Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians: (The Middle Ages Series)

In eighth- and ninth-century Byzantium there arose a heated controversy over religious art, known as the "Iconoclastic Controversy." Analyzing hundreds of pages of art-texts, laws, letters, and poems, this book examines the wider context of the debate by providing the first comprehensive study of the Western response to Byzantine iconoclasm.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Chapter One: Art, Icons, and Their Critics and Defenders Before the Age of Iconoclasm Chapter Two: Byzantine Iconoclasm in the Eighth Century Chapter Three: Art and Art Talk in the West in the First Age of Iconoclasm Chapter Four: The Franks and Nicaea: Opus Caroli Regis Chapter Five: Tradition, Order, and Worship in the Age of Charlemagne Chapter Six: The Age of Second Iconoclasm Chapter Seven: Art and Argument in the Age of Louis the Pious Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments

About the Author :
Thomas F. X. Noble is Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. He is author of several books, including The Republic of St. Peter: The Birth of the Papal State, 680-825, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Review :
"This book will no doubt become a standard reference for early medievalists and art historians interested in early medieval discourse on Christian figural art and its wider contexts."-American Historical Review "[An] immensely scholarly and interesting book on the Carolingian response to the drama of iconoclasm in Byzantium."-TLS "A magisterial reexamination of a period in which long-lived ideas about the power and limitations of Christian images were first articulated in the medieval West... The book skillfully explores Carolingian discourses about images in relation to Byzantine and papal positions in the eighth and ninth centuries."-Journal of Church History "Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians presents a rich detailed history of the written debate over religious imagery in the early Middle Ages, with a particular focus on the West, while deemphasizing the violence, destruction, and change so often included by historians in discussions of iconoclasm."-Journal of Religion "This learned, incisive and readable book has made an important contribution to the study of early medieval art, and more particularly of a whole religious culture."-Early Medieval Europe "A deeply impressive, powerfully argued, and extraordinarily interesting book. Noble establishes the centrality of the Carolingian period and its writers to the development of ideas about sacred art. He offers a new interpretation of the understanding of images in both the western and eastern empires in the early Middle Ages."-Rosamond McKitterick, University of Cambridge "Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians is remarkably scholarly, surveying secondary literature in both Byzantine East and Latin West, and in many different disciplines, including theology and art history as well as history. It is a splendid book. It will be a standard reference for many years to come."-Lawrence Nees, University of Delaware