Death and rebirth was of vital importance to early Christians in late antiquity. In late antiquity, death was all encompassing. Mortality rates were high, plague and disease in urban areas struck at will, and one lived on the knife's edge regarding one's health. Religion filled a crucial role in this environment, offering an option for those who sought cure and comfort. Following death, the inhumed were memorialized, providing solace to family members through sculpture, painting, and epigraphy. This book offers a sustained interdisciplinary treatment of death and rebirth, a theme that early Christians (and scholars) found important. By analysing the theme of death and rebirth through various lenses, the contributors deepen our understanding of the early Christian funerary and liturgical practices as well as their engagement with other groups in the Empire.

It has long been an accepted assumption that the abstracted mode of visual representation that emerged in late antiquity reflected a collective shift from the outer-directed and 'material' world-view of classical antiquity to an inner-directed, 'spiritual' mentality informed by Christianity: the purpose of this volume is to offer a more nuanced and diverse image of the nature and meanings of abstraction and symbolism in late antique and early medieval art, beyond normative intepretation models, and from a number of different methodological and interpretative perspectives. In ten chapters, ten authors specialised in various fields of late-antique and Byzantine art explore the historiographical background of the 'spiritual' interpretation paradigm, neuroscientific and theological dimensions of Christian visual aesthetics, meanings and motive factors behind apparently wholly abstract and aniconic compositions, symbolic motifs and schemes for visualising cosmic order and the cosmic state of Christ, and the re-use of symbolic Greco-Roman themes in Christian contexts. The result is a multi-focal image of late antique abstraction and symbolism that illuminates the heterogeneity and complexity of the phenomena and of their study.

New approaches to what is arguably the most famous artefact from the Middle Ages. 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. 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.

In colorful detail, Calvin Lane explores the dynamic intersection between reform movements and everyday Christian practice from ca. 1000 to ca. 1800. Lowering the artificial boundaries between "the Middle Ages," "the Reformation," and "the Enlightenment," Lane brings to life a series of reform programs each of which developed new sensibilities about what it meant to live the Christian life. Along this tour, Lane discusses music, art, pilgrimage, relics, architecture, heresy, martyrdom, patterns of personal prayer, changes in marriage and family life, connections between church bodies and governing authorities, and certainly worship. The thread that he finds running from the Benedictine revival in the eleventh century to the pietistic movements of the eighteenth is a passionate desire to return to a primitive era of Christianity, a time of imagined apostolic authenticity, even purity. In accessible language, he introduces readers to Cistercians and Calvinists, Franciscans and Jesuits, Lutherans and Jansenists, Moravians and Methodists to name but a few of the many reform movements studied in this book. Although Lane highlights their diversity, he argues that each movement rooted its characteristic practice - their spirituality - in an imaginative recovery of the apostolic life.

Charles Locke Eastlake (1833-1906), an interior, furniture and industrial designer, showed talent as an architect and was awarded a Silver Medal in 1854 by the Royal Academy. He is known for influencing the style of later nineteenth-century 'Modern' Gothic furniture with his Hints on Household Taste (1868), but his passion for medieval architecture developed much earlier while he was in Europe during the 1850s. In 1866 he became Secretary to the Royal Institute of British Architects, and it was in 1872 that this work was published. The book is notable for being released at the height of the Gothic Revival movement in the later nineteenth century. It includes detailed comments on the architects, societies, literature and buildings that formed the cornerstones of the Gothic Revival, primarily in Britain, from around 1650 to 1870. A valuable mine of information, it remains a key source on the topic.

Nira Stone (1938-2013) was a scholar of Armenian and Byzantine Art. Her broad and close acquaintance with the field of Armenian art history covered many fields of Armenian artistic creativity. Nira Stone made notable contributions to the study of Armenian manuscript painting, mosaics, and other forms of artistic expression. Of particular interests are her researches on this art in its historical and religious contexts, such as the study of apocryphal elements in Armenian Gospel iconography, the place of the mosaics of Jerusalem in the context of mosaics in Byzantine Palestine, and of the interplay between religious movements, such as hesychasm, and Armenian manuscript painting.

Originally published during the early part of the twentieth century, the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature were designed to provide concise introductions to a broad range of topics. They were written by experts for the general reader and combined a comprehensive approach to knowledge with an emphasis on accessibility. Brasses by J. S. M. Ward was first published in 1912. The book contains an engaging guide to monumental brasses, with information on historical classification and numerous illustrative figures.

From the bestselling author of Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts, a captivating account of the last surviving relic of Thomas Becket The assassination of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170 is one of the most famous events in European history. It inspired the largest pilgrim site in medieval Europe and many works of literature from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral and Anouilh's Becket. In a brilliant piece of historical detective work, Christopher de Hamel here identifies the only surviving relic from Becket's shrine: the Anglo-Saxon Psalter which he cherished throughout his time as Archbishop of Canterbury, and which he may even have been holding when he was murdered. Beautifully illustrated and published to coincide with the 850th anniversary of the death of Thomas Becket, this is an exciting rediscovery of one of the most evocative artefacts of medieval England.

