scholarly journals Human skeletons showing traces of violence discovered in disused medieval wells

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-17
Author(s):  
Florence Carré ◽  
Aminte Thomann ◽  
Yves-Marie Adrian
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Bone Fractures ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Violent Death ◽  
Animal Remains ◽  
The Middle Ages

In Normandy, near Rouen, in Tournedos-sur-Seine and Val-de-Reuil, two adult skeletons thrown into wells during the Middle Ages have been studied. The wells are located at two separate sites just 3 km apart. Both sites consist of clustered settlements inhabited from the seventh to the tenth century and arranged around a cemetery. The backfill of the well shafts contains animal remains, but also partially or completely articulated human bodies. In Val-de-Reuil, the incomplete skeleton of a man, probably representing a secondary deposition, had traces of a violent blow on the skull, certainly with a blunt weapon. In Tournedos-sur-Seine, a woman thrown in headfirst had several impact points and bone fractures on the skull that could have been caused by perimortem mistreatment or a violent death. After a detailed description of the two finds and a contextualisation in the light of similar published cases, we will discuss the possible scenarios for the death and deposition of the individuals as well as their place in their communities.

“The Truth of Reliable Tradition”: Saadya Gaon, Arabic Rhetoric, and the Challenge to Rhetorical Historiography

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-188
Author(s):  
Brandon Katzir
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Medieval Rhetoric ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Latin Language ◽  
Arabic Rhetoric ◽  
Rhetorical Traditions ◽  
The Middle Ages

This article explores the rhetoric of medieval rabbi and philosopher Saadya Gaon, arguing that Saadya typifies what LuMing Mao calls the “interconnectivity” of rhetorical cultures (Mao 46). Suggesting that Saadya makes use of argumentative techniques from Greek-inspired, rationalist Islamic theologians, I show how his rhetoric challenges dominant works of rhetorical historiography by participating in three interconnected cultures: Greek, Jewish, and Islamic. Taking into account recent scholarship on Jewish rhetoric, I argue that Saadya's amalgamation of Jewish rhetorical genres alongside Greco-Islamic genres demonstrates how Jewish and Islamic rhetoric were closely connected in the Middle Ages. Specifically, the article analyzes the rhetorical significance of Saadya's most famous treatise on Jewish philosophy, The Book of Doctrines and Beliefs, which I argue utilizes Greco-Islamic rhetorical strategies in a polemical defense of rabbinical authority. As a tenth-century writer who worked across multiple rhetorical traditions and genres, Saadya challenges the monocultural, Latin-language histories of medieval rhetoric, demonstrating the importance of investigating Arabic-language and Jewish rhetorics of the Middle Ages.

Vir Dei: secular sanctity in the early tenth century

1972 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 41-53
Author(s):  
Derek Baker
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Social Organisation ◽  
Life Crisis ◽  
Literary Convention ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Middle Ages

As recent anniversary studies have emphasised, the vir Dei, the man of God, has been a christian type since the time of St Antony, and whatever pre-christian elements were embodied in the Athanasian picture the Vita Antonii possessed a christian coherence and completeness which made of it the proto-type for a whole range of literature in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. In hagiography the Antonine sequence of early life, crisis and conversion, probation and temptation, privation and renunciation, miraculous power, knowledge and authority, is, in its essentials, repeated ad nauseam. Martin, Guthlac, Odo, Dunstan, Bernard are all, whatever their individual differences, forced into the same procrustean biographical mould: each is clearly qualified, and named, as vir Dei, and each exemplifies the same - and at times the pre-eminent – christian vocation. Yet if the insight provided by such literature into the mind of medieval man is instructive about his society and social organisation, and illuminating about his ideal aspirations, the literary convention itself is always limiting, and frequently misleading. As Professor Momigliano has said, ‘biography was never quite a part of historiography’, and one might add that hagiography is not quite biography.

