Medieval Devotional Culture

This article presents a manuscript that significantly enriches the textual corpus of ›Helfta Mysticism‹ with a series of hitherto unknown writings. Aside from this, it contains what is by some distance the oldest copy of the ›Legatus divinae pietatis‹, in the form of a ›special edition‹ that consists of excerpts from the known text as well as new material. This is preceded by a prologue and a florilegium which is marked in an epilogue as Gertrude’s own work. We argue that the epilogue of the florilegium, the prologue and the ›special edition‹ itself were probably composed by ›Sister N‹ of Helfta herself. The article provides a full description of the manuscript (Ms 827), a breakdown of the new ›special edition‹ of the ›Legatus‹-text, and an edition, translation, and close reading of the prologue.

Im Folgenden soll eine Handschrift vorgestellt werden, die die Textbasis der Helftaer Mystik mit einer Reihe von bislang unbekannten Schriften bereichert. Außerdem enthält sie die mit Abstand älteste Abschrift des ›Legatus divinae pietatis‹ in Form einer ›Sonderausgabe‹, die aus Exzerpten aus dem bekannten Textcorpus und aus weiterem bislang nicht bekanntem Material besteht. Dieser geht eine Vorrede und ein im Epilog als Gertruds Werk ausgewiesenes Florilegium voraus, Texte, die wie die ›Sonderausgabe‹ selbst von Schwester N von Helfta stammen dürften. Die vorliegende Studie bietet eine Beschreibung von Ms 827, die Aufschlüsselung der ›Sonderausgabe‹ des ›Legatus‹ sowie Abdruck, Übersetzung und inhaltliche Analyse der Vorrede.

The quantitative and qualitative growth of archaeological research in post-classical contexts in Italy has made it possible to conduct a census of coin finds in churches from the early Middle Ages to the Modern Era. This paper presents the first results of a preliminary study and discusses the problems related to the documentation and interpretation of these finds, in order to enrich the current debate and propose new research perspectives. To this end, numismatic as well as archaeological and contextual aspects (topography, stratigraphy and formative processes, association of findings, general contexts) have been taken into account. The result is of this study shows, of one hand, it shows the complexity of attitudes and the variety of uses of currency in medieval religious contexts and, on the other, it highlights the semantic ambiguities and the different interpretative problems often derived from archaeological documentation that is not yet sufficiently focused on some of the most important specifications and contextual data.

La crescita quantitativa e qualitativa delle indagini archeologiche in contesti post-classici in Italia ha consentito di impostare un lavoro di censimento dei ritrovamenti di monete nelle chiese dall’Alto Medioevo fino all’Età Moderna. In questo contributo si illustrano i primi risultati di questo studio preliminare e si discutono le problematiche connesse alla documentazione e all’interpretazione di tali rinvenimenti, al fine di arricchire il dibattito in corso e proporre nuove prospettive di ricerca. A tal fine, sono stati presi in considerazione tanto gli aspetti numismatici quanto quelli archeologici e di contesto (topografia, stratigrafia e processi formativi, associazione dei ritrovamenti, contesti generali). Ne emerge un quadro articolato che da un lato mostra la complessità di atteggiamenti e la varietà di utilizzi della moneta nei contesti religiosi medievali, e dall’altro mette in luce le ambiguità semantiche e i diversi problemi interpretativi spesso derivati da una documentazione archeologica ancora poco attenta ad alcune importanti specifiche e ai dati di contesto

The Courtauld's 27th Annual Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium considers the significance of details. For Aby Warburg, God was in the details, while for others they could conceal the devil. From manuscript miniatures to carved altarpieces or richly decorated muqarnas, detail was highly valued in the Middle Ages. The deployment of detail displays, disguises and depends upon the materiality of objects, and our programme reflects the material diversity of detail, from architectural sculpture to multi-media textiles, from manuscript paintings to stained glass. The production of detail was also demanding, often requiring fine materials, masterful skill, hours of

