Foreword

Abstract

In Northern Europe, the Middle Ages marked the emergence of national histories: ethnonyms, place, and personal names were recorded for the first time, events were described, and narratives tied to the natural and cultural landscape began to take shape. These developments laid the foundations for the historical identities of modern states. One of the results of this process is the notion of “ducal Lithuania,” a construct that has nourished historical imagination, didactics, and, to some extent, historical politics over the past few centuries. Only towards the end of the twentieth century did these master narratives—rejecting all contradictions and most likely remaining unbothered by them—begin to be broken down into smaller ones, introducing into scholarly circulation sources that captured everyday life, along with data from material culture studies. Most importantly, new questions were foregrounded and interdisciplinary approaches were fostered. As a result, contemporary medieval studies revealed in Medieval Europe an urban lifestyle, forms of female piety, experiences of constant deprivation and occasional excess, the workings of engineering thought, the fragility of the human body, and a culturally cultivated gaze. Reconsidering the past of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania has, in turn, encouraged a revision of the art-historical narrative, expanding and enriching it with research produced in recent decades. A decade ago, during discussions on the state of research into the art and architecture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the Institute of Art Studies of the Vilnius Academy of Arts, the decision was made to prepare a new history of Lithuanian art. The project was to begin with a volume dedicated to the Christian Middle Ages of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This optimistic ambition was supported by the relatively narrow chronological scope—from the late fourteenth to the early sixteenth century—the limited number of surviving objects, and the growing body of archaeological and scientific data. At the time, it was agreed that the various branches of material culture should be addressed in order to establish a foundation for a future synthesis of research. Over the decade in which this idea matured, it not only produced new scholarly surveys but also revealed significant gaps, disparities, and a shortage of researchers. As a result, the envisioned synthetic history of art has become less a concrete plan than an aspiration for the future.