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.

The Garden

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mailan S. Doquang
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
The Church

This section addresses the use of real plants in medieval churches from the Early Christian period to the Late Middle Ages. It demonstrates that living vegetation was a key aspect of the church experience, notably during the consecration rite, the Easter liturgy, and on other special occasions, such as baptisms, weddings, and the feast days of certain saints. Late medieval documents from the church of Saint-Mary-at-Hill in London reveal that live plants were a consistent expense for clerical communities. Alongside sculpted flora, real plants heightened the presence of the organic in sacred architectural contexts, while also engaging different sensory modalities.

Dubius in fide fidelis est? Doubt and Assurance in Late Medieval Catholicism

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 186-202
Author(s):  
Robert N. Swanson
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Definitive Statement ◽  
The Church

The canon law dictum that ‘dubius in fide infidelis est’ offers a seemingly definitive statement on the place of doubt and uncertainty in medieval Catholicism. Yet where Catholic teaching was open to question, doubt was inseparable from faith, not merely as its obverse but as part of the process of achieving faithfulness – the trajectory outlined by Abelard in the twelfth century. The challenge for the Church was not that doubters lacked faith, but that having tested their doubts they might end up with the wrong faith: doubt preceded assurance, one way or the other. That problem is addressed in this essay by a broad examination of the ties between faith and doubt across the late Middle Ages (from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries), arguing that uncertainty and doubt were almost unavoidable in medieval Catholicism. As the starting points in a process which could lead to heresy and despair, they also had a positive role in developing and securing orthodox faith.

scholarly journals A STRAIN OF SENEQUISMO IN LATE-MEDIEVAL LITERATURE OF THE CATALAN DOMAIN: THE CASE OF FRA FRANCESC MONER (1463-1492)

2006 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 229-261
Author(s):  
Peter Cocozzella
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Medieval Literature ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Late Medieval Literature ◽  
Points Of Coincidence ◽  
The Moment

This essay is an exploration of Seneca’s influence on the bilingual (Catalan and Castilian) production, including poems and prose works, of Fra Francesc Moner, an extraordinarily talented Catalan writer of the late Middle Ages. After sampling Moner’s pithy renditions of Seneca’s sententious rhetoric, this essay delves into Moner’s assimilation of the salient topics and motifs that distinguish the Stoic philosophical system of Senecan vintage. The essay takes into account, particularly, some points of coincidence between Moner’s senequismo and that of Ausiàs March, the incomparable Valencian poet of the first half of the fifteenth century. An analysis of these coincidences suggests that Moner inherits from March a keen sensitivity to the metaphysical bond between the literary text as an icon of subjectivity and the moment-to-moment unfolding of human existence.

scholarly journals La Iglesia de Mallorca y la redención de cautivos en la Baja Edad Media = The Church of Majorca and the Ransom of Captives during the Late Middle Ages

2019 ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Albert Cassanyes Roig
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
La Caridad ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Church

El presente artículo es un primer estudio del rol de la Iglesia en la redención de los cautivos cristianos que se hallaban bajo el yugo de los infieles. La tarea de las órdenes redentoristas —trinitarios y mercedarios— en este ámbito fue muy significativa. Menos conocida es la intervención de la catedral, a veces junto a las autoridades municipales. En ambos casos, las limosnas constituían la principal fuente de ingresos, de modo que el rescate era posible gracias a la caridad de los vecinos. El artículo se centra en el ejemplo de la diócesis de Mallorca, un territorio abocado al mar, cuyos habitantes eran frecuentemente capturados. A partir de una serie de registros de subsidios de mediados del siglo xv, se pueden conocer algunos rasgos de los cautivos, la vulnerabilidad en la que quedaban sus familias y el comportamiento de los responsables de la distribución de las limosnas entre las personas a rescatar.AbstractThis paper analyses the role of the Church in the ransom of Christian captives who fell under Muslim control.  The role of the ransoming orders—Trinitarians and Mercedarians—in the ransoming process was highly significant.  Less known is the intervention of the cathedral chapter, often working side by side with the municipal authorities.  In both cases, alms were the most important source of income; the charity of their neighbors made a captive’s ransom possible.  This paper focuses on the example of the Diocese of Majorca, a territory exposed to the sea, whose inhabitants were frequently captured.  Based on some mid-fifteenth century registers of subsidies it is possible to know some of the individual characteristics of the captives, the vulnerability of their families, and the behavior of the responsible persons who distributed the charitable money among the captives and their families.

Holy Land or Holy Lands? Palestine and the Catholic West in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance

2000 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 228-249
Author(s):  
Norman Housley
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
Electrical Charge ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Physical Setting ◽  
The Status ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Church

In one passage in his famous account, Friar Felix Faber described how ‘some dull and unprofitable pilgrims’ to Jerusalem in 1480 mocked the excited behaviour of the devout in the courtyard in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, ‘calling them fools, hypocrites and Beghards’. The incident is revealing of the spectrum of reactions provoked by the experience of the Holy Land in late medieval and Renaissance Europe. Here more than anywhere else, tension was generated by the inescapable paradox of Christology, God become man, and the conflicts which it set up between the immanent and the representational, the universal and the elect, the eschatological and the timeless. This occurred, moreover, within a physical setting which constantly reminded the sensitive pilgrim of the difficulty of reconciling the Old and New Dispensations. But the same electrical charge which caused the Holy Land as sacred space to provoke diverse and at times contradictory responses, endowed the Holy Land as idea with a remarkable attraction. There took place a number of different ‘migrations of the holy’, to use John Bossy’s phrase. To a large extent the status of the geographical Holy Land was weakened by these developments, but in at least one respect it was strengthened.

