The imagery of Hell, the Christian account of the permanent destinations of the human soul after death, has fascinated people over the centuries since the emergence of the Christian faith. These landmark volumes provide the first large-scale investigation of this imagery found across the Byzantine and post-Byzantine world. Particular emphasis is placed on images from churches across Venetian Crete, which are comprehensively collected and published for the first time. Crete was at the centre of artistic production in the late Byzantine world and beyond and its imagery was highly influential on traditions in other regions. The Cretan examples accompany rich comparative material from the wider Mediterranean - Cappadocia, Macedonia, the Peloponnese and Cyprus. The large amount of data presented in this publication highlight Hell's emergence in monumental painting not as a concrete array of images, but as a diversified mirroring of social perceptions of sin.

This is the first new introduction to Anglo-Saxon art in twenty-five years and the first book to take account of the 2009 discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard the largest cache of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork yet found. Written by one of the leading scholars in the field and illustrated with many of the most impressive artifacts, it will be the authoritative book on the subject for years to come.

The Anglo-Saxon period in England, roughly A.D. 400 1100, was a time of extraordinary and profound cultural transformation, culminating in a dramatic shift from a barbarian society to a recognizably medieval civilization. Settled by northern European tribal groupings of pagan and illiterate warriors and farmers in the fifth century, England had by the eleventh century acquired all the trappings of medieval statehood a developed urban network and complex economy, a carefully regulated coinage, flourishing centers of religion and learning, a vigorous literary tradition, and a remarkable and highly influential artistic heritage that had significant impact far beyond England itself. This book traces the changing nature of that art, the different roles it played in culture, and the various ways it both reflected and influenced the context in which it was created.

From its first manifestations in the metalwork and ceramics of the early settlers, Anglo-Saxon art displays certain inherent and highly distinctive stylistic and iconographic features. Despite the many new influences that were regularly absorbed and adapted by Anglo-Saxon artists and craftsmen, these characteristics continued to resonate through the centuries in the great manuscripts, ivories, metalwork, and sculpture of this inventive and creative culture. Anglo-Saxon Art which features 150 color and black-and-white illustrations is arranged thematically while following a broadly chronological sequence. An introduction highlights the character of Anglo-Saxon art, its leitmotifs, and its underlying continuities. Leslie Webster places this art firmly in its wider cultural and political context while also examining the significant conceptual relationship between the visual and literary art of the period."

Ever since it came to the world's attention in the 17th century, the world's most famous tapestry has been a source of never-ending speculation. This book highlights the background of its construction and the events of 1066 that it portrays. It details warfare and weaponry, armour and costumes, depictions of everyday life, houses and farming.

Early manuscripts in the English language include religious works, plays, romances, poetry and songs, as well as charms, notebooks, science and medieval medicine. How did scribes choose to arrange the words and images on the page in each manuscript? How did they preserve, clarify and illustrate writing in English? What visual guides were given to early readers of English in how to understand or use their books? 'Designing English' is an overview of eight centuries of graphic design in manuscripts and inscriptions from the Anglo-Saxon to the early Tudor periods. Working beyond the traditions established for Latin, scribes of English needed to be more inventive, so that each book was an opportunity for redesigning. 'Designing English' focuses on the craft, agency and intentions of scribes, painters and engravers in the practical processes of making pages and artefacts. It weighs up the balance of ingenuity and copying, practicality and imagination in their work. It surveys bilingual books, format, ordinatio, decoration and reading aloud, as well as inscriptions on objects, monuments and buildings. With over ninety illustrations, drawn especially from the holdings of the Bodleian Library in Old English and Middle English, 'Designing English' gives a comprehensive overview of English books and other material texts across the Middle Ages.

