Chronicle for 2015

The information supplied by National Representatives has been supplemented from other sources. Readers are urged to send information, press releases, exhibition catalogues, etc., directly to the Chronicle Editor, Imago Mundi, 76 Ockendon Road, London N1 3NW, UK (tony@tonycampbell.info), so that the next Chronicle can be as complete as possible. Chronicle considers all information that is current or historical at its closing date. No forthcoming events are included.     

Chronicle for 2017

The information supplied by National Representatives has been supplemented from other sources. Readers are urged to send information, press releases, exhibition catalogues, etc., directly to the Chronicle Editor, Imago Mundi, 76 Ockendon Road, London N1 3NW, UK (tony@tonycampbell.info), so that the next Chronicle can be as complete as possible. Chronicle considers all information that is current or historical at its closing date. Events after 2017 are not included.     

Imago Mundi Bibliography

 

The information supplied by National Representatives has been supplemented from other sources. Readers are urged to send information, press releases, exhibition catalogues, etc. directly to the Chronicle Editor, Imago Mundi, 76 Ockendon Road, London N1 3NW, UK (tony@tonycampbell.info), so that the next Chronicle can be as complete as possible. Chronicle considers all information that is current or historical at its closing date. Events after 2018 are not included.     

Carion's chronicle in sixteenth‐century Danish historiography

The brief world history called Carion's Chronicle, telling the history of the world from the Creation up to the sixteenth century, was widely read in the Protestant world. The first edition (1532 in German) was written, it seems, by Johann Carion in collaboration with Philipp Melanchthon. In 1558–60 Me‐lanchthon published a revised Latin version of the first part (up to AD 800). After a presentation of the contents, the article traces the influence of Carion's Chronicle in two works of Danish history from around 1570, one by Hans Svaning, the other by A.S. Vedel. It is argued that both authors project the universal perspective of the Chronicle onto national dimensions.     

The Nigerian oil palm industry

Some 10,000 years ago with the disappearance of the last Devensian ice, the climate of the British Isles began a slow but general warming. This continued until the middle of the fifteenth century when the Little Ice Age developed, ushering in several centuries of colder weather and violent fluctuations in weather associated with the expansion of the circumpolar vortex. Detailed information of the effect on Scotland's weather of this major climatic disturbance is rare but The Chronicle of Fife written in the seventeenth century by John Lamont does provide some remarkable insights.     

年谱散论

年谱起源问题 ,学术界有不同看法 ,但从实际出发 ,年谱起源于宋 ,这是有其历史条件的。年谱的出现为谱学发展开辟了一条新的途径 ,是史学发展的一个重要方面。年谱有自撰年谱 ,有谱主的朋友 ,门人弟子和子孙为之撰写的 ,这些年谱有溢美掩恶的弊病 ,但年谱在研究历史人物 ,研究历史上 ,其重要学术价值是明显的。年谱的写作有很高的要求。     

The Chronicle of Ireland: then and now

This is the first systematic analysis of the contents of the earliest monastic chronicle in the Latin west, the so‐called Chronicle of Ireland, which spans the years 431/2–911. It aims to establish the reasons for which the Chronicle was compiled, unravel the process of compilation, and challenge the generic classification of the Chronicle and other European chronicles of this kind as works of historiography. As an alternative, it is proposed that the Chronicle might have been compiled with an eschatological objective in mind. The present investigation is shown to have implications for our understanding of early medieval chronicling more generally.     

《四库全书总目》纠误两则

于中国历史与文化的研究赐惠颇多的《四库全书总目》亦有纰漏之处,我们发现该书在明代史料鉴别上出现了两处失误:将《姜氏秘史》与《革除编年》、《续藏书》与《熙朝名臣实录》各自看作两本不同的书,并给予迥异的评价。通过考证,《革除编年》即《姜氏秘史》,《熙朝名臣实录》即《续藏书》。《四库全书总目》一书两收两评的失误,让我们体会到当时政治对学术的干预及做学问之难。     

