Visual Reflections on History and Kingship in the Medieval English Great Church

The images of royalty set up on the western face of the choir-screen or pulpitum of medieval English great churches formed an enduring iconographic tradition which was found across England and was apparently without continental parallel. Discussing in detail the remains of the choir-screen at Salisbury cathedral and the records of the screen at Durham cathedral, this article suggests their potential antecedents in 12th-century representations of lineage. It then explores their probable meanings and functions for contemporary audiences, with reference to liturgy, history and clerical identity.     

The early development of the senate of Constantinople

Abstract

The development of the senate of Constantinople as an imperial senate, on a par with the senate of Rome, has been attributed to Constantius II to the exclusion of Constantine and dated to 357. The present paper argues that the evidence for this dating is fundamentally flawed and that the decisive change came at the outset of the reign of Constantius II, while developments under Constantine foreshadowed it in significant respects. Conclusions are also drawn about what the evidence reveals of relations between Hellenic gentry and imperial rule in the fourth century.     

Dendroarchaeology of the mid-first millennium AD in Constantinople

The 1st millennium AD was a time of great transition in Europe and the Mediterranean. At the heart of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) was a pivotal trade hub for the Aegean region. Establishing a precise and accurate dating framework for the development of this remarkable city and a chronological reference for this critical time period for the Mediterranean region is of great importance to a wide range of scholars. Here we present a new 213 year tree-ring record from 89 oak samples placed in time by dendrochronology and supported by radiocarbon analysis and historical documentation. It represents the middle of the first millennium AD in Constantinople. The tree-ring series are derived from pilings recovered from the extraordinary excavations of the so-called “Theodosian harbor” at Yenikap?, Istanbul, along with timbers from other sites and buildings around the city, including one of the most famous sites on the Istanbul sky-line—Hagia Sophia. They provide potential for new insight into a time period in which earthquakes, the Justinianic plague, and even a possible tsunami struck the city, and during which dramatic changes in climate have been recorded in other paleoenvironmental proxies. The chronology is the first published tree-ring series from the Aegean region to cover the ‘event’ years of AD 536–7 and 542 which are characterized by anomalous growth in other tree-ring series from around the world, but interestingly these event years are not evident in this tree-ring sequence.     

The supernatural protector of Constantinople: the Virgin and her icons in the tradition of the Avar siege

Abstract

Previous scholarship has maintained that icons of the Virgin were carried in procession during the Avar siege of Constantinople in A.D. 626. Based on a close reading of the primary sources from the seventh to the fourteenth centuries, this paper will argue in contrast that a tight linkage between Marian icons and protection of the Byzantine capital did not occur until after Iconoclasm. The larger implications of this conclusion concern the evolution of the cult of the Virgin in Constantinople from its initial focus on relics to a cult centered on icons and icon processions as it emerged in the second half of the tenth century.     

The Historian and the Church

DEREK BEALES AND GEOFFREY BEST, eds. History, Society and the Churches: Essays in Honour of Owen Chadwick. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Pp. x, 335. $49.50 (US).     

晚清天主教会与耶稣教会的冲突

1891—1911年间,中国天主教会与耶酥教会的矛盾激化,屡屡发生历史上前所未有的天主、耶酥教派冲突。目前主要史籍中有案可查的这类冲突共有42起,经分析归纳其有五大特点,七种原因。中国政府对教派冲突问题非常重视,对它的处理不同于对其他教案,具有两种特点。     

The New Post Office Site in Istanbul and the North-Eastern Harbour of Byzantine Constantinople

An unpublished letter of 1906 describes a wall discovered at the New Post Office site in Istanbul. This may have been an Early Byzantine (5th–7th century) quay and, along with geological evidence, suggests that the north-east harbour of Early Byzantine Constantinople (probably the Neorion/Neorium harbour) was much larger than hitherto supposed. The harbour probably silted in the 7th century.
© 2004 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

Constantine and the Bishop: The Roman Church in the Early Fourth Century

When Constantine first entered Rome after his defeat of Maxentius in October 312, he encountered a rich and complex Christian community and a bishop whose position was precarious. Centuries of growth and a long religious peace had resulted in the development of a large number of locally based communities in Rome with their own centres of worship - the tituli. Constantine needed to convince these communities of his bona fides as a Christian emperor. The bishop of Rome, Miltiades, was the ruler of a relatively newly unified see, recently fractured by persecution and controversy. Miltiades' relative weakness was to Constantine's political advantage, especially since it made him eager to receive the vast ocean of generosity which Constantine began to pour into the Roman Church. The particular and immediate beneficiary of this generosity was the bishop, who gained a vast and lavishly appointed cathedral, and a palace to go with it.