scholarly journals Patterns of martyrial sanctity in the royal ideology of medieval Serbia continuity and change

Balcanica ◽  
2006 ◽  
pp. 69-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Smilja Marjanovic-Dusanic

Especially important for the development of the holy king concept with the Serbs appears to be the early period of Serbian sovereignty, initially in Zeta, and subsequently in Raska under Stefan Nemanja and his descendants. During the eleventh century, cults of royal martyrs arise across the Slavic world, receiving a most enthusiastic response connected with the spread of the martyrial and monastic ideals in Byzantium. The cult of St Vladimir is the earliest royal saint's cult with the Serbs, and it is rightfully set apart from the ideologically consistent whole encompassing the subsequent cults of the Nemanjic rulers. The cult of this royal saint undergoes a change in the twelfth century as regards the image of the exemplary ruler. The martyrial cults of holy kings emerge in medieval Serbia only in the fifteenth century, under the influence of completely different motives. The cults of national royal saints associate domestic dynasties with the Old Testament-based traditions of God-chosenness, which play a central role in the processes of securing political legitimation for ruling houses. At the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we can see both the national and universal relics being used for raising an awareness of chosen ness observable in expanding the sacred realm as the fatherland's prayerful shield. In that sense, all-Christian relics, especially those of Constantinopolitan provenance, become integrated into domestic traditions.

Author(s):  
George Garnett

Chapter 5 analyses three genres of historical writing about England in the later middle ages: histories of individual churches, universal histories, and histories of the kingdom. It confirms the provisional judgement reached in Chapter 4: that with respect to the Conquest and earlier England, historical writing fossilized. There were, however, exceptions, most of which could be categorized in the first genre. These are examined in great detail, and follow on from the treatment of the unusual episodes recorded during the thirteenth century at St Augustine’s, Canterbury and Burton Abbey which were considered in Chapter 4. The first is the problematic, neglected Historia Croylandensis attributed to (Pseudo-)Ingulf, which is for the most part a fabrication of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, but which masquerades as the work of the abbot at Crowland at the end of the eleventh century, and therefore as contemporaneous with the great post-Conquest histories of England. The second is the early fourteenth-century Lichfield Chronicle, written by Alan of Ashbourn. The third is a general history of England conventionally attributed to John Brompton, abbot of Jervaulx in the early fifteenth century, and perhaps written at the abbey. All three pay a great deal of attention to (different) twelfth-century compilations of Old English and immediately post-Conquest law. This unusual characteristic accounts for their exceptional interest in the Conquest. The chapter also includes a briefer discussion of the more conventional histories into which condensed earlier discussions of the Conquest were inserted.


The Library ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-476
Author(s):  
Zachary E Stone

Abstract Ranging from an eleventh-century Gospel Book to a fifteenth-century copy of John Gower's Confessio Amantis, the medieval manuscripts of Wadham College merit more extensive consideration than they have hitherto received. This article seeks to enable and encourage the continued investigation of Wadham College's manuscript collection by providing preliminary descriptions for eight manuscripts lacking modern descriptions (MSS 1, 2, 5, 9, 11, 12, 13, and 10.19).


2010 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19
Author(s):  
CONSTANT J. MEWS ◽  
MICHA J. PERRY

This paper revisits the question of the influence of Jewish biblical exegesis on Christian scholars in twelfth-century France, by focusing in particular on Abelard's response to a question of Heloise in herProblemataabout questions raised by1 Samuel ii.35–6 (=1 Regum ii.35–6)concerning ‘the faithful priest’ prophesied as Eli's successor, the meaning of ‘will walk before my anointed’ and the nature of the offering his household should make. Abelard's discussion of the views of an unnamed Jewish scholar illustrates a consistent movement evident in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries for certain Christian exegetes to approach Jewish scholars to resolve problems posed by the text of the Old Testament. While the passage in1 Samuelwas traditionally interpreted in a Christocentric fashion, Heloise implicitly supports a more historical reading of the text in the question she puts to Abelard. The Jewish scholar's interpretation reported by Abelard is very close to that of Rashi's twelfth-century disciples.


1929 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. McN. Rushforth

Émile Mâle says that medieval Christian art in its last period had lost touch with the great tradition of symbolism which had been so important in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and still largely dominated the art of the fourteenth. But there was one great symbolical idea which survived, and that was the harmony of the Old and New Testaments; and so we find among the most popular subjects of fifteenth-century Church art the concordance of the Apostles and Prophets in the Creed, and the series of parallels between the life of Jesus and episodes of Old Testament history, which were summed up and digested in the Biblia Pauperum and the Speculum Humanae Salvationis. The reason for the popularity of these subjects was, no doubt, their didactic value, and though Mâle does not develop this side of the subject, we may say that one, though not the only, characteristic of the religious art of the fifteenth century was that, instead of being symbolical, it became didactic. We find in this period a whole series of subjects which reduced the articles of Christian faith and practice to pictorial form, and seem to have been intended to illustrate the medieval catechism by which the teaching of the Church was imparted.


