Volume 83, Nº 4 (2022)

This article studies the early period in the history of the journal «Srednie Veka» – from the publication of the first issue (1942) to its final design as a yearbook in the mid-1960s. According to the plan of its founders, «Srednie Veka» was to become a periodical publishing the researches on the history of the Middle Ages. However, the first issues of the collected papers appeared irregularly; it became an annual from the fourth issue only. The editors of the «Srednie Veka» strived to obtain the journal status, which in the Soviet period ensured the inclusion into the academic publication plan, regular publication, and more issues per year. The authors of this article have used the archival materials, analysis of the issues of the «Srednie Veka» and their content to uncover the editorial board’s attempts to turn the collection of scholarly papers into a periodical. The article highlights the difficulties that the editors had to face when preparing the issues, and the role of the editor-in-chief and the chief of medieval department in the development of the editorial policy. Although «Srednie Veka» did not acquire the journal status in the Soviet period, the editorial staff managed to increase the number of annual issues and their size. Thanks to the efforts of Evgenii A. Kosminskii, Nina A. Sidorova, Sergei D. Skazkin, the editorial board and the medieval department «Srednie Veka» became the leading academic publication of the Soviet medievalists.

The paper presents a detailed description of the fragment with portions of the Digest text from the books XXXIX and XL (D. 39.6.42–40.2.13) and with glosses to them. The fragment of codex is stored in the Scientific Archives of the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences under the code Cart. 625, N28 and has not yet received a scientific description. The author dates the fragment to the end of the XII century, and he shows its connection with the tradition of the law school of Piacenza. The newly identified fragment deserves the third place in the chronological series of the earliest Italian copies of the Digestum Novum. The fragment reflects well the work of the scholars on the emendation so called Bolognian version of the Digest. The glosses in the margins of the manuscript, written by the early Bolognese rotunda, were copied almost simultaneously with the text of Digest, but belong to the hand of another scribe. The learned corrector compared the new copy with reliable manuscripts, and in one case he has referred to the reading in the manuscript of Placentinus. It is shown that the basis of the glosses contained in the fragment were the glosses of Martin Gosia. Evidence is given that the glosses may have been borrowed from a manuscript belonging to the glossator Otto of Pavia, a pupil of Placentinus. The paper proposes some additions and clarifications to the observations of Gero Dolezalek, which were based on the study of a fragment of another, somewhat later, codex containing parts of the text of Digest from the same book XL (titles 5–12) and the first title of the next book XLI. The comparative material from seven manuscripts was used in the paper, including three earlier manuscripts, which remained out of reach for Dolezalek. It is also noteworthy to mention, that the fragment preserved an initial, executed according to traditions of the school of Lucca, with the image of an anthropomorphic figure resembling a siren, quite rare for the iconography of Italian illuminated manuscripts of the XII century.

In this article, based mainly on the study of manorial court rolls of Ramsey Abbey (1275), published by F.W. Maitland, specificity of social and legal development of a spot named Saint Ives is being researched. Saint Ives was fixed in the Domesday Book as a rural manor, but its further development led to an opportunity to procure from a King (Henry I) a grant of a fair. Holding of the fair resulted in a formation of local market law, which was based on direct merchants’ litigations connected with everyday cases, needs and controversies of the traders. Specific development of Saint Ives was revealed in a dualism of legal competences of a local manorial court (curia). This settlement – in spite of market availability and merchants’ trade operations – anyway was organized as a manor (including curia itself with all specific features of its legal, social and economic activity). But nevertheless, this activity had a key peculiarity: along with manorial common people’s litigations, many «market lawsuits» were considered in the court of Saint Ives. Specific feature of the documents researched in the article is that they contain quite a rare phenomenon of manorial legal life in the 13th century: participation of attorneys and various groups of witnesses and representatives of different «parties», acting on the side of a plaintiff or defendant.

The emergence and growth of the Catholic cult of the Virgin of Smolensk in the first half of the 17th century was largely due to the political and religious rivalry between Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy. After the Polish capture of Smolensk in 1611, the venerated icon was kept by the Dominicans who tried earnestly to promote the new Marian image cult on the easternmost outskirts of Catholic Europe. A fictional history of the icon was compiled in the 1640s, mainly inspired by the legend of Our Lady of Częstochowa, but also taking account of recent developments in Polish and Ruthenian Marian hagiography. With the recapture of Smolensk by the Tsar’s army in 1654 the icon fell back into Russian Orthodox hands and turned into an exclusively Orthodox sacred image. A new legend was later composed, probably a reworking of the Dominican story, which made the icon a symbol of continuity between Byzantium, Old Rus’, Muscovy and the Russian Empire.

