Gift-giving played an important role in political, social and religious life in medieval and early modern Europe. This volume explores an under-examined and often-overlooked aspect of this phenomenon: the material nature of the gift.
Drawing on examples from both medieval and early modern Europe, the authors from the UK and across Europe explore the craftsmanship involved in the production of gifts and the use of exotic objects and animals, from elephant bones to polar bears and 'living' holy objects, to communicate power, class and allegiance. Gifts were publicly given, displayed and worn and so the book explores the ways in which, as tangible objects, gifts could help to construct religious and social worlds. But the beauty and material richness of the gift could also provoke anxieties. Classical and Christian authorities agreed that, in gift-giving, it was supposed to be the thought that counted and consequently wealth and grandeur raised worries about greed and corruption: was a valuable ring payment for sexual services or a token of love and a promise of marriage? Over three centuries, Gift-Giving and Materiality in Europe, 1300-1600: Gifts as Objects reflects on the possibilities, practicalities and concerns raised by the material character of gifts.
Author(s): Lars Kjaer, Gustavs Strenga
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 268
City: London
Cover
Contents
List of illustrations
List of contributors
Preface
Introduction: The matter of the gift Lars Kjær
1 ‘With this rynge’: The materiality and meaning of the late medieval marriage ring Anna Boeles Rowland
2 Of ivory, gold and elephants: Materiality and agency of pre-modern chairs as gifts Sabine Sommerer
3 Gifts and conflicts: Objects given during the entry of Archbishop Silvester Stodewescher in the Riga Cathedral (1449) Gustavs Strenga
4 ‘The Polar Winds have driven me to the conquest of the Treasure in the form of the much-desired relic.’ (Re)moving relics and performing gift-exchange between early modern Tuscany and Lithuania Ruth Sargent Noyes
5 ‘The gift’ and the living image: Exchange between human and nonhuman actors in fifteenth- to sixteenth-century Prato Mads Vedel Heilskov
6 Demoniac’s gratitude: Corporeality and materiality of votive offerings to St Nicholas of Tolentino (1325–1550) Sari Katajala-Peltomaa
7 Alms boxes and charity: Giving to the poor after the Lutheran Reformation in Denmark Poul Grinder-Hansen
8 Taken objects and the formation of social groups in Hamburg, Gdańsk and Lübeck Philipp Höhn
Gifts: Concluding Remarks Miri Rubin
Index