"Religious practices in late medieval Kotor included charitable acts of donating clothes to the poor as a form of imitatio Christi. The model of charity for the faithful to follow was set in the vitae of widely-favoured saints such as Sts Martin of Tours, Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Sienna, whose portraits were painted on the walls of Kotor’s church of St Anne in the second half of the fifteenth century. Evidence for the practice and purpose of this particular form of charity is found in the surviving wills of the citizens of Kotor. Apart from giving clothes to the poor out of concern pro remedio animae, the motif of clothes features in the deceased’s testamentary instructions for burial in the habit of a mendicant order.
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de Lisboa (1195-1231), português de nascimento, é um alvo popular deste fervor religioso. O seu culto é um fenómeno popular na Igreja Católica. Para além de celebrações regulares no calendário da igreja, as suas imagens estão em muitos altares de oração e são alvo de cultos festivos. Os missionários portugueses introduziram o catolicismo no Sri Lanka em meados do século XVI. Pode, portanto, presumir-se que a devoção a Santo António de Lisboa neste país foi introduzido juntos dos nativos cristãos pelos missionários portugueses. Esta suposição é suportada pelas crónicas do período da expansão portuguesa, onde Santo António é identificado como o «Santo de Lisboa» e o «Santo português». Há muitas igrejas no Sri Lanka contemporâneo dedicadas a Santo António de Lisboa, o que revela claramente a popularidade deste santo no país. Este estudo pretende traçar os factores históricos adoptados para espalhar a devoção a Santo António de Lisboa, no Sri Lanka, durante os séculos XVI e XVII, o período durante o qual os portugueses evangelizaram as Províncias Marítimas do país, e também tentar compreender o progresso da devoção ao longo das diferentes conquistas temporais e espirituais.

Cited: Martha Easton, “Feminist Art History and Medieval Iconography,” in Colum Hourihane, ed., The Routledge Companion to Medieval Iconography (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), 875n37; “The French of England: Annotated Short Bibliography and Resources,” Fordham University, https://frenchofengland.ace.fordham.edu/?page_id=100#some-art-historical; “Crowned Woman (likely Eleanor of Woodstock) at Mass,” Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index, https://inpress.lib.uiowa.edu/feminae/DetailsPage.aspx?Feminae_ID=37792; Kathryn A. Smith, "Margin," in Medieval Art History Today: Critical Terms, ed. Nina Rowe, special issue of Studies in Iconography 33 (2012), 44n34; Nigel Morgan, "English Books of hours, c. 1240-c.1480," in Sandra Hindman and James H. Marrow, ed., Books of Hours Reconsidered (London and Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2013), 90n26; Kathryn A. Smith, "'Specially English': Gothic Illumination, c. 1190-Early Fourteenth Century," in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, 2nd, rev. ed. Conrad Rudolph (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019), 585, 591n68, 592n79, n81, 599.
Publicity: Sarah J. Biggs, “The Taymouth Hours,” The British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog, April 13, 2012,
https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2012/04/the-taymouth-hours.html?_ga=2.119940683.2120474733.1614875499-558522456.161487549

This is part of a volume of papers commissioned to showcase the cultural, artistic and literary heritage of the Lüneburg convents (Wienhausen, Medingen, Ebstorf, Lüne). The paper deals with a central topic of the meditations and illustrations in the manuscripts from Medingen convent, the encounter with the risen Christ. In comparison with liturgy, Latin sources and artefacts from the neighbouring convents it is shown how the biblical and apocryphal 'Apparitiones Christi' work as a devotional model which allows the nuns to become witnesses of the resurrection.

›An dessen bom wil ik stighen.‹ Die Ikonographie des Wichmannsburger Antependiums im Kontext der Medinger Handschriften, in: Oxford German Studies 34 (2005), pp. 19-46. The paper exemplifies my approach for the project on late medieval manuscripts from Northern German nunneries. It deals with an exceptional medieval tapestry on which over 60 parchment scrolls with German and Latin verse texts are sewn.

