Medieval Artists worked with artistic patterns, which were continuously collected and transmitted. In 2012 a major conference focused on the phenomena. The transactions were recently published
Category: Medieval Histories
‘Medieval Histories’ offers medievalists all the news about exhibitions, books, research, archaeology, travel-tips and much more from the Medieval World
Sainte-Chapelle Shines Again
It took seven years to restore the glorious windows of the Sainte-Chapelle and cost €9.5 mill. Now they shine in all their former glory
Sainte-Chapelle was commisoned by Saint Louis after he had bought a number of very important relics stemming from the Passion of Christ from the Byzantine emperor. Especially important was the Crown of Thorns, which arrived in Paris in 1239. When the royal chapel was consecrated in 1248, it appeared the architect had succeeded in creating a veritable jewel-box to hold this very precious relic. Part of this aura was due to the magnificent glass paintings, which seemed to soar into the sky.
With more than 750 m2 and 1113 scenes they still tell the story of the chosen people. The cycle starts at the western bay of the north wall with scenes from the Book of Genesis. The next ten windows of the nave follow clockwise with scenes from Exodus, Joseph, Numbers/Leviticus, Joshua/Deuteronomy, Judges, (moving to the south wall) Jeremiah/Tobias, Judith/Job, Esther, David and the Book of Kings. The final window, occupying the westernmost bay of the south wall brings this narrative of sacral kingship right up to date with a series of scenes showing the rediscovery of Christ’s relics, the miracles they performed, and their relocation to Paris in the hands of King Louis himself. In the apse windows feature scenes from the Infancy, Life of John the Baptist and the Passion. The overall message is to exalt the ideal of kingship.
It stands to reason that these paintings were harmed, changed, restored and mixed anew during the next 750 years. Not least the French Revolution caused a grievous destruction. Nevertheless, 2/3 of the windows are original.
In the 1970s, however, it was deemed necessary to restore this magnificent French monument in order to bring it back to its former glory. Finally, a few days ago, the result of the final restoration-project was unveiled to the astonishment of everyone present, who had never seen the edifice without scaffolding and partially under wraps. Indeed a glorious moment!
The primary donation to finish the restoration of the bay-windows has been made by the Danish Company: Velux, which contributed 50% of the expense. The president of the Velux foundation, Lars Khan-Rasmussen, was present at the inauguration, where he committed further funding for another French treasure, the windows at Palais d’Antin. The foundation has earlier on been active in for instance the rebuilding of the Dresden Frauenkirche and is active in a European context, whenever a restoration job touches upon the primary business of the Velux company: to bring daylight and fresh air to people. At the ceremony in Paris on the 20th of May 2015, the Velux Foundation was profusely thanked by the president of the Centre des Monuments Nationaux for its never wavering support and its exemplary way of supporting such a complicated project.
SOURCES:
La Sainte-Chapelle comme vous ne l’avez jamais vue
Les Fondations VELUX dévoilent ce jour le nouveau visage de la Sainte-Chapelle
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La Sainte-Chapelle de Paris
By Françoise Perrot
Series : Regards
Editions du Patrimoine Centre des monuments nationaux 2013
ISBN-10: 275770270X
ISBN-13: 978-2757702703
La Sainte Chapelle Relié
By Jean-Michel Leniaud and Françoise Perrot
Series: Monographies
Editions du Patrimoine Centre des monuments nationaux 2007
ISBN-10: 2858229201
ISBN-13: 978-2858229208
Vitrail, Ve-XXIe siècle
By Véronique David and Michel Hérol
Editions du Patrimoine Centre des monuments nationaux 2013
ISBN-10: 2757703439
ISBN-13: 978-2757703434
Medieval colouring recipes of gold and gilding
In the Middle Ages goldsmiths and craftsmen possessed a number of recipes for changing the color and the hue of gold and gilded objects.
Gold and Ivory from Paris, Pisa, Firenze and Siena 1250-1320
The summer exhibition at Louvre-Lens - Gold and Ivory - highlights the wealth of artistic exchanges between Paris and what is now Tuscany 1250 -1320
The Medieval City in France
This year the International Medieval Society focuses on the medieval city in France at their annual symposium
Medieval Histories Magazine May 2015 No.15 – Read about the Cistercians
Medieval Histories Magazine May 2015, No. 15 focus on the Cistercians
New Cistercian Studies – A Handlist of Good Books
Cistercian Studies is a fruitful field inside Medieval Studies in general. Here is a list of books, which can be used as introduction.
