bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Further Work
Authors: Williams John N.
Published: May 2023

Chapter 18 points to connections between Moore’s paradox and other areas of philosophy that invite further exploration. In the history of philosophy, Descartes’s famous cogito might be denied by saying, ‘I exist but I myself don’t think I do.’ Moore’s paradox is also relevant to the surprise exam paradox. As Alan Hajek points out, various philosophical positions may be committed to Moore-paradoxical beliefs and assertions. And Moore’s paradox may arise with attitudes besides belief and desire, such as credences, certainty, fear, or suspicion.
Introduction
Authors: Boffey Julia , Edwards A. S. G.
Published: May 2023

This chapter provides an overview of the topics surveyed in the volume as a whole. After acknowledging the pervasive influence and significance of Chaucer for fifteenth-century poetry, it goes on to situate the writing of verse in a range of contexts—historical, social, and cultural. It examines the various milieux in which poetry was produced and considers the range of patrons who were instrumental in its creation. The chapter then identifies some of the forms of regional difference that had a bearing on poetic composition. It also considers the significant continuities and innovations that can be seen in the verse of this century. The chapter describes the critical rehabilitation over the past fifty years of the literary achievements of the fifteenth century, before concluding with a summary account of the organizing principles and contents of the volume.
Literary Language
Authors: Nuttall Jenni
Published: May 2023

Chaucer’s innovations paved the way for the literary language of English poetry of the fifteenth century. Chaucer’s style was praised by poets such as Hoccleve and Lydgate who continued and developed it to serve their own stylistic purposes. Lydgate, for example, elaborates the aureate style. There is also a broader tradition of aureate language, in Marian lyric and in other genres such as the chronicles of John Hardyng and in translations from Latin and French. In addition, this chapter examines aspects of fifteenth-century English and Scottish poetry which develop types of experimental ‘strange’ or ‘rough’ English, mixing aureate terms with colloquial language.
Poetry in Print
Authors: Echard Siân
Published: May 2023

Caxton was a central figure in the transmission of medieval English poetry, particularly the works of Chaucer, John Gower, and John Lydgate. This chapter considers the print presentation of these poets, both by Caxton and by his immediate successors. It also outlines the transmission of other medieval poetic forms, including popular verse romance and alliterative verse. Caxton’s successor, Wynkyn de Worde, expanded Caxton’s poetic list, adding many romance texts. Richard Pynson continued to expand the list of English poetic offerings, and was important for transmitting contemporary as well as older verse texts. The chapter explores how paratextual features and illustration framed texts for their audiences, contributing to developing ideas about authorship and the medieval poetic canon. It also considers the interaction between manuscript and print in this early period. It closes with a consideration of what did not see print in the early period.
Robert Henryson
Authors: Martin Joanna
Published: May 2023

This chapter offers a detailed exploration of the style and form of Henryson’s poems. It suggests that Henryson harnesses form to subject matter to encourage spiritual and moral growth and the development of reason and good judgement. His mastery of a number of forms, including rhyme royal, tail-rhyme, and alliterative verse enables him to encourage interpretive alertness in his readers. The chapter also examines Henryson’s manipulation of registers, from the idiomatic and proverbial to the specialist and technical, and the richness of his descriptive language. It argues that these are testimony to Henryson’s belief in the transformative power of poetry.
The State
Authors: Fraser Chris
Published: May 2023

The chapter surveys views on the origin and justification of political authority and on methods of governing, including moral education, rigorously enforced standards or laws, non-interference, and responsiveness to the people. The discussion considers several accounts of the origin of authority from a state of nature before turning to the controversy concerning whether governance should rely primarily on moral education or on strictly enforced laws, backed up by rewards and punishments. The discussion explores the perfectionist theories of rule in Guǎnzǐ and Xúnzǐ, the standards-based approach of the Legalists, and contemporaneous critics’ practical and conceptual analyses of Legalism’s flaws. Last, the chapter looks at conceptions of governance in the Zhuāngzǐ, which reject the idea that the state should govern by educating the populace or by controlling their behaviour through rewards and punishments and instead advocate a type of self-organizing community, in which authority exists to facilitate people’s self-so activity.
Ethics
Authors: Fraser Chris
Published: May 2023

This chapter discusses the content of the dào (way), the right or apt way of life. It explores the role-based approach to ethics found in texts such as Xúnzǐ and Guǎnzǐ and then examines views that tie the well-lived life to health and to the ideal of fulfilling one’s inherent nature. The chapter next considers and critiques later Mohist consequentialism, which interprets what is morally right as what promotes the benefit of all, while incorporating social roles into the norms by which we promote benefit. The discussion then explores views from the Zhuāngzǐ that reject mainstream moral concepts such as benevolence and duty altogether in favour of a non-moralized conception of applying our powers of agency directly to follow dào, understood as a fitting path through shifting and transforming circumstances.
Epistemology
Authors: Fraser Chris
Published: May 2023

