IMC 2018: Sessions

Session 606: Tracing the Jerusalem Code, II: Travelling Memories and Sacralisation of Landscape

Tuesday 3 July 2018, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:	Research Council of Norway Project 'Tracing the Jerusalem Code: Christian Cultures in Scandinavia'
Organiser:	Maria H. Oen, Centrum för medeltidsstudier, Stockholms universitet / Institutt for lingvistiske og nordiske studier, Universitetet i Oslo
Moderator/Chair:	Mia Münster-Swendsen, Institut for Kommunikation og Humanistisk Videnskab, Roskilde Universitet
Paper 606-a	Connecting to the Navel of the World (Language: English) Kristin B. Aavitsland, Det teologiske Menighetsfakultet, Oslo Index terms: Art History - General, Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Religious Life
Paper 606-b	Bringing Jerusalem Back Home: The Transfer of the Idea of Jerusalem to the North and of Crusader Institutions (Language: English) Kurt Villads Jensen, Historiska institutionen, Stockholms universitet Index terms: Crusades, Religious Life
Paper 606-c	Jerusalem and the Authority of Birgitta of Sweden (Language: English) Maria H. Oen, Centrum för medeltidsstudier, Stockholms universitet / Institutt for lingvistiske og nordiske studier, Universitetet i Oslo Index terms: Hagiography, Language and Literature - Latin, Mentalities, Religious Life
Abstract	Tracing the Jerusalem Code is a Norwegian-based international collaborative research project that investigates the image of Jerusalem in the religious, political, and artistic cultures of Scandinavia. The conversion of the North (9th-12th centuries.) implied the integration of this remote region into the European Christian culture through the adoption and remembrance of texts, rituals, images, and ideas transmitted through painted and written media, architectural forms, and liturgical practices. During this process, Jerusalem proved a potent topos, offering a means for shaping the new religious and political identity. In the first of two sessions, members of the research group will explore the multiple artistic and performative applications of the idea of Jerusalem in medieval Scandinavian parish churches. The second session is devoted to perceptions of historical Jerusalem as a sacred place, the power attributed to its shrines and the significance of Jerusalem as a Christian centre to which the periphery of the North could be connected.