scholarly journals The Laws of the Temple and the Proper Sleep in Biblical and Rabbinic traditions

2018 ◽  
pp. 12-32
Author(s):  
Svetlana Babkina
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Third ◽  
The People ◽  
Bed Form ◽  
The Temple ◽  
The Middle Ages

This article deals with the idea that the bed should be placed north to south and not from west to east formulated in B. Berakhot 5b. As the later tradition says, this rule stays actual during the middle ages and till these days. According to the commentators this rule is based on the idea, that the Shekhinah lays from west to east, so this direction became sacred. There are three reasons to avoid this position during the sleep. All of them are connected to the ritual impurity. The first is nocturnal emission, which can happen to a man or a woman and which make that person impure. The second reason is the connection of sleep to death, which is the «father of fathers of impurities». The third is the vulnerability of the human being from the side of the different kind of night demonic creatures, who can kill the people (and make them ritually impure). All the ideas have deep biblical roots, but were combined only in rabbinical period when the prescription to put the bed form north to south first appeared. The problem is, that the practice could be very much older than the rabbinic tradition. This the rule formulated in Talmud can serve as a good example of adaptation of popular beliefs toward the official religion. From the other side this example shows that inside the monotheistic tradition there always was a place for ideas rooted in archaic societies: here we can see the clearly formulated idea, that by the manipulation sleeping space one can influence prosperity.

Rus’ – Byzantium – Europe: An Attempt at Triangulation?

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 169-176
Author(s):  
Sergey A. Ivanov
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Intellectual Development ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
The Other ◽  
Practical Application ◽  
The West ◽  
The People ◽  
The Common ◽  
East And West ◽  
The Middle Ages

The critique of Francis Thomson constitutes only part of Ostrowski’s book. The other part, completely unrelated to the first one, is dedicated to a comparison of the intellectual development of the two halves of the Christian world in the Middle Ages. Ostrowski’s assertion that the Byzantines did not include logic in their school curriculum is untrue. What seems to him to be the main difference between East and West does not take root until the end of the 12th century. The West was drifting away from the common patterns of ancient Mediterranean civilization. The East largely remained the same. The Byzantines did not feel any special inclination toward the practical application of theoretical ideas. The people of Old Rus’, on the contrary, were quick at learning and innovating. Respect for tradition inevitably played a smaller role in a nascent culture than in a culture that had been born old.

Introduction

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Hinton
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Period ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Standing ◽  
Single Group ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The People ◽  
Direct Reflection ◽  
The Middle Ages

The aim of this book is to examine some of the ways in which people in medieval Britain presented themselves. It is primarily about small artefacts, especially jewellery. It says little about costume, although that provided the immediate setting for many of the objects discussed; nor is it a study of buildings, although those provided the backdrop for the people wearing the costume. Nor is it a catalogue. Instead, it considers the reasons for people’s decisions to acquire, display, conceal, and discard some of the things that were important to them, and examines how much the wish to acquire, retain, and pass such things on to heirs explains behaviour in the Middle Ages. The book’s approach is chronological, to explore the changes and the reasons for them during the whole of the Middle Ages. It is not restricted to the study of a single group of people, but explores the significance to the whole of society of some of the things available at various times, and the restrictions that limited their acquisition and use. Many of the objects considered and the documents cited relate to the richest or most powerful people, but one of the aims of the book is to consider whether theirs was an example that others invariably sought to follow, or whether at different times different aspirations were expressed, showing social disharmony and disunity. Because the emphasis of the book is on the artefacts that people used in order to show their affiliations and status, it says little about such things as household items. Locks and keys, for instance, were in most periods primarily functional; important as they are for showing the need for security in medieval buildings, they were rarely made with an eye on what people were going to think of those who turned them—except in the early period, they do not seem to have been regarded as things that served to define their owners’ social place or aspirations. Details of weapons, armour, and horse trappings do not get much attention either, since their finer points would have mattered only to a very privileged few. On the other hand, drinking-vessels and tableware are included, because they were very often used in ways that made them visible and a direct reflection of social standing.

Bernard of Clairvaux

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Patrick McGuire
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Spirit ◽  
The People ◽  
Historical Figure ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
Saint Bernard Of Clairvaux ◽  
Saint Bernard ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

This intimate portrait of one of the Middle Ages' most consequential men, delves into the life of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux to offer a refreshing interpretation that finds within this grand historical figure a deeply spiritual human being who longed for the reflective quietude of the monastery even as he helped shape the destiny of a church and a continent. Heresy and crusade, politics and papacies, theology and disputation shaped this astonishing man's life, and this book presents it all. Following Bernard from his birth in 1090 to his death in 1153 at the abbey he had founded four decades earlier, the book reveals a life teeming with momentous events and spiritual contemplation, from Bernard's central roles in the first great medieval reformation of the Church and the Second Crusade, which he came to regret, to the crafting of his books, sermons, and letters. We see what brought Bernard to monastic life and how he founded Clairvaux Abbey, established a network of Cistercian monasteries across Europe, and helped his brethren monks and abbots in heresy trials, affairs of state, and the papal schism of the 1130s. By re-evaluating Bernard's life and legacy through his own words and those of the people closest to him, the book reveals how this often-challenging saint saw himself and conveyed his convictions to others. Above all, the biography depicts Saint Bernard of Clairvaux as a man guided by Christian revelation and open to the achievements of the human spirit.