In late classical thought, knowing is understood as a competence in distinguishing, sorting, and assessing things. Epistemological discussion focuses on how to interact with the world competently, understanding and avoiding potential faults in epistemic performance. The chapter sketches the analytical treatment of epistemological concepts in the later Mohist dialectical writings. It then examines Xúnzǐ’s and the Annals’ discussions of epistemic excellence and conscientiousness, both which are concerned with pursuing competent epistemic performance by identifying and applying appropriate criteria so as to avoid bias. The discussion next moves on to explore how, perhaps in response to views such as those in Xúnzǐ and the Annals, passages in the Zhuāngzǐ imply that there can be no genuinely neutral or ultimately correct criteria, nor a fully open-minded or neutral epistemic stance. The discussion suggests that the Zhuāngzǐ material presents a distinctive brand of epistemic virtue or practical wisdom.
Language and Logic
Authors: Fraser Chris
Published: May 2023

Early Chinese sources treat the use of ‘names’ and ‘speech’ as a norm-governed social practice that constitutes a crucial means of guiding society to follow dào. The central purpose of speech is to guide action, through teachings, commands, and laws, for example. The first section of the chapter explains the significance of the widespread doctrine of ‘correcting names’. The discussion then looks at the semantic theories developed to explain the grounds for the proper use of names by appeal to inherent similarities in things, human perception, and conventional social practices. The final section of the chapter considers early Chinese theories of logic and argumentation, explaining how the sources treat these as intertwined with semantic theory. Since both the correct use of names and correctness of assertion are grounded in relations of sameness and difference, logical inquiry focuses mainly on analogical reasoning, and argumentation is seen as primarily analogical.
Egypt
Authors: Wickham Chris
Published: May 2023

Egypt was the strongest and most complex economy in the medieval Mediterranean, probably up to the Black Death. It had areas of specialist flax-growing, and many towns specialized in linen production. Movements of goods to and along the Nile were large-scale and overlapping. Egypt’s capital, Fusṭāṭ-Cairo, was the largest city in the Mediterranean. The state was oppressive, but also strong and well-organized. We can say a great deal about the Egyptian economy because of the survival of thousands of private letters in Arabic, in both Hebrew and Arabic script (the former surviving in the geniza of the Ben Ezra synagogue in the capital). Egyptian archaeology is less developed, but what we can say from it about the ceramic and wine trade along the Nile fits with what the geniza letters tell us about flax, and what Arabic-script letters tell us about almost everything. All of this tells us about the internal complexity of the economy, and that Egypt, although it engaged extensively in Mediterranean trade, only really needed timber and iron from abroad.
North Africa and Sicily
Authors: Wickham Chris
Published: May 2023

This chapter discusses two regions, Ifrīqiya (centred on what is now Tunisia) and Sicily, because the evidence for the former is not very extensive, and because the two regions were very closely tied together economically. They were the main trading partners for Egypt in the eleventh century, and are well documented in the geniza; they were both major linen-producing regions, thanks to Egyptian flax. Both had strong internal economies, as is particularly clear in Sicilian archaeological work. In the later eleventh century, Ifrīqiya broke up politically and Sicily was conquered by the Normans, which partly reoriented it towards mainland Italy; the flax trade ended as a result of both. Ifrīqiya may have remained less coherent in the next century. But Sicily continued in its role as the focus of the central Mediterranean, with a cotton trade with Genoa continuing the exports northwards which begin to be documented after 950; and its internal economy, focussed on Palermo and a rising Messina, remained strong as well. Neither its Islamicization in the tenth century nor its de-Islamicization in the thirteenth had any effect on that.
Islamic Spain and Portugal
Authors: Wickham Chris
Published: May 2023

Al-Andalus came together as a functioning political system above all in the tenth century, under two strong caliphs and a military strongman in turn. It broke up into up to thirty independent kingdoms after a punishing civil war in the 1010s, and was then reunited after 1090 by two dynasties from Berber North Africa, the Almorávids and Almohads, before a Christian conquest in the 1230s–1240s. This history of unification and division was the backdrop for the fastest economic growth in the whole of the medieval Mediterranean before 1200, which can be seen particularly clearly in the recently extensive archaeology. There was urban expansion, with cities increasing three times in size; ceramic productions became complex and overlapping; we can track an internal trade in cloth and iron, even though the interior of Spain and Portugal is often mountainous and difficult to get around. Peasant communities everywhere had access to ceramics and money, often coming from substantial distances. The reasons for this economic growth lie in the strength of the state, whether centralized or localized, and the remarkable development of irrigation systems from (especially) the tenth century onwards, which greatly extended agricultural wealth. It, however, traded relatively little with the rest of the Mediterranean.
A Brief History of the Mediterranean Economy in the Tenth to Twelfth Centuries
Authors: Wickham Chris
Published: May 2023

