bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
William Dunbar
Authors: King Pamela M. 
Published: May 2023

AbstractThis chapter considers Dunbar’s role as court poet to James IV of Scotland, and one of the elite group of fifteenth and sixteenth-century Scottish ‘makars’, but one who overtly linked himself with Chaucer and Lydgate. Most of his poetry, which is set as much in the royal court and the Edinburgh streets as in dream worlds, was composed for the court milieu. Many of the poems are performative in essence, creating voices and circumstances that vividly draw on lived experience; some refer to real people, and some may be linked to actual performances. The chapter examines Dunbar’s courtly, religious and burlesque verse, exploring how his stylistic innovations encompass a full range of registers, and his lexical innovations deploy both the Scots of the Edinburgh streets and highly stylised experiments with aureation. The chapter also considers Dunbar’s position as a poet whose forms and preoccupations demonstrate the difficulties in drawing a hard line between the medieval and Renaissance literary and cultural worlds.
Transitions: After the Fifteenth Century
Authors: Griffiths Jane 
Published: May 2023

AbstractThis chapter considers the works of poets Gavin Douglas, Alexander Barclay, Stephen Hawes, and Robert Copland, placing them in the context of the political, cultural, religious, and technological changes of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. It suggests that their works witness a variety of experiments with poetic form and voice in response to these changes. It argues that each engages with overlapping questions about how to formulate the position of the poet at court, the position of the poet in the text, and the potential of print to reshape the way the poet envisages both his work as writer and the physical manifestations of that work. It further demonstrates that their shared vernacular poetic heritage is central to their thinking about these questions.
King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt
Authors: Shepherd David J. 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
Of all the characters bequeathed to us by the Hebrew Bible, none is more compelling or complex than David. Divinely blessed, musically gifted, brave and eloquent, David’s famous slaying of Goliath also confirms that he is a redoubtable man of war. Yet, when his son Absalom rebels, David is dogged by the accusation than he will lose his kingdom because he is not merely a man of war, but a man of ‘bloods’— guilty of shedding innocent blood. In this book, this language of ‘innocent blood’ and ‘bloodguilt’ is traced for the first time throughout David’s story in the books of Samuel and 1 Kings. The theme emerges initially in Saul’s pursuit of David and resurfaces regularly during the rise of David and the fall of men like Nabal, Ishbosheth, Abner, and Saul. Innocent blood and bloodguilt also turn out to be central to David’s reign. This is seen in a surprising way in David’s killing of Uriah but also in the subsequent deaths of his sons, Amnon and Absalom, his general, Amasa, and even in David’s encounters with Shimei. The problem rears its head again when the innocent blood of the Gibeonites shed by Saul comes back to haunt David’s kingdom. Finally, the problem reappears when Solomon succeeds David and orchestrates the executions of Joab and Shimei, and the exile of Abiathar. Attending carefully to the text and drawing extensively on previous biblical scholarship, this book suggests that innocent blood is not only a pre-eminent concern of David, and his story in Samuel and 1 Kings, but also of those responsible for its final shape.
‘Innocent Blood’: 1 Sam 16–22
Authors: Shepherd David J. 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
In this chapter, it is argued that Saul’s offer of his daughters to David suggests that if he can tempt David to fall in battle against his Philistine enemies, the problem of ‘bloods’ will be avoided for Saul. Jonathan’s own anxieties that Saul will succeed in killing David (1 Sam 19) confirm that Saul will not be protected from guilt by commissioning his own son or his servants to do what the Philistines fail to do. In warning his father, Jonathan suggests that blood (in this case, David’s) is deemed ‘innocent’ if it is shed without sufficient cause. While Saul appears to be persuaded of this, the immediate resumption of his efforts to eliminate David suggest otherwise and lead to the episode in which Ahimelech and the priests and people of Nob are slaughtered at Saul’s command. The Israelite servants’ refusal to do so themselves suggests that Saul has shed the Nobites’ blood without sufficient cause, whether because as priests they are somehow sacrosanct or because any wrong they have done has not been sufficient to warrant their deaths. That David, rather than Saul, admits indirect responsibility for these deaths offers further evidence of Saul’s increasing disinterest in the problem of innocent blood, and the first evidence of David’s anxiety regarding this problem.
