History and Medieval Studies

Alexander McCaul (1799-1863) was one of the most prominent figures in The London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst Jews during the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1837, he published a formidable attack against the Talmud entitled The Old Paths, engendering considerable consternation and alarm among Jews when the work appeared in Hebrew translation two years later. Having spent ten years as a missionary in Warsaw, McCaul knew Jewish texts and Jewish life intimately.

A public lecture by David B. Ruderman, University of Pennsylvania, Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History, Fellow at CEU Institute for Advanced Study

Organized by

Atelier European Social Sciences and Historiography Department

Narrative tissues, embroideries and mural tapestries were an integrant part of the Romanesque building decoration, composed by sculptures, paintings, mosaics and different objects. I aim to focus this seminar on a monumental artwork which probably embellished a civil residence: the Bayeux Embroidery (Musée de la Tapisserie, Bayeux, France), which is the most important medieval narrative cycle of its kind currently preserved.

This presentation draws upon research for a project, which charts the history of Protestant charity as it developed in post-Reformation Germany from the sixteenth into the early-nineteenth centuries. With a perspective focused on the longue durée, this project challenges the dominant line of argument in much of the scholarship on charity focusing upon the first generation of Protestant reformers.

Artemios, an unpopular dux of Egypt under Constantius II turned into a healer-saint in sixth-century Constantinople, is a well-known character. We will examine the main problems regarding Artemios’ dossier, namely the enigmatic circumstances of his death, the hypothesis according to which he would have been made an Arian martyr in Antioch and the reasons why he started to be venerated as a healer many years later in Constantinople.

Founding towns has been the motor of urban growth over the last few millennia. This complex process, presupposing terms set by a founder, a population who obeys to these, and not least, a territory where it can be carried out, readily lends itself to comparative investigations. My talk will focus on the introduction and adaptive use of the regular grid, a common method of planning, in several different contexts over time and space.

The cult of saints, and their relics, is deeply rooted in the history of Christianity. Yet, if the Christians always respected heroes of the faith, such as Apostles and martyrs, before the 4th century they did not expect to be able to contact them after their death, did not believe in the power of their graves, and abhorred the idea of touching their bones. 

The movement of Muslim reformers known as Jadidism appeared in Daghestan in the early twentieth century. Being under the Russian rule, the Jadids proposed to develop the Islamic thought, and law in line with the new realities. There were two forms of this movement, namely reformation of education and reformation of Muslim legal school. The first group of scholars proposed only reformation of Islamic school system, while supporting the theological tradition (taqlīd) of the Shāfi‘ī legal school (madhhab).