On fifteenth-century Cryptochristianity: A Letter to George Amoiroutzes from Michael Apostolis

Abstract

In this note I wish to draw attention to some hitherto unexploited evidence concerning fifteenth-eentury Cryptochristianity in a letter addressed to George Amoiroutzes by his friend and relative Michael Apostolis, the platonist and unionist intellectual and copyist.     

The invisible man: body and ritual in a fifteenth-century noble household

Ritual and gesture were central to medieval political cultures, yet few documents survive which attest to daily comportment in non-royal elite households. This article examines the late fifteenth-century ‘Harleian Ordinances’ (from British Library Harl. MS 6815), which describe in rare detail the ceremonies and servants' gestures used in an unnamed earl's house. It focuses on the para-liturgical elements of the household ceremony (notably the use of ritual kisses), argues that the Burgundian court provided direct inspiration for the ordinance, and suggests a connection to Richard, earl of Warwick (‘the Kingmaker’). More broadly, it explores aspects of the relationship between lord and noble servant in the later fifteenth century and contends that nobility – an essentially invisible quality – was in part conjured up through the gestures and deportment of a nobleman's servants. In their attempts to portray power and prestige, noblemen such as the invisible earl of this ordinance established secular household rites which required that their bodies be attended to with an almost religious reverence.     

The case of the missing girls: sex ratios in fifteenth-century Tuscany

This article addresses the apparent shortage of women in the 1427 Florentine Catasto, perhaps the most complete premodern European demographic source. It argues that the shortage exists because it was only when they entered their first marriage that Tuscan women were viewed as complete, gendered beings by their families, government officials, and society. Before marriage, a woman’s place within the household, her gender, and even her existence were liminal, at least in Tuscan documents. The result is that the ratio of men to women is more balanced for that portion of the population past the age of marriage for women. Shifting the analysis from infants and men, where it has traditionally lain, to young adult women explains the gender imbalance in the documentation and provides a deeper understanding of the ways that gender, adulthood, and identity intersected in premodern Europe.     

Laurent de premierfait: the career of a humanist in early fifteenth-century Paris

The following article offers new information about Laurent de Premierfait, author of the first French translations of works by Boccaccio. The discussion centers around the problems that Laurent encountered as he pursued a literary career while supporting himself as a clerk, secretary, and notary in Paris during the reign of Charles VI.     

Laurent de premierfait: the career of a humanist in early fifteenth-century Paris

The following article offers new information about Laurent de Premierfait, author of the first French translations of works by Boccaccio. The discussion centers around the problems that Laurent encountered as he pursued a literary career while supporting himself as a clerk, secretary, and notary in Paris during the reign of Charles VI.     

《诗源辩体》稿本的学术价值

<诗源辩体>是明代许学夷一生精心结撰的诗学专著.此书原稿分诗选和诗论两个部分.诗选部分因卷次较多,作者没有财力付诸剞劂,也许早已散佚,刻印问世的只是诗论部分.其较早的版本有万历四十一年(1613)作者初刻十六卷本①和崇祯十五年(1642)陈所学所刻作者修订的三十八卷本②.1922年,恽毓龄据陈所学三十八卷本用仿宋聚珍字排印重刊于上海.     

High justice in fifteenth-century Normandy: the prosecution of Sandrin Bourel

By the fifteenth century the seigneurial exercise of high justice had become less common because of the growth of royal jurisdiction. The ancient and wealthy Benedictine nunnery of Montivilliers retained the right to high justice only during the octave of the Holy Cross. In 1493 Sandrin Bourel, a young man who had twice before been imprisoned for theft, was apprehended in the act of stealing from a bourgeois of Montivilliers. As the crime occurred during the octave of the Holy Cross the abbey claimed jurisdiction. A special tribunal was created to prosecute him. After having been tortured, Bourel was found guilty and hanged. The documents generated by this event provide the basis for a case study of the application of criminal procedure at the close of the middle ages. The condemned man's confession, rich in biographical detail, gives us a profile of a petty thief and vagabond on the margin of society. The financial account of the abbey's receiver-general documents in detail the total cost of the prosecution of a single medieval criminal.     

High justice in fifteenth-century Normandy: the prosecution of Sandrin Bourel

By the fifteenth century the seigneurial exercise of high justice had become less common because of the growth of royal jurisdiction. The ancient and wealthy Benedictine nunnery of Montivilliers retained the right to high justice only during the octave of the Holy Cross. In 1493 Sandrin Bourel, a young man who had twice before been imprisoned for theft, was apprehended in the act of stealing from a bourgeois of Montivilliers. As the crime occurred during the octave of the Holy Cross the abbey claimed jurisdiction. A special tribunal was created to prosecute him. After having been tortured, Bourel was found guilty and hanged. The documents generated by this event provide the basis for a case study of the application of criminal procedure at the close of the middle ages. The condemned man's confession, rich in biographical detail, gives us a profile of a petty thief and vagabond on the margin of society. The financial account of the abbey's receiver-general documents in detail the total cost of the prosecution of a single medieval criminal.     

Embargoing ‘heretics' in fifteenth-century Central Europe: the case of Hussite Bohemia

ABSTRACT

This article deals with the embargo imposed by the papacy and the Catholic lay powers on all trade and commerce with the Czech Hussites. It posits that this anti-Hussite embargo was simultaneously a means of economic warfare and an expression of the longer tradition of the papal embargo. Based on this twofold understanding, a set of sources is interrogated both from the perspectives of economic and cultural history. To this end a research methodology is employed that differentiates between the instrumental and symbolic dimensions of agency. This allows for a new, holistic view of the anti-Hussite embargo, both as an instrumental means of warfare and as a communicative process. The article thus contributes to political, economic and cultural history as much as to the history of everyday life in fifteenth-century Central Europe. Above all, however, it offers a transferable research methodology for the study of medieval embargoes in general.     

Cold and wet: The case for circumpolar maritime archaeology

William Fitzhugh, ed. Prehistoric Maritime Adaptations of the Circumpolar Zone. The Hague and Paris: Mouton Publishers, 1975. Distributed in North America by Aldine Publishing Company, x + 405 pp. Tables, figures, maps, references, and indices. $29.50.     

秦城《红罗记》传奇稿本的发现

庄一拂<古典戏曲存目汇考>、周妙中<江南访曲录要>、李修生<古本戏曲剧目提要>等皆将秦子陵<如意珠>传奇著录为明末清初作品,认为清代叶怀庭<纳书楹曲谱>所收、姚燮<今乐考证>所著录的无名氏<如意珠>传奇即秦子陵的<如意珠>传奇.     

Gathering and using information at the fifteenth-century Church councils: the example of crusade

ABSTRACT

The discussion of crusade at the councils of Constance (1414–18) and Basel (1431–49) is used to test the hypothesis that in the fifteenth century increasing importance was attached to the gathering of information. At Constance the chief crusading topic was the past and future of the Baltic crusade; at Basel attention was given to the negotiation of peace with the Hussites and union with the Orthodox Greeks. The paper considers the origin and character of the information that reached the councils; how it was used in the discourse at Constance and Basel; and it then assesses the effect of information on collective decision-making at the councils. While it is only possible to see information exerting an impact in the case of peace with the Hussites, the overall value placed on it by the conciliar delegates was high, corroborating recent arguments that the fifteenth century was an ‘information age’.