Medieval Number Symbolism PDF Download

Author: Vincent Foster Hopper
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781258031350
Category : Symbolism of numbers
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Author: Vincent Foster Hopper
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 9780486414300
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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In this classic study, a noted scholar reveals "how deeply rooted in medieval thought was the consciousness of numbers, not as mathematical tools, nor yet as the counters in a game, but as fundamental realities, alive with memories and eloquent with meaning."

Author: Mark Spurrell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 042967807X
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
The Symbolism of Medieval Churches: An Introduction explores the ways in which the medieval church building and key features of it were used as symbols, particularly to represent different relationships within the Church and the virtues of the Christian life. This book introduces the reader to the definition, form, and use of medieval symbols, and the significance that they held and still hold for some people, exploring the context in which church symbolism developed, and examining the major influences that shaped it. Among the topics discussed are allegory, typology, moral interpretation, and anagogy. Further chapters also consider the work of key figures, including Hugh and Richard of St Victor and Abbot Suger at St-Denis. Finally, the book contrasts the Eastern world with the Western world, taking a look at the late Middle Ages and what happened to church symbolism once Aristotle had ousted Plato from the schools. Entering into the medieval mind and placing church symbolism in its context, The Symbolism of Medieval Churches will be of great interest to upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars working on Architectural History, Medieval Art, Church History, and Medieval History more widely.

Author: David d'Avray
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198208219
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Medieval Marriage shows how marriage symbolism emerged from the world of texts to become a social force affecting ordinary people. Building on d'Avray's Medieval Marriage Sermons, it broadens the scope of the argument and works from a wide range of manuscript sources of different genres.

Author: Annemarie Schimmel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199879850
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Why is the number seven lucky--even holy--in almost every culture? Why do we speak of the four corners of the earth? Why do cats have nine lives (except in Iran, where they have seven)? From literature to folklore to private superstitions, numbers play a conspicuous role in our daily lives. But in this fascinating book, Annemarie Schimmel shows that numbers have been filled with mystery and meaning since the earliest times, and across every society. In The Mystery of Numbers Annemarie Schimmel conducts an illuminating tour of the mysteries attributed to numbers over the centuries. She begins with an informative and often surprising introduction to the origins of number systems: pre-Roman Europeans, for example, may have had one based on twenty, not ten (as suggested by the English word "score" and the French word for 80, quatrevingt --four times twenty), while the Mayans had a system more sophisticated than our own. Schimmel also reveals how our fascination with numbers has led to a rich cross-fertilization of mathematical knowledge: "Arabic" numerals, for instance, were picked up by Europe from the Arabs, who had earlier adopted them from Indian sources ("Algorithm" and "algebra" are corruptions of the Arabic author and title names of a mathematical text prized in medieval Europe). But the heart of the book is an engrossing guide to the symbolism of numbers. Number symbolism, she shows, has deep roots in Western culture, from the philosophy of the Pythagoreans and Platonists, to the religious mysticism of the Cabala and the Islamic Brethren of Purity, to Kepler's belief that the laws of planetary motion should be mathematically elegant, to the unlucky thirteen. After exploring the sources of number symbolism, Schimmel examines individual numbers ranging from one to ten thousand, discussing the meanings they have had for Judaic, Christian, and Islamic traditions, with examples from Indian, Chinese, and Native American cultures as well. Two, for instance, has widely been seen as a number of contradiction and polarity, a number of discord and antithesis. And six, according to ancient and neo-platonic thinking, is the most perfect number because it is both the sum and the product of its parts (1+2+3=6 and 1x2x3=6). Using examples ranging from the Bible to the Mayans to Shakespeare, she shows how numbers have been considered feminine and masculine, holy and evil, lucky and unlucky. A highly respected scholar of Islamic culture, Annemarie Schimmel draws on her vast knowledge to paint a rich, cross-cultural portrait of the many meanings of numbers. Engaging and accessible, her account uncovers the roots of a phenomenon we all feel every Friday the thirteenth.

