Visual Aggression: Images of Martyrdom in Late Medieval Germany [Illustrated] 0271083794, 9780271083797

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VISUAL AGGRESSION Images of Martyrdom in Late Medieval Germany

Assaf Pinkus

v i s ual ag gression

Visual Aggression Images of Martyrdom in Late Medieval Germany

assaf pinkus

The Pennsylvania State University Press University Park, Pennsylvania

This book was published with the support of the Israeli Science Foundation and the The Kadar Family Award for Outstanding Research. The Kadar Family Award for Outstanding Research Tel Aviv University

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Pinkus, Assaf, author. Title: Visual aggression : images of martyrdom in late medieval Germany / Assaf Pinkus. Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “Explores images of torment and martyrdom that appeared in the German-speaking world in the late medieval period, tying them to premodern conceptualizations of individuality and selfhood”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2020035730 | ISBN 9780271083797 (cloth) Subjects: LCSH : Violence in art. | Martyrdom in art. | Art, Medieval—Germany. Classification: LCC N 8257 .P 57 2020 | DDC 704.9/493036—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020035730 Copyright © 2021 Assaf Pinkus All rights reserved Printed in China Book design/typesetting by Garet Markvoort, zijn digital Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802–1003 The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of University Presses. It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ansi z 39.48–1992.

Contents

List of Illustrations  vii Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Weep Not for Me . . . But Weep on Yourselves  1 1

Visual Rhetoric  14

2

Between Theological and Juridical Positions  37

3

Bodily Imagination, Imagined Bodies  62

4

Eroticized and Sexualized Bodies  82

5

The Body Reincarnated  96 Epilogue: Effect and Response to Violence Imagery  113 Notes 121 Bibliography 145 Index 161

Illustrations

Color Plates (after page 84) 1.  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, Passion Portal, 1351–70s 2.  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, detail of the first register of the tympanum: Betrayal of Judas, 1351–70s

12.  Stephan Lochner (?), Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, ca. 1425 13.  Wellmich am Rhein, Church of St. Martin, Last Judgment with the Martyrdoms of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Dragging by Horse of Saint Philip, last quarter of the fourteenth century

3.  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, outer archivolt, martyrdom scenes, 1351–70s

14.  Wellmich am Rhein, Church of St. Martin, Last Judgment with the Martyrdoms of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Mouth of Hell, last quarter of the fourteenth century

4.  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, inner archivolt, martyrdom scenes, 1351–70s

15.  Zell am Allgäu, Church of St. Bartholomew, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Boiling of Saint John the Evangelist, ca. 1450

5.  Schenna, Church of St. George, Saint George on the Wheel, ca. 1400

16.  Zell am Allgäu, Church of St. Bartholomew, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Flaying of Bartholomew, ca. 1450

6.  Schenna, Church of St. George, Saint George Dragged and Quartered by Horses, ca. 1400 7.  Schenna, Church of St. George, Saint George Stabbed with Red-Hot Nails, ca. 1400 8.  Vices, from Thomasin von Zerklaere, Der Welscher Gast, 1340. Forschungsbibliothek Gotha, Memb. I 120, fol. 100v 9.  Guido da Siena, reliquary shutter with the martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, detail, ca. 1260 10.  Stephan Lochner, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, ca. 1435 11.  Stephan Lochner, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, ca. 1435

17.  Zell am Allgäu, Church of St. Bartholomew, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Martyrdom of Saint Simon and Saint Judas, ca. 1450 18.  Stephan Lochner, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Saint James the Lesser, ca. 1435 19.  Zell am Allgäu, Church of St. Bartholomew, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Martyrdom of Saint James the Lesser, ca. 1450 20.  The Ten Thousand Martyrs altarpiece, 1325 21.  The Ten Thousand Martyrs altarpiece, detail, 1325 22.  Master Francke, Martyrdom of Saint Barbara altarpiece, detail: Saint Barbara’s Mastectomy and Whipping, ca. 1410–16

23.  Saint Catherine of Alexandria altarpiece, detail: Whipping of Saint Catherine, ca. 1440 24.  Saint Catherine of Alexandria altarpiece, detail: Mastectomy of Saint Catherine, ca. 1440 25.  Saint Catherine of Alexandria altarpiece, detail: Decapitation of Empress Faustina, ca. 1440 26.  Crucifixion, ca. 1425–35 27.  Crucifixion, detail: sculpted head of Mary, ca. 1425–35 28.  Crucifixion, detail: sculpted head of John the Evangelist, ca. 1425–35 29.  Crucifixion, detail: sculpted head of Christ, ca. 1425–35 30.  Schreinmadonna (opened), ca. 1300 31.  Ursula altarpiece, detail: Ursula head reliquary, ca. 1350 32.  Ursula altarpiece, detail: Ursula head reliquary, ca. 1350 33.  Henri Bellechose, The Martydom of Saint Denis, 1416

Figures 1.  Chartres Cathedral, Last Judgment Portal, south façade, Luxuria Dragged by a Demon, ca. 1220  4 2.  Chartres Cathedral, Martyrs Column, south portal, Saint Saturnin Dragged by a Bull, ca. 1230  15 3.  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, Passion tympanum, detail: Crown of Thorns and the Ascent to Calvary, 1351–70s 17 4.  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, south choir portal, Last Judgment tympanum, 1351–70s  17 5.  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, inner archivolt, left side, detail: Martyrdom of Saint James the Greater or Saint Paul, 1351–70s 19 6.  Reims Cathedral, north façade, jamb of central Calixtus doorway, Saint Nicaise, ca. 1225–30  19 7.  Paris, Basilica of Saint-Denis, Porte des Valois, Martyrdom of Saint Denis, ca. 1170  20

viii i l lu st rat ions

8.  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, outer archivolt, left side, detail: Martyrdom of Saint Christopher, 1351–70s  21 9.  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, outer archivolt, left side, detail: Martyrdom of Saint Judas Thaddeus, 1351–70s  22 10.  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, outer archivolt, left side, detail: Martyrdom of Saint Judas Thaddeus, 1351–70s  22 11.  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, inner archivolt, left side, detail: Martyrdom of Saint Simon, 1351–70s  23 12.  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, outer archivolt, right side, detail: Martyrdom of Saint James the Lesser, 1351–70s  23 13.  Vienna Cathedral, Bischofstor, Saint Agnes with the Lamb and Saint Juliana with the Devil, ca. 1365  29 14.  Violence Enthroned, from Thomasin von Zerklaere, Welscher Gast, 1340. Forschungsbibliothek Gotha, Memb. I 120, fol. 38r  31 15. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, Life of the Virgin, ca. 1324–1420  36 16. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Crucifixion tympanum, martyrdom scenes, ca. 1390: (a) Saint Thomas Becket (?), (b) Saint Agnes, (c) Saint Vitus, (d) Saint John the Baptist, (e) unidentified martyr (Saint Erasmus or Saint Cassian?), (f ) Saint Afra, (g) Saint Sebastian, (h) Saint Lawrence on the gridiron  40 17. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Nativity tympanum, martyrdom scenes, ca. 1370: (a) Saint Stephen, (b) Saint Leodegar, (c) Saint Apollonia, (d) Saint Odile, (e) Saint Emmeram or Saint Jacobus, (f ) Saint Anthony’s temptations and demonic vision in the desert, (g) Saint Cecile, (h) Saint Matthew  41 18. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, left side, martyrdom scenes, ca. 1370: (a) Saint Philip, (b) Saint Barbara, (c) Unidentified Martyr (Saint James the Greater?), (d) Saint Paul, (e) Saint Agatha, (f ) Saint Bartholomew, (g) Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, (h) Saint Catherine  42

19. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, right side, martyrdom scenes, ca. 1370: (a) Saint Judas Thaddeus and Saint Simon, (b) Saint Peter, (c) Saint Christopher, (d) Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand, (e) Saint John the Evangelist, (f ) unidentified martyr (James the Lesser?), (g) Saint Andrew, (h) Saint Simon or Saint Thomas  43

30. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, left side, detail: Saint Agatha, ca. 1370  48 31. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, left side, detail: Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, ca. 1370  48

20. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Crucifixion tympanum, left side, detail: Saint Agnes, ca. 1370  44

32. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, right side, detail, Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand, ca. 1370  49

21. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Crucifixion tympanum, right side, detail: unidentified martyr (Saint Erasmus or Saint Cassian?), ca. 1370  44

33.  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, middle archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, right side, detail: Cain kills Abel, ca. 1351–70  49

22. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Crucifixion tympanum, right side, detail: Saint Afra, ca. 1370  44 23. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Crucifixion tympanum, right side, detail: Saint Sebastian, ca. 1370  44 24. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Nativity tympanum, left side, detail: Saint Leodegar, ca. 1370  46 25. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Nativity tympanum, left side, detail: Saint Apollonia, ca. 1370  46 26. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Nativity tympanum, right side, detail: Saint Emmeram or Saint Jacobus Intercisus, ca. 1370  47 27. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Nativity tympanum, right side, detail: Saint Cecile, ca. 1370  47 28. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, left side, detail: Saint Barbara, ca. 1370  48 29. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, left side, detail: unidentified martyr (James the Greater?), ca. 1370  48

34. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Crucifixion tympanum, left side, detail: Martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist  56 35.  Martyrdom of John the Baptist, in Elsässische Legenda Aurea (Straßburg “Werkstatt von 1418”), 1419. Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 144, Bl. fol. 89v  57 36.  Martyrdom of Saint Paul, in Elsässische Legenda Aurea (Straßburg “Werkstatt von 1418”), 1419. Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 144, Bl. fol. 7r  57 37.  Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, in Elsässische Legenda Aurea (Straßburg “Werkstatt von 1418”), 1419. Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 144, Bl. fol. 82v  57 38.  Chopping Off the Hands of Forgers, in Les Fleurs des Chroniques, 1321. Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 677, fol. 88v  59 39.  Execution of Nicolas le Flamand, in Les Fleurs des Chroniques, 1382. Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 677, fol. 122v  59 40. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of Life of the Virgin tympanum, left side, detail: Saint Catherine, ca. 1370  63 41.  Guido da Siena, reliquary shutter with the Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, detail, ca. 1260  66

il lustratio n s   ix

42. Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, left side, detail: Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, ca. 1370  66 43.  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, inner archivolt, right side, detail: Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, 1351–70s  66 44.  Wellmich am Rhein, Church of St. Martin, Last Judgment with the Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, last quarter of the fourteenth century  73 45.  Wellmich am Rhein, Church of St. Martin, Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, last quarter of the fourteenth century 74 46.  Zell am Allgäu, Church of St. Bartholomew, general view of choir and apse with the Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, the Life of the Virgin, and the Last Judgment, ca. 1450  75 47.  Zell am Allgäu, Church of St. Bartholomew, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Massacre of the Innocents, ca. 1450  76 48.  Stephan Lochner, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Saint Thomas, ca. 1435  78

x  i l lust rat ions

49.  Ulm Minster, west portal, Martyrdom of the Apostles, ca. 1420  81 50.  Ulm Minster, west portal, Martyrdom of the Apostles, ca. 1420  81 51.  Niederhaslach, Alsace, Church of St. Florent, Martyrs’ Window, 1330–50  81 52.  Master Francke, Martyrdom of Saint Barbara altarpiece, detail: Saint Barbara Burned with Fiery Brands, ca. 1410–16  85 53.  Jean Fouquet, The Martyrdom of Saint Apollonia, in the Hours of Étienne Chevalier, 1452–60. Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS fr, 71, fol. 39r  93 54.  Schreinmadonna (closed), ca. 1300  101 55–56.  Ursula bust (frontal and profile views), ca. 1350  105 57.  Master of the Ursula Legend, Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, 1456  116 58.  Master of the Ursula Legend, Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, detail: Martyrdom of Ursula and Her Companions: Return to Cologne, 1456  117

Acknowledgments

Why does our society consume violence in the way that it does? Why do we go to the movies and pay money to watch the most grueling, cruel scenes for two hours (84 percent of mainstream movies include scenes of violence)? Why, when most of us live relatively secure lives, do we still seek to consume violence? When has violence become a topic of artistic speculation? And what does violence imagery tell us about the history of violence? Splitting skulls, beheading, enucleating eyes,, ripping out nails, boiling alive, flaying alive, sawing off heads, stabbing with iron nails, breaking on the wheel, quartering by horses, and other horrifying mutilations became central concerns of fourteenth-century visual expositions on the body and violence. Why were such horrors depicted? Why then? How did medieval spectators respond to this imagery? Would they have conceived of it as brutal and violent? And maybe more fundamentally: what is violence? These questions were the incentive of a long, intellectual journey, one that began during my 2011 sabbatical stay at the Institute of Art History at the University of Vienna and culminated in my 2016 sabbatical leave at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. While the present study will never be able to fully answer this set of intricate questions, it is an attempt to understand the cultural web that surrounded violence imagery in the late middle ages.

I am grateful to the Israel Science Foundation for supporting this project between 2014 and 2017 and to the Gerda Henkel Foundation for facilitating a collaborative research group at the Goethe University Frankfurt, headed by Martin Büchsel and myself, from 2016 to 2019. This group enabled us to initiate a much broader project that included many sites and theoretical issues far beyond the framework of this individual study. Three conferences gave me the opportunity to further explore and discuss the complex issues surrounding violence imagery and bodily imagination: “‘Thinking Through the Body’: Passion in the Late Middle Ages,” which I organized with Mati Meyer at CAA ’s annual conference in 2016; “Visual Rhetoric of Violence in the Late Medieval Ages,” which I held together with Büchsel at Goethe University Frankfurt in 2017; and finally, “Moving Violence: Transgressing the Boundaries of Experience in Medieval Imagery,” which Büchsel and I ran at Tel Aviv University in 2018 in celebration of the completion of the project. The latter two conferences were generously financed by the Gerda Henkel Foundation. I am indebted to many colleagues and friends who have commented on various drafts of this book, supported my applications, generously provided me with published and unpublished offprints, and helped me in countless other creative ways: Herbert

Kessler, Jeffrey Hamburger, Hans Belting, David Freedberg, Benjamin Z. Kedar, Martin Büchsel, Paul Binski, Michael Viktor Schwarz, Cynthia Hahn, Stephen Perkinson, Eric Palazzo, Albrecht Classen, Kathryn Brush, Ittai Weinryb, Yona Pinson, Katrin Kogman-Appel, Adam Cohen, Jacqueline Jung, Nina Rowe, Robert Mills, Klaus Krüger, Linda Safran, Bernd Nicolai, Marc Carel Schurr, Ivan Gerát, Allie Terry-Fritsch, Sherry Linqduist, Richard Němec, Kathrin Müller, Mati Meyer, Nirith Ben Arie Debi, Tamar Cholcman, Gili Shalom, and Volker Hille. I would also like to thank Aviad Kleinberg, Gadi Algazi, and Yosef Schwartz, who invited me to present my studies on several occasions. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my research assistants, Yael Elias and, especially, Nava Astrachan, whose proficiency in Middle High German and original observations on ancient texts have valuably enriched my own interpretations. Thanks also to my students Galia Engel and Chen Zur; each of them, in their own way, inspired my ideas. On a more personal note, I would like to express my thankfulness to both of my late mentors, Nurith Kenaan-Kedar and Wilhelm Schlink, whom I miss very much. At Penn State University Press, it has been a true pleasure to work with the executive editor Eleanor H. Goodman; I am thankful for her careful and insightful work. My warm thanks to Annika Fisher for her excellent editing acumen in a kind and collegial context; without her attentive reading and reflection on my text, this book would never have turned out the same. My sincere thanks also to Maddie Caso for her highly illuminative editorial work and patience, as well as to Garet Markvoort for the beautiful design of the book and the cover art. I would also like express my gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers of the manuscripts, whose helpful remarks and insightful advice improved the text immensely. Above all, I am indebted to my wife, Sharon, and my two kids, Nimrod and Itamar:

xii acknow ledgme nt s

I am the luckiest person to have you three as true partners, sharing my dreams and passion for art and ready to embark on any adventure. This book is published with the aid of the Kadar Family Award for Outstanding Research and a publication grant of the ISF (Israel Science Foundation). Chapter 4 was carried out under the auspices of the Gerda Henkel Foundation. Sections of chapters 1 and 5 have been previously published in Gesta and Viator.

Introduction

Weep Not for Me . . . But Weep on Yourselves

And then some had pity on [Saint James] and wept, and he said to them: Weep not for me, for I go to life, but weep on yourselves, whom torments perdurable be due unto. And the butchers cut off the thumb of his right hand. . . . And then the butcher cut off the forefinger. . . . They cut off, after, his right hand . . . the right arm . . . the right leg to the thigh, then Saint James was grieved in great pain . . . And then the butchers began to fail and were weary . . . and then the blessed James cried and said: . . . Lord, I have no fingers to lift up to thee, no hands that I may enhance to thee; my feet be cut off, and my knees so that I may not kneel to thee, and am like to a house fallen . . . hear me, Lord Jesu Christ, and take out my soul from this prison. And when he had said this, one of the butchers smote off his head. —Jacobus de Voragine, “Saint James the Dismembered (Intercisus),” Golden Legend

Among the many martyrdom accounts in the Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend), the death of Saint James the Dismembered, Jacobus Intercisus, is perhaps the most violent and terrifying. James was a beloved intimate of the pagan Persian king and evoked the jealousy of his fellow princes, who vengefully betrayed his Christian beliefs to the sovereign. Summoned to the king, James refused to bow down before the idols and adore them. He was sentenced to gradual tortures: first, each finger of his right hand was cut off, one by one; then each finger of his left hand; then each toe of his left foot was excised, one by one, in order to intensify the suffering; then each toe of the left foot. The Middle High German version of his vita in the Alsatian Golden Legend, compiled during the first half of the fourteenth century,1 provides an even more devastating detail. It specifies that before the torturers finally cut off his hands and legs, they separated the skin of his flank from the flesh, all the way up to his hips. The account uses terminology evoking the process of flaying young calves: “Hie noch snittent sú ime den lircken waden abe vnd scheltent die hut von dem beine vncz an die huf” (Then they also cut off his left calf and peeled the skin off his leg up to his hip).2 So dreadful was James’s mutilated body and so grueling was the violence of the assault that

even the executioners were mentally and physically exhausted from their work and had to pause before finishing the job. Once recovered, they slashed off James’s hands and legs, leaving only his head and breast, a fallen house without pillars, literally a “talking bust,” begging for the final stroke. Finally, he was decapitated. Saint James the Dismembered’s vita is fascinating in many respects. Unlike the majority of martyrs, he did not convert to Christianity but was born to Christian parents, married a Christian wife, and lived a pious life, never undergoing an unexpected conversion. Moreover, most martyrs do not betray distress in the face of the inflicted pain; rather, they demonstrate their impassivity and love of suffering (philopassianism), thereby offering readers limited models of response. The detailed narrative of Saint James’s tortures provides much more complex and contradictory modes of reactions. The legend prescribes how readers were to imagine James’s pain in their own bodies, both physically and emotionally, evoking notions of affective piety, imitatio Christi (the imitation of Christ), philopassianism, and, concomitantly, sheer agony. Although James praises the Lord with each act of mutilation and willingly accepts the torments as acts of self-sacrifice, he does truly suffer. The text indicates his anguish clearly, stating that he grieved in “unspeakable pain.” The Middle High German version makes his agony explicit. In several stages of his torment, Saint James the Dismembered addresses God directly, saying that he is overwhelmed by the pains of death (“Die smerzen des dodes hant mich vmbgeben” [The pains of death surrounded me]) and crying out in great pain for Christ’s help (“Do rief er von grossen smerzen: Herre ihesu Criste hilf mir, wenne die fúszen des dodes hant mich umbgeben” [Then he cried out from great pain: Lord Jesus Christ help me, when the feet of death are surrounding me]). James physically experiences the violence

2  v i s ual aggression

inflicted on his body and the pains of the flesh, without transforming them into the joyful salvation of the soul.3 Whereas the mutilations of his body and his pious reactions are described at length, overflowing with conventional, laudatory formulas, the language and phrases used to describe his pain are rather laconic and succinct, rendering them all the more gripping and powerful. Being aware of his bodily pain, the saint addresses his spectators, both Christian and pagan, saying, “Weep not for me, for I go to life, but weep on yourselves, whom torments perdurable be due unto.” Adopting the words of Luke 23:28, he seemingly evokes the notion of the imitatio Christi, urging the crowd to imagine his bodily sensations as their own. However, since his audience was mainly non-Christian, his evocation of empathy with the physical misery he was experiencing would not have been understood in the context of the imitatio. Both pious and pagan audiences, as well as the executioners themselves who “began to fail and were weary,” were overwhelmed by the acts of violence. Being mutilated beyond imagination, a destroyed house (in evocation of Christ’s Incarnation), Saint James begged God—“Heed me, Lord Jesus Christ, and lead my soul out of prison!,” inducing Neoplatonic and Augustinian terminology. This final exclamation, however, is laconic, devoid of the exaltation or laudation of either God or of the martyrdom as is often found in conventional legends. It is a cry of despair from a violated body. Visual Aggression: Images of Martyrdom in Late Medieval Germany deals with the “galleries of violence”—the series of images of figures being tortured—that appeared in fourteenth-century German-speaking lands, the “visual aggression” by which these galleries addressed their viewers, and the “bodily imagination” they engendered. Each of these phrases requires elucidation. Fourteenth-century martyr cycles in the Upper and Middle Rhine regions include

serial portrayals of violence presented with an unprecedented immediacy that stressed the technicality and brutality of bodily tortures, appearing almost as manuals of violent acts. Rather than unfolding the entire vitae of their protagonists, these cycles isolate and appropriate specific episodes of bodily injury from the narratives of the hagiographies and recombine and compile them with types of torture from different legends, from real life, or from the imagination. Consequently, these series constitute visual galleries with an overwhelming multiplicity of violent acts, including all stages of decapitation (from the placing of the head on the chock, the raising of the axe or sword, the delivering of the final stroke, and the ultimate detaching of the head), in addition to splitting skulls, amputating limbs, enucleating eyes, yanking teeth, ripping out nails, boiling alive, cutting off breasts, chopping off fingers and feet, flaying alive, sawing off heads, battering to death with pig’s legs, stabbing with iron nails, breaking on the wheel, and other repugnant horrors. In several cases, the featured executions are depicted in such an extreme fashion and so profusely that the saints themselves, the protagonists of the holy stories, can no longer be identified; only the idea of the bodily mutilation remains recognizable. The aggregation and amalgamation of torments, sometimes of just the twelve apostle martyrs and sometimes of more than thirty figures, offered a new visual experience to the late medieval viewer. Decontextualized from their specific legends, hagiographies, and devotional practices, these portrayals ocularly assaulted the bodies and minds of the viewers with such violence that seeing the series virtually amounted to an act of visual aggression. As in the account of Saint James the Dismembered, these cycles portrayed a multiplicity of bodies under a constant barrage of attacks, and they subjected their viewers to similarly repeated aggressions.

Graphic descriptions of brutal torments imposed on the persecuted bodies of the martyrs are an integral component of medieval piety and hagiography and belong to a wider cultural discourse that mediated social, theological, and ethical categories.4 From the era of martyrdom in the early days of Christianity to late medieval philopassianism,5 the rhetoric of martyrdom conceptualized the Christian self as sufferer.6 Cruel acts of mutilation were reported without moral censure, depicting their protagonists as gentle figures;7 violent juridical executions were perceived as fine and moving;8 and physical suffering and injury were experienced as following and participating in the sacrifice of the Lord, acts of imitatio Christi: as such, violence was interpreted as means for attaining salvation.9 It is therefore surprising that the monumental visual arts adopted the rhetoric of violence only reluctantly and relatively late—beginning around the eleventh century and becoming fully assimilated in monumental art during the fourteenth century. Art historians have interpreted medieval violence imagery in relation to the exegetical tradition of manuscript illumination, linking it symbolically with either an epitome of the triumph of faith and orthodoxy or with the bellum spirituale (spiritual war), an interior, reflective battle of penance striving for the conquest of evil.10 Monumental representations of battling monsters, warring knights, militum Christi (soldiers of Christ), and the tortured damned in hell were subordinated to an allegorical and impersonal interpretive framework that embodied the struggle of conflicting ideologies.11 Even the most horrifying depictions of corporeal torments in the many later medieval Last Judgment portals were allegorical embodiments of the cardinal sins or the opposed virtues and vices, although these were sometimes depicted in accordance with medieval punitive practices. This conceptual vantage point distanced the

in tro duc tio n   3

images and neutralized their threat, at times rendering them almost comic. In some cases, the devils even seem to be ordinary figures in costume, such as the demon dragging the allegory of Luxuria on his back in the tympanum at Chartres, circa 1220, who wears a kind of a fool’s hat with a donkey ear (fig. 1). Appearing more like a camouflaged actor than a real demon, this fiend is clearly marked as an allegory and not

as an actual threat to the bodily integrity of the viewers.12 Apart from the horrors of the Last Judgment, the most frequent portrayals of violent acts in monumental art were embedded in narrative cycles dedicated to the passions of the martyrs. Unlike late medieval galleries of violence, these earlier cycles tended to be concrete and comprehensive, revealing the entire vitae of their protagonists from their preaching or miracleworking through their persecutions, interrogations, torments, executions, and deaths, culminating with the triumphant introduction of their relics into the church in a ceremonial procession and their heavenly reward.13 The galleries of violence discussed in this book lack any such narrative structure or visual similarity to the Passion of Christ. They offer a new experience not yet encoded in established visual tradition. Moreover, in spite of the fact that galleries of violence were fairly common in Germanspeaking lands from the mid-fourteenth to the mid-fifteenth centuries, constituting a distinctive artistic and cultural phenomenon, they have seldom been studied. I suggest that they might serve as a springboard to reflect on larger problems of image theory, response, and the visual discourse of late medieval violence. Earlier studies of depictions of violence from this period have focused primarily on the spectacle of the Crucifixion and representations of the tormented body of Christ, emphasizing the imitatio Christi and the role of suffering in mysticism and female spirituality in particular.14 In this study, I examine what may be termed the rhetoric of “visual aggression”: namely, the monumental public art of violence, stripped from its devotional context and thus experienced as brutal acts inflicted somatically upon the bodies of the viewers. The term “visual aggression” defines both the content of the images and their effect upon viewers. While acknowledging multiple

fig ure 1  Chartres Cathedral, Last Judgment Portal, south façade, Luxuria Dragged by a Demon, ca. 1220. 4  v i s ual aggre ssion

Photo: Gili Shalom.

