The March of Tuscany

The growth of Hucpolding landed possessions in Tuscia is marked by two distinct phases. The first covers the second half of the ninth century, when key elements of their presence included two monasteries in the Florentine area and close relationships with the Adalbertings; the second, the second half of the tenth century after the group achieved the marchisal office, when the full resources of the fisc became available to them. Chapter 5 examines the evolution of parental assets in the march, aligned with the pathway to marchisal authority. It proposes that the marchisal office was fundamental to the expansion of their power in the region – a power that proved transitory, however, after the loss of the public office.

The Hucpoldings’ Involvement in the Political Struggles of the Kingdom of Italy (847–945)

The first part of the book is dedicated to the prosopographic reconstruction of the kinship group, and to the political context and relationships in which the members, both men and women, operated from the second half of the ninth century to the beginning of the twelfth. The first chapter examines the first century of the Hucpoldings in Italy. Fundamentally, it suggests that the criteria for the inclusion into the ranks of Carolingian elite in the Italian kingdom were a relationship with the royal power and the attainment of public offices in different areas of the kingdom, such as in the palace of the capital Pavia, eastern Emilia, the duchy of Spoleto or the marchese of Tuscany.

A LITERARY READING IN THE LINGUISTIC EFFORTS OF IBN QUTAYBA IN HIS BOOK ADAB ‎AL-KĀTIB “THE WRITER'S LITERATURE”‎

Ibn Qutayba (d. 276 AH / 889 AD) was attentive in both the Arabic linguistics‏ ‏and its literature, ‎whereas he hath assorted numerous workbooks which testify his care about, and those who came ‎after, have been benefited from his critical material on the fields of language and literature, this ‎incipit of the research is concerned with reading Ibn Qutayba's linguistic views through the ‎subject of his book Adab al-Kātib “The Writer's Literature” particularly those related to ‎orthography and solecism in the Arabs’ language, and the importance of the research lies in ‎shedding light on the Arab linguistic legacy in the third century AH\ ninth century AD, and ‎displaying the impact of Ibn Qutayba in it, and the objective of the research is to analyze what ‎was mentioned in two important linguistic topics from the book of Adab al-Kātib “The Writer’s ‎Literature” which are: the topic of rectification of the hand and the topic of rectification of the ‎tongue, which they are both linguistic topics that show the prevailing linguistics status in the era ‎of Ibn Qutayba, thence, they are also considered a door to understanding the linguistic opinions ‎that the writer gleaned from his wells and sheikhs.‎ The research deals with linguistic problems related to the orthography and the Arab solecism and ‎phonetics among the populace in the era of Ibn Qutayba, relying on a research framework that ‎begins with a preamble considering both the writer and the book, and then deals with the ‎linguistics status in the third century AH through what was mentioned in the book’s sermon, then ‎he presents some of what was mentioned in his book Adab al-Kātib ”The Writer’s Literature” in ‎the two chapters; rectification of the hand and rectification of the tongue, then epitomized the ‎disputations between Ibn Qutayba and the commentators of his book regarding the two ‎mentioned sections, and the research is concluded with a brief epilogue that presents his most ‎prominent conclusions.‎

Reversals in Wartime: Alcuin and Charlemagne discuss Retrograde Motion

The apparent retrograde motion of the planets was a puzzle for astronomers from the ancient world to the final establishment of heliocentric cosmology in the early modern period, but enjoyed an especially rich discussion in the Carolingian Renaissance. We explore the first stirrings of an eighth-century response to this epistemological challenge in a remarkable series of letters between Alcuin of York and Charlemagne, sent while the latter was on campaign against the Saxons in 798 CE. Their exchange constitutes the longest discussion of the phenomenon of Mars' retrograde motion in the West up to that date. Our consideration of the relevant letters explores Alcuin's ability to marshal diverse and complex explanatory narratives and observational traditions around the problem of the retrograde motion of the planet Mars, even as he was unable to fully reconcile them. Attention to his ultimately unsuccessful (and at times contradictory) attempts at explanation suggest that he relied on knowledge from sources beyond those previously recognized, which we identify. Charlemagne's curiosity about the matter can be located in the much longer context of an ancient tradition of imperial and royal concern with heavenly phenomena; at the same time, the exchange with Alcuin heralds the ninth-century expansion of astronomy away from the computists' preoccupation with the solar and lunar calendrical data required to calculate the date of Easter and towards a more wide-ranging curiosity about observed planetary motion irrelevant to Easter dating and computistical calculations. Alcuin's functional, if not geometrical, assumption of the centrality of the sun in his explanation merits a further examination of the more general sense in which lost ancient heliocentric ideas sustained early medieval echoes.

Kings of Chaldea and Sons of Nobodies: Assyrian Engagement with Chaldea and the Emergence of Chaldean Power in Babylonia

From the ninth century until the last quarter of the seventh century BCE, the Assyrian Empire first extended its power over Babylonia and then engaged in a prolonged effort to retain control. The patchwork nature of Babylonian society—divided as it was between the traditional urban centers, territories controlled by five distinct Chaldean tribes, and regions inhabited by Aramaean tribes—presented opportunities and challenges for Assyria as it sought to assert its dominance. Assyrian interactions with the Chaldean tribes of Babylonia redefined the Chaldeans’ place within power relationships in southern Mesopotamia. Starting in 878, Assyria first perceived Chaldean territory as distinct from what they defined as Karduniaš, the land ruled by the king of Babylon. Shalmaneser III exploited and accentuated this division by recognizing the Chaldean leaders as kings and accepting their tribute even as he concluded a treaty with the Babylonian king, Marduk-zakir-shumi I. By decentralizing power in Babylonia, Assyria was able to assert indirect control over Babylonia. However, periods of Assyrian weakness created opportunities for several Chaldeans—drawing upon the economic and military power they could muster—to claim the title of king of Babylon with all the accompanying ideological power. These new developments prompted Assyria under the Sargonids to create counter-narratives that questioned the legitimacy of Chaldeans as kings of Babylon by presenting them as strange and inimical to the Assyrian order even as Assyrian interactions with the Chaldeans improved Assyrian familiarity with them.

