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public living. John’s model of the body politic promoted a similar concept, with each ‘limb’ of the body obliged to do its own work in the service of the political whole. The body model was a uniquely effective metaphor for the division of political duties; it illustrated the interdependence between each part of the polity, while also demonstrating the necessary relationships of care that existed between those who carried out the duties they had been allocated and those who were obliged to look after their well-being. Common to both Stoicism and John’s writings is a
hardly an obvious part of this scheme. But priests appropriating the principles of Pseudo-Isidore for their own purposes were part of a larger development that occurred during Hincmar’s tenure as archbishop, namely a growing interdependence between the West Frankish Church and the Roman pontiff. To a large extent, this rapprochement was fuelled by a series of internal conflicts within Hincmar’s archdiocese, in which successive popes were increasingly implicated. This papal involvement was mostly generated by a demand from clashing parties north of the Alps, rather
ethically adequate. In the course of the analyses we have found abundant evidence of the close interdependence of entertainment and edification, which constitutes the kernel of the Scottish Legendary’s poetic programme. Religious instruction and the unimpeded enjoyment of the narratives are not mutually exclusive but in fact go hand in hand. While it is indisputable that hagiography is highly didactic, its literary merits have often been undervalued on the basis of its didactic purposes. The stability of the saintly narratives has been regarded as a weakness, especially
interdependence of the prince and his subjects, and draws upon the corporeal metaphor to enforce his point. Just as parts of the body try to fend danger away from the head, so too the members of the polity will move to protect the prince; in return he is obliged to do all he can to protect his body and soul, ‘skin for skin’. 90 An antecedent of this position is found in Seneca’s De clementia , where it is argued that although men are primarily motivated by their own safety, they will happily rush into battle to protect their emperor as ‘he is the bond by which the
Livy (59 BC–AD 17). 80 The story describes the dissension of the other parts of the body against the stomach owing to their claim that all the members were working for the nourishment of the stomach with no return. Upon starving the stomach, however, the rest of the body lost its power, thus demonstrating the necessary interdependence of body parts. Livy says that Menenius Agrippa used this fable to ‘show how like was the internal dissension of the bodily members to the anger of the plebs against the Fathers’. 81 John refers to this fable in Book VI. 24 of the
two main problems with such an approach, the first is the difficulty of obtaining accurate borough population figures and of deciding how many boroughs to include; the second is the problem of plotting the interactions on a map. Such an approach is based firmly on the notion of an integrated economy with a large amount of commercial interdependence between the towns of various sizes which served the agricultural and urban systems; the larger the town, the greater was its amount of trade and the greater its sphere of influence. Towards a national medieval transport
). Functionality may have separated a town from a village – a town produced materials with support from the local rural economy, sometimes referred to as its hinterland (Clarke, 2013 ). Reynolds has argued for a more integrated town–country approach, defining a town as a permanent and comparatively dense settlement with a population working mainly outside of agriculture. It held a relationship with a hinterland from whence essential goods were drawn (quoted in Wall Forrestal, 2015 ). The role of the hinterland and the interdependence of town and country are consistent in
been identified as controlling causeways (Mahee Castle and Sketrick Castle), yet the majority overall were located by deep-water anchorages. Tower houses also could have a function within networks without actually playing a direct economic role in them: they could be used by sailors as beacons, or as lining-up points marking safe navigation, or tower houses might be located at safe havens. These networks may have operated between tower houses as well as unilaterally, requiring a certain level of elite interdependence. This may be indicated by intervisibility between
as 7 Introduction: On Anglo-Saxon things 7 humans, but an awareness of the thing-as-assembly reveals that all things depend on other things along chains of interdependence in which many other actors are involved.27 Of course, this approach owes a debt to the philosopher of science Bruno Latour, who imagined a Parliament of Things in which silent objects speak, in which passive matter exerts power; an assembly in which participants rediscover their connectedness to nature by acting out the voices of other beings.28 If the word ‘thing’ carries such weight in
believe utilised tower houses as their places of residence and business, controlled links out of the country. However, their prosperity, alongside that of their towns, was dependent on a good relationship with the rural Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Irish alike. Economic necessity and attractive profits led to interdependence between Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Irish, which effectively removed ethnicity as an obstacle to doing business (O’Neill, 1987 ). In turn, the usefulness of the tower house in facilitating these interactions must be recognised, and interpreted as a sign of