‘Why did they take him away?’ The theft of Neddy Larkin

Neddy Larkin, a Bundjalung man from New South Wales, Australia, was stolen from his grave and in 1891 sold to the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, MA. This paper uses the methodology and concepts outlined in Latour’s An Inquiry into Modes of Existence to chart Neddy Larkin’s transitions from kinsman to scientific data.     

越者[氵刀]钟铭新论

自晚清以来,许多著名学者致力于越器者(氵刀)编钟铭文的研究,本文综合各家所说,对钟铭文义进行了新的理解,并对器主身份及年代问题进行了探讨。     

Drinking Diplomacy: The St. Petersburg ‘Ordre des Antisobres’ and Fraternal Culture among European Envoys in Early Imperial Russia

Abstract

Early in 1728, in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Duke of Liria—a Spanish diplomat, prominent Jacobite, and an illegitimate grandson of James II—sought to establish a curiously-titled fraternity called the ‘Order of the Anti-Sober’. Using the surviving charter of the proposed fraternal order as a point of departure, this article reconstructs the context and the meaning of Liria’s initiative. While drinking has traditionally been associated with Russia and in particular with the mores of Peter I’s court, this microstudy helps us to see it as a part of European sociable and diplomatic practices of the era. This episode sheds light not only on the broader evolution of fraternal societies in the early eighteenth century, but also on the mechanisms that drove the spread of such forms of associational life across the continent.     

Discipline,compassion and monastic ideals of community,c.950–1250

Those who are not flogged here on earth are not received as sons there in heaven […] and will be flogged alongside the devil for eternity.

Ambrose of Milan1 1?De interpellatione Iob et David, 3.3.9, Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, 221 vols (Paris, 1841–64) [hereafter PL], vol. 14, 841: qui autem hic non flagellantur, ibi non suscipiuntur ut filii […] ut in perpetuum cum diabolo flagellentur.      

Noticeboard

Recent years have seen a marked growth of interest in Jewish medieval history. It is no longer considered tenable to study the history of the Latin West without taking some account of the place of the Jews in medieval Europe. This article explores different trends in recent research on medieval Jewish-Christian coexistence by examining a number of books and editions of texts which have been published in this field since 1990.     

On Theme and Variation

Abstract

The ways in which the author, the sculptor Peter Randall-Page, has made use of the ideas of D’Arcy Thompson are described. How Thompson showed that commonalities of form and pattern exist across the biological and abiotic realms is described, and the implications that physical constraints limit and sometimes dominate the capabilities of evolutionary natural selection are explored. Since we evolved in a world shaped in this manner, the likelihood that this palette of forms is one that carries strong psychological meanings and associations is examined, and the ways in which these forms are a rich source of inspiration and allusion for visual artists are discussed, hinting at the play of opposing tendencies, the dance between order and randomness, and the ways in which nature can derive variations on a theme.     

The agrarian history of Byzantium,from the origins to the twelfth century. The sources and problems

The relationship between conquerors and conquered in the Latin Empire of Constantinople has traditionally been understood as a relentlessly hostile one, particularly on the religious level. Whatever its merits, the dominance of this view has sometimes resulted in the gross misinterpretation of important pieces of evidence. This article examines two unusual liturgical texts that were treated by their discoverers as products of a Latin campaign of liturgical proselytism. The texts themselves are bilingual presentations of the Western rite of mass, with Greek and Latin text presented in an interlinear format. Most unusually, the Latin text is written in Greek characters. This article makes the case, due to internal evidence as well as the broader context of ecclesiastical relations in the Latin Empire, that these texts were created by Greek clerics rather than by Latin authorities, and that their purpose was entirely different from that imagined by their discoverers.     

彼得·布朗对基督教化问题的新认识

基督教在晚期罗马帝国的兴起,自爱德华·吉本《罗马帝国衰亡史》问世以来就一直是学术界关注的焦点。20世纪70年代,爱尔兰裔美国史家彼得·布朗系统地提出解释罗马帝国和古典文明命运的"晚期古代"理论。在晚期古代视角下,布朗通过文本证据与考古证据相结合,并借助后现代的"解释学的怀疑",以及"表象"理论,解构关于基督教化的传统叙事,并提出关于基督教化问题的新观点。他认为,基督教化是缓慢的不彻底的进程;是关于宇宙的集体表象的改变;具有多样性的特征。布朗的基督教化理论,更关注从多神教到基督教一神教转变过程的复杂性,注重两者的相互影响和作用,在对过程的把握中探讨文化的冲突与融合,历史的连续与断裂。