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Uwagi na temat budownictwa warownego zakonu niemieckiego w późnośredniowiecznych Prusach
The article constitutes a collection of remarks concerning military aspects of the construction and functioning of the Teutonic castle in Bezławki (Bayselauken, Bäslack) in the last decades of the 14th century. Speculations included in the article refer to opinions expressed by the authors of the collective monograph about the late medieval settlement complex in Bäslack published in 2013. It presents the findings of archeological research in the castle and the village in the years 2008-2012. Remarks presented in the article concern three out of six problems which are considered the most essential. While it goes beyond doubt that the castle played an important defensive role, the hypothesis of it being a “fortified camp” for the army during military actions of the Teutonic Order against the Lithuanians and Ruthenians has been undermined. It is not possible to consider it to play a military role on a significant strategic level, as do the authors of the monograph of 2013. In the second part of the article the author undermines the hypothesis about the “systematic” character of the complex of fortifications situated on the eastern Prussian border. If the castle in Bäslack was indeed part of some defensive system, it could operate on the local level and consist of an insignificant number of elements including longitudinal fortifications constituting the so called “Landwehr”. The next issue addressed by the author was a problem of the typology of the term “wildhaus”. As in the 14th century the term connoted the location of the fortification on the border of the forest, the author shows a far-reaching morphological diversity of fortifications on the eastern outskirts of the Prussian state, which were or could be classified as “wildhauses”. Thus, a “wildhaus” cannot be classified as a morphological type of a fortification. The typology of fortifications based on the morphological criteria cannot be connected with the typology based on the administrative and terminological criteria. Archeological examination of the Bäslack fortification evinces its major cognitive potential and makes us aware of how little is known about the functioning of minor fortifications in late medieval Prussia. Further research in this field belongs to one of the most important elements of historical science in the Prussian regional dimension and related branches of science.
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The edition presents the sources concerning the borders between the Duchy of Słupsk and the Monastic State of the Teutonic Order in Prussia of the 14th and 15th century. The basis for the edition are records included in the boundary book – the so called Grenzbuch B with the entry number OF 270a preserved in XX. Hauptabteilung in the Secret State Archive in Berlin-Dahlem. Among the published sources, texts no. 3, 6, 7 were edited by Reinhold Cramer, but they fail to include the dates (no. 6, 7) and the explanations of topographic names appearing in them. The remaining texts were not published (no. 1–2, 4–5, 8–12). The first group of sources (no. 1–4) was written in the period from the second half of the 14th century to the beginning of the 15th century. The second group of descriptions (no. 507) resulted from the circuit [Polish: ujazd] around the boundary by the Gdańsk commander Albrecht, earl von Schwarzburg of the end of 1405. They were included in the introductory Pomeranian-Teutonic border agreement of 14 October 1407, next in the sealed agreement of 23 September 1408. The creation of the third group of descriptions (8–9) should be associated with Teutonic preparations to the arbitration agreement in front of the Roman and Hungarian king Sigismund of Luxembourg, and with the activity of the sub-arbiter Benedict Makrai in the years 1412–1413. The last group of descriptions (no. 10–12) was created in the situation of the conflict concerning the establishment of the border between the Człuchów commandry and the Szczecinek land in the vicinity of Dołgie Lake in 1417. None of the published sources presents the whole Pomeranian-Teutonic border from the estuary of the river Łeba to the Baltic Sea in the north to Lędyczek in the south, but its individual fragments. Description no. 1 includes the description of the border between the Człuchów commandry / the Tuchola commandry and the Kingdom of Poland. In source no. 2 there is a list of arbitrators from the Pomeranian party and the Teutonic party negotiating the border between the villages of Oskowo and Siemirowice / Unieszyno. The information about informer and arbitrators may be found in source no. 3 (both the Pomeranian and Teutonic parties) and no. 4 (the Teutonic party). Each of the published descriptions is characterized by precision and plethora of topographic names. They should be used for the analysis of the problem of shaping and functioning of the border between the Duchy of Słupsk and the Monastic State of the Teutonic Order in Prussia in the context of the political and economic situation on the Pomeranian-Teutonic borderland in the Late Middle Ages.
