Church

As Christianity spread across medieval Europe, it became more popular and centralized. Churches began to stray away from worshipping individual saints and adopted common practices and symbols. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches each centralized power and ensured that all followers worshipped in similar ways but to gain the power to enact these changes, they needed to legitimize their authority.  By observing several of the religious artifacts in this gallery, we see the ways in which religion legitimized the authority of a certain person or persons, or, conversely how the specific religious use of an artifact actually legitimized the object itself.  The Byzantine Oil Lamp, as an example, would have legitimized the worship of Christ in the Byzantine Empire, as Christian pilgrims would have paid their homage to the shrine that it was contained in.  On the opposite end, the crozier that a bishop would have carried around with him at all times in his religious life was an important symbol of the bishop’s own authority, and dedication to the Christian religion.  The different ways that the two object either received legitimacy or gave it is useful in realizing the empowering nature of Christianity in Medieval Europe.  The other religious objects in this gallery represent similar symbols of status,  importance through their use as religious tools, and additionally as an indication of a person relationship with God.  The Saint Mark Icon, painted with a thin sheet of gold covering is especially intriguing as it has both the legitimacy of being a depiction of a very important Saint, as well as being materially expensive.  All of the objects in this gallery represent the importance of the Church in medieval Europe, as it was a source of both power and influence in people’s daily lives, and those in prominent positions in the Church had a level of power that rivaled those in the government.

Artifacts
Church