In this chapter, the different regional economies of Chapters 2–6 are brought together and compared, and these are set against a discussion of how Mediterranean maritime trade routes developed and changed. Before 1100, there were two east–west trade routes, one, older, linking the Byzantine lands with northern Syria to the east and Venice to the west; one, rather larger-scale after 1000, a triangular trade linking Egypt, Tunisia, and Sicily, with weaker extensions to al-Andalus and Palestine. A north–south trade route also linked Sicily with the Italian coast. After 1100, all three continued, although the second became less dense; but Italian sea trading by 1150 linked all of them together. That linkage marked the real change in trading in the twelfth century. The fastest growth in trading was in the eleventh century; in the twelfth it was less fast, but more linked together. These developments were independent of political changes in the Mediterranean, although the strength of local states certainly helped economic development.
The Internal Logic of Feudal Economies
Authors: Wickham Chris
Published: May 2023

This chapter discusses the complementary role of elite and peasant demand in the central middle ages as the basis for economic growth throughout the Mediterranean, and indeed elsewhere. It compares Mediterranean trade in the central middle ages with that of the Roman Empire and of contemporary Flanders. The chapter then discusses how this contributes to a rethinking of the logic of the feudal economy as a whole, which, it is argued, was different from that of capitalism. The driving force of the feudal economy was the struggle over how much rent and tax peasantries had to pay to lords and the state, with a general tendency for peasant payments to lessen, unless dominant powers made specific efforts to reverse the process. This created a space for peasant demand to grow, and for the economy to grow with it.
Kantian Determinism and Contemporary Determinism
Authors: Allais Lucy
Published: May 2023

This chapter presents a way of understanding Kant’s resolution of the free will problem that focusses on the difference between Kantian determinism and contemporary determinism. Many of the extant ways of understanding Kant’s solution attempt to find a way of showing that there being only one way the world in space and time could unfold (determinism) does not make the causality of freedom impossible. In contrast, the chapter argues that we can take Kant’s determinism seriously without thinking it follows from this that there is only one metaphysically possible way the world could unfold in space and time. It argues that while contemporary determinism is understood as the view that at any one moment there is only one possible future, this is not an implication Kantian determinism; the truth of Kantian determinism would not show more than one possible future to be impossible.
INTRODUCTION
Authors: Della Rocca de Candal Geri , Grafton Anthony , Sachet Paolo
Published: May 2023

Conventional wisdom treats printing as a technological triumph that spread freedom and knowledge — accurate knowledge, free from scribal slips. In fact, the history of the book is largely a story of errors and adjustments. Mistakes of many kinds regularly crept in while texts were transferred from manuscript to printed formes. Publishers, editors, and authors reacted to these failures in highly creative ways, and various emendation strategies were adopted when printers and their workers spotted them. The Introduction introduces readers to this alternative interpretation of printing, discusses earlier literature on misprints and in-house corrections, and outlines the contents of the volume.
FALLEN TYPE
Authors: Bolton Claire
Published: May 2023

Type can fall out of the forme while the page is being printed and leave an impression of its shape on the page. Examples of fallen type in printed books are rare. Some fifty examples from the incunable period can be found in the Material Evidence Incunabula database, and a few more are known after 1501. This chapter shows that fallen type examples are more than curiosities and, especially as more are discovered, can add to our knowledge of what fifteenth-century type letters looked like, which in turn can give clues to printing practices through that period and insight into a period of significant experimentation.
MISPRINTING ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
Authors: Andreoli Ilaria , Duroselle-Melish Caroline , Gaskell Roger
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines errors in images in scientific, secular, and religious texts printed before c. 1650. We analyse the intellectual and technical sources of error — including errors in the original, errors introduced in copying and transfer, errors in making the matrix, errors of imposition (combining text and image), and errors of printing — and give examples of mistakes in images which are mentioned in the text or in printed errata, or noted in manuscript annotations. Error is also introduced during the printing process, for example the matrix printed in the wrong orientation or the wrong matrix printed; the image significantly degraded during printing or missing altogether. We discuss how such problems can occur in the printing house.
PRINTING AND POLITICS IN ITALIAN HUMANISM
Authors: Celati Marta
Published: May 2023

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the printing process of the editio princeps of Angelo Poliziano’s Coniurationis commentarium (Florence, 1478), the famous literary account of the Pazzi conspiracy. Following a thorough and systematic investigation of all four extant copies, this case study reveals a complex stratification of typos, manuscript corrections, and stop-press emendations, allowing us to gain a better insight into the printing practices and editorial strategies of Niccolò della Magna, one of the leading printers in Florence in the late 1470s and mid 1480s, his role in the Medici environment, and the political implications of this edition.
ALDUS AS PROOFREADER
Authors: Sachet Paolo
Published: May 2023

