The Mediæval Legend of Judas Iscariot

PMLA ◽  
1916 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-632
Author(s):  
Paull Franklin Baum

The legendary Life of Judas the Betrayer, based, it is usually said, on the Greek myth of Œdipus, is found in almost every language and country of mediæval Europe. It was written down in Latin as early as the twelfth century. By the end of the thirteenth century it was turned into the vernacular in lands as far apart as Wales, Catalonia, and Bohemia. At the close of the Middle Ages it had become the possession of the folk, and since that period—to some extent even during the fifteenth century—it has spread northward and eastward into Scandinavia, Finland, Russia, and Bulgaria. It was related in Greek, probably in the Middle Ages, although the manuscripts are of a much later date. It was still told orally in Galicia at the end of the last century. As a regular part of the ecclesiastical literature of the West it received canonization, so to say, late in the thirteenth century, in the great legendary of Jacopo da Voragine; but, on the other hand, it is a remarkable fact that in the Middle Ages, so far as I have been able to learn, none of the reputable church writers (with the exception of Jacopo) recognized or even mentioned it. And furthermore, mediaeval sculptors and carvers of wood and ivory, who gave themselves with so much zeal to the plastic representation of legendary matter, completely eschewed or overlooked the ‘early life’ of Judas. Not indeed that either the church writers or artists sought to avoid contact with such a wicked character; on the contrary, they devoted considerable space to him, rejecting only his apocryphal career. However this omission may be explained, the fact must be recognized as of some interest.

1997 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-137
Author(s):  
Lutz Kaelber

How did a person become a heretic in the Middle Ages? Then, once the person was affiliated with a heretical group, how was the affiliation sustained? What social processes and mechanisms were involved that forged bonds among heretics strong enough, in some cases, for them to choose death rather than return to the bosom of the Church? Two competing accounts of what attracted people to medieval heresies have marked the extremes in historical explanations (Russell 1963): one is a materialist account elucidated by Marxist historians; the other one focuses on ideal factors, as proposed by the eminent historian Herbert Grundmann.


Traditio ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 259-276
Author(s):  
D. Dudley Stutz

In 1232 Pope Gregory IX (r. 1227–41) imposed a tenth of episcopal revenues on prelates of Occitania to subsidize the church of Valence, which owed 10,000 poundstournoisto various bankers of Vienne, Rome, Lyons, and Siena. In 1865 B. Hauréau first noted the event when he edited one of the main documents in theGallia christianavolume concerning the ecclesiastical province of Vienne. With the publication of Gregory IX's register from 1890–1908 most of the facts of the tax were more widely available. In 1910 Ulysse Chevalier briefly mentioned the tax in his monograph on the long tenure of John of Bernin, archbishop of Vienne (r. 1218–66). In 1913, Heinrich Zimmermann cited Hauréau's text in a note in his detailed treatment of early thirteenth-century papal legations. Recently Alain Marchandisse reviewed eight of the eleven papal letters pertaining to the tax in his study of William of Savoy (d. 1239) as bishop-elect of Liège. These scholars provided no reason for the debt or why the papacy would take such measures to ensure payment. Perhaps they did not study this tax further because a church indebted to moneylenders is not in itself surprising. It appears that the church of Valence acquired the debt, very large compared to the church's income, when bishop-elect William of Savoy (r. 1225–39) waged war against Adhémar II of Poitiers-Valentinois, count of the Valentinois (r. 1189–1239). Struggles between bishops and the local nobility occurred on a regular basis throughout the Middle Ages, so what in this unimportant Rhone-valley diocese interested the pope enough to impose taxes on prelates of Occitania over twenty years to ensure payment of this debt? Adhémar II faithfully supported Raymond VI (r. 1194–1222) and Raymond VII (r. 1222–49) of Saint-Gilles, counts of Toulouse, throughout their struggle with the papacy during and following the Albigensian crusades. Adhémar II was also their vassal for the Diois, which borders the Valentinois on the southeast and comprised the northern portion of the marquisate of Provence. These lands had been reserved for the church in the Treaty of Meaux-Paris (1229), which ended the Albigensian crusades. Thus William of Savoy as bishop-elect of Valence defended the papacy's claims on the marquisate of Provence, which the papacy deemed part of the larger struggle between the Roman church and the counts of Toulouse. The facts on the nature of the debts and the steps the papacy took to aid the diocese show that the local struggle between the bishop of Valence and the count of the Valentinois embodied a part of the larger struggle between the papacy and the counts of Toulouse over the marquisate of Provence, which began as early as 1215.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Adamo ◽  
David Alexander ◽  
Roberta Fasiello

