, which is for the most part a fabrication of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, but which masquerades as the work of the abbot at Crowland at the end of the eleventh century, and therefore as contemporaneous with the great post-Conquest histories of England. The second is the early fourteenth-century Lichfield Chronicle, written by Alan of Ashbourn. The third is a general history of England conventionally attributed to John Brompton, abbot of Jervaulx in the early fifteenth century, and perhaps written at the abbey. All three pay a great deal of attention to (different) twelfth-century compilations of Old English and immediately post-Conquest law. This unusual characteristic accounts for their exceptional interest in the Conquest. The chapter also includes a briefer discussion of the more conventional histories into which condensed earlier discussions of the Conquest were inserted.


2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Muhammad Aziz

This paper analyzes the historical conditions of Yemen’s Sufi movement from the beginning of Islam up to the rise of the Rasulid dynasty in the thirteenth century. This is a very difficult task, given the lack of adequate sources and sufficient academic attention in both the East and theWest. Certainly, a few sentences about the subject can be found scattered in Sufi literature at large, but a respectable study of the period’s mysticism can hardly be found.1 Thus, I will focus on the major authorities who first contributed to the ascetic movement’s development, discuss why a major decline of intellectual activities occurred in many metropolises, and if the existing ascetic conditions were transformed into mystical tendencies during the ninth century due to the alleged impact ofDhu’n-Nun al-Misri (d. 860). This is followed by a brief discussion ofwhat contributed to the revival of the country’s intellectual and economic activities. After that, I will attempt to portray the status of the major ascetics and prominent mystics credited with spreading and diffusing the so-called Islamic saintly miracles (karamat). The trademark of both ascetics and mystics across the centuries, this feature became more prevalent fromthe beginning of the twelfth century onward. I will conclude with a brief note on the most three celebrated figures of Yemen’s religious and cultural history: Abu al-Ghayth ibn Jamil (d. 1253) and his rival Ahmad ibn `Alwan (d. 1266) from the mountainous area, andMuhammad ibn `Ali al-`Alawi, known as al-Faqih al-Muqaddam (d. 1256), from Hadramawt.


Author(s):  
Ildar Garipzanov

The concluding chapter highlights how the cultural history of graphic signs of authority in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages encapsulated the profound transformation of political culture in the Mediterranean and Europe from approximately the fourth to ninth centuries. It also reflects on the transcendent sources of authority in these historical periods, and the role of graphic signs in highlighting this connection. Finally, it warns that, despite the apparent dominant role of the sign of the cross and cruciform graphic devices in providing access to transcendent protection and support in ninth-century Western Europe, some people could still employ alternative graphic signs deriving from older occult traditions in their recourse to transcendent powers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-177
Author(s):  
Nahyan Fancy ◽  
Monica H. Green

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.


Author(s):  
Светлана Измайловна Баранова

Статья посвящена истории созданного в 1874 г. в Воскресенском Ново-Иерусалимском монастыре музея Святейшего патриарха Никона, а также истории возрождения музея в новом качестве, ставшего частью программы современного восстановления Ново-Иерусалимского монастыря. Рассмотрена роль устроителя музея архимандрита Леонида (Кавелина) (1822-1891) - настоятеля обители в 1869-1877 гг., выдающегося русского историка, историографа Воскресенского монастыря, собирателя его древностей и исследователя его архивов. Также представлен опыт построения экспозиции нового Музея патриарха Никона, использующий объединение историко-хронологического принципа с художественно-образным, коллекционного - с мемориальным, тематическим и ансамблевым. Восстановление в монастыре музея в новом качестве должно подчеркнуть мемориальную сущность обители как явления русской церковной археологии XIX в. Экспозиция, размещенная в залах музея, должна создать богатый информационновизуальный базис, оставить в памяти посетителя глубокий эмоциональный след, дать пищу для духовного развития и материал для общих размышлений о судьбах Святых Мест христианства, параллелях в жизни России и Святой Земли, колоссальном вкладе патриарха Никона в строительство величественного здания Русской Православной Церкви и зарождавшейся Российской империи. The article is dedicated to the history of the Museum of His Holiness Patriarch Nikon, founded in 1874 in the Resurrection New Jerusalem Monastery as well as the history of the revival of the museum in a new quality, which became part of the restoration program of the New Jerusalem Monastery. The role of the organizer of the museum, archimandrite Leonid (Kavelin) (1822-1891), the abbot of the monastery in 1869-1877, an outstanding Russian historian, the Resurrection Monastery historiographer, a collector of its antiquities and a researcher of its archives, is considered. Also, it is said about the experience of forming a collection of the new Patriarch Nikon’s Museum implementing historical-chronological, artistic-figurative, memorial, thematic and ensemble principles of the collection. Anew quality restoration done in the monastery museum should emphasize the memorial importance of the monastery as a phenomenon of Russian church archeology of the XIX century. The exposition located in the museum halls should create a rich informational and visual basis, have a deep emotional impact in the visitor’s memory, provide food for spiritual development and material for general reflection on the fate of the Holy Chrisitan Places, establish parallels in the life of Russia and the Holy Land, mark an enormous contribution of Patriarch Nikon in the construction of a magnificent building of the Russian Orthodox Church and the nascent Russian Empire.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter John Worsley

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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
JILL ROSS

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.


