Download or read book The Quest for the Christ Child in the Later Middle Ages written by Mary Dzon and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-01-25 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning in the twelfth century, clergy and laity alike started wondering with intensity about the historical and developmental details of Jesus' early life. Was the Christ Child like other children, whose characteristics and capabilities depended on their age? Was he sweet and tender, or formidable and powerful? Not finding sufficient information in the Gospels, which are almost completely silent about Jesus' childhood, medieval Christians turned to centuries-old apocryphal texts for answers. In The Quest for the Christ Child in the Later Middle Ages, Mary Dzon demonstrates how these apocryphal legends fostered a vibrant and creative medieval piety. Popular tales about the Christ Child entertained the laity and at the same time were reviled by some members of the intellectual elite of the church. In either case, such legends, so persistent, left their mark on theological, devotional, and literary texts. The Cistercian abbot Aelred of Rievaulx urged his monastic readers to imitate the Christ Child's development through spiritual growth; Francis of Assisi encouraged his followers to emulate the Christ Child's poverty and rusticity; Thomas Aquinas, for his part, believed that apocryphal stories about the Christ Child would encourage youths to be presumptuous, while Birgitta of Sweden provided pious alternatives in her many Marian revelations. Through close readings of such writings, Dzon explores the continued transmission and appeal of apocryphal legends throughout the Middle Ages and demonstrates the significant impact that the Christ Child had in shaping the medieval religious imagination.
Download or read book The Quest for the Christ Child in the Later Middle Ages written by Mary Dzon and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-03-09 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning in the twelfth century, clergy and laity alike started wondering with intensity about the historical and developmental details of Jesus' early life. Was the Christ Child like other children, whose characteristics and capabilities depended on their age? Was he sweet and tender, or formidable and powerful? Not finding sufficient information in the Gospels, which are almost completely silent about Jesus' childhood, medieval Christians turned to centuries-old apocryphal texts for answers. In The Quest for the Christ Child in the Later Middle Ages, Mary Dzon demonstrates how these apocryphal legends fostered a vibrant and creative medieval piety. Popular tales about the Christ Child entertained the laity and at the same time were reviled by some members of the intellectual elite of the church. In either case, such legends, so persistent, left their mark on theological, devotional, and literary texts. The Cistercian abbot Aelred of Rievaulx urged his monastic readers to imitate the Christ Child's development through spiritual growth; Francis of Assisi encouraged his followers to emulate the Christ Child's poverty and rusticity; Thomas Aquinas, for his part, believed that apocryphal stories about the Christ Child would encourage youths to be presumptuous, while Birgitta of Sweden provided pious alternatives in her many Marian revelations. Through close readings of such writings, Dzon explores the continued transmission and appeal of apocryphal legends throughout the Middle Ages and demonstrates the significant impact that the Christ Child had in shaping the medieval religious imagination.
Download or read book The Christ Child in Medieval Culture written by Theresa M. Kenney and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cult of the Christ Child flourished in late medieval Europe across lay and religious, as well as geographic and cultural boundaries. Depictions of Christ's boyhood are found throughout popular culture, visual art, and literature. The Christ Child in Medieval Culture is the first interdisciplinary investigation of how representations of the Christ Child were conceptualized and employed in this period. The contributors to this unique volume analyse depictions of the Christ Child through a variety of frameworks, including the interplay of mortality and divinity, the medieval conceit of a suffering Christ Child, and the interrelationships between Christ and other figures, including saints and ordinary children. The Christ Child in Medieval Culture synthesizes various approaches to interpreting the cultural meaning of medieval religious imagery and illuminates the significance of its most central figure.
Download or read book Marian Devotion in the Late Middle Ages written by Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the late Middle Ages, manifestations of Marian devotion had become multifaceted and covered all aspects of religious, private and personal life. Mary becomes a universal presence that accompanies the faithful on pilgrimage, in dreams, as holy visions, and as pictorial representations in church space and domestic interiors. The first part of the volume traces the development of Marian iconography in sculpture, panel paintings, and objects, such as seals, with particular emphasis on Italy, Slovenia and the Hungarian Kingdom. The second section traces the use of Marian devotion in relation to space, be that a country or territory, a monastery or church or personal space, and explores the use of space in shaping new liturgical practices, new Marian feasts and performances, and the bodily performance of ritual objects.
