Paul E Chevedden | The University of Texas at Austin (original) (raw)

Papers by Paul E Chevedden

“The Artillery of King James I the Conqueror,” in Iberia and the Mediterranean World of the Middl... more “The Artillery of King James I the Conqueror,” in Iberia and the Mediterranean World of the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Robert I. Burns, S.J., ed. Paul E. Chevedden, Donald J. Kagay, and Paul G. Padilla, 47-94 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996).

Iberia and the Mediterranean World of the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Robert I. Burns, S.J., 1996

Plates that accompany the article: Paul E. Chevedden, "The Artillery of King James I the Conquero... more Plates that accompany the article: Paul E. Chevedden, "The Artillery of King James I the Conqueror," in Iberia and the Mediterranean World of the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Robert I. Burns, S.J., ed. Paul E. Chevedden, Donald J. Kagay, and Paul G. Padilla, 47-94 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996).

The Crusader World is a multidisciplinary survey of the current state of research in the field of... more The Crusader World is a multidisciplinary survey of the current state of research in the field of crusader studies, an area of study which has become increasingly popular in recent years. In this volume Adrian Boas draws together an impressive range of academics, including work from renowned scholars as well as a number of thought-provoking pieces from emerging researchers, in order to provide broad coverage of the major aspects of the period. This authoritative work will play an important role in the future direction of crusading studies. This volume enriches present knowledge of the crusades, addressing such wide-ranging subjects as: intelligence and espionage, gender issues, religious celebrations in crusader Jerusalem, political struggles in crusader Antioch, the archaeological study of battle sites and fortifications, diseases suffered by the crusaders, crusading in northern Europe and Spain and the impact of crusader art. The relationship between crusaders and Muslims, two distinct and in many way opposing cultures, is also examined in depth, including a discussion of how the Franks perceived their enemies. Arranged into eight thematic sections, The Crusader World considers many central issues as well as a large number of less familiar topics of the crusades, crusader society, history and culture. With over 100 photographs, line drawings and maps, this impressive collection of essays is a key resource for students and scholars alike.

The story of millennialism extends down the ages from the ancient Near East to the present. All s... more The story of millennialism extends down the ages from the ancient Near East to the present. All scholars who have studied millennialism have investigated unsuccessful movements, or movements that have yet to succeed, that is, achieve the millennium. This essay explores a successful millennial movement, one that has already ushered in the messianic age. Although this achievement is restricted geographically—to a city—it is nonetheless of major significance. Not only did this millennial movement receive support from the U.S. federal government, but it also accomplished its goal prior to the turn of the millennium. During the tercentennial year of the Salem witch trials of 1692, the city of Salem organized a gala of events to commemorate this dark period of its past. The stigma attached to the city as a result of its involvement in the witch trials of 1692 is still deeply troubling to community leaders and businessmen. Seeking redemption for its part in these events, the city engaged in a pseudo-Puritan effort to fuse sacred and profane history in order to restore Salem to its rightful place as the seat of the Divine Metropolis. The city of witch-hunts would be reborn and gain global identification with justice, not injustice, and an increased flow of tourist dollars would ensure economic prosperity for Salem. To accomplish these aims, the actual events of 1692 were radically altered to serve present needs. These events were recast as a generic moral object lesson, not to promote social justice, but to perpetuate societal passivity and indifference in the face of injustice.

Historians of the Crusades embark upon their task in the confident belief that the Jerusalem Crus... more Historians of the Crusades embark upon their task in the confident belief that the Jerusalem Crusade of 1095-99 provides a self-evident starting point. Yet this belief arises from an illusion. The illusion is created by the mass of chroniclers’ accounts of this crusade. The spotlight they direct on this single expedition so brilliantly illuminates it as to cause all that has gone before it to be thrust into the shadows. One sees only the Jerusalem Crusade and assumes that it is the only form that crusading took during the eleventh century. From this angle of vision, numerous histories of the Crusades have been written. What is lacking is an awareness of the wider world of crusading of which “the march to Jerusalem” (iter Hierosolymitanum) formed a part. The traditional paradigm of the Crusades is not giving way easily to this wider world. It rejects the idea that a series of Crusades constituted the point of departure for the earliest thinking about the Crusades and instead contends that an individual Crusade constitutes a self-evident “point from which” (terminus a quo) knowledge about the Crusades can proceed forward. It rejects a Mediterranean-wide perspective in which to analyze the Crusades in their initial form and comprehends them from a highly localized perspective—a Jerusalem-centered point of view—and projects this highly localized perspective onto all Crusades, such that all Crusades bear the stamp of the Jerusalem Crusade. It also rejects a pluralistic conception of the Crusades that recognizes Crusade plurality as the general condition for understanding the Crusades and instead adheres to a strict monism, according to which a single Crusade—the Jerusalem Crusade—serves as the “standard,” the “touchstone,” the “template,” the “model,” the “blueprint,” the “benchmark,” and the “reference point” for all other Crusades. This study breaks with a Jerusalem-centric vision of the Crusades, and, instead of imposing ideas about the Crusades upon Pope Urban II, it attempts to interpret Urban in his own terms by taking into account the distinctions he made, the concepts he used, and the terminology he employed about the Crusades.