The publication process in the Aldine print shop is remarkable not only for stop-press corrections, but also for the accurate post-printing revision and what we may call the final proofreading applied to its output. This chapter focuses on the numerous emendations which were inserted by Aldus in nearly all copies of a bulky Greek grammar he published in 1496. The case study shows how in-house corrections, a neglected and often unspotted group of sources, can shed new light on the way in which early modern scholarly printers handled texts on and off the press, implementing different strategies to cope with errors, and tailored them according to their publishing purposes.
THE COLLECTIVE EDITORIAL STRATEGY OF THE UNITY OF THE BRETHREN
Authors: Sladká Veronika
Published: May 2023

This chapter focuses on the working methodology of the sixteenth-century Unity of Brethren, an early modern reformed religious community in the Czech lands in the Wycliffe and Hus traditions. The Brethren were pioneers in adopting the most advanced editorial practices from western Europe and engaging in high-quality publishing and humanistic editing. This chapter discusses some recently discovered documentation showing how the Brethren’s egalitarian structure and scholarly attitude directly impacted their printing habits. Examining a corrected copy and proof sheets of two Brethren hymnbooks, as well as their bishops’ correspondence, reveals a collective and highly organised system of editing and proofreading. The cases of two Brethren’s bishops, Jan Blahoslav and Izaiáš Cibulka, demonstrate the methods of the Brethren’s correctors and clarify from where they drew their proofreading skills.
BIBLICAL MISPRINTS
Authors: Wamsley Rachel
Published: May 2023

The Yiddish epic Shmuel Bukh (c. 1500) freely rewrites I and II Samuel as chivalric romance. However secular poetically, the epic’s materiality nonetheless reflects its foothold in Scripture, the accurate representation of biblical Hebrew always in tension with textual aesthetics suited to the mechanical exigencies of print. Shmuel Bukh thus exemplifies the transformation of Hebrew text by movable type. Analysing this material strand of Shmuel Bukh’s textual history, specifically its typographical aesthetics and the correction of misprints across two manuscripts and three closely linked printed editions, reveals how the transition to print brought long-established codes of linguistic representation under new pressure. The correction of its biblical misprints charts how, as more and more Hebrew-alphabet texts came into print, editors gradually prioritised textual aesthetics over biblical exactitude.
CONTROLLING ERRORS IN THE FIRST PRINTED BOOK OF ASTRONOMICAL TABLES
Authors: Kremer Richard L.
Published: May 2023

The first substantial printed book of numbers was Regiomontanus’s Ephemerides. Regiomontanus was a pioneer of scientific printing, but little is known about how proofreading took place in his print shop. Regiomontanus was among the first printers to issue contemporary works, and was the first astronomer to publish his own works and to organise the printing of large tables of numbers. The surviving copies of his Ephemerides offer, therefore, a unique case study of the challenge of controlling errors in an early European print shop. By examining the forty known copies of the Ephemerides, this chapter questions Regiomontanus’s correcting procedures and sheds light on the difficulties of producing early modern astronomical books.
CONRAD GESSNER AS CORRECTOR
Authors: Grafton Anthony
Published: May 2023

Conrad Gessner’s fame as a naturalist rests on the marvelous images in his histories of animals. His efforts to collect, reproduce, and check these images became an unending struggle. Gessner’s correspondents bombarded him with criticisms of his first efforts and possible replacements. Annotated copies of his shorter works on animals, fish, and birds reveal that he processed and did his best to use these materials. Correction continued as they went through the press and yielded supplements, which had to be corrected in their turn. Examining these works and his annotations reveals the ways in which Gessner tried to control and improve images and the text that explained them. These notes — and the printed texts they refer to — preserve Gessner’s struggle to bring his images to a standard of visual precision that approximated the quality of the new images, made from the life, that piled up in his study, and to supplement his texts with the new information he had received.
FERNANDO DE HERRERA CONTRA ERRATA
Authors: Alvarez Pablo
Published: May 2023

In 1580, the Sevillian poet Fernando de Herrera published his extensively annotated edition of the works of Garcilaso de la Vega. After printing was completed, two successive errata lists were inserted in the preliminaries. Yet Herrera spotted further mistakes and was forced to resort to manual corrections and paste slips in the copies still available to him. This chapter investigates Herrera’s frustration as editor and corrector and shows that his edition was not an isolated case in the context of early modern printing in Europe. It contributes to the discussion about the role of errata lists and corrections as tools to convey to early modern readers the ideal of textual accuracy, raising broader questions about the transmission and reception of vernacular literary texts edited in the humanistic tradition.
MARKETING A MISPRINT
Authors: Heminger Anne
Published: May 2023

