Collegiate Church Research Articles

Historical earthquakes in the Holy Cross Mountains, Poland, true or false? Unveiling insights through archaeoseismology

The Holy Cross Mountains are an intraplate range with a limited historical seismicity record. The only documented earthquakes include the February 6, 1837 M 4.3 event, which caused ground cracks, and swarm events from February 1932 (M ∼ 3.5), likely triggered by the Holy Cross Fault (HCF) or sub-perpendicular faults. The apparent lack of older destructive earthquakes in historical catalogs motivated us to conduct archaeoseismological research to improve seismic hazard assessment, risk mitigation, and urban planning strategies, ultimately benefiting local communities. We focused on the 12th-century Collegiate church of Saint Martin in Opatów, located near the Holly Cross Fault (HCF). We report numerous damage features, such as leaning, bulging, and twisted walls, dropped keystones in Romanesque and Gothic portals, strike-slip displacements of these portals, surplus, oversized buttresses, and walled-up portals. While some deformations may result from humid loess instability and war destructions, our data, combined with historical records, suggest two to three seismic events in the past 800 years as a cause. We argue these deformations were co-seismically triggered by either large far-field events, like the 1259 AD earthquake, or local, shallow small-magnitude events significantly amplified by site effects. This indicates potential seismic activity in the Holy Cross Mountains during Medieval times. The absence of historical records does not imply the absence of earthquakes.

The intersectional effects of sex and socioeconomic status on risk of mortality in industrializing England.

Intersectionality posits that multiple levels of marginalization interact to produce patterns of frailty and mortality, both today and in the past. To investigate how mortality during industrialization was selective with respect to sex and socioeconomic status (SES), this study analyzes data from four burial grounds dated to the 18th-19th centuries in England: St. Bride's Fleet Street, Coach Lane, St. Peter's Collegiate Church, and New Bunhill Fields. St. Bride's was considered the high SES group, and Coach Lane, St. Peter's, and New Bunhill Fields were separately and collectively analyzed as the low SES groups. Sex (in individuals aged 18+ years) was modeled as a covariate affecting the Gompertz model of mortality, and SES (in individuals for whom age could be estimated) was modeled as a covariate affecting the Siler and Gompertz models of mortality. The results indicate that sex influenced risk of mortality among adults in the high SES group. High SES males faced lower risks of death compared to high SES females. The results also suggest that SES influenced risk of mortality across all ages. High SES individuals were at reduced risks of death compared to low SES individuals. Increased mortality risks among individuals of low SES was likely due to the low standards of living common in the impoverished areas of cities in industrializing England. However, in accordance with intersectionality, the benefits of high status were unequally distributed among adults in the high SES group, suggesting that men were the primary beneficiaries of the protective aspects of high SES.

Diego De Riaño and the Transition to the Renaissance at the Collegiate Church of Osuna

Diego De Riaño and the Transition to the Renaissance at the Collegiate Church of Osuna

Book Review

Book Review

New evidence from Shrewsbury on the creation and circulation of music in high-medieval England

ABSTRACTThis article presents new discoveries from a manuscript from the Collegiate Church of St Chad, Shrewsbury, with implications for the circulation of ecclesiastical music, particularly sequences, in twelfth- and thirteenth-century England. It begins with a brief examination of the twelfth-century musical contents of the manuscript, which are shown to hold close scribal affinities: in particular, a ‘winged’ neume shape is contextualised by contemporaneous musical inscriptions found in a manuscript probably written at Haughmond Abbey. The remainder of the article considers music, mostly sequences, inscribed in a palimpsest gathering at the back of the St Chad's manuscript in the thirteenth century. Two of these are compared for the first time with their concordances, one concordance newly discovered. Examination of the preservation and record of these musical entries (with discussion of contrafacture and marginalia) sheds light on creative practices of citation and intertextuality, performance traditions, and processes of reading and recording music at St Chad's, ultimately illuminating the role the church played within a creative network across England and northern Europe.