This publication includes Russian translation of the letters written in English and sent by academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, professor of the Moscow State University Evgeny Alekseevich Kosminsky (1886–1959) to the President of the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions (ICHRPI) Helen Maud Cam, FBA (1885–1968), from 1957 to 1959. This source kept in the personal funds of H.M. Cam in the Archives of Girton College (Cambridge University) is published for the first time. It concerns the official inclusion of the Soviet delegation in the work of the ICHRPI, the issues of the reports of E.A. Kosminsky, other Soviet members of the ICHRPI and scholars from the Central and Eastern Europe at the annual sessions and conferences of this Commission taken place in Paris, Brussels, Innsbruck, Stockholm in 1957–1960. In some letters E.A. Kosminsky discusses with H.M. Cam their dissentions about crucial social and political definitions of the Middle Ages (such as “feudalism” and “monarchy”). In this correspondence the Soviet scholar also pays attention to his passion for gardening and to his health state, which had a tendency to decline and did not allow him to continue the full-scale scholarly work during last three years of his life. Despite some non-disclosured issues in this text (for example, the impossibility of accepting the application of the independent Hungarian delegation to the meetings of the Commission without a confirmation from the Soviet side), the correspondence makes evident a friendly manner and a deep respect from both scholars.

The author of the publication acquaints the reader with the letters of the Byzantinist M.Ja. Sjuzjumov to a medievalist, researcher of barbaric codes A.I. Neusykhin. These letters are from the personal archival collection of A.I. Neusykhin had never been published before, although they were once cited in the scientific literature. The significance of this source is great both for scientific discussions about feudalism in general and the proper use of this term, and for the history of science, especially considering the fact that the response letters of A.I. Neusykhin to M.Ja. Sjuzjumov was not preserved in the personal archival collection of the latter. The introductory article discusses a brief biography of M.Ja. Sjuzjumov and his relationship with A.I. Neusykhin, features of his scientific discussions about feudalism with colleagues – researchers of the Western Middle Ages and Byzantine Middle Ages (E.V. Gutnova, Z.V. Udal’cova, A.I. Neusykhin, A.P. Kazhdan, etc.). In Soviet times, the views of M.Ja. Sjuzjumov on feudalism in Byzantium were criticized by the leading researchers of Western Europe in USSR, and the answers of M.Ja. Sjuzjumov to the objections of his colleagues were either not allowed in the press, or were published with significant revisions, which sometimes changed the meaning of his views. M.Ja. Sjuzjumov criticizes also the fundamentals of the humanities of that time, proposed by I.V. Stalin’s definition of the feudal system. In the surviving letters, it is possible to read the point of view and argumentation of the outstanding researcher without cuts and corrections, which he expresses quite vividly and emotionally in a private conversation. Being confident in his rightness, the scientist quite consciously writes: “I have many disagreements with almost everyone, and I am absolutely not inclined to concede in almost anything.”

Редакционная коллегия и редакционный совет журнала «Средние века» с прискорбием сообщают о кончине Всеволода Матвеевича Володарского – замечательного учёного, крупнейшего специалиста по истории Германии периода Реформации и культуре Западной Европы эпохи Возрождения, выдающегося преподавателя, эрудита и популяризатора науки.

The article is devoted to the book of D.B.R. Kouamenan which investigates the strategies of legitimation and of delegitimisation of french and english kings’ authority in late Middle Ages. The approach used by D.B.R. Kouamenan appears as a novelty when the author examines these strategies from cultural perspective and not from political one. D.B.R. Koumenan proves that in these strategies the notion of friendship was used to legitimate the ruler’s authority because this notion used to be a part of fundamental principles of feudal society. On the contrary the notion of sodomy was used to delegitimate the ruler’s authority and was meant to attack the courtly favouritism. The latter was supposed to undermine feudal relations because it was based on personal attachment and not on feudal lineage.