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The legendary Greek figure Orpheus was said to have possessed magical powers capable of moving all living and inanimate things through the sound of his lyre and voice. Over time, the Orphic theme has come to indicate the power of music to unsettle, subvert, and ultimately bring down oppressive realities in order to liberate the soul and expand human life without limits. The liberating effect of music has been a particularly important theme in twentieth-century African American literature. The nine original essays in Black Orpheus examines the Orphic theme in the fiction of such African American writers as Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, James Baldwin, Nathaniel Mackey, Sherley An...
One of the first studies to consider how church rituals were performed in Anglo-Saxon England. Brings together evidence from written, archaeological, and architectural sources. It will be of particular interest to architectural specialists keen to know more about liturgy, and church historians who would like to learn more about architecture.
The medieval treasure house, consisting of sacristy, vestry and treasure rooms was the depository for the ecclesiastical treasure belonging to a church, holy vessels, vestments, altar hangings, candlesticks and priceless liturgical books and reliquaries. It was carefully designed to convey the message of its status and function. A book devoted to these medieval museums which housed such precious materials is long overdue. Ironically, the interest in the objects that they conserved has often resulted in ecclesiastical treasure being removed to new museums, leaving their former places of protection in need of protection themselves.
The aim of this book is to explore how medieval life was actually lived - how people were born and grew old, how they dressed, how they inhabited their homes, the rituals that gave meaning to their lives and how they prepared for death and the afterlife. Its fresh and original approach uses archaeological evidence to reconstruct the material practices of medieval life, death and the afterlife. Previous historical studies of the medieval "lifecycle" begin with birth and end with death. Here, in contrast, the concept of life course theory is developed for the first time in a detailed archaeological case study. The author argues that medieval Christian understanding of the "life course" commenc...
New essays examining Bohemia as a key European context for understanding Chaucer's poetry. Chaucer never went to Bohemia but Bohemia came to him when, in 1382, King Richard II of England married Anne, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV. Charles's splendid court in Prague was renowned across Europe for its patronage of literature, art and architecture, and Anne and her entourage brought with them some of its glamour and allure - their fashions, extravagance and behaviour provoking comment from English chroniclers. For Chaucer, a poet and diplomat affiliated to Richard's court, Anne was more muse than patron, her influence embedded in a range of his works, including the Parliament ...
England is remarkable for the wealth and variety of its archival heritage – the records created and preserved by institutions, organisations and individuals. This is the first book to treat the history of English records creation and record-keeping from the perspective of the archives themselves. Beginning in the early Middle Ages and ending in modern times, it draws on the author’s extensive knowledge and experience as both archivist and historian, and presents the subject in a very readable and lively way. Some archives, notably those of government and the Established Church, have remarkably continuous histories. But all have suffered over time from periods of neglect and decay, and so...
The definitive work on church archaeology.
This book analyses the positions of external church doorways in England to investigate the significance that positioning had for the function and design of these buildings. The author proposes a link between the design and function of parochial churches and chapels with the number and attributes of their doorways.