The Morgan Picture Bible, a.k.a. “The Crusader Bible” is one of the pinnacles of 13th-century French Gothic illumination. Regardless whether it was commissioned by the saint-king Louis IX of France, as many art historians have argued, the 283 gorgeously painted illustrations certainly characterize the zeal of the crusader movement in Europe. In it, artists have […]
The Morgan Picture Bible Read More »
Look closely, and you’ll see if you squint . . . Not the holy hand grenade, but the Holy Lance! You know — the artifact that in the Christian Gospel of John was used by a Roman soldier to pierce the side of Jesus after he had died on the cross? (John 19:34). A quick
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These cages still hang from the Church of Saint Lambert in the German city of Munster. Empty now, for many many years they contained the decaying corpses of three religious leaders put to death in one of the many bloody conflicts of the Protestant Reformation era. In 1534-1535, Munster became an epicenter of the religious
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In the Middle Ages, the lens of Christianity permeated the world view to a degree unimaginable today. We can see this with the descriptions and illustrations of animals like the lion, whom many authors considered king of the beasts. And, since they thought that God/Christ ruled over the universe, lions were compared symbolically to the
Some readers might remember the television show _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ from back in the day. The leading superhero Buffy constantly eviscerated all kinds of demons in her neighborhood in sunny southern California, because — unbeknownst to local residents — it was located right on top of a Hellmouth. Turns out, the show’s writers weren’t
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“Lilith” is a sculpture I would pay money to take a pilgrimage to see. Created by artist Kiki Smith in 1994 out of bronze and glass, the statue of Lilith crouches, tense and fierce. Her eyes stare out with a contact that seems physical.The stories of the demon Lilith emerged over hundreds of years, but
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The imposing walls of the Masyaf castle in Syria speak to the formidable command of its Medieval occupants. This was one of the fortresses run by the Nizari Ismaili sect of Muslims — better known as the Assassins.Run by a charismatic leader sometimes called “The Old Man of the Mountain” (also Hasan-e Sabbah), the Assassins
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Sometimes, history is so weird I don’t even know where to begin. Strap in, people, because today’s post is about ideas Medieval people had about menstruation.The two illuminated manuscript illustrations both show graphic depictions of the wounds of Christ. And if you’re thinking that those pictures don’t immediately conjure up the side of Jesus, lanced
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A Roman (1st or 2nd c CE) and 12th-century examples of foliage faces that became known as “the Green Man.” For centuries, these carvings existed, adorning buildings, as a man’s face surrounded by leaves, or spewing greenery, or having hair that morphed into plants. But it wasn’t until folklorist Lady Raglan wrote an article that
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Here’s a detail from a fresco by the early 15th-century painter Giovanni da Modena, showing Satan munching on some poor damned soul, while defecating some other poor damned soul from his mouth-sphincter. Eew. The grotesque body of the Devil would have been especially horrifying in light of the Medieval belief that Satan had once had
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In the southeastern part of Pennsylvania, a range of mountains that make up part of the Tuscarora State Forest (see second photo) run in a crescent shape from the nine o’clock to the twelve o’clock position. And running from south to north on the western side of these mountains is route 522, which goes across
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Readers of this post might remember a recent article illustrating the way menstrual blood and images of vaginas paralleled the wound in Christ’s side in Medieval culture. (I promise I am not making this up.) A few posts later, I showed that before Europe’s scientific revolution, anatomists thought that breast milk was menstrual blood that
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In the Central Middle Ages (c.1050-1350), the big-boss philosophers were the scholastics, and this guy here was one of the biggest. May I introduce to you the Franciscan friar and famed developer of epistemology (the philosophy of how we know things), William of Ockham. He lived from 1285 to 1347 and settled in many different
William of Ockham and “Ockham’s Razor” Read More »
Ossuaries, or containers where the bones of the dead are placed, are not unusual for many places in Europe, where burial ground space can be at a premium. But the archaeology site recently excavated at the Cathedral of Saint Bavo, in the Belgian city of Ghent, is one-of-a-kind. Nine walls have been uncovered that are
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Check out this monk, sneaking extra wine . . . Well, it’s five o’clock somewhere, right? This miniature was painted in the late 13th century and suggests that not all Medieval clergy lived up to their avowed profession that emphasized denial of worldly pleasures. Similar conclusions can be drawn by examining a genre of music
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No, you are not looking at a university student’s blue book . . . But you are seeing a very famous logical proof. This is an image of an early copy of the Medieval philosopher Anselm of Canterbury’s (1033-1109) _Proslogion_, and it used logic to try to prove something unimaginably perfect: the existence of God.His
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When the Bubonic Plague hit Western Europe in 1347, it began a pandemic that killed between a third and a half of the population in only three years. The fear and horror of the sickness was exacerbated because no one knew why it was happening. Without the scientific method, germ theory, or knowledge of the
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When the Bubonic Plague tore through Europe after 1347, the irrational panic of many elites consumed them. Their social rank was no protection from infection and probably they felt more helpless than their less wealthy compatriots because of this. At any rate, the first wave of the plague witnessed horrific violence as many patricians and
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Sometimes in history, behaviors seem to repeat, but closer study shows they can be driven by wildly different impulses. Self-harming in our society today arises from a variety of causes, such as feeling unheard or feeling a sense of self-hatred. But in the Middle Ages, deliberately causing oneself physical pain had a very different origin.
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This is an image of a lesser-known hero of the Early Modern period, the Dutch physician Johann Weyer (1515-1588). In an age of witch-hunts, when many women accused of consorting with the devil were tortured into confessing imaginary crimes, tried in law courts, and executed by burning, Weyer outspokenly wrote that such practices were inhumane,
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