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The Kyustendil region in the decades after the Liberation remained at the periph- ery of the state. The predestined by the Berlin Congress played its role.
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The specific motivation of the medieval Hoysaḷa king Viṣṇuvardhana for a program of inscriptions that included both local and trans-regional elements was the necessity to present his lineage as a strong dynasty comparable to that of his forerunners. On the top of it, he chose a particularly shiny stone, the sandstone: this element of unicity in his program might be understood in relation to the necessity of the king to differentiate himself from other lineages and to make his presence on the territory quite noticeable. If the epigraphic sources—together with the temples, the sacred areas, and the literary courtly production—are to be considered as forms of media of communication, even of “mass-media”, we must read them in the space where they are located, as part of a broader cultural and political process.
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This paper is conceived as an examination of the textual sources of the Tantric Vaiṣṇava tradition in its regional context and of the way in which vernacular Bengali and Sanskrit functioned as two factors determining the development and shape of the particular medieval esoteric tradition. The complicated history of the Bengali culture amalgam, which determines the special character of this region, takes on a crucial meaning here as pan- Indian Brahmanical and Sanskrit culture is juxtaposed on many levels with regional culture. The interactions between the regional and the pan-Indian as well as between the vernacular and Sanskrit seem to be a very complex problem with dynamic nets of interactions, functioning synchronically on multiple levels. The examination of this matter is proceeded by a general overview of the previous scholarship on the subject.
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The article presents descripton of Slavic- German struggle in the Early MIddle Ages by Jan Długosz, Polish chronicler. In this monumental work "Annals or Chronicles of the Kingdom of Poland" Długosz presented first centuries of existence of Poland
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“Miracula sanctorum Waldeberti et Eustasii” was most likely written by Adso of Montier‑en‑Der in the middle of the 10th century, in order to create and propagate the worship of St. Waldebert as the patron of the Luxeuil Abbey. The following article — on the basis of a textual analysis of “Miracula…” — aims at investigating the genesis of the worship of the relics of St. Waldebert as well as its role and significance for Luxeuil. The monastery, similarly to other abbeys in the Carolingian domain, fell into disrepair as a result of the Norman conquests and the weakening of the royal authority in the face of the rise of local nobility. Moreover, it was at that time that knighthood became recognized as an estate of the realm, while their landed estates continued to be expanded at the expense of the clergy. This, in turn, forced the monks to single‑handedly attempt to reclaim the prestige of the monastery; thus, they created the worship of St. Waldebert, the third abbot of the abbey, who lived in the 7th century. The text written by Adso was to introduce the genesis of the worship, describing his pious life and services to the abbey, as well as encourage people to undertake pilgrimages to his sanctuary. Adso, in his descriptions of the punishments that await those who would persecute the servants of St. Waldebert as well as the miraculous recoveries that await those who worship him, attempted to create a moral example for the worshippers to follow. The worship, which remained of paramount importance to the monks, was also directed at the emerging knighthood. Adso created the image of St. Waldebert as a patron of knights, emphasizing the fact that before his monastic conversion, he had represented the ideal of the Christian knight, miles Christi, and that after his death, he extended his protection to knights and listened to their prayers. Thus, St. Waldebert was to become the patron saint of knights as well as a moral example, in order to force them to accept the superiority of the clergy and treat the estates belonging to the Catholic Church with due reverence. The worship of the relics of St. Waldebert constitutes an example of the early attempts at monastic reform and improving the position and status of the clergy.
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In the 11th century, Iceland was in an extraordinary political and legal situation in comparison to other countries of the contemporaneous Europe. Precisely, it lacked both central and territorial executive power, be it secular or ecclesiastical. The tithe, established in 1096, was the first regular tax introduced in Iceland. It was a dominant factor transforming the structure of the local Church. Moreover, it initiated the important changes within the Icelandic society, which was gradually ceasing to be anachronistic, and thus it was becoming more similar to other European communities. This paper attempts to answer numerous vital questions emerging in this context. Firstly, what was the role that the Church of Iceland played in the adaptation of a new perspective on power and its execution? Secondly, in what manner were these changes reflected in a new approach to the execution of law of the elite among Iceland settlers? Finally, regarding the political turbulences caused by the aforementioned changes, why was the submission to the king of Norway the only right solution?
