Peasant Categories in the Tenth and eleventh centuries

Abstract

The need for the state to protect its fiscal revenues is presented in the tenth-century legislation as a significant factor underlying the efforts made by the imperial administration to check the growing power of its provincial magnates and to make it more difficult for them to extend their properties at the expense of weaker peasants. In practice the most effective way for the state to maintain its revenues was to ensure through the regular activities of its fiscal officials that peasants who owed tax-payments to the state were not brought under the control of powerful lay and ecclesiastical landowners.     

Concubinage and marriage in medieval canon law

The medieval canon law adopted an ambivaient attitude toward concubinage among the laity. While the canonists disapproved of concubinage on moral grounds, they sought to assimilate the status of the concubine to that of the married woman and thus to legitimize concubinous relationships. In this process of assimilation the canonists made use of the institution of clandestine marriage, which created problems of its own. The crucial difficulty lay in constructing a satisfactory system of proof, so that it would be clear whether or not a given couple should be treated as married, or whether they should be considered legally as unmarried. The Council of Trent abolished lay concubinage and clandestine marriage, but thereby created a system of marriage law flawed with defects almost as serious as those experienced under the medieval law.     

The conjugal debt and medieval canon law

Marriage in Western European society was the preserve of the Christian Church throughout the later middle ages. The law of the Church played a significant role in the formation of doctrine concerning that institution, including the sexual relationship of spouses. Adopting a debt-model of conjugal relations, the canonists maintained that each partner owed marital coitus to the other. The lawyers emphasized the mutually binding character of this obligation, and consistently dejended the right of spouses to exact their marital due, insisting that this duty could be abrogated only by mutual consent. As heirs to an ascetic patristic tradition, however, the lawyers tended to be suspicious of fleshly pleasure. A peculiar and ambivalent doctrine resulted from this tension between an appreciation of the intrinsic goodness of the married state and a distrust of sex, one of its major constituents.     

The conjugal debt and medieval canon law

Marriage in Western European society was the preserve of the Christian Church throughout the later middle ages. The law of the Church played a significant role in the formation of doctrine concerning that institution, including the sexual relationship of spouses. Adopting a debt-model of conjugal relations, the canonists maintained that each partner owed marital coitus to the other. The lawyers emphasized the mutually binding character of this obligation, and consistently dejended the right of spouses to exact their marital due, insisting that this duty could be abrogated only by mutual consent. As heirs to an ascetic patristic tradition, however, the lawyers tended to be suspicious of fleshly pleasure. A peculiar and ambivalent doctrine resulted from this tension between an appreciation of the intrinsic goodness of the married state and a distrust of sex, one of its major constituents.     

Continuity and change in Norman Italy: the Campania during the eleventh and twelfth centuries

The Campania was a fertile area, with a growing population during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and was economically more advanced than most of the rest of southern Italy. This essay examines the impact of the Norman conquest of the south upon this region, with special reference to the settlement pattern and the aristocracy. It concludes that the role of incastellamento in changing the pattern of settlement was relatively limited, and the extensive incastellamento of the Montecassino lands (a product of Norman pressure upon the abbey) cannot be taken as typical. Furthermore, while the Norman conquest led to colonisation by French aristocrats, this did not entirely displace existing Lombard families, and widespread intermarriage led to a blurring of the distinction between Lombards and Normans. The impact of political crises during the twelfth century was also more limited than might be supposed, and continuity rather than change characterised the nobility of the Norman period.     

The election of the tenth President of the Italian Republic

Abstract

The election on the first ballot of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi to the Presidency of the Republic came as a surprise. This article explores how it occurred by analysing the criteria usually employed to screen the candidates for President and the misplaced efforts by the secretary of the Partito popolare to win the office for a candidate of his party. An assessment of the powers of the President, in particular those concerning the appointment of the Prime Minister and the dissolution of parliament, is offered with reference to the experience of outgoing President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro. The success of Walter Veltroni, secretary of the Leftist Democrats, and of Gianfranco Fini, leader of the National Alliance, in persuading the opposition to vote for Ciampi is related to their interest in reigniting a process for the reform of the political system and the construction of a majoritarian and bipolar democracy. President Ciampi may prove to be very helpful in this difficult task, but most of the initiative and responsibility lie with party leaders and members of parliament.     

