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IMC 2019: Sessions

Session 544: My Precious: Precious Objects in the Middle Ages, I

Tuesday 2 July 2019, 09.00-10.30

Organisers:Abby Armstrong, School of Humanities, Canterbury Christ Church University
Nicole Corrigan, Department of Art History, Emory University
Moderator/Chair:Abby Armstrong, School of Humanities, Canterbury Christ Church University
Paper 544-aA Sumptuous Defense: Amuletic Jewelry from Islamic Caesarea
(Language: English)
Rachael Vause, Department of Art History, University of Delaware
Index terms: Archaeology - Artefacts, Art History - Decorative Arts, Islamic and Arabic Studies, Religious Life
Paper 544-bThinking Outside the Box: Re-Appropriating a Reliquary during the Viking Age
(Language: English)
Tonicha Upham, Faculty of Icelandic & Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Iceland, Reykjavík
Index terms: Archaeology - Artefacts, Gender Studies, Pagan Religions
Paper 544-cStatue as Reliquary: Silver Statues of the Virgin in Medieval Castile, León, and Navarre
(Language: English)
Nicole Corrigan, Department of Art History, Emory University
Index terms: Art History - Decorative Arts, Art History - Sculpture, Ecclesiastical History, Hagiography
Abstract

Throughout the Middle Ages, precious materials were forged into works of art that played a central role in medieval life. Churches accumulated glimmering hoards of reliquaries. Royal inventories provide descriptions of jewellery and illuminated manuscripts that rarely survive. Nobles and ecclesiastics exchanged exquisite gifts to forge bonds or make political statements. This panel explores the variety of uses and re-uses of precious objects in their spiritual context. These papers examine the talismanic qualities of 12th-century Fatimid jewellery, the re-appropriation of the Melhus reliquary in Scandinavia, and the construction of reliquary-statues of the Virgin in Iberia.