The social networks of the Buckinghamshire gentry in the thirteenth century

This empirical study offers a contribution to a continuing debate about the county community and the significance of feudal ties by analysing the contacts of twenty small and middling knightly families. It explores their geographical range and the relative significance of horizontal and vertical ties. The evidence indicates a world dominated by local connections, stretching five to ten miles from a family manor. Nonetheless, the gentry were not necessarily restricted by county boundaries in their connections, as patterns of monastic patronage show. Nor were their social networks always limited to their neighbourhood. The search for good marriages mobilised wider networks, while financial pressures led families to look to towns like Oxford and London for credit. Ties with feudal superiors were rare, except for tenants of the honor of Wallingford, who had links with the earls of Cornwall. Horizontal ties with other gentry families and family members significantly outnumbered those with any other groups, and this applied both to supportive relationships and conflictual ones. Placing this study in the context of other gentry studies, I conclude by emphasising the prevalence of local ties mainly with those on the same social level or below. Although there is evidence to suggest that wealthier families with several manors had wider ranging connections, the everyday world of these men was apparently a fairly parochial one.     

Construction Features of Doel 1, a 14th‐Century Cog found in Flanders

In 2000, a well‐preserved, c.21 m‐long shipwreck, Doel 1, was found upside‐down in a silted‐up creek near the river Scheldt (Belgium). An interdisciplinary research project was initiated, including 3D registration of all timbers, wood species identification, dendrochronology and archaeobotanical analysis of the caulking material. Doel 1, of which 70% is preserved, displays the construction features of a cog. Unseasoned wood was used and dated by dendrochronology to AD 1325/26. Remarkable features include the symmetrical layout of the bottom planks, the atypical arrangement of the frames to the fore, and evidence of partial dissassembly of the ship after intensive use.     

Spain and the Partition Treaties (1697–1700)

This study takes an analytical approach to the diplomatic strategy adopted by the Spanish monarchy in confronting the challenge it faced associated with the Partition Treaties that were signed by Louis XIV, William III and the United Provinces in 1698 and 1700. By consulting Spanish sources to complete the understanding of the diplomatic process, this study analyses the political action that Spain mobilized in its defence around 1700 and describes the evolution of Spain's foreign policy as the product of the mistrust that had developed between the main powers of Europe. This mistrust was politically answered by Madrid with Carlos II's last will and other planned measures to ensure the viability of the project that contained a turning point in the policy underlying the alliances of the monarchy. Although, like that of the other powers, Spain's manoeuvrability was restricted, this study concludes that Spain was able to create policy action plans and rationally implement them; moreover, the dynamics resulting from the negotiation and signing of the Partition Treaties led the monarchy to oppose them at all costs and naturally led to the choice of a French heir as its only solution.     

Eine gelernte Lebensweise: Figurationen des Gelehrtenlebens zwischen Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit

A Learned Way of Life: Figurations of Scholarly Life between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. – With the erosion of professors' obligatory celibacy in northwestern European universities of the high Middle Ages, scholars found themselves facing the task of redefining their mode of life and establishing a new type of families, combining social reproduction and the transmission of academic knowledge, and adopting daily habits and dispositions which would allow them to lead the life of the mind within crowded family households without the collective discipline and material infrastructure provided by communal institutions, such as colleges. Building on the author's earlier work, the paper sketches a synthetic view of the major elements of the scholars' emerging way of life, arguing that this transformation provides a unique opportunity for studying how a way of life takes shape, being explicitly discussed and experimented with. Shaping a rational, or rather systematically rationalized way of life, it is argued, is a major contribution of the scientific tradition to making modern cultures.     

Wissenschaftsstädte – Zur Bedeutung des Topos der ‘kreativen Stadt’ für die Wissensproduktion

Science Cities: What the Concept of the Creative City Means for Knowledge Production. – The article aims to show that the relationship of science and the city has changed since the 1970s in the context of the knowledgeable society. While cities have principally been regarded as the typical space of science, of new ideas and innovation for centuries, since the 1960s and 1970s universities, research institutes as well as industrial research institutes have relocated to the periphery of cities. There, however, these sites of knowledge have been organized in an ‘urban mode’. That means that the concept of the city as a place of science and innovation has determined the architectural, spatial, and social organization of these sites on the periphery of cities. Certain features of the city have been copied, such as social infrastructures, places of communication, restaurants, cafes etc., while others have been left out – housing, cinema, theatre etc. An ‘urban mode of knowledge production’ in the sense of a very stylized model of the city has become a tool to enhance the production of scientific and technological knowledge. – The article exemplifies this by focusing on a case study, namely of the so‐called ‘Science City’ of the Siemens Company in Munich‐Neuperlach.     

Rising and Narrowing: 16th-Century Geometric Algorithms used to Design the Bottom of Ships in Portugal

Methods of designing the bottom of ship's hulls were only a small part of the process of building a frame-based ship in Portugal in the 16th and early 17th centuries, but they deserve a careful look. Using a number of geometric algorithms that were already well-known to Italian shipwrights of the 15th century, Portuguese shipwrights obtained the co-ordinates of the turn of the bilge points of the central, pre-designed, frames without the need for making drawings.
© 2006 The Author     

中国马克思主义史学发展道路的思考

从五四运动到新中国成立前,自李大钊开始传播唯物史观,此后经郭沫若、吕振羽、范文澜、翦伯赞、侯外庐等的努力,马克思主义史学家坚持革命性与科学性结合,显示出自己建构研究中国历史体系的规模和力量,因而20世纪把中国史学推向了新阶段。建国后17年,马克思主义史学虽然经历过严重的曲折,但成绩仍是主要的,主要表现在:以唯物史观原理与中国实际相结合的方向得到坚持,形成百家争鸣的局面,在通史、断代史和专史领域以及大规模整理历史文献等方面都有重要成果;1958年以后教条化严重泛滥时,郭沫若、范文澜、翦伯赞等挺身而出进行抵制,一批熟悉历史考证的学者在唯物史观指导下,使史学达到新的境界。在改革开放的新时期,经过批判和反思极“左”路线危害,解放思想,史学出现了开拓进取、欣欣向荣的新局面。     

从"资治"到"救国"--关于19世纪史学经世致用思想变化之研究

自19世纪40年代伊始,中国社会所发生的空前的沧桑巨变,直接推动了史学由古代史学向近代史学的转变。这种转变的重要标志之一,就是史学经世致用思想的变化,即史学经世致用思想从“资治”到“救国”,从着眼于王朝治乱兴衰到关注国家和民族前途命运之经世致用的宗旨和参照系的变化。同时,这种变化又对整个19世纪中国史学的发展及其走向产生了重大而深远的影响。