Medieval Rituals Research Articles

Music in Medieval Rituals for the End of Life by Elaine Stratton Hild (review)

Music in Medieval Rituals for the End of Life by Elaine Stratton Hild (review)

Zenith Lighting in Christian Places of Worship Between Reality and Fiction (West-East, 4th-13th centuries)

This article analyses the light irradiation from the top in the places of worship of medieval Christianity, whether as phenomenon of natural origin, produced by an oculus, or figuratively, through the creation of two-dimensional medallions at the summit of the vault. Few but significant examples refer to the first aspect of the question, such as the Rotunda of the Anastasis and Santa Maria ad Martyres (Pantheon). The image of the zenithal light, instead, often occurs inside the coverings of the domes, especially in the mosaic decorations (Santa Costanza, Baptistery of the Orthodox, Rotunda of Saint George, etc.). In these and other contexts, the effect of a circular window open at the top of the vault is suggested by the iconographic theme, which evokes the vertical motion of transcendence, ascendant (Resurrection and Assumption) or descendant (Pentecost, Baptism, Second Coming), and through the fake frames or particular colour combinations (gold/silver, gold/blue, degrading shades from blue to white, rainbow bands). Both in the physical manifestation and in the iconographic representation, the light from above plays a central role in some medieval rituals related to the celebration of Baptism, Pentecost and Resurrection.

Understanding Medieval Liturgy: Essays in Interpretation, ed. Helen Gittos and Sarah Hamilton

This book speaks successfully both to students embarking on their first forays in the field of medieval liturgy, and to specialists. The editors and contributors offer a guide to studying medieval liturgy, and a set of model explorations of particular liturgical materials. While much liturgical scholarship has tended to prioritise the earliest materials, this volume primarily engages with rituals preserved in manuscripts dated 900–1100 AD, concentrating on the functions of the texts for those who made, copied and used them, rather than interpreting them as signposts to the origins of western liturgy, or as stepping-stones in an ongoing historical process. There is an unusual level of engagement by each contributor with the work of others in the same volume, which is a testament to the genuinely collaborative approach of the two editors, Helen Gittos and Sarah Hamilton. The result is very much more than merely a collection of essays. The book begins and ends with chapters that lay out a vision for studying medieval liturgy productively (chs. 1, 3 and 10, by Helen Gittos, William T. Flynn and Carol Symes, respectively). I thoroughly recommend sending students at all levels to these chapters, for inspiration, advice and up-to-date bibliography. Gittos introduces the strategy (that underlies almost all the contributions) of exploring why particular texts were written down. She emphasises the importance of comparative analysis in order to make sense of medieval rituals. This is exemplified in several of the later chapters. Gittos further points out the importance of working iteratively with the evidence. As manuscripts are studied more closely, dating or provenance might shift, or new ideas emerge about the (sometimes complex) relationship between the dating of a manuscript and of its contents. Thus, secondary literature must always be treated with caution, while retaining value as a basis for current knowledge, another theme that returns later in the volume. Symes writes about the erratic survival of liturgical materials, with libelli as a particularly striking example, and about the lack of authoritative liturgical books right through the Middle Ages, which intersects with the very gradual shift from a primarily oral culture to one in which writing played a more central role. She also reminds us that there was much more non-Latin liturgical activity, and more non-clerical participation, than later Protestant narratives have led us to assume. Flynn summarises issues that chant-specialist musicologists have tended to focus on, and discusses recent work that he considers to bridge disciplines successfully. This includes holistic manuscript work; computer-aided chant analysis; analysis of textual grammar and rhetoric together with melody; and exemplary cultural histories of music that speak compellingly beyond musicology.

