Article
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Body metaphors in goliardic poetry: Altercatio cordis et oculi (The dispute between the eye and the heart) and Alte Clamat Epicurus (The cult of the stomach)
Mariana BLANCO
Original title: Metáforas corporales en la poesía de los goliardos: Altercatio cordis et oculi (La disputa entre el ojo y el corazón) y Alte Clamat Epicurus (El culto del estómago)
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
Born in the twelfth century, in the literary world of medieval schools, goliardic poetry is considered one of the most original manifestations of the Medieval Latin lyric for its rebellious vitalism, its celebration of the body and its irreverent criticism of the social order. In this article we propose to analyze some body images and corporal metaphors recurrent in the poetics of goliardism, focusing on the dialectical relations between soul-body and virtue-vice, characteristics of the medieval worldview. We will take into consideration the anonymous poems Altercatio cordis et oculi (The dispute between the eye and the heart) and Alte Clamat Epicurus (The cult of the stomach) and we will study the tensions between the noble and ignoble parts of the body, between the ascetic ideal and excess, between the exaltation of sensual pleasures and the condemnation of the flesh as the origin of sin. Likewise, we will examine the way in which body representation is mediated by the intellectual formation of poets in its double aspect: the classical Latin and the biblical-ecclesiastical traditions.
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The Holy Empire and the Papacy in late medieval thought: some ideas about the precedence in the Italian and Spanish chronicles of the 14th and 15th centuries
Josué VILLA PRIETO
Original title: El Sacro Imperio y el Papado en el pensamiento bajomedieval: algunas ideas sobre la precedencia en las crónicas italianas y españolas de los siglos XIV y XV
Published in Manifestations of the Ancient and Medieval World
This study analyses the conception of the Holy Roman Empire in the Italian and Spanish chronicles of the Late Middle Ages: origins, authority and tensions with the Papacy for a preeminent position within universal power. After the scholasticism historiographical disputes (XIIth-XIIIth centuries), humanists write new interpretations of the genesis of the Holy Roman Empire wondering about the desappearance (or not) of the Roman imperial potestas and if it continues in Byzantium or the Papacy, and where the Charlemagne's authority comes from. The comparison of the Italian and Spanish sources allows to note different political intentions in a context of mutual cultural influence.
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The paradoxical reality of the feminine holiness in the Castilian Middle Ages: the miracle like textual shape of the Vida de Santa María Egipciaca
Carina ZUBILLAGA
Original title: La paradójica realidad de la santidad femenina en la Edad Media castellana: el milagro como configurador textual de la Vida de Santa María Egipciaca
Published in Mulier aut Femina. Idealism or reality of women in the Middle Ages
The medieval hagiographical paradigm of the holy prostitute, analyzed in this article in the Castilian 13th century Vida de Santa María Egipciaca, reveals the paradoxical reality of the feminine holiness of the period; a reality based on the inclusive concept of the supernatural thing as possible daily experience, but that at the same time supposes the loss of any feminine attribute and the obligatory identification with Christ for the comprehension of the spiritual advance of the woman.
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Riding in the plains of southern Iberian Peninsula, in the "brida" and "jineta" ways – saddles, harnesses and the protection of the Christian and Muslim rider
Franklin Pereira
Original title: A monta "à brida" e "à jineta" nas planícies da Península Ibérica – selas, arreios e protecção do cavaleiro cristão e muçulmano
Published in The chivalry and the art of war in the Ancient and Medieval World
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The Death of the Virgin Mary (1295) in the Macedonian church of the Panagia Peribleptos in Ohrid. Iconographic interpretation from the prospective of three apocryphal writings
José María SALVADOR GONZÁLEZ
Original title: La muerte de la Virgen María (1295) en la iglesia macedonia de la Panagia Peribleptos de Ohrid. Interpretación iconográfica a la luz de tres escritos apócrifos
Published in Relations between History and Literature in Ancient and Medieval World
Painted in 1295 by the Greek painters Michael Astrapas and Eutychios, the fresco of the Virgin’s Death (Koimesis) in the church of Panagia Peribleptos in Ohrid, Macedonia, highlights the main events described by the apocryphal stories on the death, the burial, the resurrection and the assumption of Mary, reinterpreted by the theologians and the hymns’ writers. This mural painting integrates in a diachronic development the scenes of the Virgin’s farewell to her friends, the coming of the apostles on clouds, the death, the funeral and the burial of Mary, including the episode on the attempt of desecration, the punishment and the conversion of a Jew named Jephonias, as well as the Virgin’s assumption, a subject performed for the first time in art. This article tries to explain and to illustrate the iconographic elements contained in this mural painting, analyzing them from the perspective of three apocryphal texts on the Mary’s death and assumption. Through such analysis we would highlight the direct and essential influence of certain Literature (apocryphal) in the creation of certain History, understood at the same time as History of Art (iconography) and History of Religions (dogmatic).
