scholarly journals Setting the Stage, Framing the Picture; the Gilding and Polychromy of Late Medieval Altarpiece Structures in the North

CLARA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Kausland

The gilding and polychromy of the structural parts of altarpieces have largely been overlooked in art historical studies. However, these specific designs were important elements in the framing of the sculptural and painted content of the altarpiece complex. This article provides a detailed art technological overview of the gilding and polychromy of the supporting elements of the whole corpus of Northern German altarpieces in Norway. It highlights the medieval craftsman’s use of sophisticated materials and techniques, and proves that, in addition to being secondary props, the shrine decorations bore important meanings in their own right, containing intrinsic material and aesthetical values. Furthermore, the study found both change and continuity in the specific craftmanship throughout the late medieval period. Changes in the layering and three-dimensional effects have been especially useful tools in the correction of previously assumed dates of origin of several of the altarpieces. It is hoped that the results presented in this study, together with a new perspective, encourages further close analyses of the ‘backdrop’ of medieval altarpieces in future studies.

Author(s):  
Edith Bárdos ◽  
Máté Varga

The preliminary explorations of the bypass of road 61 to the North of Kaposvár took more years. Among the ex-cavations in the pathes of the new highway, one of the great-est and most important is the excavation of site number 2 to the South of Toponár. The excavation is located on the East-ern bank of Stream Deseda. The territory was almost always suitable for settlement. It is proved by the fact that we found artifacts from 9 period-cultures from the late Neolithic to the late Medieval period. On the site of the excavations there is an outstanding amount of scattered cremation burials and urn graves from the period of the Transdanubian Encrusted Pot-tery Culture, as well as the cemetery established in the 11th century, in the Arpadian-age. The extended area of the exca-vations was settled intensively in the late Avar-age and in the early Arpadian-age.


1953 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl V. Sølver

It has hitherto been generally presumed that the division of the horizon into thirty-two points was a development of the late medieval period. Such a division, it has been said, was impossible in the pre-compass era. ‘It is questionable whether even so many as sixteen directions could have been picked out and followed at sea so long as Sun and star, however intimately known, were the only guides’, one eminent authority has declared; ‘Even the sailors in the north-western waters had only four names until a comparatively late date.’ Chaucer's reference in his Treatise on the Astrolabe to the thirty-two ‘partiez’ of the ‘orisonte’ has for long been quoted as the earliest evidence on the subject. The Konungs Skuggsjà, a thirteenth-century Norwegian work, however, refers to the Sun revolving through eight œttir; and the fourteenthcentury Icelandic Rímbegla talks of sixteen points or directions. An important discovery by the distinguished Danish archaeologist, Dr. C. L. Vebæk, in the summer of 1951, brings a new light to the whole problem and makes the earlier held view scarcely tenable. Vebæk was then working on the site of the Benedictine nunnery (mentioned by Îvar Bárdarson in the mid-fourteenth century) which stands on the site of a still older Norse homestead on the Siglufjörd, in southern Greenland. Buried in a heap of rubbish under the floor in one of the living-rooms, together with a number of broken tools of wood and iron (some of them with the owner's name inscribed on them in runes) was a remarkable fragment of carved oak which evidently once formed part of a bearingdial. This was a damaged oaken disk which, according to the archaeologists, dates back to about the year 1200.


Urban History ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-349
Author(s):  
Christian D. Liddy

In the late medieval period several English cities claimed the distinction of being a royal chamber: London and York referred to themselves as the ‘king's chamber’, whilst Coventry called itself the ‘prince's chamber’. Examining the meaning of the metaphor of the chamber, this article provides a new perspective on the way in which cities negotiated their relations with the crown and shows how the chamber became an important aspect of corporate urban identity from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Baranna Baker

AbstractWith Medieval Philosophy Redefined as the Latin Age, John Deely has written a truly revolutionary book. Both medieval historians and semioticians alike will gain a new perspective on their subject matter upon reading Medieval Philosophy Redefined. In it, Deely traces the history of the sign by going to its roots in the writings of Augustine, and following it through to the time of John Poinsot. John Poinsot, a previously marginalized philosopher from the late medieval period, factors greatly in Deely’s book. Poinsot makes it possible to get through the “thicket” of nominalism and see beyond Renaissance Humanism. Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that, by using the sign as the point of departure, Deely has found a constant thread that runs through the Medieval Ages, making it, the sign, a key to understanding medieval philosophy from its start to its finish.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
BENJAMIN MOLINEAUX ◽  
JOANNA KOPACZYK ◽  
RHONA ALCORN ◽  
WARREN MAGUIRE ◽  
VASILIS KARAISKOS ◽  
...  