Syriac Sources for Seventh-Century History

Abstract

In view of the paucity of other sources for this century, so momentous in the history of the Near East, the Syriac materials take on a particular importance for both Byzantine and Islamic historians. While some of these sources, such as Michael's Chronicle, are well known to all, others lie as yet unexploited and ignored. The purpose of the present article is to collect together in convenient form details of all the main Syriac sources available for the seventh century, listing standard editions, translations and the more important discussions. Fuller information on authors and secondary literature can readily be found by reference to the following works: A. Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur (Bonn, 1922); I. Ortiz de Urbina, Patrologia Syriaca, 2nd ed. (Rome, 1965); C. Moss, Catalogue of Syriac Printed Books and Related Literature in the British Museum (London, 1962); S. P. Brock, ‘Syriac Studies 1960–1970: a classified bibliography’, Parole de l'Orient, IV (1973), 393–465. For the topographical history ot the area now covered by Iraq, J. M. Fiey's Assyrie chrétienne, 3 vols. (Beirut, 1965–8), is an invaluable compendium.     

《互校记》与《先秦诸子系年》之史源发覆

围绕着钱穆诸子学研究的代表作《先秦诸子系年》曾经引发过一场风波。风波缘起于钱穆弟子余英时的《〈十批判书〉与〈先秦诸子系年〉互校记》。回顾这一场风波,探讨余英时对郭沫若的批评,并反观《先秦诸子系年》的部分史源构成,对于端正当下学风,应当有所裨益。     

The historicity of Jordan Fantosme's chronicle

A reassessment of the literary and aesthetic value of his Chronicle, undertaken in the course of preparing a new edition of that work, shows Jordan Fantosme to be vastly different from the feeble versifier, unable even to dispense accurately the twelve syllables of an Alexandrine line, he has sometimes been taken for. He is a highly competent and innovating prosodist and a talented story-teller quite capable of inventing or manipulating episodes for stylistic reasons, as is shown by reference to three of the vivid historical vignettes for which the Chronicle is frequently and somewhat misleadingly praised. It is suggested that historians should show caution before accepting as factually true incidents detailed by Jordan Fantosme which are not supported from other sources.     

The Paganism of the Ancient Prussians.

Some contemporary fairytales have antecedents in pre-modern documents. That oral traditions lie behind much medieval literature is likely; this is no less true for the “Constance” tales (ATU 706 and ATU 706C). Through the historic–geographic method, Alexander H. Krappe determined that these plots originated in Eastern Europe. An ahistorical anecdote in The Chronicle of Morea is related to the earliest documented variants of the “Constance” group, two thirteenth-century romances, Mai und Beaflor and Le Roman de la Manekine, and two episodes in historical narratives by Matthew Paris and Jans der Enikel. In addition to the basic outline of events, the common themes of relationship between an imperial centre and outlying districts are shared. The birth of this plot type, under the influence of both western and eastern sources, may then be situated in the historical context of the Fourth Crusade's aftermath in formerly Byzantine territory.     

Angli and Saxones in Æthelweard's Chronicle

The late tenth‐century Chronicle ascribed to Ealdorman Æthelweard frequently uses the word Angli in contexts where other writers employ Saxones. This has generally been attributed to a supposed project to cultivate English unity by privileging ‘Anglian’ terminology. The present article challenges this interpretation by highlighting Æthelweard's use of ‘Saxon’ vocabulary at key points in the text. Æthelweard's use of the words Angli and Saxones is best explained by the fact that he was writing for a continental Saxon reader, and his Chronicle strengthens the case for doubting that there was any coherent scheme to promote Anglian vocabulary.     

Fashioning the Domestic Novel: Rewriting Narrative Patterns in Margaret Oliphant’s Phoebe,Junior and Dress

This article argues that in her 1876 novel Phoebe, Junior, Margaret Oliphant used fashion and dress as a means to rework and modernize the narrative patterns of the domestic novel. In a volume entitled Dress, written for Macmillan’s ‘Art at Home’ series in 1878, Oliphant developed a mode of dress that privileged the adaptation of prevailing forms and fashions to the needs of the individual body. Oliphant saw such an individualist approach to dress as a modern understanding of fashion that favoured change and the adaptation of prevailing styles over the imitation of dominant social and aesthetic forms. This article links Oliphant’s understanding of fashion in her Dress volume with the revisionary narrative process that she exemplified in her writing of Phoebe, Junior. Returning to her series of novels charting the Chronicles of Carlingford after a number of years, Oliphant marked in sartorial terms the social and aesthetic changes that had occurred since the publication of her penultimate Chronicle, Miss Marjoribanks, in 1866. Revising in Phoebe, Junior her earlier novel, the trope of female creativity that linked the pen with the needle, and the conventional narrative patterns of the domestic novel, Oliphant posits a model of artistry based around the image of scissors and a process of cutting in order to create.     

