Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages 9781501753862

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Standing ON Holy Ground Middle Ages

IN THE

Standing ON Holy Ground IN THE Middle Ages LUCY DONKIN

Cornell University Press · Ithaca and London

Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Millard Meiss Publication Fund of CAA. This publication is supported by the International Center of Medieval Art (www.medievalart.org) and The Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

Copyright © 2021 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. First published 2021 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Donkin, Lucy, author. Title: Standing on holy ground in the Middle Ages / Lucy Donkin. Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021003020 (print) | LCCN 2021003021 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501751127 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501753855 (epub) | ISBN 9781501753862 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Sacred space—Europe, Western—History—To 1500. | Sacred space—History—To 1500. | Space—Religious aspects— Christianity. Classification: LCC BV896.E85 D66 2022 (print) | LCC BV896.E85 (ebook) | DDC 263/.04240902—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021003020 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021003021 Cover illustration: Bishop writing the alphabet cross, missal-pontifical of Luçon, early fifteenth century. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat. 8886, fol. 355r. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

For JGD, in memory of RAD

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments

ix xv

List of Abbreviations Introduction

xvii

1

Chapter 1. Holy Footprints

23

Chapter 2. Church Consecration

80

Chapter 3. Trampling Underfoot

142

Chapter 4. Standing on Ceremony Chapter 5. Places of Prostration

202 278

Chapter 6. Between the Living and the Dead Conclusion

390

Bibliography

401

Index of Manuscripts Cited Index of Biblical Citations General Index

459

455 457

338

ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Christ flanked by St. John the Evangelist and St. Peter, with miners beneath, Schauinsland window, Freiburg im Breisgau Minster, 1340s. 8 2. Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box, sixth century. Vatican City, Vatican Museums, inv. 61883. 30 3. Site of the Ascension, Church of the Ascension, Jerusalem. 36 4. Plan of the Church of the Ascension showing the footprints of Christ, in a tenth- or eleventh-century manuscript of Bede’s De locis sanctis. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat. 2321, fol. 139v. 40 5. Ascension, Stammheim Missal, Saxony, 1170s. Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 64, fol. 115v. 43 6. Naddo Ceccarelli, reliquary tabernacle with Virgin and Child, Siena, ca. 1350. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 44 7. Reliquary of the True Cross including stones from the site of the Ascension, Swabia, before 1138 with seventeenth-century additions. Katholische Kirchengemeinde “Unserer lieben Frau,” Zwiefalten. 46 8. Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, ca. 691 onward. 55 9. Processional cross containing a relic “de petra s. Mychahelis,” Constance, ca. 1300. Chorherrstift Beromünster. 71 10. Greek and Latin alphabets, pontifical, northern Italy, twelfth century. London, British Library, Harley MS 2906, fol. 19v. 106 11. Diagram of the consecration of a church, miscellany of works by Bede, Brittany, late ninth century (diagram, late ninth or early tenth century). Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 477 (461), fol. 9r. 108 12. Diagram of the alphabet cross, pontifical, Italy, eleventh century. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Lit. 359, fol. 2r. 109 13. Diagram of the alphabet cross, pontifical, France, fifteenth century. Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Lat 142, fol. 37v. 111 14. Bishop writing the alphabet cross, missal-pontifical of Luçon, early fifteenth century. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat. 8886, fol. 355r. 113

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list of illustrations

15. Bishop writing in the cross of ashes, pontifical, Lyon, late fifteenth century or early sixteenth century. Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 565, fol. 91v. 114 16. Greek and Latin alphabets, pontifical, Lyon, late fifteenth century or early sixteenth century. Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 565, fol. 100r. 115 17. Bishop writing in the cross of ashes, Pontifical of Giovanni Barozzi, Bergamo, 1450s. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 1145, fol. 79r. 116 18. Diagram of the consecration of a church with the bishop writing the alphabet cross, pontifical, Paris, late thirteenth century. Toledo, Archivo y Biblioteca Capitulares, MS 56-19, fol. 100v. 117 19. Bishop writing the alphabet cross, Pontificale Romanum Clementis VIII pont. max. iussu restitutum et editum (Rome: Luna, 1595), 314. Oxford, Bodleian Library, P 2.1 Th. 118 20. Eastern section of the nave pavement at the abbey of Pomposa, early eleventh century. 126 21. Pope Paschal II, in a sketch of the floor mosaic of St.-Martin d’Ainay, Lyon, 1607. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Dupuy 691, fol. 79. 128 22. Panel with cruciform design from the twelfth-century floor mosaic of St.-Martin d’Ainay, Lyon. St.-Martin d’Ainay, chapel of Ste.-Blandine. 128 23. Cav. Vico, drawing of the mosaic pavement in the presbytery of Acqui Terme Cathedral, ca. 1845. A. Fabretti, “Musaico di Acqui nel R. Museo di Antichità di Torino,” Atti della Società di archeologia e belle arti per la provincia di Torino 2 (1878): fig. III. 130 24. Plan of the mosaic pavement in the choir of the abbey church of St.-Bertin, SaintOmer; from E. H. J. Wallet, Description d’une crypte et d’un pavé mosaïque de l’ancienne église de Saint-Bertin à Saint-Omer (Douai: Aubers, 1843), pl. IV. 133 25. Mosaic pavement in the apse of St.-André-de-Rosans, twelfth century. 135 26. Drawing of the presbytery floor of Novara Cathedral by Carlo Francesco Frasconi (1754–1836). Novara, Archivio storico diocesano, Fondo Frasconi, XIV/13. 136 27. Douce Ivory, cover of a Gospel lectionary, Aachen, ca. 800. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 176. 146 28. Personification of the Roman Church, Liber ystoriae Romanorum, Rome, late thirteenth century. Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. in scrin. 151, fol. 123v. 148 29. Amor celestis with St. Francis and Julian the Apostate, fresco in the Aula gotica, SS. Quattro Coronati, Rome, 1235–1246. 149 30. Cross positioned underneath an altar, nave floor mosaic, church at Shavei Zion, before 427. 157 31. Reconstruction of building A at Magen, with cross at the threshold. From Vassilios Tsaferis, “An Early Christian Church Complex at Magen,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 258 (1985): fig. 15. 158 32. Cross from the early twelfth-century presbytery pavement of Novara Cathedral, Palazzo vescovile, Novara. 162 33. Detail of a cruciform design in the pavement of the right-hand side aisle, S. Menna, Sant’Agata dei Goti, ca. 1110. 162 34. Seven-headed beast of the Apocalypse, fragment of mosaic pavement now mounted on the wall, S. Evasio, Casale Monferrato, twelfth century. 166

list of illustrations

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35. Unicorn and basilisk, presbytery pavement, chapel of S. Maria, S. Benedetto Po, twelfth century. 167 36. Fides triumphing over Discordia, Camposanto floor mosaic, Cremona Cathedral, twelfth century. 167 37. Detail of the four animals of Psalm 90 (91), papal throne, 1280–1290. S. Francesco, Assisi. 169 38. Nero and Agrippina, 54–59 AD, reused as paving in the Sebasteion, Aphrodisias. Aphrodisias Museum. 171 39. Relief of Artemis and Cybele, ca. 400 BC, reused in the pavement of the synagogue forecourt at Sardis in the fourth century AD. Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, inv. no. 3937. 174 40. Statue of Athena, second century AD, reused as step in Room 12, Roman House H, Areopagos Hill. Agora Museum, Athens. 179 41. Mosaic floor with later insertion in triclinium, Room 3, Roman House H, Areopagos Hill, Athens. 180 42. Relief of Brahma, reused in the eleventh–twelfth century, Ghaznavid palace, Ghazni. National Museums of Afghanistan. 182 43. Detail of the inscription on the risers of the presbytery pavement, S. Nicola, Bari, early twelfth century. 205 44. Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, view of the interior showing the omphalion and lines on the pavement, sixth century and later. 209 45. Giacomo Grimaldi, drawing of the inside of Old St. Peter’s showing the porphyry rota, Descrizione della basilica antica di S. Pietro in Vaticano, early seventeenth century. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Barb. lat. 2733, fols. 104v–105v. 212 46. Jean Fouquet, Coronation of Charlemagne, Grandes Chroniques de France, France, mid-fifteenth century. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Fr. 6465, fol. 89v. 214 47. Irmgard Voss, plan of the twelfth-century pavement of S. Clemente, Rome, 1990. From Peter Cornelius Claussen, Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter 1050–1300, vol. 1, Corpus Cosmatorum 2.1, Forschungen zur Kunstgeschichte und christlichen Archäologie 20 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002), 320, fig. 252. 217 48. Nave pavement, S. Menna, Sant’Agata dei Goti, ca. 1110. 219 49. Pavement of the Baptistery, Florence, ca. 1225. 220 50. Detail of the nave showing processional roundels, from a plan of Wells Cathedral in 1784; reproduced between the two title pages of Herbert Edward Reynolds, Wells Cathedral, Its Foundation, Constitutional History and Statutes (Leeds: M’Corquodale, 1881). 223 51. Diagram for a Procession to the Cross on Easter Sunday, Processional of St. Giles’s Hospital, Norwich, late fourteenth century. London, British Library, Add. MS 57534, fol. 72r. 225 52. Pavement labyrinth in the nave of Chartres Cathedral, ca. 1220. 226 53. Dante at the entrance to Purgatory, Divine Comedy, Northern Italy, first half of the fourteenth century. London, BL, Egerton MS 943, fol. 79r. 232 54. Details of the symbols of the Evangelists, presbytery pavement, Novara Cathedral, early twelfth century. 239 55. St. Mark with his symbol, wall painting, baptistery, Concordia Sagittaria, twelfth century. 243

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56. Details of the symbols of the Evangelists, presbytery pavement, S. Giovanni Decollato, Pieve Terzagni, early twelfth century. 246 57. “Infernus” and “Satanas,” floor mosaic, north side chapel, Otranto Cathedral, 1163–1165. 249 58. Christ leading Abraham and Sarah out of hell, Exultet roll, Bari, eleventh century. Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Lat 2. 250 59. Figure of Atlas, floor mosaic in the south side chapel, Otranto Cathedral, 1163–1165. 252 60. Double elevation of an emperor and co-emperor, Skylitzes, Synopsis historion, Sicily, twelfth century. Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS Graecus Vitr. 26-2, fol. 10v. 253 61. Affronted griffins, nave pavement, abbey of Fruttuaria, San Benigno Canavese, late eleventh or early twelfth century. 258 62. Griffin silk, Byzantium, tenth century. Le Monastier-sur-Gazeilles, St.-Chaffre. 258 63. The avaricious in the fifth terrace of Purgatory, Divine Comedy, Northern Italy, first half of the fourteenth century. London, British Library, Egerton MS 943, fol. 97v. 283 64. Scenes from the Passion, including Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, Cursus Sanctae Maria, Germany or Bohemia, early thirteenth century. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.739, fol. 22v. 289 65. Mode 2 from Modus orandi Sancti Dominici, southern France, second quarter of the fourteenth century. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Ross. 3, fol. 6v. 292 66. Mode 4 in Peter the Chanter’s De oratione et speciebus illius, Pegau, thirteenth century. Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 432, fol. 68v. 300 67. Mode 5 in Peter the Chanter’s De oratione et speciebus illius, Pegau, thirteenth century. Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 432, fol. 69v. 301 68. Drawing of the floor mosaic of St.-Martin d’Ainay, Lyon, in 1852. Paris, Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine. 307 69. Reconstruction by H. Deneux of the mosaic pavement in the crossing of Reims Cathedral, late tenth century or early eleventh century. Henri Stern, Recueil général des mosaïques de la Gaule, vol. 1, Province de Belgique, pt. 1 (Paris: CNRS, 1957), pl. XLIVa. 315 70. Cosmati pavement, Westminster Abbey, London, 1268. 318 71. Dying man laid on a cilicium, Sacramentary of Warmundus, northern Italy, early eleventh century. Ivrea, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS 86, fol. 193v. L. Bettazzi et al., eds., Il Sacramentario del Vescovo Warmondo di Ivrea, fine secolo X: Ivrea, Biblioteca capitolare, MS 31 LXXXVI (Turin: Priuli & Verlucca, 1990). 329 72. Drawing of the pavement in the infirmary chapel, Marmoutier. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Touraine Anjou 5, fol. 139r (no. 1848). 332 73. Dante and Virgil walking on representations of Arachne, Lucifer, Rehoboam, and Saul in Purgatory, Divine Comedy, Naples, 1340s. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Holkham Misc. 48, p. 79. 360 74. Woman kneeling on a tomb slab, Book of Hours, Ghent, fifteenth century. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 3768, fol. 51v. 363 75. Detail of a plan of the west end of Lincoln Cathedral, showing the grave of Bishop William of Alnwick at 37. William Dugdale, Monastici Anglicani, volumen tertium et ultimum (London, 1673), between pp. 256 and 257. 368

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76. Detail of the west end of Lincoln Cathedral from a plan executed before the cathedral was repaved in 1790, showing the processional roundels. William Camden, Britannia, trans. and enlarged Richard Gough, 3 vols. (London: John Nichols for T. Payne, 1789), 2:256, fig. viii. 369 77. Jacques Cellier, plan of Reims Cathedral showing “le lieux ou sainct Nicaise fut decollé” at N, sixteenth century. Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Fr. 9152, fol. 68r. 376 78. Benedetto Bordon, miniature showing the floor mosaic and baldachino in S. Giustina, Padua, Revelatio sanctorum martyrum in choro, 1523–1525. Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, MS W. 107, fol. 18r. 385

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book has been a long time in the writing and owes a great deal to the generous support of many institutions and individuals. The research project out of which it developed was started during a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. I am extremely grateful to the British Academy for their support and would also like to thank University College, Oxford, and the Oxford University Faculty of History for hosting the fellowship, and Bryan Ward-Perkins for acting as mentor. At University College I benefited particularly from the encouragement of fellow medievalists Sandy Murray and Catherine Holmes, while Oxford more generally was a stimulating environment for interdisciplinary research. My interest in the topic, however, began earlier during graduate work at the Courtauld Institute of Art, kindly funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board. An MA dissertation on the floor mosaic of Otranto Cathedral was followed by doctoral work on mosaic pavements in northern Italy. I would like to thank John Lowden most sincerely for his supervision of both of these projects and for his continued support over the following years. My PhD examiners Paul Crossley and Dorothy Glass also helped at crucial junctures. Further opportunities to think about the material came during a Rome Scholarship at the British School in Rome and an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto. Each was a highly collegial setting, and the insights of fellow researchers in these communities have informed the book in numerous ways. I continued to work on the project while holding teaching positions at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, the Courtauld Institute of Art, and the Cambridge University History of Art Department. My thanks are due to all these institutions, but I am particularly grateful to my present colleagues at the University of Bristol, especially in the Departments of History of Art and History and in the Centre for Medieval Studies, for their encouragement and patience. The following friends and colleagues read parts of the book: Marianne Ailes, Joanna Cannon, Peter Dent, Tony Eastmond, Helen Gittos, Louis Hamilton, Kate Heard, Josie

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acknowledgments

McLellan, Carolyn Muessig, Bryan Ward-Perkins, and Beth Williamson. I am very grateful to them all for their advice, and for the assistance of everyone else who kindly provided references, copies of their work, help in sourcing illustrations and other material, and guidance on transliteration: Jakob Bernet, Paul Binski, Claudia Bolgia, Michael Carter, Katie Clark, Donal Cooper, Roberta Gilchrist, Lindy Grant, Nagihan Halilog˘ lu, R. Ross Holloway, Stuart Homan, Tom Nickson, Christoph Maier, John McNeill, Didier Méhu, Nicholas Orchard, Mario Perotti, Gervase Rosser, Anat Tcherikover, and Teresa Witcombe. I also owe thanks to the organizers and attendees of research seminars and conferences at which I was able to try out ideas, and to the friends who discussed the material with me. George Cawkwell and Janet McIlveen continued to enquire hopefully about the progress of the book, when others had resorted to tactful silence. I am particularly grateful to the two readers for Cornell University Press for their close reading of the manuscript as a whole. It goes without saying that remaining errors and misconceptions are my own. I would like to express my thanks to the libraries, museums, and other institutions that provided illustrations, as well as to Ruggero Longo and Ermanno Orcorte, who kindly allowed me to use their photographs. More generally, the project has benefited from access to the resources of the Bodleian Library, the libraries of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Cambridge University Library, Bristol University Library, and the British Library. The Millard Meiss Publication Fund of the College Art Association, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation through the International Center of Medieval Art, and the University of Bristol each made a generous contribution toward the costs of publication, for which I am extremely grateful. At Cornell University Press, Mahinder Kingra, Bethany Wasik, Karen Hwa, and their colleagues have been a pleasure to work with, shepherding the book through the publication process with care and enthusiasm. I owe my greatest debt to my parents, Robin and Jennifer Donkin, not just for their unfailing support in every aspect of life but also for instilling a lasting interest in places and why they matter.

ABBREVIATIONS

I have used the Douay-Rheims translation of the Latin Vulgate. AASS Bolland, Jean, et al., eds. Acta Sanctorum. 68 vols. Antwerp and Brussels: Societé des Bollandistes, 1643–1940. BAV Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana BL British Library BnF Bibliothèque nationale de France CCCM Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCM Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum CCSL Corpus Christianorum Series Latina CNRS Centre nationale de la recherche scientifique CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum HBS Henry Bradshaw Society MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica

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OR Ordo Romanus PG Migne, J.-P., ed. Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Graeca. 161 vols. Paris: Garnier, 1857–66. PGD Pontificale Guillelmi Durandi PL Migne, J.-P., ed. Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Latina. 221 vols. Paris: Garnier, 1844–64. PPTS Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society PRC Pontificale Romanae curiae PRG Pontifi cale Romano-Germanicum PRXII Pontificale Romanum saeculi XII RS Rolls Series SGel Sacramentarium Gelasianum SGreg Sacramentarium Gregorianum SPCK Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge SRG Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi SRL Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec. VI–IX SRM Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum SS Scriptores SSL Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense

Standing ON Holy Ground Middle Ages

IN THE

INTRODUCTION

Locus enim, in quo stas, terra sancta est. [The place, whereon thou standest, is holy ground.] —Exodus 3:5

In the book of Exodus, God commands Moses to remove his sandals, “for the place, whereon thou standest, is holy ground.”1 The same command is given to Joshua by the angel before the Battle of Jericho.2 In a sermon on the Burning Bush, Caesarius of Arles (ca. 470–542) cautioned against taking these words literally, asking: “How could that ground upon which they trod be holy, since doubtless it was like the rest of the earth?”3 “True holy ground,” he went on to argue, “is the body of our Lord Jesus Christ through whom everything heavenly and earthly is sanctified.”4 During the Middle Ages, however, the ground on which Moses trod was venerated as a relic.5 Parallels were drawn

1. Exodus 3:5. “Ne appropies, inquit, huc: solve calceamentum de pedibus tuis: locus enim, in quo stas, terra sancta est” (Vulgate); “Et dixit: Ne accesseris huc, nisi solveris calciamentum de pedibus tuis: locus enim, in quo stas, terra sancta est” (Vetus Latina, as given in P. Sabatier, ed., Bibliorum sacrorum Latinae versiones antiquae, 3 vols. [Reims: Florentain, 1743–49], 1:140). 2. Joshua 5:16. “Solve, inquit, calceamentum tuum de pedibus tuis: locus enim in quo stas, sanctus est” (Vulgate); “Solve calciamentum de pedibus tuis: locus enim, in quo stas, terra sancta est” (Vetus Latina, in Sabatier, Bibliorum sacrorum Latinae, 1:404). 3. “Numquid hoc, fratres carissimi, secundum litteram intellegi potest? Unde enim terra illa, quam calcabant, poterat esse sancta, quae sine dubio similis erat terrae reliquae?”; Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, 96.4, ed. Germain Morin, 2 vols., CCSL 103–4 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1953), 1:394–95; trans. Mary Magdeleine Mueller, Saint Caesarius of Arles: Sermons, 3 vols. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1956–73), 2:71–72. Caesarius gives the command as “Solve corrigiam calciamenti tui; locus enim, in quo stas, terra sancta est.” 4. “Vere terra sancta est caro domini nostri Iesu Christi, per quem sanctificata sunt omnia caelestia atque terrestria”; Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, 96.4, ed. Morin, 1:395; trans. Mueller, 2:71–72. 5. “De petra ista quem Mosis stetit quando vidit d(e)o”; Hartmut Atsma et al., eds., Chartae Latinae antiquiores: Facsimile Edition of the Latin Charters Prior to the Ninth Century, pt. 18, France, vol. 6 (Dietikon, Zurich: Urs Graf, 1985), 84, no. 2, for an eighth-century relic authentic from Chelles (Seine et Marne).

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introduction

between the place on Mount Sinai sanctified by the presence of God and the church interior sanctified also by ecclesiastical ritual and the remains of the saints.6 Indeed, on occasion, those standing on its own holy ground could be miraculously and forcibly unshod in deliberate reference to the biblical precedent.7 The example of Moses and its reception raise several issues to be addressed in the course of this book concerning the creation, definition, and veneration of sacred places in the Holy Land and the Latin West. More fundamentally, however, the passage draws attention to a relationship between body and environment that lies at the very center of the work. The ground beneath our feet goes unnoticed for the most part. Yet it guides our steps and shapes our identity in many ways. We obey or disregard markings that indicate where to cross the road, stand back from the edge of the platform, or position ourselves on a sports pitch. A childhood game adds significance to cracks in the pavement. Crossing a college lawn or walking along a red carpet can reflect a certain status. Differing conventions in homes and places of worship remind us that our own treatment of the surface is culturally constructed. As I write this, pavements and floors across the world are newly marked with lines and signs that encourage social distancing in response to a pandemic. In the Middle Ages, too, the surface of the ground conveyed information to those who stood on it, prompted physical and imaginative responses, and marked out individuals and groups in accordance with the values and concerns of the time. Indeed, in some respects, it played a greater role than today in articulating space and identity, especially within ecclesiastical settings. With less seating than is now the case in most Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, the floor surface was more open, and processions and practices of prayer brought worshippers into more varied and dynamic engagement with it. This book focuses on medieval interactions with holy ground, within and beyond the church interior, asking how these shaped both place and person.

Relics of Mount Sinai were common throughout the Middle Ages. For example, Nicholas Rogers, “The Waltham Abbey Relic-List,” in England in the Eleventh Century, Proceedings of the 1990 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Carola Hicks (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1992), 173. For treatment of the site, including the removal of footwear by pilgrims, see Kristine Marie Larison, “Mount Sinai and the Monastery of St Catherine: Place and Space in Pilgrimage Art” (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Chicago, 2016), esp. 77–84. 6. Amalarius of Metz, Liber officialis, 1.12.36–39, ed. J. M. Hanssens, Amalarii episcopi opera liturgica omnia, vol. 2, Studi e testi 139 (Vatican City: BAV, 1948), 80–83, in the context of the washing of the pavement on Maundy Thursday; Sicardus of Cremona, Mitrale, 1.11, 6.13, ed. Gábor Sarbak and Lorenz Weinrich, Mitralis de officiis, CCCM 228 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), 41–45, 485, on the space around a church within which certain acts could not be carried out. 7. The passage from Exodus is explicitly cited in the Miraculum Sancti Maximini, ed. and trans. in Thomas Head, “I Vow Myself to Be Your Servant: An Eleventh-Century Pilgrim, His Chronicler and His Saint,” Historical Reflections / Réfl exions historiques 11, no. 3 (1984): 246–47. A similar reference may be implied in Eustathios of Thessaloniki, The Capture of Thessaloniki, ed. and trans. John R. Melville Jones, Byzantina Australiensia 8 (Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1988), 124–25, 218.

introduction

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3

Studying a Surface My main object of analysis is a surface—a point of encounter, and thus not primarily the substance of the ground, the people who moved across it, or even the actions that brought them together, though all of these play a part. Because of the logic of its subject matter, the book itself is also a point of encounter, between different fields and disciplines. In order to define the role played by the surface of the ground in articulating relationships between people and places, it has been necessary to bring together elements that are usually treated separately or as the principal focus of attention, in part as a result of broader historical and art-historical priorities concerning human actors and material objects. Commensurately, by illuminating the role of this surface, my intention is not only to establish it as a key agent in the definition of people and places, and a valid object of enquiry in its own right, but also to enrich these existing areas of interest and offer some new perspectives and avenues of approach. Most sustained attention has previously been trained on the ground in the context of art-historical analysis of decorated paving. The present work has developed out of research interests in this area, and it complements existing treatment of this material and contributes to the field in various respects. Most notably, where art-historical discussion of decorated paving has tended to concentrate on the nature of the decoration, my approach here places the emphasis on its function as paving. Firstly, the book includes consideration of decorated pavements executed in different techniques—including opus tessellatum, opus sectile, and tiling—that are often considered separately.8 Of course, certain approaches were developed within particular technical and regional traditions. However, regardless of technique, as a decorative surface that was walked on, indeed as the only surface of a church building with which people necessarily came into contact, all decorated pavements share a fundamental characteristic. The experiences that specific techniques and individual examples offered to those who came into contact with them can fruitfully be analyzed by looking beyond a single type or instance. At the same time, I do not so much explore connections between works in particular decorative techniques as set them within a wider framework of the pavement, adorned or otherwise. This is because the phenomenon of use and physical interaction with which I am primarily concerned applies to the surface of the ground in general. Those aspects of decorated pavements that acknowledge the presence of the human body, through form,

8. Important studies of individual techniques include Dorothy F. Glass, Studies on Cosmatesque Pavements, BAR International Series 82 (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1980); Xavier Barral i Altet, Le décor du pavement au Moyen Âge: Les mosaïques de France et d’Italie, Collection de l’École française de Rome 429 (Rome: École française de Rome, 2010). Works that range across techniques include Hiltrud Kier, Der mittelalterliche Schmuckfussboden unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Rheinlandes, Die Kunstdenkmäler des Rheinlandes, Beiheft 14 (Düsseldorf: Rheinland Verlag, 1970); Jane Fawcett, ed., Historic Floors, Their History and Conservation (Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998).

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figure, or text, are not symptomatic of decoration per se. Rather, in my view, the decoration represents a particularly elaborate, visible, and enduring response to a universal potential of this weightbearing surface. Where contemporary sources refer to actions that brought people close to the ground, characterize the pavement as trodden underfoot, and engage with the surface in the rite of church consecration, they mainly treat it as a whole (“pavimentum,” “humus,” “terra”). Moreover, decorated paving is only part of a spectrum of different approaches to the composition and differentiation of the floor surface, which extends from the bare ground to the richest of Cosmati creations. This spectrum includes elements with other principal uses such as tomb slabs. Equally, different areas or eras of more functional flooring, repairs, reused components, and even individual flagstones created material and visual variety that could take on significance and shape the actions of those using the space. For the same reason, my approach to the floor surface also goes beyond paving to acknowledge more ephemeral forms of covering. In this respect it embraces both the “soft architecture” of textiles and temporary designs on the ground in ashes, chalk, and sand—the former an art-historical subfield in its own right, the latter more commonly addressed as part of the material culture of ritual.9 As well as forming an integral part of how the surface was composed and experienced, such coverings show it to have possessed a dynamism that was not simply generated by the movement of people. Finally, while focusing mainly on the church interior, the book encompasses the holy ground of loca sancta trodden by Christ and the saints. While configuring the surface, or parts of it, as a contact relic, these places both stemmed from and remained subject to the same logic of use as the ground elsewhere, and they shared qualities with other sacred sites in terms of material and patterns of physical engagement. Studying a surface as a point of encounter, therefore, allows us to do two things. By providing a framework for juxtaposing different ways in which the ground was constituted, marked, and used, it allows connections to be drawn between them as well as distinctions to be seen more clearly. It also establishes the expressive potential of the surface as a whole, especially as this involved those who came into contact with it.

Layers of Meaning In order to analyze an expansive surface that could take many different forms and support a variety of people and things, this book adopts a stratigraphic approach. While this is partly a means to organize material and structure the work, more fundamentally, it

9. For the term, see Avinoam Shalem, “Architecture for the Body: Some Reflections on the Mobility of Textiles and the Fate of the So-called Chasuble of Saint Thomas Becket in the Cathedral of Fermo in Italy,” in Dalmatia and the Mediterranean: Portable Archaeology and the Poetics of Influence, ed. Alina Payne, Mediterranean Art Histories 1 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 246–67.

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also encapsulates the manner in which I understand the significance of people, places, and actions to have been constructed at the time. The stratigraphic framework envisages the ground as made up of a number of vertically stacked layers: the earth itself, permanent floor coverings, and temporary floor coverings such as textiles and vegetation. It also brings together a wider group of layered elements, encompassing the bodies of the living above ground and the dead below. In this way, it provides a method to explore interactions between the fixed environment, more ephemeral material and markings, and the people who—equally fleetingly—occupied particular places. Some of these interactions involved direct contact with the ground, such as Christ treading on the Mount of Olives before his Ascension, a bishop writing the alphabet cross on the floor in early versions of the church consecration rite, or a mendicant saint praying humbly on the bare ground. Others involved a more complex configuration of layers, for example a king lying prostrate on precious silks spread over costly paving, catechumens trampling on a haircloth, or a chorister singing on the gravestone of a former choirmaster. In each case, I contend, meaning lies in the particular combination and ordering of elements making up the floor surface, the identities of the persons involved, and the nature of their actions. In focusing on vertical layering, my work brings a new perspective to the study of sacred space as this was experienced in everyday life. In particular, it complements a dominant scholarly emphasis on the horizontal conceptualization of space, which has tended to address the boundaries of areas and movement across them. For example, there has been considerable interest in the extent of sacred spaces and how this was defined, drawing distinctions in terms of jurisdiction, access, and degree of sacrality. This process operated at different scales, from the development of the idea of the Holy Land as a distinct territory, through the marking of parish and civic boundaries in rogation day processions and the encircling of the church in dedication ceremonies, to divisions—however permeable—within the church building.10 If spatial defi nition along these lines stresses edges, the sense in which spaces are shaped by something emanating outward from a center, from sound to sacredness, also presumes a predominantly horizontal dynamic.11 Similarly, movement of people through space, from long-distance

10. See, for example, on the Holy Land, Robert L. Wilken, The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); on rogation day processions, Augustine Thompson, Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes, 1125–1325 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), 152–56; on consecration rites, Mette Birkedal Bruun and Louis I. Hamilton, “Rites for Dedicating Churches,” in Understanding Medieval Liturgy: Essays in Interpretation, ed. Helen Gittos and Sarah Hamilton (Farnham: Ashgate, 2016), 177–204; on space within the church, Donal Cooper, “Access All Areas? Spatial Divides in the Mendicant Churches of Late Medieval Tuscany,” in Ritual and Space in the Middle Ages: Proceedings of the 2009 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Frances Andrews, Harlaxton Medieval Studies 21 (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2011), 90–107; Jacqueline E. Jung, The Gothic Screen: Space, Sculpture, and Community in the Cathedrals of France and Germany, ca. 1200–1400 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 11. On sound fields, see John H. Arnold and Caroline Goodson, “Resounding Community: The History and Meaning of Medieval Church Bells,” Viator 43, no. 1 (2012): esp. 124. On sacred space emanating

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pilgrimage to routes around individual settlements and structures, takes place across a terrain, even if it might involve a degree of ascent and descent.12 However, sacred space was also defined vertically. Most obviously, this applies to ideas of heaven and hell, but it has also been explored with respect to the church building and the parish in ways that connect these earthly entities with theological ones.13 My approach remains focused on the earthly. I concentrate on elements that came into physical contact or proximity immediately to either side of the surface of the ground, constituting a momentary whole. Looking at the vertical axis in this way, with an emphasis on layers of elements incorporating a single body, sheds light on particular places within the spatial entities and networks that extended across the surface of the ground. Some examples—such as Christ’s imprints in the Holy Land or the treatment of the pavement during the church consecration rite—contributed to the definition of these established units; others—a processional halting spot, for example, or a place where people walked over a tomb—constitute a more subtle articulation of space within these parameters. While often evident to an extent on the surface of the ground, they are rarely circumscribed by upright structures and are sometimes not marked visibly or durably at all. I argue that these vertical configurations played an important role in defining and inflecting sacred space—a role that transcended the limited time or extent to which they might be visible, functioned together with horizontally defined conceptions of space, and involved a particularly close relationship between body and place. If the term “stratigraphy” brings to mind archaeological and geological crosssections, the case studies capture a particular configuration of layers in a circumscribed place, such as might be found in a core sample. In suggesting this analogy to the modern reader as a way of visualizing my approach, I am not implying that this was a medieval

outward from objects, Richard C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, 2nd ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 47–73; Robert W. Gaston, “Sacred Place and Liturgical Space: Florence’s Renaissance Churches,” in Renaissance Florence: A Social History, ed. Roger J. Crum and John T. Paoletti (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 331–52. 12. See, for example, on pilgrimage routes, Adeline Rucquoi, Mille fois à Compostelle: Pèlerins du Moyen Âge (Paris: Belles Lettres, 2014), 113–217, and Martin Locker, Landscapes of Pilgrimage in Medieval Britain (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2015); on movement through built space, Franklin Toker, On Holy Ground: Liturgy, Architecture, and Urbanism in the Cathedral and the Streets of Medieval Florence (Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2009), chap. 4, and Paul Crossley, “Ductus and Memoria: Chartres Cathedral and the Workings of Rhetoric,” in Rhetoric beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages, ed. Mary Carruthers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 214–49. 13. For an approach to the vertical within sacred architecture, which emphasizes looking and movement up and down, see Bissera V. Pentcheva, Hagia Sophia: Sound, Space, and Spirit in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017), esp. chaps. 1–2; vertical dynamics are also explored in Nicoletta Isar, Χορός: The Dance of Adam; The Making of Byzantine Chorography; The Anthropology of the Choir of Dance in Byzantium (Leiden: Alexandros Press, 2011). For parallels between the heavenward movement of the Ascension and rogation day processions ending in church, see Johanna Kramer, Between Earth and Heaven: Liminality and the Ascension of Christ in Anglo-Saxon Literature (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014), 147–200.

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way of representing space. Cross-sections, and in particular cross-sections through the ground, were not common in the Middle Ages, although some do exist and indeed explicitly engage with holy ground. The early fourteenth-century Schauinsland window of Freiburg im Breisgau Minster provides a particularly pertinent example (fig. 1). It shows Christ flanked by St. John the Evangelist and St. Peter, and immediately beneath their feet, in sections through subterranean space, three small figures of miners at work.14 The window is generally understood to represent the Transfiguration, eliding Mount Tabor with the nearby silver-mining mountain of Schauinsland. This elision would represent an unusual take on a widespread desire to inscribe the loca sancta of the Holy Land onto local landscapes, one in which the space above ground relates to the former and that below ground to the latter.15 Even if Christ and the two saints do not serve to represent a specific event, it is still a view of an imagined configuration of bodies and ground, rather than an imagined view through an actual disposition of elements. Nevertheless, it is important in demonstrating the potential to conceive of space above and below ground as part of a single entity, articulated by a mirroring of bodies. The window is a rare example of such a visualization, no doubt prompted by specific circumstances and experiences of the subterranean in Freiburg. However, a paucity of cross-sections does not necessarily mean a lack of interest in the phenomenon of vertical layering. Indeed, the practices examined in this book highlight the importance of the vertical axis, of being positioned above or below something or someone. Where cross-sections presume an external, disembodied viewer, texts and images offering a more embodied perspective shed light on an interest in venerating the ground holy figures had trodden, standing or avoiding standing on particular paving elements, spreading carpets under people and things, and requesting burial beneath particular individuals or activities. In order to understand what these layerings meant to contemporaries, both in the moment and across a longer period of time, we need to set aside modern conceptions of archaeological and geological strata. There, in its simplest formulation, layers are built up over time, with the lowest representing the earliest period and the uppermost the most recent. Again, this concept was not unknown in the Middle Ages; indeed, pavements could be invoked as evidence of changing ground levels. In his Liber de causis proprietatum elementorum, Albertus Magnus noted the case of “paving stones of marvelous design and beauty” found when deep pits were being dug in Cologne. These were

14. Rüdiger Becksmann, Die mittelalterlichen Glasmalereien in Freiburg im Breisgau (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 2010), 343–49, figs. 390–94. 15. For examples of this practice more generally, see Robert G. Ousterhout, “The Church of Santo Stefano: A ‘Jerusalem’ in Bologna,” Gesta 20, no. 2 (1981): 311–21; Daniel K. Connolly, “At the Center of the World: The Labyrinth Pavement of Chartres Cathedral,” in Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, ed. Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 1:306; Bianca Kühnel, “Virtual Pilgrimages to Real Places: The Holy Landscapes,” in Imagining Jerusalem in the Medieval West, ed. Lucy Donkin and Hanna Vorholt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 243–64.

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Fig. 1. Christ flanked by St. John the Evangelist and St. Peter, with miners beneath, Schauinsland window, Freiburg im Breisgau Minster, 1340s. Photo: Rafael Toussaint, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi Deutschland.

recognized as ancient works still in situ, and it was agreed “that the ground was built up over them after the buildings fell to ruin.”16 Nevertheless, for the most part, people seem to have assumed that they were walking much the same ground as their forebears and

16. Albertus Magnus, Liber de causis proprietatum elementorum, 1.2, trans. Irven M. Resnick, On the Causes of the Properties of the Elements (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2010), 51.

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even figures from the more remote biblical and Early Christian past. Furthermore, the temporal relationship between the layers considered in this book is complicated by the combination of durable and ephemeral elements. The ground and permanent paving do indeed correspond to the basic model of addition over time, although the archaeological record shows that pavements could be taken up and reused or replaced rather than simply covered over, and burial could introduce newer material.17 However, people and temporary floor coverings, which could be laid down and taken up again in the course of days or minutes, created much more fluid upper strata, constantly changing across smaller areas of the floor surface. The lower set of strata presupposes a linear sense of time, the upper set a cyclical one. More fundamentally, though, I am not attempting to investigate the relationship between the layers in terms of chronology. Rather I am interested in the meaning of particular configurations of layers at a particular moment. Where a temporal dimension is involved, it is the significance of repeated use of the same place over an extended period of time.

Touching the Ground As noted above, this book revolves around physical contact. In this sense, it contributes to a wider, well-established trend within the history of art, and medieval art history more specifically.18 There has been particular interest in devotional touch, where the hands and mouth are used to render homage to the figure represented. This phenomenon has been addressed both through depictions and descriptions of such actions, and through the traces of wear or accumulation of dirt left upon the works themselves, from a cross on a Te igitur page in a missal kissed by the priest to the worn feet of statues of the Virgin.19 Wear that is indicative of past engagement with particular images or parts of a

17. For medieval paving reused during the Middle Ages, see Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle, “Two Anglo-Saxon Relief-Decorated Floor Tiles,” in Canterbury Cathedral Nave: Archaeology, History and Architecture, ed. Kevin Blockley, Margaret Sparks, and Tim Tatton-Brown (Canterbury: Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral, 1997), 196–200. On the reuse of classical paving elements, see Bryan Ward-Perkins, “Scavi nella torre civica di Pavia: Le fasi di attività artigianali,” Archeologia medievale 5 (1978): 107; Rosanna Mollo Mezzena, “Augusta Praetoria tardoantica: Viabilità e territorio,” in Felix temporis reparatio: Atti del convegno archeologico internazionale Milano capitale dell’impero romano, Milano, 8–11 marzo, 1990 (Milan: ET, 1992), esp. 294, fig. 8. 18. This tendency is itself part of a wider trend to address senses other than sight, including sound and smell; for example, Liz James, “Senses and Sensibility in Byzantium,” Art History 27, no. 4 (2004): 522–37; Bissera V. Pentcheva, The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010); Martina Bagnoli, ed., A Feast for the Senses: Art and Experience in Medieval Europe, exhibition catalog (Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2016); Pentcheva, Hagia Sophia. 19. Joanna Cannon, “Kissing the Virgin’s Foot: Adoratio before the Madonna and Child Enacted, Depicted, Imagined,” Studies in Iconography 31 (2010): 1–50; Jacqueline Jung, “The Tactile and the Visionary:

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work has been understood to prompt more actions of the same kind, and repeated touching, especially when it leaves an impression, has been seen to bring those involved into a community of believers.20 There has also been consideration of more negative contact, which tends to go beyond simple touch to actions of deliberate damage or erasure.21 In the medieval West, this type of action seems to have been directed at particular figures who attracted religious or political censure, rather than expressing disquiet regarding images per se, as might be the case in Byzantium or the Islamic world. While this book develops these ideas of positive and negative contact further, it goes beyond current historiographical preoccupations by focusing on different objects and other parts of the body. In the majority of cases, discussions of touch concentrate on the hands, although devotional tactility encompassed embracing, kissing, and even consuming elements of works of art.22 Here the emphasis is on those parts of the body that regularly came into contact with the floor surface. Most obviously, this means the feet, although I also consider practices in which the whole body lay flat in prostration.23 In turn, corporeal contact with the ground involves a different balance between the senses of touch and sight. Unlike other works of art, for which vision is generally assumed to be the default mode of engagement however much importance is assigned to deliberate touch, the decorated floor was primarily a weight-bearing surface and only then something to be looked at. Only some pavements were adorned in ways that conventionally attract the attention of the art historian, and while these may have been treated by users of the space in a particular manner too, we have to consider that they also shared much with less visually distinctive floors, and that both experienced a range of physical contact that was likely not imbued with meaning at all. Sometimes treading on the ground had significance; sometimes it did not. Focusing on works touched by the feet also opens up an especially ambiguous dynamic of contact, since the action of treading possessed a wide range of potential meanings and consequences, with the identity of

Notes on the Place of Sculpture in the Medieval Religious Imagination,” in Looking Beyond: Visions, Dreams, and Insights in Medieval Art and History, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton, NJ: Index of Christian Art, Princeton University, in association with Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), 203–40; Peter Dent, ed., Sculpture and Touch (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014); Kathryn M. Rudy, “Touching the Book Again: The Passional of Abbess Kunigunde of Bohemia,” in Codex und Material, ed. Patrizia Carmassi and Gia Toussaint (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2018), 247–57. 20. Rudy, “Touching the Book Again”; Dent, “Introduction,” in Sculpture and Touch, 1–24. 21. Rosa María Rodríguez Porto, “Inscribed/Effaced: The Estoria de Espanna after 1275,” Hispanic Research Journal 13, no. 5 (2012): 387–406; Rudy, “Touching the Book Again.” 22. Kathryn M. Rudy, “Eating the Face of Christ: Philip the Good and His Physical Relationship with Veronicas,” in The European Fortune of the Roman Veronica in the Middle Ages, ed. Amanda Murphy et al. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 169–79. 23. The feet are comparatively neglected in studies of touch. A wide-ranging study that includes contact with and by the feet is Gerhard Wolf, “Verehrte Füße: Prolegomena zur Geschichte eines Körperteils,” in Körperteile: Eine kulturelle Anatomie, ed. Claudia Benthien and Christoph Wulf (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 2001), 500–23.

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both the person treading and what was trodden on informing the significance of the action. The book explores the full range of this spectrum, from the most positive, in which ground trodden by Christ and the saints was venerated as a contact relic, to the most negative, in which trampling something underfoot was expressive of triumph and disdain. At the same time, it also asks how these extremes related to the more common lived experience of engaging with cult sites, whether these were exceptional places marked by the presence of Christ or more conventional church interiors. In this respect, I go beyond scholarship on figurative pavements, which has traditionally focused on the negative implications of treading on images, while that on geometric floor decoration has highlighted the positive use of elements as liturgical markers.24 A more flexible approach to the implications of standing on things allows figurative pavements to be seen in the light of scholarship on the wider relationship between art and liturgy, in which images are understood to be activated or “set in motion” by particular ritual occasions.25 By looking at the surface more generally, the work also reveals correspondences between different kinds of holy place, from sites trodden by Christ in the Holy Land marked with marble roundels similar to those in opus sectile pavements, to a vision in which Christ leaves footprints in ash on the floor of Siena Cathedral and St. Francis walks in them. As these examples imply, I consider the material and textual evidence for meaningful encounters with the ground as this was conceived by contemporaries as well as from a modern perspective. Such actions do not leave traces in the same way as the devotional touching of painted images, since permanent paving is designed to be durable, to be touched and to withstand touch in a different way from other decorated surfaces in art or architecture. There are some instances of wear evocative of past use, the deeply abraded steps at Wells Cathedral for example, or—more fi xed in time—the dips in the steps from around the shrine of St. Thomas Becket, reused in the pavement of the

24. These interpretative traditions are reviewed in chapters 3 and 4. Key studies proposing liturgical functions for elements in opus sectile pavements include Michel Andrieu, “La rota porphyretica de la basilique vaticane,” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 66 (1954): 189–218; Peter Schreiner, “Omphalion und Rota Porphyretica: Zum Kaiserzeremoniell in Konstantinopel und Rom,” in Byzance et les Slaves: Mélanges Ivan Dujcˇev (Paris: Association des amis des études archéologiques des mondes byzantino-slaves et du christianisme oriental, 1979), 401–10; Glass, Studies on Cosmatesque Pavements, 48–54. On a liturgical function for floors in opus tessellatum, see Lucy Donkin, “Suo loco: The Traditio Evangeliorum and the Four Evangelist Symbols in the Presbytery Pavement of Novara Cathedral,” Speculum 88, no. 1 (2013): 92–143; Christine Ungruh, Das Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale von Otranto (1163–1165): Normannische Herrscherideologie als Endzeitvision, Studien zur Kunstgeschichte des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit 9 (Affalterbach: Didymos-Verlag, 2013). A positive interpretation of standing on some figurative elements is also found in Rina Talgam, Mosaics of Faith: Floors of Pagans, Jews, Samaritans, Christians, and Muslims in the Holy Land (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi; University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014), 194. 25. For the phrase, and an exploration of the phenomenon in relation to liturgical furniture, see Nino Zchomelidse, Art, Ritual, and Civic Identity in Medieval Southern Italy (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014).

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Trinity Chapel at Canterbury Cathedral.26 However, for the most part, the ground does not offer the modern viewer much detailed evidence of medieval practices as a direct result of physical contact. In contrast, during the Middle Ages, the ground was often read for testimonies of past engagement with the surface, being credited with preserving traces of contact with Christ and the saints. This commemorative capacity often involved a miraculous materiality, in which a hard stone received an impression of feet or knees as if it had been wax. Beliefs of this kind form an important aspect of the dynamic that is at the heart of this book. Yet there are also ways in which the floor surface was deliberately marked to acknowledge the phenomenon of human contact, in ways legible to both medieval and modern viewers of these spaces. Permanent floor decoration could allude to the presence of bodies above it, whether this was commemorated, expected, or requested. This type of communication could include verbal prompts to stand, kneel, or lie in particular places, but more commonly entailed a range of figurative or geometric markers that indicated where such actions should take place or had done so in the past. Taken alongside external textual and visual evidence for these practices it is possible to build up a picture of medieval use. Here, it may be useful to apply the distinction of prescriptive and descriptive, more commonly employed with reference to texts, to the floor itself. Although markers possess a certain agency, in which the ground affected what took place on it, just as liturgical texts only indicate what was intended, so visual and verbal instructions on the ground were not necessarily consistently observed. At the same time, there is a sense in which some markers, which both commemorated an action and invited its emulation, blur these categories. By encompassing various ways in which the ground could be read as prompting and recording physical contact, as well as the nature and significance of the contact itself, this book presents the ground as a surface with a particular and complex potential to be analyzed in terms of touch.

Locating Gestures So far, I have presented this investigation and its layered subject matter as evolving from the ground up, with a material core to which the human body is added. Yet regarding both the historiographical framework for the enquiry and the logic behind the ensembles of elements it focuses on, there are also important ways in which the body forms

26. On Wells, and wear more generally, see Warwick Rodwell, “The Archaeology of Church and Cathedral Floors,” in Fawcett, Historic Floors, esp. 46; on the reuse of the steps at Canterbury, see Tim Tatton-Brown, “The Two Great Marble Pavements in the Sanctuary and Shrine Areas of Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey,” in Fawcett, Historic Floors, 53–62. Wear at the centre of the Chartres labyrinth is interpreted as indicative of use in Connolly, “At the Center of the World,” 1:289, 2: fig. 135; similar conclusions are drawn regarding differing levels of wear to the pavement of the north and south aisles of the Cappella Palatina in William Tronzo, The Cultures of His Kingdom: Roger II and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 32.

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a starting point and the material context is brought to bear on it. In addressing the actions of trampling and prostration, this book contributes to the study of gesture, which has been a topic of interest for medieval historians and art historians for some decades now. Attention has been paid to formalized motions of the body prescribed by particular rituals, especially those expressing triumph and supplication.27 As part of these studies, there has been consideration of visual representations of particular ritualized gestures, both descriptive and instructive. There is also a literature on gesture in art more generally, here encompassing a wider range of motions, including less formalized ones.28 However, while attention is given to the spatial configuration of the participants in the rituals concerned, there is rarely consideration of the difference made by the physical environment to the significance of the action in question. Nor, more specifically, has there been much thought given to what it meant to perform a particular gesture on a work of art, figurative or otherwise.29 By adopting a stratigraphic approach, which sees the body and its immediate physical context as a single entity for the moment in which they are in contact, I demonstrate how gestures that brought the person into a charged relationship with the ground were intrinsically informed by the bare earth, textiles, images, tomb slabs, and other entities on which they might be performed. This book considers representations partly as evidence for these practices and fleeting configurations of body, matter, and image, but also recognizes the independent identity and agency of such depictions. Some actions were depicted more often than they were practiced, while others were relatively common but rarely shown. As noted above, standing on something could have positive or negative implications for the thing underfoot. However, the strong visual tradition of representing trampling arguably limited the extent to which similar-looking but differently construed actions were shown. For example, the part of the vision mentioned above in which St. Francis treads in Christ’s footprints may never have been depicted because it came too close to a better-known subject of both figures trampling negative things underfoot. Representational traditions also had the potential to shape how certain actions and configurations of elements were witnessed, acting as a middle ground between rituals on images and images of rituals.

27. Michael McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Jean-Claude Schmitt, La raison des gestes dans l’Occident médiéval (Paris: Gallimard, 1990); Geoffrey Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor: Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992). 28. Examples attentive to the significance of particular gestures include Moshe Barasch, Giotto and the Language of Gesture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Corine Schleif, “Hands That Appoint, Anoint and Ally: Late Medieval Donor Strategies for Appropriating Approbation through Painting,” Art History 16, no. 1 (1993): 1–32; Kirk Ambrose, “A Visual Pun at Vézelay: Gesture and Meaning on a Capital Representing the Fall of Man,” Traditio 55 (2000): 105–23. For a work that also reflects on degrees of gesturing, see Laura Jacobus, Giotto and the Arena Chapel: Art, Architecture and Experience (London: Harvey Miller, 2008), 203–39. 29. For discussion of a gesture made using a work of art, however, see Cynthia Hahn, “The Voices of the Saints: Speaking Reliquaries,” Gesta 36, no. 1 (1997): 27.

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People and the images or forms they trod on could together make up an ensemble that was itself reminiscent of a familiar scene. In some cases, such as the papal throne in Assisi with a relief of the asp and basilisk under the feet of the living pope, or the potential for the clergy to stand on the gates and personification of hell in the floor mosaic of Otranto Cathedral (Apulia), the reference was to an iconography of trampling. At Novara Cathedral (Piedmont), in contrast, where deacons used the symbols of the Evangelists as liturgical markers, it will have called to mind representations of the Gospel writers and their symbols with no such connotations. My main intention in considering images on other supports is to enrich our understanding of gestures and other actions as these took place on the ground. Nonetheless, the notion that certain iconographies could provide a framework for the visual impact of human figures combined with their material setting—or, in other words, that the effect of people standing on one image was to resemble another—also has implications for the compositions that acted as a point of reference.

Defining People and Places A stratigraphic approach illuminates the relationship between person and material environment, giving them equal weighting in the enquiry if not necessarily in the individual instances of interaction. I see this relationship as dynamic, with contact or proximity having the potential to shape one or both of the components. On the one hand, this transformation might affect the place, as when the ground trodden by Christ and the saints effectively became a contact relic, or the attention paid to the floor surface during the consecration rite contributed to the defi nition of the church as holy. In this respect, this book contributes to the substantial literature on the conception and creation of sacred space.30 It forms part of an increased interest in relics of place and the material qualities of sacred locations, especially in the Holy Land.31 However, where

30. The literature is both extensive and increasingly specialized. Studies that focus on aspects of sacred space of particular relevance to the present work are cited below. General studies include Andrew Spicer and Sarah Hamilton, eds., Defining the Holy: Sacred Space in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005); Alexei Lidov, ed., Hierotopy: Creation of Sacred Spaces in Byzantium and Medieval Russia (Moscow: Progress-Tradition, 2006), esp. Lidov, “Hierotopy: The Creation of Sacred Spaces as a Form of Sacred History and Subject of Cultural History,” 32–58. 31. Bruno Reudenbach, “Reliquien von Orten: Ein frühchristliches Reliquiar als Gedächtnisort,” in Reliquiare im Mittelalter, ed. Bruno Reudenbach and Gia Toussaint (Berlin: Akademie, 2005), 21–41; Julia M. H. Smith, “Portable Christianity: Relics in the Medieval West (c. 700–1200),” Proceedings of the British Academy 181 (2012): 143–67; Lucy Donkin, “Stones of St Michael: Venerating Fragments of Holy Ground in Medieval France and Italy,” in Matter of Faith: An Interdisciplinary Study of Relics and Relic Veneration in the Medieval Period, ed. James Robinson and Lloyd de Beer with Anna Harnden (London: British Museum Press, 2014), 23–31; Bruno Reudenbach, “Holy Places and Their Relics,” in Visual Constructs of Jerusalem, ed. Bianca Kühnel, Galit Noga-Banai, and Hanna Vorholt (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 197–206;

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these studies tend to define their subject matter by substance, site, or event, this book looks at places marked by a particular type of contact. This approach enhances our understanding of sacred space by highlighting the role of holy feet in forming holy ground, but also by providing a framework that encompasses subsequent engagement with the site. Concentrating on forms of interaction common to those whose presence created sacred places and those who venerated them allows us to see more clearly how restricting or repeating contact informed the place over time. Meanwhile, while recent work on ecclesiastical buildings as sacred places has illuminated aspects of their ritual defi nition and ways in which they were shaped and inhabited by the human body, it has not paid sustained attention to interaction with the ground.32 Doing so clarifies the dynamic part played by this surface in formal practices of sanctification and their commemoration and reveals the potential for individual bodies to use the same surface to create circumscribed areas of heightened personal or communal significance, showing how institutional and informal processes of change intersected. Within both these spheres, encompassing a range of interactions with the ground shows how a rhythm of contact contributed to the construction of sacred space. Where locations were defined by the presence of Christ or by consecration ritual, one-off contact effected or helped to effect permanent change. In the case of ground trodden by holy figures, repeated use by less august individuals might be avoided to maintain the sanctity of the site. Elsewhere, and in rituals with other ends, such use conveyed over time a less charged but nonetheless significant aura to a place and its substance. For example, habitually praying in the same spot gave it meaning for the person concerned, while using particular markers in rites of passage built up their importance over generations. By treating a single aspect of the loca sancta—the ground—alongside the same aspect of the consecrated church interior, this book also adds a new dimension to the study of the relationship between the sacred places of the Holy Land and those of western Europe, as well as between places defined by divine intervention and man-made ritual more generally. The former has tended to focus on evocations of the built environment and topography of Jerusalem and its surroundings and on the transportation of relics.33

Renana Bartal, Neta Bodner, and Bianca Kühnel, eds., Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place, 500–1500 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017); Bartal, “Relics of Place: Stone Fragments of the Holy Sepulchre in Eleventh-Century France,” Journal of Medieval History 44, no. 4 (2018): 406–21. 32. Studies include Dawn Marie Hayes, Body and Sacred Place in Medieval Europe, 1100–1389 (New York: Routledge, 2003); Louis I. Hamilton, A Sacred City: Consecrating Churches and Reforming Society in Eleventh-Century Italy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010); Helen Gittos, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 33. Ousterhout, “Church of Santo Stefano”; Robert G. Ousterhout, “Flexible Geography and Transportable Topography,” in “The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Art: Studies in Honor of Bezalel Narkiss on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday,” ed. Bianca Kühnel, special issue, Jewish Art 23/24 (1997/98): 393–404; Kühnel, “Virtual Pilgrimages to Real Places”; Kühnel, Noga-Banai, and Vorholt, Visual Constructs of Jerusalem; Kathryn Blair Moore, The Architecture of the Christian Holy Land: Reception from Late Antiquity through the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

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Considering the ground as a common reality and resource within these different environments, and focusing on the vertical dynamics of sanctification and use in each place rather than horizontal links between them, allows for a different perspective that transcends specifically Jerusalem-focused piety. This sees the interactions made possible by a weightbearing surface, and the capacity of the ground to signal these encounters though impression, material, text, and image, as constituting a shared component of the creation of holy places within and beyond the Holy Land. At the same time, I argue that what people stood or lay on, and indeed what and whom they lay beneath in death, spoke of and shaped their identity too. Such identities ranged from the shared to the highly individual. They included broad confessional affiliations, membership of a religious community, a place in a succession of officeholders, and even the unique nature of Christ. They encompassed extremes of human achievement, from saintly status to excommunication. Where someone requested burial beneath the spot in which they had prayed in life, a more personal sense of identity might also be involved. Although use of particular places could reinforce an existing status, for the most part, these identities were also fluid. Just as contact with the ground had the potential to transform the nature of the place, it could also help to change the status of the person treading or lying on it or on particular elements of floor covering. Ceremonies of baptism, consecration, coronation, penance, and the last rites could all involve the body in meaningful contact with the ground. Here a formidable literature exists on each area of ritual activity.34 However, engagement with the ground tends to be noted only in passing, and—as with studies of gesture—relatively little attention given to the contribution of material context. This book therefore highlights ways in which the surface of the ground and its coverings could add to the articulation and efficacy of these types of rituals, as these were prescribed or adapted in practice. In some cases, the import of the ritual was reinforced through a certain likeness between person and material setting: ashes and hair shirt under a dying penitent; imperial porphyry and silk under a king; and more ambiguous combinations such as marble paving, hair cloth, and the humiliated remains of a saint. In other cases, changed identity was demonstrated more by what someone was prepared to tread underfoot: standing on a cross could be understood to seal conversion to Islam, while trampling on a fur cloak represented a repudiation of

2017); Robin Griffith-Jones and Eric Fernie, eds., Tomb and Temple: Reimagining the Sacred Buildings of Jerusalem (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2018). However, for discussion of a shared logic of sanctity, see Alessandro Scafi, “From Biblical to Non-biblical Holy Places: The Shrine of Subiaco as a Construct of Jerusalem,” in Kühnel, Noga-Banai, and Vorholt, Visual Constructs of Jerusalem, 45–55. 34. Notable studies of individual rites include Frederick S. Paxton, Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990); Sarah Hamilton, The Practice of Penance, 900–1050 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001); Susan A. Keefe, Water and the Word: Baptism and the Education of the Clergy in the Carolingian Empire, 2 vols. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002); Victoria Thompson, Dying and Death in Later Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon Studies 4 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004).

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secular life. If this approach builds on the way identity is often seen to have been signaled by dress, paying attention to the “dressing” of places opens up a wider dynamic of interaction between body and material. Looking across a spectrum of rituals with a specific eye to their treatment and employment of the floor surface also reveals elements of a shared vocabulary, both between them and in common with rituals to do with the transformation of places. As well as showing how contact between body and ground had the potential to define and shape the identity of individuals and groups, this book highlights ways in which such interactions forged relationships between people. From one perspective, this was achieved through a spatial alignment between the bodies of the dead beneath ground and those of the living above. People not only requested burial beneath the feet of all passers-by in an act of studied humility, and a desire for prayer and remembrance, but might also position themselves more specifically beneath processional routes and stopping places, particular participants in the liturgy, and similar officeholders to themselves. While such positioning could mean proximity to salvific or familiar rituals for the dead, it might also perpetuate certain identities beyond the grave and heighten the sense of the living as part of a community extending over time. From another perspective, there was also the potential for connections between different people who occupied the same space above ground at different moments. Here, using the same surface over time can be seen as expressive of likeness, for example between members of a religious community who might take their vows, receive punishment, and die in particular shared places. More restricted access and engagement spoke of more singular identities, such as imperial or episcopal status. In all of these configurations of body, material, form, and image, I argue, it is not just the combination of elements, but their relative status and sanctity that affected the dynamic between them and the significance of the whole.

Structure of the Book The structure of this book reflects and utilizes the stratigraphy that is also its subject matter. It is divided into six chapters, each of which addresses a different dynamic between body and ground. Over the course of the work, the body moves from an upright position to a prone one, and from a position above ground to one beneath it. Where appropriate, chapters start with an unmediated encounter between person and ground, and then add in further layers and components. Within this overall framework, the chapters are grouped into three sets of pairs. The fi rst of these analyzes the role of engagement with the ground in the creation of sacred space. Chapter 1 considers vestigia or imprints that testified to the presence of Christ and other figures of religious significance in a particular place, asking how holy feet shaped holy places. While attention is given to the characterization of the whole of the Holy Land as trodden by Christ, discussion focuses on three case studies of physical impressions that question its paradigmatic status by

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going beyond the region and Christianity: Christ’s footprints at the site of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives; the imprints on the rock in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which were venerated and identified variously by Muslims and Christians; and those of St. Michael at the shrine of the archangel on the Gargano Peninsula (Apulia). I argue that these vestigia sites demonstrated transformative contact through their form and material qualities, played an important role in the generation of environmental relics that stood in for the absent body of Christ and the immaterial archangel, and were also defined by the circumscription of further physical contact. The potential of such relics to render other places holy is demonstrated in chapter 2, which otherwise analyzes the treatment of the floor surface of the church building during the consecration ceremony. Particular attention is paid to the execution, representation, and interpretation of the alphabet cross. Initially written on the ground, the letters came to be impressed into ashes. I see this as forming a significant point of correspondence with the vestigia sites and with contemporary understandings of human memory and the internalization of spiritual knowledge. The characterization of the ground as receptive is also seen to have contributed to the acknowledgment and commemoration of the consecration ceremony in permanent pavement decoration. While attentive to the specificity of different rites, readings, and pavements, the chapter sets up broad conceptions of the surface on which many of the other interactions addressed in this book take place. In other respects, the second set of chapters follows on from the discussion of vestigia, by investigating the negative and positive implications of standing on something more broadly, bringing this material together for the fi rst time. Chapter 3 focuses on trampling, which was represented visually and textually more than it was experienced in reality. Concentrating particularly on the holy underfoot, the chapter demonstrates its role in interaction between different religious and confessional groups and shows how differing attitudes to images modulated how the action might be understood. Where trampling took place, I argue, it tended to involve objects placed on the ground or reused in the pavement specifically in order to be trodden on, intersecting with wider questions surrounding the significance of spoliated materials. Although some of these practices aimed to desecrate the objects concerned, the chapter also identifies a discourse of trampling, which not only featured metaphors of triumph but also included accusations of trampling on holy things. The latter often tarred those involved with impiety without necessarily understanding the sanctity of the thing so treated to be compromised. In time, place, and medium, all this was relatively remote from the creation and use of medieval ecclesiastical pavements. Chapter 4 thus turns to the use of elements in church pavements as liturgical markers. Where the first two chapters examine one-off transformative engagement with the ground, this demonstrates the impact of repeated use of particular places. After surveying the better-known evidence for geometric markers, it makes the case that images could act in a similar manner. Both could mark the place of participants and officiants in various rites, enhancing their identity. However, I understand form,

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material, and image to have combined differently with the bodies above them. Images had particular potential to engender different responses, encompassing positive and negative interpretations of standing on something within a single work. When witnessed in use, they also had greater potential to form ensembles that were themselves reminiscent of representations. Ephemeral floor coverings fulfi lled similar functions but were directed even more at specific people. The chapter also asks how the employment of liturgical markers relates to the holy ground trodden by Christ and the saints. While each can be located on a spectrum of engagement with the ground, in which singular use reflected an exceptional identity and repeated use a shared one, one visionary experience of the church interior featuring holy individuals combined elements from both contexts. The final two chapters treat the prone body, looking firstly at practices of prostration that brought people level with the ground and then at the relationship between those buried below and the bodies of the living above them. The first part of chapter 5 asks how prostration was informed by its material setting. After setting out the characterization of the ground in late antique and medieval discussions of prostration, it shows how carrying this out on the bare earth and on different floor coverings could enrich and complicate the significance of the act and the encounter with the ground. The second half of the chapter further interrogates the setting of prostration as this was carried out within three specific types of ritual: the humiliation of relics, coronation, and the last rites. In each case, it identifies a particular environment in which these were performed: the abbey of Farfa (Lazio), Westminster Abbey, both of which had marble pavements, and the infirmary chapel of the abbey of Marmoutier in Tours, where the floor depicted a dying monk. In this way, the chapter develops the arguments put forward in chapter 4 regarding the role of the ground in identity-shaping rites, and the relationship between body, material, and image. It also draws connections with the treatment of the ground in other contexts, proposing that practices of laying the dying on a hair cloth and ashes display correspondences not only with rituals of initiation, but also with the church consecration ceremony. At the same time, in ending with the body in death, it prepares the way for the last chapter. Chapter 6 adds a final element to the stratigraphic ensemble that has been built up over the rest of the work, namely the bodies of the dead below ground. It therefore starts with the norm of the baptized body in the holy ground of the consecrated church or cemetery, before going on to ask how this configuration might be disrupted miraculously. I see such disruption as depending on the relative sanctity of the elements involved. On the one hand, corpses of excommunicates might be expelled from and by the ground itself; on the other, saintly remains could be revealed in order to be elevated. The second part of the chapter adds in the bodies of the living above ground, discussing requests to be buried beneath particular people and places. Like prostration, I suggest, such configurations could combine expressions of humility with issues of identity. While they often indicated a desire to perpetuate in death positions occupied during life, they could also incorporate other

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users of the space—past, present, and future. This dimension involves a range of encounters with the ground elucidated in previous chapters and encompasses both places of general passage and processional routes, and those associated with more specific events and officeholders. The evidence of burial requests indicates that while such requests presume a certain dynamic above ground, grave slabs could also act as markers, shaping what took place above them. On occasion, burial might even take place beneath something on which a saint had stood, bringing the discussion full circle to the material considered at the beginning of the book. Finally, the chapter addresses holy remains below ground, demonstrating the role of bodies standing and kneeling above them in bringing them to light.

Sources, Scope, and Suggestions This book draws on a wide variety of sources—material, visual, and written—in order to approach a surface that is rarely the focus of medieval writing in its own right. The discussion of vestigia in the Holy Land and elsewhere uses descriptions and travel accounts, foundation legends, and relic lists to reconstruct attitudes to imprints. In the rest of the work, which focuses mainly on the church interior, surviving pavements and indications of lost examples form a key body of evidence. This evidence is discussed alongside liturgical material that prescribed how the surface was treated on particular occasions, from one-off rituals such as consecration to regular ceremonies during the course of the church year. Particular attention is paid to pontificals, ordinals, and customaries. Use is also made of images in liturgical texts, commentaries on the liturgy, and other prescriptive writing such as guides to prayer. Hagiographical material is employed for its treatment of the leaving of vestigia, pious engagement with the ground, saintly burials, and invention accounts. Individual chapters also draw on specific types of sources. For example, the discussion of trampling includes writing that enumerates the errors of other confessions, as well as accounts of diplomatic and triumphal encounters in chronicles, literary texts, and sermons. The chapter on burial draws on conciliar decrees and on testamentary evidence. This book aims to look across boundaries: between the techniques and materials that made up the floor surface; between the actions and rites that brought people into contact with it; between the loca sancta of the Holy Land and church buildings sanctified by ecclesiastical ritual; and between the interest in people and actions held by the historian and the material and visual focus of the art historian. As such, it is indebted to existing studies in a wide variety of fields and, equally, aims to contribute to a number of areas of enquiry. The majority of the work concerns the Latin West in the central Middle Ages, but it draws mostly on examples from Italy, France, and England, leaving other areas relatively unexplored. It also makes forays into Late Antiquity, the later Middle Ages, and neighboring regions where seams of material extend in that

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direction. This approach is particularly true of the discussion of the Holy Land in chapter 1, but there is also some consideration of Byzantine, Jewish, and Islamic practices involving the ground more generally, especially in chapter 3. In this respect the book might appear to go against a historiographical trend that resists overarching syntheses and rightly emphasizes the diversity and particularity of individual places, rituals, works, and events.35 In part this is because its subject matter—a surface—has not previously been conceived as an object of enquiry, so there is no overarching thesis to deconstruct, but rather points of connection to highlight for the first time. The goal is certainly not to present a universalizing picture, to negate differences of medium, locality, and time, or to imply that the ground functioned similarly everywhere. Case studies illustrate what was possible rather than standing for something beyond themselves; they do not so much map a terrain as present a series of core samples. At the same time, if the present work by no means intends to diminish difference, ultimately it does aim to demonstrate a greater importance for the ground beneath our feet than is usually taken to be the case and a greater coherence in the way it was treated. As such the book constitutes both an appeal to readers to notice the surface and take it more seriously across a range of scholarly enterprises and an attempt to provide some common ground for future discussion. I thus propose a set of broad contentions concerning how the surface functioned. The surface of the ground played a crucial and hitherto underestimated role in the definition of places and people during the Middle Ages. This role transcends the groupings into which we are accustomed to divide these processes and entities. Correspondences exist between ways in which the surface functioned when places were marked out by holy figures and events and when they were defined by ecclesiastical ritual. Parallels can also be drawn between interactions with the ground as this was marked in different media and as these encounters involved a range of actions, rites, and types of people. As a weight-bearing surface, the ground enabled and articulated vertical configurations of people and matter, which punctuated expanses of space as this was understood to extend horizontally across the same surface. Contact of this kind between people and places drew meaning from the relationship between the figures involved, the nature and rhythm of the actions that brought them into contact with the ground, and the cultural connotations of the materials, images, and symbols thus encountered. While some of these dynamic layerings confirmed existing identities, they could also transform the elements brought together, whether in a single moment or gradually over time. The processes and implications outlined here are important because they affected some of medieval Christianity’s most sacred places, concerned key figures in salvation history

35. For an articulation of this development as found in the study of ritual, see Helen Gittos, “Researching the History of Rites,” in Gittos and Hamilton, Understanding Medieval Liturgy, 13–37.

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and contemporary society, and articulated relations between the major religious groupings of the time. They are equally important for involving anonymous individuals and shaping places, bonds, and distinctions of more local and personal significance. Finally, they are worthy of scrutiny because standing on holy ground in the Middle Ages brought historical and cultural specificity to a mode of interaction between people and places that remains expressive today and could be approached more widely using this framework.

1 HOLY FOOTPRINTS

Adorabimus in loco ubi steterunt pedes eius. [We will adore in the place where his feet stood.] —Psalm 131 (132):7

I

n his DE doctrina christiana, St. Augustine (354–430) used the footprint of an animal to illustrate his understanding of signs: “a sign is a thing which, over and above the impression it makes on the senses, causes something else to come into the mind as a consequence of itself: as when we see a footprint (vestigium), we conclude that an animal whose footprint this is has passed by.” He went on to class the footprint as a natural sign, something that would “lead to the knowledge of something else” regardless of the intention behind its creation.1 From this perspective, a footprint is intrinsically expressive of the body that created it, reflecting both the body’s previous presence in a certain place and its current absence. By preserving something of the form of the body, it offers a clue to the maker’s identity; by constituting a physical impression in the ground, it also transforms the location. These inherent qualities make the footprint such a powerful sign that it has been consciously employed as such in a wide variety of historical periods and cultural contexts.2 Nevertheless, such footprints also reflect more specific circumstances and assumptions. My focus here is on the way in which vestigia functioned within medieval Christianity to indicate the presence of holy individuals and the significance of this for the creation and definition of holy ground. While treating the imprints as a separate category of enquiry,

1. Augustine, De doctrina christiana, 2.1–2, ed. Joseph Martin, in Aurelii Augustini opera, vol. 4.1, CCSL 32 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1962), 32; trans. J. F. Shaw, in St. Augustin’s City of God and Christian Doctrine, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Church, ed. Philip Schaff, vol. 2 (Buffalo: Christian Literature Company, 1887), 535. For an alternative translation, see John Gavigan, Writings of Saint Augustine (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1947), 4:61–62. 2. Examples venerated by several faiths are discussed in Crispin Branfoot, “Pilgrimage in South Asia: Crossing Boundaries of Space and Faith,” in Pilgrimage: The Sacred Journey, ed. Ruth Barnes and Crispin Branfoot (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2006), esp. 57, 64.

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the chapter is conceived as part of a wider investigation into the implications of treading something underfoot, which range from sanctification to desecration. Medieval Christian traditions of sacred vestigia both drew on and diverged from those of the classical world. A large number of representations of footprints survive from the Greek and Roman periods, including many in sanctuary settings.3 The majority of the latter are inscribed into the pavement or bare rock or sculpted into separate blocks of stone. In a few cases the soles were inlaid with metal, including lead, bronze, and possibly even silver. It is highly probable that several of the imprints known in the Middle Ages were reused from pagan contexts, as with the footprints of Christ on the Via Appia and those of the Archangel Michael in S. Maria in Aracoeli, both in Rome.4 Katherine Dunbabin suggests that the classical footprints “allude to the presence of the person concerned, human or divine, in a particular place.”5 Where the footprints are those of a deity, they may commemorate a vision, and some prominent examples may have been the object of general devotion. For example, Apuleius’s description of crowds kissing the vestigia of Isis, usually understood to refer to the feet of a statue, can plausibly be interpreted as referring instead to footprints inlaid in silver.6 In a medieval Christian context, footprints in sacred places similarly recorded some sort of divine or saintly presence, whether in the flesh or as apparitions, and were venerated as a result. They are particularly associated with those figures, such as Christ, Mary, or the angels, who had left few or no bodily remains. However, they could also be attributed to saints with corporeal relics, often functioning to extend their influence beyond the area of the shrine itself or to compensate for an absence. For example, Gregory of Tours describes two sites, both outside the Touraine, that commemorated St. Martin’s presence. The place where the saint had stood in Artonne (Puy-de-Dôme) was protected by a balustrade, while the hoofprint of his donkey was preserved in the village of Nieul-lès-Saintes (Charente-Maritime), where Martin had made a spring flow.7 Goscelin of St.-Bertin’s late eleventh-century Life of St. Mildrith,

3. These have been examined in Katherine M. D. Dunbabin, “Ipsa deae vestigia . . .: Footprints Divine and Human on Graeco-Roman Monuments,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 3 (1990): 85–109. See also Margherita Guarducci, “Le impronte del Quo Vadis e monumenti affi ni, figurati ed epigrafici,” Atti della Pontificia Accademia romana di archeologia, ser. 3, Rendiconti 19 (1942–43): 305–44. 4. Guarducci, “Impronte del Quo Vadis,” 308, 315; Johanna Heideman, “The Roman Footprints of the Archangel Michael: The Lost Shrine of S. Maria in Aracoeli and the Petition of Fioravante Martinelli,” Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome, n.s. 12 (1987): 147–56, 277–78; Heideman, “Orme romane ed il perduto reliquiario delle ‘pedate’ dell’arcangelo Michele,” Bollettino dei Musei comunali di Roma, n.s. 4 (1990): 17; Claudia Bolgia, “The Felici Icon Tabernacle (1372) at S. Maria in Aracoeli, Reconstructed: Lay Patronage, Sculpture and Marian Devotion in Trecento Rome,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 68 (2005): 40. 5. Dunbabin, “Ipsa deae vestigia,” 86. 6. Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.17, ed. D. S. Robertson and trans. Paul Vallett, Apulée. Les Métamophoses, 3 vols. (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1940–45), 3:154; for this argument, see Dunbabin, “Ipsa deae vestigia,” 96. 7. For Artonne, see Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria confessorum, 5, ed. Bruno Krusch, in Gregorii Turonensis opera, vol. 2, Miracula et opera minora, MGH SRM 1.2 (Hannover: Hahn, 1969), 301–2; trans. Raymond Van Dam, Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Confessors (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press,

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which describes her footprints in a rock at Ebbsfleet on Thanet, was written after the saint’s remains had been removed from Minster-in-Thanet to Canterbury.8 In the later Middle Ages, vestigia might fulfill the same purpose with regard to well-known cult statues. Writing about Marian apparitions in late medieval Spain, including the case of a small statue-like Mary ultimately identified as Our Lady of Guadalupe who left correspondingly tiny footprints on a patch of sand, William A. Christian Jr. has seen them as instrumental in the formation of satellite shrines.9 In the main, Christian vestigia were associated with positive figures. However, others involved in their stories could also be understood to have left imprints, such as the marks of the hobnail boots of the soldiers who killed Zacharias, noted by the fourth-century Bordeaux Pilgrim.10 A second type of footprint found in classical sanctuaries, and which in the Greek world at least seems to predate that of the deity, was associated with the worshippers themselves. Although these generally served to record their presence at the sanctuary, some may have communicated the correct location for a certain activity. It has been suggested, for example, that some of the footprints at the temple of Saturn at Neferis (Khanguet el-Hajaj, Tunisia) may indicate the place in which the initiate had to stand in order to be presented to the god.11 Where unaccompanied by a dedicatory inscription, footprints may equally have functioned to show where ritual sandals had to be worn or where sandals had to be taken off.12 Certainly surviving inscriptions indicate that leather shoes did have to be removed at a number of sanctuaries, including those of Alectrona at Ialysus (Rhodes) and Lykousoura (Arcadia).13 In the medieval period, in contrast, footprints do not tend to relate to worshippers, though there are some churches in which incised outlines of shoes—difficult to date—on both horizontal and vertical surfaces can be understood to record and perpetuate a devotee’s presence in a

1988), 23. For Nieul-lès-Saintes, see Gregory of Tours, Liber de virtutibus Sancti Martini episcopi, 4.31, ed. Bruno Krusch, in Gregorii Turonensis opera, 2:207–8; trans. Raymond Van Dam, Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 297–98. 8. Goscelin, Vita Deo dilectae virginis Mildrethae, 19, ed. D. W. Rollason, in The Mildrith Legend: A Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1982), 132–33, see also 67; Gittos, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places, 19–29; Hilary Powell, “Following in the Footsteps of Christ: Text and Context in the Vita Mildrethae,” Medium Ævum 82, no. 1 (2013): 23–43. 9. William A. Christian Jr., Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 87–88; for the vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe by Inés Martínez in Cubas, Madrid, in 1449, see 57–88, esp. 70, 75–76 for the footprints. 10. “Etiam parent vestigia clavorum militum, qui eum occiderunt, per totum aream, ut putes in cera fi xum esse”; Itinerarium Burdigalense, ed. P. Geyer and O. Cuntz, in Itineraria et alia geographica, 2 vols., CCSL 175–76 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1965), 1:15–16. Jas´ Elsner, “The Itinerarium Burdigalense: Politics and Salvation in the Geography of Constantine’s Empire,” Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000): 192. 11. Marcel Leglay, Saturne africain: Histoire (Paris: Boccard, 1966), 387. 12. Gilbert Charles-Picard, Les religions de l’Afrique antique (Paris: Plon, 1954), 138, for this suggestion regarding a pair of footprints at Thinissut; Dunbabin, “Ipsa deae vestigia,” 93, n. 40. 13. For example, Franciszek Sokolowski, ed., Lois sacrées des cités grecques (Paris: Boccard, 1969), 122, no. 65, lines 22–23, for Adania; 138, no. 68, lines 6–7, for Lykosoura; 220, no. 124, line 17, for Eresos; 234, no. 136, lines 25–26, for Ialysos. See also Robert Parker, Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 145.

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sacred place and have been associated with the command to Moses in front of the Burning Bush.14 However, the idea of using elements in the floor surface to show where certain actions should take place, with the result that a number of people would stand in a particular spot over time, was characteristic of medieval pavement decoration and will be discussed in chapter 4. The present chapter examines three sets of holy footprints: those of Christ on the Mount of Olives; those in the Dome of the Rock, claimed as Christ’s after the First Crusade; and those of the Archangel Michael on the Gargano Peninsula in Apulia. Since awareness of these examples during the Middle Ages was sustained and widespread, they have the potential both to reveal something of common attitudes to vestigia sacra and to highlight change and variety. The sites are located within and beyond the Holy Land and include one venerated primarily by Muslims. Specific features of the case studies also allow discussion of particular aspects of holy ground that are of relevance for the rest of the work. While sacred footprints in general can be seen to occupy a position between contact and corporeal relics, Christ’s Ascension and the essentially incorporeal nature of the archangel meant that no bodily remains were available for veneration. In instances such as these, vestigia and the ground into which they were imprinted became correspondingly more valued. Not only were the examples located within shrines, but relics from the site of the footprints—and in one case the prints themselves—were taken to churches elsewhere, bringing holy ground marked by the presence of holy individuals into correspondence with that shaped by ecclesiastical ritual. Secondly, all three examples were originally understood to be imprinted in the bare earth or rock rather than in free-standing stones, effectively punctuating the wider surface of the ground rather than defining a discrete object and meaning that they can be brought into dialogue with floor decoration. Descriptions display signs of tension between a desire to cover the ground in marble or precious metals, along the lines of high-status paving or reliquaries, and to expose the place to public view. Moreover, if the imprints result from a moment of contact with a specific individual, their position also raised the question of future contact with particular force. Footprints were already open to a wider and more complex range of interactions than other types of holy imprints, since treading was different from touching with hand or mouth. The way in which the imprinted ground discussed here was protected from being trodden on again can usefully be compared not only with

14. Linda Safran, The Medieval Salento: Art and Identity in Southern Italy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 172–74. On depictions of sandals in Byzantine houses and churches, see Lihi Habas, “A Pair of Sandals Depicted on Mosaic Floors in the Entrances of Private Houses and Churches in Israel and Transjordan in the Byzantine Period,” in SOMA 2007: Proceedings of the XI Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology, Istanbul Technical University, 24–29 April 2007, ed. Çig˘ dem Özkan Aygün, BAR International Series 1900 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2009), 151–59.

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the devotional treatment of other vestigia, but also with patterns of use of pavement markers by individuals and groups. The chapter starts by positioning Holy Land vestigia in relation to the enduring characterization of the region as the land trodden by Christ. This initial section also addresses the veneration of pieces of the ground as relics, part of a wider phenomenon of environmental relics or relics of place. While acknowledging that the sites were primarily defined by key events of salvation history, I argue that textual descriptions of the relics convey an interest in the fact and nature of physical contact. In this way, the section establishes the act of treading as potentially sanctifying, imparting a holiness to the substance of the ground that was retained when this was taken elsewhere. The first case study focuses on the footprints at the place of the Ascension, identifying key features of their veneration and interpretation as this developed over time: their capacity to testify to the presence and nature of Christ; the importance of their material properties; and the miraculous and physical circumscription of further contact. This establishes a framework for approaching other examples, as well as different kinds of holy ground. While informed by the precedent of the nearby Mount of Olives, the imprints in the Dome of the Rock represent a more fluid and contested tradition, in which different religious groups ascribed marks in the rock to a range of figures as part of efforts to establish control over the Temple Mount. Treatment of these vestigia indicates attitudes that were shared between Christianity and Islam, even as it expressed changing ownership of the building. The final case study, the footprints of St. Michael in Apulia, demonstrates how vestigia relating to a vision could structure holy ground beyond the Holy Land. Although parallels are drawn with sites in Jerusalem, these correspondences reflect a shared logic of sanctity more than an interest in replicating aspects of the loca sancta. At the same time, the fact that the Gargano imprints were seen in relation to the ceremony of church consecration and function similarly to those in other foundation legends suggests that outside the land trodden by Christ holy vestigia operated more closely in conjunction with other paradigms of sacred space.

Holy Ground and Environmental Relics In Palestine, the holy footprints of Christ were features of a landscape that was sanctified more widely by his presence. Robert Wilken has traced how ideas of Palestine changed from a collection of holy or “saving” places in the works of Eusebius and Jerome to a holy land embracing a territory in the sixth century.15 Yet even before this shift the

15. Wilken, Land Called Holy. On the development of the idea of holy places, see R. A. Markus, “How on Earth Could Places Become Holy? Origins of the Christian Idea of Holy Places,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 2, no. 3 (1994): 257–71.

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ground was already an object of veneration. One of the earliest uses of the term “terra sancta” in a Christian context is to refer to the earth rather than the region, when St. Augustine describes soil brought from Jerusalem in this way.16 Later sources attest to the custom of venerating the ground when approaching the holy city. A sixth-century account of pilgrims visiting Jerusalem in the 430s describes how, when they reached the outskirts of the city, “they fell down upon their faces, and from there onwards they crept upon their knees, frequently kissing the soil with their lips and eyes”; the Piacenza Pilgrim, who visited Jerusalem in 570, also prostrated himself and kissed the ground just before entering the city.17 However, it was one thing for the earth to be honored in situ. What is striking about Augustine’s description of the “terra sancta” brought to North Africa is that it indicates that sanctity was not restricted to the location but could also reside in the material, which could thus be divorced from the place and still remain sacred. The episode may be an early instance of what came to be the common practice of taking a “eulogia” or “blessing” from the sites of Christ’s life. Although the “blessing” could be received directly, by touching the place or object concerned, it could also take the form of something that had itself come into contact with the holy and could thus be retained and taken home. Gary Vikan has described tokens of this kind as employing a “common substance” of “neutral origin,” such as oil, water, earth, or even wax.18 Yet earth and to a lesser extent water, as features of the landscape inhabited by Christ, occupy an ambiguous position in this process. Earth might be construed as holy as the result of a deliberate action in the present; the Piacenza Pilgrim reported that earth was placed inside the tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to be taken away by pilgrims.19 In this case it was simply a portable intermediary, two steps removed from the body of Christ. Although it had been taken from the ground of Palestine, it was essentially valueless until it became charged with sanctity through proximity to the tomb. In the same way, ampullae of oil were blessed

16. Augustine, De civitate Dei, 22.8, ed. Bernhard Dombart and Alfons Kalb, Aurelii Augustini opera, vol. 14.2, CCSL 48 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), 820; trans. R. W. Dyson, The City of God against the Pagans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1126. 17. Life of Peter the Iberian, trans. David Marshall Lang, in Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, rev. ed. (London: Mowbrays, 1976), 64. For the dating of the visit, see Paul Devos, “Quand Pierre l’Ibère vint-il à Jerusalem?,” Analecta bollandiana 86 (1968): 337–50. Antonini Placentini itinerarium, 18, ed. P. Geyer, in Itineraria et alia geographica, 1:138; trans. John Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, rev. ed. (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 2002), 138. 18. Gary Vikan, Byzantine Pilgrimage Art, Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Collection Publications 5 (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982), 10–11. On this practice, see also Derek Krueger, “Liturgical Time and Holy Land Reliquaries in Early Byzantium,” in Saints and Sacred Matter: The Cult of Relics in Byzantium and Beyond, ed. Cynthia Hahn and Holger A. Klein (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, 2015), esp. 116–17. 19. Antonini Placentini itinerarium, 18, ed. Geyer, 138; trans. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, 138.

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though contact with the wood of the Cross.20 However, earth was also taken directly from the ground in places that were themselves relics because of Christ’s presence there. In these circumstances the soil was far from neutral, since it was already blessed and only one step removed from Christ. According to Gregory of Tours (ca. 538–94), Christ’s rock-cut tomb also witnessed this practice: “Often the ground is covered with a natural radiant brightness; then it is sprinkled with water and dug up, and from it tiny [clay] tokens are shaped and sent to different parts of the world.”21 When earth or stones were taken away from their original sacred location, they were not simply redolent of a particular place, but in some senses still were that place; those taking them back home brought something of the location with them. The recipient of the box of earth mentioned by Augustine eventually buried it and constructed a shrine over the top, thus turning a patch of North Africa into Jerusalem. Since Jerusalem is characterized as the place “where Christ was buried and rose again the third day,” the soil may have come from the Holy Sepulcher.22 Equally it is possible that the whole city was felt to partake in the Resurrection and that the exact place that the soil had come from was not important. Throughout the Middle Ages earth and stones from the locations of significant biblical events were widely venerated as relics, along with other natural materials such as water from the Jordan.23 In scholarship that has tended to discuss relics in terms of the bodies of the saints, they have traditionally been marginalized or seen as lesser in status, and are often still discussed as holy souvenirs. However, as Julia Smith has noted, they are found housed and listed together with what might conventionally be termed corporeal and contact relics, and seem to have been equally valued by contemporaries.24 While this point is an important corrective, it is still helpful to acknowledge their distinctive material properties and logic of sanctity, and they can usefully be discussed collectively as relics of place, environmental relics, or site relics. Relics of the loca sancta might be grouped together, as in the famous Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box (fig. 2), forming a

20. Antonini Placentini itinerarium, 20, ed. Geyer, 139; trans. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, 139. 21. “Prodit et ex monumento, quo dominicum iacuit corpus, mira virtus, quod saepius terra naturali candore radiante repletur, et exinde iterum ablata aqua conspergitur, de qua turtolae parvulae formantur ac per diversis mundi partibus transmittuntur”; Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria martyrum, 6, ed. Bruno Krusch, in Gregorii Turonensis opera, 2:42; trans. Raymond Van Dam, Glory of the Martyrs, Translated Texts for Historians 4, 2nd ed. (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004), 9. 22. Augustine, De civitate Dei, 22.8, ed. Dombart and Kalb, 820; trans. Dyson, 1126. 23. Reudenbach, “Reliquien von Orten”; Kathryn M. Rudy, Virtual Pilgrimages in the Convent: Imagining Jerusalem in the Late Middle Ages, Disciplina monastica 8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 107–18; Reudenbach, “Holy Places and Their Relics”; Bartal, Bodner, and Kühnel, Natural Materials of the Holy Land. On the importance of stones within the Holy Land, see Yamit Rachman-Schrire, “Evagatorium in Terrae Sanctae: Stones Telling the Story of Jerusalem,” in Jerusalem as Narrative Space, ed. Annette Hoffmann and Gerhard Wolf (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 353–66. 24. Smith, “Portable Christianity”; also, with a caution against projecting back later hierarchies of relics, see Julia M. H. Smith, “Relics: An Evolving Tradition in Latin Christianity,” in Hahn and Klein, Saints and Sacred Matter, 41–60.

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Fig. 2. Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box, sixth century. Vatican City, Vatican Museums, inv. 61883. Photo: © Vatican Museums, all rights reserved.

microcosm of the Holy Land.25 At the same time, studies have shown that material from individual sites possessed a particular logic and its movement might help form specific relationships with other places. Relics of the Holy Sepulcher were particularly numerous and highly valued.26 As a built structure incorporating the rock-cut tomb of Christ, this occupies a position between the environmental and the architectural, and while some relics were probably rocks and pebbles, others were pieces of worked stone.27 In some cases, they were housed in churches that alluded to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in their form as well as their dedication. A distinct identity can also be suggested for earth from Akeldama, the Potter’s Field bought with Judas Iscariot’s thirty pieces of silver and used as a burial place for pilgrims. Not hallowed by the presence of Christ but

25. See, for example, Reudenbach, “Reliquien von Orten,” with other examples that group together loca sancta relics; Lucy O’Connor, “The Late Antique Wooden Reliquaries from the Chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum,” Bollettino dei monumenti musei e gallerie pontificie 31 (2013): 201–29; Beate Fricke, “Tales from Stones, Travels through Time: Narrative and Vision in the Casket from the Vatican,” W86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture 21, no. 2 (2014): 230–50; Krueger, “Liturgical Time,” 112–15. 26. Michele Bacci, “The Mise-en-Scène of the Holy in the Lateran Church in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” in Romanesque Cathedrals in Mediterranean Europe: Architecture, Ritual and Urban Context, ed. Gerardo Boto Varela and Justin E. A. Kroesen (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), 189; Bartal, “Relics of Place.” 27. Bartal, “Relics of Place”; for the veneration of spolia at the site itself, see also Robert G. Ousterhout, “Architecture as Relic and the Construction of Sanctity: The Stones of the Holy Sepulchre,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 62 (2003): 4–23.

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implicated in his Passion, this seems to have been taken by individuals and placed in reliquaries relatively rarely.28 More commonly it was understood to have been spread on cemeteries in Italy, Cyprus, and elsewhere, allowing people to be buried there as if in the Holy Land and also retaining its capacity to strip corpses to the bone with remarkable speed.29 On Mount Sinai some of the stones collected by pilgrims were valued for their visual properties, their fern-like dendrites seen to allude to the Burning Bush.30 If most stones of this kind were taken beyond the Holy Land, a tradition that cast the Virgin Mary herself as a pilgrim understood stones from Sinai to have been brought by angels to Mount Zion in order to save her a difficult journey, reinforcing the supremacy claimed for the latter site.31 While recognizing this variety, and itself focusing on two vestigia sites in the Holy Land, this chapter also acknowledges a wider trend that conceived the sanctity of the region and fragments of its ground as resulting from a particular dynamic of physical contact. The presence of Christ in the Holy Land was commonly expressed in terms of Psalm 131 (132):7. Although the Hebrew read “Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool,” in Eusebius’s Greek translation the verse was rendered as “We shall worship in the place where His feet have stood,” and the Vulgate retained this translation to read “adorabimus in loco ubi steterunt pedes eius.” Both translations were open to a Christological interpretation, and many of those who visited the sites of Christ’s life felt themselves to be fulfilling this prophecy, even if some interpreters preferred a more spiritual reading. Eusebius’s Life of Constantine, written in the 330s, describes how Helena “accorded suitable adoration to the footsteps of the Saviour, following the prophetic word which says, ‘Let us adore in the place where his feet have stood.’”32 Paulinus of Nola (ca. 352–431) considered that “no other sentiment draws men to Jerusalem but the desire to see and touch the places where Christ was physically present, and to be able to

28. A Sienese pilgrim who visited Jerusalem in 1421 took some for his “devozione”; Mariano da Siena, Viaggio in Terra Santa, ed. Domenico Moreni (Florence: Magheri, 1822), 57–58. Relics of Akeldama are listed in the Wiener Heiligthumbuch and the Hallesches Heiltumsbuch: Das Wiener Heiligthumbuch: Nach der Augsgabe von 1502, sammt den Nachträgen von 1514 (Vienna: Gerold, 1882), n.p.; Vortzeichnus und Zceigung des hochlobwirdigen Heiligthumbs der Stifftkirchen der heiligen Sanct Moritz und Marien Magdalenen zu Halle (Halle, 1520), fol. 26r. 29. Neta Bodner, “Earth from Jerusalem in the Pisan Camposanto,” in Between Jerusalem and Europe: Essays in Honour of Bianca Kühnel, ed. Renana Bartal and Hanna Vorholt (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 74–93; Lucy Donkin, “Earth from Elsewhere: Burial in Terra Sancta beyond the Holy Land,” in Bartal, Bodner, and Kühnel, Natural Materials of the Holy Land, 109–26. 30. Susan Weingarten, “‘And This Shall Be a Token to Thee’ (Ex. 3.12): Lapis Sinaiticus in Jewish and Christian Traditions,” Journal of Jewish Studies 54, no. 1 (2003): 1–20; Larison, “Mount Sinai and the Monastery of St. Catherine,” 300–14. 31. Yamit Rachman-Schrire, “Sinai Stones on Mount Zion: Mary’s Pilgrimage in Jerusalem,” in Bartal and Vorholt, Between Jerusalem and Europe, 57–73. 32. Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 3.42.2, ed. and trans. Horst Schneider, Eusebius von Caesarea. De vita Constantini: Über das Leben Konstantins (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 360–61; trans. Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 137.

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say from their very own experience: ‘We have gone into His tabernacle, and have worshipped in the places where His feet stood.’”33 In what has been seen by Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony as a new development in the use of the psalm to support the idea that pilgrimage was a duty, Jerome (ca. 346–420) stated that “to worship on the spot where the feet of the Lord once stood is part of the faith.”34 The verse was used with particular frequency in periods that saw significant numbers of people travel to the Holy Land, and especially in the context of the Crusades. For example, in the first book of his Chronicle, Fulcher of Chartres (ca. 1059–1127) described how those participating in the First Crusade saw the journey in these terms: “those who arrived later deservedly said ‘We shall worship in the place where His feet have stood.’”35 Subsequently, after the Battle of Hattin and the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187, many characterized the area to be liberated in these terms. The English chronicler Roger of Howden (d. ca. 1201) wrote of the Patriarch Heraclius appealing for assistance for “the Holy Land in which the feet of the Lord had stood,” and in 1198 Innocent III used much the same expression in letters calling for participation in the Fourth Crusade.36 The phrase is also echoed in the Palästinalied of Walther von der Vogelweide, in which he rejoices in having “come to the place that God trod as a man.”37 Colin Morris has suggested that the poem may have been composed in response to the recovery of Jerusalem by Frederick II in 1228/29, although it is not certain whether Walther visited the Holy Land himself.38 Late antique and medieval Christians were steeped in the language of the psalms, one of the oldest elements of Christian worship and a primer for learning to read, and it was natural for them to express their thoughts in these words. There was also a desire to live the words so that they would be justified in speaking them in the first person. Despite the many aspects of pilgrimage to the Holy Land that

33. Paulinus of Nola, Epistulae, 49.14, ed. Wilhelm von Hartel, CSEL 29, 2nd ed. (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1999), 402. English translation in P. G. Walsh, ed. and trans., Letters of Paulinus of Nola, 2 vols. (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1966–67), 2:273. 34. “Adorasse, ubi steterunt pedes domini, pars fidei est”; Jerome, Epistulae, 47.2, ed. Isidor Hilberg, 3 vols., CSEL 54–56, 2nd ed. (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996), 1:346; Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, Encountering the Sacred: The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 81–83. 35. Fulcher of Chartres, Chronicle, 1.6.10, ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer, Fulcheri Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana (Heidelberg: Winter, 1913), 162; trans. Frances Rita Ryan, ed. Harold S. Fink, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095–1127 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1969), 73–74. 36. “Ut celerem succursum faceret terræ illi sanctæ, in qua steterunt pedes Domini”; William Stubbs, ed., Gesta regis Henrici secundi Benedicti abbatis, 2 vols., RS 49 (London: Longman, 1867), 1:331. “Post deplorandam invasionem illius terre, in qua pedes Christi steterunt”; Othmar Hageneder and Anton Haidacher, eds., Die Register Innocenz’ III, vol. 1, Pontifi catsjahr 1198–99, Publikationen der Abteilung für historische Studien des Österreichischen Kulturinstituts in Rom, Quellen 1 (Graz: Böhlau, 1964), 499, 513, 531, docs. 336, 343, 355. 37. “Ich bin komen an die stat dâ got mennischlîchen trat”; Walther von der Vogelweide, Sprüche, Lieder, der Leich, ed. and trans. Paul Stapf (Berlin: Tempel-Verlag, 1963), 464–67, no. 171. 38. Colin Morris, The Sepulchre of Christ and the Medieval West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 262.

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underwent changes from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages, this element seems to have remained constant. Paulinus of Nola’s explanation that people wished to say Psalm 131 (132) “from their very own experience” (“de suo fructu”) is essentially the same as Fulcher of Chartres’s statement that those going to Jerusalem in 1096 could say it “deservedly” (“merito”). Yet the idea of the land walked by Christ was more than a convention for describing his presence employed by people used to expressing themselves in the words of the psalms. The same concept also occurs in connection with the veneration of the ground as a relic, suggesting that the aspect of physical contact was valued. Theodoret of Cyrus (ca. 393–ca. 457) saw the prophecy in Isaiah that “they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet” as having been fulfilled in Jerusalem where “people seize the earth as a heavenly gift and they lavish it with kisses and regard it as a remedy of soul and body.”39 This association is borne out by the way in which some relics of the Holy Land were labelled and listed. In Amaseia in Pontus (Amasya, Turkey), for example, a Byzantine inscription dated to around the eighth century reads “here are many tokens of the God-trodden land,” which was interpreted by Jeanne and Louis Robert as referring to Palestine.40 A seventh- or eighth-century authentic (relic label) from the church of St.-André in Chelles explicitly identifies a relic as “de terra s(an)c(t)a ubi d(omi)n(u)s stetit” (“of the holy land where the lord stood”).41 Similarly, a description of the opening of the Arca Santa of Oviedo (Asturias), dated 1075 but thought by some scholars to have been composed during the twelfth century, lists a range of Christological and Marian relics including some of “the holy land where the lord stood.”42 Relics from specific places could also be characterized in this way, as with the earth on which Christ placed his feet when he raised Lazarus from the dead, found in an eleventh-century inventory of the Oviedo relics, or the soil from where he stood in the Jordan, mentioned in the 1482 inventory of the Guelph relic collection.43

39. Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on Isaiah, 49:23, ed. and trans. Jean-Noël Guinot, Commentaire sur Isaïe, 3 vols., Sources chrétiennes 276, 295, 315 (Paris: Cerf, 1980–84), 3:96–97; English translation from Wilken, Land Called Holy, 317, n. 49. 40. “Θεοστιβοῦς γῆς ὧδε πολλὰ δείγματα”; for the inscription and dating (“titulum Byzantinum vix ante s. VIIIp”), see A. G. Woodhead, ed., Supplementum epigraphicum Graecum, vol. 13 (Leiden: A. W. Sijhoff, 1961), 141, no. 538. For the interpretation, see Jeanne Robert and Louis Robert, “Bulletin epigraphique,” Revue des études grecques 68 (1955): 271; and 71 (1958): 329–30; discussed in Wilken, Land Called Holy, 192. 41. Atsma et al., Chartae Latinae antiquiores, pt. 18, vol. 6, p. 85, no. 5. 42. “De terra sancta ubi Dominus stetit”; Santos Garcìa Larragueta, ed., Colección de documentos de la catedral de Oviedo (Oviedo: Instituto de estudios Asturianos, 1962), 216, no. 72. For discussion of the dating of this document and others relating to the contents of the Arca Santa, see Julie A. Harris, “Redating the Arca Santa of Oviedo,” Art Bulletin 77, no. 1 (1995): esp. 86–88. 43. D. de Bruyne, “Le plus ancien catalogue des reliques d’Oviedo,” Analecta bollandiana 45 (1927): 94. Andrea Boockmann, Die verlorenen Teile des “Welfenschatzes”: Eine Übersicht anhand des Reliquienverzeichnisses von 1482 der Stiftskirche St. Blasius in Braunschweig (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 137. A number of other examples are given in B. Bagatti, “Eulogie palestinese,” Orientalia christiana periodica 15 (1949): 126–66.

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The same phrase was applied to other biblical figures associated with the Holy Land. A late eighth-century authentic from Chelles refers to the stone on which Moses stood when he saw God, perhaps a reference to the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai or more likely to the episode of the Burning Bush; after all, the latter did see the ground on which Moses was standing identified as holy: “locus enim, in quo stas, terra santa est.”44 Although the cause of this state was the divine presence rather than that of the prophet, both elements may have contributed to medieval interest in the relic. Even without such an explicit prompt, relics could be seen in terms of physical contact: for example, a list of relics brought back by Abbot Martin of Pairis (Haut-Rhin) in 1205 after the Fourth Crusade includes “a relic from the stone where John stood when he baptized the Lord”; and the relic list of Waltham Abbey (Essex), found in a mid-fourteenthcentury manuscript but compiled circa 1204–30, includes “the rock on which Saint Elizabeth was standing when the infant rejoiced in her womb” among items acquired in the early thirteenth century.45 Descriptions such as these occur with relative consistency throughout the Middle Ages and were conventional enough to feature in Erasmus’s satirical A Pilgrimage for Religion’s Sake, where Ogygius is offered some wood from a beam on which the Virgin had stood.46 It is difficult to discern any pattern to their use. The items in question are often found in the company of other earthen and environmental relics, which are simply identified as coming from locations where certain events took place. Although this variety would suggest that the descriptions specifying that the individual stood on the ground in question do not simply reflect individual scribal conventions, the relics described in this way do not seem to be privileged within the lists. The phrasing may therefore simply serve to make explicit what was implicit in the other descriptions. Nevertheless, in the context of the present study, the fact that the formula existed at all is significant, as it gave verbal expression to one conception of standing on something.

Mount of Olives In a smaller number of cases, the place where Christ had stood was actually marked on the ground. As will be discussed below, some locations had what were understood to be man-made memorials; these predominantly date from the period after the First

44. “De petra ista quem Mosis stetit quando vidit d(e)o”; Atsma et al., Chartae Latinae antiquiores, pt. 18, vol. 6, p. 84, no. 2. Exodus 3:5. 45. Rogers, “Waltham Abbey Relic-List,” 178; Gunther of Pairis, Hystoria Constantinopolitana, 24, ed. Peter Orth, Spolia Berolinensia 5 (Hildesheim: Weidmann, 1994), 176; trans. Alfred J. Andrea, The Capture of Constantinople: The “Historia Constantinopolitana” of Gunther of Pairis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), 125–27. 46. Desiderius Erasmus, Peregrinatio religionis ergo, in Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, ed. L. E. Halkin, F. Bierlaire, and R. Hoven (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1972), 1.3:483; trans. Craig R. Thompson, Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 40, Colloquies (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 637.

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Crusade. An older but long-lived tradition identified vestigia or imprints created by Christ’s feet and other body parts. Of these, the footprints at the place of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives were the most important (fig. 3).47 Representing Christ’s last point of contact with the earth, they also testified to his corporeality after the Resurrection. It is difficult to ascertain exactly when the tradition of the footprints was established. Eusebius says that Helena built a church on the mount as a “monument to the journey into heaven of the Saviour of the Universe,” but does not mention the footprints, although the chapter in question comes immediately after the passage citing Psalm 131 (132).48 This structure can be identified as the Eleona church over the cave where Jesus had taught the disciples; the construction of a church on the site of the Ascension itself (the Imbomon) is now usually attributed to Poemenia in the 380s.49 The footprints and their particular properties are first mentioned shortly afterward in the writings of Paulinus of Nola and Sulpicius Severus (ca. 363–ca. 425).50 Both lived in western Europe, and the Ascension footprints would continue to be a characteristic feature of the site as imagined by writers outside the Holy Land as well as of that described by pilgrims and local residents. The following discussion traces the development of ideas concerning the imprints from Late Antiquity to the late Middle Ages with particular attention to their material qualities and the significance of physical contact. Since the importance of the footprints for this book lies in their identity as a paradigmatic example of relics set in the ground, it highlights ways in which they were related to the wider treatment of the floor surface, both as they were differentiated from their immediate surroundings and through comparison with other sites trodden by Christ and the saints. It is also concerned with the implications of treading for people and place. The Ascension imprints illustrate how the action could confer sanctity on both place and matter. Their spiritual value was understood to be reflected in the materiality of the site, including its relationship with precious stones and metals and the generation of relics that were taken elsewhere. At the same time, further contact was circumscribed and no one else stood on the spot. While a common

47. Discussion of the imprints with wider consideration of vestigia is found in Moore, Architecture of the Christian Holy Land, 39–52. On the history and development of the site, see also the Gazeteer in Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, 333–36; Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, vol. 3, The City of Jerusalem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 72–88. 48. Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 3.43.3, ed. and trans. Schneider, 362–63; trans. Cameron and Hall, 137–38. 49. E. D. Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Late Roman Empire, AD 312–460 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 160–63; P. W. L. Walker, Holy City, Holy Places? Christian Attitudes to Jerusalem and the Holy Land in the Fourth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 201–13. 50. The existence of the prints and their veneration is also mentioned in passing by St. Augustine in his Tractates on the Gospel of John; Augustine, In Iohannis Evangelium tractatus CXXIV, 47.4, ed. Radbod Willems, Aurelii Augustini opera, vol. 8, CCSL 36 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1954), 406. The question of the first mention is clarified and subsequent descriptions are discussed in R. Desjardins, “Les vestiges du Seigneur au mont des Olives: Un courant mystique et iconographique,” Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 73 (1972): 51–72.

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Fig. 3. Site of the Ascension, Church of the Ascension, Jerusalem. Photo: Alexander Gatsenko/ Shutterstock.

metaphor expressed imitation of Christ in terms of following his footsteps, treatment of the Ascension imprints was expressive of his unique identity. The two early accounts were influential in both these respects and are worth quoting in full. Writing to Sulpicius Severus in around 401–3, Paulinus of Nola described the footprints and linked them with Psalm 131 (132): In the basilica commemorating the Ascension is the place from which He was taken into a cloud, and “ascending on high, led our captivity captive” in His own flesh. That single place and no other is said to have been so hallowed with God’s footsteps that it has always rejected a covering of marble or paving. The soil throws off in contempt whatever the human hand tries to set there in eagerness to adorn the place. So in the whole area of the basilica this is the sole spot retaining its natural green appearance of turf. The sand is both visible and accessible to worshippers, and preserves the adored imprint of the divine feet in that dust trodden by God, so that one can truly say: “We have adored in the place where His feet stood.”51

It seems likely that Paulinus drew his information from Melania the Elder, cofounder of a monastery on the Mount of Olives, who had recently visited Nola. The description displays an interest in the relationship between Christ’s divinity and his humanity, stressing both that the footprints were made by God and that they were created by him

51. “Mirum uero inter haec, quod in basilica ascensionis locus ille tantum, de quo in nube susceptus ascendit, captiuam in sua carne ducens captiuitatem nostram, ita sacratus diuinis uestigiis dicitur, ut numquam tegi marmore aut pauiri receperit semper excussis solo respuente quae manus adornandi studio temptauit adponere. Itaque in toto basilicae spatio solus in sui cespitis specie uirens permanet et inpressam diuinorum pedum uenerationem calcati deo pulueris perspicua simul et adtigua uenerantibus harena conseruat, ut uere dici possit: adorauimus ubi steterunt pedes eius”; Paulinus of Nola, Epistulae, 31.4, ed. von Hartel, 271–72. For the English translation and the dating, see Walsh, Letters, 2:129–30.

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“in His own flesh” (“in sua carne”). Paulinus also alluded to the imprints in another letter, describing the visionary Valgius as “the living earth on which we see impressed the traces of the Lord’s body,” an instance of holy ground acting as a point of reference against which a living holy figure was measured.52 Sulpicius Severus described the site in his Chronica in very similar terms as his contemporary, but placed more exclusive emphasis on the divine: It is a remarkable fact that the spot on which the divine footprints had last been left, when the Lord was carried up in a cloud to heaven, could not be joined by a pavement with the remaining part of the street. For the earth, unaccustomed to mere human contact, rejected all the appliances laid upon it, and often threw back the blocks of marble in the faces of those who were seeking to place them. Moreover, it is an enduring proof of the soil of that place having been trodden by God, that the footprints are still to be seen; and although the faith of those who daily flock to that place leads them to vie with each other in seeking to carry away what had been trodden by the feet of the Lord, yet the sand of the place suffers no injury; and the earth still preserves the same appearance which it presented of old, as if it had been sealed by the footprints impressed upon it.53

The passages by Paulinus and Sulpicius Severus contain two ideas of particular significance. Firstly, there is the claim that the ground, once trodden by Christ, would not tolerate any human touch nor could it be covered over. This latter statement is sometimes connected with a building open at the roof, but both authors speak primarily in terms of the floor surface, Paulinus noting that the place could not be paved (“numquam tegi marmore aut pauiri receperit”) and Sulpicius Severus that it could not be integrated with the surrounding paving (“continuari pauimento cum reliqua stratorum parte non potuit”). Although Paulinus stresses the singularity of this, the result fits with the approach taken to the rock of Calvary, which also seems to have been left uncovered in this period, as well as to other sites discussed below.54 However, by giving an alternative and by mentioning marble, the accounts display signs of tension between a desire to protect

52. “In cuius uiuente terra dominici corporis uidemus inpressa uestigia”; Paulinus of Nola, Epistulae, 49.14, ed. von Hartel, 403; trans. Walsh, 2:273. 53. “Illud mirum quod locus ille, in quo postremum institerant diuina uestigia, cum in caelum Dominus nube sublatus, continuari pauimento cum reliqua stratorum parte non potuit, siquidem quaecumque applicabantur, insolens humana suscipere, terra respueret, excussis in ora apponentium saepe marmoribus. Quin etiam calcati Deo pulueris adeo perenne documentum est ut uestigia impressa cernantur, et, cum cotidie confluentium fides certatim Domino calcata diripiat, damnum tamen arena non sentiat et eandem adhuc sui speciem, uelut impressis signata uestigiis, terra custodit”; Sulpicius Severus, Chronica, 2.33, ed. Piergiorgio Parroni, CCSL 63 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 92; trans. Alexander Roberts, in Sulpitius Severus; Vincent of Lérins; John Cassian, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ser. 2, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Ware, vol. 11 (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1892), 113. 54. George P. Lavas, “The Rock of Calvary: Uncovering Christ’s Crucifixion Site,” in Kühnel, “The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Art,” 147–50.

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and adorn, and a desire to display the imprints in all their immediacy and singular materiality. The way in which the status of the imprints is expressed also corresponds to wider attitudes to relics, which were understood as more precious than precious materials even as the latter were employed to communicate their spiritual worth; in the words of the second-century Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, relics were “dearer . . . than precious stones and finer than gold.”55 Secondly, the terms “pulvis” (“dust,” but usually translated here as “sand”) and “terra” (“earth”) imply that the footprints were imprinted into relatively soft material, so that it was their survival in the face of the pious gathering of pilgrim tokens that was perceived as remarkable rather than their creation in the first place. For Sulpicius this was the “documentum” or “proof” that they had truly been created by Christ. The concept of vestigia as confirmation of an event is found in other examples as well, and partially reflects the intrinsic qualities that led Augustine to define them as a natural sign. At the same time, it also corresponds to a wider attitude in which the holy places were understood as pointing to a greater truth. Eusebius used the word martyrion, meaning sign or testimony, to describe the burial cave of Christ, which Averil Cameron and Stuart Hall have seen as referring to its function as proof of the Resurrection.56 For Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335–ca. 394) the holy places of Jerusalem were “signs of the Lord’s sojourn in the flesh,” even though he considered God to be transcendent. Elsewhere he referred to Jerusalem as “the very spot that has received the holy footprint (ἴχνος) of the true Life.”57 Part of a work attributed to Eutychius, patriarch of Alexandria 933–40, but which may have been composed by a monk writing sometime after the Arab conquest, stated that “Christ has given us . . . traces (‫ )ﺁﺛ ﺎﺭﻩ‬of himself and holy places in this world as an inheritance and a pledge of the kingdom of heaven.”58 The Arabic word translated here as “traces” could also mean “signs” or “footprints.” From this perspective, all the sites of the Holy Land were a kind of vestigium, signs of the events that had taken place there, and the Ascension footprints a material manifestation of the idea. Particular interest in the footprints was exhibited by Insular writers, both in descriptions of the Holy Land and in homiletic texts on the Ascension.59 These continue and

55. The Martyrdom of St Polycarp, 18, ed. and trans. Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 16–17. 56. Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 3.28 and 3.33.1, ed. and trans. Schneider, 348–49, 354–55; trans. Cameron and Hall, 133, 135, for commentary see 275–76, 281, 285–87. 57. Gregory of Nyssa, Vita Macrinae, pref., PG 46:960a; I have followed the translation given in Wilken, Land Called Holy, 117. Gregory of Nyssa, Epistulae, 3.4, ed. Georgio Pasquali, Gregorii Nysseni Epistulae (Berlin: Weidmann, 1925), 19; trans. Anna M. Silvas, Gregory of Nyssa: The Letters, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 83 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 125. 58. Eutychius of Alexandria, Kita¯b al-Burha¯n, 310, ed. Pierre Cachia, The Book of the Demonstration (Kita¯b al-Burha¯n), Part I, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 192, Scriptores Arabici 20 (Louvain: Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium, 1960), 165; trans. W. Montgomery Watt, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 193, Scriptores Arabici 21 (Louvain: Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium, 1960), 134. I have followed the translation given in Wilken, Land Called Holy, 253. 59. On the English interest in the site of the Ascension, see Meyer Shapiro, “The Image of the Disappearing Christ: The Ascension in English Art around the Year 1000,” Gazette des beaux-arts, ser. 6, 23

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develop the attention given to materiality and physical contact. Adomnán’s De locis sanctis, written during the last decades of the seventh century, repeated Sulpicius Severus’s description almost word for word.60 It also introduced some new elements ostensibly on the basis of a verbal report by a bishop from Gaul named Arculf. Arculf described the footprints as being surrounded by a tall, bronze, circular structure with an opening through which people could obtain some of the holy sand. He also provided a plan of the church. Bede’s De locis sanctis drew on Adomnán’s work, and some manuscripts include a plan.61 A tenth- or eleventh-century example from Italy has what may be the first surviving representation of the footprints (fig. 4).62 In a sermon on the Ascension, Bede (673–735) not only imagined the apostles behaving in the manner of contemporary pilgrims to the Mount of Olives but applied the words of Psalm 131 (132) to them as well. They are said to return to Jerusalem “after they had worshipped on the spot where his feet stood, [and] after they had wet with copious tears the place where he had most recently planted his footprints.”63 The detailed description of the site given in the Blickling Homily for Ascension Thursday, composed ca. 971, also draws on Adomnán’s account, including the fact that earth (“molde”) is taken away as a relic and carried throughout the world, without changing the shape of the footprints.64 The homily does, however, make a number of slight modifications. There is an increased emphasis on the corporeal, with the church described as the “spot on which our Lord last stood in the body” and from whence he took “His human nature into heaven.” The footprints are understood less as proof than as a prompt to the memory: “Our Lord let His holy feet sink into the ground there as an everlasting reminder to humankind.” The homilist also elaborated the idea of the rejection of any covering, saying that “no one has ever been able to overlay the footsteps themselves, neither in gold, nor silver, nor with any worldly treasures. In fact, whatever any man may lay thereon, the earth itself immediately casts

(1943): 142; Kramer, Between Earth and Heaven, esp. 72–106, where the didactic role of the footprints in the homiletic material is emphasized. 60. Adomnán, De locis sanctis, 23, ed. and trans. Denis Meehan, Adamnan’s De locis sanctis, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 3 (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1958), 64–66. On the debatable historicity of Arculf, see Thomas O’Loughlin, Adomnán and the Holy Places: The Perceptions of an Insular Monk on the Locations of the Biblical Drama (London: T & T Clark, 2007), esp. 42–64. On Adomnán’s treatment of the site, see Moore, Architecture of the Christian Holy Land, 40–45. 61. Bede, De locis sanctis, 6.1–2, ed. I. Fraipont, in Itineraria et alia geographica, 1:262–63. See also his Historia ecclesiastica, 5.17, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 510–13. 62. Paris, BnF, MS Lat. 2321, fol. 139v. Andrea Worm, “Steine und Fußspuren Christi auf dem Ölberg: Zu zwei ungewönlichen Motiven bei Darstellungen der Himmelfahrt Christi,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 66, no. 3 (2003): 310. 63. “Adorauerunt in loco ubi steterunt pedes eius, postquam uestigia quae nouissime fi xit lacrimis rigauere profusis”; Bede, Homeliarum Evangelii libri II, 2.15, In ascensione Domini, ed. David Hurst, in Bedae venerabilis opera, vols. 3–4, Opera homiletica; Opera rhythmica, CCSL 122 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), 284; trans. Lawrence T. Martin and David Hurst, Bede the Venerable: Homilies on the Gospels, Cistercian Studies Series 110–11 (Kalamazoo: Cisterican Publications, 1991), 2:141. 64. Richard J. Kelly, ed. and trans., The Blickling Homilies (London: Continuum, 2003), 86–89; for the date, see xxix.

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Fig. 4. Plan of the Church of the Ascension showing the footprints of Christ, in a tenth- or eleventh-century manuscript of Bede’s De locis sanctis. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat. 2321, fol. 139v. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

it from her back into his face, as she would not have it upon her for any moment of time. Neither would she accept any worldly decoration, as the holy feet of our Lord stood upon her.”65 Where the earlier authors were envisaging the laying of a marble pavement, the Blickling Homily refers instead to precious metals, which are here characterized as “worldly.” This rejection of ornament stands in contrast to the church itself, built “in the most beautiful and sumptuous manner that men could devise.” Presumably the author was thinking in terms of contemporary reliquaries, which encased their contents in gold, silver, and gems. It is also probable that he was aware that the pavement of the Temple of Solomon had been overlaid in gold.66 However, another example of Christ’s footprints in Jerusalem had indeed been adorned with precious metal many centuries earlier. According to the Piacenza Pilgrim, these prints were located in a stone in the church of St. Sophia on the site of the Praetorium, marking the spot where Christ

65. Kelly, Blickling Homilies, 88–89. 66. 1 Kings 6:30. Discussed in Bede, De templo, 1.14.3, ed. David Hurst, Bedae venerabilis opera, vol. 2, Opera exegetica, vol. 2A, CCSL 119A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), 185; trans. Seán Connolly, Bede: On the Temple, Translated Texts for Historians 21 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995), 55.

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stood during his audience with Pontius Pilate.67 The stone was felt to possess numerous virtues, not least that the measurements of the footprints would cure ailments, and it was decorated in gold and silver: “ipsa petra ornata est ex auro et argento.”68 Given the relatively early date of this testimony, it is possible that the decoration continued the classical tradition of inlaying the footprints in metal. Since the block of stone was freestanding and the imprints seem to have been clearly defined, it may even have come from a classical sanctuary, much as has been suggested for the footprints of Christ and St. Michael in Rome. In the Gospel of John the place where Pilate subsequently addressed the crowds was known as Lithostrotos (Gabbatha), which may have indicated a raised area with high-status paving.69 While the church of St. Sophia was certainly not in the same location as the Praetorium and thus cannot have preserved any of its original paving, it is possible that the relic may also have been informed by this tradition. The early Church of the Ascension was destroyed at some point during the eleventh century and replaced by a crusader church at the beginning of the twelfth.70 After the First Crusade, the general conception of the footprints changed from being imprinted in the earth, and therefore an integral part of the surrounding ground, to being set in a distinct stone, although an earlier reference to the “stone where Christ stood when he was taken up” can be found in additions to the ninth-century account by Epiphanius the Monk.71 Perhaps the most detailed description of the footprint itself is that given by an Icelandic pilgrim who seems to have visited Jerusalem in around 1150. He mentions “a high rock in which lies the stone which the Lord stepped on when he ascended to the heavens” and notes that “one can see the imprint of his left foot, fourteen inches long, as if he has stepped barefoot into clay.”72 In 1106–8, Daniel the Abbot described the complex as being structured around the “holy stone where stood the most pure feet of our Lord and Master.” The round stone was positioned at above knee height in a central chapel, which was unpaved and open to the sky, and surrounded by a court paved with marble slabs.73 Although the area immediately surrounding the rock was unpaved, the

67. The exact location of the Praetorium is uncertain. On its supposed location at the time of the Piacenza Pilgrim, see Hugues Vincent and F.-M. Abel, Jérusalem: Recherches de topographie, d’archéologie et d’histoire, vol. 2, Jérusalem nouvelle (Paris: Victor Lecoffre, 1922), 571–77. 68. Antonini Placentini itinerarium, 23, ed. Geyer, 141; trans. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, 141. 69. Vincent and Abel, Jérusalem, 563–64. 70. Bianca Kühnel, Crusader Art of the Twelfth Century: A Geographical, an Historical or an Art Historical Notion? (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1994), 32–33. 71. Epiphanius the Monk, The Holy City and the Holy Places, trans. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, 214–15; 19–20, for the composition history of this text. 72. E. C. Werlauff, ed. and trans., Symbolae ad geographiam medii aevi, ex monumentis Islandicis (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1821), 59; trans. Joyce Hill, in John Wilkinson, ed., with Joyce Hill and W. F. Ryan, Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 1099–1185 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1988), 221–22. 73. Daniel the Abbot, The Life and Journey of Daniel, Abbot of the Russian Land, 25, trans. W. F. Ryan, in Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 120–71, at 135.

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rock was faced with marble slabs, so that only a little of the top was exposed to be kissed by pilgrims, and an altar was positioned above it. Andrea Worm has traced the presence of a separate stone in depictions of the Ascension from ca. 1100 into the thirteenth century, mainly in works from Lower Saxony, the Rhineland, and Bavaria.74 With the exception of a mid-thirteenth-century window in the church of Endre (Gotland), the footprint itself is not included. However, the stone is often veined to give the impression of marble; indeed the late twelfth-century Stammheim Missal shows it as a red, porphyrylike stone, which is also used for the tomb of Christ (fig. 5).75 Correspondences can be drawn in this respect with a Sienese reliquary tabernacle of ca. 1350, which shows the Virgin and Child encircled by lapidary relics from the Holy Land, including “a stone that touched Christ’s feet at the Ascension” (fig. 6).76 C. Griffith Mann has noted that Mary is shown standing on a platform of veined marble, perhaps to signal the way in which the relics visible in the frame drew their spiritual worth from contact with Christ and the saints.77 At the same time, such representations find a wider context in the use of porphyry and other decorative stones in high-status paving and their employment as liturgical markers, a phenomenon discussed in chapter 4. The treatment of the Ascension site may reflect a wider tendency to clad significant locations in marble. One location noted by visitors to Jerusalem at this time was distinguished by the exposure of the naked rock. In around 1165, John of Würzburg described a spot in the church of the Savior in Gethsemane, where the significance of the place was indicated by the lack of paving: “Out of its floor rise three uncut stones, like small rocks, in which it is said that the Lord prayed, kneeling three times; at these stones the veneration and offering of the Lord’s faithful take place with great piety.”78 However, in the majority of cases, the exact location of an event was marked in ways that verge on decorated paving. In an account of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1185, John Phocas mentioned that the place on Mount Tabor where Christ had placed his feet during the Transfiguration was marked by a white roundel with a monogram of the cross.79 The

74. Worm, “Steine und Fußspuren Christi auf dem Ölberg,” 297–307. 75. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 64, fols. 111r and 115v; Elizabeth C. Teviotdale, The Stammheim Missal (Los Angeles: Getty, 2001), 69–70, figs. 48–49. 76. C. Griffith Mann, “Relics, Reliquaries, and the Limitations of Trecento Painting: Naddo Ceccarelli’s Reliquary Tabernacle in the Walters Art Museum,” Word & Image 22, no. 3 (2006): 253–54. 77. Mann, “Relics, Reliquaries, and the Limitations of Trecento Painting,” 255. 78. “Locus vero, ubi dominus oravit, circumdatus est nova aecclesia, quae dicitur aecclesia Salvatoris, in cuius pavimento eminent tres non operati lapides tamquam modicae rupes, in quibus dicitur dominus orasse cum trina genuflexione; ad quos lapides fit veneratio et fidelium Christi oblatio cum devotione maxima”; John of Würzburg, Descriptio terrae sanctae, lines 873–77, ed. R. B.C. Huygens, in Peregrinationes tres: Saewulf, Iohannes Wirzibgurgensis, Theodericus, CCCM 139 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1994), 114–15; my translation differs from that in Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 255. 79. John Phocas, A Brief Description of the Castles and Cities from the City of Antioch even unto Jerusalem; also of Syria and Phoenicia, and of the Holy Places in Palestine, 11, trans. Aubrey Stewart, The Pilgrimage of Joannes Phocas in the Holy Land in the Year 1185 AD, PPTS 5 (London: Adelphi, 1889), 14.

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Fig. 5. Ascension, Stammheim Missal, Saxony, 1170s. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 64, fol. 115v. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

word used is “omphalion,” which translators have rendered as “umbo” or “boss,” but which is the same term as that employed for the roundels in the pavement of Hagia Sophia.80 John of Würzburg reported that at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, in the middle of the choir, the center of the earth was said to be indicated by discs marked out

80. Leone Allacci, Συμμικτα, sive opusculorum, Graecorum et Latinorum, vetustiorum ac recentiorum libri duo (Cologne, 1653), 14. The pavement of Hagia Sophia is discussed in chapter 4.

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Fig. 6. Naddo Ceccarelli, reliquary tabernacle with Virgin and Child, Siena, ca. 1350. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Photo: The Walters Art Museum.

in the pavement. He also understood this to be the place where Christ had appeared to Mary Magdalene.81 At the church of St. Mary Magdalene, the place where she had anointed Christ’s feet with perfume was marked with a cross in the pavement: “loco in

81. “Infra quas tabulas in pavimento orbiculis quibusdam factis meditullium terrae dicitur designatum”; John of Würzburg, Descriptio terrae sanctae, lines 1011–13, ed. Huygens, 120. Given as “certain small circles on the pavement” in John of Würzburg, Descriptio terrae sanctae, trans. Aubrey Stewart, Description of the Holy Land by John of Würzburg (c. AD 1160–1170), PPTS 14 (London: Adelphi, 1890), 34.

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pavimento assignato crucis forma, ubi venit Maria ad pedes Jesu.”82 The same may be the case with the “black stone cross . . . fi xed on white marble beneath the altar” that John Phocas describes as indicating the place from which the angel addressed Mary at the Annunciation, although his wording does not make it clear whether the cross was freestanding or set into the pavement.83

Relics of the Ascension The moment of contact with Christ’s feet was transformative, turning the ground into a contact relic. The discussion of precious materials in descriptions of the Ascension site reflects this identity, as much in the early tradition whereby it was understood to reject adornment as in the later accounts that described it as encased in marble. The status of the ground as holy is also reflected in the veneration of fragments of the site taken elsewhere. From the earliest accounts of the Ascension footprints, the substance of the place was said to be taken away by pilgrims. Indeed, soil and rocks from the site of the Ascension are amongst the most popular environmental relics in collections and lists over the centuries. One of the stones from Palestine contained in the reliquary box from the Sancta Sanctorum still bears the label “from the Mount of Olives,” while the Ascension is among the five scenes depicted on the inside of the cover (fig. 2). Since not all the relics have an accompanying image, this dual presence confirms the importance of the location in perceptions of the Holy Land.84 Many examples specifically mention the fact that Christ had stood on the spot. The eleventh-century inventory of the Oviedo relics, for instance, includes “the earth of the Mount of Olives where the Lord placed his feet ascending into heaven.”85 Colin Morris has suggested that this and other earthen relics in the collection, which was claimed to have been brought from Toledo in the eighth century, “determined that Oviedo was rooted, not only in the past glories of Toledo, but in the sacred soil of Palestine itself.”86 An early fourteenth-century relic list from Glastonbury Abbey (Somerset) includes two separate entries pertaining to the Ascension, including relics of the “stones where Jesus stood when he ascended into heaven.”87 Most places housed such relics in altars and reliquaries of precious metals,

82. John of Würzburg, Descriptio terrae sanctae, lines 787–88, ed. Huygens, 111. 83. John Phocas, Brief Description, 10.9, trans. Stewart, 12–13; Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 320. 84. Vikan, Byzantine Pilgrimage Art, 18–19. 85. “De terra montis oliveti ubi dominus in celum ascensurus pedes tenuit”; de Bruyne, “Plus ancien catalogue,” 94. De Bryune dates the compilation of the list to the early eleventh century. 86. Colin Morris, “Memorials of the Holy Places and Blessings from the East: Devotion to Jerusalem before the Crusades,” in The Holy Land, Holy Lands, and Christian History, ed. R. N. Swanson (Woodbridge: Boydell for the Ecclesiastical History Society, 2000), 97. 87. James P. Carley and Martin Howley, “Relics at Glastonbury in the Fourteenth Century: An Annotated Edition of British Library Cotton Titus D.vii fols. 2r–13v,” Arthurian Literature 16 (1998): 94, 107.

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such as the mid-twelfth-century head reliquary of Pope Alexander I from Stavelot Abbey (Liège), which contains a relic of “the stone on which the lord stood when he ascended into heaven,” and the central part of the True Cross reliquary from Zwiefalten Abbey (Baden-Württemberg), which contains small stones from the site of the

Fig. 7. Reliquary of the True Cross including stones from the site of the Ascension, Swabia, before 1138 with seventeenth-century additions. Katholische Kirchengemeinde “Unserer lieben Frau,” Zwiefalten. Photo: Diözesanmuseum Rottenburg.

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Ascension (fig. 7).88 However, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London possessed “a stone from the place where God stood when he ascended into heaven” that was placed, in a manner evocative of that heavenward motion, in a ball and cross at the top of the spire; found when these were replaced in the early fourteenth century, the relic was probably enclosed there during the first half of the thirteenth century.89 Different in nature as well as scale was the slab of white marble bearing the imprint of one of Christ’s feet from the Ascension, which Henry III obtained from the Dominicans in 1249 and gave to Westminster Abbey.90 Known as the passus domini, the relic was mounted in silver in 1251.91 Interest in the imprint has been seen both as a response to Louis IX’s recent acquisition of the Crown of Thorns, a fragment of the True Cross, and other relics of the Passion, and as an expression of the long-standing rivalry between Westminster and St. Paul’s.92 It has also been understood in terms of devotional trends. Paul Binski characterized the Westminster imprint as “a specifically Gothic relic” and related it to increasing concern with Christ’s humanity.93 The same has been said regarding the presence of the imprints in depictions of the Ascension. Meyer Shapiro stated that “the footprints are a specifically Gothic element. They belong to the later, more developed cult of the physical person of Christ, the relics and the instruments of the passion.”94 The examples discussed by Andrea Worm, whether imprinted in the stone or in the top of the Mount of Olives, all date from the thirteenth century and beyond. Matthew Paris (ca. 1200–59), who illustrated the footprint in his Historia Anglicana with the accompanying caption “Christ ascending leaves behind the impression of his footstep in white marble to his disciples as a final memento,” compared it in the Chronica majora to the imprint of Christ’s face on the Veronica.95 However, some

88. Susanne Wittekind, Altar—Reliquiar—Retabel: Kunst und Liturgie bei Wibald von Stablo (Cologne: Böhlau, 2004), 173–74; Martina Bagnoli et al., Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe, exhibition catalog (London: British Museum, 2011), 88. 89. For the St. Paul’s relic, see George James Aungier, ed., Chroniques de London depuis l’an 44 Hen. III jusqu’à l’an 17 Edw. III, Works of the Camden Society, o.s. 28 (London: J. B. Nichols for the Camden Society, 1844), 38; English translation from Henry Thomas Riley, ed. and trans., Chronicles of the Mayors and Sheriffs of London, AD 1188 to AD 1274. The French Chronicle of London, AD 1259 to AD 1343 (London: Trübner, 1863), 251. 90. Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, ed. Henry Richards Luard, 7 vols., RS 57 (London: Longman, 1872–84), 5:81–82. 91. E. G. Atkinson, ed., Close Rolls of the Reign of Henry III Preserved in the Public Record Office, vol. 6, AD 1247–1251 (London: Stationary Office, 1922), 413. It is possible that the second of the Ascension relics in the Glastonbury list, described as a relic of the passus domini or “the Lord’s footprint” might relate to the Westminster example, if not in substance, at least in the term used to describe it. 92. Paul Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets: Kingship and the Representation of Power, 1200–1400 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 122–23, 142. 93. Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets, 142. 94. Shapiro, “Image of the Disappearing Christ,” 143. 95. “Christus ascendens relinquit suis discipulis pro memoriali ultimo passus sui impressionem in marmore candido”; London, BL, Royal MS 14 C VII, fol. 146r. Illustrated in Suzanne Lewis, The Art of

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elements are in keeping with earlier tradition. The Chronica, which describes the stone as bearing the impression “as if it were made of soft wax,” stresses a shared commemorative function. The footprint is said to have been made “in order that this sign might perpetuate to his disciples the memory of him at whom they gazed for the last time.”96 There is certainly something new about the passus domini relic, and the humanity expressed in the footprints plays an important part in this, but the novelty seems to me to lie in the balance between person and place. The footprint has become dislocated, not simply because it had been physically removed from the site, but also because it was no longer so closely associated with the location. Naturally it had always been valued because it had come into contact with the body of Christ, but those whom Sulpicius Severus described as seeking to “carry away what had been trodden by the feet of the Lord” did so in the context of a wider veneration of the land walked by Christ. Similarly, at St. Paul’s Cathedral the stone from the site of the Ascension was kept with stones from the Holy Sepulcher and Calvary, as well as a fragment of wood from the Cross. Although these relics were probably enclosed in the spire during the first half of the thirteenth century, it is difficult to tell when they were first acquired by St. Paul’s. The provenance of the Westminster passus domini was undoubtedly significant, and its acquisition should be seen in the context of a wider flow of relics from the Holy Land. In 1235 Henry III received a gift of relics from the Knights Hospitaller, which included relics of the Golden Gate of Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulcher, Calvary, the altar upon which Christ had been presented in the Temple, and the Burning Bush.97 Along with the relic of the Holy Blood, obtained in 1247, such gifts were probably intended to elicit support for fighting in the East.98 Nevertheless, the fact that the footprint was given to Westminster, in common with the Holy Blood and a thorn from the Crown of Thorns, suggests a difference in quality. Furthermore, although Matthew Paris states that the stone was brought from the Holy Land, it is not associated explicitly with the Mount of Olives, suggesting that its appeal was primarily Christological and that it was seen as distinct from the existing relics of holy ground from the same place. This impression is confirmed by the list of relics in John Flete’s History of Westminster Abbey, written during the mid-fifteenth century.99 Here a number of early English kings are said to have given the abbey relics from, and indeed of, the Holy Land. Æthelstan (ca. 894–939) donated what must have been earth or stones from the Mount of Olives and Mount Sinai; Æthelred

Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora (Aldershot: Scolar Press in association with Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 1987), 130, fig. 71. 96. “Ut per tale signum memoriam discipulis Suis perpetuaret, Quem ultimo ibidem intuebantur”; Paris, Chronica majora, ed. Luard, 5:81–82. Translation from Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, 130. 97. For the list of relics, see Nicholas Vincent, The Holy Blood: King Henry III and the Westminster Blood Relic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 23. 98. Vincent, Holy Blood, 23. 99. John Flete, The History of Westminster Abbey, 14, ed. J. Armitage Robinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909), 69.

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(ca. 968–1016) similar relics from Mount Tabor, Calvary, and the Mount of Olives, as well as from the Temple and the place where Christ washed the disciples’ feet. Æthelstan died before the foundation of the abbey, but if these donations were believed to have taken place at the time of Henry’s gift, Westminster already outdid St. Paul’s in relics of the Ascension.100 The footprint, described as “the stone of the impression of Christ’s foot ascending into heaven,” is listed among Henry’s other gifts of the relics of Christ’s Blood and the Crown of Thorns.101 It is mentioned subsequently in Flete’s list of indulgences as “the stone on which Christ stood at his Ascension,” appearing immediately after the relics of the Cross and the Blood.102 The tradition represented by Sulpicius, Adomnán, and the Blickling Homily had emphasized that the relic-gathering of the faithful in no way threatened the footprints themselves. While the site of the Ascension was not compromised by the Dominicans’ gift, and veneration of the footprints continued at the church, the issue is not so much what was actually taken away from the Holy Land, but what it was seen as appropriate to remove from both the ground and the location. Comparison can be drawn here with the “sacred stone on which the Saviour sat,” which was removed from Tyre by the Venetians after their successful siege of the city in 1124.103 Such appropriations went further than the conventional acquisition of earthen relics. In the case of the footprints, the process of dislocation can be seen to have started with the shift from an earthen setting to a separate stone. The idea of removing that imprint-bearing stone from the surface of the ground constitutes a more radical vertical rupture, itself a precondition for the horizontal transfer across geographical space. More recently, that move must have been affected by the return of Jerusalem to Muslim control. The gift of something so integral to a holy site is as suggestive of a desire to evacuate the city, as it is of an attempt to prompt interest in its recovery. At the same time, a rationale can also be found in developments affecting the location to which the passus domini was transferred. The thirteenth century witnessed an increasingly territorial conception of rule, which had a strong religious dimension. As a result, the land took on certain holy qualities. Writing about the concept of patria in this period, Ernst Kantorowicz considered that “To defend and protect

100. Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets, 122, sees some elements in the list as anachronistic. 101. “Lapidem de impressione pedis Christi caelos ascendentis”; Flete, History of Westminster Abbey, 14, ed. Robinson, 69. 102. “Ad petram super quam stetit Christus in ascensione sua xii anni iii dies”; Flete, History of Westminster Abbey, 15, ed. Robinson, 74. 103. “Concesserat autem Deus eidem exercitui, Tyrum obsidenti, quemdam venerandum et sacrum Lapidem, super quem Salvatorem nostrum sedisse dignatum pluribus didicerant documentis . . . secum portant”; Cerbano Cerbani, Translatio mirifici martyris Isidori a Chio insula in civitatem Venetam, 10, in Recueil des historiens des croisades, historiens occidentaux, vol. 5 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1895; repr. Farnborough: Gregg, 1967), 330; see also Andrea Dandolo, Chronica per extensum descripta aa 46–1280 d. C., ed. Ester Pastorello, in Rerum Italicarum scriptores, vol. 12.1, 2nd ed. (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1938–58), 234; Donald M. Nicol, Byzantium and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 79–80. The stone was seen in situ by John Phocas in 1185.

