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Winner of John Nicholas Brown Prize
The 2010 John Nicholas Brown Prize is awarded to Bissera
V. Pentcheva for her book, Icons and Power: The Mother
of God in Byzantium, published by Pennsylvania State
University Press in 2006, and to Jonathan Ray for his book,
The Sephardic Frontier: The "Reconquista" and the Jewish
Community in Medieval Iberia, published by Cornell University
Press in 2006.
Icons and Power is a bold book. Pentcheva's topic is enormous,
spanning centuries from the fifth to the thirteenth and
taking on the role of Marian icons in Byzantine society.
Pentcheva is a revisionist, especially when it comes to
chronological developments and the reasons for them. She
argues from a wide range of evidence, art historical, numismatic,
textual, and liturgical, that icons were not used in processions
in Constantinople before the period of iconoclasm (730-843).
Rather, icons of the Virgin were used in processions beginning
in the late tenth century, and it was only during the eleventh
century that the public role of icons was firmly established.
The relationship of the Virgin's cult to the imperial family,
too, is reexamined here, and the importance of Chalcedon
and Emperor Leo I emphasized. It was not until the eighth
century that Mary became the protector of hereditary power,
and we must wait until the Macedonian dynasty (867-1056)
to find her with military powers, embodying the older Roman
concept of Victoria. Pentcheva finds two streams-public
celebration of cult with processions and icons, and the
association of the Virgin with imperial rule-merging in
the late tenth century and mingling powerfully into a single
understanding thereafter. She explores the role of Emperor
John II Komnenos (1118-43), who instituted new processions
and gave icons a major role within them. She says, "This
period marks the rise of public litaniai with icons in both
imperial and liturgical ceremonies and the creation of memory
reshaped by icons." Her study draws upon recent scholarship
demonstrating that figures from the early fifth century,
most notably the empress Pulcheria, were mythologized and
that through these myths artistic productions were given
a new past. From this point on Byzantium "rises as a culture
of icons." And it is this view of Byzantium and of its art
that inspired a following in the West in the course of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries. This beautifully produced
book, with its many interdisciplinary arguments and fresh
use of evidence, will inspire scholars within many fields
of medieval studies for years to come.
Jonathan Ray's Sephardic Frontier stands out for
both its painstaking and fruitful research in the archives
and its strikingly new and convincing reformulation of a
key element in the social, political, and economic foundation
of medieval Iberia. Ray takes issue with the influential
assumption that "Iberian Jewish communities were consistent
over time in their institutions and sense of cultural solidarity.
He also challenges the related assumption among scholars
that religious affiliation was the most important source
of identity in medieval Spain and Portugal" (review by Jessica
A. Coope, American Historical Review 112 [2007],
915-16). Ray demonstrates that "[w]hile confessional identity
. . . did become increasingly important in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, it was not a major consideration
on the thirteenth-century frontier" (ibid.). The participation
of Jews in the Reconquista has previously received little
attention, "largely because of a shortage of easily accessible
sources" (ibid.). Ray, after what is clearly long and assiduous
work in many locations, draws upon "a large amount of unpublished
material in royal, ecclesiastical, and municipal archives,
as well as rabbinic literature" (review by Abraham D. Lavender,
Journal for the Study of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry
1/2 [2007], 116-19). His wide-ranging research shows that
"al-Andalus Jewish communities [of the frontier] were not
only new communities, but that they had a degree of openness,
mobility, and interaction with Christians and Muslims that
was not found in other areas of Iberia. The competing crusader
kings of Iberia, in need of pioneer settlers to repopulate
and fight over the eventual control of al-Andalus, encouraged
[not only] economic [but also] political activity by both
Christians and Jews" (ibid.). Ray shows that such royal
encouragement derived from "the increasing authority of
Spanish and Portuguese monarchs who move in the course of
the thirteenth century from ruling indirectly through personal
ties with nobles to being heads of state over all subjects,
including and perhaps especially Jews" (Coope). Ray's exceptional
book will significantly mark a wide range of fields within
medieval studies, as well as some beyond its confines: Iberian
studies, including both the history of the "three cultures"
and that of monarchic practices; Sephardic studies, to which
it brings an entirely new dimension that will encourage
future researchers to look beyond accepted models; the emerging
field of frontier or borderland studies; and the study of
cross-cultural contact in many places outside the Iberian
Peninsula. It is a book that many medievalists, whether
Iberianists or not, will want to know and share, as a model,
with their students.
Respectfully submitted,
SUSAN J. NOAKES
KATHERINE H. TACHAU
MARGOT FASSLER, Chair
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