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The article describes the history of Polish relations with China, starting from the end of the 13th century to the end of the 18th century. It focuses mainly on political and economic relations, but it refers to the civilizational and cultural relations as well. The Author omits, already quite well analyzed, issues concerning the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries in China. The Author mentions the Battle of Legnica on Dobre Pole on 9th April 1241, which should be considered as the first contact between the Poles and the Mongols. The Author mentions diplomatic mission of the Franciscan Benedict the Pole who on 22th July 1246, as the first Pole, reached Karakorum in Mongolia. However, the most part of the article concerns the attempts to find a simpler way to China through the lands of Moscow, which has failed, and even in the 12th century, the Poles used the sea route or traveled through Persia. The article highlights the efforts of missionaries and diplomats in that matter. As the most interesting issue in Polish-Chinese relations in the period until the end of the 18th century, the Author indicates an attempt to establish direct relations between the king Jan III Sobieski and the Chinese emperor Kangxi. Jan III Sobieski after the victory over the Turks at Vienna has sent one of his portraits to the emperor’s court, who accepted the gift and has responded writing him a letter. Moreover, in the 18th century, not only the king Jan III Sobieski, but also merchants, middle-class bourgeois and landowners possessed Chinese products, especially Chinese porcelain.
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The Polish–Pomeranian sovereignty over Gdańsk continued for 338 years (970–1308) and purely Polish for 339 years (1454–1793), which corresponds to the total of 677 years, while that of the Teutonic Order and Prussia (1308–1454; 1793–1807; 1813–1918) – only to 265 years. The thirteen-years’ war continued from 1454 to 1466. Its result on the one hand was the establishment of Royal Prussia, dependent on Poland, and on the other – the granting of four great privileges (in 1454–1457) by King Casimir the Jagiellon (Kazimierz Jagiellończyk) to Gdańsk. They awarded the city with broad territorial, court and legal, trade and customs, maritime, and minting autonomy, with only limited duties towards the sovereign kings of Poland. In the 16th century, controversies between the governing patriciate and the commons started in Gdańsk around 1517. An end was put to them in 1526 by King Sigismund the Old (Zygmunt Stary), who issued Constitutiones Sigismundi that generally brought back the old political system of Gdańsk, albeit altered by the setting up of the Third Order being a representation of the commons. In the 17th century, King John (Jan) III Sobieski interfered with the political system of Gdańsk, issuing two decrees in 1678. They reinforced the rights of the monarch in the city and the position of the Third Order. The political system of Gdańsk was reformed again in mid-18th century, by King August III who in 1750 issued a declaration and a statute expanding the rights of the king in the city, and reinforcing the position of the Third Order and changing the principles of its nomination. Finally, plenty of administrative, organisational, economic, and financial questions were revised.
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The medieval heraldry of the town of Bistrița incorporates – in a very peculiar way when compared to other urban communities in Transylvania – symbols directly related to the Angevine royal dynasty of Hungary. Starting from the examination of the historical sources that record and use these specific attributes, both documentary (textual) and sigillographic (iconographic), the present paper pursues two main objectives: (1) to determine a more accurate chronology of the use of Bistrița’s urban seals, until around 1540, in relation to the relevant historiography of the subject; (2) to argue new hypotheses regarding the way Bistrița assumed the iconography of its first urban seal, particularly the way in which the crowned ostrich with a horseshoe in its beak came to be considered the main symbol of collective identity of this medieval Transylvanian town.
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The present paper focuses on the complex ties between the episcopal court of Alba Iulia and the elite of the Bistrița district in the half of century around 1500, based on several unpublished sources, rarely used by previous scholarship. These records highlight a collaboration between the episcopate and the local elite in various aspects, such as the ordination of priests, consecration of liturgical spaces, confirmation of parish priests, collection of church taxes, reinforcement of wills, resolution of disputes under canon law, defense of the kingdom boundaries, and management of relations with other political actors. On the other hand, attempts by the bishops to disregard the right of patronage owned by local communities or to increase the taxation were met with firm resistance, often supported by other members of the Saxon “spiritual university”. However, these conflicts, which were rather often in medieval Transylvania, did not worsen during the analyzed period and did not seem to indicate the imminent triumph of the Reformation in the Bistrița district.
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The authoress summarizes what we know about the earliest Jewish settlement in Prague and presents the building of the Old-New Synagogue in Prague from the point of view of history and architecture.
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This paper discusses how the Venetian chronicles written in the 14th–18th centuries represent the episode in which the ban on wearing beards in Venice under Doge Domenico Michiel is connected to the hostilities with the Byzantine Empire in the context of the expedition against Cephalonia in 1126. It is about a strange connection at the first glance; however, some Venetian chroniclers that inserted this event were tempted to consider this decision as an act of contempt against the Greeks that even made Emperor John II Comnenus decide to end the hostilities and demand peace. The paper also brings fragments that introduce this event in Venetian chronicles.
