Search results for "Middle Ages"
showing 10 items of 209 documents
El mito de Icario en la General estoria de Alfonso X
2013
This article studies the myth of Icarus as it is translated in the first part of Alfonso X's General estoria. Its analysis highlights aspects that are usually found in the mythographical episodes of the Alfonsine estoria, particularly linked with its possible sources and its internal characteristics. The latter ones are defined by the anonymity of the quote and an evident moral intention. Regarding the sources, if it is known that the mythography gets to the Alfonsine text through two paths, the gloss in the manuscripts and a mythographical work, the exact source or sources used by Alfonsine historians are still unidentified. I have begun searching where the elements that are found in no pr…
Per gli antichi chiostri. Monache e badesse nella Palermo medievale
2020
Il libro inquadra la storia degli otto monasteri femminili fondati a Palermo tra l’XI e il XIV secolo sul piano sociale, economico e culturale, ricostruendo le vicende fondative, il patrimonio, il profilo di monache e badesse. All’atto della fondazione i monasteri ricevettero beni di diversa entità, concentrati nella città e nel territorio di Palermo, che divennero il principale cespite finanziario. Solo la metà dei monasteri ebbe in dotazione un feudo che forniva i prodotti agro-pastorali indispensabili per il fabbisogno interno. La monacazione era considerata la forma di esistenza più alta e perfetta; inoltre, le doti monastiche erano di gran lunga inferiori a quelle matrimoniali e consen…
Approaching Economic Inequality through Late Medieval Tax Records: Valls (1378), Sevile (1384) and Palma (1478)
2017
Wealth inequality in pre-industrial societies is a newly reinvigorated topic in economic history. Late medieval historians, particularly those of Iberia, face the challenge to catch up with their early modern counterparts. This proves completely possible due to the existence of analytic methods already developed in economics, as well as tax sources based on patrimony estimates of tax-payers. With the aim of addressing such a topic, this essay analyses three cases coming from various late medieval Iberian populations: Valls (1378), Seville (1384) and Palma (1478). In the case of Valls and Sevile the evidence has been based on transcriptions of available material, while for Palma we have stud…
Los fundamentos de la visualidad de la Templanza. Formación de su tipología iconográfica hasta el siglo XIV
2020
La Templanza, como una de las Virtudes Cardinales, ha sido objeto de reflexión por parte de los pensadores desde la Antigüedad, cuando se sentaron las bases de este concepto. A pesar de la ausencia de unos claros precedentes visuales, la Templanza configuró su visualidad en el medievo al igual que sus compañeras. Dicha ausencia motivó una gran variedad de concreciones icónicas de esta virtud mediante diferentes y numerosos atributos. Las famosas “iconologías” no recogen la mayoría de estos atributos y tipos iconográficos, al igual que la bibliografía. Por este motivo, proponemos un estudio diacrónico de la visualidad de la Templanza desde sus orígenes hasta el siglo XIV, atendiendo al signi…
Searching for Syntax in the Early Medieval Commentaries on Donatus
2023
This study aims at contributing to the reconstruction of the metalanguage and the specific terminology used by grammarians with reference to the reflection on syntax, as it emerges from the analysis of Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages grammar texts. The study focuses on the description of prepositions within the commentaries on Donatus’s Artes. Despite the overall lack of a systematic treatment of syntax within the Greek-Latin grammatical tradition, the description of specific partes orationis, e.g. praepositio, shows actually traces of a certain reflection on syntax. The metaterminology used by grammarians to describe the mutual relation between linguistic elements seems to go even bey…
The Bell-Tower Facade: An Aseismic Device in Sicily Between the 12th and 18th Centuries
2014
Imposing tower facades with belfries in the last order were built in Sicily Italy, from the Middle Ages to the late Baroque period. Until the 16th century, this model, which was inspired by northern European examples, also had a parallelepiped forepart leaning against the facade, working as containment for the pressure imparted by the inner longitudinal arches on the front, and amplified in case of earthquakes. The lacking static efficiency of these early structures is demonstrated by collapses during the strong earthquakes that hit the island in the modern age. Despite numerous cases of destruction, the memory of some prototypes survived in Sicilian constructive memory through the elaborat…
Uno sguardo d'insieme
2021
Nell’Europa bassomedievale mantenere il potere, ottenere il consenso e contrastare gli oppositori furono obiettivi imprescindibili per tutti i sovrani, nella complessa e, a volte, conflittuale dialettica tra la monarchia e le realtà locali. Una pluralità di soggetti entrava in gioco nella gestione del potere, nella macchina del consenso e nella composizione del dissenso. Accanto ai protagonisti del palcoscenico politico (imperatori, papi e re), cercavano spazio di negoziazione attori comprimari ma essenziali per l’azione scenica (aristocratici, città, regine consorti ed ebrei). Divisioni e contrasti interni compromettevano il funzionamento della compagine statale e appannavano l’immagine de…
Economic Adaptation to Risky Environment in the Late Middle Ages: The Case of the "Accrues" of the Doubs in Chaussin (Jura, France) from c. 1370 to c…
2017
Located along the meanders of the Doubs, the people of Chaussin had to deal with the particular impact of the river on their environment. Due to the impact of the Little Ice Age on water levels in the area, the Doubs sometimes had special floods, which frequently changed its course from the end of the fourteenth century. As a result, some lands were absorbed, and others emerged, which were called the “accrues.” From 1377 the first observation of lost lands appears in the accounts of the castellan, in a petition from landowners who did not want to pay taxes on these fields. More than twenty years later, in the first decade of the fifteenth century, the duke of Burgundy, facing the same situa…
Producing and working with iron
2019
Combining archaeological studies and archaeometric analyses, this synthesis presents the importance of the iron economy in the eastern part of the Paris Basin from the First Iron Age to the early Middle Ages. The first contributions of this research project concern technological changes in the production system of iron objects. The attention paid to the share of recycling in production somewhat modifies the previous discourse in attempts to quantify the types of forged objects (tools, weapons, ornaments, etc). Additionally, the link between the status of the excavated sites (agricultural holding, rural hamlet, fortified site, large settlements) and the type of forging activity that was carr…
Crimini contro le donne. Storie di violenza nel Mezzogiorno medievale
2021
Il contributo si propone, attraverso lo studio della documentazione edita ed inedita del Mezzogiorno peninsulare e insulare, di mettere a fuoco la violenza perpetrata contro le donne in contesti sia urbani sia rurali nel tardo Medioevo. Il ricorso alla violenza appare frequente soprattutto nei casi di tradimento e concubinato che vedono implicati anche altri membri delle famiglie coinvolte. La violenza coniugale, con varie sfaccettature, è presente in buona parte della documentazione esaminata: una violenza spesso accettata socialmente, a cui le donne seppero in alcuni casi reagire, rivolgendosi alla giustizia. I privilegi reali, infine, illustrano la posizione indulgente dell’autorità regi…