The Old Sicilian Confessionali are devotional texts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries with a very simple textual structure. In particular, two of them, to a large extent, are lists of questions aimed at investigating the sinner and his sins. Nevertheless they prove to be a useful field to define the values of the “passato prossimo” and the “passato remoto”. In the two texts, the two tenses have a clearly distinct distribution. The former has a perfective value, the latter has an aoristic value and, regardless of a temporal criterion, they occur according to this aspectual opposition.

The medieval Indian period witnessed the emergence of bhakti saints and widespread impact of the Sufis in the creation of a mystical environment. They disseminated the idea of achieving mysticism through the creation of an intimate relationship with god. This paper is aimed to reveal that how the idea of a personal form of god can be seen present in the poetry of certain Bhakti and Sufi saints of medieval India by analyzing their selected compositions. This analysis will lead to the identification of a major point of convergence in the philosophy of the Bhakti and Sufi saint-poets and also determines a mutual influence on each other.

In two little-studied Middle Dutch texts, the authors present their readers with the distaff and the activities of spinning and cloth-making as a metaphor for Christ’s Passion, and, as such, as a meditative object and activity. These texts represent the ultimate conjunction of ora et labora, but their transmission suggests that the meditative practice was not limited to religious communities. This article explores these texts in their broader cultural and religious context as tools for meditation and expressions of (religious) power relations between men and women in the transitional age between the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period.

France is fabulously rich in incised effigial slabs and this book is the first study written in English to examine in detail their unique qualities in a particular region, the five départements of the Pays de la Loire. It uncovers their various meanings, as gravemarkers and tools to encourage intercession for those they commemorate, and how they were commissioned by a socially diverse range of patrons, from ecclesiastical grandees to the lesser clergy, and from knights and esquires to widows and members of the professional classes. The corpus even includes some royal tombs, for branches of the French national family and the ducs de Bretagne. The book records 187 known slabs in the region, dating between the thirteenth and the seventeenth centuries. First there are seven chapters providing an incisive introduction to the social and artistic history of the artform (pages 1-237), followed by a detailed inventory recording each slab in turn, with full analysis and references (pages 238-370), followed by glossary, bibliography and index and then a generous secton of nearly 250 colour plates, photographs of surviving slabs and reproductions of the famous drawings by Roger de Gaignières, courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The author lives in the Pays de la Loire and has researched the subject for several decades. The book is written in English for an international academic audience with all quotations and transcriptions given in their original form with a translation. The book is now ready for printing and is on a lavish scale: 446 pages of text plus 224 pages of colour plates on art paper, all to be properly sewn and bound in cloth.

Iconografia a cura di Raffaele Argenziano.
La Toscana medievale si caratterizzò, tra XIII e XIV secolo, per una vivacis-sima dinamica religiosa e per la grande quantità di sante donne che localmente incarnarono istanze locali di devozione. Si trattò di un fenomeno riconducibile ad una più complessiva trasformazione della società che ebbe ricadute impor-tanti anche sul piano del costume religioso. Attori di questo rinnovamento fu-rono i Mendicanti che negli ambienti urbani promossero una pastorale specia-lizzata per le donne, contribuendo a dare volto femminile alla pietà. Pur nel diversificarsi delle sue espressioni il fenomeno risentiva di una lunga tradizio-ne devozionale che aveva trovato la sua rappresentazione ideale non solo nel culto per la Madonna ma anche nel vasto sedimento popolare dell'affabulazio-ne sacra. Le donne che in Toscana vissero in fama di santità e si imposero alla memoria devozionale dei fedeli furono espressione del composito divenire del-la società rappresentandone le trasformazioni nel lungo periodo compreso tra pieno medioevo e prima età moderna. I modelli che esse incarnarono si trasfor-marono assieme ai rispettivi contesti storici, rendendo l'immagine agiografica speculare alla realtà vissuta: così alle aristocratiche badesse del pieno medioevo 'monastico' subentrò la rappresentazione di una santità 'irregolare' e laica spes-so caratterizzata dalla marginalità e dalla precarietà esistenziale che rivitalizzò formule antiche della penitenza canonica, come la reclusione volontaria, o det-te vita a nuove sperimentazioni religiose.

