The Rhetorical Arts in Late Antique and Early Medieval Ireland

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian James Stone
Keyword(s):  
History Of Rhetoric ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Vernacular Literature ◽  
Manuscript Tradition ◽  
Textual Transmission ◽  
Rhetorical Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
A Site ◽  
Medieval Ireland

This book represents the first study of the art of rhetoric in medieval Ireland, a culture often neglected by medieval rhetorical studies. In a series of three case studies, Brian Stone traces the textual transmission of rhetorical theories and practices from the late Roman period to those early Irish monastic communities who would not only preserve and pass on the light of learning, but adapt an ancient tradition to their own cultural needs, contributing to the history of rhetoric in important ways. The manuscript tradition of early Ireland, which gave us the largest body of vernacular literature in the medieval period and is already appreciated for its literary contributions, is also a site of rhetorical innovation and creative practice.

Flavius Josephus

2019 ◽  
pp. 281-298
Author(s):  
Michael Tuval
Keyword(s):  
Jewish History ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
First Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
Russian Version ◽  
Manuscript Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Greek Manuscript

The works of first century CE Jewish historian Flavius Josephus constitute our main source for the study of Jewish history of the Second Temple period. In this chapter, we briefly discuss Josephus’ career and his four compositions, as well as the condition of the Greek manuscript tradition of his works. The chapter also deals with the Latin translations of Josephus, a late antique Christian adaptation of mainly Judean War in Latin, known as Hegesippus, and the remnants of Judean War in Syriac. Next comes Josippon, a medieval Hebrew adaptation of Josephus and some other sources, and finally the much-discussed Slavonic, or Old Russian, version of the Judean War.

Livestock plagues in late antiquity, with a disassembling of the bovine panzootic of A.D. 376-386

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 490-508
Author(s):  
Timothy P. Newfield
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Animal Health ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Livestock Disease ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
Material Evidence

The history of late-antique animal plagues requires a fresh start. Over the last 30 years, scholars have amassed copious quantities of written and material evidence for major shifts in the natural world experienced, or reported, as disasters in late antiquity. They have read textual passages more critically and interwoven written with physical data more meticulously than researchers before them. As a result, much more is known now about human plagues, climatic downturns and tectonic perturbations in the Late Roman period. Yet knowledge of late-antique livestock disease remains pretty much where animal health specialists left it in the 18th and 19th c. There are, to be sure, histories of late-antique animal plagues, but they are long out of date, unreliable and altogether of poor quality.

A Late Antique Christian king from Ẓafār, southern Arabia

Antiquity ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 87 (338) ◽  
pp. 1124-1135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Yule
Keyword(s):  
Roman Period ◽  
Trading Partner ◽  
Political Connections ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Important Trading Partner ◽  
Relief Sculpture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
Southern Arabia

Southern Arabia was an important trading partner for the Roman world but owing to geography and politics its archaeology has been less intensively studied than that of neighbouring regions. A succession of kingdoms rose and fell in the last centuries BC and first centuries AD, but in the late Roman period the dominant power was Ḥimyar, with its capital at Ẓafār. In 2008 a relief sculpture was discovered at the site depicting a crowned ruler accompanied by symbols of office. This study reviews the arguments surrounding the date of the sculpture, but more importantly throws light on the cultural and political connections that it embodies. The proposal is that it represents an Aksumite puppet-ruler of the sixth century, at a key moment in the history of the Ḥimyarite kingdom. The crowned king of Ẓafār is significant not only in itself but also in helping to delineate the cultural and political stage on to which Islam was shortly to emerge.