Medieval Studies 2015 – New Catalogue from Boydell & Brewer
Medieval Studies 2015 - New Catalogue from Boydell & Brewer is published in issue
Medieval and Renaissance Studies 2015
Brepols Publishers: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 2015
This catalogue presents the 2015 programme of English titles published by Brepols inside Medieval & Renaissance Studies
Some highlights this year are:
THE MEDIEVAL COUNTRYSIDE
Peasants and Lords in the Medieval English Economy. Essays in Honour of Bruce M. S. Campbell
Crisis in the Later Middle Ages. Beyond the Postan–Duby Paradigm
Land Assessment and Lordship in Medieval Northern Scotland
Power and Rural Communities in Al-Andalus. Ideological and Material Representations
MEDIEVAL CHURCH STUDIES
Devotional Culture in Late Medieval England and Europe. Diverse Imaginations of Christ’s Life
The Secular Liturgical Office in Late Medieval England
Women in the Medieval Monastic World
Nuns’ Literacies in Medieval Europe
A Mendicant Sermon Collection from Composition to Reception
ART AND VISUAL CULTURE
Visual Constructs of Jerusalem
Catalogue of Paintings in the Collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London
Dressing the Part: Textiles as Propaganda in the Middle Ages
This is of course only a tiny selection. Do Download this catalogue with Brepols’ new and forthcoming English-language titles in Medieval & Renaissance Studies for 2015.
The Middle Ages in the Modern World
MAMO aims to explore the continued return to, and relevance of, the Middle Ages. This years conference will be held at the University of Lincoln
Maria Annunziata di Monte Sorbo
Along a small scenic route leading into the hilly countryside not far from Sarsina on the motorway between Ravenna and Citta di Castello lies a small church at Monte Sorbo. Although secluded it is well worth a detour.
The Ransom of the Soul
In his latest book, Peter Brown explores the transition of the Christian ideas of afterlife from AD 250 – 650. This shift laid the foundation for the heartfelt despair and fear, which came to foster the wealth of countless religious institutions, hospitals and churches in the Middle Ages.
The Ransom of the Soul. Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianity
By Peter Brown
Harvard University press 2015
ISBN: 978-0-674-96758-8
Around AD 600 the Visigoth, Trasemirus, from Mandourelle in the region of Aube was commemorated by an oblong slab, measuring 33.8 cm x 51.4 cm. The main part of the memorial plaque is covered with three carved processional crosses and two facing doves. The inscription is relegated to the frame above and to the right of the central carving and seems to have been something like an afterthought. However, quite innovative, the inscription contains a phrase, which came to resound for the rest of the Middle Ages: “In the name if Christ, all men pray for the soul of Trasimeus, who came to rest [at this time?]. His body lies in this tomb. May he live eternally in Christ” [1]
There are several interesting features connected with this slab (the roughness, the manner of carving etc.) However, as Peter Brown points out in his latest book, this is one of the first instances from the continent, where the deceased is no longer praised or – so to speak – raised to the skies – but rather envisioned as a participant in a procession moving towards God. On this spiritual journey the soul of Trasemirus most of all needed the our intercessional prayers. According to his world-view, his journey through afterlife was a long and dangerous pilgrimage on which he would – without doubt – have to move through a terrible harsh wasteland, meeting an assortment of devils and angels, each metering out the exact penance he owed for his transgressions committed in his earlier life. In front of him and his fellow pilgrims would be carried the three procession-crosses depicted on the slab.
As medievalists, we know this netherworld so well, that we are not really struck with its formula nor its stark and scary character. What, perhaps, we do not know as well is how this world-view came about.
Luckily Peter Brown has once more come to our help. In a new book “The Ransom of the Soul” (Harvard 2015) he once again delights us with one of his exquisite readings of the writings of the series of learned theologians and intellectuals, he has so often visited in his life’s work. Augustine, of course, figures; but so does also the bishops of Arles (Honoratus, Hilarius and Caesarius) as well as more obscure persons as Leudegar, Barontus and finally Columbanus and Trasemirus (from the 7th century). Those of us, who are familiar with the work of Peter Brown, will have met them before.
