Virginia C. Raguin                                                                                                                                          Fenwick 443

REQUIRED READINGS AND RESOURCES.
Michael Camille, Gothic Art, Glorious Visions.
Robert Calkins, Monuments of Medieval Art
Website Mapping Margery Kempe ©, a project of Sarah Stanbury and Virginia Raguin, technical implementation Robert Henry and Mark Benotti. Supported by grants from the Hewlett Mellon Fund of the College of the Holy Cross and a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities
Other Websites listed throughout syllabus (Structures of Faith) and additional readings on reserve or as handouts
There is at least one required lecture.  Others, or films, may be required.  These may have to be scheduled outside of class time.  They are considered an essential part of the course.

THE BACKGROUND: MEDIEVAL STRUCTURES

August 28  Introduction:  The character of the Middle Ages. Ideas of sanctity and self and the means of achieving them.  In a predominantly oral society the visual image and ritual involving the image takes on primary political and social importance.  Art (a term unknown in the Middle Ages), is pervasive in practical life and a standard aspect of religious or social expression.
Intranet Website: Relics and the Idea of Power in Both the Secular and Religious Realms .

August 30  Analysis of poem, The Dream of the Rood.  Relics and precious objects  Calkins 114-132.

Sept. 4  Monasticism, Carolingian origins and resurgence during the eleventh century.  The great pilgrimage routes of the twelfth century.  Calkins, 58-64, 79-89.
Website:  Pilgrimages and Hospices (The pilgrimage roads through France to Santiago de Compostela)
Website:  Pilgrimages and Relics (St. Philibert de Grandlieu, church of the 9-11th centuries)

Sept. 6  Pilgrimage sites, Canterbury and others.
Website:  Mapping Margery Kempe © Pilgrimage section: Holy Sepulchre
Website: Christ Church Canterbury and G. H. Cook, Portrait of Canterbury, Slide Library

Sept. 11 The Ruling Classes: buildings and theirs division sand use.  The choir of Naumburg cathedral (1240-50s).  The importance of liturgical objects at Saint-Denis (1140s)
Website:  Naumburg cathedral
Website:  Abbey of Saint-Denis

Sept. 13  Discussion of issues

Sept. 18  SHORT PAPERS: descriptions of the experience of the Medieval Objects: Student presentations. (see assignment below)

 VISIONS OF SPACE

Sept. 20  Medieval Architecture  how to analyze it.  Analysis of the floor plan, elevation, and cross sections.  Structure of wall and ceiling: the barrel vault, ribbed vault, and timber roof.  Moissac, Conques, Laon, Chartres, Reims.

Sept. 25  Romanesque, Gothic, and - late Gothic
A sequence of styles, generally fitting into time periods.  Romanesque 1050-1200
Gothic 1150-1250  Late Gothic 1250-1500.  In England, the terms are Norman (Romanesque) Early English (Gothic)  Decorated and Perpendicular (Late Gothic)  See especially for England Ely Cathedral. Website:  Mapping Margery Kempe ©

Sept 27 Architecture continued.

Oct. 2 Parish church and town life
Website:  Mapping Margery Kempe © esp. Parish and Cathedral
Student presetnations of the web site.

Oct. 4 Analysis of two-dimensional space: wall painting, manuscript, stained glass

COLUMBUS DAY BREAK  OCTOBER  7-10

Oct. 11  Discussion/review

Oct. 16  MID TERM EXAM  Take home essays: in class comparisons and identification.

VISIONS OF TIME

October 18 Chartres Cathedral: West portal: God Before Time, During Time and Beyond Time via Website: Chartres West portal  and South and North portals.  See also Jeffrey Howe, Visual Arts, Boston College, Chartres Cathedral  and Tour of the Cathedral of Chartres by Alison Stones, University of Pittsburgh.

Oct. 23  Typology: the development of themes via a contrast of Old Testament antecedents and New Testament events.  Canterbury Cathedral, Typological Window; Chartres, South Rose and lancets; Sens, Good Samaritan Window. Calkins 167-174. Books:  Biblia Pauperum, The Annunciation, after Avril Henry, Biblia Pauperum (Ithaca, 1987) facsimile edition of printed book  of c. 1450.  The annunciation is flanked two Old Testament images, Eve and the sepent and Gideon and the dew on the fleece (the earth remained dry which was seen as an allusion of the Virgin birth). The figures at the top an bottom are prophets holding their scrolls.

Oct. 25   Discussion about stained glass and student project: Designing your own stained glass window.  Written Paper explaining the theme plus diagram of placement of images in window

October 30 Stained Glass Designs: Student Presentations

Nov. 1 Stained Glass Designs: Student Presentations

Nov. 6 Stained Glass Designs: Student Presentations

VISIONS OF GOD AND THE LAST DAYS

Nov. 8 Early Medieval- Dream of the Rood, Christ victorious and liberating to vision of St. Francis, Christ suffering and intimate.  See stained glass cycle at Erfurt, c 1245.

