IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB939455952

To Measure Is to Feel: The Mathematics of Middle English Metric Relics (2022)

Allen, Valerie (Author)

Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Volume: 52
Issue: 2
Pages: 219-251

URI: https://doi.org/10.1215/10829636-9687858

DOI: 10.1215/10829636-9687858

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Mathematics Science and religion Measuring instruments Relics; fetishes Christianity Measurement 16th century 15th century 14th century

Christian devotion often focused on holy measurements such as those of Christ's height, side wound, and the nails that pierced him. This article focuses on ones occurring in English manuscripts, primarily from the late fourteenth to the mid‐sixteenth century. The devout touched, kissed, beheld, and wore these measures, drawn scaled or life‐sized, in expectation of protections in life or indulgences after death. These metric relics are considered in light of the mathematics of medieval measurement, which essentially comprised laying one body against another to deliver some kind of ratio or relation. None of the textual amulets delivers a discrete statistic but instead requires a gauging operation, such as multiplying a length fifteen times, thereby placing the worshipper in the position of measurer. By imaginatively measuring the wounds and nails, as if present at the Passion, the votaries interrogate even as they touch.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB939455952/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Book Gunthild Peters; (2018)
Zwei Gulden vom Fuder Mathematik der Fassmessung und praktisches Visierwissen im 15. Jahrhundert (/isis/citation/CBB692507153/)

Book Andreas Lerch; (2015)
Scientia astrologiae: Der Diskurs über die Wissenschaftlichkeit der Astrologie und die lateinischen Lehrbücher 1470–1610 (/isis/citation/CBB475633967/)

Thesis Mark H. Summers; (2021)
Reframing Relics: Visible and Material Sanctity in Monstrance Reliquaries (/isis/citation/CBB728845713/)

Article Anne-Laurence Caudano; (2017)
Cosmography, Asceticism and Female Patronage in Late Byzantine and Slavic Miscellanies (/isis/citation/CBB364053560/)

Book Ostorero, Martine; Modestin, Georg; Utz Tremp, Kathrin; (2010)
Chasses aux sorcières et démonologie: entre discours et pratiques (XIVe-XVIIe siècles) (/isis/citation/CBB001200354/)

Article Forshaw, Peter J.; (2013)
Cabala Chymica or Chemia Cabalistica---Early Modern Alchemists and Cabala (/isis/citation/CBB001213518/)

Book Miles, Margaret R.; (2008)
A Complex Delight: The Secularization of the Breast, 1350--1750 (/isis/citation/CBB000774278/)

Article Elisabetta Ulivi; (2015)
Su Maestro Grazia dei Castellani teologo e matematico del XIV secolo (/isis/citation/CBB018015251/)

Article Douglas J. Lanska; (2022)
The medieval cell doctrine: Foundations, development, evolution, and graphic representations in printed books from 1490 to 1630 (/isis/citation/CBB658623028/)

Book Stephens, Walter; (2002)
Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief (/isis/citation/CBB000501217/)

Article Ulivi, Elisabetta; (2015)
Masters, Questions and Challenges in the Abacus Schools (/isis/citation/CBB001553282/)

Article Sonja Brentjes; (2019)
MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, codex arab. 2697 and its Properties (/isis/citation/CBB635794308/)

Book Knight, David M.; (2015)
Voyaging in Strange Seas: The Great Revolution in Science (/isis/citation/CBB001551963/)

Article Spiesser, Maryvonne; (2008)
L'arithmétique pratique en France au seuil de la Renaissance: formes et acteurs d'un enseignement (/isis/citation/CBB000930397/)

Article Roux, Sophie; (2010)
Forms of Mathematization (14th--17th Centuries) (/isis/citation/CBB001031509/)

Book Joseph, George Gheverghese; (2009)
A Passage to Infinity: Medieval Indian Mathematics from Kerala and Its Impact (/isis/citation/CBB391697183/)

Book Biard, Joël; Rommevaux, Sabine; (2008)
Mathématiques et théorie du mouvement: XIVe--XVIe siècles (/isis/citation/CBB000950229/)

Article Erling Haagensen; Niels C. Lind; (2015)
Medieval Round Churches and the Shape of the Earth (/isis/citation/CBB320428943/)

Article Oosterhoff, Richard J.; (2013)
From Pious to Polite: Pythagoras in the Res publica litterarum of French Renaissance Mathematics (/isis/citation/CBB001201307/)

Article Elisabetta Ulivi; (2011)
L'ultimo testamento di Luca Pacioli con altri documenti inediti (/isis/citation/CBB184381808/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}