7. The ‘Middle Ages’ in our daily lives

Author(s):  
Miri Rubin

‘The “Middle Ages” in our daily lives’ discusses some of the legacies of this period: universities, the printed book, and song. The 12th century saw increased specialization in centres of learning under the auspices of emperors, kings, and popes. Universities were first created in Bologna and Paris, and offered the highest training in medicine, church law, and civil law. It trained those who went on to become the highest state officials and prelates of the church. The culture of young adulthood fostered in universities, and the possibilities for social mobility they afforded, is still seen today. The development of the printed book and the combination of poetry and music in song is also considered.

Antiquity ◽  
1932 ◽  
Vol 6 (23) ◽  
pp. 301-326
Author(s):  
E. G. Sebastian

Rom very ancient times the church and the churchyard have afforde'd refuge to villagers in time of war. For this reason, wherever practicable, churches have been built on heights, to be the more easily defended. The church served not only as a house of prayer but also as a protecting citadel, defending the lives and property of its children. Already in the 4th century the Armenians had made strong citadels of their churches. The Franks in Merovingian times (481-751) built fortified churches of which that of St. Jean at Poitiers still stands, as well as the church at Remainmontier. After the Saracen invasion most of the churches in the south of France were surrounded with defence works, whereas in northern France they were not defended before the English wars in the fourteenth century. In the Middle Ages most of the churches in the strip of land between the Rhine and the Nahe, called the Gau, were fortified. Osthofen had defence works as early as 1241. In the Middle Ages, too, fortified churches were built in Alsace and Lorraine, or else the existing ones were greatly strengthened. An especially characteristic example is Chazelles in Lorraine, built in the 12th century, in which we are first struck by the placing of the church-tower between the choir and the nave and then by the loop-holes and machicolations.


Author(s):  
Olivier Guyotjeannin

This chapter examines administrative documents of the Middle Ages and the major scholarly studies of them. It surveys the number of preserved documents and the problems surrounding the lack of documents in different periods and places. The author discusses the role and influence of the Church in the increased production and preservation of documents beginning in the eleventh century, leading to an enormous increase in the production of documents during the last three centuries of the Middle Ages.


2018 ◽  
Vol 136 (4) ◽  
pp. 223-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Young

St Edmund, king and martyr (an Anglo-Saxon king martyred by the Vikings in 869) was one of the most venerated English saints in Ireland from the 12th century. In Dublin, St Edmund had his own chapel in Christ Church Cathedral and a guild, while Athassel Priory in County Tipperary claimed to possess a miraculous image of the saint. In the late 14th century the coat of arms ascribed to St Edmund became the emblem of the king of England’s lordship of Ireland, and the name Edmund (or its Irish equivalent Éamon) was widespread in the country by the end of the Middle Ages. This article argues that the cult of St Edmund, the traditional patron saint of the English people, served to reassure the English of Ireland of their Englishness, and challenges the idea that St Edmund was introduced to Ireland as a heavenly patron of the Anglo-Norman conquest.


Traditio ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 259-276
Author(s):  
D. Dudley Stutz

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.


1984 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 65-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mildred Budny ◽  
Dominic Tweddle

Among the relics in the treasury of the church of St Catherine at Maaseik in Limburg, Belgium, there are some luxurious embroideries which form part of the so-called casula (probably ‘chasuble’) of Sts Harlindis and Relindis (pls. I–VI). It was preserved throughout the Middle Ages at the abbey church of Aldeneik (which these sister-saints founded in the early eighth century) and was moved to nearby Maaseik in 1571. Although traditionally regarded as the handiwork of Harlindis and Relindis themselves, the embroideries cannot date from as early as their time, and they must have been made in Anglo-Saxon England. Indeed, they represent the earliest surviving examples of the highly prized English art of embroidery which became famous later in the Middle Ages as opus anglicanum.


1973 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 365
Author(s):  
G. ◽  
J. Gilchrist

Author(s):  
David Luscombe

This chapter discusses the contributions that were made by former Fellows of the Academy to the study of the medieval church. It states that the history of the medieval church is inseparable from the general history of the Middle Ages, since the church shaped society and society shaped the church. The chapter determines that no hard and fast distinction can always be made between the works by ecclesiastical historians during the twentieth century, and the contributions made to general history by other historians.


2019 ◽  
pp. 196-223
Author(s):  
Thomas Nail

Chapter 10 presents a realist aesthetics (versus constructivist) and a kinetic materialism (versus formal idealism) that focuses on the material kinetic structure of the work of art itself, inclusive of milieu and viewer. What the author calls “kinesthetics” is a return to the works of art themselves as fields of images, affects, and sensations. The chapter more specifically offers a focused study of the material kinetic conditions of the dominant aesthetic field of relation during the Middle Ages. The argument here and in the next chapter is that during the Middle Ages, the aesthetic field is defined by a tensional and relational regime of motion. This idea is supported by looking closely at three major arts of the Middle Ages: glassworks, the church, and distillation. The next chapter likewise considers perspective, the keyboard, and epistolography.


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