CEU Medievalia Series

This volume provides a thorough introduction to the Cyrillic collection, and contains the detailed descriptions of the fifty-six Slavonic Cyrillic codices or fragments thereof held by the National Széchényi Library in Budapest, the vast majority of which are here described for the first time. The analysis of the codices has been done using the resources of modern technology. Written from the thirteenth to early nineteenth century, the codices were mostly produced within the confines of the historical Kingdom of Hungary. The catalogue is extensively illustrated with pictures of the most characteristic and decorative pages and a few covers of the codices.This publication is a further step towards the complete documentation of the Cyrillic manuscript heritage of Central Europe.

The volume investigates the registers of fifteenth-century supplications to the Apostolic Penitentiary of the Holy See and presents an analysis of a multiplicity of issues in which a context of the local needs of Western Christians and the central power of the Pope occurred. The contributions make it clear that local and individual factors and the Christian faith and religion in practice must not be seen as separate from the global power of the Roman curia. The latter's influence could become directly important for any individual in any local space, even ...et usque ad ultimum terrae (Acts 1:8), in the utmost peripheries of the Christian world. It is shown that the assistance of the Apostolic Penitentiary was indispensable in a large variety of cases. Such cases were dealt with both in the local, regional space and in the globalized centre of the Holy See.

Supernatural phenomena and causalities played an important role in medieval society. Religious practice was relying upon a set of cult images and the sacral status of these depictions of divine or supernatural persons became the object of heated debates and provoked iconoclastic reactions.The miraculous intervention of saints or other divine agents, the wondrous realities beyond understanding, or the manifestations of magic attributed to diabolic forces, were contained by a variety of discourses, described and discussed in religion, philosophy, chronicles, literature and fiction, and also in a large number of pictures and material objects. The nine essays in this collection discusses how supernatural phenomena – especially angels and devils – found visual manifestation in Latin and Eastern Christianity as well as Judaism in the late medieval, early renaissance period.

Do the terms 'pagan' and 'Christian,' 'transition from paganism to Christianity' still hold as explanatory devices to apply to the political, religious and cultural transformation experienced Empire-wise? Revisiting 'pagans' and 'Christians' in Late Antiquity has been a fertile site of scholarship in recent years: the paradigm shift in the interpretation of the relations between 'pagans' and 'Christians' replaced the old 'conflict model' with a subtler, complex approach and triggered the upsurge of new explanatory models such as multiculturalism, cohabitation, cooperation, identity, or group cohesion. This collection of essays, inscribes itself into the revisionist discussion of pagan-Christian relations over a broad territory and time-span, the Roman Empire from the fourth to the eighth century. A set of papers argues that if 'paganism' had never been fully extirpated or denied by the multiethnic educated elite that managed the Roman Empire, 'Christianity' came to be presented by the same elite as providing a way for a wider group of people to combine true philosophy and right religion. The speed with which this happened is just as remarkable as the long persistence of paganism after the sea-change of the fourth century that made Christianity the official religion of the State. For a long time afterwards, 'pagans' and 'Christians' lived 'in between' polytheistic and monotheist traditions and disputed Classical and non-Classical legacies.

The first comprehensive study on the influence of Latin classical texts and traditions in medieval Hungary based on philological and historical analysis of eleventh century sources. The author proves that the Latin classics had a stronger impact on the formation of Latin literacy in medieval Hungary than it has been acknowledges before. The four chapters of the book (The Cathedral School, The Admonitions of King Saint Stephen of Hungary, The Deliberato of Bishop Saint Gerard of Csanad, The Monastic School) provide important contributions to the philological study of Medieval Latin and the classical tradition in medieval Central Europe.

Focuses specifically on the concept and role of islands in the medieval world. The main characteristic of an island is, of course, that of being isolated from the rest of the world; in geography by waters, in more abstract and symbolic meanings by other kinds of separating borders. Islands were the place 'on the other side', of difference, otherness and remoteness. As one of the articles in this volume puts it, islands are often depicted "as sites for extraordinary events and happenings".

In the Middles Ages, the edges of one's world could represent different meanings. On the one hand, they might have been situated in far-away regions, mainly in the east and north, that one most often only knew from hearsay and which were inhabited by strange beings: humans with their faces on their chest, without a mouth, or with dog heads. On the other hand, the edges of one's world could just mean the borders of the community where one lived and that one sometimes might not have had the possibility to cross during one's whole life.In this volume specialists from eight European countries offer their ideas about different edges of the medieval world and contribute to a discussion that has been increasing greatly in Medieval Studies in recent times.

This book is about the Christ Pantokrator, an imposing monumental complex serving monastic, dynastic, medical and social purposes in Constantinople, founded by Emperor John II Komnenos and Empress Piroska-Eirene in 1118. Now called the Zeyrek Mosque, the second largest Byzantine religious edifice after Hagia Sophia still standing in Istanbul represents the most remarkable architectural and the most ambitious social project of the Komnenian dynasty. This volume approaches the Pantokrator from a special perspective, focusing on its co-founder, Empress Piroska-Eirene, the daughter of the Hungarian king Ladislaus I. This particular vantage point enables its authors to explore not only the architecture, the monastic and medical functions of the complex, but also Hungarian-Byzantine relations, the cultural and religious history of early medieval Hungary, imperial representation, personal faith and dynastic holiness. Piroska's wedding with John Komnenos came to be perceived as a union of East and West. The life of the Empress, a "sainted ruler," and her memory in early Árpádian Hungary and Komnenian Byzantium are discussed in the context of women and power, monastic foundations, architectural innovations, and spiritual models.

The studies in this volume concentrate on a complex set of socio-cultural phenomena, the cult of saints, in a variety of regions from Egypt to Poland, with a focus on Italy and Central Europe. The subjects of the contributions range in time from the fourth until the eighteenth century. The diversity of approaches adopted by the contributors—from literary analysis and historical anthropology to archaeology and art history—represents that open and multidisciplinary historical research that characterizes the work of Gábor Klaniczay to whom these essays are dedicated.

The studies in this volume concentrate on a complex set of socio-cultural phenomena, the cult of saints, in a variety of regions from Egypt to Poland, with a focus on Italy and Central Europe. The subjects of the contributions range in time from the fourth until the eighteenth century. The diversity of approaches adopted by the contributors—from literary analysis and historical anthropology to archaeology and art history—represents that open and multidisciplinary historical research that characterizes the work of Gábor Klaniczay to whom these essays are dedicated.