La revue Cahiers de civilisation médiévale est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence ... more La revue Cahiers de civilisation médiévale est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale-Pas de Modification 4.0 International.
Personal prayer books often contained portraits of their patrons engaged in devotion, which were ... more Personal prayer books often contained portraits of their patrons engaged in devotion, which were gazed at during prayer or meditative reading and could shape the readers’ devotional state of mind and conduct. In this article, I examine images that allowed a female reader to see herself in an illuminated manuscript of a different sort: the well-known Franciscan text, the Meditationes Vitae Christi, now Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 410. I will show that the book’s illuminations compel the reader’s identification with the accompanying text through their emotional intensity or singularity, illustrating and constructing various facets of contemplation. The images I discuss are not the patron or reader portraits that appear in personal prayer books nor are they designed solely to allow the reader to imaginatively place herself within the vita Christi narrative. Rather, they depict figures who take part in the biblical story and invite the reader’s identification. This article consid...
The recent "material turn" and the application of "thing theory" have provided fruitful, new appr... more The recent "material turn" and the application of "thing theory" have provided fruitful, new approaches in art historical studies. Nowhere is such an emphasis on materiality more enlightening than in the studies of the loca sancta-the venerated sites of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. The volume under consideration here brings together fourteen studies authored by both younger and well-established scholars addressing the multifarious meanings associated with objects from the Holy Land and their translation. The studies are preceded by an illuminating foreword by Caroline Walker Bynum and an introduction by the editors. Previous generations of scholars have examined locus sanctus art from a visual perspective in which images, often combined with inscriptions, can transmit the sacred associations of one place to another, usually far removed. A strong example of this would be the well-known ampullae from Jerusalem, now in the collections of Monza, Bobbio, and elsewhere, decorated with depictions of holy events and sacred texts. The present collection of studies is more concerned in "what they carried"-that is, the contents and not the containers. The first chapter, by Ora Limor, lays out which sorts of materials were collected by pilgrims-earth, stone, water, and oil. The late fourth-century pilgrim Egeria refers to these as "blessings," evocative souvenirs associated with evocative places, but these "blessings" also could include something as ephemeral as a piece of fruit offered by a hermit. Additional chapters in the book deal with collections and collecting, the agents of translation, how these objects function in their new contexts, and, finally, contemporary reenactments in the works of Susan Hiller and Joseph Beuys. In all, this is a fascinating collection of essays that should challenge scholars to consider types of evidence often overlooked in theories of place. The flexible geography and transportable topography of the Holy Land clearly played a significant role in Western European attitudes toward the sacred.
According to its foundation story, the abbey church of Beaulieu-lès-Loches was dedicated to the D... more According to its foundation story, the abbey church of Beaulieu-lès-Loches was dedicated to the Dominicum Sepulchrum when Fulk Nerra, count of the Angevins and founder of the monastery, returned from his second pilgrimage to Jerusalem with a fragment of Christ’s Tomb. Because it lacked a centralized ground plan, the church at Beaulieu is seldom considered an architectural copy of the edifice in Jerusalem. While it is not an explicit copy of the Holy Sepulchre, I argue that the abbey church shared more than its dedication with contemporary Holy Sepulchre monuments. This paper focuses on aspects of the church that evoked the Holy Sepulchre: the spatial arrangement of the crossing, its liturgy, its dedication on the heels of pilgrimage, its function as a burial site, and suggestive links with other local monuments that refer to Jerusalem.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem had a lasting effect on the spirituality of the med... more The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem had a lasting effect on the spirituality of the medieval West, not least through the unique meanings and associations carried by its relics. This paper focuses on a stone relic thought to have been brought from Christ's tomb by two pilgrims returning to the Tuscan town of Sansepolcro. I examine it in the context of other stones eleventh-century pilgrims allegedly brought from the Holy Sepulcher to Europe and find that it sparked a distinctive belief. While other Italian towns, such as Pisa and Bologna, built architectural copies of the Holy Sepulcher and attempted to recreate the topography of the holy city, the inhabitants of Sansepolcro held that the stone relic miraculously made the Holy Sepulcher immanent in their town and expressed this affinity in images, including Piero della Francesca's "The Resurrection". Resumen La iglesia del Santo Sepulcro en Jerusalén tuvo un efecto duradero en la espiritualidad del Occidente medieval, especialmente a través de los singulares significados únicos y las asocia-ciones espaciales y geográfica que sugieren sus reliquias. Este artículo se centra en una piedra relicario que se creía que procedía de la Tumba de Cristo, portada por dos peregrinos que regresaron a la ciudad toscana de Sansepolcro. Examino esta pieza en el contexto de otras piedras pretendidamente portadas por peregrinos desde el Santo Sepulcro a Europa, hasta el punto de reconocer que provocó unas creencias específicas. [Recepción del artículo: 07/07/2018] [Aceptación del artículo revisado 02/12/2018]
This article considers stone pieces from the Holy Sepulchre brought to France in the eleventh cen... more This article considers stone pieces from the Holy Sepulchre brought to France in the eleventh century. Recent years have seen a growing awareness of architectural replications of the Holy Sepulchre built throughout the Latin West. Less attention has been devoted to its unmediated translation; namely, transporting its matter. Many French pilgrims who set out for Jerusalem before Urban’s instigation towards the East in 1095 returned with stone fragments of the Holy Tomb to commemorate their visit and to consecrate architectural copies. I argue that like the bodily remains of saints, these stone fragments acted as parts signifying the whole: they represented their place of origin and lent authenticity to local monuments. They could also act in unnatural ways, attracting cults and prompting narratives, visual representations, and staging in the church that announced their significance.
