scholarly journals The Cult of Maria Regina in Early Medieval Rome

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 95-106
Author(s):  
John Osborne

The iconography of Mary bearing the crown and vestments of a Byzantine empress has long been associated with the arts of the city of Rome, where the overwhelming majority of early examples survive. From the eighth century onwards, this theme was exploited by the popes to reinforce their claims to independence from secular authority. But did they invent it? This paper supports the view that the iconography was initially developed at the imperial court in Constantinople in the first half of the sixth century, and that it first appeared in Rome in an “imperial” as opposed to “papal” context.

Author(s):  
Carlos Machado

Scholars have traditionally approached the history of Rome in late antiquity as a metaphor for the fate of the empire and the ancient world, focusing on the distancing of the imperial court or on the growing importance of the Christian church. However, as this introduction argues, it is by focusing on the Roman aristocracy and its relationship with the city and its spaces that we can form a comprehensive understanding of the physical and historical developments that redefined Rome during this period. After providing a brief overview of the developments that shaped the city and its elite, between the end of the third and the beginning of the sixth century, the introduction discusses the nature of the evidence available, as well as the approach adopted in the book.


1970 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 139-159
Author(s):  
Erik Thunø

The verse inscription celebrating the new choir at Saint-Denis engages the issue of light in ways that have previously been associated with the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite and that have even served as proof of Abbot Suger’s close knowledge and direct use of those texts. Yet comparisons with not only ancient and early medieval poetry on buildings, but also especially with the inscriptions of early medieval apse mosaics in Rome, suggest that Suger’s emphasis on light is rooted in a tradition much older than the light metaphysics of Pseudo-Dionysius. Considering that Suger had also acquired a direct knowledge of the city of Rome and that both the arts and the ideology of that city played a major role in shaping Suger’s ambitions concerning Saint-Denis, the choir inscription should most likely be directly associated with the early medieval apse inscriptions. What spurred Suger’s interest in these shimmering texts in the first place, however, may have been some knowledge of Pseudo-Dionysian light metaphysics as transmitted by his contemporary, Hugh of Saint Victor.


1997 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Ann Smith

While the study of early medieval kingship and king-making rites has generated an extensive literature, scholarship on contemporary queenship has concentrated on themes of authority and power in religious and political contexts, and queen-making rites have received only passing mention. Beginning in the late ninth and early tenth centuries it became customary in England and Francia for a queen to be ritually inaugurated to her position. The rite of consecration endowed her with a new persona, entailing the attributes and virtues of queenship. Of course, sources reveal that kings' wives had been considered queens and significant members of royal households from at least the sixth century. The nature of queenship changed gradually over the period. Initially marriage to a king made a queen, and this position appears to have been quite satisfactory until the late eighth century, when Bertrada was consecrated queen in 751 or 754. Regular consecrations of queens, which included unction, began in the mid- to late eighth century.


Author(s):  
Julia M. H. Smith

Early medieval Rome is commonly presented as a city of in which ‘power’ flowed through bureaucracy or political factionalism or, in more purely religious terms, through Christian ideology promulgated by the papacy. This chapter explores very different forms of religious power that are usually absent from the ways scholars construct their understanding of the city: those of miracle-working and of cursing. First, it presents an analysis of a detailed eighth-century account describing how a jilted lover sought revenge by throwing a ligature (a curse of the typical, ancient Mediterranean variety) at the feet of his beloved on the streets of Rome, how, as a result, she was possessed by the devil, and how, finally, she was released from the curse by exorcism at an extramural relic shrine. It will then seek to contextualize these two forms of holy power in a wider understanding of lived religion in early medieval Rome.


1998 ◽  
Vol 88 ◽  
pp. 166-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Coates-Stephens

Our knowledge of the city of Rome after the fall of the Western Empire is largely determined by its position as the seat of the Papacy. Historical studies are based principally upon the Liber Pontificalis and the writings of the popes themselves, while architectural and archaeological research has concentrated on the city's numerous churches, many of which for the period A.D. 500–850 are remarkably well-preserved. The best known modern syntheses in English from each field are probably Peter Llewellyn's Rome in the Dark Ages (1971) and Richard Krautheimer's Rome. Profile of a City (1980). If we look beyond the purely ecclesiastical, however, we find very little Archaeological studies of Rome's urban infrastructure—walls, roads, bridges, aqueducts, sewers, housing—tend to stop, at the latest, with the Gothic Wars of the mid-sixth century. The lack of research, and therefore lack of data, have in turn been interpreted as a sign that early medieval Rome was a city bereft of an artificial watersupply, and of the resources necessary to maintain such structures as the Aurelianic Walls. Studies of medieval urbanism have been affected by this dearth of evidence proposing, for example, settlement models with the population of the city crowded into the Tiber bend in order to obtain water.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 386-389
Author(s):  
Eduardo Oliveira

Evinç Doğan (2016). Image of Istanbul, Impact of ECoC 2010 on The City Image. London: Transnational Press London. [222 pp, RRP: £18.75, ISBN: 978-1-910781-22-7]The idea of discovering or creating a form of uniqueness to differentiate a place from others is clearly attractive. In this regard, and in line with Ashworth (2009), three urban planning instruments are widely used throughout the world as a means of boosting a city’s image: (i) personality association - where places associate themselves with a named individual from history, literature, the arts, politics, entertainment, sport or even mythology; (ii) the visual qualities of buildings and urban design, which include flagship building, signature urban design and even signature districts and (iii) event hallmarking - where places organize events, usually cultural (e.g., European Capital of Culture, henceforth referred to as ECoC) or sporting (e.g., the Olympic Games), in order to obtain worldwide recognition. 


Author(s):  
Salvatore de Vincenzo

Thucydides reports that the Phoenicians were present throughout Sicily and traded with the Sicels. A tangible Phoenician presence in Sicily, as expressed by pottery, is attested only at the end of the eighth century bce. The earliest hypothetical Phoenician settlements of Solunt and Panormus are still almost unknown. This earliest phase is associated in particular with the city of Motya, where pottery and a few other finds testify to it. The Punic phase of the island is much clearer, with almost all indications coming from Motya and Selinus, which were not built over in Roman times. The Pfeilertempel, as emerged from Motya, could be regarded as the prototype for the Phoenician temple in Sicily. In turn, it is possible to recognize a characteristic type of temple of Punic Sicily, as particularly shown at Selinus, These shrines, as well as other elements of the Punic settlements like the houses, the fortifications, or the necropoleis, in particular from the fourth century bce onwards, are evidence of an advanced degree of Hellenization, framed within a Mediterranean koine.


Author(s):  
David Wright

This chapter surveys capital letterforms, which have been in use from the second century BC until the present day. It defines two types of capitals in use since the Augustan Era: formal Square Capitals and informal Rustic Capitals, and traces the development of Rustic Capitals as a text hand in manuscripts of classical authors until the sixth century AD as well as the use of Square Capitals until the late fifth century AD. It closes with a look at the use of Rustic Capitals in rubrics of eighth-century manuscripts from England, and Rustic and Square Capitals found in Carolingian contexts.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xabier Irujo

The Battle of Rencesvals is the one of the most dramatic historical event of the entire eighth century, not only in Vasconia but in Western Europe. This monograph examines the battle as more than a single military encounter, but instead as part of a complex military and political conquest that began after the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 and culminated with the creation of the Kingdom of Pamplona in 824. The battle had major (and largely underappreciated) consequences for the internal structure of the Carolingian Empire. It also enjoyed a remarkable legacy as the topic of one of the oldest European epic poems, La Chanson de Roland. The events that took place in the Pyrenean pass of Rencesvals (Errozabal) on 15 August 778 defined the development of the Carolingian world, and lie at the heart of the early medieval contribution to the later medieval period.


2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-15
Author(s):  
Judith Laister ◽  
Anna Lipphardt

Over the past decades, ‘participation’ has evolved as a key concept in a multitude of practice fields and discursive arenas, ranging from diverse political and economic contexts, through academic research, education and social work, urban planning and design, to arts institutions and artistic projects. While participation originally is a political concept and practice, it has long set out as a ‘travelling concept’ (Bal 2002). This special issue focuses on its travels between three fields of practice: the city, the arts and qualitative empirical research. Each of these practice fields over the past decades has yielded distinct understandings, objectives and methods in respect to participations, yet they also increasingly intersect, overlap and fuse with each other within specific practice contexts. What is more, many of the individual actors engaging in these initiatives on behalf of the city – from temporary projects to long-term collaborations – are not situated in one practice field only. Along with Jana König and Elisabeth Scheffel we understand them as ‘double agents’ (König and Scheffel 2013: 272–3) or even ‘multiple agents’, with simultaneous entanglements and commitments in more than one practice field.


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