Hagiography as Political Documentation : The Case of Betha Beraigh (The Life of St Berach)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ksenia Kudenko
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Church Reform ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
Textual Structure ◽  
Political Background

The focus of the article is on the historical stimuli which might have prompted the compilation of the Irish Life of St Berach, Betha Beraigh, and on the textual structure and motifs employed by the hagiographer to achieve his goals, i.e. to extol his patron saint and to claim territories for his church. Although the twelfth century was characterized by Church reform, Betha Beraigh seems to show little interest in contemporary religious discourse. Instead, the main purpose of the text seems to be concern with property, as well as desire to forge or revive connections with secular dynasties. The Life, therefore, represents a property record and accordingly, should be read against a political background as a document similar in its intent to continental charters.

The Military Orders

2020 ◽  
pp. 247-263
Author(s):  
Jochen Burgtorf
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Church Reform ◽  
High Middle Ages ◽  
Military Orders ◽  
The Military ◽  
Order State

The chapter discusses the two major international military orders of the high Middle Ages, the Templars and the Hospitallers. It outlines their origins in the twelfth-century Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, as well as the factors that contributed to their emergence, such as pilgrimage, the eleventh-century Church reform, knighthood and chivalry, the Crusades, and the role of the papacy. It then considers the comparative historiography of Templars and Hospitallers, including the scholarly debate on the Templars’ suppression and the Hospitallers’ survival. The chapter goes on to address the question of the military orders’ identity by examining the extent of the Templars’ charity and hospitality, the question of the Hospitallers’ militarization, and the genesis of the concept of an ‘order state’. It concludes with suggestions for future research.

Tunisian Performances of the Sufi Ascent: the ‘Issawiya Hadra Ritual

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 260-271
Author(s):  
Dia Barghouti
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Center ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
Ibn Arabi ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Philosophical Writings

Focusing on the hadra ritual of the ‘Issawiya Sufi community, in this article Dia Barghouti explores how the narrative of the Prophet Muhammad's ‘night journey’ is performed within the Tunisian socio-cultural context. Drawing on the philosophical writings of the twelfth-century Sufi saint Muhyidin Ibn ‘Arabi, the author examines how re-enacting narratives of transcendence, and particularly of myths associated with the patron saint of the order, Sidi Ben-’Issa, allows members of the ‘Issawiya community to explore the ontological principles of Sufi cosmology by experiencing them directly in the body. Dia Barghouti is a playwright and PhD candidate in the Department of Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her plays have been performed at Ashtar Theatre and the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center in Ramallah in Palestine.

San Miguel the Arcángel, Capitan of Many Troops

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Patricia Farfán
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Cultural Resistance ◽  
Indigenous Identity ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
Ritual Dance ◽  
Principal Tool ◽  
The Military ◽  
Good And Evil

St. Michael the Archangel is a biblical icon the Spanish brought to Mexico during the sixteenth century. He was used for evangelization as part of a religious discourse incorporating icons as its principal tool, strongly impacting indigenous people. Considered a leader of God’s armies fighting against evil, Michael became the patron saint of soldiers. Danza de Migueles is a Mexican ritual dance-drama about the fight between good and evil, still performed each year by Nahuas and Totonacas indigenous people of Puebla and Veracruz. It reinvents the military attributes of a Catholic icon within the frame of Mesoamerican religions, shaping indigenous identity with new ways of cultural resistance. This chapter addresses changes and reinterpretations that St. Michael’s iconography underwent when placed in a dancing context and how it has served the Nahuas from Tzinacapan in building their identity as a distinct ethnic group in contemporary Mexico.

Walking in the Shadows of the Past: The Jewish Experience of Rome in the Twelfth Century

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 464-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ra‘anan S. Boustan ◽  
Marie Thérèse Champagne
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Jerusalem Temple ◽  
The Past ◽  
Jewish Experience

AbstractThe Jewish and Christian inhabitants of twelfth-century Rome viewed the urban landscape of their city through the lens of its ancient past. Their perception of Rome was shaped by a highly localized topography of cultural memory that was both shared and contested by Jews and Christians. Our reconstruction of this distinctively Roman perspective emerges from a careful juxtaposition of the report of Benjamin of Tudela’s visit to Rome preserved in his Itinerary and various Christian liturgical and topographical texts, especially those produced by the canons of the Lateran basilica. These sources demonstrate that long-standing local claims regarding the presence in Rome of ancient artifacts from the Jerusalem Temple and their subsequent conservation in the Lateran acquired particular potency in the twelfth century. Jews and Christians participated in a common religious discourse that invested remains from the biblical and Jewish past reportedly housed in Rome with symbolic capital valued by the two communities and that thus fostered both contact and competition between them. During this pivotal century and within the special microcosm of Rome, Jews and Christians experienced unusually robust cultural and social interactions, especially as the Jews increasingly aligned themselves with the protective power of the papacy.

The Piety of Henry III

Henry III ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 273-348
Author(s):  
David Carpenter
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
Fourth Lateran Council ◽  
Edward The Confessor

This chapter focuses on the piety of Henry III. King Henry III was widely regarded by his contemporaries as a ‘rex Christianissimus’, ‘a most Christian king’. Everything known about his religious practices confirms that opinion. In some areas, notably the distribution of alms and the hearing of masses, he was doing what all his predecessors had done, but on a new scale and with a new intensity. In other areas, notably in his efforts to convert the Jews to Christianity and his adoption of Edward the Confessor as his patron saint, he was doing something very new. His devotion to the Confessor, in particular, became central to his life and led to the greatest monument of his kingship, the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey. One reason for Henry's piety was almost certainly his father's reputation for impiety. Henry also lived in a new spiritual environment, one created by the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council, the work of pastorally minded bishops, the preaching and example of the friars, and the ideas developed in the twelfth century about purgatory, confession, penance, and the eucharist.

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