Introduction to the Volume: Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Plac... more Introduction to the Volume: Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place 500-1500 (Routledge, 2017) with link to full text in Google Books.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
La revue Cahiers de civilisation médiévale est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence ... more La revue Cahiers de civilisation médiévale est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale-Pas de Modification 4.0 International.
Personal prayer books often contained portraits of their patrons engaged in devotion, which were ... more Personal prayer books often contained portraits of their patrons engaged in devotion, which were gazed at during prayer or meditative reading and could shape the readers’ devotional state of mind and conduct. In this article, I examine images that allowed a female reader to see herself in an illuminated manuscript of a different sort: the well-known Franciscan text, the Meditationes Vitae Christi, now Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 410. I will show that the book’s illuminations compel the reader’s identification with the accompanying text through their emotional intensity or singularity, illustrating and constructing various facets of contemplation. The images I discuss are not the patron or reader portraits that appear in personal prayer books nor are they designed solely to allow the reader to imaginatively place herself within the vita Christi narrative. Rather, they depict figures who take part in the biblical story and invite the reader’s identification. This article consid...
The recent "material turn" and the application of "thing theory" have provided fruitful, new appr... more The recent "material turn" and the application of "thing theory" have provided fruitful, new approaches in art historical studies. Nowhere is such an emphasis on materiality more enlightening than in the studies of the loca sancta-the venerated sites of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. The volume under consideration here brings together fourteen studies authored by both younger and well-established scholars addressing the multifarious meanings associated with objects from the Holy Land and their translation. The studies are preceded by an illuminating foreword by Caroline Walker Bynum and an introduction by the editors. Previous generations of scholars have examined locus sanctus art from a visual perspective in which images, often combined with inscriptions, can transmit the sacred associations of one place to another, usually far removed. A strong example of this would be the well-known ampullae from Jerusalem, now in the collections of Monza, Bobbio, and elsewhere, decorated with depictions of holy events and sacred texts. The present collection of studies is more concerned in "what they carried"-that is, the contents and not the containers. The first chapter, by Ora Limor, lays out which sorts of materials were collected by pilgrims-earth, stone, water, and oil. The late fourth-century pilgrim Egeria refers to these as "blessings," evocative souvenirs associated with evocative places, but these "blessings" also could include something as ephemeral as a piece of fruit offered by a hermit. Additional chapters in the book deal with collections and collecting, the agents of translation, how these objects function in their new contexts, and, finally, contemporary reenactments in the works of Susan Hiller and Joseph Beuys. In all, this is a fascinating collection of essays that should challenge scholars to consider types of evidence often overlooked in theories of place. The flexible geography and transportable topography of the Holy Land clearly played a significant role in Western European attitudes toward the sacred.
According to its foundation story, the abbey church of Beaulieu-lès-Loches was dedicated to the D... more According to its foundation story, the abbey church of Beaulieu-lès-Loches was dedicated to the Dominicum Sepulchrum when Fulk Nerra, count of the Angevins and founder of the monastery, returned from his second pilgrimage to Jerusalem with a fragment of Christ’s Tomb. Because it lacked a centralized ground plan, the church at Beaulieu is seldom considered an architectural copy of the edifice in Jerusalem. While it is not an explicit copy of the Holy Sepulchre, I argue that the abbey church shared more than its dedication with contemporary Holy Sepulchre monuments. This paper focuses on aspects of the church that evoked the Holy Sepulchre: the spatial arrangement of the crossing, its liturgy, its dedication on the heels of pilgrimage, its function as a burial site, and suggestive links with other local monuments that refer to Jerusalem.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem had a lasting effect on the spirituality of the med... more The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem had a lasting effect on the spirituality of the medieval West, not least through the unique meanings and associations carried by its relics. This paper focuses on a stone relic thought to have been brought from Christ's tomb by two pilgrims returning to the Tuscan town of Sansepolcro. I examine it in the context of other stones eleventh-century pilgrims allegedly brought from the Holy Sepulcher to Europe and find that it sparked a distinctive belief. While other Italian towns, such as Pisa and Bologna, built architectural copies of the Holy Sepulcher and attempted to recreate the topography of the holy city, the inhabitants of Sansepolcro held that the stone relic miraculously made the Holy Sepulcher immanent in their town and expressed this affinity in images, including Piero della Francesca's "The Resurrection". Resumen La iglesia del Santo Sepulcro en Jerusalén tuvo un efecto duradero en la espiritualidad del Occidente medieval, especialmente a través de los singulares significados únicos y las asocia-ciones espaciales y geográfica que sugieren sus reliquias. Este artículo se centra en una piedra relicario que se creía que procedía de la Tumba de Cristo, portada por dos peregrinos que regresaron a la ciudad toscana de Sansepolcro. Examino esta pieza en el contexto de otras piedras pretendidamente portadas por peregrinos desde el Santo Sepulcro a Europa, hasta el punto de reconocer que provocó unas creencias específicas. [Recepción del artículo: 07/07/2018] [Aceptación del artículo revisado 02/12/2018]
This article considers stone pieces from the Holy Sepulchre brought to France in the eleventh cen... more This article considers stone pieces from the Holy Sepulchre brought to France in the eleventh century. Recent years have seen a growing awareness of architectural replications of the Holy Sepulchre built throughout the Latin West. Less attention has been devoted to its unmediated translation; namely, transporting its matter. Many French pilgrims who set out for Jerusalem before Urban’s instigation towards the East in 1095 returned with stone fragments of the Holy Tomb to commemorate their visit and to consecrate architectural copies. I argue that like the bodily remains of saints, these stone fragments acted as parts signifying the whole: they represented their place of origin and lent authenticity to local monuments. They could also act in unnatural ways, attracting cults and prompting narratives, visual representations, and staging in the church that announced their significance.