The Myth of the South Indian Iron Stupa (Nanten tettō) in Japanese Esoteric Buddhism

According to a legend, recorded in China in the second half of the eighth century by Amoghavajra (Bukong 不空, 705–774), the most influential patriarch of Esoteric Buddhism (mikkyō 密教) during the Tang, the teachings of the Vajraśekhara Tantra (Ch. Jin’gangding jing, Jp. Kongōchōgyō 金剛頂経) were transmitted to an unnamed sage in south India (Nanten 南天, an abbreviation of Nan-Tenjiku 南天竺) from inside a mysterious iron stūpa (tettō 鉄塔). A few decades later, Kūkai 空海 (774–835), the founder of the Shingon school 真言宗 in Japan, identified that sage as Nāgārjuna, who came to be considered the third patriarch of Shingon Buddhism. Since then, that of the South Indian Iron Stupa (nanten tettō 南天鉄塔) has been an important theme in Japanese religious history; in particular, it became a symbol of the transmission of esoteric knowledge in intiation/consecration rituals (kanjō 灌頂) and was later transferred and adapted to newly created Buddhist rituals for Japanese deities (kami 神) known as jingi kanjō 神祇灌頂 or shintō kanjō 神道灌頂. This article explores some of the aspects of the myth and its doctrinal implications, especially regarding the epistemology and soteriology of Esoteric Buddhism. After a brief discussion of the Iron Stupa myth from East Asian canonical sources and Kūkai’s ideas about the tranmission of Esoteric teachings, I move on to examples of esoteric exegeses of this myth, both from the Shingon and Tendai denominations—as typical in such interpretive endeavors, the words of the myth, their meanings and their (supposed) external referents (objects and states of the world) are disassembled and recombined according to the principles of medieval Buddhist semiotics. Next, I trace further developments of the Iron Stupa myth as a central image in medieval rituals about Japanese kami. In the final considerations section I offer some elements to place this myth within the larger context of the system of meaning of Esoteric Buddhism.

Kabul Carnival: Gender Politics in Postwar Afghanistan by Julie Billaud

Julie Billaud, Kabul Carnival: Gender Politics in Postwar Afghanistan. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. 256 pp.In the introduction to her ethnography, Julie Billaud writes that [the] book is an attempt to capture the nature of the 'reconstruction' project in Afghanistan, using the 'woman' as an entry point into broader questions around sovereignty, state building, and democratization (6). Indeed, Kabul Carnival explores a wide array of contexts and themes, and spans more than one unit of analysis (from a female member of Parliament to young university students, from the internal dynamics of a state ministry to local media production, and more). It builds on the previous literature that concentrated on the long line of Afghanistan's uninterrupted conflicts since 1978, yet claims to depart from them in its interpretation of the concept of culture. Billaud wants to eschew an Orientalist understanding of Afghan culture as a static and unavoidable hurdle, instead viewing it as a constantly contested and negotiated ground for social construction. She also looks to the traditions of postcolonial, peasant, and subaltern studies to show how the rural majority of the Afghan population was, in fact, historically (and is to this day) forced into embracing progressive ideologies springing from exogenous sources (namely, the Western capitalistic world). Kabul Carnival also engages contemporary transnational studies in reiterating the de facto colonial mindset that informs the countless institutional and non-governmental efforts at reconstruction and nation-building in Afghanistan. Billaud faults these efforts for propagating what she considers neoliberal values among the local population, irrespective of the social and cultural background of the targeted groups. The lens through which all these layers of analysis are looked upon is the category of woman, in its ethnographic instantiation.The broader symbolic context in which Billaud places her analysis is that of the carnivalesque, as theorized by Mikhail Bakhtin (1984). Bakhtin describes those ritual moments in medieval France when social roles and public personae were allowed (by the dominant classes) to be temporarily overturned and suspended. For Bakhtin, the context of subversion in which carnivalesque rituals took place represents a locus of spiritual and social expression and construction. Billaud views Afghanistan's current social and political reality as trapped in this liminal space of inversion and subversion. The foreign humanitarian intervention holds a theatrical dimension, as well as a farcical and less-than-honest aspect, in which Afghans themselves choose to participate hoping to reap any possible benefits. In the end though, just as in France's medieval rituals, the farce contributes to reinforcing the traditional power standings and overall status quo.The book opens with a historical excursus on a century of state policies regarding gender roles and women's conditions in Afghanistan. While the plight of women was a crucial trope in promoting narratives of progress and national identity, all such state policies not only failed, but generated popular revolt. In Billaud's opinion, this backlash shaped particularly oppressive and gendered cultural idioms in order to express the (male) population's resistance to a top-down imposition of power.After introducing the historical foundations on which her research rests, in Chapter 2 Billaud starts presenting her ethnographic material, collected in different environments in Kabul, during roughly nine months of fieldwork in the country in 2007. During this time, Billaud was also getting acquainted with Dari, the lingua franca of her fieldsite. The chapter chronicles the experience the ethnographer had in the Ministry of Women's Affairs, by which most projects for raising women's self-awareness and self-empowerment were implemented. Billaud argues that the international reconstruction machinery in Afghanistan works on the premises of a Western neoliberal ideological agenda, promoting concepts such as freedom, progress, rationality, individual empowerment, and gender equality. …

