Death as a character in popular culture through History
Ramón MÉNDEZ GONZÁLEZ
Original title: La Muerte como personaje de la cultura popular a lo largo de la Historia
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Art, Culture, Death, History, Literature, Tradition.
Aside from being part of the cycle of life, Death itself became a very important character in popular culture. Since its first appearance as a Horseman during the Apocalypse, and until nowadays, the character of Death has showed different shapes and has inspired a huge array of sculptors, painters, writers, people of letters, composers, movie makers, illustrators and even video game developers. In each different era of human history, the representation of Death evolved to adapt itself to different idiosyncrasies and ways of understanding the world in each society, as well as the possibilities that technologies offered to these creators of art. The main goal of this paper is to give a brief overview of how the character of Death evolved since its origins to nowadays, through the image of the Western Death that was influenced by the Christian rituals and that became the main anthropomorphism of natural Death.
In perfect future. The End of Time in Augustine, the apocalyptic and Gnostic
Luis Felipe JIMÉNEZ JIMÉNEZ
Original title: En futuro perfecto. El fin del tiempo en Agustín, los apocalípticos y los gnósticos
Published in The Time and the Eternity in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Apocalypse, Christianity, Culture, Gnosticism, Philosophy of History, Time.
Augustine's reflection on time, from the level of individual salvation and the transcendence of the heavenly city located from the beginning on Earth, able to characterize or shape of medieval culture, but it is also clear that the expectations generated apocalyptic positions – better known as millenarian sects – and the Gnostics did not fail to weigh heavily in the collective imagination that went through the end of the Roman Empire and the so-called Middle Ages. So the contrast between conceived notions about the future in these three directions, it allows you to understand the full extent the meaning and significance of the choice of linear and finite time, hidden under mythical notions as Revelation, Last Judgment, Kingdom of God, eternal salvation, is at the bottom of the beliefs that have been – and somehow still blowing – life to Western culture.
Judes Macabeo: from hero of Old Testament to hero of medieval chivalry
Vinicius Cesar Dreger de Araújo
Original title: Judas Macabeu: de herói do Antigo Testamento a herói da cavalaria medieval
Published in The chivalry and the art of war in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Culture, Judas Maccabeys, chivalry.
Knowledge and Education in the Late Antiquity: the Monastic Fathers and Ecclesiastics before of Greek-Roman culture
Ronaldo Amaral
Original title: Saber e Educação na Antigüidade Tardia: os Padres monásticos e eclesiásticos diante da cultura greco-romana
Published in The educacion and secular culture in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Christianity, Culture, Late Antiquity.
The Late Antiquity is certainly one of the most important periods for the understanding of our civilization and its culture. Cradle of the Christianity and of that that would come to be the western Christian civilization, for we restrict ourselves to the Latin world, it is in this period that appears and it takes body, or else properly our material structures, in our great measure mental structures, once we owed to the Christianity and its main current of thought of this time, the Patristic, the essential not only of our religious credo, but even of the genesis in our way and thought reason. The Christian culture, for its time, had been indebted of another religious and cultural tradition, being built to the incorporation of that another tradition. This process was developed above all in this period that occupies us and by means of many of those that would come to be known as priests of the Church.
Medieval Paradises – Tipology of the Places of Reward in the Final Middle Ages
Paulo Roberto Soares de Deus
Original title: Paraísos Medievais – esboço para uma tipologia dos lugares de recompensa dos justos no final da Idade Média
Published in Mirabilia 4
Keywords: Culture, Paradise, Types.
The aim of this article is to consider a set of minimum types to the places assigned for the word Paradise at the end of the Middle Ages. It is not intended to be exhausting nor definitive, after all, the Paradise was a symbol and, as such, preserved great ambiguity in its possible meanings. Paradise's contours could not be so clear since it should to allow the projections of diverse desires and anxieties, deriving of the different cultural strata of that age. However, a tripartite structure, which comes along with the time flow, can be followed.
Thought and Culture in Christian Egypt 284-641 AD. Cyril of Alexandria (412-444) and his patriarchic period according to Socrates Scholasticus
Eirini ARTEMI
Original title: Pensamiento y cultura en el Egipto cristiano 284-641 AD. Cirilo de Alejandría (412-444) y su período patriarcal según Sócrates Escolástico
Published in
Keywords: Christian Egypt, Culture, Cyril of Alexandria, Socrates Scholasticus, Thought.
Cyril of Alexandria (412-444) was not only one of the finest Christian theologians of his day, he also stands out in the ranks of the greatest patristic writers of all generations as perhaps the most powerful exponent of Christology the church has known. He brought great influence both in church life and in making the Christian teaching and especially in the formulation of Christological doctrine in the 5th century. For the life of the holy father, little is known. He was born between 370-380 AD Alexandria. The exact date of his birth we are not able to know it. He came from a wealthy family of the Greek city of Alexandria, although often the patriarch of Constantinople Nestorius calls him “Egyptian”, i.e. one who hails from Egypt, in order to taunt him. Nowhere was the divide more clearly seen in 415 CE than between Orestes, the Pagan Prefect of Alexandria and Cyril, the Archbishop of Alexandria, who lead the Christian mobs against the Jews of Alexandria, looted their synagogues and expelled them from the city. Orestes maintained his Paganism in the face of Christianity and cultivated a close relationship with Hypatia which Cyril, perhaps, blamed for Orestes' refusal to submit to the “true” faith and become a Christian. Tensions between the two men, and their supporters, grew increasingly high as each brushed off the other's advances of reconciliation and peace. His early life is known only from notices in Socrates Scholasticus and a few elsewhere. The latter explains the relations of Cyril of Alexandria with Orestes and Hypatia. Also, Socrates, although, was enemy to Cyril of Alexandria remains the most objective source for the life and actions of Cyril of Alexandria.
Ways of thinking and acting: erudite culture at court and reordering of assistance in the reign of king D. João II (1481-1495) and D. Leonor (1481-1525)
André Costa Aciole da SILVA
Original title: Maneiras de pensar e de agir: a cultura erudita na corte e o reordenamento da assistência no reinado de D. João II (1481-1495) e D. Leonor (1481-1525)
Published in Society and Culture in Portugal
Keywords: Assistance, Culture, Hospitals, Medicine, Portugal.
The theme of assisting those in need of material resources or spiritual support, and especially the sick, has been the focus of intense historiographical production. The following text points out an aspect that contributed to the reordering of assistance in Portugal at the end of the Middle Ages, focusing on the actions promoted by the monarchs of D. João II and his wife D. Leonor. Our objective is to show how the erudite culture in the court, as well as some external influences, helped to guide the creation of the royal hospitals in Lisbon (Hospital of All Saints) and Caldas da Rainha (Hospital Our Lady of Pópulo).