readings of martyrdom representations in relation to devotional practices, relic claims, and the discourse on the fragmented body, I suggest that the galleries of violence might have offered another kind of experience. It is my contention that extracting the brutal acts of execution from the narrative of the saints’ vitae not only encouraged an affective piety through somatic identification but also decontextualized the imagery from its exclusively religious context and relocated it in an ethical discourse. As a consequence, violence was conceptualized as a moral problem and a subject of artistic speculation. I do not deny the intended devotional purposes of the imagery but, rather, suggest that these intentions have been viewed from more than one consolidating perspective and that their organizational principles were multilayered and far more complex than merely pious. Just like the acts in the vita of Saint James the Dismembered, the galleries of violence were directed toward the bodies and souls of the viewers. James warns his spectators that they should weep for themselves and their future torment, suggesting that what they see is what they will experience themselves bodily. His pain will be eased in the afterlife, but his corporeal suffering will become theirs. His interjection leads us to the third term guiding this study: “bodily imagination.” Since the groundbreaking studies by Hans Belting, Jeffrey Hamburger, Caroline Walker Bynum, and Horst Bredekamp, the role of the body as a medium in the perception of artworks and in devotional practices of medieval affective piety and mystical experience has been explored and discussed extensively.15 I, however, focus on the somaesthetic experience that I dub “bodily imagination.” By this I mean the ways in which the images encouraged viewers, on the one hand, to imagine the depicted tortures and pains on and through their own bodies as their own suffering and, on the other

hand, to project their own bodies, imaginations, and range of associations related to the visualized torments upon the images. This manner of corporeal understanding and response was instantaneous and unmediated by theological ideas. It preceded the encoding of violence imagery into the religious experience. The supposition that lies behind this endeavor relies on somaesthetic philosophy that argues that our so-called spiritual, mental, and intellectual comprehension and assumptions— and by implication our perception of images— is predetermined by our immediate physical and somatic experiences, which is a precondition for any further cognitive data processing. “Thinking through the body,” as Richard Shusterman articulates, is concerned with the way we use the living body as a site of sensory appreciation and self-fashioning.16 By inquiring into the visual apparatus vis-à-vis the specific legends that might have informed the galleries of violence, as well as into the accounts of real-life violence, I speculate on how those images might have been experienced in bodily and imaginative ways. Since the formative studies of Johan Huizinga and Norbert Elias, medieval violence was regarded as deeply rooted in a mentality of unrestrained emotional impulses of “nature” and “of the flesh,” of a society inflamed by extreme passion, oscillating between uncivilized cruelty and kindhearted tenderness, asceticism and hedonism, hatred and remorse.17 For these scholars, it was only toward the sixteenth century that the absolutist state aspired to reduce aggression and monopolize the use of violence. However, that assumption has long been challenged owing to the continuity of ritualized violence from the Middle Ages to the early modern era.18 Thus later studies view the excess of violent behavior as a symptom of a social crisis and disruption. But what if violence imagery tells another story? Human history has always been marked

in tro duc tio n   5

by violence, but violence has not always been a subject of art. Moreover, violent acts have traditionally been depicted in the allegorical and narrative context of hunting, war, and moralistic struggles between good and evil, but here, for the first time in Western civilization, violence was depicted as if for its own sake. The torments of the martyrs are taken out of all context to such a degree that we cannot even identify the figures as saints—we see only vivid torture. Why was this done? What does it teach us about the history of violence and its representations? Why in these locations? Why at these times? What do these mutilated figures disclose about early modern individuality? As each chapter of this book demonstrates, the concept of violence and the attitude toward violent behavior underwent a drastic change during the early modern period in the Germanspeaking space, particularly in the regions of southern Germany. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were the time of the emergence of centralized governments, which aspired to regulate violence and violent behavior in a highly ritualized way. This regulation meant a break with the leges barbarorum (old Germanic folk law) in favor of a systemized civic jurisdiction that also gradually departed from the ordeal and the judicium Dei (judgment of God). Until the mid-thirteenth century, the operative law, which was derived from Germanic warrior culture and feudal loyalty, was based on oral traditions that made up the customary law. It was basically a practical law, “sanctified” by usage rather than a coherent code, and its authority was intentionally not dependent on being written so as to preclude any contradictions with the more codified Roman law.19 The burgeoning municipal courts of southern Germany, including Swabia, Alsace, and stretching up into Franconia, required their own kinds of Gerichtsordnung (tribunal regulation), such as mercantile law or urban law,

6  v i s ual aggre ssion

which had their particular courts. The control of violence and the stabilization of lawmaking became principal concerns of the civic institutions, which resulted in an amalgamation of canon, customary, Germanic, and Roman law.20 These efforts necessitated new supervision and documentation methods that provided detailed reports regarding violent behavior, assaults, restrictions on the bearing and use of weapons, and rituals of public executions in late medieval cities. The new monitoring systems provide us with information about how violence was recorded according to various criteria and how cities strove to eliminate private and spontaneous violence. Such reports listed not only the juridical punishments, tortures, and physical violence meted out in answer to crimes but also the quotidian violence in the streets, from beggars’ knife fights, merchants’ feuds, and acts of revenge for telltales to the counting of the number of chopped-off fingers in an execution or on a battlefield. Gradually, violence became regulated within the city walls, which served as the physical and legal boundaries of civic jurisdiction. Beyond the walls, violence continued as always, uncontrolled and chaotic.21 The most effective tool for social indoctrination and surveillance was the so-called liturgy of the public execution, which became a calculated performance in which the new urban juridical institutions could manifest their vaunted power and authority. As Mitchell B. Merback discusses at length, the process was carried out in four ritual spheres: in the court, outside the town hall, along the processional route, and within the execution grounds.22 After the list of offenses was read in a closed courtroom and the sentence was pronounced, the process proceeded into the public sphere. The centerpiece of criminal justice was the procession as a staged spectacle. The accused confessed their crimes and repented while being led, or sometimes dragged, along a specific route in a procession that included the

recitation of prayers, supplications, souvenirs, and demonstrative pain. Upon arriving at the site of the execution, the convicted individual was handed over to the executioner, who repeated the sentence and performed several symbolic acts. Some such ritualized penalties and defamations are recorded in the famous Sachsenspiegel (The Saxon Mirror), dated between 1220 and 1235, although more often than not, the legal symbolism was inconsistent. The ritual then became a dialogue between the criminal and the engaged audience in which—as a token of their repentance—the condemned asked for more torments and mutilations to be inflicted upon the body before the final blow was struck. As the trial itself had not been public, the performative qualities of the procession and its juxtaposing of crime and punishment were crucial for the spectators’ edification. As recorded in cities like Strasbourg, Augsburg, Ulm, and Nuremberg, such processions became elaborate orchestrated events. In Nuremberg, the fingers of a murderer would be cut off one by one, just like those of Saint James; then the condemned would be tortured with iron pincers and dragged through the city, all the while encouraging the executioner to enhance and prolong the suffering as much as possible. The spectators would pray for heavenly forgiveness and recite many wishes for the criminal’s soul. Leaning the head to the right would be the sign for the executioners to proceed with the beheading.23 In a case of a group execution, as in Augsburg, the convicted individuals would compete with one another as to who would give the other the privilege of going to the gallows first, while offering every limb of their bodies to be tortured and mutilated and crying in remorse. Society inscribed its values on the body and the physical punishments left their marks upon it. The violence of the punitive system and the physical injuries it mandated were thus signs of transgression measured on the body. According

to Valentin Groebner, in the cities of Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Ulm, for example, thieves would have their ears cut off, perjurers and oath breakers would lose the finger they had raised under oath, perpetrators of sexual crimes had their noses cut off, forgers would be deprived of their hands, and sinners who had glimpsed forbidden sights would have their eyes gouged out.24 This measuring and quantifying of bodily violence vis-à-vis the violent deed was something new, even if still lacked a systematic coherence. This change in the bodily manifestation of moralistic status derived from a new attitude toward the human body in Thomistic thought. I begin this book by discussing how, prior to the fourteenth century, violence was not necessarily understood as something bodily or negative. If one caused an individual to deny God or salvation, that was considered a violent act—in the spiritual realm; injuring sinners’ bodies was healing and interpreted as a means of saving their souls and shortening their time of torment in purgatory. However, in the new formulation of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the body was perceived in a relative equivalence to the soul, making up a coherent psychosomatic unity (instead of as dichotomous, hierarchical entities as per the Augustinian tradition).25 Furthermore, the spread of Dominican schools along the Upper and Middle Rhine disseminated the idea of the body having the same status as the soul. Once the body and soul were considered relatively (if never entirely) equal, the spectacle of physical aggression may have been experienced as violence. A major consequence of this new approach was that the body was deemed the private property of the individual. Prior to that time, the body was thought of as belonging to the Church, on loan from God, and it could at any moment be called into the service of society. But if the body is one’s own property, boundaries and legal questions arise as to what extent anyone can harm someone

in tro duc tio n   7

else’s body. Violence thus became a crucial category in wider cultural respects. This shift is philologically illustrated by the very fact that the word for violence—gewalte—was only coined during this period. Until then, violence had simply meant dominion, authority, or political power, but at that point it became what we understand today as negative, physical violence that can be measured according to certain criteria.26 It is significant that this philological turn occurred only in the German-speaking regions; neither Old English nor Old French has an equivalent term, possessing instead a range of expressions that circle around violence and never really fully define it. The very fact that the moral definition of violence came into being at a specific time and space had profound implications for late medieval culture in the Germanic regions. Such localized developments in the German-speaking realm are attested to, for example, in the Middle High German epics, which differentiate and reflect upon various forms of violence: between honor-retributive, juridical, and demonstrative, and especially between legitimate and illegitimate violence (positive and negative), the latter being behavior that does not have a positive function in the society and thus might destroy the individual and cause unjustified suffering.27 The incentive for this study was my continuing perplexity and astonishment when I saw the galleries of violence in the Parler milieu (1350–90) along the Upper Rhine and Swabia in such minsters as those of Schwäbisch Gmünd, Thann, and Ulm.28 Although these important Gothic edifices and their extremely rich sculptural programs are the foci of several studies and monographs, their martyr cycles are generally neglected; apart from stylistic ascription and partial iconographical identification, nothing has been written about them. Even in my own monograph on Saint Theobald in Thann

8  v i s ual aggre ssion

(1324–90), for example, I deliberately avoid discussing the martyr imagery of 1365 to 1390 since I could fit it neither into a conventional typological order (namely, the imitatio Christi notion considered the “guideline” for such Gothic tympana) nor into any local devotional texts and practices. My curiosity was sparked with my first attempt to analyze the cycle of the Holy Cross Minster in Schwäbisch Gmünd (ca. 1351–70), which spurred my initial reflections on issues of response and reception of violent imagery.29 I found the cycles in Schwäbisch Gmünd and Thann especially intriguing for two reasons. First, despite portraying an extreme diversity of violent imagery, they have never been subjects of scholarly study. Second, they represent very early instances of this type of depiction, which is generally considered an innovation of later panel painting from the mid-fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Moreover, whereas the later paintings focus on specific narratives, usually the spectacle of the Crucifixion or the entire vita of a specific martyr, the earlier examples in the Parler milieu—which I call the galleries of violence—lack similar structure and seem to serve other culturally specific purposes. Thus the Schwäbisch Gmünd and Thann cycles inform the initial case studies for the interpretive framework I develop for my analyses of the other works discussed in the book. In preparation for this study, I documented the galleries of violence in words (using in situ descriptions) and images (photographs). I mapped the geographical locations involved, which were generally in the Upper and Middle Rhine regions, the only major exception being the Lower Rhine capital of Cologne. I focused on artworks designed primarily for public display, including sculpture, panel painting, and stainedglass windows. I then amended this visual catalogue with initial iconographical identifications according to the official canonized version of the Golden Legend.

Following these preliminary identifications, I classified the scenes into comparative iconographic tables according to several categories (media, location, type of torture, social belonging, gender). For example, in one set of tables, I compared the representation of the saints in various depictions in the same media type. I grouped all representations of certain saints in the stained-glass windows of the Freiburg-im-Breisgau Minster, circa 1270–80 (where the gallery of violence includes sixteen torment scenes); of the Stiftskirche Saint Florentius in Niederhaslach, circa 1330 (where the twelve apostle martyrs are depicted); and of Saint Dionys in Esslingen, circa 1350 (where the extensive gallery comprises twenty-four martyrdoms). This mapping also included original locations in cases of changes over time and restorations. Unfortunately, these cycles underwent alterations over the years, and their original appeal as galleries of violence cannot be fully reconstructed.30 I prepared other tables that were organized across different media. In that way, I could compare the representations that were found to be in their original states. Through these doubly oriented tables, I could examine iconographic variations and deviations not only in regard to their supposed textual sources but also in terms of media, visibility, and communicability. In the next step, I rearranged the images according to the nature of the torments, which are surprisingly diversified: crucifixion, decapitation on the chock, beheading while praying, flaying, mass murder, mastectomy, yanking of teeth, chopping of fingers, enucleating of eyes, burning at the stake, cooking in oil, cooking in hot water, forcing the drinking of molten sulfur, stoning, breaking on the wheel, dragging by horses, and killing by axe, lance, hoe, sword, and dagger, among others. These visualized torments (not the ones referred to in text, which at times differ from those represented) were then

classified according to social and gender criteria. These tables made apparent several organizing principles of the grouping of the violence galleries, principles that do not necessarily go hand in hand with the expected devotional framing and the practices of imitatio Christi. I could then use these visual features as the foundation for a detailed iconographic study of the roughly forty legends that recount the same tortures featured in these galleries, based on their local Middle High German versions. Previous studies relied solely on the canonical legends and ignored local accounts and variations, which are of particular importance for the conceptualization of these galleries of violence. The most crucial source for the present study is the Middle High German Elsässische Legenda Aurea (Alsatian Golden Legend), which was widely circulated in the regions where the artworks are found, especially in Alsace, Swabia, Switzerland, and Austria. Probably compiled in Strasbourg, the oldest extant prose version of this text, dated to 1362, provided sermons and communal reading for laymen and mystics alike.31 In several cases where the depicted torment did not correspond to any of the narratives in the Alsatian Golden Legend, I turned to other sources, especially the Dominican Der Heiligen Leben (The holy lives), Prosapassional (Prose passional), and the vernacular Buch der Märtyrer (Book of the martyrs). These texts, all compiled around 1400, include reports that help to elucidate the identities of the unidentified martyrs, even though they date somewhat later and originate from other German-speaking regions than the galleries under discussion.32 After translating these sources into modern languages, I could detect how the text overlapped or diverged from the visual apparatus and recognize the intertwined modes of response and cultural association that were expected from contemporary devotees. By perceiving images as mediating between textual and oral traditions,33 I was able to study

in tro duc tio n   9

the galleries of violence from theological, social, historical, and theoretical perspectives, which paved the way to broader questions of reception, response, phenomenology, and—more fundamentally—the conceptualization of violence in the late medieval era. This challenging study of the primary sources and my demanding inquiry into text and image required a thorough and multifaceted methodology that laid the foundation for the investigations in this book. Each of the chapters in this volume is triangularly oriented: each takes specific case studies as its starting point in order to illuminate the nature of the artistic representations and the visual stratagems employed. According to the specific properties of the works, I then turn to aspects of response and reception theories. Finally, each chapter goes beyond the specific works to examine the applicability and implication of the suggested interpretive framework to other images and galleries of violence. Chapter 1 expands and elaborates on one of my previously published works—the martyr cycle of Schwäbisch Gmünd (1351–70). The earliest known gallery of violence in monumental sculpture, this portrayal offers the opportunity to reflect upon the novelty of such galleries before they become encoded in visual schema and memory. Tracing the theological, philosophical, and moral discussions that first defined notions of cruelty and violence (violentia / gewalt / gewalte) in the medieval period, I suggest that violence as an ethical and moral problem appears here as a subject for artistic speculation. By exploring the new concept of the body as private property, I examine the conceptualization of gewalt in terms of early modern selfhood and in terms of religious devotion. Sacred art dealing with these new cultural concerns of bodily integrity and its violation may project not only theological tenets but also extradevotional mentalities. Whereas most scholars have understood violence imagery

10  v i s ual aggre ssion

as calls to imitatio Christi, correlating with the high number of late medieval devotional texts that encouraged readers—and by implication viewers—to follow the suffering of Christ, I suggest a different interpretation. First, these texts were designed for a restricted interpretive community of mystics and other literates, and they might well have been irrelevant for the public at large.34 Second, and more significant, the very proliferation of such manuals, visions, and other instructive texts indicates that the reception and understanding of violent imagery was so unpredictable and had so many irrepressible meanings and functions for illiterate viewers—sometimes even forming foci for lawlessness and renouncement—that responses had to be controlled, regulated, indoctrinated, and sometimes even repressed. This relationship between stricture and reality is, to some degree, still the case in modern times, where a virtual deluge of new legislation is often an indication that the situation that engenders the initiatives is out of control rather than managed. Another important divergence from imitatio Christi is that the Schwäbisch Gmünd cycle portrays a great diversity of torture, mutilation, and death, which differ greatly from Christ’s humiliations and execution on the cross. Additionally, the most popular late medieval handbook of canon law—Rechtssumme by Johannes of Freiburg— specifically warns against ambiguous emulation of the Passion, which might lead one to deviate from the proper religious practices to commit false imitatio.35 Thus I complicate the established interpretation of the galleries of violence, demonstrating that devotional practices are only one side of the story—and maybe not even the crucial one. After considering the likelihood of violence as a subject of artistic speculation and the modes of immediate, intuitive responses to violence imagery, chapter 2 is devoted to the organizing principles of these galleries, focusing on

what is generally considered the most extensive martyr cycle—that of Thann—as an illustrative case study. For most of the examples in this book, there are no surviving records regarding the commission, local history, or devotional texts,36 but the Annales, written during the fourteenth century by the local Franciscan brothers, offers insights into the agendas that might have animated the imagery in Thann.37 When examined through the lenses of the imitatio Christi and conventional Christian typology, the thirtyfour scenes on the west portal of the church seem to be chaotic, following no recognizable order. Even the twelve apostle martyrs do not appear together and do not constitute a group, and as if to make things even more difficult, only ten of them can be definitively identified. Were these images of violent torments randomly chosen and featured? A close analysis of the Annales suggests otherwise. These accounts reveal the local idea of a renewed martyrdom movement— not a spiritual one as suggested by Saint Francis but, rather, a physical one. The geographical boundaries of this renewed martyrdom movement outlined in the Annales, as well as its aims, categorization of torments, social affiliation, and gender classification, seem to have been the guiding principles behind the Thann martyria. Both the Annales and the martyria offer the local congregation teleological comfort during the turbulent times that saw savage attacks by rampant mobs of outlaws and recurrent outbreaks of epidemics. After these two monographic case studies, chapter 3 deals with the perceptual rather than the historical framing of bodily imagination and the somaesthetic experience. I look at the discrepancies apparent in many works in various media between the represented torture and body in pain and the reported torments in the legends, while also investigating the viewers’ familiarity with similar techniques in executions and interrogation connected with the public

penal system. Surprisingly, many of the images do not fit into any of these categories and thus demand that the viewers fill in the gaps in multiple imaginative and speculative ways. The springboards for the discussion are the tortures of Saint Bartholomew and Saint Catherine of Alexandria, whose recurrent representations in many works epitomize the disparity between text and image, highlighting the necessity of imagination in order to make the violence portrayed by the images tangible and comprehensible. Through the visualization of those two saints and other martyrs, I reflect upon how the torments, which according to the legends were not in fact realized, are instead visualized and imagined on the bodies of the viewers through seeing the images, and how, in turn, the imagination and bodies of the viewers are projected on the visual imagery. The complicated issue of gender politics must have a role when discussing perceptions of the body and violence. Although this aspect has been the focus of numerous studies in late medieval art and religiosity during the last four decades at least,38 it plays a nuanced role in the galleries of violence. Whereas chapter 1 stresses the gender metamorphosis that characterized not only the female martyrs (as has thus far been the only topic analyzed in this respect) but also the representation of male martyrs, in chapter 4 I consider the explosive and sensitive aspects of female sensual nakedness in martyrdom narratives, specifically the naked virgin body under threat. Seeing a beautiful, idealized female nude in religious art after a thousand years during which the only naked figures depicted in the church were those of the crucified Christ or of humanity’s forefathers, Adam and Eve, must have been a shocking experience, just as the introduction of the galleries of violence themselves were. Such representations have been widely discussed as religious pornography, as visual

in tro duc tio n   11

rapes reflecting sadomasochist male fantasies that maintain patriarchal hegemony, while also suggesting stratified models of gender-based responses and resistance. Although I find most of this postmodern and feminist criticism apt and extremely illuminating, it still seems to me odd that such images were allowed in the church at all or that they were intended to evoke such responses. This perplexity seems to be the result of a blurring of the boundaries between the medieval perception of the erotic and the sexual in the scholarly discourse on such images. I argue that whereas the body of the female martyr was eroticized following the allegorical language and imagery of the Song of Songs and thus spiritualized—the bodies of the executioners were sexualized, that is, depicted in a loss of somatic control and aroused by lust, following the pictorial tradition of the cardinal sins—and thus “carnalized.” Hence, the eroticized and sexualized bodies offered viewers models and antimodels for their own salvation. Chapter 5 digresses briefly from the strict conceptual framework of the study. It notes certain exceptions in order to suggest how the fragments of the violated body became reintegrated and reincarnated into a whole through the interplay of sculpture and coloration. Thus the discussion does not focus on the martyrdom and torment of the saints but rather on the artistic devices and stratagems through which the body was materialized anew; in this sense it is complementary to chapter 3 in demonstrating how artistic media evoke a wide range of somatic experiences. Although in many cases the polychromy of the sculpture has not survived, the mutual interplay between form and color was still a prime factor in image production and reception during the Middle Ages. This final chapter looks at the role of coloration, painting, and sculpture as combined media in the experience of the imagery. I suggest that while the sculpture was considered as the saint’s

12  v i s ual aggression

body, its coloration and painting suggested its truths—namely, its anima and spiritual concept. Although this media interplay is important for completing the exploration into the reception and bodily understanding of many of the works discussed in this study, it is not relevant exclusively to martyr imagery. Thus I allow myself to exceed the self-imposed boundaries of this book and to discuss what for me are the most illuminating examples of medieval reincarnated and violated bodies: the Crucifixion, the Schreinmadonna, and the Ursula busts. The observations on the materiality of these works will enable me to reflect upon the role of color and matter in the reception of violence imagery that is discussed throughout the book. At this point I wish to note some reservations. The objects delineated for the present study are galleries of violence: accumulated representations of various torments that were appropriated from their original, individual narrative sequences and amalgamated into series of visualizations of extreme violence. Thus although the Crucifixion of Christ and his humiliation indeed form a spectacle of punishment, Christological imagery is not a focus in this study simply because most depictions of Christ’s suffering were neither expropriated from their original narrative nor interwoven into other narratives and conceptual frameworks that undermine their original context; the Crucifixion is about the sacrifice of Christ himself.39 It is also worth noting the difference between the actual act of martyrdom—after all, most martyrs were eventually beheaded—and the brutal, violent acts that preceded it, which are often confused or interchangeable concepts in scholarly discourse; in this sense, as noted above, it is difficult to conceive the violent imagery simply as Christomimesis. Additionally, this study is not invested in violence imagery in illuminated manuscripts, although many of the observations offered here

are drawn from studies focused on individual manuscripts and in dialogue with these studies. Whereas in several isolated cases illuminations may share general visual similarities with the galleries of violence, they were nevertheless oriented toward very specific literate audiences and specific private usages and viewing conditions. Thus they reflect private devotional concerns, which may be misleading when discussing artworks designed for larger congregations. The import of the illustrations in such manuscripts was also tightly anchored in, and in dialogue with, the accompanying text, whereas the galleries of violence have much more obscure

relationships to the written word. Monumental galleries of violence had a different target audience and therefore involved other modes of visual rhetoric and communication, and it is the specifics of these phenomena that are at the core of this study. The images discussed in the following pages may push the comfort of sensation of both medieval devotees and modern spectators to their limits,40 challenging their and our bodily responses to difficult visual sights. It is my hope that this study offers a better under­ standing of the stratified responses triggered by such violently shocking yet moving imagery.

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Chapter 1

Visual Rhetoric

Man cannot understand without images; the image is a similitude of a corporeal thing . . . and we remember more easily those things which are gross and sensible. —Thomas Aquinas, De memoria et reminiscentia commentarium, 91–93

Violence imagery, “gross and sensible,” is, as often noted, effectively impressed upon the memory.1 Witnessing the mutilation of a body—whether in reality or in the arts, whether of a saint or of a criminal—leaves an indelible impression on the mind, body, and emotional state of the viewer. Recent explorations in the field of cognitive neuroscience have shown that the sensorial impression of violent images on the body of the beholder is even more effective than that which is aroused through viewing real violent behavior.2 The more atrocious the image, the more troubling and efficacious it is in activating social surveillance, bodily response, and devotional fervor. Violence imagery was not an invention of fourteenth-century art. The moving lives and sacrificial deaths of the martyrs had been featured in numerous illuminated manuscripts, murals, stained-glass windows, and sculptures since at least the eleventh century.3 However, the accumulation of individual torments into galleries of violence in monumental art first appeared in the fourteenth century along the Upper and Middle Rhine, confronting devotees with an excess of visual aggression. The only comparable precedents for such galleries are the forty-two martyr reliefs on the pillar in front of the Martyrs Portal installed in the south porch in Chartres Cathedral, circa 1220,4 but this array does not in any sense

constitute a gallery of violence (fig. 2). Although the tympanum itself features a narrative sequence of the preaching, stoning, and heavenly blessing of the protomartyr Saint Stephen, the small-scale reliefs focus on the individual martyred saints. Yet apart from the beheaded Saint Denis and Saint Chéron, none of the other forty martyrs are shown wounded but, rather, they are imaged unharmed, with their bodily integrity intact. The actuality of the tortures is reduced to an identifying attribute or a rather succinct iconic representation serving to disclose the identities of the martyrs, not their suffering. Their bodies are neither in pain nor are they

mutilated, and the brutal nature of their torture is not communicated to the viewers. The galleries of violence discussed in the present volume reveal a completely different visual rhetoric. Although they render present the absent bodies in pain—bodies that existed in the distant past—the excess and explicitness of torments often blur the individual identities of the various saints, leaving only a discomforting array of unrestrained violent actions. Such galleries of violence, whether intentionally or not, manifest a unique visual rhetoric, associating multiple emotional, sensual, and devotional evocations, activated through the viewer’s imagination and experience. In this chapter I will take the martyr imagery in the Holy Cross Minster of Schwäbisch Gmünd as a case study for reframing martyr imagery as violence imagery. I will explore the visual rhetoric and the possible responses to these galleries and the way in which they constitute an exposition on violence as a category of wider cultural concern. The Holy Cross Minster of Schwäbisch Gmünd is one of the milestones of late Gothic architecture and sculpture. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, its old Romanesque structure was supposed to be replaced by a Gothic basilica. However, by the 1330s the plan was abandoned in favor of a Gothic hall church, which became a paradigm of deutsche Sondergotik (German special gothic) and Parler architecture.5 Although it is uncertain at what stage Heinrich Parler, the renowned master of Cologne (henrici parleri de colonia), was summoned to the city, his activity in Gmünd can be verified from such sources as the city Annales, a titulus on his gravestone (now lost), and the celebrated inscription in Prague Cathedral.6 In 1351, as the inscription on the north choir portal at Gmünd attests, the cornerstone for a new hall choir was laid.7 It is not clear, however, whether its experimental design and sculpture are to be attributed

fi gur e 2  Chartres Cathedral, Martyrs Column, south portal, Saint Saturnin Dragged by a Bull, ca. 1230. Photo: Gili Shalom.

v isua l rheto ric   15

to Heinrich or to his son Peter of Prague.8 In addition to an innovative phase in Parler architecture, the foundation of the choir signaled a novel trend in its sculptural decoration, striking the viewer with opulent scenes combined with narrative clarity.9 The tympanum of the north choir portal (1351–70s) features the Passion of Christ in a vivid narrative, from the Agony in Gethsemane to the Resurrection (plate 1).10 The vibrant interaction of the figures, their energetic movements, and the verisimilitude of their appearances have been perceived as reflecting a new world of thought, departing from isolated figures and dogmatic iconography in favor of a dynamic grouping, unified through movement in space and probably inspired by the theatrical performances that took place in front of the portal.11 The narrative begins at the lower left, with the Agony of Christ. To the right are the disciples, who have fallen asleep against the garden fence, while Christ is depicted in prayer, kneeling in a Giottesque landscape. His face is turned upward, and his gaze is directed to the left, toward the hand of God. This configuration results in an open composition that enables the viewers to “enter” the pictorial realm. Even more compelling, however, is the decision to start the Passion with the Agony in Gethsemane. Thematically, the Gmünd tympanum follows Passion cycles featured on Gothic choir screens, pulpits, and altarpieces, which usually begin with the Last Supper or, occasionally, with the Entry into Jerusalem.12 Both of these scenes have central roles in constituting the Eucharist and in establishing the history of salvation. Omitting these conventional subjects lets the cycle begin with

an emotionally charged moment—Christ’s supplication—rather than focusing on a dogmatic lesson, thus enhancing the viewers’ emotional participation in the narrative. The next episode is the Betrayal (plate 2). Several soldiers, fashionably dressed, approach Jesus from the right as Judas indicates his Lord by a kiss; Peter, on the left (his hand has been damaged) cuts off Malchus’s ear, while Christ simultaneously heals and restores it. The events are composed in a rapid rhythm, with one action quickly following another, and yet the distinction among the different events remains clear: the freestanding figures are carved in the round, positioned on stagelike registers, and no figure conceals any other, making the narrative easily discernible from the spectators’ level. The narrative continues with the Trial before Pilate and the Flagellation, ending in the second register with Christ receiving the Crown of Thorns (fig. 3), the Ascent to Calvary, the Crucifixion, and an episode not often represented in sculptured tympana, the Descent from the Cross, in a composition reminiscent of a Pietà. The Passion in Gmünd reflects an inclination toward narrativity, movement within scenes, and a tangible sense of action and temporal progression; it familiarizes sacred history and relates it directly to the quotidian lives of the spectators through the use of veristic props, clothing, expressions, and behaviors. Moreover, the selection of scenes emphasizing the humiliation of Christ and his passive submission to his persecutors, as well as the allusion to the popular genre of the Pietà, indicates the dependence of the program on the popular text Meditations on the Life of Christ and the idea of

fig ure 3 (opposite, above)  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, Passion tympanum, detail: Crown of Thorns and the Ascent to Calvary, 1351–70s. Photo: Gili Shalom. fig ure 4 (opposite, below)  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, south choir portal, Last Judgment 16  v i s ual aggre ssion

tympanum, 1351–70s. Photo: author.

