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Recommended: Medieval Period
Everyone needs something to hold onto to keep them going in rough times. The Medieval times were the one of the most gruesome and bloodiest times in all of history. There were no great achievements such as scientific discoveries, the come up of great leaders, or any fantastic art produced. Hence the name, “the Dark Age”. All there was in this time was disease and death, which people were very desperate to move passed. Thus, people turned to medieval pilgrimage. This was a complete devotion to God and Jesus by making long journeys to sacred places. It was a spiritual travel to find redemption from all the bloodshed in the medieval times. People believed they were innately evil and born from sin, so they looked for salvation and redemption …show more content…
by finding all the things that correlated with God’s purity and Jesus’ sacrifice. In this journal, a pilgrim recounts the spiritual journey he went on and his experiences with medieval Christian art. The year is 1377 and I have been exploring the town of Florence. My journey to turn my back on the previous evil ways of my life and find God’s enlightenment officially started one year ago. This is a celebratory day for me as I am marking a positive point in my voyage. But, even though it is a great day, I have been both blessed and cursed by an artist I recently met named Niccolo di Pietro Gerini. He was a rather odd, but gifted man. I respect his devotion to creating admirable paintings because most of them are uplifting pieces of art that remind me of the Holy Spirit. However, one of his paintings brought much sadness to me. To be quite honest, I was almost brought to tears. The painting portrayed the Virgin Mary holding the corpse of her son, Jesus Christ. I could see the despair in her eyes and the absence of light in his body. It resonated with me in a negative way and I related to Mary a little too well. After my four-year old son was stricken with the devils curse, the Black Plague, I was as distraught and miserable as she was. Although his death was not at the hands of another persons, I still felt the same pain that she felt. But shouldn’t the sight of this picture bring me slight hope? I believe I should feel some sort of praise instead of sadness for Jesus Christ because his death freed us of our sins. His death saved us and I should feel thankful when I saw this painting. Even so, I only felt lonesome when I saw it. Thus, I am going to continue my journey until when I think of this painting once more, I feel happiness. God will save me, I just know it. It’s been a decade since my last time in Florence and I have decided to return. But the pilgrim who went to Florence in ’77 is a lot different than the pilgrim who is here in ’87. I have spent most of my time in Italy, learning about God’s divinity in places such as Rome, Luca, and Venice. I feel like a different person because of this studying. I have a new outlook on life and a purpose. Since I am in Florence, I thought it would be nice to see if Niccolo di Pietro Gerini has still been creating masterpieces. It seems that we have been able to become good friends due to the fact I am a brighter man now. He showed me his most recent painting that he has the most pride in. It is truly better than his previous ones. In the panel, there are the famous Four Crowned Martyrs. These were architects that refused to create pagan sculptures for the Roman Emperor because he was an evil man and the architects were standing up to him. For their insubordinance, Lampadius, ordered them to be whipped, beaten and tortured. However, Jesus Christ recognized their sacrifices for their beliefs and came down from heaven to comfort the Martyrs in their time of suffering. On the other hand, there is Lampadius who is being portrayed as similar to Satin because he is wearing red cloaks with black collars. He is being strangled by small, demon-like creatures for committing these mortal sins. Everyone in the picture is getting what they deserve. Not only did Niccolo’s other painting resonate with me, but this one did as well. Except, this is less of a personal endeavor and more of an external dilemma. When I see that Jesus was comforting those who had faith, I started to wonder what it would have been like for those who were beaten and tortured during the past dark times, but didn’t have the same faith as the Martyrs. Would they have been able to been saved by Jesus? Would things have been more peaceful if we had that faith? So many opportunities missed to capitalize on the love that was extended to us. Nevertheless, I have moved on from my past and am looking towards the future, so it was nice to see how much faith in God impacted those four brave men’s lives. This will be my last entry.
