Toleration and repression in the Middle Ages (2002)
Introduction: Personal attacks upon political and religious leaders, in whatever age they have taken place, may help us to understand the kinds of behaviour not tolerated in that age. But the evidence surrounding such attacks is rarely easy to interpret. A campaign of vilification against Boniface VIII, pope from 1294 to 1303, emerged very soon after he ascended the papal throne. It began in the papal court with the disaffected cardinals, James and Peter Colonna, and it quickly spread to the French court, where William Nogaret became the leading anti-papal protagonist.
During his life and after his death, over a period of thirteen years, Boniface was accused of many misdemeanours in detailed sets of complaints. He was publicly maligned in large meetings held in Paris in 1303, and, as the first stage in an abortive posthumous trial, depositions of witnesses were taken in 1310 and 1311. The evidence concerning this extraordinary attack upon the pope has recently been meticulously edited by Jean Coste in a major work which, in respect of the texts specifically relating to the sets of complaints, supersedes the time-honoured collection of Pierre Dupuy.
Taken as a whole the accusations seem to present a very detailed picture of beliefs and practices judged unacceptable. Do they provide direct evidence of what contemporaries found intolerable in a religious leader? The pope was charged with crude, insulting and menacing behaviour, with hypocrisy, sacrilege, blasphemy, idolatry, demonolatry, black magic and necromancy. In the government of the Church he was accused of oppressing Christians, working as an enemy of peace for the destruction of the Church and of the faith and the perdition of souls. His personal morality was exposed as scandalous: he was accused of sodomy, with adults as well as with children, and of keeping male concubines, and of adultery and incest.
A Companion to Clare of Assisi: Life, Writings, and Spirituality
By Joan Mueller
Brill, 2010
ISBN: 978 90 04 18216 5
Clare of Assisi: Life, Writings and Spirituality examines Clare not merely as an obedient footnote to the friars, but as a Franciscan founder in her own right who kept primitive Franciscan ideals alive into the middle of the thirteenth century and transposed them into a woman’s key. Bringing together the best of international research, the text examines Clare’s importance within the early Franciscan milieu and her contribution to the thirteenth-century women’s movement. It studies the radicalism of Clare’s Franciscan choice, her life within the Monastery of San Damiano, her politicking with Agnes of Prague for the ‘privilege of poverty,’ and her uniqueness among other women in Gregory IX’s Damianite ordo. Following this historical study are critical translations and literary analyses of Clare’s four letters to Agnes of Prague as well as a new translation and commentary on Clare’s Forma Vitae.
Wolves in Lamb’s Clothing: Redeeming the Images of Catherine of Siena and Angela of Foligno
By Caroljane Roberson
Master’s Thesis, Wake Forest University, 2009
Abstract: Medieval holy women were revered for their power and efforts, by both their communities and the Church. However, what are contemporary women to make of these female saints? This paper will examine Blessed Angela of Foligno (1248 – 1309), a Franciscan tertiary, and Saint Catherine of Siena (1347 – 1380), a Dominican tertiary. They were Catholic holy women from medieval Italy. These two women had mystical visions and practiced extreme mortification. While such behaviors may seem strange and somewhat detrimental to the modern feminist scholar, we must examine these behaviors from the context of the time period of Angela and Catherine.
This paper will attempt to contextualize the actions and texts of both women, to show that though they appear on the surface to be the submissive ‘lambs’ of the Church which today’s feminists vilify, underneath the ‘lamb’s clothing’ of orthodoxy they are more akin to the ‘wolves’ contemporary feminists are seeking for inspiration. Angela and Catherine submitted to the Church by practicing imitatio Christi, becoming part of official orders as tertiaries and revealing their actions and visions to confessors. In their behavior and writings, both women supported the ideals of the Church. This conformity allowed Angela and Catherine to avoid charges of heresy and to carve out a space for themselves within the Catholic Church.
However, both women threatened to cross the line into heterodoxy with their critiques of the Church and the extreme degree to which they took their asceticism. In addition to their sanctity amongst the laity, both women were able to usurp some of the Church’s spiritual authority through their actions and texts. Thus, though both women wore the ‘lamb’s clothing’ of conformity, they were ‘wolves’ underneath.
The Decline of the Aristocracy in Eleventh and Twelfth Century Sardinia
By Robert J. Rowland, Jr.
Quaderni D’Italianistica, Vol 4:2 (1983)
Introduction: Beginning in the eleventh century, Pisa and Genoa — both as communes and in the persons of individual Pisans and Genovese, — followed by Catalans and Aragonese, exhibited an increasing, and increasingly covetous, interest in Sardinia and (especially) its resources; and, already during the twelfth century, the island had fallen largely under continental domination. That the story developed as it did should evoke no puzzlement: Pisa, Genoa, and the Iberians had more powerful navies, more fully developed economies, and when necessary, stronger armies; Sardinia’s rulers, moreover, helped bring about their own eclipse, granting concessions and aligning themselves, to their own disadvantage, with one or another of the competing powers. Nor were papal policies without importance.
