Through Jewish eyes: polemical literature and the medieval papacy

Although the medieval papacy's stance towards the Jews is a well-established area of research, Jewish ideas about the papacy remain a surprisingly underdeveloped historical topic. This article explores such ideas through the genre of polemic and disputational literature. Jewish writers were keen to ensure the safety of their communities in western Europe and grateful for statements of papal protection. They fully acknowledged that popes had always played and would continue to play an important role in safeguarding their well-being and determining their future. Yet although contemporary and later writers often valued papal protection more highly than that of monarchs, emperors or clergy, they also knew that it had its carefully circumscribed limits. Furthermore, although they were respectful of the papacy's power, both spiritual and temporal, they were dismissive of the scriptural and theological formulations on which Christian claims for apostolic authority rested and highly critical of Christian beliefs about the papacy, in particular that of apostolic succession. Jewish ideas about both individual popes and the medieval papacy as an institution are therefore nuanced and complex; they deserve rigorous and wide-ranging investigation and it is hoped that this article will contribute to their better understanding.

Tactical ethics: how the discourses of fairtrade and black economic empowerment change and interact in wine networks from South Africa to the UK.

This paper explores the spaces and power relations of ethical foodscapes. Ethics can offer a commodity a valuable unique selling point in a competitive marketplace but managing the changeable and multiple motivations for stakeholder participation throughout the commodity chain in order to utilise this opportunity is a complex negotiation. Through exploring the spaces and relations within three South African– UK ethical wine networks, the discursive tactics used to sustain these are uncovered. The discourses of Fairtrade, Black Economic Empowerment and organics are highly adaptive, interacting with each other in such a way as to always be contextually appealing. This ‘tactical mutability’ is combined with ‘scales of knowing’, which, this paper argues, are essential for network durability. ‘Scales of knowing’ refers to the recognition by stakeholders of the potential for different articulations of a discourse within the network, which combines with ‘tactical mutability’ to allow for a scalar, contextual and ’knowing’ (im)mutability to ensure the discourse’s continued appeal. However, even when one discourse is the ‘lead’ it always folds within it linkages to other ethical discourses at work, suggesting that ethical practice is mutually supportive discursively. This means that at the producer end ethical interactions may offer more capacity to enact genuine transformation than the solo operations of a discourse.

'Score it upon my taille': the use (and abuse) of tallies by the medieval Exchequer

The paper traces the evolution of the tally from a receipt for cash payments into the treasury, to proof of payments made by royal officials outside of the treasury and finally to an assignment of revenue to be paid out by royal officials. Each of these processes is illustrated by examples drawn from the Exchequer records and explains their significance for royal finance and for historians working on the Exchequer records.

The 'child of Babylon' and the problem of paternity in Medieval French Alexander romances

A study of the use of hybrid physical appearance both to signal and to explore the disputed paternity of Alexander the Great throughout its vernacular French tradition. The article compares the 'child of Babylon' portent and Alexander's son Alior in the twelfth-century French "Roman d'Alexandre" poem cycle, and a fifteenth-century prose adaptation of it.

Palaeobiology of the medieval population of Albano (Rome, Italy): a combined morphological and biomolecular approach

Recent years have seen increased interest in skeletal populations from the Imperial Roman Age in Italy, but much less is known about diet and standards of living in the subsequent medieval period. To fill this gap, we conducted a morphological analysis of human remains from Albano, an Italian town near Rome, as well as a stable isotope analysis of bone collagen to reconstruct diet. The sample was recovered from a Medieval cemetery (1040–1220 cal. yr. BP) located in the gardens of the historical Palazzo Doria Pamphili in Albano. A minimum number of 40 individuals (31 adults and 9 sub-adults) were examined using standard methods. Though the general health status of the population was good, signs of cribra orbitalia and diffuse enthesopathies were noted during the morphological examination. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of the bone collagen from 24 adult humans and three faunal bones indicate that the diet of the population may be described as predominantly terrestrial and C3-plant based although the data for some of the individuals suggest a modest consumption of C4-(millet) based or aquatic proteins. No evidence of significant dietary differences between the sexes was found. The comparison of the isotope data from Albano with those from populations recovered in the same region is consistent with a shift from a terrestrial, possibly plant foods-dominated subsistence in the Early Middle Ages to a diet with a higher contribution from animal proteins, both terrestrial and aquatic, in the Later Middle Ages.

Biała Góra: the forgotten colony in the Medieval Pomeranian-Prussian borderlands

Biała Góra 3 is a small settlement founded in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century AD in the disputed Christian borderlands of Northern Europe. The incorporation of Pomerania into the Polish state in the tenth century was followed by a process of colonisation across the lower Vistula valley, which then stalled before resuming in the thirteenth century under the Teutonic Order. Biała Góra 3 is unusual in falling between the two expansionist phases and provides detailed insight into the ethnicity and economy of this borderland community. Pottery and metalwork show strong links with both Pomeranian and German colonists, and caches of bricks and roof tiles indicate durable buildings of the kind associated with the monastic and military orders. Evidence for the presence of merchants suggests Biała Góra 3 was one of many outposts in the commercial network that shadowed the Crusades.

Medieval foreign exchange: a time series analysis

This chapter applies rigorous statistical analysis to existing datasets of medieval exchange rates quoted in merchants’ letters sent from Barcelona, Bruges and Venice between 1380 and 1310, which survive in the archive of Francesco di Marco Datini of Prato. First, it tests the exchange rates for stationarity. Second, it uses regression analysis to examine the seasonality of exchange rates at the three financial centres and compares them against contemporary descriptions by the merchant Giovanni di Antonio da Uzzano. Third, it tests for structural breaks in the exchange rate series.

Educating integrated catalysts: transforming business schools toward ethics and sustainability

Joining the sharpening critique of conventional University-based business school education, we argue that educating integrated catalysts is necessary to meet current sustainability challenges. The key feature of moving toward the integration required at the individual level is focusing on developing students' capacity for moral and cognitive maturity. Practically, this makes the practice of genuine dialogue focal as core interpersonal method for educating management students. In supporting such education, business schools must however first transform themselves. Acting as transformative social enterprises, they can demonstrate being a part in critically questioning and improving the impact and relevance of management on the flourishing of wider society and the practice of an ethically oriented economy. We offer practical suggestions and implications for future business education reform.