This work is focused on an issue scarcely examined in the literature, concerning the analysis of the relationship existing between time and accounting practice. The aim is to highlight how changes in the interpretation of the concept of time influenced the development of accounting practices and contributed to the rise of periodical accounting reporting from the beginning of the thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth century. The socio-economic context existing in Italy in the Middle Ages, the development of commercial partnerships among merchants ( compagnie) and the international trade created the conditions for the development of periodical reporting. The relevance assigned to time in economic activity is one of the crucial factors of the rise of accounting information related to recurring accounting periods. Furthermore, the article shows how the concept of time is important and its significance widely underestimated, in a variety of further applications.


1934 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-114
Author(s):  
John T. McNeill

1. The Erastian Bondage of the Church:The promise of Magna Charta “that the English Church shall be free and have her rights entire and her liberties inviolate,” went largely unfulfilled. The autonomy of the Church was dreamt of by men like Stephen Langton and Robert Grosseteste, but it was never realized. In the Middle Ages it was restricted by the assertion of the jurisdiction of the Pope on the one hand, and of the King on the other. Magna Charta marked the humiliation of the King and met with the prompt condemnation of the Pope. By a long series of events between ca. 1350 and ca. 1570, the Pope's cause in England was lost, and in the same course of events the royal power was greatly enhanced. So far as constitutional autonomy was concerned the Church was now in a weaker state than before. The gates of a prison-house of Erastianism closed about her. A blight fell upon her governing institutions. Her Convocations were not permitted to function, and after 1718 were discontinued, except for pro forma meetings held for the purpose, as Edmund Burke phrased it, “of making some polite ecclesiastical compliments to the King.” Burke spoke for the politicians of his century when he added: “It is wise to permit its legal existence only.” Because Convocation's last acts had been attended by strife, the fear that its revival would mean a renewal of unseemly contention was habitually invoked as an answer to the few who ventured to suggest that step.


1985 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mildred Budny ◽  
Dominic Tweddle

This article offers an account of the components, the structure and the history of the so-calledcasulaandvelaminaof Sts Harlindis and Relindis preserved at the Church of St Catherine at Maaseik in Belgium as relics of the two sisters who founded the nearby abbey of Aldeneik (where the textiles were kept throughout the Middle Ages). The compositecasulaof Sts Harlindis and Relindis includes the earliest surviving group of Anglo-Saxon embroideries, dating to the late eighth century or the early ninth. Probably similarly Anglo-Saxon, a set of silk tablet-woven braids brocaded with gold associated with the embroideries offers a missing link in the surviving corpus of Anglo-Saxon braids. The ‘David silk’ with its Latin inscription and distinctly western European design dating from the eighth century or the early ninth offers a rare witness to the art of silk-weaving in the West at so early a date. Thevelamenof St Harlindis, more or less intact, represents a remarkable early medieval vestment, garment or cloth made up of two types of woven silk cloths, tablet-woven braids brocaded with gold, gilded copper bosses, pearls and beads. Thevelamenof St Relindis, in contrast, represents the stripped remains—reduced to the lining and the fringed ends—of another composite textile. Originally it was probably luxurious, so as to match the two other composite early medieval textile relics from Aldeneik. As a whole, the group contributes greatly to knowledge of early medieval textiles of various kinds.


