| My dissertation is a comparative study of the Christianization processes in two culturally diverse medieval trading centers, and of the implications of these processes for the shaping of urban space and material culture. The focus on Gdansk and Novgorod in contrasting historical eras---the first half of the thirteenth and the second half of the fourteenth centuries---allows me to deconstruct implicit or explicit presentations of either city as representative of a coherent cultural domain defined by "religion." Such claims are deeply marked, if not motivated, by ideological adherence to a conception of distinct domains or "blocs"---Catholic contrasted with Orthodox, etc. In contrast, I study each city as important in its own right with a particular focus on the operations of ecclesiastical institutions, analyzed with regard to social and economic processes and outcomes, in which the "religious" character or affiliation appears secondary. I examine how in the competition for economic profit and political position, each institution appropriated ecclesiastical architecture and complex artistic and symbolic language to justify its social exclusiveness and assure its continuity. Created according to artistic canons controlled by the clergy, however, artworks served to promote an idea of cultural cohesiveness, which has had a significant, as well as unfortunate, effect on modern conceptions of medieval society. Not least through their emphasis on style, modern art historians assert, whether consciously or not, the "Christian" identity of medieval communities. The implicit assumption is still prevalent that artworks provide a privileged key to the interpretation of the society that produced them. In contrast, I emphasize the range of functions and meanings that artworks may have had, which cannot be deduced from the artworks, but only reconstructed through a holistic study of the society in which they were assigned value and significance. |
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