Hercules and Albrecht Dürer’s Das Meerwunder in a Chantbook from Renaissance
                  Spain *

God's dramatic curse of Adam, Eve, and the serpent, as recorded in Genesis 3:14–15, contains a theological ambiguity that played out in the visual arts, literature, and, as this article contends, music of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Translations of this passage leave in doubt whether a male, a female, or both, will defeat sin by crushing Satan's head (“caput”). This issue lies at the heart of the three Caput masses by an anonymous Englishman, Johannes Ockeghem, and Jacob Obrecht, and the Caput Motet for the Virgin by Richard Hygons from the Eton Choirbook. Fifteenth-century discussions of the roles of Christ and Mary in confronting sin, often called the “head of the dragon,” help unravel the meaning of these works. The Caput masses are Christ-focused and emphasize the Savior or one of his surrogates suppressing the beast's head, as seen in illumination, rubric, and canon found in the masses. Folklorically based rituals and concepts of liturgical time are similarly built around the idea of the temporary reign of the Devil, who is ultimately trodden down by Christ. Hygons's motet appears after celebration of the Immaculate Conception was authorized in the late fifteenth century. This feast proclaimed Mary's conquest of sin through her own trampling on the dragon; the motet stresses Marian elements of the Caput theology, especially the contrast between the Virgin's spotlessness and Eve's corruption. Features of the Caput tradition mirror topics discussed in astrological and astronomical treatises and suggest that the composer of the original Caput Mass may also have been an astronomer. The disappearance of the Caput tradition signals its lasting influence through its progeny, which rise up in yet another renowned family of polyphonic masses. Together, the Caput masses and motet encompass the multifaceted doctrine of Redemption from the late middle ages under one highly symbolic Caput rubric.

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The Triumphant Genealogical Awareness of the Nobility in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 17th and 18th Centuries

Railaitė-Bardė¹

2018

Lithuanian Historical Studies

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This article attempts to show how the manifestation of ancestors was expressed in the genealogical awareness of the nobility in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, using publications to mark special occasions in the 17th and 18th centuries, genealogical trees and diagrams. The research seeks to establish what effect the exaltation of various battles had on the genealogical memory of the nobility in the Grand Duchy, bearing in mind the context of its involvement in one of the most famous battles it ever fought. The genealogical sources mentioned were examined in order to ascertain which battles and what memories of the commanders who fought in them were important to the genealogical awareness of the nobility, and why this memory was selective, for some battles and notable heroes from these battles are remembered and glorified, while others are simply forgotten. Memories of which battles were important to the genealogical presentation of certain families, how was it expressed, and in what period were the ancestors who participated in these battles remembered?The first part of the study presents the memory of ancestors as soldiers, and the ways this memory was expressed. The second part focuses on ancestors who distinguished themselves in specific battles, and which family members who participated in battles are remembered and honoured, in this way distinguishing them from other ancestors.

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Hercules and Albrecht Dürer’s Das Meerwunder in a Chantbook from Renaissance Spain *

Cited by 3 publications

References 1 publication

Tropes for the Ordinary in a 16th-century chantbook from Toledo, Spain

Tropes for the Ordinary in a 16th-century chantbook from Toledo, Spain

The Savior, the Woman, and the Head of the Dragon in the Caput Masses and Motet

The Triumphant Genealogical Awareness of the Nobility in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 17th and 18th Centuries

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