Ṭur ʿAbdin

The introduction of the chapter analyses the topography of Ṭur ʿAbdin through comparisons and settlement relations. The material about church architecture is organized under the separate headings of ‘Villages’ and ‘Monasteries’, which constitute the main settlements in the region, together with some fortifications. The division of settlements into villages and monasteries also coincides with two distinct types of church plans: parish and monastic. In the section on villages, the main settlement features of a late antique village are discussed. After that, the village churches are examined through some of their distinct features, such as engaged arcades, masonry, brickwork, architectural sculpture, and outdoor oratories. The analysis shows that some of these churches underwent considerable rebuilding in the eighth century. Some sixth-century evidence points to their possible origins. Some small churches, built probably from scratch in the eighth century, show that in that period some architectural features were repeated faithfully. Monasteries are first examined as settlements, and spaces that constitute a monastery, other than the churches, such as walls, towers and beth qadishe, are discussed. Then both the main and secondary churches are examined in detail. Some churches of the monasteries stand out for their plan or decoration, such as the church of Mor Ḥananyo at Dayr al-Zaʿfarān and the main church of the monastery of Mor Gabriel. They are dealt with under separate headings. Although not a monastic church, the Church of Yoldath Aloho at Ḥāḥ is treated together with these churches because of some of its architectural features.

Reclamar y construir los paisajes comunales: Los devasos de Ciudad Rodrigo en la Edad Media

This paper focuses on the analysis of the ways which areas of collective use were created and claimed in the Middle Ages, through the case of the devasos of Ciudad Rodrigo. They were lands used preferentially to the grazing of cattle and to the collection of firewood; the inhabitants of the town of Ciudad Rodrigo as well as the neighbours of the villages that surrounded those areas had rights of entitlement to access. The means of claiming communal rights over those spaces between eleventh and fifteenth centuries have been studied thanks to a combination of archaeological record and written sources. The main hypothesis is the use of a claiming strategy based on sacralisation. First, burials linked the territory to the ancestors during early Middle Ages, and after the construction of buildings with religious functions, small churches that were not parishes, would have been a key to preserve the commons. Those politics of the sacred coexisted with the progressive identification of the devasos as properties of the council as a result of the affirmation of the power of the town of Ciudad Rodrigo.

Dr. Michael White and the Widow’s Wail

Dr. Michael White is a jazz clarinetist, bandleader, composer, jazz historian and professor from New Orleans. White grew up in the Lower Ninth Ward, moved to a predominately-white neighbourhood at age 7, and later attended Xavier, a Catholic university with a largely African American student body. Growing up, White was a voracious reader who enjoyed learning the clarinet and Spanish. He worked as a freelance clarinet player in Ernest “Doc” Paulin’s brass band for parades and funeral marches. White had an epiphany in 1978 when he discovered the work of George Lewis, who had died in 1968. Unlike the Creole clarinettists from family traditions of the Seventh Ward, Lewis drew his inspiration from the chant-like rhythms of small churches and the bent pitches of blues and country. White studied Lewis’s work, and also began researching the histories of the jazz players in his own family, including his ancestral cousins Willie “Kaiser” Joseph and “Papa John” Joseph. Like his idol George Lewis, White wanted to capture his people’s story through his music.

ARCHITECTURAL TYPOLOGY OF CHAPELS

The paper presents a study of chapel typology on the example of Novosibirsk and Tomsk regions. The analysis of existing chapels includes their architectural style, attachment to other buildings, roofing, the number of domes, construction materials, functional purpose and temperature conditions. Based on the analysis, the existing typological table of chapels is revised and amended. Studies show that despite the strong influence of the traditional approach to Orthodox architecture, innovative small churches are being built.

Megachurches and the Reinvention of Southern Church Life

The phenomena of megachurches—churches with approximately two thousand in weekly worship attendance—is especially prevalent in the South. Not only is the South a region of many churches, but the likelihood that a given person attends a large congregation with giant screens, many services, ministries, programs for all ages, and perhaps even multiple locations is higher than anywhere else in the U.S. Not everyone in the South attends a megachurch but because so many do the strong megachurch model affects the general experience of church attendance and belonging, even in small churches. To examine southern megachurches in their variety, this chapter visits four churches that introduce important aspects of this innovative form: Bellevue Baptist Church just outside Memphis, Tennessee; Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, a church that grew the nation’s largest Christian college, Liberty University; New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia, associated with the prosperity gospel; and, St. Andrew AME, a neighborhood church that has grown into a multifaceted resource for its largely impoverished neighbourhood in south Memphis.

Hagiotoponimi na istarskim gradinama

Place names (toponyms) are reflections of landscape appearance, economy, historical development and social relations. They speak of stratification of settlements of a certain territory. During the Bronze and Iron Ages in Istria, hill forts were ‒ in addition to caves ‒ the main settlement type. Up to now, 450 hill forts are identified on the map, and 85 of these (i.e., 19%) are named after saints. On the basis of field research and data from both historical and contemporary topographic maps, a detailed topographical layout of toponyms and an analysis of their distribution have been made in relation to two main physical features, sea and land, and two linguistic areas, Croatian and Italian. Small churches, or their remains, or just the toponyms with names of saints, show the continuity of life in a particular site, as well as the security that was guaranteed within its walls. The most frequent hagiotoponym is St Mary with all of its variants (Sv. Marina [St Marina]).

“Yes, [Gospel] Is Real”: Half a Century with Chicago's Martin and Morris Company

The Martin and Morris Music Studio (MMMS) imprint permeated the first fifty years of black gospel music. Jointly owned by singer/impresaria Sallie Martin (1895/6–1988) and composer/arranger/pianist/organist Kenneth Morris (1917–88), the MMMS delivered gospel songs to an eager public and offered ordinary Americans the chance to see their names in print as author or composer on the cover of a gospel octavo, copies of which could then be sold to benefit that same ordinary American. Their influence extended far beyond that service, however. Martin and her Singers performed and popularized music bearing the MMMS imprint in venues ranging from small churches in the Deep South to national conventions in Washington, D.C., and widened circulation of MMMS music via Los Angeles recording studios. The unprecedented accomplishments of the MMMS, active from 1940 to 1993, have not been fully explored. Relying on transcribed interviews of the owners by Bernice Johnson Reagon, James Standifer, and others, accounts in historical newspapers, and company archives, this article addresses that void. The centrality of the MMMS in twentieth-century gospel of all types is clarified through examination of contexts for black-owned music publishing in the last century, the owners’ early business models, and their changing roles in the creation, publication, popularization, and dissemination of gospel music for more than fifty years.