The extent to which the rise in the worship of images in the late Middle Ages was influenced by contemporary theories of vision

2007 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-44
Author(s):  
Christopher Joby
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Linear Perspective ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Medieval Art ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Physical Objects ◽  
The Invisible

There are several ways whereby medieval theories of vision may have contributed to the rise of practices some saw as idolatrous. A feature of much medieval art is the rise of naturalistic representation. This process was facilitated by the use of linear perspective, based ultimately on Euclid's visual cone. We are told its application led viewers to confuse a representation with its object. The theory of extramission influenced medieval piety profoundly. First, by suggesting that the eye emits a ray and ‘touches’ its object, it led worshippers to believe that seeing the Eucharistic host had a salvific effect. This may have led them to think that seeing images of saints or God had a similar effect. Second, by implying that the subject was active in the process of seeing, it underpinned Augustine's theory of vision, whereby one trained the eye to access the invisible through the visible. However, as he was aware, the untrained eye could linger on physical objects and want to possess them. Finally, there was much debate about how visual information was mediated. Some argued that it was transmitted by intermediate bodies. The parallels between their language and that used by iconophobes to describe the images they rejected are striking and merit further investigation. Others argued that the viewer had direct access to the object. This understanding, when combined with the idea that seeing equates to knowing, may have led worshippers to believe that seeing an image of God meant they might in some sense know him.

The Archaeological Collection of the Yalta Historical-Literary Museum

1996 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-123
Author(s):  
Nataliya G. Novichenkova
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Fold Increase ◽  
Ww Ii ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
Important Addition ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Burial Grounds ◽  
Private Collections ◽  
Glass Metal

AbstractFounded in 1892 and now containing ca. 11,000 pieces, the Yalta museum draws on pre-Revolutionary private collections, especially of Classical objects obtained locally and abroad, as well as on objects associated with the Mountain and Southern regions of the Crimea, acquired more systematically as a result of archaeological excavations and chance finds in the region. The most important pre-Revolutionary collection, that of Grand Prince Alexander Mikhajlovich, still contains-despite the destruction of WW II-more than 50 amphoras and 500 other ceramic pieces, especially of Archaic Corinthian and Samian ware. The museum houses many finds from pre-War excavations, e.g. from the Balim-Kosh site (ca. 20,000 Neolithic artefacts) and from the Roman legionary fortress at Charax. The creation after WW II of an Archaeological Department of the Museum has led to a 5-fold increase in the size of its collection. This now includes finds from late classical and early medieval burial grounds (Aj-Todor, Alushta, Druzhnoe, Verkhynaya Oreandal, the Gothic necropolis near Goluboj Zaliv, and the Mesolithic complex of Cape of Trinity I. The most important addition has been of more than 5000 objects from the sanctuary excavated in the past decade at the pass of Gurzufskoe Sedlo, which was in use from the Stone Age to the late Middle Ages. Its heyday was 1st cent. B.C.-1st cent. A.D. and from this period date the overwhelming majority of finds of bronze and silver statuettes, glass, metal instruments, ceramics, arms and coins. Such material provides a rare insight into all of the main phases of Crimean history and coins and other objects from the site have formed the subject of a recent exhibition in the museum.

scholarly journals Кавказ в системе культурных связей Евразии в древности и средневековье XXX «Крупновские чтения»

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Р.М. Мунчаев
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Scientific Conference ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
The North ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Subject

Сборник составлен по материалам, представленным на Международную на- учную конференцию по археологии Северного Кавказа «Кавказ в системе куль- турных связей Евразии в древности и средневековье» – XXX «Крупновские чте- ния». Тематика докладов отражает широкий круг проводимых археологических исследований, охватывающих хронологический диапазон от каменного века до позднего средневековья. The collection was compiled from the materials presented at the International Scientific Conference on the Archeology of the North Caucasus «The Caucasus in the System of Cultural Relations of Eurasia in the ancient time and the Middle Ages» – XXX «Krupnovsky Readings». The subject of the reports reflect a wide range of ongoing archaeological studies covering the chronological range from the Stone Age to the late Middle Ages.

scholarly journals Les complexités hagiographiques, liturgiques et iconographiques d'un livre d'Heures régional (McGill, MS 156)

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Kogen
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Religious Background ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Liturgical Texts ◽  
Book Of Hours ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Moyen Age ◽  
New Hypothesis

