New Publication: The Book in the Cathedral: The Last Relic of Thomas Becket, by Christopher de Hamel

From the bestselling author of Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts, a captivating account of the last surviving relic of Thomas Becket

The assassination of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170 is one of the most famous events in European history. It inspired the largest pilgrim site in medieval Europe and many works of literature from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral and Anouilh’s Becket.

In a brilliant piece of historical detective work, Christopher de Hamel here identifies the only surviving relic from Becket’s shrine: the Anglo-Saxon Psalter which he cherished throughout his time as Archbishop of Canterbury, and which he may even have been holding when he was murdered.

Beautifully illustrated and published to coincide with the 850th anniversary of the death of Thomas Becket, this is an exciting rediscovery of one of the most evocative artefacts of medieval England.

Christopher de Hamel: In the course of a long career at Sotheby’s Christopher de Hamel probably handled and catalogued more illuminated manuscripts and over a wider range than anyone else alive. He is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and was Librarian of the Parker Library from 2000 to 2016, which holds many of the earliest manuscripts in English language and history, including the Psalter of Becket. Christopher de Hamel is the author of A History of Illuminated Manuscripts and Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, which won the Wolfson History Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize in 2016. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Historical Society.

Pre-order the book here.

New Resource: Introducing Medieval Christianity

This site is a pilot version of a resource designed to introduce students to some key concepts in medieval Christianity. The goal is to provide short articles and other resources which will help undergraduates in their study of medieval culture and literature. In studying medieval literature, students are likely to come across Christian ideas, terminology, and ways of thinking which are unfamiliar to them, and the aim here is to provide a range of accessible introductory resources to enrich their study of this period.

So far, the website has a number of interesting articles concerning key concepts in medieval Christianity such as those relating to Art and Architecture (Light and Colour in Medieval Christianity, Medieval Annunciation Symbolism and The Sensory Experience of Visiting a Medieval Shrine).

On the website you can find lots of valuable resources, including a glossary of key terms, lists of external resources, and more!

Publication: Pygmalion’s Power: Romanesque Sculpture, the Senses, and Religious Experience

Pushed to the height of its illusionistic powers during the first centuries of the Roman Empire, sculpture was largely abandoned with the ascendancy of Christianity, as the apparent animation of the material image and practices associated with sculpture were considered both superstitious and idolatrous. In Pygmalion’s Power, Thomas E. A. Dale argues that the reintroduction of architectural sculpture after a hiatus of some seven hundred years arose with the particular goal of engaging the senses in a Christian religious experience.

Since the term “Romanesque” was coined in the nineteenth century, the reintroduction of stone sculpture around the mid-eleventh century has been explained as a revivalist phenomenon, one predicated on the desire to claim the authority of ancient Rome. In this study, Dale proposes an alternative theory. Covering a broad range of sculpture types—including autonomous cult statuary in wood and metal, funerary sculpture, architectural sculpture, and portraiture—Dale shows how the revitalized art form was part of a broader shift in emphasis toward spiritual embodiment and affective piety during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Adding fresh insight to scholarship on the Romanesque, Pygmalion’s Power borrows from trends in cultural anthropology to demonstrate the power and potential of these sculptures to produce emotional effects that made them an important sensory part of the religious culture of the era.

Thomas E. A. Dale is a Professor of Medieval Art and Architecture and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research explores how medieval art and architecture of Europe and the Mediterranean basin offer primary sources for understanding religion, politics, rituals, and cultural interaction. An essential premise of his approach is the recognition that the efficacy of visual culture and architecture lie in their forms, materiality and engagement of the spectator. He firmly believes that the cultures of the Middle Ages offer crucial insights into current ideas and concerns, ranging from the power of material images (and iconoclastic destruction) to globalization and racism.

Pygmalion’s Power is published by Penn State University Press. For more information on the book, please visit their website.

PhD Funding: PhD candidate in the ERC Consolidator project FEATHERS: Elizabeth I, Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, deadline 7 September 2020

The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) invites applications for a PhD candidate in the ERC Consolidator project FEATHERS: Elizabeth I

JOB DESCRIPTION

The PhD candidate will be working on a subproject within the ERC Consolidator research project FEATHERS,funded for 2020-2025 by the European Research Council (ERC), and directed by Nadine Akkerman (Reader in early modern English Literature at Leiden University).

