Amanda Luyster – författare

Offering original analysis of the convergence between 'sacred' and 'secular' in medieval works of art and architecture, this collection explores both the usefulness and limitations of these terms for describing medieval attitudes. The modern concepts of 'sacred' and 'secular' are shown to be effective as scholarly tools, but also to risk imposing false dichotomies. The authors consider medieval material culture from a broad perspective, addressing works of art and architecture from England to Japan, and from the seventh to the fifteenth century. Although the essays take a variety of methodological approaches they are unified in their emphasis on the continuing and necessary dialectic between sacred and secular. The contributors consciously frame their interpretations in terms and perspectives derived from the Middle Ages, thereby demonstrating how the present art-historical terminology and conceptual frameworks can obscure the complexity of medieval life and material culture. The resonance among essays opens possibilities for productive cross-cultural study of an issue that is relevant to a diversity of cultures and sub-periods. Introducing an innovative approach to the literature of the field, this volume complicates and enriches our understanding of social realities across a broad spectrum of medieval worlds.

While visual cultures mingled comfortably along the silk roads and on the shores of the Mediterranean, medieval England has sometimes been viewed - by both medieval and more recent writers - as isolated. In this Element the author introduces new evidence to show that this understanding of medieval England's visual relationship to the rest of the world demands revision. An international team led by the author has completed a digital reconstruction of the so-called Chertsey combat tiles (sophisticated pictorial floor tiles made c. 1250, England), including both images and lost Latin texts. Grounded in the discoveries made while completing this reconstruction, the author proposes new conclusions regarding the historical circumstances within which the Chertsey tiles were commissioned and their significant connections with global textile traditions.

While visual cultures mingled comfortably along the silk roads and on the shores of the Mediterranean, medieval England has sometimes been viewed - by both medieval and more recent writers - as isolated. In this Element the author introduces new evidence to show that this understanding of medieval England's visual relationship to the rest of the world demands revision. An international team led by the author has completed a digital reconstruction of the so-called Chertsey combat tiles (sophisticated pictorial floor tiles made c. 1250, England), including both images and lost Latin texts. Grounded in the discoveries made while completing this reconstruction, the author proposes new conclusions regarding the historical circumstances within which the Chertsey tiles were commissioned and their significant connections with global textile traditions.

Offering original analysis of the convergence between 'sacred' and 'secular' in medieval works of art and architecture, this collection explores both the usefulness and limitations of these terms for describing medieval attitudes. The modern concepts of 'sacred' and 'secular' are shown to be effective as scholarly tools, but also to risk imposing false dichotomies. The authors consider medieval material culture from a broad perspective, addressing works of art and architecture from England to Japan, and from the seventh to the fifteenth century. Although the essays take a variety of methodological approaches they are unified in their emphasis on the continuing and necessary dialectic between sacred and secular. The contributors consciously frame their interpretations in terms and perspectives derived from the Middle Ages, thereby demonstrating how the present art-historical terminology and conceptual frameworks can obscure the complexity of medieval life and material culture. The resonance among essays opens possibilities for productive cross-cultural study of an issue that is relevant to a diversity of cultures and sub-periods. Introducing an innovative approach to the literature of the field, this volume complicates and enriches our understanding of social realities across a broad spectrum of medieval worlds.

Threads of Meaning focuses on the extraordinary imagery of gilded eagles, griffins, and archers in roundels across multiple media to reveal how imported figural silks from the Islamic world and Byzantium saturated ritual, politics, and art in thirteenth-century England. Drawing on royal and ecclesiastical inventories, chronicles, and surviving objects, Amanda Luyster reconstructs a vastly enlarged corpus of figural woven silks imported into England: about forty extant textiles and some two hundred more recorded in local collections. Silks are highlighted at moments of intense meaning such as Frederick II's peacock and eagle cloths gifted to Henry III and Piers Gaveston's provocative purple and pearls. Threads of Meaning illustrates not only how elites understood textiles through Byzantine imperial codes, but also how these motifs moved across media including tiles, sculpture, and wall paintings, extending silk's authority through English art. In doing so, Luyster offers a new visual history in which imported silks, and the English objects they inspired, suggested sanctity, sovereignty, network connections, and military victory. Richly illustrated and archivally grounded, Threads of Meaning reframes Gothic England within global exchange.