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The relation between gargoyles and texts in the context of late medieval Portugal: concerns about the behavior of the body and the sins
Catarina Alexandra Martins Fernandes BARREIRA
Original title: A relação entre gárgulas e textos no contexto tardo-medieval em Portugal: preocupações em torno do comportamento do corpo e os pecados
Published in Relations between History and Literature in Ancient and Medieval World
Our aim is to analyze the relationship between gargoyles and some Portuguese texts in the context of 15th and 16th centuries. In this purpose some gargoyles will be observed, as well as the iconographic programs that highlight the same concerns as the chosen texts, with special emphasis on the behaviour of the sinful body. From this phenomenon will result not only a deep relationship between gargoyles and late medieval ages, but in particular its educational role that results from a close relationship with the church and with its audience.
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The iconography of the Virgin Mary’s Assumption in the Italian Quattrocento’s painting from the prospective of its patristic and theological sources
José María SALVADOR GONZÁLEZ
Original title: La iconografía de La Asunción de la Virgen María en la pintura del Quattrocento italiano a la luz de sus fuentes patrísticas y teológicas
Published in Paradise, Purgatory and Hell: the Religiosity in the Middle Ages
The iconographic subject of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary to the heaven is based on a certain oral tradition and on some apocryphal writings, as well on a lot of homilies and interpretations of several Church Fathers and Doctors, such as John of Thessalonica, Saint John of Damascus and Saint Andrew of Crete, and a great number of other medieval theologians. All those literary sources, apocryphal and canonical, constitute the conceptual basis on which the Church has based the liturgical feasts and the iconography of the Death and the Assumption of the Mother of God. The iconography of the Mary’s Death, widely expressed in the Byzantine art since the 11th century, will begin to acquire some relevance in Europe since the 12th century, associating the Virgin’s triumph to the one of Jesus Christ in three characteristic subjects: the Death, the Assumption and the Coronation of Mary. Through the analysis of nine Italian paintings of the Quattrocento, our paper aims to show that such patristic and theological sources constitute the conceptual “model” that inspires in a direct and essential way the medieval iconography of Mary’s Assumption.
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The Royal Chapel of the Córdoba Cathedral and its repercussion on the noble foundations during the Late Middle Ages
Mª Ángeles JORDANO BARBUDO
Original title: La Capilla Real de la Catedral de Córdoba y su repercusión en las fundaciones nobiliarias durante la Baja Edad Media
Published in Aristocracy and nobility in the Ancient and Medieval World
The Royal Chapel, completed under Henry II of Trastamara in 1371, exerted a powerful influence on the nobility in Cordoba, which in its monumental buildings, be they funerary chapels, palatial houses or castles, adopted the Mudejar style as an expression of ostentation and power. Such glorification of their lineage can be seen in the representation of their coats of arms above the entrances to the halls and in their private chapels, decorated with plasterwork inspired by the flamboyant decoration of the Royal Chapel, whose excellent state of conservation is due to various reforms carried out between the 16th and 19th centuries, as has been shown by the inscriptions we have discovered on the base of the arches of the vaults and which we would like to make public in this article.
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A look at the alterity between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. The perception of the other in some medieval and modern texts (1200-1600)
Marica COSTIGLIOLO
Original title: Uno sguardo sull’alterità tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna. La percezione dell’altro in alcuni testi medievali e moderni (1200-1600)
Published in Mirabilia Journal 34
The concept of otherness is complex and layered. To understand how the Western world has received, rejected, or dominated the Other is crucial for the understanding of the construction of the Western cultural identity and for trying to find the motivations that have brought Europe to a politics of colonialism that has characterized social, economic, and political relations up to modern times. In this short essay I analyse some medieval and modern works to trace the textual strategies that testify the passage from the perception of difference as a possible source of threat, of danger, to its delegitimization to existence and consequently to the “justified” dominion over the other.
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The Interaction of Ambrose of Milan with the Emperor Theodosius the Great over the Dignity of Human Life
Eirini ARTEMI
Published in Mirabilia Journal 34
When Theodosius the Great became emperor, the influence of Christianity had expanded throughout the Roman Empire. The Christians gained the upper hand in the Empire mainly after the death of Julian and when they became in majority. This power led the emperor Theodosius to behave to pagans with cruelty that didn’t match to a Christian emperor. He was responsible for the massacre in Thessalonica of the province of byzantine Greek Macedonia. There 7000 thousand people were killed. In this paper, we will examine which was the attitude Ambrosius of Milan to the emperor, when the bishop though that the Church was just be used as a political prop or fig leaf. Which is the importance of the letter of Ambrose that was written to Theodosius? How did this Ambrose’s criticism to Theodosius for his ruthless slaughter, barring the emperor from entering church or taking communion for several months, and ordering him to do penance for several months before he could enter again and receive the host, change Theodosius’ behaviour as Christian? Did the letter of Ambrose to Theodosius have a catalytic role to later sanctity of the emperor? Ambrose’s penance should not be accepted as a win of the church over the emperor but only as a demonstration of the power of atonement over the penitent sinner. This power should not discriminate people according to their political power but according to their actions as Christians.
