Domina Paupertas: the praise of voluntary poverty by St. Francis of Assisi and its reflection in late medieval Spanish painting

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
José María Salvador González

As is well known, St. Francis of Assisi heroically embraced evangelical poverty, renouncing material goods and living in abject poverty, in imitation of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, through his writings and oral testimonies collected by his disciples, the saint fervently urged Christians to live to some degree voluntary poverty , of which Christ was the perfect model. By basing this reading on some Poverello’s quotations, this paper intends to show the potential impact that these exhortations from San Francisco to poverty may have had in the late medieval Spanish painting, in some iconographic themes so significantly Franciscan as the Nativity and the Passion of the Redeemer. Through the analysis of a large set of paintings representing both issues, we will attempt to put into light if the teachings of St. Francis on evangelical poverty are reflected somehow in Spanish painting of the late Middle Ages.

2002 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 133-144
Author(s):  
Judith Middleton-Stewart

There were many ways in which the late medieval testator could acknowledge time. Behind each testator lay a lifetime of memories and experiences on which he or she drew, recalling the names of those ‘they had fared the better for’, those they wished to remember and by whom they wished to be remembered. Their present time was of limited duration, for at will making they had to assemble their thoughts and their intentions, make decisions and appoint stewards, as they prepared for their time ahead; but as they spent present time arranging the past, so they spent present time laying plans for the future. Some testators had more to bequeath, more time to spare: others had less to leave, less time to plan. Were they aware of time? How did they control the future? In an intriguing essay, A. G. Rigg asserts that ‘one of the greatest revolutions in man’s perception of the world around him was caused by the invention, sometime in the late thirteenth century, of the mechanical weight-driven clock.’ It is the intention of this paper to see how men’s (and women’s) perception of time in the late Middle Ages was reflected in their wills, the most personal papers left by ordinary men and women of the period.


Author(s):  
Pardaev Ahrorqul Hasanovich ◽  

The article examines the historical medieval towns, fortresses and other geographical areas of the Jizzakh oasis based on written sources and data obtained from archeological excavations. As a result of scientific analysis, the geographical locations of the Jizzakh Horde and its environs, which are the location of the modern city of Jizzakh in the late Middle Ages, have been clarified.


Kavkaz-forum ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 101-119
Author(s):  
Г.Н . Вольная (Керцева)

Материальная культура позднего средневековья Дигорского ущелья Северной Осетии недостаточно хорошо изучена по сравнению с другими периодами. В статье впервые представлен комплекс археологических памятников, расположенных на Поляне Мацута Дигорского ущелья: памятники, их расположение, история изучения. Цель исследования – рассмотреть Поляну Мацута как погребальный и культовый комплекс, где находятся позднесредневековые полуподземные склепы, каменные ящики, менгиры, цырты, «нартовский» ныхас, поселения кобанского и аланского периодов. Это памятники являются почитаемыми у местного населения, упоминаются в нартовском эпосе. В статье использовались полевые методы исследования, метод анализа и аналогий. В статье представлен авторский материал спасательных раскопок 2020 г. «Грунтового могильника Мацута I, средневековье» XVI-XVIII вв. в зоне реализации проекта «Строительство фельдшерско-акушерского пункта в с. Мацута». Могильник представляет собой погребения в каменных ящиках. Всего было раскопано 75 ящиков, в которых покойные лежали вытянуто на спине головой на запад с широтными отклонениями. Некоторые ранние погребения сопровождаются обрядом кремации. Погребальный обряд находит аналогии в горной Балкарии. Для погребального обряда характерно отсутствие керамической посуды в погребениях. Над ранними погребениями могильника была устроена тризна с кремацией и большим количеством фрагментированной керамики, скорее всего местного производства. Погребальный инвентарь достаточно беден и характерен для горнокавказской культуры позднего средневековья. Во взрослых погребениях найдены одежда, обувь, пояса, головные уборы, пояса; в женских – украшения; в мужских – ножи, оселки. В детских погребениях (в большинстве случаев) слева от головы обнаружены только куриные яйца, либо погребальный инвентарь совсем отсутствует. Отмечается высокая детская смертность. Детские погребения составляют почти 50% от всего числа раскопанных погребений. The material culture of the late middle ages of the Digor gorge in North Ossetia is not well studied in comparison with other periods. The article presents for the first time a complex of archaeological monuments located in The Matsuta Glade of the Digor gorge: monuments, their location, and history of study. The purpose of the study is to consider the Matsuta Glade as a funerary and cult complex, where there are late medieval semi-underground crypts, stone boxes, menhirs, tsyrts, "nartovsky" Nykhas, settlements of the Koban and Alan periods. These monuments are revered by the local population, mentioned in the Nart epic. The article uses field research methods, the method of analysis and analogies. The article presents the author's material of rescue excavations in 2020 of the "Ground burial ground of Matsuta I, middle ages" of the XVI-XVIII centuries in the area of the project "Construction of a paramedic and midwifery station in the village of Matsuta". The burial ground is a burial in stone boxes. In total, 75 boxes were excavated, in which the deceased lay stretched out on their backs with their heads facing West with latitude deviations. Some early burials are accompanied by a cremation ceremony. The funeral rite finds analogies in the mountainous Balkaria. The funeral rite is characterized by the absence of ceramic dishes in the burials. A funeral feast with cremation and a large amount of fragmented pottery, most likely of local production, was built over the early burials of the burial ground. The grave goods are rather poor and typical for mountain Caucasian culture of the late middle ages. In adult burials found clothes, shoes, belts, headwear, belts; women's jewelry; the men's knives, whetstones. In most children's burials, only chicken eggs are found to the left of the head, or there is no burial equipment at all. Children's funerals account for almost 50% of the total number of excavated graves.


