Some Notes on the History of the Cardinals’ Rings

Missionary activity in the eighth century was carried out in the eastern frontier zone of the Frankish kingdom—Frisia, Hessen, Franconia, Thuringia, Bavaria. The ecclesiastical centres in Hessen, St Boniface's base area, tended to be elevated sites in strategic positions, already enclosed and in the gift of the Frankish ruling house. The re-use of fortified sites for monastic foundations echoes, and may derive from, similar use in Britain and Ireland of Roman military sites and prehistoric hill-forts. The west end of churches directly associated with St Boniface received special treatment, in one case at least as a result of influence from St Peter's, Rome.

The substance of this paper was delivered to the Institute at its meeting on 15 October 1980.     

Some Remarks on a Tenth-Century Paraphrase of the “Epitome de Caesaribus”1

This article analyses several passages from a tenth-century paraphrase of the Epitome de Caesaribus, an anonymous and epitomized collection of imperial lives originally produced around the year 400. The analysis shows that among the many textual changes of linguistic, stylistic and ideological nature, errors did also occur during the rewriting process. The author explores some possible approaches to these passages.     

Thirty years of anastelosis works on the Athenian Acropolis, 1975–2005

Abstract

The year 2005 saw the completion of thirty years of work on the new anastelosis of the monuments of the Athenian Acropolis. The works began solely as a means of rescuing the Acropolis monuments from the urgent problems they faced in the 1970s, especially fracturing and disintegration resulting from the rusting of the iron reinforcing elements that had been embedded in the monuments during earlier restorations. In the course of these works, however, various situations emerged, most of them previously unforeseen, which led to more extensive restoration interventions on the monuments. The purpose of these has been to correct the errors made during the earlier interventions, to improve the general state of preservation of the monuments and to display the inherent values and quality of the monuments in all their richness. To a certain degree, these interventions alter the conventional image of the Acropolis in a way that is significant but not dramatic. The works already completed, the current interventions on the monuments and the future programme are explained, along with the distinctive qualities of the interventions and the situations that emerged during their execution. Finally, the changing image of the Acropolis landscape is discussed.     

Some Results of the new Discussion about a “Unified” Geography

The president of the Soviet Geographical Society reviews the controversy that surrounded publication of V. A. Anuchin's book on theoretical problems in geography in 1960. Kalesnik finds that the supporters of the idea of a “unified” geography have given ground on a number of points, but are adamant on others. The key issues continue to revolve around the inclusion of society in the concept of the geographic environment, the “mixing” of natural and social laws, and the integration of the geographic sciences into a single science.     

Some Observations upon the “Danse Macabre,” or Dance of Death

(1) Some of the dating hitherto accepted for Raglan Castle is inaccurate. The earliest work was erected between 1432 and 1445, but the majority of the present structure, including the keep, was built between 1461 and 1469.

(2) The keep at Raglan was not built to protect the owner from attack by members of his own retinue as claimed by W. Douglas Simpson, A. J. Taylor and others, but for political reasons associated with the accession of Edward IV.

(3) The view that ‘bastard feudalism’ was responsible for the development of tower-houses and keeps in late medieval England is erroneous. Furthermore, it is suggested that most keeps built in the fifteenth century were erected in response to a particular political situation confined to the second half of the century.

Considerable use is made of historical as well as architectural material, for the integration of these two disciplines leads to conclusions quite different from those of previous writers who have tended to limit their field to the study of the structural evidence only.     

On the Content of the Concept “Geographical Environment” and the Influence of the Environment on Society

The author traces the evolution of the environmentalist concept through Marxist philosophy and analyzes the influence on the geographical environment on society. He adduces a number of examples to demonstrate the significance of the environmental factor in various historical contexts. For another discussion on the same subject, the reader is referred to Ian M. Matley, “The Marxist approach to the geographical environment,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 56, No. I, March 1966, pp. 97–111.     

Some Features of the language of the Saddharmapundarīkasūtra

Indo-Iranian Journal -