LIVES OF SAINTS IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES, AS A HISTORICAL SOURCE IN THE RESEARCHES OF L.M. BERKUT

Merovingian Meditations on Jesus

The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190234188.013.4 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1070-1105

Author(s):

Lynda Coon

Keyword(s):

Middle Ages ◽

Eighth Century ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

Seventh Century ◽

Early Middle Ages ◽

Lives Of Saints ◽

External Influences ◽

The Cross ◽

Biblical Texts

The final chapter of this volume explores the conversation on Jesus held between material and textual sources, where monumental works of sculpture extend salvific themes found in the lives of saints and the verses of poets. Merovingian meditations on Jesus are multivocal, reflecting the cross-cultural rhythms of a world open to and receptive of external influences, whether originating in classical or biblical texts or hailing from Mediterranean or Northern lands. In order to prove this hypothesis on the Merovingian body and the embodied savior, three works of sculpture produced during the early Middle Ages serve as sounding boards for Jesus’ earthly ministry as enacted by human players: the crucified savior featured on the seventh-century Moselkern Stele; the eighth-century Hypogée des Dunes’s sculpted relief of the two thieves crucified along with Jesus; and the so-called Niederdollendorf “Christ,” carved most likely in the seventh century. Saintly actors, such as Radegund of Poitiers (d. 587), animate three themes expressed in the sculpted sources respectively: (1) absence, (2) torture, and (3) light. The three subjects—light, torture, and absence—all point to strategies of integrating the realm of humanity within the celestial spheres, and each motif tracks different styles of meditating on Merovingian Jesus.

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Re-enacting Historical Slavic Rites in Contemporary Poland

Anthropological Journal of European Cultures ◽

10.3167/ajec.2016.250108 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 25 (1) ◽

pp. 118-135

Author(s):

Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Historical Source ◽

Early Middle Ages ◽

Ethnographic Data

The article aims to show how ethnographic data concerning religious rites, both Catholic and pagan, circulate in culture and thus become a kind of historical source for re-enacting other, invented religious rites. In the example of the Rękawka fair in Cracow, it is demonstrated how religious content present in nineteenth-century ethnographic descriptions, originally ascribed to pre-Christian paganism but incorporated into a Catholic fair, was separated from it and used in recreating and performing a neopagan rite. Investigating an Early Middle Ages re-enactment movement, the author focuses on the process of transforming ethnographic data into historical ones. Analysing the problem of authenticity of such sources, she points out the particularities of achieving authenticity in a re-enactment movement: to some, the contemporary Rękawka fair remains only a kind of historical re-enactment, while according to others it is a true neopagan rite.

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