14.1: Chapter Introduction

Introduction: Christian Images on an Islamic Vessel?

In the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery, there is an object simply called “Canteen.” With its rounded body and narrow neck framed by looped handles, its silhouette is remarkably like a modern canteen—at least from the front. From the side, its shape is more unusual: domed on one side, and flat on the other, with a well-like depression in the center. Its shape is not the only unusual thing about it, though. Made from hammered brass and covered in elaborate silver inlay decoration, the Canteen weighs more than 10 pounds, empty—not exactly a practical travel flask. The decorations, which combine apparently Christian imagery with Arabic calligraphy and secular scenes, further deepen the mystery of the object’s purpose, patron, and usage.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Canteen, Ayyubid period, mid-13th century (profile view). Brass, silver inlay, 45.2 x 36.7 cm. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (Photo: National Museum of Asian Art, usage conditions apply)

 

Historiography (Writing History)

As discussed in the last chapter, there are many possible ways to approach the art of the Middle Ages, and history does not naturally fall into distinct chapters. Art history survey texts often address the art of Byzantium and of Islam separately, which has the tendency to privilege the cultures of northern and western Europe over their neighbors. This textbook instead treats the Middle Ages chronologically, dividing the period into Early, Middle, and Later Medieval and addressing not just northern and western Europe, but concurrent developments and exchanges to the south and east. This, the second of these three chapters, addresses art of the Middle Byzantine Empire, Abbasid Caliphate, Ottonian and Romanesque periods, as well as art of the Crusades. An effort has been made to balance the attention given to each of these separate but interconnected cultures.

As a reminder, this is the way the three Medieval chapters are broken down:

Content in Chapters 13-15

Chapter	13	14	15
Title	Medieval I: The Reorganization of the Roman World & the Rise of Islam	Medieval II: Contested Empires, Christian and Islamic	Medieval III: Reorganization of the East
Dates	333-843	843-1260	1260-1453
Material covered	Early Byzantium Introduction/the lives of Jesus and Mary Manuscripts and ivory miniatures The Migration Period Anglo-Saxon Vikings Insular The Early Islamic World Introduction to Islam Mosque architecture Umayyad Abbasid The Islamic West Carolingian	Fractured Islam Fatimid Seljuk Ghaznavid The Islamic West, cont. The Latin West Vikings, cont. Ottonian Pilgrimage Romanesque Byzantium from the End of Iconoclasm to the Latin Conquest Icons, frescoes, and mosaics Macedonian Renaissance Medieval Nubian Kingdoms Kievan Rus’ Norman Sicily	Ilkhanid Timurid Mamluk Late Byzantine Christian East Africa

Islamic Iconoclasm?

It is sometimes mistakenly claimed that Islam does not allow for images of people, or entirely lacks a tradition of figurative imagery. Although art in sacred contexts, such as Qur’ans and mosques, rarely ever contains images of animate beings (people or animals), secular art of the Islamic world abounds with those representations. Readers have already encountered the statue of a caliph at Khirbet al-Mafjar and figures riding and climbing in ivories from Muslim palaces in Spain. Other examples of figural imagery include the earliest Umayyad coins featuring images of the rulers, illustrations of humans and animals in early Arabic manuscripts, and Abbasid lusterware depicting people. As Christiane Gruber explains: “The Koran does not prohibit figural imagery. Rather, it castigates the worship of idols.” Episodes of iconoclasm have occurred in both Islam and Christianity, and efforts to eliminate images of particular persons have an older history, including Roman damnatio memoriae and the attempt to erase Hatshepshut from Egyptian history.

Terminology

Saxon, in this chapter, refers to a group of people living in what is now Germany rather than to Saxons discussed in Chapter 13. Both groups originated in the same area of northern Germany.

Ottonian refers to the kingdom established by Otto I in 936 and recognized by the pope in 962 as the Holy Roman Empire.

In this chapter, you will also read about pilgrims and pilgrimages, referring to people going on religious journeys, often to religious sites in distant cities. The journey itself, often long and arduous, contributes to the traveler’s personal and spiritual growth. As explored above, the Freer Canteen could have been an elaborate vessel made to both commemorate a pilgrimage and enable the owner to return home with holy liquids from a sacred site.

Chapter Overview

This chapter presents objects and buildings made across a vast terrain, spanning as far apart from one another as the British Isles and Afghanistan; Spain and Iran; and Egypt and Norway. Religious and linguistic differences are as broad as the rift in geography. The Islamic world stretched from what is now Spain to India, including the east coast of Africa in addition to the south coast of the Mediterranean and, at times, major islands like Sicily. The Christian world was also large, reaching from Iceland to Ethiopia. In both the Christian and Islamic world of this period, political and sectarian divisions are easier to define than they were in the Early Middle Ages.

Islamic Divisions

As soon as Islam spread out of Arabia, it attracted multi-lingual adherents, but it is not until the Abbasid dynasty that other languages—especially Farsi, the language of Persia—began to be used in government and literature, though never for the Qur’an. Major political and sectarian rifts appeared. The Umayyad dynasty, deposed by the Abbasidss in most of the Islamic world, survived in Spain. Both were Sunni Muslims. The Fatimids in Egypt were the first powerful Shiite rulers.

