From sacred history to historical memory and back: The Jewish past

This paper deals with the manufacture of collective memory in the Jewish experience. The first section describes the patterns provided by sacred history. Based on the case study of the Jewish communities of Jerba, Tunisia, the second section explores how local events are elaborated and conceptualized to conform to the paradigms of the religious tradition. In the third part, the life stories and autobiographies of North African Jews who have emigrated to France serve as a basis for investigating the relationship between individual memory and sacred history.     

Literacy, reading, and writing in the medieval West

Over the last quarter century, a plethora of studies on literacy, reading, and writing in medieval Europe have contributed significantly to our understanding of medieval society and culture. Nevertheless the sheer number of these studies and their authorship by scholars in several different disciplines have obscured the relationships between these studies, their common themes and their differences. This essay seeks to survey this literature and its background, to explicate its contributions to the field of medieval history, and to suggest avenues for future study. It also reveals how approaches developed outside medieval studies were borrowed and adapted by medievalists, and how the study of literacy, reading, and writing in the Middle Ages has, in turn, influenced the work of ancient and modern historians.     

Literacy,reading, and writing in the medieval West

Over the last quarter century, a plethora of studies on literacy, reading, and writing in medieval Europe have contributed significantly to our understanding of medieval society and culture. Nevertheless the sheer number of these studies and their authorship by scholars in several different disciplines have obscured the relationships between these studies, their common themes and their differences. This essay seeks to survey this literature and its background, to explicate its contributions to the field of medieval history, and to suggest avenues for future study. It also reveals how approaches developed outside medieval studies were borrowed and adapted by medievalists, and how the study of literacy, reading, and writing in the Middle Ages has, in turn, influenced the work of ancient and modern historians.     

Admirable and delectable gardens: uiridaria in early medieval Italy

This article will chart the usage of a rare term, uiridarium, in the documents of early medieval Italy in order to explore the history of decorative or pleasure gardens between c.600–c.1000. Property documents and placita, alongside a small body of archaeobotanical evidence, suggest a significant change in the planting of cultivated spaces in Italian cities during the early Middle Ages. A few charters refer to enclosed gardens called uiridaria attached to houses of the highest‐status people in Italy: dukes, kings, emperors, and bishops. We have a glimpse of how they were used and this article makes the case that decorative gardens played a role in the urban performance of the highest echelons of power.     

Nigeria's Igbo Jews: Jewish identity and practice in Abuja

The now widespread Igbo belief in a Jewish ancestry goes back to the 18th century. However, it was during and after the Nigerian civil war (1967–1970), in which at least one million Igbo died in the failed bid for Biafran independence, that Igbo identification with and as Jews concretized. Igbo saw themselves as sufferers of genocide, like the Jews of World War II in Europe, and as inhabitants of a beleaguered plot of land surrounded by hostile forces, similar to the state of Israel. The civil war and its disastrous consequences initiated a still ongoing period of intense questioning among the Igbo concerning their history, present predicaments, and future prospects. A small number of Igbo began to question why, if they were in fact Jews, they should continue practising Christianity. Their community now numbers between 2,000 and 5,000 people throughout Nigeria. There are three established Nigerian synagogues in Abuja, the federal capital, most of whose members are Igbo. The significance of Biafra, the centrality of the state of Israel, pride in Jewish ancestry and practice, and questions surrounding the range of Jewish skin colour, predominate in Igbo Jews' discussions of their identity. In contrast to the vast majority of Igbo who, if they maintain a sense of Jewish identity, do so while practising Christianity, Igbo Jews have severed themselves from the now dominant religion. Understanding themselves to be part of the global Jewish community of the diaspora and the state of Israel, the Igbo practising Judaism in Nigeria are eager for religious and political recognition from world Jewry and the Jewish state. However, self‐identifying Jewish groups without documented historical connections to more established Jewish communities face considerable challenges in gaining such recognition, particularly as genealogical Jews.     

The strange case of Apigliano: early ‘fossilization’ of medieval bone in southern Italy

The preservation of the osteological material at the medieval site of Apigliano, in southern Italy, is characterized by bones with highly crystalline, and altered, mineral phases. In addition to this, some material retains perfect histological preservation, with the exception of small microfissures present throughout this structure. Diagenetic porosity is indicative of collagen loss via chemical degradation. The levels of residual collagen in these bones are much lower than is predicted from simple models of gelatinization, and thus a more complex explanation for the state of preservation must be sought. Possible explanations for the rapid loss of bone collagen are considered, including a high–temperature event, the acceleration of hydrolysis due to liming and extreme wetting and drying cycles.     

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.     

New technologies applied to family history: a particular case of southern Europe in the eighteenth century

In this article, the author explains how the support of new technologies has helped historians to develop their research over the last few decades. The author, therefore, summarizes the application of both database and genealogical programs for the southern Europe family studies as a methodological tool. First, the author will establish the importance of the creation of databases using the File Maker program, after which they will explain the value of using genealogical programs such as Genopro and Heredis. The main aim of this article is to give detail about the use of these new technologies as applied to a particular study of southern Europe, specifically the Crown of Castile, during the late modern period. The use of these computer programs has helped to develop the field of social sciences and family history, in particular, social history, during the last decade.     

