心理-日常生活史研究的杰作——评《与巫为邻：欧洲巫术的社会和文化语境》

牛津万圣学院资深学者罗宾·布里吉斯(Robin Briggs)长期致力于欧洲近代早期史研究,是当今研究欧洲近代早期宗教、流行文化和巫术问题的知名专家。《与巫为邻》汇其多年心血,以其对欧洲近代早期社会,尤其是对巫术问题和民众心理、日常生活状态的深刻阐释,自1996年问世伊始即成为该领域典范之作。第二版更在前版基础上进行了精心修改,成为研究欧洲近代早期史者不可规避的重要著作。具体说来,该书主要特点如下:首先,视域广阔、内容丰富、主题突出。该书向我们展现了一幅极广阔的巫术图景而非仅聚焦于对近代早期欧洲假想的巫师的迫害。该书从…     

宋代的私有田宅纠纷——以亲邻法为中心

宋代社会的私有田宅交易中,围绕亲邻法出现的田宅纠纷在宋代的经济矛盾中占有较大的比重,透过这个窗口,我们可以观察到宋代社会中在经济利益作用下的人际关系变化.     

"Good Fences Make Good Neighbours": History and Significance of an Ambiguous Proverb

This essay focuses on the narrative traditions of the Nama-speaking peoples in Namibia, South Africa. It describes tales in which children are the main protagonists and discusses the character of African tales of magic. It shows that in these tales the “laws” of tale-telling that are known from studies of Western tales by Axel Olrik and Max Lüthi, for example, are stronger than a desire to depict reality. The African tales about children are compared with Western ones about children, particularly in relation to the ATU 327 complex. The paper suggests that both these European tales and African tales of magic should be treated as a special subgenre.     

The Non-Jurors and their History

This paper is concerned to establish and elucidate the intellectual distinctiveness of the Anglican Non-Jurors of the late Stuart and early Hanoverian period. It places the Non-Jurors in the context of the early Counter-Enlightenment and finds their distinctiveness within it, as a body, in the extent and intensity of their commitment to rationalist, critical historical study as a theological method, reflecting a primitivist, or more precisely, restorationist religious stance. The writings of Charles Leslie and Jeremy Collier are those chiefly used in exemplification. The concluding part of the study enquires into the sources of the Non-Jurors' confidence in the value of historical argument in controversy. It points particularly to the Non-Jurors' use of the practices of contemporary historiography, which regulated the application of rationalism by requiring concurrent application of doctrinal and moral standards.     

The William Bruntons and their Buddle

Abstract

The Brunton buddle was a common lead ore separation device in the Northern Dales, supposedly invented by William Brunton at Allendale in Northumberland in 1847. This article outlines the biographies of the two William Bruntons and corrects the supposition about the place and date of invention of the buddle. The buddle is described using William Brunton's words and its method of working outlined. Reference is made to some results of recent calculations which illuminate the range of operation of the buddle. The whole is stimulated by Durham County Council's restoration programme for the Brunton buddle discovered at the Killhope Lead Mining Centre in Upper Weardale in Co Durham.     

The population ecology of hunter-gatherers and their prey

In this paper we combine foraging theory and population biology models to simulate dynamic relationships between hunter-gatherers and their prey resources. Hunter-gatherer population growth responds to the net marginal rate of foraging; prey population growth responds logistically to exploitation. Thus conceived, the relationship between forager and prey biomass is time-dependent and nonlinear. It changes from stable equilibrium to damped and stable cycles with modest adjustments of input parameters. And, it produces the largest sustainable human population at intermediate levels of individual work effort. At equilibrium the forager takes all prey types with a pursuit and handling rate greater than or equal to its maintenance foraging rate. The structural properties of the model compel us to reject standard anthropological interpretations of the carrying capacity concept; they provide new insights on old issues such as original affluence and intensification. Analysis of the interaction of human population, diet selection, and resource depletion requires microecological models in part because the relevant processes occur on time scales largely invisible to both ethnography and archaeology.