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Using a series of historical and archaeological data, as well as an extensive bibliography, the author begins his study devoted to the investigation of the problem of Romanian agriculture during the 9th-14th centuries
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The paper deals with the perambulations of land estates and disputes over the boundaries of the village communities and noble estates in the Kingdom of Poland during the 15th and 16th centuries. It investigates the perambulations of estate boundaries as a complex process of conceiving of and transforming the physical space through the procedures and norms of law, and to highlight the role they played in forging and reshaping the local tradition.In spatial terms the project will focus on Galicia, known also as Red Ruthenia or Halych Rus'. This historical region constitutes the territory of the present-day south-eastern Poland and western Ukraine. Since the forties of the fourteen century Galicia was under the control of the kings of the Piast, Anjou and Jagiellonian dynasties.This study starts with an outline of the legislation regulating the boundary law in the Kingdom of Poland in the 14th–16th centuries. It also introduces readers to the emergence and spread of the concept of linear boundaries of estates and villages in late medieval Halych Rus’ as well as to interrelations between the practice of perambulation and the consolidation of the nobility’s rights of lordship in that period. It further provides a short overview of the local officials endowed with the power to conduct perambulations. The main focus of the analysis is on the interplay of literacy and oral communication in the perambulations, and its influence on the process of constituting and reshaping local traditions. It has sought to demonstrate how various forms of the local knowledge, which were transmitted through oral communication, were not only exploited, but also adjusted and reshaped due to the complex influence of the institutions and practices of law, lordship and royal governance, based on the new kind of pragmatic and administrative literacy which became widespread in the Kingdom of Poland during the 15th and 16th centuries. The paper further explores how the attempts at accommodating and reshaping the local tradition by means of institutional practices like perambulations were marked by their own inconsistencies and ambivalence. Finally, it highlights how “the game of tradition”, as Gadi Algazi puts it, in which the perambulations were implicated through the procedures of adjudicating, erecting markers, and record-making, was inextricably interwoven with and affected by the public enactment of the written record as well as by the complex process of dispute settlement.
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This paper deals with an anonymous editor as the real author of the Byzantine agricultural encyclopedia Geoponika. The first part of the paper provides a historical view of the origin and structure of Geoponika. Some of the authors whose works preceded Geoponika are given. Editor included some of their texts in the encyclopedia. The second part deals with the problem of determining the authorship of some of the works included in Geoponika. Many of these writers and their works are unknown to us today. Thanks to the editor’s work on Geoponika their texts are at least partially preserved. Finally, in the third part, the author pays attention to the text of the anonymous editor, which was included in the Geoponika and represents his contribution to the final designing of Geoponika. Through these texts, editor wanted to familiarize the readers with his personal experiences in agriculture. There are texts, comments, opinions, and conclusions throughout the entire encyclopedia. In this way, the editor wanted to present his suggestions for improving the agricultural production to those who are interested.
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One of the oldest benefits collected during the reign of the Piast dynasty was the duty. This benefit, had no doubt the nature of the tribute paid to the general public in exchange for crossing the customs house, the city or the state border, levied on goods transported. Were burdened with him both professionally traders trade and ordinary residents in special for this purpose established collection points – customs chambers, on the basis of existing tariffs.
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This study examines a new, assumed thesis that Aachen in the 9th century ‒ at least for a few years ‒ became new Rome and new Constantinople. So, Aachen became a new center in Europe in the most important aspects ‒ culture, art and theology. As the center of Carolingian culture and theology, the town became the center of the part of Europe ruled by Emperor Charles the Great. This study also discusses that new Frankish culture, Frankish art and Frankish theology were created in Aachen, and because of that it became new Rome and new Constantinople.
