This chapter delves into the production of scientific knowledge and its practice within the expansive temporal and geographical scope of the Ottoman Empire. Organized chronologically into two main sections, the chapter portrays the foundational scientific institutions and conventions while also introducing the textual and material facets of scientific enterprises. Through this focused lens, the chapter traces the enduring and evolving elements of scientific pursuits and their sociopolitical implications from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries.

The papacy played a central role in the development of Roman Catholic teaching about bioethics. Pope Pius XI’s Casti connubii (1930) condemned contraception, sterilization, and abortion. Papal teaching was broadly accepted by Catholics before the 1960s. Widespread dissent in the Church greatly increased after the publication of Pope Paul VI’s Humanae vitae (1968). The first successful IVF procedure in 1978 raised new bioethical issues relating to the status of human embryos outside the womb.

The Catholic hierarchy was more successful in lobbying politicians to enact restrictive laws, or obstruct liberal reforms, than in persuading the laity to accept its teaching on birth control and assisted human reproduction. A rift emerged between mainstream Catholic culture and the institutional Church. The Church is now circumscribed in meeting the challenges presented by complex ethical issues, such as surrogacy and assisted dying, because of the papacy’s inflexible stance on these matters.

While animals and plants have been part of Ottoman studies for a long time, the way students of history study them has changed over time. This chapter traces that change and its implications. It first describes the literature acknowledging the significance of plants and animals (such as wheat, cotton, tobacco, and sheep) as commodities in both domestic and world markets, but viewing their role in history as basically secondary to humans. Then it provides an overview of studies on the cultural representations of animals and plants, and finally focuses on recent historiography that sees nonhuman species as active agents of Ottoman history. The latter approach, the chapter argues, provides a more comprehensive and dynamic understanding of the past as it highlights the role played by nonhuman actors, ranging from crop plants to street dogs and mosquitos, in transformations that the empire underwent in the course of centuries.

Nepotism is a way to organize ecclesiastical power relations, in particular those of the papacy, under the conditions of celibacy on the basis of family relations. In the long run, however, the micro-policy of family was replaced by the micro-policy of bureaucracy, the cardinal-nephew by the secretary of state. But for more than a thousand years, family networks were the most reliable foundation of papal domination. On the other hand, therefore, massive maintenance of the pope’s family interest was a necessary consequence. For some time between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Roman nepotism even became an established quasi-institution, halfway between loosely structured family network and neutral Church bureaucracy. The papal system of government was stabilized through circular dependency of electors and elected heads, of cardinals and popes.

Studying the history of the Ottoman provinces is a complex undertaking, marked by the interplay between global processes and local specificities. This duality has been a major challenge, as researchers strive to reconcile large-scale trends with the particularities of each locality in the Ottoman Empire. This tension between a global, comparative approach and an emphasis on distinct local knowledge has persisted since the inception of Ottoman studies. Scholars have often grappled with the center–periphery framework, which tends to oversimplify the intricate relationships between the capital and the provinces. This oversimplification neglects the dynamic interactions and diverse sources of power at play. Ottoman provinciality defies simple categorizations, instead revealing a multifaceted fabric of relationships operating at various scales. Moreover, the notion of Ottomanness is not solely shaped by official codification, but is also influenced by local knowledge and practices. Ultimately, understanding Ottoman provincial history requires embracing the dissipated nature of sovereignty and acknowledging the shared experiences, movements, and cultural syntheses that occurred both within provinces and between the capital and the provinces.

This chapter analyzes the regulation of sexual desire as one aspect of the process of progressive centralization through which the papacy affirmed its control over the Catholic Church and society across the centuries. While the accusation of homosexual behavior was increasingly associated with forms of religious and social nonconformity, the prohibition of homosexual intercourse became an instrument for encouraging ecclesiastics’ and lay people’s increasing examination of their individual consciences. The control of same-sex desire thus favored the internalization of a disciplinary attitude that hierarchically emanated from the center to the periphery. As a response to the increased visibility of sexual and gender minorities, nowadays the issue of same-sex marriage is demanding increased attention. The issue has never been discussed more thoroughly by popes as it has been in the last decades. Despite some significative epistemological shifts, however, the doctrinal approach towards this matter has remained strikingly consistent, and homosexuality is still condemned by the Catholic Church as a disordered inclination.

