论中世纪西欧犹太妇女在犹太会堂中的地位和作用——以法、德为个案

尽管犹太妇女在犹太会堂中的地位依然受到传统的犹太律法及习俗的束缚,但是在中世纪的西欧,尤其是在12-13世纪的法国和德国,犹太妇女在犹太会堂中的地位仍然有了很大的改善.她们不仅拥有自己的会堂或者祈祷室,而且有自己的领唱员(cantor),犹太妇女不仅在安息日而且在平时也去会堂进行公共祈祷.除此之外,犹太妇女还积极地参加会堂的慈善活动.这不仅丰富了犹太妇女的精神生活,提高了犹太妇女的宗教和社会地位,而且极大地改善了犹太妇女的社会形象.     

The place of women in European royal succession in the middle ages

When in 1997 Professor Michael Bennett announced his rediscovery of Edward III’s succession charter of 1376, the general press proclaimed that succession to the English throne had for the first time been made a male preserve, and that before that date there had been no barrier to a woman occupying the throne, citing, for example, the case of Matilda, daughter of Henry I. But is this correct? By examining examples from both Britain and continental Europe from c.1100 onwards, this paper seeks to establish the true position of women in the succession to European thrones before ‘effective’ female rulers – those who ruled independently of husbands or regents – became a regular feature of the political landscape from the late fifteenth century onwards.     

中世纪刑法对现代西方刑法思想的人文指归

提起中世纪西方刑法学,"刑法文明史中的漫漫长夜","蒙昧、残酷、专制"等负面评价遮掩了其应有的光辉。其实,在陷于四分五裂的战争时期的欧洲,强调抑制原欲、注重心灵赎罪、提倡群体理性的教会刑法思想具有特殊意义的人文性与进步性。它以强大的宗教力量使得欧洲刑法观念呈现出空前整齐、划一的状态;这种历经千年积淀而成的刑法文化,维持并传承了欧洲统一的价值观念与信仰体系,对近、现代西方刑法思想的发展起着重要的提挈与引导作用。     

The role of the ortoq in the Mongol Empire in forming business partnerships

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the emergence and development of business partnerships established by the Mongols and their merchant partners, ortoqs, in the Middle Ages. Ortoqs are known to have conducted trade and money-lending with the capital invested by their partners. This study shows that the contractual arrangements of Mongol–ortoq partnerships closely resembled medieval partnership contracts, such as mudharaba, inan, societas and commenda. Sophisticated concepts of liability in relation to investments and loans were developed in Mongol–ortoq partnerships, promoting trade and investment to facilitate the commercial integration of the Mongol Empire.     

‘Good,fresh air and an expert medical service’: old age pensioners in Leiden’s St. Hiëronymusdal retirement home,sixteenth century

The cost of retirement has a strong impact on social processes, both today and in the past. This study concerns the cost of retirement to St. Hiëronymusdal, a retirement home that was established outside the town of Leiden in the first half of the sixteenth century. Here individuals could purchase lifelong accommodation and care. If they had enough money to spend, they could opt for relatively luxurious contracts providing them with a private room; if they were short of means, they could opt for a basic contract providing them with a bed in a hall. We demonstrate that this allowed people from lower and middling groups to prepare for old age. Inexpensive retirement also gave individuals the option to spend their old age living independently from relatives, in a retirement home. These elderly people could do this on their own account by paying for care rather than depending on charity – which usually involved a loss of social prestige. We suggest that inexpensive retirement allowed family ties to become looser and thus facilitated such developments as migration and urbanization, and the rise of the European marriage pattern. Rising prices and declining interest rates caused retirement to become more expensive in later centuries though, posing challenges for the early modern elderly.     

中国移植罪刑法定原则的可能性--何以与中国本土资源相衔接

最原始意义上的罪刑法定原则，产生于欧洲大陆国家，是与欧洲中世纪的司法擅断密切相关的。当我们进一步探究中世纪的司法擅断时，我们会发现这是西欧大陆封建制的必然产物，毫无制约的权力与武力镇压是其特色，所以罪刑法定原则是制约封建制下的各个封建领主绝对司法权的产物，其本质在于监督。而中国古代的帝制确保了对下级官吏包括审理案件的官员的监督，在这种政治体制下，面临的问题是对皇权的监督，而比附援引正是对皇权进行监督的措施。     

The Accursed Share: Bataille as Historical Thinker

Abstract

This essay addresses Georges Bataille as a historical thinker by concentrating on The Accursed Share (three volumes, 1949-54), the text Bataille took as his master-work. An amalgam of cultural criticism, anthropological and sociological research, The Accursed Share reveals Bataille's temporalised vision of his four central ideas, excess, expenditure, sovereignty and transgression. Grappling with this vision is key for understanding Bataille's oeuvre as a whole because it brings the entirety of his assessments of Western and world culture under its heading. The aim of the paper is to offer a sense, on one hand, of Bataille's dystopic heterology and, on the other hand, the unique formulation of the junctures between economics, power and morality that define him as important for the irruption of post-structural thought specifically, and indeed, the postmodern era as a whole.     

The Saracens of the Baltic: Pagan and Christian Lithuanians in the Perception of English and French Crusaders to Late Medieval Prussia

This paper investigates the use of the term ‘Saracens’ to describe the Lithuanian opponents of the Western crusaders who took part in expeditions launched from Prussia by the Teutonic Order against the grand duchy of Lithuania in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It presents a variety of evidence from narrative and documentary sources to demonstrate that this usage was derived from existing images of Muslim opponents and was reinforced by epic and romance literature. The use of the term Saracens, which by the fourteenth century had become a generic designation for pagans, was both a convenient way for Western crusaders to imbue the Prussian crusades with a value commensurate with campaigns in the Holy Land, but also to blacken their Lithuanian opponents even when they had abandoned paganism.     

Autosomal short tandem repeat analysis of ancient DNA by coupled use of mini- and conventional STR kits

Abstract: Multiplex autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) genotyping enables researchers to obtain genetic information from ancient human samples. In this study, we tested newly developed AmpF?STR^® MiniFiler? kit for autosomal STR analysis of ancient DNA (aDNA), using human femurs (n = 8) collected from medieval Korean tombs. After extracting aDNA from the bones, autosomal STR analyses were repeated for each sample using the AmpF?STR^® MiniFiler? and Identifiler? kits. Whereas only 21.87% of larger‐sized loci profiles could be obtained with the Identifiler? kit, 75% of the same loci profiles were determined by MiniFiler? kit analysis. This very successful amplification of large‐sized STR markers from highly degraded aDNA suggests that the MiniFiler? kit could be a useful complement to conventional STR kit analysis of ancient samples.     

商法探源——论中世纪的商人法

对商法史的考察和分析历来是我国商法学研究的薄弱环节。本文采用史论结合的研究方法 ,对中世纪商人法的产生背景做一些宏观考察 ,并尝试概括出其几个世纪以来演进的基本特点 ,希望可以收到正本清源、以史鉴今之效果。