Academic literature on the topic 'Proprietà medievali'

ABITAZIONE NELIA ROMA ALTO MEDIEVALE, 500–1000 d.C.Questo articolo prende in considerazione l'evidenza archeologica e documentaria per l'uso delle abitazioni a Roma dal 500 al 1000 d.C. Le fonti (il Liber Pontificialis, registri papali, iscrizioni, documenti di proprietà) suggeriscono che, contrariamente all'opinione comune, gli edifici abitativi erano diffusi quanto le molte chiese della città. È solo dal decimo secolo che la popolazione cominciò a diffondersi nel Campo Marzio, precedentemente considerato il centro dell'abitato dalle guerre gotiche in poi. L'evidenza archeologica suggerisce che molte tracce dell'architettura domestica sono state trovate, e continueranno ad essere trovate, nell'area monumentale centrale, a Trastevere, sull'Aventino, il Celio e le parti orientali della città. La precisa natura architettonica delle abitazioni è rappresentata da una riutilizzazione degli edifici domestici e pubblici romani (esempi includono la Basilica Emilia, la cosiddetta Basilica Argentaria, il Ludus Magnus e l'Atrium Vestae). È probabile che nuove informazioni possano venire da un'analisi delle strutture sopravviventi all'interno dei monasteri medievali della città e da scavi quali quello attualmente in corso nel Foro di Nerva.

Entre las prácticas y creencias varias que compartieron el nombre de magia en la baja edad media descollan la nigromancia y la magia natural como las dos principales corrientes de la magia medieval de tradición escrita. La nigromancia era conceptualmente más próxima a la religión, en el sentido de que pretendía obtener la ayuda de unos poderes sobrenaturales — espíritus, demonios — por medio de ritos, si bien − o quizás por esto mismo — era la más combatida por la Iglesia. En cambio, la magia natural resultaba más próxima a las ciencias medievales, puesto que su finalidad era conocer y explotar los mecanismos de la naturaleza. Aún así los escolásticos medievales distinguian entre un conocimiento racional bien explicado en el marco de su concepción física del universo y un conocimiento, a menudo también muy útil, que solo se podía adquirir por experiencia porque escapaba a la razón, Es de este tipo de conocimiento del que se ocupaba la magia natural, fundamentada en las propiedades ocultas existentes en la na turaleza.

Le apeo ou deslinde de heredades c'est un type de document avec plein valeur diplomatique et juridique, même si ce fait a été ignoré longtemps par la recherche specialisée. Dans cet article on décrit comment ces documents etaient rédigés dans les sources du village medieval espagnol de Sepúlveda (XVe siècle). Le apeo est rappresenté par sept documents differents, emis au long d'un mois, dans lesquels un propriétaire tâche de délimiter toute sa propriété, soit il des proprietes urbai­nes que rurales. Dans ces documents on peut trouver dix actes juridiques: peti­tion, licence et ordre pour faire le apeo; édition des annonces publiques et citations; fixation de la date pour la réalisation de l'apeo; concession de faculté au notaire; presentation des personnes qui devaient fair l'apeo (les apellés apeadores dans les documents); jurement et exécution du apeo.

Provides a comparative analysis of the comic world or antiworld in medieval and postmodern literary texts. The postmodern and medieval parodies create seamy, inverted world that is free from the etiquette rules and propriety. Postmodern writers and artists break the “classic” aesthetic canon that restricts freedom of creative expression and artistic perception of the text as a self­sufficient one. Grotesque hyperrealism of Russian postmodernists is a revival of burlesque travesty of medieval topography on a new level.

The public space in medieval towns and cities was shaped and influenced by the private spaces that surrounded it. The private was, like the public, a complex domain; many interests coexisted there. The pressures of population gowth and commercial development fragmented individual holdings and created overlapping layers of claims to particular spaces. Neighbors' interests also impinged; the enjoyment of the private was far from exclusive. Elaborate codes of property rights and legal procedures evolved as a fundamental part of urban custom. When the property market declined in the later Middle Ages, however, practices changed, and new ways of defining and describing private property emerged.

