Secret Middle Ages (eBook)

Discovering the Real Medieval World

Malcolm Jones, Marina Warner (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
562 Seiten
The History Press (Verlag)
9781803999012 (ISBN)

Infos

The Middle Ages are known as a god-fearing time, a time of hard work and of squalid living conditions for the majority of the population - or as a time of opulence that graced only the courts and halls of the reigning monarch. In The Secret Middle Ages, Malcolm Jones presents a completely fresh view of the medieval world that will blow all stereotypes out of the water. Using a wealth of little-known and recently discovered artefacts, and drawing particularly on humbler artworks, Jones paints a compelling picture of the visual environment of the great mass of ordinary people between 1200 and 1550. The picture that emerges is of a civilisation that is both like and unlike our own - one that teems with the richness of life and its contradictions. We find beliefs and traditions rendered memorable by the vivid, creative imagination and strong visual culture of the Middle Ages. Love, hatred, crime and punishment, proverbs, heaven on earth, husband-beating - all feature in the jewellery, tableware, illustrations, carvings and textiles of the period. A major reassessment of the high medieval period, this revised and updated edition of The Secret Middle Ages is essential reading for anyone curious about their ancestors. As Jones writes, gems and precious metals may dazzle the eye, but a pewter brooch - tawdry as it may appear - has the power to reveal far more of the real medieval world.

MALCOLM JONES is a leading authority on medieval folklore and folk customs, appearing on national and local radio. He is lecturer in folklore and folklife studies at the University of Sheffield and has also worked in the Department of Medieval Antiquities at the British Museum, as curator of the Wiltshire Folklife Museum at Avebury and as a lexicographer for Longman and Oxford Dictionaries. He is a contributor to The Encyclopedia of Medieval Folklore and has written and lectured widely on medieval art and folklife.

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The Secret Middle Ages is a controversial and completely fresh view of the medieval world through its rare and amazing artefacts. Using the wealth of medieval art, much of it unseen or ignored by museums and art historians, Malcolm Jones paints a compelling picture of the visual environment of the great mass of ordinary people between 1200 and 1500. The picture that emerges is of a civilisation that is both like and unlike our own, one that teems with the richness of life and its contradictions. Unlike most studies of the medieval world, it does not concern itself greatly with religious or aristocratic art but with the products of popular and folk art. Here we find beliefs and traditions rendered memorable by the vivid creative imagination and strong visual culture of the middle ages. Love, hatred, crime and punishment, proverbs, heaven on earth, husband-beating - all feature in the jewellery, tableware, illustrations, carvings and textiles of the period.This book offers a major reassessment of the high medieval period and as such is not only important to specialist, but has much appeal to the general reader. It is essential reading for medievalists and those interested in the history of language and customs. It provides a brilliant and evocative picture of medieval Europe where people spent their time wearing their hearts on their sleeves, snapping sausages and getting bees in their bonnets. As Malcolm Jones writes, gems and precious metals may dazzle the eye, but a pewter brooch, though it may look tawdry, may be of more significance and can tell us more about the middle ages than a cofferful of royal jewels.

Textauszug

List of Illustrations

Figures and Ornaments

Ornament to half-title and pages v, vi, xiv, xxii, xxv, 295, 300, 366: bronze roundel with enamelled inscription, hyt nys nout as men wenet, English, ?15thC. (Present whereabouts unknown: photograph © The British Museum)

Ornament to Chapter 1: elderly man in bath with young woman fool: lead lid, ?Dutch, 15thC. (Photograph courtesy of Brian Spencer)

1.1     Lovers (woman naked) beside fountain: cast of biscuit-mould, German, first half 15thC. (© Städtisches Museum in Andreasstift, Worms)

1.2     Lovers (woman naked) seated on bed playing instruments: cast of biscuit-mould, German, first half 15thC. (Museum Wiesbaden)

