ENDNOTES  page 185

<>

Doric & Etruscan temple types 650 BC: *

Vitruvius specifies 3 doors & 3 cellae, one for each of the 3 Etruscan deities (Roman sources often ascribe to the Etruscan a taste for triads).  Temple orientation inconsistent, possibly determined by a priest watching the flight of birds at foundation.  The exteriors of Etruscan (like Greek & Roman) temples were highly decorated & colourful, especially the entablature & roofs.  Wood was often used for columns & bases, capitals often encased in painted terracotta.  Roof edges were decorated with brightly painted terracotta & often had a row of sculptures along the central roof ridge, going beyond the acroterion group (an ornament placed on a flat pedestal, mounted at the apex or corner of the pediment).

Some Etruscan features were unique.  They were strongly forward looking, with emphasis on the front facade, less on the sides, minimal at the back. The podia are also usually higher, with entry only from the front, presenting a blank platform wall elsewhere.  Often columns used only on the front portico, which were deep, occupying half the area under the roof, with multiple rows of columns.  In later Etruscan temples versions of Greek Aeolic, Ionic & Corinthian capitals are found, along with the main Tuscan order (a simpler version of the Doric).  Attention to the detailing in the entablature (common to Greek &Roman temples) is lacking.  In contrast to Greek & Roman practise, fluted Tuscan/Doric columns are found.

illustration

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

<> 

Eucharistic controversy: *

In 831, Paschasius Radbertus, a Benedictine, wrote De corpore et sanguine Domini aserting the consecrated bread & wine are the body & blood of Christ.  In 844 Emperor Charles the Bald heard of this & commissioned another Benedictine, Ratramnus, to refute it.  He wrote his own  De corpore et sanguine Domini stating that the bread and wine are only symbols of Christ.

In 1048, Berengar of Tours rediscovered this latter work.  He applied both Aristotelian & Augustine thought & concluded it answered the Eucharistic question; he came to believe the bread and wine were symbolic.  In 1059, Cardinal Humbert had Berengar discredited & at the Lateran Synod (1059) he was forced to sign a treatise admitting the bread and wine to be truly flesh and blood.  Later Berengar repudiated this & criticize the synod.

In 1066 Lanfranc came to the defence of the synod & aimed to discredit Berengar. Using Augustinian thought, he stated that the sign is not in the bread & wine, but in the consuming of them, this intake of the flesh and blood symbolized the sacrifice Christ made on the cross.  Lanfranc noted the difference between the outward appearances of bread and wine and the substance, the invisible nature or essence of bread and wine.

“We believe that through the ministry of the priest, the earthly substances on the Lord’s table are sanctified by divine power in a manner that is unspeakable, incomprehensible, marvellous; and that these earthily substances are changed into essence of the Lord’s body, even though the appearances of earthily elements remain”.

This is the doctrine of transubstantiation.

 

<> 

Eddas of the north: *

The Poetic Edda or Elder Edda, is a collection of Old Norse poems from the Icelandic medieval manuscript Codex Regius ("Royal Book").  It preserves poems that narrate the creation & foretold destruction and rebirth of the Old Norse mythological world as well as individual myths about gods concerning Norse deities.  The poems of the 2nd part are legends about Norse heroes & heroines, such as Sigurd, Brynhildr and Gunnar.

The Prose Edda or the Younger Edda, written by the Icelandic scholar & historian Snorri Sturluson around 1220; it is an Icelandic manual of poetics also containing many mythological stories.  Written to allow Icelandic poets & readers to understand the subtleties of alliterative verse, & grasp the mythological allusions behind the many kennings that were used in skaldic poetry.