Apologoes to any who recognise this! I put it in because give recent
contributions it seems to fit a
bit better today.
I tune into the medieval-religion list (and thence my dictionary!)
regularly but freely admit to being no scholar when it comes to the medieval
period, let alone the religious aspect. But doubtless you have already
worked that one
out!
My interests lie in what is loosely termed the 'early modern' and one of the
things we have to accommodate there is that which went before. But if I go
to an
early-modern forum I get Calvin, Luther, Bucer and 'Reformation' in excess.
There seems to be no bridge whereby the more conservative aspects of
religion, the
lineal continuation of medieval religion (in my sphere both islam and roman
catholicism) into the 'early-modern', can be opened to discussion. In many
ways it makes much
'early-modern' discussion very thin beer because we tend to know what new
ideas came in, but not which old ones went out, and (more important?) which
ones stayed.
The problem seems to be that the medieval world actually went somewhere
(all OSBs and SJ's are living proof!) but this isn't much acknowledged.
There is an introspective fixation on its beginnings rather than on its
consequences. I find [log in to unmask] often looks to me
like a hagiography discussion group. Nothing wrong with that if
it's the consensus, and I learn a lot, it's just not what I had originally
expected from the description. I haven't seen much mention made of islamic
saints, for example. Perthaps it's in the nature of all discussion groups
to become
introspective as a discussion is nothing without its active participants.
For me one of the great moments of the last 1000 years was the siege of
Malta in 1565. It represented the point where two expansionist medieval
power blocs, backed up by their medieval religious systems, rubbed noses and
agreed to differ (although close-up it may not have seemed like that to
those unfortunate enough to be on the island at the time, or indeed at
Lepanto some years later! ) . Now I found out recently that there is a full
page picture in BN Lat.Ms.6097 of two Knights Hospitaller visiting the
Grand Turk as ambassadors
before the siege of Rhodes in 1480. It's an amazing picture for what it
represents. Art reflecting life; reality tackling dogma; politics and
religion; representatives of the two major mediterranean medieval religions
actually talking to each other, &c &c. Shouldn't this fall within the scope
of your list?
Yet technically 1480 is outwith your remit and I'm not sure that the
early-modernists would claim it
as their own! Where should I turn?
Tangentially yours,
John A.W. Lock
BN = Bibliotheque Nationale
I think this is where I saw it...
Riley-Smith, J (1999) The History of the Knights Hospitallers
very broad-brush, but the illustrations from the above MS. are excellent...
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