From liturgy to streets. Sacred objects, society and signification in the kingdom of Galicia from 13th to 15th centuries

Ideology, Society and Medieval Religion Seminar

Objects are the centre of the everyday life in the medieval world, with the concept of time and its rhythms. Materiality is distributed, in particular ways, between the different sectors and labours in society; different ordines in their things, in their life, in their senses. But sometimes the objects go farther materiality, hiding a layer closer to collective mentality. It is the branch that is taken for a forest; is the key that concentrates the sense of ownership. This is especially evident in relation to the Church of the 13th to 15th centuries. Here sounds, smells or objects concentrate a meaning that goes beyond the obvious, with a liturgy, sacred use and transcendence that fill them with a broad sense linked both to the sacred function and, from the feudal attributions, to the forms of political power. Such features are perfectly identifiable in the kingdom of Galicia, a territory inserted in the kingdom of Castile and Leon, and in which the wide extension of the ecclesiastical dominion provides a perfect field of study in the conjunction of cult and power. In this paper, from the provincial councils and the takeover of benefits, we will examine the significance that certain liturgical objects have taken in the forms and behaviours of daily life in the Northwest of the Iberian peninsula.