The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages
The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages

Author: Ann W. Astell

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-10-18

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1501720694

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Included among the sacred books of Judaism and Christianity alike, the Song of Songs does not mention God at all; on the surface it is a lyrical exchange between unnamed lovers who articulate the range of emotions associated with sexual love. Ann W. Astell here examines medieval reader response, both interpretive and imitative, to the Song. Disputing the common view that the literal meaning of Canticles had no value for medieval readers, Astell points to twelfth-century commentaries on the Song, as well as an array of Middle English works, as evidence that the Song's sensuous imagery played an essential part in its tropological appeal. Emphasizing the ways in which a complex fusion of the Song's carnal and spiritual meanings appealed rhetorically to a variety of audiences, Astell first considers interpretive responses to Canticles, contrasting Origen's dialectical exposition with the affective commentaries of the twelfth century—ecclesiastical, Marian, and mystical. According to Astell, these commentaries present Canticles as a marriage song that mirrors a series of analogous marriages, both within the individual and between human and divine persons. Astell describes interpretations of the Song of Songs in terms of the various feminine archetypes that the expositors emphasize—the Virgin, Mother, Hetaira, or Medium. She maintains that the commentat5ors encourage the auditor's identification with the figure of the Bride so as to evoke and direct the feminine, affective powers of the soul. Turning to literature influenced by the Song, she then discusses how the reading process is reinscribed in selected works in Middle English, including Richard Rolle's autobiographical writings, Pearl, religious love lyrics, and cycle dramas. The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages provides an innovative model of reader response that opens the way for a deeper understanding of the literary influence of biblical texts.

The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages
The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages

Author: Ann W. Astell

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9780801482670

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'The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages is a wide-ranging and insightful book that is carefully researched and gracefully written. It is of importance alike to those interested in mysticism, Middle English, the twelfth century, the fourteenth century, and feminist approaches to literature.' --- Studia Mystica

The Song of Songs in the Early Middle Ages
The Song of Songs in the Early Middle Ages

Author: Hannah W. Matis

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-01-28

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 9004389253

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In The Song of Songs in the Early Middle Ages, Hannah W. Matis examines how the Song of Songs, the collection of Hebrew love poetry, was understood in the Latin West as an allegory of Christ and the church. This reading of the biblical text was passed down via the patristic tradition, established by the Venerable Bede, and promoted by the chief architects of the Carolingian reform. Throughout the ninth century, the Song of Songs became a text that Carolingian churchmen used to think about the nature of Christ and to conceptualize their own roles and duties within the church. This study examines the many different ways that the Song of Songs was read within its early medieval historical context.

The Jewish Middle Ages
The Jewish Middle Ages

Author: Carol Bakhos

Publisher: SBL Press

Published: 2023-03-15

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 1628374721

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For many, the Middle Ages in general evokes a sense of the sinister and brings to mind a world of fear, superstition, and religious fanaticism. For Jews it was a period marked by persecutions, pogroms, and expulsions. Yet at the same time, the Middle Ages was also a time of lively cultural exchange and heightened creativity for Jews. In The Jewish Middle Ages, contributors explore the ways in which the stories of biblical women, including, Eve, Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Zipporah, Ruth, Esther, and Judith, make their way into the rich tapestry of medieval Jewish literature, mystical texts, and art, particularly in works emanating from Ashkenazic circles. Contributors include Carol Bakhos, Judith R. Baskin, Elisheva Baumgarten, Dagmar Börner-Klein, Constanza Cordoni, Rachel Elior, Meret Gutmann-Grün, Robert A. Harris, Yuval Katz-Wilfing, Sheila Tuller Keiter, Katrin Kogman-Appel, Gerhard Langer, Aurora Salvatierra Ossorio, and Felicia Waldman. These essays give us a glimpse into the role women played and the authority they assumed in medieval Jewish culture beyond the rabbinic centers of Palestine and Babylonia.

Depicting Orthodoxy in the Russian Middle Ages
Depicting Orthodoxy in the Russian Middle Ages

Author: Ágnes Kriza

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-03-31

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0192596276

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The image of Divine Wisdom, traditionally associated with the Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, is an innovation of the fifteenth century. The icon represents the winged, royal, red-faced Sophia flanked by the Mother of God and John the Baptist. Although the image has a contemporaneous commentary, and although it exercised a profound influence on Russian cultural history, its meaning, together with the dating and localisation of the first appearance of the iconography, has remained an art-historical conundrum. By exploring the message, roots, function, and historical context of the creation of the first, most emblematic and enigmatic Russian allegorical iconography, Depicting Orthodoxy in the Russian Middle Ages deciphers the meaning of this icon. In contrast to previous interpretations, Kriza argues that the winged Sophia is the personification of the Orthodox Church. The Novgorod Wisdom icon represents the Church of Hagia Sophia, that is, Orthodoxy, as it was perceived in fifteenth-century Rus. Depicting Orthodoxy asserts that the icon, together with its commentary, was a visual-textual response to the Union of Florence between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, signed in 1439 but rejected by the Russians in 1441. This interpretation is based on detailed interdisciplinary research, drawing on philology, art history, theology, and history. Kriza's study challenges some key assumptions concerning the relevance of Church Schism of 1054, the polemics between the Greeks and the Latins about the bread of Eucharist, and the role of the Union of Florence in the history of Russian art. In particular, by studying both well- and lesser-known works of art alongside overlooked textual evidence, this volume investigates how the Christian Church and its true faith were defined and visualized in Rus and Byzantium throughout the centuries.

