Medieval Studies Commons^™

Francis Quarles And Jesuit Images: Some Observations, Clifford Davidson

Early Drama, Art, and Music

An otherwise unpublished study of Francis Quarles's Emblemes.

It’S Elementary: The Bayeux Tapestry As A Medieval Educational Tool, Sarah Bulger

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

The Bayeux Tapestry, a 230-foot-long, 950-year-old Anglo-Norman embroidery has baffled historians resulting in extensive (and diverse) scholarship since its rediscovery in the eighteenth century. The Bayeux Tapestry plays a preeminent role (outside of contemporaneous manuscripts and texts) in deciphering aspects of medieval life in England through its visual representation of the age of the Norman Conquest. Long-standing assumptions about the Bayeux Tapestry’s commission, production, and purpose have accumulated through the years based on a single inventory document from 1476 postulating its intended location and function as a religious ornament for Bayeux Cathedral. Modern academics have explored themes readily visible …

Nevenka Vazgec, Marija Maracic, Josipa Karaca

SICANJE

No abstract provided.

Re-Playing Maimonides’ Codes: Designing Games To Teach Religious Legal Systems, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

Lost & Found is a game series, created at the Initiative for

Religion, Culture, and Policy at the Rochester Institute of

Technology MAGIC Center.1 The series teaches medieval

religious legal systems. This article uses the first two games

of the series as a case study to explore a particular set of

processes to conceive, design, and develop games for learning.

It includes the background leading to the author's work

in games and teaching religion, and the specific context for

the Lost & Found series. It discusses the rationale behind

working to teach religious legal systems more broadly, then

discuss the …

Memorializing The Middle Classes In Medieval And Renaissance Europe, Anne C. Leader

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Memorializing the Middle Classes in Medieval and Renaissance Europe investigates commemorative practices in Cyprus, Flanders, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries. Offering a broad overview of memorialization practices across Europe and the Mediterranean, individual chapters examine local customs through particular case studies. These essays explore complementary themes through the lens of commemorative art, including social status; personal and corporate identities; the intersections of mercantile, intellectual, and religious attitudes; upward (and downward) mobility; and the cross-cultural exchange of memorialization strategies.

Misassembled Monsters, Jenn Brown

Graduate School of Art Theses

This thesis is a narrative of personal and material history. Through my work in painting, sculpture, and installation, I seek to share my story of emotional armoring in an attempt to connect to an audience. In my work, I look to my personal memories of growing up in a small, midwestern town and armoring myself with emotional barriers against its social construct of “normalcy.” Inspired by Medieval suits of armor and the characteristics of Goth culture throughout history, I employ my work to present the stage of a theatrical battleground. Creating each of my pieces is a fight for the …

Portraits Of Human Monsters In The Renaissance: Dwarves, Hirsutes, And Castrati As Idealized Anatomical Anomalies, Touba Ghadessi

Monsters, Prodigies, and Demons: Medieval and Early Modern Constructions of Alterity

At the center of this interdisciplinary study are court monsters - dwarves, hirsutes, and misshapen individuals - who, by their very presence, altered Renaissance ethics vis-à-vis anatomical difference, social virtues, and scientific knowledge. These monsters evolved from objects of curiosity, to scientific cases, to legally independent beings. Although many images of and writings about these individuals depict them as jokes of nature or indices of courtly wit, others transcend these categories, combining a vocabulary of courtly self-fashioning with close observations akin to dissections that humanize monsters, while simultaneously stressing their anatomical difference. More importantly, the works examined in this book …

Prosocial Religion And Games: Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

In a time when religious legal systems are discussed without an understanding of history or context, it is more important than ever to help widen the understanding and discourse about the prosocial aspects of religious legal systems throughout history. The Lost & Found (www.lostandfoundthegame.com) game series, targeted for an audience of teens through twentysomethings in formal, learning environments, is designed to teach the prosocial aspects of medieval religious systems—specifically collaboration, cooperation, and the balancing of communal and individual/family needs. Set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the 12th century, the first two games in the series address laws in Moses Maimonides’ …

Finding Lost & Found: Designer’S Notes From The Process Of Creating A Jewish Game For Learning, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This article provides context for and examines aspects of the design process of a game for learning. Lost & Found (2017a, 2017b) is a tabletop-to-mobile game series designed to teach medieval religious legal systems, beginning with Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (1180), a cornerstone work of Jewish legal rabbinic literature. Through design narratives, the article demonstrates the complex design decisions faced by the team as they balance the needs of player engagement with learning goals. In the process the designers confront challenges in developing winstates and in working with complex resource management. The article provides insight into the pathways the team …

St. Albans And The Markyate Psalter: Seeing And Reading In Twelfth-Century England, Kristen Collins, Matthew Fisher

Studies in Iconography: Themes and Variations

One of the most compelling and provocative books of twelfth-century England, the Markyate Psalter was probably produced at St. Albans Abbey between 1120 and 1140. The manuscript has been known by many names: the St. Albans Psalter, the Albani Psalter, the Hildesheim Psalter, and the Psalter of Christina of Markyate. Heralded as a high point of English Romanesque illumination, the manuscript contains the earliest known copy of the saint's life known as Chanson de St. Alexis. This volume explores the manuscript's many contexts, reading its texts and images amidst the rising internationalism of the period, marked by the circulation …

The Shrine System: Votive Culture And Cult Sculpture, Enshrining Space In 11th To 13th Century France, Kristen N. Racaniello

Theses and Dissertations

Possible relationships between northern and southern French shrines are examined in this paper through case studies of the shrines at Chartres and Conques. The materiality of cult statues and votive objects, the body as performative tool, and institutional motivations are considered for their bearing on the shrine as a system.

