Gregory the Great's Europe

1981 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 21-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Markus
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
Social Landscape ◽  
The World ◽  
The Right ◽  
Eastern Empire

Gregory became pope in the summer of 590, to succeed his predecessor who had been carried away by the plague. Nearly fifty years had passed since the first outbreak of the plague in the time of Justinian. Let the plague serve as our signpost to a period of upheaval across Europe. If the 530s were the ‘age of hope’ a disastrous reversal began in the 540s. The succeeding half-century was a time of collapsing hopes and darkening horizons: the prospect of imperial reconquest and peace receding after 540, never to be more than ephemerally and precariously realized; the dreams of spiritual and political unification revealed as illusory; war, plague and the obscure workings of ‘demographic forces’ combined to turn the Italy of Boethius into that of Gregory the Great in the course of some sixty years. The contours of the societies of late Antiquity were becoming displaced to produce a new social landscape. Some of this transformation has left visible traces in our evidence and has been extensively studied; much of it has been concealed from us, either through lack of evidence or through failure to ask the right questions. It is only in recent years, to take one example, that the subtle shifts in Byzantine religiosity and political ideology discernible in the later sixth century have begun to cohere into something like a unified picture of a ‘new integration’ of culture and society in the towns of the Eastern Empire. How far the world of Western Europe was exposed to analogous changes may be a question impossible to answer; in any case, it needs approaching piecemeal and with the necessary discrimination of time and place.

The Magi and the Star

2020 ◽  
pp. 212-223
Author(s):  
D. H. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Country Of Origin ◽  
Illuminated Manuscripts ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
The West ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World

Matthew’s account of the Magi (magoi) is unique in the Bible and has led to a great many questions about their identity and what we should make of the ‘star’ that prompted their trip in the first place and led them to Christ. Exactly when Christian writers first ascribed the Magi as kings is unknown, but attribution of royalty to the Magi appears to have been established by the onset of the sixth century. Thereafter, the three ‘kings’ become commonplace in European illuminated manuscripts and art. Although it is generally assumed that the Magi were three in number, because they presented three gifts, three is not the only accounting. In the later Eastern sources, especially in Syria, the names of twelve Magi are also listed. But in the West, three names prevailed: Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, with different spellings. By Late Antiquity, it was commonly thought that each of the Magi had a separate country of origin: each one signified one of the three parts of the world—Africa, Asia, and Europe—and that these were linked with the sons of Noah, who fathered the three races of Earth. Writers perpetuated this construct through the medieval period.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander O'Hara
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Cultural Hybridity ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
The World

In the early Middle Ages Europe’s political landscape was significantly shaped by the emergence of new fundamental modes of identification, both ethnic and religious. These processes created new forms of social cohesion and conflict. The world into which the Irish ascetic exile and monastic founder Columbanus entered when he left Ireland toward the end of the sixth century was a world of gentes, new constellations of peoples. The pluralistic political landscape of the gentes had replaced a world of empire. This chapter introduces the themes and approach of this volume, which explores Columbanus’s influence on Robert Schuman, one of the founding fathers of the modern European Union; the emerging idea of Europe in the early Middle Ages, which Columbanus gave voice to; and how reciprocity and cultural hybridity can be useful lenses through which to study this period of transformation from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages.

Late Antiquity: Latin and Greek, Private, Public, Popular

2019 ◽  
pp. 122-144
Author(s):  
Derek Attridge
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Private Consumption ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Private Activity ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Eastern Empire

The fourth to sixth centuries AD witnessed considerable poetic activity, which is the subject of this chapter. Itinerant poets gave performances, and festivals flourished. Poetry in both Latin and Greek was composed, and the reading of poems remained both a public and a private activity. This chapter pays particular attention to two poets: Ausonius, as an example of a poet who wrote for private consumption, and Claudian, whose poetry was performed in public for political ends. The rise of Christianity produced a more popular body of verse derived from Jewish psalmody: hymns in Latin metres that evolved from quantitative to accentual, reflecting the loss of quantitative distinctions in the language. The same loss occurred in Greek, the language of the eastern Empire centred on Constantinople, where one verse composer of particular interest in the sixth century was Romanos the Melodist.