Praising the photographs of Francis Frith, the grocery wholesaler-turned-photographer who underto... more Praising the photographs of Francis Frith, the grocery wholesaler-turned-photographer who undertook three photographic expeditions to the Middle East between 1856 and 1860, an Athenaeum critic wrote: "Mr. Frith, who makes light of everything, brings us the Sun's opinion of Egypt, which is better than Champollion's, Wilkinson's, Eothen's, or Titmarsh's." Viewed as re-creations of nature itself, unmeditated repro- ductions of the real world fashioned by the direct agency of the sun, pho- tographs were extolled as truthful and unbiased representations of reality. This conviction, which ignored the input of the human operator, imbued early photography with a passionate enthusiasm and mission: to repro- duce the world in its own image, to make light of everything. Photography emerged not as an art form, still less as the result of certain developments in painting as proposed recently by Peter Galassi, but as an accurate and highly efficient means of transmitting visual information.

An array of pacts, truces, and alliances defined the relationships between A Muslim and Christian... more An array of pacts, truces, and alliances defined the relationships between A Muslim and Christian powers during the Middle Ages. These agreements constituted a special kind of encounter. Driven by need or greed, two startlingly different sets of cultural and legal assumptions, rhetorical traditions, and belief systems confronted each other uncomfortably. Each treaty or truce that the parties contracted represented a unique local circumstance, a tangle of options, dangers, opportunities, personalities, and historical and geographical contexts. Each player in the seesaw struggle between Cross and Crescent was, in a sense, a negotiating culture, literally negotiating to keep or to surrender elements of their cultural identity.

The Mamluks pioneered the use of gunpowder ordnance, but their principal piece of heavy artillery... more The Mamluks pioneered the use of gunpowder ordnance, but their principal piece of heavy artillery was "the crushing, demolishing trebuchet" (manjanīq hādim haddād). In their campaigns of conquest, the Mamluks used substantial batteries of trebuchets, and Mamluk military science produced the only major technical treatise on the construction and operation of this form of artillery. The trebuchet (Arabic manjanīq, pl. majāniq, manājīq, manājanīq, and majanīqāt) was the most powerful form of mechanical artillery ever devised. It consisted of a long tapering beam which pivoted near its butt-end around an axle mounted on top of a framework. At the end of the long arm of the beam, a sling was attached which held the missile. This was designed to open when the beam's motion and position reached the desired state for discharge. To launch a projectile, the beam—equipped with pulling-ropes at its short end—was set in a horizontal position. The operator of the machine readied the machine for launch by placing a projectile in the pouch of the sling. The sling had two ropes: one attached firmly to the end of the beam and the other looped over an iron prong extending from the tip of the beam. The alignment of the prong and the length of the sling were crucial to achieving maximum range. Human muscle force was applied to the pulling-ropes by a team of men—or, in some cases, women—while the operator guided the missile through the initial phase of the launch cycle.

Among the many fine specimens of Islamic art in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a tombsto... more Among the many fine specimens of Islamic art in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a tombstone (no. M.73.5.246) which is of great
interest not only for its fine craftsmanship but also because of its ornamental and epigraphic features. Some of the most elaborate types of ornamental Arabic script were first developed on tombstones, and this tombstone is a rare example in stone of one of the many and varied foliated scripts developed by the artisans of Nishapur in eastern Iran during the tenth century.

Review of Arabische Inschriften aus Syrien, by Heinz Gaube, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45 (A... more Review of Arabische Inschriften aus Syrien, by Heinz Gaube, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45 (April 1986): 161-64.

Among the many fine specimens of Islamic art in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a tombsto... more Among the many fine specimens of Islamic art in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a tombstone (no. M.73.5.246) which is of great interest not only for its fine craftsmanship but also because of its ornamental and epigraphic features (Fig. 1). Some of the most elaborate types of ornamental Arabic script were first developed on tombstones, and this tombstone is a rare example in stone of one of the many and varied foliated scripts developed by the artisans of Nishapur in eastern Iran during the tenth century.

