Belief and Patronage in the English Parish before 1300: Some Evidence from Roods

2005 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 21-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Davidson Cragoe
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Architectural Patronage ◽  
Individual Giving ◽  
The Church

The late medieval English laity expressed their piety through ostentatious artistic and architectural patronage. The rood, a large-scale image of Christ on the cross, flanked by the Virgin and St John, and placed in or above the chancel arch, was a particular object of both liturgical and financial devotion in the later Middle Ages. One of the more interesting conclusions of recent scholarship has been the recognition that the late medieval desire to express one’s piety through donations to the church was not limited to the upper classes or to one gender. Both men and women of all social classes and ages participated to the best of their ability through collective as well as individual giving. Moreover, people made very deliberate choices about the types of images and architectural forms on which they spent their money. Scholars have argued that the roots of this very active lay patronage lie in the mid-thirteenth century when diocesan statutes first assigned responsibility for maintaining the nave and most of a church’s ornaments to its parishioners.

Belief and Patronage in the English Parish before 1300: Some Evidence from Roods

2005 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 49-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Davidson Cragoe
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Architectural Patronage ◽  
Individual Giving ◽  
The Church

The late medieval English laity expressed their piety through ostentatious artistic and architectural patronage. The rood, a large-scale image of Christ on the cross, flanked by the Virgin and St John, and placed in or above the chancel arch, was a particular object of both liturgical and financial devotion in the later Middle Ages.1 One of the more interesting conclusions of recent scholarship has been the recognition that the late medieval desire to express one’s piety through donations to the church was not limited to the upper classes or to one gender. Both men and women of all social classes and ages participated to the best of their ability through collective as well as individual giving.2 Moreover, people made very deliberate choices about the types of images and architectural forms on which they spent their money.3 Scholars have argued that the roots of this very active lay patronage lie in the mid-thirteenth century when diocesan statutes first assigned responsibility for maintaining the nave and most of a church’s ornaments to its parishioners.4

Die Heidin: A Late-Medieval Experiment in Cultural Rapprochement between Christians and Saracens

2005 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 50-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Courtly Love ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Racial Conflicts

AbstractWhereas recent scholarship has primarily focused on the hostile attitudes against the Orient espoused by writers in the European Middle Ages, a number of intriguing narratives also indicate surprising open-minded attitudes. These might reflect utopian fantasies, but they still project noteworthy "tolerant" relationships between Christians and "heathens." This paper examines one of these narratives, the Middle High German Die Heidin (late thirteenth century), where courtly love and 'domestic violence' counterbalance each other, instigating the heathen protagonist to flee with her Christian suitor back to his country because her erstwhile loving husband (heathen) had turned toward brutal behavior. This narrative indicates how little European audiences obviously cared about religious and racial conflicts and subsumed them under the much more fascinating discourse on love.

Time and the Testator, 1370–1540

2002 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 133-144
Author(s):  
Judith Middleton-Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Past ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Perception Of Time ◽  
Limited Duration ◽  
At Will

There were many ways in which the late medieval testator could acknowledge time. Behind each testator lay a lifetime of memories and experiences on which he or she drew, recalling the names of those ‘they had fared the better for’, those they wished to remember and by whom they wished to be remembered. Their present time was of limited duration, for at will making they had to assemble their thoughts and their intentions, make decisions and appoint stewards, as they prepared for their time ahead; but as they spent present time arranging the past, so they spent present time laying plans for the future. Some testators had more to bequeath, more time to spare: others had less to leave, less time to plan. Were they aware of time? How did they control the future? In an intriguing essay, A. G. Rigg asserts that ‘one of the greatest revolutions in man’s perception of the world around him was caused by the invention, sometime in the late thirteenth century, of the mechanical weight-driven clock.’ It is the intention of this paper to see how men’s (and women’s) perception of time in the late Middle Ages was reflected in their wills, the most personal papers left by ordinary men and women of the period.

