Preaching, Building, and Burying. Friars in the Medieval City. Introductory Chapter (original) (raw)
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LAST DAYS!!! CfP. Friars in Motion: Mendicant Orders and Urban Development (1200-1500
European Association for Urban History, 15th International Conference on Urban History Cities in Motion, Antwerp 2-5 september 2020 CALL FOR PAPERS SPECIALIST SESSION: S-URB-1 | Friars in Motion: Mendicant Orders and Urban Development (1200-1500) The purpose of the session is to study the urban, architectural, social and economic consequences that the arrival of the Mendicant Orders involved in the European cities of the Middle Ages. The development of the city, in fact, is profoundly influenced by the establishment of convents in the suburbs, where the new “borghi” develop. The “crown” of convents around the center of the city forms a “belt” of urban hub from which new neighborhoods develop, but also a place for the exchange of ideas and people. In fact, the friar moves from one city to another, importing ideas, styles of preaching, social issues. For this reason, the convent is an important place of passage. Moreover, the convent is an open space that functions as a place of study, but also as a place of welcome for the masses of the poor who come from their companions and for the pilgrims who use it as a stop on their journey. The session proposes to explore all these aspects of the role of convents in the Medieval and Early Modern city, considered as a place of interchange between cultures - even artistic- and people, in a multidisciplinary and international perspective. They are invited to present proposals of different historical disciplines (topics on built environment, on artistic and architectural history, on religious, economic, social subjects connect to urban history) aimed at investigating the theme proposed in the session. In particular, we believe it is useful to start a debate regarding some urban phenomena triggered by the convents of the mendicant orders and verify their actual consequences on the urban structure and architectural solutions adopted, starting from some specific cases. In this way, we aim to verify how a phenomenon on a European scale can interact with individual local cases, both in big cities and in small villages. More information: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferences/eauh2020/sessions/sessionsoverview/session-type/specialist-sessions/# www. friarscity.eu Email: friarscity@polito.it Organizers: Silvia Beltramo, Politecnico di Torino, Catarina Almeida Marado, University of Coimbra, Gianmario Guidarelli, Università di Padova.
Reminder: CFP - Friars in Motion: Mendicant Orders and Urban Development (1200-1500), EAUH2020
SPECIALIST SESSION: S-URB-1 | Friars in Motion: Mendicant Orders and Urban Development (1200-1500) The purpose of the session is to study the urban, architectural, social and economic consequences that the arrival of the Mendicant Orders involved in the European cities of the Middle Ages. The development of the city, in fact, is profoundly influenced by the establishment of convents in the suburbs, where the new “borghi” develop. The “crown” of convents around the center of the city forms a “belt” of urban hub from which new neighborhoods develop, but also a place for the exchange of ideas and people. In fact, the friar moves from one city to another, importing ideas, styles of preaching, social issues. For this reason, the convent is an important place of passage. Moreover, the convent is an open space that functions as a place of study, but also as a place of welcome for the masses of the poor who come from their companions and for the pilgrims who use it as a stop on their journey. The session proposes to explore all these aspects of the role of convents in the Medieval and Early Modern city, considered as a place of interchange between cultures - even artistic- and people, in a multidisciplinary and international perspective. They are invited to present proposals of different historical disciplines (topics on built environment, on artistic and architectural history, on religious, economic, social subjects connect to urban history) aimed at investigating the theme proposed in the session. In particular, we believe it is useful to start a debate regarding some urban phenomena triggered by the convents of the mendicant orders and verify their actual consequences on the urban structure and architectural solutions adopted, starting from some specific cases. In this way, we aim to verify how a phenomenon on a European scale can interact with individual local cases, both in big cities and in small villages. Organizers: Silvia Beltramo, Politecnico di Torino, Catarina Almeida Marado, University of Coimbra, Gianmario Guidarelli, Università di Padova. More information: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferences/eauh2020/sessions/sessionsoverview/session-type/specialist-sessions/# www. friarscity.eu
The Architecture of the Mendicant Orders in the Middle Ages: An Overview of Recent Literature
European cities of any size had one or more mendicant convents. These institutions reshaped the topographical, social, and economic realities of urban life in the late Middle Ages; they also often de-stabilized traditional parochial organization and created new poles of influence and activity within cities. Mendicants expanded and "anchored" new suburbs, but they sometimes also settled in the heart of a city, destroying neighborhoods in the process. As the thirteenth century progressed, friars increasingly inserted large conventual complexes within densely inhabited urban space. In Italy in particular they also carved out open areas (piazzas) for preaching. Yet, although it is hard to imagine any medieval city without its mendicant convents, the reconstruction of their presence as a physical, spiritual, economic, and social phenomenon after the systematic and thorough destruction that began as early as the sixteenth-century Reformation remains a challenging task.