ABSTRACT Music-theoretical writings from the 13th to the 15th centuries maintained a basic distinction between two types of major sixth, customarily labeled hexachordum and deductio (or proprietas). The term hexachordum, more frequently called tonus (or semitonus) cum diapente, designated the interval of a major of minor sixth, frequently expressed by pitch letters only (such as G-e and A-F) and discussed independently of Guidonian solmization. On the other hand, proprietas and deductio indicated a ““virtual segment”” (the set of six syllables ut-la) that could be employed for the purpose of sight singing. Neither set challenged the conceptual primacy of the seven claves, expressed by the letters A-G. Hexachordum was routinely described as a portion of the octave, and the late-medieval notion of proprietas still reflected the principle of octave duplication, which had regulated musical practice since pre-Guidonian times. The ““two-tier”” model of diatonic space encountered in medieval music theory, based on the superimposition of Guido's six syllables onto the seven pitch letters, came to an end in the late 15th century, when authors such as Ramos de Pareja and Franchino Gafori began describing the Guidonian deductio——which they called hexachordum——as the primary mode of organization of the gamut that had superseded the Greek tetrachordum.

A decision of the Rota of Siena: between leasing and reservation of ownership at the beginning of Modern Times. – Late medieval and early-modern legal developments took place in Italy within the general framework of ius commune and iura propria, original legal constructs which present similar features to leasing in English law. These developments can be traced in the doctrinal corpus of the Italian ius commune tradition, but it may be surmised that they also appeared in sources related to legal practice. Thus, a case decided by the Rota of Siena in 1541–1543 shows that contractual forms similar to the leasing and to the emptio–venditio cum reservatione dominii were known and used in Italian practice, at least from the latter part of the 15th century onwards.

La relazione presenta i risultati degli scavi condotti tra il 1977 e il 1981 presso le imponenti rovine note come Le Mura di Santo Stefano, situate vicino Anguillara Sabazia, appena 3 km a sud del Lago di Bracciano. La fase più antica di occupazione era relativa ad una fattoria di I secolo d.C. Intorno al 200 d.C. viene costruita una serie di strutture, compreso un edificio a pianta rettangolare su tre piani copiosamente decorato con diciannove tipi di marmo, suggerendo così che il complesso avesse un carattere lussuoso, possibilmente parte di un latifundium. Si hanno evidenze di ulteriori attività nel III o inizi IV secolo d.C. Nel IX secolo, dopo un periodo di abbandono, parte del complesso fu convertito nella chiesa di Santo Stefano. L'aula rettangolare fu rioccupata e le restanti rovine usate come cimitero. Si è dedotto che il sito possa aver funzionato come centro di una proprietà medievale, parte della domusculta papale, o in alternativa come un fundus di una struttura monastica. Nell'XI secolo il sito fu abbandonato, dopo ehe i resti di scheletri appartenenti ad almeno 90 individui, e le ossa di tre cani, furono interrati in un pozzo tappato con pezzi di sculture marmoree romane.

The article examines the use and translation of key terms of Roman law: “proprietas”, “possessio” and “detentio”, which were used in medieval texts in one way or another; at least when it comes to the act material of medieval Italy. Despite the fact that the translation of “possessio” as «владение» has been established in Russian romanistics, the translator must take into account that in Russian the use of the words «владение», «владелец» has certain features. The main problem is that until now, often (with the exception of scientific works of lawyers), the term «владелец» is used to refer to the person who owns the property right, the owner, contrary to the dichotomy between the concepts of «владение» and «собственность». Problems also arise when translating into English. Belonging of England to the Anglo-Saxon legal system leads to difficulties in transferring legal terms of the continental system based on Roman law. Researchers and translators of Latin legal texts can avoid accusations of inaccuracy by resorting to the use of legal terms in Latin in the text, or by duplicating the Latin translation of such a term into English or another language.

La tesi muove dal metodo proposto da Elinor Ostrom sulle soluzioni istituzionali più efficaci per la gestione delle risorse naturali collettive per effettuare un'indagine storico-giuridica sugli usi civici liguri tra tardo medioevo ed età moderna. La ricognizione dell'inquadramento giuridico delle singole cose (pascoli, boschi, prati, fiumi...) tra diritti romano comune e diritto locale si affianca all'indagine della dialettica tra Repubblica di Genova e comunità soggette sul governo del territorio. L'esame approfondito di alcuni casi di gestione di risorse collettive tratti da fonti d'archivio locali, alla luce dello schema di Ostrom, consente di riconsiderare l'esperienza della proprietà collettiva in Liguria e della statualità genovese in età moderna, offrendo altresì spunti per una riflessione critica sul dibattito contemporaneo sui beni comuni.