Decisive as these factors were, however, they were external; what seems to have been generally overlooked is that there were coeval internal factors at work which functioned further to weaken Sardinia during this most crucial period of its history. The closed, now anachronistic, manorial economy is certainly one internal weakening factor; but it has often been cited. What I wish to suggest here is that the combination of three factors — 1) alienation of land and other property by the aristocracy, particularly to the church; 2) Sardinian partible inheritance practices; and 3) the church’s imposition of its prohibition of consanguineous marriages — accelerated, if it did not cause, the decline of the indigenous aristocracy, thereby facilitating the victory of the continentals.
Confraternities, Memoria, and Law in Late Medieval Italy
By Thomas Frank
Confraternitas, Vol 17, No 1 (2006)
Introduction: To view medieval brotherhoods or confraternities as associations of laymen or clerics with predominantly religious functions almost automatically leads to the conclusion that fraternity and memoria have much in common. This, at least, can be assumed if we focus on the religious or socio-religious dimension of the notion, marked in the following article by the Latin term memoria. Such an understanding of memoria, emphasizing its religious dimension, could be further elaborated. It is indeed possible to interpret all the efforts of Christians (or of adherents of other religions) to assure the salvation of their souls as care of memoria in a wider sense. In this case, not only prayer and liturgy, but also charitable works, as offered for example by brotherhoods, hospitals, or individual benefactors, could be included because all these pious activities point to the effect that the believer and god ‘commemorate’ each other.
This article, however, concentrates on a narrower idea of memoria, defi ned as performative commemoration that is realised liturgically and collectively. The focus lies especially on commemoration of the dead and prayers for the living. What this meant for confraternities in late medieval Italy is discussed in the first part of this article (I). Next, legal documents and juridical texts will be used to illustrate the role of memoria for the perception of confraternities in medieval society (II). The article concludes with some refl ections concerning the concept of ‘confraternity’ in modern historical research (III).
The Castle of Cravanzana was originally built in the twelfth-century and is located in the village of Cravanzana in the Langhe region of Piedmont, Italy. The three-story castle, which is over 2700 square meters in size and has 36 rooms, was largely rebuilt in the 16th century and was owned by the House of the Savoy in the 18th century. After another renovation in 1731, the castle was sold by Carl Emmanuel III to his minister Marquis Gian Giacomo Fontana (the castle is also Fontana’s Castle).
The castle has a commanding view over the neighbouring village and area, and has been modernized and restored in recent years. It includes a courtyard, chapel, prsion and stone wine cellars, and has vaulted ceilings with original frescos. While there are several fireplaces on each floor, the entire castle has been connected to the local gas utlitity.
The property surrounding the castle is about 5000 square meters and comes with two houses that need restoration, but can accomodate up to 10 rooms each. A garden and parkland are also on the site.
The castle also comes with its furnishings and artwork, which includes over 600 paintings – about half of these paintings are believed to date back to between the 15th and 18th centuries. Their is a wide a variety of antique furniture and hundreds of other items ranging from musical instruments to books and silverware.
The owners of the castle suggest that the property can be used as a private residence, or be converted into a hotel. The Langhe region, which lies near the French-Italian border, is an important tourist area famous for its wines, cheeses, and truffles. The village of Cravanzana lies about 30 kilometers from the town of Alba and has about 400 residents.
Those interested in purchasing the castle should contact:
Mr. Fabrizio Milanesio
fabmilanesiobh@hotmail.it
0039 320 8694575
Paper given at the Norwegian Institute in Rome (2004)
Introduction: Few cities in the Christian world can boast such a deep connection to the cult of Mary as can the city of Rome, and none can claim a longer history of depicting her in art, stretching back in time at least to the early years of the third century in the catacomb of Priscilla on the via Salaria. Indeed it would not be too outrageous to claim that the true patron saint of the Roman church is Mary, not Peter or Paul, and one suspects that such a sentiment might certainly be shared by the current pontiff. Of the many Marian images which have graced Rome’s churches over the past 1500 years or more, and which in many instances continue to do so, there is one iconographic type in particular which has come to be associated with the arts of the city, and perhaps more specifically with the patronage of the papacy, and that is the image of Mary crowned as queen (or empress) of heaven: usually known by the Latin epithet “Maria regina”. This phrase actually appears in the arts for the first time in a Roman context: flanking the head of Mary in a now sadly dilapidated mural formerly in the atrium of S. Maria Antiqua, and datable to the reign of pope Hadrian I (772-795), who appears with a square “halo” at the far left of the composition. Thus, from the beginning, it would appear that the concept of Maria regina and the Roman papacy go hand in hand, and this linkage was first made some 80 years ago in a famous article by Marion Lawrence, published in The Art Bulletin.
