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IMC 2012: Sessions

Session 1633: Terrestrial Authority through Celestial Ties

Thursday 12 July 2012, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
Organiser:Kristine Tanton, Department of Art History, University of Southern California
Moderator/Chair:Julian Hendrix, Department of Classics & History, Carthage College, Wisconsin
Paper 1633-aBounded and Ruled: Ducal Strategies in 8th-Century Bavaria
(Language: English)
Leanne Good, Department of History, University of California, Los Angeles
Index terms: Canon Law, Ecclesiastical History, Geography and Settlement Studies, Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 1633-bInscribing Spiritual Authority: The Temptation of St Benedict Capital in the Narthex at Vézelay
(Language: English)
Kristine Tanton, Department of Art History, University of Southern California
Index terms: Architecture - Religious, Art History - Sculpture, Epigraphy, Monasticism
Paper 1633-cThe Elusive Limits of Byzantine Ecclesiastical Authority: The Monk Paul Tagaris and the Patriarchate of Constantinople
(Language: English)
Natalia Rusnac, Department of History, University of California, Los Angeles
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Canon Law, Ecclesiastical History, Politics and Diplomacy
Abstract

Medieval Christians saw their world as an imitation of the celestial realm. The laws of heaven bound the earthly world, yet those laws were frequently transgressed. Rulers, bishops, and monks claimed the authority to set transgressions aright by virtue of their perceived role as mediators between those realms. The boundaries marking the spatial extent of their authority, however, lacked clear delineation. The papers in this session investigate three cases, from the 8th-century duchy of Bavaria, a 12th-century Cluniac monastery in France, and 14th-century Byzantium, in which authority to enforce rules needed to be asserted or claimed back through the re-definition of space.