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the soil of France . . . would have semi-religious connotations comparable to the defense and protection of the sacred soil of the Holy Land itself.”104 The same trends were manifested in England, with some aspects already evident during Henry III’s reign.105 Transferring the Ascension imprint to London arguably reflects changing attitudes to the ground of both Palestine and England, as much as to the body of Christ.

Touching and Following Christ’s Footprints Despite changes in the way in which the material qualities of the Ascension imprints were described over time, and indeed changes to what it was thought appropriate to take from the site, there was one important continuity in the way in which the place was treated: it was not trodden on again. Initially this was expressed in terms of the agency of the ground itself; “hallowed with God’s footsteps,” it was “unaccustomed to mere human contact” in the words of Paulinus of Nola and Sulpicius Severus. However, already in Adomnán’s account we find the place protected by human agency, surrounded by a metal grill, and this continued after the Crusades when it was faced with marble and covered by an altar. This treatment was in keeping with other places trodden by Christ, but it ran counter to other devotional impulses. Early on there developed a tradition of mimetic pilgrimage, in which pilgrims would reenact biblical events, including actions performed by Christ. The Piacenza Pilgrim, for example, bathed in the River Jordan at the place of Christ’s baptism, lay down on the couches on which Christ had rested at Gethsemane and at Cana, and filled with wine one of the jars Christ had used to turn water into wine.106 However, in the case of Christ’s footprints and the imprints of his hands on the column against which he was scourged the Pilgrim did not imitate Christ by placing his own hands and feet in the same position, but rather took the measure of the prints.107 The later protection of the Ascension site was also paralleled in other places marked as having been trodden by Christ. The roundel at the location of the Transfiguration was surrounded by a metal covering or railing, while the place at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher understood as the center of the

104. Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957), 238. 105. Daniel Birkholz, The King’s Two Maps: Cartography and Culture in Thirteenth-Century England (New York: Routledge, 2004), esp. 66–69, 88–98. 106. Antonini Placentini itinerarium, 4, 11, 17, ed. Geyer, 130, 135, 137; trans. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, 131, 136, 138. For discussion of such actions, see Gary Vikan, Sacred Images and Sacred Power in Byzantium (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 2003), especially “Sacred Image, Sacred Power,” 8–9, reprinted from Vikan, ed., Icon: Four Essays (Washington, DC: Trust for Museum Exhibitions, 1988), 6–19. 107. For the imprints on the column, see Antonini Placentini itinerarium, 22, ed. Geyer, 140–41; trans. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, 140.

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earth and the site of Christ’s appearance to Mary Magdalene was situated underneath a marble table and surrounded by iron chains.108 The same treatment was given to vestigia made after Christ’s Ascension, notably those at the spot on the Via Appia in Rome where he appeared to Peter. When John Capgrave visited Rome in about 1450, by which time the footprints had been transferred to S. Sebastiano, he noted that they had previously been placed under the altar of the church known as S. Maria de Palma.109 The restriction of physical contact at the site of the Ascension continued despite what seems to have been increasingly somatic and imitative engagement with vestigia in the Holy Land during the later Middle Ages. Burchard of Mount Sion, describing the Ascension footprints in 1283, noted that “one can easily insert one’s hand and touch the footprints, but not see them.”110 This tactile engagement with impressions is paralleled elsewhere. In his Libro d’Oltramare of circa 1346–50, the Franciscan Niccolò da Poggibonsi speaks of people putting their whole arm in the socket of the Cross for a blessing.111 However, differently from the Cross, an impression made by a body necessarily raised the question of whether to employ the same body part. This kind of devotional practice was carried out with some imprints of Christ. In Felix Fabri’s late fifteenthcentury Evagatorium, he recounts how he and his companions interacted with the impression of Christ’s body preserved in a wall on the Mount of Olives: “we . . . laid our bodies, as far as we could, in the holy imprint, putting our arms, hands, face, and breast into the hollow, and measuring it by our own figures.”112 However, when describing the site of the Ascension itself, Fabri still speaks of pilgrims entering to kiss the footprints.113 It is important to stress this treatment of the places trodden by Christ because vestigia also featured in the common metaphor of emulation: to follow someone’s footsteps.

108. John Phocas, Brief Description, 11, trans. Stewart, 14. “In medio choro dominorum, non longe a loco Calvariae, est quidam locus elevatione tabularum de marmore et reticulorum ferreorum concatenatione in modum altaris designatus”; John of Würzburg, Descriptio terrae sanctae, lines 1008–1111, ed. Huygens, 119–20. 109. John Capgrave, Ye Solace of Pilgrimes, 3.7, ed. C. A. Mills, Ye Solace of Pilgrimes, a Description of Rome, circa AD 1450, by John Capgrave, an Austin Friar of King’s Lynn (London: Henry Frowde, 1911), 162–63. 110. “Potest bene aliquis inmittere manum et tangere uestigia, sed non uidere”; Burchard of Mount Sion, Descriptio terrae sanctae, 86, ed. and trans. John R. Bartlett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 146–47. 111. Niccolò da Poggibonsi, Libro d’Oltramare, ed. Alberto Bacchi della Lega, 2 vols. (Bologna: G. Romagnoli, 1881), 1:81. 112. “Et sacrae impressioni corpora nostra, prout potuimus, induximus, brachia, manus, vultum, et pectus concavitati imponentes, nos ipsos ipsi figurae commensurantes”; Felix Fabri, Evagatorium, ed. Konrad D. Hassler, Fratris Felicis Fabri Evagatorium in terrae sanctae, Arabiae et Egypti peregrinationem, 3 vols., Bibliothek des literarischen Vereins in Stuttgart 2–4 (Stuttgart: Societas litteraria, 1843–49), 1:382; trans. Aubrey Stewart, The Book of the Wanderings of Brother Felix Fabri, 2 vols. in 4 pts, PPTS 7–10 (London: PPTS, 1893–96), 1.2:476–77. 113. Fabri, Evagatorium, ed. Hassler, 1:387; trans. Stewart, 1.2:484–85.

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Involving as it did two people walking over the same ground, this might be thought to have invited the action of standing in the footprints, even though the Latin is “to follow” rather than “follow in” as it is often rendered in English. Yet imitative actions involving concrete vestigia were avoided. Like the veneration of the ground Christ had trodden, the idea of following his footsteps had its roots in the Bible. Peter states “Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps (ut sequamini vestigia eius).”114 However, in common with other verses that spoke of following Christ, the command to follow his footsteps was generally interpreted as a prompt to imitate aspects of his behavior. For example, a sermon by Peter of Celle (ca. 1115–83) describes the key moments of Christ’s life on earth as fourteen steps, each of which represents a particular quality or activity that the listener should emulate.115 As noted by Giles Constable, the concept could also be given different emphases in different contexts.116 In a monastic milieu it was taken to imply renunciation of the world; in mendicant and particularly Franciscan circles it was seen more as imitating the poverty of Christ. Even in a sermon on the Ascension, the phrase could have quite abstract significance. Walter of St.-Victor (d. ca. 1180) presented Christ’s death, Resurrection, and Ascension as both a model and prerequisite for that of ordinary Christians in these terms: “First from hell to the grave, then from the grave to the world, from the world into heaven, providing an example that we should follow his steps.”117 Although it might be thought that mention of vestigia had extra resonance in this context, Walter’s message was that his listeners needed to humble themselves like Christ if they were to rise like him. Traveling to the Holy Land for pilgrimage or crusade could also be presented in terms of following Christ’s footsteps. For example, the Letter from the Patriarch of Jerusalem and other Bishops to the Churches in the West, which circulated in the context of the First Crusade, not only urged people to imitate Christ through fighting, but placed emphasis on the shared location: “So come, we beseech you, to fight in the army of the Lord in the very place where the Lord fought and where Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.”118 In his Evagatorium, Felix Fabri presented the pilgrim’s status as Christ-like, referring to “that glorious pilgrim, our Lord,” and cited

114. “Passus est pro nobis, vobis reliquens exemplum ut sequamini vestigia eius”; 1 Peter 2:21. 115. Peter of Celle, Sermo XXIX, In passione Domini, PL 202:725b–728a. 116. Giles Constable, “Nudus nudum Christum sequi and Parallel Formulas in the Twelfth Century,” in Continuity and Discontinuity in Church History: Essays Presented to George Huntston Williams (Leiden: Brill, 1979), 83–91. 117. “Primo de inferno ad sepulchrum, deinde de sepulchro in mundum, de mundo in coelum, praebens nobis exemplum ut sequamur vestigia eius”; Walter of St.-Victor, Sermo XV De ascensione Domini, 4, ed. Jean Châtillon, in Galteri a Sancto Victore et quorumdam aliorum sermones inediti triginta sex, CCCM 30 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975), 131. 118. “Venite ergo, oramus, militatum in militia Domini ad eundem locum, in quo Dominus militavit, in quo Christus passus est pro nobis, relinquens vobis exemplum, ut sequamini vestigia eius”; Epistula Patriarchae Hierosolymitani et aliorum episcoporum ad occidentales, ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer, Epistulæ et chartæ ad historiam primi belli sacri spectantes (Innsbruck: Wagner’sche Universitäts-Buchhandlung, 1901),

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St. Peter when discussing how the traces of the risen Lord at Emmaus prepared the pilgrim to “follow the holy footprints of his shameful passion” in Jerusalem.119 Yet even here, the abstract example to be followed is Christ’s suffering; the actual vestigia, at Emmaus, at Calvary, and indeed at the site of the Ascension, are to be kissed.120 It seems unlikely that any pilgrim placed their feet in Christ’s footprints. However, at times, this distinction is obscured in the secondary literature on this topic. Nine Miedema has written of a devotional desire “literally to tread in Christ’s footsteps,” which she sees as having been circumscribed in the Holy Land primarily by the necessity of visiting locations according to topographical logic rather than in the order of the Passion. She also uses the phrase in relation to concrete vestigia, suggesting that the imprints of Christ’s feet in the Via Appia “offered perhaps the most direct way to follow in Christ’s footsteps in Rome,” although she does not suggest that pilgrims actually stood in them.121 The avoidance and prevention of mimetic actions in the case of Christ’s footprints and other places where the floor surface was used to commemorate a biblical event can be explained in two ways. Firstly, the very action that had effectively sanctified the spot when performed by Christ was also open to being read as desecration. As will be explored in chapter 3, treading on something had the potential to dishonor it or express disdain. Where the ground was holy and treated as a relic, treading on it was inappropriate in a way that touching it with lips or hands, kneeling in the same spot, or even leaning into a vertical imprint, was not. There was too great a discrepancy between the status of the ground and that of the foot of the devotee. At the same time, the potential of footprints to articulate a relationship of likeness may itself have discouraged treading in them, on account of the discrepancy between the nature of Christ and those walking the same ground. If following someone’s footsteps expressed an aspiration to emulate them, standing in their imprints arguably implied a likeness achieved. Christ’s divine nature, to the fore at the moment of the Ascension, meant that such a likeness was not possible. In this light, treading on Christ’s footprints was problematic because no one was sufficiently Christ-like for their feet to be worthy of standing where his holy feet had

148; trans. Carol Sweetenham, Robert the Monk’s History of the First Crusade: Historia Iherosolimitana (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), Appendix, 223. 119. “Et certe bene et pulchre ordinavit divina sapientia, quod peregrino misero et laboribus confecto properanti in Jerusalem occurrat ex ea Dominus ille glorisissimus peregrinus, cui dictum est: tu solus peregrinus es in Jerusalem, et in ejus consolationem exhibuerat jam glorificati corporis sacratissima et laeta vestigia ante omnia, quatenus his consolatus et confortatus possit sequi in Jerusalem vestiga sacra ignominiosae passionis, ad quod hortatur Petrus, 1. Petr. 2. Christus, inquit, passus est pro nobis: vobis relinquens exemplum, ut sequamini vestigia ejus”; Fabri, Evagatorium, ed. Hassler, 1:234; trans. Stewart, 1.1:278. 120. For Emmaus, see Fabri, Evagatorium, ed. Hassler, 1:234; trans. Stewart, 1.1:278; for Calvary, Fabri, Evagatorium, ed. Hassler, 1:240; trans. Stewart, 1.1:285. 121. Nine Miedema, “Following in the Footsteps of Christ: Pilgrimage and Passion Devotion,” in The Broken Body: Passion Devotion in Late-Medieval Culture, ed. A. A. MacDonald, H. N. B. Ridderbos, and R. M. Schlusemann (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1998), esp. 83, 85.

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stood; indeed, it is possible that treading in them would also have been unacceptable for implying such a likeness. The action could only be repeated by Christ himself, expected to return there at the Second Coming, in fulfillment of the words of Zechariah (14:4): “And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives.”

Dome of the Rock Another set of sacred footprints, which can be understood in relation to those in the Church of the Ascension, were located in the Dome of the Rock (Qubbat al-Sakhra) . (fig. 8). These imprints had a contested history; not only were they given different interpretations by Muslims and Christians, reflecting changing ownership of the site, but their meaning was also fluid within each religious tradition. For early Christians such as Eusebius, the Temple Mount was the center of Jewish Jerusalem and had been superseded by the Church of the Resurrection to the west.122 There may have been some awareness of the rock and the cave below: the Bordeaux Pilgrim refers to a “pierced stone” anointed annually by Jewish pilgrims, while Epiphanius the Monk includes mention of the “hanging rock.”123 However, the place was not otherwise of particular significance. Muslims, in contrast, came to venerate the Temple Mount as the place visited by the Prophet Muhammad on his nocturnal journey from Mecca (isra¯ʾ) and the site of his ascension into heaven (miʿra¯ j).124 The rocky outcrop seems to have been of particular importance, leading to the construction of the Dome of the Rock by Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik in 691, yet its exact meaning is still unclear. While the building may honor an early identification of the rock as the original qibla prior to the Kaʿba at Mecca being established as the direction of prayer, there was also a Syro-Palestinian tradition that claimed that God had ascended from the spot, part of an anthropomorphic understanding of the divinity circulating during the eighth century.125 The claim is attested in a report of

122. Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 3.33.1, ed. and trans. Schneider, 354–55; trans. Cameron and Hall, 135. Wilken, Land Called Holy, 95–97. 123. Itinerarium Burdigalense, ed. Geyer and Cuntz, 16. Epiphanius the Monk, The Holy City and the Holy Places, trans. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, 208. This section of the text was composed sometime between the Arab conquest and the construction of the Dome of the Rock. 124. Surah 17; for an early association of the “farthest mosque” with the Temple Mount, see Ibn Ish.a¯q, Sı¯ rat Rasu¯l Alla¯h, trans. Alfred Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ish.a¯q’s Sı¯ rat Rasu¯l Alla¯h (London: Geoffrey Cumberlege; Oxford University Press, 1955), 181–84; 184–87 for the ascent into heaven. 125. Josef van Ess, “ʿAbd al-Malik and the Dome of the Rock: An Analysis of Some Texts,” in Bayt al-Maqdis: ʿAbd al-Malik’s Jerusalem, ed. Julian Raby and Jeremy Johns, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art 9.1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the Board of Faculty of Oriental Studies, 1992), 89–103; Amikam Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy Places, Ceremonies, Pilgrimage (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 49; Oleg Grabar, The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 47–48, 110–14.

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Fig. 8. Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, ca. 691 onward. Photo: Marvin E. Newman/Photographer’s Choice, via Getty Images.

Muhammad’s night journey in which the Angel Gabriel points out the rock saying “Here your Lord ascended to Heaven.”126 Furthermore, a criticism of the Syrians attributed to the son of ʿAlı¯ stated that they “pretend that God put His foot on the Rock in Jerusalem.”127 Even ʿAbd al-Malik himself was associated with this belief, being described as saying, “This is the rock of the All-Compassionate on which He has set His foot.”128 Writing in the tenth century, al-Muqaddası¯ claimed that the dome had been intended “to stand comparison with the great church belonging to the Christians,” that is to say the Holy Sepulcher.129 However, in the light of the tradition described above,

126. The report is given in the Kita¯b al-Majru¯hı ¯ n al-Bustı¯, who lived in the mid-tenth . ¯ n of Ibn Hibba . century, and had apparently been accepted by ʿAbd Alla¯h ibn al-Muba¯rak (d. 797). For the translation and discussion, see van Ess, “ʿAbd al-Malik and the Dome of the Rock,” 92–93. 127. Found in the Musnad of Rabı¯ ʿ ibn Habı . ¯ b, this was transmitted by Layth ibn Abı¯ Sulaym alQurashı¯ (d. 760 or 765); see van Ess, “ʿAbd al-Malik and the Dome of the Rock,” 93–94. 128. Found in Ibn Kuzayma’s Kita¯b al-Tawhı . ¯d, attributed to the father of Hisha¯m ibn ʿUrwa; see van Ess, “ʿAbd al-Malik and the Dome of the Rock,” 98–99. 129. Al-Muqaddası¯, Ah.san al-Taqa¯sı¯ m fı¯ Maʿrifat al-Aqa¯lı¯ m, trans. Basil Collins, The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions (Reading: Garnet, 2001), 142.

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Josef van Ess has presented the construction of the Dome as a response to the Church of the Ascension. Although excavations in the 1960s revealed that the original Church of the Ascension had a circular ground plan, both buildings were centrally planned structures located in prominent high positions and constructed around exposed ground marked with holy imprints.130 The fact that the crusader Church of the Ascension seems to have been strongly inspired by the Dome of the Rock suggests that the association between the two sites was an enduring one. Although the anthropomorphizing ideas were ultimately rejected, different interpretations of the rock circulated that retained an interest in the footprint. Writing in the late ninth century, al-Yaʿqu¯bı¯ reports a tradition that assigned the footprint on the rock to Muhammad.131 The Persian traveler Nasir-i Khusraw, who visited Jerusalem in 1047, de. scribed seven footprints and identified them as of those of Isaac, although he also attributed the creation of the cave under the rock to Muhammad on the occasion of his miʿra¯j.132 Testimonies such as these suggest that while the ascension itself was still officially commemorated nearby in the Dome of the Prophet, by the time of the Crusades it was already associated with the Dome of the Rock itself. Despite opposition from some religious leaders, the Dome was an important pilgrimage destination. Some descriptions state that pilgrims circumambulated the rock and were permitted to touch but not to kiss it.133 Nasir-i Khusraw reported that the rock was “surrounded by a marble balustrade to . keep people away.”134 He also stated that no one had stood on it, presumably since Isaac. The way in which the holiness of the site is strengthened through restricted access is very similar to the traditions about the properties and treatment of the site of the Ascension, as well as other sites with which Christ had come into contact. On the other hand, it contrasts with the footprint of Muhammad on the threshold of the al-Safa¯ʾ Gate of the Hara¯m Mosque in Mecca, which was also described by Nasir-i Khusraw.135 This had been . imprinted in black stone but was subsequently cut out and set in white stone, facing into

130. On the relationship between the two buildings, see Kühnel, Crusader Art of the Twelfth Century, 31. 131. For a translation, see F. E. Peters, Jerusalem: The Holy City in the Eyes of Chroniclers, Visitors, Pilgrims, and Prophets from the Days of Abraham to the Beginnings of Modern Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 197. Since the authority cited was only young at the time of ʿAbd al-Malik, van Ess has cast doubt on the usefulness of the text as a testimony for this period; van Ess, “ʿAbd al-Malik and the Dome of the Rock,” 99, n. 63. See Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship, 49, for other evidence of awareness of this tradition. 132. Nasir-i Khusraw, Safarna¯me, trans. W. M. Thackston Jr., Na¯ser-e Khosraw’s Book of Travels, Persian . Heritage Series 36 (Albany, NY: Biblioteca Persica, 1986), 31, 33. 133. M. J. Kister, “‘You Shall Only Set Out for Three Mosques’: A Study of Early Tradition,” Le muséon 82 (1969): 193–96; Hadia Dajani-Shakeel, “Al-Quds: Jerusalem in the Consciousness of the Counter-Crusader,” in The Meeting of Two Worlds: Cultural Exchange between East and West during the Period of the Crusades, ed. Vladimir P. Goss and Christine Verzár Bornstein, Studies in Medieval Culture 21 (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1986), 211. 134. Nas.ir-i Khusraw, Safarna¯me, trans. Thackston, 31. 135. Nas.ir-i Khusraw, Safarna¯me, trans. Thackston, 75.

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the mosque. People would place their foreheads or their feet inside it “for a blessing.” The latter possibility is a rare instance of what might seem a natural impulse, although even here some clearly had scruples; the author considered it more fitting to put his head to the spot. As already discussed, while an imitative dimension was present in Christian pilgrimage, there seem to be no instances of people standing in the exact locations venerated as having been trodden by Christ. It is possible that Christ’s divinity was instrumental in this, and that the ancient associations of the footprints in the Dome contributed to their subsequent treatment. At the same time, it seems more likely that the similarities derive from shared attitudes to the nature of the action and contact with the ground. Not only was ascension a distinguishing feature of the figures concerned, but both religious traditions were alive to the potential for desecration underfoot. This likelihood is supported by the contrasting treatment of places of prayer, which was both an action to be copied and brought bodies into contact with holy ground in a more reverent manner. As will be explored in chapter 5, people not only imitated Christ’s prayer postures, but knelt to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane. Similarly, in Mecca, inside the Kaʿba, there were one or more stones in the pavement marking places where Muhammad was said to have prayed, and on this account pilgrims would pray there too; Nasir-i Khusraw mentions a . red marble slab (perhaps porphyry), while other authors speak of a white slab.136 The Dome of the Rock itself had a separate location, a black paving slab, known as a particularly efficacious place of prayer.137 The Temple Mount appears to have been barred to Christians throughout much of the Abbasid and early Fatimid periods: the Patriarch Photius reported in around 875 that the whole area was inaccessible; Fulcher of Chartres says the same of the Dome of the Rock.138 After the First Crusade and the establishment of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, however, the Temple Mount took on greater importance. The Dome of the Rock had long been seen as occupying the site of the Holy of Holies. As part of the tendency to justify the Crusades on the grounds that the holy places had been desecrated, the mount came to be associated with Christ’s visits to the Temple and was felt to have been defaced by the Dome of the Rock.139 The building was converted into a church,

136. Nas.ir-i Khusraw, Safarna¯me, trans. Thackston, 77; Finbarr Barry Flood, “Light in Stone: The Commemoration of the Prophet in Umayyad Architecture,” in Bayt al-Maqdis: Jerusalem and Early Islam, ed. Jeremy Johns, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art 9.2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the Board of Faculty of Oriental Studies, 1999), 317–18. 137. Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship, 70–71, 78–81; Flood, “Light in Stone,” 327–28. 138. Photius, Amphilochia, Question 316, ed. L. G. Westerink, Photii Patriarchae Constantinopolitani Epistulae et Amphilochia, vol. 6.1 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1987), 258–59; trans. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, 258. Fulcher of Chartres, Chronicle, 1.26.9, ed. Hagenmeyer, 290; trans. Ryan, 118. 139. Penny J. Cole, “‘O God, the Heathen Have Come into Your Inheritance’ (Ps. 78.1): The Theme of Religious Pollution in Crusade Documents, 1095–1188,” in Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria, ed. Maya Shatzmiller (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 85–91.

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known as the Templum Domini, which was placed in the hands of a community of Augustinian canons. In the absence of a strong preexisting tradition of Christian pilgrimage to the Temple Mount, its new occupiers exploited the wide range of biblical events with which it could be linked to create a new topography of commemoration.140 Two events given particular prominence at the Dome of the Rock through pictorial representations and inscriptions were the presentation of Christ and Jacob’s dream. Although the latter was known to have taken place elsewhere, it was brought to mind by the stone he had used for a pillow, and its commemoration may have been inspired by Muhammad’s ascent on a golden ladder. There seems to have been an ambivalent attitude to the rock itself. Descriptions of the church identify it, or the cave beneath, as the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant. In 1114/15 an altar and choir were constructed on the rock itself, which was covered with white marble slabs.141 Fulcher of Chartres states that this was because it “disfigured” (“deturpabat”) the Temple of the Lord.142 Perhaps the naked rock was too closely associated with the previous use of the building. Yet the crusaders did appropriate the mark in the rock that had been understood as the footprint of God and Muhammad. While the concept was already familiar from the site of the Ascension and elsewhere, it seems unlikely that it evolved entirely independently of preexisting Muslim beliefs. Fulcher of Chartres reports that it was said that an angel of the Lord had stood on the rock when destroying the Israelites in punishment for David’s numbering of the people.143 The reference is to the second book of Kings, which states that the angel stood on the threshing floor of Arau’nah the Jebusite, where David subsequently built an altar; this is later identified as the site of Solomon’s Temple in the second book of Chronicles.144 In his first redaction of the text Fulcher did not mention the angel in this context, suggesting that he may have been responding to a developing tradition. The same interpretation is given by Daniel the Abbot, probably writing shortly after 1106–8, who also saw the rock as the site of Jacob’s dream.145 By the beginning of the twelfth century the footprint itself had also been credited with a Christological significance, although, like the Temple itself, it was associated with a number of different episodes in the life of Christ. Saewulf, who visited Jerusalem in around 1101–3, connected it with the account

140. For a brief overview of the various interpretations, see Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 38–45. 141. Fulcher of Chartres, Chronicle, 1.26.9, ed. Hagenmeyer, 289; trans. Ryan, 118; the color of the marble is mentioned in William of Tyre, Chronicon, 8.3, ed. R. B.C. Huygens, vol. 1, CCCM 63 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986), 387: “Hec autem ante nostrorum introitum et postmodum annis quindecim nuda patuit et aperta, postea vero qui eidem prefuerunt loco, albo eam cooperientes marmore, altare desuper et chorum, in quo clerus divina celebrat, construxerunt.” 142. Fulcher of Chartres, Chronicle, 1.26.9, ed. Hagenmeyer, 289; trans. Ryan, 118. 143. Fulcher of Chartres, Chronicle, 1.26.9, ed. Hagenmeyer, 289; trans. Ryan, 118. 144. The reference is to 2 Samuel 24:16–25; 2 Chronicles 3:1. 145. Daniel the Abbot, Life and Journey, 17, trans. Ryan, in Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 132. Genesis 28:11–12, 17.

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in John’s Gospel of how Christ left the Temple after teaching there during the Feast of Tabernacles.146 Peter the Deacon stated that the infant Christ had placed his foot “on the rock on the left side of the Tabernacle” during the presentation, probably taking this information from an early twelfth-century description of the Holy Land.147 John of Würzburg, in a particularly detailed account of the Temple Mount written around 1170, interpreted it as a “sign” (“indicium”) of the occasion on which Christ drove out the money changers. He also noted that the footprint was visible on a stone that was “shown on the right side of the Temple” and was “reverently lit and decorated.”148 Since he goes on to describe another stone, joined or adjacent to this one, on which was painted the image of the presentation at the Temple, it is possible that by this time a footprint was displayed on a stone slab rather than in the body of the rock. The transfer may have been occasioned by the covering over of the rock with marble slabs. While any suggestion as to the nature of the ornamentation can only be speculative, it is possible that some kind of precious metal was involved, as with the footprints in the Praetorium and the relic of the Ascension that Henry III had set in silver some seventy years later. Muslim accounts of the conversion of the Dome of the Rock are found in the writings of ʿIma¯d al-Dı¯n al-Isfaha¯nı¯, who was present at the recapture of Jerusalem in 1187, and Ibn al-Athı¯r (1160–1233). The former reports a Frankish reinterpretation of the footprint: “Over the place of the (Prophet’s holy) foot they set an ornamented tabernacle with columns of marble, marking it as the place where the Messiah had set his foot.”149 He also implies that it was the subject of Christian veneration and relic hunting: “The Franks had cut pieces from the Rock, some of which they had carried to Constantinople and Sicily and sold, they said, for their weight in gold, making it a source of income. When the Rock reappeared to sight the marks of these cuts were seen and men were incensed to see how it had been mutilated.”150 This picture is expanded by Ibn al-Athı¯r, who states that the rock “had been covered with marble because the priests had sold a good part of it to the Franks who came from abroad on pilgrimages and bought pieces for their weight in gold in the hope of benefiting from its health-giving influences. Each

146. Saewulf, Peregrinatio, ed. Huygens, in Peregrinationes tres, 68, lines 305–7. The reference is to John 8:59. 147. “A latere vero sinistro tabernaculi super saxum”; Peter the Deacon, De locis sanctis, C3, ed. R. Weber, in Itineraria et alia geographica, 1:95; my translation differs slightly from that in Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 212. 148. “In dextera parte templi ostenditur lapis cum magna veneratione luminariorum et ornatus”; John of Würzburg, Descriptio terrae sanctae, lines 284–85, ed. Huygens, 90; my translation differs slightly from that in Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 246. 149. ʿIma¯d al-Dı¯n al-Isfaha¯nı¯, Kita¯b al-Fath. al-Qussı¯ fı¯ ’l-Fath. al-Qudsı¯ , trans. Francesco Gabrieli, Arab Historians of the Crusades, trans. E. J. Costello (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), 169. Attitudes to the Dome of the Rock more generally are examined in Dajani-Shakeel, “Al-Quds.” 150. English translation from Gabrieli, Arab Historians of the Crusades, 170–71; another, more literal translation can be found in Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 289–90.

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of them, on his return home with a piece of this stone, would build a church for it and enclose it in the altar. One of the Frankish Kings of Jerusalem, afraid that it would all disappear, had it covered with a slab of marble to preserve it.”151 These accounts are significantly more detailed than anything provided by a Christian author. This discrepancy may simply be because the practice of taking relics in this way was a commonplace of Christian pilgrimage, while the site was of particular importance for Muslims. More importantly, however, they also seem to conflict with Fulcher of Chartres’s statement that the rock was covered over because it “disfigured” the site. One possibility may therefore be that ʿIma¯d al-Dı¯n and Ibn al-Athı¯r misinterpreted Christian actions in the light of Muslim veneration. The ornamented tabernacle erected on the site of Muhammad’s footprint may simply have functioned as the altar, while damage to the rock could have been caused by fixing the marble slabs in place rather than by pilgrims chipping off pieces. Christ’s footprint may have come to be displayed elsewhere within the building, where it was connected with a variety of events and constituted just one of a number of testimonies to the sacred history of the site. That said, the use of marble slabs to cover the bare rock is attested in places that were indisputably holy to the Christians. The marble cladding at the site of the Ascension coupled with the positioning of an altar above it, along with the other examples mentioned above, may have formed a precedent. Most significantly, though, it seems probable that the rock of Calvary was covered over at roughly the same time, most likely shortly before the completion of the Calvary chapels in 1149, as a protective measure.152 The burial couch of the rock-cut tomb of Christ, damaged in the attack on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher ordered by Caliph al-H . a¯kim in 1009, had already been encased in 153 marble slabs by 1106/8. While the marble may have been placed there relatively soon after the attack in order to hide any damage and to protect the rock from pilgrims, Martin Biddle suggests that this may equally have taken place after the recovery of part of the rock that had been removed by members of the Greek and Syrian clergy prior to the crusader capture of the city.154 At the Dome of the Rock, where ownership was even more contested, the paving over of the rock may therefore have been intended less to hide or even protect it than as an expression of control. It is possible that Christian interest in the imprint continued after the Dome of the Rock returned to Muslim hands. Sibt. ibn al-Jawzı¯, recounting Frederick II’s visit to Jerusalem in 1228, describes a priest sitting near “the imprint of the Holy Foot, and taking some pieces of paper from the Franks,”

151. English translation from Gabrieli, Arab Historians of the Crusades, 145. 152. Lavas, “Rock of Calvary,” 147, suggests that the rock has been covered “since the time of the Crusaders.” For the dating of the Calvary chapels, see Martin Biddle, The Tomb of Christ (Thrupp: Sutton, 1999), 92–98. 153. Biddle, Tomb of Christ, 85–88. 154. Biddle, Tomb of Christ, 88.

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behavior that provoked the emperor’s anger.155 Although the scene is difficult to interpret, it may indicate a cult practice focused on the footprint. At a very much later date Felix Fabri would report veneration of the footprints in the Church of the Ascension by both Christians and Muslims.156 Despite the relative lack of interest in the Temple Mount prior to the Crusades, there is some indication that people venerated relics associated with the site. Among the relics of the abbey of St.-Riquier (Somme) acquired and listed by Angilbert at the turn of the eighth century is one “de templo domini.”157 A relic “de templo” is attributed to Æthelred in Flete’s list of relics belonging to Westminster Abbey.158 However, such relics appear to have become both more common and more specifically identified after the beginning of the Crusades. The relics brought back by Abbot Martin of Pairis in 1205 after participation in the Fourth Crusade included “a relic from the stone on which Jesus was presented in the temple,” which may correspond to Peter the Deacon’s identification of the stone bearing the imprints of Christ’s feet, and “a relic from the stone on which Jacob slept,” which was also displayed in the Templum Domini.159 Since the abbot also visited the Holy Land, it is difficult to tell whether these particular examples came directly from there or were among the relics taken by Martin during the looting of Constantinople.160 If the latter were the case, it would accord with ʿIma¯d al-Dı¯n’s account of the removal of relics. The relic list from Glastonbury includes a piece “of the rock on which the Lord stood in the temple,” and also records six stones from the pavement of the temple of the Lord: “de pavimento templi Domini lapides sex quasi tali deaurati.”161 The fact that they are described as being or seeming gilded suggests that they were associated with the pavement of Solomon’s Temple. Since they appear amid a large number of secondary relics of Christ, however, this may not have been distinguished from the church of the Templum Domini.

155. English translation from Gabrieli, Arab Historians of the Crusades, 274. 156. “Et haec vestigia tam Christiani quam Sarraceni deosculantur”; Fabri, Evagatorium, ed. Hassler, 1:389; trans. Stewart, 1.2:486–87. 157. Angilbert, De ecclesia Centulensi libellus, 2, ed. Georg Waitz, MGH SS 15.1 (Hannover: Hahn, 1887), 175–76. The surviving manuscript of his libellus dates to the twelfth century, but the section concerning the relics was reproduced by Hariulf in the late eleventh century: Hariulf, Chronicon Centulense, 2.9, ed. Ferdinand Lot, Chronique de l’abbaye de Saint-Riquier (Paris: Picard, 1894), 63. See Susan A. Rabe, Faith, Art, and Politics at Saint-Riquier: The Symbolic Vision of Angilbert (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 12–18. 158. Flete, History of Westminster Abbey, 14, ed. Robinson, 69. 159. “Item de lapide super quem Christus in templo est presentatus”; “Item de lapide super quo Iacob obdormivit”; Gunther of Pairis, Hystoria Constantinopolitana, 24, ed. Orth, 176; trans. Andrea, 125–27. 160. Paul Riant considered them to have been acquired in the Holy Land; Paul Riant, ed., Guntheri Alemanni: De expugnatione urbis Constantinopolitane seu Historia Constantinopolitana (Geneva: Fick, 1875), 90. 161. Carley and Howley, “Relics at Glastonbury in the Fourteenth Century,” 94–95.

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In the cases examined so far vestigia served to communicate that a location was sacred by remaining behind after the event that made it so. They act as a sign of transformative contact between a place and a person, making evident and tangible something that could no longer be seen or touched. Moreover, they can often be seen to respond to a certain ambiguity in the nature of the person concerned, who occupies a position between humanity and divinity, corporeality and incorporeality. Orthodox Christian doctrine acknowledged Christ to be both fully man and fully God, while the Islamic attribution of the imprints in the Dome of the Rock to God took place at the time of an unusually anthropomorphic conception of the divinity. The footprints of Christ testify to his bodily presence in the absence of bodily relics, and those at the site of the Ascension additionally demonstrate his corporeality after the Resurrection. The two sites were also places of ascension, and thus meeting points between heaven and earth more generally. To a large degree these characteristics were also true of the vestigia left by disembodied apparitions, which functioned to confirm the veracity of a private vision to a wider audience after the event. However, while the presence of an apparition could sanctify a location, where the purpose of the vision was itself to communicate that a place was sacred, the footprints acted as pointers to the existence of holy ground rather than to its creation.

Monte Sant’Angelo The shrine dedicated to the Archangel Michael on the Gargano Peninsula in Apulia was marked out by footprints of the saint. The Liber de apparitione Sancti Michaelis recounts how the site of the church was first revealed when a man tried to kill a bull in a cave on the mountain, only for the arrow to return miraculously, killing him instead.162 Afterward St. Michael appeared to the bishop of Siponto in a dream, instructing him that the place should now be a sanctuary in his honor. In a second vision, the archangel assured the Lombards of victory in a battle against local “pagans.” When the enemy were indeed defeated through the means of an earthquake and lightning, the Lombards came to the shrine to give thanks. They found tiny footprints like those of a man deeply imprinted in the marble by the door (“instar posteruli pusilla quasi hominis vestigia marmori artius inpressa”) and interpreted these to mean that the archangel had wanted

162. Liber de apparitione Sancti Michaelis in Monte Gargano, ed. Vito Sivo, “Apparitio sancti Michaelis in Monte Gargano,” in Culte et pèlerinages à Saint Michel en occident: Les trois monts dédiés à l’archange, ed. Pierre Bouet, Giorgio Otranto, and André Vauchez (Rome: École française de Rome, 2003), 1–4; Liber de apparitione Sancti Michaelis in Monte Gargano, ed. Georg Waitz, MGH SRL (Hannover: Hahn, 1878), 540–43. An edition using manuscripts from Mont-Saint-Michel is given in Pierre Bouet and Olivier Desbordes, eds. and trans., Chroniques latines du Mont Saint-Michel (IXe–XIIe siècle) (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2009), 124–35. For an English translation, see Richard Johnson, Saint Michael the Archangel in Medieval English Legend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 110–15.

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to show a sign of his presence (“agnoscuntque, beatum Michaelem hoc presentiae suae signum voluisse monstrare”).163 The location of the prints corresponds to the classical custom of depicting footprints on the threshold of private houses as apotropaic devices, but probably reflects the continued significance of this space within Christian tradition. An altar was erected, possibly over the top of the footprints, and this part of the church came to be known as the Apodonia on their account. The citizens of Siponto were uncertain whether or not they should dedicate the site, but the archangel appeared a third time to inform them that this was not necessary, and the next morning they found an extensive church and a red cloth already draped over the altar. The church took the form of a cave in the naked rock, with uneven walls and ceiling, prompting the anonymous author to conclude that the saint must prefer “purity of heart” to “adorned stones”: “non ornatus lapidum, sed cordis quaerere et diligere puritatem.”164 The fact that the uneven walls of the cave required justification suggests that the natural rock was viewed with some ambivalence. It also echoes a statement at the beginning of the Liber de apparitione that the distinction of the church does not lie in “the gleam of precious metals, but in the privilege bestowed by miracles.”165 Although this applies to the church in general, rather than the floor or the area around the footprints in particular, it may reflect a similar phenomenon as the justifications for the lack of decoration at the Mount of Olives. Such explanations ultimately stem from the same impulse as the marble cladding of the rock with the Ascension vestigia and that in the Dome of the Rock. It is notable therefore that the rock in which St. Michael’s footprints are imprinted is twice said to be marble, although this is not noted of the rest of the site. If the natural rock was itself a prestigious material, it not only formed a suitable setting for the angelic prints but also helped resolve the tension between the appeal of the bare ground and a desire for fitting decoration. In this it corresponds to later representations of the stone at the site of the Ascension as veined marble and the identification of the passus domini relic as white marble. The date of the Liber de apparitione is debated. John Charles Arnold suggests a fi rst redaction in the mid-sixth century, including the chapters on the dedication, followed by reworking into the eighth. He sees the text as corresponding to the disposition of the shrine prior to eighth-century alterations, although it is uncertain how much can be read into its omission of an arch that could have been in place by the end of the sixth century, and places the site partly in the context of Byzantine promotion of the cult of

163. “Videntes mane iuxta ianuam septemtrionalem, quam predixi, instar posteruli pusilla quasi hominis vestigia marmori artius inpressa, agnoscuntque, beatum Michaelem hoc presentiae suae signum voluisse monstrare”; Liber de apparitione, 3, ed. Sivo, 2–3; ed. Waitz, 542. 164. Liber de apparitione, 5, ed. Sivo, 3–4; ed. Waitz, 543. 165. “Quae non metallorum fulgore, sed privilegio commendata signorum”; Liber de apparitione, 1, ed. Sivo, 1; ed. Waitz, 541; trans. in Johnson, Saint Michael the Archangel, 111.

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St. Michael in Italy in the aftermath of the Gothic Wars.166 Nicholas Everett has dated the composition to between 663 and 750, and associated it with Sipontine resistance to the appropriation of the cult and shrine of St. Michael by the church of Benevento.167 In this light, the footprints would form part of a process of laying claim to a place, not unlike the way in which Jerusalem vestigia could relate to the possession of the holy sites there. Whichever is the case, the text transcended the specific circumstances of its composition to remain popular throughout the Middle Ages, surviving in over 150 manuscripts and being translated into the vernacular.168 The late tenth-century Old English Blickling Homily for the Feast of St. Michael, for example, draws heavily on the Liber de apparitione for its description of the site and exhibits a particular interest in the footprints. When the archangel first appears to the bishop of Siponto he promises that he will show that he is the creator and guardian of the site “by all the signs (tácnum) that happened there.”169 The word “tácn” is later used to refer to the footprints found after the battle, which are described as a “sign of the victory.” The account again describes the imprints as set in marble and emphasizes that “the footsteps were clear and visible in the stone, as if they had been impressed on wax.”170 Furthermore, the first sign that St. Michael has already consecrated the church, prior to the discovery of the red cloth on the altar, is the realization that the footprints on the threshold pointed outward. This placement presumably indicates the angelic presence emanating from within the cave rather than approaching from outside and, if so, is a rare instance of medieval vestigia where the direction of the imprints is credited with significance. Direction was of more importance in the classical world, where it may have functioned to distinguish between divinities and worshippers.171 Another medieval example, also placed on a threshold, comes from Islamic tradition and concerns Muhammad’s footprints at Mecca, discussed above, which were turned to face inward, perhaps to welcome and guide the steps of pilgrims. It is difficult to tell whether or not the additional elements were already present in the

166. John Charles Arnold, “Arcadia Becomes Jerusalem: Angelic Caverns and Shrine Conversion at Monte Gargano,” Speculum 75, no. 3 (2000): 567–88; Arnold, The Footprints of Michael the Archangel: The Formation and Diffusion of a Saintly Cult, c. 300–c. 800 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 70–74. 167. Nicholas Everett, “The Liber de apparitione Sancti Michaelis in monte Gargano and the Hagiography of Dispossession,” Analecta bollandiana 120 (2002): 378–87. 168. On the manuscript tradition, see Vito Sivo, “Ricerche sulla tradizione manoscritta e sul testo dell’Apparitio latina,” in Culto e insediamenti Micaelici nell’Italia meridionale fra tarda antichità e medioevo: Atti del Convegno internazionale, Monte Sant’Angelo, 18–21 novembre 1992, ed. Carlo Carletti and Giorgio Otranto (Bari: Edipuglia 1994), 95–106; on the Old and Middle English versions of the legend, see Johnson, Saint Michael the Archangel, esp. 49–70. 169. For discussion of the function of the word “tácn” in the homily, see J. Elizabeth Jeffrey, Blickling Spirituality and the Old English Vernacular Homily: A Textual Analysis, Studies in Mediaeval Literature 1 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), 110. 170. Kelly, Blickling Homilies, 136–45, esp. 140–41 for the text and 190–92 for the commentary. 171. Dunbabin, “Ipsa deae vestigia,” 90, for the suggestion that footprints facing toward the reader of the accompanying inscription are those of a deity, while those facing away are those of the worshipper.

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Latin version on which the author of the Blickling Homily drew, but the extra details given regarding Christ’s footprints in the homily on the Ascension in the same collection suggests they could date from the reworking in Old English. The footprints impressed into the marble function as a sign of the archangel’s presence. They embody the bodiless in much the same way as the vestigia of Christ, despite the important distinctions that can be drawn between the absent body of the risen Christ and the entirely bodiless archangel. However, they can also be understood within the hagiographical tradition specific to St. Michael. As discussed by Glenn Peers, the incorporeal nature of the archangel meant that his role in events was often made evident through his impact on the landscape, as in the legends of the miracle of Chonae in which Michael creates a cleft in the rock, and indeed as seen in the provision of the rock-cut church at Monte Sant’Angelo.172 Partly for this reason, the footprints of the angel also play a part in an account of another apparition. A short text in a French manuscript dating to the second half of the tenth century describes the saint appearing as a bird with a flaming sword to fight a dragon, leaving claw prints in the rock where he stood as if in very soft wax.173 A church is subsequently constructed on the spot, although the location is not named. Moreover, Michael was sometimes identified as the angel who appeared to Joshua before the Battle of Jericho, commanding him to take off his sandals because he was standing on holy ground. A church dedicated to St. Michael is known to have marked the spot by 1106–8, when it was mentioned by Daniel the Abbot.174 The identification of St. Michael as “archistrategos” was primarily a Byzantine one; Michael is described as such in The Miracles of St. Michael at Chonae, the earliest version of which dates from the eighth century.175 Yet the tradition may well have been known in southern Italy, much of which was still under Byzantine control at this time and continued to have a substantial Greek-speaking presence for many centuries. Indeed, when a Latin translation of the text was made at Mont Athos in the eleventh century, it was by a monk from Amalfi. Arnold has discussed the title in terms of the military role played by the saint in the battle section of the Liber de apparitione, but an association with Joshua’s angel may equally have contributed to his message that the place was sacred.176 The angel’s

172. Glenn Peers, “Apprehending the Archangel Michael: Hagiographic Methods,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 20 (1996): 100–21; Peers, Subtle Bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium, The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 32 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 157–93. 173. “Signa autem ungularum eius in petra sicut in cera molissima expressa habentur usque hodie in qua stet.” The text is edited in Vito Sivo, “Un nuovo testo sul culto di san Michele (cod. Parisinus B. N. lat. 2873 A),” Vetera christianorum 32 (1995): esp. 400. Damage to the bottom of the folio has led to the loss of most of the last three lines. The same manuscript gives texts of the Liber de apparitione and the Revelatio ecclesiae Sancti Michaelis / Appparitio Sancti Michaelis in monte Tumba. 174. Daniel the Abbot, Life and Journey, trans. Ryan in Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 139. For the biblical passage in question, see Joshua 5:13–15. 175. Arnold, “Arcadia Becomes Jerusalem,” 570, n. 14. 176. Arnold, “Arcadia Becomes Jerusalem,” 570; Arnold, Footprints of Michael the Archangel, 37–65, for the saint as archistrategos more generally.

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appearance to Joshua features in the series of angelic apparitions on the bronze doors at Monte Sant’Angelo, dated to 1076.177 The footprints can also be seen as part of a long-lived tradition of describing dreams, which included material proof of their veracity. Often this proof resulted from the apparition making physical contact with the person experiencing the vision or the location in which it took place.178 Both could give rise to a vestigium or bodily imprint. In Thomas of Monmouth’s third dream about the translation of the relics of William of Norwich in the 1140s, for example, Bishop Herbert pinched him, leaving a thumb print (“brachioque impressa pollicis vestigia manifesta reliquit”).179 Where dreams were recounted as part of foundation legends, the proof was generally to be found on the ground, especially where animals or angels functioned to determine the outline of the building to be constructed.180 A twelfth-century account of the restoration of the abbey of Mozac (Auvergne) by King Pippin the Short gives particular prominence to the imprints of the animal concerned.181 They figure initially in two visions seen by the abbot. In the first, which takes place on Christmas Eve, a white deer marks the ground plan of a church in the snow with its horns and hooves. The text specifies that “the trace of its horns and hooves (vestigium cornu et pedum) appeared in the earth beneath the snow in the same manner as they did on the snow itself.”182 In the second dream the abbot hears from Pippin that on the same night he had experienced a vision in which the patron saint of the abbey showed him the tracks in the snow, identifying them as those of an angel, and

177. On the doors, see Gioia Bertelli, “La porta del santuario di S. Michele a Monte Sant’Angelo: Aspetti e problemi,” in Le porte di bronzo dall’Antichità al secolo XIII, ed. Salvatorino Salomi, 2 vols. (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1990), text vol.: esp. 300, illustration vol.: esp. CCLXVIII; Bertelli, “La porta di Monte Sant’Angelo tra storia e conservazione,” in Le porte del Paradiso: Arte e technologie bizantine tra Italia e Mediterraneo, ed. Antonio Iacobini (Rome: Campisano, 2009), esp. 324, 337 fig. 6; Clare Vernon, “Visual Culture in Norman Puglia, c. 1030–1130” (unpublished PhD thesis, Cambridge University, 2015), 48–74. 178. For discussion of physical impact on the person having the vision, see Carolyn M. Carty, “The Role of Medieval Dream Images in Authenticating Ecclesiastical Construction,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 62, no. 1 (1999): 45–90. 179. “Tunc arripiens me per sinistrum brachium strinxit, excussit, brachioque impressa pollicis vestigia manifesta reliquit”; Thomas of Monmouth, De vita et passione Sancti Willelmi martyris Norwicensis, 3.1, ed. and trans. Augustus Jessopp and Montague Rhodes James, The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896), 119; cited in Carty, “Role of Medieval Dream Images,” 56–57, n. 55. 180. Amy G. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past: Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval Southern France (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), 57–58; Lucy Donkin, “Sta. Maria Maggiore and the Depiction of Holy Ground Plans in Late Medieval Italy,” Gesta 57, no. 2 (2018): 227–32. 181. Bruno Krusch, “Reise nach Frankreich im Frühjahr und Sommer 1892: Fortsetzung und Schluss,” Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 19 (1893/94): esp. “Aufzeichnung des Abtes Lamfred von Mozac über König Pippins Beziehungen zu seinem Kloster,” 17–25; Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, 60–61. 182. “Quandam divisionem suo cornu ac pedibus ostentari in modum ecclesie fabricande. Et sicut in nive vestigium cornu et pedum eiusdem cervi apparuit, ita et sub nive simili modo in terra apparuit”; Krusch, “Reise nach Frankreich,” 24.

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instructed him to restore the abbey. Finally, when Pippin came to Mozac in person, the two men recounted their respective visions, and the abbot showed the king the tracks as proof of their veracity. The fact that the prints mark the earth beneath the snow means that they not only form a lasting testimony of the dreams but also demonstrate contact between the angelic animal and the ground marked out as holy. The idea that an angel should take such a form, and leave appropriate prints, finds a correspondence in the tenth-century account of St. Michael appearing as a bird. Citing both the timing of the visions and medieval interpretations of the deer as an allegory of Christ, Amy Remensynder has suggested that the animal may also have an implicit Christological significance. Certainly, the footprints are compatible with such a reading, given the examples associated with Christ. A similar apparition is associated with the foundation of the Benedictine abbey at Soignies (Hainault) in the eleventh-century Life of St. Vincent Madelgarius.183 Madelgarius experienced a dream in which an angel instructed him to build a church in honor of St. Peter, marking out the dimensions of the building by walking round the site, drawing a reed after him like a plough. The next day Madelgarius went to the place with some companions and found that the plan of the church (“vestigium basilicae”) that he had seen indicated in the vision was still visible, as there was no dew where the angel had trodden.184 While no mention is made of footprints, it is still where the angel walked that distinguishes the holy ground of the church to be. Both accounts accord with the Gargano legend, in that the angelic presence serves more to announce than to create the sanctity of the spot and functions as a stage in the creation of a church building, although here the actual construction is left to human agency. Monte Sant’Angelo was a prominent pilgrimage site from at least the seventh century onward.185 Yet while the footprints were clearly an important part of its foundation legend and, as will be discussed below, feature in the foundation of other churches dedicated to St. Michael, they do not seem to be mentioned by medieval pilgrims.186 At some point pilgrims have traced round their hands and shoes to leave an outline engraved in the stone of the pavements and walls, but—as elsewhere—it is difficult to ascertain when this practice commenced.187 Presumably, like the classical examples of dedicants’

183. Vita antiquior S. Vincentii Madelgarii, 16–21, ed. A. Poncelet, Analecta bollandiana 12 (1893): 431– 32; see Carty, “Role of Medieval Dream Images,” 47–48. 184. “Erat enim undique ros iacens super herbam, excepto in illo loco, per quem viderat deambulare angelum.” 185. Armando Petrucci, “Aspetti del culto e del pellegrinaggio di S. Michele Arcangelo sul Monte Gargano,” in Pellegrinaggi e culto dei santi in Europa fino alla la crociata (Todi: L’Accademia Tudertina, 1963), 145–80. 186. No mention is made of the footprints in the Itinerarium of Bernardus, for instance: PL 121:596a–b. 187. Hands are more common than feet and shoes. Michele d’Arienzo, “Segni e simboli devozionali nel santuario di san Michele sul Monte Gargano,” in Carletti and Otranto, Culto e insediamenti Micaelici nell’Italia meridionale fra Tarda Antichità e Medioevo, 191–245. For examples at other sites in Apulia, some of which are thought to be early modern, see Safran, Medieval Salento, 172–74.

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footprints, they were meant to record the pilgrims’ visit to the shrine and to provide a continuing presence after their return home. As mentioned above, other examples of incised feet and shoes have been associated with God’s command to Moses, but it seems likely that those at Monte Sant’Angelo related primarily to the archangel’s imprints. The site preserves early medieval pilgrim graffiti in the form of incised inscriptions, which may reflect a desire on the part of pilgrims to leave their own traces in the rock and may also have helped give rise to the figurative tradition. It may also be that where footprints commemorated the delivery of a message that a place was holy, rather than an event that made it so, they were of less significance for the everyday functioning of the shrine. As well as functioning as a pilgrimage destination in its own right, the Gargano shrine also formed a stopping point for those on their way to the Holy Land, and in certain ways echoed and anticipated the sites they would visit there.188 Drawing parallels between the empty cave and the tomb of Christ, Arnold has argued that “the angelic apparition replicated on Monte Gargano the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.”189 He also sees Michael’s footprints as making reference to the various imprints left by Christ during the Passion. These comparisons are confirmed by the viewpoint that sees all the sites including the Sepulcher itself as vestigia. At the same time, the footprints in the bare earth at the site of the Ascension must also have been a specific point of reference. When an Icelandic pilgrim to the Holy Land in the mid-twelfth century described the Lord’s footprint on the Mount of Olives he called the building “Michael’s church.”190 John Wilkinson has made the plausible suggestion that the mistake derives from confusion with the archangel’s footprint of Monte Sant’Angelo. It is also conceivable that the author was thinking of the church that marked the site of the angel’s appearance to Joshua, but a link with Gargano seems the more likely. It is possible that the pilgrim had made his way to Palestine via Italy and the Gargano Peninsula, as did his contemporary and compatriot Bishop Nikulás of Þverá.191 Even if he had not been to the site, he may have known of the foundation story. Certainly, the two places were likely to be connected in peoples’ minds because of their sacred vestigia, an association that could be felt as much in Italy as in Jerusalem.

188. For an example of pilgrims visiting Monte Sant’Angelo on their way to the Holy Land, see François Avril and Jean-René Gaborit, “L’Itinerarium bernardi monachi et les pèlerinages d’Italie du Sud pendant le haut-moyen-age,” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 79 (1967): 269–98. For Nikulás of Þverá, who mentions the cave and the cloth but not the footprint, see Werlauff, Symbolae ad geographiam medii aevi, 25–26; Rudolf Simek, ed. and trans., Altnordische Kosmographie: Studien und Quellen zu Weltbild und Weltbeschreibung in Norwegen und Island vom 12. bis zum 14. Jahrhundert (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990), 482, 488; Joyce Hill, “From Rome to Jerusalem: An Icelandic Itinerary of the Mid-Twelfth Century,” Harvard Theological Review 76 (1983): 178. 189. Arnold, “Arcadia Becomes Jerusalem,” 582–87; Arnold, Footprints of Michael the Archangel, 74–76. 190. “Mikaels kirkia”; Werlauff, Symbolae ad geographiam medii aevi, 58–59; Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 221. 191. Hill, “From Rome to Jerusalem,” 178.

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Yet if the shrine on the Gargano Peninsula can be understood in relation to the Holy Land, it was also a point of reference in its own right. St. Michael is often described as lacking relics on account of his incorporeal nature.192 However, the imprints of the archangel can be seen to function in the same way as those of Christ, not only acting as contact relics, but also giving rise to further relics that embodied something of both the person and the place.193 A number of the relics of St. Michael that feature in medieval lists and authentics are likely to have come from the Monte Sant’Angelo shrine. For example, a seventh- or eighth-century authentic from Sens names a number of relics including that “de s(an)c(t)o a(n)gelo Michahel.”194 Since others are associated with Rome, Constantinople or Ephesus, and Jerusalem, Michael McCormick has seen the collection as resulting from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land via Monte Gargano, in which case this example is likely to be either a fragment of ground or a piece of the cloth left on the altar.195 A record of the late eleventh-century reconsecration of the church of St. Michael at Fulda (Hesse), however, is presumably referring specifically to the footprint when it mentions a relic “de vestigio S. Michaelis,” suggesting that a relic of St. Michael included in an earlier dedication inscription by Hrabanus Maurus (ca. 780–856) was also from the rock in which the footprints were set.196 More explicitly still, the twelfth- or thirteenth-century list of relics in the cave church or Spelunca of St. Columbanus at Bobbio (Emilia-Romagna), close to one dedicated to the archangel, includes a relic of the rock where St. Michael stood: “de petra ubi sanctus Michael stetit.”197 Although the location is not stated and links with other manifestations of the saint were possible—twelfthcentury Rheinau Abbey (Zurich) claimed possession of a relic “of the place where

192. “Michael’s bodiless, relic-less existence”; Peers, Subtle Bodies, 192. “Saint Michael’s lack of a body and thus of relics”; Katherine Allen Smith, “An Angel’s Power in a Bishop’s Body: The Making of the Cult of Aubert of Avranches at Mont-Saint-Michel,” Journal of Medieval History 29, no. 4 (2003): 349. 193. Donkin, “Stones of St Michael.” 194. Hartmut Atsma, Robert Marichal, and Jean Vezin, eds., Chartae Latinae antiquiores: Facsimile Edition of the Latin Charters Prior to the Ninth Century, pt. 19, France, vol. 7 (Dietikon, Zurich: Urs Graf, 1987), 42, no. 9; Atsma et al., Chartae Latinae antiquiores, pt. 18, vol. 6, p. 99, nos. 88 and 89, for two eighth-century authentics of relics of St. Michael from Chelles; Arnold, Footprints of Michael the Archangel, 114. 195. Michael McCormick, Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, A.D. 300–900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 298 map 10.1, 304–5. 196. Otfried Ellger, Die Michaelskirche zu Fulda als Zeugnis der Totensorge: Zur Konzeption einer Friedhofs- und Grabkirche im karolingischen Kloster Fulda (Fulda: Parzeller, 1989), 82–83, 238, 242. For the inscription, see also Hrabanus Maurus, Carmina, 42, ed. Ernst Dümmler, in Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, vol. 2, MGH Poetae Latini medii aevi 2 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1884), 209. 197. C. Cipolla and G. Buzzi, eds., Codice diplomatico del monastero di S. Colombano di Bobbio fi no all’anno MCCVIII, 3 vols. (Rome: Tipografia del Senato, 1918), 2:292; Eleonora Destefanis, Il monastero di Bobbio in età altomedievale (Florence: All’Insegna del Giglio, 2002), 116–17; Monica Saracco, “Il culto di San Michele nell’Italia settentrionale: Sondaggi e prospettive d’indagine,” in Culto e santuari di San Michele nell’Europa medievale / Culte et sanctuaires de Saint Michel dans l’Europe médiévale, ed. Pierre Bouet, Giorgio Otranto, and André Vauchez (Bari: Edipuglia, 2007), 229.

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St. Michael killed the dragon”—the cave site is suggestive of an association with the shrine at Monte Sant’Angelo.198 The late twelfth-century Ritus in ecclesia servandi of S. Reparata in Florence shows the cathedral to have possessed a relic “of the stone where the archangel Michael appeared” (“de lapide ubi archangelus Michael apparuit”), which may relate to the shrine too.199 The silver-gilt processional cross of St. Michael’s, Beromünster (Lucerne), dated to ca. 1300 (fig. 9), contains a fragment “de petra s. Mychahelis,” perhaps part of the “large piece of the stone of St. Michael” (“magnum frustum de petra s. Michahelis”) that a fifteenth-century relic list recorded as being kept in a chest.200 A fifteenth-century list from Battle Abbey (Sussex) even explicitly names the shrine, in an entry for a “stone from the altar of the holy angel of Mount Gargano where he stood when he appeared at Gargano.”201 Monte Sant’Angelo was a particular point of reference for a number of other sites dedicated to the archangel, most notably Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy. The Revelatio ecclesiae Sancti Michaelis archangeli in Monte qui dicitur Tumba, thought to have been composed in the early ninth century, recounts the foundation of the church there.202 After the archangel had thrice appeared in a dream to Aubert, bishop of Avranches, commanding him to build a church, and its dimensions had been marked out by a bull, the bishop sent some brothers to Gargano to collect tokens (“pignora”) of the saint. They brought back part of the red cloak (“palliolum”) that the archangel had left on the altar and part of the marble on which he had stood. The author adds that his footprints were still preserved at the time of writing.203 The link between the two

198. Iso Müller, “Zum frühmittelalterlichen Michaelskult in der Schweiz,” in Millénaire monastique du Mont Saint-Michel, vol. 3, Culte de Saint Michel et pèlerinages au Mont, ed. Marcel Baudot (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1971), 409. 199. “De lapide ubi archangelus Michael apparuit habemus in altari sancte Reparate et ideo sollemnius agimus festum ipsius”; Toker, On Holy Ground, 246, though see 62, 68 for his identification of the stone as a sculpted image. Marica S. Tacconi, Cathedral and Civic Ritual in Late Medieval and Renaissance Florence: The Service Books of Santa Maria del Fiore, Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology 12 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 95, 97 n. 42, where the text is given as “de lapide in quo sanctus Michael apparuit.” 200. Konrad Lütolf, “Dörflingers Reliquienverzeichnis von Beromünster,” Zeitschrift für schweizerische Kirchengeschichte 12 (1918): 180–81; Adolf Reinle, Die Kunstdenkmäler des Kantons Luzern, vol. 4, Das Amt Sursee (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1956), 80–87; Müller, “Zum frühmittelalterlichen Michaelskult,” 410. I am most grateful to Jakob Bernet, Librarian of the Chorherrenstift Beromünster, for his assistance. 201. “Lapis de altari sancti angeli de monte gargano. Ubi stetit quando gargano apparuit”; San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 30319, fol. vr. Michael Carter, “The Relics of Battle Abbey: A Fifteenth-Century Inventory at the Huntington Library, San Marino,” Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies 8 (2019): 309–43. I am grateful to Michael Carter for drawing my attention to this entry, sharing his images of the manuscript, and sending me the article ahead of publication. 202. Revelatio ecclesiae Sancti Michaelis archangeli in Monte qui dicitur Tumba, ed. and trans. Bouet and Desbordes, Chroniques latines du Mont Saint-Michel, 90–109; for the dating, see 34–39. 203. “Partem scilicet marmoris supra quod stetit, cujus ibidem usque nunc in eodem loco superextant vestigia”; Revelatio ecclesiae Sancti Michaelis, 6, ed. and trans. Bouet and Desbordes, 99.

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Fig. 9. Processional cross containing a relic “de petra s. Mychahelis,” Constance, ca. 1300. Chorherrstift Beromünster. Photo: Theres Bütler.

shrines, suggested by the role of the bull in both foundation legends, is further reinforced by the transferal of holy ground, causing an almost amoeba-like reproduction of sacred space. By possessing a relic of the place where St. Michael had stood, the French monks could also partake of the angelic presence. Although the account of the monks’ mission to Gargano can be understood in primarily symbolic terms in the legend, the practice of taking tokens from the site is, as discussed above, attested elsewhere. The phenomenon of expressing a link with an older foundation by splitting off portions of its relics can also be seen with corporeal relics, as with a church founded by

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the Count of Luxembourg in 987, around two-thirds of whose relics correspond to those at the monastery of St.-Maximin in Trier and were presumably fragments of them.204 Whether or not the text represents a historical event, the sense of connection through shared relics, including one that consisted of the very location and fabric of the church, was clearly of enduring importance to the French monastery. Katherine Smith has suggested that a lack of corporeal relics for the archangel led to the development of the cult of St. Aubert, whose relics helped to provide the archangel with a surrogate body.205 Nevertheless, sustained interest in the environmental relics from Gargano suggests that these continued to be of importance as well in articulating the sanctity of place. The same events are described in a series of texts compiled in the late eleventh century and edited under the collective title De miraculis in Monte Sancti Michaelis patratis.206 Of these, the Miracula Sancti Michaelis notes that written sources indicate that tiny footprints were impressed into the marble from which the relic was taken and describes the relics as being placed in a reliquary on the altar of St. Michael.207 Jacques Hourlier pointed out that one might expect them to have been enclosed in the altar, and suggested that this might reflect a later state of affairs.208 The Introductio monachorum introduces a new element into the story, in which the archangel struck the bishop during his last dream, perforating his skull.209 The physical impact on the saint, confirmed by a hole in the skull of the saintly bishop, mirrors the impression made by St. Michael in the rock at Gargano, as well as relating more generally to the need to provide tangible proof of visions. The relics also receive mention in Guillaume de Saint-Pair’s Anglo-Norman Roman du Mont Saint-Michel, written during the abbacy of Robert of Torigny (1154–86).210 In a device characteristic of vernacular verse, the description is given twice with slightly different wording. On the first occasion the marble is simply described as the place where the angel stood: “Et del

204. Nota dedicationis Luxemburgensis, ed. H. V. Sauerland, in MGH SS 15.2 (Hannover: Hahn, 1888), 1282–83. The case is discussed in John Nightingale, Monasteries and Patrons in the Gorze Reform: Lotharingia, c. 850–1000 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), 259. 205. Smith, “Angel’s Power in a Bishop’s Body.” 206. Bouet and Desbordes, Chroniques latines du Mont Saint-Michel, 139–339. 207. “Partem scilicet rubei pallii quod isdem beatus Michael super ipsius loci altare posuit partemque marmoris in quo, sicut habetur in scriptis, ob memoriam sui quasi hominis pusilla vestigia impressit. Quas suscipiens honore competenti in quadam capsula reverenter inclusit atque ad commune cunctorum suffragium super ipsius beati Michaelis altare deposuit”; Miracula Sancti Michaelis, 1.1, ed. and trans. Bouet and Desbordes, Chroniques latines du Mont Saint-Michel, 305. 208. Jacques Hourlier, “Les sources écrites de l’histoire montoise antérieure a 966,” in Millénaire monastique du Mont Saint-Michel, vol. 2, Vie montoise et rayonnement intellectuel du Mont Saint-Michel, ed. R. Forville (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1967), 126. 209. Introductio monachorum, 2.1, ed. and trans. Bouet and Desbordes, Chroniques latines du Mont Saint-Michel, 205; Carty, “Role of Medieval Dream Images,” 54–58. 210. René Herval, “Un moine jongleur au Mont Saint-Michel, Guillaume de Saint-Pair,” in Forville, Millénaire monastique du Mont Saint-Michel, 2:283–95.

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marbre qu’il ont molt chier, / Sor quei li angles tint ses piez / Quant li mostier fut dediez.”211 The second time the tiny childlike footprints themselves are mentioned: “Et de cel marbre ou tint ses piez: / Encore i sunt apareissant / Li leu des piez, cum d’un enfant.”212 During the dedication ceremony for Aubert’s new church these relics are taken to the altar: “A l’autel vunt molt liement / Si mestent sus honestement / Les reliques que il portoent.”213 Guillaume returns to this theme at the beginning of book 3, describing the provenance of the relics and their placement on the altar, where they are said to still remain.214 Again mention is made of the fact that St. Michael left the signs of his presence at Monte Sant’Angelo in the act of consecrating the church there.215 The treatment of the relics in the Roman served to link the two consecrations and claim for Mont-Saint-Michel something of the same aura. It is notable that all the Mont-Saint-Michel narratives continued to describe the imprints as being made in marble, their materiality indicative of their spiritual worth; indeed, the relic continued to be identified as marble in inventories well into the early modern period.216 Other churches dedicated to St. Michael also claimed a direct connection with Gargano through a journey to the shrine and the taking of relics. The Chronicon Sancti Michaelis monasterii in Pago Virdunensis, probably written in the 1030s, describes the foundation of the monastery of St. Michael on Mount Châtillon near Verdun in around 709. The founder, Count Wolfandus, is said to have visited Gargano, bringing back “pignora reliquiarum.”217 While these “tokens” are not described, they may well have been intended to include the rock in which the footprints were imprinted, especially given the use of “pignora” in this sense in the Revelatio ecclesiae Sancti Michaelis. It is notable that a feature of the legend that did not seem to be of great significance to those who visited the shrine as pilgrims nevertheless played a part in other accounts of foundations. The Miracula Sancti Michaelis and the Roman indicate that Mont-Saint-Michel in its turn became holy ground, part of which could be taken elsewhere to continue the chain of sanctification. Among various miracles recorded in these texts, one concerns a man from Burgundy who visited the monastery, asking for a small stone from the mountain; this he took home and placed “pro reliquiis” in the altar of a church he constructed in honor of St. Michael.218 After his death, the church was neglected by his wife and

211. Guillaume de Saint-Pair, Roman du Mont Saint-Michel, 1, lines 664–66, ed. and trans. Catherine Bougy, Le roman du Mont Saint-Michel (XII siècle) (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2009), 145. 212. Guillaume de Saint-Pair, Roman du Mont Saint-Michel, 1, lines 682–84, ed. Bougy, 147. 213. Guillaume de Saint-Pair, Roman du Mont Saint-Michel, 1, lines 977–79, ed. Bougy, 159. 214. Guillaume de Saint-Pair, Roman du Mont Saint-Michel, 3, lines 2529–44, ed. Bougy, 237. 215. In the second description of the relics in book 1 this is mentioned in connection with the red cloth instead; Guillaume de Saint-Pair, Roman du Mont Saint-Michel, lines 679–81, ed. Bougy, 147. 216. Bouet and Desbordes, Chroniques latines du Mont Saint-Michel, 292–95. 217. Chronicon Sancti Michaelis monasterii in pago Virdunensi, 2, ed. Georg Waitz, in MGH SS 4 (Hannover: Hahn, 1841), 80. 218. The account given here is taken from the Miracula Sancti Michaelis, 5, ed. and trans. Bouet and Desbordes, 315–21; for the similar but lengthier vernacular story, see Guillaume de Saint-Pair, Roman du

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children. As a result, when his wife paid a visit to Mont-Saint-Michel, she was unable to ascend the mountain, being beset by pain as soon as she mounted the first step. Questioned by two monks, she realized her error and returned home to restore the church. The story not only demonstrates a permissible way of spreading the cult of St. Michael through earthen relics from Mont-Saint-Michel, but also shows the holy ground of the mountain playing a role in the punishment of those who disrupted this process. It is only when the woman treads on the mountain that she is afflicted; retreating, she is no longer in pain. The same thing happens three times, until she eventually prostrates herself on the ground to ask the saint the reason for this. This combination of the catalyzing contact between foot and ground and the more reverent gesture of prostration is reminiscent of the eleventh-century Miraculum Sancti Maximini, an example of the phenomenon mentioned in the introduction whereby people’s shoes could be removed miraculously to signal their presence on holy ground. In that account the moment in which a man is dramatically de-shod and cured when walking out of the church is flanked by periods of prostrate prayer.219 There the agency of the ground has to be seen in connection with the corporeal remains of the saint in his shrine. In the absence of bodily relics, the ground at Mont-Saint-Michel can be seen to function in much the same way, both spreading the archangel’s cult and defending his honor. Similarly, another miracle story recorded in the Miracula Sancti Michaelis describes a man who took a small stone from Mont-Saint-Michel without permission, placing it in an altar, and fell ill as a result.220 Before the man could be restored to health, the stone had to be returned and placed on the altar, then given back to him by the monks in order to build a church in honor of the saint. The footprints of St. Michael occupy a place between the vestigia of Christ in the Holy Land and the angelic imprints that feature in other foundation legends. In the Liber de apparitione they verify a vision that functions as much to recognize as to establish the place as holy, but an altar may be placed over them and they give rise to the name of the cave. Outside this textual tradition, they were also seen as characterizing the site, with some evidence suggesting that they were thought to be still visible and were treated as relics, whereas the multiple imprints that determined the outline of a church lost their raison d’être once the building had been constructed. Unlike such cases, where the visions are clearly aimed at prompting and therefore legitimizing building activity, the appropriate human response is not immediately apparent, with the people being undecided whether or not they need to dedicate the church. Since the second vision confirms that this is not necessary, their role is ultimately closer to the veneration accorded to the Holy Land vestigia than to the construction

Mont Saint-Michel, 3, lines 3029–3374, ed. Bougy, 259–73. 219. Miraculum Sancti Maximini, ed. and trans. in Head, “I Vow Myself to Be Your Servant”, at 246–47. 220. Miracula Sancti Michaelis, 6, ed. and trans. Bouet and Desbordes, 321–23.

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demanded of the recipients of the other visions. The significance vested in the physical contact between the archangel and the ground also stands between the two traditions. The Liber de apparitione itself treats St. Michael’s presence as indicative of the holiness of the Gargano site. However, the role played in other foundation legends by relics of the ground on which the angel had stood is reminiscent of the transformative aspect of Christ’s vestigia. The relationship between human and divine in church foundations is explored further in the next chapter, which places the emphasis on human intervention, addressing the role of the ground in the ceremony of church consecration. At the heart of this chapter has been the potential of holy feet to create holy ground. The vestigia discussed were associated with one-off moments that sanctified the place concerned. These moments were part of wider events, whether notable salvific episodes in the life of Christ or the miraculous creation and consecration of a shrine church in the case of St. Michael. Nevertheless, physical contact with the ground anchored the event and to a certain extent effected a transformation of the place concerned. The presence of the holy figures also transformed the substance of the place in such a way that it could be venerated as a contact relic that would retain its sacrality when taken elsewhere. Although this study has not engaged with vestigia left by saints with bodily remains, it seems that the force of environmental relics was especially pronounced in the absence of corporeal relics for Christ, Mary, and the angels. The phenomenon was particularly true of the Holy Land, where imprints were part of a wider veneration of the ground trodden by Christ, and it is likely that saintly imprints have a Christomimetic quality that also served to put their location in dialogue with the loca sancta of the Holy Land. However, vestigia sites elsewhere could act as points of reference in their own right, while Mont-Saint-Michel indicates that even places associated with the archangel that did not claim his imprints could present themselves as holy ground on this model. If the relics generated by such sites served to connect places in networks of holy ground spreading out horizontally, at the sites themselves the vertical axis was especially significant. Impressions in the surface of the ground encouraged thoughts of the absent body that had occupied the space above, in the case of the archangel even giving form to the incorporeal. The importance of the vertical was exaggerated at the site of the Ascension by the fact of Christ’s departure into heaven, familiar from numerous depictions, though the prints of St. Michael also engaged in a way with the heavenly sphere. However, in terms of the more bounded dimensions of the holy body itself, it was inherent in any vestigia set in the ground, with implications for how that space was used by others. The imprints were protected in such a way that they could be touched and kissed, but there was no possibility of others occupying them. Again, at the site of the Ascension, with its miraculous rejection of covering and ceiling open to the sky, there was a particular emphasis on keeping the space free, but all the sites discussed seem to have resisted the presence of further bodies.

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The materiality of the imprints as these were described suggests a desire to indicate worth with reference to precious materials. In one respect this reveals itself in a rejection of such materials, such as the idea that the Ascension site cast off paving or worldly decoration of gold and silver; the claim that the rock-cut church at Monte Sant’Angelo was valued for qualities other than “adorned stones” and the “gleam of precious metals”; and even the preservation of the uncut rocks where Christ had prayed at Gethsemane. The suggestion by Muslim writers that relics from the Dome of the Rock were sold for their weight in gold fits into this context of assessing value in relation to precious metals, even if it is not found in contemporary Western sources. At the same time, there is evidence of imprints in discrete blocks of stone, such as the Praetorium footprints and the Westminster passus domini, being set in just such metals, while relics of the places trodden by Christ and St. Michael were enclosed in richly decorated reliquaries. In all this, the treatment of the imprints corresponds to attitudes to relics more generally, in a dynamic usually discussed in relation to corporeal remains.221 As noted above, according to the Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, the relics of the saints were “dearer . . . than precious stones and finer than gold.”222 At the same time, they were wrapped in silks and housed in golden jeweled containers that authenticated the identity and communicated the value of objects whose spiritual worth belied their insignificant appearance. However, where the bones of the saints were visually difficult to distinguish from any others, with vestigia there was also a sense in which the material qualities of the relic itself could communicate something of its worth, with descriptions and depictions presenting them as set in marble, which could extend to the relics taken from vestigia sites. The emphasis on marble, shared with markers placed to show where events had occurred, itself has correspondences with contemporary metalwork, notably portable altars. However, as will be explored further in chapter 4, more fundamentally it should be seen in the context of decorated paving. Here too marble indicated the status of the site. In addition to the evidence of surviving church pavements, the laying of marble floors features in laudatory accounts of building patronage, after the model of Solomon who “laid the pavement of the temple with most precious marble of great beauty.”223 Marble used in this context highlighted the church as consecrated ground, though it could also be explicitly contrasted with the earth beneath in a hierarchy of materials; an inscription in the sixth-century floor mosaic at Grado Cathedral (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) states “vile earth lies hidden beneath this marble mosaic floor.”224 At the same time, high-status

221. Brigitte Buettner, “From Bones to Stones: Reflections on Jeweled Reliquaries,” in Reudenbach and Toussaint, Reliquiare im Mittelalter, 43–59. 222. Martyrdom of St Polycarp, 18, ed. and trans. Musurillo, Acts of the Christian Martyrs, 16–17. 223. “Stravit quoque pavimentum templi pretiosissimo marmore, decore multo”; 2 Chronicles 3:6. 224. “Squalida sub picto caelatur marmore tellus.” On the inscription, see Antonio Carlini, “Nota sull’iscrizione musiva Eliana nella basilica di Sant’Eufemia,” in Grado nella storia e nell’arte, 2 vols.,

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paving also carried the expectation that the surface would be walked on, even if this might be restricted to certain individuals at certain times, and the materials used also reflected the status of the bodies that came into contact with them. We have seen that the roundel used to mark the place where Christ had stood at the Transfiguration was described in the same terms as the porphyry roundel in the pavement of Hagia Sophia, which was stood on by the emperor. More generally, while vestigia stood in for the bodies that created them and not only gave rise to relics taken elsewhere but could even be uprooted themselves, in their material qualities, imprints in the ground were also part of a continuum with the surface as a whole, and the circumscription of the places trodden by Christ and the saints has to be seen in this context too. Finally, if the material properties of the imprints attested to their spiritual worth and that of places transformed through the presence of Christ and the saints, in ways that can be compared with the treatment of both holy bodies and other sacred spaces, it was also symptomatic of their role in authenticating and preserving the memory of past events. Here what mattered was the capacity of vestigia to hold in tension the opposing qualities of durability and impressionability. This capacity was already evident in the early descriptions of the Ascension imprints, which miraculously retained their shape despite being made in a soft substance. However, it was more common for prints to be found in stone, but to be said to appear as if they had been made in clay or wax. Already the Bordeaux Pilgrim states that the marks produced by the hobnails of the soldiers who killed Zacharias could still be seen “as plainly as if they had been pressed into wax.”225 Generally speaking, however, the wax simile is more common in texts from the tenth century onward. In the case of the footprints at Monte Sant’Angelo, it is not used in the Liber de apparitione, but the tenth-century Blickling Homily on St. Michael specifies that the Gargano prints were “clear and visible in the stone, as if they had been impressed on wax,” while in the tenth-century account of the saint appearing elsewhere in the form of a bird, it leaves claw prints in the rock as if in very soft wax.226 Similarly, Peter the Deacon described the footprint of the infant Christ in the Templum Domini as appearing “exactly as if it had been made in wax,” and Matthew Paris speaks of the passus domini in the same terms.227 Comparing stone to materials that naturally received impressions when soft and then set hard emphasized the

Antichità altoadriatiche 17 (Udine: Arti Grafiche Friulane, 1980), 2:353; Antonio Carile, “I ceti dirigenti bizantini sui pavimenti delle chiese,” in XLII Corso di cultura sull’arte ravennate e bizantina: Seminario internazionale sul tema: “Ricerche di archeologia cristiana e bizantina,” Ravenna, 14–19 maggio, 1995 (Ravenna: Girasole, 1995), 160. English translation from F. van der Meer and Christine Mohrmann, Atlas of the Early Christian World, ed. and trans. Mary F. Hedlund and H. H. Rowley (London: Nelson, 1966), 98. 225. Itinerarium Burdigalense, ed. Geyer and Cuntz, 15–16; trans. John Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, 3rd ed. (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1999), 30. 226. Kelly, Blickling Homilies, 140–41; Sivo, “Nuovo testo sul culto di san Michele,” 400. 227. Peter the Deacon, De locis sanctis, C3, ed. Weber, 95. Paris, Chronica majora, ed. Luard, 5:81–82; trans. Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, 130.

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miraculous aspect of the vestigia and the unusual qualities of the figure who had made them. Reminiscent of a familiar change in the state of a muddy road or dripping candle, but holding the properties of impressionability and durability within itself, the stone was also presented as testifying to a transformative moment of contact, which had fundamentally altered the nature of the site and created holy ground that might be venerated and sought as relics. However, the idea of being impressed in wax also conjured up a range of specific associations, equating the imprints implicitly with wax seals and tablets. This connection had already been alluded to by Sulpicius Severus, when he stated that it was as if the ground “had been sealed by the footprints impressed upon it” (“uelut impressis signata uestigiis”).228 Over the period covered by these examples there were significant changes in the use of such objects and their employment as metaphors, which will have conditioned the understanding of the simile as applied to footprints. Yet there are some relatively constant aspects that correspond with the way in which vestigia functioned. One is the way in which seals represented presence. Brigitte Bedos-Rezak has defined the seal as a “sign-object standing in, substituting, for its owner or user, and conceived and created so as to produce a duplicate presence, a presence not actual but nonetheless real.”229 The footprints too testify to the presence of a particular individual and form something of an ongoing presence themselves. Often connected with those whose bodily remains were not accessible, the impressions almost embodied the individual concerned. The connection may be even closer in the case of seals that included thumb and fingerprints, sometimes thought to act as counterseals.230 Moreover, just as a key function of a seal was to authenticate the document to which it was appended, so the impression of holy footprints served to authenticate a place, turning the ground into a kind of document. Sulpicius Severus also presented the Ascension vestigia in these terms, when he wrote that “it is an enduring proof (documentum) of the soil of that place having been trodden by God, that the footprints are still to be seen.”231 This aspect of footprints is borne out by the way in which they can function in foundation legends, testifying to the veracity of dreams in which angels or animals mark out the site of the future building. At the same time, the description of the vestigia sites also relates to the idea that images were impressed on the human memory as if on a wax seal or tablet.232 In this sense, the ground functioned commemoratively by preserving an impression of the events that took place on it. This too finds confirmation in the manner in which the

228. Sulpicius Severus, Chronica, 2.33, ed. Parroni, 92; trans. Roberts, 113. 229. Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak, “Medieval Identity: A Sign and a Concept,” American Historical Review 105, no. 5 (2000): 1505. 230. However, Alphonse Chassant and Pierre-Jean Delbarre considered them simply to result from pressing the wax into flat matrices: Dictionnaire de sigillographie pratique (Paris: J. B. Dumoulin, 1860), 147–49. 231. Sulpicius Severus, Chronica, 2.33, ed. Parroni, 92; trans. Roberts, 113. 232. Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 18–37.

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Ascension imprints are described, with the Blickling Homily presenting them as having been left as “an everlasting reminder to humankind,” while Matthew Paris considered them to have perpetuated the memory of Christ for his disciples.233 A connection with wax seals and tablets thus goes beyond appearance to broader functional similarities; the ground played a role in both establishing the identity and preserving the memory of those who stood there.

233. Kelly, Blickling Homilies, 88–89; Paris, Chronica majora, ed. Luard, 5:81–82.

2 CHURCH CONSECRATION

In tabulis cordis carnalibus. [In the fleshly tables of the heart.] —2 Corinthians 3:3

Ground transformed though contact with holy individuals could preserve their imprints as a permanent proof of the event and a focus of devotion. Limited in number, these vestigia still had a wide impact on ideas of holy ground, since people engaged with them through relics, descriptions, and depictions as well as through direct experience. This breadth of engagement was especially true of the footprints associated with Christ in the Holy Land, but these inspired imitation and others were also known outside their own locality. Vestigia were often preserved within a cult building; indeed, they could provide its rationale. As such, these sites were part of a larger number of places sanctified by events and churches that marked some kind of divine intervention. Although marked out by a higher authority, they do bear some relationship to the designation of sacred space in ecclesiastical ritual, especially the deposition of relics in the altar. In the legendary account of the foundation of the shrine at Monte Sant’Angelo, the leaving of the archangel’s footprints and the cloth on the altar showed that the cave church did not require formal consecration by the bishop of Siponto.1 A growing emphasis on relics in church consecration during the centuries following the construction of the original Church of the Ascension may partly lie behind the creation of an altar over the footprints when the church was reconstructed. Other patches of holy ground were likewise incorporated into altars, such as the spot where the angel had stood during the Annunciation, described by John Phocas as being marked by a “cross carved out of black stone upon white marble, and above it an altar.”2 Similarly, when John Capgrave visited Rome

1. Liber de apparitione, ed. Sivo, 1–4; ed. Waitz, 540–43. 2. John Phocas, Brief Description, 10, trans. Stewart, 13.

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in about 1450 he reported that the footprints of Christ on the Via Appia had previously been situated under the altar of the church known as S. Maria de Palma, before being transferred to S. Sebastiano.3 Not only is it possible that in situ vestigia could stand in, or obviate the need, for other relics, but there is evidence that relics of place, including those taken from vestigia sites, could feature among those used in consecration rituals, especially if the figures concerned had left no corporeal remains.4 For example, the church of St. Peter at the abbey of Münchsmünster in Bavaria was dedicated in 1092 with relics including those of “the promised land,” “the place of Calvary,” and “a stone of the mountain on which Christ stands when he ascends into heaven.”5 Similarly, when the abbey of Maria Laach in the Rhineland was dedicated in 1156, the relics enclosed in the high altar included one of “the stone from which Christ ascended to the cross.”6 As noted in the previous chapter, the record of the late eleventh-century reconsecration of the church of St. Michael at Fulda mentions a relic “de vestigio S. Michaelis,” and the relic of St. Michael included in Hrabanus Maurus’s earlier dedication inscription may also have been from the rock in which the footprints were set.7 Relics of St. Michael are listed in other accounts of consecrations without further details and are likely to have been either fragments of rock or cloth. In Guillaume de Saint-Pair’s twelfth-century Roman du Mont Saint-Michel, the marble from the Gargano shrine features in the consecration of the church, being placed on the altar.8 Moreover, both the Roman and the Miracula Sancti Michaelis suggest that stones from Mont-Saint-Michel could themselves be taken “pro reliquiis” to sanctify the altars of other churches dedicated to the archangel.9

3. “And þere was a ston sumtyme in þat church kept undyr þe auter wher þe steppes of our lordis bare feet are impressid”; Capgrave, Solace of Pilgrimes, 3.7, ed. Mills, 163. 4. For relics of the Holy Sepulcher used in consecration, see Bartal, “Relics of Place,” 413–16. 5. “Continentur autem insuper in alta[ri] . . . de terra promissionis . . . de loco calvarie . . . [de pet]ra in monte, super quam stans dominus in celum ascen[dit]”; Matthias Thiel and Odilo Engels, eds., Die Traditionen, Urkunden und Urbare des Klosters Münchsmünster, Quellen und Erörterungen zur Bayerischen Geschichte, n.s. 20 (Munich: Beck, 1961), 52. The notice of the dedication is given in a manuscript, the second part of which was written in a variety of hands between the 1070s and 1130s, and seems to be more or less contemporary with the event. The text is also published as Notae Sweigo-monasteriensis, ed. O. Holder-Egger, in MGH SS 15.2:1074. 6. Dedicationes monasterii Lacensis, ed. O. Holder-Egger, in MGH SS 15.2:970. The description is found in a thirteenth- or fourteenth-century addition to a twelfth-century sacramentary; Bertram Resmini, Die Benediktinerabtei Laach, Germania sacra 31, Das Erzbistum Trier 7 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1993), 19, 63. 7. Ellger, Michaelskirche zu Fulda als Zeugnis der Totensorge, 82–83, 238, 242. For the inscription, see also Hrabanus Maurus, Carmina, 42, ed. Dümmler, 209. 8. Guillaume de Saint-Pair, Roman du Mont Saint-Michel, 1, lines 977–79, 3, lines 2529–44, ed. and trans. Bougy, 159, 237. 9. “Ecclesiam construxit ipsumque lapidem ponens in altare pro reliquiis eandem basilicam in honore sancti Michaelis solemniter dedicari fecit”; Miracula Sancti Michaelis, 5.1, ed. and trans. Bouet and Desbordes, 317. “Enz en l’autel fist seeler: / Il la vout tres bien garder”; Guillaume de Saint-Pair, Roman du Mont Saint-Michel, 3, lines 3169–70, ed. and trans. Bougy, 261.

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At the same time, ecclesiastical ritual also made its own provision for holy ground. This chapter concentrates on the attention given to the floor surface in the ceremony of church consecration. Of particular interest are the inscription of the Greek and Latin alphabets into a diagonal cross of ashes sprinkled on the floor and the subsequent cruciform aspersion of the pavement. In common with other parts of the rite, these were given allegorical interpretations in explanatory texts, while the alphabet cross appears as a distinctive feature of the ceremony in descriptions of consecrations. Other aspects of the rite also helped to designate the ground as sacred, including prayers and antiphons. Although they are generally considered separately in the scholarship, the two ways of creating holy ground should not be understood as mutually exclusive, since they shared certain features and could even operate in tandem. Not only could earthen relics from a location rendered sacred by the presence of Christ or the saints be employed to consecrate an altar elsewhere, but the consecration ritual equated the church with revealed holy sites such as the location of Jacob’s dream or Moses’s vision of God, while miraculous intervention in sacred places could employ the characteristic forms of the ceremony. More specifically, the contact with—and impression in—the ground that was involved in the writing of the alphabet cross provides an important point of comparison with the vestigia that marked some loca sancta. Not only did both occur in the course of a transformative, sanctifying event, but they can both be seen to have construed the ground as a surface with the capacity to testify to and even retain a memory of these events.10 At the same time as offering a model that can be put into dialogue with the conferral of sanctity through holy tread, the characterization of the ground in the consecration ceremony is also important to this book because it defined a surface with which people subsequently came into contact within the church building. It is on the holy ground of the consecrated church floor that many of the actions examined in chapters 4, 5, and 6 took place, and within it that bodies given a church burial rested. The chapter starts by briefly setting out the treatment of the pavement in dedication ordines dating from the eighth century onward, to illustrate how central this was to the ceremony as it varied between places and evolved over time. The section also builds on parallels that have been drawn with other rituals, particularly baptism, by noting correspondences with their employment of the floor surface and suggesting that floor-based practices could act as a forum for the cross-fertilization of ideas. This is followed by consideration of contemporary interpretations of the alphabet cross as found in accompanying chants and in liturgical commentaries and dedication sermons, focusing particularly on their presentation of the act of impression. I propose that these readings both draw on conceptions of the human memory, developing metaphors that compared the church building to the body of the faithful, and correspond to a wider didactic use of the

10. This point develops ideas put forward in Lucy Donkin, “Making an Impression: Consecration and the Creation of Architectural Memory,” in Romanesque and the Past, ed. John McNeill and Richard Plant (Leeds: Maney for the British Archaeological Association, 2013), 37–48.

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surface. While such material is valuable in establishing the logic and associations of attention paid to the ground within textual constructions of sacred space, the prescriptive nature of liturgical texts raises the question of execution and significance in practice. The third section thus considers the representation of the alphabets in liturgical manuscripts and their description in historic and legendary accounts of consecration. It is notable that they were often the most visually arresting element in the consecration ordo and even in the pontifical as a whole. While this does not map straightforwardly onto the ceremony, the larger letters or diagrammatic arrangement of the alphabets are seen here to have facilitated their execution, as well as contributing to their prominence within the ritual as this was known through material texts. Meanwhile depictions and descriptions of consecration confirm that the cross formed a visually impactful and potentially emblematic part of the performance of the ritual itself. Finally, the chapter turns to the fabric of specific church buildings, identifying ways in which permanent paving might allude to the consecration rite. While the decoration of other parts of the church could also reflect how they had been marked during the ceremony, I argue that the pavement had a particular capacity to recall and perpetuate aspects of the ritual through text, image, and cruciform motifs, a capacity that corresponds to its characterization in allegorical readings of the rite as well as the logic of the surface more widely. Overall, then, the chapter emphasizes the importance of the ground to the liturgical construction of sacred space, both in terms of effecting this transformation and of making it manifest in the future.

Writing and Washing The consecration liturgies of the Middle Ages are many and varied.11 Their development over time and the contents of individual manuscripts will thus be discussed only so far as this relates to the treatment of the floor surface. Although the practice in Rome seems initially to have been to hold a Mass in the church, this was soon supplemented and preceded by the deposition of relics in the altar, and the ceremony maintained this form until the eighth century. The Gallican church consecration rite included a series of washings—usually referred to as lustrations or aspersions—as well as the marking of the altar and other parts of the church with chrism. In the eighth-century Sacramentary of

11. Recent literature includes Bénédicte Palazzo-Berthalon and Éric Palazzo, “Archéologie et liturgie: L’exemple de la dédicace de l’église et de la consécration de l’autel,” Bulletin monumental 159, no. 1 (2001): 305–16; Ralf M. W. Stammberger, Claudia Sticher, and Annekatrin Warnke, eds., “Das Haus Gottes, das seid ihr selbst”: Mittelalterliches und barockes Kirchenverständnis im Spiegel der Kirchweihe, Erudiri Sapientia 6 (Berlin: Akademie, 2006); Didier Méhu, “Historiae et imagines de la consécration de l’église au Moyen Âge,” in Mises en scène et mémoires de la consécration de l’église dans l’Occident médiéval, ed. Didier Méhu, Collections d’études médiévales de Nice 7 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), 15–48; Hamilton, Sacred City; Gittos, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places, 212–45; Bruun and Hamilton, “Rites for Dedicating Churches.”

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Angoulême, the proceedings commence with the entry of the bishop and clergy while a litany is sung, followed by the blessing of a mixture of water and wine, which is then used to asperge the church. After another litany, the altar itself is asperged and anointed with chrism in the form of a cross on the center and four corners or where the relics are to be placed, and then the whole church is also anointed with crosses in chrism. The ordo continues with the blessing of altar linen and vessels and the vestment of the altar, and ends with the deposition of relics and the dedication Mass.12 Subsequently, elements specific to the floor surface were introduced into this tradition: the writing of two alphabets on the pavement in a diagonal cross and its aspersion in the form of a Greek or Latin cross. The former has received considerable scholarly attention since the nineteenth century but is seldom placed in the context of other means of designating holy ground, or other uses and characterizations of the floor surface.13 The alphabet cross or abecedarium is first documented in the Ordo quodmodo ecclesia debeat dedicari edited by Michel Andrieu in his collection of medieval Roman ordines.14 Found in a number of manuscripts, the earliest of which are pontificals dating from around the first quarter of the ninth century, Ordo Romanus 41 was considered by Andrieu to have been composed in the third quarter of the eighth century in a milieu conversant with the Gallican liturgy, since it draws on the ordo for the consecration of an altar in the Gelasian Sacramentary.15 OR 41 had already spread widely by the ninth century, including to the Rhineland, Bavaria, and northern Italy. The alphabet cross comes at the beginning of the ceremony, after the bishop has placed twelve candles around the church and, with the rest of the clergy, has prostrated himself in front of the altar during the litany. He then writes (“scribens”) the “abcdurium” on the pavement with his “cambuta” or staff, moving from the left-hand eastern corner of the church toward the righthand western corner, and then from the right-hand eastern corner toward the left-hand western corner.16 The ordo continues with the blessing of salt, water, and ashes, which are

12. Sacramentary of Angoulême, 32/2020, ed. Patrick Saint-Roch, Liber sacramentorum Engolismensis: Manuscrit B. N. Lat. 816, Le sacramentaire Gélasien d’Angoulême, CCSL 159C (Turnhout: Brepols, 1987), 302. 13. For recent overviews of the abecedarium and its historiography, see Brian Repsher, “The Abecedarium: Catechetical Symbolism in the Rite of Church Dedication,” Mediaevalia 24 (2003): 1–18; Klaus Schreiner, “Abecedarium: Die Symbolik des Alphabets in der Liturgie der mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Kirchweihe,” in Stammberger, Sticher, and Warnke, “Das Haus Gottes, das seid ihr selbst,” 143–87; Cécile Treffort, “Opus litterarum: L’inscription alphabétique et le rite de consécration de l’église (IXe–XIIe siècle),” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 53 (2010): 153–80. 14. OR 41, ed. Michel Andrieu, Les ordines Romani du Haut Moyen Âge, 5 vols., SSL Études et documents 11, 23–24, 28–29 (Louvain: SSL, 1931–61), 4:339–49. See also G. G. Willis, Further Essays in Early Roman Liturgy, Alcuin Club Collections 50 (London: SPCK, 1968), 157–66. 15. Andrieu, Ordines Romani, 4:315–36. 16. “Deinde incipit pontifex de sinistro angulo ab oriente scribens per pavimentum cum cambuta sua abcdurium, usque in dextro angulo occidentalis; incipiens similiter de dextro angulo orientalis abcdurium, scribens usque in sinistro angulo basilicae occidentalis”; OR 41.5, ed. Andrieu, Ordines Romani, 4:340–41.

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mixed and used to sprinkle the altar and the walls of the church. The floor is mentioned again when the bishop walks away from the altar, sprinkling holy water on the pavement throughout the length and breadth (“in longum et in latum”) of the church in the shape of a cross. This action is accompanied by the antiphon “Domus mea domus orationis vocabitur” (“My house shall be called the house of prayer”) and the psalm “Narrabo nomen tuum fratribus meis” (“I will declare thy name to my brethren”).17 When considered together with the diagonal alphabet cross, the result was a double cross that reached to the extremities of the building and emphasized its center. This emphasis was reflected not only in the choice of Psalm 21 (22), which continues “in the midst of the church will I praise thee” (“in medio ecclesiae laudabo te”), but also in the prayers recited immediately after the aspersion by the bishop standing “in medio ecclesiae,” fulfilling the promises of both antiphon and psalm. The rest of the ceremony features the anointing and censing of the altar, the anointing of the walls with crosses of chrism, and the deposition of relics. Continuities and developments are evident in the Romano-Germanic Pontifical, traditionally thought to have been redacted in Mainz ca. 950–60, but more recently characterized as a “textual tradition [that] rose to prominence in late tenth- or early eleventh-century Germany.”18 The pontifical contains an Ordo Romanus ad dedicandam ecclesiam (PRG 33) and an Ordo ad benedicendam ecclesiam (PRG 40), both of which include the alphabet and the subsequent aspersion of the pavement in the form of a cross. In the former, the wording of the section concerning the alphabet is almost exactly the same as in OR 41 except for the replacement of the term “abcdurium” by “alfabetum.”19 The latter ordo, however, contains the first surviving reference to the use of the Greek alphabet, here used for the second arm of the cross.20 It also states that the writing of the first alphabet should be accompanied by the antiphon “O quam metuendus est locus iste”

17. “Iterum ipse pontifex vadit de ipso altare spargendo per medium ecclesiae in longum et in latum, similiter crucem faciendo sive per omne pavimentum spargendo”; OR 41.14, ed. Andrieu, Ordines Romani, 4:343; Psalm 21 (22):23. 18. Cyrille Vogel and Reinhard Elze, eds., Le pontifical romano-germanique du dixième siècle, 3 vols., Studi e testi 226, 227, 269 (Vatican City: BAV, 1963–72), 1:xi–xvii. Surviving manuscripts date mainly from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. For an updated list of sources arranged by origin, see Hamilton, Practice of Penance, 220–23. On the difficulties of dating and reconstructing an original compilation, see Henry Parkes, “Questioning the Authority of Vogel and Elze’s Pontifi cal romano-germanique,” in Gittos and Hamilton, Understanding Medieval Liturgy, 75–101; 100 for the quotation. 19. “Deinde incipit pontifex a sinistro angulo ab oriente scribere per pavimentum cum cambuta sua alfabetum usque in dextrum angulum occidentalem; incipiens igitur similiter de dextro angulo orientali alfabetum scribat usque in sinistrum angulum occidentalem”; PRG, 33.8, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:83. For the asperging of the pavement, see PRG, 33.19, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:85. 20. PRG, 40.25–26, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:135–36. For the asperging of the pavement, see PRG, 40.45, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:141–42. While it is sometimes suggested that two Greek alphabets could also be written, this appears to derive only from the unusual spelling of abctupium in a pontifical from St.-Remi in Reims: see Edmond Martène, De antiquis

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(“Oh, how terrible is this place”) and the canticle “Benedictus dominus deus Israel” (“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel”), and the antiphon was repeated during the writing of the second alphabet. This repetition was no doubt occasioned by the length of the proceedings, yet it also served to emphasize the message of the antiphon and to connect it firmly with the floor surface. Based on Jacob’s description of the place of his dream as the house of God and gate of heaven, the antiphon presented the church as a revealed holy place and a point of connection between heaven and earth.21 Although the pavement itself was not anointed, as Jacob anointed the rock on which he had laid his head, this may indicate that the alphabet cross was perceived as an equivalent; certainly there is a shared emphasis on holy ground. Both ordines retained the same antiphon and psalm for the asperging of the pavement as OR 41. While the edition of the RomanoGermanic Pontifical has been criticized for creating a modern composite that does not represent any one historic reality, the dedication ceremony of PRG 40 is one of the minority of chapters present in all nine of the manuscripts employed, and can thus be seen as central to this tradition.22 The alphabet cross and cruciform aspersion continued to be a common part of the church consecration ceremony in the following centuries. They are found in Roman Pontificals of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, which drew on PRG 40, although now the Greek alphabet was written first and the Latin second, and the letters said to be imprinted in ashes.23 Louis Hamilton has noted that the Roman Pontificals of the Twelfth Century modified and shortened the dedication rite as given in the RomanoGermanic Pontifical, emphasizing the role of the clergy. 24 In this light, it is significant that the pavement crosses were kept and their accompanying chants left unaltered. They are also present in the Pontifical of William Durandus, a compilation made in the 1290s that became widely popular in the fourteenth century, and from which they entered the first printed edition of the Pontifi cale Romanum.25 Indeed, Durandus’s pontifical gives two alternative ways in which the ashes could be distributed on the

ecclesiae ritibus, 4 vols., 2nd ed. (Antwerp: de la Bry, 1736–38), 2:679; Giuseppe Catalani, ed., Pontifi cale Romanum in tres partes distributum, 3 vols. (Rome: de Rubeis, 1738–40), 2:63. 21. Genesis 28:17. 22. Parkes, “Questioning the Authority,” esp. 81–82. 23. PRXII, 17.18–21, ed. Michel Andrieu, Le pontifical romain au Moyen-Âge, 4 vols., Studi e testi, 86–88, 99 (Vatican City: BAV, 1938–41), 1:180–81; PRC, 23.23–26, ed. Andrieu, Pontifi cal romain, 2:427–28. 24. Louis I. Hamilton, “Les dangers du rituel dans l’Italie du XIe siècle: Entre textes liturgiques et témoignages historiques,” in Méhu, Mises en scène et mémoires de la consécration de l’église, 160–88; Hamilton, Sacred City, 24–25. 25. PGD, 2.2.46–50, ed. Andrieu, Pontifi cal romain, 3:463–64; Vatican City, BAV, Inc.II.252, fols. 135r–136v, 146r; available at DigiVatLib, http://digi.vatlib.it/view/Inc.II.252. The text of the 1497 edition is given in Ruth Horie, Perceptions of Ecclesia: Church and Soul in Medieval Dedication Sermons (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 175–203, esp. 181, 188. On the relationship between the Pontifical of William Durandus and the editio princeps of the Pontifi cale Romanum, see Marc Dykmans, Le pontifical romain révisé au XVe siècle, Studi e testi 311 (Vatican City: BAV, 1985), 108–23, esp. 116–17.

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pavement: either in lines of a palm’s width or in individual heaps for each letter.26 Inclusion in these key pontificals meant that the abecedarium and pavement aspersion were within the mainstream of liturgical development and participated in its growing uniformity. From the late eighth century to the late fifteenth century, therefore, they were an increasingly common and widespread part of the church consecration rite. Within these broad trends, there was a great diversity in the composition of the ceremony as it was found in liturgical manuscripts. This diversity certainly affected the elements under consideration, yet few ordines omitted them altogether, indicating that they were stable and important parts of the rite.27 Since it is rarely possible to identity the specific pontifical used to consecrate a particular church building, this is a significant factor in enabling the pavement crosses to be related to perceptions of church floors in general. The origins of the abecedarium remain a matter of conjecture, with interpretations including connections with the transformation of place in foundation rituals and the transformation of the body in baptism. The writing of the alphabets has often been associated with the exposed earth. In the late nineteenth century, Giovanni Battista de Rossi saw its roots in the surveying practices of the Roman agrimensores, which included the tracing of two crossed lines on the ground.28 While John Wordsworth pointed out that such lines were designed to intersect at right angles and would have divided the church into four rectangles, he too supposed an initial connection with the bare ground, arguing that the alphabets were originally inscribed in the earth during the laying of the foundations.29 Raymond Lemaire reasoned along similar lines when he suggested that the rite first took place in an unpaved rectangular space, using this to support a hypothesis that the Christian basilica developed out of an open courtyard.30 The idea that the letters were once imprinted into the earth is certainly plausible, but it is not necessary to look to an earlier part of the construction process or an exterior location, since the beaten earth floor of a roofed church would have offered the same conditions. The first references to imprinting the letters of the alphabet cross into ashes or sand date only from the eleventh century. Perhaps the earliest surviving

26. “Unus ex ministris spargit cinerem per pavimentum ecclesie in modum crucis, faciendo ex eo lineas duas latitudinis fere unius palmi. . . . Vel, ubi sic fieri solitum est, fiant XXIIII areole de cinere . . . in quibus scribatur alphabetum grece et XXIII . . . in quibus scribatur alphabetum latine, scribendo singulas litteras in singulis areolis”; PGD, 2.2.46, 49, ed. Andrieu, Pontifi cal romain, 3:463–64. 27. A heavily abridged consecration ordo in an eleventh-century manuscript, Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 4470, possibly from S. Bartolomeo di Musiano, excludes a number of common elements including the abecedarium, but such examples are rare. Hamilton, “Dangers du rituel dans l’Italie du XIe siècle,” 167; Hamilton, Sacred City, 44. 28. G. B. de Rossi, “Vaso fittile con simboli ed epigrafe abecedaria trovato in Cartagine presso un battistero,” Bullettino di archeologia cristiana, ser. 3, 6 (1881): 140–46. 29. John Wordsworth, On the Rite of Consecration of Churches, Especially in the Church of England, Church Historical Society 52 (London: SPCK, 1899), 12–13. 30. R. Lemaire, L’origine de la basilique latine (Brussels: Vromant, 1911), 108.

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testimony in a liturgical text is found in a consecration ordo in an eleventh-century manuscript in the Biblioteca capitolare in Lucca, seen by Giovanni Mercati as belonging to the Ambrosian or Milanese tradition.31 Ashes are also mentioned in a dedication sermon delivered by Adhemar of Chabannes in 1029 or 1030.32 Earlier descriptions of the rite are ambiguous. OR 41 does not specify in what medium the letters are written, although it does employ the term “pavimentum,” which would imply a paved surface. A ninth-century commentary on the dedication of a church refers to “litteras . . . in terra descriptas.”33 This phrase could simply mean that the letters were represented on the ground or might indicate that soil was sprinkled on the pavement. It could even be that the letters were formed with the staff without making any impression. However, the use of the word “terra” does indicate that the abecedarium was at least thought of as engaging with the earth. Correspondences have also been drawn with the cruciform marking of people, part of a wider understanding of the baptismal qualities of the consecration rite.34 Pierre de Puniet understood the arrangement of the alphabets to echo the consignation of catechumens during their preparation for baptism. Just as this cross indicated that the person had been claimed for Christ, so the alphabet cross could be understood to signal that the bishop took possession of the place in the name of Christ; both function as marks of ownership and differentiation.35 Certainly the compilers of OR 41 are likely to have been

31. “Sparsa aqua sancta, scribitur alfabetum supra cinerem qui infra aecclesiam iactatus est in modum crucis”; Lucca, Biblioteca capitolare, Cod. 605, fol. 1r; Ordo Ambrosianus ad consecrandam ecclesiam et altaria, ed. Giovanni Mercati, Antiche reliquie liturgiche Ambrosiane e Romane, con un excursus sui frammenti dogmatici Ariani del Mai, Studi e testi 7 (Vatican City: Tipografia Vaticana, 1902), 1–32, at 22. Written in an eleventh-century hand, this occupies four folios at the end of an eleventh-century breviary, to which it was probably added at a later date. A small caption, written vertically in the outer margin, identifies the text as the “Ordo ambrosianus ad consecrandam ecclesiam et altaria.” Klaus Gamber, Codices liturgici Latini antiquiores, 2 vols., Spicilegium Friburgense 12 (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag Freiburg, 1968), 1:281, no. 575; Pietro Borella, “L’‘ordo’ ambrosiano di G. Mercati per la dedicazione della chiesa,” Ephemerides liturgicae 72 (1958): 48–50. 32. Charles de Lasteyrie, L’abbaye de Saint-Martial de Limoges: Étude historique, économique et archéologique, précédée de recherches nouvelles sur la vie du saint (Paris: Picard, 1901), 422–26, at 425; Cécile Treffort, “Une consécration ‘à la lettre’: Place, rôle et autorité des textes inscrits dans la sacralisation de l’église,” in Méhu, Mises en scène et mémoires de la consécration de l’église, 226; Treffort, “Opus litterarum,” 159. 33. The text, known as the Quid significent duodecim candelae and published in PRG, 35, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:90–121, is discussed further below. 34. On the relationship between consecration and baptism more generally, see Lee Bowen, “The Tropology of Medieval Dedication Rites,” Speculum 16, no. 4 (1941): 469–79; Brian Repsher, The Rite of Church Dedication in the Early Medieval Era (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1998); Dominique Iogna-Prat, La maison Dieu: Une histoire monumentale de l’Église au Moyen Âge (v. 800–v. 1200), 2nd ed. (Paris: Seuil, 2012), 294–98, 471–78. 35. Pierre de Puniet, “Dédicace des églises,” in Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, vol. 4, ed. Fernand Cabrol and Henri Leclerq (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1920), cols. 389–90. The baptismal quality of OR 41 is recognized in Méhu, “Historiae et imagines,” 21.

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familiar with the custom of marking the foreheads of catechumens with the sign of the cross. The practice was an ancient one, conceivably inspired by the passage in Ezekiel where God commands the prophet to go into Jerusalem and “mark Thau upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and mourn for all the abominations that are committed in the midst thereof.”36 Thought to be Roman in origin, it was probably known in Gaul from an early date, since it seems to be referred to in the verse Life of St. Martin of Tours by Paulinus of Périgueux (fl. 459–72).37 In the Gelasian Sacramentary, the electi are marked twice, the first time prior to the tasting of the salt and the second time during the exorcisms that followed.38 The first cross is described as being impressed (“cuius inpraessione signamur”) rather than marked in any particular substance. This description emphasizes the sense in which “signare” meant “to seal” and is similar to the alphabet cross, in contrast to the other crosses of water and chrism. OR 11, which derives from the Gelasian baptismal ordo and dates from ca. 650–700, mentions several consignations at the same points in the ceremony and specifies that the first is marked with the thumb.39 The consignation of catechumens itself finds a parallel in the incision of crosses in the foreheads of classical statues as a sign of purification.40 To a certain extent the pavement crosses also share this association with exorcism. The water used for the cruciform aspersion of the pavement was exorcised so that it would expel hostile powers. Since the sign of the cross itself had apotropaic qualities, whether traced ephemerally or represented in more lasting form, the alphabet cross could also have functioned to exorcise the space. This possibility is supported by the fact that in various English manuscripts from the eleventh century a cross is also traced on the floor at the moment of entry to

36. Ezekiel 9:4. 37. “Vix etenim decimo, senior iam moribus, anno / transiit ad sacram constanti pectore legem, / signavitque crucis sanctam munimine frontem”; Paulinus of Périgueux, Vita Sancti Martini, 1, ed. Michael Petschenig, Paulini Petricordiae Carmina, Poetae christiani minores 1, CSEL 16 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1888), 16. Antoine Chavasse, “Les deux rituels romain et gaulois de l’admission au catéchuménat que renferme le sacramentaire gélasien (Vat. Reg. 316),” in Études de critique et d’histoire religieuses, Bibliothèque de la Faculté catholique de théologie de Lyon 2 (Lyon: Facultés Catholiques, 1948), 79–98. 38. “Praeces nostras, quaesumus, domine, clemeter exaudi et hos electos tuos crucis dominicae, cuius inpraessione signamur, virtute custodi”; “Per hoc signum sanctae crucis, frontibus eorum quem nos damus, tu maledicte diabule numquam audeas violare”; SGel, 30, 33, ed. Leo Cunibert Mohlberg, L. Eizenhöfer, and P. Siffrin, eds., Liber sacramentorum Romanae aecclesiae ordinis anni circuli (Cod. Vat. Reg. lat. 316/ Paris Bibl. nat. 7193, 41/56), Rerum ecclesiasticarum documenta, series maior, fontes 4 (Rome: Herder, 1960), 43–44. 39. “Et tunc inprimitus faciat presbiter in singulorum frontibus crucem cum police”; OR 11.3, ed. Andrieu, Ordines Romani, 2:418; see also OR 11.12–27, ed. Andrieu, 420–24. For the relationship with the Gelasian Sacramentary, see Cyrille Vogel, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources, trans. and rev. William Storey and Niels Rasmussen (Portland: Pastoral Press, 1986), 164–66. 40. Helen Saradi-Mendelovici, “Christian Attitudes toward Pagan Monuments in Late Antiquity and Their Legacy in Later Byzantine Centuries,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44 (1990): 54, with reference to Julian, Epistula 19, ed. and trans. Wilmer Cave Wright, Julian, vol. 3, Letters. Epigrams. Against the Galilaeans. Fragments, Loeb Classical Library 157 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1923), 52–53. I owe this point to Louis Hamilton.

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the accompaniment of the antiphon “Crux pellit hostem. Crux Christi triumphat” (“The cross drives away the enemy. The cross of Christ triumphs”), while in an eleventh-century pontifical from Dijon three crosses are drawn on the floor at the same point in the ceremony.41 The bishop writes the first saying “Pax huic domui” (“Peace to this house”), the second saying “Crux pellat hostem” (“Let the cross drive away the enemy”), and the third saying “Crux Christi triumphat” (“The cross of Christ triumphs”).42 The idea of the cross as repelling the devil was particularly pertinent at the entrance of the church but is also likely to have informed the larger crosses since the whole floor surface represented a point of encounter with the subterranean. The lustration and chrismation of the altar, already present in the Gelasian sacramentaries, themselves have parallels in baptism, and the aspersion of the pavement in OR 41 would also fit this context. De Puniet considered the alphabet cross to have been introduced into the dedication rite on account of associations drawn between the baptized soul and the consecrated church by writers such as Caesarius of Arles. Caesarius wrote in a sermon on the Feast of a Church: “All of us, beloved, were temples of the devil before baptism; after baptism we have merited to be the temples of Christ.”43 As will be discussed further below, the comparison of the church building to the human body was a widespread and long-lasting tradition, drawing on biblical precedents including Paul’s question “Know you not that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”44 Even in the context of consecration, therefore, it was not necessarily predicated on baptism. In a sermon on the consecration of an altar Caesarius simply referred to the “temples of our bodies and souls” (“templa corporum et animarum nostrarum”) and more specifically to the “altars of our heart and body” (“altaria cordis vel corporis nostri”).45 In this light, it is significant that correspondences with the pavement crosses are also found in the treatment of the human body in other rituals, especially in Spain. A Visigothic rite for anointing the sick included making the sign of the cross on the person’s head in oil that had been exorcised with words taken from baptismal liturgy.46 More particularly, the

41. Gittos, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places, 232. 42. “Tunc pontifex facit crucem in pavimento cum cambuta dicens: Pax huic domini. Tunc pontifex progrediens cunctis, faciat iterum crucem dicens: Crux pellat hostem. Progrediens iterum faciat crucem dicendo: Crux Christi triumphat”; Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 122, fol. 16r; Martène, De antiquis ecclesiae ritibus, 2:748, Ordo 9; Aimé-Georges Martimort, La documentation liturgique de Dom Edmond Martène: Étude codicologique, Studi e testi 279 (Vatican City: BAV, 1978), 138–39 no. 170, where the pontifical was dated to the second half of the tenth century; 397 no. 800; Niels Krogh Rasmussen, Les pontificaux du haut Moyen Âge: Genèse du livre de l’évêque, SSL Études et documents 49 (Leuven: SSL, 1998), 405–6, for the later date. 43. “Omnes enim nos, carissimi, ante baptismum fana diaboli fuimus; post baptismum templa Christi esse meruimus”; Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, 229.1, ed. Morin, 2:905; trans. Mueller, 3:173. 44. 1 Corinthians 3:16. 45. Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, 228.1–2, ed. Morin, 2:901–2; trans. Mueller, 3:169. 46. Paxton, Christianizing Death, 70–73.

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bodies of the dying might be marked with a cross of ashes, as in a seventh-century ritual of deathbed penance, which has itself been understood to be modelled on baptismal liturgy.47 Despite the connection of these rites to baptism, the presence of cruciform markings in rites of passage more generally, accomplishing both the purification and the setting apart of the people concerned, provides a wider frame of reference for the consecration rite. A link between baptism and consecration can also be seen in the alphabets themselves. Herbert Thurston proposed a Celtic origin for this part of the ritual on the grounds that the term abgitorium and the symbolic significance of the alphabet are attested in Ireland from the seventh to the eleventh centuries.48 The writing of the alphabet appears primarily in the context of instruction, but it is coupled with both baptism and the foundation of churches. According to notes on the Life of St. Patrick in the early ninth-century Book of Armagh, the saint “baptised men every day and taught them letters, and wrote alphabets (abgatorias) for them,” while the Historia Brittonum (ca. 800) states that he “wrote three hundred and sixty-five alphabets (abegetoria) or more, and he also founded churches in the same number.”49 Thurston additionally cited the use of cambuta, another word of Celtic origin, for the bishop’s pastoral staff instead of the more usual baculus. An Irish origin is supported by the earliest known diagram of the consecration rite, including the crossed Latin alphabets, discussed further below. This diagram is found in a late ninth-century manuscript from Brittany containing works by Bede, including Breton glosses that have been compared to Old Irish commentaries and a marginal commentary deriving from a seventh-century Irish treatise on computus.50 It also shares some unique features with the consecration ceremony as described in the eleventh-century tract in the Leabhar Breac.51 If Irish precedents do lie behind the alphabet cross in OR 41, this would correspond with the broader phenomenon identified by scholars of the “sharing of images and ideas among Spain, Gaul, and Ireland” in liturgical

47. Mario Férotin, ed., Le liber ordinum en usage dans l’église wisigothique et mozarabe d’Espagne du cinquième au onzième siècle, Monumenta ecclesiae liturgica 5 (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1904), 87–92; José Janini, ed., Liber ordinum episcopal (Cod. Silos, Arch. monástico, 4), Studia silensia 15 (Silos: Abadia de Silos, 1991), 113–17. See Paxton, Christianizing Death, 65, n. 72, for the relationship with baptism, 69, n. 91 for the date. 48. Herbert Thurston, “The Alphabet and the Consecration of Churches,” The Month (1910): 621–31; followed in Andrieu, Ordines Romani, 4:319, 335. 49. Both texts are given in Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans., The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick with Other Documents Relating to the Saint, 2 vols., RS 89 (London: Stationary Office, 1887; repr. Wiesbaden: Kraus Reprints, 1965), 2:328, 500. 50. Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 477 (461), fol. 9r; Dominique Barbet-Massin, “Le rituel irlandais de consécration des églises au Moyen Âge: Le témoignage des sources irlandaises et bretonnes,” Annales de Bretagne et des pays de l’Ouest 118, no. 2 (2011): 7–39. 51. Whitley Stokes, “The Lebar Brecc Tractate on the Consecration of a Church,” in Miscellanea linguistica in onore di Graziadio Ascoli (Turin: Loescher, 1901), 363–85; Tomás Ó Carragáin, Churches in Early Medieval Ireland: Architecture, Ritual and Memory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 39; Barbet-Massin, “Rituel irlandais de consécration des églises au Moyen Âge,” 12–13.

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contexts in the seventh and eighth centuries.52 Moreover, drawing wider parallels between consecration and baptismal ritual in the Carolingian period, Brian Repsher has equated the writing of the alphabets with the prebaptismal scrutinies, specifically the instruction of the candidates in the traditio symboli and traditio evangeliorum, the delivery of the Creed and the Gospels.53 Notably, in both the Gelasian Sacramentary and OR 11 the delivery of the Creed was performed first in Greek and then in Latin.54 The connection finds support in contemporary allegorical interpretations of the abecedarium, discussed below, as well as the use of the pavement in baptismal ritual. What has not previously been noted in this context is that the ground was also of importance for rites focusing on the transformation of people, and that the use of ashes to create a cruciform design on the ground was not restricted to church consecration. As will be discussed further in chapter 5, ashes were shaped into a cross as part of the practice of laying the dying on the ground on a cilicium (a haircloth) and ashes. This penitential custom had its roots in Sulpicius Severus’s account of the death of St. Martin of Tours, but the earliest reference to a cross being made in ashes may be that in the late tenth-century Life of Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg (d. 973).55 The late eleventh-century Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, specify that it should extend across the length and breadth of the cloth, exhibiting the same interest in covering all the space as the two pavement crosses.56 The prebaptismal rituals of the Ambrosian church also involved the blessing of ashes and a cilicium. These were probably originally walked on in bare feet as a sign of penitence, as took place with the cilicium alone in late antique North Africa, Spain, and the East, but at a later date a catechetical element was introduced.57 The late eleventh-century Historia Mediolanensis of Landulf Senior describes how a chrismon or monogram of Christ was drawn in ashes, and reproduces a

52. Paxton, Christianizing Death, 60, 65. 53. Repsher, “Abecedarium,” 6–11. 54. SGel, 35, ed. Mohlberg, Eizenhöfer, and Siffrin, Liber sacramentorum Romanae aecclesiae, 48–51; OR 11.61–69, ed. Andrieu, Ordines Romani, 2:433–40. 55. Gerhard of Augsburg, Vita S. Oudalrici episcopi, 1.27, ed. and trans. Walter Berschin and Angelika Häse, Vita Sancti Uodalrici: Die älteste Lebensbeschreibung des heiligen Ulrich (Heidelberg: Winter, 1993), 290. 56. “Ad mensuram longitudinis et latitudinis quam ipsum cilicum habet, signum crucis de cineribus faciat”; Lanfranc, Decreta, 112, ed. and trans. David Knowles and Christopher N. L. Brooke, The Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc, rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 180–81. 57. The tenth-century Ambrosian Manual suggests that the cilicium was trodden on in the wording of the exorcism of ashes: “so also now, because you are exorcized in the Name of the Trinity and scattered upon this earth and this sackcloth, the devil may not lurk in those who stand over you, or those who pass by you as they undergo the scrutiny”; trans. in E. C. Whitaker, Documents of the Baptismal Liturgy, rev. ed. Maxwell E. Johnson, Alcuin Club Collections 79 (London: SPCK, 2003), 185. Pietro Borella, “I sacramenti nella liturgia ambrosiana,” in Manuale di storia liturgica, vol. 4, I sacramenti—I sacramentali, ed. Mario Righetti, 2nd ed. (Milan: Àncora, 1959), 580; Koenraad Ouwens, “Asche bei der Kindertaufe: Ein ungewöhnliches Ritual mit tiefen Wurzeln,” Internationale kirchliche Zeitschrift 94, nos. 1–2 (2004): 91–100. On the late antique use of the cilicium, see chapter 4 of the present study.

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homiletic text on the significance of the various elements, while Beroldus specifies that the cilicium was placed in the center of the church and the catechumens gathered round it to hear the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed.58 Within the Roman rite there is no equivalent, though it should be noted that Roman Pontificals of the Thirteenth Century contain an Ordo ad cathecuminum faciendum during which the children themselves were placed on the floor and the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer read over them.59 Versions of the chrismon such as that on the stone slab now in the choir of Milan Cathedral indicate that this may have been bisected by a horizontal line with the letters A and Ω suspended from it, creating a double cross similar to that formed by the two pavement crosses of water and ashes. It has been suggested that the catechesis previously took place around a stone of this kind.60 Although there is no firm evidence for the practice, the church excavated beneath the present-day cathedral of Aosta contains a sixth-century chrismon, here a diagonal cross bisected by a vertical line and enclosed in a circle, executed in pebbles set into the pavement.61 As the design lies at the center of the nave where paths from two baptisteries meet, it may have acted as a liturgical marker during initiation ceremonies.62 While the differences are too great and the dating too uncertain for dependent relationships to be established between any of these cruciform markings in ashes, it is notable that the first references to all of them occur between the late tenth and the late eleventh centuries. Possibly, therefore, they reflect the exchange of elements between rites with a common interest in articulating sacred space and doctrine using the floor surface. Rituals of initiation and transition that were closely related from an early date plausibly evolved in symbiosis. Equally, it is important to bear in mind the resonances between practices once they were established, especially where they took place on the same surface. The annual execution of the chrismon in ashes in churches practicing the Milanese rite may well have called to mind the one-off writing of the abecedarium on the same pavement, reinforcing the parallels between the church building and the human soul, and reminding participants that the place had been established as holy

58. Landulf Senior, Historia Mediolanensis, 1.12, ed. Ludwig Bethmann and Wilhelm Wattenbach, MGH SS 8 (Hannover: Hahn, 1848), 42–43. Marcus Magistretti, ed., Beroldus sive ecclesiae Ambrosianae Mediolanensis kalendarius et ordines saec. XII (Milan: Giovanola, 1894), 92–94; trans. Whitaker, Documents of the Baptismal Liturgy, 199–202. 59. “Tunc patrinus patrinave illius eum ponat super pavimentum et dicat super eum Pater noster Credo in Deum”; PRC, 53.22, ed. Andrieu, Pontifi cal romain, 2:517. 60. Borella, “Sacramenti nella liturgia Ambrosiana,” 581. An association was made with the example in Milan by Giuseppe Allegranza, Spiegazione e riflessioni sopra alcuni sacri monumenti antichi di Milano (Milan: Beniamino Sirtori, 1757), 18–19. 61. Charles Bonnet and Renato Perinetti, Aoste aux premiers temps chrétiens (Aosta: Musumeci, 1986), 23. 62. Charles Bonnet, “L’età della cristianizzazione: Introduzione,” in Aosta: Progetto per una storia della città, ed. Marco Cuaz (Aosta: Musumeci, 1987), 107, fig. 7.

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ground through the consecration ceremony.63 Whether involving the same type of surface or the very same surface, these instances of marking can be understood to bear a superficial similarity to each other, not in a pejorative sense but rather in terms of the potential of a particular surface to facilitate connections. Correspondences between consecration, baptism, and the last rites developed within a conceptual framework but also within parameters of practice.

Accompaniments and Interpretations While the basic procedure of the alphabet cross was common to many pontificals, variations in the choice of psalms, antiphons, or prayers could give rise to different nuances. This potential for inflection is evident, for example, in the Milanese consecration ordo found in the eleventh-century manuscript in Lucca mentioned above.64 The ordo commences with the archbishop asperging the outside walls of the church and then writing an alphabet on the walls. This is rare but not unique; a pontifical from Narbonne edited by Edmond Martène included the writing of a triple alphabet on the exterior walls.65 The walls are then marked with three crosses in chrism and three lighted candles placed in front of them. The interior of the church is asperged, after which the alphabet is written in the cross of ashes.66 The antiphon is given as “Quam metuendus est locus iste,” but the psalm is “Beati immaculati” (“Blessed are the undefiled”), Psalm 118 (119). As noted by Mercati, this was an appropriate accompaniment to this part of the ceremony, since the long psalm is divided into sections each headed by a letter of the Hebrew alphabet.67 The psalm also contains the phrase “adhaesit pavimento anima mea” (“my soul cleaves to the pavement”), which would later be used by Durandus in his Rationale divinorum offi ciorum to characterize the pavement as representing humility, and in explanations of prostrate prayer discussed in chapter 5.68 The dual associations of sanctity and humility evoked by the antiphon and psalm correspond to the characterization of the floor surface in the rite more generally, since the bishop and clergy pray

63. In addition to the dedication ordo in Lucca, Biblioteca capitolare, Cod. 605, the abecedarium is found in the Ambrosian pontifical, Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 13151, fol. 23r. 64. Lucca, Biblioteca capitolare, Cod. 605; Mercati, Antiche reliquie liturgiche, 21–32. 65. Martène, De antiquis ecclesiae ritibus, 2:734, Ordo 8; Martimort, Documentation liturgique, 156, 397, nos. 200, 800. 66. “Sparsa aqua sancta, scribitur alfabetum supra cinerum qui infra aecclesiam iactatus est in modum crucis”; Mercati, Antiche reliquie liturgiche, 22. 67. Mercati, Antiche reliquie liturgiche, 19, n. 1. 68. Psalm 118 (119): 25; William Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum, 1.1.16, ed. Anselme Davril and Timothy M. Thibodeau, 3 vols., CCCM 140, 140A, 140B (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995–2000), 1:18; trans. Timothy M. Thibodeau, The Rationale divinorum officiorum of William Durand of Mende: A New Translation of the Prologue and Book One (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 16.

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prostrate on the pavement that is then marked with the cross. As with the repetition of the antiphon in the Ordo ad benedicendam ecclesiam of the Romano-Germanic Pontifical and in Roman Pontificals of the Thirteenth Century, the choice of psalm not only reflects the time necessary to complete the cross, but also something of its form and significance. As discussed by Helen Gittos in her work on Anglo-Saxon dedication rites, a series of English pontificals dating from the tenth and eleventh centuries accompany the writing of one or both of the alphabets with the antiphon “Fundamentum aliud” (“Other foundation”) and the psalm “Fundamenta eius” (“Its foundations”).69 Examples include the late tenth or early eleventh-century Benedictional of Archbishop Robert and the early eleventh-century Lanalet Pontifical.70 The same selection is given for the first alphabet in the Beneventan Casanatense Pontifical, which dates to the twelfth or thirteenth century. Since the work is considered to display Anglo-Norman influence in other respects, this choice can probably be ascribed to the same cause.71 The antiphon draws on Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians and equates the pavement with Christ the foundation stone (“For other foundation no man can lay, but that which is laid; which is Christ Jesus”); Psalm 86 (87) refers to the city of Jerusalem founded by the Lord. By implication, the consecrated church is presented as the city standing on the holy mount and established by the Most High. As with the manuscript in Lucca, the chants closely match the surface under consideration but here reflect its role as the foundation of the building. A different emphasis can be found in the Sacramentary of Ratoldus from Corbie (Picardy), compiled in the last third of the tenth century and drawing on an English pontifical from Canterbury.72 The aspersion of the pavement takes place during an antiphon that again stresses the theme of foundation, in this case the foundation that cannot be moved because it is built upon a rock.73 However, the first alphabet is accompanied by the antiphon “Confirma hoc deus quod operatus es in nobis a templo sancto tuo, quos est in hierusalem” (“Confirm, O God, what you have wrought in us from thy holy

69. Gittos, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places, 233. 70. H. A. Wilson, ed., The Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, HBS 24 (London: HBS, 1903), 78; G. H. Doble, ed., Pontificale Lanaletense (Bibliothèque de la ville de Rouen A.27 Cat. 368): A Pontifical Formerly in Use at St. Germans, Cornwall, HBS 74 (London: HBS, 1937), 7. Summaries of scholarship on these and related manuscripts can be found in Nicholas Orchard, ed., The Sacramentary of Ratoldus (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 12052), HBS 116 (London: HBS, 2005), xcviii–ciii; Gittos, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places, 279–88, esp. 280–81 and 283–84. 71. Roger E. Reynolds, “Les cérémonies liturgiques de la cathédrale de Bénévent,” in La cathédrale de Bénévent, ed. Thomas Forrest Kelly (Ghent: Ludion, 1999), esp. 170–71, 191–92; Hamilton, “Dangers du rituel dans l’Italie du XIe siècle,” 184, tab.1; Hamilton, Sacred City, 29, tab. 1. 72. Orchard, Sacramentary of Ratoldus, ciii–cxxiv. 73. “Fundamenta templi huius sapientia sua fundauit deus in quo dominum caeli conlaudant angeli surgant uenti et fluant flumina non possunt ea mouere umquam fundata enim erat super petram”; Sacramentary of Ratoldus, 21, ed. Orchard, 20.

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temple, which is in Jerusalem”) with the psalm “Exurgat Deus” (“Let God arise”). The second alphabet is accompanied by the antiphon “Emitte spiritum tuum et creabuntur et renouabis faciem terrae” (“Thou shalt send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created: and thou shalt renew the face of the earth”) and Psalm 103 (104) “Benedic anima mea, domine deus meus” (“Bless the Lord, O my soul”).74 The latter antiphon, which is taken from the psalm, includes the promise that the surface of the earth will be renewed.75 By associating the current transformation of the site with the future transformation of the whole world, it corresponds to similar parallels drawn in contemporary interpretations of the ceremony. In such ways, the choice of antiphon and psalms had the potential to gloss and enrich the significance of the pavement crosses. It was more unusual for the crosses to be referred to directly. However, as discussed by Gittos, the alphabets were specifically mentioned in an eleventh-century English prayer: “Hear the vows of those praying above this pavement, on which as an aid to their faith we have depicted the characters of divine letters from the two corners of this house to the other two.”76 Here the alphabets are related to the tablets given to Moses: “write the words of your law on the tablets of their hearts with the fingers of your mercy.”77 A prayer found in the same manuscripts, either shortly before or after this one, associates the church with the holy ground of God’s appearance to Moses in the Burning Bush, continuing with a series of further characterizations of place each introduced by “hic” or “here,” including an allusion to Jacob’s ladder: “here let the ladder of peace and charity rise up.”78 The rhythmic repetition of the word serves to anchor the events listed firmly in the place marked by the alphabets. Although chants and prayers performed during the writing of the alphabets give some idea of ways in which it could be understood, the practice was also imbued with a more elaborate symbolism.79 By the ninth century a detailed rationale for all the elements of the ceremony had developed. What may be the earliest interpretation of the consecration

74. Sacramentary of Ratoldus, 9, ed. Orchard, 17. 75. Psalm 103 (104):30. 76. “Exaudi uota orantium super hoc pavimentum. in quo ad instrumentum fidei illorum. diuinarum caracteres litterarum. a duobus angulis huius domus. usque in alios duos depinximus angulos”; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 44, pp. 25–26; also found in London, BL, Cotton MS Vitell. A VII, fols. 20v–21r, and London, BL, Add. MS 28188, fol. 8v. The English translations of this and the following extract are from Gittos, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places, 234; I am grateful to Helen Gittos for drawing this prayer to my attention. 77. “Et verba legis tue. in tabulis cordium eorum misericordiae tuae digito asscribe”; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 44, p. 26. 78. “Hic scala pacis et caritatis assurgat”; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 44, pp. 20–21; London, BL, Cotton MS Vitell. A VII, fol. 21r, and London, BL, Add. MS 28188, fol. 9r. 79. For an overview, see Schreiner, “Abecedarium”; some interpretations from the eleventh century onward are summarized in Xavier Barral i Altet, “Quelques observations sur les mosaïques de pavement, l’architecture, la liturgie et la symbolique de l’édifice religieux médiéval,” Hortus, artium, medievalium 9 (2003): 255–60.

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rite on its own, known as the Quid significent duodecim candelae, is found in part of a palimpsest manuscript dated by Pierre Salmon to the mid-ninth century.80 It was included in the Romano-Germanic Pontifical, and Repsher has argued that the explanation is probably based on the Ordo ad benedicendam ecclesiam (PRG 40), while Yitzak Hen suggests that it refers to a shorter ordo, upon which the Ordo ad benedicendam ecclesiam might also have drawn.81 An eleventh-century sermon on the subject by Ivo of Chartres also follows it closely in places.82 As discussed by Repsher, the text as a whole emphasizes the baptismal qualities of the consecration ritual, equating the building with a catechumen. However, the interpretation of the abecedarium does not draw a parallel with consignation; rather it presents the alphabet cross in a didactic light, implicitly relating it to the delivery of the Creed, Gospels, and Lord’s Prayer in the prebaptismal scrutinies.83 Acknowledging that the practice might seem like a “childish game,” the passage in the Quid signifi cent on the writing of the alphabets is concerned to establish its spiritual credentials, offering an interpretation that draws on both the form and direction of the cross. The alphabets themselves stand for “the beginnings and basics of sacred doctrine,” being compared to the letters taught to children as the fi rst stage of learning to read. If the letters delineated in the earth signify the teaching of the church, the four corners of the church building represent the four regions of the world to which that teaching goes out: “quattuor anguli basilice quattuor designant plagas mundi ad quas pervenit doctrina ecclesiastica, quae per litteras significatur in terra descriptas.”84 While reflecting the fact that this part of the rite is focused on the ground, use of the word “terra” also serves to reinforce the wider geographical associations with which the cross

80. Vatican City, BAV, MS Regin. lat. 598, fols. 42v–57v; Pierre Salmon, “Ancien témoin d’une des sources du Pontifical romano-germanique,” in Analecta liturgica: Extraits des manuscrits liturgiques de la Bibliothèque vaticane, Studi e testi 273 (Vatican City: BAV, 1974), 277–78. For further discussion of the dating, see Repsher, Rite of Church Dedication, 34–35. A closely related text is found in Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 804, fols. 8–16, from the last quarter of the ninth century; Jean-Paul Bouhot, “Les sources de l’Expositio missae de Remi d’Auxerre,” Revue des études augustiniennes et patristiques 26, nos. 1–2 (1980): 131–37. This was published as Tractatus de dedicatione ecclesiae, PL 131:845–66, where it was attributed to Remigius of Auxerre (841–908). The Tractatus is identified with the Quid significent by Repsher, Rite of Church Dedication, 34, and by Iogna-Prat, Maison Dieu, 294; it is understood as a separate entity in Méhu, “Historiae et imagines.” 81. PRG, 35, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:90–121, esp. 35.15–18, pp. 97–99. An English translation is given in Repsher, Rite of Church Dedication, 171–93. For the relationship with PRG 40, see Repsher, Rite of Church Dedication, 33–39. Yitzhak Hen, review of The Rite of Church Dedication, by Brian Repsher, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 51, no. 1 (2000): 126–28. 82. Ivo of Chartres, De sacramentis dedicationis, PL 162:527–35. This text was also known in an Ambrosian milieu, being included at the end of the mid-twelfth-century Beroldus manuscript, Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Cod. I. 152, fols. 171r–177r; Mercati, Antiche reliquie liturgiche, 8–9, n. 1. 83. Repsher, Rite of Church Dedication, 122–28, esp. 123. For further discussion of the prebaptismal scrutinies, see chapter 4. 84. PRG, 35.15–17, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:97–98; trans. Repsher, Rite of Church Dedication, 176–77.

