The Papacy and Communication in the Central Middle Ages

ISBN 10: 0367684381 / ISBN 13: 9780367684389

Published by Routledge, 2023

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 399908109

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Papacy and Communication in the Central Middle Ages
• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0367684381
• ISBN 13: 9780367684389
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

This volume explores papal communication and its reception in the period c.1100–1300; it presents a range of interdisciplinary approaches and original insights into the construction of papal authority and local perceptions of papal power in the central Middle Ages.

Some of the chapters in this book focus on the visual, ritual and spatial communication that visitors encountered when they met the peripatetic papal curia in Rome or elsewhere, and how this informed their experience of papal self-representation. The essays analyse papal clothing as well as the iconography, architecture and use of space in papal palaces and the titular churches of Rome. Other chapters explore communication over long distances and analyse the role of gifts and texts such as letters, sermons and historical writings in relation to papal communication. Importantly, this book emphasises the plurality of responses to papal communication by engaging with the reception of papal messages by different audiences, both secular and ecclesiastical, and in relation to several geographic regions including England, France, Ireland, Italy and Switzerland.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Medieval History.

About the Author

Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt is Professor (MSO) of Medieval History at Aalborg University, Denmark. Her research focuses on the papacy in the central Middle Ages, particularly papal communication and papal involvement in the crusades.

William Kynan-Wilson is Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Bristol, UK. His research explores the relationship between travel literature and material culture in the medieval and early modern Mediterranean.

Gesine Oppitz-Trotman is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia, UK. Her research examines medieval hagiography, particularly in relation to Thomas Becket.

Emil Lauge Christensen is External Lecturer in History at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Roskilde University, Denmark. His research examines the rituals and reception of papal legates in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Europe.