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The article deals with the prologue (synaxarion) Vitae of St. Nicholas in Slavonic Cyrillic literature from the 13th to the 17th century. These texts function within the hymnographic composition practice and can be found in two types of liturgical books – the Prologue and the Menaion. They are usually extracts from extensive narratives, which is why this paper also looks at texts from two other types of medieval books (the Panegyric and the Reading Menaion) that contain The Acts of St. Nicholas, The Miracles of St. Nicholas and the so-called „Another” Vita – St. Nicholas of Sion Vita. These texts also functioned as synaxarion vitae. The Vita of St. Nicholas in the Simple Prologue is the shortest and earliest version of a hagiographic narrative about the saint translated in Bulgaria during the First Bulgarian Empire, and it is very rarely found in the hymnographic composition of the Menaion. St. Nicholas’ Vita in the Turnovo translation of the Verse Prologue is the most popular and common after the sixth song of the canon in the hymnographic composition practice. That Vita is a more extensive version of the Acts of St. Nicholas, based on the Metaphrastian Vita, preceded by a verse and an added miracle of St. Nicholas. The article mentions two interesting cases in Serbian menaia of the 15th century, which present different traditions to place the synaxarion texts.
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The paper analyzes how the Byzantine law influenced The Town Law of Novo Brdo, which represents the second part of Despot Stefan Lazarević’s Novo Brdo Legal Code of 1412. A possible connection between the town law of Novo Brdo and certain provisions of The Syntagma of Matthew Blastares and one of the privileges that the town of Ioannina received from the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II in 1319 is suggested. Accordingly, it is assumed that certain provisions of the Town Law of Novo Brdo could have been formulated during the reign of Emperor Stefan Dušan.
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The ruler’s title serves as a crucial element in the argumentative strategy for legitimizing power. It is directed towards a complex system of heterogeneous audiences and is a valuable source for the changes in the socio-political self-identification of the ruling authority. Medieval Serbia experienced a brief period of prominence in southeastern Europe, particularly under the reign of Stefan Dušan (1331–1355), who expanded his realm to include territories inhabited by Greek-speaking populations. The political landscape of the new empire was multifaceted, requiring the Serbian ruler to navigate complex dynamics by balancing the interests of longstanding subjects, newer constituents, and the Byzantine hierarchy of rulers alongside Western European traditions. This article aims to analyze and elucidate these ideological processes as evidenced in royal charters written in Greek, while also challenging M. Popovich’s thesis regarding the existence of a Serbian “ecumene” and Stefan Dušan’s claims to the Byzantine throne.
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The prevailing consensus among scholars regarding the history of the Eastern Roman Empire asserts that the term “Byzantium” did not function as the name of the state until the mid-16th century. It is widely acknowledged that this designation, along with “Byzantine Empire”, was first introduced by the German historian and humanist Hieronymus Wolf in his “Corpus Historiae Byzantinae” in 1557. Some scholars go further to suggest that these terms were entirely coined in the 16th century. In recent years, the same information, perceived as an axiom, has been reproduced by professional historians and amateurs alike on television, in newspapers, or through social networks. However, the author of this study challenges this established view, contending that historical sources from both the Early and High Middle Ages, centuries prior to the Modern Age, contain references to “Byzantium”, sometimes even as name for the Eastern Roman Empire. This thesis contradicts the commonly held belief and invites a reexamination of the terminology used to describe this influential historical entity.
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In 1988, Gary Vikan dedicated a study to the famous post-Byzantine calligrapher Luke the Cypriot, Metropolitan of Wallachia. Trying to substantiate the claim that the subject of his research “was closely acquainted with Anastasios Crimca, Moldavian Metropolitan, who was also a renowned manuscript illuminator”, he stated that “Mount Sinai cods. 1480 (Gospels)” was written by Luke, “while the headpieces and Evangelist portraits are by Crimca”. The detail was important, because it highlighted a previously unsuspected connection between two major Early Modern “schools of scribes”, a Greek one, gravitating around Luke († 1629), in Wallachia, and a Church-Slavonic one, galvanized by Crimca († 1629), in Moldavia. Yet Sinaiticus gr. 1480 does not contain the Gospels and it was not copied by Luke: it is a liturgical chant manuscript copied by one of Luke’s most talented disciples, hieromonk Iakovos of Simonopetra, in Bucharest, in 1625. There is, however, a manuscript that fits the (laconic) description provided by Vikan: Sinaiticus gr. 203. The present paper places the manuscript in its (dual) cultural context and reconstructs, with the help of archival materials, the career of the donor. Based on this evidence, it argues that it mirrors the profound political, economic, and social transformation of Southeastern Europe after the fall of Constantinople (1453).
