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The text discusses the phenomenon of abstaining from having progeny in the Middle Ages in the broader context of the attitudes of that time towards procreation. It points to the overwhelming dominance of pronatalist attitudes in society, which are supported by the Catholic Church. It also points out that the choice to abstain from having children almost never constituted a value in itself, but was mostly either forced upon people by external factors, or was a manifestation of practicing the virtue of chastity. Presented are a spectrum of views of adherents to dualistic religious, esp. the Cathars, whose rejection of procreation was a spontaneous and ideologically conditioned value.
More...Тази статия представя на читателите глава от новата книга на проф. Христо Матанов "В търсене на средновековното време".
This article is presenting a chapter of the published book of prof. Hristo Matanov "Seeking the Middle ages" and in this manner, giving the readers the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they would like the book or not.
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The author analyses the instructions included in the testaments of the burghers fromDanzig and Elbing, written in the second half of the 15th and at the beginning of the 16thcenturies. After going through the pious legacies made by merchants and members of thetown’s elite it may be claimed that the instructions in the testaments are quite similar asfar as the numbers and amounts of the legacies are concerned; the legacies are made tolocal parish churches, monastic orders, towns’ hospitals and the poor. It was also quitecommon to give legacies to church institutions situated outside the towns where the benefactors lived; for example, the monastic complex of the Carthusian Order called Mary’s Paradise (Polish: Raj Maryi) in Kartuzy (German: Karthaus) and mendicant orders inthe State of the Teutonic Order in Prussia (merchants from Danzig and Elbing) and inRoyal Prussia (merchants from Elbing alone), which – in exchange for that – offered thebenefactors a prayer and Masses for their souls and the ones of their families. Such obligations were consciously published in many places simultaneously, in an attempt to additionally secure prayers needed to be redeemed. The richest also financed pilgrims whowould visit pilgrimage centres for them. The sums for that purpose were in both townsequal, which probably resulted from actual costs and accepted norms. Generally speaking,pious legacies constituted an insignificant part of the merchants’ property, unless thebenefactor had any inheritors. In part of the testaments there are no instructions for piousbequests; however, it does not mean that the burghers did not give part of their propertyad pias causas. The pressure both of the existing norms and the religious conceptions ofthe way that might lead to redemption made it indispensable to make that last contract.
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Middle Ages in the defense and protection of people and material goods has its own characteristics and features that are created as a result of the threat of aspirations to expand and acquire new treasures and territories. In response to these aspirations, people in that time have developed special ways and methods of dealing with them. With taking measures and actions created and developed special mechanisms and systems that will enable proper defense and protection of the occurrence of dangers and threats. As a basic measure and activity of defense and protection in the Middle Ages on the territory of Macedonia constitute a fortification. This measure was not new in this part mainly because it appearing in antiquity rather the Late Antique period in which they were used and some fortifications in the Middle Ages. The emergence of new siege weapons and artillery in the development of the Middle Ages imposed need for reinforcement of Late Antique fortifications used again and build a new and stronger fortifications. For more efficient and appropriate response in the event of attack or siege of fortificated settlements were added defense elements. As a major element of defense in defending fortifications represented major defense towers because of their efficiency despite the Balkans were used in assessments throughout Central and Western Europe. The use of towers and other defense elements disrupted and prevented the siege of the forts. Besides fortification such basic measures and activities in defense and protection of the territory of Macedonia in the Middle Ages also meets and evacuation. Although in most cases no planning performance still in case of danger or threat its application results. The timely implementation of the evacuation did the suffering of people prevented from enemy attacks. This type of formation and development of defense and protection, which was current in the Middle Ages on the territory of Macedonia and then touted dangers and threats that people have dealt with in the following periods, will be subject to changes and transformations as required.
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The main purpose of the paper is to take a closer look at the question of Stephen Báthory’s (Polish: Stefan Batory, Hungarian: Báthory István) studies in Padua. Stephen Báthory was the prince of Transilvania and next the king of Poland and Great Duke of Lithuania. In the first paragraphs the author reminds that since the end of the 18th century historians have taken it for granted that young Báthory studied in Padua. The author presents a number of sources and argues that we do not actually have any evidence that can support this conviction. At the end of his paper he explains what might be the cause of this misunderstanding.
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The paper deals with the problem of using different languages of writing in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 15th–17th centuries. Among them there were: Latin, Polish, Ruthenian, Church-Slavonic, Lithuanian, German, Yiddish, Hebrew, Arabic and Greek, written in five alphabets: Latin, Cyryllic, Hebrew, Arabic and Greek. The author noticed that this multi-lingualism and multi-alphabeticism was omitted in Polish studies about history of literature of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He argues that including these two issues in the studies on the Commonwealth’s history is crucial to better understand the muli-cultural and multi-ethnic character of this country. One of the main questions of the paper is about the relationship between a script and an identity. The author notices that comparative approach can be especially productive in such research. He enlists similar borderline processes in use of writing in medieval and early modern England, Sicily, Malta, Cyprus, Venice, Dubrovnik, Moldova and Andalusia. It is illustrated by a few cases of use of the Cyryllic, Latin and Arabic alphabets. The author draws a comparison between the 16th-century literary languages of Spanish Moriscos and Lithuanian Tatars. Both these languages were based on the written version of a vernacular language (Romance and Byelorussian) in the Arabic alphabet.