2006 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-190
Author(s):  
Matthew Reeve

AbstractThe former painted cycle over the vaults of Salisbury Cathedral represents one of the great losses of thirteenth-century English art. This paper focuses on the imagery over the three-bay choir, which features twentyfour Old Testament kings and prophets each holding scrolls with texts prefiguring the Coming of Christ. The content of the cycle derives from a sermon, well known in the Middle Ages, by Pseudo-Augustine: Contra Judaeos, Paganos et Arianos. Yet the most immediate sources lie in twelfth and thirteenth-century extrapolations of the Pseudo-Augustinian sermon in liturgical drama, the so-called Ordo Prophetarum, or prophet plays. This observation leads to a discussion of the relationship of imagery to its liturgical setting. It is argued that the images on the choir vaults were also to be understood allegorically as types of the cathedral canons, who originally sat in the choir stalls below. A reading of the choir as a place of prophecy is located within traditions of liturgical commentary, which allegorize processions through churches as processions through Christian history. This leads to a discussion of the allegorization of the church interior in the Gothic period.


Philosophy ◽  
1933 ◽  
Vol 8 (31) ◽  
pp. 301-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Delisle Burns

Not for the first time in the history of our tradition, we are conscious of the defects of our inheritance and look doubtfully forward to a future whose structure we can hardly surmise. There was a Decline of the West in the first years of our era and again at the close of the Middle Ages. Now once more the beliefs and customs are shaken, on which our tradition is based; and there is no certainty that we shall carry forward what that tradition has so far achieved into a new form of civilized life. But, on the other hand, there is no reason to suppose that Western Civilization will disappear.


2021 ◽  
pp. 151-178
Author(s):  
Federico Del Tredici

At the end of the Middle Ages in Lombardy it was common for a rural lord and his subjects to be defined as friends. By comparing Lombardy to other areas of central and northern Italy, the essay underlines the exceptional nature of this situation, and questions its causes. Such a phenomenon had two main underlying reasons: on the one hand, the peculiar political relationship between city and countryside that distinguished Lombardy since the late thirteenth century; on the other hand, the strong consensual character of the Lombard lordship in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.


Author(s):  
José Ignacio Hualde

The Romance varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula fall into three major groups: Galician-Portuguese, Central Ibero-Romance and Catalan. All these varieties have their origins in the evolution of Latin in the northern fringe of the Iberian Peninsula and spread southward in the Middle Ages. One of the main features that distinguish the Central Ibero-Romance group from its neighbors to the west and east is the diphthongization of /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ from Latin short ĕ and ŏ in stressed syllables (as in tierra ‘land’, puerta ‘door’ vs. Pt. and Cat. terra, porta). Besides Spanish, which historically derives from the evolution of Latin in the original territory of the Kingdom of Castile, the other main Central Ibero-Romance varieties are Astur-Leonese (including Mirandese, in Portugal) and Aragonese. For the medieval period, Old Navarrese Romance is well documented, as is, to a lesser extent, the transitional variety of La Rioja. There are no documents entirely written in Andalusi Romance, the set of Romance varieties spoken in Islamic Spain in medieval times, but we can infer some of its features from short texts and several other sources.


1928 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 61-82
Author(s):  
E. M. Carus-Wilson

Ashrewd Italian visitor, writing of England more than four hundred years ago, remarked:—“There are scarcely any towns of importance in the kingdom excepting these two: Bristol, a seaport to the West, and Boraco, otherwise York, which is on the borders of Scotland; besides London to the South.” Now York was not a port, though it traded far afield through Hull; London was a port, but it was so much else that its story is confusingly complex; moreover it was not by the Thames but by the Severn that Englishmen first found a pathway to the New World at the end of the Middle Ages. Hence Bristol, then the second port in England, is of peculiar interest to the student of the still unwritten history of English commerce in the fifteenth century—a history unchronicled, but not unrecorded, and quite as significant as the wars abroad and the strifes at home which have too often earned for the century a character of futility.


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