Manuscript production was a collaborative or ‘socialised’ enterprise that often involved secretaries and scribes who physically wrote what the author dictated. FEATHERS will overhaul historical approaches and offer new ways to assess the partnership between employer and scribe thus expanding the notion of early modern authorship to include hitherto marginalised voices: of women, the poor, the illiterate and the lower-born – those who ‘wrote’ without physically writing.

To distinguish authorial and scribal voices it will analyse 3 distinct manuscript types: Letters, Legal documents, and Literary works. It will address 3 questions: who were these scribes; what was their role or function, and where did their influence end and their employer’s begin?

The project will concentrate on England 1558-1642, a time when the centres of power were stable enough to allow for relatively constant employment, making individual scribes and their influence easier to identify. The model we create will be applicable to multiple political periods and countries.

Subproject: 

The Amanuensis & His Mistress: The Secretaries of Queen Elizabeth I, c.1558-1603 (PhD1) We are looking for a highly motivated, enterprising and enthusiastic PhD candidate to join the project team and write a thesis crucial for understanding the ways in which a secretary might interact and influence their female patron. When household accounts are absent or fragmentary, the only way to identify a secretary is by studying an entire body of correspondence. Most female correspondences comprise mere handfuls, but this is not true for the epistolary remains of queens or queen-consorts. Still, besides Elizabeth I and Elizabeth Stuart, no Tudor or Stuart queen’s letters have yet been annotated or even collected. This makes it all the more surprising that Queen Elizabeth I’s secretariat has received only piecemeal attention, excepting studies of her foreign language letters and secretaries/scribes (Bajetta; Andreani; Bajetta, Coatalen and Gibson). The English language scribes languish uninvestigated, let alone cross-referenced. Who were her personal secretaries/scribes and did they overlap with government functionaries? The PhD candidate is expected to conduct an analysis of c.2500 letters, namely the corpus of Elizabeth I, through computational authorship attribution (stylometrics), and the study of individual secretaries who worked under her, to reveal the queen’s authorship and, alongside another subproject working on her gender counterpart King James VI/I, help create a working definition of the early modern secretary.

Key responsibilities

  • Conducting research on Elizabeth I’s secretariat. An important part of this research will take place in UK archives;
  • Completing a PhD thesis (in English) within four years;
  • Publishing at least one article in a peer-reviewed journal; and at least one in a popular magazine;
  • Participating in fortnightly meetings of the project research group;
  • Presenting papers at conferences, both in the Netherlands and internationally;
  • Participating in the training programme of the LUCAS Institute, the Leiden Graduate School of Humanities and the National Research School in Cultural History (Huizinga Institute) and other relevant masterclasses, discussion groups, seminars, workshops, and events;
  • Participating in the PhD community and the intellectual life of the Institute;
  • Contributing to the organization of the events and activities within the project, including the project’s conference in year 3 of the project;
  • Subject to progress and demand, some teaching in the English department in the second and third years of the appointment.

REQUIREMENTS

  • A ResMA/MRes or MA in English Literature, History or Early Modern Studies, awarded by time of appointment, with a thesis on a 16th-century or 17th-century topic, and a grade of at least 8.0 on a ten-point scale (or equivalent, such as distinction for UK scholars);
  • Well-developed research skills, including the ability to formulate creative research questions, descriptive and analytical skills, and a clear and persuasive style of writing;
  • Willingness to work up 3-4 months in UK archives in year 1 and year 2 of the project, up to a total of 8 months for the duration of the project;
  • Native or near-native speaker of English;
  • Experience with archival research and palaeography;
  • Knowledge of gender studies, digital humanities, early modern diplomacy, and / or court studies will be a plus;
  • Independent thinker and team player;
  • Ability to finish the proposed PhD research in 4 years.

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

The PhD project has a duration of 4 years (1.0 FTE, 38 hrs per week). The starting date is on 1 February 2021. Initially the employee will receive a one-year contract, with extension for the following 36 months on condition of a positive evaluation. The appointment must lead to the completion of a PhD thesis. Salary range from € 2,395.- to € 3,061.- gross per month (pay scale P in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities).

