Palabra, Imagen, Poder: Enseñar el Orden en La Edad Media

Speaker(s): Professor Miguel Larrañaga Zulueta

Sermons and artistic images performed a doctrinal role in the foundation of the Christian religion in the Middle Ages.  At the same time they played an essential role not only to explain to the common people the nature of the feudal system but also to legitimize its structure of Power. They constituted an “audiovisual language,” which, by utilizing elements of social doctrine and political theology developed by the Church, presented a portrait of Order.
This lecture will reflect upon the key connection between the message of the sermons and the Romanesque and Gothic iconography, analyzed from the point of view of the Medieval spectator and will involve a discussion of a European language, common to Spain, France, England, and Italy between the 11th and 15th centuries.
 
Miguel Larrañaga, born in San Sebastian, Spain, received his B. A.  from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and his Ph. D. in History from the Universidad de Deusto, Spain, in1994.  A university professor and researcher in Spain, and visiting professor in Germany, USA, and UK, currently he is professor of the Humanities Center of IE University in Segovia, Spain, and also professor of Stanford’s Bing Overseas Studies Program in Madrid.
His research interests center on the history of the Middle Ages:  Social history; Cultural history; Written culture; Medieval sermons; Medieval iconography: Medieval Church; Mendicant Orders; Paleography. He has published more than 70 paper, articles, books. The titles of his most recent books include: Peasants and social conflict in Late Medieval Navarre and Word, Image, and Power: Teaching Order in the Middle Ages.”