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Contents and Summaries No.4 November, 2016
February 12, 2021  

1.CHEN Zhiqiang, “On the Preemption of the Land Legislations of the Macedonian Dynasty”.

Several emperors of Macedonian Dynasty, which is the so-called “golden ages” in the Byzantine history, promulgated the fourteen land legislations about the preemption of smallholders, or petty farmers in the land trades. The legislations protected farmers and poor peasants from the merger and acquisition of lands by the powerful landlords, emphasizing the preemption of poor farmers in possessing, occupying, using, management, cultivating, incoming, trading, and so on. The land legislations contained important purpose of restricting the powerful landlords from developing in the farming land, with multiple motivations including economic, political, social, religious elements. The protection of poor peasants in these legislations shows strongly the traditional contractual mind from the ancient Mediterranean world, which needs us to do more research.


2.XU Hao, “The Process of the Rule of Law of the Market Governance in Medieval Western Europe”.

One of the most essential components of feudal legal system in medieval western Europe was the market governance. Markets in the Frankish Kingdom were nationally owned as that in Rome, which meant the power to approval, tax and police were gathered in the hands of the king. Ecclesiastical nobles were granted markets in the form of prerogative under the propel of the feudalism of Carolingian dynasty, thus they were entitled to the rights of taxation and judiciary. While markets were spontaneously formed in the Anglo-Saxon period of England, lacking institution and rights. Being conferred to boroughs or ecclesiastic and secular lords, markets turned to a system settled in certain time and place as well as a legal right to impose and try, the authorization of which became a privilege of the king after the Norman Conquest. The market governance in the middle and late medieval England included not only authorization of new market, enforcement of Assize of Bread and Ale and decrees of weights and measures at country level, but also taxation and jurisdiction exercised by the market proprietor like the king, boroughs or church and secular nobles, all of these measures promoted the process of the rule of law of the market governance.


3.CHAI Bin and LUO Ai, “Compliance and Adherence: Universities of England in the Early Elizabethan Age”.

In the Early of Elizabethan Reformation, Universities of England confronted with a tough situation that the church authority, secular power and monarchic strength fought against each other, but universities always can take the right sides converting between dependence and independence. As a original guild which processed plenty of intellectuals and special social influence, the management of Oxbridge demonstrated its adaptations to government in unique and smart way. Meanwhile, minority of scholars showed their resistances to defend religious faith and pursuit academic freedom.


4.LI Youdong, “The New Trend of the Urbanization of Rural Europe”.

Since the 1990s, the urbanization of rural Europe has entered a new stage. The EU no longer regards the countryside as a passive beneficiary of urban economic development, but rather considers rural areas as an important component of future development in Europe. In order to promote economic growth and positive social development in Europe, EU believes that rural development will provide both “social capital” and “cultural capital” which consist of the promotion of social identity, environmental protection, and cultural traditions. Thus, from the EU to its membership states, a new policy shift in rural urbanization has been identified for preserving the cultural identity of Europe, the rural landscape, traditions and culture. All above of them are useful for EU present-day development, and treated as precious heritage and valuable resource.


5.LI Yunfei, “A Survey on the Slaves and Serfs in the Formulae of the Frankish Kingdom”.

In both Merovingian and Carolingian Frankish kingdoms, many formulae contained evidences about servants. According to these evidences, there coexisted free men’s commendation into servitude and lord’s liberation of their servants. Both of these phenomena worked as a social control to sustain the relations between lords and servants, and they reflected the active vertical mobility in the lower society. In the decline of the slavery, Christianity played a role less important as previously evaluated. In the long term from the Merovingian dynasty to the 11th century, the status of slaves and serfs changed slowly, and we cannot find in these formulae the ‘feudal revolution’ around 1000 CE, as it is supposed by Georges Duby and other scholars. It’s very difficult to distinguish slaves from serfs in these formulae, and ‘servant’ is a word with wider meaning and therefore more consistent with the variety of contexts in these formulae.


6.L. I. Borodkin, “Living conditions of Russian Citizens during World War I”.

Russian historians have been debating on “the issue of the living standard of Russian citizens during World War I”. The focus of the arguments is “the extent to which the living standard of Russian citizens during World War I deteriorated”. In order to encourage the citizens to join the army, Russian government in 1912 enacted a law which promised to give governmental subsidies to the families of the frontline soldiers, but the subsidies of government was not sufficient to maintain the normal life of citizens. Therefore specialized social institutions which provided social aids for the families of the frontline soldiers were established at that time. The governmental subsidies and social aids made sure that citizens could lead a basic life in the first two years of the war. A lot of factors such as the reduction of agricultural yields, the growth of military food supply and the paralysis of domestic transportation led to the eruption of food crisis and the living standard of the residents had deteriorated drastically. The government took some measures such as the system of food coupon and price-setting of commodities, the enterprises adopted the measures of increasing the additional subsidies of workers and controlling the price of items in factory stores. However, all of these measures could not guarantee the living standard of Russian citizens.


7.WU Tao, “The Conflicts between Marsh Land Ownership and Salt Field Management of Pudong in Ming Dynasty”.

Pudong was a relatively independent geographical unit formed after the final formation of Huangpu river system during the Chenghua period of Ming Dynasty. After the Mid-Ming Dynasty, due to the silver salt taxation system and the expansion of marsh land, the salt production of Pudong area was no longer the primary. With the transfer and expansion of salt areas, the people, the salt producers and other different status of crowd competed for resources and the competition continued to upgrade. From the abolition case of Qingpu field, the trend of a large number of marsh land reclaimed and planted economic crops can be clearly seen, which not only seriously squeezed the living space of salt field and salt producers, but also directly led to the transfer of the management rights over the salt field.


8.MA Chaoran, “The Reform of Zongjia Huofu and Puhu Danghang in Late Ming Nanjing”.

As the auxiliary capital of Ming Dynasty, Nanjing held a lot of government agencies, which posed heavy corvée burden on urban residents. Especially, Zongjia Huofu and Puhu Danghang were two kinds of miserable corvée endured by citizens. As Single Whip Law was introduced all over the empire, many kinds of labor service were successfully turned into monetary tax in Nanjing. However, the reform process of Zongjia Huofu and Puhu Danghang was distinctively complicated and prolonged. Eventually, Zongjia Huofu was converted into a uniform tax payment in sliver, still followed by severe problems, asking for Baojia as a complement. Meanwhile, Puhu Danghang was completely prohibited, but not converted into fixed tax. These two cases reveal the features of urban administration in Nanjing, as well as the diversity of the corvée reform methods in Ming Dynasty.


9.WANG Ying, “Hospitals in Binary System in Medieval England “.

Traditionally, hospitals in Medieval England were considered as a sort of charity for the redemption of people. However, under the medieval binary system, hospitals also could not get rid of the influences of the cooperation and rivalries between the kingship and the ecclesiastical power. Kings and bishops, on one hand, followed the righteousness to assist hospitals; on the other hand, they also made profit out of their own interests. Owing to the unclear segmentations of authorities between kings and bishops, the struggles for political and economic privileges could not be averted. In fact, hospitals in Medieval England were not only the charity for the redemption of people but also places of the rivalries between the kingship and ecclesiastical power, among which the cooperation and competition between the secular monarchies and bishops were the most significant.


10.CHEN Zhongdan, “Nanban Culture: The Beginning of Japan’s Instake of Western Culture”.


11.ZHANG Xushan, “The Consequences of the Evil Desires of Humanity”.

   

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