Gender and Sanctity in the Middle Ages

This review essay examines recent trends and developments in the study of medieval sanctity and gender, looking at the range of approaches which have been and are being taken by both historians and literary scholars to a wide variety of hagiographic texts. Two recent studies of medieval hagiography are reviewed, John Kitchen, Saints' Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender: Male and Female in Merovingian Hagiography and the collection Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters edited by Catherine Mooney. These works are representative of differing approaches to the issue of male authors' representations of female sanctity and concomitant issues of gender ideology.     

中世纪晚期和近代早期欧洲的寡妇改嫁

在中世纪晚期和近代早期的欧洲 ,寡妇较多 ,她们改嫁的比率较高 ,再嫁者守寡时间较短。历史事实表明 ,寡妇对于是否改嫁的选择 ,不仅仅是个人行为 ,而且受客观条件的制约。当时欧洲较为开放的文化和舆论氛围 ,寡妇自身的财产和处置财产的权利 ,为她们改嫁提供了可能。而传统时代的经济体制和现实生活的艰辛也要求她们重组家庭。     

《皇帝编年史》中的帝国与教会——对中世纪盛期方言历史书写的考察

《皇帝编年史》作为12世纪中后期巴伐利亚地区以中古德语撰写的首部方言编年史,具有重要的史学史和文学史价值,也是德意志地区12世纪文艺复兴时期的代表作品。12世纪中期兴盛起来的帝国理念贯穿了《皇帝编年史》的始终,形成了特殊的基督教道德与帝国意识形态教化的结合。《皇帝编年史》通过对教宗—皇帝之间合作的理想化描绘和对重大冲突的选择性忽略,以历史书写的方式建构出一种典范和谐的政教关系。这一调和论倾向既反映了该作品的具体历史语境,也体现了异于拉丁文历史作品的书写动机和书写意图。这部12世纪历史书写中的另类作品体现了强烈世俗化倾向,成为考察中世纪史学在12世纪文艺复兴时期演变的重要切入点。     

Worcestershire Peasant Buildings,Household Goods and Farming Equipment in the Later Middle Ages

THE BUILDINGS of the Blackfriars priory in Gloucester are in the course of restoration by the Ancient Monuments Branch of the Department of the Environment. This provides an unusual opportunity to examine in a dismantled state an important series of scissor-braced roofs, to compare many timbers and joints, and thereby to consider the finer points of the 13th-century carpenter's workmanship and engineering sense, and the ways in which he reacted to variations in the timber. The value of such a study is increased by the existence of contemporary records about the origin of the timber.     

The Graver Tank Litigation in the Supreme Court

The very generality of the patent statutes in American law places a heavy burden on the courts and the patent bar for the development of patent law and policy. It is particularly important that we examine periodically how well the courts have performed that function and how well the bar has supported that effort. This article will focus on an earlier era in patent law—in particular the process surrounding the second Graver Tank decision, in the 1949 Term of the Supreme Court—to see what lessons that experience may hold for present day. ¹     

The Merchant Adventurers of England: The Place of the Adventurers of York and the North in the Late Middle Ages

Abstract

The 1478 complaint of the northern adventurers over their alleged ill-treatment by the governor of the Londoners is the starting point for this investigation. The Merchant Adventurers of England was the popular name for the Merchants of the Nation of England trading to the Parties of Brabant, Flanders, Holland and Zeeland. Its religious fraternity was dedicated to St Thomas Becket. Its first grant of privileges was from Brabant in 1296, and its governor was made permanent and salaried in 1421. The wool merchants, including those of York, were prominent in the company until their transfer to Calais. With the decline of the wool trade and the rise of the English cloth industry, the dominant role passed to those merchants who exported cloth to the Low Countries. In York, the Mercers, the dry-goods merchants, benefited from this change, and became the leading mercantile guild of the city, incorporated in 1430. Northern adventurers suffered from considerable competition from those of London, who were numerically always able to control decisions made at the overseas meetings, and they in their turn were dominated by the Mercers of London. The complaints of 1478, nevertheless, greatly misrepresented the situation, and all branches of the company benefited from the increased privileges acquired for the English by the governor at this date in Antwerp and elsewhere. Trading conditions had again changed by the time the York Mercers were re-incorporated as the Society of Merchant Adventurers of the City of York in 1580.     

The Gender of the Church: Conflicts and Social Wholes on Ambrym

There is a strong connection between historical village migration and present day church belonging on Ambrym Island in North‐Central Vanuatu. Church adherence has become an expression of where one comes from and an idiom for the social wholes founded on such belonging. The churches also make manifest the conflict lines between such wholes. The dynamics of such social wholes is tightly related to historical transformations in gendered practice that the traditional focus on male leadership in the church has not sufficiently explored. Through different kinds of fundraising and Christian ceremonies women create new arenas for sharing and community, and women have come to dominate the church movement.