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is credited. More specifically, the alphabet is then compared to the preaching of the Gospels; both are held to contain nothing false. The letters are written in the form of a cross to commemorate Christ’s death, with the left-hand eastern corner of the church representing his birth among the Jews and the right-hand western corner his Ascension. The alphabet written from the right-hand eastern corner toward the west signifies the salvation of Israel. The passage ends by comparing the cross with Jacob crossing his arms to bless the sons of Joseph, thereby bestowing more lands on the younger Ephraim than on his elder brother Manasseh, an episode that was often associated typologically with the crucifixion in medieval art.85 The Quid signifi cent text established an important framework for later interpretations of the rite. Particularly influential was the way in which the ground of the church was compared to the whole earth, with the cross traced on the floor mapping the extent of salvation. This geographical dimension is echoed, for example, in the sermon delivered by Adhemar of Chabannes in 1029 or 1030, on the day commemorating the dedication of the basilica of St.-Sauveur at the abbey of St.-Martial of Limoges. Here, glowing ashes (“favilla cineris”) are shaped into the form of a cross, “the first letter of Christ’s name,” into which the bishops then imprint all letters “because in Christ and through Christ Christianity should be spread through the four parts of the world.”86 Commentators such as Honorius Augustodunensis (ca. 1080–ca. 1140) and Sicardus of Cremona (1155–1215) developed the characterization of the two alphabets found in the Quid significent. In Honorius’s Gemma animae and Sicardus’s Mitrale, the first alphabet symbolizes the passage of Jesus “the sun of righteousness” from Judea to the Gentiles; the second is written from the right-hand eastern corner, representing the primitive church, to the left-hand western corner, representing the Jews, and stands for the eventual conversion of the latter. Their intersection in the form of the cross signifies both that the Testaments reveal the Passion and that the two peoples are saved by the mystery of the Cross.87 Similar ideas of space and time are found in the Irish tractate on the consecration of a church included in the Leabhar Breac. Here the marking of the walls with chrism and the writing of the alphabet on the pavement start from the east of the church, because the east is the location of Paradise and is associated with the rising sun, “an appellation of Christ” who will come from the east on doomsday.88

85. Genesis 48:13–22; PRG, 35.18, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:98–99. 86. “Per quattuor quippe angulos respersa favilla cineris formatur in modum litterae, quae prima nomen Christi format. In quo angulato caractere imprimunt episcopi omnes litteras, quia christianitas in Christo et per Christum dilatata est per quattuor partes orbis”; de Lasteyrie, Abbaye de Saint-Martial de Limoges, 425. 87. Honorius Augustodunensis, De gemma animae, 153–55, PL 172:591d–592c; Sicardus of Cremona, Mitrale, 1.6, ed. Sarbak and Weinrich, 30–31. 88. Leabhar Breac Tractate, 32, ed. Stokes, “Lebar Brecc Tractate,” esp. 379–81. The tractate survives only in an early fifteenth-century manuscript but was dated to the eleventh century by the editor on linguistic grounds.

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In contrast to this theme of geographical expansion, some commentators gave the alphabets an interior quality. A notable example is Peter Damian’s eleventh-century Sermon on the Dedication, which drew on the structure of the Quid signifi cent text while introducing new elements.89 The idea of the passage of Christ between the Jews and the Gentiles, and the eventual conversion of the former, is not pursued here. Instead, as part of a wider emphasis on the distinction between the old law and the new, the writing of the alphabets on the pavement is compared to the way in which the divine law should be inscribed in peoples’ hearts.90 This parallel belongs to the same tradition as Caesarius of Arles’s comparison of the consecrated altar with the “altars of our heart and body.” Here, however, the form and physical dimension of the rite play a more explicit part in the association. Peter uses the verb “inpressare” to refer to the alphabets, suggesting that he considered the imprinting of the letters to be significant.91 This sense is reinforced by his choice of biblical quotations. Peter cites St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, which likens them to a letter from Christ “written . . . not on tables of stone (tabulis lapideis) but in the fleshly tables of the heart (tabulis cordis carnalibus),” as well as the promise in Jeremiah: “I will give my law in their bowels and I will write it in their heart.”92 The idea of the human heart as a writing tablet is also found in Proverbs: “Let not mercy and truth leave thee. Put them about thy neck, and write them in the tables of thy heart (tabulis cordis tui).”93 The same passages are likely to have inspired the contemporary English prayer recited over the alphabets that asks the Lord to “write the words of your law on the tablets of their hearts.”94 It is significant that an echo of the Pauline phrase and other biblical passages is also found in the preamble to the traditio symboli, in which the priest urged the candidates to “learn the Creed with attentive minds, and those things which we deliver to you (as we have received them) you must write not on any corruptible material but on the pages of your heart.”95

89. For discussion of the sermon, see Louis I. Hamilton, “To Consecrate the Church: Ecclesiastical Reform and the Dedication of Churches,” in Reforming the Church before Modernity: Patterns, Problems and Approaches, ed. Christopher M. Bellitto and Louis I. Hamilton (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 113–23; Hamilton, Sacred City, 89–108, esp. 99–108. 90. “Pro quo patenter innuitur quia templo pectoris nostri nil aliud quam diuina lex debet inscribi”; Peter Damian, Sermones, 72.3, ed. Giovanni Lucchesi, CCCM 57 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1983), 422. 91. “Quid enim huic pauimento elementa tam graecae quam latinae locutionis inpressimus”; Damian, Sermones, 72.3, ed. Lucchesi, 421–22. 92. “Et scripta . . . non in tabulis lapideis, sed in tabulis cordis carnalibus”; 2 Corinthians 3:3. “Dabo legem meam in visceribus eorum, et in corde eorum scribam eam”; Jeremiah 31:33. 93. “Misericordia et veritas te non deserant; circumda eas gutteri tuo, et describe in tabulis cordis tui”; Proverbs 3:3. 94. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 44, p. 26. See also Hebrews 8:10, 10:16. 95. “Intentis itaque animis symbulum discite, et quod uobis sicut accipimus tradimus, non alicui materie qui corrumpi potest, sed paginis uestri cordis ascribite”; SGel, 35, ed. Mohlberg, Eizenhöfer, and Siffrin, Liber sacramentorum Romanae aecclesiae, 48; trans. Whitaker, Documents of the Baptismal Liturgy, 221–22. See also OR 11.61, ed. Andrieu, Ordines Romani, 2:433.

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The expression “tabulis cordis,” especially in the context of references to divine law, evoked the tablets of stone on which the Lord wrote the Ten Commandments in the book of Exodus, engraving the words with his fi nger.96 At the same time, it will also have brought to mind the wax tablets used for noting down information and drafting texts. As Mary Carruthers has shown, these had been widely employed as a metaphor for the working of the human memory since Classical Antiquity.97 Cicero’s Partitiones oratoriae, for example, states that “the structure of memory, like a wax tablet, employs places and in these gathers together images like letters.”98 In this light, the association of the alphabet cross with writing tablets implies that the letters, and the scriptural knowledge they represented, were imprinted into the memory of the building and community. Moreover, the Latin and Greek alphabets were used as a “mnemonic ordering device,” enabling texts including scripture and canon law to be divided and internalized.99 While the consecration alphabets did not themselves function in this way, the mnemonic potential of the letters reinforced, and possibly even informed, the way in which they were seen as standing for a larger body of knowledge. A distinction should be drawn between the alphabets as mental tools and as the integral organizing principle of a text. Nevertheless, when the writing of the alphabet cross was accompanied by Psalm 118 (119), divided according to the Hebrew alphabet, this aspect of the letters would have been further emphasized. In other interpretations, the pavement itself functions as a metaphor of interiority. In Bruno of Segni’s early twelfth-century De sacramentis, the alphabets represent both the Testaments and the double or typological understanding of scripture. The Jews are said to have one Testament and to interpret it literally, while the sons of the church have two, and interpret them both literally and spiritually. Bruno goes on to state that the alphabet should therefore be written twice on the pavement of our bodies: “Bis igitur in pavimento corporis nostri alphabetum scribitur.”100 Where Peter Damian and the English prayer equate the pavement with writing tablets only by association, Bruno uses it as the recipient of the knowledge to be internalized. Hugh of St.-Victor (1096–1141) also made a direct connection when he identified the alphabet as the “simplex doctrina fidei” (“simple instruction of faith”) and compared the pavement to a human heart: “Pavimentum, cor humanum.”101 Hugh had a particular interest in the workings

96. “Et reversus est Moyses de monte, portans duas tabulas testimonii in manu sua, scriptas ex utraque parte, et factas opere Dei: scriptura quoque Dei erat sculpta in tabulis”; Exodus 32:15–16. 97. Carruthers, Book of Memory, 18–37. 98. Cicero, De partitione oratoria, 7(26), ed. and trans. H. Rackham, De oratore, 2 Book III, together with De fato, Paradoxa Stoicorum, De partitione oratoria, Loeb Classical Library 349 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942), 330–31; English translation from Carruthers, Book of Memory, 18. 99. Carruthers, Book of Memory, 135–52, at 137. 100. Bruno of Segni, De sacramentis ecclesiae, PL 165:1094–95; on the interpretation of the dedication in De sacramentis, see Hamilton, “To Consecrate the Church,” 123–37; Hamilton, Sacred City, 201–11. 101. Hugh of St.-Victor, De sacramentis christiane fidei, 5.3, PL 176:441b.

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of the memory, and the terms he uses here correspond with those used in his writings on the subject, including the heart as a repository for wisdom. In the preface to his Chronicle, for example, he not only regularly cites the need to impress or imprint what is read on the memory, but also commands his readers to “return . . . to your heart and consider how you should dispose and collect in it the precious treasures of wisdom.”102 The same comparison between pavement and heart is drawn in the Gemma animae of Honorius Augustodunensis, who likened the scripture inscribed in the earth to simple teaching sealed in earthly hearts: “Scriptura, quae terrae inscribitur, est simplex doctrina, quae cordibus terrae imprimitur.”103 Here ground and heart share an association with the earth as well as the element of impression. While the hearts are characterized as terrestrial the phrase is also suggestive of a certain earthen quality, perhaps reflecting the creation of Adam from the dust of the ground (“de limo terrae”).104 Both this characterization of the heart and the bodily pavement are used by Sicardus in the fi rst book of his Mitrale, where the Greek and Latin alphabets represent the knowledge of the Old and New Testaments “written in the pavement of our breasts, in earthly hearts”: “He˛c itaque scientia scribenda est in pavimento pectoris nostri, in cordibus terrenorum.”105 These interpretations implicitly draw on the position of the pavement as the foundation of the church building to equate it with the depth of our being. At the same time, if the idea of writing on the pavement of the body or soul can indeed be related to that of writing on the tables of the heart, then it should also be seen as helping defi ne the floor surface as one that could function to consign certain facts and even events to memory. It is significant that while the act of impression came to be stressed only after the first reference to the use of ashes, the fact of impression was seemingly more important than the material used. The ashes receive separate allegorical treatment relatively rarely and late in the tradition. For example, in a dedication sermon, Martin of Troppau (d. 1278) specified that the letters are written in ashes because Christ writes the law in humble hearts.106 For Jacobus de Voragine (ca. 1230–98), the cross was made out of ashes and sand to signify that someone who wished to fulfill God’s precepts must remember the Cross and Passion of Christ.107 Even here then, materiality is linked to

102. “Redi ergo, fili, ad cor tuum et considera qualiter in eo disponere et collocare debeas preciosos sapientiae thesauros”; Hugh of St.-Victor, De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum, ed. William M. Green, Speculum 18, no. 4 (1943): 489; trans. Carruthers, Book of Memory, Appendix A, 340. Hugh’s interest in memory is discussed in Carruthers, Book of Memory, and in Grover A. Zinn Jr., “Hugh of Saint Victor and the Art of Memory,” Viator 5 (1974): 211–34. 103. Honorius, De gemma animae, 154, PL 172:591d. 104. Genesis 2:7. 105. Sicardus of Cremona, Mitrale, 1.6, ed. Sarbak and Weinrich, 30. 106. “Quia autem in cineribus scribuntur litere innuit quod Christus scribit legem in corde humili”; Martin of Troppau, Sermones de tempore et de sanctis: Templum Dei sanctum est quod estis vos, in Horie, Perceptions of Ecclesia, 220. 107. “Et ideo talis scriptura fit in cruce de cinere et zabulo facta ad innuendum quod si homo vult faciliter Dei praecepta implere, debet habere memoriam Dominicae passionis et crucis”; Jacobus de

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memory and internalization, suggesting an interest in construing the surface more generally as impressionable and receptive. It is also worth noting that the pavement and the ground was construed as a surface for learning in other contexts, including by Hugh of St.-Victor. In his Didascalicon, he describes marking the ground when learning mathematics and geometry: “I laid out pebbles for numbers, and I marked the pavement with black coals and, by a model placed right before my eyes, I plainly showed what difference there is between an obtuseangled, a right-angled and an acute-angled triangle.”108 Although they are simply used to form shapes, rather than also acting as a medium for impression, the pebbles and charcoal of Hugh’s practical learning strategies are not so far in material terms from the ashes of the alphabet cross. Moreover, his description of his juvenile learning comes shortly after a mention of the alphabets as a necessary foundation to further study, and the whole passage is found in the context of how to read scripture. However, the practice of marking the ground in study was not confined to children. Indeed, some scholars have even suggested that elements of Hugh’s complex diagram of Noah’s Ark might have been executed as a drawing on the floor.109 We also find an echo of such practices in the Fons philosophiae by Godfrey of St.-Victor (1130–94), which characterizes mathematics as a river with four branches; that of arithmetic is full of pebbles while that of geometry cuts shapes or figures in the sand.110 Certainly, executing temporary designs in sand or a similar substance on a flat surface seems to have been a broader practice within mathematics. Already around the year 1000, Bernelinus’s treatise on the abacus describes a “tabula” scattered with bluish-grey dust or sand, in which figures were drawn.111 In the late twelfth-century Ordo artium, geometry is characterized as dealing with figures drawn in the dust or powder (“pulvereis . . . figuris”).112 Here the fact that the sand or dust forms

Voragine, Sermones de tempore et de sanctis: Edificaverunt templum Domini rex et filii Israel, in Horie, Perceptions of Ecclesia, 228. 108. Hugh of St.-Victor, Didascalicon, 6.3, trans. Jerome Taylor, The Didascalicon of Hugh of St Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), 136. 109. For the possibility of a painting or sketch on the floor, see Patrice Sicard, “L’urbanisme de la Cité de Dieu: Constructions et architectures dans la pensée théologique du XIIe siècle,” in L’abbé Suger, le manifeste gothique de Saint-Denis et la pensée victorine, ed. Domenique Poirel (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), 127; Marcia Kupfer, “Medieval World Maps: Embedded Images, Interpretative Frames,” Word and Image 10, no. 3 (1994): 269. The status of the ark as an exclusively mental diagram is argued for in Carruthers, Book of Memory, 293–302. 110. “Cerneres in sabulo varias picturas / infinitis ductiles lineis figuras / circulos, triangulos atque quadraturas / quibus adinveniunt omnis mensuras”; Godfrey of St.-Victor, Fons philosophiae, 94, ed. Pierre Michaud-Quantin, Analecta mediaevalia Namurcensia 8 (1956): 48. 111. “Abaci tabula, diligenter undique prius polita, ab geometris glauco pulvere solet velari, in qua describunt etiam geometricales figuras”; Liber abaci, ed. A. Olleris, in Oeuvres de Gerbert, pape sous le nom de Sylvestre II (Paris: Dumoulin, 1867), 359. 112. “Artis geometrice cura de mensuris / Disserens pulvereis ludit in figuris”; cited in Günther Binding and Susanne Linscheid-Burdich, with Julia Wippermann, Planen und Bauen im frühen und hohen Mittelalter nach den Schriftquellen bis 1250 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2002), 115.

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the medium in which the marks are made is similar to the tracing of the letters in the alphabet cross. Insofar as practices of marking the ground and imprinting figures in sand or powder were used in learning, the associations of the imprinted cross of ashes with the internalization of scripture and doctrine were doubly appropriate. Parallels can also be drawn between methods of visualization in theoretical geometry and the employment of tracing floors to set out designs for windows and other architectural components.113 Here the floor surface could be incised or marked in chalk or charcoal. Evidence for the practice dates to the thirteenth century onward, but it can plausibly be extended back into at least the mid-twelfth. Although tracing floors might be constructed in separate buildings or upper rooms, the ground level of churches could also be used, including porches, transepts, and even the nave. The execution of large-scale drawings on the church pavement in this context brings the phenomenon of marking the ground in order to envisage and comprehend complex entities into consecrated space, and as such forms another point of reference for interpretations of the alphabet cross. The inscription of the alphabets, the Christological connotations with which this was credited, and the interpretative tradition that compared it to spiritual knowledge imprinted in the human body or soul bring the treatment of the pavement in the consecration rite closer to the permanent holy vestigia discussed in the previous chapter. The Ascension footprints themselves were long described as being made in earth or dust, while the common statement that imprints in stone looked as if they had been impressed in wax or clay also relates to the contemporary understanding of the working of the human memory. Moreover, despite the ephemeral nature of the alphabet cross, the kind of comparisons drawn suggest that the effect of the imprinting was construed as permanent and pertaining to the pavement as a fundamental component of the church building. So whether the footfall of a holy individual turned the ground into a contact relic or a bishop’s staff marked it as part of a wider ritual of consecration, imprinting the ground resulted from a moment of contact that fundamentally altered the place. On occasion, the water used for the cruciform washing of the pavement could also be understood in terms that evoked the vestigia sites. In a dedication ordo found in the late ninth-century Sacramentary of St.-Denis, and also in a small number of other sacramentaries and pontificals of the ninth to eleventh centuries, a prayer prior to the blessing of the water characterizes it as trodden by Christ: “sanctificare acqua christi calcata vestigiis.”114 Did

113. Arnold Pacey, Medieval Architectural Drawing: English Craftsmen’s Methods and Their Later Persistence (c. 1200–1700) (Stroud: Tempus, 2007), 33–58; a parallel with “dust boards” for calculation and geometry is drawn on 44. I owe this point to a reader for Cornell University Press. 114. Paris, BnF, MS Lat. 2290; Jean Deshusses, ed., Le sacramentaire grégorien: Ses principales formes d’après les plus anciens manuscrits, 3 vols., Spicilegium Friburgense 16, 24, 28 (Fribourg: Éditions universitaires, 1971–82), 3:187, n. 4121 for the prayer; 200–4 for the Ordo ad ecclesiam dedicandam. On the other MSS containing the ordo, see Didier Méhu, “The Colors of the Ritual: Description and Inscription of Church Dedication in Liturgical Manuscripts (10th–11th Centuries),” in Sign and Design: Script as Image

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this phrase bring to mind the miracle of Christ walking on the water or, since vestigia here are applied to a medium that could not retain impressions, did it simply present the invisible sanctification of the water through the blessing in terms of an invisible moment of contact with Christ? Where the tangible vestigia sites and relics were not trodden on again, water imagined as trodden by Christ was used to sanctify a surface to be trodden by others, suggesting that the liquid medium and metaphor allowed for a greater flexibility in that respect. These examples indicate that there was some overlap between allegorical interpretations of the rite and the associations evoked by chant and prayers during the writing of the alphabets. However, for the most part, they seem to have provided an additional layer of meaning, which might already be known to members of the clergy taking part in the rite and was possibly also communicated to the laity. Repsher suggests that the exegetical tradition represented by the Quid significent duodecim candelae was expounded to the congregation during the ceremony.115 Although it seems likely that this lengthy and complex text was primarily designed for a clerical audience, the same themes could also be expressed in shorter sermons. Both the Roman and Ambrosian rites included an annual commemoration of the dedication of the church, and while the alphabet cross was not repeated on these occasions the sermons by Adhemar of Chabannes, Peter Damian, Martin of Troppau, and Jacobus de Voragine indicate that it could be recalled by those officiating.116 Indeed, of the dedication sermons examined by Ruth Horie, all those that discuss separate parts of the ritual cover the treatment of the pavement.117

Depiction and Description Liturgical texts are essentially prescriptive, leaving open the extent to which they were followed in practice. Within the parameters of the consecration ritual as it is found in ordines and liturgical commentaries, the pavement is characterized in certain ways by actions involving sustained physical engagement with the surface. These elements are valuable for what they can tell us about the place of the pavement within conceptions of

in Cross-Cultural Perspective (300–1600 CE), ed. Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak and Jeffrey F. Hamburger (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2016), 262, n. 17. On the prayer, as found in the twelfth-century Pontifical of Vic, see Méhu, “L’onction, le voile et la vision: Anthropologie du rituel de dédicace de l’église à l’époque romane,” Codex Aquilarensis 32 (2016): 88. I am grateful to Professor Méhu for sending me copies of both these articles. 115. Repsher, Rite of Church Dedication, 39. 116. Willis, Further Essays, 171–73. The missa in anniversario dedicationis aecclesiae is found in a number of manuscripts discussed by Michel Andrieu including Monte Cassino, MS 451, fol. 46v, c. 1022–35; Andrieu, Ordines Romani, 1:188. 117. Horie, Perceptions of Ecclesia, 79–81, 220, 225, 228.

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sacred space. However, it is necessary to ask how far such interaction took place, especially when considering the implications of consecration for a surface, and indeed surviving paving, with which people subsequently came into contact. In addition to the potential for departure from the text that was present in any ritual as it was carried out, the dedication ceremony may not always have been executed in the way that liturgical books imply on account of topographical circumstances or an incomplete building.118 Moreover, exactly how the alphabet cross was mapped onto the complex and often sizeable space of the church interior remains a matter of conjecture. We have already seen that Durandus’s pontifical allows for the custom of writing the letters in separate piles of ash, which would have helped to navigate vertical barriers and differences in level. Despite the rubric specifying that the alphabets should be written between the four corners of the church, which had the cross encompass the totality of the space, it is also possible that a smaller, representative, regular area was chosen, or that care was simply taken that the alphabets met in whatever was felt to be the center of the building. Yet it seems unlikely that the execution of the cross and the aspersion of the pavement would ever have been entirely prevented by practical factors. There is also positive evidence in both pontificals and nonliturgical sources to suggest that the alphabet cross was carried out in practice. The pontificals themselves provide information beyond their textual content. The alphabets were often written out in full using letters significantly larger than the rest of the script, suggesting that these were at least intended to be copied during the ceremony.119 This format may have been a formality for the Latin alphabet, but bishops in the medieval West were not necessarily familiar with Greek. The manner in which the alphabets were laid out on the page varies from manuscript to manuscript. Some incorporate them into the body of the text, as in British Library, Harley MS 2906, a twelfth-century pontifical from northern Italy (fig. 10); others, such as the eleventhcentury Pontifical of Gondekar II in the episcopal archives in Eichstätt (Bavaria), have them written in the margins.120 But whatever the arrangement, in the majority of pontificals with no decorative elements, the alphabets are the most visually arresting component of the whole manuscript. While this quality does not in itself imply translation into the church interior, the prominence of the alphabets points to their conceptual importance as well as facilitating their execution. There are also a number of instances

118. For practical restrictions on the ceremony, see Hamilton, “Dangers du ritual dans l’Italie du XIe siècle”; Hamilton, Sacred City, 20. 119. On the visual qualities of the script of dedication rites, including the alphabets, see Méhu, “Colors of the Ritual,” esp. 272–76. 120. London, BL, Harley MS 2906, fol. 19v; Eichstätt, Diözesanarchiv, MS B.4, fols. 33v–34r; PRG, 40.26, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:136. Further examples of alphabets written out in full in the text, dating from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, are reproduced in Treffort, “Opus litterarum,” 161; Schreiner, “Abecedarium,” 186, fig. 2. Examples of alphabets written in the margins are given and reproduced in Méhu, “Colors of the Ritual,” 273–76, figs. 13.7–9.

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Fig. 10. Greek and Latin alphabets, pontifical, northern Italy, twelfth century. London, British Library, Harley MS 2906, fol. 19v. Photo: © The British Library Board.

of diagrams of the crossed alphabets, the only element of the ceremony—to my knowledge—to be rendered in such a format in a pontifical, and a rare occurrence in liturgical books more generally.

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What may be the earliest surviving example of such a diagram comes not from a pontifical but from the Breton manuscript mentioned above. From the abbey of Landévennec, this dates mainly from the late ninth century and contains works by Bede on natural history, astronomy, and computus. The diagram of the consecration, published and discussed by Dominique Barbet-Massin, may date to the ninth century or have been added in the early tenth (fig. 11).121 The diagonal cross, made up of two Latin alphabets, occupies a vertical rectangle representing the church building, whose walls are filled and surrounded by texts taken from the psalms and a range of classical and early medieval writings. Between the upper arms of the cross, the altar is marked and identified as the “sedes domini” and the site of the mixing of wine and water. Around it are inscriptions noting the places of key participants in the ceremony, including the lector, deacon, and exorcist to the east, and the bishop to the west. Further description of the ceremony is situated between all four arms of the cross, with an apparent reference to the writing of the alphabets in the bottom section.122 The diagram thus serves as a schematic summary of the whole ceremony and as such seems likely to draw together elements from a liturgical book, rather than constituting a simple extract. It may have expanded existing diagrammatic components in an ordo or have been newly composed in keeping with the interest in schemata displayed in the rest of the manuscript, which also contains diagrams of the courses of the sun and moon, the planets, and other astronomical material.123 Either way, the prominence of the cross in a graphic rendition of the ceremony beyond the confines of liturgical books is a testimony to its role in the ritual’s configuration of sacred space. In pontificals, diagrams of the alphabets generally pertain only to this element of the ritual and are found at the appropriate point in the ordo. An early example comes in an eleventh-century pontifical from Arezzo (Tuscany) (fig. 12).124 Here the Greek letters are written from the top left-hand corner of the page to the bottom right-hand corner,

121. Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 477 (461), fol. 9r; Barbet-Massin, “Rituel irlandais de consécration des églises au Moyen Âge”; Patricia Stirnemann, “L’inscription alphabétique: De la consécration de l’église à l’apprentissage de la lecture et autres usages,” Bulletin monumental 169, no. 1 (2011): 73–76. 122. “Cum consecratur aeclesia scribitur ab in eclesia ab angelis utrisque et canit episcopus fundamenta eius usque in finem”; Barbet-Massin, “Rituel irlandais de consécration des églises au Moyen Âge,” 35. 123. Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 477 (461), fols. 9v, 97v–99v. 124. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Lit. 359, fol. 2r. A description of the manuscript, now bound out of order, is given in Falconer Madan, A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, 7 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895–1953), 4:390–391; Walter Howard Frere, Bibliotheca Musico-Liturgica: A Descriptive Handlist of the Musical and Latin-Liturgical MSS of the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (London: Quarich, 1901–32), 1:124; S. J. P. Van Dijk’s unpublished Handlist of the Latin Liturgical Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, 7 vols. in 8 (unpublished typescript kept in the Bodleian Library, 1957–60), 3:6; and John Brückmann, “Latin Manuscript Pontificals and Benedictionals in England and Wales,” Traditio 29 (1973): 449. I am grateful to Nicholas Orchard for drawing this manuscript to my attention.

Fig. 11. Diagram of the consecration of a church, miscellany of works by Bede, Brittany, late ninth century (diagram, late ninth or early tenth century). Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 477 (461), fol. 9r. Photo: © Ville d’Angers.

Fig. 12. Diagram of the alphabet cross, pontifical, Italy, eleventh century. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Lit. 359, fol. 2r. Photo: The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford.

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separated by vertical lines, and the Latin alphabet from the top right to the bottom left. The rubric for the writing of the alphabets occupies the triangular space between the upper arms of the cross and stipulates that the Greek alphabet is the first to be written.125 The corners of the pages are worn and shiny with age, suggesting that the manuscript was a practical manual to the rite. The alphabets are written in black and picked out in yellow, with the Greek letters divided by purple vertical lines—perhaps to make them easier to read—while the rubrics for the writing of the cross are written in red in the space between the upper arms. The inner angles of the cross are filled in in red, giving the illusion of a square behind the center, most of the outer angles are colored in blue, and there is a horizontal blue line bisecting the rectangle. The two triangular spaces to left and right are bordered in yellow, and there are bands of geometric and vegetal patterns in purple on three of the four sides. It is not clear what occasioned the elaboration of the alphabets in this manuscript, which otherwise has few decorative elements. The use of red highlights the way in which the crossed alphabets marked the center of the church, also emphasized in other parts of the rite, while the shape of the parchment left uncolored by the blue corners hints at a church with transepts. Other elements are less obviously relevant to the space of the church building, and indeed rather emphasize the status of the diagram as a component on the page. It is possible that, like the Breton miscellany, it should be seen in the context of the schematic representation of spatial knowledge in manuscripts; in fact, a parallel for the varied ornamental motifs on the different sides of the frame can be found in a square diagram showing the positions of the rising and setting sun at various times of the year in an eleventh-century Milanese manuscript of Bede’s De natura rerum.126 However, the result is to give the alphabet cross a unique visual prominence within the pontifical, which speaks of the likelihood of its realization within the church as well. Generally speaking, where the alphabet cross was shown, there was little attempt to go beyond the basic diagram, although the letters themselves might be decorated in some way. The arrangement of the alphabets on the page could differ, as could the way in which the page relates to the church building. A French pontifical of Lisieux, dating from the second half of the fourteenth century, has the Greek alphabet written from the top right-hand corner of the page in red, accompanied by the names of the letters written out in full, and the Latin alphabet written from the top left-hand corner of the page.127 A fifteenth-century French pontifical, in which alternate letters are written in red and blue, has the alphabets written from left to right: the Greek from the top

125. “Deinde incipiat pontifex de sinistro / angulo ab oriente scribere per pavi/mentum cum cambutta sua alfabetum graecum / et scribat usque in dextrum angulum oc/cidentalem. Incipiens quo similiter / iterum de dextro angulo / orientali latinum alfa/betum. Scribat usque / in sinistrum an/gulum oc/cidenta/lem.” 126. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Misc. 560, fol. 23v. 127. Toulouse, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 119, fol. 44r.

Fig. 13. Diagram of the alphabet cross, pontifical, France, fifteenth century. Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Lat 142, fol. 37v. Photo: Copyright of the University of Manchester.

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left-hand corner of the page, and the Latin from the bottom left (fig. 13).128 The alphabets are disposed in the same way in a fifteenth-century pontifical of Paris, but here are written alternately in red on a blue background and gold on a silver background, in the same manner as initial letters throughout the manuscript.129 In cases such as this, the alphabets added to the visual appeal of the manuscript, but it should be noted that alternating colors also made the diagram easier to read. In the manuscripts in which the alphabets are written from top to bottom, their placement on the rectangular page seems to echo that in the church building, with east at the top, although the examples cited clearly differ over the interpretation of the left- and right-hand sides of the church. Where the alphabets are written from left to right, following the logic of the page, so that east is at the long left-hand side, the diagram is less like a representation of built space. However, this arrangement does not necessarily indicate a distancing of the manuscript from the execution of the rite; indeed, it will have made the alphabets easier to follow when holding the book upright. As Éric Palazzo has shown, early medieval pontificals rarely contain representations of the ceremonies they contain; Roman Pontificals of the Thirteenth Century, more particularly those containing the longer recension of the text produced in the middle of the century, were the first to contain a lengthy cycle of images that illustrated the different rituals.130 Illustrations of the writing of the alphabet cross are not as common as scenes of the chrismation of the walls or the deposition of the relics, especially if only a single moment from the ceremony is shown. Nevertheless, there are a few examples in later medieval manuscript pontificals. An early fifteenth-century missal-pontifical commissioned by the bishop of Luçon for John, duke of Berry, shows the consecrating bishop holding his crozier and starting to write the first alphabet with a short stick (fig. 14).131 There is no indication of the ashes; rather, the letters are neatly placed in individual components of a green and yellow tiled floor, which echoes the checkerboard sometimes used to present the alphabets in the body of the text but also suggests a way in which paving might help to situate the cross, where paving was already in place. In a late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century Roman pontifical produced in Lyon, the bishop

128. Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Lat. 142, fol. 37v; M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Latin Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library at Manchester, 2 vols. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1921), 1:249–50. I am grateful to Paul Binski for drawing this manuscript to my attention. 129. Paris, BnF, MS Lat. 961, vol. 2, fol. 107v; Victor Leroquais, Les pontificaux manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, 4 vols. (Paris: Protat, 1937), 2:69–76, no. 110; François Avril, “Un pontifical de Gérard de Montaigu, évêque de Paris (1409–1420),” Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 125, no. 2 (1967): 433–37, for a date in the first quarter of the fifteenth century. 130. Éric Palazzo, L’évêque et son image: L’illustration du pontifical au Moyen Âge (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), esp. 143–76. 131. Paris, BnF, MS Lat. 8886, fol. 355r.

Fig. 14. Bishop writing the alphabet cross, missal-pontifical of Luçon, early fifteenth century. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat. 8886, fol. 355r. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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Fig. 15. Bishop writing in the cross of ashes, pontifical, Lyon, late fifteenth century or early sixteenth century. Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 565, fol. 91v. Photo: Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon.

is shown using a long staff topped with a cross to write in a small grey diagonal cross positioned on the pavement in front of the altar (fig. 15).132 However, this cross is inscribed not with the letters of the alphabets, but with part of a text: the more legible arm reads dominus ven. This is perhaps evocative of the Christological understanding of the alphabets, since it is not as though the artist is likely to have been unaware of the actual content of the ritual; a few folios on, the Greek alphabet is written out in a checkerboard pattern itself reminiscent of floor tiles with gold letters on blue and red backgrounds, with the Latin alphabet in small blue letters beneath (fig. 16).133 A pontifical made in the 1450s in Bergamo for Bishop Giovanni Barozzi similarly shows the bishop writing the

132. Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 565, fol. 91v. The original arms on the pontifical may be those of an early sixteenth-century bishop of Vienne; Leroquais, Pontifi caux manuscrits, 1:177–81, no. 56, where the manuscript is dated to the late fifteenth century. See also Elizabeth Burin, Manuscript Illumination in Lyons, 1473–1530 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), 173–77, no. 71, where the manuscript is dated to 1508–15. 133. Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 565, fol. 100r.

Fig. 16. Greek and Latin alphabets, pontifical, Lyon, late fifteenth century or early sixteenth century. Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 565, fol. 100r. Photo: Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon.

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Fig. 17. Bishop writing in the cross of ashes, Pontifical of Giovanni Barozzi, Bergamo, 1450s. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 1145, fol. 79r. Photo: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, all rights reserved.

cross in front of the altar with letters that seem not to simply reproduce the alphabets, but here no words can be made out at all (fig. 17).134 One manuscript integrates the diagrammatic and illustrative approaches. This is a late thirteenth-century pontifical produced in Paris, which may have been used at some point in the royal chapel (fig. 18).135 Here the alphabet cross occupies the majority of the page, in common with the diagrams, with the symbols of the evangelists in roundels at the ends. However, between the upper arms of the cross is a depiction of the altar, while

134. Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 1145, fol. 79r. On this manuscript, see Giovanni Morello and Silvia Maddalo, eds., Liturgia in figura: Codici liturgici rinascimentali della Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vatican City: BAV, 1995), 121–26, no. 14. 135. Toledo, Archivo y Biblioteca Capitulares, MS 56-19, fol. 100v; José Janini and Ramón Gonzálvez Ruiz, Catálogo de los manuscritos litúrgicos de la Catedral de Toledo (Toledo: Diputación Provincial, 1977), 219–22, no. 216. I am grateful to Tom Nickson for drawing this manuscript to my attention.

Fig. 18. Diagram of the consecration of a church with the bishop writing the alphabet cross, pontifical, Paris, late thirteenth century. Toledo, Archivo y Biblioteca Capitulares, MS 56-19, fol. 100v. Photo: Archivo y Biblioteca Capitulares Catedral Primada de Toledo.

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Fig. 19. Bishop writing the alphabet cross, Pontificale Romanum Clementis VIII pont. max. iussu restitutum et editum (Rome: Luna, 1595), 314. Oxford, Bodleian Library, P 2.1 Th. Photo: The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford.

between the bottom arms is the tub of water for the aspersions. The bishop is shown at the bottom left-hand corner of the page, writing the letters with his crozier, facing a group of clerics who hold a pontifical open for him to read. The paint is in poor condition, and further details are likely to have been lost. The writing of the alphabet cross would also come to be depicted in early printed pontificals. For example, a 1520 edition of the Pontifi cale Romanum printed by the Giunta Press in Venice includes a woodcut of a bishop marking the letters on the pavement.136 An edition printed in Rome in 1595 has

136. Pontificale s[ecundu]m ritu[m] sacrosancte Romane ecclesie (Venice: Giunta, 1520), fol. 112r, consulted Cambridge, University Library, A*.3.17(B). The woodcut was left out in Athelstan Riley, Pontifi cal

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an illustration of the scene, with one cleric scattering the ash in front of the bishop inscribing the letters and another holding up a pontifical with a prominent Latin alphabet, positioned immediately above a diagram of the alphabets (fig. 19).137 Both approaches support the premise that the alphabet cross was actually executed during consecration ceremonies. Where large, clear letters or diagrammatic arrangements of the alphabets had the potential to facilitate the writing of the cross, illustrations indicate it to have been a visually distinctive and characteristic part of the ceremony and can even show pontificals in use as visual aids. The consecration rite also had resonance beyond the sphere of liturgical books or allegorical writing, being described in accounts of the foundation or rebuilding of particular churches. While most deal with the proceedings in terms of the relics and participants involved, some specify certain elements of the ritual. The alphabet cross is mentioned in a description of the consecration of the abbey church of Marmoutier (Tours) by Urban II in 1096, in which the archbishop of Tours is said to have written the Greek alphabet and the bishop of Reggio the Latin alphabet.138 The dating of the text is problematic, but it can feasibly be ascribed to a monk of Marmoutier. The twelfthcentury Roman du Mont-Saint-Michel, which describes the consecration of the church by Bishop Aubert in some detail, also includes the abecedarium: Le seil, la cendre enz jetez. Escrit i esteit l’abeiceis Par le sablum qui ert tot freis. D’un angle a autre, en dous langages, L’aveit escrit Autbert li sages Od la pointe de son baston, Quer costume est, bien le savum.139

This passage clearly reflects the author’s familiarity with the contemporary consecration ceremony, rather than giving any insights into the rite at the time of Aubert, but it is nonetheless noteworthy that the distinctive elements are all described and defi ned

Services, vol. 4, Illustrated from Woodcuts of the XVIth Century, Alcuin Club Collections 12 (London: Longman, Green, 1908). 137. Pontifi cale Romanum Clementis VIII pont. max. iussu restitutum et editum (Rome: Luna, 1595), 314; Oxford, Bodleian Library, P 2.1 Th. 138. Textus de dedicatione ecclesiae Majoris monasterii, ed. André Salmon, in Recueil de chroniques de Touraine (Tours: Ladevèze, 1854), 340. Unable to locate a surviving manuscript, Salmon reproduced the text from an early seventeenth-century edition. The thirteenth-century part of the Narratio de commendatione Turonicae provinciae appears to draw on the account, but does not include the specific parts of the dedication rite. For the composition of the Narratio, see Sharon Farmer, Communities of Saint Martin: Legend and Ritual in Medieval Tours (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 306–8. Both Salmon and Farmer ascribe the Textus de dedicatione to the monks of Marmoutier: Salmon, Recueil de chroniques, cxvi; Farmer, Communities of Saint Martin, 48, n. 30. 139. Guillaume de Saint-Pair, Roman du Mont Saint-Michel, 1, lines 830–36, ed. and trans. Bougy, 153.

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as customary: the alphabets in two languages, crossing from one corner of the church to the other and written with the bishop’s staff. Unusually, both ashes and sand are mentioned. Since sand is rarely specified in liturgical texts, but must have been a convenient alternative especially in coastal areas, this may reflect the rite as it was executed; it also supports the impression given by the liturgical commentaries that the imprinting of the alphabets was more important than the material in which they were written. Finally, the alphabets might feature in accounts of miraculous consecrations. Where churches claimed such consecrations, whether witnessed in a vision or in person, or hidden from sight by a cloud, some evidence was necessary that the event had actually taken place.140As we have already seen, that evidence could be located on the ground. At the shrine of Monte Sant’Angelo the consecration was performed by the archangel himself, who left behind his footprints in the floor of the cave as proof that it was not necessary to consecrate the church again. Miraculous imprints could also testify to divine intervention in the ritual. The late eleventh-century Libellus de revelatione, aedificatione et auctoritate Fiscannensis gives an account of the consecration of the abbey church of La Trinité, Fécamp (Normandy), in which an unnamed angel appears in the guise of a pilgrim and decides the dedication of the church by placing on the altar a knife, on which is written “In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity.”141 He then vanishes, leaving his footprints on a stone. The prints are described as being impressed (“impressa”) in the stone as though they had been made in sand and dust (“velut in arena, aut in sicco pulvere”), which might well have brought to mind the inscribed sand or ashes of the alphabet cross, as well as the wider tradition of angelic and Christological vestigia. Subsequently, when the church was reconstructed in the late tenth century, part of the stone was placed in the foundations by Duke Richard, reflecting a practice widely attested from the eleventh century.142 While the Gargano footprints predate the first testimonies and likely inception of the alphabet cross, the Fécamp imprint is likely to reflect an awareness of this part of the church consecration rite. In both cases, pieces of the imprinted rock are said to be employed in other liturgical contexts: as relics at

140. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, 80–81; Matthias M. Tischler, Die Christus- und Engelweihe im Mittelalter: Texte, Bilder und Studien zu einem ekklesiologischen Erzählmotiv (Berlin: Akademie, 2005), 73–75. 141. Libellus de revelatione, aedificatione et auctoritate Fiscannensis monasterii, 12–13, PL 151:715b–716b; discussed in Jean-Marie Guillouët, “Une sculpture du XVe siècle et son contrat: Le ‘Pas de l’ange’ à La Trinité de Fécamp,” Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 162, no. 1 (2004): 133–61. I am grateful to John McNeill for drawing this study to my attention. 142. Libellus de revelatione, 15, PL 151:717a. On this ritual, see Karl Josef Benz, “Ecclesiae pura simplicitas: Zu Geschichte und Deutung des Ritus der Grundsteinlegung im Hohen Mittelalter,” Archiv für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte 32 (1980): 9–25; Binding and Linscheid-Burdich, Planen und Bauen, 169–78; Dominique Iogna-Prat, “Aux fondements de l’Église: Naissance et développements du rituel de pose de la première pierre dans l’Occident latin (v. 960–v. 1300),” in Stammberger, Sticher, and Warnke, “Das Haus Gottes, das seid ihr selbst,” 87–111.

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Mont-Saint-Michel and elsewhere, and in the foundations of the following church at Fécamp. Given the links between the latter and Mont-Saint-Michel in the eleventh century,143 it is likely that the Fécamp angelic footprint was in some way inspired by that of St. Michael. More generally, signs indicated that certain characteristic stages of the ritual had been carried out. Thus the Gesta Karoli Magni reports that a host of angels and archangels dedicated the church at Lagrasse, leaving behind consecrated water.144 This water later worked its own miracles and, as a result, was placed in the altar. Christ’s consecration of St.-Denis, described in a text ascribed to the late eleventh century, was made evident by the crosses marked on the wall by the “divine . . . hands,” which could not be removed.145 The legend was certainly current by the time Abbot Suger wrote his De administratione, since he refers to the “walls on which, by the testimony of the ancient writers, the Highest Priest, our Lord Jesus Christ, had laid his hand.”146 Similarly, a late twelfth-century interpolation in one manuscript of Adhemar of Chabannes’s Chronicon presented the anointed walls and altar of the abbey church of Figeac (Lot) as an indication that a miraculous consecration had taken place.147 The abecedarium too might be cited as evidence, as at Westminster Abbey, which was claimed to have been miraculously consecrated by St. Peter. The account written by Sulcard ca. 1072–81 only mentions the signs of the chrism and the remains of the candles on the walls as proof of the event.148 However, Goscelin of St.-Bertin’s Life of St. Mellitus, composed shortly afterward, adds that the church had been baptized in the waters of the Jordan and that the pavement was inscribed with the usual letters: “pavimenta typicis characteribus

143. J. J. G. Alexander, Norman Illumination at Mont St Michel, 966–1100 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 235–36. 144. F. E. Schneegans, ed., Gesta Karoli Magni ad Carcassonam et Narbonam, Romanische Bibliothek 15 (Halle: Niemeyer, 1898), 230, 232, 234, 236. The example is discussed in Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, 81; Tischler, Christus- und Engelweihe im Mittelalter, 62–64, 75, 112–15 for the text. 145. The text is edited in Charles J. Liebman, Jr., “La consécration légendaire de la basilique de Saint-Denis,” Le Moyen Âge 45 (1935): 262. For the dating, see L. Levillain, “Études sur l’abbaye de Saint-Denis a l’époque mérovingienne,” Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 91 (1930): 8. See also Tischler, Christus- und Engelweihe im Mittelalter, 42–46, 73–75, 119–23. 146. “Portione de parietibus antiquis, quibus summus pontifex Dominus Jesus Christus testimonio antiquorum scriptorum manum apposuerat”; Suger, De administratione, 29, ed. and trans. Erwin Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and Its Art Treasures, 2nd ed. Gerda Panofsky-Soergel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 50–51. See also De consecratione, 4, ed. and trans. Panofsky, 100–1. 147. Adhemar of Chabannes, Chronicon, 1.57, ed. Jules Chavanon, Adémar de Chabannes: Chronique (Paris: Picard, 1897), 58, n. s*. For discussion of two forged documents that refer to the consecration, see Philippe Wolff, “Note sur le faux diplôme de 755 pour le monastère de Figeac,” in Wolff, Regards sur le Midi médiéval (Toulouse: Privat, 1978), 321. See also Tischler, Christus- und Engelweihe im Mittelalter, 64–66, 101–2. 148. Sulcard, Prologus de construccione Westmonasterii, ed. Bernhard W. Scholz, “Sulcard of Westminster ‘Prologus de construccione Westmonasterii,’” Traditio 20 (1964): esp. 84–85. Tischler, Christus- und Engelweihe im Mittelalter, 140–42.

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inscripta.”149 This element was retained when the story was incorporated into the Life of St. Edward the Confessor by Osbert of Clare in the mid-twelfth century and subsequently appeared in versions by Aelred of Rievaulx (ca. 1110–67) and others.150 In Matthew Paris’s verse Life of St. Edward, the alphabet cross is given particular attention. The fisherman who witnesses the ceremony assures Bishop Mellitus, “No one should doubt it, for the entire church is marked. The writing is fresh in the sand, and the figures are new and crisp, without a smudge. There you can see the Greek alphabet.”151 Here too the mention of sand indicates that this was an acceptable alternative to ashes in practice. The bishop subsequently sees for himself “that the alphabet had clearly been written twice.”152 To a certain extent the way in which these elements function in the narratives of miraculous consecrations mirrors their role in the conventional ceremony, where they were carried out by the clergy before the laity entered the church and thus testified to what had taken place.153 When his role in the consecration is taken over by St. Peter, Bishop Mellitus assumes the place of the lay congregation, relating to the alphabet cross and other markers as signs of the ritual performed in his absence. The fact that the letters were imprinted may have had particular significance in this context. This suggestion is supported by the specificity of the vocabulary often used to describe the writing of the alphabets. If the way in which the letters inscribed in the sand at Westminster act as proof of consecration already finds a rationale within the normal ritual procedure,

149. An extract is reproduced in Flete, History of Westminster Abbey, ed. Robinson, 38–40, at 40. William of Malmesbury mentions the candles, water from the aspersions, chrism, and crosses, but not the alphabet cross; William of Malmesbury, Gesta pontificium Anglorum, 2.73.5, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom and R. M. Thomson, The History of the English Bishops, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007), 1:224–25. 150. Flete, History of Westminster Abbey, ed. Robinson, 10 for Osbert; Aelred, Vita S. Edwardi regis et confessoris, PL 195:757a. 151. “Merchee est la eglise tute, / N’a mester ke nuls en dute: / Eu sabelun les escriptures / Tutes fresches, e figures / Sanz esfauçure aperte e fresche. / I verriez l’abecé grezesche”; Matthew Paris, La Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei, lines 2189–94, ed. Kathryn Young Wallace (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1983), 62; trans. Thelma S. Fenster and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, The History of Saint Edward the King by Matthew Paris, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 341 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2008), 82. 152. “E l’abecé eu pavement / Escrit duble apertement”; Paris, Estoire de Seint Aedward, lines 2201–02, ed. Wallace, 62; trans. Fenster and Wogan-Browne, 82. This was interpreted by Henry Richards Luard as meaning, in a departure from the other texts, that the Greek alphabet was written twice; Lives of Edward the Confessor (London: Longman, 1858), xxiv–xxv. However, this reading seems unlikely in the light of the liturgical evidence. 153. In the Ordo ad benedicendam ecclesiam in the Romano-Germanic Pontifical and the Roman Pontifical of the Twelfth Century the laity enter the church shortly before the deposition of the relics. Unusually, in OR 43 the laity enter earlier, while in the Quid significent they are inside the church for the whole rite. On this issue, and the sensory impact of the ritual more generally, see Dana M. Polanichka, “Transforming Space. (Per)forming Community: Church Consecration in Carolingian Europe,” Viator 43, no. 1 (2012): 93–94.

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this should itself be seen in a wider context in which marks in the ground act as confirmation of the event that established the place as holy. Most obviously, the letters act in a similar way to the footprints of St. Michael imprinted into the rock at Gargano. However, as discussed in the previous chapter, this phenomenon was found in foundation legends more generally. At Mozac the deer leaves hoof prints in the snow and earth beneath, which are subsequently shown to King Pippin as proof of the veracity of his dream and the chosen nature of the place. In the case of Soignies, the angel seen by St. Vincent Madelgarius in a vision draws a reed behind him to mark out the dimensions of the church, and the “vestigium basilicae” remains visible when the saint and his companions visit the place because of the absence of dew where the angel had trodden.154 Amy Remensnyder has convincingly suggested that circumambulations such as these reflect those of the ceremony for dedicating a church.155 It could be added that the quality of imprinting the ground reflects the impressing of letters in the alphabet cross, although some instances predate the first explicit references to impression. While Christological and Marian imprints too could testify to the veracity of visions, those in the Holy Land also functioned to communicate and verify what had been witnessed by a few to a larger group of people, here conceived in terms of later generations. The inclusion of the alphabet cross in foundation legends and accounts of real and miraculous consecrations does not only indicate that it possessed a resonance beyond the sphere of liturgical text and commentary, and is thus likely to have been executed and witnessed in practice. It is also suggestive of a quality of the ritual that was about witnessing, about being seen and remembered by a community. As discussed above, the logic of equating the pavement with the human heart created a sense of the fabric of the church itself retaining a memory of the event. The imprinted letters were also memorable to those who saw them, during or after their creation, and the way in which they referenced the working of the human memory may have been felt to make them even more so. This impact on an audience is part of a wider tendency for impressions on the ground to testify to events, especially those that created or denoted holy ground. Whether the creation or revelation of a holy place was effected by ecclesiastical ritual, by heavenly intervention couched in the form of such ritual, or simply by the presence of Christ or his angels, it could be rendered visible and irrefutable by the act of impression.

Pavements and Commemoration The alphabet cross may have originally been written in the earth. The scattering of ashes or sand was presumably made necessary by a paved floor surface, although the use of the term “pavimentum” predates references to ashes. It is thus difficult to

154. Vita antiquior S. Vincentii Madelgarii, ed. Poncelet, 431–32. 155. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, 58.

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distinguish whether, in the consecration liturgy, paving was conceived of as a separate entity from the ground it covered. An ordo for the consecration of the pavement of a church transferred from another location is found in three eleventh-century English manuscripts. The Consecratio pauimenti aecclesiae quae fuerit de primo loco suo in alium statum translata contains elements familiar from the relevant sections of the church dedication rite, including the tracing of the two alphabets, two sprinklings of water, and processions around the church with water and incense.156 The composition of this unusual ritual may well have been prompted by specific circumstances. The earliest manuscript testimony is the Ramsey Pontifical, probably written at Exeter, and W. H. Frere suggested that the ordo was composed by Bishop Leofric at the time of the transfer of the see to Exeter from Crediton in 1050.157 However, as the dedication rite in this pontifical is largely based on one from Canterbury and was used for a further revision at Canterbury found in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 44, Helen Gittos has argued that the ordo is likely to have been composed at Canterbury and may relate to the rebuilding of the west end of the cathedral in the early eleventh century.158 She points out that excavations at the cathedral in 1993 uncovered a floor tile that had been relaid in the late Anglo-Saxon period.159 Although the ordo does not make it clear whether the pavement itself was moved from the old site of the church, such a transfer is certainly a possibility and could have been motivated by a desire to reuse valuable materials, as well to preserve something of the old location. Yet, the concentration on the pavement would be more explicable if this were an unconsecrated element of a new church rather than the main element retained from the previously consecrated church. It is therefore possible that the pavement of a new site is simply being elided with the site itself, and that the interest here was in the place rather than the paving materials. To a certain extent, the same elision of pavement and site can be seen in the way the ceremony was recorded. In addition to the annual Feast of the Dedication mentioned above, the consecration was often commemorated permanently in the fabric of the church. Many churches displayed inscriptions recording the date of their consecration, some of which also gave details of the participants and of the relics enclosed in the altar.160

156. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 44, pp. 103–5; London, BL, Cotton MS Vitell. A VII, fols. 36v–37r; London, BL, Add. MS 28188, fols. 39r–40r; Gittos, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places, 235–36. 157. W. H. Frere, ed., The Leofric Collectar Compared with the Collectar of St. Wulfstan Together with Kindred Documents of Exeter and Worcester, Edited and Completed from the Papers of E.S. Dewick, 2 vols., HBS 45, 56 (London: HBS, 1914–21), 2:615. 158. Gittos, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places, 235–36. 159. Kjølbye-Biddle, “Two Anglo-Saxon Relief-Decorated Floor Tiles.” 160. For examples, see Robert Favreau, “Inscriptions de dédicace d’églises et de consécration d’autels à Rome, XIe–XIIIe siècles,” in Arte d’Occidente: Temi e metodi; Studi in onore di Angiola Maria Romanini, ed. Antonio Cadei et al., 3 vols. (Rome: Sintesi Informazione, 1999), 3:947–56; Treffort, “Consécration ‘à la lettre.’”

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These were usually placed on a wall but on occasion might form part of a decorated pavement. Here, the very location of the text echoed the bishop writing the alphabets on the ground. Yet, for the most part this will not have actually taken place on the pavement concerned. Not only could consecration ceremonies take place before the church building was finished and paved, but where commemorative inscriptions form an integral part of the pavement this must necessarily postdate the ceremony. In one case the relationship is harder to pin down. At the abbey of Pomposa in Emilia Romagna, a marble slab in the eastern of two opus sectile pavement quincunxes records the dedication of the church in 1026: mxxvi/ vii mai/ dedicata.161 The inscription is set in the western arm of a Greek cross that extends almost to the edges of the central roundel, echoing the form of the cross asperged on the pavement (fig. 20). This opus sectile panel is usually dated to the same period as the inscription, while the western one is thought to have been added in the mid-twelfth century.162 However, Clara Bargellini suggested that the eastern panel could have served to commemorate the consecration of the church some decades after the event as a means of honoring the abbot responsible, venerated as a saint after his death in 1046.163 If this were so, it is strange that the abbot’s name was not included, but it is certainly possible that the whole floor postdates the consecration. On the other hand, since the text is inscribed into the slab, it might have been added after this part of the pavement was laid, and the ceremony have taken place on an existing floor. Where the inscription forms part of a tessellated pavement, the mosaic must have been laid after the event with a commemorative function in mind. There are two examples of such inscriptions in France and a possible third in northern Italy. The pavement of the abbey church of Cruas in the Ardèche seems to have recorded both the consecration of the church and that of the altar a few years later.164 The opus tessellatum pavement in the crossing, now lost but still visible in the eighteenth century, included the inscription “Urbanus decorat templum quo saepius orat . . . anni MXCV” (“Urban adorns the temple where he often prays”) and a depiction of the kneeling pope holding a model of

161. Henri Stern, “Le pavement de la basilique de Pomposa (Italie),” Cahiers archéologiques 18 (1968): 157, fig. 3; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 345–46. 162. Stern, “Pavement de la basilique de Pomposa,” 157; Mario Salmi, L’abbazia di Pomposa (Forli: Cassa dei risparmi, 1967), 130; Claudia Tedeschi, “Il pavimento: Lettura e interpretazione della superficie musiva,” in Pomposa: Storia, arte, architettura, ed. Antonio Samaritani and Carla Di Francesco (Ferrara: Corbo, 1999), 177–86; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 345–46. 163. Clara Bargellini, “The Tremiti Mosaic and Eleventh-Century Floor Decoration in Eastern Italy,” in “Studies on Art and Archaeology in Honor of Ernst Kitzinger on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday,” ed. William Tronzo, Irving Lavin, and Hans Belting, special issue, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987): 32, n. 24. 164. Jean Vallery-Radot, “Note sur deux mosaïques de pavement romanes de l’église de Cruas (Ardèche) commémorant les consécrations de 1095 et 1098,” Genava 11 (1963): 175–81; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 278–84.

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Fig. 20. Eastern section of the nave pavement at the abbey of Pomposa, early eleventh century. Photo: © Gaia Conventi/Shutterstock.

the church. A papal bull issued by Eugene IV in 1433 refers to the consecration of the church by Urban II in 1095.165 The mosaic in the apse, rediscovered in the midnineteenth century, depicts Elijah and Enoch to either side of two stylized trees and

165. Henri Denifle, La désolation des églises, monastères & hôpitaux en France pendant la Guerre de Cent Ans, 2 vols. (Paris: Picard, 1897–99), 1:398–99, doc. 847. Henri Stern referred to a chronicle that states that the pope sent workmen from Italy to lay the pavement, but gave no indication of the identity of his source; Henri Stern, “Notes sur les mosaïques de pavement médiévales en France,” in Atti dell’ottavo Congresso di studi sull’arte dell’Alto Medioevo, vol. 1, Stucchi e mosaici alto medioevali: Lo stucco—il mosaico—studi vari (Milano: Ceschina, 1962), 283.

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conserves the fragment of an inscription with the date: anni d[omi]ni mille xcviii.166 In the late nineteenth century, Abbé Bourg, presumably employing a document dating from an earlier period, reproduced a more complete version of the text: “. . . aram dedicavit Mariae Virgini anni Domini mille XCVII.”167 The tessellated pavement that once covered the eastern part of the choir of St.-Martin d’Ainay in Lyon made reference to the consecration of the church by Pope Paschal II in 1107.168 Fragments of the mosaic, which was disturbed by the destruction of the high altar at the end of the eighteenth century and altered during restorations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are now displayed on the wall of the chapel of Ste.-Blandine. The original appearance of the work is indicated by a number of drawings and copies of drawings dating from the early seventeenth century onward.169 The area in front of the altar contained a representation of the pope holding a staff, positioned horizontally facing east; at his feet was a representation of a church, positioned vertically.170 An inscription running along the top of the panel, given in full in a drawing showing the mosaic in 1607, read: “hanc edem sacram paschalis papa dicavit” (fig. 21).171 The panel was flanked by an inscription: huc huc flec[t]e genu veniam quicumque precaris hic pax: est hic vita salvs hic sanctificaris hic vinum sanguis h[i]c panis fit caro christi huc expande manus quisquis reus ante fuisti.172

This can be translated as “Here bend [your] knee, you who come to pray for grace. / Here is peace, here life, health, here you are sanctified. // Here wine becomes blood, here bread becomes the body of Christ. / Hold out [your] hands hither, everyone who

166. The photograph published by Vallery-Radot cuts off the last “II” of the date; Vallery-Radot, “Note sur deux mosaïques,” 179–80. 167. Vallery-Radot, “Note sur deux mosaïques,” 178–80. 168. Henri Stern, Recueil général des mosaïques de la Gaule, vol. 2, Province de Lyonnaise, pt. 1, Lyon (Paris: CNRS, 1967), 119–23, plates LXXXVI–XCIII; Xavier Barral i Altet, “Marcher sur l’image du Pape au XIIe siècle,” Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome 69 (1999): 203–13; Jean Guillemain, “Un monument de la réforme grégorienne: La mosaïque du sanctuaire d’Ainay,” Bulletin de la Société historique, archéologique et littéraire de Lyon 32 (2002): 89–159; Guillemain, “L’image du Pape dans la mosaïque d’Ainay,” in L’abbaye d’Ainay des origines au XIIe siècle, ed. Jean-François Reynaud and François Richard (Lyon: Pul, 2008), 203–28; Lucy Donkin, “Pavimenti decorati come luoghi di memoria,” in Medioevo: Immagine e memoria. Atti del XI Convegno internazionale di studi, ed. Arturo Carlo Quintavalle (Milan: Electa, 2009), 408–14; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 271–74. 169. These are discussed in Guillemain, “Image du Pape,” 209–13, figs. 62–65. 170. While scholars have offered other identifications of the figure, their interpretations were partly based on the model of the church held by the figure, added during restoration. 171. “Pope Paschal consecrated this holy building.” Guillemain, “Image du Pape,” 213; the inscription was also recorded by Jacob Spon, Recherche des antiquités et curiosités de la ville de Lyon [1673], ed. J. B. Monfalcon (Lyon: Louis Perrin, 1857), 186. 172. Robert Favreau, Jean Michaud, and Bernadette Mora, eds., Corpus des inscriptions de la France médiévale, vol. 17, Ain, Isère (sauf Vienne), Rhône, Savoie, Haute-Savoie (Paris: CNRS, 1994), 84–85.

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Fig. 21. Pope Paschal II, in a sketch of the floor mosaic of St.-Martin d’Ainay, Lyon, 1607. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Dupuy 691, fol. 79. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Fig. 22. Panel with cruciform design from the twelfth-century floor mosaic of St.-Martin d’Ainay, Lyon. St.-Martin d’Ainay, chapel of Ste.-Blandine. Photo: Lucy Donkin.

has previously sinned.” The repeated use of the words “hic” and “huc” is not only appropriate to their position on the floor but is also reminiscent of the second of the two English prayers discussed above, which was recited before or after the writing of the alphabet cross. The inscription stresses the Eucharistic connotations of the area near the altar, while the prayer conjures up a wider range of associations, yet the two share an understanding of holy ground as the location for sacred events. The phrasing is also akin to the way in which various participants and actions in the ritual are marked in the Breton dedication diagram (e.g., “hic lector,” “hic diaconus,” “hic cantatus antiphona”), again suggestive of the potential of the floor surface to make manifest the site of significant events. Also part of the design of the mosaic were two small rectangular panels each featuring a double cross with circles at the center and the ends of the

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diagonal cross (fig. 22), a composition that could have brought to mind the alphabet cross and the lustration of the pavement. While acknowledging that the scene stands for the consecration as a whole, Jean Guillemain has suggested that the mosaic should be interpreted as representing the pope in the act of consecrating the altar; instead of depicting the altar, the actual object is incorporated into the composition.173 The fact that—in this interpretation—the incorporation of the altar requires the depiction of the pope on the floor corresponds to the way in which a relatively humble and inconspicuous grave slab set into the pavement might be chosen for the proximity to the altar that this offered. However, it is possible that other moments of the ceremony are also evoked, including two of particular pertinence to the floor surface. Although Guillemain has demonstrated that the pope was originally shown seated, the horizontal position of the figure as seen from the west may nevertheless evoke the act of prostration performed by the consecrating bishop and clergy during the rite of consecration. Roman Pontificals of the Twelfth Century required the bishop to prostrate himself on the floor after the ceremonial entry.174 The Ordo ad benedicendam ecclesiam in the Romano-Germanic Pontifical had specified that this should take place in front of the altar.175 In this light, the image can be understood to record a moment in which the pope came into extensive contact with the ground, possibly at that very location, an aspect that will be discussed in greater detail in chapter 5. Secondly the long scepter, which Guillemain sees as having no liturgical function but rather as contributing to the depiction of the pope as protector of the church, may recall the staff with which the letters were written in the cross of ashes. As we have seen, this might be represented in a variety of ways. Guillemain himself notes the parallel drawn between the bishop’s baculum and the imperial scepter by Honorius Augustodunensis in the context of a discussion of spiritual warfare, while suggesting that the pope’s scepter in the mosaic is closer to that used by the angels.176 Even if it was inspired by contemporary debate over the respective powers of the pope and emperor with respect to investiture, in the context of consecration, it could also have evoked the imprinting of the alphabet cross. The cathedral of Acqui Terme in Piedmont had a tessellated floor mosaic in the presbytery, which may also have commemorated the consecration of the church. Parts of the mosaics came to light in 1845 and were moved to Turin shortly afterward; they are currently displayed in the Museo Civico. They are usually dated to the second half of the eleventh century on the basis of a fragmentary inscription, which mentions Bishop Guido (1034–70) and appears to give a date of 1067.177 The Life of S. Guido written by

173. Guillemain, “Image du Pape,” 214–15. 174. PRXII, 17.17, ed. Andrieu, Pontifi cal romain, 1:180. 175. “Et cum venerit pontifex ante altare, prosternat se cum ministris super stramenta”; PRG, 40.23, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:134. 176. “Procedit pontifex cum baculo, quasi imperator cum sceptro”; Honorius, De gemma animae, 73, PL 172:566d; Guillemain, “Image du Pape,” 218–25. 177. See Elena Pianea, “I mosaici pavimentali,” in Piemonte romanico, ed. Giovanni Romano (Turin: Cassa di Risparmio di Torino, 1994), esp. 400–5; Pianea, “Il mosaico pavimentale e il vescovo Guido,” in Il

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Fig. 23. Cav. Vico, drawing of the mosaic pavement in the presbytery of Acqui Terme Cathedral, ca. 1845. A. Fabretti, “Musaico di Acqui nel R. Museo di Antichità di Torino,” Atti della Società di archeologia e belle arti per la provincia di Torino 2 (1878): fig. III. Photo: Warburg Institute.

Lorenzo Calceato around 1260 reports the year of the consecration as 1067.178 Unfortunately, while the three-lined inscription originally extended the whole width of the presbytery, it was already missing half the text at the time of its discovery and suffered further during subsequent moves. The decorative combination of large and small capital letters, which are often joined together, also causes confusion in areas of partial loss. A reconstruction was first proposed in 1876 by Ariodante Fabretti, who included drawings of the mosaic in situ in his article (fig. 23).179 In 1909, Federico Patetta put forward a fuller reading based on a close examination of the lettering and the evidence provided by Calceato’s Vita and an additional account written in a later hand in the same

tempo di San Guido vescovo e signore di Acqui: Atti del convegno di studi, Acqui Terme, 9–10 settembre 1995 (Acqui Terme: Impressioni Grafiche, 2003), 327–37. 178. “Illam fecit solemniter consecrari a venerabilis Episcopis Petro Terdonensi viro per omnia laudabili, & Alberto Januensi tertio idus novembris anno incarnationis Jesu Christi millesimo sexagesimo septimo inditione sexta domino Henrico III Imperatore regnante”; Lorenzo Calceato, Vita B. Guidoni Aquensis episcopi, ed. Giovanni Battista Moriondo, Monumenta Aquensia, vol. 2 (Turin: Ex Typographia Regia, 1790), cols. 99–100. 179. “[Sedente] domino Widone pontifice viro prudentissimo completum [opus] . . . / [a domino W]idone [per] omnia laudabili et observantissimo [anno incarnationis Domini nostri] / Iesu Christi [ml] xmovii indictione v. [Laus D]eo”; Ariodante Fabretti, “Musaico di Acqui nel R. Museo di Antichità di Torino,” Atti della Società di archeologia e belle arti per la provincia di Torino 2 (1878): esp. 25, figs. II–III.

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fourteenth-century manuscript. These contain passages so close to the remaining words of the inscription as to suggest that their authors had copied the mosaic.180 In particular, they mention the role played by bishops Peter of Tortona and Oberto of Genoa in the consecration of the church on 11 November 1067, names that could plausibly be read in the second line of the inscription.181 More recently, Elena Pianea has returned to a more conservative reading, which does not include reference to the consecration, while signaling the need for a close examination of the remaining fragments.182 However, on the basis of the drawings reproduced by Fabretti, it is possible to make some observations that support elements of Patetta’s reconstruction. The word idone, which Pianea (following Fabretti) interprets as [w]idone, comes at the beginning of a line, with no space between it and the frame for a missing W. Since it is damaged at the top and on the right-hand side, t[er]done[nsis] is therefore a plausible alternative. In addition, Fabretti’s reconstruction of ob¯to to read ob[servan]t[issim]o seems unnecessarily labored, especially when the word prudentissimo is written out in full on the first line, while Patetta’s interpretation of the letters as the name ob[er]to employs a far more usual medieval contraction. It therefore seems probable that the inscription does indeed refer to the consecration and the part played in it by the three bishops. Explicit textual or visual references to the consecration ceremony and its participants were only one way of commemorating the rite. Permanent decoration could also perpetuate the forms employed during the ceremony to mark the church. Painted crosses indicated where the interior walls had been marked with crosses in chrism, and the chrismons that feature in the portal sculptures of many churches in northern Spain and southern France have also plausibly been linked to the anointing of the doorway during the dedication ceremony.183 Alphabets were sometimes inscribed permanently on the walls,

180. “[Sedente] do[m]no widone pontifice viro prudentissimo con[s]tru[ctum fuit suis expensis hoc templum assumptae Virginis Mariae, quod ab eo una cum venerabilibus episcopis D. Petro] / t[er] donen[si viro] p[er] omnia laudibili et oberto g[enuensi viro undequaque dignissimo devote consecratum est III idus novembris anno incarnationis Domini nostri] / ih[es]u x[pi Mmo]lxmo vii indic v[I domno tertio Henrico regnante anno Deo propicio regni eius XIII feliciter].” Federico Patetta, “L’iscrizione dell’antico pavimento a mosaico del duomo d’Acqui e alcune altri iscrizioni acquesi,” Memorie della Regia Accademia di scienze, lettere e arti in Modena, ser. 3, 8 (1909): 251–54. 181. The passage from Calceato’s Vita is given above. For the additional Life, see Vitae D. Guidonis praesulis Aquensis patroni brevis translatio, ed. Giovanni Battista Moriondo, in Monumenta Aquensia, 2: cols. 109–10. Peter is attested as bishop of Tortona in references dating from 1022 to 1054, while the fi rst reference to his successor dates from 1080; Fedele Savio, Gli antichi vescovi d’Italia dalle origini al 1300, Piemonte (Turin: Bocca, 1898), 390–91. Oberto was active as bishop of Genoa between 1052 and 1078: Luigi Grassi, Serie dei vescovi ed arcivescovi di Genova, parte prima: I vescovi (Genoa: Tipografia della Gioventù, 1872), 30. 182. Pianea, “Il mosaico pavimentale e il vescovo Guido,” 328. 183. Andrew Spicer, “‘To Show That the Place Is Divine’: Consecration Crosses Revisited,” in Images and Objects in Ritual Practices in Medieval and Early Modern Northern and Central Europe, ed. Krista Kodres and Anu Mänd (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2013), 34–52; Peter Scott Brown, “The Chrismon and the Liturgy of Dedication in Romanesque Sculpture,” Gesta 56, no. 2 (2017): esp. 206–13.

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perhaps reflecting those versions of the rite that included the writing of alphabets on these surfaces or maybe alluding less directly to the abecedarium executed on the ground.184 Pavement decoration also reflected the pavement crosses in various ways. The possibility of such a relationship was first suggested by Dorothy Glass, who discussed the composition of Cosmatesque pavements from the first half of the twelfth century in relation to the dedication rite as described in contemporary pontificals.185 She saw the quincunxes at the center of the opus sectile floors of Roman churches such as SS. Quattro Coronati and S. Croce in Gerusalemme as acknowledging the form and location of the diagonal alphabet cross, while relating the lines of porphyry roundels along the longitudinal and latitudinal axes of the church of S. Clemente to the cross asperged on the pavement.186 Building on this interpretation, Paul Binski suggested that the inscriptions on the Cosmati floor at Westminster Abbey might relate, at least in part, to the consecratory alphabets supposedly written by St. Peter, thus acting as a “permanent sign of the church’s consecration.”187 Paloma Pajares-Ayuela has also followed Glass in this respect, seeing a reference to the consecration rite in the western of the two quincunxial designs at Pomposa, which contains a double cross, and in diagonal crosses in the pavement at S. Marco in Venice.188 Scholarship on tessellated pavements has been slower to explore connections with liturgical practice in general, and the content of the consecration ceremony is rarely mentioned as a factor in their design. Yet there are four instances of fairly large-scale diagonal crosses in surviving floors in opus tessellatum or mixed media, which exhibit correspondences with the form of the alphabet cross equal to those in opus sectile pavements. E. H. J. Wallet’s drawing of the early twelfth-century pavement at St.-Bertin in Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais) indicates that it was arranged around a large diagonal cross

184. Treffort, “Consécration ‘à la lettre,’” 226–27; Yann Codou, “La consécration du lieu de culte et ses traductions graphiques: Inscriptions et marques lapidaires dans la Provence des XIe–XIIe siècles,” in Méhu, Mises en scène et mémoires de la consécration de l’église, esp. 259–62. 185. Dorothy F. Glass, “Papal Patronage in the Early Twelfth Century: Notes on the Iconography of Cosmatesque Pavements,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 32 (1969): 388–89; Glass, Studies on Cosmatesque Pavements, 50–51. 186. This association is challenged in Peter Cornelius Claussen, Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter 1050–1300, vol. 1, Corpus Cosmatorum 2.1, Forschungen zur Kunstgeschichte und christlichen Archäologie 20 (Stuttgart: Steiner 2002), 323, n. 105. 187. Paul Binski, “The Cosmati at Westminster and the English Court Style,” Art Bulletin 72, no. 1 (1990): 30–31; Binski, “The Cosmati and Romanitas in England: An Overview,” in Westminster Abbey: The Cosmati Pavements, ed. Lindy Grant and Richard Mortimer, Courtauld Research Papers 3 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 125. 188. Paloma Pajares-Ayuela, Cosmatesque Ornament: Flat Polychrome Geometric Patterns in Architecture, trans. Maria Fleming Alvarez (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), 215–16, 226–27. She gives the date of the panel as eleventh century, contrary to the works cited above. On S. Marco, see Xavier Barral i Altet, Les mosaïques de pavement médiévales de Venise, Murano, Torcello, Bibliothèque des cahiers archéologiques 14 (Paris: Picard, 1985), 46–78.

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Fig. 24. Plan of the mosaic pavement in the choir of the abbey church of St.-Bertin, Saint-Omer; from E. H. J. Wallet, Description d’une crypte et d’un pavé mosaïque de l’ancienne église de Saint-Bertin à Saint-Omer (Douai: Aubers, 1843), plate IV. Photo: The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford.

surrounded by a square frame (fig. 24).189 The pavement was laid around fifteen years after the consecration of the abbey church in 1105, and the design may acknowledge the treatment of the floor surface during the ceremony. While reading this and other pavement crosses primarily in terms of lay authority, Barbara Franzé has noted parallels with

189. E. H. J. Wallet, Description d’une crypte et d’un pavé mosaïque de l’ancienne église de Saint-Bertin à Saint-Omer (Douai: Aubers, 1843), plate IV; Henri Stern, Recueil général des mosaïques de la Gaule, vol. 1, Province de Belgique, pt. 1 (Paris: CNRS, 1957), 96–99, plate L; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 216–18, fig. 2.

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the rite, drawing comparisons with the diagram in the Breton manuscript.190 The presence of roundels at the ends of the arms of the cross also forms a point of correspondence with the representation of the ceremony in the later Parisian pontifical (fig. 18), although Wallet’s drawings and surviving fragments show the roundels to have contained a lion and a snake rather than the symbols of the Evangelists. Two other examples of pavement crosses form discrete elements of the design rather than acting as a structuring device. The tessellated floor of the abbey church at Ganagobie (Hautes Alpes) includes a diagonal cross in front of the southern side apse. The mosaic has been dated to ca. 1125 on the basis of an inscription naming both the prior and the monk responsible for administering the work.191 It is thought to have been laid immediately following the construction of the east end of the church, and presumably its consecration. The abbey church of St.-André-de-Rosans (Hautes Alpes) has a floor of similar date by the same workshop in which a diagonal cross is positioned in front of the altar (fig. 25).192 Here the form of the cross was pertinent to the church’s patron saint, but need not be seen exclusively in this light. The church itself is dated to the second half of the eleventh century. The fourth example features a cruciform arrangement of elements in a figurative composition. In the mosaic floor of the episcopal chapel at Die, which may date to the second third of the twelfth century, the four rivers of paradise are represented as streams of water flowing from the center of the composition to form a diagonal cross.193 While a rationale for the design can be found in the way in which the rivers were thought to water the four corners of the earth and a cartographic parallel exists in the Burgo de Osma Beatus map, it too may echo the form of the alphabet cross. Noting the emphasis on water in the rest of the composition, Henri Desaye suggested a link with floor mosaics in late antique baptisteries, while acknowledging that the chapel could not itself have been used for baptisms. Instead, the aquatic elements may reflect the baptismal associations of the consecration

190. Barbara Franzé, “Le motif de la croix en ‘x’ intégré aux pavements des églises: L’image au service d’une legitimation de l’autorité princière,” Hortus, artium, medievalium 23, no. 2 (2017): 820–28; see also Donkin, “Making an Impression,” 44. 191. Xavier Barral i Altet, “Les pavements romans de Saint-André-de-Rosans et de Ganagobie: Réflections sur les sens des images et sur le travail des mosaïstes,” in Saint-André-de-Rosans: Millénaire de la fondation du prieuré. Actes du colloque, 13–14 mai 1988 (Gap: Société d’Études des Hautes-Alpes, 1989), esp. 228–29; Michel Fixot, Jean-Pierre Pelletier, and Guy Barruol, Ganagobie, mille ans d’un monastère en Provence, rev. ed. (Mane: Alpes de Lumière, 2004), 21–27, 73–84. See Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 295–98, figs. 81–81a, esp. 298 for a date closer to the middle of the century. 192. Guy Barruol and Jean Ulysse, “Les mosaïques romanes de la priorale Saint-André-de-Rosans,” in Saint-André-de-Rosans, 191–224; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 298–301, figs. 88a–89. 193. On the floor, see Xavier Barral i Altet, “Poésie et iconographie: Un pavement du XIIe siècle décrit par Baudri de Bourgueil,” in Tronzo, Lavin, and Belting, “Studies on Art and Archaeology in Honor of Ernst Kitzinger on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday,” 41–54; Henri Desaye, “La chapelle épiscopal SaintNicolas, à Die, et sa mosaïque,” Congrès archéologique de France 150 (1992): 143–58; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 291–94, figs. 73–74.

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Fig. 25. Mosaic pavement in the apse of St.-André-de-Rosans, twelfth century. Photo: © Région Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur-Inventaire général-M. Heller.

ceremony, which were well established by the twelfth century and feature in works such as Hugh of St.-Victor’s De sacramentis.194 The arrangement of other elements also finds a correspondence in the consecration crosses. For example, the eleventh-century opus sectile pavement in the transept of the abbey church of Ste.-Marie at Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire appears to have featured a Greek cross with four squares set on the diagonal positioned in the four sections, a design that Paloma Pajares-Ayuela has related to quincunxial geometry.195 The diagonal cross was the organizing principle of the lost floor mosaic at Reims Cathedral, which has been reconstructed as a square composition with a small square containing an interlace motif

194. Hugh of St.-Victor, De sacramentis, 5.1, PL 176:439b. 195. J.-M. Berland, “Le pavement du chœur de Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire,” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 11 (1968): 213–14; Xavier Barral i Altet, “Mosaïques médiévales,” in Recueil général des mosaïques de la Gaule, vol. 2, Province de Lyonnaise, pt. 4, Parties occidentale, ed. Michèle Blanchard-Lemée (Paris: CNRS, 1991), 125–27, plates LII–LIV; Pajares-Ayuela, Cosmatesque Ornament, 213–15; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 226–27.

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Fig. 26. Drawing of the presbytery floor of Novara Cathedral by Carlo Francesco Frasconi (1754–1836). Novara, Archivio storico diocesano, Fondo Frasconi, XIV/13. Photo: Lucy Donkin.

at the center and larger ones in the four corners.196 Smaller elements also recall the form of the crosses of ashes and water. Most notably, the tessellated floor in the presbytery of Novara Cathedral included a double cross in porphyry and green marble opus sectile in front of the altar, saved when the west end of the presbytery mosaic was altered in the nineteenth century and now used as a tabletop in the bishop’s palace. It is shown in situ in a sketch of the mosaic drawn by the antiquarian Carlo Francesco Frasconi in the early nineteenth century, by which time the altar had been moved to the east from its original position between the symbols of the Evangelists (fig. 26).197 Although some scholars have

196. Henri Stern, “La mosaïque de la cathédrale de Reims,” Cahiers archéologiques 9 (1957): 149, fig. 1. 197. Carlo Francesco Frasconi, Riti, costumanze ed usi propri della cattedrale di Novara, Novara, Archivio storico diocesano, Fondo Frasconi, MS XIV/13; the sketch is bound between p. 102 and p. 103.

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suggested that it is a fragment of a previous paleochristian mosaic or was inserted after the rest of the floor was laid, it is more likely that it is an integral and original part of the presbytery mosaic.198 This latter mosaic is usually seen as contemporary with the reconstruction of the cathedral in the first decades of the twelfth century, with the structure traditionally thought to have been consecrated by Innocent II in 1132.199 Unlike permanent consecration crosses on the walls of churches, few of these designs reproduce exactly the position and extent of the crosses that were traced and sprinkled on the pavement. This lack of a direct correspondence was perhaps the case because the pavement crosses were too unambiguously cruciform to be placed permanently where they would be walked on by everyone (a consideration that will be discussed further in the following chapter), or perhaps because they cut across spaces of the church in a way that did not fit with other decorative considerations. Nevertheless, given the considerable attention paid to the pavement in the rite and its commentaries, it is reasonable to see such designs as alluding to these parts of the ceremony or at least as presenting the space as consecrated ground. Indeed, several representations of the writing of the alphabet cross in later medieval pontificals, such as the fifteenth-century examples from Lyon and Bergamo (figs. 15 and 17) and the Giunta woodcut, show it in miniature rather than extending across the whole pavement of the church. Although I have suggested above that some reduction in scale may have taken place when the cross was executed, these images may simply reflect a clear way of depicting its characteristic form, a tactic that could also have been effective within the church building. A small diagonal cross incised into the underside of the lintel at the church of St. Mary, Glendalough (ca. 1100) has been seen to potentially allude to the alphabet.200 Crosses on the floor itself would have been even more suggestive. In contrast to paving elements that made reference to the date or executors of the ceremony, cruciform designs could as easily have been laid before consecration, since they draw on standard parts of the rite. However, this sequence of events is hard to establish, and a significant number of such floors must have been laid afterward. In these cases, the crosses refer to the marking of the ground they covered, giving the pavement a semitransparent quality, while perpetuating the way in which the crosses acted as proof of consecration during the ceremony itself and in accounts of miraculous consecrations. Although the exorcisms of the rite contributed to a permanent transformation of the spot, the apotropaic value of the sign of the cross in the ceremony must have been reinforced by a permanent cruciform

198. The cross is seen as reused in Mario Perotti, L’antico duomo di Novara e il suo mosaico pavimentale, Studi novaresi 2 (Novara: S. Gaudenzio, 1980), 91–97; as inserted in Simonetta Minguzzi, I mosaici pavimentali della cattedrale di Novara dal Tardoantico al Medioevo (Ravenna: Girasole, 1995), 49–50, fig. 19; and as contemporary with the rest of the mosaic in Cristina Maritano, “Novara come Roma: Il reimpiego di marmi antichi nella cattedrale del vescovo Litifredo,” Prospettiva 106–7 (2002): 133–36, fig. 11. 199. On the date of the consecration, given in a papal letter believed not to be genuine, see Tranquillo Mitta, “La cattedrale di Novara consacrata da Innocenzo II il 17 aprile 1132,” Novarien 3 (1969): 46–50. 200. Ó Carragáin, Churches in Early Medieval Ireland, 39–40, fig. 39.

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presence. Where examples were laid a considerable time after the completion of the building and presumed date of consecration, a connection with the ceremony might appear less convincing. Yet this would be to misconstrue the nature of the ceremony, which effected a fundamental transformation of the site. In this light, the permanent crosses function not only to commemorate an event but also to testify to an ongoing state. This discussion has concentrated on instances of decorated pavements that reflect the physicality of the consecration rite as it affected the floor surface, from the form and materiality of the pavement crosses to the prostration of the clergy. Although not the direct result of these interactions in the manner of holy vestigia, they can still be seen to function as traces of the ceremony, in a way that the same textual or visual elements disposed on a different surface would not. This function reflects the characterization of the pavement as a retentive surface in some contemporary interpretations of the rite, as well as the wider potential of the ground to mark the location of past events. Interpretations of the dedication ceremony may also have informed the choice of the subject matter of figurative pavements.201 Although this suggestion is inherently speculative, there are several instances in which a connection can plausibly be identified. The lost twelfth-century floor mosaic at St.-Remi at Reims, for example, included a representation of Jacob’s ladder next to the altar. Although this scene was probably primarily inspired by the association of the altar with the stone upon which Jacob rested his head, made explicit in some commentaries on church dedication, it may also have drawn on the characterization of the pavement during that ritual.202 In particular, it reflects the antiphon “O quam metuendus est loctus iste,” which accompanied the writing of the alphabets in the Romano-Germanic Pontifical and in Roman Pontificals of the Twelfth Century. Three floor mosaics include representations of the symbols of the four Evangelists near the altar: the presbytery mosaic of Novara Cathedral discussed above (fig. 26); the early twelfth-century mosaic in S. Giovanni Decollato at Pieve Terzagni near Cremona (Lombardy); and the mosaic in the one-time cathedral of St.-Paul-TroisChâteaux (Drôme), which dates from the second quarter of the twelfth century.203 The

201. Lucy Donkin, “Mosaici pavimentali medievali nell’Italia settentrionale e i loro rapporti con la liturgia,” in Atti del X colloquio dell’Associazione italiana per lo studio e la conservazione del mosaico (Tivoli: Scripta Manent, 2005), 503–14. 202. For example, Damian, Sermones, 72.5, ed. Lucchesi, 423. 203. All three are discussed in more detail in chapter 4. Overviews are given in Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 289–91, 308–9, 316–18. Specific studies of the latter two include Arturo Calzona, “‘Littera’ e ‘figura’ dell’antico in alcuni mosaici dell’Italia settentrionale: Il mosaico di Pieve Terzagni e la teofania-visione di Santo Stefano,” in Medioevo: Il tempo degli antichi, ed. Arturo Carlo Quintavalle (Milan: Electa, 2006), 351–64; Andreas Hartmann-Virnich, “La cathédrale Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Paul de Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux (Drôme),” Congrès archéologique de France 150 (1992): 266–67; HartmannVirnich, Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux und Saint-Trophime in Arles: Studien zur Baugeschichte zweier romanischer Kathedralen in der Provence, 2 vols. (Cologne: Abt. Architekturgeschichte des Kunsthistorischen Instituts, 1992), 1:226–34.

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comparison of the alphabets with the preaching of the Gospels in the Quid significent may have contributed to the inclusion of these elements on the pavement, especially at Novara and Pieve Terzagni where they are placed at the four corners of the altar. Equally, some of the geographical motifs common on the figurative mosaic pavements of northern Italy may reflect the equation of the cross with the spreading of salvation throughout the world.204 This is not to suggest that the consecration rite was an exclusive point of reference for any of these subjects, but rather that the ritual played an important part in denoting the surface as holy ground, and that the treatment and characterization of the surface was a resource on which its decoration might draw. Whether the laying of the pavement preceded or followed the consecration, there was the potential for the ceremony to be reflected in its design, eliding paving and ground. While some compositions placed an emphasis on the rite as a defining moment by recording the date and people concerned, others stressed the consecrated character of the space by echoing the forms or meanings of the crosses traced on the ground. More generally, the very presence of decorated paving can be seen to have reinforced the distinction between the consecrated ground of the church building and the surrounding area. The treatment of the floor surface in the church consecration rite shows it to have been an important part of the liturgical designation of sacred space, as the ceremony was conceived in liturgical books and commentaries, as it was likely to have been carried out in practice, and as it was imagined. The form of the alphabet cross evolved over time, with the Latin and Greek alphabets probably replacing two Latin alphabets, and the introduction of ashes in which to inscribe the letters. It must also have been executed in a great variety of ways within the church building. Nevertheless, it was a remarkably widespread, long-lived, and consistent component of the ceremony. Visually striking on the page, the alphabets are likely to have been equally striking when witnessed within the church interior and could be referenced in permanent paving. In addition to the nuances that could be provided by different accompaniments within the liturgy, a rich interpretative tradition developed, in which the cross was given Christological significance and was related to the dissemination and the internalization of sacred doctrine as part of wider parallels drawn between the church building and the bodies of the faithful. Both the form and interpretation of the abecedarium are of relevance to wider concepts of holy ground, as these pertained to the commemoration of events and the transformation of people and places. Although the alphabet cross was only a temporary presence in the church, it shared certain characteristics with the vestigia that recorded the transformative presence of

204. Lucy Donkin, “‘Usque ad ultimum terrae’: Mapping the Ends of the Earth in Two Medieval Floor Mosaics,” in Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Fresh Perspectives, New Methods, ed. Richard J. A. Talbert and Richard W. Unger (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 189–217.

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Christ and holy individuals. It remained to be seen by the laity when they entered the church, a more clearly visible sign of what had taken place than the aspersions or chrismations, and it could act as proof that the ceremony has been performed in accounts of miraculous consecrations. Because the letters came to be imprinted in sand or ashes, they can be seen to seal the place in a similar way to the footprints impressed in the earth. The equivalent of the seal matrix is here the staff of the consecrating bishop rather than the body of Christ, reflecting the immediate sources of authority for the two types of sanctification. Yet the cruciform arrangement of the alphabets gives a clear Christological dimension, which would have been reinforced by an understanding of the cross as the sigillum of God, thus claiming the place for Christ. Like the vestigia, the letters are described in ways that suggest an awareness of the idea that human memory functioned like a wax tablet. Parallels commonly drawn between the church building and the bodies of the faithful, as well as the widespread use of alphabets as a mnemonic device, informed interpretations of the letters as knowledge of divine law or doctrine imprinted in the depths of the soul. The impression of the letters, which effectively treated the building as though it were itself capable of recollection, helped to form a sense of architectural memory, which permanent pavement decoration reinforced rather than created ex novo. The treatment of the pavement in the rite and its interpretations created a rich body of material on which decoration could draw according to the individual circumstances of the institutions concerned. Whether they consisted of explicit inscriptions and depictions of consecrating clergy or allusions to the form and interpretation of the pavement crosses, individual elements of decoration could highlight and perpetuate aspects of the ritual. The form and materiality of the pavement crosses also invite comparison with the ephemeral marking of both body and ground in various rites of passage. Correspondences were drawn between baptism and church consecration from an early date and have long been recognized in scholarship on the subject. Notably, in addition to echoing the consignation of catechumens, the alphabet cross has been related to their instruction in the bilingual traditio symboli. Considering how baptismal and prebaptismal rites themselves treated the floor surface allows a further parallel to be drawn with the Milanese custom of drawing a chrismon in ashes on a cilicium laid on the church pavement as a focal point for the delivery of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. In both contexts, temporary markings on the ground made it a forum for symbolic instruction in the fundamentals of Christian doctrine and faith. While links between baptism and rites for the dying are also widely accepted, especially as regards penitential practices such as the imposition of ashes and the cilicium, the last rites are less commonly associated with consecration. However, not only were cruciform markings in ash on the body found in this context, but the dying person could be laid out on the ground on a cilicium that itself was marked with a cross of ashes. Here the cross marks out the space as a sacred one, in a similar manner to that in the consecration ceremony. The use of ashes may have entered the consecration rite from these contexts, but it is possible that they also reflect an awareness of the treatment of the pavement in consecration ritual. In all three

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traditions, it is possible to discern a process whereby, by the eleventh century, signs and substances used to mark the human body in baptism or death came to be applied to a location, whether this was the site or the subject of the rite. Quite apart from what this might suggest regarding the evolutionary relationship between specific rituals, it is as important for how they might have informed each other when all were in use. The surface marked with the chrismon annually during the prebaptismal ritual had already been inscribed with the alphabet cross during the consecration rite, while the designation of a space for the dying, which did not tend to take place in the church, gained resonance from its resemblance to the demarcation of consecrated ground. These instances in which ephemeral floor markings functioned to locate and articulate moments of change find correspondences in the following chapters, in which permanent paving too will be seen to have provided liturgical markers for prebaptismal scrutinies and rites for the dying, as well as for other initiation rituals.

3 TRAMPLING UNDERFOOT

Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis. [Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk.] —Psalm 90 (91):13

As discussed in chapter 1, the tread of a holy individual could be seen to sanctify a place. The moment of contact and the wider event were commemorated through imprints miraculously forged at the time or by a man-made memorial put in place afterward. Usually measures were taken to protect the site, which ensured that the place was not trodden on again. This safeguarding can be understood in two, interconnected, ways. On the one hand, it suggests that the now holy ground would be sullied by less holy feet; on the other, I would argue, it implies a concern that a one-off action should not be repeated by others. Implicit in this interpretation are two possible readings of standing on things. Perhaps the more obvious sees the action as expressing disdain for what is trodden on. Another potential reading understands it as expressing likeness with others who have occupied the same place or who have stood on the same or similar objects. In this chapter, I concentrate on the former, examining the phenomenon of trampling as it concerned the ground and floor coverings, and risked dishonoring the holy. The following chapter will turn to ways in which elements of floor decoration were used as markers, gaining significance from being trodden on over time and shaping the shared identities of those who stood on them. While trampling affected real spaces and is not simply a literary device, the discourses of both trampling and avoiding desecration underfoot are significant in their own right and are argued here to have functioned as a powerful way to talk about religious difference. The chapter brings together material from the Latin West and Greek East in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and also includes some examples from Jewish and Islamic contexts, partly because trampling often involved interaction or movement between different groups, and partly because this approach has the potential to throw into relief what phenomena were and were not characteristic of the medieval West.

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The first section addresses the connotations that could be attached to trampling on people and objects within the spheres of representation, metaphor, and lived experience. It asks what the action was meant to communicate about those who performed it, both in terms of their own intentions and in the opinion of those who described or depicted it. Text and image are shown to have operated differently in this respect. If verbal accounts could construe the person concerned as either triumphing over evil or desecrating the holy, visual depictions tended to feature only those understood to be acting positively. An attentiveness to different forms of representation, and their different capacities, serves not least to distinguish them from what was actually trodden on in practice. I suggest that trampling was more commonly discussed and represented than performed and witnessed. It also tended to involve a double insult, dishonoring objects and people by placing them on the ground in the first place, as well as by positioning them underfoot. This raises the question of how the negative implications of treading on something might apply to the surface of the ground itself and especially to floor decoration that was designed to be walked on. While medieval allegorical interpretations of the church building associated the pavement, “trodden underfoot,” with humility and the laity, and scholars have drawn on this to present figurative floor decoration as restricted to more secular subject matter, this chapter asks what it meant to stand on the sacred as this was encountered in paving and floor coverings. Employing a combination of material and textual evidence, the rest of the chapter thus concentrates on three main areas: avoiding dishonoring the holy underfoot; placing material in a pavement in order to neutralize or denigrate it; and accusing others of trampling their own sacred symbols. While the first operates within a religious community to protect signs of shared importance, the evidence still reveals a spectrum of attitudes. Christian legislation to ban sacred subject matter on paving primarily dates from Late Antiquity and the Counter-Reformation, suggesting that concerns surface when religious practices are contested more generally. Some cruciform elements were included in medieval paving, while an individual concern to avoid desecration underfoot is often presented as a sign of particular piety. The next section on deliberate disdain brings together examples from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic contexts. It shows that treading on elements in paving and temporary floor coverings could be used in similar ways by different religious groups to express religious difference, although practices also reflect attitudes to images specific to the particular faiths. After raising the possibility that some elements in decorated pavements were intended from the beginning to be trampled on, I focus on the conversion of material into paving or floor coverings. Where this involved objects sacred to other faiths, the act of walking on them could imply both triumph and conversion. Equally, where a religious culture had concerns about the legitimacy of representing living beings, placing such representations underfoot could also signal a lack of veneration and thus neutralize them. In all of this, material evidence of reuse is often silent as to motivation, while textual accounts are rarely tied to surviving artifacts. Some are likely to reflect a rhetoric of trampling, including celebratory and accusatory accounts

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of people being made to walk on material sacred to them. The final section pursues this phenomenon further, analyzing texts in which individuals and groups are accused of desecrating their own sacred symbols underfoot. I suggest that these accounts functioned to draw lines between religious groups—faiths, denominations, and even monastic orders— reflecting the wider role of the floor surface as a place to define and negotiate religious identity, without necessarily reproducing specific practices.

Words, Images, Objects Treading on something could be construed very negatively, or more specifically as denoting a negative attitude to the thing trodden on. Depending on what was underfoot, this action might in fact reflect well or poorly on the person concerned. In the context of considering the ground as a surface that was walked on, it is useful to distinguish between trampling as a verbal and visual expression of triumph and disdain, and trampling as an action that was performed and experienced, although these two spheres were closely connected. As Katherine Dunbabin has discussed, in both the Greek and Roman worlds the verb to tread upon (πατέω, καταπατέω, calcare) could be used metaphorically to mean “to spurn” or “insult,” while often evidently summoning up a mental image of crushing something or somebody underfoot.1 For medieval Christianity, the most powerful precedents lay in the Bible, especially the Old Testament.2 In particular, trampling was associated with the words of Psalm 90 (91): “Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk: and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon.”3 However, it also occurs in many other instances, including the invitation in Psalm 109 (110), “Sit thou at my right hand: Until I make thy enemies thy footstool,” and Joshua’s command to his captains to “set your feet on the necks of these kings.”4 In this, as in other respects, the language of the Bible permeated Christian thought and writing. Early Christian texts employed similar terms to describe victory over evil, including Prudentius’s description of the martyr Agnes trampling the devil in the form of a snake.5 The evils so disdained could also be more abstract, as in Ralph Glaber’s

1. Katherine M. D. Dunbabin, “Inbide calco te . . .: Trampling upon the Envious,” in Tesserae: Festschrift für Josef Engemann (Münster: Aschendorff, 1991), 27. 2. On the range of biblical uses, see A. Passioni dell’Acqua, “L’immagine del ‘calpestare’ dall’A. T. ai Padri della Chiesa,” Anagennesis 4 (1986): 63–129. 3. “Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis, et conculcabis leonem et draconem”; Psalm 90 (91):13. 4. “Sede a dextris meis, donec ponam inimicos tuos scabellum pedum tuorum”; Psalm 109 (110):1. “Ite, et ponite pedes super colla regum istorum. Qui cum perrexissent, et subiectorum colla pedibus calcarent”; Joshua 10:24. 5. “Haec calcat Agnes ac pede proterit / stans et draconis calce premens caput”; Prudentius, Peristephanon, 14, ed. and trans. H. J. Thomson, Prudentius, 2 vols., Loeb Classical Library 387, 398 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949–50), 2:344; this and other early Christian examples are discussed in Dunbabin, “Inbide calco te,” 27–28.

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eleventh-century Histories, in which the monks of Cluny are described as “those who trample underfoot the pomps of this world.”6 The characterization comes in an account of a papal gift of a golden orb surmounted with a cross to Henry II, who says that he will pass it on to Cluny along with other costly regalia, so these terms of praise perhaps serve in part to undercut the gift. On the other hand, language of this kind could be directed at specific, living opponents, such as when Pope Innocent II wrote to Lothar III that “God exalts your reign and humiliates the rebels under a yoke of your choosing and under your feet.”7 Closely connected with these textual traditions, and often directly illustrating them, was a rich and varied iconography of trampling.8 Again, Classical Antiquity provides some precedents, with emperors shown trampling on a prostrate enemy and certain deities also depicted standing on personifications.9 In what was likely informed by a combination of imperial and biblical models, a number of Christian emperors were shown treading on a human-headed snake, following the representation of Constantine in the imperial palace in Constantinople.10 Christian representations could also take Psalm 90 (91) as their specific point of departure.11 Christ was shown trampling on the beasts from Late Antiquity onward. For example, he stands on the snake and lion in fifth-century stucco work in the Orthodox Baptistery in Ravenna, and in the restored late fifth- or early sixth-century mosaics in the atrium of the archiepiscopal chapel in the same city.12 Later examples appear often to maintain a connection with places of entry, appearing on book covers such as the Douce ivory of ca. 800 (fig. 27), and in sculptural reliefs above portals, such as the twelfth-century examples at Sts. Peter and Paul at Andlau (BasRhin), the church of Our Lady of Maastricht in the southern Netherlands, and the Porta dei Mesi at Ferrara Cathedral (Emilia Romagna).13

6. “Illis qui pompis mundi calcatis”; Ralph Glaber, Historiarum libri quinque, 1.23, ed. and trans. John France, Rodulfus Glaber opera (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 40–41. 7. “Quod Deus regnum vestrum exaltat et rebellantium colla sub iuga vestrae dilectionis et sub pedibus vestris humiliat”; J. M. Watterich, Pontificum Romanorum qui fuerunt inde ab exeunte saeculo IX usque ad finem saeculi XIII vitae ab aequalibus conscriptae, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1862; repr. Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1966), 2:218. On this, and similar examples, see Mary Stroll, Symbols as Power: The Papacy Following the Investiture Contest (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 27–28, n. 41. 8. Robert Baldwin, “‘I Slaughter Barbarians’: Triumph as a Mode in Medieval Christian Art,” Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 59, no. 4 (1990): 225–42, gives an overview. 9. Dunbabin, “Inbide calco te.” 10. Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 3.3.1–2, ed. and trans. Schneider, 310–13; trans. Cameron and Hall, 122. 11. Discussions include Christine Verzár Bornstein, “Victory over Evil: Variations on the Image of Psalm 90-13 in the Art of Nicholaus,” in Scritti di storia dell’arte in onore di Roberto Salvini, ed. Cristina De Benedictis (Florence: Sansoni, 1984), 45–51. 12. Giuseppe Bovini, “‘Cristo vincitore delle forze del male’ nell’iconografia paleocristiana ravennate,” Corsi di cultura sull’arte ravennate e bizantina 11 (1964): 25–34. 13. Gillian B. Elliott, “Victorious Trampling at Sts. Peter and Paul at Andlau and the Politics of Frederick Barbarossa,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 72, no. 2 (2009): 145–64; Herbert L. Kessler, “Evil Eye(ing): Romanesque Art as a Shield of Faith,” in Romanesque Art and Thought in the Twelfth Century:

Fig. 27. Douce Ivory, cover of a Gospel lectionary, Aachen, ca. 800. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 176. Photo: The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford.

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Mary too was regularly depicted treading on one or more of the beasts, and the gesture was also extended to other saints, and even to the personification of the Roman Church in a late thirteenth-century manuscript of the Liber ystoriae Romanorum (fig. 28).14 Not all animals underfoot were necessarily construed negatively. While the feet of the figure personifying the Church are placed directly on the necks of two serpentine creatures, which are evidently being trampled, the entire group rests on the back of a lion, whose status is less clear. Identified by an inscription as denoting the Roman Empire (“leo significat imperium romanum”), it has been seen by some scholars as a positive support in the tradition of leonine thrones; figures of Mary standing on a lion have been interpreted similarly.15 Nevertheless, the representation of trampling went beyond direct allusions to Psalm 90 (91). Christ was shown standing on the devil and the doors of hell in depictions of the Anastasis.16 Moreover, the virtues were often shown trampling on the opposing vices, in an iconography that appears to have evolved within Psychomachia illustrations during the ninth century.17 Individual saints might also stand on the personifications of several vices or the virtues trample on historical individuals, as in the early thirteenth-century frescoes in the Aula gotica of SS. Quattro Coronati in Rome (fig. 29).18 In the Lateran Palace, the lost frescoes of the audience hall of Calixtus II (r. 1119–24) tapped into several of these visual traditions, as well as alluding to specific biblical passages such as Psalm 109 (110), by showing popes with their feet resting on their respective antipopes.19 All these representations could be inflected with particular nuances and deployed to make specific points, often being credited in the scholarship with political and apotropaic connotations. Here it is primarily important to note the ubiquity of images of trampling, the primarily

Essays in Honor of Walter Cahn, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton, NJ: Index of Christian Art, Princeton University, with Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008), 107–35; Bornstein, “Victory over Evil.” 14. Annette Reed, “Blessing the Serpent and Treading on Its Head: Marian Typology in the S. Marco Creation Cupola,” Gesta 46, no. 1 (2007): 41–58; Bornstein, “Victory over Evil,” 46. 15. Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. in scrin. 151, fol. 123v; Tilo Brandis and Otto Pächt, Historiae Romanorum: Codex 151 in Scrin. der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Propyläen, 1974), 1:123v; 2:183–87; Peter Bloch, “Die Muttergottes auf dem Löwen,” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 12 (1970): 253–94. 16. For the development of the motif, see Anna D. Kartsonis, Anastasis: The Making of an Image (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986). 17. The classic study is Adolf Katzenellenbogen, Allegories of the Virtues and Vices in Mediaeval Art from Early Christian Times to the Thirteenth Century (London: Warburg Institute, 1939). 18. Simona Cohen, “The Animal Triad of Capital Sins in Franciscan Iconography,” IKON: Journal of Iconographic Studies 3 (2010): 189–97; Andreina Draghi, with introduction by Francesco Gandolfo, and contributions by Claudio Noviello, Francesca Materia, and Giusippina Filippi Moretti, Gli affreschi dell’Aula gotica nel monastero dei Santi Quattro Coronati: Una storia ritrovata (Milan: Skira, 2006), 252–317. 19. Stroll, Symbols as Power, 16–35, esp. 20, 27–28; Ingo Herklotz, “Die Beratungsräume Calixtus’ II. im Lateranpalast und ihre Fresken: Kunst und Propaganda am Ende des Investiturstreits,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 52, no. 2 (1989): 145–214.

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Fig. 28. Personification of the Roman Church, Liber ystoriae Romanorum, Rome, late thirteenth century. Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. in scrin. 151, fol. 123v. Photo: Staatsund Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg.

figurative nature of what was trodden on, and the prevailing dynamic of a positive standing on a negative. It is also worth bearing in mind that the figures associated most closely with victorious trampling—Christ, Mary, and the saints—are the very ones who conferred sanctity on a spot by standing on it; indeed only a few lines after Prudentius describes Agnes trampling on the serpent, he states that “nothing is impure which thou dost deign . . . to touch with thy restoring foot.”20

20. “Nil non pudicum est quod pia visere / dignaris almo vel pede tangere”; Prudentius, Peristephanon, 14, ed. and trans. Thomson, 344.

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Fig. 29. Amor celestis with St. Francis and Julian the Apostate, fresco in the Aula gotica, SS. Quattro Coronati, Rome, 1235–1246. Photo: Archivio Fotografico del Polo Museale del Lazio.

Although these verbal and visual conventions will have played an important role in shaping attitudes to treading on things more generally, it must be asked how far and in what ways the gesture was enacted and witnessed. Perhaps the most concrete manifestation was the triumphal ritual of calcatio colli, in which a victor trampled the neck of a defeated enemy.21 The gesture, which seems to have been represented before it was actually performed, found explicit reinforcement in a Christian context in the words of

21. McCormick, Eternal Victory.

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Psalm 90 (91) and Deuteronomy 33: “Thy enemies shall deny thee, and thou shalt tread upon their necks” (“Negabunt te inimici tui, et tu eorum colla calcabis”).22 Practiced in Late Antiquity, ritual trampling continued to take place in the Byzantine Empire, where it extended beyond the imperial sphere, and also in the early medieval West, featuring in some Visigothic rituals of triumph. However, it was not part of later medieval Western triumphs, despite an early modern historical tradition hostile to the papacy that understood Pope Alexander III (1159–81) to have stepped on the neck of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa as part of a ritual humiliation.23 William of Malmesbury (ca. 1095–ca. 1143) does recount that Fulk III, Count of Anjou, kicked his prostrate son after the latter’s rebellion.24 However, Geoffrey Koziol suggests that this episode is likely to be an embellishment of a supplication informed by the author’s knowledge of Suetonius, and remarks on the absence of calcatio colli from early medieval France.25 Nevertheless, treading on things could feature in ecclesiastical ritual, notably in ceremonies of excommunication. For example, Regino of Prüm, in his early tenth-century collection of excommunication formulae, which passed into the Romano-Germanic Pontifical and later law collections, described an excommunicatio that included the instruction that “twelve priests should gather about the bishop holding burning candles in their hands, which upon the conclusion of the anathema or excommunication they should throw to the floor and stamp on with their feet.”26 If the extinguishing of the lighted candles was the main point of the action, finding its reversal in rites of reintegration that promised the illumination of Christ, the method of extinction was itself expressive of rejection. So far, the examples surveyed have focused on the triumphal trampling of negatives by positively construed figures. However, there was a parallel understanding of trampling as profanation, especially relating to holy things underfoot. Here too,

22. Deuteronomy 33:29. McCormick, Eternal Victory, esp. 58, 73, 310, 391. 23. On the legendary incident, see Kurt Stadtwald, “Pope Alexander III’s Humiliation of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa as an Episode in Sixteenth-Century German History,” Sixteenth Century Journal 23, no. 4 (1992): 755–68. 24. “Pede iacentem pulsans”; William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, 3.235, ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson, and M. Winterbottom, Gesta regum Anglorum: The History of the English Kings, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998–99), 1:436–37. 25. Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor, 95–96, 369 n. 48. 26. “Debent autem XII sacerdotes episcopum circumstare et lucernas ardentes in manibus tenere, quas in conclusione anathematis vel excommunicationis proicere debent in terram et pedibus conculcare”; Regino of Prüm, Libri duo de synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis, 2.413, ed. F. W. H. Wasserschleben, ed. and trans. Wilfried Hartmann, Das Sendhandbuch des Regino von Prüm (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004), 442; translation from Lester K. Little, Benedictine Maledictions: Liturgical Cursing in Romanesque France (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), 36–38. See also Roger E. Reynolds, “Rites of Separation and Reconciliation in the Early Middle Ages,” in Segni e riti nella chiesa altomedievale occidentale, 2 vols., Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo 33 (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1987), 1:405–33; Sarah Hamilton, “Interpreting Diversity: Excommunication Rites in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries,” in Gittos and Hamilton, Understanding Medieval Liturgy, 125–58.

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there are precedents in the Bible. For example, Isaiah 63:18 contains the lament that “our enemies have trodden down thy sanctuary” (“hostes nostri conculcaverunt sanctificationem tuam”) in the context of the Babylonian exile, and similar phrases are found in 1 Maccabees in connection with the actions of Antiochus, including the claim that “thy holies are trodden down and are profaned.”27 It is within this tradition that we should view accusations of treading on holy things, which often occur in the context of interaction between different religious and confessional groups. Thus, in Ralph Glaber’s account of the capture of Mayol of Cluny by Saracens in the Alps in 971–72, one of their number places his foot on the abbot’s Bible, although he is rebuked for this by another Muslim, who tells him that “great prophets should not be so scorned that he should tread their words under his feet.”28 Negative portrayals of Jews commonly focused on the body of Christ, whether in the form of an image or the Eucharist, and featured assaults that echoed those of the Passion. 29 However, in the Golden Legend’s version of the story of the icon of Beirut, a group of Jews are described as trampling on the image of Christ prior to piercing it with a lance.30 The motif of trampling could also surface in Jewish accounts of Christian outrages. Elieser bar Nathan’s chronicle of violence against Jews during the First Crusade recounts that in Cologne the synagogue was destroyed and the Torah scrolls trampled in the streets.31 This account has been seen to echo Isaiah 10:6, in which the Assyrian is sent by God to punish the people of Israel and “tread them down like the mire of the streets,” but it might equally draw on the verses discussed above. In later centuries, the kind of accusations leveled at Jewish communities would be extended to members of other Christian denominations; in the sixteenth century Philip II of Spain possessed a miraculous host that was understood to have bled when trodden on by a Dutch Calvinist, while an account of the French Wars of Religion by the Catholic priest Claude Haton includes a Huguenot trampling on the Eucharist

27. 1 Maccabees 3:45 “Et sanctum conculcabatur et filii alienigenarum erant in arce, ibi erat habitatio gentium”; 3:51 “Sancta tua conculcata sunt et contaminata sunt”; 4:60 “Et aedificaverunt in tempore illo montem Sion, et per circuitum muros altos, et turres firmas, nequando venirent gentes, et conculcarent eum sicut antea fecerunt.” 28. “Non debere magnos prophetas sic pro nichilo duci ut illorum dicta pedi substerneret”; Glaber, Historiarum libri quinque, 1.9, ed. and trans. France, 20–21. 29. Christoph Cluse, “Stories of Breaking and Taking the Cross: A Possible Context for the Oxford Incident of 1268,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 90 (1995): 396–442. 30. “Ymaginem vero pedibus conculcantes”; Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea, 131, ed. Giovanni Paolo Maggioni, 2nd ed. (Tarvanuzze, Florence: SISMEL—Edizioni del Galluzzo, 1998), 935; as 137, trans. William Granger Ryan, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 557. 31. A. Neubauer and M. Stern, eds., S. Baer, trans., Hebräische Berichte über die Judenverfolgungen während der Kreuzzüge, Quellen zur Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland 2 (Berlin: Leonhard Simion, 1892), 160; English translation in Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 274, 347 for references to Isaiah 10:6 and Micah 7:10; discussed in Cluse, “Stories of Breaking and Taking the Cross,” 439.

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during a Mass at the Sainte-Chapelle.32 To group these examples together is not to give them equal credence; indeed, my purpose is not to speculate whether or not any of these episodes took place, but rather to highlight contexts in which trampling does not express triumph but rather effects desecration or at least denigrates the holy from the point of view of the narrator. Where people are described as trampling something outside the parameters of rituals that prescribed this, the authors of the passages are often unsympathetic to the protagonists. As will be discussed further below, accusing someone of trampling something worthy of respect was a way of denigrating them, much as would be the case with the Protestant misrepresentation of Alexander III. So when, in his late eleventh-century Historia Mediolanensis, Landulf Senior described Erlembald stamping on the baptismal chrism to show Patarine disapproval of the consecrating clergy (and prevent baptisms being carried out with it), the episode tells us as much about the author’s attitude to the Patarine movement as about Erlembald’s gestural vocabulary.33 Similarly, the Chronicle of Monte Cassino gives a hostile account of clerics from S. Maria in Capua who entered the church of S. Benedetto, a dependency of Monte Cassino with which they were engaged in an intense rivalry, removed the habit of a monk lying in state there, and trampled on the garment.34 Likewise, chronicling Robert Grosseteste’s strained relations with monastic communities, Matthew Paris describes the bishop trampling things on more than one occasion. Grosseteste is said to have ground underfoot a letter from the convent at Canterbury, along with its seal showing the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket, and when searching the beds of the monks at the abbey of Ramsey, to have broken underfoot decorated cups “which if he had acted in a more temperate manner, he might at any rate have given whole to the poor.”35

32. Charles Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust: How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 260; Carlos M. N. Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 267. On the French example, see Claude Haton, Mémoires de Claude Haton, 2.125, ed. Laurent Bourquin, 4 vols., Collection de Documents inédits sur l’histoire de France 29, 31, 33, 40 (Paris: Éditions du Comité des Travaux historiques et scientifiques, 2001–7), 1:464–65; discussed in Natalie Zemon Davis, “The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France,” Past & Present 59 (1973): 57. 33. Landulf Senior, Historia Mediolanensis, 3.30 (29), ed. Bethmann and Wattenbach, 95–97, esp. 97. On Landulf’s stance, see, for example, Jörg W. Busch, “Landulfi senioris Historia Mediolanensis: Überlieferung, Datierung und Intention,” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 45 (1989): 1–30; Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 174–215, esp. 211–12. 34. Chronica monasterii Casinensis, 4.72, ed. Hartmut Hoffmann, Die Chronik von Montecassino, MGH SS 34 (Hannover: Hahn, 1980), 538. The episode is discussed in Louis I. Hamilton, “Desecration and Consecration in Norman Capua, 1062–1122: Contesting Sacred Space during the Gregorian Reforms,” Haskins Society Journal 14 (2003): 137–50. 35. “Episcopus autem, ut viderat talis litera mandati, ipsas ad pedes suos projectas viliter conculcavit, non sine hoc videntium vehementi admiratione, propter effigiem beati Thomæ impressioni cereæ consignatam”; “ciphos, quos invenit circulis vel pedibus redimitos, comminuit conculcatos, quos, si circumspec-

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These episodes are not metaphorical, at least they are intended to be envisaged taking place at a specific moment in time, but they contain a double negative, reflecting attitudes to the objects trampled (by the person carrying out the action) and to the people trampling them (by the author of the text). This is a rather more involved picture than that produced by the verbal and visual evocations of triumph. It is possible that these episodes should be understood in the context of the potential to criticize people through accounts of ritual perverted or performed badly, making them effectively refractions of a norm.36 However, that is perhaps to credit triumphal trampling with too much dominance, when different configurations of actors and objects underfoot could in fact be used to express a variety of attitudes and identities. There were constraints on what configurations and messages it was possible to communicate within different spheres of representation, so an image of someone trampling something generally reflected positively on the person carrying out the action, but verbal descriptions of lived experience had room for more variety and complexity. At the same time, despite examples such as these, it seems likely that the act of trampling was more commonly described and represented than it was performed and witnessed, with potential implications for people’s interpretation of their own actions and sensitivity to walking on things. If objects could be cast temporarily underfoot and trampled, it remains to be asked how far the negative aspect of treading relates to the pavement and floor coverings, which were designed to be walked on, and in particular to the presence of holy material, signs, and imagery underfoot. Generally speaking, art historians have paid more attention to works of art in which figures are shown treading on people and animals than to works of art on which people trod, and the relationship between these two spheres is largely uncharted.37 Nonetheless, a negative understanding of treading has dominated in the discussion of figurative pavement decoration from the revival of interest in medieval floor mosaics during the late nineteenth century, when Eugène Müntz explained the rarity of Christological or other sacred subjects as the result of reluctance to soil them underfoot.38 P. J. Nordhagen also explained a move away from using church pavements to convey religious ideas in Late Antiquity in these terms.39 Similar attitudes have in-

tius fecisset, posset pauperibus integros erogasse”; Paris, Chronica majora, ed. Luard, 4:248, 5:226–27. The second episode is discussed, and the translation given, in James R. Ginther, “Monastic Ideals and Episcopal Visitations: The Sermo ad religiosos of Robert Grosseteste,” in Medieval Monastic Preaching, ed. Carolyn Muessig (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 231, 244. 36. For this potential in descriptions of ritual, see Philippe Buc, The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001). 37. On the former, see the studies referenced above in the discussion of the iconography of trampling. 38. “Cette rareté s’explique par la répugnance qu’on avait à orner le sol d’images sacrées et à fouler en quelque sorte aux pieds les figures du Christ ou de ses élus”; Eugène Müntz, “Les pavements historiés du IVe au XIIe siècle,” in Études iconographiques et archéologiques sur le Moyen Âge (Paris: Leroux, 1887), 47. 39. “Soon people must have felt that it was wrong to tread upon the sacred images, and for this reason the whole pictorial programme was transferred to the walls and vaults”; H. P. L’Orange and P. J. Nordhagen, Mosaics, trans. Ann E. Keep (London: Methuen, 1966), 42.

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formed work on individual pavements. Ernst Kitzinger opened his study of the mosaic of S. Salvatore in Turin by discussing the restrictions imposed on pavement decoration by considerations of propriety.40 Rosmarie Hess presented the pavement at the abbey of Bobbio (Piemonte) as a mirror of the lay world, considering that more spiritual subject matter would have been inappropriate since “floors are trodden underfoot” (“Böden werden mit Füssen betreten!”).41 Even Naomi Meiri-Dann, who sees the subject matter of the north Italian floor-mosaics as the result of choices rather than restrictions, stresses the negative implications of their position underfoot.42 Assumptions regarding what could appropriately be trodden on have also been voiced with respect to secular subject matter. Noting that no imperial figures have been successfully identified in the fourth-century floor mosaics of Piazza Armerina in Sicily, Ross Holloway reports a remark by H. P. L’Orange that “one would never walk on an imperial portrait.”43 While these interpretations focus mainly on the avoidance of overtly sacred material or representations of high-status individuals, occasionally there has been a suggestion that elements were included in floor decoration in order to be trampled. The early twelfth-century pavement of the altar platform at S. Nicola in Bari (Apulia) includes pseudo-Arabic script, of a form sometimes associated with the word “Allah.” R. A. Jairazbhoy considered that it was placed there at least partly because “medieval Christians would have thought it fitting to tread on steps that flaunted the name of the Infidel’s God.”44 Some of these statements are treated as self-evident, and even where reference is made to contemporary written sources, a narrow range of material is invoked. Moreover, there is little or no recognition that work on nonfigurative floor decoration has generally credited standing on particular elements with positive connotations.45 More therefore needs to be done to establish what conventions were in place. The fact that the church pavement was trodden on was certainly acknowledged in medieval allegorical interpretations of the surface and used to characterize it as a humble space, although—as will be discussed in chapter 5—this was far from being a negative

40. Ernst Kitzinger, “World Map and Fortune’s Wheel: A Medieval Mosaic Floor in Turin,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 117, no. 5 (1973): 344. 41. Rosmarie Hess, “Das Bodenmosaik von S. Colombano in Bobbio,” Arte medievale, ser. 2, 2, no. 2 (1988): 132. 42. I am grateful to Professor Anat Tcherikover for enabling me to consult the English abstract of Naomi Meiri-Dann’s thesis: Naomi Meiri-Dann, “Figurative Mosaic Pavements in North Italian Churches of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” English abstract of unpublished PhD thesis in Hebrew, Tel Aviv University, 2000, j–n; Meiri-Dann, “Twelfth-Century North Italian Mosaic Pavements— Are They Really Marginal?” in The Metamorphosis of Marginal Images: From Antiquity to Present Time, ed. Nurith Kenaan-Kedar and Asher Ovadiah (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2001), 183–94. 43. R. Ross Holloway, The Archaeology of Ancient Sicily (London: Routledge, 1991), 170. I am grateful to Professor Holloway for confirming that this remark was made verbally. 44. R. A. Jairazbhoy, Oriental Influences in Western Art (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1965), 71; discussed in Vernon, “Visual Culture in Norman Puglia,” 150; on the pavement, see also Franco Schettini, La basilica di San Nicola di Bari (Bari: Laterza, 1967), 50–53. 45. This potential will be discussed in the following chapter.

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connotation. The characterization comes in the context of parallels drawn between architectural elements and various groups within the church, found in liturgical handbooks from the early twelfth century onward. For example, for Honorius Augustodunensis, the pavement, trodden underfoot, represented the laity by whose labors the church is sustained (“Pavimentum, quod pedibus calcatur, est vulgus, cujus labore Ecclesia sustentatur”), and the comparison was repeated by Sicardus of Cremona in his Mitrale.46 Durandus too included the parallel in the Rationale divinorum offi ciorum, though he also described the pavement as the “foundation of our faith,” reminiscent of its characterization in allegorical readings of the dedication rite, and equated it with the “poor in spirit, who humble themselves in all things.”47 The comparison is commonly cited in studies of medieval floor mosaics, where it has sometimes been used to explain certain types of imagery as stemming from popular culture.48 However, allegorical writings of this kind tend to respond as much to what the authors thought about society as to their views on art and architecture.49 It therefore seems useful to bring what were in fact complex and elastic attitudes to treading and trampling into a more sustained encounter with pavement decoration and the treatment of the floor surface more widely. In particular, this juxtaposition raises questions of how the various connotations of trampling were manifested within and between religious traditions, and how far they differed between floor coverings created to be trodden on and items converted to use as paving.

Avoiding Treading A negative reading of treading was certainly expressed as much in the avoidance of trampling as in its execution. The former practice, naturally enough, operated within particular religious traditions with regard to what they held sacred. In Christianity,

46. Honorius, De gemma animae, 1.134, PL 172:586d; Sicardus of Cremona, Mitrale, 1.4, ed. Sarbak and Weinrich, 13. 47. “Pavimentum ecclesie est fidei nostre fundamentum; in Ecclesia vero spirituali pavimentum sunt pauperes Christi, scilicet pauperes spiritu qui se in omnibus humiliant quare propter humilitatem pavimento assimilantur. Rursus pavimentum quod pedibus calcatur vulgus est cuius laboribus Ecclesia sustentatur”; Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum, 1.1.28, ed. Davril and Thibodeau, 1:22; trans. Thibodeau, 19–20. 48. See, for example, Pietro Toesca, “Vicende di un’antica chiesa di Torino: Scavi e scoperte,” Bollettino d’arte 4 (1910): 10; Henri Stern, “Mosaïques de pavement préromanes et romanes en France,” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 5 (1962): 24; Paolo Piva, ed., I secoli di Polirone: Committenza e produzione artistica di un monastero benedettino, San Benedetto Po (Mantova), Museo civico polironiano, 12 aprile–30 giugno 1981, 2 vols. (Quistello: Ceschi, 1981), 1:79–81. 49. These passages are discussed with reference to the attitudes to society that they reveal in Christiania Whitehead, “Columnae . . . sunt episcopi. Pavimentum . . . est vulgus: The Symbolic Translation of Ecclesiastical Architecture in Latin Liturgical Handbooks of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” in The Theory and Practice of Translation in the Middle Ages, ed. Rosalynn Voaden et al., The Medieval Translator 8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 35–36; Whitehead, Castles of the Mind: A Study of Medieval Architectural Allegory (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003), 49–60.

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there was concern to avoid placing holy things and representations where they risked being trodden on, although a combination of legislation, surviving floor decoration, and discussion of pious individuals suggests a spectrum of attitudes. Notably, there were some attempts to keep what was portrayed on paving within certain bounds in order to save sacred symbols from desecration, especially the sign of the cross. However, legislation primarily dates from Late Antiquity and the Counter-Reformation. An edict of Theodosius II in 427 insisted “that no one shall be permitted to carve or to paint the sign of Christ the Saviour upon the floor or the pavement or on marble slabs placed on the ground.”50 Hugo Brandenburg suggested that the edict was prompted by the increasing use of such signs on the floors of houses.51 While this may be the case, evidence of the practice is also found in churches, as is demonstrated by the late fourth-century floor mosaics of the Martyrion of St. Babylas in Antioch. Here a row of crosses in red tesserae marks the entrance to the shrine and probably fulfi lled an apotropaic function.52 Similarly, there is a cross at the main entrance to the eastern church at Kurnub (Israel), which has been dated to the second half of the fourth century, as well as one by the altar. There is some evidence that crosses were removed from sight or protected from being walked on as a result of the ban. At ‘Evron (Israel), mosaic pavements dated to 415 that contained crosses were covered by new mosaics within thirty years, and at the central basilica at Pella ( Jordan) crosses were part of a floor mosaic later covered over by a marble pavement.53 At Shavei Zion (Israel), the floor of a chapel with several small crosses at the entrance was covered with another layer of mosaic, in what has been seen as a response to the edict; two larger crosses in the nave of the main church were situated beneath altars or tables (fig. 30), although another cross in the side aisle was not protected in any way.54 However, elsewhere crosses did in fact continue to be depicted

50. “Signum saluatoris Christi nemini licere uel in solo uel in silice uel in marmoribus humi positis insculpere uel pingere sed quodcumque reperitur tolli”; Codex of Justinian, 1.8.1, ed. T. Mommsen, P. Meyer, and P. Krueger, trans. Jean Rougé and Roland Delmaire, Code Théodosien I–XV, Code Justinien, Constitutions Sirmonidiennes, Les lois religieuses des empereurs romains de Constantin à Théodose II (312–438) 2, Sources chrétiennes 531 (Paris: Cerf, 2009), 408–10, with a suggestion of a redating to 447; translation from Cyril A. Mango, ed., The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–1453: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972), 36. 51. Hugo Brandenburg, “Bellerophon christianus? Zur Deutung des Mosaiks von Hinton St. Mary und zum Problem der Mythendarstellungen in der kaiserzeitlichen Kunst,” Römische Quartalschrift 63 (1968): esp. 85. 52. Ernst Kitzinger, “The Threshold of the Holy Shrine: Observations on Floor Mosaics at Antioch and Bethlehem,” in Kyriakon: Festschrift Johannes Quasten, vol. 2, ed. Patrick Granfield and Josef A. Jungmann (Münster: Aschendorff, 1970), esp. 639–41. 53. Vassilios Tzaferis, “The Greek Inscriptions from the Early Christian Church at ‘Evron,” Eretz Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies 19 (1987): 37, 50–55; on Pella, see Michele Piccirillo, The Mosaics of Jordan, ed. Patricia M. Bikai and Thomas A. Dailey, Publications, American Center of Oriental Research 1 (Amman: American Center of Oriental Research, 1993), 330–31, fig. 706. 54. Michael Avi-Yonah, “The Mosaic Pavements,” in Excavations at Shavei Zion: The Early Christian Church, ed. M. W. Prausnitz, Monografie di archeologia e d’arte 2 (Rome: Centro per le antichità e la

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Fig. 30. Cross positioned underneath an altar, nave floor mosaic, church at Shavei Zion, before 427. Photo: Israel Antiquities Authority.

and, while they seem to have diminished in number in the sixth century, the ban had to be reiterated by the Quinisext Council in 692.55 Scholars differ in their perception of the exposure of such crosses to being trodden on. Michael Avi-Yonah characterized pavement crosses as located “almost exclusively in places not likely to be stepped upon, or approached only barefooted, or on which only the priest during the sacred functions could tread.”56 However, some are placed where they could have been trodden on by the congregation more generally. For example, a number of crosses feature in the mosaic pavements of a church complex at Magen in the Negev (Israel), including a prominent Latin cross near the threshold of the nave of church A (fig. 31), dated to the sixth century, as well as a monogrammatic cross flanked by birds positioned at the entrance to a room in church C in a late fourth-century mosaic.57 While Vassilios Tsaferis referred to people stepping over the crosses, he also suggested that they were

storia dell’arte del Vicino Oriente, 1967), esp. 48–49, 52–53, fig. 2, plates VIIb, XI, XXXVIIIb, XLb. 55. Lists of examples dating from the late fourth century to the seventh century are given in Rachel Hachlili, Ancient Mosaic Pavements: Themes, Issues, and Trends (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 224–26; and Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 182–83, 475–77. Consilium in Trullo palatii imperatoris, Canones Trulliani sive Quinisextae synodi, 73, ed. G. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, 53 vols. (repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1960–61), 11:975–76. 56. Michael Avi-Yonah, “Mosaic Pavements in Palestine,” Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine 2 (1933): 136–81; 3 (1934): 26–73, at 3:63. 57. Vassilios Tsaferis, “Mosaics and Inscriptions from Magen,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 258 (1985): esp. 20–24, figs. 6, 11, 13. The position of the crosses is shown in Tsaferis, “An Early Christian Church Complex at Magen,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 258 (1985): 7–11, figs. 9, 15. Tsaferis dated building A to the sixth century and building C to the late fourth or early fifth century. This dating is followed in Andrew M. Madden, Corpus of Byzantine Church Mosaic Pavements from Israel and the Palestinian Territories (Leuven: Peeters, 2014), 103. Talgam refers to a cross in St. Cyriacus near Kibbutz Magen, dated to the late fourth or early fifth century: Mosaics of Faith, 475.

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Fig. 31. Reconstruction of building A at Magen, with cross at the threshold. From Vassilios Tsaferis, “An Early Christian Church Complex at Magen,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 258 (1985): fig. 15. Photo: American Schools of Oriental Research and Chicago University Press.

meant to be trodden on by worshippers and that stepping on a cross could be an apotropaic act.58 Such a possibility is supported by the existence of apotropaic knots in similar positions.59

58. Tsaferis, “Mosaics and Inscriptions from Magen,” 24; Tzaferis, “Greek Inscriptions,” 51. 59. On the knot as substituting for the cross in this position, though without allowing the positive connotations of treading on it, see Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 401–2.

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The matter would only come to be an object of general legislation again in the sixteenth century. In 1517, a Florentine synod decreed that crosses and symbols of the saints should not be placed, sculpted, or painted where they could be walked on by men and animals, since “those things one does to an image are said to be directed against the person whom the image represents.”60 The same synod, which was generally more concerned with impieties than previous legislation had been, also prescribed severe penalties for those treading on the crucifix and the host; such people were considered wizards and witches.61 In this it corresponds to a wider perception of trampling as part of magical practices in both the Latin West and Greek East; in the early fourteenth century George Tzerentzes was accused of sorcery, including having written and then erased and trampled on “God’s holy name.”62 More or less the same prohibition regarding the floor surface was repeated by Carlo Borromeo in the Fourth Provincial Council of 1576, which forbade sacred images and histories of the saints and symbols of sacred mysteries to be included “in any flooring whatsoever, laid on the ground or in any sordid place, even outside of the church.”63 Similarly, his Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae of 1577 banned crosses, sacred images and stories, and figures symbolizing the sacred mystery on pavements, regardless of material or technique.64 Concern about placing sacred images or symbols on the ground had been raised earlier in the context of the practice of humiliating the saints. In 1274, the Council of Lyon had ruled against the humiliation of crosses and images or statues of the Virgin and other saints.65 However,

60. “Quia facto æque ac ve bis divinam lædimus majestatem, & quæ in imaginem fiunt, in eum quem imago refert, facta esse dicuntur. Ordinavit ne quisquam ponat cruces aut alicujus sancti signa in locis immundis vel in silicibus aut pavimentis, quae hominum aut animalium pedibus terantur . . . pingere aut sculpere audeat”; Concilium Florentinum, 1517, ed. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, 35:215–318, at 234; translation from Richard C. Trexler, Synodal Law in Florence and Fiesole, 1306–1518 (Vatican City: BAV, 1971), esp. 130. 61. Concilium Florentinum, 1517, cap. 4, ed. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, 35:235. 62. Richard P. H. Greenfield, “Contribution to the Study of Palaeologan Magic,” in Byzantine Magic, ed. Henry P. Maguire (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library; Harvard University Press, 1995), 134–35. 63. “Quod de sacrosanctae crucis effigie, in Concilio provinciali tertio per nos sancitum est; itidem interdictum sit, sacras alias scilicet imagines, ac sanctorum sanctarum[q]ue historias, sacrorum[q]ue mysteriorum figuras & significationes in ullo quovis humi strato pavimento, aut loco sordido, etiam extra ecclesiam insculpi, pingi, effi ngi[q]ue”; Acta ecclesiae Mediolanensis, a Carolo cardinali S. Praxedis archiepiscopo condita (Milan: Pontius, 1599), 118. Translation from Evelyn Carol Voelker, Charles Borromeo’s Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae, 1577, Book I and Book II: A Translation with Commentary and Analysis, 18, posthumously published online: http://evelynvoelker.com/. 64. “In pavimento, quale quale illud sit, neque pictura, neque sculptura crux exprimatur; nec vero præterea alia sacra imago, historiave, ac ne alia item, quæ sacri mysterii typum gerat”; Carlo Borromeo, Instructionum fabricæ et supellectilis ecclesiasticæ, 1.6, ed. and trans. Massimo Marinelli, Monumenta studia instrumenta liturgica 8 (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000), 20. 65. “Ceterum detestabilem abusum horrendæ indevotionis illorum, qui crucis, beatæ Virginis aliorum(q)ve sanctorum imagines, seu statuas, irreverenti ausu tractantes, eas in aggravationem cessationis

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there is a distinction to be drawn between what could not be placed on the floor in a deliberate if temporary reversal of status and what could not be represented in permanent paving. Moreover, like the late antique edicts, the sixteenth-century legislation raises the possibility that what some saw as insulting the sacred, not least by exposing it to being walked on, others considered entirely appropriate to the holy ground of the church interior and not compromised by its position underfoot. The figurative pavement of Siena Cathedral, which features various biblical scenes, testifies to an interest in depicting sacred subject matter on church floors that continued into the period in question.66 For the Middle Ages itself, evidence of sensibilities regarding what could properly be included in ecclesiastical floor decoration comes mainly from surviving pavements. Crosses do feature, on occasion, in both areas reserved for the clergy and those accessible also to the laity. Certain examples appear to have been unique elements within the pavement in question. An eighth-century description of Old St. Peter’s testifies to the presence of a porphyry cruciform design set into the pavement of the narthex in front of the main entrance to the church.67 It has been suggested that this was the porphyry cross removed from the atrium in the early seventeenth century and now preserved in the church of S. Pietro Ispano at Boville Ernica (Lazio). However, the inscription there describes it as having been displayed to the faithful, which does not seem to fit a location on the floor, at least at the time it was salvaged.68 Another, later, example, which does survive, was positioned in an area primarily reserved for the clergy. The early twelfth-century presbytery pavement of the cathedral of Novara included an elaborate cross made up of a Greek cross and a smaller diagonal cross in porphyry and green marble (figs. 26 & 32). Centrally positioned toward the west of the space, it was removed when the presbytery was remodeled in the nineteenth century and now forms a

hujusmodi prosternunt in terram, urticis, spinisque supponunt penitus reprobantes”; Concilium Lugdunense II, 17, ed. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, 24:92; Little, Benedictine Maledictions, 236. 66. Marilena Caciorgna and Roberto Guerrini, Il pavimento del duomo di Siena: L’arte della tarsia marmorea dal XIV al XIX secolo; Fonti e simbologia (Milan: Silvana, 2004). 67. “Deinde ad lapides purpureos, qui in medio pavimento iacent et in modum crucis positi sunt”; Notitia ecclesiarum urbis Romae, ed. Roberto Valentini and Giuseppe Zucchetti, Codice topografico della città di Roma, 4 vols., Fonti per la storia d’Italia pubblicate dall’Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo 81, 88, 90, 91 (Rome: Tipografia del Senato, 1940–53), 2:98–99; Sible de Blaauw, Cultus et decor: Liturgia e architettura nella Roma tardoantica e medievale. Basilica Salvatoris, Sanctae Mariae, Sancti Petri, 2 vols., Studi e testi 355–56 (Vatican City: BAV, 1994), 2:524. 68. Antonio Muñoz, “Reliquie artistiche della vecchia basilica vaticana a Boville Ernica,” Bollettino d’arte 5 (1911): esp. 163–65, fig. 2. The identification is assumed in Maritano, “Novara come Roma,” 134. However, the cross is understood to have been located on the entrance door in Patrizia Di Benedetti, “Il reimpiego di alcune ‘memoriae’ della vecchia basilica vaticana durante il pontificato di Paolo V Borghese: Nuove testimonianze documentarie,” Bollettino d’arte, ser. 7, 1, no. 1 (2009): 26.

