The Macclesfield Silk Button Industry: The Probate Evidence

Abstract

Most histories of the silk industry in England begin with the arrival of French refugees to Spitalfields in London, yet silk was prepared for embroidery in Macclesfield by the Middle Ages and the silk button trade was well-established by the early modern period. Through the study of probate evidence, this article aims to redress the imbalance in the historiography of the silk industry in England away from the focus on the activities of the Huguenots in the early modern period, and away from the silk weaving in order to show that the silk button industry succeeded not through technical innovation, but through marketing a luxury item in sufficiently small packages to make it accessible to a wide portion of the population. The silk button industry can be viewed as having laid the foundations in east Cheshire for the transformation of the silk industry into weaving cloth in the mid-eighteenth century.     

Memoirs,confessions and apologies: the last chapter of Byzantine autobiography

Abstract

Two issues are addressed here: the status of Byzantine autobiography and the state of Byzantine literary culture in its last years. Autobiographical information was mostly a device used at all levels of Byzantine literature for immediacy, emphasis and to suggest personal involvement. It continued to function in this way in the last years of Byzantium, but there was also a degree of experimentation, as it extended its range into satire and comedy and, in the hands of Theodore Agallianos evolved from the rhetoric of apologia into fully-fledged autobiography.     

Sticks and Stones: Byzantine Material Culture

Abstract

Suddenly last summer, research on Byzantine Material Culture, La belle aux bois dormant, was awakened from a prolonged siesta. In the 20th International Congress of Byzantine Studies held in Paris two papers were given in an attempt to chart out the progress made in this particular field in the past decades. T. Kolias assembled the various projects undertaken by individuals or institutions dealing with the different aspects of Byzantine daily life and material culture. M. Mundell Mango focused more on the archaeological evidence at hand and illustrated through the examples of architecture and industrial products how these could be used to detect and explain the interaction between centre and periphery. Just two weeks later, in September 2001 a conference entitled ‘Material Culture and Well-Being in Byzantium (400–1453)’ was organised in Cambridge. A number of suggestions were made during the conference, as for example to initiate a website to host a continuously updateable bibliography and to act as a forum of scholarly exchange in the numerous fields covered by research on material culture. Finally in April 2002 the Spring Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks was devoted to ‘Realities in the Arts of the Medieval Mediterranean’ in an attempt to reposition topics as exchange, influence and impact of the material culture between the Byzantine, the Western and the Islamic world. All the above has made clear the potential that the analysis of material culture has for Byzantine studies.     

Shaping the sacred: light and the experience of worship in middle Byzantine churches

Abstract

Byzantine churches have been extensively studied in terms of their architectural development and in their role as places to display religious art. However there has been less research into one of the most fundamental aspects of the Byzantine ritual experience, illumination. In practical terms, churches had to be illuminated sufficiently for worship to take place. In experiential terms, lighting can be seen as the medium by which the iconographic programmes and liturgical practices were staged and enhanced. This paper considers the archaeological and textual evidence linking physical illumination of buildings with the experience of their sacred function.     

Silks,skills and opportunities in Byzantium: some reflexions

Abstract

Silks gave visible form to Byzantium's political culture and, being light to carry, could circulate widely. Many of the garments issued to recipients of offices and titles were made of silk and the Book of the Eparch takes for granted the close connection between imperial prerogatives, silken vestments of various shades of purple and restrictions on foreigners' access to them. Through whetting appetites for silks and maintaining a monopoly over the finest quality products, the emperor could hope to arouse in his own subjects and foreigners alike the desire to gain them through some form of ‘service’. These products simultaneously expressed his wealth, superior knowledge and — by the symbols on them — the antiquity and unsurpassable legitimacy of his rule.     

Diglossia and register variation in Medieval Greek

Abstract

This article recognizes diglossia as a key phenomenon for the interpretation of the existence of different registers in the late Byzantine period (twelfth-fifteenth centuries). The main characteristics of Byzantine diglossia are outlined and associated with language production during this period. Learned and vernacular registers are approached as extreme poles of a linguistic continuum and linguistic variation as a defining characteristic of a diglossic speech community.     

Byzantine History in late Ottoman Turkish Historiography

Abstract

The present Short Note is intended as a brief introduction to a subject which is part of a wider research project on Greek (ancient, Byzantine, and modern) as well as Roman history and culture as described and discussed in Ottoman literature, particularly in late Ottoman historiography. As an attempt to familiarise the reader with, at this stage, no more than a few aspects of the subject in question, the following sketch does not pretend to be exhaustive. It is hoped, however, that it will provide a general idea of the context, as well as of the relevant sources, some of which will be described in more detail. Our note is, in addition, intended to arouse interest, particularly from the point of view of Byzantine and modern Greek studies, and to invite comments.     

