Dissimilar similitudes : devotional objects in late Medieval Europe / Caroline Walker Bynum.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bynum, Caroline Walker, author.

Standardized Title:

Essays. Selections

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Devotional objects--Europe.

Devotional objects.

Material culture--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Material culture.

Material culture--Europe.

Civilization, Medieval.

Resemblance (Philosophy).

History--Methodology.

History.

Europe.

Physical Description:

343 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Brooklyn, NY : Zone Books, 2020.

Summary:

"Between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries, European Christians used in worship a plethora of objects, not only prayer books, statues, and paintings but also pieces of natural materials, such as stones and earth, considered to carry holiness, dolls representing Jesus and Mary, and even bits of consecrated bread and wine thought to be miraculously preserved flesh and blood. Theologians and ordinary worshippers alike explained, utilized, justified, and warned against some of these objects, which could carry with them both anti-Semitic charges and the glorious promise of heaven. Their proliferation and the reaction against them form a crucial background to the European-wide movements we know today as "reformations" (both Protestant and Catholic). In a set of independent but inter-related essays, Caroline Bynum considers some examples of such holy things, among them beds for the baby Jesus, the headdresses of medieval nuns, and the footprints of Christ carried home from the Holy Land by pilgrims in patterns cut to their shape or their measurement in lengths of string. Building on and going beyond her well-received work on the history of materiality, Bynum makes two arguments, one substantive, the other methodological. First, she demonstrates that the objects themselves communicate a paradox of dissimilar similitude-that is, that in their very details they both image the glory of heaven and make clear that that heaven is beyond any representation in earthly things. Second, she uses the theme of likeness and unlikeness to interrogate current practices of comparative history. Suggesting that contemporary students of religion, art, and culture should avoid comparing things that merely "look alike," she proposes that humanists turn instead to comparing across cultures the disparate and perhaps visually dissimilar objects in which worshippers as well as theorists locate the "other" that gives their religion enduring power"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: A Plethora of Things

Approaches to the Power of Things: Historical, Art Historical, and Anthropological

What These Case Studies Suggest

I. Holy Beds: Gender And Encounter In Devotional Objects From Fifteenth-Century Europe

Scholarly Approaches: Praesepe versus Cunabulum

The Beguine Cradle: Gender and the Tactility of Devotion

Burgundian Creche: Why Two Beds?

Beds in Medieval Devotion

Like and Unlike Heaven

II. "Crowned With Many Crowns": Nuns And Their Statues In Late Medieval Wienhausen

The Madonnas at Wienhausen

Crowns in the Devotion and Formation of Northern German Nuns

On Earth and in Heaven

III. The Sacrality Of Things: An Inquiry Into Divine Materiality In The Christian Middle Ages

Recent Approaches to Christian Images

The Eucharist as Divine Materiality: The Relics of Johannes Bremer

Dissimilitude and Divine Materiality

Christian Materiality in Comparative Perspective

IV. The Presence Of Objects: Medieval Anti-Judaism In Modern Germany

The Commemoration of Objects: Sternberg, Iphofen, Deggendorf, and Poznari

The Judensau

The Heiligengrabe Panel Paintings and the Jewish Museum in Berlin

The Medieval Background

Objects and Images Today

V. Avoiding The Tyranny Of Morphology: Or, Why Compare?

Scholarly Treatments of Comparison

A Comparison of Goddess Processions

The Problem of Pseudomorphism: When Are Shapes Really Alike?

A Better Question: Where Is Presence?

VI. Footprints: The Xenophilia Of A Medievalist

Comparative Footprints

Christ's Footprints on the Mount of Olives: A Brief History

Iconic and Aniconic Representations of Christ's Footprints

The Iconography of the Footprint and the Gap

Conclusion: The Footprint as a Model of What and How We Study.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Bynum, Caroline Walker. Dissimilar similitudes.

ISBN:

9781942130376

1942130376

1942130384

9781942130383

OCLC:

1154073770

Publisher Number:

99986845629