The voices of female pilgrims in medieval wills. The Jacobean devotion in Apulia (Italy)

The main topic of this study is to contribute to the study of female sacred mobility in the Middle Ages by proposing a new approach for the analysis of historical sources (wills and bequests), combining quantitative and qualitative methodology. We have set three aims: (1) Reinforcing the female presence within historical documents through their empirical analysis; (2) Reflecting upon female participation in the public sphere; (3) Investigating women’s agency in religious terms. Concerning the geographical context of the research, the historical sources have been retrieved from the Historical Archives of the Italian Region of Apulia (Italy); where we have studied the above mentioned topics in relation to the devotion to St. James (Spain). The first part of the article introduces female mobility to the city of Santiago de Compostela; then, it moves to the forms of devotion to the Apostle St. James the Greater and female pilgrims in Apulia. The present empirical study has the differential to propose a transversal interpretation of the selected historical texts according to the following criteria: (1) Devotion to the Apostle St. James the Greater (2) Female devotion. As well as reinforcing the use of these historical documents to investigate female social behaviour, the research contributes to the study of the female role within the geography of pilgrimage in the following terms: sacred mobility; territorial history and experiential and devotional value.     

Public policies and cluster life cycles: insights from the Basque Country experience

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to the study of the role of public policies in the origins and evolution of clusters. Building on the existing literature, we set up a taxonomy of nine public policies that may have an impact on the emergence and evolution of clusters. Based on in-depth case studies of six clusters of the Basque Country, particularly representative of the industrial history of the region, we analyse the relevance of the different types of policies both in the emergence and evolution of clusters over time. In agreement with cluster literature, the paper concludes that public policies seem to have played only an indirect role across clusters and over their life cycles. Moreover, it points to the necessity of taking history and context into account, as most of the important policy measures highlighted by cluster literature today do not fit well with the previous policy and economic context. Finally, it also concludes that for cluster policies to be effective, the stages of the life cycle should be taken into consideration.     

Las estrategias del juego áulico en las comedias mitológicas de Calderón de la Barca

This article studies the particular case of the mythological plays of Calderón that form a cohesive and recognizable set of works in certain circumstances. This kind of comedy is modulated by specific issues of reception, under the dominant global principle of playfulness, through the mechanisms of admiratio, and different strategies of courtly game that can be summarized in four basic areas: conventional comicity, the writing of a theater full of sensorismo, the importance of the intellect games, and finally, the strategies to point identity marks of a particular social group.     

Topoiesis del espacio textual

ABSTRACT

The concept of topoiesis of textual space addresses an analysis of the spatial elements that tend to provide a meaning to the literary text. Based on textual semiotics where there is an organized relational system of meanings, in this article we propose that it is possible to determine the function of space as a meaning issue from three different literary text instances (event or motive; character; and object). This distinction will permit a deeper interpretation of the sense of space in the literary text.     

Using lithic assemblage formation to approach Middle Palaeolithic settlement dynamics: El Salt Stratigraphic Unit X (Alicante,Spain)

The superposition of anthropogenic remains usually results in archaeological palimpsests, hindering an accurate characterization of the behavior underlying such remains. Aimed at facing this methodological constraint in the study of Palaeolithic contexts, we present a contextual approach to Neanderthal settlement dynamics based on an understanding of lithic assemblage formation processes. We focused on a set of lithic artifacts from the Middle Palaeolithic site of El Salt. With the goal of isolating temporally constrained units of behavioral analysis, we analyzed the spatial distribution of lithic, faunal and combustion remains. Then, the lithic records from each of the resulting units were analyzed from a genetic and technical perspective. This goal was achieved by identifying lithic Raw Material Units (RMU) through observations on reduction processes, refits and their spatial distribution. Our results suggest that El Salt SU X lithic remains represent several diachronic human occupation episodes and different site functions. This study illustrates the benefit of investigating lithic assemblage formation processes to alleviate the palimpsest problem in Palaeolithic contexts.     

How does transportation shape intrametropolitan growth? An answer from the Regional Express Rail

This paper analyzes the influence of transportation infrastructure, and in particular of the Regional Express Rail (RER), on employment and population growth in the Paris metropolitan area between 1968 and 2010. In order to make proper causal inference, we rely on historical instruments and control for all other transportation modes that could be complement or substitute to the RER. Our results show that proximity to an RER station increases employment and population density and, in particular, employment and population growth. The latter effects are higher in municipalities located near RER stations and close to employment (sub)centers. They are also found to be particularly strong for jobs in the service sector, for factory workers, and for highly educated population. We find no impact of the RER expansion on employment growth during the first part of the period, while the effect on population growth appears earlier but declines over time.     

Religious Transformations in the Middle Ages: Towards a New Archaeological Agenda

UNDERSTANDING RELIGIOUS CHANGE between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Reformation forms one of the cornerstones of medieval archaeology, but has been riven by period, denominational, and geographical divisions. This paper lays the groundwork for a fundamental rethink of archaeological approaches to medieval religions, by adopting an holistic framework that places Christian, pagan, Islamic and Jewish case studies of religious transformation in a long-term, cross-cultural perspective. Focused around the analytical themes of ‘hybridity and resilience’ and ‘tempo and trajectories’, our approach shifts attention away from the singularities of national narratives of religious conversion, towards a deeper understanding of how religious beliefs, practices and identity were renegotiated by medieval people in their daily lives.     

Bayle’s political doctrine: a proposal to articulate tolerance and sovereignty

ABSTRACT

For most interpreters of the philosopher from Rotterdam, his political doctrine is solely a consequence of his religious and moral doctrines, and so an image of Bayle as a political philosopher is not usually presented. To my mind, however, only by analyzing his political doctrine can the extent of his religious proposal be understood. In this article, I intend to show that both the Baylean criticism of popular sovereignty and his rejection of the right of resistance are analyses that are indissociable from the Baylean doctrine of tolerance. The protection of individual freedom of conscience and the defense of a multi-confessional state model, tolerant regarding religious minorities, can only be articulated as historical reality if they rest on the political doctrine of indivisible sovereignty and on the strictest separation between political obedience and religious membership.