Communities and pacta in early medieval Italy: jurisdiction,regulatory authority and dispute avoidance

This paper considers in turn the pacta between the Carolingians and the Venetians, the Carolingians and the papacy, and between Benevento and Naples. It compares and contrasts these documents (or series of documents) which in effect deal with the relationships between entire communities in early medieval Italy. By putting the agreements relating to the papacy and Venice into their local political contexts, it argues that these agreements tended to aim at regulating the relationship between these communities and establishing stable, peaceful and politically acceptable relationships rather than at establishing political dominance of one over the other.     

Gender, memory and Jewish identity: reading a family history from medieval southern Italy

This article combines recent work on memory in the early and central Middle Ages to read the Scroll of Ahimaaz, a well-known eleventh-century Jewish text from southern Italy. It suggests that previous readings of the text have been shaped by the dominant tradition of intellectual history within Jewish studies, and that Ahimaaz's work has been overlooked for the information it contains about gender and family history. It concludes that whilst the primarily Jewish identity of Ahimaaz and his family is reinforced by the text, they were at the same time as much a product of the southern Italian environment in which they lived.     

Richard II's knights: chivalry and patronage

Research on late medieval England has tended in two directions. There has been a great renewal of interest in matters chivalric and in the conflicts between the chivalric ideal and reality as interpreted by chroniclers such as Froissart. Quite divorced from such inquiry, the study of pelf and place has proceeded apace. A study of Richard II's conferments of knighthood provides an interesting opportunity to unite these disparate strands of inquiry.Richard II, who ended his life as the simple knight Sir Richard of Bordeaux, had afar deeper sense of chivalric values than many historians have allowed. Chivalry was a vital component in the outlook of the man.Yet, Richard II found himself in this position as a result of intense factional rivalries in which he had been a leading if ultimately losing player. Records of the order of the Garter provide one source of material for this study, but the article also looks at Richard's conferments in more general terms. Clearly, Richard manipulated the chivalric ideal for practical ends, but a tarnished ideal is not a repudiated ideal. Richard II made use of knighthood within his system because he - and his clients —continued to operate within the chivalric code for which such knighthood stood.     

The early medieval secular: spectrum and strategies

This special issue seeks to fill a gap by taking the first steps towards locating the early Middle Ages in the broader history of the secular. While it has generally been assumed that a division between religion and secular was impossible to make in the early medieval period, taken together the articles in this collection show a variety of early medieval seculars, all arising from a general assumption that distinctions could, indeed had to, be made between what was secular and what was not. The introduction proposes that scholars should think in terms of a spectrum of secularity; key to determining what sits within this spectrum must be the identification of secularizing strategies, i.e. attempts to draw a distinction between religious and secular in a particular context. Such an approach offers the possibility of a history of the secular that does not privilege one time or place.     

The vertikal: power and authority in Russia

Power and authority in Russia are traditionally seen to reside with the president. Such an understanding was emphasized during the eight years of Vladimir Putin's presidency, from 2000 to 2008, as he sought to centralize power, strengthen the state and establish a strong vertical of power to implement policy. This article examines the nature of this power and authority in the light of the tandem, the ruling arrangement between current President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin. While acknowledging the central importance of Vladimir Putin in Russian political life, the article argues that emphasis on his role draws too much attention away from the leadership team that he has shaped with Medvedev. This team takes shape in formal institutional structures such as the Security Council, which has become an increasingly important group as a reservoir of experience and authority. It also takes shape in an informal network that stretches across state and business boundaries. Although there are some tensions in the network, this team ensures broad policy continuity. Furthermore, the article questions Putin's success in establishing a vertical of power, and the authority of both President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin. The analysis explores evidence that suggests that, despite the appointment of loyal personnel in this vertical of power, presidential instructions, orders and personnel commands often remain incompletely and tardily carried out or even unfulfilled. In essence, therefore, although many have suggested a split within the leadership, particularly between Medvedev and Putin, the article suggests that the more important splits are horizontal ones between different layers of authority. Thus, a process of direct control is necessary, whereby the most senior officials are obliged personally to oversee the implementation of their instructions. The article concludes by suggesting a reconsideration of our terms of reference for Russian politics, replacing the tandem with the team, and introducing ‘manual control’.     

