scholarly journals A Geometrical Speculation. The Twelfth Century Roof and some Peculiar Aspects of the Ground Plan of Værnes Church, Norway

1970 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 39-61
Author(s):  
Dag Nilsen
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Historic Buildings ◽  
Ground Plan ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
Church Design ◽  
Roof Design ◽  
The Church

The following is an exercise in what may seem an old-fashioned art, popular among architects in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but later somewhat discredited – the search for geometrical patterns underlying medieval church design. However, the interest in mathematically based tools for design of historic buildings has in recent years been revived, proof of which is a steadily increasing flow of publications reporting scientifically rigorous studies. My contribution concerns the church at Værnes, near Trondhei, Norway, and the impressive open truss timber roof of the nave. Not being content with previous suggestions on how the roof design might have been determined, I compared it to similar structures in the region and found several cases of the same ratio of width to height. I also noted that this ratio corresponded almost exactly to a simple geometrical diagram, which further led me to make some assumptions on how Værnes church was originally planned.

Quem Aspicientes Viverent: Symbolism in the Early Medieval Church Door and its Ironwork

1988 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. A. J. Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
Door Opening ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
Liturgical Practice ◽  
To Come ◽  
Early English ◽  
The Church

SummarySymbolic perception of the church door in early English exegetical writings and in medieval liturgical practice is illustrated and discussed as the wider context of a proposal that the arched iron strip at the top of the twelfth-century church door at Stillingfleet, North Yorkshire, represents the rainbow of Noah's Flood, perceived as a reminder ofjudgement past and of judgement still to come, and as a symbol of the covenant between God and humanity. The possibility is considered that on other surviving early medieval church-doors too, the rainbow shape, even if primarily functional or dictated by the shape of the door-opening, and notwithstanding the absence of other figural imagery, may have been recognized as an emblem of the covenant, basis of all church-sanctioned contracts, aptly dislayed on the threshold—where various liturgical or other formal actions had their setting—of the sacred spaces of the domus dei.

IV. The Norman Church and Door at Stillingfleet, North Yorkshire

Archaeologia ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 106 ◽  
pp. 75-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. V. Addyman ◽  
Ian H. Goodall
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Complex Structure ◽  
Historic Buildings ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The South ◽  
Systematic Account ◽  
Basic Point ◽  
The Church ◽  
Point Of Reference

The great age and unusual character of the south door of St. Helen's Church, Stillingfleet, now in North Yorkshire but formerly in the East Riding, has engaged the attention of antiquaries since the early days of archaeological study. The door and the fine twelfth-century doorway in which it is set have been recorded repeatedly in drawings, photographs, manuscript notes, and published accounts. The systematic account of the church published by Charles Hodgson Fowler in 1877, on the occasion of his restoration of St. Helen's, together with the plans and elevations preserved with the faculty papers, is the basic point of reference (Fowler, 1877; Borthwick Inst. PR 21 STIL). Nevertheless since Hodgson Fowler's day few scholars concerned either with the historic buildings of the locality, or with the general trends of vernacular art in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, or with church ironwork, or church carpentry, have resisted the temptation to comment on the door. Most agree within relatively narrow limits about the date of the doorway, but opinion has been diverse about the date of the door itself. It is a complex structure evidently comprising much original woodwork with additions and alterations from a number of restorations, and there is various structural and decorative ironwork. Hodgson Fowler seems to have been responsible for a sensitive though far-reaching restoration and he was thus probably in possession of more facts about its construction and character than was any later worker until recently. He seems to have been in no doubt, taking the evidence as a whole, that both doorway and door belong to the twelfth century. Most later commentators have been more impressed by the supposed Scandinavian character of the decorative metalwork, and W. G. Collingwood followed by Talbot Rice, Pevsner, and more recently Baggs have questioned the contemporaneity of door and doorway, suggesting that the door might perhaps belong to the eleventh century, and it is included in Wilson's catalogue of Anglo-Saxon metalwork.