International candidates are especially encouraged to apply, but must be willing to relocate to the Netherlands for the duration of the project. Candidates are not expected to learn Dutch.

Leiden University offers an attractive benefits package with additional holiday (8%) and end-of-year bonuses (8.3%), training and career development. Our individual choices model gives you some freedom to assemble your own set of terms and conditions. Candidates from outside the Netherlands may be eligible for a substantial tax break.

Diversity
Leiden University is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from members of underrepresented groups.

EMPLOYER

Leiden University

The Faculty of Humanities is a unique international centre for the advanced study of languages, cultures, arts, and societies worldwide, in their historical contexts from prehistory to the present. Our faculty is home to more than 6,000 students and 800 staff members. For more information see the website.

The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) is one of the seven Research Institutes of the Faculty of Humanities. LUCAS is dedicated to ground-breaking research that explores the multifaceted relationships between the arts and society. For more information see he website.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Enquiries about the project and the position can be addressed to the Principal Investigator, Nadine Akkerman, e-mail n.n.w.akkerman@hum.leidenuniv.nl. Enquiries about the procedure and LUCAS can be sent to im-lucas@hum.leidenuniv.nl. Information about LUCAS and links to staff expertise can be found at the website.

Find out more here.

New Publication: Renaissance Meta-painting, Edited by Alexander Nagel and Péter Bokody

The volume offers an overview of metapictorial tendencies in book illumination, mural and panel painting during the Italian and Northern Renaissance. It examines visual forms of self-awareness in the changing context of Latin Christianity and claims the central role of the Renaissance in the establishment of the modern condition of art.

Metapainting refers to the ways in which artworks playfully reveal or critically expose their own fictiveness, and is considered a constitutive aspect of Western art. Its rise was connected to changes in the consumption of religious imagery in the sixteenth century and to the advent of the portable framed canvas, the single most important medium of modernity. While the key initial contributions of some Renaissance painters from Jan van Eyck to Andrea Mantegna have always been acknowledged, in the principal narrative the Renaissance has largely remained the naïve moment of realistic experimentation to be ultimately superseded by the complex reflexive developments in Early Modern art, following the Reformation.

Aiming to challenge this view, this volume examines how painters interrogated the constructed nature of representation before 1500, and evaluates the possibilities of a critical pictorial vocabulary in the predominantly religious framework of Latin Christianity. The contributions delve into an analysis of illusionism, embedded images, subversive attributes, equivoque frames, transparent veils and the staging of the painter at work. The case studies trace these issues in mural and panel painting, as well as in book illumination on both sides of the Alps, and reconstruct their invention and reception during the Italian and Northern Renaissance. The collection also features the first-ever English translations of seminal articles by André Chastel (1964), Klaus Krüger (1993) and Wolfgang Kemp (1995).

Alexander Nagel is Professor of Fine Arts at New York University. He is the author of Medieval Modern (2012), The Controversy of Renaissance Art (2011 – winner of Charles Rufus Morey Award) and Anachronic Renaissance (2010 – co-authored with Christopher Wood). His work is focused mostly on Renaissance art, and is mostly concerned with how material artefacts allow humans to think through time and find orientation in the world.

Péter Bokody is Assistant Professor of Art History at Plymouth University, UK. He is the author of Images-within-Images in Italian Painting (1250-1350): Reality and Reflexivity (2015). His chief interest is the emergence of painting as a complex and political medium in late-medieval visual culture. He is currently working on a book on representations of sexual violence in early Italian painting.