In enemy hands: the Byzantine experience of captivity between the seventh and tenth centuries

The present paper deals with forced migration experienced by subjects of the Byzantine Empire captured by foreign enemies in the context of warfare between the seventh and the tenth centuries. The focus of the first part is on the scenarios faced by individuals and groups when an enemy had taken control of a settlement or a larger territory. The second part discusses aspects of the role social status and gender played in the process of being taken over and then (possibly but not necessarily) held in captivity. Although one can trace similarities in the way captors treated their captives on different occasions, an overgeneralizing approach can prove misleading, distracting us from the dynamics of the consequences that war and abduction had on both the agency of the victor and the fate of the loser in the early Middle Ages.     

Sexual morality and canon law: The evidence of the Rochester consistory court

Material which survives from the Rochester consistory court during the middle years of the fourteenth century makes it possible to examine the manner in which canon legal theory on offences against sexual morality was implemented in practice. The officials at Rochester were adhering to general canon legal principles by assigning penance according to a ‘hierarchy of sin‘, and they were using the discretion allowed to them to make individual judgments in each case. The use of penances other than penitential beatings was related both to contemporary views on the suitability of different forms of penance for those in authority, and to the actual gravity of an offence. Priests' delicts were regarded more seriously than those of the laity. The court did not display any bias against women when assigning penance, and often treated men more harshly.     

青海省十个五年计划回顾及"十一五"规划编制启示

本文通过对青海省十个五年计划（“一五”-“十五”）的简要回顾,指出中长期规划在全省国民经济和社会发展中具有重要作用。进而提出对“十一五”乃至今后中长期规划编制的几点有益的启示。     

Early medieval landscapes in north‐west Spain: local powers and communities,fifth–tenth centuries

There has been in the last few years a rapid expansion in the archaeology of early medieval societies in the north‐west of the Iberian Peninsula. A large part of this evidence remains unpublished or has been published incompletely. This article considers the historical landscapes of the north‐western Iberian Peninsula in the early medieval period as social constructions, starting with the identification of the systemic relationships between different archaeological entities. The dynamics and articulation of early medieval societies in the Cantabrian area and in the Duero and Tagus basins will be outlined by means of deconstructing their landscapes. To achieve this, a set of variables will be analysed in comparative terms from three regions selected as case studies: Madrid, the Duero basin and the Basque Country. With the aim of explaining these systems diachronically a division between the fifth–eighth and eighth–tenth centuries will be taken into consideration.     

The canon of the Tibetan Bonpos

Indo-Iranian Journal -     

Demography and pronatalism in France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

The fear of population decline in France is deep-rooted and complex. With a renewed decline in fertility in the 1970s, fresh concern has shown itself in the multiplication of books and comments, fitting into a pronatalist tradition which can be traced back at least one hundred and fifty years. In reviewing these works, and other new works on the history of population ideas in France, this paper emphasizes both the uniqueness of the French demographic case and the continuity of reactions both official and private. It isolates key periods of concern in the years before the First World War, in the 1930s and the late 1970s. It also draws attention to the proliferation of propaganda, four examples of which are re-published here.     

缀合与敦煌残卷的定名——敦煌残卷缀合的意义之一

敦煌文献以残卷或残片为主,约占总数的百分之九十以上,这些残卷或残片往往没有标题;即使相对完整的文本,也常有缺题的情况;部分写卷虽有题名,但也每每存在题名歧异的情况。所以如何为残卷定名是敦煌文献整理研究的先行工作之一,也是敦煌写本研究中的最大难题之一。最近十多年,我们的学术团队发现很多残卷或残片其实是由同一写卷撕裂的,可以缀合。缀合以后,有的写卷的题目便失而复得;即便缀合后依然残缺不全的写卷,由于完整度大大提高,也可以为进一步的准确定名创造条件。所以残卷的缀合对写本的定名具有非常重要的参考价值。本文就此从六个方面举例展开讨论:确定未定名残片的篇题;确定缺题残卷的文本系统;确定缺题残卷的具体卷数;纠正前人定名的疏误;补充残卷定名的证据;明确具体残卷的性质。