Engraved Gems of the Carolingian Empire

Engraved Gems of the Carolingian Empire PDF Author: Genevra Kornbluth
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271042886
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Medieval Europe offers a pageant of almost incredible richness: King Arthur and his round table, demons and cathedrals, Charlemagne and his paladins. The Carolingian culture of the late eighth to late tenth centuries (in what is now France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and northern Italy) offers more than its fair share of achievements. This heavily illustrated study examines one revealing legacy of Charlemagne's heirs and his people--the Carolingian gems of rock crystal, jet, and agate engraved with complex figural scenes, which have never before been studied as a group. These objects have been largely ignored in the scholarship of medieval art, partly because of the difficulty of access. Genevra Kornbluth assembles for the first time all twenty surviving gems, from small seal matrices to the forty-one-figure "Susanna crystal" in London, along with information about lost works. The unique features of each gem are made visible in over 200 detailed black-and-white photographs, often highly magnified and produced using new techniques developed to record transparent engraving. Kornbluth fully analyzes the techniques of manufacture, style, chronology, iconography, and patronage of each gem and examines their social functions, the organization and status of the artisans who created them, and relations between media. The gems are presented as evidence of the rich diversity of the Carolingian culture, rather than as reflections of an artistic program dictated by the imperial courts; they are also seen to be essentially new creations, drawing on earlier visual traditions but adapting their sources to address contemporary concerns.

Engraved Gems of the Carolingian Empire

Engraved Gems of the Carolingian Empire PDF Author: Genevra Kornbluth
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271042886
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Get Book Here

Book Description
Medieval Europe offers a pageant of almost incredible richness: King Arthur and his round table, demons and cathedrals, Charlemagne and his paladins. The Carolingian culture of the late eighth to late tenth centuries (in what is now France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and northern Italy) offers more than its fair share of achievements. This heavily illustrated study examines one revealing legacy of Charlemagne's heirs and his people--the Carolingian gems of rock crystal, jet, and agate engraved with complex figural scenes, which have never before been studied as a group. These objects have been largely ignored in the scholarship of medieval art, partly because of the difficulty of access. Genevra Kornbluth assembles for the first time all twenty surviving gems, from small seal matrices to the forty-one-figure "Susanna crystal" in London, along with information about lost works. The unique features of each gem are made visible in over 200 detailed black-and-white photographs, often highly magnified and produced using new techniques developed to record transparent engraving. Kornbluth fully analyzes the techniques of manufacture, style, chronology, iconography, and patronage of each gem and examines their social functions, the organization and status of the artisans who created them, and relations between media. The gems are presented as evidence of the rich diversity of the Carolingian culture, rather than as reflections of an artistic program dictated by the imperial courts; they are also seen to be essentially new creations, drawing on earlier visual traditions but adapting their sources to address contemporary concerns.

A Contrite Heart

A Contrite Heart PDF Author: Abigail Firey
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004178155
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Between the middle of the eighth century and the late ninth century in western Europe, the course of legal history was shaped by interaction with religious ideas, especially with regard to the meaning of confession, suffering, and the balance of protections for an accused individual and the welfare of the community. This book traces those themes through a selection of Carolingian texts, such as archbishop Hincmar's legal analysis of a royal divorce, the decrees of church councils, the biography of a Saxon holy woman, anti-Judaic treatises, and Hrotswitha's dramatisation of the legend of Thaïs, in order to make audible the lively debates over the boundaries of clerical and lay authority, the nature and extent of permissible intervention in the spiritual condition of the empire's inhabitants, and distinctions between the private and public domains. This work thus reveals the profound relation between law and penitential ideologies promoted by the Carolingian imperial court.

Speculum Lapidum

Speculum Lapidum PDF Author: Camillo Leonardi
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271096365
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
In early modern Europe precious and semiprecious stones were valued not only for their beauty and rarity but also for their medical and magical properties. Lorenzo de’ Medici, Philip II of Spain, and Popes Leo X and Clement VII were all treated with expensive potions incorporating ground gems such as rubies, diamonds, and emeralds. Medical and magical/astrological lapidaries, texts describing the stones’ occult and medical qualities as well as their abilities to ward off demons and incantations, were essential resources for their use. First published in Venice in 1502, Camillo Leonardi’s Speculum Lapidum is an encyclopedic summary of all classical and medieval sources of lithotherapy. In describing the natural, manifest, and occult properties of precious and semiprecious stones as well as their graven images and applications, the Speculum Lapidum provides tremendous insight into the role that medical astrology and astral magic played in the life of an Italian court in the early modern period. Liliana Leopardi’s English translation, complete with critical apparatuses, gives unprecedented access to this key text within the magical lapidary genre. A vital addition to the existing canon of lapidaria in translation, Leopardi’s work will be of special importance for students and scholars of the history of magic, medicine, religion, and Renaissance humanism, and it will fascinate anyone interested in the occult properties of precious and semiprecious stones.

