Book Review: The Jew, the Cathedral, & the Medieval City: Synagoga and Ecclesia in the13th Century by Nina Rowe

Pros: lots of black and white photographs, several maps, detailed explanations, enough historical background to fit the works into their setting

Cons:

The book is separated into two parts, the first being the historical background of Jews in medieval European society, specifically how Christian writers addressed their continuing presence and necessity while condemning them for not accepting Christianity. This section also goes over some of the Jewish writings of the time, how their interpretations of the Talmud changed and their polemics regarding Christians. Finally this section examines the development of female personifications in the ancient world into Christian personifications of Church (Ecclesia) and Synagogue (Synagoga). Part two consists of the three case studies on Reims, Bamberg, and Strasbourg. These are the first 3 cities to include life sized sculptures of Church and Synagogue on their cathedral portals.

The first section of the book is informative and lays good groundwork fo the rest of the book and anyone interested in jewish-Christian relations in the middle ages. While other authors shy away from mentioning Jewish polemics and how certain Jewish practices could be seen as mocking Christianity (whether or not that was the intent) sheds important light on the complexities of the period. Jews were not passive victims, nor did their own scholarship lag into the Christian portrayal of preserving scripture for the Christians to use. Their society was vibrant, educated, and engaged with the times.

The case studies are highly detailed with a lot of excellent black and white photographs illustrating the author’s points. If you’re not interested in the minutiae of what sculpture specific workshops were responsible for or how the smile of an angle on one cathedral is similar to that of another, the chapters are still useful for the historical data regarding how Christians utilized the spaces (for example, the portals with these statues tended to be where ecclesiastical judgements were made and punishments meted out). I also appreciated learning how the Jews fit into the city better, how close they lived to the cathedrals and how this would have affected them.

If you’re interested in Jewish-Christian relations, life in the middle ages, or cathedrals and medieval art, this is an excellent book.

History Book Review: African Zion: The Sacred Art of Ethiopia by Marilyn Heldman

Pros: deals with an under researched topic, lots of high quality images, excellent supporting information for catalogue items

Cons: parts are very dry and academic, a few catalogue items have no images, out of print

The book consists of the following chapters: 1) Introduction, 2) Dreaming of Jerusalem, 3) Ethiopia Revealed: Merchants, Travellers, and Scholars, 4) Church and State: 16th to 18th Centuries, 5) Ethiopic Literature, 6) Ethiopian Manuscripts and Paleography, 7) Linear Decoration in Ethiopian Manuscripts. 

After dealing with the background information, it continues with the Catalogue, consisting of 8) Maryam Seyon: Mary of Zion, 9) Aksumite Coinage, 10) the Heritage of Late Antiquity, 11) the Zagwe Dynasty: 1137-1270, 12) the Early Solomonic Period: 1270-1527, 13) the Late Solomaic Period: 1540-1769.

I found the introduction to be quite dry and academic. While the information was interesting, the delivery was such that I had trouble paying attention. This is followed by a section on Ethiopian contact with the outside world, that is, writings about Ethiopia by outsiders, which was quite interesting and engaging. Then follows several slightly more in depth chapters dealing with the Christian church in Ethiopia through the centuries. These give a bit more grounding in the monarchy and how it used the church to maintain cohesion and power. There’s a tiny bit of information on conflicts with Muslims and contact with Europe (and Jesuits) in later centuries. The chapters on literature and manuscripts were both very interesting. I was amazed by how many Ethiopian manuscripts have been preserved via microfilm and digitization, mainly by the HMML (Hill Museum and Manuscript Library). [If you’d like to see their collection, viewing manuscripts online requires a free account. Your application is reviewed by one of their librarians before being granted.] The final chapter before looking at the manuscripts themselves gives a cursory examination of harag decoration. Similar to Celtic knotwork in appearance, harag are “a type of illumination made of bands of colored lines interlaced in a geometrical pattern and used to frame the pages of Ethiopian manuscripts” (p.63). The artwork changed over the centuries.

The catalogue begins with a discussion of the importance of Mary, the mother of God, in Ethiopian devotion, and comprises numerous images of her. There are some comparison images that give local context for some of the elements (for example, a photo showing the entrance to a holy sanctuary with a checkered design around it that explains the checkered background for an icon of Mary). 

The second chapter of the catalogue goes over Aksumite coinage. I didn’t expect it to be as interesting as it was. It’s a great example of how historians must glean information from minimal sources. In this case, the Aksumite kingdom has left little trace, so much of what is known about their kings is due to their names on coins. The coins are shown to scale, which makes the images quite small and it’s sometimes hard to see details.

Most of the catalogue images are shown in colour on black backgrounds. The rest are inset with the descriptive text in black and white. In some cases more than one image of an object is used (both sides of a processional cross, several manuscript pages) but not always. With manuscripts, all of the miniatures are mentioned, even if only a few pages are displayed. Similarly, in cases where only one side of a double sided object is shown, the other side is described in the text. I love how some entries have supplementary images to help show how different aspects of art influence each other. Unfortunately, in a few cases images of the catalogue items themselves are omitted.

While there are a few things I disliked about this volume, on the whole it’s an exceptional collection of Ethiopian sacred artworks. It’s a real shame that this book, created for a specific exhibition, is now out of print, because it’s a much needed look at a rarely studied country. Ethiopia doesn’t get much mention in medieval (my focus) or other history textbooks, so this is a brilliant addition for anyone wanting to expand their understanding about the rich history and artistic traditions of this amazing country, if - like me - you can find it used.