Table of Contents

Metapainting before Modernity – Péter Bokody and Alexander Nagel

Origin and Reception

Mimesis as Pictorality of Semblance – on the Fictiveness of Religious Imagery in the Trecento – Klaus Krüger

Complicity and Self-Awareness: the Frescoes of Giusto de’ Menabuoi at the Santo – Robert Brennan

Tradition and Innovation: Images-within-Images in Italian Painting after the Age of Giotto – Péter Bokody

Transformations

Depicting Panel Painting in Fifteenth-Century Netherlandish Art: Questions of Transfer and Reception – Erik Eising

Practical Ekphrasis – On Images-within-Images in Van Eyck and Mantegna – Wolfgang Kemp

Metapainting and the Painted Book

Reflexive Devotion – Nicholas Herman

The Self-Aware Attribute, or ‘Where does a parergon begin and end?’ – Anna Degler

At the Threshold of Painting: The Man of Sorrows by Albrecht Dürer – Beate Fricke

Structures of Archaism in Leonardo, Fra Bartolommeo, and Raphael – Alexander Nagel

Jan Gossart’s Immaculate Art – Shira Brisman

Picture-within-Picture – André Chastel

Bibliography

New Publication: Monsters and Monstrosity in Jewish History: From the Middle Ages to Modernity, edited by Iris Idelson-Shein and Christian Wiese

This is the first study of monstrosity in Jewish history from the Middle Ages to modernity. Drawing on Jewish history, literary studies, folklore, art history and the history of science, it examines both the historical depiction of Jews as monsters and the creative use of monstrous beings in Jewish culture.

Jews have occupied a liminal position within European society and culture, being deeply immersed yet outsiders to it. For this reason, they were perceived in terms of otherness and were often represented as monstrous beings. However, at the same time, European Jews invoked, with tantalizing ubiquity, images of magical, terrifying and hybrid beings in their texts, art and folktales. These images were used by Jewish authors and artists to push back against their own identification as monstrous or diabolical and to tackle concerns about religious persecution, assimilation and acculturation, gender and sexuality, science and technology and the rise of antisemitism.

Bringing together an impressive cast of contributors from around the world, this fascinating volume is an invaluable resource for academics, postgraduates and advanced undergraduates interested in Jewish studies, as well as the history of monsters.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Introduction: Writing a Jewish History of Horror, or What Happens When Monsters Stare Back, Iris Idelson-Shein (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany)

Part I: The Monster Without: Monsters in Jewish-Christian Inter-Cultural Discourse
1. Monsters, Demons and Jews in the Painting of Hieronymus Bosch, Debra Higgs Strickland (University of Glasgow, UK)
2. Bestial Bodies on the Jewish Margins: Race, Ethnicity and Otherness in Medieval Manuscripts Illuminated for Jews, Marc Michael Epstein (Vassar College, USA)
3. enge unpathas uncuð gelad: The Long Walk to Freedom, Asa Simon Mittman (California State University, Chico, USA) and Miriamne Ara Krummel (University of Dayton, USA)
4. Demonic Entanglements: Contextualisations of Matted Hair in Medieval and Early Modern Western and Eastern Ashkenaz, François Guesnet (University College London, UK)
5. A Jewish Frankenstein: Making Monsters in Modernist German Grotesques, Joela Jacobs (University of Arizona, USA)
6. “Der Volf” or the Jew as Out(side of the)law, Jay Geller (Vanderbilt University, USA)
7. Stranger in the House: Gender, Sex and Jewishness in Weimar Cinema’s Monsters, Cathy Gelbin (University of Manchester, UK)
8. Monsters in the Testimonies of Holocaust Survivors, Kobi Kabalek (University of Haifa, Israel)

Part II: The Monster Within: Monsters in Jewish Intra-Communal Discourse
9. Unearthing the ‘Children of Cain’: Between Human, Animal, and Demon in Medieval Jewish Culture, David I. Shyovitz (Northwestern University, USA)
10. Sexuality and Communal Space in Stories about the Marriage of Men and She-Demons, David Rotman (Achva Academic College, Israel)
11. The Raging Rabbi: Aggression and Agency in an Early Modern Yiddish Werewolf Tale, Astrid Lembke (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany)
12. Out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings, David B. Ruderman (University of Pennsylvania, USA)
13. Sexorcism: On the Sexual Dimensions of Jewish Exorcism Techniques, J. H. Chajes (University of Haifa, Israel)
14. Rabbinic Monsters: The World of Wonder and Rabbinic Writings at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century, Maoz Kahana (Tel Aviv University, Israel)
15. End of the Demons?: Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Reflections on the Eclipse of Demons and Monsters by Human Evil in the 20th Century, Christian Wiese (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany)

Index

Order the book here.

