Chapter 5 describes the functions of the visual arts as a web of interacting forces and influences that form the basis of the complexity and flexibility of the visual arts and the openness of their developmental, historical, and even evolutionary changes. The functions of art are interaction-dominant, autotelic and are aimed at self-presentation. The important functions of art are figuration, namely, giving a particular visual form and shape to a variety of content; expression and disclosure; value-raising (making special); ideological and economical; co-creating rituals and cults. This web of functions is interaction-dominant, that is, its dynamic depends on the way these functions (or any relevant subset of them) interact over the course of time.

This chapter of the handbook discusses the complex, multifaceted connection between morality and religion from an evolutionary perspective. After providing some much-needed conceptual ground clearing, the authors focus on accounts of the linkage between morality and religion in terms of evolved psychological mechanisms that promote cooperation and inhibit competition. One of the better known of these accounts is the supernatural punishment hypothesis. On this view, the morality–religion link is sustained by the fact that belief in an all-knowing, all-powerful god who monitors people’s behavior and punishes their moral transgressions motivates people to behave less selfishly and more cooperatively. Another account emphasizes religious behavior and posits that participation in religious ritual is a form of costly signaling, indicating to others that the participant can be trusted to observe the moral norms of the community. While there is considerable support for the idea that aspects of religion function to curb selfishness, however, the authors caution that the psychological and sociological mechanisms underlying this function are not yet well understood.

The introduction sets out the main themes of the book: that the role of gesture in religious worship was highlighted by the Reformation, and that it was especially significant in the English Reformation. It develops these themes by showing that gesture was central to some of the key concepts of the English Reformation: indifference, uniformity and conformity. First, were certain gestures essential to worship, or were they merely matters of indifference? Secondly, was variation in gesture permissible in public worship, or should all people use the same gestures in order to create a uniform Protestant body? Finally, was gesture a matter of free choice, or did the church have the right to impose gestural conformity on its members? It argues that these questions of church order opened up a larger epistemological question about what gestures meant, or whether, in the end, they meant anything at all.

In Chapter 9, we look at how the pragmatician can capture the interactional dynamics of seemingly confusing cases of aggression in mediated political settings. In mediated scenes of politics, conflict may evolve in a seemingly ad hoc way, and in order to be able to analyse such settings it is necessary to linguistically analyse exactly what is happening in them. As a case study, we present a corpus of heckling incidents, including cases such as when the previous US first lady Michelle Obama was heckled in public. We argue that while heckling appears as a ‘disorderly’ incident, manifestations of heckling can be systematically categorised into major types, which impose different ritual frames on the public speaker being heckled. Following this view, our analysis shows that heckling is a standard situation in which the participants actually follow conventional forms of behaviour.

This chapter reviews the ancient Greek, Roman and Jewish evidence to discern the marriage practices the early Christians would have known. It lays the foundation for tracing the antiquity of customs attested in the later Byzantine sources. In addition to ancient texts, this chapter examines Roman artistic depiction of marriage in frescoes and funerary art.

The bridal chamber has a rich history in ancient and medieval marriage practices. For some Byzantine communities, rites for inaugurating a couple’s sexual life in the bridal chamber were the most important ceremonies of the wedding process. This chapter traces the history of bridal chamber rituals and the church’s involvement in them through liturgical blessings performed by priests at the bed of consummation.

Worship is typically understood as an act of religious reverence and devotion to a deity, usually involving some ritual. I aim here to explore whether, and how far, we might make sense of the idea of worship even on robust atheistic assumptions, according to which there is good reason to believe that there is no deity, nor supernatural beings of any kind, so that the only live beings in the world are humans, animals, plants and the like. We shall call this Atheist Worship (AW). Beyond that, I wish to explore the possible value of such practice. If there is no God, then in some sense AW is normatively the only possible form of worship that is not based on error or pretence. But as we shall see, there is no reason why theists cannot also engage in many forms of “AW” (in the sense of engaging in practices expressing attitudes of reverence and devotion towards something held to be of great value and importance, without theistic assumptions), so the value of this project does not depend upon atheism.

Chapter 4 explores the kinds of extraordinary situations experienced in the lives of royal ladies-in-waiting, asserting their prominent roles in coronations, marriages, christenings, and other ceremonies designed to cement and further dynastic prestige, such as Order of the Garter tournaments and the Field of Cloth of Gold extravaganza. Serving the queen at important life-cycle rituals, seasonal events, and diplomatic spectacles contributed to the monarchy’s propaganda program, thereby bolstering royal authority and encouraging dynastic loyalty. When kings dispatched their daughters and sisters to foreign lands, their entourages signaled the wealth and status of the English monarchy. Highborn female attendants not only assisted the queen and female royals, but also reinforced hierarchical order by their very placement in these rituals, order that was displayed, I argue, both in processions and their particular assigned responsibilities. This chapter reveals how the spectacle of such pageantry had significant political dimensions, even if such was not always recognized by the subjects who witnessed royal processions.