@aegor-bamfsteel / aegor-bamfsteel.tumblr.com
“Among her many roles, the German abbess Hildegard of Bingen was a scholar, mystic, composer, and medical expert. In the 1150s, she wrote The Book of the Intricacies of the Diverse Natures of Creatures, which focused on science and medicine, covering topics from the creation of the world to maintaining good health. Hildegard offers a treatment to prevent baldness using an ointment made of wheat and bear fat.”
Medieval Europeans, despite their reputation as a filthy society, also bathed pretty regularly, often in public baths that were located near bakeries (so that they could use the waste heat from the ovens to warm up the water. Here’s a European bath depicted by Albrecht Durer (apparently you could chug a beer while bathing — very efficient!):
Frederick II was involved in nearly all the conflicts of the early and mid-13th century. He attracted hate and wonder – the phrase “stupor mundi” applied to him meant “the astonishment of the world.” For the last part of his life (1229-1250) Frederick enjoyed a great deal of success. He was able to play the role of the great emperor convincingly. Frederick’s court at Palermo patronized poetry – in a dialect that would develop into the Sicilian Romance version of Italian. Frederick himself composed in that language. He wrote a work on falconry, The Art of Hunting with Birds, which still is considered one of the best books in the field. The emperor’s court was also a center for legal scholarship. For practical reasons he wished to build a royalist legal code. He and his collaborators followed classical Roman precedents in legislating for his most important realm, Sicily. His learning and patronage in a variety of fields, taken together with his long military and political career is justification for the name his contemporaries gave him, “stupor mundi.”
“Stupor” is an ambiguous term. It is not necessarily a compliment. Indeed, Frederick time and again created intense opposition; especially from the popes. They and their supporters called him a “pagan” or a “heretic,” both very loaded terms.
Pagan? Frederick was notorious for what has been called his skepticism, which was his refusal to give priority to Christian teaching or papal authority. He called the famous leaders of all religions frauds, yet did not hesitate to consult or employ Jewish or Muslim scholars when he needed their expertise. Notoriously he conducted what we would consider cruel experiments, to establish what was the first human language and whether the departing soul of a dying prisoner could be detected.
Heretic? This was a more serious accusation, like “terrorist” today. The Roman church was seeing enemies everywhere. A modern scholar has identified this period as the beginning of western Christendom as a “persecuting society,” with among other things the institutionalization of the Roman Inquisition. Frederick was never subjected to this court, he was too powerful – but he was excommunicated a second time by Innocent IV in 1245.
Roman glassware
* Romano-Germanic Museum, Cologne
* coloured glass, hence 3rd or 4th century CE.
* Local workmanship IIRC
Cologne, November 2017
Gilt silver crown adorned with pearls and blue glass, Bohemia, 15th century
from The LA County Museum of Art
Deru (German company), Wooden Elephant, 1960s
Went to the local zoo with my parents yesterday and managed to take a few pictures I am quite happy with :D
Known as the House Books of the Nuremberg Twelve Brothers Foundation, these were records of a charitable foundation started in the German city of Nuremberg in 1388. The foundation would assist poor and needy people by providing them with training to work in a trade.
Roman dice tower uncovered in Germany, 4th century AD
Armor for the Joust of Peace, Daniel Tachaux, ca. 1500 and later, Metropolitan Museum of Art: Arms and Armor
Rogers Fund, 1904 Size: Helmet (a); Wt. 21.5 lb. (9752 g); breastplate ©; Wt. 23 lb. (10.4 kg); tassets (e, f); Wt. of each 6 lb. (2723 g); backplate (i); Wt. 5 lb. (2268 g); rondels (o, p); Wt. of each 5 lb. (2268 g); shield (q); Wt. 6 lb. (2723 g); Wt. overall 85.5 lb. (38.78 kg) Medium: Steel, copper alloy, leather, textile, horn