Download or read book Female Devotion and Textile Imagery in Medieval English Literature written by Anna McKay and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2024-03-05 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncovers the female voices, lived experiences, and spiritual insights encoded by the imagery of textiles in the Middle Ages.For millennia, women have spoken and read through cloth. The literature and art of the Middle Ages are replete with images of women working cloth, wielding spindles, distaffs, and needles, or sitting at their looms. Yet they have been little explored. Drawing upon the burgeoning field of medieval textile studies, as well as contemporary theories of gender, materiality, and eco-criticism, this study illustrates how textiles provide a hermeneutical alternative to the patriarchally-dominated written word. It puts forward the argument that women's devotion during this period was a "fabricated" phenomenon, a mode of spirituality and religious exegesis expressed, devised, and practised through cloth. Centred on four icons of female devotion (Eve, Mary, St Veronica, and - of course - Christ), the book explores a broad range of narratives from across the rich tapestry of medieval English literature, from the fields of Piers Plowman to the late medieval Morte D'arthur; the devotions of Margery Kempe to the visionary experiences of Julian of Norwich; Gervase of Tilbury's fabulous Otia Imperialia to the anchoritic guidance literature of the Middle Ages; and the innumerable (and oft-forgotten) lives of Christ, prayers, legends, and miracle tales in between.ture, from the fields of Piers Plowman to the late medieval Morte D'arthur; the devotions of Margery Kempe to the visionary experiences of Julian of Norwich; Gervase of Tilbury's fabulous Otia Imperialia to the anchoritic guidance literature of the Middle Ages; and the innumerable (and oft-forgotten) lives of Christ, prayers, legends, and miracle tales in between.ture, from the fields of Piers Plowman to the late medieval Morte D'arthur; the devotions of Margery Kempe to the visionary experiences of Julian of Norwich; Gervase of Tilbury's fabulous Otia Imperialia to the anchoritic guidance literature of the Middle Ages; and the innumerable (and oft-forgotten) lives of Christ, prayers, legends, and miracle tales in between.ture, from the fields of Piers Plowman to the late medieval Morte D'arthur; the devotions of Margery Kempe to the visionary experiences of Julian of Norwich; Gervase of Tilbury's fabulous Otia Imperialia to the anchoritic guidance literature of the Middle Ages; and the innumerable (and oft-forgotten) lives of Christ, prayers, legends, and miracle tales in between.
Download or read book The Image of the Wanton Christ Child in the Apocryphal Infancy Legends of Late Medieval England microform written by Mary Christine Dzon and published by National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada. This book was released on 2004 with total page 718 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medievalists tend to assume that devotion to the Christ-Child in the later Middle Ages was part of a movement of affective piety that encouraged feelings of tenderness and compassion for Christ in his suffering humanity. My thesis questions the sufficiency of this generalization to account for medieval religiosity by examining apocryphal infancy gospels within the context of other religious literature in which the Christ-Child appears. Modern readers are surprised by the Middle English childhood of Jesus poems' description of Jesus as a "wanton" boy. Yet this adjective is appropriate since the boy Jesus of these legends loves to play with other children, behaves mischievously and resists the efforts of his parents and teachers to control him. The late medieval focus on the humanity and corporeality of Christ and the more positive valuation of children that emerged by the later Middle Ages help account for the apparent acceptability of the portrayal of Jesus as a "wanton" boy. Contrary to the thesis of Philippe Aries that medieval people lacked a conception of childhood as a distinct phase of life, a variety of medieval sources indicate that people were well aware of behavior peculiar to children. Medieval intellectuals had theories explaining this behavior, such as that children's love of play was derived from their natural need to exercise their growing bodies and also from their desire to avoid the burdensome task of learning. Although medieval people would not have been willing to explain the Christ-Child's behavior according to the Augustinian theory of original sin, they might have been willing to employ a physiological explanation. It is likely, too, that medieval Christians found the legends' image of a heroic, vigorous Christ-Child appealing because other devotional works of literature and art emphasized Christ's passivity as a helpless babe and suffering man. My thesis demonstrates that Christians in the later Middle Ages did not simply respond sentimentally to the Christ-Child. They imagined him as a powerful and all-knowing God and as a "wanton" child beyond the control of mere mortals.
Download or read book A History of Childhood written by Colin Heywood and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-12-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colin Heywood's classic account of childhood from the early Middle Ages to the First World War combines a long-run historical perspective with a broad geographical spread. This new, comprehensively updated edition incorporates the findings of the most recent research, and in particular revises and expands the sections on theoretical developments in the 'new social studies of childhood', on medieval conceptions of the child, on parenting and on children’s literature. Rather than merely narrating their experiences from the perspectives of adults, Heywood incorporates children’s testimonies, 'looking up' as well as 'down'. Paying careful attention to elements of continuity as well as change, he tells a story of astonishing material improvement for the lives of children in advanced societies, while showing how the business of preparing for adulthood became more and more complicated and fraught with emotional difficulties. Rich with evocative details of everyday life, and providing the most concise and readable synthesis of the literature available, Heywood's book will be indispensable to all those interested in the study of childhood.
Download or read book Leprosy and identity in the Middle Ages written by Elma Brenner and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, this volume explores the identities of leprosy sufferers and other people affected by the disease in medieval Europe. The chapters, including contributions by leading voices such as Luke Demaitre, Carole Rawcliffe and Charlotte Roberts, challenge the view that people with leprosy were uniformly excluded and stigmatised. Instead, they reveal the complexity of responses to this disease and the fine line between segregation and integration. Ranging across disciplines, from history to bioarchaeology, Leprosy and identity in the Middle Ages encompasses post-medieval perspectives as well as the attitudes and responses of contemporaries. Subjects include hospital care, diet, sanctity, miraculous healing, diagnosis, iconography and public health regulation. This richly illustrated collection presents previously unpublished archival and material sources from England to the Mediterranean.