‘Blood without Cause’: 1 Sam 23–26
Authors: Shepherd David J. 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
In this chapter, it is argued that in 1 Sam 24–26, David and the reader are brought to a fuller understanding of both the acuteness of the temptation to shed illegitimate blood and the threat which yielding to it will pose to David and his house. In 1 Sam 24, David and his men encounter Saul and his men in a cave near Adullam. While David is reminded of a prophecy that Saul has been delivered into his hand, he insists he will not raise his hand against ‘the LORD’s anointed’. When confronted with David’s restraint, Saul recognizes that this righteousness will ensure David receives his kingdom, but Saul also requests and receives assurances that his family will be spared when this happens. In 1 Sam 25, David is sorely tempted to annihilate Nabal’s house for a violation of the cultural norm of hospitality. Instead, when Nabal’s wife Abigail persuades David that to do so would lead to ‘bloods’ and dim his future prospects, David relents, crediting Nabal’s eventual death to the LORD’s retribution and taking Abigail as his wife. In chapter 26, David is offered a further temptation to kill Saul when a divine sleep descends on the king and David’s nephew Abishai offers to kill him. Taking Saul’s spear and his water jug instead of his life, David withdraws, reminding Saul of his restraint and Abner of his responsibility to protect Saul, though the reader also learns of David’s anxiety that shedding blood illegitimately will require his own blood to be shed.
‘Your Blood be on Your Head’: 1 Sam 27–2 Sam 1
Authors: Shepherd David J. 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
In this chapter, David’s behaviour whilst living amongst the Philistines is considered (1 Sam 27), along with the two accounts of the death of Saul (1 Sam 31 and 2 Sam 1). While some have considered David’s slaying of the men and women of various tribes (including Girgashites and Amalekites) whilst raiding in the Negev (1 Sam 27) as either pious (herem) or bloodthirsty, it is argued here that it is reported as exceptional and purely pragmatic. In the first account of the death of Saul (1 Sam 31), his armour-bearer’s reluctance to kill him is seen to reflect the sanctity of the king, while Saul’s taking of his own life reflects his ongoing disregard for illegitimate bloodshed. Finally, the peculiarly penetrative violence suffered by Saul invites comparison with the killing of Abimelech for shedding innocent blood, while the exposure of the Saulide remains is noted for future reference (2 Sam 21). In the second account of Saul’s death, David’s interrogation of the Amalekite who claims to have killed him suggests that, because he is a sojourner in Israel, David holds him responsible for raising his hand against the LORD’s anointed. As a result, David orders the Amalekite’s execution and invokes the illegitimately shed blood of Saul on the Amalekite’s own head.
‘His Blood at Your Hand’: 2 Sam 2–4
Authors: Shepherd David J. 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
In this chapter, the focus is on the killing of Saul’s general, Abner, and Saul’s son, Ishbosheth and David’s responses to these killings. It is argued that in the battle recounted in 2 Sam 2, Abner seeks to minimize loss of life, including that of Asahel, brother of Joab, who refuses to give up his pursuit of Abner and ends up killed by him. Abner’s fear that Joab will not forgive him for this is confirmed when Joab refuses to accept David’s peace-making with Abner and kills him in cold blood. David avows his own and his kingdom’s innocence of Abner’s blood for all time. He then, in the same breath, invokes Abner’s ‘bloods’ on not only Joab but his father’s house, including perpetual bloodshed. David then goes still further by explicitly invoking the LORD to repay the wicked, which must include the sons of Zeruiah. This seems to hint that such vows alone may not be sufficient to neutralize the threat of ‘bloods’ to David’s house, given his unwillingness to execute his nephew(s). Indeed, David’s worry that even execution may be inadequate to do so is suggested by his abandoning of the Beerothite brothers, Rechab and Baanah, to the birds and beasts, after executing them for assassinating Saul’s son, Ishbosheth. This episode illustrates David’s increasing agency in avenging illegitimate bloodshed. However, it also casts into high relief his failure to take similar action against his own kinsmen, the sons of Zeruiah, and the danger that this failure may pose to his own house.