Introduction to the Volume: Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Plac... more Introduction to the Volume: Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place 500-1500 (Routledge, 2017) with link to full text in Google Books.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture
From its emergence c. 1250, the lavishly illustrated Apocalypse manuscript with its complex image... more From its emergence c. 1250, the lavishly illustrated Apocalypse manuscript with its complex image cycles remained popular in England until the fifteenth century, owned and used by both clergy and laity. Yet thirteenth-century manuscripts, particularly the Lambeth, Trinity, Douce, and Gulbenkian Apocalypses, continue to dominate scholarly discussion of the Anglo-French Apocalypse tradition. With the exception of the attention given to the Corpus Christi Apocalypse (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 20), fourteenth-century English Apocalypses are relatively understudied. Little published work has integrated these manuscripts into discussions of fourteenth-century English manuscript culture, patterns of female book ownership and use, and wider investigations of late medieval English piety and devotional literacy. Renana Bartal's Gender, Piety, and Production in Fourteenth-Century English Apocalypse Manuscripts fills this gap in the field with meticulous scholarship, detailed and persuasive visual analysis, and a thorough command of both the medieval sources and the secondary literature.
Between Jerusalem and Europe: Essays in Honour of Bianca Kühnel analyses how Jerusalem is transla... more Between Jerusalem and Europe: Essays in Honour of Bianca Kühnel analyses how Jerusalem is translated into the visual and material culture of medieval, early modern and contemporary Europe, and in what ways European encounters with the city have shaped its holy sites. The volume also demonstrates methodological shifts in the study of Jerusalem in Western art by mapping the diversity of concepts that underlie imaginations of the city as an earthly presence and a heavenly realization, as a physical and a mental space, and as a unique location which is multiplied and re-imagined in numerous copies elsewhere. Contributors are Lily Arad, Pnina Arad, Barbara Baert, Neta B. Bodner, Iris Gerlitz, Anastasia Keshman Wasserman, Katrin Kogman-Appel, Ora Limor, Galit Noga-Banai, Robert Ousterhout, Yamit Rachman-Schrire, Bruno Reudenbach, Alessandro Scafi, Tsafra Siew, and Victor I. Stoichita.
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Papers by Renana Bartal
when Fulk Nerra, count of the Angevins and founder of the monastery, returned from his second pilgrimage to Jerusalem
with a fragment of Christ’s Tomb. Because it lacked a centralized ground plan, the church at Beaulieu is seldom
considered an architectural copy of the edifice in Jerusalem. While it is not an explicit copy of the Holy Sepulchre,
I argue that the abbey church shared more than its dedication with contemporary Holy Sepulchre monuments.
This paper focuses on aspects of the church that evoked the Holy Sepulchre: the spatial arrangement of the crossing,
its liturgy, its dedication on the heels of pilgrimage, its function as a burial site, and suggestive links with other local
monuments that refer to Jerusalem.
when Fulk Nerra, count of the Angevins and founder of the monastery, returned from his second pilgrimage to Jerusalem
with a fragment of Christ’s Tomb. Because it lacked a centralized ground plan, the church at Beaulieu is seldom
considered an architectural copy of the edifice in Jerusalem. While it is not an explicit copy of the Holy Sepulchre,
I argue that the abbey church shared more than its dedication with contemporary Holy Sepulchre monuments.
This paper focuses on aspects of the church that evoked the Holy Sepulchre: the spatial arrangement of the crossing,
its liturgy, its dedication on the heels of pilgrimage, its function as a burial site, and suggestive links with other local
monuments that refer to Jerusalem.
Contributors are Lily Arad, Pnina Arad, Barbara Baert, Neta B. Bodner, Iris Gerlitz, Anastasia Keshman Wasserman, Katrin Kogman-Appel, Ora Limor, Galit Noga-Banai, Robert Ousterhout, Yamit Rachman-Schrire, Bruno Reudenbach, Alessandro Scafi, Tsafra Siew, and Victor I. Stoichita.