Weaving Memories in Medieval Cathedrals
Artistic Narratives in Global History
Edited by Gerardo Boto Varela Edited by Marta Serrano Coll
Hardback (Published)
(January 2026)
ISBN: 9782503617695
8.5 x 11 inches
Price: $188.00
In stock
This volume examines a network of eleven medieval European cathedrals, created between the fourth and fifteenth centuries, from the North Sea to Andalusia, to reveal the specific ways in which institutional and civic memories were interwoven in each of these ecclesiastical sees.
This volume examines a network of medieval European cathedrals, from the North Sea to Andalusia, to reveal the specific ways in which institutional and civic memories were interwoven in each of these ecclesiastical sees. These pages analyze the plurality of the European landscape through eleven cathedrals, created between the fourth and fifteenth centuries across the European geographical and cultural breadth. The architectural features of each cathedral are the result of a complex process of morphogenesis that is constantly defined by the local conditions of space, building material, etc. For these reasons, each author reveals in the respective case study how the ritual spaces and the cultic and commemorative devices that legitimized their relationship with the past, the particular devotions, the diachronic and synchronic crossroads and their relationships with the secular and religious elites were generated, modified and organized.
Crucial to this integrative process was the movement of patrons and master builders, as well as their ability to adopt new approaches and integrate them into established patterns. The cathedrals studied in this volume were highly innovative centers that exported successful models. In some cases, their proposals were formulated on the substratum of Roman antiquity, often reinterpreted. Furthermore, special attention is given to the memorial competencies of devices and liturgical furnishings, that constituted a large part of the visual and mnemonic experience inside their ceremonial spaces.
Through the study of the selected cathedrals it is revealed that each and every one of them sought to affirm two complementary realities: what role each one aspired to play in the history of Universal Salvation and, at the same time, how to articulate the spaces of the monument to give place and temporality to the memory itself, extolling the most relevant powerful personalities in the framework of the lay community. Thus, the volume offers a panoramic view of the specificities, but also of the analogies generated by artistic intersections and homologous statements.
Introduction: Negotiating Institutional Pasts in European Cathedrals
Gerardo Boto Varela and Marta Serrano Coll
Medieval Cathedrals As Reliquaries Of Memorial Narratives
I Imperial Patronage and Shaped Memories
The Cathedral of Rome in Context: Sacred Spaces, Rituals, and Patrons (Fifth–Fourteenth Centuries)
Manuela Gianandrea and Eleonora Tosti
Cathedral Saint Mauritius and Saint Katharina, Magdeburg
Matthias Untermann
II International Architectures for Secular and Ecclesiastical Hegemonies
1099–1106: The Foundation of Modena Cathedral as a Mirror of the Transition Between Seigneurial Power and Civic Self-Consciousness
Saverio Lomartire
Poitiers, the Cathedral Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul
Claude Andrault-Schmitt
The Dispute over the Tradition of an Episcopal Church and the Art of the Naumburg Master
Holger Kunde
The Cathedral of Saint Vitus, Wenceslas, Adalbert, and the Virgin Mary in Prague in the Romanesque Period
Jana Maříková-Kubková
Notre-Dame de Lausanne: Socio-Spatial Organisation at the Origins of the Cathedral (Thirteenth–Sixteenth Centuries)
Kérim Berclaz
III Hosting and Proclaiming Cults
“North to Saint Olav”—A Saint and his Cathedral on the Edge of the Christian World
Øystein Ekroll
Canterbury Cathedral and its Holy Archbishops: Weaving Memories Between Continuity and Innovation
Ute Engel
IV Negotiating the Past in Palimpsestic Cities on the Edges of Latinity
The Hard Task of Surrogating Jerusalem: Famagusta Cathedral in Medieval Experience and Modern Scholarship
Michele Bacci
The (In)visible Cathedral: The Major Church of Santa María in Seville from 1248 to 1411
Teresa Laguna Paúl
Index of Names
Index of Places
- Edited by Gerardo Boto Varela
- Edited by Marta Serrano Coll
Other Titles in this Series
Naples as Laboratory / Laboratorium Neapel
Style Options, Artistic Rivalry and Self Fashioning in Neapolitan Baroque Painting / Plurale Stilbildung, Kunstlerkonkurrenz und Self Fashioning in der neapolitanischen Barockmalerei
A Collaborative Tapestry in Honour of Shirley Ann Brown / Une fresque brodée en l’honneur de Shirley Ann Brown
The Bayeux Tapestry Seen by her Colleagues and Friends / La Tapisserie de Bayeux vue par ses collègues et amis
Similar Books
‘For You I Study, For You I Work, For You I Live, For You I Am Ready To Even Give My Life’
Essays in Honour of Francis (Frank) J Moloney, SDB
A Late Antique Harrowing of Hell and Its Medieval Reception
Eusebius of Alexandria's Sermons 15 and 17 (CPG 5524; 5526) and their Latin Rewritings
Volume 99
Ars Prophetica
Theology in the Poetry of Twentieth-Century Hebrew Poets Avraham Halfi, Shin Shalom, Amir Gilboa, and T. Carmi
Behind the Scenes of Medieval Roofs
An Overview of the Roofing Systems of Italian Churches
Volume 90
Circulation, Use, Impact
The Consumption of Architectural Books in the Early Modern Eastern Adriatic
Volume 1
Drunk the Potion, No Whit Charmed
The Doctrine of Pure and Perfect Souls from Iamblichus to Damascius
Extracanonical Traditions and the Holy Land
Texts, Rituals, and Material Culture in Late Antique Palestine
Fear, Fear of God, God-Fearers
Philological and Historical Perspectives on the World of Ancient Judaism and Christianity
Late Antique villae in the Balkans (3rd–7th c. AD): Current Research Questions and Perspectives
HAEMUS Companion to the Late Antique Balkans 1
Volume 4
Legal Visuality
Exegesis, Ambiguity, and Dissimulation of the Donation of Constantine in the Early Modern Period
Liturgia semper reformanda
Adaptations and accommodations in the liturgy in light of canon 838 of the Code of Canon Law
Pre-Christian Religions, Rituals, and Beliefs in Central and Northern Europe
Interdisciplinary Investigations
Volume 5
