Religious Life Archive
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The death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus in medieval Christian anti-Muslim religious polemics
Posted on April 18, 2014 | No CommentsChristians and Muslims argued, of course, and continue to argue about key issues of theology such as the nature of God (i.e., Trinity), revelation, the incarnation and divinity of Jesus, scripture, and the role of prophecy -
The Place of the Organ in the Medieval Parish Church
Posted on April 18, 2014 | No CommentsA list of eight hundred existing parish churches with a priori evidence of organs has been drawn up, forming the basis for exploration of medieval churches for physical evidence of liturgical musical arrangements, including organs. -
The Augustinian Canons in England and Wales: Architecture, Archaeology and Liturgy 1100-1540
Posted on April 12, 2014 | No CommentsThe Augustinian canons remain very much the Cinderellas of British medieval monastic history. -
She Shall Be Saved in Childbearing: Submission,Contemplation of Conception, and Annunciation Imagery in the Books of Hours of Two Late Medieval Noblewomen
Posted on April 9, 2014 | No CommentsIn this piece, I suggest that such books were also constructed with the intention of instilling certain virtues within the young and newly-married woman—namely, submission and a humble desire for motherhood. -
Call for Papers: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015)
Posted on April 8, 2014 | No CommentsCFP: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015) -
Setting Boundaries: Early Medieval Reflections on Religious Toleration and Their Jewish Roots
Posted on April 7, 2014 | No CommentsThis paper explores particular ways in which Judaism’s approach to the problem of tolerating those with whom it could not comfortably live a shared life influenced its daughter faiths, especially Christianity. -
Mass Pilgrimage and the Christological Context of the First Crusade
Posted on April 6, 2014 | No CommentsThe importance of Jerusalem as a holy city for Christians serves as a starting point for understanding the motivations of eleventh-century pilgrims. -
The Spread Out of Arianism: A Critical Analysis of the Arian Heresy
Posted on March 25, 2014 | No CommentsOn this paper I will focus on the Arian heresy, trying to show how this heresy spread out on the Roman Empire and how it kept his strength for many century on the spiritual formation of some people. -
Herb-workers and Heretics: Beguines, Bakhtin and the Basques
Posted on March 22, 2014 | No CommentsDuring the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the word beguine was used by women to identify themselves as members of a wide-spread and influential women's movement. The same term was used by their detractors and overt opponents, with the highly charged negative meaning of "heretic." The etymology of the term “beguine” and ultimate origins of the movement have never been satisfactorily explained. -
Death and the Fraternity: A Short Study on the Dead in Late Medieval Confraternities
Posted on March 22, 2014 | No CommentsSince the publication of Philippe Aries' ground-breaking The Hour of our Death, historians of confraternities have largely followed his lead and treated confraternities as a "guarantee of eternity." -
Dietary Laws in Medieval Christian-Jewish Polemics: A Survey
Posted on March 22, 2014 | No CommentsIn the religious debate between Jews and Christians, the biblical dietary laws come to illustrate important assumptions concerning the “other.” -
Bernard of Clairvaux’s Writings on Violence and the Sacred
Posted on March 18, 2014 | No CommentsMonk, exegete, political actor and reformer, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) was not just a man of his times; he was a man who shaped his times. -
Movement Through Stillness: Imagined Pilgrimage in Medieval Europe
Posted on March 16, 2014 | No CommentsThis paper examines the phenomenon of 'spiritual' or 'imagined' pilgrimage in Medieval Europe. -
Muslims as Pagan Idolaters in Chronicles of the First Crusade
Posted on March 9, 2014 | No CommentsIf the crusade is indeed a working out of God's will, how does one fit it into the context of divine history? -
BOOKS:Medieval Celebrities!
Posted on March 3, 2014 | No CommentsThey may not have won any Oscars, but they were definitely medieval celebrities! Here are some great reads about some of the most famous faces of the Middle Ages -
On the shape of the Insular tonsure
Posted on February 22, 2014 | No CommentsThis paper carefully reviews the early medieval evidence and proposes that the tonsure was triangular in shape, resembling a Greek delta. -
BOOKS: Daily Life in the Middle Ages
Posted on February 16, 2014 | No CommentsEver wonder how monks, women and Vikings lived their day to day lives in the Middle Ages? These books will give you a glimpse into their world. -
A Comparative Analysis Of Early Medieval North-West Slavonic And West Baltic Sacred Landscapes
Posted on February 15, 2014 | No CommentsThe major aim of our paper is to present a comparative analysis of early medieval north-west Slavonic and Prussian objects and places which are interpreted in a sacral context. -
The Military Use of the Icon of the Theotokos and its Moral Logic in the Historians of the Ninth-Twelfth Centuries
Posted on February 15, 2014 | No CommentsStarting at least by the late tenth century, Byzantine emperors took icons of the Mother of God with them on campaign. This article examines the appearance of such icons in the narratives of historical texts. -
Christian Iberia: A Society Religiously Organized for War
Posted on February 15, 2014 | No CommentsReconquista society in medieval Christian Spain is all too often considered through only economic and martial eyes. In this study of the prevelant cult of Santiago de Compostela (or St. James the Greater) I will demonstrate how medieval society meshed both war and religion. -
The politico-religious landscape of medieval Karelia
Posted on February 14, 2014 | No CommentsIn historical sources the Karelians appear in the 12th century although archaeological excavations suggest that the amalgamation of groups of Baltic Finns, centered on the Karelian Isthmus, that came together from east and west respectively to form them originated in the late Iron Age and early Viking Age. -
Bright Beginnings: Jewish Christian Relations in the Holy Land, AD 400-700
Posted on February 11, 2014 | No CommentsThis paper shows that Christian and Jewish relations in the Holy Land between the fourth and seventh centuries, according to the archaeological evidence, were characterized by peaceful co-existence. -
Christian Prayers and Invocations in Scandinavian Runic Inscriptions from the Viking Age and Middle Ages
Posted on February 8, 2014 | No CommentsMany runic inscriptions from the Viking Age and Middle Ages are directly related to Christian culture — they originate from a period during which Christianity was introduced and gradually institutionalized. -
A shared imitation: Cistercian convents and crusader families in thirteenth-century Champagne
Posted on February 6, 2014 | No CommentsThis article examines the relationship between Cistercian nunneries and the crusade movement and considers the role of gender in light of the new emphasis on penitential piety and suffering prevalent during the thirteenth century. -
Like a Duck to Water: Representations of Aquatic Animals in Early Anglo-Saxon Literature and Art
Posted on February 4, 2014 | No CommentsIn the second book of his Life of Columba abbot Adomnan of Iona relates some details regarding the second and third voyages of the monk Cormac in search of 'a desert place in the ocean'.
