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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.
"Symbols as Power" concentrates on the papacy from the end of the Investiture Contest in 1122 until the re-establishment of the Roman Senate in 1143. By combining an investigation of such media as art, architecture, and liturgy with written sources it helps to illuminate the ideology and the policies of the individual popes relating to the church, the empire, and the city of Rome.
Historians--some specializing in the Middle Ages, some in religion, and some in a particular European country--describe the major areas scholars are working in with regard to the friars' preaching to and writing about the Jews from the early days of the mendicant order about the turn of the 13th century to the 16th century. Their topics include the.
This volume is an attempt to discuss the ways in which themes of authority and gender can be traced in the writing of chronicles and chronicle-like writings from the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance. With major contributions by fourteen authors, each of them specialists in the field, this study spans full across the compass of medieval and early modern Europe, from England and Scandinavia, to Byzantium and the Crusader Kingdoms; embraces a variety of media and methods; and touches evidence from diverse branches of learning such as language and literature, history and art, to name just a few. This is an important collection which will be of the highest utility for students and scholars of language, literature, and history for many years to come.
A strong and moving memoir which offers a captivating and extremely rare insight into the life of an ordinary girl growing up in a British working class family in the 1950s. Mary’s secret diaries discovered by her children, chronicle her early personal life experiences, successes, challenges and hardships in an amusing and delightfully innocent way. Mary’s first diary begins in 1952 when she is an impressionable fourteen-year-old, living in Berkshire, England and continues to 1956 when she turns eighteen. Through her eyes and subsequent diary entries, she recounts the fascinating dramas of a lively, sensitive young woman navigating her way through family life, finishing grammar school, e...
During the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, the imperial abbey of Farfa was one of the most powerful institutions on the Italian peninsula. In this period many of the lands of central Italy fell under its sway, and it enjoyed the protection of the emperor until the 1120s, when it passed gradually into the control of the papacy. At the same time, the monastery was an influential religious center, and the monks of Farfa filled their days with the celebration of the liturgy through prayers, processions, sermons, chants, and hymns.Susan Boynton, a historian of medieval music, addresses several of the major themes of present-day medieval historiography through a close study of the liturgical...
The Devil's Tabernacle is the first book to examine in depth the intellectual and cultural impact of the oracles of pagan antiquity on modern European thought. Anthony Ossa-Richardson shows how the study of the oracles influenced, and was influenced by, some of the most significant developments in early modernity, such as the Christian humanist recovery of ancient religion, confessional polemics, Deist and libertine challenges to religion, antiquarianism and early archaeology, Romantic historiography, and spiritualism. Ossa-Richardson examines the different views of the oracles since the Renaissance--that they were the work of the devil, or natural causes, or the fraud of priests, or finally...
This book combines concepts from the history of religions with Byzantine studies in its assessments of kings, symbols, and cities in a diachronic and cross-cultural analysis. The work attests, firstly, that the symbolic art and architecture of ancient cities—commissioned by their monarchs expressing their relationship with their gods—show us that religiosity was inherent to such enterprises. It also demonstrates that what transpired from the first cities in history to Byzantine Christendom is the gradual replacement of the pagan ruler cult—which was inherent to city-building in antiquity—with the ruler becoming subordinate to Christ; exemplified by representations of the latter as th...
In addition to being a prolific spiritual writer and the abbot of the premier Cistercian monastery in northern England, Aelred of Rievaulx somehow found the time and the stamina to travel extensively throughout the Anglo-Norman realm, acting as a mediator, a problem solver, and an adviser to kings. His career spanned the troubled years of the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda and reached its zenith during the early years of the reign of Henry II. In this work, Jean Truax focuses on the public career of Aelred of Rievaulx, placing him in his historical context, deepening the reader's understanding of his work, and casting additional light on his underappreciated role as politician, mediator, and negotiator outside his abbey's walls.
When dealing with the death of a loved one, many find great comfort in the company of others who are experiencing the same sense of loss and fear. The seven mourners and three facilitators of the new support group at the Grief Clinic are about to embark on their own journeys of discovery, help, and healing. But a story in the local paper shakes the clinic staff with news of the death of an ex-client, Mr. Sorenson, who had just completed his sessions six months earlier. Following the tragic drowning death of his wife, he and his daughter were overwhelmed, confused, and unable to move beyond their sorrow. Now Mr. Sorenson has also drowned, and his death is ruled suspicious after questions aris...