Том 82, № 3 (2021)

The article revisits James Tod (1782–1835), a Scottish Indologist who had discovered for the European public the history and culture of Rajputs, the military feudal estate of the Western, Northern and Central India. His book dealt a considerable blow to the two stereotypes that had become axiomatic both in Indology and in the general European perception of India. One of them alleged the ‘ahistoricity’ of Indian culture, the other, even contrary to medievalism that had been gaining momentum in Europe, viewed the history of India after the fall of ancient empires as nothing but degradation, denying Indian society any ability to change and develop independently. The book became extremely popular and was subjected to scathing criticism, especially for the author’s assessment of the Rajput society as feudal. Overwhelming rejection of this concept was relevant to social practice and ideology of British colonialism that had never been ready to view the natives as analogous to the noble knights of medieval Europe. Indian readers, on the contrary, admired the book; translated into many local languages, it emerged as one of the sources for the formation of historical discourse in Indian enlightenment and nationalism.

This article examines the parting with the Protestant sovereign Edward VI under the circumstances which lead to general political instability and the Catholic queen Mary I’s ascent to the throne. The author analyzes a number of issues, i.e., Edward VI composing his will, funeral ceremonies and this monarch’s burial. Edward VI’s mourning consisting of both Protestant and Catholic components turns out to be the principal witness of the scope of the political and religious crisis England experienced in the middle of the 16th century. Parallel to the public Protestant service at the Westminster Abbey, a Catholic Mass is being held in the Tower, and it is at the latter that the successor of the deceased Edward VI on the English throne, Mary I, and foreign ambassadors are present. The research is based on textual sources (some of them unpublished) as well as pictorial ones.

The article examines illustrations in catechetical works of Martin Luther (the Large and Small Catechisms, the Prayer Book, and the Passional) of the 16th century. The authors analyzed 30 editions (20 editions of the Large and Small Catechisms and 10 editions of prayer books, excluding copies and identical reprints) from the collections of the National Library of Russia, the Bavarian State Library and the Duke Augustus Library. The illustrations for the catechisms were created in collaboration of the Wittenberg theologians, Melanchthon and Luther, with various artists and engravers. However, their approach to illustrations was quite different. Luther rather relied on the medieval tradition, striving only for the true Christian meanings generated by the images. Illustrations in the prayer book and the Passional as well as short titles in the Large and Short Catechism could be used both for meditation and narration. In his turn, Melanchthon developed innovative principles of interaction between text and image: moving through the visual range from general catechetical instructions to specific biblical examples. Such conception was conceived primarily for teaching. However, both types were combined in quite eclectic first editions of the Large and Small Catechisms. Illustrations were too random, some prints were doubled. Errors, however, wandered from publication to publication and even multiplied. However, in separate editions of the 16th century catechism, they tried to overcome these shortcomings. Duplicate images are replaced in the Augsburg, Leipzig, Magdeburg and Frankfurt editions. In addition, theologian Johann Spangeberg tried to expand the visual range of the catechism, enriching it with illustrations for the Creed section, based on the images of the Passional. Besides, there some editions of the second prayer book with illustrations in the catechetical part. There synthetic editions testify that images of catechetical texts were joint in the minds of contemporaries and formed so called «confessional imagination».

The article is devoted to the prehistory of the classical German concept of «hereditary enemy» and explores its distinctive features. Based on German pamphlets from the second half of the 17th century the article analyzes the transformation of this concept in the conditions of the Austro-Turkish wars of the late 17th century and the wars of Louis XIV and the transition from the traditional hereditary enemy-Turk, to the new enemy-Frenchman. Particular attention is paid to the use by German publicists of previously established methods and characteristics to form the image of a new enemy that posed the same danger.

22 июля 2021 г. скончался Андрей Германович Глебов, доктор исторических наук, профессор Воронежского государственного университета, большой друг нашего журнала. Он принадлежал к тем историкам, для которых на первом месте стояло человеческое общение и только на втором – кабинетная работа. Вся его жизнь была связана с Воронежским университетом, и он был прекрасным преподавателем. Его не просто любили студенты, у него получалось преподавать, и эта его работа приносила результаты. При том, что он не дожил до 65 лет и последние годы сильно болел, двадцать его учеников защитили диссертации. Некоторые из его учеников стали уже признанными авторами нашего журнала.

The reviewed monograph is a translation of the French edition of 1992, revised and completed by the author in the face of scholarly achievements of subsequent years. It contains rich material on the history of the Latin language in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages and on the formation on its basis of western Romance languages; yet it is not a systematic exposition of the facts which characterize this process. We are dealing with a study of one of its most important aspects, namely with the correlation of literary and spoken Latin. Analyzing very different sources (treatises, sermons, lives of saints, chronicles, acts of church councils, to a lesser extent documents and inscriptions) the author comes to the conclusion that till the end of the VIII c., in Italy – till the end of the IX c. and even later we witness the maintenance of a certain unity between the language of the educated elite and the language of the poorly educated and simply uneducated population. This unity made possible the continuity of vertical communication between the two social groups. It also helped to maintain a certain level of communication across the lands which constituted the Romance part of Europe. These conclusions are very important for evaluating the sociocultural processes of this period and the informational potential of the surviving sources as such. Having certain reservations about some of the thesis contained in the monograph, the authors of this review estimate it very highly.

The review is devoted to two new books by British scholars, concerning the medieval cult of St Cuthbert, and the perception of the past by members of his community, originally located on the island of Lindisfarne, later moved to Chester-le-Street, and then to Durham. The author of the first monograph, historian C. Rozier, examines a wide range of texts related to the perception and the construction of the past by members of this community (from late 7th to the first third of the 12th century). Despite some minor inaccuracies, the work is an excellent example of a comprehensive analysis of the local medieval historical tradition over a long period of time and using a wide source base. The second book, written by philologist C. Whitehead, is devoted to the entire medieval history of the cult of St. Cuthbert (late 7th to 15th centuries). The researcher, on the one hand, identifies the main features characteristic of the Cuthbertine ascetic tradition; on the other hand, she shows the multifaceted image of the saint, which changed depending on the historical and geographical context.

The study concentrates on the history of diplomatic relations between the early Tudors (1485–1558) and the Roman curia in the context of significant changes that took place in the internal evolution of European nation-states – primarily England – at the turn of the late Middle Ages and early modern times, considering the growing influence of the secular royal power to the detriment of the universalist claims of the papacy. The author traces this tendency in all its complexity and contradictions, given the dual nature of the papal authority. The anglo-papal diplomacy is examined in the framework of complex international relations: the Italian wars, the growing Turkish threat, the consequences of the Hundred Years War, etc. The book contains detailed analysis of the composition of the British diplomatic missions in Rome and their functions. The author highlights the fact that the diplomats, being in the service of the English king, often became servants of the Roman curia.