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The dinasty, which ruled Serbia during the first half of the XIIth century, emerged around 1082/1083 when Bodin, king of Dioclea, conquered Serbia and sent two zoupans from his court, Vukan and Marco, to establish a new dinasty. The region which came under the rule of Marco was situated, most probably, in the areas of modern northern Serbia as well as Bosnia, south of the Sava river. Therefore, his northern neighbours were Hungarians. It is quite indicative that personal name Uroš comes from the Hungarian root ur - meaning princeps or dominus, and allows conclusion that Marco was married with the unknown Hungarian women, probably of noble stock. It is also assumed that the sons of Marco were Uroš and Stephen Vukan, the same persons mentioned at Byzantine princess Anne Comnene in 1094 as the nethews of grand zoupan Vukan. It is also assumed that comes Marco, signed on two charters of Hungarian king Coloman 1111 and 1124 is the same person who was the father of Stephen Vukan and Uroš, and whose name is missing on the another charter of king Coloman dated in 1113 among the comes's who are usually subscribed on royal charters. According to this identification of comes Marco and zoupan Marco, father of Stephen Vukan and Uroš, it is concluded that Uroš overthroned legitimate heir of grand zoupan Vukan, Zavida, with the help pf his father and his Hungarian ally
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Literature has thus far denied that the Sclavinias, established in the 7th century, were states. Various terms have been used to denominate them (e.g. formations), but they have not been precisely defined. Considering that a state consists of three elements: government, territory and population, this paper shows that the Sclavinias had their rulers as early as late 4th century, and we know them by their names in the second half of the 6th century (Daurentius, Musokios, Ardagast and Peiragastos). Musokios is called a rex, which a title of sovereignty. There may even have been a dynasty (Idarisios and his sons, Mezamiros and Kelagastes). There is a record of a term ‘Ardagast’s land’, which points to a fact that the lands which Ardagast ruled over were quite definite. The rulers exercised their authority over a certain population which is evident from the term ‘subjects’ used to denote the population subjected to Musokios. There is even an assump¬tion that there was the fourth element of state, a name, which constitutes a part of the state subjects’ identity. Based upon an analysis, it has been concluded that the states were named after their rulers and not after the lands or ethnic characteristics. Therefore, a conclusion can be drawn that the Sclavinias were states.
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Until now it was considered that the earliest mention of Bosnia belonged to the period from the middle of the 10th century when the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (945-959) in his famous work De administrando imperio, listing the kastra oikoumena in Serbia, also mentioned two towns in the region of Bosnia: Katera and Desnik. On the other hand, whilst listing Slav principalities in the former Roman province of Dalmatia, the educated Emperor registered: Croatia, Serbia, Zachlumi, Terbounia, Pagania and Dioclea, but not Bosnia. It was according to these writings that an overwhelming opinion about Bosnia being an integral part of Serbia at that time was formed in historiography. This view was further corroborated by the information provided by Einhard in his Annals from the year 822, when he said that Serbs were a people who ruled over a large portion of Dalmatia. Together with the already known borders of Southern Slav principalities, as recorded by Emperor Constantine VII, it was evident that Bosnia did not exist as a principality in the 9th century. The other important source for early Bosnian history is the Gesta regum Sclavorum, a work considered for too long as a creation from the middle of the 12th century. Since this work belongs to the very end of the 13th century (1296-1300), it can be said that news about Bosnia from that scripture, which concern the time before 1018, can almost completely be disregarded as untrustworthy. It is also well known that the number of Slav principalities in the area of the modern Western Balkans was much bigger in the earlier period than in the time of Constantine Porphyrogenitus.
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The article discusses the sacred essence of the Ukrainian house as a special hospitality’s topos with its typical constructive elements indicated with festive symbols in which the meeting of the guest is perceived as a festive event, and the place of the meeting – as a symbolic field of the perceiving of the stranger. The Ukrainian hut was identified not only with the concept of the human security, but gradually became a symbol of the hospitality. The meeting of the guest promotes the creation of the so-called mythological festive space with the special relationships that is explained with the initial provision of visitor the sacred symbolic status. The place where it becomes possible to meet the guest, and his dwelling place for it prohibited, itself topological structure of "greetings" – all this – is not only the space for the owner and his guests, but also a manifestation of the sacred. The waiting for the guests suggests an attempt to bring the topology of everyday life to an ideal image: to bring his original purity, symmetry and harmony. This place of the meeting a guest has always been a hut, a house – one of the main symbols of the hospitality. In the mythology of the Ukrainians the important place was given the hut. It was seen as a man-made world that responds to his ideas. Farmhouse, embodying the living space and ideological space of the Ukrainian, united the earthly, underground and heavenly beginnings, representing the three spheres of the existence: the heavenly (spiritual), earthly (the real) and underground (surreal) worlds. The house recreated the picture of the world, where the four walls of the house are turned into four cardinal points, and three-dimensional symbols of the foundation, blockhouse and roof meets the three levels of the universe: the underworld, the earth, the sky, associated with the divine powers. The ideas of the divinity of the top contributed to the sacralization of the earthly of the family as soon. In particular, the status of a respected and honorable man stressed the country or the spatial increase. The place the head of the Praukrainian family was the most profitable – by the fire, which was located on the opposite side of the entrance. He was sitting, as usual, on the increase, which is supposed for the privileged deity. That was such an unusual situation, since it is known that almost to the Xth century the family had ate on the field, putting the food on a small slate. The space of the house is filled with things that symbolize the values of kinship and everything connected with them. The most important among them are the oven and oven corner. The oven is predominantly female symbol that symbolizes a woman in general with her family responsibilities. Only from the moment of ignition in the oven of the fire the house was considered as a residential. It has long been known the cult of the stove as a major talisman inside the house in the Ukraine. The Ukrainians considered the stove post as a sacred place in the home. It is sometimes identified with the Brownie, so the Brownie had still another name – "the post". According to the beliefs of the Ukrainians, it was behind the stove the housing of the Brownie – of the good spirit of the family, which is always with the people settled in a new house built. He is the master of the house, the god of the home fire, it protects not only the house, but also all its household, so the Ukrainian myths attributed to him the great influence in the growth of the welfare of the family. The stove warms the house, it was baked bread and a daily cooked meals for the family and treat the guests. The meeting of the guests is not just to spend the time and money, but also to take part in the ritual, which takes place in a symbolic space and time. The meeting guests connected, first of all, with a festive preparation of the room. One of the sacred center of the human existence is its housing that is pre-purified, made festive. Thus, the space of the hospitality as a meeting place of the welcoming guests is symbolically sacred place to receive guests in a special context, in the context of the holiday, which gathers the people together, not only as an object, but as a symbol of the spirit of the involvement, and a symbolic first step towards the recognition of their guest is the permission to go to the house. A traditional ritual of the hospitality is associated with the ordering of the guest, the symbolic involving to the temporary twinning with the owners of the house, and even with the all native. Already the owner's permission to enter the house is perceived as the first symbolic step towards the recognition of their guest as not stranger. However, in the space of the hospitality the complete transformation of the guest to own takes place only temporarily. The mentioned "twinning" is limited in the time and space with a definite "fall-out" in which both guests and hosts.
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Andrid (Érendréd) is located in the Southwestern part of Satu-Mare county, to 23 km southwest to city of Carei (Nagykároly) along the road 108, in the Valley of Ier (Ér). This area is very rich in archaeological settlements. The village was first mentioned in 1398, as a territory of Endrédy family. From Andrid’s territory we know different archaeological finds from the Middle Neolitihic to the Late Medieval Period. The solidus imitation was find in the summer of 2009 by Cs. Tóth, on the left part of the road Andrid-Chereuşa, at Andrid-Legelő. He grands the finds to the Carei Local Museum. The goldplated solidus imitation can be dated on the Avaric period, at the 7th century A.D.
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The western campaign of the Eastern Turks in 711-714 was the greatest military action of the Second (Eastern) Turkic Empire. In many respects it marked the climax of its power. For a few years it seemed as if the most glorious days of the First Turkic Empire had returned. The events of this campaign are recounted in detail in the Orkhon inscriptions, the Tonyuquq inscription and also in the Chinese and Arabic sources. The action, however, turned out to be a disastrous defeat in the end. This article investigates the causes of the failure which nearly brought the end of the Eastern Turkic Empire.
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Theophanes Confessor, Byzantine author of the early 9th century, when referring to the Khazars in his work entitled Chronographia, used the term “Eastern Turks”. It is widely accepted that Byzantine authors used such terms in pairs, so the pendant of “Eastern Turks” was “Western Turks”, the latter being used to denote the early Hungarians. This conclusion is based on the fact that Byzantine chroniclers called the Hungarians Turks at the end of the 9th century. Theophanes mentioned the Khazars as Eastern Turks, as if he had information on a people also called Turks living west of the Khazars. However, not all historians shared this view, and some of them supposed that Theophanes applied the term Eastern Turks in a geographical sense, since the Khazars had lived east of the Byzantine Empire. The solution to this problem has far-reaching consequences. If Theophanes referred to the Hungarians, that would mark their first appearance in written sources at the beginning of the 9th century. But the pendant of the “Eastern Turks” in the chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, is not the “Western Turks”, but the “Western Huns”.
