The Middle Ages in 50 Objects

The extraordinary array of images included in this volume reveals the full and rich history of the Middle Ages. Exploring material objects from the European, Byzantine and Islamic worlds, the book casts a new light on the cultures that formed them, each culture illuminated by its treasures. The objects are divided among four topics: The Holy and the Faithful; The Sinful and the Spectral; Daily Life and Its Fictions, and Death and Its Aftermath. Each section is organized chronologically, and every object is accompanied by a penetrating essay that focuses on its visual and cultural significance within the wider context in which the object was made and used. Spot maps add yet another way to visualize and consider the significance of the objects and the history that they reveal. Lavishly illustrated, this is an appealing and original guide to the cultural history of the Middle Ages.

Author: Elina Gertsman, Barbara H. Rosenwein
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 05/31/2018
Pages: 248
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.70lbs
Size: 9.70h x 7.60w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9781107150386


Review Citation(s):
Choice 12/01/2018

About the Author
Gertsman, Elina: - Elina Gertsman is Professor of Medieval Art at Case Western Reserve University. She is the author of The Dance of Death in the Middle Ages: Image, Text, Performance (2010) and Worlds Within: Opening the Medieval Shrine Madonna (2015), and editor of several books, including Visualizing Medieval Performance: Perspectives, Histories, Contexts (2008) and Crying in the Middle Ages: Tears of History (2013). Most recently, with Stephen Fliegel, she published a catalogue that accompanies the focus exhibition they co-curated at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Myth and Mystique: Cleveland's Gothic Table Fountain (2016).Rosenwein, Barbara H.: - Barbara H. Rosenwein, Professor Emerita Loyola University, Chicago, is a medievalist and a recognized authority on the history of emotions. She is the author of Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages (2006), Generations of Feeling: A History of Emotions, 600-1700 (2016), and has just completed (with co-author Riccardo Cristiani) What Is the History of Emotions? (2017). Her textbooks, A Short History of the Middle Ages (2009) and Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World (2006) are currently going into new editions.