The Ormesby Psalter is perhaps the most magnificent yet enigmatic of the great Gothic psalters produced in East Anglia in the first half of the fourteenth century. Its pages boast a wealth of decoration picked out in rich colours and burnished gold, and its margins are inhabited by a vibrant crew of beasts, birds and insects. Fantastic imagery proliferates: musicians, mermaids, lovers and warriors are juxtaposed with scenes from everyday life, from chivalric legend, and from folk-tales, fables and riddles. The psalter takes its name from Robert of Ormesby, subprior at Norwich Cathedral Priory in the 1330s. He was not the first owner, however, and it has long been acknowledged that the writing, decoration and binding of the book took place in a series of distinct phases from the late thirteenth to the mid-fourteenth century. The final result was the work of four or five scribes and up to seven illuminators and its pages show a panorama of stylistic development. Unravelling its complexities has sometimes been thought to hold the key to understanding the 'East Anglian School', a group of large, luxury manuscripts connected with Norwich Cathedral and Norfolk churches and patrons. This book casts an entirely new light on its history, not only clarifying and dating the successive phases of production, but associating the main work on the manuscript with the patronage of John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, one of the greatest magnates of the time. It is extensively illustrated with full-page colour reproductions of the manuscript's main decorated folios, as well as many smaller initials and numerous comparative illustrations.

The extraordinary array of images included in this volume reveals the full and rich history of the Middle Ages. Exploring material objects from the European, Byzantine and Islamic worlds, the book casts a new light on the cultures that formed them, each culture illuminated by its treasures. The objects are divided among four topics: The Holy and the Faithful; The Sinful and the Spectral; Daily Life and Its Fictions, and Death and Its Aftermath. Each section is organized chronologically, and every object is accompanied by a penetrating essay that focuses on its visual and cultural significance within the wider context in which the object was made and used. Spot maps add yet another way to visualize and consider the significance of the objects and the history that they reveal. Lavishly illustrated, this is an appealing and original guide to the cultural history of the Middle Ages.

In this artful look back at medieval society, the realms and reveries of the Middle Ages unfold in over 300 black-and-white illustrations. Included are images of warriors, scholars, musicians, architecture, business and recreation, myths and legends, and more.

Something of a landmark in the history of dress... the period is notably rich in its documentation and by carefully analysing both the manuscript sources and published accounts [the author] is able to produce an abundantly detailed narrative of the changes in fashion... Tighter clothes outraged moralists, incensed monastic chroniclers and stirred poets... in the last chapter the author discuss[es] the relationship of the garments she has meticulously reconstructed with their possible representations in manuscript illumination, sculpture and painting... Of lasting value... a pioneering book which will be of enduring value to historians of dress and art alike. APOLLO

The evidence for this scholarly and detailed study is drawn in the first instance from documentary sources... contemporary illustrations reinforce the written evidence... The book contains much that is of wider interest than the subject matter suggests: the various mottoes used by Edward III are discussed, and the problem of his expanding waistline is revealed; there are interesting sidelights on the new orders of chivalry. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW

1340 to 1363 were years notable for dramatic developments in fashion and for extravagant spending on costume, foreshadowing the later luxury of Richard II's court. Stella Mary Newton's ground-breaking study discusses the costume of the period in quite remarkable detail, drawing on surviving accounts from the royal courts, the evidence of chronicles and poetry (often from unpublished manuscripts), and contemporary paintings. Her exploration of aspects of chivalry, particularly the choice of mottoes and devices worn at tournaments, and of the exchange of gifts of clothingbetween reigning monarchs, offers new insights into the social history of the times, and she has much to say that is crucial to the study of illuminated manuscripts of the fourteenth century.

This book explores the range of images in Byzantine art known as donor portraits. It concentrates on the distinctive, supplicatory contact shown between ordinary, mortal figures and their holy, supernatural interlocutors. The topic is approached from a range of perspectives, including art history, theology, structuralist and post-structuralist anthropological theory, and contemporary symbol and metaphor theory. Rico Franses argues that the term 'donor portraits' is inappropriate for the category of images to which it conventionally refers and proposes an alternative title for the category, contact portraits. He contends that the most important feature of the scenes consists in the active role that they play within the belief systems of the supplicants. They are best conceived of not simply as passive expressions of stable, pre-existing ideas and concepts, but as dynamic proponents in a fraught, constantly shifting landscape. The book is important for all scholars and students of Byzantine art and religion.

Street corners, guild halls, government offices, and confraternity centers contained paintings that made the city of Florence a visual jewel at precisely the time of its emergence as an international cultural leader. This book considers the paintings that were made specifically for consideration by lay viewers, as well as the way they could have been interpreted by audiences who approached them with specific perspectives. Their belief in the power of images, their understanding of the persuasiveness of pictures, and their acceptance of the utterly vital role that art could play as a propagator of civic, corporate, and individual identity made lay viewers keenly aware of the paintings in their midst. Those pictures affirmed the piety of the people for whom they were made in an age of social and political upheaval, as the city experimented with an imperfect form of republicanism that often failed to adhere to its declared aspirations.

