Medieval World Culture & Conflict Magazine

Medieval World: Culture & Conflict picks up where its sister magazines – Ancient Warfare and Ancient History – leave off. The publication features the rich history and material culture of the Middle Ages – broadly conceived geographically and temporally – expanding on the contents of the popular Medieval Warfare magazine. Through well-researched and lavishly illustrated articles, this accessible publication brings to light cultural activities in local and global contexts, historical figures and events, as well as political, religious, economic, and artistic facets of the Middle Ages..

Medieval World Culture & Conflict Magazine

Editorial

Medieval history news and recent discoveries MARGINALIA

Compassion across time WATER-MOON GUANYIN IN MEDIEVAL CHINA • Between the seventh and thirteenth centuries, Bud- dhism flourished across the northwestern and central regions of China. In temples, caves, and pilgrimage sites, Buddhist imagery absorbed local aesthetics and be- liefs, giving rise to new ways of representing the divine. Among these, Guanyin — the bodhisattva of compas- sion —took on especially beloved and localized forms.

Deeper meaning

TEMPLE EXPERIENCE

Museum context

Agency, importance, and power CHIVALRIC WOMEN • The chivalric elite was a male-dominated society in which women played a subordinate role. How- ever, that is not the same as being passive partici- pants in its cultural activities. Women were not dam- sels in distress, gentle creatures to be protected or manipulated, but powerful and active participants.

The emergence of city communes ITALIAN POWER POLITICS • At the turn of the twelfth century, the political fabric of the Kingdom of Italy changed profoundly. A gradual develop- ment toward less central authority cul- minated in a fragmented landscape of warring city states. Their elites pieced to- gether collaborative ways of government that look democratic to some observers.

Faecal names

Anticipating the end of the world ESCHATOLOGY AND THE APOCALYPSE • From ancient times and throughout the Middle Ages, people have been con- cerned with human existence and the end of the world. What happens after death or when the universe will end?

Key symbols in the Book of Revelation

John's Apocalypse in Coptic Egypt MARGINALIZATION AND OPPRESSION • Egypt's Coptic Christian communities developed rich theological traditions, pioneered monasticism, and pre- served their faith through centuries of political and reli- gious upheavals. John's Apocalypse took a special position, both liturgically and in defense of the Coptic church.

Coptic textiles

Faras Cathedral

Public dramas and the Last Judgement DOOM PLAY • At the close of the medieval church year, in the public spaces of Europe's cities and towns, the ease of early summer was unsettled by the sights and sounds of the end of the world. The feast of Corpus Christi — typically falling on the first Thurs- day after Trinity Sunday — was celebrated with the perfor- mance of plays on Christian themes. The final play was Judge- ment or, as it was called in many English renditions, Doom.

Imagery, allegory, and salvation MEDIEVAL APOCALYPSE MANUSCRIPTS • The Apocalypse or Revelation of John, which concludes the Christian Bible, is one of the most memorable books of scripture, developing a rich symbolism and a complex narrative. Best known for its highly imaginative imagery, of- ten beautiful and sometimes terrifying, it was widely illus- trated throughout the Middle Ages. Among biblical books, the 130 extant single-volume Apocalypses are second only to manuscripts illustrating Psalms. Another forty manu- scripts — Bibles, books of hours, encyclopedias, histories — also contain extended sequences of Apocalypse images.

Medieval conjectures on when the world...