This new study of the “First” Crusade argues that “apocalyptic fervor” (p. 305) was the driving f... more This new study of the “First” Crusade argues that “apocalyptic fervor” (p. 305) was the driving force of the expedition, as well as the Crusade movement. Previous studies, the author contends, have failed “to capture how precisely apocalyptic the First Crusade was” (p. xii). The remedy Rubenstein offers is a relentless focus on apocalypticism that ignores any weaknesses inherent in this approach and overlooks alternative explanations.

Early Science and Medicine, 2007

© 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be rep... more © 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) ...

Review of Middle East Studies, 2009

Viator, 2000

Effective bombardment by a breaching battery of artillery changed the face of warfare. A heavy-ca... more Effective bombardment by a breaching battery of artillery changed the face of warfare. A heavy-caliber catapult was capable of damaging fortifications, but the true wall-breaker of the pre-modem era was the trebuchet.1 The word "trebuchet" designates a piece of artillery that drew its energy from a beam that pivoted around an axle. Supported upon a tall framework, the axle divided the beam into two unequal sections, or arms. The longer arm terminated in a sling for hurling the missile, and the shorter one ended in an attachment that held the apparatus required for driving the beam, such as pulling ropes, or a counterweight, or a combination of ropes and ballast. Human muscular force, gravitational energy, or the activation of both forces propelled the throwing arm upwar~ and hurled the missile from the sling. The trebuchet dominated warfare far longer than any other form of artillery, yet it remains the least understood piece of military ordnance. It holds the distinction of being the most powerful form of mechanical artillery ever devised. It displaced the torsion artillery of the classical world and maintained its dominance until well after the coming of the cannon. Along the way it developed previously unsuspected sophistication of mechanical operation and appears to have influenced such cognate areas as clock design and the study of theoretical mechanics. Despite more than a century and

Scientific American, 1995

Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 2000

Page 1. The Invention of the Counterweight Trebuchet: A Study in Cultural Diffusion PAUL E. CHEVE... more Page 1. The Invention of the Counterweight Trebuchet: A Study in Cultural Diffusion PAUL E. CHEVEDDEN he counterweight trebuchet represents the first significant mechanical utilization of gravitational energy. In the military ...

“The Artillery of King James I the Conqueror,” in Iberia and the Mediterranean World of the Middl... more “The Artillery of King James I the Conqueror,” in Iberia and the Mediterranean World of the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Robert I. Burns, S.J., ed. Paul E. Chevedden, Donald J. Kagay, and Paul G. Padilla, 47-94 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996).

Iberia and the Mediterranean World of the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Robert I. Burns, S.J., 1996

Plates that accompany the article: Paul E. Chevedden, "The Artillery of King James I the Conquero... more Plates that accompany the article: Paul E. Chevedden, "The Artillery of King James I the Conqueror," in Iberia and the Mediterranean World of the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Robert I. Burns, S.J., ed. Paul E. Chevedden, Donald J. Kagay, and Paul G. Padilla, 47-94 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996).

The Crusader World is a multidisciplinary survey of the current state of research in the field of... more The Crusader World is a multidisciplinary survey of the current state of research in the field of crusader studies, an area of study which has become increasingly popular in recent years. In this volume Adrian Boas draws together an impressive range of academics, including work from renowned scholars as well as a number of thought-provoking pieces from emerging researchers, in order to provide broad coverage of the major aspects of the period. This authoritative work will play an important role in the future direction of crusading studies. This volume enriches present knowledge of the crusades, addressing such wide-ranging subjects as: intelligence and espionage, gender issues, religious celebrations in crusader Jerusalem, political struggles in crusader Antioch, the archaeological study of battle sites and fortifications, diseases suffered by the crusaders, crusading in northern Europe and Spain and the impact of crusader art. The relationship between crusaders and Muslims, two distinct and in many way opposing cultures, is also examined in depth, including a discussion of how the Franks perceived their enemies. Arranged into eight thematic sections, The Crusader World considers many central issues as well as a large number of less familiar topics of the crusades, crusader society, history and culture. With over 100 photographs, line drawings and maps, this impressive collection of essays is a key resource for students and scholars alike.

