scholarly journals Jesuit Sanctity: Hypothesizing the Continuity of a Hagiographic Narrative of the Modern Age

2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Franco Motta ◽  
Eleonora Rai

Abstract The introduction to this special issue provides some considerations on early modern sanctity as a historical object. It firstly presents the major shifts in the developing idea of sanctity between the late medieval period and the nineteenth century, passing through the early modern construction of sanctity and its cultural, social, and political implications. Secondly, it provides an overview of the main sources that allow historians to retrace early modern sanctity, especially canonization records and hagiographies. Thirdly, it offers an overview of the ingenious role of the Society of Jesus in the construction of early modern sanctity, by highlighting its ability to employ, create, and play with hagiographical models. The main Jesuit models of sanctity are then presented (i.e., the theologian, the missionary, the martyr, the living saint), and an important reflection is reserved for the specific martyrial character of Jesuit sanctity. The introduction assesses the continuity of the Jesuit hagiographical discourse throughout the long history of the order, from the origins to the suppression and restoration.

Author(s):  
Agnès Graceffa

The Merovingian period has long been contested ground on which a variety of ideologies and approaches have been marshaled to debate the significance of the “end” of antiquity and the start of the Middle Ages. Particularly important to these discussions has been the role of this period in shaping national identity across western Europe; interpretations of the Merovingians have varied as political realities have changed in Europe, going back, in some cases, as far as the late medieval period. This chapter focuses mainly on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but offers examples as early as the seventeenth century as to how the Merovingian period has been harnessed for a large number of purposes and how these sometimes polemical interpretations have encouraged or stymied our understanding of this period.


2017 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 231-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Payne

The mortuary roll of John Islip (1464–1532), Abbot of Westminster, is the finest example of its kind to survive in England. The drawings, possibly by Gerard Horenbout, afford the only views of the interior of Westminster Abbey before the Dissolution. The discovery of eighteenth-century copies of an unknown, coloured version of the roll provides important new evidence for both the circumstances of the production and the later history of both rolls. It also provides, for the first time, an authentic colour view of the interior of Westminster Abbey in the late medieval period, and new information on its decoration.


2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 149-173
Author(s):  
Taryn E. L. Chubb ◽  
Taryn E. L. Chubb ◽  
Emily Kelley

Abstract When the mendicant orders were founded in the thirteenth century, they quickly began to cultivate mutually beneficial relationships with the emerging merchant class. This special issue of Medieval Encounters is an interdisciplinary study of the complex connections that developed between the two groups throughout the Mediterranean during the late medieval period. These relationships have rarely been addressed in the scholarship on this period, but in urban centers throughout the medieval Mediterranean, friars and merchants crossed paths daily and the evidence of their interaction reveals the extent to which the two communities came to depend upon one another.


Author(s):  
Margaret C. Storrie

SynopsisThe earliest evidence of prehistoric activity in Scotland comes from Jura. Most of Jura has been rather inimical to settlement, in comparison with other islands of the southern Inner Hebrides—Colonsay and Oronsay, Gigha and Cara, and Islay—all endowed with deposits more useful to man than Jura. Land use and settlement in these islands spread from the coasts into and up the river valleys until the first half of the19th century, after which they retreated. There have, however, been several waves of retreat and readvance.This paper assesses the present stage of research in the chronicle of these changes in the southern islands, pointing to some of the unanswered questions. The archaeological, onomastic and historical evidence is briefly examined against a slowly changing environment that has been relatively favourable, in a Hebridean context. Areal expansion, upward extension and intensified use of the land increased in momentum, with interruptions, after the late medieval period. The time of greatest change began just after the middle of the 18th century and lasted for another century.Elements of this change and its effects on settlement are discussed, using records and maps from private and official archives, topographic and other writings, and population and agrarian censuses. The important role of landlords, their agents and subsequent planners in instituting, and even containing, change is briefly assessed. In the southern Inner Hebrides an unusual, non-crofting landscape resulted: an estate, farming and sporting landscape, with, in the case of Islay, over a dozen industrial and service villages.The characteristic ‘Highland Problem’ of landscape and land use, increasingly ill-suited to the needs of later 19th and 20th century economy and society, has been less evident in these islands than in others in the Hebrides, although they now show disturbing trends. Present land use and settlement are briefly examined.


