What’s in a Word?

2019 ◽  
pp. 187-212
Author(s):  
Stephen G. Nichols
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Conceptual Knowledge ◽  
Historical Context

Stephen Nichols’s text analyzes one of the most famous examples of troubadour lyric, Peire d’Alverna’s Occitan canso Cantarai d’aqestz trobadors (‘I’ll sing about these troubadours’). Nichols explores its formal, linguistic, and epistemological character, its status in the broader literary-historical context of the late twelfth century, and its relevance for contemporary theoretical debates about conceptual knowledge.

Depictions of Martial and Spiritual Power in Eighteenth-Century Japanese Children's Picturebooks: Two Early Kusazōshi Works Featuring the Warrior Kumagai Naozane

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-65
Author(s):  
JONATHAN MILLS
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Spiritual Power ◽  
Historical Figure ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
The Fantastic

This article deals with early Kusazōshi a genre of Japanese picturebook published during the eighteenth century, and one of the antecedents of modern Japanese manga. It is thought that these books were enjoyed by both adults and children. I consider two works which deal with the twelfth-century warrior Kumagai Naozane, who famously became a monk in later life after reluctantly slaying a young noble on the battlefield. Firstly, after looking at previous literary depictions of Naozane, and placing the two Kusazōshi works in their historical context, I examine the unique way in which Naozane's martial and spiritual power is depicted, a depiction which provides a hint as to why this historical figure was so popular in the culture of the eighteenth century. Secondly, I look at elements in the two works (such as the fantastic and comic), that may have implied a child readership.

Emperors and vassals

2017 ◽  
Vol 110 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sverrir Jakobsson
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Military Assistance ◽  
Formal Institution

AbstractIn 1196 three messengers were sent by the Byzantine emperor Alexios III to the monarchs of Norway, Denmark and Sweden, to request military assistance. In this article, an attempt is made to place this request in a historical context, to determine what the intentions of the emperor were and how the three kings of Norway, Denmark and Sweden would have interpreted it on their part. The mission is examined in the context of the journeys of Scandinavian dignitaries to Constantinople in the twelfth century. An important feature in all these descriptions is the continued presence of Scandinavian soldiers in the service of the Emperor, the Varangian Guard. The Varangians are portrayed as countrymen and natural allies of the new arrivals. It is argued that, although medieval Byzantium did not have a formal institution such as vassalage, the emperor certainly regarded the Scandinavian monarchs as his oath-bound “liegemen”, and that the mission of 1196 a part of that established Byzantine trend.

On the manufacture and dating of the Pistoia choirbooks

2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-33
Author(s):  
JAMES VINCENT MAIELLO
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
Cultural Milieu

ABSTRACTPistoia, Archivio capitolare, manuscripts C.119, C.120 and C.121 – two twelfth-century graduals and a troper from the cathedral of San Zeno – are relatively small, undecorated choirbooks copied during a time when the cathedral chapter gained unprecedented wealth, power and autonomy. This study closely connects the choirbooks to their cultural milieu and specifically to two high-ranking Pistoiese clerics who were likely involved in their manufacture. By examining the political and social environment in which they were created, this article places the manuscripts in a specific historical context and uses paleographical and historical evidence to date them between 1108 and as early as 1116.

‘Tempering the Wind …’: Moderation and Discretion in Late Twelfth-Century Papal Decretals

2007 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 180-190
Author(s):  
Anne J. Duggan
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Analytical Method ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Law School ◽  
The People ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Medieval Canon Law

Medieval canon law has generally had a bad press. Its professionalization in the period c. 1140 to 1234 can easily be caricatured as the emergence of a rigid, centralized, and authoritarian system which paid small heed to the needs of the people it was supposed to serve. This conclusion is readily sustained by perusal of theLiber Extra, the GregorianDecretalesof 1234, which enshrined the legal developments of the period, from about 1140, which followed the establishment of Gratian’sDecretumas the principal authority for the teaching and practice of canon law. The genesis of theLiber Extrais well known. Pope Gregory IX commissioned Raymond of Peñafort to compile an authoritative collection of papal decretals and conciliar legislation to supplement Gratian’sDecretum, and it drew, principally but not exclusively, on the so-calledQuinqe compilationes antiquewhich had been compiled for teaching purposes in Bologna between c. 1189–91 and 1226.’ And when the work was completed, it was authorized by the bullRex pacificus, which ordered that ‘everyone should useonlythis compilation in judgements and in the schools (ut hactantumcompilatione universi utantur in iudiciis et in scholis); and a copy was duly dispatched to the canon law school in Bologna. The image of centralized, authoritarian lawmaking could not be clearer; and that perception is reinforced by an examination of its structure, where the individual extracts are organized systematically under Titles, which define the subject matter. Such a compilation, like theQuinque compilationesthemselves, was the result of an analytical method, which totally obscured the processes of consultation which had preceded many of the decisions, as well as depriving them, in many cases, of their historical context in terms of the identity of the pope, the recipient, the litigants, and the local circumstances. What emerged was a disembodied code, shorn of the nuances and hesitations which had characterized the decisions which it enshrined.