“And do not say ’tis superstition”: Shakespeare, Memory, and the Iconography of Death

“And do not say ’tis superstition”:1Shakespeare, Memory, and the Iconography of Death Lawrence Green (bio) Shortly before the reinterment of the remains of King Richard III in Leicester Cathedral on March 22, 2015, the Guardian historian, David Priestland, lamented what he termed “the hullabaloo over the bones of a king dead for over 500 years” to be followed by an “archbishop-led re-interment service”—events he found to be “reminiscent of the saints’ cults of the middle ages,” a “reboot of the medieval craze for relics.” 2 Other broadcasters expressed astonishment that the journey of the king’s remains through the streets of Leicester should have produced pavements thronged with onlookers. It is tempting to speculate that such rare events might have stirred deep-seated collective cultural memories of a time when such relics were venerated and superstition stalked the land. Indeed, Anne E. Bailey has traced significant parallels between the medieval rituals surrounding the translatio of a saint’s remains to a new shrine, and the studiedly ecumenical ceremonial given to King Richard’s remains together with the care afforded to their location so as to accommodate the reception of “pilgrims.”3 In this spirit of renascent medievalism, would it be too fanciful, I wonder, to suggest that the language and stage mise-en-scène that attends human mortality in Shakespeare’s plays sometimes carries strong resonances of material images that conjure the imagination to construct the funerary iconography of a former time? Martin Luther had declared that “Christ’s kingdom is a hearing-kingdom, not a seeing-kingdom,”4 a position supported by scriptural authority since Romans 10:17 has, “Then faith is by hearing, & hearing [End Page 249] by the worde of God.”5 The second commandment alone reinforced the contention that the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century in Europe should be represented as the triumph of the word over the image, notwithstanding the fact that Luther himself came to moderate his scorn of images by arguing that they might be retained as long as they were understood not to be sacred in themselves but merely serving as reminders or teachers of gospel truths. Notwithstanding the moderation of the Lutheran stance, the pretext had been supplied for an iconoclasm that owed as much to policy as to doctrinal purity. In such a climate it was perhaps inevitable that the theft, destruction, or obliteration of popish paraphernalia—what Eamon Duffy has famously termed the “stripping of the altars”—should extend not only to tombs within the church but also to the cemetery beyond. Indeed, “during early and mid-sixteenth-century outbreaks of iconoclasm, English Protestants demolished or mutilated many funerary monuments.”6 Thus, the carved effigies of intercessionary angels and other perceived idolatrous and superstitious Catholic elements were ruthlessly expunged, though when the destruction of the tombs of aristocratic families was thought to challenge a social hierarchy based on lineal succession, a royal proclamation of 1560 relating to the “breaking or defacing of monumentes of antiquitie” deplored the “extinguyshyng of the honorable and good memorye of sundry vertuous and noble persons deceased” while making a careful distinction between those monuments “being set vp…for memory” and those “for superstition.”7 Shakespeare is generally careful to exclude from both the verbal and the visual iconography of his death tableaux any suggestion of Catholic idolatry, and yet at times he seems to encourage his audience imaginatively to construct images that draw upon elements of a shared, universal “Catholic” memory. Martha Fleischer is discussing the incidence of pageantry on the Elizabethan stage when she identifies the inherent “emblematic eye” or the habit of “analogical thinking” as imparting meaning to the received iconography of the history play genre.8 Since profound cultural change arguably emerges from a process of evolution rather than revolution, Shakespeare—in common with his audience—inevitably retained a store of powerful visual cultural memories relating typically to traditional societal rites of passage—particularly marriage and death—upon which [End Page 250] it was natural to draw, irrespective of metaphysical subtleties. He and his contemporaries inhabited a broadly understood shared iconography that came to acquire an identity transcending the “Catholic” to become the truly...

