Mirror In Parchment

What is the status of visual evidence in history? Can we actually see the past through images? Where are the traces of previous lives deposited? Michael Camille addresses these important questions in Mirror in Parchment, a lively, searching study of one medieval manuscript, its patron, producers, and historical progeny. The richly illuminated Luttrell Psalter was created for the English nobleman Sir Geoffrey Luttrell (1276-1345). Inexpensive mechanical illustration has since disseminated the book's images to a much wider audience; hence the Psalter's representations of manorial life have come to profoundly shape our modern idea of what medieval English people, high and low, looked like at work and at play. Alongside such supposedly truthful representations, the Psalter presents myriad images of fantastic monsters and beasts. These patently false images have largely been disparaged or ignored by modern historians and art historians alike, for they challenge the credibility of those pictures in the Luttrell Psalter that we wish to see as real. In the conviction that medieval images were not generally intended to reflect daily life but rather to shape a new reality, Michael Camille analyzes the Psalter's famous pictures as representations of the world, imagined and real, of its original patron. Addressed are late medieval chivalric ideals, physical sites of power, and the boundaries of Sir Geoffrey's imagined community, wherein agricultural laborers and fabulous monsters play a similar ideological role. The Luttrell Psalter thus emerges as a complex social document of the world as its patron hoped and feared it might be.

First published in 2005. Volumes in the Medieval History and Culture series include studies on individual works and authors of Latin and vernacular literatures, historical personalities and events, theological and philosophical issues, and new critical approaches to medieval literature and culture. Momentous changes have occurred in Medieval Studies in the past thirty years, in teaching as well as in scholarship. The Medieval History and Culture series enhances research in the held by providing an outlet for monographs by scholars in the early stages of their careers on all topics related to the broad scope of Medieval Studies, while at the same time pointing to and highlighting new directions that will shape and define scholarly discourse in the future. This volume explores a methology for articulating this relationship that fourteenth-century texts invite us to participate in the production of meaning: judgment, the willed act of moral engagement, and therefore the process, a living, evolving relationship, an open circuit between text and respondent.

A breathtaking journey into the hidden history of medieval manuscripts, from the Lindisfarne Gospels to the ornate Psalter of Henry VIII “A delight—immersive, conversational, and intensely visual, full of gorgeous illustrations and shimmering description.” –Helen Castor, author of She-Wolves Medieval manuscripts can tell us much about power and art, knowledge and beauty. Many have survived because of an author’s status—part of the reason we have so much of Chaucer’s writing, for example, is because he was a London-based government official first and a poet second. Other works by the less influential have narrowly avoided ruin, like the book of illiterate Margery Kempe, found in a country house closet, the cover nibbled on by mice. Scholar Mary Wellesley recounts the amazing origins of these remarkable manuscripts, surfacing the important roles played by women and ordinary people—the grinders, binders, and scribes—in their creation and survival. The Gilded Page is the story of the written word in the manuscript age. Rich and surprising, it shows how the most exquisite objects ever made by human hands came from unexpected places. “Mary Wellesley is a born storyteller and The Gilded Page is as good as historical writing gets. This is a sensational debut by a wonderfully gifted historian.” —Dan Jones, bestselling author of The Plantagenets and The Templars

Papers from the Interdisciplinary Conference on the Fourteenth Century held at the University of York in July 1998.

Misericord carvings present a fascinating corpus of medieval art which, in turn, complements our knowledge of life and belief in the late middle ages. Subjects range from the sacred to the profane and from the fantastic to the everyday, seemingly giving equal weight to the scatological and the spiritual alike. Focusing specifically on England - though with cognisance of broader European contexts - this volume offers an analysis of misericords in relation to other cultural artefacts of the period. Through a series of themed "case studies", the book places misericords firmly within the doctrinal and devotional milieu in which they were created and sited, arguing that even the apparently coarse images to be found beneath choir stalls are intimately linked to the devotional life of the medieval English Church. The analysis is complemented by a gazetteer of the most notable instances. Dr Paul Hardwick is Professor in English, Leeds Trinity University College.

A fully updated and comprehensive companion to Romanesque and Gothic art history This definitive reference brings together cutting-edge scholarship devoted to the Romanesque and Gothic traditions in Northern Europe and provides a clear analytical survey of what is happening in this major area of Western art history. The volume comprises original theoretical, historical, and historiographic essays written by renowned and emergent scholars who discuss the vibrancy of medieval art from both thematic and sub-disciplinary perspectives. Part of the Blackwell Companions to Art History, A Companion to Medieval Art, Second Edition features an international and ambitious range of contributions covering reception, formalism, Gregory the Great, pilgrimage art, gender, patronage, marginalized images, the concept of spolia, manuscript illumination, stained glass, Cistercian architecture, art of the crusader states, and more. Newly revised edition of a highly successful companion, including 11 new articles Comprehensive coverage ranging from vision, materiality, and the artist through to architecture, sculpture, and painting Contains full-color illustrations throughout, plus notes on the book’s many distinguished contributors A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, Second Edition is an exciting and varied study that provides essential reading for students and teachers of Medieval art.

Owing to its relatedness to parchment as the primary writing matter of the Middle Ages, human skin was not only a topic to write about in medieval texts, it was also conceived of as an inscribable surface, both in the material and in the figurative sense. This volume explores the textuality of human skin as discussed by Geoffrey Chaucer and other writers (medical, religious, philosophical, and literary) of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. It presents four main aspects of the complex relations between text, parchment, and human skin as they have been discussed in recent scholarship. These four aspects are, first, the (mostly figurative) resonances between parchment-making and transformations of human skin, second, parchment as a space of contact between animal and human spheres, third, human skin and parchment as sites where (gender) identities are negotiated, and fourth, the place of medieval skin studies within cultural studies and its relationship to the major concerns of cultural studies: the difficult demarcation of skin from body, the instability of any inscription, and the skin’s precarious state as an entity of its own.

Spell Castings is an eclectic grimoire of magickal ways. Have you ever lit a pink candle on a Friday night and thought about the love you would like to have in your life? Maybe even closed your eyes and pictured that perfect person? Have you ever walked into a room and knew you were not alone and said a prayer for protection? Have you ever looked at a telephone, wished it would ring, and it did? If you have had these or similar experiences, you have put the cosmic forces of the universe to work without even realizing it. Imagine what would happen if you decided to consciously focus your energy, willing these things to happen. Would they? Spell Castings is a book of more than one hundred easy-to-use, practical spells to help you achieve and accomplish your dreams. Every subject is covered, from cleansing the soul to the limitless boundaries of love and death. Spell Castings can be performed by the experienced Witch or Warlock, but are easy enough for the novice. Specific procedures—including the use of various supplies needed to cast the spells—are completely explained. Also included are charts to guide you through the correct moon phases, magickal days and hours. Spell Castings is divided into color-coded chapters to help you determine which spell you desire to cast. For example, if you were looking for a spell to become more psychic or to help you perform more intuitive readings, you would look under the purple chapter. If you were seeking a money spell or better employment spell, you would look under the green chapter. The color-coded index will lead you to the areas you are most interested in casting. When you stir the magick—as only a Witch can’the options are limitless and the effects can be life changing. All the spells within this book are written with the intent to harm none, so brew as often as you and your cauldron desire.