Author(s):  
Brian Cummings

Autobiography as a concept asks deep questions about the periodization of history. It is also a scene of persistent rivalry in the construction of medieval and Renaissance models of history. Since Jakob Burckhardt’sDie Kultur der Renaissance in Italienof 1860, there has been a war of ownership over the rise of human subjectivity. This article examines the debate over the history of autobiography by focusing on St. Augustine and hisConfessions. It considers the exposure of theConfessionsto different kinds of reading during the late medieval period, including that by Petrarch. It argues that theConfessionshas been read more extensively in the twentieth century than ever before and that the Augustine of the “invention of subjectivity” is a writer of a specifically twentieth-century imagination. In this way it also assesses the impact of the Reformation on theConfessions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Baranna Baker

AbstractWith Medieval Philosophy Redefined as the Latin Age, John Deely has written a truly revolutionary book. Both medieval historians and semioticians alike will gain a new perspective on their subject matter upon reading Medieval Philosophy Redefined. In it, Deely traces the history of the sign by going to its roots in the writings of Augustine, and following it through to the time of John Poinsot. John Poinsot, a previously marginalized philosopher from the late medieval period, factors greatly in Deely’s book. Poinsot makes it possible to get through the “thicket” of nominalism and see beyond Renaissance Humanism. Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that, by using the sign as the point of departure, Deely has found a constant thread that runs through the Medieval Ages, making it, the sign, a key to understanding medieval philosophy from its start to its finish.


Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tillo Detige

As recent research on the former bhaṭṭāraka lineages of Western and Central India has shown, the early modern Digambara tradition, rather than constituting a distinct, and defective, ‘bhaṭṭāraka era’, shows much similarity to contemporary Digambara Jainism. Bhaṭṭārakas were regarded and venerated as ideal renouncers. Many of their practices accorded to those of today’s Digambara munis, and the bhaṭṭāraka saṅghas also featured renouncers of the muni and ācārya ranks, long thought to have abruptly become obsolete in the late medieval period. This new understanding of early modern Digambara Jainism is corroborated by the present article, which deals with early modern bhaṭṭāraka consecration rituals (paṭṭābhiṣeka, dīkṣā). The study is mainly based on two genres of sources. Sanskrit bhaṭṭāraka consecration manuals (dīkṣā-vidhi, pada-sthāpanā-vidhi), firstly, outline the preparations, the ritual proceedings, and the festivities to be held. Some vernacular songs of praise (gīta, etc.) of individual bhaṭṭārakas, secondly, focus specifically on their consecrations. These song compositions confirm many of the manuals’ prescriptions, while also adding elements not attested in the latter. Read in conjunction, both sources allow a relatively detailed understanding of early modern bhaṭṭāraka consecrations, show they closely resembled contemporary Digambara initiations, and confirm the former venerability of early modern bhaṭṭārakas in their own times.


Author(s):  
Natália Da Silva Perez

In this introductory text to the special issue Regulating Access: Privacy and the Private in Early Modern Dutch Contexts, Natália da Silva Perez argues that privacy can be a productive analytical lens to examine the social history of the Dutch Republic. She starts by providing an overview of theoretical definitions of privacy and of the ‘private versus public’ dichotomy, highlighting their implications for the study of society. Next, she discusses the modern view of privacy as a legally protected right, explaining that we must adjust expectations when applying the concept to historical examination: in the early modern period, privacy was not yet fully incorporated within a legal framework, and yet, it was a widespread need across different echelons of society. She provides a historical overview of this widespread need for privacy through instances where people attempted to regulate access to their material and immaterial resources. Finally, she describes how the four articles in this special issue contribute to our understanding of the role of privacy in early modern Dutch life.


Author(s):  
L. W. C. van Lit

This book traces the notion of a world of image from its conception until today. This notion is one of the most original innovations in medieval Islamic philosophy, and is unique compared to other parts of the history of philosophy. The notion originated out of discussions on the fate of human beings after death; would this be spiritual only or physical as well? The world of image suggests that there exists a world of non-physical (imagined) bodies, beyond our earthly existence. This world may be entered after death and glimpses of it may already be witnessed during sleep or meditation. Ibn Sīnā (d. 1037) was the first to suggest something along these lines, arguing that people could simply imagine their afterlife without the need for it to be actually physical. Suhrawardī (d. 1191) included this suggestion in his innovative thinking on epistemology, known as ‘knowledge by presence’, without fully ontologizing it. Shahrazūrī (d. > 1286), finally, turned Suhrawardī’s thinking into the full-blown notion of a world of image. Notably through Taftāzānī (d. 1390) and Shaykh Bahāʾī (d. 1621), the idea gained wider popularity and continued to be discussed, especially in Shīʿī circles, up to this day. This book gives an insight into late medieval and early modern Islamic philosophy, especially the role of commentary writing. It sets the record straight for the provenance and development of the world of image and reconsiders the importance of Suhrawardī for the development of philosophy in the Islamic world.


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