scholarly journals Las técnicas constructivas en las murallas medievales de Almería

X ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Gurriarán Daza
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Rammed Earth ◽  
Construction Techniques ◽  
Typical Scheme ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Middle Ages

Building techniques in the medieval walls of AlmeríaAlmería was one of the most important cities in al-Andalus, a circumstance that was possible thanks to the strength of its port. Its foundation as an urban entity during the Caliphate of Córdoba originated a typical scheme of an Islamic city organized by a medina and a citadel, both walled. Subsequent city’s growths, due to the creation of two large suburbs commencing in the eleventh century, also received defensive works, creating a system of fortifications that was destined to defend the place during the rest of the Middle Ages. In this work we will analyse the construction techniques used in these military works, which cover a wide period from the beginning of the tenth century until the end of the fifteenth century. Although ashlar stone was used in the Caliphate fortification, in most of these constructions bricklayer techniques were used, more modest but very useful. In this way, the masonry and rammed earth technique were predominant, giving rise to innumerable constructive phases that in recent times are being studied with archaeological methodology, thus to know better their evolution and main characteristics. 

The Easter Sepulchrum in its Relation to the Architecture of the High Altar

PMLA ◽  
1916 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 664-712
Author(s):  
John K. Bonnell
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Middle Ages

By the term ‘sepulehrum’ is designated that device or structure employed in churches—especially in the middle ages—to symbolize, or in more complete manner to represent, the tomb of Christ. This sepulchrum, so named in the liturgy, first appears in connection with the ancient office of the Depositio Crucis, or burial of the cross, which after mass on Good Friday typified the burial of Christ. Complementing and completing the Depositio was another office, privately celebrated by the priest and clergy before matins on Easter Sunday, typifying the resurrection, and called the Elevatio Crucis. When, after the tenth century, troping of the Introit for Easter morning—the famous Quem Quaeritis—developed into a little liturgical play with the impersonation of the angel or angels, and of the three Maries coming to anoint the body of the Lord, there was naturally a development of the heretofore symbolic sepulchrum in the altar, into what resulted finally in a separate structure.

Inland Waterways and Coastal Transport: Landing Places, Canals and Bridges

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Gardiner
Keyword(s):  
Water Transport ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Indirect Evidence ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Inland Waterways ◽  
Archaeological Work ◽  
Marine Culture ◽  
The Middle Ages

Transport by water was the quickest and cheapest method to move goods in the Middle Ages, and linked together people even in distant parts of England. Trading places could arise in almost any place where boats could be hauled ashore, on either rivers or coastal estuaries. These were all potential places where people on land could come together to trade with those arriving by boat and ship. It is no coincidence that the rise in both inland and coastal transport dates to the tenth century, the period from which England became increasingly commercialized.The discussion of water transport is not limited to indirect evidence. Archaeological work has identified canals dug to allow the movement of boats up rivers and in marshland, and landing places where boats could be brought to the banks of rivers and the shore. The development of water-transport led to the development of a ‘marine culture’, a change in attitudes to the sea and ships.

The "Disgusting" Spider: The Role of Disease and Illness in the Perpetuation of Fear of Spiders

1994 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham C. L. Davey
Keyword(s):  
Avoidance Response ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Spider Phobia ◽  
Disease Avoidance ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Middle Ages

AbstractRecent studies of spider phobia have indicated thatfearof spiders is closely associated with the disease-avoidance response of disgust. It is argued that the disgust-relevant status of the spider resulted from its association with disease and illness in European cultures from the tenth century onward. The development of the association between spiders and illness appears to be linked to the many devastating and inexplicable epidemics that struck Europe from the Middle Ages onwards, when the spider was a suitable displaced target for the anxieties caused by these epidemics. Such factors suggest that the pervasive fear of spiders that is commonly found in many Western societies may have cultural rather than biological origins, and may be restricted to Europeans and their descendants.