Urban History ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Del Val Valdivieso

ABSTRACTThroughout the late Middle Ages, Castilian towns underwent a process of rapid economic and political growth which the monarchy sought to control. Accordingly, the monarchy reoriented its policies towards the towns. It attempted to impose the figure of the ‘corregidor’, the representative and defender of royal interests; it intervened wherever possible in the appointment of local government offices; it played its part in urban conflicts, alternately supporting opposing factions in an effort to take advantage of the situation and secure its own interests; and finally, the state established regulations governing economic activity. The process of royal intervention culminated under the Catholic monarchs (1474–1504) with what can be considered as a royal triumph.


Traditio ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 135-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin D. Craun

Forbidden language, like forbidden knowledge, has always had its attractions. Of its many varieties, the inordinata locutio of blasphemy, speech which violates fundamental norms in the way it represents God, has held no small appeal for people in times of widespread religious practice. The late Middle Ages offers no exception to these two commonplaces of modern thought, judging from the number of civil statutes designed to extirpate blasphemy and from the stringent measures drawn up by influential clerics like Jean Gerson. This animus against blasphemy among the lettered, both lay and clerical, means that few blasphemous utterances, few of the words judged as blasphemous by someone other than the speaker, have come down to us. Preachers and compilers of catechetical handbooks, like theologians and glossators, are as silent about the actual words of blasphemers as they are eloquent about their temerity. Even the collectors of exempla, whose tales provide so much information about religious life, rarely record so much as a blasphemous phrase in their repertoire of tales about blasphemers. Perhaps these late medieval writers shared the reticence of the author of the Book of Job, who, according to the Priest (ps.- Jerome), wrote benedixerit for maledixerit, inverting the literal sense ‘quod non fuit ausus scriptor historiae ore suo in Deum dicere verbum blasphemiae.’


1986 ◽  
Vol 25 (97) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven G. Ellis

Much more so than in modern times, sharp cultural and social differences distinguished the various peoples inhabiting the British Isles in the later middle ages. Not surprisingly these differences and the interaction between medieval forms of culture and society have attracted considerable attention by historians. By comparison with other fields of research, we know much about the impact of the Westminster government on the various regions of the English polity, about the interaction between highland and lowland Scotland and about the similarities and differences between English and Gaelic Ireland. Yet the historical coverage of these questions has been uneven, and what at first glance might appear obvious and promising lines of inquiry have been largely neglected — for example the relationship between Gaelic Ireland and Gaelic Scotland, or between Wales, the north of England and the lordship of Ireland as borderlands of the English polity. No doubt the nature and extent of the surviving evidence is an important factor in explaining this unevenness, but in fact studies of interaction between different cultures seem to reflect not so much their intrinsic importance for our understanding of different late medieval societies as their perceived significance for the future development of movements culminating in the present.


1992 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 225-237
Author(s):  
Judy Ann Ford

Historians have long been aware that patronage is a crucial factor in interpreting the social meaning of art. The late Middle Ages knew a variety of patrons, each employing art to communicate different sorts of concern: royal and aristocratic courts emphasized political messages, urban communes created governmental myths, cathedrals and monasteries gave expression to spiritual ideas—and all used art to convey notions of social identity. Recent investigations into the process of choosing and procuring works of art in these contexts have not only added perspective to formal art criticism, they have also deepened our understanding of the groups interested in the creation of art. One area in which questions of patronage could perhaps be better illuminated is the community of the parish. The parish served as the primary religious community for the majority of men and women for most of the Middle Ages. It was complex in composition, involving both laity and clergy, encompassing other religious associations, such as gilds, and including the devout and the indifferent, the orthodox and the dissenters.


Author(s):  
Kathryne Beebe

Observant reform is central to the religious, social, cultural, economic, and political changes fundamental to late medieval Europe. However, modern scholars have traditionally devoted scant attention to it, focusing instead on pre-1300 religious movements or the changes of the Reformation. Yet in the past two decades, more work focusing on the ‘Observance Movement’ has begun to remedy that neglect. This chapter highlights the essential questions and issues that drive recent studies, such as property, the involvement of women and the laity, and resistance to reform. It evaluates the current challenges presented by the conceptualization of an emerging field and argues that while greater collaboration between scholars and the production of basic overviews are needed, we should also strive to understand those who professed or embodied Observant ideals not just from the viewpoint of our own labels and concepts, but also to understand them in their own terms.


2006 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 99-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryne Beebe

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.


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