v isua l rheto ric   17

imitatio Christi.13 As part of the larger program of the new choir and its urban setting, the Passion tympanum finds its climax in the south portal, with the Last Judgment tympanum (fig. 4). The latter faced the old cemetery, whereas the Passion fronted the market, which might have been the place of liturgical dramas and processions, as well as of the juridical court.14 The features that characterize the Passion tympanum undergo a radical shift in the archivolts, where the narrative impulse and devotional sensitivity are abandoned in favor of stark violence. Eighteen martyr scenes, each constructed as a nonnarrative (or a highly condensed one), display neither the vitae of the martyrs, nor their public activities, nor their heavenly rewards; rather, we only see the moments of their brutal executions (plates 3–4).15 The archivolts most likely feature the twelve apostles, although only several of them are securely identified, as well as additional martyrs, whose identities are not clear. The outer archivolt displays, from left to right, Saint Matthew stabbed in the chest (plate 3a); Saint Judas Thaddeus about to be hit by a staff (plate 3b); Saint Christopher being fitted with the fiery helmet (plate 3c); an unidentified monk on the stake engulfed in flames (plate 3d); an unidentified cephalophore saint, maybe Saint Denis (plate 3e); Saint Alexius hiding from his tormentor under the stairs (plate 3f ); unidentified martyrs (plates 3g–h); Saint Andrew’s crucifixion (plate 3i); and Saint James the Lesser with an axe splitting his skull (plate 3j). The inner archivolt of the Passion Portal features, from left to right, possibly John the Evangelist drinking the poisoned cup with the converted Aristodemos of Ephesus (plate 4a); an unidentified martyr about to decapitated (plate 4b); the decapitated Saint James the Greater or Saint Paul with his severed head grasped in his hands (plate 4c); Saint Simon with his skull split by a swordsman (plate 4d); Saint Thomas (?) about

18  v i s ual aggression

to be stabbed or decapitated (plate 4e); Saint Philip bound to the cross with ropes (plate 4f ); Saint Peter’s downward crucifixion (plate 4g); and Saint Bartholomew being gruesomely flayed (plate 4h). The archivolt sculptures discussed here are located relatively low down. The figures are approximately 60 centimeters in height, clearly visible and easily experienced, and they seem to invite an intensive, lingering gaze at the depicted body parts. The viewing of the relatively small-scale sculptures intensifies a simulative experience in that it requires focused concentration and thus immersion in the visual. For example, let us look at the decapitated figure in the third vignette on the inner archivolt, who might be identified as either Saint Paul or Saint James the Greater (fig. 5, plate 4c). Both martyrs were beheaded, but neither was a cephalophore. The laconic account in the Golden Legend of James the Greater’s decollation notes that he and the converted scribe Josias “had their heads struck off.”16 The account of Paul’s beheading claims that he took off the veil that had bound his eyes and mopped up the blood of his wound to present to Nero.17 At Gmünd, the martyr’s head is about to roll out of the niche; the saint has just managed to grasp it at the very edge, an action that infuses the entire image with instantaneity. Behind the saint, as if to demonstrate the banality of his evildoing, the executioner indifferently wipes his sword with his cloak. The sculpture is painted realistically; the stump of the neck is covered with red pigment, signifying blood. The face of the saint embodies the cliché of medieval German expressionism: in a departure from contemporary decorum, the mouth is open and the teeth are bared, revealing pain and conveying a sense of suffering and a loss of somatic control.18 A comparison of this image with the jamb statue of Saint Nicaise from Reims, circa 1225– 30, highlights the innovation of the pictorial language in the Gmünd cycle (fig. 6). Whereas

fi gur e 5  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, inner archivolt, left side, detail: Martyrdom of Saint James the Greater or Saint Paul, 1351–70s. Photo: author. fi gur e 6  Reims Cathedral, north façade, jamb of central Calixtus doorway, Saint Nicaise, ca. 1225–30. Photo: author.

Saint Nicaise is restrained, stable, and calmly holding his head as angels crown his severed stump, the figure in Gmünd is clearly suffering, imbued with ostensibly spontaneous movement, and humiliated. Saint Nicaise’s upright posture attests to his dignity and victory, while James’s/Paul’s kneeling disempowers him and degrades him to a submissive posture, thereby emasculating him.19

v isua l rheto ric   19

A more elaborate narrative of martyrdom appears above the Porte des Valois in the Basilica of Saint-Denis (about 1170) depicting Saint Denis and his companions (fig. 7).20 The lintel features a narrative of the imprisonment and last communion shared by the group of men. Their martyrdom appears in the tympanum lunette: the two companions kneel obediently with reserved expressions, revealing no sense of suffering, and the beheaded Saint Denis holds his emotionless head in his hands, presenting it calmly to his fellow martyrs on the horizontal axis of the composition. Although this martyrdom scene is within a narrative and not an isolated “iconic” image such as those in Reims and Gmünd, it has none of the expressive or emotive potential that one would expect from narrative art. Moreover, even though the scene includes several victims and executioners, none of them dramatizes a truly brutal scene; rather, the narrative is arranged in iconographic codes with the figures acting as signs. Thus whereas in the churches of Saint-Denis and Reims the

motionless and emotionless figures appear to assert the integrity of their newly fragmented bodies, the image at Gmünd denies it by stressing movement and instability; the bared teeth and screaming mouth of the martyr stress suffering rather than accepted fragmentation, a facial expression usually applied to the torments of the damned in hell.21 Cephalophoric imagery of saints delivering their decapitated heads postmortem to a chosen location created a link between the martyr and his burial church, demonstrating relic acquisition or claims of possession and implying the continuity of a saint’s miracle-working power beyond death.22 At Gmünd, however, there is no evidence of a special cult of Saint James the Greater or of Saint Paul, or, indeed, of any of the saints depicted in the north choir archivolts. The reliquaries acquired by the church include those of Saints Anne, Catherine, Barbara, Christopher, and others, most of whom do not appear in the portal. Documentary sources report altars (some of which still exist) dedicated to these

fig ure 7  Paris, Basilica of Saint-Denis, Porte des Valois, Martyrdom of Saint Denis, ca. 1170. Photo: author. fig ure 8 (opposite)  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, outer archivolt, left side, detail: Martyrdom of Saint Christopher, 1351–70s. Photo: author. 20  v i s ual aggression

saints as well as to Saints Sebald, Sebastian, and Mary Magdalene, most of them dated later than the fourteenth century.23 Hence, there is hardly any correlation between the martyrs depicted in the tympanum and a claim to relics or local cults in Gmünd; nor is there any reason to think that the church housed their remains. Although multiple readings of the violent martyrdom of the beheaded saint are possible and are not necessarily mutually exclusive—including as an icon of violence, as a commentary on the fragmentation and integrity of the sacred body, and as a claim to cultic devotion—the figure’s idiosyncratic character lies in its emphasis on physical pain and the body demonstrably subjected to violence. It is intriguing that although the Schwäbisch Gmünd cycle includes many martyrs that were decapitated, no single technique of beheading is repeated in the visual vocabulary. It seems that the sculptor who toiled at these images expended a lot of effort to avoid any conventionalization of the violent act and produced a diversified gallery of the distinct stages of decapitations (plates 3b and e; plates 4b, c, d, and e). The depictions of how one might lose one’s head are myriad, evoking every phase of the torment and the fear it provokes: Saint Alexius hides under the stairs while his executioner lurks above (plate 3f );24 Saint Christopher kneels as the fiery helmet, held by his tormentor with pincers, is lowered atop his head (plate 3c and fig. 8); Saint Judas Thaddeus is shown about to be flogged about the head (plate 3b and figs. 9–10); an unidentified martyr prays as his executioner raises his sword (now lost) to behead him (plate 4e); Saint James/Saint Paul has just lost his head, which rolls out of the niche; whereas another cephalophore (perhaps Saint Denis) has managed to catch his in a firm grasp (plate 3e). Hence, the moments before, during, and after decapitation are visualized and materialized.25

The intensity of the violence is further stressed in the sequence of the various moments, the pairing of images between the outer and inner archivolts, and their appeal to the beholders. For example, surrounding the figure of Saint James/Saint Paul is Saint Simon, lying prone after his skull was split open by the executioner who replaces his sword in its scabbard behind him (fig. 11, plate 4d);26 Saint Matthew, in the very moment of his killer piercing his heart (plate 3a);27 and Saint Judas Thaddeus, on the brink of being clubbed to death, an installation which brings together multiple perspectives in

v isua l rheto ric   21

a single scene (figs. 9, 10, plate 3b).28 This latter depiction shows the moment before the fatal blow is struck: the perpetrator lifts his club while Judas—passive, submissive, and obedient—accepts his subjugation. The sculpture is designed to be viewed from several angles by a spectator at ground level. From the side, the tension of the raised club and its imminent violence is dominant. From the front view, however, the psychological tension between the victim and the executioner comes to the fore, with the contrast between the energetic concentration of the killer and the worry writ on the furrowed brow of the obedient victim (fig. 10). The aggression of the murder is also doubly oriented: both

fig ure 9 (left)  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, outer archivolt, left side, detail: Martyrdom of Saint Judas Thaddeus, 1351–70s. Photo: author. f ig ure 10 (right)  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, outer archivolt, left side, detail: Martyrdom of Saint Judas Thaddeus, 1351–70s. Photo: Gili Shalom. f ig ure 11 (opposite, left)  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, inner archivolt, left side, detail: Martyrdom of Saint Simon, 1351–70s. Photo: author. f ig ure 12 (opposite, right)  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, outer archivolt, right side, detail: Martyrdom of Saint James the Lesser,

22  v i s ual aggre ssion

1351–70s. Photo: author.

toward the saint in the sculpture and toward the viewer, who becomes an active participant in the event even as Thaddeus invites compassion. Viewers are thus confronted with ambivalent and contradictory models of response and identification, as both protagonists, the murderer and the martyr, claim their intervenience: since the saint is not identified by an halo as such and wears instead the robe of a criminal akin to the costume in the rituals of public execution, viewers cannot immediately identify which of the figures deserves sympathy. Even grimmer is the figure of Saint James the Lesser (fig. 12, plate 3j). According to the Golden Legend, his death was caused when his executioner “snatched up a fuller’s club, aimed a

heavy blow at James’s head, and split his skull.”29 Here, however, the saint, seated upon a rock, is struck by an axe, a weapon associated with medieval warfare. He is portrayed at the very moment when the axe strikes and penetrates his skull; the tool’s wooden handle, projecting backward, intensifies the immediacy of the scene. The episode communicates its content to viewers not only through realistic coloring and a sense of movement, action, and reaction (Saint James’s expression and gesture) but also through texture and veristic details (such as the wooden handle of the axe). The immediate presence of the instrument of torture confers such tangibility to the sculpture that the viewers are practically invited to experience it both visually and

v isua l rheto ric   23

somatically—in other words, to feel pain as the saint did. In short, the spectator is confronted with extreme and direct brutality, stripped of any narrative context: an isolated gallery of violent simulacra. Although it is tempting to relate these scenes of martyrdom simply to the idea of imitatio Christi (especially as these images surround the Passion of Christ in the tympanum), the novel nature of the representations suggests otherwise. New here is the succinct nature of the martyrdoms as condensed narratives, crystalized into single moments of violence. Moreover, the range of torments, physical reactions, and depictions of suffering deviate from earlier representations of martyrs. The figure of Saint James the Lesser with the axe in his skull is an illuminating example, as this mode of execution does not belong to his martyrdom but, rather, to the medieval battlefield.30 Earlier sculpted martyrdom cycles tended to follow the entire narrative of a single martyr, as in the Porte des Valois at Saint-Denis discussed above. Another example is the tympanum of the martyrs above the doorway in the south transept of Chartres (ca. 1215), which features Saint Stephen being led to his martyrdom, the saint praying for forgiveness for his enemies, his stoning, and, finally, his acceptance by God.31 Additional regal images of enthroned martyrs are installed in the archivolts at Chartres with no hint of their torture or suffering. The same is true for thirteenth-century martyr­ dom cycles (such as the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand in Saint Severus, Boppard; the frescoes of San Piero a Grado at the turn of the century; or the stained-glass windows in the cathedrals of Chartres, Bourges, and Regensburg). Although more graphic in nature than the three-dimensional images, the paintings belong to narrative programs of the saints’ lives and deaths. Rather than offering a compact scene drawn from such narrative traditions of

24  v i s ual aggre ssion

the saints’ vitae, the Gmünd imagery chooses just the isolated representations of instances of violence. It thus reformulates the pictorial tradition and plays with conventional iconographies, drawing the viewers’ attention to the gaps between their knowledge or expectations and the visual experience. The fact that the Gmünd images reference something other than imitatio Christi is also suggested by the similar galleries of violence in many of the Parler enterprises that do not feature the Passion of Christ. For example, in the Church of Saint Theobald in Thann, which is discussed at length in chapter 2, the sculptural program is dedicated to the Life of the Virgin and does not include extended Passion imagery; even the Crucifixion is represented temperately, without the spectacle of punishment (to borrow from Merback). Nevertheless, despite the absence of the imitatio Christi typology, the martyr scenes are charged with extreme violence: Apollonia’s teeth are being yanked out (figs. 17c, 25); Erasmus’s (?) nails are being extracted (figs. 16e, 21); Saint Matthew is about to lose his head, with the executioners offering viewers an array of potential emotional responses to the scene (fig. 17h); an unidentified martyr is being chopped to pieces (figs. 17e, 26); Saint Leodegar’s eyes are being gouged out (figs. 17b, 24); and Saint Catherine is depicted beheaded near the wheel, her torso falling to the ground at the lower right, while she screams in pain and clasps her head in despair (figs. 18h, 40).32 This last representation, discussed at length in chapter 3, thus places emphasis on bodily suffering and violence instead of her impassibility—the quality granted to the martyrs that allowed them to not feel pain and thus joyfully and serenely accept their tortures, remaining both impassible and impassive—which characterizes conventional portrayals of Saint Catherine.33 Whereas the Gmünd and Thann galleries of violence isolate moments of torture from

diverse legends and use them to portray a sequence of executions of various martyrs, other galleries focus instead on the multiple tortures of a single martyr. The cycle of frescoes on Saint George in Schenna (ca. 1380–1400), for example, features five attempts to harm the saint. The selection of torments here is especially intriguing as the legends about Saint George also include many stages of torment—perhaps the richest and most diversified collection of saintly tortures in the literary tradition. The frescoes, however, largely feature physical horrors not necessarily described in texts. Except for the angel saving George from being broken on a wheel of swords (the second of the depicted tortures in the cycle, plate 5) and his final beheading (the concluding scene of the cycle), which are indeed recounted in his legend, none of the other painted tortures have direct textual sources: being thrown from a hill to be drowned in a lake; being quartered by a pair of horses (plate 6); and being rolled in a barrel while being stabbed with red-hot nails (plate 7). All of these representations stress the technical aspects of the torments and seem to follow the so-called liturgy of public executions (especially the punishment of being dragged by horses), as discussed in the introduction to this book.34 How might such extreme images have been experienced by the medieval viewers? In his seminal study of power, identity, and body in the passions of the martyrs, Brent Shaw demonstrates that the inversion of values inherent in the martyr narratives were embedded in transgender paradigms: kneeling, submission, passive resistance through silence, the shame of allowing oneself to be wounded or penetrated, and the spectacle of suffering; all of these actions or responses functioned to feminize male martyrs.35 For the persecutors, the display of violent power over subjected bodies was intended to produce religious truth, while for the audience, it created a voyeuristically enjoyable

spectacle of pain and authority that underwrote their own values: the persecutors commanded, the martyrs obeyed. Yet in an inversion of expectations, it was through the very submission and feminization of the martyrs that the persecutors were forced to admit their defeat and the superiority of the tortured bodies.36 Moreover, the endurance of torture in itself was only one facet of the saints’ moral triumph; it was the public face of such endurance, witnessed by observers, that mattered most.37 While such spectacles of violence were originally orchestrated for the eyes of pagans, how were they perceived by fourteenth-century spectators?38 Did viewers in Schwäbisch Gmünd or Thann even perceive them as violent? Bynum believes this was certainly not the case. She argues that late medieval imagery of bodily partition and bloodshed in its historical context was not perceived as violent and that, in late medieval European Christian thought, wounds and mutilated organs were seen as ways to access the body of Christ.39 Bleeding and mutilated bodies were not a reflection of a violent society exhausted by famine, wars, religious controversy, and epidemics; rather, they constituted a religiosity of blame and self-reproach in which suffering was experienced as a form of ecstasy and love, evoking the sacrifice of Jesus: “Blood—spilled and sacrificial—was both closely connected to the Eucharist and yet had a devotional life of its own as a stimulator of guilt and penitence, frenzy and love.”40 In Bynum’s opinion, the so-called violent imagery is not violent in the modern sense of the word, which has a negative meaning; it has, instead, a positive import, associating violence, by inversion, with joy, love, comfort, and hope.41 In line with these perceptions, in her work on the representation of the Passion and martyrs in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century panel painting, Daria Dittmeyer argues that despite the deterrent effects of the aggressiveness and

v isua l rheto ric   25

cruelty of the tortures and the deformed bodies that late medieval violence imagery evokes for modern-day viewers, these depictions were actually meant to indicate the beauty of the Christian sacrifice. According to Dittmeyer, they were designed to strengthen belief in and hope for eternal salvation in the hereafter and lead to a virtuous life in this world. She suggests that although the visual representations confronted the viewers with the simplest visual perceptions, they nonetheless stood for theological beauty and truth.42 Although such a devotional function of the imagery cannot be disputed, it is hardly conceivable that the viewers’ immediate encounter with these newly formulated galleries of violence and the brutality of the depictions evoked happiness and love rather than abjection and horror, a response that was encouraged in many juridical treatises and romances.43 Bynum’s interpretation thus aligns with the Augustinian dichotomy between body and anima (soul) in which cruelty and violent acts are primarily spiritual, not physical.44 According to Augustine, because the dead body does not suffer, the soul, being eternal, is the true site of suffering; sensory pain is therefore a function of the soul and not of the body. The human soul comprises a similitudo corporis (bodily semblance), which is the part that suffers in hell. Only after the resurrection and reunification of the body and the soul will sensory pain become purely and fully physical, residing in the body, while that which resides in the soul will be purely emotional.45 Until then, however, only violent acts that harm the soul and impair its prospects for salvation are what constitute genuine cruelty. Such cruelty and violence are reflexive because they can be committed by a person against his or her own soul and are not necessarily due to interpersonal violence. The notion that physical violence is negligible was also suggested in the theological

26  v i s ual aggression

formulation of the medical metaphor of pain conceived by Tertullian: a violent act executed on the body is comparable with the pain of a medical operation.46 As such, physical violence had healing potential and could therefore be conceived as positive. Considering the ambiguous concept of the body, Jerome compared the physical body of the individual to the Church as the body of believers. Just as ailing members of the body should be removed, so, too, should ailing members of the Church; the act of amputation, then, is only outwardly violent for in truth it contributes to the healing process.47 Negative violence was internal, reflexive, and reflective; it was that which acted upon one’s anima, such as forcing someone to deny his or her faith. Jerome’s notion of the medical metaphor, which circulated widely in the Middle Ages, denied the negative aspects of violent behavior: if the individual suffers for the sake of his own redemption and soul, this exposure to physical brutality has positive qualities and cannot be considered as violence as we understand it in the modern sense of the word. It was through the immersion and pleasure taken in suffering that the love of God was revealed.48 Although Bynum’s analysis, based on these early Augustinian Church Fathers, has by now become almost canonical, it raises questions at the methodological, hermeneutic, and heuristic levels. It seems to me to constitute a new disguise for the anachronistic notion that medieval people were desensitized to physical violence, giving medieval violence a kind of exotic aura, labeled, after Elias and Huizinga, archaic authenticity.49 But, as Merback has argued, “Without an audience capable of experiencing disgust, disgusting imagery is robbed of its antagonistic power. And without this power it can have no meaningful cultural purpose.”50 Even the spiritual delight in pain is more ambivalent than it might seem. Richard Kieckhefer describes this response as the pain of “unquiet souls” whose

obsession with tears, remorse, and suffering was more disturbing than comforting.51 Moreover, although Bynum treats thirteenth- and fourteenth-century texts, she discusses mainly fifteenth-century book illuminations aimed at a very restricted interpretive community composed mainly of female mystics. The images examined by Bynum depict female saints and mystics meditating on the bleeding body of the crucified Christ, offering the reader-viewer role models for imitation, identification, and self-indoctrination. As Bynum rightly argues, such images display calm figures in a sedate, devotional state; the depicted bodies might reveal signs of past violent acts, but their facial expressions remain detached. This imagery emphasizes the supernatural impassiveness granted to the saints; both they and their viewers are denied any direct somatic response to the aggression they are experiencing, and their reactions are converted instead to comfort and hope. Perceived within a devotional system that transposed pain and suffering into happiness and love, these images were key for participating in the body of Christ. The sculptural imagery that I discuss here, however, reveals direct pain and violent acts in which the protagonists expose their immediate suffering in terms of bodily reactions, seen in their postures (falling, kneeling, and so forth) and gestures (screams, bared teeth, and the like). As has been widely discussed in recent feminist studies on martyrdom narratives, including those by Madeline Harrison Caviness, Martha Easton, Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, and others,52 female martyrs also underwent transgender metamorphoses that often culminated in the mutilation of their sexual organs and their emotionless violation in forma crucis, epitomizing their extreme enactment of the concept of imitatio Christi. Despite accounts of the extreme violence and mutilation of female martyrs, their depictions in monumental art show their

bodies as uninjured and their expressions as placid. In the saints’ vitae, such as those of Saint Barbara and Saint Agatha (which are discussed in chapter 4), both the martyrs’ bodies and animae are masculinized, as expressed in their impassiveness, apathy, and eloquent oratory. Decapitation—an enforced silencing—reflects the poor attempt by the persecutor to bring this inversion of gender function to an end. The lack of somatic response to torment is also rooted in the saints’ vitae: each torment is converted into a liturgical sacrament, so that being thrown into a tub of water is perceived as baptism, being immersed in boiling oil as anointing, and so on; moreover, organs are miraculously healed and regenerated, such as the slashed breasts of Saint Agatha, which are completely restored when she is back in jail.53 Whereas the legendae do not always specify the similarity of the female saints’ passions to that of Christ, this connection is frequently made in the visual arts. For example, the nakedness of the saints’ bodies and their torture by the whip is directly paired with visual references to Christ stripped to the loincloth on the cross or his Flagellation (as will be discussed in detail in chapter 4). In contrast to this visual interpretation of the textual legendae, the male martyrs at Schwäbisch Gmünd reveal no visual similitude to Christ. Moreover, in addition to their so-called effeminate postures and penetrated bodies, their transgender metamorphoses are further emphasized in their ability to fully experience pain and suffering. Their images thus become simulacra of violence and cannot be interpreted in the metaphoric framework suggested by Bynum. Leslie Abend Callahan has suggested that late medieval representations of violence can be classified into three types: the iconic portrait, which depicts a serene martyr holding the instrument of his torment as an attribute; the clinical image, in which a calm and motionless

v isua l rheto ric   27

martyr experiences a torture that resembles a contemporary medical procedure; and the theatrical image, in which the brutal torments are staged as dramatic spectacle.54 However, the Gmünd imagery does not fall neatly into any of these categories. With their evocations of suffering, the martyrs’ scenes appear neither as iconic nor clinical, and because the scenes are usually reduced to a two-figure composition, they also lack the spectacular setting and audience of the theatrical type. This condensed format cannot simply be ascribed to the physical limitations of the archivolts. In Thann the same space serves for multifigure scenes, yet the images still cannot be assigned to any category: they are too elaborated to be iconic, lack the medical clarity to be clinical, and also lack the complex setting and staging of diversified audiences to be theatrical. The singularity of execution and the emphasis on graphic brutality, as well as the evocation of pain via the inclusion of the instruments of torture and the emotive reaction of the martyr, offer another paradigm by which to identify the martyrs of Gmünd as simulacra of aggression and violent behavior. Elaine Scarry has observed that another person’s pain is incomprehensible; it can be neither shared nor denied, and this communi­ cative inability is ensured through its resistance to language. There are no exact words, no precise vocabulary, for denoting pain in its various manifestations; naked sensation is a subjective and intransmissible experience. To identify with another’s pain, one needs linguistic metaphors and similes that will situate the pain within a specific locus and as the result of specific causes.55 In the sculptures at Gmünd, not only is the locus of pain clearly announced, but so, too, are its instruments—swords, pincers, axes, boiling water, and the like. The graphic brutality of the Gmünd imagery, which depict the precise causes and instruments of that pain, acts as a direct appeal to the spectators and raises the

28  v i s ual aggression

possibility of an instinctive somatic response. It is as if the viewers could experience the imagined suffering in their own bodies. Valentin Groebner has argued that violence renders its victims anonymous, makes them nameless, history-less, pure exemplars of horror.56 It is intriguing to note that in spite of the stark veristic tendencies of Parler art and its use of crypto-portraits, the deformed martyr figures at Gmünd are without any singular qualities, as if their individuality has been lost in the simulacrum of pain. This generalization is reinforced by their removal from the narratives of the saints’ lives. The holy figures’ individual stories and attributes are minimized or even altered, and their representations do not conform to the pictorial traditions of medieval art. Other images of the period, such as the female martyr cycle installed in the Braut/Bischofstor of Vienna Cathedral (ca. 1365), adhere to conventional depictions of impassive martyrs identified only by their attributes; they lack any emotional expressiveness, and the brutal acts of their martyrdom are not pictured (fig. 13). Those at Gmünd and Thann, by contrast, depart from such moderate configurations in favor of what seems to me to be an experiential violence; they reveal passibility rather than impassibility, a sharp deviation from traditional medieval iconography. As articulated by Jody Enders,57 such emphasis on the sheer cruelty of the martyrdom decontextualizes the act from its exclusive religious content and creates instead a spectacle of violence. This new visual formulation of martyrdom brings to the fore questions about the modes of response available to late medieval viewers. Marla Carlson suggests three modes of fifteenth-century viewer responses to images of the tormented body of a saint: seeing the body as an object, identifying with it, and entering into dialogue with it, dependent on the spectator’s gender.58 To these categories I suggest adding two further factors: the viewer’s personal

experience of seeing actual violent behavior in their daily life and the viewer’s familiarity with martyrs’ stories and images. Memory, as noted by Mary Carruthers, was integral to the medieval concept of representation. If the postmedieval concept of representation was tied to the reproduction of the real object in pictorial space,

medieval representation was a sign system that recalled and interacted with and on memory;59 images were stored in memory, available for reactivation. The viewers were probably expected to call to mind the memory of the entire passio narrative while viewing only the dramatic culmination of the saint’s martyrdom.

fi gur e 13  Vienna Cathedral, Bischofstor, Saint Agnes with the Lamb and Saint Juliana with the Devil, ca. 1365. Photo: author.