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The study of the history and culture of different peoples, especially their intercultural interactions, deepens our understanding of world history. The aim of this article is to determine the role of tamgas in the intertribal and intercultural relations of steppe peoples during the ancient and medieval periods. A systematic analysis of various sources identifies tamgas as tribal distinguishing marks, artisan symbols, signs of aristocracy, and indicators of allegiance to Mongolian rulers. The study highlights the interactions of the tamga with the ancient Hungarians, the Indians, the Chinese, and the Rurik dynasty. The study presents a generalised view of the role of the tamga for the Turks in specific historical periods.
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This paper is aimed at presenting a preliminary comparative study of the Qur’anic translations produced by two autochthonous European Muslim communities: Spanish Mudéjars (Muslims who remained in the Iberian Peninsula after the Christian reconquest) and Moriscos (former Muslims forced to convert to Christianity) and, on the other side of Europe, the Tatars of Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL). The framework for this comparison is provided by some basic facts: over the span of two centuries, in the case of the Morisco population (starting with the conquest of Granada in 1492, until the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609)1 , and three centuries in that of the Tatars of the GDL (17th to 19th centuries), their literary production was exclusively hand-written. Both groups preserved their Muslim religiosity but, with some erudite exceptions, had only scarce knowledge of Arabic, the holy language of Qur’anic revelation. Moreover, without having access to one another’s culture, both Moriscos and the Tatars of the GDL adapted the Arabic alphabet to their vehicular languages, Romance and Slavic respectively2 . Thanks to this adaptation strategy, they maintained the sacred aspect of their writings and were able to translate the Qur’an into a language they fully understood. However, in spite of these striking similarities between the two groups, there were also notable differences. While the Tatars of the GDL were granted full religious freedom, the Moriscos were heavily persecuted for any signs of adherence to Islam. In order to shed more light on the phenomenon of European Muslim cultures, in this paper I will present various manuscript examples of these groups’ Qur’anic translations, and draw some preliminary conclusions regarding the information that can be retrieved from this kind of sources.
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Das Dissertationsprojekt nimmt verschiedene Formen der Interaktion zwischen Ordensangehörigen und Stadtbevölkerungen in Siebenbürgen im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert in den Blick. Im Fokus stehen dabei die männlichen und weiblichen Zweige des Dominikaner- und Franziskanerordens. Die weiblichen Konvente waren wohl auch aufgrund der zeittypischen Frömmigkeitsvorstellungen und Ordensideale weniger dem Blick der Stadtöffentlichkeit ausgesetzt und sind in den überlieferten Quellen weniger präsent. Dennoch waren sie mit der Stadtbevölkerung vernetzt und sollen daher ebenfalls behandelt werden. Es könnte sinnvoll sein, sich auf einen der beiden Orden zu beschränken. Hierfür bieten sich die Dominikaner an, die tendenziell weniger gut erforscht sind. Eine entsprechende Entscheidung und Eingrenzung, auch hinsichtlich der genauen Auswahl der Städte, steht noch an.
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In the courtyard of the Pleven prison, during agricultural work, a ceramic vessel with over 7,000 silver coins with a total weight of 8,345 kg was discovered. The treasure was most likely hidden around the 20s of the 15th century. It consists of coins of Sultan Bayazid I (1389 – 1402), Emir Suleiman (1402 – 1411), Emir Musa (1411 – 1413), Emir Mehmed ( 1403 – 1413) and then as Sultan Mehmed (1413 – 1421), Emir Mustafa (1416, 1419, 1421 – 1422) and the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Shishman (1371 – 1395).
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Trade between the Republic of Ragusa and the Medieval Albanian lands was quite extensive and active and included most of the Albanian markets. Almost in every town with importance in trade, there was a community of Ragusan merchants. Their consuls represented those communities. Besides the consuls and merchants who were present in the cities and markets of Albania, the Ragusans had seized the customs of various products, which they rented and paid to the local rulers for the duties related to them. The Trade with Ragusa was of great importance because in Albania came wares from Western European areas and other countries. Reciprocally, Albanian products arrived not only in Ragusa. Albanian Merchants exported further their wares through Europe. In addition, trade relations with Ragusa affected the culture and mastery of the country, too, which benefited from techniques exchanged through trade. That was seen in the elaborating of gold and silver, tailoring, and other crafts. In conclusion, we can say that trade relations with Ragusa were of great importance to Albania. These relations were a key in the economic exchanges the Albanians had with other foreign countries during the Middle Ages. (1951-2020)
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The cultural dialogue between Poland and China can be traced back to the 13th century, the time of Mongol invasions of Europe, and can also be linked to the activities of the missionary Benedict of Poland. Particularly important place should be attributed to the Jesuit Michał Boym and his fascination with learning about the life, customs, flora, fauna and medicine of China, as well as his sense of research and substantive scholarly preparation. Concurrently, Chinese researchers, historians and politicians spread knowledge about Poland in China by a number of historical and geographical studies about the world; at the same time, essayists and reformers drew practical knowledge from Polish historical fate and made their compatriots aware of the need to modernize China. Those first attempts to learn about both cultures had a significant impact on the contemporary cultural dialogue between Poland and China.
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