Francesco Placidi and Ludwig Ladislaus. On architect and sculptor partnership in the 1740s and 1750s

Two artists, Francesco Placidi from Rome and sculptor Ludwig Ladislaus from Opava, played a significant role in Krakow artistic circles of the 1740s and 1750s. Placidi was brought to Poland by another Roman architect, Gaetano Chiaveri, under whose guidance he directed the construction of the court church in Dresden, and was active in Kraków since 1742. Ladisalus was first recorded in the records of the city of Krakow in 1741. The two lived in the same parishes, first All Saints’ and then St Mary’s, and were connected both socially and professionally. Following the study of sources and styles, it was determined that Placidi designed and Ladilaus executed the interior furnishings of the parish church in Morawica (c. 1748–55) funded by Aleksander August and Maria Zofia Czartoryski, the main altar in the Sanctuary of the Crucified Christ in Kobylanka (c. 1750) funded by Jan Wielopolski, and the main altar in the former collegiate church in Sandomierz (1756–57). A detailed investigation outlined the origin of architectural solutions defined by Placidi and captured the stylistic and formal features that Ladislaus’s sculptures share. The case is but a contribution to further research on the mutual relations between designers and makers of architecture and sculptures. Especially with respect to the roles of both the Italian architect imposing (or not) the general and/or detailed concept of the work, and the sculptor following (or not) the designer’s ideas, yet also contributing his own formal and stylistic solutions resulting from his individual artistic path of development (in the case of Ladislaus: in the Austrian Silesia). Beyond doubt, with his extensive contacts with ecclesiastical and secular aristocracy and the royal court, Placidi played an important role in Kraków, providing a link between artists of various professions, and maintaining familial and social contacts with some.

History recorded in the stones of the Romanesque collegiate church in Opatów

History recorded in the stones of the Romanesque collegiate church in Opatów

Tracing Obrecht’s musical career

The collegiate church of St Donatian once stood on the Burg (town square), opposite the town hall of Bruges. It was destroyed at the French Revolution; in its place there now stands a hotel owned by an international chain. Its basement hosts receptions but is open to the public. The walls all around the reception space are the foundations of what was once the choir of St Donatian—a poignant reminder of a place that once resounded to the music of Jacob Obrecht, and of Bruges’s former greatness. Unlike most of his direct contemporaries, Obrecht’s life is well documented. From his first known post at Bergen-op-Zoom in 1480 until his death in Ferrara 25 years later in his mid to late 40s (the wonderful portrait attributed to Quentin Metsys establishes his birth date in the late 1450s), there are very few years without a positive sighting of him, though for some periods this amounts only to a passing reference. At some point in 1492 (during his first tenure as succentor at Antwerp Cathedral) he appears to have gone to France; and after a very brief second stint at Antwerp ended a decade later, he appears to have visited the imperial court at Innsbruck in 1503, probably on the way to Italy. His whereabouts in the months immediately after his dismissal from Ferrara in early 1505 are also unclear, though this period can now be narrowed down by several months; one of Robert Nosow’s many discoveries and refinements to Obrecht’s biography in this impressive and useful book concerns his death, which took place in May or June 1505, rather than later in the summer, as Rob C. Wegman had previously proposed. That discovery arises out of Nosow’s extensive archival research at Bruges, where the chapter acts of St Donatian, the primary sources for this book, still survive. One might say that the volume’s title would require three terms rather than two, for while it is indeed about Obrecht and his singers, the locus of their activity is Bruges: ‘Hobrecht and his singers at Bruges’ might have been more informative. (Incidentally, I retain Early Music’s house style for the composer’s last name: the spelling under which he achieved international renown also appears in Flemish sources.) While it does not pretend to supersede Wegman’s Born for the muses: the life and Masses of Jacob Obrecht (Oxford, 1994) or the chapter on Saint Donatian in Reinhard Strohm’s Music in late medieval Bruges (Oxford, 1985), Nosow’s book offers many fresh insights.

Manchester cathedral. A history of the collegiate church and cathedral, 1421 to the present. Edited by Jeremy Gregory. Pp. xxii + 472 incl. 101 colour and black-and-white ills. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021. £30. 978 1 5261 6126 0

Manchester cathedral. A history of the collegiate church and cathedral, 1421 to the present. Edited by Jeremy Gregory. Pp. xxii + 472 incl. 101 colour and black-and-white ills. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021. £30. 978 1 5261 6126 0 - Volume 74 Issue 1

The northern-Italy Renaissance in a panel by Defendente Ferrari: A complete study with a multi-analytical investigation

