Medieval Studies - Science topic

Hi - good luck. Here is something I put together a few years ago:

Dear Vanessa King,

try to follow:

http://opac.regesta-imperii.de/lang_de/anzeige.php?sammelwerk=Feste+und+Feiern+im+Mittelalter 

Yours sincerely

Zdeněk Vácha

Dear Yusuf Polat:  By your question, religious structure of Europe in (the) Middle Ages (in the 11th to 12th century), we refer to "secular" and "monastic" buildings, including churches and domestic structures.    

By "secular," we mean such buildings as cathedrals, where bishops and archbishops had their seat, the "cathedra" from which the expression "cathedral" derives, as the head churches of dioceses, and parish churches for the care of parishoners operating within a diocese under the ecclesiastic jurisdiction of a bishop.

As for the "monastic" buildings, they consist of the monastic church as the center, surrounded by both official and domestic structures, such as the chapter house, dormitory, refectory (dining room), lavatory, and buildings necessary for self-sustaining monastic life, including kitchen, mills, baking house, brewing house, etc.  The chapter house, refectory, dormitory and lavatory are all clustered around a cloister, a square or rectangular open area defined by roofed passages on all four sides.  

The Western medieval monastic settings are ultimately based upon the Rules of St. Benedict.

Here, I offer a short list of basic references to the ecclesiastic buildings of the Romanesque (10th,11th to mid-12th century) and Gothic (from the mid-12th century to up to the early 16th century).  [Note that both the beginning and ending of the Romanesque and Gothic periods depend of where we are in Western Europe.  But the dividing line between the two periods can be set at around the middle of the 12th century, when Abbot Suger of St. Denis Abbey just north of Paris, the mausoleum of the French kings, began to replace its Carolingian (9th century) abbey church, starting from the west end complex between 1137 and 1140, and then working on the eastern end, the crypt, choir and ambulatory, between 1140 and 1144.  (Abbot Suger had planned to complete the middle of the middle section of his abbey church, the nave, but he died in 1151 and we have to wait until the mid-13th century, when the rebuilding of the nave together with the remodeling of the choir took place in the latest Rayonnant Style Gothic.]

1. For the Romanesque period architecture:

• Conant, Kenneth J. Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture, 800-1200. 4th ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992 (in the Pelican History of Art Series).

• Kuback, Hans E. Romanesque Architecture. New York: Electa/Rizzoli, 1988. 

• Stalley, Roger, Early Medieval Architecture, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999 (in the Oxford History of Art series).

2. For the Gothic period architecture:

• Bony, Jean. French Gothic Architecture of the 12th and 13th Centuries. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

• Branner, Robert. Gothic Architecture. New York: Braziller, 1961.

• Coldstream, Nicola, Medieval Architecture, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 (in the Oxford History of Art series).

• Frankl, Paul. Gothic Architecture. Revised by Paul Crossley. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. (In the Pelican History of Art Series).

• Grodecki, Louis. Gothic Architecture. New York: Electa/Rizzoli, 1985. 

• Scott, Robert E. The Gothic Enterprise: A Guide to Understanding the Medieval Cathedral. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

• Simson, Otto von. The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order. 3rd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

• Wills, Robert. Architectural History of Some English Cathedrals, 2 vols. 1846. Reprint, Chicheley: Minet, 1972.

• Wilson, Christopher. The Gothic Cathedral: The Architecture of the Great Church, 1130-1530. 1st paperback ed., with revisions. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992.

3. For some specific buildings and concepts:

• Panofsky, Erwin. Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and Its Art Treasures. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.

• ———. Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism. 1951. Reprint, New York: New American Library, 1985.

• Tatton-Brown, Tim and John Crook. Salisbury Cathedral: The Making of a Medieval Masterpiece. London: Scala Publishers, 2009.

• Webb, Geoffrey. Architecture in Britain: The Middle Ages. 2nd ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965. (In the Pelican History of Art Series).

