Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark 2503594166, 9782503594163

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Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark

ACTA SCANDINAVICA

CAMBRIDGE Studies in the Early Scandinavian World

Volume 12 A series devoted to early Scandinavian culture, history, language, and literature, between the fall of Rome and the emergence of the modern states (seventeenth century) — that is, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Early Modern period (c. 400–1600). General Editor Stefan Brink, University of Cambridge/Uppsala universitet Editorial Advisory Board, under the auspices of the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, University of Cambridge Maria Ågren (History), Uppsala universitet Pernille Hermann (Literature), Aarhus Universitet Terry Gunnell (Folklore), Háskóli Íslands Judith Jesch (Old Norse/Runology), University of Nottingham Judy Quinn (Old Norse Literature), University of Cambridge Jens Peter Schjødt (History of Religions), Aarhus Universitet Dagfinn Skre (Archaeology), Universitet i Oslo Jorn Øyrehagen Sunde (Law), Universitet i Bergen Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.

Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark

Edited by Sarah Croix and Mads Vedel Heilskov

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

© 2021, Brepols Publishers n. v., Turnhout, Belgium. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2021/0095/127 ISBN 978-2-503-59416-3 E-ISBN 978-2-503-59417-0 DOI 10.1484/M.AS-EB.5.123044 ISSN 2466-586X E-ISSN 2565-9170 Printed in the EU on acid-free paper.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

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Introduction: Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark Mads Vedel Heilskov and Sarah Croix

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Research History: Materiality and Medieval Religious Practice in Danish Research Morten Larsen Materiality in Medieval Episcopal Rites: Some Examples Bertil Nilsson

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The Liturgical Use of the Gospel Book in the Middle Ages and Notions of Sacramentality? Nils Holger Petersen

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Making the Liturgy Manifest: Objects and Materials in Late Medieval Church Rites Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen

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Holy Heads: Pope Lucius’s Skull in Roskilde and the Role of Relics in Medieval Spirituality Lena Liepe

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Living Matter in Medieval Denmark Mads Vedel Heilskov

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Objects of Personal Devotion: Outer Markers and Inner Meanings Mette Højmark Søvsø and Maria Knudsen

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Materiality of Memory: The Use and Significance of Wax in Late Medieval Devotion Laura Katrine Skinnebach

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Materiality in Medieval Burials Jakob Tue Christensen and Mikael Manøe Bjerregaard Epilogue from the Views of an Archaeologist and an Art Historian Mette Svart Kristiansen and Mercedes Pérez Vidal

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List of Illustrations

Morten Larsen Figure 2.1. Late medieval wooden sculpture from the church of Råbjerg.28 Figure 2.2. Plan of the church of Butterup.35 Figure 2.3. Murals from Skive Church.38 Figure 2.4. Altarpiece in the cathedral of Odense, a complicated scenery depicting the Calvary.39 Figure 2.5. Detail of the late medieval depiction of the Tomb of Christ from the church of Kerteminde.43 Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen Figure 5.1. The interior of Rynkeby Church.96 Figure 5.2. Triumphal entry into Jerusalem as depicted in the vaults of Reerslev Church.101 Figure 5.3. The entombed Christ. Wooden sculpture, c. 1500–1525, from Kerteminde.101 Figure 5.4. Christ resurrected. Wooden sculpture, late fourteenth century, from Kirke-Helsinge Church.104 Figure 5.5. Order of procession illustrated in the Sarum Processional, printed 1508 in Rouen.108 Figure 5.6. Gold chalice and paten from Araslöv Church, c. 1390.114 Figure 5.7. Thirteenth-century censer from the church of Bøstrup.114 Lena Liepe Figure 6.1. Saint Lucius skull with silk cap.124 Figure 6.2. Alois Kreiten: bust reliquary.124 Figure 6.3. The bust reliquary in opened state.124 Figure 6.4. Seal ad causas of the Roskilde diocese.134 Figure 6.5. Public showing of the relics of Saint Servatius Chapter, Maastricht.140 Figure 6.6. Saint Lucius skull with the accession number Bba15.140 Mads Vedel Heilskov Figure 7.1. Madonna figure, c. 1480, Karup Church.152 Figure 7.2. Pilgrimage-badge, c. 1487, Karup Church.153 Figure 7.3. Saint Helper crucifix, fifteenth century, Nustrup Church.156

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Figure 7.4.

Monumental crucifix by Claus Berg, 1527, at the Cistercian church of Sorø.156 Figure 7.5. Crucifix, c. 1290, Sneslev Church.162 Figure 7.6. Crucifix, 1318, Vester Nebel Church.162 Figure 7.7. The Manual from Bystorp, 1513–1522, fol. 1r.171 Mette Højmark Søvsø and Maria Knudsen Figure 8.1. Encolpion in silver from the Østermarie hoard.186 Figure 8.2. Scraping marks on the columns of the northern portal of Ribe Cathedral.193 Figure 8.3. Burials at the Franciscan friary in Ribe.195 Figure 8.4. Wall painting from Viskinge Church with the Vera Icon motif.200 Figure 8.5. The Virgin Mary in a mandorla.200 Figure 8.6. A: Casting mould for a spherical object from Magdeburg. B: Fragment of a similar spherical object from London.201 Figure 8.7. Burial with prayer beads at the cemetery of the Franciscan Friary, Ribe.206 Plate 1. Crosses and other cross-shaped pendants from Ribe and its region.184 Plate 2. Brooches from Ribe.188 Plate 3. Pilgrimage-badges and possible pilgrimage-badges from Ribe.192 Plate 4. Other religious accessories from Ribe.202 Plate 5. Prayer beads from Ribe.205 Jakob Tue Christensen and Mikael Manøe Bjerregaard Figure 10.1. Funeral scene from a French book of hours.245 Figure 10.2. Different burial types from cemeteries on Funen.249 Figure 10.3. Brick-laid grave from the southern side-aisle of Roskilde Cathedral.254 Figure 10.4. Three sets of prayer-beads from the Franciscan cemetery in Odense.257 Figure 10.5. A. Tomb slab from c. 1300 at the Monastic Church of Sorø. B. The tomb slab of Bishop Jens Munk at Ribe Cathedral. 258 Figure 10.6. Representation of an intercessory prayer from a French breviary, c. 1414.263

Mads Vedel Heilskov and S ara h Croix

Introduction: Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark

The vast majority of people were Christians in the medieval West, the Christian world being understood as a ‘we’ in opposition to the infidel ‘they’. The ecclesiastical authorities referred to their domain as the world of christiadum (Christendom) and to their subjects as christiani (Christians) or fidelis (faithful). Being Christian was nearly synonymous with being human.1 Beyond their regional, cultural differences, medieval Christians belonged to the same faith and had access to a common set of ideas, practices, and identities through their christening. This shared set of practices, in the form of the liturgy of the Christian Church, has been presented as a force that structured the medieval world.2 Although several councils aimed at harmonizing liturgies across Christendom,3 they remained at the charge of local bishops and abbots and were defined in their own cultural contexts.4 The Christian faith was ‘porous and fluid at its periphery and diverse at its core’,5 and religious practices, full of paradoxes and regional/local variations should not, in any instance, be interpreted from a unilateral perspective. Nevertheless, it is hardly controversial to suggest that medieval religious culture was broadly characterized by ‘ritual piety’,6 as well as oriented towards



1 Van Engen, ‘The Future’, p. 508. 2 Le Goff, Le dieu, p. 30. 3 Murphy, The General Councils. 4 Ottosen, Oldtidens og Middelalderens Kirkehistorie; see also Helander, ‘The Liturgical Profile’. 5 Hopkins, ‘Christian Number’, p. 187. 6 Duffy, The Voices of Morebath, p. 57. Mads Vedel Heilskov, PhD in Scandinavian Studies (University of Aberdeen). Carlsberg Foundation post-doctoral researcher. Email: [email protected] Sarah Croix, PhD in Medieval Archaeology (University of Aarhus). Assistant Professor in Archaeology, School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University. Email: [email protected] Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix and Mads Heilskov, AS 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 9–25 © FHG10.1484/M.AS-EB.5.123983

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the material.7 This leaning towards the material often transcended the sphere of the Church and intersected with the everyday life of the medieval faithful.8 Religious images, for instance, frequently decorated everyday domestic objects,9 and in the later Middle Ages, new forms of devotion centred on materiality, like the rosary with its use of prayer beads, gained popularity among both laity and religious experts.10 The interplay between visual media, materiality, and the practices of belief has been integral to the study of medieval religion for decades, in particular in discussions on the medieval image,11 but has gained renewed relevance and intellectual freshness with the rise of ‘new materialism’ in the social sciences and humanities. In the wake of current explorations of the body and the senses, objects (or ‘things’) and bodies rather than images are put at the forefront.12 In medieval Christendom, things imbued with sacred significance could grant access to the divine and sacralize the profane world.13 Iconic images and objects could literally embody, enact, and in substance be the sacred prototype they represented,14 and, although they were not necessarily understood as divine in their own right by all ecclesiastical authorities, many people acted as if they were.15 The divine presence was conveyed by and rested on materiality.16 Matter gave substance to the divine. God was present in the Eucharistic wafer and wine, in the holy water, chrism, oils, and incense, and the saints were present in their relics. Fragments of holy men and women or of the things they had touched were placed in altar tables, shrines, and sculptures, hereby injecting them with sacred immanence.17 In short, the divine was present in Eucharistic elements, relics, and images (two- or three-dimensional),18 and in the elements they were made of.19 All of this points to the special place of materiality in medieval Christianity. The Eucharist, although different usages lay out different ritual forms, is emblematic of medieval Christian materiality. Following the doctrine of transubstantiation (that the substance of wafer and wine would change but their accidents remain the same), which was agreed upon at the Fourth

7 Bynum, ‘The Sacrality of Things’. 8 Gilchrist, Medieval Life, pp. 169–215. 9 Fissell, ‘The Politics of Reproduction’, p. 54. 10 Heilskov, ‘Sacralising Perception’. 11 Schmitt, ‘Rituels de l’image’, Le corps des images, and La représentation de l’espace; Sansterre, ‘Attitudes occidentales’. 12 Mittman, ‘Of Wood and Bone’; Jørgensen, ‘Sensorium’; Bagnoli, ‘Longing to Experience’ and ‘The Materiality of Sensation’. 13 Nilsson, this volume. 14 Camille, The Gothic Idol, p. 217; Freedberg, ‘Holy Images’, pp. 72–73. 15 Bynum, ‘The Sacrality of Things’, p. 5. See also Jürgensen and Heilskov, this volume. 16 Liepe, ‘The Presence of the Sacred’. 17 Taubert, Polychrome Sculpture, pp. 5, 27–29; Liepe and Heilskov, this volume. 18 Trexler, ‘Being and Non-Being’, p. 15. 19 Neilson, ‘Carving Life’.

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Lateran Council in 1215, matter transformed into God made flesh during the Eucharistic sacrifice and God became present and tangible in the physical world. The wafer and wine did not merely refer to God; they were He.20 The materials that were able to contain God were not picked at random. In fact, the material constituents of the Eucharistic wafer and wine and the process of their production were themselves regulated and invested with meaning. These regulations, meanings, and processes of making were laid out in liturgical manuals, synodal statutes, ecclesiastical legal texts, and liturgical commentaries. The wafer, for instance, had to be made of wheat and no other type of grain could be used. The process of baking had to be supervised by a cleric to secure that the holy matter remained unpolluted. At monastic houses, the process was usually supervised by the sacristan, but who was responsible could vary from church to church and was probably more flexible at smaller village churches than at monastic houses or canonical communities. At some places, the production was even a liturgical act.21 The wafers were baked, not fried, using beeswax rather than oil or fat. Moreover, the priest (or person responsible) had to choose the wafers of appropriate roundness and whiteness for the performance of the sacrament.22 The liturgical manuals also carefully laid out the placement of vessels and implements at the sacred space surrounding the altar. The space can thus be understood as an assemblage of objects, and the rite as a sequence of steps in which persons and objects participated. The movements and cleansing of the celebrant and the consecration and miraculous transformation of the Eucharistic implements during the sacrifice was composed of a sequence of ritual moments that included movement of bodies and objects and vocalized blessings of objects and people. Throughout the ritual chain, materiality played a significant part. Objects were involved in the cleansing of the celebrant, the making of the sign of the cross over the Eucharistic implements, the censing and aspersion of them, the moving of the wafer and wine between different vessels, the pouring of water into the wine, the breaking of the wafer and putting it in the wine, the elevation of the Eucharistic implements, and the cleaning of the vessels at the end of the rite.23 The space and the elements, moreover, had been consecrated, a process in which materiality also played a significant part.24 The vessels themselves were made of precious metals, fitted with crystals and other gemstones and had their own biographies. The metals, for instance, often came from donations of buttons or other things owned by members of the congregation.25

20 Bynum, ‘The Sacrality of Things’. 21 Albers, Consuetudines monasticae, iv, 138. 22 Rubin, ‘Popular Attitudes to the Eucharist’, pp. 452–53. 23 McLachlan, ‘Liturgical Vessels’, pp. 369, 380–429. 24 Nilsson, this volume. 25 Heilskov, ‘The Commemoration of the Lay Elite’, pp. 266–72.

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The Eucharistic sacrifice captures the essence of how the world was exponentially sacralized through rituals and materiality and how humans could interact and communicate with the divine through its presence in objects. Furthermore, with its codified ritual movements, the translation of matter between places and vessels, and the overall amalgamation of bodily enactment, the material transformation (in both the process of making and sacralizing the ‘holy matter’), and the fusion of the worldly and the divine in physical matter, the Eucharistic sacrifice ties the elements and themes that are treated in Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark together in a conceptual framework of material and ritual transformation. ‘Holy matter’ was an instrumental actor in the history of salvation and must play an equally instrumental part in our inquiries about medieval Christian worship. Based on concrete evidence surviving from medieval Denmark, the present volume discusses the role of materiality and physicality in the religious experience and practice of medieval people from a wide array of different approaches. It investigates the uses of material objects, spaces, and bodies employed to make the sacred tangible, hereby acting as mediators between the earthly and the heavenly spheres. Its focus on concrete source material aims at providing the theoretical debates that have animated the study of materiality and religious practice in recent years with a solid empirical base. Focus on the local and regional Danish source material offers the opportunity to let multiple microhistories from what is often seen as the periphery of the Christian world provide new perspectives and add pieces to the mosaic that the grand narrative of medieval Christian materiality is composed of.

Historiographical and Theoretical Context The question of materiality and religious practice lays at the intersection of a diverse field of inquiry. It is not the end product of a singular development of a particular focused field of research, but is entangled in the complex history of worship in medieval Christendom. Scholars who have dealt with materiality and/or religious practice have come from many disciplinary backgrounds with different traditions and approaches. Moreover, different national histories and events in the scholars’ own times (e.g. wars, political movements, and changing sentiments towards religion) have shaped their understanding of the matter in many different directions. Furthermore, different intellectual, methodological, and ideological trends have spread in different tempi and with different success rates in particular disciplines, nations, or schools of scholarship. While the specific characteristics of the Danish research history is covered in the first chapter,26 we will seek here to identify some of the wider international trends in medieval church history and religious culture. 26 Larsen, this volume.

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By situating Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark in this context, we wish to underpin how its contributions relate and add to this already large and diverse field of study. Before secular medievalist scholars took an interest in church history in the 1950s and 1960s, the history of Christian worship was primarily the domain of clerical scholars.27 In connection with this shift, the development of Christian culture was integrated in a general social, political, and cultural history, but in doing so historians have tended to separate religious practice from the more social aspects of the Church’s functions. In addition, the secularist sentiments of many medievalists and their scepticism towards the Church have led to a perceived division between what was ‘ecclesiastical’ and ‘popular’ religion. Tagged as ‘popular religion’ during the 1970s and 1980s by medievalists influenced by anthropology,28 the religious practices of ‘the people’ were widely ‘imagined and presented as an autonomous religious outlook, at once ancient and of the people, a set of indigenous sacred practices overtly or covertly resistant to the christianizing forces of the elite’.29 Indeed, studies on popular or vernacular religion have often relied on class distinctions, assuming that the belief of the common people was different from that of the elite. They have wished to stage a conflict between religious heterodoxy and orthodoxy as a class conflict, where religious orthodoxy is seen as a form of ideological control imposed on the people by the elite. ‘Folk practices’, then, constitute a form of class struggle.30 The terms ‘popular religion’, ‘vernacular religion’, ‘lay piety’, ‘lay religion’, and so on thus aim at creating a division between the people and the clergy, and the faith of the commoners and the elite — often envisioned as a collusion between the ruling classes and the Church.31 The imagined division between Church and people reinforced a ‘Foucauldian’ understanding of the Church as a disciplinary ‘machine’ that effectively marginalized any social group (e.g. Jews, heretics, and lepers) that fell outside of the homogenous, all-encompassing Christian ‘we’.32 While there was certainly a difference between the ruling classes (lay as well as clerical) and ‘the people’, and although there was a clear distinction between laity and clergy, we contend that the gulf between laity and clergy was not always wide socially or in terms of their belief. The parish priest would most often come from the same social background as his parishioners and he would live among them. Furthermore, looking at the religious practices of priestly confraternities contra craft guilds, for example, we see only minor differences and lay confraternities

27 Van Engen, ‘Recovering’. 28 Boyle, ‘Popular Piety’; Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture; Shinners, Medieval Popular Religion. 29 Van Engen, ‘The Future’, p. 498. 30 Bornstein, The Bianchi of 1399, p. 4. 31 See for example Skyum-Nielsen, Kirkekampen i Danmark and Kvinde og slave. 32 Moore, The Formation.

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largely modelled their practices after the available cultural templates, thus reinforcing rather than opposing ecclesiastical orthodoxy.33 The focus on ‘vernacular religion’, however, has led to the inclusion of practices otherwise ignored in the general church history into the historical narrative.34 In an attempt to bridge the imagined divide between ‘ecclesiastical orthodoxy’ and ‘popular religion’, Eamon Duffy came up with the term ‘traditional religion’, where the Church and its liturgy were seen as the source from which all religious activity emerged.35 Duffy included multiple kinds of religious festivals and ‘folk practices’ in his study, but did not include other forms of ritualized behaviour in, for instance, the realms of politics, law, or custom, which were all permeated by religion. These fields of practice were included in the broad scholarship that fall under the canopy of the so-called ‘ritual turn’.36 Though rituals and the problems embedded in the terminologies and methodologies attached to their study have been fiercely debated,37 the ‘ritual turn’ has opened the field and encouraged us to think about religious practice in even wider terms than Duffy’s ‘traditional religion’. The ‘ritual turn’ was integrated in medieval history during the 1980s and gained traction throughout the 1990s and 2000s. It builds on the historical anthropology of the 1970s and generally seeks to understand ritual as a social practice. In this view, medieval religion had an essentially social function, and religious rituals were performed to negotiate and maintain social structures and relations, in their dissentions (hierarchies) and cohesion.38 This line of thought is supported by research on liturgical change where developments in the liturgy are seen as tightly connected to broader social changes and liturgical actions as actions affecting social change.39 Indeed, ritual has frequently been presented as the very core of medieval culture.40 The debate on rituals has also had impact on the study of liturgy, where the liturgical books are no longer regarded as the sole sources of interest; the uses of ‘ritual space’ and how ritual relates to specific iconographic programmes and sculptures have also received increasing attention.41 In the wake of the ‘ritual turn’, medieval liturgy is therefore no longer merely understood as the set of ‘official’ rites designed by the ecclesiastical authorities, but includes a broader set of religious practices, spaces, and objects.42

33 Bisgaard, De glemte altre, pp. 49–102. 34 Schmitt, Religione. 35 Duffy, The Stripping. 36 See also White, Customs; Koziol, Begging Pardon; Althoff, Die Macht der Rituale; Kroll, ‘Power and Conflict’. 37 Buc, The Dangers of Ritual; Koziol, ‘The Dangers of Polemic’; Esmark, ‘Farlige ritualer’. 38 Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor. 39 Rubin, Corpus Christi; Romano, Liturgy and Society. 40 Althoff, Die Macht der Rituale; Post, ‘Ritual Studies’. 41 Palazzo, ‘Art and Liturgy’, pp. 172, 175–76. 42 Palazzo, ‘Art and Liturgy’, p. 183.

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Religious rituals were, in our view, essentially conducted in order to achieve communication between the worldly and otherworldly spheres. The clergy, as the main practitioners of the liturgy, received several years of training and learning in the form of the rituals, their origins, purpose, and theological meanings. They conducted rituals in front of their own community of religious experts but also for the lay population. A great deal of effort was put into teaching the laity what the liturgy meant as can be seen in exempla, sermons, manuals, and devotional literature written for didactic purposes,43 and the learned teachings of religious experts seeped into the laity’s religious perceptions and practices.44 We should therefore be careful not to apply a mechanized understanding of ritual to the medieval practices of faith, nor should we assume that experts and non-experts did not share the same faith or that laypersons were not knowledgeable about the practices in which they partook. Doing so removes agency from the practitioners. The matter of agency is at the core of another ‘turn’, which has marked the study of religion in the past decade, the ‘material turn’. With the ‘material turn’, also often referred to as ‘new materialism’, ‘Scholars of religion have […] started to realise that religion is necessarily concretely mediated in order to be present, visible and tangible in the world’.45 This has affected a shift of focus from ‘beliefs to practices, from ideas to material things’.46 This shift entails a turn towards concrete objects, their uses, and the way they are sensed and interacted with in religious practice. In the study of medieval religion, the growing interest in materiality has largely been influenced by the concepts of ‘object agency’ (material things and humans are connected in a web where both act),47 ‘technologies of enchantment’ (particular objects hold power because they fascinate with technological skill),48 and ‘thing-power’ (the ability of inanimate things to animate, act, and produce effects).49 At the heart of these concepts is the realization that the presence of things, in any context, causes a particular experience of the world and provokes a reaction. In short, within the scope of the ‘material turn’, objects in interaction with spaces, bodies, and minds are seen as able to effect action and change. There are, however, certain problems attached to the ‘material turn’. For instance, when Bennett understands the world as ‘a swarm of vibrant materials’ that form ‘agential assemblages’ whose constituent parts (e.g. persons, animals, buildings, or things) have ‘different modes and degrees of power’,50 she does not produce an adequate scheme to understand how differences in power

43 Rice, Lay Piety, pp. 133–52. 44 Ryan, ‘Some Reflections’. 45 Strijdom, ‘The Material Turn’, p. 1. 46 Strijdom, ‘The Material Turn’, p. 1. 47 Latour, ‘A Collective’. 48 Gell, Art and Agency, pp. 68–69. 49 Bennett, Vibrant Matter, p. 6. 50 Bennett, Vibrant Matter, p. 107.

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or agency between groups of humans and nonhumans have been structured and formed over the course of history to effect different modes of experience in different agents. This tendency to universalize, homogenize, and equalize what it means to be ‘in the world’ is a general feature of ‘new materialism’, which proves problematic in the study of the specifics of human and object agency and lived experience at a given time or in a given context.51 In the context of the medieval social reality, we cannot ignore that consumption was a significant part of the material framework of the religious life. The question of social class in relation to religious experience is therefore particularly pertinent. This has been debated by art historians especially since the 1970s and 1980s following the Marxist notion of objects and their makers acting as agents of social and historical change. Being especially concerned with how labour was divided in workshops and how tastes and materials were used to construct and maintain class distinctions, as well as with objects as sources to the lives of otherwise unrecorded social classes, concerns with consumption, commerce, and production were at the heart of these scholars’ arguments. As this scholarship shows, these factors were all entangled and intimately tied to the production and reproduction of ideologies and social realities.52 Yet, the realization following the ‘material turn’ that the medieval practices of faith took place in a world of objects that were active in the shaping of the minds and social reality of people has added new dimensions to and enriched the study of medieval religion regardless of this blindness regarding the class question. One of the driving forces in the incorporation of these new conceptions of materiality into the study of medieval Christianity is Caroline Walker Bynum. Throughout her work, Bynum has focused on many aspects of the sensing body, the religious experience, and the role of materiality in it, blazing the path for a whole generation of scholars with Christian Materiality from 2011. In that volume, Bynum’s careful curation of examples of miraculous objects, animated and imbued with ‘magical’ power and meaning marks a new ‘neo-animistic’ paradigm for the understanding of medieval ‘holy matter’ and its significance in the diversifying and blossoming realm of late medieval piety.53 Bynum’s paradigm, however, has had the effect that many of her followers have tended to privilege the agency of ‘holy matter’ over human agency, while her own research retains a balance between the two aspects. The ‘neo-animistic’ approach has recently received a lengthy critique from Paul Binski, who has pointed out that we should direct our focus at human (artistic) rather than object agency since, in his view, objects cannot project meaning onto themselves.54 His counterargument, however, seems to have

51 Lettow, ‘Turning the Turn’, pp. 111–12. 52 See Miller, ‘Introduction’, especially pp. 2–6, and Anderson, Dunlop, and Smith, ‘Introduction’, especially pp. 5–6 and p. 14 for useful historiographical overviews. 53 Bynum, Christian Materiality. 54 Binski, ‘The Rhetorical Occasions’, pp. 17–29.

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gone rather unnoticed and sympathies within the field have largely remained within the ‘Bynumesque’ paradigm, perhaps because Binski’s suggestion that the rhetorical modes within the liturgical performances should be the primary framework for understanding religious objects presupposes a return to the idea of art being subordinated theology and liturgy.55 In establishing such a hierarchical division between the two domains, Binski fails at capturing the production of meaning that took place in the dynamic relationship between the two. This dynamism, on the other hand, is at the core of Bynum’s work, making it the more well-rounded frame of understanding. Rhetoric, moreover, to a large degree depends on bodily senses and surroundings, and this aspect too has remained undeveloped in Binski’s counterargument. The history of the senses, however, has had a significant impact on the study of the material aspects of medieval religion, not least due to the path paved by scholars such as David Freedberg and Jeffrey Hamburger.56 The history of the senses has taken the opposite stand than ‘new materialism’ by focusing on how past people sensed the world, especially in ritual and devotional contexts.57 This has led some scholars to suggest that the aim of the liturgy was to activate the senses,58 and that the (late) medieval religious culture was characterized by an intense focus on sensory experience.59 The juxtaposition of the agency of humans and objects raises a central question: Are we to privilege the human aspect or see humans and objects as equals? Should we focus our questions on ‘the thing’ itself or the people or culture behind ‘the thing’? While both approaches have produced fruitful analyses, they have produced different questions and answers. By placing Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark at the intersection between the two approaches, we propose a middle position, where peoples’ performance and engagement with things and the inherent potency of objects can be investigated with a keen eye for the cultural and religious developments that structured their interaction. In order to contribute to current debates on the role of objects in the medieval West, we find it of utmost importance to be specific about the particularities of the Danish case and the materials that have come down to us. This volume therefore aims at integrating the microhistories of particular Danish contexts into the larger scheme of the western European medieval culture. In the fields of materiality and religious practice, the tension between micro- and macro-levels of understanding has led to a focus on the modalities (structures) of sense-perception,60 and a turn towards an ontology of matter 55 See Heilskov, this volume. 56 Freedberg, ‘Holy Images’; Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary. 57 See for example Largier, ‘Inner Senses–Outer Senses’; Aavitsland, ‘The ornamenta ecclesiae’; Jørgensen, ‘Sensorium’. 58 Palazzo, ‘Art, Liturgy, and the Five Senses’, p. 49. 59 Bagnoli, ‘Longing to Experience’, p. 33. 60 Palazzo, ‘Art, Liturgy, and the Five Senses’; Jørgensen, ‘Sensorium’.

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based largely on technology and object-agency on one hand,61 and a focus on different fields of negotiation, expression, agency, and experience on the level of groups and individuals on the other,62 as well as on how different, sometimes opposing, discourses were able to co-exist.63 The tension between macro- and micro-levels of thinking has also had an impact on the ways in which materiality and religious practice have been dealt with in scholarship concerned with the Danish Middle Ages, although from an empirical rather than theoretical stance.64 The purpose in Danish scholarship has in many cases remained a positivist one, and there is a common trend within the individual contributions in juxtaposing the general European exemplar with the specific Danish one, making the presumed normativity of theological treaties and liturgical commentaries form the theoretical base on which specific Danish cases are interpreted.65 Tellingly of this situation and of the current status of scholarship, the most recent attempt at elucidating the organizational development of the Church in medieval Denmark takes a diverse and fragmented material into account only to confirm that the organization of the Danish Church was ‘dynamic, flexible and complex’.66 When Danish scholarship in this way insists that the Church, understood as a pan-European universalist superstructure, existed elsewhere in Europe,67 but was somehow more loosely structured in Denmark, it reflects a longstanding tradition of understanding Scandinavia as on the periphery of European culture. This is combined with a lingering positivist legacy leading scholars to focus on the specific rather than the general, and the descriptive rather than the interpretative. The confrontation between the idea about the Church as a universal administrative and mental structure and the much more nuanced historical reality of lived practice that can be reached through the available source material, however, highlights the usefulness of focusing on lived practices and experiences through regional and local case studies.

The Contribution to International Scholarship The present volume is structured thematically in order to give a cohesive and holistic, yet detailed and sophisticated vue of medieval religious practice and its material means and manifestations. Its first section starts out with

61 Weinryb, ‘Living Matter’. 62 See for example Pinkus, Sculpting Simulacra; Cayrol-Bernardo, ‘De infantas’; Peréz-Vidal, ‘Compline’; Fonnesberg-Schmidt, ‘Visitor Experiences’. 63 Buc, ‘Conversion of Objects’; Bynum, Christian Materiality; Holmes, ‘Miraculous Images’. 64 See Larsen, this volume. 65 See for example Norn, At se det usynlige; Madsen, ‘Han ligger under en blå sten’. 66 Kieffer-Olsen, Kirke og kirkestruktur. 67 A view also promoted in international scholarship, see for example Southern, Scholastic Humanism.

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situating the discussion in the Scandinavian research history, and then goes into different areas of liturgical practice and the role of materiality therein. The next section focuses on the corporeality of the cult of saints, miracles, and items of devotion, while the last section focuses on different facets of the materiality of memory. Finally, the book and the points and questions it raises are put into a broader perspective, placing the themes that have been outlined within the current international trends within the field and fruitful areas for future research are suggested. Morten Larsen provides a synthetic and critical assessment of the research history of religious materiality in Denmark, following a chronological and thematic outline. His overview outlines a development from an empirical line of scholarship towards a more contextual and interpretative one. In recent years, he concludes, the tendency has been towards a focus on the perception and experience of the medieval religious practice, which has meant that a more interdisciplinary approach has been introduced to the study of medieval religious materiality. Nevertheless, Larsen assesses that the integration of such frameworks has been slower in Danish scholarship than in the rest of Europe. Bertil Nilsson focuses on the rites of consecration. He proposes that evil was inherent in all matter and that rites of consecration of objects, spaces, and bodies in medieval Christianity aimed at chasing evil away. Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen argues that all objects in the church manifested or revealed the Church’s teachings, which, along with the words and gestures of the liturgy, amplified dogmatic religious truths. Nils Holger Petersen discusses the concept of sacramentality and investigates the holiness of the liturgical books through the ritual practice of kissing them. Lena Liepe sheds light on the corporeality of the divine presence in the medieval cult of saints through the window of the head reliquary of Saint Lucius in Roskilde, while Mads Vedel Heilskov investigates the numerous ways in which material objects could acquire life and personhood and were able to act and be interacted with. Mette Højmark Søvsø and Maria Knudsen discuss the significance of small, personal items that were produced for the day-to-day religious practice and experience using the abundant archaeological material from the medieval town of Ribe as their point of departure. Laura Katrine Skinnebach explores the authority and sensoriness of wax as raw material for devotional objects (candles, figurines, seals) as described in late medieval prayer books. Jakob Tue Christensen and Mikael Manøe Bjerregaard offer a detailed overview of burial practices from an archaeological perspective and discuss various interpretations based on a rich research historical tradition. Lastly, Mette Svart Kristiansen and Mercedes Peréz-Vidal put the volume into a broader perspective and reflect on further directions for approaching religious materiality, expanding towards new research questions and other historical periods. Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark covers both the ‘ecclesiastical’ and the ‘popular’ elements of medieval Christianity but does not distinguish between the two modes of religiosity. The ‘ecclesiastical’

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perspective is illuminated by theological and liturgical texts, while the ‘popular’ aspects are covered mainly on the background of archaeological findings, but also texts of Lutheran anti-Catholic propaganda. All contributions, however, make use of different media to elucidate specific aspects of the role of materiality in Christian worship in medieval Denmark. The chronological and regional frames of the volume suggest a micro-understanding of Denmark at the periphery of the Christian world that can easily be delimited, thereby allowing a relatively full picture to emerge through the combined efforts of its individual chapters. Throughout the volume, the approach is interdisciplinary. The methods and traditions of a variety of fields cross-fertilize the discussion and confront the research field of Christian materiality with a wide variety of sources and scholarly debates that have largely been unavailable to scholars outside of the Scandinavian language areas. In establishing the significance of the debates and material covered in this volume for the history of the medieval Church in general, we aim to make the specificities of the religious material culture of the medieval Danish kingdom visible and available to a wider international audience. The book thereby contributes to understanding the role of materiality in medieval religious practices on both micro- and macro-levels. Lived practice and experience on the regional and local level is at the heart of Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark. This stems from a micro-understanding of medieval religion, which cannot be reduced to the formal doctrines and teachings emanating from the papacy, leading intellectuals, or local ecclesiastical authorities. Rather, medieval religion was comprised of a collection of lived practices and experiences that could certainly take place in church as part of its liturgical celebrations, but also in other settings such as the townscape, on the road between destinations, or at home at any given time in any context as demonstrated in the current volume’s contributions. The lived and experienced religious life of people living in the Danish kingdom in the Middle Ages, we thereby argue, encompassed many different modes of embodiment, uses of spaces, participation in rituals and practices, and different kinds of aesthetic experiences, all of which had a physical, material presence in lived reality.68 This volume’s principal matter of subject is thus what people did, how, where, and when they did it, and the crucial role of material culture in connecting the lived reality of medieval people with the sacred reality of their faith. On the macro-level, the history of medieval Christianity in a broader sense is currently expanding and diversifying its fields of inquiry with an increasing focus on materiality and practice as constitutive elements in the medieval religious culture(s), as well as a strong focus on geographical variety. The present volume stresses the significance of material expressions of faith and the diversity of religious practices in the study of the medieval Danish 68 Following Insoll, ‘Materiality’.

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church. By focusing on the material dimension of ritual and devotion, we seek to stress the performative aspect of lived practice as not mere mechanized series of events, but as essentially transformative actions, in which the worldly and the otherworldly spheres were involved as both material and immaterial components. The aim is to challenge a research history, in which the intersection between practice and materiality has often been neglected in favour of a political and institutional historical narrative, and to let the many Danish microhistories integrate with and illuminate the international scholarship on a solid empirical foundation in order to animate new discussions. Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark is in that way conceptualized in conversation with the trends that have animated discussions of medieval Christian materiality in recent years and is meant as an invitation for continued dialogue with current international scholarship.

Works Cited Aavitsland, Kristin B., ‘The ornamenta ecclesiae in the Middle Ages: Materiality as Transcendence’, in Transcendence and Sensoriness: Perceptions, Revelation, and the Arts, ed. by Svein Aage Christoffersen and others (Leiden: Brill, 2015), pp. 117–30 Albers, Bruno, Consuetudines monasticae, 5 vols (Stuttgart: Roth, 1910–12) Althoff, Gerd, Die Macht der Rituale: Symbolik und Herrschaft im Mittelalter (Darmstadt: Primus, 2003) Anderson, Christy, Anne Dunlop, and Pamela H. Smith, ‘Introduction’, in The Matter of Art: Materials, Practices, Cultural Logics, c. 1250–1750, ed. by Christy Anderson, Anne Dunlop, and Pamela H. Smith (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014), pp. 1–17 Bagnoli, Martina, ‘Longing to Experience’, in A Feast for the Senses: Art and Experience in Medieval Europe, ed. by Martina Bagnoli (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), pp. 33–45 ———, ‘The Materiality of Sensation in the Art of the Late Middle Ages’, in Knowing Bodies, Passionate Souls: Sense Perceptions in Byzantium, ed. by Susan Ashbrook Harvey and Margaret Mullett (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2017), pp. 31–66 Bennett, Jane, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010) Binski, Paul, ‘The Rhetorical Occasions of Gothic Sculpture: Sophus Bugge Annual Lecture’, Collegium medievale, 30 (2017), 7–32 Bisgaard, Lars, De glemte altre: Gildernes religiøse rolle i senmiddelalderens Danmark (Gylling: Odense Universitetsforlag, 2001) Bornstein, Daniel E., The Bianchi of 1399: Popular Devotion in Late Medieval Italy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993) Boyle, Leonard E., ‘Popular Piety in the Middle Ages: What Is Popular?’, Florilegium, 4 (1982), 184–93

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Buc, Philippe, ‘Conversion of Objects: Suger of Saint-Denis and Meinwerk of Paderborn’, Viator, 28 (1997), 99–144 ———, The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) Bynum, Caroline Walker, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone, 2011) ———, ‘The Sacrality of Things: An Inquiry into Divine Materiality in the Christian Middle Ages’, Irish Theological Quarterly, 78 (2012), 3–18 Camille, Michael, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) Cayrol-Bernardo, Laura, ‘De infantas, domnae y Deo votae: Algunas reflexiones en torno al infantado y sus señoras’, Summa, 3 (2014), 5–23 Duffy, Eamon, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992) ———, The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003) Esmark, Kim, ‘Farlige ritualer: Middelalderens politiske kultur mellem antropologiske og tekstlige vendinger’, Passepartout, 13 (2005), 56–67 Fissell, Mary E., ‘The Politics of Reproduction in the English Reformation’, Representations, 87 (2004), 43–81 Fonnesberg-Schmidt, Iben, ‘Visitor Experiences: Art, Architecture and Space at the Papal Curia c. 1200’, Journal of Medieval History, 44 (2018), 294–310 Freedberg, David, ‘Holy Images and Other Images’, in The Art of Interpreting, ed. by Susan Scott, Papers in Art History from the Pennsylvania State University (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1996), pp. 68–87 Gell, Alfred, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) Gilchrist, Roberta, Medieval Life: Archaeology and the Life Course (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2012) Gurevich, Aaron J., Medieval Popular Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) Hamburger, Jeffrey F., The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (New York: Zone, 1998) Heilskov, Mads Vedel, ‘The Commemoration of the Lay Elite in the Late Medieval Danish Realm, ca. 1350–1500: Rituals, Community and Social Order’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Aberdeen, 2018) ———, ‘Sacralising Perception: Rosary-Devotion and Tactile Experience of the Divine in Late Medieval Denmark’, in Touch, Devotional Practices, and Visionary Experience in the Late Middle Ages, ed. by Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel, David CarilloRangel, and Pablo Acosta García (Aldershot: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), pp. 71–94 Helander, Sven, ‘The Liturgical Profile of the Parish Church in Medieval Sweden’, in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church, ed. by Thomas J. Heffernan and E. Ann Matter (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2001), pp. 145–86

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Holmes, Megan, ‘Miraculous Images in Renaissance Florence’, Art History, 34 (2011), 432–65 Hopkins, Keith, ‘Christian Number and its Implications’, Journal of Early Christian Studies, 6 (1998), 185–226 Insoll, Timothy, ‘Materiality, Belief, Ritual-Archaeology and Material Religion: An Introduction’, Material Religion, 5 (2009), 260–64 Jørgensen, Hans Henrik Lohfert, ‘Sensorium: A Model for Medieval Perception’, in The Saturated Sensorium: Principles of Perception and Mediation in the Middle Ages, ed. by Hans Henrik Lohfert Jørgensen, Henning Laugerud, and Laura Katrine Skinnebach (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2015), pp. 24–71 Kieffer-Olsen, Jacob, Kirke og kirkestruktur i middelalderens Danmark (Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2018) Koziol, Geoffrey, Begging Pardon and Favor: Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992) ———, ‘The Dangers of Polemic: Is Ritual Still an Interesting Topic of Historical Study?’, Early Medieval Europe, 11 (2002), 367–88 Kroll, Norma, ‘Power and Conflict in Medieval Ritual and Plays: The Re-invention of Drama’, Studies in Philology, 102 (2005), 452–83 Largier, Niklaus, ‘Inner Senses–Outer Senses: The Practice of Emotions in Medieval Mysticism’, in Codierung von Emotionen im Mittelalter: Emotions and Sensibilities in the Middle Ages, i, ed. by C. Stephen Jaeger and Ingrid Kasten, Trends in Medieval Philology (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2003), pp. 3–15 Latour, Bruno, ‘A Collective of Humans and Nonhumans: Following Daedalus’ Labyrinth’, in Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies, ed. by Bruno Latour (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 174–215 Le Goff, Jacques, Le dieu du moyen âge (Paris: Bayard, 2003) Lettow, Susanne, ‘Turning the Turn: New Materialism, Historical Materialism and Critical Theory’, Thesis Eleven, 140 (2017), 106–21 Liepe, Lena, ‘The Presence of the Sacred: Relics in Medieval Wooden Statues of Scandinavia’, in Paint and Piety: Collected Essays on Medieval Painting and Polychrome Sculpture, ed. by Noëlle L. W. Streeton and Kaja Kollandsrud (London: Archetype, 2014), pp. 51–66 Madsen, Per Kristian, ‘Han ligger under en blå sten: Om middelalderens gravskik på skrift og i praksis’, Hikuin, 17 (1990), 113–34 McLachlan, Elisabeth Parker, ‘Liturgical Vessels and Implements’, in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church, ed. by Thomas J. Heffernan and E. Ann Matter (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2001), pp. 369–429 Miller, Peter N., ‘Introduction: The Culture of the Hand’, in Cultural Histories of the Material World, ed. by Peter N. Miller (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013), pp. 1–29 Mittman, Asa Simon, ‘Of Wood and Bone: Crafting Living Things’, Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural, 4 (2015), 110–24 Moore, R. I., The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Authority and Deviance in Western Europe 950–1250 (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987) Murphy, John L., The General Councils of the Church (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1960)

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Neilson, Christina, ‘Carving Life: The Meaning of Wood in Early Modern European Sculpture’, in The Matter of Art: Materials, Practices, Cultural Logics, c. 1250–1750, ed. by Christy Anderson, Anne Dunlop, and Pamela H. Smith (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014), pp. 223–39 Norn, Otto, At se det usynlige: mysteriekult og ridderidealer (Copenhagen: Gad, 1982) Ottosen, Knud, Oldtidens og Middelalderens Kirkehistorie i Dansk og Nordisk Perspektiv (Copenhagen: Books on Demand, 2006) Palazzo, Éric, ‘Art and Liturgy in the Middle Ages: Survey of Research (1980– 2003) and Some Reflections on Method’, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 105 (2006), 170–84 ———, ‘Art, Liturgy, and the Five Senses in the Early Middle Ages’, Viator, 41 (2010), 25–56 Peréz-Vidal, Mercedes, ‘Compline and its Processions in the Context of Castilian Dominican Nunneries’, in Life and Religion in the Middle Ages, ed. by Flocel Sabaté (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 245–77 Pinkus, Assaf, Sculpting Simulacra in Medieval Germany, 1250–1380 (London: Routledge, 2014) Post, Paul, ‘Ritual Studies’, Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft, 45.2 (2003), 1–45 Rice, Nicole R., Lay Piety and Religious Discipline in Middle English Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) Romano, John F., Liturgy and Society in Early Medieval Rome (Burlington: Ashgate, 2014; repr. London: Routledge, 2016) Rosenwein, Barbara H., To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property, 909–1049 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989) Rubin, Miri, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) ———, ‘Popular Attitudes to the Eucharist’, in A Companion to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages, ed. by Ian Christopher Levy, Gary Macy, and Kirsten van Ausdall (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 447–70 Ryan, Salvador, ‘Some Reflections on Theology and Popular Piety: A Fruitful or Fraught Relationship’, The Heythrop Journal, 53 (2012), 961–71 Sansterre, Jean-Marie, ‘Attitudes occidentales à l’égard des miracles d’images dans le haut Moyen Âge’, Annales, 53 (1998), 1219–41 Schmitt, Jean-Claude, ‘Rituels de l’image et récits de vision’, Testo e immagine nell’alto medioevo, 1 (1994), 419–62 ———, Religione, folklore e società nell’Occidente medievale (Rome: Biblioteca Universale Laterza, 2000) ———, Le corps des images: essais sur la culture visuelle au Moyen Âge (Paris: Gallimard, 2002) ———, La représentation de l’espace et l’espace des images au Moyen Âge (Geneva: Haute École d’Art et de Design, 2011) Shinners, John R., Medieval Popular Religion, 1000–1500: A Reader (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997) Skyum-Nielsen, Niels, Kirkekampen i Danmark, 1241–1290: Jakob Erlandsen, samtid og eftertid (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1963)

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———, Kvinde og slave: Danmarkshistorie uden retouche 3 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1971) Southern, Richard W., Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, i: Foundations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) Strijdom, Johan M., ‘The Material Turn in Religious Studies and the Possibility of Critique: Assessing Chidester’s Analysis of “the Fetish”’, HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, 70 (2014), 1–7 Taubert, Johannes, Polychrome Sculpture: Meaning, Form, Conservation, ed. by Michele D. Marincola and trans. by Carola Schulman (Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 2015) Trexler, Richard C., ‘Being and Non-Being: Parameters of the Miraculous in the Traditional Religious Image’, in The Miraculous Image in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. by Erik Thunø and Gerhard Wolf (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2004), pp. 15–28 Van Engen, John H., ‘The Future of Medieval Church History’, Church History, 71 (2002), 492–522 ———, ‘Recovering the Multiple Worlds of the Medieval Church: Thoughtful Lives, Inspired Critics, and Changing Narratives’, The Catholic Historical Review, 104 (2018), 589–613 Weinryb, Ittai, ‘Living Matter: Materiality, Maker, and Ornament in the Middle Ages’, Gesta, 52 (2013), 113–32 White, Stephen D., Customs, Kinship and Gifts to Saints: The ‘laudatio parentum’ in Western France (1050–1150) (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988)

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Morten Larsen

Research History: Materiality and Medieval Religious Practice in Danish Research

Religion played a significant role in the medieval period where Christianity spread to the outer rim of Europe and became a dominant and important factor in the shaping of European culture and identity. Our knowledge on the materiality of religious practice derives from a fragmented source material consisting of religious artefacts, texts, and other testimonials, and especially in Scandinavia the material evidence is far less voluminous than in other parts of Western Europe, partly due to a lack of preserved source material, but also as a consequence of a relatively ‘shorter’ medieval period (c. 1050–1550). Despite this, scholars have during the past century taken an interest in the materiality of the medieval period and with different agendas sought to shape an image of how Christian devotional culture was constituted during the Middle Ages. This book deals with the materiality of religious practice in Denmark during the Middle Ages, with an overall focus on the role and necessity of tangible objects in the religious practice. This contribution aims at giving a short overview of the different approaches and advances in the study of religious materiality in Denmark, and thereby presenting a basis for understanding contemporary and future approaches. ‘Religious materiality’ in the widest sense is a vast field of study, which is clearly illustrated by this book’s many different contributions; hence, there can be some difficulty in providing a coherent and chronological presentation, and — consequently — some areas of research (e.g. the study of religious building culture) have been toned down, due to their limited space in the rest of the book.

Source Material — Source Criticism Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries were Christianized during the early medieval period and for almost five centuries practised a catholic Morten Larsen, PhD in Medieval Archaeology (Aarhus University). Senior curator of Archaeology at Vendsyssel Historical Museum. Email: [email protected] Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix, and Mads Heilskov, AS 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 27–50 © FHG10.1484/M.AS-EB.5.123984

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Figure 2.1. Late medieval wooden sculpture from the church of Råbjerg, northern Jutland, depicting Saint Servatius and his mother Memelia. According to medieval legends, Memelia was related to the Holy Family, and the sculpture was probably originally part of a larger altarpiece. Saint Servatius is not a common representative among the saints depicted in the Danish churches; however the figure shows the diversity in religious materiality of the Middle Ages. The sculpture was in 1894 purchased by Vendsyssel Historical Museum, where the sculpture today is exhibited. Photo: ML 2016.

Materiality and Medieval Religious Practice in Danish Research

Christianity comparable to that of Western Europe. The Reformation in the sixteenth century however yielded a massive influence on the shaping of religious cultural life, and the perception and use of church space. With the Reformation, the church practice was altered and fixtures, fittings, and images within the church space were markedly changed (Fig. 2.1). For the Scandinavian countries this had massive implications with regards to the preservation of church artefacts, books, and scriptures, as well as the overall understanding of how religious materiality took form in the medieval period.1 Scholars dealing with medieval religious culture hence have a tendency to be influenced greatly by their own (religious) background. For several years it was widely acknowledged in Danish research that the two doors on the north and south side of the medieval parish church signalled a gender separation, where men entered through the south door and women through the north. A scrutiny of the evidence indicates that the doorways during the medieval period had no relation to gender separation, but instead should be interpreted in relation to the liturgy of the parish church, where the south door was used as the ‘normal’ entrance, whilst the north door had significance in relation to special acts like burial rites or penance. The interior church space itself however was probably gender separated during the early and high Middle Ages, and again after the Reformation, whereas it probably was not common in the late Middle Ages. However, the doorways themselves had no relation to the gender separation, and the notion is probably a product of a modern, nostalgic vision of the medieval period.2 The same tendency is apparent in Poul Georg Lindhardt’s assessment of the religious life of the late medieval period, where the collapse at the Reformation is explained in the moral decline and general dilution of the Catholic Church in the late Middle Ages.3 The presentation leans more towards a Lutheran critique of the Catholic religious practice than a scientific survey of medieval religious life. Despite the fact that this view was common among researchers in the mid-twentieth century, the notion has today been almost abandoned by Scandinavian researchers.

Presenting (Religious) Materiality Church fittings, liturgical objects, and artefacts of personal devotion became a central field of study for scholars from the late nineteenth century onwards, and ever since, the vast material have been presented and published in different forms and with different purposes. It is characteristic that the majority of the larger works concerned with cataloguing and presenting medieval objects

1 Jensen, ‘Katolsk Kirkeinventars Skæbne’. 2 Jürgensen, ‘Syddør, norddør og det kønsopdelte kirkerum’. 3 Lindhardt, Den danske kirkes historie, pp. 109–207.

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had their heyday during the first half of the twentieth century, and were greatly influenced by the scientific approach at this time (cf. below: ‘Between Aesthetics and Cultural History’). Many of the works mentioned below are characterized by a compiling form with a primary focus on specific presentation of the actual objects, and thus present the groundwork for many later scholars. For instance the Scandinavian golden altars were quite thoroughly presented by Poul Nørlund in 1926, with an emphasis on typology and image programme, construction, regional distribution, and dating. The book itself was printed again in 1968, and since then, several scholars have used it as a primary source in different articles with a focus on the wider context and interpretation of the altars. For example, the material has been used in iconographical analyses with an emphasis on interpretation of the actual images,4 analyses of image programme and liturgy,5 and even as a means to elaborate on the conundrum as to who built the Romanesque parish churches.6 In 2007, the altars again served as the basis for an international interdisciplinary conference on Image and Altar 800–1300 published a few years later, which touched upon many different research traditions and topics.7 Even though Poul Nørlund’s publication had very few comments on the theoretical conception of liturgical acts and religious perceptiveness back in the 1920s, his work has been of greatest value to those scholars who in recent year have — and the same can be said of numerous fields of study. Presenting Specific Objects

As stated, great emphasis was put on specific studies into distinct objects during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, with a pronounced emphasis on the empirical line of study. Notable Scandinavian examples are Francis Beckett’s survey of late medieval altars (1885), J. B. Löffler’s study of medieval tombstones (1889), Fritz Ulldall’s survey of medieval church bells (1906), Poul Nørlund and Egmont Lind’s overview of Danish Romanesque murals (1944), Mouritz Mackeprang’s thorough investigation of baptismal fonts and Romanesque stone sculpture (1941; 1948), and Chr. Axel Jensen’s overview of late medieval and Renaissance tomb stones (1951–1953). The effort to produce thorough catalogues of medieval religious objects in the post-war period appears to have stagnated a bit probably due to shifting trends within research agendas (cf. below). Examples deriving from the post-war period could be Erik Cinthio’s work on early medieval Scanian



4 Aavitsland, ‘Ornament and Iconography’. 5 Norn and Skovgaard Jensen, The House of Wisdom; Kaspersen, ‘Gyldne altre og nadverliturgi’; Kaspersen and Thunø, Decorating the Lord’s Table. 6 Wienberg, ‘Gyldne altre, kirker og kritik’. 7 Grinder-Hansen, ed., Image and Altar 800–1300.

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stone sculpture,8 Ulla Haastrup and Robert Egevang’s eight-volume survey of medieval Danish murals (1985–1992), as well as the two-volume survey on medieval Danish altarpieces,9 and the three-volume presentation of Danish royal tombs.10 Whereas the survey on altarpieces constitutes a characteristic form with introductory chapters and a thorough catalogue, the works on murals and royal tombs are more prosaic in their shape and are built up on both chronological but also thematic chapters. Also, researchers have in some cases solely taken interest in one item, like the altarpiece from Løjt,11 and used this as a starting point for elaborating on different research perspectives. Also, on a larger European scale, Scandinavian material has been included, e.g. in the most recent publication of the German series on medieval bronze works (‘Bronzegeräte des Mittelalters’), where Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen presents a vast catalogue of medieval censers including those from Denmark.12 Researchers in the former Danish provinces of course also take interest in presenting medieval religious objects from the medieval Danish realm,13 currently a major eight-volume presentation of medieval wooden sculpture from Schleswig-Holstein is on its way with three volumes published.14 Topographical Studies and Inventory Works

Apart from publications focusing distinctly on the objects themselves, a large corpus of medieval objects are presented in topographical surveys and inventory works. The topographical works came into being in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century and were spawned by a growing national interest. In Denmark, J. P. Trap’s Statistisk-Topografisk Beskrivelse af Kongeriget Danmark (1858–1860, with several subsequent editions) and Daniel Bruun’s Danmark: Land og Folk (1919–1923) created the basis for an understanding of people, country, and culture. These works constituted a general trend amongst scholars of Western Europe, and formed the basis for specifically culture-historical inventory works like the German Kunstdenkmäler,15 and the Danish Danmarks Kirker.16 The latter has since 1933 continuously worked on the publication of all churches within the current borders of the Danish realm with the emphasis on detailed descriptions of the church building, murals, graves, and fittings.

8 Cinthio, Skånes stenskulptur. 9 Bruun and Plathe, Danmarks Middelalderlige Altertavler; see also Bruun and Plathe, Middelalderlige altertavler i Haderslev Stift. 10 Kryger, ed., Danske Kongegrave. 11 Svensson, ed., Løjttavlen. 12 Westermann-Angerhausen, Mittelalterliche Weihrauchfässer. 13 For example, Liepe, Den medeltida träskulpturen; Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga. 14 Albrecht, ed., Corpus der mittelalterlichen Holzskulptur und Tafelmalerei. 15 For example, Haupt, Die Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler. 16 Johannsen, ‘Danmarks Kirker’.

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Similar initiatives have characterized the other Scandinavian countries; however their church inventory projects have ceased publication, due to lack of funding as well as initiative. The scope and shape of these inventory works are descriptive and a contextual dimension is often not included. In some cases, however, as with the choir of the Franciscan churches of Odense and Horsens, Danmarks Kirker widens the scope and presents some general thoughts regarding function, symbolism, and liturgy.17 This is not a general tendency and is probably best explained in the editors taking a great interest in certain research perspectives. As with the Franciscan church of Odense, editor Birgitte Bøggild Johannsen has elaborated on the late medieval rebuilding of the choir in several articles dealing with the benefactor Queen Christine.18 Collections and Exhibitions

Due to the changed church practice by the time of the Reformation, large quantities of medieval liturgical objects became obsolete, and during the course of time shifted significance from being religious objects to rarities or mere works of art. They were either discarded completely (wooden objects could easily have been burned) or set aside, waiting for ‘other’ functions. Thus, several liturgical objects were included in private or museum collections during the nineteenth or twentieth century. Regarding the medieval Danish material, the National Museum, the Historical Museum of Lund, and the Gottorp Castle Museum in Schleswig have some of the most impressive collections;19 yet several local museums also have fairly large amounts of medieval church objects used in both permanent as well as special exhibitions (cf. Fig. 2.1) — and medieval liturgical objects are still used in parish churches even today. With regard to exhibitions, catalogues are sometimes published in which the objects are presented, as was the case in 1991 with Viborg Museum’s exhibition in relation to the 750th anniversary for the provincial law of Jutland ( Jyske Lov). The exhibition brought together larger quantities of liturgical objects from Jutland, dating from the time of King Valdemar the Victorious (1202–1241).20 Sadly, larger contemporary presentations of Danish museum collections are not as common a phenomenon as in for instance Germany, where large exhibition catalogues are published in relation to large-scale exhibitions.21

17 DK Aarhus Amt 2005, pp. 5755–58; DK Odense Amt, pp. 1805–06 (with references). 18 For example, Johannsen, ‘Gråbrødre Klosterkirke i Odense’. 19 Grinder-Hansen, Danmarks Middelalder og Renæssance. 20 Hjermind and Levin Nielsen, eds, Skatte fra Valdemar Sejrs tid. 21 See for example Hegner, Aus Mecklenburgs Kirchen und Klöstern; Richter, Lübeck 1500.

Materiality and Medieval Religious Practice in Danish Research

Studying Religious Materiality Above, the chapter deals with the different ways in which the vast material has been presented. In some cases the presentation is based on a concrete research interest in the materiality of religious practice,22 yet also in some cases (i.e. the topographical surveys) there has been a different research agenda, with almost no relevance for the study of medieval religious materiality; but despite this, the presented material at some later point might have played a central function in this field of study. The following deals more concretely with different advances and tendencies within the study of medieval religious materiality. The walk-through is more or less arranged chronologically, however some research trends continue for very long periods hence there are several (and sometimes quite long) overlaps. Between Aesthetics and Cultural History (until 1960)

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, art historians played a significant role in the study of religious objects, and already N. L. Høyen — often mentioned as the founder of art history as a discipline in Denmark — worked with medieval religious objects.23 As pointed out above (‘Presenting Specific Objects’) the majority of work was characterized by a descriptive art-historical tradition spawned by the scope of the larger inventory works and specific object-oriented studies. The focus of research was directed towards questions addressing motifs and stylistic studies, and questions of dating, provenance, masters, and workshops — and only peripherally dealing with the objects as religious and liturgical items. Despite its old age, one work in particular from this period should be emphasized, that is Troels Frederik Troels-Lund’s Dagligliv i Norden i det Sekstende Aarhundrede (1879–1901). The fourteen-volume work deals with several different topics apart from the merely religious, and despite its fairly prosaic shape combined with very few references, it still gives a thorough impression of religion and belief in the early years of the Danish Renaissance. In contrast to many of the period’s other surveys, Troels-Lund integrates the notions of religion and belief in a more holistic approach to describe people and culture in the sixteenth century, however he is largely focused on the period after the Reformation. Most interesting is the last volume containing a survey of rituals related to death and burial before and after the Reformation. Especially in the first decades of the twentieth century, an emphasis was put on the distinct study of ‘culture’ with a pronounced focus on nation and identity. Within this overall framework comparative studies emerged, like Francis Beckett’s two-volume survey of Danish art and architecture in

22 See Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga. 23 See Høyen, Altertavlen i Frue Kirke.

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the medieval period (1924–1926). The same can be said regarding the series ‘Nordisk Kultur’ where Vilhelm Lorenzen presented the volume on churches and religious objects (1934). The book gives a good impression of the state of the art in the early twentieth century; however, due to the wide scope and limited space, it does not go into depth with specific research questions. Lorenzen still emphasized in the preface, that At give en ren kunsthistorisk-æstetisk Skildring har ikke været Hovedhensigten […] Hovedvægten er lagt paa den af Praksis bestemte Side af Bygninger og Ting – hvad man forlangte af en Kirkebygning med dens Udstyr af alle Slags, og hvorledes den paa sin Vis har udtrykt Tidens Tanker om Pladsforhold, Gudstjeneste og Andagt. Derfor er der arbejdet med Skildringer af Typer og Motiver og Behandlingen har været indstillet paa det arkæologiske og indholdsmæssige. (The goal has not been to give an art-historical and aesthetic depiction […] Emphasis has been practice-oriented: what was required by a church building and its objects, and how did this come to express the contemporary notion of space, Mass, and devotion. Hence, there has been a focus on the depiction of types and motifs and my work has been directed towards archaeology and the substantial).24 Lorenzen’s approach became more pronounced in the decades that followed, where the archaeological focus on religious material culture boomed. Unearthing Medieval Religious Materiality (c. 1950–1990)

In the years following the Second World War, church archaeology boomed in the Scandinavian countries. Many of the medieval churches were restored and refurbished, which presented the opportunity to excavate within the building, and thereby gave insights as to how the medieval church space was formed.25 Methodologically these decades were markedly shaped by (historical) archaeology as an emerging professional academic discipline, and showed great advances in field recording, observation and interpretation, whereas theoretically a culture-historical notion continued to a large degree. In Denmark, the archaeological investigations were carried out by the National Museum and several campaigns were afterwards published by the excavators.26 Despite the complicated stratigraphy of the church buildings, the excavations shed some light on the shaping of medieval church space and gave a more dynamic impression of the changing spatiality of the medieval church. In the case of Butterup Church on north-west Zealand, excavations 24 Lorenzen, Kirkebygninger og deres Udstyr, pp. 1–2. Translated by the author. 25 Olsen, ‘Kirkegulvet’; Cinthio, ‘Kyrkorummet’. 26 Hansen and Sørensen, ‘Den usynlige kirke’; Hansen, ‘Arkæologiske undersøgelser i Gundsømagle kirke 1988’; Hansen, ‘Arkæologiske spor efter døbefontens placering’.

Materiality and Medieval Religious Practice in Danish Research

10 m Figure 2.2. Plan of the church of Butterup, north-west Zealand. Church floor excavations uncovered different phases with altars, seating arrangements, etc. Above: the interior in the twelfth century. Below: the altered interior in the fourteenth century. After: DK Holbæk Amt 1979, modified by the author.

unearthed the remains of two distinct phases (Fig. 2.2), with benches along the walls of the nave, a seating arrangement (probably for the church benefactor), a podium for the baptismal font, and foundations for side altars.27 Altars and reliquaries were often also examined in connection with church restorations, displaying a large and complex source material.28 Excavations in larger cathedral churches and monasteries also nuanced the impression of the shaping of medieval church space as can be seen at e.g. the Franciscan church of Ribe.29 The different church excavations quickly gave way to more comparative studies of the Romanesque church interior — a significant (however short) study being an article by the later professor of medieval archaeology and director 27 DK Holbæk Amt 1979, pp. 60–64. 28 See for example Vellev, ‘Altre og alterindvielser’ and ‘Relikvierne fra Seem kirke’. 29 Søvsø, ‘The Monastic Institutions of Ribe’.

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of the National Museum Olaf Olsen published in Kirkehistoriske Samlinger in 1967.30 Forty years later the corpus of church floor excavations constituted the basis for a PhD thesis in medieval archaeology, which concluded that the Stand der Forschung after the turn of the millennia more or less was the same as when Olaf Olsen’s article was published in 1967.31 However, larger synthesizing works on this great corpus of church excavations are mostly absent. In 1956, the so-called ‘Harpe-Cirkulære’ was introduced, initiating a thorough, systematic sieving of cultural layers from church excavations. As a consequence, smaller portable items (like coins or seals) increased greatly in number displaying a new field of study.32 In conjunction with the implementation of metal detector surveying during the 1970s,33 pilgrimage badges, ampullae, and special objects have increased greatly in number in Danish museum collections and nuanced the understanding of personal devotion, belief, and superstition.34 Society, Structure — and Religion c. 1970–1990

During the late 1970s and early 1980s a paradigmatic shift within the humanities appeared, presenting new approaches within research as well as new goals. The ‘New Archaeology’ and ‘New History’ took up notions from primarily anthropology, sociology, and cultural geography, and focus shifted from the objects themselves to questions of more general character i.e. addressing religion’s significance in the shaping and maintaining of societal structures. It is important to note that the New Archaeology (or processual archaeology) did not eradicate the existing research tradition; it rather suggested new directions, which in some cases were followed. A dataset which during the second half of the twentieth century greatly increased in size was medieval burials.35 Under the influence of trends within the New Archaeology and especially structuralism, the massive empirical material proved useful in a study of burial types, but also displayed the fact that the medieval religious world was characterized by regional, chronological, and social differences. As with the excavations of the cemetery at Lagmanshejdan situated in relation to the Scanian fish markets, Lars Redin, inspired by a structuralist and Marxist approach, used the material to discuss social differences within the medieval population,36 whereas the site’s religious connotation and significance was

30 31 32 33 34

Olsen, ‘Rumindretning i romanske landsbykirker’. Rensbro, ‘Spor i kirkegulve’. Olsen, ‘Kirkegulvet’; Hansen, ‘Middelalderlige glasmalerier’; Jensen, ‘Kirkegulvsmønter’. Liebgott, ‘Metaldetektorer og middelalderens fromhedsliv’. Søvsø, Jensen, and Neiβ, ‘Støbeforme af sten fra middelalderen’; Imer and Uldum, ‘Mod dæmoner og elverfolk’; Vellev, ‘Ampullen fra Grathe’. 35 Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik i det middelalderlige Danmark and ‘Middelalderens gravskik i Danmark’. 36 Redin, Lagmanshejdan.

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toned down. The ‘de-sacralization’ of the medieval burials is in a way also mirrored in the anthropological approach to the skeletal material, where the emphasis on measurements (size, age, gender, diseases) was pronounced.37 The same tendency can be seen in the study of church space. The emphasis on the church as a scene of religious and liturgical events waned, instead churches, parish structures, and church topography were seen as a mirror of societal development, and were used as a means to discuss elite systems and power management in the Middle Ages,38 however, recent studies elaborate on this notion stressing the importance of all levels of society in the construction and maintenance of religious culture.39 With regards to the written source material, Michael Gelting noted in 1985 that Danish medieval research had shown fairly little interest in church history, a notion which Lars Bisgaard a few years later elaborated upon.40 The waning interest among historians before c. 1980 in working with medieval religious life is by Bisgaard accredited to the research tradition cemented by Kristian Erslev (and later Erik Arup) which emphasized a strong materialist tradition with a focus on economics, societal management, and with a pronounced emphasis on the social classes. There was some interest, however: Ellen Jørgensen’s book on the cult of saints during the Danish Middle Ages is still inextricable,41 and Anne Riising’s thorough analysis of Danish medieval sermons set standards for the research in the years to come.42 Despite the lack of interest in medieval religious life during the Erslev tradition, there was a pronounced interest in presenting and publishing the actual sources. The source material concerning the religious life in Scandinavia throughout the medieval period is scant — and the preserved and known sources are primarily late medieval.43 Some of these sources are commented on and published, i.e. the Pontifikale Lundense and the Pontifikale Roscildense,44 the Missale Lundense,45 the Necrologium Lundense,46 the manual from Notmark,47 and medieval Danish prayer books.48 A more recent example could be Anna Minara Ciardi’s translation of the rule and the customary of the

37 See for example Boldsen, ‘Height Variation’. 38 See Nyborg, ‘Enkeltmænd og fællesskaber’; Wienberg, Den gotiske labyrint; Anglert, Kyrkor och herravälda. 39 Nilsson, Mellan makten och himmelriket. 40 Gelting, ‘Mellem udtørring og nye strømninger’, p. 11; Bisgaard, ‘Det religiøse liv i senmiddelalderen’. 41 Jørgensen, Helgendyrkelse i Danmark. 42 Riising, Danmarks middelalderlige prædiken. 43 Ottosen, ‘Liturgi og ritualer i middelalderen’. 44 Den pontifikale liturgin, ed. by Strömberg. 45 Missale Lundense, ed. by Strömberg. 46 Necrologium Lundense, ed. by Weibull. 47 The Manual from Notmark, ed. by Ottosen. 48 Middelalderens danske bønnebøger, ed. by Nielsen.

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Figure 2.3. In the years immediately prior to the Reformation the church in Skive was decorated with an impressive series of murals depicting several saints, some of which are almost unknown in the motifs of other churches, e.g. Saint Francis and Saint Dominic, who despite the popularity of their monastic institutions, are rarely depicted in Danish churches. Photo: ML 2015.

cathedral chapter of Lund, which along with the translated source presents a contextualizing introduction.49 Influenced by the French Annales school and by international scholars like Jacques Le Goff, the study of medieval religious life took a turn during the 1980s, with the introduction of the concepts of mentality and spirituality. The influence can be seen in Lars Bisgaard’s examination of piety and belief among the nobility of the late Middle Ages,50 as well as in Brian Patrick McGuire’s survey of the Cistercians in Denmark.51 The event-based historicity was toned down whereas the longue durée perspective was far more prominent. This tendency also characterizes some of the more general works of the 1980s, such as Ulla Kjær and Poul Grinder-Hansen’s two-volume survey of the Danish churches, which despite its chronological span (only the first volume is concerned with the medieval period) presents a general overview of the 49 Ciardi, Lundakanikernas levnadsregler. 50 Bisgaard, Tjenesteideal og fromhedsideal. 51 McGuire, The Cistercians in Denmark.

Materiality and Medieval Religious Practice in Danish Research

Figure 2.4. The altarpiece in the cathedral of Odense is a complicated scenery depicting Calvary. The art work is attributed Claus Berg’s workshop and marks one of the climaxes of late medieval wooden sculpture. The altarpiece was originally built for the Franciscan church in Odense on behalf of Queen Christine in the early sixteenth century but was in the nineteenth century relocated to the Church of Our Lady and later the cathedral. Photo: ML 2009.

Stand der Forschung in the 1980s.52 Another book characterized by some of the same trends is Niels Knud Liebgott’s study on pilgrimage and the worship of saints in medieval Denmark, which still presents one of the most valuable contributions within this distinct field of study (Fig. 2.3).53 Bringing Materiality to Life: Object, Image, and Text (c. 1980–2000)

The more process-oriented notion within the humanities also gradually sparked a more cross-disciplinary approach, and during the 1980s and 1990s the interplay between history, art history, and archaeology became more pronounced. After 1990 a pronounced focus on the creation of material culture became more apparent and instead of working towards establishing general statements, a contextual yet still comparative focus occurred.

52 Kjær and Grinder-Hansen, Kirkerne i Danmark. 53 Liebgott, Hellige mænd og kvinder.

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With regard to the previous example on medieval burials a shift in research agenda occurs during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Instead of merely using the material in a discussion of social and societal differences, emphasis is placed on the medieval perception of death, the rituals regarding burials, and the conception and symbolism related to ritual space. In an article by Per Kristian Madsen, archaeological as well as written sources are scrutinized in order to discuss the ideals and reality in medieval burial rites.54 Jörn Staecker continues a societal notion and a gender archaeological perspective in an investigation of early medieval cemeteries on Gotland, however with emphasis on the shaping and development of burial rites in the early phase of Christianity.55 Anders Andrén uses the massive material from cemeteries in medieval Lund to discuss the town’s sacred topography in the medieval period.56 Also, Hanne Dahlerup Koch, in a short survey on rosaries found in relation medieval burials, points out the importance of contextual analysis applying both physical and written sources in order to shape an image of medieval religion and belief.57 Noteworthy is also Birgitte Bøggild Johannsen’s research on late medieval elite burials and the concept of memory, stressing both influences of religious and pious connotation as well as political.58 Thus, topics like piety, belief, and spirituality became more apparent, and despite a continued pronounced focus on religious materiality as a general collective subject, the role of the individual gained more attention. The contextual and above all interpretative framework shaped the basis for an inclusion of iconographical and iconological concepts and with reference to especially the art historian Erwin Panofsky,59 the perception and meaning of images and symbols became a central research topic from the 1970s, and still today plays a significant role in studies of religious materiality.60 Thus, the topic is prominent in e.g. an anthology on the correlation between altars and murals,61 the 2007 edition of the journal Hikuin (on visual sources and the Middle Ages),62 as well as the aforementioned anthology on Image and Altar 800–1300.63 A comparative methodology alongside a stressing of the importance of meaningfully constituted image and iconography is also apparent in some general surveys of medieval religious building culture64 and Romanesque art respectively.65 A research perspective that was greatly stressed in the 54 Madsen, ‘Han ligger under en blå sten’. 55 Staecker, ‘Gotlands kyrkogårdar’. 56 Andrén, ‘Ad sanctos’. 57 Koch, ‘Rosenkranse i grave’. 58 See Johannsen, ‘Gråbrødre Klosterkirke i Odense’ and ‘Genealogical Representation’. 59 Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts. 60 Hohler, ‘Vår forståelse av middelalderens ikonografi’; Danbolt, Laugerud, and Liepe, eds, Tegn, symbol og tolkning; Grinder-Hansen, ‘Øllet eller ideen?’, p. 61. 61 Bisgaard, Nyberg, and Søndergaard, eds, Billeder i Middelalderen. 62 Grinder-Hansen, ed., Billedet og historien. 63 Grinder-Hansen, ed., Image and Altar. 64 Johannsen and Smidt, Danmarks arkitektur. 65 Gotfredsen and Frederiksen, Troens Billeder.

Materiality and Medieval Religious Practice in Danish Research

1980s and 1990s was the medieval use of iconographical sources, stressing the overall symbolic and theologically meaningful image programme and its usage in the shaping of the medieval church interior. Focus has typically been on the use of the late medieval collection of woodcuts known as the Biblia pauperum in the composition of murals in Danish churches,66 but also in relation to greater workshops as i.e. the altars and sculptures accredited to Claus Berg (Fig. 2.4).67 Also, the use of textual sources like the Physiologus for the Romanesque stone carvings has been scrutinized.68 Apart from the focus on the image programmes, an increasing interest in the actual liturgical acts themselves gradually emerged from the 1970s onwards. In a short article in the art-historical journal ICO, Søren Kaspersen looked into the connection between the rites of e.g. baptism and the shaping of images within the church space.69 Likewise, Ulla Haastrup emphasized the importance of understanding the liturgical act in an influential article on the use of props in medieval liturgy.70 The efforts to bring object, image, and text together resulted around 1990 in a television documentary for the Swedish Ministry of Education depicting the re-enactment of a medieval Mass in the church of Endre on Gotland using the known mid-fifteenth-century liturgy from diocese of Linköping. Much effort was put into the documentary and the priest himself, Anders Piltz, was in fact catholic ordained and uses the actual medieval manuscript during the Mass.71 Towards an Understanding of Medieval Religious Practice (2000–)

The 1990s and especially the years after the turn of the millennia saw new tendencies within the study of religious materiality. Greatly inspired by a phenomenological approach, the interrelatedness between object, image, and text became more apparent with an understanding of perception, devotion, and spirituality being central questions. Whereas the concept of agency had a great importance in the research of the last decades of the twentieth century with an emphasis on the liturgical religious act, research trends in the new millennia are gradually acknowledging objects themselves as being able to act as material agents.72

Clausen, ‘Biblen i Bellinge’; Banning, Biblia pauperum. Haastrup, ‘Brugen af forlæg i Claus Bergs værksted’. Kolstrup, ‘Physiologus- og bestiariefremstillinger’. Kaspersen, ‘Billeder og liturgi’. Haastrup, ‘Medieval Props’. Helander and others, Mässa i medeltida socken; see also the theoretical discussion on the re-enactment of medieval liturgy in Petersen, ‘Reconciling the Historical and the Contemporary’. 72 For example, Petersen and others, eds, Ora pro nobis. 66 67 68 69 70 71

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Since the 1990s there has also been a change in the concept of ‘religion’. Instead of seeing this as an isolated subsystem within society, religion was increasingly being acknowledged as a centrally integrated part of community as a whole. This tendency is prominent in Lars Bisgaard’s survey of medieval guilds,73 as well as in a recent anthology on the subject.74 Archaeologists, historians, and art historians are increasingly being influenced from the fields of theology and history of religion, and stressing the importance of understanding that while the written source material presents the ‘form’ of religion, it is important to utilize the material sources to understand the underlying concepts of belief and spirituality.75 Although there is a clear relationship to the post-processual trends of the 1990s, the more perceptive approach becomes more apparent in several recent studies. A series of studies published after 2010 emphasizes the importance of objects, space, and liturgy in a more holistic way and through comparative studies tries to examine the dynamics of church space and the shifting importance, perception, and meaning of this. In Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen’s doctoral thesis,76 the dynamics of church space across the Reformation is scrutinized, marking the importance of the schism for everyday religious life in late medieval and Renaissance Denmark. Likewise, Karsten Merrald Sørensen’s published thesis looks into different cultural and societal perceptions of church space during the Renaissance and early modern era in a detailed study of three different parishes in SchleswigHolstein.77 Also recently published is Mattias Karlsson’s PhD thesis on altars in the medieval diocese of Lund. Apart from presenting an impressive and thorough catalogue of the vast material evidence, the thesis comprises a notable discussion on how the interplay between physical objects, spoken words, and liturgical actions played an important role in the construction of medieval sacrality.78 All three theses are characterized by authors who despite their specific academic backgrounds draw upon a vast number of material, historical, and theological discourses, and mark a growing trend in the interpretation of past religiosity. A central part of the phenomenological approach to religious practice is the sensorial perception, which to a large degree is central in recent publications (Fig. 2.5), and stressed by international scholars, such as the French art historian Eric Palazzo.79 Bjørn Magnusson Staaf already in the late 1990s presented an examination of church bells in the early medieval

73 Bisgaard, De glemte altre. 74 Bisgaard, Mortensen, and Pettitt, eds, Guilds, Towns, and Cultural Transmission. 75 See Christensen, and Sveen, eds, Religion og materiel kultur; Warmind, ‘Religionsvidenskaben og det arkæologiske materiale’. 76 Jürgensen, Changing Interiors. 77 Sørensen, Kirkebrug gennem 250 år. 78 Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga, pp. 297–313. 79 See Palazzo, ‘Art, Liturgy, and the Five Senses’.

Materiality and Medieval Religious Practice in Danish Research

Figure 2.5. A medieval prop or the personification of Christ? Detail of the late medieval depiction of the Tomb of Christ from the church of Kerteminde, probably used as a part of rituals in relation to Easter. Photo: Arnold Mikkelsen, the National Museum 2007.

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period, and how the introduction of bell ringing shaped the understanding of the concept of time.80 Senses and the shaping of senses are also central in several works by Hans Henrik Lohfert Jørgensen,81 notably in a recently published anthology The Saturated Sensorium: Principles of Perception and Mediation in the Middle Ages where several scholars deal with different questions regarding medieval perception often with regards to ritual or liturgical acts.82 However, many of these works attempt to go deeply beyond the actual object in pursuit of the perceived and the perceiver, whereby the discourse revolves around thoughts and interpretations rather than taking the physical matter into account.

Concluding Remarks Many tendencies have shaped, and continue to shape the study of medieval religious materiality in Denmark. Until the 1970s, most research was based on a culture-historical notion, characterized by a pronounced empirical line of research. From the 1970s and until the turn of the millennia, the empirical line of research was challenged by different research agendas, and the period saw a line of more process-oriented tendencies that emphasized the underlying notions of societal structure, power, and control, as well as introducing a more contextual and interpretive framework. In the years following, the contextual and interpretive agenda became more pronounced, and the trends that have emerged in recent years are to a larger degree focused on the perception and experience of the medieval religious act, and thereby integrating several different disciplines and approaches. To a large degree, the development and approach to this line of study in Denmark corresponded with the trends in European research; however some ideas and concepts took longer to apply. Moreover the Danish line of research has for many years been focused on a presentation and publication of the material record — and thus establishing a vital and useful background for more process-oriented studies. One needs data to discuss the past. The 1999 volume of the journal Hikuin, with thematic chapters on late medieval wooden sculpture, gives quite a good impression of the many different disciplines and theoretical backgrounds. Some articles are shaped by an empirical line of research focused on the material record.83 Others are more concerned with the underlying process-oriented and societal themes,84 and others again emphasize the interpretive frameworks stressing the importance

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Magnusson Staaf, ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’. Jørgensen, ‘Middelalderens rum og sansning’. Jørgensen, Laugerud, and Skinnebach, eds, The Saturated Sensorium. Andersen, ‘Tysker, fremmedarbejder eller østjysk mester?’. Liepe, ‘Genuskoder i medeltida altarskåp’.

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of the interconnection between image, object, and act.85 The volume itself shows a great diversity in trends and traditions, as well as the benefits within the interdisciplinary approach, which is necessary to unlock the conundrum as to why materiality mattered in medieval religious life.

