Material Culture and Social Display

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Hinton
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Middle Part ◽  
Military Leader ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Social Display ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Gold Coins ◽  
Edward The Confessor

The trend towards increasing secular interest in jewellery was probably maintained throughout the thirteenth century, though precise dating of individual pieces remains difficult. With only small amounts of gold to be found in the south of France and Hungary, western Europeans continued to depend upon both gold and gems coming by overland routes from or through the Arab world, with Italian merchants acting as intermediaries. In 1257 Henry III was able to attempt to imitate continental kings by issuing gold coins, not to facilitate trade but to attract gold into the mint to back up his loans and pledges, and to use as alms. The care that went into the coins’ design shows that they were thought of as having prestige value, and the decision to represent the king carrying the orb and sceptre was most probably made in homage to one of the issues of his revered predecessor Edward the Confessor; the royal seal was also changed, to a design that adapted Edward’s image of an enthroned king ruling as a judge like Solomon rather than as a military leader with a sword. Henry’s gold coins were only produced in small numbers and for a very short time, but they show that the importance of the symbolism of a currency was still understood, though no more effort was made with the designs of everyday silver coins than in previous reigns. The amount of coinage in circulation is shown both by single finds and hoards, not only in England but in Wales and Scotland as well. Excavation of the church at Capel Maelog, Powys, produced coins of Henry III, Edward I (1272–1307), and Richard II (1377–99), suggesting that the use of English money had spread into Welsh culture. The Welsh kings did not mint their own coins, however, unlike the kings of Scotland, whose coins were allowed to circulate in England just as English ones did north of the border. Presumably exclusion of a rival’s image was no longer a matter of pride. No hoard in Britain hidden during the middle part of the thirteenth century has objects in it to help to establish a chronology for jewellery.

Edward the Confessor

2020 ◽  
pp. 132-172
Author(s):  
George Garnett
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
English Law ◽  
Edward The Confessor ◽  
King John ◽  
Papal Legate

Chapter 4 shows how during John’s reign the baronial opposition appropriated the figure of the recently canonized Edward the Confessor, and used him as a standard against which to judge the current king. A key part was played by the London Collection of the Leges Anglorum, which compiled and in important respects elaborated and extended the compilations of Old English law codes made during the twelfth century. The Collection informed opposition thinking prior to the crisis which produced Magna Carta. The chapter also subjects to minute analysis two very unusual episodes recorded in thirteenth-century annals of provincial churches. First, the St Augustine’s, Canterbury account of Duke William’s having allowed the men of Kent, uniquely, to continue to use Old English Laws and customs. This episode is supposed to have taken place at Swanscombe Down in 1066. The second is the Burton Abbey account of what purports to be a dialogue between King John and a papal legate, allegedly in 1211. The nub of the dialogue is a disagreement about the role of Edward the Confessor. The chapter then shows how Henry III re-appropriated St Edward for the royal cause, but by emphasizing his saintliness rather than his alleged legislation. Henry focussed on the development of the cult, expressed in liturgical, artistic, and architectural terms, and focussed on the rebuilt Westminster Abbey. The chapter concludes with a brief envoi on the later medieval expression of the cult, especially under Richard II.

scholarly journals Isotopic Evidence for Long-Distance Connections of the AD Thirteenth-Century Promontory Caves Occupants

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Jessica Z. Metcalfe ◽  
John W. Ives ◽  
Sabrina Shirazi ◽  
Kevin P. Gilmore ◽  
Jennifer Hallson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Isotopic Analysis ◽  
Bone Collagen ◽  
Turnover Rates ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Carbon Isotopic ◽  
Local Plant ◽  
Northern Utah ◽  
C Value

The Promontory caves (Utah) and Franktown Cave (Colorado) contain high-fidelity records of short-term occupations by groups with material culture connections to the Subarctic/Northern Plains. This research uses Promontory and Franktown bison dung, hair, hide, and bone collagen to establish local baseline carbon isotopic variability and identify leather from a distant source. The ankle wrap of one Promontory Cave 1 moccasin had a δ13C value that indicates a substantial C4 component to the animal's diet, unlike the C3 diets inferred from 171 other Promontory and northern Utah bison samples. We draw on a unique combination of multitissue isotopic analysis, carbon isoscapes, ancient DNA (species and sex identification), tissue turnover rates, archaeological contexts, and bison ecology to show that the high δ13C value was not likely a result of local plant consumption, bison mobility, or trade. Instead, the bison hide was likely acquired via long-distance travel to/from an area of abundant C4 grasses far to the south or east. Expansive landscape knowledge gained through long-distance associations would have allowed Promontory caves inhabitants to make well-informed decisions about directions and routes of movement for a territorial shift, which seems to have occurred in the late thirteenth century.

