Micol Long
Interested in the cultural and religious history of the High Middle Ages, especially in mentalities, the self, the religious experience, education, identities, social interactions, mobility, spaces, the body & the senses.
Always looking forward to exchanging ideas, papers and set up collaborations: don't hesitate to drop me a line! (micol.long@unipd.it)
Always looking forward to exchanging ideas, papers and set up collaborations: don't hesitate to drop me a line! (micol.long@unipd.it)
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The role played by the material environment in which the preaching took place has received little attention, and mostly with reference to memory (Carruthers 1998, Bolzoni 2002). It has been pointed out that some late medieval religious leaders (such as Bernardino of Siena) referred in their speeches to specific elements of the material environment in which they were preaching (for example, artworks), presumably to help keep awake the attention of the audience and to “anchor” the teaching to material elements which could be seen by individuals on a daily basis. However, much remains to be done to understand whether and to what extent the specific material environment affected the overall experience of preaching (open vs closed space, specific environments such as churches, saint’s tombs, graveyards, squares and so on). Preachers operated amidst a visual network of objects and spaces, against a background of paintings, sculptures, and other images present within the same space where they performed, giving opportunity for the sermon to connect, contrast, or compete for attention. This also raises the question to what extent preachers adapted their preaching to the particular environment and planned the setting in which the preaching had to take place.
A further element that deserves to be considered is that, as an act of communication, preaching was not a one-way interaction: the audience, through their attitude, verbal and non-verbal reactions to the preaching played an active role which affected the experience both of the individuals gathered to listen and of the preacher. Based on this, we propose to approach preaching an interactive performance where multiple actors and multiple elements played a role. For this purpose, we will approach audiences using the notion of “socio-sensory environment”, and assuming the existence of specific sensoria depending on social, cultural and geographical factors. Preaching relied on the various senses to be properly understood and make a lasting impact: the oral and aural performance of the sermon took place within a visually accessible space, with the preacher using both voice and body (gestures, facial expressions) to convey a message. From the sermon text, listeners are often invited to fully employ their senses as well and to imagine themselves present at religiously significant moments: to see the scene before their eyes, to hear what was occurring, to smell, taste, and feel, their internal or imaginary senses giving rise for meditation and devotion. Meanwhile, the experiences of pleasant or unpleasant smells or feelings of cold, heat, or discomfort can also be investigated from a sensory perspective.
With a primary focus on Western Europe from the 12th to the 15th century, this conference aims to explore preaching in an innovative and holistic way, by considering the multisensorial dimension of the transmission and reception of the word of God in whichever form, verbal or non-verbal. By emphasising the range of activities aimed at communicating religious knowledge and devotional practice, and the multisensorial nature of such activities, this conference will explore new aspects of the multifaceted experience of medieval preaching.
This conference is organised by the ERC research project SenSArt – The Sensuous Appeal of the Holy. Sensory Agency of Sacred Art and Somatised Spiritual Experiences in Medieval Europe (12th-15th century), Grant Agreement nr. 950248, PI Zuleika Murat, Università degli Studi di Padova (https://sensartproject.eu/).
Padua, Palazzo Liviano, Aula Diano/Sala Sartori, 5.00 pm
To better grasp the relations between the senses, the body and the mind we propose to incorporate recent developments in the field of cognitive sciences. The intersection between cognitive sciences and medieval studies is a very recent and still rare occurrence (Blud & Dresvina, 2010), yet it holds promise. For the purpose of the present conference, we are interested in the fact that in cognitive sciences, the dynamics of interaction among mind, body, and material world are now deemed crucial to understand mental states and processes. Cognition is indeed understood to be embodied (it does not depend solely on the brain but is also influenced by the body) and embedded, meaning it is inextricably linked to its social and material environment. This interpretative framework proves particularly useful in analyzing medieval religious practices, where material items, environments, and individual experiences were inextricably connected.
The interdisciplinary focus of this conference, integrating sensory studies, material culture studies, cognitive studies, and historical research, provides a rich platform for understanding the profound changes in religion during the medieval period. By exploring somatised spiritual experiences, the conference aims to shed new light on the intricate ways in which the senses, cognition, and the body were engaged in devotional practices, emphasizing the multisensory nature of medieval spirituality.
This conference is organised by the ERC research project SenSArt – The Sensous Appeal of the Holy. Sensory Agency of Sacred Art and Somatised Spiritual Experiences in Medieval Europe (12th-15th century), Grant Agreement nr. 950248, PI Zuleika Murat, Università degli Studi di Padova (https://sensartproject.eu/)
The aim of this ongoing research is to suggest and try to demonstrate the importance of epistolography as a testing ground for the practice of autography and for the elaboration of theories about its value and usefulness.
