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In The Legend of the Anti-Christ, Stephen Vicchio offers a concise and historical approach to the history of the idea of the Anti-Christ, including precursors to the idea, the development of the idea in the New Testament, as well as the understandings of the legend of the Anti-Christ in the history of Christianity. Vicchio also raises the question of why there is so much emphasis in the modern world about the idea.
Rosemary Muir Wright draws on many previously unpublished European illuminated manuscripts to illustrate the way the image of Antichrist was used in medieval iconography and how it changed through seven centuries in response to changes in the political environment.
"This book is a work of medieval history and the history of gender and sexuality. It looks at the biblical King David, who has multiple paradigmatic identities in the Middle Ages: king, military leader, adulterous lover, sinner. It views David primarily from the perspective of medieval European Christian society but also from the medieval European Jewish viewpoint"--
The rosary has been nearly ubiquitous among Roman Catholics since its first appearance in Europe five centuries ago. Why has this particular devotional object been so resilient, especially in the face of Catholicism's reinvention in the Early Modern, or "Counter-Reformation," Era? Nathan D. Mitchell argues in lyric prose that to understand the rosary's adaptability, it is essential to consider the changes Catholicism itself began to experience in the aftermath of the Reformation. Unlike many other scholars of this period, Mitchell argues that after the Reformation Catholicism actually became less retrenched and more open to change. This innovation was especially evident in the sometimes "subversive" visual representations of sacred subjects and in new ways of perceiving the relation between Catholic devotion and the liturgy's ritual symbols. The rosary played a crucial role not only in how Catholics gave flesh to their faith, but in new ways of constructing their personal and collective identity. Ultimately, Mitchell employs the history of the rosary as a lens through which to better understand early modern Catholic history.
In a major departure from previous scholarship, this volume argues that the illustrations in the famous and widely influential Utrecht Psalter manuscript were inspired by a late antique Hebrew version of Psalms, rather than a Latin, Christian version of the text. Produced during the early ninth century in a workshop near Reims, France, the Utrecht Psalter is illustrated with pen-and-ink drawings in a lively style reminiscent of Hellenistic art. The motifs are largely literal renditions of words and phrases found in the book of Psalms. However, more than three dozen motifs cannot be explained by either the Latin text that accompanies the imagery or the commentaries of the church fathers. Thro...
The crusades, whether realized or merely planned, had a profound impact on medieval and early modern societies. Numerous scholars in the fields of history and literature have explored the influence of crusading ideas, values, aspirations and anxieties in both the Latin States and Europe. However, there have been few studies dedicated to investigating how the crusading movement influenced and was reflected in medieval visual cultures. Written by scholars from around the world working in the domains of art history and history, the essays in this volume examine the ways in which ideas of crusading were realized in a broad variety of media (including manuscripts, cartography, sculpture, mural paintings, and metalwork). Arguing implicitly for recognition of the conceptual frameworks of crusades that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries, the volume explores the pervasive influence and diverse expression of the crusading movement from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries.
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of the Bible in the medieval world. For the Anglo-Saxons, literary culture emerged from sustained and intensive biblical study. Further, at least to judge from the Old English texts which survive, the Old Testament was the primary influence, both in terms of content and modes of interpretation. Though the Old Testament was only partially translated into Old English, recent studies have shown how completely interconnected Anglo-Latin and Old English literary traditions are. Old English Literature and the Old Testament considers the importance of the Old Testament from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, from comparative to intertextual and historical. Though the essays focus on individual works, authors, or trends, including the Interrogationes Sigewulfi, Genesis A, and Daniel, each ultimately speaks to the vernacular corpus as a whole, suggesting approaches and methodologies for further study.
Are there shadows in medieval art? Studies on the role of shadows in art history have either glanced over or ignored the medieval period, yet people of the Middle Ages certainly saw and thought about shadows and recorded their ideas about these phenomena in texts and images. This book examines references to shadows in science, religion, and folklore of the Middle Ages. Through the lens of fifteenth-century manuscript painting, it investigates visual, metaphorical, and supernatural shadows in art to discover what shadows meant to the medieval viewer.
The metaphor of performance has been applied fruitfully by anthropologists and other social theorists to different aspects of human social existence, and furnishes a potentially helpful model in terms of which to think theologically about Christian life. After an introductory editorial chapter reflecting on the nature of artistic performance and its relationship to the notions of tradition and identity, Part One of this book attends specifically to the phenomenon of dramatic performance and possible theological applications of it. Part Two considers various aspects of the performance of Christian identity, looking at worship, the interpretation of the Bible, Christian response to elements in...
An important resource for scholars of contemporary art and architecture, this volume considers contemporary art that takes architecture as its subject. Concentrated on works made since 1990, Contemporary Art About Architecture: A Strange Utility is the first to take up this topic in a sustained and explicit manner and the first to advance the idea that contemporary art functions as a form of architectural history, theory, and analysis. Over the course of fourteen essays by both emerging and established scholars, this volume examines a diverse group of artists in conjunction with the vernacular, canonical, and fantastical structures engaged by their work. I? Manglano-Ovalle, Matthew Barney, M...