<p>As a saint with no biblical or historical basis for her legend, St. Anne could change radically over time with cultural and doctrinal shifts even as her status as Mary's mother remained at the core of her legend and provided an appearance of consistency. "Mother, Matron, Matriarch: Sanctity and Social Change in the Cult of St. Anne, 1450-1750" takes issue with the general view that the cult of St. Anne in Northern Europe flourished in the late Middle Ages, only to wither away in the Reformation, and advances a new understanding of it. It does so by taking a longer view, beginning around 1450 and extending to 1750 in order to show how St. Anne's cult and the Holy Kinship elucidated long-term shifts in religious and cultural mores regarding the relationships between domesticity and sanctity, what constituted properly pious lay behavior, and attitudes towards women (in particular older women). Materials used include vita, devotional texts, confraternal records, sermons, treatises, and works of art across the time period under investigation. After a definite period of decline during the mid-sixteenth century (as evidenced by lower pilgrimage statistics, confraternity records, and a lack of text production), St. Anne enjoyed a revival in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Catholicism in a "purified" form, reconfigured to suit new religious and social norms which emphasized patriarchal authority within the household and obedience to the Catholic Church among the laity. In this context, St. Anne became a humble, pious widow whose own purity serves as proof of Mary's Immaculate Conception, and whose meek devotion to her holy daughter and grandson exemplified properly obedient reverence for the laity.</p> / Dissertation

The Motif of Holy Kinship in the Christian Tradition and its Application in the Arts with Special Regard to Czech Republic. The work deals with the theme of iconographic analysis of Holy Kinship, focuses on resources in Holy Scripture, in Church tradition and among prominent theologians and historians. The texts are translated from Greek and Latin patrology, church documents and texts of prominent theologians. Toward two known Czech paintings shows two unknown parallels from auction catalogs. Provides an overview of the paintings and sculptures of Holy Kinship in the Czech Republic. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

With the rising popularity of Mary's mother, St. Anne, Birth of the Virgin images proliferated at the beginning of the sixteenth century. However, these images have not been analyzed in great depth by any previous art historical scholarship. This thesis indicates the broader significance of these images by considering Birth of the Virgin compositions by Jan de Beer, Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, and Adriaen van Overbeke. First, this thesis considers how these artists derived iconography from Robert Campin to connect Mary's nativity to the birth of her son. Thus, the artists invite the viewer to witness the significance and purity of both babies. Next, I argue that the sacrificial imagery of these panels cultivates a sacerdotal space, in which midwives become pseudo-priests and everyday objects are conflated with ritual material culture. These panels, which draw upon Old and New Testament covenants, present Mary as co-sacrifice, indicating a sixteenth-century expansion of the Virgin's co-redemptive role alongside Christ. The paintings emphasize the beginnings of the Virgin's life to explore the life-giving quality of mankind's redemption. Finally, I explore the viewership possibilities of these paintings for a lay audience, who could interpret their own experiences with birth through these images. Many of the objects in the artworks bear similarities not only to priestly objects but also to the material culture associated with birth. Overall, this thesis demonstrates the important role that Birth of the Virgin images played in interpreting the role of the Virgin Mary and her mother Anne in increasingly affective piety. The subject matter was a way to explore the doctrinal implications of Mary's sacrificial, life-giving power even as it invited viewers to frame their own day-to-day experiences with childbirth in more religious terms.