Gerson Moreno-Riaño

Gerhard Jaritz

These thirty-two papers from the 7th International Medieval Congress held in Leeds in 2000, wrestle with the complex and difficult subject of time and eternity in the medieval period. They reflect different scholarly approaches to the subject and reveal a variety of medieval concepts of time and its function. The papers are arranged according to seven themes: Time, its computation and the use of calendars; Jewish concepts of time and redemption; Christian philosophies of eternity and time; Monastic and clerical conceptions; Literary representations; Time and art; The end of the world.

The Medieval Discourse

Time and Eternity

Focuses specifically on the concept and role of islands in the medieval world. The main characteristic of an island is, of course, that of being isolated from the rest of the world; in geography by waters, in more abstract and symbolic meanings by other kinds of separating borders. Islands were the place 'on the other side', of difference, otherness and remoteness. As one of the articles in this volume puts it, islands are often depicted "as sites for extraordinary events and happenings".

Isolated Islands in Medieval Nature, Culture and Mind

Katalin Szende

Medieval East Central Europe in a Comparative Perspective draws together the new perspectives concerning the relevance of East Central Europe for current historiography by placing the region in various comparative contexts. The chapters compare conditions within East Central Europe, as well as between East Central Europe, the rest of the continent, and beyond. Including 15 original chapters from an interdisciplinary team of contributors, this collection begins by posing the question: "What is East Central Europe?" with three specialists offering different interpretations and presenting new conclusions. The book is then grouped into five parts which examine political practice, religion, urban experience, and art and literature. The contributors question and explain the reasons for similarities and differences in governance and strategies for handling allies, enemies or subjects in particular ways. They point out themes and structures from town planning to religious orders that did not function according to political boundaries, and for which the inclusion of East Central European territories was systemic. The volume offers a new interpretation of medieval East Central Europe, beyond its traditional limits in space and time and beyond the established conceptual schemes. It will be essential reading for students and scholars of medieval East Central Europe.

From Frontier Zones to Lands in Focus

Medieval East Central Europe in a Comparative Perspective

Juhan Kreem

In the Middles Ages, the edges of one's world could represent different meanings. On the one hand, they might have been situated in far-away regions, mainly in the east and north, that one most often only knew from hearsay and which were inhabited by strange beings: humans with their faces on their chest, without a mouth, or with dog heads. On the other hand, the edges of one's world could just mean the borders of the community where one lived and that one sometimes might not have had the possibility to cross during one's whole life.In this volume specialists from eight European countries offer their ideas about different edges of the medieval world and contribute to a discussion that has been increasing greatly in Medieval Studies in recent times.

The Edges of the Medieval World

Supernatural phenomena and causalities played an important role in medieval society. Religious practice was relying upon a set of cult images and the sacral status of these depictions of divine or supernatural persons became the object of heated debates and provoked iconoclastic reactions.The miraculous intervention of saints or other divine agents, the wondrous realities beyond understanding, or the manifestations of magic attributed to diabolic forces, were contained by a variety of discourses, described and discussed in religion, philosophy, chronicles, literature and fiction, and also in a large number of pictures and material objects. The nine essays in this collection discusses how supernatural phenomena – especially angels and devils – found visual manifestation in Latin and Eastern Christianity as well as Judaism in the late medieval, early renaissance period.

The Supernatural and Its Visual Representation

Angels, Devils

The volume contains selected papers from two conferences in 2003, at the University of Bergen (Norway) and at Central European University in Budapest. They deal comparatively with the communication of the Holy See with Northern Europe and Eastern Central Europe in the Late Middle Ages, both areas at the margins of Western Christendom. Special emphasis is placed on analysis of registers in the Apostolic Penitentiary.

Late Medieval Christian Peripheries and Their Communications with the Holy See

The Long Arm of Papal Authority

Violence was omnipresent in medieval society and affected all areas of life and the members of all social strata. Surviving sources deal regularly with any issues of violent actions, signs and results of violence, violent people and coping with violence. In such evidence, also the members of the clergy played an important role – as writers about violence and critics of it, but also as perpetrators, victims, and witnesses.

Violence and the Medieval Clergy

Material objects must always be seen in context with the humans who created and used them. It is only possible to recognize and evaluate material culture in connection with human thought and behavior. The material world depends on the immaterial one, and vice versa. Neither sphere can exist without the other. In historical research, however, such contexts have not been considered regularly. In particular, the inter-connections between emotions and material culture have not been taken sufficiently into account in research. This was the reason for the "Institut fur Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der fruhen Neuzeit" to organize a round-table-discussion on "Emotions and Material Culture" and to publish its proceedings. The volume contains eleven contributions by specialists from eight countries. They show various possibilities to contextualize the material world and emotional behavior. They may be seen as a first step towards a "material emotionology" of the past. The complex results are intended to serve as a further impetus towards the systematic and comparative research into "emotional communities" and their material life in the Middle Ages and the early modern period.

International Round Table-discussion, Krems an Der Donau, October 7 and 8, 2002

Emotions and Material Culture

Medieval images and their content, intentions, and functions regularly followed specific strategies, rituals, and symbols of communication. This is true for religious as well as for secular images. One can recognize these strategies and rituals through analyzing the patterns that occur in the varieties of image construction, image space, image messages, and their perception. This book contains contributions by international specialists whose research interests concentrate on these patterns, the rituals associated with them, and the influences of these phenomena on the daily life of the image audience. (Series: History: Research and Science / Geschichte: Forschung und Wissenschaft - Vol. 39)

Gerhard Jaritz

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