The story of millennialism extends down the ages from the ancient Near East to the present. All s... more The story of millennialism extends down the ages from the ancient Near East to the present. All scholars who have studied millennialism have investigated unsuccessful movements, or movements that have yet to succeed, that is, achieve the millennium. This essay explores a successful millennial movement, one that has already ushered in the messianic age. Although this achievement is restricted geographically—to a city—it is nonetheless of major significance. Not only did this millennial movement receive support from the U.S. federal government, but it also accomplished its goal prior to the turn of the millennium. During the tercentennial year of the Salem witch trials of 1692, the city of Salem organized a gala of events to commemorate this dark period of its past. The stigma attached to the city as a result of its involvement in the witch trials of 1692 is still deeply troubling to community leaders and businessmen. Seeking redemption for its part in these events, the city engaged in a pseudo-Puritan effort to fuse sacred and profane history in order to restore Salem to its rightful place as the seat of the Divine Metropolis. The city of witch-hunts would be reborn and gain global identification with justice, not injustice, and an increased flow of tourist dollars would ensure economic prosperity for Salem. To accomplish these aims, the actual events of 1692 were radically altered to serve present needs. These events were recast as a generic moral object lesson, not to promote social justice, but to perpetuate societal passivity and indifference in the face of injustice.

Historians of the Crusades embark upon their task in the confident belief that the Jerusalem Crus... more Historians of the Crusades embark upon their task in the confident belief that the Jerusalem Crusade of 1095-99 provides a self-evident starting point. Yet this belief arises from an illusion. The illusion is created by the mass of chroniclers’ accounts of this crusade. The spotlight they direct on this single expedition so brilliantly illuminates it as to cause all that has gone before it to be thrust into the shadows. One sees only the Jerusalem Crusade and assumes that it is the only form that crusading took during the eleventh century. From this angle of vision, numerous histories of the Crusades have been written. What is lacking is an awareness of the wider world of crusading of which “the march to Jerusalem” (iter Hierosolymitanum) formed a part. The traditional paradigm of the Crusades is not giving way easily to this wider world. It rejects the idea that a series of Crusades constituted the point of departure for the earliest thinking about the Crusades and instead contends that an individual Crusade constitutes a self-evident “point from which” (terminus a quo) knowledge about the Crusades can proceed forward. It rejects a Mediterranean-wide perspective in which to analyze the Crusades in their initial form and comprehends them from a highly localized perspective—a Jerusalem-centered point of view—and projects this highly localized perspective onto all Crusades, such that all Crusades bear the stamp of the Jerusalem Crusade. It also rejects a pluralistic conception of the Crusades that recognizes Crusade plurality as the general condition for understanding the Crusades and instead adheres to a strict monism, according to which a single Crusade—the Jerusalem Crusade—serves as the “standard,” the “touchstone,” the “template,” the “model,” the “blueprint,” the “benchmark,” and the “reference point” for all other Crusades. This study breaks with a Jerusalem-centric vision of the Crusades, and, instead of imposing ideas about the Crusades upon Pope Urban II, it attempts to interpret Urban in his own terms by taking into account the distinctions he made, the concepts he used, and the terminology he employed about the Crusades.

Praising the photographs of Francis Frith, the grocery wholesaler-turned-photographer who underto... more Praising the photographs of Francis Frith, the grocery wholesaler-turned-photographer who undertook three photographic expeditions to the Middle East between 1856 and 1860, an Athenaeum critic wrote: "Mr. Frith, who makes light of everything, brings us the Sun's opinion of Egypt, which is better than Champollion's, Wilkinson's, Eothen's, or Titmarsh's." Viewed as re-creations of nature itself, unmeditated repro- ductions of the real world fashioned by the direct agency of the sun, pho- tographs were extolled as truthful and unbiased representations of reality. This conviction, which ignored the input of the human operator, imbued early photography with a passionate enthusiasm and mission: to repro- duce the world in its own image, to make light of everything. Photography emerged not as an art form, still less as the result of certain developments in painting as proposed recently by Peter Galassi, but as an accurate and highly efficient means of transmitting visual information.

An array of pacts, truces, and alliances defined the relationships between A Muslim and Christian... more An array of pacts, truces, and alliances defined the relationships between A Muslim and Christian powers during the Middle Ages. These agreements constituted a special kind of encounter. Driven by need or greed, two startlingly different sets of cultural and legal assumptions, rhetorical traditions, and belief systems confronted each other uncomfortably. Each treaty or truce that the parties contracted represented a unique local circumstance, a tangle of options, dangers, opportunities, personalities, and historical and geographical contexts. Each player in the seesaw struggle between Cross and Crescent was, in a sense, a negotiating culture, literally negotiating to keep or to surrender elements of their cultural identity.