Saints' Lives: Saint Theodore (of Amasea/Tyro)

Source: http://www.svetigora.com/node/666

Restored jamb statue
from Laon Cathedral

His feast day is November 9th and he is a patron of lost things.

The following account comes from The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine, translated by William Granger Ryan (volume II). Princeton University Press, 1995. pp 291. 

Saint Theodore was a Roman soldier serving in the city of Marmanites during the reign of Diocletian and Maximian.  Theodore refused to sacrifice to pagan gods, claiming that he was a soldier in the service of his God and of his Son Jesus Christ.  The judge asked if it was possible to know the son of his god, he said yes and was given time to prepare to offer his sacrifice.

Theodore used the time to enter the temple of the Mother of the Gods at night and set fire to it, burning it to the ground.  A witness accused him and he was put in jail.

Temple on fire, detail of Laon Cathedral
jamb statue

Martyrdom of St Theodore as depicted on
a pillar at Chartres Cathedral (N. transept)

While in prison he was visited by “a throng of men in white robes”, even though the doors were all locked.  The guards saw this and ran away in fear.

When he was asked again to sacrifice, he said no.  The judge then had him hung from a limb and his flanks torn with iron hooks so that his ribs were exposed.  When asked if he’d rather be on Earth or with Christ, he said with Christ.  So they lit a fire under him and though the fire didn’t burn his body, he expired there.

A sweet odour spread from his body and a voice was heard that said, “Come, my beloved, enter into the joy of your Lord!” as the heavens opened to receive him.  This happened in AD 287.

———————————

Interestingly, his story is fairly different when looked up on Wikipedia and religious websites.  His death date is later (AD 306, under Emperor Galerius) and the location Amasea in modern Turkey.  The church he’s said to have burned is that of Cybele, who was the local mother-goddess, so that’s consistent.

He’s called Theodore of Amasea (for the place) or Theodore Tyro (also spelled Tyron, Tiron and Tiro) as ‘tiro’ is a classical Latin word that describes a soldier who has recently enlisted.  He is therefore also known as Theodore the Recruit.  His story and that of the slightly later Saint Theodore Stratelates are now considered to relate to the same person.

The Orthodox Church in America website also recounts a further story, that 50 years after Saint Theodore's death, the Emperor Julian ordered the commander of Constantinople to sprinkle all the food in the marketplace with blood offered to idols during the first week of Great Lent.  Saint Theodore appeared in a dream to Archbishop Eudoxius and told him to warn the people to only eat cooked wheat with honey and not buy anything from the market.

Because of this miracle, the Orthodox Church celebrates him on the first Saturday of Great Lent.

The AGO's Revealing the Early Renaissance Exhibit

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to see the Art Gallery of Ontario's Revealing the Early Renaissance Exhibit, about art in Florence from 1300-1350.

The exhibit was incredible, taking me several hours to go through a handful of rooms.  My university degree is in Medieval Studies, and I took a few art courses (mainly on manuscripts and cathedrals) and the exhibit's range was at the tail end of what I studied and introduced a few new elements.

I learned several things from this exhibit, which I thought I'd share.  Sometimes when world building we try to make things logical and forget that the real world often ignores logic (or has a logic that made sense at the time and no longer does).  For example, most craftsmen belonged to guilds.  These gave protections - both for the craftsmen and the patrons - set prices, assured quality, etc.  Because Florentine painters (the real focus of the exhibit) bought their pigments from apothecaries, they belonged to the guild of Doctors and Apothecaries.

Florence's gold Florin was the dominant currency in Europe during this period.  In earlier ages royal patrons built churches, etc. to decrease their sins in the eyes of God.  In Florence, bankers (that is, Christian bankers) funded churches and religious art in order to remove the stigma attached to them due to their charging interest (usury - something the Christian church would not allow other Christians to do, making it one of the few career options open to Jews - who, according to their own religious laws, could charge interest to Christians but not other Jews).

Famous artisans created workshops where they would train apprentices and get them to do the grunt work associated with the art.  Modern scholars try to figure out what portions of artworks were done by the masters and what by the apprentices.  Sometimes it's easier to see than others.  Like with the Peruzzi Alterpiece.  Christ and the two figures to his right are significantly better shaded (look at the cheeks, necks, creases on foreheads and in clothing) and therefore look more alive than the two figures to the left.  The right hand figures were done by Master Giotto di Bondone.

One of my favourite pieces (and yes, I'm strange), was the Laudio of Sant'Agnese.  Commissioned for a lay confraternity, it has the music and notation that would have been sung, as well as some truly gorgeous manuscript illustrations.  These illustrations were so beautiful that the manuscript was dismantled and the individual pages scattered.  A number of them have been identified and gathered for this exhibit.  The colours are still vibrant and the scenes from worshipful to downright macabre (like the roasting- I mean the Martyrdom - of St. Lawrence, which you can see at the above link).  There's also a creepy two panel page with a man being flayed alive and then kneeling with his skin as a cloak as he waits for his head to come off.  Yeah.

The exhibit ends with a 10 minute video on doing a panel painting (like the alterpiece).  The amount of prep work required, and the time sensitive nature of each step, shows how much dedication these people had to their art.  Amazingly I've found the video on the J. Paul Getty Museum (which owns many of the works on display in the exhibit)'s youtube page.  The narrator is different, but the information is the same.