4. On construction technologies:

• Fitchen, John. The Construction of Gothic Cathedrals: A Study of Medieval Vault Erection. Phoenix paperback edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.

• Gimpel, Jean. The Cathedral Builders. New York: Grove, 1961.

Mark, Robert. Experiments in Gothic Structure. 1st paperback ed. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984. 

5. Select articles:

a) On Romanesque sources of Gothic architecture, and the concept of the Gothic:

• Branner, Robert. “Gothic Architecture 1160-1180 and its Romanesque Sources,” in Studies in Western Art: Acts of the Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art, vol. 1, Romanesque and Gothic Art., ed. Ida E. Rubin, 92-104. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963.

• Frankl, Paul. The Gothic: Literay Sources and Interpretations through Eight Centuries, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960.

b) On Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris, considered as the first major 12th-century building which benefitted from the use of flying buttresses around 1175:

• Bruzellius, Caroline A. “The Construction of Notre-Dame in Paris,” Art Bulletin 69/4 (1987): 540-569.

• Clark, William W. “The First Flying Buttresses: A New Reconstruction of the Nave of Notre-Dame de Paris,” Art Bulletin 66/1 (1984): 47-65.

• Murray, Stephen. “Notre-Dame of Paris and the Anticipation of Gothic,” Art Bulletin 80/2 (1998): 229-253.

c) On Romanesque and Gothic in England:

• Bony, Jean. “French Influences on the Origins of English Gothic Architecture,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute 12 (1949): 1-15.

• Crook, John and Yoshio Kusaba. “The Transepts of Winchester Cathedral: Archaeological Evidence, Problems of Design, and Sequence of Construction,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 50/3 (1991): 293-310.

• Crook, John and Yoshio Kusaba. “The Perpendicular Remodelling of the Nave: Problems and Interpretation,” in ed. John Crook, Winchester Cathedral: Nine Hundred Years, 1093-1993, 215-230, Chichester: Phillimore, 1993.

• Kusaba, Yoshio. “Some Observations on the Early Flying Buttress and Choir Triforium of Canterbury Cathedral,” Gesta 28/2 (1989): 175-189.

5. I also offer for your interest a two-part article on understanding how Gothic buildings work from the structural points of view, using the pointed arches, rib vaults and flying buttresses.  This was written in 2010 for non-specialists in the interest group on medieval Salisbury in England, the Sarum Seminar, which is also associated with Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

> Part 1, Sarum Letter, Spring 2010, pp. 1-3: https://d11b8c4d-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/sarumseminar/newsletters/attachments/SarumNewsletter-2010-Spring.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7cq-RwEIexBbjMWn97fnt43JdcdSyF4H4c9U_MLH7vXexCWrt8XTJzbt74p2sXe0pZ7PX8smGbP2h4Cwl4KzL0KJ_ZLtUILzdBHqekygrq4_ihMWpbDuOrO3xH7qLAAwJDBQbweehXm8RXb4PQDgtb2zMJpBZZ7xlNmiPBGscXZ5P-03QuZ3UxzjbU8c1pjQMUYNyz23E8uLTKNI0deXrMDQbE8b9IDYlCf819dU3BE_P2qmwj7YW6AU1gpp0z2YnF9vMJ3HCwEGflagnHutYTADysACQQ%3D%3D&attredirects=0

> Part 2, Sarum Letter, Fall 2010, pp. 4-6: https://d11b8c4d-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/sarumseminar/newsletters/attachments/SarumNewsletter-2010-Fall.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7cropDMOh-lbe3afzcUuhI5gFIIXJPYAAr4_BqLhPxrwsAAf5AZuy8OBBt5d7NFshdQ38bivTRr7QWLe5H7oqlj0TKv-FKap6lxh1cy7mOOn__FEtwe0iiZQvkqEiEK4pe3KYx4RzSIK6ypq8a6lvi_YFX5_4nc4dnPkjGm-HFNigIsmr7egQQQ0bpEy1VyfrPzPncFLvkNQ6wa0YGCbudbVTWcHrgQOlw_vs-ULufaR2_o1A7hxpdQz8mLpsJfWGBq--0X9u4m3A45tnEKjC38srW6qSg%3D%3D&attredirects=0