The dynamic of simultaneous recognition and restriction of women’s leadership roles in the Church is not new for the papacy. This chapter employs the figures of Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary – the two “leading women” of the New Testament – to explore the surprising degree to which popes have recognized the pivotal role of women in salvation history. It also shows, however, that popes consistently crafted the identities of the Virgin and the Magdalene in a manner that de-emphasized any priestly function or Christ-like power. Both Marys, therefore, share traits connected to their lack of suitability for leadership within a male order. In constraining the roles of the Marys, popes have also limited the roles for ordained women in the Church, thereby maintaining their unique claims to primacy.

The Ottoman Empire, spanning the Eastern Hemisphere and connecting three continents, encountered a diverse range of geopolitical configurations throughout its six centuries of existence. Interaction with various polities, from medieval kingdoms to nineteenth-century colonial empires, led to unique modes of relationships based on the prevailing balance of power and institutional context. As economic, military, administrative, social, and personal realities shifted, the Ottomans’ visions and divisions of the world evolved. The principles, institutions, and techniques of Ottoman diplomacy were shaped by the aggregation of these factors within specific configurations and periods. Adaptability and ingenuity were key factors contributing to the empire’s longevity, as sultans adroitly forged strategic and enduring alliances through commercial and military partnerships from the fourteenth century until World War I. This chapter explores the key periods in and significant institutions for Ottoman diplomacy, providing an introductory overview of the sources relevant for studying this subject.

Papal patronage has often been limited to the question of whether this or that pope loved art. Yet, the pontiff was only one of several actors involved in the realization of artistic projects symbolizing the Church’s cultural, religious, and political power. Papal patronage, in the sense of conflating the roles of initiator, commissioner, and financial backer, only came into its own after 800. At the same time, a long-lasting debate, rooted in the Classical discourse on luxuria and magnificentia, focused on the legitimacy of spending Church money on material beauty. This was resolved around 1500 when papal patronage became framed as magnificentia and charity, in line with the concept of “evergetism,” or collective service to society. This led to an active papal policy to use the arts, in conjunction with Counter Reformation visual propaganda, to strengthen the Faith, with an important impact on artistic developments primarily during the early modern period.

This chapter suggests that the papacy dealt with Protestantism in various ways. It condemned the forty-one propositions of Martin Luther and then waited for the Council of Trent to condemn others. It used the institutions of preventive press censorship and of various inquisitions to check heresy. It sought the support of Christian rulers to prevent its spread, sending nuncios and legates to the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, France, England, Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, and Poland–Lithuania to urge them to suppress heresy and to secure their loyalty by negotiating agreements on Church appointments and shared revenues and by offering military aid, efforts that had mixed success, or failed. Religious orders such as the Jesuits and Capuchins were also enlisted in the struggle. Leading Protestant reformers came to see the papacy as the Antichrist or foreign usurper.

This chapter analyzes the features, context, preparation, logistics, destinations, aims, and impact of papal travels throughout the centuries, with a focus on the contemporary papacy. It is mainly based on secondary sources. Interestingly enough, there is no monographic study of this topic. Throughout the centuries, even if not often, popes have traveled outside their territory. They did so for various reasons: if they were not forcefully abducted and exiled, some traveled for pastoral reasons, to solve theological or other disputes, and mainly for political and diplomatic motives. However, it is only since the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) that this traveling has become part and parcel of the papal job description.