‘Y Ganrif Fawr’? Piety, Literature and Patronage in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Wales

2012 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 107-123
Author(s):  
Katharine K. Olson
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Native Culture ◽  
Manuscript Tradition ◽  
Lay Piety ◽  
History Of ◽  
Welsh Literature ◽  
Medieval Ireland

This essay offers a reconsideration of the idea of ‘The Great Century’ of Welsh literature (1435–1535) and related assumptions of periodization for understanding the development of lay piety and literature in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Wales. It focuses on the origins of these ideas in (and their debt to) modern Welsh nationalist and Protestant and Catholic confessional thought, and their significance for the interpretation of Welsh literature and history. In addition, it questions their accuracy and usefulness in the light of contemporary patterns of manuscript production, patronage and devotional content of Welsh books of poetry and prose produced by the laity during and after this ‘golden age’ of literature. Despite the existence of over a hundred printed works in Welsh by 1660, the vernacular manuscript tradition remained robust; indeed, ‘native culture for the most part continued to be transmitted as it had been transmitted for centuries, orally or in manuscript’ until the eighteenth century. Bardic poetry’s value as a fundamental source for the history of medieval Ireland and Wales has been rightly acknowledged. However, more generally, Welsh manuscripts of both poetry and prose must be seen as a crucial historical source. They tell us much about contemporary views, interests and priorities, and offer a significant window onto the devotional world of medieval and early modern Welsh men and women. Drawing on recent work on Welsh literature, this paper explores the production and patronage of such books and the dynamics of cultural and religious change. Utilizing National Library of Wales Llanstephan MS 117D as a case study, it also examines their significance and implications for broader trends in lay piety and the nature of religious change in Wales.

scholarly journals The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Studies ◽  
Linguistic Context ◽  
Full Spectrum ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Cultural Legacy ◽  
Manuscript Tradition ◽  
Textual Transmission ◽  
Core Subjects ◽  
History Of

Including contributions from over fifty leading experts, The Oxford Handbook of Qur’anic Studies presents an authoritative collection of studies which guide the reader through the core subjects, themes, and debates dominating the academic engagement with the text of the Qur’an. With the aim of serving as an indispensable reference resource, the Handbook considers not only discussions shaping the study of the text today, but also their implications for future directions of the research. Part I explores the history of the study of the text, introducing frameworks and sources for its analysis. Part II examines the intersection of the Qur’an’s historical and linguistic context, identifying its place among the religious traditions of the Near East. In Part III questions germane to the Qur’an’s textual transmission are probed, covering studies of its manuscript tradition; inscription; and the history of printed editions. Part IV reviews discourses which critically engage with the Qur’an’s literary elements. These range from treatments of its language, vocabulary, aesthetics, structure, coherency, and the concept of the Qur’an inimitability, to aspects of its literary influence and relationship with other genres. Part V includes studies which mediate the axiomatic concepts and themes of the Qur’an; while Part VI focuses on the efforts to translate the text and its cultural legacy and impact. Finally, Parts VII and VIII are aggregated around an assessment of the scholarship devoted to the Qur’an’s rich interpretive tradition, drawing apposite attention to the perspectives through which this was pursued. Covering the full spectrum of international studies, the Handbook offers an informed sense of the potential and dynamism of this diverse and growing field.

scholarly journals New Researches on the Late Antique History of Warfare. Review of the book: Меkhаmаdiev, Е. А. (2019). Voennaia organizatsiia pozdnei Rimskoi imperii v 253–353 gg.: epokha Konstantina I Velikogo i ego dinastii (306–353) [Military Organization of the Late Roman Empire in 253–353 AD: The Age of Constantine I the Great and His Dynasty (306–353)]. St Petersburg: Peterburgskoe Vostokovedenie. 424 p.

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 305-317
Author(s):  
Arsen Karapeti Shahinyan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Fundamental Study ◽  
Military Organization ◽  
History Of ◽  
Military Campaigns ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
The Military ◽  
Military Units ◽  
Late Roman

This paper states that E. A. Mekhamadiev’s book is a fundamental study on the military organization of the Late Rome Empire and Early Byzantium, with particular emphasis on epigraphy and papyrology. The use of the said data allowed the author to reconstruct the history of individual military units, their territorial movements, participation in various military campaigns, and changes of their ranks. Chronologically, the book studies the Late Roman Period from 253 to 305 AD. The researcher has examined the internal (organizational) structure of all regional armies in the age of Emperor Constantine I the Great (306–337) and his sons, not restricting himself to the study of individual and narrow plots related to the history of a particular province. He has analyzed the data relating to both the eastern and western regions of the Empire, uncovered their close relations, and revealed the permanent movements of the military units from the west to the east and in the opposite direction, depending on the geopolitical and domestic political situation.