Author: Karen Ralls
Publisher: Nicolas-Hays, Inc.
ISBN: 0892545925
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Journey into twelve of the world’s favorite medieval mysteries and cross the threshold into the world of the High Middle Ages. From Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose to Dan Brown’s bestselling The Da Vinci Code, the medieval period continues to intrigue, inspire, entertain, and fascinate many today. This is a book for the general reader and specialist alike, Medieval expert, former Rosslyn Chapel museum exhibition curator, and bestselling author Dr. Karen Ralls guides the reader through the key historical facts, legends and lore, affiliated places, and major symbolism of 12 popular medieval enigmas, providing a lively introductory portal which includes some of the lesser-known, sidelined, or unacknowledged aspects of each of these enduring topics. The story of each subject comes alive as never before, providing a solid introduction for all readers as well as further suggested resources for teachers and researchers. Also included are photographs, a recommended reading section, maps, a list of the key major sites associated with each topic, and a full bibliography. Topics covered include: King Arthur, Merlin, and Glastonbury The Grail Quest Mary Magdalene The real meaning of Black Madonnas The Knights Templar, the Cathars, and Rosslyn Chapel Medieval Guides and Troubadours Heresy and Heretics

Author: Timothy Husband
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 0870992546
Category : Art, Medieval
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Author: Nigel Hiscock
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351881353
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 593

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Book Description
Is the display of number and geometry in medieval religious architecture evidence of intended symbolism? This book offers a new perspective in the retrieval of meaning from architecture in the Greek East and the Latin West, and challenges the view that geometry was merely an outcome of practical procedures by masons. Instead, it attributes intellectual meaning to it as understood by Christian Platonist thought and provides compelling evidence that the symbolism was often intended. In so doing, the book serves as a companion volume to The Wise Master Builder by the same author, which found the same system implicit in plans of cathedrals and abbeys. The present book explains how the architectural symbolism proposed could have been understood at the time, as supported by medieval texts and its context, since it is context that can confer specific meaning. The introduction locates the study in its critical context and summarizes Christian Platonism as it determined the meaning of number and geometry. The investigation opens with the recurrent symbolism of the dome and the cube as heaven and earth in the Byzantine world and moves to the duality of the temple and the body in the East and West as reflections of Plato's universal macrocosm and human microcosm. The study then examines each of the figures of Platonic geometry in the architecture of the West against the background of their mathematics and metaphysics, before proceeding to their synthesis with the circle, as seen in circular and polygonal structures, the divisions of circles in Christian art, and their display in window tracery, culminating in the rose window. In view of the multivalency of the symbolism, the investigation establishes systematic occurrences of it, which strongly suggest patterns of thought underlying systems of design. The book concludes with a series of test cases, which show the after-life of the same symbolism as it overlapped with the Renaissance.

Author: M. Rust
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137061928
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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This book presents a series of narratives that reflect the compelling and sometimes dangerous allure of the world of books - and the world in books - in late-medieval Britain. It envisions the confines of medieval manuscripts as virtual worlds: realms that readers call forth through imaginative interactions with books' material features.

Author: David A. King
Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag
ISBN: 9783515076401
Category : Astrolabes
Languages : en
Pages : 518

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Book Description
This is the first comprehensive study of an ingenious number-notation from the Middle Ages that was devised by monks and mainly used in monasteries. A simple notation for representing any number up to 99 by a single cipher, somehow related to an ancient Greek shorthand, first appeared in early-13th-century England, brought from Athens by an English monk. A second, more useful version, due to Cistercian monks, is first attested in the late 13th century in what is today the border country between Belgium and France: with this any number up to 9999 can be represented by a single cipher. The ciphers were used in scriptoria - for the foliation of manuscripts, for writing year-numbers, preparing indexes and concordances, numbering sermons and the like, and outside the scriptoria - for marking the scales on an astronomical instrument, writing year-numbers in astronomical tables, and for incising volumes on wine-barrels. Related notations were used in medieval and Renaissance shorthands and coded scripts. This richly-illustrated book surveys the medieval manuscripts and Renaissance books in which the ciphers occur, and takes a close look at an intriguing astrolabe from 14th-century Picardy marked with ciphers. With Indices. "Mit Kings luzider Beschreibung und Bewertung der einzelnen Funde und ihrer Beziehungen wird zugleich die Forschungsgeschichte - die bis dato durch Widerspruechlichkeit und Diskontinuit�t gepr�gt ist - umfassend aufgearbeitet." Zeitschrift fuer Germanistik.