This chapter examines the brief but formative pontificate of Benedict XV, the most important in the early twentieth-century history of the papacy: Benedict’s return to the policies of Leo XIII (r. 1878–1903) and, above all, his responses to the challenges of the First World War and its aftermath, transformed the scope and impact of Vatican diplomacy, restoring its prestige and influence on the international stage. More broadly speaking, Benedict set the agenda of the next two pontificates, those of his successor Pius XI (r. 1922–39) and Pius XII (r. 1939–58). They continued the policy of seeking to implement the new Code of Canon Law, and where possible by concordats with states, they would continue to seek reunion with the Orthodox Churches and Benedict’s postcolonial vision for the missionary outreach of the Church. They would also continue to follow the broad outlines of his initiatives in Vatican diplomacy through his commitment to seeking to play a role in international peace and security. Benedict’s policy of impartiality in war was not a passive one, but active and constructive, aimed both at providing humanitarian relief to victims and encouraging peace negotiations between the belligerents. His peace-making and humanitarian efforts reflected new forms of papal humanitarian diplomacy and have become a permanent feature of the papacy’s role in promoting international peace and security.

At an early time, the role of the laity in the Roman Church diminished as a body of clergy under the authority of a bishop became established as a separate caste. Its members resembled civil servants, as was implied by the word used for the procedure by which one joined them, “ordination,” that was familiar from Roman secular life. They manifested some of the characteristics of the members of a bureaucracy, in being prepared to pay for an office, a practice known as simony, and in being concerned for promotion. The clergy were divided into two streams with separate promotion structures, one of subdeacons, deacons, and archdeacons, and the other of acolytes, priests, and archpriests. Of these the former was more prestigious, and more likely to culminate in the office of pope, the bishop who exercised control over the other clergy. The body of clergy was by no means harmonious, and there were frequently tensions within it. While laypeople were excluded from the prominent position they had held when the church was established in Rome, the clergy continued to be connected from the families from which they came.

Violent conflict was a feature of the early papacy as theological factions or Roman families contested the Throne of Saint Peter and as popes responded to the collapse of Roman authority by assuming responsibility for the defense of Rome. By 1000 CE, popes were temporal rulers, and like their secular counterparts they considered military force a legitimate instrument. The papacy participated in the Crusades, principally as propagandist and financier, and engaged militarily in the “Italian Wars” (1494–1559). Subsequently, papal military capabilities declined and during the Napoleonic Wars the papacy offered little resistance against French armies that twice seized Rome. Under Pius IX, serious efforts to improve the papal military were insufficient to prevent the absorption of Rome and the Papal States into the kingdom of Italy. Reduced to a handful of palace guards, subsequent pontiffs abandoned any martial posture, although these household guards protected the Vatican during World Wars I and II.

The papal penitentiary was the highest office in the later medieval Church concerned with matters of conscience. It granted absolution in cases where this was reserved to the papacy, notably for grave sins such as assaults on clergy, and it issued other graces that were also a papal monopoly, such as dispensations, notably for marriages within the prohibited degrees of kinship, and special licences, especially to appoint a personal confessor. Laity and clergy across later medieval Europe petitioned the office for these favours. The papal penitentiary hence represented a significant point of contact between the papacy and individual Catholics. Its origins were obscure but partly lay in the long tradition of penitential pilgrimage to Rome. Minor penitentiaries heard confessions of penitent pilgrims at Rome’s major basilicas, including Saint Peter’s. By the early thirteenth century, the ‘major penitentiary’ in charge of the office was appointed by the pope from among the cardinals and received growing faculties to concede graces on the pope’s behalf. By the fifteenth century, the office that he headed was a major department of papal government and substantial source of revenue for the papacy.

The era of the Reformation profoundly changed the papal institution. In Italy, it allowed for the assertion of primatial authority and a greater oversight of the Italian Church as well as a capacity to influence popular and elite culture through the medium of the Inquisition and the Index. Rather than attempting to achieve Italian liberty, it now strove to protect the peace and religious orthodoxy of the peninsula. In the wider European sphere, during this period the papacy effectively lost contact with most of Protestant Europe, but through an articulated system of nunciatures and, from 1622, through Propaganda Fide, it remained an important influence throughout the Catholic world, projecting itself as a peacemaker among secular powers, the foe of heresy and Islam, the upholder of the decrees of Trent – conceived, however, as a prescriptive set of disciplinary and doctrinal norms – and the defender of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and privileges.