Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/09518967.2022.2052653
M. Šedivý
During the 1840s Italian society began to see the Mediterranean region as a dangerous place to live, owing to what was regarded as threats represented by Austria, Great Britain, France, and even Russia and the United States. This conviction resulted from various affairs both within and outside Europe, where the same powers were accused of behaving in an overtly aggressive way, which was used as an argument for the political unity of Italy’s various states in order to give them greater strength for defence. Since danger was seen all around, this unity became important for both the peninsular Italians and the Sicilians, who agreed on the need to establish an Italian league with federal land and naval forces. The principal objective of this paper is to show that the question of Sicily’s future was seen as a question of not only Italy’s security, but also of its future position in the Mediterranean as a whole, and that the de facto unanimous support of Sicily’s membership in the league in 1848 resulted from this self-protecting response that, moreover, already contained proto-imperialist tendencies in which for geostrategic reasons the island played an important role.
{"title":"The rise of the Sicilian question in the 1840s: the Italian reaction to geopolitical insecurity in the Mediterranean","authors":"M. Šedivý","doi":"10.1080/09518967.2022.2052653","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2022.2052653","url":null,"abstract":"During the 1840s Italian society began to see the Mediterranean region as a dangerous place to live, owing to what was regarded as threats represented by Austria, Great Britain, France, and even Russia and the United States. This conviction resulted from various affairs both within and outside Europe, where the same powers were accused of behaving in an overtly aggressive way, which was used as an argument for the political unity of Italy’s various states in order to give them greater strength for defence. Since danger was seen all around, this unity became important for both the peninsular Italians and the Sicilians, who agreed on the need to establish an Italian league with federal land and naval forces. The principal objective of this paper is to show that the question of Sicily’s future was seen as a question of not only Italy’s security, but also of its future position in the Mediterranean as a whole, and that the de facto unanimous support of Sicily’s membership in the league in 1848 resulted from this self-protecting response that, moreover, already contained proto-imperialist tendencies in which for geostrategic reasons the island played an important role.","PeriodicalId":18431,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Historical Review","volume":"37 1","pages":"89 - 109"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45678268","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/09518967.2022.2052483
Alexis Rappas
additions. In short, what Hershenzon achieves is no small thing. He turns on its head a phenomenon that has traditionally been treated as the ultimate proof of a religious and cultural divide, instead presenting it as a medium contributing to the connectedness of the early modern Mediterranean. This book will likely influence the field for years to come and should be read by any student or researcher of early modern Mediterranean history.
{"title":"Italy’s sea: empire and nation in the Mediterranean, 1895–1945","authors":"Alexis Rappas","doi":"10.1080/09518967.2022.2052483","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2022.2052483","url":null,"abstract":"additions. In short, what Hershenzon achieves is no small thing. He turns on its head a phenomenon that has traditionally been treated as the ultimate proof of a religious and cultural divide, instead presenting it as a medium contributing to the connectedness of the early modern Mediterranean. This book will likely influence the field for years to come and should be read by any student or researcher of early modern Mediterranean history.","PeriodicalId":18431,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Historical Review","volume":"37 1","pages":"117 - 120"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48411503","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/09518967.2022.2052656
Domenico Agostini
The Sasanian and Roman/Byzantine Empires were protagonists in a harsh military confrontation lasting almost four centuries. However, at the same time they built a sophisticated rhetoric of coexistence and a language of diplomacy to pursue their own political goals. While there are many Roman and Byzantine sources describing the Sasanian world, hardly anything is known about how the Sasanians and Zoroastrians perceived the Romans from a cosmological point of view. The shaping of an Iranian identity in Sasanian times demanded the construction of a hostile ‘‘other’’. Rome became that “other” and the Iranian and Zoroastrian world’s fatal arch-enemy. This article will present and analyze several Iranian and Roman/Byzantine sources with the aim of demonstrating how Sasanians represented themselves as superior to the Romans, while granting them an important role as the main enemy in the context of the cosmological final battle according to the Zoroastrian tradition.