THE DEATH OF A CONSUMER SOCIETY

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 211-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Hilton
Keyword(s):  
Basic Needs ◽  
Consumer Society ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Consumer Activism ◽  
Consumer Movement ◽  
The World ◽  
The Right ◽  
Successes And Failures

ABSTRACTThis paper argues that the meaning of consumer society has changed over the last half century, principally through the prioritisation of choice over access. It does this through an examination of the global consumer movement and a consideration of its successes and failures. It demonstrates that through the movement's own tactics, and the defeats it suffered by opponents of regulation, its earlier emphasis on the right of consumers to enjoy basic needs has given way to a greater focus on choice. Consequently, the changing fortunes of consumer activism around the world both reflect and explain the reorientation of global consumer society over the last few decades.

Colombian Constitutional Law

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Global South ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Cultural Autonomy ◽  
Internal Armed Conflict ◽  
Social Landscape ◽  
The World ◽  
The Right

This book makes available the case law of the Colombian Constitutional Court in English, which has become one of the most creative and important courts of the global south and the world since its creation in 1991. It provides concise and carefully chosen extracts of the Court’s most important cases, along with notes and introductory materials to place them in a historical and comparative context. The book covers the Court’s landmark rights jurisprudence, including the decriminalization of drug possession, the legalization of same-sex marriage, the protection of social rights through broad structural orders such as the ones covering internally displaced persons and the right to health, the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples to cultural autonomy and to be consulted before economic projects are undertaken on their land, and the rights of victims of the country’s long-running internal armed conflict to truth, justice, and reparations. It also covers the Court’s most noteworthy structural cases, particularly its successful attempt to limit the use of states of exception and its substitution of the constitution doctrine. The materials highlight the Court’s contributions in a comparative perspective, showing how they are exemplary of a range of problems faced by courts around the world and particularly as an example of aggressive judicial review by the courts of the global south. At the same time, they demonstrate how many of the Court’s key cases are reactions to the historical features of the Colombian legal and social landscape.

National Sentiments in Eastern and Western Europe*

2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 413-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikael Hjerm
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Struggle ◽  
National Community ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The World ◽  
The Right ◽  
Eastern And Western Europe ◽  
Different Parts

In a world of presumed nation-states nation has been, and still is, an intrinsic part of political legitimization. The claim of nationality has played an important role in such legitimization for the last two centuries. More than this, it has also constituted a fundamental collective entity for an individual's understanding of who they are in relation to those who are perceived as not sharing the nationality. This is nothing new, but in an era of globalization we are witnessing the rebirth of nationalism and nationality (Castells, 1997), where the power struggle over the political agenda will increasingly be about the struggle for the right to identity and the risks of exclusion from the national community. Even if this is the case it stands clear that everyday nationalism and nationalist struggles take different forms in different parts of the world.

THE SPECIAL FEATURES OF THE INTERPRETATION OF THE SOCIO-POLITICAL DOCTRINE OF LIBERALISM IN THE WESTERN EUROPEAN, AMERICAN AND RUSSIAN TRADITIONS IN THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES: COMMON AND SPECIAL

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 54-62
Author(s):  
VADIM ZUBOV ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Synthetic Methods ◽  
European American ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Western European ◽  
The Right