1.3     Man threshes chicks out of eggs: misericord, Emmerich, late 15thC. (Photograph courtesy of Elaine Block)

1.4     All ride the ass: woodcut, German, early 16thC. (Bodleian Library, Oxford, Douce Prints W.2.2b (25). Photograph from E. Diederichs, Deutsches Leben der Vergangenheit, Abb. 666, Jena, 1908)

1.5     Fox/wolf preaches to sheep: stained and painted glass, English mid-15thC. (© Burrell Collection, Glasgow)

1.6     Dildo-pedlar (and dog running off with one): cast of biscuit-mould, German, first half 15thC. (© MAK Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna)

Ornament to Chapter 2: four-leaf clover inscribed ‘t’: lead badge, English 14th/15thC. (Photograph courtesy of Brian Spencer)

2.1     Christ-child caressing parrot with New Year’s greeting: woodcut-sheet, German, mid-15thC. (© Staatlichen Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin)

2.2     St Gertrude and mice: woodcut-sheet, German, mid-15thC. (© Staatlichen Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin)

2.3     Quatrefoil replaces head of God the Father: manuscript miniature, English, early 13thC. (By permission of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge. Ref: Trinity College Library, MS B.11.4, f. 119r)

2.4     St Werburgh’s geese in pen: misericord supporter, Chester Cathedral, late 14thC. (© University of Manchester: photograph courtesy of Christa Grössinger)

2.5     Edward III as a boy and Queen Isabella: lead badge inscribed Mothere, English, c. 1330. (© The British Museum)

2.6     Manuscript map of the Isle of Thanet, showing detail of the deer and the cursus cerve, English, c. 1410. (Ref: MS 1, Trinity Hall, Cambridge)

2.7     Birds help St Alto build his cell: woodcut-sheet, German, c. 1500. (© National Gallery of Art, Washington)

2.8     Phallus, flanked by women, surmounts breeches: lead badge, Dutch, first half 15thC. (© Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam: Stichting Middeleeuwse*)

2.9     Sinte Aelwaer: woodcut-sheet (detail), Cornelis Anthonisz, Amsterdam, c. 1520. (© Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

Ornament to Chapter 3: Cat with mouse, inscribed gret wel gibbe oure cat: drawing of seal-impression. (Reproduced with permission of the Society of Antiquaries from Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries N.S. 12 (1888), p. 97)

3.1     The king of the Garamantes rescued by his dogs: manuscript miniature (detail), English, 1220s/1230s. (© The British Library. Ref: BL, Royal MS 12. F. XIII, f. 30v)

3.2     Mattathias beheads the idolatrous cat-worshiper: manuscript miniature (detail), Winchester Bible, f. 350v, English, late 12thC. (Photograph © Winchester Cathedral)

3.3     Four proverbs enacted before King David: engraved sheet, Van Meckenem, c. 1495. (© The British Museum)

3.4     Turning the cat in the pan: pen-and-ink marginal drawing, Muschamp Moot Book, English, early 15thC. (© The British Library. Ref: BL, Harl. MS 1807, f. 309)

3.5     Misericord: rat-porteur/rapporteur, Vendôme, late 15thC. (Photograph courtesy of Elaine Block)

3.6     Animals in roundels: engraved sheet (detail), Florence, c. 1460. (© The British Museum)

3.7     Emblematic catechism: woodcut-sheet, Tegernsee, late 15thC. (© Bibliothèque nationale, Paris)

3.8       Bronze tap with handle in the form of a cockerel, English 15thC. (Private collection: photograph courtesy of Brian Spencer)

3.9       Sex organs in intercourse: seal-impression from matrix found at Wicklewood, inscribed IAS: TIDBAVLCOC, English, c. 1300. (Drawing by Steven Ashley of Norfolk Landscape Archaeology)

3.10   amulet in the form of the valves of a mussel, one inscribed with vulva symbol, Dutch, 1375x1425. (© Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam: Stichting Middeleeuwse*)