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During the second half of the 14th century Tiburczelke, the small property in the Chinteni’s Valley, knew tensioned episodes. The right of property and its using implicitly were the object of a suit, documented for three generations, between Cluj-Mănăștur Benedictine Abbey and a family of land nobles entitled so. The property there and the setting inside of it count five centuries, from the 14th one to the 18th century, the moment the village was depopulated. The large number of preserved documents on the long suit directed the researchers’ attention to, given the amount and quality of details regarding the involved parties and the medieval archeological landscape. Location and partial delimiting of the area where Tiburczelke developed were so possible. Generally, we speak about a territory between Chiteni on the south, and Vechea, Deușu and Măcicașu on the north and north-west. The archive, map and toponyms data allowed us indentifying the former village, some farming areas, forests and possible ponds, or pastures and old routes. The case study belongs to the micro-history and the local landscape analyzing, but the abundance of data allowed detailed restitutions of the medieval realities up to a level that is difficult or quite impossible to be secured within other many areas. Difficulties within a suit generated by an illegal occupation of a territory, with violent episodes and corruption as it seems that none of the involved parties had original documents were found out in that case. The suit evolution and event shows that we might speak initially about a monastic property and a nobiliary persistent attempt to tear it off the abbatial estates.
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The paper is a voice in the discussion on the founders of the Dominican monastic complex in Sandomierz. As a consequence of dating its 13th-century construction phases, the hypothesis popular in literature on the subject has been refuted, namely the claim that the alleged founder of the monastery Bishop Iwo Odrowąż brought a construction workshop responsible for raising the walls and executing a rich ceramic decoration. The involvement in the founding of the first stage of works has been attributed to Duchess Adelaide, daughter of Casimir the Just, buried in the Church of St James ‘in medio ecclesiae’, and venerated by the Sandomierz Dominicans as the ‘fundatrix istius conventus’. Furthermore, attention has been drawn to the fact that the date of the Duchess’s death provided in her tomb inscription has been to-date erroneously identified as 1211, while it should be read as 1240. It has also been suggested that the construction stage connected with the ceramic decoration of the nave body and the Monastery’s eastern wing should be associated with Bishop Prandota, while the raising of the belfry with Duke Leszek the Black.
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The charter of King Stephen Dabiša to the Semković brothers issued on 17 May 1395 is kept today at the British Library in London. The paper presents data not used so far in our historiography, which help better understand the destiny of Dabiša’s charter and the way it came to the institution where it is held today.
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The paper provides a detailed overview of the real estate owned by the Mençe family in the burgus of Dubrovnik during the 13th and the first half of the 14th century. In this period, this very branched noble family played a very important role in the social, economic, and political life of the city, as well as the formation of the burgus. The author genealogically follows the estates of all those for whom we have data on real estate in the preserved documents. The expansion of the family shows that marriage strategy was crucial, namely marrying wealthy girls, who brought significant valuable assets in dowry and even real estate in the late 13th century. Another relevant factor for strengthening the family was the number of male descendants, and in case of widowhood, noblemen sought to remarry to a young girl from a family of affiliate interests. These were regularly families that were in some kind of relations – economic, neighbourly, clan, or all three. One can only speculate that the division of land in the burgus, outside the old city walls, had (among other things) to do with the political affiliation of those who largely stayed in Pustijerna and later, with the expansion of the city to the north, moved to a new zone near Pile. During the researched period, the spatially and functionally different suburbs of Dubrovnik – both new and old – were reshaped and unified to form a new city centre. This long and complex process was accompanied by the construction of city walls (in different phases) and changing the old lines of communications in relation to the key points of the city. The transformation of the suburban area into an urban one included, in addition to creating new streets, the division of large blocks into plots for building houses, which resulted in a change in the relationship between the centre and the periphery, as well as the residential mobility of the population. Some of the old noble families, including the Mençe, took advantage of these changes and spread from the old town area to the former suburban gardens. The new estates had multiple functions – they were used for housing, for rent, or to store merchandize they traded in. These functions were subject to change over time and followed the process of urbanization, i.e. the conversion of the burgus into a construction area and an increase in population. The city became the economic centre towards which a wider area gravitated, and not only within the territory of Dubrovnik. Looking at the estates of an elite family and the social topography of the suburbs, as well as the distribution of the estates such an elite family owned, allows us to understand family ties, political orientations, economic activities, marriage strategies, and the way in which the building area in Dubrovnik was structured and used in the period when the city experienced one of the most extensive urban transformations in its history.
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The Dominican and Augustinian missionary orders penetrating into the Safavid lands, got special privileges from the Safavid kings and managed to build churches and monasteries here. These priests played an important role in translating the Bible and compiling dictionaries. Bartholomew of Podio and John of Florence who came to Azerbaijan in the 14th century, learned Turkish and Persian while in Italy. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who visited Nakhchivan in 1650, describes in his travelogue that Latinization had so thoroughly penetrated this remote corner of Christianity that the Eastern Community of the Safavid Empire chanted the Dominican songs in Latin and offered the Latin Mass. Relacao Verdadeira (True Connection), a valuable source on the activities of the Augustinians in the territory of the Safavid Empire of Azerbaijan describes the visit of Shah Abbas I to the Church of St.Augustine in December 1608 together with the courtiers: “The beautifully decorated floor is covered with carpets and various aromatic substances (incenses) are burnt in church. The church is equipped with organs and other musical instruments. There are various divine paintings depicted on the altar of the Church: Paintings of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ – Our Savior. The choir plays local Portuguese music.” The main purpose of this research is to study the role of the Dominican and Augustinian Churches in intercultural and interreligious relations. On the other hand, the presence of Catholics among the Muslim population changed the attitude of Shah Abbas I to the churches. The Shia clerics complained about missionaries that the Augustinians sent about 5,000-7,000 people to Hormuz to become Catholic. The Englishman Thomas Herbert visited the Safavid lands in 1627. His travelogue describes the churches and the espionage activities of the clergy. It is important to note that there were also priests who converted to Islam among Augustinians. One of the purposes of our study is to shed light on the causes of the conflict between Catholic missionaries and the Safavid population based on the sources of the period.