Although the Hours of the Virgin Mary (Horae/Cursus/Officium Parvum Beatae
Mariae Virginis) usually figured in Latin in books of hours, vernacular translations
were also made of the text. The first half of the paper gives a short overview of these
vernacular versions focusing on the Central and East-Central European region. The
second half examines the issue of the liturgical use in the late medieval Hungarian
translation of the Little Office preserved in the Festetics-kódex. This prayer book was
copied sometimes before 1494 by the Pauline Hermits of Nagyvázsony as a gift for
Benigna Magyar, wife of Pál Kinizsi, a famous general of King Matthias Corvinus.
The Pauline Order followed the use of Esztergom with minor changes in their liturgical
books and recent secondary literature states that the Hungarian-language Little Office
follows the Breviary of Esztergom. Nevertheless, the detailed analysis of the office as
performed by Felicián Gondán in 1916 and by the present paper shows that the text is
closer to the use of Kalocsa-Zagreb. It contains, however, some interesting elements
that point to the Esztergom use or a variant of this use present mainly in breviaries
originating from the Spiš region.

The first chronicles on the diffusion of the “french disease” in Italy date back to the summer of 1495. As it was interpreted as a divine punishment and a new and incurable illness, the disease was promptly associated to the one that had affected Job. The essay focuses on the analysis of two poems (cantari) in ottava rima: the Historia di sancto Iob propheta of Giuliano Dati, and a briefer remake, the anonymous Prego devotissimo. The two pamphlets were diffused at a low cost and it’s probable that they were publicly read in squares. In respect with the Bible, they supply a very simplified version, where the steady patience of the protagonist in suffering and tribulations is enhanced on the only basis of its prose frame context (instead, the lively poetic dialogue with his friends is almost completely wiped out). To «Saint Job», to whom people appeal so that he could intercede to God in favour of the sinners and persuade them to imitate him, was, therefore, dedicated a cult promoted by confraternities entitled to him. These confraternities founded hospitals for ‘the Incurables’, specifically for french disease-affected patients dedicated in some cases to the same Job, patron of the franciosati. In addition, a series of literary and iconographic documents (fifteen for central-northern Italy) witness the devotion.

Aspects of Mary’s presence in Islam. From Koranic references to popular devotion and from mysticism to iconography. The figure of Mary is certainly the scriptural and theological point where Christianity and Islam converge. It has raised the scholars’ interest only since the mid XIX century which has seen a flourishing of translations and researches which has increased in the last years. There is still much to say in the field of spiritual and mystic theology – even on comparative terms – when we observe the key role Mary has assumed in Islamic Sufism.

Votive objects or ex-votos are a broad category of material artifacts produced with the intention of being offered as acts of faith. Common across historical periods, religions, and cultures, they are presented as tokens of gratitude for prayers answered, as well as the physical manifestation of hopes and anxieties. Agents of Faith explores votive offerings in the context of material culture, art history, and religious studies to better understand their history and present-day importance. By looking at what humans have chosen to offer in their votive transactions, this volume uncovers their most intimate moments in life and questions the nature, role, and function of one of the most fundamental aspects of the relationship between people and things—the imbuing of objects with sentiment. Encompassing exquisite works of art as well as votives of humble origin and material, with objects dating from 2000 B.C. to the twenty‐first century, the beautiful illustrations and wide-ranging text expose the global reach of votive practices and the profoundly personal nature behind their creation.