Raising the dead: war,memory and American national identity*

Abstract. The dead, particularly the war dead, play a central role in the development of nationalism, nowhere more so than in America. America's mid‐nineteenth century Civil War produced a recognisable and influential ‘cult of the dead’, comparable in its construction with similar developments in Europe following World War I. Focused on the figure of the fallen soldier, especially the volunteer soldier, this cult found physical expression in the development of national cemeteries devoted not just to the burial of those who fell in the war but to the idea of America as a nation, in the development of monuments to the dead that, again, reinforced the new national symbolism of the war era, and in the beginnings of Memorial Day, an American sacred ceremony with clear parallels with the later Armistice Day ceremonies in Europe. In all these developments, America preceded the European nations by several decades, making America a valuable case study for the role that the cult of the fallen soldier plays in national development more generally.     

Elite migrations in modern Italy: patterns of settlement,integration and identity negotiation

Abstract

Francesco Crispi has often appeared a paradoxical figure. In the earlier part of his life he was a revolutionary republican and a friend of Mazzini. After 1860 he accepted the monarchy, but remained very much a man of the Left and in many ways a quintessential democrat. Yet he ended his career as an authoritarian Prime Minister, a vigorous opponent of the Far Left, and an imperialist, who prorogued parliament and contemplated dispensing with representative government altogether. This article contends that Crispi's career has more coherence than is commonly suggested; it focuses on an important but hitherto neglected aspect of his thinking, namely the problem of how to achieve a sense of national consciousness in Italy through ‘political education’. The article traces the development of the idea of national political education throughout Crispi's career and argues that his two terms as Prime Minister in 1887–91 and 1893–6 can only be fully understood in the context of his long‐standing concern with this problem.     

From pear maiden to tower princes: towards a new history of medieval childhood

Twenty years ago, Philippe Arie`s presented a negative view of childhood, characterized by abuse and neglect. The thesis was persuasive, but evidence from England from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries contradicts its tenets. The neglected material suggests that medieval society placed a high value on its children's lives and safety, and condemned harshly those who ignored it. Neglect still existed, but honored as a cultural ideal was a caring commitment towards children. Sermons and medical treatises increasingly described childhood innocence and parental devotion. Narrative literature such asPearl used the image of a grieving parent to underline philosophical themes. The most public of medieval literature, the Corpus Christi plays, directly addressed the parents in the audience on their responsibilities to their children. Richard III's political career was irrevocably affected by his society's beliefs about children. The disappearance of his nephews from public view sparked rumors about his abuse and murder of them. Even mere rumor about an attack on innocents inspired rebellion during Richard's reign and literary condemnation by contemporary chronicles. By the sixteenth century, Richard had become the prime example of the monster shunned by society because of his disregard for its most basic ideal.     

Material culture as memory: combs and cremation in early medieval Britain

This paper argues that mortuary practices can be understood as 'techno-logies of remembrance'. The frequent discovery of combs in early medieval cremation burials can be explained by their mnemonic significance in the post-cremation rite. Combs (and other objects used to maintain the body's surface in life) served to articulate the reconstruction of the deceased's personhood in death through strategies of remembering and forgetting. This interpretation suggests new perspectives on the relationships between death, material culture and social memory in early medieval Europe.     

The flight of Carthach (Mochuda) from Rahan to Lismore: lineage and identity in early medieval Ireland

This paper explores the different ways in which the career of Carthach – Carthagus in Latin, also known as Mochuda or Mo‐Chutu – was remembered in both Latin and Irish accounts, in particular his expulsion from Rahan, where he was abbot for forty years, and his re‐establishing that community at Lismore, where he died c.637. It argues that the Life of Carthach legitimizes his foundation at Lismore, by celebrating its initial establishment at Rahan, and by connecting him through a chain of prophecies to Íte, Brendan, Comgall, and above all Colum Cille. In this Life, Patrick is never mentioned, quite unlike the Life of Declán, which claimed Ardmore as the original bishopric of the Déise region. Carthach's expulsion from Rahan, provoked by loss of political support from local princes, took place just as other abbots of the region were hesitating to adopt the Roman date of Easter, in the manner of much of southern Ireland. Carthach, part of a group sympathetic to Gregory the Great and Roman practice, was perceived by his admirers as being connected to a line of saints that helped define the particular identity of the church at Lismore.     

The care of women's health and beauty: an experience shared by medieval Jewish and Christian women

In this article I intend to elucidate the extent to which medieval western Jewish and Christian women shared customs, knowledge and practices regarding health care, a sphere which has been historically considered as part of women's daily domestic tasks. My study aims to identify female agency in medical care, as well as women's interaction across religious lines, by analysing elusive sources, such as medical literature on women's health care, and by collating the information they provide with data obtained from other textual and visual records. By searching specific evidence of the dialogues that must have occurred between Christian and Jewish women in transmitting their knowledge and experiences, I put forward the idea (developed from earlier work by Montserrat Cabré i Pairet) that medical texts with no clear attribution can be used as sources to reconstruct women's authoritative knowledge.