CFP: The Total Library: Aspirations for Complete Knowledge in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, deadline 1 September 2020

The 27th Biennial Conference of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program of Barnard College (New York City) is seeking paper proposals for their online conference to be held December 5, 2020.

According to Borges, “The fancy or the imagination or the utopia of the Total Library has certain characteristics that are easily confused with virtues.” This one-day conference will explore the aspiration for complete knowledge in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, an aspiration expressed in atlases, herbals, encyclopedias that were meant to mirror and maybe tame the diversity of the earth by including in their pages everything. Whether virtuous or problematic, the fantasy of the complete mastery of knowledge created utopias of learning. In our current moment when the value of knowledge is under question, we invite scholars of multiple disciplines (art history, history, literary studies, religion, history of science) to raise questions about the technologies, social structures, and modes of thought that shape what knowledge means at a given moment.

Plenary speakers will include Ann Blair of Harvard University and Elias Muhanna of Brown University.

PLEASE NOTE THAT, DUE TO COVID-19, THIS CONFERENCE WILL BE HELD ONLINE VIA ZOOM. WE ARE EXTENDING THE SUBMISSION DEADLINE TO SEPTEMBER 1.

Please submit an abstract of 250-300 words and a 2-page CV to Rachel Eisendrath, reisendr@barnard.edu.

 

Above image: Book of Flower Studies (detail), Master of Claude de France, ca. 1510–1515, opaque water color, organic glazes, gold and silver paint, iron and carbon-based ink and charcoal on parchment, The Cloisters Collection, 2019 (2019.197)

Online Lecture: Crossroads: Power and Piety at The Met

Insider Insights is a new online lecture series produced by The Metropolitan Museum of Art that features recent exhibitions, singular artworks, and new scholarship in the field of art history. Crossroads is a new installation at The Met that rethinks how a museum displays artworks in its collection, and in this lecture curators in the department of Medieval Art and the Cloisters discuss themes of power and piety and take a closer look at artworks that challenge our traditional notions of the Middle Ages.

From The Met’s website:

The Met presents a network of crossroads, among places, eras, and cultures. At three prominent locations within the Museum—”crossroads” where major paths intersect—new installations examine the idea of cultural interconnectedness. Drawn from diverse areas of the collection, Crossroads tells thought-provoking stories about shared ideas and artistic forms from around the world, presenting the global history of humankind as a narrative of intersections and exchange.

Click here to watch the online lecture on The Met’s website.

Above image: African Magus, one of the Three Kings from an Adoration Group, before 1489, made in Swabia, Germany, maple, paint and gilt, 61 1/2 × 17 × 13 1/4 in., 65 lb. (156.2 × 43.2 × 33.7 cm, 29.5 kg), The Cloisters Collection, 1952 (52.83.2)

Online Lecture: The Maius Masterclass with Professor Susan Boynton, 31 July 2020 4pm

For our final event in the Maius Masterclass series, on Friday 31 July at 4pm, we are delighted to welcome Professor Susan Boynton (Columbia University). Susan’s research has focused on such topics as music in the Iberian peninsula, liturgy, manuscript studies, and intersections between music and the visual arts.

Please click here to register for the Zoom Webinar.

The series is kindly supported by a Hispanex Grant from the Spanish Ministry of Culture and SPAIN Arts & Culture/Embassy of Spain in London.

CFP: Jerusalem: The Holy City as Interreligious Experience (International Congress on Medieval Studies Kalamazoo 2021), deadline 15 September 2020

Sponsor: Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (CMEMS), Stanford University

Co-Ordinator: Ana Núñez (ananunez@stanford.edu)

This panel contributes to conversations that explore Jerusalem as a space of central importance to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Through critical rereadings of textual accounts and material remains, the papers in this panel will highlight the dynamic ways in which Jerusalem was simultaneously shared, contested, and negotiated among Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from Late Antiquity through to the late Middle Ages. This panel encourages an interdisciplinary approach, e.g. perspectives from history, literature, religious studies, art history. Since this panel focuses on interreligious experiences of Jerusalem, we especially welcome comparative papers that explore this topic from the perspective of two or more religious communities.

Deadline 15 September 2020 – send abstracts to Ana Núñez (ananunez@stanford.edu)