Institutions

Author(s):  
D. Vance Smith

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The House of Fame, the hall of Fame is reminiscent of what Erving Goffman termed in his study of asylums a “total institution” during the Middle Ages. Modern institutions differ from the medieval monastery in both the willingness of the latter’s inmates to belong to it and the metaphysical and religious ideas that are its justification and purpose. In The Canterbury Tales, the Monk exhibits outrageous sophistry and an affiliation with other institutions. One lesson of the Monk’s portrait is the limits of the so-called institutional history of institutions. This article explores the relationship between institution and writing in the Middle Ages, when writing was not yet an institution. It considers writing as the act of instituting, a break with the homologies between institutional forms of inscription and tropes, or between the causes of literature and the pressures of an institution.

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-19
Author(s):  
István Fried

Abstract If the changes of the “discourse networks” (Aufschreibesysteme) from 1800 to 1900 model the relations pertaining to the personality, to the cultural determinedness of technology and personality as well as to their interconnections (Kittler 1995), especially having in view the literary mise en scène, it applies all the more to travelling - setting out on a journey, heading towards a destination, pilgrimage and/or wandering as well as the relationship between transport technology and personality. The changes taking place in “transport” are partly of technological, partly (in close connection with the former) indicative of individual and collective claims. The diplomatic, religious, commercial and educational journeys essentially belong to the continuous processes of European centuries; however, the appearance of the railway starts a new era at least to the same extent as the car and the airplane in the twentieth century. The journeys becoming systematic and perhaps most tightly connected to pilgrimages from the Middle Ages on assured the “transfer” of ideas, attitudes and cultural materials in the widest sense; the journeys and personal encounters (of course, taking place, in part, through correspondence) of the more cultured layers mainly, are to be highly appreciated from the viewpoint of the history of mentalities and society.


Author(s):  
John Marenbon

This chapter investigates Augustine's role in addressing the Problem of Paganism. After the Sack of Rome in 410 CE, Augustine set out to produce his most ambitious work, a Christian rethinking, not just of the history of Rome, but of the relationship between God and the course of human history. Written in the safety of North Africa, the City of God (CG), begun probably in 412 but not finished until about fourteen years later, is both an intellectual masterpiece and a foundational book for the Problem of Paganism. Although the problem has somewhat different contours for him from those it would take on in the Middle Ages, in the City of God and other works Augustine looks closely at three of the main strands of the problem — wisdom, salvation, and virtue — and takes positions which set the agenda for almost all subsequent discussion.


Author(s):  
María Luz Mandingorra Llavata

Resum: El nomen sacrum ihs se hallaba presente en infinidad de manifestaciones artísticas y objetos de la vida cotidiana durante la Edad Media, por lo que era bien conocido por los fieles. El objetivo del presente artículo es mostrar de qué modo san Vicente Ferrer se sirve de esta abreviatura como símbolo de la crucifixión de Jesucristo con el fin de fomentar la devoción al nombre Iesus y erradicar el recurso a adivinos y sortílegos. Para ello, analizaremos el sermón de la Circuncisión del Señor predicado por el maestro dominico y estableceremos la conexión de los elementos integrantes del texto con representaciones coetáneas de la crucifixión.Paraules clau: san Vicente Ferrer, predicación, Nomina Sacra, crucifixión, historia de la cultura escrita Abstract: The nomen sacrum ihs was present in many paintings as well as other artifacts during the Middle Ages, therefore, it was very well known by the public. The aim of this paper is to show the way Saint Vincent Ferrer uses this abbreviation as a symbol of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ in order to increase the devotion to the Name of Jesus and prevent people from consulting diviners and sorcerers to solve daily life problems. To this end, we analyse the Sermon of the Circumcision of the Lord preached by the Dominican master and establish the relationship between the elements that compose the text and some contemporary images of the Crucifixion.Keywords: Saint Vincent Ferrer, preaching, Nomina Sacra, crucifixion, history of literacy


1999 ◽  
pp. 10-16
Author(s):  
N. Zhyrtuyeva

The foundations of Christian culture were formed by Byzantium, which became a kind of "bridge" between the West and the East, between antiquity and the Middle Ages. For the Byzantine culture of the IV-XII centuries, there was a characteristic existence of three directions - the official theology (patristic), ascetic (intrinsic) and "anti-knitting" (oriented to dialogue with the ancient culture). The relationship between them varied in different ways during the history of Imperialism, which was reflected in its culture. In the IV-VI centuries dominant were patristic and ascetic directions. The official (moderate) theology at this stage of history was closely connected with the "anti-knotting" and sought dialogue with the ancient tradition. Only during the "Comnenian Renaissance" in the XI-XII centuries was the confrontation between ascetic and "anti-knitting" directions


