Framed by evocative inscriptions, tumultuous historical events, and the ambiguities of Christian death, Romanesque tomb effigies were the first large-scale figural monuments for the departed in European art. In this book, Shirin Fozi explores these provocative markers of life and death, establishing early tomb figures as a coherent genre that hinged upon histories of failure and frustrated ambition. In sharp contrast to later recumbent funerary figures, none of the known European tomb effigies made before circa 1180 were commissioned by the people they represented, and all of the identifiable examples of these tombs were dedicated to individuals whose legacies were fraught rather than triumphant. Fozi draws on this evidence to argue that Romanesque effigies were created to address social rather than individual anxieties: they compensated for defeat by converting local losses into an expectation of eternal victory, comforting the embarrassed heirs of those whose histories were marked by misfortune and offering compensation for the disappointments of the world. Featuring numerous examples and engaging the visual, historical, and theological contexts that inform them, this groundbreaking work adds a fresh dimension to the study of monumental sculpture and the idea of the individual in the northern European Middle Ages. It will appeal to scholars of art history and medieval studies.

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.

In this new edition of A Short History of the Middle Ages, Barbara H. Rosenwein offers a panoramic view of the medieval world from Iceland to China and from Sweden to West Africa. Yet the book never loses sight of the main contours of the period (c.300 to c.1500) or of the fate of the heirs of the Roman Empire. Its lively and informative narrative covers the major events, political and religious movements, men and women, saints and sinners, economic and cultural changes, ideals, fears, and fantasies of the period in Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic world. A comprehensive new map program, updated for the global reach of this edition, offers a way to visualize the era's enormous political, economic, and religious changes. Line drawings make clear archaeological finds and architectural structures All of the maps, genealogies, and figures in the book, as well as practice questions and suggested answers, are available at utphistorymatters.com,

The early modern Mediterranean was an area where many different rich cultural traditions came in contact with each other, and were often forced to co-exist, frequently learning to reap the benefits of co-operation. Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Muslims, Jews, and their interactions all contributed significantly to the cultural development of modern Europe. The aim of this volume is to address, explore, re-examine and re-interpret one specific aspect of this cross-cultural interaction in the Mediterranean - that between the Byzantine East and the (mainly Italian) West. The investigation of this interaction has become increasingly popular in the past few decades, not least due to the relevance it has for cultural exchanges in our present-day society. The starting point is provided by the fall of Constantinople to the troops of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. In the aftermath of the fall, a number of Byzantine territories came under prolonged Latin occupation, an occupation that forced Greeks and Latins to adapt their life socially and religiously to the new status quo. Venetian Crete developed one of the most fertile 'bi-cultural' societies, which evolved over 458 years. Its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1669 marked the end of an era and was hence chosen as the end point for the conference. By sampling case studies from the most representative areas where this interaction took place, the volume highlights the process as well as the significance of its cultural development.

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.

A Cultural History of Color in the Medieval Age covers the period 500 to 1400. The medieval age saw an extraordinary burst of color - from illuminated manuscripts and polychrome sculpture to architecture and interiors, and from enamelled and jewelled metalwork to colored glass and the exquisite decoration of artefacts. Color was used to denote affiliation in heraldry and social status in medieval clothes. Color names were created in various languages and their resonance explored in poems, romances, epics, and plays. And, whilst medieval philosophers began to explain the rainbow, theologians and artists developed a color symbolism for both virtues and vices. Color shapes an individual's experience of the world and also how society gives particular spaces, objects, and moments meaning. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Color examines how color has been created, traded, used, and interpreted over the last 5000 years. The themes covered in each volume are color philosophy and science; color technology and trade; power and identity; religion and ritual; body and clothing; language and psychology; literature and the performing arts; art; architecture and interiors; and artefacts. Carole P. Biggam is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Glasgow, UK. Kirsten Wolf is Professor of Old Norse and Scandinavian Linguistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. Volume 2 in the Cultural History of Color set. General Editors: Carole P. Biggam and Kirsten Wolf

The crusades, whether realized or merely planned, had a profound impact on medieval and early modern societies. Numerous scholars in the fields of history and literature have explored the influence of crusading ideas, values, aspirations and anxieties in both the Latin States and Europe. However, there have been few studies dedicated to investigating how the crusading movement influenced and was reflected in medieval visual cultures. Written by scholars from around the world working in the domains of art history and history, the essays in this volume examine the ways in which ideas of crusading were realized in a broad variety of media (including manuscripts, cartography, sculpture, mural paintings, and metalwork). Arguing implicitly for recognition of the conceptual frameworks of crusades that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries, the volume explores the pervasive influence and diverse expression of the crusading movement from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries.

