Faces of Community in Central European Towns

Faces of Community in Central European Towns PDF Author: Katerina Hornícková
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498551130
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
Concepts of visual communication form an explanatory framework for discussing the visual expressions of urban symbolic communication in urban life in towns in the center of Europe in the late medieval and early modern period, including the dramatic times of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. This book examines the role of images and visual representation by concentrating on the varieties of symbolic communication in towns that made a range of relationships visual: the status and role of urban civic, professional, and religious communities and the relations between the town and its lord or powerful families and individuals. The geographical framework of this book is the region in the former Habsburg countries north of the Danube River embracing the region between western Bohemia and what is today eastern Slovakia, including the borderland towns of northern Austria. Two studies focus on specific local and occupational communities in the Prague towns, but most of the texts in this book focus on small towns by contemporary European standards in which many forms of urban topography, buildings, objects, and monuments survive, even though few written sources have been preserved. Accessing a wide range of literature in regional languages and German for English speakers, this collection describes typical urban landscapes in early modern Central Europe outside the well-known Central European urban centers and traditional areas of study. The book is a relevant new contribution to medieval and early modern studies, not only covering an underappreciated geographical area but also addressing general questions about the history of rituals and performance as well as visual culture, communication, and identity discourses in late medieval and early modern urban space.

Faces of Community in Central European Towns

Faces of Community in Central European Towns PDF Author: Katerina Hornícková
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498551130
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
Concepts of visual communication form an explanatory framework for discussing the visual expressions of urban symbolic communication in urban life in towns in the center of Europe in the late medieval and early modern period, including the dramatic times of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. This book examines the role of images and visual representation by concentrating on the varieties of symbolic communication in towns that made a range of relationships visual: the status and role of urban civic, professional, and religious communities and the relations between the town and its lord or powerful families and individuals. The geographical framework of this book is the region in the former Habsburg countries north of the Danube River embracing the region between western Bohemia and what is today eastern Slovakia, including the borderland towns of northern Austria. Two studies focus on specific local and occupational communities in the Prague towns, but most of the texts in this book focus on small towns by contemporary European standards in which many forms of urban topography, buildings, objects, and monuments survive, even though few written sources have been preserved. Accessing a wide range of literature in regional languages and German for English speakers, this collection describes typical urban landscapes in early modern Central Europe outside the well-known Central European urban centers and traditional areas of study. The book is a relevant new contribution to medieval and early modern studies, not only covering an underappreciated geographical area but also addressing general questions about the history of rituals and performance as well as visual culture, communication, and identity discourses in late medieval and early modern urban space.

Oxford Handbook of Medieval Central Europe

Oxford Handbook of Medieval Central Europe PDF Author: Zecevic
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190920718
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 633

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Central Europe summarizes the political, social, and cultural history of medieval Central Europe (c. 800-1600 CE), a region long considered a "forgotten" area of the European past. The 25 cutting-edge chapters present up-to-date research about the region's core medieval kingdoms -- Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia -- and their dynamic interactions with neighboring areas. From the Baltic to the Adriatic, the handbook includes reflections on modern conceptions and uses of the region's shared medieval traditions. The volume's thematic organization reveals rarely compared knowledge about the region's medieval resources: its peoples and structures of power; its social life and economy; its religion and culture; and images of its past.

Patterns in the History of Polycentric Governance in European Cities

Patterns in the History of Polycentric Governance in European Cities PDF Author: Cédric Brélaz, Thomas Lau, Hans-Joachim Schmidt, Siegfried Weichlein
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111029336
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description


Jesuit Art and Czech Lands, 1556–1729

Jesuit Art and Czech Lands, 1556–1729 PDF Author: Katerina Hornícková
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666905879
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
This collection examines how the Society of Jesus used art and architecture in its missionary efforts in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth. The Jesuits used a variety of visual media to re-invigorate the cult of miraculous images, saints, and local Catholic customs in the Central European region, where a tradition of religious dissent went back to the legendary Hussites of the 15th century. Jesuit art is seen as resulting from the transfer, local adaptation, and visualization of ideas about image theology, the order's global mission, its self-promotion, and the construction of the religious past. Examining the architecture, statues, images, murals, and decorative programs of Jesuit complexes and other visual media (devotional prints, medieval images), the essays here demonstrate how the Jesuit Order cultivated the subjects and functions of art to promote concepts of Catholic piety as they grew into one of the most successful agents of Catholic Reform in the Bohemian kingdom.

Heraldry in Urban Society

Heraldry in Urban Society PDF Author: Marcus Meer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198910282
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
Heraldry is often seen as a traditional prerogative of the nobility. But it was not just knights, princes, kings, and emperors who bore coats of arms to show off their status in the Middle Ages. The merchants and craftsmen who lived in cities, too, adopted coats of arms and used heraldic customs, including display and destruction, to underline their social importance and to communicate political messages. Medieval burgesses were part of a fascination with heraldry that spread throughout pre-modern society and looked at coats of arms as honoured signs of genealogy and history. Heraldry in Urban Society analyses the perceptions and functions of heraldry in medieval urban societies by drawing on both English- and German-language sources from the late fourteenth to the early sixteenth centuries. Despite variations that point to socio-political differences between cities (and their citizens) in the relatively centralized monarchy of medieval England and the more independent-minded urban governments found in the less closely connected Holy Roman Empire, urban heraldry emerges as a versatile and ubiquitous means of multimedia visual communication that spanned medieval Europe. Urban heraldic practices defy assumptions about clearly demarcated social practices that belonged to 'high'/'noble' as opposed to 'low'/'urban' culture. Townspeople's perceptions of coats of arms paralleled those of the nobility, as they readily interpreted and carefully curated them as visual expressions of identity. These perceptions allowed townspeople of all ranks, as well as noble outsiders, to use heraldry and its display - along with its defacement and destruction - in manuscripts, spaces (such as town houses, public monuments, halls, and churches), and performances (like processions and joyous entries) to address perennial problems of urban society in the Middle Ages. The coats of arms of burgesses, guilds, and cities were communicative means of individual and collective representation, social and political legitimization, conducting and resolving conflicts, and the pursuit of elevated status in the urban hierarchy. Likewise, heraldic communication negotiated the all-important relationship between the city and wider, extramural society - from the commercial interests of citizens to their collective ties to the ruler.

