I am so happy to have a post today from one of my favorite graduate students. Taylor Sims is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Michigan, specializing in late medieval and early modern European and women’s history. She holds an MA in History from Baylor University and is writing a dissertation on…
In fifteenth-century England, a (probably Franciscan) friar lived on the east coast near the cathedral city of Ely. Like many other medieval sermon authors, he included in his Lenten series a narrative from Matthew 15: the story of the Woman of Canaan. I have talked about this story before, and I am sure many of…
“a fire burnt the whole parish of St. Alkmund’s starting at daybreak on the eve of Pentecost….anno. 1312.” I was in a meeting with my fellow graduate deans when I first saw the pictures. My colleague just handed me his phone. He said something, but I don’t remember his words as the image drowned out…
I usually never read comments on my blogs, much less respond to them. But one recently caught my eye. It was posted on a twitter thread following a tweet by Katelyn Beaty about my last AB article posted by Scot McKnight on Jesus Creed (sorry, the social media world can be a confusing place…). This…
I love nativities. Every Thanksgiving my mother gives me a new nativity set to display. She gets them from the local Fair Trade store, so we now have scenes crafted by artisans in Kenya, Indonesia, Haiti, Guatemala, Vietnam, Peru, Nicagarua, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, as well as the United States. The clean lines and naked…
A carved image, about two feet tall, stands alone in a glass case in the Cluny Museum in Paris. At first it seems a typical image of the Madonna and Child. Both look straight ahead, holding the gaze of the viewer. Their matching golden robes fade so easily into the golden background that it is…