How diverse is Cologne carnival? How migrants appropriate popular art spaces

The present article contributes to the ongoing academic debate on migrants’ appropriation of artistic and political spaces in Germany. Cologne, one of the largest cities in Germany, is an interesting example of the tension between political discourse centred around multiculturalism and cultural segregation processes. The ‘no fool is illegal’ carnival organised by asylum seekers shows their capacity to act, as they reinvent an old local tradition by reinterpreting medieval rituals. Today, different groups and associations appropriate this festive art space: migrants, gays and lesbians, feminists and far-left groups either organise their own parties or take part in the official parties and parades as separate groups. As a result, the celebration of diversity figures on the local political agenda and becomes part of the official carnival festivities. This leads to a blurring of boundaries, whereby mainstream popular culture becomes more and more influenced by multicultural elements.

Forms of representation of power and aristocratic funerary rituals in the Langobard Kingdom in northern Italy

In recent years the ideological premises and practices of early medieval funerary rituals, which are extremely complex and largely still unexplored, have become a highly topical subject in the field of European historiography. Indeed, from Late Antiquity onwards the presence and integration of different cultural traditions, and the rapid establishment and spread of Christianity led to the development of new social models of behaviour, which are not always easy to decipher, in terms of both settlements and the relationship with death and the forms in which it was represented. While archaeological research allows us to make contact with the material results of these new models of behaviour, it is not always straightforward — particularly for funerary practices — to identify the ensuing system of values and cultural models. In some cases we may suppose that material forms of apparently similar rituals are actually the fruit of different motivations and mental universes. Consequently, there is a strong need t...

Creations: Medieval Rituals, the Arts, and the Concept of Creation – Edited by Sven Rune Havsteen, Nils Holger Petersen, Heinrich W. Schwab, and Eyolf Østrem

Creations: Medieval Rituals, the Arts, and the Concept of Creation – Edited by Sven Rune Havsteen, Nils Holger Petersen, Heinrich W. Schwab, and Eyolf Østrem

Dramatic Aspects of Medieval Magic in Scandinavia

This article deals with the performance aspects of medieval spells and rituals. Magic might take various shapes from benedictions to maledictions, adjurations and conjurations, divinations and omens. Some spells were written, others spoken or performed in rituals. Spells could be shouted in a shrill voice or combined with ritual procedures where magic gained efficacy. It was important that this was done in the right way, or else the magic could fail. Most of the spells and rituals were performed by professional sorcerers or sorceresses but clerics and ordinary people in some cases might expel the demons who were believed to cause illness or harm in other ways. Special interest in the article is invested in the spells and rituals where the performance aspects are explicitly or implicitly stated. The most important spells and rituals from the Scandinavian counties are cited in extenso and commented upon.

The value of empire: tenth-century Bulgaria between Magyars, Pechenegs and Byzantium

The article seeks to explain the connection between the migration of the Magyars and Pechenegs in central and south-east Europe, in the late ninth and early tenth century, and the conflict between Byzantium and Bulgaria during the same period. Through reference to anthropologists discussing the relations between nomadic and sedentary societies (Khazanov, Barfield), and historians studying medieval rituals (Buc, Althoff, Koziol), the article interprets the aggressive policy of the Bulgarian tsar Symeon as a consistent effort to displace Byzantium as major partner of the nomadic polities in the area. By subverting the principles of Byzantine diplomacy and political culture, Symeon turned his own kingdom into a society-structuring factor in the nomadic world. The article evaluates the very meaning of imperial claims not so much in legal terms, as an effort to guarantee Bulgaria’s sovereignty in a Byzantium-centred world, but in the real-time capacity of a ruler to make use of imperial symbols and act upon the dynamically changing conjuncture.