> Select bibliography (some of which I have listed above): https://d11b8c4d-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/sarumseminar/newsletters/attachments/2010-YoshioKusabaBibliography.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7cqFhKWUlMj-Jrw3PEJPo-PjVazmpBbgH6lzlqSWdgMLajNTNEXiG9lCVflLUcLuV_SyZBoOKN-bOrUVSO-SP-J2YvFNQc96V-XoNsMSSUc-6FjZy-uHD1Emg6xte-Vfpfv5qoonzer6t5RJxKZK86gqsx9EKVJ34-Ykm-Lx5D0I3j1EfTN5XdqSEkLdAHJ0OoBRLBnzsx3-j1_-jPeOEeoBQ_iirjq-kv-pzIHfuMl3z7FDYOz5CDR-hmOoZQ4OuK_kgBeM-g8P_AWhxHY-t2qC_rk1xA%3D%3D&attredirects=0

If you have any questions, please let me know.  

Yoshio Kusaba, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, History of Art

The digital atlas of Roman and Medieval civilisation is very helpful. If you scroll down to kingdoms and towns you can get a geographical representation of the major kingdoms and civil centres.

Thomas,

The original orientation of the stone was likely the prone position.  At some point in time, likely centuries ago, it was erected as it is today by a local farmer or early archaeologist, in the belief that it was originally a standing stone. There are numerous documented cases of this. During my studies of Neolithic and Bronze Age rock art panels in Ireland and the UK, I’ve come across several which have crosses on them, which were without question added millennia later. That said, I’m curious as to whether there are any other carvings on the stone, though given the fact that it’s been exposed to weathering, they may be impossible to see with the naked eye. You might want to contact the NMS, the Discovery Programme or UCD to see if someone might be interested in laser imaging the stone, as has been done with many of the panels of rock art within the Boyne. The reason for suggesting this, are the markings just above the crosses, which are either plow marks or possibly Ogham script, examples of which have been found on orthostats with Site 1 at Knowth, in both the Eastern & Western passages.  (see attached photo)

Approx. 1km southwest of the cemetery, are a number of enclosures and ringforts, though whether they have any association to the inscribed stone would be impossible to say.

ME027-085---- Ring-ditch

ME027-086---- Ringfort

ME027-100---- Ringfort

ME027-101---- Ringfort

ME027-069---- Enclosure

ME027-070---- Enclosure

ME027-071---- Enclosure

Ringforts are a ‘product’ of the Iron and Medieval Ages, so the crosses could date to the Early Christian Period. However, in a great many cases that classification is incorrect, as monuments are known to have been adopted millennia later and remodeled. As such, the monuments may date to the Neolithic or Bronze Ages.  Case in point are An Forradh and Tech Cormaic at the Hill of Tara, which are believed to date to the time of Cormáic mac Art (254 – 277 AD).  However, based on geophysical evidence and my interpretation of the motifs on L.2 within the Mound of the Hostages, those two monuments were originally multivallated ring barrows dating to the Neolithic.

(see https://www.academia.edu/7152873/Orthostat_The_Mound_of_the_Hostages)

Regards,

Sean

Ok !

So how can be explained the systematic rubbings between De Rebus and the Crónica de 1344? No other text or source is as faithful as identical.

I think that Latin is not a “dead” language, but an evolved one: it lives in all current roman languages, in our international scientific vocabulary and in a very big lot of common expressions we usually say, when we talk or write, like “de facto”, “ipso facto”, “de re”, “in re”, “in iure”, “a priori”, “a posteriori”, “a diuinis”, “ab initio”, “ex aequo”, “ad hoc”, “ad hominem”, “ad absurdum”, “ante meridiem” (a.m.), “post meridiem” (p.m.), “condicio sine qua non”, “mea culpa”, “nihil obstat”, etc., etc.