‘The Sword Will Never Depart’: 2 Sam 5–12
Authors: Shepherd David J. 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
In this chapter, David’s killing of Uriah and the divine response to it are explored. When David makes Uriah’s wife pregnant and cannot persuade him to sleep with her, he orders Joab to contrive Uriah’s death in battle with the Ammonites. Instead of David being angry at the collateral deaths of his servants required by Joab’s adjustment of the plan to kill Uriah, David callously and disingenuously dismisses these as the inevitable cost of warfare. When confronted by Nathan with a parable, David hears it as an indictment of Saul’s taking away of Michal from him. However, the oracle which follows makes clear that while David has successfully avoided ‘bloods’ per se by using the ‘sword’ of warfare with the Ammonites rather than his own sword to kill Uriah, his active contrivance of Uriah’s death has invited divine judgement. The LORD strikes down David’s son, promises to raise up evil from David’s own house, and also inflicts upon David’s house the curse of ‘the sword forever’ (2 Sam 12:10). To underline the message that innocent blood matters, even when ‘bloods’ have been avoided, the LORD promises David consequences strikingly similar to those David himself invoked upon Joab for killing Abner (2 Sam 3). Crucially, however, the LORD’s additional requirement that David’s child must die in his stead, suggests that because David has merely cursed Joab rather than executed him, David’s house still remains at risk from the unremedied ‘bloods’ of Abner.
‘Man of Blood’: 2 Sam 15–20
Authors: Shepherd David J. 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
In this chapter, 2 Sam 15–20 is examined with particular attention being paid to Absalom’s war against David, his death at the hands of Joab, as well as David’s encounters with Shimei and Joab’s killing of Amasa. Shimei’s cursing of David as he flees Absalom’s coup (2 Sam 16) is a reminder that innocent Saulide blood has not been forgotten. While David accepts his guilt, when he rejects Abishai’s offer to kill Shimei, it likely reflects David’s mounting fear that if another Saulide is killed under the illegitimate guise of war, further Saulide ‘bloods’ will fall upon David’s house. In taking up the fate of Absalom and his war, the narrative confirms the fulfilment of the curse of the devouring sword (18:6–8). At the same time, the peculiarities of Absalom’s killing and Joab’s desire for it to be reported to David suggest that David’s failure to kill or curse Joab reflects his recognition that Joab’s killing of Absalom has redeemed Amnon’s blood. When Abishai offers again to kill Shimei on David’s return, David insists that Shimei be spared, lest his killing now add to the Saulide ‘bloods’ incurred by David’s refusal to execute Joab for killing Abner. David’s replacement of Joab with Amasa seems intended to check the threat of further ‘bloods’. However, when David fails to take action after Joab kills Amasa, it confirms how little Joab has to fear from his rival or David himself and that David’s fears of further bloodguilt are fully justified.
‘The Bloodguilt of Saul’: 2 Sam 21–24
Authors: Shepherd David J. 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
In this chapter, the focus is on passages which return the reader to the days of David’s rise to power at Saul’s expense. First, Saul’s bloodthirstiness proves problematic for David when ‘bloods’ incurred by Saul’s illegitimate slaying of the Gibeonites causes a famine in David’s land. It is argued that the Gibeonites’ solution of impaling the seven Saulides as a means of expiating the ‘bloods’ is predictable given the penetrative violence associated with remedying ‘bloods’ in the killings of Absalom and almost certainly Rechab and Baanah. Moreover, the association of post-mortem exposure and potential predatory ravaging with remedying of ‘bloods’ in the latter two cases, seems to explain Rizpah’s protection of the slain Saulides’ remains. David responds to Rizpah’s care for her kinsmen and subversion of his efforts to expiate the ‘bloods’ by taking advantage of the memory of Saul and Jonathan’s impalement and post-mortem exposure in 1 Sam 31. His repatriation of their bones from Jabesh Gilead as a suitable expiatory substitute for the seven Saulides, allows David to both overcome Rizpah’s obstruction and underline his own allegiance to the house of Saul. Further allusions to that earlier period (2 Sam 22:21–25 and 23:14–17) also remind the reader that the future of David’s house depends not only on eliminating Saulide ‘bloods’, but also on avoiding killing more Saulides illegitimately.
