Making ‘Sense’ of the Pilgrimage Experience of the Medieval Church
This paper will explore the importance of sensory experience throughout the late twelfth to the early fifteenth-century, with a particular focus on the act of bodily participation with the divine, and how this was reflected in the architectural and visual structure of a saintly site
The Origin of Quarantine
A similar strategy was used in the busy Mediterranean sea- port of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik, Croatia). After a visitation of the black death, the city’s chief physician, Jacob of Padua, advised establishing a place outside the city walls for treatment of ill townspeople and outsiders who came to town seeking a cure. The impetus for these recommendations was an early contagion theory, which promoted separation of healthy persons from those who were sick.
The concept of quarantine in history: from plague to SARS
The concept of ‘quarantine’ is radically embedded in local and global health practices and culture, attracting heightened interest during episodes of perceived or actual epidemics. The term, however, evokes a variety of emotions, such as fear, resentment, acceptance, curiosity and perplexity, reactions often to be associated with a lack of knowledge about the origins, meaning, and rel- evance of quarantine itself.
Raw Glass and the Production of Glass Vessels at Late Byzantine Apollonia-Arsuf, Israel
We suggested that the discovery of three raw glass furnaces at the site strengthens the assumption that the city was a major center for the making of both primary and secondary glass in the sixth and seventh centuries.
On unstable foundations
Boris Mašic´ and Tajana Pleše report on the excavation of the Monastery of the Pauline Order in Remete, Croatia
Exile from England: The Expulsion of the Jews in 1290
Why did the English crown expel the Jews in 1290? Historians have ascribed economical, ecclesiastical, and political motives to the expulsion of the Jews.
First Performance in 400 Years for Medieval Passover Music
Toronto Jewish High School Choir Revives Lost Tunes
The Adoption of Christianity by the Irish and Anglo-Saxons: The Creation of Two Different Christian Societies
From the Celts to the Anglo-Saxons, nomadic tribes of Europe fostered pagan beliefs. Today, few records exist to explain these faiths because of their roots in oral tradition and a demise of animistic traditions brought about by the adaptation of a new conviction.
Temptation and Redemption: A Monastic Life in Stone
The monks who wrote the legend of Eugenia and those of the other transvestite women/monks were explicitly including a female in an all male monastic milieu. Women, as a rule, were not allowed in male monastic enclosures; the Rule at Cluny strictly forbade any women to enter the grounds.
Dr Tom Nickson Appointed Lecturer in Medieval Art and Architecture at the Courtauld Institute
He brings to his teaching and research a wide knowledge of medieval architecture from across Europe and the Mediterranean, along with his particular focus on the material cultures of medieval Iberia.
Story behind Faddan More Psalter discovery told at John Rylands Library
As the first medieval manuscript ever found in a wetland environment, the Faddan More Psalter is one of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries ever made.
Middle Earth from Middle Europe: Medieval Manuscripts and an Inspiration for Tolkien
Some may challenge the authenticity of Tolkien’s fiction, claiming it was merely that and never borrowed from medieval culture. A closer investigation will prove this false, as Tolkien’s writings are wrought with innumerable medieval cultural references and influences, some seemingly speculative, others still strikingly similar to original sources.
Battle Castle: Malbork
The fifth episode of Battle Castle features the castle of Malbork, in Poland, and the siege by the forces of Poland and Lithuania, led by King Władysław II Jagiełło, against the Teutonic Knights, who were led by Heinrich von Plauen, in 1410.
Convents, Courts and Colleges: The Prioress and the Second Nun
Pilgrimage, after Whitby, and before Vatican II, was a secular activity, a performance of piety by the laity, not by the clergy; although there were a few exceptions.7 Chaucer’s Monk, Friar, Prioress, Nun, Priest, Summoner, Pardoner and Parson ought not to be here. Their presence is outrageous comedy. Inns were forbidden to the cloistered clergy who, if they had to travel, were enjoined to stay in other monastic establishments along their route.
Englishwomen as Pilgrims to Jerusalem: Isolda Parewastell, 1365
Isolda Parewastell from Somerset, who was in Jerusalem in 1365, fitted into this fourteenth-century pattern. Despite the risks involved, women pilgrims were inspired by an instinct for travel and change, as well as by a sense of religious obligation and the hope of spiritual reward.
The Conjugal Debt and Medieval Canon Law
The apostle Paul was the earliest influential spokesman for a Christian view of marriage and sexuality. Marital sex was, for Paul, a safeguard against human weakness (1 Cor. 7.1-2).
The Vulgate Genesis and St. Jerome’s Attitudes to Women
It is Jerome’s hostility to women (and his suspicion and fear of them) that is usually emphasized. Some of my examples show evidence of this bias. But some of my examples also show a great warmth and sensitivity on his part to the women concerned in the passages, and I am inclined to attribute to St. Jerome a much more sympathetic and affectionate nature than does David Wiesen…
The Thread of Life in the Hand of the Virgin
The motif of the Virgin at the loom occurred with frequency in Western art only after the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin (celebrated by the Byzantine Church on November 21 from the seventh or eighth century onward) was introduced into the West in 1372.
St. Birgitta: The Disjunction Between Women and Ecclesiastical Power
However, if one theoretically unseats the primacy of the Papal cause and instead places its importance within the context of Birgitta’s life as a woman, a more sympathetic portrait emerges. When I re-examine her visions and her life in this light, I find that Birgitta was divided in her allegiance to the Papal Father in her concern for women.
Fairytale Characteristics in Medieval Romances
It is the contention of this thesis that the link between fairytale and romance which I previously mentioned as disparaging to romance is in fact a strength of romance.
The Peace of God in Iceland in the 12th and 13th centuries
This article focuses on one of the most strife-ridden periods of Icelandic history, the Age of the Sturlungs (1220–1262) and the Church’s endeavours to bring about peace.
To one shut in from one shut out: Anchoritic rules in England from the eleventh to the fourteenth century
This thesis analyses anchoritic guides written in England from eleventh to fourteenth centuries to observe the changes in the attitudes of the authors towards their primary audiences and by this way concerns itself with the life in the anchorhold and the possible changes in the meaning and basic elements of the solitary religious pursuit for both the authors and the primary audience of the anchoritic rules.