scholarly journals Rabbit Uroscopy and the Virgin Mary with Christ Child

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Casey Ng
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Art History ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Medieval Manuscripts ◽  
Religious Text ◽  
Book Of Hours ◽  
Medieval Text ◽  
Morgan Library

Objectives The depiction of a rabbit with a urinary matula on the same page with the Virgin Mary and the Christ child in a medieval text, the Book of Hours, has raised interests among art and medical historians. We will describe the complex interplay between the rabbit, the matula, and the Virgin Mary. Methods We studied the original illuminated texts from the medieval (ca. 1475) Book of Hours archived in the Morgan Library, New York. We reviewed articles and historical publications from art history and medical literature. Results The Book of Hours was composed for use by lay people who wished to incorporate elements of monasticism into their devotional life. There was often an amalgamation of religious and secular themes within these illustrated texts. The use of uroscopy to diagnose ailments was prevalent and popular during the Middle Ages and the depiction of a matula was not uncommon in medieval manuscripts. As a result, the urine flask came to be identified with and used as a symbol of the physician, much like the caduceus is today. From the fourth century to modernity, the rabbit has been an averter of evil and bringer of good luck. Rabbits functioned as motifs in many medieval manuscripts. The physician rabbit in the Book of Hours depicted charity, healing, and scholarship. Conclusions The bespectacled rabbit holding a ‘matula’ is utilized in this Christian religious text as a symbol of the healing properties and resurrection attributed to Jesus, potentially contributing to the reader’s religious experience.

Sherry C. M. Lindquist and Asa Simon Mittman. With a Preface by China Miéville, Medieval Monsters: Terrors, Aliens, Wonders. New York: The Morgan Library & Museum, 2018, 175 pp., more than 90 colored ill.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 284-284
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Femme Fatale ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Narrow Sense ◽  
The World ◽  
Evil Spirits ◽  
Morgan Library ◽  
Illustrated Book

This wonderfully illustrated book accompanied an exhibition that took place at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, from June 8 to September 23, 2018, authored by two well established and respected art historian*s, who provide us with a sweeping view of the world of monsters and many other related creatures in medieval fantasy. While previous research mostly focused on monsters in the narrow sense of the word, i.e., grotesque and oversized human-like creatures normally threatening ordinary people in their existence, Lindquist and Mittman pursue a much broader perspective and incorporate also many other features in human imagination, including wonders, aliens, Jews, Muslims, strangers in general, the femme fatale, sirens, undines, mermaids (but there is no reference to the Melusine figure, though she would fit much better into the general framework), devils, and evil spirits. However, I do not understand why ‘gargoyles’ have been left out here. This vast approach allows them also to address the beasts from the Physiologus tradition, then natural wonders, giants, and then, quite surprisingly, religious scenes in psalters (148), depictions of nobles playing chess (150; where are the wild men alleged surrounding the players?), the whore of Babylon (153), figures from the Apocalypse, and anything else that smacks of wonder.

Anna Russakoff, Imagining the Miraculous: Miraculous Images of the Virgin Mary in French Illuminated Manuscripts, ca. 1250-ca. 1450. Studies and Texts, 215; Text Image Context: Studies in Medieval Manuscript Illumination, 7. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2019, xviii, 194 pp., ill.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 541-544
Author(s):  
Juan Carlos Bayo
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old French ◽  
Illuminated Manuscripts ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Medieval Manuscript ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
Image Context ◽  
Panel Paintings

This monograph deals with illuminated manuscripts created in French-speaking regions from the mid-thirteenth to the mid-fifteenth century, i.e., from the earliest narratives of Marian miracles written in <?page nr="542"?>Old French to the codices produced at the Burgundian court at the waning of the Middle Ages. Its focus, however, is very specific: it is a systematic analysis of the miniatures depicting both material representations of the Virgin (mainly sculptures, but also icons, panel paintings, altarpieces or reliquaries) and the miracles performed by them, usually as Mary’s reaction to a prayer (or an insult) to one of Her images.

The Fate of Small Towns, Hilltop Settlements, and Elite Residences in Merovingian-Period Gaul

2020 ◽  
pp. 610-640
Author(s):  
Luc Bourgeois
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Power Networks ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
The Many

The study of places of power in the Merovingian realm has long been focused on cities, monasteries, and royal palaces. Recent archaeological research has led to the emergence of other categories. Four of them are addressed in this chapter. These include the capitals of fallen cities, which continue to mark the landscape in one way or another. Similarly, the fate of small Roman towns during the early Middle Ages shows that most of them continued to host a variety of secular and ecclesiastical powers. In addition, from the fourth century onward, large hilltop fortified settlements multiplied anew. They complemented earlier networks of authority, whether elite residences, artisan communities, or real towns. Finally, from the seventh century onward, the great aristocratic villas of late antiquity were transformed into settlements organized around one or more courtyards and supplemented by funerary and religious structures. The evolution of political spaces and lifestyles explains both the ruptures in power networks that occurred during the Merovingian epoch and the many continuities that can be seen in the four kinds of places studied in this chapter that were marked by these developments.

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