Works Cited Primary Sources The Manual from Notmark, ed. by Knud Ottosen, Bibliotheca liturgica Danica, series Latina, 1 (Copenhagen: Gad, 1970) Middelalderens danske bønnebøger, ed. by Karl Martin Nielsen, 5 vols (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1946–82) Missale Lundense av år 1514, ed. by Bengt Strömberg (Malmö: John Kroon, Malmö Ljustrycksanstalt, 1946) Necrologium Lundense: Lunds Domkyrkas Nekrologium, ed. by Lauritz Weibull, Monumenta Scaniae historica (Lund: Berling, 1923) Den pontifikale liturgin i Lund och Roskilde under medeltiden, ed. by Jörn Staecker (Lund: Gleerup, 1955) Secondary Works Aavitsland, Kristin Bliksrud, ‘Ornament and Iconography. Visual Orders in the Golden Altar from Lisbjerg, Denmark’, in Ornament and Order: Essays on Viking and Northern Medieval Art for Signe Horn Fuglesang, ed. by Margrethe C. Stang and Kristin Bliksrud Aavitsland (Trondheim: Tapir Akademisk Forlag, 2008), pp. 73–95 Albrecht, Uwe, ed., Corpus der mittelalterlichen Holzskulptur und Tafelmalerei in Schleswig-Holstein, 3 vols (Kiel: Ludwig, 2009–16) Andersen, Britta, ‘Tysker, fremmedarbejder eller østjysk mester? Nyt syn på fire krucifikser fra senmiddelalderen’, Hikuin, 26 (1999), 29–44 Andrén, Anders, ‘Ad sanctos — de dödas platsmunder medeltiden’, Hikuin, 27 (2000), 7–26 Anglert, Mats, Kyrkor och herravälda: Från kristnande till sockenbildning i Skåne, Lund Studies in Medieval Archaeology, 16 (Lund: Lunds Universitet, 1995) Banning, Knud, Biblia pauperum: Billedbibelen fra Middelalderen (Copenhagen: Gad, 1991) Beckett, Francis, Altertavler i Danmark fra den senere Middelalder (Copenhagen: Jørgensen, 1885) ———, Danmarks Kunst, 2 vols (Copenhagen: Koppel, 1924–26)

85 Kaspersen, ‘Højalter, liturgi og andagt’.

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Bisgaard, Lars, Tjenesteideal og fromhedsideal: Studier i adelens tænkemåde i dansk senmiddelalder, Arusia-Historiske skrifter, 7 (Aarhus: Arusia, 1988) ———, ‘Det religiøse liv i senmiddelalderen. En tabt dimension i dansk historieskrivning’, in Danmark i senmiddelalderen, ed. by Per Ingesman and Jens Villiam Jensen (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 1994), pp. 342–62 ———, De glemte altre, Odense University Studies in History and Social Sciences, 241 (Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag, 2001) Bisgaard, Lars, Lars Boje Mortensen, and Tom Pettitt, eds, Guilds, Towns, and Cultural Transmission in the North, 1300–1500 (Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2013) Bisgaard, Lars, Tore Nyberg, and Leif Søndergaard, eds, Billeder i Middelalderen: Kalkmalerier og altertavler (Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag, 1999) Boldsen, Jesper L., ‘Height Variation in the Light of Social and Regional Differences in Medieval Denmark’, in From the Baltic to the Black Sea: Studies in Medieval Archaeology, ed. by Leslie Alcock and David Austin, One World Archaeology, 18 (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990), pp. 181–88 Bruun, Daniel, Danmark: Land og Folk, 5 vols (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1919–23) Bruun, Jens, and Sissel F. Plathe, Middelalderlige altertavler i Haderslev Stift: Temaer og katalog (Copenhagen: Kristensen, 2003) ———, Danmarks Middelalderlige Altertavler og anden billedbærende kirkeudsmykning af betydning for liturgien og den private andagt, University of Southern Denmark Studies in History and Social Sciences, 392, 2 vols (Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2010) Christensen, Lisbeth Bredholt, and Stine B. Sveen, eds, Religion og materiel kultur (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 1998) Ciardi, Anna Minara, Lundakanikernas levnadsregler: Aachenregeln och Consuetudines canonicae, Meddelanden från Kyrkohistoriska arkivet i Lund (Lund: Lunds universitets kyrkohistoriska arkiv, 2003) Cinthio, Erik, Skånes stenskulptur under 1100-talet (Lund: Kulturen, 1965) ———, ‘Kyrkorummet — funktion och utsmyckning’, Sydsvenska Dagbladets Årsbok (1969), 67–135 Clausen, Jakob, ‘Biblen i Bellinge’, ICO, 1974, no. 1 (1974), 3–12 Danbolt, Gunnar, Henning Laugerud, and Lena Liepe, eds, Tegn, symbol og tolkning: Om forståelse og fortolkning af middelalderens bilder (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2003) DK = Danmarks Kirker (Copenhagen: Kristensen, 1933–) Gelting, Michael H., ‘Mellem udtørring og nye strømninger. Omkring en symposierapport om dansk middelalderhistorie’, Fortid og Nutid, 32 (1985), 1–12 Gotfredsen, Lise, and Hans Jørgen Frederiksen, Troens Billeder: Romansk kunst i Danmark (Herning: Systime, 1987) Grinder-Hansen, Poul, ed., Danmarks Middelalder og Renæssance, Nationalmuseets vejledninger (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 2002) ———, ed., Billedet og historien: Middelalderen og de visuelle kilder, Hikuin, 34 (2007) ———, ‘Øllet eller ideen? Om forståelsen af skævheder i dansk middelalderkunst’, Hikuin, 34 (2007), 61–72

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———, Image and Altar 800–1300, PNM Publications from the National Museum, Studies in Archaeology and History, 23 (Copenhagen: National Museum, 2014) Haastrup, Ulla, ‘Brugen af forlæg i Claus Bergs værksted i Odense i 1. fjerdedel af 1500-tallet’, in Imagines medievales: Studier i medeltida ikonografi, arkitektur, skulptur, måleri och konsthantverk, ed. by Rudolf Zeitler and Jan O. M. Karlsson, Ars Suetica, 7 (Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 1983), pp. 113–30 ———, ‘Medieval Props in the Liturgical Drama’, Hafnia, 11 (1987), 133–70 Haastrup, Ulla, and Robert Egevang, eds, Danske Kalkmalerier, 8 vols (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1985–92) Hansen, Birgit Als, ‘Middelalderlige glasmalerier’, Hikuin, 1 (1974), 87–96 ———, ‘Arkæologiske undersøgelser i Gundsømagle kirke 1988’, Hikuin, 17 (1990), 33–48 ———, ‘Arkæologiske spor efter døbefontens placering i kirkerummet gennem middelalderen’, Hikuin, 22 (1995), 27–40 Hansen, Birgit Als, and Morten Aaman Sørensen, ‘Den usynlige kirke. Butterup kirkes indre i middelalderen’, in Strejflys over Danmarks bygningskultur: Festskrift til Harald Langberg, ed. by Robert Egevang (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1979), pp. 65–82 Haupt, Richard, Die Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler in der Provinz Schleswig-Holstein (Heide: Heider Anzeiger, 1924) Hegner, Kristina, Aus Mecklenburgs Kirchen und Klöstern: Der Mittelalterbestand des Staatlichen Museums Schwerin (Petersberg: Imhof, 2015) Helander, Sven, and others, Mässa i medeltida socken (Skellefteå: Artos, 1993) Hjermind, Jesper, and Erik Levin Nielsen, eds, Skatte fra Valdemar Sejrs tid (Viborg: Stiftsmusem, 1991) Hohler, Erla Bergendahl, ‘Vår forståelse av middelalderens ikonografi, overtolkning og undertolkning; en reisefører mellem Scylla og Charybdis’, in Kirkearkeologi og Kirkekunst: Studier tilegnet Sigrid og Håkon Christie, ed. by Peter Sjömar and Marian Ullén (Øvre Ervik: Alvheim & Eide, 1993), pp. 127–43 Høyen, Niels Laurids, Altertavlen i Frue Kirke i Odense (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet) Imer, Lisbeth, and Otto Uldum, ‘Mod dæmoner og elverfolk’, Skalk, 2015, no. 1 (2015), 9–15 Jensen, Christian Axel, ‘Katolsk Kirkeinventars Skæbne efter Reformationen: Studier og Eksempler’, Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie (1921), 167–204 ———, Danske adelige Gravsten fra Sengotikens og Renæssancens Tid, 5 vols (Copenhagen: Høst, 1951–53) Jensen, Jørgen Steen, ‘Kirkegulvsmønter’, Hikuin, 3 (1977), 295–302 Johannsen, Birgitte Bøggild, ‘Genealogical Representation in Gendered Perspective. On a Lost Royal Mausoleum from Early Sixteenth-Century Denmark’, in Care for the Here and the Hereafter: Memoria, Art and Ritual in the Middle Ages, ed. by Truus van Bueren and Andrea van Leerdam (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 79–105

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———, ‘Gråbrødre Klosterkirke i Odense’, in Danske Kongegrave, ii, ed. by Karin Kryger (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2014), pp. 173–95 Johannsen, Hugo, ‘Danmarks Kirker. Baggrund og historie’, in Från romantik till nygotik: Studier i kyrklig konst och arkitektur tilägnade Evald Gufstafsson, ed. by Marian Ullén (Stockholm: Riksantikvarieämbetet, 1992), pp. 205–15 Johannsen, Hugo, and Claus M. Smidt, Danmarks arkitektur: Kirkens huse (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1981) Jürgensen, Martin Wangsgaard, ‘Syddør, norddør og det kønsopdelte kirkerum’, Hikuin, 36 (2009), 7–28 ———, Changing Interiors: Danish Village Churches c. 1450 to 1600, Ritus et artes, 6 (Copenhagen: Teologisk Fakultet, 2011) Jørgensen, Ellen, Helgendyrkelse i Danmark: Studier over Kirkekultur og kirkeligt Liv fra det 11. Århundredes Midte til Reformationen (Copenhagen: Hagerup, 1909) Jørgensen, Hans Henrik Lohfert, ‘Middelalderens rum og sansning — om sanselige strukturer i middelalderens kristne og islamiske rumdannelser’, in Middelalderens Verden: Verdensbilledet, tænkningen, rummet og religionen, ed. by Ole Høiris and Per Ingesman (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2010), pp. 169–92 Jørgensen, Hans Henrik Lohfert, Henning Laugerud, and Laura Katrine Skinnebach, eds, The Saturated Sensorium: Principles of Perception and Mediation in the Middle Ages (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2015) Karlsson, Mattias, Konstruktionen av det heliga: Altarna i det medeltida Lunds stift, Skånsk senmedeltid och renässans, 23 (Lund: Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund, 2015) Kaspersen, Søren, ‘Billeder og liturgi — dåb og nadver’, ICO, 1971, no. 4–5 (1971), 3–23 ———, ‘Gyldne altre og nadverliturgi’, in Ting och tanke: Ikonografi på liturgiska föremål, ed. by Ingalill Pegelow, Kungliga Vitterhets-, historie- och antikvitetsakademiens handlingar, Antikvariska serien, 42 (Stockholm: Kungliga Vitterhets-, historie- och antikvitetsakademien, 1998), pp. 150–66 ———, ‘Højalter, liturgi og andagt. Betragtninger over Bernt Notkes alterskab i Århus Domkirke’, Hikuin, 26 (1999), 101–34 Kaspersen, Søren, and Erik Thunø, Decorating the Lord’s Table: On the Dynamics between Image and Altar in the Middle Ages (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2006) Kieffer-Olsen, Jakob, ‘Middelalderens gravskik i Danmark’, Hikuin, 17 (1990), 85–112 ———, Grav og gravskik i det middelalderlige Danmark (Højbjerg: Afdeling for Middelalder- og Renæssancearkæologi / Middelalderarkæologisk Nyhedsbrev, 1993) Kjær, Ulla, and Poul Grinder-Hansen, Kirkerne i Danmark: Den katolske tid indtil 1536 (Copenhagen: Boghandlerforlaget, 1988) Koch, Hanne Dahlerup, ‘Rosenkranse i grave. Gravskikkens baggrund, datering og perspektiver’, Hikuin, 27 (2000), 107–36 Kolstrup, Inger-Lise, ‘Physiologus- og bestiariefremstillinger i dansk romansk skulptur’, Romanske Stenarbejder, 2 (1984), 63–118

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Kryger, Karin, ed., Danske Kongegrave, 3 vols (Copenhagen: Museums Tusculanum, 2014) Liebgott, Niels-Knud, Hellige mænd og kvinder (Højbjerg: Wormianum, 1982) ———, ‘Metaldetektorer og middelalderens fromhedsliv’, in Festskrift til Olaf Olsen på 60-års dagen den 7. juni 1988, ed. by Aage Andersen (Copenhagen: Kongelige nordiske oldskriftselskab, 1988), pp. 207–22 Liepe, Lena, Den medeltida träskulpturen i Skåne, Skånsk senmedeltid och renässans, 15, 2 vols (Lund: Lund University Press, 1995) ———, ‘Genuskoder i medeltida altarskåp’, Hikuin, 26 (1999), 135–66 Lindhardt, Poul Georg, Den danske kirkes historie, iii (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1965) Lorenzen, Vilhelm, Kirkebygninger og deres Udstyr, Nordisk Kultur, 23 (Copenhagen: Schultz, 1934) Löffler, Julius Benthley, Danske Gravstene fra Middelalderen (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1889) Mackeprang, Mouritz, Jydske Granitportaler (Copenhagen: Høst, 1948) ———, Danmarks middelalderlige Døbefonte (Copenhagen: Høst, 1941) Madsen, Per Kristian, ‘Han ligger under en blå sten. Om middelalderens gravskik i skrift og praksis’, Hikuin, 17 (1990), 113–34 Magnusson Staaf, Björn, ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, Current Swedish Archaeology, 1996, no. 4 (1996), 141–55 McGuire, Brian Patrick, The Cistercians in Denmark: Their Attitudes, Roles, and Functions in Medieval Society, Cistercian Studies, 35 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1982) Nilsson, Ing-Marie, Mellan makten och himmelriket: Perspektiv på Hallands medeltida kyrkor, Lund Studies in Historical Archaeology, 12 (Lund: Riksantikvarieämbetet, 2009) Norn, Otto, and Søren Skovgaard Jensen, The House of Wisdom: Visdommen i Vestjylland (Copenhagen: Ejler, 1990) Nyborg, Ebbe, ‘Enkeltmænd og fællesskaber i organiseringen af det romanske sognekirkebyggeri’, in Strejflys over Danmarks bygningskultur: Festskrift til Harald Langberg, ed. by Robert Egevang (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1979) Nørlund, Poul, Gyldne Altre: Jyske Metalkunst fra Valdemarstiden (Copenhagen: Koppel, 1926) Nørlund, Poul, and Egmont Lind, Danmarks Romanske Kalkmalerier (Copenhagen: Høst, 1944) Olsen, Olaf, ‘Kirkegulvet som arkæologisk arbejdsmark’, Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (1958), 17–30 ———, ‘Rumindretning i romanske landsbykirker’, Kirkehistoriske Samlinger (1967), 235–58 ———, ‘Liturgi og ritualer i middelalderen’, in Kristendommen i Danmark før 1050, ed. by Niels Lund (Roskilde: Roskilde Museum, 2004), pp. 13–19 Palazzo, Eric, ‘Art, Liturgy, and the Five Senses in the Early Middle Ages’, Viator, 41 (2010), 25–56 Panofsky, Erwin, Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1955)

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Petersen, Nils Holger, ‘Reconciling the Historical and the Contemporary in Liturgical Enactment’, in Late Medieval Liturgies Enacted: The Experience of Worship in Cathedral and Parish Church, ed. by Sally Harper, Paul S. Barnwell, and Magnus Williamson (Farnham: Routledge, 2016), pp. 273–83 Petersen, Nils Holger, and others, eds, Ora pro nobis: Space, Place and the Practice of Saints’ Cults in Medieval and Early-Modern Scandinavia and Beyond (Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2019) Redin, Lars, Lagmanshejdan: Ett gravfält som spegling av sociala strukturer i Skanör, Acta archaeologica Lundensia, Series in 4°, 10 (Lund: Gleerup, 1976) Rensbro, Henriette, ‘Spor i kirkegulve. De sidste 50 års undersøgelser i kirkegulve som kilde til sognekirkernes indretning og brug i middelalder og renæssance’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Aarhus University, 2007) Richter, Jan Friedrich, ed., Lübeck 1500: Kunstmetropole im Ostseeraum (Petersberg: Imhof, 2015) Riising, Anne, Danmarks middelalderlige prædiken (Copenhagen: Gad, 1969) Staecker, Jörn, ‘Gotlands kyrkogårdar. Genus, mission och social hierarki’, Hikuin, 24 (1997), 203–26 Svensson, Poul, ed., Løjttavlen: Et sønderjysk alterskab (Padborg: De unges Kunstkreds, 1983) Sørensen, Karsten Merrald, Kirkebrug gennem 250 år, University of Southern Denmark Studies in History and Social Sciences, 514 (Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2016) Søvsø, Mette Højmark, Anne Juul Jensen, and Michael Neiß, ‘Støbeforme af sten fra middelalderen. Massefremstilling af metalgenstande til verdslig og religiøs brug i Ribe’, Kuml (2015), 201–38 Søvsø, Morten, ‘The Monastic Institutions of Ribe’, in Die Klöster, ed. by. Manfred Gläser and Manfred Schneider, Lübecker Kolloquium zur Stadtarchäologie im Hanseraum, 9 (Lübeck: Schmidt-Römhild, 2014), pp. 717–34 Trap, Jens Peter, Statistisk-Topografisk Beskrivelse af Kongeriget Danmark, 5 vols (Copenhagen: Gad, 1858–60) Troels-Lund, Troels Frederik, Dagligt Liv i Norden i det sekstende Aarhundrede, 14 vols (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1879–1901) Uldall, Frederik, Danmarks middelalderlige Kirkeklokker (Copenhagen: Lehmann & Stage, 1906) Vellev, Jens, ‘Relikvierne fra Seem kirke’, Hikuin, 1 (1974), 55–64 ———, ‘Altre og alterindvielser — særligt i Odense stift’, Fynske Minder (1975), 23–61 ———, ‘Ampullen fra Grathe’, Skalk, 2016, no. 3 (2016), 22–24 Warmind, Morten, ‘Religionsvidenskaben og det arkæologiske materiale’, Kuml (2015), 253–63 Westermann-Angerhausen, Hiltrud, Mittelalterliche Weihrauchfässer von 800 bis 1500, Bronzegeräte des Mittelalters, 7 (Petersberg: Imhof, 2014) Wienberg, Jes, Den gotiske labyrint: Middelalderen og kirkerne i Danmark, Lund Studies in Medieval Archaeology, 11 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1993) ———, ‘Gyldne altre, kirker og kritik’, Hikuin, 22 (1995), 59–76

Bertil Nilsso n

Materiality in Medieval Episcopal Rites: Some Examples

On 1 September 1145, ‘the great church’ in ‘the town of Lund, which is the metropolis of Denmark’ was consecrated (dedicata) in honour of the Virgin Mary and the holy martyr Laurentius. In the only contemporary account of the event, it is further reported that ‘the Archbishop of Denmark, the venerable Eskil’, led the consecration. Three bishops, Herman of Schleswig, Gisle of Östergötland (Linköping), and Ödgrim of Västergötland (Skara), acted as his assistants. It was the archbishop himself who consecrated the high altar. A large number of relics were placed inside it, all of which are listed in the document, including a relic of Christ’s cross and seventy-two remnants of various saints. On the same day, Gisle of Östergötland consecrated the right altar in honour of the martyrs Vincent and Alban. In this altar sixteen relics were placed, which are all named.1 We do not know much else about this important event in Danish church history, which strengthened the position of Lund as the ecclesiastical centre of the entire North and as ‘capital’ of Denmark.2 The following chapter takes the Cathedral of Lund and liturgical acts that only a bishop was allowed to perform as its nexus. For this purpose, the bishop used a pontifical, which was the normative liturgical handbook at his disposal. The research questions focus on the most important items used within this liturgical framework: What did the bishop need to complete the liturgies? Which understanding of the different objects and their uses was expressed within the frame of the liturgies? Why were these objects used? Which function did they have? And how were the rites interpreted by those who wrote commentaries to the liturgies?

1 Diplomatarium Danicum (DD), i.2, no. 89; see Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga, pp. 122–25 for further information on the relics. 2 Manhag, Kraftstorg, pp. 1–3. Bertil Nilsson, Doctor of Divinity (Uppsala University). Professor emeritus of Church History at the Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion, University of Gothenburg. Email: [email protected] Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix, and Mads Heilskov, AS 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 51–70 © FHG10.1484/M.AS-EB.5.123985

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The answers to those questions provide an understanding, if only fragmentary, of the theological mindsets and of the different motivations relating to the use of objects within the frame of different episcopal offices. The rites that this chapter will be concerned with are the consecration of churches and cemeteries. These episcopal acts of consecration took place across the entire Western Church and were not unique to Lund. Although the rites show some variance in the different pontificals, the liturgies of the Cathedral of Lund are representative of what did and what might have taken place in the other Danish cathedrals as well as in the local parish churches. My approach has been to identify the materiality used in the respective liturgies. Then, a selection of the most important and characteristic types of object has been made. These can be said to constitute or define the respective liturgies. Afterwards, their functions and meanings have been interpreted, using as a starting point the significance they are given in the rite itself as it is expressed in the texts dealing with their uses in the pontificals. These interpretations have then been complemented by those found in two liturgical commentaries from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries respectively. The rite is thus first interpreted within the rite itself, then from an external standpoint. In the future, it would be of great interest if more detailed and in-depth comparisons between the pontifical traditions of Denmark and those of the Continent and England were conducted. Research also on practice, how the bishops in the Danish realm actually performed their liturgies, ought to be subject of further study.

The Sources How exactly the consecration of the Cathedral of Lund was carried out is not known. The pontifical that Eskil used has not been preserved. One of the two pontificals preserved from medieval Denmark, and from the North in general, belonged to the Cathedral of Lund, while the other belonged to the Cathedral of Roskilde. Pontificale Lundense is kept in the University Library of Uppsala, while Pontificale Roscildense is kept at the University Library of Lund. Both pontificals are dated to between the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries.3 The pontificals studied here differ from each other on many points, primarily verbal variances and details in the ways the rites were carried out, which are of little importance for this study.4 With regard to the uses of different kinds of objects, there is a high level of unanimity between the two texts. As shown by Bengt Strömberg in his doctoral thesis in 1955, it is possible to gain retrospective liturgical-historical knowledge going back to the twelfth

3 Strömberg, Den pontifikala liturgin, pp. 10–30; source editions of both pontificals are found in Strömberg, Den pontifikala liturgin, pp. 93–190 and 191–312 respectively. 4 See the analysis of the texts in Strömberg, Den pontifikala liturgin, pp. 31–92.

m ate r i al i t y i n m e d i e val e p i s co pal ri t e s: so me e xample s

century and even further back from these pontificals. This claim relies on knowledge of the pontifical liturgies that were practised in Germany and France, by which the Nordic ecclesiastical provinces were influenced. For this reason, it is possible to rely on the Romano-German Pontifical (PRG) for information about the role of materiality and its interpretation in the texts specifying the order of the rites themselves. PRG is considered to have been edited at Saint Alban’s Monastery in Mainz around the year 950, even though it has recently been questioned whether the edition actually happened there and at that time.5 Henry Parkes’s critique of earlier research is only of minor relevance here, as it does not change the position of PRG regarding later episcopal liturgies for which it would act as a template. Indeed, PRG was spread across the German realm and probably reached Denmark through the archiepiscopal see of Hamburg-Bremen.6 It was presumably also used in Lund and Roskilde, although this claim cannot be ratified with certainty since contemporary documents do not exist to support it.7 The pontifical compiled by William Durand, bishop of Mende (d. 1296), was produced at some point between PRG and the Danish pontificals. It constitutes the end of the emergence of pontifical liturgies in the high Middle Ages and is based on the Roman liturgical tradition.8 As sources, we thus have 1) PRG from the middle of the tenth century, 2) the pontifical of Durand from the end of the thirteenth century, and 3) the two Danish pontificals from the end of the medieval period. The two most influential commentaries to the liturgies are the one written by John Beleth and the one written by William Durand. Little is known about the life of John Beleth; he was presumably born during the 1120s and wrote his life’s work Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis over a long period. Beleth’s Summa was finished before the year 1182 at the latest.9 The commentary by Durand is the very extensive Rationale divinorum officiorum, which was completed in 1291.10

The Consecration of the Church The church building and churchyard, which functioned as cemetery, were the most obvious manifestations of the presence of the Christian religion in the land- and townscape. Since the beginning of the Christianization

5 Parkes, The Making of Liturgy, pp. 188–211. 6 Strömberg, Den pontifikala liturgin, pp. 33–35; Ström, ‘Paradisi recuperatio’, pp. 31–33; Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga, pp. 47–49. 7 Strömberg, Den pontifikala liturgin, p. 35; a printed version of PRG in its entirety is found in Vogel and Elze, Le pontifical romano-germanique. 8 Andrieu, Le pontifical romain au moyen-âge, pp. iv–ix; Strömberg, Den pontifikala liturgin, p. 7; the pontifical in its entirety is found in Andrieu, Le pontifical romain au moyen-âge. 9 Weinrich, ‘Einleitung’, pp. 13–15. 10 Davril, ‘Préambule’, pp. vii–x.

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process, they acted as tangible markers of the foothold gained by Christianity in a region. How did the celebration of the episcopal liturgy partake in the consecration of a church? The terminology that was used to describe the episcopal liturgies was flexible and often changed within the same pontifical. The document concerning the consecration of the Cathedral of Lund and its altars mentioned above uses the verb dedicare.11 In PRG the same verb is found, but in some manuscripts benedicere is used instead. Dedicare is also used in the pontifical of Durand, as in the two Danish pontificals, but the same applies to consecrare. Also, both benedicere and consecrare are used for the consecration of a cemetery. Even though the three words have different etymological derivations, this seems to have little consequence in terms of describing the consecration of a church or cemetery. They seem to have functioned as synonyms without any particularly definable pattern.12 In the written account of the consecration of the Cathedral of Lund, three ‘objects’ are mentioned: the church building itself, the altars, and the relics. These three, in combination with the episcopal rite, made up the key elements for the church building to become something different from other buildings. In terms of the rite, the text mentions that the church was dedicata and that the respective bishop dedicavit the mentioned altars, but these references apply to the whole of the ritual process, through which a transformation of matter could be obtained. This process also happened through matter. The physical components in the Cathedral of Lund, such as the altars, the relics and their placement in the altars, and what is left of them today have been treated carefully by Mattias Karlsson in his extensive and thorough doctoral thesis from 2015. It not only deals with the Cathedral of Lund, but also Scania and the rest of medieval Denmark to some degree. Most recently, the relics have been studied by Hanna Källström in her doctoral thesis from 2011 with a focus on their meaning for the liturgical life at the cathedral during the late Middle Ages.13 Besides the altars and the relics, there are also the ecclesiastical vestments and implements such as different kinds of episcopal and priestly garments as well as different vessels and remedies used during liturgical celebrations, not least during Mass. In connection to the consecration of the cathedral, Archbishop Eskil made arrangements to ensure that its function could be upheld in a worthy manner. The document that bears witness to these arrangements is dated to the day of consecration on 1 September 1145.14 His donation included ‘all kinds of precious things as well as vestments for the decoration of the church and the altars’,

11 Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga, pp. 23–24. 12 For further examples, see Blaise, Le vocabulaire latin, sub verbis. 13 Källström, Domkyrkan som andaktsmiljö, especially pp. 163–64 and pp. 179–85. 14 DD, i.2, no. 88.

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which are all listed.15 These objects will not be treated any further here, but are mentioned to underline the great importance of materiality in the medieval liturgical life. This was true not only at the cathedrals, but also at the parish churches and monasteries, although the number of liturgical vestments and implements at such churches was not as extensive as at cathedrals. The cathedral is still standing, although in a condition marked by fires, rebuilds, and refurbishments through the centuries.16 The many medieval altars are, however, gone and so are the relics. This happened following the theology of the Lutheran Reformation, which put an end to the private Masses performed in front of the different altars by priests without a congregation being present. The criticism of the cult of saints, indulgences, and intercessory prayers for the dead not only made the relics redundant but also unwanted. Even so, relics were present in the altars of parish churches long after the Reformation and until today. It is thus still possible to discover new relics, but in all likelihood not in the Cathedral of Lund.17 The basis for the analysis of the use of materiality in the rite of the consecration of a church is the Romano-German Pontifical.18 What is mentioned first, and which participates to the materiality of the rite in general and not any particular moment of the ritual process, is that the bishop had to be dressed in ‘the holy vestments’ (‘indutus vestimentis sacris’). These played a central role in the structuring of the liturgical act. The episcopal attire for the rite of consecration did not differ significantly from what he would wear at other liturgical feasts, even if some variation could exist in accordance with the character and aim of the liturgy. Of course, the assistants of the bishop, who could be other bishops, priests, deacons, and other lower members in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, wore liturgical attire as well according to their rank.19 The specifics of these garments will not be treated any further. It is, however, worth emphasizing their importance in a liturgical context. They have an extensive history going back to the early Church. Their uses were

15 Concerning the vestments, the document specifies: five precious chasubles, three copes, three exquisite albs, four amices, two dalmatics, two cassocks, two cinctures, two stoles, two apparels. On the liturgical vestments see Stolt, ‘Liturgisk dräkt’. In addition, Eskil’s gifts included two altar cloths, two altar linens, one exquisite mandible, three exquisite candelabras, four corporals, four curtains to draw in front of a precious reliquary that was made of amber and two which were made of ivory, one ivory crucifix as well as precious vessels (vasa). 16 Rydén, Domkyrkan i Lund; Hollman and Ruona, Lunds domkyrka. 17 Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga, pp. 285–96; on the discovery of new relics, see pp. 292–95. 18 The liturgy is found in Vogel and Elze, Le pontifical romano-germanique, i, 124–73; Ström, ‘Paradisi recuperatio’, pp. 233–56; the list of 150 points found in Vogel and Elze’s edition is found in Ström, ‘Paradisi recuperatio’, pp. 47–51; an illustrated summary of the rite can be found in Repsher, The Rite of Church Dedication, pp. 42–66 and Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga, pp. 49–51. 19 See Ström, ‘Paradisi recuperatio’, pp. 74–84 with extensive references.

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the object of liturgical prescriptions as well as extensive commentaries and interpretations already in the ninth century. This further underlines how the different liturgical celebrations were marked by materiality; the servants of the Church served within the liturgies in attire, which had no use outside of the ecclesiastical sphere whatsoever. The single most important aspect of the consecration of a church according to PRG was the relics. They were seen as an obvious part of the rite and were to be placed in the altar or in multiple altars. Liturgical directions stating that relics were not used or that their deposition was voluntary do however exist, albeit mainly from the British Isles.20 Thus, variation in practice existed in the European Middle Ages, but there is no evidence for it in the Scandinavian ecclesiastical provinces. For the vast majority of the altars, the relics consisted of parts of human skeletal remains of one or several saints, and their placement in the altar pertained to the notion of the altar as the tomb of the saint.21 On rare occasions, a Host or parts thereof could be deposited in the altar in the place of relics, but this was highly controversial in the high medieval Church.22 On the night of the consecration itself, a service of prayers called vigils was performed. This took place outside the church to be consecrated, in the tent where the relics were kept. At the beginning of the act of consecration, the relics were collected by the bishop, the priests, and the deacons. They were then placed on a bier and solemnly transported in a procession to the church, where they were deposited in the high altar surrounded by crosses, censers, and candles. This moment was seen as the cardinal point of the episcopal liturgy. Other than taking down the relics, the beginning of the rite consisted of salt being exorcised and blessed. The same was done to the water before the two substances were mixed. Afterwards the process was repeated for the mixture of salt and water. This mixture was then used throughout the rite to asperse the church, first on the outside, then on the inside. The mixture was also used in other contexts. Through exorcism, that is the expulsion of the devil and other evil forces that matter was literally believed to be possessed by, the counterforces were made present. Through the blessing, the holy water was infused with the good forces, which were necessary for it to fulfil its cleansing, deterrent, and protective function; it was sanctified. From this, follows that the now-transformed matter could be used for the benefit and blessing of humans and even for the blessing of other matter. This practice was criticized by some theologians, particularly during the late Middle Ages, as

20 See Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga, pp. 67–68, especially n. 240; on the altar relics in the Cathedral of Lund, the diocese of Lund, the rest of Denmark, and the North, see Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga, pp. 117–35 and appendix II, pp. 465–510, which deals specifically with the diocese of Lund. 21 Angenendt, Heilige und Reliquien, pp. 167–72. 22 Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga, pp. 115–16.

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they saw this elevation of matter as too materialistic in scope.23 The theological ideas about different kinds of matter and their usage within the liturgy were thus not entirely uniform. After the rite had lasted for a while inside the church and the bishop had placed himself in front of the altar, a new exorcism and blessing of salt and water took place, but at this point ashes were added to the salt and mixed into water together with wine, which was itself mixed with water. After this, the bishop faced the altar and made the sign of the cross on the table five times, where after he aspersed different places inside the church with holy water. For this part of the rite, incense was also used as well as holy oil, which was used by the bishop to make the sign of the cross in five places on the altar table and then to anoint its surface with his hands. This act was then repeated using chrism, which was also used by the bishop for drawing the sign of the cross on the walls of church in twelve different places. After saying various prayers, the assistants brought in the implements that were to belong to the church and used in its liturgical celebrations. These consisted of the textiles (linteamina), the ecclesiastical ornaments (ornamenta ecclesiae), and holy vessels (vasa sacra).24 The bishop then consecrated all the different groups of liturgical implements in one extended motion, before conducting the actual deposition and sealing of the relics either in the altar slab or inside the altar. The pontifical did not contain any exact prescriptions about where this was to take place and different practices have existed through time and space.25 This part of the ritual took place after the bishop made the sign of the cross with chrism on the container holding the relics and deposited three pieces of the body of Christ (from a consecrated Host) and three grains of incense in it. Following further prayers, the making of the sign of the cross with chrism, and the use of incense, the rite was over. The church had now been benedicta / dedicata / consecrata, whichever word one prefers. Finally, the bishop celebrated Mass for the first time in the new church. Regarding the use of objects, the liturgies for the rite of consecration of churches as they appear in both preserved pontificals from late medieval Denmark do not differ from that of the PRG, which has been outlined here. It was thus the rite in its entirety that elevated the church building out of the profane sphere. Objects played a key role in this effort, though always alongside Christian prayers. The church building was seen as in possession of a material sacredness, which, among other things, meant that it could be profaned. Its sacredness could thus be lost, in which case it had to be restored. It could, however, also transfer sacredness through contact;26 for instance, the rain 23 Angenendt, ‘Der Taufexorcismus und seine Kritik’, pp. 388–89; Bartsch, Die Sachbeschwörungen der römischen Liturgie, pp. 184–92; Bynum, Christian Materiality, pp. 145–54, 163–65; Piltz, ‘Örat tar över’, pp. 51–54, 57–59. 24 See n. 15. 25 Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga, pp. 68–70. 26 See Søvsø and Knudsen, this volume.

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that fell from its roof and onto the graves of the cemetery was understood as having a blessing effect. Being buried beneath the eaves (sub stillicidio) thus became highly desirable.27 How were these material elements interpreted in medieval theology, in the texts of the rite itself, and in the liturgical commentaries? Even though it was the rite in its entirety that consecrated the church, objects had their own role in it, and even though the depositing of the relics in the altar was the part of the rite everything aimed at already from the beginning of the rite and even the night before, this was also part of a larger whole. The individual parts of the rite should thus not be underestimated, but should not be regarded as so important on their own that the understanding of the rite as a whole is lost. There were, moreover, three additional aspects that were pivotal: the building had to be finished, at least to some degree,28 and both the altar and the relics had to be present — without these there could, in principle, be no church. No less than seventy-three relics were deposited at the consecration of the Cathedral of Lund, which must be acknowledged as a large number. In principle, that is, if ecclesiastical law was enforced with diligence, every church in Denmark has had relics deposited in its altar/altars, but we do not know if this was always the case.29 Presumably, most altars only contained relics from one or a few saints.30 It should be pointed out that each altar had to be consecrated when relics were deposited in them, even if the church was already consecrated. For this purpose, there was a specific liturgical order, which was also part of the pontifical’s compilation of episcopal liturgies. The most elaborate form of this liturgical order is found in the pontifical of Durand.31 A rite of this kind was carried out when Bishop Gisle consecrated the altar in the right transept of the Cathedral of Lund and on the same day one year later when Archbishop Eskil consecrated the altar in the left transept.32 Through the liturgical actions at the consecration of the church, the altar became the tomb of the saint and would enjoy the same state of sacredness as the original tomb. In one of the very first prayers said inside the tent before the procession with the relics, God was asked to touch the parts of saintly bodies that were consecrated in his honour and that the saints may grant the protection that was always desired. The saint or saints may become

27 Nilsson, De sepulturis, p. 135; Andrén, ‘Ad sanctos’, pp. 11–15. 28 Nilsson, ‘Några anteckningar’, pp. 669–70. 29 Nilsson, ‘The Church Law of Scania’, pp. 165–67. 30 On relics in the diocese of Lund, see Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga, pp. 465–510; for relics in different churches in Denmark, Seem Church, and the diocese of Odense, see Vellev, ‘Fra helgengraven’, ‘Relikvierne fra Seem kirke’, and ‘Altre og alterindvielser’, pp. 36–58. 31 Andrieu, Le pontifical romain au moyen-âge, pp. 478–98. 32 DD, i.2, no. 94; see e.g. Vogel and Elze, Le pontifical romano-germanique, i, 179–80; Strömberg, Den pontifikala liturgin, pp. 135–46, 225–35 — the rites prescribed in the Danish pontificals are much more elaborate than in PRG and share a greater likeness to the pontifical of Durand, see Andrieu, Le pontifical romain au moyen-âge, pp. 478–98.

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the patronus of the church or altar.33 The two prayers that later framed the deposition of the relics proclaimed that God was the one who in all of his kingdom gave support like a kind and favourable dedicator as well as he who sanctified (sanctifico) the altar that was to be dedicated (dedicare) for his name. It was, moreover, prayed that the consecration of the place should remain unviolated, that the Holy Spirit in its plenitude would come down ‘here’ through the intercession of the saint and ‘both sanctify our gifts and make concessions for us of your grace’.34 The whole rite was thus conceptualized as effectuated by God himself and he was the one who consecrated the altars. The materiality of the relics functioned as an instrument for the faithful to secure God’s consecration of the altar and a reminder of the saints whose intercessory prayers one could expect if one prayed in front of their particular altar. It was the saints that were holy and could pave the way for divine intervention through intercession via the language of prayer. Not much of a saint’s earthly remains were needed for this purpose. According to theological thoughts from the fifth century, which were consolidated in the West in the ninth century, just a particle was needed in order to make the saint present on earth. Therefore, one should visit their grave or another place where a fragment of their body was kept in order to meet the saint. This was connected to the idea that a particular divine force emanated from the earthly remains of the saint.35 The consecration of the altar was one of the guarantees for the consistency of the sacredness of the church building. Sacredness was not completely securely embedded in matter, which could thus be profaned. According to canon law, one way this could happen was if the altar was severely damaged. In such event, the entire church building was desanctified.36 The importance of the relics is also confirmed by the Church Law of Scania, which was ratified in the beginning of the 1170s. Its first chapter made it clear that all churches had to undergo an episcopal consecration, but at the same time, it implicitly stated that this had not always been done and that it was the bishop’s responsibility to make sure that the church was supplied with the necessary relics.37 For Zealand, it was also specified that the acquisition of the relics happened at the bishop’s own expense.38 In his pontifical, Durand took it for granted that relics were available when a church was to be consecrated and that these were placed in a suitable vessel the night before the rite was to take place together with three grains of incense. 33 Ström, ‘Paradisi recuperatio’, pp. 91–92. 34 On this moment, see Ström, ‘Paradisi recuperatio’, pp. 169–86. 35 Angenendt, Heilige und Reliquien, pp. 154–62; Liepe, this volume. 36 For further examples of what could cause such damage, see Gulczynski, The Desecration and Violation of Churches, pp. 12–19. 37 Skånske Kirkelov, 1, in Danmarks gamle landskabslove med kirkelovene (DGL), i, 821–23 (text 1). 38 Sjællandske Kirkelov, 1, in DGL, viii, 445–46 (text 1).

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In practice, if relics were unavailable, they could be replaced by a consecrated Host.39 The episcopal consecration of the church could thus take place without the use of relics. According to Durand, the relics had to be accompanied by a notice about which saint they belonged to so that it was known to which saint’s name and glory the church or altar was consecrated.40 This applied to the relics of one saint, but in his pontifical Durand made clear that the same was true for multiple relics. The formulations in the two Danish pontificals show that it was taken for granted that this practice also concerned situations where the relics of more than one saint were deposited.41 The other elements that were used during the act of consecration were of lesser importance than the relics, but were still important parts of the liturgical practice. These consisted of salt, water, ashes, wine, oil, and chrism. These implements were not solely meant to be used in the liturgy of church consecration but were used in several other liturgical acts. All of these ‘objects’ were exorcised and blessed before they were taken into use. The prayer for the exorcism of the salt refers to Elisha, whom God had ordered to throw salt in water in order to cleanse it.42 ‘Its sterility [had to be] cured’, since it was understood to cause death and miscarriage. It was prayed that ‘you, exorcised salt’ shall become a cure for both soul and body for each and every one who shared it, and that all evil spirits and all other devilry would escape from anywhere or anything the salt touched, was aspersed or mixed with. Then, the salt was blessed by praying that God sanctify it.43 Regarding water, the exorcism contained a prayer indicating that it should be used to let the power of the enemy escape and to eradicate him. In the blessing of the water, it was prayed that God ‘emptied his holy power into it’ and that it would be given the power to keep demons and diseases away. Furthermore, it was prayed that the homes of the faithful and places aspersed with it should be protected from harm and freed from all kinds of hostile attacks, so the good health asked for in God’s sacred name should be protected against all forms of hostile attacks.44 At the end of this initial part of the rite, it was prayed that the mixture of salt and water was received and blessed by God. Through the invocation of God’s name, the mixture drove away the evil spirit regardless of what it was aspersed onto, and the Holy 39 Andrieu, Le pontifical romain au moyen-âge, p. 456. 40 Andrieu, Le pontifical romain au moyen-âge, p. 456. 41 Strömberg, Den pontifikala liturgin, pp. 129, 220. 42 ii Kings 2.19–22. 43 Vogel and Elze, Le pontifical romano-germanique, i, 129; Ström, ‘Paradisi recuperatio’, pp. 91–92, 233–34; Andrieu, Le pontifical romain au moyen-âge, p. 459; Strömberg, Den pontifikala liturgin, pp. 104, 193, 201; see also Bartsch, Die Sachbeschwörungen der römischen Liturgie, p. 295, who also added an interpretation for the rite without any support in the texts. 44 Vogel and Elze, Le pontifical romano-germanique, i, 129–30; Ström, ‘Paradisi recuperatio’, pp. 91–92, 233–34; Andrieu, Le pontifical romain au moyen-âge, p. 459; Strömberg, Den pontifikala liturgin, pp. 104–05, 193–94, 201. Benediction formulas for water, salt, and oil are published in Bartsch, Die Sachbeschwörungen der römischen Liturgie, pp. 354–406.

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Spirit was present ‘for us who pray for your [God’s] mercy’.45 This was how the holy water used during the consecration rite came to be. Holy water was used in many other contexts for the same purpose based on the belief that matter was controlled by demons and evil spirits until God acted in them, in other terms: ‘All that had not been given the blessing of the Church was seen as ambiguous, risky’.46 Further exorcisms and blessings of salt and water took place again during the rite of consecration, but this time these ingredients were mixed with ashes and wine.47 Salt and water had the same purpose, as described above, and the prayers were more or less the same, with slight variations in formulation. Ashes were meant to serve as healing medicine that would grant bodily health and protection of the soul for anyone who invoked the name of God for the remission of their sins. Regarding the end product, the mixture of salt, ashes, wine, and water, prayers were uttered and the sign of the cross made over it, so that it would be blessed before it was used for the consecration of the church and the altar. Through the aspersion of this mixture, darkness was to be banished and light instilled, so that the building could become the house of God and that the enemy could do no harm there. As this mixture was consecrated, it was prepared to serve at the consecration of the church and of the altar because it was imbued with the protective power of heaven. The significance of holy oil and chrism were, however, not as clearly expressed in the words of prayer uttered during the rite as for the other elements mentioned above.48 Neither oil nor chrism were prepared within the frame of this liturgy and they were therefore not required to undergo any transformation through exorcisms and blessings in this particular context. They too, however, carried important liturgical functions in various contexts. In the rite of consecration, their role was to aid during the making of the sign of the cross and the anointing of the altar table. Chrism, which consisted of a mixture of olive oil, balsamic oils, and other oils for liturgical use, was blessed on Maundy Thursday within the frame of a special Mass for the blessing of oils, the Missa chrismatis, which was celebrated by the bishop.49 A liturgical order for the Missa chrismatis, including the blessing of the oils, can be found in PRG.50 If the oil was to be used for the anointing of people 45 Vogel and Elze, Le pontifical romano-germanique, i, 130; Ström, ‘Paradisi recuperatio’, pp. 92, 234; Andrieu, Le pontifical romain au moyen-âge, p. 459; Strömberg, Den pontifikala liturgin, pp. 105, 194, 201; see also Bartsch, Die Sachbeschwörungen der römischen Liturgie, pp. 277–78. 46 Piltz, ‘Örat tar över’, p. 50. 47 Vogel and Elze, Le pontifical romano-germanique, i, 137–40; Ström, ‘Paradisi recuperatio’, pp. 214–43; Andrieu, Le pontifical romain au moyen-âge, pp. 465–67; Strömberg, Den pontifikala liturgin, pp. 115–19, 205–09. 48 Vogel and Elze, Le pontifical romano-germanique, i, 144; Ström, ‘Paradisi recuperatio’, pp. 246–47; Strömberg, Den pontifikala liturgin, pp. 122–23, 212–13. 49 On the high medieval liturgies for these consecrations, see Maier, Die Feier der Missa chrismatis, pp. 124–51. 50 Vogel and Elze, Le pontifical romano-germanique, i, 70–76.

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in connection with illness, confirmation, the ordination of priests, etc., it was prayed that whoever was to receive an outer anointing should also obtain an inner one to make him shareholder in the heavenly kingdom. The same applies to the consecration of the church as the anointing had, in this context, roots in symbolic actions in the Old Testament when, for instance, a king was invested. In a similar way, the anointing of the altar table was meant to be seen as a crowning of the consecration.51 In one of the prayers, the anointing of the altar table is related to the stone of James in Betel. He poured oil on it and raised it so it stood sanctified by God and became His dwelling.52 This was thus the way the requisites used in the rite were interpreted according to the words and forms of expression used in the rite itself. The interpretations were in principle unchanged throughout the studied period, from the pontifical in PRG, dated to the mid-900s, to Durand’s pontifical from the mid-1200s and the younger manuscripts from Lund and Roskilde. Further aspects can, however, be extracted from the writings of the liturgical commentators. In his commentary, John Beleth began by discussing places of worship and how they could be distinguished. Some were sacred (sacer), some sanctified (sanctus), and some religious (religiosus). The ones that were sacred had been made so ritually (rite) by the bishop’s hands and consecrated to God. Among this type were church buildings. Beleth specified twelve additional types of building of worship.53 Through this, he strengthened the belief that church buildings should undergo episcopal consecration and could not be considered to be sacred until this had taken place. Durand was much more thorough in his Rationale, where he treated the origins of the rite of church consecration. He took tales extracted from the Old Testament as his point of departure and referred to the story of how Moses built a temple on God’s order and sanctified it with table and altar. Moses supplied it with vessels and implements for the cult and consecrated all of it with prayers to God and anointing with oils.54 Furthermore, Durand referred to King Solomon and his temple and a number of other Old Testament tales about how the Jews did not carry forth gifts for God in places other than those that were consecrated for Him. How much more, he asked, should not Christians, who have been given the mercy and the truth through Jesus, build their temples and sanctify them in a similar way? After that, a reference to an order given by Pope Felix III (526–30) followed, stating that consecration had to be carried out in that way.55 The origin of the papal order is unclear,56 but the fact that it was included by Gratian in his Decretum from c. 1140 strengthened its position in canon law regardless of where it originated. It thus contributed to the notion that it was 51 Ström, ‘Paradisi recuperatio’, pp. 146–49. 52 i Genesis 28.10–22; see also Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga, pp. 83–84. 53 Beleth, Summa, ed. by Douteil, chap. 2. 54 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i.6.1. 55 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i.6.1. 56 Decretum Gratiani, De con. D.1 c.2, in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. by Friedberg, i, cols 1292–94.

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crucial that a church was consecrated before it was taken into use. In this way, Durand hinged the rite upon revelations of God partly through persons of the Old Testament, partly through Jesus Christ, but also upon ecclesiastical law. Durand, moreover, clarified that the bishop and no one else was supposed to carry out the rite since he was the representative of Christ on earth.57 Multiple bishops could consecrate one church as well as multiple altars inside it.58 He also asked rhetorically why a church had to be consecrated and answered that it was necessary, among other things, in order to drive away the power of the devil and his demons; for the people congregating there to be saved; for the prayers being uttered there to be heard; and for the exaltation of God’s praise and the distribution of the holy sacraments.59 The consecration had the effect, according to Durand, that the material church was given to God, transferring the ownership of the property to Him.60 For Durand, it was clear that the aspersion of holy water, ‘through which the church is consecrated’, symbolizes the baptism of the church building.61 Through the rite of consecration, the church building was blessed in the name of the Holy Trinity,62 and dedicated to its glory,63 just as a person receiving baptism.

The Consecration of the Cemetery Burial grounds surrounded the Cathedral of Lund on all sides, but they were in use at different times, though with some overlaps. Today, there are no traces of them above ground. There are a number of problems concerning their dating and span of usage, but all of them have been in use at some point during the Middle Ages. The so-called Kraftskyrkogården on the east side of the cathedral was in use until 1816.64 Whether or not some or all of the burial grounds were consecrated following the liturgical order in PRG or another pontifical is impossible to say as written evidence is lacking and no material evidence can bear witness. A large number of pontificals from the late 900s, which include the rite for the consecration of the cemetery have, however,

57 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i.6.2. 58 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i.6.4. 59 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i.6.5; i.6.11. 60 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i.6.8. 61 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i.6.9; on holy water in different contexts in PRG as part of, in Per Ström’s words, the ‘macrostructure of the church consecration’, see Ström, ‘Paradisi recuperatio’, pp. 126–35, in particular 130. 62 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i.6.25. 63 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i.6.13. 64 On ‘Kraftskyrkogården’, see Blomqvist, Lunds stadsbild, p. 131; Manhag, Kraftstorg, pp. 72–73, 82–86; on the burial grounds, see Cinthio, ‘Lunds domkyrkas förhistoria’, pp. 2–4; Cinthio, De första stadsborna, pp. 77–79; Carelli, Lunds historia, pp. 71–72; Cinthio, ‘Lund från första början’, pp. 13–21, 92–108.

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survived.65 The rite is also found in PRG, the pontifical of Durand, as well as in the two late medieval pontificals from Denmark.66 It is not unrealistic that some of the burial grounds surrounding the Cathedral of Lund or at least parts of them have been consecrated by way of a separate episcopal rite at some point in time. The same goes for other Danish cemeteries, even if there is no way of saying just when it took place and if it was done at all churches. A cemetery, defined as ‘the area surrounding a church’, could be used as a burial place without being consecrated. The terminology found in the preserved rites for the word ‘consecration’ is as diverse for cemeteries as it was for church buildings, and the same verbs were used. Regarding the status of the cemetery in relation to its surrounding area, it is possible to distinguish three stages of holiness based on what actually had taken place there. Firstly, it was taken for granted that the ground was religiosus if a deceased member of the Christian community was buried there. This seems to have been understood as the lowest level of sacredness.67 Even if the ground was not a consecrated Christian burial place, the grave would certainly have been blessed and aspersed with holy water if the interment was carried out by representatives of the Church. Thus, the place obtained a particular status through the burial rite itself. Liturgical commentaries have us know that charcoal was also deposited in the grave. In this way, it was marked for posterity that a member of the Christian community had been buried there. A body, even the skeleton, will disappear completely over time if it is buried in the ground, even though the duration of this process might be prolonged given various factors. Charcoal, on the other hand, will perdure.68 This material did not have any particular symbolic meaning but served as a marker that the deceased had received a Christian baptism through which the place of the grave obtained the status of religiosus. This may, however, have prompted some thoughts about eternal life with God as the charcoal remains forever. Archaeological investigations have shown that charcoal was deposited in some graves during the medieval period.69 Wooden rods could also be used at the interment. Like charcoal, burial rods are not mentioned in liturgical texts, but unlike charcoal, they are not mentioned in commentaries either. Though wooden burial rods were found in some graves in Lund, the lack of written sources makes us unable to interpret their meaning or if it changed over time.70 The second stage of holiness was obtained at the foundation of the church when, in conjunction with the liturgical act connected to it, the bishop ritually

65 Gitto, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places, pp. 42–49. 66 Vogel and Elze, Le pontifical romano-germanique, i, 192–93; Andrieu, Le pontifical romain au moyen-âge, pp. 504–10; Strömberg, Den pontifikala liturgin, pp. 101–03, 193–97. 67 Nilsson, De sepulturis, pp. 59–66. 68 Beleth, Summa, ed. by Douteil, chap. 161 q, 161 Ae. 69 Andrén, ‘Ad sanctos’, pp. 11–15; Cinthio, De första stadsborna, pp. 49–54, 124–26; Christensen and Bjerregaard, this volume. 70 Cinthio, De första stadsborna, pp. 83–89; Carelli, Lunds historia, pp. 177–79.

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demarcated the area upon which the church was to be built. The bishop should asperse the area with holy water, including the area that was to become the cemetery, after which it could be used for burials, even if it took a long time before the church building was finished and ready for consecration. After the episcopal blessing, the area was understood as sacer and could be designated as cimiteriata.71 The third stage was reached during the consecration of the church building as it obtained the episcopal blessing following the rite described in the pontifical. The episcopal blessing of the cemetery could, however, also take place on its own if the church had been consecrated at an earlier time. At the time of the consecration of the Cathedral of Lund, two more or less official views regarding the necessity of the consecration of the cemetery existed in liturgical commentaries. Some had the opinion that the bishop’s ritual demarcation of the ground where the church was to be built was enough for the surrounding areas to be blessed as well,72 while others believed that a proper consecration was needed.73 Durand considered that the rite for the consecration of the cemetery described in his pontifical was not superfluous since many cemeteries were located separately from their churches. Furthermore, he pointed out that not all churches were consecrated, and in such cases, holy water would not have been aspersed over the cemeteries.74 The rite for the consecration of the cemetery found in PRG is very brief in its formulation.75 It consists of three prayers, which are written out in full and some brief prescriptions: first, the seven penitential psalms were to be sung and four candles were to light up the cemetery. Then, holy water was to be aspersed over it. This is all there is in PRG. However, this can be complemented by the rite that emerged in York, England, while Archbishop Egbert was in office in the eighth century and which is preserved in a text from the mid-900s. This rite was the starting point for the rites found in the subsequent pontificals from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries with Durand’s pontifical at the top of the evolutionary ladder. Durand’s rite was later on incorporated in the two Danish pontificals. According to the pontifical of Durand,76 the act of consecration should be prepared the day before it was to commence with the placing of five wooden crosses in human size at the cemetery, two on the north–south and two on the east–west axes. The fifth cross, which was taller, was to be placed in the middle. Durand noted, however, that many bishops only let one large cross be placed in the middle with its arms stretching towards the north and the south. On the morning of the day of the consecration, the bishop would dress 71 Nilsson, De sepulturis, pp. 63–64, 70–75; see also Benz, ‘Ecclesia pura simplicitas’, pp. 12–19. 72 See points 12–17 in Ström, ‘Paradisi recuperatio’, pp. 235–36. 73 Nilsson, De sepulturis, pp. 72–76. 74 Nilsson, ‘Guds åker beredd till skörd’, p. 65. 75 Vogel and Elze, Le pontifical romano-germanique, i, 192–93. 76 The ritual is found in Andrieu, Le pontifical romain au moyen-âge, pp. 504–10.

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in amice, alba, stole, white cope, and a simple mitre as well as a crosier. Before the rite was initiated, the bishop gave a short sermon for those present about the sanctity and seclusion of the cemetery ‘and other such matters’. Then fifteen candles were lit, three in front of each cross. The act was initiated with a prayer in front of the cross in the middle, which summed up the purpose of the rite: may God bless and sanctify the cemetery, so the human bodies that will rest here after earthly life has ended may obtain the joy of eternal life. After this, the bishop sat down on a special chair (faldistorium) that was placed in front of the cross. His gaze was pointed towards the sunrise as the cantor initiated a litany, which was continued by the choir. After the litany had ended, the bishop would rise up with the crosier in his left hand and make the sign of the cross three times over the cemetery. For each sign of the cross, he would ask God to cleanse and bless the cemetery using an exponentially increasing amount of verbs such as cleanse, bless, sanctify, and consecrate. Then, yet another litany was sung while the bishop sat down, after which he exorcised the holy water facing east. Then, he walked towards the cross to the east and, while the choir sang a psalm from the Psalter and an antiphon, he moved around the cemetery, which he aspersed with holy water, beginning at the southern end. Then, yet another prayer followed urging God to sanctify and bless the cemetery. After this prayer, the bishop fumed the cross with incense and placed the burning candles on it, one on top and one on each arm. Then he walked to the cross in the west, continuously aspersing the ground with holy water, and repeated the rite with the candles and prayed for the bodies of the dead to be protected against any attack from evil spirits. The same was repeated at each cross; the rite concluded at the cross in the middle. The consecration of the cemetery as a whole was not given any detailed attention in the commentaries of Beleth and Durand. Even though this rite too should be understood as a whole, it was the act of aspersing with holy water, the marking of the ground with crosses, and the rite of the candles that were the most important from a material perspective. The aspersion with holy water was to take place continuously while the bishop was moving around. The role of holy water in the context of a burial was to protect the dead body from demonic intrusion, according to both liturgical commentators, since demons ‘are very afraid of holy water’. Holy water, moreover, drove away demons that sought to fool and deceive among the bodies of the holy even after death. Furthermore, the dead body had to be aspersed with holy water to keep unclean spirits away.77 Both commentators also discussed the difference between a ‘religious place’ (locus religiosus), a ‘sacred place’ (locus sacer), and a ‘place of sanctuary’ (locus sanctus). They found that a place became religiosus if a member of the Christian community was buried there. A place became sacer if it was

77 Beleth, Summa, ed. by Douteil, chap. 161 q, 161 qa, 161 Ac; Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, vii.35.29.

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consecrated (dedicare) and sanctified (sanctificare) to God by the hands of a bishop following the proper order as it happened at churches and cemeteries. Sanctus, on the other hand, was connected to places that enjoyed a particular legal immunity following specific privileges and which were utilized by the servants and officials of the Church in different ways without necessarily being consecrated for liturgical purposes. In spite of this, the status of the different kinds of holy places could be corrupted by criminal acts committed in, for instance, the vestibule or porch (atrium) of a church.78 Like in his pontifical, Durand also treated the question of the purpose of the consecration of a cemetery in his Rationale. Here, he pointed out three things in particular that surpass the level of information supplied by the pontifical. Firstly, the cemetery was to enjoy the same kind of legal immunity and privilege as the church building. God had set the example when he blessed the field that Abraham, Isaac, and James had prepared as their burial place.79 Secondly, the consecration drove evil spirits away and, thirdly, it secured that the bodies of the dead faithful could rest there in peace, away from the heathen, the unfaithful, and the excommunicated.80

Conclusion Several theological conceptions of materiality existed in medieval Christianity, which were expressed in the different episcopal rites presented here. A fundamental conception of matter was that it was possessed by evil powers whose influence had to be driven away in order for the material object to be used for Christian purposes. This happened through very elaborate exorcisms during which evil was driven from matter. These were complemented by prayers asking God to bless these exorcised materials. Through the uses of the different material objects in pontifical liturgies, the church building and the cemetery respectively were elevated out of the profane sphere and sanctified, thus becoming sacred through a combination of the cleansing and blessing of materials. Regarding the cemetery, this could happen simply if a member of the Christian community was buried there. The sacredness could be affected or even removed as consequence of larger material changes or if deeds irreconcilable with the sacredness of the place or person took place. When sacredness had to be reset, particular liturgies existed. Regarding persons, bishops and priests, these were not conceived as ‘holy’ because they were ordained. But, with the help of material objects used for the respective liturgy of ordination, among other things, the persons gained a particular

78 Beleth, Summa, ed. by Douteil, chap. 159b, 159 Ab, 159ba; Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i.5.2. 79 Genesis 25.7–11. 80 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i.5.11; i.8.26.

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status which could not be obliterated, a character indelebilis. Whether the rite sought to sanctify a person or a place, the materials used were able to cause the transformation. The use of material objects should, however, not be conceived as magic, as they had to be accompanied with prayers to God asking him to help the materials to fulfil their purpose.

Works Cited Primary Sources Beleth, Iohannes, Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis, ed. by Heribert Douteil, Corpus Christianorum, continuatio mediaevalis, 41, 2 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 1976) Corpus iuris canonici, ed. by Æmilius Friedberg, 2 vols (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1879–81) Danmarks gamle landskabslove med kirkelovene, 8 vols (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1933–61) DD = Diplomatarium Danicum (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1938–) Durand, William, Rationale divinorum officiorum, ed. by Anselme Davril and Timothy M. Thibodeau, Corpus Christianorum, continuatio mediaevalis, 140, 3 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995–2000) Secondary Works Andrén, Anders, ‘Ad sanctos — de dödas plats under medeltiden’, Hikuin, 27 (2000), 7–26 Andrieu, Michel, Le pontifical romain au moyen-âge, iii: Le pontifical de Guillaume Durand, Studi e testi, 88 (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca apostolica Vaticana, 1940) Angenendt, Arnold, ‘Der Taufexorcismus und seine Kritik in der Theologie des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts’, in Die Mächte des Guten und Bösen: Vorstellungen im XII. und XIII. Jahrhundert über ihr Wirken in der Heilsgeschichte, ed. by Albert Zimmermann, Miscellanea mediaevalia, 11 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1977), pp. 388–409 ———, Heilige und Reliquien: Die Geschichte ihres Kultes vom frühen Christentum bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: Beck, 1997) Bartsch, Elmar, Die Sachbeschwörungen der römischen Liturgie: Eine liturgiegeschichtliche und liturgietheologische Studie, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen, 46 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1967) Benz, Karl-Josef, ‘Ecclesia pura simplicitas. Zu Geschichte und Deutung des Ritus der Grundsteinlegung im Hohen Mittelalter’, Archiv für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte, 32 (1980), 9–25 Blaise, Albert, Le vocabulaire latin des principaux thèmes liturgiques (Turnhout: Brepols, 1966) Blomqvist, Ragnar, Lunds stadsbild (Lund: Inventeringskommittén, 1968)

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Bynum, Caroline Walker, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone, 2011) Carelli, Peter, Lunds historia: Staden och omlandet, i: Medeltiden: En metropol växer fram (Lund: Lunds kommun, 2012) Cinthio, Erik, ‘Lunds domkyrkas förhistoria, S:t Laurentiuspatrociniet och Knut den Heliges kyrka än en gång’, Ale: Historisk tidskrift för Skåneland, 1990, no. 2 (1990), 1–11 Cinthio, Maria, De första stadsborna: Medeltida gravar och människor i Lund (Stockholm: Symposion, 2002) ———, ‘Lund från första början’, in Vägar mot Lund: En antologi om stadens uppkomst, tidigaste utveckling och entreprenaden bakom de stora stenbyggnaderna, ed. by Maria Cinthio and Anders Ödman (Lund: Historiska media, 2018), pp. 11–123 Davril, Anselme, ‘Préambule’, in Guillelmus Durantus, Rationale divinorum officiorum, i: I–IV, ed. by Anselme Davril and Timothy M. Thibodeau, Corpus Christianorum, continuatio mediaevalis, 140 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995), pp. vii–xiii Gitto, Helen, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places in Anglo-Saxon England, Medieval History and Archaeology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) Gulczynski, John Theophilus, The Desecration and Violation of Churches: An Historical Synopsis and Commentary (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1942) Hollman, Gunhild Winqvist, and Kenneth Ruona, Lunds domkyrka (Lund: Arcus, 2009) Karlsson, Mattias, Konstruktionen av det heliga: Altarna i det medeltida Lunds stift, Skånsk senmedeltid och renässans, 23 (Lund: Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund, 2015) Källström, Hanna, Domkyrkan som andaktsmiljö under senmedeltiden: Linköping och Lund, Bibliotheca theologiae practicae, 89 (Skellefteå: Artos, 2011) Maier, Peter, Die Feier der Missa chrismatis: Die Reform der Ölweihen des Pontificale Romanum vor dem Hintergrund der Ritusgeschichte, Studien zur Pastoralliturgie, 7 (Regensburg; Friedrich Pustet, 1990) Manhag, Andreas, Kraftstorg: Lunds mittpunkt och baksida under 500 år (Lund: Lunds domkyrka, 2017) Nilsson, Bertil, De sepulturis: Gravrätten i Corpus iuris canonici och i medeltida nordisk lagstiftning, Bibliotheca theologiae practicae, 44 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1989) ———, ‘Guds åker beredd till skörd. Något om det medeltida ritualet för invigning av kyrkogård’, in Ett fönster mot den himmelska kyrkan: En vänskrift till Alf Härdelin, ed. by Johnny Hagberg (Skara: Skara stiftshistoriska sällskap, 2007), pp. 63–69 ———, ‘The Church Law of Scania on the Consecration of Churches and the Appointment of Parish Priests: International Canon Law and that of Scania’, in Denmark and Europe in the Middle Ages, c. 1000–1525: Essays in Honour of Professor Michael H. Gelting, ed. by Kerstin Hundahl, Lars Kjær, and Niels Lund (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), pp. 157–82

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———, ‘Några anteckningar till frågan om Åbo domkyrkas invigning’, Historisk tidskrift för Finland, 102 (2017), 662–92 Parkes, Henry, The Making of Liturgy in the Ottonian Church: Books, Music and Ritual in Mainz, 950–1050, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015) Piltz, Anders, ‘Örat tar över. Trons avmaterialisering på 1500-talet’, in Doften av rykande vekar: Reformationen ur folkets perspektiv, ed. by Fredrik Heiding and Magnus Nyman (Skellefteå: Artos, 2016), pp. 45–92 Repsher, Brian V., The Rite of Church Dedication in the Early Medieval Era (Lewiston: Mellen, 1998) Rydén, Thomas, Domkyrkan i Lund (Malmö: Corona, 1995) Stolt, Bengt, ‘Liturgisk dräkt’, in Kulturhistoriskt lexikon för nordisk medeltid, ed. by Ingvar Andersson and John Granlund, x (Malmö: Allhem, 1965), cols 626–37 Ström, Per, ‘Paradisi recuperatio. Den romersk-germanska kyrkoinvigningens form och innebörd med en textutgåva till PRG XL baserad på nya handskriftsstudier’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Uppsala universitet, 1997) Strömberg, Bengt, Den pontifikala liturgin i Lund och Roskilde under medeltiden, Studia theologica Lundensia, 9 (Lund: Gleerup, 1955) Vellev, Jens, ‘Fra helgengraven’, Skalk, 1972, no. 3 (1972), 18–27 ———, ‘Altre og alterindvielser — særligt i Odense stift’, Fynske minder (1975), 23–61 ———, ‘Relikvierne fra Seem kirke’, Hikuin, 1 (1974), 55–64 Vogel, Cyrille, and Reinhard Elze, eds, Le pontifical romano-germanique du dixième siècle, Studi e testi, 226, 2 vols (Città del Vaticano: Bibliotheca apostolica Vaticana, 1963) Weinrich, Lorenz, ‘Einleitung’, in Johannes Beleth, Summe der kirchlichen Offizien: Einleitung, Übersetzung und Anmerkungen, ed. by Lorenz Weinrich, Corpus Christianorum in Translation, 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), pp. 13–28

Nils Holger Peterse n

The Liturgical Use of the Gospel Book in the Middle Ages and Notions of Sacramentality?

This chapter deals with practices of honouring the Gospel book during the Mass liturgy in the West, from Roman and Carolingian practices around 800 to the later Middle Ages, including a brief look at the Tridentine Mass (1570) and focusing on the practice of kissing the Gospel book during Mass. Only very scant amounts of Danish liturgical materials have been preserved from the Middle Ages. It is a natural assumption, since the Danish medieval Church was founded as a part of the Roman Church (under the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen) and altogether was influenced from the Continent as well as England during the Middle Ages through ecclesiastical (and monastic) networks that Danish liturgical books would largely have followed general procedures and practices in Latin Christendom. What has been preserved generally corroborates this assumption, although it is a well-known fact that liturgical ceremonies would also vary in many details. In this chapter I will also draw on liturgical (printed) missals from the last decades before the Lutheran Reformation (in 1536), mainly (because of the limited information available from Denmark) to discuss the relevance of the continental sources for the situation in Denmark. As will be discussed in more detail, the background for such practices seems to be the idea that the Gospel book was taken as representative of Christ in some way and for that reason must be honoured in particular ways. The idea that a material element may represent the divine, in other words as a sacred sign, has generally been expressed by applying the word sacrament to such an object. Thus, the discussion in this article regards the Gospel book as a sacrament. This may be a strange notion for a modern reader, for whom sacraments are defined much more narrowly in Catholic as well as Protestant contexts. However, at the time when the practices which will be discussed in this chapter were introduced, the notion of sacrament was a very broad one, Nils Holger Petersen, PhD in Church History (University of Copenhagen). Associate Professor of Church History at the University of Copenhagen. Email: [email protected] Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix, and Mads Heilskov, AS 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 71–94 © FHG10.1484/M.AS-EB.5.123986

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as will be pointed out below. A general scepticism concerning materiality, seen as opposed to the spiritual character of Christian faith, can be observed from the earliest Christian times. It came strongly to the fore in the Byzantine iconoclastic controversy where, for more than a century, the use of religious images was highly controversial (and banned during substantial periods). This also led to discussions in the West where the Carolingians were sceptical about venerating material elements (although they did not support the iconoclasts either). And, whereas the notion of a sacrament was understood generally to designate sensory signs pointing to the divine during the first millennium, this was changed in a far-reaching way during the twelfth century. At the end of this process, the word sacrament came to denote only the seven now well-known sacraments of the Latin Church (and of today’s Catholic Church). The question dealt with in this article, aside from the descriptions of the practices as we know of them, concerns to what extent, if at all, such discourses affected the actual practices. When Hugh of Saint Victor wrote his De sacramentis christiane fidei in the early 1130s, it seems that there was no clear concept of a sacrament. The word sacramentum had been used in a number of different meanings for centuries, in the Vulgate New Testament, however, consistently as a translation of the Greek μυστήριον. Around 400, Augustine used the word in what may be described as a sign-theoretical way. Discussing Old Testament sacrifices that were no longer carried out in his De civitate Dei (x.5), he understood these sacrifices as holy signs for the Christian cult: ‘Sacrificium ergo uisibile inuisibilis sacrificii sacramentum. Id est sacrum signum est’ (The visible sacrifice then is a sign for the invisible sacrifice. That is, it is a holy sign).1 Also, Augustine’s more theoretical discussion of holy signs (sacramenta) in Book 3 of his De doctrina christiana became extremely influential during the following centuries.2 For Augustine and until Hugh’s revision of the notion of sacrament, there does not appear to have been a specified group of objects or ceremonies that constituted the sacraments of the church. While the word was (most) often applied in the context of baptism and the Eucharist, it was not always used in a consistent way. Hugh’s De sacramentis is not a book about the sacraments in this particular meaning but — again (as in the New Testament) — about the mysteries of the Christian faith altogether. However, along the way, he discusses the insufficiency of what he construes as the definition of a sacrament by the Church Fathers, that a sacrament is any sign of a holy thing. He adds to this that a sacrament must also have an instituted significance and be sanctified in order to contain spiritual grace, all, as it seems, to make sure that the

1 Augustine, De civitate Dei, ed. by Dombart and Kalb, i, 277. I believe it to be advisable not to translate sacramentum with ‘sacrament’ since modern associations are based on later understandings of the notion (after the twelfth century). 2 Augustine, De doctrina christiana, ed. and trans. by Green.

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sacraments of the church are controllable by the Church.3 Only few decades later, Peter Lombard introduced the seven (well-known) sacraments of the New Testament in the fourth book of his famous Sentences. His definition and list of sacraments were generally accepted, not least by Thomas Aquinas. It was also confirmed by various councils during the later Middle Ages, e.g. the Second Council of Lyons in 1274, the Council of Florence in 1437, and again forcefully in the Council of Trent (1545–1563).4

Ordines romani: Early Medieval Liturgical Instructions for Mass in the Latin West The medieval so-called ordines romani are ordinals, books (some book-length, others very short texts) describing the ceremonial unfolding of liturgical practices. Generally, they do not give full liturgical texts or musical settings,5 but focus on the overall ceremonial, often with rather detailed accounts of the actions of the clergy, their vestments, and various objects used during the ceremony in question with references to prayers, chants, and other liturgical texts. In missals of the later Middle Ages, the ordinary of the Mass (the items repeated for all Masses or at least for longer periods of the church year) was normally inserted between the temporale and the sanctorale.6 Depending on the individual Mass book, this section containing the ordinary of the Mass 3 For Hugh’s own — more technical — formulation, see Hugh of Saint Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, ed. by Berndt, pp. 209‒10: ‘sacramentum est corporale. uel materiale elementum. foris sensibiliter propositum ex similitudine representans. & ex institutione significans. & ex sanctificatione continens aliquam inuisibilem & spiritalem gratiam’. English translation: ‘A sacrament is a corporeal or material element set before the senses outwardly, representing by similitude and signifying by institution and containing by sanctification some invisible and spiritual grace’, see Hugh of Saint Victor, On the Sacraments, trans. by Deferrari, p. 155, slightly modified. See also the discussion in Petersen, ‘Ritual’, pp. 193–95. 4 McGrath, Christian Theology, pp. 498–99; Van Roo, Christian Sacrament, pp. 45–67; Petersen, ‘Ritual’, pp. 193–96. 5 The texts for the Mass would partly be given in the books for the biblical readings (lectionaries: epistolaries and evangeliaries) and the sacramentaries (the priestly prayers) as well as the gradual (or mass antiphoner, the chants of Mass). As music for songs gradually began to be notated during the ninth century, graduals would also (increasingly) become notated. From the later Middle Ages, missals combining prayers, readings, and chants became common. Also, other special types of book existed, for instance tropers and sequentiaries, which included creative (and often local) text-music additions to various Mass items, (proper as well as ordinary) tropes, but also a variety of other musical items. Similarly, the Divine Office, which will not be discussed here, had its own books. For a brief introduction to medieval liturgical music books, see Hiley, Western Plainchant, pp. 287–339. For a general introduction to medieval liturgical books (with only little focus on music books), see Vogel, Medieval Liturgy. 6 The temporale is the section containing the cycle of proper Mass items for the entire church year, except (most of) the saints’ days; the sanctorale is the corresponding section for the cycle of saints’ days.

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could partly constitute an ordinal, i.e. describing the course of the Mass with rubrics indicating ceremonial details. In this form, also Denmark has preserved some ordinal sources in the printed missals around 1500, as will be discussed later. The ordines romani are referred to as Roman because they claim to give information about Roman liturgy. Most preserved manuscripts for these ordinals, however, numbered from OR I to OR L by their most authoritative editor, Michel Andrieu, were copied in Francia between the ninth and tenth centuries. By general scholarly consensus, they give liturgical information sometimes going back to eighth-century Rome.7 In many cases they also reflect changes made as the Carolingians imported Roman liturgical ceremonies during the reigns of King Pippin III, his son Charlemagne, and Charlemagne’s son Louis the Pious. The import of Roman liturgy during the Carolingian era began with bishops’ individual travels to Rome, but became royal policy through the pact between Pippin and Pope Stephen II in 754, a policy intensified by Charlemagne,8 leading to the copying (and updating), or, indeed, writing, of the ordines romani. No Roman originals are extant. Scholars, not least the aforementioned Michel Andrieu, and most recently Eduardo Aubert, have worked intensely to separate what may have been original Roman tradition from later Carolingian influence. This in itself is not the topic of the present article, but is an important background for the use of a few of these documents in the following. One of the most important of the ordines, OR I, seems to be of actual Roman origin, textually. Although the earliest preserved manuscripts were copied in the early ninth century, knowledge of its contents can be documented from before 800.9 Michel Andrieu suggests that it was written for internal Roman use or in order to help the ‘diffusion of the Roman rite in the countries of the ancient Gallican liturgy’.10 To my mind, its opening description of Rome’s division in seven ecclesiastical regions, each with their responsible district-deacon,11 supports the latter hypothesis since it seems to presuppose readers not familiar with ecclesiastical administration in Rome. Some ordines romani (and/or other documents reflecting the practices to be discussed below) may have been known in Denmark (one source from c. 900 for some of the earliest ordines romani, including OR I, has been in the Royal Library in Copenhagen for centuries, but may not have been in Denmark already in the Middle Ages).

7 Vogel, Medieval Liturgy, pp. 135–224; Hiley, Western Plainchant, pp. 289–91; Aubert, ‘When the Roman Liturgy Became Frankish’, pp. 84–88. 8 McKitterick, Frankish Church; McKitterick, ‘Eighth-Century Foundations’ and Charlemagne; Page, Christian West, esp. chaps 14–16, pp. 281–360. 9 Vogel, Medieval Liturgy, p. 159. 10 ‘Une autre hypothèse serait que l’Ordo I ait été composé pour aider à la diffusion du rite romain dans les pays d’ancienne liturgie gallicane’, Andrieu, Ordines romani, p. 54. 11 Andrieu, Ordines romani, p. 67; Ordo Romanus primus, ed. by Cuthbert and Atchley, pp. 116–17.

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OR I describes the solemn papal Mass on Easter Day.12 After the mentioned initial remarks about the ecclesiastical organization of Rome, it tells about the ceremonial bringing of the pope to the stational church on solemn days, i.e. days on which the pope holds Mass in the various (stational) churches in Rome, on Easter Day the Sancta Maria maior. Thereafter follows the actual Easter Day Mass, described in many ceremonial details, beginning with the papal procession to the church from the Lateran Palace, the pope’s residence. There is no indication of liturgical singing before the introit of the Mass itself, but the pope (on horseback) and his retinue (on foot) move in a strictly formalized order in which (movable) objects needed for the Mass were carried along, including also, as explicitly mentioned, Gospel books and the book of epistle readings. Although the document is detailed in many respects, it raises many questions even for a brief summarizing modern reconstruction as carried out in Richard D. McCall’s recently written account,13 which however only briefly mentions some of the rituals around the Gospel books, rituals on which this chapter will focus. In diem vero sanctum paschae, omnes acolyti regionis tertiae simul et defensores omnium regionum conveniunt primo diluculo in patriarchio Lateranensi, ut, dum processerit pontifex, equum illius praecedant. Acolyti autem qui inde fuerint, observant ut portent chrisma ante pontificem et evangelia, sindones et sacculos et aquamanus post eum, sicut supra diximus. Apostolum autem subdiaconus qui lecturus est sub cura sua habebit, evangelium archidiaconus. Aquamanus, patena cottidiana, calicem, […], cereostata aurea et argentea de ecclesia Salvatoris per manum primi mansionarii sumunt et baiuli portant. Diebus vero festis, calicem et patenam maiores et evangelia maiora de vestiario dominico exeunt sub sigillo vesterarii per numerum gemmarum, ut non perdantur.14 (But on Easter day all the collets [acolytes] of the third district, together with the counsellors of every district meet, as day is just breaking, in the Lateran Palace, so that when the pontiff sets out they may walk before his horse. But the collets who belong to that church take care to carry the cream [sacred oil] before the pontiff, and the gospel-books, linen cloths, sacks, and washhandbasons after him, as we said above. But the subdeacon who is going to read the epistle shall have charge of the epistle-book, and the arch deacon of the gospel-book. The washhandbasons, the daily paten, the chalice, […], and the golden and silver candlesticks are taken from the Church of Saint Saviour by 12 Here, as well as in the following quotations from the body text of Andrieu’s critical edition, I have chosen readings (among alternative ones) which correspond to the Latin text rendered in Cuthbert and Atchley’s Latin-English edition. These also follow the majority of the text witnesses. The rituals around the Gospel book are substantially identical in all versions in Andrieu, Ordines romani. 13 McCall, Do this, pp. 107–36. 14 Andrieu, Ordines romani, pp. 72–73.