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The aim of this text is to assess the role that honour plays in a long prose text composed in Iceland c.1220-1240, “Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar”. First, we present the main theoretical and historiographical views on honour, both as a general concept and applied specifically to the Icelandic Middle-Ages. Furthermore, we analyze the vocabulary of honour present in the saga in order to identify figures in it which could have been considered as models of honourable behaviour. Finally, we discuss the notion of honour as a commodity and instead propose an alternative view. We hold that honour can be compared with the notion of inalienable wealth and exemplify our stance with a short case study of a scene in the saga.
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The Slavs came from the steppes of Eastern Europe to Balkan Peninsula in the first half of the 1st millennium A.D. At the turn of the 6th century some of the tribes, looking for new places to settle, arrived at the area between the Elbe and Oder– occupying an area abandoned by Germanic tribes, who moved to the Scandi-navian Peninsula – and were called Wends. Southern Slavs invaded and settled in Lusatia and reached the Saale. In the middle of the 9th century there were al-most 50 Slavic settlements in Lusatia under the rule of Prince Derwan, an ally of Samo. At the turn of the 10th century, the Sorbs came under the influence of the Great Moravia (822–895), which adopted Christianity as early as the 9th century (831), and then Bohemia (895–1018), and from 1002 Poland (Christian since 965) tried to take control over the area. Boleslaw I of Poland invaded Lusatia and won it in the Peace of Bautzen (1018). In the Reformation period, Sorbian peasants and common people massively supported the teachings of Martin Luther, although he was opposed to translating the Bible into Slavic. Evangelicalism proved to be ben-eficial for the Sorbian national culture. It influenced its revival and strengthen-ing. The University of Wittenberg became Sorbian cultural center, with its rector between years 1559–1576 being a doctor of Sorbian origin – Kasper Pauker fromBautzen. What strengthened the Sorbian national identity at the turn of the 19th century was the activity of Moravian Church (seeking to transform Lutheranism in people’s church), which was then settled in Upper Lusatia in Herrnhut, Niesky and Kleinwelka. At the turn of the 20th century the number of Sorbs in Germany decreased to about 157 000 people, out of whom as many as 10 100 lived outside Lusatia (including 4147 in Saxony – but without Lower Lusatia, 2687 in Westphalia, 1521 in Rhineland, 847 in Berlin and 898 in other areas of the German Em-pire). The language widely used in Lusatia was Sorbian with its Lower and Upper dialect. The basis of the national activities of the Sorbs in Germany was “Serbian House” founded on 26 September 1904 in Bautzen to serve as a library, museum, bank, bookshop and publisher. The outbreak of World War I in the summer of 1914 gave hope to the Slavs to establish their own countries.
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We continue the publication of numismatic finds from the medieval settlements of Borniş (Neamţ County). In the site of “Mălești” were found four coins: a double groat of Iliaș I (voivode of Moldavia, 1432–1433; 1435–1443), dated to the the first part of his reign; a local imitation (fourré) of a denar of Matthias Corvinus, a pólgrosz of Zygmunt I and a modern issue of Franz II. Only two coins come from the neighbouring site of “Obârșia”: a double groat of Bogdan III (voivode of Moldavia, 1504–1517) and another modern issue of Franz II. Most of the coins were discovered during the archaeological excavation performed in the medieval sites, in well-defined archaeological contexts. They seem to frame the most intense habitation within the two settlements during the 16th century.