Richard Cœur de Lion and the Pas Saladin in Medieval Art

PMLA ◽  
1915 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-528
Author(s):  
Roger Sherman Loomis
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Critical Edition ◽  
Medieval Art ◽  
Middle English Romance ◽  
The Third ◽  
The People ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Middle Ages

Every student of the literature of the Middle Ages is aware that Eichard I was a highly popular figure in medieval England, and that about the historical facts of his career there grew up with rapidity and luxuriance a considerable growth of romantic legend. As his fame challenged the pre-eminence of Arthur among British heroes, so his exploits, like Arthur's, multiplied and grew more marvelous in the imagination of the people, though for obvious reasons the process never went so far. To Richard's prestige among his own people we have abundant testimony in the seven manuscripts of the Middle English romance of Richard Cœur de Lion extant and in the three printed editions of the sixteenth century. As Ellis pointed out, as early as 1805, in introducing his synopsis of the romance, it is a curious texture of narrative mainly historical concerning the Third Crusade, interwoven liberally with bits of this legendary material. It will be profitable, before dealing with illustrations of certain episodes occurring in the romance, to devote some attention to its development and structure. In a review of Dr. Karl Brunner's critical edition of Richard Cœur de Lion, to be published elsewhere, I hope to deal fully with the subject, and merely summarize here the results of my investigations. I owe much to Dr. Brunner's discussion, but more to that of Gaston Paris, whose conclusions in general I adopt.

The Hierophanic Facets of the Seraphic Hymns

Trictrac ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petru Adrian Danciu
Keyword(s):  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Material World ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The People ◽  
Musical History ◽  
The Face ◽  
The One

Starting from the cry of the seraphim in Isaiahʹ s prophecy, this article aims to follow the rhythm of the sacred harmony, transcending the symbols of the angelic world and of the divine names, to get to the face to face meeting between man and God, just as the seraphim, reflecting their existence, stand face to face. The finality of the sacred harmony is that, during the search for God inside the human being, He reveals Himself, which is the reason for the affirmation of “I Am that I Am.” Through its hypnotic cyclicality, the profane temporality has its own musicality. Its purpose is to incubate the unsuspected potencies of the beings “caught” in the material world. Due to the fact that it belongs to the aeonic time, the divine music will exceed in harmony the mechanical musicality of profane time, dilating and temporarily cancelling it. Isaiah is witness to such revelation offering access to the heavenly concert. He is witness to divine harmonies produced by two divine singers, whose musical history is presented in our article. The seraphim accompanied the chosen people after their exodus from Egypt. The cultic use of the trumpet is related to the characteristics and behaviour of the seraphim. The seraphic music does not belong to the Creator, but its lyrics speak about the presence of the Creator in two realities, a spiritual and a material one. Only the transcendence of the divine names that are sung/cried affirms a unique reality: God. The chant-cry is a divine invocation with a double aim. On the one hand, the angels and the people affirm God’s presence and call His name and, on the other, the Creator affirms His presence through the angels or in man, the one who is His image and His likeness. The divine music does not only create, it is also a means of communion, implementing the relation of man to God and, thus, God’s connection with man. It is a relation in which both filiation and paternity disappear inside the harmony of the mutual recognition produced by music, a reality much older than Adam’s language.

ISLAMIC COINS FROM EASTERN GIZA (EGYPT)

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-62
Author(s):  
E. Yu. Goncharov ◽  
◽  
S. E. Malykh ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Human Activity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Ancient Rock ◽  
Oriental Studies ◽  
The Middle Ages

The article focuses on the attribution of one gold and two copper coins discovered by the Russian Archaeological Mission of the Institute of Oriental Studies RAS in the ancient Egyptian necropolis of Giza. Coins come from mixed fillings of the burial shafts of the Ancient Egyptian rock-cut tombs of the second half of the 3rd millennium B.C. According to the archaeological context, the coins belong to the stages of the destruction of ancient burials that took place during the Middle Ages and Modern times. One of the coins is a Mamluk fals dating back to the first half of the 14th century A.D., the other two belong to the 1830s — the Ottoman period in Egypt, and are attributed as gold a buchuk hayriye and its copper imitation. Coins are rare for the ancient necropolis and are mainly limited to specimens of the 19th–20th centuries. In general, taking into account the numerous finds of other objects — fragments of ceramic, porcelain and glass utensils, metal ware, glass and copper decorations, we can talk about the dynamic nature of human activity in the ancient Egyptian cemetery in the 2nd millennium A.D. Egyptians and European travelers used the ancient rock-cut tombs as permanent habitats or temporary sites, leaving material traces of their stay.