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 157-177
Author(s):  
Łukasz Medeksza

Urbanology: Towards a Revivalof the Traditional European Town“Urbanology” — the term used in the title of the book Towards urbanology by the architect Stanisław Lose from Wrocław — refers to his idea of “afield of knowledge whose main subject is aman in an urbanised world”. Therefore urbanology is opposed to urbanistics, which — according to Lose — is more interested in economy, transportation or spatial planning than in people. The author of Towards urbanology strongly appreciates the medieval model of town — and its more freedom-oriented, and creativity-oriented, continuation in later ages. The author is also very impressed by the historical role of christianity as the cultural integrator of urban societies. But Lose’s book is only apretext for briefly describing the contemporary history of the traditionalist current in urbanism and enthusiastic opinions about the Middle Ages expressed by such different authors as René Guénon, Peter Kropotkin or G.K. Chesterton. Nowadays the so-called neomedivalism tries to interpret the current cultural, political and administrative diversity of Europe as anew version of the multi-level and polycentric order associated with the Middle Ages. But neomedievalism and urbanistic traditionalism raise some questions — for example those about the limits of being inspired by the Middle Ages, about the economy of the neomedieval model of town or about the relationship between the notion of the so-called living tradition in urbanism and architecture on the one hand — and historical styles on the other.


Author(s):  
Filippo SILVESTRI

Riassunto: Il rapporto tra il Medesimo e l’Altro rappresenta un leit motiv lungo l’intero arco della ricerca di Foucault. Negli anni Sessanta egli ha certamente tematizzato il problema, affrontandolo da due prospettive. L’altro è tutta la storia della follia dalla fine del Medioevo fino al limite dei primi studi di Freud. L’altro è la scrittura letteraria di Sade, Hölderlin, Nietzsche, Artaud, Bataille, Roussell, Blanchot, Klossowski, tutti insieme convocati su uno scenario filosofico, che si muove ad elastico tra teorie surrealiste della scrittura e dell’opera d’arte e prime forme di uno strutturalismo in pieno svolgimento.Abstract: The relationship between the Self and the Other represents a leitmotiv throughout Foucault’s research. In the sixties, he certainly addressed the issue from two perspectives. The Other is the whole history of madness from the end of the Middle Ages to the limits of Freud’s early studies. The Other is in the literary writings by Sade, Hölderlin, Nietzsche, Artaud, Bataille, Roussell, Blanchot, Klossowski, who are all summoned together on a philosophical scenario which ranges from surrealist theories of writing, and the work of art and first forms of structuralism in full swing.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Ylli H. Doci

The relationship of the Protestant Reformation with Nationalism is understandable if one can appreciate the nature of the general emancipation from the authority as understood during the Middle Ages to the subjectively defined authority that the Reformation brought forth. The connection of the emancipating influence of the Reformation with the Albanian National Awakening is made more clear if one understands not only the thought patterns typically associated with the Reformation, but also some historical dimensions of the Albanian language and education. Therefore, we propose here the thesis that the influence of the Protestant Reformation is discernable also in the history of Albanian Nationalism.


2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdinand Gregorovius ◽  
Annie Hamilton

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdinand Gregorovius ◽  
Annie Hamilton

Author(s):  
Jack Tannous

In the second half of the first millennium CE, the Christian Middle East fractured irreparably into competing churches and Arabs conquered the region, setting in motion a process that would lead to its eventual conversion to Islam. This book argues that key to understanding these dramatic religious transformations are ordinary religious believers, often called “the simple” in late antique and medieval sources. Largely agrarian and illiterate, these Christians outnumbered Muslims well into the era of the Crusades, and yet they have typically been invisible in our understanding of the Middle East's history. What did it mean for Christian communities to break apart over theological disagreements that most people could not understand? How does our view of the rise of Islam change if we take seriously the fact that Muslims remained a demographic minority for much of the Middle Ages? In addressing these and other questions, the book provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the religious history of the medieval Middle East. The book draws on a wealth of Greek, Syriac, and Arabic sources to recast these conquered lands as largely Christian ones whose growing Muslim populations are properly understood as converting away from and in competition with the non-Muslim communities around them.


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