In 1553, the Chapel Royal composer Christopher Tye published a volume containing polyphonic settings of the first fourteen chapters of the biblical book of Acts in metrical verse. This chapter analyses extant copies — the earliest of which includes a significant typographical lacuna — in order to shed light on the early practices and difficulties of printing polyphonic music in England. A comparison with contemporary English music prints reveals that English music printers were often hampered by their lack of musical literacy. Examining the extant copies of Tye’s Actes offers an opportunity to examine a range of possible errors in the process of printing musical notation in the sixteenth century, revealing the categories of musical mistakes printers and the public were willing to overlook in mid-Tudor England, and demonstrates that the level of functionality required by contemporary amateur audiences was considerably lower than that which professionalstypically expected from music manuscripts.
MISPRINTING AND MISREADING IN THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
Authors: Leonard Alice
Published: May 2023

This chapter tackles the special case of textual error in The Comedy of Errors as the play appeared in Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623). The error concerns the speech prefixes and stage directions of the two sets of twins, the Antipholi and Dromio brothers, enhancing the confusion of identity that drives the plot. The annotations left by seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century readers demonstrate that they fell into a state of error, sometimes significantly, in simply attempting to follow the play. Contrary to the standard approach of textual criticism, these inaccuracies could contribute to the interpretation and the historical reception of The Comedy of Errors in new and meaningful ways.
MAKING SENSE OF ERROR IN COMMERCIAL DRAMA
Authors: Lidster Amy
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines the coexistence of error and correction in printed plays from the commercial stages in England. It proposes two textual experiences of error — announced error and silent error — and offers a case study on Edward III, a play that has often generated interest for its connection to Shakespeare. Regularly overlooked is the significance of the play’s early quarto editions (1596, 1599) in shedding light on the transmission of plays from stage to page, including the agents and processes of correction in reprint editions. By tracing how the play was prepared for publication this chapter argues that error and correction encourage readers of commercial playbooks to act as ‘authorisers’, compelled to navigate the play’s continued provisionality in print.
PRINTING UNDER PRESSURE
Authors: Hillgärtner Jan
Published: May 2023

This chapter aims to define a typology of mistakes and printers’ errors that can be found in German newspapers printed between 1609 and 1650. We can directly link the most common types of mistakes to the requirement of a speedy production. Compositors typically began their work even before the last report had arrived at the workshop. The two calendar systems that were in place at the turn of the seventeenth century created further opportunities for mistakes and publishers strove to arrange the content of each issue in chronological order. Examining these errors provides insight into both printers’ prioritisation of timeliness over accuracy and readers’ tolerance for different types of errors in this genre.
What Becomes of Dharma in a Conquered Country?
Authors: Figueira Dorothy M.
Published: May 2023

The Gītā served as a source of reference in the global conflict. The French philosopher Simone Weil also sought inspiration in the Gītā. This text supplemented her reading of the Iliad as a key text in her understanding of the theme of force, particularly after the defeat of France. As had been the case for Oppenheimer, Weil too found in the Gītā a master text to guide her during wartime. Her notebooks are filled with her attempts to translate the poem and the strategies she devised to make the text conform to the message she sought in it. Another Frenchwoman, who took the name Savitri Devi, also appropriated the Gītā as her sourcebook during and after World War II. Devi was an ardent anti-Semite and the Gītā informed her efforts as a propagandist after the Nazi defeat. She lived well into the 1980s and was instrumental in introducing New Age radicals and neo-Nazi groups to her reading of this text.
The Sacrifice
Authors: Løgstrup K. E.
Published: May 2023

The second part of the book focuses on the role of suffering in Christianity, where Løgstrup criticizes Kierkegaard for putting too much emphasis on suffering, making it central to becoming a Christian. According to Løgstrup, Kierkegaard is mistaken both in attributing so much importance to suffering (both in Christianity and in existence), and in identifying a special Christian suffering, which he connects with martyrdom. Instead Løgstrup suggests that there is no special Christian suffering, only a Christian interpretation of common human suffering. According to Løgstrup we must distinguish between denial of self and denial of life, where it is crucial that Christianity never speaks of the latter. Another central discussion is whether evil should be understood extensively (everything finite is sin) or intensively (only human egotism is sin).
Pathologies of Cooperative Neuronal Processing
Authors: Phillips William A.
Published: May 2023

Being crucial to mental life, cellular mechanisms for context-sensitive cooperation are implicated in many of its pathologies. They can be dysfunctional in many ways—from genetic causes, from prenatal or post-natal exposure to pathogens, by harmful experiences, or by various forms of brain damage. A new perspective on neurodevelopmental and other psychopathologies is exemplified by in-depth discussions of absence epilepsy, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, anti-NMDA encephalitis, autism spectrum disorders (ASD) including fragile X, and foetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). Anti-NMDA encephalitis shines a well-focused light on the role of apical ion channels in mental life because its cause and its consequences for ion-channel function are known. As the monogenetic aetiology of fragile X and the consequences of that mutation for ion channel function are also known, that disorder now offers the opportunity to map a complete unbroken path from mutation to cognitive consequences.
Difficulties and Unresolved Issues
Authors: Phillips William A.
Published: May 2023

