POLKAI REIKIA DVIEJŲ
Rec.: Robert Frost, The Oxford History of Poland-Lithuania, Volume I: The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, 1385–1569, Oxford University Press, 2015.
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Rec.: Robert Frost, The Oxford History of Poland-Lithuania, Volume I: The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, 1385–1569, Oxford University Press, 2015.
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The article concerns the Brunonian scenes from the Deeds of Magdeburg Archbishops, written in the 30s-40s of the 12th century and continued till 1513, and their relationship with St. Bruno’s Work Book (Liber gestorum) mentioned in them, which, however, did not survive. Until the beginning of the 16th century, the Deeds of Magdeburg Archbishops were not only continued but also edited and supplemented in certain places while transcribing the manuscripts.In the 19th century, while publishing the Deeds of Magdeburg Archbishops, Wilhelm Schum used 15 manuscripts which were divided into two –Aand B – wordings.After analyzing the Deeds of Magdeburg Archbishops it was determined that three Brunonian scenes happening in wording A were set as a single story in wording B. Having carried out the analysis of St Bruno’s Liber gestorum, it can be stated that there was a narrative in the A wording next to the Tagino period about St. Bruno Boniface who was a Canon of Magdeburg, was accepted to the King’s court, lived in an erem in Italy with the Saints Benedict and John, who received the pallium from the Pope, was ordained Archbishop of the pagans (tribes) by Tagino, the Archbishop of Magdeburg, and was tortured by them. The question concerning the dependence of the genealogical knowledge to St. Bruno’s Works Book remains open. The narrative about the St Bruno’s mission through Prague of Bohemia to Hungary, presented in the Deeds of Archbishops of Magdeburg, is the interpolation of B3 (out of it B3a) manuscripts of the 50s-60s of the 15th century and is not related to the narrative of liber gestorum. The story of St. Bruno, told in these manuscripts, is the summary based on Life and Martyrdom story found in manuscripts from Dessau (15th century) and Querfurt (16th century), which was already found in Collections of Saints of the 15th century.
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In the end of the 14th–15th c., 250 full private documents written in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were known. In the end of the 14th century, early private documents were approved by the issuer seal, list of witnesses and the scribe direction. However, eventually it was not consistently observed. The research shows obvious differences which confirm not only different types of documents, but also different writing traditions (Latin and Ruthenian). For example, a bigger part of the Latin private documents (donations, sales, testimonies, etc.) were approved by the seal of one issuer, but the Ruthenian practice of sales documents approval was ambivalent. Since their emergence (from the middle of the 15th c.), one part of documents were approved only by the issuer seal and the other part by the issuers’ and witnesses’seals together. Since the 8th decade of the 15th century, the biggest part of Ruthenian sales was approved by issuer and witnesses seals. The Latin sales were stamped only by the issuer, but at the end of the 15th century there several sales which were approved by the seals of the listed witnesses (obviously it was the influence of the Ruthenian practice). Also, the article analyzes the use of the list of witnesses, the recording of clericals and secular officials, the practice of notaries, scribes’ naming, and others.
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The study aims to identify the facts that led the Cistercian Abbey of Pontigny to found two abbeys on the territory of today's Romania: Igriş and Cârţa. In order to understand these Transylvanians foundations is necessary to explain the role of the Pontigny Abbey in relations with the Holy See. Between all the Cistercian Abbeysʼ filiation system, the one of Pontigny had been most faithful to the Holy See and benefited from its protection. That protection is witnessed by the fact that the Abbey was functioning as a refuge for the Canterbury archbishops persecuted by the kings of England. The foundation of the Igriş and Cârţa Abbeys can not be assessed in light but only from the perspective of the Holy See requests that were interested in expanding the Christianitas into Eastern Europe, thing that Cistercians are doing by placing them in Transylvania.