The year is 1461 and I am on my deathbed. My body is a relic and I can barely walk. Thus, my journey has come to and end. Surpassing the average life span has finally caught up to me. However, this doesn’t mean God isn’t part of my life anymore. In fact, he is the meaning of my life. It only means I cannot continue traveling around Italy and meeting people and seeing all that God has brought in his divinity. Since I cannot travel anymore, I have been reflecting on everything I have seen, heard, and experienced. Today, I thought of where I want to be buried after my passing. I always thought I would want to be buried next to my son and I could spend my afterlife with him, making up for lost time. But I know that God will let me be with him because I have put everything I have into his faith. Thus, after much consideration, I have decided that I want to be buried at the hands of this sculpture located in the Netherlands. Niccolo di Pietro Gerini, right before he died a year ago, urged me to visit the sculpture, which had been found with no artist to claim it as his own. Since in my old age, I was not able to make the journey to a country so far away, Niccolo described it in detail for me. It is a fifteen-foot wooden statue of Christ dead on the cross. However, the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist stand right beside him, as the will for the rest of eternity. Under Christ’s arms are angels flying right while playing the instruments of passion. The reason I want to be buried by this sculpture is because I want my son to be with me until the end of time, just as Mary will be with Jesus. Also, I want to hear the same heavenly music coming from the angels that Jesus hears. Only in death, with my proximity to Jesus Christ, will I become one with the Holy Spirit. To whoever reads this journal, please do not make the same mistakes we did. Spend your life following God and everything he has to offer. Only then will you find your peace.
That is how I attained mine.
Deposition, by the artist Rogier van der Weyden, attempts to capture the essence of the grief experienced when Jesus’s died on the cross, and to invoke the emotion in the altarpiece’s viewer, thus drawing him/her into the biblical
Late Medieval Europe was a very different time from what Europe is today. It was a time where social mobility was unthinkable; people lived in fear of their creator, and were always trying to please their creator. In addition, Medieval Europe was an unhealthy and unhygienic state, where sickness and disease was rampant. It was a place where women had little to no rights, and minority groups were frequently falsely accused of many problems that were out of their control. For example, they were blamed for drought, which usually resulted in their unjust persecution because they “angered” God. Overall, Europe was the last place one would want to live unless you were of the nobility. On the other hand, Europe was also a major trading power, engaging
5).” “Finally, the Church influenced politics at that time” (Doc. 3).” “The Church unified Europeans and gave every person a sense of how the world worked (Doc.3).” “Ultimately, political leaders only had local power, the Church was the most powerful institution (Doc.3).” These are just some of the things that we’re going on in the politics of the Middle Ages.
Social studies are usually a subject students find boring. The lesson created is meant to get every student excited and wanting to learn more. This lesson plan is about the Middle Ages or the Medieval Times. This was a time where things were different. People dressed and spoke in a different way. There were lords, ladies, and knights; castles, moats, and fighting. What student could be bored learning about this era?
As I walked into the first gallery, I saw a wood sculpture that stood in the center of the room. This carving depicted “the crucified Christ, flanked by the Virgin Mary and St. John the Evangelist with Angels holding instruments of the Passion”. It was painted oak and very appealing to the eye. It stood approximately 15 feet in the air. The origin of this sculpture is unknown, but it was found in a Belgium church. This kind of sculpture usually stood at the entrance or at the center of the alter in the church facing the congregation. This image of the suffering Christ relates to the Christian ideas of suffering and Christ’s salvation of all mankind.
It's hard to imagine just how frightening life was in the Middle Ages during the Black Death. By the time the disease ran its course, it had killed a minimum of about one third of the population in Europe and there’s a good possibility that it had killed even more. It is quiet an understatement to say that the plague was very brutal. There were hundreds upon thousands of people dying each day. In rankings of how bad the Black Plague actually was, it is number one and has gone down to be the worst plague to every hit anywhere in all of the world. It caused several catastrophes over the time that it went on. Many other than just the three most crucial; population loss, loss in the church overall and economic disruption.
Imagine having to bury your own children. How awful would that be? The Middle Ages were a brutal time that included the bubonic plague, many wars and other horrible things. This period is considered to be one of religion and the Catholic Church, but this was overshadowed by chaos and confusion. Although the Middle Ages is often known as the age of faith, a more appropriate title for the time period would be The Dark Ages because of the black death, wars and the collapse of government.