3.11   Young woman and fox: pen-and-ink drawing, South German, c. 1530. (© Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnberg)

3.12   Wife beats yarn-winding husband with foxtail: brass dish, German, late 15thC. (© Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

3.13   Gold finger-ring, engraved with woman leading squirrel and a figura grammatica inscription, English, 15thC. (© The British Museum)

3.14   Flock in sheep-fold with bell-wether: manuscript miniature, Luttrell Psalter, English, c. 1330x40 (© The British Library. Ref: BL, Add. MS 42130, f. 163v)

Ornament to Chapter 4: devil as fashionably-dressed woman: manuscript miniature, Winchester Psalter, English mid-12thC.

4.1     Head-on-legs monster (blemya): misericord supporter, Ripon, late 15thC. (Photograph: author’s collection)

4.2     Wild Men and dragons: misericord, St Mary’s, Beverley, mid-15thC. (Photograph: author’s collection)

4.3     Tailed king hawking: manuscript miniature, Picardy, late 13thC. (© Yale University. Ref: MS 229, f. 363r)

4.4     Bridegroom with cuckold’s horns: manuscript miniature, Decretals, French, c. 1300. (© Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. Ref: BN MS lat. 3898, f. 297)

4.5     Master and schoolboys, dunce wears ass’s head: woodcut, Spiegel des menschlichen Lebens, Augsburg, 1470s. (© Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich)

4.6     Clerical wolves devour sheep: title-page woodcut, Wie man die falschen prophete, Wittenberg, 1536. (© Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich)

4.7     Wineskin-monks sing in praise of vino puro: misericord, Ciudad Rodrigo, c. 1500. (Photograph courtesy of Elaine Block)

4.8     Medieval stone sheelagh-na-gig, Llandrindod. (Photograph: author’s collection)

4.9     Picture of Nobody: title-page woodcut, Sermo pauperis Henrici de sancto Nemine, German, c. 1510. (© Staats- und Stadtbibliothek, Augsburg,)

Ornament to Chapter 5: gagged scold’s head: misericord, Stratford-on-Avon, 15thC. (Photograph: author’s collection)

5.1     Nemo with bird nesting on head swats fly-swarm: title-page woodcut (detail), Leipzig, 1518. (© The British Library)

5.2     Allegory of penitence with fly-swarm: manuscript leaf, Lambeth Apocalypse. (© Lambeth Palace Library, London. Ref: MS 209, f. 53.)

5.3     Carvers quarrelling, one thumbs nose at his opposite number: misericord. (© University of Manchester: photograph courtesy of Christa Grössinger)

5.4     Debtor’s seal soiled with dung of sow on which man sits backwards, debtors hanged and broken on the wheel: painted manuscript Schandbild. (© Hessisches Staatsarchiv, Marburg)

5.5     Judensau: woodcut-sheet, German, late 15thC. (© Historisches Museum, Frankfurt)

5.6     Punishment of dishonest baker and prostitute: painted initial. (© Bristol City Council. Ref: Bristol City Charter 1347)

5.7     Dishonest ale-wife carried off to hell: misericord, Ludlow, c. 1420. (© University of Manchester: photograph courtesy of Christa Grössinger)

5.8     Old maid leads apes into hell-mouth: misericord, Bristol, 1520. (© University of Manchester: photograph courtesy of Christa...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 3.4.2025
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Kunstgeschichte / Kunststile
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Mittelalter
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Schlagworte: carvings • Civilisation • Crime and Punishment • Customs • Discovering the Real Medieval World • hatred • Heaven • high medieval period • history of language. medieval europe • husband-beating • Illustrations • jewellery • Love • Medieval Art • Medieval artefacts • Medievalists • Medieval World • Middle Ages • pewter brooch • popular folk art • proverbs • Tableware • Textiles • Visual Culture
• ISBN-13: 9781803999012 / 9781803999012