The Byzantine Empire in the Eleventh Century: Some Different Interpretations

1950 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 71-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Hussey

I was originally provoked into a consideration of this particular problem by reading Ostrogorsky's Geschichte des byzantinischen Staates. A long-needed and courageous attempt to reconstruct the history of the empire and characterized by acute and penetrating analysis, this book is nevertheless marked by a certain unevenness of treatment. Side by side with brilliant sections on the achievements of the tenth century and the complications of the fourteenth (this latter perhaps the finest part of the book) must be set the brief and inadequate account of the years 1025–1081. Ostrogorsky is not alone. Misstatements and omissions continue, and often in unexpected places. Recent much used general histories, as for instance the third volume of the medieval section of the Glotz Histoire générale, still repeat the old emphasis on 1081 as the dividingline between a time of painful disaster and the new era of Comnenian glory.

Numen ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arvind Sharma

AbstractThe paper is conceptually divided into four parts. In the first part the widely held view that ancient Hinduism was not a missionary religion is presented. (The term ancient is employed to characterize the period in the history of Hinduism extending from fifth century B.C.E. to the tenth century. The term 'missionary religion' is used to designate a religion which places its followers under an obligation to missionize.) In the second part the conception of conversion in the context of ancient Hinduism is clarified and it is explained how this conception differs from the notion of conversion as found in Christianity. In the third part the view that ancient Hinduism was not a missionary religion is challenged by presenting textual evidence that ancient Hinduism was in fact a missionary religion, inasmuch as it placed a well-defined segment of its members under an obligation to undertake missionary activity. Such historical material as serves to confirm the textual evidence is then presented in the fourth part.


Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 449-469
Author(s):  
Zofia Brzozowska

The РНБ, F.IV.151 manuscript is the third volume of a richly illustrated his­toriographical compilation (so-called Лицевой летописный свод – Illustrated Chronicle of Ivan the Terrible), which was prepared in one copy for tsar Ivan IV the Terrible in 1568-1576 and represents the development of the Russian state on the broad background of universal history. The aforementioned manuscript, which contains a description of the history of the Roman Empire and then the Byzantine Empire between the seventies of the 1st century A.D and 919, includes also an extensive sequence devoted to Muhammad (Ѡ Бохмите еретицѣ), derived from the Old Church Slavonic translation of the chronicle by George the Monk (Hamartolus). It is accompanied by two miniatures showing the representation of the founder of Islam. He was shown in an almost identical manner as the creators of earlier heterodox trends, such as Arius or Nestorius. These images therefore become a part of the tendency to perceive Muhammad as a heresiarch, a false pro­phet, and the religion he created as one of the heresies within Christianity, which is also typical of the Old Russian literature.


2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Barceló ◽  
Anja Heidenreich

This article presents a study of the expansion of Islamic lusterware across the Mediterranean before its production was fully consolidated in al-Andalus between the end of the twelfth and the thirteenth century. A number of examples are presented here that indicate a flourishing trade around the Mediterranean as early as the tenth century, including pottery as well as other luxury goods. A survey of lusterware found on the Iberian Peninsula has yielded relevant information on the complex technical history of local luster production. We present seven Andalusi luster fragments from the eleventh century that feature decoration on both sides, with one piece bearing epigraphic inscriptions naming two of the Abbadid rulers of Seville, al-Muʿtaḍid and al-Muʿtamid. Discovered in Spain (Seville and Palma del Rio) and Portugal (Silves and Coimbra), these fragments indicate the existence of a ceramic production center in Seville and another at the Abbadid palace during the second half of the eleventh century. These pieces indicate the direct and marked influence that the various centers of luxury luster production in the Islamic East and West exerted on one another, a phenomenon not uncommon in the history of Islamic pottery.



1947 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 117-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Ostrogorsky

The struggle which the Byzantine government had to wage in the tenth century to protect small freeholders against the landed aristocracy represents a most interesting and important phase in the internal development of the Byzantine State. It can be said without exaggeration that the issue of the struggle determined the very fate of the Empire. The history of this stubborn, dramatic conflict has been outlined more than once. My intention is not to narrate it again, but to illustrate by a few concrete examples the causes which prevented the Byzantine government from effectively safeguarding the smallholder.The system of land tenure by free peasant proprietors and stratiotai—soldiers settled in the themes—formed the mainstay of the Byzantine Empire from the time of its recovery in the seventh century, as well as its principal source of both internal strength and external power. Naturally, the imperial government intervened in favour of the smallholder when it became clear that peasant and stratiote property was being rapidly absorbed by big landholders, with their former owners becoming serfs on the estates of lay landowners and monasteries. In protecting the smallholder against the encroachments of the feudal landed aristocracy, the State endeavoured to safeguard its soldiers and its best taxpayers, as well as its actual existence; for the development of the centrifugal forces of feudalism constituted a menace to the centralized and autocratic power of the Byzantine emperors.