Papal Legates against the Albigensians: The Debts of the Church of Valence (1215–1250)

Traditio ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 259-276
Author(s):  
D. Dudley Stutz
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Detailed Treatment ◽  
Northern Portion ◽  
Rhone Valley ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

In 1232 Pope Gregory IX (r. 1227–41) imposed a tenth of episcopal revenues on prelates of Occitania to subsidize the church of Valence, which owed 10,000 poundstournoisto various bankers of Vienne, Rome, Lyons, and Siena. In 1865 B. Hauréau first noted the event when he edited one of the main documents in theGallia christianavolume concerning the ecclesiastical province of Vienne. With the publication of Gregory IX's register from 1890–1908 most of the facts of the tax were more widely available. In 1910 Ulysse Chevalier briefly mentioned the tax in his monograph on the long tenure of John of Bernin, archbishop of Vienne (r. 1218–66). In 1913, Heinrich Zimmermann cited Hauréau's text in a note in his detailed treatment of early thirteenth-century papal legations. Recently Alain Marchandisse reviewed eight of the eleven papal letters pertaining to the tax in his study of William of Savoy (d. 1239) as bishop-elect of Liège. These scholars provided no reason for the debt or why the papacy would take such measures to ensure payment. Perhaps they did not study this tax further because a church indebted to moneylenders is not in itself surprising. It appears that the church of Valence acquired the debt, very large compared to the church's income, when bishop-elect William of Savoy (r. 1225–39) waged war against Adhémar II of Poitiers-Valentinois, count of the Valentinois (r. 1189–1239). Struggles between bishops and the local nobility occurred on a regular basis throughout the Middle Ages, so what in this unimportant Rhone-valley diocese interested the pope enough to impose taxes on prelates of Occitania over twenty years to ensure payment of this debt? Adhémar II faithfully supported Raymond VI (r. 1194–1222) and Raymond VII (r. 1222–49) of Saint-Gilles, counts of Toulouse, throughout their struggle with the papacy during and following the Albigensian crusades. Adhémar II was also their vassal for the Diois, which borders the Valentinois on the southeast and comprised the northern portion of the marquisate of Provence. These lands had been reserved for the church in the Treaty of Meaux-Paris (1229), which ended the Albigensian crusades. Thus William of Savoy as bishop-elect of Valence defended the papacy's claims on the marquisate of Provence, which the papacy deemed part of the larger struggle between the Roman church and the counts of Toulouse. The facts on the nature of the debts and the steps the papacy took to aid the diocese show that the local struggle between the bishop of Valence and the count of the Valentinois embodied a part of the larger struggle between the papacy and the counts of Toulouse over the marquisate of Provence, which began as early as 1215.

Weavers into Heretics? The Social Organization of Early-Thirteenth-Century Catharism in Comparative Perspective

1997 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-137
Author(s):  
Lutz Kaelber
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
The Other ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

How did a person become a heretic in the Middle Ages? Then, once the person was affiliated with a heretical group, how was the affiliation sustained? What social processes and mechanisms were involved that forged bonds among heretics strong enough, in some cases, for them to choose death rather than return to the bosom of the Church? Two competing accounts of what attracted people to medieval heresies have marked the extremes in historical explanations (Russell 1963): one is a materialist account elucidated by Marxist historians; the other one focuses on ideal factors, as proposed by the eminent historian Herbert Grundmann.

Peter of Bruys, Henry of Lausanne, and the Façade of St.-Gilles

Traditio ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 451-460
Author(s):  
Marcia L. Colish
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Free Standing ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
The Church

The romanesque façade of the abbey church of St.-Gilles in the diocese of Nlmes has been a subject of debate among art historians for many years. This controversy has been centered on the design of the church's façade [Fig. 1]. In addition to a series of colonnettes supporting archivolts that surround the tympana over its three western doorways, the St.-Gilles façade also possesses two free-standing columns flanking the central doorway that support nothing, a peculiarity which has led scholars to conclude that the plan of the façade was changed during the remodeling of the church in the twelfth century. The debate has focused on the dating of this change. A number of dates have been suggested, based on the façade's sculptural style, on dated inscriptions in the crypt, and on documents dealing with the church fabric. The art historians of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries dated the redesigning of the façade between 1116 and the middle of the thirteenth century, though the tendency of more recent scholarship has been to narrow the range of dates to between 1116 and the 1140s.