Evolution and politics: The naturalistic,ethical and spiritual bases of evolutionary arguments

Naturalistic evolution, refined and propagated by Darwin and explored in its social implications by Spencer, proved to be unacceptable to many theorists as a criterion of ethical and political conduct. It is contended that a second variation of evolutionary theory self‐consciously severed the connection between nature and ethics, while a third attempted to synthesise these antithetical theories. Each conception of evolution was capable of generating a variety of political conclusions, none of which were logically necessary. It was the tendency in the third, however, to personify the state and endow it with moral agency, which provided the justification for greater state intervention in the promotion of social and educational reforms.     

The Venerable Bede and Gregory the Great: exegetical connections, spiritual departures

This article revisits the familiar comparison between the thought and writings of Bede and Gregory the Great. Bede was keen to foreground his debt to Gregory and past assessments have illuminated aspects of it, but this investigation offers a more searching analysis of the interface between biblical exegesis and spiritual teaching, a subject that highlights Bede's frequent reliance on Gregory as well as his calculated departures from him. Accordingly, the article first examines the different ways Bede in his commentaries could deploy Gregory's writings as a source, then discusses the more pragmatic, less mystical thrust of Bede's thought that sets him apart from Gregory.     

The Treaty of Paris, 1783: A Historiographical Challenge

‘“Moral Purpose is the Important Thing”: David E. LiIienthal, Iran, and the Meaning of Development in the US, 1956–63,’ examines the complex history of postwar development policy and thought. Instead of focusing exclusively on economic growth, technological innovation, and poIitics in US modernization efforts, it addresses the role of private interests and the question of intentionality, meaning, and ethics. David Lilienthal's work in Khuzestan, Iran illustrates the contested nature of postwar development as multiple interests – whether government affiliates, academic think tanks, or private industry – competed for the right to determine America's approach. As an alternative to the discourse of modernization theory in the 1950s, Lilienthal privileged moral idealism without ignoring the empirical realities in the Khuzestm project. Lilienthal's ultimate failure illuminates the many sides of postwar development and deepens our understanding of the pressures before modernization theory as it became the dominant paradigm the cold war.     

The world of medieval learning

Karl Kautsky's writings on the French Revolution were crucial to the construction not only of the Marxist interpretation of the Revolution, which was perhaps the most important reference point for the historiography of that event during the 20th century, but even of Marxism itself as a comprehensive, systematic theory partly based on historical studies. However, these writings have been neglected and practically forgotten for decades, mainly because of the general rejection of Kautsky's theories after the October Revolution of 1917, in Marxist as well as non-Marxist circles.

Studying these writings, spanning roughly four decades from 1889 till 1930, we may see dynamic interrelations between historical study, theory construction and contemporary political intervention. Kautsky's approach to such key Marxist concepts as class and state prove to be much more subtle and nuanced than what has commonly been assumed, incorporating the results of historical study rather than pure social theory. Yet, his account does contain important internal tensions and contradictions between agency and objective conditions and between the historical material and the normative and political perspective of the historiographer. Several of these internal tensions were carried on into mainstream Marxist accounts of the Revolution, with important historiographical as well as political consequences.     

Coercion,vengeance, feud and accommodation: homicide in medieval Iceland

Quantitative methods were employed to situate medieval Icelandic homicide in comparative context. Estimates of homicide rates were derived from samtíðarsögur, and found comparable with European rural medieval homicide estimates: late twelfth‐century Iceland was probably not as violent as a qualitative reading of the sagas might suggest. There were significant differences in patterns of vengeance between íslendingasögur and samtíðarsögur. In íslendingasögur, farmers committing homicide faced flight, outlawry or death; chieftains who initiated homicide might escape justice, although most became embroiled in feud. In samtíðarsögur, lethal vengeance following ordinary homicide was less common, and not a source of feud. These results generate a critique of previous notions of reciprocity in Icelandic vengeance, and support more recent interpretations of early medieval Icelandic society as a highly unequal, divided society. Both sources suggest that, although vengeance may have been legitimated in the language of ‘repayment’, vengeance is best understood within a cross‐cultural context as competitive behaviour designed to achieve superiority rather than parity.