The purposes could be very different, as well as the contexts: in the case of a letter that contained important (for example, political) information it could be the need for secrecy or the will to confer authority to the text, even if it had not the formal elements of a document. Another possible interpretation of autography, as a token of affection, has its roots in classical antiquity (Cicero, Seneca) and seems to resurface in the middle ages and especially in these centuries, in which it is possible to trace the development of a peculiar conception of writing as a somewhat personal and often intimate activity. A third domain is religious: not only autography could be seen a proof of humility, but autograph letters could be perceived as "relics" containing a mark of the spiritual charisma of their authors - hence the stories of miracles performed by saints' letters, but also the practice of writing autograph letters of blessing.
The letter-collections appear as a very suitable source for such a reconstruction of the context in which some authors started to write with their own hand; moreover, identifying declarations of autography or other references to autograph letters in the texts allows us to value the cultural importance of these cases even when the manuscripts did not reach us."
Si tratta in primo luogo della caratterizzazione del colloquio epistolare come momento intimo, riservato, in alcuni casi perfino segreto: ciò vale sia per la scrittura della lettera sia per la sua lettura. Un altro tratto caratteristico è la consapevolezza che l'epistola rappresenta un tramite anche fisico tra mittente e destinatario: di qui la celebrazione e la cura anche degli aspetti materiali della corrispondenza, nel cui contesto è da inquadrare l'eventuale autografia. Infine, la scelta di scrivere a mano può essere a volte intesa come una dimostrazione di umiltà o un gesto d'affetto, in quanto dono al destinatario del proprio tempo e della propria fatica.
This gap in historiography is almost certainly linked to the paucity of medieval sources about the ritual and practical dimension of confession. I propose to look at both textual and iconographical sources representing confessions in the period ca. 1215-1315 by paying particular attention to the gestures (including body positions and facial expressions) of the penitent and of the confessor, considered as a whole as a religious performance. For example, the frequent representation of the penitents as kneeling or crying can be interpreted as a performance of contrition, whereas the confessor’s representation oscillates between the role of the judge (often seated and impassible) and that of the physician, who engages with his patient in an active and tangible way. Approaching confession as a performance appears justified considering that normally the penitent and the confessor were not hidden from sight, but rather could be seen – if not heard – by many people.
This helps to understand the crucial and multifaceted role played by the senses in both thetheorization, the practice and the perception of
confession.
In fact, combs produced in secular context and for secular purposes could acquire sacred value because they had been gifted to churches and become a part of their treasure, or because they had been associated with holy individuals. This makes it difficult to distinguish between «liturgical» and «non liturgical» combs, regardless of the materials used (since the fact that most combs preserved for the 10th-13th century are made of ivory also depends on its durability and value), subject of the decoration (religious or not), the shape (since H-shaped combs were used in both religious and lay settings).
An overview of the attested uses of combs in medieval churches c. 10th-13th century allows to show that next to well attested and well known uses, such as the ritual combing of a priest before celebrating Mass
and the ritual combing of a bishop during the consecration ceremony, there were also other uses which seems to have been peculiar of specific religious foundations.
In the final section, the article focuses on how these combs were perceived. Textual sources such as letters and hagiographies are used to reconstruct the meanings associated with the act of combing, complementing the information provided by more traditionally used sources like liturgical treatises. The act of combing and/or of being combed, in which sensorial stimulation played an important role, emerges as an intimate experience which could forge a personal link between the comber and the person combed or remind the person whose hair were being combed of the donor of the comb. Furthermore, combing is associated with cleansing of both body and mind by bringing purification and order, and was often accompanied by prayer.
On the basis of the collected evidence, the article puts forth the hypothesis that these associations extended well beyond the liturgical context, for example to personal devotion, where the act of combing may have been associated with meditation and prayer.