THE PUZZLE OF THE BANQUET HALL OF THE DUKES: THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF SWEDISH HISTORICAL RESEARCH STUDIED THROUGH LUDWIK FLECK'S “THOUGHT COLLECTIVE” AND “THOUGHT STYLE”

In 1312, the Swedish dukes Erik and Valdemar Magnusson married the Norwegian princesses Ingeborg Haakonsdaughter and Ingeborg Eriksdaughter at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway. In 1313, the two couples were reunited at a purpose-built banquet hall, believed to have been located in the medieval Swedish town of Lödöse. The main source of information concerning these events is the Swedish medieval rhyme chronicle The Chronicle of Duke Erik. However, a closer reading of the chronicle reveals that Lödöse is never mentioned in relation to the banquet hall. The article discusses the passing down of knowledge through generations of the same professional collective, in this case the professional collective of Swedish historians during the twentieth century, and demonstrates how the validity of once-established prescientific knowledge persists. To achieve its goal, the article applies Ludwik Fleck's terms “thought collective,” “thought style,” and “tenacity in science,” as well as Thomas Kuhn's concept of the “paradigm,” to a historiographical case study of how the proto-idea of the banquet hall being located at Lödöse has survived to become an established scientific fact. The location of the banquet hall concerns but a minor detail in the turbulent political situation of the Swedish kingdom during the first decades of the fourteenth century. However, the continuing reiteration of this minor detail is evidence of a larger phenomenon, namely how contemporary historical research is influenced by scholars in the prescientific past.     

《夷堅志》明教紀事史料價值辨釋

本文從歷史文獻學的角度,辨釋見於《佛祖統紀》之《夷堅志》明教紀事,認爲該紀事雖不見今本《夷堅志》,但大體應出自《夷堅志》作者洪邁之手筆;並就該紀事中有關明教的稱謂,教主之名諱,信徒之服色,該教對道教之依托,教徒的習俗等,一一加以辨釋,甄別其真僞,界定其與實際的距離。     

Æthelweardus redivivus

The tenth-century Chronicon Æthelweardi has usually been treated as nothing more than a Latin translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. This article reinterprets it by postulating the chronicle's originality and its author's careful consideration of its composition. Both the content and the form of the Chronicon Æthelweardi are here discussed from several points of view: the question of the coming of the Anglo-Saxons to Britain; the ideological and narrative consequences of the book division and the use of time; and Æthelweard's use of genealogy.     

The Particle γάρ: From Ancient Greek Sentence Connector to Blatant Line Filler? A Case-study on the Late Medieval Greek Chronicle of Morea

Ancient Greek is widely regarded as a language with an extraordinary number of so-called “Wackernagel P2 particles” such as γ?ρ, δ(?), and μ?ν, which serve a multitude of discourse functions. From the post-Classical period on, however, these small words gradually lose their importance in discourse and die out. This is reflected in the interest of scholars: while there are many studies on particles in older stages of Greek, not much research has been conducted on the particles in late medieval Greek (LMG; twelfth to fifteenth centuries). At this stage of the Greek language, the P2 particles are acknowledged to no longer be part of the living spoken language. Nonetheless, some of these small words still turn up in texts written in the vernacular. Since most LMG vernacular literature is composed in the metre of the 15-syllabic πολιτικ?? στ?χο? (vernacular prose being extremely scarce in this period), these occurrences are traditionally explained by appealing to metrical and/or stylistic reasons: the particles constitute archaizing relics merely inserted to give a classicizing flavour to the text, or are even used “metri causa”, simply to achieve the required number of syllables. In this note, I present a case-study on the “explanatory” particle γ?ρ (“for”) in the Chronicle of Morea, the best-known verse chronicle of the Greek Middle Ages. I show that γ?ρ is more than a blatant line filler. First, γ?ρ is not at all distributed at random, but consistently occupies P2 and thus obeys the so-called “Law of Wackernagel”, as the particles in Ancient Greek do. Moreover, γ?ρ can still exert a clear discourse function, albeit often a different one than in Ancient Greek.