Description
Book SynopsisThis volume explores social practices of framing, building and enacting community in urban-rural relations across medieval Eurasia. Introducing fresh comparative perspectives on practices and visions of community, it offers a thorough source-based examination of medieval communal life in its sociocultural complexity and diversity in Central and Southeast Europe, South Arabia and Tibet. As multi-layered social phenomena, communities constantly formed, restructured and negotiated internal allegiances, while sharing a topographic living space and joint notions of belonging. The volume challenges disciplinary paradigms and proposes an interdisciplinary set of low-threshold categories and tools for cross-cultural comparison of urban and rural communities in the Global Middle Ages. Contributors are Maaike van Berkel, Hubert Feiglstorfer, Andre Gingrich, Károly Goda, Elisabeth Gruber, Johann Heiss, Kateřina Horníčková, Eirik Hovden, Christian Jahoda, Christiane Kalantari, Odile Kommer, Fabian Kümmeler, Christina Lutter, Judit Majorossy, Ermanno Orlando, and Noha Sadek.
Table of ContentsPreface List of Figures Abbreviations Notes on Contributors 1 Practising Community in Urban and Rural Eurasia: Introduction and Practical Approaches Elisabeth Gruber and Fabian Kümmeler PART 1: Practising Community in Urban and Rural Spaces 2 Symbols, Signs and Acts of Social Cohesion in the Austrian Danube Region Elisabeth Gruber 3 Legal, Spatial and Ritual Practices and Visions of Community in Late Medieval Venice: Comparative Perspectives Ermanno Orlando 4 Balancing a Community’s Food and Water Supply: The Social Impact of Rural-Urban Interdependences in Korčula (Dalmatia) and Ṣaʿda (Yemen) Fabian Kümmeler and Johann Heiss 5 Conceptualizing City-Hinterland Relations and Governance: Medieval Sanaa as a Case Study Eirik Hovden, Johann Heiss and Odile Kommer PART 2: Representing Community through Public Buildings and Performative Culture 6 Public Buildings and/as Symbolic Framing of Urban-cum-Rural Communal Practice in Western Tibet Christian Jahoda 7 Material Culture in the Western Himalayas: Mandalic Settlement Patterns and Material Components of the Ritual Space Hubert Feiglstorfer 8 Image Construction and Community Building in the Spiritual Career of the Buddha in Western Tibet from the Eleventh–Thirteenth Century Christiane Kalantari 9 Visualising Communities: The Canonry of Třeboň (Southern Bohemia) Kateřina Horníčková 10 The Monuments of Rasulid Taʿizz: The Physical Construction of Power and Piety Noha Sadek PART 3: Practising Community – Forms of Integration and Differentiation 11 Defining Rules of Rural-Urban Flows: Endowments, Authority and Law in Medieval Zaydi Yemen in a Comparative Perspective Eirik Hovden 12 Constructing Communal Memory through Donations in Medieval East-Central Europe Judit Majorossy 13 Notes on Foundations and Endowments in Historical Western Tibet (Late Tenth–Fifteenth Century) Christian Jahoda 14 Binding the Bonds: Metropolitan Modes of Eucharistic Confraternal and Processional Life in Late Medieval East-Central Europe Károly Goda 15 “To Extol Knowledge”: Celebrating the Completion of Books in Rasulid Yemen Johann Heiss 16 Building Community with Processions and Endowments Maaike van Berkel PART 4: Conclusions 17 Urban Patterns of Belonging by Comparison: Assessing a Work in Progress Christina Lutter 18 Nodal Conglomerates and Their Visions: Comparative Reflections on Urban-Rural Settings across Asia and Europe (1000–1600 CE) Andre Gingrich Bibliography Index of Geographical Names Index of Persons
