Journalist and author Nicholas Walton writes about medieval Genoa’s economy, trade and role in the Black Death. Walton recently published a book on Genoese history entitled, “Genoa: La Superba”
What Remains: Women, Relics and Remembrance in the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade
November 23, 2014 By
After the fall of Constantinople to the Latin Crusaders in 1204 hundreds of relics were carried into the West as diplomatic gifts, memorabilia and tokens of victory. Yet many relics were alsosent privately between male crusaders and their spouses and female kin.
The Bones of St. Cuthbert: Defining a Saint’s Cult in Medieval Northumbria
November 19, 2014 By
This paper investigates the social, political, and religious changes and tensions which surrounded the cult of St. Cuthbert in medieval Northumbria. Specific comparisons are made between the Anglo-Saxon and Norman periods in English history, and how St. Cuthbert’s cult responded to the Norman Conquest in 1066.
Places to See: Sainte Chapelle
November 3, 2014 By
Travelling to Paris ? Add this beautiful thirteenth century Capetian chapel to your MUST-SEE list for your next visit!
BOOK REVIEW: Plague Land by SD Sykes
September 4, 2014 By
My review of SD Sykes brilliant medieval thriller, Plague Land.
Saints, Tradition and Monastic Identity: The Ghent Relics, 850-1100
July 7, 2014 By
The extraordinary story ofthe Ghent relics was first told by Oswald Holder- Egger in an article published in 1886. During his work on part two of volume 15 of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores series, which Holder- Egger had just finished, he had come across the hagiographie literature produced at the abbeys of St Baafs and St Pieters in Ghent.
Call for Papers: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015)
April 8, 2014 By
CFP: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015)
Under the aegis of the saints. Hagiography and power in early Carolingian northern Italy
January 22, 2014 By
This article gives an overview of the features, choices, tastes and models of sanctity characteristic of Italian hagiography, against the background of local contexts and political competition.
“I, too, am a Christian”: early martyrs and their lives in the late medieval and early modern Irish manuscript tradition
January 11, 2014 By
This paper examines part of that future: late medieval and early modern Gaelic Irish devotion to the early Christian martyrs as evidenced in the vernacular manuscript tradition.
The Voices of the Saints: Speaking Reliquaries
December 31, 2013 By
Although they have often been considered as mere representational labels identifying the relic contained, body-part reliquaries, or what I would prefer to call shaped reliquaries, participate in a fluid exchange of signs
Relics and Reliquaries in the Vita Germani Auctore Constantio : the Capsula
March 24, 2013 By
It is the sporadic presence of the term capsula in the Vita Germani, and in other texts contemporary to it, which indicates its importance in the history of Christian costume as described by Constantius. In what follows, I shall demonstrate through literary comparisons and historical linguistics how such an affirmation is not, in fact, a contradiction at all.
Narratives of the saintly body in Anglo-Saxon England
March 10, 2013 By
This dissertation investigates narratives of the saintly body in Anglo-Saxon England. Specifically, it examines the ways in which the bodies of holy men and women were constructed through such narratives and read in local appropriations of emblematic vitae and passiones.
Literal and Symbolic: the Language of Asceticism in Two Lives of St Radegund
February 10, 2013 By
Since Radegund was never martyred, it is through her ascetic practice, a vicarious martyrdom, that her sanctity must be constructed. Both Fortunatus and Baudonivia treat Radegund’s ascetic practices as a means of creating the powerful body of a saint, a living relic, but the differences in the two writers’ approaches are notable.
Russian Pilgrims in Constantinople
December 30, 2012 By
If one compares the Russian Anthony text with the original Mercati Anonymus text, the longest and most detailed of the three extant contemporary Western descriptions of the shrines of Constantinople, one finds that the Latin text includes only twenty of the seventy-six religious shrines mentioned by the Russian enumeration.
Expressions of Power – Luxury textiles from early medieval northern Europe
September 17, 2012 By
This paper focuses on luxury textiles from archaeological and non-archaeological contexts in north-western Europe.
Kissing Images, Unfurling Rolls, Measuring Wounds, Sewing Badges and Carrying Talismans: Considering Some Harley Manuscripts through the Physical Rituals they Reveal
August 13, 2012 By
Christianity as practised in the late Middle Ages demanded physical rituals. These rituals encompassed great public displays, such as processions around town walls and through churches, led by clergy dressed in ceremonial garb; smaller public displays, such as priests’ performances of Mass; and actions by the laity, including small private rituals involving a votary with his book and perhaps an image.
Sacred Things and Holy Bodies: Collecting Relics from Late Antiquity to the Early Renaissance
July 15, 2012 By
Intimately tied to concepts of wholeness, corporeal integrity, and the resurrection of the body, the collecting of bones and body parts of holy martyrs was an important aspect of the Christian cult of relics already during Antiquity
Pilgrimage to Chartres: The Visual Evidence
June 24, 2012 By
References to Chartres Cathedral as the most important Marian shrine in Europe during the Middle Ages still abound. The historiography of this interpretation leads back to local chartrain histori- ans of the nineteenth century, among whom Lépinois was one of the most respected.
Relics, Religious Authority, and the Sanctification of Domestic Space in the Home Gregory of Tours: An Analysis of the Glory of the Confessors 20
March 6, 2012 By
With the rival clerics out of the way, Gregory still needed to solidify his new and publicly contested position with local elites and other powerful members of his new congregation. Thus, much of what Gregory did early in his episcopacy was intended to convince the community at Tours that he was their right man.
Seeing and Not Seeing the Reliquary Bust of Saint Yrieix
December 20, 2011 By
The reliquary was experienced through an orchestrated system of punctuated non-sight, suggesting that experiencing was not about seeing, but believing.
Eastern Objects and Western Desires: Relics and Reliquaries between Byzantium and the West
September 4, 2011 By
Among the many eastern objects that reached western Europe between the seventh and the fifteenth century by way of gift-giving, theft, or trade, sacred relics hold an important, if somewhat unusual, position.
Remains of Anglo-Saxon Saint discovered?
August 13, 2011 By
Archaeologists working in the Oxfordshire town of Bicester believe they have discovered a reliquary containing some of the bones of Saint Edburg, a seventh-century saint. John Moore Heritage Services is conducting the excavations of a site of former apartment buildings (flats) which is being redeveloped. The land once belonged to Bicester Priory, and the archaeological […]
Why Jerusalem? Why then? A study of the religious significance of Jerusalem to the West in 1095
July 19, 2011 By
Why Jerusalem? Why then? A study of the religious significance of Jerusalem to the West in 1095 Larson, Erin (Clemson University) PhD Thesis, Clemson University, May (2010) Abstract One of the fascinating aspects of this research is how what individuals believe to be true leads to collective action as a society. Research for this paper will […]
KALAMAZOO 2011: Session 47 – Thursday, May 12: The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing I: Images and Objects
June 25, 2011 By
Session 47 – Thursday, May 12, 2011: The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing I: Images and Objects Sponsor: AVISTA: The Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Interdisciplinary Study of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art and Medica: The Society for the Study of Healing in the Middle Ages Organizer: Barbara S. Bowers, (Ohio State […]
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