Heriger and the Study of Philosophy at Lobbes in the Tenth Century

Traditio ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 307-317
Author(s):  
Robert G. Babcock
Keyword(s):  
Small Group ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Clear Indication ◽  
First Time ◽  
Gerbert Of Aurillac ◽  
The Middle Ages ◽  
Peri Hermeneias

In a recent article on the study of Boethian logical works during the Middle Ages, Osmund Lewry discusses the revival of logical studies at the end of the tenth century, focusing on the period after ca. 970 when Abbo of Fleury and Gerbert of Aurillac (later Pope Sylvester II) renewed the teaching and study of dialectical works, and when Notker Labeo translated some logical texts into German. To this small group of tenth-century scholars known to have been concerned with dialectic and philosophy may be added the name of Heriger, schoolmaster and abbot (990–1007) of the Belgian monastery of Lobbes. The present study begins with the identification of quotations by Heriger from dialectical and philosophical works, then discusses Heriger's use of dialectic in theological argumentation, and finally considers the influence of his philosophical teaching at Lobbes. Heriger's interest in dialectic is revealed by quotations in his Vita Remacli from Boethius' In Topica Ciceronis and Apuleius' Peri Hermeneias. These quotations are identified for the first time in the present study. The application of dialectical learning to theological questions, specifically his use of logical principles in his tract De corpore et sanguine domini (PL 139.179–88), indicates that Heriger's quotations from logical texts reflect more than bookish antiquarianism; the study of dialectic was useful to him in theological argumentation. The evidence of Heriger's philosophical pursuits provides the first clear indication that Lobbes was one of the important Lotharingian centers for philosophical studies.

Albert the Great—new mathematician of the middle ages?

1962 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 291-295
Author(s):  
Marie Stephen
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Alfred The Great ◽  
Albert The Great ◽  
Mathematics And Science ◽  
The Middle Ages

There is an Alfred the Great, tenth-century scholar and king of England, and an Albert the Great, thirteenth-century scientist and Dominican friar. It is interesting to note that both are giving historians of medieval mathematics and science a rough time deciding whether or not they were authors of commentaries on Euclid.

scholarly journals Developing Definitions of Reform in the Church in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Barrow
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
Church Councils ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

There is a noticeable gap between the use of ‘reform’ terminology (reformo, reformatio) in the pre-1100 period and modern usage: in the earlier Middle Ages the terminology was essentially used to refer to the restoration of peace, buildings, and property or in a spiritual sense, as a change of heart (as established by Gerd Ladner on the basis of patristic writings); it is also noticeable that reform terminology was used much less by medieval authors, especially pre-1215, than by modern historians writing about the Middle Ages and above all on the medieval church. Nonetheless, ‘reform’ terminology did begin, very slowly, to be used about change in medieval ecclesiastical institutions in the tenth and early eleventh centuries, first in the diocese of Rheims and Lotharingia and later in Burgundy, and this chapter attempts to show how this process began, tracing the earliest moves towards this in records of Carolingian church councils and tenth-century historical narratives.

The Kitāb al-Taswi'a or Book of Reprobation by Jonah ibn Janāḥ. A revision of J. and H. Derenbourg's edition

2000 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
María A. Gallego
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Important Development ◽  
The Middle Ages

Abū I-Walīd Jonah ibn Janāḥ is undoubtedly one of the greatest Hebrew grammarians. Born in Al-Andalus at the end of the tenth century he was active during the eleventh century, but his exact dates are not known. His best known works, a grammar, Kitāb al-Lumaՙ (The book of variegated flowerbeds) and a dictionary of biblical Hebrew, Kitāb al-'Uṣūl (The book of roots), represented the most important development in the knowledge of Hebrew of the Middle Ages. Other important works on grammar include Kitāb al-Taswi'a (The book of annexation), a short grammatical treatise which he composed as a response to critics of a previous work entitled Kitāb al-Mustalḥaq (The book of annexation).

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