From Penitence to Charity: The Practice of Piety in Counter-Reformation Paris

Barbara Diefendorf argues that Vincentian piety arose from the spirituality evoked by the late sixteenth century’s religious wars. These wars brought with them a fear of God’s judgment. This fear, coupled with disgust for the excesses of the unreformed Church, led to penitential piety, which emphasized extreme asceticism and Christ’s suffering on the cross. Later, there was a shift to the imitation of his life through service to the poor. Diefendorf examines female piety typified by Marie Du Drac and Barbe Aurillot, also known as Madame Acarie. Both practiced severe forms of mortification, nursed the poor, and worked in prisons. Both exemplified the political element of their era’s piety as ardent supporters of the Holy Union of the Catholic League, a Parisian faction prominent in the religious wars. The asceticism and influence of the Capuchin and Feuillant orders are discussed

Madame de Gondi: A Contemporary Seventeenth-Century Life

There are few sources of information about Madame de Gondi’s life, and the prevailing view has held that she was selfish, insecure, and neurotic. This sketch of her many virtues comes from a 1630 collection of women’s lives written by Brother Hilarion de Coste and appears to have been unknown to Pierre Coste and other scholars of Vincent de Paul’s relationship with Madame de Gondi. Brother Hilarion’s information came from oral and published sources, and he also knew Vincent, quoting him regarding one incident. This portrait of Madame de Gondi has particular authenticity. In accordance with contemporary expectations of women, Brother Hilarion praises her obedience to and dependence on her spiritual directors. He also cites her intelligence, which suggests that her submissiveness was, as Barbara Diefendorf says, “a deliberate conformity to an expected social role—and not an innate character trait.” Her care for her vassals and her management of her estates do not conform to her image as “clinging and demanding.” Reasons for the prevalence of this image are discussed in Diefendorf’s introduction

JTEC panel report on advanced composites in Japan

The JTEC Panel on Advanced Composites visited Japan and surveyed the status and future directions of Japanese high performance ceramic and carbon fibers and their composites in metal, intermetallic, ceramic and carbon matrices. The panel's interests included not only what composite systems were chosen, but also how these systems were developed. A strong carbon and fiber industry makes Japan the leader in carbon fiber technology. Japan has initiated an oxidation resistant carbon/carbon composite program. The goals for this program are ambitious, and it is just starting, but its progress should be closely monitored in the United States

The languages of peace during the French religious wars

The desirability of peace was a common topos in sixteenth-century political rhetoric, and the duty of the king to uphold the peace for the benefit of his subjects was also a long-established tradition. However, the peculiar circumstances of the French religious wars, and the preferred royal policy of pacification, galvanized impassioned debate among both those who supported and those who opposed confessional coexistence. This article looks at the diverse ways in which peace was viewed during the religious wars through an exploration of language and context. It draws not only on the pronouncements of the crown and its officials, and of poets and jurists, but also on those of local communities and confessional groups. Opinion was not just divided along religious lines; political imperatives, philosophical positions and local conditions all came into play in the arguments deployed. The variegated languages of peace provide a social and cultural dimension for the contested nature of sixteenth-century French politics. However, they could not restore harmony to a war-torn and divided kingdom

The last forests on Antarctica: Reconstructing flora and temperature from the Neogene Sirius Group, Transantarctic Mountains

Fossil-bearing deposits in the Transantarctic Mountains, Antarctica indicate that, despite the cold nature of the continent’s climate, a tundra ecosystem grew during periods of ice sheet retreat in the mid to late Neogene (17–2.5 Ma), 480 km from the South Pole. To date, palaeotemperature reconstruction has been based only on biological ranges, thereby calling for a geochemical approach to understanding continental climate and environment. There is contradictory evidence in the fossil record as to whether this flora was mixed angiosperm-conifer vegetation, or whether by this point conifers had disappeared from the continent. In order to address these questions, we have analysed, for the first time in sediments of this age, plant and bacterial biomarkers in terrestrial sediments from the Transantarctic Mountains to reconstruct past temperature and vegetation during a period of East Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat. From tetraether lipids (MBT’/CBT palaeothermometer), we conclude that the mean continental summer temperature was ca. 5 °C, in agreement with previous reconstructions. This was warm enough to have allowed woody vegetation to survive and reproduce even during the austral winter. Biomarkers from vascular plants indicate a low diversity and spatially variable flora consisting of higher plants, moss and algal mats growing in microenvironments in a glacial outwash system. Abietane-type compounds were abundant in some samples, indicating that conifers, most likely Podocarpaceae, grew on the Antarctic continent well into the Neogene. This is supported by the palynological record, but not the macrofossil record for the continent, and has implications for the evolution of vegetation on Antarctica

Bighorn Basin Coring Project (BBCP): a continental perspective on early Paleogene hyperthermals