{"title":"The perception of Romans (hrōmāyīg) in the Sasanian and Zoroastrian traditions","authors":"Domenico Agostini","doi":"10.1080/09518967.2022.2052656","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2022.2052656","url":null,"abstract":"The Sasanian and Roman/Byzantine Empires were protagonists in a harsh military confrontation lasting almost four centuries. However, at the same time they built a sophisticated rhetoric of coexistence and a language of diplomacy to pursue their own political goals. While there are many Roman and Byzantine sources describing the Sasanian world, hardly anything is known about how the Sasanians and Zoroastrians perceived the Romans from a cosmological point of view. The shaping of an Iranian identity in Sasanian times demanded the construction of a hostile ‘‘other’’. Rome became that “other” and the Iranian and Zoroastrian world’s fatal arch-enemy. This article will present and analyze several Iranian and Roman/Byzantine sources with the aim of demonstrating how Sasanians represented themselves as superior to the Romans, while granting them an important role as the main enemy in the context of the cosmological final battle according to the Zoroastrian tradition.","PeriodicalId":18431,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Historical Review","volume":"37 1","pages":"1 - 18"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48823014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/09518967.2022.2052654
S. M. Kampbell
Numismatists have long puzzled over the number of imitation Andrea Dandolo ducats that circulated in the eastern Mediterranean. The minting authority, location, and purpose of these coins has proved elusive. This study distinguishes between multiple types of imitation Andrea Dandolo ducats, focusing on Dandolo Types 1 and 2. A close examination of the coins themselves, including a punch analysis and gold content measurements, suggests multiple origins. This paper presents new theories about the source and circulation of these types of imitation coins.
{"title":"Classification and origins of two types of imitation Andrea Dandolo ducats","authors":"S. M. Kampbell","doi":"10.1080/09518967.2022.2052654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2022.2052654","url":null,"abstract":"Numismatists have long puzzled over the number of imitation Andrea Dandolo ducats that circulated in the eastern Mediterranean. The minting authority, location, and purpose of these coins has proved elusive. This study distinguishes between multiple types of imitation Andrea Dandolo ducats, focusing on Dandolo Types 1 and 2. A close examination of the coins themselves, including a punch analysis and gold content measurements, suggests multiple origins. This paper presents new theories about the source and circulation of these types of imitation coins.","PeriodicalId":18431,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Historical Review","volume":"37 1","pages":"43 - 66"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46066022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/09518967.2022.2052486
Nikolaos Vryzidis
ful additions, including a chronology, a genealogical chart of the Abbasid caliphs, a glossary, three maps, and thirty-two images. The chronology and glossary are extremely useful for those planning to use this book in the classroom. These are wonderful reference tools for anyone approaching Abbasid history for the first time, which will help students find their bearings. The images, twenty-three black and white and nine in full color, appear as plates in the center of the book and include a mixture of coins, architecture and archaeology, details of architectural decoration, and manuscript pages and illuminations. Unfortunately, many of these images are very small and surrounded by a great deal of blank space, suggesting that they could have been enlarged without adding additional pages to the book. Three maps are situated at the front of the book, including one map showing the overall extent of the Abbasid caliphate at its height, along with its 9th-century neighbors, the provinces of Iraq and Iran (taken from Guy LeStrange), and a focused map of Baghdad (taken from Richard Coke). Considering the purposes of the book, it is unfortunate that the maps capture the Abbasid caliphate only in its golden age rather than presenting an evolution of the caliphate into the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 would benefit greatly from specialized maps that illustrate the changing nature of the caliphate and the growth of its rivals and successors, especially considering the excellent pedagogical applications possible for the book. Of course, it should be noted that it is not clear if these were choices made by the author or the publisher.
{"title":"Sea change: Ottoman textiles between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean","authors":"Nikolaos Vryzidis","doi":"10.1080/09518967.2022.2052486","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2022.2052486","url":null,"abstract":"ful additions, including a chronology, a genealogical chart of the Abbasid caliphs, a glossary, three maps, and thirty-two images. The chronology and glossary are extremely useful for those planning to use this book in the classroom. These are wonderful reference tools for anyone approaching Abbasid history for the first time, which will help students find their bearings. The images, twenty-three black and white and nine in full color, appear as plates in the center of the book and include a mixture of coins, architecture and archaeology, details of architectural decoration, and manuscript pages and illuminations. Unfortunately, many of these images are very small and surrounded by a great deal of blank space, suggesting that they could have been enlarged without adding additional pages to the book. Three maps are situated at the front of the book, including one map showing the overall extent of the Abbasid caliphate at its height, along with its 9th-century neighbors, the provinces of Iraq and Iran (taken from Guy LeStrange), and a focused map of Baghdad (taken from Richard Coke). Considering the purposes of the book, it is unfortunate that the maps capture the Abbasid caliphate only in its golden age rather than presenting an evolution of the caliphate into the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 would benefit greatly from specialized maps that illustrate the changing nature of the caliphate and the growth of its rivals and successors, especially considering the excellent pedagogical applications possible for the book. Of course, it should be noted that it is not clear if these were choices made by the author or the publisher.","PeriodicalId":18431,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Historical Review","volume":"37 1","pages":"122 - 124"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45112606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/09518967.2022.2052787
Moshe Blidstein
Perjury – swearing to a false statement or not fulfilling a promissory oath – attracted universal condemnation in Antiquity, as well as promises of harsh divine retribution. Human responses to perjury, however, varied among the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean. This article surveys these responses, locates their cultural contexts, and explains them by examining perjury as an affront to honour. Legal penalties, expiation rituals, and other social responses highlight the various ways that society reifies, performs, and transforms the changing social status of the perjurer.