Art and Identity in the Parish Communities of Late Medieval Kent

1992 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 225-237
Author(s):  
Judy Ann Ford
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Art Criticism ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
The Social ◽  
Religious Associations

Historians have long been aware that patronage is a crucial factor in interpreting the social meaning of art. The late Middle Ages knew a variety of patrons, each employing art to communicate different sorts of concern: royal and aristocratic courts emphasized political messages, urban communes created governmental myths, cathedrals and monasteries gave expression to spiritual ideas—and all used art to convey notions of social identity. Recent investigations into the process of choosing and procuring works of art in these contexts have not only added perspective to formal art criticism, they have also deepened our understanding of the groups interested in the creation of art. One area in which questions of patronage could perhaps be better illuminated is the community of the parish. The parish served as the primary religious community for the majority of men and women for most of the Middle Ages. It was complex in composition, involving both laity and clergy, encompassing other religious associations, such as gilds, and including the devout and the indifferent, the orthodox and the dissenters.

Communes and Despots: The City State In Late-Medieval Italy

1965 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 71-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Political History ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Medieval Italy ◽  
City States ◽  
City State ◽  
The City

It is a commonplace of political history that in the later Middle Ages the city states of north and central Italy were the scene of a conflict in the theory and practice of government between two contrasted systems: republican and despotic (or in contemporary terminology, government ‘a comune’, ‘in liberta’ etc., and government ‘a tiranno’, signoria or principato). The conflict began about the mid-thirteenth century, and in most places, sooner or later, was settled in favour of despotism.

Knights, Cooks, Monks and Tourists: Elite and Popular Experience of the Late-Medieval Jerusalem Pilgrimage

2006 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 99-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryne Beebe
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Popular Interest ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
The Church

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the late Middle Ages was the centre of a range of pilgrimage activity in which elite and popular beliefs and practices overlapped and complicated each other in exciting ways. The Jerusalem pilgrimage, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in particular, abounded in multiple levels of ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ experience. Through the pilgrimage writings of a fifteenth-century Dominican pilgrim named Felix Fabri, this paper will explore two specific levels: the distinction between noble and lower-class experiences of the Jerusalem pilgrimage (both physical and spiritual), and the distinction between spiritually ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ conceptions of pilgrimage itself – that uneasy balance between the spiritually-sophisticated, contemplative experience of pilgrimage promoted by St Jerome and the more ‘popular’ interest in traditional ‘tourist’ activities, such as gathering indulgences or stocking up on holy souvenirs and relics to take home. However, as we will see, even these tourist acts were grounded in the orthodox spirituality of late-medieval piety, and the elite and popular experiences of pilgrimage, whether social or spiritual, were not so distinct as they may first appear.

Female Strategies for Success in a Male-ordered World: the Benedictine Convent of Le Murate in Florence in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries

1990 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 209-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. J. P Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Large City ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Active Life ◽  
The Family ◽  
Direct Competition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Place Of Origin ◽  
The Church

This paper will centre on the relationships of women to men and women to women which form the backbone of the history of the Benedictine convent of Le Murate in Florence in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Le Murate started in a quiet way with one pious woman deciding to live virtuously by herself, but under no rule, in a house on the Ponte Rubaconte in 1390, and expanded to become perhaps the largest female convent in Florence in 1515, situated on Via Ghibellina, with 200 enclosed women and their servants living under the Rule of St Benedict. I want to examine the relations between these nuns and the outside world and look at how the male government of the outside world, secular and ecclesiastical, both at an individual level and in a more collective, formal way, tried to restrain and weaken this group of females, even to the point of forbidding them to earn their own livelihood. I would like to posit that religious life on a large scale and in a large city offered opportunities for the exercise of power by women not available to those of the female sex who stayed within the structure of the family and who were, therefore, in direct competition with men at every stage. Daughters, sisters, wives, and widows were legally and socially subject to their male relatives, in varying degrees. Nuns were not, and were permitted a measure of self-government. Just how irksome, worrying, and unacceptable to men it was for women to take their own decisions will become clear later. Barred by their sex from an active life in the hierarchy of the Church, and barred by their Order from an active life in the community, nevertheless in the Renaissance these enclosed Benedictine nuns devised strategies for obtaining access to power and money unparalleled by their secular counterparts. Le Murate exerted a strong attraction on women, both the powerful and famous and the more ordinary. Due to the increasing politicization of Florentine society, it secured, in addition, the patronage of the two most important Florentine political families during the period, the Medici and the Soderini. It was this seeming capacity to mobilize support from every sector of the population, regardless of sex, social group, income, political hue, or place of origin, which enabled the convent to prosper.

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