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tabletop.69 As discussed in chapter 2, there are also individual diagonal crosses in the floor mosaics at Ganagobie and St.-André-de-Rosans (fig. 25), while larger crosses play a structural role in the composition of the pavements at the abbey church of Pomposa (fig. 20) and St.-Bertin in Saint-Omer (fig. 24). In the same period, cruciform elements were repeated as part of wider patterns. The mosaics in the side aisles of Novara Cathedral had a design of interlocking crosses and stars, some of which themselves contained crosses, and a similar pattern seems to have been employed in the pavement of the church of S. Giulio on the island in the Lago d’Orta in the diocese of Novara. Both mosaics are now lost but were recorded in sketches by local antiquarians in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.70 The opus sectile pavement in S. Menna at Sant’Agata dei Goti in Campania, which also dates to the early twelfth century, includes Greek crosses based on a rhombus (fig. 33), broadly similar to the example in the presbytery at Novara.71 Despite correspondences in design, the location, scale, and number of the crosses likely played a part in determining the significance of treading on them. A small single cross formed a focal point, which could easily be deliberately avoided or indeed used as a liturgical marker. Where cruciform elements were repeated as part of an overall design or formed a larger structural element, this may have lessened any sensitivity surrounding the symbol; certainly, it would have been difficult to avoid walking on them. In some of these cases it is possible that a desire to commemorate or perpetuate the ephemeral cruciform marking of the floor surface during the consecration rite took precedence over any concerns to avoid the placement of crosses where they could be walked on. However, the absence of widespread legislation concerning sacred symbols underfoot during the Middle Ages may indicate that such crosses were simply not seen as problematic. In one instance, it has been proposed that cruciform decoration was modified before material was reused as paving, but the changes may not in fact testify to concerns about what was trodden on. In 1914, the pavement of the church of S. Prassede in Rome was

69. It is shown in situ in Frasconi, Riti, costumanze ed usi propri, Novara, Archivio storico diocesano, Fondo Frasconi, MS XIV/13; the sketch, bound between pages 102 and 103, is discussed further in chapter 4. Perotti, Antico duomo di Novara, 91; Minguzzi, Mosaici pavimentali, 50, fig. 19. 70. For Novara, see Novara, Archivio storico diocesano, Fondo Frasconi MS IX; Minguzzi, Mosaici pavimentali, 66. For Isola d’Orta, see Novara, Archivio storico diocesano, Fondo Frasconi, MS XI/2; A. M. Dondi, C. Della Croce, and L. Pejrani Baricco, “Orta S. Giulio, basilica di S. Giulio,” in Problemi di conservazione e tutela nel Novarese: Borgomanero, settembre–ottobre 1984 (Borgomanero: Fondazione Achille Marazza, 1984), 122. 71. Anna Maria Corsi, “La decorazione pavimentale nella chiesa di S. Menna a Sant’Agata dei Goti (Benevento),” in Atti del IV colloquio dell’Associazione italiana per lo studio e la conservazione del mosaico, ed. Rosa Maria Carra Bonacasa and Federico Guidobaldi (Ravenna: Girasole, 1997), 683 fig. 6; Ruggero Longo, “Il pavimento in opus sectile della chiesa di San Menna: Maestranze cassinesi a Sant’Agata de’ Goti,” in La chiesa di San Menna a Sant’Agata de’ Goti: Atti del convegno di studi, 19 giugno 2010, ed. Franco Iannotta (Salerno: ARCI Postiglione, 2014), 116, 119, figs. 17–18, drawing comparisons with the pavements of Monte Cassino and S. Maria Maggiore, Sant’Elia Fiumerapido.

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Fig. 32. Cross from the early twelfth-century presbytery pavement of Novara Cathedral, Palazzo vescovile, Novara. Photo: Diocesi di Novara—Ufficio Beni Culturali Ecclesiastici, Director dott. arch. Paolo Mira, photographer Paolo Migliavacca.

Fig. 33. Detail of a cruciform design in the pavement of the right-hand side aisle, S. Menna, Sant’Agata dei Goti, ca. 1110. Photo: © Ruggero Longo.

found to contain two panels from the eighth- or ninth-century schola cantorum set upside down.72 These had had the lateral arms of the crosses removed, and it has been suggested that this was done because of their reuse in the pavement, by implication to avoid desecrating the sign of the cross by treading on it.73 However, John Osborne considers that the careful transformation is more likely to be a meaningful creation of the Colonna stemma effected prior to the reuse of the panels. He points out that spoliated material elsewhere, which featured the Agnus Dei with a cross, was not “deconsecrated” in this way when

72. Antonio Muñoz, “Studi sulle basiliche romane di S. Sabina e di S. Prassede,” Dissertazioni della Pontificia Accademia romana di archeologia, ser. 2, 13 (1918): 127–28. 73. “È stato ritenuto che proprio tale destinazione abbia portato a togliere dall’ornato ogni segno di croce”; Letizia Pani Ermini, ed., Corpus della scultura altomedievale, vol. 7, La diocesi di Roma, vol. 1, La IV regione ecclesiastica (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1974), 116, n. 2.

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reused in a tomb, although it should be noted that the relief was broken through the scene in question, while crosses have had their lateral arms removed in an early medieval panel in Rome of unknown provenance, but not known to have been reused as paving.74 It is difficult to determine when the S. Prassede panels might have entered the pavement; the Cosmatesque pavement in the presbytery was probably laid in the early twelfth century, but was restored ca. 1489–1503 and in 1742.75 Certainly, they are not unambiguous evidence for a medieval reluctance to place crosses underfoot even when hidden. In the later medieval West, there is evidence that heightened sensitivity regarding the presence of the sacred underfoot was understood as an indication of particular piety. In the Beati Ludovici vita, King Louis IX of France (r. 1226–70) is said to have “held the sign (signaculum) of the holy cross in such reverence that he feared to walk (calcare) on it; and he instructed many religious houses that crosses should no longer be sculpted on tomb-slabs in their cloisters and that those already sculpted should be penitently erased.”76 Whether or not this injunction was actually issued, the premise of the anecdote is that others were less concerned about treading on crosses on tomb slabs set into the pavement, and the widespread inclusion of the sign of the cross on surviving slabs confirms general toleration of what might be thought of as incidental trampling. The king’s compunction in this respect has to be seen in the context of his acquisition of a relic of the True Cross, housed with other relics of the Passion in the SainteChapelle, and his participation in rituals of veneration of the Cross on occasions such as Good Friday and the Feast of the Exaltation.77 In an illustrated copy of his vernacular Life by William of Saint-Pathus, Louis was depicted prostrate before a crucifi x, crowned, haloed, and clad in a brown habit.78 As this image suggests, the account of Louis’s attitude to pavement crosses also has to be understood in the light of the king’s canonization in 1297. That pronounced concern to prevent desecration underfoot was an appropriate saintly attribute is confirmed by a story told of St. Francis of Assisi in Bonaventure’s Legenda maior of 1262/63. Bonaventure reports that St. Francis told the friars to “gather

74. Cited in John Osborne, “A Possible Colonna Family Stemma in the Church of Santa Prassede, Rome,” in A Wider Trecento: Studies in 13th- and 14th-Century European Art Presented to Julian Gardner, ed. Louise Bordua and Robert Gibbs, Visualising the Middle Ages 5 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), esp. 23; on the other spoliated material, see Osborne, “A Carolingian Agnus Dei Relief from Mola di Monte Gelato, near Rome,” Gesta 33, no. 2 (1994): 73–78. 75. Glass, Studies on Cosmatesque Pavements, 123–24. 76. “In tantam etiam reverentiam habebat signaculum sanctæ Crucis quod desuper calcare cavebat; et a pluribus religiosis exegit ut in claustris eorum in tumbis cruces non sculperentur de cetero, et jam insculptæ penitus raderentur”; Beati Ludovici vita e veteri lectionario extracta, 8, ed. Joseph Noël de Wailly, Léopold Delisle, and Charles Jourdain, in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, vol. 23 (Paris: Welter, 1894), esp. 164. 77. On Louis’s possession of the Cross relic, see Barbara Baert, A Heritage of Holy Wood: The Legend of the True Cross in Text and Image, trans. Lee Preedy (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 185–87. 78. Paris, BnF, MS Fr. 5716, fol. 63r.

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all pieces of paper wherever they were found and to place them in a clean place so that if that sacred name happened to be written there, it would not be trodden underfoot.”79 Here avoidance of desecration is an extension of the saint’s intense desire to honor the name of God, which found more active expression in the way that he spoke it, but in common with Louis’s concern for the cross there is also the implication that others were not so careful. Given the interest of King Louis in the mendicant orders, and theirs in him, it is probable that both the king and his biographers or hagiographers partly modelled his behavior on that of St. Francis.80 William of Saint-Pathus was a member of the Franciscan Order, and Chiara Frugoni has identified several parallels between his Life of Louis (1302–3) and Bonaventure’s Life of Francis, including the fact that both men are described as sitting on the bare ground.81 Correspondences between the Beati Ludovici vita and Bonaventure’s Legenda maior may also be due to emulation. However, both instances are part of a much wider tendency to use what people were or were not prepared to walk on to imply something about their identity, often in terms of a distinction between them and others.

Deliberate Disdain If walking on sacred subject matter could be seen by some to denigrate it, those who commissioned church pavements that included such imagery can be assumed not to have shared this view. However, where overtly Christological or hagiographical material was avoided, perhaps for this reason, it is necessary to ask what the implications of this sensitivity were for what was included in the pavement. Was its position underfoot intended to express a negative attitude to what was represented, or did material that resulted in less of a gulf between the status of treader and trodden on simply not inspire connotations of trampling? The interpretation of what was included in pavement decoration, and thus trodden on, is also affected by the wider status of the image in particular visual cultures. As we have seen, within Christianity, some care was taken to avoid particularly sacred symbols on the floor. Conversely, religious traditions that placed restrictions on the depiction of living beings might permit their inclusion in floor decoration because

79. “Fratribus persuasit aliquando, ut omnes schedulas scriptas, ubicumque repertas colligerent mundoque loco reponerent, ne forte sacrum illud nomen ibi scriptum contingeret conculcari”; Bonaventure, Legenda maior, 10.6, in Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis saeculis XIII et XIV conscriptae, Analecta Franciscana, 10 (Quaracchi: Ex Typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1926–41), 604; trans. Regis J. Armstrong, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short, Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 4 vols. (New York: City Press, 1999–2002), 2:609. 80. On the relationship between Louis IX and the Franciscans, see M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis: Kingship, Sanctity, and Crusade in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008), esp. 154–80. 81. Chiara Frugoni, “Saint Louis et Saint François,” Médiévales 34 (1998): 35–38.

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this position underfoot indicated an absence of veneration.82 Noting the inclusion of Jewish symbols on many synagogue floor mosaics and a relative lack of iconoclastic damage, Rachel Hachlili has suggested that “Jews regarded the synagogue floor as a place to walk and tread on; the decoration, albeit with meaning and importance, was not sacred and the local community tolerated even the hand of God to be depicted on the Beth ’Alpha pavement. They might even have purposely rendered the biblical scenes on the pavement to intensify the feeling that the ornamentation was not sacred and should not be worshipped.”83 In medieval Christian pavement decoration, it is hard to identify elements that were unambiguously designed from the beginning to be trampled. At S. Nicola at Bari, mentioned above, it seems probable that the pseudo-Arabic script in the borders of the sanctuary pavement did not have immediate associations with Islam, but rather evoked the design of precious textiles. More specifically, Clare Vernon has proposed that it may have referenced a tent captured from Kerbogha of Mosul by Bohemond, given to the basilica in 1098 and potentially used as a floor covering there, which might still suggest a triumphal mode.84 However, precious textiles and their evocations in other media were associated with sacred space more generally, and so the design may have heightened the sacrality of the altar zone. The particular motif had also developed apotropaic connotations.85 On the other hand, while there do not seem to be any explicit depictions of all four beasts of Psalm 90 (91) in surviving floor decoration, it is certainly possible that some representations of real or imaginary animals allowed the person treading on them to enact a triumphal trampling or repudiation along the lines of contemporary representations. One example might be the seven-headed beast of the Apocalypse from the midtwelfth-century mosaic at S. Evasio, Casale Monferrato (Piedmont) (fig. 34).86 Another is the basilisk facing a unicorn in the roughly contemporary floor mosaic of S. Benedetto Po (Lombardy) (fig. 35), interpreted by Paolo Piva as an allusion to the investiture

82. Finbarr Barry Flood, “Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm, and the Museum,” Art Bulletin 84, no. 4 (2002): esp. 644, 656 n. 32. 83. Hachlili, Ancient Mosaic Pavements, 217. Similarly, Rina Talgam has suggested that depictions of biblical scenes and sacred utensils were placed underfoot in synagogues “to make it clear that the visual representation is but a faint shadow of the original”; Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 412. 84. Clare Vernon, “Pseudo-Arabic and the Material Culture of the First Crusade in Norman Italy: The Sanctuary Mosaic at San Nicola in Bari,” Open Library of the Humanities 4, no. 1 (2018): 1–43. http:// doi.org/10.16995/olh.252. 85. Vernon, “Visual Culture in Norman Puglia,” 150–51; Vernon, “Pseudo-Arabic and the Material Culture of the First Crusade in Norman Italy,” 25–26. 86. Enrichetta Cecchi Gattolin, “I tessellati romanici a figure del duomo di San Evasio a Casal Monferrato,” in De Benedictis, Scritti di storia dell’arte in onore di Roberto Salvini, 37–44; Elena Pianea, “Il mosaico pavimentale romanico dell’antico duomo,” in Il duomo di Casale Monferrato: Storia, arte e vita liturgica. Atti del convegno di Casale Monferrato, 16–18 aprile, 1999 (Novara: Interlinea, 2000), 119–35, fig. 10; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 311–12, fig. 121.

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Fig. 34. Seven-headed beast of the Apocalypse, fragment of mosaic pavement now mounted on the wall, S. Evasio, Casale Monferrato, twelfth century. Photo: Ermanno Orcorte.

controversy.87 Similarly, although there is also no clear surviving representation of trampling on decorated paving, it is possible that scenes of combat between the virtues and vices, as in the early twelfth-century mosaic in the Camposanto in Cremona and that from the cathedral of S. Maria del Popolo in Pavia, both in Lombardy, contained an invitation to participate on the side of the former.88 Certainly in the scene of Fides triumphing over Discordia at Cremona, Faith’s foot suggestively overlaps the robe of

87. Piva, Secoli di Polirone, 1:77–78; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 330–31, figs. 190–91. 88. Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 306–7, fig. 104, for Cremona; 319–20, fig. 141, for Pavia. On the latter, see also Giuliana Guidoni Guidi, “I mosaici medievali di Pavia: La basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo,” in Studi in memoria di Giuseppe Bovini, vol. 1, ed. Rafaella Farioli Campanati, Biblioteca di “Felix Ravenna” 6 (Ravenna: Girasole, 1989), 275–96.

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Fig. 35. Unicorn and basilisk, presbytery pavement, chapel of S. Maria, S. Benedetto Po, twelfth century. Photo: Lucy Donkin.

Fig. 36. Fides triumphing over Discordia, Camposanto floor mosaic, Cremona Cathedral, twelfth century. Photo: Lucy Donkin.

Discord (fig. 36); the patches of missing tesserae, however, are only some of the losses that this work has sustained and are unlikely to result from denigratory actions. Along the same lines, it has been suggested by Christine Ungruh that treading on the depictions of Satan, “Infernus,” and the doors of hell in the floor mosaic of Otranto Cathedral emulated and evoked the Anastasis.89 If standing on such images was indeed understood in these ways, this must have been a targeted action restricted to specific figures, rather than applying to the surface as a whole, since other elements in the mosaics have clearly

89. Ungruh, Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale von Otranto, 95. This example will be discussed further in the following chapter.

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positive connotations; in other words treading could have been construed differently within different areas of a single composition or church interior. The fact that decorated paving did not explicitly employ the iconography of trampling is noteworthy given that other works do invoke Psalm 90 (91) in such a way as to juxtapose image and body. The marble footstools of the late thirteenth-century papal thrones at S. Francesco in Assisi (fig. 37) and the Lateran Basilica in Rome both include low reliefs of the four beasts, and clearly draw on the textual and visual traditions examined above.90 Indeed the example at Assisi includes the worn inscription “Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis et conculcabis leonem et draconem” immediately above the animals. The reliefs are located on the front of the slab, so when the pope sat in the throne, sculpted beasts and papal body together gave the viewer a vision of an enthroned figure with the beasts under his feet. However, with the beasts depicted on the vertical face of the slab and the upper face left undecorated, there was actually no contact between the pope’s feet and the images. The point of the ensemble is thus more to stage an impression of trampling, and evoke two-dimensional representations, than to enact it in three dimensions. Some kind of precedent may be found in the reemployment of parts of a sculpted architrave with fantastic animals as the sanctuary step in the church of S. Giovanni a Porta Latina in Rome, possibly carried out under Pope Celestine III in 1191; here too the animals are on the vertical plane.91 In the Assisi and Lateran thrones the combination made particular reference to Christ enthroned and trampling the beasts. If, as Ingo Herklotz has argued, the earlier Lateran frescoes of the popes using their antipopes as footstools were a novel visualization that cast the former as the vicar of Christ and the latter as the antichrist, the thrones gave the pope a yet more explicitly Christological complexion. While thirteenth-century papal conceptions of the role were conducive to this heightened status, the fact that the allusion is created through ephemeral conjunctions of artwork and body rather than a permanent single image suggests that it was nevertheless a delicate matter. The fact that the four beasts of the psalm are not found on surviving floors may thus be because treading on them would have been too Christ-like an action to be performed generally. Equally, such a clear reference to the iconographical tradition may have been particularly appropriate for a work concerned with creating an impression of trampling on the vertical plane. The absence of unambiguous references to Psalm 90 (91) does not then rule out the possibility that treading on images of figures with negative connotations on the horizontal surface of the decorated pavement had some overtones of trampling.

90. Both thrones are discussed in Herklotz, “Beratungsräume Calixtus’ II.,” 190–91; on the Assisi throne, see Giorgio Bonsanti, ed., La basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi, 4 vols. (Modena: Panini, 2002), Schede, 575–76; Atlante, 1000–1, figs. 1915, 1919. 91. Claudia Bolgia, “Celestine III’s Relic Policy and Artistic Patronage in Rome,” in Pope Celestine III (1191–1198): Diplomat and Pastor, ed. John Doran and Damian J. Smith (Farnham: Ashgate, 2008), 256–58, fig. 8; I am grateful to Claudia Bolgia for drawing this example to my attention.

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Fig. 37. Detail of the four animals of Psalm 90 (91), papal throne, 1280–1290. S. Francesco, Assisi. Photo: SD004658: S. Diller/www.assisi.de.

If some images with negative connotations within wider decorative paving schemes may have been conceived in this way from the beginning, in several religious traditions elements of paving or floor coverings that were intended to be denigrated through their position underfoot had originally been created for other contexts. Their presence in or on the floor is thus part of a wider transformation of status and function, often involving a move from a vertical position to a horizontal one. Like the interpretation of imagery on synagogue floors, this treatment could simply indicate that the images were not being worshipped. Islamic Hadith collections contain provisions for the treatment of figurative imagery whereby figurative hangings could be neutralized by being turned into floor cushions.92 However, such repurposing often had a more polemical intent, coming in the context of regime change, conversion, or religious conflict. Where the status of images was disputed within a religion, their use as paving served to both protest and prevent their veneration. During the Reformation, statues from Zurich’s churches were broken up into cobblestones, demonstrating their material nature in keeping with opposition to the place of “idols” in worship.93 Equally, the integration of spoliated objects and images into paving could demonstrate disdain for the figure or symbol represented, and the people who valued it, without expressing any concern regarding representation itself. Reusing material as paving is part of the wider phenomenon of spolia, in which the balance between pragmatism and meaningful reuse, and between positive and negative attitudes to the material reemployed, is often a matter of debate.94 Where the evidence

92. Flood, “Between Cult and Culture,” 644. 93. Lee Palmer Wandel, Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 97. 94. The bibliography on this topic is substantial, but reuse as paving is not discussed as a separate category. Studies include Joseph Alchermes, “Spolia in Roman Cities of the Late Empire: Legislative Rationales and Architectural Reuse,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 48 (1994): 167–78; Dale Kinney, “Spolia:

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for reuse of this kind is only material, it can be difficult to determine the extent to which denigration was intended; even when an ideological reason is given in a text, it may accompany or mask a more prosaic rationale. Nevertheless, there is evidence that reuse underfoot raised particular issues, and it is useful to consider examples alongside accounts that claim deliberate denigration. The following discussion therefore traces the potentially pointed reuse of material as floor coverings in Classical and Late Antiquity, within both pagan and Judeo-Christian contexts, and in medieval Islam, where the practice seems to be concentrated. In Classical Antiquity, there are some instances of the reuse of portraits in pavements. These cases have been discussed in the context of damnatio memoriae, in which images of prominent figures were defaced or destroyed after they had fallen from power. For example, a head of Julia Mammaea, with eyeballs gouged out, was reused in the decumanus at Ostia, while a relief of Nero and Agrippina was placed facedown in the floor of a shop in the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias (fig. 38).95 Although characterizing the reuse as “utilitarian,” Eric Varner has suggested that “the use of images as paving stones may also have had a further denigrative intent against the memory of the condemned as people literally trampled the portraits underfoot.”96 The mutilation of the head is a clear sign of damnatio memoriae, while the removal of the Nero relief was part of a wider denigration of the emperor’s memory at Aphrodisias, which saw the erasure of his name from a less distinctive portrait in the same location. However, it is debatable to what extent the reuse was part of this process of condemnation, especially since the relief may have undergone secondary use before finally being employed as paving. Certainly, the use of the images as paving is consistent with wider patterns of damnatio memoriae, and it is not impossible that there was some ideological underpinning to reuse that served humble, practical ends. While some images of emperors were recut to show the features of their successors, and so might have served as a reminder of their overthrow at the same time as preserving valuable material, many others were disposed of completely, erasing the memory of the person concerned. The manner of disposal could add insult to injury, and—like defacement—echo the treatment of humans, with some statues being thrown into water as was the case with the bodies of those who died in the arena. Reuse in paving made practical use of the material while removing the image from view

Damnatio and renovatio memoriae,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 42 (1997): 117–48; Bryan Ward-Perkins, “Reusing the Architectural Legacy of the Past, entre idéologie et pragmatisme,” in The Idea and Ideal of the Town between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. G. P. Brogliolo and Bryan Ward-Perkins (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 225–44; Ideologie e pratiche del reimpiego nell’Alto Medioevo, 16–21 aprile, 1998, 2 vols., Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo 46 (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1999); Maria Fabricius Hansen, The Eloquence of Appropriation: Prolegomena to an Understanding of Spolia in Early Christian Rome (Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 2003). 95. Eric R. Varner, Mutilation and Transformation: “Damnatio Memoriae” and Roman Imperial Portraiture (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 5, 73–74, 197. 96. Varner, Mutilation and Transformation, 5.

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Fig. 38. Nero and Agrippina, 54–59 AD, reused as paving in the Sebasteion, Aphrodisias. Aphrodisias Museum. Photo: New York University Excavations at Aphrodisias (G. Petruccioli).

in a humiliating fashion, which called to mind representations of trampled, defeated enemies. Of course, where nothing of an image was visible and its placement lacked mnemonic potential, any awareness that it was being trampled was likely to be highly limited and soon lost entirely. Yet it is possible that the thought of future trampling brought added satisfaction at the moment of reuse. The trampling of an imperial image could also express opposition to a living individual and to Rome more generally. Famously, a bronze head of Augustus, which may date to ca. 25–21 BC, was found underneath the porch of a cult building dedicated to Amûn in Meroe (Sudan).97 In the opinion of László Török, the head was “buried with a hostile magical intention” in the context of

97. László Török, Meroe City: An Ancient African Capital. John Garstang’s Excavations in the Sudan, 2 vols. (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1997), 1:145–51; 2: plates 109–10.

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the Meroitic–Roman war.98 This interpretation would suggest that walking over the head was regarded as effective whether or not people knew it was there, though the building’s wall paintings included enthroned deities with their feet on footstools decorated with images of kneeling prisoners, which may have preserved a memory of what lay beneath. The burial of the head in a medium too precious for use as construction material is suggestive of ancient magical practices more generally and is thus somewhat removed from the issue of paving under consideration here. If the reuse of this material underfoot was indeed intended negatively, the insult was principally directed at the people represented, eliding image with prototype. However, for some groups, the reuse as paving of figurative material—especially representations of divinities—was understood to denude an image of its power, demonstrating its status as an image and establishing its purely decorative function. The reuse of sculpted material as paving in Antiquity is discussed by some rabbinical laws concerning idolatry, which were specifically concerned with circumstances in which Jews were allowed to use iconic material. Thus one baraita states that “if a Gentile has brought hermae and paved roads and squares with them, they are permitted.” 99 The Babylonian Talmud deals with a similar situation, recounting that “when the palace of King Jannay was in ruins, there came Gentiles and set up a statue of Mercury in it. Then other Gentiles, who were not worshippers of Mercury, came and took the stones and paved roads and squares with them.” In this case, however, rabbinical opinion was divided: “There are some Rabbis who turn aside and others who do not turn aside. R. Johanan said: The sons of the holy ones walk on them, and we shall turn aside?”100 The passage has been seen to employ the example of the pious early third-century Rabbi Nahum, for whom the stones had been “sufficiently removed from idolatrous worship” that the streets paved with them could be used, in order to fend off more stringent views that would have barred Jewish access to these streets.101 These cases should not be regarded as evidence that the Gentile reusers of the material intended deliberately to denigrate the figures, though neither are they likely to have held them in any great esteem. At the same time, the sources suggest that the figures had nevertheless been denigrated or nullified from at least one Jewish perspective. The rabbinical legislation more broadly deals with the way in which iconic material could be rendered permissible for Jewish purchase or use by first being dese-

98. Török, Meroe City, 1:150, n. 452. 99. E. E. Urbach, “The Rabbinical Laws of Idolatry in the Second and Third Centuries in the Light of Archaeological and Historical Facts,” Israel Exploration Journal 9 (1959): 233, citing Bab Talmud, Abodah Zarah, 42a. 100. Urbach, “Rabbinical Laws of Idolatry,” 233–34, citing Bab Talmud, Abodah Zarah 50a. 101. Steven Fine, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 114, who gives the passage as “The palace of King Yanni was in ruins. Gentiles came and set up a Mercury there (and worshipped it). Other Gentiles who did not worship Mercury came and removed them, and paved the roads and streets with them. Some sages refrained [from walking on them], and there are some sages who did not refrain [from walking on them]. Said Rabbi Johanan: The son of the holy ones walks on them, shall we abstain?”

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crated by a Gentile, whether deliberately or unintentionally, divesting it of any divine significance. What was considered to constitute desecration could range from mutilation, through the toppling of statues, to the act of sale alone. The two cases cited indicate that being turned into paving could also count. Indeed, in one manuscript a marginal note regarding the second case comments: “This is proof [that] a Gentile may desecrate the idol [of] his friend, even if they are not worshippers of the same [idol].”102 The fact that paving was walked on may well have contributed to characterizing material reused in this way as sufficiently desecrated, since it demonstrated that the figure was no longer worshipped. Yet, the act of walking here seems to constitute Jewish use of the material rather than additional denigration. At least, the rabbinical difference of opinion suggests that for those who opposed the reuse of figurative material, even if it had been desecrated by a Gentile, the fact that such material would be trodden on by Jews when laid down as paving made no difference, despite the potential for other actions such as averting the eyes or spitting to signal disdain for problematic images.103 There is archaeological evidence that Jewish communities could themselves employ pagan, figurative spoliated material as paving. Excavations at Sardis revealed that a stele depicting Artemis and Cybele (fig. 39), dating from the fourth century BC, had been laid facedown in the forecourt of the synagogue during the later fourth century AD. The excavators discussed this with reference to Psalm 90 (91), while pointing out that “few . . . would know after a while that they were trampling on these abominations as the righteous man on the asp and the basilisk.”104 However, in the light of the texts, it may be that the removal of the relief from its original cult setting, presumably by the Christian authorities, was enough to allow the stone to be used as building material, and its use beneath the floor surface had little or no further significance. Finbarr Barry Flood has suggested that some Jewish writing that banned figurative sculpture nevertheless allowed figurative floor mosaics because they were trodden on.105 The passage in question—in the eighth- or ninth-century Targum Pseudo-Jonathan for Leviticus 26:1—focuses on the function of the images, contrasting bowing down to a “figured stone” with avoiding veneration of images on paving, without specifying that these were neutralized by being trampled.106 While the position of figurative paving underfoot may

102. Urbach, “Rabbinical Laws of Idolatry,” 234. 103. On these and other examples of Jewish responses to public images, see Fine, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World, 110–18. 104. Andrew R. Seager and A. Thomas Kraabel, “The Synagogue and the Jewish Community,” in Sardis from Prehistoric to Roman Times: Results of the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, 1958–1975, ed. George M. A. Hanfmann (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 171–73 for the dating, 176 for the relief. Deliberate trampling is implied in Flood, “Between Cult and Culture,” 658 n. 92. 105. Flood, “Between Cult and Culture,” 656 n. 32. 106. “You shall not set up a figured stone in your land, to bow down to it, but a mosaic pavement of designs and forms you may set in the floor of your places of worship, so long as you do not do obeisance to it”; Urbach, “Rabbinical Laws of Idolatry,” 237 n. 89; Flood, “Between Cult and Culture,” 656 n. 32; for discussion of the passage, see also Steven Fine, “Iconoclasm and the Art of Late-Antique Palestinian Synagogues,” in From Dura to Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish Art and Society in Late Antiquity, ed. Lee I.

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Fig. 39. Relief of Artemis and Cybele, ca. 400 BC, reused in the pavement of the synagogue forecourt at Sardis in the fourth century AD. Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, inv. no. 3937. Photo: Yapı Kredi Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul, The Lydians and Their World, cat no. 35.

thus have contributed to the acceptance of images here, it is the potential for another form of bodily contact that seems to be at issue. Steven Fine has placed the passage in the context of a wider concern about prostration on figurative pavements stemming from the prohibition in Leviticus 26:1: “figured stone you shall not place in your land to

Levine and Zeev Weiss, Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplementary Series, 40 (Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2000), 183–94.

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bow down upon it.”107 Apparently applying “figured stone” to floor mosaics, some third-century rabbis avoided prostration or bowed sideways, while others used a particular place. The Tannaim had banned prostration on anything other than the stones of the Temple.108 Fine suggests that these stones were understood as mosaics by the authors of the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, who built on this exception to defend figurative mosaics in synagogues at a time when these were under attack. Material from pagan cult sites was also reused as paving by Christians. However, where the Jewish legislation suggests that Gentile “desecration” allowed an essentially pragmatic use of the material by Jews, denuding it of any resonance, this act has been seen to have functioned as an expression of Christian triumph. In Gerasa ( Jerash, Jordan), where a church complex was constructed on the site of a temple in the fourth century, an inscription honoring three priestesses was cut up and reused in the fifth-century pavement of the Fountain Court between the church of St. Theodore and the cathedral, part of a wider display of repurposed inscribed material credited with triumphalist connotations.109 Material may also have been taken to pave more public spaces. A prominent example is the reuse of marble from the Marneion in Gaza to pave the street in front of the temple, after its destruction in 402 and the decision to build a church on the site. The Greek Life of Porphyry of Gaza, which describes the reuse, indicates that this was done so that the marble should be trodden on not only by men, but also by women and by animals including dogs and pigs.110 The stone, regarded as sacred, came from an area inaccessible to women, which might imply the room containing the cult statue of Marnas.111 Once the paving was in place, most of the adherents of the cult, especially women, avoided treading on the marble. Using the Life of Porphyry to reconstruct the reuse of sacred material as paving in the early fifth century is, however, fraught with difficulties. One issue is the possible mismatch between the act of reusing the marble and the explanation proffered; Bryan Ward-Perkins has suggested that the text may provide a “post facto and flattering” explanation for the pragmatic reuse of valuable construction material.112 Certainly, an imperial edict of 397 stipulated that building material from

107. Fine, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World, 120–21. 108. See, however, Gerald J. Blidstein, “Prostration and Mosaics in Talmudic Law,” Bulletin of the Institute of Jewish Studies 2 (1974): 19–39, who argues that this proscription of the action was not informed by the surface on which it was performed. 109. Jason Moralee, “The Stones of St Theodore: Disfiguring the Pagan Past in Christian Gerasa,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 14, no. 2 (2006): 201–2 fig. 4. 110. Mark the Deacon, Life of Porphyry of Gaza, 76, ed. and trans. Henri Grégoire and M.-A. Kugener, Marc le diacre: Vie de Porphyre éveque de Gaza (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1930), 60–61; trans. G. F. Hill, The Life of Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 87. 111. K. Preisendanz, “Marna, Marnas,” in Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. Georg Wissova and Wilhelm Kroll (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1930), esp. cols. 1901–5. 112. Ward-Perkins, “Reusing the Architectural Legacy of the Past,” esp. 233 n. 18. For a discussion of the Marneion in the context of the reuse of other sites and material, with consideration of practical and theological interpretations, see also Saradi-Mendelovici, “Christian Attitudes toward Pagan Monuments,” esp. 54; Moralee, “Stones of St Theodore,” 205.

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demolished temples should be reused for public works such as roads and bridges.113 Another, more specific, issue is the disputed status of the Life of Porphyry, which survives in the Greek version cited above and in a shorter Georgian version, itself a translation of a lost Syriac text.114 Of particular relevance here is the fact that the two versions treat the Marneion differently: the Georgian version states that stones from the temple were reused in the foundations of the church, but does not include any reference to the reuse of material as paving.115 Some scholars understand both texts to derive from a common Syriac source.116 In this case, the lack of reference to the paving in the Georgian text raises the possibility that this was not discussed in the source but was added when the Greek translation was made or stems from a misunderstanding of the Syriac (although it is also possible that the Georgian Life omitted a detail present in the Syriac version).117 For Paul Peeters, who edited the Georgian Life, this common Syriac source dated back only to the sixth century, but Zeev Rubin has argued that it could be one step removed from an authentic original. In contrast, Frank Trombley understands the original version of the Life to have been in Greek, composed shortly after 415.118 If this was the case, it would make it more likely that the discussion of the paving was already present in the original. However, the extant Greek version cannot be earlier than 444–45, since part of its prologue is taken from that of Theodoret of Cyrus’s History of the Monks of Syria. Currently then, it is not possible to be sure that the original version of the Life of Porphyry described the repaving. All that can be said is that if the description in the extant Greek version does represent an addition to the tradition, it is one that is likely to have seemed broadly plausible to the author and intended readers in the fifth or sixth century. There is an important literary precedent for trampling as an illustration of the overthrow of paganism and the desanctification of pagan spaces, which could have been available to both the protagonists at Gaza and the authors of the Life of Porphyry. In a

113. Theodosian Code, 15.1.36, ed. Mommsen, Meyer, and Krueger, trans. Rougé and Delmaire, Code Théodosien I–XV, 368. 114. The Georgian Life is edited and translated into Latin in Paul Peeters, “La vie géorgienne de Saint Porphyre de Gaza,” Analecta bollandiana 59 (1941): 65–216. For an overview of the debate that reserves judgment, see J. W. Childers, “The Georgian Life of Porphyry of Gaza,” in “Ascetica, Gnostica, Liturgica, Orientalia: Papers Presented at the Thirteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford 1999,” special issue, Studia patristica 35 (2001): 374–84. 115. Life of Porphyry of Gaza (Georgian), 79, ed. and trans. Peeters, “Vie géorgienne,” 191. 116. Peeters, “Vie géorgienne,” 65–100; Ramsay MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire (A.D. 100–400) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 86–87; Zeev Rubin, “Porphyrius of Gaza and the Confl ict between Christianity and Paganism in Southern Palestine,” in Sharing the Sacred: Religious Contacts and Conflicts in the Holy Land, First–Fifteenth Centuries CE, ed. Arieh Kofsky and Guy G. Stroumsa (Jerusalem: Yaz Izhak Ben Zvi, 1998), 31–66. 117. For the possibility that the reuse of the marble as paving derives from a misunderstanding, see Rubin, “Porphyrius of Gaza,” 45, n. 35. 118. Frank R. Trombley, Hellenic Religion and Christianization, c. 370–529, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1993–94), 1:246–82.

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chapter of the Life of Constantine devoted to the campaign against idolatry, Eusebius had described how the destruction of temples and the exposure of their cult objects as lifeless led pagans to ridicule what they once had worshipped. Part of this process was the penetration and demystification of interior spaces, when “forbidden innermost sanctuaries of temples were trodden by soldiers’ feet.”119 This passage fi nds correspondences in the Life of Porphyry’s account of the marble from the Marneion, and by implication its inner sanctum, being used for the paving of a public place. Although the first involves unauthorized individuals gaining access to a restricted place and the second sees the components of such a place brought outside, both feature a disruption of the proper relationship between interior and exterior. The act of treading adds further force to this spatial disruption, targeted at the sensibilities of non-Christians, although the audiences of the texts are Christian. In the Life of Constantine, the reference to the feet of the soldiers emphasizes their presence and perhaps invokes associations of trampling in military triumphs. It also acts out common metaphors of triumph over paganism, as found in Eusebius’s Historia ecclesiastica, where he states that Christian emperors now can “spit upon the faces of dead idols, trample upon the unhallowed rites of demons.”120 In the Greek Life of Porphyry, the relationship between the material on the floor and those who walked on it is slightly different. The marble is not used to pave the new church, where it would have been trodden only by Christians (as seems likely to have been the case at Gerasa), but instead is placed outside. On the one hand, this treatment maximizes the trampling to which it is exposed, involving animals as well as people of both sexes. The emphasis here is thus as much on pollution as on triumph, which may also be the case in the description of the burning of the temple with a mixture of wax, sulfur, and pig fat. Restrictions on entry into some earlier Greek sanctuary sites did involve proscribing certain animals and animal products; it was forbidden, for example, to enter the sanctuary of Alectrona at Ialysus (Rhodes) with a pack animal, or wearing leather shoes or anything made from pigs.121 Without suggesting that specific rules operated at the Marneion, the circumstances of the reuse as described in the Greek Life of Porphyry suggest that it was understood as targeting the taboos of Marnas’s devotees. At the same time, and perhaps most importantly, the public placement of the marble also co-opts the worshippers of Marnas in its pollution, and thus involves the conversion of people alongside that of the material. Leading people to tread on what was holy to them sought to demonstrate something about the object trampled and the validity of the

119. “Ἄβατά τε καὶ ἄδυτα ἱερῶν τε τά ἐνδοτάτω στρατιωτικοῖς κατεπατεῖτο βήμασιν”; Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 3.57.4, ed. and trans. Schneider, 386; trans. Cameron and Hall, 146. 120. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 10.4.16, ed. and trans. Kirsopp Lake, J.E.L. Oulton, and H. J. Lawlor, 2 vols., Loeb Classical Library 153, 265 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926–32), 2:406–7. 121. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées des cités grecques, 233–35, no. 136; Parker, Miasma, 145, 176–77; Eran Lupu, Greek Sacred Law: A Collection of New Documents, Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 152 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 14–16.

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rationale for its sanctity, with implications for their own religious identity. Part of putting someone in this situation was persuasive, along the lines of the Life of Constantine; indeed, an earlier passage in the Georgian version of the Life of Porphyry anticipates that “when they see [the temples] treated with contempt, they will of their own accord quit their errors.”122 Equally, it is possible that carrying out the act of trampling was itself in some way understood to effect a change in status. In early Greek religion, pollution was understood to rebound on the polluter.123 Ultimately, we cannot know whether the marble was actually relaid, and if so, how far deliberate desecration was a motivating factor. However, within the world of the text, the episode is as much about people standing on things sacred to them as about people standing on things sacred to others. Despite having a different aim, the phenomenon of trampling on something from one’s own religious tradition displays some correspondences with the Late Antique Jewish regulations. In the fifth and sixth centuries, which saw the widespread destruction of classical statuary, some examples were placed where they could be walked on. In a house in Athens, a decapitated statue of Athena was placed face down in front of a raised threshold, where it could be used as a step (fig. 40). This treatment has been seen as part of a wider Christianization of the decoration of the house in the early sixth century, including the defacement of a sculptural frieze and the replacement of the central panel of a mosaic pavement with a cruciform pattern (fig. 41).124 There is a certain tension between reading the placement of the statue underfoot as a deliberate humiliation, while interpreting the cruciform design, which could also be walked on, as a Christian motif.125 Nevertheless, it is possible that the design, which consists of a large cross with equal arms separating four panels of geometric opus sectile, was valued primarily as aniconic; equally, the existence of crosses in church pavements in this period shows that they could be stepped on without this being considered as desecration. Potentially, we should think about in-

122. Life of Porphyry of Gaza (Georgian), 41, ed. and trans. Peeters, “Vie géorgienne,” 153–55. The perceived effect of temple destruction in encouraging conversion is discussed in MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire, 99–100; for the English translation, see 163 n. 40. 123. Parker, Miasma, 145. 124. T. Leslie Shear Jr., “The Athenian Agora: Excavations of 1971,” Hesperia: Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 42, no. 2 (1973): 161–64. The idea of Christianization is rejected in Jean-Pierre Sodini, “L’habitat urbain en Grèce à la veille des invasions,” in Villes et peuplement dans l’Illyricum protobyzantin, Collection de l’École française de Rome 77 (Rome: École française de Rome, 1984), 348–49; but followed in Béatrice Caseau, “ΠΟΛΕΜΕΙΝ ΛΙΘΟΙΣ: La désacralisation des espaces et des objets religieux païens durant l’Antiquité tardive,” in Le sacré et son inscription dans l’espace à Byzance et en Occident, ed. Michel Kaplan (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2001), esp. 114–15. On Christian destruction and desecration of pagan images, see also John Pollini, “The Archaeology of Destruction: Christians, Images of Classical Antiquity, and Some Problems of Interpretation,” in The Archaeology of Violence: Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. Sarah Ralph, The Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology, Proceedings 2 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2013), 241–67. 125. The pavement is illustrated in T. Leslie Shear Jr., “The Athenian Agora: Excavations of 1970,” Hesperia: Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 40, no. 3 (1971): plate 55b; 59b for the statue of Athena.

Fig. 40. Statue of Athena, second century AD, reused as step in Room 12, Roman House H, Areopagos Hill. Agora Museum, Athens. Photo: American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

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Fig. 41. Mosaic floor with later insertion in triclinium, Room 3, Roman House H, Areopagos Hill, Athens. Photo: American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

tention playing a part in the significance of the action. Violence against statues in this period has been compared to earlier practices of damnatio memoriae.126 It seems likely that some continuity can also be seen in the incorporation of pagan images into paving. In Late Antiquity therefore, there is archaeological evidence to suggest that Christians might convert pagan objects into paving, as a sign of triumph and conversion, enough to make the idea of trampling on sacred marble at least plausible. So far, this discussion has concentrated on the Judeo-Christian reuse of pagan material in Late Antiquity. During the Middle Ages, the practice of reusing—as paving— material sacred to another religion seems to have been particularly developed in the Islamic world. Some instances involve pre-Islamic deities. For example, the ninth-century Book of Idols describes an Arabian idol being employed as the threshold of an entrance to a mosque.127 Visiting Mecca in 1183, Ibn Jubayr was told that the threshold of Ba¯b Bani Shayba was made up of idols worshipped by the Quraysh before the time of Islam. Although the writer considered this to be untrue, the idols in question having been destroyed by the Prophet Muhammad, he nevertheless gives a sense of the implica-

126. Caseau, “ΠΟΛΕΜΕΙΝ ΛΙΘΟΙΣ,” 117–21. 127. Nabih Amin Faris, trans., The Book of Idols, Being a Translation from the Arabic of the Kita¯b al-Asna . ¯m by Hisha¯m Ibn-al-Kalbi (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1952), 31; Flood, “Between Cult and Culture,” 650, n. 83.

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tions of the position: “prostrate they lie on their faces, trampled on by men and treated with the contempt of their slippers, unable to help themselves much less their worshippers.”128 At the same time, Muslim control over conquered areas was sometimes emphasized by placing alien religious symbols of contemporary groups where they would be trodden on, often at the point of entry into a town or mosque. Matthew of Edessa claims that after the Seljuks captured the Armenian capital of Ani in 1064, the large silver cross that surmounted the dome of the cathedral was taken down and built into the doorstep of a mosque in the city of Nakhichevan (Azerbaijan).129 After the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187, the cross that the crusaders had erected on the Dome of the Rock was sent to Baghdad, where, according to al-Maqrı¯ zı¯ , writing at the turn of the fourteenth century, it was “buried beneath the Ba¯b al-Nu¯bı¯ (Nubian gate) and thus was trodden upon.”130 Similarly, the thirteenth-century History of the Armenians by Kirakos Gandzakets‘i claims that prior to the sacking of Gandzak (Ganja, Azerbaijan) by the Mongols in 1220/21, the largely Iranian inhabitants had buried crosses under the threshold of the city gates “for abuse so that all passers-by would step on them.”131 This treatment is presented as part of a wider denigration of the cross and Christianity that would be punished, and indeed the trampling of the crosses is said to have stopped after an earthquake predicted the destruction of the city. However, despite the rhetorical use made of the practice here, the fact that it is described by both Christian and Muslim commentators suggests that it is not simply a slur. Moreover, archaeological evidence of the practice was found at Ghazni in Afghanistan, where excavations revealed a Jain tı¯ rthankara and a worn marble statue of Brahma (fig. 42), likely to have been set into a pavement.132 The finds have been related to a tradition that claimed the early eleventh-century Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmu¯d to have used pieces of the cult statue of Somnath in the threshold of the mosque and palace there.133 Similarly, linga were employed in a set of steps at the early

128. R. J. C. Broadhurst, trans., The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, 2nd ed. (New Delhi: Goodword Books, 2003), 109. 129. Matthew of Edessa, Chronicle, trans. Ara Edmond Dostourian, Armenia and the Crusades, Tenth to Twelfth Centuries: The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993), 103–4; I am grateful to Antony Eastmond for this reference. The episode is discussed in Jean Richard, The Crusades, c. 1071–c. 1291, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 13. 130. Al-Maqrı¯zı¯, Kita¯ b al-sulu¯k, trans. R. J. C. Broadhurst, A History of the Ayyu¯bid Sultans of Egypt, Library of Classical Arabic Literature 5 (Boston: Twayne, 1980), 89–90. 131. Robert Bedrosian, trans., Kirakos Gandzakets‘i’s History of the Armenians, chap. 21 (New York: Sources of the Armenian Tradition, 1986), 197–99; I owe this reference to Antony Eastmond. 132. On the excavations, see Umberto Scerrato, “The First Two Excavation Campaigns at Ghazni, 1957–1958: Summary Report on the Italian Archaeological Mission in Afghanistan, 2,” East and West 10 (1959): esp. 39–40, 46 fig. 39; Edgar Knobloch, The Art and Archaeology of Afghanistan (Stroud: Tempus, 2002), 116. 133. “Another part of the idol from Somanâth lies before the door of the mosque of Ghaznîn, on which people rub their feet to clean them from dirt and wet”; Edward C. Sachau, trans., Alberuni’s India: An Account of the Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronology, Astronomy, Customs, Laws and Astrology of India about A.D. 1030, 2 vols. in 1 (Delhi: Chand, 1964), 2:102–3. See also John Briggs, trans., History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India till the Year 1612, Translated from the Original Persian of

Fig. 42. Relief of Brahma, reused in the eleventh–twelfth century, Ghaznavid palace, Ghazni. National Museums of Afghanistan. Photo: Italian Archaeological Mission in Afghanistan. © IsIAO, neg. no. 480, inv. no. C276.

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Islamic mosque of Banbhore (Sind).134 It has been suggested that such trampling acted on multiple levels to conform to the prohibition against figurative imagery, draw parallels with early Islamic practice in Arabia, and enact a metaphor of triumphal trampling that was also part of the rhetoric of Muslim and Hindu rulers.135 Where the trampling by Muslims of Christian and Hindu material set into or under the pavement was primarily directed outward at these groups, that of pre-Islamic idols had a retrospective quality, speaking of conversion, which the act of treading both performed and confirmed. There is also some suggestion that trampling something once held dear could be thought to be part of a ritual of conversion to Islam. Ibn Jubayr tells the story of Andronicus Comnenus’s conversion from Christianity to Islam in the lands of the Seljuk sultan of Iconium, in which the convert “trampled beneath his feet” “a crucifix which had been heated by fire.” He goes on to say that this “according to their fashion, is the surest way of renouncing the Christian religion and giving allegiance to the faith of Islam.”136 The account, which Ibn Jubayr provides in the context of reporting the preparation of the Sicilian fleet in 1185 and is likely to have come from Sicilian sources, is confused in several respects; for instance, the convert was not Andronicus Comnenus but his brother, John. The practice of trampling a cross or crucifi x, though described as an established one, may therefore have been a feature of the Sicilian imagination of conversion. It is, however, described elsewhere in relation to the Seljuks. In the Georgian text known as The History and Eulogy of Monarchs, the “great Seljuk Sultan, by name of Nukradin” asks Queen Tamar (r. 1184–1210) to “trample down the cross which is your hope and adopt (the faith of) Mohammed,” although the phrase may be figurative.137 Moreover, Jean de Joinville’s Life of St. Louis, describing the treaty arranged between the king and the emirs at Damietta in 1250, states that the oath asked of the king initially included the formula—rejected by Louis—that if he violated the treaty he should be “as shamed as a Christian who denies God and His law, and who in despite of God

Mahomed Kasim Ferishta, 4 vols. (London: Longman, 1829), 1:71–73. The episode is analyzed in Richard H. Davis, Lives of Indian Images (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 91–109; Flood, “Between Cult and Culture,” 650; Finbarr Barry Flood, Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “Hindu-Muslim” Encounter (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 32–33, figs. 8–9. 134. S. M. Ashfaque, “The Grand Mosque of Banbhore,” Pakistan Archaeology 6 (1969): 198–99; Flood, “Between Cult and Culture,” 650, n. 83. 135. Flood, Objects of Translation, 32. 136. Broadhurst, Travels of Ibn Jubayr, 355. 137. The History and Eulogy of Monarchs, 43, trans. Dmitri Gamq’relidze, in The Georgian Chronicles of Kartlis Tskhovreba (A History of Georgia), ed. Stephen Jones (Tbilisi: Artanuji, 2012–14), 227–86, at 268; 284, n. 288, for the suggestion that this was the sultan of Iconium and Asia Minor, Roki-Ed-Din (Rukn al-Dı¯n, d. 1204).

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spits on the Cross and tramples it under foot.”138 The saintly king’s compunction is no doubt symptomatic of the particular reverence for the cross with which he was credited. Yet the terms of the preformulated oath are in keeping with later practices of appealing to religious taboos and suggest that those who composed it viewed walking on the cross as an act that would compromise status as a Christian, and accompany—if not actually effect—apostasy. The practice is also found in later accounts of conversion to Islam, such as those given to the Venetian authorities by individuals who had converted in Ottoman territory, in which it is part of a wider narrative emphasis on ritual practices and outward rather than inward change.139 Some sources suggest that treading on Christian images could have the same implications. In an account of the sack of Tbilisi in the 1220s, given in The Hundred Years’ Chronicle, Jala¯l al-Dı¯ n is said to have laid flat the icons of Christ and Mary from the Zion church and forced the inhabitants of the city “to trample the holy icons with their feet and renounce their faith,” with those who refused being put to death.140 In an account hostile to Jala¯l al-Dı¯ n, the trampling may be a literary trope; as will be discussed below, two Byzantine writers accused Latin Christians of trampling on icons when sacking cities. The mention of icons may thus reflect their importance to Georgian culture more than any recognition of this by Jala¯l al-Dı¯ n. Nevertheless, the fact that both Christian and Muslim writers connect walking on things sacred to Christianity with conversion to Islam suggests that some form of the practice did exist. It should be noted, though, that Islamic perceptions that trampling a cross was a sign of renouncing Christianity and Christian traditions of accusing Muslims of making them do so do not necessarily add up to a Christian belief that treading on a cross would indeed compromise their faith. Conversion to Christianity did not regularly include ritualized trampling to signify the repudiation of former religious beliefs, although late antique and early medieval baptismal customs in some regions of the Mediterranean did include walking over a hair cloth, which has sometimes been interpreted as a repudiation of the candidate’s sinful

138. “Que il feust aussi honni comme le crestien qui renoie Dieu et sa loy, et qui en despit de Dieu crache sur la croiz et marche desus”; Jean de Joinville, Vie de Saint Louis, 362, ed. and trans. Jacques Monfrin, Vie de Saint Louis (Paris: Garnier, 1995), 178; trans. René Hague, The Life of St. Louis by John of Joinville (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955), 115. The episode is discussed in Yvonne Friedman, “Peacemaking: Perceptions and Practices in the Medieval Latin East,” in The Crusades and the Near East: Cultural Histories, ed. Conor Kostick (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), 248. 139. E. Natalie Rothman, Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), esp. 105–7. Spitting on the cross is mentioned by a crypto-Christian cited in Tijana Krstic´, Constested Conversions to Islam: Narratives of Religious Change in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 160; also a ceremony in which a convert to Islam who wished to return to Christianity trampled upon his turban as part of a ceremony of apostasy orchestrated by Athonite monks, at 129. 140. The Hundred Years’ Chronicle, trans. Dmitri Gamq’relidze in Jones, Georgian Chronicles of Kartlis Tskhovreba, 327; I owe this reference to Antony Eastmond.

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nature.141 However, rituals of entry into the religious or cloistered life included the abandonment of secular clothing, and it was possible for the gesture to be employed in this context to further emphasize repudiation of the world in the sense of leaving behind a previous life and values.142 When the noblewoman Katharina van Naaldwijk joined the convent of Diepenveen in the eastern Netherlands in 1412 she was required to walk on her blue fur-trimmed gown, laid in front of the steps she would mount to enter enclosure.143 She had taken it off earlier in the ceremony of investiture, which called for the shedding of secular clothes and the donning of the religious habit.144 Since the prior had initially refused her entry on the grounds that she would not be able to stand the harsh lifestyle but had been overruled by a superior, this addition to the normal ceremony perhaps functioned to restate his case and bring home to Katharina what she was taking on. It also further dramatized aspects of the trial period through which the Constitutiones monialium of the Windesheim convents, to which Diepenveen belonged, sought to ascertain the suitability of those seeking entry who were not otherwise vouched for. The “casting off of secular clothing” was first in a list of ways in which the women would “be tested as to whether they are steadfast in their resolve in fully renouncing the vanities of this world.”145 To a certain extent, the gown can be seen in the context of the array of objects denigrated in one-off episodes of trampling discussed above, despite the difference in the intent of the actor, but it also fits into a wider understanding of the floor surface. It may be that the transformation of costly clothing to carpet, to be trodden underfoot, was suggested to the prior by a common interpretation of walking on fabric floor coverings in ecclesiastical settings. Describing textiles strewn underfoot in his

141. This practice will be discussed further in the following chapter. 142. On the exchange of clothes, see Giles Constable, “The Ceremonies and Symbolism of Entering Religious Life and Taking the Monastic Habit, from the Fourth to the Twelfth Century,” in Segni e riti nella chiesa altomedievale occidentale, 2: esp. 809–16. 143. “Ende als sie op solde gaen int slot, soe lach hoer tabbert gespreydet voer die trappe daer sij op solde gaen doe vermijde sie daer op te treden. Doe segede onse vader here iohan brinckerinck ‘tredet daer op’. Ende te hant trat sie myt beyden voeten daer op ende genck voert devoetelike int slot”; D. A. Brinkerink, ed., Van den Doechden der Vuriger Ende Stichtiger Susteren van Diepen Veen (“Handschrift D”), pt. 1, De tekst van het handschrift (Groningen: Wolters, 1904), 95–97; Wybren Scheepsma, Medieval Religious Women in the Low Countries: The “Modern Devotion,” the Canonesses of Windesheim, and Their Writings, trans. David F. Johnson (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004), 39–40; Martina Klug, “Vader ende moder ende alle ydelheit der werlt te verlaten—Schwestern der Devotio moderna im Spannungsfeld von Weltentsagung und Stadtöffentlichkeit,” in Mittelalter an Rhein und Maas: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Niederrheins. Dieter Geuenich zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Uwe Ludwig and Thomas Schilp, Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur Nordwesteuropas 8 (Münster: Waxmann, 2004), 169–70. 144. “Vestibus secularibus exuta, habitu sancte religionis induitur”; Liber constitutionum sanctimonialium ordinis Sancti Augustini capituli Windeshemensis, 3.1.104–105, ed. Rudolf T. M. van Dijk, De constituties der Windesheimse vrouwenkloosters vóór 1559, 2 vols. (Nijmegen: Centrum voor Middeleeuwse Studies, Katholieke Universiteit, 1986), 2:779. 145. “In quo tempore probande sunt, utrum proposito sint constantes ac pompis seculi perfecte renuncient per abiectionem vestium secularium”; Liber constitutionum, 3.1.36–38, ed. van Dijk, 2:776; Scheepsma, Medieval Religious Women in the Low Countries, 38.

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Rationale divinorum offi ciorum, William Durandus characterized bishops as those “who must walk over worldly things with their feet.”146 In addition, then, to the possibility that some images in decorated paving were designed from the beginning to be trampled, there is rather more evidence that objects originally created for a different purpose could be integrated into the floor surface or used as floor coverings in order to be denigrated underfoot, perhaps as an extension of the wider phenomenon of placing things temporarily on the ground to be trampled. These objects are generally alien to the floor surface, and often move from the vertical to the horizontal, although with the Gaza marble the point might be more to move from a place of restricted access to a public location, placing the emphasis on who was doing the treading. On the one hand, representatives of one culture might trample something valued by another as an insult or sign of conquest, perhaps closest to the verbal and visual traditions discussed previously. At the same time, there is the phenomenon, present in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought, of making people tread on things they themselves had held dear. In the Jewish context, this act seemed to involve making Gentiles repudiate and render harmless figurative imagery, so that the objects could be used by Jewish owners. In Christianity and Islam, the action signified a turning away from the beliefs or values attached to the thing placed underfoot, so there was a transformation of both the object and the person standing on it. While individual episodes are more or less likely to have taken place as described, they are all presented as taking place in real environments and familiar settings. However, the change in attitude on the part of the person concerned is difficult to represent visually, and examples of this dynamic do not seem to be present in the visual tradition of trampling.

Accusations of Impiety To a certain extent, a similar self-reflexive quality can be identified in critical descriptions of trampling. As discussed above, people could be accused of desecrating something sacred to others by trampling it underfoot, or of forcing others to desecrate what was sacred to them. There are also some accounts in which people were accused of impiety in walking on things that should have been sacred to them, and in a further layer of complexity, examples of people accusing others of wrongfully accusing them of trampling. Accounts tend to feature Latin Christians walking over sacred symbols on the floor surface. However, the sources include encounters or differences of opinion between Muslims and Christians, Byzantine and Latin Christians, and different groups of Latin Christians.

146. Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum, 1.3.23, ed. Davril and Thibodeau, 1:42; trans. Thibodeau, 39.

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Although the greatest potential cultural divide encountered in the sources is that between Muslims and Latin Christians, the actual divergence of attitudes is not as self-evident as might be expected. Three interrelated anecdotes, all dating from the second half of the thirteenth century and written in the Italian peninsula, involve Muslim leaders in some way setting the stage for Christians to walk on crosses and then accusing them of impiety.147 What may be the earliest of the examples, found in part of a Franciscan exempla collection composed between 1256 and 1273 and recorded in a later thirteenth-century manuscript, concerns St. Francis of Assisi’s visit to the Ayyubid sultan al-Malik al-Ka¯mil at Damietta in 1219.148 The implied source is Bonaventure, who claimed to have been told the story by Brother Illuminatus, Francis’s companion on his visit to the Muslim camp. The exemplum recounts that the sultan wished to test Francis’s faith and so spread in front of himself a cloth decorated all over with crosses, saying that if Francis walked on the crosses he would accuse Francis of insulting his God, and if he refused he would ask why Francis disdained to approach him. Francis did indeed walk on the crosses but justified this by claiming Christian possession of the True Cross, while assigning to the Muslims the crosses of the thieves crucified with Christ. The truth of this episode cannot be confirmed; there is only one Arabic source that might refer to the visit, and it gives no details.149 But Christoph Maier has argued that Francis’s words fit the context of the Fifth Crusade and may refer to the sultan’s recent offer to return the largest part of the relic of the True Cross captured by Saladin, which the crusaders believed to have been lost.150 The crusaders had in fact brought a relic of the Cross with them to Damietta; Oliver of Paderborn recounts how the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem prayed in penitential prostration in front of this during the attack on the city’s chain bridge.151 Moreover, Maier contrasts this and another two exempla with other accounts of the visit that he sees as drawing on a traditional topos in which a Christian envoy tries to convert a Muslim ruler and his people.152 There are, however, at least two other examples of narratives of Christians walking on textiles decorated with crosses, suggesting that if the exemplum is not itself based on

147. Giuseppe Ligato, “La Prima Crociata nel mosaico di San Colombano a Bobbio: Ideologia e iconografia di una celebrazione,” Archivium bobiense: Rivista degli Archivi storici bobiensi 23 (2001): 304–6. 148. Vatican City, BAV, MS Ottob. lat. 522, fol. 243r (92r); Girolamo Golubovich, ed., Biblioteca bio-bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell’Oriente Francescano, vol. 1, (1215–1300) (Quaracchi: Collegio di S. Bonaventura, 1906), 36–37; Livarius Oliger, ed., “Liber exemplorum fratrum minorum saeculi XIII (Excerpta e cod. Ottob. lat. 522),” Antonianum 2 (1927): esp. 209–10 for the dating, 250–51 for the exemplum. 149. Christoph T. Maier, Preaching the Crusades: Mendicant Friars and the Cross in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 13 n. 15. 150. Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 14. 151. Oliver of Paderborn, Historia Damiatina, 13, ed. Hermann Hoogeweg, in Die Schriften des Kölner Domscholasters, späteren Bischofs von Paderborn und Kardinal-Bischofs von S. Sabina, Oliverus (Tübingen: Litterarischer Verein in Stuttgart, 1894), 183; trans. John J. Gavigan, The Capture of Damietta (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1948), 26. 152. Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 10–11, 16.

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a topos, it may have been partially responsible for the creation of one. The account is only preserved in a single manuscript but may have been transmitted orally through Franciscan crusade preaching. Certainly, the anonymous late thirteenth-century Historia Sicula reports a very similar encounter with the sultan of Egypt experienced by an envoy of Frederick II.153 Here we are told that the envoy was reluctant to kiss the sultan’s hand or to offer him tribute. In response, the sultan prepared a hall, which no one was supposed to cross except on bended knees, and had it spread with carpets decorated with the sign of the cross. The envoy was called into the presence of the sultan and, not wishing to show him such reverence, walked backward toward him, provoking the question “why do you trample on the cross of the Lord?” The envoy replied making the same distinction between the Cross of Christ and the crosses of the thieves, although without direct reference to possession of the True Cross. Unlike Francis, who is seemingly placed in a situation where to approach al-Malik al-Ka¯mil is to risk desecrating the crosses and to refuse to do so is to risk insulting him, the envoy’s impiety is directly tied to his lack of reverence for the sultan. Only by refusing to show proper respect to the sultan is he forced to show disrespect to the symbol of the cross; or, seen from another perspective, he walks on the crosses in order to avoid submission to the sultan. In fact, he is not tricked into walking on the crosses at all; the intention is rather to trick him into making the proper obeisances, possibly even into kissing the carpet by dint of kissing the crosses. A related anecdote is found in the collection of short stories known as the Novellino, first compiled in Florence at the end of the thirteenth century.154 Here al-Malik alKa¯mil’s uncle Saladin is said to have organized a ceasefire with the idea of experiencing Christian customs and seeing whether he wished to convert. Visiting the Christian camp, he criticized the disparity between the rich, who ate at tables, and the poor, who ate on the ground. On the return visit, the Christians noted that all the Saracens ate on the ground. Saladin had a richly decorated tent erected where they ate and had the ground covered with carpets, which were all thickly decorated with crosses. The proud Christians entered, walking on the crosses, and spitting on them as if on the ground. Saladin rebuked them, saying “you preach the cross, yet you disparage it. It seems that you love your god in words, but not in deeds.”155 The story appears to draw on two distinct traditions. One is part of an established narrative type best known through the Europe-wide text known as the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle. In this tradition a non-Chris-

153. Anonymus Vaticanus, Historia Sicula ab ingressu Normanorum in Apuliam usque ad annum MCCLXXXII, ed. L. A. Muratori, in Rerum Italicarum scriptores, vol. 8 (Milan: Ex Typographia Societatis Palatinae in Regia Curia, 1726), esp. col. 779. 154. Alberto Conte, ed., Il Novellino, XXV² (75) (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 2001), see xv–xvi, 281–84 for the dating and association with Florence, 49–51 for the story, 256 for the original version in the Ur-Novellino. 155. “Voi predicate la croce, e spregiatela tanto? Cosí pare che voi amiate vostro Iddio in sembianti di parole, ma non in opera”; Conte, Novellino, 51.

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tian, the Saracen Aigolandus in the Pseudo-Turpin, is deterred from conversion because of the way the poor are treated: described by Charlemagne as the “people of God,” they are nonetheless poorly clad and seated on the ground.156 The second part of the story, the return visit, is less common. The editors of the work suggested a possible comparison with an episode in a Franco-Venetian poem entitled Berta da li pe grandi that describes an embassy from King Pippin the Short to Hungary.157 Here an exchange of banquets takes place in which the French observe with amazement that the Hungarians eat seated on the ground, while the meal hosted by the French is eaten at tables.158 However, the element of the crosses is not present. It is at least possible then that this aspect of the Novellino may have been inspired by the Franciscan exemplum, especially given the fact that a Florentine audience would have been exposed to Franciscan preaching. It may have been adopted because it fitted so well into a moralizing story illustrative of Christian hypocrisy. On the other hand, given the close dating of the three examples of accounts of Christians walking on crosses, it cannot be ruled out that the Novellino represents an earlier, perhaps oral, tradition. We should not assume that an incident of this kind ever took place. While Francis’s visit to Damietta certainly occurred, the mission by Frederick’s envoy is more difficult to confirm, and the story involving Saladin clearly has to be viewed within a narrative tradition. Despite the evidence for interest in the Islamic world in trampling on crosses as a sign of triumph and conversion, discussed above, I am not myself aware of these or comparable examples of Christians being tricked into walking on crosses in any Islamic source. Nevertheless, the spreading of textiles on the ground to create a ceremonial walkway was a feature of the reception of ambassadors and other dignitaries in the Islamic world, while textiles and textile motifs were also used to mark out the place occupied by the ruler, and treading on or kissing a ruler’s carpet was interpreted as a privilege with connotations of obedience.159 At the Umayyad palace of Khirbat al-Mafjar (West

156. Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandi, 13, ed. C. Meredith-Jones, Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandi, ou Chronique du Pseudo-Turpin: Textes revus et publiés d’après 49 manuscrits (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1972), 135–41. For similar accounts, see Margaret Jubb, The Legend of Saladin in Western Literature and Historiography (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000), 106. 157. Conte, Novellino, 329–30, n. 6; Guido Favati, ed., Il Novellino: Testo critico, introduzione e note (Genoa: Bozzi, 1970), 184–85. 158. “Ma una colsa lì fu qe despresiò vilmant / Qe no se mançava sor disches ni sor banc: / Le tables furent mises desor li pavimant”; Leslie Zarker Morgan, ed., La Geste francor: Edition of the Chanson de geste of MS Marc Fr. XIII (=256), Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 348 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2009), 359; Morgan dates the manuscript to “the first seventy years of the fourteenth century,” 13. 159. Lisa Golombek, “The Draped Universe of Islam,” in Content and Context of Visual Arts in the Islamic World: Papers from a Colloquium in Memory of Richard Ettinghausen, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2–4 April 1980, ed. Priscilla P. Soucek, Monographs on the Fine Arts 44 (University Park: Published for the College Art Association of America by the Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988), 31–32. Avinoam Shalem, “Forbidden Territory: Early Islamic Audience-Hall Carpets,” Hali 99 (1998): 70–77, 99–100.

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Bank), the raised platform of a private room off the audience hall is paved with a mosaic that Avinoam Shalem has seen as an allusion to the caliph’s carpet.160 In Abbasid ceremonial those approaching the caliph had to stop at the edge of the carpet that marked his place and, from the beginning of the tenth century, prostrate themselves and kiss the carpet.161 In the Fatimid period too, the audience hall was spread with carpets and the caliph’s throne with precious textiles, and prostration was an important part of court protocol. Although very highly positioned officials might only gesture toward the ground, in a context in which public homage was a mark of rank, kissing the ground could itself indicate status, and this was the way in which Byzantine ambassadors usually paid homage.162 Al-Khatı . ¯ b’s History of Baghdad, written in the mid-eleventh century, contains a description of the arrival of Byzantine ambassadors in 917 AD, in which textiles play a particular role. He states that “the number of the carpets and mats of the kind made at Jahram and Dara¯bjird and at Ad-Dawrak. was twenty-two thousand pieces; these were laid in the corridors and courts, being spread under the feet of the nobles, and the Greek envoys walked over such carpets all the way from the limit of the new Ba¯b-al-ʿA¯ma, right to the presence of the Caliph.” It is noteworthy that there was a hierarchy of floor coverings, distinguished by what could or could not be walked on, since “this number did not include the fine rugs in the chambers and halls of assembly, of the manufacture of Tabarista¯n and Dabı¯ k, . spread over the other carpets, and these were not to be trodden with the feet.”163 But particularly telling is the tension about how the ambassadors should comport themselves in relation to the textiles once in front of the caliph. One of them states “but that I know for a surety that your Lord desires not that (as is our custom) I should kiss the carpet, I should verily have bowed and kissed it.”164 Instead, he presents their stance with crossed arms as one of humility, but it seems likely that this

160. Avinoam Shalem, “Manipulations of Seeing and Visual Strategies in the Audience Halls of the Early Islamic Period: Preliminary Notes,” in Visualisierungen von Herrschaft: Frühmittelalterliche Residenzen, Gestalt und Zeremoniell, ed. Franz Alto Bauer, Byzas 5 ( Istanbul: Ege Yayınlar ı, 2006), 216–17. 161. Dominique Sourdel, “Questions de cérémonial ‘abbaside,’” Revue des études islamiques 28 (1960): 132, 137–42. 162. Paula Sanders, Ritual, Politics, and the City in Fatimid Cairo (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 13–23, 32. 163. The translation is taken from Guy le Strange, “A Greek Embassy to Baghdad in 917 AD: Translated from the Arabic MS of Al-Khatı . ¯ b in the British Museum Library,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Jan. 1897): esp. 40–41; another translation is given in Jacob Lassner, The Topography of Baghdad in the Early Middle Ages: Text and Studies (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970), 89; the passage is discussed in Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), 168–73. 164. Le Strange, “Greek Embassy to Baghdad,” 43–44. Another account of the visit also describes the spreading of carpets on the floor, but has the ambassadors kiss the ground; Gha¯da al-Hijja . ¯ wı¯ al-Qaddu¯mı¯, trans., Book of Gifts and Rarities: Selections Compiled in the Fifteenth Century from an Eleventh-Century Manuscript on Gifts and Treasures, Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs 29 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), esp. 154.

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posture was perceived as less demeaning. In this respect, a parallel can be drawn with Frederick’s envoy who walks on the carpets rather than make a gesture of obeisance. Textiles, then, were used to orchestrate diplomatic encounters in Islamic courts, in conjunction with various bodily postures, while envoys might resist the conventions expected of them, and it is likely that the Western texts display some awareness of this. As will be discussed in the following chapter, textiles were also used in the Latin West to articulate identity in both ecclesiastical and secular rituals, but the texts may nevertheless reflect a perception of what Lisa Golombek characterized as the “exaggerated” role of textiles in the Islamic world as well as the particular importance of the floor surface.165 It is also not inconceivable that the authors of the texts, especially the Historia Sicula, were aware of Islamic practices of walking on crosses in contexts of conquest and conversion. However, if the narratives in some way respond to the Islamic world as a milieu in which textiles and crosses underfoot were used to articulate hierarchical and confessional identity, within the texts these are used more particularly to explore and resolve ambiguous identities, in keeping with the broader potential of trampling itself to denote desecration or triumph. Not only is the piety or even Christianity of some of the protagonists called into question—an accusation that sticks in the Novellino—but in the Franciscan exemplum and the Historia Sicula, the representative potential of the symbol of the cross is also shown to be fluid. Moreover, the texts concern Muslim rulers who were more generally seen in a positive light in the West, indeed as blurring the line between Christian and non-Christian. Saladin was commonly depicted as a chivalrous knight, even as being well disposed toward Christianity, and there were also positive reports of al-Malik al-Ka¯mil.166 Matthew Paris described him as “truth-telling, generous, merciful and, to the extent permitted by the severity of his law and the suspicion of neighbors, Christian.”167 Having such figures voice accusations of Christian impiety and hypocrisy was perhaps symptomatic of this status. Where the accusations are overturned, (re)defining the protagonists as good Christians and their gesture as one of triumph rather than impiety, this also serves to define their accuser more narrowly, clearly, and negatively as a Muslim. It is also worth bearing in mind that what results is a double accusation: Christian authors are effectively accusing Muslims of wrongfully accusing Christians of trampling. Certain parallels can be drawn here with the episode, known only though the work of the Iraqi historian Baha¯ʾ al-Dı¯ n Ibn Shadda¯d (1145–1234), in which Conrad of

165. Golombek, “Draped Universe of Islam,” 26. 166. On Saladin, see Jubb, Legend of Saladin, chaps. 5 and 6. 167. “Erat autem, licet paganus, veridicus, munificus, parcens, in quantum permisit legis suæ severitas et vicinorum suspicio, Christianis”; Paris, Chronica majora, ed. Luard, 3:486; translation based on that given in Anthony Cutler, “St. Francis and the ‘Noble Heathen’: Notes on Gift Practice in the Ayyubid Era,” in Islamic Artefacts in the Mediterranean World: Trade, Gift Exchange and Artistic Transfer, ed. Catarina Schmidt Arcangeli and Gerhard Wolf, Collana del Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz 15 (Venice: Marsilio, 2010), 45–51.

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Montferrat had a painting made of a Muslim horseman trampling on the Holy Sepulcher, and circulated it in Europe in order to encourage support for the Second Crusade.168 Christopher Tyerman places the account in the context of theatrical crusade preaching and suggests that the attention given to this image and a similar one reported by another Muslim author stems from their disapproval of “representational religious art.”169 Without implying that the painting of the horseman did not exist, it is also worth noting that the episode functions to depict Conrad as “cunning” and manipulative, and corresponds to a wider narrative use of trampling not only to discuss people being accused of desecration, but also to criticize others for making those accusations, which are seen to rest in some way on deception. Thus, in the Christian sources Muslims are described as tricking Christians into walking on crosses and accusing them of trampling on their own holy symbol, an accusation denied in two cases out of three. Here a Muslim accuses a Christian of showing a Muslim trampling on the Holy Sepulcher, with the image also implied to be erroneous and duplicitous. Ultimately, however, the texts are also likely to reflect a concern about piety and religious boundaries within Christianity itself. It is significant that they date from the same period as descriptions of St. Francis and St. Louis avoiding treading on holy signs and words, and are close in time to the ruling of the Council of Lyon against the humiliation of crosses and images of the Virgin and other saints. A second set of texts that describe Latin Christians unheedingly desecrating crosses underfoot is written from a Byzantine perspective. They belong to the tradition of discussing the errors of the Latin Church, and especially to those works that simply enumerate a catalog of grievances.170 One of the errors involved prostrating oneself, tracing a cross on the ground, kissing it, and then walking over it. The first clear reference to the practice occurs in the work known as the Opusculum contra Francos but also directed at the Latins more generally, which complains that: “When they enter the divine temples, throwing themselves to the ground, they whisper. Then, tracing a cross on the ground with a finger, they kiss it and rise, and in this way they destroy the prayer.”171 The practice is condemned as useless rather than offensive, but the implication is that this was no way to treat the sign of the cross. The anonymous work, which lists a total of

168. Gabrieli, Arab Historians of the Crusades, 208–9. 169. Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (London: Allen Lane, 2006), 384–85. 170. On this literature, see Tia M. Kolbaba, The Byzantine Lists: Errors of the Latins (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000); Kolbaba, “Byzantine Perceptions of Latin Religious ‘Errors’: Themes and Changes from 850 to 1350,” in The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, ed. Angeliki E. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2001), 117–43; also Jonathan Shepard, “Aspects of Byzantine Attitudes and Policy towards the West in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries,” Byzantinische Forschungen 13 (1988): 95–96. 171. Opusculum contra Francos, 9, ed. J. Hergenröther, Monumenta graeca ad Photium ejusque historiam pertinentia, reprint of 1st ed. with new introduction by J. M. Hussey (Farnborough: Gregg, 1969), esp. 65.

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twenty-eight errors, has been dated to the period between 1054 and 1112, when it was cited by authors writing in response to the archbishop of Milan’s visit to Constantinople.172 It seems to have existed in several variants and was translated into Latin by the Italian Hugo Eteriano around 1178. At the turn of the eleventh century John of Claudiopolis compiled a list of eighteen errors that includes the same complaint.173 In the early thirteenth century Constantine Stilbes repeated the accusation, specifying that “rising they walk on the cross.”174 Similarly, in his work On the Customs of the Italians, written toward the end of the thirteenth century, Meletios Homologetes noted with disapproval that “they form crosses on the surface of the earth and after they kiss these they then walk upon them,” following this with the accusation that they burn icons and use them as chairs and beds.175 Unlike the previous group of sources, these passages date from a relatively extended period of time and remain more or less constant in their contents, with the exception of the group at which their charges are leveled: Franks, Latins, or Italians. Nevertheless the accusation does not appear in every work of this kind: it was not included among the errors listed by Michael Keroularios in 1054, and although Niketas Seides drew on the Opusculum, he did not mention this particular issue.176 Nor was criticism always focused on the act of walking on the cross. Theophylact of Bulgaria, in his relatively conciliatory work on the errors of the Latins composed in the late eleventh or early twelfth century, mentions that “when they should adore the saviour, they prostrate themselves to the floor itself.”177 He includes this custom among the less serious of their errors, and later cites the practice of kissing the pavement as an error inspired by piety.178

172. Hergenröther, Monumenta graeca, intro. Hussey, v; Jean Darrouzès, “Le mémoire de Constantin Stilbès contre les Latins,” Revue des études byzantines 21 (1963): esp. 52–56; English translation from Tia M. Kolbaba, “Meletios Homologetes, On the Customs of the Italians,” Revue des études byzantines 55 (1997): 157 n. 33. 173. A. Pavlov, ed., Kriticheskie opyty po istorii drevnyeshey greko-russkoy polemiki protiv “Latinyan” (St. Petersburg: Tipografia imperatorskoy akademii nauk, 1878), 189–91, esp. no. 7, 189–90. 174. Constantine Stilbes, Errors of the Latin Church, no. 50, ed. and trans. Darrouzès, “Le mémoire de Constantin Stilbès,” 73. 175. Meletios Homologetes, A Gathering or Summary of the Old and New Testaments, Logos 3, part 1, 11, ed. and trans. Kolbaba, “Meletios Homologetes,” 157–58. 176. Michael Keroularios, First Letter to Patriarch Peter III of Antioch, 11–14, ed. Cornelius Will, Acta et scripta quae de controversiis ecclesiae Graecae et Latinae saeculo undecimo composita extant (Leipzig: Elwert, 1861), 179–83; English translation in Kolbaba, Byzantine Lists, 23–24. For Seides, see Pavlov, Kriticheskie opyty, 186–88; Darrouzès, “Mémoire de Constantin Stilbès,” 52–53. 177. Theophylact, On the Errors of the Latins, ed. and trans. Paul Gautier, in Theophylact d’Achrida. Discours, traités, poésies, Corpus fontium historiae Byzantinae 16.1 (Thessaloniki: Association de recherches byzantines, 1980), esp. 248. For discussion of the nature of the work, see Maria Dora Spadaro, “Sugli ‘errori’ dei Latini di Teofilatto: Obiettività o scelta politica?” in Medioevo romanzo e orientale: Testi e prospettive storiografiche. Colloquio internazionale, Verona, 4–6 aprile 1990, ed. A. M. Babbi et al. (Messina: Rubbettino, 1992), 231–44. 178. Theophylact, On the Errors of the Latins, ed. and trans. Gautier, 278.

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The vitriolic tone adopted by the majority of the lists of errors raises the question whether they are referring to a genuine Latin custom at all. Many of the lists associate the errors with Jewish or Armenian practices, such as using unleavened bread for the Eucharist. Given the way in which the ambassadors avoid kissing the ground in al-Khatı . ¯ b’s account of the Byzantine embassy to Baghdad, it is possible that this particular criticism (especially in the form it was given by Theophylact) was in some way an attempt to link Latin with Islamic customs. However, Byzantine polemic against Islam pays relatively little attention to prayer practices, and those descriptions that do exist do not misinterpret the genuflections as kissing the ground.179 Neither is it straightforward though to identify the practice in Latin sources. As will be discussed further in chapter 5, in his De oratione et speciebus illius, composed during the second half of the twelfth century, Peter the Chanter described complete prostration as one of seven positions that could fittingly be adopted during prayer.180 Similarly, in his commentary on the constitutions of the Dominican Order, written in the thirteenth century, Humbert of Romans listed prostratio venia among six positions that he termed humiliationes or inclinationes.181 Writing about the various prayers to be said on entering a church, Peter specifies those to be said kneeling or when someone “fully throws [him]self flat onto the pavement of the temple on his face.”182 In the context of the Greek accusations, it is interesting to note both that Peter’s earlier definition of full prostration states that the prayer’s face should be “kissing the ground” (“facie sua osculando terram”) and that, uniquely, the prayers spoken in these two positions were to be said “in secret and with a low voice of the heart and mouth,” which corresponds with the whispering mentioned by some of the Greek sources.183 Yet none of the descriptions of the various positions make any reference to tracing a cross on the floor and kissing it. Of course, devotional practices varied throughout the West and, with the growing number of pilgrims and crusaders passing through Constantinople, it is possible that Byzantine authors had witnessed a type of prostration of the form they denounce, but which may not necessarily have been widespread. Indeed, if the Historia Sicula does describe a real event, and we interpret the spreading of the car-

179. Adel-Théodore Khoury, Polémique byzantine contre l’Islam (VIIIe–XIIIe s.), 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 236–43. 180. Peter the Chanter, De oratione et speciebus illius, lines 630–31, ed. Richard C. Trexler, in The Christian at Prayer: An Illustrated Prayer Manual Attributed to Peter the Chanter (d. 1197) (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1987), 188. 181. Humbert of Romans, Expositio super constitutiones fratrum praedicatorum, 2, De inclinationibus, ed. J. J. Berthier, in Opera de vita regulari, vol. 2 (Turin: Marietti, 1956), esp. 160–61. 182. “Deinde orans, se totum planum proiciat in templi pavimento in faciem suam, sive positis genibus in terra, hic secreto et submissa voce cordis et oris, dicat ad honorem sancte et individue trinitatis”; Peter the Chanter, De oratione, lines 2121–23, ed. Trexler, 227. 183. “Idcirco species ista depingitur que orantem habet significare iacentem in terra super pectus suum, et facie sua osculando terram, timentem oculos ad celum levare”; Peter the Chanter, De oratione, lines 688–90, ed. Trexler, 189. For the unique quality of the quiet prayer at the entrance, see Trexler, Christian at Prayer, 46.

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pets as an attempt to get the envoy to kiss the ground, then the sultan was probably anticipating a prostration along these lines. At the same time, from the late twelfth century onward, there was also a growing perception of Latin irreverence on account of the capture of Thessaloniki by the Norman forces in 1185 and the sack of Constantinople itself in 1204. In his account of the former, Eustathios of Thessaloniki characterized the attackers as uncivilized barbarians, with a topsy-turvy system of values. Two passages hold particular interest since they portray the Normans trampling on things because they did not understand their worth. For example, Eustathios claims that “they struggled to collect many fine and valuable objects which were stored in wrappings or bags or cloths of linen, and when they opened the mouths of containers they threw away the contents and trampled upon them (συνεπάτουν), while they stuffed the useless containers themselves into their bosoms, most of them worth no more than an obol.”184 Later on, he writes that “it was a thing to be marvelled at that they cared greatly for iron rings, little nails and small knives, tinder boxes and needles as if they were objects of great value, while they allowed other fine objects to be trampled underfoot. But there was no reason to be surprised at this when we considered their inexperience of such things, and their lack of acquaintance with a cultivated and civilised life.”185 Here the connotations of trampling are primarily of barbarity, but it could also be redolent of impiety. The catalog of Latin errors by Constantine Stilbes contains an additional chapter on the offences committed during the sack of Constantinople, which included the desecration of sacred things underfoot: “Icons of the saints, some they burnt, some they trampled upon, some they cut up with axes and gave to the service of their household fires, others they hung on the doors of their houses, others they used on chairs, and some they nailed onto the very floors of their rooms or—alas!—onto the mangers of their horses.”186 Furthermore, “their priests and their bishops were often noticed soiling the holy images stretched beneath their feet during their services.”187 All these are intensely rhetorical statements, which can be seen to echo the command in Matthew to “give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet.”188 They can also be compared to the claims in The Hundred Years’ Chronicle regarding the trampling of icons during the sack of Tbilisi, although here this was forced upon the local population. But whether or not such scenes occurred, the accusations raised the stakes more generally and made it easier to picture Latins trampling on crosses.

184. Eustathios of Thessaloniki, Capture of Thessaloniki, ed. and trans. Melville Jones, 146–47. 185. Eustathios of Thessaloniki, Capture of Thessaloniki, ed. and trans. Melville Jones, 152–53. 186. Stilbes, Errors of the Latin Church, no. 90, ed. and trans. Darrouzès, 83–84; see Kolbaba, “Meletios Homologetes,” 158, for the English translation, and the relationship between this passage and Meletios Homologetes’ complaint about the Latin treatment of icons. 187. Stilbes, Errors of the Latin Church, no. 91, ed. and trans. Darrouzès, 83–84. 188. “Nolite dare sanctum canibus: neque mittatis margaritas vestras ante porcos, ne forte conculcent eas pedibus suis, et conversi dirumpant vos”: Matthew 7:6.

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One complaint is particularly interesting for the attitude to pavement decoration it reveals: “The slabs of sacred marble, even those of the altar table, as well as the columns, they thought no more of than the stones lying about in the roads, and they used them for the same purposes.”189 The slabs of sacred marble (“πλάκας μαρμάρων ἱερὰς”) may be the porphyry roundels, located in Hagia Sophia and the palace, that played an important part in Byzantine imperial ceremonial, as discussed in the following chapter. The roundel or omphalion in Hagia Sophia was reserved for the emperor alone and was the subject of popular devotion. Around 1200, the Russian pilgrim Anthony of Novgorod observed that this was fenced off so that no one could tread on it and that people would kiss the spot.190 Roundels of precious marbles were features of Cosmatesque and other opus sectile pavements in Italy and elsewhere and, on occasion, were used as liturgical markers. Yet there is no evidence that access to these or any other roundels was restricted, except as a result of being located in areas reserved more generally for the clergy, and it is easy to imagine that Latin Christians were unaware of the conventions regulating the use of marble slabs in Hagia Sophia and elsewhere. Tia Kolbaba, while acknowledging the hardening of Greek attitudes in response to the sacking of Thessaloniki and Constantinople, has suggested that the literature on the errors of the Latins also reflects a more introspective debate on what it meant to be Orthodox.191 Despite the translation of the Opusculum contra Francos into Latin, the primary audience for these works was, after all, Byzantine. This is not to deny that the Errors literature was a reaction to differing customs, but rather to stress that the boundaries of Orthodoxy were essentially permeable and that some of these customs may not have been deemed unacceptably alien by everyone. Kolbaba mentions that a number of complaints, such as talking during the Eucharist and the ecclesiastical wearing of silk vestments, could as justly be directed at Greeks as at Latins.192 If this is true, then it remains to be asked in what way the misdemeanor of walking on a cross traced on the ground, and associated errors, might have tapped into Byzantine preoccupations. The reference by Anthony of Novgorod to the practice of kissing the porphyry roundel in Hagia Sophia might represent a wider Byzantine custom that was not universally favored. However, it is perhaps more to the point that accusations of trampling on something holy had been used to articulate theological differences and conceptions of orthodoxy within Byzantium itself, notably during the iconoclasm controversy. In the Life of Stephen the Younger, written in the early ninth century, trampling throws into relief opposing attitudes to the relationship between image and prototype. After Stephen accuses the iconoclasts of trampling and burning icons of Christ and the Virgin (and by

189. Stilbes, Errors of the Latin Church, no. 87, ed. and trans. Darrouzès, 83. 190. Anthony of Novgorod, Kniga palomnik, ed. C. M. Loparev (St. Petersburg: Kirschbaum, 1899), 15. This account will be discussed further in the following chapter. 191. Kolbaba, Byzantine Lists, 28–30, 124–40. 192. Kolbaba, Byzantine Lists, 129; Kolbaba, “Meletios Homologetes,” 163.

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implication dishonoring those represented), the Emperor Constantine V criticizes the saint for suggesting “that in treading upon the images of Christ, we are treading on Christ himself.”193 However, Stephen then raises the parallel of the imperial image and the punishment that would be incurred by treading on the name and representation of the emperor on a coin, driving his point home by proceeding to do so. This short passage thus contains both an accusation and a performance of trampling by the saint, as well as the claim to have been accused of trampling on the part of the emperor. While it is removed in time from the literature under discussion, it does suggest that the impiety of which the Latins were accused could have had some resonance within the Byzantine world, without necessarily reflecting a specific, disputed practice there, especially as the trampling of icons was also present in the Errors literature as well. As discussed above, accusations of impious or inappropriate trampling were also part of a discourse of criticism within the medieval West and could be leveled at individual Latin Christians. Such accusations generally applied to treading on objects, while the floor surface of the church building was invoked rather less. However, one text on floor decoration that does benefit from being analyzed in the light of trampling as it was used to define collective identity is the denunciation of lavish pavement decoration in the Apologia of Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153). “Why is it” he asked, “that we do not at least show respect for the images of the saints, which the very pavement which one tramples underfoot gushes forth? Frequently people spit on the countenance of an angel. Often the face of one of the saints is pounded by the heels of those passing by. And if one does not spare the sacred images, why does one not at any rate spare the beautiful colors? Why do you decorate what is soon to be disfigured? Why do you depict what is inevitably to be trod upon? What good are these graceful forms there, where they are constantly marred by dirt? Finally, what are these things to poor men, to monks, to spiritual men?”194 Despite the rebuke about lack of reverence for sacred images, this is not so much an accusation of desecration as of excessive ornamentation, and thus does not fully correspond to the previous examples. Nevertheless, given the implication that the person walking on the pavement is oblivious to the compunctions expressed by the writer, it is instructive to look at the passage in this context.

193. Stephen the Deacon, Life of Stephen the Younger, 55, ed. and trans. Marie-France Auzépy, La vie d’Étienne le Jeune, Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs 3 (Aldershot: Variorum, 1997), 156, 254; English translation from Peers, Subtle Bodies, 135. 194. “Ut quid saltem Sanctorum imagines non reveremur, quibus utique ipsum, quod pedibus conculcatur, scatet pavimentum? Saepe spuitur in ore Angeli, saepe alicuius Sanctorum facies calcibus tunditur transeuntium. Et si non sacris imaginibus, cur vel non parcitur pulchris coloribus? Cur decoras quod mox foedandum est? Cur depingis quod necesse est conculcari? Quid ibi valent venustae formae, ubi pulvere maculantur assiduo? Denique quid haec ad pauperes, ad monachos, ad spirituales viros?”; Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia ad Guillelmum abbatem, 12(28), ed. Jean Leclercq and H. M. Rochais, in Sancti Bernardi opera, vol. 3 (Rome: Editiones Cistercenses, 1963), 104–7, esp. 106; English translation from Conrad Rudolph, The “Things of Greater Importance”: Bernard of Clairvaux’s Apologia and the Medieval Attitude toward Art (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), 283.

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The Apologia has often been seen as a criticism of Cluniac monasticism and the passage on art related to specific buildings. Conrad Rudolph, however, has argued that the term “Cluniacs” is not employed often in the work and, where it appears at all, refers to traditional Benedictine monasticism more widely.195 This interpretation is borne out by the passage on pavement decoration. There is no reason to think that it refers to the church of Cluny III, which seems to have been paved with limestone slabs inlaid in glass and colored marbles in a variety of nonfigurative designs, but it is certainly plausible that Bernard had in mind existing pavement decoration in other monastic churches, whether the “beautiful colors” of marble floors in opus sectile, with their deep reds, greens, and gold, or the “graceful forms” of the figurative opus tessellatum tradition of northern and southeastern Italy and parts of France, even though these feature no angels and only rarely contain examples of saints.196 At the same time, as with the lists of Latin errors and perhaps also the accounts of Christians being tricked into walking on crosses, the accusation of unintentional trampling may have been intended to define what was unacceptable for those who identified themselves with the writer. Rudolph has also suggested that the intended audience for the Apologia was as much the Cistercians themselves and the other new ascetic orders as it was the traditional Benedictines.197 He points out that the Cistercians had possessed lavish liturgical art and manuscripts when Bernard entered Cîteaux in 1113, and that artistic acquisition and production continued despite his tenets of simplicity. In Rudolph’s words, the Cistercians and similar orders “were within the purview of the Apologia as much for what they were doing as for what Bernard wished to prevent them from doing.”198 The same quality is evident in later legislation on pavement decoration. In 1213 the General Chapter prohibited the creation of “varietates pavimentorum” at the same time as they banned all pictures and sculptures except for the image of Christ, and also a superfluity of buildings and excess food.199 As noted by Christopher Norton, it seems likely that this prohibition was provoked by transgressions. Indeed from the late twelfth century some Cistercian abbey churches had decorative pavements of polychrome relief or mosaic tiles; examples survive in England from the first half of the thirteenth century onward, notably at the Cistercian abbeys of Fountains, Byland, and

195. Rudolph, “Things of Greater Importance,” 161–71. 196. One exception is the scene from the martyrdom of S. Eustachio, from the pavement of Pavia Cathedral. Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 319–20, fig. 142; Guidoni Guidi, “Mosaici medievali di Pavia.” 197. Rudolph, “Things of Greater Importance,” 172–91. 198. Rudolph, “Things of Greater Importance,” 190. 199. Statuta capitulorum, 1213.1, ed. Joseph-Marie Canivez, Statuta capitulorum generalium ordinis Cisterciensis ab anno 1116 ad annum 1786, 8 vols., Bibliothèque de la Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 9–14b (Louvain: Bureaux de la Revue, 1933–41), 1:404.

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Rievaulx (Yorkshire).200 In 1235, what was described as the “pavimentum curiosum” at the abbey of Le Gard near Amiens was ordered to be restored to its original state of simplicity and the abbot responsible sentenced to three days of penance.201 The concern for appropriate floor decoration extended to carpets as well. Aelred of Rievaulx, in his Speculum caritatis, characterized marble pavements covered with carpets as a distraction to the eye, along with murals, lighted candles, and glittering golden vessels.202 The attitude displayed within the Apologia was echoed in later Cistercian thinking, but it was not universally accepted within the order and was at odds with the aesthetic prevailing in other monastic and secular churches. The surface impression given by these sources is that the majority of the Latin West had a relatively relaxed attitude to the decoration of the floor surface, and correspondingly to the possibility of desecration underfoot, compared to the Byzantine and Islamic worlds. To a certain extent, this discrepancy in attitudes is confirmed by surviving examples of decorated pavements. At the same time, the texts can be seen to set up an opposition between clearly contrasting groups, in order to confront divergences rather closer to home. Desecration underfoot was evidently a debatable issue for the authors concerned, whether as part of Cistercian thoughts on art, Byzantine definitions of Orthodoxy, or Latin ideas about reverence to the cross in the context of the thirteenth-century Crusades. The issue is also being mobilized as part of an underlying debate about identity. This employment is appropriate enough since the ground was indeed a platform on which relations between groups of people were negotiated, whether in the form of the deliberate desecration of religious symbols or more delicate sidestepping on the red carpets of diplomacy. However, discussion of unwitting desecration functioned to draw distinctions in a different way, reflecting on identity as expressed through systems of values. The texts address what it meant to be a reformed monastic, orthodox, or crusading Christian in the Middle Ages, and use an ambiguous gesture to talk about ambiguous identity. An understanding of treading on something as expressive of a negative attitude toward it seems to have been common to classical, Judeo-Christian, and Islamic culture. This shared understanding facilitated the frequency with which trampling was brought up in the context of intercultural encounters, even as it was used to draw distinctions between particular groups. Yet within these parameters there was considerable room for nuance and complexity. Trampling could be used as a relatively straightforward expression of

200. Cistercian tiled pavements are discussed in Christopher Norton, “Early Cistercian Tile Pavements,” in Cistercian Art and Architecture in the British Isles, ed. Christopher Norton and David Park (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 228–55. 201. Statuta capitulorum, 1235.30, ed. Canivez, Statuta capitulorum, 2:146. 202. Aelred of Rievaulx, Speculum caritatis, 24, ed. C. H. Talbot, in Aelredi Rievallensis opera omnia, vol. 1, Opera ascetica, CCCM 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1971), 99–101.

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disdain and triumph, in which a positive trod on a negative. The reverse dynamic was also possible, in which a negatively construed person was described as standing on—and thus denigrating—something positive or even sacred, rendering them liable to accusations of desecration or impiety. Moreover, by converting something (once) held dear into an object to be trodden on, it was possible not only to express disdain for what it represented (an old life or faith), and potentially even render it void, but also to evidence or force a transformation in the person concerned. When considering the implications of treading on the sacred, it is also important to bear in mind differing attitudes to the status of the image in worship. Within Judaism and Islam, figurative imagery, including both pagan divinities and biblical scenes, may have been placed underfoot to demonstrate a lack of veneration by specific audiences. In contexts of Christian iconoclasm, both Byzantine and Reformation, treading on images has also been used to deny the relationship between image and prototype. Even where attempts were made to limit the depiction of particularly sacred and Christological images and symbols on the floor surface, on the grounds—in the words of the Florentine synod of 1517—that “those things one does to an image are said to be directed against the person whom the image represents,” the representational ambiguity of a symbol could lead to the radical reinterpretation of the action of walking on it. Whether the crosses on the textiles spread under St. Francis and the imperial envoy represent the True Cross or those of the thieves crucified with Christ has the potential to change an act of desecration into a triumphal trampling. In other words, if the act of treading on something was commonly understood to involve a negative attitude to the thing underfoot, the implications of both act and attitude differed according to the identities of the people and objects concerned, which could themselves be fluid. The contexts in which trampling took place, and the media in which it was discussed and represented, also circumscribed its meaning. Triumphal trampling of a negative “Other” dominates representations and verbal metaphors, while greater variety is apparent in ostensible descriptions of lived experience and in the material record. To an extent, ceremonies such as calcatio colli and practices of placing the symbols of other religions underfoot provided circumstances in which people might see or participate in triumphal trampling themselves. In the medieval West, however, expressing disdain in this manner was not regularly facilitated through rituals or through the provision of unambiguously negative subject matter on or in the floor surface. The boundary between walking and deliberate trampling was blurred, and what one could actually tread on in practice without risking desecration was clearly flexible, to the extent that extra care marked out saintly individuals. In episodes of trampling that are described as taking place the dynamic is often self-reflexive, that is to say people tread (or do not tread) on things that matter, should matter, or had mattered to them, rather than things that matter to other people. Inappropriate trampling is a relatively common criticism, especially of people who should have known better, with criticisms ranging from petulance and lack of moderation to impiety, depending on the situation and what is trodden on. Conversion through trampling is also encountered in a number of written sources. Neither

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of these situations were commonly represented visually, perhaps because the triumphal tradition was so dominant. In cases of desecration, it would have been difficult to show how the dynamic was the opposite of the norm of positive standing on negative, or to indicate appropriate condemnation of the action, and it might perhaps have constituted an act of defamation in itself. It would also have been difficult too to indicate a change of status in either the thing trodden on or the person doing the treading. Overall, then, the visual traditions and verbal metaphors with which this chapter started were not necessarily played out when people walked or were described as walking on the ground and floor coverings, which tended toward more ambiguous meanings and complex messages. In addition to instances of positives standing on negatives and negatives on positives, trampling and discourses of trampling involved fluid identities and reflected attempts to define boundaries between and within different religious communities. Moreover, while any definition of an action as trampling assumes a certain disjuncture between treader and trodden on, what one group regarded as trampling might not be seen as such by another, and accusations of unconscious impiety in this respect (however self-reflexive the text) suggest we should be wary of interpreting surviving floor decoration with reference to uniform readings of the action of treading. The following chapter will therefore explore ways in which standing on something in or on the pavement could be seen to express a positive attitude to what was underfoot, in such a way as to imply a likeness between the two, as well as between different people using the same place over time.

4 STANDING ON CEREMONY

Vobis reliquens exemplum ut sequamini vestigia eius. [Leaving you an example that you should follow his steps.] —1 Peter 2:21

T

he previous chapter examined the act of standing on something as this was understood as a deliberate gesture of disdain. Although trampling was commonly employed as a metaphor and represented visually in the medieval West, and accounts of trampling could certainly involve the holy underfoot, it seems not to have been practiced in the medieval church interior in the same way it was in some Islamic and perhaps also some late antique Christian and Jewish contexts, where items sacred to other religious groups were integrated into the floor surface to be denigrated. Where negative figures are included in pavement decoration, it is possible that walking on them was construed as expressing disapproval, but any interpretation needs to take account of positive figures and elements within the same and other compositions. Legislation against placing sacred subject matter on the floor was largely restricted to Late Antiquity and the Counter-Reformation, and in the medieval West concern to avoid desecration underfoot was often presented as a sign of unusual piety. Moreover, while Christ himself is not represented on permanent paving, there are several examples of cruciform elements. It seems likely that, for the most part, walking was a neutral activity, which only occasionally was understood as a meaningful gesture. Nevertheless, at the other end of the spectrum, there were occasions on which standing on something was not only construed as a positive action, but also expressed a positive attitude to the thing trodden on. This situation seems to have been much more widely encountered in medieval ecclesiastical ritual. Not only were textiles often spread temporarily under particular participants in the liturgy, but there is evidence that permanent markers in a range of paving techniques were used to locate those involved in one-off and regular ceremonies. As in discussions of trampling, what people stood on in these sorts of circumstances also reflected who they were. However, whereas it has been suggested above that trampling functioned

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to demonstrate difference (whether through the contrast drawn between the person and the system represented by whatever he or she was treading on, or between different groups with varying attitudes to the action), I propose that the latter, more common, use of the floor surface tended to demonstrate identity through likeness. This might be expressed through a correspondence with the material or image trodden on, but it could also be achieved through the repeated use of the same place over time, which generated a relationship with people who had stood on the spot before. Here we are not so much dealing with broad confessional affiliations as with more circumscribed groupings, from the holders of particular offices to members of a specific religious community. This chapter therefore examines evidence for the use of permanent and temporary floor coverings as liturgical markers in the Byzantine world and the medieval West, considering both geometric and figurative elements. These are often discussed separately, with divergent assumptions of what it meant to walk on something. As noted in the previous chapter, there has been a broadly negative characterization of what it meant to walk or stand on something in the literature on figurative floor decoration in the medieval West.1 In contrast, there has been a positive evaluation of the role of elements of geometric paving as markers for participants in the liturgy. I thus firstly survey the fuller and better-known evidence for permanent geometric markers, before focusing on examples that indicate the potential for figurative elements to have acted in similar ways. In both cases, certain components of a wider composition took on heightened significance on specific occasions during the year and have particularly been associated with status-changing rituals. At the same time, juxtaposing the two also highlights differences in their potential to inform what was taking place above them. In particular, I suggest that images had a heightened capacity to combine with those who stood on them to form an ephemeral composition of two-dimensional and three-dimensional elements. The third part of the chapter discusses temporary floor coverings that were also laid down to be trodden on, from textiles to designs in plaster and ash. While following the same broad patterns of employment and meaning as permanent flooring, these were more readily restricted to specific times and people, ensuring exclusive use. Throughout, the chapter identifies ways in which both permanent and temporary markers relate to the places trodden by Christ and the saints examined in chapter 1. Points of connection include deliberate evocations of the Holy Land in Palm Sunday processions that saw textiles spread under representations of Christ. They also embrace visionary experiences

1. An important recent exception is Christine Ungruh’s study of the floor mosaic of Otranto Cathedral: Ungruh, Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale von Otranto. There is also discussion of the potential liturgical use of mosaic roundels containing images in Xavier Barral i Altet, “Le composizioni circolari e i dischi marmorei, o lapidei, inseriti nei pavimenti medievali a mosaico degli edifici religiosi: Valori simbolici e uso liturgico,” in Il colore nel Medioevo. Arte, simbolo, tecnica: Tra materiali costitutivi e colori aggiunti: Mosaici, intarsi e plastica lapidea. Atti delle giornate di studi, Lucca, 24-25-26 ottobre 2013, ed. Paola Antonella Andreuccetti and Deborah Bindani (Lucca: Istituto storico lucchese, 2016), 124–25.

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of the church interior in which Christ and the saints employed existing markers and created or trod in footprints made in ashes. More fundamentally, I argue that both types of site occupied positions on a spectrum of engagement with the ground that spoke of identity, ranging from one-off contact with unique holy individuals to repeated use by people similar to each other.

Treading on Texts Before moving on to the three main sections outlined above, it is useful to recognize the potential of decorated paving to shape the nature of actions above it through textual prompts. In discussions of trampling, the ground and whatever has been laid on it generally has a passive quality; standing on the surface is conceived essentially as something done to it, even if the action did not compromise it. However, the floor surface of the church had considerable agency in its potential to acknowledge and direct the actions of those who walked over it. If this can in fact be said of the rare examples of pavements that deliberately include material to be trampled on—that invited trampling in other words—it is certainly the case with more common forms of ecclesiastical paving. In this manner, the surface can be seen as participating fully in the sense of ductus outlined by Paul Crossley, in which visual prompts articulated movement through the architectural space of the great church.2 In a few cases, inscriptions on medieval decorated pavements addressed the person walking on them in such a way as to allude to their physical presence and even their manner of contact with the surface. Several of the surviving examples focus on zones of transition and mention actions of ascent and entrance, as well as referring to the proper state in which to approach these places. At S. Salvatore in Turin, for example, the presbytery contained a twelfth-century floor mosaic with a design combining the Wheel of Fortune with motifs drawn from world maps.3 A now fragmentary inscription positioned at the entrance to the presbytery addressed someone coming up the steps (“quisquis es . . . gradiens super”); the rest of the message is too damaged to make out.4 Similarly, at S. Nicola in Bari, where the raised presbytery was paved in the early twelfth century in a combination of opus sectile and opus interrasile (here marble inlaid with mastic), an inscription on the riser of the top step also addresses the person walking up and refers to this movement (fig. 43). It reads: “Those

2. Crossley, “Ductus and Memoria.” 3. The classic study is Kitzinger, “World Map and Fortune’s Wheel”; see also Donkin, “‘Usque ad ultimum terrae.’” The church itself does not survive; the mosaic is now displayed in situ under a protective canopy. 4. “quisquis es in e . . . / gradiens super i . . . / exhinc vestitos n . . . / . . . d . . . . . . . . . rrepatito . . .” On account of the fragmentary nature of the mosaic, the inscriptions have been read slightly differently by the various scholars who have worked on the floor. I follow the versions given in Kitzinger, “World Map and Fortune’s Wheel,” 349–52.

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Fig. 43. Detail of the inscription on the risers of the presbytery pavement, S. Nicola, Bari, early twelfth century. Photo: Lucy Donkin.

who are arrogant are denied access to the heavens via these steps. But, for those who are modest, these steps permit them to aspire to lofty things. Therefore, you who seek to ascend, do not be prideful. Be humble, pious, loyal and you will be great, like Father Elia, who first brought forth this temple, that Father Eustasio is now governing and decorating.”5 As will be discussed further in the following chapter, the pavement was an important surface for articulating humility, especially where practices of penance and prayer brought bodies flat against the ground. At the same time, this position held within itself the prospect of future elevation, based on the promise in Luke’s Gospel that “he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”6 It is therefore significant that at S. Nicola a

5. “His gradibus tumidis ascensus ad alta / negatur; his gradibus blan/dis querere celsa datur. / Ergo ne tumeas qui sursum scandere queris. Sis humilis, /supplex, planus et altus eris / ut pater Helias hoc templum q(ui) prius egit, / quod pater Eustasius sic decorando regit”; discussed in Guglielmo Cavallo and Francesco Magistrale, “Mezzogiorno normanno e scritture esposte,” in Epigrafia medievale greca e latina: Ideologia e funzione. Atti del Seminario di Erice, 12–18 settembre 1991, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo and Cyril A. Mango (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1995), 317–18, and fig. 12; translation adapted from Vernon, “Visual Culture in Norman Puglia,” 131. 6. Luke 14:11.

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command to humility and a warning against pride is expressed on the pavement, precisely at the point when someone was standing upright and rising upward. This physical movement is brought into dialogue with a spiritual movement heavenward, but also distanced from it. While the spiritual movement is dependent on interior qualities, the implication is that physical ascent might actually work against it by inspiring pride; the text functions to counter this. It was also possible for a pavement inscription to request a more humble gesture; as discussed in chapter 2, that in front of the altar at the church of St.-Martin-d’Ainay in Lyon commanded the reader to kneel in that place to pray for grace.7 Another inscription in Lyon also addressed the viewer. Part of the lost pavement of St.-Irénée, this was positioned at the entrance to the choir. While not referring specifically to an action that brought the reader into contact with the floor, such as stepping or kneeling, it nevertheless characterizes the reader as “entering” a sacred place and instructs them to engage in penitential behavior, crying and asking for pardon, here in response to the presence of relics in the crypt below.8 In all these cases, the likely readership was made up of members of the clergy. More unusually, instructions on the pavement were addressed to a more circumscribed audience. Lincoln Cathedral retains a single marker of Purbeck marble in the choir, inscribed “Cantate hic.”9 According to the cathedral’s consuetudinary of ca. 1260 as reproduced in the fourteenth-century Liber niger, on the anniversary of deaths the verses of responsories would be sung—presumably by the cantor—standing on this marble stone.10 For the most part, however, it was the design and material of paving that guided the steps of those using the space, whether elements were planned with such a role, took on this function, or simply assumed a certain direction of movement through their orientation. Once a certain custom was established, it can be presumed that the floor itself provided a sufficient prompt at the point at which the action occurred. However, while these will have included many practices that were never formalized and even some that were subconscious, others were part of more scripted ceremonies. Textual sources for these therefore help to suggest how and when particular elements might be used as processional routes, halting points, and settings for specific activities.

7. Favreau, Michaud, and Mora, Corpus des inscriptions, 17:84–85. This example is discussed further in chapter 5. 8. Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 274–77. This example is discussed in chapter 6. 9. William Camden, Britannia, trans. and enlarged Richard Gough, 3 vols. (London: John Nichols for T. Payne, 1789), 2:256, fig. viii, where the stone is described as being inscribed with the words “Cantate docti.” 10. “Et versus Responsorium canentur in medio chori stant’ supra petram marmoriam in qua scribitur canite hic”; Henry Bradshaw and Christopher Wordsworth, eds., Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral, 2 vols. in 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1892–97), 1:395; discussed in Christopher Wordsworth, Notes on Mediaeval Services in England, with an Index of Lincoln Ceremonies (London: Thomas Baker, 1898), 123, 174.

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Geometric Paving An awareness and positive understanding of walking on nonfigurative paving is found in different forms. Some responses focus on the material and surface, developing associations commonly drawn between marble and water to suggest an illusion of walking in water or snow, an illusion that contrasts with or is even exaggerated by the hardness of the stone.11 Fabio Barry notes a sixth-century poetic account of a Vandal audience chamber with an “unclouded pavement [that] seems to be thickly spread snow. When your feet stand upon it, you would think they could sink into it.”12 Similarly, in the early thirteenth century, Willibrand of Oldenburg described John I of Ibelin’s palace at Beirut as possessing “a fine marble pavement that so well feigns water stirred by a light wind that, whoever steps over it, seems to be wading, since they leave no footprints above the sand depicted there.”13 While these are literary descriptions that conform to certain ekphrastic tropes, it seems plausible that similar impressions informed experiences of walking—and seeing others walk—through ecclesiastical spaces paved in this manner. However, there was also the potential for individual paving elements to take on particular significance underfoot, directing people’s movements and locating particular actions.14 A number of high-status pavements in both East and West featured roundels and other geometric components made of precious marbles and porphyry. Such elements can almost seem a natural place to stand, or at least to ignore them is in some way to disrupt the inherent logic of the composition.15 Scholars have not only explored these and other ritual functions through written testimonies, but have also proved willing to posit similar functions for similar elements where specific evidence is lacking. In tracing these practices and their scholarly fortunes, it is helpful to start in Byzantium since this both provides textual evidence for the use of various paving elements as ceremonial markers and has been seen as the ultimate point of reference for a number of pavements in the Latin West.

11. On these associations, see Fabio Barry, “Walking on Water: Cosmic Floors in Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” Art Bulletin 89, no. 4 (2007): 627–56; Pentcheva, Hagia Sophia, 121–49. 12. “Hic sine nube solum; nix iuncta et sparsa putatur. / Dum steterint, credas mergere posse pedes”; Luxorius, Carmina 90.5–6, ed. and trans. Morris Rosenblum, Luxorius: A Latin Poet among the Vandals (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), 164–65; translation from Barry, “Walking on Water,” 639. 13. “Pauimentum habet subtile marmoreum, simulans aquam leui uento agitatam, ita ut, qui super illud incesserit, uadare putetur, cum tamen arene illic depicte summa uestigia non impresserit”; Willibrand of Oldenburg, Peregrinatio, 1.5, ed. Johann C. M. Laurent, Peregrinatores medii aevi quattuor: Burchardus de Monte Sion, Ricoldus de Monte Crucis, Odoricus de Foro Julii, Wilibrandus de Oldenborg (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1864), 167; translation from Barry, “Walking on Water,” 630. 14. Some of these are reviewed in Barral i Altet, “Composizioni circolari,” 121–25. 15. It is perhaps in this sense that Pope Francis is shown standing on a roundel in the pavement of the Sistine Chapel on the cover of National Geographic for August 2015 and Queen Elizabeth II approaches the central roundel of the Cosmati pavement of Westminster Abbey in a portrait painted by Ralph Heimans in 2012.

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The pavement of Hagia Sophia includes four green marble lines running north– south across the nave (fig. 44).16 Dating back to the Justinianic structure, they appear to have been of sustained importance, since they were preserved during repaving in the sixth, tenth, and fourteenth centuries. The lines, known as “rivers” (ποτάμια) or “borders” (φίνας), acted partly as halting points in processions. Writing in the early fifteenth century, Simeon of Thessaloniki noted that the patriarch advanced as far as the first “river” when entering the church on Saturday evenings, Sundays, and feast days.17 Theodore of Andida stated that the entry of the bishop into the church is like Christ coming to the Jordan.18 A single river in the church of the same dedication in Thessaloniki fulfilled a similar function and is additionally mentioned as the place on which the readers set their candelabra.19 One of the rivers at Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was also on occasion connected with the illumination of the church. A typikon gives a sequence of events not otherwise known for the Sunday before Christmas in which the patriarch came from the sanctuary to the third river and the clerics lit their candles from his.20 The lines in the pavement in Constantinople may also have functioned to divide up the space between different users. The semi-legendary Narratio de S. Sophia, which dates from the eighth or ninth century, describes the lines as “φίνας” or “limits.” A rather ambiguous passage states that Justinian named them after the four Rivers of Paradise and decreed that those whose sins separated them from the rest of the congregation should stay there.21 George Majeska noted that Simeon of Thessaloniki also mentioned that catechumens and the excommunicated could only enter the church a certain distance, and suggests that the easternmost river delimited the area reserved for the clergy.22 Cyril Mango translated the passage regarding the function of the lines differently, interpreting it as meaning that the emperor “decreed that persons excommunicated for their sins should stand upon them, one by one.”23 It has also been suggested that the bands might

16. For discussion and reconstruction of the lines, see Thomas F. Mathews, Early Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1971), 97–98; George P. Majeska, “Notes on the Archaeology of St. Sophia at Constantinople: The Green Marble Bands on the Floor,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 32 (1978): 299–308; Rowland J. Mainstone, Hagia Sophia: Architecture, Structure and Liturgy of Justinian’s Great Church (London: Thames and Hudson, 1988), 221. 17. Jean Darrouzès, “Sainte-Sophie de Thessalonique d’après un rituel,” Revue des études byzantines 34 (1976): 46–47. 18. Theodore of Andida, Brevis commentatio de divinae liturgiae symbolis ac mysteriis, PG 140:435. 19. Darrouzès, “Sainte-Sophie de Thessalonique,” 52–55, 68–69. 20. Majeska, “Notes on the Archaeology of St. Sophia at Constantinople,” 303, for the observation that the ceremony must have fallen out of use. 21. Anonymi narratio de aedificatione templi Sanctae Sophiae, 26, ed. Theodore Preger, in Scriptores originum Constantinopolitarum, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1901), 102; trans. Gilbert Dagron, Constantinople imaginaire: Études sur le recueil des “Patria” (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1984), 207. 22. Simeon of Thessaloniki, De sacro templo, 152–54, PG 155:357–60; Majeska, “Notes on the Archaeology of St. Sophia at Constantinople,” 302–4. 23. Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 101.

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Fig. 44. Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, view of the interior showing the omphalion and lines on the pavement, sixth century and later. Photo: Panagiotis Kotsovolos/Alamy Stock Photo.

have functioned to order members of the congregation according to their rank or status, though there is no specific evidence for such a practice.24 Pavement markers also indicated the location of particular, prominent individuals. Notably, porphyry roundels played an important part in the ceremonial of the Byzantine court.25 The most numerous references appear in the Book of Ceremonies of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (913–59), in which the emperor receives the obeisances of the attendant dignitaries standing on the first roundel of the Hall of Justinian;26 on a porphyry slab on the terrace outside the Chrysotriklinos;27 and on a porphyry slab outside the Consistory.28 He also stood on a porphyry disc while waiting for the patriarch to enter the sanctuary at Hagia Sophia on feast days such as Easter Monday and

24. Mainstone, Hagia Sophia, 229. 25. See especially Schreiner, “Omphalion und Rota Porphyretica,” 401–3. 26. Constantine Porphyrogennetos, Book of Ceremonies, 1.11, trans. Ann Moffatt and Maxeme Tall, Byzantina Australiensia 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 86–87; for their use by others, see 2.2, p. 524. On the pavements of the palace, see Adolphe Napoléon Didron (l’aîné), “Le palais impérial de Constantinople,” Annales archéologiques 21 (1861): esp. 269–73; Henry P. Maguire, “The Medieval Floors of the Great Palace,” in Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life, ed. Nevra Necipog˘lu, The Medieval Mediterranean 33 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 153–74. 27. Constantine Porphyrogennetos, Book of Ceremonies, 1.64, trans. Moffatt and Tall, 290. 28. Constantine Porphyrogennetos, Book of Ceremonies, 1.10, trans. Moffatt and Tall, 73.

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Epiphany.29 The opus sectile panel that can still be seen on the right of the nave is likely to be the purple omphalion mentioned in the text, although the central roundel is now of grey granite.30 Compiled from earlier texts as well as contemporary sources, the Book of Ceremonies has been characterized as expressive of tenth-century antiquarianism and interest in codification.31 The work presents itself as a response to a decline in the observance of ritual and as a guide to future generations. It is therefore difficult to tell to what extent the ceremonies described were performed at the time, let alone in preceding and succeeding periods. However, an independent account suggests that the special status of the roundel in Hagia Sophia continued into the thirteenth century. As mentioned in the previous chapter, in around 1200, the Russian abbot Anthony of Novgorod described Hagia Sophia as part of an account of the holy sites of Constantinople.32 He not only noted the porphyry roundel in the pavement, but provided details that suggest that it had accrued various associations over time, at least from the point of view of a pious visitor to the city. As will be discussed further below, he noted that the Virgin Mary had been seen to pray on the spot. Anthony also understood the roundel to be the location of the throne upon which the emperor was crowned, although Peter Schreiner has demonstrated that coronations actually took place in the pulpit and there is no supporting evidence that the throne was placed on the omphalion.33 The pavement of another church in Constantinople has also been understood to have acted to guide participants in the liturgy. The Church of the Pantokrator (Zeyrek Camii) possesses an early twelfth-century pavement in opus sectile, with a quincunxial design at the center of the space and a large disc at the entrance. Unusually for medieval Byzantine floors, it has small figurative elements in the borders, including the signs of the zodiac and personifications of the seasons surrounding the disc at the entrance. I discuss it here because the liturgical interpretation rests as much on its overall composition as on its imagery. Nicoletta Isar has read the design and iconography of the pavement in the light of the Pantokrator typikon of John II Komnenos, written in 1136 for the consecration of the church, and that of the Empress Irene Doukaina for the Convent of the Mother of God Kecharitôminè, dated to ca. 1110–16.34 Noting the interest displayed

29. A general description, which mentions the porphyry omphalion, can be found in Constantine Porphyrogennetos, Book of Ceremonies, 1.1, trans. Moffatt and Tall, 15; George P. Majeska, “The Emperor in His Church: Imperial Ritual in the Church of St. Sophia,” in Byzantine Court Culture from 829–1204, ed. Henry P. Maguire (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1997), 6. 30. Schreiner, “Omphalion und Rota Porphyretica,” 401–3. 31. Averil Cameron, “The Construction of Court Ritual: The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies,” in Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, ed. David Cannadine and Simon Price (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 119. 32. Anthony of Novgorod, Kniga palomnik, ed. Loparev, 15; trans. B. de Khitrowo, in Itinéraires russes en Orient (Geneva: Fick, 1889), 95. 33. Schreiner, “Omphalion und Rota Porphyretica,” 404. 34. Isar, Χορός, 155–69, figs. 155–57, 161–62b, 174–76. I am most grateful to one of the readers for Cornell University Press for drawing this work to my attention. For a detailed plan of the floor, see

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by the latter in locating the members of the clergy and their parts in the liturgy, she suggests that “one could almost draw a chart of the position on the ground for each member of the χορεία.” This corresponds to the structure of the pavement, itself described as “a sacred chart on the floor.” For example, the central circle is equated with the position stipulated for the priest and the ecclesiarch when chanting. Moreover, she suggests that the act of crossing the composition at the entrance could have had implications of initiation and transformation, signaling a movement from the earthly pagan vision of the cosmos to an ecclesiastical one. Although the significance of Isar’s arguments for the present work lies particularly in the relationship between the pavement and those who walked on it, her own interest concerns a more expansive vertical dynamic. The central roundel of the quincunx would have been positioned below the lost χορός—a large chandelier likely to have been of polygonal design—and is characterized variously as a “shadow, an anti-image,” and a “mirror” of the lighting device. The χορός in turn articulated a relationship between the earthly and the heavenly, with the same term being used in the typika to refer to the monastic choir in the church (χορὸν ἀσκητικόν) and the angelic choirs above (χοροὶ ἀγγέλων). In this way, if the pavement guided participants in the liturgy on a practical level, it also meant that they moved in concert with heavenly bodies in a shared act of worship conceived as a holy dance. Marble roundels and other geometric elements also played a role in the ceremonial of Rome, here featuring in the imperial coronation rite, papal ordination, and stational liturgy. The pavement of Old St. Peter’s contained a number of roundels, some of which took on particular significance during imperial coronations.35 Most notable was the porphyry roundel at the level of the altar of the sacrament in the nave, originally dedicated to Sts. Simon and Jude, recorded in a drawing by Giacomo Grimaldi in the early seventeenth century (fig. 45).36 The Roman ordo in the late ninth- or early tenth-century Ottonian Pontifical provides the earliest reference, describing the bishop of Porto as praying “in medio rotae.”37 This wording was repeated in a number of later ordines.38 A slightly different procedure is given in the Ordo of Cencius II, which dates to the first half of the twelfth century. This text specifies that a chair should be placed on the right of the roundel so that the emperor could sit opposite the pope during the scrutinium.39

Arthur H. S. Megaw, “Notes on the Recent Work of the Byzantine Institute in Istanbul,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17 (1963): esp. 335–42. 35. Andrieu, “Rota porphyretica de la basilique vaticane,” esp. 197–204; Glass, Studies on Cosmatesque Pavements, 48–49, 51; Stroll, Symbols as Power, 47–49, 59–65; de Blaauw, Cultus et decor, 2:732–43. 36. Vatican City, BAV, MS Barb. lat. 2733, fols. 104v–105v; Giacomo Grimaldi, Descrizione della basilica antica di S. Pietro in Vaticano: Codice Barberini latino 2733, ed. Reto Niggl, Codices e Vaticanis selecti 32 (Vatican City: BAV, 1972), 138–39, fig. 51. 37. Ordo I, 4, ed. Reinhard Elze, Die Ordines für die Weihe und Krönung des Kaisers und der Kaiserin, Fontes iuris Germanici antiqui in usum scholarum ex Monumentis Germaniae historicis seperatim editi, 9, Ordines coronationis imperialis (Hannover: Hahn, 1960), 2. 38. Ordines V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, ed. Elze, Ordines für die Weihe und Krönung, 12, 14, 15, 17, 21, 24. 39. Ordo XIV (Ordo of Cencius II), ed. Elze, Ordines für die Weihe und Krönung, 38–40.

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Fig. 45. Giacomo Grimaldi, drawing of the inside of Old St. Peter’s showing the porphyry rota, Descrizione della basilica antica di S. Pietro in Vaticano, early seventeenth century. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Barb. lat. 2733, fols. 104v–105v. Photo: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, all rights reserved.

Drawing on the scrutiny in the episcopal ordination rite, this part of the ceremony involved the emperor proving his fitness to rule by answering a series of questions about his principles and faith. Later, the emperor elect stood “in medio rote” in front of the altar of St. Mauritius in the transept to be presented with the insignia of office and crowned. Six bishops are said to stand around him “in rotis, que ibi posite sunt,” which Michel Andrieu suggested might have been round carpets laid down for the occasion.40 The first reference to a specific ceremony pertains to the coronation of Henry V in 1111, which was disrupted when the emperor took the pope captive and repeated some months later.41 Descriptions of both occasions mention the porphyry rota, suggesting that it was an important feature of the ritual. Accounts of the first ceremony, including that in the Annales Romani, describe the emperor entering the church as far as the porphyry rota (“cum in rotam porfireticam pervenisset”), where two chairs were set out; those of the

40. Ordo XIV, 31, ed. Elze, Ordines für die Weihe und Krönung, 43; Andrieu, “Rota porphyretica de la basilique vaticane,” 201. 41. Andrieu, “Rota porphyretica de la basilique vaticane,” 198–99; Stroll, Symbols as Power, 59–65.

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second, including William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum, describe the emperor being led “ad mediam rotam” where the bishop of Ostia prayed over him.42 The origins of the use of the rota are unclear, but are generally seen to lie in Byzantium, without directly replicating Eastern practices. Peter Schreiner suggested that the Roman rota was inspired by the Byzantine omphalion and was first introduced for the coronation of Otto I (962), who is known to have emulated Byzantium in other respects.43 William Tronzo has linked the porphyry rota in the nave to the cult of the Cross, and more particularly the Feast of the Exaltatio crucis on September 14, introduced to Rome from Byzantium in the seventh century.44 At St. Peter’s, the feast may have prompted various changes to the interior, including a large representation of the crucifixion and the addition of an altar to the tomb of Sts. Simon and Jude, as well as the introduction of the roundel in front of it, which Tronzo suggests “sanctioned the spot in the manner of Byzantine ceremonial practice.”45 Despite the liturgical and processional use of porphyry roundels in Constantinople, the situation at Rome does not seem to be a direct transposition of practice there; on the feast in question, the patriarch knelt and prayed in the ambo at the center of Hagia Sophia. However, if the roundel at St. Peter’s was indeed the site of the veneration of the Cross, then two actions performed in the ambo at Hagia Sophia—coronation and prostration on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross—were relocated to roundels on the floor in the middle of the nave of the basilical church. As will be discussed further in the following chapter, the Exaltation of the Cross certainly involved a more general engagement with the floor surface in the West. On this occasion, prostrate prayer was often carried out on textiles, in part to emphasize it as an act of adoration. Although a permanent presence in the basilica, the roundel could have acted similarly. It is likely that the roundels in St. Peter’s had multiple and shifting functions over time, most fundamentally marking out a place for an important action. In the case of investiture, an action of becoming drew not only on the imperial connotations of the stone, but also the repeated use of the slabs over time by people of the same office. A mid-fifteenth-century illustration of the coronation of Charlemagne by Jean Fouquet in a manuscript of the Grandes chroniques de France shows it taking place at the center of the nave of St. Peter’s on a pavement marked with a number of roundels; Charlemagne kneels on one of a group of four set on the diagonal (fig. 46).46 Although not a reliable

42. For the first, see Annales romani, ed. Georg H. Pertz, in MGH SS 5 (Hannover: Hahn, 1844), 474; Chronica monasterii Casinensis, 4.37, ed. Hoffmann, 504. For the second, see William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, 5.423, ed. and trans. Mynors, Thomson, and Winterbottom, 1:766–69. 43. Schreiner, “Omphalion und Rota Porphyretica,” 406–7. 44. William Tronzo, “The Prestige of Saint Peter’s: Observations on the Function of Monumental Narrative Cycles in Italy,” Studies in the History of Art 16 (1985): 100–4. 45. Tronzo, “Prestige of Saint Peter’s,” 104. 46. Paris, BnF, MS Fr. 6465, fol. 89v. Illustrated in Richard Foster, Patterns of Thought: The Hidden Meaning of the Great Pavement of Westminster Abbey (London: Jonathan Cape, 1991), 163–64.

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Fig. 46. Jean Fouquet, Coronation of Charlemagne, Grandes Chroniques de France, France, midfifteenth century. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Fr. 6465, fol. 89v. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

indication of the arrangement of the pavement, it does indicate the extent to which the liturgical markers were associated with the ceremony.47 The same is suggested by the fact that one was marked on the pavement of S. Petronio in Bologna when the coronation of Charles V was carried out there in 1530.48 For the master of ceremonies, Biagio

47. Tronzo suggests that it might testify to a quadripartite design, “Prestige of Saint Peter’s,” 102–3. 48. Andrieu, “Rota porphyretica de la basilique vaticane,” 205–6.

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de Martinelli, who described drawing the roundel in the middle of the nave, both the location and the appearance of the marker were significant. Having first stated that “we marked the purple rota in the same place as the porphyry stone, that is in the middle of the church of St. Peter in Rome,” he later described it as “drawn in the likeness of” the one in Rome.49 Various other parts of S. Petronio also represented particular features of St. Peter’s, including a temporary structure resembling the lower part of the confessio, while the church of St. Dominic stood in for the Lateran.50 That it was possible to substitute a drawn roundel for a marble one does not negate the possibility that repeated contact had added to the significance of the marker over the centuries. Rather, as part of a wider elision of place, the substitute roundel seems to have allowed the ceremony to proceed “as if” it was taking place on the porphyry rota itself. The example of St. Peter’s may also have played a part in King Henry III’s decision to have the Cosmati floor laid at Westminster Abbey in the thirteenth century.51 The use of this pavement during the English coronation rite will be discussed in the following chapter. The first testimony for the use of the rotae in a papal ordination ceremony is found in the twelfth-century Basel Ordo, in which the pope-elect prayed on the rota before going into the secretarium.52 Markers were also used in stational liturgy. Albinus’s Ordo Romanus of 1189 describes how the pope, returning from S. Maria Maggiore after the vigil of the Nativity, would stand on a porphyry rota at the foot of the steps leading into the Lateran Palace while laudes were sung by the clergy of S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura.53 That of Cencius Camerarius (1191–92), describing the proceedings for Easter Day, mentions a

49. “Designavimus rotam porphyream loco illius petrae porphyreae, quae Romae prope medium ecclesiae S. Petri extat. . . . Rota porphyrea designata ad instar Rotae porphyreae in Ecclesia S. Petri de Urbe”; Giambattista Gattico, ed., Acta selecta caeremonialia sanctae Romanae ecclesiae ex variis mss. codicibus et diariis seculi XV. XVI. XVII, vol. 1, Pars secunda, De itineribus Romanorum pontificum (Rome: Barbiellini, 1753), pt. 2, 142, 145. For a modern edition of the part of Martinelli’s Diarium relating to Bologna, see Maria Venticelli, ed., “Appendice: Dal Diarium del cerimoniere pontificio Biagio Martinelli da Cesena (Bologna 30 gennaio–24 febbraio 1530),” in Bologna nell’età di Carlo V e Guicciardini, ed. Emilio Pasquini and Paolo Prodi (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002), esp. 363, 367. 50. Gattico, Acta selecta caeremonialia, pt. 2, 133–55; Venticelli, “Appendice,” 362–68; Anthony M. Cummings, The Politicized Muse: Music for Medici Festivals, 1512–1537 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 128–39, esp. 133–37. 51. Binski, “Cosmati at Westminster,” 31–32; Binski, “Cosmati and Romanitas in England,” 125–26; Lindy Grant, “The Coronation Mantle and the Westminster Sanctuary Pavement,” Medieval Journal 4, no. 1 (2014): 1–21. 52. Bernhard Schimmelpfennig, “Ein bisher unbekannter Text zur Wahl, Konsekration und Krönung des Papstes im 12. Jahrhundert,” Archivum historiae pontificiae 6 (1968): 63. 53. “Deinde ducunt eum per manus judices usque ad gradus ubi est rota porfi retica, ibique presbiteri cardinales sancti Laurentii foris murum faciunt ei laudes”; Albinus, Ordo Romanus de consuetudinibus et observantiis Romane ecclesie in precipuis sollempnitatibus, 2, ed. Paul Fabre and Louis Duchesne, Le Liber censuum de l’Église romaine, 2 vols., Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, ser. 2, 6 (Paris: Fontemoing, 1889–1910), 2:128; Sible de Blaauw, “Contrasts in Processional Liturgy: A Typology of Outdoor Processions in Twelfth-Century Rome,” in Art, cérémonial et liturgie au Moyen Âge, ed. Nicolas Bock et al. (Rome: Viella, 2002), 371.

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stone—the petra papalis—in front of the porch of S. Maria Maggiore, onto which the pope dismounted.54 Ingo Herklotz relates the use of the Lateran portico to the entry and exit ceremonials of the Byzantine court, especially that of the emperor receiving acclamations in the Chalke when leaving the palace to attend church services, likely to have taken place on a porphyry rota.55 More generally, both this and the role of the porphyry rota in the papal ordination ceremony are seen as part of a wider engagement with imperial porphyry on the part of the papacy in the twelfth century, also reflected in thrones and tombs. Scholars have been ready to suggest other porphyry components as liturgical markers with less textual evidence. Several Cosmati pavements in Rome include a line of porphyry roundels along the central axis of the church between the entrance and the altar, which are highly likely to have functioned as processional routes. It is possible that some of these may also have functioned as halting points on the model of the rotae in Old St. Peter’s and the Lateran Palace. Discussing the early twelfth-century pavement at S. Clemente, Peter Cornelius Claussen acknowledged the absence of references to any specific markers in the papal ordines. Nevertheless, he noted that there would have been space to kneel on the axially orientated rectangular porphyry slab immediately inside the entrance, while the square slab to its east would have been an appropriate spot for a short greeting or prayer, not just in the context of a ceremonial entry but for anyone entering the church through the west door (fig. 47).56 Likening the line of roundels between entrance and apse to a red carpet, he related their intersection with a shorter line running north–south in the center of the lay part of the nave to the significance of this location as a halting point in the coronation and ordination ritual at St. Peter’s. Furthermore, he proposed that the porphyry and granite slabs in certain other fields of the pavement between the north–south line of roundels and the schola cantorum could also have marked prominent standing places.57 Outside Rome, liturgical functions have similarly been put forward for opus sectile pavements. Patrizio Pensabene and William Tronzo have suggested a ceremonial use for the porphyry elements in the pavement of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo on the model of Byzantine practices.58 The early twelfth-century opus

54. “Perveniente autem pontefice cum processione ad porticum sancte Marie, descendit ad petram papalem, in loco antiquitus constituto”; Cencius Camerarius, Romanus ordo de consuetudinibus et observantiis, presbyterio videlicet scolarum et aliis Romane ecclesie in precipuis sollempnitatibus, 33, ed. Fabre and Duchesne, Le Liber censuum de l’Église romaine, 1:297–98; de Blaauw, “Contrasts in Processional Liturgy,” 371. 55. Ingo Herklotz, “Der Campus Lateranensis im Mittelalter,” Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 22 (1985): 12–13. 56. Claussen, Kirchen der Stadt Rom, 321–22; Peter Cornelius Claussen and Irmgard Voss, “Das Paviment von S. Clemente, mit einer neuen zeichnerischen Aufnahme,” Römische Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana 27–28 (1991–92): esp. 14–18. 57. Claussen, Kirchen der Stadt Rom, 319–21; Claussen and Voss, “Paviment von S. Clemente,” 16. 58. Patrizio Pensabene, “Le rotae porfiretiche nel pavimento della Cappella Palatina,” in Carra Bonacasa and Guidobaldi, Atti del IV colloquio dell’Associazione italiana per lo studio e la conservazione del mosaico, 333–42; Tronzo, Cultures of His Kingdom, 99–100, 129.

Fig. 47. Irmgard Voss, plan of the twelfth-century pavement of S. Clemente, Rome, 1990. From Peter Cornelius Claussen, Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter 1050–1300, vol. 1, Corpus Cosmatorum 2.1, Forschungen zur Kunstgeschichte und christlichen Archäologie 20 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002), 320, fig. 252. Photo: with the consent of Peter Cornelius Claussen.

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sectile pavement of S. Menna at Sant’Agata di Goti has a quincunx with a central porphyry roundel at the bottom of the steps (fig. 48), which Anna Maria Corsi has identified as the place from which the Eucharist would be distributed to the congregation.59 More than one pavement has been associated with baptismal or prebaptismal ritual. The baptistery in Florence has a pavement in opus sectile and inlay (fig. 49), dated to ca. 1225, which includes a porphyry roundel.60 While no contemporary written evidence survives for its use, it has traditionally been linked to the performance of baptism, though it has also been suggested that it reflects the presence of the Crucifi xion in the mosaics above in line with the configuration at Old St. Peter’s.61 In the seventeenth century, Ferdinando del Migliore noted a past custom of placing infants on the roundel, interpreting this as an act of humility to prepare them for the sacrament of baptism.62 In the late nineteenth century, this reading was followed by Giovanni Battista Befani, who additionally drew comparisons with practices then still current in the Ambrosian rite.63 Although these are not specified, he might have had in mind the Milanese practice of placing infant catechumens on the floor around a cilicium marked with a chrismon for the delivery of the Creed and Lord’s Prayer. More recently, the baptistery roundel has been linked by Amy Bloch to the placement of the infants on the ground for the recital of the Creed and Lord’s Prayer in the Roman rite.64 Since her discussion relates primarily to a ceremony of baptism held shortly after birth, it is worth asking whether this use dates back to the period in which the pavement was laid, when baptism at Easter was still the norm.65

59. Corsi, “Decorazione pavimentale nella chiesa di S. Menna,” 677. 60. Anna Maria Giusti, “Il pavimento del battistero / The Baptistery Pavement,” in Il battistero di San Giovanni a Firenze / The Baptistery of San Giovanni, Florence, ed. Antonio Paolucci (Modena: Panini, 1994), text vol., 377–78. 61. Amy R. Bloch, “Baptism, Movement, and Imagery at the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence,” in Meaning in Motion: The Semantics of Movement in Medieval Art, ed. Nino Zchomelidse and Giovanni Freni (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 144. For the comparison with St. Peter’s, see Susan McKillop, “Dante and Lumen Christi: A Proposal for the Meaning of the Tomb of Cosimo de’ Medici,” in Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464: Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de Medici’s Birth, ed. Francis Ames-Lewis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 289. 62. Ferdinando Leopoldo del Migliore, Firenze città nobilissima illustrata (Florence: Stamperia della Stella, 1684), 101–2. 63. Giovanni Battista Befani, Memorie storiche dell’antichissima Basilica di San Giovanni Battista di Firenze (Florence: Tipografia della Pia Casa di Patronato, 1884), 38–39. 64. Bloch, “Baptism, Movement, and Imagery,” 144, drawing on J. D. C. Fisher, Baptism in the Medieval West: A Study in the Disintegration of the Primitive Rite of Initiation (London: SPCK, 1965; repr. Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2004), 126–27. See also Amy R. Bloch, “The Two Fonts of the Florence Baptistery and the Evolution of the Baptismal Rite in Florence, ca. 1200–1500,” in The Visual Culture of Baptism in the Middle Ages: Essays on Mediaeval Fonts, Settings and Beliefs, ed. Harriet M. Sonne de Torrens and Miguel A. Torrens (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 83–85. 65. Franklin Toker sees seasonal baptism continuing in Florence until the end of the thirteenth century. An addition of that date to the early thirteenth-century Mores et consuetudines canonice Florentine

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Fig. 48. Nave pavement, S. Menna, Sant’Agata dei Goti, ca. 1110. Photo: © Ruggero Longo.