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This article is dedicated to investigating the problems regarding the existence of Lithuanian cavalry in the 13th century as well as the identification of its type and its ability to counter the heavy cavalry of the West. Firstly, we analyze the validity of different opinions about the date when Lithuanians began to fight on horseback that are revealed in our historiography – that this had happened on the junction of the 13th and 14th centuries, on the second half of the 13th century, or long before the beginning of the Baltic crusade. We come to a conclusion that there is enough evidence to support the third opinion, oriented at pre-crusader times. Furthermore, we agree with the idea, soundly based in the description of the source, that these forces were light cavalry. In the second part of our article, we address attention to the peculiarity of the tactics employed by the previously mention cavalry forces: even being able to fight on horseback, these units would get out of their saddles and because of that were often mistaken for infantry. Even more, they would intentionally seek out areas unfavorable for cavalry forces (forests, for example), fighting on foot in these environments, because in those places the enemy was not capable of using anything to their advantage: big war horses, better armor, a close battle order, or lances. The article suggests that this battle method lets us determine, with more precision, the type of Lithuanian light cavalry, equating it to the better-known Irish hobelars who had served in England’s army. In the Teutonic Order’s state in Prussia, the equivalent of hobelars were the native “free” Prussians. Both these types of units rode small horses, fought equally well on horseback as well as on foot, and used javelins. In the last part, we argue on the possibilities of such light cavalry overcoming its heavier counterparts. According to the author of this paper, such possibilities would arise only occasionally – when knights were trapped in swamps in the forests or did some sort of tactical mistake. Eliminating this backwardness, the Lithuanian state had begun using heavy cavalry forces by the early 15th century.
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The interaction between the Ordinary and the Versed synaxarion began almost immediately after the latter was translated in the first quarter of the 14th century. The present article focuses on samples of readings from the Versed synaxarion that found their way into versions of the Ordinary synaxarion. The author raises the question of whether the readings from Moscovite Rus versions of the Synaxarion were integrated into the versions characteristic to the Kyiv Metropolitanate. An indepth study into the composition of the versions of the Synaxarion deriving from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and, subsequently, the Commonwealth of the Two Nations, has made it possible to give an affirmative answer to this question. The specific version of the extended edition of the Synaxarion copy written by the local scribe Symeon in 1621 in Rychagov Village, Lviv Region, Ukraine, later transferred to the Krekhov Monastery and currently stored in the Lviv National Scientific Library, MV 1267, has been found to contain a number of didactic articles and individual hagiographic texts derived from the Moscow version of the Versed synaxarion. The Rychagov synaxarion was also checked with some other synaxaria and hagiographic collections from the Commonwealth of the Two Nations. During their work on these sources, the book scribes were chiefly interested in the new sermons they used for creating the unique and rich didactic section of the synaxarion No. 1267.
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After the formation of philosophical thought in the history of Islamic philosophy, the commentaries written on the main texts of great philosophers became a tradition for a long time. Especially in the history of philosophy after Avicenna, the way of our philosophical thought changed and some theologians began to discuss philosophical issues. Some commentaries on the works of Avicenna had been written by the scholars who weren’t philosophers. One of the most important commentaries is the work of Fakhr Ad-Din Al-Razî named as Al-İnarat fi Sharh Al-Isharat written on Al-Isharat wa Al-Tanbihat. But scholars out of Al-Razi had attempted to write commentaries on this work of Avicenna. The book Basharat Al-Isharat of Shams Ad-Din Samarqandî which is the topic of this article is one of those commentaries. Samarqandî is a one of thinkers who maintained the commentary tradition in thirteenth century. However, this commentary of Samarqandi had not been very illustrious as much as the commentaries of Fakhr Ad-Din Al-Razi and Nasr Al-Din Tûsî. Moreover, there is not a printed version of it except from academic studies. We will try to analyze the thoughts of the philosopher on the basis of the section about al-İlâhiyât of his commentary by following his methodology.
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The paper analyses the particularities of architecture and murals in the churches of St. Demetrius and St. Nicholas in Prilep, North Macedonia. Both churches were built and painted in several phases, which generated various views on their attribution and dating in the scholarly literature. The authors argue that the last rebuilding of St. Demetrius church was done by the same crew that finished the construction of St. Nicholas church between 1284 and 1298. Many specific traits indicate that these builders came to Prilep from the central regions of the Despotate of Epirus. Analyzing painting style the authors conclude that one or two local painters were responsible for the murals in the altar zones of the two churches. There are also wall paintings belonging to other layers in the both churches. The master who finished the painting in the church of St. Nicholas in 1298 could be of Epirote origine, although some traits of his style reveal the knowledge of local trends in the art of Macedonia too.
