Networks of Power

The Middle Ages were visually articulate, familiar with the importance of establishing physical legacies through functional and aesthetic objects capable of speaking on behalf of a regime’s power. The way in which medieval leaders presented their religious authority was deeply related to their individual sense of legitimacy — secularism was not a concept yet adopted by the  regimes that dominated medieval political spheres. Political and physical power were additional networks through which medieval societies could articulate the power of their respective states, with the sophistication of their economic systems additionally reflected through displays of individual and state wealth.

Networks of power allowed individuals in the Middle Ages to develop personal relationships with the physical legacies of their societies. The use of sophisticated woodcut printing techniques, the incorporation of gilded liturgical objects within the Church setting, the introduction of luxurious fabrics like velvet — all of these ornate practices represented to the people of the Middle Ages the economic state of their society and the cross-cultural interactions that legitimized the influence of the respective institution they were interacting with.