Least of the laity: the minimum requirements for a medieval Christian
This article investigates the minimum level of religious observance expected of lay Christians by church authorities, and the degree to which legislation and procedures attempted to enforce these standards.
The death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus in medieval Christian anti-Muslim religious polemics
Christians 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
Jesus Christ’s sufferings and death in the iconography of the East and the West
The image of God sufferings, Jesus Christ crucifixion has received such wide spreading in the Christian world that is hardly possible to count up total of the similar monuments created throughout last one and a half thousand of years.
The soldier’s life: martial virtues and hegemonic masculinity in the early Byzantine Empire
This dissertation argues that martial virtues and images of the soldier’s life represented an essential aspect of early Byzantine masculine ideology. It contends that in many of the visual and literary sources from the fourth to the seventh centuries CE, conceptualisations of the soldier’s life and the ideal manly life were often the same.
Leiðarvísir: Its Genre and Sources, with Particular Reference to the Description of Rome
For the last two centuries, Leiðarvísir has been the subject of great interest by scholars from a variety of disciplines: not only Old Norse scholars, but also historians, geographers, toponymists and scholars of pilgrimage have studied and analysed this work.
The Augustinian Canons in England and Wales: Architecture, Archaeology and Liturgy 1100-1540
The Augustinian canons remain very much the Cinderellas of British medieval monastic history.
Chronicles and historiography: the interrelationship of fact and fiction
This paper indicates some of the challenges posed by fourteenth-century chronicles while focusing on contemporary testimonies about Clement V, pope between 1305 and 1314.
She Shall Be Saved in Childbearing: Submission,Contemplation of Conception, and Annunciation Imagery in the Books of Hours of Two Late Medieval Noblewomen
In 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)
CFP: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015)
Setting Boundaries: Early Medieval Reflections on Religious Toleration and Their Jewish Roots
This 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.
Auðun of the West Fjords and the Saga Tradition: Similarities of Theme and Structural Suitability
This paper evaluates the story of Auðun from the West Fjords, a þáttr dating from the Sturlunga period of medieval Iceland. It compares the short prose narrative to the much longer sagas in terms of their mutual concerns with kings, peace, and the place of Iceland in a larger Christian world.
Spiritual ‘encyclopedias’ in eleventh-century Byzantium?
The theoretical debate concerning what constitutes an ‘encyclopedia’ in the Byzantine context appears to be not only underdeveloped, but also carried out in a vacuum with respect to the Latin medieval counterpart (and vice-versa).
Queenship, Nunneries and Royal Widowhood in Carolingian Europe
Fulk‟s letter therefore introduces us to some central aspects of Carolingian thinking about the appropriate behaviour of laywomen especially, and serves as a way into the principal themes of this article. In particular, it is noticeable that the archbishop highlighted his expectations of Richildis in two roles: her supposed misdemeanour was concerned specifically with a failure to meet her obligations as a widow and as a queen.
Living stones : the practice of remembrance at Lincoln Cathedral, (1092-1235)
This thesis analyses four different aspects of devotional life at one of England’s largest and wealthiest medieval cathedrals between the years 1092 and 1235.
Enemies of the Faith: Western Christian Views of Jews and Muslims in the Middle Ages
When we deal with this kind of question it is easy to simply fall into the trap of regarding Muslims and Jews as simply others in the views of Western Europeans. But if you look at things more closely you realize that Western European Christians viewed Muslims and Jews rather differently
BOOK REVIEW: A King’s Ransom – Sharon Kay Penman
A King’s Ransom is the follow up to Lionheart and tells the story of King Richard I’s imprisonment in Germany at the hands of Duke Leopold of Austria and Emperor Heinrich VI and of his battle to win back his Kingdom from his rapacious brother John.
Unpleasant Affairs That Please Us: Admonition and Rebuke in the Letter Collections of the Archbishops of Canterbury, 11th and 12th Centuries
From the Norman Conquest in 1066 up to the famous “murder in the cathedral”2 in 1170, six archbishops of Canterbury ruled over the English church…
Herb-workers and Heretics: Beguines, Bakhtin and the Basques
During 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
Since 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.”
The Process of State-Formation in Medieval Iceland
The aim of this article is to analyze the process of state-formation in Iceland in light of some general models of state-formation in Europe in the Middle Ages.
Bernard of Clairvaux’s Writings on Violence and the Sacred
Monk, 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.
Saint Patrick’s Purgatory: a fresco in Todi, Italy
This essay deals with the tradition of the revelation of Purgatory to St. Patrick on Station Island in Lough Derg, whose popularity is testified not only in literary texts in the various languages of Medieval Europe but also in a unique work of art in the convent of the Sisters of Saint Clair at Todi, Umbria
St. Patrick’s Irish Pride
In honour of the day, it seems fitting to throw out some interesting facts about St. Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint.
Movement Through Stillness: Imagined Pilgrimage in Medieval Europe
This paper examines the phenomenon of ‘spiritual’ or ‘imagined’ pilgrimage in Medieval Europe.
BOOKS: The Feuding Families of Medieval and Renaissance Italy
Put down the Godfather, turn off the Sorpanos, and check out the real Italian families of Medieval and Renaissance Italy!