Paul of Venice on a Puzzle About Uncertainty
Since the advent of Hintikka’s Knowledge and Belief [8] in 1962, epistemic logic has become a vibrant and exciting subfield of modal logic. However, like its sister alethic modal logic [18], epistemic logic is not a new invention or dis- covery of the 20th century. In the Middle Ages, philosophers were concerned with many of the same problems in epistemology that exercise us today, and logicians were correspondingly interested in what types of inferences containing epistemic modes or operators are licet
How did medieval Europeans deal with Greek debt? They sacked their capital city
The real reason for the diversion to Constantinople in 1203 by the Venetians and the crusaders, and for their subsequent attack on the imperial capital in 1204, was a simpler and, in their minds, increasingly pressing concern: the payment of outstanding debts
‘The inordinate excess in apparel’: Sumptuary Legislation in Tudor England
Sumptuary legislation can be defined as a set of regulations, passed down by legislators through statutory law and parliamentary proclamations, that sought to regulate society by dictating what contemporaries could own or wear based on their position within society.
The concept of quarantine in history: from plague to SARS
The concept of ‘quarantine’ is radically embedded in local and global health practices and culture, attracting heightened interest during episodes of perceived or actual epidemics. The term, however, evokes a variety of emotions, such as fear, resentment, acceptance, curiosity and perplexity, reactions often to be associated with a lack of knowledge about the origins, meaning, and rel- evance of quarantine itself.
Conversion and Convergence in the Venetian-Ottoman Borderlands
In this essay I seek to explain this surprisingly peaceful outcome to a potentially explosive situation, and more broadly to contribute to a new kind of history of early modern diplomacy that takes as its starting point practices of mediation in all their complexity.
Stradioti: Balkan Mercenaries in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Italy
This paper will investigate the origins of the stradioti, their ethnic and regional composition, their role in the armies of the 15th and 16th centuries, and their participation in the founding of Greek Orthodox Communities in the Italy and elsewhere.
64% Majority Rule in Ducal Venice: Voting for the Doge
How was Venice able to preserve herself for over 12 centuries, her status as a financial center and, especially in the last three centuries, as an artistic center intact and for lengthy periods unchallenged? The secret appears to lie to a considerable degree in the political institutions by which Venice was governed.
The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople
Jonathan Phillips sees one of the most notorious events in European history as a typical ‘clash of cultures’