As far as I am aware, the practice is first noted in Roman Pontificals of the Thirteenth Century, which contain an ordo for the creation of catechumens during which the children were placed on the floor (“in pavimento”) and the Creed and Lord’s Prayer read over them by their godparents.66 This element may develop out of the redditio symboli on the day of baptism itself, since already in the Ordo in sabbato sancto in Roman Pontificals of the Twelfth Century, this was accompanied by the Lord’s Prayer.67 At the same time, it also reflects the presence of the traditio symboli and the traditio dominicae orationis—the handing over of the Creed and Lord’s Prayer—during the prebaptismal scrutinies that historically prepared candidates for baptism. In Florence, these Lenten scrutinies, like seasonal baptism itself, continued into the period in which the baptistery pavement was laid. The Mores et consuetudines canonice fl orentine, which sets out Florentine practices around 1231, notes that the first six involved clergy from particular

stipulates the twelve city churches from which the baptizing priests should come. Toker, On Holy Ground, 52–53, 139–41. 66. PRC, 53.22, ed. Andrieu, Pontifi cal romain, 2:513–17, esp. 517. 67. PRXII, 32.18, ed. Andrieu, Pontifi cal romain, 1:242.

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Fig. 49. Pavement of the baptistery, Florence, ca. 1225. Photo: Archivio Franco Cosimo Panini Editore; Opera di S. Maria del Fiore.

parts of Florence while the last brought together clergy from the whole city.68 The endurance of an annual set of ceremonies raises the question of whether a separate Ordo ad cathecuminum faciendum was widely practiced in the city at this time. It is possible that the traditio symboli and the traditio dominicae orationis, probably celebrated in Florence as part of the final scrutiny on Palm Saturday, took place in the baptistery, though it would be conventional for this to be held in the cathedral or mother church. On Holy Saturday, the redditio symboli mentioned by the twelfth-century Ritus in ecclesia servandi

68. Toker, On Holy Ground, 138–39, 271; on the dating of the Mores, see Tacconi, Cathedral and Civic Ritual in Late Medieval and Renaissance Florence, 12.

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will have taken place in the cathedral rather than the baptistery, since it occurs before the lighting of the Easter candle.69 In this light, it seems likely that the roundel could have been adopted as the place on which to set catechumens down for the reading of the Creed and Lord’s Prayer only after individual baptism became the norm toward the beginning of the Trecento. The appeal of there being a particular place for this moment in the ceremony is already suggested by certain traditions of performing the prebaptismal scrutinies, in which a representative pair of children were taken to the east end of the church for the traditio symboli. For example, the Tractatus de offi ciis of Praepositinus of Cremona (before 1150–1210) describes two children, one male and one female, being carried into the sacrarium for the recital of the Creed, while Sicardus of Cremona mentions the sanctuarium in his Mitrale.70 The possibility that the roundel took on the role of place marker for infant catechumens only some time after the floor was laid does not, of course, rule out a liturgical function for the baptistery pavement from the beginning; indeed the nature of its design suggests as much. In addition to the roundel in question, positioned just to the right of the pathway between the south door and the font at the center, there is also a smaller roundel between that and the north door. Conceivably these were designed to locate particular events or readings during the baptismal liturgy per se, presumably primarily for members of the clergy given the large numbers of children involved in seasonal baptism. Associations with baptism have also been suggested for geometric elements in pavements otherwise primarily executed in opus tessellatum. In addition to the opus sectile cross discussed in the previous chapter, the twelfth-century presbytery pavement of Novara Cathedral included other marble elements to the west of the high altar, which have been understood to have functioned as markers. Carlo Francesco Frasconi’s sketch and description testify to a square design of porphyry and verde antico in opus sectile, with a roundel at its center, immediately to the west of the cross (fig. 26), while a description published in 1836 by Francesco Bianchini refers to the central design as a roundel and indicates that the mosaic panels to either side once contained porphyry squares.71 Frasconi suggested that the central design marked the spot where an acolyte read the Creed over candidates for baptism during prebaptismal rituals.72 Bianchini followed him in

69. Toker, On Holy Ground, 197. 70. Praepositinus of Cremona, Tractatus de offi ciis, 1.150, ed. James A. Corbett, Publications in Mediaeval Studies 21 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969), 89; Sicardus of Cremona, Mitrale, 6.8, ed. Sarbak and Weinrich, 435. 71. Carlo Francesco Frasconi, Topografia antica di Novara e suoi sobborghi, Novara, Archivio storico diocesano, Fondo Frasconi, MS XIV/27 bis, fol. 100 (Bollettino storico per la provincia di Novara 86, no. 2 (1995): 581–82 and suppl. 1–262); Perotti, Antico duomo di Novara, 130; Francesco Antonio Bianchini, Il duomo e le sculture del corpo di guardia in Novara (Novara: P. A. Ibertis, 1836), 22. 72. Frasconi, Riti, costumanze ed usi propri, Novara, Archivio storico diocesano, Fondo Frasconi, MS XIV/13, 103.

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identifying the central porphyry roundel as a marker “upon which the deacon stood while he read the Creed to the catechumens.” He also claimed that the porphyry squares in the west of the presbytery were used “to indicate the position of the readings during the singing of the epistle and the gospel during the solemn Mass.”73 The nave pavement, which has been entirely lost, featured three large circular compositions centered around green and red stone roundels, which Cristina Maritano has convincingly seen as a specific reference to St. Peter’s.74 So far, all these examples have featured high-status marble paving in the Mediterranean region or deriving from it, in the case of Westminster Abbey’s imported Cosmati pavement. Certain churches, such as Hagia Sophia and St. Peter’s, formed well-known precedents, which other locations emulated partly on account of their prestige. However, the use of nonfigurative paving elements as liturgical markers was not restricted to this tradition, nor indeed to components of decorated pavements. The example of the “cantate hic” stone in Lincoln Cathedral has been mentioned above. In this and several other English cathedrals and monastic churches markers were set or cut into the pavement to indicate where participants in processions should stand.75 A plan of Lincoln Cathedral before repaving in 1790 shows a larger central roundel placed on the central axis of the nave, with a number of smaller roundels running down the length of the two sides.76 Similarly, at York Minster, prior to a repaving in 1736, the pavement apparently contained a series of larger roundels in the center of the nave flanked by two lines of smaller ones.77 These were described by the French traveler Albert Jouvin in the seventeenth century as “marking each pace in the length of the nave,” and interpreted by Francis Drake in the 1760s as having been “drawn out for the Ecclesiasticks and Dignitaries of the church to stand in.”78 A plan of Wells Cathedral in 1784, drawn after a lost original by John Carter, shows two lines of roundels in the western bays of the nave (fig. 50).79 With the exception of the stone

73. “Nel centro del primo e del terzo campo avvi un quadrato di porfido ad indicare il sito di collocare i legii pe[r i]l canto dell’epistola e dell’evangelio nella messa solenne; quello di mezzo, un tondo pure di porfido contiene, sul quale stava il diacono quando a catechumeni leggeva la professione di fede”; Bianchini, Duomo e le sculture del corpo di guardia in Novara, 22. 74. Maritano, “Novara come Roma.” I am grateful to Don Mario Perotti for bringing this to my attention. 75. W. H. St. John Hope, “Fountains Abbey,” Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 15 (1900): 307–8; Aymer Vallance, Greater English Church Screens, being Great Roods, Screenwork & Rood-lofts in Cathedral, Monastic & Collegiate Churches in England and Wales (London: Batsford, 1947), 16–19; Allan Doig, Liturgy and Architecture: From the Early Church to the Middle Ages (Farnham: Ashgate, 2008), 187. 76. Camden, Britannia, trans. and enlarged Gough, 2:256, fig. viii. 77. Plan reproduced in Francis Drake, An Accurate Description and History of the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of St Peter, York, 2 vols. (York: A. Ward, 1768–70), 1:34–35. 78. “Dans la Nef de cette grande Eglise on voit des petits ronds gravez sur son pavé qui marquent chaque pas de la longueur de cette Nef”; Albert Jouvin de Rochefort, Le voyageur d’Europe, 7 pts. (Paris, 1672–76), 3:519; Drake, Accurate Description and History, 1:35. 79. Warwick Rodwell and Gerard Leighton, John Carter’s Architectural Records of Wells, 1784–1808, Somerset Record Society 92 (Taunton: Somerset Record Society, 2006), 16–17, plate III; plan reproduced

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Fig. 50. Detail of the nave showing processional roundels, from a plan of Wells Cathedral in 1784; reproduced between the two title pages of Herbert Edward Reynolds, ed., Wells Cathedral, Its Foundation, Constitutional History and Statutes (Leeds: M’Corquodale, 1881). Photo: The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford.

at Lincoln, none of these markings survive. Moreover, there is no medieval testimony to their existence or employment, and the fact that the majority appear to have been inscribed means they could have been added to existing paving after the Middle Ages. However, the assumption is that they reflect the role of processions in the later medieval liturgy as celebrated at these cathedrals on Sundays and other feasts.80 Certainly there is evidence, discussed in chapter 6, for people requesting burial in cathedral churches such as those at

between the two title pages of Herbert Edward Reynolds, ed., Wells Cathedral, Its Foundation, Constitutional History and Statutes (Leeds: M’Corquodale, 1881). 80. Doig, Liturgy and Architecture, 187; Christian Frost, “Architecture, Liturgy and Processions: Bishop Grosseteste’s Lincoln and Bishop Poore’s Salisbury,” in Bishop Robert Grosseteste and Lincoln Cathedral: Tracing Relationships between Medieval Concepts of Order and Built Form, ed. Nicholas Temple, John Shannon Hendrix, and Christian Frost (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 168.

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Lincoln, York, and Southwell underneath places where parts of the liturgy were habitually sung or where certain clerics halted during processions. This phenomenon both presumed the sort of rhythm of repeated use that would have been facilitated by permanent markers and provided another kind of marker in the form of grave slabs. There is more evidence for the late medieval date of such markers from English monastic sites, which fell out of use after the dissolution of the monasteries. At Bardney Abbey (Lincolnshire), for example, excavations in the early twentieth century revealed an incised circle in the middle of the nave.81 Harold Brakspear understood it to have formed part of a series of processional markers, and to have indicated the place of the crossbearer. At Fountains Abbey (Yorkshire) a number of square slabs of white limestone incised with circles were discovered during excavations in the nineteenth century: a row by the side of the pillars, two set closer together at the east end, and a final one in the center.82 The excavator, J. R. Walbran, also mentioned a further stone in front of the west door, which could not subsequently be found. The arrangement is suggestive of a processional route, and the limestone has been associated with works carried out during the abbacy of Marmaduke Huby, between 1494 and 1526. At about the same time, Shap Abbey (Cumbria) was repaved and provided with markers.83 These have been associated with the Sunday procession when the monks entered the church and stood in two lines in front of the nave altar. All these examples seem to stem from a similar impetus to the late fourteenth-century illustrated processional from the Hospital of St. Giles in Norwich, in which the composition of complex processions is shown diagrammatically (fig. 51).84 Individual clerics are generally represented by the objects each would carry on the particular occasion, though some are indicated by circles standing for tonsured heads. While Aden Kumler draws a fair contrast with illustrations in pontificals, the diagrams do involve the same relationship between page and pavement as those of the alphabet cross, insofar as—writ large—they could be transposed to the floor surface. However, where pontificals indicated how to lay out the abecedarium, both parchment and pavement markers for processions fulfill the same function of ordering bodies. Although there is no record of pavement markers at St. Giles, there was the potential for such markers and the processional to complement each other, with paving seeming to have marked out weekly ceremonies while the processional showed less regular events. Finally, mention should be made of the pavement labyrinths in a number of French cathedrals, of which the surviving example at Chartres, datable to ca. 1220, may be the

81. Harold Brakspear, “Bardney Abbey,” Archaeological Journal 79 (1922): 32. 82. St. John Hope, “Fountains Abbey,” 307–8. 83. H. M. Colvin and R. Gilyard-Beer, Shap Abbey, Westmorland (London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1963), 6–9, and plan; Richard W. Pfaff, The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 301. 84. London, BL, Add. MS 57534, for example fols. 32r, 63v, 72r. The manuscript is discussed in Aden Kumler, “Imitatio Rerum: Processional Objects in the St. Giles’s Hospital Processional,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 44, no. 3 (2014): 469–502.

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Fig. 51. Diagram for a Procession to the Cross on Easter Sunday, Processional of St. Giles’s Hospital, Norwich, late fourteenth century. London, British Library, Add. MS 57534, fol. 72r. Photo: © The British Library Board.

earliest (fig. 52).85 These blur the boundary between figurative and nonfigurative, since they both constitute and represent a particular thing, and could include further

85. Others existed at Sens, Auxerre, Amiens, Reims, and Arras. On the Chartres labyrinth, see Connolly, “At the Center of the World.”

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Fig. 52. Pavement labyrinth in the nave of Chartres Cathedral, ca. 1220. Photo: Sylvain Sonnet/ Corbis Documentary, via Getty Images.

figurative components. However, insofar as the pathway to be followed is concerned, they were made up of geometric elements. Some labyrinths were the scene of dance-like processions at Easter.86 The most detailed evidence comes from Auxerre Cathedral, dedicated ca. 1334, where the dance took place at vespers on Easter Monday. The ceremony is first attested in the Ordinatio de pila facienda issued by the chapter of Auxerre and dated 18 April 1396.87 Later texts suggest that the dean danced at the center of the labyrinth, while the canons joined hands and danced “circa Daedalum.”88 A large ball, known as a pilota, was tossed back and forth between the two, while the eleventh-century Easter sequence Victimae Pachali laudes was sung. Although the text does not make it clear whether the canons entered the labyrinth or circled around it, Penelope Reed Doob and Craig Wright argue that the description of the dean as surrounded “garland-like” implies that at least some of the participants followed the winding path through the labyrinth.89 Noting that the sequence makes reference to Christ’s tomb and Resurrection, Doob also argues that the Auxerre ludus enacts and celebrates the Harrowing of Hell and the Resurrection. The origins and associations of the ritual are a matter of debate, and no clear reference to the custom predates the creation of the labyrinths. In his Summa de ecclesiasticis offi ciis, written in 1165, John Beleth refers with disapproval to ball

86. Penelope Reed Doob, The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), 123–24; Craig Wright, The Maze and the Warrior: Symbols in Architecture, Theology and Music (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 138–51. 87. Charles Du Fresne Du Cange, “Pelota,” in Glossarium Mediae et Infi mae Latinitatis, vol. 6 (Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1954), 253–54; Jean Lebeuf, “Explication d’un terme de la basse Latinité,” Mercure de France (Paris, May 1726), 915–16. 88. Lebeuf, “Explication d’un terme,” 921–22. 89. Doob, Idea of the Labyrinth, 124; Wright, Maze and the Warrior, 140.

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games being played at Reims Cathedral and other great churches, apparently in December.90 The thirteenth-century Liber ordinarius of Chartres Cathedral testifies to a “chorea” sung on Easter Sunday, a term traditionally used to refer to a ring dance.91 More secure references postdate that for Auxerre. In 1413 the canons of Sens were petitioned by the lesser clergy to allow them to “play freely the game on the labyrinth during the ceremony” on Easter Sunday, and there are reports of a ball game being played at the Easter vespers at Amiens.92 It is possible that an association with the Harrowing of Hell was facilitated by parallels between Christ and Theseus, who was included on some pavement labyrinths. A late sixteenth-century drawing indicates that the fragmentary labyrinth in the twelfth-century floor mosaic of the presbytery at S. Michele in Pavia originally featured a representation of Theseus and the Minotaur at its center.93 Although the plaque at the center of the Chartres labyrinth has been lost, one seventeenth-century description suggests that it too may have shown the battle with the Minotaur.94 If these served as an allusion to the Harrowing of Hell in a location where Christ himself would be unlikely to be depicted, then anyone standing on the representation of the Minotaur might have been felt to be participating in the battle in a manner reminiscent of Christ trampling on Hades and the doors of hell. The French labyrinths have also been credited with Jerusalem associations. This interpretation first appeared in the scholarly literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when they became known as Chemins de Jérusalem and were thought to have been a substitute for pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, when those unable to go farther afield traversed them on their knees in prayer.95 More recently, Daniel Connolly has argued for the labyrinth at Chartres as the location for practices of imagined pilgrimage in response to the loss of Jerusalem in 1187.96 Here the labyrinth with its cusped center and cruciform pattern created by the doublings back of its single path is related to

90. “Sunt enim quedam ecclesie, ubi in claustris etiam ipsi episcopi vel archiepiscopi cum suis clericis ludunt, ut etiam descendant usque ad ludum pile. . . . Licet autem magne ecclesie ut Remensis hanc ludendi consuetudinem teneant, tamen non ludere laudabilius esse videtur”; John Beleth, Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis, 120, ed. Herbert Douteil, 2 vols., CCCM 41–41A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1976), 2:223. 91. Yves Delaporte, L’Ordinaire chartrain du XIIIe siècle (Chartres: Société archéologique d’Eure-etLoire, 1953), 113; Delaporte interprets the term as referring here to a static choir in circular formation, 256–57. Its associations with dance are emphasized in Doob, Idea of the Labyrinth, 123, n. 40; and Wright, Maze and the Warrior, 147–49 and 323, n. 66, where the proceedings are also said to be described in a copy of the lost twelfth-century Ordo veridicus. 92. Herman Kern, Through the Labyrinth: Designs and Meanings over 5,000 Years (Munich: Prestel, 2000), 147; Wright, Maze and the Warrior, 145–47. 93. Vatican City, BAV, MS Barb. lat. 4426, fol. 35; Adriano Peroni, “Il mosaico pavimentale di San Michele Maggiore a Pavia: Materiali per un’edizione,” Studi medievali 18, no. 2 (1977): 713–14, fig. 5. This and other Italian labyrinths at S. Giovanni Evangelista, Ravenna, and a lost example at S. Savino, Piacenza, are too narrow to have acted as processional routes. 94. Connolly, “At the Center of the World,” 1:288. 95. Kern, Through the Labyrinth, 148, where this is seen as a post-Renaissance phenomenon. 96. Connolly, “At the Center of the World.”

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twelfth- and thirteenth-century cartographic representations of Jerusalem, which emphasized the city’s walls, gates, and intersecting main streets, and could set it centrally within a traversable, labyrinthine world. Connolly also refers to the way in which the Holy Land was mapped onto Chartres and its surroundings through the naming of local landscape features and religious sites, and Palm Sunday processions.97 The fact that the latter took place within the cathedral in inclement weather provides a context for the labyrinths to have acted more specifically as a reference to the holy city that invited movement around them. Certainly meditative practices could be conceived in terms of walking, while later customs and environments of virtual pilgrimage could replicate the spatial disposition of the loca sancta in terms of paces.98 Indeed, the two interpretations of the labyrinths are not entirely incompatible, since both emphasize the season of Easter, and Christ’s empty grave was a focal point of pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This wide-ranging but far from exhaustive survey gives a sense of the kind of largely nonfigurative paving elements that functioned or have been seen to function to direct the steps of those who used the churches in question. They ranged from components of high-status marble pavements, whose overall designs might respond to various considerations of function, aesthetic, and tradition, to marks made on pavements that were otherwise not decorated. As such, they include markers whose primary function was to act in this way, and others for which such a use was only a partial or additional aspect of their purpose. Either way, all such markers came into their own only at certain times— whether weekly, annually, or occasionally—and at other times must have been ignored. For the most part, the examples cited are found in prominent churches, such as cathedrals, palatine chapels, and abbeys, and these are indeed more likely to have possessed both the resources for complex paving and the kind of liturgy and scale of ecclesiastical community that invited writing some kind of stage management into the fabric of the building. However, it cannot be ruled out that similar practices took place on a reduced scale in smaller churches. The pavement could indicate routes, but more especially halting and waiting places. Markers signaled the location for particular moments of ceremonies, including coronation, ordination, and possibly baptismal rites, as well as more regular services. In this way, they might prompt and locate not only motion and stasis, but also vocal activities such as questioning, singing, and reading. Furthermore, they served to locate particular people and liturgical objects, from emperors and popes through cantors, candlesticks, and crossbearers to individual monks and canons.

97. Connolly, “At the Center of the World,” 1:306; Craig Wright, “The Palm Sunday Procession in Medieval Chartres,” in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography, ed. Margot E. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 346–48. 98. Mary Carruthers, “The ‘Pictures’ of Jerusalem in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 156,” in Donkin and Vorholt, Imagining Jerusalem in the Medieval West, 97–121; Kühnel, “Virtual Pilgrimages to Real Places,” 252. See also the discussion in the section on “Temporary Floor Coverings” below.

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How far did such marks on the ground go beyond simply indicating where someone should stand on a particular occasion? If this question raises the issue of a more complex relationship between person and location, it concerns more particularly the role of the physical object underfoot in defining a place, rendering it concrete, and adding to its significance. Many markers reviewed here invited particular individuals to stand not just in a circumscribed space but on a particular material, or—in the case of the Bologna marker—something intended to evoke it. In the case of the green marble bands in Hagia Sophia, the color allowed them to be interpreted as “rivers,” part of a wider association between patterned marble and water in the Byzantine world. Porphyry markers had strong but more abstract imperial connections inherited ultimately from Late Antiquity, when emperors from Diocletian onward had employed it in portraiture, architecture, and ritual.99 Particularly developed in Byzantium, these were also recognized in the medieval West, where they could be invoked in imperial, royal, and papal contexts.100 Porphyry was also associated with Christ’s blood and the transformation of the Eucharist, being commonly used for portable altars.101 Porphyry markers in Hagia Sophia, St. Peter’s, and the Cappella Palatina, but also in churches of more local importance such as Novara Cathedral, drew significance in part from their associations with each other. However, it is the relationship between person and marker that is of particular interest here. There is a certain mirroring between the nature and associations of the material and the identity of the person standing on it, a mutual reinforcement of status through physical contact. This equivalence was particularly the case where the ceremony in question was designed to confer a particular status on the person concerned, such as the imperial ordination and papal consecration rituals. Arguably the use of the marker contributed to the transformative potential of the rite. An element of external corroboration is found in a literary context close in time and place to the churches in which such marble roundels were concentrated. At the entrance to Purgatory, Dante fi nds three steps of differently colored stone.102 The first, of white

99. On the connotations of porphyry, see Richard Delbrueck, Antike Porphyrwerke (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1932); Suzanne B. Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan: Sculptors Tools, Porphyry, and the Prince in Ducal Florence, 2 vols. (Florence: Olschki, 1996), esp. 1:41–65, 113–20; Philippe Malgouyres and Clément Blanc-Riehl, Porphyre: La pierre pourpre des Ptolémées aux Bonaparte, Musée du Louvre, 17 novembre 2003 au 16 février 2004 (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2003). 100. Subsequently, porphyry was also employed by ruling families such as the Medici: Butters, Triumph of Vulcan; Andreas Beyer, “Funktion und Repräsentation: Die Porphyr-Rotae der Medici,” in Piero de’ Medici “il Gottoso” (1416–1469), ed. Andreas Beyer and Bruce Boucher (Berlin: Akademie, 1993), 151–67. 101. Butters, Triumph of Vulcan, 1:50–52; Herbert L. Kessler, Seeing Medieval Art, Rethinking the Middle Ages 1 (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2004), 29; Cynthia Hahn, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400–circa 1204 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 97–99. 102. Dante Alighieri, Commedia: Purgatorio, Canto 9, lines 94–111, ed. and trans. Robert M. Durling, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, with notes by Ronald L. Martinez and Robert M. Durling, 3 vols.

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marble, reflects and thus literally mirrors the figure of the poet. The second is made of dark purple, rough and crumbling rock, and the third—on which the angel guarding the gate stands—of blood-red porphyry. Dante ascends the steps, strikes his breast in penance and throws himself at the feet of the angel, requesting entrance, and the angel marks the poet’s forehead with seven “p”s denoting his sins. The episode has been understood to draw on penitential rites, including the ceremony of entry into penance on Ash Wednesday, in which penitents prostrated themselves and were marked on the forehead with ashes; indeed, the angel’s clothes are explicitly said to be the color of ashes.103 The colors of the steps themselves have been interpreted as indicative of particular spiritual conditions, marking stages in a general or individual progression toward redemption. R. E. Kaske saw the white marble as symbolizing humankind’s state before the Fall, the dark stone that after the Fall, and the porphyry that after Christ’s atonement on the Cross.104 John Bugbee recently advanced an interpretation that presents the three steps and diamond threshold together as representing stages of the human will.105 More commonly, the steps are read as an allegory of penance, whether the sacrament itself or a more general penitential state.106 This tradition goes back to the earliest commentaries on the Commedia and was also found in sermons that drew on Dante’s work.107 Exactly how the steps were matched with particular penitential stages or states varied. Some commentators, such as Mino d’Arezzo, kept to the order of the sacrament: contrition, confession, and satisfaction.108 Others attended more to the material properties of the steps. For Jacopo della Lana, the reflective white marble stood for confession and the broken second step for contrition; similarly, the Anonymous Lombard, for whom the steps represented a wider process, saw the white marble as signifying self-knowledge leading to a recognition of sins, the dark and crumbling stone as contrition, and the

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997–2010), 2:146–49. The passage is discussed in relation to the use of porphyry in Florence in Beyer, “Funktion und Repräsentation,” 156–59. 103. Peter Armour, The Door of Purgatory: A Study of Multiple Symbolism in Dante’s Purgatorio (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), esp. 16–34. 104. R. E. Kaske, “Dante’s Purgatorio XXXII and XXXIII: A Survey of Christian History,” University of Toronto Quarterly 43, no. 3 (1974): 205. 105. John Bugbee, “Dante’s Staircase and the History of the Will,” Speculum 90, no. 4 (2015): 1019–52. 106. Dante Alighieri, Commedia: Purgatorio, ed. and trans. Durling, 2:154–55; see also Ezio Raimondi, Metafora e storia: Studi su Dante e Petrarca (Turin: Einaudi, 1970), 110–17, esp. 113. However, for a reading that recognizes the episode as a rite of passage but resists drawing parallels with contemporary religious practices, see Michelangelo Picone, “Canto IX,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis, vol. 2, Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone (Florence: Cesati, 2001), 134–36. 107. Pietro Delcorno, “‘Et ista sunt scripta Dantis’: Predicare la Commedia in Quaresima,” in I sermoni quaresimali: Digiuno del corpo, banchetto dell’anima, ed. Pietro Delcorno, Eleonora Lombardo, and Lorenza Tromboni, Memorie Domenicane, n.s. 48 (Florence: Nerbini, 2017), 131–35. 108. Mino d’Arezzo, Chiose e spiegazioni in terza rima sulle tre cantiche della Commedia del divino Dante Alighieri, ed. Carlo del Balzo, in Poesie di mille autori intorno a Dante Alighieri, 15 vols. (Rome: Forzani, 1889–1909), 1:475–76.

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porphyry as the love that rises in the heart after contrition.109 Illuminators also displayed an interest in the steps. They are clearly differentiated in many of the manuscripts of the Divine Comedy that show the scene, including early fourteenth-century examples from Florence, Padua or Emilia, and Naples.110 In most of the depictions, the angel is shown with his feet on the last porphyry step, but in the manuscript from Padua or Emilia Dante himself is kneeling on it (fig. 53). The porphyry is not here redolent of its imperial connotations, as found in the coronation ceremonies, although the fact that the angel stands on this step may reflect the high status of the stone. However, more generally, the way in which in the differently colored steps are felt to mark and mirror a changing interior condition does correspond to the use of colored stone markers in Italian churches for ceremonies that brought about a change in the identity of the individuals concerned. The passage from Purgatorio is also a reminder that the material properties of stones used in decorative paving go beyond color and pattern to encompass qualities such as texture and sheen. The capacity of marble to take a high polish contributed to the ekphrastic convention that marble paving gave the impression of an expanse of water. This already had some implications for those using the space, making it appear as though they were walking through water, while “rivers” might be used as liturgical markers. Of greater significance for the relationship between a person and what lay beneath their feet were the reflective qualities of a polished surface, although these are not unconnected to its aquatic associations; in an era before the widespread use of mirrors, reflection in still water was probably the paradigm of mirroring. While what people stood on primarily reflected their identity in a symbolic manner, the surface of some markers arguably strengthened the connection. It had the potential to reinforce other properties in a positive manner, so that the polish of a porphyry slab, for example, might amplify the sense in which it reflected the imperial status of the figure standing on it. At the same time, literary sources indicate that the reflective element could be prioritized and the qualities reflected more diverse. Dante describes the first step as “white marble so polished and clear that I mirrored myself in it in my true likeness,” suggesting a process of critical self-reflection. It was also possible for the dynamic to highlight entirely negative characteristics. In the Life of

109. These commentaries are available via the Dartmouth Dante Project, http://Dante.dartmouth. edu. 110. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS Palatino 313, fol. 101r (Florence, 1330s); London, BL, Egerton MS 943, fol. 79r (Emilia or Padua, 1340s); Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Holkham Misc. 48, p. 74 (Naples, 1340s). These and other examples are discussed in Peter Brieger, Millard Meiss, and Charles S. Singleton, Illuminated Manuscripts of the Divine Comedy, 2 vols., Bollingen Series 81 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), 1:164–65, 2:352–55. On Egerton MS 943, see Anna Pegoretti, Indagine su un codice Dantesco: La “Commedia” Egerton 943 della British Library (Ghezzano: Felici, 2014). For the dating and place of production of MS Holkham Misc. 48, see Mario Rotili, I codici Danteschi miniati a Napoli (Naples: Libreria Scientifica Editrice, 1972), 53–56.

Fig. 53. Dante at the entrance to Purgatory, Divine Comedy, northern Italy, first half of the fourteenth century. London, BL, Egerton MS 943, fol. 79r. Photo: © The British Library Board.

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St. Nikon of Sparta, possibly composed in the mid-eleventh century, a man who was being consumed by a snake visited the tomb of the saint. Through Nikon’s intervention, the snake was vomited up alive and “crawled on the ground to the circle of smooth and polished stone near the coffin. There, twisting itself about, as it were, and shriveling up, it suddenly died.”111 While pointing to the apotropaic potency of the form in general and its association with circular mirrors and shields, Henry and Eunice Maguire have suggested that the circle is likely to be conceived as the center of an opus sectile pavement design, similar to the one in the north transept at the church of Hosios Loukas, close to the tomb of the eponymous saint.112 Although the passage presents the circle as powerful, the destruction of the snake stems not so much from the roundel alone, as from the combination of the two. The polished stone acts to turn the negative force of the creature back on itself, though it could also be seen as rejecting something at odds with the holiness of the spot. While such literary and hagiographical accounts of interaction with paving elements in churches and church-like settings cannot be taken as evidence of everyday expectations, they fit within a spectrum of transformative encounters and usefully enrich our understanding of the potential significance of materials underfoot. Although the particular material and form of a liturgical marker could inflect the significance of its use, more fundamentally, I would suggest, the repeated employment of the same marker over time gave it a certain aura and created a connection between those who used it. Where use was restricted to particular officeholders, and especially during rituals for the assumption of such offices, this created a sense of succession. Parallels beyond the sphere of decorated paving can be found in the medieval Gaelic inauguration customs examined by Elizabeth Fitzpatrick.113 Here it would seem that the act of standing on particular flat slabs of rock played a significant part in legitimizing royal authority. Some textual traditions even claimed that the stone would cry out on recognizing the steps of the true king. In the introduction to the list of kings known as Baile in Scáile, some of which may date to the ninth century, each cry of the “stone under a king” at Teamhair is understood to indicate the reign of a ruler in the dynasty. While the stones seem often to have been unadorned boulders or bedrock, some may have been marked with footprints. A late sixteenth-century account of Irish inauguration ceremonies indicates that the candidate stood on a stone “always reserved for that purpose,” which could include the “foot of a man formed and graven which they say was the measure of their

111. Vita Niconis, 55, ed. and trans. Denis F. Sullivan, The Life of Saint Nikon: Text, Translation and Commentary (Brookline, MA: Hellenic College Press, 1987), 174–77; for the dating, 2–7. 112. Henry P. Maguire, “The Cage of Crosses: Ancient and Medieval Sculptures on the ‘Little Metropolis’ in Athens,” in Thymiama: Studies in Memory of Laskarina Boura (Thymiama ste¯ mne¯ me¯ te¯ s Laskarinas Boura), 2 vols. (Athens: Benaki Museum, 1994), 1:172; Eunice Dauterman Maguire and Henry P. Maguire, Other Icons: Art and Power in Byzantine Secular Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 74–75. 113. Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, Royal Inauguration in Gaelic Ireland, c. 1100–1600: A Cultural Landscape Study (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004), 99–129.

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first captain’s foot.”114 Fitzpatrick has argued that a connection with royal inauguration may have been restricted to prints of single right feet, suggesting that paired feet at ecclesiastical sites may relate instead to the installation ceremonies of comharba, a word that literally means “successors,” at early medieval churches.115 Where restricted use of a marker could speak of succession, employment by a wider group might denote membership of a community. A study of the canons of Lyon states that it was customary in the twelfth century for new canons to swear their oaths of entry standing on a particular stone in the chapter house, probably a paving stone: “super lapidem capituli, juxta morem.”116 The stone need not have been prominently marked, nor even visibly different from those that surrounded it. It was sufficient that it was known to the community that used it and derived its significance from this repeated employment. Nevertheless, as in the other inauguration rituals in which the status of the person standing on the marker was altered, the stone played a role in this change. In terms of both the relationship between body and ground and that between different bodies occupying the same space over time, sites marked for repeated use in the church interior form part of a continuum with those trodden by Christ and the saints. One important commonality is the way in which the qualities of the place matched or reflected the identity of the person standing on it, especially where this was marked in precious material. As noted in chapter 1, holy vestigia were often understood to have been imprinted in marble. While part of the appeal lay in the hardness of the stone, which rendered an impression all the more miraculous, it was evidently also important for the substance of the imprint to measure up to the status of its maker. Something of the same desire is evident in the use of porphyry and other high-status stones as liturgical markers for rulers and prominent clerics. In the case of the imprints, such material functioned partly to demonstrate the authenticity of the relic, that the stone had indeed been trodden by Christ or St. Michael. In the case of the markers, where the identity of the person was the more malleable, the rhetorical potential of the precious material was directed at authenticating them, especially where the ritual concerned functioned to transform their status. Nevertheless, the underlying rationale was one of suitable equivalency. While this point of connection reflects shared attitudes to precious materials, in other respects traditions of decorated paving influenced the treatment and depiction of the loca sancta. As we have seen, some sites trodden by Christ and the saints that did not preserve their vestigia came to be marked by marble roundels, a form of commemoration likely to stem from the form and function of decorated paving.117 Similarly, the fact that the late twelfth-century Stammheim Missal shows Christ ascending from a block of

114. Edmund Spenser, A View of the Present State of Ireland, ed. W. L. Renwick (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 7. 115. Fitzpatrick, Royal Inauguration in Gaelic Ireland, 110. 116. J. Beyssac, Les chanoines de l’église de Lyon (Lyon: P. Grange, 1914), xxi. 117. John Phocas, Brief Description, 11, trans. Stewart, 14.

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red veined stone (fig. 5) may well reflect the role given to porphyry roundels in pavements as well as the Christological and Eucharistic connotations that led to it being used in portable altars.118 These wider correspondences meant that, on occasion, a single marker could be understood in terms of both a liturgical ceremony and a holy presence. As noted above, Anthony of Novgorod understood the porphyry roundel in Hagia Sophia to be the location of the throne upon which the emperor was crowned.119 The abbot went on to state that the roundel was fenced off with a copper surround so that no one could tread on it and that people would kiss the spot. Finally, he notes that the Virgin prayed there and had been seen one night by a priest. The abbot does not make it clear which of the uses of the site he considered to have inspired its veneration. Indeed, by positioning his description of the treatment of the roundel between the two, he implies that they both contributed to its sacred aura. Since the Byzantine emperor possessed an element of sacerdotal authority, bestowed at his coronation, it is possible that he could be felt to impart a numinous aspect to the spot where this was supposed to take place. Indeed, the fact that the Virgin chose to pray in the same place did not only offer a separate source of sanctity but could also be seen to confirm the religious dimension of both imperial ceremony and office. Anthony’s account of the way in which the roundel was treated is likely to reflect current practice, but it is difficult to ascertain how far the links with the coronation and the Virgin were more widely accepted. It is possible that the fact that the emperor stood there on feast days was sufficient to make it a place of power. Within the narrative the porphyry roundel plays a combination of roles. On the one hand, it is presented as a liturgical marker, which ensures that a repeated ceremony always takes place in the same location. It also has a commemorative function, testifying to past events and the presence of particular individuals. Unlike the examples in the Holy Land, it neither resulted from the event nor was placed there deliberately as a memorial but is simply identified as the place where the emperor stood and the Virgin had prayed. Nevertheless, by locating and rendering concrete these events, it can still be seen to have fulfilled a commemorative function. Anthony’s account of the roped-off roundel in Hagia Sophia raises a broader issue concerning the treatment of places trodden by Christ and the saints and those used by particular officeholders. This issue is not so much to do with the relationship between body and place, as that between the bodies of those who occupied the same spot over time. Here we encounter an apparent contrast. Where liturgical markers invited repeated use, places trodden by Christ were protected from being trodden on again by others. From one perspective, the way in which holy footprints were treated avoided desecration underfoot. This has been contextualized by the material discussed in the

118. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 64, fol. 115v; Teviotdale, Stammheim Missal, 70, fig. 49. 119. Anthony of Novgorod, Kniga palomnik, ed. Loparev, 15; trans. de Khitrowo, 95.

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previous chapter; if walking on crosses, the name of the Lord, or representations of the saints could provoke condemnation, then treading on a Christological contact-relic would have been just as, if not more, unacceptable. However, the treatment of places trodden by Christ also stems from the respective identities of the individuals involved. The potential for desecration underfoot was informed not only by a discrepancy in status between treader and trodden on, but also between two people coming into contact with the same place. This discrepancy was particularly stark in the case of Christ; for Sulpicius Severus, the ground resisted human contact with “diuina uestigia.”120 However, contrasts could also be drawn between those who were fully human; Agnellus of Ravenna’s ninth-century Liber pontifi calis recounts how a column by which a local holy man had habitually stood in church was protected “lest any part of the base of the column, where the holy feet had stood, should be worn away by unworthy feet.”121 Even to touch Christ footprints with one’s hand could be conceived of in the same terms; in the early 1500s, a German monk said he had put his hands “unwerdlich” in the footprints of Christ in the church of S. Sebastiano in Rome.122 In this sense, treading on Christ’s footprints was problematic because no one was sufficiently Christ-like for their feet to be worthy of standing where his holy feet had stood. Thinking about the treatment of places trodden by Christ and the saints in terms of relative identity allows for liturgical markers to be seen as part of the same phenomenon. In the case of the vestigia sites and similar places, one-off contact with the ground rendered it holy and was not imitated. In contrast, liturgical markers served precisely to bring about repeated use, which perhaps built up a lesser aura over time. Yet both can be seen to stem from the same logic. Where singular use reflected an exceptional or unique identity, repeated use corresponded to a shared status, whether this was part of a succession of officeholders or membership of a broader community. The roundel at Hagia Sophia, connected with two different kinds of figures, complicates the issue. Roping it off may well have reflected its Marian associations; certainly, it was rare to treat a liturgical marker that would be used again in this way. However, the fact that the spot could not be trodden by others would have reinforced the way in which it expressed the emperors’ exclusive status when they did stand there, a status partly defined by their closeness to holy figures. Moreover, these implications of contact with the ground are not suggested

120. Sulpicius Severus, Chronica, 2.33, ed. Parroni, 92. 121. “Ut ne quis basis columnae, ubi sancti steterunt pedes, indignis pedibus attereretur”; Agnellus of Ravenna, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, 130, ed. Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis, CCCM 199 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 305–6; trans. Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis, The Book of Pontiffs of the Church of Ravenna (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 252–53. 122. Cited in Heinrich Rüthing, “Frömmigkeit, Arbeit, Gehorsam: Zum religiösen Leben von Laiernbrüdern in der Windesheimer Kongregation,” in Laienfrömmigkeit im späten Mittelalter: Formen, Funktionen, politisch-soziale Zusammenhänge, ed. Klaus Schreiner and Elisabeth Müller-Luckner (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1992), 221.

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as a rigid framework but rather, as will be explored further below and in the following chapter, a spectrum inflected by a range of media, forms of contact, and identities.

Images as Liturgical Markers There is some indication that images too could be used as liturgical markers. In some cases, the disposition of elements presumes a certain movement around the space. For example, in the mosaic pavement of Taranto Cathedral (Apulia, ca. 1160), the figures in the roundels in the nave face west and those in the side aisles east, suggesting a dominant processional movement up the nave and back down the side aisles.123 Elsewhere, individual figurative elements double as pathways. At Otranto Cathedral, where the floor mosaic dates to 1163–65, the Tree of Life that runs the length of the nave along the central axis of the church acts as a processional route as clearly as a line of opus sectile roundels, while the doors of Paradise are depicted at the point where the opening of the screen gave access to the presbytery.124 These examples functioned regardless of when and by whom the space was used, even if speaking particularly to occasions such as processions on major feast days. However, elements could also mark the location of more specific and exclusive actions or events. Such images form part of wider compositions and cannot be understood in isolation from the rest of the horizontal plane. Yet it seems likely that certain elements took on added significance on particular occasions through marking the location of key participants in the ceremonies that took place above them, just as was the case with geometric markers, and it is this aspect that will be explored here. The possibility of individual elements functioning in this manner is supported by the way in which they were viewed. Although floor decoration is often illustrated through photographs taken from above, which tend to present compositions as if they were a wall painting or manuscript page that could easily be taken in at a glance, walking over the surface brings a smaller group of figures into view at any one time. The fact that not all images functioned in this way does not undermine the hypothesis that some did, just as only certain elements in an illuminated manuscript or painted panel might attract devotional or indeed denigratory touching.125 Different images might also work in different ways. On the one hand, there was the potential for a powerful identification between a figure represented on the floor and the person standing on it. This identification went beyond the kind of correspondence created by the juxtaposition of imperial stone

123. On Taranto, with an indication of earlier literature, see Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 370–71, figs. 312–14; Ungruh, Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale von Otranto, 377–78, figs. 191–92. 124. Ungruh, Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale von Otranto, 59–60, 75–78. 125. Cannon, “Kissing the Virgin’s Foot”; Rodríguez Porto, “Inscribed/Effaced”; Rudy, “Touching the Book Again.”

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and imperial body, or indeed the figure of Dante on the steps at the entrance to Purgatory, to give three-dimensional form and even voice to the representation. There was also the potential for someone to stand on an image of a figure or an object as if they were standing on the person or thing themselves, which might express a positive or negative attitude. However the two were related, it is helpful to think of the paving element and the person standing on it as creating a single entity that, when seen by others, might call to mind other visual representations. There is rare textual evidence for the use of figurative elements as liturgical markers at the cathedral of Novara in Piedmont.126 The presbytery pavement, which dates from the first decades of the twelfth century, includes roundels containing symbols of the four Evangelists on either side of where the altar once stood (figs. 26, 54), as well as a representation of Adam and Eve and the Rivers of Paradise to the east. The fourteenth-century ordinal for the cathedral, the Usus secundum ordinem ecclesiae novariensis (MS LII), indicates that the Evangelist symbols were used as markers for participants in the prebaptismal scrutiny held on the Saturday before Palm Sunday, specifically during the reading of the initial passages of the Gospels (traditio evangeliorum).127 Four deacons took the Gospel texts from the sacristy and placed them on the corners of the altar. They then read in turn from the opening passages of the Gospels, interspersed with short homilies, read by a priest, on the identity of the Gospel writers. The ordinal explicitly states that the deacons stood in the places where the symbols of the Evangelists were depicted in the pavement.128 The proceedings continued with the reading and explanation of the Creed (traditio symboli) and the Lord’s Prayer (traditio dominicae orationis), the three elements collectively forming the aurium apertio. Although reference is made to previous occasions, the preceding folium has been lost. However, the missing section can be reconstructed using a fourteenth-century manuscript from Gozzano, one of the oldest pievi or baptismal churches of the diocese of Novara.129 The Usus secundum

126. This case study is discussed more fully in Donkin, “Suo loco.” Bibliography on the mosaic can be found there and in Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 316–18, figs. 134–36. 127. Novara, Biblioteca capitolare, MS LII, fol. 23v. The manuscript has been missing since 1992. I have therefore not had the opportunity to examine it personally. The codex is edited in Ambrogio Cislaghi, “L’ordo della liturgia novarese nel XIV secolo” (tesi di laurea, Università cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Facoltà di lettere e fi losofia, Milan, 1978–79), 15 for a dating to the mid-fourteenth century. It is also discussed in Cislaghi, “L’iniziazione cristiana nella diocesi di Novara dal V al XIV secolo,” Novarien 8 (1977): 3–116, esp. 64 for a dating to the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. 128. “Diaconus legat evangelium secundum Matheum. Cum esset desponsata. In loco ubi designatus est beatus Matheus prope altare maius in pavimento. . . . Postea legatur evangelium secundum Marchum, suo loco: Ecce ego mitto. . . . Postea dicat evangelium secundum Lucam, suo loco: Fuit in diebus Herodis. . . . Deinde sequitur evangelium secundum Iohannes: In principio erat verbum. Suo loco”; Novara, Biblioteca capitolare, MS LII, fol. 23v; Cislaghi, “Iniziazione cristiana,” 91–92; Cislaghi, “Ordo della liturgia novarese,” 239. 129. Giancarlo Andenna, “Le pievi della diocesi di Novara: Lineamenti metodologici e primi risultati di ricerca,” in Le istituzioni ecclesiastiche della “societas christiana” dei secoli XI–XII: Diocesi, pievi e parrocchie.

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Fig. 54. Details of the symbols of the Evangelists, presbytery pavement, Novara Cathedral, early twelfth century. Photo: Lucy Donkin.

ordinem ecclesie beatissimi Gaudentii confessoris records seven scrutinies, starting in the fourth week of Lent, with the sixth on Palm Saturday and the last on Holy Saturday.130 It is probable that this sequence of events was also followed at the cathedral of S. Maria. Although the ordinal significantly postdates the pavement, it is likely that the rite was already practiced at Novara when the mosaic was laid.131 Material confirmation is found in the pavement itself. Like the rest of the presbytery pavement, the symbols of the Evangelists and their labels are oriented so as to be seen by someone looking eastward. The symbol of St. Matthew is positioned at the bottom of the right-hand panel, with the lion of St. Mark above; the ox of St. Luke is above the eagle of St. John in the left-hand panel. This ordering reverses the conventional (though by no means ubiquitous) way of arranging the Evangelist symbols in a scene of Christ in Majesty, with Matthew at the top left, John at the top right, Mark at the bottom left, and Luke at the bottom right. However, that arrangement is restored if the mosaics are seen from the

Atti della sesta settimana internazionale di studio, Milano, 1–7 settembre 1974, Miscellanea del Centro di studi medioevali 8 (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1977), 506 and 512–13. 130. Novara, Archivio storico diocesano, MS O2, fols. 146r–148v; reproduced and discussed in Cislaghi, “Iniziazione cristiana,” 74–76, 86–93. See also Emilia Dahnk Baroffio, I codici liturgici dell’Archivio diocesano di Novara (Novara: Archivio storico diocesano, 1978), 32. 131. The textual evidence is presented in Donkin, “Suo loco.”

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east. This is significant because Ordo Romanus 11, on which the Novarese ordinal has been seen to depend, specifies the position of the Gospels on the altar: the first, that of St. Matthew, is taken from the first left-hand corner; that of St. Mark from the other left-hand corner; the Gospel of St. Luke from the third right-hand corner; and that of St. John from the fourth right-hand corner.132 At Novara, Matthew and Mark are indeed on the left and Luke and John on the right of the altar if that is taken to be the left and right of the celebrant facing west. Certainly this is the meaning found elsewhere in MS LII, where the male catechumens are assigned the right or northern side of the cathedral and the female catechumens the left or southern side.133 If the Gospel books were placed on the altar following the arrangement given in OR 11 during the ceremony laid out in MS LII they would thus have matched the symbols in the mosaic. Since the arrangement of the symbols as seen from the west is less common than that as seen from the east, it is possible that the mosaic was designed with the two perspectives in mind. In other words, the figures could have been intended to be the right way up when seen from the west, as is the norm in pavements of this kind, but to fit the more conventional arrangement of the symbols found in OR 11 from the point of view of the clergy. There are several reasons why the traditio evangeliorum might have been important enough to write into the fabric of the cathedral. In medieval Italy, the celebration of baptism at Easter was a significant occasion, with both religious and civic connotations.134 At Novara, the scrutiny on Palm Saturday must have brought a considerable number of people to the cathedral since a mid-twelfth-century document implies that eight priests were required for the ceremony of baptism itself.135 If the rites of scrutiny and baptism were of significance to the wider community, they held particular meaning for the church in which they took place in terms of both status and income, since it was to baptismal churches that tithes were paid. In an urban context, this church was usually the cathedral, but the situation was sometimes complicated by the presence of suburban pievi or, more rarely, of more than one baptismal church within the city walls.136 During the twelfth century there were attempts to centralize various pastoral functions including baptism. At Novara, in a series of disputes that lasted from 1118 to 1181, the

132. OR 11.47, 52, 56, 59, ed. Andrieu, Ordines Romani, 2:429–32. Ferdinando Dell’Oro, “L’iniziazione cristiana a Novara dal V al XIV sec.: A proposito di una recente pubblicazione,” Rivista liturgica 65 (1978): 699–702. 133. “Masculi in dextram a monte femine in sinistram a meridiem”; Novara, Biblioteca capitolare, MS LII, fol. 23v; Cislaghi, “Iniziazione cristiana,” 91; Cislaghi, “Ordo della liturgia novarese,” 238. 134. Thompson, Cities of God, 9, 26–44; Peter Cramer, Baptism and Change in the Early Middle Ages, c. 200–c. 1150 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 267–82. 135. Ferdinando Gabotto et al., eds., Le carte dello Archivio capitolare di S. Maria di Novara, 3 vols., Biblioteca della Società storica subalpina 78–80 (Pinerolo: Società storica subalpina, 1913–24), 2:319, doc. 396. 136. Catherine E. Boyd, Tithes and Parishes in Medieval Italy: The Historical Roots of a Modern Problem (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1952), 125, 137; Thompson, Cities of God, 15–36, esp. 35–36.

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cathedral canons attempted to establish their authority over those of the extramural foundation of S. Gaudenzio, while the latter sought equality. Points at issue included the division of tithes and the customary rights of the canons to perform various liturgical ceremonies. Testimonies recorded during arbitration of the conflict in 1157 contain several references to baptism, with the cathedral canons stressing their role in performing the scrutinies, as well as consecrating the chrism and blessing the font.137 Moreover, from at least 1118, the cathedral canons had demanded that those of S. Gaudenzio should attend the cathedral for the main feasts of Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost, rather than celebrating independently.138 Following these stipulations would have meant that the canons of S. Gaudenzio were both present for the seasonal rites of initiation and cast in a strictly subordinate role. In this light, the use of the mosaic symbols would have had particular significance for a clerical audience comprising the cathedral canons and those of S. Gaudenzio, expressing a hierarchical relationship between the two. Indeed, it seems likely that the mosaics documented—literally set in stone—the canons’ right to perform the scrutinies. If one reason for the reflection of the aurium apertio in the presbytery pavement can be found in the importance of the baptismal rites in general, another lies in the nature of the ceremony itself. As mentioned above, the traditio evangeliorum consists of two elements: readings taken from the initial chapters of the Gospels and homilies delivered by the priest. The latter concentrate particularly on the symbols of the Evangelists. An introductory passage gives the names of the Evangelists and the origin of their symbols in the vision of Ezekiel.139 After each Gospel reading, the priest then explains why the author takes that particular form.140 This way of interpreting the symbols and the pairings that result go back to Jerome’s commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.141 Particularly significant in this context is the emphasis on the relationship between the text of the Gospels and the “figura” of the Evangelists. Although “figura” in no way equates to a concrete image, and could just as easily be visualized in the mind’s eye, the interpretative tradition derived from Jerome could be applied explicitly to works of art; Sicardus of Cremona drew on the texts when discussing the depiction and disposition of the

137. For example, Gabotto et al., Carte dello Archivio capitolare, 2:309, doc. 394; 2:319, doc. 396. 138. Gabotto et al., Carte dello Archivio capitolare, 2:194–95, doc. 303; 2:329, doc. 399. 139. Ezekiel 1:4–28 esp. 4–10; Novara, Biblioteca capitolare, MS LII, fol. 23v (where the passage is indicated by its opening words “Ap[er]ituri nobis”); for the text, see OR 11.45, ed. Andrieu, Ordines Romani, 2:428–29. 140. “Exponimus vobis quam rationem et quam figuram unusquisque in se contineat”; OR 11.50, ed. Andrieu, Ordines Romani, 2:430. 141. Jerome, Commentariorum in Matheum libri IV, Praefatio, ed. David Hurst and Mark Adriaen, S. Hieronymi presbyteri opera, vol. 1, Opera exegetica, vol. 7, CCSL 77 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), 1–4; Jennifer O’Reilly, “Patristic and Insular Traditions of the Evangelists: Exegesis and Iconography,” in Le Isole britanniche e Roma in età romanobarbarica, ed. A. M. Luiselli Fadda and É. Ó Carragáin (Rome: Herder, 1998), 56–57.

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Evangelist symbols in the church building.142 The traditio evangeliorum itself has been related to images of the Evangelists, notably in the sphere of Insular art. Eamonn Ó Carragáin, for example, considers that full-page illuminations of the symbols in large manuscripts would have been displayed to the congregation by the deacons on their way to the altar, with the rite providing “even the illiterate with a public dramatisation of . . . learned traditions.”143 At Novara no surviving manuscript has large-scale images of the Evangelists and their symbols.144 However, on the occasion of the reading of the initia on or by the appropriate parts of the mosaic, the overall effect would have been to provide the viewer with the full complement of the elements one could see in a Gospel opening—a symbol holding a Gospel book and a human figure holding a Gospel book— so that the deacons stood in for the writers of the Gospels. The combination was also known in the monumental art of northern Italy, including in a baptismal context: the twelfth-century wall paintings of the baptistery at Concordia Sagittaria (Veneto) include the Evangelists and their symbols in the squinches of the dome (fig. 55).145 How far this visual effect was directed at or accessible to the laity is difficult to determine. The extent to which members of the laity were admitted into the presbytery during the ceremony varied from place to place, and it is not clear what happened at Novara. Certainly, with the presbytery raised above the rest of the church and possibly screened from it, it would have been impossible for anyone standing at any distance to see the pavement. It should be remembered, however, that the audience of the scrutinies themselves was far from straightforward, given the participation of infants in a ceremony that had evolved out of the practice of adult baptism. The words of the expositio evangeliorum were formally addressed to young children who could not understand them. Their presentation and explanation of the fundamentals of the Christian faith had, therefore, an exclusively symbolic value so far as the candidates themselves were concerned. The effective audience was made up of the parents and godparents, along with the rest of the adult congregation and members of the clergy. Even here, there remains the issue of the linguistic accessibility of the homilies, which survive only in Latin. It has been suggested that they were translated into the vernacular.146 Yet it is also

142. Sicardus of Cremona, Mitrale, 1.12, ed. Sarbak and Weinrich, 47. 143. Éamonn Ó Carragáin, “‘Traditio Evangeliorum’ and ‘Sustentatio’: The Relevance of Liturgical Ceremonies to the Book of Kells,” in The Book of Kells: Proceedings of a Conference at Trinity College, Dublin, 6–9 September, 1992, ed. Felicity O’Mahony (Dublin: Scolar Press, 1994), 403–5. 144. For the surviving illuminations, see Ada Quazza, “Testimonianze di XI e XII secolo nella Biblioteca capitolare di Novara,” in Romano, Piemonte romanico, 333–44. 145. On the Concordia Sagittaria baptistery wall paintings, see Cramer, Baptism and Change, 291–319, figs. 3–4. The Evangelists are also shown together with their symbols in the mosaics of San Vitale, Ravenna, which Cramer sees as a source of inspiration for the baptistery paintings more generally. 146. Ó Carragáin, “‘Traditio Evangeliorum’ and ‘Sustentatio,’” 403–4, nn. 15–16; Michelle P. Brown, The Book of Cerne: Prayer, Patronage, and Power in Ninth-Century England (London: British Library, 1996), 113.

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Fig. 55. St. Mark with his symbol, wall painting, baptistery, Concordia Sagittaria, twelfth century. Photo: © 2019 Mark E. Smith/SCALA, Florence.

possible that lay understanding may have been less important than the fitting performance and solemnity of the rite. The use of the Evangelist symbols as markers for the reading of the Gospel initia could have enhanced the performance and efficacy of the rite without necessarily being didactic. At one level, it can be seen to correspond to the presence of the symbols of some or all of the Evangelists on Italian pulpits such as the Guarna ambo of 1153–80 in Salerno Cathedral and Melchiorre da Montalbano’s ambo from 1279 in the cathedral of Teggiano (Campania).147 Where double ambos were planned as a pair, the symbols

147. Dorothy F. Glass, Romanesque Sculpture in Campania: Patrons, Programs, and Style (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991), 65–75; Elisabetta Scirocco, “Liturgical Installations in the Cathedral of Salerno: The Double Ambo in Its Regional Context between Sicilian Models and Local Liturgy,” in Boto Varela and Kroesen, Romanesque Cathedrals in Mediterranean Europe, 205–21; Zchomelidse, Art, Ritual, and Civic Identity, 90–98, for Salerno. Mariaserena Mormone, “Il pulpito di Melchiorre da Montalbano nella cattedrale di Teggiano,” Napoli nobilissima: Rivista di arti figurative, archeologia e urbanistica 19, nos. 5–6 (1980): 165–73, for Teggiano. The symbols of Luke and Mark are found in the seventeenth-century reconstruction of the early thirteenth-century pulpit at the cathedral of Caserta Vecchia; Glass, Romanesque Sculpture in Campania, 101–6, fig. 106.

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might mark that used for the reading of the Gospel; in a single ambo, they could distinguish the lectern employed for this purpose.148 The arrangement of the Evangelists in the mosaic around the altar at Novara also prefigures later medieval multiple lecterns in which each symbol had its own book rest.149 In these cases, the images fitted and signaled the function of the pulpits. However, in the context of the aurium apertio, combining the visual and the aural so that the deacons gave voice to the mosaics could have added extra force to the delivery of the Gospels to the catechumens, precisely because this was taking place on a symbolic level. It may also have strengthened the apotropaic qualities of both text and image, reinforcing the exorcisms that preceded it. Indeed, Patrick Sims-Williams has proposed that the “semi-magical use of the initia” might stem from the aurium apertio.150 Whether spoken or written down, the Gospel initia or the names of the Evangelists possessed a sanctifying and protective function for both people and places. They could be employed in exorcisms of the possessed, and read by individuals as part of daily prayers, while in a funerary ritual in an eleventh- or twelfth-century north Italian manuscript a cross of wax inscribed with the initia is placed on the breast of the corpse in the coffi n.151 They could also be enclosed in the altar during the rite of church consecration, and read during the processions of the Major and Minor Litanies, although at Novara the readings took place during a separate ceremony for the blessing of the city gates.152 Images of the Evangelists could have apotropaic associations too. The symbols are shown, holding scrolls of their initia, in a fourteenth-century north Italian ars notoria manuscript, at the corners of a composition in which the Crucifixion is encircled by concentric rings of powerful incantatory names.153 These uses of the individual elements suggest that the human form of the

148. Scirocco, “Liturgical Installations in the Cathedral of Salerno,” 208–12. 149. Maia Wellington Gahtan, “The ‘Evangelistario’ from the Cathedral of Messina,” Journal of the Walters Art Museum 59 (2001): 59–72. 150. Patrick Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature in Western England, 600–800, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 293–94. Sims-Williams, review of Celtic Britain in the Early Middle Ages: Studies in Scottish and Welsh Sources, by Kathleen Hughes, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 36, no. 2 (1985): 308. 151. Adolph Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen im Mittelalter, 2 vols. (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1909), 2:582, for exorcism; Martène, De antiquis ecclesiae ritibus, 3:655–94, esp. 688–90, for the invocation of the Evangelists in the Fleury prayerbook. For the funerary ritual, see Cyrille Lambot, North Italian Services of the Eleventh Century: Recueil d’ordines du Xie siècle provenant de la Haute-Italie (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS T. 27. Sup), HBS 67 (London: HBS, 1931), 62. 152. For the use of the initia in the consecration ceremony, see Martène, De antiquis ecclesiae ritibus, 2:733–47, esp. 746, Ordo 8. For the civic processions, see Thompson, Cities of God, 152–56; Novara, Biblioteca capitolare, MS LII, fols. 29v–30r, ed. Cislaghi, “Ordo della liturgia novarese,” 258–59. 153. Turin, Biblioteca nazionale, MS E.V.13, fol. 1r; Michael Camille, “Visual Art in Two Manuscripts of the Ars Notoria,” in Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic, ed. Claire Fanger (Stroud: Sutton, 1998), 113–14.

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deacons, the mosaic Evangelist symbols, and the spoken Gospel initia together formed a potent combination regardless of who could see them. Although the community of canons at Novara had particular cause to set the stage in this way for their celebration of the traditio evangeliorum, the more general significance of the rite suggests that other images could have been planned or used in this way. Two other surviving floor mosaics include the Evangelist symbols, and both place them in a similar position. One, dated variously to the second quarter or last third of the twelfth century, decorates the apse of the cathedral of St.-Paul-Trois-Châteaux (Drôme).154 Here the symbols are enclosed in roundels to either side of where the altar once stood. St. Luke is positioned above St. John in two small roundels to the left of the altar looking east; a larger roundel containing St. Mark is located to the right. The representation of St. Matthew, now lost, was probably contained within a fourth roundel of a similar size further to the right. Although the disposition of the Evangelist symbols does not correspond exactly to those at Novara, they are on the same sides of the altar and the arrangement of Luke and John is identical. The lack of symmetry may speak against their use as liturgical markers. However, a more general association with the traditio evangeliorum is not out of the question, since seasonal baptism also continued in Provence and the scrutinies may thus have been performed at the cathedral.155 A mosaic pavement in the church of S. Giovanni Decollato in Pieve Terzagni near Cremona also represents the Evangelist symbols holding their Gospels (fig. 56).156 The labeled symbols are located in the floor of the apse at the corners of the composition. Viewed from the west, St. Matthew is placed at the top left, St. Mark at the bottom left, St. Luke at the bottom right, and St. John at the top right, forming a counterclockwise progression compatible with OR 11. At the center of the composition is a blank area, where excavations have revealed the foundations of an altar contemporaneous with the mosaic.157 As both its place name and dedication suggest, the church at Pieve Terzagni would have witnessed some form of prebaptismal scrutiny. Its status as a pieve predates the mosaic, which on stylistic grounds has been dated to the 1130s.158 The challenge of

154. For the earlier date, see Hartmann-Virnich, “Cathédrale Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Paul,” 266–67; Hartmann-Virnich, Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux und Saint-Trophime in Arles, 1:226–34. For the later date, see Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 289–91. 155. On Provence, see Cramer, Baptism and Change, 282. 156. On the pavement, see most recently Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 308–9; Calzona, “‘Littera’ e ‘figura’ dell’antico.” 157. Milan, Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Lombardia, P.T.CR.01: Paul Blockley, Pieve Terzagni (CR) 2001: Un saggio di scavo archeologico nella chiesa parrocchiale. I am most grateful to Dottoressa Lynn Passi-Pitcher, who directed the excavation, for allowing me access to the archives. 158. Calzona, “‘Littera’ e ‘figura’ dell’antico,” 351–55, who suggests that the laying of the mosaic coincided with a rebuilding of the church. In 1059 it was described as a pieve in the will of its priest; Ettore

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Fig. 56. Details of the symbols of the Evangelists, presbytery pavement, S. Giovanni Decollato, Pieve Terzagni, early twelfth century. Photo: Lucy Donkin.

reconstructing the liturgical practices of Pieve Terzagni is harder than for Novara, since no manuscripts appear to survive for the church itself and few for the cathedral of Cremona.159 One possible pointer lies in the Mitrale, attributed to Sicardus, bishop of Cremona in the late twelfth century and early thirteenth century. Although the work synthesizes a number of liturgical writings, it is likely that it was partly based on the practices of Sicardus’s own church. It describes a series of seven scrutinies that included all three traditio rites.160 Although this testimony is later than the laying of the pavement, it is plausible that the aurium apertio could already have been held at Pieve

Falconi, ed., Le carte cremonesi dei secoli VIII–XII, vol. 1, Documenti dei fondi cremonesi (Cremona: Biblioteca statale di Cremona, 1979), 504, doc. 206. 159. Felice Zanoni, ed., I corali del duomo di Cremona e la miniatura cremonese nel Quattrocento, vol. 2, Catalogo descrittivo, Monumenta Cremonensia 3, Annali della Biblioteca governativa e Libreria civica di Cremona 8, pt. 2 (Cremona: Athenaeum Cremonense, 1956), viii–ix. From this period only a late twelfth-century manuscript containing a martyrologium and necrologium remains. 160. “Quatuor autem in ultimo die leguntur eis euangeliorum initia, quia de quatuor mundi partibus ad fidei ueniunt sacramenta”; Sicardus of Cremona, Mitrale, 6.8, ed. Sarbak and Weinrich, 424–46, esp. 435; xii–xvii for the dating of the work to the end of the twelfth century and first years of the thirteenth century.

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Terzagni earlier in the twelfth century. At least at Novara and Pieve Terzagni, then, figurative elements in the pavement surrounding the altar could have acted, and indeed have been designed to act, as markers for an annual ceremony particularly important to the church and the wider community. While the rite was taking place, the use of these markers did not simply indicate to participants where to stand and read from the Gospels but also enriched their identity while doing so—both in terms of their status as clerics and as embodiments of the Evangelists—and enhanced the impact and efficacy of the ritual more generally. During the rest of the year, they will have called to mind that ceremony, alongside all the other associations of the Evangelists. Textual evidence of the kind provided by MS LII is rare. However, liturgical functions have been plausibly suggested for figurative paving elements at Otranto Cathedral, some of which correspond to the Novarese model, while others imply different dynamics between images and those who stood on them. The cathedral possesses an extensive and complex figurative mosaic pavement, dated to the 1160s, which covers the majority of the floor surface. Christine Ungruh has proposed a reading of the entire work, which places it in the context of both the liturgical life of the cathedral and the cultural and political milieu of the Salentine Peninsula, an area that combined Greek traditions with Norman rule.161 The following discussion highlights some of her conclusions regarding individual elements, in order to consider them together with the northern Italian examples and indeed with the use of the floor surface as established more generally in this book. The left side chapel features a composition that represents the saved and the damned to either side of a central tree.162 Although containing elements familiar from ItaloByzantine Last Judgments, such as the patriarchs with the souls of the blessed in their laps, the scene includes no judge, and Ungruh reads it rather as an illustration of the separation of the righteous from the unrighteous, as found in illustrations of the penitential Psalm 6. At the bottom, a small winged figure holding scales is identified as “Kairos,” a personification of the idea of the right moment, here more specifically a time for repentance and forgiveness, as characterized in another penitential psalm, Psalm 31 (32).163 Understanding this part of the church as the setting for rituals of public penance, she suggests that the figure would have been an appropriate marker for the deacon. She notes that deacons were more generally tasked with reading the Gospel and with announcing elements and giving instructions during services, and thus acted as a kind of herald, a role that the Book of Ceremonies specifically refers to as kairos. At Otranto when

161. Ungruh, Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale von Otranto. 162. Ungruh, Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale von Otranto, 79–96. 163. Psalm 31 (32):6. “For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found (en kairô euthéto / in tempore opportuno).” The identification is also discussed in Safran, Medieval Salento, 225–26.

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the deacon read the “Busspredigt,” he took on the role of “Kairos.” Here, as at Novara, there is the possibility that a deacon is temporarily elided with the representation on which he stands, almost becoming a single entity. In common with the Evangelist symbols, the figure in question has verbal associations, here those of announcing the appropriate time for an event, which the deacon realizes by giving it voice. The figure also personifies an idea rather than depicting a specific individual, rather as the Novara mosaics show the Evangelist symbols rather than the Evangelists themselves. In this way, the living body adds something to the ensemble in a different manner than would be the case if it were juxtaposed with an image of another human being. At Otranto, it offers a further degree of embodiment; at Novara it reinforces the relationship between the symbols and the Gospel writers. Ungruh also suggests that other elements in the same part of the mosaic acted as liturgical markers too. The tree separating the righteous from the unrighteous could have acted as a route for the Venite procession during the reconciliation of penitents on Maundy Thursday, in which the penitents made their way toward the bishop. Although elsewhere this part of the ceremony took place in front of the main doors of the church or in the nave beyond, it is worth mentioning that it would certainly have gained added significance if performed on the mosaic, since it commonly involved multiple prostrations.164 She also suggests that the font could have been positioned in the northern apse, toward the top of the tree, where an image of a deer accompanied by the inscription “Cervus” recalls the tract “Sicut cervus” (“As the hart”), used in both the Roman and Beneventan celebrations of baptism on Holy Saturday, and sung in Salerno during the procession to the font.165 If the font was indeed located there, the bishop could have stood upon the doors of hell positioned next to depictions of “Satanas” and “Infernus” in chains (fig. 57). He would thus have occupied a Christ-like position, akin to images of the Anastasis on Exultet rolls in which Christ is shown trampling on a prone and chained figure, next to the doors of hell.166 The resemblance is particularly close in the eleventh-century example from Bari, now in Manchester. In the upper of two Anastasis scenes Christ tramples on the chained figure flanked by crowds in two ecclesiastical buildings. In the lower he stands with one foot on a door and another on the figure,

164. As no liturgical material survives for Otranto, Ungruh uses Salerno Cathedral as a point of comparison. Reference is made to public penance and the reconciliation of penitents in a fifteenth-century manuscript of the Ordo of Archbishop Romuald II Guarna (1155–80), Capo. 7, fol. 89r–v, and in the fourteenth-century pontifical for the cathedral, Capo. 5, fols. 224–30, 271. Arturo Capone, Il duomo di Salerno, 2 vols. (Salerno: Spadafora, 1927–29), 2:269, 274. On these rites as they were performed in northern Italy in this period, see Thompson, Cities of God, 305–8. 165. Ungruh, Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale von Otranto, 93–96, drawing on Thomas Forrest Kelly, “La musica, la liturgia e la tradizione nella Salerno del dodicesimo secolo,” in Salerno nel XII secolo: Istituzioni, società, cultura, ed. Paolo Delogu and Paolo Peduto (Salerno: Centro studi salernitani “Raffaele Guariglia,” 2004), 188–212. 166. Ungruh, Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale von Otranto, 95.

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Fig. 57. “Infernus” and “Satanas,” floor mosaic, north side chapel, Otranto Cathedral, 1163–1165. Photo: Steve Estvanik/Shutterstock.

leading Abraham and Sarah out from a group of naked souls in hell akin to those to the right of the tree in the mosaic (fig. 58).167 To an extent, this interpretation posits a relationship between the mosaic image and the person standing on it different from that suggested for the deacons on the Novara Evangelist symbols and indeed for anyone using the “Kairos” figure in a similar manner. Here, rather than a conflation of identity between the image and the liturgical participant, there is a repudiation through trampling of what is represented. This variety supports the possibility, raised in the previous chapter, that individual images within a single pavement could work in different ways with respect to those who trod on them. At the same time, there are comparisons to be drawn between Novara and Otranto, not least in terms of the manner in which people and two-dimensional images could form ensembles familiar from visual representations. Just as the deacons standing on the mosaic Evangelist symbols created a scene reminiscent of images pairing the human Gospel writers with their symbols, such as might be found in an illuminated Gospel book, so a priest standing on the group of elements signifying hell would together have formed an ensemble close to the scenes in the Exultet rolls and indeed other representations of the Harrowing of Hell. Although these liturgical uses at Otranto are hypothetical, they understand this part of the mosaic pavement to have had particular significance during the Easter season. Moreover, they also involve two ceremonies that effected a change of status and identity: baptism, as at Novara, and penance. In both places, the images are understood to act as place markers not for those undergoing these transformative rites,

167. Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Lat. 2; Ungruh, Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale von Otranto, 95, n. 194.

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Fig. 58. Christ leading Abraham and Sarah out of hell, Exultet roll, Bari, eleventh century. Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Lat 2. Photo: Copyright of the University of Manchester.

but for members of the clergy who were orchestrating them. In this respect, they differ from the geometric markers discussed above, which were generally used by those undergoing initiation. Something closer to this model is found in the final element of the Otranto pavement to be discussed here. The mosaic in the right-hand side chapel, which is also structured around an axially positioned tree, has been seen by Ungruh to relate to an iconography of rule.168 At the top of the tree Atlas holds aloft a grey granite roundel surrounded by rings of triangles in multicolored marbles, the only discrete element of

168. Ungruh, Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale von Otranto, 116–32.

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the pavement to be executed in opus sectile (fig. 59). Noting the correspondence with roundels used as liturgical markers in Byzantium and the Latin West, she also proposes that the disk represents two visually and semantically related entities. On the one hand, it can be seen as the round shield (“clipeus”) on which rulers and military leaders were raised and acclaimed. A late antique military ceremony, this was practiced in medieval Byzantium in the context of proclamation and coronation, and was also known in the Latin West, forming part of the coronation ritual of Navarre by the thirteenth century.169 Rather as with rituals of trampling, however, it was more common within the sphere of representation. Prophets, kings, and other leaders are often shown standing on a shield in Byzantine art, including in the mid-twelfth-century Sicilian manuscript of Skylitzes’ Synopsis historion.170 This manuscript depicts a double elevation of an emperor and co-emperor, probably Michael I (811–13) and Leo the Armenian (fig. 60), and later shows the rebel general Leo Tornikios being proclaimed emperor in this way in 1047.171 On the other hand, the Otranto roundel can also be understood as the disk of the sun (“clipeus”), a metaphor for the figure of the ruler adopted by the Norman kings of Sicily. These references to political authority are reinforced by the location of the Atlas figure at the top of the tree, shared with other articulations of Norman rule such as the vision recounted by Alexander of Telese in which Roger II is enthroned in the same position. They are also complemented by the figures to the right holding documents. Indeed, Ungruh further suggests that the roundel evoked the rota used on papal and Norman charters. While these were normally purple, the granite pavement roundel matches that of William I’s son and heir Duke Roger IV of Apulia (1152–61), which was generally executed in the same brown-black as the text on charters from the late 1150s. In all these allusions, it is argued, Otranto demonstrated loyalty to the Norman rulers of the region after the rebellion of the 1150s, brought to an end in 1161. It is worth noting that the roundel as clipeus can be seen as an extension of a contemporary tendency to interpret geometric paving elements as representational. This tendency has already been encountered in the “rivers” of Hagia Sophia, though it is not clear to what extent the interpretation fed into their liturgical use. It is also found in Philagathos’s sermon on the occasion of the consecration of the Cappella Palatina, in which the patterns of the opus sectile pavement were presented as a flowery meadow.172 The disk with its patterned

169. Ungruh, Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale von Otranto, 119–20; on the continuity of the ceremony in the Byzantine world, see Ruth J. Macrides, Joseph Munitiz, and Dimiter Angelov, Pseudo-Kodinos, the Constantinopolitan Court: Offices and Ceremonies (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 416–24. 170. Ungruh, Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale von Otranto, 119–22, fig. 24, plate 25. See also Christopher Walter, “Raising on a Shield in Byzantine Iconography,” Revue des études byzantines 33 (1975): esp. 138–39. On the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript, see Elena N. Boeck, Imagining the Byzantine Past: The Perception of History in the Illustrated Manuscripts of Skylitzes and Manasses (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), esp. 32–42. 171. Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS Graecus Vitr. 26-2, fols. 10v and 230r. 172. Philagathos, Homilia LV, 371, PG 132:953–54.

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Fig. 59. Figure of Atlas, floor mosaic in the south side chapel, Otranto Cathedral, 1163–1165. Photo: akg-images/Alfio Garozzo.

surround could suggest both interpretations of clipeus, in a way a mosaic depiction could not, as well as inviting comparisons with other roundels. The roundel in the Otranto pavement both draws on and differs from the porphyry roundels of imperial and papal ceremonial. Although the mosaic to the east of the roundel is lost, it seems likely that insofar as the roundel was complemented by a standing figure, it was not one that was part of the horizontal picture plane, but rather a living figure standing vertically on the pavement. However, there is no occasion on which the cathedral community would necessarily expect the rulers themselves to stand there. It is certainly possible that the spot, which Ungruh characterizes as a “Standort,” was used by secular or ecclesiastical representatives of the Norman kings of Sicily and dukes of Apulia. At the same time, the dynamic between function and representation is worth

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Fig. 60. Double elevation of an emperor and co-emperor, Skylitzes, Synopsis historion, Sicily, twelfth century. Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS Graecus Vitr. 26-2, fol. 10v. Photo: Biblioteca Nacional de España.

considering further. The roundel is not simply part of a geometric design on which someone stood, nor is it a pictorial element on which someone could stand in this context while being unable to stand in reality on the thing represented, such as the doors of hell. Instead, the disk held aloft by Atlas both constituted a paving element associated with liturgical functions and represented something on which someone could stand. As a result, whether or not anyone used the place in this way, the potential to do so was doubly evident. Other figurative elements also combined with those standing on the pavement to form ensembles reminiscent of representations, but the degree to which they were associated with (and complete without) the scene varied. Seen together with the deacons, the Novarese symbols of the Evangelists recall depictions of the Gospel writers with their symbols, but they are also commonly depicted alone or accompanying Christ in Majesty. The doors and personification of hell in the north side chapel at Otranto would have brought to mind the Anastasis, particularly when a priest stood above them, but they were also familiar from depictions of the Last Judgment. Although Atlas could of course be shown alone holding a sphere, a shield-raising was incomplete without a body above it, and this interpretation of the scene thus brought to mind a regal body in absentia. At Novara and Otranto Cathedrals, then, large-scale figurative floor mosaics feature some images that either were used as liturgical markers, can plausibly be seen to have

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invited such a use, or proclaimed themselves as such even if they were employed in this way rarely or not at all. They provide a range of relationships between the image and the person standing on them, including the possibility that positive and negative interpretations of standing could be encompassed in a single pavement. The use of individual images in this way complements and reinforces the two-dimensional compositions in which they are set. Similar readings have been proposed for late antique ecclesiastical floor mosaics. While presenting the subject matter of such mosaics as circumscribed by what could fittingly be trodden on, Rina Talgam has seen the representation of members of the congregation or activities typical of them as reflecting the identities of the worshippers who used the space. Specifically, she notes that these correspondences were heightened “by the fact that the medallion in the mosaic carpets matched the space in which the viewer would stand in the church,” meaning that “the viewer could virtually become part of his portrayal in the mosaics.”173 This potential merging of images and worshippers formed a powerful embodiment of the parallels drawn between the church building and the spiritual church made up of believers. At Novara and Otranto, the relationship between person and image goes beyond this mirroring to add to the status of the participant in the liturgy. It also holds the potential for a further, ephemeral, twoand three-dimensional composition to be created though the incorporation of human actors, which, when seen by a third party, is reminiscent of other visual representations. At the same time, the use of an image in this way can act to reinforce the spoken word or ritual performance without necessarily needing to be seen, enhancing the significance of the participant or their role in the ceremony by association with a biblical figure or personification. The idea that images were activated or “set in motion” by particular ritual occasions is one that has been fruitfully articulated by Nino Zchomelidse in relation to liturgical furniture.174 Although pertaining also to objects used during ceremonies, such as the Easter candlestick, the argument made for imagery on pulpits is particularly relevant here.175 As places on which certain rites were “staged,” and from which the spoken and sung word emanated, they share qualities with pavement markers. Indeed, it is worth recalling here that rituals performed in the ambo at Hagia Sophia took place on the pavement in St. Peter’s. The particular potential of images underfoot, activated through contact, can thus be seen as a specific form of a wider phenomenon. These two case studies, one based on textual evidence and the other following a close iconographical reading of the mosaic, suggest that it would be fruitful for art historians to be open to this potential in other figurative pavements. While some depict clerics with particular roles in the liturgical life of the church, such as the named cantor standing at his lectern in the twelfth-century presbytery pavement at Asti Cathedral in Piedmont, it is not

173. Talgam, Mosaics of Faith, 194. 174. Zchomelidse, Art, Ritual, and Civic Identity, for the phrase, see p. 7. 175. Zchomelidse, Art, Ritual, and Civic Identity, esp. chaps. 1 and 3.

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necessarily the case that we should expect pavement image and person to mirror each other exactly.176 Rather there is the potential for these to complement each other. The pavements of Novara and Otranto Cathedrals both contain geometric elements in primarily figurative opus tessellatum pavements. Indeed, the disk held aloft by Atlas at Otranto occupies a position somewhere between the figurative and the nonfigurative, facilitating a broad range of meanings. It remains to be asked how the dynamic of liturgical markers differed between figurative and nonfigurative elements more generally. Although certain roundels were employed on particular occasions, in comparison with geometric markers, images seem likely to have more restricted uses. At the same time, they can be seen to have possessed more complex and varied relationships with the person standing above them. The properties and associations of particular materials, such as marble and porphyry, certainly contributed to their significance underfoot. However, where a body on the pavement met an image on the floor, the two could mutually reinforce each other in several ways. Not only might the image enhance the identity of the participant in the liturgy, but the latter could give three-dimensional form and even voice to the representation. Figurative elements also had greater potential to come together with the human form into an iconographically suggestive composition. Moreover, while it seems unlikely that any geometric markers were deliberately trampled, such treatment can be entertained for some images of negative objects, animals, and figures. Ultimately, however, all of these markers had the potential to enhance the identity and status of those who used them. In addition to the connection between person and pavement, repeated use of a marker and location established relationships between similar kinds of people and officeholders over time. It is notable that the uses discussed here have attached to status-changing rites such as baptism, penance, coronation, and ordination. In some cases, the marker pertains to the person taking the ceremonies and heightens their capacity to perform elements of the rite. In others, it relates to those undergoing the ceremony and the state they are entering. Either way, using such markers could strengthen the effectiveness of the ritual concerned, both as a spectacle and as something that effected change.

Temporary Floor Coverings Coverings and Contexts It has been suggested above that elements in permanent paving could take on heightened significance on particular occasions and when trodden on by specific people. This

176. On the Asti pavement, see Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 318; Donkin, “‘Usque ad ultimum terrae,’” 201–5.

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potential should be understood against the tendency for the appearance of the church interior itself to change over the course of the liturgical year, and indeed during individual rites. The treatment of the floor surface was part of this phenomenon, as temporary coverings were laid down for particular feasts, especially in front of altars. These included textiles that, like permanent paving, could encompass a range of techniques and complexity. At the cathedral of St. Andrews (Fife), a large red mat was placed in front of the main altar on feast days, echoing the color of marble pavements.177 Even such a high-status figurative work as the late eleventh-century Girona tapestry may have been laid down in the presbytery at Easter and on other feast days.178 The spreading of vegetation could also denote specific times of the liturgical year and distinguish particular areas of the church. The Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc, for example, state that rushes should be strewn on the floor at Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, the Feast of the Assumption, and the feast of the house, when the church should be decorated as richly as possible. Mention is also made of five Sundays when rushes should be put down in the choir.179 In Humbert of Romans’s De offi ciis ordinis, the duties of the sacristan are said to include the strewing of branches and other vegetation on feast days during the summer, while in winter he was to put down straw. Specifically, this would be done in the choir and presbytery, in front of the minor altars, and in the sacristy and chapter house.180 In this respect, the floor coverings respond to a particular place and time, but they could also be set under particular people. We have already seen cases in which temporary markers acted alongside or substituted for permanent ones in coronation ceremonies. This phenomenon was symptomatic of a wider capacity of ephemeral floor decoration to accommodate and facilitate the dynamic use of space. The very fact that it could easily be laid down and taken up meant that access could be restricted to specific individuals. The most straightforward use of such coverings was to honor the person who stood on them, with the quality or qualities of the cloth corresponding to the status of the individual. An important biblical precedent for this was the spreading of garments and palm branches before Christ during the Entry into Jerusalem, though Christ’s nature meant that the coverings were felt to have been enhanced by this, with some churches claiming to possess fragments as relics.181 Their use was emulated during

177. “Item mattam magnam rubram bisso intextam que sternitur coram magno altari in principalibus festis”; John Durkan, “St Andrews in the John Law Chronicle,” in The Medieval Church of St Andrews, ed. David McRoberts (Glasgow: Burns, 1976), 148. 178. Manuel Castiñeiras Gonzáles, The Creation Tapestry (Girona: Palahí, 2011), 79–85; discussed further in chapter 5. 179. Lanfranc, Decreta, 62–65, 76, ed. and trans. Knowles and Brooke, 82–83, 100–1. 180. “Ubi est consuetudo, in majoribus festis in aestate herbam virentem vel ramusculos aliquarum arborum, et in hyeme paleas sternere in choro et presbyterio, et ante parva altaria, et in sacrestia, et in capitulo”; Humbert of Romans, Instructiones de officiis ordinis, 10.1, ed. Berthier, in Opera de vita regulari, 2:247. 181. Branches of trees and clothes strewn on the ground are mentioned in Matthew 21:8 and Mark 11:8; branches of palm trees are mentioned in John 12:13. “De ramis palmarum et vestibus prostratis in

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liturgical evocations of the event. For example, Gerhard of Augsburg’s Life of Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg (d. 973) describes a Palm Sunday procession in which people met the effigy of Christ on a donkey, in imitation of those who had spread palms and clothing in front of Christ.182 While the implication is that the citizens of Augsburg did likewise, more explicit references can be found in prescriptive texts. The Consuetudines of the abbey of Fruttuaria at San Benigno Canavese (Piedmont), which may date back to the late eleventh century, contain instructions for a Palm Sunday procession of which the focal point was the Osanna—a statue or panel painting of Christ, treated with reverence “as if God himself were present.”183 Taken to meet the monks in a place prepared with three carpets (“tapetia”) and a “bancale,” interpreted by Elizabeth Lipsmeyer as a temporary platform, it was carried over the carpets, while everyone knelt and the antiphon “Ave rex” (“Hail our king”) was sung.184 If such imitative actions helped to equate the local landscape with the Holy Land, the carpets can also be seen to have extended the sacred space of the church into the wider landscape. This potential was particularly present at Fruttuaria, since the abbey church had a late eleventh- or early twelfth-century mosaic pavement with designs reminiscent of figured silks, as well as a replica of the Holy Sepulcher aedicule.185 Correspondences can be drawn between the affronted griffins and tree in the mosaic (fig. 61) and a silk from Almeria used in the early twelfth-century reliquary of St. Librada, Siguenza Cathedral, as well as a tenth-century Byzantine silk from the reliquary of St.-Chaffre in Le Monastier-sur-Gazeilles (Haute-Loire) (fig. 62).186 There are also

via domini”; Rogers, “Waltham Abbey Relic-List,” 179. 182. “Ibique obviam ei veniebat chorus canonicorum cum magna pulchritudine . et cum civibus qui in civitate remanserant . et qui de oppidis circumiacentibus ipsis se iungere voluerunt . ibi ad imitandum humilitatem puerorum ceterorumque populorum ramis palmarum . et vestimentis suis viam domini sternentium”; Gerhard of Augsburg, Vita S. Oudalrici episcopi, 1.4, ed. and trans. Berschin and Häse, 124–26. 183. “Tunc cum omni reuerentia stent omnes quasi ipse deus sit presens”; Consuetudines FructuariensesSanblasianae, 2.157, ed. L. G. Spätling and P. Dinter, 2 vols., CCM 12.1–2 (Siegburg: Schmitt, 1985–87), 1:146–54, esp. 150; Elizabeth Lipsmeyer, “Devotion and Decorum: Intention and Quality in Medieval German Sculpture,” Gesta 34, no. 1 (1995): 20–22. 184. “Expleta hac antiphona inchoet cantor antiphonam Ave rex. Tunc flectant omnes genua et transeant illi qui portent osanna super tapetia statimque famuli veniant et tollant bancale”; Consuetudines Fructuarienses-Sanblasianae, 2.157, ed. Spätling and Dinter, 1:151; Lipsmeyer, “Devotion and Decorum,” 27, n. 16. 185. Simonetta Minguzzi, “Il mosaico di San Benigno Canavese: Problemi iconografici,” in Carra Bonacasa and Guidobaldi, Atti del IV colloquio dell’Associazione italiana per lo studio e la conservazione del mosaico, 961–74; Luisella Pejrani Baricco, “La chiesa abbaziale di Fruttuaria alla luce degli ultimi scavi archeologici,” in Archeologia in Piemonte, vol. 3, Il Medioevo, ed. L. Mercando and E. Micheletto (Turin: Allemandi, 1998), esp. 197–200; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 314–15. 186. Cleveland Museum of Art, 1952.152, for the silk from Siguenza. For the silk from the reliquary of St.-Chaffre, Anna Muthesius, Byzantine Silk Weaving: AD 400 to AD 1200, ed. Ewald Kislinger and Johannes Koder (Vienna: Fassbänder, 1997), 50–51, 185, no. M66, fig. 15B; Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, ed., with Marie-Cecile Bardoz, La France romane aux temps des premiers Capétiens, 987–1152, exhibition

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Fig. 61. Affronted griffins, nave pavement, abbey of Fruttuaria, San Benigno Canavese, late eleventh or early twelfth century. Photo: Lucy Donkin.

Fig. 62. Griffin silk, Byzantium, tenth century. Le Monastier-sur-Gazeilles, St.-Chaffre. Photo: CC BY Pierre Taillefer, DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.

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parallels between a griffin in front of a tree and the roundels on the tenth- or eleventh-century Byzantine Shroud of St. Siviard in the cathedral treasury at Sens.187 However, the primary logic for the use of the textiles was that of the vertical axis, with the cloth spread between the ground and the figure of Christ. In some cases, the textiles might also be used by others in the ceremony, as in a fourteenth-century ordinarium from Essen where eight scholares genuflected on the textiles spread in front of the Palmesel during the antiphon “Pueri Hebraeorum vestimenta” (“The children of the Hebrews spread their garments”).188 There are also references to specific items of clothing. An account of pre-Reformation practice at Biberach (Baden-Württemberg) indicates that choristers placed their surplices in front of the Palmesel, while at St. Gall they spread their habits on the ground during the antiphon.189 At the Skinners Entry into Jerusalem pageant in York, the way may even have been spread with the furred garments produced by the guild, who thus wrote themselves into the event.190 To an extent, the spreading of textiles under someone else could also demonstrate a Christ-like status. Bonaventure’s Legenda maior introduced into the hagiographical literature on St. Francis the story of the man who spreads his cloak under the saint.191 Reminiscent of the Entry into Jerusalem, it corresponds to an increasing emphasis on Francis as alter Christus. The spreading of textiles underfoot was also found in rituals involving royal participants. For example, from at least the mid-thirteenth century the English coronation ceremony involved the king or queen processing unshod from the Palace of Westminster to the pulpitum of the abbey on cloth laid down for the purpose. The first reference comes in a note in the Red Book of the Exchequer pertaining to the coronation of Eleanor of Provence in 1236, in which the monks claimed the rights to part of the cloth after the ceremony.192 In the fourteenth century, the information was included in versions of the fourth recension of the coronation ordo, and a list of cloth purchased for the

catalog (Paris: Réunion des museés nationaux, 2005), 180, no. 127. I am grateful to Pierre Taillefer for drawing the latter publication to my attention. 187. Muthesius, Byzantine Silk Weaving, 191–92, figs. 112A–B. 188. Karl Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church, 2 vols. (1933; repr. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), 1:90–98. 189. Biberach is discussed in R. W. Scribner, Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London: Hambledon Press, 1987), 25; for St. Gall, see Johannes Strang, Directorium cultus divini, in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1262, fol. 235r: http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/ one/csg/1262. 190. Martin Stevens, Four Middle English Mystery Cycles: Textual, Contextual and Critical Interpretations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 60. 191. “Deponebat pallium, sternebat ipsius pedibus vestimentum”; Bonaventure, Legenda maior, 1.1, in Legendae S. Francisci, 560–61; trans. Armstrong, Hellmann, and Short, Francis of Assisi, 2:531. 192. “Pannum vero virgulatum, vel burellum, prosternandum sub pedibus Regis incedentis ab aula vel camera sua, ubi sumit regalia, usque ad pulpitum in Ecclesia Westmonasterii”; Hubert Hall, ed., The Red Book of the Exchequer, 3 vols. (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1896), 2:756–57. Much the same information is also inserted in a mid-thirteenth-century hand in London, BL, Add. MS 8167; Hope Emily Allen, “A Thirteenth-Century Coronation Rubric,” Church Quarterly Review 95 (1923): 338–39;

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coronation of Edward III in 1327 includes that to be spread under the bare feet (“nudus pedes”) of the king as he processed from his bed to the church and from the church to the royal chamber.193 It seems likely that the textiles were laid down shortly before the procession started out on each occasion or indeed were unrolled in front of the king. Not only does the use of the participle (“incedentis,” “transseuntis”) suggest as much, but Lisa Monnas has noted that the repetition of the route in the acquisition list is also suggestive of this.194 In Henry VII’s articles for the royal household, dated to 1494, that for the reception and coronation of a queen stipulates that yeomen holding the cloth were to go ahead of her and unroll it as she advanced.195 The creation of an exterior processional route in this way might apply not only to royal coronations but also to episcopal ordination. In a discussion of episcopal dignity, the mid-fifteenth-century Novum registrum of Bishop Alnwick of Lincoln states that the bishop elect should walk barefoot from the priory of St. Katherine’s to the cathedral on woolen cloth spread down for the purpose, which was taken up and given to the poor after he had passed.196 In this light, the textiles can be seen to have attended the individuals concerned as much as, if not more than, pertaining to a particular route or place. They indicated the stature of these figures; to an extent, they mitigated the humility of their bare feet, insulating them from the ground beneath. In the case of royalty, it is also possible that the textiles gained a certain aura from the encounter, in a similar way to the relics of the garments and palms spread under Christ. Ronald Lightbown has suggested that laying the cloth just before it was walked on by the king or queen both prevented it from being trampled by others and avoided it being taken by the onlookers, since the textiles spread outside the church were traditionally distributed to the poor.197 Indeed, Holinshed’s Chronicles notes that at the coronation of Henry VIII, the cloth “was cut and spoiled by

H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, “Early Coronation Records,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 13 (1935–36): 129–45. 193. Ordo 1308 as “Coronacio Regis,” in Thomas Rymer and Thomas Sanderson, eds., Foedera, conventiones, litterae, et cujuscunque acta publica, 4 vols. in 7, ed. Adam Clarke, Frederick Holbrooke, and John Caley (London: George Eyre and Andrew Strahan, 1816–69), 2.1:33; Liber regalis, ed. Leopold G. Wickham Legg, in English Coronation Records (London: Archibald Constable, 1901), 83–84. “Eodem die ad ponend[um] sub pedib[us] Regis nudus pedes transseuntis die Coronac[i]o[n]is Regis videl[ice]t a l[ect]o suo usq[e] eccl[es]iam & de eccl[es]ia usq[ue] camera Regis post coronac[i]o[n]em redeunt de consi[mi]li panno”; Lisa Monass, “Textiles for the Coronation of Edward III,” Textile History 32, no. 1 (2001): 32. 194. Monass, “Textiles for the Coronation,” 12. 195. A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household (London: Society of Antiquaries, 1790), 124. 196. “Quam sequetur nudis pedibus recta via a dicto prioratu usque ad Ecclesiam. Et cum ad portas clausi interiores venerit, aliqui de suis ad hoc deputandi sternent sub eius pedibus usque magnum Ecclesie ostium occidentale pannum laneum griseum, vel album, vel alium pro sui velle, post ipsius transitum per suos servitores pauperibus distribuendum”; Novum registrum, ed. Bradshaw and Wordsworth, Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral, 2.2:273. 197. Ronald Lightbown, “The English Coronation before the Commonwealth,” in The Crown Jewels: The History of the Coronation Regalia in the Jewel House of the Tower of London, 2 vols., ed. Claude Blair

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the rude and common people, immediatlie after their repaire into the abbaie.”198 An account of the coronation of the Emperor Matthias, some century later, describes a similar phenomenon, in which the red carpet laid down between the cathedral and the town hall in Frankfurt was “torn from under the feet of the people walking on it, cut up, and reduced to shreds.”199 These examples take us into the early modern period. However, given notions of sacral kingship, it is far from implausible that the textiles functioned already in the Middle Ages as “expensive cloth and sacred relic in one,” in the words of Alice Hunt.200 The phenomenon of the royal touch is usually discussed in relation to the laying on of hands but, especially in a church that preserved the passus domini, it is certainly conceivable that the king’s tread was also considered to be efficacious.201 If the spreading of textiles under the feet of prominent people could honor them, by the same logic, it could give rise to accusations of pride and vanity. In 1196, the Cistercians reprimanded the abbot of Fontfroide (Aude) who had “strewed the pavement of the presbytery with carpets and had more lamps lit in the oratory than the rule permits,” behavior considered to be redolent of vanity.202 At the same time, as seen in the previous chapter, it was also possible to use the negative connotations of treading on things to construe walking on precious objects as expressing contempt for them. The same sort of language could be applied to costly materials spread under the feet of high-ranking clerics, especially in commentaries on the liturgy. Thus the Gemma animae of Honorius Augustodunensis states that bishops and other clerics should tread on carpets to disdain the worldly and learn to love the heavenly, and similar sentiments are found in the works of John Beleth and Sicardus of Cremona.203 In his Rationale divinorum offi ciorum,

(London: Stationery Office, 1998), 2:119. For the distribution of the textiles, see “Coronacio regis,” ed. Rymer and Sanderson, Foedera, 2.1:33; Liber regalis, ed. Wickham Legg, 84, 108. 198. Raphael Holinshed, Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, ed. Abraham Fleming, 6 vols. (London: J. Johnson, 1807–8), 3:548; cited in Alice Hunt, The Drama of Coronation: Medieval Ceremony in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 24. 199. Wahl und Crönungshandlung (Frankfurt am Main: Johann Bringer & Heinrich Kröner, 1612), n.p.; discussed and translated in Sergio Bertelli, The King’s Body: Sacred Rituals of Power in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, trans. R. Burr Litchfield (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 102. 200. Hunt, Drama of Coronation, 24. 201. The classic study is Marc Bloch, The Royal Touch: Sacred Monarchy and Scrofula in England and France, trans. J. E. Anderson (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973). 202. “Abbas frigidimontis [sic] qui . . . tapetibus pavimentum Presbiterii stravit et plures quam ordo patiatur lampades in oratorio fecit accendi, quod vidatur vanitatem aliquatenus redolere”; Statuta capitulorum, 1196.17, ed. Chrysogonus Waddell, Twelfth-Century Statutes from the Cistercian General Chapter: Latin Text with English Notes and Commentary, Studia et documenta 12 (Brecht: Cîteaux, Commentarii Cistercienses, 2002), 357–58; ed. Canivez, Statuta capitulorum, 1:200–1. 203. “Tapetia pedibus ejus substrata calcat, ut terrena despicere, et coelestia amare discat”; Honorius, De gemma animae, 1.210, PL 172:607C. “Tapeta dicuntur quasi stratio pedum, quia sternuntur pedibus. Vnde episcopis semper sternuntur, quia mundana pedibus calcarere debent”; Beleth, Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis, 115, ed. Douteil, 2:216. “Tapeta calcas, ut terrena despicere et amare celestia discas”; Sicardus of Cremona, Mitrale, 2.8, ed. Sarbak and Weinrich, 116–25, at 124.

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William Durandus listed various textiles used to decorate the choir, including floor coverings and “tapeta.” The former are said to be spread under the feet of the clergy; the latter are described as “cloths that are spread out under foot, specifically for walking on, and especially for the feet of bishops who must walk over worldly things with their feet.”204 These ideas were picked up on in service books for individual churches. Thus, the early thirteenth-century Ordo offi ciorum for Siena Cathedral echoes Sicardus in noting that the bishop treads on textiles on his way to the altar, to express contempt for the world and love of heaven: “ad Altare procedens Episcopus tapeta calcat, ut terram despicere, et amare coelestia videatur.”205 Such phrases are reminiscent of the way in which floor covering rejected by the site of the Ascension is described as “worldly decoration” in the Blickling Homilies and the characterization of the monks of Cluny as trampling on the pomps of the world. Since in practice the textiles must have enhanced the bishops’ status by stressing their magnificence, these explanations can be seen as an attempt to put a humble spin on things. Yet there is also a sense in which, taken seriously by the bishop concerned, they might act as a corrective to the potential for pride raised by the statutes. Where the Cistercian response was to remove the carpets, the commentaries offer the possibility of an interior (re)interpretation of the act of treading and the significance of what is trodden on, on the part of the person concerned. From this perspective, they function similarly to the admonition addressed to clerics walking up the steps to the altar at S. Nicola in Bari, which stresses the need for humility at the very place in which physical ascent on a richly decorated pavement might give rise to its opposite. Ultimately, all these instances may stem partly from tension between adorning the east end of the church and ensuring a proper frame of mind on the part of those celebrating there. In the case of the bishops, it has been suggested that walking on fine textiles set down to mirror the status of the person concerned could be reinterpreted as disdaining what they represented; in other contexts, both aspects of standing might be present from the beginning. The custom of walking on a rough textile, often haircloth, was a feature of late antique baptismal rites in the Greek East, North Africa, and Spain. An early testimony of the practice is found in sermons on the sacrament of baptism written by Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca. 350–428).206 The candidates appear to have stood on the cloth during both the scrutinies and the ceremonies that took place immediately before

204. “Tapeta etiam sunt panni qui pedibus substernuntur, quasi stratio pedum, et precipue pedibus episcoporum qui mundana pedibus calcare debent”; Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum, 1.3.23, ed. Davril and Thibodeau, 1:42; trans. Thibodeau, 39. 205. Ordo Senensis, 2.41, ed. Giovanni Crisostomo Trombelli, Ordo officiorum ecclesiae Senensis ab Oderico eiusdem ecclesiae canonico anno MCCXIII compositus (Bologna: Longhi, 1766), 442. On the work’s use of Sicardus’s Mitrale, see L. Weinrich, “Der Ordo offi ciorum Senensis ecclesie des Oderigo und Sicards Mitralis de officiis,” Sacris erudiri 41 (2002): 375–89. 206. Theodore’s description of the practice was examined in detail by Johannes Quasten in “Theodore of Mopsuestia on the Exorcism of the Cilicium,” Harvard Theological Review 34 (1942): 209–19.

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baptism, always barefoot and without their outer garments. Johannes Quasten demonstrated that a fifth-century homily on baptism by Narsai, which describes a naked catechumen spreading sackcloth, should be seen as referring to a similar practice.207 Theodore offers an explanation for the use of the cloth, concentrating initially on its effect on the skin: “You stand also on garments of sackcloth so that from the fact that your feet are pricked and stung by the roughness of the cloth you may remember your old sins and show penitence and repentance of the sins of your fathers.”208 He goes on to say that the candidate can, as a consequence of God’s mercy, speak the words of Psalm 29 (30): “Thou hast cut my sackcloth and hast compassed me with gladness.”209 If removing sackcloth was connected with the forgiveness of sins, standing on it could be understood as symbolizing the repudiation of sins by the candidate. Augustine in his sermon to the competentes notes “when you were scrutinised . . . you did not wear goat’s hair, but your feet stood on it as a symbol. . . . You must tread underfoot your vices and the goat’s fleece.”210 A similar interpretation to that given by Theodore is found in Quodvultdeus’s sermon to catechumens on the Creed, in which the cilicium is associated with humility and rooting out the pride of the devil.211 The practice of walking on the cilicium is described as late as the seventh century by Ildefonse of Toledo in his De cognitione baptismi, where children are led over the cloth as a sign of penance, which they are too young to perform.212 It may also have been practiced in the Milanese church until the tenth century.

207. Quasten, “Theodore of Mopsuestia,” 212–13. The translator, R. H. Connolly, had suggested that the cloth was worn by the candidate: The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai Translated into English (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909), 39. 208. A. Mingana, trans., Commentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia on the Lord’s Prayer and on the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, Woodbrooke Studies 6 (Cambridge: W. Heffer, 1933), 32. See also Edward Yarnold, The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation: Baptismal Homilies of the Fourth Century (Slough: St. Paul, 1972), 177; Ouwens, “Asche bei der Kindertaufe,” 100–8. 209. Psalm 29 (30):12. 210. “Et vos quidem cum scrutaremini . . . non estis induti cilicio: sed tamen vestri pedes in eodem mystice constiterunt. . . . Calcanda sunt vitia velleraque caprarum”; Augustine, Sermon 216 Ad competentes, 10–11, PL 38:1082; translation from Yarnold, Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation, 10. See also William Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995), 263. 211. “In humiliate pedum cilicio substrato in uobis celebraretur examen, atque ex uobis exstirparetur diabolus superbus”; Quodvultdeus, De symbolo I, 1.5, ed. R. Braun, Opera Quodvultdeo Carthaginiensi episcopo tributa, CCSL 60 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1976), 305; trans. Thomas Macy Finn, Quodvultdeus of Carthage. The Creedal Homilies: Conversion in Fifth-Century North Africa ( New York: Newman Press, 2004), 23. 212. “Hinc itaque est quod per stramenta ciliciorum ad oleandum sacerdotibus parvuli deducuntur, ut paenitentiae signum habeant propter opus, qui paenitentiae opera demonstrare non possunt propter aetatis tempus”; Ildefonse of Toledo, De cognitione baptismi, 14, ed. Valeriano Yarza Urquiola, in Ildefonsi Toletani episcopi De virginitate Sanctae Mariae; De cognitione baptismi; De itinere deserti; De viris illustribus, CCSL 114A (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 360, see also 21, p. 365; discussed in Keefe, Water and the Word, 1:101–2; Christian David McConnell, “Baptism in Visigothic Spain: Origins, Development, and Interpretation” (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Notre Dame, 2005), 81, 85.

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Although this constitutes a relatively circumscribed custom, which probably did not continue into the later Middle Ages, it contributes to a sense that attitudes to treading on textiles were highly flexible and only partly determined by the nature of the material itself. In some cases, emphasis is placed on the cloth as a reflection of the nature and status of the person concerned; in others, more attention is paid to what the act of treading implied about that person and their capacity to repudiate what the textiles represented. The rough cilicium is credited with a degree of agency, acting on the bare feet of the person walking on it to remind them of their sins, while the fine carpets are more passively trodden underfoot as a sign of disdain for what they are taken to represent. However, carpets more generally acted to mirror and preserve the status of the person walking on them, while standing on the cilicium was also understood as an act of repudiation. The two were not incompatible, particularly when the person was undergoing a process of transformation or where status was linked to ideals of renunciation. Where the nature of the floor covering reflected that of the person standing on it, parallels can be drawn with permanent paving. Fine textiles corresponded to the status of someone standing on them in a similar way to marble or other decorated paving; indeed, as seen at Fruttuaria, textile designs might be evoked in pavement mosaics. The effect of the cilicium is similar to the self-knowledge and desire for contrition expressed in the reflective marble and rough stone of the steps in Purgatorio. Although there are some elements in permanent floor decoration that could have invited trampling, where treading on textiles is seen as expressing disdain the parallels are closer with elements deliberately repurposed and moved to the ground to be treated in this manner, which might include hangings and fur coats. However, the textiles discussed here were meant to be spread on the floor and could be subject to both interpretations at the same time. In this sense, a parallel can be drawn with the cloth spread under St. Francis by the sultan, the decoration of which was reinterpreted by the saint to recast potential desecration as triumphant trampling. It seems likely that temporary coverings such as textiles were as flexible in their interpretation as they were in their use. On occasion, temporary images drawn on the floor acted as liturgical markers. In his account of the episcopal ordination ceremony, Simeon of Thessaloniki described how the bishop elect would stand in turn upon representations of three rivers, a city, and an eagle executed in plaster on the floor. The rivers signified doctrine, the city his episcopacy, and the eagle the purity, rectitude, and loftiness of theology.213 The candidate stood on the representation of the city, testifying to the orthodoxy of his religious beliefs and his acceptance of his episcopal responsibilities, before proceeding to the eagle

213. “Cum vero electus tres fluvios pertransit in solo per gypsum figuratos, qui doctrinae donum ad quod vocatus est, significant, subsistit super urbem ob oculos descriptam quae ipsius episcopatum indicat, in cujus summitate aquila similiter describitur, puritatem, rectitudinem, et altitudinem theologiae subindicans, quod de filio tonitrui theologo, discipulo virgine, qui in Christi sinu requiescere solebat, vulgo scribunt”; Simeon of Thessaloniki, De sacris ordinationibus, 200, PG 155:407–8.

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where he was proclaimed as bishop.214 Anatole Frolow suggested a connection between this ceremony and the interpretation of various elements of Byzantine floor decoration as rivers.215 The fact that the images are represented on the floor in the medium of plaster is significant. As with the consecration cross of ashes, their ephemerality avoided someone standing on them at a later date. This effective restriction might imply that greater sensitivity was required with figurative images than with the abstract representations of the rivers in lines of marble. Yet, unlike the cross, which was both prohibited on floors and deliberately placed underfoot on account of its status, these designs were not in themselves particularly sacred. Perhaps the point was rather that no one else could stand on them; these were exclusive to the bishop and reflected an exclusive identity. In his edition of the Euchologion, published in the seventeenth century, Jacques Goar recorded three rites for episcopal consecration, one of which refers to an eagle depicted on the pavement. Here the bishop elect professes the orthodoxy of his faith three times, standing first at the tail of the eagle, then at its center, and finally at its head.216 Goar found the rite in euchologia from the collection of Leo Allatius, the dates and provenances of which are unclear.217 In the preface, he mentions one manuscript that he dates to 1260, but that has since been attributed to the sixteenth century.218 It is therefore difficult to say when the custom was established. Sometime after the fourteenth century, the symbols came to be represented on a carpet known as the “orlets” or “eagle,” up which the candidate progressed during the three professions. In a description of the ceremony compiled from various Russian and Greek Orthodox sources, Isabel Hapgood mentioned an eagle with wings outspread and a city with battlemented walls and towers under its feet;219 R. P. E. Mercenier and M. François Paris refer to three rivers that issue from the city.220 The presence of figurative components in medieval Byzantine paving is relatively rare.221 This rarity would seem to suggest a general reluctance to stand on images that might equally be expressed in the use of ephemeral media to create images for

214. Simeon of Thessaloniki, De sacris ordinationibus, 200–1, PG 155:407–10. 215. A. Frolow, “Deux églises byzantines d’après des sermons peu connus de Léon VI le sage,” Études byzantines 3 (1945): 56–57, n. 35. 216. Jacques Goar, Ευχολογιον sive Rituale Graecorum complectens ritus et ordines divinae liturgiae offi ciorum, sacramentorum, consecrationum, benedictionum, funerum, orationem & c. cuilibet personae, statui, vel tempori congruos iuxta usum orientalis ecclesia (Paris: Piget, 1647), 305–11. 217. Goar, Ευχολογιον, 305. 218. Goar, Ευχολογιον, preface; Anselm Strittmatter, “The ‘Barberinum S. Marci’ of Jacques Goar: Barberinianus graecus 336,” Ephemerides liturgicae, n.s. 7, 47 (1933): 330. 219. Isabel Florence Hapgood, Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church, Compiled, Translated and Arranged from the Old Church-Slavonic Service Books of the Russian Church and Collated with the Service Books of the Greek Church (New York: Association Press, 1922), 325, 606–7, n. 12. 220. R. P. E. Mercenier and M. François Paris, La prière des Églises de rite byzantin, vol. 1, L’offi ce divin, la liturgie, les sacrements (Chevetogne: Monastère de Chevetogne, 1948), 380. 221. Exceptions include the pavements of the Church of the Pantokrator (Zeyrek Camii), discussed above, and the Stoudios basilica in Istanbul, the Blachernai monastery near Arta (Epirus), and the Varnakova Monastery near Efpalio (Central Greece).

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one-off ceremonies. However, it is perhaps more important that these were only needed for the ceremonies concerned and pertain more to the person standing on them than to the pavement below.

A Vision of Footprints in Ashes As discussed in chapter 2, ashes or sand were employed to draw the diagonal cross on the pavement of the church during the consecration ceremony. As will be discussed further in the next chapter, they were also used to trace a chrismon onto a cilicium in Ambrosian prebaptismal ceremonies, and to mark with a cross the haircloth on which people might be laid during the last rites. Although the latter involves bodies lying flat on the cross, I am not aware of any liturgical circumstances in which designs in ashes were trodden on. Nevertheless, a vision experienced by an Italian beatus indicates that this could be imagined taking place in an ecclesiastical setting and used to express a specific, sensitive identity. Here Christ’s footprints are imprinted in ashes spread on a church pavement, combining the form of vestigia sites with an ephemeral material in a familiar environment. St. Francis walks in the prints, making evident his Christ-like qualities, so that an unusual and potentially transgressive action reflects a unique and not uncontroversial status. In its blending of elements, which allows Francis to carry out what would not have been permitted at a cult site, the vision offers insights into both the expressive potential and the limits of the floor surface as this was experienced in reality. It also provides another perspective on the visual impression created by material underfoot and the ways in which representation shaped interpretation. Where the ephemerality of the vision reinforced and extended that of the ashes in diffusing what could have been seen as desecration, depictions of the episode would have risked coming too close to representations of trampling. The vision in question was experienced by the Sienese beatus Pietro Pettinaio (d. 1289) while praying at night in Siena Cathedral.222 The episode is found in two sixteenth-century vernacular versions of his Life but plausibly dates back to the early fourteenth century.223 In the vision, angels sprinkled ash on the pavement from the main

222. The vision is discussed in more detail in Lucy Donkin, “Following the Footsteps of Christ in Late Medieval Italy: Pietro Pettinaio’s Vision of St Francis,” Word & Image 32, no. 2 (2016): 163–80. 223. Vita del B. Pietro Pettinajo Sanese del terz’ordine di San Francesco volgarizzata da una leggenda latina del 1333 per F. Serafi no Ferri Agostiniano di Leceto l’anno 1508, Corretta e riordinata con annotazioni ed aggiunte dal Padre Maestro de Angelis minor conventuale (Siena: Francesco Rossi e Figlio, 1802). The other Life is found in Florence, Biblioteca provinciale dei Frati Minori, Fondo Giaccherino, MS I.G.2, fols. 186r–219r, esp. 196v–197r, and abbreviated in Silvano Razzi, Vite de’ santi e beati toscani, 2 vols. (Florence: Giunti, 1593–1601), 1:385–96, esp. 389–90. I am grateful to Donal Cooper for sharing his images of the manuscript with me. For the original Life, see Donkin, “Following the Footsteps of Christ”; Diana Webb, ed. and trans., Saints and Cities in Medieval Italy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 191;

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door to the high altar, after which Christ entered barefoot, with the wounds on his feet evident, and walked in the ash to the altar leaving his footprints visible. The twelve apostles then entered and walked in the footprints (“vestigie e pedate”) to join Christ and his mother at the east end of the cathedral. Other saints followed them, placing their feet in the imprints with varying degrees of accuracy. This so disturbed the ash that by the time a barefoot friar minor arrived, identified as St. Francis by his stigmata, it seemed to be impossible to make out the footprints. However, Francis managed to locate them by blowing away the dust covering each pair in turn and planted his feet in them exactly. While the vision acts out the metaphor of emulation discussed in chapter 1, presenting Francis as the true apostle of Christ, it is not a straightforward materialization of it. The metaphor speaks of “following” rather than “following in,” and thus conjures up a more distant relationship than the occupation of the imprints in the vision, whether the approximate tread of the majority or the perfect fit achieved by St. Francis. Moreover, the vision is strikingly far from the treatment of Christ’s actual vestigia, since places trodden by Christ were protected from being trodden on again by others. Much of what is unusual about the imprints can be attributed to the particular identity of St. Francis. The vision and its interpretations stress his exceptional qualities and relationship with Christ. Not only does Francis rival the original apostles in his fidelity to Christ’s example, but he also surpasses other saints. A sermon delivered by Bernard of Siena in 1427 makes explicit that the vision served “to show him to be such a follower of God, that no one was found who could have followed the imprints of Christ more than him.”224 This is Francis as alter Christus: the idea prominent in writings and increasingly in visual representations from Bonaventure onward, the expression first found in the Actus beati Francisci et sociorum eius, composed ca. 1327–37.225 While the metaphor of following footsteps was also employed for the emulation of saints and other worthy figures, St. Francis was not only held up as a model in these terms, but following him was seen as a way of following Christ.226 Bonaventure in his Legenda maior wrote that “many people

Cesare Cenci, “‘San’ Pietro Pettinaio presentato da un predicatore senese contemporaneo,” Studi Francescani 87, nos. 1–2 (1990), 21–22; André Vauchez, “Pietro Pettinaio,” in Bibliotheca sanctorum, vol. 10 (Rome: Istituto Giovanni XXIII, 1968), col. 719. 224. “E questo fu solo perché dimostrava d’essere tanto seguitante di Dio, che niuno si trovava che più avesse seguitate le vestigie di Cristo, quanto lui”; Carlo Delcorno, ed., Bernardino da Siena: Prediche volgari sul Campo di Siena 1427, 2 vols. (Milan: Rusconi, 1989), 2:915–16, sermon XXXII. 225. Actus beati Francisci et sociorum eius, 6.1, 18.27, ed. Jacques Cambell, Marino Bigaroni, and Giovanni Boccali, in Fontes Franciscani, ed. Enrico Menestò and Stefano Brufani (Assisi: Porziuncola, 1995), 2098, 2125; trans. Armstrong, Hellmann, and Short, Francis of Assisi, 3:448, 473. Classic studies are S. da Campagnola, L’angelo del sesto sigillo e l’“alter Christus”: Genesi e svillupo di due temi francescani nei secoli XIII–XIV (Rome: Laurentianum; Antonianum, 1971); Henk W. van Os, “St Francis of Assisi as a Second Christ in Early Italian Painting,” Simiolus 7 (1974): 115–32. 226. Paul Binski, Becket’s Crown: Art and Imagination in Gothic England, 1170–1300 (New Haven: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2004), 123–24, 132–38, for the metaphor more generally.

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as well, not only driven by devotion but also inflamed by a desire for the perfection of Christ, once they had condemned the emptiness of everything worldly, followed the footsteps of Francis.”227 The claims expressed in the vision should be seen in the light of ongoing resistance to numbering Francis among the first rank of saints.228 As with the procession of apostles and saints up the line of ashes, this too could be expressed in terms of a succession of people over time; in around 1270 Nicholas of Lisieux wrote “there will come men who are no holier than those who preceded them, but who are impostors and seducers . . . pseudo-Christs.”229 Opposition focused on the stigmata and their increasingly Christological implications. Indeed, the interest in expressing likeness through vestigia may reflect conceptions of the stigmata. As Chiara Frugoni has noted, though Elias spoke of the “wounds made by the puncturing nails,” Thomas of Celano’s Vita prima (1229) described the raised form of nails in Francis’s skin as made from within, and it was only with Bonaventure (1221–74) that they were seen again as impressed from the outside.230 Moreover, while Thomas had compared the stigmata to “little black stones in a white pavement,” others would described them as vestigia or traces, the same term used for venerated imprints.231 Already in the second sermon to the Friars Minor by Jacques de Vitry (1170/80–1240), St. Francis is said to have followed the crucified Christ so closely that “at his death there appeared in his feet, hands, and side the traces of the wounds of Christ (vestigia vulnerum Christi).”232 Bonaventure even says that Christ left traces on St. Francis with his limbs (“et suis membris vestigia imprimebat”), as if the imprints of Christ commonly found on inanimate surfaces are here made on the body of the saint.233 The phrase is reminiscent

227. “Multi etiam non solum devotione compuncti, sed et perfectionis Christi desiderio inflammati, omni mundanorum vanitate contempta, Francisci vestigia sequebantur”; Bonaventure, Legenda maior, 4.7, in Legendae S. Francisci, 574; trans. Armstrong, Hellmann, and Short, Francis of Assisi, 2:554. 228. André Vauchez, “The Stigmata of St Francis and Its Medieval Detractors,” Greyfriars Review 13, no. 1 (1999): 61–89. 229. Extracts from Nicholas of Lisieux’s Responsio ad quaestionem fratris Johannis de Peschant are given in Max Bierbaum, Bettelorden und Weltgeistlichkeit an der Universität Paris: Texte und Untersuchungen zum literarischen Armuts- und Exemtionsstreit des 13. Jahrhunderts (1255–1272) (Münster: Aschendorff, 1920), 367–68; translation in Vauchez, “Stigmata of St Francis,” 80 n. 58. 230. “Nam manus eius et pedes quasi puncturas clavorum habuerunt”; Elias, Epistola encyclica de transitu S. Francisci, 5, in Legendae S. Francisci, 526–27. Thomas of Celano, Vita prima S. Francisci, 2.9, in Legendae S. Francisci, 88; Chiara Frugoni, “Saint Francis, a Saint in Progress,” in Saints: Studies in Hagiography, ed. Sandro Sticca (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1996), 161–90. 231. “Sicut in pavimento albo nigri lapilli solent”; Thomas of Celano, Vita prima S. Francisci, 2.9, in Legendae S. Francisci, 88; trans. Armstrong, Hellmann, and Short, Francis of Assisi, 1:280. 232. “Et ita expresse sequutus est Crucifixum, quod in morte ejus in pedibus, manibus, et latere vestigia vulnerum Christi apparuerunt”; Jacques de Vitry, Sermo secundus ad fratres minores, 1, ed. Hilarin Felder, ““Jacobi Vitriacensis episcopi et cardinalis, 1180–1240: Sermones ad fratres minores,”” Analecta ordinis minorum Capuccinorum 19 (1903): 151; trans. Armstrong, Hellmann, and Short, Francis of Assisi, 1:589. 233. Bonaventure, Sermo V De s. patre nostro Francisco, 13, in Sermones de diversis, ed. J. G. Bougerol, 2 vols. (Paris: Éditions franciscaines, 1993), 2, Sermo 59, 799.

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of Paulinus of Nola’s description of Valgius as “the living earth on which we see impressed the traces of the Lord’s body,” but while these traces were figurative, Bonaventure’s were physical marks.234 These correspondences between the impressions made in the bodies of Christ and Francis, and those made by them, achieve a particular resonance in the vision, in which two sets of wounded feet occupy the same imprints. More generally, imitatio Christi could be expressed in terms of physical practices of walking outside the Holy Land. Indeed, it seems likely that walking as an imitative gesture was more feasible somewhere not usually understood to have been sanctified by Christ’s presence. In the later Middle Ages, some forms of virtual or imagined pilgrimage, particularly as carried out by enclosed religious women, saw parts of church or convent complexes equated with sites of the Passion.235 Devotees moved through their own surroundings as if through Jerusalem, with some concern to replicate the actual distances traveled by making several circuits of the same space. Where they were encouraged to meditate while imitating the positions of Christ’s body, such as standing as if against the column of the Flagellation, walking could be understood specifically as commemorating his footsteps.236 At the same time, the idea of walking in Christ’s footsteps could also be extended to the entire practice. At the Convent of Wienhausen (Lower Saxony), a fifteenth-century manuscript urged the reader “when you shall determine to walk in the footsteps of Christ . . . take care to follow in his footsteps in spirit and body, to visit devotedly the actual locations where the spiritual suffering occurred.”237 For June Mecham a nun following the sequence of significant locations within the convent “literally walked ‘in the footsteps of Christ.’”238 Of course, the ground trodden by the nuns was elided with the land trodden by Christ only by a devotional act of imagination, and the vestigia they trod in were virtual. Yet these qualities may be precisely what enabled such a close replication of his actions. As argued in chapter 1, no one literally trod in Christ’s vestigia in the Holy Land. Nine Miedema has presented virtual pilgrimage as the fullest way of realizing a desire “to tread in Christ’s footsteps,” because it allowed events to be followed according to the logic of the narrative rather than of topographical proximity.239 One might add that it also facilitated a greater physical dimension to emulation conceived in terms of following or even walking in Christ’s footsteps by removing the charged materiality of the holy ground and distinct imprints. In contrast, St. Francis—within the confines of the vision—walks the very same ground as Christ and places his feet in concrete vestigia. Nevertheless, it is important that the

234. Paulinus of Nola, Epistulae, 49.14, ed. von Hartel, 403; trans. Walsh, 2:273. 235. On somatic pilgrimage devotions, see Rudy, Virtual Pilgrimages in the Convent, 171–232, esp. 171, 195–221. 236. Rudy, Virtual Pilgrimages in the Convent, 171–72. 237. Translation from Moore, Architecture of the Christian Holy Land, 204. 238. June L. Mecham, “A Northern Jerusalem: Transforming the Spatial Geography of the Convent of Wienhausen,” in Spicer and Hamilton, Defining the Holy, 153. 239. Miedema, “Following in the Footsteps of Christ,” 85.

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action unfolds in a cathedral, when it could equally have taken place in Jerusalem or a less specific location, divorcing the surface trodden in the vision from that more widely venerated as trodden by Christ. The events of the vision draw on ways in which the church interior was used and understood. The ash imprinted with the footprints of Christ and the saints is evocative of the cross of ashes in the consecration rite, imprinted with the letters of the Greek and Latin alphabets. The fact that the cross was given a Christological interpretation in allegorical readings of the ceremony made the line of ash a fitting recipient for Christ’s footprints in the vision; indeed, in evoking the rite, the ashes may also have served as a reminder that this was taking place on consecrated ground. Moreover, since Francis’s Christ-like qualities were most essentially located in the bodily imprints of the stigmata, it is significant that interpretations of the rite also gave the floor surface corporeal connotations, with the alphabets seen as inscribed in the human body. Although it is hard to point to a dedication ceremony likely to have been witnessed by the author of Pietro Pettinaio’s Life, the symbolism of the alphabet cross was often recalled in sermons to be delivered on the Feast of the Dedication. By the fifteenth century, the library of the Franciscan convent in Siena included sermon collections by Jacobus de Voragine, who discussed the alphabets as the cross of Christ uniting Jews and Gentiles in his dedication sermon Edificaverunt templum Domini rex et filii Israel, as well as by Franciscans Gilbert of Tournai and John of La Rochelle, who also wrote sermons on the dedication.240 Even without a visual stimulus, therefore, the verbal association of floor surface and flesh can be seen to have prepared the way for using vestigia imprinted in ash on a cathedral pavement to express a likeness otherwise vested in bodily stigmata. Insofar as it does draw on the materiality and meaning of the alphabet cross, the vision also suggests that the rite could shape the associations of the church floor beyond the ceremony and its associated texts. The use of the line of ashes in the vision also corresponds to the way in which pavement markers and coverings were employed as markers for particular participants in the liturgy. Scattered from the entrance of the church to the high altar, it functions as a processional pathway. This function is partly reminiscent of the emphasis on the longitudinal axis of the church in a number of Italian opus sectile pavements, in which a line of roundels forms a similar route. However, in their ephemeral nature, the ashes also evoke the spreading of textiles under the feet of specific individuals, including some of those present in the vision. As discussed above, carpets were placed under representations of Christ in some Palm Sunday celebrations, while Bonaventure’s Legenda maior describes a man spreading his cloak on the ground before St. Francis, establishing his Christ-like

240. K. W. Humphreys, The Library of the Franciscans of Siena in the Late Fifteenth Century (Amsterdam: Erasmus, 1978), docs. 420, 421, 674 for Jacobus de Voragine; 462, 734–36, 755, 799, 853 for Gilbert of Tournai; 419, 426, 871 for John of La Rochelle. Horie, Perceptions of Ecclesia, 139 for Gilbert, 143 for John of La Rochelle, 226–29 for Jacobus de Voragine.

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nature. Similarly, in an early fourteenth-century account of the Porziuncola indulgence, Francis himself experiences a vision in which he walks to the church along a way that seems to be spread with silks: “strata quasi de serico ornata.”241 Within the church interior, the employment of textiles could correspond to the disposition of the ashes in the vision; as noted above, the Ordo Senensis explicitly refers to the bishop walking on textiles on his way to the altar, even if the point here is to portray him as rejecting what they represent. In contrast, the ashes stress the humility of the saint, in line with the poverty of his dress and bare feet. This is certainly a different quality from that evoked when Francis walks on silk, or indeed an emperor stands on porphyry or a Novarese deacon upon an Evangelist symbol. Nevertheless, all these cases are predicated on a kind of correspondence or sympathy between the person and the material or image on which they stand, rather than a repudiation. Staying within the parameters of things spread underfoot, the ash is perhaps closest in its penitential associations to the cilicium of the late antique prebaptismal ritual. However, it most likely draws on contemporary rites in which the dying were placed on a hair cloth marked with a cross of ashes. While these will be discussed more fully in the following chapter, it is relevant to note here that the practice was known within mendicant circles. The late thirteenth-century Lives of the Brethren of the Order of Preachers describes two dying Dominicans being laid on ashes or sackcloth and ashes.242 As important as the relationship between the person and what is trodden on is that between two people who have occupied the same spot. Ultimately, the ashes are laid down to provide a fitting medium in which both Christ and St. Francis, as well as the other saints, can walk. If the veneration of Christological and saintly footprints provided no precedent for the vision of Francis standing in Christ’s prints, parallels can be found in ritual practices performed within church buildings. Here the repeated use of liturgical markers over time, especially in identity-defining rituals, implicitly helped to create a sense of likeness between the users, whether this was an exclusive identity such as imperial office or a more broadly shared one such as membership of a canonical community. Despite finding legitimacy in notions of St. Francis’s uniquely Christ-like nature, and precedents in ways in which sacred space and identity were defined within the church interior, the act of standing in Christ’s footprints was still challenging. Not only was the concept of Francis as alter Christus itself contested, but standing in the imprints also risked colliding with traditions of trampling. In this respect it was even more problematic than the stigmata, for if these were essentially controversial for what they were taken to imply about St. Francis, standing in Christ’s footprints was also problematic for

241. Mario Sensi, Il perdono di Assisi (Assisi: Porziuncola, 2002), 179. 242. Gérard de Frachet, Vitae fratrum ordinis praedicatorum, 5.3.9–10, ed. Benedikt Reichert, Vitae fratrum ordinis praedicatorum necnon Cronica ordinis ab anno MCCIII usque ad MCCLIV (Louvain: E. Charpentier & J. Schoonjans, 1896), 264–65; 6.3, trans. Placid Conway, Lives of the Brethren of the Order of Preachers, 1206–1259, ed. Bede Jarrett (London: Blackfriars Publications, 1955), 230–31.

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what it might be mistaken for. Perceptions of what constituted desecration underfoot could depend on the comparative identities and values of what was trodden on and who was doing the treading; according to this logic, Francis alter Christus could not be desecrating the imprints. However, the significance of standing on something is also affected by the medium in which it is manifested and communicated. The fact that Francis’s actions are described as taking place within a vision may serve to soften the contrast between a common metaphor and a highly uncommon action, providing only a partial materialization of the ideas of emulation and likeness. So may the fact that the imprints are made in ash rather than a more durable medium and function only within the parameters of the vision. This latter limitation goes against the tradition of vestigia in other medieval visions; where these are imprinted in an ephemeral substance, they usually stay behind as proof of the vision and the lasting significance of the events witnessed. When, for example, in the legend of the restoration of the abbey of Mozac, a white deer marks out the plan of the church to be built by its hoof-prints in the snow, the prints are found in the earth below after the snow melts.243 In a closer parallel with the Sienese example, accounts of the miraculous consecration of Westminster Abbey have St. Peter inscribe the letters into the alphabet cross, which remains to be seen by the bishop as proof of the event.244 It is true that these vestigia demonstrate sanctity of place as much as that of their makers. Moreover, the ephemeral quality of ash and imprints is integral to the message of the vision; the whole point is that the traces are difficult to distinguish by the time Francis arrives. Nevertheless, in the light of the radical connotations of walking in the imprints, it is significant that these are not given a place outside the confines of the vision. The description of Pietro Pettinaio’s visionary experience conjures up a mental image of St. Francis’s actions in the mind of the reader or listener. However, visualizing these actions was potentially fraught because it encountered an established visual convention. While following someone’s footsteps and trampling something underfoot coexisted as metaphors of emulation and disdain, the negative connotations of standing were dominant when someone was actually shown treading on something. Not only was the iconography of trampling ancient and widespread, but it could even feature Francis himself. The saint was included in the rendition of the virtues and vices in the early thirteenth-century wall paintings in the Aula gotica of the SS. Quattro Coronati complex in Rome, held aloft on the shoulder of Amor celestis, who tramples underfoot Julian the Apostate (fig. 29).245 From the end of the fourteenth century, Francis was shown in a

243. Krusch, “Reise nach Frankreich,” 17–25; Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, 60–61. 244. Flete, History of Westminster Abbey, ed. Robinson, 40, for the extract from Goscelin of St.-Bertin’s Life of St. Mellitus, 10 for Osbert of Clare’s Life of St. Edward the Confessor; Aelred of Rievaulx, Vita S. Edwardi regis et confessoris, PL 195:757a; Paris, Estoire de Seint Aedward, lines 2189–94, ed. Wallace, 62; trans. Fenster and Wogan-Browne, 82. 245. Draghi, Affreschi dell’Aula gotica, 298–99, 309 fig. 242.

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central, Christ-like role, trampling on personifications of pride, lust, and avarice, and standing on a mappa mundi in what has been seen by Donal Cooper as an expression of contempt for worldly things.246 While it is not possible that the author of Pietro Pettinaio’s Life would have seen such representations of Francis himself trampling negative things underfoot, the long history of the representation of trampling means that it is likely to have been familiar to him and his audience. The implications of this familiarity for their imagining of St. Francis’s actions in the vision are difficult to ascertain, though it is noteworthy that the narrative, in which he reverently finds the footprints before placing his feet in them, allows a mental picture to be built up gradually and the tone established before the juxtaposition of foot and footprint. However, it is telling that the vision seems to have long remained within the sphere of mental images, without being realized in a concrete depiction, where such an unfolding was not possible and comparisons with other representations were stronger. This is not to imply that the absence of the vision from the surviving fourteenth- to sixteenth-century depictions of Pietro Pettinaio or St. Francis is purely or even primarily down to the nature of the central action; despite evidence of some circulation, it is not so well known that an explanation needs to be found for its absence from the visual tradition. Nevertheless, when the episode was depicted, it was in such a way as to avoid any appearance of desecration. Two early seventeenth-century paintings of the vision by Raffaello Vanni show the footprints in the ash on the pavement, but depict Francis already kneeling before Christ at the altar.247 The considerations that circumscribed the representation of Pietro Pettinaio’s vision are different from those that attended the episode discussed in the previous chapter, in which St. Francis walks on a cloth decorated with crosses, which he interprets as symbolizing those of the thieves crucified with Christ. In that case, an action of disdain would have risked appearing to desecrate the crosses because of the dominant positive connotations of the symbol. Nevertheless, both cases involve the saint in an act of walking on something that could be described and imagined but was less easily represented visually on account of more common images with other meanings. Thus Pietro Pettinaio’s vision of St. Francis employs temporary floor coverings to demonstrate the status of the saint in a manner that both draws on and extends the ways in which ephemeral and permanent pavement decoration functioned in reality. It uses the medium of ashes to bring the vestigia of Christ, otherwise concentrated in the Holy Land, into the local church interior. Rather as the vision of Mary praying on the roundel

246. Van Os, “St Francis of Assisi as a Second Christ”; on the element of trampling, in particular, see also Cohen, “Animal Triad of Capital Sins.” Donal Cooper, “‘Love Not the World’: Saint Francis as an Alter Christus in Late Medieval Italian Painting,” IKON: Journal of Iconographic Studies 3 (2010): 199–209. 247. Alessandro Leoncini, “La ‘Visione del beato Pietro Pettinaio’ in due tele attribute a Raffaello Vanni,” in “Sacro e profano nel duomo di Siena: Religiosità, tradizione classica e arte dalle origini all’epoca moderna,” ed. Mario Lorenzoni, special issue, Quaderni dell’Opera 10–12 (2006–8): 253–76, figs. 73–74.

