Where the Middle Ages Begin
The paper aims to introduce the last significant school of painting, which was nurtured by the Byzantine sources, the so-called Italo-Cretan school, whose presence and influence lasted for more than 300 years. Its works are perceived not just as mere objects of veneration but have also high artistic and marketing value.
Splendor Solis oder Sonnenglanz is the title of an illuminated manuscript that can rightfully be called one of the principal works of the alchemical tradition (fig. 1). The text survives in many witnesses dating from the early sixteenth to the nineteenth century, of which Harl. MS. 3469 is definitely the most famous and best preserved example.
The story begins with two tin pilgrim ampullae2 made before 1220 in Canterbury, England, that were found centuries later, one in France (now in the Cluny Museum) and one in Norway (now in the Historical Museum in Bergen, Norway).
The spread of Christianity had a tremendous effect on the culture and life of Cappadocia. Christianity was prevalent throughout the region as early as the 2nd-century A.D.1 During the 8th and 9th-centuries Arab invasions began to deplete the population and threatened to overcome the empire.
This connection between feeling and seeing is often exemplified in paintings that include depictions of either devotional or prominent secular figures within a carefully created domestic environment.
The lintel fragment of Eve from the Cathedral of St. Lazaire at Autun (Figure 1) has been praised by art historians as one of the greatest monumental figural works of the Romanesque period.
Guenée dubbed the late fourteenth century le temps des alliances’, pointing to the effect on politics and administration in France of visible, recognised networks. These might be based on kinship, marriage and godparenting, where the obligations were well understood, but not necessarily written down
Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic decoration of shields can be evidenced, at least sporadically, from Roman to Viking times. While textual and pictorial information contributes to this knowledge, detailed archaeological analysis depends primarily on the survival of metal fittings.
My paper attempts to explore this medieval distinction between the magical and the Christian use of images.
Do the variations reflect changes in purpose, patronage, doctrine, liturgy, or intended audience? Are they due to differences in authorship, geographical origin, or regional preferences? Analysis of the variations introduced into the corpus of materials, both narrative and visual, for a given saint over the course of the Middle Ages in England can elucidate the social, cultural, and historical significance of these changes.
The most recent addition to the family of literary genres may be the booklife. Finding its origin in Roland Barthes’s Roland Barthes and now taught in English departments, the booklife proposes a union of sorts of writing and living. Whether the genre will be long-lived is an open question, that it can be fruitful is not in doubt. But medievalists already knew that the dividing line between book and life is always thin, especially if that life has been lived in and among books.
Jesus never laughed or smiled. Holy people behave like Him: they tend to be solemn, austere, and their body language is restricted. They ought in any case to behave like Jesus. But in late medieval Danish wall paintings some holy people rebel, and St Laurence even jokes.
The research shows that considerable sums were spent during the later middle ages on the construction, decoration, and maintenance of screens in all churches, from cathedrals and monasteries to parish churches.
This article explores the aspects of both absence and presence in the representation of “Otherness” in medieval iconography of the Bible.
Textual evidence for spilling lines in the rigging of medieval Scandinavian keels Sayers, William (Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York) The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (1999) Abstract Sail trimming and standing and running rigging on Viking-era craft are elucidated by references in 12th- and early 13th- century Anglo-Norman historical sources and an Icelandic lexical catalogue. […]
Inspiration and Innovation: Orthodox Art in the Romanian Lands in the Fourteenth and FifteenthCenturies D-Vasilescu, Elena Ene (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK) 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies Communication (VI.8 Art and Orthodoxy) Abstract One in the series of overlapping Christian discourses which Averil Cameron speaks about in her book Christianity and the Rhetoric of the Empire […]
Legend, Veneration, and Nationalism: The History of Devotion and Pilgrimage to the Miraculous Icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa Młynarz, Mike (University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta) Axis Mundi (2005/6) Abstract According to legend, St. Luke the Evangelist painted an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which eventually found its way to a monastery in Częstochowa, […]
TRANSFORMATIONS OF AUTHORIAL REPRESENTATION IN THE MANESSE CODEX DECHANT, DENNIS LYLE MA Thesis, University of Oregon, June (2010) Abstract Author portraits appear frequently in the decoration ofmedieval illuminated manuscripts, though the word “portrait” applies only with qualification: until the late Middle Ages and Renaissance artists were not interested in representing an author’s actual, historical appearance. Instead, variations […]
Iconography of Imperial coinage of Medieval Serbia Radic, Vesna XIII Congreso Internacional de Numismática, Bd. 2 (2005) Abstract After great conquests of King Dušan in 1334 and 1335 many Byzantine towns and large territories of Thessaly and Epirus came under Serbian rule. In the end of 1335 in Serres Dušan was proclaimed an emperor of […]
Sancti reges Hungariae in mural painting of late-medieval Hungary Nastasoiu, Dragos-Gheorghe MA Thesis in Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, May (2009) Abstract This research analyzes from an iconographic perspective the mural representations of the three holy kings of Hungary – St. Stephen, St. Emeric, and St. Ladislas – which were depicted as a collective in the […]
The joint cult of St. Simeon and St. Sava under Milutin : the monastic aspect Adashinskaya, Anna MA Thesis in Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, May (2009) Abstract Joint cult of St. Simeon and St. Sava originated in Serbian state under king Milutin in the end of thirteenth-beginning of fourteenth century. The present work focuses on […]
Armenian Architecture in Twelfth-Century Crusader Jerusalem Kenaan-Kedar, Nurith (Tel Aviv University) Assaph Studies in Art History, 3 (1998) Abstract The art and architecture of the crusaders in 12th-century Jerusalem have been constantly studied since the beginning of this century. Major issues of investigation have been the geographical origins of various artistic projects, and the meaning of […]
Remembering Doomsday:Memoria in late medieval English drama and iconography Iseppi, Laura Word & Image, 25: 1 (2009) Abstract Much critical attention has been devoted in recent years to the analysis of the medieval artes memorativae. The concern with the arts of memory, as exemplified by the recently collected translations of passages from influential artes edited by […]
The N-Town Trials and the Image of the Community Flood, Victoria Marginalis, Vol. 8, Cambridge Yearbook (2007-2008) Abstract In his game theory V.A. Kolve argues that within the Corpus Christi cycles ‘the duration of the play is a momentary interval in, and abstention from, the real concerns of life’. However, the division between the play […]
The Fourteenth Century Tree of Jesse in the Nave of York Minster Reddish, Elisabeth York Medieval Yearbook, ISSUE No. 2, (2003) Abstract Window sXXXIII situated in the nave of York Minster is a heavily repaired example of a fourteenth century Tree of Jesse design. The subject is familiar to observers of medieval religious art and perhaps […]
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