Nov. 13 Tomb monuments: Devotional images and donor portraiture
Website:  Mapping Margery Kempe © under East Anglia database
Dennington  Tomb of Lord Bardolph, one of the heroes of the battle of Agincourt and his wife, Joan, erected about 1450. Lord Bardolph, dressed in full armor, is distinguished by the IHS (monogram of the name of Jesus) on his forehead, and the Order of the garter on his calf
Long Melford: church reconstructed by John Clopton, wealthy merchant
St Mary’s of Bury St Edmunds: John Baret, wealthy merchant gives roof and has his tomb constructed during his lifetime.

Nov. 15 Website:  Mapping Margery Kempe © (York) Poem and window The Pricke of Conscience is a poem on the Last Days by Richard Rolle, c. 1340.  In the early 15th century copies of the poem were known to have been in the possession of donors of windows to the All Saints North Street, York.  See Pricke of Conscience and Works of Mercy windows dated c. 1410

Nov. 20 Sculpture, painting, manuscripts, stained glass on the second coming and the need to prepare for the end of the world.  Class participation.

THANKSGIVING BREAK November 21-25

Nov. 27. Discussion/ Review

Nov. 29  Discussion/Review
 

FINAL PAPER/PROJECT/TAKE HOME EXAM due the Monday of exam week, December 10.
 

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Virginia C. Raguin                                                                                                                          Fenwick 443

You should work with a partner.

Considering the lectures in the course so far, select any work of art found in any of your texts, my Web pages.  Read again The Dream of the Rood . You may use other works of art or architecture, but check with me first.  You will need to define two things.

1. What appeals to you about this object?  I mean, be yourself, resident of Leominster Massachusetts (I hope I haven't insulted anyone) 20 years old, straight from summer work painting houses, history major at Holy Cross, occasionally interested in a museum visit with a friend, tuning in to David Letterman, etc. etc.  What does your object have that draws you to it?  Actually you could decide that you don't like something and you want to explain why you, the modern person would not accept, wear, enter, or live with this.

2. Adopt a persona from the Middle Ages.  Be a bishop, king, artisan, courtier, abbess, merchant, pope, peasant, etc. etc.,. [This your chance! Live your fantasy and perhaps even dare to cross the gender barrier!]  From the perspective of your medieval persona, what do you now like about your object?  That is, how do you value it?

Are there differences of social, economic, and religious ideas that influence the reactions of your two personas?  You are supposed to think about the lectures and reading so far (or any previous information you have acquired) to do this assignment.  The more your papers reveal the context of the times (in critical terms, the hermeneutics), the better they will be.  Your joint paper should be about 5-6 pages long.  You should have citations from the sources you used.  Just list them in standard bibliographic form at the end of the paper.  If you are quoting in the paper use last name and page number in parentheses.

Meet before class with other students (we’ll try to make groups).  Designate two papers from each group to be read.   Two students, not the writers, will read the designated papers in class, so PRACTICE YOUR READING SO THAT YOU WILL BE PREPARED.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THREE ONE PAGE VISUAL ANALYSES:

Peter Brieger explained the strong reliance on design in medieval art by observing that:
the geometric order establishing sequences and relations was the natural and logical as well as the aesthetically appropriate one to be used by artists, who were taught to visualize human and divine relations in terms of eternal validity, satisfying reason and faith and independent of change in time and space. English Art 1216-1307: The Oxford History of English Art, Oxford, 1957, p. 95.

1. Biblia Pauperum, The Annunciation, after Avril Henry, Biblia Pauperum (Ithaca, 1987) facsimile edition of manuscript of c. 1450.  The annunciation is flanked two Old Testament images, Eve and the sepent and Gideon and the dew on the fleece (the earth remained dry which was seen as an allusion of the Virgin birth). The figures at the top an bottom are prophets holding their scrolls.

2. Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry,  Christ as Man of Sorrows adored by Charles I, Duke of Savoy, and Blanche of Monferrat, Duchess of Savoy. Painted not by the Limbourg brothers, but Jean Colombe, who finished the manuscript for the Duke and Duchess of Savoy (close to Switzerland) between 1485 and 1490.

3. Lambeth Bible: Top: Abraham Greeting Three Angels, Below, Jacob’s Dream of the Ladder,  Abraham about to Sacrifice Isaac, Abraham and Jacob, mid 12th century, England ,  detail, Abraham
 

TWO ESSAYS: Minimum length two pages

1. Contrast two sites showing the “End of Time”
See Chartres west façade sculpture and the “Prick of Conscience” window c. 1410 All Saints North Street, York.  Address the major differences in audience and setting, as well as the structure, materials, and impact of the works.  Think about the 12th century ecclesiastics who put together the sculptural program and the patrons of the parish church in York.

2. Select Your Favorite
Look back over the assignments, lectures, and readings this year.  What made the strongest impression on you (you may have a tie for first place here).  Explain what it is that caused you to respond this way.  This is not a trick question - but it probably will entail your explaining your own situation to define why something seems important to you.
 
 

BELOW IS NOT FOR FALL 2000

FINAL ASSIGNMENTS IN VISUAL ANALYSIS (fall 1999)
Reference for Question 1:   Passion Sarcophagus off campus Website - with good details
Sarcophagus with Scenes from the Passion of Christ (on campus image)
                            (probably from the Catacomb of Domitilla).
                              ca. mid-4th century A.D.

Reference for Question 2: Yale University Library Websearch Form search for Rothschild Canticles