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In the 17th century, both the Turks and (much more often) the Tatars invaded Poland. According to historians, the Tatars in particular treated the Polish Republic as an area of economic exploitation. Its most severe form was the forced captivity of inhabitants of the south-eastern borderlands. This was documented by diarists and memorialists of Polish seicento, including Jan Florian Drobysz Tuszyński, Mikołaj Jemiołowski, Joachim Jerlicz, Samuel Maskiewicz, Zbigniew Ossoliński, and Kazimierz Sarnecki. They drew attention to the mass character of the Tatar-Turkish thraldom: not only soldiers but also many civilians were kidnapped by the Tatars, who benefited from human trafficking and thus made them captives. The authors of the diaries documented the circumstances of the attacks, including the time and routes taken by the looters. They drew attention to the state of the captives and reconstructed the human martyrdom.
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The authors present a paleoanthropological study of the necropolises from several 16th—18th century towns and villages in the western part of Russia. In this area and time period, the average life expectancy was very low. The lowest, 14.5 years, is observed in the population of the borderline fortress Blokhino-1 in Saransk County. The higher the infant mortality in the groups, the lower the average life expectancy. The infant mortality rate in different localities was different.The peak of infant mortality falls on 0—5 age group in all studied groups from the western part of Russia of the 16th—18th centuries. The representativeness of this cohort often depends on the mortality rate of children in the first year of life. The high mortality rate of young children was associated with a low level of medical development, lack of antibiotics, and sometimes with historical situations.Mortality in the first year of life, especially newborns, was the highest in the borderline fortress Blokhino-1 of Saransk County. The reason for such a dangerous demographic situation here was the historical purpose of the fortress and the task of the population to defend their homeland. Much less attention was paid to everything else. In general, the most prosperous demographic situation was in the village of Isupovo, Kostroma region, in the city of Kazan and on the territory of Nizhny Novgorod Posad near the Kremlin (necropolis on the Verkhnevolzhskaya embankment) in the 16th—18th centuries.
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Beaterio del Carmen was founded in the second half of the 17th century. Its operation was made possible by bequests and donations. Although it functioned throughout the 18th century, its greatest development occurred in the last forty years of the century, when Nicolasa de Christo became the Preposita. During her govern, not only the buildings of the beatrium itself but also the area controlled by the tertiaries expanded significantly. It even came to the closing of public streets inside the property, which ceased to be generally accessible. The presented article shows the urban transformation of the beaterium quarter, the process of attaching individual plots of land from the time of the institution’s foundation to the early 19th century and the formation of ownership of the property complex belonging to the Tertiaries was reconstructed.
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The article discusses the landscape of proper names, understood as a kind of linguistic landscape adapted to the purposes of diachronic linguistics. The research material for further considerations was excerpted from the 17th-century memoir of François Paulin Dalairac, a courtier to Jan III Sobieski. It has been concluded that old texts from the field of ego-documents (including memoirs) in which different languages appeared have a significant potential for the study of the concept of linguistic landscape and contacts. The primary language of the analysed memoirs is French, but there are also passages in other languages (mainly Polish), which may have played an important role in the learning and improvement of the author’s Polish.
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The paper discusses two unpublished drawings presenting the camps of the Lithuanian army during the Khmelnytsky Uprising. They come from the collection of notes and drawings preserved in the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Minsk. This collection, undoubtedly connected with the Radziwiłł family of Birże, has been published several times in Belorussian and in Russian until now, but has not been studied thoroughly enough yet. Previous researchers of the Minsk collection of drawings did not notice i.a. the plans of the military camps, discussed in the article.
