Formative Britain: an archaeology of Britain, fifth to eleventh century AD. By Martin Carver. 245mm. Pp xx + 736, 368 figs. Routledge Archaeology of Northern Europe series. Routledge, London, 2019. isbn 9780415524742. £115 (hbk).

2020 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
pp. 469-470
Author(s):  
John Hines
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Northern Europe

Ezekiel in the Jewish Tradition

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yedida Eisenstat
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
History Of

After a brief survey of early rabbinic ambivalence toward this controversial prophetic book and its use in synagogue liturgy, this chapter traces the history of rabbinic interpretation of the repetition of “I said to you, ‘Through your blood, live’” in Ezek 16:6. The midrashic tradition ascribes redemptive power to these “two bloods”—of circumcision and of the paschal lamb. This chapter argues that the “bloods” of the verse become metonyms for all of the commandments through which Jews realize their covenant with God. Both blood and circumcision (or lack thereof) were weighty symbols for Christians, too; so as Jews migrated into Christendom in larger numbers in the eleventh century, they had to address Christianity’s competing claims to the same covenant. The addition of this verse to the Jews’ circumcision liturgy upon their arrival in northern Europe can be explained in light of these shared symbols.

Collected Essays: v. 2

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haym Soloveitchik
Keyword(s):  
Jewish History ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Babylonian Talmud ◽  
Islam And Christianity ◽  
Comprehensive Study

This book grapples with much-disputed topics in medieval Jewish history and takes issue with a number of reigning views. The book provides a searching analysis of oft-cited halakhic texts of Ashkenaz, frequently with conclusions that differ from the current consensus. Part I questions the scholarly consensus that the roots of Ashkenaz lie deep in Palestinian soil. It challenges the widespread notion that it was immemorial custom that primarily governed Early Ashkenaz. It similarly rejects the theory that it was only towards the middle of the eleventh century that the Babylonian Talmud came to be regarded as fully authoritative. It is shown that the scholars of Early Ashkenaz displayed an astonishing command of the complex corpus of the Babylonian Talmud and viewed it at all times as the touchstone of the permissible and the forbidden. The section concludes with a radical proposal as to the source of Ashkenazi culture and the stamp it left upon the Jews of northern Europe for close to a millennium. Part II treats the issue of martyrdom as perceived and practised by Jews under Islam and Christianity. It claims that Maimonides' problematic Iggeret ha-Shemad is a work of rhetoric, not halakhah. This is followed by a comprehensive study of kiddush ha-shem in Ashkenaz. The book concludes with two chapters on Mishneh torah, which argue that that famed code must also be viewed as a work of art which sustains, as masterpieces do, multiple conflicting interpretations.

scholarly journals The Making of Nordic Monasticism, c. 1076–c. 1350

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 581
Author(s):  
James G. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Original Writings ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Nordic Region ◽  
Stable Community

The introduction of regular religious life in the Nordic region is less well-documented than in the neighbouring kingdoms of northern Europe. In the absence of well-preserved manuscript and material remains, unfounded and sometimes distorting suppositions have been made about the timeline of monastic settlement and the character of the conventual life it brought. Recent archival and archaeological research can offer fresh insights into these questions. The arrival of authentic regular life may have been as early as the second quarter of the eleventh century in Denmark and Iceland, but there was no secure or stable community in any part of Scandinavia until the turn of the next century. A settled monastic network arose from a compact between the leadership of the secular church and the ruling elite, a partnership motivated as much by the shared pursuit of political, social and economic power as by any personal piety. Yet, the force of this patronal programme did not inhibit the development of monastic cultures reflected in books, original writings, church and conventual buildings, which bear comparison with the European mainstream.

