'Political' personae: the poem from prison of Michael Glykas: Byzantine literature between fact and fiction

Abstract

Byzantine vernacular literature, much of it in verse, has long been seen as material for Quellenforschung into the historical or social conditions of its time. Following the precepts for literary history set down by such pioneers of Byzantine studies as Karl Krumbacher, the study of these texts has concentrated on authors rather than on the texts themselves as autonomous objects of historical study, whose form and content should guide our understanding of their original intention and reception by Byzantine audiences. The 'Poem from Prison' by Michael Glykas illustrates both the shortcomings of the focus on authors and the alternative potential for renewed engagement with Byzantine texts as objects of imagination and creativity.     

Chronicles and historiography: the interrelationship of fact and fiction

Notwithstanding the great progress in medieval historiography during the last century, a conceptual and methodological basis in regard to the analysis of narrative sources is still missing. This paper indicates some of the challenges posed by fourteenth-century chronicles while focusing on contemporary testimonies about Clement V, pope between 1305 and 1314. Discussion of the different testimonies allows drawing some conclusions and paves the way for a new approach to medieval narrative sources.     

Crossing the rubicon: fact or fiction in Roman re-enactment

Abstract

This paper discusses the role and use of Roman re-enactment as a means of engaging with, visualizing and interpreting Roman material culture, and how this is translated into presentation material for public display. The paper raises several issues on the use of re-enactors to interpret a specific period from the past, and reflects on why people actively participate in re-enactment, with an emphasis on accuracy and authenticity.     

Time to write: convict petitions in the 19th century

Nineteenth-century convicts regularly used their right to petition the state. Their institutionalised lives were spent under repressive and harsh penal systems, designed to inhibit communication, but petitioning provided a channel of expression that must have been sorely absent from the monotony of their life in prison. Convicts commonly used petitions to complain about perceived injustices in their sentencing or to request early release on probation, leaving written records of the different experiences, motivations and objectives of petitioners. These written voices therefore provide the basis for a unique window into convict lives in the 19th century.     

19世纪末20世纪初奕劻外交活动真相

19世纪末20世纪初,中国外交矛盾交织.庆亲王奕劻以皇族特殊身份进入中央政权,执掌军政外交,参与处理清廷与义和团、八国联军进犯北京和列强签订<辛丑议和条约>等.从中看出奕劻外交中的特点及经验教训,将给人们以启迪.     

Outer form and internal disease: clinical photography in the late 19th century

Clinical photography in the late 19th century aimed at unveiling the hidden processes invisible to the clinical eye. Changes in the outer form hinted at deeper lying causes, and decoding these forms was supposed to extend the range of the clinical eye in to the realm of invisibility. Two suppositions supported this hope: the belief that each disease as an ontological entity showed typical exterior signs which allowed a diagnosis at sight, and the technological trust in photography as a precise and objective means of representation superior to the human eye. For a short time, clinical photography seemed to be the 'via regia" of diagnosis. Heinrich Curschmann's Klinische Abbildungen and Ludwig Jankau's periodical Internationale medizinisch-photographische Monatsschrift marked the climax of this development in Germany. R?ntgen's discovery and its immediate application in clinical medicine put an end to the optimistic expectations: clinical photography was from now on only one among many different means of documenting clinical signs and findings.     

Handloom weaving in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire in the 19th century: the building evidence

Abstract

This paper reviews the building evidence for the survival of the home as workplace in 19th-century Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. Handloom weaving prospered rather than declined in the immediate aftermath of the introduction of mechanized spinning, and this prosperity is reflected in the numbers of purpose-built houses containing weaving shops in these two counties. Most were built not by the weavers or clothiers, but by people outside the textile industry as a source of income. The authors have attempted to classify the surviving stock of handloom weavers’ houses into a number of types and to account for their distribution. Documentary evidence has been utilized to determine for how long handloom weaving survived in a domestic context, and it is suggested that in some areas the domestic handloom remained in active use for at least 40 years after the first introduction of the power loom into Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. The paper is therefore a contribution to the archaeology of resistance, showing how this particular group of artisans cherished their illusory independence and resisted integration into the factory system for as long as possible.     

Electrical instruments in 19th century France,between makers and users

Abstract

Having quickly described new historiographical approaches to scientific instruments, this paper explores some characteristics of the evolution of the relationship between scientific instrument makers and French physicists in the 19th century. Artisans without a scientific culture at the dawn of the century, a certain number of instrument makers were integrated into the scientific community by its end, sharing their practices and their values. These builders served as mediators between different physicists, between physicists and members of other disciplines like physiology and, finally, between savants and the world of technology (telegraphy and then industrial electricity). Symmetrically, a significant number of French physicists left mathematical physics for a physics based on instruments and their development. The emergence, extension, and eventual disappearance of the different contexts of use of an instrument (amateurs, public performances, teaching, research, medicine, telegraphy, industry, etc) illustrate both the boundary crossings between these different domains and the major role that use played in successive reconfigurations of instruments.     

Further developments in molecular sex assignment: a blind test of 18th and 19th century human skeletons

The identification of sex in human remains recovered from archaeological locations is important in order to understand the social and biological structure of past societies, and to reconstruct past population demographic events. Sex determination is usually based on morphological traits of the skeletons, with the drawback that most methods do not apply to juveniles and require well preserved remains. In cases where morphological methods cannot be used, or are ambiguous, methods of molecular sexing systems are an alternative. In this methodological study we tested and validated the accuracy and usefulness of a molecular sexing method based on the amelogenin gene using pyrosequencing. We did this in a double blind study of documented 18th and 19th century human remains.     

Trauma and amputations in 19th century miners from Kimberley,South Africa

Trauma is the result of violent accidental or therapeutic events that cause physical or psychological injury. The frequencies and types of trauma within a population can give important information regarding their lifestyle as well as the quantity and quality of medical care available to them. The purpose of this study was to assess the incidence of trauma in the Gladstone sample population with regards to the presence of interpersonal violence a hazardous working environment strenuous working requirements and the availability of medical care. The individuals studied here were diamond miners from Kimberley dating to the late 19th century. A total of 107 well‐preserved skeletons were excavated from unmarked graves after accidental discovery. This sample included 86 males 15 females and 6 individuals of unknown sex. The majority of individuals (71%) were between 19 and 45 years of age. The remains were most likely those of migrant mine workers of low socioeconomic status who had passed away at the local hospitals. All bones were visually assessed for macroscopic indications of traumatic bone alterations and compared to standard palaeopathological texts and photographs. A total of 27% (n = 28) of the individuals in the sample presented with well‐healed healing or perimortem fractures. Fractures to the skull encompassed 49% (n = 20) of all the fractures that were observed. A total of six (6%) amputations were noted. Spondylolysis was observed in 7% (n = 7) of the individuals within the sample and longstanding subluxation was noted in two individuals. The high incidences of cranial fractures within this population are suggestive of high levels of interpersonal violence while long bone fractures spondylolysis and evidence of longstanding subluxations are indicative of the strenuous work requirements and the high‐risk environment to which these individuals were exposed. When considering the presence of well‐reduced fractures and healed amputations it seems that adequate medical care was available to at least some members of this community. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This article was published online on 17 February 2009. An error was subsequently identified. This notice is included in the online and print versions to indicate that both have been corrected 3 November 2009.