Impact of the Battle in the Medieval Tradition

This chapter focuses on the magnitude of a historic episode that became a key literary and artistic topic of early medieval European art. It analyzes the characterization of the Frankish heroes as depicted in the epic poem La Chanson de Roland and in the Historia Caroli Magni et Rotholandi, and the interpretation of the battle by the master glassmaker who manufactured the exceptional stained-glass window of the Chartres cathedral, four centuries later. Chartres has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, which identifies the glass as ‘the high point of French Gothic art’. It is fascinating to study how real characters became legendary heroes and how real, historic events became legends; especially interesting is the analysis of the intentions behind this conversion from reality into fantasy.

Methodological proposal for the inventory and assessment of geoarchaeosites: Application to the middle Eure valley (Paris Basin, France).

<p>The concept of “geoarchaeosite” has been introduced by Fouache & Rasse (2009) to identify archaeological sites located on a geomorphosite. In this work, we propose to use the expression in a larger sense as a contraction of geoarchaeological sites, i.e. sites of particular relevance for the understanding of past human-environment interactions. In our approach, the geomorphological and archaeological components of a site have the same level of importance, contrary to the classical approaches on geomorphosites which consider the archaeological interest of a site as an “additional” value. Although scientific literature replete with scattered case studies on geoarchaeosites, methodological guidelines are globally lacking to inventory and assess a collection of such geoarchaeosites for heritage conservation and/or tourism purposes.</p><p>The aim of this presentation is to propose an innovative and integrated methodology for the inventory and assessment of geoarchaeosites at a regional scale, with an example of application in the middle Eure Valley (Paris Basin, France). The first stage is the inventory which implies the identification and selection of potential geoarchaeosites considered as important sites worth being protected or managed within tourism or education projects. Two main criteria are involved in the selection process: the selected sites should be both representative of the regional geomorphological setting (spatial axis) and of the archaeological periods (temporal axis). The second stage is the assessment, itself divided into three main steps: (i) the assessment of the scientific value, calculated as the sum of the geomorphological and archaeological values; (ii) the assessment of the conservation need, including the calculation of a “vulnerability index” taking into account the intrinsic fragility of the site, the natural and human-induced threats, and the protection status; (iii) the assessment of the promotion potential, which combines the scientific and additional (cultural, aesthetic, ecological) values together with the visit conditions and potential uses for education and tourism.</p><p>In the middle Eure Valley which serves as a case study, the preliminary results derived from the proposed methodology provide a selection of geoarchaeosites with contrasted scientific values, from sites of international (e.g., Saint-Prest, Chaudon) and national rank (e.g., Chartres Cathedral and its historical quarry, the Aqueduc of Maintenon) to more confidential geoarchaeological sites of regional (e.g., megalithic site of Changé, Fort-Harrouard) and local interest (e.g., Shrine of Bû, Mormollins mill), with various degrees of vulnerability. Among the prospects that are emerging in the scope of promotional activities, is the interest of building a digital geoarchaeoheritage platform with a collaborative/participatory aim, associating Websemantics and geomatic technologies, in order to reinforce heritage ownership by local residents and stakeholders.</p><p> </p>

CHARTRES SCHOOL IN THE 12TH CENTURY CULTURAL RENAISSANCE: SUBSTANTIVE PRIORITIES AND EVOLUTION VECTORS

The author analyzes the prerequisites for the formation of a theological and philosophical school, founded in 990 by Bishop Fulbert in Chartres, which flourished during the years of the Episcopal ministry of Yves of Chartres (1090–1115), a recognized intellectual center of Western Europe. The role of the Chartres Cathedral School as a citadel of metaphysical, cosmological and natural-scientific Platonism in the era of early scholasticism is revealed. The philosophical orientation of the Chartres school (orientation to the ideas of Neoplatonism), as shown in the work, is the result of a combination of the ideas of Plato, aristotelism, stoicism, pythagoreanism, Eastern and Christian mysticism and religion. The body of ideas characteristic of the Neoplatonism tradition is analyzed, the account of which is essential in understanding the specifics of the Chartres school ideological platform: the ideas of a mystically intuitive knowledge of the higher, the stages of transition from “one and the universal” to matter, the idea of comprehension of pure spirituality. The thesis is substantiated that the time of the highest prosperity of the Chartres school, its highest fame is the XII century, which went down in the history of civilization as the era of the cultural renaissance taking place in France. The specificity of the 12th century renaissance, as shown in the study, lies in the growing interest in Greek philosophy and Roman classics (this also determines the other name of the era – the Roman Renaissance), in expanding the field of knowledge through the assimilation of Western European science and the philosophy of the ancient Greeks. The thesis in which the specifics of the entry of Greek science into the culture of Western Europe is also identified. This entry was carried out through the culture of the Muslim world, which also determined the specifics of the cultural renaissance of France of the XII century. Radical changes are revealed that affect the sphere of education and, above all, religious education; the idea of reaching the priority positions of philosophy and logic is substantiated – a situation that has survived until the end of the Middle Ages. This situation, as shown in the work, was facilitated by the rare growth rate of the translation centers of Constantinople, Palermo, Toledo. It is shown that scholasticism in its early version is oriented towards religious orthodoxy. In the teaching of philosophy, the vector turned out to be biased towards natural philosophy, which was due, as shown in the work, to the spread of the ideas of Aristotle and Plato. In its educational program, the school synthesized the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. Elements of natural philosophy are inherent in the works of Bernard of Chartres, Gilbert of Poitiers, Thierry of Chartres representing the Chartres school. Deep studies on the problem of universals ensured the invasion of logic in the field of metaphysical constructions of the Chartres school.