Santa Maria Gloriosa de’ Frari is one of the best-loved and most celebrated churches in Venice, renowned for its imposing Gothic architecture and its rich display of works of art, but it is in no sense a museum.  Founded as the principal church of the Conventual Franciscan order in Venice, the church has been the setting for ritual, sacred music, prayer and preaching ever since the Middle Ages.  This book presents the rich and varied history of the church in a new light.  This is neither a guide book nor a catalogue of the works of art.  Instead, it is the first true monograph on the Frari, whose role included charitable and educational functions as well as devotional life.  Spanning eight centuries, the book explores the lives of the friars, worshippers, local residents and artists, both within its walls and round about.  A profusion of new colour photographs offers the reader the chance to appreciate many details that have never before attracted attention.
The book considers the Frari in the context of the immediate neighbourhood and its local concerns and activities.  The present church was begun in 1328, and the Franciscans continued to occupy its spacious cloisters until the Napoleonic suppression in 1806, which led to their banishment for more than a century.  At this point, the church became the centre of a parish, incorporating the nearby areas of San Tomà and San Polo.  Meanwhile, Titian’s famous Assunta, one of the masterpieces of Venetian Renaissance painting, was removed from the high altar, to be displayed for nearly a hundred years in the galleries of the Accademia.  The altarpiece was not returned to the church until 1920, just two years before the return of the Franciscans. Remarkably, the complete list of the Franciscan guardians and parish priests survives back to 1241 and is included in the book. 
The twenty-three chapters guide the reader through this complex history, allowing a new appreciation of the works of art, whether familiar or little known, in terms of their meaning and devotional function.  The patronage of chapels by prominent families, and by immigrant communities such as the Milanese and Florentines, has enhanced the rich variety of painting and sculpture.  The role of women patrons is highlighted in several cases.  The book examines the importance of relics as the focus of local devotion, and explores the role of the local confraternities (scuole) in the ceremonial and music. 
An important aspect of the Frari was the commemoration of prominent individuals, whose tombs and monuments adorn the walls and floor of the church.  Doges, military leaders, bishops, artists, musicians and businessmen found their last resting place within its walls.  Because of its size and beauty, the church has played a major part in the lives of local residents, and the memorials enshrined within have inspired generations of Venetians and visitors alike.  This uniquely interdisciplinary book contains a wealth of new material and insights into this long and complex institutional history.

Referees: i nomi di coloro che hanno contribuito al processo di peer review sono inseriti nell'elenco, regolarmente aggiornato, leggibile all'indirizzo: http://www.storiapatriagenova.it/ref.asp Referees: the list of the peer reviewers is regularly updated at URL: http://www.storiapatriagenova.it/ref.asp I saggi pubblicati in questo volume sono stati sottoposti in forma anonima ad almeno un referente. All articles published in this volume have been anonymously submitted at least to one reviewer. « Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria » è presente nei cataloghi di centinaia di biblioteche nel mondo: http://www.storiapatriagenova.it/biblioteche_amiche.asp « Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria » is present worldwide in the catalogues of hundreds of academic and research libraries: http://www.storiapatriagenova.it/biblioteche_amiche.asp La Bonna Parolla. Il portolano sacro genovese Valentina Ruzzin

El Santo Cristo de Burgos pertenece al grupo iconográfico constituido por los crucifijos articulados, cuya característica principal es su capacidad para mover los brazos. La existencia de estas imágenes se explica en relación con la liturgia medieval, concretamente con las ceremonias que se celebraban el Viernes Santo.

In this paper I will examine two models of devotion to the wounds of Christ in relation to the feminine subject. First I will look at Anselm’s “Prayer to Christ.” Through a reading of this prayer, I will suggest that Anselm’s key movements deal with guilt, trauma, and lack. I will then explain the dynamics of affective devotion through Elizabeth Grosz’ discussion of the “imaginary anatomy” and Kristeva’s “imaginary identification.” Next, I will discuss Irigaray’s feminist critique of the wound-as-lack by examining her turn from the feminized Son of “la Mystérique” to her suggestion that women must fashion for themselves a feminine divine. Ultimately, Anselm’s devotion to Christ, on Irigaray’s account, does not support an autonomous feminine subject. Instead, I will suggest that later side-wound devotion gives a promising counter-example of wound piety that avoids Irigaray’s critique. I will end by suggesting, against Irigaray, that the polyvalence of religious symbols and the ambiguity of embodied experience demand that both Anselm and later side-wound devotion remain options for the feminine devotee.

