Medieval History

CALL FOR PAPERS

Contributors are sought for an edited collection, under contract with publishers Taylor and Francis, that illuminates the many worlds of the Medieval Mediterranean, from 470 to 1350, as a space both geographically unified between East and West around a single body of water, and simultaneously a region of great cultural, political, economic, religious, and linguistic diversity.

Dear Colleagues,

Your network editor has reposted this from H-Announce. The byline reflects the original authorship.

Dear H-HistGeog members,

Those of you interested in the geographical history of the Mediterranean may be enjoy reading a couple of new papers. 

Recently the writing system of a Medieval manuscript was revealed to be proto-Romance: i.e. the ancestor to Spanish and the other modern Romance languages. In addition, it is written with a proto-Italic alphabet. It is the only known document of this kind and therefore has considerable linguistic and historic importance.

+1 to what Andrew wrote--and definitely thanks for highlighting these texts! An important aspect of the cultural context here is textual tradition. If an well-known authority (medical or religious) had written that a particular food or drug was a useful cure, that becomes "truth." Even such substances were/are not particularly efficacious from a physiological standpoint, it was easier to come up with a reason why it didn't work in a particular instance rather than to decide the long-standing belief was false or the authority was wrong.

Thanks for sharing, Gerard! To your question, I would hesitate to define efficacy in terms of modern ideas about healthful diets. While it is surely true that correcting some dietary deficiency would likely have been perceived as efficacious, understanding of what "works" is heavily influenced by social and cultural context and, perhaps not surprisingly, is also deeply personal or individualized (i.e., what works for *me* may not be what works for someone else).

Dear H-Nutrition members,

Those of you interested in Medieval nutrition and diet may be intrigued by two new papers concerning the Mediterranean in the 15^th century. 

Recently, the writing system of a Medieval manuscript was revealed to be proto-Romance: i.e., the ancestor to Spanish and the other modern Romance languages. In addition, it is written with a proto-Italic alphabet. It is the only known document of this kind and therefore has considerable linguistic and historic importance.

The editors of History Studies invite the submission of papers for inclusion in volume eighteen

History Studies is the journal of the University of Limerick’s History postgraduate students is jointly produced with the Department of History, University of Limerick.  The journal is refereed by a panel of distinguished historians and is an established periodical in the field of historical scholarship.

http://ulsites.ul.ie/historystudies/history-studies