The myriad ways in which colour and light have been adapted and applied in the art, architecture, and material culture of past societies is the focus of this interdisciplinary volume. Light and colour's iconographic, economic, and socio-cultural implications are considered by established and emerging scholars including art historians, archaeologists, and conservators, who address the variety of human experience of these sensory phenomena. In today's world it is the norm for humans to be surrounded by strong, artificial colours, and even to see colour as perhaps an inessential or surface property of the objects around us. Similarly, electric lighting has provided the power and ability to illuminate and manipulate environments in increasingly unprecedented ways. In the context of such a saturated experience, it becomes difficult to identify what is universal, and what is culturally specific about the human experience of light and colour. Failing to do so, however, hinders the capacity to approach how they were experienced by people of centuries past. By means of case studies spanning a broad historical and geographical context and covering such diverse themes as architecture, cave art, the invention of metallurgy, and medieval manuscript illumination, the contributors to this volume provide an up-to-date discussion of these themes from a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective. The papers range in scope from the meaning of colour in European prehistoric art to the technical art of the glazed tiles of the Shah mosque in Isfahan. Their aim is to explore a multifarious range of evidence and to evaluate and illuminate what is a truly enigmatic topic in the history of art and visual culture.

This volume explores the late medieval and early modern periods from the perspective of objects. While the agency of things has been studied in anthropology and archaeology, it is an innovative approach for art historical investigations. Each contributor takes as a point of departure active things: objects that were collected, exchanged, held in hand, carried on a body, assembled, cared for or pawned. Through a series of case studies set in various geographic locations, this volume examines a rich variety of systems throughout Europe and beyond. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781315401867, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

Mater Misericordiae-Mother of Mercy-emerged as one of the most prolific subjects in central Italian art from the late thirteenth through the sixteenth centuries. With iconographic origins in Marian cult relics brought from Palestine to Constantinople in the fifth century, the amalgam of attributes coalesced in Armenian Cilicia then morphed as it spread to Cyprus. An early concept of Mary of Mercy-the Virgin standing with outstretched arms and a wide mantle under which kneel or stand devotees-entered the Italian peninsula at the ports of Bari and Venice during the Crusades, eventually converging in central Italy. The mendicant orders adopted the image as an easily recognizable symbol for mercy and aided in its diffusion. In this study, the author's primary goals are to explore the iconographic origins of the Madonna della Misericordia as a devotional image by identifying and analyzing key attributes; to consider circumstances for its eventual overlapping function as a secular symbol used by lay confraternities; and to discuss its diaspora throughout the Italian peninsula, Western Europe, and eastward into Russia and Ukraine. With over 100 illustrations, the book presents an array of works of art as examples, including altarpieces, frescoes, oil paintings, manuscript illuminations, metallurgy, glazed terracotta, stained glass, architectural relief sculpture, and processional banners.

Over the centuries, European debate about the nature and status of images of God and sacred figures has often upset the established order and shaken societies to their core. Out of this debate, an identifiable doctrine has emerged of the image in general and of the divine image in particular. This fascinating work concentrates on these historical arguments, from the period of Late Antiquity up to the great and classic defenses of images by St. John of Damascus and Theodore of Studion. Icon extends beyond the immediate concerns of religion, philosophy, aesthetics, history, and art, to engage them all.

ART AND ARCHITECTURE OF IRELAND is an authoritative and fully illustrated survey that encompasses the period from the early Middle Ages to the end of the 20th century. The five volumes explore all aspects of Irish art - from high crosses to installation art, from illuminated manuscripts to Georgian houses and Modernist churches, from tapestries and sculptures to oil paintings, photographs and video art. This monumental project provides new insights into every facet of the strength, depth and variety of Ireland's artistic and architectural heritage. MEDIEVAL c. 400-c. 1600 An unrivalled account of all aspects of the rich and varied visual culture of Ireland in the Middle Ages. Based on decades of original research, the book contains over 300 lively and informative essays and is magnificently illustrated. Readers will enjoy expanding their knowledge of medieval Ireland through explorations of the objects and buildings produced there and the people who created them. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in association with the Royal Irish Academy