Multiple Options: The World of the Fifteenth-Century Church

2008 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Van Engen
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Church History ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Past Generation ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
The World ◽  
Before And After

Any historical period called “late” is headed for interpretive trouble, and one called “late medieval” is probably doomed. Periodization is an artifice, as we know, yet also an art. Historians have entirely reconceived “late antiquity” over the past generation, transforming Roman decadence into an imperial and Christian culture three centuries long embracing the whole Mediterranean world, creative in its culture and foundational for societies that followed. But what of “late medieval”? In most textbooks the term comes paired still with “decline.” Humanists and Reformers first created the artifice of a “middle time,” a dismissive gesture toward the thousand years that separated them from the golden ages of antiquity and/or the early church. Nineteenth-century scientific historians introduced art into this artifice by dividing that amorphous millennium into semi-coherent sub-periods: “early” (400–1000), “high” (1000–1300), and a rump called “late” (1300–1500). Church history entered importantly into the characterizations, with the “late” period traditionally told as a series of catastrophes beginning with destructive confrontations between Pope Boniface VIII (d. 1303) and King Philip the Fair. The storyline for the two centuries that followed, whether treated as deepening darkness (traditional) or as an overripe autumn (Huizinga), depended on what came before and after. Early in the twentieth century, church historians introduced ecumenical and even ironic reversals: Catholic scholars, looking to their own reforms, conceded late medieval deviance and the need sometimes for reform; Protestant scholars, looking to a reform born of strength rather than decline, found a late Middle Ages full of flourishing religiosity and even modernizing initiatives. Others, skeptical of the Reformation as marking any decisive turn toward modernity (vs. Hegel), delighted in finding all manner of cults, relics, prophecies, and zealots still among these new Protestants. Oberman and McGinn by contrast have reconceived the fields of theology and mysticism, Huizinga's autumnal evanescence becoming a golden harvest. All the same—and this only a bit overstated—many Reformation histories still essentially start the world anew in the 1520s, now speaking German, and too many medieval histories still close their story with fourteenth-century “decline,” an apocalyptic onslaught of plague, revolt, schism, and war.

Cracking the Code: the Warden Abbey Morses, Luxury Metalwork and Patronage at a Cistercian Abbey in the Late Middle Ages

2011 ◽  
Vol 91 ◽  
pp. 175-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Carter
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Cistercian Order

AbstractThe three copper-gilt and enamel plaques from Warden Abbey are the most important examples of late medieval metalwork from an English Cistercian abbey. They are currently exhibited at the British Museum and dated to the mid-fifteenth century. A reinterpretation of the monograms decorating the plaques allows their patron to be identified as Abbot Walter Clifton (c1377–97). An analysis of the plaques’ style and iconography also suggests a late fourteenth-century date. Clifton's personal devotions and an unusual aspect of the plaques’ iconography can be explained by reference to the spirituality of the Cistercian Order. The plaques’ closest parallel is a roundel decorated with the badge of Richardii. Evidence from inventories and comparison with Continental material suggests that the Warden plaques were, in all probability, morses, used to fasten a cope.

scholarly journals Bringing Pilgrimage Home: The Production, Iconography, and Domestic Use of Late-Medieval Devotional Objects by Ordinary People

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Blick
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Domestic Use

Tracing the devotional beliefs and practices of everyday people during the late Middle Ages through documents is tricky, as most were written with other purposes in mind. To make up for this, it is necessary to examine the abundant material culture that survives from this period. By analyzing a variety of finds and comparing them with well-known objects used by the upper classes, it becomes evident that ordinary people shared the same religious views and practices. Both classes were interested in pieces that inspired active devotional and amuletic practice. They were intended to be gazed at and handled, then rested on a tabletop or nailed to a wall. Some folded, some rang, some could be blown through, while others were gazed upon. Lower quality materials and production of pieces had no impact on their ultimate use in the home.

scholarly journals Emergency powers and constitutional change 
in the late Middle Ages

2015 ◽  
Vol 83 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 26-59
Author(s):  
Marc de Wilde
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Public Utility ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Emergency Powers ◽  
The Common ◽  
Exclusive Right ◽  
The Church

This article gives an account of late medieval theories and practices of emergency powers. More particularly, it examines the relation between emergency powers and constitutional change. It thus seeks to explain how, in the course of the 13th and 14th centuries, European rulers began using their emergency powers to gradually expand their fiscal and legislative competences at the expense of local authorities and the church. As is demonstrated in this article, it was essentially the normalization of emergency powers that made the transition towards a more centralized government possible. This can be explained by a combination of factors, including the government’s claim to an exclusive right to judge what constituted a public necessity, the new focus on prevention and preparation for future necessities, and the increasing identification of necessity with more general claims to ‘public utility’ and the ‘common welfare’.


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