Eva Parra-Membrives/Albrecht Classen (Hrsg. / Eds.): Literatur am Rand: Perspektiven der Trivialliteratur vom Mittelalter bis zum 21. Jahrhundert // Literature on the Margin: Perspectives on Trivial Literature from the Middle Ages to the 21st Century. Tübingen. Narr-Verlag, 2013.

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 295-296
Author(s):  
Peter Pabisch
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Comparative Studies ◽  
The Third ◽  
Language Studies ◽  
The Middle Ages ◽  
Literature And Language

Abstract The three scholarly works of recent years illuminate the versatility of their main editor Albrecht Classen in the interdisciplinary world of comparative studies, in literature and language studies. Together with his colleague Eva Parra-Membrives he offers insights on trivial literature also in view of bestsellers concerning the first two works under discussion here. The third work on multilingualism in the middle ages he edited alone. For all the works he found an impressive number of contributors who fill the chalice of offerings in a most versatile canon of topics.

Aristotle's Unmoved Movers

Traditio ◽  
1946 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Merlan
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Other ◽  
World Picture ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Concentric Spheres ◽  
The One ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Middle Ages

According to Aristotle all heavenly movement is ultimately due to the activity of forty-seven (or fifty-five) ‘unmoved movers'. This doctrine is highly remarkable in itself and has exercised an enormous historical influence. It forms part of a world-picture the outlines of which are as follows. The universe consists of concentric spheres, revolving in circles. The outermost of these bears the fixed stars. The other either bear planets or, insofar as they do not, contribute indirectly to the movements of the latter. Each sphere is moved by the one immediately surrounding it, but also possesses a movement of its own, due to its mover, an unmoved, incorporeal being. (It was these beings which the schoolmen designated as theintelligentiae separatae.) The seemingly irregular movements of the planets are thus viewed as resulting from the combination of regular circular revolutions. The earth does not move and occupies the centre of the universe. Such was Aristotle's astronomic system, essential parts of which were almost universally adopted by the Arabic, Jewish, and Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages.

scholarly journals Deux fragments de portraits funéraires romains de Deir el-Bahari

2011 ◽  
pp. 259-266
Author(s):  
Zsolt Kiss ◽  
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
General Context ◽  
Small Fragment ◽  
Intermediate Period ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Third Intermediate Period

Two fragments of painted Roman funerary portraits on wooden panels of the Fayum type, discovered in 2001 during a revisiting of the Third Intermediate Period shaft tombs inside the Chapel of Hatshepsut in the Royal Mortuary Cult Complex at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Deir el-Bahari, come from 19th century excavations, hence are without anything but a general context. The pieces are very small—fragment of a robe, sliver of a face with one eye—but in a brilliant analysis of iconography and style Kiss identifies one as a depiction of a female, possibly a priestess of Isis, from the second half of the 2nd century AD, and the other as a male portrait from the 2nd century. The portraits may belong to what some scholars have called “Theban” painted funerary portraits and they must have come from a Roman necropolis in West Thebes, possibly Deir el-Medineh. On any case, they are proof that mummies with painted portraits of the deceased on wooden panels fitted into the cartonnages were not unknown in ancient Thebes.

scholarly journals Early Slavic housing from Belz surroundings

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 224-234
Author(s):  
Taras Mylian
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Other ◽  
Compacted Clay ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Big City ◽  
Conservation Research ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Middle Ages

Territory of the upper reaches of Western Bug River, especially the annalistic of Belz in Solokiya and its surroundings, is rich in archeological sites. In 2016, as part of the Program «Protection and Preservation of the Cultural Heritage of the Lviv Region for 2016–2018», conservation research was conducted at the settlement Belz 22 (Hora). It is a multi-layered settlement with cultural and chronological horizons from the final Paleolithic to modern times. Information and research on it were conducted with advantages during XX century however, for the first time in the settlement; remains of a Slavic dwelling-semi-dugout (object 20) of the Prague culture were discovered and studied. Research has shown that dwelling had two periods of functioning. Traces of restructuring were confirmed, which led to a reduction of the area and changing of the shape – from rectangular to square. Evidence of the reconstruction was the remains of two clay ovens, the oldest of which was partially cut down by a later wall. Under the remains of this wall above the furnace a Roman denarius of the II century was found. Ovens are built on special sites made of compacted clay. The older oven has a dome lined with special rollers. Discovered material is represented mainly by handmade ceramic pots, some of them are reconstructed. Some of the forms of utensils were common during the late V – early VI centuries, and the other part – during the second half of VI – early VII century. This division corresponded to the periods of housing. An important find was the weights for the loom, which were reused to build the oven. An additional evidence of the development of weaving in the settlement is a bi-conical spinner with flat platforms, which comes from dwelling. The settlement on the outskirts of the annalistic Belz is characterized by permanence and genetic connection throughout the Middle Ages – from individual Slavic settlements in this region to the creation of a separate principality around the big city. Key words: Prague culture, Belz, Solokiya, dwelling, oven, ceramics, denarius.

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