Maritime trade in the Gulf: The 11th and 12th centuries
Abstract In the eleventh century, the great port of Siraf collapsed, and was replaced by Kish. The latter, however, never attained the size or wealth of Siraf. The ‘failure’ of Kish is a symptom of a depression in the maritime trade of the Gulf, caused by a decline in demand for imported goods in Iran and Iraq. This decline, attributed to political fragmentation following the fall of the Buyids, was aggravated by the diversion of trade to the Red Sea. The historical and the archaeological data on these events point to fundamentally similar conclusions.
Rāmisht of Sīrāf, a Merchant Millionaire of the Twelfth Century
The geographer Ibn Ḥawqal, who wrote his invaluable description of the Muslim world in the 10th century, devotes a paragraph to Sīrāf, the great port of the Persian Gulf. In the 12th century an anonymous author made an epitome of Ibn Ḥawqal's book, adding, however, a number of remarks concerning his own period. In the description of Sīrāf he interpolated the following passage: Its inhabitants are very rich. I was told that one of them, feeling ill, made his testament; the third part of his fortune, which he had in cash, amounted to a million dīnārs, not counting the capital which he laid out to people who undertook to trade with it on commenda basis. Then there is Rāmisht, whose son Mūsā I have met in Aden, in the year 539; he told me that the silver plate used by him was, when weighed, found to be 1,200 manns. Mūsā is the youngest of his sons and has the least merchandise; Rāmisht has four servants, each of whom is said to be richer than his son Mūsā. I have met 'Alī al-Nīlī from the countryside of al-Ḥilla, Rāmisht's clerk, and he told me that when he came back from China twenty years before, his merchandise was worth half a million dīnārs; if that is the wealth of his clerk, what will he himself be worth! It was Rāmisht who removed the silver water-spout of the Ka'ba and replaced it with a golden one, and also covered the Ka'ba with Chinese cloth, the value of which cannot be estimated. In short, I have heard of no merchant in our time who has equalled Rāmisht in wealth or prestige.
Italian Influence on the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism
THIS ARTICLE TRIES to show that the rise of Calvinist scholasticism, which was the most important development in Calvinist theology during the second half of the sixteenth century, stemmed largely from several converging Italian influences, particularly from the writings of Peter Martyr Vermigli and Jerome Zanchi. Here Calvinist theology refers not only to the personal thought of John Calvin but also to the teachings of the founders of the Reformed or Calvinist tradition as it spread out from Geneva and Switzerland to France, Germany, England, Scotland, Poland, and the Low Countries. In this context Calvin emerges as the brightest star in a galaxy of Reformed theologians which includes Heinrich Bullinger, Pierre Viret, Theodore Beza and Wolfgang Musculus as well as Martyr, Zanchi and others. These theologians were often more influential than Calvin himself at a given place or time or on a given point of doctrine. Bullinger, Martyr, and Martin Bucer were all more important for spreading Calvinist ideas to Edwardian England than was John Calvin. Early Elizabethan Protestantism looked more to Zurich than to Geneva, as did early Polish Calvinism. German Calvinism owed more to Heidelberg than to Geneva.' These leaders developed their theologies sometimes in mutual dependence, sometimes with surprising independence. By no means was their relation to Calvin simply that of disciple to master, for each gave a personal nuance to his style of Calvinism. Thus the sixteenth century Jesuit Cornelius Schulting states on the opening page of his five volume polemic against Calvin and Peter Martyr that Martyr was clearer and far more learned than Calvin.2 Recently John Bray has pointed out that research in seventeenth century Calvinism leads "to the conclusion that the impact of Calvin upon the Calvinistic movement has been greatly over-rated. It may well be that some of