Download or read book Imagining the Jew in Anglo Saxon Literature and Culture written by Samantha Zacher and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2016-08-04 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most studies of Jews in medieval England begin with the year 1066, when Jews first arrived on English soil. Yet the absence of Jews in England before the conquest did not prevent early English authors from writing obsessively about them. Using material from the writings of the Church Fathers, contemporary continental sources, widespread cultural stereotypes, and their own imaginations, their depictions of Jews reflected their own politico-theological experiences. The thirteen essays in Imagining the Jew in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture examine visual and textual representations of Jews, the translation and interpretation of Scripture, the use of Hebrew words and etymologies, and the treatment of Jewish spaces and landmarks. By studying the “imaginary Jews” of Anglo-Saxon England, they offer new perspectives on the treatment of race, religion, and ethnicity in pre- and post-conquest literature and culture.
Download or read book Medieval Life Cycles written by Isabelle Cochelin and published by Brepols Publishers. This book was released on 2013 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this collection present new research into a variety of questions on birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, middle age, and old age, ordered in a more or less chronological manner according to the lifecycle. The volume exposes attitudes and representations of the lifecycle from the Anglo-Saxon period to the end of the Middle Ages as being full of inconsistencies as well as definitive categories, and of variation and stasis. This attests to the fact that medieval conceptions and representations of the stages of life and their interrelationships are much more nuanced and less idealized than is usually credited. Medieval conceptual, mental, artistic, cultural, and sociological processes are scrutinized using various approaches and methods that cross disciplinary boundaries. What is emphasized across the volume is that there were varying, context-dependent rhythms of continuity and change in every stage of life in the medieval period. The volume's selection of authors is international in scope and represents some of the leading current scholarship in the field.
Download or read book Devotional Portraiture and Spiritual Experience in Early Netherlandish Painting written by Ingrid Falque and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-09-16 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: an interpretation of early Netherlandish paintings with devotional portraits according to which many of these images act as visualisation of the spiritual process of the sitters.
Download or read book Cimabue and the Franciscans written by Holly Flora and published by Harvey Miller Publishers. This book was released on 2018 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cimabue and the Franciscans sheds new light on the legendary artist Cimabue, revealing his sophisticated engagement with complicated intellectual and theological ideas about materials, memory, beauty, and experience. This book offers a fresh look at the broader question of artistic change in the late thirteenth century by examining the intersection of two histories: that of the artist Cimabue (ca. 1240-1302), and that of the Franciscan Order. While focused on the work of a single artist, this study sheds new light on the religious motives and artistic means that fueled the period's visual and spiritual transformations. Flora's study reveals that Cimabue was not just a crucial figure in processes of stylistic change. He and his Franciscan patrons engaged with complicated intellectual and theological ideas about materials, memory, beauty, and experience, creating innovative works of art that celebrated the Order and enabled new modes of Christian devotion. Cimabue's contributions to the history of art thus can finally be recognized for their wide-ranging scope and impact within the rapidly-evolving religious culture of the late thirteenth century.
Download or read book Kids Those Days Children in Medieval Culture written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kids Those Days is a collection of interdisciplinary research into medieval childhood. Contributors investigate abandonment and abuse, fosterage and guardianship, criminal behavior and child-rearing, child bishops and sainthood, disabilities and miracles, and a wide variety of other subjects related to medieval children.
Download or read book Illuminating Jesus in the Middle Ages written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Illuminating Jesus in the Middle Ages, editor Jane Beal and other contributing scholars analyse the reception history of Jesus in medieval cultures (6th–15th c.), considering a wide variety of Christological images and ideas and their influence.
Download or read book The Magdalene in the Reformation written by Margaret Arnold and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-08 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prostitute, apostle, evangelist—the conversion of Mary Magdalene from sinner to saint is one of the Christianity’s most compelling stories. Less appreciated is the critical role the Magdalene played in remaking modern Christianity. Margaret Arnold shows that the Magdalene inspired devotees eager to find new ways to relate to God and the Church.
Download or read book The Quest of the Historical Jesus written by Albert Schweitzer and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Armenia written by Helen C. Evans and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2018-09-22 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the foot of Mount Ararat on the crossroads of the eastern and western worlds, medieval Armenians dominated international trading routes that reached from Europe to China and India to Russia. As the first people to convert officially to Christianity, they commissioned and produced some of the most extraordinary religious objects of the Middle Ages. These objects—from sumptuous illuminated manuscripts to handsome carvings, liturgical furnishings, gilded reliquaries, exquisite textiles, and printed books—show the strong persistence of their own cultural identity, as well as the multicultural influences of Armenia’s interactions with Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Muslims, Mongols, Ottomans, and Europeans. This unprecedented volume, written by a team of international scholars and members of the Armenian religious community, contextualizes and celebrates the compelling works of art that define Armenian medieval culture. It features breathtaking photographs of archaeological sites and stunning churches and monasteries that help fill out this unique history. With groundbreaking essays and exquisite illustrations, Armenia illuminates the singular achievements of a great medieval civilization. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Verdana}