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the chief sexton, and the bearers carry them. On festivals the larger chalice and paten and the larger gospel-books are required of the papal vestry, under the sacristan’s seal on account of the number of precious stones, lest they be lost.)15 It is made clear that the clergy taking part in the Mass go straight to the stational church except for those who follow the pope on his way. When the pope arrives, he is formally greeted and goes to sit in the sacristy while the deacons change their clothes and undertake other preparations for Mass: et diaconi, salutato pontifice, egrediuntur secretario et ante fores eiusdem mutant vestimenta sua. Et parat evangelium qui lecturus est; reserato sigillo, ex praecepto archidiaconi, super planetam acolyti, et si necesse fuerit propter maiora evangelia duobus acolytis super planetam tenentibus, parat evangelium. Quo facto, acolytus defert evangelium usque ante altare , precedente eum subdiacono sequente, qui, eum de super planeta illius suscipiens, manibus suis honorifice super altare ponat.16 (the deacons, after saluting the pontiff, go out of the sacristy and change their clothes before the doors: and he who is going to read the gospel makes ready the gospel-book (the seal of which has been unlocked by order of the archdeacon), which a collet holds for him outside his planet [or chasuble]. If it should be necessary, on account of the size and weight of the larger gospel-book, two collets hold it outside their planets [or chasubles] while he makes it ready. Which done, the collet carries the gospel-book into the presbytery before the altar, the subdeacon-attendant leading the way, who, taking it, carries it outside his planet and places it honourably on the altar with his own hands.)17 Thus already before the beginning of the Mass introit, brief rituals involving the Gospel book are carried out. This includes also the (unexplained) ‘preparation’ of the Gospel book (‘parat evangelium’), which presumably refers to taking the book out of a box in which it was carried (cf. the opened seal, and see below after the Gospel reading), as well as its being placed ‘honorifice’ (honourably) on the altar by the acolyte (collet). Now the pope changes his vestments and a subdeacon (chosen by the pope) puts his pallium around his shoulders. After a few formal exchanges about who will sing and read, the pope gives a sign to the subdeacon to start the introit. The subdeacon leaves the sacristy, saying ‘accendite’ (light up).18 Candles are lit and the procession moves into the church as the precentor starts singing the introit antiphon and the pope is led from the sacristy to the altar where he is also presented with the ‘sancta’,

15 Ordo Romanus primus, ed. and trans. by Cuthbert and Atchley, pp. 121–23. 16 Andrieu, Ordines romani, pp. 76–77. 17 Ordo Romanus primus, ed. and trans. by Cuthbert and Atchley, p. 125. 18 Andrieu, Ordines romani, p. 80; Ordo Romanus primus, ed. by Cuthbert and Atchley, p. 127.

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leftover sanctified bread from a previous papal Mass, which is saluted by the pope and the subdeacon. The pope gives the sign for the singing of the Gloria patri (Glory be to the Father) which ends the introit-psalm (repeated again afterwards). Another brief honouring of the Gospel book then takes place: Nam diaconi surgunt quando dicit: Sicut erat,19 ut salutent altaris latera, prius duo et duo vicissim redeuntes ad pontificem. Et surgens pontifex osculat evangelia et altare et accedit ad sedem et stat versus ad orientem.20 (Now when As it was in the beginning is said, the deacons rise up in order to salute the sides of the altar, first two, and then the rest by twos, and return to the pontiff. And then the latter arises, and kisses the book of the gospels and the altar, and, going to his throne, stands there facing eastwards.)21 The Mass goes on with the main items of the Mass, the Kyrie eleison, the Gloria (intoned by the pope), the salutation and collect, followed by the reading of the epistle (by the subdeacon) and the singing of the gradual and the alleluia, just as in the order of the Roman Mass during the next more than one thousand years. Interestingly, no ritual honouring of the epistle book is mentioned at any point before, during, or after the reading of the epistle. However, when, after the alleluia, the Gospel is to be recited, the Gospel book is again the object of veneration: Deinde diaconus osculans pedes pontificis, venit ante altare et, osculatis evangeliis, levat in manus suas codicem et procedunt ante ipsum duo subdiaconi regionarii levantes tymiamaterium de manu subdiaconi sequentis, mittentes incensum, et ante se habentes duos acolytos portantes duo cereostata; venientes ad ambonem dividuntur ipsi acolyti ante ambonem et transeunt subdiaconi et diaconus cum evangelia per medium eorum. Ille qui absque timiamaterio est, vertens se ad diaconem porrigit brachium sinistrum, in quo ponit evangelium, ut manu subdiaconi aperiatur locus in quo signum lectionis positum fuerit. Et, interposito digito suo, diaconus in loco lectionis ascendit ad legendum et illi duo subdiaconi redeunt stare ante gradum descensionis ambonis. Finito evangelio, dicit pontifex: Pax tibi. Dominus vobiscum. Resp: Et cum spiritu tuo. Descendente autem diacono, subdiaconus qui prius aperuerat, recipit evangelium et porrigit eum subdiacono sequenti, qui in filo stat; quod tenens ante pectus suum super planetam porrigit osculandum omnibus per ordinem graduum et post hoc praeparato

19 The next verse of the Gloria patri. 20 Andrieu, Ordines romani, p. 83. 21 Ordo Romanus primus, ed. and trans. by Cuthbert and Atchley, p. 131.

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acolyto in poio iuxta ambonem cum capsa in qua subdiaconus idem ponit evangelium ut sigilletur. Acolytus autem regionis eiusdem cuius et subdiaconus est revocat evangelium ad Lateranis.22 (Then the deacon kisses the pontiff ’s feet, and the latter says to him in an undertone, The Lord be in thy heart and on thy lips. Then the deacon comes before the altar, and after kissing the book of the gospels, takes it up in his hands; and there walk before him [to the ambo] two district-subdeacons, who have taken the censer from the hand of the subdeacon-attendant, diffusing incense. And in front of them they have two collets carrying two candlesticks. On coming to the ambo, the collets part before it, and the subdeacons and the deacon with gospel-book pass between them. The subdeacon who is not carrying the censer then turns towards the deacon, and offers him his left arm on which to rest the gospel-book, in order that the former may open it with his right hand at the place where the mark for reading was put: then, slipping his finger into the place where he has to begin, the deacon goes up to read, while the two subdeacons turn back to stand before the step coming down from the ambo. The gospel ended, the pontiff says, ‘Peace to thee’; and then, ‘The Lord be with you’. Answer is made, ‘And with thy spirit’; and he says, ‘Let us pray’. When the deacon is come down from the ambo, the subdeacon who first opened the gospel-book previously, takes it from him and hands it to the subdeacon-attendant, who stands in his rank. Then the latter, holding the book before his breast, outside his planet, offers it to be kissed by all who stand [in the quire] in the order of their rank. And after this a collet is ready on the step by the ambo with the case, in which the same subdeacon puts the gospel-book so that it may be sealed. But the collet of the same district as that to which the subdeacon belongs carries it back to the Lateran.)23 An obvious question to ask, not answered in the document, concerns why there is such marked difference between the treatment of the epistle book and the Gospel book, both giving texts from the New Testament. Recently, Éric Palazzo has coined the term livre-corps to denote the incarnational role of the Gospel book in the medieval Mass,24 pointing to the Roman ordines and later medieval Mass ordinals. A very explicit expression of this incarnational role can be found in Byzantine liturgical commentary: The Ecclesiastical History and Mystical Contemplation of Saint Germanus I, patriarch of Constantinople (c. 715–30), which does not give detailed rubrics as in the OR I, but describes the order of the Mass, commenting briefly on the actions. Paul Meyendorff in his introduction to Germanus’s text, points out how the procession at the

22 Andrieu, Ordines romani, p. 87‒90. 23 Ordo Romanus primus, ed. and trans. by Cuthbert and Atchley, pp. 131–33. 24 Palazzo, L’invention chrétienne, pp. 190–94.

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beginning of Mass, the introit, enters the church ‘preceded by the Gospel Book and the Cross’.25 In Germanus’s text, this is commented on: ‘The entrance of the Gospel signifies the coming of the Son of God and His entrance into this world’,26 and at the point where the Gospel is read, it states: The Gospel is the coming of God. When He was seen by us: He is no longer speaking to us as through a cloud and indistinctly, as He did to Moses […] And the Holy Spirit, who was concealed in a bright cloud, now exclaims through a man: ‘Attend, listen to Him’.27 In other words, it seems that the Gospel book is identified with the coming of God (the ‘Parousia of God’ in the Greek text in both cases). Germanus is not explicit enough to make it clear how the identification is to be understood, and his text does not give rubrics about kissing or honouring the Gospel book. Germanus was removed as patriarch of Constantinople by the iconoclastic emperor Leo III in 730.28 The mentioned brief statements about the Gospel book correspond to the treatment of the Gospel book in the OR I, as well as to the understanding in some early ninth-century Latin Mass expositions.29 From the 720s to 843, Byzantium was marked by iconoclasm with a relatively brief period of reversal during the reign of Empress Irene and the rulings of the Nicaea II Council in 787, with a final end of iconoclasm only at the so-called Triumph of Orthodoxy at the Council of Constantinople in 843. John of Damascus was a great opponent of iconoclasm (made possible by his residence outside of Byzantium) who in his First Treatise on the Divine Images (probably written in the late 720s) defends traditional reverence of material elements in the church invoking a separation between veneration and reverence, which became fundamental at Nicaea II. John writes: ‘I do not venerate matter, I venerate the fashioner of matter, who became matter for my sake and accepted to dwell in matter and through matter worked my salvation’.30 In his discussion, he asks: Is not the thrice-precious and thrice-blessed wood of the cross matter? Is not the life-giving and life-bearing rock, the holy tomb, the source of the resurrection, matter? Is not the ink and the all-holy book of the Gospels matter? […] And, before all these things, is not the body and blood of my Lord matter? Either do away with reverence and veneration for all these or submit to the tradition of the Church and allow the veneration of images of God and friends of God.31 25 Germanus, On the Divine Liturgy, ed. and trans. by Meyendorff, p. 19. 26 Germanus, On the Divine Liturgy, ed. and trans. by Meyendorff, p. 73. 27 Germanus, On the Divine Liturgy, ed. and trans. by Meyendorff, p. 81. 28 Germanus, On the Divine Liturgy, ed. and trans. by Meyendorff, p. 15. 29 Ekenberg, Cur Cantatur, pp. 21–23. Recently, the attribution of the missae expositionis geminus codex to Amalar, assumed by Ekenberg, has been queried (Steck, Der Liturgiker Amalarius, pp. 63–76). 30 John of Damascus, Three Treatises, trans. by Louth, p. 29. 31 John of Damascus, Three Treatises, trans. by Louth, pp. 29–30.

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Reading John in the context of Germanus’s liturgical commentary provides yet a link to the obvious ceremonial reverence of the Gospel book which, as an icon in the Byzantine tradition, is seen not as divine in its own — material — right, but as a material representation to be reverenced because of what it represents. Also other Roman ordines giving the order of an episcopal Mass, reflecting Carolingian liturgical changes, reference similar reverence of the Gospel book — albeit much more briefly — as found in the elaborate descriptions in OR I. It is surprising, however, to find almost no contemporary Carolingian comments on these particular expressions of reverence in, for instance, the Liber officialis, written by Amalar of Metz in the early 820s. Book 3 of this large work describes and comments on the Mass liturgy, devoting for instance all of Chapter 18 just to the deacon’s ascent in order to read the Gospel. In this chapter, Amalar first gives a lengthy quotation by Cyprian, then goes on to point to the censing of the Gospel book, explaining the importance of the Gospel and the deacon’s taking the Gospel book from the altar: Deinde vadit ad altare, ut inde sumat Evangelium ad legendum. Altare Hierusalem potest designare, ut praetulimus, de qua exivit Evangelica praedicatio, sicut scriptum est: ‘De Sion exivit lex et verbum Domini de Hierusalem’ [Isaiah 2.3], vel ipsius Domini corpus, in quo sunt verba Evangelii, videlicet bonae nuntiationis. Ipse praecepit apostolis praedicare Evangelium omni creaturae. Ipse dixit: ‘Verba quae ego loquor vobis, spiritus et vita sunt’ [ John 6.64]. Christus vita; verba quae locutus est in Evangelio continentur. Diaconus qui portat Evangelium, Christi pes est. Portat Evangelium in sinistro brachio, per quod significatur temporalis vita, ubi necesse est praedicari Evangelium. (Then he goes to the altar to take up the Gospel book for the reading. The altar can signify Jerusalem, as we said above, out of which the preaching of the Gospel went forth, as it is written: ‘The law has come forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem’. Or it can signify the Lord’s own body, in which are the words of the Gospel, that is, of good news. He ordered the apostles to preach the Gospel to all creation. He said: ‘The words that I speak to you are spirit and life’. Christ is life; the words that he spoke are contained in the Gospel. The deacon who carries the Gospel is Christ’s foot. He carries the Gospel in his left arm, which signifies the temporal life, where it is necessary that the Gospel be preached.)32 A little further into the chapter, Amalar polemicizes against the Jews: Usque ad istud officium baculis sustentabamur; modo, ut oportet servos ante Dominum stare, humiliter stamus, deponentes baculos e manibus, quod potest nos separare ab opera Iudaeorum, qui dabant harundinem 32 Amalar, On the Liturgy, ed. and trans. by Knibbs, pp. 104–05.

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in manu Christi [Matthew 27.29]. Sed nostra humilitas per baculorum positionem demonstretur in conspectu Domini. Duo cerei qui portantur ante Evangelium, legem et prophetas designant praececisse Evangelicam doctrinam. Turibulum vero opinionem bonarum virtutum procedentem de Christo. Ipsum turibulum in tribunal ascendit ante Evangelium, ut ibi suavem odorem ministret. Christi enim bona opera praecesserunt Evangelicam doctrinam, ut Lucas testatur in Actibus Apostolorum. ‘[…] Quae coepit Iesus facere et docere’ [Acts 1.1]. Prius fecit, et postea docuit. (Until this office we were supported by our staffs; now we stand humbly, as servants should stand before their master, and put our staffs down from our hands. This can distinguish us from the deed of the Jews, who put a reed in Christ’s hand. But our humility in the Lord’s sight is signified through putting our staffs down. The two candles that are carried before the Gospel show that the law and the prophets preceded the teaching of the Gospel. The censer, meanwhile, signifies the renown of good virtues that go forth from Christ. The censer goes up to the tribunal ahead of the Gospel, there to provide a sweet odor. And, indeed, Christ’s good works preceded the teaching of the Gospel, as Luke attests in the Acts of the Apostles. ‘[…] Which Jesus began to do and to teach’ First he did; afterwards he taught.)33 Roughly, what Amalar describes conforms to what is found in OR I. However, the comment about putting down staffs is not included in OR I, while it is in the OR V.34 The kissing of the Gospel book is mentioned briefly in the OR V as in OR I, but is not found in Amalar’s work.35 Hrabanus Maurus, in his De institutione clericorum (finished in 819) Book 1, Chapter 33, comments briefly on the reading of the Gospel in his summary of the order of the Mass without any mention of the honouring of the book itself: Deinde a diacono cum summa auctoritate in auribus populi recitatur evangelium, ut ipsius ibidem audiatur doctrina, ad quem fervet intentio tota, ipsiusque virtus intellegatur per evangelium, cuius tunc corporis sacrosanctum celebratur mysterium.36 (Thereafter the Gospel is recited by the deacon in the ears of the people with the highest authority, so that its instruction can be heard, toward which the complete concentration is aroused, and the power of it may be understood through the gospel, and then his body’s holy mystery is celebrated.)

33 Amalar, On the Liturgy, ed. and trans. by Knibbs, pp. 106–07. 34 OR V was probably copied in the later ninth century and possibly dependent on Amalar’s Liber officialis; Vogel, Medieval Liturgy, p. 161. 35 Andrieu, Ordines romani, p. 217. 36 Hrabanus Maurus, De institutione clericorum, ed. and trans. by Zimpel, i, 242.

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In spite of Pope Hadrian’s acceptance, the Carolingians were critical of the decisions of the Nicaea II Council which rejected iconoclasm and established a distinction between latreia (the worship appropriate for God) and proskynesis (the relative worship acceptable to created things), fundamentally based on the understanding of John of Damascus, although not mentioning him in that context. Since Ann Freeman’s work in the 1990s scholars have argued that Theodulf of Orléans, the author of the Carolingian Opus Caroli regis (formerly known as the Libri Carolini), composed in the early 790s, had indeed understood the fundamental distinctions made at Nicaea II, even though he did have to deal with a faulty Latin translation of the synodal acts. He was well aware of the distinction between latreia and proskynesis, although he was under the impression that this distinction was not observed by the Byzantines.37 According to Noble, John of Damascus’s defence of images ‘made the debate over images into a Christological controversy’, but his theological discussion was weakened in the acts of Nicaea II.38 At Charlemagne’s Council of Frankfurt in 794 the Opus Caroli regis may have been discussed and put to rest,39 possibly in order not to further complicate the disagreement between the pope and the Carolingian court.40 The reason to bring the Opus Caroli regis into the picture in this article is to point out how the atmosphere at the Carolingian court did not favour ‘physical acts of worship performed toward […] inanimate material things, except relics’.41 Such issues were taken up again in a second phase of dealing with iconoclasm during the 820s and 830s during the reign of Louis the Pious, where not least Bishop Claudius of Turin attacked the Good Friday veneration of the cross, which in turn was defended by Einhard and Hrabanus Maurus.42 The central event of this second phase was a Paris meeting in 825 called by Louis the Pious in order to attempt to come to terms with the papacy concerning attitudes to images. The Liber officialis and the De institutione clericorum are too early to be influenced by this second round of discussions, which also led to a generally more lenient attitude toward the veneration of materiality. The general atmosphere in this regard under Charlemagne, as reflected in the Opus Caroli regis and the Frankfurt Council of 794, may well have prompted a caution in descriptions of the Mass liturgy. As already stated, the kissing of the Gospel book was not mentioned by Amalar and Hrabanus Maurus.43 It 37 Noble, Images, pp. 181−82. 38 Noble, Images, p. 92; 105–10. 39 Charlemagne seems personally to have been involved and in agreement with the text; Noble, Images, p. 166. 40 Noble, Images, pp. 158–69. 41 Chazelle, The Crucified God, p. 123. 42 Chazelle, The Crucified God, pp. 118–31; Noble, Images, pp. 287–365. 43 Also Walahfrid Strabo, who had been a pupil of Hrabanus Maurus, writing probably shortly after 840, in his Libellus de exordiis et incrementis quarundam in observationibus ecclesiasticis rerum (A Book about the Origins and Developments of Some Aspects of the Liturgy) has a brief and very cautious comment on the attitude to the Gospel book. Discussing the Gospel reading at Mass, he quotes Pope Anastasius that priests should not be seated but stand

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was, however, not only strongly present in the (probably originally Roman) OR I but also (although less conspicuously so) in the OR V, OR IX, and OR X, reflecting Carolingian changes of the Roman liturgy in some measure.44 It thus seems likely that the honouring of the Gospel book, not least the kissing, was done also in Carolingian practices.

The Rationale divinorum officiorum of William Durand It is possible to trace the mentioned practices of kissing the Gospel book during Mass through many continental documents over the following centuries. That would, however, exceed the scope of this chapter. In this section I shall jump forward in time to look at the descriptions of the Mass liturgy written more than four centuries later by Bishop William Durand of Mende in Book 4 of his famous Rationale divinorum officiorum (Explanation of the Divine Offices) from the late thirteenth century. In the words of its most prominent contemporary scholar and translator, Timothy M. Thibodeau, this work constitutes ‘a veritable summa of the allegorical tradition of liturgical exposition that began with Amalarius of Metz and culminated with Durand’s skilful presentation of this tradition in his own exposition’.45 As also emphasized by Thibodeau, ‘Durand was much more of a “compiler” of his treatise than an “original” author in the modern sense’.46 In the introduction to his recent translation of Book 4 of the Rationale, Thibodeau points to the special genre of the liturgical expositions from Amalar to Durand: It was descriptive in the sense that we can use these works to reconstruct both the prayer texts and ceremonial acts in the worship services of the Church in Rome and in the Frankish realm. But more importantly, this literature was mystical in that Amalarius and his successors employed an allegorical hermeneutics to ‘unveil’ or ‘uncover’ the divine mysteries ‘hidden’ within even the most seemingly trivial or innocuous aspects of the liturgy.47 As suggested above, Amalar may have chosen to tone down the ritual honouring of the material Gospel book because of the general Carolingian scepticism concerning worship of material objects although such honouring most likely did take place in Carolingian times as documented by some of the ordines romani written or edited in ninth-century Francia. Seeing how such practices

bowing, adding ‘so that even their body shows the humility the Lord teaches’ (‘ut videlicet humilitatem, quae a Domino docetur, etiam corpore demonstrarent’, Strabo, Libellus, trans. and com. by Harting-Correa, pp. 134–35). 44 Andrieu, Ordines romani, pp. 213–15; 332, 357; Vogel, Medieval Liturgy, p. 164. 45 Durand, The ‘Rationale divinorum officiorum’, trans. by Thibodeau, XX. 46 Durand, The ‘Rationale divinorum officiorum’, trans. by Thibodeau, XX. 47 Durand, Rationale IV, ed. and trans. by Thibodeau, p. 17.

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were further elaborated over the next centuries, as documented by Durand, strengthens this hypothesis. Honouring the Gospel book also by kissing it, but — as in all the ordines romani — not the epistle book, is reflected more than once in Durand’s Mass explication. During the introit both the epistle book and the Gospel book have been carried in procession by subdeacons.48 In Chapter 9, ‘On the Kissing of the Altar and the [Gospel] Book’, the kissing of the Gospel book (and the altar) after it has been placed on the altar is discussed in Section 2 and 4 before the liturgical actions go on to the Kyrie eleison. Durand points out that the bishop himself opens the book, and: Libro uero aperto illum osculatur a parte sinistra, ad significandum quod predicatores reconciliauerunt et obtulerunt gentes Christo quibus ipse per se non predicauit, licet et ipse per se pacem in euangelio predicauerit dicens: Pacem meam do uobis, etc. Quia uero ipse etiam in cruce pendens pacem fecit, ideo, mox transiturus ad dextrum cornu altaris, signat se signo crucis, quia, ut ait Apostolus ad Ephesios: Christus pax nostra qui fecit utraque unum duos et diuersos parietes, id est populos copulans. Post hoc codex euangelii super altare clausus ponitur, quod, quantum ad hoc, significat Ierusalem, prout sub Euangelio dicetur.49 (When the book is opened, it is kissed on the left side, to signify that the preachers reconciled and brought the Gentiles — to whom He himself had never preached — to Christ, even though He himself preached peace [to all people] in the Gospel, saying: ‘My peace I give to you’, etc.50 And because He himself made that peace when He was hanging on the cross, the bishop immediately passes to the right corner of the altar, and makes the sign of the cross, because just as the Apostle says to the Ephesians: ‘Christ is our peace who made both people and the different walls into one’,51 that is, uniting the two peoples. After this, the Gospel book is placed on the altar closed, which signifies Jerusalem, as will be discussed under the heading, On the Gospel.)52 As in the ordinals before and after 800 discussed above, the main honouring rituals involving the Gospel book take place in connection with the Gospel reading. Durand devotes Chapter 24 of Book 4 to the reading of the Gospel, including discussions of the ritual surrounding the bringing of the book to the pulpit and its being brought back to the altar afterwards. In contrast to the OR I the book remains in the church until the end of the Mass; also in

48 Durand, Rationale IV, ed. and trans. by Thibodeau, p. 101. 49 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, pp. 288–89. 50 John 14.27. 51 Ephesians 2.14. Thibodeau points out that the biblical text from Ephesians has been distorted by Durand. 52 Durand, Rationale IV, ed. and trans. by Thibodeau, pp. 116–17.

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the later Roman ordines there is no mention of the book being taken away from the church after having been used for the reading. Durand discusses the rituals from different perspectives, drawing also on alternative practices in some churches (concerning who is carrying the book and concerning different feast days and types of Mass, e.g. concerning also the Mass for the dead), so that the one kissing ritual is mentioned several times. Here I shall only take up a few quotations giving the gist of how Durand understands these rituals. The deacon has greeted the people with ‘Dominus vobiscum’ (The Lord be with you) from the ambo, described as ‘an eagle-shaped lectern’,53 and then: Dyaconus uero statim postquam sibi responsum est: ‘Et cum spiritu tuo’, ut cunctos reddat dociles et beniuolos ad audiendum uerbum euangelii, id est bonum nuntium nuntiantem regnum Dei, subdit: ‘Sequentia sancti euangelii’, thurificans librum et signans signo crucis. Et etiam in quibusdam locis osculatur illum, quasi dicat: hic est liber seu euangelium Dei, hic est liber Crucifixi quem predico, hic est liber Pacifici per quem reconciliationem accepimus, unde Apostolus, I ad Cor. i: ‘Predicamus uobis Christum crucifixum’. Per incensi autem fumum bona predicationis opinio intelligitur.54 (Immediately after the response, ‘And with your spirit’ (Et cum spiritu tuo) has been made, and so that all will be receptive and favourable to hearing the words of the Gospel, that is, the good news announcing the Kingdom of God, he adds: ‘A continuation of the Holy Gospel’ (Sequentia Sancti Evangelii), censing the Gospel book and making the sign of the cross on it. But in some places, he kisses the Gospel book, as if he were saying: This is the book or Gospel of God; this is the book of the Crucified one whom I preach; this is the book of the Peacemaker, through whom we have received reconciliation [cf. Romans 5.11]; thus, the Apostle, in First Corinthians I: ‘We preach to you a crucified Christ’ [i Corinthians 1.23]. Through the smoke of incense the good repute of the preaching is understood.)55 At the end of the reading, Durand comments: Terminatur autem euangelium exaltando uocem in fine, prout sub Epistola dictum est; et mox, illo finito, munit se dyaconus signo crucis, ne dyabolus susceptum semen euangelii de uase signato subrapiat. Et deinde euangelium osculatur, ad notandum se ex caritate et amore euangelizasse.56 (The Gospel is concluded with a raised voice at the end, as was stated under the heading, On the Epistle; and when it is finished, the deacon immediately fortifies himself with the sign of the cross, so that the 53 Durand, Rationale IV, ed. and trans. by Thibodeau, p. 203. 54 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, p. 352. 55 Durand, Rationale IV, ed. and trans. by Thibodeau, p. 206. 56 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, p. 354.

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Devil cannot steal the seeds of the Gospel that have fallen there from the vessel that is so signed. And then the Gospel book is kissed to note that he has proclaimed the Gospel in charity and love.)57 The subdeacon brings back the Gospel book to the bishop: Nam et apostoli, predicatione peracta, ad Christum reuersi sunt, referentes ei gratias de miraculis et predicationis profectu. Episcopus uero thus odorat et euangelium osculatur. Primo, ad notandum quia quod Christus inspirauit et docuit hic approbat et acceptat […]. […] Quarto, quia huiusmodi osculum significat affectum amoris ad euangelium qui precipue in episcopo uigere debet, adeo ut paratus sit mortem pro eo subire.58 (For the Apostles, too, returned to Christ when they had completed their preaching, offering Him thanks for the miracles and the success of their preaching. The bishop smells the incense and kisses the Gospel book. First, to note that because Christ inspired and taught this doctrine, he assents to it and accepts it […]. […] Fourth, because a kiss of this sort signifies a feeling of love for the Gospel that should be especially strong in the bishop, to the point that he is prepared to go to his death for it.)59 Although more honouring of the Gospel book is included in Durand’s descriptions than reflected even in OR I, let alone the Roman (Carolingian) ordinals of the ninth century, there are obvious continuities. This continuity extended to the Tridentine Mass, as recorded in the Missale Romanum (1570) albeit in a simplified way. Here, the Gospel book is put on the altar (by the deacon) after the singing of the alleluia (or tractus) and the sequence, i.e. just before the reading of the Gospel. The subdeacon then presents the book to the priest who kisses it, ‘subdiaconus defert librum sacerdoti, qui osculatur euangelium, dicens, Per euangelica dicta deleantur nostra delicta’ (The subdeacon brings the book to the priest who kisses the Gospel saying, may our sins be washed away by the words of the Gospel). After the reading of the Gospel, the priest again kisses the Gospel book, as above, ‘sacerdos osculatur euangelium, vt supra’.60 Durand, in Chapter 3, ‘De pictvris et cortinis et ornamentis ecclesie’ (On the Pictures, Curtains, and Ornaments of the Church) of Book 1 of his Rationale also discussed the relations to pictures, clearly showing a much more relaxed attitude than what we met at the Carolingian court around 800, referring from the outset to and quoting Gregory the Great:

57 Durand, Rationale IV, ed. and trans. by Thibodeau, p. 208. 58 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, pp. 355–56. 59 Durand, Rationale IV, ed. and trans. by Thibodeau, pp. 210–11. 60 Missale Romanum, ed. by Sodi and Triacca, pp. 295–96.

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Picture et ornamenta in ecclesia sunt laicorum lectio et scripture, unde Gregorius: ‘Aliud est picturam adorare, aliud per picture ystoriam quid sit adorandum addiscere […]’. […] Sed nos illas [ymagines] non adoramus, nec deos appellamus, nec spem salutis in eis ponimus quia hoc esset ydolatrare, sed ad memoriam et recordationem rerum olim gestarum eas ueneramur, unde uersus: Effigiem Christi qui transis pronus Honora Non tamen effigiem sed quem designat adora Esse Deum ratione caret cui contulit esse Materiale lapis effigiale manus Nec Deus est nec homo presens quam cernis ymago Sed Deus est et homo quem sacra figurat ymago.61 (The pictures and ornaments in the church are the readings and scriptures of the laity; thus Gregory says: ‘It is one thing to worship a picture, another thing to learn, by means of the picture, the story that should be adored […]’. […]. But we do not worship images, nor do we call them gods, nor do we place our hope of salvation in them, because this would be idolatry, but we venerate them for the memory and remembrance of things done long ago, hence the verse: ‘You who pass, honor with a bow, the image of Christ Worship not the image but what it represents To call it God is baseless for him who attributes divinity to it For it was once a material stone, sculpted by hand, into an image And the image upon which you gaze is neither God nor man But it is both God and man which this sacred image represents’.)62 Durand, surprisingly, values pictures to a very high degree, and in a certain sense more highly than texts: (i.3.4) Per picturam quidem res gesta ante oculos ponitur quasi in presenti generi uideatur, sed per scripturam res gesta quasi per auditum, qui minus animum mouet, ad memoriam reuocatur. Hinc etiam est quod in ecclesia non tantam reuerentiam exhibemus libris quantam ymaginibus et picturis.63 (Through pictures certain deeds are placed before the eyes, and they seem to be happening in the present time, but with texts, the deeds seem to be only a story heard, which moves the soul less, when the thing is recalled by the memory. For this reason we do not show as much reverence towards books as we do to images and pictures.)64

61 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, pp. 34–35. 62 Durand, The ‘Rationale divinorum officiorum’, trans. by Thibodeau, p. 32. 63 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, p. 36. 64 Durand, The ‘Rationale divinorum officiorum’, trans. by Thibodeau, p. 34.

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On the other hand, the Gospel book is treated briefly as part of this chapter. In Section 33, he writes: ‘Codex etiam euangelicus super illud adaptatur, eo quod euangelium ab ipso, scilicet Christo, sit editum et ipsi perhibeat testimonium’ (The codex of the Gospels is also placed on the altar, since the Gospel was published by Him, that is, Christ, and He still provides testimony to us).65 What is said about images above thus seems to be relevant also for the Gospel book, as a material item, making it clear why there is no reservation in Durand against the honouring of the Gospel book (or other objects honoured during Mass). The theological distinction — going back to the discussions during the Byzantine iconoclastic controversy — between what is divine and what is ‘mere’ representation of the divine, however, is upheld. In the earlier quoted statements of Germanus and Amalar, there was a clear identification of the Gospel book with Christ, thus in their discussions of the Gospel book it functions as a sign of Christ and of his coming to mankind. Therefore, in the general use of the word sacrament at the time (before Hugh and Peter Lombard), the Gospel book may be said to function as a sacrament, even though they do not use that particular word for it. At the time, however, the word sacrament did not carry the same weight it received through the process during the twelfth century as summarized in the Introduction. Durand’s statement about the Gospel book does not identify the Gospel book with Christ in such direct terms. Also, at the time Durand was writing, Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas were great authorities, and the Council of Lyons (in 1274), in which Durand even participated in the service of the pope,66 had mentioned the seven sacraments, so obviously Durand could not think of the Gospel book as a sacrament. Still, Durand at a later point in Book 4 discusses the notion of sacrament,67 pointing out that there is (also) a broader use of the notion: ‘large, secundum quod omne signum rei sacre, siue sit sacrum siue non sacrum, dicitur “sacramentum”’ (in the broad sense, everything that is a sign of something sacred, whether it is sacred or not, is called a ‘sacramental sign’).68 Thus, apparently, the old broader usage of sacramentum was not forgotten, although a clear understanding of the sacraments of the church (or as Peter Lombard calls them ‘sacraments of the New Testament’, a term also used by Durand) had been established and recognized. The Gospel book is not called a sacrament by Durand, but it seems, in a somewhat more loose way, to actually have functioned as such (although not in the new strict sense of belonging to the seven sacraments, of course) and to be worthy of the same

65 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, p. 45; Durand, The ‘Rationale divinorum officiorum’, trans. by Thibodeau, p. 42. 66 Durand, Rationale IV, ed. and trans. by Thibodeau, p. 15. 67 Chapter 42, Section 26; Durand, Rationale IV, ed. and trans. by Thibodeau, p. 376. 68 Durand, Rationale, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, p. 476.

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treatment as the pictures, as mentioned above. The way the Gospel book signifies Christ and his coming to the world was formulated less directly by Durand than it was by Amalar and Germanus.

Honouring the Gospel Book during Mass in Denmark and a Final Contextualization The documentation of the kissing of the Gospel book during Mass in ordinals of the ninth century, in William of Durand’s liturgical commentary (summarizing liturgical commentary since the ninth century, something that may easily be documented also concerning the kissing of Gospel books), and also in the Tridentine Mass, makes it clear that this seems to have been a universal practice in the Roman Mass everywhere in Latin Christendom, at least since around 800. Thus, it seems unlikely that this would not also have been the general practice in Denmark, even if we do not have documentation for it at an early stage. The lack of documentation seems to be a natural consequence of the lack of preserved liturgical books in general, and more specifically of (even fragments of) ordinals. However, around 1500, as mentioned in the Introduction, the sections in missals containing the ordinary of the Mass are places to look for such a documentation. There are several printed missals published around 1500. The mentioned sections, however, do not all function as ordinals or give only very fragmentary rubrics. However, in the Missale Lundense, printed in Paris in 1514 for the archiepiscopal seat of Denmark, the ordinary of the Mass section beginning Preparamenta ad missam (fol. 163r) gives two brief rubrics documenting that the practice of kissing the Gospel book during Mass also belonged to the Danish tradition.69 On folio 164r, prayers are given for the priest as he enters the choir and stands before the altar. One of these prayers is given with the incipit Conscientias nostras (Our Consciences), referring to a continuation as in a previous prayer with an ut supra, interrupted rubrics specifying ‘osculetur crucem dicens’ (let him kiss the cross saying), ‘osculetur altare dicens’ (let him kiss the altar saying), and finally ‘osculetur evangelium dicens’ (let him kiss the Gospel book saying) at the point where he refers to how the Gospel has transmitted Christ’s peace and the holiness of the church to the congregation. Again on folio 165r, after the reading of the Gospel, a rubric states: ‘finito euangelio osculetur sacerdos textum euangelii dicens Per hec sancta euangelica dicta deleantur universa nostra delicta’ (After the Gospel is finished, let the priest kiss the text of the Gospel saying: May all our sins be washed away by these holy words of the Gospel; cf. above the similar statement in

69 I have accessed a digitized version through the Royal Library, Copenhagen (Early European Books KBDK Collection) at [accessed 2 October 2018]. A facsimile edition also exists: Missale Lundense av år 1514, ed. by Strömberg.

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Missale Romanum). This is all about kissing the Gospel book in the Missale Lundense, but it is enough to establish beyond doubt that such practices were an integrated part of the Danish Mass tradition. The printed missals around 1500 are in all likelihood to be understood as codifications of longstanding liturgical practices, rather than as liturgical reform work. As a final contextualization, I propose to have a brief look at an ordinal from a convent in Troyes, roughly contemporary with Durand’s Rationale. Here a description is preserved of a somewhat unusual version of a visitatio sepulchri ceremony (a representation of the visit of the women at the grave of Jesus on Easter morning). As so many others, it takes place during a procession on Easter morning; no music has been preserved.70 I have previously discussed this ceremony concerning its Eucharistic meaning.71 What is unusual in the first place is the specific form of the text of the dialogue between the women and the angel. Also, its description of the beginning of the procession to the main altar is unusual in its many details about the vestments and what is carried along in the procession: Et doit estre li Prestes qui doit chanter la Messe devant le gran autel tout appareillie ausi com il est desus ordene et li Diacres et li Sordiacres tout ausi com il est desus ordene et doit a avoir le tieute et l’eau benoite et la croiz et les encensiers et les cierges.72 (And the priests who are to sing the Mass before the main altar completely equipped as also ordained above and the deacons and the subdeacons as also ordained above and there must be the Gospel book,73 holy water, the cross, the censers, and the candles).74 Similarly, all the same ingredients are mentioned again as the procession moves on from the main altar to the altar which represents the grave of Jesus, where the dialogue between the angel and the women takes place, this time, however, the text gives li teutes instead of le tieute,75 thus seemingly indicating Gospel books in the plural.76 In any case, what we have here, as in the Mass ceremonies we have looked at in the main part of this article, is the presence of a Gospel book (or more) in a liturgical procession. This one, however, is not directly concerned with reading the Gospel, but — on the other hand — with representing a narrative which fundamentally constitutes the foundation of the 70 The ceremony is edited in Lipphardt, Lateinische Osterfeiern, i, 209–11 as no. 170; see also Lipphardt, Lateinische Osterfeiern, vi, 447–48, and Lateinische Osterfeiern und Osterspiele, vii, 122–24. 71 Petersen, ‘Liturgical Enactment’, pp. 17–18. 72 Lipphardt, Lateinische Osterfeiern, i, 209. 73 For the translation of tieute as Gospel book, see Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française, p. 701. 74 My translation. 75 Lipphardt, Lateinische Osterfeiern, i, 210. 76 For the translation, see Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française, p. 701.

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efficacy of the Gospel book, the resurrection of Jesus. There is no indication of a specific honouring of the Gospel book, such as kissing it. Since detailed descriptions of what is carried along in a procession are rare in such documents, it may in the first place remind us of how incidental it is whether we know of the presence of books in a procession. Possibly also of how incidental our knowledge is of the kind of honouring rituals that may have been carried out at various points of the procession. As we have seen also in the relatively detailed descriptions of the OR I and William Durand’s commentary, many details pertaining to how the Gospel book is carried back and forth and how it is treated would be omitted in many ordinals. There seems to have been a wide range concerning which details it would be necessary to write down in a particular document or to assume known by those who carried out the liturgical procedures. In this article, I have pointed to a main tradition of honouring the Gospel book as a sacred sign of Christ’s coming to this world, a practice that seemingly was continued in spite of iconoclastic reservations and theological restrictions on notions of sacramentality. This practice appears to have been an established practice throughout Latin Christendom during the Middle Ages, including Denmark. The final contextual example may remind us that what we know, that is what preserved documents show, may only be a part of a larger practice. It has also been shown that the Gospel book had a different status in the Mass than did other liturgical books since there are no similar procedures for honouring the epistle book or other books that were used during the Mass. In this sense, the Gospel book appears as a sacrament (in the mentioned broader, early notion of sacramentality, as a sign of the holy). Also, the theological conceptualization of a notion of sacrament during the twelfth century may have led to a situation where practices which were not officially sacramental, and thus not under so much theological scrutiny, may have been allowed to develop more freely.77 Liturgical books rarely give insight into why things are done. The liturgical commentaries by Amalar in the ninth and Durand in the thirteenth centuries, however, especially in the light of the development of sacramental thought during the high Middle Ages make it reasonable to speculate that the use of material objects and signs, and of honouring them were a way of actualizing the fundamental theological understanding of the Mass. This was explicitly stated by Durand in terms of the stronger presence he believed to find in images than in words which, on his account, only recall what has happened, whereas the images, and one might suggest by extension, material objects signifying holy matters, as for instance the Gospel book, in his understanding make the divine presence directly manifest. Although not all medieval authors would agree with Durand in this distinction, Durand’s position may well be the more typical for the late medieval period.78

77 See also Petersen, ‘Liturgical Enactment’, pp. 21–22. 78 See also Palazzo, L’invention chrétienne, pp. 75–76.

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Works Cited Primary Sources Amalar of Metz, On the Liturgy, ii: Books 3–4, ed. and trans. by Eric Knibbs, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, 36 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014) Andrieu, Michel, Les ‘Ordines romani’ du haut moyen âge, ii: Les Textes (Ordines I– XIII), Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense (Louvain: Peeters, 1971) Augustine, De civitate Dei, ed. by Bernhard Dombart and Alfons Kalb, Corpus Christianorum, series Latina, 47–48, 2 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955) ———, De doctrina christiana, ed. and trans. by R. P. H. Green, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995) Durand, William, Rationale divinorum officiorum, I–IV, ed. by Anselme Davril and Timothy M. Thibodeau, Corpus Christianorum, continuatio mediaevalis, 140 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995) –———, The ‘Rationale divinorum officiorum’ of William Durand of Mende: A New Translation of the Prologue and Book One, trans. by Timothy M. Thibodeau, Records of Western Civilization (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007) –———, Rationale, iv: On the Mass and Each Action Pertaining to It, ed. and trans. by Timothy M. Thibodeau, Corpus Christianorum in Translation, 14 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) Germanus of Constantinople, On the Divine Liturgy, ed. and trans. by Paul Meyendorff, Popular Patristics (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984) Hrabanus Maurus, De institutione clericorum, i: Book I, ed. and trans. by Detlev Zimpel, Fontes Christiani, 61.1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006) Hugh of Saint Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, ed. by Rainer Berndt, Corpus Victorinum, textus historici, 1 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2008) ———, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De sacramentis), trans. by Roy J. Deferrari, The Medieval Academy of America Publication, 58 (Cambridge, MA: The Medieval Academy of America, 1951) John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images, trans. by Andrew Louth, Popular Patristics (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003) Lipphardt, Walter, ed., Lateinische Osterfeiern und Osterspiele, Ausgaben deutscher Literatur des XV. bis XVIII. Jahrhunderts, 5, 9 vols (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1975–90) Missale Lundense av år 1514, ed. by Bengt Strömberg (Malmö: John Kroon, Malmö Ljustrycksanstalt, 1946) Missale Romanum: editio princeps (1570), ed. by Manlio Sodi and Achille Maria Triacca, Monumenta liturgica Concilii Tridentini, 2 (Città del Vaticano: Libreria editrice vaticana, 1998) Ordo Romanus primus, ed. and trans. by Edward Godfrey Cuthbert and Frederic Atchley (London: De La More, 1905)

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Strabo, Walahfrid, Libellus de exordiis et incrementis quarundam in observationibus ecclesiasticis rerum, trans. and liturgical commentary by Alice L. HartingCorrea, Mittellateinische Studien und Texte, 19 (Leiden: Brill, 1996) Secondary Works Aubert, Eduardo Henrik, ‘When the Roman Liturgy Became Frankish — Sound, Performance and Sublation in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries’, Études grégoriennes, 40 (2013), 57–160 Chazelle, Celia, The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era: Theology and Art of Christ’s Passion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) Ekenberg, Anders, Cur Cantatur? Die Funktionen des liturgischen Gesanges nach den Autoren der Karolingerzeit (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1987) Fouracre, Paul, ‘Frankish Gaul to 814’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, ii: c. 700–c. 900, ed. by Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 85–109 Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, vii (Paris: F. Vieweg, 1892) Hiley, David, Western Plainchant: A Handbook (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993) McCall, Richard D., Do this: Liturgy as Performance (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007) McGrath, Alister, Christian Theology: An Introduction, 2nd edn (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1997) McKitterick, Rosamond, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 789–895, Studies in History (London: Royal Historical Society, 1977) ———, ‘Eighth-Century Foundations’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, ii: c. 700–c. 900, ed. by Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 681–94 ———, Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) Noble, Thomas F. X., Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians, The Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009) Page, Christopher, The Christian West and its Singers: The First Thousand Years (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010) Palazzo, Éric, L’invention chrétienne des cinq sens dans la liturgie et l’art au Moyen Âge (Paris: Cerf, 2014) Petersen, Nils Holger, ‘Ritual. Medieval Liturgy and the Senses: The Case of the Mandatum’, in The Saturated Sensorium: Principles of Perception and Mediation in the Middle Ages, ed. by Hans Henrik Lohfert Jørgensen, Henning Laugerud, and Laura Katrine Skinnebach (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2015), pp. 180–205 ———, ‘Liturgical Enactment’, in The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance, ed. by Pamela King, Routledge Companions (London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 13–29

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Van Roo, William A., The Christian Sacrament, Analecta Gregoriana, 262 (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1992) Steck, Wolfgang, Der Liturgiker Amalarius: Eine quellenkritische Untersuchung zu Leben und Werk eines Theologen der Karolingerzeit, Münchener theologische Studien 1, Historische Abteilung, 35 (St Ottilien: EOS, 2000) Vogel, Cyrille, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources, trans. and rev. by William G. Storey and Niels Krogh Rasmussen, NPM Studies in Church Music and Liturgy (Washington, D.C.: Pastoral Press, 1986)

Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen

Making the Liturgy Manifest: Objects and Materials in Late Medieval Church Rites

It is not easy for us today to envisage what medieval church interiors looked like, since reforms, reformations, and changes in taste and style have created a huge gap between them and the buildings we see today, which often contain only a few reminiscences of the Middle Ages (Fig. 5.1). We must nevertheless imagine the medieval church interiors as spaces that could be filled with objects large and small, all in some way related to the rites celebrated. Traditionally, the historiography of church art and church architecture assumes that the quantity of objects and ‘clutter’, as the Lutheran reformers of the sixteenth century would say,1 grew steadily throughout the Middle Ages. In other words a narrative has been established which describes an accumulation of ‘stuff ’, to use Daniel Miller’s word, in the church interior, which was only reduced by the Reformation of the sixteenth century as a result of new understandings of the use of the church and its decor. Much could be said about this development, which is far from as simple as outlined here; but in the following only two aspects will be dealt with. First, some general remarks of a historiographical nature will be made concerning both the international and Danish scholarship on objects coming from ecclesiastical interiors; then the focus will shift towards an attempt to establish a framework through which we can describe the role or character that such objects were believed to have, in particular in the liturgy. The last part of this article thus attempts to illustrate the complexities associated with the analysis of objects rooted in rituals as heavily invested with centuries of theological thinking as the liturgy of the medieval church. It will thereby be argued that objects in the church operated as funnels between the immaterial or formless and this world though an agency invested in these objects, based on the belief



1 See for instance Palladius, Visitatsbogen, ed. by Jacobsen, pt 1. Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen, Doctor of Theology (University of Copenhagen). Editor at the Churches of Denmark, The Danish National Museum. Email: [email protected] Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix, and Mads Heilskov, AS 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 95–121 © FHG10.1484/M.AS-EB.5.123987

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Figure 5.1. The interior of Rynkeby Church, island of Funen in Denmark, looking east. Photo by Arnold Mikkelsen.

that despite of all earthly flaws and lowliness they contained hidden qualities revealed when activated through the liturgical handling or a devotional gaze. The objects discussed mostly stem from medieval Denmark and the sources feeding into this discussion are international. While the conclusions drawn here certainly pertain to medieval Denmark they equally so address shared commonplace beliefs within most of the Western medieval Church.

Liturgical Objects and Scholarly Traditions It seems fair to say that, symptomatically, the church furnishings and liturgical objects have been the subject of investigations in highly specific scholarly traditions with clear interests and agendas. Research in the field has been driven by theologians and — primarily — art historians as well as museum curators, while archaeologists mainly have been preoccupied with technical aspects of the buildings rather than the fittings inside. However, we can also note scholarly volumes such as the works of the British Francis Bond, who published a number of surveys of particular types of furnishing — covers for the baptismal fonts, choir screens, etc.,2 or Joseph Braun’s seminal elucidations of the altar and the vasa sacra.3 Such monographs were common research 2 Bond, Fonts and Font Covers and Screens and Galleries. 3 Braun, Das christliche Altargerät and Der christliche Altar.

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endeavours in the first part of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, when there were pressing questions about stylistic interrelations, the workshops behind the church fittings, and their state of preservation; whereas their role as ritual objects in the liturgy and in the church as such was often only briefly touched upon in their introductory chapters. In fact, the above-mentioned Joseph Braun is one of the exceptions, actually employing a wide range of liturgical sources in his works. The attention of twentieth-century theologians to medieval church inventory, as expressed in research, is generally surprisingly limited. In a Protestant context, one might attribute this lack of interest in historical liturgical objects to a confessionally conditioned bias, but the situation is not very different when one consults the work of Catholic theologians. Up until recent decades it has thus been a shared characteristic of liturgical scholarship across confessional divides to perceive church rituals as mainly sung or spoken rites where the material or physical dimension of the liturgy remains more or less untouched. For theologians, to put it bluntly, research on the liturgy has primarily been a textual study focusing on the complexities of the words rather than the ceremonial proceedings as a whole, in which the verbal dimension is only one component among a number of spatial and physical aspects. In fact, after the Enlightenment and modernity have transformed the perception of the role of church rites it feels at times as if the materiality of medieval religion was something of an embarrassment to scholars in the first part of the 1900s. Illustrative of this trend is the still-seminal work of Josef Andreas Jungmann, whose unfolding of the genesis of the Roman Mass only gives occasional glimpses of the practical aspects of the liturgical proceedings.4 A rare figure in this field was the German Catholic theologian and art historian Joseph Sauer, who published his Symbolik des Kirchengebäudes in 1924,5 in which he described fundamental notions about the perceived connections between materiality and church ceremonies in medieval religion. The level of sophistication in academic interpretation has developed since then, but Sauer’s work remains a fundamental platform for any endeavour in this field. For art historians, polemically stated, objects in the church interior have traditionally been prioritized and hierarchized in relevance in terms of the artistic and aesthetic concepts that re-emerged in the late 1700s when sculpture and painting were considered the most important modes of visual expression.6 Altarpieces and crucifixes could thus be categorized as ‘works of art’ belonging to the category of fine arts, while censers, monstrances, aspergilla, candleholders, and so on might have artistic quality, but were classified as decorative arts or minor arts (Kleinkunst); that is, utility objects

4 Jungmann, Missarum sollemnia. 5 Sauer, Symbolik des Kirchengebäudes. 6 Danto, The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art; Fried, ‘Art and Objecthood’; Shiner, The Invention of Art.

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that only marginally have a role to play in art-historical scholarship on church interiors unless their lavish materials seem to demand closer scrutiny.7 This modern notion of art and relevance has distorted the understanding of the importance of objects and materials in the medieval liturgy as a whole. Such distinctions among the objects in the church has made it difficult for researchers to appreciate the way objects were used in the ceremonies and, as we shall see below, the way medieval liturgists discussed items used in the rites they set out to explain to their readers. An understanding which basically, for instance, gave the crucifix and the censer equal weight as representations in the liturgy, and accordingly more or less had to be understood as symbols expressing different ideas, but operating within the same referential system. Hence, as we shall see over the following pages, it is also difficult, within a hermeneutical reading based on the trends here under scrutiny, to establish firm distinctions among the different objects in the churches on the basis of their roles as tools or notions of function, since images are viewed as agents of representation on an equal footing with what we traditionally would call utility objects; in fact objects are often fashioned with images painted or engraved on them, which only adds further to the blurring of all distinctions; and all church fittings ultimately aim to convey meaning to the beholder. This recognition has largely been obscured by an older art history, like the studies produced by for instance the prominent connoisseur of medieval art in North Germany Max Hasse or the Danish art historian Francis Becket,8 in which certain modes of representation were deemed more meaningful than others, primarily on the basis of aesthetic appraisal of the materials, not on the actual functions of the objects during the rites. The attitudes described above within scholarship on liturgy and liturgical objects have only been generally redefined since the 1980s, as part of a growing embrace of interdisciplinary studies as a major stimulator of new approaches and perspectives. Equally, the rapidly shifting, so-called ‘turns’ in scholarship have prompted new interest in church ceremonies, as well as a particular preoccupation with notions of spatiality,9 cultural memory,10 performativity,11 and ritual thinking as such.12 Sible de Blaauw could sum up the development in a clarifying article from 1991,13 and since then the number of works on art and liturgy or liturgy and material culture has exploded. To mention but a few, one can point to the publications of such scholars as Kees van der Ploeg,14 Johannes

7 See for instance Fritz, Goldschmiedekunst. 8 See for instance Hasse, ‘Benedikt Dreyer’ or Beckett, Danmarks Kunst. 9 Hanawalt, Medieval Practices of Space. 10 Samuel, Theatres of Memory. 11 Blick and Gelfand, eds, Push Me, Pull You. 12 Andås, ‘Art and Ritual’. 13 De Blaauw, ‘Architecture and Liturgy’. 14 Van der Ploeg, Art, Architecture and Liturgy.

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Tripps,15 Justin E. A. Kroesen,16 and Andreas Gormans.17 Indeed one can speak of a material turn in scholarship during the last two decades. Caroline Walker Bynum published a series of essays in 2011 entitled Christian Materiality,18 where she presented the conclusions of her own work in this field. While the fascination with material religious culture up until then had been strong, Bynum’s scholarly authority clearly sparked further interest in the subject, and the number of works on liturgy and material culture is now enormous — perhaps indeed this line of inquiry has outgrown itself and is gradually being succeeded by studies into the affects and emotions, the perception of the self within devotional spaces and commonplace rhetorical phrases used to handwave the limits of language and material culture when it comes to express complex religious ideas. The level of sophistication and methodological awareness in these texts varies, but they all testify to the importance of understanding liturgy not merely as a textual matter, but as ceremonial proceedings which activated the full bodily sensorium. With these points in mind, I will now turn to the material as such and attempt a reading of the interaction between church furnishings and liturgical vessels which strives to be in tune with what we can assume would have been commonplace thinking within medieval Denmark.

Holy Week: A Case Study Altarpieces, with their prominent position on the church altars, have remained a popular object of research, undoubtedly because images and sculpture allow us to establish obvious links between the object and the ceremony; but retables, for instance, only played a direct role as such in a few select Masses and proceedings. Winged retables could be turned according to the church calendar while, along with all other representations in the church, they could be covered or closed after the Maundy Thursday service.19 In this sense, the altarpieces are similar to any other object in the church; some were assigned a relatively central role, while others had a more discreet presence in the rites. The baptismal font and the crucifix were both used on certain occasions, while the censer, for example was used in virtually all rites. In order to reach some understanding of how objects or items were employed in the liturgy we consequently have to scrutinize the individual ceremonies. An illuminating way to do so is by taking a closer look at the ritual proceedings around Easter, when a dense liturgical programme was observed throughout all medieval parishes and communities. Easter Week

15 Tripps, Das handelnde Bildwerk. 16 Kroesen, The Interior of the Medieval Village Church. 17 Gormans, Das Bild der Erscheinung. 18 Bynum, Christian Materiality. 19 Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars; Kaspersen, ‘Billeder og liturgi’ and ‘Højalter, liturgi og andagt’.

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thus provides us with a vantage point from which to qualify notions about the role of objects and materiality in the medieval liturgy. Holy Week was undoubtedly the dramatic high point of the medieval church calendar.20 One can easily argue that the church ceremonies gradually built up from Christmas towards Easter throughout the year, to culminate in an intense celebration in which there were activities in the church almost around the clock for the whole week. These celebrations were not just something that took place inside the church building; they were actions that also involved the surroundings of the parish and activated the congregation quite directly, as we can see if we follow some of the activities of Holy Week as they might have taken place in a rural Danish parish around 1500. The following passage represents an interpretation of the ritual proceedings described in the so-called Manual of Bystorp from the early sixteenth century, a shorthand liturgical handbook compiling the most important ceremonies to be performed by the parish priest in the diocese of Roskilde.21 The Easter ceremonies began with the celebration of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. The parish priest and his assistants gathered in the church in the morning and began to go in procession around the parish while singing hymns, and then returned to the church, where a Mass was celebrated. During this procession, banners, lights, and a sculpture or image of Christ could be carried along. From southern Germany in particular we know the so-called Palmesel; a wooden representation of Jesus seated on a full-scale donkey. The Christ figure is placed on a wagon so that it can be pulled along during the procession.22 The parishioners could either join the procession from the beginning or gather in selected places — the important thing was that they brought branches to wave, symbolizing palm leaves, just as the citizens of Jerusalem had celebrated Christ’s entry into the city by waving palm leaves in the Bible narrative (Fig. 5.2). These branches, which were brought into the church during the Mass celebrated after the procession, passed through the village, were considered valuable, blessed objects, and were subsequently stored in the homes as protective amulets. We also know that in the following days some people wore twigs from these branches on their clothes — also as amulets. The formula for the official liturgical blessing of these branches by the priest is included in The Bystorp Manual, however, without any specifications as to the shape or nature of the twigs.23 From many sources outside of Denmark, we know that boxwood was the preferred material.24 Where boxwood was planted and thereby available the same might have been the case in Denmark, but we 20 Hardison, Christian Rite. 21 See The Manual from Bystorp, ed. by Strömberg. Where no other reference is given the information is based on this text. See also Jürgensen, Changing Interiors, pp. 367–82. 22 Wiepen, Palmsonntagsprozessionen; Lipsmeyer, ‘Palmsonntag-Christus’; Tripps, Das handelnde Bildwerk, pp. 89–113. 23 The Manual from Bystorp, ed. by Strömberg, pp. 70–76. 24 Record and Garrat, ‘Boxwoods’; Wright, ‘The Palm Sunday Procession’.

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Figure 5.2. Triumphal entry into Jerusalem as depicted in the vaults of Reerslev Church, Zealand in Denmark. Wall painting, c. 1460–1480. Photo by the author.

Figure 5.3. The entombed Christ. Wooden sculpture, c. 1500–1525, from Kerteminde on the island of Funen in Denmark. Now in the National Museum (inventory no. D16/1992). Photo by Arnold Mikkelsen.

may also envision the use of twigs of holly. The common denominator for both is of course, that they are evergreens and thereby with fresh leaves during Easter when most trees in Northern Europe at least, would still be leafless. The next important ceremony was the reading or proclamation of the Passion,25 but here we shall move on to the so-called Adoration of the Cross (Adoratio Crucis) which took place within the church early in the afternoon of

25 Monti, ‘The Mass of Palm Sunday’.

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Good Friday.26 When the bells sounded, the congregation would gather barefoot in the church. On the day before this, as mentioned above, the parish priest and his helpers had closed or covered all altarpieces, crosses, and crucifixes in the church with a cloth and had placed a large crucifix, also covered, on the high altar; possibly at times the actual rood, which is preserved in large numbers and would normally hang in the chancel arch. The congregation consequently arrived in a church that was completely changed from the building they ordinarily encountered, and found themselves in the nave, with their gaze directed towards the choir, and the devotions of the Cross could thus begin. The priest and his helper stepped up to the altar and kissed it, then prostrated themselves in prayer facing east. A large number of prayers were now said while the congregation knelt; they could also pray or read from their own primers or prayer books. When these prayers were finished, the priest and one of his aides moved up to the altar, pulled the cloth from the covered crucifix, making it visible, and together they raised the cross for everyone to see. They then turned the figure towards the kneeling congregation in the nave and took three steps towards the gathering of parishioners. Each step was accompanied by several ceremonial actions, but the most important were the improperia or Reproaches of the Cross; allegations the priest directed at the congregation, as if they were voiced by Christ himself.27 An example of such an accusation reads: ‘Popule meus, ego te pavi manna per desertum; et tu me caecidisti alapis, et flagellis’ (O my people, I bore you up with manna in the desert, but you struck me down and scourged me).28 In response to these charges, the kneeling congregation was to pray for forgiveness with joined hands. The intensity of the accusations rose as the cross was carried closer to the parishioners in the nave, and culminated when the congregation had to crawl one by one on all fours up to the priest and his helper who held the crucifix, and kiss the feet of the figure as a sign of repentance, reconciliation, and love.29 When the Adoration of the Cross was completed, the crucifix was carried back to the high altar from which it had been lifted at the beginning of the ceremony, and once again covered with a cloth. The next stage of the Good Friday ceremonies was supposed to begin here. By this time the afternoon was well advanced and the ceremony known as the Burial of the Cross (Depositio Crucis) could now be performed. On an altar in the church — probably the high altar, perhaps a Holy Cross or Corpus Christi

26 Harper, The Forms and Orders, pp. 140–45; Tripps, Das handelnde Bildwerk, pp. 114–58. 27 Lillie, ‘O vos omnes’; Petersen, ‘Liturgical Representation’. 28 Petersen, ‘Liturgical Representation’, pp. 181–89. 29 ‘Finitis collectis Sacerdos et ministri altaris ad vestibulum redeant et casulas stolas phanonesque deponant similiter et calceos Et in chorum ad salutandum crucem conueniant | quam duo presbiteri albis et stolis induti ex utraque crucem substentantes Cantent Popule meus Crux debet esse cooperta lintheo. Et duo pueri stantes respondeant Agios Chorus subiungat Sanctus et quociens hec cantant flectant genua veniam petendo’, The Manual from Bystorp, ed. by Strömberg, p. 77.

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altar — a container was placed to represent the tomb of Christ.30 Indeed the whole ritual proceeding could take place at a special, life-size sarcophagus explicitly manufactured for the rite, but which, of course, had a life as devotional object outside the specific ceremony in question here (Fig. 5.3).31 The ceremonial tomb had been lined with a corporal, the cloth that the Host was placed upon during Mass. The priest and his helpers would now, depending on the size of the grave, again take the cross from the altar and carry it in procession to the grave, where they would place it. As mentioned, the size of the cross and the tomb were both important to the way the ritual was performed, and in many places a consecrated wafer was buried instead of a crucifix. For this ceremony, the priest was often accompanied by at least two helpers, one carrying a lit candle and another swinging a censer, whereupon the ceremony continued with Communion for the priest and those who wished to partake. The buried cross or wafer would remain in the tomb until the following morning, when it would be lifted up and the empty container left behind in plain sight as a ritual remembrance of the empty tomb described in the Bible and for use in devotional exercises. In some places, there was a specially produced figure of the resurrected Christ that could be placed on the high altar of the church, where it would be positioned for the following forty days until Ascension Day. In other places, indeed perhaps in most churches, a consecrated wafer was on display on the altar during this period. The events on the Feast of the Ascension marked the end of the ceremonial cycle of Easter. On this day, the congregation would gather in the church in the middle of the day, when the priest was to begin the celebration of Mass from the high altar, on which a wafer or perhaps a sculpture of Christ had now been visible for forty days. A series of prayers was said and hymns were sung from the altar and then the ceremony was ready to enter into its final phase. Accompanied by hymns and enveloped in incense smoke, the wafer or the cross was removed from the altar and put out of sight. From Germany in particular,32 we know that the sculpture of the risen Christ in procession could be carried to a special place in the church where an opening in the loft was located. Here, amidst more singing and smoke, the figure was to be lifted from the nave and disappear through the ceiling of the church, pulled up by a rope. We have no actual sources describing such proceedings from Denmark; but that figures were also raised through the ceiling of churches on Ascension Day here seems likely, as evidenced by several indications. From the island of Zealand, in Kirke-Helsinge Church, a wooden sculpture from the late fourteenth century is preserved which may well have been used as

30 Taubert, ‘Mittelalterliche Kruzifixe’; Tripps, Das handelnde Bildwerk, pp. 114–58. 31 From Denmark we know of effigies such as this one from the monastery church in Mariager, the town church of Kerteminde, and the rural parish churches of Tornby in northern Jutland, as well as Frørup on the island of Funen. 32 Krause, ‘“Imago ascensionis”’.

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m a rtin wan g s g aar d j ü rg e n s e n Figure 5.4. Christ resurrected. Wooden sculpture, late fourteenth century, from Kirke-Helsinge Church, Zealand, Denmark. Now in the National Museum (inventory no. D4246). Photo courtesy of the Danish National Museum.

such a figure (Fig. 5.4). In several parts of the country one furthermore finds examples of buildings with vaults from the fifteenth century where circular openings in the top part of the vaults could very likely have served this very purpose during the Feast of the Ascension, as these openings lack all practicality as regular passageways between the church interior and the church lofts. This we, for instance find in several churches around Aarhus, like Kolt and Sabro Churches, along with Aarhus Cathedral itself. Indeed, in the early 1600s a source from Bordesholm in Holstein, a Lutheran priest, wrote: Mitten im Chor im Gewölbe ist ein rundes Loch, als ein kleines Weinfaß, dadurch ist die Ascensionis der Himmelfahrt Christi geschehen. Denn sie haben einen Götzen mit Leinwand geschmückt dadurch gezogen, als wenn Christus zum Himmel führe. Hiebey sind alle Bauersleute gewesen, denen man Hostien und Oblaten wieder herunter geworffen, wo dann die Leute mit Hauffen darnach gegriffen, alsdann hat man sie von oben ab mit Wasser begossen. (In the middle of the choir there is a round hole of the size of a small wine barrel and through this the Ascensionis, the Ascension of Christ, happened. Thus they [the Catholics] drew an idol decorated with canvas up through this opening as if Christ went to heaven. During this, all the peasants were gathered, and they threw Hosts and wafers down to them and as they collected these with their hands, water was also poured down from above on them.)33 The last action in the description must be a reference to the holy water which was poured down from the loft. We know that in some places it was poured down on the congregation along with flowers that were also thrown 33 Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Thott 1006º, Martini Coronæi.

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down from the loft when the Christ sculpture had been pulled up and had disappeared from sight.34 As can be gathered from this brief summary of the ritual proceedings around Easter as they might have taken place in a rural parish church, a host of items or objects were dynamically employed in the liturgy as crucial components in the rituals. Indeed the things mentioned here are only those objects handled directly during the ceremonies; to these we may then add all the objects which would obviously also have been present during these proceedings without playing as prominent a role as the crucifix, for instance. Nevertheless, objects or material representations are clearly integrated into the very core of these rites, and this calls for a closer look at what this ritual use of materiality communicated, or was believed to communicate, to the clergy and congregation.

What Does the Object Do in the Liturgy? In asking this question, we tap into two major strands in the medieval understanding of how both the liturgy and the world as such related to God. In other words, we close in on fundamental concerns in learned theology which in all probability were only rarely transmitted in their full complexity to the laity. Yet notions of sacramentality and anagogy are crucial to an understanding of why the liturgy inspired the use of objects as summarized above during the Easter ceremonies. Durand (c. 1230–1296), the great compiler of liturgical thinking, addresses this problem of dissemination of knowledge in the prologue to his Rationale divinorum officiorum, composed around 1291–1292.35 Here he states that some of the inspiration to write his magnum opus came from a feeling that the clergy who managed the churches on a day-to-day basis had lost the understanding or awareness of the symbolic meaning behind the rites and the houses of worship in which they performed their services.36 While Durand could thus be concerned about the state of learning among the lower clergy, the Rationale rapidly spread throughout Europe and by the end of the Middle Ages his sometimes convoluted interpretation of hidden symbols was one of the most read and used authorities on these matters. In fact, Durand’s interpretations had become commonplaces of which even Protestants of the early modern period made diligent use when they needed explanations of why this or that object was in a church. However, before we can turn to what we could deem the mainstream medieval understanding of why objects were used in church rites, we need to delve briefly into the historiography again.

34 This phenomenon and the whole proceeding has also been discussed by Ulla Haastrup, in Haastrup, ‘Medieval Props’, pp. 147–59. 35 Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau. 36 Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, p. 2.

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It has been a common trope in research on the connections among images, objects, and the liturgy to use a terminology culled from the theatre. Most studies, for instance of the special types of sculpture developed for the ceremonies of Holy Week, have been written from an understanding of these objects as ‘props’ or ‘stage equipment’ to be used in the ‘drama of the liturgy’.37 While it is certainly relevant to note the sense of a dramatic build-up of tension leading to catharsis in the church calendar as a whole, in each individual Mass, and indeed in every rite, the idea that the liturgy is something performed in front of a congregation playing the role of passive spectators fundamentally misunderstands how medieval liturgists — such as Durand at least — perceived what church rites were and what they were supposed to evoke in the congregation. One particular strand in liturgical scholarship has left leeway for this kind of literal interpretation of ‘the drama of the Mass’ — the exploration of a diverse nucleus of texts still commonly referred to as liturgical dramas, and traditionally understood as brief ritual plays performed in the church. The idea of the liturgical drama as a particular ceremonial category, which especially builds on the publications of the theatre historians Edmund K. Chambers and Karl Young,38 has been indirectly but nevertheless crucially responsible for inspiring a particular approach to objects in the liturgy, emphasizing not only the use of a theatrical vocabulary but also a reading of the church as a stage.39 Thus art historians in particular, through the reading of the influential works of Chambers and Young, have found a methodological approach to describing how objects are to be viewed when used in the medieval liturgy. Nevertheless, not only is the term ‘liturgical drama’ misleading within its own scholarly field; the questions and issues that have grown out of this terminology have also, as we shall see below, helped to distort the view of the use of objects in the church and in the liturgy. When words such as ‘props’ and ‘staging’ are used to describe liturgical processes, for example in many studies dealing with the aforementioned Easter ceremonies, these processes also become conflated with so-called ‘Easter plays’ and ‘Church plays’,40 which were associated with the church calendar but were not part of church ceremonies as such. What this theatrical reading of the ceremonies of Holy Week, for instance, does is to establish the ceremonies as something extraordinary and outside the scope of the ‘normal’ liturgy. We may thus also note the large number of objects used in the church that are rarely or never referred to as ‘props’ or ‘set-pieces’. The baptismal font for instance was used at least as dramatically

37 Haastrup, ‘Medieval Props’. 38 Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage; Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church. 39 See also the discussion of this subject in terms of post-medieval church art and ceremony in Jürgensen, ‘The Rhetoric of Splendour’. 40 Tydeman, The Theatre in the Middle Ages, pp. 97–120.

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as the crucifix, but the font is hardly ever mentioned in connection with the drama-interpretation of the liturgy, whereas the crucifix is given a central role in this understanding. Critical research since the early 1980s has expressed doubts about the category of ‘liturgical drama’ and its special significance for the liturgy but has also convincingly demonstrated how these texts are firmly embedded in the liturgy and not something apart.41 The same goes for the objects used during church ceremonies; while some were featured more prominently than others, no particular ‘props’ were developed to accompany any dramatic enactments within the ceremonies. As stated, the theatre terminology is useful for conveying certain ideas that revolve around the fundamental performative character of the church ceremonies, but it should not be applied as a specific prism through which the ceremonies themselves are studied. The church housed a wide variety of ceremonial objects, and despite the fact that the church’s furnishings served specific purposes, we can never understand them as tools alone; their main task was and is to be seen and by their presens actively, with the agency invested in them, to indicate or point to dogmatic beliefs and to make graspable invisible and intellectual qualities in the church space. Thus, to understand objects in the church, it is necessary to understand them as a part of the liturgy and see them as just as important or crucial to the ceremony as the spoken words or performed gestures of the clergy, which constituted a multifaceted, organic whole. And this finally takes us back to the Middle Ages.

Sacramentality and Anagogy Briefly stated, one can say that all objects in the church manifested or revealed the Church’s teachings; along with the words and gestures of the liturgy, they amplified the internalization process of acknowledging and repeating basic, dogmatic religious truths. They demonstrated aspects of faith which words had difficulty expressing, such as the ‘holy’, as well as the sense of what we would call transcendence. Also, they anchored the liturgy by adding material substance to the space of the ritual and a visible fullness beyond the corporeal presence of clergy and congregation. While liturgical texts thus mostly focus on the words to be sung or spoken, with only vague instructions on the actual movements and uses of objects, this does not necessarily reflect their relative importance. Hence, one could argue that the medieval liturgy was primarily orchestrated around the handling of certain objects at specific points during the ceremonies, and to a great extent used text and spoken words to frame and show these objects to the congregation in order to create the right framing for the experience and understanding of the ceremonies.

41 Flanigan, ‘The Liturgical Context of the Quem queritis Trope’ and Flanigan, ‘Medieval Liturgy and the Arts’; Petersen, ‘Biblical Reception’.

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Figure 5.5. Order of procession illustrated in the Sarum Processional, printed 1508 in Rouen. After Processionale ad usum insignis ac praeclarae ecclesiae Sarum, 1882.

If we shift our attention to the so-called Sarum Rite, which from its inception in the late eleventh century gradually became one of the predominant liturgical uses on the British Isles by the late Middle Ages, a vivid glimpse of the importance of objects and materiality in church ceremonies can be gained. In the Sarum Processional,42 printed in 1508 in Rouen,43 the processions of the cathedral are recorded in the usual way, but what is striking in our context is the inclusion of woodcuts illustrating the order of the clergy participating in these processions (Fig. 5.5). However, not only are the celebrating clergy often

42 Processionale, ed. by Henderson. 43 Pfaff, The Liturgy in Medieval England, pp. 365–87.

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left out of these illustrations and simply replaced by the objects they were to carry during the proceedings; the clergy, when present, are mostly seen from above simply as tonsured heads, and are essentially reduced to objectified symbols. The agency thereby seems to have shifted from the wielder or user of the object to the object itself. What is communicated is in this way not expressed by the handler, but by that which is handled. The objects used during the processions become non-verbal expressions of the very meaning behind the whole proceeding and demonstrate how invested objects, when activated, could link the terrestrial with the beyond. The liturgical items thereby acquire a strong presence which we would otherwise miss in the Sarum Processional of 1508. Comparing the words to be sung as recorded in the text, and the images placed nearby, we see the intricate dialectical relationship between word and object firmly demonstrated. Motions and touched or handled objects accompanied by words fused the seen and heard together and made them into inseparable entities throughout the rite as a whole. In other words, the ordering of the objects defined each procession as much as the words to be sung; but if the illustrations had not been included, we would only have the text, as in almost every other processional. We find no similar sources from Denmark demonstrating the same, but I would argue that the Sarum text still offers insights into the ways of thinking about these things which was shared across the medieval Church. In his De sacramentis Christianae fidei, written around 1134, based on Augustine, Hugh of Saint Victor stated that the sacraments were manifested through ceremony, and that this manifestation consisted of three equal parts: representation by things (rebus), acts (factis), and words (verbis).44 As seen in the example from Sarum, this thinking was critical to the medieval understanding of rituals in general, because these three elements had to be present in order for the ceremony to embrace all levels of cognition. The baptism, for instance, was thus constituted by the blessing and the exorcizing of devils,45 the walk to the font by priest and family members with the infant, and finally the font itself containing the baptismal water and the actual pouring of the baptismal water over the head or the immersion of the child. In the liturgical space, the object was as much a part of the experience as the spoken or sung words and, to repeat what has already been stated, while it may be tempting to make a distinction between anthropomorphic objects such as a seated figure of Mary and other items — a candlestick for instance — such attempts are detrimental to the overall understanding of the purpose and design of the rituals. Thomas Aquinas stated in part one of his Summa theologica from the 1270s that the soul cannot rise to behold things

44 ‘In triplici materia omnia divina sacramenta conficiuntur, scilicet aut in rebus, aut in factis, aut in verbis’, Hugh of Saint Victor, Opera omnia, ed. by Migne, col. 326c. 45 See also Bertil Nilsson’s article in this volume.

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invisible if it is not guided by reflections on the visible things.46 Peter the Venerable expressed the same thing, if somewhat differently, in his treatise Contra Petrobrusianos hereticos (Against the Petrobrusian Heretics), composed between 1139 and 1141, by stating that the soul of man is moved more by presence than by absence and is moved more by having seen Christ than by having heard him.47 In the liturgical space, all meanings and all conscious contributions to the sensory impressions of the viewer were established in order to try to build a special state of mind that would reveal the divine to the participants in the liturgy. In the beliefs of medieval highly influential liturgists like Amalarius of Metz (c. 775–c. 850), Honorius Augustodunensis (c. 1080–c. 1156), and the already discussed Durand immense meaning was accordingly assigned to the physical object the moment it was introduced into the church or employed within what we could call liturgical space — that is, in a phenomenological sense, the space created during the church rites.48 The bishop or one of his representatives should in principle consecrate all the objects used during the ceremonies. This practice had declined by the late Middle Ages but during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, there was still a belief in the necessity of cleansing and consecrating all objects which were to be placed in the church interior and thereby making them blessed vehicles through which the sacred or divine could be glimpsed and momentarily accessed.49 The object became the means that allowed the sacred to manifest itself in the terrestrial sphere or from which small traces of divine origin could be gleaned by the beholder. The objects in the liturgy were thus the shells into which the divine could be or had been materialized, and the form in which the congregation could see, touch, and often also smell the presence of sanctity. The materiality or material presence of the physical object was accordingly absolutely crucial to the expression of the ceremonies and in this context vivid colours, precious metals, and splendour were the primary ways of signalling to the beholder that these objects functioned as material symbols of, or placeholders for the holy, giving form to the formless; the tainted, broken beauty of the earthly luxuries only hinted at the glorious magnificence of invisible holiness that could not be grasped in this world. If we return to the opening of Durand’s Rationale divinorum, he states in the very first lines of the paradigmatic prologue: Quæcunque in Ecclesiasticis officiis, rebus in ornamentis consistunt, diuinis plena sunt signis atque mysteriis, ac singula sunt cælesti dulcedine redundantia: si tamen diligentem habeant inspectore, qui norit mel de pretra sugere, oleumque de durissimo saxo.50

46 Thomas Aquinas, Summa, questio 84, article 7. 47 Peter the Venerable, Contra Petrobrusianos hereticos, ed. by Fearns, pp. 119–20. 48 Saur, Symbolik des Kirchengebäudes; Jürgensen, Changing Interiors, pp. 212–14. 49 Jürgensen, Changing Interiors, pp. 341–45. 50 Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, p. 1.

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(Whatever belongs to the liturgical offices, objects, and furnishings of the Church is full of signs of the divine and the sacred mysteries, and each of them overflows with celestial sweetness when it is encountered by a diligent observer who can extract honey from the rock and oil from the stoniest ground.)51 The physical object in other words prompted reflections on the holy, and offered itself as a framework within which the sacred could be placed and be seen in its terrestrial guise. The scriptures were believed to contain divine secrets to be uncovered by those who knew how to read them. The same anagogical reading of matter was possible, since the world was part of God’s creation and thus held an inner substance of divine origin. The material form accordingly contained or housed the sacred while also concealing it, as it waited to be revealed by liturgists like Durand, Sicardus of Cremona, and Amalarius of Metz, who could explain the intricate messages embedded in everything from the architecture of the church to the font, altar, and images inside.52 The way to reach such understanding was through meditation on the material at hand; a process which like so many other methods of understanding was described as a tripartite process, like Hugh of Saint Victor’s definition of the sacrament, going from recognition of the basic form (figura) to an understanding of the hidden reality beneath the form (gratia), and finally to a glimpse of the truth in this concealed message (gloria).53 From the late twelfth century on we can gradually note how throughout the remainder of the Middle Ages the act of gazing upon the sacred in material form became a more and more important, if not the most important, element in the acts of private devotion, where the presence of and bodily intimacy with the objects in the church interior became the path through which to approach and address the sacred for laity and clergy alike.54 In his treatise De sacramento altaris (On the Sacrament of the Altar) from the late twelfth century, Baldwin of Ford, archbishop of Canterbury, described the experience of seeing the Eucharist with the words stupor and admiratio (stupefaction and awe).55 This experience of seeing the transformation taking place at the altar is strikingly similar to the experience which the French abbot Suger famously expressed in his minute descriptions of the effect the costly wonders of his church in Saint Denis had on the mind.56 We can also think of the miraculously bleeding wafers, such as those venerated in Wilsnack,57 and accounts of crucifixes coming alive

51 Durand, The ‘Rationale divinorum officiorum’, trans. by Thibodeau, p. 1. 52 Sauer, Symbolik des Kirchengebäudes. 53 Leclercq, The Love of Learning, pp. 104–05. 54 See for instance Wirth, L’image médiévale. 55 Baldwin of Ford, De sacramento altaris, ed. by Migne, cols 655, 685. 56 Abbot Suger, On the Abbey Church of St Denis, ed. by Panofsky and Panofsky-Soergel. 57 Bynum, Wonderful Blood, pp. 25–46.