The spelling conventions for dental fricatives in Anglic languages (Scots and English) have a rich and complex history. However, the various – often competing – graphemic representations (<þ>, <ð>, <y> and <th>, among others) eventually settled on one digraph, <th>, for all contemporary varieties, irrespective of the phonemic distinction between /ð/ and /θ/. This single representation is odd among the languages’ fricatives, which tend to use contrasting graphemes (cf. <f> vs <v> and <s> vs <z>) to represent contrastive voicing, a sound pattern that emerged nearly a millennium ago. Close examinations of the scribal practices for English in the late medieval period, however, have shown that northern texts had begun to develop precisely this type of distinction for dental fricatives as well. Here /ð/ was predominantly represented by <y> and /θ/ by <th> (Jordan 1925; Benskin 1982). In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, this ‘Northern System’ collapsed, due to the northward spread of a London-based convention using exclusively <th> (Stenroos 2004). This article uses a rich body of corpus evidence for fifteenth-century Scots to show that, north of the North, the phonemic distinction was more clearly mirrored by spelling conventions than in any contemporary variety of English. Indeed, our data for Older Scots local documents (1375–1500) show a pattern where <y> progressively spreads into voiced contexts, while <th> recedes into voiceless ones. This system is traced back to the Old English positional preferences for <þ> and <ð> via subsequent changes in phonology, graphemic repertoire and letter shapes. An independent medieval Scots spelling norm is seen to emerge as part of a developing, proto-standard orthographic system, only to be cut short in the sixteenth century by top-down anglicisation processes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Ting ◽  
Thilo Rehren ◽  
Athanasios Vionis ◽  
Vasiliki Kassianidou

AbstractThis paper challenges the conventional characterisation of glazed ware productions in the eastern Mediterranean, especially the ones which did not feature the use of opaque or tin-glazed technology, as technologically stagnant and unsusceptible to broader socio-economic developments from the late medieval period onwards. Focusing on the Cypriot example, we devise a new approach that combines scientific analyses (thin-section petrography and SEM-EDS) and a full consideration of the chaîne opératoire in context to highlight the changes in technology and craft organisation of glazed ware productions concentrating in the Paphos, Famagusta and Lapithos region during the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries CE. Our results indicate that the Paphos production was short-lived, lasting from the establishment of Frankish rule in Cyprus in the thirteenth century to the aftermath of the fall of the Crusader campaigns in the fourteenth century. However, glazed ware production continued in Famagusta and Lapithos from the late thirteenth/fourteenth centuries through to the seventeenth century, using technical practices that were evidently different from the Paphos production. It is possible that these productions were set up to serve the new, local demands deriving from an intensification of commercial activities on the island. Further changes occurred to the technical practices of the Famagusta and Lapithos productions around the 16th/17th centuries, coinciding with the displacement of populations and socio-political organisation brought by the Ottoman rule.


2021 ◽  
pp. 343-357
Author(s):  
Astghik Babajanyan

THE NEWFOUND CHAPEL OF THE LATE MEDIEVAL PERIOD IN TEGHUT (The Results of the Excavations in 2010) In 2010 in the results of the excavations carried out at the site of "Lands of Gharakotuk" in Teghut a cemetery chapel with almost a square floorplan (8.7x7.7 m2) was uncovered. The chapel has a rectangular apse highlighted from both inside and outside which is not common in Armenian architecture. The architectural plan of the chapel was distorted in the result of multiple and often incorrect reconstructions. The excavations revealed a variety of tombstones of the 14th17th centuries, including two grave markers with Georgian inscriptions (deciphering and commentaries by Temo Jojua), two complete and two dozen fragmentary khachkars (two of them dated 1513 and 1604), ceramic and metal artifacts. Based on the analysis of the found materials and the architectural structure, the chapel dates to the 16th-17th centuries. According to the environment ‒ sacred trees (Celtis caucasica) growing around the chapel and the cemetery, as well as a collection of specially hidden metal objects (human figurines, animal shoes, lock etc.) which had protective significance from the evil eye or various diseases, the chapel served also as a place for pilgrimage.


2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Franco Motta ◽  
Eleonora Rai

Abstract The introduction to this special issue provides some considerations on early modern sanctity as a historical object. It firstly presents the major shifts in the developing idea of sanctity between the late medieval period and the nineteenth century, passing through the early modern construction of sanctity and its cultural, social, and political implications. Secondly, it provides an overview of the main sources that allow historians to retrace early modern sanctity, especially canonization records and hagiographies. Thirdly, it offers an overview of the ingenious role of the Society of Jesus in the construction of early modern sanctity, by highlighting its ability to employ, create, and play with hagiographical models. The main Jesuit models of sanctity are then presented (i.e., the theologian, the missionary, the martyr, the living saint), and an important reflection is reserved for the specific martyrial character of Jesuit sanctity. The introduction assesses the continuity of the Jesuit hagiographical discourse throughout the long history of the order, from the origins to the suppression and restoration.


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