‘Bring Back His Bloody Deeds’: 1 Kgs 1–2
Authors: Shepherd David J. 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
This chapter examines David’s efforts to persuade Solomon to eliminate existing ‘bloods’ and avoid adding to them in 1 Kgs 1–2. David emphasizes that Joab’s killing of Abner and Amasa has ‘set bloods of war in peace[-time]’ (1 Kgs 2:5). Because of this, Joab must not be allowed to die a peaceful death in old age (1 Kgs 2:6) lest this pre-empt the remedying of the ‘bloods’ Joab has incurred through his repeated misuse of war. Accordingly, after David dies, Solomon executes Joab, assuming that this will facilitate ‘peace from the LORD’ for him and his successors. It is also argued that Solomon’s exiling of Abiathar, and David’s instructions regarding Shimei and the sons of Barzillai reflect David and his son’s anxiety to avoid incurring further ‘bloods’. David’s earlier sparing of Shimei (2 Sam 19) is now attributed to his desire to avoid killing him under the guise of war. Thus, Solomon’s ‘wisdom’ is now required to eliminate Shimei in such a way that he is ‘not considered innocent’ (2:9), whilst ensuring that Solomon and David’s house remain so, by avoiding ‘bloods’. This transpires when Shimei is executed for failing to keep a vow made to Solomon. The narrator’s concluding affirmation that ‘the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon’ (1 Kgs 2:46) invites the reader to share David and Solomon’s view that Solomon’s actions here have solved for the moment, the problem of illegitmate bloodshed which has so exercised David and the narrative from the beginning.
Conclusion
Authors: Shepherd David J. 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
In this concluding chapter, the problem of innocent blood in David’s rise, reign, and succession is summarized before some final reflections are offered on the nature and pervasiveness of the theme. To these are added some tentative suggestions regarding how it relates to the wider history and who might be responsible for its presence in the David story. It is argued that ‘innocent blood’ is not to be understood categorically but is better interpreted as blood shed without sufficient cause and hence illegitimate or unauthorized bloodshed. It is suggested that various unwelcome consequences are understood to arise from this kind of behaviour, including but not limited to the incurring of guilt. Whether construed in terms of vengeance, redemption, or expiation, the remedying of unwarranted bloodshed in David’s story invariably involves the shedding of further blood. It is argued that the narrator sees the Davidic problem of ‘bloods’ as solved by Solomon’s actions in 1 Kings 2. However, his failure to endorse Solomon’s view that this will ensure ‘peace forever’ for David’s dynasty reflects both the curse of the sword forever, and a likely awareness that the problem of innocent blood recurs at the end of the history (2 Kgs 21, 24) and leads to the exile. This might suggest the hypothesis that those who attributed the violent fall of David’s dynasty to the problem of ‘innocent blood’ may have found and traced the beginning of this problem in David’s own story.
Ethical Cultivation
Authors: Fraser Chris 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
The chapter examines discussions of ethical cultivation, or how train or orient oneself to follow dào. It first treats texts that approach ethical development as a political project aimed at leading society to internalize the norms and practices of dào through collective training. It then considers texts that treat individual, personal cultivation. A key question is whether following dào is a matter of fulfilling one’s inherent nature or of reforming inherent inclinations. The chapter considers Xúnzǐ’s views, on which ethical development is a process of ‘endeavour’, in which we reform native tendencies and redirect our activity in approved ways. A contrasting stance holds that dào lies in allowing the natural environment to direct our activity. The chapter closes by considering a position from the Zhuāngzǐ that draws together elements of these two contrasting views.