Le livre d’Heures McGill, MS 156 n’a jamais fait objet d’une étude scientifique exhaustive, hormis quelques notices plaçant son élaboration en Franche-Comté ou en Bourgogne après 1450. En effet, ce manuscrit offre plusieurs difficultés d’identification et d’interprétation. Ainsi, le caractère composite de ses textes liturgiques, tout en pointant vers l’Est de la France, rend opaque la définition de son usage ; son décor, partiellement détérioré et mutilé, ne fut jamais lié à un atelier particulier ; son hagiographie se réfère à un horizon cultuel apparemment hétéroclite. Nous tenterons de relever ces défis grâce à une analyse détaillée des dimensions codicologique, hagiographique, liturgique et artistique de ce manuscrit, laquelle mènera à de nouvelles hypothèses concernant l’usage liturgique, les circonstances de l’élaboration et la datation de ce livre d’Heures. De même, nous proposerons d’associer le décor de ce manuscrit à l’atelier d’un des enlumineurs les plus intéressants de l’Est français de la fin du Moyen Âge. The Book of Hours McGill, MS 156 has never been the subject of an exhaustive scientific study apart from some notices placing its production in Franche-Comté or Burgundy after 1450. In fact, this manuscript includes many challenges of identification and interpretation. While pointing toward the east of France, the composite character of these liturgical texts makes it difficult to define its usage; its illumination, partially deteriorated and mutilated, was never linked to a particular workshop, and its hagiography pertains to a seemingly incongruous religious background. We will attempt to remedy these issues by means of a detailed analysis of the codicological, hagiographical, and artistic dimensions of this manuscript, which will lead to a new hypothesis concerning its liturgical usage, the circumstances of its production, and the date of this Book of Hours. Likewise, we will propose to associate the decoration of this manuscript with the workshop of one of the most interesting illuminators of eastern France during the late Middle Ages.

De Gouden Eeuw van de Bourgondisch-Habsburgse Nederlanden

Queeste ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-70
Author(s):  
Ann Kelders
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Urban Culture ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Book Production ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Panel Paintings

Abstract The Royal Library of Belgium (kbr) has opened a new permanent museum showcasing the historical core of its collections: the luxurious manuscript library of the dukes of Burgundy. Centred around a late medieval chapel that is part of kbr’s present-day building, the museum introduces visitors to medieval book production, the historical context of the late medieval Low Countries, and the subject matter of the ducal library. The breadth of the dukes’ (and their wives’!) interests is reflected in the manuscripts that have come down to us, ranging from liturgical books over philosophical treatises to courtly literature. The Museum places late medieval book production squarely in its historical and artistic context. Visitors are not only introduced to the urban culture that provided a fruitful meeting place between artists, craftsmen, and patrons, but also to the broader artistic culture of the late Middle Ages. By presenting the manuscripts in dialogue with other forms of art such as panel paintings and sculpture, the exhibition stresses that artists at times moved between various media (e.g. illumination and painting) and were influenced by iconography in other forms of art.

scholarly journals Spoken Latin in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (40) ◽  
pp. 20-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerome Moran
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Direct Method ◽  
First Language ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Pedagogical Tool ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
The Subject

Did educated people in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance use Latin routinely (Medieval Latin and Neo-Latin), rather than a regional vernacular, to conduct real-life conversations about ordinary, everyday matters? Were they taught how to do this in the schools of the day with the help of specimen written dialogues (colloquia)? Did their teachers use a Renaissance equivalent of the ‘direct method’, and did they teach Latin in the way that modern foreign languages are taught today? Or was spoken Latin, with a simulacrum of practical relevance to everyday life, a way of ‘bringing the subject to life’, an enjoyable diversion from the standard pedagogical fare (the ‘grammar grind’)? These are the questions that this article addresses. I argue that Latin was not generally used for everyday conversations, and that students were not taught how to conduct them outside the classroom any more than they are today, though spoken Latin was used as a medium for teaching and learning Latin, as it is to some extent today. Since Latin was not the first language of any native speaker, and since it was learned as a language primarily for reading and writing, comparisons with the teaching of modern foreign languages are specious. I also argue that spoken Latin today, as a pedagogical tool, is best kept out of the classroom and used, if it must be used, as a hobby or a pastime. It has limited usefulness as a means of learning Latin to a meaningful level (a level at which the learner can engage with original Latin texts). And the kind of Latin that is spoken in the classroom, an attempt to render a spoken form of Classical Latin, however ‘correct’ it may be grammatically and phonologically (and the grammar and phonology even of Classical Latin changed over time), is most unlikely to have been spoken routinely in the same kind of informal situations by an educated (one who is adept in Classical Latin) native speaker of Latin. In fact, the more ‘correct’ it is, the less likely it is to resemble authentic everyday spoken Latin, even of the educated elite that learned Classical Latin. This is even more the case after Classical Latin came increasingly to be different from the contemporary Latin that anyone spoke, and had increasingly to be learned from grammar books as if it were a second language. What Quintilian says of written Latin may be said of educated spoken Latin too: aliud est Latine, aliud grammatice scribere.