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The study is concerned with the problem of the Hungarian administration of the Duchy of Styria in the period 1254–1260. As a result of the almost complete absence of study of this theme in European historiography, the study has the basic aim of approaching this period of Central European history of the second half of the 13th century. The text of the study is based mainly on content analysis of surviving diplomatic and narrative sources from the Holy Roman Empire. The most notable result of the test is clarification of the relationship of representatives of the Hungarian administrative authorities in the Duchy of Styria with ecclesiastical institutions such as monasteries, and with the secular elite: aristocrats, officials.
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This article presents an analysis of an occurring phrase and practice “auf die Hand” (to one’s hand) and its meaning in the end of the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries. The main sources for such a study were correspondence between the Teutonic Order’s officers and Lithuania’s rulers, issued documents, and other contemporary written evidence. The “auf die Hand” custom was not just a practice to release captives on parole solely on their own oath, but also on the guarantee of a ruler, officer or another trustworthy person. The captive released on parole or the guarantee promises to return whenever the captor summons him. Also, the guarantor vows that the captive will safely return on a given time. This research shows that the captives with questionable honour may not have been interceded merely for the risk of escaping, because the guarantor, who had also sworn in his honour, would have to compensate for the escaped captive. No doubt such practice was adopted through contact with the Teutonic Order and knights from Western Europe, since we can observe specific features of chivalry: surrender, honour, oaths. Also, it is evident that the meaning behind “auf die Hand” had a semantic connotation – raising a hand to give an oath and giving the captive “to guarantor’s hands.”
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The Golden Horde stopped the expansion of Hungary on the line of the Carpathians, creating thus an opportunity to develop for the small Romanian political organizations ruled by voivodes or cnezi, in the region east of Olt. After 1241, only Oltenia remained the single region where the Hungarian domination survived in certain forms until 1291, when a new Tatar offensive extended along the Danube, up to Serbia, the domination of the Isaccea emirate ruled by Nogai. In Oltenia, the voivode Litovoi tried in 1278 to liberate his small country from the Hungarian vassalage, and to extend it east of Olt. The Tatar hegemony provided stability and favored the establishment of the first Romanian state in northern Walachia. The legendary founder Negru Vodă came from the Făgăraş area with his military suite in 1290, when their properties were confiscated. If his identity with the father of Basarab remains controversial, it is however certain that the voivodate of Curtea de Argeş, established by the middle of the 13th century, gained its freedom from the Hungarian pretentions through the protection of the Golden Horde.
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The Ruthenian translation of the medieval treatise Secretum Secretorum (“The Secret of Secrets”) was made in Kiev during the second half of the 15th century from a Hebrew version that dates back to late 13th‒early 14th centuries, when it was translated from the Arabic original, which probably originated in its final form during the 10th century. The Ruthenian translation contains certain interpolations that had been already present in the Hebrew version before it was translated into Ruthenian. They had been extracted from several Arabic and Hebrew sources, such as the treatise Al-Mansuri by Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyā al-Rāzī (865‒925) and the treatises On Poisons, On Coitus, and On Asthma by Maimonides (1135/1138‒1204). The author argues that the same Ruthenian translation also contains a minor (one-page long) interpolation that through Hebrew mediation goes back to The Canon of Medicine written in Arabic by Avicenna (980‒1037). It is still to be established which of the seven known Medieval Hebrew translations and/or the around 30 commentaries on it (all unpublished) was used as the immediate source for the Kievan translation. Nevertheless, the newly identified Arabic origin of this particular interpolation to the Ruthenian version of the treatise The Secret of Secrets sheds some light on the prehistory of this particular text’s portion and compliments the list of sources used by the Hebrew-to-Ruthenian translators in Kiev during the second half of the 15th century.