Defendente Ferrari, one of the most important painters of the Piedmontese Renaissance, was extremely active in the early 16th century. His Madonna with Child and two Saints (1505–1510 ca.), which was originally located in the Collegiate Church of Carmagnola (Turin province, Italy) now in the collections of Palazzo Madama - Museo Civico d’Arte Antica in Turin, was recently analyzed and restored at the Centro Conservazione e Restauro La Venaria Reale, as part of a study and conservation project focused on the artist and his circle.This study presents an interdisciplinary and multi-analytical archaeometric approach resulting from the collaboration of several universities and research centers. The adopted protocol allowed for clarifying some peculiarities of the artist's painting technique, such as the use of the dotted - a technique applied to render the nuances, volume, and flesh tones of the figures - and that of thin black cross-hatched strokes, drawn to shape the clothes and to define the related volumes and folds. Moreover, specific degradation processes were studied, which apparently occur also in other contemporary artworks with similar features. Of particular interest is the alteration of the blue color of the Virgin's garment, made of azurite and presently strongly blackened.SWIR reflectography performed with a high-resolution InGaAs scanner prototype allowed for imaging both the detailed underdrawing and the careful hatching used to highlight the shadows. The combined application of optical microscopy, SEM-EDS, µ-Raman, FT-IR spectroscopy, and GC–MS has been fundamental for analyzing some specific pigments, binders, and varnishes, as well as for inferring the cause for Virgin's garment blackening. A complete mapping of the pigments was provided through the combination of FORS (350–2000 nm), portable µ-Raman, MA-XRF, and Hypercolorimetric Multispectral Imaging. The latter also allowed for observing the distribution of what is supposed to be either the original or the ancient organic finishing layer, which was maintained during the conservation treatment.This research has brought to an in-depth knowledge of the artist's painting technique and helped the adoption of the best choices for an effective and minimal-invasive restoration intervention.

Rhythmic Notation in Plainchant from Sixteenth-Century Chaumont?

Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century chant manuscripts from the collegiate church of St. John the Baptist in Chaumont, France, have a notational anomaly: among the standard features of square notation, graphically elongated forms are used. These signs, often two to three times the length of a standard square, are frequently found at the ends of words and sometimes in combination with other neumes. The use of the signs suggests that their presence is not merely space-filling or ornamental, but rather, that they must have been intended to influence some aspect of how the chant was sung. Using a series of six criteria alongside contemporary music theoretical writings, I investigate the use of the sign by the church’s scribes and propose likely interpretations.

Duchowieństwo dekanatu Wołkowysk w 1820 r.

The purpose of this article is to collectively analyze the data on the group that was formed at the beginning of the 19th century by the clergy of the Vawkavysk deanery. The term “clergy of the deanery of Volkovysk” applies to all priests, diocesan and religious, working at parish and monastic churches located in the deanery. Essential information for the research was provided by the protocols of the general visitation for 1820. The visitation was carried out in October 1820 and January 1821. The authorities of the diocese delegated Fr. Franciszek Godlewski, canon of the Brest chapter. The dean of the deanery and the parish priest in Wołkowysk, the canon of the Brest collegiate church and the master of canon law, Fr. Tomasz Sturgulewski.

Transitions in Collegiate Church Music Pedagogy: Developing a Pedagogy for Undergraduate Modern Worship Curriculum

Church music pedagogy has a rich history dating back to the 9th century and is rooted in scripture and ancient traditions. Changes over the centuries have been gradual with incremental transitions; however, since the introduction of pop and rock musical stylings to church settings almost sixty years ago, changes have been swift and dramatic. The advent of modern worship has left Christian higher learning institutions scrambling to find a place where the curriculum would be useful and relevant to the modern 21st century Church. This paper seeks to examine the historical background of Christian church music pedagogy while suggesting strategies for adaptation and transition to the realities of modern church worship.

Anmerkungen zur frühen Geschichte der Kirchen von Neutra und Pressburg (Über die Texttradition des 22. Artikels des ersten Gesetzbuches Königs Koloman)

This work deals with the early history of the collegiate churches of Bratislava and Nitra in the 11th and 12th centuries. This paper aims yet to unfold the connections between the archdeaconries and collegiate churches in Hungary during the Arpadian age.

BUILT HERITAGE VISUALIZATIONS IN IMMERSIVE ENVIRONMENTS TO SUPPORT SIGNIFICANCE ASSESSMENTS BY MULTIPLE STAKEHOLDERS

Abstract. In recent years, technological advances in game engines allowed researchers to propose methodological frameworks for integrating digital models of the built heritage in Virtual (VR), Augmented (AR) and Mixed Reality environments. Among other benefits, specific applications have demonstrated the potential of such immersive environments to raise awareness about the significance of historical objects, share associated knowledge and facilitate its collaborative management. Based on the necessity to retrieve information about users' experience, this research considers the potential of such environments to include a broader range of stakeholders in the value assessment process for historical sites and objects and provide more comprehensive representations of their significance for society. This paper proposes implementing a collaborative framework for value assessment in a virtual environment that combines multiple heritage representations to explore this issue. A prototype is further implemented on a practical case study, namely the Collegiate Church of Saint-Jean, located in Liège, Belgium.

