A bold new religious history of the late antique and medieval Middle East that places ordinary Christians at the centre of the story
Author: Medieval Histories
The Development of Canon Law in the High Middle Ages
After 1000, work began in earnest to develop Canon Laew into a fully developed complex legal system. New book tells the story by following the examples of papal jurisdictional primacy and clerical celibacy.
St Martin – Ascetic, Bishop, Man of Miracles, National Saint, Soldier of Christ, and Charitable Helper
Read the stories about St Martin of Tours, one of the most popular saints in medieval and modern Europe
St. Martin – a Popular Saint
St. Martin was a Roman soldier, who turned into a Christian ascetic. Later he was adopted as a national saint for France, as well as a soldier of Christ. His final disguise, though, was as a popular saint
Life of St Martin of Tours
St Martin of Tours is one of Europe’s most venerated saints. From Roman soldier to ascetic Christian he is paradigmatic of one of the huge shifts, which took place in Late Antiquity
Born at Sabari in Pannonia, now Szombathely, in Hungary, St Martin was brought up in Italy. He chose Christianity at the age of ten and began his career as a cathecumen. Nevertheless, at the age of fifteen, he was forced into the Roman Army of Julian the Apostate (361 – 363), the last pagan emperor of Rome. It is while serving in Gaul, we meet up with him when he during a cold night encountered a poor and freezing beggar. Resolutely, he slashed his cloak in two, sharing one half with the poor man. That night, he had a vision of Jesus wrapped in the torn cloak. This led to his baptism. Somewhat later, he sought to extricate himself from military service at a time when his fellowmen were preparing for battle. This led to a charge of cowardice. In response, he promised to stand in front of the battle line, only armed with the sign of a cross. As the enemy surrendered, this brave feat was never carried out. Instead, he was allowed to leave military service.
Later, he settled at Poitiers under the supervision of bishop Hilary, the so-called “Hammer of the Arians” (210 – 367). From there, he started out as a missionary to Pannonia and Illyricum, facing the Arians. Further, he went to Milan, and later the island of Gallinari, off Albinga, seeking the life of a hermit. In 360, however, he once more joined Hilary at Poitiers, from where he went on to found the first monastery at Ligugé, taking over a deserted Roman Villa, donated by Hilary. Here St Martin of Tours lived together with his disciples as the desert fathers of Egypt, each in their own small hut (locaciacum).
In 371, he was called as bishop of Tours. It is from a much later retelling of these events, the vignette heralds Martin taking refuge among the geese; which of course cackled revealing the reticent saint, who had to yield to the demands of the faithful. Sulpicius only tells us the election was controversial. While the people were keen to elect him, the other bishops had reservations based on his ascetic lifestyle, which they deemed unfit for someone in charge of a bishopric. Probably, due to his asceticism, he was also believed to have heretic (Priscillianist) leanings.
As the bishop at Tours, Martin later built the huge monastic complex of Marmutiers on the north bank of the Loire. Soon, the Abbey attracted numerous disciples from elite milieus in and out of Gaul, together with whom he continued his active missionary work. During his lifetime, he also became known for his miracles. His fame, though, was said to rest on his humility, his asceticism, and his lack of duplicity. Eventually, this led to his status as one of the first saint, who had not been martyred.
After the death of St Martin, Sulpicius amended this life by adding a postscript in the form of three letters, to Eusebius, Aurelius, and Bassula. These letters expand upon the miracles ascribed to St Martin and present him as an exemplary saint. Finally, they record his death at Candes, where he admonished his disciples to be less greedy than the birds catching fish along the river. Later in the 12th century, the legend was spread that flowers and birds paid this gesture back, heralding his dead body when it was sailed back on a barge towards Tours. Although the month was November, the birds and flowers made it feel like a “ St Martin Summer” (also called Halloween Summer).
SOURCE:
Laxton – the Last Medieval village and home of Robin Hood
Among medieval historians, Laxton in Nottinghamshire is famous. As the last Open Field Village it offers a unique showcase of what England once looked like.