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in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople mapped a saintly presence onto a ceremonial and imperial one, this allowed the elision of two different kinds of sacred space. At the same time, correspondences with the alphabet cross also identify the surface on which the vestigia are disposed as consecrated ground. Christ and the saints walk up the line of ash as processions might follow a line of roundels or the tree of the Otranto floor mosaic toward the east end of the church. However, in its temporary nature the ash resembles more closely the textiles spread on particular occasions under the feet of prominent clerics and rulers, a custom that might itself serve to translate the Holy Land or even claim a Christ-like status when evoking the Entry into Jerusalem. Temporary floor coverings were often highly specific to the moment and person concerned, and the Life uses this— emphasized by the exclusive and fleeting quality of the vision itself—to create a surface only accessible to Christ and the saints. It arguably also employs the ephemerality and malleability of the ashes, together with the visionary context, to diffuse two points of tension: concern about treading on something holy and otherwise protected from further tread, and the contested nature of St. Francis’s identity as alter Christus that the episode acts to promote. Ultimately, however, the repeated use of the visionary vestigia demonstrates likeness between individuals in a similar way to a wide range of paving elements in churches as these were experienced in reality. Taking into account the implications of seeing body and ground together further demonstrates how the episode corresponds to and departs from such experiences. As with certain images in the Novara and Otranto mosaics, bodies and ground could combine to evoke a common representation. However, here the ephemeral and visionary nature of the imprints worked to undercut such associations, which would have been with images of trampling and thus opposed to the meaning of the episode. The only witness sees the scene in a vision; others have to assemble a mental image from the textual cues; and concrete depictions seem to have been avoided. Finally, as with the steps in Dante’s Purgatorio, the vision also suggests that aspects of ecclesiastical decoration and ritual could be creatively adapted in contemporary writings, allowing authors to use ground-related discourse to express new ideas. This chapter has discussed nonfigurative paving elements separately from images and has treated permanent paving separately from temporary floor coverings. This division has served to highlight their particular expressive potential underfoot. For example, images could combine with the bodies above them to create ensembles reminiscent of familiar images, such as the Gospel writers and their symbols or the Anastasis. Temporary floor coverings had a particular capacity to respond to specific people and moments, as well as to transform one place fleetingly into another, from liturgical celebrations of the Entry into Jerusalem to the evocation of St. Peter’s at S. Petronio in Bologna. However, there are also fundamental similarities that should be emphasized here. One important commonality is the kind of rituals for which all such markers might be employed. These tend to be status-changing rites of baptism, penance, and inauguration. Adult catechumens stood on goatskins in some late antique baptismal rites,

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including the redditio symboli; infants were placed on the floor for the delivery of the Creed and Lord’s Prayer in later medieval baptismal ceremonies, and a porphyry roundel was used for the purpose in the baptistery in Florence. The floor surface also served to guide officiating members of the clergy. At Novara Cathedral, images of the symbols of the Evangelists marked the place of the traditio evangeliorum, and geometric elements in the same pavement have been interpreted as the site of the delivery of the Creed and Lord’s Prayer. Images in the floor mosaics of the north side chapel of Otranto Cathedral may suggest the location of font and bishop during baptism itself. If the cilicium in the baptismal ritual had a penitential quality, further connections with penance can be found in both real and imagined paving. The steps at the entrance to Purgatory in Dante’s Divine Comedy serve as an allegory of penance, while the mosaic in the north side chapel of Otranto Cathedral has been interpreted more generally in the light of the reconciliation of penitents, with both the central tree and the figure of Kairos understood to act as liturgical markers. Similarly, markers in a variety of media were used in ceremonies of coronation and ordination. For example, in the scrutinium of the imperial coronation ceremony as carried out at St. Peter’s, a porphyry roundel acted as a marker for an exchange between the pope and the emperor concerning the latter’s fitness to rule; the same roundel was used for papal ordinations. At Otranto Cathedral, a granite roundel held aloft by Atlas alludes to the ceremony of acclaiming an emperor on a shield. Temporary roundels were also employed in coronation ceremonies, whether to locate further participants in the ceremony or to evoke one place in another. In the Byzantine episcopal ordination ceremony, the bishop stood upon the three rivers, city, and eagle marked out in plaster to testify to his orthodoxy and acceptance of the responsibilities of his office. The setting, and the relationship with the ground, is different in each case. Markers can be used by those undergoing the change in status or by those officiating. However, whether in terms of image or material, there is a close relationship between what is trodden on and the identity of the person treading on it, which transcends differences in media. Generally speaking, this relationship is one of likeness or mirroring, literally so in the case of Dante’s first step. Porphyry matches imperial or papal status; rough cloth or stone expresses sinfulness and penance; images of the symbols of the Evangelists locate readings from their Gospels. Such markers were not only fitting, but arguably contributed to the efficacy of the ritual concerned, both in terms of a cerebral response and on a more fundamental level. In the case of those undergoing the transformation, markers could speak to the status being achieved or that left behind, potentially complementing a verbal prompt to self-examination. In the case of those officiating, the markers employed may have enhanced their role within the ritual; the combination of image, body, and word during the performance of the traditio evangeliorum at Novara not only turned the deacons into embodiments of the Evangelists, but in the process strengthened the potency of this ritual of symbolic instruction. Paving also had the capacity to shape the identity of those who used it by establishing likeness between those using the same place marker over time. This might be a relatively exclusive identity, in which only

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one person conventionally held the office at any one time, such as emperor or pope, or a broader identity held by many people concurrently, such as episcopal office or membership of a religious community, although here too a sense of a succession and of a community extending over time was significant. The importance of the ground to identity-shaping rituals and rites of passage will be explored further in the following chapter, in which gestures that brought the whole body into contact with the floor surface during inauguration ceremonies and the last rites will also be linked to permanent and temporary floor coverings. For the moment, it remains to be asked how this function relates to traditions of treading as discussed in chapters 1 and 3. Trampling and treading are interpretations of the same physical action, two sides of the same coin. Addressing them in different chapters is not meant to imply that a clear dividing line can be drawn between them. They can potentially be present in the same encounter, expressing ambiguities within the person concerned or the thing on which they stand. The goatskin pricked the catechumens to remind them of their sinful nature, expressing a certain likeness between person and skin, but might have been trodden on as a symbol of their rejection of that nature through exorcism and baptism. The textiles trodden on by bishops probably honored their office, as well also showing them rejecting the trappings of the world, corresponding to a wider tension between perceiving precious materials as fitting or worldly. We find something of the same potential to change the meaning of an ensemble of layers by reinterpreting the significance of one of its components in the story of St. Francis walking on textiles decorated with crosses. Here, changing the crosses from representing that of Christ to those of the thieves crucified with him changes the action of standing on them from desecration to an act of trampling that is itself Christ-like. The difficulty of distinguishing between a negative or positive attitude to what is trodden on is particularly pronounced in the visual sphere. It seems likely that the strong tradition of representing trampling visually, which may have preceded its adoption in ritual, may have made it difficult to depict the employment of liturgical markers, and indeed the instances of St. Francis treading on the crossmarked textiles and in Christ’s footprints found in some textual sources. In both these spheres, the ways in which people interact with the surface of the ground are expressive of their identity, but they demonstrate different kinds of identity. Trampling is about difference, between individuals, groups, and confessions; the use of liturgical markers is more concerned with likeness. They do come close in the context of rites of passage—in which people move from one state to another—such as conversion, baptism, and inauguration. However, objects trampled in conversion and baptism speak to the identity left behind; those trodden on as liturgical markers tend to speak to the one that is being assumed. In the medieval West trampling for the most part seems to have been practiced within the realm of visual and verbal representation; it was important within discourses of identity, and the person concerned was as likely to be condemned as praised. On the other hand, standing on something as expressive of a positive attitude to it, or a certain likeness between the person concerned and what was underfoot, was part of several rites that might be experienced in and around the church

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interior. However, it is possible that some negatively construed elements in figurative floor decoration could be denigrated underfoot, with the potential for a cleric standing on the gates of hell and the figure of Satan in the Otranto mosaic to create an ensemble reminiscent of the Harrowing of Hell and thus take on a Christ-like status. Someone standing on the representation of the basilisk at S. Benedetto Po might not only imitate Psalm 90 (91) and call to mind images of Christ, but also take part in and in some way animate the combat represented on the picture plane. The material examined in this chapter suggests that places used as liturgical markers in churches and those trodden by Christ and the saints were part of a spectrum. Although the loca sancta of the Holy Land and elsewhere offered a powerful point of reference for the consecrated church building, in other respects, it is helpful to think in terms of shared conventions and a two-way relationship. One point of connection lies in the material qualities of the floor surface, another in the relationship between how often the site was used and the identity of the person standing there. Some of the places where Christ had stood were marked with marble roundels similar to those used as liturgical markers in Byzantine and western European churches, and perhaps postdating some of them. Descriptions and visual representations of holy vestigia exhibit the same interest in marble found in high-status decorated paving, with the material functioning as an indication of worth and durability. More generally, the way in which such sites were treated stems from the same logic. Where Christ’s exclusive identity, his divinity, was expressed through sites protected from further tread, the repeated use of liturgical markers spoke of and shaped shared identities. Not only could these shared identities themselves be more or less exclusive, but St. Francis’s radical identity as alter Christus was also expressed through standing in Christ’s footprints if only in a visionary and ephemeral manner.

5 PLACES OF PROSTRATION

Adhaesit pavimento anima mea. [My soul hath cleaved to the pavement.] —Psalm 118 (119):25

This chapter focuses on customs that involved lying on the ground. Even more than the examples examined in the previous chapter, these practices were characteristic of the open floor surfaces of medieval churches. It is easy to forget how frequently and in how great a variety of circumstances the church floor would have been used in this way, from punishment and petition to veneration and initiation. The role of gestures—including prostration—in medieval art and culture has been the subject of considerable scholarly attention.1 However, for the most part, discussions of the social, religious, and political functions of prostration have not been greatly concerned with the immediate physical surroundings of the prostrate body, while art historians have tended to focus on the representation of such positions. Those scholars of floor decoration who have dealt with liturgical markers have concentrated on standing rather than reclining positions and have not integrated temporary floor coverings into their analysis. There has also been comparatively little consideration of how the use of such markers impacted on the person and the action involved. This chapter therefore pays particular attention to the

1. See, for example, Gerhart Ladner, “The Gestures of Prayer in Papal Iconography of the Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries,” in Didascaliae: Studies in Honor of Anselm M. Albareda, ed. Sesto Prete (New York: B. M. Rosenthal, 1961), 245–75; republished in Ladner, Images and Ideas in the Middle Ages: Selected Studies in History and Art, 2 vols. (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1983), 1:209–37; Rudolf Suntrup, Die Bedeutung der liturgischen Gebärden und Bewegungen in lateinischen und deutschen Auslegungen des 9. bis 13. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Fink, 1978); Schmitt, Raison des gestes; Heinrich Fichtenau, Living in the Tenth Century: Mentalities and Social Orders, trans. Patrick J. Geary (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1991), esp. 30–49; Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor.

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physical setting of humble gestures and its implications for their significance, in terms of both location and decoration. It draws on instances in which the specifics of the setting were noted in written documents, as well as considering cases where they can be reconstructed from archaeological and visual evidence. It concentrates on those actions that took place on ecclesiastical property, especially consecrated ground, and on prescriptive texts that envisaged the repeated performance of actions in particular places. In all of this, my intention is not so much to elucidate the significance of ritualized gestures per se, as to determine the potential of the ground to modulate that significance, and to ask how the gestures in turn could affect interpretations of the ground. Geoffrey Koziol has stressed that gestures associated with supplication were inherently ambiguous and polysemic. Not only could one state of mind such as devotion or contrition be expressed through a number of different postures, but a single posture could have a range of different meanings. Moreover, meaning did not become fi xed in performance, but remained open to interpretation.2 The key to this understanding lies partly in the visual aspect of rituals, seen as “an iconography of gestures.” Koziol compares the ambiguity of ritual postures to the way in which pictorial art contains several images to be “read” simultaneously, and suggests that medieval representations of gestures could also possess “intentional multivalence.” In the light of this argument, the material context of such positions can be seen to have formed an important part of the visual impression created by the ritual. This was especially the case with prostration and other postures that involved extensive contact between person and place. Not only did the properties of the ground inform theoretical treatments of prostration, but—I would suggest—modifications to the appearance of the surface are likely to have contributed to a reading of the action in practice. Since the effectiveness of gesture depends on collective sensitivity to nuance in the visual sphere, with even small differences carrying meaning, it is plausible that the same sensitivity conditioned reception of differences in the appearance of the location. However, it is important to add that the ground itself possessed an ambiguous quality. It was not just that it had the potential to be understood as holy or humble, but that both qualities could be perceived at the same time. Furthermore, its own significance was largely imparted by the actions that took place on it and, in particular, by the identity of those who came into contact with it. As a result, as the examples discussed below demonstrate, while the treatment and characterization of the ground could emphasize a particular aspect of the gesture performed on it, they did not so much serve to pinpoint a single interpretation, but rather to mirror and reinforce the existing multiplicity of meanings. They could enhance an interpretation already present in the ritual concerned but might also create a certain tension between gesture and setting.

2. Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor, 60–61, 94–95, 289–324, esp. 307–11.

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Because this book examines contact with the ground in a variety of circumstances, it is possible to show that prostrate positions of supplication and penance also involved attitudes to place that were shared with other, less humble, postures. In particular, I argue, they conform to a pattern in which rites of transformation involved the repetition of actions in a particular location, reflecting and shaping both the significance of the place and the identity of the person concerned. The sort of ceremonies that might require initiates to stand in certain spots used previously by people like them, such as coronation and entry into a religious order, also provide examples of prostration in fi xed locations. Secondly, just as places where people stood on significant occasions were distinguished on the ground through material and visual means, so too were those where they lay. Temporary floor coverings, which marked out a circumscribed area, find a rationale in their relationship with the bodies above them as much as (if not more than) with the ground below. Where decoration was permanent, it had a commemorative and potentially didactic effect, depending on whether the contact in question took place within a one-off event that fully accomplished the transformation of the location, as in church consecration, or a more drawn-out process involving repeated contact over a longer period. The first part of the chapter takes as its starting point the material setting for acts of prostration. It begins by addressing the relationship between prostrate positions and the ground in late antique and medieval characterizations of the posture, including the etymological links between humus and humility, the correspondence of the position to that of the body in burial, and its relevance to the conception of the body as composed of, and returning to, the earth. This section is followed by discussion of the possible settings for prostration, which in practice could also take place on a variety of temporary and permanent floor coverings, with use of the bare ground often seen as a mark of particular punishment or asceticism. Such coverings are shown to have functioned both to mark out a personal space distinct from the surrounding area and to mediate between body and ground, with the capacity to reflect the identity of the person and modulate the significance of the gesture. The second part of the chapter focuses in more detail on three rituals that feature full prostration: the humiliation of relics, coronation ceremonies, and rites for the dying. By starting with the implications of prostration in particular circumstances, and noting different iterations, locations, and material contexts, this second approach provides a different perspective on how setting could inform action. While the reconstruction of floor surfaces involved in individual instances of rituals is fraught with uncertainties, the attempt alone makes clear that what further complexity the action gained from the occasion on which it was performed is equaled by that generated by the specifics of the environment in which it took place. Additionally, while prostration more generally is related to death and burial and seen as an exercise in humility that could anticipate reversal in this life and the next, discussion of rites for the dying especially prepares the way for the final chapter of the book, which addresses the relationship between the bodies of the dead beneath the ground and those of the living above.

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Prostration and the Ground Prostration occupied a point on a spectrum of gestures that included genuflecting and kneeling. It could be used to express petition, contrition, and veneration, or a combination of the three. Three main aspects of prostration characterized it as expressive of humility. In and of itself, the posture resembled that of animals. Secondly, it often involved a spatial relationship with something or someone else, literally placing practitioners below a higher authority and demonstrating their place within a hierarchy. At the same time, it also brought them closer to the ground, and the rationale of the action is intrinsically bound up with the characterization of the earth. Already in classical Latin, the adjective “humilis” meant “on or near the ground,” and its application to status or character derived from the implications of this position. In his seventh-century Etymologiae, Isidore of Seville’s defi nition of “humilis” expressed the same sense of physical proximity to the earth—“humble, as if inclined to the ground”— and the definition was later cited by Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1224–75) in his Summa theologiae.3 Prostration is found as a posture for petition in the Old Testament, which also provides precedents for evoking the physical setting of the action and the proximity to the ground it achieves. The position was particularly associated with verses of two psalms: 43 (44) and 118 (119). The former includes the words: “Arise, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, and cast us not off to the end. Why turnest thou thy face away and forgettest our want and our trouble? For our soul is humbled down to the dust: our belly cleaveth to the earth.”4 In his Commentary on the Psalms, St. Augustine stressed that this was the ultimate gesture of humiliation; where kneeling left some parts of the body unabased, with prostration there was nothing further to humiliate. Effectively, it was the furthest possible downward motion, which thus brought the person closest to the earth. To go further would be to be obliterated or buried rather than humiliated (“non erit humilare, sed obruere”).5 Augustine’s characterization of prostration was cited in the marginal gloss of the Glossa ordinaria and, more specifically, in the context of commentaries on the

3. “Humilis, quasi humo adclinis”; Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, 10.115, ed. W. M. Lindsay, Isidori Hispalensis episcopi Etymologiarum sive originum, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911), 1: n.p.; trans. Stephen A. Barney et al., The “Etymologies” of Isidore of Seville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 220. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a2ae, 161.1, ed. and trans. Thomas Gilby, Summa theologiae, vol. 44, Well-Tempered Passion (London: Eyre & Spottiswode, 1972), 90–91. 4. “Exsurge; quare obdormis, Domine? Exsurge, et ne repellas in fi nem. Quare faciem tuam avertis? Oblivisceris inopiae nostrae et tribulationis nostrae? Quoniam humiliata est in pulvere anima nostra; Conglutinatus est in terra venter noster”; Psalm 43 (44):23–25. 5. “Quisquis enim ita humilatur ut genua figat, adhuc habet quo humiletur; quisquis autem sic humilatur ut haereat in terra venter eius, ultra quo humiletur non habet. Si enim ultra voluerit, iam non erit humilare, sed obruere”; Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos, 43 (44):24, ed. E. Dekkers and I. Fraipont, in Aurelii Augustini opera, vol. 10.1–3, Enarrationes in psalmos, 3 vols., CCSL 38–40 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1956), 1:491; trans. Maria Boulding, ed. John E. Rotelle, Expositions of the Psalms, 6 vols., The Works of

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Good Friday liturgy, such as that by Amalarius of Metz in the ninth century and Sicardus of Cremona in the thirteenth.6 Late antique and medieval descriptions of prostrate petition can also stress physical contact with dust and earth, and emphasize that the person is lying facedown. An inscription on the nave wall of the church of St. Martin of Tours, reminiscent of Psalm 43 (44), assumed that pilgrims would kneel and prostrate themselves there to ask for the saint’s help: “You who have knelt on the ground, lowered your face to the dust, and placed your moist eyes to the compacted ground, lift your eyes, and with a trembling gaze look at the miracles and entrust your cause to the distinguished patron.”7 Psalm 118 (119), already encountered as a possible accompaniment to the writing of the alphabet cross, was also of relevance to prostration on account of the verse “My soul hath cleaved to the pavement: quicken thou me according to thy word.”8 Interpretations of the passage tend to understand the pavement metaphorically, as symbolizing the earth and people’s earthly bodies and mundane concerns. Thus St. Augustine stated that the speaker wishes “to be plucked free from the things of earth” because “to stick fast in earthly things is death to the soul.”9 St. Ambrose similarly presented the pavement as representing the earthly and material.10 However, there was also a sense in which literal cleaving to the ground represented a fitting response to and retreat from these worldly attachments, and the psalm was often cited in the context of prostrate prayer. For example, in Purgatorio, on the fifth terrace, Dante comes across a group of people facedown, reciting “Adhaesit pavimento anima mea!” (“My soul hath cleaved to the pavement”), in what has been seen as reflecting contemporary prayer postures.11 Indeed, the illustration

Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, pt. 3, vols. 15–20 (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2000–4), 2:277–78. 6. Karlfried Froehlich and Margaret T. Gibson, Biblia Latina cum glossa ordinaria: Facsimile Reprint of the editio princeps, Adolph Rusch of Strassburg 1480/81, 4 vols. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1992), 2:508; Simon Tugwell, ed. and trans., Early Dominicans: Selected Writings (Mahway, NJ: Paulist Press, 1982), 95, n. 160. Amalarius of Metz, Liber officialis, 1.14.6, ed. Hanssens, 101; Sicardus of Cremona, Mitrale, 6.13, ed. Sarbak and Weinrich, 496. Suntrup, Bedeutung der liturgischen Gebärden, 169. 7. “Quisque solo adclinis mersisti in pulvere vultum / Humidaque inlisae pressisti lumina terrae / Attollens oculos trepido miracula visu / Concipe et eximio causam committe patrono”; Luce Pietri, La ville de Tours du IVe au VIe siècle: Naissance d’une cité chrétienne, Collection de l’École française de Rome 69 (Rome: École française de Rome, 1983), Appendix 6, no. 11, 807–9. English translation from Van Dam, Saints and Their Miracles, 314. 8. “Adhaesit pavimento anima mea; Vivifica me secundum verbum tuum”; Psalm 118 (119):25. 9. “Vult itaque terrenis erui. . . . Proinde terrenis adhaerere mors animae est”; Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos, 118 (119):25, ed. Dekkers and Fraipont, 3:1692–93; trans. Boulding, Expositions of the Psalms, 5:382. 10. “Per pauimentum terram intellegimus, per terram materialia”; Ambrose, Expositio psalmi CXVIII, 4.2, ed. Michael Petschenig and Michaela Zelzer, Sancti Ambrosi opera, vol. 5, CSEL 62, rev. ed. (Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1999), 68; trans. Íde Ní Riain, Homilies of Saint Ambrose on Psalm 118 (119) (Dublin: Halcyon Press, 1998), 44. 11. Dante Alighieri, Commedia: Purgatorio, Canto 19, lines 70–126, ed. and trans. Durling, 2:312–15, 321 for the relationship to prayer postures and the correspondence with the Augustinian commentary on Psalm 118 (119).

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Fig. 63. The avaricious in the fifth terrace of Purgatory, Divine Comedy, northern Italy, first half of the fourteenth century. London, British Library, Egerton MS 943, fol. 97v. Photo: © The British Library Board.

of the scene in a northern Italian manuscript of the Commedia dating from the first half of the fourteenth century, which shows six figures flat on the ground, is positioned immediately above the line “Adhesit pavimento anima mea,” so that this acts almost as a caption (fig. 63).12 The people are being purged of the sin of avarice, and their close encounter with the earth is seen to reflect the way in which they had prioritized the worldly over the heavenly: “Since our eyes, fixed on earthly things, were not raised up, so here justice has sunk them to the earth.”13 The ground is both punitive and evocative of that for which the sinners are being punished, part of a wider tendency in the Commedia for the punishment to fit the crime.

12. London, BL, Egerton MS 943, fol. 97v. 13. “Sì come l’occhio nostro non s’aderse / in alto, fisso a le cose terrene, /così giustizia qui a terra il merse”; Dante Alighieri, Commedia: Purgatorio, Canto 19, lines 118–20, ed. and trans. Durling, 2:314–15.

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At the same time, it should be emphasized that humility carried with it the expectation of elevation, which was equally expressed in terms of physical position.14 A clear biblical precedent comes in the parable of the wedding feast as told in the Gospel of Luke, in which the guest is instructed to occupy a place at the lower end of the table in order to be invited by the host to take a higher place: “Because everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”15 In the same spirit, Alcuin (ca. 735–804) wrote in his treatise on the virtues and vices that “he shall know the depths of humility so he may rise,” and the sentiment was echoed by many other medieval writers.16 While, in practice, gestures of humiliation might be performed in the hope of reaping a reward in the near future, the benefits of humility in the abstract were often postponed until the afterlife. The promise of role reversal was ultimately predicated on the example of Christ, who was buried, descended into hell, and rose again from the dead—a pattern that could also be experienced by the faithful. For Walter of St.-Victor, in a sermon on the Ascension, pride sought the highest place and ended up in hell, while humility chose a lowly place and ended up in heaven.17 These consequences involved not just a change in location, but also a changed relationship with the ground. Augustine directly associated the prostration in Psalm 43 (44) with the resurrection of the dead, saying that those who cleave to the ground will be dug up from the ground: “etiam illi qui haeserant in terra, eruti sunt de terra.”18 From this perspective, prostration on the earth by the living brought the body very close to its position under the earth after death (though few actually chose to be buried “prostratum . . . non supinum,” as Suger claimed in the early twelfth century for the Frankish king Pippin).19 At the same time, it ensured that this would only be a temporary stage en route to heaven. The New Testament also provided a precedent in the form of Christ himself, more particularly as he prayed during the Agony in the Garden. While Luke referred to him kneeling down, Matthew and Mark described him praying “on his face” or “flat

14. Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor, 98–100. 15. “Quia omnis, qui se exaltat, humiliabitur: et qui se humiliat, exaltabitur”; Luke 14:11. 16. “Humilia respicit, ut attollat: alta, id est, superba cognoscit, ut dejiciat”; Alcuin, De virtutibus et vitiis, 10, PL 101: 619c–620c; ed. Ole Widding, Alkuin De virtutibus et vitiis i norsk-islandsk overlevering: Og Udvidelser til Jonsbogens kapitel om domme (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1960), 64–66; Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor, 99–100. 17. “Superbia appetit sibi locum supremum, dicens: Ascendam in coelum, et Deus parat sibi locum, scilicet infimum infernum; humilitas locum sibi eligit inferiorem, et Deus parat sibi locum superiorum, id est coelum”; Walter of St.-Victor, Sermo XV De ascensione Domini, 4, ed. Châtillon, 131–32. 18. Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos, 43 (44):26, ed. Dekkers and Fraipont, 1:492–93. 19. Suger, De administratione, 25, ed. and trans. Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis, 44–45; discussed in Karl Heinrich Krüger, Königsgrabkirchen der Franken, Angelsachsen und Langobarden bis zur Mitte des 8. Jahrhunderts, Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften 4 (Munich: Fink, 1971), 182–83. On prone burials, see Roberta Gilchrist and Barney Sloane, Requiem: The Medieval Monastic Cemetery in Britain (London: Museum of London Archaeology Service, 2005), 153–54.

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on the ground.”20 This position followed the logic of prostrate prayer described above and could be understood as an expression of humility. For Ludolf of Saxony, writing in the fourteenth century, Christ fell “flat on his face on the ground, in order to show his humility of mind in the appearance of his body.”21 However, in line with the sites discussed in chapter 1, ultimately the action led to a different characterization of the surface of the ground, which took on the qualities of a contact relic. The place where Christ had prayed at Gethsemane was venerated by pilgrims to the Holy Land. As discussed in chapter 1, in his description of the church at the site, John of Würzburg mentioned three unworked rocks on which Christ was understood to have performed his threefold genuflection.22 Left protruding from the pavement, these were the object of devotion on the part of those visiting the church. It is possible that the humility of the bare ground made it important to leave the rocks exposed rather than marking the spot in another manner. In the fifteenth century, the German Dominican Felix Fabri recounted that the floor of the cave where Jesus had prayed had once preserved the imprints of his knees, made miraculously in the hard rock, but these had been worn away by pilgrims taking fragments. 23 Relics from the site certainly circulated in the West, such as the two portions “of the stone on which the Lord prayed before his Passion” listed among the relics of Glastonbury Abbey in the fourteenth century and the earth from the Mount of Olives, where Christ knelt and sweated blood, preserved in Regensburg Cathedral in 1496.24 Fabri felt that it was fitting for pilgrims to pray at the site using the same postures as Christ. 25 Some would likely already have been familiar with this sequence, since there was a wider devotional practice of imitating Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, especially in Holy Week. 26 It is possible this was done in the very spot where Christ had knelt, though Fabri noted that after they had prayed, he and his companions kissed the place, suggesting two distinct encounters with the ground or an arrangement in which the pilgrim’s head corresponded to

20. Luke 22:41; Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:35. 21. “Et, positus genibus, . . . procidit in faciem suam, super terram, ut humilitatem mentis ostenderet habitu corporis, et orebat corde”; Ludolf of Saxony, Vita Jesu Christi, ed. L.-M. Rigollot, 4 vols. (Paris: Palme, 1870), 4:471. English translation from Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 88. 22. John of Würzburg, Descriptio terrae sanctae, lines 873–77, ed. Huygens, 114–15. 23. “Pavimentum quondam continebat vestigia genuum Domini Jesu durissimae petrae impressa miraculose, quae tamen amplius non videntur propter peregrinorum abrasionem, qui de locis sanctis abscindunt particulas”; Felix Fabri, Evagatorium, ed. Hassler, 1:378; trans. Stewart, 1.2:472. 24. “De lapide super quem oravit Dominus ante passionem suam porciones due”; Carley and Howley, “Relics at Glastonbury in the Fourteenth Century,” 94. “Item von dem erdrich, darauf Cristus [sic] an dem Ölberg gekniet und pluetigen swais geswitzt hat”; Leonhard Theobald, “Die Regensburger Heiltumsweisung und das Regensburger Heiltumsverzeichnis von 1496,” Zeitschrift für bayerische Kirchengeschichte 7 (1932), 23. Achim Hubel, Der Regensburger Domschatz, Kirchliche Schatzkammern und Museen 1 (Munich: Schnell & Steiner, 1976), 21. 25. Fabri, Evagatorium, ed. Hassler, 1:377; trans. Stewart, 1.2:471. 26. Hamburger, Nuns as Artists, 80–94; Rudy, Virtual Pilgrimages in the Convent, 171, 192–95.

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Christ’s knees.27 Even if the pilgrim was not kneeling in the exact location, this is still closer in terms of action and location than was the case at the site of the Ascension. This distinction suggests that the prone body did not risk desecration in the same way as standing on holy ground and that there was a difference between a place in which Christ had prayed and one in which his divine nature had been confi rmed. Nevertheless, the likeness emphasized in the passage is that between the pilgrims and the disciples. Recording that he and his companions sat in the places where the disciples had slept, Fabri drew an explicit comparison between the two sets of followers, stating that “the sleeping of the disciples is a proof of the weakness and wretchedness of our nature.”28 The practice of imitating Christ’s postures in Gethsemane was part of a wider attentiveness to the position of the body in prayer. Indeed, penitential prostration was discussed most fully in those works that sought to classify and defi ne various prayerful gestures. 29 As explored by Richard Trexler, Peter the Chanter’s De oratione et speciebus illius, composed during the second half of the twelfth century as part of a larger work on penance, described seven positions that could fittingly be adopted during prayer, each supported by quotations from scripture and other texts.30 Although standing to pray was acceptable, Peter clearly felt lowly postures to be more expressive of repentance and sorrow. Some of this stems from their similarity to the stance of animals; in an earlier work, De vitiis et virtutibus, he described human beings as “naturally erect,” arguing that as they lie down like animals in fornication they should also do so to repent their sins.31 This view is repeated in the longer version of the De oratione in a passage on genuflection, where the action is said to acknowledge mankind’s fallen state.32 The lowly nature of the ground itself also played a role in defining these gestures as penitential. This is particularly the case with the fifth modus, complete prostration, where “a man throws himself fully onto the earth on his face, saying: ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’”33 Justification is found in phrases from Psalm 43 (44) and Psalm 118 (119), including “My soul hath cleaved to the pavement,” of which Peter writes that the word soul here implies body, “because I know

27. “Dictis ergo orationibus praescriptis locum, in quo Dominus Jesus genua flexerat, deosculati sumus”; Fabri, Evagatorium, ed. Hassler, 1:378; trans. Stewart, 1.2:471. 28. “Discipulorum vero dormitio fragilitatis nostrae et misceriae est ostensio”; Fabri, Evagatorium, ed. Hassler, 1:379; trans. Stewart, 1.2:473. 29. Schmitt, Raison des gestes, 301–14. 30. Peter the Chanter, De oratione, ed. Trexler, 171–234; see also Richard C. Trexler, “Legitimating Prayer Gestures in the Twelfth Century: The De penitentia of Peter the Chanter,” in “Gestures,” ed. Jean-Claude Schmitt, special issue, History and Anthropology 1, no. 1 (1984): 97–126. 31. Peter the Chanter, Verbum abbreviatum (De vitiis et virtutibus), 91, PL 205:265. 32. Peter the Chanter, De oratione, lines 2336–54, ed. Trexler, 234. 33. “Quintus modus nempe obsecrandi est iste, videlicet quando homo prohicit se planum in terra super faciem suam, dicendo: ‘Deus propitius esto mihi peccatori’”; Peter the Chanter, De oratione, lines 630–31, ed. Trexler, 188. The prayer is that of the tax collector in Luke 18:13.

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myself to be dust and cinders, therefore I copulate and join my body to the earth, and lament my sin.”34 At the same time, Peter also invoked the positive example of Christ during the Agony in the Garden, as well as that of the Elders of the Apocalypse in Revelation.35 The positions are illustrated in a number of manuscripts dating from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, using anonymous lay or sometimes clerical figures. The fifth modus is usually shown by a man lying on the floor on his side with his hands together.36 Peter the Chanter was critical of positions that, although close to those stipulated, lessened the rigor of the experience. In his edition of the De oratione, Trexler notes that this is particularly the case with “reclining postures,” in other words those that brought the person into greater contact with the ground. Correct prostration involved touching the ground with all the body, while only seeming to kiss the ground was condemned as insincere.37 Using a kneeler was also criticized, perhaps as much because it insulated the person praying from the ground as for the degree of comfort it afforded. Although Peter does not say so, it may also have been the case that reclining postures had particular potential to be adapted into something more restful. Lying down was also a position of ease, and medieval churches, especially shrine churches, would have witnessed people resting or sleeping on the pavement.38 Writing in the early sixth century, Caesarius of Arles had urged his congregation to bow, kneel, and prostrate themselves in prayer in church, but also cautioned them against lying down on the floor “as if in bed” and engaging in idle gossip.39 Centuries later, Caesarius of Heisterbach (ca. 1170–ca. 1240) recounted how two laymen engaging in prostrate prayer during Lent would fall asleep.40 Both laymen and ecclesiastics could be unwilling to adopt humble positions publicly on account of the shame involved. Complaining that people remained standing “like straight columns” when the liturgy required them to bow or kneel, Caesarius of Arles stated that no one should “be ashamed to prostrate himself on the ground and humble

34. Psalm 118 (119):25 “Adhaesit pavimento anima mea”; Peter the Chanter, De oratione, lines 635–39, ed. Trexler, 188. 35. Peter the Chanter, De oratione, lines 639–44, ed. Trexler, 188. 36. See, for example, Venice, State Archives, S. Maria della Misericordia in Valverde, b. 1 (unpaginated); Trexler, Christian at Prayer, 152. 37. “Iacere in solo, ita quod os et pectus et venter et brachia et genua nec non et crura atque digiti contingant terram”; Peter the Chanter, De oratione, lines 2327–28, ed. Trexler, 233. 38. For the practice of sleeping in churches in the later Middle Ages, see Hayes, Body and Sacred Place, 54–59. 39. Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, 76, 77, 78.1, ed. Morin, 1:323; trans. Mueller, 1:360. My translation differs slightly from that given by Mueller. 40. Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, 4.37, ed. Joseph Strange, Caesarii Heisterbacensis monachi ordinis Cisterciensis Dialogus miraculorum, 2 vols. (Cologne: Heberle, 1850–51), 1:205–6; trans. H. von Essen Scott and C. C. Swinton Bland, The Dialogue on Miracles, 2 vols. (London: Routledge, 1929), 1:233–34.

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himself in prayer.”41 The material implications of the position may have been a consideration, since he suggests that people were partly motivated by a reluctance to dirty their clothes. Peter the Chanter too complains that the proud and arrogant would say: “I am ashamed to pray with my hands extended over my head, or with extended hands, or prostrate upon the earth.”42 In the case of prostration, the proximity of face to ground was probably considered particularly demeaning. The canonization process of St. Margaret of Hungary in 1276 includes a testimony that recalls how Margaret was not riled when rebuked by her novice mistress for praying prostrate on the ground. The terms of the rebuke invoke both the location of the face and the comparison with animals drawn by Peter the Chanter, as well as the potentially gendered aspect of a spoiled appearance: “You look like a pig, grubbing for God with your nose and face in the mud! Why do you do it? Why are you ruining yourself?”43 Noting that none of the illustrations of mode five show the figure facing downward as stipulated in the text, Trexler has suggested that this served to avoid dishonoring the model to such an extent that it became an unappealing example to emulate.44 One might add that medieval western European depictions of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane are more likely to show him kneeling rather than prostrate, and in an example that does represent him in this position—the early thirteenth-century Cursus Sanctae Maria from Germany or Bohemia—his face is turned to the viewer rather than to the ground (fig. 64).45 The reasons for this resistance to assume (and show Christ in) particular postures lie to an extent beyond the confines of this study. Throughout the Middle Ages, such positions were also employed to express hierarchical relationships between people as part of the negotiation of political and social power. Humility and shame were closely linked and played an essential part in rendering the postures effective currency. This aspect of

41. Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, 77.1, 3, ed. Morin, 1:319–20; trans. Mueller, 1:355, 357. 42. “Verecundor orare manibus extensis supra capite vel ulnis extensis sive in terra prostratus”; Peter the Chanter, De oratione, lines 838–39, ed. Trexler, 193. 43. “Tu queris Deum in terra cum naso et facie, sicut esses porcus, quare facis hoc, quare destruis te?”; Vilmos Fraknói, ed., Monumenta Romana episcopatus Vesprimiensis, vol. 1, 1103–1276 (Budapest: Collegium historicum Hungarorum Romanum, 1896), 164–383 for the process, at 250; trans. Tugwell, Early Dominicans, 416. 44. Trexler, Christian at Prayer, 62–64; Trexler, “Legitimating Prayer Gestures in the Twelfth Century,” 106. 45. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.739, fol. 22v; discussed in Hamburger, Nuns as Artists, 88–89. On the manuscript, see Meta Harrsen, Cursus Sanctae Mariae: A Thirteenth-Century Manuscript, now M. 739 in the Pierpont Morgan Library (New York: Pierpoint Morgan Library, 1937). For the association with Germany, possibly Bamberg, see Gude Suckale-Redlefsen, “Buchkunst zur Zeit der Andechs-Meranier in Bamberg,” in Die Andechs-Meranier in Franken: Europäisches Fürstentum im Hochmittelalter, ed. Ursula Vorwerk and Eva Schurr (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1998), 248–49; Michael Stolz, “Das Experiment einer volkssprachigen Bilderbibel im mitteleuropäischen Kontext der Zeit nach 1200: New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 739,” in Deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters in und über Böhmen II: Tagung in Cˇeské Bude˘jovice/Budweis 2002, ed. Václav Bok and Hans-Joachim Behr (Hamburg: Kovacˇ, 2004), 9–45.

Fig. 64. Scenes from the Passion, including Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, Cursus Sanctae Maria, Germany or Bohemia, early thirteenth century. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.739, fol. 22v. Photo: The Morgan Library & Museum. MS M.739. Purchased in 1928.

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prostration not only conditioned attitudes to religious prostration but, as will be discussed below, may also provide a context for the way in which the material setting for prayer and veneration might be modified. Peter the Chanter was not alone in categorizing and explicating prayer postures. In his commentary on the constitutions of the Dominican Order, written in the thirteenth century, Humbert of Romans listed six positions, which he termed humiliationes or inclinationes.46 The fifth, prostratio venia, has penitential associations and involves lying flat on the ground. Humbert specifically condemned those members of the laity who stretched their arms out in prostration to form a cross.47 The reason does not seem to be the shape per se, since Peter the Chanter’s second modus involved standing upright with arms outstretched to form a cross. This position was not popular among clerics, and Trexler suggested that this was because the lowest criminals could still theoretically be crucified.48 Where the outstretched arms were integral to the physical demands of this standing posture, they make the reclining one somewhat less uncomfortable and may have been perceived to lessen its impact. However, while Humbert disapproved of the practice and characterized it as lay, other ecclesiastics clearly saw it as appropriate and efficacious. When Innocent III excommunicated Conrad, bishop of Hildesheim, in 1199, the bishop prostrated himself before the pope to ask forgiveness. Without his shoes or pallium, and with his shoelaces around his neck, he lay in the form of a cross.49 Writing in the early thirteenth century, Caesarius of Heisterbach reported the story of an abbot who was caught in a fire in a barn and lay down in the shape of a cross to meet his death.50 In the fourteenth century, the Prussian recluse Dorothy of Montau adopted this position as the last of three postures when praying in emulation of Christ during the Agony in the Garden, calling it “the prostration of the Cross.”51 Contemporary representations also demonstrate the same acceptance of the position. Even though Peter the Chanter’s text makes it clear that someone praying according to the fifth modus should lie flat on the ground, with his face turned downward and his hands at his sides, a thirteenth- or fourteenth-century manuscript in the Stift Klosterneuburg (Lower Austria) depicts the praying figure front down with arms outstretched and head to one side.52 Enthusiasm for such a posture probably stemmed from a desire to imitate Christ, rather than from simple issues of comfort.

46. Humbert of Romans, Expositio super constitutiones, ed. Berthier, 160–61. 47. Humbert of Romans, Expositio super constitutiones, ed. Berthier, 167. 48. Trexler, Christian at Prayer, 48. 49. James Powell, ed. and trans., The Deeds of Pope Innocent III by an Anonymous Author (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 59–61. 50. “In modum crucis se in terram prosternens”; Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, 11.26, ed. Strange, 2:292; trans. von Essen Scott and Bland, 2:261. 51. “Terciam fecit procidendo in faciem manibus extensis in modum crucis, et hec nominabatur ab ea venia crucis (scil. cruczevenie)”; Hans Westphal and Annelise Triller, eds., Vita Dorotheae Montoviensis Magistri Johannis Marienwerder, Forschungen und Quellen zur Kirchen- und Kulturgeschichte Ostdeutschlands 1 (Cologne: Böhlau, 1964), 69; translation from Hamburger, Nuns as Artists, 91. 52. Stift Klosterneuburg, MS 572, fol. 19r; Trexler, Christian at Prayer, 153.

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Also stemming from a Dominican context is the text known as the Ways of Prayer of St. Dominic, composed ca. 1280, which describes the positions adopted by the saint.53 Here complete prostration is the second mode of prayer, in which the saint threw himself flat on his face on the ground: “prohiciendo se totum ad terra pronum super faciem suam.” When praying in this manner, Dominic would recite verses from Psalms 43 (44) and 118 (119): “Quoniam humiliata est in pulvere anima nostra, adhesit in terra venter noster” (“For our soul is humbled down to the dust: our belly cleaveth to the earth”) and “Adhesit pavimento anima mea, vivica me” (“My soul hath cleaved to the pavement: quicken me”).54 Two of the surviving manuscripts of the Ways of Prayer are illustrated— one from the second quarter of the fourteenth century, now in the Vatican, and the other now in Madrid—and the original text is also likely to have been provided with images.55 In the former, most of the full-color illuminations show St. Dominic praying in front of an altar surmounted by a crucifix, with blood spurting from Christ’s side. The image for the second mode, in keeping with the text and unlike the illustrations of Peter the Chanter’s fifth modus, represents the saint face downward (fig. 65); that in the Madrid manuscript, however, has Dominic turned to face toward the viewer.56 In Fra Angelico’s frescoes in the cells at S. Marco in Florence, which have been seen to draw on the treatise, there is also one example of full prostration, in which Dominic lies facedown and arms slightly outstretched at the foot of the Cross.57 Both the images accompanying the De oratione and the depictions of Dominic are prescriptive, meant to be emulated. As noted above, there might be some discrepancy between text and image, which could soften the humility of the position, but even this probably had the aim of encouraging its employment. The relationship between action and representation is thus very different from that concerning treading on things, where trampling as a triumphal action is commonly depicted but rarely practiced, while neither negative readings of desecration underfoot nor the positive use of liturgical markers find many representations in art.

53. Simon Tugwell, ed., “The Nine Ways of Prayer of St. Dominic: A Textual Study and Critical Edition,” Mediaeval Studies 47 (1985): 81–92; translated in Tugwell, Early Dominicans, 94–103. See also JeanClaude Schmitt, “Between Text and Image: The Prayer Gestures of Saint Dominic,” in Schmitt, “Gestures,” 127–62. 54. Tugwell, “Nine Ways of Prayer of St. Dominic,” 83–84; Tugwell, Early Dominicans, 95. 55. Madrid, Monasterio de Santo Domingo el Real, S.N.; Vatican City, BAV, MS Ross. 3. A facsimile of the latter, with a translation by Leonard E. Boyle and commentaries by Boyle and Jean-Claude Schmitt, is published as Modi orandi Sancti Dominici: Saint Dominic’s Gestures at Prayer: An Illuminated Manuscript [Codex Rossianus 3 in the Vatican Library], 3 vols., Codices e Vaticanis selecti 82 (Zürich: Belser, 1995). On illustrations in the original, see Boyle, “MS Rossi 3 in the Vatican Library and the ‘Ways of Prayer’ of St Dominic,” in Boyle and Schmitt, Modi orandi Sancti Dominici, 2:29–45. Schmitt also refers to, and includes sketches of, a fifteenth-century illustrated manuscript now missing from the Dominican convent in Bologna; Schmitt, “Between Text and Image,” 129. 56. Vatican City, BAV, MS Ross. 3, fol. 6v. For the Madrid manuscript, see Schmitt, “Between Text and Image,” 151. 57. William Hood, “Saint Dominic’s Manners of Praying: Gestures in Fra Angelico’s Cell Frescoes at S. Marco,” Art Bulletin 68, no. 2 (1986): 195–206.

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Fig. 65. Mode 2 from Modus orandi Sancti Dominici, southern France, second quarter of the fourteenth century. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Ross. 3, fol. 6v. Photo: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, all rights reserved.

Bare Ground and Floor Coverings In discussions of prostration the ground is often characterized as dusty and earthen; it is a particular idea of the surface that informs the meaning of the action.

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However, in many cases prostrations were made on the consecrated ground of a church, a surface that might be adorned in a variety of ways. Textiles and other temporary coverings were expressly laid down for kneeling and prostration, part of a wider phenomenon in which carpets were not so much spread over the floor as placed under someone or something. Equally, people could kneel or lie on decorated paving, sometimes on specific elements of a composition. Floor coverings contributed to the complexity of the site in two ways: as part of a horizontal plane and as part of a stratigraphic ensemble. Both temporary coverings and permanent decorative forms served to delimit the area devoted to prayer and distinguish it from the surrounding area. At the same time, paving and textiles also comprised a layer between the person and the ground that was distinct in material terms from the earth below. The following discussion briefly considers some cases in which individuals were described as lying or sitting on the bare earth, before turning to consider prostration on temporary floor coverings and permanent decoration. The action was an important part of rituals of penance, in which penitents might prostrate themselves both outside and inside the church building.58 Descriptions emphasize the totality of corporeal contact with the ground. The eighth-century Gelasian Sacramentary, which contains the “earliest full rite for penance at the start of Lent,” envisages the penitents fully prostrate on the ground: “prostrato eo omni corpore in terra.”59 Similarly, in the entry into penance on Ash Wednesday found in the RomanoGermanic Pontifical, the penitent is described as flat on the ground (“totum se in terram prosternat”) somewhere outside the church after the act of contrition, while the priest, who joins him or her in this act of petition, is simply described as lying prostrate.60 The Decretum of Burchard of Worms (d. 1025) notes that penitents should be “dressed in sackcloth, barefoot, faces cast down to the ground.”61 Although the phrase “vultibus in terram prostratis” probably means that their heads were bowed rather than pressed against the ground, since Burchard goes on to imply that their expression was visible, it is significant that the same verb is used as for acts of full prostration. In his Rationale divinorum offi ciorum, Durandus related the fact that penitents lay or sat on the ground to Job sitting on the dung heap.62

58. For a discussion of penitential rituals, see Hamilton, Practice of Penance. 59. Hamilton, Practice of Penance, 108; SGel, 1.16, ed. H. A. Wilson, The Gelasian Sacramentary: Liber sacramentorum Romanae ecclesiae (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894), 15. 60. “Quo perdicto, totum se in terram prosternat et gemitus atque suspiria vel lacrimas, prout Deus dederit, ab intimo corde producat. Sacerdos vero patiatur eum aliquantisper iacere prostratum iuxta quod viderit eum divina inspiratione compunctum”; PRG, 99.54, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romanogermanique, 2:18; Hamilton, Practice of Penance, 108–17. 61. “Sacco induti, nudis pedibus, vultibus in terram prostratis, reos se esse ipso habitu et vultu proclamantes”; Burchard of Worms, Decretum, 19.26, PL 140:984; translation from Hamilton, Practice of Penance, 34. 62. “Quod iacent aut sedent in terra, sumptum est de Iob qui in sterquilinio sedit”; Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum, 6.73.3, ed. Davril and Thibodeau, 2:347. The reference is to Job 2:8.

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Prostration was also part of the ritual of reentry into a religious community. In the Benedictine Rule, after a monk had been excluded from the choir and common table for a serious fault, he was to prostrate himself before the entrance to the oratory (“ante fores oratorii”) while the brothers left after the office. Subsequently he was to prostrate himself at the abbot’s feet, and then in front of the other brothers so that they should pray for him. He might then be readmitted to the choir of monks but, even then, should continue to lie prostrate at the end of every office.63 The location of the initial prostration is as significant as the gesture itself. Not only is it appropriately liminal, but the fact that the same place was always employed would have built up associations over time. Lanfranc’s Constitutions state that at the end of each office, a monk guilty of a minor fault should prostrate himself “before the step where the monks stand to receive blessings.”64 Here the monk’s state of penance is emphasized by his proximity to, but exclusion from, a place of grace, and by the difference in height between the two locations. The Cistercians adopted the Rule’s provisions regarding a serious fault. As included in the Cistercian customary of ca. 1147, the Instituta generalis capituli contained the stipulation that the offending monk should prostrate himself “in terra” at the entrance to the oratory and continue to do so after his reception in Chapter.65 The impact and penitential connotations of the action would have been all the greater, given that the same statutes prohibited prostrate prayer.66 Sitting and sleeping on the ground was a common sign of asceticism and was often explicitly conceived in terms of an absence of floor covering. For example, in the late tenth-century Blickling Homily on St. Martin, the saint is said to have slept on the bare earth, “nacodre eorðan,” prior to his death.67 This conception of the ground was particularly developed in the spiritual climate of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, not least in relation to St. Francis. Malcolm Lambert has shown how the idea of nakedness, in particular the naked Christ, was of great symbolic importance to

63. Regula Benedicti, 44.1–8, ed. and trans. Timothy Fry, RB 1980: The Rule of St. Benedict in Latin and English with Notes (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1981), 244–47. 64. “Ante gradum ubi benedictiones accipiuntur”; Lanfranc, Decreta, 99–100, ed. and trans. Knowles and Brooke, 148–49. I am grateful to John McNeill for bringing this to my attention. 65. “Ad fores oratorii prostratus iaceat in terra”; Instituta generalis capituli apud Cistercium, 66, ed. Chrysogonus Waddell, Narrative and Legislative Texts from Early Cîteaux: Latin Text in Dual Edition with English Translation and Notes, Studia et documenta 9 (Nuits-Saint-Georges: Abbaye de Cîteaux, 1999), 484 (version A). Although the statute underwent revision, references to prostration are included in all the versions. Waddell understands the Cistercian statute as imposing a harsher penance in this respect, but it would seem to echo quite closely chapter 44 of the Benedictine Rule. It is possible though that the Cistercians intended the prostration to be carried out throughout the divine office, and the Benedictines for the position to be assumed only at the end. 66. Instituta generalis capituli apud Cistercium, 86, ed. Waddell, Narrative and Legislative Texts from Early Cîteaux, 492. 67. Kelly, Blickling Homilies, 155–56.

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the saint.68 Significantly, he expressed this not only through unclothing himself, but also through sleeping and sitting on the earth, sometimes explicitly characterized as the bare ground. In Thomas of Celano’s Vita secunda, for example, a reference to the poverty of Christ causes Francis to get up from the table and finish his meal “supra nudum humum.”69 As if to emphasis the point, the word for ground used here is that related etymologically to humility by Isidore of Seville and others.70 If the “bare ground” is by definition lacking a covering, it is not necessarily made clear what this might be, but it could include paving as well as temporary coverings such as cloth or vegetation. The Franciscan Salimbene de Adam tells of an occasion on which King Louis IX visited the friars at Sens dressed as a pilgrim and sat “on the floor in the dust, because the church was not paved.”71 While a lack of paving is certainly plausible, it seems likely that both action and setting were described with the example of St. Francis in mind. Jacques de Vitry’s early thirteenth-century Life of the Flemish Beguine Mary of Oegnies is a particularly interesting example of this trope, because it takes place in church and is explicit regarding the absence of floor coverings. In the context of describing Mary’s vigils and abstinence from sleep, Jacques states that even when she did sleep her heart was awake and dreamed only of Christ, and he also notes that around certain feast days she could only find rest in the church building. On one occasion, during the period from the Feast of St. Martin to Quadragesima Sunday, that is to say throughout the winter, “her soul so clung to the floor of the church that no matter whether she was sitting or lying down, she could not bear to have even a little stick placed between her and the bare ground (nudam terram).”72 Where the bed in her cell was covered with some straw, here she used the plain earth (“puram terram”) or the wooden rod that stretched across the pedestal of the altar as a pillow. Yet despite low temperatures that caused the communion wine to freeze in the chalice, Mary was neither bruised by the hardness of the earth nor troubled by the cold. To suggest the heavenly rewards promised by this ascetic behavior, a contrast is drawn with the results of enjoying one’s creature comforts, which features a very different stratigraphy. People who “sleep and lasciviously lie between [their] sheets” are told to expect a reversal of fortune in death, using the words of

68. M. D. Lambert, Franciscan Poverty: The Doctrine of the Absolute Poverty of Christ and the Apostles in the Franciscan Order, 1210–1323 (London: SPCK, 1961), 61. 69. Thomas of Celano, Vita secunda S. Francisci, 2.151, in Legendae S. Francisci, 244; trans. as “The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul,” in Armstrong, Hellmann, and Short, Francis of Assisi, 2:375. 70. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, 10.115, ed. Lindsay, 1: n.p.; trans. Barney et al., 220. 71. “Rex vero sedit in terra et in pulvere, ut vidi oculis meis; ecclesia enim illa pavimentata non erat”; Salimbene de Adam, Cronica fratris Salimbene de Adam ordinis Minorum, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SS 32 (Hannover: Hahn, 1905–13), 225. 72. “Adeo pavimento ecclesie adhesit anima sua, quod, sive sederet sive iaceret, inter se et nudam terram nichil penitus, nec modicam festucam ut ita dicam, poterat recipere”; Jacques de Vitry, Vita Marie de Oegnies, 1.10, ed. R. C. B. Huygens, CCCM 252 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 82; trans. Margot H. King, in Mary of Oignies, Mother of Salvation, ed. Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 71.

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Isaiah for a vision of a hell “where maggots will be the pallet beneath you and worms your coverlet.”73 This biblical quotation forms a counterpoint to Mary’s rejection of floor covering, which explicitly echoes the words of Psalm 118 (119): “pavimento ecclesiae adhesit anima sua.” It is also likely to have summoned up the parable of Dives and Lazarus, illustrations of which often show the rich man lying in bed and the latter dying on the bare ground.74 In Mary’s Life, the ground is characterized as cold and hard, even though she does not suffer from these qualities; it is also presented as “naked” and “pure,” free from the textiles that wrap those sleeping comfortably in bed, which will be replaced by maggots and worms. In this conception of the ground, any covering, even the uncomfortable-sounding “little stick,” has the potential to constitute unwelcome insulation from the earth beneath. As these examples suggest, references to the particularly ascetic sitting or lying on the naked earth drew a contrast with more conventional engagement with a floor surface that was likely to be paved and might also be covered with a textile or vegetation. The practice of both marking out and covering a place for prayer extended back into the classical world. The second-century De dea syria attributed to Lucian states that a pilgrim embarking on a journey to the shrine at Hierapolis would sacrifice a sheep, kneeling on the fleece to pray that the sacrifice be accepted.75 In Islamic tradition, the requirement of prostration during the five daily prayers gave rise to the widespread use of floor coverings, although the Hadith reports that Muhammad performed the .sala¯t on the bare earth, as well as on his clothes, his quilt, or a mat (khumra).76 Prior to the employment of the term sajja¯da or “prayer carpet” in the tenth century, there are references to various kinds of mats and, at the end of the ninth century, to animal skins. It should be noted that these coverings were often designed for individuals: some sources mention a h.as.ı¯ r, a mat the length of a man, while the khumra is also said to have just been big enough for the prostration. In the Byzantine world too, people might kneel to pray on carpets, known by the term epeuchion or “prayer rug.”77 Individual examples are attested in the ninth-century Life of Theophanes the Confessor and in manuscripts of the Life of St. Andrew

73. Isaiah 14:11. “Ubi subter vos tinea sternetur et operimentum vestrum vermes”; Jacques de Vitry, Vita Marie de Oegnies, 1.10, ed. Huygens, 83; trans. King, 71. 74. Luke 16:19–31; examples include the Codex Aureus of Echternach, ca. 1030, Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, MS 156142, fol. 78r; the twelfth-century Eadwine Psalter, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.521r. 75. Lucian, De dea Syria, 55, ed. and trans. J. L. Lightfoot, Lucian: On the Syrian Goddess (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 278–79. 76. A. Knysh, “Sadjdja¯da,” in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. C. E. Bosworth et al., new ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 8:740–45. See also Richard Ettinghausen, “The Early History, Use and Iconography of the Prayer Rug,” in Ettinghausen et al., Prayer Rugs (Washington, DC: Textile Museum, 1974), 10–25. 77. Cyril A. Mango, “Discontinuity with the Classical Past in Byzantium,” in Byzantium and the Classical Tradition, University of Birmingham Thirteenth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies 1979, ed. Margaret Mullet (Birmingham: Centre for Byzantine Studies, 1981), 52; Apostolos Karpozilos and Alexander Kazhdan, “Carpets,” in Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 1:383.

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the Fool that date from the eleventh or twelfth century onward, in both cases being mentioned because saintly figures also used them to sleep on the floor, while the midtenth-century biography of Emperor Basil I (867–86) describes a woman having the whole of the Nea Ekklesia in the palace in Constantinople laid with carpets that are associated with prayer.78 In the medieval West, floor coverings were not habitually used for this purpose, although simple mats of straw or reeds may have been kept permanently in front of shrines; an account of the fire at Worcester Cathedral in 1113 by William of Malmesbury refers to the preservation of the natta or rush mat placed in front of St. Wulfstan’s tomb for people to pray on.79 There is more evidence for the use of textiles on particular occasions and by particular individuals. For example, during the rite for the consecration of a church, immediately after the ceremonial entry, the consecrating bishop and clergy are said to lie in prostrate prayer “super stramenta.” OR 41, followed by the Ordo ad benedicendam ecclesiam of the Romano-Germanic Pontifical, specifies that this took place in front of the altar.80 A similar phrase is found in the Roman Pontificals of the Twelfth Century.81 The word originally meant straw, and it is possible that this may have been used on bare earth floors, since it starts to be mentioned before the letters of the alphabet cross are noted as being inscribed in ashes, implying a paved surface. However, it is likely that the word stramen came to take on the meaning of covering more generally, and an eleventh-century pontifical from the diocese of Langres explicitly refers to the bishop, priests, and deacons prostrating themselves on carpets (“tapetia”) in this context.82 Over the course of the church year, certain feast days also saw carpets laid down for prayer. This was particularly true of Good Friday and the Feast of the Exaltation of the

78. Nikephoros, Vita S. Andreae Sali, PG 111:705A, n. 83, 625 for MS; Lennart Rydén, ed., The Life of St Andrew the Fool, 2 vols., Acta universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Byzantina Upsaliensia 4 (Uppsala: Acta universitatis Upsaliensis, 1995), 1:85–87, 2:90–91. Methodius, Vita S. Theophanis confessoris, 17, ed. V. V. Latyšev, in Mémoires de l’Académie des sciences de Russie, ser. 8, Classe historico-philologique 13, no. 4 (1918): 12. Life of Basil I, 76, ed. and trans. Ihor Ševcˇenko, Chronographiae quae Theophanis continuati nomine fertur liber quo vita Basilii imperatoris amplectitur, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 42 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 260–61. 79. William of Malmesbury, Gesta pontificium Anglorum, 4.149, ed. and trans. Winterbottom and Thomson, 1:438–39; discussed in John Crook, The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints in the Early Christian West c. 300–1200 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 238. 80. “Cum venerint sacerdotes vel levitae ante altare, prosternunt se super stramenta”; OR 41.3, ed. Andrieu, Ordines Romani, 4:340. “Et cum venerit pontifex ante altare, prosternat se cum ministris super stramenta et fiat ibi letania”; PRG, 40.23, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:134. See also PRG, 33.6, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:83. 81. “Episcopus prosternat se super stramenta”; PRXII, 17.17 (Ordo ad benedicendam ecclesiam), ed. Andrieu, Pontifi cal romain, 1:180. 82. “Strata ante altare tapetia, prosternant se pontifex, sacerdotes, et levitae.” The dedication rite is edited in Martène, De antiquis ecclesiae ritibus, 2:747–57, at 748. For the dating and provenance see Martimort, Documentation liturgique, 138–39 no. 170, 397 no. 801.

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Cross, when people would prostrate themselves in adoration.83 In the latter case, an ordo dating from the second half of the eighth century already includes mention of an oratorio or kneeler.84 The word is usually taken to mean a hassock or kneeling stool but is sometimes interpreted as a prayer rug.85 Information about later practices in monastic milieux can be found in Benedictine customaries. For example, the eleventh-century Liber tramitis from Farfa (Lazio) refers to tapetia being spread in front of the altar on Good Friday and the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and describes the subsequent prostrations.86 Lanfranc’s Monastic Constitutions state that on the occasion of the Exaltation of the Cross all the brothers should adore the cross “prostrate upon the carpets” laid throughout the presbytery.87 Similarly, on Good Friday they specify that the prostrations take place on the carpet in front of the altar, starting with the abbot and vested ministers.88 The brothers should go barefoot that day or, if it were too cold, during the ceremony alone. Clerics and members of the laity would adore the cross in “another place more suitable for their worship,” presumably in the nave; there is no indication of whether this place was also spread with carpets. We get a sense of the careful timing involved from the related customaries of Fruttuaria (Piedmont) and St. Blasien (Baden-Württemberg), which may date back to the late eleventh century.89 On Good Friday, carpets were spread in the choir for the adoration of the cross. The cross itself was placed on a bench covered with a small carpet. Three sets of three carpets were placed on the pavement of the choir and were unfolded only at the point in the service when the priest, deacon, and cantor prostrated themselves upon them. The wording suggests that the carpets were arranged across the width of the choir, and each carpet, or each group of three, was sufficient in size for one person. One version of the customs further states that “there should be carpets strewn in front of the cross, so long as the brothers dressed in albs lie prostrate.” Once the men rose, two of the carpets were removed, leaving the central one, on which the priest previously looking after the cross prostrated himself. The unfolding of the carpets at a certain point in the ceremony and the removal of those no longer required emphasizes the potential of textiles more generally to respond to specific moments and people.

83. Suntrup, Bedeutung der liturgischen Gebärden, 168–69. 84. “Posito ante eam oratorio, venit pontifex et adoratam deosculatur crucem”; OR 24.30, ed. Andrieu, Ordines Romani, 3:293. 85. The latter interpretation is followed by Michelle Brown, who suggests that the carpet pages of Insular gospel books may be intended to recall mats of this kind: Michelle P. Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe (London: British Library, 2003), 320. 86. Liber tramitis, 56.2, 111, ed. Peter Dinter, Liber tramitis aevi Odilonis abbatis, CCM 10 (Siegburg: Schmitt, 1980), 80–81, 167–68. 87. “Super tapetia prostrati”; Lanfranc, Decreta, 75, ed. and trans. Knowles and Brooke, 100–1. 88. “Tapetia sint extensa ante altare, super que prosternantur primum domnus abbas, et induti”; Lanfranc, Decreta, 40–45, ed. and trans. Knowles and Brooke, 62–63. 89. Consuetudines Fructuarienses-Sanblasianae, 2.171–72, ed. Spätling and Dinter, 1:172–79.

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The textiles not only circumscribed a place for prayer, but also intervened between ground and body. On one level, prostration can seem at odds with the use of textiles to cover the floor surface, since the rationale of the position as described by liturgists was to be flat in the dust. Given Peter the Chanter’s criticism of those who were reluctant to pray “prostrate upon the earth,” we might wonder whether the coverings functioned to make the position less shameful. Some of those participating were dressed in albs, white linen garments usually worn by those officiating at Mass. In some cases, this attire already represents a simplification for the occasion; in Lanfranc’s Constitutions, the priest and deacon take off their chasuble and stoles in order to put on albs and resume them after the adoration. Perhaps the former vestments were appropriate neither to the action nor to an encounter with the floor surface. Even so, the carpets will have protected the albs from the dust and dirt of the floor. Yet the value placed on humility in a monastic context suggests that this would not have been deliberately diminished if it had been the aim of the occasion. Rather, the textiles may have helped to express a particular meaning of the action of prostration. More specifically, they emphasized the gesture as an expression of adoratio, responding more to the status of the object venerated than that of the venerators. Similarly while the lack of shoes stipulated by Lanfranc is primarily a sign of humility, and could be adopted in cases of penance, it could also express reverence, recalling God’s command to Moses to remove his sandals in front of the Burning Bush.90 The removal of the textiles immediately after use, noted in the Consuetudines Fructuarienses, also suggests that their presence informed the significance of the action, as much as the dignity of the participants. By ensuring that they were not trodden on, even by those who had just knelt on them, it prevented not just the dirtying of the textiles themselves, but also the performance of an action with different, more triumphant, implications, inappropriate to the occasion. It is possible that practices such as these informed the representation of prostrate prayer. Several of the illustrations of Peter the Chanter’s De oratione depict the praying figures within a frame. The use of a frame conforms to the conventions of manuscript illumination and is used for standing postures as well as reclining ones. Most are square or rectangular, although one example in a thirteenth-century manuscript from Altzella (Saxony) has an asymmetrical background that roughly follows the contours of the body and works against the illusion of a physical setting.91 Nevertheless, the effect is always to distinguish the space occupied by the praying figures from the surrounding text, and may correspond to a tendency in reality to mark out the ground occupied by those at prayer. Where the frames are regular in shape, some differences can be distinguished between the treatment of standing and reclining positions. Standing figures are often shown with their feet breaking the frame slightly at the bottom, giving the impression

90. Exodus 3:5. 91. Trexler, Christian at Prayer, 154.

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Fig. 66. Mode 4 in Peter the Chanter’s De oratione et speciebus illius, Pegau, thirteenth century. Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 432, fol. 68v. Photo: CC0 1.0 Universitätsbibliothek, Leipzig.

that the floor level is just below the framed space, which represents the vertical plane. The kneeling and prostrate figures, on the other hand, are more likely to be depicted with their lower bodies fully enclosed within the frame. The ground level can be set significantly above the bottom line, so that the framed area appears to describe the horizontal plane below the person at prayer or, in other words, to delimit an area of ground. In the case of a thirteenth-century manuscript from Pegau (Saxony), which exemplifies

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Fig. 67. Mode 5 in Peter the Chanter’s De oratione et speciebus illius, Pegau, thirteenth century. Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 432, fol. 69v. Photo: CC0 1.0 Universitätsbibliothek, Leipzig.

these tendencies, a repeated spiral pattern fills the area within the frame. Reminiscent of a textile, it gives the impression of a hanging in the illustrations of standing figures and of a carpet in those of reclining ones (figs. 66–67).92 If Trexler was correct in suggesting that representations of prostrate prayer avoided the off-putting proximity of face to ground, the evocation of a high-status setting associated with worship rather than penance may perform a similar function. There is no textual indication that textiles used for prayer were decorated in any particular way. However, Manuel Castiñeiras has suggested that the late eleventhcentury Girona tapestry was laid down in the presbytery of the cathedral at Easter and

92. Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 432, fols. 9r–127v, at 68v, 69v; Rudolf Helssig, Katalog der lateinischen und deutschen Handschriften der Universitäts-Bibliothek zu Leipzig, vol. 1, Die theologischen Handschriften (Leipzig: Hirzer, 1926–35), 674–76; Trexler, Christian at Prayer.

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for the Feasts of the Invention and Exaltation of the Cross.93 Seasonal employment in this way would tally with the subject matter of the work, which features scenes from the discovery of the Cross along the bottom and may originally have included a second tier of scenes beneath these. He points to instances of the deposition of the cross on Good Friday in which a cross was placed on textiles spread on the ground and the clergy went barefoot and knelt before it.94 Evidence for the employment of textiles for prostrate prayer on Good Friday and the Feasts of the Invention and Exaltation supports this hypothesis. Such a use was also particularly appropriate for the tapestry. In representing the True Cross, and indeed Christ-Logos in the center, it features the subjects that provoked the greatest anxiety regarding desecration underfoot and that tended to be avoided in permanent medieval floor decoration. This is not to suggest that people did not walk on the tapestry at all, but rather that the logic of laying it down to be knelt or lain on was more reverent than spreading it underfoot, suggesting adoratio of the images as well as of the cross displayed on the altar. Prioritizing this particular purpose would correspond to a wider tendency for temporary floor coverings to allow corporeal encounters that were highly circumscribed in time, place, and personnel. It also echoes the potential for permanent decoration to come into its own at particular moments or find a rationale in a particular action. Later tapestries sometimes seen to have acted as floor coverings also represent Christ, such as those depicting the Resurrection and subsequent appearances of Christ from the Convent of Lüne in Lower Saxony (1503 and 1504), thought by Horst Appuhn to have been spread in front of the altar at and after Easter.95 Appuhn even suggested that the Ebstorf world map of ca. 1300, which showed Christ’s head, hands, and feet, was laid on the pavement of the nuns’ choir there.96 While reserving judgment on whether the parchment map—lost in the Second World War—was ever trodden on, he argued that it would not have been inappropriate to have placed the tapestries showing Christ on the ground where they could be walked on, if this was a holy space and people walked over the tapestry reverently. While it is not clear what this last would mean in practice

93. Castiñeiras Gonzáles, Creation Tapestry, 79–85; Manuel Castiñeiras Gonzáles, “Il tappeto del gigante: Programma, cerimonia e committenza nell’Arazzo della Creazione di Girona,” in Medioevo: Natura e figura. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, Parma, 20–25 settembre 2011, ed. Arturo Carlo Quintavalle (Milan: Skira, 2015), esp. 365–70. 94. Castiñeiras Gonzáles, “Tappeto del gigante,” 368–69, with reference to the Ordinary of Laon, Ritus ecclesiae Laudunensis. 95. Horst Appuhn, “Datierung und Gebrauch der Ebstorfer Weltkarte und ihre Beziehungen zu den Nachbarklöstern Lüne und Wienhausen,” in Ein Weltbild vor Columbus: Die Ebstorfer Weltkarte, Interdisziplinäres Colloquium 1988, ed. Hartmut Kugler with Eckhard Michael (Weinheim: VCH, Acta Humaniora, 1991), esp. 252–59. Most scholars, however, consider the tapestries to have been hung on the walls: e.g., Angela Karstensen, Der Auferstehungsteppich zu Kloster Lüne: Bildtradition und Singularität, Schriften aus dem Kunsthistorischen Institut der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel 1 (Berlin: Lit, 2009), 23, on the basis of lack of wear. 96. Appuhn, “Datierung und Gebrauch,” 256–59.

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and the depictions in the Auferstehungsteppich are too numerous be avoided, the fact that the pavement was also a surface on which people knelt and prostrated themselves in prayer should be taken into account. In contrast to textiles, which were likely to be placed beneath particular individuals, in highly circumscribed areas, and for short periods of time, vegetation was spread more widely and more often, although it could both denote specific times of the liturgical year and distinguish particular areas of the church. According to Humbert of Romans, only an inclinatio rather than full prostration was necessary on feast days, so we should not necessarily imagine such vegetation cushioning prostrate prayer.97 Nevertheless, in some places, vegetation was certainly put down with thought to those who might lie on it. The customary of Westminster Abbey, drawn up under Abbot Richard de Ware (1259–83), includes the stipulation that only rushes from saline environments should be strewn on the floor of the choir and oratory, in order to prevent the brothers prostrated there from being affected by the humidity and bad air produced by other types.98 References to the use of specific elements of paving for prostration are uncommon, but not unknown. According to the Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, it was said that the Empress Galla Placidia, who ruled the Western Empire from 425 to 450, would pray prostrate in the middle of four porphyry roundels in the Church of the Holy Cross in Ravenna.99 Richard Delbrueck suggested that the empress was positioned at the center of a quincunx, and was therefore lying on a fifth roundel.100 The account is probably more reflective of ninth-century assumptions than fifth-century practice. Given the tradition of prostration during the adoration of the cross, the dedication of the church may not be coincidental. As noted in the previous chapter, William Tronzo has linked the porphyry rota in the nave of Old St. Peter’s to the cult of the Cross, especially the Feast of the Exaltatio crucis introduced in the seventh century.101 The material qualities of the decoration probably also played a significant part in the association between empress and pavement. The porphyry was likely understood as appropriate to Galla Placidia’s imperial status, functioning in part to designate her

97. Humbert of Romans, Expositio super constitutiones, ed. Berthier, 172. 98. “Hoc observato quod chorus sive oratorium alio junco quam salso scilicet de marisco nulla vice sternatur, ne ex fetore nimiae humiditatis alterius junci, si apponatur, quod absit, fratribus in choro prostratis aeris corrupcio generatur”; Edward Maunde Thompson, ed., The Customary of the Benedictine Monasteries of Saint Augustine, Canterbury, and Saint Peter, Westminster, 2 vols., HBS 23, 28 (London: HBS, 1902–4), 2:51. 99. “Et dicunt quidam quod ipsa Galla Placidia augusta super quattuor rotas rubeas marmoreas, quae sunt ante nominatas regias, iubebat ponere cereostatos cum manualia ad mensuram, et iactabat se noctu in medio pavimento Deo fundere praeces, et tamdiu pernoctabat in lacrimis orans quamdiu ipsa lumina perdurabant”; Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, 41, ed. Deliyannis, 200–1; trans. Deliyannis, 150. 100. Delbrueck, Antike Porphyrwerke, 28. 101. Tronzo, “Prestige of Saint Peter’s,” 100–4.

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action as devotional rather than debasing. If a quincunx was visible in the church in Agnellus’s day, an association with the empress may have given it added significance. In many of these respects, his account corresponds with the belief reported by the Russian abbot Anthony that the Virgin Mary had been seen in a vision praying on the porphyry rota in Hagia Sophia.102 The idea of repeated individual prayer in a location permanently marked on the ground also finds correspondences elsewhere with less exalted materials. Of the two laymen criticized by Caesarius of Heisterbach for sleeping during penitential prayer, one asked to buy a particular flagstone close to a certain column in order to take it home and place it by his bed, since “as soon as he came to the church and rested his head upon this stone to pray, sleep immediately crept over him.”103 The episode is one of a number that focus on the temptation to sleep at inappropriate moments, and in this respect the knight’s behavior is presented as the opposite of good practice. Yet it still reveals an underlying assumption that someone might habitually choose the same place for prayer outside the parameters of formal ritual. It also indicates that such a place could be conceived in terms of the space on the ground, as well as by vertical landmarks, and that it could be small enough to be defined by a single paving slab. Elements of permanent decoration obviously had the potential to mark a location over a period of time and to signal, or be seen as signaling, where someone had prayed in the past. During prayer, however, they functioned essentially like textiles laid down for that occasion. Indeed, it is telling that Caesarius’s story features an attempt to treat an element of permanent floor covering as a temporary covering, which could be transported for use elsewhere. More generally, we can hypothesize that certain types of prostration may have taken place on decorated paving because they were performed in front of the altar, which was the area of the church most likely to be paved in this way. In this case, prostration and decoration relate primarily to the altar, and only secondarily to each other. Yet this is not to exclude the possibility that the decoration affected the action performed on it, or that it was laid with the expectation that this part of the church would be used for prostrations. This location was generally used for nonpenitential prostration on occasions such as the Exaltation of the Cross, and for rituals such as ordination and consecration. These are the same sorts of prostration for which textiles were often stipulated to be laid down specially, suggesting that an intermediary layer between ground and prostrate body reflected the kind of prostration as well as the place. Moreover, permanent paving in front of the altar could, on occasion, commemorate where people had lain in prayer and signal where others should do so in the future.

102. Anthony of Novgorod, Kniga palomnik, ed. Loparev, 15; trans. de Khitrowo, 95. 103. “Quotiens veniens ad ecclesiam se super eundem lapidem causa orationis reclinaret, mox ei somnus subriperet”; Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, 4.37, ed. Strange, 1:205–6; trans. von Essen Scott and Swinton Bland, 1:233–34.

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A figurative example is found in the presbytery pavement at St.-Martin d’Ainay in Lyon, discussed in chapter 2 in the context of its commemoration of the consecration of the church (figs. 21 and 68). The mosaic in front of the altar showed Pope Paschal II (r. 1099–1118) in a horizontal position reminiscent of the act of full prostration; the panel is now displayed vertically on the walls of the chapel of St.-Blandine. I argued above that this representation may have been partly intended as a reference to the prostration performed by the consecrating bishop immediately after the ceremonial entry, especially since the Romano-Germanic Pontifical had specified that this was to take place before the altar. If this is true, the figure served to commemorate where the pope had lain in much the same way as the ground marked the presence of Christ in the Holy Land, including where he had knelt to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane.104 In Rome, indentations in the ground were also understood to indicate where St. Peter and St. Paul had knelt to pray against Simon Magus.105 However, whereas such places were generally cordoned off, maintaining the exclusivity of the holy site, the mosaic was placed in a position where people would necessarily come into contact with it. As a result the figure has been interpreted by Xavier Barral i Altet as a manifestation of humility and penitence, in which the image of the pope was trodden beneath the feet of the faithful.106 Following that trend of thought, not only was humility itself a virtue, but it could be added that this was the inevitable price to be paid for a location close to the altar. The idea of one aspect of the position compensating for the other corresponds to the way in which the floor surface is sometimes thought to have functioned in the commemoration of the dead, discussed in the next chapter, with people sacrificing the visibility and prestige of an elevated tomb for the proximity to the altar offered by a slab set in the pavement. At the same time, the St.-Martin d’Ainay mosaic explicitly characterizes the place as one where people knelt to pray. As noted in chapter 2, the inscription originally positioned to either side of the figure of the pope commands the reader: “Here bend [your] knee, you who come to pray for grace. / Here is peace, here life, health, here you are sanctified. // Here wine becomes blood, here bread becomes the body of Christ. / Hold out [your] hands hither, everyone who has previously sinned.” Robert Favreau, Jean Michaud, and Bernadette Mora suggest that the phrase “flecte genu” was probably inspired by the “flectamus genua” of the office of Good Friday, in which people prostrated themselves in front of the cross.107 Jean Guillemain connects the left-hand side of the

104. John of Würzburg, Descriptio terrae sanctae, lines 873–77, ed. Huygens, 114–15. 105. Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria martyrum, 27, ed. Krusch, 53; trans. Van Dam, 24. The imprints are also mentioned in Liber pontificalis, 95, ed. Louis Duchesne, Le Liber pontificalis: Texte, introduction et commentaire, 3 vols., rev. ed. (Paris: Boccard, 1955–57), 1:465; trans. Raymond Davis, The Lives of the Eighth-Century Popes (Liber Pontificalis): The Ancient Biographies of Nine Popes from AD 715 to AD 817, 2nd ed. (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007), 82. 106. Barral i Altet, “Marcher sur l’image du Pape.” 107. Favreau, Michaud, and Mora, Corpus des inscriptions, 17:85.

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inscription more with practices of penance, associated with the north side of the church, and posits that this might have been the site at which Count Guy II de Forez asked for pardon on his knees (“flexis genibus”) in around 1167, after a conflict with the archbishop of Lyon during which he had sacked the city and destroyed Ainay’s dependent church of St.-Laurent.108 The two interpretations are not mutually exclusive. The text is part of a wider phenomenon of pavement inscriptions that acknowledge or invite the presence of someone standing or kneeling on them. However, it is possible that the particular interest in physical contact displayed by the mosaic should be understood in the light of a tendency within Lyon. Denys Buenner noted that the ancient liturgy of Lyon was characterized by deep bows, while Joseph Roux observed that the statutes of the canons of Lyon Cathedral gave great importance to bodily gestures, including prostrations.109 If the inscription invited physical contact with the mosaic, several aspects of the design may have done likewise. Guillemain sees the two panels with geometric interlace positioned immediately to the east of the left-hand part of the inscription as reminiscent of “prayer rugs.”110 Although the designs themselves are not particularly close to surviving textiles and indeed can be associated with the pavement crosses of the consecration rite, the discrete panels might still have indicated places of prayer. This interpretation may, in fact, support an association with prostrate prayer on Good Friday since, as discussed above, textiles could be laid down for the occasion. However, it is also possible that the figure of the pope was located beneath bowing bodies, giving a further dimension to the work. If we understand the figure at least partially to mark the spot where the pope prostrated himself during the consecration rite, then both image and inscription encouraged repetition of the action or one similar to it. This repeated action also had implications for the further users of the place. At St.-Martin d’Ainay, a monk who knelt or prostrated himself was both imitating and perpetuating the action of the pope, giving his own humble action another dimension as well as that of Pope Paschal.

108. Guillemain, “Monument de la réforme grégorienne,” 127–29; Guillemain, “Image du Pape,” 209, n. 24. For the charter that describes the event, see Chartularium Athanacense an. 1286 conditum, 47, ed. Comte de Charpin-Feugerolles and M.-C. Guigue, Le grand cartulaire de l’abbaye d’Ainay, suivi d’un autre cartulaire rédigé en 1286 et de documents inédits, 2 vols. (Lyon: Bellon, 1885), 2:88; for the confl ict, see Bruno Galland, Deux archevêchés entre la France et l’Empire: Les archevêques de Lyon et les archevêques de Vienne, du milieu du XIIe siècle au milieu du XIVe siècle, Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 282 (Rome: École française de Rome, 1994), 62–71, esp. 68. 109. Denys Buenner, L’ancienne liturgie romaine: Le rite lyonnaise (Lyon: Emmanuel Vitte, 1934; repr. Farnborough: Gregg, 1969), 75–76; Joseph Roux, La liturgie de la sainte Église de Lyon d’après les monuments (Lyon: Imprimerie d’Aimé Vingtrinier, 1864), 33. The statutes dated by Roux to 1246 are actually those of 1166–81, published in PL 199:1091–1120; see Pascal Collomb, “Les statuts du chapitre cathédral de Lyon (XIIe–XVe siècle): Première exploration et inventaire,” Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 153, no. 1 (1995): 33–34. 110. Guillemain, “Monument de la réforme grégorienne,” 122–24; Guillemain, “Image du Pape,” 209.

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Fig. 68. Drawing of the floor mosaic of St.-Martin d’Ainay, Lyon, in 1852. Paris, Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine. Photo: © Ministère de la Culture—Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / image RMN-GP.

In the context of prostration, then, temporary floor coverings had the potential to function in a variety of ways, often simultaneously. On a practical level they protected people from the dirt and cold of the ground, whether paved or unpaved. Textiles served not only to insulate the body from the properties of the earth, but also from their associations, tempering the humility of the position. On the one hand, such a modulation might reflect the circumstances and identity of the person involved, especially where prostration preceded elevation to high office. At the same time, given the inherent ambiguities of the posture, textiles also provided a visual cue to the dominant meanings of the action. Finally, coverings laid down in a circumscribed area for a specific occasion could set apart a space from the surrounding area. Medieval pavements in a range of techniques, from beaten earth to the most elaborate creations of the Cosmati, were also used as locations for prostrate prayer and supplication. As with textiles, this use poses the question of whether their material qualities affected the significance of the actions that took place upon them. Was prostration any less humble when it was performed on a porphyry slab or a tessellated floor decorated with inhabited roundels reminiscent of textile motifs? Did the connotations of the action in some way override those qualities that were praised in other contexts, such as the worth, color, or sheen of the marble? The two types of decoration do, however, present slightly different interpretative challenges. Evidence for the use of textiles in prostration comes primarily from written sources. Especially where liturgical texts are concerned, references indicate that they were considered appropriate to some types of prostration, but it is difficult to ascertain whether or not they were actually laid down on specific occasions. In the case of permanent decoration, it is more often a case of relating pavements known to occupy specific areas of churches to texts that describe or prescribe prostration in

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such a location. Although here too the question of whether an action was actually carried out has to be borne in mind, there is a second consideration regarding how much can be read into the juxtaposition of body and decoration, when the pavement was in place anyway. The second half of this chapter looks in more detail at particular rituals that featured prostration and the way in which the floor surface worked within them, including the relationship between different layers. The humiliation of relics, coronation ceremonies, and rites for the dying all brought the body into contact with the ground, often mediated with temporary coverings. While they were performed in a multitude of settings, in each case they can potentially be associated with a particular decorated pavement.

Humiliation of Relics The floor surface was the setting for the humiliation of relics, generally in response to a wrong done to the religious community.111 The relics would be placed on the ground, often in the company of crucifixes, images of the saints, and the Gospels, with thorns placed around them. This might take place as part of a clamor, adding a powerful postulant to the ranks of prostrate clergy and emphasizing their joint injury, but it could also be performed independently and continue until the problem had been solved. Then, as Patrick Geary has shown, the position of the relics also functioned to punish the saints for allowing the misdeed to take place and to coerce them into taking action on the community’s behalf.112 It was, after all, the same position as that adopted by a monk undergoing punishment. Indeed, less commonly and in a less scripted manner, sacred items might also be placed on the ground as more of a preemptive threat. In the Georgian Chronicles the Byzantine emperor Basil II (r. 976–1025) is said to have placed the Mandylion on the ground after a battle started to go against him, threatening never to worship it again if it delivered him into the hands of his enemies (he won the battle).113 The rituals of clamor and humiliation contrasted the humilitas of the religious community favorably with the superbia of the wrongdoers, dramatizing the marshalling of spiritual against physical power. They were carefully controlled processes that inverted the normal hierarchy only within certain parameters. The floor itself played a certain role in setting those boundaries.

111. See Patrick J. Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 95–115; Little, Benedictine Maledictions. 112. Geary, Living with the Dead, 110–14. 113. Robert W. Thomson, trans., Rewriting Caucasian History: The Medieval Armenian Adaptation of the Georgian Chronicles. The Original Georgian Texts and the Armenian Adaptation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 284. The episode comes in the Book of K‘art‘li, which goes up to 1072. I am grateful to Antony Eastmond for this reference.

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Although the action drew its significance from the humility of the floor surface, it should be stressed that it usually took place within the church building on ground that had been marked by the crosses of ash and holy water during the consecration rite. Moreover, relics seem to have been kept in the east end of the church, although there are examples of images being placed in the nave. When, on occasion, a humiliation was performed outside the church, there are indications that an attempt might be made to create a differentiated space for the relics. In an account of miracles performed by the relics of St. Ursmer when they were taken around Flanders by the monks of Lobbes during the mid-eleventh century, there is an episode in which the relics are humiliated in an attempt to reconcile feuding parties in the town of Lissewege.114 The reliquary was placed on a pallium, which Geoffrey Koziol interpreted as a “special embroidered rug used to keep the reliquary from coming into direct contact with the ground.”115 Despite this token of respect, St. Ursmer is still described as lying unwillingly on the ground alongside the two protagonists in the dispute and eventually breaks the deadlock by causing his reliquary to levitate as well as to belch smoke. Although this is not explicitly stated, the fact that the ground was not consecrated may have been perceived as a factor in the saint’s particular displeasure, since the relics are both lifted up and restored to an altar following the miracle. It seems possible that the thirteenth century saw a growing concern regarding the propriety of placing sacred objects on the ground. When the archbishop of Rouen ordered the humiliation of relics in his diocese in the 1230s, he stipulated that the image of the Virgin Mary was to be placed on a chair or stool by the altar rather than on the bare ground.116 Although the decision was made to raise the images rather than cover the ground beneath them, the expression “terram nudam” suggests that the unadorned nature of the pavement was a consideration. As mentioned in chapter 3, only a few decades later, the Council of Lyon ruled against the humiliation of crosses and of images or statues of the Virgin and other saints, although relics were not mentioned.117 This shift may partly have been associated with the veneration of images.

114. Miracula S. Ursmarii in itinere per Flandriam facta, 16, ed. O. Holder-Egger, in MGH SS 15.2: esp. 841–42; trans. Geoffrey Koziol, “The Miracles of St. Ursmer on His Journey through Flanders,” in Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology, ed. Thomas Head (New York: Routledge, 2000), 352–53. The episode is discussed in Geoffrey Koziol, “Monks, Feuds, and the Making of Peace in Eleventh-Century Flanders,” in The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response in France around the Year 1000, ed. Thomas Head and Richard Landes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), 239–58. 115. Koziol, “Miracles of St. Ursmer,” 357, n. 33. 116. “Non ad terram nudam, sed super cathedram aliquam, sedem, aut sellam”; Jean François Pommeraye, ed., Sanctae Rotomagensis ecclesiae concilia ac synodalia decreta (Rouen: Le Brun, 1677), 219; the bishop goes on to give instructions about protecting the images from being touched or dirtied. The example is discussed in Little, Benedictine Maledictions, 30. 117. “Ceterum detestabilem abusum horrendae indevotionis illorum, qui crucis, beatae Virginis aliorum(q)ve sanctorum imagines, seu statuas, irreverenti ausu tractantes, eas in aggravationem cessationis hujusmodi prosternunt in terram, urticis, spinisque supponunt penitus reprobantes”; Concilium

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On occasion relics were separated from the ground by being placed on a rough cloth, which may have had the effect either of mitigating the indignity or of emphasizing the humble aspect of the surface. The Liber tramitis from the abbey of Farfa contains two sets of instructions for a clamor, in the first of which the pavement before the altar is covered with a cilicium or haircloth before the relics, Gospels, and crucifi x are set down. While the appropriate prayers are said by the abbot, the clerics lie prostrate on the floor silently reciting Psalm 73 (74) and the church’s bells are rung.118 The Liber tramitis is essentially a version of the customs of Cluny, and the extent to which it can be taken to reflect practices at Farfa has been debated. Peter Dinter maintained that it was too tied to Cluny to be put into practical use at the abbey.119 However, the surviving manuscript, which dates from the third quarter of the eleventh century, was annotated by the community, and the customs cited by them as authoritative. Susan Boynton has shown that liturgical extracts were used to annotate another manuscript and has also argued that the work itself includes certain adaptations. In particular, two alternatives for various rituals frequently given in the Liber tramitis could sometimes represent Cluniac practice and a version adapted for use at Farfa.120 Regarding the clamor ceremonies, Boynton notes that although the second version displays similarities to that in Bernard’s customary, the first takes place in a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and thus may represent practices at Farfa.121 The community was familiar with liturgical maledictions since an anathema is known to have been performed there by a papal legate in 1060.122 The haircloth spread under the relics was associated with penance. Mainly worn as a garment, it was also spread under dying monks, as discussed below, which may have contributed to its use as a floor covering. In the past it had also been spread on the floor in rituals of baptism, where the pricking of the cloth functioned to remind those walking over it of their sins. While the cilicium thus reinforced the humble position of the relics, it is also likely to have reduced the potential dishonor to the saint, in the manner of the pallium in the miracle of St. Ursmer. It should be remembered that the cilicium was used as the support for the monogram of Christ drawn in ashes in the Ambrosian prebaptismal rite, and it is sometimes found spread over the altar in other clamors.

Lugdunense II.17, ed. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, 24:92; Little, Benedictine Maledictions, 236. 118. Liber tramitis, 174, ed. Dinter, Liber tramitis aevi Odilonis abbatis, 244–47. The text is also given in Little, Benedictine Maledictions, 262–63, appendix C, text 9, and the clamor discussed in Reynolds, “Rites of Separation and Reconciliation,” 419. 119. Dinter, Liber tramitis aevi Odilonis abbatis, xliii. 120. Susan Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000–1125 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), 121–43. 121. Geary, Living with the Dead, 97, also discusses the first clamor as typical of Cluniac practice. 122. Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity, 131–35; Gregory of Catino, Il regesto di Farfa compilato da Gregorio di Catino, ed. Ignazio Giorgi and Ugo Balzani, 5 vols. (Rome: Società romana di storia patria, 1879–1914), 5:294–95, doc. 1307.

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However, if a clamor was ever carried out at Farfa, the tradition of decorated paving in the abbey church would have added an extra dimension to the ceremony, and potentially complicated this stratigraphy of ground, cilicium, and relics. The church still conserves the remains of a pavement in opus sectile, which was probably laid under Abbot Sichardus (830–42) and may well have extended throughout the majority of the nave.123 It is composed of green granite and colored marbles, as well as red and green porphyry. Although the east end of the church was rebuilt in the middle of the eleventh century, the nave was retained until the whole church was reconstructed in the late fifteenth century, and the pavement could well have remained visible for much of this time.124 The Renaissance transept, which occupies the site of the medieval nave, was paved with parts of a twelfth-century Cosmatesque chancel screen or ambo, covering over the Carolingian floor, but this may have postdated the reconstruction.125 In the middle of the eleventh century, therefore, the pavement of the nave was composed of decorative stones. The east end of the church, comprising a square presbytery and bell tower, is also likely to have been paved with high-status materials, since a small area of porphyry, marble, and serpentine survives on the ground floor of the bell tower.126 The floor surface was relatively articulated, with the crossing raised one step above the nave, and the presbytery a further two steps, which also makes it unlikely that the nave would have had the most lavish treatment. The church appears to have been rich in marble and in references to it, with the exterior west wall of the tower containing inlaid porphyry strips, and the first layer of plaster on the south transept foundation wall in the crypt imitating marble work and porphyry discs.127 Although the nave pavement is not itself mentioned in medieval descriptions of Farfa, it belongs to a type that was traditionally praised in accounts of buildings and building patronage. Characterized by Charles McClendon as a work of “high quality and opulence,” which reflected Farfa’s standing as an imperial abbey, it also displays similarities with high-status pavements in Rome, such as that in the S. Zeno chapel of S. Prassede, built by Pope Paschal I (r. 817–24). It was a humble surface only in certain respects. If there had indeed also been marble paving in front of the main altar dedicated to Mary in the presbytery, then spreading a cilicium over the top could have functioned to restore a measure of humility, to express which way the floor was being read, or to render the contrast between the prestige of the relics and their current position more

123. On the pavement, the remains of which were discovered during excavations in 1959–62, see Charles B. McClendon, “The Revival of Opus Sectile Pavements in Rome and the Vicinity in the Carolingian Period,” Papers of the British School at Rome 48 (1980): 158–60, plates xxx–xxxii; McClendon, The Imperial Abbey of Farfa: Architectural Currents of the Early Middle Ages (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 27, 56–57, plates 6a–b. 124. McClendon, Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 111–12. 125. McClendon, Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 76–108, plates 89–90. 126. McClendon, Imperial Abbey of Farfa, plate 38. 127. McClendon, Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 31, plates 11 (plaster), 25, 32 (west wall).

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pronounced. Equally both could have worked together to mitigate the insult to the relics. The choir of the monks, which was located in the crossing, is also likely to have been well paved. Any prostration on their part would therefore have taken place in a fairly rich setting, adding to what was already a visually striking ceremony. This material complexity corresponds to a wider understanding of the ritual as a “display of spiritual power,”128 but also to the way in which the floor surface could be invested with multiple meanings, often simultaneously.

Coronation The preceding discussion has already contained instances in which the setting of prostrate prayer reflected the identity of the person concerned, from senior ecclesiastics and relics lying on textiles to the renunciation of floor coverings that might have insulated the saintly and ascetic from the full humility of the bare ground. Prostration was also a feature of a number of status-changing rituals that marked entry into a community or assumption of a particular office, reintegration after an offence, or leave-taking at death. Janet Nelson has suggested that “it symbolised the annihilation of the initiate’s former personality in preparation for ‘rebirth’ into a new status.”129 An early reference to prostration in a royal inauguration ritual occurs in the Second English Coronation Ordo, the composition of which has been dated to the late ninth or early tenth century.130 In the A-version, preserved in the Sacramentary of Ratoldus, the king is led to the altar shortly after arriving at the church and prostrates himself there during the Te Deum.131 The B-version, which results from revisions made in the mid-tenth century and is found in a number of late tenth- and eleventh-century English pontificals, retains this

128. Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity, 131. 129. Janet L. Nelson, “Ritual and Reality in the Early Medieval Ordines,” in The Materials, Sources and Methods of Ecclesiastical History, ed. Derek Baker, Studies in Church History 11 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975), 46. 130. Discussions of dating include C. A. Bouman, Sacring and Crowning: The Development of the Latin Ritual for the Anointing of Kings and the Coronation of an Emperor before the Eleventh Century, Bijdragen van het Instituut voor middeleeuwse Geschiedenis der Rijks-Universiteit te Utrecht 30 (Groningen: J. B. Wolters, 1957), 17–18; Janet L. Nelson, “The Second English Ordo,” in Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London: Hambledon Press, 1986), 361–74; Orchard, Sacramentary of Ratoldus, cxxix–cxxxvi. Most recently, David Pratt has argued for composition in the mid–late 890s: “The Making of the Second English Coronation Ordo,” Anglo-Saxon England 46 (2017): 147–258. I am grateful to one of the readers for Cornell University Press for drawing this last article to my attention. 131. “Et duo episcopi accipiant eum per manvs, et dedvcant ante altare et prosternet se vsque in finem Te Deum Laudamus”; Sacramentary of Ratoldus, 134, ed. Orchard, 48; text also given in Richard A. Jackson, ed., Ordines coronationis Franciae: Texts and Ordines for the Coronation of Frankish and French Kings and Queens in the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995– 2000), 1:178.

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element.132 Both versions were known on the continent, and the so-called Ratold Ordo appears to have informed French coronation ceremonies from 1108 until the early thirteenth century.133 Prostration is also stipulated in the Ordo ad regem benedicendum in the Romano-Germanic Pontifical, where it takes place at the altar steps during the litany.134 This ordo was adapted in France to create ordines such as the Ordo of Saint-Bertin and the Ordo of 1200, although the former may never have been used for a coronation; an ordo deriving from the Romano-Germanic Pontifical may also have been used for the coronation of Philip I in 1059.135 These liturgical sources suggest that prostration was part of royal coronation ceremonies from the late ninth century in England, the late tenth century in Germany, and at least the early twelfth century in France. However, Geoffrey Koziol has suggested that prostration may have taken place even where not expressly stipulated in the earlier ordines.136 Textiles might also be spread on the spot. The ordo in the Romano-Germanic Pontifical stipulates that the whole of the pavement in front of the altar steps where the king prostrated himself along with the bishops and priests should be covered with carpets and coverlets.137 Previous references to prostration in the ordines for royal and imperial coronations discussed above simply state that it is performed “in terram,” if they stipulate the location at all. Since the ordo in question has been claimed as the first consecration ordo in which the prostration is said to be made in the form of a cross, interpreted by scholars as an example of imitatio Christi,138 the textiles should perhaps also be understood as responding to this aspect of royal status and authority. Both the cruciform prostration and the phrase concerning the textiles were often retained when the ordo was drawn upon, as in French coronation ordines such as the Ordo of 1200.139 Similarly, the Liber tramitis describes a ceremony for the ordination of a new abbot in which the bishop and abbot

132. A variant of the B-version is found in the Benedictional of Archbishop Robert. “Perveniens ad eclesiam prosternat se coram altare”; Wilson, Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, 140; Bouman, Sacring and Crowning, 170. 133. Orchard, Sacramentary of Ratoldus, cxxxv; Jackson, Ordines coronationis Franciae, 1:168–72. 134. “Perductus in chorum usque ad altaris gradus incedat, cunctoque pavimento tapetibus et palliolis contecto, ibi humiliter totus in cruce prostratus iaceat, una cum episcopis et presbiteris hinc inde prostratis”; Ordo ad regem beneficendum quando novus a clero et populo sublimatur in regnum, PRG, 72.6, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:247–48. 135. Jackson, Ordines coronationis Franciae, 1:217–18, for the coronation of Philip I; 1:240–47, esp. 242, for the Ordo of Saint-Bertin (XVIII); 1:248–67, esp. 252, for the Ordo of 1200 (XIX). 136. Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor, 101, n. 71. 137. “Cunctoque pavimento tapetibus et palliolis contecto”; PRG, 72.6, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:247. 138. Lothar Bornscheuer, Miseriae regum: Untersuchungen zum Krisen- und Todesgedanken in den herrschaftstheologischen Vorstellungen der ottonisch-salischen Zeit (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1968), 194–97; Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor, 101. 139. Ordo of 1200, 9, ed. Jackson, Ordines coronationis Franciae, 1:252.

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prostrate themselves on textiles spread in front of the altar.140 Prostrations during inauguration rituals may well, as Nelson has suggested, symbolize the negation of the former self, but they also act out the idea of elevation through abasement. The prayer said during the consecration in a number of ordines, including the Second English Coronation Ordo and that in the Romano-Germanic Pontifical, compares the king to “David humilitate exaltatus” and goes on to invoke Christ’s triumph over hell and Ascension into heaven.141 This concept might imply that the further one humbled oneself, the greater the reward, demanding a setting of particular humility. What seems to be happening in these cases, however, is that the setting allows the gesture to be read in this way by anticipating the rest of the ceremony. Royal coronation ordines regularly situate the king’s prostration in front of the altar, which was the area of the church most likely to receive high-status paving. The cathedral of Reims, for example, possessed a floor mosaic in the crossing, dated to the end of the tenth century or the beginning of the eleventh.142 Fragments discovered during excavations in the early twentieth century suggest that it is likely to have been a square composition, with large squares of interlace at the corners, executed in white, yellow, and terracotta tesserae. Between the remains of the eastern two squares were supports for the columns of a ciborium, indicating the probable position of the altar. A reconstruction proposed by the excavator, Henri Deneux, shows a smaller square of interlace in the center (fig. 69).143 Hans Reinhardt suggested an alternative arrangement with the altar in the center, without giving another explanation for the supports.144 Henri Stern associated the laying of the mosaic with a reconstruction of the altar by Bishop Adalbero (d. 989).145 It is not clear how long the mosaic remained visible, but it probably did so until at least the middle of the twelfth century, when alterations were made to the east end of the church by Bishop Samson, including the enlargement of the transepts.146 The mosaic fragments were found above the level of the original pavement and under a layer of infill, which Deneux saw as resulting from the destruction of the jubé and altar

140. “Tunc stratis ante altare tapetibus prosternant se simul pontifex et qui ab eo benedictus est abbas”; Liber tramitis, 144, ed. Dinter, Liber tramitis aevi Odilonis abbatis, 209. 141. Wilson, Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, 142; PRG, 72.11, ed. Vogel and Elze, Pontifi cal romano-germanique, 1:250–51. 142. Stern, “Mosaïque de la cathédrale de Reims”; Stern, Recueil général des mosaïques, 1.1:89–90, plate XLV; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 219–20, for the early eleventh century. 143. Henri Deneux, Dix ans de fouilles dans la cathédrale de Reims, 1919–1930 (Reims: Matot Braine, 1944), 5–6; Stern, “Mosaïque de la cathédrale de Reims,” 149, fig. 1; Stern, Recueil général des mosaïques, 1.1, plate XLIVa. 144. Hans Reinhardt, La cathédrale de Reims: Son histoire, son architecture, sa sculpture, ses vitraux (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1963), 23–24, fig. 3, 30–31. 145. Stern, “Mosaïque de la cathédrale de Reims,” 152–54. 146. Alain Villes, “La cathédrale de Samson: XII siècle,” in Reims, ed. Thierry Jordan with Patrick Demouy, Hervé Chabaud, and Jean-Marie Guerlin (Strasbourg: Nuée Bleue, 2010), 43–49.

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Fig. 69. Reconstruction by H. Deneux of the mosaic pavement in the crossing of Reims Cathedral, late tenth century or early eleventh century. Photo: CNRS éditions © Henri Stern, Recueil général des mosaïques de la Gaule, vol. 1, Province de Belgique, pt. 1 (Paris: CNRS, 1957), plate XLIVa, “essai de restitution de la mosaïque.”

of St. Laict in the eighteenth century.147 While parts were disturbed by burials at the end of the twelfth century and into the thirteenth, he considered the central design to have survived intact until the eighteenth century. However, later scholars seem to interpret the stratigraphy as placing the mosaic midway between the original pavement and the twelfth-century work, and thus by implication see the mosaic as obscured from that point on.148 Nevertheless, Alain Villes has raised the possibility that the walls of the old transept might have partly been preserved as a relic of the ancient cathedral, around the high altar associated with Bishop Nicaise.149 Given the ambiguity regarding the stratigraphy, it remains a possibility that the mosaic was also retained until the full reconstruction of the cathedral in the thirteenth century.

147. Deneux, Dix ans de fouilles, 5–6. 148. Stern, “Mosaïque de la cathédrale de Reims,” 150; Reinhardt, Cathédrale de Reims, 31. 149. Villes, “Cathédrale de Samson,” 45.

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Associated with the French monarchy through the baptism of Clovis, Reims had been the location of royal consecrations in the ninth century, including those of Louis the Pious in 816 and Eudes (Odo) in 888.150 In the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, it was used for the coronations of Henry I in 1027, Philip I in 1058, Louis VI’s young son Philip in 1129, and his other son Louis VII in 1131.151 It is notoriously difficult to identify the ordo followed at any particular ceremony, but the memorandum on Philip I’s coronation written by Gervais, archbishop of Reims, gives some indication of the form and sequence of events.152 On this basis, Richard Jackson has argued that an ordo deriving from that in the Romano-Germanic Pontifical was employed, while Elizabeth Brown considers that the ordo may have been compiled by Gervais himself, drawing on a variety of sources including East Frankish material and a version of the Ratold Ordo.153 Either way, it seems likely that the ceremony included the king’s prostration in front of the altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the crossing, mentioned by the archbishop as the location of the consecration.154 Although nothing certain is known regarding the ordines used for the early twelfth-century coronations, it has been argued that the ceremonies in this period were based on the Ratold Ordo, which would entail a prostration.155 If the reconstruction of the mosaic proposed by Deneux and followed by Stern is correct, prostration directly in front of the altar would have positioned the king on the central interlace of the mosaic. In this light it is perhaps significant that the underlying geometry of the design shares features with the quincunxes of opus sectile pavements, the central roundels of which were often used as liturgical markers. However, the remains were too fragmentary for the reconstruction of the central and western part of the pavement to be anything more than conjecture. It is only possible to suggest that royal prostrations would have taken place on the mosaic, perhaps with textiles spread over the top. One effect of the decoration could have been to present the gesture as an example of exaltation through humiliation, anticipating the coronation to come. While the pavement was almost certainly not laid with such a purpose in mind, in the context of the

150. Elizabeth A. R. Brown, “Franks, Burgundians, and Aquitanians” and the Royal Coronation Ceremony in France, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 82, pt. 7 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1992), 2, 32. 151. Brown, “Franks, Burgundians, and Aquitanians,” 43. 152. Edited as Ordo XVIIA in Jackson, Ordines coronationis Franciae, 1:217–32. 153. Jackson, Ordines coronationis Franciae, 1:217–18; Brown, “Franks, Burgundians, and Aquitanians,” 38–41. 154. “Philippus rex hoc ordine in maiore ecclesia ante altare sancte Marie a Gervasio archiepiscopo consecratus est”; Ordo XVIIA, 2, ed. Jackson, Ordines coronationis Franciae, 1:227. The Latin text never explicitly states that the ceremony took place in Reims. However, a French translation made in the sixteenth century from a lost manuscript reads: “le roy Philippes fut sacré par l’archevesque Gervays en la grande eglise de Reins devant l’autel nostre dame en cest ordre”; Ordo XVIIB, 2, ed. Jackson, Ordines coronationis Franciae, 1:236. 155. Jackson, Ordines coronationis Franciae, 1:172.

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ceremony, it marked the crossing out as an appropriate venue and, given its age, may even have been identified as the site of previous royal inaugurations. Use of the pavement could also have helped to present the ceremony as something that happened in a particular place. When the coronation of Louis VI at Orléans in 1108 provoked complaints from the clergy of Reims, Ivo of Chartres pointed out that previous kings had been consecrated in other locations and by other people, which suggests that the clergy had been claiming the right to hold the coronation in Reims as well as the right of the archbishop of Reims to perform it.156 In the first half of the twelfth century therefore, and especially when the cathedral was used for the coronations of Louis VI’s sons, the pavement could have taken on particular significance as the site of parts of the ceremony. The situation is comparable to that at Novara Cathedral, where contested rights to perform an initiation ritual of another kind are likely to have affected perceptions of the mosaic on which it took place. Indeed, it should be noted that within Reims itself, associations with the coronation were shared with St.-Remi, which housed the chrism and had been the site of Robert’s coronation in 922. At Reims Cathedral, then, prostration during coronations may have taken place on existing decorated paving, perhaps enhanced by its aura of antiquity. In Westminster Abbey, site of the coronations of the kings of England, the sanctuary pavement is likely to have been laid with this function partly in mind (fig. 70).157 The fi rst coronation held with the pavement in place was that of Edward I in 1274. The ordo used for the ceremony is likely to have been the third recension of the English coronation ordo. Although there is some disagreement over its date of composition, with suggestions ranging from the mid-eleventh century and the earliest manuscript testimonies dating from the early twelfth century, it is generally accepted that it was in use during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.158 Both versions of the ordo state that the prince prostrated himself on the pavement before the altar on arrival at the church and that

156. “Ex his et hujuscemodi exemplis manifestum est quod Francorum reges non omnes in Remensi Ecclesia, vel a Remensibus archiepiscopis sunt consecrati, sed multi in multis aliis locis, et a multis aliis personis consecrati sunt”; Ivo of Chartres, Epistolae, 189, PL 162:194d–195a. On the importance of the ritual to city and cathedral, see Jacques Le Goff, “Reims, City of Coronation,” in Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, ed. Pierre Nora and Lawrence D. Kritzman, 3 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996–98), 3:193–251, esp. 203–8. 157. Binski, “Cosmati at Westminster,” 31–32; Binski, “Cosmati and Romanitas in England”; Grant, “Coronation Mantle.” I am grateful to Lindy Grant for providing me with a copy of her article. 158. John Brückmann, “The Ordines of the Third Recension of the Medieval Coronation Order,” in Essays in Medieval History Presented to Bertie Wilkinson, ed. T. A. Sandquist and M. R. Powicke (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), 99–115; Janet L. Nelson, “The Rites of the Conqueror,” in Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, ed. R. Allen Brown (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1982), 4:117–32, for the mid-eleventh century; George Garnett, “The Third Recension of the English Coronation Ordo: The Manuscripts,” Haskins Society Journal 11 (2003 for 1998): 43–71, for the dating of the manuscripts. H. G. Richardson had argued for a form of the Ordo of Mainz; Richardson, “The Coronation in Medieval England: The Evolution of the Office and the Oath,” Traditio 16 (1960): 111–202.

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Fig. 70. Cosmati pavement, Westminster Abbey, London, 1268. Photo: Copyright Dean and Chapter of Westminster.

this was spread with carpets and coverings.159 Indeed, as discussed in the previous chapter, he will have reached the abbey by walking unshod over textiles, another way in which potentially charged contact with the ground was mediated by an intervening layer. The contrast between the humility of the position and the realities of its physical setting was exaggerated in later ordines. In the fourth recension, probably fi rst used for the coronation of Edward II in 1308, the pavement is said to be “covered by the king’s ministers with fitting silk cloths and cushions,” the first time that the material is specified or the textiles described as appropriate. At the same time, the prayers said over the prostrate king included Deus humilium, which characterized the prince as

159. “Perveniens ad ecclesiam prosternat se super pavimentum ante altare. Pavimentum autem stratum sit tapetibus et palliis”; H. A. Wilson, ed., The Pontifical of Magdalen College, HBS 39 (London: HBS, 1910), 89; D. H. Turner, ed., The Claudius Pontificals ( from Cotton MS. Claudius A.iii in the British Museum), HBS 97 (Chichester: Regnum Press for the HBS, 1971), 115; Wickham Legg, English Coronation Records, 30.

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humble.160 The prince would prostrate himself a second time during the prayer Te invocamus, with the archbishop and priests doing likewise for the penitential psalms and consecratory prayers. Although the Cosmati pavement is not mentioned in the rubrics, the prostrations are likely to have taken place on this prestigious work, which incorporated porphyry and other colored stones. Moreover, since prostrations were already present in the third recension, the floor was laid in the knowledge that this would take place and may even have been planned as a setting for the ceremony. Paul Binski relates the ceremonial role of the pavement to the use of porphyry markers during the imperial coronation ceremony at Old St. Peter’s.161 Given that both materials and craftsmen for the Westminster pavement had been brought from Rome, a specific allusion to Roman practice is entirely feasible. Moreover, Lindy Grant has recently suggested that the composition of the pavement reflects the square design and cosmological connotations of the Westminster coronation mantle.162 At the same time, the pavement should also be understood in the context of prostration during inauguration rituals more generally. Like textiles laid down for the occasion, permanent decoration made the ground appropriately regal, serving to indicate that the royal humiliation was essentially a step toward elevation to the kingship. It also suggests that the presence of the king communicated lasting prestige to the place. As noted in the previous chapter, this was a period in which English kings were accustomed to touch for scrofula; contact with the royal body was potentially transformative.163 If the pavement was laid with the prospect of repeated royal use, both of these considerations may have contributed. It remains to be asked what the implications of the textiles spread in front of the altar are for the role of the pavement, which they may have covered and obscured.164 Why was the layer of textiles necessary at all, apart from considerations of comfort, when the imperial associations of the marble would presumably have been of particular significance on this occasion and could thus have been expected to be left visible? It seems unlikely that covering the pavement meant that it had already lost its liturgical significance, as has been suggested by Pamela Tudor-Craig.165 Instead, thinking about the materiality of the layers may offer a different perspective. The customary of St. Peter’s

160. “Prosternat se rex super pavimentum ante altare, prius per regis ministros pannis et quissinis decentibus sericis stratum, donec archiepiscopus super eum dixerit oracionum: Deus humilium”; Richardson, “Coronation in Medieval England,” 199. 161. Binski, “Cosmati at Westminster,” 31–33. 162. Grant, “Coronation Mantle.” 163. Bloch, Royal Touch, 21–27, 56–60. Although Henry III does not seem to have been particularly associated with the ritual, his father and successors are attested as having performed it. 164. For the possibility the pavement was thus covered during the ceremony, see Foster, Patterns of Thought, 164; Pamela Tudor-Craig, “The Embellishments and Furnishing of the Medieval Church,” in Christopher Wilson et al., Westminster Abbey (London: Bell & Hyman, 1986), 98. 165. Tudor-Craig, “Embellishments and Furnishing,” 98.

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Westminster, compiled under the same Abbot Richard de Ware who brought the marble for the pavement from Rome, stipulates that rushes or hay should be strewn throughout the church “wherever there is no pavement,” and particularly in the area of the presbytery, on major festivals.166 The instruction would seem to refer unambiguously to areas of the church that were completely unpaved. However, since all the abbey church is likely to have had some form of paving and customaries frequently prescribe the strewing of vegetation in areas of the church likely to be paved, it is just possible that the intention was to keep visible the complex colored marble pavement in the sanctuary. A relatively modest covering of rushes might not only obscure but in some way negate the precious marbles. The equally precious textiles on the other hand did not so much hide what lay beneath as highlight it, further testifying to the status of both place and prince. The idea that one high-status covering could reinforce another is found in Bede’s De templo, where he reconciled the references to Solomon paving the temple in marble and in gold found in the books of Chronicles and Kings by interpreting them as successive layers, with gilded fir wood covering the marble.167 Between ceremonies, the permanent decoration commemorated the action that had taken place on it, and thus celebrated this function of the abbey.

Last Rites The emphasis in this chapter so far has been on prostration, in which people lay facedown on the ground in prayer, though some mention has also been made of ascetic practices of sleeping on the bare ground. The final horizontal position to be discussed is found in the practice of laying the dying on the ground.168 Here the person lay facing upward, although on occasion the gesture of prostration might be integrated into preparations for death; in the Vita of Abbot Poppo of Stavelot (d. 1048), the abbot prostrated himself and kissed the ground before lying down on his back.169 The position adopted by

166. “Qui quidem sacrista totam ecclesiam, ubicumque non fuerit pavimentum, et maxime per precinctum presbiterii, in omni principali festo et alia, quociens opus fuerit, junco aut feno sternere faciet”; Thompson, Customary of the Benedictine Monasteries, 2:50. 167. Bede, De templo, 1.9.1, ed. Hurst, 170–71; trans. Connolly, 35–36. 168. The custom is discussed in Theodor Zachariae, “Sterbende werden auf die Erde gelegt,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 9 (1906): 538–41; Louis Gougaud, Anciennes coutumes claustrales, Moines et monastères 8 (Vienne: Abbaye Saint-Martin de Ligugé, 1930), 80–81; Geoffrey Rowell, The Liturgy of Christian Burial: An Introductory Survey of the Historical Development of Christian Burial Rites, Alcuin Club Collections 59 (London: SPCK for the Alcuin Club, 1977), 64–65; Gilchrist and Sloane, Requiem, 20–23; Jörg Sonntag, Klosterleben im Spiegel des Zeichenhaften: Symbolisches Denken und Handeln hochmittelalterlicher Mönche zwischen Dauer und Wandel, Regel und Gewohnheit, Vita regularis. Abhandlungen 35 (Berlin: Lit, 2008), 484–88. 169. “Expletis deinde pro se omnibus, cilicium quod sibi sterni fecit nudis adierat pedibus, terramque tam pectore quam corpore prono deosculans, se supinum collocavit”; Vita Popponis, 28, ed. Wilhelm

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the dying person anticipated the position of the body in the tomb, but it was also understood to allow them to face heaven.170 Dying on the ground had a biblical precedent in the death of Lazarus from the parable of Lazarus and Dives.171 While this was not made explicit in the biblical text, as noted above, Lazarus was often shown lying on the bare ground at the moment of death, prior to his reception in heaven in Abraham’s bosom. This sequence of events and locations contrasted with the experience of Dives, generally depicted dying comfortably in bed before ending in hell. In this way, dying on the ground participated with particular poignancy in the logic of reversal inherent in humble postures more generally. However, more than other cases of full bodily contact with the ground, that practiced during the last rites was associated with a particular material context, with the dying person placed on ashes and a cilicium, usually translated as a haircloth or sackcloth. The following discussion will focus on this setting, including its relationship with other ephemeral floor coverings, before considering connections with permanent floor decoration. In the Middle Ages, the origin of this custom was commonly traced back to St. Martin of Tours.172 In a letter to Bassula, Sulpicius Severus had described the dying saint as lying on a bed of ashes and a haircloth: “nobili illo strato suo in cinere et cilicio recubans.”173 It should be noted that while the Latin is usually translated in this way, it could conceivably mean that he was wearing a hair shirt. The ashes, however, were certainly on the ground. Martin refused his disciples’ requests to spread even some common straw or blankets (“uilia . . . stramenta”) underneath him, stating explicitly that it was not fitting for a Christian to die except on ashes: “Non decet, inquit, christianum nisi in cinere mori.” The ashes could be associated with the materiality of the body; Durandus understood the practice to signify that the dying person “is ashes and will return to ashes.”174 Sackcloth and ashes were also associated with death and penance more widely and could be employed in ways that concentrated as much on the body as the place where it lay. During the entry into penance on Ash Wednesday, the

Wattenbach, in MGH SS 11 (Hannover: Hahn, 1854), 311; Phillippe George, “Un moine est mort: Sa vie commence. Anno 1048 obiit Poppo abbas Stabulensis,” Le Moyen Âge 108 (2002): 499. 170. Sulpicius Severus, Epistulae, 3:15, ed. and trans. J. Fontaine, Sulpice Sévère: Vie de Saint Martin, 3 vols., Sources chrétiennes 133–35 (Paris: Cerf, 1967–69), 1:342–43. “Debet etiam supinus iacere ut semper recta facie respiciat celum”; Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum, 7.35.35, ed. Davril and Thibodeau, 97. 171. Luke 16:19–31. Sonntag, Klosterleben im Spiegel des Zeichenhaften, 484–85. 172. Explicit reference to St. Martin is made in Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum, 7.35.35, ed. Davril and Thibodeau, 97, and in accounts of individual deaths, e.g., Herman of Tournai, Liber de restauratione ecclesie Sancti Martini Tornacensis, 76, ed. R. B.C. Huygens, CCCM 236 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), 131. 173. Sulpicius Severus, Epistulae, 3:14, ed. and trans. Fontaine, 1:340–41. 174. “Et quidem quando homo videtur agere in extremis debet poni ad terram super cineres, vel ad minus supra paleas, per quod innuitur quod cinis est et in cinerem revertetur”; Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum, 7.35.35, ed. Davril and Thibodeau, 97.

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penitents prostrated themselves on the ground. They were also marked on the head with ashes and might either wear haircloth or have it placed on their heads.175 Frederick Paxton has noted an increasing emphasis on penance in the preparations for death in Gaul and Visigothic Spain from the sixth century onward.176 The association is usually explained as resulting from the fact that in Late Antiquity penance could not be repeated and also imposed significant restrictions on the subsequent activities of penitents, which meant that people came to request it only on their deathbeds. In Spain, a specific ritual of penance for the dying developed, described by Paxton as “a compressed form of public penance.” The seventh-century ritual stipulates that the person was to be covered in a haircloth and marked with a cross of ashes.177 Elsewhere, ordines for the visitation of the sick and dying dating from the late ninth century onward have the priest mark a cross of ashes on the chest of the person and place the haircloth over his or her head. An early example is found in a libellus written at the monastery of St.-Amand near Tournai in the late ninth or early tenth century, where it comes in the reconciliation before the recitation of the seven penitential psalms.178 St.-Amand was an important center for the production of liturgical manuscripts, especially in the third quarter of the ninth century, when a number of sacramentaries were written for other houses. Their rites for the sick and dying reflect a process of synthesis and innovation. The last of the series, the Sacramentary of Sens (ca. 876–77), contains a ritual of anointing derived from one composed by Benedict of Aniane, but with a new emphasis on penitence and purification. It also includes Visigothic material, although not the imposition of ashes and cilicium.179 Since Éric Palazzo considers the ritual in the libellus to represent a further development vis-à-vis the sacramentaries, it is possible that the ashes and cilicium were introduced at St.-Amand on account of this growing penitential quality. He suggests that the libellus in question was prepared for the house of St.-Remi at Reims.180 If this was the case, it may explain the presence of a very closely related text in a manuscript from St.-Remi, edited by Hugues Ménard in his commentary on the Gregorian

175. For discussion of the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday, see Hamilton, Practice of Penance, 58–59, 92–93. 176. Paxton, Christianizing Death, 47–91. 177. “Post hec, cooperit de cilicio, et sic faciat crucem de cinere”; the rite, preserved in manuscripts dating to the tenth and eleventh centuries, is edited in Férotin, Liber ordinum, 88; and Janini, Liber ordinum episcopal, 113. Its form and date are discussed in Paxton, Christianizing Death, 69–78. 178. “Tunc faciet crucem ex cinere super pectus infirmi, et imponat cilicium super caput eius”; Paris, BnF, MS Lat. 13764, fol. 96v. The libellus is described in Éric Palazzo, “Les deux rituels d’un libellus de Saint-Amand (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, lat. 13764),” in Rituels: Mélanges offerts à Pierre-Marie Gy, o.p., ed. Paul De Clerck and Éric Palazzo (Paris: Cerf, 1990), 428, fig. 3 for the passage in question. This part of the text is also given in Orchard, Sacramentary of Ratoldus, clxxx–clxxxi. 179. Paxton, Christianizing Death, 169–85. 180. Palazzo, “Deux rituels,” 424, 435–36.

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Sacramentary, the manuscript being dated by him to ca. 1000.181 The cross of ashes and the cilicium appear in several other examples around the same date, including the late tenth-century Sacramentary of Ratoldus, which draws ultimately on material from Cambrai.182 Rites for the sick and dying already exhibited a certain concern with their posture and location. A prayer for deathbed reconciliation found in the Vatican Gelasian and the eighth-century Gelasian Sacramentaries characterizes the dying person as “prostrate.”183 The Gregorian Sacramentary contains a Mass to be said for a sick person close to death, who is described as lying on a pallet: “iacente in grabatto.”184 Supplementary material added to the Gregorian Sacramentary includes the sprinkling of holy water on both the sick person and the house where they lay.185 One manuscript stipulates that “Benedic domine domum istam et omnes habitantes in ea” (“Lord, bless this house and all those living in it”) should be sung on entry into the house, as in the rite for the consecration of a church: “ut supra in consecratione ecclesiae.”186 However, it is possible that the emphasis on place increased during the tenth century, when there are signs of a move toward marking the location rather than the dying person with sackcloth and ashes. As well as giving a more penitential quality to the place where the sick person lay than the aspersion of the house, the use of the haircloth and ashes created a more circumscribed space, focusing attention both on the ground and on the specific area occupied and defined by the body. Two late tenth-century narrative sources make reference to rites in which one or the other of these elements may have been applied to the floor. When Queen Matilda, wife of Henry I, died in the convent she had founded at Quedlinburg in Saxony, she is said to have been laid on a haircloth. In the earlier of two accounts of her life, dated to

181. Hugues Ménard, ed., Divi Gregorii papae Liber sacramentorum (Paris: Moreau, 1642), preface; Ménard, Notae et observationes in Librum sacramentorum S. Gregorii Magni papae (Paris: Bechet, 1641), 345; PL 78:21–22 for the brief description of the manuscript, 529–37 for the Ordo ad ungendum infirmum, esp. 530b. This is not the Sacramentary of Godelgaudus of Reims (ca. 800); see H. B. Porter, “The Origin of the Medieval Rite for Anointing the Sick or Dying,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 7, no. 2 (1956): 224, n.5; Porter, “The Rites for the Dying in the Early Middle Ages, II: The Legendary Sacramentary of Rheims,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 10, no. 2 (1959): 299–307. 182. “Tunc sacerdos faciet crucem ex cinere cum aqua super pectus eius, et inponit cilicium desuper”; Sacramentary of Ratoldus, 417 (2195), ed. Orchard, 411. 183. “Respice flentem famulum tuum, adtende prostratum, eiusque planctum in gaudium tua miseracione concede”; SGel, 1.39 (366), ed. Mohlberg, Eizenhöfer, and Siffrin, Liber sacramentorum Romanae aecclesiae, 59. For examples of the prayer in eighth-century Gelasians, see Gellone Sacramentary, 485 (2890), ed. Antoine Dumas and Jean Deshusses, Liber sacramentorum Gellonensis, 2 vols., CCSL 159, 159A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981), 1:459–60; Rheinau Sacramentary, 275 (1329), ed. Anton Hänggi and Alfons Schönherr, Sacramentarium Rhenaugiense: Handschrift Rh 30 der Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Spicilegium Friburgense 15 (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag Freiburg, 1970), 271. 184. SGreg, 210 (2795), ed. Deshusses, Sacramentaire grégorien, 2:196. 185. SGreg, 433, 440, ed. Deshusses, Sacramentaire grégorien, 3:145–46, 152–53. 186. SGreg, 439, ed. Deshusses, Sacramentaire grégorien, 3:151–52.

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ca. 973–74, the queen simply asks to be placed on the cilicium.187 The Vita posterior of around 1002–3 specifies that this is laid on the ground (“humo”) and describes how Matilda sprinkled ashes on her head and made the sign of the cross.188 Both lives were probably written in a monastic context and draw on Sulpicius Severus’s account of St. Martin’s death. In the Vita posterior, the queen echoes the saint’s words, adding a reference to the cilicium: “Non decet christianum nisi in cilicio et cinere mori.” The roughly contemporary Life of Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg (d. 973) does not mention a cilicium but describes how holy water and ashes were sprinkled, the latter in the form of a cross, and the dying man was then laid down.189 The wording is ambiguous, but while it could mean that the water and ashes were sprinkled over the bishop, it could equally be that they were sprinkled on the ground and the body placed on top. If so, this may be the earliest reference to a cross of ashes being marked on the ground during the last rites. Although the use of the haircloth and ashes on the floor ultimately goes back to St. Martin, the cruciform element probably derives instead from the rites for the sick and dying that marked the body with a cross of ashes. The merging of elements, even if taking place primarily within a literary context, suggests a response to living traditions rather than simply the repetition of a hagiographical topos. Another, more liturgically informed, source may support the idea of a shift in emphasis at around this date. A rite for the dying described by Adhemar of Chabannes includes the application of ashes to both body and place.190 The dying person is carried to church, where he is placed on a cilicium covered in ashes, and subsequently sprinkled with holy water and marked on the forehead and chest with a cross of ashes. The priest performs the latter reciting the words from Genesis 3:19: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” The rite forms the final part of the second capitulary of Theodulf of Orléans (ca. 760–821), as given in an autograph manuscript by

187. “Bene agite ciliciumque mihi subponite”; Vita Mathildis reginae antiquior, 14, ed. Bernd Schütte, Die Lebensbeschreibungen der Königin Mathilde, MGH SSRG 66 (Hannover: Hahn, 1994), 138. In Sean Gilsdorf’s translation the queen asks to be dressed in the haircloth, but the Latin suggests she is laid upon it; Sean Gilsdorf, Queenship and Sanctity: The “Lives” of Mathilda and the “Epitaph” of Adelheid (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 86. For the dating and provenance of the texts, see Schütte, Lebensbeschreibungen der Königin Mathilde, 9–12, 42–44; Gilsdorf, Queenship and Sanctity, 15–21. 188. “Aproprinquante autem hora nona iussit cilicium humo poni et corpus moribundum supra collocari propriis manibus cinerem imponens capiti: ‘Non decet,’ inquit, ‘christianum nisi in cilicio et cinere mori.’ Deinde sancte crucis se muniens signaculo cum pace et requie obdormivit in domino secundo Idus Martii”; Vita Mathildis reginae posterior, 27, ed. Schütte, 200–1; trans. Gilsdorf, Queenship and Sanctity, 126. 189. “Asperso cinere in modum crucis. et aqua benedicta aspersa se deponi fecit”; Gerhard of Augsburg, Vita S. Oudalrici episcopi, 1.27, ed. and trans. Berschin and Häse, 290. 190. “In ecclesiam deportetur, et iaceat in cilicio superiecto cinere. . . . Et data oratione cinerem sacratum imponat capiti et pectori infirmi in crucis modum”; Theodulf of Orléans, Capitula II, 10.21–36, esp. 10.23, ed. Peter Brommer, MGH Capitula episcoporum, vol. 1 (Hannover: Hahn, 1984), 178–84, esp. 179–80.

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Adhemar, but is not found in any other manuscript testimony of the work.191 H. B. Porter suggested that it dated to around 1000, and might even have been composed by Adhemar himself.192 Certainly, the fact that the person is taken to church is suggestive of a monastic setting, as is the placing of the cilicium and ashes on the floor. From the eleventh century onward, it was common for both ashes and haircloth to be placed on the ground. The practice was known particularly in a monastic milieu, especially in Cluny and associated houses. Although there is no reference to the custom in the Cluniac Consuetudines antiquiores, the Liber tramitis and the customary of Ulrich of Zell, written in the 1070s–1080s, both describe it, indicating that the ashes were to be sprinkled on top of the cilicium.193 Bernard’s customary, which Isabelle Cochelin and Frederick Paxton have seen as seeking to clarify Ulrich’s text in various places, states that the cilicium should be laid on the ground and the ashes sprinkled in the form of a cross.194 The Constitutions of Lanfranc of Bec, understood to draw on Cluniac material, further specify that the ashes should be spread across the full length and breadth of the cloth: “ad mensuram longitudinis et latitudinis quam ipsum cilicium habet, signum crucis de cineribus faciat.”195 Modifications were made to this pattern. For example, although the customs of Hirsau derive largely from those of Cluny, here the cross of ashes was drawn on the ground and the cilicium placed on top; it is noted that the ashes were reserved for this purpose from Ash Wednesday.196 The rite could also be adapted to make the dying monk more comfortable. The customs of St. Augustine’s Canterbury state that while the ashes and cilicium were previously spread on the floor in front of the bed, they were now placed on the bed itself.197 The same approach was adopted by the Cistercians, who placed straw or matting under the

191. Brommer, Capitula episcoporum, 144. 192. H. B. Porter, “The Rites for the Dying in the Early Middle Ages, I: St Theodulf of Orleans,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 10, no. 1 (1959): 43–62. 193. Liber tramitis, 33/195.1, ed. Dinter, Liber tramitis aevi Odilonis abbatis, 272–73. The Cluniac practices have been discussed by Frederick S. Paxton in “Death by Customary at Eleventh-Century Cluny,” in From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny, ed. Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 297–318, esp. 315–18 for the text of the customary of Ulrich; Paxton, ed., with Isabelle Cochelin, The Death Ritual at Cluny in the Central Middle Ages / Le rituel de la mort à Cluny au Moyen Âge central, Disciplina monastica 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013). 194. “Cilicium ad terram expandunt, et cinerem in crucis modum desuper spargunt, et infi rmum de lecto levatum in cilicium ponunt”; Paxton and Cochelin, Death Ritual at Cluny, 90. See also Paxton, “Death by Customary,” 308, 315–18; Isabelle Cochelin, “Évolution des coutumiers monastiques dessinée à partir de l’étude de Bernard,” in Boynton and Cochelin, From Dead of Night to End of Day, esp. 52–62, for the relationship between the customaries of Ulrich and Bernard. 195. Lanfranc, Decreta, 112, ed. and trans. Knowles and Brooke, xxxix–xlii for the dependence on Cluniac material, 180–81. 196. Pius Engelbert, ed., with Candida Elvert, Willehelmi abbatis Constitutiones Hirsaugienses, 57, 2 vols., CCM 15 (Siegburg: Schmitt, 2010), 2:308–9. 197. Thompson, Customary of the Benedictine Monasteries, 1:337.

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cilicium.198 Dying on a haircloth and ashes was also practiced by communities of canons, such as the Victorines, as set out in the mid-twelfth-century Liber ordinis Sancti Victoris Parisiensis.199 It was known too within mendicant circles. The late thirteenthcentury Lives of the Brethren of the Order of Preachers describes two dying Dominicans being laid on ashes or sackcloth and ashes.200 As in the tenth century, references to the practice are found in the Lives of prominent ecclesiastics, as well as some royal figures. From the British Isles, examples include Anselm of Canterbury (d. 1109) and Aelred of Rievaulx (d. 1167); on the continent, Richard of St.-Vanne (d. 1046) and Jutta of Sponheim (d. 1136).201 On one level such references reflect the implementation of the practices prescribed in the customaries. Indeed, some accounts of individual deaths characterize the custom as a monastic one: “more monachorum” in Walter Daniel’s Life of Aelred; “ut monastici moris est” in the memoirs of Guibert of Nogent.202 Dying in this way expressed a shared identity that transcended the bounds of the individual’s own community, whose presence was an important part of the ritual more generally. At the same time, in emphasizing the figures’ ideal deaths, such accounts also marked them out as religious leaders and sometimes even as candidates for sainthood. Indeed, the description of the later canonized King Louis IX of France as dying on sackcloth and ashes has been characterized by Cecilia Gaposchkin as conforming to “one of the most common hagiographical tropes of western sanctity.”203 While this characterization seems to underestimate the wider parameters of the practice as set out in the customaries, for a layman to adopt or be described as adopting this mode of death had clear rhetorical effect. In the case of Louis IX, it corresponds to another

198. “Cum aliquis mortis penitus propinquaverit, ponatur ad terram super sagum,” with some manuscripts adding “aliqua matta vel aliquanto straminis subposito” or “supposito prius cinere in modum crucis et aliqua matta vel aliquanto straminis”; Bruno Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica officia Cisterciensis ordinis’ des Cod. 1711 von Trient,” Analecta sacri ordinis Cisterciensis 12 (1956): 257; discussed in Megan Cassidy-Welch, Monastic Spaces and Their Meanings: Thirteenth-Century English Cistercian Monasteries, Medieval Church Studies 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), 226–28. 199. “Cum frater morti penitus appropinquauerit, ad terram cilicium extendatur, et desuper cinis in modum crucis spargatur, ac deinde superponatur”; Luc Jocqué and Ludo Milis, eds., Liber ordinis Sancti Victoris Parisiensis, CCCM 61 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1984), 261. 200. Gérard de Frachet, Vitae fratrum ordinis praedicatorum, 5.3.9–10, ed. Reichert, 264–65; 6.3, trans. Conway, 230–31. 201. Eadmer, Vita Sancti Anselmi, 66, ed. and trans. R. W. Southern, The Life of Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury (London: Nelson, 1962), 143; Walter Daniel, Vita Aelredi, 57, ed. and trans. F. M. Powicke, in The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx by Walter Daniel (London: Nelson, 1950), 62; Hugh of Flavigny, Chronicon, ed. Georg H. Pertz, in MGH SS 8:404–5; Anna Silvas, trans., Jutta and Hildegard: The Biographical Sources (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), 79. 202. Daniel, Vita Aelredi, 57, ed. and trans. Powicke, 62; Guibert of Nogent, Monodiae, 1.21, ed. and trans. Edmond-René Labande, Guibert de Nogent. Autobiographie (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1981), 172; trans. Paul J. Archambault, A Monk’s Confession: The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984), 75. 203. Benjamin Guérard, ed., Cartulaire de l’église Notre-Dame de Paris, 4 vols., Collections des cartulaires de France 4 (Paris: Crapelet, 1850), 1:190; Gaposchkin, Making of Saint Louis, 27.

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instance in which interaction with the floor surface articulated piety and humility on a par with the religious orders, when he sat on the dusty ground with the friars at Sens. The material context of the last rites could also be adapted and exceeded in hagiographical writing to make a claim for particular renunciatory qualities. St. Francis was said by Bonaventure to have lain naked on the bare earth (“super nudam humum se totum nudatum . . . prostravit”) as he prepared for death.204 Here too the action was part of a wider tendency on the part of the saint to embrace the humility of the ground. While this might be characterized as bare, on one occasion the saint is described as sitting on the ground, with his plate “in cinere.”205 In these cases, the setting for death emphasized first of all an individual identity, forming the culmination of expressions of humility involving proximity to the ground during life. At the same time, dying on a cilicium and ashes also established a certain commonality between exceptional individuals, stretching back to the ultimate example of St. Martin. As Gaposchkin has noted, it can be difficult to discern how far such figures modeled themselves on St. Martin and how far their supporters and biographers were concerned to fit them into this tradition.206 Certainly, Aelred’s biographer later cited Sulpicius Severus’s Vita Martini in defense of his treatment of the following chapter in the Life, and another aspect of Bishop Ulrich’s Life has been understood to have been modeled on the Vita Martini.207 However, Gaposchkin is no doubt right that exemplary figures were likely to have been in the minds of protagonists and writers alike. More generally, dying on sackcloth and ashes could form part of a wider conscious orchestration of death rituals on the part of monastic leaders themselves.208 Outside this tradition, there is evidence of similar ideas. The Latin and Irish Lives of Ciarán of Clonmacnois contain a passing reference to the hide of a cow owned by the saint, which suggests that it was being employed as a form of cilicium for the last rites at the monastery, since “every man who shall have died upon it shall possess eternal life with Christ.”209 While this passage may refer to a virtual entry into the monastic

204. Bonaventure, Legenda maior, 14.3, in Legendae S. Francisci, 621–22; trans. Armstrong, Hellmann, and Short, Francis of Assisi, 2:642. 205. Thomas of Celano, Vita secunda S. Francisci, 2.31, in Legendae S. Francisci, 168; trans. Armstrong, Hellmann, and Short, Francis of Assisi, 2:287. 206. Gaposchkin, Making of Saint Louis, 27. 207. Walter Daniel, Epistola ad Mauricium, ed. and trans. Powicke, in The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx by Walter Daniel, 77; Georg Kreuzer, “Die ‘Vita sancti Oudalrici episcopi Augustani’ des Augsburger Dompropstes Gerhard,” in Bischof Ulrich von Augsburg, 890–973: Seine Zeit, sein Leben, seine Verehrung. Festschrift aus Anlaß des tausendjährigen Jubiläums seiner Kanonisation im Jahre 993, ed. Manfred Weitlauff (Weissenhorn: A. Konrad, 1993), 174–75. 208. Steven Vanderputten, “Death as a Symbolic Arena: Abbatial Leadership, Episcopal Authority, and the “Ostentatious Death” of Richard of Saint-Vanne (d. 1046),” Viator 44, no. 2 (2013): 29–48. 209. “Omnis homo qui mortuus fuerit super eam, vitam eternam cum Christo possidebit”; Vita Sancti Ciarani, 15, ed. Charles Plummer, in Vitae sanctorum Hiberniae, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910), 1:205; English translation from R. A. Stewart Macalister, ed. and trans., The Latin and Irish Lives of Ciaran

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community at the time of death, the almost miraculous dispensation seems to be of a different order from the implications of humility attached to the haircloth and is in keeping with the benefits offered by certain Irish saints to those buried in their cemeteries. Yet the use of the hide to mark out a particular space for death and to create a connection with a saint is not so far from the functions of the cilicium. The version of the Latin Life that contains the reference is found in a fifteenth-century manuscript in Dublin, part of a collection thought to have been compiled from earlier material in the early thirteenth century, although the work itself may date back to the seventh century. The Irish Life is preserved in the fifteenth-century Book of Lismore. In her study of Clonmacnois, Annette Kehnel dates its initial composition to the early tenth century, with revisions in the late eleventh or early twelfth, and associates the story of the hide with tenth-century claims that earlier rulers had been buried in the graveyard.210 This date would correspond with the use of the cilicium elsewhere. Although most of the sources pertain to a monastic context, and the custom is sometimes explicitly characterized as a monastic one, there is evidence to suggest that lay people might also wish to die on sackcloth and ashes. An English manuscript dating from the eleventh century contains an ordo for visiting the dying, including the laity, in which ashes mixed with holy water are used to make a cross on the person’s breast, while the haircloth is laid on the ground and sprinkled with ashes and holy water. The cloth is set aside until later, when the commendatio animae indicated that the corpse was laid out on it.211 The early eleventh-century Sacramentary of Warmundus of Ivrea includes a series of ten images related to death and funerary rituals, of which two show a dying man laid out on the cilicium.212 The first shows the man lying naked on a striped rug and attended to by a group of lay people, with the legend in the frame reading: “cilicio posito / spe fruitur domino / moriturus sternitur” (“the cilicium having been laid down / he delights in hope in the Lord / the dying man is laid out”) (fig. 71).213 The second shows the man, now covered from the waist down, with his soul departing at the moment of death,

(London: SPCK, 1921), 24. See Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans., Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890; repr. Felinfach: Llanerch, 1995), 123, 268, for a similar statement in the Irish Life. 210. Annette Kehnel, Clonmacnois—the Church and Lands of St. Ciarán: Change and Continuity in an Irish Monastic Foundation (6th to 16th Century), Vita regularis: Ordnungen and Deutungen religiosen Lebens in Mittelalter 8 (Münster: Lit, 1997), 14–21, 117–18. 211. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 482; the manuscript is discussed in Thompson, Dying and Death, 67–82, esp. 77. Thompson suggests that the body could subsequently have been shrouded and interred in the haircloth. 212. Sacramentary of Warmundus, Ivrea, Biblioteca capitolare, MS 86, fols. 191–206v; Luigi Magnani, Le miniature del Sacramentario d’Ivrea e di altri codici Warmondiani, Codices ex ecclesiasticis Italiae bybliothecis delecti phototypice expressi 6 (Vatican City: BAV, 1934), 37–39, plates XXXV–XL. 213. Ivrea, Biblioteca capitolare, MS 86, fol. 193v.

