Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history. On this episode we are

visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In fact we'll be here for a few episodes

as we look at art within the walls of this wonderful collection and this very iconic art

museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

For this episode, we are going to be looking at medieval art.

Medieval art teaches us a great deal about medieval church life, about medieval theology,

and even about the medieval world.

The first thing we realize is the art is dominated by religious themes and depictions of biblical events.

This makes sense as this is the era of Christendom.

The second thing we need to know is that medieval art was in a variety of media.

Of course there was painting and sculpture, illuminated manuscripts,

we have stained glass, but also artists worked with metals and with jewels. We have mosaics. We have

the beginning of fresco paintings. These are the mural paintings using a wet

limestone and mixing pigments with water. This of course will come to its

apex at the Sistine Chapel. And we also have tapestries. Well, let's turn our attention to some of the medieval art in the collection

of the Philadelphia Art Museum. The first thing we come to are what are called reliquaries.

These reliquaries were shrines that were intended to hold relics.

Relics of the Saints, relics of the Apostles. There were relics related to Mary and to Jesus and you can find these

reliquaries all over cathedrals and Europe. They're highly jeweled and

decorated boxes of various shapes. There's a dozen or so in the collection at

Philadelphia Art Museum. One is a little round locket box with a carving of a

sheep on it. It has the Latin language Agnes Day, the Lamb of God.

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