This is the first book to explore the emergence and function of a novel pictorial format in the Middle Ages, the vita icon, which displayed the magnified portrait of a saint framed by scenes from his or her life. The vita icon was used for depicting the most popular figures in the Orthodox calendar and, in the Latin West, was deployed most vigorously in the service of Francis of Assisi. This book offers a compelling account of how this type of image embodied and challenged the prevailing structures of vision, representation and sanctity in Byzantium and among the Franciscans in Italy between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Paroma Chatterjee uncovers the complexities of the philosophical and theological issues that had long engaged both the medieval East and West, such as the fraught relations between words and images, relics and icons, a representation and its subject, and the very nature of holy presence.

Sicily is famous for the spectacular mosaics found in its magnificent palaces, chapels and cathedrals. Commissioned during the twelfth century by Sicily's Norman rulers and largely the work of Greek-speaking mosaicists brought to Sicily from Constantinople, these mosaics are among the most beautiful examples of Byzantine art in existence. A brief historical introduction about Byzantine, Arab and Norman domination and the spread of Byzantine art in Sicily is followed by three chapters dedicated to the greatest examples of Byzantine influence in Palermo, Cefalu and Monreale. With more than 175 color photographs, this extensively illustrated book provides a fascinating look at these mosaics. There are many close-ups, along with breathtaking views of interior spaces. Text in English and Italian.

What can medieval sculptural representations of women tell us about medieval women's experiences of motherhood? Presumably the work of male sculptors, working for clerical patrons, these sculptures are unlikely to have been shaped by women's maternal experiences during their production. Once produced, however, their beholders would have included women who were mothers and potential mothers, thus opening a space between the sculptures' intended meanings and other meanings liable to be produced by these women as they brought their own interests and concerns to these works of art. Building on theories of reception and response, this book focuses on interactions between women as beholders and a range of sculptures made in France in the twelfth through sixteenth centuries, aiming to provide insight into women's experiences of motherhood; particular sculptures considered include the Annunciation and Visitation from Reims cathedral, the femme-aux-serpents from Moissac, the transi of Jeanne de Bourbon-Vendome, the Eve from Autun, and a number of French Gothic Virgin and Child sculptures. Marian Bleeke is Associate Professor of Art History and Chair of the Department of Art and Design at Cleveland State University.

This book explores how the Virgin Mary's life is told in hymns, sermons, icons, art, and other media in the Byzantine Empire before AD 1204. A group of international specialists examines material and textual evidence from both Byzantine and Muslim-ruled territories that was intended for a variety of settings and audiences and seeks to explain why Byzantine artisans and writers chose to tell stories about Mary, the Mother of God, in such different ways. Sometimes the variation reflected the theological or narrative purposes of story-tellers; sometimes it expressed their personal spiritual preoccupations. Above all, the variety of aspects that this holy figure assumed in Byzantium reveals her paradoxical theological position as meeting-place and mediator between the divine and created realms. Narrative, whether 'historical', theological, or purely literary, thus played a fundamental role in the development of the Marian cult from Late Antiquity onward.

In this wide-ranging, eloquent book, Paul Binski sheds new light on one of the greatest periods of English art and architecture, offering ground-breaking arguments about the role of invention and the powers of Gothic art. His richly documented study locates what became known as the Decorated Style within patterns of commissioning, designing, and imagining whose origins lay in pre-Gothic art. By examining notions of what was extraordinary, re-evaluating medieval ideas of authorship, and restoring economic considerations to the debate, Binski sets English visual art of the early 14th century in a broad European context and also within the aesthetic discourses of the medieval period. The author, stressing the continuum between art and architecture, challenges understandings about agency, modernity, hierarchy, and marginality. His book makes a powerful case for the restoration of the category of the aesthetic to the understanding of medieval art. Generously illustrated with hundreds of images, "Gothic Wonder" traces the impact of English art in Continental Europe, ending with the Black Death and the literary uses of the architectural in works by Geoffrey Chaucer and other writers.