Postcolonial theories have transformed literary, historical and cultural studies over the past three decades. Yet the study of medieval art and visualities has, in general, remained Eurocentric in its canon and conservative in its approaches. 'Postcolonising', as the eleven essays in this volume show, entails active intervention into the field of medieval art history and visual studies through a theoretical reframing of research. This approach poses and elicits new research questions, and tests how concepts current in postcolonial studies - such as diaspora and migration, under-represented artistic cultures, accented art making, displacement, intercultural versus transcultural, hybridity, presence/absence - can help medievalists to reinvigorate the study of art and visuality. Postcolonial concepts are deployed in order to redraft the canon of medieval art, thereby seeking to build bridges between medievalist and modernist communities of scholars. Among the varied topics explored in the volume are the appropriation of Roman iconography by early medieval Scandinavian metalworkers, multilingualism and materiality in Anglo-Saxon culture, the circulation and display of Islamic secular ceramics on Pisan churches, cultural negotiation by Jewish minorities in Central Europe and the Iberian peninsula, Holy Land maps and medieval imaginative geography, and the uses of Thomas Becket in the colonial imaginary of the Plantagenet court.

Foreshadowing the Reformation argues that paintings are the history of ideas in visual form. It follows, therefore, that if we are to fully understand and appreciate the late Medieval and Renaissance paintings of great Northern European artists such as Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, we need to investigate the religious and spiritual beliefs and practices of the time. It has been quite fashionable in Medieval and Renaissance Art History over recent decades largely to ignore the contemporary religious context and to concentrate instead on the part played by economics in the creation of works of art. Much has been made, for example, of the costs of materials, the role of markets, international trade and the commissioning process-all of which are undoubtedly important. This book looks to redress this balance through its description and analysis of religious and spiritual ideas, and by offering new, exciting and radical insights about some of the paintings, altarpieces and sculptures that were created. This book argues that there was a symbiotic relationship between those artistic and spiritual worlds and that by bringing the insights from those worlds together we can get a much richer appreciation of medieval life.

A Short Medieval Reader contains the essential primary sources for exploring the Middle Ages in depth. Designed to both complement the sixth edition of A Short History of the Middle Ages and be used on its own, this book provides comprehensive readings ranging from Iceland to Egypt and from England to Iraq. Each source is clearly dated, and its original language is specified to remind students of the extraordinary diversity that existed in the Middle Ages. Introductions to each source supply the necessary context and are followed by questions to guide the reader. Annotations and explanations are provided. A Short Medieval Reader offers a feast for inquiring minds, priced for a student's budget.

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.

Although perspective has long been considered one of the essential developments of Renaissance painting, this provocative new book shifts the usual narrative back centuries, showing that medieval sculptors were already employing knowledge of optical science, geometry, and theories of vision in shaping the beholder's experience of their work. Meticulous visual analysis is paired with close readings of medieval texts in examining a series of important relief sculptures from northern and central Italy dating from the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries, including the impressive sculptural programs at the cathedrals of Modena and Ferrara, and the pulpits by Giovanni and Nicola Pisano at Pisa and Pistoia. Demonstrating that medieval sculptors orchestrated the reception of their intended religious and political messages through the careful manipulation of points of view and architectural space, Christopher R. Lakey argues that medieval practice was well informed by visual theory and that the concepts that led to the codification of linear perspective by Renaissance painters had in fact been in use by sculptors for hundreds of years.

The Wilton Diptych is a comprehensive account of one of England's greatest surviving medieval treasures, now in the collection of The National Gallery, London. The painting depicts King Richard II (1367-1400) being presented to the Virgin Mary and Christ by John the Baptist and two English Kings, revered as saints. The brilliant color and lavish use of gold give it the appearance of a luxury object, yet its primary function was religious, as an altarpiece for the king's private devotions. The author analyzes the iconography, historical context, style, materials, and techniques used to create this precious work, and discusses the likely identity of the artist and the possible evidence that this picture was known to and referenced by William Shakespeare in his play Richard II. Further study of the intricate detail, varied techniques, and decorative effects shows connections to French metalwork and manuscript illumination, while newly commissioned photography reveals exquisite details unseen by the naked eye. Published by National Gallery Company/Distributed by Yale University Press

This volume and its companion gather a wide range of readings and sources to enable us to see and understand what monsters show us about what it means to be human. The first volume introduces important modern theorists of the monstrous, with a brief introduction to each reading, setting the theorist and theory in context, and providing background and guiding questions. The selection of readings in Classic Readings on Monster Theory is intended to provide interpretive tools and strategies to use to grapple with the primary sources in the second volume - Primary Sources on Monsters - which brings together some of the most influential and indicative monster narratives from the West. Taken together, these volumes allow us to witness the consistent, multi-millennium strategies the West has articulated, weaponized, and deployed to exclude, disempower, and dehumanize a range of groups and individuals within and without its porous boundaries.