Suchergebnisse

This study investigates the pictorial world of the medieval Vadstena Abbey church. The interior of the church was filled with altars and images that had the three separated groups of viewers in mind: the 60 nuns, the 25 conventual brothers and the numerous pilgrims coming to visit the shrine of Saint Birgitta. The pilgrims faced a pictorial message where the role of saint Birgitta was emphasized, but still one among all the other saints. The images directed to the nuns and the brothers accentuated the role of the Virgin Mary as the exemplarily follower of Christ. Furthermore, all the church interior was furnished to enhance the position of the nuns, i.e. that this monastic foundation was made primarily for women.

"In discussions relating to their role during the Middle Ages, women are typically assumed to only have been "pawns in a political game dominated by men", or to have primarily acted as intermediaries of power. In this book, however, the varying expressions of power are studied by changing the focus from a political and economic exercise of power controlled by men, to an approach based on interaction and communication between the sexes. In this volume, gender is instead interpreted as a total social phenomenon comprising all spheres of medieval society. This approach provides new opportunities to investigate how power operated on different levels within a societal structure. Thus, power is neither seen as emanating from a centre nor as dominated by only one sex. Instead, it is regarded as an all-embracing societal web, woven through threads of mutual dependence between men and women. In this book, scholars belonging to various disciplines, such as history, history of arts and literary history, discuss how cooperation between the sexes found expression in culture, judicial spheres and social organisation. The contributions do not only consider the Nordic countries, but also how gender constructions were affected by, and transformed through, the influence of contemporary cultural, juridical and ideological currents in Europe

During the 1920s and 1930s the wordless novel – stories told in black-and-white wordless woodcuts – was established as a narrative genre. The genre was most popular in Germany, but was as well known in other parts of Europé and in the US. The wordless novel was characterized by the absence of words, the use of woodcut and other relief printing techniques, as well as themes of social critique and serious existential issues.
The purpose of the book is to - through the wordless novels of the 1920s and 30s - explain the uniqueness of the wordless narrative and thus the autonomous narrative possibilities of the image. The method of the examination is a close reading of the German artist Otto Nückel's wordless novel Schicksal (Destiny 1926). A comparative material consists of the Czech artist Helena Bochořáková-Dittrichova's wordless novel Z Mého Dětství (From My Childhood, 1929). Wordlessness is studied through the image's characteristics as an intermediary of messages and narratives and through comparisons with other expressions - the silent film, cirkus, expressionist dance and visual art, as well as medieval woodcuts. Narratives – which are usually put together by verbal communication – are in this project a tool for seeing: the image sequences or the image groups that ""replace"" the words - not as a lack or implied meaning of words, but as a personal visual story.

The oldest unit of land assessment in Sweden is the attung (lat. octonarius). It is first mentioned in written documents from the late 12th century. When, where and why it was introduced has been much discussed. In this study an investigation of documents mentioning the attung until 1376 is presented together with a statistical processing of data from an earlier work (Dovring 1947). The distribution of land assessed in this unit is restricted to the south-eastern part of the medieval Swedish kingdom. According to an evaluation of some records not discussed before in this context the taxation of real estates in attung units dates from the late 11th century. Most probably the original purpose of the taxation was to create an adequate base for the military levy system. Several indications show that the attung originally corresponded to one family's normal holding of land. The usefulness of the attung for other purposes was soon realised. Besides taxes it also became the base for tenant's land rent, tithes to a particular hospital, compensation for plowing of fallow fields but also for the subdivision of common fields on a pro rata basis. The right to an easement could also be connected to the attung. At the same time a subdivision of the attung unit in several fractions was created which facilitated the trading of landed property. A drastic fall in prices on real estates assessed in the attung unit is observable just after the Black Death. The overall conclusion is that the multi functionality of the attung was something that developed gradually in response to socio-legal ideas from the continent as well as progress in domestic agricultural technology, economy and society.

"In discussions relating to their role during the Middle Ages, women are typically assumed to only have been "pawns in a political game dominated by men", or to have primarily acted as intermediaries of power. In this book, however, the varying expressions of power are studied by changing the focus from a political and economic exercise of power controlled by men, to an approach based on interaction and communication between the sexes. In this volume, gender is instead interpreted as a total social phenomenon comprising all spheres of medieval society. This approach provides new opportunities to investigate how power operated on different levels within a societal structure. Thus, power is neither seen as emanating from a centre nor as dominated by only one sex. Instead, it is regarded as an all-embracing societal web, woven through threads of mutual dependence between men and women.

In this book, scholars belonging to various disciplines, such as history, history of arts and literary history, discuss how cooperation between the sexes found expression in culture, judicial spheres and social organisation. The contributions do not only consider the Nordic countries, but also how gender constructions were affected by, and transformed through, the influence of contemporary cultural, juridical and ideological currents in Europe. - Vanliga uppfattningar i diskussioner om kvinnornas roll under medeltiden är att de utgjorde "brickor i männens politiska spel" eller att de i första hand verkade som förmedlare av makt. I denna antologi studeras dock maktens olika uttrycksformer genom att fokus förflyttas från politisk och ekonomisk maktutövning kontrollerad av män till ett interaktionistiskt synsätt baserat på samspelet och kommunikationen mellan könen. Genom att se på genus som ett totalt socialt fenomen omfattande det medeltida samhällets alla sfärer öppnas möjligheter att undersöka hur makten verkade på olika nivåer inom samhällsstrukturen. Makten betraktas därmed varken som utgående från ett centrum eller helt dominerad av ett kön. I boken diskuterar forskare tillhörande olika discipliner såsom historia, konstvetenskap och litteraturvetenskap hur samverkan mellan könen tog sig uttryck inom kulturen, rättssamhället och den sociala organisationen. Bidragen behandlar inte bara Norden utan även hur könskonstruktioner påverkades och förändrades genom inflytande från samtida kulturella, juridiska och ideologiska strömningar i Europa.
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