The Power of Urban Water

The Power of Urban Water PDF Author: Nicola Chiarenza
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110677067
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Wasser ist eine globale Ressource für heutige Gesellschaften – Wasser war eine globale Ressource vormoderner Gesellschaften. Die manigfaltigen unterschiedlicher Wassersysteme für Prozesse der Urbanisierung und das urbane Leben in der Antike und dem Mittelalter ist bislang kaum erforscht. Die zahlreichen Beiträge dieses Bandes fragen nach der grundlegenden kulturellen Bedeutung von Wasser ( bzw. power of water) in der Stadt und Wasser für die Stadt aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven. Symbolische, ästhetische oder kultische Aspekte werden ebenso thematisiert wie die Rolle von Wasser in Politik, Gesellschaft oder Wirtschaft und dem alltäglichen Handeln, aber auch in Stadtplanungsprozessen oder städtischen Teilräumen. Nicht zuletzt stellen die Gefahren von verschmutzten Wasser oder Überschwemmungen die städtische Gesellschaft vor Herausforderungen. Die Beiträge diesen Band lenken den Blick auf die komplexen und vielfältigen Beziehungen zwischen Wasser und Menschen. Das Sammelwerk präsentiert die Ergebnisse einer internationalen Tagung in Kiel 2018. Es wendet sich gleichermaßen an Leser aus den altertumskundlichen wie mediävistischen Fächern und darüberhinaus an alle Interessierten, die sich über die Vielfalt von Wassersystemen im Stadtraum der Antike und des Mittelalters informieren möchten.

Between Community and Seclusion

Between Community and Seclusion PDF Author: Mirko Breitenstein
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 3643148755
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
The fact that certain cultures and religions produced a way of life which, for the sake of self-perfection, expected its adherents to withdraw from various obligations to the world and to enter into the organisational structure of a monastic community obviously represents a constant anthropological foundation. The spectrum of monastic life within these various cultures was extremely diverse in its manifestations. It was the result of a high degree of flexibility in the face of constantly changing ideas about piety, social needs and concepts of community and individuality. However, an interreligious study with the aim of a scholarly analysis of comparable key elements across different monastic cultures does not exist yet. The editors as well as the authors of this volume are particularly interested in how monastic life was realised communally in many ways according to fixed norms and rules, how it shaped the understanding of community and civilisation and therefore made a decisive contribution to the formation of our cultural identity.

Central European Constitutional Courts in the Face of EU Membership

Central European Constitutional Courts in the Face of EU Membership PDF Author: Allan F. Tatham
Publisher: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
ISBN: 9004234551
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
Central European Constitutional Courts in the Face of EU Membership explores German legal influence on other systems of constitutional justice, concentrating on the impact of the Federal Constitutional Court’s approach to EU integration on constitutional courts in Hungary and Poland.

The City in Central Europe

The City in Central Europe PDF Author: Malcolm Gee
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429807449
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
First published in 1999, this volume explores how the cities of central Europe, among them Berlin, Budapest, Hamburg, Vienna and Prague, went through a period of phenomenal growth during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their rapid expansion and growing economic importance made citizens aware of the need to manage the fabric and culture of the urban environment, while burgeoning nationalism and the development of local and international tourism constructed cities as showcases for national and regional identity. Competing visions of how city and nation should represent themselves were advanced by different social groups, by commercial interests and by local and national political authorities. Among the developments examined in this collection of essays are the campaign for the architectural development of Hamburg; international modernism and notions of the garden city in Czechoslovakia; competition among German cities as art centres; the role of Wawel Hill in Kraków as a vehicle for Polish nationalism; tourism in Austria-Hungary; Jewish assimilation in Vienna; social control and cultural policy in Vienna; and the representation of Berlin on film. The volume is introduced by Malcolm Gee, Tim Kirk and Jill Steward who provide an historical overview which establishes a context for the exchange of ideas and competition between the cities of central Europe during this period.

Urban Communities and Memories in East-Central Europe in the Modern Age

Urban Communities and Memories in East-Central Europe in the Modern Age PDF Author: Aleksander Łupienko
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 104011105X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
This edited volume studies the logic of community formation and the common view of the past to show how various social bonds of communities functioned during the modern national era of East-Central Europe from the late eighteenth century until today and how multifaceted this group-building really was. Through an overview of selected examples of communities in East-Central European urban centres, mainly the territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its successor empires, the volume shows the potential of re-interpretation or adaptation of the past as a crucial tool for assuring social cohesion and for strengthening the image of group boundaries. It studies not only textual sources but also the cultural construction of local historical writings such as oral tradition and municipal publications, as well as symbolic objects such as epitaphs, plaques, monuments and public edifices. The contributors explore the actual creativity employed by these communities to envision their past and their future in homage to the ideals of centralised nationalism or regionalism and how these strongly ethnically marked historic spaces can be interpreted, celebrated or neglected. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of regional urban history and cultural diversities, memory cultures and community formation.