Many folks will soon celebrate Easter, and so I invite you to fall down the best sort of rabbit’s hole and investigate — Medieval bunnies! And sex, purity, hermaphrodites, and the Virgin Mary, because those things all co-existed in Medieval and Early Modern culture. The painting here, the “Madonna of the Rabbit,” painted by Titian […]
Easter Bunnies and Fertility Read More »
The Dep*rtment of G*vernment Eff*ciency, or DOGE, is a (currently) temporary organization that is not a Cabinet-level department of the U.S. government. Read the news to catch up on that one, but it’s not an accident that M*sk has embraced this acronym. Unlike his boss, M*sk is smart, and it is extremely unlikely that the
Black History Month continues with this gorgeous Medieval illustration of the Queen of Sheba, painted circa 1405. The queen’s dark skin contrasts with her flowing golden hair. Her willowy figure is accentuated by the drapes of her gown. Her beauty is both sensuous and regal, and in her hands she holds a scepter to indicate
The Queen of Sheba Read More »
Continuing with posts celebrating Black History Month, I bring you the artistic tradition of St Maurice in the Middle Ages. This beautiful sculpture of Saint Maurice resides at the Cathedral of Magedeberg and dates to the first half of the 1200s. Dressed as a soldier in chainmail, the figure clearly shows Maurice as an imposing
Black History Month is a wonderful occasion to talk about the legacy of the “Black Madonna” in Western European Medieval art. You are looking at one of the most revered statues from Medieval Spain, known as the Virgin of Montserrat, located in Catalonia and probably dating to the 12th century. Her skin and that of
“Sail to great Byzantium” (“Angels we have heard on high”)Sail to great Byzantium, eastern base of Ancient Rome.At the capital you’ll see St. Sophia’s massive dome.(Refrain): Goooooooooooold iconsBehold the great cityGoooooooooooold iconsHung up on the city wallsSilken robes the people wearFinest fabric anywherePurple color oh so rareRuler’s sign for those who bear(Refrain)Chariots in Blue and
“Sail to the great Byzantium” Christmas Carol Read More »
Sky City is the oldest part of Acoma Pueblo, and is today the oldest continuously inhabited village in North America. The Acoma Pueblo people date it to the middle of the 1100’s CE. Besides its antiquity, Sky City has the distinction of being situated on a small mesa on top of a 365-foot (106 meter)
Acoma Pueblo: Sky City Read More »
Ever heard of the “neck-verse”? The kneeling man in this painting probably would have wished he had. It’s a detail from Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s _The Triumph of Death_ (1562-1563). In it, the man with the blindfold on is about to be unalived by the skeleton with the sword in a public execution.Violence was rife
The Neck-Verse in Early Modern Europe Read More »
Here is a 16th-century woodcutting of a witch feeding blood to her familiars. In the wake of the Protestant Reformation, which sparked violent religious confrontation, patriarchal governance manifested in witchcraft accusations. These caused the deaths of tens of thousands of (mostly) women across Western Europe. In England, the most infamous of cases were the Pendle
Pendle Witchcraft Trials of 1612 Read More »
Sex and sin have a complicated history in Christian tradition. In the Middle Ages in Western Europe, Church theologians argued that sex itself was not evil, but enjoying it was. As Pope Gregory the Great wrote to Augustine of Canterbury around 600, “lawful intercourse should be for the procreation of offspring, and not for mere
Sex and Sin During the Middle Ages Read More »
This drawing shows Jesus as a child, taking the birds he has just shaped out of clay and turning them into real sparrows. It is a sweet story, part of a passage from a (possibly late first century) text known as “The Infancy Gospel of St Thomas,” never accepted as cannonical by the Church. We
The Infancy Gospel of Saint Thomas Read More »
Eighth-century Spain witnessed the conquest of the Christian kingdom of the Visigoths by Muslims and the fracturing of the Iberian peninsula into various kingdoms. It was in this era the Spanish monk Beatus of Liebana (d. 785) wrote a book called _Commentary on the Apocolypse_, and depicted here is an extremely rare painting from a
Conquest of the Visigoth Christian Kingdom by Muslims Read More »
Medieval people had such a different mindset from us that understanding their thoughts and perspectives can feel like trying to hold a conversation with someone who’s standing across a river bank. The illuminated manuscript shown here shows a bald man separated by a wide stream from a young person in white. It is the only
Middle English Poem “The Pearl” Read More »
The writings of the Medieval theologian Peter Damian (d. 1072) reinforce the idea that the Middle Ages were an era with such religious devotion that all other sensibilities were eclipsed. In learning about the disdain for which Peter seemed to hold nearly everything unconnected to Christian doctrine, we can imagine that even his contemporaries would
Peter Damian’s Medieval Theological Writings Read More »
You are looking at one of over half a million pieces of ancient papyrus writing, found in perhaps the most famous trash-heap in history: Oxyrhynchus. Located in Egypt, Oxyrhynchus was a flourishing city between the 200s BCE to the 600s CE, with the sort of weather patterns that make archaeologists’ hearts flutter because they preserve
Ancient Papyrus from Oxyrhynchus Read More »
Here you see one of the finest sarcophagi of all time. Carved out of marble in the late second-century CE, the panel shown here despicts the God of wine, Dionysius, approaching the comatose maiden Ariadne, who lies in the lap of the God of death (Thanatos). The close arrangement and true-to-life proportions of the figures
Ancient Carved Sarcophagi Read More »
People have claimed to see ghosts throughout recorded history. Stories about the “revanants,” or “those who return,” commonly state that these spirits startle the living, but they have not always been associated with evil forces. The association of ghosts with malevolence really got going in Ealy Modern Europe with the emergence of Protestant Christianity. Hitherto,
Lavater’s “Of Ghostes and Spirites Walking by Nyght” Read More »
Sometimes Medieval art gets weirder the more you look at it. For instance, take these scenes of an animal fleeing from a hunter: the creature isn’t just turning his head back — he is actually biting off his testicles to throw them to his pursuer. Medieval people thought that beavers regularly did this (I know:
Medieval Beaver Hunting Read More »
You are looking at a late 3rd-c. CE Tauroctony, the sacred scene from the Roman Cult of Mithras. Frequently compared with the emerging religion of Christianity, Mithraism featured a savior deity who came down from the stars to save his adherents. Worshippers of this cult were all men, and they met in chambers that resembled
Tauroctony From The Roman Cult of Mithras Read More »
This 14th century miniature painting illustrates the Christian ceremony of Baptism. By this point in Western European history, Baptisms were performed on infants and included a ritual exorcism: it was thought that every human was born with sin inherently, and this evil had to be removed in order for the child to enter God’s grace.
14th Century Baptism Ceremonies and Ritual Exorcisms Read More »