The Mamluks pioneered the use of gunpowder ordnance, but their principal piece of heavy artillery... more The Mamluks pioneered the use of gunpowder ordnance, but their principal piece of heavy artillery was "the crushing, demolishing trebuchet" (manjanīq hādim haddād). In their campaigns of conquest, the Mamluks used substantial batteries of trebuchets, and Mamluk military science produced the only major technical treatise on the construction and operation of this form of artillery. The trebuchet (Arabic manjanīq, pl. majāniq, manājīq, manājanīq, and majanīqāt) was the most powerful form of mechanical artillery ever devised. It consisted of a long tapering beam which pivoted near its butt-end around an axle mounted on top of a framework. At the end of the long arm of the beam, a sling was attached which held the missile. This was designed to open when the beam's motion and position reached the desired state for discharge. To launch a projectile, the beam—equipped with pulling-ropes at its short end—was set in a horizontal position. The operator of the machine readied the machine for launch by placing a projectile in the pouch of the sling. The sling had two ropes: one attached firmly to the end of the beam and the other looped over an iron prong extending from the tip of the beam. The alignment of the prong and the length of the sling were crucial to achieving maximum range. Human muscle force was applied to the pulling-ropes by a team of men—or, in some cases, women—while the operator guided the missile through the initial phase of the launch cycle.

Among the many fine specimens of Islamic art in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a tombsto... more Among the many fine specimens of Islamic art in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a tombstone (no. M.73.5.246) which is of great
interest not only for its fine craftsmanship but also because of its ornamental and epigraphic features. Some of the most elaborate types of ornamental Arabic script were first developed on tombstones, and this tombstone is a rare example in stone of one of the many and varied foliated scripts developed by the artisans of Nishapur in eastern Iran during the tenth century.

Review of Arabische Inschriften aus Syrien, by Heinz Gaube, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45 (A... more Review of Arabische Inschriften aus Syrien, by Heinz Gaube, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45 (April 1986): 161-64.

Among the many fine specimens of Islamic art in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a tombsto... more Among the many fine specimens of Islamic art in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a tombstone (no. M.73.5.246) which is of great interest not only for its fine craftsmanship but also because of its ornamental and epigraphic features (Fig. 1). Some of the most elaborate types of ornamental Arabic script were first developed on tombstones, and this tombstone is a rare example in stone of one of the many and varied foliated scripts developed by the artisans of Nishapur in eastern Iran during the tenth century.

This new study of the “First” Crusade argues that “apocalyptic fervor” (p. 305) was the driving f... more This new study of the “First” Crusade argues that “apocalyptic fervor” (p. 305) was the driving force of the expedition, as well as the Crusade movement. Previous studies, the author contends, have failed “to capture how precisely apocalyptic the First Crusade was” (p. xii). The remedy Rubenstein offers is a relentless focus on apocalypticism that ignores any weaknesses inherent in this approach and overlooks alternative explanations.

Early Science and Medicine, 2007

© 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be rep... more © 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) ...

Review of Middle East Studies, 2009

Viator, 2000

Effective bombardment by a breaching battery of artillery changed the face of warfare. A heavy-ca... more Effective bombardment by a breaching battery of artillery changed the face of warfare. A heavy-caliber catapult was capable of damaging fortifications, but the true wall-breaker of the pre-modem era was the trebuchet.1 The word "trebuchet" designates a piece of artillery that drew its energy from a beam that pivoted around an axle. Supported upon a tall framework, the axle divided the beam into two unequal sections, or arms. The longer arm terminated in a sling for hurling the missile, and the shorter one ended in an attachment that held the apparatus required for driving the beam, such as pulling ropes, or a counterweight, or a combination of ropes and ballast. Human muscular force, gravitational energy, or the activation of both forces propelled the throwing arm upwar~ and hurled the missile from the sling. The trebuchet dominated warfare far longer than any other form of artillery, yet it remains the least understood piece of military ordnance. It holds the distinction of being the most powerful form of mechanical artillery ever devised. It displaced the torsion artillery of the classical world and maintained its dominance until well after the coming of the cannon. Along the way it developed previously unsuspected sophistication of mechanical operation and appears to have influenced such cognate areas as clock design and the study of theoretical mechanics. Despite more than a century and

Scientific American, 1995

Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 2000

Page 1. The Invention of the Counterweight Trebuchet: A Study in Cultural Diffusion PAUL E. CHEVE... more Page 1. The Invention of the Counterweight Trebuchet: A Study in Cultural Diffusion PAUL E. CHEVEDDEN he counterweight trebuchet represents the first significant mechanical utilization of gravitational energy. In the military ...