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Nevertheless, for the medieval observer, this gallery of tormented simulacra, not yet encoded in a pictorial tradition to be enacted through memory, must have been initially experienced as something totally new and shocking,60 thereby postponing the moment of cathartic inversion so cherished by Bynum. Such a concrete reading of the violence imagery is also supported by the new attitudes regarding the relationship between body and soul and the conception of sensory pain prevailing in Thomistic thought, which offered the first systematic discussion since antiquity on notions of cruelty and bodily violence.61 According to Aquinas, impassiveness can be attributed to two categories of being, both exempt from the laws of nature and neither having undergone martyrdom: Adam and Eve before the Fall and the spiritual bodies of the blessed in Paradise, which are free from bodily sensation.62 Impassibility, therefore, can hardly serve as an interpretive category for the representation of the martyrs before their heavenly reward. Reconciling the Augustinian dichotomy, Aquinas maintained that the anima is the form of the body, and he interpreted both as one psychosomatic entity.63 For him, mental faculty and physical sensation are an inseparable unity and, hence, so too are the body and the soul. Although Aquinas’s idea of bodily integrity is not entirely free of the hierarchical conception of two entities, the relative coherence, equilibrium, equability, and transparency of appearance and essence (echoing the twelfth-century ethics of intention) suggest that such imagery as that in Gmünd and Thann should not be read within a merely metaphorical devotional framework. Rather, what one sees is what there is: emotionally moving violence to be experienced through the bodily imagination of the viewers. Aquinas addressed the manifestation of violent behavior in a new moral and ethical framework. In his Summa Theologiae, written

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between 1265 and 1274, he raised the question de crudelitate and, for the first time in medieval theology, offered a systematic discussion of the notion of human cruelty and its derivative violence (violentia).64 By relying on Seneca, Aquinas limited the use of this terminology to a legal context. He differentiated, however, between acts of violence in connection with the punitive system (in order, for example, to extract truth in interrogations) and irrational cruelty enacted out of rage and savagery.65 By doing so, he opened the discussion to what we define as the psychological dimension of violent behavior, asserting that the cruelty of the violent bodily act also harms the mind and thought. Being aware of human nature and its inclination toward evil acts and cruel violence, Aquinas supported the use of strict laws in order to combat aggression, noting, “When they [men] are thus kept from doing evil, a quiet life is assured to others; and they are themselves led eventually by force of custom to do voluntarily what once they did only from fear and thus to practice virtue . . . if he [man] becomes separated from law and justice, he is the worst of animals.”66 In ethica Thomistica, violence is an external impulse forced upon one’s soul and body, harmful to both the body and the soul’s prospective salvation. Although still echoing Augustinian ideas, these notions are filtered through a new formulation of the body-soul relationship. Aquinas then discussed just and unjust causes of the most immediate consequence of violent impulse—medieval warfare. However, what he considered important was the notion that violence is a moral choice, which should be ethically coded.67 During the fourteenth century, violence appeared as a moral problem not only in theological discourse and legal treatises (as will be discussed in chapters 2 and 3) but also in books on aristocratic manners—the schöne sitte. In the 1340 version of the Der Welsche Gast des

Thomasin von Zerclaere, violence emerged as a moral allegory for the first time (fig. 14).68 In an accompanying miniature, the violent man (der gewaltigere) is depicted enthroned while the personification of Wickedness (vngve te) hands him the diminutive figures of Blame (schvlde) and Misfortune (vnheil). The violent man complains: “dv gist mir div schvlde” (you are giving me the blame). The caption reads: “You should pay attention that a man will be considered accursed when he acts all the time with violence, and blame and misfortune will stick to him. . . . The one who suffers violence is not to be blamed, and therefore, as ordained by nature, he has no impurity.”69 A perpetrator of violence is then worse off than the victim since God will judge him harshly. In the final illustration of the cycle, the allegory of gewalt appears once again, this time in the circle of the vices holding hands and dancing around the personification of Vice (vntugent, plate 8): gewalt is here joined

by Immoderation (vmazze), Pride (vbermůt), Betrayal (trvngenheit), Whore-mongering (hvgelůst), Inconstancy (vnstete), Greed (girde), Avarice (erge), Usury (wůcher), Hatred (neit), Anger (zorn), Lying (lůge), Boasting (rům), Injustice (vnrecht), Drunkenness (trvnchenheid), and Thievery (rovp). Violence imagery could thus have molded a visual discourse on the new moral and ethical system that Thomistic thought spread throughout the cities along the Upper and Middle Rhine. Visual expositions on violence went hand in hand with the new ideas on bodily integrity and the wholeness of the body, as advocated by Aquinas and his followers in the Dominican schools in the region. Whereas in Christian thought in the Latin West the human body had been considered social property, belonging to the community or to God, and was therefore vulnerable to exploitation and attack, from the fourteenth century on it was regarded as the private property of the individual.70 Together with the Thomistic formulation on the equality of body and soul, this new attitude resulted in a redefinition of the boundaries of one’s body in relation to others and to society. Once the body became private, acts of violence were also understood differently. The implication of this discourse was a new consideration regarding the legitimacy of harming the body of the Other, whether in punitive, devotional, or social systems. Linguistically in the early and high Middle Ages, the term gewalt or the more common gewalte meant force and domination— authority and political power. It was only in the late Middle Ages that the Middle High–German word gewalt first took on its modern meaning as violence (gewalttätigkeit)—not merely in the sense of strength and force but in its negative denotation of physical violence—and was linked to the Latin etymology and field of meanings of potestas-vis-violentia.71

fi gur e 14  Violence Enthroned, from Thomasin von Zerklaere, Welscher Gast, 1340. Forschungsbibliothek Gotha, Memb. I 120, fol. 38r. Photo: Forschungsbi­ bliothek Gotha.

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Similarly, the Latin nouns crudelitas and violentia were also used again, for the first time since antiquity, as negatives in moral discussions at the end of the thirteenth century.72 Since verbal violence often led to physical aggression, both terms were considered as injurious to the individuum (individual) to the same degree, and therefore both were considered in the context of the new formulation of bodily integrity.73 There is actually no parallel word to gewalt in other old European languages before the sixteenth century,74 so the term might be regarded as a unique ethical concern of the German-speaking realm. This linguistic development suggests that verbal and physical aggression, violentia, was now subject to wider cultural concerns, and violence as such might be perceived as an “invention” of late medieval culture.75 In a more radical sense, one might wonder whether the new interest in violence and the moral discussion concerning the phenomenon that appeared during the fourteenth century in the civic milieu was the constitutive moment of the premodern individuality that drew the line between the public and the private body. The body is, after all, a vital component of personhood.76 This linguistic and epistemological change is also traceable in contemporary courtly romances and heroic epics. Violence is everywhere in medieval life and fiction but only in the sense of modern-day jargon. In courtly literature, both vis and gewalt are used to designate force, strength, might, influence, or political power; in political contexts, the terms signify dominion if positively evaluated but tyranny if used in a negative sense.77 The enactment of legitimate force, restrained or unrestrained, which is at the core of the fourteenth-century ethical idea of gewalt,78 is articulated by such words as unmâze (lack of moderation, without self-restraint, with no measure), or when the gewalt is associated with unheil, zorn (rage, indignation), wuoten (fury, wrath), nît (envy), hômût (hubris), and other

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destructive emotions to represent brute force.79 In contrast, by the fourteenth century this range of negative associations was integrated into the new conceptualization of gewalt/gewalttätigkeit, establishing violence as a moral problem within the new ethical thinking. Prior to these developments of the fourteenth century, literary violence—written, told, or visualized—was domesticated, rationalized, constructed, and narrated within moral considerations. The authors of courtly literature were not particularly interested in violence as a problem of amorality; rather, they saw it as a means of emotional stimulation or narrative motivation. Their interests focused on the outcomes and consequences of violent events, namely, holy wars. The valorization of military service in medieval fiction offers a complex and conflicting view of the legitimatization of violent behavior and the selective authorization of violence. These acts were essential to the sacralization of religious violence at the medieval court, justifying violent attacks on Others.80 Consequently, Albrecht Classen and Will Hasty argue that in the courtly narratives, violence is defined as “the attempt of an individual or group to impose its will on others through any nonverbal, verbal, or physical means that inflict psychological or physical injury.”81 Such an understanding again projects the Augustinian notion of violence—the violation of personhood, a destructive behavior against one’s belief and prospective salvation—which would be more appropriately accommodated within the term aggression than equated with the new fourteenth-century gewalt. Just as in the medical metaphor, courtly literature idealized and ritualized violence in a form that allowed it to appear as a constructive element of society, but at times it also offered strategies to stop or avoid it.82 The idealization of violence in the romances and the frequent cases of the reduction of the horrors of violence through the

use of pastoral language, distanced the experience from their readers/listeners and numbed their judgmental sense,83 similar to the way in which the disguised demon in Chartres or the allegorized cardinal sins distanced the Last Judgment from real sensory experience and even ridiculed it. In spite of the plethora of manifestations of violence in courtly literature, the phenomenon itself and its interpretation as an ethical problem on its own is addressed only occasionally; there are just a few instances in which the moral dimension of violence is examined or the quantitative criteria for measuring violence and adopting it into an ethical and legal system are outlined. One example highlighting this issue would be the Cadoc scene in Erec by Hartmann von Aue (ca. 1180).84 On his search after a new Âventiure, Erec hears a cry for help in the forest. Following the voice, he finds a weeping woman, who tells him that two giants have abducted her man—the captive Cadoc—and she appeals to Erec’s compassion and sense of justice. As in other medieval legends, the giants appear here as great warriors in the context of conflict and moral struggle. They marked the borders of the known world, living on the margins of society, outside courtly consciousness, uncivilized and undomesticated. Moreover, being monstrous creatures, they stood in antagonistic opposition to the Christian virtues and served as examples of horror, brute force, and violence.85 Yet it was through their “Otherness” that the Christian ethic was polemicized. Moved by the woman’s misfortune, Erec sets out to meet the giants who were maltreating Cadoc beyond imagination. They had flogged his back so severely that his skin was flayed, rolled down off his body, and hanging loose to his knees.86 The poor man was beaten for so long that most of his blood had drained out of his body; he was so weak that he could not scream anymore; he was comprehensively tortured and

subject to unheard-of suffering that no man would be able to bear.87 These terrible torments call to mind many of the images found in the galleries of violence, especially the flaying alive of Saint Bartholomew at Gmünd (plate 4h), which is one of the foci of chapter 3. In spite of the fearsome sight, and although the author clearly states that the giants have broken the kingly custom (“brâhen vaste ritters reht”), Erec addresses them with the noblest of courtly manners, calling them herren (sirs) and kindly asking them about their deeds and the reason for their brutality.88 He specifically inquires as to the crime that the captive has committed against them and its nature— whether they would classify him as a murderer or a thief (“weder ist er mordaere oder diep?”)—thus encoding the event in legal and ethical systems that allocated a specific measure of punishment depending on the category of offence or misdeed. If the accused is of knightly status, he warns the giants, then the inflicted punishment is against the customary law and therefore shameful.89 Although the depiction of the flayed skin, the raw flesh, and the blood flowing from Cadoc’s body is devastating—a description that brings to mind several of the archivolt images—Erec does not prejudge the monsters, as long as their torments are set within the ethical system.90 Yet once the giants exempted the ethical context offered by Erec by babbling (klaffen/geschwätz) and as the knight learns that Cadoc did not deserve the extreme, disproportionate tortures, Erec slaughters one of the giants, slashing his eyes and killing him with his sword (a description resembling the tortures of Saint Leodegar at Thann; see figs. 17b and 24). The other giant then swings his club (“begunde den kolben wenden”), calling to mind the execution of Saint Judas Thaddeus at Gmünd (see figs. 9–10). Unlike the saint, Erec manages to evade the swing of the giant’s club and decapitates the second monster as well.

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The “pedagogic” or “didactic” violence that characterizes medieval romances such as Erec served both as entertainment and moral instruction. Hartman von Aue described the violent deeds of giants in order to influence the attitude of the courtly society toward violent behavior.91 The brutal acts inflicted upon Cadoc were meant to stir the reader/listener emotionally, to project social order, and to stress the exclusive authority of the knights to perpetrate violence as educational and juridical means in a punitive system. As the giant does not belong to the courtly realm, he has no right to torture Cadoc; giants lack both the moral requisites and ethical training that are preconditions for ensuring that the violence engendered would be just and proper. In Iwein of circa 1200, also by von Aue, the hero has compassion for the son of the king, who, like Cadoc, is also captured by a giant. At the hands of this giant, called Harpin, the prince is brutally whipped and suffers horrifying torments.92 The Jungherr, stripped of his clothes, is riding in his underwear with bare feet and blood flowing everywhere. This image, again, brings to mind many of the visual representations discussed in this book. The dread of the giants and their minions evoked in such scenes does not necessarily represent the fear of the ultimate Other but, rather, of the knight’s other self.93 The reader learns that knightly violence can be protective, but at the same time, when abused or misused, it can potentially be wrong, dangerous, and destructive. Through his experiences, the knight must learn to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate violence.94 Hence, many of the violent scenes of the romances embody the paradox of medieval courtliness, which encourages and praises the virtue of violent, militant belligerence while at the same time attempting to delimit it through rigid codes of conduct. The variety and categorization of these and other tortures or punishments in such texts

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seem to circumscribe similar categories of violence as seen in Schwäbisch Gmünd and Thann. The images confront the viewers with all kinds of physical violations in all stages of execution; some are depicted after, some before, and some during the act, but all stress the ways that the violent acts are performed. Several compositions are opened to the beholders, with either the executioner or the victim turning their eyes upon the viewers and catching their attention, addressing them with an ambivalent model of identification. Functioning similarly to Erec’s interrogation of the giants’ viciousness, such images inquire into the nature of legitimate and illegitimate violence. The realistic polychrome at Gmünd—even in its current poor condition—stuns the senses of the viewers with the reddish coloration of the mutilated organs. The instruments used to inflict pain are also clearly featured, enabling a full assimilation of the violence on the bodies of the devotees. Visual and textual imagery thus seems to operate within a similar conceptual and cultural discourse. The Erec episode and the veristic imagery frame violence within moral, ethical, and legal dilemmas, measuring their causes and effects and criticizing the use of excess brutality. The modern concept of violence similarly aspires to be objective and quantifiable. Violence as a negative code of behavior is conceptualized according to legal, comparable, and measurable categories regarding the potency of pain and harm inflicted upon another’s body. In this sense, as noted above, violence as ethically regulated indeed appeared as a late medieval “invention”—a subject that is further explored in the chapters that follow. Interpreted in conjunction with the evolving notion of violence in the romances, the rhetoric of visual aggression with which the galleries of violence address their viewers seems to offer a new subtext for devotees. Rather than serving as exemplars for devotional imitation of the Passion depicted in the tympanum in Gmünd,

the unmediated brutality of the martyrdom scenes in the archivolts reshapes the entire context of the sacred narrative and, consequently, the viewer’s experience. Linda Williams has defined strong violence as having the capacity to elicit unmitigated and unsocialized emotions, acting on the mind by refusing it glib comfort and immediate resolution and thereby compelling a somatic response.95 Depicting the martyrs in a state of suspended torture rather than in its aftermath—either death or heavenly reward— evokes a similar experience. If a socialization process depends on the neutralizing of the extreme and constituting consensus, violence works to the contrary, suspending rationality, deconstructing solidarity, and offering a shift in moral positioning. The executions depicted in the martyrdom scenes are indeed rooted in contemporary devotion, but at the same time they open up a world of threat that acknowledges ambivalence that is otherwise denied in devotional imagery. Thus, instead of maintaining the context of the Passion, the mystery of salvation, and the imitatio Christi, the Gmünd cycle subverts conventional categories and meaning, giving rise instead to ambiguity and ambivalence (the category of criminal or saint, the inversion of visual paradigms, etc.), which open up a new visual discourse on the fear of violence. Late medieval violence imagery did not exist merely in a symbolic realm, nor in one of theological disputation or ethical discourse. Systems of monitoring and recording behavior in the towns of central Europe made their first appearance between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. These systems provided detailed reports of violent behavior within the city walls and established criteria for quantifying and conceptualizing violence.96 The civic milieu was also the place where the heroic bearing of pain was

replaced by a new sensibility to it,97 with gewalte as a term that engendered moral and ethical reflections. The haphazard relationship between cause and effect that characterized the everyday violence that was key to the chivalric era came to an end during the waning Middle Ages with the emergence of the modern state and the juridical systems of centralized governments. The subject of violence then became less tied up with honor and more bound to notions of civic order and the prevention of violent behavior and crimes.98 Paradoxically, the visualized torments of the martyrs were not always distinguishable from the punishments inflicted upon criminals; how, then, did devotees tell the difference—or interpret the similitude? Did they perceive the depicted victims as martyrs or as criminals? Did they identify themselves with the executioners or the victims? As Merback notes, the boundaries between the “spiritual athletes” of God and the executed criminals were often blurred, with the latter also viewed as Christlike.99 The interplay between the spectacle of violence in punitive judgment, devotional practice, and visual arts, combined with its rhetorical emotionalism that compelled a viewer to look and feel, constituted what Merback aptly calls the “medieval paradigm.”100 Merback, however, is addressing spectacular narratives of punishment in Crucifixion scenes that date much later than the sculptures discussed here. Fourteenth-century galleries of violence present a far more diversified range of variations on the theme of violence, torture, its technicality, and its stages. To what extent, then, might these galleries of mutilated martyrs have mediated and communicated concepts of violent behavior, of law and order, of sainthood versus transgression, and of villains and authority?

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Chapter 2

Between Theological and Juridical Positions

Von den englischen Wütereyen wäre noch vil zu schreiben, wan es die Zeit und Noth erforderte . . . darneben mit Rauben und Stehlen, Mörden und Nothzwengen solche Laster verübt, dass einer vermeint hätte, es wären keine Engelländer, wie sie sich nennten, sonder lauter eingefleischte Teuffel. O Gott behüt uns weiter vor Jammer. There is still a lot that can be written about the English criminals, if the time and place shall require it . . . besides robbing and stealing, murders and rape, such vices have been committed, that one could think they are not Englishmen, as they call themselves, but the devil’s incarnation. Oh God, protect us from such misery. —Annales oder Jahres-Geschichten der Baarfüsseren zu Thann

fi gur e 15  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, Life of the Virgin, ca. 1324–1420. Photo: author / Gili Shalom.

The year 1377 marked a climax of turbulent times for the Habsburg city of Thann: not only had the plague broken out repeatedly in Upper Alsace, but mobs of outlaws—primarily English gangs—were taking advantage of the situation and ravaging the population, plundering and destroying wherever they went, casting a menacing shadow over the quotidian lives of the local communities. Merciless rape, mutilation of violated bodies (female and male), decapitation, chopping of organs into pieces, boiling alive in oil or water, burning alive, and other unrestrained violent acts became such daily experiences that, in many cases, the inhabitants chose to commit suicide and immolate themselves rather than be caught by these cruel villains.1 Burning more than forty-six churches and monasteries, the “English lunatics” (englischen Wütereyen)—indeed “demons in disguise” (eingefleischte Teuffel ), as denounced in the local Annales—turned Upper Alsace into a valley of ashes with their thievery and actions of violent havoc. “Oh God,” prayed the Franciscans of Thann, “protect us from such misery.”2 Executed in several phases between 1370 and 1390, thirty-four scenes of martyrdom, torture, and murder were spread over the main archivolts of the west façade’s tympana in Thann and evoke horrors that were no less devastating (fig. 15).3 Although installed in the relatively

limited space and narrow depth of the archivolt niches, each scene is composed as a crowded execution event, consisting of the tormented saint, the commander, the executioners, and the witnesses, exceeding the conventional visual syntax of both archivolt sculpture and martyrdom depictions.4 Moreover, the cycle would appear to be the most comprehensive martyrs’ cycle of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in any media—whether stained glass, murals, winged altarpieces, panel paintings, or reliquaries—in focusing solely on the violence and cruelty of the bodily torture while leaving aside the entire narrative vitae of the saints.5 As with my analysis of Gmünd, I would like to resist the easy association of the violence imagery with late medieval mystical and devotional practices of the period and the idea of the imitatio Christi in order to suggest more nuanced interpretations. The notion of the imitatio Christi dominated almost every devotional and cultural arena of the period, from theological writings through liturgical drama and theatre to private devotional practices, but it is only in Thann that the frenzied torments of the martyrs seem to have been given such unparalleled attention, exceeding that of the Gmünd cycle. In attempting to account for the historical specificity and conceptual stipulations that motivated what I term the Thann martyria,6 one might well seek to locate the imagery within the larger context of the sculptural ensemble of the west portal and within the local cult of the saints, which entailed indigenous ceremonies and feasts, and the church’s reliquary, altarpiece, and treasury collections. However, as I discuss below, iconographically the Thann martyria have no direct typological relationship to the central topic of the façade, which is dedicated to the life of the Virgin and the miracles performed through her by Christ:7 the martyria follow no calendric order, the vast majority of the featured saints are not included in the local cult, and their

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remains are not in the church’s possession.8 On the contrary, the dedicatory saint of the church, Saint Theobald/Ubald of Um­bria—whose thumb relic is still revered in the church and who was the objective of much contemporary, prosperous pilgrimage along the routes leading from Italy to Flanders and Scandinavia—is not represented in the tympanum at all.9 The only references to local cults appear in the figures of Saint Afra of Augsburg and Saint Odile, who were venerated in the Alsatian region.10 Hence, the contextualization of the images within such generalizations as epochal veneration (whether local or transregional), affective piety, the imitatio Christi, or local ceremonial practices fails to elucidate the idiosyncrasies of the violent Thann gallery. In the following, I suggest that the organizing principles of the Thann martyria might be sought in the local Annales, which are dedicated generally to reports on the turbulent events of the era but deal mostly with those that took place in the local region or influenced local inhabitants. Written by the Franciscan friars who had settled in Thann from the thirteenth century on, in tandem with the building of the former and present church,11 the Annales provide us with an understanding of the specific categories of violent behavior that troubled the region. The annual accounts are structured around recurrent manifestations of mutilations of women, decapitations of men, and vivid aggressions such as burning, cooking, or boiling alive, interspersed with short prayers for heavenly intervention every couple of years. Furthermore, in the Franciscans’ attempt to call for authority, order, and reason in the face of such frenzied events, they seem to have induced the actuality of contemporary, renewed bodily martyrdom—as opposed to the so-called spiritual-mystical martyrdom of the era—as a consolation and a reordering ideology for the local communities.12 Analyzing the Thann martyria as partaking in these efforts, I interpret

the imagery of villains and self-sacrifice as not merely evoking the sacrifice of Christ in the historical past but also offering a means for imposing authority and meaning to actual current occurrences of violence, thereby affecting the perception, order, and ethics of reality among contemporary devotees. The thirty-four violent expositions in Thann were installed on the inner and most communicative archivolts of each of the three tympana of the west façade (see figs. 16–19). Although located within architectonic niches crowned with Gothic canopies, the staging of the scenes seems to go beyond this structural limitation. Each canopy serves as a pedestal for the sculptural group above it, on top of which is an additional sculptured base (a kind of shapeless clod of earth), which extends the niche, thereby enabling a multiple-figure composition and projecting the sculptural groups outward. Thus despite being visually “marginal” in the overall program of the portal, the crowded scenes of torment are easily discernible from the viewers’ level. In order to analyze this wider context in which the imagery appeared and functioned, I begin with a close examination of the gallery’s arrangement and iconography.13 From the standing viewer’s perspective, the most immediate and accessible scenes are those on the two lower tympana. The Crucifixion represented on the northern tympanum of the west façade is surrounded by eight martyr scenes, featuring, from left to right, the beheading of Thomas Becket (?) by the altar (fig. 16a);14 Saint Agnes appearing before the Roman governor (figs. 16b, 20); the boiling of an unidentified martyr, often mistakenly identified as Saint Vitus (fig. 16c);15 the serving of the head of Saint John the Baptist on a platter (fig. 16d); the ripping out of the nails of an unidentified martyr, perhaps Saint Erasmus or Saint Cassian (figs. 16e, 21);16 the burning of Saint Afra of Augsburg (figs. 16f, 22);17 Saint Sebastian shot with arrows

(figs. 16g, 23); and Saint Lawrence on the gridiron (fig. 16h). Considered, on one level, as a straightforward visual commentary on the main topic of the tympanum—the sacrifice of Christ— each martyrdom scene might indeed be understood as an exemplum of the witnessing of faith and imitatio Christi through participation in his bodily wounding and sacrifice.18 Nevertheless, the visual characteristics, the choice of martyrs, and the specifics of the various tortures suggest a more complicated, multi­ layered, and looser relationship between the tympanum and the archivolt. Saint Sebastian, for example, is not depicted in conventional typology, placed frontally between two archers in a Christomimetic composition that recalls Christ being pierced in the side by Longinus and offered the sponge soaked in vinegar wine by Stephaton (fig. 23). Instead, Sebastian is shown in profile. Further, the perpetrators are represented standing behind and not alongside him, about to shoot arrows into his back. Thus while denying the visuality of the imitatio and stressing the waiting archers, this composition suggests instead an alternative, contemporary function of the saint—probably as a protector against the plague, a disease that was conceptualized as the metaphorical arrows of God’s wrath.19 A similar reappropriation of a wellestablished visual tradition is seen in the image of Saint Agnes, who, rather than being stripped of her clothing, sent to a brothel, or tied to the stake, is depicted arguing with the Roman governor (see fig. 20).20 Other depictions of female martyrs, who similarly to Agnes were undressed, forced into sexual intercourse, and tortured via the mutilation of their sexual organs, are depicted in Thann according to their conventional, Christlike compositions, including Saint Barbara and Saint Agatha, both of whom appear in the archivolts of the upper tympanum (see figs. 28 and 30).21 The way Saint Agnes is depicted in Thann is thus a surprising choice.

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fi gur e 16  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Crucifixion tympanum, martyrdom scenes, ca. 1390: (a) Saint Thomas Becket (?), (b) Saint Agnes, (c) Saint Vitus (?), (d) Saint John the Baptist, (e) unidentified martyr (Saint Erasmus or Saint Cassian?), (f ) Saint Afra, (g) Saint Sebastian, (h) Saint Lawrence on the gridiron. Photos: author / Gili Shalom.

fi gur e 17  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Nativity tympanum, martyrdom scenes, ca. 1370: (a) Saint Stephen, (b) Saint Leodegar, (c) Saint Apollonia, (d) Saint Odile, (e) Saint Emmeram or Saint Jacobus, (f ) Saint Anthony’s temptations and demonic vision in the desert, (g) Saint Cecile, (h) Saint Matthew. Photos: author / Gili Shalom.

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fi gur e 18  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, left side, martyrdom scenes, ca. 1370: (a) Saint Philip, (b) Saint Barbara, (c) unidentified martyr (Saint James the Greater?), (d) Saint Paul, (e) Saint Agatha, (f ) Saint Bartholomew, (g) Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, (h) Saint Catherine. Photos: author / Gili Shalom.

a

b

c

d

e

f

g

h

a

b

c

d

e

f

g

h

fi gur e 19  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, right side, martyrdom scenes, ca. 1370: (a) Saint Judas Thaddeus and Saint Simon, (b) Saint Peter, (c) Saint Christopher, (d) Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand, (e) Saint John the Evangelist, (f ) unidentified martyr (James the Lesser?), (g) Saint Andrew, (h) Saint Simon or Saint Thomas. Photos: author / Gili Shalom.

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If the conceptualizer of the sculptural program in Thann did intend to evoke the imitatio Christi, other episodes from Agnes’s legend than her debate with the governor would have better served this purpose. Hence, both the specific events depicted and the compositions chosen work against a simple typological reading of the martyria. Additionally, other sorts of torture among the depictions, such as the ripping out of the fingernails of an unidentified martyr, perhaps Saint Erasmus or Saint Cassian (see fig. 21), are cruel and repulsive but bear only a loose visual relation to the Crucifixion and the torments of Christ; again, other martyrdoms, such as the crucifixions of Saint Peter or Saint Andrew, would have better served this purpose. Both Erasmus and Cassian underwent unbearable torments, including being fried on a pan with sulfur, forced to drink boiling oil, clothed in a burning metal costume, rolled in a barrel pierced

fi gur e 20 (opposite, above left)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Crucifixion tympanum, left side, detail: Saint Agnes, ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom. fi gur e 21 (opposite, above right)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Crucifixion tympanum, right side, detail: unidentified martyr (Saint Erasmus or Saint Cassian?), ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom. fi gur e 22 (opposite, below left)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Crucifixion tympanum, right side, detail: Saint Afra, ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom. fi gur e 23 (opposite, below right)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Crucifixion tympanum, right side, detail: Saint Sebastian, ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom.

with red-hot iron needles, dragged behind horses, and more.22 Although, like Christ, they had been stripped of their clothing except for a small loincloth, mocked, flagellated, and cut with small knives, the compositions in Thann do not feature these torments that would have associated them closely and overtly with Christ. Saint Afra tied to the stake (see fig. 22), on the other hand, does indeed call to mind Christ bound to the pillar at the Flagellation, but her inclusion in such cycles is quite rare.23 As Afra was especially venerated in Augsburg, the reason for this unique iconography might have been the fact that Thann and Upper Alsace belonged to the Augsburg jurisdiction.24 On the adjoining southern portal, with a spectacular Adoration of the Magi on its tympanum, the Thann martyria expand to an additional eight scenes, comprising, from left to right: the stoning of Saint Stephen (fig. 17a); the enucleation of Saint Leodegar’s eyes (figs. 17b, 24);25 the breaking and yanking of Saint Apollonia’s teeth (figs. 17c, 25);26 Saint Odile praying to save her father (fig. 17d);27 Saint Emmeram’s (or Saint Jacobus Intercisus’s) hands and feet being chopped to pieces (figs. 17e, 26);28 Saint Anthony’s temptations and demonic visions in the desert (fig. 17f ); the boiling and decapitation of Saint Cecile (figs. 17g, 27);29 and the decapitation of Saint Matthew (fig. 17h). Again, many of these scenes are entirely at odds with the idea of imitatio. As was the case with Saint Agnes, these saints are not represented in ways that overtly recall their similarity with Christ, such as being flagellated. Saint Anthony and Saint Odile, a local heroine, both of whom were actually confessors, are simply depicted praying. The inclusion of these scenes without bodily torments seem out of place in the martyria, a point to which I will return. The image identified thus far as Saint Emmeram poses an even greater interpretative difficulty as it fails to include a ladder (see fig.