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Source research into medieval musical materials from the territory of Slovakia has brought many new and valuable findings in recent times. The sources include newly discovered musical fragments from various archive, book and museum collections from the 11th to the end of the 15th centuries. Almost all the surviving musical sources contain monophonic Latin liturgical song, so-called Gregorian chant (in Latin cantus planus) of domestic and foreign origin. The manuscript materials from the Kingdom of Hungary include fragments in the Slovak National Archives from the Leles Premonstratensian Monastery place of authentication (locus credibilis). Fragments of four manuscripts with notes represent a scriptorium tradition that is specific from the points of view of content and musical notation. The medieval fragments with notation are preserved as the packaging for documents (Acta anni – varia). They come from four different liturgical books: a Sequentiar from the second half of the 14th century, a Missal from 1350–1375, an Antiphonar from 1350–1375 and a Psaltar with notes from about 1400. The aim of the study is to present the content and significance of these musical materials for research on medieval musical culture, religion and manuscript production in medieval Slovakia.
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This article presents an analysis of the issue of how Lithuanians, namely, their ethno-social elite – the nobility – became more Russian in the 14th–16th centuries. The study reveals that social, political and cultural relations at the top levels of government in the GDL and in the privileged estate did not encourage the Lithuanian nobility to “turn Russian”. The ethnocentric vision of language equality nurtured by representatives of Lithuanian culture and writing is highlighted, which in turn established a fertile ground in which the nationalist ideas of the early modern period’s Lithuanian nation could germinate.
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Article deals with a variety of ways by which Orthodox believers of the GrandDuchy of Lithuania were present in diplomatic rhetoric in the end of the 14thbeginning 16th centuries. After the conversion of the Lithuanians in 1386,Teutonic Order tried to prove that Grand Duchy is not a good Christian countryby pointing to the Orthodox majority in Lithuania. Knights depicted OrthodoxRuthenians as enemies of the Roman church and heretics, who enjoyed thebenevolence of Lithuanian rulers. Polish-Lithuanian side fi rstly also accusedthe knights of favoring Eastern Christians, but later at the Council of Constancein 1414–1418 presented their Orthodox subjects as ones, who are ready toreunite with the Western church. In 1430-s the same tropes were reproducedby diff erent actors. There were Polish representatives, who drew the picture ofthe Orthodox threat in Lithuania in front of the Council of Basel and Teutonicdiplomacy, which assisted grand duke Svidtrigaila in attempts of reunitingOrthodox Ruthenians with Rome. Wars with Moscow in the end of the 16thcentury. brought another dimension in diplomatic rhetoric: the question offreedom of faith for the Ruthenians in Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the ideaof Christian unity in facing the Ottoman threat. The main way to overcome thecontradiction between the religious situation in Grand Duchy of Lithuania andthe western Christian ideal of unity in orthodoxy in diplomatic rhetoric wasthe perspective of achieving this ideal in the near future. On the other side,the confrontation of this situation with similar demands from the East lead tothe articulation of the ideas of freedom of conscience and the importance ofpeace between the two branches of Christianity.
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The aim of the article is to present two written traditions which are discernible in the Hungarian-Polish Chronicle. One of them is of the Hungarian and the other one of the Polish origin. The Le-genda sancti Stephani regis by Bishop Hartvich is one of them. It is also the simplest one to analyse. The text comparison shows that it could be regarded as the shorter text variant which served as the story basis for the chronicler, similarly to the text from the Seitz manuscript dated back to the second half of the 14th century. One of the variants of the now lost Gesta Ungarorum could be a source of information on the ancient history of Hungarians. One can observe traces of using a written source of the Polish origin as well. It could be a narrative form dating back to the beginning of the 13th century, in which the remnants of another, older text – possibly from the time of Bolesław II Large (the second half of the 11th century) – could be found.