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and embracing the devotee58 — all tales of transcendence and of the sacred embedding itself in the material fabric of the world. Such diverse sources show us how deeply the appreciation of materials and materiality was rooted in the religious imagining of the late medieval period and how strong, in the right circumstances, the effect on the beholder was believed to be. This we can find abundantly in the primers and prayer books of the fifteenth century, where the flesh, the body, and materiality intertwine with ritual practices in both text and images.59 The Danish Marine Issdatter’s primer from 1474 describes how the devotee should go into the church and lie prostrate beneath the rood, and remain there until tears well up.60 However, liturgical objects or items in the church could also function as symbols and agents of specific ideas or messages outside the private devotions of both laity and clergy. The baptismal font, whether decorated with image or not, for instance, probably only rarely played a role in private devotions, but it was certainly an object in the church that was meant both to fulfil a practical function and to be seen, and which through potential imagery also could interact with decorations like wall paintings inside the church.61 The significance of the baptismal sacrament was represented in the object to the users of the church. Thus, the presence of the font would remind the congregation of their own baptism, their entry into the Christian community, and so the font as an object expressed ideas close to the very core of a Christian community; something which was formally acknowledged by the processional visits to the font in the liturgy during Holy Week. A stated wish from the congregation, or from laymen in general, to be in the presence of the divine and in close contact with the objects that harboured the divinity is increasingly felt in the sources from the last centuries of the Middle Ages — especially when it came to powerful objects such as relics or sculptures. Nevertheless, as also stated above in the remarks on the context of this chapter, we should abandon all notions of categorization of liturgical items in the church interior and perceive images as objects and objects as images. As early as the so-called Libri Carolini, written around 790, it is clear that the chalice filled with Christ’s blood is more important than any picture, and is in fact the most precious relic (Fig. 5.6).62 This means in other words that the chalice was to be held in higher regard than the objects that later periods have considered most relevant or important as a result of modern aesthetic judgements. Furthermore, the example of the Libri Carolini once again demonstrates how images and objects are the same — that is, vessels in which the divine could be placed and understood in symbolic form. The

58 59 60 61 62

Jürgensen, ‘Altering the Sacred Face’; cf. Mads Vedel Heilskov’s article in this volume. Camille, ‘Mimetic Identification’; Blick and Gelfand, eds, Push Me, Pull You. Middelalderens Danske Bønnebøger, ed. by Nielsen, iv, 174. Liepe, ‘On the Connection’. Theodulfus Aurelianensis, Opus Caroli, ed. by Freeman and Meyvaert, ii.27 (pp. 289–96).

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veneration of the vessel of the Eucharist expressed around 790 in no way diminished over the following centuries, as devotion to the consecrated Host assumed colossal proportions; in fact all reflections on the nature of material representation throughout the Middle Ages connect at some level with the Eucharist and the notion of Christ’s real presence in the flesh.63 The most dramatic event, which goes to the heart of this whole relationship with the material, is of course the Mass, culminating in the Elevation of the Host, when the wafer and chalice were lifted up while the priest proclaimed, ‘Hoc est enim corpus meum’, with the emphasis on est — this is the body of Christ. The transformation or transubstantiation of the particulars of the Eucharist occurred before the eyes of the congregation and showed how the divine entered the world to engage with the community and pave the way for their journey back from this world into the non-material world of the afterlife. The material representations used in the liturgy — in fact the material representations in the church as a whole — which at some level reflected this moment of change, and the variations on the theme of the divine as glimpsed or sensed through worldly matter, are legion; on the altar the body of Christ could be shown in sculpted form while the censer, shaped as an image of the New Jerusalem, like the gabled example from the church of Bøstrup on the island of Langeland,64 gave form and smell to the inner vision of things to come (Fig. 5.7). By the late Middle Ages, the understanding of material objects had evolved such that the materials were a necessity if one was to speak of the sacred as a whole. The object was the pivot on which the divine turned in the world, and everything that came into contact with this sanctity was influenced by its presence, attuned to and ultimately transformed by the sacredness it represented. The chalice acquired a sanctified nature because of the wine that was turned into blood during the Mass; the water in which the chalice was to be cleansed afterwards also assumed a blessed character; and the basin for the water was also to be protected and treated with care, because like the chalice, wine/blood, and water it also was touched by the divine, so it was not to be abused or fall into the wrong hands. In exactly the same way, the baptismal font became a sacred object by virtue of the water, which was ‘fertilized’ or sanctified by the immersion of the paschal candle in the new baptismal waters during the Easter celebrations.65 The sacred was made materially present and invited into a tangible object before the eyes of the congregation, and once it had come into the world, this holiness spread like ripples in the water to its surroundings. The object was thus both a tool of the clergy in the practical execution of the church rites, and at the same time

63 Cf. Nils Holger Petersen’s contribution to this volume along with the introduction. 64 The thirteenth-century censer is now in the collections of the Danish National Museum (inventory no.: D6548). 65 Jürgensen, Changing Interiors, pp. 249–51.

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Figure 5.6. Gold chalice and paten from Araslöv Church, c. 1390, Scania, Sweden. Now in the Danish National Museum (inventory no. D4246). Photo courtesy of the Danish National Museum.

Figure 5.7. Thirteenth-century censer from the church of Bøstrup on the island of Langeland, Denmark. Now in the Danish National Museum (inventory no. D6548). Photo courtesy of the Danish National Museum.

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a necessary manifestation of invisible qualities that could otherwise only be expressed or contained in words. This relationship became a pretext for critical voices at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the firm belief in the qualities of material representation came under critical scrutiny and ultimately became part of the controversy leading to the Protestant reformations.66 The unsympathetic attitude to the reliance on the visual or material component in the religious culture of the late Middle Ages gained momentum in different places and at different times in the confessional camps of the reformers; but they shared the point of view that the only possible way to grasp the sacred was through the Word, since the material representation would always be misunderstood and would be unable to represent the divine in any truthful or adequate way — this was in other words the exact opposite of Peter the Venerable’s argument presented above, and prompted the followers of Jean Calvin to demand the radical separation of the objects from worship and liturgy in general,67 while the Lutherans, as in many other cases, engaged in more moderate criticism and retained material manifestations.68 An interesting insight into the difficulties encountered after the Reformation by the young Lutheran Church with its stance on the material aspects of worship and the church interior can be illustrated by the continued use of candles on the altar. The lights, which according to one of the first Danish Lutheran superintendents, Peder Palladius, represented nothing other than a celebration of the altar, should only be lit when sacraments were also administered: Disse tuende lius haffuer nogit att mercke, ellers maatte de icke brende, fordj her gaar saa deglig it lius offuer vortt hoffuit den klare soel, att vj kunde endochsaa see at træde naale her inde om behoff giøres, at vj tør icke bespotte gud med liusetenden, uden de haffuer nogit at merke; det første lius paa alterit brender Iesu Christj legome till hæder och ære, det andet brender hans velsignede blod til hæder och ære69 (These two candles represent something very special, or else they would not be lit, because there shines such a wonderful light above our heads, the bright sun, and it shines so well that we could thread needles in here if necessary. Therefore, we need not mock God by lighting candles, unless they carry a meaning. The first candle on the altar burns to the glory and honour of the body of Jesus Christ, and the second burns to the glory and honour of his blessed blood.)

66 Wirth, L’image médiévale; Lentes, ‘Zwischen Adiaphora’; Havsteen, ‘Lutheran Theology’. 67 Finney, Seeing beyond the Word; Dyrness, Reformed Theology. 68 Frederiksen, ‘Reformationens betydning’; Hansen and Johannsen, ‘IMO LICET’; Fritz, Goldschmiedekunst. 69 Palladius, Visitatsbogen, ed. by Jacobsen, pp. 37–38.

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This custom is nothing other than a continuation of medieval liturgical practices, in which candles were also lit in honour of the Eucharist; but the practice was now transformed and new meanings were developed in order to explain their continued use. Consequently, for the early Lutheran Church the use of lights came close to a fetishizing of the material objects and to the medieval way of using objects and actions to show the divine presence in a way to which the evangelical reformers were in principle opposed.

Concluding Remarks It has been the ambition of this chapter to show what medieval liturgists invested in the presence of material objects in the church rites and in the church interior in general. This understanding has to a certain extent been obscured by scholarly traditions and concepts of relevance based on contemporary aesthetic appraisals of church art, rather than a view of the church interior as a functioning house dedicated to worship. However, in recent decades a turn within both international and Danish research towards a renewed appraisal of material culture, also within religion, has led to a rediscovery of the importance of the liturgical objects. The task of describing the role that such items played in the church is by no means easy, since a diverse corpus of liturgical writings has to be forged into a totality which can easily become far too cohesive, reflecting the scholarly ambition to describe and structure such thinking rather than how materials and materiality were perceived by medieval clergy and laity. Despite such pitfalls, though, we need to attempt such reconstructions in order to understand how medieval religiosity functioned, developed, and demonstrated its tremendous resilience. Furthermore, we have to keep in mind the interdisciplinary perspective on this topic of liturgy and materiality, drawing in the fields of theology, art history, history, architectural history, and archaeology, not least because the sources themselves seem to demand such an approach. By way of conclusion, we may revisit Hugo of Saint Victor’s previously cited statement about how church rites are constituted by three components: words, motions, and objects. If we want to understand or work with liturgical objects or church fixtures in general, we are well advised by Hugh to keep all three elements in mind, as they are all essential and of equal importance. If one fails to embrace this multimedial and spatial aspect, the understanding of the liturgy will be distorted and the overall perspective may be lost.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Sources Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Thott 1006º, Martini Coronæi (Antiqviteten des Klosters Bordesholm) Primary Sources Abbot Suger, On the Abbey Church of St Denis and its Art Treasures, ed. and trans. by Erwin Panofsky and Gerda Panofsky-Soergel, 2nd edn (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979) Baldwin of Ford, De sacramento altaris, in Patrologiae cursus completes: series latina, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, cciv (Paris: Migne, 1855), cols 642–776 Durand, Guillaume, Rationale divinorum officiorum, I–IV, ed. by Anselme Davril and Timothy M. Thibodeau, Corpus Christianorum, continuatio mediaevalis, 140 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995) ———, The ‘Rationale divinorum officiorum’ of William Durand of Mende: A New Translation of the Prologue and Book One, trans. by Timothy M. Thibodeau, Records of Western Civilization (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007) Hugh of Saint Victor, Opera omnia, in Patrologiae cursus completes: series latina, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, clxxvi (Paris: Garnier, 1880) The Manual from Bystorp: Lund University Library medeltidshandskrift 43a, ed. by Bengt Strömberg, Bibliotheca liturgica Danica, series Latina, 2 (Copenhagen: Gad, 1982) Middelalderens danske bønnebøger, ed. by Karl Martin Nielsen, 5 vols (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1945–82) Palladius, Peder, Visitatsbogen, in Peder Palladius’ Danske Skrifter, ed. by Lis Jacobsen, v (Copenhagen: H. H. Thiele, 1925–26), pp. 1–240 Peter the Venerable, Contra Petrobrusianos hereticos, ed. by James Fearns, Corpus Christianorum, continuatio mediaevalis, 10 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968) Processionale ad usum insignis ac praeclarae ecclesiae Sarum, ed. by William George Henderson (Leeds: M’Corquodale, 1882) Theodulfus Aurelianensis, Opus Caroli regis contra synodum (Libri Carolini), ed. by Ann Freeman and Paul Meyvaert, in Monumenta Germaniae historica: Concilia, 2, suppl. 1, 2 vols (Hanover: Hahn, 1998) Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, trans. by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 5 vols (Notre Dame: Ave Maria, 1981)

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Secondary Works Andås, Margrete Syrstad, ‘Art and Ritual in the Liminal Zone’, in The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim: Architectural and Ritual Constructions in their European Context, ed. by Margrete Syrstad Andås and others, Ritus et artes, 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 47–126 Beckett, Francis, Danmarks Kunst, ii: Gotiken (Copenhagen: Koppel, 1926) Blaauw, Sible de, ‘Architecture and Liturgy in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Traditions and Trends in Modern Scholarship’, Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft, 33 (1991), 1–34 Blick, Sarah, and Laura D. Gelfand, eds, Push Me, Pull You: Art and Devotional Interaction in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, 156.1–2, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 2011) Bond, Francis, Fonts and Font Covers (London: Waterstone, 1908) ———, Screens and Galleries in English Churches (London: Frowde, 1908) Braun, Joseph, Der christliche Altar in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung, 2 vols (Munich: Alte Meister Guenther Koch, 1924) ———, Das christliche Altargerät in seinem Sein und in seiner Entwicklung (Munich: Hueber, 1932) Bynum, Caroline Walker, Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond, The Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007) ———, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone, 2011) Camille, Michael, ‘Mimetic Identification and Passion Devotion in the Later Middle Ages: A Double-Sided Panel by Meister Francke’, in The Broken Body: Passion Devotion in Late-Medieval Culture, ed. by Alasdair A. MacDonald, Bernhard Ridderbos, and Rita M. Schlusemann, Mediaevalia Groningana, 21 (Groningen: Forsten, 1998), pp. 183–96 Chambers, Edmund Kerchever, The Mediaeval Stage (London: Oxford University Press, 1903) Danto, Arthur C., The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1986) Duffy, Eamon, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c. 1400– c. 1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992) Dyrness, William A., Reformed Theology and Visual Culture: The Protestant Imagination from Calvin to Edwards (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) Finney, Paul Corby, ed., Seeing beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) Flanigan, C. Clifford, ‘The Liturgical Context of the Quem queritis Trope’, Comparative Drama, 8 (1974), 45–62 ———, ‘Medieval Liturgy and the Arts: Visitatio Sepulchri as Paradigm’, in Liturgy and the Arts in the Middle Ages: Studies in Honour of C. Clifford Flanigan,

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ed. by Eva Louise Lillie and Nils Holger Petersen (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1996), pp. 9–35 Frederiksen, Hans Jørgen, ‘Reformationens betydning for den kirkelige kunst i Danmark’, in Reformations-perspektiver, ed. by Hans Jørgen Frederiksen, Acta Jutlandica 62.3, Teologisk serie, 14 (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 1987), pp. 100–26 Fried, Michael, ‘Art and Objecthood’, in Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 148–72 Fritz, Johann Michael, Goldschmiedekunst der Gotik in Mitteleuropa (Munich: Beck, 1982) ———, ed., Die bewahrende Kraft des Luthertums: Mittelalterliche Kunstwerke in evangelischen Kirchen (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 1997) Gormans, Andreas, and Thomas Lentes, eds, Das Bild der Erscheinung: Die Gregorsmesse im Mittelalter (Berlin: Reimer, 2007) Haastrup, Ulla, ‘Medieval Props in the Liturgical Drama’, Hafnia: Copenhagen Papers in the History of Art, 11 (1987), 133–70 Hanawalt, Barbara A., and Michal Kobialka, eds, Medieval Practices of Space, Medieval Cultures, 23 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000) Hansen, Anita, and Birgitte Bøggild Johannsen, ‘IMO LICET: Omkring Niels Hemmingsens billedsyn’, in Kirkearkeologi og Kirkekunst: Studier tilegnet Sigrid og Håkon Christie, ed. by Peter Sjömar and Marian Ullén (Øvre Ervik: Alvheim & Eide, 1993), pp. 181–98 Hardison, Osborne Bennett, Jr., Christian Rite and Christian Drama: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965) Harper, John, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy: From the Tenth to the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon, 2001) Hasse, Max, ‘Benedikt Dreyer’, Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte, 21 (1982), 9–58 Havsteen, Sven Rune, ‘Lutheran Theology and Artistic Media: Responses to the Theological Discourse on the Visual Arts’, in Lutheran Churches in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Andrew Spicer (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 221–40 Jungmann, Josef Andreas, Missarum sollemnia: Eine genetische Erklärung der römischen Messe, 2 vols (Vienna: Herder, 1948) Jürgensen, Martin Wangsgaard, ‘Altering the Sacred Face’, in Resonances: Historical Essays on Continuity and Change, ed. by Nils Holger Petersen, Eyolf Østrem, and Andreas Bücker, Ritus et artes, 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 81–110 ———, Changing Interiors: Danish Village Churches, c. 1450 to 1600 (Copenhagen: Det Teologiske Fakultet, 2011) ———, ‘The Rhetoric of Splendour: Matter and the Invisible in SeventeenthCentury Church Art’, Transfiguration (2013), 163–87 Kaspersen, Søren, ‘Billeder og liturgi: Dåb og nadver’, ICO, 1971, no. 4–5 (1971), 2–23 ———, ‘Højalter, liturgi og andagt: Betragtninger over Bernt Notkes alterskab i Århus Domkirke’, Hikuin, 26 (1999), 101–34

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Krause, Hans-Joachim, ‘“Imago ascensionis”: Zum “Bild”-Gebrauch in der spätmittelalterlichen Liturgie’, in Skulptur des Mittelalters: Funktion und Gestalt, ed. by Friedrich Möbius and Ernst Schubert (Weimar: Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1987), pp. 281–353 Kroesen, Justin E. A., and Regnerus Steensma, The Interior of the Medieval Village Church/Het Middeleeuwse Dorpskerinterieur (Leuven: Peeters, 2005) Leclercq, Jean, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture (New York: New American Library, 1961) Lentes, Thomas, ‘Zwischen Adiaphora und Artefakt. Bildbestreitung in der Reformation’, in Handbuch der Bildtheologie, ed. by Reinhard Hoeps, i (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2007), pp. 213–40 Liepe, Lena, ‘On the Connection between Medieval Wooden Sculpture and Murals in Scanian Churches’, in Liturgy and the Arts in the Middle Ages: Studies in Honour of C. Clifford Flanigan, ed. by Eva Louise Lillie and Nils Holger Petersen (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1996), pp. 221–49 Lillie, Eva Louise, ‘O vos omnes qui transitis per viam… The Quotation from the Lamentations 1, 12 in Danish Medieval Visual Arts’, in Liturgy and the Arts in the Middle Ages: Studies in Honour of C. Clifford Flanigan, ed. by Eva Louise Lillie and Nils Holger Petersen (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1996), pp. 205–18 Lipsmeyer, Elizabeth, ‘Palmsonntag-Christus und Palmesel’, Volkskunst, 12 (1989), 50–58 Monti, James, ‘The Mass of Palm Sunday’, in A Sense of the Sacred: Roman Catholic Worship in the Middle Ages (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2012) [no page numbering] Petersen, Nils Holger, ‘Liturgical Representation and Late Medieval Piety’, in Liturgy and the Arts in the Middle Ages: Studies in Honour of C. Clifford Flanigan, ed. by Eva Louise Lillie and Nils Holger Petersen (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1996), pp. 181–201 ———, ‘Biblical Reception, Representational Ritual, and the Question of “Liturgical Drama”’, in Sapientia et eloquentia, ed. by Gunilla Iversen and Nicolas Bell, Disputatio, 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), pp. 163–201 Pfaff, Richard W., The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) Ploeg, Kees van der, Art, Architecture and Liturgy: Siena Cathedral in the Middle Ages (Groningen: Rikjsuniversiteit, 1993) Record, S. J., and G. A. Garratt, ‘Boxwoods’, Yale University School of Forestry Bulletin, 14 (1925) Samuel, Raphael, Theatres of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture (London: Verso, 1996) Sauer, Joseph, Symbolik des Kirchengebäudes und seiner Ausstattung in der Auffassung des Mittelalters, 2nd edn (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1924) Shiner, Larry, The Invention of Art: A Cultural History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001)

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Taubert, Johannes, ‘Mittelalterliche Kruzifixe mit schwenkbaren Armen’, in Farbige Skulpturen: Bedeutung. Fassung. Restaurierung, 3rd edn (Munich: Callwey, 1983), pp. 38–50 Tripps, Johannes, Das handelnde Bildwerk in der Gotik: Forschungen zu den Bedeutungsschichten und der Funktion des Kirchengebäudes und seiner Ausstattung in der Hoch- und Spätgotik (Berlin: Mann, 1998) Tydeman, William, The Theatre in the Middle Ages: Western European Stage Conditions, c. 800–1576 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979) Wiepen, Eduard, Palmsonntagsprozessionen und Palmesel (Bonn: Hanstein, 1903) Wirth, Jean, L’image médiévale: naissance et développements (VIe-XVe siècle) (Paris: Méridiens Klincksieck, 1989) Wright, Craig, ‘The Palm Sunday Procession in Medieval Chartres’, in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography, ed. by Rebecca A. Baltzer and Margot E. Fassler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 344–71 Young, Karl, The Drama of the Medieval Church (Oxford: Clarendon, 1933)

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Holy Heads: Pope Lucius’s Skull in Roskilde and the Role of Relics in Medieval Spirituality

On 28 October 1534, Poul Helgesen sat down to write a letter to Count Christopher of Oldenburg on behalf of the chapter of Roskilde Cathedral.1 The letter was in response to a request from the count for the chapter to part with everything in the cathedral’s treasury made of gold and silver, bar a few chalices. The count’s attempt to seize the cathedral’s valuables was a move to fund the civil war, the so-called Count’s Feud, in support of the deposed Catholic King Christian II against the Protestant Christian III, who had been proclaimed king in July that year. Poul Helgesen informed the count that the chapter was willing to send sixteen chalices and some silver objects. After that, all that would be left of the cathedral’s treasures was the skull of the holy martyr Lucius, the glorious patron of the church and the entire diocese, enclosed in a cover made of thin plates of gilded silver — ‘and we cannot believe that even the most cruel enemy, not to speak of our official benefactor, would be prepared to deprive us of this memento of the venerable saint’.2 Poul Helgesen’s plea was apparently favourably received, at least to the extent that the chapter was allowed to keep the skull. Remarkably, this major relic of Saint Lucius — or, rather, what in the Middle Ages was considered to be an authentic relic of this third-century pope who reigned for less than a year before he died and was buried in Rome — has survived to the present day. In 1665, it was transferred from the cathedral to the royal Kunstkammer and in 1825 it became part of the collections of the Museum of Nordic Antiquities in Copenhagen (Fig. 6.1). In 1908 the skull was deposited at Saint Ansgar



1 Poul Helgesen (c. 1485–1534), Danish Carmelite, theologian, and historian, a sharp critic of both the decline within the Roman Catholic Church and of the Protestant Reformation. 2 Nye Danske Magazin, pp. 142–43; cf. Petersen, ‘En relikvie af Roskilde domkirkes skytshelgen’, pp. 430–31, 436. Lena Liepe, Doctor in Art History (University of Lund). Professor of Art History, Department of Music and Art, Linnaeus University. Email: [email protected] Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix, and Mads Heilskov, AS 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 123–146 © FHG10.1484/M.AS-EB.5.123988

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Figure 6.1. Saint Lucius skull with the silk cap it carried when it formed part of the royal Kunstkammer, later the Museum of Nordic Antiquities. Photo courtesy of the Danish National Museum.

Figure 6.2. Alois Kreiten: bust reliquary representing pope Saint Lucius I. 1910. Saint Ansgar Catholic Cathedral, Copenhagen. Photo by Daniel Nørgaard.

Figure 6.3. The bust reliquary in opened state, exposing the Saint Lucius skull. Saint Ansgar Catholic Cathedral, Copenhagen. Photo by Roberto Fortuna, the Danish National Museum.

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Catholic Cathedral in Copenhagen, where it remains today, enclosed in a bust reliquary made in 1910 by the Cologne goldsmith Alois Kreiten (Fig. 6.2).3 The gilded silver casement referred to by Poul Helgesen fared less well. After 1534, it was never heard of again: either Count Christopher had seized it after all, or it was lost at some later point. When the papal tiara of the present reliquary is removed, the crown of the skull within becomes visible (Fig. 6.3). The sight of the naked cranium is slightly unsettling. The contrast between the raw bone surface of the braincase and the polished metal of the reliquary is striking: a vivid illustration of Thiofrid of Echternach’s choice of words when, in the early twelfth century, he characterized the practice of putting relics in reliquaries as an enshrinement of ‘cruel and bloody things […] in gold and the most precious among the material objects’.4 In a 1997 review of the (then) state of research regarding body-part reliquaries, Barbara Drake Boehm detects a certain reserve towards reliquaries as objects of art-historical study throughout the nineteenth century and until well after the Second World War. Reliquaries shaped in the form of body parts in particular have been liable to fall outside established aesthetic and art-historical canons, by virtue of both the literalness of their appearance and the opulence of the materials used.5 In more recent research, however, reticence has turned into fascination, giving rise to what Boehm describes as a ‘keen, almost voyeuristic interest in “dismemberment” during the Middle Ages’, paired with an unfortunate inclination to perceive of body-part reliquaries, as ‘a deliciously gruesome and gory aspect of the medieval cult of saints’.6 Barbara Drake Boehm champions body-part reliquaries as bona fide works of art, worthy of proper attention from art historians, despite their occasional nonconformity to the aesthetic standards of the discipline.7 The sense of decorum of the average beholder is, however, in all probability, challenged less by the reliquary than by the stark materiality of its contents. In order to gain a fuller understanding of the role of relics in medieval spirituality, not only must we come to terms with the aesthetics of the gilded and bejewelled reliquaries, we must also come to terms with the material substance of the relics: the bones, teeth, hair, strips of clothing, wooden splinters, chips of



3 Arneborg and others, ‘Kranier på afveje’, p. 145; Arneborg and Madsen, ‘The Odyssey of a Saint’; Gundestrup, Det kongelige danske Kunstkammer, p. 212; Moltke and Møller, Roskilde domkirke, pp. 1638–39; Petersen, ‘En relikvie af Roskilde domkirkes skytshelgen’, p. 435. Together with the skull when it was kept in the royal collections, and later in the Museum of Nordic Antiquities, was a cap of yellow silk, patterned with pairs of harts and lions, and edged with golden brocade. While the skull is on permanent loan to the Saint Ansgar Catholic Cathedral, the cap remains at the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen. 4 Thiofrid of Echternach, Flores epytaphii sanctorum, ii.3, ed. by Ferrari, 157, here cited from Ferrari, ‘Lemmata sanctorum’, p. 223. 5 Boehm, ‘Body-Part Reliquaries’, p. 14. 6 Boehm, ‘Body-Part Reliquaries’, pp. 14–15. 7 Boehm, ‘Body-Part Reliquaries’, p. 15.

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stone, handfuls of soil, and everything else that may have formed part of, belonged to, or been touched by a saintly person, and that it was the purpose of the reliquaries to hold, protect, and, occasionally, also display. *** The Protestant Reformation reached Denmark in the 1520s and, in 1536, Lutheranism became the state religion of the Danish realm. The cult of saints was discontinued, shrines and reliquaries were confiscated and their contents were, for the most part, thrown away.8 Among the few items that have survived are some fifteen box-shaped reliquaries, whole or in parts, of unknown provenance,9 two arm reliquaries, one in gilded copper on a wooden core and one in painted wood, likewise of unknown provenance,10 two large shrines that contain the remains of Saint Canute and his brother Benedictus in Odense Cathedral,11 and a substantial number of containers for relics to be deposited in altars, some still with the relic, or relics, within.12 Scholarship on relics and reliquaries in Denmark is sparse. In Hellige mænd og kvinder, Niels Knud Liebgott presents an overview in popular form of the role of relics in the cult of saints in medieval Denmark.13 The two arm reliquaries have been dealt with by Johannes J. Duin and, more recently, by Fritze Lindahl, Sofia Lahti, and Lena Liepe.14 Mattias Karlsson has recorded all known finds of containers for relics deriving from medieval altars in the Lund diocese.15 Jens Vellev has published several studies of finds in Funen and Jutland of relics in altars as evidence of the saints’ cults in the respective dioceses.16 In 2019, Jette Arneborg and Per Kristian Madsen published an article narrating the odyssey of the Saint Lucius skull from paleo-Christian and medieval Rome to its present location in the Copenhagen Catholic Cathedral. In the present chapter, the Saint Lucius relic and reliquary provide a case study for an exploration of the liturgical and/or devotional settings

8 Jensen, ‘Katolsk kirkeinventars skæbne’; Liebgott, Hellige mænd og kvinder, pp. 131–32; Rørdam, ‘Om beskatningen af kirkerne’. 9 Liebgott, Hellige mænd og kvinder, pp. 113–14; Norberg, ‘Relikvarium’. 10 Duin, ‘Helligdomsarmen’; Lahti, ‘Helig hand’, Silver Arms, pp. 208–12, 219–28; Liebgott, Hellige mænd og kvinder, pp. 112, 114; Liepe, ‘Arm i arm’; Lindahl, ‘Hellig Olafs arm’; Norberg, ‘Relikvarium’. 11 Johannsen, Johannsen, and Kjær, Inventar, pp. 424–58; Ekroll, ‘The Shrine of St Olav’, pp. 152–53; Liebgott, Hellige mænd og kvinder, pp. 110–11; Norberg, ‘Relikvarium’; Vellev, ‘Helgenkongens skrin’ and ‘Helgenskrinene i Odense’. 12 Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga; Liebgott, ‘Reliquaries’; Norberg, ‘Relikvarium’; Vellev, ‘Fra helgengraven’, ‘Relikvierne fra Seem kirke’, and ‘Altre og alterindvielser’; for all of the above, see also Liepe, Reliker och relikbruk. 13 Liebgott, Hellige mænd og kvinder. 14 Duin, ‘Helligdomsarmen’; Lindahl ‘Hellig Olafs arm’; Lahti, ‘Helig hand’, Silver Arms; Liepe, ‘Arm i arm’. See also Liepe, Reliker och relikbruk. 15 Karlsson, Konstruktionen av det heliga. 16 Vellev, ‘Fra helgengraven’, ‘Relikvierne fra Seem kirke’, and ‘Altre og alterindvielser’.

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of which relics formed a part. The investigation is twofold. Firstly, the nature and workings of relics in a medieval spiritual context are examined: what constituted a relic in the eyes of the medieval believer and, not least, according to church authorities, and why the corporeality or, in the case of artefacts or things from nature, the materiality of the relic, was a constitutional component of its ontology. Second, the lost Saint Lucius reliquary — which in all probability was shaped in the likeness of a head — is highlighted as an example of a singular category, typologically speaking, within the class of medieval effigies, comprising images that exist solely in the capacity of relic containers. The concluding section considers the circumstances under which the relic — and the reliquary — may have been made available to the faithful to interact with, within the strict regulations of where, when, and how relics were to be accessible to lay devotion.

The Relic Henry Petersen, who in 1874 published a lengthy essay on the Saint Lucius relic and the dedication of the Roskilde Cathedral to the saint, sets the probable point in time of the adoption of Saint Lucius as the patron saint of Roskilde Cathedral and, hence, the arrival of the skull in Denmark, to the late 1080s.17 Later research has modified the time of acquisition to between 1080 and 1167, when the dedication of the cathedral to Saint Lucius starts to appear in written sources.18 The circumstances for its acquisition, as recounted in the Roskilde Breviary’s lesson for the feast days of the saint, exemplify the very nature of relics as defined by Christian tradition.19 According to the lesson, two canons were sent by the bishop of Roskilde to Rome, charged with the task of asking the pope to select a patron saint for the newly founded cathedral in Roskilde, and to obtain relics from the chosen saint to bring back to Roskilde. The pope told the canons to visit the church in which relics of many martyrs were kept, and to pray to the Lord that he would guide them to the relics destined for Roskilde. While absorbed in prayer, one of the canons fell asleep and, in his dream, had a vision of Saint Lucius who proclaimed that he had been appointed by the Lord as the patron of Roskilde Cathedral. The saint instructed the canon to recover his (Saint Lucius’s) skull and carry it home to Denmark and, when the dreaming canon asked how he should identify the right skull among the abundance of saintly remains, declared that it was whiter than all the others and radiated a brilliance like the rays of the sun. 17 Petersen, ‘En relikvie af Roskilde domkirkes skytshelgen’, pp. 394–402. 18 Arhnung, ‘Hvornaar knyttedes St Lucius til Roskilde Domkirke’; Arneborg and Madsen, ‘The Odyssey of a Saint’, p. 227; Kjær, Roskilde domkirke. 19 For overviews of the history of relics and relic cult from early Christian times through the Middle Ages, see, for example, Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints; Angenendt, Heilige und Reliquien; Legner, Reliquien in Kunst und Kult; Snoek, Medieval Piety.

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When the canon awoke and told his companion of the dream, the two of them had no difficulty in spotting the right skull in Saint Cecilia’s Church and were therefore able to secure it for the cathedral and return to Denmark. The legend goes on to tell how, when the canons were to cross the Great Belt strait, the ship was attacked by an ogre demanding one of the men aboard as an offering. The canon carrying the skull was chosen, but as he performed an ablution of the relic and poured the water into the sea, the saint drove the ogre away. The ship arrived safely at its destination and the relic was solemnly carried in procession to the cathedral.20 The legend clearly illustrates the basic tenet of Christian relic cult, namely, a relic’s fundamental part of the identity of the living saint. Relics were not simply dry and lifeless remnants of deceased individuals; they were pignora, pledges or deposits left behind by the saints as guarantees of their continuing interest in the earthly community and reminders to the faithful of the promise of salvation. And since the saints were alive in heaven and would be reunited with their bodily remains at the end of time, their presence in the relics was not merely symbolic, but actual. To venerate a relic was to enter into direct communication with the saint from whom it derived: prayers said before a relic were directed not to the relic as something powerful and effective in itself (at least not in theory), but to the saint whose presence was mediated by the relic.21 Having their abode in heaven, saints manifested themselves visually to humans either in dreams and visions, or in their relics.22 In the legend, Saint Lucius did both: first, the saint appeared in the canon’s dream and, the day after, the skull confirmed the veracity of the dream by radiating whiteness and light, thereby identifying itself as Saint Lucius. The radiance is significant as proof of the unity between saint and relic: according to Thiofrid of Echternach it was within the power of saints to make their relics shine.23 The water that was poured over the relic and into the waves of the Great Belt did not work wonders of its own accord, nor did the skull, per se; the salvation was effectuated by the saint and was recognized by the ogre who cried out: O Lucius, holy martyr of Christ! Why are you scorching me with burning arrows and chasing me from my old dwelling to which I have dragged thousands and thousands of human souls? By the radiance that envelops you, you have driven me out into the darkness! As pointed out by Sofia Boesch Gajano,24 the success of medieval relics hinged on their twin identity: both material and immaterial, both natural 20 Langebek, Scriptores, iii, 615–17; Petersen, ‘En relikvie af Roskilde domkirkes skytshelgen’, pp. 404–06. 21 Geary, Furta sacra, p. 30 and ‘Sacred Commodities’, p. 176; Angenendt, ‘Der Kult der Reliquien’, pp. 9–10; Legner, Reliquien in Kunst und Kult, pp. 7–8, 13–14; Geary, ‘Relics’, p. 1222. 22 Schmitt, ‘Les reliques et les images’, p. 149. 23 Angenendt, ‘Relics and their Veneration’, p. 20. 24 Boesch Gajano, ‘Reliques et pouvoirs’, p. 268.

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and supernatural, both passive and active, the relics concretized and made palpable the presence of the saints, and paved the way for an interaction between man and the divine. Gajano further underscores the Incarnation, i.e. the corporeality and historicity of Christ, as the foundation on which the legitimacy of the relic cult rested. The saints were revered through their relics because they themselves had given testimony, by dying bloodily in imitation of Christ’s Passion, of Christ’s victory over death. Through their martyrdom, the bodies of the saints were linked to the body of Christ, a relationship that was most directly manifested by relics being commonly interred in the altar upon which the Sacrifice of the Mass was celebrated. The deposition of the saints’ relics in the altars corresponded to their metaphorical status as living stones in a spiritual house and as pillars in the temple of God.25 The relics, being parts of the saints gloriously alive in heaven, functioned as signs and guarantees of mankind’s ultimate resurrection at the end of time.26 The medieval faith in relics was premised on the idea of sameness between the relic and the saint’s body. However, it was not only body parts that counted as relics; other physical objects physically connected to a saint, such as items of clothing and furniture, or instruments of torture and death, or even paving and soil that the saintly person had walked, sat, knelt, or lay down upon, also gained the status of relics. Furthermore, in the early Middle Ages brandea, i.e. matter that had touched the bones of a martyr or been in contact with his or her grave, including flowers and plants plucked from the ground surrounding the grave, or patches of textile utilized in the celebration of Mass by the grave, counted as so-called contact relics. Brandea compensated for the general dearth of body-part relics in the early Middle Ages, due to the reluctance shown by the popes in Rome — where the graves in the catacombs and cemeteries constituted a potentially major source of martyrs’ relics — to allow for the disinterment and transfer of the martyrs’ bodies from where they had originally been buried, not to speak of dividing them up into smaller parts. At the most, teeth, nails and hair could be taken from the corpse.27 However, by the time the two Danish canons arrived in Rome in search of relics, things had changed as a consequence of the barbarian invasions of the Italian peninsula, necessitating the exhumation and removal of the martyrs’ bodies from suburban cemeteries to relative safety within the city walls. Around 820, Pope Paschal I performed a translation of the bones of Saint Lucius, together with those of several other saints, from their original resting place in the catacombs of Saint Callistus, to the recently completed Church of Saint Cecilia in Trastevere.28 The legend’s 25 i Peter 2; Revelation 3.12. 26 Boesch Gajano, ‘Reliques et pouvoirs’, pp. 260–61; see also Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints, pp. 144–45; Schmitt, ‘Les reliques et les images’, pp. 149, 157. 27 Braun, Der christliche Altar, i, 616–19; Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints, pp. 33–35, 62; Angenendt, ‘Der Kult der Reliquien’, p. 14 and Heilige und Reliquien, pp. 152–54, 173; Snoek, Medieval Piety, pp. 13–14. 28 Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints, p. 52.

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account of how the pope willingly parted with the head of the saint also reflects the shift in official policy regarding the dividing up of saints’ bodies that had taken place from the eighth century onwards. The increasing frequency of grave openings and translations of martyrs’ bones undermined the resistance towards partitioning and, in the tenth century, saintly body parts were freely distributed from Rome to churches across Latin Christianity.29 To better grasp the fundamental mechanisms behind the Christian veneration of human remains as holy matter, anthropologically minded scholars have compared the medieval attitude towards relics to animistic beliefs in things as embodiments of ancestral spirits, finding both to be expressions of a deeply human instinct to search for ways of connecting with the dead and the supernatural through the tangible and material. Sofia Boesch Gajano speaks of the power assigned to the relics as ‘une sorte de mana’.30 Mana is a word used in Austronesian languages to designate efficacious powers of supernatural origin residing in certain individuals — chiefs, healers — and objects, including images. This line of thought has been further developed by Steven Hooper in a recent attempt to develop a cross-cultural theory of relics,31 not only applicable to the Middle Ages but to phenomena as diverse as Polynesian reliquary images of deities, bones being moved around in the landscape by Neolithic people, Buddhist tooth and hair relics, and souvenirs of famous historical persons and contemporary celebrities. Seen through Hooper’s anthropological lens, the attitudes and customs related to objects and artefacts such as these are all expressions of the same profound concerns, common to all humankind, about life, death, power, and causation. To perceive of the power or spirit of a ‘special personage’ — a god, an ancestor, a hero, a saint, a celebrity — as embodied in objects associated with this personage, engenders what Hooper calls ‘relic-related behaviour’, where the object in question is exalted and revered in various ways. According to Hooper, this is ‘a cultural practice with very ancient roots […] a fundamental mechanism by which humans have engaged with sources of power to derive benefit from them’.32 Arnold Angenendt has similarly argued for the near universality of much of the thinking underlying the Christian cult of relics.33 The earliest evidence of the cherishing of martyrs’ remains dates back to the second century ad, when it was reported by the followers of Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna, martyred in ad 156, how they took up his bones, which are more valuable than precious stones and finer than refined gold, and deposited them in a suitable place. There gathering

29 Angenendt, ‘Der Kult der Reliquien’, p. 15; Angenendt, Heilige und Reliquien, p. 155; Snoek, Medieval Piety, p. 23; Angenendt, ‘Relics and their Veneration’, p. 23. 30 Boesch Gajano, ‘Reliques et pouvoirs’, p. 259. 31 Hooper, ‘Bodies, Artefacts and Images’. 32 Hooper, ‘Bodies, Artefacts and Images’, p. 190. 33 Angenendt, ‘Der Kult der Reliquien’.

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together, as we are able, with joy and gladness, the Lord will permit us to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom in commemoration of those who have already fought in the contest.34 The practice of celebrating the Eucharist in the immediate vicinity of the martyr’s grave is believed to have originated at the same time, although not on the actual grave, as is often stated, but at an altar raised above or close by the grave.35 Even though the physical handling of the remains of a deceased individual stood in sharp contrast to both Graeco-Roman and Jewish traditions, in which direct contact with corpses was abhorred as polluting, annual gatherings by ancestral graves to remember and honour the dead were an established part of Roman funerary cult. Nor is ritual meal sharing by or on a grave a uniquely Christian custom.36 Angenendt further identifies the Christian idea of the corpus incorruptum, the incorruptible saintly body which, by the special gift of grace from God, is preserved from decay and disintegration, as a pervading idea in the history of religion (‘eine religionsgeschichtlich überaus wirksame Idee’), and points in particular to Egyptian rituals of mummification as a parallel striving for the preservation of the dead body in order to safeguard the continued existence of the soul in the afterlife.37 In contrast to Egyptian funerary practices, however, the corpse of a saint did not have to be intact and undivided in order for the soul to be able to reunite with it. Saints’ bodies were not immune per se to decay; they could decompose and perish just like other human bodies. Incorruptibility of the flesh was a rare gift, a divine miracle bestowed upon certain saints as a special favour. It was not an obligatory requirement for sanctity, and quite often the remains of long-dead saints were found to have turned to dust when their graves were opened.38 This did not diminish the power of the relics. In analogy with Christ’s presence in each division of the Eucharist, even the slightest particle of a saint’s earthly body contained the real presence of the saint, whose soul was gloriously alive in heaven. Paradoxically, the partitioning of a saintly corpse and the enshrinement of the parts in costly reliquaries represented a celebration of the overcoming of decay and disintegration in death.39 For the faithful, the saint’s identity persisted in every part of him or her, and the sometimes wide distribution of relics to different locations simply

34 The Martyrdom of Polycarp, xviii.2–3, ed. and trans. by Lightfoot, Harmer, and Holmes. 35 Braun, Der christliche Altar, i, 528–29; Eisenhofer, Handbuch, pp. 345–46; Eisenhofer and Lechner, The Liturgy of the Roman Rite, p. 121; Snoek, Medieval Piety, p. 176; Crook, The Architectural Setting, pp. 11–13. 36 Angenendt, ‘Der Kult der Reliquien’, p. 11. As a contrast to Jewish and Roman attitudes towards corpses, see Geary, ‘Relics’, p. 1222; Krueger, ‘The Religion of Relics’, p. 7. 37 Angenendt, ‘Der Kult der Reliquien’, p. 13, ‘Corpus incorruptum’. On the incorrupt saintly body, see also Malo, Relics and Writing, pp. 44–49. 38 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things, pp. 100–01. 39 Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption, pp. 265–96, The Resurrection of the Body, pp. 318–28, and Christian Materiality, pp. 177–94.

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multiplied the presence: every site at which a relic was deposited counted as the saint’s grave.40 Although liberal as to the recognition of saintly power being imbued in almost any kind of body matter (a list from 1515 of the relics of the Church of Our Lady — Vor Frue Kirke — in Copenhagen includes a section of Saint Erasmus’s intestines),41 the Church could, at least in theory, not accept the simultaneous existence of several identical relics at different locations. Nonetheless, this was by no means an unusual situation. In a 1543 treatise on relics: Traité des reliques ou advertisement très utile du grand profit qui reviendrait à la chrestienté s’il se fasoit inventaire de tous les corps saints et reliques qui sont tant en Italie qu’en France, Alemagne, Espagne, et autres royaumes et pays (Treatise on Relics or a Very Useful Notification of the Great Worth for Christianity of Making an Inventory of All the Holy Bodies and Relics which Are to Be Found in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and other Kingdoms and Countries), the reformer Jean Calvin held the entire relic business up to ridicule, pointing to the existence of fourteen nails from the Holy Cross, twelve bodies of Saint Mary Magdalene, three bodies of Saint Matthew, two bodies of Saint Anne, whole barrelfuls of the Virgin’s milk, and no less than thirteen samples of Christ’s prepuce.42 Saint Lucius might be also put on the list. In his article on the Roskilde relic, Henry Petersen refers to other skulls of Saint Lucius said to exist in Spain, Prague, and Munich.43 The medieval Church was fully aware of the problem of multiplicity and the ensuing risk of the faithful directing their veneration to the wrong saint, or even to counterfeit relics. However, it took a pragmatic attitude, often preferring not to intervene in disputes between churches over the authenticity of their respective relics. Justification for this laissez-faire attitude was found in the principles laid down by the canon law that dubious relics should be assumed to be authentic unless definitive proof to the contrary could be produced, and that an act of devotion addressed to the wrong relic, or a false relic, was still valid as long as it was done in good faith.44 In theory, all parts of a saint’s body, from the entire corpse to the smallest fragment, were of equal status with regard to sanctity. However, as pointed out by Robyn Malo in a study of written discourses on relics in late medieval 40 Herrman-Mascard, Les reliques des saints, pp. 145–46; Angenendt, Heilige und Reliquien, pp. 154–55; Legner, Reliquien in Kunst und Kult, pp. 6–7; Krueger, ‘The Religion of Relics’, p. 8. 41 Langebek, Scriptores, viii, 263. According to one version of his legend, Saint Erasmus, or Saint Elmo, was martyred by having his intestines perforated by iron rods; alternatively, by being disembowelled by means of a windlass. 42 Joblin, ‘L’attitude des Protestants’, pp. 124–25. 43 Petersen, ‘En relikvie af Roskilde domkirkes skytshelgen’, p. 441. 44 Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints, pp. 137–42; cf. Geary, Furta sacra, p. 54, and Bynum, Christian Materiality, pp. 167–74 on elements of political opportunism in the Church’s sanctioning of relics and miraculous matter as genuinely holy or not, and p. 213 on the display of consecrated Hosts alongside supposedly miraculous Hosts to ensure that in cases when it transpired that the latter were frauds, the veneration of the faithful was nevertheless directed to holy matter.

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England,45 relics actually tended to be categorized according to a hierarchy where ‘the bigger the better’ — and, it could be added, the more corporeal, the better. Body relics were more prestigious than relics of objects and, among the former, parts were ranked lower than the whole. Thus, complete bodies were at the top of the hierarchy, followed by larger body parts, such as heads and arms. Sometimes the desire to single out the head for special veneration led to its being separated from the body, even when both were destined for the same church. A survey of translations carried out between the eleventh and the early thirteenth centuries in present-day northern France and Belgium, Pierre-André Sigal records several occasions where the head was removed from the body and displayed separately in order to facilitate its veneration by the faithful.46 When in Vadstena, Sweden, the earthly remains of Katarina, daughter of Saint Birgitta and the first abbess of Vadstena Monastery, were transferred in 1489, her bones were distributed in a whole series of separate containers: the cranium on its own in a richly decorated shrine, the jawbone in a monstrance made of rock crystal, the arm bones in separate shrines, and the remainder of the bones in a small coffin.47 *** For Roskilde Cathedral to have obtained the head of an early Christian martyred pope was a major achievement. The Breviary lesson reports that the skull was carried back to Denmark in a ‘decenti reservaculo’, a suitable container.48 Once in the cathedral, however, it required a mounting befitting its status. I will now turn from relic to reliquary in an attempt to piece together the scant leads in the sources regarding what the latter might have looked like. The results will serve as the basis for a reflection on the conceptual relationship between the reliquary as simultaneously shielding and advertising its contents, and the perceived nature of the relic within.

The Reliquary Poul Helgesen’s description in 1534 of the casing enclosing Saint Lucius’s skull as being made of thin foils of gilded silver suggests that the relic was contained in a so-called bust reliquary, i.e. a reliquary shaped in the likeness of a human head, akin to its present mounting.49 This supposition is further strengthened

45 Malo, Relics and Writing, pp. 39–44. 46 Sigal, ‘Le déroulement’, p. 226. See also Hubert and Hubert, ‘Piété chrétienne’, p. 263; Boehm, ‘Body-Part Reliquaries’, p. 15; Shortell, ‘Dismembering Saint Quentin’, pp. 32, 38–39. 47 Fritz and Elfving, Den stora kyrkofesten, pp. 46–49. 48 Langebek, Scriptores, iii, 616. 49 In addition to the head, a bust reliquary can include the neck only, or alternatively, also the shoulders, arms, and upper part of the trunk. Birgitta Falk, in ‘Bildnisreliquiare’, accordingly distinguishes between ‘Kopfreliquiar’, ‘Büstenreliquiar’, and ‘Halbfigurenreliquiar’, whereas

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Figure 6.4. Seal ad causas of the Roskilde diocese. First half of thirteenth century. Reproduced after Petersen, Danske gejstlige sigiller fra middelalderen, fig. 187.

by the fact that the seal ad causas of the Roskilde diocese, dated by Henry Petersen to the first half of the thirteenth century, shows a bust of a bishop, surrounded by the inscription ‘capvt S(an)c(t)I Lvcii’ (head of Saint Lucius) (Fig. 6.4).50 In medieval sources the word caput is used for bust reliquaries as well as for actual heads, and since the existing head in this instance was a skull, it seems safe to assume that the image on the seal refers to the reliquary, which was the form in which the relic would normally appear to a beholder. Among the different categories of body-part reliquaries, bust reliquaries count as the oldest: the earliest reference dates back to the late ninth century

Barbara Drake Boehm, in ‘Body-Part Reliquaries’, applies the term ‘bust reliquary’ as an overall concept covering all three types. 50 Petersen, ‘En relikvie af Roskilde domkirkes skytshelgen’, p. 440 and Danske gejstlige sigiller, p. 17. A seal ad causas is a seal used to validate documents of lesser importance; either of a transitory nature or for routine business. See Dalton, The Archiepiscopal and Deputed Seals, p. 8, with references.

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when Boso, king of Provence (879–87), ordered a bust reliquary to be made for the head of Saint Mauritius. A small bust of Saint Paul in Münster Domkammer has been dated to the second half of the eleventh century, making it the oldest surviving example. From the twelfth century onwards, a rising number of head reliquaries have been preserved or recorded in written sources. Up to c. 1200, precious metal was the preferred material: the reliquaries were either made of solid metal, cast or chased, or comprised a wooden core covered in gold or silver sheathing. In the thirteenth century, bust reliquaries sculpted in wood gradually gained popularity, and the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw the veritable Mass production of wooden and polychrome bust reliquaries, centred in Germany and the Cologne region.51 To the extent that art historians have taken an interest in bust reliquaries, the predominant discourses have been on the reliquaries as preliminary stages of the development into something else. In 1951, Harald Keller published a hypothesis about eighth- and ninth-century bust reliquaries and sculpted figures containing relics as the beginning of the rebirth of monumental sculpture, paving the way for the emergence in the early eleventh century of large-scale sculpted works in wood and stone.52 Along a second line of evolutionary thinking, reliquary busts are regarded as belonging to the genealogy of portraiture whereby, as Barbara Drake Boehm has observed, their importance is seen as lying mainly in their relationship to Renaissance portrait busts.53 Both approaches fail to acknowledge the truly significant characteristic of bust reliquaries, and of reliquaries in general that resemble body parts, namely that the one and only context in which, as three-dimensional figurative representations, they are thinkable in the Middle Ages is precisely as containers for relics.54 Full figure plastic images, such as sculpted Christ figures, or statues of the Virgin or the saints, functioned as visual proclamations of altar dedications and/or foci for devotional veneration regardless of whether they contained relics — which they sometimes did — or not. But a body-part reliquary, representing a holy person only in part, in the form of the head or a limb, had no autonomous ontological value. As a piece of imagery intended for a cultic context, it could only make sense as a carrier of actual holy substance. Hence, its essential meaning lay in that which could 51 For chronological and typological overviews of bust reliquaries in the Middle Ages, see Braun, Die Reliquiare des christlichen Kultes, pp. 413–34; Keller, ‘Zur Entstehung der sakralen Vollskulptur’ and ‘Zur Entstehung der Reliquienbüste’; Kovács, Kopfreliquiare; Legner, Reliquien in Kunst und Kult, pp. 242–46. It should be noted that bust reliquaries rarely held whole heads; if they contained head relics at all — which was far from always the case — it was normally a question of a smaller or larger portion of a cranium (Kovács, Kopfreliquiare, p. 58; Falk, ‘Bildnisreliquiare’, p. 125). The Saint Lucius relic in Copenhagen consists of the upper part of the skull only. 52 On the refutation of Keller’s theory by Reiner Hausherr in ‘Der tote Christus’ and Ilene Forsyth in The Throne of Wisdom, see Falk, ‘Bildnisreliquiare’, pp. 123–24. 53 Boehm, ‘Body-Part Reliquaries’, pp. 10–11. 54 Cf. Falk, ‘Bildnisreliquiare’, p. 99, with a similar reflection on the singularity of reliquaries.

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not be seen, at least not in the period extending from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, when reliquaries as a rule were closed vessels, concealing their contents from direct view. There is no way of deducing the constructional details of the Roskilde head reliquary, neither from Poul Helgesen’s brief mention, nor from its appearance on the ad causas seal. Poul Helgesen need not even refer to the same object as the one depicted on the seal. Subsequent renewals or replacements of older reliquaries are known to have taken place elsewhere. Thus, it is recorded from Saint Servatius Chapter in Maastricht how, on 8 May 1403, the head of the chapter’s titular saint was deposited in a new reliquary in the presence of the provost, the dean, and a number of the canons. Other sources reveal that the reliquary, of which today only the enamelled plinth remains, was a bust reliquary, and Jos Koldeweij has shown that it replaced an older bust reliquary that may have been of considerable age.55 Furthermore, the rendering on the Roskilde seal is too rudimentary to allow for any conclusions regarding the age of the reliquary depicted on it, i.e. if it was fabricated for the skull shortly after its arrival in Roskilde, or if it was a later work.56 All that can be stated with some degree of certainty is that in the early thirteenth century at the latest, there was a bust reliquary containing the skull of Saint Lucius in Roskilde Cathedral. If, hypothetically, the reliquary shown on the seal was comparatively new when the seal was made, its construction might have reflected a shift in attitude towards the accessibility of relics that took place during the thirteenth century. Increasingly, reliquaries were being constructed in a manner that exposed their contents to the beholder. In a comprehensive survey of the history of bust reliquaries made of metal from the Middle Ages, Birgitta Falk detects two major factors behind this development towards a higher degree of visibility.57 The influx of Byzantine relics and reliquaries after the plunder of Constantinople in 1204 familiarized the Latin West with the eastern, ‘hands-on’ approach to relics, where touching and kissing constituted normal behaviour and relics were displayed in panels and relic crosses. Accordingly, a recurrent topos in newer scholarship on medieval relic cult is the identification of a corresponding desire for increased sensorial interaction with relics, primarily by being allowed to see them, as a prominent feature of late medieval spirituality.58 Additional

55 Koldeweij, ‘Das Servatius-Büstenreliquiar’. 56 A pointer in favour of the latter alternative is that in Birgitta Falk’s comprehensive catalogue of bust reliquaries, none of the reliquaries comparable to the one represented on the Roskilde seal is older than the first quarter of the thirteenth century. 57 Falk, ‘Bildnisreliquiare’, pp. 125–26. 58 Legner, Reliquien in Kunst und Kult, pp. 265–73; van Os, The Way to Heaven, pp. 147–48; Diedrichs, Vom Glauben zum Sehen, ‘Desire for Viewing’; Bagnoli, ‘The Stuff of Heaven’, p. 142. Note, however, Martina Bagnoli’s caveat in ‘Dressing the Relics’ that even when placed in a rock crystal ostensory or the like, the naked relic was not always visible to the eye, since it was more often than not wrapped in silk or other precious fabrics.

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momentum came with the decree issued by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, prohibiting the exposition of relics ‘extra capsam’, i.e. outside of their capsules or containers.59 In consequence, new solutions were introduced in order to satisfy the growing demand for relics to be visually accessible to the faithful without compromising the edict of the Lateran Council. In a study of bust reliquaries and the concept of personhood and portraiture in the Middle Ages, Beate Fricke argues for a direct connection between the 1215 decree and the appearance of novel kinds of bust reliquaries in the Angevin kingdom in the thirteenth century.60 The most common variety of bust reliquaries made to permit exposure of the relic has a hatch in the top of the head.61 In contrast, the Angevin reliquaries are divided in half longitudinally so that the face, hinged on one side, can be swung open in order to reveal the skull inside. Fricke likens the experience of the beholder seeing the reliquary change appearance, from the display of the idealized gilded metal face to the exposure of the actual head within, to that of witnessing the transubstantiation and the Host’s change of substance from bread to Christ’s body before the eyes of the faithful.62 I am not suggesting that the Roskilde bust reliquary was of this kind; that is neither here nor there. The essential point is Fricke’s underlining that the face moulded in the metal surface of the Angevin reliquaries, and, by extension, the faces of medieval bust reliquaries in general, should not be conceived as attempts to portray the saints as individual personalities. The medieval beholder’s perception of the saint when standing before a bust reliquary was defined by an intricate interplay between levels of reality, in which the identity of the saint was assured by the relic, whereas the facial traits of the bust served to facilitate the dialogue with the living saint in heaven.63 Admittedly, the opportunity for a common lay devotee to enter into such a dialogue was, in all probability, fairly restricted. Relics, as well as reliquaries, counted among the main treasures of any church and were normally kept securely locked away in sacristies and treasure rooms. As Saint Lucius is the patron saint of the Roskilde Cathedral, it is not unreasonable to assume that the reliquary was brought out and displayed on the main altar for the daily liturgy. Placing relics on altars had become an accepted practice on the Continent from the ninth century onward, and rulings laid down by the provincial synod of Rouen in 1442, stating that the relics were to be locked away after

59 Concilium Lateranense, Constitutiones Concilii quarti Lateranensis, ed. by García y García, pp. 101–03. For an edition with English translation, see Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. and trans. by Tanner, p. 263. 60 Fricke, ‘Visages démasqués’. 61 Falk, ‘Bildnisreliquiare’, pp. 125–26 and cat. nos 11–19, 36, 42, 53–57. With one exception, all bust reliquaries registered by Birgitta Falk that permitted exposure of their contents are from the early thirteenth century and later. In the few cases in which a bust reliquary of the said kind is older, the hatch is a secondary arrangement. 62 Fricke, ‘Visages démasqués’, p. 47. 63 Fricke, ‘Visages démasqués’, pp. 41, 51, 57, 62–63.

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the liturgy was completed, led Godefridus Snoek to the conclusion that, by the late Middle Ages, relics normally appeared on the altars every day.64 The ordinals of Ribe Cathedral specified that it was the sacristan’s duty to store the relics in a safe and clean space, and carry them to an from the altar in a venerable manner.65 In most cathedrals, however, the chancel was off-limits to the lay. In Roskilde, this was definitely the case: here, the sanctuary was screened off from the nave by a wall.66 The main occasion when the common man or woman could see Saint Lucius’s head was at the annual Festum reliquiarum or Ostensio reliquiarum, the feast for the cathedral’s relics which, in Roskilde, was celebrated on the Sunday after Trinity Sunday. At the Festum reliquiarum, the relics were publicly displayed, although still in their respective reliquaries. In accordance with the 1215 decree of the Fourth Lateran Council, the relics were not to be exposed outside of their containers. The above-mentioned early sixteenth-century list from the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen of the church’s relics or, more precisely, of its reliquaries with their contents, may be understood in this context. Its detailing of the visual appearance of the reliquaries led Thelma Jexlev to suggest that it was meant to be read out aloud while the relics were presented in public, thus informing the assembled crowds which receptacles held the remains of which saints.67 In his article on the series of Saint Servatius bust reliquaries in Maastricht, Jos Koldeweij gives a highly interesting account of the liturgical use of the relic in its container in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.68 At the Festum reliquiarum, it was shown to the public from the exterior gallery of the eastern apse, an event that is depicted in a 1460 woodcut on which the clerics of the chapter are shown holding up the Saint Servatius bust reliquary together with two of the most prized relics of the church, an arm reliquary containing the arm of Saint Thomas and a cross reliquary (Fig. 6.5).69 It was also carried in procession and, at certain points en route, the mitre was unhinged at the front and the reliquary was turned around so that the naked skull became visible for everyone to behold.

64 Snoek, Medieval Piety, p. 221. On the placing of relics on altars, see Braun, Der christliche Altar, ii, 554; Sauer, Symbolik des Kirchengebäudes, pp. 175–76; Eisenhofer, Handbuch, pp. 369–70; Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints, pp. 173–75; Geary, Furta sacra, p. 25; Snoek, Medieval Piety, pp. 204–05, 216–19. 65 Møller and Nyborg, Ribe amt, p. 401. 66 Moltke and Møller, Roskilde domkirke, pp. 1414–20. 67 Jexlev, ‘Vor Frue Kirkes relikvier’, p. 40. There are actually two lists from 1515: a briefer version that mentions the reliquaries only, and the one referred to above, in which their contents are described. Jexlev assumes that the short list was for the use of the clerics who arranged the reliquaries for display. 68 Koldeweij, ‘Das Servatius-Büstenreliquiar’. 69 Koldeweij, ‘Das Servatius-Büstenreliquiar’, pp. 224, 229; see also Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things, pp. 302–03 and Montgomery, ‘Relics and Pilgrimage’, pp. 671, 688–89.

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The Maastricht reliquary was also paraded in public on many other occasions, often after having first being ceremoniously deposited on a small bench on the main altar of the church.70 The Saint Lucius head was also carried in processions in Roskilde on important feast days, such as the day of Saint Lucius’s martyrdom on 4 March, and 25 August, the day of its translation to the cathedral. According to the Breviary lesson, the relic was also brought out during times of disease, war, bad weather, or other miseries, to be carried in solemn procession, accompanied by the clerics’ and townsmens’ prayers and hymns praising the good deeds of their patron. However, the wording of the lesson implies that a separate container was used for processions, namely, a ‘gemmis atque purissimo aureo scrinio obvolutus’ (a golden shrine encrusted with gems).71 In contrast to what was practised in Maastricht, the public exposition of the naked skull does not appear to have formed part of the processional arrangements in Roskilde. *** In Maastricht, by the late sixteenth century, the opportunities to behold the Saint Servatius head relic were so numerous that the sight had become commonplace. In consequence, the chapter opted for a drastic reduction in the visual access to the relic. In 1567, it was decided that the bust reliquary would be shown in public twice a year only, on the feast of Saint Servatius and on the Festum Corpus Christi.72 In Protestant Denmark, the head relic of Saint Lucius had by then become obsolete. What had once been the pride of the cathedral, the jewel of the relic collection and a palladium to turn to in times of danger and hardship, was now deprived of its costly sheathing and reduced to a mere piece of human bone. Its inclusion one century later, in the 1660s, in the royal art collections confirmed its change of status, from a venerable piece of holiness to a curiosity in a collector’s cabinet (Fig. 6.6). It has recently undergone a further epistemological transformation into an object of scientific analysis, with the purpose of establishing its actual age and origin. Radiocarbon dating, CT-scanning, and Sr-isotopes analyses undertaken in 2013–1014 have revealed that the skull is from a man aged about fifty years or older, living during the period ad 332–440, i.e. more than one century after Pope Lucius I.73 The idea that the true nature of a relic can be established by scientific means is emblematic of post-Enlightenment modernity. Viewed from a

70 Koldeweij, ‘Das Servatius-Büstenreliquiar’, pp. 230–33; cf. Shortell, ‘Dismembering Saint Quentin’, pp. 43–44 on similar processions in Saint-Quentin, Picardie, with the head relic of the saint after whom the town is named. 71 Langebek, Scriptores, iii, 617; cf. Petersen, ‘En relikvie af Roskilde domkirkes skytshelgen’, p. 407. 72 Koldeweij, ‘Das Servatius-Büstenreliquiar’, pp. 217, 232. 73 Arneborg and others, ‘Kranier på afveje’; Arneborg and Madsen, ‘The Odyssey of a Saint’, p. 217.

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Figure 6.5. Public showing of the relics of Saint Servatius Chapter, Maastricht. Coloured woodcut from the block book of Saint Servatius, Maastricht, c. 1460. Brussels, Royal Library Albert I, MS 18972, p. 24. Photo courtesy of the Royal Library Albert I, Brussels.

Figure 6.6. Saint Lucius skull with the accession number Bba15, given to it in 1825 when it was registered in the catalogue of the royal art collections. Photo by Roberto Fortuna, the Danish National Museum.

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medieval perspective, its validity lay elsewhere. By its framing, both literally in the reliquary and institutionally as the focal point of liturgical celebration, it offered itself for communion with the faithful as a living testimony of the saint’s simultaneous presence on earth and in heaven. Relics bridged the gap between the earthly existence and the hereafter and assured the devotee that the bodily obliteration following death was only a passing stage. At the end of time, body and soul would reunite in the resurrection and a change to eternal stasis would take place that marked the ultimate triumph of bodily integrity over partition, and of life over death.74

Works Cited Primary Sources Concilium Lateranense, Constitutiones Concilii quarti Lateranensis una cum Commentariis glossatorum, ed. by Antonio García y García, Monumenta iuris canonici. Series A: corpus glossatorum, 2 (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca apostolica Vaticana, 1981) Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, i: Nicaea I to Lateran V, ed. and trans. by Norman P. Tanner (London: Sheed & Ward, 1990) Langebek, Jacob, Scriptores rerum danicarum medii ævi, iii (Hafnia: Godiche, 1774) ———, Scriptores rerum danicarum medii ævi, viii (Hafnia: Godiche, 1834) The Martyrdom of Polycarp, in The Apostolic Fathers, ed. and trans. by Joseph Barber Lightfoot, J. R. Harmer, and Michael W. Holmes (Leicester: Apollos, 1990), pp. 135–44 [original edn 1891] Nye Danske Magazin indeholdende Allehaande Smaa-Stykker og Anmærkninger til Historiens og Sprogets Oplysning, 2nd ser., 5 (1827) Thiofrid of Echternach, Flores epytaphii sanctorum, ed. by Michele Camillo Ferrari, Corpus Christianorum, continuatio mediaevalis, 133 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996) Secondary Works Angenendt, Arnold, ‘Der Kult der Reliquien’, in Reliquien: Verehrung und Verklärung; Skizzen und Noten zur Thematik und Katalog zur Ausstellung der Kölner Sammlung Louis Peters im Schnütgen-Museum, ed. by Anton Legner (Cologne: Schnütgen-Museum, 1989), pp. 9–24 ———, ‘Corpus incorruptum: Eine Leitidee der mittelalterliche Reliquienverehrung’, Saeculum, 42 (1991), 320–48 ———, Heilige und Reliquien: Die Geschichte ihres Kultes vom frühen Christentum bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: Beck, 1994)

74 Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body, p. 108.

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———, ‘Relics and their Veneration’, in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe, ed. by Martina Bagnoli and others (London: The British Museum, 2011), pp. 19–28 Arhnung, Jens Otto, ‘Hvornaar knyttedes St Lucius til Roskilde Domkirke?’, in Festskrift til Erik Arup den 22. november 1946, ed. by Astrid Friis and Albert Olsen (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1946), pp. 44–66 Arneborg, Jette, and Per Kristian Madsen, ‘The Odyssey of a Saint — Lucius, a Roman Papal Saint and his Merits from ad 253 to 2016’, in Ora pro nobis: Space, Place and the Practice of Saints’ Cults in Medieval and Early-Modern Scandinavia and Beyond, ed. by Nils Holger Petersen and others, Publications from the National Museum, Studies in Archaeology and History, 27 (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2019), pp. 215–39 Arneborg, Jette, and others, ‘Kranier på afveje’, in Nationalmuseets arbejdsmark, ed. by Per Kristian Madsen and Ingrid Wass (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 2015), pp. 142–53 Bagnoli, Martina, ‘The Stuff of Heaven. Materials and Craftmanship in Medieval Reliquaries’, in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe, ed. by Martina Bagnoli and others (London: The British Museum, 2011), pp. 136–47 ———, ‘Dressing the Relics: Some Thoughts on the Custom of Relic Wrapping in Medieval Christianity’, in Matter of Faith: An Interdisciplinary Study of Relics and Relic Veneration in the Medieval Period, ed. by James Robinson, Lloyd de Beer, and Anna Harnden, British Museum Research Publication, 195 (London: The British Museum, 2014), pp. 100–09 Bartlett, Robert, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013) Boehm, Barbara Drake, ‘Body-Part Reliquaries: The State of Research’, Gesta, 36 (1997), 8–19 Boesch Gajano, Sofia, ‘Reliques et pouvoirs’, in Les reliques: objets, cultes, symbols; actes du colloque international de l’Université du Littoral-Côte d’Opale (Boulognesur-Mer) 4–6 septembre 1997, ed. by Edina Bozóky and Anne-Marie Helvétius, Hagiologia, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), pp. 255–69 Borød, Jens, ‘Pave Lucius fra Roskilde Domkirke’, Meddelelser om konservering, 3 (1985), 347–52 Braun, Joseph, Der christliche Altar in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung, 2 vols (Munich: Alte Meister Guenther Koch, 1924) ———, Die Reliquiare des christlichen Kultes und ihre Entwicklung (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1940) Bynum, Caroline Walker, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York: Zone, 1991) ———, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336, Lectures on the History of Religions, 15 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995) ———, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone, 2011)

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Bynum, Caroline Walker, and Paula Gerson, ‘Body-Part Reliquaries and Body Parts in the Middle Ages’, Gesta, 36 (1997), 3–7 Crook, John, The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints in the Early Christian West, c. 300–1200, Oxford Historical Monographs (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000) Dalton, John P., The Archiepiscopal and Deputed Seals of York, 1114–1500, Borthwick Texts and Calendars, 17 (York: University of York, Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, 1992) Diedrichs, Christof L., Vom Glauben zum Sehen: Die Sichtbarkeit der Reliquie im Reliquiar; Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sehens (Berlin: Weissensee, 2001) ———, ‘Desire for Viewing: “A Deluge of Images” in the Middle Ages’, in Genre and Ritual: The Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals, ed. by Eyolf Østrem and others (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2005), pp. 87–117 Duin, Johannes J., ‘Helligdomsarmen’, in St Olavs kirke 100 år: 1856 - 24. august 1956 (Oslo: Oslo Katolske Bispedømme, 1956), pp. 35–41 Eisenhofer, Ludwig, Handbuch der katholischen Liturgik, i: Allgemeine Liturgik (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1932) Eisenhofer, Ludwig, and Joseph Lechner, The Liturgy of the Roman Rite (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1960) Ekroll, Øystein, ‘The Shrine of St Olav in Nidaros Cathedral’, in The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim: Architectural and Ritual Constructions in their European Context, ed. by Margrete Syrstad Andås and others, Ritus et artes, 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 147–207 Falk, Birgitta, ‘Bildnisreliquiare: Zur Entstehung und Entwicklung der metallenen Kopf-, Büsten-, und Halbfigurenreliquaire im Mittelalter’, Aachener Kunstblätter, 59 (1991/93), 99–238 Ferrari, Michele Camillo, ‘Lemmata sanctorum. Thiofrid d’Echternach et le discours sur les reliques au XIIe siècle’, Cahiers de civilisation médievale, 38 (1995), 215–25 Forsyth, Ilene H., The Throne of Wisdom: Wood Sculptures of the Madonna in Romanesque France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972) Fricke, Beate, ‘Visages démasqués. Un nouveau type de reliquaire chez les Anjou’, in Le portrait individual: réflexions autour d’une forme de représentation XIII–XVe siècles, ed. by Dominic Olariu (Bern: Lang, 2009), pp. 34–63 Fritz, Birgitta, and Lars Elfving, Den stora kyrkofesten för Sankta Katarina i Vadstena år 1489: Samtida texter med översättning och kommentarer, Kungl. Samfundet för utgivande av handskrifter rörande Skandinaviens historia, Handlingar, 27 (Stockholm: Kungl. Samfundet för utgivande av handskrifter rörande Skandinaviens historia, 2004) Geary, Patrick J., Furta sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978) ———, ‘Sacred Commodities: The Circulation of Medieval Relics’, in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. by Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 169–91 ———, ‘Relics. The West’, in Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, ii: K–Z, ed. by André Vauchez, Barrie Dobson, and Michael Lapidge (Cambridge: Clarke, 2000), pp. 1222–24

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Gundestrup, Bente, Det kongelige danske Kunstkammer 1737: The Royal Danish Kunstkammer 1737 (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, Nyt Nordisk Forlag, 1991) Haussherr, Reiner, ‘Der tote Christus am Kreuz: Zur Ikonographie des Gerokreuzes’ (Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Philosophischen Fakultät der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn, 1963) Herrmann-Mascard, Nicole, Les reliques des saints: formation coutumière d’un droit, Société d’histoire du droit, Collection d’histoire institutionnelle et sociale, 6 (Paris: Klincksieck, 1975) Hooper, Steven, ‘Bodies, Artefacts and Images. A Cross-Cultural Theory of Relics’, in Matter of Faith: An Interdisciplinary Study of Relics and Relic Veneration in the Medieval Period, ed. by James Robinson, Lloyd de Beer, and Anna Harnden, British Museum Research Publication, 195 (London: The British Museum, 2014), pp. 190–99 Hubert, Jean, and Marie-Clotilde Hubert, ‘Piété chrétienne ou paganisme? Les statues-reliquaires de l’Europe carolingienne’, in Cristianizzazione et organizzazione ecclesiastica delle campagne nell’alto medioevo: espansione et resistente, ed. by Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, Settimane di Studio del centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 28 (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1982), pp. 235–75 Jensen, Christian Axel, ‘Katolsk kirkeinventars skæbne efter reformationen. Studier og exempler’, Aarbøger for nordisk oldkyndighed og historie, 3.11 (1921), 167–204 Jexlev, Thelma, ‘Vor Frue Kirkes relikvier. To senmiddelalderlige fortegnelser’, Historiske meddelelser om København (1976), 26–47 Joblin, Alain, ‘L’attitude des Protestants face aux reliques’, in Les reliques: objets, cultes, symbols; actes du colloque international de l’Université du Littoral-Côte d’Opale (Boulogne-sur-Mer) 4–6 septembre 1997, ed. by Edina Bozóky and Anne-Marie Helvétius, Hagiologia, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), pp. 123–41 Johannsen, Birgitte Bøggild, Hugo Johannsen, and Ulla Kjær, Odense amt, ii.5/7: Inventar, Danmarks Kirker, 9 (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1995) Karlsson, Mattias, Konstruktionen av det heliga: Altarna i det medeltida Lunds stift, Skånsk senmedeltid och renässans, 23 (Lund: Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund, 2015) Keller, Harald, ‘Zur Entstehung der sakralen Vollskulptur in der ottonischen Zeit’, in Festschrift für Hans Jantzen, ed. by Kurt Bauch (Berlin: Mann, 1951), pp. 71–91 ———, ‘Zur Entstehung der Reliquienbüste aus Holz’, in Kunstgeschichtliche Studien für Hans Kauffmann, ed. by Wolfgang Braunfels (Berlin: Mann, 1956), pp. 71–80 Kjær, Ulla, Roskilde domkirke: Kunst og historie (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2013) Koldeweij, Jos, ‘Das Servatius-Büstenreliquiar in der Maastrichter Servatiuskirche und seine liturgische Nutzung’, in Kunst und Liturgie im Mittelalter: Akten des internationalen Kongresses der Bibliotheca Hertziana und des Nederlands Instituut te Rome. Rom, 28.–30. September 1997, ed. by Nicolas Bock and others, Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana. Beiheft zu Bd. 33 (Munich: Hirmer, 2000), pp. 217–33

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Kovács, Eva, Kopfreliquiare des Mittelalters (Budapest: Insel, 1964) Krueger, Derek, ‘The Religion of Relics in Late Antiquity and Byzantium’, in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe, ed. by Martina Bagnoli and others (London: The British Museum, 2011), pp. 5–17 Lahti, Sofia, ‘Helig hand med världslig prestige: ett martyrsrelikvarium med ett donatorsvapen’, Tahiti: Taidehistoruia tietenenä; Konsthistorien som vetenskap, 2015, no. 2 [accessed 15 August 2017] ———, Silver Arms and Silk Heads: Medieval Reliquaries in the Nordic Countries (Åbo: Åbo Akademi University Press, 2019) Legner, Anton, Reliquien in Kunst und Kult: Zwischen Antike und Aufklärung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995) Liebgott, Niels-Knud, Hellige mænd og kvinder (Højbjerg: Wormianum, 1982) ———, ‘Reliquaries’, in Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Philip Pulsiano and Kirsten Wolf, Garland Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages, 1 (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 525–26 Liepe, Lena, ‘Arm i arm. Om form och innehåll hos medeltida armrelikvarier’, Historisk tidskrift för Finland, 102 (2017), 640–61 ———, Reliker och relikbruk i det medeltida Norden (Stockholm: Runica et mediævalia, 2020) Lindahl, Fritze, ‘Hellig Olafs arm eller en anden helgens’, in Festskrift til Thelma Jexlev: Fromhed og verdslighed i middelalder og renaissance, ed. by Ebba Waaben and others (Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag, 1985), pp. 45–60 Malo, Robyn, Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013) Moltke, Erik, and Elna Møller, Københavns amt, iii: Roskilde domkirke, Danmarks Kirker, 3 (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1951) Montgomery, Scott B., ‘Relics and Pilgrimage in the Xylographic Book of St Servatius of Maastricht’, in Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage, ed. by Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, 104 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 669–91 Møller, Elna, and Ebbe Nyborg, Ribe amt, i, Danmarks Kirker, 19 (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1979) Norberg, Rune, ‘Relikvarium’, in Kulturhistoriskt lexikon för nordisk medeltid, ed. by Ingvar Andersson and John Granlund, xiv (Malmö: Allhem, 1969), pp. 54–60 Petersen, Henry, ‘En relikvie af Roskilde domkirkes skytshelgen, den hellige pave Lucius’, Aarbøger for nordisk oldkyndighed og historie (1874), 393–441 ———, Danske gejstlige sigiller fra middelalderen (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1886) Rørdam, Holger F., ‘Om beskatningen af kirkerne og plyndringen af deres klenodier i Kong Frederik I’s tid’, in Ny kirkehistoriske Samlinger, ed. by Holger F. Rørdam, iv (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Danmarks kirkehistorie, 1867–68), pp. 26–45 Sauer, Joseph, Symbolik des Kirchengebäudes und seiner Ausstattung in der Auffassung des Mittelalters: Mit Berücksichtigung von Honorius Augustodunensis, Sicardus und Durandus (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1902; repr. 1924)

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Schmitt, Jean-Claude, ‘Les reliques et les images’, in Les reliques: objets, cultes, symbols; actes du colloque international de l’Université du Littoral-Côte d’Opale (Boulogne-sur-Mer) 4–6 septembre 1997, ed. by Edina Bozóky and Anne-Marie Helvétius, Hagiologia, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), pp. 145–59 Shortell, Ellen M., ‘Dismembering Saint Quentin: Gothic Architecture and the Display of Relics’, Gesta, 36 (1997), 32–47 Sigal, Pierre-André, ‘Le déroulement des translations de reliques principalement dans les régions entre Loire et Rhin aux XIe et XIIe siècles’, in Les reliques: objets, cultes, symbols; actes du colloque international de l’Université du LittoralCôte d’Opale (Boulogne-sur-Mer) 4–6 septembre 1997, ed. by Edina Bozóky and Anne-Marie Helvétius, Hagiologia, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), pp. 213–27 Snoek, Godefridus J. C., Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction, Studies in the History of Christian Thought, 63 (Leiden: Brill, 1995) Thavis, John, The Vatican Prophecies: Investigating Supernatural Signs, Apparitions, and Miracles in the Modern Age (New York: Viking, 2015) Van Os, Henk W., The Way to Heaven: Relic Veneration in the Middle Ages (Baarn: De Prom, 2000) Vellev, Jens, ‘Fra helgengraven’, Skalk, 1972, no. 3 (1972), 18–27 ———, ‘Relikvierne fra Seem kirke’, Hikuin, 1 (1974), 55–64 ———, ‘Altre og alterindvielser — særligt i Odense stift’, Fynske minder (1975), 23–61 ———, ‘Helgenkongens skrin’, Skalk (1982), 3–9 ———, ‘Helgenskrinene i Odense: fund og forskning 1582–1986’, in Knuds-bogen 1986: Studier over Knud den Hellige, ed. by Tore Nyberg, Hans Bekker-Nielsen, and Niels Oxenvad, Fynske studier, 15 (Odense: Odense bys museer, 1986), pp. 123–56

Mads Vedel Heilskov

Living Matter in Medieval Denmark

Matter that animated and obtained life through miraculous or mechanical agency was a well-known phenomenon in the medieval Catholic West. While the question was already raised a century ago,1 it only recently gained traction in the international academic mainstream, not least in the wake of Caroline Walker Bynum’s Christian Materiality (2011).2 Heavily influenced by the ontologies of new materialism, many scholars have sought to elucidate how material presentations of the divine (broadly defined and including pictorial, sculptural, textual, architectural, and abstract forms) were experienced and organized within a wide array of frameworks and schemas.3 Though animation miracles and living matter is only mentioned en passant in scholarship concerned with medieval Denmark,4 international research has shown that things were able to channel the divine because of their role in cultic activities, and that sacredness as concept or state of being therefore cannot be separated from its cultural and religious context.5 Living matter was, moreover, not a closed category. Many conflicting opinions on the phenomenon were able to co-exist, even within the same

1 Browe, ‘Die eucharistischen Verwandlungswunder’, Die eucharistischen Wunder des Mittelalters, and ‘Die Hostienschändungen der Juden im Mittelalter’. 2 Bynum, Christian Materiality. 3 ‘Presentation’ is used here as the opposite of representation. Sacred objects and images were referential to their divine prototype, but also channelled, presented, and made it present for the faithful. They did therefore not merely represent the referent. 4 Liebgott, Hellige mænd og kvinder, pp. 44–45, 58–61; Kjær and Kristensen, ‘Fromhedslivet’, pp. 308–10. 5 The most impactful newer studies, aside from Bynum’s Christian Materiality, are Lipton, ‘The Sweet Lean of his Head’; Swift, ‘Robot Saints’; Tripps, Das handelnde Bildwerk and ‘Der Kirchenraum als Handlungsort’; Kopania, Animated Sculptures; Maniura, ‘Agency and Miraculous Images’; Jung, ‘The Tactile and the Visionary’ and ‘The Kinetics of Gothic Sculpture’.