Rituals, Kingship and Rebellion in Medieval Germany

AbstractThis essay attempts to place the current interest in medieval rituals in historical perspective, tracing the evolution of scholarly viewpoints from the age of Ranke to the present day. It chiefly focuses on Germany and on the tenth and early eleventh centuries, a classic period in the development of German kingship and ritual, but also a period marked by numerous uprisings against kings. The essay argues that the relevant historiography can roughly be divided into three chronologically overlapping schools: a liturgical school dominant around the middle of the twentieth century, an anthropological school which emerged in the 1970s, and a post‐modern school that emerged in the last decade of the twentieth century. The theories and methods embraced by each school and some of the work of some of their major figures are discussed, as well as the fundamental problems that each encountered. The essay concludes with an assessment of the current state of scholarship in the field.

Nudo pede intrat urbem: Research on the Adventus of a Medieval Bishop through the First Half of the Twelfth Century

A bishop’s first arrival at his see, one of the stages of transition of the higher clergy to the episcopate, had fundamental meaning in the process of his taking possession of a diocese. This essay deals with the emergence of one aspect of episcopal adventus: the prelate’s barefoot entrance into the city. Using evidence from sources composed ca. 1000–1150 the author argues that the barefoot element was not a formal part of early medieval episcopal entry rituals, and that its inclusion and usage by certain prelates from the tenth through the twelfth centuries indicates explicit intentions on their part to achieve mainly political goals. In the middle of eleventh century Leo IX incorporated the barefoot element in the papal adventus ceremonial, thus beginning a reconciliation between the pope and the Romans. The oldest description of barefoot episcopal adventus is St. Adalbert’s Vita prior, written ca. 999.

Creations: Medieval Rituals, the Arts, and the Concept of Creation. Ed. by Sven Rune Havsteen, Nils Holger Petersen, Heinrich W. Schwab, and Eyolf Ostrem.

Creations: Medieval Rituals, the Arts, and the Concept of Creation. Ed. by Sven Rune Havsteen, Nils Holger Petersen, Heinrich W. Schwab, and Eyolf Ostrem.

Creations. Medieval Rituals, the Arts, and the Concept of Creation.

Creations. Medieval Rituals, the Arts, and the Concept of Creation.

The magic of early medieval ritual

Whether, and how, we ought to study early medieval rituals has been much debated recently, including in the pages of this journal by Geoffrey Koziol and Philippe Buc. This paper is intended as a contribution to this debate, and argues that rituals' written or spoken interpretations are not a simple rendering of the ritualized actions' ‘meanings’ in words and must therefore be analysed separately, not conflated with the possible effects of performance. Ritualized acts thus had two loci: the short‐term experience of the embodied performance, and the long‐term struggle over interpretation in speech and writing, both of which need to be explored with appropriate methodologies. Whilst the textuality of our sources thus needs to be taken seriously, it is proposed that we can also say something about the possible or even probable characteristics of early medieval ritualized acts as the medium of bodily postures and gestures used for demonstrative public interations between power holders.

Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent. By Bryan D. Spinks Reformation and Modern Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From Luther to Contemporary Practices. By Bryan D. Spinks

Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent. By Bryan D. Spinks Reformation and Modern Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From Luther to Contemporary Practices. By Bryan D. Spinks

Book Review: Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent, Bryan Spinks (Ashgate 2006), 204 pp, £50.00 hbk; £16.99 pbk; Reformation and Modern Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From Luther to Contemporary Practice, Bryan Spinks (Ashgate 2006), 266 pp, £55.00 hbk; £16.99 pbk

Book Review: Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent, Bryan Spinks (Ashgate 2006), 204 pp, £50.00 hbk; £16.99 pbk; Reformation and Modern Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From Luther to Contemporary Practice, Bryan Spinks (Ashgate 2006), 266 pp, £55.00 hbk; £16.99 pbk

Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent, Bryan D. Spinks, Burlington, VT Ashgate, 2006. 190 pp. $29.9.5

Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent, Bryan D. Spinks, Burlington, VT Ashgate, 2006. 190 pp. $29.9.5

Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent. By Bryan D. Spinks. Liturgy, Worship, and Society Series. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2006. xiv + 192 pp. $29.95 paper. - Reformation and Modern Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From Luther to Contemporary Practices. By Bryan D. Spinks. Liturgy, Worship, and Society Series. Aldershot,

Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent. By Bryan D. Spinks. Liturgy, Worship, and Society Series. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2006. xiv + 192 pp. 29.95 paper. - Volume 77 Issue 1