Classical Conceptions of Visuality and Representation in John of Damascus' Defense of Holy Images1

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 284-308
Author(s):  
James A. Francis
Keyword(s):  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Word And Image ◽  
John Of Damascus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Classical Culture ◽  
Common Era ◽  
Iconoclastic Controversy

The Defense of Holy Images by John of Damascus stands as the archetypal exposition of the Christian theology of images. Written at the outbreak of the Iconoclastic Controversy, it has been mostly valued for its theological content and given scholarly short shrift as a narrowly focused polemic. The work is more than that. It presents a complex and profound explication of the nature of images and the phenomenon of representation, and is an important part of the “history of looking”in western culture. A long chain of visual conceptions connects classical Greek and Roman writers, such as Homer and Quintilian, to John: the living image, the interrelation of word and image, and image and memory, themes elaborated particularly in the Second Sophistic period of the early Common Era. For John to deploy this heritage so skillfully to the thorny problem of the place of images in Christianity, at the outbreak of a violent conflict that lasted a further 100 years after his writing, manifests an intellect and creativity that has not been sufficiently appreciated. The Defense of Holy Images, understood in this context, is another innovative synthesis of Christianity and classical culture produced by late antique Christian writers.

The Making of the Medieval Middle East

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Tannous
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Religious History ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Conversion To Islam ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
The Middle Ages

In the second half of the first millennium CE, the Christian Middle East fractured irreparably into competing churches and Arabs conquered the region, setting in motion a process that would lead to its eventual conversion to Islam. This book argues that key to understanding these dramatic religious transformations are ordinary religious believers, often called “the simple” in late antique and medieval sources. Largely agrarian and illiterate, these Christians outnumbered Muslims well into the era of the Crusades, and yet they have typically been invisible in our understanding of the Middle East's history. What did it mean for Christian communities to break apart over theological disagreements that most people could not understand? How does our view of the rise of Islam change if we take seriously the fact that Muslims remained a demographic minority for much of the Middle Ages? In addressing these and other questions, the book provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the religious history of the medieval Middle East. The book draws on a wealth of Greek, Syriac, and Arabic sources to recast these conquered lands as largely Christian ones whose growing Muslim populations are properly understood as converting away from and in competition with the non-Muslim communities around them.

‘... Call the Mute Artifacts to Speech’: New Essays on the History of Archeology

2018 ◽  
pp. 1274-1279
Author(s):  
Elena V. Olimpieva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
Historical Material ◽  
Manuscript Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Publication Practices ◽  
Controversial Nature

The article reviews O. A. Shashkova’s ‘... Call the Mute Artifacts to Speech.’ Essays on the History of Archaeography of the 15th - Early 20th Century. Wide array of sources and broad geographical frameworks allow Shashkova to present emergence and development of Russian and European archaeography from the 15th to early 20th century intelligibly enough for educational purposes. A whole chapter is devoted to the manuscript tradition and publishing of sources before Gutenberg. When considering the formation of archaeographical tradition, the author uses comparative method. O. A. Shashkova offers a historical overview and analyzes theoretical and practical issues of archaeography. The reviewer notes the significance of the chosen topic due to a need to reconsider the development of publishing in light of modern views on archaeography and to make it accessible to students and non-professionals. She notes traditional academic approach of O. A. Shashkova to presentation of the development publication practices. The review considers the possibility of using the ‘Essays...’ in studying the history of archaeography and offers possible directions for a broader consideration of historical experience, in particular, of Novikov’s publication projects. The review notes the controversial nature of the author’s approach to systematization of her large historical material in order to consider issues concerning the study of archaeographical practices. It stresses that coverage of issues of development of methods of preparation of publications separately from its historical and practical aspects hinders successful mastering of the material by an untrained reader. It concludes that the publication has high practical value for specialists in archaeography and students.

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