In the past two decades, scholarly assessment of the Bayeux Tapestry has moved beyond studies of its sources and analogues, dating, origin and purpose, and site of display. This volume demonstrates the value of more recent interpretive approaches to this famous and iconic artefact, by examining the textile's materiality, visuality, reception and historiography, and its constructions of gender, territory and cultural memory. The essays it contains frame discussions vital to the future of Tapestry scholarship and are complemented by a bibliography covering three centuries of critical writings. Martin K. Foys is Professor of English at University of Wisconsin-Madison; Karen Eileen Overbey is Associate Professor of Art History at Tufts University; Dan Terkla is Professor of English at Illinois Wesleyan University. Contributors: Valerie Allen, Richard Brilliant, Shirley Ann Brown, Elizabeth Carson Pastan, Madeline H. Cavines, Martin K. Foys, Michael John Lewis, Karen Eileen Overbey, Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Dan Terkla, Stephen D. White.

Filled with information and lore, mappae mundi present an encyclopaedic panorama of the conceptual "landscape" of the middle ages. Previously objects of study for cartographers and geographers, the value of medieval maps to scholars in other fields is now recognised and this book, written from an art historical perspective, illuminates the medieval view of the world represented in a group of maps of c.1300. Naomi Kline's detailed examination of the literary, visual, oral and textual evidence of the Hereford mappa mundi and others like it, such as the Psalter Maps, the '"Sawley Map," and the Ebstorf Map, places them within the larger context of medieval art and intellectual history. The mappa mundi in Hereford cathedral is at the heart of this study: it has more than one thousand texts and images of geographical subjects, monuments, animals, plants, peoples, biblical sites and incidents, legendary material, historical information and much more; distinctions between "real" and "fantastic" are fluid; time and space are telescoped, presenting past, present, and future. Naomi Kline provides, for the first time, a full and detailed analysis of the images and texts of the Hereford map which, thus deciphered, allow comparison with related mappae mundi as well as with other texts and images. NAOMI REED KLINE is Professor of Art History at Plymouth State College.

Old St Peter's Basilica in Rome stood for over eleven centuries until it was demolished to make room for today's church on the same Vatican site. Its last eyewitness, Maffeo Vegio, explained to the Roman hierarchy how revival of the papacy, whose prestige after the exile to Avignon had been diminished, was inseparable from a renewed awareness of the primacy of Peter's Church. To make his case, Vegio wrote a history founded on credible written and visual evidence. The text guides us through the building's true story in its material reality, undistorted by medieval guides. This was its living memory and a visualization of the continuity of Roman history into modern times. This volume makes available the first complete English translation of Vegio's text. Accompanied by full-color digital reconstructions of the Basilica as it appeared in Vegio's day.

The art of predicting earthly events from the movements of stars and planets has always been a source of fascination. Medieval astrologers, though sometimes feared to be magicians in league with demons, were usually revered scholars whose ideas and practices were widely respected. Politics, medicine, weather forecasting, cosmology and alchemy were all influenced by astrological concepts. Astrology in Medieval Manuscripts explores the dazzling complexity of western medieval astrology and its place in society, as revealed by a wealth of illustrated manuscripts from the British Library's rich medieval collection.

From simple charms to complex and subversive rituals to summon demons, diverse forms of magic were practiced in the Middle Ages. With numerous fascinating illustrations from the British Library's rich medieval collection, Magic in Medieval Manuscripts explores the place of magic in the medieval world. It examines representations of the magician, wise-woman and witch; magical objects; and ritual procedures, revealing the medieval fascination with the points of contact between this world and the celestial and infernal realms.

In this book, Beatrice E. Kitzinger explores the power of representation in the Carolingian period, demonstrating how images were used to assert the value and efficacy of art works. She focuses on the cross, Christianity's central sign, which simultaneously commemorates sacred history, functions in the present, and prepares for the end of time. It is well recognized that the visual attributes of the cross were designed to communicate its theology relative to history and eschatology; Kitzinger argues that early medieval artists also developed a formal language to articulate its efficacious powers in the present day. Defined through form and text as the sign of the present, the image of the cross articulated the instrumentality of religious objects and built spaces. Whereas medieval and modern scholars have pondered the theological problems posed by representation, Kitzinger here proposes a visual argument that affirms the self-reflexive value of art works in the early medieval West. Introducing little-known sources, she re-evaluates both the image of the cross and the project of book-making in an expanded field of Carolingian painting.