Paris, Poets, and Poverty

Freelance income and frugality allowed Nell to embark on her first trip abroad in 1950. In Paris, she felt as though she had stepped into an Impressionist landscape. Bowled over by Chartres Cathedral and the museums, she also visited two of her art idols, Jean Hélion and Fernand Léger. She became involved with a German woman with whom she traveled to Florence and Rome. Back in New York, while living with Midi Garth, she enjoyed hanging out with several of the poets later known as the New York School: Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, and Kenneth Koch. Bebop records played at her boisterous parties, which often included marathon games of poker. In her painting, she had embarked on a period of experimentation with figurative imagery. Midi and Brook evokes a pastoral scene in Vermont, where the women vacationed. Meanwhile, her freelance work included serving as designer of the Village Voice.

THE VIRGIN MARY AS LADY GRAMMAR IN THE MEDIEVAL WEST

The Virgin Mary, as Mother of the Word, has long been associated with early literacy training in the medieval West, an association that, as this article argues, connects her to The Marriage of Philology and Mercury's Lady Grammar. While Gary P. Cestaro has demonstrated the ways in which representations of Lady Grammar became more maternal throughout the medieval period, this article demonstrates how and why the Virgin Mother took on the persona of Lady Grammar in both verbal and material arts from the High to the Late Middle Ages. It explores the famous sculptures of the Virgin and Lady Grammar on the Royal Portal at Chartres Cathedral, the writings of grammatical theorists that led to these depictions, and the thirteenth-century artes poetriae that portray Mary as a Christian Grammatica. From St. Augustine's declaration that grammar is a “guardian” to the claims of Gervais of Melkley, John of Garland, and Eberhard the German that Mary is the mother of beautiful expressions, grammatical thought and practice in the medieval West led to a characterization of the Virgin, guardian of the Word in her womb and parent to Wisdom, as the supreme teacher and exemplar of Latin. Adopting Lady Grammar's iconography of the nourishing breast, classroom text, and punitive whip, the Virgin Mary is not only connected to basic Latin instruction but also comes to embody its principles.

Effects of Reflective Labyrinth Walking Assessed Using a Questionnaire

Background: Meditation as it is currently known is an ancient practice, which can be traced back to Asian traditions. With the proper technique, a state of physical relaxation and respiratory balance can be reached naturally and spontaneously. This paper considers meditative labyrinth walking to be a unique expression of Dr. Lauren Artress’ work, who studied and applied the image of the labyrinth on the floor of the Chartres Cathedral in France. Methods: This study used a qualitative approach. It is a cross-sectional non-randomized study, conducted at an institute for psychotherapies with a sample of 30 participants. Results: 99% of the group reported feeling emotional distress caused by the feeling of a longer walk on the way out, 21% reported feeling the same while walking the path, and 41% at the beginning. The remaining participants felt lost in time and space. Conclusions: This study showed that the practice of labyrinth walking is a physical, emotional, and sensory experience. On the clinical level, correlating this experience to the planning of care seems to be particularly relevant.

