This icon depicts the spiritual path St. John of the Climax laid out in his book The Ladder of Divine Ascent (or Paradise) which outlines steps toward moving out of sin toward theosis. In the painting you can see monks struggling upward toward the Christ they seek union with, resisting sins and temptations all the way. It is painted on the wall of the Monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Siani, where St. John of Climax was abbot in the 6th century. The spirituality of St. John of Climax continues to be important in Orthodox churches, and the fourth Sunday in Lent celebrates him (http://www.pravmir.com/article_166.html). Even young Orthodox bloggers appear to continue to find the book and icon meaningful as they practice their faith. As one blogger writes, "Saint John's Ladder expresses the Orthodox view that spiritual perfection, theosis, salvation is not something attained all at once, as by a leap, but comes after a long arduous process of spiritual striving or askesis. In this process, with sustained effort one rises gradually from lower to higher and higher levels of spiritual development." (http://orthodoxchristian.blogspot.com/2009/03/ladder-of-divine-ascent.html)

Theosis-

Definition: a concept from Greek Orthodoxy that describes salvation as human participation with and even in the divine nature-it is an actual union and partaking in God and God's nature. As opposed to the Roman Catholic understanding of salvation which maintains a strict separation between human and divine, even once heaven is reached, in this understanding the believer is seen as capable of reaching a spiritual perfection that allows him or her to attain true union with God and even become God-like. As the Coptic Orthodox Church of St. Marnia puts it, theosis is "the process of becoming Godlike, becoming partakers of the divine nature. It is the calling of every one of us, achieved through the incarnation of the Lord. He became man so that we might become God…" (http://www.stmarina.org/divineascent6.html)

Historical importance: the Greek Orthodox concept of theosis made its way into Italy through the Byzantine monks who taught in Italy's schools and universities (Hernandez-Diaz, lecture week 9). This more elevated view of the potential of human nature no doubt gelled well with and informed many other concepts afoot in the Italian Renaissance, especially that of humanism, which viewed humans as divine (lecture). Theosis provides Christians with a theological way to relate to humanism's elevation of human nature while still acknowledging human sin--theosis only comes about as a result of a great deal of spiritual striving and growth and denial of sin. I suspect that the way this concept captured the imaginations of those involved in the Italian Renaissance also served to weaken some of the Roman Catholic church's hold on the hearts and minds of its people and, thus, helped pave the way for the Reformation.

Artifact: Icon "The Ladder of Divine Ascent" at http://www.iconsexplained.com/iec/02102.htm

This icon depicts the spiritual path St. John of the Climax laid out in his book _The Ladder of Divine Ascent_ (or Paradise) which outlines steps toward moving out of sin toward theosis. In the painting you can see monks struggling upward toward the Christ they seek union with, resisting sins and temptations all the way. It is painted on the wall of the Monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Siani, where St. John of Climax was abbot in the 6th century. The spirituality of St. John of Climax continues to be important in Orthodox churches, and the fourth Sunday in Lent celebrates him (http://www.pravmir.com/article_166.html). Even young Orthodox bloggers appear to continue to find the book and icon meaningful as they practice their faith. As one blogger writes, "Saint John's Ladder expresses the Orthodox view that spiritual perfection, theosis, salvation is not something attained all at once, as by a leap, but comes after a long arduous process of spiritual striving or askesis. In this process, with sustained effort one rises gradually from lower to higher and higher levels of spiritual development."
(http://orthodoxchristian.blogspot.com/2009/03/ladder-of-divine-ascent.html)

Definition: The buttress was conceived by Abbot Suger in the 1100s in France as an architectural solution to the medieval desire to build cathedrals with high ceilings and large windows, making these churches into buildings that would maximize both height and light. Buttresses are supports built either against or projecting from a wall (generally on the outside of a church and using counter-pressure) in order to help support the building. As Hernandez notes in his lecture, the buttress allowed medieval church architects to rely less on columns, which often interfered with the view of windows and the altar, both integral to the medieval worship experience.

Historical significance: This development allowed for the extensive use of stained glass and imagery in these churches' windows. These windows were of great use to Medieval Christians because so few were literate and Bibles were in short supply and incredibly expensive, making pictures on windows (and the light they let in) a major way to tell the Christian story and educate the laity. These windows were also important in the way they allowed light and the various symbolic meanings of light to enter into the worship space (i.e., bluish-whitish light that symbolized the Spirit), enhancing the experience and catechesis of the worshippers. The incredibly tall ceilings also allowed for these buildings to be designed in such a way as to draw the believer's eye upward, pointing literally and figuratively toward heaven and the God believed to reside there.