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In 1648 during the Cossack Khmelnytsky Uprising one of the major battles took place near Kostiantyniv. The 40 thousand people Cossack forces of Kryvonis increased up to 50 thousand after conquering Polonne and headed south to Kostiantyniv, where at that time 1200 or 1500 soldiers of the voivode of Sandomierz Voivodeship Władysław Dominik Zasławski gathered under Krzysztof Korycki’s command, accompanied by the infantry regiment of Samuel Osiński (1200 troops). Nearby, in Rosolovce, there stood Jeremi Wiśniewiecki’s units (4000 people) retreating because of the approach of Maksym Kryvonis’ forces, as well as Janusz Tyszkiewicz’s units (1200 people). Hearing that Kostiantyniv is in danger they came to Korycki’s and Osiński’s aid. In the battle of 26th July the Cossacks were defeated on the crossing and chased up to the convoy of military vehicles. On the 28th July, reinforced up to 60 thousand people, they struck again. Wiśniowiecki, who had sent the military vehicles away with the infantry before the attack, faced the enemy with the cavalry and dragoons. The Poles defeated the Cossack left wing and their center and then they left to the west. The Cossacks did not dare to march further following the Polish forces and crossed Kostiantyniv heading south-west, from where they sent troops to Podolia.
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This paper presents the preliminary study of a cemetery, dated between the second half of the XVIth century and the beginning of the XVIIth century, uncovered in the northern part of the Vînători-La Jolică archaeological site area. The site was first excavated in 1972-1974 by archaeologists M. Florescu and M. Nicu, when, among other discoveries, they managed to identify a previously unknown “feudal” necropolis. Unfortunately, none of these findings have ever been rigorously published, only mentioned. The present article strives to continue the effort of publishing inedited materials and archaeological contexts that are part of the new excavations carried out in the Vînători-La Jolică dig site which refer, at this time, to the Late Mediaeval/premodern period.
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The topic of this article is connected with the Tatar autumn incursion of 1626 and with the battle of Bila Tserkva. It is aimed at showing what part the nuredin Feth Girej raid played in the general situation of the country and how significant the spectacular victory of Stefan Chmielecki might have been regarding international determinants. The author tries to reconstruct the realities of the campaign, taking into consideration the numerical strength of both fighting sides basing on the available source material, as well as the concept of tactical and strategic actions planned and taken by the sides. The battle of Bila Tserkva is inextricably linked with the person of regimentarz (i.e. substitute of a hetman) Stefan Chmielecki. One of the objectives of the article is to bring up the issue of his competence, personality, and above all motivation that directed him, as it determined the main commander to make concrete, bold decisions resulting in a full triumph of the Polish side.
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Mentioned since the ancient times in mythology and documents, the messengers formed the central component of the correspondence system. In the Principality of Moldavia of the 15th-17th century, the information was mostly passed by spoken word. A large part of merchants, travellers or priests practiced this activity, but they only could be regarded as simple transmitters. The official messengers and emissaries were mostly found in the Princely Courts and served only for the state official interests. As the Moldavian territory was situated on the border between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire, many of them acted as spies, too. Thus, choosing the right messengers was a pretty delicate job for the princes. Another important aspect was the instructions received by the messenger or emissary for successful accomplishing his mission. During the Medieval period, a large part of the dispatch riders or emissaries had an official job (correspondence carriers) as well as an unofficial one (spies), which made the instructions absolutely necessary in order for the delegate to safely accomplish his tasks. The last question involves the rights and privileges of the messengers in order to keep them as safe as possible. Because they often went through foreign territories, the princes made special deals in which they reciprocally permitted the messengers to cross their territories.
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The parliament session in Grodno (Sejm Grodzieński) which debated at the turn of 1678 and 1679 ruled that the the Crown comput army (wojsko komputowe), reduced in 1677 to peacetime footing (12 250 horses and financing units [porcja]), starting from 1 May 1679 would be included in the payment system within the so called force distribution (repartycja). In this way the method that was used for financing the Crown army in 1667–1673 was restored. The banners (chorągwie) and regiments of the Crown army were again to be funded by local parliaments of lands (ziem) and voivodeships , omitting the central treasury. Drawing up and implementing this system took place during the treasure tribunal session joint with the army committee in Lwów, called in October 1679. This force distribution had been in effect up to 30 April 1683, when the Crown army was put on wartime footing for the Vienna campaign.