Musical Stained-glasses by Olivier Messian

Background. As it is well-known from the statements by O. Messiaen himself in conversations with K. Samuel [10; 7], the French composer had the phenomenon of “colored hearing” associated with the effect of synesthesia. A prerequisite in modern performing art, as in the work of a musicologistresearcher, is the introduction to the worldview of an author-composer. The study of Messiaen’s synesthetic associations helps the interpreter to expand his timbre range in connecting with emotional “immersion” in the essence of the work, and the researcher of his music – to interpret correctly (often – to “decipher”) and convey to the listener the author’s intention. That why consideration of the synesthetic aspect of the works of the French Master appears relevant. The purpose of this study is to reveal some features of the musical-visual ideas of O. Messiaen, the understanding of which is necessary for adequate perception and reproduction of his music. The material of the work is, mainly, the composer’s own statements, on which the generalizations made in the article based, and which the main conductors in the infinite multicolor spiritual world of the French composer are. The studies results. The child impressions, when Olivier together with his parents visited monuments, museums, churches – the Notre-Dame, the SaintChapel, the Chartres Cathedral, the Cathedral in Bourge – became the sources of the sound-color visions of the French genius. Magical colors of the MiddleAges stained glasses left an amazing feeling, an imprint, which did not disappear during his whole life. Stained-glasses as “the light, captured by the human” [7] are the constant awe and the love of O. Messiaen. In childhood, while reading W. Shakespeare, Olivier made stained glass-like scenery using transparent wrappers and packaging materials painted in different colors, then put the decorations to the windows. The sunshine, going through them, was lightening the little boy’s theater like the footlights. Later, the light, as something Divine, will become the main semantic emphasis in the works of the composer. Messiaen puts the color music above the church and religious, the color music, according him, does the same as medieval stained glass: “it brings us blinding admiration .... All sacred art ... should be, first of all, something like a rainbow of sounds and colors” [6]. Like a stained glass window consists of pieces of glass, so music consists of “pieces-cadres”, but, unlike cinematic montage, a stained glass has a mystical nature. From the inside, a stained glass shows one picture of the world, from the outside – another; it is a rosy view of the world and, at the same time, a prism, through which one can see the musical diversity. So, for O. Messiaen, the basis of the foundations is a religion related closely to philosophy; they serve music, and music serves the color music. A musicologist K. Zenkin defines the color music of O. Messiaen as the highest form of sacred music, as “the answer of human to God” [2, p. 171]. Being 11 and having become a student of Paris Conservatory, Olivier for the first time heard the opera by his teacher, Paul Dukas, “Ariadne and Bluebeard”. Messiaen was amazed by the episodes, where the main heroine consistently opens seven doors and finds herself in seven halls, filled with seven different kinds of precious stones; each one was characterized by different tone and timbre. Later, O. Messian continued the searches of his teacher in area of color-sound. About incredible enjoyment by the color the composer says in connection with painter-orphist Robert Delaunay, calling his paintings “colored dreams”. In the pictures of latter, he was most attracted by the principle of simultaneous contrast. The concept of “simultaneous contrast” refers to the phenomenon, in which our eyes, perceiving any color, involuntarily require a different color addition. For example, red requires green, yellow – purple, since these colors are diametrically opposed to each other on the color wheel, etc. If there is no such addition, the eye can simultaneously find (generate) it. As O. Messian had such rare natural quality as synesthesia, while listening to music, in his imagination different colors, corresponding to different sounds, appeared. Borrowing the painting principle of the simultaneous contrast, the composer applied it in his musical works, for example, in chord constructions. Messian’s “colour hearing” was connected not with tones, like to N. Rimsky-Korsakov or A. Skryabin, but with chords. Chords, in understanding of French composer, are the analogues of colors; changing of the chords leads to the changing of the colors and its patterns. The composer is characterized by the “vertical” perception of the sound-color range, but the “chord” factor does not exhaust his color perception, since O. Messiaen operates with the frets, which he calls “systems”. Each system is associated with a specific coloring of sounds. Colors and sounds are arranged for him on the principle of gamma. In the color scheme of O. Messiaen, there is no yellow color, instead of it an orange-golden one is introduced. Especially the composer likes violet or lilac color, belonging to the category of complex, which includes extremely cold blue and extremely warm red. This color has a lot of shades: with the dominance of red-scarlet, with the dominance of blue-hyacinth. In the Middle Ages, in the symbolism of stained glass windows, the first one identified Love to Truth, and the latter – Truth of Love. O. Messian perceived the laws of the universe through the prism of “infinite colors”. For the composer, painting becomes the basis of his artistic method and generates musical images. He felt the colors in the music by the “inner vision”. The subjective vision of sound colors was using by O. Messiaen in the process of creating musical canvases, called, in its turn, to affect the “inner vision” of the listeners.