More...Der Burgdorfer Krieg und die Heimatreise der einfachen Ordensbrüder Rudolf und Konrad von Kyburg aus dem Jahre 1383
Not many primary sources document the lives of ordinary Teutonic Knights who were not among the highest officials of the Order. Therefore, the preserved mentions from the town of Burgdorf, modern-day Switzerland, prove to be of great importance. These refer to two Teutonic Knights, Konrad and Rudolf von Kyburg, who returned to their homeland during the summer of 1383. It is all the more interesting due to the fact that the older of the two – Konrad – was referred to in a document of 1375 as an ordinary Teutonic Knight staying in Balga. His younger brother is also likely to have served in the Teutonic Order in Prussia. The reason for their journey home was the Burgdorf War, which was started in November of 1382 by their nephew Rudolf II von Kyburg, who made an unsuccessful attempt at capturing the town of Solothurn. It resulted in a conflict with Bern, which was the most powerful city in that region. The return of Konrad and Rudolf to their homeland would not have been possible without the approval of their superiors, including the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. The scarce primary sources that were preserved indicate that the two Teutonic Knights tried to alleviate the conflict by diplomatic means, however, without success. They were given a certain amount of time before they were obliged to return to Prussia. The issue of financing the journey is really interesting. Even though the presence of the two Teutonic Knights was certainly beneficial for the von Kyburg family, it is highly unlikely that the relatives covered their travel expenses, as the family had been impoverished long before the war even began, and it needed to allocate all the available resources for the defense of the ancestral castle. Thus, the Teutonic Order was forced, against its thirteenth-century rules, not only to approve but also finance the purely private journey of its two longtime members to their homeland.
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Hillfort fortifications served not only a defensive function but were also an expression of social status. Therefore their scale and the work involved in their creation could be an important feature in attempting to distinguish the centres of power in a settlement system. Pursuant to this point-of-view, the article analyses the fortifications and the relief modification work carried out in creating of 13th–14th-century Kernavė Castle, which consists of four separate hillforts. This analysis made use of a 2018–2019 survey, which was conducted especially for this purpose and included boreholes, GPR profiles, and test pits, and also made use of previous excavations. Stratigraphical data collected in a wide territory allowed to the reconstruct the palaeorelief, which existed prior to the creation of the hillforts, and the modifications made to it. Moreover, it also revealed the connection between the relief transformation works and the natural geodynamic processes. The investigation showed that the creation of the hillforts caused largescale erosional processes, which critically influenced the development of both the castle and the town founded around it. The article raises the hypothesis that the loss of the administrative significance of Kernavė Castle and Town in the late 14th century could have been caused by precisely these erosional processes brought about by human activities.
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The first part of the study examines the reasons of the backwardness of the state genesis: the absence of an urban or rural elite after the withdrawal of the Roman administration from Dacia; the destruction by the Avar domination of the Gepidic kingdom, who was evolving on a similar way like the western Germanic kingdoms which enabled the survival of the state organization in Italy, France and Spain; the Hungarian conquest which interrupted the evolution toward a state organization in the western part of the Romanian territory. The second part of the study begins with an overview of two neighbor cases of state genesis, illustrative for the external or internal factors of their emergence: Bulgaria and Serbia. The comparison concerns the origin of the elite which built those states, a foreign one in Bulgaria, a local one in Serbia. The study continues with a discussion on the origin of the Romanian noble class of the boiars, whose name was inherited from the period of the Bulgarian domination north of the Danube. This elite of landowners existed before the establishment of the state organization, on the entire territory peopled by Romanians. The first attempt of organization of a Romanian state in the region south of Carpathians failed in 1279 (the voievode Litovoi from northern Oltenia rebelled against Ladislas IV), but the new offensives of the Golden Horde created a favorable situation for the detachment of the Romanians from the vassalage ties, began with the rebellion of Făgăraș (1291) and ended with the victory of Basarab against Charles Robert in 1330. In Moldavia, the local population was under the rule of the Golden Horde, and it is possible that enjoyed a certain autonomy. The offensives of the Hungarian armies in 1345-1346 were followed by the establishment of a mark in the valley of the Moldova River, led by the Romanian noblemen Dragoș, from Maramureș. This was the kernel of the future Moldavian state.
