Dissimilar Similitudes: Devotional Objects in Late Medieval Europe

From an acclaimed historian, a mesmerizing account of how medieval European Christians envisioned the paradoxical nature of holy objects

Between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries, European Christians used a plethora of objects in worship, not only prayer books, statues, and paintings but also pieces of natural materials, such as stones and earth, considered to carry holiness, dolls representing Jesus and Mary, and even bits of consecrated bread and wine thought to be miraculously prese...