Au debut de l'annee 1414, un peu avant l'ouverture du concile de constance, les trois etats du comtat venaissin deciderent de lancer une estimation generale de de l'ensemble des possessions (terres et rentes) du pays, quel que soit leur statut, laic, ecclesiastique, noble ou forain, dans le but de reviser la repartition de l'impot. L'estimation se fit localite par localite, les livres (appeles cadastres dans les inventaires modernes) furent finis et remis aux etats en 1415. Malgre les demandes reiterees du recteur, on ne reussit pas a les rendre operatoires en 1418, aux lendemains de l'election de martin v, on proceda a une nouvelle repartition de la taille qui ne tint compte des cadastres que pour les communautes. La premiere partie de la these, "le sens du texte: une affaire d'etat", montre quels bouleversements supposaient la confection et lamise en oeuvre des cadastres et comment ils ouvrirent une crise d'ou sortit l'affirmation de leurs privileges par les nobles. Quant aux cadastres, ils furent ecartes. La deuxieme partie de la these, l'objet du texte: la terre", prend en compte les donnees quantitatives des cadastres pour etudier l'occupation du sol (ou l'on constate la primaute de la terre a cereales, une plus grande importance de la vigne qu'au xixe siecle pourtant, et certaines tendances a la specialisation), et la repartition du sol entre les hommes, par statut et au sein des communautes (ou l'on constate un emiettement extreme de la propriete). La troisieme partie de la these, "derriere le texte: des pratiques", est une tentative pour retrouver a l'aide d'une confrontation des cadastres aux registres notaries qui leur sont contemporains (chose possible pour huit localites sur quarante-six dont reste le cadastre), les rapports entre l'exploitation et la possession du sol. On constate l'emergence de pratiques modernes ou les nobles ne sont pas les derniers concernes
At the beginning of the year 1414, a few months before the opening of the constance council, the three estates of the comtat venaissindecided to launch a general survey of all the possessions (lands and revenues), whatever their status, lay, clerical, noble or alien, in order to revise the tax assessments. The estimation was done village (or town) by village, and the books (called cadastres in modern catalogues) were finished and handed to the notary of the three estates in 1415. In spite of the insistence of the rector, they could never be made operational. In 1419, in the aftermath of the election of martin v, a new tallage allocation was instituted, which took the castres into account only inasmuch as the communities were concerned. The first part of the thesis, "the meaning of the text: une affaire d'etat", shows what upheavals were implied by the manufacture and use of the cadastres, how they triggered a crisis which led to the affirmation of its privilege by the nobility. As for the cadastres, they were definitively left aside. The second part of the thesis, "the object of the text: the land", takes into account the quantitative data of the cadastres in order to study the land's occupation (one can see the prevalence of arable land, as well as the far greater importance of vineyards as compared to the nineteenth century situation, and some trends toward specialization), and also to study the distribution of the land (one can see it is extremely parcelled). The third part of the thesis, " beyond the text: praxis", is an attempt to rediscover the relationships between cultivation and possession, by the way of a comparison of these cadastres with actually contemporary notaries' records- this is possible in eight villages and town out of forty six the cadastre of which is still available. Modern praxis emerges, with a significant involvment of nobility

Lo scopo di questa ricerca è l’analisi del I libro delle Sententiae di Pietro Lombardo nel quadro della teologia trinitaria del XII secolo. Un riscoperto interesse, grazie agli studi di Colish e Rosemann, invita ad ipotizzarne una lettura interpretativa che, riconoscendo l’ingente sforzo dell’autore nella raccolta e sistemazione delle fonti latine e greche, intende rintracciare una certa sistematicità ed alcune novità nel genere e nelle questioni affrontate. Un approccio storico-filologico applica l’analisi testuale ai nodi tematici più importanti della dottrina lombardiana a partire da una preliminare riflessione sul metodo e sul linguaggio adottati, da cui si evince l’intento didattico-apologetico dell’autore. Nella dialettica auctoritas/inquisitio si vuole infatti ridurre il rischio di incorrere nell’errore e da qui in posizioni eretiche. Il Lombardo espone una teologia positiva che mantiene costante il riferimento all’essenza del Dio trinitario nella sua unità e trascendenza; l’analisi di proprietates e nomi divini, la questione della generazione divina, la pneumatologia ed il tema De potentia Dei vanno collocati all’interno del dibattito del tempo. In tale contesto, il confronto con la teologia di Pietro Abelardo risulta funzionale a comprendere la distanza e la novità che le Sententiae rappresentano, pur nella indubbia ricezione di aspetti metodologici ed in parte concettuali dal maestro palatino.
According to some recent studies, such as Colish’s and Rosemann’s, further investigation is likely to be needed in order to approach Peter Lombard’s Sentences. Hence this study aims at analysing the Sentences I within the Trinitarian theology of the XII century: the author’s systematic effort in collecting and ordering the main theological sources suggests new perspectives in the genre and in the themes. An historical-philological approach applies the textual analysis to the Lombardian work, after examining his theological method and language. In the dialectic between authority and investigation, the Master’s purpose turns out to be twofold: educational and apologetic, teaching scholars to avoid ‘errors’ and, consequently, heretical positions. So, within a ‘positive theology’, the main feature of Lombard’s collection is the transcendence and the supreme unity of God. On this base themes like the divine properties, the Son’s generation, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the divine omnipotence are investigated in the context of the medieval theological debates. For instance, the comparison between Peter Lombard and Peter Abelard on the Trinitarian topics highlights the Lombardian original account, in spite of his certain reception of some of the Abelardian methodological, and partly conceptual, issues.