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We continue the regular publishing of the coins found in Moldavia, by presenting some recent coin finds from different points of this part of Romania. The coins date from the Roman, Mediaeval and Modern times and were found in the following locations: I. Botoșani (Botoșani County) (1 AR antoninianus, Caracalla, Rome); II. Cajvana (Suceava County) (1 AR aurelianus, Tacitus, Cyzicus; 1 AE4, Constantius II; 1 AE3, Valentinianus I, Heraclea Thracica; 1 AE3, Valens, Heraclea Thracica); III. Draxini (Bălușeni, Botoșani County) (1 AR denarius, Hadrianus, Rome); IV. Grădinari (Golăiești, Iași County) (1 AR denarius, Lucius Verus, Rome); V. Răducăneni (Iași County) (1 AR denarius, A. Plautius, Rome); VI. Voinești (Iași County) (1 AE sestertius, Philippus I, Dacia; 1 AE, Septimius Severus, Pautalia); VII. Breazu (Rediu, Iasi County) (1 AR szeląg, Zygmunt III Waza, Ryga; 2 AR Schilling, Kristina, Ryga; 2 AR para, Mahmud I, Kostantiniye); VIII. Dobrovăț (Iași County) (hoard with 4 AR: 1 kuruș and 3 altmișlik, Abdülhamid I, Kostantiniye); IX. Iasi – Saint Sava Church (Iasi County) (1 AR ikilik, Selim III, Islâmbol); X. Păun (Bârnova, Iași County) (1 AR ort, Zygmunt III Waza, Gdansk); XI. Rediu-Aldei (Aroneanu, Iași County) (1 AR szeląg, Zygmunt III Waza, Bydgoszcz; 3 AE szeląg, Jan Kazimierz, Ujazdów;1 AE szeląg, Jan Kazimierz, Wilna/Brześć; 1 AR szeląg, Stefan Batory, Gdansk; 1 AR szeląg, Zygmunt III Waza, Ryga; 2 AR Schilling, Gustav Adolf, Ryga; 9 AR Schilling, Kristina, Ryga; 2 AR Schilling, Karl X Gustav, Ryga; 1 AR Schilling, Karl XI, Ryga; 4 AR Schilling, Moldavian imitations; 1 AR Schilling, Georg Wilhelm,Königsberg; 1 AR Schilling, Friedrich Wilhelm, Königsberg).
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One of the exhibits of Moldavia’s History Museum is an Early Modern/Late Medieval sword that has been until recently known and labeled as “Prince Vasile Lupu’s Sword”. Our investigation demonstrates, by means of typology analysis and analogy, that the item is an ordonance weapon in the category of “riding swords” dated at the end of 16th or the in the beginning of the 17th century, used to equipp the light cavalry or to be worn as side-weapon by travelers. The type of weapon is known as Styrian Sword, as the largest group of preserved items is located in the Styrian Arsenal Museum in Graz, Austria.
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In 2012, on the occasion of the renovation of the library “George Radu Melidon” in Roman, which lies on a plot that once belonged to the medieval town of Roman, after a survey inside the yard (marked as S.I) we identified the side of a dwelling that proved to be a manufactory. One of the first objects discovered in the manufactory (which had been was destroyed by fire) was a bronze barrel badly damaged by corrosion, doubled by traces of burning and by pieces of carbonized wood. After restoration, the object proved to be an harquebus. The barrel, circular inside and hexagonal outside, presented an aperture for slow match and a perforation at the end for fixing it on a piece of wood for a longer weapon. Dimensions: barrel – length – 450mm; thickness – 10mm; mouth diameter – 30mm; calibre – 17mm; diameter of the support – 38mm) and the hook (length – 40mm; width – 20mm). Total weight –2.700 kg. We could not identify the mark of the manufactory but we supposed that the weapon could be locally manufactured (in Transylvania) or imported from the German states or from Bohemia. The weapon (a transitory model from heavy guns with a thick, long and heavy barrel, to those with a thin, short and small-weight barrel) can be chronologically assigned to the 17th, taking into account the other materials found in the manufactory such as coins and tools. The presence of the weapon in this location can be explained by its condition – the broken barrel that needed some repair. Until now the discovery of such a weapon type remains singular for the area of today’s Moldavia, but for the territory of medieval Moldavia we can also count a piece from Cetatea Albă discovered in 1929 and dated in the period of Stephen the Great (Stefan cel Mare).