Artifact:

I'm including a Nova video on the building of gothic cathedrals. It's long (and fascinating!), but info on the buttress begins at around 24 minutes (if you start around 13 minutes, you get full info on the pointed arch and the reasons for needing the buttress).
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/building-gothic-cathedrals.html
(the transcript is also available if you scroll down a bit on the above page and click on the "transcript" link)

Though not related to the buttress, I found this interesting-a short clip on the combination of science and religion that went into building and designing these churches (esp. the way they show the revitalization of scientific and classical learning): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb4D08EFDdE

Also, not related to buttresses, but about architecture-a short little video tutorial on "how to read a Gothic cathedral façade" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBwrcowWOGc&feature=related

Mysticism-through this form of spirituality, the believer sought to directly experience a merging, special union, or deep intimacy with God. Mysticism was a prevalent aspect of Medieval spirituality that was theoretically open to any believer. Ozment notes that there were two types of mysticism in the late Medieval ages: a Latin tradition embraced by Cistercians and Franciscans and drawing on the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite that emphasized traditional monastic piety, "will, love, and practical piety" (115) aimed at merging with Christ and conforming one's will to God through Christ; and a primarily Germanic tradition embraced by the Dominican order, drawing on the theology of Albertists, Thomists, and Neo-platonists that emphasized "intellectual visions of God" and sought a mystical union not so much through conformity with Christ as through "a merger with the divine abyss" in which one's self is absorbed or lost in God's being (116). The first type of mysticism can be seen in Bernard of Clairvaux and Bonaventura and tended to remain very orthodox. The second can be seen especially in Meister Eckhart and was often considered heterodox by the Church. Both (as well as other mystical movements) emphasized the ideal of poverty and the belief that religious realities can and should be experienced rather than simply believed (116-17).

Artifact: Hadewich was a Beguine mystic, practicing a heterodox form of spirituality related to the Cathars and Waldensians. The Beguines began as a movement among "pious laywomen who wore a habit and practiced poverty and chastity" (Ozment 91). Hadewich is especially interesting to me because of the gender-bending nature of her language and prayers and because of the extremely erotic way in which she writes about her relationship with Christ. She, in fact, seems to combine the two forms of mysticism noted above, seeking union with Christ, but in a very heterodox way, in which Christ is seen as the divine abyss with whom she enters into radical, mystical union, so that she and her Christ-lover become nearly co-mingled. I'll offer some excerpts of her writing:

From Vision 7:
"My heart and veins and all my limbs quivered with eager desire and, as often occurred with me, such madness and fear so beset my mind that it seemed to me I did not content my Beloved, and that my Beloved did not fulfill my desire, so that dying I must go mad, and going mad I must die…I desired to have full fruition of my Beloved, and to understand and taste him to the full. I desired that his Humanity should be to the fullest extent be one in fruition with my humanity, and that mine then should hold its stand and be strong enough to enter into perfection until I content him who is perfection itself, by purity and unity, and in all things to content him fully in every virtue."

From Letter 18: "the soul is a bottomless abyss in which God suffices to himself; and his own self-sufficiency ever finds fruition to the full in this soul, as the soul, for its part, ever does in him. Soul is a way for the passage of God from his depths into his liberty; and God is a way for the passage of the soul into its liberty, that is, into his inmost depths, which cannot be touched except by the soul's abyss"

From Letter 9: "he will teach you what he is, and with what wondrous sweetness the loved one and the Beloved dwell one in the other, and how they penetrate each other in such a way that neither of the two distinguishes himself from the other. But they abide in one another in fruition, mouth in mouth, heart in heart, body in body, and soul in soul, while one sweet divine Nature flows through them both (2 Pet. 1:4), and they are both one thing through each other, but at the same time remain two different selves-yes, and remain so forever."

From Poems in Couplets 16, "Love's Seven Names": "This is the chain that binds all in union/So that each knows the other through and through/In the anguish or the repose or the madness of Love,/And eats his flesh and drinks his blood:/The heart of each devours the other's heart,/One soul assaults the other and invades it completely,/As he who is Love itself showed us/When he gave us himself to eat,/Disconcerting all the thoughts of man./By this he made known to us/that love's most intimate union/Is through eating, tasting, and seeing interiorly./He eats us; we think we eat him,/And we do eat him, of this we can be certain./But because he remains so undevoured,/And so undesired./Each of us remains uneaten by him/And separated so far from each other./But let him who is held captive by these chains/Not cease to eat his fill,/If he wishes to know and taste beyond his dreams/The Godhead and the manhood!"

Poems and letters found in:
Hadewijch. Hadewijch: The Complete Works. Trans. Mother Columba Hart, O.S.B. New York: Paulist Press, 1980.