Lo scopo di questa ricerca è l’analisi del I libro delle Sententiae di Pietro Lombardo nel quadro della teologia trinitaria del XII secolo. Un riscoperto interesse, grazie agli studi di Colish e Rosemann, invita ad ipotizzarne una lettura interpretativa che, riconoscendo l’ingente sforzo dell’autore nella raccolta e sistemazione delle fonti latine e greche, intende rintracciare una certa sistematicità ed alcune novità nel genere e nelle questioni affrontate. Un approccio storico-filologico applica l’analisi testuale ai nodi tematici più importanti della dottrina lombardiana a partire da una preliminare riflessione sul metodo e sul linguaggio adottati, da cui si evince l’intento didattico-apologetico dell’autore. Nella dialettica auctoritas/inquisitio si vuole infatti ridurre il rischio di incorrere nell’errore e da qui in posizioni eretiche. Il Lombardo espone una teologia positiva che mantiene costante il riferimento all’essenza del Dio trinitario nella sua unità e trascendenza; l’analisi di proprietates e nomi divini, la questione della generazione divina, la pneumatologia ed il tema De potentia Dei vanno collocati all’interno del dibattito del tempo. In tale contesto, il confronto con la teologia di Pietro Abelardo risulta funzionale a comprendere la distanza e la novità che le Sententiae rappresentano, pur nella indubbia ricezione di aspetti metodologici ed in parte concettuali dal maestro palatino.
According to some recent studies, such as Colish’s and Rosemann’s, further investigation is likely to be needed in order to approach Peter Lombard’s Sentences. Hence this study aims at analysing the Sentences I within the Trinitarian theology of the XII century: the author’s systematic effort in collecting and ordering the main theological sources suggests new perspectives in the genre and in the themes. An historical-philological approach applies the textual analysis to the Lombardian work, after examining his theological method and language. In the dialectic between authority and investigation, the Master’s purpose turns out to be twofold: educational and apologetic, teaching scholars to avoid ‘errors’ and, consequently, heretical positions. So, within a ‘positive theology’, the main feature of Lombard’s collection is the transcendence and the supreme unity of God. On this base themes like the divine properties, the Son’s generation, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the divine omnipotence are investigated in the context of the medieval theological debates. For instance, the comparison between Peter Lombard and Peter Abelard on the Trinitarian topics highlights the Lombardian original account, in spite of his certain reception of some of the Abelardian methodological, and partly conceptual, issues.

This dissertation examines the use of personae, the rhetorical artifices by which an author creates different voices, in John Gower's Confessio Amantis. I argue that the Confessio attempts to expose how discourses of sexual desire alienate subjects from their proper place in the political world, and produce artificial personae that only appear socially engaged. The first three chapters consider the creation of the personae in the context of medieval Aristotelian political thought and the Roman de la Rose tradition. The last three chapters examine the extended discourse of Gower's primary personae in the Confessio Amantis, drawing upon Gower's other works and the history of Gower criticism.