This chapter first notes difficulties faced by the conception of context-sensitive cooperation as presented in earlier chapters. It then highlights outstanding issues that invite closer examination and exploration. How is the evidence for cooperative neurons related to predictive coding and the principle of free energy reduction? How are cooperative neurons embedded in cortical microcircuits? How are cooperative neurons regulated by the neuromodulators? How are cooperative neurons related to the speed of thought? How are cooperative neurons related to Hobson’s and Freud’s views on dreaming? Are there distinctively human forms of cooperative context-sensitivity? Are there regional and developmental variations in cooperative context-sensitivity? What is the technological potential of cooperative context-sensitive computation?
Mind’s Place in Nature
Authors: Phillips William A.
Published: May 2023

This chapter discusses three enduring issues implicit in the joys, trials, and dramas of daily life. First, it asks how confident we can be in our perceptual experiences or in the beliefs we take for granted. The evidence reviewed suggests that this is always a matter of judgement, not logic. There is some subjectivity in all realism—some objectivity in all fantasy. Second, it asks what self-identity is, and if it is fixed or if it changes. Our genomes are fixed, but a genome is not a person. Both people and cooperative neurons grow and change. We play different roles in different contexts. The evidence reviewed here indicates that we are ever-changing, have free will, and have responsibility for our own freely chosen actions. The chapter also discusses the human search for purpose in life. The evidence on cooperative neurons is interpreted as indicating that we can find purpose for ourselves by seeking, with others, for purpose beyond ourselves.
The puzzle: how do sovereign ratings react to politics and policy?
Authors: Barta Zsófia , Johnston Alison
Published: May 2023

This introductory chapter lays the groundwork for the investigation of the reactions of ratings to politics and policy. The chapter explains the increased importance of sovereign ratings for developed countries by pointing to the growing significance of global institutional investors as a source of funding for increasingly indebted governments and documenting the impact of rating changes on the conditions under which governments can borrow. It explains why our understanding of the response of sovereign ratings to politics and policy remains incomplete without an appreciation of the logic of the rating business and an awareness of the factors that determine market share and profitability. The chapter lays out the argument about the insurance function of incorporating the assessment of politics and policy into ratings, and briefly describes the empirical evidence presented in the book. It concludes with discussion of the wider contributions of the book beyond the world of sovereign ratings.
The narrative: how rating reports explain specific rating decisions in Denmark, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom
Authors: Barta Zsófia , Johnston Alison
Published: May 2023

This chapter analyzes the narratives of rating reports issued for Denmark, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom from 1999 onwards. The narratives express consistent disapproval of large entitlement commitments, a neutral or even positive approach toward other types of government spending, and a conflicted approach to taxes. They also emphasize the importance of “monetary flexibility.” With respect to politics, concerns about indecision and instability, confirm the significance of power-sharing and checks and balances. Partisanship, on the other hand, only becomes emphatic in reports when analysts start to perceive pronounced differences between the policy stances of parties. Importantly, none of these variables matter in isolation. Reports reflect on these factors in interaction to make arguments about the degree to which the combination of the prevailing political and policy features and long-term fiscal track record jointly inspire confidence in a country’s long-term commitment to repayment.
The upshot: ratings as a neglected force in global governance
Authors: Barta Zsófia , Johnston Alison
Published: May 2023

This chapter concludes by reflecting on three important related questions. First, how effective is the strategy of pre-emptively lowering ratings in protecting rating agencies in crises? The contrast between aggressive downgrades after the global financial crisis and the conspicuous passivity of rating agencies since the start of the coronavirus pandemic suggests that it is indeed beneficial for rating agencies to be able to show restraint in times of major shocks. Second, given the obvious problems and the political and policy implications of the current workings of sovereign ratings, could regulatory reforms bring improvement? The chapter argues that the political and policy interference of sovereign ratings is impossible to eliminate, because neither the significance nor the logic of ratings is amenable to change under the contemporary global financial architecture. Finally, the chapter sums up the lessons about the (anomalous) power of credit rating agencies within contemporary global governance.
Charlemagne and Rome
Authors: Story Joanna
Published: May 2023