I infer that using Latin in your title, you want to give a taste of authority to your paper or perhaps a kind of “grauitas”, it is, a certain degree of seriousness. Therefore, I suggest you to change a little bit the English title proposed by J. Burke, adding a more or less common expression in Latin: “The linguistic representation of prejudice ante et post rem cognitam”. I think that everybody will be able to understand the title, without using Latin dictionaries.

"This feat tests a man’s stamina and balance. Clasp hands under your right knee and raise it up. Place your toes against your opponent’s toes. Push with your toes and try to force your opponent to lose his balance. First person to unclasp their hands loses."

“From the end of the third century, the monastic idea exercised a preponderant influence on the arrangement and formation of the canonical Office. It is possible to give a fairly exact account of the establishment of these Offices in the second half of the fourth century by means of a document of surpassing importance for the history we are now considering: the "Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta", written about A.D. 388, by Etheria, a Spanish abbess. This narrative is specifically a description of the Liturgy followed in the Church of Jerusalem at that date…

In the preceding sections, the history of the ecclesiatical Office has been unfolded from its inception. If this history could be put into few words, though necessarily forming an incomplete statement, it might be said that from the first to the fifth century it was in formation; from the fifth to the eleventh century it was in process of development and expansion; and during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Breviary properly so called was emerging into being. From then till now (that is, from the fourteenth century onwards) might be termed the period of reform. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries represent for the Liturgy, as for the greater number of other ecclesiastical institutions, a period of decline, for it is the time of schisms, and in that one word everything harmful is summed up. The few documents that are available for the liturgical history of that time attest this, as, for example, the "Gesta Benedicti XIII" and the "XV Ordo Romanus". Disorder and abuses crept into the Liturgy as into everything else.

Dom Bäumer, in his "Histoire du bréviaire", repeatedly points out that it is impossible to separate the history of the Liturgy from the occurrences that make up the general history of the Church, and that the phases through which the general history takes us are reflected in the evolution of the Liturgy. It is not surprising, therefore, that the sojourn of the popes at Avignon and the Great Schismhave exerted their baneful influence on the history of the Liturgy. And the reaction is still being felt. Raoul de Tongres, who died early in the fifteenth century, was even at that early period a critic and a reformer; in his famous work "De observantiâ Canonum" he agitated for some settlement of liturgical rules. The "XV Ordo Romanus" already referred to, the work of Amelius, sacristan to Urban Vand librarian to Gregory XI, breathes the same idea.

The Humanism of the Renaissance, which had its ardent champions even in the Church — as Bembo, Sadoletus, etc., to say nothing of certain popes — caused the idea of a special reform of the Breviary, in the direction of greater literary purity and perfection, to be entertained in certain quarters. Strange schemes were propounded, little in consonance with the spirit of the Church. A Florentinecanon, Marsiglio Ficino, and Peter Pomponatius, for instance, suggested that the clergy should read the classical authors instead of the Breviary. Others, though not going so far as this, thought the diction of the Breviary barbaric, and wanted to translate it into Ciceronian Latin. The corrections suggested included such astounding phrases as the following: the forgiveness of sins becomes "superosque manesque placare"; the Begetting of the Word was to be "Minerva Jovis capite orta"; the Holy Ghost was "Aura Zephyri coelestis", etc. These attempts failed; nevertheless, at a later date, under Urban VIII, similar Humanist tendencies came again to the surface and this time asserted their power by an emendation of the hymns. Amongst such attempts may be mentioned that of Ferreri. He was the Bishop of Guarda Alfieri in the Kingdom of Naples, a Humanist, and wrote under the auspices and patronage of Leo X. He began with the hymns. His work, which has been preserved, is interesting and contains some very beautiful pieces, polished in style. A good number of them have, unfortunately, nothing more of the spirit of poetry in them than harmony and rhythm; they are wanting in inspiration and above all in the warmth of piety; nearly all are strewn with Pagan names and allusions, representing Christianverities, as "Triforme Numen Olympi" for the Trinity, "Natus Eumolpho Lyricenque Sappho . . . Thracius Orpheus", referring to theBlessed Virgin, etc. Ferreri also busied himself with a revision of the Breviary, but nothing was published, and now no trace of the materials he collected is forthcoming.