The Lilies of Worms

Zutot ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-13
Author(s):  
Michael Brocke
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Treasure Trove

Abstract The Worms cemetery is a treasure trove of medieval and early modern Ashkenazic epigraphical, spiritual and material culture. The oldest Jewish burial place of Europe contains more than 1,400 tombstones dating from the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries. Having published epigraphical documentations of several large cemeteries, the Salomon Ludwig Steinheim-Institut, University of Duisburg-Essen is working on a full documentation of Worms. This article highlights an unknown aspect of this hallowed lieu de mémoire: the artwork to be discovered on the medieval stones, here the lily and fleur-de-lys as symbols and ornaments of the thirteenth century.

The dialectic between Occitania and France in the thirteenth century

1997 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 1-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Aubrey
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The University ◽  
Short Time

The thirteenth century was a time of turmoil in Occitania, starting with the buildup to the Albigensian Crusade during the first decade and its eruption in the second and third, which resulted in the establishment of the university in Toulouse in 1229, the founding of the Order of Friars Preachers a short time later and the unleashing of several decades of inquisition led by these Dominicans, and ultimately the dissolution of the powerful county of Toulouse. France profited both economically and politically from this plundering of the rich culture to its south: the consolidation of power by the late Capetian monarchy owed much to the absorption of Occitania into its holdings. The inhabitants of the Midi continued to demonstrate their fierce independence from their conquerors in myriad ways, some overt, some subversive. But the tempestuous events in their homeland caused some trauma among the troubadours, and although this did not necessarily result in a general deterioration in the quality of the songs that they produced, it probably is at least partly to blame for a decline in the number of both songs and composers.

scholarly journals Olipski fragment gotičkoga srebrnog ophodnog križa s prikazom Sv. Stošije

Ars Adriatica ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Marijana Kovačević
Keyword(s):  
Middle Part ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
Parish Church ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Patron Saints ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Cross Dating ◽  
Gothic Art

This paper discusses an interesting silver fragment showing an image of a saint which was found a few years ago in the rectory of the island of Olib. Based on a thorough comparison of the fragment with similar liturgical objects from the wider area of Zadar, especially with the processional cross from Vlašići (Pag), the authoress proposes that the fragment once belonged to a Gothic proccessional cross dating from the end of the 14th century and that it was nailed as the middle part of its reverse side. The image of the saint depicted on this fragment is identified, based partly on the place of its discovery, with the patron saint of the parish of Olib, St.Anastasia. This identification is further strenghtened also by an iconographical analysis of various depictions of St. Ananstasia in Romanesque and Gothic art of Zadar and its area, especially in goldsmiths’ work of the time, where there are relatively many of her images considering that St. Anastasia was the patron saint of Zadar cathedral, where her relic was treasured for centuries, and also one of four main patron saints of this important Adriatic city. That analysis led to the conclusion that there was a certain evolutive change in the depiction of the saintly patroness during that era, and that, starting form ourfragment and the end of the 14th century, she is more often adorned with a book as her standard attribute.It was also noted that the image depicted on the Olib fragment may, perhaps, be identified with St. Catherine of Alexandria who was also often depicted with a book. Namely, she was the patron saint of a church in Novigrad, a small medieval town situated in the hinterland of Zadar,whence its inhabitants could have brought a whole cross, or solely this fragment, centuries after its making, as C. F. Bianchi recorded thet they brought to Olib a worshipped painting when fleeing from the Turks. This move of the local treasure from Novigrad to Olib in times of crisis and flight would thus coincide with the same practice of the move of the processional cross from Gorica to Pašman, as proposed by N. Jakšić. The stumbling stone of this theory is, of, course, the existence of the 14th century processional cross in Novigrad, with very similar image of St. Catherine on its reverse. Although she is iconographically coherent with the saintly image on the fragment from Olib, it is rather difficult toexplain the making of two similar processional crosses in such a short period of time, since the evident stylistic and tehnical differences between the two images allow only for a short time difference. On the other hand, if the saint on the Olib fragment indeed is St. Anastasia, this would mean that the parish church of Olib regularly refurbished its liturgical equipment during the period of less than two centuries, since one processional cross from Olib older than our fragment has also survived, still partly Romanesque in its morphology and iconography, as well as has survived the late 15th century cross attributed to Toma Martinov, goldsmith from Zadar, whose style is already Rennaissance in many aspects. In course of the search for the images of St. Anastasia in the medieval goldsmiths’ work of Zadar it was also observed that the long established iconographical identification of the figures depicted on the luxurious bishop’s staff of the archbishop Maffeo Vallaresso (1460) has to be partially revised.