A critique of popular religion: Guibert of Nogent on The Relics of the Saints

1972 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 55-60
Author(s):  
Colin Morris
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Popular Religion ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Cultural Diffusion ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
History Of ◽  
Popular Devotion ◽  
The Church

In his fascinating paper, Professor Momigliano drew to our attention the degree to which the aristocracy of the late Roman Empire accepted within its religious ethos beliefs and practices which we would be inclined to label as ‘popular’. In doing so, he raised the recurrent problem of cultural diffusion. How far, in a given period, were intellectuals willing to accept as normative the piety of the simple faithful? Conversely, how far did the more critical attitudes of scholars influence popular devotion? These are permanent questions which we may ask of the history of the church, but perhaps the problem was never so acute as in the medieval church. Its intelligentsia (the humanists of the twelfth century, the philosophers of the thirteenth) had received a long and exacting formal education. The ordinary faithful, conversely, were illiterate, cut off, we might think, from the very sources of christian spirituality, for they could neither read the Scriptures nor follow the latin liturgy. Critics of the medieval church have been inclined to see two religions rather than one: a philosophical, indeed over-rational, religion of the intelligentsia, and a set of popular superstitions. A valuable piece of evidence in assessing the truth of this estimate is to be found in the first book of the treatise on The Relics of the Saints written in about 1120 by Guibert abbot of Nogent. Its significance lies, not only in the useful information which it contains about popular practice, but in the fact that it was an attempt to assess it, made by one of the more learned and attractive men of the time. Although Guibert made little direct impact on the history of the age, he was in close sympathy with many of the leaders of the twelfth-century Renaissance, and was a fine scholar in his own right.

Fiduciary Principles in the Canon Law

2019 ◽  
pp. 489-504
Author(s):  
Richard H. Helmholz
Keyword(s):  
Canon Law ◽  
Fiduciary Duty ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
English Court ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
Canonical Texts ◽  
Trust Law ◽  
The Church ◽  
Court Practice

This chapter discusses the scope of principles of fiduciary duty as they appear in the canon law. It first provides a historical background on canon law and its relation to fiduciary law, noting that the medieval church and principles of fiduciary duty were interconnected in direct and positive ways. In fact, the church was governed by many of the same principles of fiduciary law that are found in modern trust law, and these principles were fully and authoritatively stated in the Corpus iuris canonici during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The chapter proceeds by analyzing the Corpus iuris canonici and its two books: Gratian’s Concordia discordantium canonum, also known as the Decretum, and the books of Decretals. It also traces the development of fiduciary law inherent in some of the canonical texts and explains how fiduciary principles came to be enforced in the canon law, citing examples of the width of the scope of fiduciary principles found in English court practice, including a duty applied only to the clergy. Finally, it considers whether the modern law of trusts was shaped in any way by canonical influence.

scholarly journals “‘But the Fountain Sprang Up and the Bird Sang Down’: Heidegger’s Gathering of the Fourfold and the Seven-Sacraments Font at Salle, Norfolk.”

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 464
Author(s):  
Marie Clausén
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Art History ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
As If

My paper analyses the 15th-century seven-sacraments font at the medieval church of St Peter and St Paul at Salle in Norfolk (England). The church guides and gazetteers that describe the font, and the church in which it is situated, owe both their style and content to Art History, focusing as they do on their material and aesthetic dimensions. The guides also tend towards isolating the various elements of the font, and these in turn from the rest of the architectural elements, fittings and furniture of the church, as if they could be meaningfully experienced or interpreted as discrete entities, in isolation from one another. While none of the font descriptions can be faulted for being inaccurate, they can, as a result of these tendencies, be held insufficient, and not quite to the purpose. My analysis of the font, by means of Heidegger’s concept of Dwelling, does not separate the font either from the rest of the church, nor from other fonts, but acknowledges that it comes to be, and be seen as, what it is only when considered as standing in ‘myriad referential relations’ to other things, as well as to ourselves. This perspective has enabled me to draw out what it is about the font at Salle that can be experienced as not merely beautiful or interesting, but also as meaningful to those—believers and non-believers alike—who encounter it. By reconsidering the proper mode of perceiving and engaging with the font, we may spare it from being commodified, from becoming a unit in the standing reserve of cultural heritage, and in so doing, we, too, may be momentarily freed from our false identities as units of production and agents of consumption. The medieval fonts and churches of Norfolk are, I argue, not valuable as a result of their putative antiquarian qualities, but invaluable in their extending to us a possibility of dwelling—as mortals—on the earth—under the sky—before the divinities.