{"title":"Perjury, honour, and disgrace in Roman Antiquity","authors":"Moshe Blidstein","doi":"10.1080/09518967.2022.2052787","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2022.2052787","url":null,"abstract":"Perjury – swearing to a false statement or not fulfilling a promissory oath – attracted universal condemnation in Antiquity, as well as promises of harsh divine retribution. Human responses to perjury, however, varied among the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean. This article surveys these responses, locates their cultural contexts, and explains them by examining perjury as an affront to honour. Legal penalties, expiation rituals, and other social responses highlight the various ways that society reifies, performs, and transforms the changing social status of the perjurer.","PeriodicalId":18431,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Historical Review","volume":"37 1","pages":"19 - 41"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41712316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/09518967.2021.1964016
Cornel A. Zwierlein
In 1740 the Roman Church – through its major expert on Oriental languages and regions, Giuseppe Simone Assemani – was censoring Mathurin Veyssière La Croze’s Histoire du Christianisme des Indes, his second work on Christians between the Mediterranean and Ethiopia. This article puts censorship of this book into a global political context: first, of the competition of European powers between Catholics and Protestants (Prussia, France, and Rome) and, second, of the entanglements of the Dutch, Portuguese, Danish, and German merchants, colonizers, and missionaries with Eastern Christianity and non-Christian cultures between the Mediterranean and India. Third, the censorship proves to have happened at a time when Rome wanted to resolve definitively the Malabar rites controversy. Conservative Christian-Mediterraneanist hermeneutics to perceive the global religious situation can be revealed, opposed to a Pietist scheme of four world religions coexisting.
1740年,罗马教会通过其研究东方语言和地区的主要专家Giuseppe Simone Assemani审查Mathurin veyssi La Croze的《印度基督教史》(Histoire du Christianisme des des des des des des),这是他研究地中海和埃塞俄比亚之间基督徒的第二部作品。这篇文章将这本书的审查置于全球政治背景中:首先,欧洲大国天主教徒和新教徒(普鲁士、法国和罗马)之间的竞争;其次,荷兰、葡萄牙、丹麦和德国商人、殖民者和传教士与地中海和印度之间的东方基督教和非基督教文化之间的纠缠。第三,审查制度发生在罗马想要明确解决马拉巴尔仪式争议的时候。保守的基督教-地中海主义诠释学可以揭示全球宗教形势,反对四种世界宗教共存的虔信主义方案。
{"title":"Prussia against Rome, 1724–1742: Mathurin Veyssière La Crozeʼs and Giuseppe Simone Assemaniʼs Mediterraneist views on the Nestorians in India*","authors":"Cornel A. Zwierlein","doi":"10.1080/09518967.2021.1964016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2021.1964016","url":null,"abstract":"In 1740 the Roman Church – through its major expert on Oriental languages and regions, Giuseppe Simone Assemani – was censoring Mathurin Veyssière La Croze’s Histoire du Christianisme des Indes, his second work on Christians between the Mediterranean and Ethiopia. This article puts censorship of this book into a global political context: first, of the competition of European powers between Catholics and Protestants (Prussia, France, and Rome) and, second, of the entanglements of the Dutch, Portuguese, Danish, and German merchants, colonizers, and missionaries with Eastern Christianity and non-Christian cultures between the Mediterranean and India. Third, the censorship proves to have happened at a time when Rome wanted to resolve definitively the Malabar rites controversy. Conservative Christian-Mediterraneanist hermeneutics to perceive the global religious situation can be revealed, opposed to a Pietist scheme of four world religions coexisting.","PeriodicalId":18431,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Historical Review","volume":"36 1","pages":"237 - 257"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46054937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/09518967.2021.1976995
Eric R. Dursteler
Probably because cross-confessional, Mediterranean interaction is believed to have been in itself exceptional, a good deal of Ottoman history contents itself with description. The work under review goes beyond this narrow approach with an analytical, if not always problematic, quest for a casuistic view of piracy and litigation issues. White’s research is indebted to a revolutionary aspect of Ottoman history: unlike their medieval predecessors, Ottoman notarial practice was entrusted to kadis who endowed all their deeds with permanent validity and kept judicial archives. White is nonetheless aware of the limitations of Islamic court records, such as the summary transcriptions and the cumulative, chaotic character of registers, or sicils. To a greater extent, the chapter addresses one of the major problems of crossconfessional relations: the extent to which non-Muslim merchants and actors, for whom shariah presented wellknown biases and procedural obstacles, such as witnessing, made use of such courts. It also provides us with good descriptions of parallel jurisdictions such as the Kazasker