Passion Relics and the Medieval Imagination PDF Download

Author: Cynthia Hahn
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520305264
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
Although objects associated with the Passion and suffering of Christ are among the most important and sacred relics venerated by the Catholic Church, this is the first study that considers how they were presented to the faithful. Cynthia Hahn adopts an accessible, informative, and holistic approach to the important history of Passion relics—first the True Cross, and then the collective group of Passion relics—examining their display in reliquaries, their presentation in church environments, their purposeful collection as centerpieces in royal and imperial collections, and finally their veneration in pictorial form as Arma Christi. Tracing the ways that Passion relics appear and disappear in response to Christian devotion and to historical phenomena, ranging from pilgrimage and the Crusades to the promotion of imperial power, this groundbreaking investigation presents a compelling picture of a very important aspect of late medieval and early modern devotion.

Author: Charles Freeman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300166591
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Relics were everywhere in medieval society. Saintly morsels such as bones, hair, teeth, blood, milk, and clothes, and items like the Crown of Thorns, coveted by Louis IX of France, were thought to bring the believer closer to the saint, who might intercede with God on his or her behalf. In the first comprehensive history in English of the rise of relic cults, Charles Freeman takes readers on a vivid, fast-paced journey from Constantinople to the northern Isles of Scotland over the course of a millennium.In "Holy Bones, Holy Dust," Freeman illustrates that the pervasiveness and variety of relics answered very specific needs of ordinary people across a darkened Europe under threat of political upheavals, disease, and hellfire. But relics were not only venerated--they were traded, collected, lost, stolen, duplicated, and destroyed. They were bargaining chips, good business and good propaganda, politically appropriated across Europe, and even used to wield military power. Freeman examines an expansive array of relics, showing how the mania for these objects deepens our understanding of the medieval world and why these relics continue to capture our imagination.

Author: Cynthia Jean Hahn
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271050780
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
"A study of reliquaries as a form of representation in medieval art. Explores how reliquaries stage the importance and meaning of relics using a wide range of artistic means from material and ornament to metaphor and symbolism"--Provided by publisher.

Author: L. Bosman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108839762
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 609

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Book Description
The first inter-disciplinary study to examine the construction and development of the world's first cathedral from its origins to 1600.

Author: Cynthia Hahn
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780237022
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
From skeletons to strips of cloth to little pieces of dust, reliquaries can be found in many forms, and while sometimes they may seem grotesque on their surface, they are nonetheless invested with great spiritual and memorial value. In this book, Cynthia Hahn offers the first full survey in English of the societal value of reliquaries, showing how they commemorate religious and historical events and, more important, inspire awe, faith, and, for many, the miraculous. Hahn looks deeply into the Christian tradition, examining relics and reliquaries throughout history and around the world, going from the earliest years of the cult of saints through to the post-Reformation response. She looks at relic footprints, incorrupt bodies, the Crown of Thorns, the Shroud of Turin, and many other renowned relics, and she shows how the architectural creation of sacred space and the evocation of the biblical tradition of the temple is central to the reliquary’s numinous power. She also discusses relics from other traditions—especially from Buddhism and Islam—and she even looks at how reliquaries figure in contemporary art. Fascinatingly illustrated throughout, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in the enduring power of sacred objects.

Author: Paul Freedman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300211317
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
How medieval Europe’s infatuation with expensive, fragrant, exotic spices led to an era of colonial expansion and discovery: “A consummate delight.” —Marion Nestle, James Beard Award–winning author of Unsavory Truth The demand for spices in medieval Europe was extravagant—and was reflected in the pursuit of fashion, the formation of taste, and the growth of luxury trade. It inspired geographical and commercial exploration, as traders pursued such common spices as pepper and cinnamon and rarer aromatic products, including ambergris and musk. Ultimately, the spice quest led to imperial missions that were to change world history. This engaging book explores the demand for spices: Why were they so popular, and why so expensive? Paul Freedman surveys the history, geography, economics, and culinary tastes of the Middle Ages to uncover the surprisingly varied ways that spices were put to use—in elaborate medieval cuisine, in the treatment of disease, for the promotion of well-being, and to perfume important ceremonies of the Church. Spices became symbols of beauty, affluence, taste, and grace, Freedman shows, and their expense and fragrance drove the engines of commerce and conquest at the dawn of the modern era. “A magnificent, very well written, and often entertaining book that is also a major contribution to European economic and social history, and indeed one with a truly global perspective.” —American Historical Review

Author: Robert Bartlett
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691159130
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 806

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Book Description
From its earliest centuries, one of the most notable features of Christianity has been the veneration of the saints—the holy dead. This ambitious history tells the fascinating story of the cult of the saints from its origins in the second-century days of the Christian martyrs to the Protestant Reformation. Robert Bartlett examines all of the most important aspects of the saints—including miracles, relics, pilgrimages, shrines, and the saints' role in the calendar, literature, and art. The book explores the central role played by the bodies and body parts of saints, and the special treatment these relics received. From the routes, dangers, and rewards of pilgrimage, to the saints' impact on everyday life, Bartlett's account is an unmatched examination of an important and intriguing part of the religious life of the past—as well as the present.

Author: Laura Delbrugge
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004419365
Category : History
Languages : es
Pages : 247

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Book Description
A Scholarly Edition of the Gamaliel (Valencia: Juan Jofre, 1525) is a modernized edition of a popular Spanish devotional that appeared in multiple editions until it was banned by the Spanish Inquisition due to its anonymous authorship and apocryphal content.

Author: Jacques Le Goff
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691204543
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
How The Golden Legend shaped the medieval imagination It is impossible to understand the Middle Ages without grasping the importance of The Golden Legend, the most popular medieval collection of saints' lives. Assembled in the thirteenth century by Genoese archbishop Jacobus de Voragine, the book became the medieval equivalent of a bestseller. In Search of Sacred Time is the first comprehensive history and interpretation of this crucial book. Jacques Le Goff, who was one of the world's most renowned medievalists, provides a lucid and compelling account that shows how The Golden Legend Christianized time itself, reconciling human and divine temporality. Authoritative, eloquent, and original, In Search of Sacred Time is a major reinterpretation of a book that is central to comprehending the medieval imagination.

Author: Livia Stoenescu
Publisher:
ISBN: 9782503583983
Category : Christian art and symbolism
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The collection of essays gathered in this volume investigates the interaction between art and relics as a distinct historical relevance for devotional art of Early Modernity and the Renaissance. Recent studies in the material culture of artifacts from these periods have drawn increasing attention to a sense of material tangibility derived from relics. Putting that conclusion into perspective, this edited collection focuses on the aesthetic meaning generated by a specific material culture of sanctity - one in which artists based their practice upon the nature, variety, and history of relics. Works of art that contained relics shared in the aura of the relics, defining themselves as non-substitutable signs, or signs that preserved the physical relationship to the immutable nature and origin of relics. As studied in this volume, funerary monuments, chapel decorations, altarpieces, liturgical objects, and sacred sites yielded an unordinary aesthetic meaning, one that captured and at the same time transmitted the histories linked to a relic. Each chapter emphasizes the specific history contained within works of art premised upon relics and thus forever embedded in the relics' status as sacred originals..