The Last Pharmacopeia

Author(s):  
He Bian

This chapter traces the decentralization of prestige associated with the state-commissioned pharmacopeia up until the end of the sixteenth century. It argues that the decentralization of authority had already been well under way since the eleventh century, when the Northern Song court did commission multiple bencao pharmacopeias. Proceeding chronologically, three trends stand out in this examination of bencao as a field of inquiry. First, the Song state could not exert much control over these elaborate texts in transmission. A variety of authors, acting independently of the imperial court, made changes to the official edition and promoted their work through the manuscript or the newly available technology of printing. Second, major medical innovations during the Jin-Yuan period inspired physicians to explain pharmacological action in cosmic, systematic terms. Lastly, regional official publishing—a hallmark of Ming book culture—made the elaborate Song pharmacopeia widely available in print from the mid-fifteenth century. As a result, an unprecedented number of texts emerged that attempted to integrate cosmic pharmacology with the pharmacopeia, creating new discourses and textual genres.

Author(s):  
Mihwa Choi

This study inquires into a historical question of how politics surrounding death rituals and ensuing changes in ritual performance shaped a revival of Confucianism during eleventh-century China. It investigates how polarizing debates about death rituals introduced new terrain for political power dynamics between monarchy and officialdom, and between groups of court officials. During the reign of Renzong, in reaction to Emperor Zhenzong’s statewide Daoist ritual programs for venerating the royal ancestors, some court officials maneuvered in the imperial court to return Confucian canonical rituals to their place of primacy. Later, a faction of scholar-officials took a lead in reviving the Confucian rituals as a way of checking the power of both the emperors and the wealthy merchants. By perceiving Confucian rituals as the models for social reality as it ought to be, they wrote new ritual manuals, condemned non-Confucian rituals, took legal actions, and established public graveyards.


X ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Enrique Collado-Espejo ◽  
Juan Fernández-del-Toro ◽  
Josefina García-León ◽  
Vincenzina La-Spina

Integral analysis, 3D reconstruction and proposed musealization of the medieval wall of Mula (Region of Murcia, Spain)The city of Mula (Region of Murcia, Spain), still retains important canvases of the medieval wall of the three enclosures (Alcazaba, Albacar and Medina) that shaped the urban layout from the twelfth century (Muslim domain), until the end of the fifteenth century (Christian Reconquest). Currently, the Albacar site is the most complete. On the Islamic Alcazaba was built, in the sixteenth century, the Castle and the wall of the Medina, only a few sections remain. Until now, the medieval wall was a great unknown. The historical landmark of the city has always been the castle. The communication focuses on exposing the exhaustive historical analysis, material, constructive and the state of conservation carried out of the medieval wall of Mula and, especially, of Albacar (the best preserved site). In addition, there has been a virtual volumetric recomposition, in 3D, of the entire Islamic walled complex (walls, towers, entrance doors to the Medina and cistern of Albacar). Also, the musealization of the Albacar site and the recovery of the volume of the cistern has been projected. This work is contributing to the recognition and social awareness of the heritage importance of the Islamic walls of Mula, being a guarantee for its restoration and conservation as a cultural reference of the city.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 219-249
Author(s):  
Ilona Czamańska

Defter's are an excellent source for historians, especially in demographic and socio-economic research, they are also very useful in researching the Vlachian communities.Analysis of material contained in Ottoman defter's from the Herzegovina area leads to the following conclusions:1. In the area of Herzegovina, in the second half of the fifteenth century, Vlachs lived in a mostly nomadic lifestyle. Their number was at least sixty thousand people.2. In the second half of the fifteenth century, many abandoned villages were recorded. Abandoned villages were gradually settled by migratory Vlachs, which contributed to their change of lifestyle on semi-settled and settled. In 1585, Vlachs - shepherds who were not associated with a village were rare.3. In the Ottoman state, Vlachs those who lead an nomadic way of living, as well as those living in the Vlachian villages, were tax-favored, paid only a lump grazing tax for the state (a filuria with allowances), and did not pay any benefits to the timar owner. In the event that they served as derbenci's or vojnuc's, they were exempted from all taxes.4. Settling in the former agricultural villages, in particular related to undertaking agricultural activities, was most often associated with an additional burden of tithing for the sipahi. Departure from pastoralism meant degradation to a group of raya, most often in these villages mixed-agricultural-pastoral management was conducted. Newly settled villages rarely received the status of the vlachian villages, because such status freed residents from additional benefits even in the case of agricultural classes.5. The flat-rate grazing tax, filuria, in the fifteenth century had a fixed value and equaled 45 akçe, while at the end of the sixteenth century it was different for various Vlachs groups and could range from 60 to 200 akçe.  Considering the fact that additional fees for sheep or tents were liquidated and that the value of employment fell akçe significantly compared to the fifteenth century, the real amount of taxes did not increase, and in some cases it decreased.6. Not much on the basis of defilers can be said about the language used by the Herzegovina Vlachs. In defeats from the fifteenth century they bear mostly Slavic names, but sometimes there are also names only in the Vlachs: Radu, Bratul, Dabija, the same also applies to local names.7. Gradually, Islamization processes took place. In the fifteenth century, they are almost invisible among the Vlachs, almost all of them wore Christian names. At the end of the sixteenth century, a significant percentage of Vlachs wore Muslim names. The Islamization process seems to be faster among the Vlachs settled than the Vlachs nomads, but there is no rule.8. In the light of the defters in the area of Herzegovina, there is no difference between Muslims and non-Muslims in burdens to the state, but defters do not include the cizye, or headship, collected from non-Muslims.