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Fig. 71. Dying man laid on a cilicium, Sacramentary of Warmundus, northern Italy, early eleventh century. Ivrea, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS 86, fol. 193v. L. Bettazzi et al., eds., Il Sacramentario del Vescovo Warmondo di Ivrea, fine secolo X: Ivrea, Biblioteca capitolare, MS 31 LXXXVI (Turin: Priuli & Verlucca, 1990). Photo: © Priuli & Verlucca editori.

a group of clerics at his head and a group of lay people at his feet.214 The scenes in question tend to be discussed in terms of mourning gestures, but they are also important visualizations of the cilicium, which marked out a space for dying, just as other kinds of textiles marked out a place for prostrate prayer.215 Although this is a rare depiction of the

214. Ivrea, Biblioteca capitolare, MS 86, fol. 195v. 215. Schmitt, Raison des gestes, 211–24; Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 53–59; Diane Hughes, “Mourning Rites, Memory, and Civilization in Premodern Italy,” in Riti e rituali nelle società medievali, ed. Jacques Chiffoleau, Lauro Martines, and Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1994), 28–29.

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cilicium, some later medieval prayer books show corpses laid out on reed mats in what may be a continuation of this tradition.216 Although the ashes and haircloth both had penitential connotations, when placed on the ground they also served to mark out the space as distinct from the surrounding area. In effect it became, temporarily, a place of penance. Shaping the ashes into a cross further designated the place as set apart for a religious purpose, perhaps even as holy. To a certain extent, this development simply represents the rearrangement of elements already present in the ritual tradition, with the sign of the cross being transferred from the surface of the body to that of the place where it lay. This treatment of the ground suggests a concern to create a fitting location for an important moment of transition, which is consistent with the interest in the floor surface exhibited by other rites such as coronation. At the same time, it is sufficiently close to the way in which the ground was marked during the consecration ceremony to suggest a relationship between the two rituals, especially given the reference to consecration in the supplementary material to the Gregorian Sacramentary. Notably, the material is also used for the alphabet cross, while the form corresponds to the cross of holy water sprinkled on the pavement later on in the ceremony. I suggested in chapter 2 that the use of ashes for church consecration might itself result from a connection with baptism and penance. In this case, the movement of ideas may have been in the other direction. Since the cruciform marking of the pavement is attested in consecration ritual from at least the ninth century and was probably in use from the third quarter of the eighth, it is possible that the idea of transferring the cross from the body to the haircloth in some way responded to this practice. To establish the nature of the connection between the two rites requires a closer investigation of the sources than is possible here. However, the crosses arguably functioned in similar ways. Firstly, their temporary nature meant that the ground could be marked with the sign of Christ in places where a permanent cross would be inappropriate, not least because it might be trodden on. Secondly, not only was the ground marked out as holy, but there is a comparable emphasis on reaching the farthest extents of the space concerned. As the crosses in the church went between the four corners of the building or spanned its length and breadth, so Lanfranc’s Constitutions stipulated that the cross should extend to the edges of the haircloth. However, despite these similarities with the designation of permanent sacred spaces, the flexibility of the combination of ashes and textile essentially allowed an appropriate space to be created anywhere. In his Deeds of Louis the Fat, Suger describes how the dying king (d. 1137) wished to go

216. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 77, fol. 1r (France, ca. 1450–1470); discussed in Gloria K. Fiero, “Death Ritual in Fifteenth-Century Manuscript Illumination,” Journal of Medieval History 10, no. 4 (1984): 284. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS 1907, fol. 47v (1486–87); Wolfgang Hilger, ed., Das ältere Gebetbuch Maximilians I. Vollst. Faks.-Ausg. im Originalformat des Codex Vindobonensis 1907 d. Österr. Nationalbibliothek (Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1973), fol. 47v.

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to St.-Denis but was too frail to make the journey, so instead he had himself laid on a carpet that had been spread on the ground and marked with a cross of ashes. The use of a carpet (“tapeta”) rather than a haircloth probably reflects the king’s status, rather like the silken cloths spread under the prince in the English coronation rite. Since Louis was thereby seen to have “fulfilled with his heart, mind, and will what he could not carry out in deed,” this space was clearly felt in some way to approximate to the holy ground of the church and monastery.217 As the custom was particularly observed in a monastic context, Suger may have also have included it in his account to give the king an almost Benedictine end. Indeed, every use of the cilicium and cross of ashes potentially expressed these two elements: on the one hand, the temporary likening of an unconsecrated place to a consecrated one; on the other hand, its association with other locations that had been marked in the same manner. Rather as contact with particular places used for coronation rites, or for prostration and genuflection more generally, could reflect and shape a common identity among those who stood or lay there, so this latter aspect emphasized an element of likeness between the dying, particularly significant within religious communities. Part of the rationale behind the use of the cilicium and ashes was their very flexibility and transience. Yet it was possible for permanent and temporary floor coverings to be combined in a fi xed spot, creating a more pronounced sense of a common identity. As discussed by Sharon Farmer, the pavement that once decorated the infi rmary chapel of the abbey of Marmoutier at Tours was the location of the last rites for all the members of the community.218 The chapel was probably constructed under Abbot Garnier (r. 1137–55) and is thought to have been consecrated by Pope Alexander III in 1162, although an infirmary chapel did exist previously, since one is mentioned in the account of the dedication of the main abbey church by Pope Urban II in 1096.219 Although the pavement has been entirely lost, a drawing and description found among the records assembled by Dom Étienne Housseau and others in the eighteenth century led Farmer to identify it as a thirteenth-century tiled floor (fig. 72).220 It featured a composition with a dying monk being ministered to by two of the other brothers, with images of the

217. “Quod opere non potuit, corde et animo et voluntate complevit”; Suger, Vita Ludovici grossi regis, 34, ed. and trans. Henri Waquet, Suger: Vie de Louis VI Le Gros (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1964), 284; trans. Richard Cusimano and John Moorhead, The Deeds of Louis the Fat (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1992), 158. 218. Farmer, Communities of Saint Martin, 142, plate 4, following Edmond Martène, Histoire de l’abbaye de Marmoutier, 2 vols., ed. C. Chevalier, Mémoires de la Société archéologique de Touraine 24–25 (Tours: Guilland-Verger, 1874–75), 2:124. See also Charles Lelong, “Mourir à Marmoutier: Cimetières, tombes et pratiques funéraires,” Bulletin de la Société archéologique de Touraine 43 (1992): 475. 219. Chronicon abbatum Majoris monasterii, ed. Salmon, Recueil de chroniques de Touraine, 321. Martène ascribed the consecration of the chapel to Pope Alexander III in 1162; Histoire de l’abbaye de Marmoutier, 2:124. For the 1096 dedication, see Textus de dedicatione ecclesiae Majoris monasterii, ed. Salmon, 340. 220. Paris, BnF, MS Touraine Anjou 5, fol. 139r (no. 1848). The description beneath the sketch implies that the infirmary chapel of St.-Benoît, which was demolished in 1699, was still standing. Martène wrote

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Fig. 72. Drawing of the pavement in the infirmary chapel, Marmoutier. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Touraine Anjou 5, fol. 139r (no. 1848). Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

four Evangelists at the four corners. The inscription encircling the central scene reported the desire of the monk to die in that very spot: “Cum dabor exire de mundo, jussus obire; Hic peto finire, precor hinc mihi detur abire” (“When, bidden to die, I am given to exit from this world, I desire to meet my end here, I pray that I might be able to leave from here”). The use of the words “hic” and “hinc,” reminiscent of the inscription at St.-Martin d’Ainay, underlines the importance of place for an understanding of the work. At Marmoutier, the images in the pavement emphasized this sense of shared space, both commemorating where the rite had taken place in the past and indicating where it should be held on future occasions. During the ceremony, it is possible that the figures of the monks were obscured by ashes and the cilicium. However, their presence was perhaps more significant than their visibility; they were still mirrored by the bodies above,

of a stone engraved with the figures of the monks and noted that it was moved to the main church in 1714. Martène, Histoire de l’abbaye de Marmoutier, 2:124, 558.

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as with the figure of the pope at St.-Martin d’Ainay, and the ashes and haircloth were appropriate coverings. In this respect, a comparison can be drawn with the Westminster pavement, which may have been covered for at least some of the coronation ceremony. Here too the textiles would have testified to the significance of what they covered as well as who they were spread under. At other times, the images at Marmoutier prompted onlookers to envisage the absent bodies and remember the ceremonies they had witnessed. The repeated use of the space bound those coming into contact with it to those of their community who had already died, an essential aspect of the commemorative function of the monastic life. This might seem to be a case where the general was of greater importance than the particular, since it is an unnamed monk depicted on the floor rather than a specific pope. However, the fact the custom was widely associated with St. Martin suggests that this was also a way for the community to stress their links with him, especially since they did not possess his body, which was enshrined in the church of St.-Martin outside the walls of Tours. The decorated pavement falls within a long tradition of highlighting locations of particular importance at Marmoutier. Gregory of Tours describes how pilgrims, especially monastic ones, came to venerate the places that had been made holy by contact with St. Martin.221 One monk is said to have “visited each depression that the blessed man had made while praying, each spot that he had sanctified while chanting psalms, and each place that had offered him sleep for his weary body or food as he grew weak from fasting.”222 The depressions made by the saint may suggest that the ground was seen to have been worn away by constant use and thus reflect his commitment to prayer, but they are also consistent with the phenomenon of impressions in the ground proving and commemorating the transformative presence of a holy individual. This veneration of place may ultimately derive from the model of honoring locations sanctified by the presence of Christ, a form of cult that was prompted by a more fundamental absence of bodily remains. As the extract from the Liber de virtutibus Sancti Martini suggests, the spots visited at Marmoutier included not only where St. Martin had knelt or perhaps lain in prayer, but also where he had slept. Not long after the saint’s death, the monks had four verses displayed near the saint’s cell. One, positioned over the saint’s bed, described the cinders on which the saint had slept: “We see here what sorts of weapons the warrior often uses / [even] when it happened that the man was absent; / note the black coals, each of them horrifying, / and the clouds of dust, all most foul. / A cloak, a stone beneath his head and a pile of cinders, / you were considered a bed here for his

221. Van Dam, Saints and Their Miracles, 15–16, 128–29. 222. “Qui dum singula loca visitat, qua vir beatus aut orando depresserat aut psallendo sanctificaverat, ubi vel fesso corpori somnum vel inaedia deficienti cibum praebuerat”; Gregory of Tours, Liber de virtutibus Sancti Martini, 2.39, ed. Krusch, 173; trans. Raymond Van Dam, Saints and Their Miracles, 248.

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weary limbs.” 223 Another episode described by Gregory indicates that the bed was cordoned off with a balustrade, like the place where the saint had stood in Artonne. Since Martin had actually died at Candes, where a similar bed of cinders was treated as a shrine, the promotion of the saint’s cell at Marmoutier may reflect rivalry with this establishment as well as with the church of St.-Martin in Tours.224 Another verse, placed in the cell, began each line with the words “here lived”: here lived the man, the bishop, the fortunate recluse.225 The repetition of the word “hic,” shared with later prayers said during consecration ceremonies as well as the pavement inscriptions at Lyon and Marmoutier itself, emphasizes the power of the location. While it is uncertain how long the verses were visible at the abbey, they were preserved in various copies of the Martinellus, a collection of texts relating to St. Martin found as an appendix to the writings of Sulpicius Severus in manuscripts from the ninth century onward. Memory of the verses is certainly likely to have been preserved within the monastery. The decorated pavement in the infirmary chapel displays a similar interest in marking places on the ground distinguished by the presence of prostrate bodies, although it functions in a different way. Where the bed had been cordoned off like vestigia and other places trodden or touched by Christ and the saints, the pavement invited repeated use by successive brothers. The first celebrated a unique individual; the second reinforced the bonds of a community. This distinction may explain why an image of the saint was not included in the design, even though the custom of dying on the ground on ashes and a haircloth replicated St. Martin’s own actions. The choice not only avoided people walking on (and dishonoring) such an image when the pavement was not being used for the last rites, but also avoided repeating Martin’s action above an image of the same. The examples examined in chapters 1 and 4 suggest that such an act could have implied an inappropriate level of likeness with the saint. By highlighting the customs surrounding the dying but placing an anonymous monk at the center of the composition, the monks of Marmoutier could still cast themselves as their founder’s successors in a way that informed a wider collective identity. The monastic community at Marmoutier had particular reason to highlight the spot used for the laying out of the dying with a figurative pavement. However, examples elsewhere suggest that it was still important to use the same place over time. These locations might be defined by less explicit markers known to the community. At Christ

223. “Qualia sint isthic bellantis tela frequenter / Vidimus, absentem cum fuit esse virum: / Carbones atros cerneres, horrentia quaeque, / Pulveris et nebulas, squalida cuncta nimis. / Cilicium, subter capiti lapis et cinis altus / Exesis membris hic, videbare, torus”; Pietri, Ville de Tours du IVe au VIe siècle, 804, appendix 6, no. 4; trans. Van Dam, Saints and Their Miracles, 311. 224. “Lectulum autem non aliter dicitur, nisi quod in pavimentum illud, substrato cinere”; Gregory of Tours, Liber de virtutibus Sancti Martini, 3.22, ed. Krusch, 188; trans. Van Dam, Saints and Their Miracles, 268–69. 225. Pietri, Ville de Tours du IVe au VIe siècle, 803, appendix 6, no. 2; trans. Van Dam, Saints and Their Miracles, 311.

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Church Priory, Canterbury, dead or dying monks were placed on a particular stone in the infirmary chapel; fifteen cases are noted in the fifteenth century in John Stone’s Chronicle.226 Meriel Connor has suggested that this stone slab might have had Christological parallels, especially the veneration of the stone on which Christ had been laid in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. What marked the Canterbury stone out was the repeated use by the members of the community. It is difficult to say whether the slab was raised above the ground, but the Marmoutier comparison as well as Lanfranc’s Constitutions, which seem to have stipulated that the monk would be placed on the ground by his bed, suggest that it could have been set in the pavement. At St. Alban’s Abbey a stone in the infirmary appears to have been customarily used for the anointing of dying monks; Abbot John of the Cell (d. 1214) was placed “on the stone always used for this ceremony.”227 Prostration was characterized as bringing the body fully into contact with the ground, and this defined both positive and negative attitudes to the position. With the very word “humility” understood to derive from the word for the ground, the position embodied a virtue. It also held within itself the potential for future elevation, either in this life or the next. Just one of a number of postures that could be adopted during prayer, the position was sometimes perceived to be too humiliating, involving a loss of face, or as coming too close to a position of ease, although it was also possible to display humility through sleeping on the bare ground as well. The depiction of full prostration in prayer manuals and in murals designed to inspire prayerful behavior has been seen to offer an acceptable vision of the position by minimizing the contact between face and ground, or by showing a saint as a model to emulate. Both in the ambiguity of the position and the way in which its significance might be fi xed in representation, this bears some resemblance to the implications of standing on something as discussed in the previous chapters. However, where depictions of trampling outnumber its performance, while the use of liturgical markers went largely unillustrated, representations of prostration are more closely tied to the practice, at least as this was carried out in prayer, and some can be seen as prescriptive.

226. William George Searle, ed., Christ Church, Canterbury: 1. The Chronicle of John Stone; 2. List of the Deans, Priors, and Monks of Christ Church Monastery, Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Octavo Publications 34 (Cambridge: Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1902), 7, 13, 15, 17, for some examples, 115 for “prope magnam petram.” Meriel Connor, trans., John Stone’s Chronicle: Christ Church Priory, Canterbury, 1417–1472 (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2010), esp. 36–37, table 2. Connor, “Fifteenth-Century Monastic Obituaries: The Evidence of Christ Church Priory, Canterbury,” in Memory and Commemoration in Medieval England: Proceedings of the 2008 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Caroline M. Barron and Clive Burgess (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2010), esp. 154–55. 227. “Super lapidem ad hoc consuetum”; Henry Thomas Riley, ed., Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani, 3 vols., RS 28.4 (London: Longman, 1867–69), 1:246; David Preest, trans., James G. Clark, ed., The Deeds of the Abbots of St Albans: Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2019), 361.

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Although the idea of the ground that informs characterizations of prostration is the bare ground, in practice prostration was also carried out on a variety of floor coverings. The range of possibilities played a part in shaping and displaying the particular significance of the gesture. Where the bare ground was indeed employed, this was not so much the default mode as indicative of the specific sense of the action. It could play a part in presenting prostration as penitential or punitive, or it could be understood as testimony of particular humility and even saintly qualities. As part of a renunciatory lifestyle, it implies a rejection of floor coverings; indeed, the term itself, “terra nuda,” has implications of stripping layers away. Where Jacques de Vitry’s account of Mary of Oegnies contrasts her sleeping on the floor of the church with those lying comfortably in bed between their sheets, it was common enough to perform prostration on textiles that this may have been the expected stratigraphy. Although such coverings might be laid down in particular parts of the church, including where people knelt regularly to pray, and could be used on certain occasions during the liturgical year, there was also the potential for them to be placed under specific individuals for short periods within a single ceremony. They fulfilled a dual purpose of demarcating a particular place for the action vis-à-vis the rest of the floor surface and mediating between body and ground in such a way as to reflect the nature of both person and event. The textiles that might be spread under bishops praying prostrate during the church consecration ritual partly reflected their status; they were, after all, characterized as walking on textiles. Similarly, the individual carpets set down for the priest, deacon, and cantor during the Good Friday liturgy of Fruttuaria and St. Blasien may also reflect their roles, again identities that could also be confirmed by things on which they might stand. However, such a setting and combination of elements also helped to convey the sense of their actions as ones of petition or veneration. Permanent paving too could act as a platform for prostration, with varying degrees of intentionality. Textual references give a sense of a spectrum of existing paving elements being employed or appropriated by individuals as places for prayer. Decorated pavements in areas of the church commonly used for prostration, such as in front of the altar, will also have fulfilled that function by default, although this use of the area was part of the ensemble of activities that encouraged decoration in the first place. However, on occasion, floor decoration could more specifically commemorate where someone had knelt or lain in prayer and invite others to do likewise. In these ways, it partakes of the same dynamic of use outlined for the pavement underfoot, with particular elements coming into their own on particular occasions and under particular bodies, and also encouraging repeated use of a place. The three rites discussed in more detail confirm the way in which rituals that brought things or people into contact with the ground could be further shaped and articulated by their material setting, or more specifically by the elements that mediated between the body and the bare ground. Attempting to reconstruct how a ceremony described in a text was carried out in a given location, it is possible to build up a picture of a quite complex layering of elements that could combine decorated paving and textiles, or even paving, textiles, and ashes. This layering offered the potential for material and

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indeed image to reinforce, complement, or nuance each other in the meaning they gave to the place and the action. When the king prayed prostrate during the coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey the precious textiles on which he lay and the equally precious marble pavement over which these were probably spread combined to strengthen the significance of the act as a stage in a process leading to exalted office. During the last rites, the pavement at the infirmary chapel at Marmoutier, with its depiction of a dying monk flanked by his brethren, together with the covering of haircloth and ashes that went back to the death of St. Martin of Tours, will have emphasized the position of the individual on the ground as an expression of humility and experience of community that not only bound the monks to each other but also to their founder. Yet if, as may have been the case at Farfa, the humiliation of relics took place on a haircloth spread over marble paving, did both soften the indignity of the position on the ground, or did the cilicium serve to restore the humility of an otherwise prestigious surface? These combinations of floor coverings confirm the dynamism of the surface, in terms of both the heightened significance of permanent elements and the introduction of temporary ones on particular occasions. However, they also bring to the fore the issue of visibility during the moment of the ceremony itself, since the upper layer is likely to have obscured the lower. Covering one layer with another may have negated it or insulated the body from it, but where both can be seen to work toward the same ends, it is important to bear in mind that they may not have been visible at the same time. In part this situation suggests that the significance of the layers rested on knowledge of the site, or perhaps more fundamentally on what was there as much as what was seen to be there. It also suggests the role played by permanent decoration in bringing to mind the ceremony at other times. Finally, both of these points hold true for the body itself, which might equally obscure liturgical markers when lying or standing on them.

6 BETWEEN THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

Qui se humiliat, exaltabitur. [He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.] —Luke 14:11

The final element to add into the stratigraphic ensemble that is both the focus and framework of this book is the dead body. As discussed in the previous chapter, practices that brought the living into contact with the ground could prompt or be prompted by thoughts of death and the afterlife. Full prostration was conceived of as being as close to the ground as it was possible to get in this life, with St. Augustine noting that to descend further would be to be buried or obliterated (“obruere”).1 At the same time, as a position of ultimate humility it also held the promise of elevation and indeed resurrection. More specifically, a position close to the ground in life could be seen to prevent remaining beneath it for eternity or, in other words, to quote Augustine again, those that cleave to the ground will be dug up from the ground.2 Conversely, lying easefully or lustfully between sheets presaged an ultimate resting place between maggots and worms.3 For this reason, people might be placed on the ground, its humility further emphasized with a hair cloth and ashes, at the moment of death itself. Already, in this way, the position of the dead body was connected to that of the living. The present chapter concentrates on the identity of the dead body as this was expressed through its relationship to the earth, and to paving and people above it. The first part of the chapter addresses two of these elements—the dead and the ground itself— arguing that the disposition of the body vis-à-vis the surface of the ground served to indicate the relative sanctity of person and place. The normal stratigraphy in which the

1. Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos, 43 (44):24, ed. Dekkers and Fraipont, 1:491. 2. Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos, 43 (44):26, ed. Dekkers and Fraipoint, 1:492. 3. Jacques de Vitry, Vita Marie de Oegnies, 1.10, ed. Huygens, 83; trans. King, 71.

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bodies of the faithful lay concealed beneath consecrated ground is thrown into relief by bodies that disrupted or resisted this conventional layering. This phenomenon could involve both those who undershot and those who exceeded the status of the ground. On the one hand, those outside the community of believers could be removed or barred from holy ground, sometimes ending up on the surface. On the other hand, the bodies of the saints might be elevated above ground in raised tombs. In both cases, not only did ecclesiastical legislation bring this about, but miracle stories credited the ground itself with a certain agency in expelling or edging out inappropriate bodies. The second part of the chapter returns to the conventional body and places it within a wider configuration of layers, including paving, temporary floor coverings, and the bodies of the living above ground. Since this topic intersects with a substantial literature on burial practices, funerary art, and commemoration, this section focuses especially on those aspects of burial that build on the understanding of interaction with the ground established in previous chapters, and particularly the implications of burial underfoot. While noting instances in which walking on tombs was avoided for reasons of respect on account of the negative characterization of treading on things, I address in more detail the circumstances in which it was embraced, asking what and whom people asked to be buried under. This spatial arrangement was not just about demonstrating humility or prompting remembrance but could also express more specific concerns and identities. We have seen that standing or lying on certain flooring elements could have positive associations that shaped both place and person, and connected people over time. Burial underfoot harnessed these patterns of use to link the dead to past and future activities above ground, offering posthumous involvement in particular communities and rites, the perpetuation of personal and official practices, and even, on occasion, saintly protection. If this last configuration saw normal bodies located below saintly ones, the fi nal section of the chapter considers holy bodies that remained below ground, highlighting ways in which their presence might be signaled or dramatically revealed by what lay above them, both paving elements and people. Regardless of their relative status, conceiving of the living and dead as occupying different layers of the same vertical space in this way allows burial practices to be related to the wider potential for interaction with the surface of the ground to shape individual and collective identities.

Covering Over, Casting Out, and Raising Up Throughout the Middle Ages the majority of Christians could expect to be buried in the ground when they died, whether inside or outside a church. The floor of a church could cover human bodies for a number of reasons. On the one hand, the church might have been constructed over existing burials, either by chance or deliberately, in the case of structures elevated over the tomb of a saint. On the other hand, some people sought burial inside existing churches, in order to be near relics and the celebration of the liturgy, or to rest in consecrated ground more generally. Both situations raised the

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possibility of undesirable bodies, incompatible with the sacred qualities of the site or the restricted confines of the space. The result was that some had to be removed, either before consecration or afterward. While capitularies and decretals address when this removal should be done by human hands, other sorts of texts credit the ground itself with the agency to discern and cast out. Often the point rests on the identity or misdemeanors of the excluded, but the sources also reflect attitudes to sacred space, and to a surface that covered and concealed. The first Capitulary of Bishop Theodulf of Orléans, written in the last years of the eighth century or at the beginning of the ninth, includes a statute regarding burial beneath the floor of the church. The bishop stated that while it had been customary in that region to bury people in the church, the sheer volume of bodies made it necessary to restrict such burials to members of the clergy and to laymen who had lived a particularly worthy life (“persona sacerdotis aut cuiuslibet iusti homines”).4 The need may be a result of a trend toward churchyard burials from field cemeteries in the late seventh and eighth centuries. Already in 563 the Council of Braga had issued decrees forbidding burial within the church building, and in 813 the Council of Mainz legislated against church burial except for “bishops, abbots, worthy priests, or faithful laity.”5 Theodulf, however, also made an exception for the bodies already buried in the church, which were not to be removed. Rather, the reverence of the church was to be maintained by laying the pavement over the top (“pavimento desuper facto”), so that no trace of the tombs was visible (“nullo tumulorum vestigio apparente”).6 The important consideration here is the visibility of the tombs and thus the general appearance of the church interior. Although Theodulf differentiates between new candidates for burial, no concern is expressed about the identity of those already buried there. This attitude contrasts with texts that recommended a greater selectivity, often in the context of prohibitions against consecrating a church built over existing burials.7 For example, the late seventh- or early eighth-century penitential associated with Theodore of Tarsus addressed the question of non-Christian burials, stipulating that it was forbidden to sanctify a church in which the bodies of unbelievers (“mortuorum cadavera infidelium”) were buried, but if it seemed suitable for consecration, the

4. Theodulf of Orléans, Capitula I, 9, ed. Brommer, Capitula episcoporum, 109. 5. “Item placuit, ut corpora defunctorum nullo modo in basilica sanctorum sepeliantur”; Concilium Bracarense II, 18, ed. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, 9:779; “Nullus mortuus infra ecclesiam sepeliatur, nisi episcopi, aut abbates, aut digni presbyteri, vel fideles laici”; Concilium Moguntiacum, 52, ed. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, 14:75. 6. “Corpora vero, quae antiquitus in ecclesiis sepulta sunt, nequaquam proiciantur, sed tumuli, qui apparent, profundius in terram mittantur, et pavimento desuper facto, nullo tumulorum vestigio apparente, ecclesiae reverentia conservetur”; Theodulf of Orléans, Capitula I, 9, ed. Brommer, Capitula episcoporum, 109. 7. On this issue, see Michel Lauwers, Naissance du cimetière: Lieux sacrés et terre des morts dans l’Occident médiéval (Paris: Aubier, 2005), 132–37.

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bodies should be removed and the woodwork scraped or washed. If the church had already been consecrated, Mass could be celebrated, again so long as those who were buried there were religious men (“religiosi”). Should a “paganus” be buried there it was better to cleanse the church and cast the corpse out.8 The circumstances that led to such an injunction have been the object of discussion. Patrick Wormald understood the passage to refer to the conversion of a preexisting building into a church; Donald Bullough saw it as referring to a chapel in a cemetery that had been in use since the pagan period.9 In both interpretations, however, the presence of unbaptized bodies is seen as incompatible with consecration, and interest lies in the removal of unsuitable bodies from the ground. The same stipulations are found in a slightly fuller form as two separate entries in the Decreta of Burchard of Worms and Ivo of Chartres, where they were attributed to two early North African councils.10 Perhaps it was for the sake of consistency therefore that when Burchard and Ivo incorporated Bishop Theodulf’s statute into their works, under the impression that it stemmed from the Council of Meaux, it was modified to stipulate that existing tombs should not be removed unless they were of pagans: “nisi sint paganorum.”11 This exception gives a rather different impression from Theodulf’s original assumption that the church has already been there for some time and had simply become full. There are echoes of both traditions in Sicardus of Cremona’s Mitrale. After explaining the procedure for writing the alphabet cross on the pavement during

8. “In ecclesia ubi mortuorum cadavera infidelium sepeliuntur, sacrificare [Al., sanctificare] non licet: sed si apta videtur ad consecrandum, inde evulsa, et rasis vel lotis lignis ejus reaedificetur. Si haec consecrata prius fuit, missas in ea celebrare licet, si religiosi ibi sepulti sunt. Si vero paganus, sic mundare, et jactare foras melius est”; Theodori Poenitentiale, 1, PL 99:927a; for a translation see The Penitential of Theodore, 2.1.4–5, in John T. McNeill and Helena M. Gamer, Medieval Handbooks of Penance: A Translation of the Principal Libri poenitentiales and Selections from Related Documents (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 199. 9. Patrick Wormald, “Bede, Beowulf and the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy,” in Wormald, The Times of Bede, 625–865: Studies in Early English Christian Society and its Historian, ed. Stephen Baxter (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 45; Donald Bullough, “Burial, Community and Belief in the Early Medieval West,” in Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society: Studies Presented to J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ed. Patrick Wormald, with Donald Bullough and Roger Collins (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), 189. 10. “Ecclesiam in qua mortuorum cadavera infidelium sepeliuntur sanctificare non licet, sed apta videtur ad consecrandum, [modo] inde evulsis corporibus, et rasis parietibus, vel lotis lignis ejus reaedificetur. Si haec consecrata prius fuit, Missas in ea celebrare licet, si tamen fideles fuerint qui in ea sepulti sunt” (Ex concilio Agrippin. cap. 23); Burchard of Worms, Decretum, 3.38, PL 140:679c–d; Ivo of Chartres, Decretum, 3.43, PL 161:207b–c. “Ecclesiam ubi paganus sepultus est, non liceat consecrare, neque Missas in ea celebrare, sed jactari foras et mundari oportet” (Ex. concil. Aureliano, cap. 7); Burchard of Worms, Decretum, 3.13, PL 140:676a; Ivo of Chartres, Decretum, 3.15, PL 161:202d. 11. Burchard of Worms, Decretum, 3.151, PL 140:703a; for Burchard’s erroneous attribution of the canon to the Council of Meaux (845), see Wilfried Hartmann, ed., Die Konzilien der karolingischen Teilreiche 843–859, MGH Concilia 3 (Hannover: Hahn, 1984), 132. Ivo of Chartres, Decretum, 3.213, PL 161:249b.

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the consecration ceremony, Sicardus made the provision that any bodies of “infideles” should first be removed, while the bodies of the faithful should either be plucked out or put so deep in the earth that no trace (“vestigium”) of the tombs appeared.12 He went on to compare this to the cleansing and salvation of the human soul, continuing the parallels between the church building and the bodies of individual Christians discussed in chapter 2. If we wish to be asperged with the hyssop of humility, washed with the water of the sacraments, filled with spiritual knowledge, and saved by the cross, then the “pavement of our souls” (“pavimentum . . . pectoris nostri”) should be purged of refuse and the infection of mortal sin. In this way, we can put on Christ when “whiter than snow” and show ourselves as his bride “without spot or wrinkle.”13 The passage presents appearance as indicative of content in a way that relates back to the actual pavement, making explicit what had been implied by Theodulf. In the removal of the bodies of the unfaithful, the church is cleansed of sin and refuse; appropriately, the word “quisquiliae” could also mean floor sweepings. The removal from sight of the other graves creates an immaculate pavement that demonstrates the purity of the place. From this perspective, such a pavement reflects the identity of the bodies that it covers, offering a kind of visual cue to what lies beneath even as it obscures the traces of individual graves. At the same time, by providing the reassurance that those beneath are either holy (“sancta”) or will be sanctified (“sanctificabuntur”), it may demonstrate concern about what the earth might indeed conceal. Exactly who was envisaged by the term “infideles” as used by the various authors must have varied according to their circumstances. To a certain extent such rulings were passed down and their terms repeated without there being a pressing contemporary need for the legislation, but that does not mean that they were not meaningful. In the Penitential of Theodore, “infideles” and “paganes” seem to be one and the same thing, and presumably refer to the unbaptized. The same is probably true for the other contexts where a building is being converted to ecclesiastical use or a church is being (re) built on a new site, whether this was a cemetery already used as such in pre-Christian times or simply a place where the digging of foundations had uncovered non-Christian graves. Certainly there is evidence that people differentiated between Christian and pagan burials found by chance; excavations in Hilton in Cambridgeshire revealed the body of an Anglo-Saxon woman, first buried with grave goods ca. 700, who had been

12. “Prius tamen de pavimento, si qua sunt, ibi corpora infidelium evellantur, quia nec sancta sunt, nec sanctificabuntur, nec eorum animas Christus anulo fidei subaravit, nec in gloriosam transibunt generalis corporis unionem. At fidelium corpora aut evellantur, aut terrae sic profundius immittantur, quod nullum vestigium appareat tumulorum”; Sicardus of Cremona, Mitrale, 1.6, ed. Sarbak and Weinrich, 31. 13. “Pavimentum enim pectoris nostri, si humilitatis ysopo desideramus aspergi, aqua sacramentali mundari, scientia spirituali repleri, crucis fide salvari, evacuandum est quisquiliis et omnis mortalis contagione peccati, ut super nivem dealbati Christum induamus et eius sponsa virgo casta, sine ruga et macula, exhibeamur”; Sicardus of Cremona, Mitrale, 1.6, ed. Sarbak and Weinrich, 31.

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reburied sometime in the tenth to twelfth centuries in unconsecrated ground.14 Yet the Council of Mainz uses “fideles” as a word to describe the kind of laity who might be buried in a church, comparable to Theodore’s “iusti.” Interpreted widely, this would hardly have acted to restrict burials, suggesting that “infideles” might also include erring Christians. The difference may reside in the status of the place: before consecration the concern was to distinguish the baptized from the unbaptized, afterward to differentiate between the baptized (with the exception of infants who died before baptism). Although Sicardus offers the choice whether or not to remove the tombs of “fideles” prior to consecration, he does not give the grounds on which the decision would rest, and it seems likely that this was more a question of general preference than of determining individual worth. In the predominantly prescriptive texts discussed above, human agency clears and cleanses particular sites, often prior to consecration. However, in other contexts the ground could play a more active role by miraculously refusing to accept certain bodies, generally of unsatisfactory Christians. The idea found expression, for example, in the liturgy. In Benedictine Maledictions, Lester Little has discussed a number of curses that include the threat that the people concerned will be denied a proper burial.15 A particular point of reference is the curse in Deuteronomy 28:23: “Be the heaven, that is over thee, of brass: and the ground thou treadest on, of iron.” In its original context, this is followed by a verse about the rain turning to dust, which gives the impression of a generally hostile environment. However, when included in a late tenth-century clamor from St.-Martial in Limoges, it is followed instead by another verse from Deuteronomy 28 that suggests more specific concern regarding the fate of the dead body: “May the Lord toss their bodies as bait to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the land.”16 A curse formula from the abbey of Fécamp in Normandy, dating from the late tenth or early eleventh century, makes this explicit with the wish that the sky over the offending parties “should be made of brass and the earth underfoot of iron, so that heaven should be unable to receive their souls and the earth unable to receive their bodies.”17 Here, a normally permeable surface becomes unyielding, resisting the natural transition of the body from the realm of the living above the ground to that of the dead beneath. Another excommunication formula,

14. Tom Woolhouse, “Proto-Christian or Evil Dead?” British Archaeology (July–August 2007): 42–43. I am grateful to Roberta Gilchrist for bringing this article to my attention. 15. Little, Benedictine Maledictions, esp. 9, 60; for further discussion of this issue, see Christian Jaser, Ecclesia maledicens: Rituelle und zeremonielle Exkommunikationsformen im Mittelalter (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 197–99. 16. “Sit celum quod super eos est eneum et terra quam calcat ferrea. . . . Tradat dominus corpora eorum in escas volatilibus caeli et bestiis terre”; based on Deuteronomy 28:23, 26; Little, Benedictine Maledictions, 11–13, 60, 260–61 (appendix C, no. 7). 17. “Sit illis cœlum æreum, & terra ferrea, ut nec cœlum recipiat animas eorum, nec terra eorum corpora”; Martène, De antiquis ecclesiae ritibus, 2:911–12, at 912. Little, Benedictine Maledictions, 9 (translation adapted from Little’s paraphrase).

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possibly composed at the abbey of St. Martin in Trier in the tenth century and presented as a letter from “Pope Leo,” invokes papal authority to the same effect, barring heaven and denying the earth for burial: “celum claudimus et terram ad sepeliundum negamus.”18 These formulae correspond to that set out by Regino of Prüm (842–915), which excluded the excommunicate “from the boundaries of mother church in heaven and on earth,” but to varying degrees involve the ground as a physical barrier.19 If these tenth- and eleventh-century curses and excommunication formulae focus on the prevention of burial in a resistant ground, various miracle accounts feature violent expulsion from the ground after burial, with the earth itself effecting the casting out. The topos need not necessarily focus on the agency of the ground. The Dialogues of Gregory the Great include a story about a novice who, having returned to his parents without Benedict’s blessing and died, was twice cast out of his grave and only lay at rest when the saint sent the Eucharist to be placed on the body. The point of the story is the status of the saint and his favor in heaven, which was such that “not even the earth would retain the young monk’s body until he had been reconciled with blessed Benedict.”20 Elsewhere, it is possible that the punishment fits the crime. Theodosius’s early sixthcentury De situ terrae sanctae describes the case of the praepositus sacri cubiculi Urbicius who tried to cut up and remove the stone on which Mary had sat when she was journeying to Bethlehem and transport it to Constantinople.21 Not only could the stone not be moved beyond the gate of St. Stephen and had to be made into an altar at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher instead, but when Urbicius died, the earth would not receive him and cast out his tomb three times. It is not made clear whether Urbicius had sought burial in Jerusalem, but it may be that the insult to holy ground, and to the church that had enshrined the “Kathisma” or “Sitting Place,” was such as appropriately to incur a rebuke by the ground itself.22 Other miraculous expulsions are directly concerned with

18. Little, Benedictine Maledictions, 257–58 (appendix C, no. 4); Harald Zimmermann, ed., Papsturkunden, 896–1046, 3 vols. (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1984–89): 1:154–56. The formula and its circulation are also discussed in Reynolds, “Rites of Separation and Reconciliation,” 415–16; Hamilton, “Interpreting Diversity,” 135–38. 19. “Et a liminibus sanctae matris ecclesiae in coelo et in terra excludimus”; Regino of Prüm, Libri duo de synodalibus causis, 2.413, ed. Wasserschleben, ed. and trans. Hartmann, 442; English translation from Hamilton, “Interpreting Diversity,” 130–31. 20. “Ut eius corpus etiam terra proiecerit, qui Benedicti gratiam non haberet”; Gregory the Great, Dialogi, 2.24, ed. Adalbert de Vogüé, trans. P. Antin, Dialogues, 3 vols., Sources chrétiennes 251, 260, 265 (Paris: Cerf, 1978–80), 2:210–12; trans. Odo John Zimmermann, Saint Gregory the Great: Dialogues (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1959, repr. 1983), 94. Elsewhere in the Dialogues (4.55–56) there are accounts of the bodies of the damned disappearing from their graves or being dragged out by demons. 21. “Quem Vrbicium terra non recepit, tertio eum sepulchrum foris iactauit”; Theodosius, De situ terrae sanctae, 28, ed. P. Geyer, in Itineraria et alia geographica, 1:123–24. 22. The removal of the stone from the church, though not Urbicius’s subsequent fate, is briefly discussed by Christopher P. Jones in his article “Procopius of Gaza and the Water of the Holy City,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 47 (2007): 465–66.

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the status of holy or consecrated ground and its capacity to distinguish between those who could and could not be buried there. Where the previous cases are confined to the vertical axis, with the earth simply casting the body up and out (or in the case of the excommunication formulae, refusing to allow it entry, just as the soul cannot rise to heaven), these engage also with a horizontal definition of sacred space. Two cautionary tales, one from the sixth century and another from the eleventh, reveal striking similarities as well as the differing priorities of the particular era and circumstances. Gregory of Tours recounts several instances where unworthy and presumptuous individuals sought burial ad sanctum, only to have their plans foiled by divine intervention, which imposed more fitting grave locations. In one particular instance, in which a man who had led a life of crime wished to be buried in the church of St. Vincentius, the sarcophagus was thrown through the window into the courtyard: “a sancta basilica per fenestram proicitur et in medio deponitur atrii.”23 The man’s relatives reburied the sarcophagus in the same position, placing it even deeper in the ground, but the same thing happened the next night. Only then did the relatives realize the insult done to the saint and leave the sarcophagus where it lay. A similar account of an unsuitable body being regurgitated by the ground was included by Adhemar of Chabannes in his record of the Council of Limoges in 1031.24 Here the bishop of Cahors describes how he refused to bury an excommunicated knight. The man’s friends buried him in holy ground anyway, only to have the earth reject the body five times, leaving the tomb miraculously intact. Each time the bare corpse was found lying on the surface of the ground, having been flung far from the cemetery (“corpus eius longe extra cemeterium projectum, & nudum super faciem terræ inventum est”), even though, after the first occasion, the men placed it under a huge weight of earth and stones (“diligenter tumulum sub enormi pondere terræ & lapidum claudunt”). Finally, the body had to be reburied elsewhere and, as a result, the men agreed to honor the Peace of God. In both anecdotes an unsuitable corpse is ejected miraculously from the ground on more than one occasion, despite attempts to bury it more deeply or securely, and is found the next day lying on the ground some distance away. It is possible that Adhemar was familiar with the episode in the Liber in gloria martyrum and reworked it in his account of the council, increasing the number of abortive burials for dramatic effect. Certainly he knew Gregory’s Historia Francorum and used it in his own work.25 Richard

23. Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria martyrum, 88, ed. Krusch, 97; trans. Van Dam, 83; see also Van Dam, Saints and Their Miracles, 135. 24. Concilium Lemovicense II, ed. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, 19:507–48, at 541. For the episode and Adhemar’s account of the council, see Daniel F. Callahan, “Adémar of Chabannes, Apocalypticism and the Peace Council of Limoges of 1031,” Revue bénédictine 101 (1991): 32–49; Callahan, “The Cult of the Saints in Aquitaine,” in Head and Landes, The Peace of God, 165–83. 25. Richard Landes, Relics, Apocalypse, and the Deceits of History: Ademar of Chabannes, 989–1034 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 107.

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Landes has argued that other aspects of the conciliar report are largely fictional.26 However, since this particular account relates to the main concerns of the council and does not serve the cult of St. Martial, it may be that it does describe a case brought up by the bishop of Cahors.27 Both anecdotes dramatize the kind of distinctions prescribed by the texts examined above. They differentiate between worthy and unworthy members of the baptized laity, as in the Capitulary of Bishop Theodulf or the statutes of the Council of Mainz, although the fact that the bodies are flung out violently is more reminiscent of the stipulations of the Penitential of Theodore, repeated by Burchard and Ivo, in which the bodies of “infideles” are to be thrown outside (“jactare foras”). In these episodes, however, the earth itself is the instrument of expulsion, executing the will of God. To a certain extent, this distinction should be seen to reflect the difference between the status of the ground before and after a place was designated as holy or in some way set apart. The agency with which the ground is credited here is equivalent to that of the site of the Ascension, thought to reject or spit out (“respuere”) and shake off (“excutere”) worldly things, and is suggestive of a wider tendency to equate familiar churches with divinely revealed or sanctified places.28 The fact that the instance concerning Urbicius relates to a place sanctified by Mary, even if this is not the site of burial itself, tends to reinforce this connection. At the same time, the role of the earth also derives from the nature of the texts, which serve to provide divine sanction for human decisions, albeit within the different dynamics of power of the sixth and eleventh centuries. This function is made particularly clear by the way in which the tale of the excommunicated knight is presented within an account of a statute-giving council. The council is said to have taken the miraculous event to affirm ecclesiastical authority relating to the segregation of excommunicates in death and, more fundamentally, the excommunication of those who preferred robbery to peace, defi ned as non-Christians. Taking place against the backdrop of the Peace of God movement, the Council of Limoges was particularly concerned with matters of ecclesiastical authority; the knight is described as having insulted God by insulting his bishop: “in episcopo suo Deum contemnens.” While the account can be related to contemporary miracle stories in which saints punish knightly aggression, that the ground itself acts here reflects the fact that control over Christian burial was one of the levers clerics had against lay violence and other transgressions.29 The corpse “extra coemeterium projectum” recalls an account in Adhemar’s Chronicon

26. Landes, Relics, Apocalypse, and the Deceits of History, 15. 27. The episode is discussed as stemming from the council in Jaser, Ecclesia maledicens, 349–50. 28. “Siquidem quaecumque applicabantur, insolens humana suscipere, terra respueret, excussis in ora apponentium saepe marmoribus”; Sulpicius Severus, Chronica, 2.33, ed. Parroni, 92. 29. On exclusion from Christian burial grounds, see, for example, John Blair, “The Dangerous Dead in Early Medieval England,” in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald, ed. Stephen Baxter et al. (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 549–54; Anne Irene Riisøy, “Societal Exclusion of Dead Outlaws in Medieval Norway,” in “Cultures of Death and Dying in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,” ed. Mia

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of a bishop who had a man proved a heretic some years after his death dug up and thrown out of the cemetery and into the byways: “ejectum est de cimiterio, jubente episcopo Odolrico, et projectum invium.”30 More generally, the fact that the knight is miraculously deposited on the surface of the ground (“super faciem terrae”) corresponds with Adhemar’s description of an interdict during which clerical refusal to bury the dead led to “corpses lying without burial on the surface of the earth.”31 The potential to withhold burial may also lie behind the St.-Martial and Fécamp curses as well as the spurious papal letter that refers more explicitly to ecclesiastical authority. In the case of the Liber in gloria martyrum, the authority challenged and vindicated is of a different kind. While the miscreant is described as “an enemy of God and the most hateful of all men,” his burial is presented more specifically as an insult to the saint (“sancti iniuriam”).32 Nevertheless, his miraculous expulsion from the ground functions in much the same way as that of the knight, discouraging violent behavior by the threat of exclusion from a desired burial site, and it can be assumed that episcopal authority was sufficiently associated with that of the saint to be at stake in the episode as well. The ground from which the corpses are expelled is characterized differently in the two episodes. In the former case, the issue is one of proximity to a holy individual, in other words whether someone was sufficiently worthy to keep company with the saint. In the latter example, excommunicates are divided from other Christians. Partly, this change reflects the fact that ecclesiastical sanctions had been formalized in the intervening centuries. However, the space denied to the wrongdoers is also different. In the fi rst case, the choice is between inside and outside a “sancta basilica,” which is presented as the dwelling of a saint. That said, there may be an underlying distinction between consecrated and unconsecrated space, since the area outside would not have been consecrated. In the later example, the sacred space from which the wrongdoer is expelled includes the area around the church. Although the man is buried “apud quandam ecclesiam,” which Daniel Callahan takes to mean that he was buried inside the church, the fact that the body is said to be thrown beyond the cemetery and subsequently placed under a heap of earth and stones suggests that the tomb may actually have been located outside.33 Such an arrangement reflects the demarcation of an area around the church

Korpiola and Anu Lahtinen, special issue, COLLeGIUM: Studies across Disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences 18 (2015): 49–81. 30. Adhemar of Chabannes, Chronicon, 3.59, ed. Chavanon, 185. This and the following episode are discussed in Cécile Treffort, “Consécration de cimetière et contrôle épiscopal des lieux d’inhumation au Xe siècle,” in Kaplan, Le sacré et son inscription dans l’espace à Byzance et en Occident, 285–99. 31. “Super faciem terrae coram oculis omnium ita ponantur insepulti”; Léopold Delisle, “Notice sur les manuscrits originaux d’Adémar de Chabannes,” Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale 35 (1896): 292. 32. “Iniquum in Deo et omnium hominum odibilem”; Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria martyrum, 88, ed. Krusch, 97; trans. Van Dam, 83. 33. Callahan, “Cult of the Saints in Aquitaine,” 179.

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building for burial, but not necessarily consecrated ground per se. Although a rite of cemetery consecration was known from the tenth century, the model in the south of France was one of a protected zone, often delimited at the time of the consecration of the church.34 Over the course of the eleventh century, the practice of cemetery consecration spread, but the first indication of the blessing of a cemetery, by the bishop of Limoges, dates only from ca. 1073.35 Nevertheless, even in the former conception, the cemetery was set apart from the surrounding area as holy space. Violating its immunity was seen as sacrilegious, and those committing acts of violence there were subject to penalties.36 In Adhemar’s account, the earth seems to be policing this kind of distinction. Not only does the knight’s excommunication entail his exclusion from the cemetery, but violation of the space in the form of his illicit burial provokes a physical manifestation of excommunication. Comparisons can be drawn between the miraculous expulsion of bodies from holy ground and the expulsion of sinful peoples from the Holy Land. A key point of reference for the latter was God’s command in Leviticus, which urged the people of Israel to keep his statutes “lest in like manner it [the land] vomit you also out, if you do the like things: as it vomited out the nation that was before you.”37 Although here vomiting out signifies expulsion from a geographical area rather than an ejection from beneath the surface of the earth, the active role of the ground, the potential discrepancy between the sanctity of the place and the behavior of those inhabiting it, and the possibility of pollution, all find correspondences in the miraculous removal of those found wanting from places made sacred by the presence of saintly bodies or ecclesiastical ritual. The divine warning was also seen to have been realized in contemporary events. Many commentators on the loss of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187 saw this as resulting from the sins of the Latins, following the logic set out in Leviticus and continuing the pattern of the previous peoples expelled from the region.38 To an extent, this explanation emphasized the changing qualities and behavior of the inhabitants. However, in his Historia rerum Anglicarum,

34. Lauwers, Naissance du cimetière, 144. 35. On cemetery consecration in the eleventh century, including Urban II in popularizing the ritual in the last decade of the century, see Barbara H. Rosenwein, Negotiating Space: Power, Restraint, and Privileges of Immunity in Early Medieval Europe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 178–82; Élisabeth Zadora-Rio, “Lieux d’inhumation et espaces consacrés: Le voyage du pape Urbain II en France (août 1095—août 1096),” in Lieux sacrés, lieux de culte, sanctuaires: Approches terminologiques, méthodologiques, historiques et monographiques, ed. André Vauchez (Rome: École française de Rome, 2000), 197–213; Lauwers, Naissance du cimetière, 146–54. For Limoges, see Jean Becquet, ed., Actes des éveques de Limoges, des origines à 1197 (Paris: CNRS, 1999), 50–51, no. 20. 36. Lauwers, Naissance du cimetière, 98–101. 37. “Omnes enim execrationes istas fecerunt accolae terrae qui fuerunt ante vos, et polluerunt eam. Cavete ergo ne et vos similiter evomat, cum paria feceritis, sicut evomuit gentem, quae fuit ante vos”; Leviticus 18:27–28. 38. Michael Staunton, The Historians of Angevin England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 216–27.

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William of Newburgh (1136–98) also stressed the unique qualities of the Holy Land, arguing that it was not that the Amorites had been more sinful than other peoples, but rather that the nature of the land specially favored by God meant that its inhabitants were always held to a higher standard.39 While I am not aware of medieval sources that draw links between the Holy Land and consecrated ground in this respect, the comparison highlights that the two shared a logic of relative sanctity in which the status of both people and environment informed their compatibility or incompatibility. Moreover, in both cases this logic could extend to a very different relationship between person and place; as with the Holy Land, sanctified not least by the presence of Christ, in burial too the holiness of the body could sometimes exceed that of the ground. If the bodies of undesirables might be excluded from the ground, especially in sacred or exclusive places, holy bodies could also lie outside the conventional layering. It was common to raise up the remains of the saints, either by translating them from their graves into shrines or by placing them immediately in sarcophagi. To a certain extent, this treatment reflects a basic spatial hierarchy in which greater height was expressive of greater status, and a hierarchy of materials in which earth was inferior to marble or precious metals, but it was also a matter of general visibility and prominence. Rather of Verona, writing shortly after 961 about the furta sacra of St. Metro in his De translatione S. Metronis, contrasted the previous state of the saint “pressed down by the mound of the sepulchre” with that after translation—“raised from the ground and placed in worthy state,” noting also that “the crowd worships the bones of a celestial spirit more devoutly if they are not covered by the earth (non obtegit tellus), but are beautified with the adornment of a mausoleum.”40 In the narrative of relic inventions, to be covered over could mean to disappear from view and memory. By no means every saint was elevated in this way, and some exceptions are discussed below. However, by the later Middle Ages there seems to have been a tendency to avoid burying likely candidates for sainthood in the ground, at least in Italy.41 After posthumous miracles were performed by Agostino Novello (d. 1309), for example, the bishop of Siena would not allow the body to be buried in the earth (“corpus non permisit in terra sepeliri”), but instead arranged for it to be placed in a sarcophagus.42

39. William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum, 3.15, ed. Richard Howlett, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, vols. 1–2 (London: Longman, 1884–85), 1:249–55; Staunton, Historians of Angevin England, 225–27. 40. “Celestis enim animae artus devotius excolit vulgus, si eos non obtegit tellus, sed mausulei venustat ornatus”; Rather of Verona, De translatione S. Metronis, 13, ed. Peter L. D. Reid, in Ratherius Veronensis opera minora, CCCM 46 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1976), 27; trans. Reid, The Complete Works of Rather of Verona (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991), 334; cited in Diana Webb, Patrons and Defenders: The Saints in the Italian City-States (London: Tauris, 1996), 41. 41. See André Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. Jean Birrel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 91, 234. 42. “Unde dominus episcopus Senarum venerandum corpus suum non permisit in terra sepeliri, sed potius in quadam tumba decente reponi ipsum fecit et in ecclesia fratrum honorifice collocari”; Jordan of

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Just as the ground was sometimes credited with the agency to reject sinners, it could also refuse a body that was too holy to be buried in a conventional grave, signaling that the corpse should be moved to a more appropriate place. When Alberto of Villa d’Ogna died in Cremona in 1279, it proved impossible to cut through the soil to dig the grave, and the body had to be buried in the choir of the church of S. Mattia instead.43 Muzio of Modena presents the episode as the first in a series of miracles that confi rmed Alberto’s holiness. His tomb in the church occupied the place where he had prayed in life, a position that is found in other burials and will be discussed further below, but it also suggests that he might have been thought to have already sanctified the spot by his presence and prayers. Specifically, the position is likely to reflect the decision to bury another notably pious local in Cremona Cathedral, where he had spent many nights in prayer, a few years earlier.44 Muzio’s description does not specify what sort of a burial Alberto was given inside the church, but a sixteenth-century Life speaks of a tomb found already prepared, and in the late fifteenth century the remains were moved from a grave in the floor of the choir to an urn in a separate chapel.45 In the case of the boy saint William of Norwich, whose remains were translated in the mid-twelfth century, the ground indicated the type rather than the location of the tomb.46 As described by Thomas of Monmouth, the main chronicler and promoter of William’s cult, the child’s body was moved from the graveyard to the chapter house after Bishop Herbert appeared to Thomas several times in a dream. Here, although the prior had ordered that the grave should lie almost flush with the pavement, the sarcophagus stood proud of the floor.47 When more earth was removed, the tomb only seemed to have risen, and it rose even further over the course of the year. Thomas set the miraculous elevation of the tomb in the context of the promise that “he that humbleth himself shall be exalted,” as well as the words of the Magnificat, tapping into the discourse discussed in the previous chapter on prostrate prayer. These are not violent rejections in the manner of those

Saxony, Liber vitasfratrum, 2.13, ed. Rudolph Arbesmann and Winfrid Hümpfner, Jordani de Saxonia ordinis eremitarum S. Augustini Liber vitasfratrum (New York: Cosmopolitan Science & Art Service, 1943), 153; trans. Gerard Deighan, ed. John E. Rotelle, The Life of the Brethren, The Augustinian Series 14 (Villanova, PA: Augustinian Press, 1993), 175. 43. “Et sicut dicitur non potuerunt pollimones cum sepellire nec terram ligonibus perfodere, et sic solitus erat orare, in choro ecclesie ipsum sepellierunt”; Muzio of Modena, Annales Placentini Gibellini, ed. Georg H. Pertz, in MGH SS 18 (Hannover: Hahn, 1863), 571–72; Lester K. Little, Indispensable Immigrants: The Wine Porters of Northern Italy and Their Saint, 1200–1800 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), esp. 13–17, 23; Luigi Ginami, Il beato Alberto di Villa d’Ogna: Esempio di santità laica nell’Italia dei comuni (Milan: Paoline, 2000), 57. 44. Little, Indispensable Immigrants, 131, 134. 45. Little, Indispensable Immigrants, 17–19, 31. 46. Thomas of Monmouth, De vita et passione Sancti Willelmi, 3.1–2, ed. and trans. Jessopp and James, 122–27. 47. “Ut sarcophagum fosse immissum pavimento coequatum nichil vel parum promineret”; Thomas of Monmouth, De vita et passione Sancti Willelmi, 3.2, ed. and trans. Jessopp and James, 123.

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discussed above, respecting rather than disrespecting the bodies involved, but they still credit the ground with a decisive role in determining identity. While narratives of this kind have to be understood in the context of the translation of saintly remains to shrines, the concept of sanctity they offer is comparative rather than absolute. The ground provided proof of the sanctity of one body in much the same way as it testified to the inadequacies of another, by judging whether earth or body was the holier; the absence of a dynamic response can be seen to have signaled a proper balance between the two. In this way, the response of the earth to burial is part of a wider phenomenon in which the relative values of ground and body were not fixed. As we have seen, above ground, holy tread imparted sanctity to a place and lesser feet could risk desecrating the holy, while perhaps most common was an echoing or matching of status. Neither of the people cited were straightforward candidates for canonization: the first was a recently deceased layman whose cult was promoted locally, especially by his fellow wine porters, but opposed by Salimbene de Adam; the second a child murder victim whose sanctity was challenged by senior members of the cathedral clergy.48 Appeal to the judgment of the ground itself should perhaps be seen as a strategy employed in marginal or contested cases. At the same time, the refusal of the ground to accept both sinners and saints made it an ambiguous event, the rationale for which needed to be made explicit. Not only the dramatic response of the ground to the newly dead but also the incorruptibility of a long-buried body was open to contrasting interpretations in this manner. As discussed by Christian Jaser, the two ends of the spectrum could resemble one another, since both excommunicated and saintly bodies could resist decomposition.49 The fourteenth-century Florentine Franco Sachetti made this contrast explicit at the end of an anecdote in which a Spaniard expressed doubts about the uncorrupted body of Beato Ugolino of Cortona: “On the one hand, we say that the body of whoever dies excommunicated remains whole and does not decompose: on the other hand, we say that a dead body that does not decompose is holy.”50 In an invention account also from fourteenthcentury Italy, the two indices appear together, with the idea of rejection by the ground being raised precisely in order for the correct reading to be reinforced. The Life of Beato Giovanni Gueruli of Verucchio recounts how an intact body was found in the cathedral of S. Colomba, Rimini, in 1388.51 When one onlooker concluded that the earth had refused to receive it (“terra hunc recipere noluit”), his mouth was distorted until, having been informed of the identity of the body by the assembled crowd, he promised to honor

48. Little, Indispensable Immigrants, chap. 3. 49. Jaser, Ecclesia maledicens, 351. The ambiguity of incorrupt holy bodies is also suggested in Blair, “Dangerous Dead,” 546. 50. “Da l’una parte diremo che chi muore scomunicato, il corpo suo si sta intero e non si disfà: da l’altra parte diremo un corpo morto che non si consuma essere santo”; Franco Sacchetti, Trecentonovelle, 157.15, ed. Valerio Marucci, Il Trecentonovelle (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 1996), 511. 51. Angelo Turchini, “Leggenda, culto, iconografia del beato Giovanni Gueruli († 1320?), da Verrucchio,” Studi romagnoli 21 (1970): 429, 449.

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Gueruli with a chapel and tomb. When read in conjunction with the description of the burial of Alberto of Villa d’Ogna, these sources suggest that the age of communal saints, often recently dead individuals known to the citizens, combined with tensions over orthodoxy, created an environment in Italian cities in which the ground could be used as a litmus test. In these sources, the surface of the ground is seen as selective and separating. The bodies of the ordinary faithful lie deep and invisible beneath an unbroken surface, in contrast to those of wrongdoers lying exposed above ground, even if they were ultimately buried elsewhere, and those of the special dead, elevated in raised tombs. Ecclesiastical authorities maintained this divide by casting out the bodies of those outside the community of the faithful or refusing them burial in the first place, and by translating saintly remains or suggesting more appropriate resting places for those destined for sainthood. However, the earth was credited with a degree of agency too. It might be called on to refuse entry to the bodies of the unsuitable, resisting the downward movement of burial through a material transformation, replacing its natural permeability with the hardness of iron. Equally, the ground could be described as countering attempts at burial with an upward movement, from the violent expulsions of wrongdoers to the more seemly and gradual elevation of William of Norwich’s tomb. These dynamic reorderings are predicated on a relative relationship between ground and body. The normal order of things reflected a kind of equivalence between the consecrated ground and the baptized Christians who lay in it. Those who were not holy enough or were too holy were both separated out, like a layer of oil on top of water. While all of these possibilities reflected the identity of the person concerned, where bodies were understood to be inferior to the ground in which they lay, there was also concern lest holy places be polluted by their presence. The spaces policed in this manner extend horizontally across a certain area, whether the confines of the church building itself or the surrounding cemetery. Nevertheless, within these spaces, the body is subject to a vertical dynamic, in which the surface of the ground was pivotal. So far discussion has been restricted to a stratigraphic ensemble made up of the earth and the dead body, whether this lay below or above ground. The following section factors in floor coverings and the bodies of the living. Dead bodies lying “super faciem terrae” were in part horrifying because they perverted the normal spatial relationship between the living above ground and the dead below. The surface of the ground was key in mediating this relationship too.

Burial Underfoot For the average person, then, being covered by the earth in death was the norm. In the light of those who could not rest in their tombs or who were expelled, it was reassuring; indeed, it could even be embraced. As mentioned above, Theodulf and Sicardus recommended an ideal in which the pavement hid from sight any tombs beneath. Given

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the tradition of prominent tomb markers that can be traced from Late Antiquity onward, it can be imagined that such a view was often in tension with the desires of those seeking burial, but it does find some confirmation in the archaeological record. In the Cistercian abbey of Bordesley (Worcestershire), for example, where floor surfaces were built up over time, excavations have shown that burials did not tend to cut through existing surfaces but rather took place before a new floor was laid. While this practice did not preclude memorials being built into the new paving, Grenville Astill and Susan Wright have suggested that the graves connected with a rebuilding around 1400 were not necessarily marked.52 As noted by Howard Williams, “the importance seems to be that the burials were fully incorporated into the fabric and space of the church rather than retaining an independent integrity.”53 In this light, it is worth noting the use of the word “vestigium” or “trace” by Theodulf (“nullo tumulorum vestigio apparente”) and Sicardus. Unlike vestigia sacra, preserved as witnesses to the presence of holy individuals above ground, the traces of tombs were to be removed from sight and their presence thus erased from memory, or at least subsumed into a more collective consciousness. Astill and Wright have speculated that the anonymity of many of the graves at Bordesley may reflect a greater concern with the soul than the preservation of the body. The characterizations of holy ground discussed above suggest that this treatment of the body actually expressed a positive message regarding the state of the soul. An intact, unmarked pavement was not necessarily silent as to what it covered but could reflect the fundamental suitability of those beneath; judging from Sicardus’s strictures on the removal of graves, it follows that those whose tombs are to remain are either holy (“sancta”) or will be sanctified (“sanctificabuntur”). More scholarly attention has been devoted to the way in which the pavement could give more specific indication of the bodies it covered, bringing to mind that which it concealed from view. However, it always did so selectively, suggesting that we should think of the pavement as carrying out a filtering process. Where the surface was decorated more widely, images and markers could have very different values so far as their relationship to the underlying strata was concerned. While, in general, tomb slabs would be set into the surrounding pavement, on occasion there might be little distinction in medium between such a memorial and nonfunerary paving. In the late fifth century, the site of the tomb of Bishop Neon of Ravenna seems to have been marked by a porphyry slab such as featured in opus sectile pavements.54 Although later opus sectile pavements

52. Grenville G. Astill and Susan M. Wright, “Perceiving Patronage in the Archaeological Record: Bordesley Abbey,” in In Search of Cult: Archaeological Investigations in Honour of Philip Rahtz, ed. Martin Carver (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1993), 134–35. 53. Howard Williams, “Remembering and Forgetting the Medieval Dead: Exploring Death, Memory and Material Culture in Monastic Archaeology,” in Archaeologies of Remembrance: Death and Memory in Past Societies, ed. Williams (New York: Kluwer/Plenum, 2003), 243. 54. “Sepultus olim in basilica apostolorum ante altare beati apostoli Petri subtus porfi reticum lapidem”; Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, 29, ed. Deliyannis, 178; trans. Deliyannis, 127.

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seem not commonly to have been used for burials, they could still possess funerary associations; as discussed further below, a porphyry slab in St. Peter’s was understood to mark the resting place of Bede.55 In Late Antiquity there was also a tradition of marking graves using opus tessellatum, exemplified by the large number of paleochristian mosaic grave-markers that survive in North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. Although such funerary mosaics could be placed singly or in groups on an otherwise undecorated church floor, they might equally form part of a larger floor mosaic. Noël Duval has shown that where the burials had taken place prior to the laying of the mosaic, the inscriptions would be integrated into the general composition.56 There are a few comparable examples from northern Europe in the later Middle Ages. The pavement that once decorated the choir of the abbey church of St.-Bertin at Saint-Omer, for example, included the tomb slab of William of Flanders (fig. 24).57 A variety of techniques was employed in the pavement, but the mosaic chosen for William’s tomb was also used for other elements such as the roundel of King David. The lost mosaic tomb-slab of Bishop Albert d’Hirgis (d. 1208), which was situated in the choir of Verdun Cathedral, also formed part of a larger composition in opus tessellatum.58 In such instances, a single pavement created a surface with different degrees of visual permeability, where one image might indicate what was beneath it but another functioned as a simple representation. In the light of the examples discussed in previous chapters, this phenomenon can be seen to correspond with the wider potential for parts of a pavement to relate differently to the space above it, with some elements functioning as liturgical markers or commemorating an event that had taken place there, while others did not. Indeed, the St.-Bertin pavement features a diagonal cross reminiscent of the alphabet cross likely to have marked the ground below when the church was consecrated. Further covering could be added above tomb slabs or grave markers set in the pavement. On the anniversary of deaths and other significant days, it was common for a tomb slab to be temporarily covered with textiles and candles lit around it, before the

Raffaella Farioli Campanati, “Le tombe dei vescovi di Ravenna dal Tardoantico all’Alto Medioevo,” in L’inhumation privilégiée du IVe au VIIIe siècle en Occident: Actes du colloque tenu à Créteil les 16–18 mars, 1984, ed. Yvette Duval and Jean-Charles Picard (Paris: Boccard, 1986), 166. Although Giuseppe Bovini argues that Neon’s grave was elsewhere, he acknowledges that the slab must have covered a prominent burial since Agnellus records the translation of a body from this position: Giuseppe Bovini, “Sulla sepoltura del vescovo Neone fondatore della ‘Basilica Apostolorum’ di Ravenna,” in Festschrift Friedrich Gerke, ed. J. A. Schmoll gen. Eisenwerth (Baden-Baden: Holle-Verlag, 1962), 67–70. 55. Petrus Mallius, Descriptio basilicae Vaticanae, 26, ed. Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico della città di Roma, 3:419. 56. Noël Duval, La mosaïque funéraire dans l’art paléochrétien (Ravenna: Longo, 1976), 33. 57. Stern, Recueil général des mosaïques, 1.1:98, figs. L, LIII; Xavier Barral i Altet, “Les tombes en mosaïque au Moyen Âge,” Hortus, artium, medievalium 10 (2004): 167; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 216–18, figs. 1–2. 58. Henri Stern, Recueil général des mosaïques de la Gaule, vol. 1, Province de Belgique, pt. 2 (Paris: CNRS, 1960), 82–84, plates LI–LII; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 218–19.

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clergy gathered there to recite the appropriate prayers.59 To an extent, this custom replicated draping the coffin with textiles during the funeral, especially if the tomb slab featured a representation of the deceased, and might on occasion include a coffin-like chest. It also corresponds to wider practices, discussed in the previous two chapters, of laying down textiles on particular occasions, and will have contributed to the focusing of attention on this particular part of the pavement on this day. Although the cloth presumably concealed from sight any effigy, it made the place more visible within the church. As with the spreading of textiles under the king during the coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey, which probably hid the intricate marble Cosmati pavement, covering something did not necessarily negate it but might equally confi rm or enhance its significance. However, where the silks at Westminster also functioned to fit the spot for the body above them, in the case of the tomb slabs, the presence of the cloth may have cleared the space above it, prompting people to walk around the grave rather than over it on the anniversary. The opposite dynamic of visibility could also hold true. In areas of northern Europe, tombs sunk into the pavement could be covered with a wooden lid, which would be opened on the anniversary of the death.60 Although this practice seems to have been part of a wider phenomenon in which three-dimensional tombs were concealed and revealed in a similar manner, it was also symptomatic of the dynamic nature of the floor surface more generally, with individual elements taking on particular significance at specific times. It should be noted that this annual unveiling might still be accompanied by covering with textiles. In the case of the late thirteenth-century effigy of Emperor Henry III (d. 1056), originally in the crossing of Sts. Simon and Jude in Goslar, the fifteenth-century ordinal for the church indicates that the case was opened and the grave adorned with textiles on the anniversary.61 At some points during the day, a further layer was added in the form of items from the church’s treasury associated with the

59. For example, “sacrista tumulum defuncti panno aliquo cooperiat, et duos cereos, unum ad caput et alium ad pedes, accendat”; Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier, ed., Processionarium juxta ritum s. ordinis praedicatorum apostolica auctoritate approbatum (Rome: in cura reverendissimi magistri ordinis, 1913), 302–3; Joanna Cannon, Religious Poverty, Visual Riches: Art in the Dominican Churches of Central Italy in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 242. I am grateful to Joanna Cannon for bringing this example to my attention. The practice is discussed in Renate Kroos, “Grabbräuche— Grabbilder,” in Memoria: Der geschichtliche Zeugniswert des liturgischen Gedenkens im Mittelalter, ed. Karl Schmid and Joachim Wollasch, Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften 48 (Munich: Fink, 1984), 310–24; Johannes Tripps, “Enlivening the Tomb: Sepulcher and Performance in Late-Medieval Burgundy and Beyond,” lecture at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Saturday, 23 January 2011, 16–17, http://archiv. ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/volltexte/2011/1527/; I am grateful to Peter Dent for bringing this article to my attention. 60. Tripps, “Enlivening the Tomb.” 61. “Sepulcrum imperatoris aperietur et tapecibus adornetur et quatuor formose candele circumponantur et incendantur ad vigilias et ad missam”; Ordinarius de preparamentis, cappis, tapetibus ecclesie Goslariensis, c. 1435, cited and discussed in Wolfgang Beckermann, “Das Grabmal Kaiser Heinrichs III. in Goslar,” in Goslar im Mittelalter: Vorträge beim Geschichtsverein, ed. Hansgeorg Engelke, Beiträge zur

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emperor.62 Similarly, crosses and relics were placed on top of the textiles on the grave of Otto I (d. 973) at Magdeburg Cathedral, perhaps from the thirteenth century.63 Notably, the reliquary bust of St. Maurice wearing the crown of Otto the Great was placed on the tomb slab immediately above Otto’s head, linking the founder of the church with its patron saint. However, the most complex set of layers brought about a configuration of bodies below and above ground. To be buried below ground is more often than not to be buried where you will be walked on: “laid low under foote” as one late medieval testator put it.64 This fact could be acknowledged in an essentially practical manner that gave no significance to the action and saw it in terms of potential inconvenience to those using the space; in the 1190s, the Cistercians ordered that tomb slabs in their cloisters should be flush with the ground to avoid the monks tripping up.65 It could also be credited with meaning; as discussed in chapter 3, King Louis IX was said to have ordered religious houses to avoid or remove tombstones sculpted with crosses lest these be trodden on. Both of these prohibitions focus on the dynamic between the surface of the slab and the person walking on it, but there are indications that the action was also conceived in terms of, and positively sought by, the person buried beneath. Indeed, some testators named burial places in which they could not fail to be trodden on: ambulatories, processional routes, and doorways. A similar picture can be found in the archaeological record. For example, at the abbey of Novalesa (Piedmont), the burials in the Galilee dating from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries seem to cluster in front of the doorways.66 The fact of being walked on is usually discussed in the scholarship on the geography of burial in two ways. One stresses the humility of the situation, whether as a trade-off for proximity to sacred places within the church where elevated tombs were impossible or inconvenient, as a repost to such tombs that lauded the humility of the deceased, or as a penitential position with its rewards in heaven.67

Geschichte der Stadt Goslar 51 (Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 2003), 99–101 for the structure, 133–37 for the anniversary. 62. Beckermann, “Grabmal Kaiser Heinrichs III.,” 137–38. 63. Kroos, “Grabbräuche—Grabbilder,” 334–36. 64. James Raine, ed., Testamenta Eboracensia: A Selection of Wills from the Registry at York, vols. 3–5, Surtees Society 45, 53, 79 (Durham: Andrews for the Surtees Society, 1865–81), 5:29, no. 24 (Henry Carnbull, Archdeacon of York, 1512). 65. “Lapides positi super tumulos defunctorum in claustris nostri coæquentur terrae, ne sint offendiculo transeuntibus”; Waddell, Twelfth-Century Statutes from the Cistercian General Chapter, 285. However, see Paul Binski, Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation (London: British Museum, 1996), 89–90, for an interpretation of the rule as avoiding raised tombs that offended the feet, suggesting more of an ethical dimension. 66. Renato Grilletto, “Le sepolture e il cimitero della chiesa abbaziale della Novalesa,” Archeologia medievale 16 (1989): esp. 332–33, figs. 1–2. 67. Grilletto, “Sepolture e il cimitero,” 349, for humble burial giving access to altars; Binski, Medieval Death, for the relationship between pavement and elevated tombs. For the characterization of burial underfoot as penitential, see Ingo Herklotz, “Sepulcra” e “monumenta” del Medioevo: Studi sull’arte sepolcrale

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The other interpretation accentuates the positive, emphasizing the stimulus to memory it constituted, prompting prayers for the deceased.68 All these interpretations fi nd expression in medieval written sources. Given the broadly negative connotations of trampling, it is perhaps unsurprising that we find little explicit mention of the humility of being walked on. However, there is some textual evidence that walking over pavement tombs was understood and avoided as disrespectful in particular cases, part of the wider reluctance to tread on holy places or things discussed in chapter 3. In the tenth century, Rather of Verona berated the Italians for their neglect of the saints in terms of trampling: “you walk over martyrs, confessors you trample on with your feet, the venerable tombs of virgins you tread on with impure steps.”69 This criticism partakes of the device of accusing others of trampling things they should hold dear. Yet while it should in part be read metaphorically, and certainly not taken as evidence for what Rather’s contemporaries were prepared to walk on, the accusation is made in the context of recounting the translation of St. Metro from the ground to a raised shrine and so does have a practical frame of reference. Equally, steps might indeed be taken to avoid walking on particular tombs. In the twelfth century, Petrus Mallius stated that out of reverence to Bede, the elders of the community of canons at St. Peter’s in Rome neither walked over the porphyry slab he was thought to be buried under nor allowed others to do likewise.70 Elsewhere, physical barriers were erected. In a verse inscription probably designed for the church of St.Hilaire in Poitiers, Alcuin described how exposure to being trodden on led to the protection of honored remains.71 Bishop John of Poitiers and Aper, abbot of St.-Hilaire, had been buried in pavement tombs that were walked on by everyone (“pedibus populi fuerant calcata sepulchri”). Reluctant to have the holy bodies trodden underfoot (“corpora calcari sacra patrum pedibus”), Aper’s successor Aton seems to have encircled the tombs with a balustrade (“monumenta brevi placuit concingere muro”), although the passage

in Italia, 2nd ed. (Naples: Liguori, 2001), 48; Margaret Rylatt and Paul Mason, The Archaeology of the Medieval Cathedral and Priory of St Mary, Coventry (Coventry: City Development Directorate, Coventry City Council, 2003), 23. 68. For both possibilities, see David Lepine and Nicholas Orme, eds., Death and Memory in Medieval Exeter, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, n.s. 46 (Exeter: Devon and Cornwall Record Society, 2003), 31. 69. “Super martyres ambulas, confessores gressibus calcas, virginum veneranda pedibus immundissimis teris sepulchra”; Rather of Verona, De translatione S. Metronis, 3, ed. Reid, 14; trans. Reid, 323. 70. “Eius ob reverentiam antiqui nostri penitus non transibant per eam, nec nos transire permittebant”; Petrus Mallius, Descriptio basilicae Vaticanae, 26, ed. Valentini and Zucchetti, 3:419. 71. “Sed pedibus populi fuerant calcata sepulchra, / Nec paries cinxit, ut decuis patribus. / Hoc Ato non suffert, Aperi successor honoris, / Corpora calcari sacra patrum pedibus, / Sed monumenta brevi placuit concingere muro, / Pervia ne populi busta forent pedibus”; Alcuin, Carmina, 99.13, ed. Ernst Dümmler, in Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, vol. 1, MGH Poetae Latini medii aevi 1 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1881), 325–26; Robert Favreau, Jean Michaud, and Edmond-René Labande, eds., Corpus des inscriptions de la France médiévale, vol. 1, Poitou-Charentes, pt. 1, Ville de Poitiers (Poitiers: Université de Poitiers, 1974), 46–48, no. 44.

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has also been interpreted as referring to new tombs set into the wall of the church.72 A desire to avoid people treading on a tomb is also made explicit in Hermann Korner’s fifteenth-century Chronica novella, where he describes Albertus Magnus’s tomb in the Dominican church in Cologne as being slightly raised and encircled by a grill lest it be trodden on thoughtlessly (“ne pedibus transeuncium leviter calcari possit”).73 The passage comes after the friars have followed Albertus’s request to open his grave three days after burial to test the state of his soul and counter a reputation for practicing magic; where his body lying flat would indicate that he was damned, finding it kneeling facing the altar would signify that he was saved. In fact, the latter discovery demonstrated a particularly holy status, and the treatment of the tomb is presented as a sign of sanctity (“signum sanctitatis eius”). In the Greek East too, there are indications that certain graves flush with or close to the ground were also protected from being trodden on. Describing Hagia Sophia in Constantinople around the year 1200, Anthony of Novgorod mentioned that the tomb of the child of St. Athenogenes was surrounded by a wooden enclosure, “so that no-one could walk over it.”74 Similarly, the tenth-century Life of St. Luke of Steiris describes how the initial burial place of the saint was covered with stone slabs and fenced off by the monk Kosmas: “setting lattice work in a circle around it and garlanding it, he thus made it a place not to be trodden on or touched except by those wishing to draw near to it in faith with much veneration.”75 This protection corresponds with the treatment (or perceived treatment) of some of the places trodden by Christ, notably the site of the Ascension, described by Adomnán and Bede as encircled by a chest-high bronze structure,76 and Mount Tabor where the site of the Transfiguration was described by John Phocas as being marked by a white roundel and protected by a metal covering or railing.77

72. Alfred Largeault, “Inscriptions métriques composées par Alcuin à la fin du VIIIe siècle pour les monastères de Saint-Hilaire de Poitiers et de Nouaillé,” Mémoires de la Société des antiquaires de l’Ouest, ser. 2, 7 (1884): 250–55, understood Aton to have encircled the tombs with a ballustrade. The editors of the Corpus des inscriptions de la France médiévale similarly translate “Sed monumenta brevi placuit concingere muro” as “Aussi lui plut-il d’entourer le monument d’un petit mur”; Favreau, Michaud, and Labande, Corpus des inscriptions, 1.1:46–48. Herklotz, “Sepulcra” e “monumenta” del Medioevo, 327, sees him as constructing new tombs set into the walls of the church. 73. Jakob Schwalm, ed., Die Chronica novella des Hermann Korner (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1895), 181; Kroos, “Grabbräuche—Grabbilder,” 340. 74. Anthony of Novgorod, Kniga palomnik, trans. de Khitrowo, 89–90. 75. Life of St Luke, 66, ed. and trans. Carolyn L. Connor and W. Robert Connor, The Life and Miracles of Saint Luke of Steiris: Text, Translation and Commentary (Brookline, MA: Hellenic College Press, 1994), 110–11. The term “abaton,” translated in terms of “a place not to be trodden on,” could mean “inviolate”; Carolyn L. Connor, Art and Miracles in Medieval Byzantium: The Crypt at Hosios Loukas and Its Frescoes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 79, n. 50. 76. “Aerea grandis per circuitum rota desuper explanata collocata est, cuius altitudo usque ad ceruicem haberi monstratur mensurata”; Adomnán, De locis sanctis, 23.6, ed. and trans. Meehan, 66. “Haec circa aerea rota iacet usque ad cercivem alta”; Bede, De locis sanctis, 6.1, ed. Fraipont, 263. 77. John Phocas, Brief Description, 11, trans. Stewart, 14.

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There is also recognition of the penitential benefit of being trodden on for those who were rather less worthy. In Purgatorio, not long after ascending the steps of differently colored stones discussed in chapter 4, Dante walks up a path paved with images that are explicitly said to resemble tombstones with depictions of the deceased, effectively being trampled in punishment for the sin of pride.78 This episode has been seen to respond to what was, in Italy, a relatively new phenomenon of depicting the deceased on tomb slabs, attested from the latter decades of the thirteenth century and becoming increasingly common in the fourteenth.79 In the illustration of the scene in a fourteenthcentury Neapolitan manuscript of the Divine Comedy, the figures of Arachne, Lucifer, Rehoboam, and Saul are shown rather as if lying on top of tombstones, but with their names inscribed around the edges of the slabs in line with contemporary tombs (fig. 73).80 The representations form a continuous strip along the bottom of the page, and Dante and Virgil walk carefully along the upper edge rather than treading on the figures themselves. In part a reflection of the difficulty of depicting the horizontal surface, this is perhaps also indicative of sensitivity regarding the gesture; indeed, it should be asked whether walking on an image of the deceased made walking over the body it covered a more charged experience. Either way, it is unusual among illuminated manuscripts of the Commedia in representing the images on the pavement; the majority show episodes from the lives of the figures.81 John A. Scott has seen the figures as an illustration of Christ’s prophecy that “whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”82 Conversely, those who chose such a position voluntarily are likely to have done so partly as an expression of humility in the

78. “Come, perché di lor memoria sia, / sovra i sepolti le tombe terragne / portan segnato quel ch’elli eran pria”; Dante Alighieri, Commedia: Purgatorio, Canto 12, lines 13–69, esp. 16–18, ed. and trans. Durling, 2:188–89. 79. Dante Alighieri, Commedia: Purgatorio, ed. and trans. Durling, 2:197; Lucia Battaglia Ricci, “Come [. . .] le tombe terragne portan segnato: Lettura del dodicesimo canto del Purgatorio,” in Ecfrasi: Modelli ed esempi fra Medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. Gianni Venturi and Monica Farnetti, 2 vols. (Rome: Bulzoni, 2004), 1: esp. 42, 48–55. On figurative tomb slabs, see Jörg Garms, Roswitha Juffinger, and Bryan Ward-Perkins, eds., Die mittelalterlichen Grabmäler in Rom und Latium vom 13. bis zum 15. Jahrhundert, 2 vols., Publikationen des Österreichischen Kulturinstituts in Rom 2 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1981–94), vol. 1; Julian Gardner, The Tomb and the Tiara: Curial Tomb Sculpture in Rome and Avignon in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 85–89; Cannon, Religious Poverty, Visual Riches, 240–43. 80. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Holkham Misc. 48, p. 79; Brieger, Meiss, and Singleton, Illuminated Manuscripts of the Divine Comedy, 2:365a; Laura Pasquini, “Fra parole e immagini: Il ‘visible parlare’ nel manoscritto Holkham 514 (Oxford Bodleian Library, misc. 48),” in Dante und die bildenden Künste: Dialoge—Spiegelungen—Transformationen, ed. Maria Antonietta Terzoli and Sebastian Schütze (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 84. See, for example, the tomb slab of Dominican General Muñoz de Zamora, ca. 1300, in S. Sabina, Rome: James D. Breckenridge, “Christian Funerary Portraits in Mosaic,” Gesta 13, no. 2 (1974): 38, fig. 12; Cannon, Religious Poverty, Visual Riches, 240–43, figs. 217–19. 81. Brieger, Meiss, and Singleton, Illuminated Manuscripts of the Divine Comedy, 1:167–68, 2:364–69. 82. Luke 14:11. John A. Scott, “Canto XII,” in Güntert and Picone, Lectura Dantis Turicensis, 2:173–97. I am grateful to Peter Dent for this reference.

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Fig. 73. Dante and Virgil walking on representations of Arachne, Lucifer, Rehoboam, and Saul in Purgatory, Divine Comedy, Naples, 1340s. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Holkham Misc. 48, p. 79. Photo: The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford.

hope of exaltation in the afterlife. It is possible that the will of the papal chaplain Campano of Novara, dated 1296, which specifies a modest tomb flush with the surface of the ground (“in planitia terre”) and with an inscription identifying him as a sinner, may fit into this valuation of humility underfoot since there is a now partly illegible reference to “. . . pedes ad capud ipsius.”83 Medieval sources that link humble burial underfoot with the desire to be remembered are perhaps more plentiful and tend to be found in the later medieval wills that

83. “Mandavit quod constructio sue sepulture non sit multum honerosa in expensis et quod sepelliatur corpus suum in planitia terre et / [. . . . . . . . .] pedes ad capud ipsius et quod in ipsa sepultura non sit subscriptio aliqua pomposa nisi subscriptio talis: Hic iacet talis peccator cuius anima re/[quiescat in pace. . . .]”; Agostino Paravicini-Bagliani, “Un matematico nella corte papale del secolo XIII: Campano da Novara († 1296),” Rivista di storia della chiesa in Italia 27 (1973): 124; Herklotz, “Sepulcra” e “monumenta” del Medioevo, 335.

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request the position.84 Indeed, walking over a grave could serve as a shorthand for remembering the deceased; Renate Kroos notes that German texts employ the formula “über das Grab gehen,” citing a thirteenth-century request by a Strasbourg testator for a chaplain to walk over his grave: “zur wochen zeimmal uber min grab gange.”85 It should be noted, however, that those who requested such a position did not necessarily end up there. Roger Whelpdale, bishop of Carlisle in the early fifteenth century, asked for burial in a humble place at the entrance to a church in such a position that those “grinding his miserable body with their feet” might be moved to pray for him.86 The bishop died in London and may have been buried in the entrance to St. Paul’s, but the location of his grave remains uncertain.87 A contemporary Devon landowner similarly asked to be buried where people “goth over in-to þe church at þe South Syde, ryȝte as they mowe stappe on me / and a flat playne stone, saue my name ygraued þar-In, that men mowe the rather haue mynde on me, and pray for me.”88 Here the man concerned, whose will has been seen as Lollard in character, was ultimately buried inside the church together with his wife, who is likely to have requested the more conventional brass that shows them both.89 Nevertheless, the spatial logic of the requests is significant for the way in which they conceive and perform humility, whether or not that was made good in the final burial arrangements. In these examples the emphasis is placed on the action of walking, mainly construed as repeated, anonymous, and collective. Indeed in 1500 the vicar of Farningham in Kent asked to be buried: “under the steppe comyng yn att the church dore so that every creature comyng yn att the same dore may trede upon my buriall.”90 However, as the more specific Strasbourg example suggests, there is a third aspect to burial underfoot that privileges identity, that of the person beneath and that of the person above them. In this

84. While the following discussion draws primarily on English material, the practice was known elsewhere; see, for example, Kroos, “Grabbräuche—Grabbilder,” 326. 85. Kroos, “Grabbräuche—Grabbilder,” 326; Aloys Schulte, ed., Urkundenbuch der Stadt Strassburg, vol. 3, Privatrechtliche Urkunden und Amtslisten von 1266 bis 1332 (Strassburg: Trübner, 1884), 13–14, no. 39. 86. “Corpus meum vero, licet indignum, loco sacro sepeliatur, in loco humili; in hostio videlicet ecclesiæ; vel prope, ubi contigerit me sepeliri. . . . Et ponatur ibi tabula, per quam moneantur ingredientes ecclesiam, et corpus miserum suis pedibus terentes, misericorditer me miserum suis suffragiis et precibus lacrimosis comendare”; Raine, Testamenta Eboracensia, 3:65–68. 87. Diana B. Tyson, “The Death of Roger Whelpdale, Bishop of Carlisle 1419–23,” Notes and Queries 57, no. 2 (2010): 191–95. 88. Frederick J. Furnivall, ed., The Fifty Earliest English Wills in the Court of Probate, A.D. 1387–1439; with a Priest’s of 1454, Early English Text Society 78 (London: Trübner, 1882; repr. London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 26–27. 89. Nigel Saul, Death, Art, and Memory in Medieval England: The Cobham Family and Their Monuments, 1300–1500 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 230–33. 90. Leland L. Duncan, ed., Testamenta Cantiana: A Series of Extracts from Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Wills Relating to Church Building and Topography: West Kent (London: Mitchell Hughes and Clarke, 1906), 26.

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context, it is of interest that scholars of late medieval burial have noted a tendency for testators to ask to be buried by or even right under the pew they occupied during life.91 Such seats, which might have been purchased, could themselves be valued for their proximity to altars or their position beneath a particular cult image, expressing a certain piety and status.92 Burial requests of this kind have been seen as a desire to maintain in death the social positions achieved in life, especially for laity with a place in the chancel, but also as an essentially human wish to maintain a place among the familiar and the living. Either way, in the words of Nigel Saul: “a tomb was in a sense a substitute for the presence of the person himself. Where the person had once been, the tomb now was.”93 Part of this perpetuation of presence involves a physical relationship and contact with a surface that one was soon to be just the other side of. So William Consant in 1527 located his tomb in the church of Chislet in Kent next to “the step where I used to sit commonly”; in 1496, Margaret Smythe asked to be buried “near the seat where I am wont for to kneel.”94 These places are claimed as personal through a blend of corporeal contact and pious activity. They also bring together two points in time; the living person imagines a future in which they will lie beneath the place they currently occupy, at which point their position will take meaning from their past location above. Of course, an individual cannot occupy both places at once, yet I think these requests encourage us to elide chronologically distinct moments to envisage the living and the dead in combination. Margaret Smythe’s request to be buried near where she had knelt might well have been prompted by the experience or sight of kneeling on a grave marker, such as is represented in a contemporary Book of Hours from Ghent (fig. 74).95 This action might inspire prayers for the soul of the person buried there; certainly, after the Reformation church burial could be discouraged for this very reason.96 However, Margaret’s words

91. Saul, Death, Art, and Memory in Medieval England, 77–78; Robert Dinn, “‘Monuments Answerable to Mens Worth’: Burial Patterns, Social Status and Gender in Late Medieval Bury St Edmunds,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 46, no. 2 (1995): 248; Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 331–32. 92. Katherine L. French, “The Seat under Our Lady: Gender and Seating in Late Medieval English Parish Churches,” in Women’s Space: Patronage, Place, and Gender in the Medieval Church, ed. Virginia Chieffo Raguin and Sarah Stanbury (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), esp. 142, 146, 150. 93. Saul, Death, Art, and Memory in Medieval England, 77. 94. Arthur Hussey, ed., Testamenta Cantiana: A Series of Extracts from Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Wills Relating to Church Building and Topography: East Kent (London: Mitchell Hughes and Clarke, 1907), 84 for William Consant; 121 for Margaret Smythe, Faversham. 95. Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 3768, fol. 51v; Thomas Kren and Scot McKendrick, eds., Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe, exhibition catalog (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum; London: Royal Academy, 2003), 374–75, fig. 111b. 96. Andrew Spicer, “‘Defyle Not Christ’s Kirk with Your Carrion’: Burial and the Development of Burial Aisles in Post-Reformation Scotland,” in The Place of the Dead: Death and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Bruce Gordon and Peter Marshall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 151.

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Fig. 74. Woman kneeling on a tomb slab, Book of Hours, Ghent, fifteenth century. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 3768, fol. 51v. Photo: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, all rights reserved.

suggest less the imaginative act of putting oneself in the place of another, and more that of contemplating occupying the same place after death as one had in life. There was also a tradition of locating burial where others would do things, often continuing what the dead person had done in life by other means. Notably, there is some indication of a correlation between priestly or episcopal burial and the celebration of the Eucharist. For example, the ninth-century Liber pontifi calis ecclesiae Ravennatis describes one episcopal burial with reference to what took place above it. Ursus, bishop of Ravenna in the late fourth century, was thought to have been buried under a porphyry slab in the

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basilica he had founded. The slab was positioned “ante altare,” identified by Agnellus as the place “where the bishop stands when he sings the mass.”97 This description is consistent with Agnellus’s interpretation of another bishop’s tomb slab “post altare” as marking the place where an angel had stood facing him at Mass.98 The phrase “ante altare” is usually taken to indicate a position to the west of the altar, which implies that in the ninth century, the priest said Mass facing away from the congregation.99 The position of the celebrant at the time of Bishop Ursus is more difficult to determine, since the direction faced by the priest during Mass has been a topic of some debate, but it is likely to have been the same. Although Otto Nußbaum considered that in Italy the priest often faced the people prior to the second half of the eighth century, this view has been challenged by several scholars.100 In particular, Klaus Gamber made the case that in the fourth and fifth centuries both priest and people faced east.101 More recently, Sible de Blaauw has argued that the celebrant himself faced east; whether this entailed facing toward or away from the congregation depended on the orientation of the church.102 Since the Basilica Ursiana was oriented east, the tomb of Ursus could well have been laid in the place where he had celebrated Mass, with the expectation that his successors would do likewise, perpetuating his actions. Such an arrangement would correspond with a statement made by St. Ambrose of Milan that it was fitting for priests to be buried where they had been accustomed to celebrate, although Ambrose probably intended the general area of the altar rather than the exact location of the celebrant’s feet.103 The porphyry grave slab of Bishop Neon, originally positioned in front of the altar dedicated to St. Peter in the church of the Apostles (S. Francesco), must also have functioned in this way. This was not the only form of burial employed for Ravennese bishops at the time; sarcophagi placed above ground in mausolea are attested from the mid-fourth century

97. “Sepultusque est . . . ante altare subtus porfireticum lapidem, ubi pontifex stat, quando missam canit”; Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, 23, ed. Deliyannis, 170; trans. Deliyannis, 120. 98. Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, 44, ed. Deliyannis, 203–4; trans. Deliyannis, 152–53; discussed further below. 99. Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, 23, trans. Deliyannis, 120, n. 7. See also the discussion regarding the tomb of Bishop Neon in Bovini, “Sulla sepoltura,” 65–67. 100. Otto Nußbaum, Der Standort des Liturgen am christlichen Altar vor dem Jahre 1000: Eine archäologische und liturgiegeschichtliche Untersuchung (Bonn: Hanstein, 1965), 284. 101. Klaus Gamber, “Conversi ad Dominum: Die Hinwendung von Priester und Volk nach Osten bei der Meßfeier im 4. und 5. Jahrhundert,” Römische Quartalschrift 67 (1972): 49–64. 102. Sible de Blaauw, “Innovazioni nello spazio di culto fra basso medioevo e cinquecento: La perdita dell’orientamento liturgico e la liberazione della navata,” in Lo spazio e il culto: Relazioni tra edificio ecclesiale e uso liturgico dal XV al XVI secolo, ed. Jörg Stabenow (Venice: Marsilio, 2006), esp. 27–29. I am grateful to Joanna Cannon for bringing this article to my attention. 103. “Dignum est enim ut ibi requiescat sacerdos ubi offerre consuevit”; Ambrose, Ep. 77, (22).13, ed. Michaela Zelzer and Otto Faller, Sancti Ambrosi opera, vol. 10, Epistulae et acta, vol. 3, CSEL 82 (Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1982), 134–35. Gamber argues that the position of Ambrose’s own tomb slab, nearer the eastern columns of the ciborium, does not indicate that the bishop stood to the east of the altar to celebrate the Mass; Gamber, “Conversi ad Dominum,” 55.

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onward.104 Pavement tombs of this kind therefore represented a choice, offering not only proximity to the altar but potentially continued involvement in cult practices. It should be remembered that Ursus may not actually have been buried under the slab in the cathedral.105 However, the ninth-century belief that this was so was clearly compatible with the use of the slab as a liturgical marker. Indeed, the perceived mirroring of episcopal bodies on either side of the porphyry slab could have been felt to create a connection between the current bishop and the builder of the cathedral. The exclusive relationships that could be created by standing on a tomb do not preclude its avoidance by others. When Hiltrud Kier characterized the tomb of Archbishop Gero (d. 976) in Cologne Cathedral as “nicht zum Betreten,” it was to argue that the altar of the cross was unlikely to have been positioned in such a way that the whole congregation necessarily trod on the grave.106 The desire of priests to be buried at the high altar close to the celebration of Mass is also found in much later testamentary evidence. The vicar of Farningham mentioned above as requesting burial at the church door also considered burial before the high altar in his parish church “so that my feet may be under the preests feet standyng atte masse.”107 Similarly, in the early sixteenth century the rector of Hickling and Althorp (Nottinghamshire) asked to be buried “streght before the high alter, so that my feete rest undir the preste as he standes at Masse in oone of my said churches.”108 Perhaps this phrasing was a concrete way of quantifying proximity to the altar and indicating burial facing it, but the physical contact is significant. One priestly testator asked to be buried at St. Alphege, Canterbury, before the Blessed Sacrament in such a way that the celebrant should stand upon his breast at the beginning of Mass, creating a powerful vertical corporeal link from sacrament to heart.109 Laypeople too asked to be buried close to the altar. If this proximity is plausibly interpreted in terms of a desire to be remembered at Mass, some requests similarly stress physical contact, suggesting that a chain of contact with the host was as important as being brought to mind by the celebrant. Indeed, one Henry Burnell asked to be buried half under the altar of Sherborne Abbey (Dorset) explicitly “so that the Mynesters of Crist that shall sey masses ther may stond upon my body whiles they shal mynester the blyssed sacrament of our Lordes body.”110 These

104. Farioli Campanati, “Tombe dei vescovi di Ravenna,” 167–68. 105. Deliyannis has suggested that Agnellus may have presumed such slabs marked episcopal burials on account of the sepulchral associations of the material; Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, trans. Deliyannis, 335. Farioli Campanati regards the location of Ursus’s tomb as unknown; “Tombe dei vescovi di Ravenna,” 166. 106. Hiltrud Kier, “Der Fussboden des alten Domes in Köln,” Kölner Domblatt 33–34 (1971): 116. 107. Duncan, Testamenta Cantiana . . . West Kent, 26. 108. Raine, Testamenta Eboracensia, 5:124–25. 109. Hussey, Testamenta Cantiana . . . East Kent, 42 (1511). 110. F. W. Weaver, ed., Somerset Medieval Wills (1383–1500), Somerset Record Society 16 (London: Somerset Record Society, 1901), 290–93.

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examples involve a vertical configuration of bodies at the very moment of the Mass, but it is possible that contact could also be important for those buried at a distance. In the early thirteenth century, a layman made a bequest to the chapter of Burgos Cathedral on condition that a funerary Mass be said daily for himself and his wife, stipulating that the cleric concerned should exit each day walking over his tomb.111 Here, it seems likely that a tomb at some distance from the altar was envisaged and thus the physical presence of the cleric provided a delayed connection with the celebration itself. Priests and laypeople alike could thus seek burial under the body of a celebrant, achieving proximity to this crucial sacrament. Yet when such burials concern a priest the connection also achieves a mirroring of priestly bodies above and below ground, and a sense in which the deceased was still involved in the celebration of Mass, the raison d’être of the office. This connection was particularly poignant when a priest was buried before the altar of his own church, as with the vicars of Farningham and Hickling and Althorp, whereby the current incumbent was almost acting as his proxy. Similar connections might link holders of other ecclesiastical offices. In 1366, Jean de Marambato, dean of the parish church of St.-Pierre in Avignon, expressed in his will the wish to be buried at the entrance to his old seat at the side of the high altar in such a position that his successor’s feet would rest on his head.112 Although this request perhaps displays the same concern for proximity to and vicarious contact with the holiest part of the church, it also seems to reflect an interest in a sense of succession and continuity, with positions occupied and actions carried out in life being experienced in death. Burial requests by members of religious communities also allude to communal activities of worship, prayer, and remembrance. Rather than the action and mystery of the Mass, these have an aural dimension, involving both listening and speaking beyond the grave. For example, Robert Barra, prebendary of York and Southwell, 1526, asked to be buried in the place in Southwell, “ubi rectores chori in Matutinarum principio cantant Venite, etc.”113 This place might have had other benefits too, but the way in which it was defined by Barra indicates a desire to be kept within the ecclesiastical life of the collegiate community. A slightly different type of location was requested in the late fourteenth century by John Buckingham, bishop of Lincoln, who asked for his body to be

111. “Semper mittant unum clericum qui cantet missam de defunctis cotidie in ecclesiam Sancte Marie burgensis pro anima domni Alfonsi Didaci de Roias et sue mulieris usque im pertetuum, et quod semper exeat cotidie super sepulturam suam”; José Manuel Garrido Garrido, Documentación de la catedral de Burgos (1184–1222) (Burgos: Ediciones J. M. Garrido Garrido, 1983), 314–15, doc. 496 (1216). I am grateful to Teresa Witcombe for bringing this example to my attention. 112. “Et eligo sepulturam corpori meo in ecclesia Sancti Petri Avinion, in loco decanali videlicet in introitu sedis ipsius decani a parte altarum maiorum, ita videlicet quod quando decanus qui erit pro tempore morabit sedem a parte altarum ponat pedem supra capud meum.” The request is reproduced and discussed in Katie E. Clark, “Sacred Space in Fourteenth-Century Avignon (1309–1378)” (unpublished DPhil thesis, Oxford University, 2010), 23. I am grateful to Katie Clark for drawing this case to my attention. 113. Raine, Testamenta Eboracensia, 5:220–22.

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buried in the nave of Canterbury Cathedral, below the place where the archbishop made his station in general processions.114 By occupying a processional halting point, the bishop might be brought to mind but was also involved in the prayers said there. A similar request made in 1445 by William of Alnwick, bishop of Lincoln, to be buried in the nave of Lincoln Cathedral “in that place wherein the bishop makes his station at the time of the procession,” had the added dimension of situating the bishop where he himself had stood in life and where his successors would stand after him, creating the same sense of identity and continuity found in ecclesiastical burials relating to the celebration of Mass.115 The bishop’s tomb is shown on a plan of 1672 as lying close to the third northern pier from the west (fig. 75), where one might have expected a more central location, but it does correspond to the location of the processional circles marked on the plan of 1789 (fig. 76).116 As discussed in previous chapters, for ecclesiastical communities, open space within both church and chapter house was articulated through repeated activities in particular locations, so that there might be a place for penance and a place for blessings. These spots could be marked out by particular paving elements, more or less discernable to those outside the community, marking locations of readings, processional halts, and ceremonies to enter the community and leave it on death. So there was already potentially quite a complex relationship between the floor surface and a person standing on it in terms of communal activity and identity. Testators who sought to position themselves underneath places like this inserted themselves into the existing cultural landscape of a building, but also then helped to define it, their tombs turning into liturgical markers. People simply choosing to be buried under processional routes might still anticipate becoming a formal or informal halting point. In some cases, such as those of John Buckingham and William of Alnwick, or Henry of Blythe’s request to be buried “infra locum processionis” in York Minster in 1365, a pavement tomb might join existing processional markers (if these were already in place at the time).117 A tomb might also reshape the church’s topography by locating activities or instituting new ones. In 1382, Thomas Lexham, a canon of Hereford, asked that the choristers of the cathedral should recite

114. Canterbury, Canterbury Cathedral Archives, “Testament,” CCA-DCc-ChAnt/W/220. On the location of Buckingham’s tomb, see Kevin Blockley, Margaret Sparks, and Tim Tatton-Brown, Canterbury Cathedral Nave: Archaeology, History and Architecture (Canterbury: Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral, 1997), 35, 126–27, 135, fig. 60. 115. “In ipsa navi ecclesie in loco illo quo episcopus suam facit stacionem processionis tempore”; London, Lambeth Palace Library, Register of Archbishop Stafford, fols. 178d–179d; citation and English translation in A. Hamilton Thompson, ed., Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln, vol. 2, Records of Visitations held by William Alnwick Bishop of Lincoln A.D. 1436 to A.D. 1449, pt. 1 (Horncastle: Lincoln Record Society, 1918), xxv. 116. The Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 802836, for the plan of 1672, after Wenceslaus Hollar; Camden, Britannia, trans. and enl. Gough, 2:256, fig. viii, for the plan of 1789. 117. James Raine, ed., Testamenta Eboracensia, or Wills Registered at York, vol. 1, Surtees Society 4 (London: J. B. Nichols and Son, 1836), 74–76, for Henry of Blythe.

Fig. 75. Detail of a plan of the west end of Lincoln Cathedral, showing the grave of Bishop William of Alnwick at 37. William Dugdale, Monastici Anglicani, volumen tertium et ultimum (London, 1673), between pp. 256 and 257. Photo: University of Bristol Library Special Collections.

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Fig. 76. Detail of the west end of Lincoln Cathedral from a plan executed before the cathedral was repaved in 1790, showing the processional roundels. William Camden, Britannia, trans. and enlarged Richard Gough, 3 vols. (London: John Nichols for T. Payne, 1789), 2:256, fig. viii. Photo: University of Bristol Library Special Collections.

their obits standing on his memorial stone so he could listen to check they did their job properly.118 In 1494, James Clapham, master of an almshouse at Pontefract, asked to be buried in the chapel there and left money for two boys to recite daily the Psalm “De profundis” with the Collect “Fidelium” for the souls of his parents, standing upon his grave “super tumulus meum stantes.”119 The choice of Psalm 129 (130) was usual for commemoration of the dead, but it takes on particular significance within the spatial setting anticipated by Clapham, beginning “Out of the depths I cry to You, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice.” Although it is possible that he was imagining himself listening in, it is as though the boys give voice to the concerns of the figure below them. Indeed, since

118. London, Lambeth Palace Library, Register of Archbishop Courtenay, fols. 203v–204r; discussed in Nigel Saul, English Church Monuments in the Middle Ages: History and Representation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 139. 119. Raine, Testamenta Eboracensia, 4:93–94.

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this recitation was done for the souls of Clapham’s parents, it may be that it was in some way continuing a personal duty that he had conducted during life. Wills necessarily envisage this from the perspective of the entombed individual, but the idea of listening in may also have informed wider connections between burial and significant speech, with implications for the living. Megan Cassidy-Welch discusses Cistercian chapter houses as places of remembrance and discipline, noting that monks effectively “knelt for confession on the graves of former abbots.”120 In this way, the public quality of Cistercian confession was extended to past members of the community and especially its authority figures, arguably heightening the import of the act. The written sources discussed so far have envisaged specific individuals or holders of particular offices occupying or having occupied the space over the tomb. However, it was also possible for a wider, though still circumscribed, audience to be identified. Two of the testimonies in the 1233 canonization process for St. Dominic report that he wished to be buried at the feet of his friars.121 Rudolph of Faenza simply has the saint give this reply to a friar who asked him where he wanted to be buried.122 Brother Ventura sets the scene in the Benedictine priory of S. Maria del Monte, where the dying saint had just been given the last rites. Realizing that the prior of S. Maria intended to bury him there, Dominic is meant to have said “Quick, take me away from here. God forbid that I should be buried anywhere except under the feet of my brethren.”123 The significance of the statement rests as much on a desire to be among his fellow friars as to be situated in the ground under their feet. Like the episcopal, priestly, and decanal examples considered earlier, it is possible that the position was seen to continue identities and relationships forged during life. Since both accounts go on to describe the translation of the body to an elevated tomb, the choice of burial place should also be interpreted as a sign of saintly humility, to be commended but ultimately disregarded. Dominic’s request was part of a wider characterization of the saint. In keeping with the ascetic ideals discussed in the previous chapter, he was also described by these and other witnesses in the canonization process as sleeping on hard and humble materials, such as straw, wooden boards, a bier for the dead, or the ground itself.124 It is noteworthy too that the later Ways of

120. Cassidy-Welch, Monastic Spaces and Their Meanings, 113–16, 119–22, 217. 121. On the canonization process and the successive locations of Dominic’s remains, see Cannon, Religious Poverty, Visual Riches, 91–93. 122. “Unus fratrum tunc interrogavit eum, et dixit ei: Pater ubi vultis sepeliri corpus vestrum? Et ipse dixit : Sub pedibus fratrum”; Acta canonizationis S. Dominici, 33, ed. Angelus Maria Walz, in Monumenta historica S. P. N. Dominici, 2 vols. (Paris: Vrin, 1933–35), 2:151. English translation from Tugwell, Early Dominicans, 78. Tugwell’s translation is based on Borselli’s Chronicle: Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, cod. lat. 1999, fols. 21–26. 123. “Absit, quod ego sepeliar, nisi sub pedibus fratrum meorum”; Acta canonizationis S. Dominici, 8, ed. Walz, 2:129; trans. Tugwell, Early Dominicans, 68. 124. Acta canonizationis S. Dominici, 3, 13, 20, 31, 37, 46, ed. Walz, 2:125, 135, 139, 149, 156, 165; Tugwell, Early Dominicans, 66, 70, 72, 76, 80, 84.

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Prayer of St. Dominic has him embracing humble positions in prayer.125 At the same time, as we have seen, walking on graves could be construed as disrespectful, and saints of this caliber in thirteenth-century Italy were usually placed in raised tombs. Dominic’s translation can thus be seen as the action of pious followers willing to disregard his wishes in order to honor him appropriately after death. However, to an extent his humility already carried within itself the expectation of reversal. In this respect, the new tomb simply makes manifest what the old one promised. In these examples, people explicitly embraced burial underfoot. While this choice could reflect a general desire to be trodden on for commemorative or penitential purposes, in some cases particular feet were intended. With the potential to perpetuate specific identities based on likeness between the dead and the living, such burial could also put the dead in contact with salvific actions, as with the laymen positioned beneath the feet of the priest at Mass. To come full circle with the discussion of holy imprints with which this study began, it is worth considering a few cases in which burial was sought beneath surfaces sanctified by the past presence of holy individuals. The Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis describes how ground rendered holy by the presence of an angel was subsequently used for burial. According to Agnellus, Bishop John I (r. 477–94) was celebrating Mass in the church of S. Agata, when an angel appeared on the other side of the altar. Invisible to the rest of the clergy and the congregation, the angel offered John the chalice, which thus appeared to move miraculously through the air. At his death, the bishop was buried “behind the altar, in that place where he saw the angel standing.”126 The bishop was pictured celebrating Mass in the company of an angel in the apse mosaics of the church, and it has been suggested that Agnellus took the story from the image.127 Certainly, the link between tomb and apparition need not date back further than the composition of the Liber pontifi calis. John I’s epitaph, which still survives, makes no mention of the event.128 Yet the episode shows that in the ninth century at least, a site sanctified by angelic presence could be considered appropriate for burial. As discussed in the first chapter, further contact with such locations tended to be highly circumscribed, with measures being taken to prevent people standing in the same place. In this case, the place is not cordoned off, but the body is positioned beneath, as if under the angel’s feet. The position combines humility with proximity in a way different from that proposed for flat tombs close to altars, since here both qualities stem from the

125. Tugwell, “Nine Ways of Prayer of St. Dominic,” 81–92; trans. Tugwell, Early Dominicans, 94–103. 126. “Sepultus est in praedictae sanctae martiris Agathae basilica post altare, in eo loco ubi angelum stantem vidit”; Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, 44, ed. Deliyannis, 203–4; trans. Deliyannis, 152–53. 127. Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, 44, trans. Deliyannis, 153, n. 35. 128. The tomb slab was reused in the pavement of the Ursiana church, along with that of Bishop Agnellus, who had also been buried in S. Agata. The inscription is edited in Eugen Borman, ed., Inscriptiones Aemiliae, Etruriae, Umbriae Latinae, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 11, pt. 1 (Berlin: Reimer, 1888), 62, no. 304.

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recalled angelic presence above. However, by testifying to an exclusive visual experience in a particular place, the tomb slab does share similarities with other marks or markers in the ground examined previously. It is also possible that it shares characteristics with other burials. The Book of Fenagh, composed around 1300, refers to a “flag of the Angels” in the cemetery at Fenagh, under which both the king, Aedh Dubh, and the abbot, Cruimther-Fraech, are interred.129 Other flagstones with the same name are mentioned in Irish sources, including one in the Life of St. Patrick that was removed from the road by an angel.130 However, since the Fenagh flag is also described as “the resort of the Angels,” this could be another case of burial under a stone sanctified by angelic presence.131 Locations where prayers were or had been offered were also potent burial sites. Alberto of Villa d’Ogna was buried in the place where he himself had prayed; others chose locations sanctified by the prayers of prominent churchmen. The eleventh- or twelfth-century commentary on the Martyrology of Oengus contains an exchange between Abbot Mochutu of Rathen and Constantine, a British king who had come on pilgrimage to the monastery and stayed on as a laborer. Shortly before Constantine’s death, the abbot is said to have seen the devil over the man’s head. Challenged, the devil claimed that Constantine was his, since “the world is on his conscience.” When Mochutu asked Constantine for his confession, he replied that “on my conscience there is nothing of the world save only that I think I should like the flagstone [lec] on which thou repeatest thy paternoster to be over my face (when I am buried),” a request to which the abbot agreed.132 The fact that the stone is to be directly above Constantine’s head not only echoes the position adopted previously by the devil, but also reflects the particular importance of this part of the body in Celtic culture more generally.133 The placement of the stone corresponds to a widespread burial practice, since small recumbent slabs, sometimes marked with a cross, are thought to have been placed over the heads of the dead in various early Christian sites.134 In this case, the implication is that the slab has been sanctified by both the presence and prayers of Mochutu and will thus provide a protective shield for the dead body. Like the cross, the Lord’s Prayer had powerful apotropaic properties. It was included in

129. W. H. Hennessy, ed., and D. H. Kelly, trans., The Book of Fenagh (Dublin: Alexander Thom, 1875), 121, 133, 291, 309. 130. Stokes, Tripartite Life of St Patrick, 1:236–37. 131. Hennessy and Kelly, Book of Fenagh, 207. 132. Whitley Stokes, ed., Félire Oengusso Céli Dé (The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee), HBS 29 (London: HBS, 1905), 94–95. For the dating of the commentary, see Pádraig Ó Riain, “The Tallaght Martyrologies, Redated,” Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 20 (1990): 22–23. 133. Susan Leigh Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, 900–1500: A Review of the Written Sources (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999), 97, 140. 134. Pádraig Lionard, “Early Irish Graveslabs,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 61C (1961): 99–100.

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medieval amulets and also recited aloud to ward off evil influences.135 The Old English poem Solomon and Saturn, found in manuscripts dating from the late tenth and eleventh centuries, explains that the prayer could function as protection against the “Devil’s Fire” and describes the different guises in which the Pater Noster and the devil confront each other.136 Regularity of use could be seen as significant; writing to Archbishop Egbert of York in the eighth century, Bede said that the faithful should frequently repeat the Pater Noster and the Creed to arm themselves against the devil (and assumed that the Lord’s Prayer would be said kneeling).137 This quality of the prayer makes it particularly suited for Constantine’s grave stone in the light of the satanic appearance, but it is possible that it was perceived as already being used in this way by Mochutu himself, with the words protecting the abbot and his place of prayer. The way in which the Lord’s Prayer appears to function in the episode corresponds to the use of loricae in medieval Celtic Christianity more generally. These hymns or prayers constituted “verbal body armor” and could be used to cast out demons. They were primarily delivered orally, although textual amulets were known.138 In the Martyrology commentary, speaking the prayer repeatedly is credited with lasting effect that extends to the object with which the speaker is in contact, either by standing or kneeling. It should be noted that the slab was not necessarily kept in situ. Indeed, the properties attributed to the fragments of earth and stone discussed in previous chapters suggest that it could have been thought to preserve the associations of its previous location. However, it may be that Constantine wished to be buried in the actual spot where Mochutu prayed. The fact that the abbot was accustomed to pray in one place and on a particular flagstone also corresponds with the practices explored in the previous chapter. Reims Cathedral provides another example of burial underneath a paving component valued for what had taken place on top of it. Here, the place where St. Nicasius was thought to have been beheaded was marked by a round marble slab in the nave pavement.139 This marker did not simply denote the location of the event, but also reflected the saint’s contact with the ground on that occasion. According to the mid-tenthcentury Historia Remensis ecclesiae of Flodoard of Reims (894–966), Nicasius was martyred at the entrance to the church while singing the verse of Psalm 118 (119):

135. On the apotropaic value of both the Pater Noster and crosses, see Don C. Skemer, Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 84–85, 90–96. 136. Skemer, Binding Words, 90; for an edition of the poem and the dating of the scribal hands, see Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 6 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942), l–lx, 31–48. 137. Bede, Epistola ad Ecgbertum episcopum, 5, ed. and trans. Christopher Grocock and I. N. Wood, Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow: Bede’s Homily 1.13 on Benedict Biscop; Bede’s History of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow; the Anonymous Life of Ceolfrith; Bede’s Letter to Ecgbert, Bishop of York (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 130–33. 138. Skemer, Binding Words, 42. 139. Reinhardt, Cathédrale de Reims, 16.

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“Adhaesit pavimento anima mea” (appropriately enough the psalm that was not only associated with the virtue of humility, but would later sometimes be used for church consecration during the writing of the alphabet cross). His head fell to the ground, completing the verse with the words: “Vivica me, Domine, secundum verbum tuum” (“quicken thou me, Lord, according to thy word”).140 The psalm almost prefigures the saint’s death, presenting the motion of his dying body as an expression of interior humility. At the same time, the account carries the potential for the ground to be sanctified both by the recitation of the psalms and by contact with the miraculously speaking severed head. The latter quality in particular seems to have informed later understandings of the roundel, since the Life of St. Albert of Liège describes it as the stone on which the martyrdom had taken place: “Sacratus vero lapis marmoreus et rotundus sancti Nichasii antistitis, super quem fuit decollatus.”141 The fact that the slab is specified as round and marble corresponds with other pavement markers that indicated the location of particular events or the presence of particular individuals. Within the text, as perhaps also in reality, these aspects of the stone slab appear appropriate to and reflective of its sacred character. The bishop of Liège was buried close to the spot in 1192, but because the space between the roundel and the existing tomb of Archbishop Adalbero was too small, his head and shoulders were placed under the roundel. The stone is specifically identified as protecting the remains from above.142 In this respect, it can be seen to function in a similar way to the stone on which Mochutu had prayed, also placed over the head of the deceased. The fact that the stone had been hallowed by a decapitation may have added to its apotropaic potency. The position is thus also reminiscent of the mirroring achieved by placing the head reliquary of St. Maurice, similarly decapitated, above the head of Otto I, discussed above. All of this reflects the importance of the head in medieval ideas of the body. However, at Reims the juxtaposition of roundel and remains was also expressive of Albert’s identity. The bishop had been assassinated, with a blow to the head, by associates of the Emperor Henry VI while seeking refuge in Reims, and the narrative of his Life was probably designed to play a part in the establishment of his own cult, since it mentions miracles taking place at the grave.143 Hagiographical intent on

140. Psalm 118 (119).25; Flodoard of Reims, Historia Remensis ecclesiae, 1.6, ed. Martina Stratmann, MGH SS 36 (Hannover: Hahn 1998), 75; for the dating, 4. See chapter 2 for discussion of the consecration ordo in the eleventh-century manuscript in the Biblioteca capitolare in Lucca in which Psalm 118 (119) is used. 141. Vita Alberti episcopi Leodiensis, 42, ed. I. Heller, in MGH SS 25 (Hannover: Hahn, 1880), 165. 142. “Hic sepulti humeros atque caput Nichasii sacer lapis desuper protegebat”; Vita Alberti, 42, ed. Heller, 165. The burial of Albert is discussed in Louis Demaison, “Reims à la fin du XIIe siècle, d’après la vie de saint Albert, évêque de Liège,” Travaux de l’Académie nationale de Reims 139 (1924–25): esp. 96–105. 143. Vita Alberti, 39, ed. Heller, 163, for the assassination; Vita Alberti, 43, ed. Heller, 165 for the miracles. On the circumstances surrounding Albert’s death, see Raymond H. Schmandt, “The Election and Assassination of Albert of Louvain, Bishop of Liège, 1191–92,” Speculum 42, no. 4 (1967): 639–60.

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the part of the author of the Vita is also evident in his comparison of Albert with Thomas Becket, canonized not long after his murder in similar circumstances in 1170.144 Although Albert is said to be entrusted to the care of Nicasius, an equivalency between the two is suggested by the use of the same terms to describe them: Nicasius as presul and “martyr of Christ” and Albert as presul and “new martyr of Christ.”145 The position of the bishop’s burial reinforces the parallel. The degree of likeness that could be implied by occupying the same space, even at different moments in time, which has been discussed with respect to episcopal and decanal status, here serves to present Albert’s murder as martyrdom. It should be noted that there is some discrepancy between roundel and burial place in the archaeological record, and indeed uncertainty regarding the original location of the roundel. A charter from 1299 refers to a door in the south side of the nave facing the “rotella of St. Nicasius.”146 A sixteenth-century plan of the cathedral by Jacques Cellier shows “le lieux ou sainct Nicaise fut decollé” as a square in the sixth bay from the west end, in line with a door in the south side of the nave labelled “Porte du Palais” and a little west of the jubé, which was located between the seventh and eighth bays (fig. 77).147 This door, which is considered to date back to the original construction, appears to have been walled up at some point before the mid-nineteenth century.148 According to Canon Coquault, writing in the mid-seventeenth century, the rouelle was located in the middle of the nave, near the door of the jubé, where it was surrounded by other stones and a “châssis de bois par revérénce,” and surmounted by a candelabra lit on major feast days including that of St. Nicaise.149 In 1667, the spot was covered by a marble aedicule, which was destroyed in the eighteenth century.150 However, from the eighteenth century there was a tradition that the rouelle had been moved from a location underneath the jubé.151 Indeed, excavations in the early twentieth century revealed Albert’s tomb

144. Vita Alberti, 46, ed. Heller, 167–68. 145. Vita Alberti, 42, ed. Heller, 165. 146. “A cono pilerii turris anterioris ecclesie Remensis usque ad conum pilerii ostii quod respicit rotellam sancti Nichasii”; cited in Louis Demaison, “La cathédrale de Reims, son histoire, les dates de sa construction,” Bulletin monumental 66 (1902): 30. See also Reinhardt, Cathédrale de Reims, 16, 74, 232 n. 7. 147. Paris, BnF, MS Fr. 9152, fol. 68r. The rouelle, labelled “Endroit ou S. Nicaise a été decolé,” occupies the same position in a plan of ca. 1722, Reims, Bibliothèque municipale, VIII-IIa, no. 1; published in Anne Walters Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut and Reims: Context and Meaning in His Musical Works (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 31, fig. 11. 148. Richard Hamann-MacLean and Ise Schüssler, Die Kathedrale von Reims, 8 vols. (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1993–96), 2:22. 149. Cited in Charles Cerf, Histoire et description de Notre-Dame de Reims, 2 vols. (Reims: P. Dubois, 1861), 1:376. 150. Louis Demaison “Les cathédrales de Reims antérieures aux XIIIe siècle,” Bulletin monumental 85 (1926): 76; Cerf, Histoire et description, 1:376–77; 2:255. 151. Cerf, Histoire et description, 1:375–76. Demaison, “Cathédrale de Reims, son histoire,” 31 n. 1, refers to Lacourt’s annotations to a copy of Marlot’s Metropolis Remensis historia.

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Fig. 77. Jacques Cellier, plan of Reims Cathedral showing “le lieux ou sainct Nicaise fut decollé” at N, sixteenth century. Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Fr. 9152, fol. 68r. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

next to that of Archbishop Adalbero in the eighth bay.152 It was suggested by Louis Demaison that this was the location of the roundel in the twelfth century, but that it was

152. Deneux, Dix ans de fouilles, 10–11; Demaison, “Reims à la fin du XIIe siècle,” 101–4; Reinhardt, Cathédrale de Reims, 16.

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moved in the thirteenth century when work on the cathedral gave a better idea of the location of the façade of the original church.153 The rouelle was certainly a point of reference within the new cathedral. The late thirteenth-century sculptures of the reverse façade include the figure of St. Nicasius on the trumeau of the central portal, flanked on the inner jambs of the portal by two Vandals and two angels, one of whom points to the place of the saint’s martyrdom in the nave.154 It also continued to be cited as the location for both burials and liturgical celebrations. A new Saturday Marian Mass was established at the altar by the rouelle in 1341, which appears to have been elaborated by Guillaume de Machaut (1300–77) and subsequently given a commemorative aspect after his death and that of his brother Jean.155 The brothers chose to be buried nearby, and their epitaph, now lost, made reference to a Mass to be sung “at the altar by the rouelle” (“ad roëllam in altari. missam quae debet cantari”).156 This choice involves the same kind of spatial relationship between locations occupied before and after death as has been seen in a number of other burial requests. Given Guillaume’s prominent role in the musical life of the cathedral and his likely responsibility for the polyphonic elaboration of the Mass, it is possible that the position also allowed him to listen in, rather like Thomas Lexham at Hereford and perhaps also James Clapham in Pontefract. Although these examples are drawn from a wide range of sources and periods, they exhibit some common factors. In particular, they indicate three main types of relationship between those below the earth and those above it that might characterize a decision to be buried underfoot. These are not mutually exclusive, and several considerations could inform a single burial. In some cases, a person was placed in a position where their grave would be trodden on by a wide group of people. This choice can be seen as a deliberate demonstration of humility, which also maximized the potential for commemoration, perhaps playing on a frisson of discomfort that might have accompanied the action of standing on a grave. In other cases, value might be given to a degree of likeness between the person buried and those expected to stand on the grave. Here, even if the place was accessible to other people, the anticipated audience was more restricted, with mention being made of those who fulfilled the same office as the deceased or were members of the same religious community. This scenario could involve the perpetuation of actions once performed by the deceased and thus affi rmed this aspect of their identity. Perhaps it also reflects an expectation that people were more likely be remembered by those similar to them. Finally, there might be a sense that what took place above the grave was holier than the person buried there, and in some way constituted a protective or salvific influence. These might be repeated actions such as prayer or the celebration of

153. Demaison, “Cathédrales de Reims,” at 75–77. 154. Donna L. Sadler, Reading the Reverse Façade of Reims Cathedral: Royalty and Ritual in ThirteenthCentury France (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 87. 155. Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut and Reims, 269–72. 156. Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut and Reims, 259.

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Mass, whether people inserted themselves beneath places already marked out for that purpose or stipulated that such actions should take place there from that point on. Equally, the burial place could be distinguished by the past presence of a holy individual and their actions. This configuration offered a beneficial influence that shares characteristics with that of saintly remains but also draws on the capacity of the ground to be transformed by what took place on it, in the same way as the locations trodden by Christ and the saints.

Holy Bodies below Ground As discussed above, holy bodies could be elevated above ground, sometimes through the miraculous agency of the ground itself. Relics might be placed above graves on particular occasions, and people could be buried under places where saints had stood or even been martyred. All these preserved a spatial hierarchy in which the holier element was the higher. Where two bodies were thus brought into alignment, even if at different times, the person buried underneath achieved a position that blended humility with protection and even likeness. However, there were instances in which saintly remains were located below ground. Ann Marie Yasin has emphasized that in Late Antiquity, reliquaries were frequently buried beneath the floor surface of churches. While their presence might be signaled by inscriptions set in the pavement, relic deposits were generally situated under an altar or protected by a balustrade, ensuring that “the site of their burial was understood as extraordinary ground.” Combined with the subterranean location, this treatment also circumscribed engagement with the site, with worshippers encouraged to bend down to make indirect contact with the remains.157 In other contexts, it was possible for holy remains to be located beneath the floor surface without the spot being set apart by vertical barriers. Here paving might not only indicate what lay below but, as with the graves of the more ordinary dead, could also prompt certain behavior in those who saw it. Moreover, if care was often taken to avoid people walking on significant graves, in some circumstances the configuration of saintly bodies below ground and pious bodies above was a positive occurrence, which could lead to the recognition and veneration of the remains in question. The body of St. Benedict, found during the rebuilding of the monastic church of Monte Cassino by Abbot Desiderius in the eleventh century, was left in place next to the high altar.158 It is possible that this choice reflected the particular history of the relics.

157. Ann Marie Yasin, “Sacred Installations: The Material Conditions of Relic Collections in Late Antique Churches,” in Hahn and Klein, Saints and Sacred Matter, 151. 158. On the discovery of the tomb, see Paul Meyvaert, “Peter the Deacon and the Tomb of Saint Benedict: A Re-examination of the Cassinese Tradition,” in Meyvaert, Benedict, Gregory, Bede and Others (London: Variorum Reprints, 1977), 3–70.

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The discovery took place despite or perhaps because of claims by the abbey of Fleury to possess the relics of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica, citing their rescue by a French priest after the destruction of Monte Cassino by the Lombards.159 Although the translation had been accepted as fact by Paul the Deacon in the eighth century, he maintained that part of St. Benedict remained at Monte Cassino, since after burial his flesh had crumbled into dust there.160 By the ninth century it seems that the abbey was felt to possess the relics in their entirety.161 The eleventh-century Chronicle of Monte Cassino gives a very brief description of the discovery of the tomb during works to lower the presbytery.162 In the early twelfth century, Peter the Deacon provided a more highly charged account, which went on to detail miracles that took place at the site.163 In this version, when workers unwittingly approached the area where the saint was buried, the whole hill upon which the monastery was built trembled, and it was rocked by further earthquakes the same day. The remains were not translated but remained underground next to the high altar, with the place said by the Chronicle to be reworked with precious stones.164 Indeed, the pavement of Desiderius’s new church was not only fittingly magnificent—an extensive opus sectile composition incorporating colored marbles—but in a comparatively rare use of figurative elements also represented two dogs in front of the altar, which have been interpreted as acting as “guardians” to the tomb beneath.165 Marble paving had been used in Italy before this date with no particular connection with saintly remains beneath. However, in this case, it is possible that the pavement acts partly as a reliquary. When the body of Abbot Walthenus was exhumed at Melrose Abbey (Roxburghshire) in 1171 and was found to be incorrupt, the monks covered the grave in the chapter house with a stone of polished marble.166 Marble floors were also created around shrines; for example, at Old Sarum a decorated floor may have been laid in the later twelfth century in connection with the tomb of the locally venerated Bishop

159. On Monte Cassino as part of a wider phenomenon of uncertain and competing memory regarding the location of saintly graves, see Antonio Sennis, “Narrating Places: Memory and Space in Medieval Monasteries,” in People and Space in the Middle Ages, 300–1300, ed. Wendy Davies, Guy Halsall, and Andrew Reynolds (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), esp. 283, 291. 160. Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum, 6.2, ed. Ludwig Bethmann and Georg Waitz, in MGH SRL (Hannover: Hahn, 1878), 165. 161. Meyvaert, “Peter the Deacon and the Tomb of Saint Benedict,” 12–14. 162. Chronica monasterii Casinensis, 3.26, ed. Hoffmann, 395. 163. Peter the Deacon, Historica relatio de corpore S. Benedicti Casini, 1, AASS Mar. III, d. 21, esp. 288c. 164. “Loco pretiosis lapidibus reoperuit”; Chronica monasterii Casinensis, 3.26, ed. Hoffmann, 395. 165. Angelo Pantoni, Le vicende della basilica di Montecassino attraverso la documentazione archeologica, Miscellanea cassinese 36 (Montecassino: M. Pisani, 1973), 30; Herbert Bloch, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages, 3 vols. (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1986), 1:47–48. 166. “Super ipsam sanctissimi corporis glebam posuerunt lapidem novum, id est, marmor politum”; Joseph Stevenson, ed., Chronica de Mailros e codice unico in Bibliotheca Cottoniana servato (Edinburgh: Typis Societatis Edinburgensis, 1835), 84.

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Osmund.167 Excavations in the early twentieth century revealed the imprint of a “curious pavement of interlacing circles” to the east of the ambulatory, and fragments of red and green porphyry were discovered at the site.168 Whether because even saintly tombs could be situated below ground or because there was always the potential that burials would turn out to be those of a saint, floor decoration might be interpreted as an indication of relics underneath. In a passage in his Gesta regum Anglorum, closely related to part of the De antiquitate Glastoniensis ecclesiae, William of Malmesbury described the Old Church at Glastonbury as being full of saintly remains: “there is no part of the sacred building without the ashes of holy men, so thickly piled with relics are the floor, tiled with polished stone (pavimentum lapide polito crustatum), the sides of the altar, and the altar itself, above and below.” In particular, he noted that the pavement included stones “carefully placed in triangular and square patterns, and sealed with lead,” adding, “I am not irreligious if I believe that some secret holy thing lies beneath them.”169 William’s purpose in writing the De antiquitate, which was commissioned by the monks of Glastonbury in around 1129, was to establish the pedigree of the abbey as an institution stretching back into the Anglo-Saxon and British past, a pedigree that had been challenged by a Life of St. Dunstan (ca. 909–88) that claimed him as the community’s first abbot. Indeed, Antonia Gransden has suggested that William was specifically chosen by the monks as “a specialist on the subject of continuity.”170 William made use of other aspects of the physical fabric of Glastonbury to support his case, describing a pair of ancient “pyramids” near the church, on which he identified a list of names. He took these monuments, now usually understood as cross shafts, to contain the remains of the people listed, including some of the abbots of the monastery in the British period. They continued to be a potent landmark for the historical pretensions of the abbey since, in 1191, the bodies of Arthur and Guinevere were conveniently discovered buried between the two. The word “pyramid” was employed elsewhere to refer to tombs; William himself used it to describe the tomb of St. Wulfstan at Worcester. William’s description of the church pavement is thus consistent with his wider

167. Tim Tatton-Brown, “Purple and Green Porphyry at Old Sarum Cathedral,” in “Building with Stone in Wessex over 4000 Years,” special issue, The Hatcher Review 5, no. 45 (1998): 34, fig. 6. 168. W. H. St. John Hope, “Report on the Excavation of the Cathedral Church of Old Sarum in 1913,” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, ser. 2, 26 (1914): 108. 169. “Ubi etiam notare licet in pavimento vel per triangulum vel per quadratum lapides altrinsecus ex industria positos et plumbo sigillatos, sub quibus quidam archani sacri contineri si credo, iniuriam religioni non fatio”; William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, 1.20.2, ed. and trans. Mynors, Thomson, and Winterbottom, 1:804–5. William of Malmesbury, De antiquitate Glastonie ecclesie, 18, ed. and trans. John Scott, The Early History of Glastonbury: An Edition, Translation and Study of William of Malmesbury’s “De antiquitate Glastonie ecclesie” (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1981), 66–67. 170. Antonia Gransden, Legends, Traditions and History in Medieval England (London: Hambledon Press, 1992), 158.

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intention of establishing the place as both venerable and holy.171 It draws on the characterization of the pavement as a surface for commemoration, which could indicate what lay below. The paving may or may not have been laid with a funerary purpose in mind, but with cases such as the saintly Abbot Walthenus being reinterred under a polished stone in the twelfth century, it is easy to see how this might have been thought to be the case. The pyramids and the floor are therefore singled out for their capacity to contain precious remains, but where the former is associated with named individuals, the latter impresses through the number and ubiquity of anonymous relics. The idea of massed saintly remains below ground could also be invoked with reference to a crypt. Until the sixteenth century, the church of St.-Irénée in Lyon, originally dedicated to St. John the Baptist, contained the remains of Irenaeus and other early martyrs.172 It was of ancient foundation, with ecclesiastical buildings having been constructed on and around the site of a mausoleum in the fifth and sixth centuries. Gregory of Tours noted that the relics were housed in a cripta, but the exact nature of this structure is uncertain.173 The current crypt (restored in the nineteenth century) is likely to have been built in the tenth or eleventh century on the same site. In the twelfth century, the floor of the choir of the upper church was covered with an extensive tessellated pavement.174 This pavement was destroyed in the early nineteenth century, when the upper church was rebuilt. However, a watercolor executed by François Artaud shortly beforehand shows it to have included the labors of the months and personifications of the seven liberal arts and the virtues. The entrance to the choir was marked by an inscription in rhyming hexameters, which made reference to the relics: ingrediens loca tam sacra gens rea pectora tunde posce gemens veniam lachrimas hic cum prece funde presulis hic irenaei turma iacet sociorum

171. The section on the pavement was attributed by Antonia Gransden to a later interpolator of the De antiquitate, a text that is preserved in Adam of Domerham’s early thirteenth-century chronicle; Gransden, Legends, Traditions and History, 165. However, John Scott regards it as authentic (William of Malmesbury, De antiquitate Glastonie ecclesie, ed. and trans. Scott, 193, n. 45) and the editors of the Gesta regum Anglorum treat it as a passage added by William to the Gesta when the De antiquitate was not yet published, and later deleted; William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, ed. and trans. Mynors, Thomson, and Winterbottom, 2:xxx. 172. On the complex early building history of the site, see Jean-François Reynaud, Lugdunum christianum. Lyon du IVe au VIIIe s.: Topographie, nécropoles et édifices religieux (Paris: Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 1998), 176–82; Reynaud, “L’art roman et l’art gothique,” in Histoire de Lyon, vol. 1, Antiquité et Moyen-Âge, ed. André Pelletier and Jacques Rossiaud (Le Coteau: Horvath, 1990), 335–471. 173. “Hic in cripta basilicae beati Iohannis sub altari est sepultus”; Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria martyrum, 49, ed. Krusch, 72. 174. On the mosaic, see Stern, Recueil général des mosaïques, 2.1:124–26, plate XCIV; Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 274–77, fig. 62. Both reproduce François Artaud’s drawing, published originally in his Histoire abrégée de la peinture en mosaïque, suivi de la description des mosaïques de Lyon et du Midi de la France (Lyon: G. Rossary, 1835), fig./plate XIII. Artaud’s preparatory drawing is preserved in the Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon.