Upon the occasion of the Dedication of St. Paul's Votive Ship, "The Endurance," this brief festschrift celebrates the fascinating origins and traditions about Votive Ships in the ancient heritage of the Church and explores how Votive Ships can inform and inspire personal prayer.

The Passion of Christ was the central motif in late medieval piety. By the mid–fourteenth century, devotional texts and images focused increasingly on the five wounds inflicted in the Crucifixion: representations of the holy wounds were included in illuminated Books of Hours, and in the fifteenth century such images began to appear in mass-produced woodcuts. This paper presents examples of the curious iconography that developed around the affective veneration of the wounds in Christ’s hands, feet and side. Depicted as disembodied bleeding orifices, and frequently arranged around the Instruments of the Passion, the five wounds became a familiar motif in France, the Low Countries, Germany and England.
Devotional texts offer clues to the ways in which people interpreted the wound. In medieval prayer books the side–wound was imagined as a threshold between the corporeal and the divine, serving as a focus for meditations on Christ’s humanity and the divine mystery. The mass dissemination of wound images in the medium of print, particularly as indulgences, sees an increasingly tactile engagement with the pictures: inscriptions included in prints instructed the faithful to ‘activate’ the efficacy of the image through prayer, touch and kiss. Such an act promised a reduction of time spent in Purgatory, or protection from illness and disaster. Wound images and their associated actions and benefits played a central role in the lives of Christians from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century and beyond.

Three of the most renowned praise poems to the Prophet, the mantle odes span the arc of Islamic history from Muhammad's lifetime, to the medieval Mamluk period, to the modern colonial era. Part 1: Banat Su'ad of Ka'b ibn Zuhayr; Part 2 Qasidat al-Burdah (Mantle Ode) of al-Busiri; Part 3: Nahj al-Burdah (The Way of the Mantle) by Ahmad Shawqi. Over the centuries, they have informed the poetic and religious life of the Arab and Islamic worlds. Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych places her original translations of the poems within the odes' broader cultural context. By highlighting their transformative power as speech acts and their ritual function as gift exchanges, this book not only demonstrates the relevance of these poems to contemporary scholarship but also reveals their power and beauty to the modern reader.

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The booklet 1/II n. s. (December 2017) "‘Saints who travel'. Mobility and movement of religious cults in the Mediterranean between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age", edited by  Maria Giuseppina Meloni,  houses six articles presented at the Ex nihilo Zero Conference of the European Academy of Religion (Bologna, 18-22 June 2017). From these essays it emerges how the Mediterranean, the centre of an intensive movement of men, goods and ideas, was also the medium for the circulation of cults and relics. There were significant cases both in Pisa where new worships developed between the High Middle Ages and the 13th Century, as a result of its maritime contacts; and in Sardinia which, due to its geographical position and historical events, was opened to the reception of new cults introduced by the powerful men of the time. The island itself, however, was also in some circumstances the exporter of relics and devotions. In addition, The Booklet examines also the strong connection with the sea of the cult of St. Nicholas and the translation of his relics from Myra to Bari.

илустрација на корици sv. i, dokument 2v Državni arhiv Crne Gore -Istorijski arhiv Kotor монографија Легати pro anima. Тестаменти Которана (1326-1337) резултат је рада на пројекту "средњовековно наслеђе Балкана: институције и култура" (№ 177003), а објављена је захваљујући финансијској подршци министарства просвете, науке и технолошког развоја републике србије © Балканолошки институт санУ издавач Балканолошки институт санУ србија, Београд, кнез михаилова 35