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In all religions, in the medieval West as in the East, ideas about the past, the present and the future were shaped by expectations related to the End. The volumes Cultures of Eschatology explore the many ways apocalyptic thought and visions of the end intersected with the development of pre-modern religio-political communities, with social changes and with the emergence of new intellectual and literary traditions. The two volumes present a wide variety of case studies from the early Christian communities of Antiquity, through the times of the Islamic invasion and the Crusades and up to modern receptions, from the Latin West to the Byzantine Empire, from South Yemen to the Hidden Lands of Ti...
In the last twenty years scholarship on late antique and early medieval Ravenna has resulted in a certain number of publications mainly focused on the fields of architecture, mosaics and archaeology. On the contrary, much less attention has been paid on labour – both manual and intellectual – as well as the structure of production and objects derived from manufacturing activities, despite the fact that Ravenna is the place which preserves the highest number of historical evidence among all centres of the late Roman Mediterranean. Its cultural heritage is vast and composite, ranging from papyri to inscriptions, from ivories to marbles, as well as luxury objects, pottery, and coins. Starting from concrete typologies of hand-manufactured goods existing in the Ravennate milieu, the book aims at exploring the multifaceted traditions of late antique and early Byzantine handicraft from the fourth to the eighth century AD. Its perspective is to pay attention more on patronage, social taste, acculturation, workers and the economic industry of production which supported the demand, circulation and distribution of artefacts, than on the artistic evaluation of the objects themselves.
"Empires are not an under-researched topic. Recently, there has been a veritable surge in comparative and conceptual studies, not least of pre-modern empires. The distant past can tell us much about the fates of empires that may still be relevant today, and contemporary historians as well as the general public are generally aware of that. Tracing the general development of an empire, we can discern a kind imperial dynamic which follows the momentum of expansion, relies on the structures and achievements of the formative period for a while, and tends to be caught in a downward spiral at some point. Yet single cases differ so much that a general model is hardly ever sufficient.There is in fact...
What Was the Islamic Conquest of Iberia? Understanding the New Debate brings together leading scholars to offer an introduction to a recent debate with far-reaching implications for the study of history, as well as our understanding of the present. In the year 711 CE, Islamic armies conquered the Iberian Peninsula. This seemingly uncontroversial claim has in fact been questioned, becoming an object of intense scholarly debate, debate that has reached a fevered pitch in recent decades within Spain. This volume introduces an anglophone audience to the terms and contours of this controversy, from its emergence in the late nineteenth century to its contemporary recrudescence. It suggests that fa...
The late antique and the early medieval periods witnessed the flourishing of bishops in the West as the main articulators of social life. This influential position exposed them to several threats, both political and religious. Researchers have generally addressed violence, rebellions or conflicts to study the dynamics related to secular powers during these periods. They haven’t paid similar attention, however, to those analogous contexts that had bishops as protagonists. This book proposes an approach to bishops as threatened subjects in the late antique and early medieval West. In particular, the volume pursues three main goals. Firstly, it aims to identify the different types of threats ...
In der neueren Forschung zur Ethnogenese und Identitätenbildung in der Völkerwanderungszeit blieben Geldwirtschaft und Münzprägung bislang nahezu unberücksichtigt. Anhand der barbarischen gens der Westgoten, ihrer Wanderung und zweifachen Staatenbildung wird in der vorliegenden Publikation untersucht, welche Erkenntnisse Geld und Münzen als wirtschaftshistorische Quellen zu Fragestellungen der Ethnogenese eines germanischen Verbandes und seiner Herrschaftselite zwischen dem 5. und 7. Jahrhundert liefern können. Die Analyse reicht von den frühen "pseudoimperialen Prägungen" des gallischen Regnum Tolosanum bis zur eigenständigen Münz- und Geldwirtschaft des Regnum Toletanum auf der iberischen Halbinsel, wodurch die Herausbildung und geographische Transformation von Identitäten in Abgrenzung zu anderen Nachfolgestaaten des Römischen Reiches und innerhalb dieser beiden regna betrachtet werden kann.
Entre l’Antiquité romaine et l’époque moderne, les siècles qui virent se développer l’islamisation, le califat fatimide et les empires berbères sont mal connus. Cette synthèse inédite offre un outil complet et pédagogique pour découvrir le Maghreb médiéval : des présentations événementielles, des textes et des documents iconographiques traitent tous les aspects, politiques, économiques, sociétaux et culturels de ces régions. Une chronologie, une liste des principaux auteurs médiévaux et une bibliographie complètent l'ensemble. Philippe Sénac est Professeur à l’université de Paris IV-Sorbonne. Patrice Cressier est chargé de recherche au CNRS (CIHAM-UMR 5648, Lyon).
La bataille de Poitiers constitue reste l’un des plus célèbres jalons de ce que l’on désigne parfois comme le « roman national ». Objet de multiples publications et de récupérations politiques, l’année 732 est même devenue pour certains l’expression passée d’un combat opposant l’Occident chrétien à l’Islam à la manière d’un « choc des civilisations ». Sans remettre en cause l’importance de cet épisode dans l’histoire de ce qui allait devenir l’Occident carolingien, ce livre déplace le débat vers la Méditerranée et montre combien cette date tend à occulter une autre histoire : l’établissement de contingents arabo-musulmans dans le sud de la Gaule...
This book examines the politics of the French Revolutionary tradition in the early nineteenth century. The author argues that political struggle was not confined to the elite, and that the Restoration Liberal Opposition developed a reform tradition which was far more effective than the revolutionary tradition of conspiracy and insurrection.