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The paper discusses examples of corporal mutilation that accompanied intra-dynastic conflicts or clashes with real or potential pretenders to the imperial throne. Castration was a known but rarely applied measure in the political conflicts of the 7th and 8th century. Hence the two consecutive cases of castration of all sons of the deposed emperor Michael I Rhangabe (813) and the assassinated emperor Leo V the Armenian (820) deviated from the previous Byzantine practice. The paper establishes that in these cases the choice of castration as the most effective means of ensuring the future political disqualification of the princes and their families was a result of the strengthening dynastic principle, which was particularly noticeable in the cases of the descendents of Constantine V from his third marriage. It also highlights that castration was never used on the deposed emperor autokrator, but only on the bearers of imperial dignities (co-emperors) or simply princes with no imperial title. In exam ples where castration was used to ensure political disqualification, it was not a sanction for an individual wrongdoing (in other words, castration was not a penalty prescribed for a specific transgression); if these cases were a matter of punishment at all, the penalty was meant to sanction the entire bloodline (γένος) rather than the (innocent) individual. Castration was a milder form of punishment compared to other forms of physical mutilation (severing of the nose, tongue or ears; blinding). Due to the ambivalent attitude of the Byzantine society towards eunuchs, castration did not necessarily lead to social margin alization. Hence, it was applied more frequently during the reign of the Macedonian dynasty, but prominent castrates were incorporated into the official hierarchy as members of an order of eunuchs (τάξεις τῶν εὐνούχων).
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The paper discusses questions about the chronology of the settlement of Mardaite soldiers in the Balkans and their military-administrative position in the themata of the West: Peloponnesus, Cephalonia and Nicopolis. It presents arguments in favor of the hypothesis of the Mardaite settlement in Peloponnesus as the result of the colonization policy of Nicephorus I in the early 9th century. This view largely rests on information contained in the Chronicle of Monemvasia, a source hereto unused in discussions about the Mardaites. The Mardaites were moved in the territory of the themata of Nicopolis and Cephalonia at the close of the same century in a bid to reinforce Byzantine positions on the eastern coast of the Ionian Sea at the time of the Arab threat to this region. Finally, in the concluding passages the author touches on the military-administrative status of Mardaites in the themata of the West, who operated in units headed by tourmarchai, comparing them to other ethnic tourmai in the Byzantine Empire.
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Bizantyńczyków, którzy żyli w Bułgarii w pierwszej połowie wieku IX, można z grubsza podzielić na tych, którzy przybyli do niej w ramach masowych przymusowych przesiedleń oraz tych, którzy znaleźli się w niej w konsekwencji własnych, indywidualnych decyzji. W pierwszej grupie można wydzielić jeńców wojennych, którzy znaleźli się w rękach bułgarskich w wyniku działań zbrojnych oraz ludność deportowaną do Bułgarii z terenów zdobytych na Bizantyńczykach. Tego typu sytuacje notujemy w czasie wojen prowadzonych przez chana Kruma z Niceforem I, a następnie z jego następcami: Michałem I i Leonem V. Wiadomo, że spora liczba Bizantyńczyków znalazła się w rękach bułgarskich m.in. po zdobyciu Sardyki w 809 r., pogromie armii Nicefora I w lipcu 811 r. czy w konsekwencji zdobycia bizantyńskich twierdz: Deweltu, Mesembrii czy Adrianopola w latach 812–813. Część z nich dość szybko, w wyniku wymiany jeńców między cesarstwem a Bułgarią, wracała do Bizancjum. Byli jednak i tacy, którzy nie zostali wykupieni z niewoli, i tacy, którym nie udało się z niej uciec i stawali się już na stałe poddanymi chanów bułgarskich.
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The medieval ceremony of coronation as a rule took place in the most important church of a realm. The sites of the coronation of Serbian rulers before the establishment of the Žiča monastery church as the coronation church of Serbian kings in the first half of the thirteenth century have not been reliably identified so far. Based on the surviving medieval sources and the archaeological record, this paper provides background information about the titles of Serbian rulers prior to the creation of the Nemanjić state, and proposes that Stefan, son of the founder of the Nemanjić dynasty, was crowned king (1217) in the church of St Peter in Ras.
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Thirteen ancient Chinese manuscripts have been seen as texts of a long lost 8th-century early Chan Buddhist chronicle, the Lidai fabao ji. A number of textual indications, however, suggest that they cannot be taken as the Tang sources, because their texts have been redacted between 907 and the early 11th century. The original Tang source, Lidai fabao ji, remains mysterious to date.
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Seneca’s tragedy is considered from the point of view of the intertextual relations with other Greek and Roman literary works, connected with the Corinthian history about Jason and Medea. Seneca represents a special view of the hierarchy of male virtues: Jason is a husband, a father and a mentor. The rage of Medea is ‘legalized,’ the reaction of Jason is depicted in the Stoic terms. The main characters of the tragedy are represented by the Roman writer in a pedagogical rather than a heroic posture: the adults seek to educate each other in the process of their conflict over custody of their children.
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