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The diplomatic contacts between the Republic of Poland and Russia over the centuries have always aroused great interest. New research is constantly deepening the historical, political, and archaeological understanding concerning the relations between these two countries. Looking more closely at these contacts in the 17th century, it can be seen that the meaning of the terms ‘diplomacy’, ‘diplomatic ceremony’ and, importantly, that of ‘envoy’ are different to what we hear and read today. Based on research concerning the dealings between the Moscow state and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th century, it is possible to observe dynamically changing relations, from friendship to hatred and contempt, leading to armed conflicts. References to the great legations of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the Moscow state can be found in Polish, as well as Russian, literature. The names of the envoys, dates, and accompanying events can also be found therein. However, a problem arises when it comes to the giving of diplomatic gifts and the setting for the royal audience during the legation. Both the issue of gifts, as well as that of the ceremony, have not yet been dealt with in any monograph, and there is no description of individual works, what the audience hall or the feast looked like, or what the guests and the tsar were wearing during the legation. This article is based on a doctoral dissertation which attempts to present the setting of diplomatic ceremonies during the visits of envoys from the Republic of Poland to the court of the Moscow state in 1667, as well as the gifts given by the envoys to the tsar.
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This investigation - aimed at reconstructing the historical framework most conducive to the activity of translating the Psalter into Romanian for the first time - attempts to valorise the novelties accumulated by the research of the last decades concerning the effort of translating and retranslating this biblical text into Romanian. The example of the Psalter printed in Alba Iulia in 1651 seemed to me to be a useful landmark from which to look back, because it is the last version for which we can invoke an external confessional impulse, it is at the end of a long course of translation experiments, and the knowledge accumulated about its editing allows us to discuss with a high degree of probability the context in which it was produced. We have also found useful the help that could come from 17th century texts due to the standoff in which research has reached as a result of the identification in all the texts of the Scripture translated in the 16th century of a linguistic layer of the Banat-Hunedoara language, which would necessarily indicate the place where the translation was made, while all the preserved copies and the main sources of the printed versions come from Moldova. The appearance of the Alba Iulia Psalter is analysed in comparison with the Coresi Psalter of 1570 (as the earliest preserved printed Romanian version of the Psalter, for which we also know the confessional context in which it went to press) and the Sibiu Tetraevangel of 1551-1553 (as the earliest preserved translated and printed Romanian text). The comparison takes into account the sources from which the translations were made and the type of Slavonic wording to which they belong, the identity of the translators and their collaborators (editors, printers, authors of the prefaces), the motivation and the context in which the printed versions were composed. The conclusion drawn from this comparison is that the success enjoyed by the original of the first Romanian translation of the Psalter must be attributed to a high level of religious and/or political patronage, which assumed the accuracy of the translation and supported its dissemination. The following working hypothesis is proposed: the first Romanian translation of the Psalter took place in ”Ruthenia” (historic Maramureș, northern medieval Hungary, the southern part of the Polish – Lithuanian kingdom and northern Moldavia), and was made by a scholar from Banat – Hunedoara, who used a Serbian manuscript of the Bălgrad Psalter type brought to the area by Serbian settlers from estates acquired after 1439 by the despot George Brankovich. As for the motivation for the translation, it must have been the missionary zeal of the Orthodox hierarchy united with Rome by virtue of the Florentine Council, or – on the contrary – the anti-unionist discourse, since neither Catholicism nor Orthodoxy are opposed to the translation of reading books, but only of books for the church service. It remains to be seen which of the two sides took such an initiative, and not only in ”Ruthenia” but also in Moldavia, where the Florentine union also has a troubled history.