Richly-illustrated consideration of the meaning of the carvings of non-human beings, from centaurs to eagles, found in ecclesiastical settings. Representations of monsters and the monstrous are common in medieval art and architecture, from the grotesques in the borders of illuminated manuscripts to the symbol of the "green man", widespread in churches and cathedrals. These mysterious depictions are frequently interpreted as embodying or mitigating the fears symptomatic of a "dark age". This book, however, considers an alternative scenario: in what ways did monsters in twelfth-century sculpture help audiences envision, perhaps even achieve, various ambitions? Using examples of Romanesque sculpture from across Europe, with a focus on France and northern Portugal, the author suggests that medieval representations of monsterscould service ideals, whether intellectual, political, religious, and social, even as they could simultaneously articulate fears; he argues that their material presence energizes works of art in paradoxical, even contradictory ways. In this way, Romanesque monsters resist containment within modern interpretive categories and offer testimony to the density and nuance of the medieval imagination. KIRK AMBROSE is Associate Professor & Chair, Department of Art and Art History, University of Colorado Boulder.

Radical Traditionalism: The Influence of Walter Kaegi in Late Antique, Byzantine, and Medieval Studies brings together scholars from fields and disciplines as diverse as medieval history, Byzantine history, Roman art history, and early Islamic studies. These scholars were students of Walter Kaegi, whose work influenced them greatly. This collection offers thoughtful essays examining political culture, source criticism and institutional continuity and discontinuity in a variety of areas, as well as illustrates how one scholar's influence can reach across disciplinary boundaries to shape the argumentative structures and methods of both students and scholars. Any reader interested in the formation of disciplinary "schools" and how the broad application of a coherent approach to sources both literary and material will find this book an innovative approach to the Festschrift genre.

The John Rylands Library houses one of the finest collections of rare books, manuscripts and archives in the world. The collections span five millennia and cover a wide range of subjects, including art and archaeology; economic, social, political, religious and military history; literature, drama and music; science and medicine; theology and philosophy; travel and exploration. For over a century, the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library has published research that complements the Library's special collections. The editors invite the submission of articles in these fields and welcome discussion of in-progress projects. -- .

The poetry of the late Roman world has a fascinating history. Sometimes an object of derision, sometimes an object of admiration, it has found numerous detractors and defenders among classicists and Latin literary critics. This volume explores the scholarly approaches to late Latin poetry that have developed over the last 40 years, and it seeks especially to develop, complement and challenge the seminal concept of the ‘Jeweled Style’ proposed by Michael Roberts in 1989. While Roberts’s monograph has long been a vade mecum within the world of late antique literary studies, a critical reassessment of its validity as a concept is overdue. This volume invites established and emerging scholars from different research traditions to return to the influential conclusions put forward by Roberts. It asks them to examine the continued relevance of The Jeweled Style and to suggest new ways to engage it. In a joint effort, the nineteen chapters of this volume define and map the jeweled style, extending it to new genres, geographic regions, time periods and methodologies. Each contribution seeks to provide insightful analysis that integrates the last 30 years of scholarship while pursuing ambitious applications of the jeweled style within and beyond the world of late antiquity.

Mr Strachan was asked if he could identify or explain the illustrations in an edition of the English Great Bible of 1541. Some were simple, others quite baffling. He set out to discover their meaning and history, and succeeded in tracing their derivation. At each stage a possible influence or explanation pointed a stage farther back; in the end he found that he had to cover virtually the whole history of illustration in printed bibles during their first century. He has set down his findings in this study. There is a considerable detective interest; one sees how successive renderings of a subject produced strange garblings, until certain pictures became apparently meaningless. It is all quite easy to understand, now that Mr Strachan has explained it; but he was working backwards in time, and it was a feat of ingenuity and perseverance to have reached his conclusions. All the more so in that he had to survey the entire range of bible-printing in every important European country.

This book provides a major study of the drawings, paintings and carvings of the crucifixion from tenth- and eleventh-century England, placing these works of art within the context of the tenth-century monastic revival. The drawings and paintings of the crucifixion are discussed in relation to the literature, theology, liturgy and devotional practices of the late Anglo-Saxon period in order to reveal the richness and subtlety of religious belief at this time. Late Anglo-Saxon religious art is shown to have played a central role in the monastic life; it called to mind the gospel events and set out their theological significance; it demonstrated the truth of the gospel message; it moved men's hearts, allowing them to experience the presence of Christ and to respond as though they had actually been present at His death.