Byzantium
Authors: Wickham Chris 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
The Byzantine Empire was a set of different economic regions, of which the most important were the Aegean and Marmara Seas, focussed on here. This was the core of the Byzantine state in every period, which was strong and wealthy; hence the size and economic importance of Constantinople (modern Istanbul). The Aegean never ceased to be important for production and exchange, but it became particularly active in the late eleventh century and throughout the twelfth, when towns in Greece such as Thessaloniki, Corinth, Thebes, and Chalkis became major centres for the production of cloth (linen and silk), wine, and glazed pottery. The Venetians came to be active in Aegean internal trade too, but did not dominate it. The underlying reason for the rapid late eleventh-century upturn probably lies in demographic growth, which is particularly clear in our documents for this region. Interestingly, even though sea shipping was so active inside this region, the Byzantines did not trade all that much outside the empire, except to Venice (a formerly Byzantine town), northern Syria, and a little to Egypt.
An Asymmetrical Approach to Kant’s Theory of Freedom
Authors: Vilhauer Benjamin 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
This chapter outlines a revisionary “justificatory asymmetry” reconstruction of Kant’s theory of freedom. Kant’s best view on the epistemology of transcendental freedom is that we can know it is possible that we have it (as the first Critique and Groundwork argue) but cannot know that we actually do (contra the second Critique). The Groundwork and the second Critique set out contradictory positions on this view’s implications. The Groundwork holds that possibility is sufficient to justify regarding and treating ourselves and others as free and morally responsible. The second Critique demands knowledge of actuality for this justification. The justificatory asymmetry reconstruction resolves this contradiction by distinguishing the contexts in which each position is true. Possibility suffices for the imputation of merit, but knowledge of actuality would be required to impute the sort of blame that could justify serious retributive harm. Since we lack such knowledge, such harm cannot be justified.
Bertha von Suttner
Authors: Nijman Janne E 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
This portrait of Bertha von Suttner brings us to study sources traditionally not considered relevant within the scope of international legal history. That is, female diaries and a bestselling novel, Die Waffen Nieder! (1889), with a female protagonist. Not allowed access to the formal sessions of the 1899 and 1907 Hague Peace Conferences, Von Suttner resorted to a typical female practice to influence intellectual and political debates. As salonnière in the Hague during these Conferences, she created an informal social space for frank conversations among the small cosmopolitan elite of diplomats, journalists, and international legal experts to influence negotiations and to contribute to the ‘peace through law’ project. Locating international law in her novel and salon, this portrait connects loosely with a more socio-legal and materialist approach to international legal history. It shows Suttner held a rather well-developed—and at times fairly sceptical—outlook on international law.
Anna Julia Cooper
Authors: Gevers Christopher 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
Anna Julia Cooper lived a remarkable life. Born into slavery in 1858, Cooper was twenty-six at the time the 1885 Berlin Conference ‘formalized’ the colonization of Africa, participated in the first Pan-African Conference in London fifteen years after that, received her doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1925 (at the age of sixty-six) and lived to see the formal ‘decolonisation’ of most of Africa; dying a few months before the United States’ Civil Rights Act was passed. While Cooper is rightly celebrated as a Black feminist icon, an educator, a literary theorist, and a pioneer of Africana philosophy, less attention has been paid to her influence on (Black) Internationalism and, by extension, her (still) pioneering critiques of international law. This short essay will focus primary on two aspects of Cooper’s intellectual ouvre as they relate to international law, namely: ‘intersectionality’ and ‘racial capitalism’.
Ester Boserup
Authors: Mackenna Miriam Bak 
Published: May 2023

Abstract
This chapter presents a portrait of Danish economist Ester Boserup, whose work came to trigger a fundamental shift in international economic law and development. Positing the then radical idea that women made a significant economic contribution to both their households and the macro-economy, and were thus fundamental to national development, Boserup’s pioneering book Woman’s Role in Economic Development heralded the start of a reassessment of international economic legal frameworks and activities, including helping to inspire the UN Decade for Women (1976–1985), ultimately providing the foundation for the Women in Development (WID) framework, and four world conferences on women from 1975 to 1995. This portrait is thus a picture of an outsider, both in her chosen field—economics—and in international law—whose refusal to be bound by disciplinary dogma and professional restraints, came to have a profound impact on women’s lives.