However, here we meet them as proponents of a sort of “side-story” to (although emphatically not a spin-off of) his latest book: Through the Eye of a Needle, which dealt with the question of the use of wealth in the Christian churches and how ideas and practice about this embarrassing issue changed over time, reflecting the changed circumstances of people from the 4 – 8th century.
Thus, this story is not about the wealth itself and the Early Christian ideas of how to deal with it – how to invest in “Heaven” and be saved – but rather the very specific ideas about the “other world”, which fueled these changes in the lifestyles of the Early Christians. Guided by the pen of Peter Brown we thus accompany Romans in Late Antiquity, who believed that they would enter the Milky Way and a starry afterlife, according to the precise status, which they had accrued in this life. And we meet them, when they are busy sharing meals and holding funeral feasts next to the graves of their family-members; or when saving up in heaven through alms-giving in Hippo at the time of Augustine. But we also learn how these rather pleasant ideas of a Heaven consisting of a shaded and cool refrigerium, where the dead would spent their time in leisurely pursuits while awaiting the second coming, changed from AD 250 – 650. Too placid and not enough mindful of our sinful nature and daily transgressions, another view of the next world surfaced in Early Christianity. Gradually the impending judgement entered the scene more forcefully, forever changing the elegiac tone into a sombre hue. “A new gripping sense of peril” came into being, writes Peter Brown, while exploring the many stepping-stones towards the finale in the 7th century, when all that mattered was to try as best one could to settle the score while alive through incessant almsgiving, soul-searching, prayer and penance; and at the same time seeking and securing future intercessions of others through constant praying (saints, family, friends, or just passers-by).
His aim, though, has not been just to tell the story of how different theological discourses on the afterlife and pending judgement fed on each other and the wealth of the future Catholic Church. The idea has much more been to explore the way in which these changes were directly caused by the changing political circumstances in the transition from Late Antiquity to Early Medieval Europe. This is not a “how-book” but a “why-book”, writes Peter Brown.
This makes the book especially valuable. It should be able to inspire archaeologists, who have long toiled with debates on how to understand shifts in burial practices and funeral memorials in this period; but who do not quite know, what profound theological and ideological debates framed and fed these changes.
In this sense it is very pertinent that the book ends with Peter Brown recounting the memorial of Trasemirus. Hopefully, the book will inspire readers from a wide spectrum of academic disciplines working on this period. Not least archaeologists!
This book is based on lectures delivered at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna 2012.
Karen Schousboe
NOTES:
The memorial slab of Traseminus is kept in the Musée Archaéologique de Narbonne (no. 198/4168)
El epitafio de Trasemiruas (Mandourle, Villesque des Corbiéres, Aude)
By Gisela Ripoll López and Isabel Velásquez Soriano
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Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD
By Peter Brown
Princeton University Press 2012
ISBN: 9780691161778
ISBN: 9780691152905
FEATURED PHOTO:
The tomb of Bishop Agilbert may present us with one of the earliest Last Judgement Scene – Meaux, France ca. AD 690
The Monstrous New Art: Divided Forms in the Late Medieval Motet
Late medieval motet texts are brimming with chimeras, centaurs and other strange creatures. In The Monstrous New Art, Anna Zayaruznaya explores the musical ramifications of this menagerie
The Art, Literature and Material Culture of the Medieval World
The contributions in the book reach from Spain to Ireland and cover a wide field of medieval art. Each article explores a specific piece of artistic expression of the cultural crossroads criss-crossing medieval history
Unwritten Verities: The Making of England’s Vernacular Legal Culture, 1463-1549
One peculiar element in The legal culture of England is the commitment to the unwritten "law". New book tells the story
Making Europe: Columbanus and his legacy 615 – 2015
This year 2015 will mark the 1400th anniversary of the death of Columbanus, Ireland’s missionary saint. The anniversary is accompanied by a series of conferences held at Bangor in Ireland, Luxeuil in France and Bobbio in Italy.