Mads Vedel Heilskov, PhD in Scandinavian Studies (University of Aberdeen). Carlsberg Foundation post-doctoral researcher. Email: [email protected] Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix, and Mads Heilskov, AS 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 147–180 © FHG10.1484/M.AS-EB.5.123989

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cultural milieus.6 Instances of living matter in medieval Denmark are no exception. They cannot be compiled as a tidy, homogenous set that originated from one particular context, but rather as a diverse collection of texts and objects that became imbued with meaning through their use by and interaction with humans. Following that acknowledgement, this chapter proposes that objects could acquire life as a result of their participation in a multitude of artistic, liturgical, devotional, and cultural processes that played on different registers of knowledge and experience. This life should not be understood as an essence that resides in living things, but as a potential emerging through the intricate interplay between the objects’ exterior shape, their referentiality to sacred prototypes, narratives, rituals and previous religious or mystical experiences connected to them, and the cultic practices they actively partook in. On that background, this chapter analyses how religious objects could acquire life in medieval Denmark, starting with the most concrete and anthropomorphic instances, before moving on to those in a fragmentary state, and finally to the most abstract ones. The evidence is used to explore three main themes: the mimetic and illusory tactics that played out in the cults of the weeping Madonna of Karup and the Saint Helper figure of Kliplev; the embodiment of relics and ensoulment of religious figures by way of depositing relics inside them; and the miraculous incarnation of matter, where non-anthropomorphic objects acquired life. The sources informing on these phenomena are fragmentary, scattered, and cover a long time span, from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries. These include wooden figures, pilgrimage badges, annals, wills, financial accounts, inventory lists, chronicles, saints’ lives, visitation records, council minutes, charters, and propaganda material. Their careful, interdisciplinary analysis elucidates particular occasions where matter became catalyst for divine agency, and leads to a refined understanding of life in the medieval mindset.

Mimesis and Illusion: Anthropomorphic Figures The making and experience of medieval art, as well as the experience of, and participation in, extra-liturgical or devotional practices, are generally understood as subordinated to learned theology.7 This has had two opposing consequences for the way object-animation has been interpreted: on the one hand, learned theological discourses about the incarnation and the doctrine of transubstantiation have been used to shed light on animation miracles and the usage of mechanically animated figures in ritual and devotional practices.8 These arguments, often based on a very limited set of liturgical books and theological



6 Holmes, ‘Miraculous Images’, p. 435. 7 Efforts have been made, however, to change that picture, cf. Hamburger, ‘The Place of Theology’; Pinkus, Sculpting Simulacra, especially pp. 14–15. 8 Lutz, ‘The Drop of Blood’.

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treatises, have led to some problematic conclusions.9 On the other hand, it has been pointed out how such occurrences and practices were in stark opposition to the official teachings of the Church and should therefore be understood within the framework of the vernacular religion of the uneducated, rather than within the realm of theology.10 The main problem has been the apparent conflation of the divine itself and the objects that mediated it as the source of agency. Within the scholarly tradition, this conflation and the general centrality of materiality, especially that mimicking the human form, in medieval Christianity has been the source of anxiousness and approached with a fair deal of distrust.11 Nevertheless, divine agency was a sliding scale. The divine was essentially compound (God was split in three, the saints’ remains were split in many parts, and things they touched had taken on sacred immanence as brandea)12 and could act in the world through its parts (i.e. relics, brandea) or through consecrated things (i.e. Eucharistic elements, altars). Thus, it is in many cases unclear whether the referent (the divine) or its material presentation was the acting subject. Because of the conflation between referent and presentation, and the theological problems it posed, mechanically or indeed miraculously animated objects from the Middle Ages have often been seen as fraudulent works. The theological distrust in the ability of images and figures to present the divine in material form even cast doubt on miracles, occasionally making the authentication of such miracles a difficult diplomatic task.13 The discourse of illusion as fraud is very prominent in the anti-Catholic propaganda of the Reformation era, which to this day continues to (mis) inform scholarship on the subject. The weeping Madonna from Karup, near the town of Viborg, is mainly known from such propaganda material: a pamphlet from 1530 exposes the miraculous weeping as a deliberate fraud construed to deceive the pious but uneducated pilgrims off of their money. Saint Helper from Kliplev is also described through these lenses by Jonas Hoyer, councilman in Flensburg, who wrote in 1628 that the figure of Saint Helper was still venerated even though he was just a wooden block shaped like a man. Much in line with medieval narratives of idol-destroying saints, where the explicitly unanimated idol cannot defend itself against the holy power of the saint,14 he further remarked that the figure could allegedly help people and animals but was unable to help itself, standing helplessly as it did without arms and legs.15 The chronicle of the town of Flensburg, written in 1683 by Anton Walter Heimrich, follows that description.16

9 Kopania, ‘Animating Christ’, p. 79. 10 Paoletti, ‘Wooden Sculpture’. 11 Jürgensen, this volume. 12 Vauchez, ‘L’image vivante’, p. 239. See also Liepe, this volume. 13 Welch, ‘The Moaning Crucifixion’, pp. 58–59; Bynum, Christian Materiality, pp. 15–18. 14 Salih, ‘Idol Theory’. 15 Moller, Historischer Bericht, p. 7. 16 Heimrich, Schleswigsche Kirchenhistorie, pp. 159–60.

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We know from textual and material sources, however, that the figures at Karup and Kliplev attracted pilgrims before the time these tales were printed and before the Lutheran ideas began to spread. The accounts of Queen Christine (1461–1521) attest that she went on a pilgrimage to Karup in 1505.17 The finding of pilgrimage badges shaped as the sedes sapientiae, which name Karup, further substantiates the existence of the cult of the weeping Madonna. Moreover, the Gothic core of Karup Church, now hidden within the church’s eighteenth-century frame, is relatively large, possibly due to an abundance of pious bequests made by pilgrims and the revenue that fairs and other such activities connected to pilgrimage would generate. Unfortunately, only a few pious bequests to Karup are historically documented, but many more may have existed.18 Furthermore, Johannes Angelus Archimboldus (c. 1485–1555), papal legate and seller of indulgences ran his business at Karup Church, probably adding to its fortune.19 Saint Helper in Kliplev is known from the pilgrimage charter of Queen Margaret I (1353–1412) signed in 1405, where the abbots of the Cistercian monasteries of Sorø and Esrum confirmed that pilgrims were to be sent to a great number of holy places in the event of her death, including the shrine of the Saint Helper Crucifix (thet hælghe Kors sanctæ Hiælp).20 Like Karup, the cult of Saint Helper can also be substantiated by material evidence, since pilgrimage badges from Kliplev showing a Volto Santo crucifix have been found in various archaeological contexts. The miracle of the weeping Madonna is known from a tale taking place at a tavern in Skive, where a pilgrim asks Peder Smid for directions to Karup. Peder Smid tells him how the Madonna began to weep because of the Lutheran heresies that were taking place. While the two men are talking, a priest and a monk complain about how the Lutheran faith is expanding, leaving their flock immune to the material remedies of the Church and the monasteries empty. If only, they agree, they could make the saints work wonders like it had happened in Karup, then the situation would reverse. Peder Smid then reveals that he has heard that the miracle in Karup was a hoax: the Madonna’s head was empty and filled with water, and its eyes were pierced with small holes so that water could trickle out like tears.21 In the story, the miracle is framed as a Catholic counter-reaction towards the budding Reformation movement that the pamphlet sought to strengthen. If we either accept the pamphlet’s (admittedly dubious) description of the weeping being mechanical, or if we accept it as perceived as miraculous, we may at the very least infer that it was animated, and that people understood the figure as the physical embodiment of the Virgin, which was able to convey

17 18 19 20 21

Dronning Christines Regnskaber, ed. by Christensen, p. 133. Will of Holger Eriksen (Rosenkrantz), in DM, 1st ser., 6, pp. 267–69. Wieselgren, ‘Archimboldi fullmakter’, pp. 152–54. Pilgrimage charter of Queen Margaret I, 1405, in Rep, 1st ser., 3, no. 4680. Peder Smid and Adzer Bonde pamphlet 1530, in KS, 1st ser., 2, pp. 327–82.

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her presence.22 The same may be said of Saint Helper, who, according to the post-Reformation sources, was thought to be able to perform miracles of healing. Moreover, Saint Helper allegedly stood in his own chapel wearing a golden crown and golden shoes and gloves. He was hung on a cross and could be seen through a window where a sacrificial box was placed for donations.23 Regarding the shape and construction of the actual figures of the weeping Madonna and Saint Helper, we are left with the post-Reformation descriptions and some material evidence. A preserved Madonna figure of the sedes sapientiae type from Karup may be identical with the miraculous one, but this is not known (Fig. 7.1).24 Also, an inventory list from the seventeenth century, when the local aristocratic family annexed Karup Church and took over its inventory, describes the Virgin sitting on a throne surrounded by the sun and stars, having two people kneeling beneath her with folded hands and their eyes lifted towards her.25 The preserved Madonna figure partly confirms that description, but the celestial symbols and kneeling persons are missing. Moreover, a few late fifteenth-century pilgrimage badges may assist us in recreating the figure. One pilgrimage badge from Karup Church was found in 1901 as a relic inside the cavity of the church’s altar table. It was most likely deposited when the high altar was consecrated around 1487 (Fig. 7.2). Another one was found in the floor-layer of Brejning Church during its refurbishment in 1960–1961. Moreover, a cast of a pilgrimage badge from Karup is found on the church bell of Hesselager Church, which was originally forged for the Cistercian church of Øm.26 The pilgrimage badges largely confirm the description too as they show the Enthroned Virgin with Child surrounded by an aureola that could be described as the sun, but they actually resemble the surviving figure quite well. If the surviving figure is indeed the weeping Madonna, there is no evidence that a mechanical device made her weep.27 Regarding Saint Helper, the figure from Kliplev is now lost, but it may have been shaped like the surviving fifteenth-century Saint Helper crucifix from the church of Nustrup (Fig. 7.3).28 This figure is human-sized and carved in oak with polychrome paint. It shows a crucifixion of the Volto Santo type with Christ crowned and fully robed in a tunic with outstretched arms and open eyes.29 The twenty Saint Helper pilgrimage badges from Kliplev found in different archaeological contexts correspond to the Volto Santo type crucifixion from Nustrup. One badge from Karup and one from Kliplev have been found in water-bodies, and one from Karup was found in the floor-

22 See also Holmes, ‘The Miraculous Image’, pp. 182–83, for a Florentine parallel. 23 Heimrich, Schleswigische Kirchenhistorie, pp. 159–60. 24 Andersen, ‘Et pilgrimsmærke fra Karup’, pp. 196–97. 25 Wammen, Karup, p. 13. 26 Andersen, ‘Et pilgrimsmærke fra Karup’, pp. 191–95. 27 Andersen, ‘Et pilgrimsmærke fra Karup’, pp. 196–97. 28 DK, Haderslev Amt 1954, pp. 662–63. 29 DK Haderslev Amt 1954, p. 662.

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Figure 7.1. Madonna figure, c. 1480, Karup Church. Photo by Kurt Nielsen, reproduced courtesy of Viborg Museum.

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layer of a house. Four Saint Helper badges were found in a damaged condition, and had perhaps been broken on purpose. Only one of them is rolled in the same fashion as medieval lead amulets. These circumstances may indicate that pilgrimage badges were used in prayer or as amulets or offerings. The find of a crucifix-shaped badge near the holy spring of Kippinge and the crucifix-shaped badge with bent ends on the cross arms, which was meant to be sewn onto clothing, found in Bistrup further point in that direction.30 When combined, these sources provide a relatively clear image of the figures and their devotional context. From the descriptions and pilgrimage badges, it is clear that the Karup Madonna was a devotional image of a common type, showing the Virgin with child on her heavenly throne, possibly with devotees kneeling at her feet, thus acting as mirror images for the pilgrims. The kneeling persons could also be saints, however, if the description from the inventory is true and the surviving figure is not Figure 7.2. Pilgrimage badge, c. 1487, Karup the weeping Madonna. Neither Church. Found in 1901 as a relic inside the the description, nor the pilgrimage cavity of the church’s altar table. badges give any certain clues as to the technical details of the figure’s mechanical weeping, and the surviving figure exhibits no traces that resemble what is described in the propaganda pamphlet. However, a credible example from Hamar Cathedral in Norway attests that such technologies were applied to religious figures in Scandinavia in the late medieval period. In 1707, a crucifix was discovered by the vicar, Nils Sverdrup, to have a cavity in the head and some sponge-like material around the eyes, which means that the sculpture was able to weep. The vicar referred to the mechanism as ‘pious fraud’.31 Following

30 Søvsø, ‘Catalogue of Pilgrimage Badges’. 31 Bø, ‘Sculptures and Accessories’, p. 3.

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that description, it cannot be ruled out that the Madonna figure from Karup could have been equipped with a similar mechanism. Whether mechanical or miraculous, the effect remains the same: the wooden Virgin acted as a person before the eyes of the pilgrims and was interacted with as if she was alive. Saint Helper too was treated as alive and performed miracles. This illusion should not be understood as fraud, however. Rather, it resulted from a fabricated ‘sameness’ or ‘similarity’ between ontologically different agents, that is, a form of mimesis resulting from the human ability to produce tangible, corporeal models or copies of natural phenomena defined as prototypes.32 In these cases, the prototypes were Christ and the Virgin Mary replicated in wood and paint, and the similitude between the — imagined — appearance of the prototype and its presentation was of utmost importance for the figures’ ability to act. In fact, the figures, the pilgrimage badges, and the pilgrims may well have interacted in an intricate exchange of mimetic performances. Outside Denmark, pilgrimage badges were sometimes made in the likeness of the miracle-working image and worked as stand-ins for it, for instance in prayers. In several instances, such replicas had touched the image or figure and/or were hung on it or placed in its nearness as ex-votos in exchange for their aid.33 This provides us with a frame of understanding that may well be transferred to the cultic practices that took place at the miraculous shrines of Karup and Kliplev. The figures essentially worked as brandea imbued with divine immanence through their likeness to the prototype. The badges made in their likeness then acted as brandea of the figures, and in that way the sacred presence could be further transferred and distributed through touch and likeness in shape, a transference, which was recognized and actualized through its acting out in cultic practices. In the case of Karup, a badge was even recognized as a relic capable of consecrating the altar. Not only was the figure’s miraculous weeping in that way officially authenticated as a miracle; the transference of sacredness through touch and/or likeness in shape was also recognized by the ecclesiastical authorities. The dynamic synergy between the figure and the badge made them authenticate each other. This level of official recognition was, however, never reached by the Saint Helper crucifix, which remained an unauthenticated cult image. The likeness that allowed the figures to obtain the sacred presence and thereby a form of life was, as already seen, not unmediated. Firstly, the figure of the Virgin was based on a culturally accepted type, namely the sedes sapientiae.34 Her sacredness was conveyed through the conventional sign of the aureola,35 and her roles as the holy mother and queen of heaven

32 33 34 35

Willerslev, ‘Not Animal’ and Soul-Hunters, pp. 9–11. Maniura, ‘Agency and Miraculous Images’, pp. 629–38. See also Trotzig, ‘The Iconography of the Enthroned Virgin’. See Hall and Uhr, ‘Aureola and fructus’, for a full discussion of the meaning of the aureola.

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were conveyed in similar symbolic fashion, where she sat enthroned and crowned, surrounded by the celestial symbols with the infant Christ on her lap. Meanwhile, her role as mediatrix was emphasized by the persons kneeling before her (if indeed that description holds true). In this way, the orthodoxy of the iconographic programme made it easily decipherable to any devotee visiting her shrine, as it referred to the culturally acceptable idea of Mary they met in sermons and prayers.36 Saint Helper was less orthodox in a Danish context, and it is very possible that medieval Danish Christians were unable to recognize the Volto Santo based on the figure in Lucca, Tuscany. Upon that assumption, Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen has suggested that the cult of Saint Helper should be understood as an amalgamation of late medieval devotional trends synthesized in one devotional figure, as the Volto Santo crucifix was reinterpreted in the North European context.37 In that way, Saint Helper became miraculous in the public imagination because he, as a template embodying imitatio christi, was able to contain the sum of what was expected of an icon and was able to stand as an illustrious model of devotion, having received the literal likeness of Christ; receiving the stigmata, and literally embodying and becoming him, also in his physical appearance. However different in terms of iconographic orthodoxy, both figures could pass as human beings through their exterior proportions and colours; they were carved and painted, and a number of sculpting and painterly techniques were employed in order to realistically imitate skin, hair, metal, and fabric. Indeed, their effectiveness as cult images and mediators between the sacred and the worldly spheres depended on their ability to successfully imitate the prototypes they sought to replicate, thus becoming effective illusions of reality. Naturalism in style, of course, does not equate naturalism in ontology. The ability to fabricate a copy of the sacred prototype made it possible for the figures to obtain the ‘nature’ or ‘essence’ of the original, real divine bodies. This was possible exactly because of the figures’ referentiality to the sacred history of the Virgin and her cult, and to literal imitatio christi as the fruits of deep devotion. The shapes of the figures were not meant to exhibit the real historical characters with any physiognomic verisimilitude, but rather to conform to the cultural ideas about them.38 It was not through the physical recognition of the Virgin as herself, or of the Volto Santo, that pilgrims were able to experience the figures as media able to effectively convey their essence, but through learned cultural forms.39 The Madonna figure was, following the available sources, deliberately constructed in the likeness of known images and figures of the Enthroned Virgin and meeting the internalized cultural

36 See also Heilskov, ‘Sacralising Perception’. 37 Jürgensen, ‘Altering the Sacred Face’. 38 See Smith, The Body of the Artisan, pp. 8–12. 39 Baxandall, Painting and Experience, p. 45; Belting, Likeness and Presence, p. 299.

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Figure 7.3. Saint Helper crucifix, fifteenth century, Nustrup Church. Photo by Sarah Croix.

Figure 7.4. Monumental crucifix by Claus Berg, 1527, at the Cistercian church of Sorø. Photo by Thomas Bertelsen.

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expectations of the pilgrims.40 This way, the figure was able to evoke the Virgin as mother of God, intercessor and model of piety. Saint Helper was able to embody a synthesis of medieval ideas about piety and devotion. He was literal imitatio christi and had become the source through mimesis. Mimesis, one might argue, was his very essence. In both cases, all of this potency was tied up to the physical bodies of the figures and awakened as pilgrims knelt before them, touched them with badges, thereby transmitting their essence to them, or simply touched the badges that may have worked through association. After all, it is unlikely that a regular pilgrim would have been able to get intimate enough with a miraculous figure to actually touch it. As the written evidence suggests, Saint Helper was, for instance, only seen through a window and donations at his shrine happened at the sacrificial box situated by his chapel.41 Through mimesis, the figures were able to contain the holy essence in their wooden frame, making it present in their materiality as well as in the material they had touched or imitated their form. Through practice, the figures and their brandea became valid, participatory intelligences, as Richard C. Trexler once put it,42 which could be interacted with as real persons.

Embodiment and Ensoulment: Relics in Wooden Figures While the weeping Madonna and Saint Helper obtained the sacred essence through their exterior form, figures could also be infused with sacred presence and thereby the potential for life by way of depositing relics or consecrated Hosts inside them, sometimes in hidden cavities, at other times beneath rock crystal capsules that would allow the faithful to glimpse the holy contents. The topic was first raised by Reiner Hausherr and later by Johannes Taubert who both merely argued that the phenomenon was too widespread to be ignored as part of the religious culture of the period. In line with subsequent German scholarship,43 research in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Estonia has pointed out that figures with deposited relics transformed into reliquaries that made the sacred present through their holy contents, and served to authenticate the relics.44

40 Trotzig, ‘The Iconography of the Enthroned Virgin’. 41 Moller, Historischer Bericht, p. 7; DK Åbenrå Amt 1959, p. 1988. 42 Trexler, ‘Florentine Religious Experience’, p. 20. 43 Hausherr, ‘Der tote Christus am Kreuz’, pp. 38–40; Taubert, Polychrome Sculpture, pp. 27–29; Dünninger, ‘Zur Frage’; Pötzl, ‘Bild und Reliquie’; Legner, Reliquien in Kunst und Kult, pp. 232–55; Belting, Bild und Kult, pp. 331–47; Lutz, Das Bild des Gekreuzigten, pp. 26–28; Beer, Triumphkreuze, pp. 57–59; Krause, ‘Der Halberstädter Reliquienfund’. 44 Liepe, ‘The Presence of the Sacred’, p. 47; Vuola and others, ‘Medieval Wood Sculpture’, pp. 56–59; Andreson, ‘The Presence of the Sacred’, pp. 19–25.

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The relation between figure and relics could also be problematic. Based on Hugh of Poitiers’s tale about the forgotten relics of the True Cross, which were rediscovered inside a sedes sapientiae figure at the monastery church of Vézelay when it was saved from fire in 1165, Kirk Ambrose has shown that limiting the visibility of relics could cause the containers to rival or eclipse their sacred contents and cause the relics to be forgotten. The rediscovery of the relics, however, played a significant role in the monasteries’ identity construction.45 Using the same example, Ilene Forsyth has also proposed that the presence or absence of relics did not affect the cultic use of wooden figures as such. However, and in line with Kirk Ambrose’s opinion, the discovery of the forgotten relics was of great importance for the figure’s ongoing life and place within the abbey’s self-understanding and -representation, not least as a capital to be counted on in the monastery’s time of trouble.46 Previous research has thereby revealed a tension between visibility and invisibility, and between the presence of the divine in the relic and in the figure itself. While the idea that figures simply turned into reliquaries when relics were deposited inside them seems to be preferred by most, I contend that these figures constituted their own category of living matter. They were ensouled by the relics, which helped them gaining the life they already had the potential to possess through their form and materials. There are a small, yet significant, number of Danish medieval figures with deposited relics that have survived in whole or fragmented form. Some have kept their relics while the figures themselves have sustained damage, others have rock crystals mounted on them but the relics themselves have been removed. A third group has only an empty cavity left as a trace that they once contained relics or consecrated Hosts. A number of such figures were collected by Lena Liepe in 2014, including those from the parts of present-day Sweden that were Danish territory in the medieval period.47 Further figures can be added to her catalogue, including those from Vester Nebel Church, Ribe Cathedral, Olstrup Church, and the Grey Friars’ Church in Odense. The possible reliquary cavity in the holy rood from Bække Church might be added to that list, thus giving a total number of eighteen figures with deposited relics or with traces that they have once contained relics. In this collection there are, in principle, two types of relic-containing figure, which operated via different communicative strategies suggesting different functions, or that their users had different relationships to them. The first type features relics mounted on their exterior, usually deposited in cavities beneath capsules of rock crystal. The second type contains relics that are hidden within the figures, with no obvious external sign of their precious content. The vast majority of figures with deposited relics are crucifixes.

45 Ambrose, ‘“Cunningly Hidden”’, p. 80. 46 Forsyth, The Throne of Wisdom, pp. 32–36. 47 Liepe, ‘The Presence of the Sacred’, pp. 39–50.

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This is true for both figures with visible and hidden relics. The collection contains both regular-sized and monumental crucifixes, but no pattern can be established regarding whether a particular size was preferred for a particular type of relic deposition. I will not go through all cases, but highlight a few as representative of their type. The late Gothic monumental crucifix in the Cistercian church of Sorø, made by Claus Berg (c. 1470–1532) in 1527, is one of the examples with visible relics (Fig. 7.4). The cross is nearly eight metres tall and the crucified Christ around three metres, which makes it the largest surviving crucifix from medieval Denmark. It shows a naturalistic presentation of Christ dying on the cross delicately sculpted and painted in polychrome. The current paint is not original, since it was repainted in 1846.48 The large crown is from 1641, when the crucifix was removed from its original placement above the lay brothers’ altar (consecrated to the Holy Cross), and is thus not the original one either. This altar was a double-sided cross-altar that divided the nave in two and may have formed a threshold between the monks’ and lay brothers’ choir together with a screen.49 On the four cross-arms are the four evangelist symbols in golden frames with golden filigree attached to them with nails. The evangelist symbols are painted in naturalistic polychrome and the cross-tree is painted brown. On the extremities of the cross-arms are cavities with inserted gilded metal fittings with rock crystal. The small capsules beneath the rock crystals contain the hair of Christ and the teeth of Saint Paul among other, unspecified relics. These relics may have been transferred to the new crucifix from its former, mid-thirteenth-century predecessor.50 The coat of arms of Lage Urne (1468–1529), bishop of Roskilde, is painted on the front, by the symbol of Saint Matthew at the foot of the cross-tree. Here, we also find the inscription ‘xps vi(n)ci 1527’ (I, Christ, prevailed 1527). On the reverse of the cross is a painted crucifixion with the coat of arms of Henrik Tornekrands (c. 1463–1538), abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Sorø and member of the council of the realm, and the inscription ‘Omnia in laudem dei 1527’ (All in the honour of God 1527).51 As Ebbe Nyborg has shown, having a sculptural side facing the lay brothers’ choir and a painted side facing the monastic choir is a common feature of the surviving Cistercian crucifixes from Northern Europe. The reason for this is that the Cistercian rule prohibited the monastic communities from owning images other than the crucifix which, in addition, could not be sculpted. A similar arrangement with a large double-sided crucifix above a double-sided cross-altar surrounded by a screen from Doberan Minster in

48 Høgh, ‘Mødet’, p. 136. 49 For ground plan see DK Sorø Amt 1936, p. 22. Ground plan with demarcation of the threshold between the choirs in Rensbro, ‘Sorø Klosters kirkegård’, p. 132. 50 Nyborg, ‘Det gamle Sorø-krucifiks’, p. 103. 51 DK Sorø Amt 1936, p. 68.

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Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, gives us an impression of the medieval assemblage Claus Berg’s crucifix was part of.52 The crucifix from Sorø is made with great realism. Christ’s expression is relaxed, his jaw is hanging, his teeth are just showing beneath his lips, and the eyes are slightly open. The side-wound is very deep and wide open. The long, slim limbs are completely stretched out on the cross, while the hair and loincloth show upwards movement. Claus Berg’s crucifix, alongside other figures with visible relics, can be said to have fulfilled a role similar to that of a reliquary. It showed the relic and pointed out its presence. The crucifix, however, had a different liturgical role, and its exterior shape was more plastic and anthropomorphic than even the body part-shaped or full body-shaped reliquaries due to its naturalistic replication of Christ dying on the cross. The relics were only visible from the lay brothers’ side of the church. The relics themselves were, however, implied more than actually visible as they would have been situated rather high in the ceiling, far from the visual field of the lay brothers, leaving them as a glimmer of light rather than recognizable relics. In that way the relics were both exhibited and concealed by the illuminating energy of divine grace emanating from the rock crystals. According to medieval lapidaries, rock crystal was seen as petrified water due to its transparency, and symbolized spiritual purity. It was, via scriptural exegesis, also associated with the descent of the Holy Spirit, the sacrament of baptism, and the Incarnation of Christ. Gems, including rock crystal, were, moreover, conceived of as being alive and containing the power of the cosmic events that led to their creation, and thus of Creation itself.53 On the crucifix from Sorø Abbey Church, the sacred presence of relics was mediated through the living water of baptism, showing itself as glimmering transparent rock crystal capsules. This assemblage effectively underscored Christ’s sacrifice on the cross as the source of creation and salvation. Exhibiting the sacred presence of relics through rock crystal thus sent a powerful message and their Christological connotations made them appropriate symbols to attach to the crucifix in order for the immanence of the relics to shine through. In Sorø, the relics were deposited in the cross, not the body of Christ. This, alongside the naturalistic style of the figure’s form and paint, emphasized the humanity of Christ at his final moment. The movement that Claus Berg created in the hair and loincloth further established that this image was in movement; that the lay brothers were actually witnessing the final moment of Christ’s earthly life. This movement could also symbolize the presence of the Holy Spirit,54 just as the rock crystals channelled the divine energy emanating from the relics within the cross and shone with sacred immanence.

52 Nyborg, ‘Det gamle Sorø-krucifiks’, pp. 90–99. 53 Gerevini, ‘“Sicut crystallus”’, p. 272; Bagnoli, ‘The Stuff of Heaven’, p. 138. 54 See also the symbolism of the windswept acanthus on church capitals, discussed in Fleischner, ‘Space, Wind and Light’.

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Wood too was understood as a living material,55 which made it a suitable prosthetic to the living figure of Christ. On the early Gothic crucifix from Sneslev (c. 1250–1300), however, the rock crystal capsules were mounted directly onto Christ’s body (Fig. 7.5).56 In this case, the sacred presence was emanating directly from the body and not from the cross, signalling and emphasizing the divinity and otherworldliness of Christ rather than his humanity.57 The relics that were once housed in the sculpture no longer exist, but are implied by the remains of fabric preserved beneath the capsules. They may have been consecrated Hosts, thus creating a ‘Eucharistic totality’ underscoring the literal, physical reality of the re-actualization of the crucifixion at each Eucharistic sacrifice.58 While the Sneslev crucifix was distinctly divine through the crystals mounted on the chest of Christ, the Sorø crucifix was distinctly human as signalled through the materials and the techniques used to work them. The style of the figure, the wood as its prime material, and its painted surface did, however, create a tension between the (just or nearly) dead human flesh and the living divine presence that was emanating from the cross. Hence, the figures with visible relics let their sacred contents gain a physical body that made the fragments of the divine (in Sorø relics of the Holy Cross and Saint Paul’s teeth, in Sneslev — most likely — consecrated wafers) whole, by reuniting them with a physical, bodily manifestation. Thereby, the wooden physical body gave to the fragments of the holy bodies and consecrated matter the bodily presence they lacked, thus enabling the fragmented, abstract form of sacred presence to manifest itself in a complete, anthropomorphic form. Notwithstanding similarity in the shape of the figures themselves, the other type of relic-containing sculpture may have activated and called upon a different register of perception than those with visible relics. Indeed, whereas the presence of their precious interior was known, at least to some, they could not be witnessed by sight, thus giving them a different kind of agency, mode of communication, and function in liturgy and devotion. Because the relics were invisible the divine was channelled through the figure, and not the relics. This can be exemplified by the two figures of the crucified Christ from Vester Nebel Church (Fig. 7.6) and Ribe Cathedral. Both received the deposition of relics of the 11,000 Virgins, on 8 June and 19 August 1318 respectively, under the patronage of a Master Tyge, cantor at Ribe Cathedral (‘mag(ist)r(um) thucone(m) cantore(m) ri-pen(sem)’).

55 Neilson, ‘Carving Life’. 56 DK Sorø Amt 1938, pp. 545–46. The dating referred to in the text is from DK. Dendrochronological analysis has dated the figure to around or after 1290. Nyborg and Thomsen, ‘Fra Paris til Sneslev’, p. 178. 57 See also Pinkus, ‘Transformations’, pp. 277–78, for a similar point regarding Madonna figures. 58 Nyborg, ‘Kreuz und Kreuzaltarretabel’, pp. 33–34; Andreson, ‘The Presence of the Sacred’, p. 24.

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Figure 7.5. Crucifix, c. 1290, Sneslev Church. Photo by Mads Vedel Heilskov.

Figure 7.6. Crucifix, 1318, Vester Nebel Church. Photo by Sarah Croix.

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The figure from Vester Nebel Church is 101 cm tall and in a local Gothic style, where Christ is short and somewhat round. The figure is of the Patiens type with concave chest, hollowed-out belly, visible ribs, a deep side-wound, and the head leaning towards the shoulder with the face expressing pain. It has been damaged and repaired several times, and the paint is not original. A relic container made of copper with bone fragments, a piece of cloth, and a parchment note was deposited inside the head of the figure. The note tells us the identity of the relics and of the one who deposited them, and that it was done in honour of the Holy Cross. The figure from Ribe, which is now lost, was even more damaged, but its torso of 46 cm suggests that its dimensions were more or less identical to the one from Vester Nebel. The relics were deposited inside the head of Christ as in Vester Nebel, and the hole was concealed with a wooden plug making the relics wholly invisible. The parchment note from the Ribe figure only states the date the relics were deposited and their identity but, since the relics and the year are the same as in Vester Nebel, it is believed that Master Tyge was behind both relic depositions.59 The crucifix from Vester Nebel Church was probably placed above the entrance to the chancel, since there are no known side altars in the church. The altar table is medieval, but it is not known to which saint it was consecrated. Meanwhile, the crucifix from Ribe Cathedral was most likely placed above the altar in the chapel consecrated to the 11,000 Virgins. Since they were endowed with relics, it is plausible that the two crucifixes functioned as cult images and were carried in processions. A couple of late medieval wills mention processions inside Ribe Cathedral. In the two wills of Otto Bosen, canon in Ribe, Schleswig, and Lübeck, and presbyter in Varde, signed on 1 August 1427 and 6 May 1429 respectively, his anniversary masses involved procession to the chapel of the 11,000 Virgins, where two vicars were to pray for his soul in front of the altar.60 A later will, that of Jep Iversen (Lange), canon at Ribe Cathedral and older brother of the bishop of Aarhus, Jens Iversen (Lange) (c. 1400–1482), signed on 15 February 1454 specifies that all canons and vicars of the cathedral should go on procession with the Holy Cross in Ribe Cathedral for the salvation of his own and his parents’ souls. The procession should take place every Friday after the High Mass, except Fridays that fell on major ecclesiastical feasts. It was to begin at the choir, stop at particular side altars and chapels, and then move on through the processional passage which, as archaeological evidence confirms, went across the cemetery and connected the cathedral and the residency of the canons.61 We thereby know the following: the relics of the 11,000 Virgins were deposited in two almost identical crucifixes during the same year, probably

59 DK Ribe Amt 1988–91, pp. 1985–87; DK Ribe Amt 1979, pp. 435–37. 60 Will of Otto Bosen, in Testamenter, ed. by Erslev, no. 86, p. 198. 61 Kinch, Ribe Bys Historie, i, 327–28; Søvsø, ‘Arkæologiske undersøgelser’, p. 19.

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by the same Master Tyge; the relic deposition in the Vester Nebel crucifix was dedicated to the Holy Cross; there was a chapel and an altar dedicated to the 11,000 Virgins in Ribe Cathedral; and a commemorative procession took place on most Fridays throughout the year inside Ribe Cathedral and through its cemetery with the Holy Cross. While the evidence is at best circumstantial, we may speculate that the Holy Cross used during the commemorative procession was the relic-endowed one, and that it acted both as portable and stationary cult image. The land register of the canons of Aarhus Cathedral (c. 1315) indicates that crucifixes, which were normally stationary could be taken down on special occasions and function as portable cult images: once a year, at the feast of Saint John, the crucifix from Kysing Church, c. twenty kilometres south of Aarhus, was transported to Aarhus for people to venerate and bestow pious bequests upon. In exchange, the canons of Aarhus Cathedral had the right to keep one third of the revenue.62 Even if we cannot be sure that the crucifixes from Vester Nebel and Ribe were used in that way, these bits of evidence suggest that the deposition of relics inside them was more about ensouling the figures than giving a physical shape to the relics. The cruciform container was not at all connected to the remains of the 11,000 Virgins, and the dedication of the deposition in Vester Nebel suggests that the Holy Cross was what was really of importance to Master Tyge. Any relic would do in terms of sacralizing the object. Carried in procession, the crucifix could, by way of its form and its sacred contents, sacralize the places and call upon the intercessory prayers from the saints but, in contrast with the crucifixes with visible relics, the roles between the relic and its container were reversed. Rather than supplying the relic with a bodily manifestation, in these instances the figure was supplied with a soul, a sacred presence or form of life, which it was otherwise unable to obtain on its own. Moreover, the shaping and materiality of the anthropomorphic figural vessels and their ornaments made them fit to act as the divine made manifest. Containing relics gave the figures a real presence, giving the divinity that they already conveyed through their shape a corporeal reality. That the relics were hidden inside the head of both figures is no coincidence. The head was, in rivalry with the heart, understood as the seat of the soul.63 We may therefore argue that the relic depositions inside the heads of the figures, and in the chest region for the Sneslev figure, were literal ensoulments of the figures. That the head was the seat of the soul is even clearer in the example of the miraculous animation of thirteen head relics at Esrum Abbey. The narrative is found in Hermann Crombach’s S. Ursula vindicate from 1647, based on a now lost manuscript from the fourteenth century owned by the Carthusians of

62 DK Aarhus Amt 1983–87, p. 2439; Århus Domkapitels Jordebøger, ed. by Rasmussen, iii, 20. 63 Le Goff, ‘Head or Heart?’; Shogimen, ‘“Head or Heart?” Revisited’; Cohen, ‘The Meaning of the Head’, pp. 64–66.

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Cologne. It tells how the thirteen head relics of (some of) the 11,000 Virgins at the Cistercian abbey church of Esrum asserted the presence of the saints in their earthly remains in a corporeal way: the head relics, placed on the main altar and suitably ornamented, miraculously animated and sang a response to Te Deum (hymni Ambrosiani) during the Matins at the Christmas Eve Vigil, after the prefect had sung the first verse, thereby providing ‘suauissimo cælestique concentu’ (sweet celestial harmony) to the chant.64 That this miracle took place just as Christ had incarnated is hardly a coincidence. The sacred immanence was in a similar fashion incarnated in the relic containers, reliquary busts, which gave the relics the means to interact and to speak through their anthropomorphic exterior. As shown by Lena Liepe in this volume, head relics were the most sacred of all relics, and the status and authenticity of these miraculous heads were proven by their animation. The life they obtained — or rather revealed, since life was always present in relics — was, it may be argued, activated during the liturgy. Recursively, the liturgy that celebrated the Lord’s incarnation was authenticated with a miracle that was centred on incarnation and words; the sacred words literally became flesh and were uttered directly from heaven as the monks celebrated the Word’s transformation into flesh. In that way, words animated matter and matter animated words, all within the liturgical performance carried out in honour of the Incarnation. Not only could relics give sacred presence to figures; they could also make their container literally act and interact with humans in a way only living beings are able to. Through their holy contents, the objects treated here became vasa sacra that simultaneously shielded and mediated the divine immanence. As gifts to the figures, the relics contributed to the construction of the figures’ personhood and ability to present the divine. Simultaneously, the figures did more than simply authenticate their relics; they gave them the bodily means to act, to become whole. In this way, the interplay between relic and figure and visibility and invisibility, as well as between the fragmentation of the relics and the wholeness of the figures, created an occasion for the composite matter of bone, bread, crystal, wood, metals, and pigments to become living, acting agents in the liturgies and devotions they partook in.

Corporeal Incarnation: Non-anthropomorphic Objects Among the medieval Christian rites, the Eucharist held a central place in the liturgy, simultaneously commemorating and maintaining God’s incarnation as a human being in the physical world by giving it material substance. Given its ontological duplicity as a literal as well as abstract manifestation of Christ, it is not surprising that the Eucharistic elements were loci for animation miracles, 64 Crombach, S. Ursula vindicata, p. 668.

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especially in the wake of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, where the doctrine of the transubstantiation was passed.65 Eucharistic miracles and the cult of blood relics have been studied intensively since the early twentieth century. Peter Browe has showed that there was indeed a rise in their occurrence in the twelfth century coinciding with the rise of the belief in transubstantiation and real presence of Christ during the Eucharistic sacrifice, while Adolph Franz treated the materiality of the Eucharist and explained the rise of Eucharistic miracles with a growing conflation of the sacrament of the Eucharist and the sacramentals in theology as well as in practice.66 Later research has added that Eucharistic miracle narratives found in literary sources were meant to both inspire belief and call into question the passivity and possible non-belief of those receiving the communion (by mouth or by eye),67 as the mystery of the transubstantiation remained hidden for unbelievers. Thus, these miracle narratives were meant to make lay audiences engage actively with the mystery of the transubstantiation.68 To further complicate the matter, Caroline Walker Bynum has shown that the relation between the occurrence of blood miracles and the veneration of relics of the blood of Christ, which was thought to have been caught at the crucifixion, not only informed each other, but also competed and merged in various ways within the realms of theology, liturgy, and vernacular religion, making the Holy Blood a complex and paradox-filled field of meaning production.69 Combining these insights, extracted from more than a hundred years of research, we see how the change in the meaning of the Eucharist in the course of the twelfth century gave rise to a whole range of new meanings and practices, as well as conflations of meanings (i.e. sacrament/sacramentals, presence in form/presence in substance, blood miracle/blood relic), making the Eucharist a complex and versatile discursive repository that could be drawn upon in countless ways and contexts. In addition, I argue that the Eucharistic transformation miracles existed within two different ontological domains: a symbolic one, which was experienced in the mind or imagination and required an acceptance of the reality of the transformation on an intellectual level; and a corporeal one, which required an acceptance of the transformation as literal within the realm of physical reality. The symbolic and the corporeal miracles can be differentiated in terms of their chronologies, the types of source they appear in, the contexts they took place in (narrative contra cultic practice), and, most importantly, their existence on different ontological levels. There are a small number of miracles recorded from (or involving) medieval Denmark, where non-anthropomorphic objects (Eucharistic elements and one 65 Snoek, Medieval Piety, p. 207. 66 Browe, ‘Die eucharistischen Verwandlungswunder’, Die eucharistischen Wunder, and ‘Die Hostienschändungen’; Franz, Kirchlichen Benediktionen, i, 221–334. 67 Browe, Die Verehrung; Rubin, Corpus Christi, pp. 35–82. 68 Justice, ‘Eucharistic Miracle’, pp. 330–32. 69 Bynum, ‘The Blood of Christ’.

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cross) animated and transformed into living matter, either by transforming into flesh and blood, by bleeding, or by not corrupting. The two earliest examples of Eucharistic miracles have come down to us in narrative sources of clerical origin. A story about the Eucharistic elements miraculously animating was included in Helmold of Bosau’s Cronica Slavorum (second half of the twelfth century).70 It occurred on the island of Als in 1168 in the context of the Danish conquest and subsequent Christianization of Rügen. Here, a priest who was celebrating Mass and was about to consume the Host after elevating the chalice noticed that both elements had transformed into what appeared to be flesh and blood. Afraid, he went to the bishop for an explanation. The bishop’s clerks interpreted the transformation as a sign from God to strengthen the faith of ordinary people, but the bishop interpreted it as a sign that Christian blood was going to flow and the churches crumble, for ‘Quociens enim sanguis martirum effunditur, Christus denou in membris suis crucifigitur’ (Whenever the blood of martyrs is spilled, Christ shall be crucified through his limbs once again). A few weeks later, Wendish pirates attacked the Danish kingdom, leaving a trail of murder and destroyed churches. The king, Valdemar I (1131–1182), being a drunk only noticed when it was too late.71 The Eucharistic miracle was here the locus of a number of discourses and agendas. Firstly, the ecclesiastical hierarchy is laid out and justified as the priest goes to the bishop who is more knowledgeable than his subordinates. In that way, the episcopal authority is emphasized through the proper interpretation of the Eucharistic transformation. Furthermore, the authority of the Church over the laity is emphasized through the attack on the Danish king who was unable to defend the Church against the enemies of Christianity because of his immoral lifestyle. This narrative used the proper interpretation of the Eucharist as segue to make a political statement about the rightful social and moral order. The motif of drinking was repeated. The priest saw the bad omen as he was about to consume the wine and bread, and the source of the destruction of churches and spilling of Christian blood was the king’s abandonment of his duties as a Christian ruler to protect the Church. The corruption of the wine and wafer that left the priest mortified and prevented the Eucharistic rite to be finalized was linked to the Christian ruler’s corruption through drinking. Through this device, the king’s corruption of the Christian moral order represented a violation of the ecclesiastical order and was rhetorically construed as analogous to the violation of the Eucharist. The direct link between the violation of the Word made flesh and the spilling of the Holy Blood by the Jews at the crucifixion on the one hand, and the violation of the Church and Eucharist by the king on the other, underlines that moral power was closely tied to the discourse of the Eucharist in the clerical rhetoric. The Church was in possession of

70 Dating of the chronicle follows Liljefalk and Pajung, ‘Hemolds Slaverkrønike’. 71 Helmold of Bosau, Chronica Slavorum, ed. by Schmeidler, pp. 247–48.

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the real presence, and the proper handling, practice, and interpretation of it was the domain of the ecclesiastical authorities. Moreover, the ecclesiastical authority was hinged upon this power over the Eucharist. The link between ecclesiastical order and the Eucharist is further underlined in an episode where Eskil, archbishop of Lund (c. 1100–1181) received an incorruptible piece of bread from Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153). It is found in both the Vita prima Sancti Bernardi Claraevallis Abbatis, which was begun by William of Saint-Thierry (1085–1148), continued by Arnold of Bonneval (dates unknown), and completed in 1174 by Geoffrey of Auxerre (1115–1194), and the Exordium magnum Ordinis Cisterciensis (completed 1221) by Conrad of Eberbach (1150–1221). Although the two texts differ in some aspects,72 the passage about the incorruptible bread was copied almost verbatim by Conrad of Eberbach. In the passage we are told that Eskil had requested a Host that was blessed by Bernard and that his wish had been granted. As Eskil, using ‘humano sensu’ (common sense), wanted the Host to remain intact through his long journey home to Denmark, he ordered that it was baked twice. Bernard then reproached him ‘amicabiliter arguens’ (in a friendly way) for his lack of faith in the power of his ‘benedictio’ (blessing) and refused to bless the Host. Instead, Eskil received some ‘communem panem’ (ordinary bread) blessed by Bernard. The bread remained incorruptible, putting Eskil’s lack of faith to shame.73 Once again, what is at play is the authority and sanctity bound to the power to sacralize matter through benediction, and the power to determine its meaning. Although Eskil is credited with common sense, he is kindly reminded of Bernard’s authority and urged to have faith in the power of his benediction. The relationship between Eskil and Bernard resembles that of master and pupil. The symbolic exchange uses Eskil’s display of good-mannered insolence and Bernard’s kind reproach as a rhetorical manoeuvre to underline the proper hierarchy between them. The power of Bernard’s benediction, moreover, was so great that it could make a wonderhost out of common bread. In that way, matter was used as a vehicle to accentuate, materialize, and authenticate his state of sanctity, effectively constructing the bread as a brandeum. The incorruptibility of the bread itself refers to the wholeness of Christ’s body which was instrumental for his sanctity, and to the promise of wholeness at the resurrection, which played a significant part in the theological debate in the twelfth century.74

72 In Vita prima the story is mainly used to underline the power of Bernard of Clairvaux, while the Exordium magnum uses the story to credit Eskil with the spread of the Cistercian order. See also McGuire, Conflict and Continuity, p. 121. 73 Vita prima, ed. by Migne, col. 335; Exordium magnum, ed. by Migne, col. 1087. 74 Guibert of Nogent (1055–1124), who was one of the most prominent theologians of the twelfth century and whose works would probably have inspired the authors of Vita prima and Exordium magnum, defended the consumption and thereby fragmentation of Christ’s body in the digestion system of the faithful in his treatise De pignoribus sanctorum (completed in

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The Eucharistic miracles that existed within the realm of text were thereby used as rhetorical constructions in order to put emphasis on ecclesiastical authority. Giving life to matter, and interpreting this material transformation, was a power held exclusively by the Church. The two examples, however, utilize the discourse of the Eucharist in different ways, which affected the nature of the life the Eucharistic element acquired. In the example from Lysabild, the fragmentation of Christ’s body and blood and the obstruction of the Eucharistic sacrifice are used as a metaphor for the violation of the Sanctity of the Church. In the example from Clairvaux, the wholeness of the bread was used to show the power of the ecclesiastical benediction. In Lysabild, matter transformed in its accidents, while in Clairvaux it remained unchanged due to its spiritual transformation, and so had a life akin to that of the saints whose corpse did not decompose after their death, thus signalling the beatific eternal life awaiting after the Final Judgement.75 This does not only refer to the double nature of the Eucharist in the medieval imagination, but also to the double nature of life itself: on the one hand, life was transformation, corruptibility, and the inexorability of death and decay; on the other hand, it was promised to be eternal and incorruptible if led in a truly Christian way. At the nexus of this duality was the Eucharist: it fused the transient and earthly with the divine, it was the real presence of Christ the man and Christ the divine simultaneously, and contained both the mutable earthly life that was bound to end and the life that was immutable and eternal. In these miracle narratives, the reality of the Eucharistic transformation operated on a symbolic level, and the Eucharistic elements did not remain in their transformed state. In the corporeal miracles, however, they remained transformed for pilgrims to witness, and their reality therefore transcended the realm of the imaginary. As Caroline Walker Bynum has pointed out, what was at play was a crossing between the belief in the Eucharistic real presence and the devotion to blood relics. The living blood pouring out of seemingly dead matter became blood relics of their own, and both underscored and challenged the doctrinal truth, hereby making them a locus of intense theological debate throughout the medieval period.76 While Bynum is certainly right on that point, I believe there was more at stake, as the examples of bleeding matter from medieval Denmark transgressed boundaries on several levels, beyond that of learned theology.

1125). He argued that even the tiniest crumb of the Eucharistic Host was in substance the whole of Christ, and that those who ate the Eucharist would therefore be eating the whole of Christ, both God and man (‘Qui Eucharistiam sumit, totum Christum hoc est hominem et Deum, manducat’). Guibert of Nogent, De pignoribus sanctorum, ed. by Migne, cols 632–34. 75 Bynum, Fragmentation, pp. 229–30. 76 Bynum, ‘Bodily Miracles’. See also Gertsman, ‘Introduction’.

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In Kippinge Church on the island of Falster, a consecrated Host began to bleed in 1492 and soon began to attract pilgrimage. The bleeding Host was under the guardianship of the bishop of Odense and was a powerful relic. In fact, its shrine had acquired such wealth from pious bequests that King Christian II could take a loan of the huge sum of 1225 Danish marc from ‘the holy sacrament’ in 1518.77 It was not only the king who borrowed money from the relic; in 1530, Barbara Riksdatter, widow after Otte Clausen, acknowledged her debt of 200 Danish marc to the ‘worthy sacrament in Kippinge’, which was to be paid back with 20 marc per annum to the churchwardens before the feast of Saint Martin.78 In 1517, the knight Johan Oxe gave an annual bequest of 1 marc to the holy sacrament in Kippinge together with a farm in Grimstrup if he was to die childless.79 While the wonderhost in Kippinge was in some way anthropomorphic, since its connection to the body of Christ was obvious, the life of the bleeding cross in Bistrup, the ‘crux admiranda’, was much more abstract. As an object without any anthropomorphic link, it did not have any obvious potential for animation. It first began to bleed in the year 1402 according to the Franciscan friar and annalist Petrus Olai,80 and is otherwise known from the will of Eskil Gøye signed on 22 August 1505 where 10 marc were bequeathed to it. It is possible that the tau cross depicted on folio 1r in the Bystorp (Bistrup) Manual (1513–1522), with holes for three nails, is in fact the bleeding cross. The verses ‘Salve crux digna, super omnia ligna benigna. Tu me consigna, moriar ne morte maligna’ (O dignified cross, above all trees benevolent. You are my sign, lest I die the death of the wicked) inscribed beneath the image indicate at the very least that the depicted cross bore a special devotional meaning (Fig. 7.7).81 In the wake of the Lutheran Reformation, superintendent (bishop) of Zealand, Peder Palladius (1503–1560), wrote in several instances of pilgrimages to Bistrup in his Visitatsbog (Book of Visitation, 1540s).82 The cult increasingly became an issue for the Reformers, and its termination was taken up at a top political level in 1556.83 When the council assembled in Roskilde in 1564, it was finally decided that such idolatries had to end, particularly in Bistrup where it was worse than elsewhere.84 The same year, the synodal acts attest that many people went on pilgrimage to the bleeding cross.85 In the end, King Frederic II

77 Huitfeld, Danmarckis Rigis Krönicke, ii, 1007; Lokalarkiver til 1559, ed. by Jexlev, p. 44, ‘Kippinge kirke’, no. 2. 78 Lokalarkiver til 1559, ed. by Jexlev, p. 44, ‘Kippinge kirke’, no. 3. 79 Lokalarkiver til 1559, ed. by Jexlev, p. 44, ‘Kippinge kirke’, no. 1. 80 Olai, Annales rerum Danicarum, p. 193. 81 Lund, Lund Uni. Lib., Medeltidshandskrift 43a, fol. 1r. 82 Palladius, Visitatsbogen, ed. by Jacobsen, pp. 11, 90, 94, 127, 131, 212. 83 Copenhagen, Rigsarkivet, ‘Danske Kancelli: Tegnelser over alle lande’, V, fol. 90a; Kancelliets brevbøger, ed. by Bricka, 19 September 1556, p. 45. 84 Danske kirkelove, ed. by Rørdam, i, 496–97. 85 Paludan, Magazin, ii, 228b–29a.

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Figure 7.7. The Manual from Bystorp, 1513–1522, fol. 1r. Public Domain Mark 1.0 (no known copyright). Retrieved from [accessed 1 April 2021], alvin-record:12940.

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(1534–1588) had the church torn down, with the result that the Holy Blood became associated with the Hospital Church nearby and eventually with the stream by the mill placed near Bistrup Church.86 The two occurrences of living blood pouring from matter transgressed a boundary that the symbolic miracles did not; they interfered in the actual physical reality of people and were experienced as absolutely real and tangible truth. As the historical documents show, they were entangled in the social and economic reality of laypeople and were entities that could receive gifts, own money and property, as well as give loans, and the interaction with them had extraordinary longevity, showing just how meaningful this relationship was to the faithful. We may even claim that these interactions were a key component in their construction as living entities that could act and have a social life. Furthermore, like the living figures and the relics deposited in figures, they were vessels that channelled the divine energy, but the way they did so was simultaneously more abstract and more concrete. They mimicked the human body, but in function rather than in form, and poured out the living essence of divinity in fragmented drops. These miracles did therefore not operate by giving wholeness to fragments, that is, a fully human body, but through fragmentation. Bleeding was a concrete sign of life, and the blood that poured out was the living blood of Christ. By transforming into drops or streams of blood, matter could manifest a fragment of the compound divinity and function as small anchors or portals that connected the divine and the corporeal world. The divine could penetrate through holy matter and materialize as corporeal reality. In that way, matter could act as an interface between the divine and the worldly spheres and literally create an opening from which the energy of divine life poured out. Moreover, the cross was frequently interpreted as the Tree of Life from which issued the Fons Vitae.87 The cross was therefore a life-giving force. So was the consecrated Host, which was understood as particularly nourishing, especially within the frame of late medieval mysticism.88 The Tree, referred to in the verses in the Bystorp Manual, was living, drinking from the fountain of life itself, and the bread became the incarnated flesh of Christ in essence. As such, we may see both outbursts of sacred energy breaking through matter as a birth of sacredness into the world, referring to the incarnation and sacrifice of Christ, to be understood within an Christological exegetical framework. Both the Host and the cross referred to Christ’s coming to be in the world and his sacrifice on the cross, and made the exact moment of the crucifixion a present reality that could be experienced, not only within the mind but also in the world.

86 Copenhagen, Rigsarkivet, ‘Danske Kancelli: Tegnelser over alle lande’, VIII, fol. 202b; Pontoppidan, Den Danske Atlas, vi, 153. 87 Thunø, Image and Relic, p. 100. 88 Bynum, ‘Fast, Feast, and Flesh’, p. 3.

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Conclusion Throughout this chapter, I have demonstrated that living matter appeared in many different forms and different contexts in Denmark from the twelfth century and onwards, and that the phenomenon still echoed in accounts of its reception from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Moving from the most concrete towards the most abstract manifestations, I have analysed the different occurrences by setting them in the light of a range of themes: mimesis, illusion, embodiment, ensoulment, and incarnation as life-giving forces. As a result, I have shown that living matter formed a powerful repository of meanings and practices and was bound up with or understood and debated within the frameworks of a number of discourses that were often entangled and susceptible to slippages of meaning. In this manner, the repository of living matter, diverse at its core, was enacted within different registers (theological, liturgical, mystical, social, political, economic), and was engaged in various actions (writing, creating, recreating, and mimicking the divine prototype, praying, giving, receiving, giving out loans) carried out by many different agents (e.g. the Church, ecclesiastical authorities, clerical writers, pilgrims, artists, artisans, and the holy matter itself). Living matter was in that way a versatile, dynamic, and inventive field of meaning production, where different ontological levels of reality (divine, social, and material) were created, blended, entangled, and altered in endless combinations. Therefore, it was through the joint efforts of human actors (religious writers and experts, artists and artisans, pilgrims, church benefactors, and patrons) and holy matter in its various occurrences (figures, fragments of holy people, holy objects, vessels, and implements) that an interface between the otherworldly realm of the divine and the physical world of humans was created, allowing them to slip into each other’s reality. This created occasions for matter to become the divine present in the world, thus facilitating interaction and mediation between the two spheres. Holy matter was composite and made of many smaller entities, e.g. wood, pigments, oils, metals, stones, bones, cloth, parchment, flour, and water, which all held the potential for life. Through its physicality, matter was able to overcome its materiality and become a living entity wherein and through which the composite, fragmented divinity was able to be present, presented, and represented in the world, thus allowing it to become a real, physical agent that could be experienced and interacted with by the faithful. Simultaneously, the physical, material reality of particular objects in particular settings shaped the experience of the divine. In their interaction, the human, the material, and the divine agents jointly built a world where ontological boundaries became permeable.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Sources Copenhagen, Rigsarkivet, ‘Danske Kancelli: Tegnelser over alle Lande’, 1545–71 Lund, Lund University Library, Medeltidshandskrift 43a (the Manual from Bystorp) Primary Sources Crombach, Hermann, S. Ursula vindicata: Vita et martyrium S. Ursulae et sociarum undecim millium virginum (Cologne: Hermann Mylii Birckmann, 1647) Danske Kirkelove samt Udvalg af andre Bestemmelser, vedrørende Kirken, Skolen og de fattiges Forsørgelse 1536–1683, ed. by Holger F. Rørdam, 3 vols (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Danmarks Kirkehistorie/Gad, 1883–89) DM = Danske Magazin (Copenhagen: Det kongelige danske Selskab for Fædrelandets Historie, 1745–) Dronning Christines Regnskaber, ed. by William Christensen (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1904) Exordium magnum Ordinis Cisterciensis, in Patrologiae cursus completus: series latina, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, clxxxiii (Paris: Garnier, 1879), cols 993–1198 Guibert of Nogent, De pignoribus sanctorum, in Patrologiae cursus completus: series latina, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, clvi (Paris: Garnier, 1853), cols 607–74 Heimrich, Anton W., Schleswigsche Kirchenhistorie (Schleswig: Johan Helwein, 1683) Helmold of Bosau, Chronica Slavorum, ed. by Bernhard Schmeidler, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi, xxxii (Hannover: Hahn, 1937) Huitfeld, Arild, Danmarckis Rigis Krönicke fra Kong Dan den förste oc indtil Kong Hans, 10 vols (Copenhagen: Hans Stockelmans Tryckeri, 1596–1601) Kancelliets brevbøger vedrørerende Danmarks indre forhold i uddrag, ed. by Carl F. Bricka (Copenhagen: Rigsarkivet/Reitzel, 1885–2005) KS = Kirkehistoriske Samlinger (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Danmarks Kirkehistorie, 1849–) Lokalarkiver til 1559: Gejstlige arkiver, ii: Odense stift, jyske stifter og Slesvig stift, ed. by Thelma Jexlev, Vejledende Arkiveregistraturer, 18 (Copenhagen: Rigsarkivet, 1977) Moller, Olavs Henricus, Historischer Bericht von der Stadt Flensburg (Flensburg: Serringhausen, 1707) Olai, Petrus, Annales rerum Danicarum, in Scriptores rerum danicarum medii ævi, ed. by Jacob Langebek, i (Hafnia: Godiche, 1772), pp. 171–97 Palladius, Peder, Visitatsbogen, in Peder Palladius’ Danske Skrifter, ed. by Lis Jacobsen, v (Copenhagen: Thiele, 1925–26), pp. 1–240

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Paludan, Peder, Magazin for Lidende eller Underholdning, raad og trøst i sorg, 2 vols (Copenhagen: Popp, 1790–92) Pontoppidan, Erich, Den Danske Atlas, 9 vols (Copenhagen: Godiche, 1763–81) Rep = Repertorium diplomaticum Regni danici mediaevalis: Fortegnelse over Danmarks breve fra middelalderen, med udtog af de hidtil utrykte, ed. by Kristian Erslev (Copenhagen: Gad, 1894–1939) Testamenter fra Danmarks Middelalder indtil 1450, ed. by Kristian Erslev (Copenhagen: Det kongelige danske Selskab for Fædrelandets Historie og Sprog, 1901) Vita prima Sancti Bernardi Claraevallis Abbatis, in Patrologiae cursus completus: series latina, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, clxxxv (Paris: Garnier, 1860), cols 222–642 Århus Domkapitels Jordebøger, ed. by Poul Rasmussen, 3 vols (Copenhagen: Landbohistorisk Selskab, 1972–75) Secondary Works Ambrose, Kirk, ‘Cunningly Hidden: Invisible and Forgotten Relics in the Romanesque Work of Art’, in Medieval and Early Modern Devotional Objects in Global Perspective: Translations of the Sacred, ed. by Elizabeth Robertson and Jennifer Jahner (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 79–96 Andersen, Susanne, ‘Et pilgrimsmærke fra Karup fundet i Brejning Kirke’, Kuml, 1976 (1977), 191–98 Andreson, Krista, ‘The Presence of the Sacred: A 13th-Century Cult Image from Saaremaa (Estonia)’, Baltic Journal of Art History, 8 (2014), 7–43 Bagnoli, Martina, ‘The Stuff of Heaven: Materials and Craftsmanship in Medieval Reliquaries’, in Treasure of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe, ed. by Martina Bagnoli and others (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 137–47 Baxandall, Michael, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style, Open University Set Book, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) Beer, Manuela, Triumphkreuze des Mittelalters: Ein Beitrag zu Typus und Genese im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert; Mit einem Katalog der erhaltenen Denkmäler (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2005) Belting, Hans, Bild und Kult: Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst (Munich: Beck, 1990) ———, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) Browe, Peter, ‘Die eucharistischen Verwandlungswunder des Mittelalters’, Römische Quartalsschrift, 37 (1929), 137–69 ———, ‘Die Hostienschändungen der Juden im Mittelalter’, Römische Quartalsschrift, 34 (1929), 167–97 ———, Die Verehrung der Eucharistie im Mittelalter (Munich: Hueber, 1933) ———, Die eucharistischen Wunder des Mittelalters (Breslau: Müller & Seiffert, 1938)

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Bynum, Caroline Walker, ‘Fast, Feast, and Flesh: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women’, Representations, 11 (1985), 1–25 ———, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (Brooklyn: Zone, 1991) ———, ‘Bodily Miracles and the Resurrection of the Body in the High Middle Ages’, in Belief in History: Innovative Approaches to European and American Religion, ed. by Thomas Kselman (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), pp. 68–106 ———, ‘The Blood of Christ in the Later Middle Ages’, Church History, 71 (2002), 685–714 ———, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (Brooklyn: Zone, 2011) Bø, Ragnhild M., ‘Sculptures and Accessories: Domestic Piety in the Norwegian Parish around 1300’, Religions, 10 (2019), 1–19 Cohen, Esther, ‘The Meaning of the Head in Medieval Culture’, in Disembodied Heads in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, ed. by Catrien Santing, Barbara Baert, and Anita Traninger (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 59–76 DK = Danmarks Kirker (Copenhagen: Kristensen, 1933–) Dünninger, Hans, ‘Zur Frage der Hostiensepulchren und Reliquierekondierungen in Bildwerken. Ein Korreferat’, Jahrbuch für Volkskunde, n.s., 9 (1986), 72–84 Fleischer, Jens, ‘Space, Wind and Light: On Transcendence and Early Church Architecture’, in Transcendence and Sensoriness: Perceptions, Revelation, and the Arts, ed. by Svein Aage Christoffersen and others (Leiden: Brill, 2015), pp. 375–411 Forsyth, Ilene, The Throne of Wisdom: Wood Sculptures of the Madonna in Romanesque France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972) Franz, Adolph, Kirchlichen Benediktionen im Mittelalter, 2 vols (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1909) Gerevini, Stefania, ‘“Sicut crystallus quando est obiecta soli”: Rock Crystal, Transparency and the Franciscan Order’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 1 (2014), 255–83 Gertsman, Elina, ‘Introduction: Bewilderment Overwhelms Me’, Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural, 4 (2015), 1–12 Hall, Edwin, and Horst Uhr, ‘Aureola and fructus: Distinctions of Beatitude in Scholastic Thought and the Meaning of Some Crowns in Early Flemish Painting’, The Art Bulletin, 60 (1978), 249–70 Hamburger, Jeffrey F., ‘The Place of Theology in Medieval Art History: Problems, Positions, Possibilities’, in The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages, ed. by Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Anne-Marie Bouché (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), pp. 11–31 Hausherr, Reiner, ‘Der tote Christus am Kreuz: Zur Ikonographie des Gerokreutzes’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rheinischen FriedrichWilhelms-Universität, Bonn, 1963) Heilskov, Mads Vedel, ‘Sacralising Perception: Rosary-Devotion and Tactile Experience of the Divine in Late Medieval Denmark’, in Touching, Devotional

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Practices, and Visionary Experience in the Late Middle Ages, ed. by David Carrillo-Rangel, Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel, and Pablo Acosta-García (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), pp. 71–93 Holmes, Megan, ‘Miraculous Images in Renaissance Florence’, Art History, 34 (2011), 432–65 Høgh, Majken S., ‘Mødet mellem det legemlige og det åndelige blik i klosterkirkens brændpunkt — Sorø-krucifikset og Augustins optik’, in Kunsten taler: Festskrift til Lise Gotfredsen pa 75 års dagen, ed. by Lisbet Bolander and others (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2005), pp. 131–46 Jung, Jacqueline E., ‘The Tactile and the Visionary: Notes on the Place of Sculpture in the Medieval Religious Imagination’, in Looking Beyond: Visions, Dreams, and Insights in Medieval Art and History, ed. by Colum Hourihane, Index of Christian Art Occasional Papers, 11 (Princeton: Index of Christian Art, 2010), pp. 203–40 ———, ‘The Kinetics of Gothic Sculpture: Movement and Apprehension in the South Transept of Strasbourg Cathedral and the Chartreuse de Champmol in Dijon’, in Mobile Eyes: Peripatetisches Sehen in den Bildkulturen der Vormoderne, ed. by David Ganz and Stefan Neuner (Munich: Fink, 2013), pp. 132–63 Justice, Steven, ‘Eucharistic Miracle and Eucharistic Doubt’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 42 (2012), 307–32 Jürgensen, Martin Wangsgaard, ‘Altering the Sacred Face’, in Resonances: Historical Essays of Continuity and Change, ed. by Andreas Bücker, Eyolf Østrem, and Nils Holger Petersen, Ritus et artes, 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 77–106 Kinch, Jacob Frederich, Ribe Bys Historie og Beskrivelse indtil Reformationen, 2 vols (Copenhagen: Gad, 1869–84) Kjær, Ulla, and Hans Krongaard Kristensen, ‘Fromhedslivet’, in Dagligliv i Danmarks middelalder: En arkæologisk kulturhistorie, ed. by Else Roesdahl (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1999), pp. 288–323 Kollandsrud, Kaja, ‘A Perspective on Medieval Perception of Norwegian Church Art’, in Paint and Piety: Collected Essays on Medieval Painting and Polychrome Sculpture, ed. by Noëlle L. W. Streeton and Kaja Kollandsrud (London: Archetype, 2014), pp. 51–66 Kopania, Kamil, Animated Sculptures of the Crucified Christ in the Religious Culture of the Latin Middle Ages (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Neriton, 2010) ———, ‘Animating Christ in Late Medieval and Early Modern Poland’, Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural, 4 (2015), 78–109 Krause, Hans Joachim, ‘Der Halberstädter Reliquienfund’, Denkmalpflege in Sachsen-Anhalt, 10 (2002), 5–26 Le Goff, Jacques, ‘Head or Heart? The Political Use of Body Metaphors in the Middle Ages’, in Fragments for a History of the Human Body, ed. by Michel Féher, Ramona Naddaff, and Nadia Tazi, iii (New York: Zone, 1989), pp. 12–27 Legner, Anton, Reliquien in Kunst und Kult: Zwischen Antike und Aufklärung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995)

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Liebgott, Niels-Knud, Hellige mænd og kvinder (Højbjerg: Wormianum, 1981) Liepe, Lena, ‘The Presence of the Sacred: Relics in Medieval Wooden Statues of Scandinavia’, in Paint and Piety: Collected Essays on Medieval Painting and Polychrome Sculpture, ed. by Noëlle L. W. Streeton and Kaja Kollandsrud (London: Archetype, 2014), pp. 39–50 Liljenfalk, Lone, and Stefan Pajung, ‘Hemolds Slaverkrønike som kilde til Danmarks, Vendens og Nordtysklands historie’, Historisk Tidsskrift, 113 (2014), 1–38 Lipton, Sara, ‘The Sweet Lean of his Head: Writing about Looking at the Crucifix in the High Middle Ages’, Speculum, 80 (2005), 1172–1208 Lutz, Gerhard, Das Bild des Gekreuzigten im Wandel: Die sächsischen und westfälischen Kruzifixe der ersten Hälfte des 13. Jahrhunderts, Studien zur internationalen Architektur- und Kunstgeschichte, 28 (Petersberg: Imhof, 2004) ———, ‘The Drop of Blood: Image and Piety in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural, 4 (2015), 37–51 Maniura, Robert, ‘Agency and Miraculous Images’, in The Agency of Things in Medieval and Early Modern Art: Materials, Power and Manipulation, ed. by Grażyna Jurkowlaniec, Ika Matyjaszkiewicz, and Zuzanna Sarnecka, Routledge Research in Art History (New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 49–58 McGuire, Brian Patrick, Conflict and Continuity at Øm Abbey: A Cistercian Experience in Medieval Denmark (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1976) Neilson, Christina, ‘Carving Life: The Meaning of Wood in Renaissance Sculpture’, in The Matter of Art: Materials, Practices, Cultural Logics, c. 1250–1750, ed. by Christy Anderson, Anne Dunlop, and Pamela H. Smith (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014), pp. 223–39 Nyborg, Ebbe, ‘Det gamle Sorø-krucifiks: Et forsøg på at indkredse cisterciensiske traditioner for udformningen af monumentale krucifikser’, Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History, 59 (1990), 88–113 ———, ‘Kreuz und Kreuzaltarretabel in dänischen Pfarrkirchen des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts’, in Entstehung und Frühgeschichte des Flügelaltarschreins, ed. by Hartmut Krohm, Klaus Krüger, and Matthias Weniger (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2001), pp. 25–49 Nyborg, Ebbe, and Verner Thomsen, ‘Fra Paris til Sneslev: de ældste danske krucifikser og helgenbilleder’, Nationalmuseets arbejdsmark (1993), 164–81 Paoletti, John T., ‘Wooden Sculpture in Italy as Sacral Presence’, Artibus et historiae, 13 (1992), 85–100 Pinkus, Assaf, Sculpting Simulacra in Medieval Germany, 1250–1380 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014) ———, ‘Transformations in Wood: Between Sculpture and Painting in Late Medieval Devotional Objects’, Viator, 48 (2017), 263–91 Pongratz-Leisten, Beate, and Karen Sonik, ‘Between Cognition and Culture: Theorizing the Materiality of Divine Agency in Cross-Cultural Perspective’, in The Materiality of Divine Agency, ed. by Beate Pongratz-Leisten and Karen Sonik (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), pp. 3–69

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Pötzl, Walter, ‘Bild und Reliquie im hohen Mittelalter’, Jahrbuch für Volkskunde, n.s., 9 (1986), 56–71 Rensbro, Henriette, ‘Sorø Klosters kirkegård for lægfolk: Arkæologisk undersøgelse af grave ved nordre korsarm i 2006’, Hikuin, 39 (2012), 131–46 Roesdahl, Else, ed. Dagligliv i Danmarks middelalder - en arkæologisk kulturhistorie (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1999) Rubin, Miri, Corpus Christi: Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) Salih, Sarah, ‘Idol Theory’, Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural, 4 (2015), 13–36 Shogimen, Takashi, ‘Head or Heart? Revisited: Physiology and Political Thought in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries’, History of Political Thought, 28 (2007), 208–29 Smith, Pamela H., The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004) Snoek, Godefridus J. C., Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction, Studies in the History of Christian Thought (Leiden: Brill, 1995) Swift, Christopher B., ‘Robot Saints’, Preternature, 4 (2015), 52–77 Søvsø, Mette Højmark, ‘Catalogue of Pilgrimage Badges from Medieval Denmark’ (unpublished catalogue) Søvsø, Morten, ‘Arkæologiske undersøgelser i Ribes Dagmarsgade: topografi og bebyggelsesstruktur i de ånære områder’, By, marsk og geest, 19 (2007), 17–48 Taubert, Johannes, Polychrome Sculpture: Meaning, Form, Conservation, ed. by Michele D. Marincola and trans. by Carola Schulman (Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 2015) Thunø, Erik, Image and Relic: Mediating the Sacred in Early Medieval Rome (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2002) Trexler, Richard C., ‘Florentine Religious Experience: The Sacred Image’, Studies in the Renaissance, 19 (1972), 7–41 Tripps, Johannes, Das handelnde Bildwerk in der Gotik (Berlin: Mann, 2000) ———, ‘Der Kirchenraum als Handlungsort für Bildwerke: “Handelnde” Altarfiguren und hyperwandelbares Schnitzretabel’, in Kunst und Liturgie im Mittelalter: Akten des internationalen Kongress der Bibliotheca Herziana und des Nederlands Instituut te Rome, Rome 28.-30. September 1997, ed. by Nicolas Bock (Munich: Hirmer, 2000), pp. 235–47 Trotzig, Aina, ‘The Iconography of the Enthroned Virgin with the Christ Child in her Lap’, in Images of Cult and Devotion: Function and Reception of Christian Images in Medieval and Post-Medieval Europe, ed. by Søren Kaspersen and Ulla Haastrup (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2004), pp. 245–54 Vauchez, André, ‘L’image vivante: quelques reflections sur les fonctions des représentations iconographiques dans le domaine religieux en Occident aux derniers siècles du Moyen Age’, in Biedni i bogaci: studia z dziejów społeczeństwa i kultury, ofiarowane Bronisławowi Geremkowi w sześćdziesiąta rocznice urodzin, ed. by Maurice Aymard (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1992), pp. 231–40

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Vuola, Katri, and others, ‘Medieval Wood Sculpture of an Unknown Saint from Nousiainen: From Materials to Meaning’, Mirator, 19 (2018), 43–66 Wammen, Jacob Peter, Karup, dens kirke og dens helligkilde (Viborg: Viborg Stifts Folkeblads Bogtrykkeri, 1911) Welch, Evelyn, ‘The Moaning Crucifixion: An Automata for Francesco Sforza, 1462’, in Arte e storia di Lombardia: scritti in memoria di Grazioso Sironi, ed. by coll., Biblioteca della ‘Nuova Rivista Storica’, 40 (Rome: Società editrice Dante Alighieri, 2006), pp. 55–62 Wieselgren, Greta, ‘Archimboldi fullmakter för beskickning till Norden: Et bortglömt notarialinstrument’, Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen (1933), 152–60 Willerslev, Rane, ‘Not Animal, Not Not‐Animal: Hunting, Imitation and Empathetic Knowledge among the Siberian Yukaghirs’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10 (2004), 629–52 ———, Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism, and Personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs (Oakland: University of California Press, 2007)

Mette Høj m ark Søv s ø and Maria K nud s en

Objects of Personal Devotion: Outer Markers and Inner Meanings

Thousands of monuments erected to the glory of God as well as countless magnificent artworks and treasures bear witness to the importance of religion in medieval society. Religious practices are documented in textual records, including pilgrimage voyages and the celebration of religious feasts, pious donations bestowed upon religious houses, and many other religious acts. Both the ostentatious works of art and the written sources provide insights into the medieval religious experience, but tend to privilege that of the higher spheres of society. Archaeological finds show, however, that the belief in the potency of things was not reserved for the sacred objects owned and used by the Church, but was in fact widespread throughout all levels of medieval society. The belief in the potency of things did therefore not exclusively reside in expensive or rare materials or works of great artistic quality, but was believed to exist in objects of humble quality too, whose religious significance was to be found in their inscriptions and imagery, as well as their function.1 The popularity of pilgrimages shows, however, the tantalizing scale of the phenomenon and its appeal to a large segment of the population, regardless of social condition. Although it is well known that religion played an important role in the consciousness of individuals and in society in the medieval period, the way it manifested itself outside the ecclesiastical domain has only been given limited attention in Danish scholarship, partly because useful sources have been relatively sparse for many years. The corpus of archaeological finds has grown 1 Standley, Trinkets and Charms; Gilchrist, Sacred Heritage. Mette Højmark Søvsø, MA in Medieval Archaeology (Aarhus University). Curator and head of collections at the Museum of Southwest Jutland. Email: [email protected] Maria Knudsen, MA in Medieval and Renaissance Archaeology (Aarhus University). Curator of Archaeology at the Museum of Southwest Jutland. Email: [email protected] Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix, and Mads Heilskov, AS 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 181–215 © FHG10.1484/M.AS-EB.5.123990

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exponentially during the last two decades in Denmark through professional excavations, as well as amateur metal-detecting, thus continually providing new evidence. These new finds show great potential for the exploration of vernacular/lived religion. The quality of these objects and their raw materials show a high degree of variability, thus conveying information about the physical properties of religious symbols and about how, where, when, and by whom they were used, and so throughout the social spectrum. Small devotional objects, which at times appear rather mundane or even plain, thus appear to have played a highly symbolic and meaningful role in the everyday religious life of medieval people.

Archaeological Finds as Source Material for Lived Religion As in other Danish regions, the private use of metal detectors has dramatically increased in the Museum of Southwest Jutland’s area of antiquarian responsibility during the past couple of decades. Detectorists have uncovered many exciting new finds including a wide range of medieval religious items. Moreover, large excavation projects have been conducted in the centre of Ribe’s medieval town during the past two decades. Throughout the Middle Ages, Ribe’s townscape was dominated by tangible expressions of faith through monumental religious architecture. The massive amount of artefact material retrieved from archaeological contexts has dramatically increased as water-sieving and metal-detecting have been introduced as common excavation practices and offers a new addition to this picture. These developments have led to an extremely rich and often well-dated collection of medieval artefacts from Ribe and its hinterland for the period c. 1050–1550. By studying this material, we are able to present a detailed and nuanced picture of the functions, symbolisms, and chronologies of medieval religious objects. Their find contexts, manufacture, and ornamentation allow us to explore how they were produced and traded, as well as how they were used for daily religious practices. As this matter is admittedly broad and complex, we focus in this chapter on the personal objects, worn as jewellery, used as dress-fastenings, or fastened onto clothing in other ways, which are kept in the collections at the Museum of Southwest Jutland. These objects are here divided in five groups according to their form and function: – Crosses and other cross-shaped pendants (Plate 1) – Brooches, bracteates, and finger-rings (Plate 2) – Pilgrimage badges and other badges with religious imagery (Plate 3) – Other religious accessories (Plate 4) – Prayer beads (Plate 5) The rationale behind this classification follows the registration system in use for the collections at the Museum of Southwest Jutland but is representative

objects of personal devotion: outer markers and inner meanings

of the Danish material as a whole. Finger-rings with religious imagery are included in the discussion for their importance in investigating our research question, although they are yet to be found in Ribe and its region.2 Our discussion of the material remains, which is our primary area of expertise, is enlightened and contextualized with the support of published artefact studies from north-west Europe and textual sources. The in-text numbers refer to plate numbers and subnumbers on the plates (beginning from 1 on each plate). Not all objects mentioned in the text are illustrated. Many finds presented here have been made during street excavations and in other public areas of the medieval town of Ribe and cannot, by all appearances, inform about their users’ social affiliation (i.e. social status, gender). For this reason, this issue will not be addressed here. Nevertheless, we may infer that the materials used to manufacture the objects and the quality of their execution are indicative of the social status of their wearer. Further research, including extensive empirical material from other excavations in Denmark and analyses of the materials, would allow for a deeper understanding of this matter. Crosses (Plate 1)

Cross pendants existed in many versions and qualities in the Middle Ages: from simple, mass-produced crosses made of lead to ostentatious cross reliquaries of gold and gemstones. In Scandinavia, they appeared already in the Viking Age, perhaps as small markers of religious affiliation after baptism or in connection with missionary activities.3 In the Viking Age and early Christian period Carolingian enamel brooches with cross motifs were common,4 but other cross-shaped items, jewellery, and amulets with cross ornaments were circulated as well.5 Crosses were used for personal protection or as amulets against dangers and evil already by ad 380,6 but their main function was as symbols of the Christian faith and markers of religious identity.7 One of the types of cross pendant in use in the early Christian period is the simple lead-cross.8 In Ribe and its surroundings, five examples of this type have been found by metal-detecting (Pl. 1.2–1.6) and one during the excavation of the



2 The finger-rings in the collections of the Danish National Museum have previously been thoroughly presented and analysed by Fritze Lindahl, Symboler i guld og sølv. 3 Staecker, Rex regum; Feveile, ‘Korsfibler’; Baastrup, ‘Vikingetidens og den tidlige middelalders emaljefibler’. 4 Baastrup, ‘Småfibler’; Christiansen and Henriksen, ‘From Central Space to Urban Place’, in press, pp. 30–31, 57; Roslund, ‘Västanfläkt eller stadig vind?’. 5 Staecker, Rex regum; Feveile and Jensen, ‘ASR 9 Posthuset’, pp. 144–45, table 53; Feveile, ‘Korsfibler’. 6 Staecker, Rex regum, pp. 53–54. 7 Staecker, Rex regum, p. 340. 8 Staecker, Rex regum, type 1.1.2.

