Images and Objects in Ritual Practices in Medieval and Early Modern Northern and Central Europe

Images and Objects in Ritual Practices in Medieval and Early Modern Northern and Central Europe
ISBN-10
1443864285
ISBN-13
9781443864282
Category
Art
Pages
340
Language
English
Published
2014-07-18
Publisher
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Authors
Anu Mänd, Krista Kodres

Description

This multidisciplinary collection of essays explores the functions, meanings and use of images and objects in various late Medieval and Early Modern social practices, which were linked by their ritual character. The book approaches ‘ritual’ as an action which is discussed under the general umbrella term “performative practice”, and is characterised by a synthesis between the repetitive and the extraordinary that carries an intense symbolic meaning and is emotionally charged. Images, spaces and rituals were closely interconnected in both the religious and the secular spheres, and played a relevant role in the symbolic communication of the time. The essays in this volume are devoted to a complex study of these phenomena in Northern and Central Europe, including regions which, due to linguistic or cultural barriers, have thus far received comparatively little attention in Anglo-American scholarship, including Scandinavia, Poland and the Baltic states.

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