À la gloire de Dieu!

Commande et donation pieuses en Bulgarie médiévale, XIIe-XVe siècles

By (author) L. Yordanova

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Extent: 556 pages

Publisher: École française d’Athènes

Subjects: Medieval Studies

Series: Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d'Athènes et de Rome

Series volume number: 408

Language: French

Hardback (Published)

(December 2024)

ISBN: 9782869586239

Price: $82.00

In stock

This book invites us to dive into a meticulous exploration of pious patronage as a complex social phenomenon, revealing its various entanglements, contradictions, and phases of growth and recession over time. The setting is Medieval Bulgaria from the 12th to the 15th century: nestled at the heart of the Balkans, this region knew the alternating rule of three Empires (Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Ottoman) and therefore stands out as a privileged field of study, a perfect vantage point from which the author approaches the dynamic interaction between the influence that pious patronage wielded upon the configuration of public spaces, reflecting its wider impact upon societal dynamics and the role of the church therein, and the new spatial, institutional and social conditions it helped bring about, in a continuous cycle of evolution and adjustment. To the fruition of this endeavour was enlisted a rich collection of sources – often largely unexplored – such as buildings, religious artefacts, manuscripts and documents, assembled by the author as a result of a decade’s worth of field research and detailed analysis. With careful documentation, translation and contextualisation this evidence sheds light not only on the generosity of the elites and the development of the clergy but onto humbler forms of benevolence, thereby broadening our understanding of religious patronage in the Late Middle Ages.

  • By (author) L. Yordanova