Christian Divisions

In the Christian sphere, Europe west of the Adriatic used Latin as the language of the church and, often, of the law. The Latin church recognized the Pope as its leader.The Bible and the liturgy had been translated into Latin in the Early Middle Ages, and the church insisted on its use, rather than that of any of the many local languages. In contrast, the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire always accepted local languages for religious use. Copts, Syrian Christians, Armenians, Georgians, and others continued to use their own languages and alphabets. Some Christians living under Muslim rule began to use Arabic for their Christian texts. The spread of new alphabets and new translations continued as missionaries devised alphabets for Slavic languages in the ninth century. Patriarchs led the church, coming together to resolve issues, although in practice close connections with the imperial court gave the Patriarch of Constantinople more power. Divisions dating back to the fifth century divided Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, and some Syrian Christians from the Orthodox church. By the eleventh century, the Latin and Greek churches were firmly opposed to one another’s beliefs about the Pope. In 1204, Crusaders captured Constantinople.

Christian Eras

Products of the Byzantine Empire from 843 (when iconoclasm ended) to 1260 (when the Crusader occupation of Constantinople ended) are generally classed as Middle Byzantine. This was a period of relative stability, during which Byzantine influence extended among Slavic people to the north and west, embracing them in a worldview in which Christianity was the conduit for connections with the Greco-Roman world, especially in art. These dates roughly bracket a period of expansion and confidence in the Latin West, as the Vikings adopted Christianity (becoming the Norse in Scandinavia and the Normans elsewhere), Otto and his descendants organized into a new Holy Roman Empire, pilgrimage flourished in England and what is now France and northwest Spain, and armies formed into crusades to reconquer lands held by Islam.

Islamic Diversity

A fruitful fragmentation of Islamic rule characterizes roughly the same period in the Islamic world. With the Abbasid overthrow of the Umayyad dynasty in 750, ethnic, philosophical, and linguistic diversity expanded in Muslim lands. Instead of the predominantly Arab Umayyad elites, Abbasid elites included local populations in Egypt and Syria. They moved their capital east, creating the city of Baghdad, a city of libraries where scholars merged Arab thought with the cultural traditions of Greece, India, and Persia. What is now Spain and Portugal remained under Umayyad control, and other Islamic states arose in central Asia. Islamic Turkmen migrated out of central Asia, adopting Persian as their administrative language and eventually ruling much of what had been the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire under what was called the Sultanate of Rum (Rome). This Golden Age of Islam ended in 1258, when Mongol armies sacked Baghdad. What appeared then as an unmitigated disaster for Islam had a very different effect starting in 1305, when the Mongols in Islamic and neighboring lands chose Islam as their religion.

Objects Overview

This chapter deals with cultures who are both in communication and conflict with one another, all striving to present themselves as the most powerful, the most learned, and the most godly. Christians used religious imagery to reinforce and spread the tenets of the faith. Ornate reliquaries encrusted with precious materials, stone sculpture on church facades, massive and glittering mosaics, and portable icons, all broadcasted the power and message of Christianity—in competition, and sometimes dialog, with its powerful rival, Islam. For its part, Islam continued to spread rapidly within and beyond the Middle East, with leaders constructing massive mosques and madrassas. The city of Baghdad, capital of the Abbassid caliphate, became the largest city in the world, a center of scholarship and study as well as of luxury. Items discussed in this chapter include:

• Four Psalters showing very different ways of relating the Hebrew Psalms to Christianity: The Paris, Khludov, Eadwine and Melisende Psalters.
• Probably the most admired palace of the Middle Ages, the Alhambra, and decorations from three very different palaces: Roger of Sicily’s Palatine Chapel, a Seljuk palace, and one in Afghanistan.
• Churches and mosques with inventive carvings both inside and out in Durham, England; Toledo, Spain; Hosios Loukas, Greece
• Magnificent mosaics in Hagia Sophia, Constantinople and in monastic churches at Daphni and Chios; The Great Mosque of Isfahan, Iran; and the Norman churches of Sicily
• Frescoes in St. Clement, Catalonia; St. Panteleimon, Nerezi, North Macedonia

By the time you finish reading this chapter, you should be able to:

• Explain the significance of Baghdad and Arab interest in pre-Islamic learning
• Give examples of architectural traditions and connections in Islamic art and architecture from across North Africa, the Middle East, and the Al-Andalus
• Compare how the hypostyle and four-iwan mosques, Castillian synagogues, and Romanesque pilgrimage churches accommodated their respective congregations' needs
• Identify the parts of a Romanesque portal and compare differences in representation between the tympana of Conques and Moissac
• Compare the styles and content of the Utrecht, Edwine, and Paris Psalters
• Outline Byzantine arguments for and against the use of religious images
• Compare a depiction of the emperor in a Middle Byzantine mosaic to the one in San Vitale
• Describe how Middle Byzantine art represents Christ and/or figures of authority