Hybrid Knowledge and the Historiography of Science

Originating in the field of biology, the concept of the hybrid has proved to be influential and effective in historical studies, too. Until now, however, the idea of hybrid knowledge has not been fully explored in the historiography of pre-modern science. This article examines the history of pre-Copernican astronomy and focuses on three case studies—Alexandria in the second century CE; Baghdad in the ninth century; and Constantinople in the fourteenth century—in which hybridization played a crucial role in the development of astronomical knowledge and in philosophical controversies about the status of astronomy and astrology in scholarly and/or institutional settings. By establishing a comparative framework, this analysis of hybrid knowledge highlights different facets of hybridization and shows how processes of hybridization shaped scientific controversies.

Armonización de calendarios en el mundo islámico primitivo como se refleja en Elementos de astronomía de al-Farghānī

This paper seeks to shed more light on calendrical knowledge in the first centuries of the Islamic era in which different administrative traditions fell under the control of a central government. Astronomy as a court-sponsored discipline in the Abbasid dynasty (132-656 AH/750-1258 CE), undertook the pivotal task of identifying and mastering various calendrical disciplines under the reign of the caliphs to make a centralized management feasible. In the first two centuries, the domination of the Arabic lunar calendar, whose significance lies in governing the Islamic yearly festivals and occasions, led to drastic disagreements with the annual planting cycles that were followed by the farmers. Accordingly, the official taxation system faced serious problems. The solution to which was the development of a well-established solar calendar. The large concern of the ninth-century Muslim astronomers for calendrical computations, acknowledges their integral participation in this executive challenge. The present study follows these practices through the lens of a ninth-century Arabic astronomical text, written by Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Kathīr al-Farghānī (Alfraganus in the west), known mainly as the Elements of Astronomy. The careful exploration of this text helps us achieve a broader image of time-keeping accounts in the early Islamic era and the need for calendrical conversions. Moreover, the author’s detailed report of the five existing calendars of the time (Arabic, Syriac, Byzantine, Persian and Egyptian) and their systems of nomenclature, opens an early window to the linguistic investigation of time-reckoning in the Islamic world. Este artículo pretende arrojar luz sobre los conocimientos calendáricos en los primeros siglos de la era islámica, en los que diferentes tradiciones administrativas quedaban bajo el control de un gobierno central. La astronomía, como disciplina patrocinada por la corte en la dinastía abasí (132-656 /750-1258), emprendió la tarea fundamental de identificar y dominar varias disciplinas calendáricas bajo el reinado de los califas para hacer viable una gestión centralizada. En los dos primeros siglos, el dominio del calendario lunar árabe, cuya importancia radica en la regulación de las fiestas y ocasiones anuales islámicas, provocó drásticos desacuerdos con los ciclos anuales de siembra que seguían los agricultores. En consecuencia, el sistema fiscal oficial se enfrentó a graves problemas, cuya solución fue el desarrollo de un calendario solar bien establecido. La gran preocupación de los astrónomos musulmanes del siglo IX por los cómputos calendáricos reconoce su participación integral en este desafío ejecutivo. El presente estudio sigue estas prácticas a través de la atenta lectura de un texto astronómico árabe del siglo IX escrito por Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Kathīr al-Farghānī (Alfraganus en occidente), conocido principalmente como los Elementos de Astronomía. La cuidadosa exploración de este texto nos ayuda a conseguir una imagen más amplia de los relatos sobre el tiempo en la primera época islámica y la necesidad de las conversiones calendáricas. Además, el informe detallado del autor sobre los cinco calendarios existentes en la época (árabe, siríaco, bizantino, persa y egipcio) y sus sistemas de nomenclatura, abre una posibilidad para la investigación lingüística de la relojería en el mundo islámico.

An Alfredian Reading Project

Chapter 2 compares the rhetorical tropes employed in the ‘Preface’ to The Anathemata (often overlooked in the scholarship) with those of the preface to King Alfred’s Old English translation of the Pastoral Care. This comparison establishes the idea of Jones’s artful construction of his ‘Preface’ as a manifesto for the cultural project of The Anathemata. Reflecting on the Alfredian rhetorical ideal of an English nation (and more specifically an English nation of Catholics) as both a medieval and a post-medieval construct, this chapter illuminates the direct challenge of Jones’s ‘Preface’ to Alfredian assertions of English hegemony. Key to this effort to disrupt the hegemony of British Christian history, this chapter argues, is Jones’s use of Latin and how this implicates the work of two other ninth-century writers—Asser and Nennius—in Jones’s dialogue with King Alfred.

Preliminary Study of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica

The pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica are an understudied yet influential group of texts surviving in Arabic that claim to record conversations between Aristotle and Alexander the Great. I propose a ninth-century dating for these texts on the basis of textual and contextual evidence. In them, Aristotle instructs Alexander on two major subjects to aid his royal pupil’s military career and personal life: the cosmos, the genesis of everything in it, and astral magic. This study provides a preliminary analysis of the texts’ manuscripts and content, discussing what makes them Aristotelian and Hermetic and highlighting the resonances of Zoroastrian astro-cosmogenic doctrines.