Byzantine glass mosaic tesserae: some material considerations

Abstract

Issues about the manufacture of Byzantine mosaics and the implications of these in wider terms relating to social and economic questions about the art form have been little discussed. This paper brings together evidence about Byzantine glass mosaic tesserae gathered from archaeology, glass technology and glass analysis, and synthesizes these into a discussion of three aspects: distribution; manufacture; trade and price. It looks to examine how these different elements can be used to form a more detailed composite picture about the production and distribution of Byzantine mosaics. It also proposes ways in which glass analysis can be used in a more coherent way to extend our understanding of mosaic glass production.     

'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.     

Late Saxon Textiles from the City of London

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS in the City of London have produced an important collection of late 9th- to early 12th-century textiles manufactured from wool, goat hair, silk and flax. The production processes associated with the different types of cloth are here described, together with details of weaving techniques and dyeing practices. Changes in the types of cloth used in the nth century are related to the introduction of new technology and the decline in use of the warp-weighted loom. Evidence is examined for the local manufacture of cloth and for the import of foreign silks. Lastly, attention is drawn to the similarity of the London textiles to those found in other regions of northern Europe.     

NEW EVIDENCE FOR EARLY SILK IN THE INDUS CIVILIZATION*

Silk is an important economic fibre, and is generally considered to have been the exclusive cultural heritage of China. Silk weaving is evident from the Shang period c. 1600–1045 bc , though the earliest evidence for silk textiles in ancient China may date to as much as a millennium earlier. Recent microscopic analysis of archaeological thread fragments found inside copper‐alloy ornaments from Harappa and steatite beads from Chanhu‐daro, two important Indus sites, have yielded silk fibres, dating to c. 2450–2000 bc . This study offers the earliest evidence in the world for any silk outside China, and is roughly contemporaneous with the earliest Chinese evidence for silk. This important new finding brings into question the traditional historical notion of sericulture as being an exclusively Chinese invention.     

‘Der sehleehteste Staat’: Ahmed Midhat Efendi (1844–1913) on Byzantine institutions

Abstract

Just as Karl Marx, in 1842, called the Byzantine empire ‘der schlechteste Staat’, so did Ahmed Midhat Efendi (1844–1913), the protagonist of Ottomanism and at the same time the first Ottoman ‘to make a strong and clear case for the Turkish ancestry of the Ottomans’ (David Kushner), a few decades later. Byzantine history stands, according to Midhat, for the Dark Ages, and the Byzantine empire for corruption, lawlessness, extravagance and frivolity. By contrast, the picture drawn by him of the early Ottomans is one of a community based on high moral values such as decency, concord, obedience and mutual esteem. In his view, the rise of the Ottomans heralds the dawning of the Modern Age. His identification of the Ottomans as the liberators from the Dark Ages of all the peoples previously under Byzantine rule is the central element in his concept of the ‘enlightened and liberating Ottomans,. His Detailed History of Modern Times (Mufassal Tarih-i Kurun-i Cedide), with its section on Byzantine history and institutions, has already been introduced to readers of the last issue of BMGS.     

Peasant Names in Fourteenth-Century Macedonia

Abstract

The historian who is engaged in the study of Byzantine social history is faced with a problem common to pre-industrial societies, or societies in which the majority of the population is both exploited and illiterate. The sources, written as they are by an upper class and largely for an upper class, give relatively abundant information about a small segment of the population, leaving us in darkness about the rest of society. In Byzantine history this is particularly true about the peasantry, which has left us only a very few sources of its own, and rather uninspiring ones at that. The Byzantine upper class wrote its own history, but the Byzantine peasants did not, thus making the task of the modern historian more difficult. Despite these problems, work has been done on both the urban and the rural population of the Empire, and more will probably be done as monastic archives become available. The study of the Byzantine peasantry is of primary importance. For if we are to understand Byzantine society, we must study and understand what happened in the countryside. After all, the Byzantine economy rested on agriculture, and the social relations which determined the fate of the state were, primarily, the social relations prevalent in the countryside.     

A Critical Reappraisal of Eustathios Makrembolites’ Hysmine and Hysminias

Abstract

Despite the massive amount of scholarly literature on Iconoclasm and its aftermath, there are really only two major publications that deal specifically and synthetically with ninth-century art. One of these is André Grabar's magisterial L'iconoclasme byzantin, a chronological analysis of monuments and texts; the other is Robin Cormack's short but insightful essay in Iconoclasm, the collection of papers originally presented at Birmingham in 1975, which asks ‘whether the discussion of religious images stimulated by Iconoclasm changed the nature of Byzantine Art’. My aim is rather different. Rather than presenting an encyclopedic overview, this article attempts to crawl into the fabric of Byzantine culture: to see and understand Byzantine art of the ninth century as the Byzantines saw and understood it. It follows that the material presented has not been segregated into the familiar (and often useful) categories of style, iconography, and context, for, to the Byzantines, the three were neither exclusive nor separable. For similar reasons, I have deemphasized any linear progression that might imposed with art historical hindsight on the distant past, and have thereby underplayed the flashes of innovation, novelty and erudition that such detachment allows. These sparks are probably more visible (and certainly more appealing) to twentieth-century art historians than they were to the ninth-century Byzantines, for whom, as we shall see, the power of tradition militated against individual creativity, and artists on the whole remained anonymous artisans. In my attempt to look at Byzantine art from the inside rather than from the outside I have, in other words, concentrated on the fluid interface between objects, and the shifting dialogue between objects and context. This is because what interests me here is how Byzantine ideas about art (their theories), Byzantine perception (how the Byzantines saw), and the artifacts themselves (the practice) come together in the ninth century: how art, that preeminent social construct, worked in the years after Iconoclasm.     

