Profane Images in Marginal Arts of the Middle Ages


Book Description

IntroductionPrefaceMalcolm JonesEditorialElaine C. BlockTechnical Aspects of the MisericordHugh HarrisonProfane Imagery on Misericords and Lead Badges1 Misericords as an Interpretative Tool in the study of Choir StallsCharles Tracy2 Misericords and the World of BruegelElaine C. Block3 TutivillusChrista Grössinger4 Where the Abbot Carries Dice : Gaming-Board Misericords in Context M.A. Hall5 Flying Low Down Under: Representations of Winged MammalsFowl and Birds on English MisericordsS.J. F.S. Philips6 The Mermaid in the ChurchTerry Pearson7 Romance among the Choir Stalls: Middle English Romance Motifs on English MisericordsJennifer Fellows8 Misinterpretation in the MarginsPaul Hardwick9 Passionate Pilgrims: Secular Lead Badges as Precursors of Emblemata AmatoriaStefanie StockhorstProfane Images in other marginal media10 Obscenity as the Woodworker's Last LaughNaomi Reed Kline11 Looking for Fun in All the Wrong Places: Humour and Comedy in Moralizing PrintsDiane G. Scillia12 A Sacred Tekst Profaned : Seven Women Fight for the BreechesWalter S. Gibson13 Iconographie des charniers des ossuaires et des aîtres à Travers la France médievale Sylvie Bethmont-Gallerand14 An Iconography of Shame: German Defamatory Pictures of the Early Modern EraSilke Meyer15 The Lost Print Collection of Ferdinand Columbus (1488-1539)Mark P. Mc DonaldThe Marginal Arts in the Mainstream16 Screening the Middle Ages: Costumes and Objects as Medieval Signifiers in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)Brian J. Levy17 Diabolus in musica dans les stalles médiévales: significations du désordre musical Frédéric Billiet18 Review of Averting Demons by Ruth MellinkoffMalcolm Jones19 Resumes in French and EnglishSylvie Bethmond-GallerandElaine C. BlockAppendix/ List of photographs by siteThe Authors.







English Medieval Misericords


Book Description

Misericord carvings present a fascinating corpus of medieval art which, in turn, complements our knowledge of life and belief in the late middle ages. Subjects range from the sacred to the profane and from the fantastic to the everyday, seemingly giving equal weight to the scatological and the spiritual alike. Focusing specifically on England - though with cognisance of broader European contexts - this volume offers an analysis of misericords in relation to other cultural artefacts of the period. Through a series of themed "case studies", the book places misericords firmly within the doctrinal and devotional milieu in which they were created and sited, arguing that even the apparently coarse images to be found beneath choir stalls are intimately linked to the devotional life of the medieval English Church. The analysis is complemented by a gazetteer of the most notable instances. Dr Paul Hardwick is Professor in English, Leeds Trinity University College.




"Death, Torture and the Broken Body in European Art, 1300?650 "


Book Description

Bodies mangled, limbs broken, skin flayed, blood spilled: from paintings to prints to small sculptures, the art of the late Middle Ages and early modern period gave rise to disturbing scenes of violence. Many of these torture scenes recall Christ?s Passion and its aftermath, but the martyrdoms of saints, stories of justice visited on the wicked, and broadsheet reports of the atrocities of war provided fertile ground for scenes of the body?s desecration. Contributors to this volume interpret pain, suffering, and the desecration of the human form not simply as the passing fancies of a cadre of proto-sadists, but also as serving larger social functions within European society. Taking advantage of the frameworks established by scholars such as Samuel Edgerton, Mitchell Merback, and Elaine Scarry (to name but a few), Death, Torture and the Broken Body in European Art, 1300-1650 provides an intriguing set of lenses through which to view such imagery and locate it within its wider social, political, and devotional contexts. Though the art works discussed are centuries old, the topics of the essays resonate today as twenty-first-century Western society is still absorbed in thorny debates about the ethics and consequences of the use of force, coercion (including torture), and execution, and about whether it is ever fully acceptable to write social norms on the bodies of those who will not conform.




Sin and Filth in Medieval Culture


Book Description

This important new contribution to the history of the body analyzes the role of filth as the material counterpart of sin in medieval thought. Using a wide range of texts, including theology, historical documents, and literature from Augustine to Chaucer, the book shows how filth was regarded as fundamental to an understanding of human history. This theological significance explains the prominence of filth and dung in all genres of medieval writing: there is more dung in theology than there is in Chaucer. The author also demonstrates the ways in which the religious understanding of filth and sin influenced the secular world, from town planning to the execution of traitors. As part of this investigation the book looks at the symbolic order of the body and the ways in which the different aspects of the body were assigned moral meanings. The book also lays out the realities of medieval sanitation, providing the first comprehensive view of real-life attempts to cope with filth. This book will be essential reading for those interested in medieval religious thought, literature, amd social history. Filled with a wealth of entertaining examples, it will also appeal to those who simply want to glimpse the medieval world as it really was.




Images of Language in Middle English Vernacular Writings


Book Description

An exploration of the use of images in Middle English texts, tracing out what can be deduced of a theory of language.




Parody and Festivity in Early Modern Art


Book Description

Dwelling on the rich interconnections between parody and festivity in humanist thought and popular culture alike, the essays in this volume delve into the nature and the meanings of festive laughter as it was conceived of in early modern art. The concept of 'carnival' supplies the main thread connecting these essays. Bound as festivity often is to popular culture, not all the topics fit the canons of high art, and some of the art is distinctly low-brow and occasionally ephemeral; themes include grobianism and the grotesque, scatology, popular proverbs with ironic twists, and a wide range of comic reversals, some quite profound. Many hinge on ideas of the world upside down. Though the chapters most often deal with Northern Renaissance and Baroque art, they spill over into other countries, times, and cultures, while maintaining the carnivalesque air suggested by the book's title.




The Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture


Book Description

This volume offers unparalleled coverage of all aspects of art and architecture from medieval Western Europe, from the 6th century to the early 16th century. Drawing upon the expansive scholarship in the celebrated 'Grove Dictionary of Art' and adding hundreds of new entries, it offers students, researchers and the general public a reliable, up-to-date, and convenient resource covering this field of major importance in the development of Western history and international art and architecture.




Picturing Punishment


Book Description

Bringing together themes in the history of art, punishment, religion, and the history of medicine, Picturing Punishment provides new insights into the wider importance of the criminal to civic life.




Rural Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age


Book Description

Older research on the premodern world limited its focus on the Church, the court, and, more recently, on urban space. The present volume invites readers to consider the meaning of rural space, both in light of ecocritical readings and social-historical approaches. While previous scholars examined the figure of the peasant in the premodern world, the current volume combines a large number of specialized studies that investigate how the natural environment and the appearance of members of the rural population interacted with the world of the court and of the city. The experience in rural space was important already for writers and artists in the premodern era, as the large variety of scholarly approaches indicates. The present volume signals how much the surprisingly close interaction between members of the aristocratic and of the peasant class determined many literary and art-historical works. In a surprisingly large number of cases we can even discover elements of utopia hidden in rural space. We also observe how much the rural world was a significant element already in early-medieval mentality. Moreover, as many authors point out, the impact of natural forces on premodern society was tremendous, if not catastrophic.