and the Imperial Council. The chapter discusses a lawsuit passed before the kadi Sunullah Efendi, who later became şeyhülislam and authored the first fatwa collection dealing with piracy issues at length. We can see Sunullah at work in a 1594 case involving the Janissary Mahmud, that presented evidentiary problems and required careful handling of proof and evidence. White’s approach to court records offers more than a literal, legalistic reading. The chapter looks into the motivations and strategies of the plaintiffs, often non-Muslims, particularly for those cases where the procedural limitations of Islamic law would have made a positive outcome unlikely. Thick descriptions and a microhistorical approach substantiates one of White’s major arguments, namely, that what characterized the Ottoman Mediterranean was the actors’ awareness – be they foreign unbelievers, zimmis or Muslims – of the intricacies of Islamic law, a skill they exhibited when bringing their claims to court.
{"title":"Mediterranean encounters: trade and pluralism in early modern Galata","authors":"Eric R. Dursteler","doi":"10.1080/09518967.2021.1976995","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2021.1976995","url":null,"abstract":"Probably because cross-confessional, Mediterranean interaction is believed to have been in itself exceptional, a good deal of Ottoman history contents itself with description. The work under review goes beyond this narrow approach with an analytical, if not always problematic, quest for a casuistic view of piracy and litigation issues. White’s research is indebted to a revolutionary aspect of Ottoman history: unlike their medieval predecessors, Ottoman notarial practice was entrusted to kadis who endowed all their deeds with permanent validity and kept judicial archives. White is nonetheless aware of the limitations of Islamic court records, such as the summary transcriptions and the cumulative, chaotic character of registers, or sicils. To a greater extent, the chapter addresses one of the major problems of crossconfessional relations: the extent to which non-Muslim merchants and actors, for whom shariah presented wellknown biases and procedural obstacles, such as witnessing, made use of such courts. It also provides us with good descriptions of parallel jurisdictions such as the Kazasker and the Imperial Council. The chapter discusses a lawsuit passed before the kadi Sunullah Efendi, who later became şeyhülislam and authored the first fatwa collection dealing with piracy issues at length. We can see Sunullah at work in a 1594 case involving the Janissary Mahmud, that presented evidentiary problems and required careful handling of proof and evidence. White’s approach to court records offers more than a literal, legalistic reading. The chapter looks into the motivations and strategies of the plaintiffs, often non-Muslims, particularly for those cases where the procedural limitations of Islamic law would have made a positive outcome unlikely. Thick descriptions and a microhistorical approach substantiates one of White’s major arguments, namely, that what characterized the Ottoman Mediterranean was the actors’ awareness – be they foreign unbelievers, zimmis or Muslims – of the intricacies of Islamic law, a skill they exhibited when bringing their claims to court.","PeriodicalId":18431,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Historical Review","volume":"36 1","pages":"292 - 294"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42415423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/09518967.2021.1964062
Lena Sadovski-Kornprobst
This article addresses the linguistic situation in late medieval Venetian Dalmatia, where a predominantly Slavic-speaking population met an administration working in Latin and the Venetian variant of Italian. On the basis of Venetian archival records, mostly notarial acts and case files, and by examining the city of Split from a micro-historical perspective, two questions are addressed: the first concerns the methodological challenge of studying spoken language and orality by using written administrative documents. The interplay between written Latin, written and spoken Venetian, and spoken Slavic makes the archival records of the Venetian administration highly interesting and illustrates the complex linguistic situation the notaries had to cope with. The second question addresses the social consequences of Dalmatia’s multilingualism, as well as the ways Venice faced the language barrier to its Slavic-speaking subjects. To make communication and thus trade and rule possible, Venice established the communal office of a translator in Split only in 1472, several decades later than in other Dalmatian towns. The examples given in this article will show that there existed a tendency towards a correspondence between social status and knowledge of language. However, given the long-standing Romance-Slavic-symbiosis in Dalmatia, no clear division between Romance-speakers on the one hand, and Slavic-speakers on the other can be affirmed.