The article strives to conceptualize the basic ideas of liberalism, free from political sensitivities, emotional judgments and naive simplifications based on different methods and techniques of political and historical science, as well as general scientific approaches - a comparative historical method, a normative approach, an institutional approach, and analytical and synthetic methods. Defects of the interpretation of liberalism in Russia - opposition of “liberals” and “patriots”, domestic perceptions of liberalism as freedom in family, sexual and gender life, reduction of liberalism to the specific historical direction of post-Soviet liberalism are revealed in the paper. Furthermore, the author draws attention to the misunderstanding of liberalism in the United States: one of them refers liberalism to the social democracy, the other equates liberalism with the totalitarian teachings. In the light of the incorrect perception of liberalism in the world, the author formulates the purpose of the work as overcoming the misjudgement of liberalism by overcoming the false appreciation of liberalism by forming a concentrated view of the fundamentals of liberal socio-political teachings based on the views of leading thinkers in Western Europe, the United States of America and Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries. Which contributed significantly to the development of the fundamentals of liberalism. Predicated on the analysis of the ideas of Western European, American, and Russian liberal thinkers of the past, the author identifies common and special features of the interpretation of liberalism in different parts of the world over two centuries. Finally, the author concludes that the main features of the original liberalism are the basic points of the classical liberalism of the past centuries are the following points: 1) intelligent people should have unconditional personal, political and economic rights independent of the state; 2) there must be a system in the state that promotes justice and limits the state itself; 3) all people have the right to form a state and influences it.

scholarly journals Ograniczenia stanu jako przeszkoda w przyjmowaniu do klasztorów w czasach Grzegorza Wielkiego na podstawie jego "Registrum epistularum" oraz norm prawa rzymskiego

Vox Patrum ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 64 ◽  
pp. 317-344
Author(s):  
Janusz Lewandowicz
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Europe ◽  
Pope Gregory I ◽  
Social Backgrounds

Monastic life, which development has been significantly contributed by St. Gregory the Great, has an important place in the history of Europe. This paper attempts to go back to the period of monasticism in the Late Antiquity, of which there are numerous testimonies in the epistles of St. Gregory the Great. Based on Registrum epistularum, the paper presents the practice of admitting to the monas­teries candidates from different social backgrounds. Simultaneously, it discusses the evolution of the imperial law, from the reign of Constantine to the end of the sixth century, by concerning restrictions on the admission to the monasteries ari­sing from the fact of belonging to the specific state (obnoxii): decurions, tax col­lectors, colonate, slaves assigned to the land. The paper highlights the concern of Pope Gregory I for those who join the monasteries as well as draw attention to the motives, which guided the emperors to make laws concerning the admission to the monasteries and the Gregory’s attitude towards the secular law. The paper also draws attention to the efforts of the pope aiming at promoting the monastic life as the highest form of Christian life.

Caesarius of Arles and the Development of the Ecclesiastical Tithe: From a Theology of Almsgiving to Practical Obligations

Traditio ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 43-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Shuler
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
The Church

Few taxes have been as enduring and as evocative of identity as the Christian ecclesiastical tithe, arguably “the most important tax in the economic development of western Europe.” The secular enforcement in 779 of the tithe's collection by the church clearly marked a decisive moment in its evolution, but its earlier origins as religious law have been much more elusive. Scholarship over the past five decades has made clear that mandatory tithing to the church was not a custom of early Christianity but rather something that developed in late antiquity, with our first unambiguous evidence of a developed theory of the tithe coming from sixth-century Gaul. The key figure providing that evidence was Caesarius of Arles (ca. 469–542).

Understanding Suicide Terrorism

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (04) ◽  
pp. 245-250
Author(s):  
A. Speckhard
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Suicide Terrorism ◽  
Terrorist Organizations ◽  
Global Migration ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Single Region ◽  
Extensive Field ◽  
The World ◽  
Terrorist Groups

SummaryAs a terror tactic, suicide terrorism is one of the most lethal as it relies on a human being to deliver and detonate the device. Suicide terrorism is not confined to a single region or religion. On the contrary, it has a global appeal, and in countries such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan it has come to represent an almost daily reality as it has become the weapon of choice for some of the most dreaded terrorist organizations in the world, such as ISIS and al-Qaeda. Drawing on over two decades of extensive field research in five distinct world regions, specifically the Middle East, Western Europe, North America, Russia, and the Balkans, the author discusses the origins of modern day suicide terrorism, motivational factors behind suicide terrorism, its global migration, and its appeal to modern-day terrorist groups to embrace it as a tactic.

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