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quos per martyrium perduxit ad alta polorum istorum numerum si nosce cupis tibi pando millia dena novemque fuerunt sub duce tanto hinc mulieres et pueri simul excipiuntur quos tulit atra manus nunc christi luce fruuntur.175

The martyrdom of Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, is not attested in early sources; accounts appear to have circulated only from the beginning of the sixth century.176 In the inscription he seems to be associated with the general persecution of Lyon’s Christians in 177. As well as the individual mention of the bishop, by then titular saint of the church, there is an emphasis on the large number of other martyrs, who necessarily remain anonymous. This emphasis has the effect of laying claim to a wider collective, even civic, sanctity, which plays an important role in defining the church as a sacred place (“loca . . . sacra”). With the relics still in the lower part of the church, the floor inscription linked the two levels more effectively than if the same words had been positioned elsewhere in the choir, almost forming a window into the space below. By directly addressing readers, urging them to repent, it alerted them not only to the presence of the sacred remains but also to their own spatial relationship with the relics. The examples discussed above demonstrate how the overlying strata of ground or pavement could play a part in indicating the location of saintly bodies or confi rming their holy status. What is especially noteworthy in the context of the present study is the role that could also be played by a human presence above the relics. Such a role is particularly clear in the invention of the relics of St.-Maximin at the abbey church of St.-Maximin of Trier. The Miracula Maximini, composed in the middle of the tenth century, recounts that the buildings of the monastery had been destroyed by the Norse invasions of the 880s and the hiding place of its relics forgotten. However, during the reconstruction of the church, the location of the relics was miraculously revealed through the presence of a workman above the spot. Just as his foot touched the place where the saint was buried (“Cum mox ubi locum ipsum pede tetigisset”), the stone he was carrying became too heavy to hold and he let it fall to the ground. It broke through the pavement to reveal a crypta or small room, from which emanated a sweet smell that

175. “Entering such a holy place, guilty people, beat [your] breasts, sighing ask for pardon, in this place pour out tears with prayer. Here lies the tomb of Bishop Irenaeus and his companions whom he led through martyrdom to the height of the heavens. If you wish to know their number, I reveal to you that there were as many as nineteen thousand under the leader. From this women and children are both excepted. Those whom the dark hand carried off now enjoy the light of Christ.” This is the inscription given by Stern, who substituted “gens” for the “rea” given by Artaud on the basis of a fifteenth-century transcription in the Archives départementales du Rhône; Stern, Recueil général des mosaïques, 2.1:125. An alternative reading is given in Favreau, Michaud, and Mora, Corpus des inscriptions, 17:81–82. 176. J. van der Straeten, “Saint Irénée fut-il martyr?” in Les martyrs de Lyon (177): Colloques internationaux du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 575, Lyon 20–23 Septembre 1977 (Paris: CNRS, 1978), 145–53.

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indicated the presence of the saint.177 This space, described more fully in the previous chapter of the Miracula, was only large enough to hold the sarcophagus and was closed over with little stones, which had barely been able to sustain the weight of the pavement laid over the top.178 It was situated seven feet east of the altar, a location, as John Nightingale has pointed out, that tallies with the cavity found during archaeological investigations in the 1950s.179 The dramatic revelation of the hiding place designed to conceal the relics from the Normans, just when the position of the workman above the pavement mirrored the body of the saint below, demonstrates the idea that what the pavement can hide from some, it can also reveal to others, given the right audience and divine intervention. It also indicates the significance that could be given to the configuration of bodies on either side of the pavement. Standing on something or somebody holy was not necessarily treated as sacrilegious but could act as a prompt to communal memory. A comparable example is found in a thirteenth-century miracle story recounted by Caesarius of Heisterbach, in which a soldier stood during Mass on the tomb of a pious abbot who had been killed in a fire. So that “God might show the merits of him who was buried there” the soldier’s feet became extremely hot, and the abbot was subsequently venerated.180 The hot feet seem to be less a punishment for treading on the tomb than a means of communication between the living and the holy dead that brought to mind the way in which the abbot had met his death and publicly demonstrated his status. At S. Giustina in Padua (Veneto) a combination of floor decoration and physical presence above the spot played a part in the identification of relics.181 The church had been substantially reconstructed after an earthquake in 1117, but appears to have conserved the previous structure’s late antique tessellated pavement in the area of the nave. This mosaic, small fragments of which still remain, included a circular design at its center.182 The early fourteenth-century Revelatio sanctorum martirum recounts how, in the thirteenth century, a woman from Verona was ordered in a vision to restore veneration

177. “Cum mox ubi locum ipsum pede tetigisset, tanta gravedine superpositæ molis repressus est, ut invito multumque renitenti prolapsus ab humero lapis in terram cecidisset; collisoque superficietenus pavimento, in cryptæ quoque camera modicum lapillum tanti ictus violentia abrupisset”; Sigehard of St.-Maximin, Miracula Maximini, 3, AASS Maii VII, d. 29, 32b–d. 178. Sigehard, Miracula Maximini, 3, AASS Maii VII, d. 29, 32b. 179. Nightingale, Monasteries and Patrons in the Gorze Reform, 175. 180. “Ut autem Deus ostenderet qualis esset meriti illic tumulatus, miles tam vehementer in pedibus ardere coepit, ut desiliens clamaret. Quo comperto alter respondit: Sepulchrum est illius combusti Abbatis”; Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, 11.26, ed. Strange, 2:293; trans. von Essen Scott and Bland, 2:261. 181. Antonella Nicoletti, “Rilettura della decorazione pavimentale della chiesa di S. Giustina a Padova alla luce di un mosaico recentemente scoperto,” in Atti del VI colloquio dell’Associazione italiana per lo studio e la conservazione del mosaico, ed. Federico Guidobaldi and Andrea Paribeni (Ravenna: Girasole, 2000), 101–2. 182. Nicoletti, “Rilettura della decorazione pavimentale,” fig. 1 for the remaining fragment.

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of the many bodies of the saints (“multa corpora sanctorum”) buried underneath a “certain circle in mosaic work situated in the middle of the church in front of the choir”: “circulus quidam ante chorum in medio ecclesie situatus opere moseleo constructus.”183 The woman arranged twelve candles around the circle and knelt to pray in the center (“flexis genibus in medio circuli”).184 The presence of the relics was confirmed when the candles ignited miraculously. The mid-fifteenth-century Manuale offi cii divini secundum congregationem S. Iustinae de Padua indicates that the location of the circular design in mosaic (“ubi est circulus opere museleo factus”) continued to be identified as the resting place of the relics, which were honored annually shortly before the Feast of the Ascension.185 In 1452, Frederick III donated a grill or baldachino to cover the place, as is shown in a miniature by Benedetto Bordon, ca. 1523–25 (fig. 78).186 This episode is noteworthy in a number of ways, particularly for the fact that a design on the pavement functions as a sign of what lay beneath. Although floors of this date could have a funerary function, it is more likely that this particular element was simply conceived as part of a decorative design. Prominent circular motifs were a common feature of late antique floor mosaics in the region, including that of Pesaro Cathedral (Marche), where three circles are positioned halfway along the nave. The central circle is emphasized by the intersecting lines that divide the mosaic into nine panels, the inner five of which create a cruciform pattern. This pavement too continued in use into the later Middle Ages, with panels being added in areas of loss during the twelfth century.187 Comparisons such as this suggest that while the mosaic at S. Giustina could have covered inhumations, which were then revealed when patches became worn, the association between the circle and the bodies may be a thirteenth-century assumption reflective of later practices. That earlier floor decoration was subject to what Amy Remensnyder has termed “imaginative memory” in the later Middle Ages is also evident at

183. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, MS lat. fol. 480, fols. 68r–70v, esp. 68v. For a description of the manuscript, see the entry by Francesca Flores d’Arcais, in La miniatura a Padova dal Medioevo al Settecento, ed. Giovanna Baldissin Molli, Giordana Canova Mariani, and Federica Toniolo (Modena: Panini, 1999), 101, no. 29, where the shelf mark is given as MS lat 489. 184. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, MS lat. fol. 480, fols. 69v–70r. 185. “Feria secunda proxima ante diem ascensionis Domini facimus festum duplex in honorem sanctorum quorum corpora iacent in ecclesia Sancte Iustine ante chorum a parte dextra altaris Sancti Antonii, ubi est circulus opere museleo factus.” Francesco G. B. Trolese, “Usanze liturgiche del monastero di Santa Giustina nel sec. XV: Dal codice 1389 della Biblioteca universitaria di Padova,” in Amen vestrum: Miscellanea di studi liturgico-pastorali in onore di P. Pelagio Visentin O.S.B., ed. Alceste Catella (Padua: Messaggero Padova, 1994), 55. 186. Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, MS W. 107, fol. 18r. 187. Raffaella Farioli Campanati, “Sulla cattedrale di Pesaro: Dalle testimonianze antiquarie all’evidenza archeologica,” in Atti del VI Congresso nazionale di archeologia cristiana, Pesaro-Ancona, 1983 (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1986), 489–502. For other comparisons see Nicoletti, “Rilettura della decorazione pavimentale,” 104.

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Fig. 78. Benedetto Bordon, miniature showing the floor mosaic and baldachino in S. Giustina, Padua, Revelatio sanctorum martyrum in choro, 1523–1525. Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, MS W. 107, fol. 18r. Photo: © The Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin.

the abbey church of Moissac.188 The fourteenth-century foundation legend of the abbey, in which Clovis saw a vision of griffins carrying stones in their beaks, is likely to have been prompted by the depiction of two griffins in a largely lost eleventh- or early twelfth-century floor mosaic surrounding the altar.189 By presenting the mosaic in the light of the vision, it credited with commemorative intent elements very probably originally chosen for their symbolic or decorative associations. Perhaps a closer parallel with S. Giustina, however, is the belief that the porphyry slab in the narthex of Old St. Peter’s marked the resting place of the Venerable Bede, as reported in the description of the church by the canon Peter Mallius, dedicated to Alexander III (r. 1159–81).190 In

188. Amy G. Remensnyder, “Legendary Treasure at Conques: Reliquaries and Imaginative Memory,” Speculum 71, no. 4 (1996): 885–86. 189. Marcel Durliat, “L’église abbatiale de Moissac des origines à la fin du XIe siècle,” Cahiers archéologiques 15 (1965): 164–68, 174–77; for the twelfth-century date, see Barral i Altet, Décor du pavement au Moyen Âge, 253–57. 190. “Requiescit etiam ante portam Argenteam sub rota, scilicet porfiretica, ut a nostris maioribus accepimus, venerabilis Beda presbiter qui fecit homelias”; Petrus Mallius, Descriptio basilicae Vaticanae, 26, ed. Valentini and Zucchetti, 419; Andrieu, “Rota porphyretica de la basilique vaticane,” 194, n. 1.

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both these cases, the subsequent interpretation of the pavement decoration assumed a commemorative function that was in some way connected with what the pavement was thought to cover. Rather as in William of Malmesbury’s description of the Old Church at Glastonbury, the saintly bodies beneath the pavement at S. Giustina were unnamed and numerous, constituting a more generalized, collective expression of the sanctity of the spot than would be created by the invention of a named individual. Perhaps because of their number, they were also left where they were found, maintaining a close bond between place and relic. At no point is the mosaic explicitly identified as an ancient work, but it could plausibly have been felt to provide a connection with the early history of the church, especially since the previous structure had been destroyed or significantly altered by the earthquake. The position of the praying woman, at the center of the mosaic and immediately above the saintly remains, is another element in the account consistent with attitudes found elsewhere. Firstly, it may reflect how people positioned themselves in prayer with respect to pavement decoration. As discussed in the previous chapter, the Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis states that Galla Placidia was said to have prayed prostrate in the middle of four porphyry roundels in the church of the Holy Cross, with a candelabrum placed on each roundel.191 Richard Delbrueck suggested that the empress was lying on a fifth roundel at the center of a quincunx.192 Whether or not this was the case, both pavement decoration and candles functioned to circumscribe a space and defi ne the central position of the prayer within it, as in the S. Giustina legend. Galla Placidia’s candles were of a specific length and served also to measure the time. Those at S. Giustina extend the practice of placing a candle at the head and foot of the grave during the annual commemoration of the deceased, in terms of both their miraculous ignition and their greater number. The latter reflects the multiple bodies involved, but it is also reminiscent of the twelve candles lit under the consecration crosses during the ceremony for the dedication of a church, which similarly fulfilled an encircling function. In terms of the position of the woman, comparison can be drawn with the way in which the presence of the relics at St.-Irénée in Lyon was signaled in the mosaic. Although here Irenaeus is mentioned by name, this is another case where the number of relics is stressed. Moreover, those reading the inscription were themselves positioned above the crypt, and thus in a particular spatial relationship with the martyrs. Whether the pavement was facilitating the perpetuation of a particular memory or prompting people to remember what had been forgotten, the process had an important physical and spatial dimension. Finally, the position of the woman also fi nds parallels in the tradition of the invention of relics. We have already seen how, in the case of St.-Maximin of Trier, both the

191. Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, 41, ed. Deliyannis, 200–1; trans. Deliyannis, 150. 192. Delbrueck, Antike Porphyrwerke, 28.

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physical contact of a pious individual and the alignment of bodies on either side of the pavement could play a crucial role in the discovery of the remains. More specifically, the Revelatio sanctorum martirum is likely to draw on an earlier account of the discovery of saintly bodies at the church of S. Giustina, probably composed toward the end of the twelfth century and first edited from a fourteenth-century manuscript. Here the bishop prostrated himself in prayer in the place revealed to him in a vision before starting digging, uncovering the labeled bodies of Sts. Maximus, Julian, Felicity, and the Holy Innocents in marble sarcophagi.193 In both cases, prayerful contact with a spot shown in a vision is an important stage in the discovery of the remains. It is significant though, that the figures positioned above the holy bodies kneel or lie prostrate. Moreover, the named saints seem to have been translated above ground, while the place containing the anonymous martyrs was subsequently cordoned off with a grille, in the manner of the sacred places trodden by Christ and the saints. As with the other inventions, essentially fleeting conjunctions of bodies attended moments of revelation. The surface of the ground properly divided the dead from the living. This was not just reflected in the obvious fact of burial, but also found expression in attitudes to the space immediately above ground. Prostration brought people close to the bodies of the dead below, in terms of both proximity and orientation, and could be associated with death and the afterlife. Nevertheless, living and dead remained fundamentally separate. In St. Augustine’s description of full prostration as the ultimate humble position the surface of the ground halts any further downward movement.194 The practice of laying the dying on the ground was suggestive of their imminent transcendence of this barrier, with death rendering the surface permeable. Abasement during life held the seeds of a final elevation in the resurrection of the dead, but in the meantime, the body was properly set deep in the earth and covered over. Where the humble might approach the position of the dead in life, the idea of the dead themselves lying “super faciem terrae” was repugnant and is found in contexts of threats of interdict, curses, and admonitory miracles. Although fundamentally expressing clerical definitions of sacred space and correct behavior, these credited the earth with an element of agency in distinguishing between the bodies of the just and the unjust. In refusing to accept or ejecting the corpses of wrongdoers, the ground prevented or reversed the downward movement that otherwise characterized the transition of life to death, also testifying against a fi nal resurrection. Yet if the ground—especially holy ground—was credited with the capacity to weed out sinners, it could also distinguish between the ordinary faithful and the

193. “Peracta autem Missa, venit ad locum divina visione monstratum et prosternens se in terram prolixus oravit”; Historia inventionis sanctorum Maximi, Iuliani, Felicitatis et Innocentum, 12, ed. Ireneo Daniele, “L’‘Historia inventionis sanctorum Maximi, Iuliani, Felicitatis et Innocentum,’” Atti e memorie dell’Accademia Patavina di scienze, lettere ed arti 95 (1982–83): 205. 194. Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos, 43 (44):24, ed. Dekkers and Fraipont, 1:491.

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special dead. Complicating the spatial logic sketched above was the elevation of saintly remains in sarcophagi or raised shrines, and on occasion the ground might play a role in justifying a more prominent and visible location for those who were already in heaven. In this sense, it functioned comparatively, rejecting bodies that were too holy as well as not holy enough. The surface of the ground was also a point of encounter between the living and the dead. In the case of the ordinary faithful, to be buried beneath the feet of the living was not simply about a prompt to remembrance and prayer such as could be provided by visual cues, but also to be involved in a highly charged bond of physical contact, with the potential for the perpetuation of certain activities and identities after death. Although the bodies of the special dead might be protected from being trodden on, even here there are instances in which the configuration of bodies above and below the floor surface acted positively to reveal the presence and identity of saintly remains. If the discussion has mainly been couched in terms of the body as a whole, the position adopted was of significance and individual body parts might be emphasized, particularly the head and feet. While it almost goes without saying that tomb slabs set into the surface of the ground could play a part in revealing and bringing to mind the bodies that they covered, and decorated paving could also declare or suggest the presence of holy remains below, an unmarked or unbroken floor surface might also be interpreted as indicative of the status of those that lay beneath it. As other chapters have sought to demonstrate, pavement markers of various kinds could guide the actions of people above ground and establish relationships between those who used the same spot. In some cases, paving elements might relate to the space above and below ground to bring about an often mutually beneficial mirroring of bodies, with people buried beneath stones on which others had died or prayed, while tombs might be used as liturgical markers and floor decoration play a part in invention accounts. Discussion has focused on the vertical proximity of the living and the dead that marking the floor surface both signaled and facilitated, but it is probable that representations of the dead on tomb slabs should also be seen in terms of their potential to be walked, knelt, and lain on. Previous chapters have explored the charged connotations of standing on things, including images, seen as holding the potential for expressing both disdain and likeness. Prostration could also bring the body into contact with images on the floor surface in ways that suggested a connection between the two. In the context of burial, locating configurations of bodies either side of an image may well have heightened their capacity to demonstrate the humility and perpetuate the identity of the dead. In discussions of burial, proximity is generally conceived of in terms of the horizontal plane: closeness to the tombs of saints and altars, to the church itself, or to the graves of relatives and other loved ones. Inclusion and exclusion are conceived of in similar terms, inside or outside the church or cemetery. Insofar as people are envisaged as renouncing a prominent, elevated tomb in exchange for closeness to a sacred place, this suggests horizontal positives were valued over vertical negatives, such as a lack of height and position underfoot. Thinking instead in terms of the vertical axis—both the

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relationship between bodies above and below the surface of the earth, and the dynamic between the floor surface and those who used it—provides another perspective that admits both the negative and positive dimensions of standing on things. In this light, location in death responded to a familiarity with the fluid use of ecclesiastical space, positioning the dead under a series of activities, not necessarily conceived with reference to static upright components of the church space such as altars, shrines, and statues, but rather to where people stood or knelt at Mass, in processions, in prayer—locations that might be visibly marked on the flat surface or simply enshrined in personal or communal memory.

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nderstood not just as a material entity but also as a support for human activity and a subject of textual and visual discourse, the ground is revealed to have played an extensive, multifaceted role within medieval Christianity, defining people as well as places. Although some continuities exist, differences in the way in which the surface is valued and treated today (at least in the West) have likely conditioned us to overlook its significance in the past. At one level, then, this book restores a medieval perspective by demonstrating the importance of engagement with the surface of the ground across a range of contexts. Medieval Christians laid down paving of various kinds, spread the ground with textiles and vegetation, and marked it with designs in ashes. They consciously brought their bodies into contact with the ground in a variety of postures and circumstances, and they were mindful of those who had done so in the past and would continue to do so in the future. They could be careful of what they trod or lay on, avoiding walking on some things out of reverence and placing other things underfoot to be trampled, to honor the person concerned, or to guide their steps. In discourse and in practice, they used the ground as a platform to demonstrate piety, impiety, and religious affiliation, as well as other forms of status and identity. They could be attentive to who lay under the ground beneath them (and who did not), and what might take place above them when their time came for burial. In all of this they credited the ground with a degree of agency, a capacity to distinguish between those who came into contact with it and to retain traces of people and events. These practices and beliefs made up a web of interconnected experiences and associations that were available collectively to those who interacted with holy ground. Exactly what a person brought to this interaction depended on their circumstances; nonetheless, such encounters did not take place in isolation. A minority of medieval Christians visited the Holy Land, grasped clerical interpretations of church consecration ritual, or witnessed an imperial coronation ceremony. Many more will have

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venerated a relic from the site of the Ascension, heard a story about St. Francis walking on crosses, seen a pavement marker in use, prostrated themselves in prayer, walked over a grave, and contemplated their own burial. As well as bringing together many facets of interaction with the ground for the first time, this book has also proposed a way of analyzing this broad and varied phenomenon. It has developed a stratigraphic approach that attends to the relationship between layers clustered either side of the surface of the ground—permanent paving, temporary floor coverings, and human bodies—and that shows how they worked together to shape people and places. Concentrating on the vertical axis, it has elucidated particular configurations of layers and has conceived of its examples and case studies as the historical equivalent of core samples, with the capacity to demonstrate the potential of the surface as well as its significance in particular times and places. At the same time, this approach has indicated patterns of engagement with the ground that transcend the areas addressed in individual chapters.

Connections between Places and Rituals Focusing on the ground in this manner has revealed relationships between holy places marked by the presence of Christ and the saints—both in and beyond the Holy Land—and those created though ecclesiastical ritual. Some reflect a hierarchy; the substance of the ground from places trodden by Christ was venerated as a relic and could be used to consecrate a church elsewhere. However, there are also certain commonalities in the ways in which the surface of the ground was conceived of and treated. The importance of impression in manifesting a sanctifying presence or intervention is found in both the leaving of holy imprints and the inscription of the alphabet cross on the pavement during the consecration rite. This should be understood in the light of the role of impression in understandings of human memory and the employment of seals for documentation and the expression of identity, configuring the surface as one that remembered and testified. Correspondences can also be drawn between the materials used, with vestigia often described as set in the marble that was also used for high-status paving and for liturgical markers in particular. Indeed, some markers commemorating where Christ had stood in the Holy Land drew on conventions of decorated paving, while the large porphyry roundel in Hagia Sophia was understood as both the site of imperial coronations and the location of prayer by the Virgin Mary. These parallels do not result from conscious emulation of the Holy Land or Jerusalem-focused piety; rather they suggest shared conceptions of the defi nition and sanctity of place. Looking across boundaries of technique, encompassing permanent and ephemeral floor coverings, and taking into account a range of rituals has also allowed correspondences to emerge. On the one hand, pavements and floor coverings of different types

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were employed on similar occasions. For example, the surface of the ground played a part in staging the ceremonies leading up to baptism, from walking on a haircloth in late antique prebaptismal scrutinies and drawing the chrismon in ashes on the cilicium in the Milanese Church, to the use of the Evangelist symbols in the floor mosaic of Novara Cathedral as markers during the scrutinies, and the liturgical function that has been suggested for elements in the geometric pavement of the baptistery in Florence and the figurative floor mosaic of Otranto Cathedral. On the other hand, different rituals treated the floor surface in similar ways. In particular, cruciform markings were drawn on the ground in ashes during the consecration of a church and in some prebaptismal ceremonies and versions of the last rites, in each case involving a parallel between the surface of the ground and that of the human body. Aspects of these markings may have migrated between rites; certainly, they had the potential to suggest analogies between rites and their locations. Without presuming that the uses of the floor surface during baptism were directly connected, we are still more familiar with the possibility that similar practices might develop within the confines of a single ritual or sacrament than that they might evolve on a shared surface. The examples of similar markings thus challenge us to consider the significance of “superficial” resemblances. While they were underpinned by long-established paradigms that compared the church building to the human body and soul, such correspondences in material, form, and location were effected not just within a conceptual framework, but also within parameters of practice and visual culture.

Identity of People and Places So far, these observations have suggested connections between some of the categories into which we commonly arrange material to do with place, the built environment, and ritual. However, it is also possible to distinguish some wider patterns and a certain shared logic to interactions with the surface of the ground. A central theme running throughout the book has been the capacity of the ground to demonstrate the identity of those who came into contact with it. Positioned on a spectrum between the exclusive and the shared, identity in this context was made manifest through access and proximity, as well as through form, material, and image. At one end of the spectrum was Christ, whose miraculous footprints, preserved from further tread by others, reflected his incarnate and divine nature. The saints left their own imprints, itself a Christomimetic action, although St. Francis as alter Christus could be imagined as fully inhabiting Christ’s footprints. More frequently, however, collective identities were evoked through repeated actions in a particular place and the mirroring of bodies either side of the floor surface. Officeholders could express likeness with those occupying the same position, creating a sense of succession over time. Doing so might involve engaging with the same spot above ground as others had done in the past, perhaps in contact with material or images expressive of their role. Equally, it could be achieved through the configuration

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of bodies above and below ground, with clerics standing over the graves of their predecessors or being buried beneath where their predecessors had stood and their successors would stand in the future. Similar spatial dynamics could also place someone within a wider group of people, whether a religious community or the community of the faithful in a particular church. At the same time, individuals could be self-reflexive in their burial wishes, asking to occupy the same space in death as they had in life, as if to reap the rewards of their own actions in a particular location. In many of these cases, the surface of the ground helped to articulate and even bring about changes in identity. Several of the rituals that involved the use of liturgical markers were transformative rites of passage, from prebaptismal scrutinies and inauguration ceremonies to rites for the dying, while conversion might also be expressed through treading on something associated with a former faith. In addressing how places informed peoples’ identities, this book has proposed thinking of location in terms of layers—configurations of bodies, materials, and images—the significance of which was shaped by both the components and the actions involved. There was a close relationship between who a person was at a particular moment in time and what they came into close physical contact with: silk and porphyry for kings and emperors; sackcloth for penitents and the dying; earth and hard boards for ascetics; images of an evangelist and a monk for clerics and members of the monastic orders. More complex configurations had the capacity to heighten or nuance such associations, such as the prostration of the English kings on silks and a decorated pavement, Louis the Fat dying on carpet rather than sackcloth, or the possibility that relics at Farfa would have been humiliated on a haircloth spread over marble paving. If these encounters were predicated on a congruence between person and material, others were used to demonstrate difference between the person and what was placed underfoot, informed by the gesture of treading on something as one of disdain and repudiation. In Late Antiquity and the medieval Islamic world trampling seems to have been used to demonstrate not only the difference between the faith or identity represented by the object trampled and that of the person doing the trampling, but potentially also the conversion of that person. In the medieval West, it could be used to perform a rejection of the worldly by religious men and women, as in the impromptu trampling of a fur cloak during Katharina van Naaldwijk’s entry into the convent of Diepenveen, and the interpretations of bishops treading on textiles. While ritual trampling was a relatively rare occurrence within sacred space, in the realm of narrative, descriptions of trampling were often used to talk about both individual identity and differences between confessional groups. Avoidance of desecration underfoot marked out the pious; accusations of trampling what should have been held in respect denigrated or distanced those concerned; even discussions of being accused of trampling offered a way of addressing difference. If the surface of the ground could speak volumes about the identity of the people who used it, it was also employed to signal the identity of the place itself, especially as this was conceived in relation to physical contact. Most obviously, it could signal both that and

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how a place was holy. The ground could mark the transformative presence of a holy individual, whether through an imprint made at the time, as at the site of the Ascension or the shrine of St. Michael, a natural landmark, as at Gethsemane, or a memorial, as at the site of the Transfiguration. Ecclesiastical paving indicated consecrated ground through texts, forms, and images that referenced the consecration ritual and the attention it paid to the ground more specifically. The surface of the ground might also express the ownership of holy places, especially when this was contested. Just as the traces of Christ identified in and around Jerusalem helped to create the notion of a Christian Holy Land distinct from that of Judaism in Late Antiquity, so the reinterpretation of the footprints in the Dome of the Rock during the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem played a part in claiming the Temple Mount for the crusaders and a victory over Islam. This latter appropriation was effected by reimagining the body that had formed the imprint. Where the holy was repurposed as paving, from the marble slabs of the Gaza Marneion to the figures and crosses placed at the thresholds of mosques, this too could signal that a place or territory had been transferred from one confession to another. Here it was not a matter of rewriting past contact but rather enforcing the manner of future contact that proclaimed control. The floor surface could also be used to show where events customarily took place, in terms of both pinpointing specific locations within a building and proclaiming the importance of that building as opposed to any other. For example, high-status paving elements helped to identify Old St. Peter’s as the place of the coronation of Holy Roman Emperors and Westminster Abbey as the coronation church of the kings of England. This form of place-making too might be informed by a spirit of competition and confl ict. For example, the Evangelist symbols at Novara Cathedral highlighted and documented that the prebaptismal scrutinies took place there, and at the hands of its canons, rather than at S. Gaudenzio. The infirmary chapel floor at Marmoutier, in providing a site for monastic death after the model of St. Martin, expressed its community’s claim to the heritage of the saint in the face of the absence of his body and the existence of other cult sites in Tours. More than any other surface in a landscape or building, the ground had the potential to demonstrate that something had happened or should happen “here,” whether this was expressed verbally, as in the repeated “hic” and “huc” of the inscription in the floor mosaic at St.-Martin d’Ainay, or through form, material, and image. For that reason there were also ways in which it could articulate an equivalence of place, so that S. Petronio in Bologna stood in for St. Peter’s through the imitation of its interior, including roundels drawn on the pavement, or spreading textiles under an effigy of Christ helped to fit any landscape for an Entry into Jerusalem.

Time and Place The processes whereby people and places shaped each other through the mediation of the ground had an important temporal dimension, which is worth making

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explicit. Although contact with the surface on the part of the living was essentially temporary, there are various ways in which it might have lasting significance or form part of a set of elements and interactions that extended over a period of time. One-off contact could be permanently transformative, even sanctifying in the case of Christ and the saints or the markings of the consecration ritual. As noted above, the ground was sometimes seen to preserve a memory or trace of this itself, including making spiritual change manifest through material transformation. Imprints made in soft earth proved miraculously durable; others were made in hard stone as if in wax or clay. Although commemoration in the pavement was retrospective, it too acknowledged a permanent change in status. Moreover, where decorated paving echoed the form of the abecedarium or an image of the consecrating pope was located in the place where he had prostrated himself, it was as if the ground itself preserved a trace of the ceremony. Since interpretations of the alphabet cross drew comparisons with human memory and the imprinting of knowledge in the heart, memorials can be seen to express a conception of the transformation of ground beneath, echoing miraculous signs without claiming this quality. At the same time, the ground could both show what had happened there in the past and indicate what should take place there in the future. This capacity to signal use over time might entail exclusion from a space reinforced by vertical barriers, but more commonly the pavement instructed people to occupy particular places through visual and textual cues. In the case of temporary floor coverings, this directive quality was primarily forward looking and restricted to the immediate circumstances of their employment, although it could still make reference to similar markers previously employed there or elsewhere. For example, textiles spread beneath images of Christ on Palm Sunday alluded to the original Entry into Jerusalem; the ashes in Pietro Pettinaio’s vision in Siena Cathedral echoed the consecration cross that had once encompassed that space. However, permanent paving that marked where to walk or stand, kneel, or lie prostrate had particular potential to commemorate and perpetuate the actions of predecessors while anticipating those of people to come. In this respect, the pavement had a degree of agency—not the miraculous agency of ground that threw off covering, pushed up tombs, or flung out sinners, but nevertheless the capacity to guide the steps of those who used the space, often in ways that reflected and even shaped who they were. Arguably, the repeated use of a place also changed it gradually over time, bringing about a transformation that was different from the single event of sanctification or consecration, but still located in the material dimension.

Viewership Although questions of audience or viewership have not been central to the book, which has focused mainly on physical engagement, the transient nature of such moments of contact necessarily raises the issue of visibility: what could and could not be

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seen at the point of use; what was brought to an event by familiarity with the site; and what was brought to a site by knowledge or memories of such a use. At particular moments in time, body and flooring combined to form a meaningful unit, which could both enhance and obscure what was on the ground. For example, the combined visual and aural impact of the deacons reading the Gospel incipits on the Evangelist symbols at Novara Cathedral was likely to have been powerful, though no doubt experienced differently by the cathedral canons and any other clergy present. The mosaic may have been obscured in the process, but the short-term use of symbols within the ceremony, and knowledge of the pavement by those present meant that this likely did not diminish the configuration. In the infirmary chapel at Marmoutier, the presence of a dying monk surrounded by the monastic community on the pavement that depicted a dying monk flanked by two of his brethren would have been a poignant combination of bodies and images for all involved. Seen as a whole, this scene gave the impression that the figures of the monks were reflected on the surface of the ground, presenting the community as an entity that extended back over time to St. Martin himself. The pavement might well have been obscured by the customary cilicium and ashes, both more fully and for longer than was the case at Novara. Yet, again, the monastic community would have been familiar with what lay below. A similar deployment of mental images is likely to have influenced the reception of these and other pavements during the majority of the time when liturgical markers were not in use. In other words, viewers could have been prompted by the markers to recall the presence of the figures— potentially known individuals—who were sometimes positioned above them. While this was perhaps particularly the case with images, which were almost animated by this process, even the simplest geometric marker could have been enriched in this way by those familiar with the place. To a certain extent this was also the case with commemorative imagery and markers. More of an imaginative effort was required, but imprints were inherently suggestive of the bodies that formed them, while witnessing similar actions in the same place (as with kneeling figures at St.-Martin d’Ainay) or elsewhere (in the case of consecration ritual) will have informed the ability of viewers to repopulate a site. In most of these cases involving pavement markers and real or imagined bodies above them, the viewers are conceived as external to the events, casting back in their minds in order to enrich a visual experience in the present. The exception is Marmoutier, where those who saw both rite and pavement are likely not only to have participated in the last rites as a member of the community, but also to have anticipated being placed on the pavement themselves when their time came. Along similar lines, with requests for burial in particular positions, the person visualizing what they could not see in the current configuration of church space cast themselves very much as part of the ensemble and used what they had seen and experienced to project something into the future. In some cases, testators seem to have been looking at someone else occupying a particular place, such as a priest at the altar or lectern, and imagining themselves in death lying beneath them. In other cases, people occupying a particular space in life appear to be

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imagining a future configuration of bodies in the same place, with themselves beneath where they were currently positioned and someone else occupying the position they once had. Either way, in contrast to a two-dimensional marker that recalled the presence of a body above the floor, here the presence of a body above ground prompted thoughts of a dead body beneath it.

Record and Representation These examples encourage us to think about the church as a cultural landscape in which sacred space was articulated not only by three-dimensional elements, but also by two-dimensional prompts to three-dimensional memories. Pavements cannot be understood, indeed they are not complete, without the corporeal, whether present, remembered, or imagined. Given the number of practices that brought the body into meaningful contact with the ground, it is highly likely that many more paving elements were used to locate such actions than we are aware of. This gap between practice and evidence stems from both the written and the material record. Only in a minority of cases was a written note made of the use of a particular element. Moreover, many such markers will have been visually insignificant (and thus invisible to the later viewer) but known through use by communities and individuals, such as the chapter house stone in Lyon, the paving slab singled out by the knight in Caesarius of Heisterbach’s miracle story, and the foot of the pillar at which the Ravennese holy man always stood. To a certain extent, the last two examples prefigure the later medieval wills in which testators imply that they and others habitually sat or prayed in the same place. Without anachronistically projecting back a situation predicated on fixed seating for which payment was made, it is still possible to imagine that in a more fluid church interior the floor surface was even more important in articulating and enabling an attachment to place. Only a minority of these uses were recorded in situ in a way that is now visible without further explanation, whether because of the prestige, contested nature, or other importance of the ceremony to the foundation, and fewer still provoked both textual and contextual record. In addition to such issues of evidence, this book has confronted broader questions of textual and visual representation. My intention was not so much to look at the depiction of gestures performed on the ground in works of art, as at the works of art upon which such gestures took place and from which they drew significance. Nevertheless, the range of sources employed, both verbal and visual, has thrown up questions regarding the extent to which the significance of particular actions was consistent in different spheres of experience and representation. Untangling, or at least distinguishing, the different contexts in which people engaged with the dynamic configurations of ground and body considered here is of importance for interpreting actions that took place on decorated paving and other floor coverings in the church interior and other sacred spaces. Discussing practices of prostrate prayer, Richard Trexler noted that the visual representation of

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an action might differ from its description in the text, acting to soften demeaning aspects such as the proximity of face and ground. Discrepancies between word, image, and action seem to have been even more pronounced with respect to standing on things. This was already ambiguous on account of the fluid meanings of both the action and what might be trodden on, including the differing value of images in relation to their prototypes in different religious cultures. There was also a potential tension between what was described and what was enacted. Certain phrases married well with practice; people did indeed venerate where the Lord’s feet had stood. Others mapped less straightforwardly onto actions; the common metaphor of following Christ’s footsteps did not extend to physical occupation of his material imprints, in part because this risked desecrating the holy underfoot. The various connotations of standing on something were prevalent in different spheres. Trampling was more commonly represented than it was executed, whereas the use of liturgical markers seems to have taken place more often in practice than it was discussed or depicted. There are also differences between verbal and visual representations. Even where an action was understood as trampling, that is to say as being intended to express a negative attitude to what was trodden on, it was interpreted differently in texts and images. In texts, trampling could be cast as a positive action of triumph or a negative action of desecration, while depictions generally showed the person doing the trampling as the victor. With the exception of Conrad of Montferrat’s putative image of a Muslim horseman riding on the Holy Sepulcher, I am not aware of any instance in which an image shows someone denigrating something holy underfoot in such a way as to cast aspersions on them, possibly because of a reluctance to cause further denigration through the image. Perhaps even more significantly, there are also few Western medieval images that show someone standing on a liturgical marker in which there was some kind of equivalence between them and the material underfoot, although this seems to be more prevalent in the Byzantine world. In this case, the visual tradition was so strong (possibly even predating the attendant rituals even in Classical Antiquity) that it would have been difficult to show that the person concerned was not trampling on the thing. It is for this reason, I suggest, that the idea of St. Francis walking in Christ’s footsteps or on a textile decorated with crosses could be described in words but was not depicted in an image. A final observation brings the issue of representation into dialogue with the experience of viewing pavements in use. If the depiction of standing was circumscribed, looking at the entities momentarily constituted by a configuration of bodies and material underfoot could be enriched by the realm of visual and mental images. Seeing someone standing on figurative paving elements had particular potential to bring to mind familiar compositions, whether the interaction was construed as positive or negative. When deacons holding the Gospels stood at the points where the symbols of the four Evangelists were depicted on the pavement in Novara Cathedral, the pairings resembled images of the Gospel writers in human and symbolic form, while a cleric standing on the image of Satan in the mosaic of Otranto Cathedral might have conjured up an Anastasis scene.

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While such resemblances were most evident to an onlooker, they can be understood to have enriched the significance of the actions and configurations themselves.

Like the Rest of the Earth Ultimately, then, this book is an invitation to take the surface of the ground seriously both as an object of attention in the past and as a valid topic for modern scholarship. I hope to have demonstrated that the ground deserves a greater part than it has hitherto received in considerations of sacred space, place, and materiality, and also in considerations of the religious body as this was constructed through gesture, ritual, and interaction with other people and the physical environment. The evidence is scattered; the surface has undergone many changes since the Middle Ages, even at sites in continuous use as places of worship; textual and visual representations of interactions with the ground are complex works in their own right. However, by bringing together examples from different spheres, proposing a stratigraphic approach, and highlighting some patterns in the ways in which these encounters shaped people and places, I have aimed to alert readers to the potential significance of instances they might encounter and to provide something of an interpretative framework. In this way, I hope first of all to bring about a quickened consciousness and greater appreciation of the significance of the ground in the disciplines and areas of enquiry with which this book has intersected. Simply put, I would like readers interested in sacred buildings and sites to remember to look down when they visit them and to notice when people encountered in textual and visual sources are doing likewise. At the same time, I would encourage readers primarily concerned with societal practices and values to be aware of the expressive potential of what (and whom) people are standing or lying on or are buried beneath. If such an awareness has the potential to enrich discussion of other entities—a building, an image, a ritual, an informal interaction—it is not simply by adding another component to a particular object or event, or even by acknowledging a broader point of encounter between the human and the material, but also by recognizing the complexity of the surface as it extended beyond the immediate location and was informed by multiple uses and associations. Since the book has employed established categories of sacred places and things and of religious groups and practices, its capacity to inform how these are understood lies not in new definitions but in a fuller sense of how they were defined and new avenues for thinking between them. Secondly, I hope to have helped to promote interaction with the ground beneath our feet as a topic of enquiry in its own right. The ideas put forward here could be developed and tested in several ways within similar parameters of time and place. In the course of arguing that the ground mediated between body and place, and between people, I have highlighted interactions that could be interrogated more fully with greater attention to gender, the senses, and theories of materiality and cross-cultural exchange. Some broad connections are drawn between the phenomena addressed in each chapter, but it

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remains to be asked how and how far these came together in practice and were shaped by specific circumstances and decisions. How, for example, were different types of interaction experienced within a single site or by a particular individual? While the book has outlined some enduring patterns of practice, there is much to be learned about the manner in which they were affected by regional variations and change over time. More work would also be needed to chart differences between Latin Christianity and other religious traditions, and between sacred and secular space. Finally, the use of the ground in other periods and parts of the world would, I believe, also repay analysis using the methodology employed here. Certainly, comparisons can be drawn between medieval and modern practices, even as these involve radically different ideas and activities. Parts of a football pitch trodden by star players or used for penalty kicks are valued more highly than the rest of ground when the “hallowed turf” is distributed to fans, sharing features with relics of place. The zebra stripes of a pedestrian crossing can guide people across the road, commemorate an iconic pop group, and signify Pride when reworked in the colors of the rainbow, echoing the capacity of liturgical markers to direct and commemorate peoples’ steps and express their identities. Jewish gravestones are revealed to have been used as paving by Nazi and Communist regimes, while Stolpersteine set in the ground outside the residences of Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust remind those who walk over them today of others who stood there in the past, showing that the ground beneath our feet continues to divide people and to connect them across time. Such comparisons offer new ways of looking at modern phenomena, but they also challenge us to ask how much of the medieval practices outlined here stems from more general properties of the ground. This book took as its starting point another question; God’s command to Moses and the angel’s command to Joshua prompted Caesarius of Arles to ask: “How could that ground upon which they trod be holy, since doubtless it was like the rest of the earth?” In response, I have concentrated on the particularity of places, arguing that many were not only set apart as holy but were treated in this way precisely because of who had trodden on them. Yet I recognize in that very phenomenon a certain universality and see this as part of the interest and value of the topic. As a weight-bearing surface forming our primary point of contact with the environment we inhabit, the ground possesses properties that both distinguish it from other surfaces and transcend historical and cultural specificity. At the same time, this contact occurs and is interpreted in ways that are indexical of the practices and belief-systems of particular cultures, and that demonstrate differences and connections between them. Fundamental to how we experience and shape places, and how they define and shape us, the ground beneath our feet can also tell us what we value. In this respect, Sinai is indeed “like the rest of the earth.”

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INDEX OF MANUSCRIPTS CITED

Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 477 (461) [Breton miscellany], 91n50, 107, 108, 128, 134 Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, MS lat. fol. 480, 384nn183–84 Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, cod. lat. 1999, 370n122 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 44, 96nn76–78, 99n94, 124 Canterbury Cathedral Archives, CCA-DCc-ChAnt/ W/220, 367n114 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 122, 90 Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, MS W. 107, 384, 385 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS Palatino 313, 231n110 Florence, Biblioteca provinciale dei Frati Minori, Fondo Giaccherino, MS I.G.2, 266n223 Hamburg, Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. in scrin. 151, 147, 148 Ivrea, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS 86, 328–30, 329 Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 432, 299–301, 300, 301 London, British Library (BL) Add. MS 8167, 259n192 Add. MS 28188, 96n76, 96n78, 124n156 Add. MS 57534, 224, 225 Cotton MS Vitell. A VII, 96n76, 96n78, 124n156 Egerton MS 943, 231, 232, 283 Harley MS 2906, 105, 106 Royal MS 14 C VII, 47n95 London, Lambeth Palace Library Register of Archbishop Courtenay, 369n118 Register of Archbishop Stafford, 367n115

Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 64 (Stammheim Missal), 42, 43, 235n118 Lucca, Biblioteca capitolare, Cod. 605, 88, 94, 95, 374n140 Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 565, 112–14, 114, 115, 137 Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de Espana, MS Graecus Vitr. 26-2, 251, 253 Madrid, Monasterio de Santo Domingo el Real, S.N., 291 Manchester, John Rylands University Library MS Lat. 2, 248–49, 250 MS Lat 142, 110–12, 111 Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana Cod. I. 152 (Beroldus manuscript), 97n82 MS T. 27. Sup, 244n151 Milan, Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Lombardia, P.T.CR.01, 245n157 Monte Cassino, MS 451, 104n116 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.739, 288, 289 Novara, Archivio storico diocesano Fondo Frasconi, MS IX, 161n70 Fondo Frasconi, MS XI/2, 161n70 Fondo Frasconi, MS XIV/13, 161n69, 221n72 Fondo Frasconi, MS XIV/27 bis, 221n71 MS O2, 239n130 Novara, Biblioteca capitolare, MS LII, 238, 240, 241n139, 244n152, 247 Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, MS 156142 (Codex Aureus of Echternach), 296n74

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index of manuscripts cited

Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Canon. Lit. 359 (From Arezzo), 107–10, 109 MS Canon. Misc. 560, 110n126 MS Douce 77, 330n216 MS Douce 176, 145, 146 MS Holkham Misc. 48, 231n110, 359, 360 MS Laud Misc. 482, 328n211 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) MS Fr. 5716, 163n78 MS Fr. 6465, 213–14, 214 MS Fr. 9152, 375n147, 376 MS Lat. 961, 112 MS Lat. 2290, 103n114 MS Lat. 2321, 39n62, 40 MS Lat. 2873 A, 65n173 MS Lat. 8886, 112, 112n131, 113 MS Lat. 13764, 322n178 MS Touraine Anjou 5, 331–33, 332 Silos, Abadia de Silos, Cod. Silos, Arch. monástico, 4, 91n47 St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1262, 259n189

Stift Klosterneuburg, MS 572, 290 Toledo, Archivo y Biblioteca Capitulares, MS 56-19, 116–18, 117, 134 Toulouse, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 119, 110n127 Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 804, 97n80 Turin, Biblioteca nazionale, MS E.V.13, 244n153 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV) MS Barb. lat. 2733, 211, 212 MS Barb. lat. 4426, 227n93 MS Ottob. lat. 522, 187n148 MS Regin. lat. 598, 97n80 MS Ross. 3, 291, 292 MS Vat. lat. 1145 (from Bergamo), 114–16, 116, 137 MS Vat. lat. 3768, 362, 363 MS Vat. lat. 4470, 87n27 MS Vat. lat. 13151, 94n63 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS 1907, 330n216

INDEX OF BIBLICAL CITATIONS

Old Testament Genesis 2:7 3:19 48:13–22 Exodus 3:5 32:15–16 Leviticus 18:27–28 26:1 Deuteronomy 28:23 33:29 Joshua 5:16 10:24 2 Samuel 24:16–25 2 Chronicles 3:1 Psalms 6 21 (22) 29 (30):12 31 (32):6 43 (44):23–25 73 (74) 86 (87) 90 (91):13 103 (104) 109 (110):1 118 (119):25

101n104 324 98n85 1, 2n7, 299n90 100n96 348 173 343 150

129 (130) 131 (132):7 Proverbs 3:3 Isaiah 10:6 14:11 63:18 Jeremiah 31:33 Ezekiel 1:4–28 9:4 Micah 7:10 Zechariah 14:4 1 Maccabees 3:45

369 23, 31–32, 33, 35, 36 99 151 296n73 151 99 241n139 89 151n31 54 151

New Testament 1n2 144 58n144 58n144 247 85 263 247 281, 282, 284, 286, 291 310 95 142, 144, 145, 147, 150, 165, 168, 173 96 144 94, 100, 278, 281, 282, 286–87, 291, 296, 373–74

Mark 11:8 256n181 14:35 285n20 Matthew 7:6 195 21:8 256n181 26:39 285n20 Luke 14:11 205, 284n15, 338, 359n82 16:19–31 296n74, 321n171 18:13 286n33 22:41 285n20 John 12:13 256n181 1 Corinthians 3:16 90n44 2 Corinthians 3:3 80, 99 1 Peter 2:21 52, 202

GENERAL INDEX

Page numbers in italics indicate illustrations. Works with known authors will be found under the name of the author. ʿAbd al-Malik (caliph), 54, 55, 56n131 abecedarium. See alphabet cross or abecedarium Acqui Terme, cathedral of, 129–31, 130 Actus beati Francisci et sociorum eius, 267 Adalbero (archbishop of Reims), 314, 374, 376 Adam of Domerham, 381n171 Adhemar of Chabannes: Chronicon, 121, 346–47; Concilium Lemovicense II, 345–46, 348; Sermones, 88, 98, 104; Theodulf of Orléans’s capitulary and, 324–25 Adomnán, De locis sanctis, 39, 49, 50, 358 adoratio, association of prostration with, 213, 298–99, 302, 303 Aedh Dubh, 372 Aelred of Rievaulx: Daniel, Walter, Life of Aelred, 326, 327; Speculum caritatis, 199; Vita S. Edwardi regis et confessoris, 272n244 Æthelred (king of England), 48–49, 61 Æthelstan (king of England), 48–49 Agnellus of Ravenna, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, 236, 303–4, 353–54n54, 363–64, 371–72, 386 Agnes (martyr), trampling devil in form of snake, 144, 148 Agrippina and Nero, statue of, reused as paving in Sebasteion, Aphrodisias, 170, 171 Akeldama (Potter’s Field), Jerusalem, 30–31 Albert d’Hirgis, 354 Albert of Liège, Life of, 374–75

Alberto of Villa d’Ogna, 350, 352, 372 Albertus Magnus, 7–8, 358 Albinus, Ordo Romanus, 215 Alcuin, 284, 357 Alectrona, sanctuary of, Ialysus, shoe outlines at, 25, 177 Alexander I (pope), head reliquary of, 46 Alexander III (pope), 150, 152, 331, 385 Alexander of Telese, 251 al-H . a¯kim (caliph), 60 Allacci, Leone (Leo Allatius), 43n80, 265 Bishop Alnwick of Lincoln, 367, 368; Novum registrum, 260 alphabet cross or abecedarium, 5, 18, 139–41; accompanying psalms, antiphons, and prayers, 94–96; ashes/sand, use of, 92–93, 101, 120, 123, 139, 140, 330; in dedication commemorations, 270; depictions and descriptions of, 104–23, 106, 108, 109, 111, 113–18; evolution over time, 139; imprinting versus drawing, 87–88; interpretation of, 96–104; in miraculous consecration of Westminster Abbey, 272; pavements recording/commemorating/representing, 125, 126, 128, 128–29, 131–39, 133, 135; prayers directly referring to, 96; processional markers and, 224; in standard dedication ordines, 84–94; temporal dimensions of, 95; vestigia or imprints, characteristics shared with, 139–40, 270

460

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general index

alter Christus, Francis of Assisi viewed as, 259, 267, 271–72, 274, 277, 392 Amalarius of Metz, 2n6, 282 Amasya, God-trodden land inscription, 33 Ambrose of Milan, 282, 364 Ambrosian/Milanese church: baptismal/ prebaptismal rituals of, 92–93, 218, 263, 310, 392; consecration ordo, 88, 94, 104, 140 Amiens Cathedral, labyrinth pavement, 225n85 Amun, burial of bronze head of Augustus buried under cult building of, Meroe, 171–72 Anastasis/Resurrection, 147, 167, 226, 227, 248–49, 250, 253, 274, 302, 398–99 St. Andrew the Fool, Life of, 296–97 Andrieu, Michel, 84, 104n116, 212 Angilbert, De ecclesia Centulensi libellus, 61 Angoulême, Sacramentary of, 83–84 Annales Romani, 212 Annunciation, pavement marking, 45, 80 anointing the sick. See dying, rites for Anselm of Canterbury, 326 Anthony of Novgorod, 196, 210, 235, 304, 358 Antiochus IV Epiphanes, 151 Aper (abbot of St.-Hilaire), 357 Apocalypse, seven-headed beast of, 165, 166 Apostles, Church of the, Ravenna, 353, 354n54, 364 apotropaic devices, 63, 89, 137, 147, 156, 158, 165, 233, 244, 372–74 Appuhn, Horst, 302 Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 24 architecture, drawing on ground used in, 103 Arculf (bishop from Gaul), 39 Arnold, John Charles, 63, 68 Arras Cathedral, labyrinth pavement, 225n85 Artaud, François, 381, 382n175 Artemis and Cybele, reuse of relief of, synagogue forecourt, Sardis, 173, 174 Arthur and Guinevere, bodies of, at Glastonbury Abbey, 380 Artonne, where St. Martin stood at, 24, 334 Ascension of Christ. See Mount of Olives, footprints of Christ at Ascension on ascension of Muhammad (Prophet), 54, 58 ashes: consecration rituals, use of ashes/sand in, 92–93, 101, 120, 123, 139, 140, 330; dying marked with/laid on, 91, 271, 321–33, 338; penance, association with, 321–22; visionary experiences of vestigia in, 11, 13, 204, 266–74, 277 Asti Cathedral, 254 Astill, Grenville, 353

Athena, mutilated statue used as step, in Athens, 178, 179 St. Athenogenes, tomb of child of, Hagia Sophia, 358 Aton (abbot of St.-Hilaire), 357–58 Aubert (bishop of Avranches), 70, 72, 119 Augustine of Hippo: Commentary on the Psalms and prostration, 281, 282, 284, 338, 387; De doctrina christiana, 23; on footprints, 23, 35n50, 38; sermon to competentes, 263; on soil brought from Jerusalem to North Africa, 28, 29 Augustus Caesar, bronze head buried under cult of Amun building, Meroe, 171–72 Aula gotica frescoes, SS. Quattro Coronati, Rome, 147, 149, 272 aurium apertio, 238, 241, 244, 246–47 Auxerre Cathedral, labyrinth pavement, 225n85, 226, 227 Avi-Yonah, Michael, 157 Ba¯b Bani Shayba, Mecca, Arabian idols reused in threshold of, 180–81 Babylonian Talmud, 172 Baha¯ʾ al-Dı¯n Ibn Shadda¯d, 191–92 Banbhore, linga reused as steps in mosque at, 181–83 baptism: in Ambrosian/Milanese church, 92–93, 218, 263, 310, 392; Cervus (deer) in floor mosaic at Otranto Cathedral and, 248, 275; cilicium (haircloth) as temporary floor covering for, 218, 262–64, 271, 310, 392; consecration rituals and, 87, 88–94, 97, 140–41; Evangelist symbols as liturgical markers for, 239, 240–47, 243, 246; geometric paving as liturgical markers for, 218–22, 220, 228; rite for anointing the sick using elements of, 90–91, 94 Barbet-Massin, Dominique, 107 Bardney Abbey, 224 bare ground: dying on, 327; prostration on, 280, 292, 293–96, 336; sitting, sleeping, and eating on, 188–89, 294–95, 327 Bargellini, Clara, 125 Barozzi, Giovanni, pontifical of, 114–16, 116 Barra, Robert, 366 Barral i Altet, Xavier, 305 Barry, Fabio, 207 Basel Ordo, 215 Basil I (emperor), 297 Basil II (emperor), 308 Basilica Ursiana, Ravenna, 363–65, 371n128 Battle Abbey, Gargano relic at, 70 Beati Ludovici vita, 163, 164

general index Bede: Breton manuscript with works by, 91, 107; De locis sanctis, 39, 40, 358; De natura rerum, 110; De templo, 320; Epistola ad Ecgbertum episcopum, 373; porphyry slab said to mark grave of, Old St. Peter’s, Rome, 354, 357, 385–86 Bedos-Rezak, Brigitte, 78 Befani, Giovanni Battista, 218 Beirut: icon of, 151; palace of John I of Ibelin at, 207 Beleth, John, Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis, 226–27, 261 Benedict of Aniane, 322 Benedict of Nursia, 344, 378–80 Benedictines, 67, 198, 294, 298, 331, 344, 370 Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, 95, 313n132 Bergamo pontifical, 114–16, 116, 137 Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia, 197–99 Bernard of Siena, 267 Bernard’s customary, 310, 325 Bernelinus, Liber abaci, 102 Berta da li pe grandi, 189 Bianchini, Francesco, 221–22 Biberach, Palm Sunday ceremony at, 259 Bible, holy ground in, 1–2, 23, 31 Biddle, Martin, 60 Binski, Paul, 132, 319 Bitton-Ashkelony, Brouria, 32 Blachernai, monastery of, 265n221 Blickling Homilies: Ascension Thursday, 39–40, 49, 65, 79, 262; Feast of St. Michael, 64–65, 77; on St. Martin, 294 Bloch, Amy, 218 Bobbio, abbey of, 154 Bohemond, 165 Bologna: St. Dominic, 215; S. Petronio, 214–15, 229, 274, 394 Bonaventure, 187, 267, 268–69; Legenda maior, 163–64, 259, 267–68, 270–71, 327 Book of Armagh, 91 Book of Fenagh, 372 Book of Idols, 180 Book of Lismore, 328 Bordeaux Pilgrim, 25, 54 Bordesley Abbey, 353 Bordon, Benedetto, 384, 385 Borromeo, Carlo, Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae, 159 Abbé Bourg, 127 Bovini, Giuseppe, 354n54 Boynton, Susan, 310 Braga, Council of (563), 340 Brakspear, Harold, 224

·

461

Brandenburg, Hugo, 156 Brown, Elizabeth, 316 Brown, Michelle, 298n85 Bruno of Segni, De sacramentis, 100 Buckingham, John (bishop of Lincoln), 366–67 Buenner, Denys, 306 Bugbee, John, 230 Bullough, Donald, 341 Burchard of Mount Sion, 51 Burchard of Worms, Decretum, 293, 341, 346 Burgo de Osma Beatus map, 134 Burgos Cathedral, 366 burial generally. See death and burial burial underfoot, 339, 352–78; altar/position of celebrant, burial near, 364–66; crypts, as burial places, 381–83; depiction of deceased on tomb slabs, 359–60, 360; enclosures, surrounding tombs with, 357–58; hiding burials from sight beneath pavement, 352–54; of holy bodies, 339, 378–87, 385; holy individuals/events, burial sought beneath surfaces sanctified by, 371–72, 373–77, 376, 378; humility, as gesture of, 356–57, 359–61, 387; kneeling on grave markers, 362–63, 363; marking burials beneath pavement, 353–54; penitential significance of, 356, 359–60, 360, 371; persons and locations, relationship between, 361–78, 382–87, 388; pews/kneeling spots occupied during life, burial under, 362–63; prayers, burials/burial requests at site of, 372–73, 397; processional routes, requests for burial on, 367, 368, 369; religious, burial requests by, 366–71, 368, 369; remembering the deceased and, 361–63, 369–71; requesting specific burial sites, 360–67; temporarily covering, decorating, or exposing tombs on special days, 354–56, 386; treading on/avoiding, 356–61, 360, 371, 378, 383, 388 Burnell, Henry, 365 Burning Bush, 1, 26, 31, 34, 48, 96, 299 Byland Abbey, 198 Byzantium: accusations of Latins trampling underfoot, 192–97; clipeus ritual, 251; episcopal ordination ceremony, plaster liturgical markers in, 264–66, 275; geometric paving as liturgical markers in, 207–11, 209, 213, 216, 222, 229, 235; liturgical markers, representations of use of, 398; prostration in, 296–97; rarity of figural components in pavements in, 265; “rivers,” floor decoration interpreted as, 208–9, 209, 229, 251, 264–66 Caesarius of Arles, 1, 90, 99, 287–88, 400 Caesarius of Heisterbach, 287, 290, 304, 383, 397

462

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general index

calcatio colli ritual, 149–50, 200 Calceato, Lorenzo, Life of S. Guido, 129–30 Calixtus I (pope), 147 Callahan, Daniel, 347 Calvary, rock of. See under Holy Sepulcher Calzona, Arturo, 245n158 Camden, William, Britannia, 206n9 Cameron, Averil, 38 Campano of Novara, 360 Camposanto mosaic, Cremona Cathedral, 166–67, 167 “cantate hic” stone, Lincoln Cathedral, 206, 222–23 Canterbury: Christ Church Priory, 334–35; St. Alphege, church of, 365; St. Augustine’s Abbey, 325–26 Canterbury Cathedral, 11–12, 25, 124, 367 Capgrave, John, 51, 80–81 Cappella Palatina, Palermo, 12n26, 216, 229, 251 Carruthers, Mary, 100, 102n109 Carter, John, 222 Casanatense Pontifical, 95 Cassidy-Welch, Megan, 370 Castiñeiras, Manuel, 301–2 Ceccarelli, Naddo, Sienese reliquary tabernacle with Virgin and Child, 42, 44 celebrant during Mass, facing position of, 364 Celestine III (pope), 168 Cellier, Jacques, 375 cemeteries, 347–48. See also death and burial Cencius Camerarius, 215–16 Cerbano Cerbani, 49n103 Chalke, Constantinople, 216 Charlemagne, 121, 189, 213–14, 214 Charles V (Holy Roman emperor), 214 Chartres Cathedral, 224–25, 226, 227–28 Chassant, Alphonse, 78n230 Chelles, relic authentics from, 1–2n5, 33–34, 69n194 Chemins de Jérusalem, 227 Chislet, church at, 362 chrism, marking parts of church with, 83–84, 98, 131 chrismons, 92–93, 131, 140 Christ: bare ground and, 294–95; Francis of Assisi as alter Christus, 259, 267, 271–72, 274, 277, 392; Palm Sunday processions, textiles spread under representations of Christ in, 203, 256–59, 270; prostration as imitation of Agony in the Garden, 284–87, 289, 290; Theseus, parallels with, 227; trampling beasts and devil(s) underfoot, 145, 146, 147

Christ, ground trodden by, 4, 80, 391; as contact relic, 11, 14, 45; correspondences with other types of holy ground, 11; persons and places, relationship between, 15, 392; pilgrims touching and following in Christ’s footsteps, 50–54, 57; vestigia testifying to veracity of visions, 123; Via Appia, footprints of Christ on, 24, 41, 51, 53, 81; whole of Holy Land as, 17, 27–29, 33. See also Mount of Olives, footprints of Christ at Ascension on Christ Church Priory, Canterbury, 334–35 Christian, William A., Jr., 25 Chronicle of Monte Cassino, 152, 379 Chronicon Sancti Michaelis monasterii in Pago Virdunensis, 73 Chrysotriklinos, Constantinople, 209 church consecrations. See consecration rituals church pavements. See pavements, decorated/ figurative Ciarán of Clonmacnois, Latin and Irish lives of, 327–28 Cicero, Partitiones oratoriae, 100 cilicium (haircloth): baptismal rituals and, 218, 262–64, 271, 310, 392; consecration rituals and, 92–93, 140; conversion to Christianity and trampling on, 184–85; dying placed on, 91, 271, 321–33, 338; humiliation of relics and, 310–11, 337; penance, association with, 321–22 Cistercians, 198–99, 261, 294, 353, 356, 370 clamor ceremonies, 310–11, 343 Clapham, James, 369–70, 377 Claussen, Peter Cornelius, 216 clipeus (shield-raising) ritual, 251–52, 253, 275 Clovis (Merovingian ruler), 316, 385 Cluniac monasticism, 145, 198, 262, 310, 325 Cluny III, church of, 198 Cochelin, Isabelle, 325 Codex Aureus of Echternach, 296n74 Cologne, burial of Albertus Magnus in Dominican church of, 358 Cologne Cathedral, 365 Colonna family stemma, S. Prassede, Rome, 162–63 color, significance of, 229–31, 232 comharba, 234 Comnenus, Andronicus and John, 183 Concordia Sagittaria, baptistery at, 242, 243 Connolly, Daniel, 227–28 Connor, Meriel, 335 Conrad of Hildesheim, 290 Conrad of Montferrat, 191–92, 398

general index Consant, William, 362 Consecratio pauimenti aecclesiae quae fuerit de primo loco suo in alium statum translata, 124 consecration rituals, 18, 80–141; annual commemoration of, 104, 124, 270; ashes/ sand, use of, 92–93, 101, 120, 123, 139, 140, 330; baptism, relationship to, 87, 88–94, 97, 140–41; chrism, marking parts of church with, 83–84, 98, 131; depictions and descriptions of, 104–23, 106, 108, 109, 111, 113–18; dying, relationship to rites for, 90–91, 94, 140–41; elision between pavement and site, 123–24; exorcism, relationship to, 89–90, 92n57, 137; miraculous consecrations, 120–23; pavements recording and commemorating, 124–39, 126, 128, 130, 133, 135, 136; persons and places, relationship between, 14, 15; prostration and, 304; relics at, 80, 81, 84, 124; sacred space, creation of, 14; stratigraphic approach to, 6; surface, holy ground as, 4; treatment of pavement in standard dedication ordines, 83–94; variations, elaborations, and interpretations, 94–104; vestigia or imprints and, 27, 73, 80–82, 103–4, 120–21, 123, 138, 139–40; washings (lustrations or aspersions), 83–85, 87, 89, 103. See also alphabet cross or abecedarium Consistory, Constantinople, 209 Constable, Giles, 52 Constantine (British king), 372–73 Constantine V (emperor), 197 Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (emperor), Book of Ceremonies, 209–10, 247 Constantinople: Chalke, Chrysotriklinos, Consistory and Hall of Justinian, 216; Latin sack of (1204), 195, 196; Pantokrator, church of the (Zeyrek Camii), 210–11, 265n221; Stoudios basilica, 265n221; typikon for Convent of the Mother of God Kecharitôminè, 210–11. See also Hagia Sophia conversion: to Christianity, 184–85, 188–89; to Islam, 16, 183–84 Cooper, Donal, 273 coronation rites: clipeus (shield-raising) ritual, 251–52, 253, 275; dying, rite for, and, 331; papal and imperial investitures, in Rome, 211–18, 212, 214, 217, 275, 319, 394; paving elements identifying sites of, 394; prostration in, 280, 312–20, 315, 318, 337; royal coronations, liturgical markers for, 215, 228, 231, 233–34, 251–53, 259–61, 275; textiles, use of, 313–14, 318, 319–20, 355. See also English coronation ceremonies; French coronation ceremonies Corsi, Anna Maria, 218

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463

Cosmati/Cosmatesque pavements, 4, 132, 163, 196, 207n15, 215, 216, 217, 222, 311, 317–19, 318, 319, 355 Councils: Braga (563), 340; Limoges (1031), 345, 346; Lyon (1274), 159, 309; Mainz (813), 340, 343, 346; Meaux (845), 341; Quinisext (692), 157 Counter-Reformation. See Reformation/ Counter-Reformation Cremona Cathedral, 166–67, 167, 350 cross shafts, 380 crosses: as apotropaic devices, 89, 137, 156, 158; Byzantine criticism of Latin prostration ritual, 192–95; dying marked with cross of ashes, 91, 271, 321–33; Feast of Exaltation of the Cross, 163, 213, 297–98, 302–4; Islamic denigration of, 16, 181, 183–84; liturgical markers and cult of the Cross, 213, 303, 392; penitents marked with cross of ashes, 322; treading on/ avoiding treading on, 16, 155–64, 157, 158, 162, 178, 180, 187, 356. See also alphabet cross or abecedarium; True Cross Crossley, Paul, 204 Crown of Thorns relics, 47, 48, 49 Cruas, abbey church of, 125–27 Cruimther-Fraech, 372 crypts, as burial places, 381–83 curse formulas for rejection/expulsion of bodies, 343–44, 347 Cursus Sanctae Maria, 288, 289 Cybele and Artemis, reuse of relief of, synagogue forecourt, Sardis, 173, 174 damnatio memoriae, 170, 180 dancing and games associated with labyrinth pavements, 226–27 Daniel, Walter, Life of Aelred, 326, 327 Daniel the Abbot, 41, 58, 65 Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio, 229–31, 232, 238, 264, 274, 275, 282–83, 283, 359, 360 de Blaauw, Sible, 364 de Bruyne, D., 45n85 De miraculis in Monte Sancti Michaelis patratis, 72 de Puniet, Pierre, 88, 90 de Rossi, Giovanni Battista, 87 de Ware, Richard (abbot of Westminster), 303, 320 death and burial, 19–20, 338–89; audience and viewership issues, 396–97; in church grounds/cemeteries (outside church), 347–48; construction of churches over existing burials, 339, 340–42; crypts, as burial places, 381–83; of the excommunicated, 343–44, 345, 346–48,

464

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general index

death and burial: (continued) 351; existing churches, burial inside, 339, 340 (See also burial underfoot); ground, burial in, as norm, 339, 352; incorruptibility of buried bodies, meanings of, 351–52; miraculous rejection/expulsion of bodies by ground, 343–49, 387; pagans/infideles, bodies of, 340–43, 346; processional markers and, 223–24; prostration, relationship to, 280, 284, 290, 338, 387; removal of/refusal to bury undesirable bodies, 340–43, 346–47, 349, 352; trampling underfoot of habit removed from monk lying in state, 152. See also burial underfoot; dying, rites for; holy bodies decorative pavements. See pavements, decorated/ figurative dedication of church. See consecration rituals Delaporte, Yves, 227n91 Delbarre, Pierre-Jean, 78n230 Delbrueck, Richard, 303, 386 Deliyannis, Deborah Mauskopf, 365n105 Demaison, Louis, 376 Deneux, Henri, 314, 315, 316 Desaye, Henri, 134 Desiderius (abbot of Monte Cassino), 378, 379 Die, episcopal chapel at, 134 Dinter, Peter, 310 Diocletian (emperor), 229 Dives and Lazarus, parable of, 296, 321 Dome of the Rock (Templum Domini), Jerusalem, 18, 26, 27, 54–62, 55, 76, 77, 181, 394 St. Dominic, 291, 292, 370–71 Dominicans, 47, 49, 194, 271, 285, 290, 291, 292, 326, 358, 359n80 Doob, Penelope Reed, 226 Dorothy of Montau, 290 Douce Ivory, 145, 146 Drake, Francis, 222 Dunbabin, Katherine, 24, 64n171, 144 St. Dunstan, Life of, 380 Durandus, William: Pontifical of, 86–87, 105; Rationale divinorum officiorum, 94, 155, 186, 261–62, 293, 321n172 Duval, Noël, 354 dying, rites for, 320–35, 337; ashes, dying marked with/laid on, 91, 271, 321–33, 338; on bare ground, 327; cilicium (haircloth), dying placed on, 271, 321–33, 329, 337, 338; consecration rituals, relationship to, 330; consecration/baptismal rituals and, 90–91, 94, 140–41; coronation rituals, relationship to, 331; decorated/figurative pavements and, 331–34, 332; holy water, sprinkling with, 323, 324, 328,

330; for laity as well as religious communities, 328–31; penance, emphasis on, 321–22; positioning of dying person face up on ground, 320–23, 338; slabs or stones used for dying monks, 334–35 Ebbsfleet, Thanet, footprints of St. Mildrith at, 25 Ebstorf world map, 302 Edward I (king of England), 317 Edward II (king of England), 318 Edward III (king of England), 260 Egbert of York, 373 Eleanor of Provence, 259 Eleona church (Mount of Olives), 35 Elieser bar Nathan, 151 Elizabeth II (queen of England), 207n15 Endre, Ascension window at, 42 English coronation ceremonies, 215, 259, 260, 312–14, 317–20, 331, 333, 337, 355, 393 environmental relics, pieces of ground as, 27, 29–34, 75 Epiphanius the Monk, 41, 54 episcopal ordination ceremonies, liturgical markers for, 211, 212, 228, 255, 260, 264–66, 275 Erasmus, Desiderius, A Pilgrimage for Religion’s Sake, 34 Erlembald (Patarine), 152 Essen, Palm Sunday ceremony at, 259 Eteriano, Hugo, 193 Eucharist: burial near altar/position of celebrant, 364–66; celebrant, facing position of, 364; markers for distribution of, 218, 219 Eudes/Odo (Frankish ruler), 316 Eugene IV (pope), 126 Eusebius of Caesarea, 27, 31, 35, 38; Historia ecclesiastica, 177; Life of Constantine, 31, 145n10, 177–78 Eustathios of Thessaloniki, 195 Eutychius of Alexandria, 38 Evangelist symbols: apotropaic qualities of, 244; in Insular manuscript tradition, 242; as liturgical markers, 238–47, 239, 243, 246; traditio evangeliorum, 238, 240–47 Evangelist symbols at Novara Cathedral, 14; consecration ritual and, 136, 136–37, 138–39; as liturgical markers, 238–47, 239, 249, 253, 275, 392, 394, 396, 398 Everett, Nicholas, 64 ‘Evron, mosaic pavements of, 156 Exaltation of the Cross, Feast of the, 163, 213, 297–98, 302–4

general index excommunication: burial of the excommunicated, 343–44, 345, 346–48, 351; penitential prostration in response to, 290; trampling underfoot in rituals of, 150 exorcism, consecration rituals related to, 89–90, 92n57, 137 Fabretti, Ariodante, 130, 131 Fabri, Felix, Evagatorium, 51, 52–53, 61, 285–86 Farfa, abbey of, 19, 298, 310–12, 337, 393 Farioli Campanati, Raffaella, 365n105 Farmer, Sharon, 119n138, 331 Farningham, burial request of vicar of, 361, 365, 366 Favreau, Robert, 305 Fécamp, abbey of, 120–21, 343, 347 St. Felicity, 387 Fenagh, cemetery at, 372 Ferrara Cathedral, Porta dei Mesi, 145 Fifth Crusade, 187 Figeac, abbey church of, 121 figurative pavements. See pavements, decorated/ figurative Fine, Steven, 172n101, 174–75 First Crusade, 26, 32, 34–35, 41, 52, 151 Fitzpatrick, Elizabeth, 233–34 Flete, John, History of Westminster Abbey, 48–49 Fleury, abbey of, 379 Fleury prayerbook, 244n151 Flodoard of Reims, Historia Remensis ecclesiae, 373–74 Flood, Finbarr Barry, 173 Florence: baptistery, 218–21, 220, 392; S. Marco, 291; S. Reparata, Ritus in ecclesia servandi, 70 Florentine synod of 1517, 159, 200 Fontfroide, abbot of, 261 footprints. See vestigia or imprints Fountains Abbey, 198, 222n75, 224 Fouquet, Jean, Grandes chroniques de France, 213–14, 214 four beasts, trampling on, 145, 146, 147, 148, 168, 169 Fourth Crusade, 32, 34, 61, 195 Fra Angelico, 291 Francis (pope), 207n15 Francis of Assisi: as alter Christus, 259, 267, 271–72, 274, 277, 392; Aula gotica frescoes, SS. Quattro Coronati, Rome, 149; avoidance of trampling underfoot by, 163–64; bare ground and, 294–95; cloak spread under feet of, 259,

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465

270–71; dying, lying on bare ground at time of, 327; Islamic textiles with cross decorations, walking on, 187–88, 189, 264, 276, 398; stigmata of, 268–69; vision of treading in vestigia of Christ’s footprints in ashes, 11, 13, 204, 266–74, 277, 395, 398 Franciscan exempla, 187, 189, 191 Franciscans, 51, 52, 164, 188, 268, 270, 295 Franzé, Barbara, 133–34 Frasconi, Carlo Francesco, 136, 221–22 Frederick I Barbarossa (Holy Roman emperor), 150 Frederick II (Holy Roman emperor), 32, 60, 188, 189, 191 Frederick III (Holy Roman emperor), 384 Freiburg im Breisgau Minster, Schauinsland window, 7, 8 French coronation ceremonies, 313, 316–17 Frere, W. H., 124 Frolow, Anatole, 265 Frugoni, Chiara, 164, 268 Fruttuaria, abbey of, San Benigno Canavese, 257, 258, 264, 298, 336 Fulcher of Chartres, Chronicle, 32, 33, 57, 58, 60 Fulda, church of St. Michael at, 69, 81 Fulk III (count of Anjou), 150 Gaelic world. See Insular traditions Galla Placidia (empress), 303–4, 386 Gamber, Klaus, 364 games and dancing associated with labyrinth pavements, 226–27 Ganagobie, abbey church of, 134, 161 Gandzakets’i, Kirakos, History of the Armenians, 181 Gaposchkin, Cecilia, 326, 327 Gargano Peninsula, shrine of St. Michael, 18, 26, 27, 62–75; cave in rock, shrine in form of, 63; consecration of, 27, 73, 80, 120, 123; documentation or proof, footprints of St. Michael as, 77; doors of, 66; footprints of archangel at, 18, 26, 27, 62–75; medieval apparitions/dreams of angels/St. Michael, 65–67; Mount of Olives Ascension site compared, 63; origins of tradition, 62–65; persons and places, relationship between, 394; as pilgrimage site and stopping point on way to Holy Land, 67–69; relics and other sites dedicated to St. Michael associated with, 69–74, 71; tensions between exposure and decoration of imprints at, 63, 76; tracings of pilgrims’ hands and feet at, 67–68

466

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general index

Garnier (abbot of Marmoutier), 331 Gaza Marneion, 175–78, 186, 394 Geary, Patrick, 308 Gelasian Sacramentary, 84, 89, 90, 92, 293, 323 geometric paving as liturgical markers, 203, 207–37; baptismal and prebaptismal rituals, 218–22, 220, 228; in Byzantium, 207–11, 209, 213, 216, 222, 229, 235; color, significance of, 229–31, 232; coronation rites and, 215, 228, 231, 233–34; Eucharist, markers for distribution of, 218, 219; figurative versus nonfigurative, 255; labyrinth pavements, 224–28, 226; material qualities of stone, beyond color, 231–33; multiple functions of, as markers, 228; nonfigural elements cut into undecorated pavements, 222–24, 223; person and location, relationship between, 229–37, 232; processional markers, 223–24; Rome, papal and imperial investitures in, 211–18, 212, 214, 217, 275, 319, 394; vestigia or imprints and, 234–37 Georgian Chronicles, 308 Gérard de Frachet, Lives of the Brethren of the Order of Preachers, 271, 326 Gerasa (Jerash), church complex at, 175 Gerhard of Augsburg, Life of Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg, 257, 324, 327 Gero (archbishop of Cologne), 365 Gervais of Reims, 316 Gesta Karoli Magni, 121 gesture, study of, 12–14, 278–79 Gethsemane (Jerusalem): church of the Savior in, 42; persons and places, relationship between, 394; pilgrims praying at, 57, 285–86; prostration as imitation of Christ praying in, 284–87, 289, 290; unworked rocks in pavement representing place of Agony in the Garden, 285–86, 305 Ghazni, Hindu materials reused by Muslims in, 181, 182 Gilbert of Tournai, 270 Girona tapestry, 256, 301–2 Gittos, Helen, 95, 96, 124 Glaber, Ralph, Histories, 144–45, 151 Glass, Dorothy, 132 Glastonbury Abbey, 45, 47n91, 61, 285, 380, 386 Glossa ordinaria, 281 Goar, Jacques, Euchologion, 265 Godfrey of St.-Victor, Fons philosophiae, 102 Golombek, Lisa, 191 Goscelin of St.-Bertin: Life of St. Mellitus, 121–22, 272n244; Life of St. Mildrith, 24–25 Grado Cathedral, inscription on decorated paving at, 76

Gransden, Antonia, 380, 381n171 Grant, Lindy, 319 Gregorian Sacramentary, 322–23, 330 Gregory I the Great (pope), Dialogues, 344 Gregory of Catino, 310n122 Gregory of Nyssa, 38 Gregory of Tours: Historia Francorum, 345; Liber de virtutibus Sancti Martini, 24, 333–34; Liber in gloria confessorum, 24; Liber in gloria martyrum, 29, 305n105, 345, 347, 381 griffins, affronted, in floor mosaics and textiles, 257–59, 258 Grimaldi, Giacomo, Descrizione della basilica antica di S. Pietro in Vaticano, 211, 212 Grosseteste, Robert, 152 ground. See bare ground; holy ground Guarna, Romuald II, 248n164 Guarna ambo, Salerno Cathedral, 243 Guelph relic collection, 33 Gueruli, Giovanni, Life of, 351–52 Guibert of Nogent, 326 Guido (bishop of Acqui), 129–31 Guillaume de Saint-Pair, Roman du Mont SaintMichel, 72–73, 81, 119–20 Guillemain, Jean, 129, 305–6 Guinevere and Arthur, bodies of, at Glastonbury Abbey, 380 Gunther of Pairis, 61n159 Count Guy II de Forez, 306 Hachlili, Rachel, 165 Hagia Sophia, Constantinople: liturgical markers in, 208–10, 209, 213, 222, 229, 235, 251, 254, 274, 391; opus sectile pavements/paving elements, 43, 77, 196, 208–10, 209, 213, 222, 229, 235, 251, 274, 304, 391; tomb of child of St. Athenogenes, 358; trampling underfoot and, 196; vestigia or imprints, 43, 77; vision of Mary praying on omphalion, in, 210, 235, 304, 391 haircloth. See cilicium Hall, Stuart, 38 Hall of Justinian, Constantinople, 209 Hamilton, Louis, 86 Hapgood, Isabel, 265 Hariulf, Chronicon Centulense, 61n157 Haton, Claude, 151–52 Hattin, Battle of (1187), 32 Heimans, Ralph, 207n15 St. Helena, 31, 35 Hen, Yitzak, 97 Henry III (king of England), 47, 48, 49, 50, 59, 215, 319n163 Henry VII (king of England), 260

general index Henry VIII (king of England), 260–61 Henry I (king of France), 316 Henry I (king of Germany), 323 Henry II (Holy Roman Emperor), 145 Henry III (Holy Roman emperor), 355–56 Henry V (Holy Roman emperor), 212 Henry VI (Holy Roman emperor), 374 Henry of Blythe, 367 Heraclius (patriarch of Jerusalem), 32 Herbert (bishop of Norwich), 66, 350 Hereford Cathedral, 367–69 Herklotz, Ingo, 168, 216 Herman of Tournai, 321n172 Hess, Rosemarie, 154 Hickling and Althorp, burial request of rector of, 365, 366 Hilton, reburial of Anglo-Saxon women in, 342–43 Hindu material, Muslim trampling of, 181–83, 182 Hirsau, Constitutions of, 325 Historia Brittonum, 91 Historia inventionis sanctorum Maximi, Iuliani, Felicitatis et Innocentum, 387 Historia Sicula, 188, 191, 194 The History and Eulogy of Monarchs, 183 Holinshed, Raphael, Chronicles, 260–61 Holloway, Ross, 154 Holy Blood relics, 48, 49 holy bodies: burial sought beneath surfaces sanctified by, 371–72, 373–77, 376, 378; burial underfoot, 339, 378–87, 385; buried above ground, 349–50, 371, 378, 388; ground producing proof of sanctity of, 349–52; incorruptibility of buried bodies, meanings of, 351–52. See also specific saints by name Holy Cross, Church of the, Ravenna, 303–4, 386 holy ground, 1–22, 390–400; agency of floor surfaces to direct action, 204; audience and viewership, 395–97; in Bible, 1–2, 23, 31; different interpretations of what it means to stand on, 142; gesture and, 12–14, 278–79; horizontal conceptualization of space, countering, 4–9, 8; modern practice, parallels with, 400; openness of church floor surfaces in Middle Ages, 2, 278; persons and places, relationship between, 14–17, 392–94 (See also identity of people and places); records, written and material, 397; representation, textual and visual, 397–99; rituals and places, connections between, 391–92; sacred space, conception and creation of, 14–15; scope of, geographical and chronological, 20–21; significance of, 399–400;

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467

sources for, 20; stratigraphic/vertical approach to, 4–9, 14, 17, 75, 391; as surface rather than substance, 3–4; temporal dimensions of, 394–95; touch, wear, and damage, 9–12. See also consecration rituals; death and burial; liturgical markers; prostration; trampling underfoot; vestigia or imprints Holy Innocents, discovery of relics of, 387 Holy Land: earth of, as contact relic, 28–29; earth of, as relic in itself, 27–30, 30, 33; expulsion of sinful peoples from, 348–49; Gargano shrine as stopping point for pilgrims to, 68–69; imitative actions equating local landscape with, 257, 274; labyrinth pavements as substitutes for pilgrimage to, 227–28; persons and places, relationship between, 394; pilgrimage to, 32–33, 50, 285–86; Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box, 29–30, 30, 45; whole of Holy Land as ground trodden by Christ, 17, 27–29, 33. See also Christ, ground trodden by; vestigia or imprints; specific sites Holy Sepulcher, Church of the (Jerusalem): burial couch, marble slab covering, 60; Calvary, rock of, 37, 48, 49, 53, 81; contact relics from, 28; discs marking Christ’s appearance to Mary Magdalene, 43–44, 50–51; environmental relics from, 29, 30, 48; Fruttuaria, replica of aedicule at, 257; Gargano shrine and, 68; infirmary slab for dying, Christ Church Priory, Canterbury, and, 335; kathisma (sitting place) of Mary, attempt to move, 344, 346; painting of Muslim horseman trampling on, 192, 398; as proof of Resurrection, 38; protection of sites from human contact at, 50–51, 60 holy water, 85, 309, 323, 324, 328, 330 Homologetes, Meletios, On the Customs of the Italians, 193 Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae, 98, 101, 129, 155, 261 Horie, Ruth, 104 horizontal conceptualization of space, countering, 5–6 Hosios Loukas, church of, 233 Hourlier, Jacques, 72 Housseau, Étienne, 331 Hrabanus Maurus, 69, 81 Huby, Marmaduke (abbot of Fountains), 224 Hugh of St.-Victor, 100–102; Chronicle, 101; De sacramentis ecclesiae, 100n101, 135; Didascalicon, 102 Humbert of Romans: De officiis ordinis, 256; Expositio super constitutiones, 194, 290, 303 humiliation of relics, 280, 308–12, 337, 393

468

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general index

humility: burial underfoot as gesture of, 356–57, 359–61, 387; humus (ground) and, etymological relationship between, 280, 281, 295, 335; prostration as position of, 280, 281, 284, 285, 295, 299, 305, 318–19, 327, 335 The Hundred Years’ Chronicle, 184, 195 Hunt, Alice, 261 Ibn al-Athı¯r, 59–60 Ibn Jubayr, 180, 183 Icelandic pilgrim, on Ascension footprints at Mount of Olives, 41 iconoclasm, 196–97 icons, trampling on, 151, 184, 196–97 identity of people and places, 14–17, 392–94; burial underfoot, 361–78, 382–87, 388; consecration rituals and, 14, 15; geometric paving as liturgical markers and, 229–37, 232; images as liturgical markers and, 237–38, 254–55; liturgical markers and, 203, 237–38, 254–57, 271, 275–77; prostration and, 280; trampling underfoot and, 16–17, 393 Ildefonse of Toledo, De cognitione baptismi, 263 Illuminatus (early Franciscan), 187 ʿIma¯d al-Dı¯n al-Isfaha¯nı¯, 59, 60, 61 images as liturgical markers, 203, 237–55; evangelist symbols at Novara and elsewhere, 238–47, 239, 243, 246, 253–55, 275; figurative versus nonfigurative, 255; Otranto Cathedral, floor mosaic composition at, 237, 247–55, 249, 252; person and place, relationship between, 237–38, 254–55 “imaginative memory,” 384–85 Imbomon (Mount of Olives), 35 imperial coronations, liturgical markers for, 211–18, 212, 214, 217, 275, 319, 394 imprints. See vestigia or imprints infideles/pagans, bodies of, 340–43, 346 infirmary chapel, Marmoutier, 19, 119, 331–33, 332, 337, 394, 396 Innocent II (pope), 137, 145 Innocent III (pope), 32, 290 Instituta generalis capituli, 294 Insular tradition: alphabet cross or abecedarium, 91–92, 137; “carpet pages” in, 298n85; consecration rituals in, 91–92, 98; death and burial in, 328, 372–73; dying, rites for, 327–28; Evangelist symbols in, 242; footprints as liturgical markers in Gaelic inauguration customs, 233–34; vestigia or imprints in, 38–40, 40, 47–50, 358. See also Bede; Blickling Homilies

Introductio monachorum, 72 invention of relics, 382–83, 386–87 investiture controversy, 165–66 Irenaeus of Lyon, 381–82, 386 Irene Doukaina (empress), typikon for Convent of the Mother of God Kecharitôminè, Constantinople, 210–11 Isar, Nicoletta, 210–11 Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, 281, 295 Islam: Ascension vestigia and Muslim control of Jerusalem, 49; conversion to, 16, 183–84; diplomatic encounters with, 187–91, 194–95; Dome of the Rock imprints in, 18, 26, 27, 54–62; images per se in, 10; Muhammad (Prophet), vestigia of, 54, 55, 56, 58, 64; prostration in, 296; pseudo-Arabic script in pavements, trampling underfoot, 154, 165; trampling underfoot and, 16, 151, 169, 180–84, 182, 186–92, 199–200, 393, 398 Istanbul. See Constantinople Ivo of Chartres: De sacramentis dedicationis, 97; Decretum, 341, 346; Epistolae, 317 Jackson, Richard, 316 Jacob’s dream, 58, 61, 82, 86, 138 Jacobus de Voragine: Edificaverunt templum Domini rex et filii Israel, 101, 104, 270; Golden Legend (Legenda aurea), 151 Jacques de Vitry: Life of Mary of Oegnies, 295–96, 336; Sermo secundus ad fratres minores, 268 Jairazbhoy, R. A., 154 Jala¯l al-Dı¯n, 184 Jaser, Christian, 351 Jean de Marambato, 366 Jerome, 27, 32; Commentariorum in Matheum libri IV , 241 Jerusalem: labyrinth pavements thought to represent, 227–28; loss to Saladin attributed to sins of Latins, 348. See also specific buildings and locations Jesus. See Christ; Christ, ground trodden by Jews and Judaism: Byzantine complaints about Latin Christian practices and, 194; Nazi and Communist regimes, Jewish gravestones used as paving in, 400; non-sacredness of ornamentation for, 165; prostration, concerns about, 174–75; Stolpersteine, 400; trampling underfoot and, 151, 165, 172–75, 174, 178, 186, 199–200 John II Komnenos (emperor), Pantokrator typikon of, 210 John, duke of Berry, pontifical commissioned for, 112, 113

general index Abbot John of the Cell, 335 John of Claudiopolis, 193 John I of Ibelin, 207 John of La Rochelle, 270 John of Poitiers, 357 John I (bishop of Ravenna), 371–72 John of Würzburg, 42, 51n108, 59, 285, 305n104 Joinville, Jean de, Life of St. Louis, 183–84 Jordan of Saxony, 349–50n42 Joshua’s angel: appearance of, 65–66, 68; command given by, 1, 400; St. Michael associated with, 65 Jouvin, Albert, 222 Julia Mammaea (empress), mutilation and reuse of statue head of, 170 St. Julian, 387 Julian the Apostate (emperor), 149, 272 Justinianic Code, 156n50 Jutta of Sponheim, 326 Kantorowicz, Ernst, 49–50 Kaske, R. F., 230 Katharina van Naaldwijk, 185 Kaʿba, Mecca, 54, 57 Kecharitôminè Convent, Constantinople, typikon for, 210–11 Kehnel, Annette, 328 Kerbogha of Mosul, 165 Keroularios, Michael, 193 Al-Khat¸ ¯ıb, History of Baghdad, 190–91, 194 Khirbat al-Mafjar, mosaic carpet at, 189–90 Kier, Hiltrud, 365 Kitzinger, Ernst, 154 Kolbaba, Tia, 196 Korner, Hermann, Chronica novella, 358 Koziol, Geoffrey, 150, 279, 309, 313 Kroos, Renate, 361 Kumler, Aden, 224 Kurnub, eastern church at, 156 labyrinth pavements, 224–28, 226 Lagrasse, miraculous consecration of church of, 121 Lambert, Malcolm, 294–95 Lanalet Pontifical, 95 Landes, Richard, 345–46 Landévennec, abbey of, 107, 128 Landulf Senior, Historia Mediolanensis, 92–93, 152 Lanfranc of Bec, Monastic Constitutions, 92, 256, 294, 298, 299, 325, 330, 335 last rites. See dying, rites for

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469

Lateran Basilica, Rome, 168, 215 Lateran Palace, Rome, 147, 216 Lateran portico, Rome, 216 Lavas, George P., 60n152 Lazarus and Dives, parable of, 296, 321 Le Gard, abbey of, 199 Le Monastier-sur-Gazeilles, silk from reliquary of St.-Chaffre, 257, 258 Leabhar Breac, 91, 98 learning, drawing on ground used in, 102–3 Leo the Armenian (emperor), 251 Leofric (bishop of Exeter), 124 Letter from the Patriarch of Jerusalem and other Bishops to the Churches in the West, 52 Lexham, Thomas, 367–68, 377 Libellus de revelatione, aedificatione et auctoritate Fiscannensis, 120 Liber de apparitione Sancti Michaelis, 62, 63–64, 65, 74–75, 77 Liber niger, 206 Liber ordinis Sancti Victoris Parisiensis, 326 Liber ystoriae Romanorum, 147, 148 St. Librada reliquary, Siguenza Cathedral, silk from, 257 Life. See specific subjects or authors Lightbown, Ronald, 260 Limoges, Council of (1031), 345, 346 Lincoln Cathedral, 206, 222–23, 224, 260, 367, 368, 369 Lipsmeyer, Elizabeth, 257 Lisieux, French pontifical of, 110 Lithostrotos, 41 Little, Lester, Benedictine Maledictions, 343 liturgical markers, 18–19, 202–77; Byzantine complaints about Latin treatment of, 196; for coronation rites, 215, 228, 231, 233–34, 251–53; figurative versus nonfigurative, 255; modern parallels for, 400; for ordination ceremonies, 211, 212, 228, 255, 260, 264–66, 275; for papal and imperial investitures, in Rome, 211–18, 212, 214, 217, 275, 319, 394; person and place, relationship between, 203, 237–38, 254–57, 271, 275–77; processional markers, 223–24, 237; representations of use of, 398; statuschanging rites, use in, 274–75; tensions between treading on and trampling underfoot, 272–73, 276–77; textual prompts, 204–6, 205; trampling underfoot compared, 202–3; vestigia or imprints and, 25–26, 234–37, 266–74, 277; visionary experiences of, 204, 266–74, 277. See also geometric paving as liturgical markers; images as liturgical markers; temporary floor coverings as liturgical markers

470

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general index

Lives. See specific subjects or authors Lobbes, monastery of, 309 Lollards, 361 London. See St. Paul’s Cathedral; Westminster Abbey L’Orange, H. P., 154 Lothar III (Holy Roman emperor), 145 Louis I the Pious (Carolingian ruler), 316 Louis VI the Fat (king of France), 316, 317, 330–31, 393 Louis VII (king of France), 316, 317 Louis IX (king of France), 47, 163, 164, 183–84, 295, 326–27, 356 Luard, Henry Richards, 122n152 Lucian, De dea syria (attrib.), 296 Luçon, missal-pontifical of, 112, 113 Ludolph of Saxony, 285 Luke of Steiris, Life of, 358 Lüne, convent of, tapestries from, 302 Lykousoura, shoe outlines at, 25 Lyon: canons swearing oath of entry on chapter house stone, 234, 397; pontifical from, 112–14, 114, 115, 137; St.-Irénée, church of, 206, 381–82, 386; St.-Laurent, church of, 306; St.-Martin d’Ainay, church of, 127–29, 128, 206, 305–6, 307, 332, 333, 394, 396 Lyon, Council of (1274), 159, 309 Lyon Cathedral, 306 Machaut, Guillaume and Jean de, 377 Magdeburg Cathedral, 356, 374 Magen, church complex at, 157–58, 158 Maguire, Henry and Eunice, 233 Mahmu¯d (Ghaznavid sultan), 181 Maier, Christoph, 187 Mainz, Council of (813), 340, 343, 346 Majeska, George, 208 al-Malik al-Ka¯mil, 187, 188, 191 Mango, Cyril, 208 Mann, C. Griffith, 42 Manuale officii divini secundum congregationem S. Iustinae de Padua, 384 al-Maqrı¯zı¯, 181 marble, association of significant locations with, 42–45, 43, 44, 63, 76–77 Margaret of Hungary, 288 Maria Laach, abbey of, 81 Mariano da Siena, 31n28 Maritano, Cristina, 222 Marmoutier, abbey of, Tours, 19, 119, 331–33, 332, 337, 394, 396 Marneion, Gaza, 175–78, 186, 394

Martène, Edmond, 94, 331–32n220 St. Martial, cult of, 346 Martin of Pairis, 34, 61 Martin of Tours, 24, 89, 92, 321, 327, 333–34, 337, 394, 396 Martin of Troppau, 101, 104 Martinelli, Biagio de, 214–15 Martinellus, 334 Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, 38, 76 Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee, 372–73 Mary and Marian apparitions: Annunciation, pavement marking, 45, 80; kathisma (sitting place) of Mary, attempt to move, 344, 346; Mount Sinai, stones brought by angels from, 31; trampling beasts underfoot, 147, 148; vestigia or imprints, 24, 25, 123; vision of praying on omphalion, in Hagia Sophia, 210, 235, 304, 391 Mary of Oegnies, 295–96, 336 Matilda (queen of Henry I of Germany), 323–24 Matthew of Edessa, 181 Matthew Paris: Chronica majora, 47–48, 79, 152, 191; Historia Anglicana, 47; verse Life of St. Edward, 122, 272n244 Matthias (Holy Roman emperor), 261 St. Maurice, reliquary bust of, Magdeburg Cathedral, 356, 374 St. Maximin of Trier, invention of relics of, 382–83, 386–87 St. Maximus, 387 Mayol (abbot of Cluny), 151 McClendon, Charles, 311 McCormick, Michael, 69 Meaux, Council of (845), 341 Mecca: Ba¯b Bani Shayba, Arabic idols reused in threshold of, 180–81; Kaʿba, 54, 57; al-Safa¯ʾ Gate, Hara¯m Mosque, Mecca, 56–57 Meiri-Dann, Naomi, 154 Melania the Elder, 36 Melchiorre da Montalbano, 243 Mellitus (bishop of London), 121–23 Melrose Abbey, reinterment of Walthenus at, 379, 381 Ménard, Hugues, 322–23 Mercati, Giovanni, 88, 94 Mercennier, R. P. F., 265 Meroe, bronze head of Augustus buried under cult of Amun building, 171–72 Meroitic-Roman War, 172 Methodius, Life of Theophanes the Confessor, 296 St. Metro, translation of, 349, 357

general index Michael (archangel): Fulda, church of St. Michael at, 69, 81; Joshua’s angel, associated with, 65; Mont-Saint-Michel (Normandy), 70–75, 81, 121; relics of St. Michael, 70, 71, 81; S. Maria in Aracoeli, footprints at, 24, 41; Verdun, monastery of St. Michael on Mount Châtillon, 73. See also Gargano Peninsula, shrine of St. Michael with footprints of archangel at Michael I (emperor), 251 Michaud, Jean, 305 Miedema, Nine, 53, 269 Migliore, Ferdinando del, 218 Milan Cathedral, chrismon from, 93 Milanese church. See Ambrosian/Milanese church St. Mildrith, footprints of, 25 Mino d’Arezzo, 230 The Miracles of St. Michael at Chonae, 65 Miracula Maximini, 382–83 Miracula Sancti Michaelis, 72–74 miraculous consecrations, 120–23 Miraculum Sancti Maximini, 74 Abbot Mochutu of Rathen, 372–73, 374 Moissac, abbey church of, 385 Mongols, 181 Monnas, Lisa, 260 Monte Cassino, abbey of, 152, 161n71, 378–80 Monte Sant’Angelo. See Gargano Peninsula, shrine of St. Michael with footprints of archangel at Mont-Saint-Michel, 70–75, 81, 121 Mora, Bernadette, 305 Mores et consuetudines canonice Florentine, 218–19n65, 219–20 Morris, Colin, 32, 45 mosaic floors. See opus tessellatum pavements/paving elements; pavements, decorated/figurative Moses, and holy ground, 1–2, 26, 34, 68, 82, 96, 400 Mount of Olives, footprints of Christ at Ascension on, 18, 26, 27, 34–54; change in perception from integral part of ground to distinct stone, 41–42, 43, 49–50; churches over, 35, 39, 40, 41, 56, 80; Dome of the Rock and, 54–56; Gargano shrine of St. Michael and, 63, 68; Insular interest in, 38–40, 40, 47–50; marble, association of significant locations with, 42–45, 43, 44; medieval plans of church, 39, 40; Muslim veneration of, 61; origins and early accounts of tradition, 35–38; persons and places, relationship between, 394; photograph of, 36; pilgrims praying at, 286; protection from human contact, 50–54, 75, 358; relics from Ascension site, 45–50, 46, 59; stratigraphic/vertical

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471

approach to, 5, 75; tensions between exposure and decoration of, 37–38, 39–41, 42–45, 262, 346; theological and spiritual significance of, 35–36, 37, 38, 77–79 Mount of Olives, impression of Christ’s body on, 51 Mount Sinai, 2, 31, 34, 48 Mount Tabor. See Transfiguration Mozac, restoration of abbey of, 66–67, 123 Muhammad (Prophet), 54, 55, 56, 58, 64 Münchsmünster, church of St. Peter at abbey of, 81 Müntz, Eugène, 153 Muslims. See Islam Muzio of Modena, 350 Narbonne pontifical, consecration ritual in, 94 Narratio de commendatione Turonicae provinciae, 119n138 Narratio de S. Sophia, 208 Narsai, baptismal homily of, 263 Nasir-i Khusraw, 56, 57 . Navarre, coronation ritual of, 251 Neferis, footprints at temple of Saturn at, 25 Nelson, Janet, 312, 314 Neon of Ravenna, 353, 354n54, 364 Nero and Agrippina, statue of, reused as paving in Sebasteion, Aphrodisias, 170, 171 St. Nicasius (Nicaise) of Reims, 315, 373–77, 376 Niccolò da Poggibonsi, Libro d’Oltramare, 51 Nicholas of Lisieux, 268 Nieul-lès-Saintes, hoofprint of St. Martin’s donkey at, 24 Nightingale, John, 383 Nikephoros, Life of St. Andrew the Fool, 296–97 Nikon of Sparta, Life of, 233 Nikulás of Þverá, 68 Nordhagen, P. J., 153 Norton, Christopher, 198 Novalesa, abbey of, 356 Novara, diocese of: S. Gaudenzio, 238–39, 241, 394; S. Giulio, Isola San Giulio, Lago d’Orta, 161 Novara Cathedral: liturgical markers in, 221–22, 229, 238–47, 239, 253–55, 274, 275; opus tessellatum pavements/paving elements at, 161, 238–47, 239, 253–55, 274, 275; Otranto compared, 248, 249; presbytery cross, 160–61, 162; Reims compared, 317; side-aisle mosaics, 161. See also Evangelist symbols at Novara Cathedral

472

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general index

Novellino, 188–89, 191 Novello, Agostino, 349 Nukradin (Seljuk sultan), 183 Nußbaum, Otto, 364 Ó Carragáin, Eamonn, 242 Oberto (bishop of Genoa), 131 Odo/Eudes (Frankish ruler), 316 Oengus the Culdee, Martyrology of, 372–73 Old Sarum, pavement at, 379–80 Old St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome: Bede’s supposed burial marker at, 354, 357, 385–86; liturgical markers at, 211–16, 212, 214, 218, 222, 229, 254, 274, 394; opus sectile pavements/paving elements, 160, 211–16, 212, 214, 218, 222, 229, 254, 274, 303, 394; prostration at, 303, 319; trampling underfoot at, 160 Oliver of Paderborn, 187 omphalion, 43, 196, 209, 209–10, 213. See also liturgical markers openness of church floor surfaces in Middle Ages, 2, 278 opus sectile pavements/paving elements: Bernard of Clairvaux on, 198; burials under/funerary associations of, 353–54; at Cappella Palatina, 12n26, 216, 229, 251; at Church of the Holy Cross, Ravenna, 303–4, 386; consecration rituals recorded by, 125, 126, 132, 135; correspondences with other types of holy ground, 11; cross patterns, 161, 162; at Farfa, abbey of, 311; at Florence baptistery, 218–21, 220, 392; at Hagia Sophia, 43, 77, 196, 208–10, 209, 213, 222, 229, 235, 251, 274, 304, 391; at Hosios Loukas, 233; liturgical markers and, 196, 209, 210, 216–17, 218, 221, 237, 251; longitudinal axis, emphasis on, 270; at Monte Cassino, abbey of, 161n71, 379; at Old St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome, 160, 211–16, 212, 214, 218, 222, 229, 254, 274, 303, 394; at Otranto Cathedral, 251; at Pomposa, abbey of, 125, 126, 132, 161; at S. Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome, 132; at S. Marco, Venice, 132; at S. Maria Maggiore, Sant’Elia Fiumerapido, 161n71; at Ste.-Marie, abbey church of, Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, 135; at S. Menna, Sant’Agata dei Goti, 161, 162, 218, 219; at S. Prassede, Rome, 161–63, 311; at SS. Quattro Coronati, Rome, 132; at Stoudios basilica, Constantinople, 265n221; at Varnakova, monastery of, 265n221; at Westminster Abbey, 132, 207n15, 215, 222, 317–19, 318, 355, 394 opus tessellatum pavements/paving elements: at Acqui Terme, cathedral of, 129–31, 130;

at Asti Cathedral, 254; Bernard of Clairvaux on, 198; at Blachernai, monastery of, Arta, 265n221; at Bobbio, abbey of, 154; burials marked by, 354, 383–87, 385; Camposanto mosaic, Cremona Cathedral, 166–67, 167; consecration rituals recorded by, 125–35, 128, 130, 135; correspondences with other types of holy ground, 11; at Cruas, abbey of, 125–27; at Die, episcopal chapel of, 134; at ‘Evron, 156; figurative versus nonfigurative, 255; at Fruttuaria, abbey of, 257, 258, 264; at Ganagobie, abbey of, 134, 161; at Grado Cathedral, 76; at Khirbat al-Mafjar, 189–90; as liturgical markers, 237–55, 239, 246, 249, 252, 305–7, 307; at Moissac, abbey of, 385; at Novara Cathedral, 161, 238–47, 239, 253–55, 274, 275; at Otranto Cathedral, 14, 167, 237, 247–55, 249, 252, 275, 277, 392, 398; at Pella, 156; at Pesaro Cathedral, 384; at Piazza Armerina, 154; at Reims Cathedral, 135–36, 314–17, 315; at St. Babylas, Martyrion of, Antioch, 156; at S. Benedetto Po, 165–66, 167, 277; at St.-Bertin, Saint-Omer, 132–34, 133, 161, 354; at S. Evasio, Casale Monferrato, 165, 166; at S. Giovanni Decollato, Pieve Terzagni, 138–39, 245–47, 246; at S. Giovanni Evangelista, Ravenna, 227n93; at S. Giulio, Isola San Giulio, 161; at S. Giustina, Padua, 383–87, 385; at St.-Irénée, Lyon, 206, 381–82, 386; at S. Maria del Popolo, cathedral of, Pavia, 166, 198n196; at St.-Martin d’Ainay, Lyon, 127–29, 128, 206, 305–6, 307, 332, 333, 394, 395; at S. Michele, Pavia, 227; at St.Paul-Trois-Chateaux, cathedral of, 138, 245; at St.-Remi, abbey of, Reims, 138; at S. Salvatore, Turin, 154, 204; at S. Savino, Piacenza, 227n93; at Shavei Zion, 156, 157; at Taranto Cathedral, 237; at Verdun Cathedral, 354 Opusculum contra Francos, 192–93, 196 Ordinatio de pila facienda, 226 ordination: episcopal ordination ceremonies, liturgical markers for, 211, 212, 228, 255, 260, 264–66, 275; papal investitures and liturgical markers, 211–18, 212, 214, 217, 275; prostration and, 304, 313–14 Ordo ad benedicendam ecclesiam (PRG 40), 85, 86, 95, 97, 122n153, 129, 297 Ordo ad regem benedicendam, 313 Ordo artium, 102 Ordo of 1200, 313 Ordo of Cencius II, 211 Ordo quodmodo ecclesia debeat dedicari, 84–85

general index Ordo Romanus 11, 89, 92, 240, 241nn139–40 Ordo Romanus 41, 84–85, 86, 88–91 Ordo Romanus 43, 122n153 Ordo Romanus ad dedicandam ecclesiam (PRG 33), 85 Osbert of Clare, Life of St. Edward the Confessor, 122, 272n244 Osborne, John, 162–63 Osmund (bishop of Salisbury), 379–80 Otranto Cathedral, floor mosaics: Atlas figure and clipeus ritual, 250–53, 252, 275; deer suggesting location of baptismal font and bishop during baptism, 248, 275; doors to paradise, 237; hell, gates and personification of, 14, 167, 248–50, 249, 253, 277, 398; images as liturgical markers, 237, 247–55, 249, 252, 392; Kairos figure, 247–48, 249, 275; Novara compared, 248, 249; opus tessellatum pavements/paving elements at, 14, 167, 237, 247–55, 249, 252, 275, 277, 392, 398; Tree of Life, 237, 248, 274; Ungruh’s study of, 203n1, 247 Otto I (Holy Roman emperor), 213, 356, 374 Ottonian Pontifical, 211 Our Lady of Guadalupe, 25 Our Lady of Maastricht, church of, portal, 145 Oviedo, Arca Santa and relics of, 33, 45 pagans/infideles, bodies of, 340–43, 346 Pajares-Ayuela, Paloma, 132, 135 Palazzo, Éric, 112, 322 Palm Sunday processions: labyrinth pavements and, 228; textiles spread under representations of Christ in, 203, 256–59, 270, 395 Pantokrator, church of the (Zeyrek Camii), Constantinople, 210–11, 265n221 papal/imperial investitures and liturgical markers, 211–18, 212, 214, 217, 275, 319, 394 Paris. See St.-Denis; Sainte-Chapelle Paris, M. François, 265 Paschal I (pope), 311 Paschal II (pope), 127, 128, 305–6, 307 Patarine movement, 152 Patetta, Federico, 130 patria, medieval European conceptions of, 49–50 St. Patrick, Life of, 91, 372 Paul the Deacon, 379 Paulinus of Nola, 31–32, 33, 35, 36–37, 50, 269 Paulinus of Périgueux, Life of St. Martin of Tours, 89

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473

pavements, decorated/figurative: Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia, denouncing lavish pavement decoration, 197–99; consecration rituals, recording/commemorating, 124–39, 126, 128, 130, 133, 135, 136; correspondences with other types of holy ground, 11; crosses, treading on/avoiding treading on, 16, 155–64, 157, 158, 162, 178, 180, 187; dying, rites for, 331–34, 332; elision between site and, in consecration rituals, 123–24; holy bodies buried below ground and, 379–87; negative and positive contact with, 11; parallels between textiles and, 257–59, 258; prayer and, 386; prostration on, 280, 293, 303–8, 307, 314–19, 315, 318, 336, 388; as reliquaries, 379; reuse/ replacement of, 9, 124; reusing other material, 18, 161–63, 169–84, 171, 174, 179; as surfaces, 3–4; trampling underfoot, 153–55, 160, 165; vestigia or imprints, marking of, 43–45, 76–77. See also burial underfoot; Cosmati/ Cosmatesque pavements; geometric paving as liturgical markers; liturgical markers; opus sectile pavements/paving elements; opus tessellatum pavements/paving elements Pavia, cathedral of S. Maria del Popolo, 166, 198n196 Paxton, Frederick, 322, 325 Peace of God movement, 345, 346 Peers, Glenn, 65 Peeters, Paul, 176 Pella, floor mosaics at, 156 penance and penitents: burial underfoot, as penitential position, 356, 359–60, 360, 371; dying, preparation for, association with, 321–22; liturgical markers and, 205, 230, 247–48, 249, 255, 263, 275; prostration, penitential, 286–87, 290, 293–94; sackcloth and ashes associated with, 91, 321–22 Pensabene, Patrizio, 216 Pesaro Cathedral, 384 Peter of Celle, 52 Peter the Chanter, De oratione et speciebus illius, 194, 286–87, 288, 290, 291, 299–301, 300, 301 Peter Damian, Sermon on the Dedication, 99, 104 Peter the Deacon, 59, 61, 77, 379 Peter (bishop of Tortona), 131 petra papalis, S. Maria Maggiore, Rome, 216 Petrus Mallius, Descriptio basilicae Vaticanae, 354n55, 357, 385–86 Pettinaio, Pietro, Life of, 266, 270, 272–73, 395 Philagathos, 251

474

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general index

Philip I (king of France), 313, 316 Philip II (king of Spain), 151 Philip (son of Louis VI of France), 316, 317 Phocas, John, 42, 45, 49n103, 51n108, 80, 358 Photius (patriarch), 57 Piacenza Pilgrim, 28, 40–41, 50 Pianea, Elena, 131 Piazza Armerina, floor mosaics, 154 pilgrims and pilgrimage: Akeldama (Potter’s Field), Jerusalem, burial of pilgrims in, 30–31; footsteps of Christ, touching and following, 50–54, 57; to Holy Land, 32–33, 50, 285–86; Martin of Tours, veneration of places marking contact with, 333–34; virtual pilgrimage, 269–70 Pippin the Short (Frankish ruler), 66–67, 123, 189, 284 Piva, Paolo, 165–66 plaster images drawn on floor, 264–65 Poemenia, 35 Polycarp of Smyrna, Martyrdom of, 38, 76 Pomposa, abbey church of, 125, 126, 132, 161 Pontefract, chapel and almshouse at, 369, 377 Pontifical of Gondekar II, 105 Pontifical of Vic, 104n114 Pontificale Romanum, 86, 118, 118–19, 137 Poppo of Stavelot, Vita of, 320 porphyry, significance of, 229, 231 Porphyry of Gaza, Life of, 175–78 Porter, H. B., 325 Porziuncola indulgence, 271 Praepositinus of Cremona, Tractatus de officiis, 221 Praetorium footprints (Jerusalem), 40–41, 59, 76 prayer: alphabet cross, associated with, 94–96; apotropaic power of Creed and Lord’s Prayer, 372–73; Ascension site, pilgrims praying at, 286; burials/burial requests at site of, 372–73, 397; Gethsemane, pilgrims praying at, 57, 285–86; pavement decoration and, 386; prostration as imitation of Christ praying at Gethsemane, 284–87, 289, 290; Simon Magus, indentations where Sts. Peter and Paul prayed against, 305; treatment of places of, 57; vision of Mary praying on omphalion, in Hagia Sophia, 210, 235, 304, 391; Ways of Prayer of St. Dominic, 291, 292, 370–71 prayer rugs/prayer carpets, 296–98 presentation of Christ in the Temple, relics of, 58, 61 processions: burial on processional routes, requests for, 367, 368, 369; labyrinth pavements and,

226, 227n93, 228; liturgical markers for, 223–24, 237, 248. See also Palm Sunday processions prostration, 19, 278–337; adoratio, association with, 213, 298–99, 302, 303; bare ground, use of, 280, 292, 293–96, 336; Byzantine criticism of Latin prostration ritual, 192–95; in Byzantium, 296–97; characterizations of, in Middle Ages, 280, 281–91, 283, 289, 292; in Classical Antiquity, 296; in coronation rites, 280, 312–20, 315, 318, 337; death and burial, relationship to, 280, 284, 290, 338, 387 (See also dying, rites for); exaltation, expectation of, 284, 338; as gesture, 278–79, 281; Gethsemane, as imitation of Christ praying in, 284–87, 289, 290; humiliation of relics and, 280, 308–12, 337; humility, as position of, 280, 281, 284, 285, 295, 299, 305, 318–19, 327, 335; humus (ground) and humility, etymological relationship between, 280, 281, 295, 335; in Islam, 296; in Islamic diplomatic encounters, 190; Jewish concerns about, 174–75; in ordinations, 304, 313–14; as penitential, 286–87, 290, 293–94; on permanent pavements, 280, 293, 303–8, 307, 314–19, 315, 318, 336, 388; persons and places, relationship between, 280; petition/supplication, association with, 281–82; proper positions for, 286–91, 289, 292, 335; religious community, reentry into, 294; resistance to, 287–90, 299; in status-changing rites, 312; textiles and temporary floor coverings for, 280, 292–94, 296–303, 300, 301, 307, 313–14, 318, 319–20, 333, 336; worldly concerns, rejection of, 282–83, 283 Prudentius, Peristephanon, 144, 148 Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle, 188–89 Psychomachia, 147 “pyramids,” cross shafts described as, 380 Quasten, Johannes, 263 Quid significent duodecim candelae, 88n33, 97–99, 104, 122n153 quincunxes, 132, 210–11, 218, 303, 316, 386 Quinisext Council (692), 157 Ramsey Pontifical, 124 Rather of Verona, De translatione S. Metronis, 349, 357 Ratoldus, Sacramentary of, 95–96, 312, 316, 323 Ravenna: Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, 236, 303–4, 353–54n54, 363–64, 371–72, 386; Apostles, Church of the, 353,

general index 354n54, 364; Basilica Ursiana, 363–65, 371n128; Church of the Holy Cross, 303–4, 386; Orthodox Baptistery and archiepiscopal chapel, 145; S. Giovanni Evangelista, 227n93; St. Agata, church of, 371–72; San Vitale, 242n145 Red Book of the Exchequer, 259 redditio symboli, 219, 220, 275 Reformation/Counter-Reformation: burial underfoot discouraged after, 362; trampling underfoot and, 143, 151–52, 156, 169, 200 Regensburg Cathedral, relics at, 285 Regino of Prüm, 150, 344 Reims Cathedral: beheading of St. Nicasius, burials near site of, 373–77, 376; labyrinth pavement, 225n85, 227; lost floor mosaic at, 135–36, 314–17, 315; Novara Cathedral compared, 317 Reinhardt, Hans, 314 relics: absence of bodily relics and veneration of vestigia, 24, 26, 65, 72, 75, 81, 120–21; Ascension site, relics from, 45–50, 46; burial of reliquaries below ground, 378; Christ, ground trodden by, as contact relic, 11, 14, 45; at consecration rituals, 80, 81, 84, 124; environmental relics, pieces of ground as, 27, 29–34, 75; Gargano shrine of St. Michael and, 69–74, 71; from Gethsemane, 285; of holy bodies buried underfoot, 339, 378–87, 385; Holy Land earth, as contact relic, 28–29; Holy Land earth, as relic in itself, 27–30, 30, 33; humiliation of, 280, 308–12, 337, 393; invention of, 382–83, 386–87; pavements, as reliquaries, 379; placed over burials, 356, 374, 378; textiles on which royals had trod as, 261. See also specific relics and types of relic religious communities: burial inside churches and, 340; burial requests by members of, 366–71; dying, rites for laity as well as religious communities, 328–31 (See also dying, rites for); prostration and reentry into, 294. See also specific religious, e.g. Dominicans Remensnyder, Amy, 67, 123, 384–85 Remigius of Auxerre, 97n80 Repsher, Brian, 92, 97, 104 reuse: of decorated/figurative pavements, 9, 124; of other material as paving, steps, or thresholds, 18, 161–63, 169–84, 171, 174, 179, 182; spolia, 18, 30n27, 162–63, 169–84, 171, 174, 179 Revelatio ecclesiae Sancti Michaelis archangeli in Monte qui dicitur Tumba, 70, 73

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475

Revelatio sanctorum martirum, 383–84, 385, 387 Rheinau Abbey, 69–70 Rheinau Sacramentary, 323n183 Richard, duke of Normandy, 120 Richard of St.-Vanne, 326 Richardson, H. G., 317n158 Rievaulx Abbey, 199 Rimini Cathedral (S. Colomba), 351 Ritus in ecclesia servandi, 220–21 “rivers,” floor decoration interpreted as, 208–9, 209, 229, 251, 264–66, 275 Robert of Torigny, 72 Roger II of Sicily, 251 Roger IV, duke of Apulia, 251 Roger of Howden, 32 Roki-Ed-Din (Rukn al-Dı¯n; sultan of Iconium and Asia Minor), 183n137 Roman House H, Areopagos Hill, Athens, 178, 179, 180 Roman Pontificals of Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, 86–87, 93, 112, 122n153, 129, 138, 219 Romano-Germanic Pontifical, 85–86, 95, 97, 122n153, 129, 138, 150, 293, 297, 305, 313, 314, 316 Rome: geometric paving in, 211–16, 212, 214, 217; Simon Magus, indentations where Sts. Peter and Paul prayed against, 305. See also specific buildings and locations rotae/roundels. See liturgical markers Roux, Joseph, 306 Rubin, Zeev, 176 Rudolph, Conrad, 198 Rudolph of Faenza, 370 rushes/vegetation, in churches, 256, 297, 303, 320 Sachetti, Franco, 351 sackcloth. See cilicium sacred space, conception and creation of, 14–15. See also holy ground; Holy Land Saewulf (pilgrim), 58–59 al-Safa¯ʾ Gate, Hara¯m Mosque, Mecca, 56–57 S. Agata, Ravenna, 371–72 St. Alban’s Abbey, 335 St. Alphege, Canterbury, 365 St.-Amand, libellus for monastery of, 322 St.-André-de-Rosans, abbey church of, 134–35, 135, 161 St. Andrews Cathedral, 256 St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, 325–26 St. Babylas, Martyrion of, Antioch, 156

476

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general index

S. Benedetto Po, basilisk facing unicorn in floor mosaic at, 165–66, 167, 277 St.-Bertin, abbey church of, Saint-Omer, 132–34, 133, 161, 354 St. Blasien, customary of, 298, 336 St.-Chaffre, silk from reliquary of, Le Monastiersur-Gazeilles, 257, 258 S. Clemente, Rome, 132, 216, 217 S. Colomba, cathedral of, Rimini, 351 S. Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome, 132 St.-Denis, Paris: miraculous consecration of, 121; Sacramentary of, 103–4 St. Dominic, Bologna, 215 S. Evasio, Casale Monferrato, 165, 166 S. Francesco, Assisi, papal throne, 14, 168, 169 S. Gaudenzio, Novara, 238–39, 241, 394 St. Giles, hospital of, Norwich, Processional for, 224, 225 S. Giovanni a Porta Latina, Rome, 168 S. Giovanni Decollato, Pieve Terzagni, near Cremona, 138–39, 245–47, 246 S. Giovanni Evangelista, Ravenna, 227n93 S. Giulio, Isola San Giulio, Lago d’Orta, 161 S. Giustina, Padua, 383–87, 385 St.-Hilaire, Poitiers, 357–58 St.-Irénée, Lyon, 206, 381–82, 386 St.-Laurent, Lyon, 306 S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura, Rome, 215 S. Marco, Florence, 291 S. Marco, Venice, 132 S. Maria, Capua, clergy of, 152 S. Maria de Palma, Rome, Via Appia footprints of Christ moved from, 51, 81 S. Maria del Monte, Benedictine priory of, 370 S. Maria del Popolo, cathedral of, Pavia, 166, 198n196 S. Maria in Aracoeli, Rome, footprints of Archangel Michael in, 24, 41 S. Maria Maggiore, Rome, 215, 216 S. Maria Maggiore, Sant’Elia Fiumerapido, 161n71 Ste.-Marie, abbey church of, Saint-Benoît-surLoire, 135 St.-Martial, abbey of, Limoges, 98, 343, 347 St. Martin, abbey of, Trier, 344 St. Martin, Tours, 334 St.-Martin d’Ainay, Lyon, 127–29, 128, 206, 305–6, 307, 332, 333, 394, 395 St. Mary, Glendalough, 137 St. Mary Magdalene, church of (Holy Land), 44–45 St. Mauritius, altar of, Old St. Peter’s, Rome, 212

St.-Maximin, abbey of, Trier, 72, 382–83, 386–87 S. Menna, Sant’Agata dei Goti, 161, 162, 218, 219 St. Michael on Mount Châtillon, monastery of, Verdun, 73 St. Michael’s, Beromünster, processional cross, 70, 71 S. Michele, Pavia, 227 S. Nicola, Bari, 154, 165, 204–6, 205, 262 St. Paul’s Cathedral, London: Ascension relics at, 47, 48; burials underfoot at, 361; Westminster Abbey, rivalry with, 47, 49 St.-Paul-Trois-Chateaux, cathedral of, 138, 245 Sts. Peter and Paul, portal, Andlau, 145 St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome. See Old St. Peter’s Basilica S. Petronio, Bologna, 214–15, 229, 274, 394 St.-Pierre, Avignon, 366 S. Pietro Ispano, Boville Ernica, 160 S. Prassede, Rome, 161–63, 311 SS. Quattro Coronati, Rome, 132, 147, 149, 272 St.-Remi, abbey of, Reims, 138, 317, 322–23 S. Reparata, Florence, Ritus in ecclesia servandi, 70 St.-Riquier, relics of abbey of, 61 S. Salvatore, Turin, 154, 204 S. Savino, Piacenza, 227n93 S. Sebastiano, Rome, Via Appia footprints of Christ moved to, 51, 81, 236 Sts. Simon and Jude, altar of, Old St. Peter’s, Rome, 211, 213 Sts. Simon and Jude, Goslar, 355–56 St. Sophia (associated with Praetorium site, Jerusalem), 40–41 St. Vincentius, church of, 345 San Vitale, Ravenna, 242n145 Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, 163 saints. See holy bodies; specific saints by name Saladin, 32, 181, 187, 188, 189, 191, 348 Salerno Cathedral, 243, 248 Salimbene de Adam, 295, 351 Salmon, André, 119n138 Salmon, Pierre, 97 Samson (archbishop of Reims), 314 San/Santa. See specific entries at Saint for churches, and names of specific saints, e.g. Martin of Tours Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box, 29–30, 30, 45 Sardis, synagogue forecourt, reuse of relief of Artemis and Cybele at, 173, 174 Saul, Nigel, 362

general index Schauinsland window, Freiburg im Breisgau Minster, 7, 8 St. Scholastica, 379 Schreiner, Peter, 210, 213 Scott, John A., 359 scourging of Christ, column with handprints from, 50 Sebasteion, Aphrodisias, statue of Nero and Agrippina reused as paving in, 170, 171 Second Crusade, 192 Seides, Niketas, 193 Sens, Sacramentary of, 322 Sens Cathedral, 225n85, 227, 259 Shalem, Avinoam, 190 Shap Abbey, 224 Shapiro, Meyer, 47 Shavei Zion, chapel floor at, 156, 157 Sherborne Abbey, 365 shield-raising (clipeus) ritual, 251–52, 253, 275 shoes, requirement to remove, 25 Sibt. ibn al-Jawzı¯, 60–61 Sicardus of Cremona, Mitrale, 2n6, 98, 101, 155, 221, 241, 246–47, 261–62, 282, 341–42, 352, 353 Siena Cathedral: figurative pavement of, 160; Ordo Senensis, 262, 271; vision of Christ’s footprints in ash walked in by Francis of Assisi, 11, 13, 204, 266–74, 395, 398 Sienese reliquary tabernacle with Virgin and Child (Naddo Ceccarelli), 42, 44 Siguenza Cathedral, silk from reliquary of St. Librada, 257 Simeon of Thessaloniki, 208, 264 Simon Magus, indentations where Sts. Peter and Paul prayed against, 305 Sims-Williams, Patrick, 244 St. Siviard, Shroud of, Sens Cathedral, 259 Skylitzes, John, Synopsis historion, 251, 253 Smith, Julia, 29 Smith, Katherine, 72 Smythe, Margaret, 362–63 Soignies, abbey of, 67, 123 Solomon and Saturn (Old English poem), 373 Southwell Cathedral, 224, 366 Spelunca of St. Columbanus at Bobbio, 69 spolia, 18, 30n27, 162–63, 169–84, 171, 174, 179 St. See specific entries at Saint for churches, or names of specific saints, e.g. Martin of Tours Stammheim Missal, 42, 43 status-changing rites: prostration in, 312; use of liturgical markers in, 274–75 Stephen the Younger, Life of, 196–97

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477

Stern, Henri, 126n165, 314, 316, 382n175 Stilbes, Constantine, 193, 195 Stone, John, Chronicle, 335 Stoudios basilica, Constantinople, 265n221 stratigraphic/vertical approach to holy ground, 4–9, 14, 17, 75 Suetonius, 150 Suger (abbot of Saint-Denis), 284; De administratione, 121; Deeds of Louis the Fat, 330–31 Sulcard, Prologus de construccione Westmonasterii, 121 Sulpicius Severus: Chronica, 35–38, 39, 48, 49, 50, 78, 236, 346n28; Epistulae, 92, 321; Martinellus and writings of, 334; Vita Martini, 327 tabulis cordis, 80, 99–101 Talgam, Rina, 254 Tamar (Georgian queen), 183 Taranto Cathedral, 237 Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, 173, 175 Tbilisi, sack of (1220s), 184 Te igitur page, 9 Teggiano Cathedral, ambo, 243 Temple and Temple Mount (Jerusalem), 27, 48, 49, 54, 57–59, 61. See also Dome of the Rock Temple of Solomon (Jerusalem), 40, 58, 61, 76, 320 temporary floor coverings as liturgical markers, 203–4, 255–74; cilicium (haircloth) used in baptismal rites, 218, 262–64, 271, 310, 392; episcopal consecrations, plaster images drawn on floor for, 264–66; Francis of Assisi, legend of cloak spread under feet of, 259, 270–71; Francis of Assisi, vision of, walking in Christ’s vestigia in ashes, 266–74; Francis of Assisi’s vision of walking on silks, 271; negative connotations of, 261–64; Palm Sunday processions, 203, 256–59, 270; parallels between mosaic floors and textiles, 257–59, 258, 264; particular occasions and specific people, in relation to, 255–57; for royal participants, 259–61 temporary floor coverings for prostration, 280, 292–94, 296–303, 300, 301, 307, 313–14, 318, 319–20, 333, 336 textiles: articulating identity, in Latin West, 191; bishops and other clerics walking on, 185–86, 260, 261–62; burials underfoot, marked with textile coverings on special days, 354–55; in coronation rites, 313–14, 318, 319–20, 355; gesture and, 13; humiliation of relics and use of, 309, 310; Islamic use as ground coverings, in diplomatic encounters, 187–91, 194–95;

478

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general index

textiles: (continued) as liturgical markers, 202, 203; Palm Sunday processions, spread under representations of Christ in, 203, 257–59, 270, 395; parallels between mosaic floors and, 189–90, 257–59, 258, 264; prayer rugs/prayer carpets, 296–98; prostration, used for, 280, 292–94, 296–303, 300, 301, 307, 313–14, 318, 319–20, 333, 336; pseudo-Arabic script in floor mosaics possibly evoking, 165; sacred space, association with, 165; secular clothing, trampling underfoot, upon entering religious life, 185; as “soft architecture”/floor coverings, 4–5; tent captured from Kerbogha of Mosul by Bohemond, as floor covering, 165; walking on textiles with cross decorations, 187–89. See also cilicium; temporary floor coverings as liturgical markers Theodore of Andida, 208 Theodore of Mopsuestia, 262–63 Theodore of Tarsus, Penitential of, 340–41, 342, 343, 346 Theodoret of Cyrrhus, 33; History of the Monks of Syria, 176 Theodosian Code, 156n50, 176n113 Theodosius II (emperor), edict of (427), 156 Theodosius (German archdeacon), De situ terrae sanctae, 344 Theodulf of Orléans, capitularies of, 324–25, 340, 341, 346, 352, 353 Theophanes the Confessor, 296 Theophylact of Bulgaria, 193 Theseus, parallels between Christ and, 227 Thessaloniki, Norman capture of (1185), 195, 196 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 281 Thomas Becket, 11–12, 152, 375 Thomas of Celano’s vitae of Francis of Assisi, 268, 295, 327n205 Thomas of Monmouth, 66, 350 Thurston, Herbert, 91 Toker, Franklin, 218–19n65 Tornikios, Leo, 251 Török, László, 171–72 Tours: Marmoutier, abbey of, 19, 119, 331–33, 332, 337, 394, 396; St. Martin, church of, 334 traditio evangeliorum, 238, 240–47 traditio symboli and traditio dominicae orationis, 219–21 trampling underfoot, 18, 142–201; accusations of impiety due to, 143, 144, 152, 186–99; Apocalypse, seven-headed beast of, 165, 166; avoidance of crosses and other insignia,

143, 155–64, 157, 158, 162, 192; burials, treading on/avoiding, 356–61, 360; Byzantine accusations of, 192–97; calcatio colli ritual, 149–50, 200; by Christ, Mary, and saints, 144–48, 146, 148; in Christian Late Antiquity, 142, 143, 145, 150, 153, 156, 175–80, 179, 180; in Classical Antiquity, 145, 170–72; crosses, treading on/avoiding treading on, 16, 155–64, 157, 158, 162, 178, 180, 187–89, 192–93, 356; decorated/figurative pavements and, 153–55, 160, 165; deliberate denigration, floor decoration intended as, 143, 164–86, 166, 167, 169, 171, 174, 179, 182; in excommunication rituals, 150; four beasts (from Psalm 90 [91]), 145, 146, 147, 148, 168, 169; as gesture, 13–14; Islam and, 16, 151, 169, 180–84, 182, 186–92, 199–200, 393, 398; Jewish gravestones used as paving in Nazi and Communist regimes, 400; in Judaism, 151, 165, 172–75, 174, 178, 186, 199–200; liturgical markers compared, 202–3; multiple contexts and meanings of, 143–44, 199–201, 398; as negative contact expressing triumph and disdain, 11, 53, 144, 152–53, 199– 200; pagan cults, denigration of, 173, 174, 175– 80, 179, 180; persons and places, relationship between, 16–17, 393; as profanation, 150–53; in Reformation/Counter-Reformation, 143, 151–52, 156, 169, 200; saintly piety, avoidance of holy symbols underfoot as sign of, 163–64; of secular clothing, upon entering religious life, 185; spolia, 162–63, 169, 173; temporary floor coverings, negative connotations of, 261–64; tensions between walking in footsteps and, 272–73, 398; texts and images versus actual performance, 143, 144–53, 146, 148, 149; triumphal trampling of negative by positive figures, 145–50; virtues/vices combat between, 147, 149, 166–67, 167 Transfiguration: Anglo-Saxon relics from Mount Tabor, 49; persons and places, relationship between, 394; roundel marking spot of Christ’s feet on Mount Tabor, 42, 50, 77, 358; Schauinsland window, Freiburg im Breisgau Minster, 7, 8 translation of saintly bodies, 349–51 Trexler, Richard, 286, 287, 288, 301, 397–98 La Trinité, Fécamp, abbey church of, 120–21, 343, 347 Trombley, Frank, 176 Tronzo, William, 213, 216, 303 True Cross: relics of, 46, 46–47, 48, 51, 163, 187; representation on Girona tapestry, 302

general index Tsaferis, Vasilios, 157–58 Tudor-Craig, Pamela, 319 Tyre, Venetian appropriation of stone where Christ sat from, 49 Tzerentzes, George, 159 Ugolino of Cortona, 351 Ulrich of Augsburg, Life of, 92, 257, 324, 327 Ulrich of Zell, customary of, 325 Ungruh, Christine, 167, 203n1, 247, 248n164, 250–52 Urban II (pope), 119, 125–26, 331, 348n35 Urbicius (praepositus sacri cubiculi), 344, 346 St. Ursmer, relics of, 309, 310 Ursus (bishop of Ravenna), 363–65 Usus secundum ordinem ecclesiae novariensis (MS LII), 238, 240 Usus secundum ordinem ecclesie beatissimi Gaudentii confessoris, 238–39 Valgius (visionary), 37, 269 van Ess, Josef, 56 Vandals, 207 Vanni, Raffaello, 273 Varnakova, monastery of, 265n221 Varner, Eric, 170 vegetation/rushes, in churches, 256, 297, 303, 320 Brother Ventura (Dominican), 370 Verdun, monastery of St. Michael on Mount Châtillon, 73 Verdun Cathedral, 354 Vernon, Clare, 165 Veronica (relic), 47 vestigia or imprints, 17–18, 23–79, 391; absence of bodily relics and veneration of, 24, 26, 65, 72, 75, 81, 120–21; alphabet cross or abecedarium, characteristics shared with, 139–40, 270; ashes, visionary experiences of vestigia in, 11, 13, 204, 266–74; classical predecessors, 24, 25; consecration ritual and, 27, 73, 80–82, 103–4, 120–21, 123, 138, 139–40; direction of, 64; as documentation or proof, 38, 77–78, 123, 234; environmental relics, pieces of ground as, 27, 29–34, 75; in Gaelic inauguration customs, 233–34; interaction with, 26–27; liturgical markers and, 25–26, 234–37, 266–74, 277; presence of holy individuals, signifying, 24–25, 65, 78–79; protection from further human contact, 26–27, 50–54, 75; sign, St. Augustine on vestigia as, 23, 38; tensions between exposure and decoration, 26, 37–38, 39–41, 42–45,

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479

63, 76–77; tensions between walking in and trampling underfoot, 272–73; touched/kissed by worshipers, 36, 37, 51, 53; transfer elsewhere, 26, 47–50, 51; visionary experiences of, 11, 13, 204, 266–74; whole of Holy Land as ground trodden by Christ, 17, 27–29; worshipers, associated with, 25–26, 67–68. See also Dome of the Rock; Gargano Peninsula, shrine of St. Michael with footprints of archangel at; Mount of Olives, footprints of Christ at Ascension on; additional specific examples Via Appia, footprints of Christ on, 24, 41, 51, 53, 81 Victimae Paschali laudes, 226 Victorines, 326 Vikan, Gary, 28 Villes, Alain, 315 Vincent Magdelarius, Life of, 67, 123 Virgin Mary. See Mary and Marian apparitions virtues/vices, and trampling underfoot, 147, 149, 166 Visigoths, 90, 150, 322 visions: John I of Ravenna’s vision of angel, 371–72; of Mary on omphalion, in Hagia Sophia, 210, 235, 304; vestigia in ash, visionary experiences of, 11, 13, 204, 266–74, 277 vitae. See specific subjects or authors Walbran, J. R., 224 Wallet, F. H. J., 132–34 Walter of St.-Victor, 52, 284 Waltham Abbey relic list, 34 Walthenus (abbot of Melrose), 379, 381 Walther von der Vogelweide, Palästinalied, 32 Ward-Perkins, Bryan, 175 Warmundus of Ivrea, Sacramentary of, 328–30, 329 Ways of Prayer of St. Dominic, 291, 292, 370–71 Wells Cathedral, 11, 222, 223 Westminster Abbey: coronation rite at, 215, 259–61, 317–20, 318, 333, 337, 355, 394; Cosmati pavement, 132, 207n15, 215, 222, 317–19, 318, 355, 394; miraculous consecration of, 121–23, 132, 272; passus domini (Ascension relic), 47–50, 59, 76; rushes used on floors of, 303; St. Paul’s Cathedral, rivalry with, 47, 49; Temple Mount relic at, 61; unpaved areas of, 320 Whelpdale, Roger (bishop of Carlisle), 361 Wienhausen, convent of, 269 Wilken, Robert, 27 Wilkinson, John, 68

480

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general index

William I of Sicily, 251 William of Alnwick (bishop of Lincoln), 367, 368; Novum registrum, 260 William of Flanders, 354 William of Malmesbury: De antiquitate Glastoniensis ecclesiae, 380–81, 386; Gesta pontificium Anglorum, 122n149, 297n79; Gesta regum Anglorum, 150, 213, 380–81 William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum, 348–49 William of Norwich, 66, 350, 351, 352 William of Saint-Pathus, vernacular Life of Louis IX, 163, 164 Williams, Howard, 353 Willibrand of Oldenburg, 207 Windesheim convents, Constitutiones monialium, 185 Wolfandus (founder of monastery of St. Michael on Mount Châtillon), 73 Worcester Cathedral, 297, 380

Wordsworth, John, 87 Worm, Andrea, 42, 47 Wormald, Patrick, 341 Wright, Craig, 226 Wright, Susan, 353 writing tablet, human heart as, 99–101 St. Wulfstan, tomb of, 380 Yasin, Ann Marie, 378 al-Yaʿqu¯bı¯, 56 York, Skinners’ Entry into Jerusalem pageant, 259 York Minster, 222, 224, 367 Zacharias, hobnail boot marks of soldiers killing, 25 Zamora, Muñoz de, 359n80 Zchomelidse, Nino, 254 Zwiefalten, abbey of, True Cross reliquary from, 46, 46–47