Music and Merchants

There aren't many serious works of systematic theology which engage with Breaking Bad, The Big Bang Theory, Crazy Heart, theories of capital and positive psychology, as well as the Isenheim Altarpiece and Handel's Messiah. This lively, contemporary study of salvation does precisely that. Christian doctrine cannot simply repeat what has gone before, even as it recognises the value and richness of the traditions Christianity carries with it. CliveMarsh acknowledges this in exploring how doctrine interweaves with life experience and cultural consumption.A Cultural Theology of Salvation considers how salvation is to be understood and articulated now, when the theme of 'redemption' appears outside of Christianity in the arts and popular culture. Marsh also assesses whether contemporary interest in 'happiness' has anything to do with salvation. The first part of the book sets the enquiry in the context of how theology operates as a discipline, and the cultural climate in which theology has to be done. The second part offers a number ofcase-studies (in art, music, TV, film, positive psychology, and economic life) exploring how the concerns of a doctrine of salvation are addressed directly and indirectly in Western culture. The third part distils the results of the case-studies in formulating a contemporary exposition of salvation, andconcludes by showing what this means in practice.For all that has been written about Renaissance Florence, we know relatively little about its musical life, its religious life, and the aspirations of its average citizens. This book contributes significantly to an understanding of all of these by documenting and interpreting the corporate patronage of an important Florentine musical repertory over a period of some 200 years.From the late thirteenth to the early sixteenth centuries at least twelve lay confraternities sponsored a widespread musical activity involving a specialized network of singers and instrumentalists. The meticulous records kept by these companies reveal a wealth of information about the musicians' conditions and patterns of activity, the central role of music in the companies' vernacular liturgy (especially as conditioned by bequests), and vital performance practice issues such as the role ofinstruments in vocal performance, the shift from monophonic to polyphonic practice, and the interaction of written and unwritten musical traditions. Because the companies were, in many respects, both a microcosm and characteristic manifestation of this remarkable Renaissance city, the author alsoseeks to explain how mendicant spirituality, guild society, and devotional images and imagination provide the essential context for understanding the function and significance of laudesi practice and repertoire. This book will be welcomed not only by musicologists, but by Italianists and late medieval and early modern scholars in general.