Modern and Medieval Approaches to Pilgrimage,Gender and Sacred Space

This article examines both modern ethnographical, and medieval hagiographical, constructs of sacred space in the context of female pilgrimage. Beginning with an overview of the ways in which anthropological theories of sacred space and gender have informed pilgrimage scholarship over the last fifty years, it focuses in particular on two conceptual models: that which argues that spatial practices employed by cult centres served to distance women from holy places, and that which contends that accommodation was reached between the devotional aspirations of female pilgrims on the one hand, and the institutional policies of the Church on the other. In turning to the Middle Ages, the second part of the article examines narrative representations of sacred space, and reveals that the spatial challenges posed by female pilgrimage in the medieval West were addressed and mediated in hagiography in surprisingly similar ways.     

Medieval Pottery

Excavation of an area of over 750 sq. m during 1992–94 and 1999 revealed a multi-period prehistoric site preserved beneath the Roman fort. Flints attested mesolithic activity. In the early Neolithic a segmented ditch may represent part of a causewayed enclosure. By c. 3000 cal. B.C. this had been superseded (in this area) by pits and shelters associated with flint-knapping. Finds, but not structures, attest a bronze-age presence. Within the period 390–170 cal. B.C. a roundhouse with cultivation plot, part of an unenclosed settlement, occupied the area. This had been burnt and was rich in carbonised plant remains which provided information about the arable economy and spatial variations in the use of the roundhouse interior. In the later Iron Age the area was reclaimed by cultivation associated with an unlocated settlement. The nature of the occupation on the eve of the Roman period is not known.     

Making Space for Wind Farms: Practices of Territorial Stigmatisation in Rural Denmark

While issues of siting wind farms have often revolved around their local resistance, finding adequate locations and gaining access to land for large wind energy projects has become an increasingly significant challenge for developers, in particular in small countries with relatively mature wind energy sectors, such as Denmark. By drawing on the case of “Outskirts‐Denmark”, this paper focuses on how existing territorial stigma of rural areas is co‐produced and mobilised by wind farm developers to make space for large wind farm projects. In doing so, we demonstrate that the mobilisation of stigma through derogatory rhetoric and forecasting rural decline is used to legitimise the purchase and demolition of properties in marginalised rural areas. We then critically discuss how these developer practices produce controversies over the erosion of rural communities and are entangled in a neoliberal undermining of the planning system, revealing issues of rural energy justice.     

论中古基督教之异端

本文从政治、社会、经济、思想及宗教的角度探讨中古基督教正统与异端之争。认为胜 (正统 )、负 (异端 )之关键往往极受客观环境所影响 ,诸如城市的兴起、教会的改革、知识分子之涌现及其与俗世王侯和教廷的关系等等。