The Boy Bishop’s Feast: a Case-study in Church Attitudes towards Children in the High and Late Middle Ages

1994 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 243-260
Author(s):  
Shulamith Shahar
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Service Books

THE main sources for the boy bishop’s feast are available in print. These include sections in ceremonial- and service-books, cathedral statutes, councils’ decrees,compotus, that is, accounts of the gifts and offerings of money the boy bishop received, as well as his expenses, household books that include registrations of the expenses for the annual entertainment of the boy bishop and his retinue, as well as two sermons the boy bishop delivered. Chambers, in hisMedieval Stage, first published in 1903, dedicated a detailed description to the feast. A short reference to the feast appears in most research works on medieval schools and a number of articles have also been published on the subject. I’ll thus refer to the origins of the feast, but describe it only briefly, disregarding variations between places, and then turn to the subject of my paper: the boy bishop’s feast, as reflecting the image of childhood, attitudes towards childhood, and medieval educational conceptions. These are expressed in the feast itself and more clearly in the sermons written by adults to be delivered by the boy bishop.

scholarly journals INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE XXXI KRUPNOV READINGS "ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE OF THE CAUCASUS: CURRENT PROBLEMS OF STUDY AND CONSERVATION», Makhachkala, October 26-31, 2020

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 286-295
Author(s):  
Murtazali S. Gadzhiev ◽  
Emma D. Zilivinskaya ◽  
Sergey A. Kulakov ◽  
Sergey N. Savenko ◽  
Vladimir R. Erlikh
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
50Th Anniversary ◽  
Scientific Conference ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Archaeological Heritage ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Subject

The article presents information about the International Scientific Conference XXXI Krupnov's readings "Archaeological Heritage of the Caucasus: Topical Problems of Study and Conservation," which was held on October 26-31, 2020 in Makhachkala, Republic of Daghestan. The conference was dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Krupnov's readings and the 50th anniversary of the Derbent archaeological expedition. The conference was attended by scientists from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Ghent, Grozny, Maykop, Makhachkala, Nazran, Nalchik, Oxford, Pushchino, Pyatigorsk, Tyumen, Stavropol, Sukhum, Vladikavkaz. At the beginning of the conference, a collection of conference materials was published, which included 141 publications of reports by more than 210 authors. The subject of the reports reflected a wide range of archaeological studies, covering the chronological range from the Stone Age to the Late Middle Ages.

scholarly journals “Entertainment” as an art phenomenon in the context of Renaissance discourse

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olena Chumachenko
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
Subject Field ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Collective Experience ◽  
The Subject ◽  
First Time ◽  
Cognitive Perspectives

The purpose of the article consists of exploring carnival as a form of “Entertainment” in Renaissance discourse. The research methodology consists in the application of analytical method - to determine the theoretical and methodological foundations of the study of the phenomenon of "Entertainment" in the discourse of Renaissance; formalization method - to formulate the concept of "Entertainment" within the subject field of art; we use historical and cultural method for studying the phenomenon of «Entertainment» as a form of individualization of collective experience on the example of carnival in the context of the Renaissance discourse. The scientific novelty of the work is that for the first time the essence of the phenomenon of “Entertainment” as a form of individualization of collective experience on the example of carnival in the context of the Renaissance culture. Conclusions. Since the late Middle Ages, the carnival has become a prominent phenomenon in the culture of laughter, offering an antithesis to the religious attitudes that monopolized culture and art. Carnival, as a form of «Entertainment» in the discourse of the Renaissance, contributes to the identification of laughter elements in the culture of the Renaissance and helps to determine the significance of the laughter aspects of socio-cultural processes for society as a whole. The body image, as the main image of the carnival, creates a tendency for organizing "mass laughter", that is, a category that is actively used in our time on the example of the KVN format, which has become all-encompassing in modern society. Carnival, from the point of view of the cognitive perspectives of historical and anthropological research, outlines the features of the mentality of a Renaissance person. The carnival, as a form of «Entertainment», created conditions for the individualization of the collective experience, which was reflected in the culture of laughter, that is, «another reality» at certain times every year. Carnival formulated a concentrated universalistic formula for life and historical process. A street style of speech and imagery was formed, which became the «implementation» of the opposition to the official culture of the Renaissance.

Die Wirkmacht der Nachahmung. Tanzende Heilige und tanzende Klosterleute im hohen und späten Mittelalter

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 258-280
Author(s):  
Jörg Sonntag
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Symbolic Order ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Plural Society ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Fundamental Categories

AbstractThis article sets the dancing of religious and saints and their role models in the perspective of imitation in terms of an essential cultural technique of the Middle Ages. Since the religious were compelled in their search for God by the imitation of Christ and the saints, their dancing was also to be integrated into the symbolic order of the monastery. Given that dance and religious practice are both governed equally by two fundamental categories – regularity and ritualization on the one hand, and ecstasy, unboundedness from all being and in result ascension to God on the other – this heterogeneous phenomenon could not be seamlessly integrated into another phenomenon. Here, it clashed with the symbolic ordering of the monastery; the ambiguities contained in this dualism could be reinforced or cancelled out. With the individual and his or her conscience becoming more appreciated, and the ushering-in of a more plural society (that also dances), as well as the rearrangement of old role models which had been typical of mysticism towards Christ, had clear consequences for the image of God, which in the Late Middle Ages received a new more human face with the ‘playing’ God. As a result, believers re-anchored dance and all its facets in the order-oriented thinking of the European-Christian Middle Ages. Christ had become the best of all dancers, someone (not only) every believer had to imitate, at least in his or her soul.

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