The Byzantine silk industry: Lopez and beyond

The Byzantine silk industry played a major role in the history of the Byzantine Empire. Silk, a key economic asset, had strong political overtones, and the effects of its multiple influences were felt far and wide, both within Byzantium and abroad. This article highlights some of the difficulties encountered in the interpretation of important documentation surrounding the Byzantine silk industry in the period up to 1204 A.D.     

The Byzantine silk industry: Lopez and beyond

The Byzantine silk industry played a major role in the history of the Byzantine Empire. Silk, a key economic asset, had strong political overtones, and the effects of its multiple influences were felt far and wide, both within Byzantium and abroad. This article highlights some of the difficulties encountered in the interpretation of important documentation surrounding the Byzantine silk industry in the period up to 1204 A.D.     

髹漆丝织品光老化性能的测试分析

髹漆丝织品光老化性能的测试分析,旨在了解其抗光老化的能力,为出土髹漆丝织品的保存和展示提供科学的依据。本工作以精制纯漆和桐油漆料分别髹涂的丝织物及未经髹涂的丝织品为试样,进行加速光老化处理。对试样的测试表明,两种髹漆试样经光照后强伸性下降轻缓,相同时段的降幅远低于丝织品,桐油漆试样降幅最小。两种漆膜在光老化中均有轻微的空洞和裂纹,纯漆膜损伤稍大。光老化过程中,漆膜对丝纤维的保护作用较好,漆丝的结晶度未有明显下降,而未髹漆丝纤维的结晶度下降显著。本研究的结果可以为出土髹漆丝织品的保存和展示提供科学的依据     

Synônê: re-considering a problematic term of middle Byzantine fiscal administration

Abstract

The history of Byzantine fiscal administration, as is well-known, is still an area in which many problems remain to be resolved. In 1880 the Russian Byzantinist V. G. Vassilievsky, one of the first historians to address them seriously, described Byzantine fiscal structures as labyrinthine; other scholars have not disagreed. But as a result of the work of successive generations, we are in a much better position today to understand the fundamental lines of development of late Roman and Byzantine fiscal arrangements, and in particular to follow the evolution of middle and later Byzantine fiscal administrative structures out of the situation that prevailed in the later Roman period, especially from the fifth and sixth centuries. Many problems remain, of course, and in the present contribution I would like to re-examine the term synônê, which has a technical significance in late Roman and Byzantine texts. The exact meaning of the word remains disputed and this has led to conflicting opinions among those who have attempted to interpret its application in the sources. The resolution of some of these questions has important consequences for our understanding of how the state's fiscal structures operated over the period in question.     

特制绢地书画作品修复——以清代莫晋绢本书法立轴为例

特制绢地书画作品的修复历来是一大难题,因困于材料的特殊性与稀缺性,如寻觅不到同类补绢,就较难实现理想的修复效果。清代莫晋绢本书法立轴的画心材质为一种经过涂布、染色、描绘等工艺制成的特制绢本,因保存不当,画心已出现严重断裂残缺、部分涂层填料脱落等劣化现象,亟需修复保护。但画心用绢的质地和颜色特殊,无法找到与之接近的补绢。本次修复通过对绢的表面涂层进行检测分析,并参阅传统纸张再加工材料的检测报告和研究文献,再结合对材料的老化实验等,确定将瓷土和高岭土按一定比例混合来代替原涂层中的铅白作为本次修复的涂布材料。最后通过对修补涂层的全色,取得较为理想的修复效果。     

新疆帕米尔吉尔赞喀勒拜火教墓地出土纺织品分析检测

受中国社会科学院考古所新疆考古队委托,纺织品文物保护国家文物局重点科研基地(中国丝绸博物馆)对新疆帕米尔吉尔赞喀勒拜火教墓地出土纺织品进行分析检测。采用形貌观测、高效液相色谱质谱联用技术、组织结构观测等方法对样本进行了纤维鉴别、染料测试、组织结构分析,从中发现的纤维品种包括桑蚕丝、毛,染料品种包括西茜草、靛青、黄檗等,织物品种包括毛罽、编织物、绢等。结合历史考古资料对上述分析检测结果进行解读,大量的毛纺织品表明在距今2500年前的帕米尔高原,纺织品具有明显的西域当地性,而具有典型汉文化特色的桑蚕丝和黄檗体现了与中原地区的文化和技术交流。