Hell In Hand: Fear And Hope In The Hellmouths Of The Hours Of Catherine Of Cleves, Stephanie Lish

Theses and Dissertations

This paper is an attempt to investigate how well the borders and miniatures of The Hours of Catherine of Cleves facilitated the method of meditation recommended by Gerard Zerbolt of Zutphen and therefore was a useful tool in Catherine’s search for eternal salvation.

Viewing Heaven: Rock Crystal, Reliquaries, And Transparency In Fourteenth-Century Aachen, Claire Kilgore

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

This thesis examines reliquaries and objects associated with medieval Christian practice in fourteenth-century Aachen. The city's cathedral and treasury contain prestigious relics, reliquaries, and liturgical items, aided by its status as the Holy Roman Empire's coronation church. During the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (r. 1349-1378), reliquaries, pilgrimage, and architecture reflect late medieval interests in vision, optics, and transparency. Two mid-fourteenth century reliquaries from the Aachen Cathedral Treasury, the Reliquary of Charlemagne and the Three-Steepled Reliquary, display relics through rock crystal windows, in contrast to the obscuring characteristics of earlier reliquaries. Not only do the two reliquaries visually …

The Eternal Hero: A Study Of The Evolution Of The Literary Character Throughout History, James Simms

Undergraduate Distinction Papers

The Literary character has always existed, and I intend to show how he or she has changed the times, and, in turn, been changed by the times. Literature is a powerful force of culture and morality, liberalism and conservatism, engines of fate, and forces of chaos. As each era has its own values, so each character reflects those values (and might even go against some in order to convey the authors’ understanding of them). The characters, if powerful enough, often cause social change, defining major thoughts of various eras. Literature can both define a period, but can also be the …

Displays Of Power In English Tudor Painting (1485-1603), Laura Meisner

Student Scholar Showcase

English painting between 1485 and 1603 shaped and was shaped by a myriad of cultural influences. Art historians generally agree that because England did not produce much of its own art until the 18^th century, it had a relatively slight impact on the development of Western art. A cursory history lesson of this time frame likely omits English art apart from the appearance of Hans Holbein the Younger as court painter under Henry VIII and Nicholas Hilliard during Elizabeth I’s reign. However, a study of English paintings throughout the entire Tudor period reflects its importance not only to England’s …

Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber, Kelly Murdoch-Kitt

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens in our pluralist democracy.

The first game in the series is a strategy game called Lost & …

Authority Of Images / Images Of Authority: Shaping Political And Cultural Identities In The Pre-Modern World, Karen Fresco

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Focusing on language's political power, these essays discuss how representation, through language norms, plays and court spectacles, manipulations and adaptations of texts and images, both constitutes and reflects a cultural milieu. The volume brings together various disciplinary approaches, offering a complex appreciation of these questions. While a core of the essays focuses on France, the contributions engage a broad range of geographical contexts, from Byzantium to eastern Germany and England from the early centuries of the Common Era to the seventeenth century, revealing the prevalence and persistence of the key interconnected issues of images and authority. Contributors: Carla Bozzolo; Philippe …

“The Bedroom And The Barnyard: Zoomorphic Lust Through Territory, Procedure, And Shelter In ‘The Miller’S Tale’” & Haunchebones, Danielle N. Byington

Undergraduate Honors Theses

“The Bedroom and the Barnyard: Zoomorphic Lust Through Territory, Procedure, and Shelter in ‘The Miller’s Tale’” is an academic endeavor that takes Chaucer’s zoomorphic metaphors and similes and analyzes them in a sense that reveals the chaos of what is human and what is animal tendency. The academic work is expressed in the adjunct creative project, Haunchebones, a 10-minute drama that echoes the tale and its zoomorphic influences, while presenting the content in a stylized play influenced by Theatre of the Absurd and artwork from the medieval and early renaissance period.