Peasant Houses

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Suggett
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
High Status ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Central Aspect ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Late Medieval England

Archaeology (excavation, building survey, scientific dating) has established that peasant houses in much of Britain had a durability that was probably exceptional in late medieval Europe. Peasant houses in late medieval England and Wales (Scotland and Ireland were more complex) were not self-built homes but professionally made by craftsmen, and a central aspect of material culture. Building the late medieval peasant house was an aspect of consumption that entailed important choices relating to expenditure, construction, and, above all, the plan that structured household life. The widespread adoption by peasants of the hierarchical hall-house plan was in part an appropriation of high-status housing culture and inseparable from the construction and maintenance of free peasant social identity. The eventual rejection of the hall-house in the sixteenth century ended a peasant building tradition that had begun in the thirteenth century and matured during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Independence I and Saqqaq

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bjarne Grønnow
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
High Arctic ◽  
Time Span ◽  
Subsistence Economy ◽  
Short Time Span ◽  
Excellent Preservation ◽  
Preservation Conditions ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Entire Island

The first hunting societies migrated via High Arctic Canada into Greenland around 4,500 years ago. Known archaeologically as Independence I and Saqqaq, they settled the entire island within a remarkably short time span: Independence in the High Arctic (Thule area, Peary Land, and northeast Greenland) and Saqqaq in the other coastal areas of the island. Two permanently frozen Saqqaq sites in Disko Bugt, west Greenland, with excellent preservation conditions for organic artifacts, have yielded unique insight into the material culture, subsistence economy, daily life, and settlement patterns of these Paleoeskimo pioneers. After a few centuries, High Arctic Greenland was abandoned, and the Saqqaq seemingly became isolated from other societies in the Eastern Arctic. Nevertheless, Saqqaq thrived at least on the central west coast until 2,800 years ago, thus representing the hitherto longest-lasting continuous settlement period in Greenland.

Before and After the Eleventh Century AD in the Territory of Sagalassos

2020 ◽  
pp. 76-97
Author(s):  
Eva Kaptijn ◽  
Marc Waelkens
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
South West ◽  
Before And After ◽  
New Locations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
Settlement Evolution ◽  
Ceramic Studies

This chapter discusses the settlement evolution in the territory of Sagalassos (south-west Turkey) from the start of the Byzantine period until the thirteenth century when Sagalassos was ultimately abandoned and habitation moved to new locations in and around the modern village of Ağlasun. Problems regarding the archaeological recognition characterize the Byzantine material culture of the region. Recent excavations at Sagalassos together with focused ceramic studies and ongoing intensive surveys are changing this and providing insights into a history of habitation that is not uniform within the territory and that is sometimes at odds with processes occurring in Anatolia at large.

scholarly journals Christians at Nineveh in Late Antiquity

Iraq ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 285-294
Author(s):  
St J. Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
First Century ◽  
General Sequence ◽  
Roman Provinces ◽  
Roman Military ◽  
Military Control ◽  
The Military

The mound of Kuyunjik contains the longest known archaeological sequence of occupation in Mesopotamia, spanning all periods from the sixth millennium BC until at least the thirteenth century AD. The prehistoric periods have been comprehensively studied by Gut (1995, 2002) and the general sequence of excavation, occupation and principal architectural finds reviewed by Reade (2000), yet despite a few exceptions (Curtis 1976, 1995; Reade 1998, 1999, 2001; Simpson 1996), the pottery and other finds from the Seleucid period onwards have thus far attracted surprisingly little study. For these periods though, the material culture is characterised by a strong mixture of Classical and Oriental traditions; thus, first-century AD graves contained gold face-coverings and the remains of diadems, both hinting at the eastern extension of practices more commonly found in the eastern Roman provinces, but Western lamps, glassware, ceramics and even a Roman military badge also occur at the site. Some of these betray direct political and military control, whereas others reflect a mixture of imports and local imitations; an appreciation of this rich cultural mix is important for the clearer understanding of Nineveh in Late Antiquity.Nineveh almost certainly held a Roman garrison at the extreme eastern limit of its empire but following the humiliation of the apostate Julian's Mesopotamian campaign of 363, it must have been ceded as part of the handover of five trans-Tigridian Roman provinces containing Nisibis, Singara, Castra Maurorum and fifteen unnamed forts to Shapur II (309–379). Thereafter the material culture from Nineveh finally acquires an Iranian character and, until its capture in 637/38 or 641/42 by an Arab army generally believed to have been commanded by ‘Utba bin Farqad, it flourished as a Sasanian town, bridgehead and fortress on the east bank of the Tigris (cf. Robinson 2000, 36–7). The datable finds of this period include four hoards of silver and bronze coins (Simpson 1996, 95–6); several personal seals, bullae and elaborate cutlery of Sasanian type (Simpson 1996, 97–8; 2003, 362–3, Fig. 3); a range of plain, mould-blown and cut glass (Simpson 2005); and four helmets, the latter hinting at the military component of the settlement referred to in the Arab sources (Simpson forthcoming, b).

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