The Earliest English Kings
The Earliest English Kings

Author: D. P. Kirby

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-01-04

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1134548133

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First published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Interpreting Medieval Effigies
Interpreting Medieval Effigies

Author: Brian Gittos

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2019-05-31

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1789251311

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This innovative study examines and analyses the wealth of evidence provided by the monumental effigies of Yorkshire, from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, including some of very high sculptural merit. More than 200 examples survive from the historic county in varying states of preservation. Together, they present a picture of the people able to afford them, at a time when the county was frequently at the forefront of national politics and administration, during the Scottish wars. Many monuments display remarkable realism, depicting people as they themselves wished to be remembered, and are accompanied by a great volume of contemporary sculptural and architectural detail. Stylistic analysis of the effigies themselves has been employed, better to understand how they relate to one another and give a firmer basis for their dating and production patterns. They are considered in relation to the history and material culture of the area at the time they were produced. A more soundly based appreciation of the sculptor's intentions and the aspirations of patrons is sought through close attention to the full extent of the visible evidence afforded by the monuments and their surroundings. The corpus is of sufficient size to permit meaningful analysis to shed light on aspects such as personal aspiration, social networks, patterns of supply and production, piety and wealth. It demonstrates the value of funerary monuments to the wider understanding of medieval society. The text will be accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue, making available a substantial body of research for the first time. The study considers the relationship between the monuments and related sculpture, architecture, painting, glass etc, together with contemporary documentary evidence, where it is available. This material and the underlying methodology are now available to illuminate monuments of the medieval period across the whole country. Its methods and messages extend understanding of all monuments, broadening its potential audience from the purely local to everyone concerned with medieval sculpture and church archaeology.

Baptism and Spiritual Kinship in Early Modern England
Baptism and Spiritual Kinship in Early Modern England

Author: Will Coster

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-03-02

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1351955993

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Despite the importance of the subject to contemporaries, this is the first monograph to look at the institution of godparenthood in early modern English society. Utilising a wealth of hitherto largely neglected primary source data, this work explores godparenthood, using it as a framework to illuminate wider issues of spiritual kinship and theological change. It has become increasingly common for general studies of family and religious life in pre-industrial England to make reference to the spiritual kinship evident in the institution of godparenthood. However, although there have been a number of important studies of the impact of the institution in other periods, this is the first detailed monograph devoted to the subject in early modern England. This study is possible due to the survival, contrary to many expectations, of relatively large numbers of parish registers that recorded the identities of godparents in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By utilising this hitherto largely neglected data, in conjunction with evidence gleaned from over 20,000 Wills and numerous other biographical, legal and theological sources, Coster has been able to explore fully the institution of godparenthood and the role it played in society. This book takes the opportunity to study an institution which interacted with a range of social and cultural factors, and to assess the nature of these elements within early modern English society. It also allows the findings of such an investigation to be compared with the assumptions that have been made about the fortunes of the institution in the context of a changing European society. The recent historiography of religion in this period has focused attention on popular elements of religious practice, and stressed the conservatism of a society faced with dramatic theological and ritual change. In this context a study of godparenthood can make a contribution to understanding how religious change occurred and the ways in which popular religious practice was affected.

Ritual in Early Bronze Age Grave Goods
Ritual in Early Bronze Age Grave Goods

Author: John Hunter

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2014-10-31

Total Pages: 593

ISBN-13: 1782976949

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The exotic and impressive grave goods from burials of the ÔWessex CultureÕ in Early Bronze Age Britain are well known and have inspired influential social and economic hypotheses, invoking the former existence of chiefs, warriors and merchants and high-ranking pastoralists. Alternative theories have sought to explain the how display of such objects was related to religious and ritual activity rather than to economic status, and that groups of artefacts found in certain graves may have belonged to religious specialists. This volume is the result of a major research that aimed to investigate Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age grave goods in relation to their possible use as special dress accessories or as equipment employed within ritual activities and ceremonies. Many items of adornment can be shown to have formed elements of elaborate costumes, probably worn by individuals, both male and female, who held important ritual roles within society. Furthermore, the analysis has shown that various categories of object long interpreted as mundane types of tool were in fact items of bodily adornment or implements used in ritual contexts, or in the special embellishment of the human body. Although never intended to form a complete catalogue of all the relevant artefacts from England the volume provides an extensive, and intensively illustrated, overview of a large proportion of the grave goods from English burial sites.