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Based on a comprehensive study of various written sources and ethnographic materials, this paper considers some aspects of personal hygiene of nomads, who lived in the Eurasian steppes during the 13th–15th centuries, i.e., primarily in the states of Genghis Khan and his descendants. Regarding both similar living conditions and ethnocultural situation, as well as the important role of traditions in the nomadic society of Central Asia, the data of the ethnographic sources about the everyday life of nomads during the subsequent eras (in the 16th–20th centuries) were extrapolated to the nomadic society of Genghis Khan’s states. The body hygiene procedures (associated with face, hands, and head hair) were analyzed. The main personal hygiene products (combs, scissors, mirrors, cosmetics (white paint), soap, etc.) were described. It was revealed that the hygiene culture of nomads in the Eurasian steppes developed under the influence of the following objective factors: nature and climate, economic and living conditions. In this process, the faith-related factors and the worldview were also critical, mostly in Ulus and Jochi. The hygiene knowledge and practices of all nomads were generally similar, but there were some specific features associated with their ethnocultural background.
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The paper deals with the influence of Islamic sources on the idea and structure of Dante's Divine Comedy, the greatest literary work of the Christian Middle Ages. This paper presents the scientific discoveries of a Spanish orientalist Miguel Asin Palacios who in 1919 presented thesis which, and in a very detailed and on facts based method, proved similarities not only in general draft, but also in numerous details between Divine Comedy and several versions of the narrations about the Prophet's Mi'raj and Mi'rajes of Sufis, especially Ibn 'Arabi.
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Although Alā ad-Dīn Kayqubād, sultan of Saljuks of Turkey, had sent Altunaba firstly as an envoy due to forge friendships and later Kamāl ad-Dīn Kamyar to Jalāl al-Dīn Manguberdi, the relations between the two sultas turned into hostility after a while because of Manguberdi’s discountenance. Jalāl al-Dīn Manguberdi, who had just arrived in the region, was trying to establish new alliances in his own way, and the Emir of Erzurum, Jihān-Shāh, was one of the biggest supporters of Jalāl al-Dīn Manguberdi. Alā ad-Dīn Kayqubād tried to form an alliance against Manguberdi by making an agreement with the Ayyubids. However, as time passed, the tension between the two sides increased and the Battle of Yassiçemen took place in 1230. Jalāl al-Dīn Manguberdi was defeated in this war. This situation shows that Malazgirt has never been captured by the Khwarazmians. Sultan Alā ad-Dīn Kayqubād captured the territory of Jihān-Shāh, malik of Erzurum, who declared his loyalty and helped Jalāl al-Dīn Manguberdi, and so that Erzurum region was dominated by the Seljuks of Turkey. Then Alā ad-Dīn Kayqubād, as a result of the relations, showing a negative trend with the Ayyubids, sent Altunaba, Kamāl adDīn Kamyar and Mubariz ad-Dīn Çavlı, of his important commander, over Ahlat in 1232 Ahlat and Ahlat was annexed by the Seljuks of Turkey in 1232.
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Stefan the First-Crowned looked up to Psalms; they became his model for acquiring poetic skills – for developing poetic forms and types of expressions. Psalms were his model in other respects – for choosing the subject and notional focus of hagiography; historical truth included in the piece of art introduced the First-Crowned in the meaningful depths of psalms; in the philosophicalaesthetic understanding from which the need to arrange certain parts of hagiography text using quotations from psalms emerged.
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One of the process by poets and writers to reveal their talents in the Ottoman Empire Era is to present their works on various occasions to the sovereigns. The ascension of the new rulers to the throne is a significant opportunity to presentat texts and works. Based on writing of the Cülûsiye texts lie thoughts such as congratulating the new sovereign, receiving cülusiye tip and being promoted to a higher rank following their poetry talent. In this study, the cülusiye ode by Sheikh Muhammed Salih Efendi (d. 1302/1884) by virtue of Sultan Abdülaziz's ascension to the throne has been examined. After providing information about life of the poet and cülusiye genre, the transcribed text (translation text) by Sheikh Muhammed Salih Efendi's culûsiye recorded in the Ottoman State Archive has been written and examined in terms of text, shape and meaning. In this regard, by looking through a new verse discovered, it is aimed to contribute to the cülûs literature which has not been studied in detail. Even if his only one poem has been identified, Sheikh Muhammed Salih Efendi, having the ability to write Turkish, Arabic and Persian poetry, has been introduced to the world of literature as a divan poet.
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