These twin bronze pulpits, covered with reliefs showing the passion of Christ, are works of tremendous spiritual depth and complexity. Even though some parts were left unfinished, they had to be completed by lesser artists. Bibliography:.. 1. What is the difference between a. 1998 Microsoft Encarta. Copyright 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation.
WAS THE TIME PERIOD BETWEEN 400 AD AND 1400 AD A “DARK AGE” FOR EUROPE?
Norman Davies, a leading English historian, wrote, “There is an air of immobility about many descriptions of the medieval world” (Davies 291). However, these descriptions he refers to do not capture the true essence of the Middle Ages of Europe, which were a continuation and a formation. They were a continuation of old Rome in race, language, institutions, law, literature, arts, and in cultures independent of Rome. Nevertheless, the Middle Ages were not merely a continuation; they were the formation of our world. Many modern-day historians argue that the so-called Dark Ages were a period of ascent rather than of descent, that with the withering of the pagan classic civilization came the first budding of a new culture that was to develop into our modern civilization. James M. Powell, a prominent historian, agreed with this argument concerning the untold progress of this age. Powell believed that the Medieval Ages was a multi-faceted period of time in which the roots of modern civilization began to emerge, and that it was. This time period was critical because, although it seemed to be a dark age, seeds were being planted for future generations such as ours. These seeds have sprouted and have given us templates to work with regarding issues of centralization, the economy, scholasticism, education, expressions of art, and religion.
In the year 476 A.D., Rome officially fell as the greatest and most thriving empire at the time. The time period following this downfall was called the Middle Ages, more infamously recalled as the Dark Ages; but were these years truly as dark as historians say? These medieval times lasted for approximately one thousand years, could such a long time period have been all that dreadful? The answer will soon become clear. The Middle Ages deserved to have the alias of the Dark Ages because there were several severe illnesses, the monarchs were cruel, and the crusades brought the death of many.
The time period between 400 CE and 1400 CE was not a Dark Age for Europe because there was still laws and education that kept areas in Europe alive and moving forward. The Dark Age was a historical period in time when culture and economy levels decreased. This occurred after the fall of the Roman Empire. One factor that prevented the Dark Age in Europe was that there was still education during this time period. A monk, Richter, in Journey to Chartres, 10th Century, said, “While engaged in the study of the liberal arts, I wanted very much to logic through the works of Hippocrates (an ancient philosopher)” (Doc. E). Even in this time period of negativity, there were people who still wanted to be educated. This quote proves that there was still
The Lamentation, or Pietà, is a common Christian narrative that depicts Jesus Christ’s family mourning over his body after he has been crucified. Many artists choose to interpret it and paint it in their own way, which is why I decided to use it for this paper. The Pietà, I found, is more of a detailed version of the Lamentation that is mainly only Mary mourning over her son. In general, the Lamentation includes Mary and other religious figures—“full” Lamentations include The Three Marys, John the Apostle, Joseph, and various other people such as angels and donor portraits. As time went on, some scenes became continuous narratives, showing other subjects adjacent to the Lamentation in the Passion of Christ. Meanwhile, others expanded in terms of their scenery and other specific details.
Passus VIII of William Langland's Piers Plowman presents a search--which becomes a journey within the journey of the entire text. Here the narrator, Will, describes an inner pilgrimage--one that takes its shape in a religious context, but plays itself out through everyday life and the notion of self. The medieval traditional notion of pilgrimage involves the physical journey to a religious shrine as a means of obtaining, through journey and arrival, a revelation of religious and sacred integrity. The connotations of pilgrimage, however, stretch far beyond the actual physical act--a pilgrimage is "the physical symbol of [an] eternal goal" (Davidson and Dunn-Wood 13). The expanse of pilgrimage in medieval terms also envelops the understanding that "within or alongside this spiritual journey...was an intellectual journey as well, a quest against error and folly for truth and wisdom, which ultimately amounted to the knowledge of God" (Bowman 5). But pilgrimage goes even beyond that, in that it requires an absolute journey into the self with the goal of discovering that which gives the individual a context in which to exist.
As a result of the pilgrimages, Christians near and far too developed the desire to see such artistic pieces and shrines. To favor this desire, many monasteries began to build new churches. However,