This book is a wide-ranging exploration of cultural politics in the age of Charlemagne. It focuses on a remarkable inscription commemorating Pope Hadrian I who died in Rome at Christmas 795. Commissioned by Charlemagne, composed by Alcuin of York, and cut from black stone quarried close to the king’s new capital at Aachen in heart the Frankish kingdom, it was carried to Rome and set over the tomb of the pope in the south transept of St Peter’s basilica not long before Charlemagne’s imperial coronation in the basilica on Christmas Day 800. A masterpiece of Carolingian art, Hadrian’s epitaph was also a manifesto of empire demanding perpetual commemoration for the king amid St Peter’s cult. In script, stone, and verse, it proclaimed Frankish mastery of the art and power of the written word and claimed the cultural inheritance of imperial and papal Rome, recast for a contemporary, early medieval audience. Pope Hadrian’s epitaph was treasured through time and was one of only a few decorative objects translated from the late antique basilica of St Peter’s into the new structure, the construction of which dominated and defined the early modern Renaissance. Understood then as precious evidence of the antiquity of imperial affection for the papacy, Charlemagne’s epitaph for Pope Hadrian I was preserved as the old basilica was destroyed and carefully redisplayed in the portico of the new church, where it can be seen today.
Introduction
Authors: Story Joanna
Published: May 2023

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the history and historiography of power and politics in Italy in the eighth century and of Frankish involvement there with the papacy, the Lombard kings, and the representatives of the emperor in Constantinople. It provides essential background to the period immediately preceding the election of Hadrian as pope in 772, and Charlemagne’s accession as king in 768 and his conquest of the Lombard kingdom in 774.
Alcuin and the Epitaph
Authors: Story Joanna
Published: May 2023

The chapter examines the evidence for Alcuin’s authorship of the memorial verses that were cut onto the marble slab to adorn Hadrian’s tomb in the south transept of St Peter’s basilica. It reviews Alcuin’s career and his travels in Francia and Italy while working for the archbishops of York, before moving to Charlemagne’s court and retirement at the monastery of St Martin’s at Tours in western Francia. The content and structure of Alcuin’s epitaph for Hadrian is analysed, and the superiority of the extant inscribed version is emphasised, especially regarding internal verse patterns that are dependent on the form and layout of capital script of the stone slab, and the use of a monogram of Charlemagne’s name. The chapter surveys the extant manuscript copies of the poem, correcting earlier commentators and editions. It reveals that Hadrian’s epitaph was transmitted as part of a short anthology of texts linked to St Peter’s basilica, collected in the early ninth century, underscoring the close contemporary link between the building and the epitaph. Incidentally, two of the epigrams in that anthology had been quoted verbatim by an earlier English scholar, Aldhelm of Malmesbury, and provides unequivocal evidence of his close knowledge of inscriptions in Rome, likely from first-hand observation.
Writing on the Walls
Authors: Story Joanna
Published: May 2023

The chapter provides the detailed physical description of Hadrian’s epitaph, including layout, decoration, and script. Epigraphic parallels and the use of capitalis lettering in earlier inscriptions and manuscripts are discussed, drawing attention especially to the lettering devised for inscriptions commissioned by Pope Damasus I in the late fourth century by Filocalus. The development of capital scripts used for inscriptions set up in Rome in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries is analysed, marking both the religious and political choices made by patrons in the use of particular script types as well as the content and location of the texts. Eighth-century inscriptions, from the pontificates of John VII, Gregory II, and Gregory III are discussed, as well as a group from the mid-eighth century, commissioned by noblemen, stressing that the meaning of such inscriptions often lay in the intersection between text, script, medium, and location.
Black Stone
Authors: Story Joanna
Published: May 2023

This chapter centres on an analysis of the black stone used to make the epitaph for Hadrian, and the cultural connotations of the choice of a coloured marble for a major inscription at this time. It analyses the textual and geological evidence for the sourcing of the stone in Francia, specifically from the carboniferous limestones quarried in the Carolingian heartlands, around the river Meuse and further east, near Aachen. A comparison is made between the black stone used for the inscription and the Blaustein that was used in the construction of the chapel at Aachen and in its Carolingian-era decoration. The comparative geological analysis demonstrates that local sources of black marble were being selectively exploited in the vicinity of Aachen in Charlemagne’s reign. It draws attention to early medieval texts that discuss black stones, especially Charlemagne’s letter to King Offa of Mercia written in 796, in the same year as the commission of the epitaph for Hadrian. The use of black, carboniferous limestones in the masonry and opus sectile flooring that survives in a few places in the chapel at Aachen is discussed, alongside the presence of two very rare black porphyry columns. The symbolic importance and practical significance of Roman spolia, especially columns, in the design and making of the chapel is stressed. The chapter argues that by selecting black stone from Francia for Hadrian’s epitaph, Charlemagne, as its patron, was drawing on classical connotations of coloured stone and demonstrating his imperial-style control over rare natural resources. The structural and decorative evidence from Aachen makes it clear that black stone was locally available to Charlemagne in the later eighth century and that, at the same time, these local resources were used for Hadrian’s epitaph that was sent from there to Rome.
Aachen and the Art of the Court
Authors: Story Joanna
Published: May 2023

