This book explores the ways in which medieval Christians sought to memorialize the deceased: with tombs, cenotaphs, altars and other furnishings connected to a real or symbolic burial site. Reverent memorial for the dead was the inspiration for the production of a significant category of artworks during the Middle Ages - artworks aimed as much at the laity as at the clergy, and intended to maintain, symbolically, the presence of the dead. Memoria, the term that describes the formal, liturgical memory of the dead, also includes artworks intended to house and honour the deceased. A dozen essays analyze strategies for commemoration from the 4th - 15th century: the means by which human memory could be activated or manipulated through the interaction between monuments, their setting, and the visitor. Building upon from the growing body of literature on memory in the Middle Ages, the collection focuses on the tomb monument and its context as a complex to define what is to be remembered, to fix memory, and to facilitate recollection. The papers were originally presented at the 1994 meetings of the College Art Association, the International Congresses of Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, and the University of Leeds, England, in 1995.

The extraordinary cloister of Santo Domingo de Silos is central to our understanding of medieval sculpture, and of Spain's place in its development. Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo offers an innovative reading of the monastery's medieval sculpture and the first complete study in English. Her carefully documented work revises many traditional theories about the site built during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. Rather than expressing resistance to religious reform, as commonly held for the renowned Emmaus and Thomas reliefs of the first campaign, they embrace the newly imposed Roman rite. The sirens, dragons, lions, and birds of the capitals are shown to have significance beyond mere decoration. The inventive images of the second campaign, an Annunciation-Coronation and a Trinity set into the Tree of Jesse, derive specifically from monastic devotion, colored by local concerns such as the Reconquest.