Author(s):  
Ulrich Rudolph

This chapter charts the development of the theory of occasionalism within the Islamic tradition until the fifth/eleventh century. Occasionalism emphasizes God’s absolute power by negating natural causality and attributing every causal effect in the world immediately to Him. It is often assumed to be a distinctive, if not exclusive, feature of Sunnīkalāmas opposed to Muʿtazilism, Shīʿism, and Islamic philosophy. The chapter begins with the question of how the foundations of the occasionalist theory were prepared in the evolving Muʿtazilī discussions of the third/ninth and early fourth/tenth century. It then considers the role of Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī in the completion and final formulation of the theory before turning to later developments originating with some Ashʿarī theologians of the late fourth/tenth and the fifth/eleventh century. It also looks at the seventeenth chapter ofTahāfut al-falāsifa, in which Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) discusses occasionalism and the problematic of causality.


Author(s):  
Bala Saho

Oral history tells of an indigenous trader who lived in the middle belts of the River Gambia known as Kambi. His wealth and popularity transcended boundaries, villages, and communities from the interior of western Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. When the Portuguese arrived in the region during the first half of the 15th century, they immediately realized that Kambi wielded economic and social authority because of the frequent movements of traders up and down the river. The traders told the Portuguese that they visited Kambi-yaa (or Kambi’s place in Mandinka) in order to trade, and the Portuguese decided to name the region Gambia. Whether the above oral narrative is accurate is not of great concern. What is important is that the account provides a glimpse of the history of the region and the changes that were already under way by the 15th century. It is evident that the ancestors of present-day Gambians had arrived in waves, or series of migrations, and were fully established on both banks of the Gambia River when Portuguese explorers first arrived in the 15th century. The Portuguese reported having found Mandinka kings on the river who claimed to be vassals of the king of “Melle.” In 1620, Richard Jobson also reported that the Mandingo were the “lords and commanders” of all the Gambia. These early 15th century contacts, led to a continuous Europeans’ presence in the River Gambia that still persist. By 1816, Bathurst was established as the new capital of the Gambia but it was not until nearly 100 years later that the entire territory we now know as Gambia came firmly under British influence. British rule lasted until 1965, when a new era of self-rule began. The country has since witnessed three republics, the first ending in 1994, the second in 2016, and the third still existing as of 2018.


1935 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 655-666
Author(s):  
A. C. Banerji

The latter part of the tenth century of the Christian era gradually ushered in a new epoch in the history of India. In northern India the old kingdoms, which had dominated the political arena so long, made their exit, and new powers rose to take their place. The struggle between the Gurjaras and the Rāshṭrakuṭas ended fatally for both the contending parties. The great empire of Bhoja and Mahendrapāla had shrunk into the little principality of Kanauj. Its place was taken by the Chāndellas, the Haihayas, and the Chāhamānas, etc. The Pāla empire, too, in eastern India, had fallen on evil days. The land south of the Vindhyas was no exception from this. The Cholas of Tanjore who were to reach the height of their glory in the succeeding century, were gradually consolidating their position in the extreme south. While a new Chālukya dynasty claiming relationship with the older one eclipsed the supremacy of the Rāshṭrakuṭas in the Deccan. The history of the tenth and eleventh century a.d. is full of internecine warfare, which paved the way for Muslim conquest of India.


2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nanny Kim

This exploration of the history of the houseboat in China joins three investigative approaches: the context of transport systems, the technological perspective and transformations in cultural preferences. In a long-durational survey, it follows the boat as a means of transport but rarely as a means of travel from antiquity to about the third century. In the following centuries, boats became increasingly common, but they held little prestige compared to the riding horse or the carriage. In the tenth century, houseboats appear as lavish and fashionable means of elite travel, and until the eve of industrialisation remained the preferred mode for all who could afford them. The analysis traces gradual processes in seemingly sudden events and finds that stability may result from upholding traditions across historical ruptures.


Author(s):  
Sara GALLETTI

Stereotomy, the art of cutting stones into particular shapes for the construction of vaulted structures, is an ancient art that has been practiced over a wide chronological and geographical span, from Hellenistic Greece to contemporary Apulia and across the Mediterranean Basin. Yet the history of ancient and medieval stereotomy is little understood, and nineteenth- century theories about the art’s Syrian origins, its introduction into Europe via France and the crusaders, and the intrinsic Frenchness of medieval stereotomy are still largely accepted. In this essay, I question these theories with the help of a work-in-progress database and database-driven maps that consolidate evidence of stereotomic practice from the third century BCE through the eleventh century CE and across the Mediterranean region. I argue that the history of stereotomy is far more complex than what historians have assumed so far and that, for the most part, it has yet to be written.


ICR Journal ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 666-684
Author(s):  
Osman Bakar

This article is intended to comment on the civilisational history of Islam in Southeast Asia. The history is explained and accounted for in terms of the three major waves of globalisation that have impacted the region since the arrival of Islam as early as the eleventh century. The first wave, itself initiated and dominated by Islam, was responsible for the introduction and establishment of Islam in the region to the point of becoming its most dominant civilisation. The expansion of Islam and its civilisation was in progress when the second wave hit the shores of the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago with the arrival of the Portuguese and other Western powers resulting in the colonisation of the region. The third wave, an American-dominated one, manifests itself in the post-colonial period which witnesses Southeast Asian Islam reasserting itself in various domains of public life. The author sees Southeast Asian Islam as the historical product of centuries-long civilisational encounters with the pre-Islamic indigenous cultures and civilisations and later between ‘Malay-Indonesian Islam’ and the newly arriving religions and cultures brought by both the colonial and post-colonial West, arguing that Islam in the region has been significantly impacted by each of the three waves.


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