Indeed, it is probably no coincidence that the two images chosen to illustrate the programme of this very conference depict Mary in this fashion, one from the lower church of San Clemente (on the cover), and a second (inside) from the 12th-century apse mosaic of S. Maria in Trastevere — the latter constituting one of the two examples of this imagery in the closest physical proximity to the very room in which we are now sitting. This paper will explore the origins of the concept of Mary as queen, primarily although not exclusively in the visual arts.
While accepting that Rome, and in particular the papacy, adopted this iconography wholeheartedly and made it their own, I shall propose nonetheless that the origins of the concept lay principally elsewhere — and most likely should be attributed to the Byzantine court in Constantinople. This may not be a popular view for an audience gathered in Rome, but I believe it is the only view that is consistent with the evidence on hand, scanty as that may be.
Byzantine and Turkish glazed ceramics in southern Apulia, Italy
By Paul Arthur
BYZAS, Vol.7 (2007)
Abstract: The author presents an outline of the production and examples of ceramic wares excavated in southern Apulia, which indicate varying relations between southern Italy and the Byzantine and Turkish East.
After the collapse of the Late Roman pottery trade system the ceramics of Apulia appear to have been produced regionally; in the 8th century, the production encompassed into a larger area spanning the southern Adriatic in which common ceramic types developed. In the following centuries we find increased imports of various Byzantine wares, and, influenced by these and also by Islamic pottery, the manufacture of local wares which were in turn traded outside of the region.
The Ottoman expansion in the 15th century caused a resettlement of refugees from Greece and Albania, amongst them potters, in its wake further types of wares were added to the range of locally manufactured and regionally traded products. Iznik ware was occasionally imported as a rarity of high status, attesting trade with the Ottoman Empire.
By Charles FitzRoy
Thames & Hudson, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-500-25162-1
This fact-packed guide provides all the practical advice you need for a journey back in time to the golden age of Florence. Witty and informative, Renaissance Florence on Five Florins a Day will appeal to travellers, museum-goers and anyone who wonders what it would really have been like to visit this model of Renaissance culture.
Take in the sights and sounds, marvel at Brunelleschi’s sublime cathedral dome, wonder at the sculptures and paintings that have made this the art capital of its day, and lose yourself in the thrilling (and often riotous) local feasts and festivals. Learn the secrets of Florence’s legendary wealth, and discover what happens behind the closed doors of those grand palazzi.
Along the way, you will delve into the lives of the rich and famous – with plenty of anecdotes and first-hand quotes from the period – the Medici and the other important families in Florence, the up-and-coming artists Michelangelo and Leonardo, and the humanist philosophers battling the Church.
Here, too, is the darker side of life in the city, from its taverns and brothels to the grisly punishments meted out to wrongdoers and the rabble-rousing of Savonarola.
Also included is invaluable advice if you’re planning to travel around Tuscany, whether to explore the beautiful countryside outside Florence or the stunning cities of Pisa, Siena, Arezzo and Cortona – including how to recognize and avoid bandits, mercenaries and condottieri.
Introduction: The ideas of the Athenian philosopher, Plato (429-347 BC), encapsulated in the form of dialogues, have exerted such an abiding influence on western philosophy and political thought that it is easy to forget that for many centuries, between about 500 and 1400, his works were almost unknown in western Europe. This was partly because very few people in Medieval Europe knew enough Greek to read Plato and even if they had, copies of the Dialogues were almost impossible to obtain, with only the Timaeus available in Latin translation. Scholars were therefore largely dependent on earlier Latin authors such as Cicero and St Augustine for a second-hand knowledge of Plato’s ideas. It was the rediscovery of the Dialogues in the original during the Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth century that set western thought off on new paths, a rediscovery that was made possible by the preservation and transmission of Plato’s work by scholars in another part of the Christian world, the Byzantine empire or Byzantium.
In Byzantium, the literary language was not Latin but Greek, and therefore classical Greek literature continued to be studied and read throughout the medieval period. In the empire’s capital city of Constantinople, the works of the ancient Greek poets, historians, dramatists and philosophers were taught in a traditional course of higher education that trained laymen for the imperial civil service. Plato was by no means the most popular author on the higher education curriculum, however, for there were several aspects of his thought which were extremely difficult to reconcile with Christian doctrine. In the Dialogue known in English as the Republic, for example, Plato described the transmigration of souls (metempsychosis), the idea that souls of the dead await a new body in which to be reborn, something completely at odds with the Christian teaching that souls await only resurrection and judgment. Plato also advocated the sharing of wives which is hardly compatible with the Christian ideal of marriage. Consequently, in 529 the Emperor Justinian (527-565) had closed the Platonic Academy in Athens and thereafter showing too much enthusiasm for Plato’s writings could incur the disapproval of the Church.
Heresy and Sanctity at the Time of Boniface VII