Author(s):  
Antonio Urquízar-Herrera

Chapter 3 approaches the notion of trophy through historical accounts of the Christianization of the Córdoba and Seville Islamic temples in the thirteenth-century and the late-fifteenth-century conquest of Granada. The first two examples on Córdoba and Seville are relevant to explore the way in which medieval chronicles (mainly Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada and his entourage) turned the narrative of the Christianization of mosques into one of the central topics of the restoration myth. The sixteenth-century narratives about the taking of the Alhambra in Granada explain the continuity of this triumphal reading within the humanist model of chorography and urban eulogy (Lucius Marineus Siculus, Luis de Mármol Carvajal, and Francisco Bermúdez de Pedraza).


Author(s):  
Chris Fitter

Introducing the relatively recent discovery by the ‘new social history’ of an intelligent and sceptical Tudor popular politics, incorporated into the functioning of the state only precariously and provisionally, often insurgent in the sixteenth century, and wooed by discontented elites inadvertently creating a nascent public sphere, this chapter discusses the varied types and fortunes of plebeian resistance. It also surveys the leading ideas of the new historiography, and suggests the need to rethink the politics of Shakespeare’s plays in the light of their exuberant or embittered penetration by plebeian perspectives. Finally, it examines Measure for Measure in the light of its resistance to the polarizing, anti-populist climate of the late Elizabethan ‘reformation of manners’.


Aschkenas ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Lucia Raspe

AbstractShimʻon Günzburg’s Yiddish collection of customs, first brought to press in Venice in 1589 and reprinted dozens of times over the following centuries, is often considered a mere translation of the Hebrew Minhagim put together by Ayzik Tyrnau in the 1420s. Another claim often made about the book is that, although it was first printed in Venice, it was intended less for the Italian book market than for export. This article sets out to test these assumptions by examining Günzburg’s compilation from the perspective of minhag, or prayer rite. Drawing on Yiddish manuscripts preserved from sixteenth-century Italy, as well as early printed editions overlooked by scholars, it argues that Günzburg’s Minhogim are, in fact, more Italian than has been recognized. It also points up their potential for a comparative history of Ashkenazic book culture across the political and linguistic borders of Europe.


Author(s):  
Battista Grosso ◽  
Valentina Dentoni ◽  
Augusto Bortolussi

AbstractUnderground quarrying is rarely adopted for granite extraction due to the difficulties in the implementation of traditional technologies (drilling and explosive). As alternative to drilling and explosive, the combination of diamond wire and water jet seems to be the most promising available technology. The cutting performance achievable with the water jet technology depends on the operative parameters, the material characteristics and the state of stress within the rock massif. To assess the effect of the state of stress on the cutting rate, laboratory tests have been performed with an oscillating water jet machine on granite samples subjected to a static load. The stress distribution in the layer of rock to be removed has been evaluated by numerical simulation with the FLAC code (Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua). The correlation between the results of the cutting tests and the numerical models of the rock samples has been inferred. Starting from a conceptual model, which theoretically describes the relationship between the cutting rate and the stress, a step function was defined that indicates the ranges of stress where predefined values of the cutting rate are workable.


The Library ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-476
Author(s):  
Zachary E Stone

Abstract Ranging from an eleventh-century Gospel Book to a fifteenth-century copy of John Gower's Confessio Amantis, the medieval manuscripts of Wadham College merit more extensive consideration than they have hitherto received. This article seeks to enable and encourage the continued investigation of Wadham College's manuscript collection by providing preliminary descriptions for eight manuscripts lacking modern descriptions (MSS 1, 2, 5, 9, 11, 12, 13, and 10.19).


1947 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 70-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Hussey

John Mauropous, an eleventh-century Metropolitan of Euchaïta, has long been commemorated in the service books of the Orthodox Church. The Synaxarion for the Office of Orthros on 30th January, the day dedicated to the Three Fathers, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St. John Chrysostom, tells how the festival was instituted by Mauropous and describes him as ‘the well-known John, a man of great repute and well-versed in the learning of the Hellenes, as his writings show, and moreover one who has attained to the highest virtue’. In western Europe something was known of him certainly as early as the end of the sixteenth century; his iambic poems were published for the first time by an Englishman in 1610, and his ‘Vita S. Dorothei’ in the Acta Sanctorum in 1695. But it was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that scholars were really able to form some idea of the character and achievement of this Metropolitan of Euchaïta. Particularly important were two publications: Sathas' edition in 1876 of Michael Psellus' oration on John, and Paul de Lagarde's edition in 1882 of some of John's own writings. This last contained not only the works already printed, but a number of hitherto unpublished sermons and letters, together with the constitution of the Faculty of Law in the University of Constantinople, and a short introduction containing part of an etymological poem. But there remained, and still remains, one significant omission: John's canons have been almost consistently neglected.


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