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The holy monks (Desert Fathers, confessors, hermits, founders of institutions or monastic status etc.) occupy the lower row of the immense vision of the Triumphant Church which covers the eastern parts – including side apses – of the Moldavian’s churches facades with exterior painting. At the Annunciation of the Virgin’s church of Moldoviţa Monastery were preserved (in Slavonic language) “sentences” written on the scrolls of following holy monks: Theodore the Sanctified, Theodotus, Gelasius, Georges of Mt. Maléon, Domentian, John the Fool-for-Christ, Hilarion, Joasaph, Bessarion, Abraham, Paul of Thebes, Nikon, John of the Lavra of St. Sabbas, Gerasimos, Theophanes, Anthony, the Angel seen by Pachomius the Great, Luke the stylite and David Thessaloniki the hermit. The purpose of our research is to find the literary sources of these “sentences”. As we'll see below, most of them are borrow from the Scripture or from the collections gathering the “quotes” of the Holy Fathers. The collection called Palestinian Paterikon (translated from Greek into Russian by Theophan the Recluse) includes about 80% of “sayings” of the Holy Fathers painted at Moldoviţa. The presence in the paintings of monasteries Humor and Moldoviţa a number of “sayings” – which exists only in Russian translation in the text of this Paterikon – proves that in the 16th century in Moldavia existed some Slavonic-Bulgarian translations from Greek “collections of sayings” of the Holy Fathers – today lost or forgotten – many of which have been similar or identical to collections inspected and copied by Theophan the Recluse during his mission (from 1847 to 1853) at the Lavra of St. Sabbas in the Holy Land.
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This paper discusses the place of the cross in ecclesial spaces in context of western medieval Christendom based on the study of the three liturgical arrangements: the pergula/templon, the altar of the Cross and the trabs doxalis. We shall see that these liturgical arrangements emphasize the symbolism of the Cross as the true sign of the relationship of humanity and heaven. This also reveals a unifying schema established between the cross and the structure of these liturgical arrangements within the space of the church. This relationship questions the liturgy and the common conception of ecclesial space, which does not take account of this universal symbolism.
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The Bucovina Museum’s medieval archaeological collection includes a fragmentary plate and some Chinese porcelain fragments from other six plates that belong to the category of “Kraak Wanli,” dating from the period 1610-1630. The fragments were found at the Citadel of Suceava and it may be related to the reign of Vasile Lupu, prince of Moldavia, who undertook the last works of redevelopment of the citadel.
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The European spatial development policy discourse has recently taken a “territorial” character, especially after the migrant crisis. Even if the terminology regarding this policy field remains ambiguous, territory, or territoriality, has become de facto an increasingly prevalent notion in the discourse on the organization of “European” (i.e. EU’s) space. In fact, the notion of territoriality and the prevalent “territorial” discourse produced an evident eclipse of the widespread notion of “European space” that had been developed in the early 1990s. Basically, the spatial predominant conception of the EU contributes to an emergence of a sharpened territorial building of the European space. The idea of both territorial cohesion and territorial continuity provides relevant insights into the notion of territoriality in the “European discourse” and consequently clearly shows how are accepted the tools of hard bordering (as policies and practices) and the sharp inside/outside dichotomy, typical of a “Westphalian memory” and of an use of territory as support for a unified political unit. Due to this pragmatic notion of territoriality, the idea of the EU as a “non-Westphalian new empire”, characterized by softening of borders and sharing of political power across multiple and multilevel politics, became at least unrealistic. On the contrary, Europe has always been distinguished by its openness to the rest of the world. It has never been a clearly demarcated continent or a fixed bordered entity and it has always been characterized by shifting spatialities of politics. The Middle Ages in Europe were characterized by overlapping, divided authority structures and often contentious jurisdictions, without territorial containments and a clear notion of the border. The comprehension of the transnational dimension opens new avenues of research and offers new modes of understanding.
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The article presents results of research in the field of historical geography of settlement, devoted to the morphogenesis and changes in the layout of villages in the eastern part of Szadek municipality. This part comprises 38 settlements located east of the river Pichna, with the exception of villages directly adjoining the river bed. The research included the study of historical cartographic sources, including topographic maps and archival plans of the villages. The use of retrospective and progressive methods made it possible to reconstruct the original layouts and their later transformations. The origins and changes in the spatial structures are presented against the background of the development of settlement in this area. In this context, analysis was carried out of selected sources as well as statistical and descriptive documents, spanning the period from the Middle Ages up to the 20th century. The comparative research covered the oldest records, changes in village sizes, the process of location under German law, and the rise and decline of the manorial system.
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