Session Number: 1229 , Entanglements of Senses in Medieval Sacred Art and Religious Experience, III: Material Culture - Manuscripts and Texts
Wednesday 05 July 2023, 14.15-15.45 Format: In Person Session
Session Abstract: This is the third of four sessions which look at medieval religious art and experience between the 10th and the 15th century from the innovative lenses of sensory perception in the context of the ERC project SenSArt (Università degli Studi di Padova). This session focuses on texts and manuscripts, reconstructing how their devotional use could result in a synesthetic experience in both monastic and secular environments. The latter are approached through the analysis of late-medieval Flemish Books of Hours, while the former are studied by comparing 12th century monastic didactical treatises and a 13th and 15th century mss presenting the life of Christ and the Virgin from St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury. Sponsor: ERC Project 'SenSArt: The Sensuous Appeal of the Holy - Sensory Agency of Sacred Art & Somatised Spiritual Experiences in Medieval Europe (12th-15th Centuries)'
Session Organiser: Zuleika Murat, Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali, Università degli Studi di Padova & Micol Long Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali, Università degli Studi di Padova
l’Antiquité à l’époque moderne” (Aix-en-Provence, 2022)
As it is well known, this method of teaching and learning is attested by glosses and commentaries; however, I intend to focus on the fact, which has received much less attention, that a part of the discourses which developed around the fundamental text may not be recorded in writing, and for specific reasons. Firstly, the commenting and discussing could (and, according to some authors, should) be adapted to the persons involved, their level of knowledge and their interests. Tailored explanations, questions and answers, as well as co-constructed reflections, shaped the discourse and made it unique and, as such, not easily accessible and usable by others. Secondly, the effort of re-construction and re-enactment of the discourse around the text was an integral part of learning. This can easily be understood in the case of the grammatical analysis of a text, but should be taken into account also for the reflection on its content, especially on the moral and anagogical sense.
Althugh these “oral marginalia” can’t be studied directly through manuscript annotations but rather through complementary sources such as letters, treatises and Vitae, their inquiry can help interpret annotating practices by reconstructing the context in which they originated, most notably the complex interplay between oral and written. The proposed approach can therefore usefully integrate the study of manuscripts as products of the learning activity by addressing the question why certain things were annotated in manuscripts and others weren’t.
The monastic context is particularly suitable for such an analysis because an important part of teaching and learning took place informally, through conversation on shared readings. I will take into consideration sources up to the XI century, since the XII century constitutes an age of remarkable cultural innovations; these, although they transformed primarily urban schools, influenced the cloisters, too, as mirrored for example by the changes in the use of the vocabulary relating to teaching and learning.
From Bede to Alcuin up until Froumund of Tegernsee and Anselm of Canterbury, the activity of reading together and discussing texts is attested not only in the context of young pupils’ instruction, but also between learned men, sometimes resulting in a literary production which is in many way the product of a collaborative activity. For this reason, the proposed approach allows to shed some light not only on educational practices in the strictest sense, but also on learning from one another through social and informal interaction as an important part of the cultural life in monasteries.
knowledge and devotional practice, and the multisensorial nature of such activities, this conference will explore new aspects of the multifaceted experience of medieval preaching.
Organised by the Vlaamse werkgroep mediëvistiek (VWM) and the Réseau des médiévistes belges de langue française (RMBLF)
Brussels, 24-25 January 2019
what binds them together, even though this understanding is constantly being renegotiated.
Our aim is to focus on the ways in which co-habiting peers learned from one another. This “horizontal learning” has received much less attention than the vertical master/student
approach, and yet it emerges as an important part of the learning experience, especially as we are interested in “learning” in a broad sense: not only acquiring factual knowledge or skills, but also developing ideas and beliefs and adapting to behavioral patterns. In short, everything that
could make a monk a better and more efficient member of the community.
Whereas other projects thematize the institutional history of learning, the transmission of propositional knowledge in formalized educational contexts, or the importance of networks of learning, this project distinguishes itself through its focus on day-to-day interactions by community members.
Our starting point is the investigation of communal learning in the practices of high medieval religious communities. Progressing beyond the old view that they were closed, homogeneous, and fairly stable social groups, we intend to approach these communities as the product of a continuous process of education and integration of new members. Contributions will
investigate the way in which inter-personal exchanges of knowledge between peers concretely functioned, and what this teaches us about medieval learning within the context of a
community.
The way in which monks and other co-habiting religious men and women of the high middle ages perceived the various aspects of the learning process can be reconstructed by analyzing the references to learning experiences in sources such as letters and poems, but also many narrative sources. Topics of interest for the session include, but are not limited to, the existence of different learning theories or models, the emotional and affective implications of learning, and the ways in which it affects the shaping of identities. Such themes hold a particular interest in an age of competing religious observances, in which the renewed attention to the self and to social relationships was inextricably connected with the affiliation to social (and, especially, religious) groups.
The choice to concentrate on the period between the beginning of the XI century and the first half of the XIII allows us to investigate the diffusion of authorial autography at a time when cases are no longer isolated ones but represent a continuous series, without having become too numerous to be analysed. The letters are particularly suitable sources, since they often furnish information concerning the circumstances in which they were written and the motives of their authors.
The study is divided in three parts. In the first, several preliminary problems in dealing with accounts of epistolary autography are presented and discussed. After an overview of the different ways to express the notion of "autograph", the possible existence of a topic of autography is taken into account. Then, after an overview of the status quaestionis on medieval autography, I have attempted a survey of references to the autographic writing of letters in Classical, Biblical, and Patristic texts that may have influenced, directly or indirectly, medieval authors.