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1

4

7

10

2

3

5

6

8

9

11

12 Plate 1. Crosses and other cross-shaped pendants from Ribe and its region. Photo: Museum of Southwest Jutland (SJM) / Henrik Brinch Christiansen. Not to scale.

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town’s archaeological layers from c. 1000–1250 (Pl. 1.1). Their design presents limited variation; some are asymmetrical and of relatively rough manufacture, while others have a more precise cross-shape. This characteristic is also encountered with earlier crosses, which could be manufactured using casting moulds like those that were found in Trend and Hedeby.9 Simple cross pendants of this type could also be made of non-metallic materials, such as a cross-shaped amber amulet from c. 1050–1100 found in Lund.10 These types of cross are rarely decorated, with one remarkable exception found during an excavation in Ribe. It had a cross motif incised on one side, and the extremities of each arm were turned into smaller crosses by transversal incisions (Pl. 1.1).11 Cross motifs could also be incised on other types of pendant, for example a disk-shaped pendant in lead/tin alloy found during excavation in Ribe (Pl. 1.11) and an oval-shaped silver pendant found by metal-detecting south of the town (Pl. 1.12). Another type of early medieval cross pendant is characterized by waveshaped interstices between the arms and protrusions or studs at the end of each arm with four symmetrically placed openings in the form of circular holes in the middle. A fragmented lead model for this type of cross was found in Råhede south of Ribe (Pl. 1.7) and the same type appears in the Hågerup hoard (deposited 1048–1050). One of the two silver crosses from Hågerup is identical to the one from Råhede and to another one from Odense, made of copper-alloy sheet.12 Another metal-detecting find from the Ribe area was made in copper-alloy and features studs at the end of each cross arm and a knot, also referred to as ‘criss-cross motif ’, at its intersection (Pl. 1.10). Crosses that exhibit similar features are dated to the Viking Age or early Christian period.13 A twelfth-century cross-reliquary in copper-alloy decorated with an incised Christ figure was also found in Råhede south of Ribe (Pl. 1.8–1.9). It was unfortunately empty. Cross reliquaries, or encolpia,14 were often used to keep fragments of wood from the Holy Cross brought home from voyages.15 This symbolic concordance between form and content is illustrated by the cross-reliquary from Roskilde, which still contains its relic of the Holy Cross.16 It was itself placed inside the head of a Christ figure, hereby multiplying its symbolic significance several times through several layers, from the outer container to the relic itself in the holiest core. This principle is well known from the design of arm and head reliquaries, for instance.17 The reliquary acted

9 Roesdahl, Viking og Hvidekrist, cat. no. 195; Schietzel, Spurensuche Haithabu, pp. 186–87. 10 Stenholm, ‘Dräkttilbehør och smycken’, p. 304, colour plate VIII. 11 See also Staecker, Rex regum, cat. no. 73. 12 Jensen, Danmarks middelalderlige skattefund, ii, cat. no. 15; Staecker, Rex regum, cat. nos 25 and 28a. 13 Lindahl, ‘Dagmarkorset’, p. 15; Jeppesen, ‘Egå’, p. 79. 14 Lindahl, ‘Dagmarkorset’, p. 7; Staecker, Rex regum, pp. 50–51. 15 Gräslund, ‘Torshammare’, p. 191; Grinder-Hansen and others, ‘Skatten fra Østermarie’, p. 146. 16 Lindahl, ‘Dagmarkorset’, p. 8. 17 See Lena Liepe’s and Mads Vedel Heilskov’s chapters in this volume.

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Figure 8.1. Encolpion in silver from the Østermarie hoard, NM D74/2013. This reliquary-cross, manufactured in Scandinavia, was inspired by Byzantine examples. Nationalmuseet i København. Image released into public domain at [accessed 27 April 2021].

objects of personal devotion: outer markers and inner meanings

as a medium where the relic’s divine power was transformed and could be transferred to those who beheld it through sight and touch.18 Fragments of the Holy Cross were among the most important relics in medieval Christianity and encolpia were often ostentatious objects. Exquisite examples of cross reliquaries in precious metals are known from several early medieval hoards, as well as from church treasures, such as the cross of Dagmar, the cross from Orø, the cross from Roskilde, and the three crosses from the Østermarie hoard (Fig. 8.1).19 Equally modest examples to the Råhede cross also exist, such as one in copper-alloy found in the early medieval layers of Sigtuna, Sweden, which closely resembles the one from Ribe.20 These reliquaries vary in quality and were also manufactured locally, as is the case with the cross-reliquary in silver from the Østermarie hoard. Cross-shaped pendants can primarily be dated to the eleventh–thirteenth centuries. They vary greatly in artistic and material quality, but were all meant to be worn around the neck. Apart from the Hågerup hoard and the newly found Østermarie hoard, which contain two and three crosses respectively, the crosses generally occur as single objects in hoards. They show signs of wear and were probably used over a long period. On this basis, it has previously been argued that they were objects of personal devotion,21 but the most exclusive examples may also have been markers of rank for the clergy or family heirlooms. The numerous finds of smaller and simpler crosses show that their use was widespread. The fact that they were mass-produced without following a strict design indicates that the symbolic value of the object and its imbued potency were more important than their appearance or material value. How their owner would have worn them; on their clothes or in direct contact with their body, chest, or heart, is unfortunately unknown. Brooches, Bracteates, and Finger-Rings (Plate 2)

Brooches to fasten and ornate clothing are an important group among metal detector finds and were certainly in widespread use throughout the Middle Ages. Three types of brooch dated from the eleventh to the twelfth centuries are encountered in fairly large numbers over most of Denmark: circular brooches with a more or less stylized Lamb of God as central motif;22 the so-called Urnes brooches;23 and bird-shaped brooches.24 All three have a fastening pin

18 Jørgensen, ‘Sensorium’, p. 62. 19 See for example Lindahl, ‘Dagmarkorset’ and ‘Smykker, sølvgenstande og barrer’, pp. 54–55; Grinder-Hansen and others, ‘Skatten fra Østermarie’; Pedersen, Salomonsen, and Nielsen, ‘Nok en skat fra Østermarie’. 20 Edvardsson, ‘Sigtunabor’, pp. 148–49; see also Staecker, Rex regum, type 3.1–3.5.2. 21 Lindahl, ‘Smykker, sølvgenstande og barrer’, p. 59. 22 Bertelsen, ‘Præsentation af Ålborg-gruppen’. 23 Bertelsen, ‘Urnesfibler i Danmark’; Gilså, Et spørgsmål om stil. 24 Pedersen, ‘Rovfugle eller duer’.

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Plate 2. Brooches from Ribe and its region. Not to scale. Photos: SJM / Henrik Brinch Christiansen.

on the reverse and can have a suspension loop turning downwards. They are small and delicate and not very practical for fastening clothing, which leads us to believe that their role was mainly symbolic and/or decorative. The symbolism of the Lamb of God motif is the most explicit, while the birds may be subjected to several interpretations; as doves, eagles, or peacocks. All, however, exist as symbols within Christian tradition.25 The Urnes style is associated with early medieval religious art in Scandinavia and the great

25 Pedersen, ‘Rovfugle eller duer’; Petersen, ‘Guddommelige fugle’, pp. 142–43.

objects of personal devotion: outer markers and inner meanings

beast, intertwined with snakes, is known from other Christian contexts, such as late Viking-Age rune stones.26 A large number of Urnes- and bird-brooches as well as circular brooches with animal motifs have been found in Ribe and its hinterland (Pl. 2.1–2.8). For the latter, only two show a cross on the back of a stylized creature (Pl. 2.6), while the remainder represent an animal in a circle with the head looking backwards (Pl. 2.4–2.5). Several of these brooches have been found during the excavation of the remains of a workshop for copper-alloy casting located south of Ribe Cathedral from around the year 1100. The finds include several hundred casting mould fragments made of clay, some of which made to cast more than one type of brooch (Pl. 2.9). All three types of brooch were produced by this workshop. A workshop from the same period and with a similar repertoire of products has recently been excavated in Aalborg in northern Jutland.27 Older excavations in Lund have shown similar traces of early medieval metalworking. Urnes brooches were manufactured there as well.28 This suggests that these types of brooch were produced and sold as Christian badges at early Danish towns. In all three cases, the production took place next to churches. Thanks to the metal-detecting finds of Urnes- and bird-shaped brooches in the Ribe area, one gains insights into how the products of the workshop adjacent Ribe Cathedral spread to the hinterland. The casting-moulds show, moreover, that the workshop mass-produced Urnes brooches in various sizes and of unequal artistic quality, which suggests that they were affordable to both those of high and modest means and that artisans produced such products with different buyers in mind. The detecting finds, together with the find material from the workshops, are crucial for our understanding of techniques of mass-production, jewellery styles, distribution of religious souvenirs, and the possible role of the Church in production and trade of religious artefacts.29 Other types of brooch, like disc-shaped foil brooches, coin-shaped brooches, and bracteates were also in use in this period.30 Three examples of the latter have been found during excavation in Ribe, all with coinage-inspired decoration with Christian symbols. Two are decorated with a cross motif surrounded by an — intentionally? — unreadable inscription (Pl. 2.10–2.11), while the third is decorated with a town wall and towers surrounded, again, by an unreadable inscription (Pl. 2.12–2.13). It is likely that the motif on the latter represents the City of God (CIVITAS DEI).31 Text-like decoration is often encountered on medieval jewellery, for example on the high medieval

26 Wood, ‘The Pictures on the Greater Jelling Stone’. 27 Søvsø and Jensen, ‘Workshop Production’. 28 Bergman and Billberg, ‘Metallhantverk’, pp. 206–07; Stenholm, ‘Dräkttilbehør och smycken’, p. 295. 29 Søvsø and Jensen, ‘Workshop Production’. 30 Jensen, Tusindtallets Danske Mønter, pp. 100–03; Lindahl, ‘Smykker, sølvgenstande og barrer’, pp. 63–64; Pedersen, ‘Smykkesættet fra Bjæverskov’, pp. 226–27. 31 Søvsø, ‘Bebyggelsesmønster’, p. 45.

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ring-brooches.32 At a time where few people could read, perhaps not even the craftsman who manufactured the inscribed objects, the written word was attributed particular powers and it is quite possible that even imitated writing (Latin alphabet or runes) carried meaning. The variation in the quality of the inscriptions echoes that of the objects, which may indicate once again that they were intended for customers with different means. Moreover, the existence of poor-quality products suggests their symbolic value was overall more important than their aesthetic or material quality. The majority of the brooches, bracteates, and cross pendants are small objects, which make for rather inconspicuous symbols. We are not aware of how they were worn, visible on the dress or hidden underneath, as single pieces or as sets. Just as the brooches, the bracteates are equipped with a fastening pin on the reverse and often have a suspension loop. While they could have been used as mere jewellery, the position of the loop means that the motif would have hung upside down, as observed for contemporary bracteate-pendants.33 This may indicate that the motif was intended to be gazed upon or kissed, as it would turn the correct way when the bearer would lift the bracteates in front of their face. The same effect would have been achieved for two of the lead-cross pendants (Pl. 1.2; 1.4), where the suspension hole is placed on the longest branch of the cross. Medieval finger-rings and ring-brooches often bear protective inscriptions and were imbued with symbolic value through their ring-shape, which evoked notions of eternity and fidelity, and the manner in which they were worn. The ring-brooch closing the dress on the chest represented virtue, and classical textual sources specified that the left hand’s fourth finger was connected to the heart and was therefore suitable for the wearing of a wedding ring. These specifications were well known and followed in the Middle Ages.34 The most common inscription is the first part of Ave Maria — so common that it has even become eponymous for a particular type of ring-brooch, the ‘Ave Maria’ ring-brooch (Pl. 2.14–2.17).35 Besides the Christian content, elements of Jewish tradition and various magical formulas are also frequently encountered on medieval jewellery and other objects.36 For example, a silver brooch from thirteenth-century Ribe is inscribed with AGLA:AVEMARI(A) (GR)ACIA(PLE..) (Pl. 2.14–2.15), which combines the Hebrew anagram AGLA (Atha Gebri Leilan Adonai: Thou Art Mighty forever, O Lord) and part of the Annunciation to the Virgin according to the Gospel of Luke (‘Ave Maria gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulerieribus et benedictus fructus

32 Søvsø, ‘Tro, håb og kærlighed’, p. 267. 33 Jensen, Danmarks middelalderlige skattefund, for ex. cat. no. 18; Lindahl, ‘Amuletter fra 1000årene’; Galster, ‘Nogle middelalderlige hængesmykker’. 34 Lightbown, Mediaeval European Jewellery, pp. 100, 138; Lindahl, Symboler i guld og sølv, p. 15. 35 Lindahl, Symboler i guld og sølv; Søvsø, ‘Tro, håb og kærlighed’, pp. 267–68. 36 Moltke, ‘Runepindene fra Ribe’; Oman, British Rings, p. 58; Imer, ‘Lille Myregård’ and ‘Ave Maria’; Imer and Uldum, ‘Mod dæmoner og elverfolk’; Lindahl, Symboler i guld og sølv, p. 14; van Beuningen, Heilig en Profaan, iii, for ex. ill. 3486.

objects of personal devotion: outer markers and inner meanings

ventris tui Jesus’). The reverse of the brooch is decorated with intertwined vegetal ornament. In the light of the many examples of hidden inscriptions and the fact that the ring-shaped body of the brooch is trapezoidal in section, with the inscription placed on its broadest side, it is fair to assume that the inscription would have turned inwards towards the body of its bearer. The combination of several elements with magical properties such as inscriptions, imagery, precious or glass stones, as well as the metals used were considered to reinforce the inherent powers of the objects.37 On fourteenth- to sixteenth-century finger-rings, composite inscriptions sometimes appear with religious imagery, such as the Crucifixion, the face of Christ, the Virgin Mary with Child, or various saints.38 Combining an inscription with the image of a saint was not quite as common on ring-brooches as it was, for instance, on finger-rings. Even so, a ring-brooch spelling the names of the Magi, IASPAR MELCIOR B, interrupted by a stamped image of Saint Catherine of Alexandria with her attributes of wheel and sword has been found in Ribe (Pl. 2.16–2.17). The names of the Magi are separated by a flower and a fleur-de-lys. The Magi were very popular in the Middle Ages as they were believed to protect from a number of ailments (i.e. epilepsy, headaches, fever, and dangers during travel). Their names were often used in magic formulas,39 which inform that their names were to be worn around the neck of the sick. This adds another layer of meaning to the ring-brooches inscribed with the names of the Magi, as they were also designed to be worn at the neck. The number of textual and visual sources for the use of ornaments and dress fittings increases from the high Middle Ages onwards providing a more solid foundation for the interpretation of the symbols found on objects of this kind. In this context, the religious and the profane are entangled and it is evident that jewellery was imbued with complex symbolism and amuletic functions. It could represent and contain eternal love — both of the earthly and heavenly kind — fidelity, and virtue, and their inscriptions could function as invocations, as well as prayers and laments to saints.40 Pilgrimage Badges and Metal Badges with Religious Imagery (Plate 3)

Pilgrimage badges acted as contact relics from the holy shrine since they derived from and had been in contact with the holy places.41 The oldest Christian pilgrimage souvenirs were non-manufactured items such as branches of palm trees and seashells, or even dust scraped off holy monuments.42 This 37 Gilchrist, Sacred Heritage. 38 Lindahl, Symboler i guld og sølv, cat. nos 133–36; Jørgensen, ‘Into the Saturated Sensorium’, p. 16 and ‘Sensorium’, p. 49; Grinder-Hansen, ‘Kristne fingerringe’. 39 Ohrt, Danmarks Trylleformler, i, 190–91, 302. 40 Søvsø, ‘Tro, håb og kærlighed’, pp. 276–79; Gilchrist, Sacred Heritage, pp. 115–21. 41 Bynum, Christian Materiality, p. 136. 42 Köster, Pilgerzeichen, p. 144.

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17 18 Plate 3. Pilgrimage badges and possible pilgrimage badges from Ribe. Not to scale. Photo: SJM / Henrik Brinch Christiansen.

objects of personal devotion: outer markers and inner meanings

Figure 8.2. Scraping marks on the columns of the northern portal of Ribe Cathedral. Stone dust from a holy shrine was believed to possess miraculous potency. Photo: Museum of Southwest Jutland.

kind of ‘holy vandalism’ is attested at Ribe Cathedral, where stone dust has been scraped off the building with a knife or other sharp object (Fig. 8.2).43 The production of metal badges with religious and profane imagery came in earnest in the high Middle Ages and grew together with the number 43 DK Ribe Amt XIX, p. 215.

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of pilgrimage destinations. They are a common type of artefact in several countries, especially in the Netherlands and England, where a large number of objects have been published. They are also encountered in Denmark, but at the present in smaller amounts. The use of metal detectors has increased the number of finds for many types of objects. A good example for this is the number of finds of the above-mentioned Urnes brooches, which grew from 110 to over 900 finds between 1992 and 2019.44 In comparison, finds of pilgrimage badges, ampullae, and scallop shells have increased from 176 in 1989 to 432 in 2021.45 There could be a number of reasons for this, such as poor preservation conditions for thin lead objects in the plough layer, but it might also be a reflection of the fact that these objects were not as common as other metal accessories. Excavations in medieval towns in Denmark have revealed many new finds of pilgrimage badges over the last couple of decades. All pilgrimage badges in the collections of the Museum of Southwest Jutland have thus been found in Ribe’s archaeological layers (Pl. 3). Another example is Aalborg in northern Jutland, where the finds of pilgrimage badges from recent excavations in urban layers now amount to around forty. However, a preliminary analysis of the finds of pilgrimage badges, ampullae, and scallop shells in Denmark seems to challenge the assumption that pilgrimage badges had a stronger connection to urban and ecclesiastical environments.46 The scallop shells associated with the pilgrimage to the grave of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela in Spain belong to the species Pecten Maximus, whose natural habitat stretches along the Atlantic coastline, from Spain to Norway. Of the two shells of the scallop, one is rather flat, while the other, with more relief, was used for pilgrimage badges.47 It was fastened to clothing or other pieces of attire using two drilled holes and was understood as a symbol of pilgrimage in its own right. Scallop shells are one of the few types of object which occasionally appear deposited in medieval burials.48 There are a number of Danish examples, such as one grave in Holbæk with no less than five scallop shells.49 In Ribe, two burials with scallop shells have been excavated at the cemetery of the Franciscan friary. The first, which is dated to the high Middle Ages, contained the remains of an older woman who was buried with two scallop shells (Pl. 3.2) (Fig. 8.3A), 44 Bertelsen, ‘Urnesfibler i Danmark’; Gilså, Et spørgsmål om stil. 45 Søvsø ‘Medieval Badges and Other Objects with Relation to Pilgrimage from Present Denmark’, in prep. 46 Søvsø ‘Medieval Badges and Other Objects with Relation to Pilgrimage from Present Denmark’, in prep.; see also Gilchrist, Sacred Heritage, pp. 131–32. 47 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, p. 245. 48 Köster, Pilgerzeichen, pp. 119–20; Kieffer Olsen, Grav og gravskik, p. 170; Koch, ‘Den arkæologiske udgravning’; see also Jakob Tue Christiansen and Mikael Manøe Bjerregaard’s contribution in this volume. 49 Koch, ‘Den arkæologiske udgravning’, p. 142. A burial excavated in 2015 at Saint Stephen’s cemetery in Viborg had four intact scallop shells, stacked and placed on the chest. Unpublished excavation report, NVM j.nr. 08300.

objects of personal devotion: outer markers and inner meanings

Figure 8.3. Burials at the Franciscan friary in Ribe, containing scallop shells. A. Burial dated archaeologically to 1250–1350; the deceased was an older woman, over 50 years old. Scallop shells are shown on Pl. 3.2. B. Burial dated archaeologically to 1450–1536; the deceased was a young individual, 15–18 years of age. Scallop shell is shown on Pl. 3.1 (ASR 1015 x1119, G374). Photo: Museum of Southwest Jutland.

while the second, dated to the late Middle Ages, contained a younger person, who was buried with a single scallop shell (Pl. 3.1) (Fig. 8.3B). In both cases, the shells were placed on the chest of the deceased. Two additional scallop shells were found in archaeological layers in the medieval town centre; one in Badstuegade (Pl. 3.3) and one in Dagmarsgade (Pl. 3.4).50 Both have been dated to the high Middle Ages, most likely to the thirteenth century, based on their archaeological context. One of the most important pilgrimage centres of the European Middle Ages was Cologne, where the relics of the three Magi were kept in an ostentatious shrine in the cathedral. The badges from this pilgrimage site are identifiable by virtue of their imagery, which depicts the adoration of the Virgin Mary with the Infant Christ by the Magi. Two badges of this kind have been found in Ribe (Pl. 3.5–3.6). The first (Pl. 3.6–3.7), which is dated to the thirteenth century, is only preserved as a fragment, but it is clear that the central motif was surmounted by an architectural feature with a spire, as observed on

50 Søvsø, ‘Arkæologiske undersøgelser’, pp. 43–44.

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similar finds connected to the cult of the Magi at Cologne Cathedral.51 The second is of a similar type but stylistically slightly younger (Pl. 3.5).52 One of the Cologne-badges found in Ribe is also decorated on the reverse side with a Crucifixion scene and features an inscription in majuscule, which is now unfortunately unreadable (Pl. 3.7). Pilgrimage badges are only rarely ornamented on the reverse, contrary to other object types described earlier. This suggests that the image, turning towards the body of its bearer and thus invisible, may have had a particular personal meaning or potency.53 Another pilgrimage badge found in Ribe is shaped like an almond. This is a recognizable feature of the badges from the pilgrimage site of Rocamadour in south-west France, which had reached its peak of popularity in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Pl. 3.8). The image shows an Enthroned Madonna with Child sitting on her left knee. She holds a sceptre adorned with a fleur-de-lys at its upper extremity. The band of inscription around the central figure reads: SIGILLVM: ZANTEMAR_EMAIO, that is ‘Sancta Maria Maiori’ (the church of Saint Mary Major). The pilgrimage site was named after the cliff where the grave of Saint Amadour had been found, but it was the sculpture of a black Madonna that lent the place its fame and which is depicted on the pilgrimage badges. The band of inscription on the badges usually refers to both Mary and Rocamadour.54 However, based on published parallels, it is possible to argue that part of the inscription on the badge from Ribe represents a failed attempt at reproducing the spelling ROCAMODOUR.55 A pilgrimage badge from the monastery of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert in the south of France was retrieved from an excavation at Sviegade in Ribe (Pl. 3.9). The badge, dated to the thirteenth century, is made of lead/tin alloy and is nearly square in shape. It originally had a stitching hole in each of its four corners, but two of these are missing. One corner has been broken, perhaps when it was lost by its bearer, and the badge is slightly bent. Its imagery shows a man, perhaps a knight, on horseback, wearing a conical helmet and carrying a shield, a spear, and a hunting horn over his shoulder. The badge is well preserved and the image is executed with a high level of detail. A small standard hangs from the spear and a harness strap with small bells encircles the horse’s collar. A tower can be seen in the background behind the rider. At the top, the band of inscription reads S:BI:GUILIELO, ‘Signum Beati

51 For example van Beuningen and Koldeweij, eds, Heilig en Profaan, ill. 167–72; van Beuningen, Koldeweij, and Kicken, eds, Heilig en Profaan, ii, ill. 1087–1104. 52 Andersson, Pilgrimsmärken och vallfart, p. 77; van Beuningen, Koldeweij, and Kicken, eds, Heilig en Profaan, ii, ill. 1087–88, 1093–95. 53 See also van Beuningen, Koldeweij, and Kicken, eds, Heilig en Profaan, ii, ill. 1088–89. 54 See for example Andersson, Pilgrimsmärken och vallfart, pp. 96–99; van Beuningen, Koldeweij, and Kicken, eds, Heilig en Profaan, ii, 340–41, ill. 1416–23; Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, pp. 234–37. 55 See Köster, Pilgerzeichen, R38, 78; Andersson, Pilgrimsmärken och vallfart, pp. 54–55.

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Guilielo’ (The Seal of Blessed Guilhelm). Similar badges have been found in Haarlem and London.56 Several badges carry imagery, which would have made them suitable as devotional images and amulets. This may have been the case for a fragmentary late medieval badge in lead/tin alloy representing a pieta, which was found in Ribe (Pl. 3.11).57 Another badge shows an enthroned Christ with bare chest, exposing his side-wound and raising his right hand in a blessing gesture (Pl. 3.10). In addition, there are a number of fragments of possible stitched badges in lead/tin alloy, whose motifs are difficult to identify due to their poor condition, but which are presumably pilgrimage badges or other types of religious metal badge (Pl. 3.16–3.18). During an excavation in one of Ribe’s medieval streets, a highly fragmented medallion was found. It consists of a circular frame in bronze with a suspension loop at the top. Two pieces of thin silver foil remained attached (Pl. 3.14). Both sides carry a stamped image of the Vera Icon (the True Image), which refers to the image that remained on the piece of cloth that Saint Veronica lent to Christ for him to wipe his face on as he carried the cross to Golgotha. The oldest legends about Veronica’s cloth are known from the fourteenth century and are connected to traditions surrounding the Passion of Christ and the miracle of the transubstantiation. The image became widespread in church interiors and wall paintings, as ornament on patens and reliquaries, as three-dimensional figures, as well as on personal belongings due to its ability to grant indulgences.58 Vera Icon medallions are well documented in the Netherlands,59 but the medallion from Ribe differs from these examples by the thinness of its metal foil and by the fact that it appears to have been hollow, so that it could have been used as a reliquary. Perhaps it was used to keep a small cut-out paper badge with the Vera Icon such as those which could be acquired in the town of Wienhausen in Lower Saxony, for instance.60 Finger-rings with the Vera Icon are typically formed by a circular plaque with the motif soldered onto the ring. Their assembling technique suggests that it was possible to purchase the decorated plaque separately and have it mounted onto a ring of the appropriate dimensions later. The relatively large number of Danish examples suggest that this type of ring has been rather popular in Northern Europe.61 Fritze Lindahl has suggested that the

56 For Harlem, see van Beuningen, ed., Heilig en Profaan, iii, 168; for London, Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, cat. no. 246h–j. 57 See also van Beuningen and Koldeweij, eds, Heilig en Profaan, ill. 467, p. 525, van Beuningen, Koldeweij, and Kicken, eds, Heilig en Profaan, ii, ill. 1361, pp. 1489–90. 58 Ringbom, ‘Bild och avlat’, pp. 8–9; Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, p. 252. 59 Van Beuningen, Koldeweij, and Kicken, eds, Heilig en Profaan, ii, ill. 1512–16. 60 Liebgott, Hellige mænd og kvinder, p. 56. 61 Lindhal, Symboler i guld og sølv, cat. nos 159–88; Immonen, ‘Medieval Vernicle Finger Rings’, p. 103.

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small circular images could be acquired at one or several pilgrimage centres in Scandinavia. Wall paintings representing the Vera Icon are known, among others, at Saint Peter’s Church in Næstved, as well as at Viskinge, Brunnby, and Malmø in Scania (Fig. 8.4).62 Considering the significance and special potency of the motif, it is plausible that small images of the Vera Icon were not necessarily connected to a particular site of pilgrimage. The medallion from Ribe therefore most likely had a devotional function. It could be worn around the neck, perhaps hidden under the clothes and then gazed upon and adored as often as required in order to immerse oneself in prayer or ask for the remission of one’s sins. Another medallion, likewise a stray find from Ribe, is dated to the sixteenth century and is decorated in relief on both sides. One side shows the Virgin and Child on the Crescent Moon, surrounded by a rosary made of a series of small beads divided in five sections by larger beads; Pater Noster beads, which symbolized (among other things) the Wounds of Christ. The image on the reverse is unidentifiable (Pl. 3.12–3.13) (Fig. 8.5). One of the most spectacular finds from medieval Ribe is a hollow cast figure in lead/tin alloy representing a creature that is half man, half peacock (Pl. 3.15). The figure is dated to the thirteenth century based on the archaeological context and is equipped with a collar for mounting on something. On the chest an eyelet is placed, probably for fastening a tiny bell. There are several parallels to this type of object, both as impressions on casting moulds from Magdeburg,63 and a series of peacocks with collars and various attributes from London.64 These are interpreted in connection with the cult of the murdered archbishop of Canterbury, Saint Thomas Becket, who was sometimes represented standing on the back of a peacock.65 Some examples show a human arm holding a banner emerging from the back of the peacock.66 It has been suggested that these representations symbolized the accomplishment of a promise of pilgrimage to his grave.67 Other examples have another animal perched on the bird’s back, including other birds or a fox.68 The symbolism of the peacock was, as it was for a number of animals and beasts, ambiguous. It was a symbol of vanity, but also of the celestial heaven, eternal life, resurrection, and immortality since its flesh was very dry and thus unable to rot.69 The peacock-man from Ribe is not a precise parallel to any of the above-mentioned examples, although the similarities in design indicate that we are not only dealing with a similar object-type with similar function,

62 Liebgott, ‘Pilgrimsfærd’; Lindhal, Symboler i guld og sølv, pp. 31–32, cat. nos 159–85. 63 Berger, ‘Steingussformen’, fig. A-7–A-9. 64 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, nos 27–32a. 65 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, nos 27–30a. 66 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, nos 31, 31a, 31b. 67 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, p. 75. 68 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, nos 31–32. 69 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, p. 75.

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but with a closely related symbolism, which found its material expression exhibiting only small variations. Another of the peacock’s characteristics was its role as a good companion for travellers: its noisy sound would warn and protect them and the many-eyed tail would keep an eye on dangers on the way. Several finds of badges similar to the Ribe peacock-man, showing pilgrims with staffs,70 as well as badges depicting Saint Christopher with a staff provided with a peacock figure on top of it seem to explain the use and meaning of our peacock-man as a pilgrim accessory, for mounting on a wandering staff.71 The motif, a hybrid between a man and a peacock, can be interpreted as protection against dangers on the way (the bell of the chest would also make some noise), as well as a satirical comment on impious vanity.72 At some point, the peacock-man was used in another way than as a mount on a staff. It has been flattened and nailed onto something, perhaps a post or a wooden wall or smaller, wooden object. Such a secondary use is well known and reflects the many facetted use of these objects as protective tokens that could be placed on inventory in houses, on small portable altars, in fields, and so on.73 The finds of pilgrimage badges provide a wealth of information about pilgrimage and piety, but simultaneously raise questions about their use and meaning. We do not know if each badge symbolized a single journey or how closely the badge was related to the individual pilgrim. It is commonly assumed that pilgrimage badges evolved from being an object associated with the pilgrim personally to becoming an object with greater inherent potency during the course of the Middle Ages. In this manner, many people such as relatives of the pilgrim, or perhaps even the entire parochial community, could use the badge as a miraculous amulet. This seems to be the case when pilgrimage badges were cast onto the bell of the parish church, which could then ring with words of prayer and channel the sacred power of the saint to the village and its inhabitants. The same applies for pilgrimage badges buried in a field to secure a bountiful harvest and protect the livestock against illness.74 Considering that pilgrimage badges could be used as remedies to repel evil, it is worth asking whether people who, for instance, were buried with scallop shells were necessarily pilgrims in a physical ‘earthly’ sense or in a spiritual sense. From the sixteenth century onwards, capes and hats found

70 Koldeweij, Geloof & Geluk, pp. 69–70. 71 Van Beuningen, ed., Heilig en Profaan, iii, ill. 2281. See also [accessed 27 April 2021]. 72 Information, interpretation, and images kindly provided by Amy Jeffs, Department of History of Art, Cambridge. 73 Baart, ed., Opgravingen in Amsterdam, p. 393; Boertjes, ‘Pelgrimsampullen’, p. 80; Anderson, ‘Blessing the Fields?’; Gilchrist, Sacred Heritage, p. 121. 74 Liebgott, ‘Afstøbninger af pilgrimstegn’; Köster, Pilgerzeichen, pp. 19–20; Anderson, ‘Blessing the Fields?’.

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Figure 8.4. Wall painting from Viskinge Church with the Vera Icon motif (c. 1425 ad). After Haastrup, Danske kalkmalerier, no. 27.

Figure 8.5. The Virgin Mary in a mandorla, standing on top of a moon crescent and surrounded by a rosary, with Christ’s five wounds and the Pater Noster (end of the fifteenth century). After Bjørn and Gotfredsen, Århus Domkirke, Skt. Clemens, p. 137.

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Figure 8.6A and B. A: casting mould for a spherical object from Magdeburg. B: fragment of a similar spherical object from London. After Berger, ‘Mittelalterliche Weißmetalfunde’, p. 144 and Portable Antiquity Scheme ( [accessed 1 April 2021]): LON-E8ED24.

in graves or preserved as curated items could be decorated with such a large number of scallop shells and badges that it seems unlikely that each badge represented a separate pilgrimage undertaken by the wearer.75 Another question is whether it was of any importance whether or not the scallop shells came from the Atlantic or if it was acceptable that they came from a more northern region of the species’ distribution. Köster’s distribution map of scallop shells found in funerary contexts from 1983 shows that they appear in a relatively large number of burials in Scandinavia.76 One may wonder whether this implies that many Scandinavians undertook such a long journey, of course taking into account possible biases such as intensity of excavation in particular regions or sites and investigation methods, or whether the shells were collected closer by, or perhaps even traded.77 Considering that scallop shells became a symbol of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, and that the belief that the object itself, with its physical characteristics, was the bearer of divine potency, one can imagine that a scallop shell was in itself perceived as a marker of pilgrimage with little or no regard as to where it came from. Saint James was the patron saint of all pilgrims and his attribute a widespread symbol for pilgrimage, so it is possible that the deposition of the shells in graves was a means of constructing the identity of the deceased as a pilgrim — regardless of its factuality in real life. More local shells could also be used as replacements 75 Fries, ‘Die Kostümsammlung’; Robert, Pèlerins, cat. no. 108, 59, pl. XI; Köster, Pilgerzeichen, pp. 150–51. 76 Köster, Pilgerzeichen, p. 120; Andersson, Pilgrimsmärken, pp. 141–53. 77 See also Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, p. 174. Identifying the provenance of the shells would not be possible by strontium isotopes analyses. Marine organisms have more or less the same strontium isotopes values regardless of their place of origin, because strontium has a very long residence time in seawater and is therefore homogenized in oceans and seas worldwide (written personal comment, Minik Thorleif Rosing, Statens Naturhistoriske Museum, Copenhagen).

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Plate 4. Other religious accessories from Ribe. Not to scale. Photo: SJM / Henrik Brinch Christiansen.

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or as symbols for actual scallop shells, for example as small items placed inside rattles, as well as in burials.78 In these cases, one could have chosen an easier and cheaper solution, the resemblance with scallop shells having been considered, in all likelihood, to be sufficient. Other Types of Pilgrimage Accessory (Plate 4)

Small bottles in ceramic or cast metal were used as containers for holy water and as souvenirs from pilgrimages to the Holy Land already in the sixth century,79 but became particularly popular from the thirteenth century onwards. They were produced and sold in many places and have been found in several countries, including Denmark.80 These ampullae were often made of a lead/tin alloy and decorated with imagery that indicated their shrine of origin.81 Some designs are simple with less diagnostic images (i.e. flowers, letters, shells, etc.), while some are without ornamentation entirely. Ampullae are equipped with small suspension loops on either side of the bottle’s neck so they could be hung around the neck or from a belt. Ampullae had the advantage of being reusable and could thus be (re)filled with holy matter from different shrines.82 The great majority of the English ampullae (more than five hundred finds in all) have been found in rural areas, especially in cultivated fields,83 and often appear to have been damaged intentionally before their deposition. This could imply that the bottle was opened and its content poured over the field, possibly as an act of blessing or to secure a good harvest.84 There are, however, also examples of well-preserved ampullae that remain sealed. One of these was found in Yorkshire and contained a mixture of water, medicinal plants, and spices.85 The plants were probably meant to either preserve or perfume the liquid. Aside from holy water, the ampullae may have contained oil, dust, soil, or the like.86 Only one ampulla, which was made of copper-alloy, has been found in Ribe (Pl. 4.1–4.2). In addition, a casting mould of chalkstone was found during the excavation of a series of thirteenth-century houses next to Ribe 78 Köster, Pilgerzeichen, p. 144; Andersson, Pilgrimsmärken, pp. 117, 150–51 (grave 38); Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, p. 209; Jensen and Dahlström, ‘Beretning for Skt. Clemens I og III’, pp. 33–35. 79 Boertjes, ‘Pelgrimsampullen’, pp. 82, 86. 80 Andersson, Pilgrimsmärken, p. 137; Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, pp. 40–41; Kühne, Brumme, and Koeningsmarková, Jungfrauen, Engel, Phallustiere, e.g. pp. 157–58; van Beuningen, ed., Heilig en Profaan, iii, e.g. pp. 256–57; Vellev, ‘Ampullen fra Grathe’. 81 Spencer, ‘Canterbury Pilgrim Souvenirs’, pp. 108–09. 82 Andersson, Pilgrimsmärken, p. 138; Vellev, ‘Ampullen fra Grathe’. 83 Anderson, ‘Blessing the Fields?’, pp. 193–94. 84 Anderson, ‘Blessing the Fields?’, pp. 199–200. 85 Andersson, Pilgrimsmärken, p. 137. 86 Anderson, ‘Blessing the Fields?’, p. 182.

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Cathedral (Pl. 4.4),87 which indicates that ampullae were actually manufactured in Ribe. With its disc-shaped body and floral ornamentation, the mould is rather similar to other contemporary ampullae.88 Finds of this kind provide strong evidence that Ribe was indeed a pilgrimage centre, or at the very least, a place of worship involved in the commerce of religious souvenirs. The other half of the casting mould is missing, but it may have carried imagery, which could have indicated which shrine the ampulla was connected to. The reverse of the casting mould, however, bears the impression of other casted objects (Pl. 4.3), consisting of two tear- or leaf-shaped pendants, decorated with an A and a V respectively. These pendants have likely been used as jewellery, dress- or belt-accessories. The letters A and V could very well refer to ‘Ave’, the first word of the Annunciation to Mary. Other types of pilgrimage souvenir were manufactured in the same workshop as the ampulla. The most spectacular object is a casting mould for a spherical object in openwork (Pl. 4.5).89 The sphere was c. 4.5 cm in diameter and may have contained scallop shells, pebbles, and other small items that would produce sound when the object was shaken, as observed for British examples. Another casting mould, found in Magdeburg, Germany, which was also found among a large assemblage of casting mould fragments, including some for the manufacture of ampullae,90 is remarkably similar to the example from Ribe (Fig. 8.6A). This type of object has also been documented in Germany, France, and England (Fig. 8.6B).91 The one from Ribe adds to this pattern of distribution. This type of object may be seen as pilgrimage souvenirs used to produce ‘holy sound’ in a similar way as bells, flutes, and other objects aimed at pilgrims.92 The idea that sound produced by or through an object from a shrine could repel or protect against evil is also found in the practice, well attested in Denmark, of casting pilgrimage badges onto church bells. The object reminds of the younger bisam-apples which are known from late medieval visual art and are preserved as works of art.93 Perhaps some organic material such as fragrant flowers or plants were rolled in a piece of cloth and placed inside it, and would have spread their scent during rattling. This type of object would have brought several senses into play by its smell, sound, and beauty. As such it could have acted as a medium for divine powers, in a similar way to the liturgical use of sensual

87 88 89 90 91

Jensen, ‘Forsvundne huse’; Søvsø, Jensen, and Neiß, ‘Støbeforme af sten’. Van Beuningen, ed., Heilig en Profaan, iii, ill. 2846–49. Søvsø, Jensen, and Neiß, ‘Støbeforme af sten’. Puhle, ed., Aufbruch in die Gotik, VIII.82, p. 511. Puhle, ed., Aufbruch in die Gotik, p. 511; Berger, ‘Mittelalterliche Weißmetalfunde’, p. 143; Kühne, Brumme, and Koeningsmarková, Jungfrauen, Engel, Phallustiere, p. 196. 92 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, p. 209. 93 Spencer, Medieval Pilgrim Badges, p. 17; Lindahl, Skattefund, p. 53; Puhle, ed., Aufbruch in die Gotik, pp. 510–11.

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Plate 5. Prayer beads from Ribe. Not to scale. Photo: SJM / Henrik Brinch Christiansen.

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Figure 8.7 Two burials with prayer beads at the cemetery of the Franciscan friary, Ribe. Grave ID: ASR 1015 x220, G72; ASR 1015 x371, G108. Photo: Museum of Southwest Jutland.

remedies, which rested on the notion that the divine found its way into the material world through the senses.94 Prayer Beads (Plate 5)

Prayer beads became widespread in the late Middle Ages in connection with the growing devotion to the Virgin Mary. The strict composition of five rows of ten beads punctuated by a larger bead was established in 1569 and does generally not apply to medieval rosaries whose number of beads varied, as did the attached devotional practices.95 This tendency towards diversity can also be observed in the more or less complete finds of rosaries from Ribe. Seven rosaries in complete and fragmentary condition have been found in funerary contexts in Ribe (Pl. 5.1–5.6), as well as sixteen finds of individual beads, tentatively interpreted as rosary beads (Pl. 5.7; 5.10–5.17). The large majority of finds have been made during excavations at Ribe’s Franciscan friary,96 including all in situ finds of complete rosaries. Even at the thoroughly excavated part of the cathedral’s cemetery,97 where most graves are more or less contemporary with the northern cemetery of the Franciscan friary, only a single bead was found, re-deposited in a younger grave. The individuals buried with rosaries in Ribe are two women (age 25–29 and 50+), three children (age 8–12), and a double grave for a young person, possibly female (age 16–19), and a child (age 7–9). All burials bear no sign

94 Jørgensen, ‘Into the Saturated Sensorium’, pp. 13–15; Palazzo, ‘Performing the Liturgy’, pp. 474, 486; Laugerud, Ryan, and Skinnebach, ‘Introduction’, pp. 1–2; Gilchrist, Sacred Heritage, p. 111. 95 Koch, ‘Rosenkranse’, p. 111; Egan and Pritchard, Dress Accessories, p. 305. 96 Museum of Southwest Jutland, excavation record ASR 1015, ASR 11. 97 Museum of Southwest Jutland, excavation record ASR 13 Lindegården, excavated 2008 and 2011–12.

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of coffins, and the rosaries were placed around or under the deceased’s right or left hand (Fig. 8.7). Two of the graves are presumably from the period c. 1350–1450; the four remaining graves were presumably dug between 1450 and the year of the Lutheran Reformation, 1536. These finds thus support the general pattern of the rosaries being a late medieval phenomenon. A small carved figure of bone representing the Enthroned Virgin Mary (Pl. 5.8–5.9), presumably originally with the Infant Christ on her lap, was found in the fill of a disturbed brick-lined grave in the choir of the church of the Franciscan friary alongside a faceted bead of rock crystal (Pl. 5.7). The grave is dated to the high Middle Ages and, because of its early date and its position in a brick-lined grave in the choir of the church, it probably belonged to a person of importance, perhaps an abbot of the friary. There are several examples of late medieval carved figures of saints, which have been assumed to have hung from rosaries, such as a series of figures of jet representing Saint James, which are all equipped with a suspension hole.98 Unfortunately, the figure is damaged in its upper half so it is not possible to assess whether there was a hole or a suspension loop originally and thus how it was used. It could have been carried in a pocket, on clothing, or in a purse as a separate object of devotion.

The Uses and Meanings of Inconspicuous Religious Objects The notion that objects and matter possessed particular abilities was at the core of the use of amulets in the Middle Ages, but is in fact much older. The belief in the potency inherent to phenomena (i.e. things, places, images, relics, words) belonged to a worldview where the physical was understood as a manifestation of the divine.99 Lapidaries, for instance, describe minerals and metals as having the ability to bring good luck or repel evil due to their connection to various celestial bodies, astrological signs, and planets. These phenomena, to which minerals and metals were connected, were thought to influence particular parts of the human body, thus placing the human body in a cosmos where everything was connected. Precious and semi-precious stones were therefore in high demand for their attributed powers.100 The belief in the potency of relics and holy images was central to the idea that the physical presence of figures and objects in various materials and forms created a direct link between the divine and the human through the sensual

98 Liebgott, Hellige mænd og kvinder, p. 91; van Beuningen and Koldeweij, eds, Heilig en Profaan, ill. 208; van Beuningen, Koldeweij, and Kicken, eds, Heilig en Profaan, ii, ill. 1140–44. 99 Jørgensen, ‘Into the Saturated Sensorium’, p. 19; Gilchrist, Sacred Heritage, p. 111. 100 Gilchrist, Sacred Heritage, p. 113.

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experience.101 The lives of the saints, their martyrdom, and their attributes were often the key to problems and illnesses, which they could cure. Saint Apollonia, whose teeth were removed as part of her torture, could be called upon to help toothache; the Three Magi protected travellers and helped against epilepsy because they travelled and fell on their knees in front of the infant Christ; and Saint Catherine of Alexandria could help and protect millers, among others, with reference to the spiked breaking wheel which was intended for her execution. The potency and significance of an object, shaped by God or by the human hand, were mirrored in its form and function. In this way, a ring-brooch, used to close tunics at the neck, guarded the virtue of its bearer and a pilgrimage badge, with its depiction of a holy scene from a shrine, was imbued with some of its holiness. Thus, the physical world could be permeated with spiritual qualities, and objects were able to carry several layers of meaning through their form and material. The diversity of their imagery reflects a mindset where the physical and the spiritual and the religious and the profane could not be distinguished.102 These mass-produced objects often present a modest design and are thus in sharp contrast with the ostentatious use of expensive materials and the artistic quality of contemporary religious art and architecture. This testifies to the complexity of the belief in the potency of things. Not only beautiful and exclusive objects were significant, but other aspects such as symbolism, design, rarity, and origin (or myth of origin) was just as important for the determination of their worth.103 Objects could obtain potency through their use, and amulets with inscriptions, as complete words or single letters, are illustrative examples of this function. The Golden Legend describes how Saint Bernard of Clairvaux encouraged the husband of a possessed woman to hang around her neck a note inscribed with the name of Jesus Christ and an admonition to the devil to stay away.104 Religious amulets were often worn with their imagery or inscriptions hidden and in direct contact with the body, presumably to enhance their potency. Lead amulets with runic inscriptions are found in growing numbers in Denmark.105 The amulets were folded, hiding the inscription. The same applies for many inscribed finger-rings and ring-brooches which,

101 Jørgensen, ‘Sensorium’, pp. 29–31, 45; Bynum, ‘The Sacrality of Things’, pp. 8–9. 102 Jørgensen, ‘Sensorium’, p. 28; Laugerud, Ryan, and Skinnebach, ‘Introduction’, p. 4. 103 Also exemplified in the use of toadstones, shark teeth, stones with small defects, etc. See Oman, British Rings 800–1914, pp. 59–60; Oman, Victoria and Albert Museum, pp. 25–27; Harpestræng, Gamle danske Urtebøger, LII. 104 Voragine, The Golden Legend, p. 491. 105 Imer, ‘Lille Myregård’; Imer and Uldum, ‘Mod dæmoner og elverfolk’.

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as seen by their design, were typically placed on the reverse, making their inscriptions invisible.106

Conclusion The material studied in this article presents an evolution over time, where various tendencies, both in fashion and religious trends, appear. In the period c. 1050–1200, small religious objects are characterized by simplicity. Accessories bearing religious symbols are few, often rather small, and feature only a small range of symbols: the cross-pendants, the bracteates, as well as brooches with bird, in Urnes-style, or the Lamb of God. The design of the brooches combines characteristic Scandinavian elements with continental traditions. The presence of suspension loops and the orientation of the imagery on the pendants, which occasionally appears ‘upside down’, suggest specific ways of using them, possibly in connection with devotion and prayer. The finds of objects and production waste from workshops show that mass production and thus demand for religious amulets and symbols can be traced back to the decades around 1100 in Denmark. From the thirteenth century, a pan-European fashion, including jewellery and dress accessories, spread to Denmark. Ornamentation consisting of inscriptions, often combining elements of various origins (Christian and Hebrew prayers and magical formulas), intercessory prayers to saints, and small devotional images became common. It is also in this period that pilgrimage began to blossom throughout Europe. Pilgrimage badges were mass-produced in many places and distributed over the whole of the Catholic West. Other types of religious souvenir and small devotional images too became an integrated part of a shared European material culture. Archaeological finds of stone moulds from thirteenth-century Ribe thus show the production of and demand for religious accessories here, whilst stressing international fashion and uniformity of religious accessories at this time. Religious souvenirs held a divine potency, which could be used to secure a good and plentiful harvest or echo throughout the parish if cast onto the bell of the parish church. In this manner, the badges, with their pious images and holy origin at a shrine, far or near, possessed their own power, which could be harnessed for various purposes through the human senses. The church bells, which were ornamented with pilgrimage badges, are one of the few tangible pieces of evidence for this practice, but other objects, such as rattles and bisam-apples, small bells, and flutes may also have been sold as pilgrimage souvenirs with similar attributes. In the architecture of the church

106 Oman, British Rings 800–1914, p. 59; Lindahl, Symboler i guld og sølv, pp. 15, 30, cat. no. 43; van Beuningen, ed., Heilig en Profaan, iii, ill. 3490.

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and through the liturgy, the senses were activated, and the use of holy sound and smell may have played a greater role in everyday religious practice than previously assumed. The medieval religious materiality documented by archaeological find material in Denmark and in several European countries show a symbiosis between what we today would consider to be distinct phenomena (i.e. religious/profane, spiritual/physical) through the design, imagery, and uses of a wide range of objects. The devotion generated by the belief in the embedded potency of things is well illustrated by religious art and treasures, which favoured ostentatious materials and highly specialized craftsmanship as a frame for the workshop of holy images and relics. The archaeological material attests that this form of piety did not reside solely in expensive materials or works of art. The inherent potency of the act of prayer could become manifest via the involvement of inconspicuous objects such as a rosary, an inscription, a rattle, a bell, a saintly figurine, or a pilgrimage badge. Objects of devotion thus both participated in and carried the efficiency of the prayer through their physicality. As such, the archaeological material represents an invaluable source for the study of devotion and religious practice throughout all levels of society and outside the sphere of the Church.

Works Cited Primary Sources Harpestræng, Henrik, Gamle danske Urtebøger: Stenbøger og Kogebøger, ed. by Marius Kristensen, Universitets-jubilæets danske Samfund, 192 (Copenhagen: Thiele, 1908–20) Voragine, Jacobus de, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. by William Granger Ryan and with an introduction by Eamon Duffy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012) Secondary Works Anderson, William, ‘Blessing the Fields? A Study of Late-Medieval Ampullae from England and Wales’, Medieval Archaeology, 54 (2010), 182–203 Andersson, Lars, Pilgrimsmärken och vallfart: Medeltida pilgrimskultur i Skandinavien, Lund Studies in Medieval Archaeology, 7 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1989) Baart, Jan, ed., Opgravingen in Amsterdam: 20 Jaar Stadskernonderzoek (Amsterdam: Amsterdams Historisch Museum, 1977) Baastrup, Maria Panum, ‘Vikingetidens og den tidlige middelalders emaljefibler fra Sydvestjylland’, By, marsk og geest, 19 (2007), 5–16

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———, ‘Småfibler af karolingiske og ottonske typer i Danmark’, Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 2005 (2009), 209–52 Beck, Malene Refshauge, Torben Trier Christiansen, and Mogens Bo Henriksen, ‘From Central Space to Urban Place’, in press Berger, Daniel, ‘Steingussformen aus dem spätromanischen-frühgotischen Magdeburg. Archäometrische und experimentalarchäologische Untersuchungen zum mittelalterlichen Zinnguss an ausgewählten Fundstücken’ (unpublished dissertation, Teschnischen Universität Bergakademie Freiberg, 2006) ———, ‘Mittelalterliche Weißmetalfunde aus Halle (Saale) und einige Anmerkungen zu ihrer Identifizierung’, ZAM Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters, 40 (2012), 137–50 Bergman, Kjell, and Ingmar Billberg, ‘Metallhantverk’, in Uppgrävt förflutet för PK banken i Lund, ed. by Anders W. Mårtensson, Archaeologica Lundensia, 7 (Lund: Kulturhistoriska Museet i Lund, 1976), pp. 199–212 Bertelsen, Lise Gjedssø, ‘Præsentation af Ålborg-gruppen, en gruppe dyrefibler uden dyreslyng’, Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1991 (1992), 237–64 ———, ‘Urnesfibler i Danmark’, Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1992 (1994), 345–70 Beuningen, Hendrik J. E. van, ed., Heilig en Profaan, iii: 1300 laatmiddeleeuwse insignes uit openbare en particuliere collecties, Rotterdam Papers, 13 (Langbroek: Stichting middeleeuwse religieuze en profane insignes, 2012) Beuningen, Hendrik J. E. van, and Adrianus Maria Koldeweij, eds, Heilig en Profaan: 1000 Laatmiddeleeuwse Insignes uit de collectie H. J. E. van Beuningen, Rotterdam Papers, 8 (Cothen: Stichting middeleeuwse religieuze en profane insignes, 1993) Beuningen, Hendrik J. E. van, Adrianus Maria Koldeweij, and Dory Kicken, eds, Heilig en Profaan, ii: 1200 laatmiddeleeuwse Insignes uit openbare en particuliere collecties, Rotterdam Papers, 12 (Cothen: Stichting middeleeuwse religieuze en profane insignes, 2001) Bjørn, Hans, and Lise Gotfredsen, Århus Domkirke, Skt. Clemens (Aarhus: Aarhus Domsogns Menighedsråd, 1996) Boertjes, Katja, ‘Pelgrimsampullen uit Nederlandse en Belgische bodem. Souvenir met een eeuwenoude traditie?’, in Heilig en Profaan, ii: 1200 laatmiddeleeuwse Insignes uit openbare en particuliere collecties, ed. by Hendrik J. E. van Beuningen, Adrianus Maria Koldeweij, and Dory Kicken, Rotterdam Papers, 12 (Cothen: Stichting middeleeuwse religieuze en profane insignes, 2001), pp. 79–87 Bynum, Caroline Walker, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone, 2011) ———, ‘The Sacrality of Things: An Inquiry into Divine Materiality in the Christian Middle Ages’, Irish Theological Quarterly, 78 (2013), 3–18 DK = Danmarks Kirker (Copenhagen: Kristensen, 1933–) Edvardsson, Jan, ‘Sigtunabor på pilgrimsfärd i väst och i öst’, in Makt och Människor i kungens Sigtuna: Sigtunautgrävningen 1988–90, ed. by Sten Tesch (Sigtuna: Sigtuna Museum, 1990), pp. 146–50

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Egan, Geoff, and Frances Pritchard, Dress Accessories, c. 1150–1450, Medieval Finds from Excavations in London, 3 (London: Boydell and Brewer, 2002) Feveile, Claus, and Stig Jensen, ‘ASR 9 Posthuset’, in Ribe Studier: Det ældste Ribe; Udgravninger på nordsiden af Ribe å 1984–2000, i.2, ed. by Claus Feveile (Højbjerg: Jysk Arkæologisk Selskab, 2006), pp. 119–90 Feveile, Claus, ‘Korsfibler af Råhedetypen. En upåagtet fibeltype fra ældre vikingetid’, Kuml (2011), 143–60 Fries, Walter, ‘Die Kostümsammlung des Germanischen Nationalmuseums zu Nürnberg’, Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, 1924–25: ‘Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Dr Theodor Hampe’ (1924), 3–65 Galster, Georg, ‘Nogle middelalderlige hængesmykker’, Fra Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (1950), 43–48 Gilchrist, Roberta, Sacred Heritage: Monastic Archaeology, Identities, Beliefs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020) Gilså, Nikoline, Et spørgsmål om stil. Urnesspænder i gennembrudt arbejde fra tidlig middelalder (Højbjerg: Middelalderarkæologisk Nyhedsbrev, 2021) Grinder-Hansen, Poul, ‘Kristne fingerringe’, in Danefæ: Skatte fra den danske muld; Til Hendes Majestæt Dronning Margtrethe II, ed. by Michael Andersen and Poul Otto Nielsen (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 2010), pp. 250–53 Grinder-Hansen, Poul, and others, ‘Skatten fra Østermarie’, Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (2013), 140–55 Gräslund, Anne-Sofie, ‘Torshammare, hängkors och andra amuletthängen’, in Viking og Hvidekrist: Norden og Europa 800–1200, ed. by Else Roesdahl, Council of Europe Exhibition, 22 (Copenhagen: Nordisk Ministerråd, 1992) Haastrup, Ulla, Danske kalkmalerier: Gotik 1375–1475 (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1985) Imer, Lisbeth, ‘Lille Myregård og blyamuletter fra middelalderen’, in Danefæ: Skatte fra den danske muld; Til Hendes Majestæt Dronning Margtrethe II, ed. by Michael Andersen and Poul Otto Nielsen (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 2010), pp. 228–32 ———, ‘Ave Maria: Religiøs brug af runer i middelalderens Grønland’, Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (2012), 60–71 Imer, Lisbeth, and Otto Uldum, ‘Mod dæmoner og elverfolk’, Skalk, 2015, no. 1 (2015), 9–15 Immonen, Visa, ‘Medieval Vernicle Finger Rings in Finland’, Fornvännen, 99 (2004), 103–18 Jensen, Jane Jark, and Hanna Dahlström, ‘Beretning for Skt. Clemens I og III. Udgravning af den nordlige del af kirkegården tilhørende den middelalderlige Skt. Clemens kirke, København — februar til juli 2008’ (unpublished excavation report, available at [accessed 1 April 2021]) Jensen, Michael Alrø, ‘Forsvundne huse og boder i Stenbo(d)egade’, Levende viden: Kulturhistorisk Årbog for Esbjerg-Ribe-Fanø området (2013), 28–35

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Jensen, Jørgen Steen, ed., Danmarks middelalderlige skattefund c. 1050–c. 1550, Nordiske fortidsminder, Serie B, 12, 2 vols (Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskriftselskab, 1992) ——— ed., Tusindtallets Danske Mønter: Fra den kongelige Mønt- og Medaillesamling (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1995) Jeppesen, Jens, ‘Egå’, in Vikingernes Aros, ed. by Anette Damm (Højbjerg: Moesgård Museum, 2005) Jørgensen, Hans Henrik Lohfert, ‘Into the Saturated Sensorium. Introducing the Principles of Perception and Mediation in the Middle Ages’, in The Saturated Sensorium: Principles of Perception and Mediation in the Middle Ages, ed. by Hans Henrik Lofhert Jørgensen, Henning Laugerud, and Laura Katrine Skinnebach (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2015), pp. 9–23 ———, ‘Sensorium. A Model for Medieval Perception’, in The Saturated Sensorium: Principles of Perception and Mediation in the Middle Ages, ed. by Hans Henrik Lofhert Jørgensen, Henning Laugerud, and Laura Katrine Skinnebach (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2015), pp. 24–71 Kieffer-Olsen, Jakob, Grav og gravskik i det middelalderlige Danmark, viii: Kirkegårdsudgravninger (Højbjerg: Afd. for Middelalderarkæologi og Middelalder-arkæologisk Nyhedsbrev, 1993) Koch, Hanna Dahlerup, ‘Den arkæologiske udgravning. Ahlgade 15–17, Holbæk. En arkæologisk og historisk undersøgelse fra 1200 til nutiden’, Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1994–95 (1997), 11–192 ———, ‘Rosenkranse i grave. Gravskikkens baggrund, datering og perspektiver’, Hikuin, 27 (2000), 107–36 Koldeweij, Jos, Geloof & Geluk: Sieraad en Devotie in middeleeuws Vlaanderen (Arnhem: Terra, 2006) Köster, Kurt, Pilgerzeichen und Pilgermuscheln von mittelalterlichen Santiagostrassen: Saint-Léonard, Rocamodour, Saint-Gilles, Santiago de Compostela, Ausgrabungen in Schleswig, Berichte und Studien, 2 (Neumünster: Wachholtz, 1983) Kühne, Hartmut, Carina Brumme, and Helena Koeningsmarková, Jungfrauen, Engel, Phallustiere: Die Sammlung mittelalterlicher französischer Pilgerzeichen des Kunstgewerbemuseums in Prag und des Nationalmuseums Prag (Berlin: Lukas, 2012) Laugerud, Henning, Salvador Ryan, and Laura Katrine Skinnebach, ‘Introduction’, in The Materiality of Devotion in Late Medieval Northern Europe, ed. by Henning Laugerud, Salvador Ryan, and Laura Katrine Skinnebach (Dublin: Portland, 2016), pp. 1–9 Liebgott, Niels-Knud, ‘Afstøbninger af pilgrimstegn på danske middelalderlige kirkeklokker’, Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie (1971), 195–240 ———, Hellige mænd og kvinder (Aarhus, Wormianum, 1982) ———, ‘Pilgrimsfærd, aflad og andagt. Brunnby kirke. Efter 1475’, in Danske Kalkmalerier, v: Sengotik 1475–1500, ed. by Ulla Haastrup (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1992), pp. 54–55 Lightbown, Ronald W., Mediaeval European Jewellery (London: The Victoria and Albert Museum, 1992)

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Lindahl, Fritze, ‘Dagmarkorset — endnu engang’, Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (1978), 5–16 ———, Skattefund: Sølv fra Christian IVs tid (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1988) ———, ‘Amuletter fra 1000-årene’, Nordisk Numismatisk Unions Medlemsblad, 4 (1989), 69–72 ———, ‘Smykker, sølvgenstande og barrer’, in Danmarks middelalderlige skattefund c. 1050–c. 1550, ed. by Jørgen Steen Jensen, Nordiske fortidsminder, Serie B, 12, 2 vols (Copenhagen: Det kongelige nordiske oldskriftselskab, 1992), pp. 54–78 ———, Symboler i guld og sølv. Nationalmuseets fingerringe 1000–1700-årene, Nordiske fortidsminder, Serie B, 21 (Copenhagen: Det kongelige nordiske oldskriftselskab, 2003) Moltke, Erik, ‘Runepindene fra Ribe. En lyf-stav og et håndtag’, Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (1960), 122–36 Ohrt, Ferdinand, Danmarks Trylleformler, F.F. Publications, Northern Series, 3, 2 vols (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1917–21) Oman, Charles, British Rings, 800–1914 (London: Batsford, 1974) ———, Victoria and Albert Museum: Catalogue of Rings (London: Board of Education, 1930; repr. Ipswich: Anglia, 1993) Palazzo, Éric, ‘Performing the Liturgy’, in The Cambridge History of Christianity, iii: Early Medieval Christianities, c. 600–1100, ed. by Thomas F. X. Noble and Julia M. H. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 472–88 Pedersen, Anne, ‘Rovfugle eller duer. Fugleformede fibler fra den tidlige middelalder’, Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie (1999), 19–66 ———, ‘Smykkesættet fra Bjæverskov’, in Danefæ: Skatte fra den danske muld; Til Hendes Majestæt Dronning Margrethe II, ed. by Michael Andersen and Poul Otto Nielsen (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 2010), pp. 221–27 Pedersen, Anne, Eva Salomonsen, and Finn Ole Nielsen, ‘Nok en skat fra Østermarie — med et tredje relikviekors og lidt til’, Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (2014), 212–25 Petersen, Peter Vang, ‘Guddommelige fugle’, in Danefæ: Skatte fra den danske muld; Til Hendes Majestæt Dronning Margrethe II, ed. by Michael Andersen and Poul Otto Nielsen (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 2010), pp. 139–43 Puhle, Mathias, ed., Aufbruch in die Gotik: Der Magdeburger Dom und die späte Stauferzeit, ii: Katalog (Mainz: Von Zabern, 2009) Ringbom, Sixten, ‘Bild och avlat. Veronikabilden’, ICO, no. 3 (1979), 8–18 Robert, Jean, ed., Pèlerins et pélerinages dans les Pyrénées françaises (Lourdes: Musée pyrénéen, 1975) Roesdahl, Else, ed., Viking og Hvidekrist: Norden og Europa 800–1200, Council of Europe Exhibition, 22 (Copenhagen: Nordisk Ministerråd, 1992) Roslund, Mats, ‘Västanfläkt eller stadig vind? Kontinentala och insulära inslag i Sigtunas tidiga medeltid’, Situne Dei, 2006 (2010), 43–52 Schietzel, Kurt, Spurensuche Haithabu: Archäologische Spurensuche in der frühmittelalterlichen Ansiedlung Haithabu; Dokumentation und Chronik 1963–2013 (Neumünster: Wachholtz, 2014)

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Spencer, Brian, Medieval Pilgrim Badges from Norfolk (Norfolk: Norfolk Museums Service, 1980) ———, ‘Canterbury Pilgrim Souvenirs Found in the Low Countries’, in Heilig en Profaan, ii: 1200 laatmiddeleeuwse Insignes uit openbare en particuliere collecties, ed. by Hendrik J. E. van Beuningen, Adrianus Maria Koldeweij, and Dory Kicken, Rotterdam Papers, 12 (Cothen: Stichting middeleeuwse religieuze en profane insignes, 2001), pp. 105–11 ———, Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges, Medieval Finds from Excavations in London, 7 (London: Boydell, 2010) Staecker, Jörn, Rex regum et dominus dominorum: Die wikingerzeitlichen Kreuzund Kruzifixanhänger als Ausdruck der Mission in Altdänemark und Schweden, Lund Studies in Medieval Archaeology, 23 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1999) Standley, Eleanor Rose, Trinkets and Charms: The Use, Meaning and Significance of Dress Accessories, ad 1300–1700, Oxford University School of Archaeology Monograph, 78 (Oxford: Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, 2013) Stenholm, Leif, ‘Dräkttilbehør och smycken’, in Uppgrävt förflutet för PKbanken i Lund, ed. by Anders W. Mårtensson, Archaeologica Lundensia, 7 (Lund: Kulturhistoriska museet, 1976), pp. 293–306 Søvsø, Morten, ‘Arkæologiske undersøgelser i Ribes Dagmarsgade — topografi og bebyggelsesstruktur i de ånære områder’, By, marsk og geest, 19 (2007), 17–48 ———, ‘Bebyggelsesmønster’, in Ribe bys historie, i: 710–1520, ed. by Søren Bitsch Christensen, Skrifter om dansk byhistorie, 7 (Aarhus: Dansk Center for Byhistorie, 2010), pp. 45–54 Søvsø, Mette Højmark, ‘Tro, håb og kærlighed. De middelalderlige ringspænders symbolik’, Kuml (2011), 263–85 Søvsø, Mette Højmark, Anne Juul Jensen, and Michael Neiß, ‘Støbeforme af sten fra middelalderen — Massefremstilling af metalgenstande til verdslig og religiøs brug i Ribe’, Kuml (2015), 201–38 Søvsø, Mette Højmark, and Christian Vrængmose Jensen, ‘Workshop Production of Brooches with Religious Symbolism around the Year 1100 in Denmark’, Danish Journal of Archaeology, 9 (2020), 1–31 Vellev, Jens, ‘Ampullen fra Grathe’, Skalk, 2016, no. 3 (2016), 22–24 Wood, Rita, ‘The Pictures on the Greater Jelling Stone’, Journal of Danish Archaeology, 3 (2014), 19–32

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Materiality of Memory: The Use and Significance of Wax in Late Medieval Devotion

The Danish noble lady Else Holgersdatter (c. 1490–1564) was the fortunate owner of a handwritten primer in quarto format with beautiful initials and a rich selection of beneficial prayers.1 Like other devotional books of the late medieval period, it contained a combination of simple prayers and comprehensive multifunctional practices. One of the latter type was a prayer against sorrow and distress that invoked the intercession of Saint Catherine of Alexandria.2 The elaborate performance of the prayer is described in the rubric: if someone is overcome by any form of sorrow or distress, (s)he should have an image made of wax in the likeness of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and read fifty Ave Marias and Pater Nosters every day for fifty days in honour of the saint to mirror the fifty learned men of the court of Emperor Maxentius with which she disputed, and won. When these days have passed, ‘then samæ vox billædæ’ (the very same wax image) should then be transformed into a candle and burned in honour of Saint Catherine. While the candle is burning, the petitioner can now place a prayer to God and ask for anything (s)he wishes. At the very heart of the practice stands an image of the saint, which is not at all unusual. Images often feature as the centre of devotional practice in medieval





1 Copenhagen, the Royal Danish Library, MS GkS 1613 4˚. Else Holgersdatter was the daughter of a member of the royal council, Holger Eriksen Rosenkrantz (1456–93). For centuries, the Rosenkrantz family were great supporters of the Birgittine monastery in Mariager, Jutland, where Holger was buried. The name of the owner, ælsæ holgers d’ is written in red ink in the name prayer on fol. 68v. The book was produced in the beginning of the sixteenth century. 2 Copenhagen, the Royal Danish Library, MS GkS 1613 4˚, fols 103v–104v. The Danish medieval prayers — that is, all the different prayers from extant medieval prayer books, albeit not the different rubrics! — are published in Middelalderens Danske Bønnebøger, vols i–v, ed. by Nielsen (hereafter MDB). The prayer mentioned here can be found in MDB, iii, no. 854. Laura Katrine Skinnebach, PhD in Art History (University of Bergen). Associate Professor of Art History at Aarhus University. Email: [email protected] Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix, and Mads Heilskov, AS 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 217–237 © FHG10.1484/M.AS-EB.5.123991

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prayer books. What is striking, however, is the significant way in which the image is put to use due to its material composition. The image is made from wax, and the ability of wax to transform, constitutes a turning point that leads towards the climax of the practice: the image is transformed into a candle and lit, and while it perishes as sweet smelling smoke, the practitioner may finally state what (s)he desires of God. During the course of the performance, the lump of wax traverses a range of different material ‘beings’, from image to candle to light and smoke. But wax, it seems, does not only hold the ability to change physically. It also has the ability to remember: when it is changed into a candle, it still ‘holds’ the image of Saint Catherine and the numerous Aves and Paters said in honour of the saint. The pliable physique is coalesced with a mental capacity, very much like a living body with a soul. The example from Else Holgersdatter’s primer is striking in its convoluted application of wax. However, wax is not an unusual prop in late medieval prayer books, far from it. The consumption of wax increased considerably all over Europe in the late medieval period, partly due to its significance in devotional practice.3 Wax is pivotal in numerous practices in the Middle Ages and appears in various guises. Often it took the simple form of one or more candles offered before an image of a saint, but sometimes it entered into more complex and processual practices where it was moulded, measured, imprinted, and transformed. In concert, these various practices illustrate the material aptness of wax to be formed into a shape that would conveniently serve the specific situation. The significance and use of wax in devotional practice is closely related to a wider understanding of wax. Wax, cera, was the valuable material of liturgical candles where the light signified the presence of God;4 it was the materiality into which the signs of authority — secular and ecclesiastical alike — were imprinted as tokens transmitting power and identity.5 Most importantly, wax was the preeminent — and overtly material — metaphor used in antique and medieval philosophy for cognition and memory.6 Wax was, thus, completely woven into the fabric of liturgical celebration, the performance of power, theological thinking, and daily devotion. The present investigations focus on the materiality of wax and its meaning in late medieval devotion. It draws on medieval ideas related to wax and investigates how wax was used in practices such as the one from Else Holgersdatter’s book. Examples of the latter will mainly be drawn from a selection of practices from the Danish devotional books from the late fifteenth

3 Sapoznik, ‘Bees in the Medieval Economy’. 4 See several contributions to Heffernan and Matter, eds, The Liturgy of the Medieval Church; Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims. 5 Solway, Medieval Coins and Seals; Bedos-Rezak, When Ego Was Imago; Andersen and Tegnér, eds, Middelalderlige seglstamper. 6 Laugerud, ‘Memory’ and ‘“And How Could I Find Thee at All, if I Do Not Remember Thee?”’.

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and early sixteenth centuries. These books contain vivid descriptions of how to perform different devotions and offer an important glimpse into the meaning and material capacities of wax.7 The study will spotlight the kind of agency ascribed to this one particular material substance in medieval theology and devotional practice. The investigation will focus on aspects of the material constitution of wax, its ability to produce light, its ability to remember, and its ability to mediate and even accumulate presence. At the core of the material potential of wax is its ability to transform and traverse between different functions. Thus, transformation runs through the entire investigation, and illustrates the dynamic and unstable character of wax.

The Material Constitution of Wax The fact that a specific material seems to hold such a prominent position in medieval religious culture is interesting in itself. It illustrates the degree to which specific materialities and practices were considered to be imbued with extraordinary potentials. According to medieval theology, all matter was created with a specific potency to act.8 All entities come from God and are imbued with specific potentialities which can be actualized in certain situations and, thus, fulfil their purpose in Creation. The material potency was understood as a condition that both enabled and disabled specific material actualizations. For example fire is hot because the power to heat is an intrinsic quality in fire, as Aquinas stated.9 But this also touches on the fundamental belief that matter was a potential locus of divine presence. Material objects possessed certain abilities due to their material constitution, but in addition the immanent potential, the actual animus of matter, was attributed to divine creation.10 All things were ontologically laden with spiritual potentiality. Wax did, thus, possess a specific material constitution and certain potentials. These potentials were both investigated in medieval theology and utilized in medieval devotional and religious practice. Most importantly wax was used for its ability to burn and create light. Candles of wax were the general source of light in the otherwise dim medieval churches, but they were also completely focal to the celebration of liturgy and performance of devotional practice. Even the most modest parish church would be ablaze with lights on the altar, before certain images, at ancillary altars, particular shrines, the sepulchre, and the Host. On festive days and during Easter, the Pascal candle would be lit to signify that the light of Christ had come into the world.11 In

7 Skinnebach, ‘Practices of Perception’ and ‘Devotion’. 8 SCG II: 30, p. 199. 9 SCG II: 30, p. 202. 10 Bynum, Christian Materiality. 11 Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, pp. 15 ff.

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the prologue to the important medieval manual of signification, the Rationale divinorum officiorum, William Durand of Mende (c. 1230–1296) unfolds the Quadria and describes the anagogical level using light as metaphor: ‘Unde sensus anagogicus dicitur, qui a visibilibus ad invisibilia ducit, ut lux prima die facta significat rem invisibilem, id est angelicam naturam in principio factam’ (the anagogical sense leads from the visible to the invisible, as the light that was created on the first day, signifies something invisible, that is, the angelic nature created in the beginning of time).12 Light simply was the invisible divinity. The sources of light in churches in the form of lamps, candles, and candlesticks were carriers of divine presence. Durand states with reference to John 8.12 that ‘Lumen, quod in Ecclesia eccenditur, Christum significat, juxta illud: Ego sum lux mundi, et erat lux vera’ (lamps that are lit in the church represent Christ, according to what is written ‘I am the light of the world’).13 Light was generally divine, and this meaning runs through the use of candles in processions, liturgical celebrations, and devotional practices. Wax was usually preferred to tallow since wax burned with a less smoky flame and emitted a sweet and pleasant smell compared to the foul odour of burning animal fat. However, wax was a scarce and expensive material and only within reach of the royal family, the nobility, and the Church. The Church was by far the largest consumer of wax in medieval Europe and relied on donations — of wax or money — from parishioners.14 Private individuals offered wax to their local church in wills or as ex-voto offerings, or in return for indulgence and private Masses. Guilds incorporated donations of larger amounts of wax to specific altars in their regulations.15 The nobility also donated generous amounts of wax to be used in votive Masses and Masses for the dead.16 The demand for wax was sustained by an efficient and fully developed trading system with suppliers from across all of Europe.17 Wax was produced by bees and bees held a unique position in medieval thought. Writers such as Ambrose, Augustine, and Isidore of Seville observed no mating in bee colonies and therefore regarded them as animals living in chastity.18 These virginal creatures were nature’s version of the Virgin birth of Christ. This also came to the fore in Jacobus de Voragine’s (c. 1229–1298) tremendously popular collection of legends, the Legenda aurea which circulated

12 Durand, Rationale, Proæmium, art. 12, ed. by Mucedola, p. 9; for an English translation, see Durand, The Rationale, prologue, art. 12, trans. by Thibodeau, p. 4. 13 Durand, Rationale, caput 1, Ecclesia, et Ejus Partibus, art. 40, ed. by Mucedola, p. 17; for an English translation, see Durand, The Rationale, chap. I, art. 40 and chap. II, art. 8, trans. by Thibodeau, pp. 22, 28–29. 14 Sapoznik, ‘Bees in the Medieval Economy’, p. 1154. 15 Bisgaard, De glemte altre. 16 Bisgaard, Tjenesteideal og fromhedsideal, p. 86. 17 Sapoznik, ‘Bees in the Medieval Economy’. 18 Sapoznik, ‘Bees in the Medieval Economy’, p. 1152. See also Hassig, Medieval Bestiaries, especially pp. 52–54, 57.

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all over Europe. In the chapter on the feast of the purification of the Virgin Mary, he describes the use of wax candles at the feat of Candelmas: Sic et nos processionem facimus et cereum accensum, per quem significatur Jesus, in manibus bajulamus et usque in ecclesias deferimus. Tria enim sunt in cera: lychnus, cere et ignis. Per haec significantur tria, quae fuerunt in Christo, nam tria significant carnem Christ, quae nata est de Maria virgine sine corruptione carnis, sicut apes ceram gignunt sine alterutrum commixione, lychnus in cera latens significat animam candidissimam in carne latentem, ignis vero sive lumen significat divinitatem, quia Deus noster ignis consumens est. Unde quidam sic ait: Hanc in honore pio Candelam porto Mariae. Accipe per ceram Carnem de Virgine veram. Per lumen numen Majestatis que cacumen. Lychnus est anima Carne latens praeopima. (On the feast day we too make a procession, carrying in our hands a lighted candle, which signifies Jesus, and bearing it into the churches. In the candle there are three things — the wick, the wax, and the fire. These three signify three things about Christ: the wax is a sign of his body, which was born of the Virgin Mary without corruption of the flesh, as bees make honey without mingling with each other, the wick signifies his most pure soul, hidden in his body; the fire or the light stands for his divinity, because our God is a consuming fire. So someone has written: This candle I carry in honour of the holy Mary | Take the wax for the true body born of the Virgin | Take the light for God and his supreme majesty | Take the wick for the soul concealed in the fat flesh.)19 When burned in church or held in the hand of the devout during celebrations, the wax candle signified Christ with flesh, spirit, and divinity. The wax itself signified the body of Christ and his birth of the pure woman was likened to the non-corrupted production of honey observed in bees. The connection between wax and flesh was not one of arbitrary convention. Wax had the ability to look like flesh and imitate the haptic qualities of human flesh, as George Didi-Huberman has argued. Wax had the material capacity and viscosity to be conformed to the ‘anthropological equivalence’ of the human body.20 As Roberta Panzanelli has stated, a wax image ‘epitomizes a 19 Voragine, Legenda aurea, ‘De purificatione beatae Mariae virginis’, cap. XXXVII, ed. by Grässe, pp. 164–65; English translation: ‘Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary’, trans. by Ryan, p. 149. 20 Didi-Huberman, ‘Image, organe, temps’.

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type of verisimilitude that does not merely portray or illustrate the image of the living, but reproduces it, “doubles” it’.21 As described in legenda aurea wax could be understood as the ultimate material of animation, a pliable matter with an animate potential. In the devotional practice of Else Holgersdatter, wax is like a small malleable organism, just like the devotee herself, whose body and mind is open to devout transformation when the body of wax is transformed. This potency also comes to the fore in the medieval understanding of memory.