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Alba Iulia occupies an important place in the history of Romanian printing. The old capital of the Principality of Transylvania was the fifth active printing centre in the present Romanian area, after Târgovişte (1508), Sibiu (1525), Braşov (1539) and Cluj (1550). The books printed in Alba Iulia between the second half of the 16th century and the end of the 18th century served the confessional needs of the Reformed, Orthodox, Greek Catholics, Roman Catholics, as well as the students of the Academic College and the administration of the Principality. With few exceptions, Alba Iulia prints – regardless of the period of their publication – are rare, their vast majority being found in the collections of museums and libraries. There are, however, cases of copies in private collections. Such a case is the subject of this article, a private collection in which three copies of Alba Iulia prints have been identified, namely Noul Testament (the New Testament) (Bălgrad, 1648), Antal Szeredai, Series antiquorum et recentiorum episcoporum Transilvaniae (Alba Carolina, 1790) and Antal Szeredai, Collectio continens tabulas vetustorum (Alba Carolina, 1791), with the mention that the last two works are colligated.
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The Jesuits enjoyed the prestige of the most learned Catholic order in history, both through the numerous personalities formed within it and through the book production in the centuries after the Protestant Reformation. Some old prints from the 17th-18th centuries of this Catholic order will be dealt with in the present study, copies kept in the old book holdings of the Bihor County Library. They came out in Trnava, Vienna, and Rome being from the field of spiritual theology, civil law, church history, and hagiography (the lives of saints), some of the copies being written by famous authors of the time such as Ioannes Szegedi (1699-1770), Antonius Sandini (1692-1751), Ioannis Bollandi (1596-1665) and Stephanus Tarnoczy (1626-1689). The unveiling of these old book copies means not only discovery for old book lovers, but also a scientific capitalisation of the mobile heritage owned by the Bihor County Library.
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The contribution of the pilgrimage of Transylvanian students to German universities is, due to its too broad subject matter, only concerned with their pilgrimage to the University of Jena between 1601 and 1789. The author deals briefly with the development of education in Transylvania and introduces some of the most important personalities who contributed significantly to the development of education and highlights the absence of colleges and universities in the country. As a result, a large number of students opted to study at foreign universities. In detail, the students' place of origin, religion and social status are presented. The focus is on monuments of book culture, some dissertations, which were published on the occasion of the award of a certain academic degree. One of the problems discussed concerns the fact that not all students who started their studies at a foreign university also finished them at the same institution or at another university. But many students have wandered to several universities and have not graduated from any of them. The Appendix presents some published dissertations of Transylvanian students identified through the online catalogues VD17 and VD18.
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The article is a study of the metaphysical dispute about the reality of necessary and eternal truths that took place among the leading Spanish Jesuits during the heyday of the scholastic tradition of the Society of Jesus in the middle of the 17th century. The traditional scholastic problem of “eternal truths” concerning essences of creatures and their possible existence, was radically reformulated thanks to the theological “innovations” of A. Pérez, who argued that the only verificativum (or foundation of reality) of any necessary truths is the very essence of God. This caused a furious polemical reaction on the part of S. Izquierdo, who proposed his own solution to this problem within the framework of his own original ontology of “status rerum” (especially the quidditative status) from the position of superrealism. The followers of Pérez, in turn, persistently opposed the "extremes" of Izquierdo's position. First, we briefly explicate the concept of "necessary and eternal truth" in Peripatetic tradition and give a historical overview of the time and place of this dispute, pointing to the main works in which the metaphysicians and theologians of the Society who participated in it formulated their positions. Secondly, we explicate the Pérezian thesis about God as the foundation of the necessity and reality of eternal truths on the example of an early treatise on the "possibility of creatures" by Gaspar de Ribadeneira (1653). Thirdly, we detail and analyze Izquierdo's criticism of this position in Disputation 10 of his Pharus scientiarum (1659). Fourthly, we present Izquierdo's own doctrine of the “quidditative status of things” or absolute necessary objective truths, and also explain his understanding of the necessity and eternity of such truths. In addition, we analyze how exactly he solves the key problem for his ontology – the problem of distinction and separability of the quidditative and existential status of a thing. Finally, we analyze the criticism of Izquierdo's position in the metaphysics of Antonio Bernaldo de Quirós (1666), pointing out the specifics of his argumentation and its theological and philosophical motives.
