'Yasin has a deft command of too-often forgotten places with their difficult archaeologies, especially those from North Africa. She sensitively draws conclusions from tricky evidence from old excavations or now inaccessible sites, and the book provides excellent plans and photographs of buildings which should now become as familiar as Ravenna and Rome … She avoids simply reinterpreting familiar sites, but carefully sets out the evidence for the sophisticated ways in which late Romans constructed the sacred in church buildings.' Caroline Goodson, Early Medieval Europe

This book explores the intersection between two key developments of the fourth through seventh centuries CE: the construction of monumental churches and the veneration of saints. While Christian sacred topography is usually interpreted in narrowly religious terms as points of contact with holy places and people, this book considers church buildings as spatial environments in which a range of social 'work' happened. It draws on approaches developed in the fields of anthropology, ritual studies, and social geography to examine, for example, how church buildings facilitated commemoration of the community's dead, establishment of a shared historical past, and communication with the divine. Surveying evidence for the introduction of saints into liturgical performance and the architectural and decorative programs of churches, this analysis explains how saints helped to bolster the boundaries of church space, reinforce local social and religious hierarchies, and negotiate the community's place within larger regional and cosmic networks.
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Introduction; 1. Churches before architecture: approaches to sacred space in the early Christian world; 2. Commemorative communities: the dead in early Christian churches; 3. Topographies of honor and piety: praying for the Christian benefactor; 4. At the center of it all? Framing space with saints; 5. What saints do in church, part I: focusing communal prayer; 6. What saints do in church, part II: community connections.
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This book looks at the architecture of early Christian churches of the Mediterranean.

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781107411630
Publisert
2012-11-29
Utgiver
Cambridge University Press
Vekt
580 gr
Høyde
244 mm
Bredde
170 mm
Dybde
19 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
362

Forfatter