Wax as the Stuff of Memory and Cognition The complex meaning of wax must be connected to a recurring metaphorical use. In the medieval period, memory was regarded as a process of recurring cognitive impressions like a ‘seal in wax’. This understanding was inspired among others by Plato and in particular Aristotle’s De memoria.22 According to these writers, memory is the process of production and storing mental images, as Aristotle states, memory images are ‘like an imprint or drawing in us’.23 The ‘seal in wax’ metaphor was assigned new prominence by the scholastic writers. Albert the Great (1193–1280) stated in his commentary on Aristotle’s De memoria et reminiscentia that memory is ‘enim picture quæ pingitur in anima sensibili per sensum accepta’ (a picture that, having been received by a sense, is painted in the perceiving soul).24 The internal picture is not the ‘thing’, res itself, but a partial image or sign of the worldly and material sensibles that meets the faculty of perception. As Albert the Great states: memoriam habitum quendam: factus enim motus sensibilis ad animam, signat unum individuum in quod reflexio fit per memoriæ actum: et hoc sic est sicut figura quædam vel alius motus sensibilis gustus vel odoratus, sicut sigillantis annuli qui in cera relinquit signum sine materia. (memory is a certain state of being; for when a motion capable of being perceived has been made towards the soul, it designates one individual item upon which reflection takes place by an act of memory. Thus this is like one particular form or another perceptible change of taste or smell, as of a seal ring that leaves on the wax a sign without substance).25

21 Panzanelli, ‘Compelling Presence’, p. 30. 22 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, p. 22. 23 Cited by Carruthers, The Book of Memory, p. 23. 24 Albert the Great, De memoria et reminiscentia, tractatus I, caput IV, ed. by Borgnet, p. 103; English translation from Albert the Great, ‘Commentary on Aristotle’s “On Memory and Recollection”’, trans. in Carruthers and Ziolkowsky, The Medieval Craft of Memory, p. 132. 25 Albert the Great, De memoria et reminiscentia, tractatus I, caput IV, ed. by Borgnet, p. 103; English translation from Albert the Great, ‘Commentary on Aristotle’s “On Memory and Recollection”’, trans. in Carruthers and Ziolkowsky, The Medieval Craft of Memory, p. 132.

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Albert the Great’s distinction between form and substance was echoed in the writing of Albert’s pupil, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), who described the nature of internal images (Phantasms) as images of likenesses without matter: quia dispositio materialis patientis ad recipiendum, non est similis dispositionit materiali, quae est in agente. Et ideo forma recipitur in patiente sine materia, in quantum patiens assimilator agenti secundum formam, et non secundam materiam. (the recipient’s material disposition to receive form does not resemble the material disposition of the agent. In these cases, the form is taken into the recipient ‘without matter’, the recipient being assimilated to the agent in respect of form and not in respect of matter.) Perception of material objects will not leave an imprint in substance on the patient, but the recipient is nevertheless formed by the agent by a process of assimilation. Aquinas expands on the matter by using — inspired by Aristotle — the wax metaphor: Et ponitur conveniens exemplum de sigillo et cera. Non enim eadem dispositio est cerae ad imaginem, quae erat in ferro et auro. Et ideo subiungit, quod cera accipit signum idest imaginem sive figuram auream aut aeneam, sed non inquantum est aurum aut aes. Assimilatur enim cera aureo sigillo quantum ad imaginem, sed non quantum ad dispositionem auri. Et similiter sensus patitur a sensibili habente ad colorem aut humorem, idest saporem aut sonum, sed non inquanyum unumquodque illorum dicitur, idest non patitur a lapide colorato inquantum lapis, neque a melle dulci inquantum mel. (Aristotle finds an apt example of this in the imprint of a seal in wax. The disposition of the wax to the image is not the same as that of the iron or gold to the image: hence wax, he says, takes a sign, i.e. a shape or image, of what is gold or bronze, but not precisely as gold or bronze. For the wax takes a likeness of the gold seal in respect of the image, but not in respect of the seal’s intrinsic disposition to be a gold seal. Likewise the sense is affected by the sense-object with a colour of taste or flavour of sound, ‘not in respect of what each is called as a particular thing’, i.e. it is not affected by a coloured stone precisely as a stone, or sweet honey precisely as honey.)26 As the quote illustrates, the ‘seal in wax’ metaphor was consciously chosen due to the material qualities of wax: ‘wax […] takes a sign, i.e. a shape or image’ of something without its material disposition. Wax was able to receive an imprint of something else. The cognitive faculties could in a like fashion

26 Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De anima, trans. by Foster and Humphries, II, lect. 24, 553 and 554. See also Carruthers, The Book of Memory, p. 55.

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be impressed by outer material sensibles.27 Memory-phantasms were in this respect of a quasi-physical nature as Henning Laugerud has so convincingly argued.28 This distinctly physical and bodily aspect of memory was further emphasized by Aquinas in Summa theologiae in which he argued that memory does not survive death; ‘cum vis memorativa sit actus organi cuiusdam’ (the memorative power is the act of some organ), so the soul can form no new memories when it no longer has a body.29 The actual workings of memory were also compared to the material capacities of wax. Wax was, as Albert the Great argued, neither too dry nor too moist: it was moist enough to receive an imprint, but not as moist as water in which an imprint would not be retained.30 This latter metaphor was used to describe the memory of children, whereas the slow memory of elderly people was described in terms of wax that had turned dry and hard, which would make the imprint of a sense object difficult. It also described the difference between the front parts of the brain and the back: it was often supposed that the consistency of the front ventricle in the brain was more liquid and slippery than the back, so that sensation was rapidly received by the common sense but also quickly lost if the stimulus was not continued. The faculties of imagination and memory, however, were positioned in the back of the brain where it was drier, and could therefore retain images. The dryness of the back of the brain explained how memory-images would ‘stick’ to the brain and in time become habitual.31 Thus, wax was an apt metaphor for memory because of its material conditions. The ability of wax to take form according to the surroundings was like the mind’s ability to take form according to sense objects that entered the mind through the senses. If the mind/wax was continuously exposed to some sense object, the internal image would gradually become part of the mind’s habitus. The mind would gradually acquire the form of that which entered through the senses.32 The ability to take form according to the objects of sense was regarded as a focal — yet also dangerous — human capacity. The human body and mind could conform to the image of God — or fall into eternal despair if it took form after devilish impressions.33 Albert the Great used the ‘seal in wax’ — metaphor to elaborate on how God is imprinted on the soul: Imago enim Dei in his tribus potentiis in anima expressa consistit, videlicet, ratione, memoria, et voluntate. Et quamdiu illae ex toto, Deo impressae 27 Carruthers, The Book of Memory. 28 Laugerud, ‘Memory’. 29 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, ed. and trans. by Mortensen and Alarcón, Ia, q. 79, art. 6, resp. obj. 1 and 2. 30 Albert the Great, ‘Commentary on Aristotle’s “On Memory and Recollection”’, trans. in Carruthers and Ziolkowsky, The Medieval Craft of Memory, p. 132. Albert the Great, De memoria et reminiscentia, tractatus I, caput IV, ed. by Borgnet, p. 103. 31 Kemp and Fletcher, ‘The Medieval Theory of the Inner Senses’. 32 Skinnebach, ‘Practices of Perception’ and ‘Devotion’. 33 Skinnebach, ‘Devotion’; Jørgensen, ‘Sensorium’.

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non sunt, non est anima deiformis juxta primariam animae creationem. Forma nempe animae Deus est, cui debet imprimi, sicut cera sigillo, et signatum signo signatur. (Now the image of God as found in the soul consists of these three faculties, namely reason, memory and will, and so long as they are not completely stamped with God, the soul is not yet deiform in accordance with the initial creation of the soul. For the true pattern of the soul is God, with whom it must be imprinted, like wax with a seal, and carry the mark of his impress.)34 In order to reach a state of deiformity the faculties of the soul — reason, memory, and will — would have to carry the mark of God. This mark came from both the inside and outside: God was marked in the soul from Creation since man is fundamentally created in God’s likeness, but God had to be further stamped from the outside in order to conform completely to the divine ideal. The most ultimate example of deiformity was the stigmata of Saint Francis of Assisi. Saint Bonaventure describes in his Legenda maior that God ‘qui signacula illa […] impresserat’ (imprinted those seals upon him), as if Christ himself was the seal stamp leaving his mark on the members of Saint Francis’s living flesh of wax.35 Not merely the soul but also the body of Francis was pliable as wax and received the imprint of the Godhead. In a metaphorical context, wax stands forth as the materiality of memory. Just as memory was pliant and could be changed and altered when new phantasmata were added to the reservoir of internal images, so could wax be altered and reformed. Wax could conform to and ‘remember’ the likeness of outer sensibles but wax could — just as the mind — also be ‘impressed’ by the immaterial qualities. Don C. Skemer has — with reference to the seal-in-wax metaphor — stated that objects made of wax ‘facilitated memory, like an Aristotelian phantasm or mental picture sealed in wax’.36 He thus indicates that these imprinted objects may be regarded as the mirror of memory: they sparked memory because they mirrored the way in which the memory of the human mind was thought to work. Let us for a moment return to Else Holgersdatter and the prayer mentioned in the introduction. The physical and visible image of Saint Catherine disappears and changes its material status into a memory of something that has been: a memory stored in the material object and simultaneously imprinted in the mind of the devotee. The transformation of the wax is parallel to the

34 Albert the Great, De adhaerendo Deo, ed. by Borgnet, caput III: ‘Quae sit conformitas perfectionis hominis in hac vita?’ (What the perfection of man consists of in this life?). 35 Bonaventure, Legenda maior Sancti Francisci, caput XIII, art. 5. Quoted from Bonaventure, The Souls Journey, ed. and trans. by Cousins. 36 Skemer, Binding Words, p. 151.

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transformation in the devotee. And as the candle slowly burns it spreads the divine light and presence of Christ until it gradually disappears.

Wax and Immaterial Impression Both Albert the Great and Aquinas suggest that impressions on the mind are of a physical and yet at the same immaterial quality. God is able to leave ‘the mark of his impress’ on the devout recipient in an immaterial form. The mind could be imprinted with the divine essence of God. Towards the end of the twelfth century, Constantine Stilbes compared the production of the famous acheiropoieton image, the Mandylion, as ‘an impression of seal on wax’.37 Christ was represented on the cloth in the form of an imprint and not as a painted image on the surface of matter. But the imprinted image was more than that. It also retained the healing powers of Christ. The image held a kind of mystical and curing presence that had miraculously been transferred from Christ and installed in the material object.38 In the late Middle Ages material objects were generally believed to hold the potential of divine presence. Materiality was related to God and possessed divine essence, as Caroline Walker Bynum has stated: ‘all matter — because it emanated from God — was in some way linked ontologically to him’.39 This ontological capacity was also characteristic of wax. Wax had the ability to both depict life and hold life, as expressed among others by Dante in the Divine Comedy where he, according to Roberta Panzanelli states that wax is a ‘malleable substance on which one may impress a sign or features or even life force’.40 This ‘life force’ is a term often used as a pseudonym for pneuma or anima.41 It is the divine potential of animation. As Roberta Panzanelli has stated, the ‘seal in wax’ metaphor was a religious discourse for qualities impressed by divinity upon mortal nature and matter.42 That is, wax as well as other material objects could be ‘impressed by an invisible essence’.43 The wax object was like a living and animate substance able to perform memory and presence. 37 In Didascalia de imaginibus Christ Constantinus Stilbes writes about the painter, Ananias, who is unable to produce a panel painting of Christ and Jesus ‘summons the painter, asks for water and sprinkles his own face […]. Having taken a cloth to dry himself, immaterially represented on it — Oh miracle! — the non hand-made, inviolable, indistinguishable form, as an impression of seal on wax’. Quoted from Nicolotti, From the Mandylion, p. 104. 38 For further reflections on ‘unpainted’ images, see Belting, Likeness and Presence, especially chap. 4, and Skinnebach, ‘“The Solace of his Image”’. 39 Bynum, Christian Materiality, pp. 49–50, and ‘The Sacrality of Things’. See also Jørgensen, ‘Prostheses of Pious Perception’. 40 Panzanelli, ‘Compelling Presence’, p. 30. 41 Baert, ‘Pneuma’. 42 Panzanelli, ‘Compelling Presence’, p. 30. 43 Panzanelli, ‘Compelling Presence’, p. 30.

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The ability of wax to contain both the likeness of an imprint and an immaterial substance was a fundamental rationale for the medieval use of sigillia. Sigillia made of wax and imprinted with some image related to the owner guaranteed the authenticity and effectiveness of legal and ecclesiastical documents. Priests and bishops could practice their authority at a distance through the use of a seal. This was also at the centre of the practice of issuing letters of indulgence with numerous bishopric sigillia.44 As Brigitte BedozRezak has shown, the sigillium mediated the presence of the prototype/the sender, through the impressed imago.45 Wax could be made to perform and mediate the intentions of the individual in absentia. The ability of wax to mediate presence through a performance of memory and likeness lay at the very core of votive offering. The potency to hold visual images made wax the preferred medium for production of ex-votos. An ex-voto of wax could be a small figurine offered to Virgin Mary or a saint in return for a vow fulfilled.46 The pliability of wax made it possible to form the ex-voto according to context: if someone had been cured from disease in the hand, the ex-voto would be given the shape of a hand. The ex-voto could also be made in a form that carried a symbolic reference to an illness, such as a crutch. Numerous visual examples from the European Middle Ages show these wax objects — often hanging from the ceiling by the shrine or altar — shaped, for example, like ships, hands, feet, hearts, legs, livers, heads, or wounds. Sometimes votives were formed in the likeness of an entire body, often applying the height or the weight of the donor.47 As such the ex-voto objects commemorated an illness that God had taken away, as if part of the healed self was offered back to God.48 Wax worked as a substitute body, and double of the donor’s healed body part and an expression of gratitude in absentia. The ex-votos of wax often did not stay in the churches for long, but were sent to the Wachsziehern who would transform them into candles for liturgical use.49 Then the small bodies of the Saviour would be burned and transformed into divine light. The materiality of wax embodied the ability to remember and the ability to contain immaterial anima. These two characteristics were founded in the ability of wax to transform. Wax could be formed and transformed into any shape or form. It could, however, also be reshaped while still retaining its previous — immaterial — form, which is exemplified in the production of Agnus Dei. Little pieces of the paschal candle, consecrated on Holy Saturday

44 To exemplify: a letter of indulgence from Saint Albani church, Odense, Denmark, was ‘signed’ with seals of seven bishops and, for each seal, everyone who brought an offering to the altar would receive forty days of indulgence, all in all 490 days, see Bisgaard, De glemte altre. 45 Bedos-Rezak, When Ego Was Imago. See also Andersen, ‘Seglstamper’, p. 62. 46 Kriss-Rettenbeck, Ex Voto; Weinryb, Ex Voto. 47 Panzanelli, ‘Compelling Presence’, p. 31. 48 Bynum, Christian Materiality, p. 112. 49 Kriss-Rettenbeck, Ex Voto, pp. 113–14.

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the previous year, could be used to produce an Agnus Dei pendant: a small coin-size piece of wax from the candle was imprinted with visual representations and worn around the neck to secure divine intercession and protection against all sorts of evils, death, or disease.50 The motifs on the obverse of the Agnus Dei pendants showed the Lamb of God as Redeemer while the motif on the reverse could vary but usually depicted a saint or pope. Agnus Dei pendants were regarded as powerful tools that signified divine presence. The symbolic significance of these objects was a twofold one. The wax came from a candle that had been used in the paschal liturgy to symbolize the risen Christ and the images imprinted on the wax objects stored the presence of the redeeming Christ as both material and immaterial likeness. These little wax objects ‘contained’ at one and the same time the liturgical connotations, an immaterial sacramental ubiety, and the physical imprint of the divine similitude that referred to a biblical motif and saving presence of God.51 In the production of an Agnus Dei pendant, new symbolic weight was added to the wax from the paschal candle in both material and immaterial form.

The Devotional Properties of Wax The material properties and potentials of wax seem to lie at the very core of the devotional practice from Else Holgersdatter’s prayer book mentioned above. The lump of wax is imprinted with the image of Saint Catherine, both materially showing the — supposed — likeness of the prototype, and immaterially imprinted with her spiritual qualities. The wax image is then further laden with devout prayers directed at the saint. When transformed into a candle, the wax — the body of Christ — still remembers. It still holds these various impressions as internal phantasmata embodied in the wax-flesh. When burned, all of these meanings are transformed into divine light and transferred to God. Other devotional practices exhibit a similar conception of the potency of wax while drawing on other material capacities. A multipurpose devotion to Saint Anna, the mother of Virgin Mary from Karen Ludvigsdatter Rosenkrantz’s book of hours from the late fifteenth century illustrates one of the most simple uses of wax which at the same time shows the complexity and multilayered meaning potentials of this effectual material. The practice consists of ten sequential prayers and is introduced and concluded with long explanatory rubrics.52 The introductory rubrics describe six great benefactions that one will receive from honouring Saint Anna: everyone who looks at an image with

50 Skemer, Binding Words, pp. 7, 72. 51 Bynum, Christian Materiality, p. 147. 52 Karen Ludvigsdatter Rosenkrantz’s book of hours, Lund, Lunds Universitetsbibliotek, Medeltidshandskrifter, MS Cod. Lund. 25, fols 89r–95r. See also MDB i.1–i.2, no. 132.

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her and her holy kin will be happy in body and soul, including one’s entire family; someone who pays her honour and glory will be given the ability to lead a good life; a woman who wishes for pregnancy will have her wish fulfilled in body and soul; everyone who honours her will have great luck in life; if someone wants to be righteous Saint Anna will provide this for them and their children too; someone in great distress, who calls for Saint Anna and her kin, will receive help and peace in body and soul. The final extended rubric unfolds different performances and their specific outcomes. Particular care is taken in a description of one particular practice that unfolds in the course of three days, namely the day of Mary’s conception, the day of her birth, and the day Saint Anne was granted eternal life. There are various benefits to be gained from observing this particular practice. Among others it is stated that a woman with child will be saved, and if she is in distress and cries for Saint Anna, she will be comforted. In order to acquire this protection and support, however, she shall burn a wax candle the length of a hand for the birth of Christ and the Holy Virgin and in praise and honour of all of the Holy Family.53 The use of wax differs from the one fleshed out in Else Holgersdatter’s book. The main differences have to do with the contextual framing and timing of the use. In the context of pregnancy and giving birth it made perfect sense to invoke the Holy Family who would have been the ultimate exemplum and ideal for any devout medieval family.54 The use of the wax candle serves to augment the address and exhibits a convoluted perception of its potentials. When the candle is produced and kindled in praise and honour of Christ and Mary and the Holy Kinship, it may be seen as a way of folding the maternal trinity and the fecundity of Anna into the matter of wax. The body of the candle which is the body of Christ is now further imbued with the — immaterial — memory of the Holy Family. The candle comes to signify pure conception, something all devout women would have wished to imitate: like Christ came into the world as human body and divine light — signified by the body of wax emitting divine light — so will the child be born purely into the world in the light of Jesus Christ, the consuming fire, as stated in Legenda aurea. The offer is an exchange of spiritual qualities from the Holy Family to the devout. Even the most simple use of a candle could — potentially — hold deep and profound meanings. In addition the rubric states that anyone who reads the prayers on their bare knees for fifteen days and offers one candle in the praise of his/her kin, with alms, will receive due merit. Other prayers were of a more complex kind. A prayer to Saint Agatha from a Danish prayer book referred to as Mirror of Wisdom (AM 782,4°) from the beginning of the sixteenth century uses a candle from Candlemas, the Feast

53 MDB i.1–i.2, no. 132. Almost identical versions of the prayer can be found in other Danish prayer books, among others in Else Holgersdatters’s and Anna Brades’s books. 54 Neel, Medieval Families; Sheingorn, ‘Appropriating the Holy Kinship’; Nixon, Mary’s Mother; Welsh The Cult of St Anne; Leyser and Smith, eds, Motherhood, Religion and Society.

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of the Purification of the Virgin, in a fashion that illuminates the material and signifying potentials of wax.55 According to the legend of Saint Agatha, whose overabundant bodily tortures are recorded in great detail by the rubric and prayer, the saint walked unharmed out of burning fire by saying the words ‘Mentem Sanctam spontaneam Honorem deo et patrie liberacionem’ (Holy mind, honour God and the liberty of the fatherland), which she had received from heaven. The words were, thus, thought to be imbued with divine power. The rubric states that if these words are written on a small note and carried on the body — in Germany referred to as an Agathazettel — it would protect the bearer against sudden death. In addition it is stated that one may also write the words on a piece of a candle from Candlemas. The words should be written exactly during the reading at Mass at the day of Saint Agatha. Every time the candle is lit it will protect the owner from evils for ‘saa langt som then lve hand skyn’ (as far as the flame glows).56 Every house where the candle is within will be protected from fire. Someone who carries the candles on the body will not be harmed by fire or water. The consecrated Candlemas candle imbued with liturgical significance was imprinted with words — during Mass — that referred to the pinnacle of a saintly legend: the instance of godly intervention. All these meanings merged in the body of the candle which came to manifest a whole system of signs that commemorated the saving presence of God. When lit it produced a divine light, and within the radius of the flickering flame the devotee would be protected as if the light creates a small concentrated space of divine presence. The potency of wax to contain all these meanings, to hold references, to remember, to change, and to transform, seems to be at the very core of the practice. In the process of the devotional practice, the wax was gradually imprinted with new information, constituting an object with a whole layer of meanings. In a prayer from an anonymous prayer book, wax accumulates a whole range of meanings in the course of the practice.57 According to a very short introductory rubric, the practice is a reading for the Virgin Mary supposed to be initiated on the day of the Virgin during Lent. On the first day, the practitioner is supposed to pray thirty Ave Marias for Virgin Mary’s great joys, then produce a thread, fall to her knees, pray one Ave Maria, and tie one knot to the string. This is repeated every day for the next year around: every day adding one Ave and one knot to the string so that the number of prayers and knots increase each day.58 Furthermore the reading was supposed to be performed while a candle is burning in honour of the Annunciation. When 55 Copenhagen, Arnamagnæan Collection, MS AM 782,4º, see also MDB, iv.3, no. 622, fols 82v–84r. The book is printed on paper and shares numerous similarities with a handwritten manuscript from the same collection, AM 784,4º. 56 Copenhagen, Arnamagnæan Collection, MS AM 782,4º, fol. 82v. 57 Copenhagen, Arnamagnæan Collection, MS AM 784,4º, fol. 44r. MDB iv, no. 1134. 58 Copenhagen, Arnamagnæan Collection, MS AM 784,4º.

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one year has passed, the devotee should read all the prayers and then ‘gøre eth lywss offuer hynne’ (make a candle on her) using the thread as wick, place it before an image of the Annunciation, and leave it to burn. This part of the practice relates to the symbolic interpretation of wax offered in Legenda aurea and quoted above. The candle is made of wax (the virginal body of Christ) and the wick which has been imbued with meaning (the soul of Christ), and is made to produce light (the divinity of Christ) before the image of the Annunciation. Wax is used to signify all three aspects of the virginal conception and birth of Christ which stands at the centre of the devotional practice. The ensemble of beeswax and string is the body of Christ: ‘Accipe per ceram | Carnem de Virgine veram’. On the following Saturday, the practitioner should now produce a new wax candle the size of the distance between the mouths of the Virgin and Gabriel on the image — a material manifestation of the sacra conversatione — light the candle before the image, and fall to her knees and pray Ave Maria until the candle has burned down. This should be observed for nine days, always concluding the practice with a short prayer: O iomfrw maria ieg offrer teg tesse wthalighe aue maria till loff hedher oc ere oc thette lywss till loff hedher oc ere for then store gledhe ther tw fick i thit hierte aff gabriell engels mwndh ther hand bebode teg at fødhe gutz søn at hand word mand i thit legomlige legume. Amen. (Oh Virgin Mary, I offer you these incalculable Ave Marias […] and this candle | […] for the great joy you received in your heart from the mouth of the angel | Gabriel when he announced that you should give birth to the son of God, that | he would become man in your body. Amen.)59 During the following nine days, the size of the candle is measured on the image and kindled while the practitioner constantly prays. Each section of the practice is tied together with the next; the thread produced in the first part is reused for the production of the candle in the second section, and the image of the Annunciation from the second section becomes the focal point in the third. It is as if the continuity of the practice is prompted by an urge to contain and commemorate: the string is contained in the candle burned before the image, and the image — and not least the words exchanged between Gabriel and the Virgin Mary — is contained in the candles produced during the last phase of the practice. This element of continuity is balanced by transformation: the thread is transformed into a wick and candle, the image is transformed into an artefact of measuring, and the candle is transformed into smoke. Taken as a whole, the practice is fundamentally a meditation of the Annunciation performed with the use of different movements (kneeling, producing, or

59 Copenhagen, Arnamagnæan Collection, MS AM 784,4º.

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purchasing candles), mental exercises, and objects (thread, wax). Every time a candle burns before the image, divine light enlightens the mind. The light produced by the candle established a spatially fixed point and attention to divine mysteries.

Concluding Remarks: Wax as Presence As such wax was in the Middle Ages regarded as the ‘stuff ’ of memory and presence because of its material potential to hold impressions and likenesses of something else — material as well as immaterial. Wax was polyvalent and likeness did not only adhere to physical likeness (in terms of shape and size) and mental likeness (similar abilities as the prototype) but also to haptic qualities (similarity to touch). The fundamental quality of wax was its mouldable and transitory materiality that ‘carried with it powerful associations of indexicality and identity’, as Megan Holmes has stated.60 Wax, as it was, lent itself to a plenitude of meanings: it was the body of Christ, it was the source of divine light, it was the pliable memory and body of the devout, and it was the medium of presence. It was the metaphor of a docile human body and soul formed and conformed (conformatio) according to divine virtues. Wax worked in a manner similar to the human mind and body as it lent itself to transformation, a solid, yet malleable materiality, simultaneously pliant and sturdy, constantly available for restatement either conceding to re-formation or de-materialization when affected by God. Most importantly wax was, just as memory, able to remember the different imprints it had received — be it material imprint in the form of a likeness or an immaterial imprint in the form of mental capacities. Wax was like a body with a soul and the ability to shine as divine light. Wax was a living, pulsating matter with a range of material capacities that could be actualized when it entered into a devout context. Wax was not the only material with animate potentials, as Bynum also suggests. A powerful example of this relates to the way in which seal stamps were treated. Since these stamps bore the ability to imprint the immaterial quality of authority, they were treated with great care because of the risk of misuse. Stamps were regarded as manufacturers of presence, and often defaced, broken, or even recast after the death of the owner.61 Richard of Bury’s four silver matrices — originally from latin mater = mother — were recast into a chalice that bore a rhymed inscription which featured the name 60 Holmes, ‘Ex-votos’, p. 161. 61 Seals and matrices also played a role in funeral rites. They were often buried with the owner for the purpose of identification but also in order to prevent misuse post mortem. In order to secure the latter, seals were in some cases broken or defaced before they were put into the graves. This relates to the ritual of breaking seals — often publicly — to mark the end of or to annul an agreement. See Cherry, ‘The Breaking of Seals’, pp. 84–85.

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of the dead bishop and proclaimed that the origin of the object was his seals.62 In the process of transformation from stamp ‘mother’ into chalice the ability of the stamp to produce and imprint — to give birth to — authenticity was annulled, but the bishop’s presence was transferred to the new object. In fact his identity was encapsulated and even elevated into a container of the Eucharistic blood, a sacramental object holding and mediating the presence of Christ. This new object was a material instrument in which the commemoration of the sacrifice and presence of Christ was metonymically transferred to the bishop in order to underline his continuous and durable presence. The seals of Richard’s successor, Thomas Hatfield, bishop of Durham from 1345–1381, were transformed into an image, a votive image depicting a bishop, positioned in close proximity to the cult of Saint Cuthbert in Durham where the bishop continued to show his devotion to the saint post mortem.63 In the transformation process the material of the stamps acquired a spiritual dimension but continued to mediate the identity of the original owner.64 All matter had specific potentials and abilities to produce divine presence. However, wax was imbued with the privileged capacity to burn and produce divine light. In the process of burning, the wax perished. One cannot help but think about the metaphorical appropriateness: in the practice of devotion, wax would be imprinted with meaning, life force would be accumulated in this pliable body while it was still it its material state. When, at some point, it was lit, the wax would enlighten the world and mind of the faithful with divine light and send a request from the earthly sphere, anchored in matter, to the heavenly and spiritual sphere. While the flame was shining bright, matter gradually receded. The process expressed the perishable and material nature of man before the eternal God. But it also inspired a concurrent process of the devout reaching towards God and letting herself be imprinted with the divine light.

Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Sources Copenhagen, Arnamagnæan Collection, MS AM 782,4º ———, MS AM 784,4º Copenhagen, the Royal Danish Library, MS GkS 1613 4˚ (Else Holgersdatter) ———, MS Thott 553,4° (Anna Brade) 62 The chalice bore the following inscription: ‘Hic ciphus insignis fit praesulis ex tetra signis | Ri. Dunolmensis quarti, natu Byriensis’. Only a few such seal metamorphoses are known. Durham Cathedral has been treated in Bedos-Rezak, ‘L’au-delà du soi’. See also Cherry, ‘The Breaking of Seals’. 63 Bedos-Rezak, ‘L’au-delà du soi’, p. 355. 64 Bedos-Rezak, ‘L’au-delà du soi’, p. 358.

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Lund, Lunds Universitetsbibliotek, Medeltidshandskrifter, MS Cod. Lund. 25 (also Copenhagen, Royal Danish Library, MS Ma fot. 1,8°) (Karen Ludvigsdatter Rosekrantz) Washington, Library of Congress, Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Incun. X .J185, Legenda aurea sanctorum, sive, Lombardica historia, Wyllyam Caxton (Westminster, 1483) Primary Sources Albert the Great, De memoria et reminiscentia, in Alberti Magni Opera omnia, ed. by Augustus Borgnet (Paris: Vivès, 1890), ix, 97–118 ———, De adhaerendo Deo, in Alberti Magni Opera omnia, ed. by Augustus Borgnet (Paris: Vivès, 1898), xxxvii Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey into God, The Tree of Life, The Life of St Francis, ed. and trans. by Ewert Cousins, The Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1978) Durand, Guillaume, Gulielmo Durando: Rationale divinorum officiorum, ed. by Josepho Mariae Mucedola (Naples: Josephum Dura Bibliopolam, 1859) ———, The ‘Rationale divinorum officiorum’ of William Durand of Mende: A New Translation of the Prologue and Book One, trans. by Timothy M. Thibodeau, Records of Western Civilization (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007) Middelalderens danske bønnebøger, ed. by Karl Martin Nielsen, 5 vols (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1946–82) Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De anima: Commentary on Aristotle’s ‘De anima’, with trans. by Kenelm Foster, O.P. and Sylvester Humphries, O.P. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951) ———, A Commentary on Aristotle’s ‘De anima’, trans. by Robert Pasnau, Oxford Modern Languages and Literature Monographs (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999) ———, Summa theologiae, ed. and trans. by Johan Mortensen and Enrique Alarcón, Works of St Thomas Aquinas, 13–20 (Lander: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012) Voragine, Jacobus de, Legenda aurea: vulgo historia Lombardica dicta ad optimorum librum fidem, ed. by Johann Georg Theodor Grässe (Leipzig: Librariae Arnoldianae, 1850) ———, ‘The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary’, in The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. by William Granger Ryan, 2 vols (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), pp. 143–51 Secondary Works Andersen, Michael, ‘Seglstamper fra middelalderen i danske samlinger’, in Middelalderlige seglstamper i Norden, ed. by Michael Andersen and Göran Tegnér (Roskilde: Roskilde Museums Forlag, 2002), pp. 59–72

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Andersen, Michael, and Göran Tegnér, eds, Middelalderlige seglstamper i Norden (Roskilde: Roskilde Museums Forlag, 2002) Baert, Barbara, ‘Pneuma’ and the Visual Medium in the Middle Ages and Early Modernity, Art and Religion, 5 (Leuven: Peeters, 2016) Bedos-Rezak, Birgitte M., ‘L’au-delà du soi. Métamorphoses sigillaires en Europe médiévale’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 49 (2006), 337–58 ———, When Ego Was Imago: Signs of Identity in the Middle Ages, Visualising the Middle Ages, 3 (Leiden: Brill, 2011) ———, ‘Medieval Identity: A Sign and a Concept’, in Medieval Coins and Seals: Constructing Identity, Signifying Power, ed. by Susan Solway (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 23–63 Belting, Hans, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, trans. by Edmund Jephcott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) Bisgaard, Lars, Tjenesteideal og fromhedsideal: Studier i adelens tænkemåde i dansk senmiddelalder, Historiske skrifter, 7 (Aarhus: Arusia, 1988) ———, De glemte altre: Gildernes religiøse rolle i senmiddelalderens Danmark, Odense University Studies in History and Social Sciences, 241 (Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag, 2001) Bynum, Caroline Walker, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone, 2011) ———, ‘The Sacrality of Things: An Inquiry into Divine Materiality in the Christian Middle Ages’, Irish Theological Quarterly, 78 (2013), 3–18 Carruthers, Mary J., The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, 10 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) Carruthers, Mary J., and Jan M. Ziolkowsky, The Medieval Craft of Memory, Material Texts (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002) Cassidy-Welch, Megan, Imprisonment in the Medieval Religious Imagination c. 1150–1400 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) Cherry, John, ‘The Breaking of Seals’, in Middelalderlige seglstamper i Norden, ed. by Michael Andersen and Göran Tegnér (Roskilde: Roskilde Museums Forlag, 2002), pp. 81–93 Didi-Huberman, Georges, ‘Image, organe, temps: approche de l’ex-voto’, in Le fait de l’analyse, v: Les Organes (Paris: Autrement, 1998), pp. 245–60 Duffy, Eamon, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England ca. 1400– 1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992) Filotas, Bernadette, Pagan Survivals, Superstition and Popular Cultures in Early Medieval Pastoral Literature, Studies and Texts, 151 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2005) Finucane, Ronald C., Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995) Hassig, Debra, Medieval Bestiaries: Text, Image, Ideology, RES Monographs in Anthropology and Aesthetics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)

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Heffernan, Thomas J., and E. Ann Matter, eds, The Liturgy of the Medieval Church (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2005) Holmes, Megan, ‘Ex-votos: Materiality, Memory, and Cult’, in The Idol in the Age of Art: Objects, Devotions and the Early Modern World, ed. by Michael W. Cole and Rebecca Zorach, St Andrews Studies in Reformation History (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), pp. 159–81 Jørgensen, Hans Henrik Lohfert, ‘Sensorium. A Model for Medieval Perception’, in The Saturated Sensorium: Principles of Perception and Mediation in the Middle Ages, ed. by Hans Henrik Lohfert Jørgensen, Henning Laugerud, and Laura Katrine Skinnebach (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2015), pp. 24–70 ———, ‘Prostheses of Pious Perception: On the Instrumentalization and Mediation of the Medieval Sensorium’, in The Materiality of Devotion in Late Medieval Northern Europe: Images, Objects and Practices, ed. by Henning Laugerud, Salvador Ryan, and Laura Katrine Skinnebach (Dublin: Four Courts, 2016), pp. 146–67 Kemp, Simon, and Garth J. O. Fletcher, ‘The Medieval Theory of the Inner Senses’, The American Journal of Psychology, 106 (1993), 559–76 Kriss-Rettenbeck, Lenz, Ex Voto: Zeichen, Bild und Abbild im christlichen Votivbrauchtum (Zürich: Atlantis, 1972) Laugerud, Henning, ‘Memory: The Sensory Materiality of Belief and Understanding in Late Medieval Europe’, in The Saturated Sensorium: Principles of Perception and Mediation in the Middle Ages, ed. by Hans Henrik Lohfert Jørgensen, Henning Laugerud, and Laura Katrine Skinnebach (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2015), pp. 246–72 ———, ‘“And How Could I Find Thee at All, if I Do Not Remember Thee?” Visions, Images and Memory in Late Medieval Devotion’, in The Materiality of Devotion in Late Medieval Northern Europe: Images, Objects and Practices, ed. by Henning Laugerud, Salvador Ryan, and Laura Katrine Skinnebach (Dublin: Four Courts, 2016), pp. 50–69 Leyser, Conard, and Lesley Smith, eds, Motherhood, Religion and Society in Medieval Europe, 400–1400: Essays Presented to Henrietta Leyser, Church, Faith, and Culture in the Medieval West Series (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011) Neel, Carol, ed., Medieval Families: Perspectives on Marriage, Household, and Children, Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching, 40 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004) Nicolotti, Andrea, From the Mandylion of Edessa to the Shroud of Turin: The Metamorphosis and Manipulation of a Legend, Art and Material Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, 1 (Leiden: Brill, 2014) Nixon, Virginia, Mary’s Mother: St Anne in Medieval Europe (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004) Panzanelli, Roberta, ‘Compelling Presence. Wax Effigies in Renaissance Florence’, in Ephemeral Bodies: Wax Sculptures and the Human Figure, ed. by Roberta Panzanelli (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2008), pp. 13–39

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Parsons, John Carmi, and Bonnie Wheeler, eds, Medieval Mothering, The New Middle Ages, 3, Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, 1979 (New York: Garland, 1996) Riehle, Wolfgang, The Sacred Within: Hermits, Recluses, and Spiritual Outsiders in Medieval England, trans. by Charity Scott-Strokes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014) Sapoznik, Alexandra, ‘Bees in the Medieval Economy: Religious Observance and the Production, Trade, and Consumption of Wax in England, c. 1300–1555’, The Economic History Review, 72 (2019), 1152–74 Sheingorn, Pamela, ‘Appropriating the Holy Kinship: Gender and Family History’, in Medieval Families: Perspectives on Marriage, Household, and Children, ed. by Carol Neel, Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching, 40 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), pp. 273–301 Skemer, Don C., Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages, Magic in History (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006) Skinnebach, Laura Katrine, ‘“The Solace of his Image”. Images and Presence in Late Medieval Devotional Practice’, in Instruments of Devotion: The Practices and Objects of Religious Piety from the Late Middle Ages to the 20th Century, ed. by Henning Laugerud and Laura Katrine Skinnebach (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2007), pp. 189–207 ———, ‘Practices of Perception. Devotion and the Senses in Late Medieval Northern Europe’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Bergen, 2013) ———, ‘Devotion. Incorporating the Immutated Sensorium in Late Medieval Devotional Practice’, in The Saturated Sensorium: Principles of Perception and Mediation in the Middle Ages, ed. by Hans Henrik Lohfert Jørgensen, Henning Laugerud, and Laura Katrine Skinnebach (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press 2015), pp. 152–79 Solway, Susan, ed., Medieval Coins and Seals: Constructing Identity, Signifying Power (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015) Weinryb, Ittai, ed., Ex Voto: Votive Giving across Culture (New York: Bard Graduate Centre, 2016) Welsh, Jennifer, The Cult of St Anne in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (London: Routledge, 2016) Yates, Frances A., The Art of Memory (London: Routledge, 1966)

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Materiality in Medieval Burials

The transition between the Viking Age and the Middle Ages marks a time of radical change in burial customs in Scandinavia. While Viking Age burial customs included both cremation and inhumation, performed contemporaneously and even sometimes side by side, Christianization implied a homogenization of the practices, with inhumation becoming ubiquitous. The rich equipment which could previously accompany the dead on the pyre or in the burial chamber, practically disappeared and the marking of graves, with barrows or stone-settings, was then replaced by heaps of soil and sometimes small crosses and tombstones, which have rarely left any traces that are identifiable today. The medieval burial culture and the grave itself may seem to lack materiality and physicality compared to those from earlier centuries. But, despite the paucity of objects and — seen from an archaeological perspective — the anonymity of the Christian grave, medieval people also needed to involve materiality in the practices surrounding the funeral — partly to help the dead to the afterlife, to the extent that it was possible, and partly to help the mourners overcome the fact that their loved one had passed. Due to the lesser involvement of objects, the need for materiality and physicality may have shifted focus onto what was central in the funeral: the corpse itself, which in this context represents a highly tangible form of materiality. In such a situation, materiality is understood as including not only the objects, shaped and used by people, but also the human body itself, the physical space, and the landscape, among others.1 Taking the human remains (the skeletons), their position, and the taphonomic processes instead of deposited objects as starting points, archaeothanatology aims at

1 See for example, Fahlander and Oestigaard, ‘The Materiality of Death’, pp. 4–5. Jakob Tue Christensen, MA in Medieval Archaeology (Aarhus University). Curator of Archaeology at Odense City Museums. Email: [email protected] Mikael Manøe Bjerregaard, MA in Medieval Archaeology and Museology (Aarhus University). Curator of Archaeology at Odense City Museums. Email: [email protected] Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix, and Mads Heilskov, AS 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 239–268 © FHG10.1484/M.AS-EB.5.123992

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reconstructing the actions which were connected to the treatment of the corpse, hereby studying perceptions of death in past societies. The corpse is the grave’s raison d’être and is central to the actions surrounding the funeral. The grave and its construction as well as the human remains need therefore to be considered jointly.2 Medieval burials have been excavated in large numbers in Denmark. Despite the seemingly standardized and simplistic elaboration of the graves, they do display a great degree of variation in time and space. As a physical feature, they could take different forms, both above and below ground level and various objects, often referred to as grave goods, were still occasionally deposited in them. By definition, archaeology deals with the material remains of past actions, but especially in burial contexts, these remains need to be considered largely as resulting from a religious mindset — either official or more private.3 In the following, we aim at shedding light on the materiality of medieval burials, focusing not only on the grave but also considering the actions which took place from the moment of death to the filling of the grave pit at the churchyard. Our main question concerns the extent to which it is possible to interpret the archaeological remains as physical manifestations of religious traditions and mental behavioural patterns. Most examples are drawn from our own data set in the town of Odense, set in perspective with further material from medieval Denmark.

Materiality in the Funerary Ritual Seen from an ecclesiastical perspective, the medieval burial was a religious act, whose purpose was to ensure that the passage to the afterlife was conducted properly.4 For this reason, a series of religious rituals — liturgy — was connected to the funerary process. If one accepts as a premise that the material remains of burials reflect religious thoughts and ideas to some extent, one must start by reviewing our knowledge of the materiality of funerary culture in the textual sources, focusing on the question of which objects — including the corpse — were involved in the performance of the rituals, both inside and outside the church, and how these were used and handled. The Process of a Medieval Burial

There are several liturgical manuscripts preserved from medieval Europe dating from the seventh century onwards. The liturgy concerning the Office of the Dead and the funerary Mass is, however, considered to be established no

2 Duday, The Archeology of the Dead, p. 6. 3 Ravn, ‘Kan vi erkende religion’, p. 85. 4 Gilchrist and Sloane, Requiem, p. 18; Johansson and Gallén, ‘Begravning’, p. 415.

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earlier than the ninth century. These texts also deal with the liturgy surrounding the burial itself. From the Danish Middle Ages, three liturgical manuscripts containing the liturgy of the funerary rites are known, the so-called manuals: the Manual of Notmark, a manuscript from the fourteenth century containing the liturgical tradition of the diocese of Odense; and two printed manuals from 1512 and 1513 respectively from the dioceses of Schleswig and Roskilde. An important theological work for understanding medieval funerary rituals is that of the French liturgist John Beleth from the 1160s. The work is a liturgical commentary on the rituals conducted within the fully developed tradition of the Continent, which later became widespread in the North.5 A common characteristic of these texts is that they focus, unsurprisingly, on liturgical aspects — the prayers, the psalms, the benedictions, etc. — while the physical, concrete circumstances of the funerary acts are rarely treated. The materiality of the acts, in a form that could be identifiable in the archaeological remains, is only occasionally mentioned in annotations. These sources are silent concerning the construction of the grave and its equipment. We may assume that, at the time, there was no doubt as to how the interment ought to be conducted, and that there were various prescriptions concerning the position of the body in the grave, for example. According to Knud Ottosen, everyone in the Middle Ages knew what was to be done when someone was dead or dying. Such dispositions were apparently not crucial to describe in depth from the perspective of the official liturgy.6 It is for this reason that the liturgical manuals only provide glimpses of information into the paraphernalia and props which were used for the rituals. It is worth stressing that the ritual acts may have varied over time, place, and social contexts, and that the prescriptions were not necessarily followed at all times. What is going to be outlined in the following must be assumed to represent the ideal funerary practice. The ideal way of dying also appears in the late medieval ars moriendi literature, which delves into the ‘art of dying’ — or, rather, into the necessary preparation for death and for dying in a proper manner, so that the journey of the soul towards salvation was facilitated.7 Preparation before Death

When a layperson was in the throes of death, a priest was called in. The priest brought holy water and a consecrated Host from the day’s celebration of the Eucharist. The Host was kept inside a small container designed for this purpose, called a pyxis. Lights were carried in front of the priest, and bells



5 Madsen, ‘Han ligger under en blå sten’; The Manual from Notmark, ed. by Ottosen; Ottosen, ‘Den ritualiserede død’, pp. 269–71. 6 Ottosen, ‘Den ritualiserede død’, p. 271. 7 Ottosen, ‘Den ritualiserede død’, p. 271; Binski, Medieval Death, pp. 29 ff.; Lundakanikernas levnadsregler, ed. and trans. by Ciardi, pp. 80–86.

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were rung. The priest read psalms and short prayers along the way. Upon arrival, he sprinkled the sickroom with holy water and said various prayers, including for the cure of the dying, who then got the opportunity to profess their faith, confess, and receive absolution. Thereafter, the dying received the Eucharist, and the priest gave them the extreme unction, both holy sacraments of the Catholic Church. After receiving these, the feet of the dying, who was now anointed, should no longer touch the unclean ground, and their hands should not be contaminated by touching worldly things. When death was approaching, the dying laid — or was laid — on their back, the arms stretched along the sides, and the palms and face turned towards heaven. This position had been an expression of prayer and adoration since antiquity.8 The Onset of Death and the Preparation of the Corpse

According to John Beleth, the dying was then placed on the floor or on a bed of straw, and a cross was put by their feet.9 During the agony, the priest recommended the soul of the dead to God while bells were rung. The soul was particularly exposed in the instant it left the body, as angels and demons would fight over it. This scene is represented in wall paintings in several Danish medieval churches, including Sæby, Vrå, and Ballerup.10 There is no hint in these rituals at the liminal state in which the soul was tormented, i.e. purgatory. Although the idea of purgatory emerged in the French regions in the eleventh century, it is only in the end of the thirteenth century that its doctrine was fully developed, and it did not appear in the German and Scandinavian areas before the year 1300.11 The corpse was then washed by the women of the household to the sound of prayers and psalms and wrapped in a shroud or dressed in the clothing that the dead was entitled to be buried with. Ordained clergymen were to be buried in their ecclesiastical garments, as their office commanded. John Beleth mentioned that the dead should be buried with their shoes on in order to be ready to rise from the grave and begin their journey on Judgement Day.12 In the Middle Ages, the inhumation was supposed to take place as soon as possible after death, usually on the following day.13 Procession to the Church

The corpse was then carried in procession to the church where the funeral was to take place. It was laid on a bier or — probably more rarely — in a coffin. The procession took place while singing the Psalms of David and various antiphons. 8 9 10 11 12 13

Ottosen, ‘Den ritualiserede død’, pp. 272–73. Madsen, ‘Han ligger under en blå sten’, p. 122. Haastrup, ‘Den dobbelte forbøn for en død mand’ and ‘Sæbyværkstedet’. Ottosen, ‘Den ritualiserede død’, pp. 275 and 278–79. Madsen, ‘Han ligger under en blå sten’, p. 122. Johansson and Gallén, ‘Begravning’, p. 415.

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The liturgical sources describe that crosses, candles, and incense were used in the processions, but they are otherwise not specific with regard to the physical and material dimension of the event.14 This should not be surprising since it is actually not a liturgical act. The processions took place by definition in the public space. Although they were not a part of the official funerary liturgy, these processions were in all likelihood perceived as an important part of the proper funerary practice. Perhaps it is in this situation that the funeral took its most material expression, as it was its most spectacular step and involved the largest number of actors.15 The post-Reformation sources, which objected to previous Catholic practice, are paradoxically more informative about the materiality of the processions. At the front, abnormally large candles were carried. The Catholic Church acknowledged the candles’ ability to protect from the evil threatening the soul of the dead in this vulnerable condition. The fact of carrying lights for the dead and donating candles to the church have since been perceived as good deeds.16 The fact that the funerary procession represents an act of translocation between the place of the sacrament of extreme unction and that of the office for the dead offered an opportunity for displaying the dead’s social rank and standing to the eyes of the secular world. The processions could probably be quite colourful. For example, it was decided at the annual assembly in Roskilde in 1566 that the cow given to the church as a gift for the soul that would be at the head of the procession and enter the churchyard was no longer allowed. This practice can presumably be dated back to Catholic times.17 The Office of the Dead and the Funerary Mass

The corpse was watched over from the moment the bier was placed in the church until the funerary Mass on the following day. The liturgy of the wake consisted in the Office of the Dead, in which texts from the Book of Job played a prominent role. The office could be repeated on the third, seventh, and thirtieth day after death as well as on the anniversary. The funerary Mass itself took place inside the church as a ceremony in several parts. The coffin or the bier stood inside the church, and the corpse was cleansed with incense. The introductory prayer changed in the course of the thirteenth century, an evolution that Ottosen interprets as a sign that the concept of purgatory was becoming integrated in the liturgical practices.18 Death was previously perceived as a form of sleep, which would last until Judgement Day, but this idea changed into the idea of death as a period of torment for

14 Ottosen, ‘Den ritualiserede død’, pp. 276–77. 15 McLaughlin, Consorting with Saints, p. 40. 16 Troels-Lund, Dagligt liv i Norden, p. 203. 17 Troels-Lund, Dagligt liv i Norden, p. 414; Ottosen, ‘Den ritualiserede død’, p. 277. 18 Ottosen, ‘Den ritualiserede død’.

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the soul.19 According to John Beleth, the priest would sing in the proximity of the coffin after Mass, while the Manual of Notmark states that he would read by the coffin.20 The Inhumation

Then, the corpse or the coffin was carried out of the church, unless the inhumation was to take place in the church’s floor — an anomaly primarily reserved for the high-standing clergy and aristocracy.21 The dead should be carried by their peers, and women could not act as pallbearers. Candles, censer, and cross were carried in front of the bier. The priest would give absolution to the dead by the grave, and the grave as well as the dead were blessed by the sprinkling of holy water (Fig. 10.1). The Manual of Notmark mentions that the grave was cleansed with incense once the corpse had been laid in the pit. According to John Beleth, the deceased was laid in the grave with the head pointing towards the west and the feet pointing towards the east. Ivy or laurel was placed under the body, as their evergreen leaves symbolized that the dead would live on in Christ. Holy water and charcoal from the burnt incense were also spread around the body. The purpose of holy water was to keep demons away from the corpse, while the incense had the more pragmatic function of covering the stench from the corpse. Charcoal, which would remain preserved in the soil longer than any of the other ‘objects’, was perhaps intended to mark that this ground was no longer for common use.22 What was to happen afterwards is only described by the Manual of Notmark as: ‘Hic cooperi corpus’ (Then the body is covered). This must refer to the throwing of dirt on the body, but it was most likely only a shovel of soil that the priest himself threw on the grave as part of the ritual. The filling of the grave, probably conducted by the mourners themselves, took place later.23

19 For a discussion of the significance of purgatory, see McLaughlin, Consorting with Saints, pp. 16–19; Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body, pp. 280–83; Pahlmblad, ‘När vi firar de avlidna brödernas dagar’. 20 Madsen, ‘Han ligger under en blå sten’, p. 122, The Manual from Notmark, ed. by Ottosen, p. 100. 21 Andrén, ‘Ad sanctos’. 22 Madsen, ‘Han ligger under en blå sten’, p. 122; The Manual from Notmark, ed. by Ottosen, pp. 102–08. 23 Jonsson, Practices for the Living and the Dead, p. 173.

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Figure 10.1. Funeral scene from a French book of hours, c. 1460. A priest with a processional cross stands next to the grave while another priest blesses the grave with holy water. The coffin seems to be left on the edge of the pit and might only have been used for the transport and storage of the corpse during the funerary Mass. A tombstone is placed at the foot of the grave, and in the background, the fight for the soul of the dead has begun. Public domain. British Library, Harley 6752 book of hours. [accessed 1 April 2021].

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The Materiality of the Grave below Ground Level The Position of the Dead inside the Grave

As has become clear from the overview of medieval burial rituals described above, the contemporary sources are to a great extent silent concerning the design and material forms of expression of the grave. The lack of materiality — in the sense of the absence of coffin and deposited objects — in the majority of medieval graves redirects the attention onto the corpse as the focal point of the burial process. Concerning the position of the corpse in the grave, the liturgical writings merely specify that the dead should be placed with the head pointing towards the west and the feet towards the east on the basis of a verse from the Gospel of Saint Matthew stating that the Son of Man will rise again from the east.24 The implication is that the deceased was to lay on their back — and not in a crouched position on the side, as it is well known from pre-Christian contexts. In this manner, the position of the corpse itself becomes a marker of religious affinity and a carrier of symbolic meaning for the materiality of the burial ritual. Exceptions to this rule are seldom. Among the more than five hundred graves investigated at Saint Alban’s cemetery in Odense, only two north–south oriented graves have been documented.25 Deviant positions of the body are often explained as expressions of religious punishment or as unauthorized burials,26 but this cannot have been the case for the north–south oriented graves found inside church buildings.27 The Position of the Arms

For several decades, medieval archaeologists in Denmark have been aware of the variations in the position of the arms of the skeletons and of their chronological evolution, which has therefore been used as a dating criterion at medieval cemeteries.28 In general terms, the chronological development is described as going from an early medieval position, where the arms are stretched along the sides of the corpse (A), to the hands being gathered on the crotch (B), then on the stomach (C), and finally on the chest (D) in the late Middle Ages. Whether these different types strictly succeed one another chronologically remains a matter of debate.29 Indeed, it must be kept in Madsen, ‘Han ligger under en blå sten’, p. 122; Gilchrist and Sloane, Requiem. Pedersen and Bjerregaard, ‘Sygdom, død og begravelse’, p. 162. Gilchrist and Sloane, Requiem, pp. 153–56. Jonsson, ‘Tills döden skiljer oss åt…’, p. 67; Østergaard, ‘Arkæologiske undersøgelser i Brørup Kirke’, p. 15. 28 Møller-Christensen, Æbelholt kloster, p. 139; Redin, Lagmanshejdan; Kieffer-Olsen, ‘Middelalderens gravskik i Danmark’ and Grav og gravskik. 29 Kieffer-Olsen, ‘Middelalderens gravskik i Danmark’, pp. 96–97; Arentoft, De spedalskes hospital, p. 65; Arcini and Tagesson, ‘Kroppen som materiell kultur’, pp. 288–92; Hyldgård, Tjærby, pp. 71–76; Atzbach, ‘Between Representation and Eternity’, pp. 34–39. 24 25 26 27

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mind that there are rather large chronological overlaps in the periods of use of the different arm positions. For example, arm position A is represented throughout the Middle Ages. In addition, already in the twelfth century, the rule of the canons of Lund specifies that the hands of the deceased brother should be resting folded on his chest,30 a practice that is otherwise considered as late medieval from an archaeological perspective. This may be because the mortuary rituals of monastic communities often diverge from those applied to laypeople. As a result, the position of the arms has been tentatively explained by the dead’s affiliation to a religious group or by their gendered identity.31 Various attempts have been made to interpret the significance of the position of the arms as more than a rough dating criterion for archaeologists. Most interestingly, several interpretations have considered the evolution of the position of the arms over time as reflecting changing perceptions of death and of the dead’s encounter with God. Ottosen has suggested that the shift from arm position A to B happened at the same time as the idea of purgatory gained traction.32 In this view, arm position A is a position of adoration, which reproduces the posture that the dying took while awaiting their death (see above). According to Ottosen, arm position B may reflect high medieval temperance or even sexual shame. He refers to the visual representations of the resurrection, where the just walk towards the Lord naked, their arms stretched towards Him (as a form of arm position A), while the damned hide their crotch with their hands. The rationale behind this distinction is that gender differences are abolished in heaven, while they are maintained in hell. Ottosen connects the appearance of arm position B with the introduction of the reading of the Office of the Dead corpere praesente, in the presence of the corpse, although its twelfth-century date does not entirely fit that of the archaeological evidence.33 Arm positions C and D are considered gestures of repentance and prayer along the lines of the late medieval ars moriendi literature. This interpretation is interesting in its attempt at combining the funerary liturgy with elements attested archaeologically, but a causal explanation based on temperance and sexual shame is in all likelihood the result of post-Reformation views on the human body.34 Likewise, the idea that the just would rise again genderless emerged in connection with the scholastic discussion of the twelfth century, but was rejected by the Church as heretical.35 It is thus unlikely that it had any major impact on the position of the arms in burials. The idea of arm position A as a posture of adoration could be substantiated further by a closer study of whether the palms were turned upwards. Such a study remains to be fully conducted, but according to professor in biological anthropology at the 30 Lundakanikernas levnadsregler, ed. and trans. by Ciardi, p. 82. 31 Gilchrist and Sloane, Requiem, p. 152. 32 Ottosen, ‘Den ritualiserede død’. 33 Ottosen, ‘Den ritualiserede død’, p. 272; Arentoft, De spedalskes hospital, p. 65. 34 Duerr, Myten om civilsationsprocessen; Seeberg, ‘Syfilis og badesanstalter’. 35 Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body, pp. 137 and 216.

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University of Southern Denmark, Jesper Boldsen, the palms in arm position A generally seem to be turned downwards. Most recently, Rainer Atzbach has challenged the common use of arm positions as a tool of chronological dating.36 He sees the various positions of the corpse’s arms in the grave as a social act connected to changes in practices of prayer throughout the Middle Ages. Atzbach sees arm position A as a ‘non-prayer posture’, which dominates burial positions until c. 1300 though other positions existed simultaneously. After c. 1300, arm positions B–D appear contemporaneously. They are interpreted as prayer postures, the evolution of which reflects that prayer as a communal act in the early Middle Ages changed to a more individual form of piety in the late Middle Ages. This development is attested by prayer beads and books of hours, for example. From a theological perspective, however, the corpse is not able to pray for him/herself, as the soul has departed at the time of death. Seen from an archaeothanatological perspective, it is perhaps more fruitful to seek an explanation for the positions of the arms outside the religious frame. The treatment of the corpse before the funeral is usually considered as a task for the (usually female) relatives of the deceased. Contrary to the orientation of the body in the grave, the position of the arms did not have any major implication in the eyes of the Church and could therefore be conditioned by more practical considerations, for example in connection with the wrapping of the body in the shroud and the stitching of the shroud. This does not exclude, however, that the mourners had various ideas about the proper way of treating the corpse in view of the actual burial and of the resurrection to come. Without necessarily being officially dictated by the Church, such habits could quickly become customs and be perceived as the only ‘proper’ way and as the tangible expression of the intercession and help from the living that the soul of dead depended on. Such traditions could, however, change at different paces across social groups or regions, for example. The archaeological find material resulting from this is highly heterogeneous, and thus difficult to interpret. The Grave as Place and Space

The grave itself could have different designs according to status, economic proficiency, and perhaps also specific wishes from the deceased or their relatives (Fig. 10.2).37 It is usually considered that it was the relatives and not the Church, who were in charge of the preparation of the grave and its material equipment.38 The form and construction of the coffin or coffin-like container was of little concern to the Church as long as certain rules con-

36 Atzbach, ‘Between Representation and Eternity’. 37 Kieffer-Olsen, ‘Middelalderens gravskik i Danmark’. 38 Jonsson, Practices for the Living and the Dead, pp. 127–28 and 173.

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Figure 10.2. Different burial types from cemeteries on Funen. Top right: a wooden coffin from the Franciscan cemetery in Svendborg (SOM 263a — Kloster II). Others: from Saint Alban’s cemetery in Odense. Top left: a brick-laid grave (OBM9785). Bottom left: an earth-grave with bricks placed around the body. Bottom right: two earth-graves (OBM9776,2). Photo: Odense City Museums.

cerning the position of the grave in the churchyard and the orientation of the grave were respected. It is fair to assume that the Church sanctioned the different forms of burial presented below, as these would have been visible to the priest in connection with the mortuary rites and the inhumation at the churchyard. From an ecclesiastical perspective, the rites ahead of the inhumation and the subsequent memoria culture were more important than the inhumation itself and the material dimension of the grave. Changes in burial forms may reflect changes in perceptions of death as a passage. Despite a fair degree of variation, we can observe that a desire to create a space around the dead was a shared characteristic of the medieval burials.

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The grave could be given shape with or without a coffin (in wood or stone). The latter was the most frequent. Monolithic coffins are rare in Denmark due to the lack of adequate raw material, but a number of examples made of imported German sandstone are known from Ribe.39 Stone- or brick-built graves are more common. Originally built in unworked stone, this type of construction was almost completely built in ceramic bricks from the middle of the twelfth century onwards. The occurrence of stone- or brick-built graves in Denmark has previously been dated to c. 1100,40 but the recent discovery of a coffin lined with limestone containing the remains of a bishop at the plot of the demolished Saint Alban’s Church in Odense pushes that date further back in the eleventh century.41 This type of grave was reserved for the highest members of society, which is supported by the fact that such graves are often found inside or in the immediate vicinity of a church.42 Wooden coffins are commonly found during excavations of medieval churchyards in Denmark and could be given many different forms, which diverge from our modern notion of a coffin fitted with a bottom, sides, and a lid. Coffins made out of hollowed tree trunks are known in Christian contexts from the eleventh century, especially in Scania. In the following centuries, a common variant of it is the barred coffin, where its bottom is not ‘closed’ but formed of wooden planks or sticks fastened to its sides.43 Many medieval burials were not equipped with any kind of container, meaning that the corpse rested directly on and was surrounded by soil. It can be assumed that the corpse was in many instances wrapped in a shroud. Even in graves without coffins, it seems that there was a wish to give it the appearance of a coffin grave, hereby reconciling a simple grave type with an ideal grave type. For example, the grave pit could be dug with a special niche for the head, imitating that of the stone coffins, and the sides of the pit, that is, the earthen walls of the grave, could bear a wooden lid. Another type of coffinless grave was the stone-lined grave, where unworked stones or bricks were placed around the corpse on both sides of the head or the feet, and in some cases on both sides of the hips as well. These stones probably supported a loose wooden lid.44 Such stone-lined graves were identified in relatively large numbers at Saint Alban’s cemetery in Odense in 2016 and were associated with a stratigraphic horizon which should probably be dated to before 1400.45

39 40 41 42

For example Ribe Cathedral, DK Ribe Amt 1979, pp. 527–34. Kieffer-Olsen, ‘Middelalderens gravskik i Danmark’, pp. 97–101. Christensen and Hansen, ‘Graven og manden’; Bjerregaard, ‘Nadversættet’. For example, Andrén, ‘Ad sanctos’, pp. 16–17; Arcini and Tagesson, ‘Kroppen som materiell kultur’, p. 297. 43 Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, pp. 130–40. and ‘Middelalderens gravskik’; Grundvad, ‘Højmiddelalderens grave’, pp. 68–69. 44 Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, pp. 140–42. 45 Pedersen and Bjerregaard, ‘Sygdom, død og begravelse’, p. 163.

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There does not seem to have been any set rule for how a Christian grave should be made at any point in the Middle Ages, and countless variations besides the main types of burial described above have been documented. John Beleth and other liturgical commentators do not discuss the design of coffins, and the different types of burial presented above are all the expression of the same mindset despite their differences. They all aimed to create a space around and for the dead. The purpose of the coffin was not merely that of storage under transportation from the home to the church and from the church to the churchyard. In the case of the stone-built graves, the coffins were built directly on the spot of the grave, and the dead were thus first given a ‘space’ after the procession and the Office of the Dead. The same applies to the simpler stone-lined graves, and probably for some of the graves with wooden coffins too. The wooden coffins were most likely assembled at the grave, especially if they consisted of planks set as a frame around the corpse without the use of nails or similar tools. The many instances of coffinless graves closed by a wooden lid should probably be explained by a reluctance to witness soil being thrown directly on the deceased, regardless of whether they were wrapped in a shroud or not. Coffins in stone or in wood created a physical space around the dead. This effect was imitated in many of the coffinless graves. The symbolic rather than purely practical significance of this space can be seen in a partly preserved grave from Saint Alban’s cemetery in Odense, where the deceased was framed between stones and brick fragments as well as long bones and skulls from older graves that seem to be gathered in a random fashion. The wish to create a space for the dead can be related to conceptions of the afterlife. At least up to the high Middle Ages, death was perceived as a form of sleep, where the body rested and awaited resurrection. Marking the physical space of the grave may have represented the desire for the grave to remain undisturbed by possible diggings of new graves on the spot. In spite of this, graves were repeatedly cut by new ones throughout the Middle Ages, and examples of reuse of stone coffins are known as well.46 From a theological point of view, there was nothing wrong with the fact that human remains were separated or moved some time after the burial, as the use of ossuaries testifies.47 Twelfth-century scholastic writers discussed extensively how and in which form the body was to be resurrected. There was a consensus that God would recompose the body on Judgement Day, regardless of how scattered or reduced to dust it may have been. For the most holy of bodies, that of the saints, their remains should even be spread as far and wide as possible, in

46 For example Roskilde Cathedral, DK Københavns Amt 1951, pp. 1963–64; Kieffer-Olsen, ‘Middelalderens gravskik i Danmark’, p. 99, Christensen, ‘Døden skiller’, p. 88; Grundvad, ‘Højmiddelalderens grave’, p. 70. 47 Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body, p. 205.

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order for several places to benefit from their holy potency.48 Nevertheless, there were still many, both scholars and laypeople, who preferred the idea of a quiet, undisturbed grave and an intact body.49 The different physical spaces which were created around the deceased can be interpreted as material manifestations of the desire to secure the wholeness of the body and to avoid its scattering across the churchyard. In the course of the thirteenth century, consensus in the scholastic debate leaned towards the idea that the body was to be reunited on Judgement Day, but it was generally more concerned with the question of what happened to the soul than with the body after death.50 This may have had an impact on the construction of the grave below ground level, which seems to receive less attention in the course of the late Middle Ages to the benefit of the marking of the grave above ground level. Deposited Objects

The custom of depositing objects in the grave pit with the deceased disappeared in Denmark with the transition from paganism to Christianity. This situation is paralleled in Central and Northern Europe in general, where the use of so-called grave goods connected to the various pagan perceptions of death and the afterlife was gradually abandoned in the period ad 700–1100.51 It is, however, a common misconception to relate this change to an actual prohibition on the part of the Catholic Church. There is, in fact, no explicit mention of this issue in the whole corpus of medieval canonical legal texts. The absence of such legal prohibition suggests that this pagan custom was not an issue which required ecclesiastical intervention. When objects are found in medieval graves, these should not be understood as grave goods in a pagan sense but rather as objects whose significance can be related to a Christian conception of death. In the following, we will review some of the most common types of artefact deposited in Danish medieval graves,52 to which inherent properties connected to funerary rituals or to religious views on death and resurrection have been suggested. Secular objects such as dress fittings, knives, and jewellery will not be included here; neither will the so-called Charon’s obol coins as they are not specific to Christian graves, and it is therefore dubious whether their significance is to be sought in a Christian conceptual framework.

48 Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body, pp. 205–14. 49 Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body, pp. 325–29. 50 Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body, pp. 135–55. 51 Atzbach, ‘Between Representation and Eternity’, p. 34. 52 For a complete overview see Struer, ‘Norm og praksis’, fig. 37.

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Liturgical Objects

From the middle of the eighth century onwards, there was a tradition for high-ranking members of the clergy to be buried with their insignia. After c. the year 1200, bishops were, as a rule, to be buried in their full ornate to mark their ordination as priests, including the dalmatic, mitre, crosier, and finger-ring as well as the Eucharistic vessels. Older episcopal graves only contained some of these elements, which may indicate that the tradition evolved gradually towards encompassing the ornate as a whole.53 Later on, Eucharistic vessels were also deposited in the graves of priests. The identity of the individual buried with a Limoges crucifix in an otherwise modest grave at the cemetery of the Carmelite monastery in Skælskør remains unknown. Although the grave is dated to the fifteenth century, the crucifix itself is about two hundred years older and thus already an antique of a considerable age at the time of its deposition. The cross may originally have been part of a crucifixion group on a processional cross, but the state it was in at its deposition suggests that it was used as a crucifix for personal devotion at that time.54 In three other graves at the same cemetery, a wooden cross had been placed on the chest of the deceased. Apart from the graves of the Norse settlers in Greenland, which shall not be discussed here, there are no other known examples of this particular practice in Denmark. However, the simple manufacture and perishable nature of these crosses imply that they could easily have been overlooked during archaeological excavations.55 The churchyard in Skælskør dates from the fifteenth century, and the crosses in the three coffinless graves may be interpreted as a tangible expression of humility or as a reference to the personal devotional cross, which formed an important component in late medieval devotional culture. Finally, it cannot be excluded that the wooden crosses were used as processional crosses during the funeral rites. Funerary Pots

One or more ceramic vessels, some containing charcoal, have been found in graves (Fig. 10.3). This tradition is mostly encountered east of the Great Belt and especially in Roskilde and Lund, where four-fifths of the finds are known. A small number of examples, however, exist from Jutland as well.56 Funerary pots appear both in urban and rural parishes as well as in connection with cathedrals, monasteries, and mendicant houses. More than half of the graves containing funerary pots are found inside churches. At Saint Stephen’s Church in Lund, where both church and cemetery have been entirely investigated, only four out

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Bjerregaard, ‘Nadversættet’. Koch and Pedersen, ‘Skælskørkrucifikset’, pp. 218–20. Koch and Pedersen, ‘Skælskørkrucifikset’, p. 220. Madsen, ‘A French Connection’, pp. 173–74.

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Figure 10.3. Brick-laid grave from the southern side aisle of Roskilde Cathedral. The deceased was accompanied in the grave by a set of Eucharistic vessels made of tin, produced specifically to be placed in the grave at the interment, and four funerary pots with charcoal. Photo: the Danish National Museum, here reproduced after DK.

of 3200 graves contained a pot, all of which were inside the church. This general find pattern shows that the practice is essentially an eastern Danish, high-status phenomenon.57 Based on the graves of people whose year of death is known, the tradition appears to have been in use from just before the middle of the thirteenth to the end of the fourteenth centuries.58 The pots are basically regular everyday ceramics. In the corpus, there is a clear majority of vessels with handles, which may suggest that they were carried to the grave with burning incense inside. The background for the practice can be tracked down, as mentioned before, in John Beleth’s liturgical prescriptions for funerals. Later on, around 1290, the French liturgical commentator Durand of Mende added that glowing charcoal with incense should be placed at ‘different places’ in the grave. Apart from covering the stench of the corpse, burning incense symbolized the good deeds of the deceased and the help provided by intercession according to Durand.59 This interpretation is supported by a single find from Smørum, where the funerary pot is an actual censer. The practice of placing funerary pots in graves is only known otherwise in France which likely shows that French influence reached Denmark possibly through the education of members of the Danish clergy in Paris in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as well as through personal contacts.60 One can wonder if the absence of funerary pots in the diocese of Funen supports the idea that this diocese was under the influence of an English tradition.61

57 58 59 60 61

Madsen, ‘A French Connection’, p. 174. Madsen, ‘A French Connection’, pp. 177–78 and table IV. Madsen, ‘A French Connection’, pp. 179–80 and ‘Han ligger under en blå sten’, pp. 123–25. Madsen, ‘A French Connection’, p. 181. Christensen and Hansen, ‘Graven og manden’; for example Saint Knud Church, DK Odense Amt 1990, pp. 174–75; Ottosen 1999, 146 ff.

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This practice may reflect the fact that the design and physical space of high-status graves were still of particular concern despite the increasing focus on the passage of the soul and the intercession on behalf of the deceased in the late Middle Ages. The continuing importance of the grave as a physical space is further attested by the fact that it could be the end destination of processions.62 At the same time, the grave-pots may also be seen as a sign of the Church’s increasing involvement in the practice of inhumation.63 The presence of funerary pots at monastic cemeteries also attests that religious orders such as the Cistercians or the Dominicans could adjust their burial rituals to fit the wishes of their donors. Burial Rods

Rods of hazel wood or, more rarely, ash, oak, or willow have been documented in graves in Northern Europe, Germany, and England.64 The practice is known from pagan times. Although it is much more common in churchyards than in pagan graves, they are only attested at a few sites, which cannot be explained by different preservation conditions alone. In all appearances, their presence at churchyards both in urban and rural contexts as well as at monasteries indicates that their use was widely acknowledged by the Church.65 The position of the rods in the graves can vary, as they can be placed either on top or under the coffin or the corpse. Usually, one to three rods are used, but in some instances, there are more. There is no unambiguous interpretation for this practice. Previous explanations have focused on the possible religious significance of hazel wood as a symbol of rebirth and resurrection or as means of protection from evil spirits with a pagan origin.66 In the first case, the presence of the practice in pagan graves is explained by a Christian influence, while there is no explanation given for burial rods made in other wood species. It has also been suggested that they could be pilgrim staffs, or rather symbolic of them, as the rods are relatively slender branches in most cases.67 The graves that contain more than one rod could be a parallel to the graves where several pilgrimage badges in the form of mussel shells have been found (see below), with a similar symbolic significance. A review of the material shows that these two types of object were only in a few instances deposited together in graves. In theory, they could have supplemented each other, but the relative rarity of both types does not allow such a firm conclusion. Finally, the use of burial rods has been explained in more practical terms as a desire to hide the bottom of the grave with green 62 Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, pp. 167–68; Jakobsen, ‘Prædikebrødrenes samfundsrolle’, p. 130. 63 Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, p. 169. 64 Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, p. 157. 65 Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, p. 165. 66 Mårtensson, ‘Gravar och kyrkor’, pp. 105–12. 67 Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, p. 165.

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branches. This requires, however, that there were leaves and branches on the rods, which is yet to be proven.68 This interpretation is however supported by the liturgical prescriptions mentioned above, which mention the spreading of evergreen leaves under the corpse in the grave,69 but this seems only to apply to the cases where the rods have actually been found under the skeleton. A new theory, presented by Kristina Jonsson,70 suggests that the rods could have acted as a standard to measure the length of the grave during its digging. This theory is, however, rather dubious according to Jes Wienberg.71 Based on the current state of evidence, it is not possible to discern convincingly the meaning(s) of the grave rods. It is worth underlining that they appear at all types of cemetery and it seems fair to assume that they should be interpreted within a Christian frame. However, this may not apply to all occurrences of the phenomenon in time and space. Prayer Beads

Prayer beads are tactile aids to keep track of the number of prayers during their recitation. The most common is the rosary used in the late medieval cult of the Virgin Mary, whose prayers should intercede for the soul. For this reason, it is also relevant for the dead and as a grave good.72 In a Danish context, prayer beads most often occur at the cemeteries of Franciscan friaries and Carmelite monasteries as well as that of other orders, though less frequently. An exception to the rule are the two sets of prayer beads found at the churchyard of Saint Alban’s Church in Odense, which is probably connected to the fact that the Brotherhood of the Holy Rosary had their own altar in the church. This does not change the fact that the majority of prayer beads found in Odense are from the cemetery of the Franciscan friary (Fig. 10.4), where they were found in graves all over the churchyard. This indicates, at the very least, that those who were buried with them did not necessarily wish to be buried as a group next to the church favoured by the Brotherhood. This also applies to the cemetery of the Carmelite monastery in Skælskør, where prayer beads were almost exclusively found in coffinless graves.73 A unique Limoges crucifix in another coffinless grave suggests a form of burial practice that consciously seeks to express humility, in accordance with the late medieval focus on the penitent’s encounter with death. The choice of religious institution housing the graves of the individuals who chose to be buried with prayer beads seems to be a conscious choice. Whereas this may be because the liturgy at those institutions was adapted to the use of prayer beads, it is striking that no prayer beads have been found at 68 Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, p. 165. 69 Madsen, ‘Han ligger under en blå sten’, p. 122. 70 Jonsson, Practices for the Living and the Dead, pp. 111–22. 71 Wienberg, ‘Review of Kristina Jonsson’, pp. 229–30. 72 Koch, ‘Rosenkranse’, pp. 115 and 118. 73 Koch, ‘Rosenkranse’, p. 107.

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Figure 10.4. Three sets of prayer beads from the Franciscan cemetery in Odense (OBM8232). The five Pater Noster beads identify the central one as a rosary with certainty; one of the Pater Noster beads has petals like a rose. On either side, two sets of prayer beads, one with identical, turned bone beads, and one with beads of agate with a single larger amber bead. Photo: Odense City Museums.

the cemeteries of the Dominican houses in Denmark, considering that the Dominican order was a driving force in the development of the theology of the rosary prayer.74 Instead, it may be worth considering whether the Franciscan and Carmelite orders had a particular focus on the Marian cult and the rituals of penance, or whether their burial rituals opened specific possibilities to involve and emphasize the rosary in order to accommodate the wishes of the deceased, their families, or the Brotherhood of the Holy Rosary.75 Pilgrimage Badges

The number of graves with pilgrimage badges is highly variable across the Danish cemeteries, but it is generally low.76 In graves, pilgrimage badges are usually found around the chest area of the deceased, and it is commonly assumed that they were fastened on the clothes of the deceased or onto the shroud. It cannot be excluded, however, that some pilgrimage badges were deposited

74 Koch, ‘Rosenkranse’, p. 116; Rasmussen and Nielsen, ‘Mama Mia’, p. 14. 75 Struer, ‘Norm og praksis’, pp. 103 and 109. 76 Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, pp. 26 and 59, Koch, ‘Den arkæologiske udgravning’, pp. 139–40.

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Figure 10.5A. On the now lost tomb slab from c. 1300 at the monastic church of Sorø, a man named Jonas is represented with the symbols of the pilgrim: the walking stick, palm branch, and scallop shell. The inscription in majuscules is in relief and the figure in lower relief. The symbols of the Evangelists in the corners are missing. Photo: the Danish National Museum.

Figure 10.5B. The tomb slab of Bishop Jens Munk at Ribe Cathedral, probably made before his death in 1539 by Claus Berg. The figures in bas relief cover the whole surface defined by the inscription band on the 333 × 175 cm limestone slab. Both his paternal and maternal coats of arms are represented, and the inscription mentions his noble lineage twice. The stone, which may have originally hung on the wall of his own chapel, is a remarkable expression of the bishops’ inflated sense of kinship in the late Middle Ages, see Kondrup, ‘Ihukommelse mellem slægt og embed’. Photo: after Jensen, Danske adelige Gravsten.

on top of the corpse or coffin after it had been placed in the grave.77 In some exceptional cases, they have been found in larger numbers. Five and ten scallop shells were found in two graves in Holbæk and Helsingborg respectively. This

77 Koch, ‘Den arkæologiske udgravning’, p. 141.

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has led to the interpretation of these graves as those of professional pilgrims. Another interpretation may be that, as mentioned earlier in connection with the prayer beads, the deposition of these objects is connected to the belief that they had the same potency as prayers of intercession and good deeds: the more the better. However, this is contradicted by the fact that there are so few graves with large numbers of pilgrimage badges.78 In the two examples mentioned above, the scallop shells may symbolize pilgrimages in general and not be specific to Saint James in Santiago de Compostela (see below). This interpretation is supported by a grave from the cemetery of Saint Clement in Copenhagen, which contained both a scallop shell and the shell of a local species of mussel that, in the absence of ‘proper’ scallop shells, could perhaps have acted as a replacement for representing pilgrimage.79 The majority of the pilgrimage badges found in Denmark come from cemeteries, a pattern of distribution that has not changed even with the wider use of metal detectors. The most common pilgrimage badge in this context is the scallop shell, a pattern which cannot wholly be attributed to bad preservation conditions for metal badges (Fig. 10.5A).80 Another explanation for this find pattern may be the excavation methods used in contexts other than cemeteries or, as suggested by Andersson, that pilgrimage badges made of metal in the late Middle Ages became increasingly perceived as relics, and were thus not supposed to follow the deceased in the grave.81 The scallop shell distinguishes itself from other pilgrimage badges as, with time, it became a common symbol of pilgrimage, and not strictly connected to the grave of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela. It is remarkable that in a European context medieval Denmark is the region with the second largest number of finds of scallop shells after south-west France.82 Considering the distribution in connection with the natural habitat of the Pecten maximus along the Atlantic coast, from Spain to Norway, and more rarely in the North Sea, it is surprising that relatively few scholars have suggested that scallop shells in graves do not necessarily solely refer to pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.83 If we consider scallop shells as pilgrimage badges in a broad and not place-specific perspective, we could explain the apparent over-representation of this type of pilgrimage badge in graves.

78 Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, p. 171. 79 Jensen and Dahlström, ‘KBM 3621’, pp. 34–35; Struer, ‘Norm og praksis’, p. 29. 80 Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, p. 171. 81 Andersson, Pilgrimsmärken och vallfart; Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, p. 171; Struer, ‘Norm og praksis’, p. 104. 82 Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, fig. 142. 83 Kieffer-Olsen, Grav og gravskik, pp. 172–73.