In the second part of the work I analyse the accounts of epistolary autography from the XI century to the first half of the XIII, sorted according to the reason that the authors give for their choice to write themselves. Secrecy is the most common reason, even though the authors' claim to absolute secrecy cannot always be taken at face value and one should probably consider those cases as defined by a spectrum of different shades of confidentiality. Another important reason for autography is affection, which forms a part of a long-lasting tradition whose roots lay in Classical Antiquity (Cicero, Seneca and Ovid especially). The autograph letter of friendship or love can be seen as a proof of an intimate exchange, as a gift of the author's time and labour or as a souvenir for a reader who is familiar with the sender's handwriting. Writing with one's own hand could also represent a proof of the author's humility, or be means to ensure the trustworthiness and authoritativeness of the text, especially when relating visions or important events. Lastly, sometimes autograph letters could be valued according to the belief that the touch of the hand of a charismatic religious figure had imbued the parchment with sacred and magical qualities, turning it into a relic.
In the last section I have considered the evidence in an overall and comparative way. A comparison among the authors who explicitly state that they wrote with their own hand shows that they were often monks, at least for a while, and that many of them had had an experience working as a secretaries, while a comparison of the letters containing declarations of autography shows, among other things, that they were usually short and addressed to long-lasting correspondents. The particular suitability of the epistolary genre for authorial autography is also suggested by a comparative analysis of the declarations of autography in other texts, like prologues and colophons, which share some common traits with the letters that have been analysed.
Among the results of this study are the identification and analysis of the accounts of epistolary autography from the XI century to the first half of the XIII, many of them little known, and which have not previously been studied collectively. Although, for evident reasons, their number is limited, I believe that the collected evidence supports the hypothesis, presented in this study, that the practice and theory of letter-writing were one of the contexts in which the late medieval re-evaluation of autography developed.
Bernard’s conception of writing has been approached through different methods: a lexical analysis (allowing to single out the rare cases in which he wrote with his own hand and to advance hypothesis on his motivations), a study of the metaphors of and for writing, and an evaluation of the balance between oral and written dimension in the abbot’s thought. This latter method leads, for example, to the discovery of a peculiar conception of writing as an intimate and personal sphere, especially in the epistolary friendship (which draws heavily on the model of the oral colloquium).
The particular interest for the abovementioned study is related to the historical period of reference: the first half of the XII century, which blends tradition and innovations, as does Bernard of Clairvaux himself. The letters appear a suitable source for this kind of research, not only because they often reflect the everyday routine but also, and more importantly, because they offer chances for an auto analysis, particularly in relation to the act of writing.
In conclusion, the analysis of Bernard’s letter collection shows the author’s remarkable openness of mind to the possibility of a contemporary literary production, perceived as distinguished from the ancient one, and yet with a value of its own. In spite of some statements which tend to celebrate the oral dimension above the written one, the abbot is fully aware of the potentials of the written medium in his days, especially for its easy transmission through space and time and its probationary capacity. Therefore, the written medium qualifies as an indispensable mean for his action (for example, as an interpreter of an exemplar textual community like the Cistercians) and a receptacle for his ideas, but also as a realization of his personal potentials as an author. Finally, Bernard’s awareness of the importance of his own epistolary production as an attestation and a representation of his action and his figure should not be forgotten, as it offers a key to a global approach to the whole corpus epistolarum as an all in all conscious representation of self.
Acheter le livre: http://www.citeaux.org/guillaume/
In June 2018, an international conference on William of Saint-Thierry was held in Reims. This event celebrated both the publication of his works in the “Sources Chrétiennes” series and the fiftieth anniversary of the resumption of monastic life on Mont d’Hor. Beginning with various historical approaches – William’s years in Liège and Reims, and his involvement in the Benedictine reforms – we move on to examine his sources and his influence on mysticism, and then to introduce a number of theological and spiritual reflections which, when compared with Isaac of Stella and especially Bernard of Clairvaus, highlight William’s originality in areas as varied as the reception of Augustinian thought, the knowledge of God, the liturgy, Biblical usage, formation, and the fundamental conception of the nature of monastic life. In this way, William lays before us an inner journey from cenobitism to eremitism, making him an excellent representative of the ordo monasticus in the twelfth century.
Buy the book: http://www.citeaux.org/guillaume/
Bruegel’s landscapes take his viewers on a visual and mental quest of the visible world which leads to the realm of the invisible. The lecture will highlight this fundamental characteristic of Bruegel’s work. The works of Bruegel, as Reindert Falkenburg and Michel Weemans suggest, are to be seen as lessons in observation: providing subjects for speculation and traps to see.