Women's Literary Cultures in the Global Middle Ages
Women's Literary Cultures in the Global Middle Ages

Author: Kathryn Loveridge

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2023-04-04

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 184384656X

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Initiates a wider development of inquiries into women's literary cultures to move the reader beyond single geographical, linguistic, cultural and period boundaries. Since the closing decades of the twentieth century, medieval women's writing has been the subject of energetic conversation and debate. This interest, however, has focused predominantly on western European writers working within the Christian tradition: the Saxon visionaries, Mechthild of Hackeborn, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Gertrude the Great, for example, and, in England, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe are cases in point. While this present book acknowledges the huge importance of such writers to women's literary history, it also argues that they should no longer be read solely within a local context. Instead, by putting them into conversation with other literary women and their cultures from wider geographical regions and global cultures - women from eastern Europe and their books, dramas and music; the Welsh gwraig llwyn a pherth (woman of bush and brake); the Indian mystic, Mirabai; Japanese women writers from the Heian period; women saints from across Christian Europe and those of eleventh-century Islam or late medieval Ethiopia; for instance - much more is to be gained in terms of our understanding of the drivers behind and expressions of medieval women's literary activities in far broader contexts. This volume considers the dialogue, synergies, contracts and resonances emerging from such new alignments, and to help a wider, multidirectional development of this enquiry into women's literary cultures.

Gender and Sexuality in the Middle Ages
Gender and Sexuality in the Middle Ages

Author: Martha A. Brozyna

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2005-04-04

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0786420421

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Perceptions about gender and sexuality have shaped the lives of men and women in every known culture and in every period of history. To study these perceptions one must delve into the underlying religious, social, philosophical and scientific influences. Understanding gender and sexuality during the Middle Ages requires an examination of the ideas, laws and institutions of the time--for example, the regulations of the Christian church, the anatomical studies of the medieval medical community, the chronicles of the time and the social criticism found in medieval literature. This reader brings such documents from throughout the medieval world into one collection. Representing a diverse range of ethnic, geographic and religious backgrounds, documents of the late Roman, Germanic, Anglo-Norman, Mediterranean, Byzantine, Slavic, Jewish and Islamic identities are all included. The book's chapters are organized according to nine areas--the Bible; Christian thought; chronicles; law; biology, medicine and science; literature; witchcraft and heresy; Judaism; and Islam--allowing for comparative examination of different societies and periods of the Middle Ages.

Marian Devotion in the Late Middle Ages
Marian Devotion in the Late Middle Ages

Author: Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-04-19

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1000579492

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By the late Middle Ages, manifestations of Marian devotion had become multifaceted and covered all aspects of religious, private and personal life. Mary becomes a universal presence that accompanies the faithful on pilgrimage, in dreams, as holy visions, and as pictorial representations in church space and domestic interiors. The first part of the volume traces the development of Marian iconography in sculpture, panel paintings, and objects, such as seals, with particular emphasis on Italy, Slovenia and the Hungarian Kingdom. The second section traces the use of Marian devotion in relation to space, be that a country or territory, a monastery or church or personal space, and explores the use of space in shaping new liturgical practices, new Marian feasts and performances, and the bodily performance of ritual objects.

Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. I: From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (Until 1300). Part 2: The Middle Ages
Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. I: From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (Until 1300). Part 2: The Middle Ages

Author: Magne Sæbø

Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Published: 2000-11-12

Total Pages: 733

ISBN-13: 3647535079

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24 scholars – Jewish, Protestant, Roman Catholic – from North America, Israel, and various European countries, contribute to this rich volume on medieval interpretation and exegesis of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (5th through 12th centuries). Geographically, they cover most of the world as it was known in these times: from Syria to Spain, from Rome to the Rhine and the Seine. The volume also contains supplements to the previous volume, on Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon. The indexes (names, topics, references to biblical sources and a broad body of literature beyond) are the key to the wealth of information provided. Undoubtedly, this volume will meet the high expectations set by the reviewers of the first volume (I/1) of the series: "Definitive reference work" (Religious Studies Review) "Mine d'information d'une grande richesse" (Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses) "Monumental ouvrage" (Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique) "A veritable treasury" (Catholic Biblical Quarterly) "The foremost account of Jewish and Christian biblical interpretation" (Expository Times) "Onmisbaar handboek voor jeder een die zich serieus met bijbelstudie bezighoudt" (Stem van het boek) "Respekt gebietende Summe wissenschaftsgeschichtlicher Forschung" (Zeitschrift für Altes Testament) Selected chapters 23. The Problem of Periodization of Middle Ages 25. Jewish Bible Interpretation in Early Post-Talmudic Times 26. Gregory the Great 28. Seventh through Ninth Century 1. Isidore of Seville 3. Exegesis in the time of Charlemagne 4. From Angelomus of Luxeuil to Remigius of Auxerre 31. The Flourishing Era of Jewish Exegesis in Spain 1. The Linguistic School: Judah Hayyuj, Jonah ibn Janah, Moses ibn Chiquitilla and Judah ibn Bal'am 2. The Aesthetic Exegesis of Moses ibn Ezra 32. The School of Literal Jewish Exegesis in Northern France 4. Menahem ben Helbo5. Solomon Yishaqi / Rashi (1040–1105) 8. Samuel ben Meir / Rashbam (1080–1160) 33. Jewish Exegesis in Spain and Provence and in the East 2. Abraham ibn Ezra4. Moses ben Nahman / Nahmanides (Ramban) 5. Abraham Maimonides and the Yemenite School 34. The School of St. Victor in Paris 35. Christian Interpretation of the Old Testament 1. Bernard of Clairvaux on the Song of Songs 2. Gilbert of Poitiers and Peter Lombard 6. Albert, Thomas, Bonaventure 36. Development of Biblical Interpretation in the Syrian Churches 38. Literal and Spiritual Scriptural Interpretation: Aspects of Correspondence and Tension between Christian and Jewish Exegesis