The Contribution of Confraternities to the Urban Soundscape of Barcelona in the Early Modern Period

Sound was important to urban devotional and guild confraternities: sounds of various kinds, including organized and semi-improvised musics, served as acoustic signals that heralded their presence and communicated their identity; and different combinations of sounds characterized their devotional activities and ceremonies. Whether based at the cathedral or a collegiate, parish or conventual church, confraternities developed a sonic identity that drew on shared elements—bells, town criers, the hiring of wind-bands and other musicians such as trumpets and drums, as well as players of stringed instruments, the organ, chant and polyphonic singing, songs and dances—that were combined in various ways according to the devotional needs and economic resources of the confraternity in question, and to the nature of the event in which they were participating. More sound was generally regarded as more prestigious, but this depended on the fluctuating economic situation of individual confraternities. The smaller brotherhoods often struggled to meet the expense of hiring musicians for the annual feast days of their patron saints. Given the proliferation of confraternities in a city such as Barcelona, the density of their devotional activity—in addition to their customary participation in general urban processions, such as those of Holy Week, Corpus Christi, and other major feasts—meant that their contribution to the urban soundscape was considerable: indeed, it is impossible to recover any real sense of it without taking into account their musical patronage and sonic contribution.

Pygmalion’s Power: Romanesque Sculpture, the Senses, and Religious Experience by Thomas E. A. Dale

Reviewed by: Pygmalion’s Power: Romanesque Sculpture, the Senses, and Religious Experience by Thomas E. A. Dale Judith Collard Dale, Thomas E. A., Pygmalion’s Power: Romanesque Sculpture, the Senses, and Religious Experience, University Park, PA, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019; hardback; pp. 320; 21 colour plates, 113 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. US$99.95; ISBN 9780271083452. Thomas Dale begins his book with a story from Reginald of Durham’s Life of Saint Godric, in which the saint sees two carved wooden statues come alive, the crucifix and the Madonna and Child. These statues, which may seem rigid and stylized to us, embodied many of the qualities explored here, including their three-dimensionality, their use within various rituals, and the multiple senses that were evoked in these settings. The desire for such statues to come alive has been termed the ‘Pygmalion effect’. As Dale points out, these statues were brought to life through public religious processions and liturgical drama, through ritual veneration, and in more private devotional practices. This important and stimulating book examines Romanesque sculpture that has long been familiar to art historians. It covers images of the Madonna and Child, crucifixions, tomb sculptures, Bible scenes, monsters, and grotesques found on the capitals in cloisters, as well as such porch sculptures of Moissac, Autun, Vézelay, and Conques. The tympanum sculptures of Moissac or Vézelay have come to represent the Romanesque in many art history courses. Certainly, these tympana have featured prominently in mine, and as a first-year student were the subject of my first art history essay. What Thomas Dale has done in this book is to reinvigorate this familiar topic and provide fresh insights on these much-studied works. It has been customary to credit the revival of figurative stone sculpture in the mid-eleventh century to a desire to reclaim the authority of ancient Rome. Here, however, Dale argues that that the revitalized art form is part of a shift to a wider emphasis on spiritual embodiment and affective piety during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. His work is anchored in a strong historiographical base, as well as a deep knowledge of contemporary literature, moving easily between the two. He is also influenced by cultural anthropology and liturgical studies, in addition to the work of such historians and art historians as Robert Maxwell, Mary Carruthers, and Caroline Walker Bynum. The book is divided into five chapters, each focusing on a particular type of sculpture. The first examines crucifixes and images of the Madonna and Child or the Throne of Wisdom. Such sculptures have been given prominence in narratives about the origins of monumental sculpture, as they often contained relics and thus overcame concerns about idolatry. Dale, amongst others, challenges this, pointing to their affective qualities and their links to devotional practices. The second chapter concerns the presentation of the nude body, exploring such themes as man as microcosm, Eve and the Fall, pagan nudes as fallen idols, and the asexual nudes of the baptized and the resurrected. The chief object of study, however, is the representation of female lust in the portal of the church of Sainte-Pierre in Moissac. Next, he explores portraiture, both in the reliquaries of the saints and in tomb effigies. These were less concerned with producing a naturalistic likeness [End Page 233] than with an ideal inner one. In the fourth chapter the focus is on monsters and phantasms. Three case studies, encompassing the cloister capitals of the Abbey of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, the choir capitals of the collegiate church of Chauvigny in Poitou, and the portal of Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul at Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, are investigated, interrogating St Bernard of Clairvaux’s celebrated critique of such monsters. In the final chapter, Dale examines facades and portal sculpture. The presence of the theophany, in the representation of the Ascension and the Second Coming, and the related Last Judgement, at the entrance of such churches as the Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy in Conques, Autun Cathedral, and Sainte-Pierre in Moissac, is investigated, while the Pentecost tympanum at Vézelay Abbey in Burgundy is also discussed. Close readings of each explore how the different...