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In the article within the framework of traditional ideas and concepts associated with the phenomenon of martyrdom in Western Christianity the discursive construction, formation and evolution of the cult of the Catholic martyr Josaphat Kuntsevych is considered in the context of intense inter-confessional confrontation and «Wars of Religion» in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th century. It is noted that the cult of the Uniate Archbishop of Polotsk, killed by the Orthodox, was actively used in the confrontation with the «gentiles», especially with adherents of the Orthodox Church, justifying the struggle and violence against them and, in particular, against the most convinced and stubborn enemies of the Catholic Church and the Church Union with Divine wrath and «revenge» for the shed blood of the martyr. At the same time, the cult of Josaphat had a pronounced proselytizing character, aimed at spreading Catholicism among the «gentiles». Both of these hypostases did not contradict each other, since within the framework of the Christian tradition it was believed that the martyrs, accepting death for their faith, contribute to the victory of Christianity over its enemies and its spread, because by their martyrdom they put a choice before their tormentors: either believe in the true God or be doomed to eternal suffering. Secondly, Christian authors of the Middle Ages and early modern period traditionally noted that both preaching and coercion (even violence) are equally important for the spread of the «true faith», and within the framework of the cult of Josaphat Kuntsevych this belief was vividly reflected.
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There is limited historical information available about Batumi's early history prior to the 19th century in Georgian sources. Therefore, the Ottoman archival materials preserved in the archives and libraries of the Republic of Turkey play a crucial role in bridging this informational gap. Among the valuable records stored in the archives, there is an extensive log dedicated to Batumi, cataloged under code 122 within the Main Archive of the Department of Land and Cadastre in Ankara. This document, yet to be introduced into scholarly discourse, holds significant importance for unraveling the history of Batumi and its surrounding region. Page B of this document contains a detailed text dating back to September 1704, offering intriguing insights into Batumi and the neighboring villages. It mentions that this area was part of the Gurieli kingdom until a relatively recent period. This reference is instrumental in pinpointing the timing of Batumi's incorporation into the Ottoman Empire, as historical literature has offered differing opinions on this matter. While some scholars believed Batumi became part of the Ottoman Empire in the mid-16th century, others asserted it was in 1703. The historical source provided supports the latter perspective, indicating that Batumi and its adjacent villages were ultimately annexed by the Ottoman Empire in the early 18th century, leading to the establishment of Batumi as an administrative center. According to the documents we have analyzed, during this specific era, the boundaries of the Liva of Batumi extended to the western coast of the Black Sea and encompassed the territories of Atina (known today as Pazar). This document offers a comprehensive description of the region, allowing for multidimensional exploration of the period, including aspects such as socio-economic dynamics, political developments, ethnic composition, religious influences, demographic changes, and more.
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Amikor Tonk Sándor 2003-ban bekövetkezett halála után átvettem a magyar paleográfia oktatását a kolozsvári Babeş–Bolyai Tudományegyetemen, megörököltem a Tanár úrtól azokat a fényképmásolatokat, amelyek önmagukban is lassan már történeti (írott) emléknek minősülnek, hiszen még az 1970-es években készíttette azokat didaktikai eszközként Jakó Zsigmond, a tárgy akkori oktatója. A különböző írásfajták és irattípusok kora újkori (16–17. századi) erdélyi elterjedését szemléltetni kívánó fényképmásolatokat láthatóan tudatosan és kiváló érzékkel elsődlegesen az erdélyi nemes családok (Jósika, Wesselényi, Bánffy stb.) fennmaradt levéltárainak magyar nyelvű iratanyagából válogatta ki Jakó Zsigmond.
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