This chapter draws together comparative evidence deriving from people and places associated with Charlemagne’s court that provide parallels to the script, verse, design, and materials of Hadrian’s epitaph. Charlemagne’s chapel was being constructed in Aachen at the same time as the epitaph was made, and this chapter argues that the epitaph is part of the same aesthetic impulse and cultural energy. Three court poems, composed by Alcuin, Theodulf, and Angilbert in the period between late 794 and late 796 are analysed, alongside manuscripts from the ‘Court School’, especially Godesscalc’s Evengelistary and Dagulf’s Psalter, arguing that the latter was made as a gift for Hadrian only a couple of years before his death. The use of display scripts in these and related manuscripts, such as the Abbeville Gospels (which is linked to Angilbert’s patronage), is analysed, arguing that scribes were aware of earlier epigraphic scripts of types that could be seen in Rome. Parallels are drawn between the use of painted lettering in manuscripts and on the walls of palace sites (surviving especially at Paderborn). The meaning of the painted inscription for the dedication of the Aachen chapel is discussed, in the context of modifications to one of Prosper’s epigrams and Einhard’s intertextual references to it in his description of Charlemagne’s last days. The eschatological aspects of the Aachen dedication verses are reinforced by the number symbolism encoded in the architectural design of the chapel itself.
Ethnomusicologists and Music Theory
Authors: Blum Stephen
Published: May 2023

Theorizing of the world’s musicians considers interactions of humans with instruments, spirits, fellow humans, and other living or deceased beings. Hence ethnomusicologists cannot accept a conception of music theory centered on studies of musical structure that exclude musical action. Nor can they assume that the priority given to relationships among pitches in some music theories and much research on music cognition is relevant cross-culturally. Many languages allow for distinguishing thinking from acting, and ethnomusicologists are learning more about how musicians use such distinctions in their theorizing and teaching. Theorizing can engage the human imagination in multiple ways and should not be equated with processes of rationalization, prominent though those have become in music theory of recent centuries worldwide.
Making Music Theory for Modern Nations
Authors: Blum Stephen
Published: May 2023

Development of a modern music theory came to be seen as an essential undertaking of nation-states and of nationalities within or split among them. Numerous modernization projects have required or supported work in music theory designed to be more systematic and scientific than musical knowledge of the past. Classicization and canonization of a cultural heritage are among the interests pursued in these projects, along with recovery or creation of practices regarded and advertised as authentic. For better and worse, projects to modernize music theory are shaped by conceptions and experiences of intercultural contact both within and among nations. Ethnomusicologists are privileged to meet with musicians and scholars who have thought deeply about actual and potential relationships among older and newer theories and practices; work deriving from those conversations can become relevant to participants in modernization projects by highlighting alternatives and drawing attention to diverse ways that musical knowledge can be systematized or assembled.
General Introduction
Authors: Kolb-Neuhaus Roberto
Published: May 2023

Silvestre Revueltas was, like Hanns Eisler, an outspokenly political composer inspired by the Russian Revolution, and there are indeed some aesthetic links between them. But not many. Political targets and aesthetic weapons are different for one rebelling from without the borders of European art music. Although Revueltas was also inspired by Marxist ideals, one could argue that the Mexican sounded an ontological turn as viewed from the South. One such target was art music itself, transgressed by him from within its practice, resorting to avant-gardist ploys, humorous or earnest. The other was an attempt to upturn the usual “high art”/“low art” hierarchy, in a way, an agential reversal that has innovative musical consequences that are unprecedented in Western art music. Approaching the musical result of such efforts requires analytical perspectives that go beyond the study of the composer’s writings and political actions in their relation to his scores, that is, the survey of his political doing in relation to its corresponding soundings. Concepts such as a decolonial border composing or the rhetorics of musicalized humor and the intermedial links of some of his scores in light of the chosen poetry, film, and theater plots are revealing. Anthropological theories of agency, only recently incorporated into the musicological toolkit, are especially pertinent and informative regarding Revueltas’ politically motivated voicing of the people.
Political Being and Doing
Authors: Kolb-Neuhaus Roberto
Published: May 2023

Revueltas’ private letters as well as public writings preserved in his personal archive reveal a passionate political identity. So do his direct or indirect links to both artistic and political organizations at the time. Explored here for the first time, the composer’s political activism is a necessary premise for an informed interpretation of his artistic doing. The archive contains documents linking him to initiatives such as, among others, the FULCRE (United Front against Aesthetic Reactionaries), the International Music Bureau in Moscow, but above all the LEAR (League of Revolutionary Artists and Writers) and his visit to Republican Spain during the Civil War in 1937. Indirect but artistically and politically relevant links to the Stridentist movement are suggested here as a possible grounding of the composer’s rebellious avant-garde, rather than modernist, aesthetics.