Latin paleography of the classical period and beyond the Carolingian era has been well studied and described. But from about 1100 onwards we find a period of increasing national divergence in the character of book-hands used for writing, formal MSS. In this book Professor Thomson provides 132 characteristic specimens of the period 1100 1500, reproduced by lithography (in all cases in the original size). He excludes curial or chancery hands. Opposite each plate is a transcription of several lines. Above this, Professor Thomson provides comments on the distinguishing characteristics of the script. Cumulatively, the effect of these analyses is to provide a method of dating late medieval MSS and ascribing them to their country of origin.

This 1999 book is concerned with the pictorial language of gesture revealed in Anglo-Saxon art, and its debt to classical Rome. Reginald Dodwell was an eminent art historian and former Director of the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. In this, his last book, he notes a striking similarity of both form and meaning between Anglo-Saxon gestures and those in illustrated manuscripts of the plays of Terence. He presents evidence for dating the archetype of the Terence manuscripts to the mid-third century, and argues persuasively that their gestures reflect actual stage conventions. He identifies a repertory of eighteen Terentian gestures whose meaning can be ascertained from the dramatic contexts in which they occur, and conducts a detailed examination of the use of the gestures in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The book, which is extensively illustrated, illuminates our understanding of the vigour of late Anglo-Saxon art and its ability to absorb and transpose continental influence.

Holy Monsters, Sacred Grotesques examines the intersection of religion and monstrosity in a variety of different time periods in the hopes of addressing two gaps in scholarship within the field of monster studies. The first part of the volume-running from the medieval to the Early Modern period-focuses upon the view of the monster through non-majority voices and accounts from those who were themselves branded as monsters. Overlapping partially with the Early Modern and proceeding to the present day, the contributions of the second part of the volume attempt to problematize the dichotomy of secular/religious through a close look at the monsters this period has wrought.

This book analyses the global influence of the Byzantine Empire, which will appeal to all those interested in Byzantine History / This book expands upon the theme of 'Byzantium and its neighbours', by looking into the cultural and geographical influence of Byzantium / This book will appeal to all those interested in Byzantine Culture and the Byzantine economy.

Analysis of a group of images of kingship and queenship from Anglo-Saxon England explores the implications of their focus on books, authorship and learning. Between the reign of Alfred in the late ninth century and the arrival of the Normans in 1066, a unique set of images of kingship and queenship was developed in Anglo-Saxon England, images of leadership that centred on books, authorship and learning rather than thrones, sword and sceptres. Focusing on the cultural and historical contexts in which these images were produced, this book explores the reasons for their development, and their meaning and functionwithin both England and early medieval Europe. It explains how and why they differ from their Byzantine and Continental counterparts, and what they reveal about Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards history and gender, as well as the qualities that were thought to constitute a good ruler. It is argued that this series of portraits, never before studied as a corpus, creates a visual genealogy equivalent to the textual genealogies and regnal lists that are so mucha feature of late Anglo-Saxon culture. As such they are an important part of the way in which the kings and queens of early medieval England created both their history and their kingdom. CATHERINE E. KARKOV is Professorof Art History at the University of Leeds.

Art and Writing in the Maya Cities, AD 600-800 examines an important aspect of the visual cultures of the ancient Maya in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. During a critical period of cultural evolution, artistic production changed significantly, as calligraphy became an increasingly important formal element in Maya aesthetics and was used extensively in monumental building, sculptural programs and small-scale utilitarian objects. Adam Herring's study analyzes art works, visual programs, and cultural sites of memory, providing an anthropologically-informed description of ancient Maya culture, vision, and artistic practice. An inquiry into the contexts and perceptions of the ancient Maya city, his book melds epigraphic and iconographic methodologies with the critical tradition of art-historical interpretation.

A clear, intelligently-written guide to a crucial period of Spanish history Written in the same tradition as John Julius Norwich's engrossing accounts of Venice and Byzantium, Richard Fletcher's Moorish Spain entertains even as it enlightens. He tells the story of a vital period in Spanish history which transformed the culture and society, not only of Spain, but of the rest of Europe as well. Moorish influence transformed the architecture, art, literature and learning and Fletcher combines this analysis with a crisp account of the wars, politics and sociological changes of the time.

This book reveals the interrelationship of text and picture in the only surviving illustrated Anglo-Saxon poetic manuscript. It locates the manuscript within the broader cultural contexts in which it was produced and read, and documents the way in which it was transformed by poets, artists, and modern scholars and editors from a collection of biblical poetry to a national historical narrative.

The Book of Kells, dating from about 800, is a brilliantly decorated manuscript of the four Gospels. This new official guide (French language edition), by the former Keeper of Manuscripts at Trinity College Library, Dublin, provides fascinating insights into the Book of Kells, revealing the astounding detail and richness of one of the greatest works of medieval art. The illustrations in the guide include reproductions of complete pages, and details that allow one to marvel at the intricacy of the decoration. The Book of Kells is explored through its historical background; its structure; its decorative elements, including the richness of its symbols and themes; the scribes and artists who worked on the manuscript; and the tools and pigments used in its creation.