• Walter POHL – Andre GINGRICH (Eds.) - Annamaria Pazienza - Irene Bavuso - Clemens Gantner - Cinzia Grifoni (Guest Eds.)

medieval worlds • no. 20 • 2024

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"medieval worlds" provides a forum for comparative, interdisciplinary and transcultural studies of the Middle Ages. Its aim is to overcome disciplinary boundaries, regional limits and national research traditions in Medieval Studies, to open up new spaces for discussion, and to help developing global perspectives. We focus on the period from c. 400 to 1500 CE but do not stick to rigid periodization.
medieval worlds is open to submissions of broadly comparative studies and matters of global interest, whether in single articles, companion papers, smaller clusters, or special issues on a subject of global/comparative history. We particularly invite studies of wide-ranging connectivity or comparison between different world regions.

Apart from research articles, medieval worlds publishes ongoing debates and project and conference reports on comparative medieval research.


In this volume S. Liccardo and S. Wabnitz provide an in-depth study of Western and Chinese sources on marriage strategies, especially levirate in the early Middle Ages, drawing on anthropological insights and providing historical context for the latest results of archaeogenetic research.

Our thematic section Moving Jobs: Occupational Identity and Motility in the Middle Ages was collected by guest editors Annamaria Pazienza and Irene Bavuso and focuses on the mobility of people in connection with their work. It offers case studies on the Southern Tarim Basin (T. Høisæter), central Greece (G. Wu), Italy (A. Pazienza) and southern Germany (W. North). A second instalment of this section will follow in December 2025.

In our second thematic section Cultural Brokers in European and Asian Contexts. Investigating a Concept guest editors Clemens Gantner and Cinzia Grifoni present contributions which explore this possible approach to agents of knowledge transfer in the context of their disciplines: K. Schaeffer in Tibetan Buddhist history, Ch. Pecchia in Colonial South Asia, C. Grifoni in early medieval Francia and C. Gantner in early medieval Italy/Byzantium. Introductions to both clusters provide methodological context and comparative insights.

Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
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A-1011 Wien, Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2
Tel. +43-1-515 81/DW 3420, Fax +43-1-515 81/DW 3400
https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at, e-mail: verlag@oeaw.ac.at

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medieval worlds • no. 20 • 2024

ISSN 2412-3196
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ISBN 978-3-7001-9704-1
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Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
A-1011 Wien, Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2,
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Family Matters. The Levirate Marriage as a Nomadic Custom in Medieval Eurasia

    Salvatore Liccardo, Sandra Wabnitz

medieval worlds • no. 20 • 2024, pp. 191-227, 2024/06/27

doi: 10.1553/medievalworlds_no20_2024s191

doi: 10.1553/medievalworlds_no20_2024s191


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doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no20_2024s191



doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no20_2024s191

Abstract

Family life among medieval Eurasian nomads is still largely unknown due to the scarcity of written sources and the need to rely on ethnographic information originating from disparate chronological and geographical contexts. Thanks to developments in aDNA research, these uncharted territories are being progressively explored. This allows us to re-evaluate past paradigms on ethnicity, family dynamics, and human mobility. This article attempts to reassess the social limits and cultural connotations of the levirate marriage by drawing on recent genetic findings in burial sites of the Carpathian Basin (in today’s Austria and Hungary). The term »levirate« refers to a marriage between a widow and her late husband’s sibling or other relative. The custom was widespread throughout space and time, although it was particularly common in patriarchal cultures that permitted polygyny and enforced bride price. The paper aims to investigate the practice and rhetoric of levirate marriage in intercultural interactions between sedentary and nomadic communities, as well as within the writers’ ethnographic and literary traditions. The article will provide an analysis of ancient and medieval sources discussing levirate and marriage customs among Eurasian nomads coming from both western Eurasia (Greece, Rome, the Caucasus, the Near East, and Europe) and China. Following an examination of the biblical origin of the term levirate and an analysis of the socio-economic impact of this practice, the paper will demonstrate how the authors’ varying degrees of familiarity with the custom influenced the cultural significance that they assigned to the practice and will make it possible to place the newly discovered genetic data within a more comprehensive historical perspective.

Keywords: Levirate, marriage, customs, kinship, Eurasian nomads, Scythians, Huns, Oghuz Turks, Mongols, Xiongnu, Sima Qian

Published Online: 2024/06/27 11:42:58

Object Identifier: 0xc1aa5572 0x003f318a

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Rights: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/