Music and Musicians at the Collegiate Church of St. Omer: Crucible of Song, 1350–1550. Andrew Kirkman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. xvii + 312 pp. $99.99.

Music and Musicians at the Collegiate Church of St. Omer: Crucible of Song, 1350–1550. Andrew Kirkman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. xvii + 312 pp. $99.99.

COMMUNICATION TOOLS FOR INACCESSIBLE PLACES OF SIGNIFICANCE

Abstract. This article deals with the communication of inaccessible heritage. Based on a classification of different mediation tools, we propose a framework for selecting the most appropriate tools to communicate about heritage sites under restoration and, therefore, inaccessible. Furthermore, from the data already collected, we show how it is possible to use the constraints of building sites as opportunities for mediation. Finally, we apply this scheme to the case of the collegiate church of Sainte Croix in Liège, for which we end up proposing three mediation tools: the creation of a virtual visit website, the realization of 3D printed scale models, and the design and printing of a cover sheet showing the interior of the building at 1/1 scale.

Sztuka w kręgu bractw religijnych w Skalbmierzu. Addenda

This paper is an analysis of the religious brotherhoods of Skalbmierz and their Early Modern furnishings. The article discusses both the preserved objects and those known from written sources, with particular emphasis on the recent discoveries made during the restoration works. In the Early Modern era, Skalbmierz was classified as a medium- sized city in Lesser Poland, but due to the collegiate church and the school there, it was an important centre in the region. This is visible, for example, in the case of religious brotherhoods, whose number and activity are impressive, considering thesize of the city. The oldest brotherhoods are the craft guilds that have been listed in Skalbmierz since the mid-15th century. The only remnant of their activity is an altar from around 1700 with images of Saints Cryspin and Cryspinian. The literary brotherhood, listed in 1546, had also an altar in the collegiate church. Unfortunately, both the retable and its settings are known only from brief references in the inventories. The dynamic development of the confraternities in the city took place at the beginning of the 17th century. In this time, the confraternities of the Passion and of St. Anne were established. The first, modelled on the Kraków Archconfraternity of the Passion, had an altar with the image of the Crucifixion in the church (in mid-18th century it was replaced by the present one by provost Antoni Stanclewicz) and a crypt decorated with paintings. The frescoes show brethren in costumes identical to those worn by the Kraków confraternity. The 17th-century chalice belonging to the confraternity, funded by one of the townspeople, has also been preserved. The 17th-century equipment of the brotherhood of St. Anne is known only from written sources and included the altar, paraments and liturgical books. In the mid-18th century, the brethren’s retable was rebuilt, including a picture modelled on the image in the main altar of St. Anne church in Kraków. In the second half of the 17th century, the brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary was established, modelled on the confraternity at the Dominican Church in Kraków. The image of Our Lady of the Snow was associated with the brotherhood altar, dated to the mid-18th century. Its careful examination, which was possible thanks to the removal of the silver robe for conservation purposes, indicates that the painting was modelled on the image from the Kraków’s church of The Holy Trinity. A lost painting of Infant Jesus, belonging to the second Rosary brotherhood, was discovered in the same altar. The image contains a complex iconographic program with the Eucharistic meaning, likewise the feretory belonging to the same confraternity with an image based on the Book of Ecclesiastes. In the summary, attention is paid to drawing inspiration from Kraków, which included the transfer of both organizational and artistic patterns, and to the role of the canons who were responsible for the complex iconography and ideological meaning of the works. It is also significant that the equipment was funded by both brethren, townspeople who did not belong to the brotherhoods and canons, which indicates the significant role that the organizations played in the life of the city.