Making History: How Art Museums In The French Revolution Crafted A National Identity, 1789-1799, Anna E. Sido

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper compares two art museums, both created during the French Revolution, that fostered national unity by promoting a cultural identity. By analyzing the use of preexisting architecture from the ancien régime, innovative displays of art and redefinitions of the museum visitor as an Enlightened citizen, this thesis explores the application of eighteenth-century philosophy to the formation of two museums. The first is the Musée Central des Arts in the Louvre and the second is the Musée des Monuments Français, both housed in buildings taken over by the Revolutionary government and present the seized property of the royal family and …

Robot Saints, Christopher B. Swift

Publications and Research

In the Middle Ages, articulating religious figures like wooden Deposition crucifixes and ambulatory saints were tools for devotion, techno-mythological objects that distilled the wonders of engineering and holiness. Robots are gestures toward immortality, created in the face of the undeniable fact and experience of the ongoing decay of our fleshy bodies. Both like and unlike human beings, robots and androids occupy a nebulous perceptual realm between life and death, animation and inanimation. Masahiro Mori called this in-between space the “uncanny valley.” In this essay I argue that unlike a modern person apprehending an android (the uncanny human-like object that resides …

The Burgos Tapestry: Medieval Theatre And Visual Experience, Nathalie Rochel Frch '11

The Fordham Undergraduate Research Journal

In the field of art history, the medium of tapestry has only recently begun to gain attention as its own significant art form. This paper examines the possible relationship between the Burgos Tapestry, recently on view at The Cloisters after a thirty-year conservation, and medieval theatre. The compositional and stylistic forms of the tapestry may have been influenced by productions of medieval mystery plays, which through analysis can help provide a greater understanding of the medieval cultural mindset, the possible artistic decisions behind maintaining medieval pictorial traditions into the early sixteenth century, and the medieval viewer’s experience when looking at …

Zoomorphic Penannular Brooches In 6th And 7th Century Ireland, Esther G. Ward

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

In this thesis the author examines the evolution, manufacture, and societal significance of zoomorphic penannular brooches, a type of metal dress fastener used in early medieval Ireland that is often decorated. The brooches examined are dated to the 6^th and 7^th centuries, during which the Irish underwent a process of religious conversion from Celtic paganism to Christianity, and social rank was paramount. It is in this social context that the brooches are examined. Despite the significance of this time of social change, brooches from this period tend to be overlooked by scholarship in favor of the more ornate …

A Spectacle Of Great Beauty: The Changing Faces Of Hagia Sophia, Victoria M. Villano

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

"Semiotics Of The Cloth": Reading Medieval Norse Textile Traditions, Kristen Marie Tibbs

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Reading textiles from medieval Norse society supplements written sources and also provides insight into the voice of the individual who created these textiles. This project puts women and traditionally female tasks at the forefront of historical thought and analysis. I demonstrate that we can read textiles (via their material, color, style, and geographic location) alongside texts in order to expand our understanding of past cultures. Along with valuable archaeological remains of textiles and textile production tools, this research incorporates examples from the Sagas of the Icelanders in order to further understand the significance and symbolism of clothing and production in …

Medieval Synagogues In The Mediterranean Region, Samuel D. Gruber

Religion - All Scholarship

Throughout the Middle Ages, the synagogue developed as the central identifying institution and physical building for Jews, replacing the still yearned for but increasingly distant Jerusalem Temple as the focus of Jewish identity. Equally important, the synagogue became the symbol par excellance of the Jews and their community for the Christian (or Muslim) majority populations in the countries where Jews were settled. For Christians, the synagogue was a Jewish church, but much more so, it came to symbolize in opposition all that the church represented.

Though relatively little known today, medieval synagogues were not symbolic abstractions to the men and …

Meaningful Mingling: Classicizing Imagery And Islamicizing Script In A Byzantine Bowl, Alicia Walker

History of Art Faculty Research and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

York Art: A Subject List Of Extant And Lost Art, Clifford Davidson, David E. O'Connor

Early Drama, Art, and Music

A list, classified by subject, of extant and lost art from pre-Reformation York originally compiled by Clifford Davidson and David E. O'Connor in 1978 and updated by Clifford Davidson, apparently in 2003. This digital reprint was created in 2014 for ScholarWorks at WMU.

Iconography: A Checklist Of Some Useful Sources For Scholars And Students Of Medieval Art And Drama, Clifford Davidson

Early Drama, Art, and Music

A classified bibliography of scholarship on medieval drama, art, and music compiled by Clifford Davidson in 2002. This reprint was created in 2014 for ScholarWorks at WMU, with some corrections to the content and the formatting of the 2002 version.

The Early Drama, Art, And Music Project: Publications 1977-2002, Timothy Christiansen, Clifford Davidson

Early Drama, Art, and Music

A bibliography of publications of the Early Drama, Art, and Music project at Western Michigan University, originally compiled by Timothy Christiansen and updated in 2002 by Clifford Davidson. This digital reprint was created in 2014 for ScholarWorks at WMU, with an addendum, an update, and a few corrections to the formatting of the 2002 publication.

Index For Ann Eljenholm Nichols, The Early Art Of Norfolk: A Subject List Of Extant And Lost Art Including Items Relevant To Early Drama, Ann Eljenholm Nichols

Early Drama, Art, and Music

A detailed index, prepared by Ann Eljenholm Nichols, to her The Early Art of Norfolk (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2002).