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26). According to his legend in the Märterbuch, after falsely taking responsibility for the pregnancy of the unmarried Uta, daughter of the Bavarian duke, and stating, in order to save her life, that he had raped her, Saint Emmeram was bound to a ladder (a clear association with the Flagellation) and his body was chopped into pieces.30 Although the sculpture might indeed evoke this story, this legend is not included in the Alsatian Golden Legend, which was composed in nearby Strasbourg and in which the vitae of the majority of the martyrs—especially the local ones—can be found. On the other hand, both sources include a similar narrative in the vita of Saint Jacobus Intercisus, a Persian saint whose cult flourished primarily in the Eastern Church.31 Jacobus Intercisus underwent the

fig ure 24 (left)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Nativity tympanum, left side, detail: Saint Leodegar, ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom. fig ure 25 (right)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Nativity tympanum, left side, detail: Saint Apollonia, ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom. fig ure 26 (opposite, left)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Nativity tympanum, right side, detail: Saint Emmeram or Saint Jacobus Intercisus, ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom. fig ure 27 (opposite, right)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Nativity tympanum, right side, detail: Saint Cecile, ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom.

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same torture as Emmeram but was not bound to a ladder, so the archivolt may reference him instead. Nevertheless, it remains unclear as to how his cult would have been known in Alsace and entered the Alsatian Golden Legend, and there is no record of any local veneration of him. Here too, the Thann martyria deviate from any conventional grouping of tormented saints since, although several images do indicate local veneration, others do not. Moreover, unlike the Crucifixion, the scenes flanking the southwest tympanum do not have any direct typology with the Nativity. The archivolts of the upper tympanum (above the two lower ones) bring the sufferings of the martyrs to a grand crescendo. The

sixteen scenes encircling the Life of the Virgin Mary present an even more macabre parade than those of the lower tympana. The portrayals begin in the spandrel between the vault of the Crucifixion and the Life of the Virgin with the nailing of Saint Philip to a cross (see fig. 18a); they then continue (from left to right) with a horrible depiction of Saint Barbara hung by her feet, her head smashed on the floor, her breasts slashed, and torches burning her skin (figs. 18b, 28); the sawing off of the head of an unidentified martyr, perhaps James the Greater (figs. 18c, 29);32 Saint Paul, already decapitated, with his head about to roll out of the niche (fig. 18d); Saint Agatha with her nipples and breasts slashed (figs. 18e, 30); Saint Bartholomew being

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fi gur e 28 (opposite, above left)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, left side, detail: Saint Barbara, ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom. fi gur e 29 (opposite, above right)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, left side, detail: unidentified martyr (James the Greater?), ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom. fi gur e 30 (opposite, below left)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, left side, detail: Saint Agatha, ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom. fi gur e 31 (opposite, below right)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, left side, detail: Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom. fi gur e 32 (right, above)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, right side, detail: Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand, ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom. fi gur e 33 (right, below)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, middle archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, right side, detail: Cain kills Abel, ca. 1351–70. Photo: author / Gili Shalom.

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flayed alive (figs. 18f, 42); the Huns massacring the eleven thousand virgin-companions of Saint Ursula and throwing them into the sea (figs. 18g, 31); and Saint Catherine broken on the wheel (figs. 18h, 40). The right side of the archivolt features, from the top down, Saint Juda and Saint Simon praying while attacked by a mob (fig. 19a); Saint Peter crucified (fig. 19b); Saint Christopher crowned with a red-hot iron helmet (fig. 19c); the Ten Thousand Martyrs pierced by acacia thorns (figs. 19d, 32); Saint John the Evangelist immersed in a cauldron of oil (fig. 19e); an unidentified martyr, probably James the Lesser, about to lose his head from a blow with a pig’s leg (fig. 19f );33 Saint Andrew roped to the cross (fig. 19g); and, in the spandrel, the head of either Saint Simon or Saint Thomas split in half by a sword (fig. 19h). This “horror show” finds its origins on the next archivolt, at the end of the Creation cycle, with the forerunner of all transgressors: Cain takes the role of the executioner while Abel leans submissively on a rock, offering his body to the blows of the hoe (fig. 33).34 Unlike the lower tympana, here all the scenes in the martyrs’ archivolt of the upper tympanum are exclusively dedicated to the cruelty of the executioners and the mutilated martyrs, without any direct relationship with the life of Mary. Although one might argue that Mary could be perceived as a prototype of martyrdom, her compassio rendering her the Queen of Martyrs as she sacrifices her own son, nothing in the program suggests such an association or references the seven sorrows of Mary. Although the upper tympanum features twenty-five scenes from the Life of the Virgin, the imagery focuses on the various miracles performed by her or through her intervention and not on her compassio.35 If the Thann martyria were indeed intended to be a grand spectacle of the imitatio, the archivolt imagery should have framed either the Passion of Christ or the Last Judgment, as was

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customary in many contemporary cycles in the southern German-speaking regions.36 As a whole, the Thann martyria do not follow an easily comprehensible order. As I have demonstrated, the scenes do not coherently illustrate the notion of the imitatio nor do they represent a locally anchored cult, a specifically venerated saint, or a revered relic. They do not even construct a recognizable apostles-martyrs cycle, as is common in many churches in the region, since the twelve apostles are scattered rather randomly across the three tympana with no visual cohesion. They have no narrative sequence, and they do not follow the calendric ordering that can be traced in both the local and the general martyrology. As martyria, the scenes cannot be read in linear-symmetrical, oppositional-binary, or any another type of order. They are not even divided by gender: although its left side includes four male and four female martyrs, the right side comprises exclusively male figures.37 Even obvious pairings are not situated in a balanced way: the Eleven Thousand Virgins with Saint Ursula appear in the seventh niche to the left of the upper tympanum archivolt, while their parallel, the Ten Thousand (male) Martyrs, appear in the fifth niche on the right side of the tympanum and do not face them. In fact, the installation of the scenes seems to deliberately work against any typical classification or ordering principle that would have helped the beholders follow the stories. Moreover, whereas some scenes are depicted conventionally, others are not, thus making an immediate identification of the saints difficult. The selection of scenes and their locations appear almost random, their relation to the main sculpture vague, and their identity at times unclear, thus forcing the devotees to examine each detail in order to understand what is going on. A few easily visually identifiable martyrdoms, such as the upside-down crucifixion of

Saint Peter or the impaling with arrows of Saint Sebastian, which might offer the viewers visual anchors to assist in deciphering the cycle, are lost amid many nonspecific scenes of violence, all devoid of haloes and rendered with unusual iconography. At first sight, the Thann martyria seems to follow no sacred narrative at all and appears instead as a medley of violent and almost sadistic imagery. The visual decontextualization diverts the viewers’ attention from traditional exegesis and devotional context and forces them to focus upon the violent acts. However, setting aside the interpretations of affective piety and the imitatio Christi, I would like to suggest two interesting categorizations of the entirety of this seemingly chaotic arrangement of the Thann martyria. The first is based on the martyrs’ societal roles. There are twelve martyred apostles arranged in eleven niches plus twelve male martyrs—comprising six ecclesiastics, three ascetics, two soldiers, and one converted pagan “monster” (Saint Christopher).38 In addition, there are nine female martyrs, comprising six aristocrats, two ascetics, and one converted prostitute (Saint Afra). Taken in sum, the twelve apostles match the twelve male martyrs. The twelve male martyrs include one confessor, and similarly, the nine female martyrs include one confessor. Other societal categories for the male and female martyrs also align: the six Princes of the Church (the bishops and archbishops) match the six female aristocrats; there are ascetics of both genders; and there are a male and a female repentant who, before converting, had exemplified an antimodel to Christian morality (the monstrous giant Christopher and the prostitute Afra). A second method of categorization—the types of torture—allows for even more intriguing insights. Nine male martyrs are being decapitated, and although according to the legends, all the female martyrs were beheaded as well (as is frequently depicted in numerous other

artworks), none of the victims is represented as such here. It seems that in Thann, decapitation is an exclusively male fate. Six torments are concerned with mutilation of the male body, and an additional six with sexual mutilation of the female body. There are two scenes of massacres, one of a female crowd and the other of a male group, and two scenes of burning alive—one of a man (Saint Lawrence) and the other of a woman (Saint Afra). The three crucifixion scenes all include images of appropriate devotional practice and portray the saints in prayer. All in all, these features suggest a balance in multiple categories of martyrdom, of which devotional practice is but one. Thus I would conclude that the Thann martyria, after all, does comprise a cycle. The ostensibly chaotic order and the dismantling of transitional groupings (such as that of the apostles) imply that different organizational principles dictated the conceptualization. I argue that it is precisely those principles—of social belonging and categories of torture—that are found in the contemporary local discourse of martyrdom and pogroms. During the long period in which the church of Saint Theobald was erected, between 1324 and 1400 (and especially during the execution of the archivolts, which were adorned with the sculpted images only at a late phase of the construction, sometime between the 1370s and 1400), the communities of the Upper Alsatian region experienced a series of disastrous events. These included recurrent outbreaks of the plague, which, as in many other cities at that time, shook the very foundations of contemporary moral and religious assumptions. The events were recorded by the Thann Franciscan friars in the local Annales, which attempted to trace a specific teleology in the face of those turbulent times through a retelling of the events according to a certain historical or theological pattern. Thus many of the local records are accompanied by an account of other catastrophes

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on the European continent in order to locate them within a greater universal and sacred narrative framework. As is often the case with medieval archival documents that have been reworked through the centuries, the Annales are a problematic source. The reports were written and preserved in Thann’s Franciscan monastery outside the city walls from the fourteenth to the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, a site that also served as the burial place for the city’s aristocracy. Originally written as calendric reports, the Annales were severely damaged by the fire that demolished the monastery in 1609.39 The fragmentary documents that survived were reassembled, compiled, and unfortunately to some extent rewritten during the seventeenth century by the Franciscan friar Malachiam Tschamser. Nevertheless, as this source sheds a great deal of light on local and regional history as well as on general events on the continent, it has been analyzed meticulously by Karl Scholly and Heinrich Lempfrid.40 Through a critical study of the linguistic aspects and a comparison with parallel records in contemporary chronicles found in neighboring archives, as in Basel and Pruntrut, they have been able to suggest which of the entries in the Annales might indeed be considered as “authentic” to the fourteenthcentury original and thus may allow us to reflect upon the local events and agendas.41 To introduce a meaningful purpose to the chaotic events of the present reality, the authors of the Annales paralleled the seemingly random local events of Thann with contemporaneous incidents from the Holy Roman Empire that had already been morally and theologically interpreted in relation to early Christian martrydom in order to project their meanings onto Thann’s history. In 1326, two years after laying the cornerstone of the church, the Annales report that Polish troops deceived and dishonored the virgins in a convent in the Westphalian town of Marck. One of the nuns convinced

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her tormentor that she could teach him how to avoid being stabbed, and in order to demonstrate, she stretched her neck over his sword and committed suicide, thus keeping her virginity.42 Although she was not called a martyr, this was a voluntary death drawn on the patterns of early Christian martyrdom and is easily comparable to many images on the Thann façade. Together with the earliest outbreaks of the plague, such comparisons between self-sacrifice and the acts of the saints were articulated in the Annales in the particular vocabulary of martyrdom. In 1320, according to the Annales, the plague had already severely struck several French principalities where Jews were being pursued and persecuted, although not yet blamed, for the disease. However, following the persecutions, as the text reads, the Jews had poisoned all the wells and water sources out of revenge. Whether written retrospectively after the Black Death of 1348 or in “real time,” this account is a rather interesting early narrative reasoning regarding the contagion.43 In 1331 in Überlingen am Bodensee, three hundred Jews were locked in a house that was set on fire. Those who tried to jump out of the windows were caught and beaten to death. The massacre was in retribution for the allegation that “dise verbeinte Schelmen ein christ­ liches Knäblein, eines Burgers daselbsten mit Nammen Frey, Söhnlein lebendig geschunden und grausam gemartert haben” (these cursed pests mutilated the Christian child of a citizen named Frey, whilst still alive, and turned him into a martyr [martyred him] in the most gruesome way).44 Here, the Annales specifically employ the vocabulary of a martyr’s death; moreover, they evoke one of the most terrifying categories of all martyrdom and juridical punishment—flaying alive—associating the young Frey with Saint Bartholomew. The frequent references to contemporary martyrdom that accumulated over the years were given a comparative framework with more celebrated martyrs of the era. In 1345, for

example, it is reported that the priest Livinius Gallus, a missionary to the Orient, had suffered martyrdom and was sent to heaven by decapitation (“ein herrliche Marter gen Himmel geschickt”).45 This account is paralleled with Saint Achatius, who, according to the Alsatian legend, also preached in the East and was martyred on Mount Ararat together with the ten thousand soldiers converted by him.46 Similar to Achatius, Gallus preached to the Turks to try to convert them and was subsequently decapitated. In the next report, this agenda of the renewed bodily martyrdom “movement” reaches a peak: a certain preacher Peter Lombardus (probably an invented figure, as there is no fourteenth-century Franciscan martyr bearing this name) suffered martyrdom at the hands of wild infidels, willingly spilling his innocent and pure blood in accordance with Christ’s will. His blood was received by the Franciscans, and he was buried not far from Milan.47 This fictional record is not only constructed out of the earlier reports of contemporary martyrdom but also clearly suggests an association with the martyrdom of the Dominican Saint Peter of Verona in 1252, whose corpse was kept in the Church of Saint Eustorgio in Milan and was housed in a prestigious arca designed by Giovanni di Balduccio in 1339.48 The “invention” of a parallel Franciscan martyr was probably meant to divert the pilgrims from a Dominican to a Franciscan cult. These constitutive contemporary martyrdoms function in the text as a closure or frame story and metanarrative for the contemporary acts of violence and are repeated regularly in several reports. The accounts inserted between those exemplary martyrdoms engender subcategories of violent experience—recurrent wars,49 murder, crime, and plunder. In 1333, the Annales report that poor Alsatians were widely afflicted by robbers. The inhabitants of Strasbourg participated in a sortie and helped those in trouble. The Alsatians fought back and reoccupied the towns of Ehrstein, Sulz, Schutteren,

and Schwanau, where the robbers were holed up, killing all of the villains.50 In the same year, in Constance, Jews attacked the Christian populace; while many Christians were injured, the Jews suffered far worse: nine found their death in the city square, six were drowned, and twelve were burned alive.51 This numeric categorization and approximation of balance recalls the organizing principles of the Thann martyria. In 1348 the Annales only laconically mention that a severe plague had struck the continent and was approaching Thann. By 1349 the number of deaths was too high to tabulate. In Basel, the diocese to which Thann belonged,52 only a third of the population survived, and despite the lack of any proof, the Jews were blamed for poisoning the wells and were burned alive in many cities on the route between Basel and Strasbourg. The diseased themselves (considered as martyred by the Jews) were drowned in the Rhine River that crosses the city until the water ran black, as the Annales report. In Mainz, in the Middle Rhine region, it was reported that the fire used for burning Jewish flesh was so strong that the bells of the nearby Saint Quirinus Church melted.53 The merciless fires spread throughout the regions of Alsace and the southern German-speaking lands, including around Ulm, Esslingen, Constance, and Augsburg. The Jews were “grausamb und unerbärmlich verfolgt, verbrennt, verwürgt, vertränckht, erhengt, zu den Fenstern zu Tod gestürsst, den Kopf ab­ gehauen, erstochen und mit tausend Pein” and even “Marter hingerichtet” (the Jews were persecuted cruelly, without pity, burnt, strangled, drowned, hanged, defenestrated to their death, beheaded, stabbed, punished in a thousand ways, and even executed in the fashion of martyrs).54 Burning alive became a punishment that was associated primarily with the execution of Jews or heretics of the lowest order, and apart from one case, torments of this type were not used to describe contemporary martyrdom death.55 Thus it is not surprising that in spite of the

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frequent references to acts of burning martyrs alive in the Alsatian Golden Legend, the representation of burning is only minor in Thann. Even Agnes, one of the most renowned female martyrs among those burned at the stake, is not represented in this way; only Afra, who as a prostitute was of baser origins, could be linked with punishments reserved for the lowest strata of the social order. Apart from the horrors of the plague, the most frequent violent attacks mentioned in the chronicles were those inflicted by robbers, villains, and English gangs, first mentioned in 1363 as die Englische Gesellschaft. Although at that time an interim peace had been signed between the English and the French, independent groups of English mercenaries crossed the borders into Alsace and attacked both the townspeople and the country folk.56 In 1365, as the records proclaim, these gangs invaded Alsace in order to sack it, taking prisoners for ransom. Those financially unable to redeem themselves were beaten and executed, mostly through decapitation. The groups invaded the monasteries of Schönensteinbach, Feldbach, Altschpach, and Thann, defiling and raping the nuns and then burning every barn, granary, and feed store, as well as the dwellings themselves. By 1372 the fires, murders, and plunder had left many of the survivors in poverty. In 1373 the so-called birds of prey again raided Upper and Lower Alsace. They used the women to satisfy their “beastly desires” (“die Weiber und Jungfrawen missbrauchten sie zu ihren viehischen Gelüsten”)57 and held the men for ransom, often mutilating them by dragging, piercing their limbs, and finally decapitating them.58 In that year, “there was a great sorrow and woeful misery in all places,” as the Annales state.59 Many of the villains barricaded themselves in the “herrlisheimb den Staßburg” but were finally caught and executed: sixteen were hanged, and thirty-four were decapitated. However, in

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1375 the English were again plundering Alsace, this time with thousands of soldiers, demanding gold, luxurious clothing, and horses. Once again, they abused the women indescribably and demanded ransom for the men’s heads: the rich were exchanged for money, horses, and silk; the poor for shoes, nails, and horseshoes; the young were kept as servants and stable boys. Those who could not afford to redeem themselves lost their heads (“die es nit gaben, müssten den Kopf dargeben”).60 In 1377, the English soldiers were denounced as lunatic demons, as they had reduced old Thann, Gennheim, Mittelsheim, Uffholz, Streinbach, and many other villages to ashes and set fire to some forty-six churches and monasteries. Finally, in 1378, many of them were caught, and their leaders decapitated.61 Although the specific details of these events should be treated with caution, as many of the reports were obviously politically motivated both by local agendas and literary formulas, they nevertheless reveal some fundamental ways of thinking that inspired the textual, mental, and visual images of violent experiences. Essentially, the text of the Annales is organized to provide meaning through the religious notion of martyrdom, which enabled its readers/ hearers to experience a sense of control and divine understanding in regard to the horrors of their daily reality. The local suffering is situated within a general framework of renewed martyrdom, East (Babel) and West (Bodensee, Milan, England, etc.), allowing local inhabitants to perceive themselves as participating actively in the course of sacred history. The sculptured cycle also partakes in this “global,” historical contextualization, featuring saints of the Eastern Church. It is unusual that the sacrifice of Christ is not mentioned or directly implied as a moralistic framing for the Annales’s accounts, which deal only with those of the martyrs, a strategy that recalls the exceptional expropriation of the

Thann martyria from the direct typology of the imitatio Christi. Furthermore, the tortures of the victims are classified according to several social and gender-based categories: men are primarily decapitated; nuns and noblewomen suffer dishonor and sexual abuse; and men from lower in the social hierarchy are mutilated by either piercing or dragging. Although many villages, towns, and ecclesiastical institutions were set on fire, burning alive and drowning (which might be compared with boiling in water or oil) remained in the construction of the text, as noted above, exclusively punishments for Jews (apart from those already inflicted by the plague and doomed). Moreover, similar to the regular interruption of the Annales text with direct prayers to God (“O Gott behüt uns weiter vor Jammer” [Oh God, protect us from such misery]), the sculpted cycle is also interspersed with embedded, single images of praying confessors. Thus, a similar categorization and diverting of attention from the imitatio Christi to the imitatio martyris characterize the Thann martyria and offer points of reference aimed at restoring reason and authority in a disordered reality. Among the most remarkable features of the martyrdom scenes in Thann are the crowded multiple-figure compositions of the individual sculptural groups. Although each scene is installed on a base that extends the borders of the niche, it is still most unusual that a relatively circumscribed space with a somewhat limited visibility such as the archivolt would be adorned with such crowded sculpture. One would expect each niche to be conventionally populated with a two-figure group consisting of the martyr and the executioner, thus making the scenes easily discernible from the viewer’s level. Such is the case in other contemporary cycles, including the martyr cycles in Saint Stephen’s in Vienna, ca. 1360; Schwäbisch Gmünd, ca. 1351–70; and the Ulm Minster, ca. 1400, all of which belong to the same artistic milieu as Thann—the Parler

workshops and their followers.62 The composition in Thann, repeated in almost every group, comprises the ruler (usually crowned), the martyr, and three to four executioners or spectators. A few examples: four male figures toil at the mutilation of Saint Barbara, while the king supervises the event (see fig. 28); two tormentors slash Saint Agatha’s breasts as she stands naked before the Roman governor Quintianus, while a man (her father?) inspects or witnesses the event (see fig. 30); two eyewitnesses—not included in legends—beg the king for mercy for Saint Catherine, as an executioner appears by the wheel being broken by an angel (see fig. 18h); the executioner raises his sword to strike the death blows to decapitate Saint Simon and Saint Judah, while two other men, hands on scabbards, simply watch the event (see fig. 19a); an even greater crowd of five tormenters watch the decapitation of Saint Paul (see fig. 18d); and four torturers flay Bartholomew, while the king supervises from the rear (see figs. 18f, 42). A comparison with the parallel image of this latter martyrdom in Schwäbisch Gmünd is illustrative as both were executed by the Parler workshops (see fig. 43):63 in Gmünd, Bartholomew lies on the ground while his flayed skin falls in the direction of the viewer and a single tormentor appears behind him; there are no additional tormentors or spectators, and the governor is not depicted. The specificity of the visual semantics at Thann becomes even clearer when compared with illustrations from the Alsatian Golden Legend.64 Whereas one would usually consider book illuminations as fertile ground for iconographical “borrowings,” it seems that this was not the case in Thann. Although the general design of the figures and the basic iconography of the manuscripts and the sculptures can indeed be associated, they reveal more differences than commonalities. For example, in the depth of the niche featuring John the Baptist’s martyrdom,

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Herod and Herodias are sitting at a table with two male companions; the headless corpse of the Baptist still kneels in the foreground; the grotesque figure of the executioner with his sword in its sheath is on the right; and Salome offers the severed head on a round plate to her smiling mother on the left (fig. 34). The parallel scene in the Alsatian Golden Legend bears some resemblance to the Thann sculpture, although primarily from a stylistic point of view, as there are fundamental discrepancies (fig. 35). In the manuscript, Salome also stands with the plate in her hands, but the Baptist is not yet decapitated; the executioner raises his arms and waves his sword while the Baptist kneels obediently under Herod’s supervision. All this takes place in front of an architectural backdrop. Although one would think that multiple-figure composition was particularly apt for the lingering contemplative look offered by book illuminations, the composition here is rather succinct and reduced to the fundamental components of the story. Thann includes several elements omitted in the manuscript: the elaborate feast with the two onlookers and Herod’s overjoyed wife. The same brevity characterizes the other martyrdoms in the illustrated Alsatian Golden Legend, such as the decapitations of Saint Paul and Saint James the Greater and the flaying of Saint Bartholomew, which contain only the executioners, the kneeling martyrs, and the supervising ruler (figs. 36, 37). The additional figures in the Thann sculptures—whether active tormentors or passive spectators—do not serve to provide any narrative expansion of the scenes, as each martyrdom focuses solely on the moment of execution and not on the preceding chain of events. Such figures also serve no purpose in expounding the narrative, identifying the martyr, or communicating a message, and the busy compositions themselves are inapposite for the conventional visual semantics of archivolt sculpture.