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Annemarie Schimmel is a prolific academician known for her works on world religions, philosophy, biography and literature, in the East and the West. She also made studies, especially in the field of Sufism, that have contributed the tradition of Sufi thought to be read from an objective perspective by Western researchers and to be reevaluated as the focus of attention. She published some familiar works in this field such as Mystische Dimension des Islam that can be considered as the history of sufism, Ich bin Wind du bist Feuer in which Mevlânâ Celâleddin Rûmî`s mystical views are examined, Sufismus: Eine Einführung in die islamische Mystik as an introduction to Sufism and AlHalladsch: Märtyrer der Gottesliebe: Leben und Legende where the life of Halladch is explained. Schimmel translated Yunus Emre poetries into German in her book titled ‘’Ausgewählte Gedichte von Yunus Emre.’’ Furthermore, Schimmel’s work Wanderungen mit Yunus Emre, discusses Yunus Emre's mystical views by employing the method of narration, and examines some of his poetries, which is a study that can be classified in connection with the Sufi culture in Anatolia. Based on Schimmel’s examination and remarks, this article signifies Yunus Emre’s ideas and perspective and mystic Islamic culture in Anatolia during the 13th and 14th century.
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Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-ʿAlāʾī (d. 761/1359) was a scholar who lived in the period of the Mamluks, who made important contributions to the science of ḥadīth both with his duties in ḥadīth schools, and his works in the field of ḥadīth criticism/the discipline of al-jarḥ wa-l-taʿdīl (impugning and accrediting). One of his works on the science of ḥadīth is Ibn al-Jawzī’s (d. 597/1201), al-Naqd al-Sahîh, which he wrote in order to explain that the ḥadīths that he decreed were fake up in Maṣābīḥ al-Sunna are not as claimed. The author’s work in question is one of the first texts of authorship written for Ibn al-Jawzī’s al-Mawḍū‘āt and al-‘Ilal. This article focuses on ʿAlāʾī’s life, his identity as a muḥaddith and his contributions to the science of ḥadīth, as well as his evaluations on some of the ḥadīth in question in our country. The aim of the study is to identify ʿAlāʾī’s personality and the introduction his work, the method he followed in his analysis of ḥadīth, and to gain an idea about whether there is a need for additional studies today regarding the narrations that scholars have given fabricated judgment in the past. When ʿAlāʾī’s work is examined, it is seen that he makes successful analysis of isnād by revealing the sects that are suitable for being subordinates of the narrations and making in-depth research on obliged narrators, in contrast to the superficial evaluations of Ibn al-Jawzī. However, it is also noteworthy that the author almost never included text criticism and shawāhid type narrations in these analyses. Researches on al-Naqd al-Sahîh and similar works written in the form of rejection of the narrations taken in the works of legislation will play an important role in determining the methods to be followed in new studies on this field.
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This paper analyzes the interaction between toll keepers and customs officials from Hungary and Transylvania and the merchants of Sibiu during the last decades of the fourteenth century and 1405. On 21 March 1391, King Sigismund of Luxemburg issued a charter of privileges allowing the merchants of Sibiu to pursue several actions while transiting customs places throughout the kingdom and at the same time abolished various rules and fines for tresspasses newly introduced by the tollkeepers that were considered erroneas or sinistras novitates. During the next fifteen years, the text of this privilege was reissued five times either by King Sigismund of Luxemburg or by the Voivode of Transylvania highlighting an ongoing tension between the merchants and the tollkeepers. The discussion of this issue in the context of corruption and anticorruption measures in the medieval period indicates a case of abuse, followed by complaints of the victims, and normative intervention by the royal authority.
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The study refers to the first mention of an anthroponym that can be considered Romanian. If until recently it was believed that Romanian anthroponyms with the patronymic suffix -escu appeared in the second half of the fourteenth century in Romanian territories, documents in Capua (Italy) record in 1276 a character named Lucesku, involved in a legal case. The relationship between the Romanian and the Italian space is highlighted once again, especially the South Italian one, which has been constant from the 11th century, since the establishment of Saint Gerard of Cenad in western Transylvania. What is pleasantly surprising in mentioning the first Romanian name from the Middle Ages is that there are – in the name's extensive composition – both names from the eastern and western onomastic stock, the western one being practically Gerard. Based on chronology and genealogy it can be estimated that the first Romanian name appears around 1220, when the stabilization of the Teutonic Knights in southern Transylvania occurs and there is a stable route between Rome, southern Italy and Transylvania. Based on this testimony, it is possible to specify the maturation of Romanian anthroponymy and society a century earlier than previously considered.
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