Another attempt at reform, much better known, and having results of far-reaching importance, was that of Quignonez, Cardinal of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, who was entrusted by Clement VII with the task of completing the work begun by Ferreri. He was aFranciscan, and had been successfully employed on various commissions. His revision was the most original that has ever been attempted, and liturgical experts, like Guéranger, Edmund Bishop, and Bäumer, have studied his labours in detail. Only the principal points of his scheme can be mentioned here. Considered theoretically, it cannot be denied that his Breviary is drawn up on easy, convenient, and logical lines, and, on the whole is felicitously arranged. But in the light of tradition and of liturgical principles the only possible verdict in that Quignonez' Breviary, being constructed on a priori principles, violating most of the liturgical rules, must be condemned. The author starts with the theory, contrary to all tradition, that an essential difference exists between the public celebration of the Office and its private recitation. For private recitation, therefore, all such portions as antiphons, responsories, versicles, little chapters, even hymns may be eliminated, as, according to Quignonez, these are meant solely for choir use. According to his arrangement, the entire Psalter was to be recited once a week — an excellent idea, in consonance with primitive practice; but it was applied too rigidly and narrowly, for no attention was paid to the suitability of certain psalms to special feasts. Feasts were never to change the order of the psalms, which were to be recited successively from 1 to 150.

The Council of Trent, which effected reforms in so many directions, also took up the idea of revising the Breviary; a commission was appointed concerning whose deliberations we have not much information, but it began to make definite inquiries about the subject entrusted to it. The council separated before these preliminaries could be concluded; so it was decided to leave the task of editing a new Breviary in the pope's own hands. The commission appointed by the council was not dissolved, and continued its investigations.St. Pius V, at the beginning of his pontificate (1566), appointed new members to it and otherwise stimulated its activity, with the result that a Breviary appeared in 1568, prefaced by the famous Bull, "Quod a nobis". The commission had adopted wise and reasonable principles: not to invent a new Breviary and a new Liturgy; to stand by tradition; to keep all that was worth keeping, but at the same time to correct the multitude of errors which had crept into the Breviaries and to weigh just demands and complaints. Following these lines, they corrected the lessons, or legends, of the saints and revised the Calendar; and while respecting ancientliturgical formularies such as the collects, they introduced needful changes in certain details. More intimate accounts of this revision should be studied at length in the approved authorities on the history of the Breviary. Here it will be enough to give a short sketch of the chief points affecting this Breviary, as it is substantially the same as that used at this date. The celebrated Bull of approval, "Quod a nobis" (9 July, 1568), which prefaced it, explains the reasons which had weighed with Rome in putting forth an official text of publicprayer, and gives an account of the labours which had been undertaken to ensure its correction; it withdrew the papal approbationfrom all Breviaries which could not show a prescriptive right of at least two centuries of existence. Any Church which had not such an ancient Breviary was bound to adopt that of Rome. The new Calendar was freed from a large number of feasts, so that the ferialOffice was once more accorded a chance of occupying a less obscure position than of late it had. At the same time the real foundation of the Breviary — the Psalter — was respected, the principal alterations made being in the lessons. The legends of the saints were carefully revised, as also the homilies. The work was one not only of critical revision, but also of discriminating conservatism, and was received with general approval. The greater number of the Churches of Italy, France, Spain, Germany, England, and, generally, all theCatholic States, accepted this Breviary, saving only certain districts, as Milan and Toledo, where ancient Rites were retained…”

APA citation. Cabrol, F. (1907). Breviary. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved February 19, 2015 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02768b.htm

MLA citation. Cabrol, Fernand. "Breviary." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907.

19 Feb. 2015<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02768b.htm>.

Fuente: Cabrol, Fernand. "Breviary." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. (Castellano): <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02768b.htm>.