The aim of the paper is to reveal the specific features of Shah 'Abbas I's policy towards the Caucasus and, using the description provided in newly discovered third volume of Afzal al-tavarikh of Fazil Khtuzani, to reconsider the 'slave soldiers' paradigm. Shah 'Abbas I tried to reinforce Safavid central authority through his policy towards the Caucasus. However, this policy did not lead simply to the enslavement of the indigenous population and the formation of a Caucasian slave army, as it has been previously supposed. The Caucasians joined the Safavid court in various ways, for example as war captives, political refugees and hostages, through marriage for political reasons, and through forced migration, and by paying annual tribute. These activities motivated the Caucasians to build an immigrant society which was put directly under Safavid imperial rule. The gholams were a new ruling elite selected among these new comers to Safavid society. Shah 'Abbas naturally recognized the importance of the social networks and individual connections among the Caucasians. Given 'Abbas's deliberate policy, it was only natural that the ethnic and national ties usually remained in tact, or were renewed and modified, instead of being erased. This is clearly one point that has usually been neglected,in the research on slave soldiers or foreign elites. Shah 'Abbas tried to reorganize the regional order in his favor. So the fate of Caucasian courtier elites was connected with his policy. In other words, the activities of the converted elites were influenced by the local political climate of the Caucasus. The old theory of slave soldiers is a one-sided view regarding them as absolute slaves cut off from their national network and identity. However, the Safavid foreign elite actually moved between the two cultures, taking active part in both. We see two faces of the Safavid gholams : as Safavid courtier elites and as representatives of the Caucasian immigrant society. Expansion of Safavid courtier power was realized after absorption of 'foreign' Caucasians and careful management of their ethno-social tensions. But stresses of assimilation and dissimilation reached to the top when 'Abbas I married his granddaughter to Georgian vdli-king Simon II. Large-scale revolt broke out. The paradoxical character of the Caucasus as a land both foreign and intimate to Safavid royals continued into next decade.

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This paper is an attempt to describe how the French educational system developed in local society during the nineteenth century, by examining the role and offer of secular private secondary schools for boys (pensions and institutions) in Lyon. The study of secular private schools, which have not yet been sufficiently analyzed by the historians, should give us the opportunity to reexamine two of the best-known episodes in the history of modern French education : the conflict between church and state ; and the division between secondary education and primary education. First of all, the author reveals an important place occupied by secular private schools in the French secondary educational field. By the 1860's, about thirty percent of the students who received secondary education attended these schools. While a student took Latin and Greek during the full eight to ten years in public schools (lycees or colleges), secular private schools, independent of Universite in practice, could provide him with more diversified curricula : for example, technical education suitable to employment in commerce, industry and agriculture, lessons in several modern languages and science, and preparatory classes for a baccalaureat or the Advanced Engineering Schools (Grandes Ecoles). Furthermore, by limiting the number of students, secular private schools offered a religious and familial environment. Responding to the growing demands of the industrializing society, they contributed not only to completing public education that could not keep up with the development of society, but also to presenting modern educational models to Universite. Secondly, the author underlines the fact that it was only at the end of the nineteenth century that primary and secondary education were sharply divided along institutional lines. Although secular private secondary schools were officially recognized as secondary schools, they were in fact mostly "primary-secondary" mixed schools. In other words, they had two different curriculums : a primary curriculum for the students who needed more "practical" education than a classical and humanistic one, and a secondary curriculum to prepare students for the baccalaureat. Therefore, some schools could be, in practice, considered as upper primary schools (ecoles primaries superieures). Finally, the author concludes that the decline of secular private schools was caused not only by the powerful rise of religious private schools, but also by the reform and further development of the public educational system during the last half of the nineteenth century, like the establishment of special secondary education(1865), and the realization of free, compulsory, secular primary and free upper primary schools(1880's).

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This article examines the activities of Toji 東寺 Temple's Zoeikata 造営方 (Office of Repairs) and how its organization influenced Toji during the Muromachi period. The research to data has described the Zoeikata as a large financial organization that lent money to entities within and without Toji, thus making it an important institution in the Temple's management. According to the research done to date on lending during the mid-fifteenth century, a change occurred in the way money was lent to the Goho 五方, intermediary in negotiations the temple carried on with the Muromachi Bakufu and the Court, from lenders charging usurious interest rates during the 1450s to interest-free loans from the Zoeikata from the 1460s on. Although the image of the Zoeikata has been formed based such activities, no one has bothered to investigate concretely why such a change occurred. The purpose of the present article is to look more deeply into what happened and try to place it within the context of political and social trends of the time, while clarifying the background to the relative stability achieved by Toji. The author's conclusions are as follows. First, the Zoeikata was able to begin providing interest-free loans thanks to the revenue accruing from a special land tax (tansen 段銭) levied in 1455 on Echizen Province through the provincial constable's (shugo 守護) office. Immediately prior to the levy, during the 10th month of the previous year, a debt immunity (tokusei 徳政) order was issued, enabling Toji to free itself from the debt it owed usurers operating outside the Temple and begin lending directly from the Zoeikata. This means that the image of the Zoeikata builded up by the research to date is extremely limited in terms of its over-all history. Secondly, based on the assumption that the Zoeikata continued to lend money to organizations in and out of the Temple complex until the end of the fifteenth century, the author concludes that such activity must have helped stabilize the Temple financial-ly and played an important role in its survival and transition into the following the Edo period.

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