The Norse World Database Launched
Norse World is a new database is a digital resource which will make it easier for researchers to study perceptions of the surrounding world in medieval Scandinavian literature.
Birds in Medieval English Poetry
First full-length study of birds and their metamorphoses as treated in a wide range of medieval poetry, from the Anglo-Saxons to Chaucer and Gower.
By Michael J. Warren
Boydell & Brewer 2018
First full-length study of birds and their metamorphoses as treated in a wide range of medieval poetry, from the Anglo-Saxons to Chaucer and Gower.
Birds featured in many aspects of medieval people’s lives, not least in their poetry. But despite their familiar presence in literary culture, it is still often assumed that these representations have little to do with the real natural world. By attending to the ways in which birds were actually observed and experienced, this book aims to offer new perspectives on how and why they were meaningful in five major poems: The Seafarer, the Exeter Book Riddles, The Owl and the Nightingale, The Parliament of Fowls and Confessio Amantis. In a consideration of sources from Isidore of Seville and Anglo-Saxon place-names to animal-sound word lists and Bartholomew the Englishman, the author shows how ornithological truth and knowledge are integral to our understandings of his chosen poems.
Birds, he argues, are relevant to the medieval mind because their unique properties align them with important religious and secular themes: seabirds that inspire the forlorn Anglo-Saxon pilgrim; unnamed species that confound riddling taxonomies; a belligerent owl who speaks out against unflattering literary portraits. In these poems, human actions and perceptions are deeply affected by the remarkable flights and voices of birds.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction
- Native Foreigners: Migrating Seabirds and the Pelagic Soul in The Seafarer
- Avian Pedagogies: Wondering with Birds in the Exeter Book Riddles
- A Bird’s Worth: Mis-Representing Owls in The Owl and the Nightingale
- ‘Kek Kek’: Translating Birds in The Parliament of Fowls
- Birds’ Form: Enabling Desire and Identities in Confessio Amantis
- Epilogue
- Glossary: Old and Middle English bird names
- Bibliography
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Michael Warren has studied Medieval English at Royal Holloway as well as Magdalen College, Oxford. In 2017 he obtained his Phd with the thesis, Bird Kind: Avian Transformations, Species and Identities in Medieval English Poetry, was submitted in December 2016 and succesfully passed in April 2017. He is now a visiting lecturer at Holloway, teaching on the first year an undergraduate course on medieval poetry whilst continuing to work as an English teacher at Cranbrook School in Kent. His research focuses on birds, environments and the natural world generally, as depicted in medieval poetry (Anglo-Saxon to 15th century).
FEATURED PHOTO:
From The Lovell Lectionary. Between c. 1400 and c. 1410. Harley 7026, f. 5 © The British Library, London
Reliquary of the Holy Sepulchre in Pamplona
In 1993, the contents of the reliquary of the Holy Sepulchre in Pamplona were carefully explored. The following documentation shows that the reliquary is not only unique as a piece of art. It had been fitted with precious and “authentic” relics related to the “empty” tomb.
The reliquary of the Holy Sepulchre in Pamplona belongs together with the Lignum Crucis, to the former royal collection of the crown of Navarre. The reliquary from c. 1255 (1300) takes the form of an open aedicule raised on an oblong platform. It belongs to the arthistorical cathegory: Gothic micro-architecture. Buttresses, topped by pinnacles and cusped arches, flank the four open sides, while the windows are decorated with champlevé enamel. This decorative element may also be found on the sarcophagus in the middle of the tableau, which shows the dramatic scene with the sleeping soldiers, the angel claiming, “he is not here”, and the holy women staring down in horror into the empty grave filled with the sudario, the holy shroud, which John writes, was carefully folded and laid to the side.
And he saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. (John 20: 6 – 7).