Struggle for Empire

Struggle for Empire PDF Author: Eric Joseph Goldberg
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801438905
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
Struggle for Empire explores the contest for kingdoms and power among Charlemagne's descendants that shaped the formation of Europe through the reign of Charlemagne's grandson, Louis the German (826 876)."

Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great PDF Author: Timothy Reuter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351959530
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
1999 marked the eleven-hundredth anniversary of the death of Alfred the Great, and to mark this event, two international conferences were held to re-evaluate and contextualise Alfred's achievements and the developments of his reign. This volume includes papers given at both events and provides substantial assessments, by leading scholars, of issues of source-criticism, of the large corpus of Old English literature associated with Alfred and of developments in government and society in late ninth-century England. It also explores how Alfred and his kingdom related to the wider geo-political and cultural situation in the British isles and continental Europe, and closes with a substantial survey of the uses and shifts in Alfred's reputation in the centuries following his death. This substantial and wide ranging volume will become a standard reference work for anyone interested in Old English literature or Anglo-Saxon history, and will set the pattern of future scholarly debate.

Ancient Carved Ambers in the J. Paul Getty Museum

Ancient Carved Ambers in the J. Paul Getty Museum PDF Author: Faya Causey
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 160606634X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
A comprehensive overview of ancient ambers, the only such book in English, is now revised. First published in 2012, this catalogue presents fifty-six Etruscan, Greek, and Italic carved ambers from the Getty Museum's collection—the second largest body of this material in the United States and one of the most important in the world. The ambers date from about 650 to 300 BC. The catalogue offers full description of the pieces, including typology, style, chronology, condition, and iconography. Each piece is illustrated. The catalogue is preceded by a general introduction to ancient amber (which was also published in 2012 as a stand-alone print volume titled Amber and the Ancient World). Through exquisite visual examples and vivid classical texts, this book examines the myths and legends woven around amber—its employment in magic and medicine, its transport and carving, and its incorporation into jewelry, amulets, and other objects of prestige. This publication highlights a group of remarkable amber carvings at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Paradigms and Methods in Early Medieval Studies

Paradigms and Methods in Early Medieval Studies PDF Author: C. Chazelle
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137123052
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
The articles in this volume, by scholars all pursuing careers in the United States, concern the theoretical approaches and methods of early medieval studies. Most of the issues examined span the period from roughly 400 to 1000 CE and regions stretching from westernmost Eurasia to the Black Sea and the Baltic. This is the first volume of essays explicitly to reassess the heuristic structures and methodologies of research on "early medieval Europe." Because of its geographic, chronological, thematic, and methodological diversity and scope, the collection also showcases the breadth of early medieval studies currently practiced in the United States.

Spiritual and Material Boundaries in Old French Verse

Spiritual and Material Boundaries in Old French Verse PDF Author: Jacob Abell
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 150151427X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
The Earthly Paradise was a vibrant symbol at the heart of medieval Christian geographies of the cosmos. As humanity’s primal home now lost through the sins of Adam of Eve, the Earthly Paradise figured prominently in Old French tales of lands beyond the mundane world. This study proposes a fresh look at the complex roles played by the Earthly Paradise in three medieval French poems: Marie de France’s The Purgatory of St. Patrick, Benedeit’s Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot, and Guillaume de Lorris’s The Romance of the Rose. By examining the literary, cultural, and artistic components that informed each poem, this book advances the thesis that the exterior walls of the Earthly Paradise served evolving purposes as contemplative objects that implicitly engaged complex notions of economic solidarity and idealized community. These visions of the Earthly Paradise stand to provide a striking contribution to a historically informed response to the contemporary legacies of colonialism and the international refugee crisis.

Charlemagne's Mustache

Charlemagne's Mustache PDF Author: P. Dutton
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137062282
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Charlemagne's Mustache presents the reader with seven engaging studies, 'thick descriptions', of cultural life and thought in the Carolingian world. The author begins by asking questions. Why did Charlemagne have a mustache and why did hair matter? Why did the king own peacocks and other exotic animals? Why was he writing in bed and could he write at all? How did medieval kings become stars? How were secrets kept and conveyed in the early Middle Ages? And why did early medieval peoples believe in storm and hailmakers? The answers, he found, are often surprising.

AEthelstan

AEthelstan PDF Author: Sarah Foot
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300125356
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
The powerful and innovative King Athelstan reigned only briefly (924-939), yet his achievements during those eventful 15 years changed the course of English history. In this biography, Sarah Foot offers the first full account of the king ever written.