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Abstract: This report examines ceramic technological choices during the transition from the late Roman period to the Early Middle Ages (c. 300–900 CE) in the southeastern Alps using a multi-method archaeometric approach. Fourteen samples of coarseware pottery—representing three primary fabric groups previously identified by optical microscopy—were analyzed with X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive spectroscopy. The purpose of the study was to confirm the validity of the petrographic fabric groups as well as provide further insight into steps of the chaîne op´eratoire, such as raw material acquisition, clay preparation, and firing conditions. XRD and XRF results corroborated the mineralogical profile of fabric groups identified under the microscope and provided additional quantitative data on less visible components. SEM-EDS demonstrated that potters mostly gathered locally available illite-rich clays, adopted a low intervention approach to clay preparation, and, when tempering with calcite, utilized crushed limestone. FTIR and XRD indicated that higher-fired ceramics ( > 800 ◦C) occurred predominantly at late Roman and late antique upland settlements, as well as early medieval reoccupations of those sites, while early medieval lowland sites produced lower-fired ceramics (<800 ◦C). The overall pattern during this transition was one of technological diversification: late Roman ceramic production was highly standardized, while early medieval assemblages exhibited greater diversity of technical choices. Furthermore, early medieval reoccupations of late antique settlements showed greater technological continuity with Roman traditions than newly established lowland sites, suggesting differential transmission of craft knowledge during this period.
Keywords: late antiquity, early middle ages, pottery technology, Austria, Slovenia, operational sequence
Published in DiRROS: 02.09.2026; Views: 95; Downloads: 24
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Abstract: The article focuses on duelling in the Habsburg hereditary lands, with an emphasis on Styria. It presents around fifteen cases of duels that have been fought or provoked, from 1643 to 1750. In the Habsburg hereditary lands and in the Holy Roman Empire in general, duelling flourished during and after the Thirty Years’ War, and thrived between 1660 and 1730. Anti-duelling decrees prescribed fines and sometimes imprisonment, and the death penalty in homicide cases. Duels continued despite strict bans (also) because sanctions were generally not enforced, and if the ‘criminal’ was brought to court, he was almost always pardoned by the Emperor. In practice, the death penalty for duellists was an extraordinary event, since even trials were exceptional, including cases when duels resulted in deaths.
Keywords: duels, early modern period, Holy Roman Empire, Habsburg hereditary lands, Inner Austria, Styria, Carniola, seventeenth century, eighteenth century
Published in DiRROS: 08.07.2026; Views: 207; Downloads: 169
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Abstract: This paper analyzes songs of the scaffold in Catalonia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a hitherto unknown subject that has been paid little attention to date. On the one hand, I will analyze their creation and dissemination using different documentary and literary evidences to demonstrate that they were highly demanded texts composed when an execution was going to be held. On the other hand, I focus on the propagandistic role that these printed texts had, using a microhistorical analysis of two examples: the famous bandit Antoni Roca (1546) and the Morisco witch hunter Joan Malet (1549).
Keywords: execution ballads, Catalonia, banditry, witchcraft, death penalty, popular print, early modern history
Published in DiRROS: 08.07.2026; Views: 193; Downloads: 177
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Abstract: Centring on non-nobles in the Duchies of Styria, Carniola and Carinthia, this paper addresses dispute settlement in Inner Austria, following the Imperial prohibition of feud in 1495 and the Habsburgs’ local consolidation of power earlier in the century. These developments are said to have brought about an end to feuding in the duchies in the 1500s, but by focusing on the concept of enmity, which articulated the same state of social relations, this article presents ample evidence that among all social classes dispute settlement retained much of the traditional practices well into the 1700s. Their survival was instrumentally underpinned by various courts of law and local authorities, regarding them as an indispensable element of keeping social cohesion and peace.
Keywords: feud, enmity, violence, peacemaking, dispute settlement, peasants, burghers, courts of law, legal culture, Inner Austria, Styria, Carniola, Carinthia, early modern period
Published in DiRROS: 08.07.2026; Views: 200; Downloads: 173
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Abstract: Much like elsewhere, terms such as the Latin forensis and its German equivalents in mediaeval and early modern sources in the area of today’s Slovenia refer to a broad variety of individuals and social groups. From residents of neighbouring towns and all others from the near or distant surroundings, particularly during the early phase of their integration within a specific urban settlement, to individuals who formed a constant migration or business flow of passers-by, such as intellectuals, artisans, pilgrims, merchants, artists, as well as members of marginalised groups (e.g. beggars and vagrants). Individuals from different socioeconomic, religious, or social backgrounds who lived in cities also had a quality of ‘strangeness’ attached to them (e.g. Jews), although their contemporaries never explicitly called them strangers. Studies that have focused on the urban experiences of women in pre-modern cities have also drawn attention to the relative strangeness of women in cities compared to male citizens. While normative sources generally do not treat women in pre-modern European cities as foreigners, their lives may have been somewhat similar to those of foreigners and other (established) city dwellers who were associated with a particular kind of foreignness because of the relative restrictions or exclusions imposed by law, religion, science etc. This paper deals with the status of urban women during the transition from the Late Middle Ages to the early modern period, with a special emphasis on the region between the Upper Adriatic and the Eastern Alps. With an analysis of the urban statutes of the coastal communes (Izola, Koper, and Piran) and the mainland Ptuj, as well as other relevant materials, attention will be paid to the research question: How useful is it to think about women as foreigners in their urban communities?
Keywords: history of women, foreigners, middle ages, early modern period
Published in DiRROS: 01.07.2026; Views: 214; Downloads: 161
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