Slide Images for August 31

 Mont Sainte-Odile Abbey also known as  Hohenburg Abbey

Alsase, France

Abbey built 1050

Illuminations from Hortus Deliciarum

Herrad of Landsberg

c. 1167-1185

Illuminations from Scivias

Hildegard of Bingen

1142-52

To the Trinity be praise!

God is music, God is life

that nurtures every creature in its kind.

Our God is the song of the angel throng

and the splendor of secret ways

hid from all humankind,

But God our life is the life of all.

Laus Trinitati

Hildegard of Bingen

12th Century

Terms of the Day for August 31

• Hortus Deliciarum – a medieval manuscript compiled by Herrad of Landsberg at the Hohenburg Abbey. It was an illuminated encyclopedia, begun in 1167 as a pedagogical tool for young novices at the convent. It is the first encyclopedia that was evidently written by a woman. It was finished in 1185, and was one of the most celebrated illuminated manuscripts of the period. 
• Scivias (Know the Ways of the Lord) – is an illustrated work by Hildegard of Bingen, completed in 1151 or 1152, describing 26 religious visions she experienced. The title comes from the Latin phrase "Scito vias Domini" ("Know the Ways of the Lord"). The book is illustrated by 35 miniature illustrations, more than that are included in her two later books of visions.

Slide Images for August 29

Illustration from The Beatus Apocalypse of Gerona

Spain

975

The Bayeux Tapestry

Normandy, France

c. 1086

 “Ælfgyva and the Cleric”

from The Bayeux Tapestry Normandy, France

c. 1086

Gospel Book of the Abbess Hitda

Showing the Abbess offering her Gospel Book to the cloister’s patron, St. Walburga

c. 1020

 Page from German Psalter from Augsburg

Claricia

c. 1200

German Psalter from Augsburg (detail)

Claricia

c. 1200

Terms of the Day for August 25

• The Middle Ages (Medieval Era) – a period of European history that lasted from the 5th until the 15th centuries. It began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and was followed by the Renaissance.  The era is marked by the rising influence of the Catholic church, the development of feudal governments, and many wars and plagues.
• Feudalism – a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labor.
• Convent – a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church.  Most often the term refers to a “nunnery”, specifically a community of women.
• Abbess – the female superior, or mother superior, of a community of nuns, often an abbey.  In feudal Germany, Abbesses were often official women with control of small provinces.
• The Bayeux Tapestry – an embroidered cloth—not an actual tapestry—nearly 230 ft long, which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England concerning William, Duke of Normandy and Harold, Earl of Wessex, later King of England, and culminating in the Battle of Hastings.