Dissertation

Cette thèse entend proposer une analyse originale du phénomène connu mais polémique que constitue l’introduction de la notion d’auteur dans la littérature de langue française au Moyen Âge. Il s’agira d’essayer de contribuer à repenser la signification poétique, culturelle et historique de ce moment particulier où l’auteur – c’est-à-dire l’attribution d’un texte ou d’une série de textes à un nom propre donné – s’est imposé pour la première fois comme un critère structurant et primordial dans la production et surtout la transmission des textes de langue française dans les manuscrits médiévaux. Usant du concept foucaldien de fonction-auteur, des théories de la réception et du paratexte, ainsi que de la « Nouvelle Codicologie », l’approche déployée ici aborde l’auteur en tant que construction textuelle et éditoriale signifiante au sein d’un corpus de recueils littéraires de langue d’oïl où la volonté de construire des figures d’auteurs par les éditeurs de ces ouvrages est à la fois claire et indiscutable. Partie à l’origine d’un examen systématique de la tradition manuscrite d’environ 320 noms de poètes de langue d’oïl actifs entre 1100 et 1340, l’analyse se concentre principalement sur 25 manuscrits contenant des collections auctoriales dédiées à 17 poètes, dont le nom est associé avec insistance à une série de textes copiés les uns à la suite des autres. Parmi ces auteurs, on trouve les célèbres Chrétien de Troyes, Rutebeuf et Adam de la Halle, mais aussi Philippe de Thaon, frère Angier, Guillaume le clerc de Normandie, Pierre de Beauvais, Philippe de Remi, Gautier le Leu, Jacques de Baisieux, Geoffroi de Paris, Jean de l’Escurel, Baudouin de Condé, Jean de Condé, Watriquet de Couvin et Nicole Bozon. La présente analyse tente de nuancer et de dépasser la lecture répandue selon laquelle ces manuscrits à collections auctoriales individuelles constitueraient, de concert avec les fameuses biographies de troubadours et les chansonniers de trouvères, souvent présentés comme leurs « ancêtres », les débuts balbutiants d’une vaste épopée de l’avènement de l’« auteur moderne », annonciateur tout à la fois d’une « subjectivité littéraire », d’une « esthétique autobiographique » et d’un contrôle accru des auteurs historiques, réels, sur la transmission manuscrite de leurs propres œuvres. Tout en offrant une mise à jour contextuelle et matérielle – données originales à l’appui – concernant la dimension collaborative de la genèse de ces recueils et le caractère modulaire de leur transmission, on montrera qu’ils sont le fruit d’un dialogue nourri avec le modèle livresque latin et pluriséculaire de l’auctor – qui est à la fois un auteur, un garant de la vérité (auctoritas) et un ambassadeur prestigieux de la grammaire –, ainsi qu’avec l’antique exemple d’œuvres dites « biobibliographiques », qui décrivent la vie et l’œuvre d’auteurs illustres et exemplaires, comme le fait le De viris illustribus de saint Jérôme. Les manuscrits étudiés usent à répétition de ce modèle ancestral de la biobibliographie (« la vie et l’œuvre ») pour mettre en scène un face-à-face entre auteurs de langue d’oïl et auctores. Or cette mise en regard s’avère d’autant plus intéressante que, contrairement à ce qu’on observe pour les troubadours, considérés très tôt comme de nouveaux auctores illustres en langue vulgaire, dignes de cautionner l’excellence de la poésie et de la grammaire d’oc, elle ne prend pas uniquement, en français, la forme d’une imitation ou d’une adaptation de modèles anciens. En fait, l’analogie avec les auctores donne lieu à des exercices savants, autoréflexifs et parfois ironiques sur la fabrique éditoriale, poétique et épistémologique du type d’auteur et d’auctoritas qui peuvent (ou non) être bâtis dans des recueils en langue d’oïl, idiome qui était encore dépourvu à l’époque (1100-1340) de véritable grammaire, et où fleurissaient en revanche les genres littéraires de divertissement comme le roman, où l’on explorait la porosité des frontières entre le vrai et le faux, entre le bien et le mal. Plus qu’un pas pris dans la direction d’un sacre inéluctable, l’« invention de l’auteur français » à laquelle procèdent les recueils étudiés est un geste pétri des incertitudes et des interrogations de ceux qui le posaient, et qui en mesuraient la profonde vanité au regard de Dieu et de la mort.
This thesis aims to provide an original analysis on an often studied yet controversial issue: the introduction of the notion of authorship in French language medieval literature. The objective here is to reconsider the poetic, cultural, and historical signification of the particular moment when the author – understood here as the attribution of a text or of a series of texts to a proper noun – first became an essential structuring criteria in the production, and more importantly, in the transmission of French-language texts through medieval manuscripts. Using Michel Foucault’s concept of fonction-auteur, theories of reception and of the paratext, as well as New Codicology, this thesis will consider the author as a signifying textual and editorial construction within several literary collections written in langue d’oïl, in which the editors clearly and undeniably sought to construct figures of the author. Based on the systematic examination of the manuscript tradition of approximately 320 names of langue d’oïl poets, who were active between 1100 and 1340, this analysis will focus primarily on 25 manuscripts containing authorial collections dedicated to 17 poets, whose names are strongly associated with a series of texts that are copied one after the other. Among these authors are the famous Chrétien de Troyes, Rutebeuf and Adam de la Halle, as well as Philippe de Thaon, frère Angier, Guillaume le clerc de Normandie, Pierre de Beauvais, Philippe de Remi, Gautier le Leu, Jacques de Baisieux, Geoffroi de Paris, Jean de l’Escurel, Baudouin de Condé, Jean de Condé, Watriquet de Couvin and Nicole Bozon. This thesis attempts to question and ultimately discard the common conception according to which the manuscripts containing individual authorial collections constituted – along with the famous biographies of the troubadours and the chansonniers of the trouvères, often considered as their « ancestors » – the timid beginnings of the rise of the « modern author », himself a prequel to « literary subjectivity », « autobiographical aesthetics » and an ever stronger control exerted by actual empirical authors over the manuscript transmission of their own works. While offering contextual and material updates – supported by original data – regarding the collaborative process that went into the creation of these collections, as well as the modular aspect of their reception, this thesis will show that these collections were formed through a rich dialogue with the centuries-old latin model of the auctor – who is at once an author, a guardian of truth (auctoritas) and a prestigious ambassador of grammar –, as well as with the antique tradition of « biobibliographical » texts, dealing with the life and works of famous and exemplary authors, such as De viris illustribus, by saint Jerome. The manuscripts studied here repeatedly used this ancient model of biobibliography (« the life and works ») in order to stage a competition between authors writing in langue d’oïl and auctores. This confrontation is particularly interesting when one considers that – contrary to what may be observed in the case of the troubadours, who were quickly seen as the new illustrious vernacular auctores, worthy of vouching for the excellency of langue d’oc poetry and grammar – , we are not simply dealing here with a form of imitation or adaptation in French of ancient models. In fact, the analogy with auctores allows for autoreflexive and sometimes ironic learned exercises, dealing with the editorial, poetic and epistemological creation of the type of author and auctoritas in manuscript collections in langue d’oïl, an idiom which at the time (1100-1340) lacked a true grammar, yet was used in various literary genres meant for entertainment, such as romance, which explored the evanescent barriers between truth and lies, good and evil. Rather than a small step in the long path towards an inevitable coronation, the « invention of the French author » undertaken by these collections constitutes an action that reflects all the uncertainty and interrogations of those who undertook it, while being fully convinced of its utter vanity in the eyes of God and death.