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Moreover, although several legends of the saints do include horrified Christian onlookers or approving pagan audiences witnessing the executions, the additional figures in Thann are primarily representatives of law and authority, not the populace. The impulse behind this scenic expansion does not therefore lie in the visual conventions of the legends themselves or in the idea of imitatio. It would also be an oversimplification to relate it directly to historical

fi gur e 34 (opposite)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, inner archivolt of the Crucifixion tympanum, left side, detail: Saint John the Baptist. Photo: author / Gili Shalom. fi gur e 35 (above, left)  Martyrdom of John the Baptist, in Elsässische Legenda Aurea (Straßburg “Werkstatt von 1418”), 1419. Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 144, Bl. fol. 89v. Photo: Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg. fi gur e 36 (above, right)  Martyrdom of Saint Paul, in Elsässische Legenda Aurea (Straßburg “Werkstatt von 1418”), 1419. Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 144, Bl. fol. 7r. Photo: Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg. fi gur e 37 (below)  Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, in Elsässische Legenda Aurea (Straßburg “Werkstatt von 1418”), 1419. Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 144, Bl. fol. 82v. Photo: Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg. 57

realties, equating the multiple harassers with the hordes of villains who had violated the city. Rather, as was the case with the organizational principle of the cycle in its entirety, contemporary thought and practice may explain the inclusion of the multiple figures of executioners and eyewitnesses. In several senses the spectacle of torture reveals a close affinity to the contemporary penalties for law-breaking and the performative rituals of public execution.65 The legal concept of violence seeks to be objective and quantifiable. Violence is conceptualized according to legal, comparable, and measurable categories quantifying the potency of pain inflicted upon another’s body. While Aquinas offered, for the first time in medieval theology, a systematic discussion of the terms crudelitas and violentia, similar efforts were also being invested in contemporaneous juridical discourse. From the mid-thirteenth century on, ordeals and duels were being replaced in favor of a judiciary system that gradually categorized crimes and violent behaviors, assigning them measurable and appropriate penalties (albeit still arbitrary and full of loopholes).66 Decollation, for example, was reserved for crimes committed by the aristocracy against the state, including treason; dragging by horses was for well-known criminals (it was used in a rare depiction of Saint Philip in Wellmich am Rhein; since he usually appears bound to a cross by rope, this image blurs the boundaries between juridical and theological violence, plate 13); burning at the stake was for heretics (as is also the case in the Annales); impaling or live burial was for rapists; and boiling alive was for sodomites or those who had attempted suicide. Similar imposition of a specific punishment in relation to a specific crime and social status is also evident in courtly literature. For example, in Erec, as discussed in the previous chapter, specific tortures—whether flogging, cutting off the fingers, enucleating the

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eyes, skinning the body, or decapitating—were meted out according to the rank of the offender and the severity of his violation of the knightly code. Considering the fluidity between juridical practices and martyrial torments, we have to wonder whether the specificity of the punitive practices affected the way the gallery of violence imagery was understood. Were Saint John the Evangelist (see fig. 19e) or the unidentified martyr (see fig. 16c) in the Thann archivolts, who are both depicted as boiled alive, perceived by viewers as sodomitic criminals?67 Furthermore, while a great variety of crimes in early times were punished by the villains being put to the wheel, from 1362 on, this sentence was reserved for traitors and murderers.68 Female sexual criminals, additionally, were more likely to be either burned or buried alive, whereas male villains were beheaded.69 The correlation between visual representations and specific juridical punishments is evident in several stagings of the executions in Thann. A comparable imagery of executions of criminals appears in such legal treatises and chronicles as the fourteenth-century Fleurs des chroniques,70 which was compiled by the inquisitor Bernard Gui (d. 1331) and then translated from the Latin and further expanded at the order of Charles V.71 Its illustrations demonstrate the rituals and techniques of state executions, which overlap with the Thann martyria: chopping off the hands of forgers in 1321 (fig. 38; almost identical to the image of Saint Emmeram/Saint Jacobus Intercisus, see fig. 26); the decapitation of Norman lords in Rouen in 1356; the execution with an axe of Nicolas le Flamand in 1382 (fig. 39; similar to Cain killing Abel, see fig. 33), and many other examples.72 These images can hardly be distinguished from the martyrdoms in Thann in terms of iconography and syntax: both show a series of extremely violent behaviors, with multiple-figure compositions consisting of the inspecting governor, the

fi gur e 38  Chopping Off the Hands of Forgers, in Les Fleurs des Chroniques, 1321. Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 677, fol. 88v. After DuBruck, “Violence and Late Medieval Justice,” fig. D 4, drawing by Yirmi Pinkus. fi gur e 39  Execution of Nicolas le Flamand, in Les Fleurs des Chroniques, 1382. Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 677, fol. 122v. After DuBruck, “Violence and Late Medieval Justice,” fig. D 2, drawing by Yirmi Pinkus.

executioner, the victim, and a band of spectators or eyewitnesses. It therefore seems reasonable to assume that the imagery at Thann evoked in its spectators the contemporaneous liturgy of execution and contemporary practices of punishment. Other images in Thann that, as already noted, have not yet been identified73 appear to parallel the penalties represented in fourteenthcentury pitture infamanti, as well as in the contemporary and later German Schandbildern and Schmähbriefen,74 depicting punishments of criminals in cases where the transgressors were beyond the reach of the law and no legal remedy was available. In Thann, several of the not clearly identified martyrs are depicted as having their heads sawed off or as boiled alive—the latter a common practice for those convicted of sexual crimes.75 Other forms of extreme violence in Thann—being clubbed to death with the amputated legs of animals, having veins slashed with sticks and swords, being axed in the skull—belong to the medieval battlefield instead of explicitly to martyrdom or the punitive system.76 These novel images were not encoded in any saintly visual tradition. It is possible that the sources and local legends that nourished these depictions have been lost, but it is also more than likely that both images and legends were influenced by contemporary juridical processes and the experiences of diverse realities. Execution itself was a calculated, staged, and orchestrated event: the way to the gallows crossed several stations in the city, in the course of which the convicted criminal’s limbs were mutilated to visibly demonstrate the local sovereign’s ability to impose law and order.77 This spectacle of torments had a social as well as legal function, as it was not so much aimed at the suffering of the criminal’s body as at the bodies and souls of the spectators and the community; that is to say, it was devised to constitute a visual enactment of authority.78 The liturgy of public

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execution was designed to demonstrate authority and to indoctrinate the audience.79 It presented an important moral lesson—the criminal could repent and be reaccepted into the Christian community, thus embodying Christian virtue. In this sense, villains were executed less to revenge their misdeeds but, rather, to restore order and morality to the community as a whole; their bodies were sacrificed for the common good, rehabilitating Christian morality and social stability, almost as if they were martyrs.80 The indoctrination succeeded due to three factors: the complete monopoly of the court over all infliction of state violence, the ritualization of the executions and their communicative gestures, and the presence of eyewitnesses. The events were staged according to unwritten but well-known visual rules in which the gestures of the accused and the specifics of their torments testified to the nature of their misconduct. As instructed in many records, the type of crime signaled the precise type of punishment: the murderer should be dragged by a horse, the traitor beheaded, the thief hanged, other criminals quartered, and so on;81 and thus the visuality of the executions was comprehensible to the spectators. In Thann, as explored above, the torture and execution scenes closely follow local, contemporary penalties as categorized in the Annales, known well to the townspeople from their own experiences. Beyond the formal similarities between the martyrdom scenes and the visual semantics of public executions, the supplemental attendants at each archivolt provide an even more compelling correlation with the juridical system. At the core of the new civic punitive system stood the so-called law of proof, which was meant to replace the earlier system of verification, namely the ordeals.82 Whereas the ordeals purported to achieve confidence in adjudication through heavenly intervention, the new system sought to attain this goal through human mediation.

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The law of proof was designed to eliminate human subjective discretion from the determination of guilt. It demanded that a verdict be based on at least two eyewitnesses to the crime and that the offered evidence be “as clear as the noonday sun.”83 One witness was as bad as no witness.84 Two witnesses were sufficient as long as the specific case did not require more. Three witnesses would further enhance the possibility of a clear-cut verdict. If the accused was of high rank, such as a bishop, however, even more witnesses were required.85 Thus legally a court could not convict without at least two to four eyewitnesses, even though this rule was manipulated in practice.86 Eyewitnesses were subject to strict rules. For example, witnesses could not have any personal interest or family loyalty in the case, such as inheritors; they could not have bad reputations or generic incapacities; they could not be young children, elderly people suffering from mental deterioration, or sometimes even women.87 Moreover, the execution itself, in addition to the verdict, demanded the presence and testimony of eyewitnesses, but because it was usually performed in public, these regulations were less specific. The law of proof and the necessity for eyewitnesses might thus explain the inclusion of the many attendants in the Thann martyria and their frequently specified high social status and male gender: the scenes were visually constructed to be associated with the contemporary courts, criminal investigations, and spectacles of public executions. Viewed from this perspective, the Thann martyria seem to move between theological and juridical positions, between the imitatio martyris and new ideas about law and authority. Each martyrdom or torture scene is located at the very edge of the niche, extended through the supplemental base of the installation and projected into the space of the viewers. Despite the crowded scenes and the uncomfortable

viewing angle of the archivolts, every individual torture becomes identifiable, easily comprehensible through the ritualistic gestures and poses employed. The backgrounds of the scenes, crowded with participants or audience members, deliver the notion of witnessing, so essential to the contemporary performance of the law. The Thann martyria are thus based on a broader body of knowledge, albeit not a textual or scriptural one but, rather, a knowledge that was available to ordinary community members from their everyday experiences and practices, based on visual acquaintance with civic rites. These contexts make the Thann sculpture a coherent and effective communicative system in which holy martyrdom and civic executions echo one another. At the same time, the great variety of the depicted martyrs—women, men, soldiers, bishops, monks, nuns, royalty, and even children (in the Massacre of the Innocents)88— presents the diversity of social affiliations under the law. Even if devotees might not have been able to name each of the martyrs, owing to the sometimes obscure iconography or the unclear differentiation between martyrs and tortured criminals, they could still easily associate them with specific social groups and with their traditionally or legally assigned tortures. Violent imagery does not reflect, produce, reproduce, or constitute reality—after all,

human history is violent, and there is no direct correlation between the atrocities of a specific period and the utilization of violent imagery.89 However, an understanding of its semantics might reveal late medieval religious and extrareligious notions of contemporary martyrdom and physical disfigurement. At first sight, the Thann martyria seem almost chaotic, lacking any organizing principle, and it is often labelled in art-historical discourse as a futile narrative expansion resulting from the sculptors’ incompetence in conceptualizing an encompassing program and their desire to produce a decorative covering for the entire tympana. I argue instead that the martyria comprise a well-structured and conceptualized cycle. Working within the same perceptual framework as the local Annales and within the same visual signs as the public executions, the cycle brings order to a disordered, violent reality. It reenacts law and authority, suggesting the triumph of reason and offering a model for the local inhabitants to think of themselves as new martyrs. A powerful expression of Christian authority, the Thann martyria offer the promise that even if turbulent times might cause God’s flock to feel abandoned, nonetheless the Church—together with the sanctioned ruler—will still “protect us from such misery.”

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Chapter 3

Bodily Imagination, Imagined Bodies

Supposed I am complaining that someone has been murdered. Am I not to have before my eyes all the circumstances which one can believe to have happened during the event? Will not the assassin burst out on a sudden, and the victim tremble, cry for help, and either plead for mercy or try to escape? Shall I not see one man striking the blows and the other man falling? Will not the blood, the pallor, the groans, the last gasp of the dying be imprinted on my mind? —Quintilian, Orator’s Education 6.2.31–32

The torments of Saint Bartholomew and Saint Catherine of Alexandria are among the most frequently featured martyrdoms in late medieval artworks in German-speaking lands. These saints are also among the earliest martyrs depicted in what Callahan has defined as the clinical or the theatrical manners, as opposed to the iconic manner.1 As noted in chapter 1, in iconic representations saints are portrayed as serene and intact, holding the instruments of their torments as attributes; in clinical images they appear calm and motionless while experiencing torture resembling a contemporary medical procedure; and in theatrical images, they are shown at the moment of execution in a brutal spectacle. Although these categories have proven effective in classifying the nature of violent representation and its possible reception in regard to similar manifestations in theatrical events and juridical processes, in the following pages I raise the issue of spectator response to the violent imagery, which was primarily imagined but not practiced. As a springboard for the discussion, I focus on the flaying of Bartho­ lomew and the breaking of Catherine on the wheel. Both are cases that were visually rearticulated during the fourteenth century to address viewers with new modes of communication. By exploring how these specific martyrdoms stimulated speculative and unmediated somatic responses centered on the viewers’ bodies,

I reflect on the ways by which, on the one hand, the visual representations of tortured bodies might have materialized viewers’ imaginations, and on the other hand, how they evoked responses and were imagined on the bodies of the viewers themselves. Although in these representations the victims might not always “tremble, cry for help, and either plead for mercy or try to escape,” the “blood, the pallor, the groans, the last gasp of the dying” are not only imprinted on the viewers’ minds, but they also potently activate the viewers’ faculties of bodily imagination. The torments of Saint Catherine are orchestrated as a public spectacle in Thann (fig. 40): at the left of the relief, the Emperor Maxentius orders the torture of the saint, while two male figures kneel, clasping their hands in supplication and pleading for the governor’s mercy. These men serve as surrogates for the devoted viewers. They react to the event as if they are materializing the response described by Quintilian: “Will not the assassin burst out on a sudden, and the victim tremble, cry for help, and either plead for mercy or try to escape?” An angel figured deep in the relief’s niche appears to be breaking the wheel; Catherine is rendered as severed in two, with her torso falling to the ground at the lower right side of the niche. The upside-down headless torso depicts the suffering saint screaming in pain and clasping her head in despair. This portrayal is a deviation not only from the saint’s conventional representation, which shows her standing calmly by the wheel or holding it as an attribute, but also from her vita. According to the Golden Legend, Saint Catherine was first tortured on a contraption constructed from four iron wheels sharpened with razors, designed to break her body: “It was further ordered that two of the wheels should revolve in one direction and the other two turn in the opposite direction, so that the

maiden would be mangled and torn by the two wheels coming down to her and chewed up by the other two coming against her from below.”2 A similar depiction is repeated in the Alsatian Golden Legend, which recounts, “Do gap ein richter dem keiser einen rot, daz solte vier reder uf snidender segen vnd spiczer nagel gesmide das die maget so iemerliche do uffe zersnitten wurde daz dis ein bilde were allen cristen daz su sich for solichem freuel behůtent” (Then a judge advised the Caesar that four wheels should be made out of sharp-edged saws and puncturing nails so that the maiden will be agonizingly cut

fi gur e 40  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of Life of the Virgin tympanum, left side, detail: Saint Catherine, ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom.

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on top of it, and this would be an image for all the Christians that they should keep themselves away from such acts of excessive bravery).3 Although the Alsatian Golden Legend records many deviations from the official version in the sorts and methods of tortures of the saints, here the text repeats the four-wheeled machinery. This detail is especially intriguing as none of Catherine’s images actually depicts this mechanism, and as discussed below, this device differs from the one used in medieval punishment. However, according to the legend, an angel appeared, broke the wheels, and saved the saint from these torments, as is depicted in the Thann relief. It was only after these events that Saint Catherine was beheaded, gladly accepting her martyrdom and glorifying God.4 At Thann, instead of merely being decapitated on the order of either the emperor or under the supervision of her royal father, Catherine’s entire body is shown cut in two, thus evoking the original purpose of the wheel despite its lack of use. The representation seems to merge the potential torment on the wheel with her factual death. The viewers are thus confronted with her martyrdom, their own fears of torture, and the imaginative breaking of the saint’s body that was not realized but, instead, visualized. Moreover, whereas the legend describes Saint Catherine praying at the time of her decollation, gladly accepting her death,5 the sculpture depicts her cry of pain. The Thann representation thus shifts the emphasis of the conventional portrayal of Saint Catherine from the impassibility of martyrdom to the body suffering violence, which is further underscored by the representatives of the terrified public, begging for mercy on their knees. Such deviations might provide us with insight into the responses of the viewers. For another example, let us consider the reliquary shutters of Guido da Siena, circa 1260, which portray Catherine as bound to a wooden

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beam, her hands and legs tied to prevent her escape (plate 9).6 Emperor Maxentius appears beneath a Gothic canopy, ordering a soldier to torture the saint. Two executioners turn a giant wheel so that its razor spikes tear at Catherine’s bleeding flesh. Two other male figures witness the event: one of them clasps his hands and bends his head in sorrow while the other lays a hand on his companion’s shoulder as if to comfort him, indicating the proper mode of viewer response. In Guido’s panel, the mechanism of the wheel has been changed, and rather than breaking Catherine’s body, it is designed to injure her; it is neither the wheel depicted in the legend nor the one used in medieval courts. Breaking a body on the wheel was a popular punishment in the civic court, a punishment familiar to the contemporary viewer. Nonetheless, the depiction differs from the contemporary breaking on the wheel, in which the broken body was crisscrossed through the rims.7 Moreover, whereas in the legend Saint Catherine remained unharmed by the wheel due to the angel’s miraculous rescue, here she appears wounded by it; the representation thus seems to visualize her torment, which was not in fact accomplished in the legend but only implied and left to the viewers’ imaginations. The panel depicts this imagined torture, perhaps giving form to the viewers’ fancy; the two sorrowful spectators may model this imaginative response as well, as they express not only their compassion but also their private fears of pain likely based on the use of the wheel in punishment spectacles. Catherine’s depicted martyrdom was therefore simultaneously tangible and imagined, since it embodied the saint’s unrealized torture as well as the viewers’ imagination. A similar strategy of evoking the viewers’ fantasies also characterizes the representations of Saint Bartholomew. Stephan Lochner’s retable panels in the Städel Museum, Frankfurt am

Main (ca. 1435), feature the tortures of the twelve apostle-martyrs in contemporary costumes, figuring a wide range of executions and torments as a grand public spectacle with various modes of visual rhetoric (plate 10). Originally, these panels might have belonged to a monumental altarpiece, with the two side wings flanking the central panel of the Last Judgment, now in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne.8 They were traditionally considered as evidence of Lochner’s obsession with unrestricted, frenzied realism and his joy in grotesque and gruesome imagery during the early phase of his career. For Rainer Budde, this realism “schildert brutal und blutrünstig die Grausamkeiten bei den Martyrien” (portrays the cruelties of martyrdom as brutal and bloodthirsty), and the drastic depictions are reinforced by the loud colors and detailed rendition of the materials and fabrics.9 The assemblage of these early Christian martyrs probably reflects Dominican piety,10 the religiosity of the Saint Catherine fraternity of Cologne,11 and the local cults of venerated saints, while revealing a brutal parade of violence. As often noted in the literature on Lochner’s panels, the martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew is perhaps the most striking of all of the depictions on the wings (plate 11).12 The king’s clerk, with attributes signaling that he is a Jew,13 supervises the execution as four tanners flay Saint Bartholomew alive. Two of them are using a knife to take the skin off his legs; a third tanner exerts great effort to detach the skin from the saint’s arm, bending the weight of his body backward. To his left, a fourth tanner is about to pour a macerating agent to cleanse the skin, as if preparing parchment.14 The depiction is terrifying: the saint’s body is raw and bleeding, and his flayed skin hangs loosely from his body. This type of iconography was first formulated in the monumental arts at the end of the thirteenth century, and its earliest known depiction is thought to be Guido da Siena’s panel (fig. 41):

while the king in his palace supervises the execution of his command, five young tanners flay Saint Bartholomew alive. Here, the skin of the saint’s arms and legs is flayed and dangles like a second set of limbs. Four of the tormentors are using a knife to separate the skin from the flesh, while the fifth uses his bare hands.15 This pictorial type circulated swiftly in the Germanspeaking lands throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in both spectacular and condensed versions. The Thann martyria include the scene in a multiple-figure composition (fig. 42), as does the rather iconic image at Schwäbisch Gmünd, in which Saint Bartholomew’s skin hangs out of the niche toward the real space of the spectators (fig. 43). The canonical vita of Saint Bartholomew in the Golden Legend does not clearly report either the exact nature of his martyrdom or his response to the torment. After a long discussion, the author goes into a reflective discussion on the art portraying Bartholomew’s tortures and death and then summarizes by noting: “There are various opinions about the kind of death Bartholomew suffered. Saint Dorotheus says he was crucified. . . . Saint Theodore says that he was flayed. In many books, however, we read that he was beheaded. This disagreement can be resolved by saying that he was crucified, then before he died, taken down and, to intensify his suffering, flayed alive, and finally his head [was] cut off.”16 The Alsatian Golden Legend, however, recounts rather laconically that King Astrages commanded that the saint be beaten with a club and then flayed alive: “Do zerrete von leide der kunig sine purpure von sime libe vnd hies do sant Bartholomeus gar sere mit kolben schlahen vnd also lebende schniden” (Then, out of rage, the king tore his purple [robe] from his body and ordered Saint Bartholomew to be hit severely with clubs, and afterwards, to be flayed alive as well).17 Perhaps owing to the ambiguity of the earlier sources, the iconography of

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Bartholomew’s martyrdom developed relatively late. With the appearance of the Middle High German version, however, portrayals of his flaying became very prevalent. The Alsatian vita associates the saint with the healing of leprosy.18 While on his mission to India, Saint Bartholomew arrived at a temple of the idol Astoroth, where many lepers were cured and relieved of their pain. Yet once Bartholomew entered the sanctuary, Astoroth’s miracle-working powers failed. Seeking recovery, the congregation moved to the nearby city to ask for the idol Berith’s intervention. Berith, however, replied that Astoroth had been put in chains by the powerful Bartholomew, the friend of the Almighty God. Back in the temple of Astoroth, the lepers found Bartholomew cleansing the temple from evil spirits and exorcising them, after which he cured many of the lepers and converted them to Christianity. Saint Bartholomew’s flaying thus serves as visual evidence of his unique healing powers, an idea that appears to have inspired the depiction of his raw, flayed flesh, which resembles that of a leper. This depiction of his body appears in another panel attributed to Lochner, dated 1425 (plate 12). Here, two tanners work while two

fi gur e 41 (opposite, above)  Guido da Siena, reliquary shutter with the Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, detail, ca. 1260. Tempera on wood panel. Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena. Photo: Alinari. Reproduced with the permission of Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali / Archivi Alinari, Florence. fi gur e 42 (opposite, below left)  Thann, Church of St. Theobald, west façade, second inner archivolt of the Life of the Virgin tympanum, left side, detail: Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, ca. 1370. Photo: author / Gili Shalom.

groups of aristocrats in elaborate costumes watch and comment on the process. Saint Bartholomew lies on a wooden table in the panel’s foreground; one tanner has just made the first cut in the saint’s left hand while his colleague pulls the skin off his right hip. The saint stretches his head back in a posture that infuses his body with tension, indicating pain and suffering. The depiction is vivid and repulsive: bleeding, raw flesh; gaping wounds; skin marked with hair follicles and a filigree of tiny veins; and a glimpse at the interior of the inside-out skin itself. Such a vision of torture in the Germanspeaking lands counters the concepts of philopassianism and impassibility that Cohen identifies as key in martyrs’ representations.19 The images of the flaying of Saint Bartho­ lomew discussed here, whether tending toward the iconic or the theatrical, are dominated by viscerally shocking details of what appears to be an almost surgical procedure (or autopsia). The flayed skin becomes the real protagonist of the painting or sculpture, demanding the viewers’ attention and determining how they experience the artwork. It creates a grisly perspective, an embodiment of mental and corporeal abjection and horror,20 which dissolves the boundaries between the viewing subject and the viewed object, between real and imagined bodies, forcing a somatic response from the viewers.21 Therefore, while acknowledging the multiple readings of the Bartholomew martyrdom from theological perspectives, I depart from these trends of thought and suggest a somaesthetic reading of the scenes instead: namely, a somatic, physical understanding of images and the pragmatic study of the body’s role in perception, experience, and reaction to images before they are encoded in cognitive processes. According to Richard Shusterman, somaesthetics is “concerned with the critical study and meliorative cultivation of how we experience and use the living body (or soma) as a site of

fi gur e 43 (opposite, below right) Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, inner archivolt, right side, detail: Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, 1351–70s. Photo: author.

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sensory appreciation (aesthesis) and creative self-fashioning. . . . The term ‘soma’ indicates a living, feeling, sentient body rather than a mere physical body that could be devoid of life and sensation, while the ‘aesthetic’ in somaesthetics has the dual role of emphasizing the soma’s perceptual role (whose embodied intentionality contradicts the body/mind dichotomy) and its aesthetic uses both in stylizing one’s self and in appreciating the aesthetic qualities of other selves and things.”22 Somaesthetics seeks to configure anew questions of the dichotomies of mind/body and individual/society in global, nondenominational, interdisciplinary, and trans­ historical ways.23 Although Shusterman does not discuss medieval culture, his observations and body-centered philosophy are efficacious in connection with the problem of medieval violence, bodily integrity, and its violation. The rich literature on female mysticism has focused on the prominent role of the body at work in religious practices and rituals and in the use of devotional objects.24 However, as argued by Allie Terry-Fritsch, “Somaesthetics re-centers the body from its displaced position within aesthetics and connects the active body and the conscious awareness of the body to an individual’s experience of visual and other sensory encounters.”25 Here I reflect on the viewer’s body as a medium upon and through which aesthetics is explored. The body has long been considered as a medium, “the medium of all perceptions,”26 and as a primordial instrument and “ur-medium.” It is through the body that one experiences the world, making it, as noted by Maurice MerleauPonty, the instrument of understanding.27 Explorations in neuroscience have also attested that cognition and intellectuality depend on continuous bodily communication and evaluation and that the emotional, rational, and physical body-centered “somatic markers” are especially activated in decision-making situations.28

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However, art-historical discourse has not yet fully explored the bodily dimension in practical terms by which, on the one hand, the body reacts, responds, and dictates our understating of an artwork and, on the other hand, evokes the bodily imagination that is projected onto the artwork. It is hard to describe how images function, to put it in Robert Mills’s words, “when the bodies of viewers and the bodies of paintings are not allowed to connect, touch, or mingle in scholarly writing—when one is not allowed to experience shock or horror or surprise to a historical artifact.”29 Applying the notion of somaesthetics might fill in this gap. Thinking with the body, as articulated by Shusterman,30 suggests an experience that defers the intellectual processes of exegesis and devotional inversion that transposes pain to love or violence to participation in the wounds of Christ. Understanding the work of art through this lens becomes an event that both locates and includes the viewer through innumerable evocations, cancellations, and superimpositions, bringing into play the animism by which humans grasp artwork, thus evoking the viewers’ bodily responses.31 The expansive vision of somaesthetics addresses multiple avenues of investigation, including “analytic somaesthetics,” which is theoretical, epistemological, historiocultural, and pragmatic. This analytic enterprise is necessary to identify ways in which the body is both subject and object, fashioned not only by inner impulses but also by exterior pressures that are often disciplinary and oppressive. In the pragmatic realm, “body consciousness” can lead to positive change personally, as well as change in broader social and political arenas. Such interpretation takes into account, for example, the scale of the piece of art, whether it is over or under life-size, which will determine whether viewers can measure the depicted martyrdom on their own bodies. The viewer’s body “cannot be properly understood as a mere

object; yet, it inevitably also functions in our experience as an object of consciousness, even of one’s own embodied consciousness”;32 it is the medium upon which we measure, appreciate, and apprehend objects, artworks, and aesthetic experience. Moreover, as already discussed by Hans Belting, one grasps or manipulates objects through the body, making it the background of all perception.33 The Bamberger Reiter, for instance, is a life-size medieval sculpture of an average horse and man, excavated from a medieval graveyard.34 The figure is neither smaller nor larger than life-size, thus encouraging a corporeal, physical understanding of the sculpture, making it part of the spatial experience of the viewers and of the real procession entering the cathedral.35 The popular Roland statues, on the other hand, confront the viewer with a colossal sculpture, six to ten meters in height.36 As Roland is rendered much larger than life-size—actually a giant—spectators cannot measure the sculpture directly against their own bodies; rather, they use their imaginative faculty in order to understand Roland’s magnitude as a multiple of the size of their own bodies. Thus these statues evoke what I have termed “colossi imagination”: the cultural associations that material, medium, stature, and topic evoked in contemporary viewers.37 In this string of associations, the sculpture becomes an imagined real presence of a protective giant, anchored in Middle High German legends such as Daniel von dem blühenden Tal (Daniel of the blossoming valley) by Der Stricker.38 Through its soma, the statue evokes fabricated memories of colossal statues of the ancient world and an entire medieval epistemology related to the notion of giants, involving foreign lands and superhuman creatures, often connected with supernatural powers and magic.39 The bodily imagination evoked by giants associates them with guardians in a way not dissimilar to Saint Christopher,

the Christian protector and a city’s safeguarding giant. Colossal, wooden statues of Saint Christopher stood in numerous cites, including originally installed above the city gate in Bern, in the so-called Christoffelturm.40 Small-scale sculptured bodies, on the other hand, attract an inquiring, almost voyeuristic gaze, initiating more intimate relations between viewers and objects.41 The miniature figures of Schreinmadonnen, such as the one in the Metropolitan Museum in New York that is discussed in the last chapter of this book, offer paradigmatic examples (fig. 54 and plate 30).42 Whereas the head of a Schreinmadonna remains intact, the panels comprising the statue’s body can be opened, so that her body may be unlocked and voyeuristically displayed for private examination.43 The entire artwork offers not only a glimpse into the mystery of the Incarnation and the Salvation, usually painted upon the interiors of the opened wings, but also into the concrete signifiers of the most intimate, internal organ of the Madonna—her womb. Scale, medium, viewing practice, and subject matter were thus orchestrated together by bodily apprehension to evoke an imagined body (that of the Virgin) and the real body of the user of the object—a nun or an anchoress. It also substituted, mediated, and negotiated between the unfulfilled body of the nun and that of the Virgin, which was lactating and fruitful, allowing both to be imagined as interchangeable. Somaesthetics also takes into account the degree of realism that encourages a synesthetic involvement in which sight evokes the senses of touch and smell, so that the viewers—as in the case of violent imagery—can feel the depicted torture upon their own bodies. As discussed in chapter 1, naked sensation is a subjective and intransmissible experience. To identify with the pains of another, one needs similes that will locate the imagined pain within a specific bodily locus and instrument of torture; the realistic

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depiction of the tools of torment and specific injuries upon the mutilated bodies locates the imagined pain in the viewers’ bodily experience. Unlike the sympathetic, pleading, and griefstricken audience that functions as the viewers’ mirror in the images of Saint Catherine’s torture (both in Guido da Siena’s panel and the Thann sculpture, see plate 9 and fig. 40), in Lochner’s panel all of the figures appear indifferent, if not apathetic, to the violent act taking place in front of them; they reveal merely procedural (almost anatomical or surgical) interest in the technicality of the flaying. Earlier studies ascribed this discrepancy between the action and the reaction in the picture to civic ideals that favored restraint; yet this would appear completely at odds both with the brutality and repulsive veracity of the flaying itself as well as with the affectivity and emotionalism of the devotio moderna (modern devotion). In his discussion of late medieval representations of flaying, Mills argues that such detached attitudes work to dehumanize the victim while the onlookers contemplate and ponder the body’s moral message. The burghers, he asserts, “turn away from the pained body on which the message is violently written . . . the aim is [for viewers] to align themselves with the burghers who frame the picture.”44 Accordingly, detachment is the aim of this aesthetics, which he labels burgerlijk (civil). Mills attempts to differentiate between the beholders of a secular justice painting, who are to be identified with the painted burghers/spectators of the torture, and those of a devotional painting, who are to be identified with the victim’s body in pain. These categorizations, however, seem to fail because Lochner’s painting, as I will discuss below, was apparently installed in a juridical context. Moreover, there are no differences between the painted indifferent audience in either of these categories that would suggest such a distinction. Mills’s model of response seems highly improbable in the case of Lochner’s Saint

