The Thingness of the Thing: The Role of Everyday Objects in Becket Miracle Windows

• Authors: Dana Vasiliu
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In “The Waning of the Middle Ages”, J. Huizinga has pointed out that “all things would be absurd if their meaning would be exhausted by their function and their place in the phenomenal world, if by their essence they did not reach into a world beyond this.” (1924:201) Starting from this assumption, I purport to analyze the role/roles played by everyday/ordinary objects in the miracle stories depicted in the Trinity Chapel glazing and argue that their individuation/haecceity is subject to practices of ritualistic and artistic encodings

Keywords

EN

ampulla; artefact; Canterbury water; ex-voto; relic

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Romanian Journal of English Studies
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 152-157

Dates

published

2014-03-01

online

2014-05-01

Contributors

author

Dana Vasiliu

• University of Bucharest

References

• Benedict of Peterborough.Available: http://www.medievalscribbles.blogspot.ro/2011/02/mad-matildarealmiracle-of-saint.html [Accessed 2013, February 20.]
• Blick, Sarah. 2001. “Comparing Pilgrim Souvenirs and Trinity Chapel Windows at Canterbury Cathedral: An Exploration of Context, Copying, and the Recovery of Lost Stained Glass” in Mirator, pp.1-27.
• Durkheim, Emile. 1976. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Trans. J. W. Swain, New York: Routledge.
• Gilchrist, Roberta. 2012. Medieval Life: Archaeology and the Life Course. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press.
• Hayes, Dawn Marie. 2003. Body and Sacred Place in Medieval Europe, 1100-1389. New York: Routledge.
• Heidegger, Martin. 2001. Poetry, Language, Thought. Trans. Albert Hofstadter. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.
• Huizinga, J. 1924. The Waning of the Middle Ages: a study of the forms of life, thought and art in France and the Netherlands in the XIVth and XVth centuries. Trans. Fritz Hopman, London: Edward Arnold & Co.
• Jordan, Alyce. A. 2009. “The ‘Water of Thomas Becket’: Water as Medium, Metaphor and Relic” in The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing and Hygiene from Antiquity through the Renaissance. Eds. Cynthia Kosso and Anne Scott. Leiden: Brill, pp.479-501.
• Michael, M. A. 2004. Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral. London: Scala Publishers Ltd.
• Spencer, Brian. 1998. Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges. London: Museum of London.
• Willis, Robert W. 1843. The History of Canterbury Cathedral. London: Longmans and Company.

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/rjes-2014-0019