The legend of Theophilus stages an iconic medieval story, its widespread popularity attesting to its grip on the imagination. A pious clerk refuses a promotion, is demoted, becomes furious and makes a contract with the Devil. Later repentant, he seeks out a church and a statue of the Virgin; she appears to him, and he is transformed from apostate to saint. It is illustrated in a variety of media: texts, stained glass, sculpture, and manuscript illuminations. Through a wide range of manuscript illuminations and a selection of French texts, the book explores visual and textual representations of the legend, setting it in its social, cultural and material contexts, and showing how it explores medieval anxieties concerning salvation and identity. The author argues that the legend is a sustained meditation on the power of images, its popularity corresponding with the rise of their role in portraying medieval identity and salvation, and in acting as portals between the limits of the material and the possibilities of the spiritual world Jerry Root is Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature, University of Utah.

This deeply informed and lavishly illustrated book is a comprehensive introduction to the modern study of Middle English manuscripts. It is intended for students and scholars who are familiar with some of the major Middle English literary works, such as The Canterbury Tales, Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman, and the romances, mystical works or cycle plays, but who may not know much about the surviving manuscripts. The book approaches these texts in a way that takes into account the whole manuscript or codex its textual and visual contents, physical state, readership, and cultural history. Opening Up Middle English Manuscripts also explores the function of illustrations in fashioning audience response to particular authors and their texts over the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries

Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Linda Olson, and Maidie Hilmo scholars at the forefront of the modern study of Middle English manuscripts focus on the writers most often taught in Middle English courses, including Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, the Gawain Poet, Thomas Hoccleve, Julian of Norwich, and Margery Kempe, highlighting the specific issues that shaped literary production in late medieval England. Among the topics they address are the rise of the English language, literacy, social conditions of authorship, early instances of the "Alliterative Revival," women and book production, nuns' libraries, patronage, household books, religious and political trends, and attempts at revisionism and censorship. Inspired by the highly successful study of Latin manuscripts by Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (also published by Cornell), this book demonstrates how the field of Middle English manuscript studies, with its own unique literary and artistic environment, is changing modern approaches to the culture of the book."

In the first full-length study of Judith of Flanders (c. 1032-1094), Mary Dockray-Miller provides a narrative of Judith's life through analysis of the books and art objects she commissioned and collected. Organizing her book chronologically by Judith's marriages and commissions, Dockray-Miller argues that Judith consciously and successfully deployed patronage to support her political and marital maneuverings in the eleventh-century European political theater. During her marriage to Tostig Godwinson, Earl of Northumbria, she commissioned at least four Gospel books for herself in addition to the numerous art objects that she gave to English churches as part of her devotional practices. The multiple treasures Judith donated to Weingarten Abbey while she was married to Welf of Bavaria culminated in the posthumous gift of the relic of the Holy Blood, still celebrated as the Abbey's most important holding. Lavishly illustrated with never before published full-color reproductions from Monte Cassino MS 437 and Fulda Landesbibliothek MS Aa.21, The Books and the Life of Judith of Flanders features English translations of relevant excerpts from the Vita Oswinii and De Translatione Sanguinis Christi. Dockray-Miller's book is a fascinating account of this intriguing woman who successfully negotiated the pitfalls of being on the losing side of both the Norman Conquest and the Investiture Controversy.

Images and imagery played a major role in medieval political thought and culture, but their influence has rarely been explored. This book provides a full assessment of the subject. Starting with an examination of the writings of late twelfth-century courtier-clerics, and their new vision of English political life as a heightened religious drama, it argues that visual images were key to the development and expression of medieval English political ideas and arguments. It discusses the vivid pictorial metaphors used in contemporary political treatises, and highlights their interaction with public decorative schemas in English great churches, private devotional imagery, seal iconography, illustrations of English history and a range of other visual sources. Meanwhile, through an exploration of events such as the Thomas Becket conflict, the making of Magna Carta, the Barons' War and the deposition of Edward II, it provides new perspectives on the political role of art, especially in reshaping basic assumptions and expectations about government and political society in medieval England. LAURA SLATER is a Fulford Junior Research Fellow at Somerville College, University of Oxford.