The concept of dignity typically brings to mind an idea of moral status that supposedly belongs to all humans equally, and which serves as the basis of human rights. But this moralized meaning of dignity is historically very young. Until the mid-nineteenth century, dignity suggested an idea about merit: it connoted elevated social rank, of the sort that marked nobility or ecclesiastic preferment. What explains this radical change in meaning? And before this change, did anything like the moralized concept of dignity exist, that is, before it was named by the term “dignity”? If so, exactly how old is the moralized concept of dignity? In this volume, leading scholars across a range of disciplines attempt to answer these questions by clarifying the presently murky history of “dignity,” from classical Greek thought through the Middle Ages and Enlightenment to the present day. In the process, four platitudes about the history of human dignity are undermined: (1) the Roman notion of dignitas is not the ancient starting point of our modern moralized notion; (2) neither the medieval Christian doctrine of imago Dei nor the renaissance speech of Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man, was a genuine locus classicus of dignity discussion; (3) Immanuel Kant is not the early modern proprietor of the concept; (4) the universalization of the concept of dignity in the postmodern world (ca. 1800–present) is not the result of its constitutional indoctrination by the “wise forefathers” of liberal states like America or France.

This chapter discusses the penchant for suicidal depravity and violence observable in many characters in Zuozhuan左傳‎, the text which, above all others, stresses the paramount importance of ritual propriety as the determinant of all one’s actions. The chapter suggests that the characters concerned feel fully alive only when they act in open defiance of the rites. It is only through disobedience that they can feel sure that they are exercising the faculty of free will. This view is then briefly applied to tales in other early Chinese narrative contexts.