This colorful equestrian figure is a faithful reconstruction of a German jouster of ca. 1500. Among the Metropolitan Museum’s earliest acquisitions of arms and armor, purchased with the Duc de Dino Collection in 1904, the armor was exhibited in the Arms and Armor Galleries until 1988. It was once again on display, in the Great Hall, to herald the Museum’s celebration of the Department of Arms and Armor’s centennial (1912–2012), a century in which the collection became one of the largest and most encyclopedic of its kind. The armor is a special type worn in Germany and Austria for the "joust of peace" (Gestech), fought by two contestants on horseback armed with blunt lances. The aim was to unseat the opponent or at least to break a lance against his armor. An extreme sport, the joust was a test of the rider’s skill, courage, and horsemanship. Safety was of greater concern than mobility, so the armor was thick, heavy, and rigid. The helmet was bolted firmly to the breast- and backplate. Inside, the wearer’s head was encased in a padded hood and strapped firmly in place against the shock and whiplash of being struck with a lance. The lance was supported by a hook (lance-rest) and a long counter-hook (queue) bolted to the right side of the breastplate. Leg armor was not necessary, as blows below the belt were forbidden. The horse wears a "blind" shaffron (head defense), with the eyes covered so as to prevent it from shying away from the encounter. Similarly, a collar of bells muffled the noise of the oncoming horse and roaring crowd. The horse is fitted with brocade and velvet trappings (modern) that include a straw-filled bolster hung across its chest that acted like a "bumper" to protect the horse and the rider’s legs in the event of a collision. This was necessary in a joust fought in an open field, which lacked a barrier (called the tilt) to keep the horses separated. The textile fittings for the man and horse are inspired by tournament illustrations of the sixteenth century. The man’s armor is assembled from pieces of approximately the same date but from different sources. The helmet, shield (here covered with plaques of horn), and tassets (upper-thigh defenses) are restorations. The masterfully forged helmet was made in Paris in 1891 by the armorer Daniel Tachaux. In 1909 Dr. Bashford Dean, the Metropolitan’s first curator of arms and armor, hired Tachaux to establish an armor conservation workshop. Still active today, the workshop is responsible for conserving, mounting, and installing the Department of Arms and Armor’s collection of 14,000 objects.
Jasper Cup with Gilded-Silver Mounts, ca. 1350–80, Metropolitan Museum of Art: Medieval Art
Purchase, Mrs. Charles Wrightsman Gift, in honor of Annette de la Renta, 2000 Size: Overall: 4 1/8 x 4 ½ x 3 7/16 in. (10.5 x 11.5 x 8.8 cm) Medium: Jasper, silver gilt mount and foot
With its integrally carved trefoil handle, deep dodecahedral bowl, and massive gilt mounts, this cup is as rare as it is spectacular. There are few surviving examples of Western medieval lapidary. Indeed, medieval European vessels carved from semiprecious stone are so little known that preserved examples are sometimes mistakenly attributed to imperial courts of Rome and Byzantium. The confusion is one othat would have delighted the cup's creators. Carved from a material that is immediately perceived as precious and exotic, the vessel is a product of the imperial court of Charles IV (crowned at Rome 1355; d. 1378). Its jasper with characteristic amethyst inclusions, could have been mined only in the foothills of the Ore Mountains, northwest of Prague. A sixteenth-centuty source tells of the emperor's sending men there to search for semiprecious stones to decorate his cathedral and royal chapel. In recent years geologists have found traces of their work in abandoned shafts dating to the Middle Ages tucked into mountains near Cibusov. Today Bohemian jasper still sheathes the chapel walls at Prague Cathedral and at Karlstejn Castle, just outside the city. Often vessels of this period have lost their original mounts or have been embellished by subsequent owners. The Museum's cup, remarkably, retains its medeival mount, which bears comparison to goldsmith's work created in Prague and preserved in the cathedral treasury.
Zischägge, 1610, Art Institute of Chicago: Arms, Armor, Medieval, and Renaissance
George F. Harding Collection Size: H. 29.2 cm (11 ½ in.) Medium: Steel, blued with gilt fittings
Mail Shirt, 1550, Art Institute of Chicago: Arms, Armor, Medieval, and Renaissance
Tailored to fit a sizable man, this mail shirt has heavier rings placed strategically to protect the neck and chest. The form-fitting sleeves billow out over the elbow to increase mobility. Shirts like this could have been used for fencing practice or worn for protection from bandits or assassins while traveling. George F. Harding Collection Size: W. at shoulders: 67.3 cm (26 ½ in.); L. 91.4 cm (36 in.); Wt. 16 lb. 13 oz. Medium: Steel, iron, and brass
Aquamanile in the Form of a Horse, ca. 1400, Metropolitan Museum of Art: Medieval Art
Gift of William M. Laffan, 1910 Size: Overall: 13 ¼ x 14 ½ x 3 ¾ in. (33.7 x 36.8 x 9.5 cm) Overall PD: 13 ¼ x 3 ¾ x 15 in. (33.6 x 9.5 x 38.1 cm) Thickness PD: 2/25 in. (0.2 cm) Medium: Copper alloy