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This article studies such examples from the 9th–11th century Gregorian chant, where the text and music are given prominence by the means of the so-called musical rhetoric, allowing these compositional solutions to be described with the definitions of musica poetica. The associative (visual or sonic) ways of combining ecclesiastical texts and melodies, and their variations in the chants are analysed from the perspective of Renaissance and Baroque musical rhetoric. It is pointed out that the roots of musical rhetoric, which peaked in popularity during the Baroque period, were identified in the liturgical chant with the following elements and features characteristic to musical rhetoric: •Expression of language syntax via music, including the imitation of interrogative intonation in the prophetic readings (lectiones), for instance, from the Book of Isaiah, were the musical rhetoric figure interrogatio is used; •Accompanying of words indicating directions (for example, ascend, heaven, descend) with an ascending or descending melody – ascensus and descensus; •Sonic imitation of subjects mentioned in the text (e. g., a dove) – onomatopoeia; •Certain words (for example, listen, rejoice) highlighted with melismas – hypotyposis; •Prominence given to personal names (e. g., God) with rhetorically significant melismas. The article deals with those examples from the Gregorian chant which have an explicit structure of musical rhetoric figures, consistent with their subsequent definitions and usage in music. Although such combinations of melody and words should not be treated as a norm in the repertoire of Gregorian chant, the purpose was to indicate that the musical rhetoric traditions of Renaissance and Baroque periods and the musical rhetorical figures themselves originated from already known compositional ideas and ways of expressing text via music. Thus, rhetorical style of composing music was not a brand new page in the history of music; it reflects one of the many universal strategies of combining words and music that function inside and outside of the chronological boundaries of musica poetica theory and compositional practice.
More...Miszelle zu einem Plenar mit Perikopen in deutsch lateinischer Mischsprache aus Siebenbürgen am Vorabend der Reformation
Wie das „Heltauer Marienlied“ erhielt das „Mediascher Predigtbuch“ seinen Namen nach dem Ort, wo es im 19. Jahrhundert aufgefunden wurde. Anders als das Marienlied, dessen Abschrift von Heltau seit 1916 als verloren gilt1, wird das Predigtbuch auch heute noch an seinem Entdeckungsort aufbewahrt. Auf die Sammlung bin ich im Zuge eines vor einigen Jahren anvisierten Forschungsprojektes aufmerksam geworden, das sich zum Ziel gesetzt hat, die Geschichte der siebenbürgisch-sächsischen Literatur des Mittelalters auf der Grundlage der noch vorhandenen handschriftlichen Überlieferung in Form von Fallstudien zu beschreiben2. Die dabei erarbeiteten Ausführungen hätten im Artikel „Weißkirch (Albești, Fehéregyháza, Alba ecclesia)“ des Ungarn und Rumänien betreffenden Bandes des „Lexikons der regionalen Literaturgeschichte des Mittelalters“ erscheinen sollen3, konnten jedoch wegen der Beschränkung des Nachschlagewerkes auf die Zeit vor 1526 nicht berücksichtigt werden. Sie liegen der folgenden Miszelle zugrunde.
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“Sûret-i Defter-i Sancak-i Arvanid” written in the year of 835 in Hijri Calender, which is equivalent to the years between 1431-1432 in Gregorian Calender, as the first book of Ottoman Empire is an official document for the Albanian lands. One of the most important fact about this work is that this book was written in the old Ottoman language in which Albanians were called “Arvanitas” not “Arnavut” (Albanian). Also the book contains general information about the population, administrative organization, geography, and lifestyle of the country. According to the data registered in the years between 1431-1432 (uncompleted), Albanian lands included theseprovinces: 1) Vilayet-i Aryurikasri, 2. Nahiyet-i Sopot, 3. Vilayet-i Klisura, 4. Vilayet-i Kanina, 5. Vilayet-i Belgrad, 6. Vilayet-i Tomorince, 7. Vilayet-i İskarapar, 8. Vilayet-i Pavlo Kurtik, 9. Vilayet-i Çartolos, 10. Vilayet-i Akçahisar.The present article aims to present the registriesof geographical names according to “Sûret-i Defter-i Sancak-i Arvanid” and compare them withtoday’s Province of Berat. Then, this article examines the administrative organization of the Province, changes in geographical names (urban-rural), unchanged toponyms of the same places, as well as geographical names of those places which do not exist today. In addititon, phonetic changes in these toponyms are analyzed.
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The article treats a medieval text Vita Donati grammatici (The Life of Donatus), containing biographical information concerning [Aelius] Donatus, a Roman grammarian of Late Antiquity. The history of the scholarship of this text, as well as its contents, possible reasons of creation, its genre, and some eccentric and parodic features are under consideration. The study is accompanied by an English and a Russian translations of the Latin original text.
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Constantine the Great and Peter I are compared in the article in terms of their relationship to the Christian Church. The comparison of these rulers was an important element of the mythologizing of Russian history. As a result, the acts of Peter shade all pre-Petrine Russia's past (just as acts of Constantine distinctly shared by Christian Rome from the pagan Rome). Constantine was the protector of Christianity, while Peter strongly limited the rights and influence of the Church. However, in their religious policy is an important thing in common. Both emperors converted the church into an element of the state machine, and church leaders – in state figures. They both sought to maximize the mobilization and unification of social life.
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