European Association for Urban History, 15th International Conference on Urban History Cities in Motion, Antwerp 2-5 september 2020 More information: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferences/eauh2020/sessions/sessions-overview/session-type/specialist-sessions/# www. friarscity.eu Contact: friarscity@polito.it The purpose of the session is to study the urban, architectural, social and economic consequences that the arrival of the Mendicant Orders involved in the European cities of the Middle Ages. They are invited to present proposals of different historical disciplines (topics on built environment, on artistic and architectural history, on religious, economic, social subjects connect to urban history) aimed at investigating the theme proposed in the session. In particular, we believe it is useful to start a debate regarding some urban phenomena triggered by the convents of the mendicant orders and verify their actual consequences on the urban structure and architectural solutions adopted, starting from some specific cases. In this way, we aim to verify how a phenomenon on a European scale can interact with individual local cases, both in big cities and in small villages.
European Architectural History Network Meeting Edimburgh, 10-13 June 2020 CALL FOR PAPERS The convents of the mendicant friars played a central role in the construction of the cities of Late Middle age and Early Modern Europe (1200-1500). The international character of the orders and mobility of the friars meant that new trends, styles and social practices spread rapidly throughout Europe: friars were as much “missionaries” of social practices as they were of architectural or decorative ones. This panel poses the question of how to situate Mendicant architecture as a result of the product of spiritual, social and economic policies negotiated between convents and citizenship, between laity and religious. This session (born from the international project “The medieval city, the city of the friars”, 2018 AISU Networking Call for Proposal and Medieval Heritage Platform, Politecnico di Torino DIST) focuses on the mendicant construction strategies. Architecture extends into the city and permeates the urban constructions. This strongly determines the conception of the construction of convents as result of the interaction of several factors related to the will to self-representation, the progressive affirmation of order and the utopian ideal of poverty, always conditioned by the search for economic support and by the local conjunctures. Conventual buildings as a result of a long process of becoming, as part of an organic and additive approach to architecture. The architecture of the new orders was by definition work in progress molded to their changing institutional character and the conventualization of their settlements. “Friars used a combination of all these possibilities: their architecture had an amoeba-like mobility that responded to requests by donors for altars and chapels as well as to broader changes in social, economic and spiritual circumstances” (C. Bruzelius, Preaching, Building, 2014). The papers should explore and identify common mendicant building strategy through different cases documenting these long constructive processes. The questions we wish to raise include also: − How was the ideal of poverty as conceived by Saints Francis and Dominic transformed into monumental buildings? How the structures emerged from decades or centuries of construction and expansion the reflected changes in the spiritual ideals and social norms that shaped urban and sacred spaces? − What were the main economic and architectural solutions for friars construction sites? − Was there something particular and identifiable about the building of the friars? The use of recurrent dimensional modules in the different parts of the building, widely found for some monastic architectures, seems to take on a different declination in the mendicant building sites. Organisers: Silvia Betramo, Politecnico di Torino, Catarina Villamariz, Nova University of Lisbon Discussant: Gianmario Guidarelli, University of Padua Contact: Silvia Beltramo silvia.beltramo@polito.it; friarscity@polito.it
European Architectural History Network, Meeting Edimburgh, 10-13 June 2020 For information: https://eahn2020.eca.ed.ac.uk/call-papers-2/ www. friarscity.eu Contact: Silvia Beltramo silvia.beltramo@polito.it; friarscity@polito.it The convents of the mendicant friars played a central role in the construction of the cities of Late Middle age and Early Modern Europe (1200-1500). The international character of the orders and mobility of the friars meant that new trends, styles and social practices spread rapidly throughout Europe: friars were as much “missionaries” of social practices as they were of architectural or decorative ones. This panel poses the question of how to situate Mendicant architecture as a result of the product of spiritual, social and economic policies negotiated between convents and citizenship, between laity and religious. This session (born from the international project “The medieval city, the city of the friars”, 2018 AISU Networking Call for Proposal and Medieval Heritage Platform, Politecnico di Torino DIST) focuses on the mendicant construction strategies. Architecture extends into the city and permeates the urban constructions. This strongly determines the conception of the construction of convents as result of the interaction of several factors related to the will to self-representation, the progressive affirmation of order and the utopian ideal of poverty, always conditioned by the search for economic support and by the local conjunctures. Conventual buildings as a result of a long process of becoming, as part of an organic and additive approach to architecture. The architecture of the new orders was by definition work in progress molded to their changing institutional character and the conventualization of their settlements.
MAKING SPACE: FRIARS AND SISTERS IN LATE MEDIEVAL AMIENS
La città globale. La condizione urbana come fenomeno pervasivo – The global city. The urban condition as a pervasive phenomenon, 2020
e article examines the presence of mendicant friars and sisters in late medieval Amiens, a town situated at the norther border of the French kingdom. A spatial analysis of their urban implantation shows that the houses were mostly situated in a circle outside the old town centre, thus surrounding the town from all sides. Further study of the Mendicant Orders in the social space of the urban network shows close connections between the lay inhabitants and the mendicants.