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The Materiality of the Grave above Ground Level — The Visible Memorial While the design of the grave below ground level becomes invisible after its backfilling, and its statement is primarily oriented to the hereafter, the materiality of the grave above ground level, mainly expressed by a possible grave marker, remains visible for the bereaved and the passer-by. It thus fulfils a different purpose: to maintain the memory of the deceased in the world of the living. In the Middle Ages, this effort was primarily directed at encouraging intercessory prayers and also at supplying, to some extent, a spatial frame to the act of intercession. Among the grave markers, those who have survived until today are those made of weather-resistant materials or those that were placed under the roof of the church and have subsequently survived several centuries of wear and reconstruction. Early Medieval Tombstones

There are several hundred tombstones preserved from the Romanesque period in Denmark. The majority, if not all, of these tombstones are no longer placed in connection with the grave they marked originally. The stones have been moved to a secondary location on the same cemetery or have been walled in the church building. If we consider the relatively limited number of preserved tombstones as well as the probably high expense their manufacture incurred, it can be assumed that such extravagant marking of the graves outside of the church remained the exception. Every tombstone must however be seen as representing a desire to contravene the otherwise anonymous character of the grave. At the same time, the stones represent a highly tangible expression of the desire to mark the grave as a physical space; to give it a concrete form and an anchor for commemoration. This material manifestation of the memory of the deceased is mostly speechless in the early Middle Ages, since the great majority of Romanesque tombstones have pictorial ornaments only. Only in a few cases, an inscription reveals the name of the deceased, and other bits of information are even more seldom. Occasionally, the date of death is indicated but never the date of birth or the year. The purpose of this mention on the tombstone seems clear. It is not about emphasizing or maintaining the memory of the deceased’s existence on earth, as in modern times, but rather about commemorating the day when death occurred, as this is the anniversary on which the Office of the Dead was to be performed in order to intercede for the redemption of their soul. From Hellevad Church (County of Hjørring), a tombstone with a rather laconic inscription states that: ‘NON(AS) APR(ILIS) OBITT TUVO’ (Tyge died on 5 April), while a stone from Vejerslev Church (County of Viborg) bears the inscription ‘II IDUS M(A)RC(II) O(BIIT) PETRUS’ (Peter died on 14

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March).84 The latter probably dates from the time when Vejerslev Church was a monastic church (end of the twelfth–early thirteenth centuries), where there was a community that could take care of the intercessory prayers. In the necrology of Lund Cathedral, which was compiled from c. 1125 onwards, the moment of death is recorded in a similar manner, with the date, but not the year.85 Further examples of tombstones with date of death are known from Todbjerg and Ørsted Churches (County of Randers).86 The cross is a common symbol on Romanesque tombstones. It is usually depicted with a very long descending arm, which may represent a processional cross. The processional cross is also a very common motif on Romanesque tombstones, at least in eastern Jutland,87 and dominates other types of cross motif on burial monuments in this period. When this type of cross is used, it may be because of a connection with the inhumation rituals, as both the procession to the church, and later on to the grave, involved a cross.88 On late medieval depictions of burial scenes in European books of hours, one can see clergymen carrying processional crosses on the spot of the inhumation itself. Late Medieval Tombstones

As the Church began to accept inhumations of laypeople inside churches, the need arose for a new type of tombstone, which was not raised above floor level and blocked circulation. The solution found was that of the tomb slab, thus abandoning the Romanesque tradition (Fig. 10.5B). The material was also changed, from granite to limestone, among others, as these could be split into slabs and carved more easily. From around 1440, the tomb slab dominates the preserved corpus of burial monuments. Without being direct copies of but rather finding inspiration in German tomb slabs, one already finds from this point in time the first examples of the tight composition better known later on. The central motif is composed of the coat of arms of the deceased, occasionally ornamented with vegetal patterns and/or of the figures of one or two persons, whose contours are lightly chiselled with a rather naive stroke. It is framed by an inscription band in Gothic script, interrupted in each of the four corners by the symbols of the Evangelists. In the course of the fifteenth century, the slabs include architectural motifs and the light contouring of the figures gives way to higher reliefs. The tomb slabs were not, as rule, placed in isolation, but were combined with painted or carved epitaphs; the shields of noblemen could also be hung on the walls of the church. The high nobility and high-ranked members of the clergy chose in several cases to have their own chapels built. These provided 84 Løffler, Danske Gravstene, p. 21 and III, fig. 15. 85 Necrologium Lundense, ed. by Weibull, pp. 49–109. 86 Found in the database Romansk stenkunst (Romanesque stone art): [accessed 1 April 2021]. 87 See for example Tamdrup Church, DK Århus Amt 1996–2002, p. 5148. 88 Ottosen, ‘Den ritualiserede død’, p. 276.

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occasions for a full pictorial programme to unfold and where the incentive for sending intercessory prayers for the dead was accomplished by their pious foundations in wills and foundation charters. In these cases, one often sees a sharp contrast between the ostentatious mise-en-scène above floor level on the one hand, and the humble crypt with a simple coffin on the other. The funerary monuments thus increasingly reflect a dichotomy between a visible promotion of class and kin in the grave above ground on the one hand, and the invisible humility (though visible to God) of the grave underground on the other, as late medieval religiosity implied. This development is also perceptible in the funerary monuments of the clergy.89

Burial Practice as an Expression of Shifting Perceptions of Death As the cursory overview of burial types and artefact types presented above has shown, there was a great deal of variation in burial practice during the Danish Middle Ages. This is to be expected considering the geography of the region, the degree of social stratification, and, not least, the time span of the study, stretching over five centuries. At the same time, several of these variations may have religious and liturgical explanations and not merely secular or practical ones. When it comes to the grave’s materiality below ground, one sees a development from a great variety of forms in the early Middle Ages towards a more homogenous pattern in the later part of the period. This may reflect changes in perceptions of death. The consecrated grave was, in principle, inviolable, a locus sacer.90 That death was chiefly conceived as a state of rest in the early Middle Ages, in which the deceased more or less confidently awaited resurrection from within the space of the grave was reflected in the form given to the grave underground. A physical room or marking around the dead could be shaped, at least symbolically, through different remedies: the coffin, the setting of stones, markings in white sand or charcoal, the laying of rods, etc. These markings were aimed at ‘securing’ the grave against possible disturbances. The evolvement of the idea of purgatory throughout the Middle Ages was presumably crucial to the development of the elaboration of the grave, with a lessened focus on the form of the grave below ground level. Purgatory sowed fear among the faithful, which in turn strengthened the wish for intercessory prayers for the dead. This phenomenon is for example visible in the late medieval wills and foundation charters, where various measures are taken to help the salvation of the soul of the dead. The dead may have been biologically deceased, but they were not socially, and in the context of intercessory prayers, this truth

89 Kondrup, ‘Ihukommelse mellem slægt og embede’. 90 Nilsson, ‘Död och begravning’, p. 147.

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Figure 10.6. Representation of an intercessory prayer from a French breviary c. 1414. In this case, the intercessory prayer for the dead takes place directly at the grave in order to increase the efficacy of the prayer. The corresponding text in the manuscript renders the passages from the Book of Job used for the Office of the Dead and for the anniversary Masses: ‘I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone, For my days are but a breath. | What is man, that You should exalt him, That You should set Your heart on him, | That You should visit him every morning, And test him every moment? | How long? Will You not look away from me, And let me alone till I swallow my saliva? | Have I sinned? What have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why have You set me as Your target, So that I am a burden to myself? | Why then do You not pardon my transgression, And take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust, And You will seek me diligently, But I will no longer be’. Job 7.16–21. Photo by courtesy of La Bibliothèque virtuelle des manuscrits médiévaux (BVMM), under l’Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (IRHT-CNRS).

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was not to be forgotten.91 The remarkable late medieval tomb slabs can be seen as the material expression of the desire to be remembered (Fig. 10.6). While the graves got a more monumental character above ground, the practice of intercession in the form of anniversary Masses was, in fact, disconnected from the physical plot of the grave. Indeed, these celebrations could take place anywhere, though typically in the church but also in the household of the deceased. At the same time, the inviolability of the grave and, with it, the preservation of the integrity of the deceased’s physical remains were not absolutely necessary from the point of view of the Church in order to secure the resurrection of the flesh. One can thus observe an evolution towards a greater focus on commemoration, expressed for instance with massive tombstones, while the elaboration of the grave underground seems to have become less important. It has previously been suggested that changes in arm positions expressed an increasing practice of repentant and devoted praying, echoing the introduction of the idea of purgatory and the pending risk of eternal damnation. The increase in the number of pilgrimage badges and prayer beads in late medieval graves could be interpreted along the same lines as the material expression of a need for the dead and the mourners to stress the dead’s good Christian way of life. It is, however, possible that other factors played a role in the perception of death and consequently in the shifting material expressions in funerary contexts throughout the Middle Ages. In this context, the Black Death comes to mind; the shockwave it sent throughout society cannot have failed to change perceptions of death. The plague, just as much as the spreading of ideas about purgatory, could have changed the focus from the physical grave which, due to a high mortality rate may have attracted less attention, onto a practice that was meant to secure the salvation of the souls of the dead, but which was in principle separated from the physical grave. Thanks to a greater understanding of the religious mindset which lies behind burials in medieval Denmark, it may be possible to reach new insights about the intentions behind the material remains of these monuments. This does not only apply to the study of the obviously religious grave goods, but also to the interpretation of the grave itself as a place, the preparation of the corpse, and its deposition in the grave.

91 Jonsson, Practices for the Living and the Dead, pp. 176–82; Wienberg, Den gotiske labyrint, pp. 189–92.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Sources Jensen, Jane Jark, and Hanna Dahlström, ‘KBM 3621. Beretning for Skt. Clemens I og III. Udgravning af den nordlige del af kirkegården tilhørende den middelalderlige Skt. Clemens kirke, København — februar til juli 2008’ (unpublished report prepared for the Museum of Copenhagen, 2009) Primary Sources Lundakanikernas levnadsregler: Aachenregeln och Conseutudines canonicae — översätning från latinet med indledning och noter, ed. and trans. by Ana Minara Ciardi, Meddelanden från Kyrkohisoriska Arkivet i Lund, 5 (Lund: Lunds universitets kyrkohistoriska arkiv, 2003) Necrologium Lundense: Lunds Domkyrkas Nekrologium, ed. by Lauritz Weibull, Monumenta Scaniae historica (Lund: Berlingska Boktryckeriet, 1923) The Manual from Notmark, ed. by Knud Ottosen, Bibliotheca liturgica Danica, series Latina, 1 (Copenhagen: Gad, 1970) Secondary Works Andersson, Lars, Pilgrimsmärken och vallfart: Medeltida pilgrimskultur i Skandinavien, Lund Studies in Medieval Archaeology, 7 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1989) Andrén, Anders, ‘Ad sanctos — de dödas plats under medeltiden’, Hikuin, 27 (2000), 7–26 Arcini, Caroline, and Göran Tagesson, ‘Kroppen som materiell kultur — gravar och människor i Linköping genom 700 år’, in Liunga. Kaupinga: Kulturhistoria och arkeologi i Linköpingsbygden, ed. by Anders Kaliff and Göran Tagesson, Riksantikvarieämbetet, Arkäologiske undersökninger skrifter, 60 (Stockholm: Riksantikvarieämbetet, 2009), pp. 283–319 Arentoft, Eskil, De spedalskes hospital: Udgravning af Sankt Jørgensgården i Odense, Fynske studier, 18 (Odense: Odense Bys Museer, 1999) Atzbach, Rainer, ‘Between Representation and Eternity: The Archaeology of Praying in Late Medieval and Post-Medieval Times’, European Journal of Archaeology, 19 (2016), 28–47 Binski, Paul, Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation (London: The British Museum, 1996) Bjerregaard, Mikael Manøe, ‘Nadversættet fra bispegraven i Albani Kirke’, in Magt og minde: Højstatusbegravelser i udvalgte centre 950–1450, ed. by Mikael Manøe Bjerregaard and Mads Runge, Kulturhistoriske studier i centralitet — Archaeological & Historical Studies in Centrality, 1 (Odense: Odense Bys Museer, 2017), pp. 28–43

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Bynum, Caroline Walker, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336, Lectures on the History of Religions, 15 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995) Christensen, Jakob Tue, ‘Døden skiller — om kirkegårdsskel og -skik under Skt. Knuds Plads’, Fynske minder (1999), 83–92 Christensen, Jakob Tue, and Jesper Hansen, ‘Graven og manden i domkirken Skt. Albans i Odense — en kilde til overleveringen af 1000-tallets bispehistorie’, in Magt og minde: Højstatusbegravelser i udvalgte centre 950–1450, ed. by Mikael Manøe Bjerregaard and Mads Runge, Kulturhistoriske studier i centralitet — Archaeological & Historical Studies in Centrality, 1 (Odense: Odense Bys Museer, 2017), pp. 10–27 DK = Danmarks Kirker (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1933–) Duday, Henri, The Archeology of the Dead: Lectures in Archeothanatology, Studies in Funerary Archaeology, 3 (Oxford: Oxbow, 2009) Duerr, Hans Peter, Myten om civilsationsprocessen, i: Nakenhet och skam, trans. by Joachim Retzlaff (Stockholm: Symposion, 1994) Fahlander, Fredrik, and Terje Oestigaard, ‘The Materiality of Death: Bodies, Burials, Beliefs’, in The Materiality of Death: Bodies, Burials, Beliefs, ed. by Fredrik Fahlander and Terje Oestigaard, British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 1768 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2008), pp. 1–18 Gilchrist, Roberta, and Barney Sloane, Requiem: The Medieval Monastic Cemetery in Britain (London: Museum of London Archaeology Service, 2005) Grundvad, Bente, ‘Højmiddelalderens grave på Lindegården i Ribe’, By, marsk og geest, 25 (2013), 63–73 Haastrup, Ulla, ‘Den dobbelte forbøn for en død mand. Ballerup Kirke 1425–50’, in Danske kalkmalerier: Gotik 1375–1475, ed. by Ulla Haastrup and Robert Egevang (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1985), pp. 120–21 ———, ‘Sæbyværkstedet. Sæby, Dronninglund, Vrå, Vesterø og Ålborg Budolfi kirker o. 1510–1525’, in Danske kalkmalerier: Sengotik 1500–1536, ed. by Ulla Haastrup (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1992), pp. 150–53 Hyldgård, Inger Marie, Tjærby Ødekirke og kirkegård, Museum Østjyllands publikationer, 3 (Randers: Museum Østjylland, 2016) Jakobsen, Johnny Grandjean Gøgsig, ‘Prædikebrødrenes samfundsrolle i middelalderens Danmark’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Southern Denmark, 2008) Jensen, Christian Axel, Danske adelige Gravsten fra Sengotikens og Renaissancens Tid, 5 vols (Copenhagen: Høst, 1951–53) Johansson, Hilding, and Jarl Gallén, ‘Begravning’, Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder fra vikingetid til reformationstid, 1 (1956), 415–17 Jonsson, Kristina, Practices for the Living and the Dead: Medieval and Post-Reformation Burials in Scandinavia, Stockholm Studies in Archaeology, 50 (Stockholm: Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University, 2009) ———, ‘Tills döden skiljer oss åt…’, in Västerhus: Kapell, kyrkogård och befolkning, ed. by Elisabeth Iregren, Verner Alexandersen, and Lars Redin (Stockholm: Kungliga Vitterhets historie och antikvitets akademien, 2009), pp. 40–73

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Kieffer-Olsen, Jakob, ‘Middelalderens gravskik i Danmark — en arkæologisk forskningsstatus’, Hikuin, 17 (1990), 85–112 ———, Grav og gravskik i det middelalderlige Danmark, Skrifter fra Afdeling for Middelalderarkæologi og Middelalder-arkæologisk Nyhedsbrev, 1 (Højbjerg: Afdeling for Middelalderarkæologi, 1993) Kieffer-Olsen, Jakob, and Per Kristian Madsen, ‘Middelalderens Vejle ca. 1100– 1600’, in Vejles historie, i: Fra vadested til by — indtil 1786, ed. by Asbjørn Hellum (Vejle: Vejle kommune, 1997), pp. 63–133 Koch, Hanne Dahlerup, ‘Den arkæologiske udgravning. Ahlgade 15–17, Holbæk’, Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1994–95 (1997), 11–192 ———, ‘Rosenkranse i grave: gravskikkens baggrund, datering og perspektiver’, Hikuin, 27 (2000), 107–36 Koch, Hanne Dahlerup, and Anne Pedersen, ‘Skælskørkrucifikset’, in Danefæ: Skatte fra den danske muld; Til Hendes Majestæt Dronning Margrethe II., ed. by Michael Andersen and Poul Otto Nielsen (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 2010), pp. 217–20 Kondrup, Tine, ‘Ihukommelse mellem slægt og embede — Senmiddelalderlige biskoppers selviscenesættelse og mindekultur’, in Magt og minde: Højstatusbegravelser i udvalgte centre 950–1450, ed. by Mikael Manøe Bjerregaard and Mads Runge, Kulturhistoriske studier i centralitet — Archaeological & Historical Studies in Centrality, 1 (Odense: Odense Bys Museer, 2017), pp. 100–13 Løffler, Julius Benthley, Danske Gravstene fra Middelalderen (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1889) Madsen, Per Kristian, ‘A French Connection: Danish Funerary Pots — a Group of Medieval Pottery’, Journal of Danish Archaeology, 2 (1983), 171–83 ———, ‘Han ligger under en blå sten. Om middelalderens gravskik på skrift og i praksis’, Hikuin, 17 (1990), 113–34 McLaughlin, Megan, Consorting with Saints: Prayer for the Dead in Early Medieval France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994) Møller-Christensen, Peter Vilhelm, Æbelholt kloster (Copenhagen: Dansk Videnskabs Forlag, 1958) Mårtensson, Anders W., ‘Gravar och kyrkor’, in Uppgrävt förflutet för PK-banken i Lund, ed. by Anders W. Mårtensson, Archaeologica Lundensia, 7 (Lund: Kulturhistoriska museet, 1976), pp. 87–134 Nilsson, Bertil, ‘Död och begravning. Begravningsskicket i Norden’, in Tanke och tro: Aspekter på medeltidens tankevärls och fromhetsliv, ed. by Olle Ferm and Göran Tegnér, Studier till det medeltida Sverige, 3 (Stockholm: Riksantikvarieämbetet, 1987), pp. 133–50 Ottosen, Knud, ‘Den ritualiserede død — omsorgen for de døende og døde i middelalderen’, Dansk teologisk tidsskrift, 61 (1998), 268–82 Pahlmblad, Christer, ‘När vi firar de avlidna brödernas dagar — texter för dödsofficiet i Liber daticus vetustior Lundensis’, in Mellan evighet och vardag: Lunds domkyrkas Martyrologium; Liber daticus vetustior (den äldre gåvoboken); Studier och faksimilutgåva, ed. by Eva Nilsson Nylander, Skrifter utgivna av

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Universitetsbiblioteket i Lund, 10 (Lund: Universitetsbiblioteket, Lunds Universitet, 2015), pp. 227–44 Pedersen, Kirsti, and Mikael Manøe Bjerregaard, ‘Sygdom, død og begravelse på Albani Kirkegård. Observationer fra en igangværende arkæologisk udgravning’, Bibliotek for Læger, 208 (2016), 158–77 Rasmussen, Linda, and Jørgen Nielsen, ‘Mama Mia — Maria-dyrkelsen i senmiddelalderen’, Fynske minder (1999), 9–20 Ravn, Mads, ‘Kan vi erkende religion i forhistoriske grave?’, in Religion og materiel kultur, ed. by Lisbeth Bredholt Christensen and Stine Benedicte Sveen (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 1998), pp. 78–93 Redin, Lars, Lagmanshejdan: Ett gravfält som spegling av sociala strukturer Skanör, Acta archaeologica Lundensia, Series in 4°, 10 (Bonn: Habelt, 1976) Seeberg, Peter, ‘Syfilis og badesanstalter’, Den jyske historiker, 48 (1989), 34–50 Struer, Anine Madvig, ‘Norm og praksis — middelalderens begravelser med gravgods i fund og forskning’ (unpublished magister dissertation, University of Copenhagen, 2010) Troels-Lund, Troels Frederik, Dagligt liv i Norden i det sekstende århundrede, vii: Livsbelysning, Livsafslutning (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1969) Wienberg, Jes, Den gotiske labyrint: Middelalderen og kirkerne i Danmark, Lund Studies in Medieval Archaeology, 11 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1993) ———, ‘Review of Kristina Jonsson, “Practices for the Living and the Dead” (2009)’, Collegium medievale, 23 (2010), 223–36 Østergaard, Knud Høgsbro, ‘Arkæologiske undersøgelser i Brørup Kirke 1953–1954 og maj 1962’, Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1961 (1962), 1–36

Mette Svart Kri s tian s en and Mercede s  Pérez Vidal

Epilogue from the Views of an Archaeologist and an Art Historian

The anthology, Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, presents the first attempt to bring together a wider range of disciplines to discuss materiality and religious practice in Denmark. It signals an important ambition to bring new insights to the research by broadening and challenging the frame of reference that informs studies on the topic in very different research milieus. Based on nine chapters written by scholars from theology, archaeology, art history, and religious studies this epilogue aims at summing up selected key focus areas and ongoing research questions. Just as this volume does not claim to cover all aspects of materiality of religious practice, but represents selected research and the interests of the contributors, this epilogue neither claims to be adequate nor comprehensive, but it will suggest some ideas for future perspectives for the study of materiality and religious practice in medieval Denmark, looking at research in a wider international context. To write an epilogue based on such a background is a challenge; in which directions will the research develop, and which role will materials and materiality be given, or take, in future studies?

The ‘Turn’ towards Materiality of Rituals Studies of materiality, religious objects, rituals, and religious culture have long research traditions within a series of disciplines like archaeology, history, history of religion, history of art, theology, and anthropology. They have had varied theoretical, methodological, and empirical departure points within particular domains as ‘objects’, ‘images’, and ‘words’. In the recent decades, Mette Svart Kristiansen, PhD in Medieval Archaeology (Aarhus University). Associate Professor of Historical Archaeology at School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University. Email: [email protected] Mercedes Pérez Vidal, PhD in Art History (University of Oviedo). Independent scholar. Email: [email protected] Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix, and Mads Heilskov, AS 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 269–292 © FHG 10.1484/M.AS-EB.5.123993

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the ‘material turn’ has inspired new theoretical perspectives on how people and the material world engage.1 This overall reorientation has had a decisive impact on the ontology of the humanities and social sciences and in more recent thought on what one might call an ‘ontological humility’.2 Consequently, this has fundamentally changed the way researchers look at and explore religion, spirituality, and devotion in medieval Europe. In the discipline of religious studies for example the (re)discovery of objects has given inspiring new insights in the studies of devotion, and in a recent study on current worship of religious statues/persons the new orientation is described ‘As if it had been previously cloaked from view, the “stuff ” of devotion, for example the things (statues, images, icons) that people love, cherish, rely on, has become apparent, and it has grabbed the attention of the academy’.3 Within the scholarship on liturgy and liturgical objects, the ‘turn’ also prompted new interest in a variety of aspects, and during the last two decades the number of works on liturgy and material culture has been enormous.4 In medieval archaeology the overwhelming presence of objects at first seemed to render a ‘material turn’ rather superfluous. However, religious objects had been studied for decades with a focus on production, materials, date, and iconology, without much attention to their function as devotional objects or their central causal role in religious practice. Moreover, disciplinary boundaries have also limited the objects of study. Indeed, whereas medieval archaeologists have studied objects, art historians have focused on the images. Nevertheless, as Philippe Cordez has recently pointed out, this conventional division should be overcome. Art history should not be limited to being a ‘science of images’ or ‘visual studies’ (Bildwissenschaft), but also a science of the objects (Objektwissenschaft) should join the former. This should imply not an opposition but an analysis of the interplays between objects, images, and texts.5 As the papers in this volume demonstrate, this ontological turn does, however, reflect modern academic developments rather than a medieval understanding of the world, as it is reflected and discussed in contemporary literature, images, and objects. Also, materiality and medieval religious practice is usually studied through the looking glasses of well-defined disciplines, shattering the medieval reality into more or less unrelated entities. While this might be very appropriate for some research questions, the challenge for future research, from our point of view, is to find ways to redefine the boundaries and expand the focus area to be able to more fully understand



1 Overview and references in Hicks, ‘The Material-Cultural Turn’; Overholtzer and Robin, ‘The Materiality of Everyday Life’; also Coll., Gesta, dedicated to medieval conceptions of significationes rerum. 2 Wolfendale, Object-Oriented Philosophy, p. 165; Thomas, ‘The Future of Archaeological Theory’, p. 1289. 3 Whitehead, Religious Statues and Personhood, p. 1. 4 Overview and references in Jürgensen; Larsen, this volume. 5 Cordez, ‘Objektwissenschaft’.

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and appreciate the materiality and religious practice on the terms of medieval people and not the convenience of academia. As stated in Hugo of Saint Victor’s De sacramentis Christianae fidei, written around 1134, sacraments were manifested through ceremonies, which were constituted by three components of equal importance: things or objects (rebus), motions or acts (factis), and words (verbis).6 The challenge in the new millennia is to explore deeply the interrelatedness between object, image, and text.7 Nevertheless, we have to face some difficulties. For instance, whereas on the one hand, some liturgical texts constituted themselves as an object, like the Gospel book in the study of Petersen (this volume), on the other hand, the materiality of the acts is rarely mentioned in liturgical texts.8 Within the various themes, this volume addresses a series of theoretical and methodological perspectives currently approached in Denmark, and in the following, some are selected for further discussion.

Spirit and Matter Longstanding Christian theological debates have been, and are still, deeply concerned with the relationship of spirit and matter and with divine presence, and there have been, in Engelke’s words ‘ebbs and flows in what constituted acceptable levels of materiality in faith’.9 Presence has been recognized in Christianity’s historical and regional diversity in a variety of forms, through which ‘the authority, power, and meaning of God are apprehended’ like ‘viewing icons, touching statues and relics, telling rosary beads, hearing the Bible read aloud (or reading it silently to oneself), and being filled with the Holy Spirit’.10 Early Christian encounters with icons, images, and statues demonstrate that the division between the material and the spiritual was very narrow, if existent at all. The bread and wine of the Eucharist, the holy images, and the sacred relics of the saints contained and conveyed Christian spirituality.11 Sophisticated ideas as well as unarticulated intuitions about the interrelated nature of the material and the spiritual were normal in early Christian understandings of religious objects.12 ‘Iconoclasts and iconodules argued about images because they acknowledged their power, disagreeing only about the religious implications of that power.’13

6 Jürgensen, this volume. 7 Heilskov and Croix, this volume. 8 Christensen and Bjerregaard, this volume. 9 Engelke, ‘Material Religion’, p. 220. 10 Engelke, ‘Material Religion’, p. 213. 11 Chidester, Christianity, p. 216. 12 Whitehead, Religious Statues and Personhood, p. 26. 13 Miles, ‘Image’, p. 167.

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In the late Middle Ages religious objects had become more than iconic representations or images. The object had become the pivot on which the divine turned in the world, and everything that came into contact with this sanctity was influenced by its presence and transformed by the sacredness it represented.14 Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century changed this use of objects and rejected any inherent qualities in matter and materiality, when they promoted Christianity as a religion of ‘hearing’ instead of ‘seeing’. Their critical attitudes towards images and materials, however, differed. Iconoclasts like Calvin and Zwingli argued that Christians who used images and statues were idolaters who ultimately dishonoured God and deserved to be punished,15 while Luther, agreeing that Christian worship required no material support from things, accepted the laity’s need for a material dimension of religion, as images were ‘outward things’ and ‘neither evil or not’.16 This changing attitude to the use of images and objects primarily related to a new confessional idea of the relationship between man and God, not to the faculties of material objects, nor materials. Jürgensen explains that the more relaxed Lutheran attitude accepted ‘that matter and artefacts to a certain extent could manifest and illustrate invisible qualities, but it was repeatedly stressed that the power to understand Christ and the Scripture rested inside the individual’.17

The Matter of Religious Spaces and Landscapes There is a growing awareness of the problems raised by maintaining a modern Durkheimian juxtaposition between the sacred and the profane, and an acknowledgement of the sentiments put forward by Schribner that the sacred is experienced from within the profane.18 This has resulted in attention to the fluidity between boundaries of sacred and profane spaces and private and public sacred space, as well as past understanding and defining of sacred space, not least the importance of behaviour in defining space.19 Space is constructed and perceived in a variety of ways. It could be manifest, sensed, temporal, permanent. Though ‘space’ itself is not the primary concern of this volume, it is obvious that religious practice needs space. The use of space and movements in space stand out distinctly in the contributions by Christensen and Bjerregaard discussing the rites involved in handling the dead and of Jürgensen discussing the materiality of liturgy.

14 Heilskov; Liepe; Jürgensen, this volume. 15 Chidester, Christianity, p. 352. 16 Chidester, Christianity, p. 348. 17 Jürgensen, ‘The Rhetoric of Splendor’, p. 166. 18 Schribner, Popular Culture, pp. 1–2. 19 Hamilton and Spicer, ‘Defining the Holy’.

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The liturgical space, as defined by Jürgensen,20 was constructed through the sanctification created where church rites were performed. It was not defined by space but created by it and was temporary and without boundaries. For example, processions like the celebration of funeral processions and Easter Week carried impermanent sacred space through the streets or fields, while consecrated objects like an altar created permanent sacred space that was always active and present.21 The church interior, the physical, tangible space of a village church, constituted a palimpsest of manifest responses to altering administration of the sacraments over time ‘and to negotiations between religious, secular and practical needs’.22 Spatial divisions were reinforced by the location of images, altars, and other religious imagery and symbols, and they were a reflection of other spatial notions like ‘social space’ and ‘gendered space’.23 Clerics and laity both attached great importance to the physical demarcation in space that marked the sacred site and made it visible in the landscape.24 Topographic space was formed and defined by buildings, fences, and other ‘hard’ physical demarcations, but also ‘soft’ areas could by their size, emptiness, or proximity to other features potentially have been a part of space design and divisions.25 Besides physical boundaries, senses were activated, and sensory distinctions created. Church bells called for Mass and canonical hours across the landscape making a soundscape for the faithful and defining the sacred audibly, burning of incense during Mass set the divine apart from smells of the world, burning candles helped visually to mark out a sacred point during Mass.26 In the rite of consecration of a church, different ‘objects’ were involved: altars, relics, textiles (linteamina), ecclesiastical decorations (ornamenta ecclesiae), holy vessels (vasa sacra), garments, etc. They were performed in the liturgical space together with other elements, such as salt, water, ashes, wine, oil, and chrism. These were used in other liturgical acts, having been previously exorcized and blessed. Moreover, as pointed out by Nilsson (this volume), we have archaeological evidence of the use of other materials, like charcoal and wooden rods, although they are not mentioned in the liturgical texts. Topographic space could also be transformed by theological imagination and reconstructed as sacred locations through meditative exercises. This enabled a miraculous past to be experienced in the present like the nuns performing the Stations of the Cross in some convents, such as Wienhausen, Saint Katharina in Augsburg, Mare de Deus in Lisbon, San Niccolò in Prato, 20 Jürgensen, Changing Interiors, pp. 209–14. 21 Christensen and Bjerregaard; Jürgensen, this volume. 22 Jürgensen, Changing Interiors, p. 211. 23 For example, Gilchrist, Medieval Life, p. 175. 24 Hamilton and Spicer, ‘Defining the Holy’, p. 6. 25 Pestell, ‘Using Material Culture’, p. 163. 26 Hamilton and Spicer, ‘Defining the Holy’, pp. 7–8.

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Santo Domingo in Toledo, San Juan Bautista in Quejana, and many others. By doing so, they symbolically recreated Jerusalem and the Passion of Christ within the convent.27 This opens another stimulating perspective for further research in both male and female cloisters in Denmark. The liturgical functionality as well as the theological and mystical content defined the spaces’ meaning.28 As Andreas Odenthal has recently pointed out, the ‘spatial turn’ faces new challenges nowadays as, in addition to architectural circumstances, the general cultural and social conditions of church ritual should also be considered.29 Secular activities coexisted with official liturgy within the sacred space: offerings of pilgrimage badges concealed under altarpieces and in church floors found in Sweden show how the laity infused the church space with their practices in dialogue with official rituals.30 In late medieval Denmark, guilds administered their own altars in the church and31 the church lofts were rented out for storage. The church porch might be used for assembling and in rare cases apparently even heated housing,32 to mention some examples of blurred lines of demarcations, or perhaps coexisting worlds. Religious space blended in domestic settings for private devotion. Small religious objects like statuettes, prints, and panels in a variety of qualities indicate they were used by a broad cross-section of society. Panels from the fifteenth-century Netherlands introduce a new iconography depicting the Virgin in a domestic interior, giving ‘insight into the potential “sacredness” of domestic spaces, pointing towards an underlying attitude that the sacred might easily and appropriately enter into the domestic world’. The division between private and collective devotion was blurred, as some of these objects, paintings, moved from one sphere to the other throughout time. While noble families might establish private chapels, devotional space in an ordinary household was temporal and created in a primarily secular room using books and images, that were otherwise locked away when not used.33 The domestic sphere could even be transformed to a sacred space during the anointing of a sick person through the presence of holy water and a consecrated wafer.34 Research on the religious landscape remains largely undeveloped in Denmark as in other parts of Europe.35 The focus of the antiquarian legal background for rural archaeology is the built areas, the settlements. The landscape itself constitutes a different type of site that firstly is not legally

27 Mecham, ‘A Northern Jerusalem’; Ehrenschwendtner, ‘Virtual Pilgrimages?’; Rudy, Virtual Pilgrimages; Pérez Vidal, ‘Art, Visual Culture and Liturgy’. 28 Cassidy-Welch, Monastic Spaces. 29 Odenthal, ‘maiorem ecclesiam’. 30 Andersson, Pilgrimsmärken och vallfart, pp. 192–93. 31 Bisgaard, Mortensen, and Pettitt, eds, Guilds, Towns and Cultural Transmission. 32 Wienberg, Den gotiske labyrint, pp. 97–99. 33 Nuechterlein, ‘The Domesticity of Sacred Space’, pp. 50, 78. 34 Christensen and Bjerregaard, this volume. 35 See though Bis-Woch and Teune, eds, Religion, Cults & Rituals.

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protected in the same way as the settlements, and secondly requires its own approach and methodology tailored to its particular characteristics and formation processes.36 Small finds in the countryside and museum collections might relate to religious practice in the rural areas. A noteworthy frequency of fragments of processional crosses supposedly relate to processions in the fields by the clergy. Finds of lead crosses at farm sites could relate to rituals for blessing a farm as known from written manuals and performed by the priest, or be objects related to personal prayers for protection. Finds of coins, pilgrimage badges, and other devotional objects in lakes and rivers suggest that people in the Middle Ages continued the prehistoric focus on watery spaces for ritualized practices. However, the meaning of watery spaces in medieval ritual and religious practices remains to be explored.37 The religious landscape has promising potential for future studies, particularly if drawing on focused metal-detecting strategies and the well-established relationships between Danish local museums and semi-professional metal detectorists. Today the objects are usually addressed in the metal-detecting communities and in research in relation to their qualities as objects. However, inspiring projects bring our attention to the importance of their spatial distribution as well. Find distribution on arable fields can reveal peasants’ votive practices as indicated by a project in Brabrant with striking distribution of coins and religious pendants,38 likewise in England by the spread of ampullae for holy water.39 Future projects in collaboration with metal detectorists might reveal similar patterns in Denmark. Also, small ‘coin hoards’ or apparently ‘destroyed’ coins or ‘virtual coins’, as defined by McCormick,40 listed in the inventories at the Royal Collection of Coins and Medals at the National Museum might reveal lay religious practices in a landscape blessed by God. An ongoing project in Sweden on lay devotion in rural and urban contexts based on the spread of small finds suggests that domestic space played a greater role in urban devotion while the landscape was a part of rural ritualization.41 However, the dataset is heavily biased by different preservation and excavation methods in urban and rural contexts as well as strict Swedish legislation that forbids metal-detecting by amateurs. Small finds in a rural context are therefore under-represented. The much more liberal Danish legislation gives a unique opportunity to explore these proposed societal differences incorporating data from the landscape as well. Nevertheless, the Nordic countries are in general distinctive in having preserved a large number of objects coming from rural parish churches. This was the case of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Nordic altarpieces, while 36 Regner, ‘Lay Devotion’, p. 310; Verspay, ‘Brabantian Fields’, p. 324. 37 Regner, ‘Lay Devotion’. 38 Verspay, ‘Brabantian Fields’. 39 Anderson, ‘Blessing the Fields?’; Gilchrist, Sacred Heritage, pp. 131–33. 40 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy. 41 Regner, ‘Lay Devotion’.

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in the core countries of Western Europe the items preserved come from the most outstanding churches.42 Another aspect that deserves further development in Denmark is the recent concept of ‘monastic landscape’ (Klosterlandschaft). This has offered a new and complex interpretational framework, considering that commonalities and specific features of monasteries depended not only on their order but also, and mostly, on the social and religious networks within a specific geographical area. This has been explored in the analysis of monastic foundations by different scholars.43 This comparative analysis between different ‘monastic landscapes’ has been approached in several workshops and conferences during recent years.44

Sensing and Experiencing the Sacred Several of the papers in the volume highlight the importance of the senses, the body, and physical movements. An increased desire for bodily intimacy with the objects in the church interior and sensorial interactions with relics made reliquaries more accessible as they developed into a higher degree of visibility, for example by adding hatches or using rock crystal. A recent study of the materiality of devotion in late medieval Northern Europe reminds us that medieval theories on perception acknowledged the indispensable connection between sensing and cognition.45 The sensorium was a combination of outer sensory instruments and inner sensory faculties. The sensory world was regarded as: Immanently spiritual and the senses were able to ‘see through’ the surface of things and perceive their inner essence or quiddity […] Body and soul, inner and outer, interiority and exteriority, materiality and spirituality were reciprocally intertwined; the one could not exist without the other; and medieval men and women were well aware of this.46 The gaze was the most prominent of the five senses, the gates to the soul. From the late twelfth century on the act of gazing upon the sacred became a more and more important element in the acts of devotion and experiencing

42 Nyborg, ‘Retables with Two Spires’, p. 185. 43 Felten, ‘Klosterlandschafte’; Melville, ‘Klosterlandschaft’; Röckelein, Schriftlandschaften. 44 Among them, we can quote those jointly organized by the University of Göttingen and the Central European University, Budapest in 2009, 2010, and 2016. It is also worth mentioning the conference held on August 2015, in Ennis, Ireland and organized by ‘Monastic Ireland’, a digital humanities project which seeks to create a comprehensive database of the medieval monastic houses in Ireland. Another example is COLéMON: A Digital Corpus of Geo-located French Monasteries and Collegiate Churches of the Middle Ages (816–1563). 45 Laugerud, Ryan, and Skinnebach, ‘Introduction’. 46 Laugerud, Ryan, and Skinnebach, ‘Introduction’, pp. 2–4.

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the sacred. Recent concerns on how to apply reception and visual theories based on modern visuality to medieval reality may inspire the development of new methodologies for studies of sensing materiality and the sacred.47 Recent scholarship on the medieval relic cult has stressed the increasing desire for sensorial interaction with relics, mainly through vision, in parallel with the growing Eucharistic devotion and the necessity of viewing and adoring the Host. However, following some decrees issued by the Lateran Council of 1215 new contradictions arose. Increased emphasis was placed on the doctrine of the real presence, and the vision of the Host, truly transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ became fundamental.48 However, it was difficult to combine this with other prescriptions, like the observance of enclosure in female convents.49 Another point of the council was the prohibition of the exposition of relics extra capsam.50 As a result, new solutions were introduced in order to satisfy the growing demand for relics to be visually accessible to the faithful without compromising this edict, including new typologies of reliquaries.51 The relationship between the votaries and the objects can be analysed in some cases through the rubrics included in liturgical and prayer books.52 However, according to these, rituals involved not only the sight but also other senses. Devotees kissed images (illuminations); they sewed and pasted images and curtains into manuscripts that were already complete to increase the tangible ceremony.53 Indeed, the sacred was conceived to be experienced not only by sight, but also (and sometimes primarily) by hearing and touch.54

Devotees and Devoted Liepe (this volume) discusses why the materiality of the relic was a constitutional component of its ontology. Relics were left behind by the saints and had therefore a double identity as immaterial and material. Since they were alive in heaven their presence in the relics was not merely symbolic, but actual, and opened the door to interaction between man and the divine. Veneration of materiality has a growing importance during the Middle Ages. Although the

47 Visuality is defined as the social and cultural constructedness of vision, references in Giles, ‘Seeing and Believing’, p. 106; see also Giles, ‘Seeing and Believing’; Bynum, Christian Materiality, p. 32; Palazzo, L’ invention chrétienne. 48 García y García, ‘Les constituciones del Concilio IV Lateranense’, p. 210. 49 Bruzelius, ‘Hearing Is Believing’. 50 Concilium Lateranense, Constitutiones, ed. by García y García, pp. 101–03. 51 Fricke, ‘Visages démasqués’, mentioned in Liepe, this volume. 52 As analysed by Laura Katrine Skinnebach regarding the use of wax, this volume. 53 Rudy, ‘Kissing Images’. 54 Palazzo, L’ invention chrétienne, pp. 31–39; Carrillo-Rangel, Nieto-Isabel, and Acosta-García, eds, Touching.

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sanctioned theological distinction at the Nicaea II Council between what is divine and what is representation of the divine is upheld, there was a strong popular belief in the inherent power of relics to work miracles (like animism) independently of the mediating agency of the saint. The increasing desire for sensorial, primarily visual, interaction with the relics resulted in the reliquaries being constructed so they reflected the content and were visually accessible with hatches or transparent materials. Liepe’s paper contributes to the important discussion of relics and their powers, which is probably the longest ongoing discussion of human–object relations at all (recorded in writing), dating back to the birth of Christianity. Since the turn of the millennium new ideas of reconceptualization of the relationships between things and people have been forwarded, building on agency debates of the 1980s and onwards. In recent debates the view has also been raised that ‘rather than assuming the world can be purified into distinct categories named “object” and “subject”, social sciences proceed from the assumption that objects and subjects, people and things are comingled and relationally attached’.55 While these ideas are based on modern constructions of ‘flat ontologies’, Heilskov (this volume) instead directs our attention towards a historical contextual approach, importantly acknowledging a medieval intellectual framework of how to think about spirit and matter. This refers to recent criticism by Caroline Walker Bynum, who is concerned with this important point that is missed in universalizing and ahistorical Bruno Latour-inspired paradigms and theories on object-agency in archaeology and the social sciences.56 Gell regarded art as technology for achieving an intended effect upon the viewer depending on specific cultural knowledge and anticipating performance — a technology of enchantment. Statues and images communicated with gazes, objects were touched. Religious objects evoked an effect on the devotee ‘through their aesthetic qualities, design style, or technological qualities’.57 Some have argued that objects are not merely ‘secondary’ agents (in Gell’s notion of agency), but both humans and things indeed have agency. Heilskov (this volume) argues that practical enactment in ritual or private devotion constructed a desire for a person-to-person interaction with the sacred. Interactions with holy matter could be experienced as corporeal reality, and Morgan explains how images or objects operated in their own right as instruments or technological devices, and relied on display and placement to shape human response to them.58

55 Overview and references in Jones and Boivin, ‘The Malice of Inanimate Objects’, quote p. 345; Overholtzer and Robin, ‘The Materiality of Everyday Life’. 56 Bynum, Christian Materiality, p. 31. 57 Gell, ‘The Technology of Enchantment’ and Art and Agency; quote Robb, ‘What Do Things Want?’, p. 171. 58 Morgan, ‘Place and the Instrumentality of Religious Artifacts’, p. 124.

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Within the framework of medieval rationality relics did not only act and were able to do something through divine agency, reliquaries and inanimate objects and materials also had the inherent potential to act on other things,59 and ‘informed, prompted and channelled human responses’ by their design.60 According to Cynthia Hahn, ‘reliquaries are the means by which the cultural value of relics is asserted’. By this process, defined as ‘reliquary effect’, the relic is established as a sacred object through the act of enshrinement.61 A rethinking of ‘not so human centred’ relational possibilities shows religious images and objects can have their own agendas. Their empowerment and animating qualities were created by relations, interactions, and negotiations between devotees (‘human persons’) and statues (‘statue persons’),62 just like the bleeding wafers in Wilsnack,63 and saintly sculptures and crucifixes coming alive and embracing the devotee or presenting gifts.64 Interdisciplinary problem-solving involving knowledge on medieval ideas of material qualities, objects’ agencies, and relational relationships might establish new insights in discussions of relational agency and influence future studies of the social life of religious objects and their devotees. It might also be a way to link deep theories with applicable theories,65 and in this way, join a broader research community on the question ‘What do materials and things do and what do they want?’ and how does this effect our understanding of materials, materiality, and religious practice. An attention to object design might be a further methodological tool to understand the relationship of objects, devotees, and practices, and the discursive role of objects, as proposed by Heilskov (this volume). As this article and other works show, the relationship between the material representations (holy matter) and the emotions is negotiated and culturally specific. Not only the Protestant Reformation, but also Catholic observant reformers gave advice about avoiding ‘excessive’ physical display so as to inspire appropriate feelings.

The Meaning of Matter Skinnebach (this volume) discusses the devotional significance of wax objects, and the symbolic and material significance of wax itself. Wax was one of the most frequently mentioned props of devotional practice in Danish prayer books. Through selected examples, she demonstrates how it could be part of intricate compositions of devotional practices where the production of 59 Gilchrist, ‘Medieval Archaeology and Theory’, p. 394. 60 Robb, ‘What Do Things Want?’, p. 168. 61 Hahn, The Reliquary Effect. 62 Whitehead, Religious Statues and Personhood, p. 4. 63 Bynum, Wonderful Blood, pp. 25–46. 64 Jürgensen, ‘Altering the Sacred Face’, pp. 94–99. 65 Robb, ‘What Do Things Want?’.

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candles, and thread and wax constituted movements and objects central for a year-long meditation on the Annunciation. It could also be formed as an image of Saint Catherine and transformed into a candle and burned in her honour. She points at the transformation from image into candle as a constituting change in the ritual, where the practitioner was able to ask anything. When the image disappeared into an unspoken prayer of smoke and the scent of wax the materiality transformed into immaterial spirit and the memory of the devotee. Skinnebach concludes that the symbolic importance of the materiality of wax was related to its metaphorical image of memory as cognitive impressions or ‘seal in wax’ and the presence of Christ in material objects because of its material potential to hold impressions or signs and its mouldable and transitory materiality. The example of wax and all its transformations provide an inspiring example on how studies of materials and their properties can bring mind and matter together. Heilskov (this volume) is also concerned with shapes and materials pointing to the materiality of miraculous objects and the physicality of veneration. Evidence of the wear and repair of reliquaries is probably the result of touching and kissing by devotees and other sorts of use and handling,66 as happened also with books of prayers and other manuscripts.67 Narwhale tusks were deliberately appointed new identities as unicorn horns with multiple levels of religious significance.68 Materials had a spiritual merit which was equated with worth, and medieval sources often describe liturgical objects and reliquaries in terms of their cost.69 Precious metals were selected not only because they were expensive and rare but also because they were thought to be pure and incorruptible. Gems were believed to be alive and contain cosmic powers and they were associated with virtues. The gems were powerful instruments of healing themselves, possessing powers similar and complementary to those of saints’ relics, and as explained by Bagnoli in this way ‘materials mediated, and even facilitated, the fusion of relics and the art-objects called upon to enshrine them’.70

Lived Religion and Personal Objects Søvsø and Knudsen (this volume) discuss private devotion on the basis of small objects from archaeological excavations and metal-detecting. Except prayer books,71 the textual traditions are usually not concerned when it comes to

66 Caple, Objects, p. 203. 67 Rudy, ‘Kissing Images’. 68 Pluskowski, ‘Narwhals or Unicorns?’. 69 Bagnoli, ‘The Stuff of Heaven’, p. 138. 70 Bagnoli, ‘The Stuff of Heaven’, p. 139. 71 For example, Skinnebach, ‘Transfiguration’.

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private devotion and daily practice in the household.72 The small objects reveal religious beliefs on a personal level that brings up other perspectives on medieval religiosity. Jewellery with Christian motifs or inscriptions, pilgrimage badges, rosaries, and other objects were believed to have immanent qualities. In the late Middle Ages, objects like rosaries developed from a mnemotechnical tool to a sign of piety on the Day of Judgement, and pilgrimage badges developed from signs of pilgrimage to amulets with immanent powers. Christensen and Bjerregaard (this volume) discuss how rosaries and pilgrimage badges in graves reflect ideas of death and salvation as concealed material signs. Many objects were small but powerful religious symbols, and some were even more powerful if carried hidden or close to the body, like inscriptions inside finger rings or at the rear of belt buckles. Søvsø and Knudsen (this volume) have selected metal objects as their empirical departure point, but the repertoire of devotional objects and their materiality was much wider, here in the words of Laura Skinnebach: Materiality and material objects such as devotional book or primers, portable or stationary images, single leaf prints with a combination of illustration and prayers, letters of indulgence containing devotional guidance, pilgrimage badges, rosaries, birth girdles and other small textual amulets, to mention just a selection, were assigned an important role in the performance of devotional practices where they were touched, kissed, beheld, kept in a purse or pocket, hung on the wall or from the belt or sewn into the clothes of the owner.73 The small objects discussed in this volume tap into a rising concern with how medieval men and women constructed and enacted devotional practices outside the church. It is a fairly undeveloped research topic but seems to have attracted a bourgeoning interest in archaeology. Studies of material culture have questioned the dichotomies of ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ as not clearly distinguishable and argued that religion was not compartmentalized but infused life in general.74 Lived religion, religion at work in forms of formal and informal practices in everyday life,75 are by some scholars regarded as more constitutive of religion than creeds and doctrines, but a holistic approach combining the ‘realms’ might be more in line with medieval ‘lived’ religiosity. In Martin Hall’s wording, ‘communities and individuals defined their Christianity more broadly than (and with some tolerance by) Church authorities and had no qualms about hybridizing formal orthodoxy with “traditional” folk beliefs in their praxis’.76 There are many examples of apotropaic objects as

72 73 74 75 76

Deane, ‘Medieval Domestic Devotion’. Skinnebach, ‘Transfiguration’, p. 92. Hall, ‘The Cult of Saints’; Gilchrist, Medieval Life, pp. 154–68. McGuire, ‘Why Bodies Matter’; Morgan, ‘The Material Culture of Lived Religions’. Hall, ‘The Cult of Saints’, p. 84.

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part of mundane material culture in medieval Denmark: lead amulets with inscriptions were sewn into clothes and worn close to the body for protection against elves and to secure help from the divine, and animal bones, knives, and other objects were concealed in dwellings.77 Latin inscriptions on small objects, some reflecting the heard and not the read Latin, some combining apotropaic incantations with learned Latin as well as a variety of prayers, pose questions regarding the involvement of priests in lay religious practice, church language as part of personal devotion, and early literacy.78 Religion was everywhere and is to be found everywhere entangled in the materiality of the practices of everyday life. Working with archaeology’s material record offers a powerful lens on this theme, informing interdisciplinary research on how objects were used to enact everyday beliefs and practices away from the formalized sphere of the Church,79 and where the micro and macro levels of social lives from individuals to institutions and society intersect.80

Technologies of Religious Practice Several of the papers are concerned with the instrumentality of practice. Skinnebach discusses changing materialities as anchor points in devotional practice and Jürgensen the wide variety of ceremonial objects and their role in late medieval church ceremonies stressing their importance in revealing the divine for the congregation on equal terms with the spoken words and performed gestures. Since the late 1990s, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of objects as cognitive technologies.81 Objects function as anchors in a conceptual world bridging the abstract and the concrete, and objects and images were instruments of devotion through which practices were articulated and the bodily sensorium elongated.82 The materiality or material presence of the ceremonial objects and relics was absolutely crucial to the expression of the ceremonies and in this context vivid colours, precious metals, and splendour were the primary ways of signalling to the beholder that these objects functioned as material symbols of, or placeholders for the holy, giving form to the formless.83 Contemporary texts describe how objects were visible reflections of the invisible. Jürgensen therefore warns us to look at objects as mere tools; they 77 Falk, En grundläggande handling; Søvsø, Søvsø, and Siggaard, ‘Om hugorme’. 78 Imer, Peasants and Prayers; Imer and Stemann-Petersen, ‘Vi folder historien ud’. 79 Hall, ‘The Cult of Saints’; Overholtzer and Robin, ‘The Materiality of Everyday Life’. 80 Overholtzer and Robin, ‘The Materiality of Everyday Life’. 81 Among the first works to explore this in-depth, Van Os, The Art of Devotion. 82 Laugerud and Skinnebach, ‘Introduction’; Skinnebach, ‘“Dhette er oret”’. 83 Jürgensen, this volume.

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were a part of the ceremony, where their main task was to be seen and to point to dogmatic beliefs and invisible and intellectual qualities in the church space. He explains how: All objects in the church manifested or revealed the Church’s teaching; along with the words and gestures of the liturgy, they amplified the internalization process of acknowledging and repeating basic, dogmatic religious truths. They demonstrated aspects of faith which words had difficulty expressing, such as the ‘holy’, as well as the sense of what we would call transcendence. Also, they anchored the liturgy by adding material substance to the space of the ritual and a visible fullness beyond the corporeal presence of clergy and congregation.84 Objects, words, and gestures formed part of a complex dialectical relationship in liturgical space to establish the sensory impression that would reveal the divine. The handling of objects and the words framing and showing them embraced all levels of cognition as defined by medieval liturgists and theologians, like Hugo of Saint Victor, as stated previously. In a special issue on Technologies of the Mind the editors argue, ‘the human mind […] is both masterfully and helplessly intertwined with technology’ and suggest that ‘this represents a distinct and comprehensive challenge for the cognitive sciences and collaborating disciplines’.85 Such an interdisciplinary collaboration with cognitive sciences for studies of religious practice in the Middle Ages might constitute a promising strategy for future interdisciplinary research in what they define as ‘material practices that allow people to act on the world in a particular way’.86 Johannsen suggests that the archaeological and historical record of the past constitutes an important resource for understanding how such relationships develop through time.87

Other Perspectives to Be Developed Before concluding this epilogue, we would like to offer a brief introduction to other perspectives that deserve still further development in Denmark. Digital Humanities

A dramatic rise in digitized and digital data paves the way for new research areas and questions. With access to increasingly stronger processors and a variety of databases on primary texts and images, the application of 3D models

84 85 86 87

Jürgensen, this volume, p. 107. Johannsen, McGraw, and Roepstorff, ‘Introduction’, p. 337. Johannsen, McGraw, and Roepstorff, ‘Introduction’, p. 337. Johannsen, ‘Deus ex machina’, p. 445.

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on artefacts, landscapes, and buildings could form a playground for virtual and augmented reality reconstructions of assemblages of spaces, people, movements, sensing, and objects to understand how medieval religiosity functioned. However, for archaeology to play a more active role in future research, it would be helpful if archaeological data infrastructure was digitized and made easily accessible for researchers.88 Right now, data in the Danish national databases are difficult to access. Therefore, the launch of the new national database DIME based on user-driven find registration of metal objects will hopefully make the many finds more easily available for research,89 and inform questions like the adaption of ritual behaviour, how religious ideas were embedded in daily life, and reveal possible differences in rural and urban devotion as discussed above. Material Culture and Memory. Shaping and Reshaping Memory

We have mentioned the role of material culture (objects, artefacts, relics) in shaping the memory of the devotee. Moreover, some scholars have shown the political or intentional dimensions of collective memory. In many cases, it constitutes an interpretation or even a conscious recreation of the past, a creation that was achieved through different means. For instance, commemorative rituals, tombs, and other funerary monuments created and preserved an individual’s funerary memory, whereas chronicles, cartularies, documental corpora, hagiographies, relics, and liturgy helped shaping the collective memory and identity of a religious community.90 According to Geary, the creation of the past, whether individual or collective, ‘seemed far from a natural and spontaneous development from “collective memory”’.91 In many cases, texts (chronicles, collections of documents, necrologies, etc.), as well as some images, objects, relics, and other artefacts were manipulated, rewritten, reformed, and reinterpreted within new theological, logical, and political contexts with a specific purpose.92 So, many of these artefacts changed meaning and function throughout time. In the same way, due to theological and devotional changes some objects were abandoned or deliberately destroyed as pointed out by Heilskov in this volume. Recently Thomas Noble used the term ‘virtual materiality’ to speak about objects that no longer exist but we are aware of thanks to substantial descriptions in texts.93 The study of

88 Kristiansen, ‘Towards a New Paradigm?’, p. 17. 89 Dobat and Jensen, ‘“Professional Amateurs”’. 90 Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance; Räsänen, Hartmann, and Richards, eds, Relics, Identity, and Memory. 91 Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance, p. 7. 92 Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance, pp. 7, 176. 93 ‘Virtual Materiality’ was the title of a series of lectures delivered by Thomas F. X. Noble between 2016 and 2018.

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Laura Katrine Skinnebach about wax in this volume also employs a similar methodological approach. The exploration of the shaping of memory through materiality or through virtual materiality may stimulate future research that could offer new insights. Gendered Materiality and Monastic Spaces

As we have already mentioned, several studies have shown the utility and necessity of a gender approach in the study of topographic space.94 Moreover, we should consider the extent to which gender as a theme in the study of materiality can provide further insight. Studies on textiles and manuscripts from female convents have shown the role of materiality in the shaping of religious identity and memory of these communities, for instance, in the case of the production and use of textiles in German nunneries,95 or the function of manuscripts and textiles in the context of the Brigittine Order.96 Circulation of Artefacts among Different European Territories

As we have seen in the essay by Søvsø and Knudsen (this volume), objects from other territories reached Scandinavia in the Middle Ages. They can be linked to the pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela, Cologne, Rocamadour, and Saint Guilhem-le-Désert in the south of France. Whether these objects implied a physical peregrination or more a spiritual or virtual one remains however open. Pilgrimage badges and other small devotional images were mass-produced and they became ‘an integrated part of a shared European material culture’.97 This circulation and exchange of artefacts among different European territories was bidirectional and it deserves further exploration. For instance, the treasury of the collegiate church of San Isidoro in León holds several objects from diverse geographic origins.98 Among them, we find a cylindrical container of Viking origin.99 This box is very important, as it constitutes a hybrid object that reflects a fusion of various cultural references (Nordic or Scandinavian and Islamic). Indeed, it does not match the function of any known Scandinavian item of this period.100

94 Gilchrist, Medieval Life; Ferrari, ‘I monasteri femminili’; Odenthal, ‘maiorem ecclesiam’. 95 Seeberg, ‘Women as Makers’ and Textile Bildwerke. 96 Carrillo-Rangel, ‘Textual Mirrors and Spiritual Reality’, pp. 160–83. 97 Søvsø and Knudsen, this volume, p. 209. 98 Martín, The Medieval Iberian Treasury. 99 Roesdahl, ‘From Scandinavia to Spain’; Franco Valle, ‘Viking Art in the Church’; Wicker, ‘The Scandinavian Container at San Isidoro’. 100 Wicker, ‘The Scandinavian Container at San Isidoro’, p. 18.

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Concluding Remarks and Multi- and Interdisciplinary Research in the Future? The cross-disciplinary interest in materiality has inspired an increasing appreciation of the entanglement of materials, materiality, senses, and religious practice in the medieval religious world. Claimed as an interdisciplinary field of inquiry it has until recently, however, shown a strong profile of multidisciplinarity, meaning researchers might be inspired by and even draw on empirical data, theoretical approaches, and methods from neighbouring disciplines but they are generally still disciplinarily bounded ontologically in their approaches to materiality when exploring these in a true interdisciplinary setting. The purpose of interdisciplinarity is not to go along with a trend in academia in general, but more importantly to encourage us to ask new and bolder questions to fully understand the materiality of religious practice, not as mere physicality of practice but as entanglement of materials and materiality, actions and practice, senses and sentiments. This call is demonstrated most pronouncedly by Jürgensen (this volume) in his discussion on objects and materials in late medieval church rites, where he argues for an ‘interdisciplinary perspective on this topic of liturgy and materiality, not least because the sources themselves seem to demand such an approach’.101 The contributions in this anthology not only reflect a multidisciplinary approach, but they strive to go beyond and to establish a common ground for a broader interdisciplinary field of materiality and religious practice in Denmark. Thus, this volume is pioneering in pushing established frames, paving the way for further interdisciplinary research in the future.

Works Cited Primary Sources Concilium Lateranense, Constitutiones Concilii quarti Lateranensis una cum commentariis glossatorum, ed. by Antonio García y García, Monumenta iuris canonici. Series A: corpus glossatorum, 2 (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca apostolica Vaticana, 1981) Secondary Works Anderson, William, ‘Blessing the Fields? A Study of Late-Medieval Ampullae from England and Wales’, Medieval Archaeology, 54 (2010), 182–203 Andersson, Lars, Pilgrimsmärken och vallfart: Medeltida pilgrimskultur i Skandinavien, Lund Studies in Medieval Archaeology, 7 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1989)

101 Jürgensen, this volume, p. 116, our italics.

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Andrews, Frances, ed., Ritual and Space in the Middle Ages: Proceedings of the 2009 Harlaxton Symposium 2009, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 21 (Donington: Tyas, 2011) Bagnoli, Martina, ‘The Stuff of Heaven. Materials and Craftsmanship’, in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe, ed. by Martina Bagnoli and others (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 137–47 Bisgaard, Lars, Lars Boje Mortensen, and Thomas Pettitt, eds, Guilds, Towns and Cultural Transmission in the North, 1300–1500 (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2013) Bis-Worch, Christiane, and Claudia Theune, eds, Religion, Cults & Rituals in the Medieval Rural Environment, Ruralia, 11 (Leiden: Sidestone, 2017) Bruzelius, Caroline, ‘Hearing Is Believing: Clarissan Architecture, ca. 1213–1340’, Gesta, 31 (1992), 83–91 Bynum, Caroline Walker, Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond, The Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007) ———, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone, 2011) Caple, Chris, Objects: Reluctant Witnesses to the Past (London: Routledge, 2006) Carrillo-Rangel, David, ‘Textual Mirrors and Spiritual Reality: Exempla, Mnemonic Devices and Performance in the Birgittine Order’, in Continuity and Change: Papers from the Birgitta Conference at Dartington 2015, ed. by Elin Andersson and others, Konferenser, 93 (Stockholm: Kungl. Vitterhetsakademien, 2017), pp. 160–83 Carrillo-Rangel, David, Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel, and Pablo Acosta-García, eds, Touching, Devotional Practices, and Visionary Experience in the Late Middle Ages (London: Palgrave, 2019) Cassidy-Welch, Megan, Monastic Spaces and their Meanings: Thirteenth-Century English Cistercian Monasteries, Medieval Church Studies, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001) Chidester, David, Christianity: A Global History (London: Allen Lane, 2000) Christensen, Jakob Tue, and Mikael Manøe Bjerregaard, ‘Materiality in Medieval Burials’, in Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix and Mads Vedel Heilskov, Acta Scandinavica, 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 239–68 Coll., Gesta, 51.1 (2012) Cordez, Philippe, ‘Objektwissenschaft. Die kunsthistorische Objektwissenschaft und ihre Forschungsperspektiven’, Kunstchronik, 67 (2014), 364–72 Deane, Jennifer Kolpacoff, ‘Medieval Domestic Devotion’, History Compass, 11.1 (2013), 66–76 Dobat, Andres S., and Astrid T. Jensen, ‘“Professional Amateurs”. Metal Detecting and Metal Detectorists in Denmark’, Open Archaeology, 2 (2016), 70–84 Ehrenschwendtner, Marie-Luise, ‘Virtual Pilgrimages? Enclosure and the Practice of Piety at St Katherine’s Convent, Augsburg’, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 60 (2009), 45–73

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Engelke, Matthew, ‘Material Religion’, in The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies, ed. by Robert A. Orsi, Cambridge Companions to Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 209–29 Falk, Ann-Britt, En grundläggande handling: Byggnadsoffer och dagligt liv medeltid, Vägar til Midgård, 12 (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2008) Felten, Franz J., ‘Klosterlandschafte’, in Landschaft(en): Begriffe, Formen, Implikationen, ed. by Franz J. Felten, Harald Müller, and Heidrun Ochs, Geschichtliche Landeskunde, 68 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2012), pp. 157–94 Ferrari, Stella, ‘I monasteri femminili di Milano nella topografia liturgica: contesti architettonici e figurativi tra VII e XIII secolo’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Milan, 2016) Franco Valle, Rebeca, ‘Viking Art in the Church: A Scandinavian Casket in San Isidoro de León, Spain’ (unpublished master’s thesis, University of Oslo, 2016) Fricke, Beate, ‘Visages démasqués. Un nouveau type de reliquaire chez les Anjou’, in Le portrait individual: réflexions autour d’une forme de représentation XIII–XVe siècles, ed. by Dominic Olariu (Bern: Lang, 2009), pp. 34–63 García y García, Antonio, ‘Les constituciones del Concilio IV Lateranense de 1215’, in Innocenzo III: urbis et orbis; atti dell congresso internazionali, Roma, 9–15 settembre 1998, i, ed. by Andrea Sommerlechner, Nuovi studi storici, 55 (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il medioevo, 2003), pp. 200–24 Geary, Patrick J., Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) Gell, Alfred, ‘The Technology of Enchantment’, in Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics, ed. by Jeremy Coote and Anthony Shelton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 40–63 ———, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998) Gilchrist, Roberta, ‘Medieval Archaeology and Theory: A Disciplinary Leap of Faith’, in Reflections: 50 Years of Medieval Archaeology, 1957–2007, ed. by Roberta Gilchrist and Andrew Reynolds, Society for Medieval Archaeology, Monographs, 30 (Leeds: Maney, 2009), pp. 385–408 ———, Medieval Life: Archaeology and the Life Course (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2012) ———, Sacred Heritage: Monastic Archaeology, Identities, Beliefs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020) Giles, Kate, ‘Seeing and Believing: Visuality and Space in Pre-modern England’, World Archaeology, 39 (2007), 105–21 Hahn, Cynthia, The Reliquary Effect: Enshrining the Sacred Object (London: Reaktion, 2017) Hall, Mark A., ‘The Cult of Saints in Medieval Perth: Everyday Ritual and the Materiality of Belief ’, Journal of Material Culture, 16 (2011), 80–104 Hamilton, Sarah, and Andrew Spicer, ‘Defining the Holy: The Delineation of Sacred Space’, in Defining the Holy. Sacred Space in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. by Andrew Spicer and Sarah Hamilton (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 1–23 Heilskov, Mads Vedel, ‘Living Matter in Medieval Denmark’, in Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix and Mads Vedel Heilskov, Acta Scandinavica, 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 147–80

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Hicks, Dan, ‘The Material-Cultural Turn. Event and Effect’, in The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, ed. by Dan Hicks and Mary C. Beaudry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 25–98 Imer, Lisbeth, Peasants and Prayers: The Inscriptions of Norse Greenland, Publications from the National Museum, 25 (Copenhagen: The National Museum, 2017) Imer, Lisbeth, and Karen Stemann-Petersen, ‘Vi folder historien ud — amuletter af bly fra middelalderens Bornholm’, Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (2016), 118–29 Johannsen, Niels, ‘Deus ex machina: Technological Experience as a Cognitive Resource in Bronze Age Conceptualizations of Astronomical Phenomena’, Journal of Cognition and Culture, 14 (2014), 435–48 Johannsen, Niels, John McGraw, and Andreas Roepstorff, ‘Introduction: Technologies of the Mind’, Journal of Cognition and Culture, 14 (2014), 335–43 Jones, Andrew M., and Nicole Boivin, ‘The Malice of Inanimate Objects. Material Agency’, in The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, ed. by Dan Hicks and Mary C. Beaudry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 333–51 Jürgensen, Martin Wangsgaard, ‘Altering the Sacred Face’, in Resonances: Historical Essays on Continuity and Change, ed. by Nils Holger Petersen, Eyolf Østrem, and Andreas Bücker, Ritus et artes, 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 81–110 ———, Changing Interiors: Danish Village Churches, c. 1450 to 1600 (Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, 2011) ———, ‘The Rhetoric of Splendor. Matter and the Invisible in SeventeenthCentury Church Art’, Transfiguration, 2012/13 (2012), 163–87 ———, ‘Making the Liturgy Manifest: Objects and Materials in Late Medieval Church Rites’, in Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix and Mads Vedel Heilskov, Acta Scandinavica, 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 95–121 Karlsson, Mattias, Konstruktionen av det heliga: Altarna i det medeltida Lunds stift, Skånsk senmedeltid och renässans, 23 (Lund: Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund, 2015) Kohlschein, Franz, and Peter Wünsche, eds, Heiliger Raum: Architektur, Kunst und Liturgie in mittelalterlichen Kathedralen und Stiftskirchen, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen, 82 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1998) Kristiansen, Kristian, ‘Towards a New Paradigm? The Third Science Revolution and its Possible Consequences in Archaeology’, Current Swedish Archaeology, 22 (2014), 11–71 Larsen, Morten, ‘Research History — Materiality and Medieval Religious Practice in Danish Research’, in Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix and Mads Vedel Heilskov, Acta Scandinavica, 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 27–50 Laugerud, Henning, and Laura K. Skinnebach, ‘Introduction’, in Instruments of Devotion: The Practices and Objects of Religious Piety from the Late Middle Ages to the 20th Century, ed. by Henning Laugerud and Laura K. Skinnebach, European Network on the Instruments of Devotion, 1 (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2007), pp. 9–13

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Laugerud, Henning, Salvador Ryan, and Laura K. Skinnebach, ‘Introduction’, in The Materiality of Devotion in Late Medieval Northern Europe: Images, Objects, Practices, ed. by Henning Laugerud, Salvador Ryan, and Laura K. Skinnebach (Dublin: Four Courts, 2016), pp. 1–9 Liepe, Lena, ‘Holy Heads. Pope Lucius’ Skull in Roskilde and the Role of Relics in Medieval Spirituality’, in Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix and Mads Vedel Heilskov, Acta Scandinavica, 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 123–46 Martin, Therese, ed., The Medieval Iberian Treasury in the Context of Cultural Interchange, expanded edn (Leiden: Brill, 2020) McCormick, Michael, Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, a.d. 300–900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) McGuire, Meredith B., ‘Why Bodies Matter: A Sociological Reflection on Spirituality and Materiality’, Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, 3 (2003), 1–18 Mecham, June L., ‘A Northern Jerusalem: Transforming the Spatial Geography of the Convent of Wienhausen’, in Defining the Holy: Sacred Space in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. by Andrew Spicer and Sarah Hamilton (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 139–60 Melville, Gert, ‘Klosterlandschaft’, in Landschaft(en): Begriffe, Formen, Implikationen, ed. by Franz J. Felten, Harald Müller, and Heidrun Ochs, Geschichtliche Landeskunde, 68 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2012), pp. 195–222 Miles, Margaret, ‘Image’, in Critical Terms for Religious Studies, ed. by Mark C. Taylor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 160–72 Morgan, David, ‘The Material Culture of Lived Religions: Visuality and Embodiment’, in Mind and Matter: Selected Papers of NORDIK 2009, Conference for Art Historians, Jyväskylä, September 17.-19.2009, ed. by Johanna Vakkari, Studies in Art History, 41 (Helsinki: Taidehistorian seuria, 2010), pp. 14–31 ———, ‘Place and the Instrumentality of Religious Artifacts’, Kunst og Kultur, 99.3 (2016), 122–31 Nuechterlein, Jeanne, ‘The Domesticity of Sacred Space in the Fifteenth-Century Netherlands’, in Defining the Holy: Sacred Space in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. by Andrew Spicer and Sarah Hamilton (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 49–97 Nyborg, Ebbe, ‘Retables with Two Spires: A Contribution on the Early Development of the Altarpiece’, in The Altar and its Environment 1150–1400, ed. by Justin E. A. Kroesen and Victor M. Schmidt, Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages, 4 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), pp. 193–201 Odenthal, Andreas, ‘maiorem ecclesiam esse matrem omnium ecclesiarum totius villae. On the Sacral Topography of Nivelles Based on the Liber ordinarius’, in The ‘Liber ordinarius’ of Nivelles (Houghton Library, MS Lat 422): Liturgy as Interdisciplinary Intersection, ed. by Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Eva Schlotheuber, Spätmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation, 111 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020)

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Overholtzer, Lisa, and Cynthia Robin, ‘The Materiality of Everyday Life: An Introduction’, Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 26 (2015), 1–9 Palazzo, Éric, L’invention chrétienne des cinq sens dans la liturgie et l’art au Moyen Âge (Paris: Cerf, 2014) Pestell, Tim, ‘Using Material Culture to Define Holy Space: The Bromholm Project’, in Defining the Holy: Sacred Space in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. by Andrew Spicer and Sarah Hamilton (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 161–86 Petersen, Nils Holger, ‘Medieval Liturgical Books and Notions of Sacramentality?’, in Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix and Mads Vedel Heilskov, Acta Scandinavica, 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 71–94 Pérez Vidal, Mercedes, ‘Art, Visual Culture and Liturgy of Dominican Nuns in Late Medieval and Early Modern Castile’, in Artiste nel chiostro: produzione artistica nei monasteri femminili in età moderna, ed. by Sheila Barker and Luciano Cinelli, special issue of Memorie domenicane, 46 (2015), 225–42 Pluskowski, Aleksander G., ‘Narwhals or Unicorns? Exotic Animals as Material Culture in Medieval Europe’, European Journal of Archaeology, 7 (2005), 291–313 Regner, Elisabet, ‘Lay Devotion in Rural and Urban Contexts in Medieval Sweden’, in Religion, Cults & Rituals in the Medieval Rural Environment, ed. by Christiane Bis-Worch and Claudia Theune, Ruralia, 11 (Leiden: Sidestone, 2017), pp. 303–13 Robb, John, ‘What Do Things Want? Object Design as a Middle Range Theory of Material Culture’, Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 26 (2015), 166–80 Roesdahl, Else, ‘From Scandinavia to Spain: A Viking-Age Reliquary in León and its Meaning’, in The Viking Age: Ireland and the West, Proceedings of the Fifteenth Viking Congress, ed. by John Sheehan and Donnchadh Ó Corráin (Dublin: Four Courts, 2010), pp. 353–60 Rudy, Kathryn M., ‘Kissing Images, Unfurling Rolls, Measuring Wounds, Sewing Badges and Carrying Talismans: Considering Some Harley Manuscripts through the Physical Rituals they Reveal’, Electronic British Library Journal (2011), 1–56 ———, Virtual Pilgrimages in the Convent: Imagining Jerusalem in the Late Middle Ages, Disciplina monastica, 8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011) Räsänen, Marika, Gritje Hartmann, and Earl Jeffrey Richards, eds, Relics, Identity, and Memory in Medieval Europe, Europa sacra, 21 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016) Röckelein, Hedwig, Schriftlandschaften, Bildungslandschaften und religiöse Landschaften des Mittelalters in Norddeutschland, Wolfenbütteler Hefte, 33 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2015) Schribner, Robert W., Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London: Hambledon, 1987) Seeberg, Stefanie, ‘Women as Makers of Church Decoration: Illustrated Textiles at the Monasteries of Altenberg/Lahn, Rupertsberg, and Heiningen (13th–

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14th c.)’, in Reassessing the Roles of Women as ‘Makers’ of Medieval Art and Architecture, i, ed. by Therese Martin, Visualising the Middle Ages, 7 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 355–91 ———, Textile Bildwerke im Kirchenraum: Leinenstickereien im Kontext mittelalterlicher Raumausstattungen aus dem Prämonstratenserinnenkloster Altenberg/Lahn, Studien zur internationalen Architektur und Kunstgeschichte, 114 (Petersberg: Imhof, 2014) Skinnebach, Laura Katrine, ‘“Dhette er oret”. — Materielle forandringer som praksis og instrument’, Kunst og Kultur, 99.3 (2016), 154–62 ———, ‘Transfiguration: Change and Comprehension in Late Medieval Devotional Perception’, in The Materiality of Devotion in Late Medieval Northern Europe: Images, Objects, Practices, ed. by Henning Laugerud, Salvador Ryan, and Laura K. Skinnebach (Dublin: Four Courts, 2016), pp. 90–103 ———, ‘Materiality of Memory. The Use of Wax in Late Medieval Devotion in Denmark’, in Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix and Mads Vedel Heilskov, Acta Scandinavica, 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 217–37 Stabenow, Jörg, ed., Lo spazio e il culto: relazioni tra edificio ecclesiale e uso liturgico dal XV al XVI secolo: atti delle giornati di studio organizzate dal Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz 27–28 marzo 2003 (Venice: Marsilio, 2006) Søvsø, Mette Højmark, and Maria Knudsen, ‘Objects of Personal Devotion — Outer Markers and Inner Meanings’, in Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark, ed. by Sarah Croix and Mads Vedel Heilskov, Acta Scandinavica, 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 181–215 Søvsø, Morten, Mette Højmark Søvsø, and Anna Louise Siggaard, ‘Om hugorme, dyrekranier og tordensten: bygningsofre og andre skikke med rødder i folketroen’, By, marsk og geest, 28 (2016), 57–89 Thomas, Julian, ‘The Future of Archaeological Theory’, Antiquity, 89 (2015), 1287–96 Van Os, Henk W., The Art of Devotion in the Late Middle Ages in Europe: 1300–1500 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) Verspay, Johan P. W., ‘Brabantian Fields, Blessed Land. A Study about the Origins of Artefacts Found in Arable Land’, in Religion, Cults & Rituals in the Medieval Rural Environment, ed. by Christiane Bis-Worch and Claudia Theune, Ruralia, 11 (Leiden: Sidestone, 2017), pp. 315–24 Webb, Keane, ‘On the Materiality of Religion’, Material Religion, 4 (2008), 230–31 Whitehead, Amy, Religious Statues and Personhood: Testing the Role of Materiality (London: Bloomsbury, 2013) Wicker, Nancy L., ‘The Scandinavian Container at San Isidoro, León, in the Context of Viking Art and Society’, Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, 11 (2019), 135–56 Wienberg, Jes, Den gotiske labyrinth: Middelalderen og kirkerne i Danmark, Lund Studies in Medieval Archaeology, 11 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1993) Wolfendale, Pete, Object-Oriented Philosophy: The Noumenon’s New Clothes (Falmouth: Urbanomic, 2014)

Acta Scandinavica: Cambridge Studies in the Early Scandinavian World

All volumes in this series are evaluated by an Editorial Board, strictly on academic grounds, based on reports prepared by referees who have been commissioned by virtue of their specialism in the appropriate field. The Board ensures that the screening is done independently and without conflicts of interest. The definitive texts supplied by authors are also subject to review by the Board before being approved for publication. Further, the volumes are copyedited to conform to the publisher’s stylebook and to the best international academic standards in the field. The Nordic Apocalypse: Approaches to ‘Vǫluspá’ and Nordic Days of Judgement, ed. by Terry Gunnell and Annette Lassen (2013) Medieval Christianity in the North: New Studies, ed. by Kirsi Salonen, Kurt Villads Jensen, and Torstein Jørgensen (2013) New Approaches to Early Law in Scandinavia, ed. by Stefan Brink and Lisa Collinson (2013) Minni and Muninn: Memory in Medieval Nordic Culture, ed. by Pernille Hermann, Stephen A. Mitchell, and Agnes S. Arnórsdóttir (2014) Christian Oertel, The Cult of St Erik in Medieval Sweden: Veneration of a Royal Saint, Twelfth‒Sixteenth Centuries (2016) Studies in the Transmission and Reception of Old Norse Literature: The Hyperborean Muse in European Culture, ed. by Judy Quinn and Maria Adele Cipolla (2016) Theorizing Old Norse Myth, ed. by Stefan Brink and Lisa Collinson (2017) Moving Words in the Nordic Middle Ages: Tracing Literacies, Texts, and Verbal Communities, ed. by Amy C. Mulligan and Else Mundal (2019) Old Norse Myths as Political Ideologies: Critical Studies in the Appropriation of Medieval Narratives, ed. by Nicolas Meylan and Lukas Rösli (2020) Myths and Magic in the Medieval Far North: Realities and Representations of a Region on the Edge of Europe, ed. by Stefan Figenschow, Richard Holt, and Miriam Tveit (2020) Myth, Magic, and Memory in Early Scandinavian Narrative Culture: Studies in Honour of Stephen A. Mitchell, ed. by Jürg Glauser and Pernille Hermann, in collaboration with Stefan Brink and Joseph Harris (2021)

In preparation Sainthood, Scriptoria, and Secular Erudition in Medieval and Early Modern Scandinavia: Essays in Honour of Kirsten Wolf, ed. by Dario Bullitta and Natalia Van Deusen