During the summer of 2011, the Bighorn Basin Coring Project (BBCP) recovered over 900m of overlapping core from 3 different sites in late Paleocene to early Eocene fluvial deposits of northwestern Wyoming. BBCP cores are being used to develop high-resolution proxy records of the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) and Eocene Thermal Maximum 2 (ETM2) hyperthermal events. These events are short-term, large magnitude global warming events associated with extreme perturbations to the earth’s carbon cycle. Although the PETM and ETM2 occurred ~55–52 million years ago, they are analogous in many ways to modern anthropogenic changes to the carbon cycle. By applying various sedimentological, geochemical, and palynological methods to the cores, we hope to better understand what caused these events, study the biogeochemical and ecological feedbacks that operated during them, and reveal precisely how they impacted continental environments. Core recovery was > 98% in all holes and most drilling was carried out without fluid additives, showing that continuous coring of continental smectitic deposits like these can be achieved with minimal risk of contamination to molecular biomarkers. Cores were processed in the Bremen Core Repository where the science team convened for 17 days to carry out data collection and sampling protocols similar to IODP projects. Initial results show that the weathered horizon extends to as much as ~30m below the surface and variations in magnetic susceptibility within the cores record an interplay between grain size and pedogenesis. Previous investigations of outcrops near the BBCP drill sites allow detailed evaluation of the effects of weathering on common proxy methods. Studies of lithofacies, organic geochemistry, stable isotope geochemistry, calibrated XRF core scanning, paleomagnetics, and palynology are underway and will represent the highest resolution and most integrated proxy records of the PETM from a continental setting yet known. An extensive outreach program is in place to capitalize on the educational value associated with the Bighorn Basin’s unusually complete record of Phanerozoic earth history

Fire and brief human occupations in Iberia during MIS 4: Evidence from Abric del Pastor (Alcoy, Spain)

There is a relatively low amount of Middle Paleolithic sites in Europe dating to MIS 4. Of the few that exist, several of them lack evidence for anthropogenic fire, raising the question of how this period of global cooling may have affected the Neanderthal population. The Iberian Peninsula is a key area to explore this issue, as it has been considered as a glacial refugium during critical periods of the Neanderthal timeline and might therefore yield archaeological contexts in which we can explore possible changes in the behaviour and settlement patterns of Neanderthal groups during MIS 4. Here we report recent data from Abric del Pastor, a small rock shelter in Alcoy (Alicante, Spain) with a stratified deposit containing Middle Palaeolithic remains. We present absolute dates that frame the sequence within MIS 4 and multi-proxy geoarchaeological evidence of in situ anthropogenic fire, including microscopic evidence of in situ combustion residues and thermally altered sediment. We also present archaeostratigraphic evidence of recurrent, functionally diverse, brief human occupation of the rock shelter. Our results suggest that Neanderthals occupied the Central Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula during MIS 4, that these Neanderthals were not undergoing climatic stress and they were habitual fire users.This research was funded by a Leakey Foundation General Grant, Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities Projects HAR2008-06117/HIST and HAR2015-68321-P, Junta de Castilla y León-FEDER Project BU235P18, the LabEx Sciences Archéologiques de Bordeaux (LaScArBx ANR-10-LABX-52) and ERC Consolidator Grant ERC-CoG-2014. Archaeological excavations at Abric del Pastor are supported by the Archaeological Museum of Alcoy and the Government of Valencia Cultural Heritage Department

SPEM dysfunction and general schizotypy as measured by the SSQ: a controlled study

Abstract Background SPEM dysfunction is a well-known phenomenon in schizophrenia. The principal aim of the present study was to examine whether SPEM dysfunction is already observable in subjects scoring high on a specific measure of schizotypy (SSQ General Schizotypy) that was selected because of its intimate relationship with schizophrenic prodromal unfolding. Methods Applying ANOVAs, we determined the relationship of subjects' scores on SSQ General Schizotypy and eye movements elicited by targets of different speed. We also examined whether there exists an association between our schizotypy measure and pupil size. Results We found more SPEM dysfunction in subjects scoring high on SSQ General Schizotypy than in subjects scoring average on that factor, irrespective of the speed of the target. No relationship was found between baseline pupil size and General Schizotypy. Conclusion The present study provides additional evidence that SPEM dysfunction is associated with schizotypic features that precede the onset of schizophrenia and is already observable in general population subjects that show these features

Investigation of late Pleistocene and early Holocene palaeoenvironmental change at El Mirón cave (Cantabria, Spain): insights from carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of red deer

Abstract: El Mirón Cavewas occupied by humans for over 40,000 years. Evidence of LateMousterian,Gravettian, Solutrean, Magdalenian, Azilian, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Mediaeval occupations has been found in the cave. Understanding the local environmental conditions during the occupations is crucial for gaining an insight into the lifeways of El Mirón's inhabitants as they relied on the surrounding region and its natural resources for their subsistence. 170 bones of hunted red deer recovered from the cave were sampled for carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analyses with the aim of reconstructing the palaeoenvironment and palaeoclimate during the human occupation. The results show that the surrounding landscape underwent considerable environmental change during the Late Pleistocene and Early to Mid-Holocene. Shifts in d13C values between the Last Glacial Maximum, Heinrich stadial 1, Heinrich event 1, the Late-glacial interstadial and the onset of the Holocene are likely to reflect changes in water availability and temperature. Deer d15N generally increased over time indicating the regeneration of soil biological activity and nitrogen cycling, which was temporarily halted during the Younger Dryas. Comparison of the El Mirón results with those of 300 deer from other regions of Europe shows geographical variations in the timing and magnitude of the variation in d13C and d15N values. This variation tracks local climate (temperature andwater availability) and environmental (vegetation and forest development) change