scholarly journals Seal of Konstantinos, the Son of the Protoproedros and Exousiokrator of All Alania (ca 1065–1075)

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 115-134
Author(s):  
Andrey Yurievich Vinogradov ◽  
◽  
Victor Nikolaevich Chkhaidze ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Town

This paper offers a corrected reading of a lead seal excavated at Anakopia which belonged to Konstantinos, the son of the protoproedros and exousiokrator of all Alania. Although the palaeography of the seal dates it to the second half of the eleventh century, the historical context and the title of protoproedros makes the chronology narrow, as 1065–1075. This find can be linked to the Byzantine-Georgian conflict over Anakopia and probably to the negotiations on returning the town to the Georgian king which happened shortly after 1074. The narrow chronology of the seal speaks in favour of the identification of the Alanian exousiokrator as Dorgholel (mentioned in 1068), thus excluding the possibility that Konstantinos of the seal and Konstantinos Alanos (mentioned in 1045–1047) were the same person. The former Konstantinos, a possible heir to Dorgholel, might be a brother of Irene, the wife of protoproedros Isaak Komnenos, so the same high title given to his father in 1065–1075 points to a Byzantine-Alan alliance which made possible the marriage of Irene and Isaak Komnenos in 1072 and the participation of 6,000 Alanian horsemen in suppressing Roussel de Bailleul’s revolt in 1073–1074. The unique title of “exousiokrator of all Alania” attested on the seal and in the list of the metropolitans of Bulgaria possibly reflected the struggle of the Alanian ruler against centrifugal tendencies in his domain during the twelfth century; its later disappearance suggests that this title was a Dorgholel’s situational invention.

From Episcopal to Communal Palaces: Places and Power in Northern Italy (1000-1250)

1995 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen C. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Intense Competition ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Communal Organization

This article links the emergence of communal palaces in northern Italian towns to the changing juridical relationship between bishops and communes. Architectural aggrandizement and changes in the words used to describe buildings were integral to the competition for power between these new urban governments and traditional ecclesiastical lords. Bishops' palaces, and the claims to authority they represented, were important influences upon the civic palazzi built in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. The chronology and historical context of the emergence of episcopal palaces links them to the formation of the communes. The bishop, of course, always had a special residence, but throughout the early Middle Ages it was identified as a domus or an episcopium; only the emperor had a palatium. Over the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, however, bishops began calling their residences palatia. This bold change in name and evidence for new constructions closely correspond with the early stages of communal organization. It was usually followed by a period of wary collaboration and intense competition between the developing commune and the bishop. Late in the twelfth century and early in the thirteenth, the balance of power between bishops and communes shifted decisively in favor of the latter, and these urban governments crowned their juridical victories architecturally, building their own palatia.

scholarly journals Medieval élite burials in eastern Mecklenburg and Pomerania

Antiquity ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 82 (315) ◽  
pp. 87-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Biermann
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
High Status ◽  
The Face

High status burial remains one of archaeology's most evocative types of site – but it is not always easy to know why they were built, where and when they were. The author describes a group of élite burials that appeared in north Europe in the late eleventh-twelfth century in a historical context that is unusually clear, and proposes the rise of a pagan élite in the face of aggressive Christianisation from the neighbours.

Aelred of Rievaulx’s Relational Anthropology in Socio-Historical and Religious Context

2019 ◽  
Vol 130 (9) ◽  
pp. 385-398
Author(s):  
Sungho Lee
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Passionate Love ◽  
Religious Context

The Cistercian monk, Aelred of Rievaulx, is unique in his emphasis on relationship with others. While Aelred’s socio-historical context—that of a twelfth-century Renaissance, Cistercian community, with its increased emphasis on friendship—contributed to his relational anthropology, I argue that Aelred possessed his own relational vision, and out of passionate love was active in pursuing unity between his secular and religious communities, and also with other persons in his communities. This relational vision and action, which is highly consonant with contemporary anthropology, is embedded in the theological anthropology of his writings, where he confirms that the essence of the human being is relational.

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