Author(s):  
BRYAN J. CUEVAS

AbstractThe ritual use of objects and images designed to serve as effigies or surrogates of specific persons, animals or spirits is more or less universal across cultures and time. In Tibet, recent archaeological evidence attests to the use of illustrated effigies possibly dating from the eleventh century. Other early Tibetan images include anthropomorphic figures inscribed on animal skulls. The practical use of effigies in Tibetan ritual, both Buddhist and Bon-po, was almost certainly derived from much older Indian practices transmitted to Tibet. In this article illustrated effigies, their iconography and ritual use are discussed and the article concludes with the translation and transliteration of a short work by the fifteenth-century treasure revealer (gter-ston) and patron saint of Bhutan Padma-gling-pa (1450–1521), which gives instructions on how to draw a liṅga for a ritual of defence against human adversaries.


X ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Gurriarán Daza

Building techniques in the medieval walls of AlmeríaAlmería was one of the most important cities in al-Andalus, a circumstance that was possible thanks to the strength of its port. Its foundation as an urban entity during the Caliphate of Córdoba originated a typical scheme of an Islamic city organized by a medina and a citadel, both walled. Subsequent city’s growths, due to the creation of two large suburbs commencing in the eleventh century, also received defensive works, creating a system of fortifications that was destined to defend the place during the rest of the Middle Ages. In this work we will analyse the construction techniques used in these military works, which cover a wide period from the beginning of the tenth century until the end of the fifteenth century. Although ashlar stone was used in the Caliphate fortification, in most of these constructions bricklayer techniques were used, more modest but very useful. In this way, the masonry and rammed earth technique were predominant, giving rise to innumerable constructive phases that in recent times are being studied with archaeological methodology, thus to know better their evolution and main characteristics. 


Author(s):  
Alan Cole

This chapter focuses on koans. The English word “koan” comes from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese gong'an, which means “public case” in the sense of a legal precedent. The term gong'an begins to appear in Chan texts in the first half of the twelfth century as a technical term for a particular literary gesture that had already been in vogue in the eleventh century, one in which an author first selected a particular vignette or dialogue from some older strata of Chan literature and then offered commentary on it, or a poem about it, or often both. Thus, it took at least two Chan masters to make a koan—the one who supposedly first said or did something that was recorded in a Chan text, and a later one who took interest in just that account and developed it with his own commentary and/or poems.


Rashi ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 3-11
Author(s):  
Avraham Grossman

This chapter discusses the social and cultural background of Rashi's work. According to evidence preserved in the literary accounts and archaeological findings, Jews began to settle in what is now France during Roman times, in the first century CE. That settlement continued uninterrupted until Rashi's time. In general, Jews continued to do well in France. Nevertheless, the weakness of the central government and the ascendancy of local fiefdoms meant that their social and political status differed in each of the feudal states that made up eleventh-century France, depending upon the good will of the local rulers. Two developments during the eleventh and twelfth centuries influenced Jewish economic and intellectual life and the internal organization of the Jewish community: the growth of cities and the European intellectual renaissance. The chapter then looks at the Jewish community in Troyes and the Jewish centre in Champagne; the twelfth-century renaissance; and the Jewish–Christian religious polemics.


Author(s):  
James Morton

Chapter 4 examines the surviving nomocanonical manuscripts from the period of Byzantine rule in early medieval southern Italy (tenth–eleventh centuries). Very few manuscripts survive from before the twelfth century, so their content must be reconstructed from later codices. Nonetheless, this chapter argues that enough evidence has been preserved to prove that Byzantine canon law was firmly established in southern Italy from the time of the empire’s ecclesiastical and administrative reorganisations of the ninth and tenth centuries. The chapter shows that, as the Byzantines reconquered territories from the Lombards and established new ecclesiastical centres in Reggio, S. Severina, and Otranto, they introduced the Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles, the Nomocanon in Fifty Titles, and the Synopsis of Canons to serve as legal reference works. It then focuses on the Carbone nomocanon (Vat. gr. 1980–1981), the only complete nomocanon to survive from the era of Byzantine rule, arguing that it was probably produced in the eleventh century for use by a Greek bishop in Lucania. The manuscript’s contents and marginalia indicate that its owner was fully aligned with the legal system of Constantinople and show no influences from neighbouring Latin jurisdictions. Finally, the chapter looks at evidence from the period of Norman conquest in the late eleventh century, revealing how the resulting tensions between Latin and Greek Christians in the region left traces of contemporary Byzantine polemic against the azyma (unleavened bread in the Eucharist) in Calabrian nomocanons of the twelfth century.


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