Military orders and powerful women in the Christian Levant

In the Christian East, religious military orders have obviously had interactions with women in leadership roles as queens, princesses and noble women. The relationship between military orders and aristocratic women varies in relation to the power these women actually had in Latin states in the East, the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia and the Latin Empire of Constantinople including Frankish Morea. As such, we must clearly distinguish between women who ran a state or governed a fiefdom by themselves and those under the guardianship of others. This difference influences the attitudes that representatives from the orders displayed towards these noble women. In this study, we are interested in these different types of situations, such as the relationship of the military orders with women in positions of power such as the Queens of Jerusalem Melisende and Sibylla, the Queen Joanna of Naples, who was also Princess of Morea, and other important women. We also examine the very delicate diplomatic intervention by the order of the Hospital concerning the Princess of Tyre, Zapel, sister of the Armenian King, Ochin I and wife to the Governor of Cyprus, Amaury of Tyre, in order to free the King of Cyprus, a prisoner in Armenia. For queens and princesses who were not independent, especially when they were young, we could determine in several cases the level of involvement of military orders in their marriage. The cases examined are representative of the wide range of types of relationships that military orders had with ladies of high social standing in the Christian East.In the Christian East, religious military orders have obviously had interactions with women in leadership roles as queens, princesses and noble women. The relationship between military orders and aristocratic women varies in relation to the power these women actually had in Latin states in the East, the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia and the Latin Empire of Constantinople including Frankish Morea. As such, we must clearly distinguish between women who ran a state or governed a fiefdom by themselves and those under the guardianship of others. This difference influences the attitudes that representatives from the orders displayed towards these noble women. In this study, we are interested in these different types of situations, such as the relationship of the military orders with women in positions of power such as the Queens of Jerusalem Melisende and Sibylla, the Queen Joanna of Naples, who was also Princess of Morea, and other important women. We also examine the very delicate diplomatic intervention by the order of the Hospital concerning the Princess of Tyre, Zapel, sister of the Armenian King, Ochin I and wife to the Governor of Cyprus, Amaury of Tyre, in order to free the King of Cyprus, a prisoner in Armenia. For queens and princesses who were not independent, especially when they were young, we could determine in several cases the level of involvement of military orders in their marriage. The cases examined are representative of the wide range of types of relationships that military orders had with ladies of high social standing in the Christian East

Elizabeth Lapina et Nicholas Morton (éd.), The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources

L’utilisation des citations scripturaires dans les sources médiévales fait l’objet d’un intérêt accru dans l’historiographie récente. Il s’agit d’une question relativement nouvelle, longtemps écartée ou assez peu exploitée par les médiévistes. En 2003, Henri Bresc avait entrepris un précieux état des lieux du sujet dans un article sur « Les historiens de la croisade : guerre sainte, justice et paix » (Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Moyen Âge, 115-2, 2003, p. 727-753). Les éditeurs, El..

Javier Albarran Iruela, El Sueño de al-Quds. Los musulmanes ante la conquista cruzada de Jerusalén (1099-1187)

L’objectif de Javier Albarran Iruela est de retracer les réactions – littéraires, mais surtout militaires et idéologiques –, des élites politiques et religieuses du monde musulman face à la prise de Jérusalem par les chrétiens en 1099 puis à l’établissement d’États latins en Orient dans les années qui suivirent. Il estime que la bibliographie en castillan sur la croisade, considérée du point de vue musulman, est inexistante. Le plan de l’ouvrage s’articule autour des grands moments qui ont co..

L’ordre du Temple en Orient : quelle représentation de la classe chevaleresque ?

L’article s’intéresse aux spécificités de la chevalerie dans l’ordre du Temple en considérant la manière dont les sources rédigées en Orient par des auteurs de toutes confessions complètent utilement la Règle du Temple, non seulement par des informations concrètes, des éléments de contexte, mais aussi à travers la perception plus ou moins sensible des actes accomplis par les frères chevaliers. La visibilité spécifique de la classe des chevaliers au moment de la création de l’Ordre et la réception de cette nouvelle institution auprès de la noblesse sont envisagées. L’évolution de l’Ordre, parallèle à celle de la société, sur les exigences et attentes relatives à l’origine sociale et aux qualités des frères chevaliers est perceptible, de même que l’amplification et la diversification de leur rôle et de leurs missions dans le Levant.This study focuses on the specificities of knighthood in the Templar Order by considering how sources written in the East by authors from all faiths provide useful complements to the Règle du Temple. As well as providing concrete information and contextual elements, these documents also bring us a more or less sensitive perception of the acts performed by the brother knights. The article considers the specific visibility of the class of knights at the time of the creation of the Military Order, and the reception of this new institution by the nobility. Evolutions can be observed in the Military Order, which mirror the evolutions undergone by society as a whole: they affect the social origin and qualities expected from the knight-brothers, as well as the development and the diversification of their role and missions in the Levant

Haroutioun Khatchadourian et Michel Basmadjian, L’art des Khatchkars. Les pierres à croix arméniennes d’Ispahan et de Jérusalem

L’origine de la sculpture de croix sur les murs ou autour des églises remonte au ive-ve s. en Arménie. Cependant, l’art du khatchkar tel qu’on le conçoit à l’heure actuelle apparaît dans la seconde moitié du ixe s., sous forme de monolithes sculptés ; le terme de khatchkar est, quant à lui, bien plus tardif, puisqu’on ne le trouve principalement qu’à partir du xxe s. Ce bel et volumineux ouvrage de 442 pages fait suite à une série de publications sur les khatchkars depuis les années 1950, d’a..

Andrew D. Buck, The Principality of Antioch and its Frontiers in the Twelfth Century

Cet ouvrage est issu de la thèse de doctorat d’Andrew D. Buck soutenue en 2014 à la Queen Mary, Université de Londres. L’a. a adopté une approche thématique plutôt que chronologique pour traiter ce sujet, restreint ici au premier siècle de l’existence de la principauté d’Antioche – dont la capitale fut détruite par les Mamelouks en 1268. Son étude est divisée en sept parties portant successivement sur l’étendue de la principauté, ses dirigeants, la gouvernance centrale et le service militaire..

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN