In the final books of the Morte Darthur Lancelot, gravely wounded, and Lavayne, Elaine of Ascolat's brother, find welcome and succour at the residence of a well-to-do hermit. This incident of hospitality and medical care incites direct authorial comment from Malory, in one of his always scornful remarks on the decline of standards ‘nowadays’. He writes:

The hospitality of hermits is a mainstay of the questing knight, throughout the Morte and indeed throughout the vast Arthurian archive, in spite of the oxymoronic qualities of the expression: the primary meaning of the word eremite is a solitary religious, while ‘hospitality’ inevitably implies welcome, good manners, conviviality and gregariousness. Hospitality is never solitary. Hermitry is also a well-known retirement project of knights errant, best expressed by Guy of Warwick; in fact, the hermit in this instance is a ‘knyght armyte’, Sir Bawdwyn of Bretayne. And while not a hermit precisely, Lancelot will also come to his final days as a religious recluse in the Morte. The notion of a solitary religious with a great household may even seem slightly ridiculous, insofar as it expresses a fantasy of keeping it all while giving it all up.

The hospitable hermit is a feature of the mysterious geography of the quest world with its landscape of forests and uninhabited lands; he is especially prominent in the more extremely devastated landscape of the Grail Quest. But the very structure of errancy, of knights riding forth into the forest of adventure, means that such a knight also throws himself into a world where hospitality will be necessary, whether from hermits or, more commonly, from the knights and castle keeps that dot this mythic geography.

The law of hospitality is implied and assumed throughout Arthurian romance. An ancient law, it includes: the duty to welcome the stranger, the obligation to give and receive courteously, and the suspension of hostility, on the part of both host and guest.

The commemoration or, for the Dutch, celebration of the raid on the Medway in June 1667 drew a narrow focus on Anglo-Dutch relations in the second half of the seventeenth century. This dramatic episode was, however, just one of many encounters between the two states between 1650 and 1689 encompassing, inter alia, trade conflict and war, diplomacy and espionage, and religion. To a greater or much lesser extent all these elements were endemic during the period of the Second Anglo-Dutch War of 1665–67. The aftermath and impact of the war on the Dutch and the English reflected the complexities of international relations in early modern Europe and had significant implications for their internal politics. Priorities for the years 1667–72 and the outbreak of the Third Anglo-Dutch War were determined by a variety of often conflicting interests raising the question of how far the principal players were in control of these interests. Beyond the natural euphoria of a victory over the English at sea, and the conclusion of the treaty at Breda a few weeks later, the Dutch had to react quickly to political developments at home, challenges to their maritime trade and shifting international interests and allegiances. The English by contrast had to come to terms with a peace which confirmed their overseas conquests, but exposed the limits of the Stuart state, raising the crucial issue of the nature and role of the fiscal and administrative state under Charles II. To quote J.R. Jones, ‘One of the characteristics of the Anglo-Dutch wars that made them unique in the context of the seventeenth century was that governments in both countries had to rely on the co-operation of representative institutions.’

In the Dutch Republic one of the most visible and immediate effects of the successful enterprise was a temporary rise in the reputation of Cornelis de Witt, older brother and confederate of John de Witt, grand pensionary of the province of Holland since 1653. As a representative of the Holland city of Dordrecht, Cornelis played an active role in the management of military and naval actions and in 1664 had been scapegoated for the military withdrawal from the threat of incursions in the eastern provinces by the prince bishopric of Munster.

• The duodenum lies in front of the right kidney and renal vessels, the right psoas muscle, the inferior vena cava, and the aorta (Figure 26.1).

• The duodenum is approximately 25 cm in length. It is the most fixed part of the small intestine and has no mesentery. It is anatomically divided into four parts:

  • The superior or first portion is intraperitoneal along the anterior half of its circumference. Superiorly, the first portion is attached to the hepatoduodenal ligament. The posterior wall is associated with the gastroduodenal artery, common bile duct, and the portal vein.

  • The descending or second portion shares a medial border with the head of the pancreas. It is bordered posteriorly by the medial surface of the right kidney, the right renal vessels, and the inferior vena cava. The hepatic flexure and transverse colon cross anteriorly. The common bile duct and main pancreatic duct drain into the medial wall of the descending duodenum.