Apart from the fact that the tableau represents an amalgamation of the “Empty Grave Scenes” from Mark and John, it ads an extra layer. The sarcophagus is fitted with a lid made of rock crystal, through which we together with the holy women may glimpse a gold capsule with what we are told is a fragment of the original sudario – DE SUDARIO DOMINI, we read. We don’t just see the scene, we are carefully invited into the grave participating in the horror and the adoration.
The Pamplona reliquary thus represents a new type of reliquaries, which do not enshrine the holy relics, but rather open them up to let us participate. We become more than just spectators. We get enrolled in the scene with the gesturing figurines replaying inside a temporal sequence the emotional eruption, which the biblical verses only hint at … for terror and amazement had seized them, writes Mark (Mark 16:8).
The Contents of the Reliquary
In 1993 the reliquary was opened in order to register and study the contents. Inside the tiny sarcophagus, three small capsules were found.
The first, a small flat capsule decorated with Gothic openwork, was inscribed with + De Sudario Domino. The second was inscribed with + de Sepulcro Domino, while the last was inscribed with + DE MENSA CENE DOMINI. While the first contained a piece of red linen, the second a small piece of a rock wrapped in linen, while the third contained small pieces of stones. Further the sarcophagus contained a piece of white silk, a piece of linen, fragments of wood, a pebble, a lock of blond hair, small pieces of stained glass, and some red linen wrapping pieces of wood. Also included was a written list explaining the importance of the stones and fragments, all derived from the life and passion of the Lord. These lists are written in a hand form the 16thcentury.
Unfortunately, the exploration of the contents of the sarcophagus did not lead to a camparison of the textile fragments with the alleged Sudario kept in the Cathedral in Orviedo. It would have been nice to know if the tiny fragment had been cut off from that and afterwards placed in its capsule in Pamploma.
The reliquary has traditionally been considered a wedding gift from St. Louis, King of France, to his daughter Isabel in 1255, when she married Theobald II of Navarrea Recently, though, it has been proposed that the reliquary dates from 1284, when Phillipe (a grandson of St. Louis) married Juana de Navarra. The reliquary may have been created as a reflection of the architecture of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (1248); as perhaps is also the case with the reliquary of St. Louis, which was donated to St. Domenico in Bologna c. 1300. To a large extent, the two reliquaries may be seen to mirror the same artistic ambition and taste.
SOURCE:
Inventario de las reliquias contenidas en el relicario del Santo Sepulcro de la catedral de Pamplona
By Jesús MaOmeñaca Sanz
In: Príncipe de Viana, (2002) Vol 63, No 226, 2002, pp. 287-294
Law and the Imagination in Medieval Wales
Medieval law was never just intended as compilations of rules and regulations. Books of Law were always also dossiers of cultural prescriptions or guides. But were they also imaginative pieces of literature? New book raises the question in connection with a detailed study of the the law-books of Medieval Wales.
Early Gothic Art from île-de-France 1135 – 50
After an extensive renovation of the Musée de Cluny in Paris, the first major exhibition focuses on the birth of the Gothic sculpture in and around Paris.
Widows of Kings in the High Middle Ages
What happened to queens, when their husbands, the kings, died? Was the widows of kings still regarded as queens? How did they proceed to preserve their status and political role? New book explores the phenomena of “royal widowhood” in the English as well as German High Middle Ages
Anastasis – Journal About Research in Medieval Culture and Art
Anastasis. Research in Medieval Culture and Art is an international peer-reviewed journal edited by The Research Center of Medieval Art at the National University of Arts in Iași, România.
The Construction of Ottonian Kingship
How did Henry the Fowler and his son, Otto the Great, turn Germany into the political centre of 10th century Europe? By besting the Magyars? Or by more traditional mythmaking? New book explores the various sources and their role in the later historiography.
New Issue of Speculum 2018
Recent issues of Speculum shows that literature departments currently have the upper hand regarding the content of this journal. Out of 18 articles published this year, only two falls into the categery, history proper.
Early Medieval Europe August 2018
Is Early Medieval Europe in the process of merging with The Journal of Late Antiquity? Four out of five articles touch upon people and events in the 4th, 6th, and 6th centuries.