{"title":"Multilingualism in Venetian Dalmatia: studying languages and orality in written administrative documents from Split (fifteenth/sixteenth centuries)","authors":"Lena Sadovski-Kornprobst","doi":"10.1080/09518967.2021.1964062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2021.1964062","url":null,"abstract":"This article addresses the linguistic situation in late medieval Venetian Dalmatia, where a predominantly Slavic-speaking population met an administration working in Latin and the Venetian variant of Italian. On the basis of Venetian archival records, mostly notarial acts and case files, and by examining the city of Split from a micro-historical perspective, two questions are addressed: the first concerns the methodological challenge of studying spoken language and orality by using written administrative documents. The interplay between written Latin, written and spoken Venetian, and spoken Slavic makes the archival records of the Venetian administration highly interesting and illustrates the complex linguistic situation the notaries had to cope with. The second question addresses the social consequences of Dalmatia’s multilingualism, as well as the ways Venice faced the language barrier to its Slavic-speaking subjects. To make communication and thus trade and rule possible, Venice established the communal office of a translator in Split only in 1472, several decades later than in other Dalmatian towns. The examples given in this article will show that there existed a tendency towards a correspondence between social status and knowledge of language. However, given the long-standing Romance-Slavic-symbiosis in Dalmatia, no clear division between Romance-speakers on the one hand, and Slavic-speakers on the other can be affirmed.","PeriodicalId":18431,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Historical Review","volume":"36 1","pages":"217 - 236"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41523212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/09518967.2021.1963613
L. Chipman, G. Avni, R. Ellenblum
The article examines the rapid and frequent transitions between periods of affluence and periods of real famine that occurred during the long reign of the Egyptian ruler al-Mustanṣir (1036–1094), as well as the correlation between these transitions and the fluctuations in the annual rise in the Nile flow which determine the availability of grain and food prices. The authors conclude that: (1) The transitions between affluence and dearth occurred under the same competent administration, and under the rule of the same Caliph. Therefore, the administration was not the only reason for these transitions; (2) The ruler (al-Mustanṣir) attempted, nevertheless, to identify affluence with himself and his reign and was blamed for the periods of scarcity; (3) Well-dated historical sources are the only way to follow the climatic and societal occurrences in a yearly resolution. No proxy data are sensitive enough to detect such changes and to reconstruct the historical and social processes that followed the climatic anomalies; and (4) Two or three years of insufficient rises of the Nile were sufficient to decrease the availability of food, reflected in price rises, food riots, and even famine. Two or three decades of stability were enough to enable the accumulation of wealth.
{"title":"Collapse, affluence, and collapse again: contrasting climatic effects in Egypt during the prolonged reign of al-Mustanṣir (1036–1094)","authors":"L. Chipman, G. Avni, R. Ellenblum","doi":"10.1080/09518967.2021.1963613","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2021.1963613","url":null,"abstract":"The article examines the rapid and frequent transitions between periods of affluence and periods of real famine that occurred during the long reign of the Egyptian ruler al-Mustanṣir (1036–1094), as well as the correlation between these transitions and the fluctuations in the annual rise in the Nile flow which determine the availability of grain and food prices. The authors conclude that: (1) The transitions between affluence and dearth occurred under the same competent administration, and under the rule of the same Caliph. Therefore, the administration was not the only reason for these transitions; (2) The ruler (al-Mustanṣir) attempted, nevertheless, to identify affluence with himself and his reign and was blamed for the periods of scarcity; (3) Well-dated historical sources are the only way to follow the climatic and societal occurrences in a yearly resolution. No proxy data are sensitive enough to detect such changes and to reconstruct the historical and social processes that followed the climatic anomalies; and (4) Two or three years of insufficient rises of the Nile were sufficient to decrease the availability of food, reflected in price rises, food riots, and even famine. Two or three decades of stability were enough to enable the accumulation of wealth.","PeriodicalId":18431,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Historical Review","volume":"36 1","pages":"199 - 215"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41750614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}