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This anthology honors Lawrence Nees’ expansive contributions to medieval art historical inquiry and teaching on the occasion of his retirement from the University of Delaware. These essays present a cross-section of recent research by students, colleagues, and friends; the breadth of subjects explored demonstrates the pertinence of Nees’ distinctive approach and methodology centering human agency and creativity. The contributions follow three main threads: Establishing Identity, Patronage and Politics, and Beyond the Canon. Some authors draw upon Nees’ systematic analysis of iconographic idiosyncrasies and ornamental schemes, whether adorning manuscripts or monumental edifices, which elucidates their unique visual and material characteristics. Others apply a Neesian engagement with the complex dynamics of cultural exchange, visual manifestations of political ambitions and ideologies, and selective mining of the classical past. Ultimately, this collection aims to illustrate the impact of Nees’ transformative scholarship, and to celebrate his legacy in the field of medieval art history.
Embraces an all-encompassing interdisciplinary methodology to uncover the symbiosis of saintly and civic ideals in music, rituals, and hagiographic writing celebrating the origins and identity of a major clerical center. Medieval Liège was the seat of a vast diocese in northwestern Europe and a city of an exceptional number of churches, clergymen, and church musicians. Recognized as a priestly paradise, the city accommodated as many Masses each day as Rome. In this volume, musicologist Catherine Saucier examines the music of religious worship in Liège and reveals within the liturgy and ritual a civic function by which local clerics promoted the holy status of their city. Analyzing hagiogra...
The traditional picture is that there is little information about Tongeren, the capital of the civitas Tungrorum in Roman times, from Late Antiquity onwards. In the last twenty years or so, very cautiously, voices have been raised to nuance the story of the general decline of Tongeren from the beginning of the fifth century. A recurring question is whether Tongeren remained inhabited and what its function might have been. A key site is the Roman basilica, the predecessor of an early medieval church. A key figure is the bishop, whose seat was moved to neighbouring Maastricht in the sixth century. Based on an extensive database, a picture of late Roman Tongeren is drawn, with its public and pr...
Before the rise of universities, cathedral schools educated students in a course of studies aimed at perfecting their physical presence, their manners, and their eloquence. The formula of cathedral schools was "letters and manners" (litterae et mores), which asserts a pedagogic program as broad as the modern "letters and science." The main instrument of what C. Stephen Jaeger calls "charismatic pedagogy" was the master's personality, his physical presence radiating a transforming force to his students. In The Envy of Angels, Jaeger explores this intriguing chapter in the history of ideas and higher learning and opens a new view of intellectual and social life in eleventh- and early twelfth-century Europe.
The production and retention of written records was a common and important facet of pre-modern rulership and administration. Much of our understanding of governmental practices and expressions of authority come from the contents of such documents, which have been well studied. Less studied, however, are the records themselves as artefacts. This volume is an attempt to redress this balance by taking a more holistic, material approach to a range of written records. Through a series of case studies, this volume explores questions regarding the material characteristics of various records and their use. It demonstrates that the material features of the records, including the size and shape, the h...
In popular imagination few phenomena are as strongly associated with medieval society as knighthood and chivalry. At the same time, and due to a long tradition of differing national perspectives and ideological assumptions, few phenomena have continued to be the object of so much academic debate. In this volume leading scholars explore various aspects of knightly identity, taking into account both commonalities and particularities across Western Europe. Knighthood and Society in the High Middle Ages addresses how, between the eleventh and the early thirteenth centuries, knighthood evolved from a set of skills and a lifestyle that was typical of an emerging elite habitus, into the basis of a consciously expressed and idealised chivalric code of conduct. Chivalry, then, appears in this volume as the result of a process of noble identity formation, in which some five key factors are distinguished: knightly practices, lineage, crusading memories, gender roles, and chivalric didactics.
Between Sword and Prayer is a broad-ranging anthology focused on the involvement of medieval clergy in warfare and a variety of related military activities. The essays address, on the one hand, the issue of clerical participation in combat, in organizing military campaigns, and in armed defense, and on the other, questions surrounding the political, ideological, or religious legitimization of clerical military aggression. These perspectives are further enriched by chapters dealing with the problem of the textual representation of clergy who actively participated in military affairs. The essays in this volume span Latin Christendom, encompassing geographically the four corners of medieval Europe: Western, East-Central, Northern Europe, and the Mediterranean. Contributors are Carlos de Ayala Martínez, Geneviève Bührer-Thierry, Chris Dennis, Pablo Dorronzoro Ramírez, Lawrence G. Duggan, Daniel Gerrard, Robert Houghton, Carsten Selch Jensen, Radosław Kotecki, Jacek Maciejewski, Ivan Majnarić, Monika Michalska, Michael Edward Moore, Craig M. Nakashian, John S. Ott, Katherine Allen Smith, and Anna Waśko.
Drawing on the expertise of 26 distinguished scholars, this important volume covers the major issues in the study of medieval Europe, highlighting the significant impact the time period had on cultural forms and institutions central to European identity. Examines changing approaches to the study of medieval Europe, its periodization, and central themes Includes coverage of important questions such as identity and the self, sexuality and gender, emotionality and ethnicity, as well as more traditional topics such as economic and demographic expansion; kingship; and the rise of the West Explores Europe’s understanding of the wider world to place the study of the medieval society in a global context
This volume focuses on phenomena, structures and constellations of power and rule in the 12th century from a comparative perspective. Comparing England and the Empire is a promising research project, because the Staufen and the Plantagenets ruled over more than one kingdom and claimed hegemony. Therefore, the divergence between legality and the demands of ruling over diverse lordships can be explored. The examples of extended royal rule in different constellations, treated by international authors, show how the practice of power and the structures of rule based on legitimate claims diverge.
Surveying the development of medieval scholarship through biography, this volume contains 23 original essays on scholars whose work shaped medieval historiography for the past 300 years. Their subject was Europe between 500 and 1500, and they labored to define that protean and multinational culture. Each of them pioneered or revolutionized traditional views on fields such as diplomatics (Mabillon); economic, social, and constitutional history (Power, Pirenne, Bloch, Stubbs, Waitz, Whitelock, Maitland); manuscript and archival studies (Delisle, Muratori); Jewish history and the history of Islam and Byzantium (von Grunebaum, Ostrogorsky); symbology and intellectual history (Kantorowicz, Schramm, Smalley); general and cultural history (Gibbon, Adams, Haskins, S nchez-Albornoz); and ecclesiastical history (Bolland, Lea) and the history of magic and science (Thorndike). Some of the scholars pioneered comparative and interdisciplinary studies; all published work that is still essential to our understanding of the past and, more important, the present.