  • The transverse or third portion is also entirely retroperitoneal. Posteriorly, it is bordered by the inferior vena cava and the aorta. The superior mesenteric vessels cross in front of this portion of the duodenum.

  • The ascending or fourth portion of the duodenum is approximately 2.5 cm in length and is primarily retroperitoneal, except for the most distal segment. It crosses anterior to and ascends to the left of the aorta to join the jejunum at the ligament of Treitz.

• The common bile duct courses laterally within the hepatodudenal ligament and lies posterior to the first portion of the duodenum and pancreatic head, becoming partially invested within the parenchyma of the pancreatic head. The main pancreatic duct then joins the common bile duct to drain into the ampulla of Vater within the second portion of the duodenum. The ampulla of Vater is located approximately 7 cm from the pylorus. The accessory pancreatic duct drains approximately 2 cm proximal to the ampulla of Vater.

• The vascular supply to the duodenum is intimately associated with the head of the pancreas. The head of the pancreas and the second portion of the duodenum derive their blood supply from the anterior and posterior pancreaticoduodenal arcades (Figure 26.2). These arcades lie on the surface of the pancreas near the duodenal C loop. Attempts to separate these two organs at this location usually results in ischemia of the duodenum.

RELIGIOUS, GENDERED, AND CULTURAL CONFLICTS abound in Ali and Nino and can be understood through the lens of honor, a foundational phenomenon in nearly every culture. Honor consistently plays a central role in defining the conflict between Ali, an Azerbaijani Muslim youth, and his Christian Georgian future wife, Nino. Their Romeo-and- Juliet love story explores the tensions inherent in these pairings. Honor is part of the conflict not just between two families, but also between complex, ever-changing pairings: male and female, public and private, Muslim and Christian, East and West. The conflicts about honor and shame in Ali and Nino offer a peek at the fluid boundaries between religion, culture, and politics.

Between the Oriental and European norms concerning female and male honor, the story of the two lovers unfolds across European and Middle-Eastern stages, where Muslim Ali must defend his own honor in his Middle-Eastern culture, as well as Christian Nino's honor in both Middle Eastern and Western settings. The honor structures that Ali and Nino encounter are flexible and—despite the apparent differences between East and West, masculine and feminine—do in fact complement one another or overlap at times. Ali and Nino plays with honor systems that at first sight appear contradictory, mostly by focusing on the Azerbaijani (Muslim, Oriental) honor system, but with instances where Western honor (Christian, Occidental) is thematized as well, demonstrating that honor codes in Azerbaijan mirror the country's political and geographical situation. Parallel to the political situation, the individual female body possesses a certain geography; it can be placed within a larger social constellation and be “mapped” within a certain geography in the novel and can be placed within a larger constellation. We see this in both Nino's relations with other men and the tensions between the country Azerbaijan (easily thought of as feminine) and other, larger forces that claim the country (and its riches) as their own.

Eastern Communitarianism vs. Western Political Liberalism

Ali and Nino offers Western readers a glimpse of Eastern culture. Kurban Said wrote a text positioned between cultures, and we must keep in mind that he is interested in how social and cultural systems interact with each other. Ali's culture and honor codes are perceived within a communitarian system, in which a communitarian identity dominates all others.

In a preface to the first of the six volumes of domestic tours he published between 1798 and 1800 as The British Tourists; or Traveller's Pocket Companion, WilBritain's home territories comparatively little known:

This was a commonly held view in the period, but for a Scottish Whig like Mavor, the point was that the outstanding features of modern Britain were all on show in the home tour. ‘[I] n whatever light we regard the British Islands;’ he observed:

The project Mavor was introducing was his selection of the domestic tours published in the last third of the eighteenth century, which, at least on his terms, displayed the genre at its best. This work was, he stated, oriented towards patriotism and benevolence, framed in terms of ‘utility and propriety’ as a contribution to ‘to the public good’ (viii). The excerpted, collected tours were intended to detail British improvement and advancement – subjects that Mavor, who was from a modest background, was keen should circulate to the widest possible audience. Modern tours were, he noted, the preserve of the wealthy due to their cost, but he optimistically imagined The British Tourists as a way of putting them ‘within the reach of every class of his fellow subjects’ (ix). In tandem with the levelling sentiment of this comment, the project was one of enlightenment and education, and Mavor used metaphors of illumination to say more about the public benefit of collecting and abridging tours.