This book will lead readers into a medieval culture of ambition, greed, and jealousy that motivated men and women to take the lives of individuals who trusted them. Collard examines the perception of the crime of poisoning in the West in medieval times, from about 500 to 1500 AD, exploring the ways the alleged crime was perceived in contemporary minds. His primary sources are chronicles that cover the entire medieval period and legal texts that are limited to the late medieval centuries. In order to portray the culture of murder by poisoning in the West, it was necessary to take into account Byzantine and Islamic documents as well as ancient texts such as the Scriptures and the writings of Roman historians, both of which were widely known in the Middle Ages. This book will lead readers into a medieval culture of ambition, greed, and jealousy that motivated men and women to take the lives of individuals who trusted them. In these pages, French medievalist Franck Collard examines the perception of the crime of poisoning in the West from about 500 to 1500. His primary sources of information are chronicles that cover the entire medieval period and legal texts that are limited to the late medieval centuries. In order to portray the culture of murder by poisoning in the West, he takes into account Byzantine and Islamic documents, as well as ancient texts such as the Scriptures and the writings of Roman historians, both of which were widely known in the Middle Ages. The resulting volume is concerned with the criminal actions that involve poison and not poison as such. Poisonous substances as such are described only when necessary for an understanding of a crime. What is important here is an examination of the ways the alleged crime was perceived in contemporary minds. Poisoning avoids the use of violence. It was committed without a drawn weapon or bloodshed in a world in which wounds, swords, knives, and clubs represented aggression and in which the flow of blood determined the gravity of the crime. Necessarily involving preparation and secrecy, it was often perpetrated treacherously during a meal, a particularly heinous act in a universe that was united by the companionship of a meal and the sociability of drinking. The special horror associated with poisoning resulted from the treachery of those close to the victim-and a sudden death that prevented a final confession of sins.
This book will lead readers into a medieval culture of ambition, greed, and jealousy that motivated men and women to take the lives of individuals who trusted them. Collard examines the perception of the crime of poisoning in the West in medieval times, from about 500 to 1500 AD, exploring the ways the alleged crime was perceived in contemporary minds. His primary sources are chronicles that cover the entire medieval period and legal texts that are limited to the late medieval centuries. In order to portray the culture of murder by poisoning in the West, it was necessary to take into account Byzantine and Islamic documents as well as ancient texts such as the Scriptures and the writings of Roman historians, both of which were widely known in the Middle Ages. This book will lead readers into a medieval culture of ambition, greed, and jealousy that motivated men and women to take the lives of individuals who trusted them. In these pages, French medievalist Franck Collard examines the perception of the crime of poisoning in the West from about 500 to 1500. His primary sources of information are chronicles that cover the entire medieval period and legal texts that are limited to the late medieval centuries. In order to portray the culture of murder by poisoning in the West, he takes into account Byzantine and Islamic documents, as well as ancient texts such as the Scriptures and the writings of Roman historians, both of which were widely known in the Middle Ages. The resulting volume is concerned with the criminal actions that involve poison and not poison as such. Poisonous substances as such are described only when necessary for an understanding of a crime. What is important here is an examination of the ways the alleged crime was perceived in contemporary minds. Poisoning avoids the use of violence. It was committed without a drawn weapon or bloodshed in a world in which wounds, swords, knives, and clubs represented aggression and in which the flow of blood determined the gravity of the crime. Necessarily involving preparation and secrecy, it was often perpetrated treacherously during a meal, a particularly heinous act in a universe that was united by the companionship of a meal and the sociability of drinking. The special horror associated with poisoning resulted from the treachery of those close to the victim-and a sudden death that prevented a final confession of sins.
This book presents the latest findings relating to behavioral economics and the digital tools applied to contract management. There has been a decisive change in the role of contracts in the past decade, with contracts being transformed from purely legal necessities designed to protect against worst-case scenarios into tools for optimizing ongoing and mutually profitable business relationships with customers. There is an increasing emphasis on tight contracts, where time-risk and additional costs are passed on to the prime contractor, who may suffer heavy penalties in the event of non-performance. Contracts shape the behavior of the parties involved and as such have a major impact on project success. The contract manager’s goals are to protect the interests of the company and its shareholders by minimizing the company’s financial and contractual liabilities and to maximize its profitability while ensuring end-user satisfaction. The contract is usually written before the design is fully developed, and there is often a mismatch between contractual specifications and what the customer actually wants. Good contract management entails preserving the rights of the contractor by ensuring all parties respect their contractual obligations; providing advice to the project managers and engineering team; preparing profitable amendments to contracts or change requests; maintaining good record-keeping in the event that claims arise; filing notices when necessary; and guiding the project to a profitable conclusion. Like the ancient Chinese game of Go, moves made early in the game (notification of events) can shape the nature of a potential conflict one hundred moves later (arbitration threat). Contract management can also smooth the relationship between partners, allowing well-balanced “don’t-trade-a-dollar-for-a-penny” contracts to be managed through an established process rather than as sporadic events (we cannot claim to be in control of our business if we are not in control of the contracts on which it depends). Managing a contract with a mix of incomplete manuals, fragmented information, and poor planning can drive companies to “reinvent the wheel.” Contract management promotes a three-phase sequence to streamline information flows across the contract lifecycle, from the bid phase to performance, project closeout, and final payments.
Throughout history, alliances have taken many different forms and they have been difficult to understand in their totality. As we now experience an unprecedented pandemic, which highlights the need for both external alliances between states and internal alliances between governments and populations, understanding alliances is more than ever critical to apprehend an open and interactive world that knows no borders and in which challenges imposed on humans are global. The book “Living Alliances, Leaving Alliances” is an interdisciplinary approach to investigating past, present and future alliances on an interpersonal, subnational, international and transnational level. It is the result of a two-year project by AreaS, a research group in area studies located at the Østfold University College in Norway.
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