The medieval church of Montrose: a place ‘of much antiquity and abundantly populous’

2014 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catriona Anna Gray
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Date ◽  
Plausible Candidate ◽  
External Evidence ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
Local Tradition ◽  
The Church

Montrose was one of Scotland's earliest royal burghs, but historians have largely overlooked its parish kirk. A number of fourteenth and fifteenth-century sources indicate that the church of Montrose was an important ecclesiastical centre from an early date. Dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, by the later middle ages it was a place of pilgrimage linked in local tradition with the cult of Saint Boniface of Rosemarkie. This connection with Boniface appears to have been of long standing, and it is argued that the church of Montrose is a plausible candidate for the lost Egglespether, the ‘church of Peter’, associated with the priory of Restenneth. External evidence from England and Iceland appears to identify Montrose as the seat of a bishop, raising the possibility that it may also have been an ultimately unsuccessful rival for Brechin as the episcopal centre for Angus and the Mearns.

Church Discipline in the Later Middle Ages: the Priors of Durham as Archdeacons

2004 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 95-105
Author(s):  
Margaret Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Church Discipline ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Church Courts ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

It is often forgotten that the medieval Church imposed public penance and reconciliation by law. The discipline was administered by the church courts, among which one of the most important, because it acted at local level, was that of the archdeacon. In the later Middle Ages and certainly by 1435, the priors of Durham were archdeacons in all the churches appropriated to the monastery. The priors had established their rights in Durham County by the early fourteenth century and in Northumberland slightly later. Although the origins of this peculiar jurisdiction were long ago unravelled by Barlow, there is no full account of how it worked in practice. Yet it is not difficult from the Durham archives to elicit a coherent account, with examples, of the way penance and ecclesiastical justice were administered from day to day in the Durham area in this period. The picture that emerges from these documents, though not in itself unusual, is nevertheless valuable and affords an extraordinary degree of detail which is missing from other places, where the evidence no longer exists. This study should complement the recent work by Larry Poos for Lincoln and Wisbech, drawing attention to an institution which would reward further research. It is only possible here to outline what the court did and how and why it was used.

Remembering Pope Gregory VII: Cardinal Boso and Alexander III

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 87-98
Author(s):  
John Doran
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Near Future ◽  
The Church

In the conclusion to his masterly biography of Pope Gregory VII (1073–85), H. E. John Cowdrey notes the paradox that the pope so lionized by modern historians, to the extent that the age of reform bears his name, was largely forgotten in the twelfth century and made little impact on Christian thought, spirituality or canon law. Cowdrey is not alone in his observation that Gregory ‘receded from memory with remarkable speed and completeness’; when he was remembered, it was as a failure and as one who brought decline upon the church. For Cowdrey, the answer to this conundrum lay in the fact that Gregory VII was in fact far closer to the ideals of the sixth century than of the twelfth; he was a Benedictine monk and shared the worldview and oudook of Gregory the Great (590–604) rather than those of the so-called lawyer popes Alexander III (1159–81) and Innocent III (1198–1216). Yet within a century of Gregory’s death he was presented by Cardinal Boso as a model pope, who had overcome a schismatic emperor and the problems which his interference had precipitated in Rome. For Boso, writing for the instruction of the officials of the papal chamber, the very policies set out by Gregory VII were to be pursued and emulated. Far from being a peripheral and contradictory figure, with more in common with the distant past than the near future, Gregory was the perfect guide to the beleaguered Pope Alexander III, who was also struggling against a hostile emperor and his antipope.

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