Constructions of Christian Identity in the Northern Periphery: the Sawley World Map in Twelfth-Century England

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
MIHAI DRAGNEA
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman

An exploration of the complex relationship between Christian constructions of identity and the idea of sacrality derived from the ancient Greco-Roman world, this article argues that Christian identity developed uniquely in a specific context, often intertwined with theology and mythology. The complex relationship between the two was crucial in the construction of Christian identity in the lands recently converted, and influenced the authors of world maps from the eleventh century onward. This study investigates how the pagan past and Christian present were incorporated in some world maps, such as the twelfth-century English Sawley map. Thus it offers readers a coherent analysis of early history-writing in northern Europe in the first centuries after conversion.

scholarly journals St. Symeon the New Theologian and Western Dissident Movements

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 137-144
Author(s):  
Bernard Hamilton ◽  
Janet Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Religious Dissent ◽  
Corporate Worship ◽  
Spiritual Director ◽  
Strong Resemblance ◽  
Byzantine Church ◽  
Institutional Church ◽  
Vision Of God

The trial at Orleans in 1022 of a group of aristocratic clergy, who included the confessor of Queen Constance of France, and their followers on the charge of heresy is the most fully reported among the group of heresy trials which were conducted in the Western Church during the first half of the eleventh century. Although the alleged heretics of Orleans are usually considered a part of a wider pattern of Western religious dissent, the charges brought against them differ considerably from those levelled against the other groups brought to trial in that period. The heterodox beliefs with which the canons of Orleans were charged bear a strong resemblance to the teachings of the Byzantine abbot, St. Symeon the New Theologian, who died in 1022. St. Symeon taught that it was possible for a Christian to experience the vision of God in this life if he or she received ascetic guidance from a spiritual director, who need not be a priest. In the late tenth and early eleventh centuries a significant number of Orthodox monks visited northern Europe, including Orleans, and some of them settled there. It is therefore possible that the Canons of Orleans who were put on trial had been trained in the tradition of St. Symeon by one of those Orthodox monks who were familiar with it. St. Symeon was part of the Hesychast tradition in the Byzantine Church. Even so, his emphasis on the supremacy of personal religious experience at the expense of the corporate worship of the institutional Church was strongly criticised by some of his contemporaries. A study of his writings shows that he was, in fact, completely Orthodox in faith and practice and that these criticisms were ill-judged. Nevertheless, if, as we have suggested, the Canons of Orleans had tried to live in accordance with his teachings, the hostile reactions of the Western hierarchy would be comprehensible. For there was no tradition of Hesychasm in the spirituality of the Western Church, and the fact that the dissidents at Orleans saw little value in observing the rituals of the established Church would have alarmed conventional churchmen.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Bolton
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Local Elites

This introductory chapter discusses the significance of analyzing the life story of Cnut, one of the most fascinating of the pre-Conquest kings of England. His life offers several new ways of examining late Anglo-Saxon England in addition to areas of neighbouring Scandinavia, as well as of questioning the established norms of how an English monarch could and should behave in the eleventh century. His regime spread beyond the British Isles and spanned multiple geographical boundaries in northern Europe. In ruling these nations, Cnut had to cross substantial cultural and linguistic boundaries, and appeal to local elites in each region in entirely different ways. The resulting regimes would profoundly change the societies of England and Denmark, and ultimately contribute significantly to the end of the Viking Age in Scandinavia.

Arabi, Mongolia and Beyond: Contemporary Pagans in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Marenbon
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Wolfram Von Eschenbach ◽  
Contemporary Paganism

This chapter studies accounts of contemporary paganism circulating in Eastern and Northern Europe from the eleventh century onward. In the mid-thirteenth century, when the Mongols had conquered a vast empire, two Franciscan travellers, John of Piano Carpini and William of Rubruk, were received by the Great Khan and wrote about the life and traditions of a pagan society at first hand. Medieval readers also knew a mass of partly fantastical material, much of it inherited from antiquity, about the remote lands of Asia and their pagan inhabitants. In the mid-fourteenth century, an anonymous writer wove this material together with the reports of genuine travellers into The Book of John Mandeville, a medieval best seller which takes a surprisingly deep and original look at the Problem of Paganism. In addition, this chapter takes a look at Willehalm, a Middle High German poem written c. 1210–20 by Wolfram von Eschenbach.

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