Some Notes on the History of the Cardinals’ Rings

Missionary activity in the eighth century was carried out in the eastern frontier zone of the Frankish kingdom—Frisia, Hessen, Franconia, Thuringia, Bavaria. The ecclesiastical centres in Hessen, St Boniface's base area, tended to be elevated sites in strategic positions, already enclosed and in the gift of the Frankish ruling house. The re-use of fortified sites for monastic foundations echoes, and may derive from, similar use in Britain and Ireland of Roman military sites and prehistoric hill-forts. The west end of churches directly associated with St Boniface received special treatment, in one case at least as a result of influence from St Peter's, Rome.

The substance of this paper was delivered to the Institute at its meeting on 15 October 1980.     

Pachymeres on the ‘Amourioi’ of Kastamonu

Abstract

In a recent article Professor Cl. Cahen pointed out various problems resulting from the history of the region of Kastamonu, which on account of its remoteness from the political centres attracted little attention from the chroniclers. One of the problems is the incompatibility of the narratives of the oriental sources and the writings of the Byzantine historian George Pachymeres with respect to some events of the reign of the Seljuk Sultan Masud II: Pachymeres while referring to the history of Kastamonu produces a certain Ali Amourios, his brother Nasir ed-din <inline-graphic href="splitsection4_in1.tif"/>—a person of lesser importance—and their father, whom he also names Amourios. The same Amourios and his sons are also mentioned by Nikephoros Gregoras, who, however, passes over in silence the sons' names.     

Solomon’s Table Talk: Martin Luther on the Authorship of Ecclesiastes

ABSTRACT

Martin Luther’s comments in a section of Table Talk continue to be used as evidence that he denied the Solomonic authorship of Ecclesiastes. A comparison of the passage with Luther’s “Preface” to Jesus Sirach demonstrates that the majority of Luther’s comments in that section of Table Talk pertain to Sirach. However, the passage also has clear parallels in Luther’s “Preface to Solomon’s ‘The Preacher,’” suggesting that it is a mixture of Luther’s comments on Ecclesiastes and Sirach. The portions of Table Talk which do pertain to Ecclesiastes have commonly been misinterpreted. Luther does not deny that Solomon was the author of Ecclesiastes; he denies that Solomon was the scribe. He thought that Ecclesiastes was written down by students on the basis of the oral teachings of their master, much like his own Table Talk.     

Qajar Ambitions in the Great Game: Notes on the Embassy of ‘Abbas Qoli Khan to the Amir of Bokhara, 1844

Literature on the Great Game presents a strong dichotomy between European aggressors and Oriental victims. However, Qajar Iran possessed its own forgotten imperial project in Central Asia, explored here through an 1844 travelogue published anonymously in Iran as Safarnameh-ye Bokhara. This text, whose author is identified here as Qajar statesman ‘Abbas Qoli Khan, details a diplomatic exchange with the amir of Bokhara over the life and death of Rev. Joseph Wolff and the infamous disappearance of British agents Stoddart and Conolly. Notably, ‘Abbas Qoli Khan pressed Qajar claims to Marv to the amir, utilizing a discourse of historical and cultural unity between Iran and Greater Khorasan, in contrast to that of difference and hierarchy common in Anglo-Russian imperial projects.     

‘Where we need to go’: comments on ‘decennial reflections on A Geography of Heritage’

This article is a comment on: Tubridge et al., 2012. Decennial reflections on a ‘geography of heritage’ (2000). International Journal of Heritage Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2012.695038     

The question of ‘the political’ in critical geopolitics: Querying the ‘child soldier’ in the ‘war on terror’

After two decades of scholarship on ‘critical geopolitics’, the question of whether it is largely a discursive critique of prevailing knowledge production and geopolitical texts or critique with an implicit, normative politics of its own remains open. These positions are not incommensurate, and much scholarship on critical geopolitics does both. This paper analyzes critical geopoliticians' concern with this question in the present historical moment and probes the possibility of a post-foundational ethic as the basis for ‘the political’ in critical geopolitics and beyond. Empirically, this paper explores these theoretical tensions within ‘critical geopolitics’ by tracing the disparate fates of two young men, both child soldiers at the time of their capture. ‘Child soldier’ is an unstable category subject to geopolitical valence and stigma during the ‘war on terror’. The deployment of extra-legal tactics and spaces of violence, such as those faced by detainees at Guantanamo Bay, point to the rise of biopolitics combined with geopolitics, illustrating the intersection of sovereignty and governmentality as important political fodder for critical geopolitics two decades after its inception. The stories of Canadian Omar Khadr, one of the youngest prisoners at Guantanamo and the only citizen of a Western state still held there, and Ismael Beah, a rehabilitated soldier who fought as a boy from Sierra Leone, illustrate too how geographical imagination strongly shapes access to provisions of international law and the victimized status of ‘child soldier’ in particular.     

Great Britain's ‘Last Battle’ in the Middle East: Notes on Cabinet Planning during the Suez Crisis of 1956

The South China Sea has throughout history witnessed the primary economies of this littoral region exercising influence over smaller, outlying economies by binding the latter into co-dependent relationships, witnessed in such areas as the currency systems adopted by the smaller economies, which align them to the larger primary economies in the region, and in the ways in which products traded from one economy to another develop from being directionally exclusive and beneficial but non-crucial, to one where the economies are mutually dependant. This may be witnessed between China and the Malay region during the tenth to the fourteenth centuries. The period began with the Malay region's polities dispatching to China high-value commodities from the region and the Indian Ocean littoral, and receiving in return Chinese products that were largely re-exported to markets further afield. Within four centuries, the relationship became one comprising primarily of low-value products, characterised by a mutually dependent relationship in the provision of low-value commodities that were regularly consumed, and in high quantities. More importantly, a substantial degree of vertical economic integration between the two economies, with the Malay region supplying China with primary products, and China providing the former with manufactured goods, developed.     

On the edge: ‘Community’ and ‘sustainability’ on the Isle of Harris,Outer Hebrides

Although scholars have recently begun to question the manner in which nationalist temporal narratives are constructed, a similar analysis of nationalist spatial narratives has yet to occur. Instead, scholarship often remains trapped within the territorial boundaries of the nation‐state; the only ontologically given container of nationalism. In order to advance theoretical understanding of nationalism, however, it is imperative that geographers break this sedentary spell, by beginning to map the interstitial historical‐geographies of nation‐building in the context of globalisation. Through an analysis of the transnational development of Irish nationalism in the second half of the 19th century in particular, this paper will illuminate the important role played by the diaspora and other transnational actors in the development of Irish nationalism in Ireland.