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Bartholomew, which is but a part of “justice painting.” Why would the devotees reject the tortured body of the saint? Why would they identify themselves with an indifferent audience? After all, the civic and aristocratic onlookers within Lochner’s panel are the very pagans who commanded the torture and their retinues; they could not serve as a point of reference for the Christian devotees looking at the panel, although, paradoxically, their attire does recall that of the artwork’s actual aristocratic viewers. Moreover, many fourteenth-century violent images in the German-speaking realms actually invert the conventional norms of representation in which the martyr appears emotionless, and the executioner expresses wickedness. In the decapitation of Saint James the Greater (or Saint Paul) in Schwäbisch Gmünd, for example, the saint appears to lose somatic control and scream, conveying his suffering while catching his head before it rolls out of the niche (see fig. 5). The executioner, on the other hand, stands still, upright, and detached, calmly using a cloth to clean his sword. Hence, in Lochner’s panel, the painted audience cannot be understood as framing the viewers’ response; quite the contrary. No one figure interacts with the viewers by directing a gaze toward them, thus distancing the real audience from the painted one on practical, moral, and ethical levels. Here, the viewers are not incorporated into the scene by pictorial surrogates and are not implicated in the visual narrative. Rather, they are incorporated into the scene through the body, the skin, and the arousal of the somaesthetic experience in their own bodies. The panel does not provoke a prolonged moral mediation. Rather, it triggers immediate bodily imagination and understanding. In the somaesthetic experience, the pain of the saint is transferable from the imagined body on the panel to the bodily imagination of the viewers. Sensation is not evoked by means of devotional imitatio but through immediate bodily response,

which, as discussed in chapter 1, might have deferred devotional immersion and allegorical interpretation. The viewers do not imagine the painted limbs as their own, as suggested by John R. Decker,45 but rather conceive their actual limbs as tortured. It is their own bodies and experience that are under concrete attack. Following Julia Kristeva’s notion of abjection, Mills argues that such images as flayed skin and mutilated organs are not simply pictures from which the viewer seeks protection; the skin may be conceived as a border, an object dividing the self from the other, a motif that is suspended between horror and the restoration of order, revulsion and attraction, and anxiety and pleasure.46 He further points out the structural parallel between martyrdom and masochism as aesthetic entities and suggests that such imagery potentially evoked a masochistic experience of concomitant horror and pleasure in its viewers. This interpretation, as pointed out by Jeffrey Hamburger, seems highly improbable,47 at least in the cases of Saint Bartholomew and Saint Catherine. Regarding the scenes from a somaesthetic perspective, it is neither identification with the depicted bodies nor suspension, abjection, or arousal by these bodies that charac­ terizes the physical viewer response; rather, as discussed below, while thinking with and through their bodies, in the moment of immediate encounter with the violent imagery, the devotees themselves are united and become one with the imagined body. The visual shock triggered by the picture postpones the devotional immersion and triggers a physical experience of pain, and thus the pictured suffering becomes their own in a literal manner. The martyrdoms of Bartholomew and Catherine provided the devotees with many points of reference to the realities of late medieval punishments, while equally evoking an imaginative-somatic dimension. In the case of Bartholomew, the executioners are depicted as professional tanners, processing the saint’s skin

into vellum, and the representation appears to be a concrete and accurate depiction of the process. It also brought to the contemporary mind the medieval punitive system or, at least, the medieval popular imagination about such a system. Flaying alive was by far the most terrifying punishment in medieval and early modern Europe and was utilized as both a moral and an ethical exemplum not only in hagiographical writings but also in the courtly literature and legal treatises.48 One of the most horrifying and visceral stories of flaying known in the late Middle Ages is that of Sisamnes, a royal and corrupt Persian judge who served under King Cambyses II. First recounted in Herodotus’s Histories,49 the tale was adapted in numerous medieval sources, compendia, and compilations of exempla, including the Speculum historiale by Vincent of Beauvais (ca. 1250);50 the Tabula exemplorum secundum ordinem alphabeti (ca. 1275);51 and the Gesta Romanorum (end of thirteenth or early fourteenth centuries).52 It was widely circulated from the fourteenth century in a Middle High German translation, and it was also later disseminated in France and the Netherlands through its inclusion in Valerius Maximus’s Facti et dicti memorabilia.53 The story is rather succinct and tells of Sisamnes’s harsh punishment for accepting bribes in exchange for unjust verdicts.54 Once King Cambyses learned of the bribery, he sentenced Sisamnes to death and then slit his throat and had him flayed. Herodotus details: “He had thongs made out of the flayed skin, and he strung the chair on which Sisamnes had used to sit to deliver his verdicts with these thongs.”55 Cambyses then named Otanes, Sisamnes’s son, to replace his father, making him sit on this horrifying bench as an everlasting reminder and moral lesson for future judges. The moral implication of this exemplum, as noted by Decker, is far more accentuated in the version in the Gesta Romanorum, in which the king warns Otanes, “Thou wilt sit, to administer justice,

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upon the skin of thy delinquent sire: should any one incite thee to do evil, remember his fate; look down upon thy father’s skin, lest his fate befall thee.”56 Whereas the original story tells that Sisamnes was flayed postmortem—first killed and then flayed—the Middle German version parallels the tale to the flaying of Bartholomew, who was flayed alive.57 Additionally, whereas Herodotus and the Gesta Romanorum say that his skin was cut and processed into leather strips, the German version describes his skin stretched in its entirety over the judge’s seat. Such free adaptations of the tale appear as early as 1337 in the Middle German translation of Ludus scaccorum entitled Das Schachspiel (The chess game) by Jacobus de Cessolis: Elymandus sprichit so wi Cambyses der kung ho ein ungerechtin richter liz schindin noch sinir ger lebindinc als ein rint, und twanc des richteris kint daz he uf dem stule saz, daz sines vatir licham was bedeckit mit sines Selbis hut: dar uffe saz sin sun trut uf des gerichtis stule zcu lerin rechtis schule, also daz he gedechte wi he ein recht volbrechtc durch des vatir pine der undir em lac zcu schine. (Elymandus spoke of how Cambyses the king arranged for an unjust judge to be flayed alive like a cow, according to his desire, and forced that judge’s child to sit on the chair, which was his father’s corpse; covered with the very same skin: upon the judge’s chair sat his beloved son, as a “law school” lesson, so that he would think, how he could achieve justice through the suffering/

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punishment of his father, who lay so visibly under him).58

This exemplum iustitiae (example of justice), which became a common rhetorical device repeated in many late medieval legal treatises, was designed to be delivered orally, primarily in sermons instead of in courts.59 Flaying stories were “canonized” by relying on various ancient writers, considered auctors; in this case not only the Sisamnes story but also the Marsyas myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses was associated in the medieval memory.60 The continuity of the flaying stories, from mythological times to the medieval present, anchored them even deeper in the contemporary consciousness and imaginary at the same time, thus amplifying the threat to the self and its boundaries. From the fifteenth century, if not before, flaying motifs appeared in pictorial cycles alongside scenes of other trials and the Last Judgment in particular.61 Viewed in this light, it is plausible to assume that the twelve torment scenes flanking Lochner’s Last Judgment panel might have been understood not merely in devotional contexts such as imitatio Christi but also in juridical ones. If the tormented martyrs do resonate with certain visual counterparts, it is the torments of the damned in hell and not the passion of the crucified Christ that they evoke and imitate. It is worth noting that although the combination has generally been regarded as unusual, the grouping of martyrdoms and the Last Judgment into one composition was probably more common than one might think. For example, the association is evident on the fresco in the Church of St. Martin in Wellmich,62 which dates to the last quarter of the fourteenth century, a bit earlier than Lochner’s altarpiece (figs. 44–45; plates 13–14). It is also a feature in the more elaborate fresco cycle in the Church of St. Bartholomew in Zell am Allgäu (ca. 1450). Here the martyrdom cycle is combined with the Life of

Mary, with both cycles interconnected with one another through a monumental depiction of the Massacre of the Innocents (figs. 46–47; plates 15–17), and both facing the Last Judgment on the contra-façade of the apse.63 The cycles in Wellmich and Zell do make unique choices in their iconography (e.g., the fresco in Wellmich portrays Saint Philip being dragged by horses, whereas the one in the Zell depicts him being stoned; in Wellmich Saint Simon is sawn in half, whereas in Zell he is stabbed). Unfortunately,

both fresco cycles suffered heavy restorations, and since no devotional, liturgical, or juridical texts have survived in these places, one cannot reconstruct the exact function of these frescoes with any real certainty. I would like to speculate, nevertheless, whether the combination of the Last Judgment and the bodily tortures of the martyrs might allude to the function of Lochner’s altarpiece as the centerpiece of repentance rituals that were held to prime and prepare criminals before they

fi gur e 44  Wellmich am Rhein, Church of St. Martin, Last Judgment with the Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, last quarter of the fourteenth century. Photo: author.

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underwent their mutilation and public execution. Or, if the altar originally stood in the senate room of the City Hall in Cologne as several scholars argue (and not in the St. Lawrence Church where it was found in 1803), it may have been intended as a warning, a substitution for the actual destruction of the criminals’ bodies.64 Nevertheless, whatever religious, social, or political functions the panel may have had, the aesthetic properties of the art were probably not dictated by the commissioners of the work,

whoever they were, nor were they by-products of a certain agenda or expression of stylistic tendencies.65 In his study of medieval law, William Barron argues that flaying was a rare penalty in medieval reality, a feature of old traditions rather than formal law. In most cases, the realization of a flaying sentence was eventually avoided, and in fact, there are only two documented cases of flaying in the Middle Ages, neither one legal.66 Most of the late medieval accounts of flaying are either records of spontaneous, illegal actions by an outraged mob (usually to avenge treason)67 or features of fictional tales in courtly literature. In the realm of romance, flaying is a torture inflicted on Christian knights who were captured by Saracens, pagans, or giants. Its extreme cruelty marked the perpetrators’ Otherness, and it was paid back in measure once the inflictors fell into the hands of Christians, who meted out the same fate to outcasts and foreigners.68 Ideologically, the violation of bodily integrity and corporeal boundaries signified a violation of law and morality. Yet in the contemporary imagination, flaying was considered terrifying not only because of the physical pain it caused but also because the skin was regarded as a protective boundary between the external and the internal, between the self and the Other; it was a garment and a shield for the body.69 Accordingly, skin was perceived as cloth or vellum on which human identity was written: blood was the ink, and raw flesh, hair follicles, veins, and wounds were the letters, which silently attested to human suffering.70 Paradoxically, since flaying was so seldom performed in fact, it stirred the medieval imagination and was often featured in vernacular writings and the collective memory, negotiating imagined anxiety, fear, and disgust, and it thus suggested a cathartic visual experience. Because of this gap between the rare actual occurrence of flaying in medieval

fig ure 45  Wellmich am Rhein, Church of St. Martin, Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, last quarter of 74  v i s ual aggre ssion

the fourteenth century. Photo: author.

fi gur e 46  Zell am Allgäu, Church of St. Bartholomew, general view of choir and apse with the Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, the Life of the Virgin, and the Last Judgment, ca. 1450. Photo: author.

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society and its prominent place in contemporary literature, the depiction of the flaying of Saint Bartholomew was more of an imagined incident than a real one in the eyes of the viewers. Saint Catherine’s suffering, in contrast, was constructed differently: although torment on the wheel was deeply anchored in the medieval punitive system, the scene seems to actualize the imagined suffering, which the saint was, in fact, spared. In these scenes, the portrayals of the terrified audience materialize the contemporary fears of violence. For both Saints Catherine and Bartholomew, the torments refer concomitantly

to the saint’s vita, juridical reality, and the viewers’ imaginations. The mastectomies of Saints Barbara and Agatha (mentioned in chapter 2 and the focus of chapter 4) present an even more complicated interplay of knowledge and imagination (see figs. 28 and 30). Contemporary viewers could not have correlated the mutilation of the breasts with the punitive system simply because it was not a medieval penal practice: the entire scenario was imaginative. At the same time, the means of visualizing the punishment, such as tying the saint to a horizontal beam that rested on two wooden columns, aligned with other concrete punishments, namely hanging on the gallows, and thus the act became more tangible. Such episodes were probably experienced somatically as highly threatening for the contemporary viewers’ notions of bodily wholeness and integrity. The representations could engage the viewers on several fronts— theological, juridical, and physical—allowing for multiple and varying readings, including disgust and abject fear of the physical violence. Therefore, the immediate brutality of the martyrdom scenes is not merely an exemplum of devotional imitation, but rather, it changes the entire context of the portrayed legends. The novelty of this imagery lies in its somaesthetic qualities and the almost chirurgical interest in the human body, its wholeness, and its violation. The flayed skin of Bartholomew as well as the torn flesh of Catherine marked the mortal limits of bodily experience and selfhood; or as suggested by Sherry Lindquist, the body appears in medieval culture as a fulcrum between self and society, between the individual and the community.71 Again, I understand it as conducting a visual discourse on the nature of violence as both a moral and an ethical problem. Through bodily imagination, violence emerges as a category and subject of artistic reflection.

fig ure 47  Zell am Allgäu, Church of St. Bartholomew, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, detail: 76  v i s ual aggression

Massacre of the Innocents, ca. 1450. Photo: author.

Lochner’s altarpiece, in particular, encourages the faculty of imagination, functioning between the gaps among the hagiographic textual accounts, daily experience, and visual representations. In all the martyrdoms he depicts, Lochner diverts attention from the saints to the brutality of the executioners.72 This shift is especially noticeable in the Bartholomew panel, where the emphasis on the work of the tormentors demands special attention: one holds a knife in his mouth; a man in the foreground sharpens a knife; another prepares the emulsion; another tanner is hard at work; and the clerk supervises. The king who ordered the torture and has a central role in the legend is not even included in the scene. Thereby, Lochner differentiates among several groups: the spectators, the tanners, and the grinder. These groups are also distinguished from one another by the degree of emotional involvement: the spectator demonstrates mocking, the tanners violence, and the grinder indifference.73 Exploiting the gap between the textual and the visual rendition is a calculated strategy that characterizes all the other representations on the altarpiece. For example, according to the Golden Legend, Saint Thomas was murdered by the pagan High Priest alone.74 Lochner, however, portrays an assortment of assassins, priests, and soldiers: one throws stones and knocks Saint Thomas down to the ground, where he lands on his back; the man in red slices through the saint’s throat with a spear; another clubs him; a fourth stabs him with a lance; and additional participants attack him with their bare hands (fig. 48). Lochner thus significantly diverges from the text, which states only that the High Priest stabbed Thomas in the back. In the painting, the attacker with the lance is attired as an aristocrat, and none of the other assailants appear in the legend at all. Moreover, in the legend Thomas calmly prays on his knees, asking God to destroy the idols of the pagans, but in

Lochner’s portrayal he appears agitated and suffering, trying to escape from the mass riot. A similarly irregular staging is also evident in Lochner’s depiction of the martyrdom of Saint James the Lesser (plate 18). Exaggerating the account in the text, the painter has again multiplied the executioners and their weapons.75 By showing Saint James on his back, Lochner has also inverted the conventional iconography in which the saint lies on his stomach, as seen in Zell, for example (plate 19). The saint’s bodily response to the violence is apparent on his agonized face, now visible due to his position, and in his gestures: one hand struggles to support his falling body while the other reaches up with an open palm as an instinctive reaction to pain. Such extreme violence and strong bodily reaction is repeated in all the panels of the altarpiece, although to differing degrees.76 The intensification of bodily apprehension through the interplay of the gap between the known and the imagined in Lochner’s paintings brought the new somaesthetics of late medieval violence imagery to its peak; yet it was not, in itself, new. As already discussed above, such a visual stratagem and the somatic experience it triggered were already exploited in the Parler sculptures and even earlier in other visual media. The small-scale diptych of the Ten Thousand Martyrs (ca. 1325), now in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, is another example of this stratagem (plates 20–21).77 Although the legend of the ten thousand soldiers martyred on Mount Ararat was well known in the Middle Rhine region from the twelfth century on, largely through association with the Crusades, it became widely popular during the fourteenth century; the example of Thann was noted in chapter 2.78 The legend tells of the pagan prince and general Achatius and his legion, who converted to Christianity and were stoned, flagellated, stabbed, crowned with thorns, thrown down

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fi gur e 48  Stephan Lochner, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Saint Thomas, ca. 1435. Walnut. Städel Museum, Frankfurt. Photo: author with permission of the Städel Museum.

the mountain, forced to walk on tacks, and finally, since all this failed, crucified at Hadrian’s command.79 The visual representations reinvented their martyrdoms as amalgamations of their various tortures, such as being skewered on thorns while thrown down the mountain.80 Intriguingly, this invention became so popular that it was later incorporated into late fifteenth-century accounts of the legend itself, almost as an afterthought or correction to the original vita,81 and many scholars have failed to acknowledge that martyrdom in the barbed trees was not included in the original hagiography at all.82 In my opinion, the visual representation follows an etymological interpretation of Achatius, whose name was derived either from the Greek word akis (αγκάθι, meaning thorn) or the Latin acacia, the lignum setim (hard wood) from which the Temple Ark of the Covenant was built.83 The symbolic meaning of the acacia as a living material, contrasting to the decayed bodies of the martyrs, stresses the promise of eternal life after martyrdom and the end of the saints’ corporeal existences. In this panel one can recognize multiple responses on the part of the martyrs: the smiling “acrobat” standing on his hands in a back handspring in the lower right-hand corner of the diptych; the suffering youths and bishop with their mouths curved down in sorrow; and the deceased figure with relieved, closed eyes in the lower left-hand panel. No single bodily posture or representation of martyrdom is repeated, and no one bodily injury is the same (each is either in a different place or at a different angle). The discrepancies between the legends and this varied, arresting visual rendition of the wounds must have evoked the bodily imagination and somatic experience of the devotees. In their somatic appeal to the viewers, the images discussed here created an intimate, bodily relationship between object and subject through a compelling corporeal aesthetic,

and thus they may have been intended to spur self-improvement and repentance through aesthetic experience, in which sense they offered a kind of body consciousness. As Shusterman suggests, the upshot for somatic philosophy “is that one’s body (like one’s mind) incorporates its surroundings, going, for example, beyond the conventional body boundary of the epidermis,”84 an observation that seems particularly apt in relation to Saint Bartholomew’s flaying. In a process that goes across and through the skins of real and imagined bodies, the viewer self-incorporates the imagined surroundings of the images and their environments beyond conventional bodily boundaries. Aesthetic experience is thus enhanced by cultivating the viewer’s body. Unlike efficacious images, which were valued for their miraculous ability to act and fulfill devotees’ expectations and not for their aesthetics,85 images of violence were effective mainly owing to their aesthetic qualities, which assumed and even demanded bodily intuitive responses. Whereas conventional views of violent imagery assert that such representations allowed communities and individuals to understand social values through the representation of the others, when examined through the lens of somaesthetics, the violence imagery discussed here seems to allow individuals to define themselves by becoming the imagined bodies. Late medieval martyr imagery in Germanspeaking lands offered viewers a great many images that cannot be easily accommodated in any text or memory scheme. The complex visual representations of Saint Catherine and Saint Bartholomew, as well as the martyrdoms from Lochner’s altarpiece, provide but a few case studies demonstrating the new bodily and imaginative experiences triggered by the emergence of the art of violence. Each of the images tackles the beholders with a different stratagem, always catching the body and mind unprepared: some martyrs, such as the unidentified martyr

bo dily im ag in atio n , im ag in ed bo dies   79

in Thann (see fig. 29), are shown with their heads being sawn off, a common punishment for those convicted of sexual crimes, thus evoking one specific field of experience.86 Some saints who belong to apostolic cycles are shown with their bodies penetrated, such as the figures depicted at the very moments when they are pierced by sticks and swords in the Ulm Minster (ca. 1420; figs. 49, 50) or Saint James the Lesser with his skull split by an axe in Schwäbisch Gmünd (see fig. 12),87 thus portraying the entirely other world within both the imagination and the reality of the medieval battlefield. The images of Catherine evoke the punitive system; the flaying of Bartholomew portrays a completely imagined practice; and the various portrayals by Lochner suggest a kind of spontaneous pogrom. Embedded within galleries of violence, each of these individual tortures offers the viewers novel representations not yet encoded in the visual tradition; images that are enacted upon

body, soul, and imagination; images that become comprehensible only by thinking with the body. Moreover, the accumulation of images in galleries of violence in the art of the Rhine region— whether in monumental sculpture, stained-glass windows (fig. 51),88 altarpieces, monuments for official use, or small-scale works for private devotion (such as the Ten Thousand Martyrs altarpiece, plate 20)89—provided new visual experiences, postponing the moment of cathartic inversion even as they brought the passion of the saints to mind. Oscillating between the imagined and the real, between the devotional and the corporeal, between the theological and the juridical, between the represented and the perceived, this imagery must have been experienced as something totally new and physically shocking, incorporating both imaginative bodies and bodily imagination in the process of making images comprehensible.

fig ure 49 (opposite, left above)  Ulm Minster, west portal, Martyrdom of the Apostles, ca. 1420. Photo: author. f ig ure 50 (opposite, left below)  Ulm Minster, west portal, Martyrdom of the Apostles, ca. 1420. Photo: author. f ig ure 51 (opposite, right)  Niederhaslach, Alsace, Church of St. Florent, Martyrs’ Window, 1330–50. Glass. Photo: Rüdiger Tonojan, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi in Freiburg. 80  v i s ual aggre ssion

Chapter 4

Eroticized and Sexualized Bodies

Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies. —Song of Songs 4:5

Gender metamorphosis is paradigmatic for martyrdom narratives, whether textual or visual. Male martyrs are forced into ostensibly submissive, effeminate postures, bending down on arms, feet, and knees,1 and are thereby emasculated. Their bodies are rendered vulnerable and penetrable, following the example of Christ pierced by Longinus’s lance or of the Virtues, as they are portrayed in mystic writings.2 Female martyrs, in contrast, are masculinized by their martyrdoms through mastectomies or by being tied to columns or types of gallows in Christomimetic postures. In turn, their metamorphosed bodies grant them the privilege of speaking virtuously before being silenced by decapitation. Thus female spirituality was often particularly associated with sexual mutilation.3 The naked bodies of the female martyrs, unlike the clothed, effeminate male bodies, are far more challenging and suggestive for modern scholarship, and that was probably also true for their contemporary devotees. Playing on the tension between the pure, perfect body of the virgin and the gruesome, mutilated one of the martyr, mastectomy became the most frequent torture for female saints in the late medieval galleries of violence; I have discussed, for example, the images of Saint Agatha and Saint Barbara with their breasts and nipples cut and burnt in Thann. These depictions of violent sensual stimulation

pushed to the extreme upon the carnal bodies of female martyrs attracted not only the voyeuristic gazes of the medieval devotees but also modern feminist criticism and queer theory.4 Although such studies effectively actuate postmodern terminology adapted to medieval modes of thinking, in what follows I depart from this theoretical framework to reflect on the tension between the eroticized and sexualized bodies of the martyrs and their tormentors within the medieval context. Definitions of the erotic and the sexual are culturally contingent, and many images that might seem that way to the modern eye may have signaled completely different sets of associations to medieval viewers. Nevertheless, in art-historical and medieval studies of violence imagery, both terms were utilized almost literally, even interchangeably, and were not distinguished by nuanced differentiation.5 I attempt to differen­tiate between these two modes of perception: I regard the erotic as derived from a mystical interpretation of bodily sensation as in the commentaries on the Song of Songs, while I perceive the sexualized as related to the cardinal sin of lust. The images of Saint Barbara and Saint Agatha in Thann are extremely evocative. Saint Agatha is bound to a cross, with her hands twisted back around the horizontal beam and tied from behind (see fig. 30). On the one hand, this posture calls to mind typical depictions of the Good Thief, crucified alongside Christ, thus evoking a moralized understanding of the scene. On the other hand, this posture pushes her breasts forward, prominently exposing them to the observers and evoking a sensual experience. Two tormentors press knives to her breasts, which are already covered with multiple lacerations evoking the wounds on Christ’s side, about to sever them completely. Saint Barbara is hung upside down, her feet tied to a horizontal beam that recalls contemporary execution by hanging on the gallows (see fig. 28).6 Her head is

brutally smashed on the floor while persecutors cut her breasts. Her naked body is almost entirely exposed to the viewers; her slightly drooping stomach and navel, rarely represented in medieval art, are bare, and she covers her vulva with her hands, as if in protection. Both images, but especially that of Saint Barbara, are rightly described by such scholars as Kathryn Gravdal, Evelyn Birge Vitz, Margaret Miles, and Madeline Caviness as depictions of sadomasochistic rape,7 concomitantly, as Martha Easton observes, stimulating and disturbing, attractive and repulsive.8 Nevertheless, Diane Wolfthal shows that in the visual conventions for representing rape narratives in medieval illuminated manuscripts, the victim is never depicted naked but, rather, is usually portrayed as fully clothed, with disordered dress, disarrayed hair, and the presence of the rapist’s forcing hands signifying the occurrence as sexual violence.9 In a similar vein, Brigitte Buettner argues that in late medieval culture, concealing the body with sumptuous clothing was the precondition for evoking sexual desire in the aristocratic public.10 Easton makes this point even more explicit, showing that in visual renditions of narratives featuring sexual temptation, the seducing woman is usually completely dressed, and her luxurious garments signal her sexuality.11 Moreover, the interpretation of images such as that of Saint Barbara as depicting rape may be part of the modern-day understanding of violence. In medieval juridical records, incidents of rape were described in a language that borrowed its phrases from pastoral, idealized literature, thus emotionally distancing the audience from the brutality of the act, aestheticizing it, and ascribing a nuanced role to the rapist that made the crime less severe.12 In the Middle High German Minnesang (love songs) and verse narratives, rape episodes were disguised as “rape dates,” in which women’s refusals were nothing more than playful female strategies, and forced sexual

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intercourse often concluded with a happy marriage between rapist and victim.13 Saint Barbara’s depiction, in contrast, differs sharply with illustrated renderings of these types of narratives in illuminated manuscripts. It is thus likely that her image was not perceived as a depiction of rape to medieval eyes,14 although the luxurious dress of the governor and his retinue might suggest a sensual experience. Furthermore, apart from the tormentors who are focused on their work, no participants in the Saint Barbara or Saint Agatha scenes look at the women’s naked bodies; all of them are staring out at the viewers or up toward heaven. The visual aggression is thereby directed toward the saint and the devotees simultaneously, without providing the latter with a clear model of response or a surrogate within the scene, as was the case with the eyewitnesses expressing grief and fear as they watched Saint Catherine broken on the wheel (see fig. 40; plate 9). Although Easton suggests that naked female bodies connote “both purity and pleasure, both chastity and fecundity, and can signal in multiple ways,” this spectrum might be too vague for the complex of visual differentiations suggested by representations of mastectomy.15 What means of communication with the martyr’s body, then, did such a staging offer to the viewers? What role would their bodies have played in their response? Would they have indulged in visual pleasure and sexual arousal? Before reflecting on these questions, further images should be considered. The famous Saint Barbara winged altarpiece (1410–15) attributed to Master Francke, now in the National Museum of Finland in Helsinki, portrays eight episodes from the saint’s legend, including her mastectomy, torture by flaming torches, and decapitation (plate 22; fig. 52).16 Although the present book is concerned with galleries of violence and not with elaborate narratives of saints’ individual vitae, paintings

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of this type are relevant to our discussion as they do not focus on the miracle-working of the saints or on their heavenly rewards in the afterlife. Rather, they portray the circumstances of the persecutions, arrests, and torments experienced by that specific saint and thus also constitute galleries of violent acts. The legend of Saint Barbara takes more or less the same form in all hagiographical texts. As most of the works discussed in this book are from the Upper and Middle Rhine regions, I follow the Middle High German version of the Alsatian Golden Legend.17 Barbara was the extremely beautiful daughter of the powerful pagan Dyoscurus, living under the rule of Emperor Maximian. Her doting and amorous father built a tower and locked Barbara away so that no other man could enjoy her great beauty. One day, when her father had left the city on business, Barbara convinced the builders to add a third window to the tower, which would reflect her Christian acceptance of the Holy Trinity. When Dyoscurus returned, he questioned his daughter and learned of her conversion and vow to be a bride of Christ. In his anger, he took his sword, cut through a stone, and then attempted to strike his intractable daughter, but before the blow could fall, he was miraculously transported to a far mountain, and Saint Barbara was saved. Eventually, she managed to escape the tower, but her outraged father set off after her. She was caught, imprisoned, and then delivered to the Roman prefect Marcien. After being found guilty of disobedience, adhering to Christian beliefs, and refusing to sacrifice to the idols, she was tortured in multiple ways, mainly in connection with the mutilation of her breasts. She was whipped, flaming sacks were attached to her sides and breasts, her breasts were pierced with knives and slashed, and her head was struck with a hammer. To intensify her pain and humiliation, she was dragged naked through the streets. Finally, she was decapitated.

fi gur e 52  Master Francke, Martyrdom of Saint Barbara altarpiece, detail: Saint Barbara Burned with Fiery Brands, ca. 1410–16. National Museum of Finland, Helsinki. Photo: Timo Syrjänen.

