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In the medieval world, geographical knowledge was influenced by religious ideas and beliefs. Whereas this point is well analysed for the Latin-Christian world, the religious character of the Arabic-Islamic geographic tradition has not yet been scrutinised in detail. This volume addresses this desideratum and combines case studies from both traditions of geographic thinking. The contributions comprise in-depth analyses of individual geographical works as for example those of al-Idrisi or Lambert of Saint-Omer, different forms of presenting geographical knowledge such as TO-diagrams or globes as well as performative aspects of studying and meditating geographical knowledge. Focussing on texts as well as on maps, the contributions open up a comparative perspective on how religious knowledge influenced the way the world and its geography were perceived and described int the medieval world.
The word "West" is omnipresent and often unquestioned. The goal of this volume is to elaborate a critical reflection on this concept and make these implicit processes explicit. The articles focus on spatio‐temporal practices regarding the production and representation of westernness. Taking critical perspectives, which view the West from the inside and the outside, they address issues of highest political and social relevance.
This fascinating volume explores an important fifteenth-century illustrated manuscript tradition that provides a revealing glimpse of how western Europeans conceptualized the world. From the classical encyclopedias of Pliny to famous tales such as The Travels of Marco Polo, historical travel writing has had a lasting impact, despite the fact that it was based on a curious mixture of truth, legend, and outright superstition. One foundational medieval source that expands on the ancient idea of the “wonders of the world” is the fifteenth-century French Book of the Marvels of the World, an illustrated guide to the globe filled with oddities, curiosities, and wonders—tales of fantasy and re...
Although it is fashionable among modernists to claim that globalism emerged only since ca. 1800, the opposite can well be documented through careful comparative and transdisciplinary studies, as this volume demonstrates, offering a wide range of innovative perspectives on often neglected literary, philosophical, historical, or medical documents. Texts, images, ideas, knowledge, and objects migrated throughout the world already in the pre-modern world, even if the quantitative level compared to the modern world might have been different. In fact, by means of translations and trade, for instance, global connections were established and maintained over the centuries. Archetypal motifs developed...
This anthology is a unique compilation of scientific contributions on the topic of measurement and understanding, showing how terms such as number, measurement, understanding, model, pattern are used in a wide variety of disciplines. Based on the results and experiences from their own projects, 23 researchers comment on the potentials and limitations of individual methodological approaches and success factors of interdisciplinary collaboration. In doing so, they sound out the different significance of quantification and empirical evidence for their own disciplines and examine the influence of methodological approaches on existing models and images. The common goal is to want to understand the world; the methods, however, are highly diverse.
Explores the sophisticated ways in which medieval Castilian clerics and monarchs recreated stories set in the ancient, pagan past to shape cultural memory and monarchic culture in the Iberian kingdom.
To what extent does our knowledge of the past rely upon written sources? And what happens when these sources are destroyed? Focusing on the manuscripts of the Middle Ages, History in Flames explores cases in which large volumes of written material were destroyed during a single day. This destruction didn't occur by accident of fire or flood but by human forces such as arson, shelling and bombing. This book examines the political and military events that preceded the moment of destruction, from the Franco-Prussian War and the Irish Civil War to the complexities of World War II; it analyses the material lost and how it came to be where it was. At the same time, it discusses the heroic efforts made by scholars and archivists to preserve these manuscripts, even partially. History in Flames reminds us that historical knowledge rests on material remains, and that these remains are vulnerable.
Although empires have played a decisive role in political thinking and the orientation of political goals at all times, the focus of research has so far mostly been on spatial and ideological aspects. This volume, on the other hand, offers a multi-disciplinary collection of studies that deal with the instrumentalization and ongoing impacts of perspectives on empire and their place in time. Coming from archaeology, history, art history, literary studies, and social sciences, the individual case studies discuss perceptions of imperial histories and imagined futures of empires, both in imperial and in post-imperial contexts. The transcending historical significance of the imperial ideas and ideals shows the deep and long-lasting effects of empire in landscapes, mindscapes, and social structures. The diachronic cut through all epochs from antiquity to modern times is complemented by a broad global view to deepen the temporal understanding of imperial imaginaries as well as their political implications.
From the battles over Jerusalem to the emergence of the “Holy Land,” from legally mandated ghettos to the Edict of Expulsion, geography has long been a component of Christian-Jewish relations. Attending to world maps drawn by medieval Christian mapmakers, Cartographies of Exclusion brings us to the literal drawing board of “Christendom” and shows the creation, in real time, of a mythic state intended to dehumanize the non-Christian people it ultimately sought to displace. In his close analyses of English maps from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Asa Mittman makes a valuable contribution to conversations about medieval Christian perceptions of Jews and Judaism. Grounding his arg...
This volume reconsiders literacy and communication in pre-modern societies, focusing especially on how material form affects the way textual artefacts are understood and interpreted. By bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines such as archaeology, medieval studies, and Islamic studies, this volume provides the specialist and non-specialist with insights on how humans express themselves through writing and material culture.