2020 ◽  
pp. 45-65
Author(s):  
Darya Morozova

The article analyzes the ethical and theological content of the apocryphal Syrian "autobiography" of St. Clement of Rome (Epytome), as well as its early Slavic translation (Life of St. Clement). The study uses historical-philosophical, patristic and philological methodology to outline the specific teachings, attributed to St. Clement by this Greek-speaking Syrian text from the pseudo-Clementine cycle. The methods of comparative textology and translation studies are used to analyze the features of the Slavic version of the work. The study revealed that, contrary to the ideas of the publisher of the Slavic version, P. Lavrov, the translation was undoubtedly made according to the archaic, pre-metaphrasic version of the work. Therefore, it can be dated to the ninth century and come from the school of Cyril and Methodius. The popularity of the monument among Slavic readers is partly explained by the archaic features of the original version of the work preserved in the translation, such as graphic imagery, expressive presentation, and numerous dialogues. Such a lively account facilitated the perception of the conceptually rich ethical content of the work. At the heart of both Greek and Slavic versions is the ethical category of philanthropy (φιλανθρωπία), which figures as a central Christian virtue. Much of the Epitome is devoted to a detailed explanation of this category and its distinction from other virtues. In the original, the ethics of philanthropy is opposed to the astrological ideology represented by Clement’s father Faust. Faust's views are based on the natural philosophical ideas of the early Greek Stoics. Apostle Peter, Clement's teacher, responds to his arguments from the standpoint of Judeo-Christian monotheism, referring to the biblical history of his people. Thus, Hellenism is confronted with biblical monotheism. So, Epitome appears a kind of argument in the controversy between Gentile Christians and Judeo-Christians (Ebionites), which has troubled the Syrian Church for centuries. However, in translation, this clash of worldviews remains obscured, as the translator does not seem to recognize either the terminology of Stoic natural philosophy, or astrological issues, or the debate between the traditions of Peter and Paul in Syria. Thus, all the Stoic terminology of Faust is reduced to a single concept of "being". Therefore, in the translated version, the controversy is not so much between Christianity and astrology, as between ethics and "ontology". Instead, the translator enriches the philosophical outline of the work with polysemic Slavic vocabulary, which sheds new light on the role of the bishop in Peter’s instructions to Clement. Comparison of the Greek and Slavic versions of the Epitome – an autobiography attributed to St. Clement – with his only authentic work, 1Corinthians, allowed to draw another unexpected conclusion. All these works are not only devoted to one main problem - the restoration of peace in the controversial Christian community, but also offer similar ways out of the crisis through brotherly love, solidarity and respect for the otherness of the fellow Christians. This may indicate either that the author of the Syrian apocrypha was inspired by the true Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, or that the image of St. Clement, that developed in the early tradition, dictated the message of the pseudo-epigraph quite powerfully. Due to this consonance, the apocryphal work of the Syrian Ebionites did to some extent acquaint Slavic readers with the ideas of Clement of Rome, whose only authentic work was almost unknown in the Middle Ages.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 254-268
Author(s):  
Sergey V. Bazavluk

The author analyzes the ideological views of a group of Russian migrants of the fi rst wave, known as Eurasianists, including N.S. Trubetskoy, P.N. Savitsky, N.N. Alekseeva, L.N. Karsavina and others. The author discusses fundamental elements of the classical Eurasianist program, such as the role of the Orthodox Church and the state in the life of Russia and its society, their attitude to Roman Catholic culture, and their place in dialogue with other religions. In addition, other important elements of Eurasianism noted here are the ideas of pan-Eurasian nationalism, ideocracy, the spatial borders of Russia-Eurasia, the symphonic personality, a guarantee state. These issues are associated directly with the authors of these concepts and with Eurasianism in general. The author demonstrates the continuity with the teachings of the Slavophiles and highlights the special attention that the Eurasians paid to the traditional cultures of Russia. Also noted is the interest in Eurasianism of church circles in exile in Europe. At the same time, the Eurasianists’ critical vies on the “Petersburg period” in the history of the Russian church are highlighted, which are also implicit in Eurasianism as an independent ideological and philosophical line of thought of Russian emigration in the fi rst half of the twentieth century. An attempt is made to show how, through conservative thought, Eurasians tried to form a new type of political identity. This ideological direction with an emphasis on spirituality and special institutions was considered by Eurasians as a prototype of the future statehood of Russia as opposed to the Soviet-Marxist system. In the context of the contemporary Eurasian integration (EAEU), of the current role of the Russian Orthodox Church and external political manipulations around the role of the Moscow Patriarchate, the theoretical views of the Eurasians take on a new dimension.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document