What was First Iconoclasm about?, with Leslie Brubaker
A conversation with Leslie Brubaker on the first period of Byzantine iconoclasm (ca. 730 to 787 AD). What was the problem with religious icons? What did the “Isaurian” emperors Leon III and Konstantinos V try to do about it, and why? A great deal of what we used to know, largely by following pro-icon sources, has come undone in the latest research.
‘Royal Icons’ of Medieval Georgia
Medieval Georgian monarchs developed their own “icon politics” adapted to the current political situation and their own ideological agendas.
Imagining the Virgin in the Byzantine Night
In the early Byzantine period, the Virgin Mary rose to prominence among Christians – especially in the capital city of Constantinople.
Beard Pulling in Medieval Christian Art: Various Interpretations of a Scene
Christian iconography contains a lot of subjects with unclear interpretation. More difficult are the cases where unclear subjects could have several possible interpretations. That is the case of the scene where one man is pulling out the beard of another one.
Imagining the Virgin: The Intersection of Space, Monumentality and Marian Iconography in Late Antique and Early Medieval Egypt
This lecture contextualizes the iconography of the Virgin Mary within the framework of Late-Antique and Early Medieval Egyptian Christianity.
Mindmapping: Diagrams in the Middle Ages – and Beyond
If we think of diagrams as techniques of visualisation that give order to knowledge and perception, then the Middle Ages have a special claim on our attention, because much of its art is diagramatic.
Turning Toward Death: The Medievals’ Terrestrial Treatment of Death in Art During the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
Throughout the Middle Ages, religious iconography was a main theme of art and the Church heavily patronized works that embodied virtuous ideals. Art was often used as a religious implement in which the Church instructed the illiterate masses. However, art can also represent pain and trauma acting as an outlet for the artist.
‘Warrior-women’ in Viking Age Scandinavia? A preliminary archaeological study
This paper seeks to provide a new contribution to the debates on Viking Age women by focusing on a rather controversial notion of ‘female warriors’. The core of the article comprises a preliminary survey of archaeological evidence for female graves with weapons (axes, spears, swords and arrowheads) from Viking Age Scandinavia.
Call for Papers: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015)
CFP: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015)
Movement Through Stillness: Imagined Pilgrimage in Medieval Europe
This paper examines the phenomenon of ‘spiritual’ or ‘imagined’ pilgrimage in Medieval Europe.
The Military Use of the Icon of the Theotokos and its Moral Logic in the Historians of the Ninth-Twelfth Centuries
Starting 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.
The Man of Sorrows and the King of Glory in Italy, c. 1250 – c. 1350
The Man of Sorrows – an iconographic type of Jesus Christ following his Crucifixion – has received extensive analytical treatment in the art-historical literature.
Depicting the Medieval Alchemical Cosmos: George Ripley’s Wheel of Inferior Astronomy
Alchemical writing often develops the idea of a physical or analogical correspondence between heaven and earth: a relationship most fre- quently and conveniently expressed by the use of the seven planetary symbols (Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) to denote the seven metals (usually gold, silver, quicksilver, copper, iron, tin and lead respectively).
The Charlemagne Window at Chartres Cathedral: New Considerations on Text and Image
The Charlemagne Window, justly considered one of the most beautiful of the history windows of Chartres Cathedral, is located in the northeastern intermediate radial chapel and can probably be dated to about 1225.
The Eucharistic Man of Sorrows in Late Medieval Art
Eucharistic devotion also found it’s ways of visual expression in the art of the period. Numerous new iconographical types were created in late medieval art for the purpose of visualizing the mystery of the Eucharist.
“One Woman with Many Faces”: Imaginings of Mary Magdalen in Medieval and Contemporary Texts
This project explores these contradictory and myriad imaginings of Mary Magdalen, emphasizing particularly the connections to be made between those emerging from the later Middle Ages and in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.
The Persuasive Power of a Mother’s Breast: The Most Desperate Act of the Virgin Mary’s Advocacy
The image of the Virgo Lactans orMaria Lactans (the image of the Virgin Mary suckling the Child Jesus), which occurs as early as the third century in the catacomb of Priscilla inRome, later spread ing across Europe, is found in a number of Irish sources.
The Cult of Saint Louis and Capetian Interests in the Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux
Throughout the Middle Ages the Capetians labeled themselves as the ‘Most Christian of Kings,’ and to have a saint in the family legitimated their claim.
Picturing Gregory: The Evolving Imagery of Canon Law
This paper surveys images created for the opening of the Liber extra between around 1240 and 1350, from a variety of standpoints: iconography, page layout, patrons and readers – and also suggests possible ideological agendas that might be embedded in the illustrations.
Reconstruction of the diet in a mediaeval monastic community from the coast of Belgium
The aim of the present article is to report the results of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis on skeletons from a Belgian mediaeval population, and to look at variations in diet that may relate to age and social status.
The Mystery of the Marble Man and his Hat: A Reconsideration of the Bari Episcopal Throne
Until the twentieth century, the throne was universally held to have been sculpted in or immediately before 1098 for Elias, the abbot of San Nicola and archbishop of Bari and Canosa.
Church Wall Paintings and Mosaics: Principles of their arrangement and relationship to church architecture
The history of Orthodox church wall-painting and mosaics, East and West, is a very rich one. On the one hand it reveals tremendous creativity in the Church’s response to architectural and pastoral changes. On the other hand it shows how consistently it has been faithful to unchanging spiritual principles.
Fools, Devils, and Alchemy: Secular Images in the Monastery
The fool is one of the most popular and stable character types throughout cultures and times. This is especially true of medieval Europe. The fool, sometimes a jester, sometimes a clown or a trickster, is always recognizable through his abnormal appearance.
The myth of Jewish male menses
Several scholars have asserted that medieval Christians believed that Jewish men menstruated. Their arguments, made in support of a grander claim that Jews as a collectivity were gendered feminine in Christian thought, rest on numerous misreadings.
Hot Holiday Reads!
Put down those turkey left-overs and check out some of these hot holiday reads!