Even if one ignores modern literary criticism, gender theory, and queer theory, the story in the Alsatian Golden Legend has explicitly erotic overtones.18 Dyoscurus seems to harbor a pedophilic and incestuous motive in desiring to keep his sexually blooming, teenaged daughter for his pleasure alone.19 The text makes specific mention of the erotic dimension to his secret desire. In the description of the judge’s ordering of the burning of Barbara’s sides and breasts in front of her father, the author used the word brústelin rather than the more common word brúste to describe her breasts.20 The latter word signifies the breasts of a fully matured woman, as used, for example, in the depiction of the breasts of the mature Queen Faustina, who was sexually active, bore children, was converted by Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and then suffered mastectomies.21 Brústelin, in contrast, suggests the small, high, and rounded breasts of immature maidens, which were the erotic ideals in the period’s courtly and mystic literature.22 The visual rendition of Saint Barbara’s body with her perfectly formed breasts in Master Francke’s altarpiece seems to materialize this notion of brústelin. The sixth episode of the narrative sequence shows Saint Barbara tied to a column, in a direct evocation of the flagellation of Christ, while two caricatured tormentors engage in her mutilation (plate 22).23 She appears detached and at ease, wearing only a white loincloth on her hips, again in imitation of Christ. Her luminous white skin and ideal body type attest to her virginity and purity, while her gaze is turned simultaneously upward toward heaven and inward in self-reflection. This dual orientation serves as a model to viewers of a way of looking that frames the mystic experience as an ideal response. The executioners flanking her on either side look at her perfectly shaped, young breasts, which are located at the center of the composition.24 The brute to her left lifts one of her

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breasts with his bare left hand to facilitate slashing it with the knife he holds in his other hand. The tormentor on her right raises the scourge, about to administer the blow. Both men concentrate fixedly on her body and react with their own bodies. The one to her left, swathed a light purple robe, directs his swollen groin toward her hip in a rather obscene stance.25 The one to her right is even more provocative, as he appears to have lost all somatic control: his belly is swollen;26 his blue tunic is pulled apart; his buttons have burst, revealing his undershirt; his lower belt, the dupsig, is open, as is the cloth covering his phallus (the Schamkapsel or codpiece); and his red tights are falling down, exposing his buttocks, while he grasps Saint Barbara’s golden hair with his other hand. He is an image of sexual arousal. The sexual tension is compounded in the next scene, which depicts Saint Barbara burned with fiery brands and staring at her executioner (see fig. 52). She is almost completely naked; the small loincloth that hangs loosely on her hips is transparent. These are troubling images: although scholars like Bynum have shown that mastectomy might be paralleled to Christ’s wounds or circumcision, and breast milk is considered akin to Christ’s blood and semen,27 the sexual evocations of Master Francke’s images are extreme and maybe even inappropriate for religious content. What, then, was the function of such paintings in the church? Did they provide fodder for the clandestine fantasies of the male congregation? If so, why would the church encourage that? Or, alternatively, was the imagery considered sexual at all at the time? For Elisabeth Vavra, the sensual appeal of Saint Barbara’s mastectomy deferred and obscured the theological function of the images, having an intentionally erotic effect on the viewers.28 Miles posits this notion more boldly, arguing that Saint Barbara’s image in Master Francke’s altarpiece constitutes “religious

pornography,”29 designed for the objectifying and voyeuristic male gaze that indulges in the fetishization of the female body, thereby conveying male hegemony. As such, images of this kind not only project a patriarchal, supremacist ideology but also might echo abusive practices in reality.30 The denotation “religious pornography” has been further explored by such writers as Madeline H. Caviness, Gabriele Sorgo, Martha Easton, and Robert Mills, who label it sadomasochist or scopophilic sadism.31 Caviness argues that Saint Barbara is portrayed almost like a playmate, an astonishing blonde who is nearly entirely nude, tied up, ready for sadistic treatment or rape; she contends that this reflects the sado-eroticism of a period unacquainted with pornographic pictures.32 Caviness finds it hard to imagine that “some members of the viewing community did not share with the fictional perpetrators the desire to do violent harm to these virginal bodies that were unavailable for sex.”33 Similarly, Sorgo points out the equivalency in the vocabulary used in accounts of medieval sexuality, torture, bodily abuse, religiosity, and sainthood.34 The erotic undertones of the martyrology postulated the formation of sexual fantasies, which, in turn, altered hagiographical and visual representation; these depictions, whether verbal or visual, became a safe zone for oppressed carnal lust.35 They afforded a space in which the readers/viewers could contemplate sexual seduction, harassment, rape, prostitution, and so forth. Since the genre of hagiography—in which these gender roles are encoded—was the outcome of the fantasies and enthusiasm of male clerical writers, late medieval hagiographical texts were replete with sexual assumptions that dictated sexual behavior. The implicit sadomasochist pleasure is implied in the words ascribed to another sexually assaulted martyr, Saint Agatha, who is made to declare in the Golden Legend, “The pains are my delight.”36

Attempting to negotiate and reconcile postmodern criticism and historical specificity, Mills suggests a multifold reading of the panels. He reflects on the various points of view available to medieval devotees of both sexes, adopting various gender perspectives: identifying with the body in pain; identifying with the tormentors, thus evoking a sado-erotic experience; or suggesting different resistant responses that “go against the institutional, cultural, or historical grain.”37 Perceiving the presentation of Saint Barbara’s mutilation as a suspended action, he differentiates between the act represented in the image and the action of the images. Moreover, as he explores the logic of the objectifying masculine gaze, he concomitantly delves into the ways in which the image transformed the female body into a site of power and resistance:38 unlike real women, whose bodies would react to the pain of such torments, the bodies of the female martyrs remain impervious to it. In his multilayered analysis, the tortured body of the martyr is “the point at which doctrine, violence, and imagination coalesce.”39 He further suggests that the power granted to those female martyrs would offer the female devotees the possibility of resisting rape and sexual abuse in real life. In this “complex web of identifications,” the images created the impression of the suffering Christian community, a symbolic corpus Christianum, allowing a flexible spectrum of experiences ranging from devotional to those of the flesh. It is tempting to read Saint Barbara’s torments as a pornographic display or what has been labeled religious or pious pornography. In both martyrdom and pornography, the body is the site for the alignment of pain and pleasure: it is presented as a spectacle and stage for action, the focus is strongly on bodily parts that are sexually coded, and the limits of sensation are challenged while a synesthetic experience is evoked.40 Yet Western modern pornography is premised on the denial of the spirituality of the

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objectified body and the deprival of all power from the displayed woman. In contrast, martyr representations in fact confirmed womens’ spirituality and true power. Thus one might question whether the images of Saint Barbara would indeed have appeared pornographic in a medieval context.41 In sum, I believe the picture of Saint Barbara cannot be appropriately accommodated either within modern criticism that fails to anchor the image in its medieval, historical specificity or within the purely devotional context of the imitatio Christi, which does not necessitate the ostensibly sexual evocations.42 Moreover, since for centuries the principal, monumental naked body in Christian art was that of Christ (although, at times, humanity’s ancestors, Adam and Eve, were also rendered nude43), we need to consider what responses were engendered by the introduction in the church of a female nakedness that could not be ascribed either to the imitatio or to sexual fantasy.44 The role of the erotic and the sexual in medieval perception needs to be taken into account. I suggest that images such as Master Francke’s naked Saint Barbara should be understood within two distinct sets of concepts. On the one hand, the bodies of the executioners are sexualized through their bestial, grotesque appearances, which indicate corporeal desire and lust as associated with the cardinal sin of Luxuria.45 On the other hand, the body of the saint is eroticized and connoted with the medieval sexual language and imagery of the Song of Songs and its mystical exegeses.46 The sexual arousal of the tormentors is depicted plainly: their swollen bodies and their convex bellies and hips perfectly align with the concave, curved body of the saint to constitute a clear physical relationship. While losing somatic control, their bodies seem to have erupted beyond their clothing, thus demonstrating their bestiality and animality, which, as Michael Camille argues,

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associates them not only with lust but also with idolatry.47 This carnality is especially evident in the executioner who appears in his underwear, his buttocks exposed, and his penis already unbound by its covering cloth.48 The men’s wild bodily reactions are the outcome of their fierce gazes at the naked body of the saint. While some scholars interpret this kind of scene as a projection of male, sadomasochistic desire, it seems to beg the belief that the church would have provided its congregation with such an experience or would have taken the risk of the tormentors serving as models for identification, imitation, or response. These bestial, uncontrolled men could not possibly have been intended to function as surrogates for the devotees.49 Rather, the grotesque physiognomy of the tormentors, their somewhat darkened skin, and their indulgence in terror and lust align them with the traditional demons and allegories of Lust that populate representations of the Last Judgment. The visual parallelization of the executioners with the retinue of the devil and the tormentors in hell was a common visual stratagem in art, liturgical drama, and even in the processions and performances of real public executions.50 It was in this way that the tormentors were marked as negative and evil, as antimodels, embodying earthly and corporeal sin. Saint Barbara, however, follows the erotic description of the bride in the Song of the Songs as an allegory of the love between the soul and the Creator, and between Christ and the Church. Her gaze, concomitantly upward and inward, as noted before, marks her as the Bride of Christ. Moreover, it also provides the mystical model of response through which her naked body should be understood, in contrast to the down-to-earth gazes of the tormentors. The radiant white and gold colors of her skin and hair imply purity and her heavenly, spiritual existence, contrasting with the dark-skinned tormentors and their colorful, body-conscious clothing.

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), in his famous Sermons on the Song of Songs,51 interprets the suggestive, charged language of the Song of Songs as an allegory of a passionate romance between the bride—understood most frequently the feminine soul but possibly also as Eternal Wisdom, the Virgin Mary, or simply the Church/Ecclesia—and Christ, as the masculine lover and bridegroom.52 Richard Kieckhefer aptly labels this metaphorical reading “theoerotic mysticism.”53 Whereas the influential commentary of Bede the Venerable (672/673– 735) offered the institutional interpretation of the sponsus et sponsa as Christ and the Church, Bernard posited a more personal one, perceiving the bride as the soul thirsting for God.54 The relationship is expressed as a love narrative that includes “longing, courtship, kissing, betrothal, passionate embraces, devastating absence, and ever-renewed seeking, culminating in spiritual marriage.”55 Its erotic dimension is articulated in highly evocative phrases merging caritas and cupiditas to describe a life lived in union with Christ. Bernard’s text unfolds the dialogue of lovers who experience the pleasures and pains of intimate affection for the first time. Paralleling the polemics of modern scholars regarding the panels of Saint Barbara, both Jewish and Christian exegetes warned readers of the danger of taking the erotic tone of the text literally. The Song of Songs describes all the phases of corporeal love. Verse 1:2–3, for example, describes the indulgence in physical pleasure and sensation: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for your love is more delightful than wine. Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes: your name is like perfume poured out.”56 The fleeting moments of erotic passion and ecstatic union are addressed in verse 5:4, in which the bride says that “the beloved thrust his hand through the hole, and my womb trembled at his touch.” As a love narrative, the beginning of the first pains of lovesickness is already evident

in verse 2:5, when the bride declares: “I am sick of love.” The elusiveness of love is described in verse 5:6: “I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone.” The verse segues into separation anxiety: “My soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him: I called him, but he gave me no answer.” Love is made vivid through similes likening human bodies to fruit, food, and flowers in order to evoke a full sensory experience. In verse 4:11, the lover describes the virtues of his bride: “Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride; milk and honey are under your tongue. The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon.” The bride answers in verse 4:17 by promising her sexuality to her lover: “Let my beloved come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.”57 These passages, as well as many others, were all interpreted during this period as veiling hidden Christological meaning. The particularly explicit line, “The beloved thrust his hand through the hole, and my womb trembled,” was generally understood as Christ reaching through an aperture to touch the sponsa in her heart.58 However, Bernard of Clairvaux understood the barrier as human nature, whose sinful character separated humankind from Christ.59 The opening in the barrier is a channel between heaven and earth. The influential Benedictine Rupert of Deutz (ca. 1077–1129) offered a more autobiographical interpretation of the passage and related it to his own personal mystic experience.60 In his vision, Christ thrust his hand through the chest of a young woman (adulescentula)—who either stood for a soul, a reification of a person’s interior, or Rupert’s feminine alter ego. Christ then held her heart, infusing it with ineffable joy: “This young woman—namely the soul devoted to these nuptials and intent on these nuptial songs—remembered these things, because the beloved whom she saw in the vision of the night thrust his hand in a wondrous fashion into her

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breast, as if through a hole, and he grasped her heart inwardly, and held it sometime, binding it most sweetly; and that heart—leaping and dancing within that hand—rejoiced with ineffable joy.”61 This passage perfectly articulates the interplay between the erotic, the mystical, and the spiritual in the Brautmystik (bridal mysticism).62 The longing for the fervent kisses of the spouse were understood as the thirst for the words of Christ. The kiss might also signify a mystical raptus (rapture), a foretaste of the joys of the union with Christ.63 Among the most stirring verses in the Song of Songs—and the one that has been engraved in Judeo-Christian collective memory—are the lines offering metaphors for the bride’s breasts.64 Verse 4 opens with a description of the ideal beauty of the bride: “Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Mount Gilead.” The poem goes on: “Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies,” which offers a clear association with the Virgin Mary according to Christian symbolism. In the Jewish tradition, the abandoned bride was interpreted as the Congregation of Israel, in reference to Ezekiel 16:7: “You grew up and became tall and arrived at full womanhood; your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.”65 Saint Barbara’s depiction in Master Francke’s altarpiece, with her fair hair flowing down her back and curling upon her right shoulder as if it were a golden fleece and her idealized breasts, seems to be a visual rendition of this biblical, poetic vision. Moreover, her upward gaze seemed to visualize Origen’s interpretation of the bride in Song of Songs 2:8 as the soul that “contemplates and seeks God with a pure and spiritual love.”66 Accordingly, I claim that the medieval viewer’s impression of her nudity was likely less of an illicit charge at glimpsing what would normally be concealed

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and more of a recognition of “a purposefully revealed symbol of specific religious meaning.”67 Owing to pervasive malnutrition and rampant epidemics in the late Middle Ages, the bare breast became an important sociotheological and artistic subject, in addition to a practical source for feeding infants. Breast milk was a powerful metaphor of motherhood, nourishment, and life itself.68 In commentaries on the Song of Songs, Rupert of Deutz was thus able identify the breasts of the sponsa as the nurturing breasts of the Virgin Mary.69 Similarly the Benedictine bishop Saint Bruno of Segni (1047–1123) could extoll the breasts of the soul that cradled Christ: “Happy that soul, exceedingly happy . . . between whose breasts Christ lingers, in whose heart he lies down.70 However, in the transgender inversion characteristic of later medieval mysticism, male mystics envisioned the lactating breasts of Christ himself, from which they drank and suckled, thus assimilating the erotic vocabulary of the Song of Songs into their personal visionary experiences.71 Bernard of Clairvaux urged his novices and Cistercian audiences to an imitatio of the bride, to adopt her as a model for providing maternal care, nursing sustenance, and life-giving assistance to the community: “Expose your breasts,” he instructed them, “let your bosom expand with milk,”72 for, as is written in Song of Songs 1:1, “Your breasts are better than wine, smelling sweet of the best ointments.” Bernard elaborates on this particular phrase: “She [the bride] would seem to say to the bridegroom [Christ]: ‘What wonder shall I presume to ask you for this favor since your breasts have given me such overwhelming joy?’ . . . When she said, then, ‘Your breasts are better than wine’ she meant: ‘The richness of the grace that flows from your breasts contribute[s] much more to my spiritual progress than the biting reprimands of superiors.’”73 Unlike Bernard, William of Saint Thierry does not regard God as a nurturing

mother, and yet he similarly understands the metaphor of the breast as Christ guiding and feeding the soul: “It is your breasts, Oh eternal wisdom, that nourish the holy infancy of your little ones. . . . Since the everlasting blessed union and the kiss of eternity are denied the bride on account of her human condition and weakness, she returns to your bosom; and not attaining to that mouth of yours, she puts her mouth to your breasts instead.”74 The image of the mystics suckling from Christ’s breasts recurs, as discussed by Jeffrey Hamburger, in many fourteenth-century illuminated mystical handbooks.75 In Das Buch von geistlicher Armut by the Dominican mystic Johannes Tauler (ca. 1300–1361), for example, John the Evangelist rests on the breast of Christ in an evocation of either the courtly couple or of the bride and bridegroom of the Song of Songs, while suckling Christ’s wisdom: he “slief uf der brust Jhesu Christi ung soug alle wishait dar uz und die verborgen heimlichkeit Gottes” (slept upon the breast of Jesus Christ and sucked all the wisdom and the hidden secrecy of the Lord).76 This vision is based on Song of Songs 8:1, “If only you were to me like a brother, who was nursed at my mother’s breasts.” However, in a transgender metamorphosis, John became not only the exemplary model of a mystic visionary but also a paradigm of Christ’s lover, the sponsa Christi, suckling his breasts.77 The Benedictine nun Elisabeth of Schönau (1129–1164) also referred to John as the one who is nurtured by wisdom from Christ’s breast: “Salve inebriate Sapientia, cum fecundo pectori Ihesu beatum caput applicuisti” (Hail wisdom, intoxicated, while you attached your head to the fertile breast of Christ).78 Moreover, as the chest was also conceived as the location of the heart and therefore as a person’s vital center and the dwelling place of the soul, the breast served as the perfect embodiment of the bride as the feminine soul.79

Thus the breast offered devotees a powerful symbol that conveyed multilayered meanings, evocations ranging from sex to the giving of life and the afterlife. Through this symbolic complex, the body of Saint Barbara in Master Francke’s altarpiece was presented as eroticized, not sexualized—an important distinction. Saint Barbara’s golden hair, raised eyes, perfect breasts, and erotic evocations thus transformed her into the mystical bride, as a way of leading viewers toward the trilevel ladder of the senses spanning the literal, the mystical, and the spiritual.80 The inclusion of acts of violence against the bride in the Song of Songs makes this connection even more specific and compelling. Verse 5:7 describes the bride experiencing violence while searching for her spouse: “The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city; they beat me; they bruised me; they took away my cloak, those watchmen of the walls!” The beaten body of the sponsa, stripped of her robe by the keepers of the law, the guardsmen, recalls di­ rectly the images of Saint Barbara, suffering at the hands of her tormentors authorized by the king. Eroticized in the sense of the Song of Songs, the saint’s body became a site of intimate union with God, a prelude to its perfection in heaven. Late medieval bridal mysticism— Brautmystik—evolved around exegeses of the Song of Songs, inspired as well by secular literature of courtly love. At times adopting the direct vocabulary of the Minnesang and vice versa,81 it utilized their metaphors and emphases on the corporeal beauty of the bride—the object of desire—as well as her willingness to sacrifice her body for love. As in the Song of Songs, the lovers’ affair is sometimes tender, sometimes stormy, and sometimes even violent. The bride is not only offering her sexuality to the bridegroom, but she is also robbed and beaten. These notions can be closely associated with Saint Barbara’s appearance, gestures, and expressions in the panel depicting her sacrifice.

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Nevertheless, for Christian commentators, the allegorical, erotic love in the Song of Songs was directed toward a specific audience of celibate clerics; the laity could not properly understand the deeper meaning of the book or of the visual rendition of erotic love, since they could only grasp the simple perception of the matter. This distinction between audiences is also articulated in the image of Saint Barbara: whereas her eroticized body is an allegory comprehended spiritually by the pious and educated, the portrayed members of the laity—the tormentors and the spectators—experience it only physically, so they, as their bodies reveal, have a sexualized response. These different perceptions are also a part of other instances in the Brautmystik and visionary experience, in which Christ might ask the mystical bride to strip naked. For example, Mechthild of Magdeburg (1207–1282) reports that Christ asked her to fully disrobe and to allow him to play with her body “because all alone with her he wants to play a game that the body does not know, nor the peasants at their plows, nor knights at their tournaments.”82 This line stresses two distinct apprehensions of erotic imagery, the one perceived by the laity, for whom the symbolic, erotic game would be “unknown,” and the other by the devotees who fully grasp the allegory. The viewer’s dilemma regarding the perception of Saint Barbara’s sexual assault as literal or mystical, as physical or spiritual, or as violent or sacred goes together with the viewer’s choice of identifying with the eroticized body of the martyr or the sexually aroused bodies of the tormentors. The sheer loincloth Saint Barbara wears functions as a sign of this ambivalent reception, as noted by Silke Tammen.83 It plays simultaneously at notions of veiling and unveiling, of hiding and exposing, the naked

body. Yet for Tammen, the loincloth’s simultaneous cloaking and revealing is less about hiding the humiliated body of the martyr than it is about characterizing the viewer’s dilemma: is the viewer allowed to see the naked body of the saint? The viewer is confronted not only with what is (or is not) permissible to be seen but also with what manner they might see it—namely, as eroticized and thus spiritual, or as sexualized and thus corporeal. On the one hand, the loincloth suggests the voyeuristic desire for visual availability, favoring corporeal over abstract imagery. On the other hand, through its visual association with iconographies of the veiled Synagoga, as well as with the partly cloaked Frau Welt,84 it signified the blindness of pagans, who were morally blindfolded by Barbara’s corporeality and unable to see her spirituality. At the same time, this veiling also indicated the possibility of seeing the truth of the body—literally and allegorically—once the veil is lifted. Unveiling the body, then, marked the tension between the eroticized and sexualized perception of the martyr’s body, between the mystic and carnal ways of seeing. The visual dialectics of the erotic and the sexual is manifested in many late medieval works of art, as, for example, in the illuminations of the Hours of Étienne Chevalier (1452–60) by Jean Fouquet (fig. 53).85 On the folio illustrating the tortures of Saint Apollonia, the martyr lies on a board in the center of what appears to be a theatrical coulisse.86 The king supervises her execution as three tormentors tie Apollonia up tightly, using the weight of their bodies and bracing their legs against the board. A fourth figure who lunges to the left, wearing the tights that mark him as an executioner and a hat that denotes him as a fool, is “caught” in a loss of somatic control: his tights are ripped, and as he

fig ure 53  Jean Fouquet, The Martyrdom of Saint Apollonia, in the Hours of Étienne Chevalier, 1452–60. Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS fr, 71, fol. 39r. Photo © RMN -Grand Palais (domaine de Chantilly / René92  v i s ual aggre ssion

Gabriel Ojéda).

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pulls at them, his transparent underwear and naked buttocks are exposed. The spectators of the execution are clearly differentiated from the tormentors by their clothing, actions, and expressions.87 The executioners’ closest visual parallels in the miniature itself are the demonic creatures around the opening of the mouth of hell on the right edge of the coulisse, who hint at the tortures of the damned in hell at the Last Judgment. The miniature thus connotes the bodies of the tormenters with demonic lust and sexualizes them. In that way, they are marked as the complete Other, as sinners, demons incarnate, who experience the event only in sexual terms. Other visualizations of mastectomy do not necessarily portray the same unequivocal sexual reactions of the tormentors but nevertheless reveal a similar interplay between the erotic and the sexual and the different models of response. The four panels of Saint Catherine from Alexandria (ca. 1440) in the Hessisches Landesmuseum Museum in Darmstadt include three episodes that were rarely represented, although they are found in her vita: her flagellation (plate 23), the slashing of her breasts (plate 24), and the decapitation of the Empress Faustina, whom Catherine converted (plate 25).88 At first sight, the flagellants do not appear demonized or sexualized as in the other torture scenes we have examined, yet the tormentor on the right has already shed his tights (and maybe underwear as well), while the one on the left has taken off his shoes, as if he is in the act of hastily stripping his clothing. Such partly clothed appearances signify not merely the men’s low-class stratum but especially their bestial ferocity, vices, and lust. Moreover, their stripping visually connects their bodies with shame and sexuality.89 In contrast, in the depictions of mastectomy and decapitation, the tormentors are fully dressed but exhibit other attributes that mark them as demonic: a grimacing sneer, a leering gaze, and a

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lustful smile exposing the teeth, the latter being considered completely indecorous and signifying a loss of physical control.90 The perceptual dilemma—whether to perceive the tortured naked body as eroticized or sexualized—is also subtly articulated in contemporary legends, particularly in that of Saint Agatha. Back in prison after her mastectomy, Agatha meets an elderly man accompanied by a youth who praises her resistance and offers to cure her. Failing to recognize him as Saint Peter, Agatha deplores the fact that he is old and melancholic—hinting at his impotency—while she is mutilated and thus sexually incompetent. She perceives herself so cruelly deformed that no man could possibly find pleasure in her body or desire her: “sit du so alt bist vnd so swermůtig, vnd ich so zerzerret vnd so úbel gehandelt bin an minem libe daz nieman keine frŏde mohte enphohen von mime libe” (You are so old and gloomy, and I am demolished and my body so cruelly treated that no one will obtain any pleasure and delight from it).91 When Saint Peter reveals his true identity and tells her that Christ sent him to cure her breasts, she falls to her knees to praise the Lord, and her bodily integrity is restored. This episode is illustrative. In her despair, Saint Agatha cannot see beyond her corporeal sight. She adopts the perspectives of her tormentors and perceives herself a deformed victim rather than the sponsa. Owing to this blindness, she also fails to recognize Saint Peter, seeing just the old, weak man before her. However, once she recovers emotionally, she recognizes Saint Peter and can see her own body with spiritual eyes, understanding its perfection. It is not necessarily her body but, rather, her sight that is now immaculate, sine macula. Actually, one might wonder whether the legend should be taken literally and her body was indeed reconstituted, or whether just her mind was healed, allowing her to perceive God’s truth accurately. Be that as it may, once restored,

Agatha can see her body not as sexual but as erotic, that is, as an instrument of redemption and unification with God. This realization brings us back to the function of the ostensibly pornographic imagery in the church. At the core of the visual debate is not the clandestine, voyeuristic desire to see what is forbidden (as suggested by Tammen) but, rather, the path to divinity. While the nudity of St. Barbara in such altarpieces as the one by Master Francke might be seen by postmodern writers as provocative,

arousing, or even abusive, for medieval devotees it offered a polemical engagement, the choice between an eroticized or sexualized position in regard to their own bodies and redemption. Whereas the sexualized bodies of the male tormentors in the visual representations marked the dangers of the flesh, the eroticized female figures signaled the hope of salvation through the body,92 offering spectators two ways of seeing its naked truth.

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Chapter 5

The Body Reincarnated

Standing before the altar, I was looking at the Lord’s cross standing in the middle of it, and on it was an image of the Lord Savior. . . . With what great humility, with how reverential a bending down of his head he received this salutation. —Rupert of Deutz, De gloria et honore

A remarkable late medieval panel in the WallrafRichartz-Museum in Cologne presents a lavish depiction of the Crucifixion (plate 26). The figure of Christ hangs between Mary and John the Evangelist, who seem both meditative and mourning, against a background saturated with red pigment, while two miniature lay donor figures kneel in prayer at either side of the base of the cross.1 Christ’s feet are pierced together with a single nail to intensify the cruelty of his execution, and the wounds in his head, hands, side, and feet bleed profusely.2 Blood pours from his side down onto his loincloth, which pools the copious liquid in its folds, while multiple rivulets run down his legs. A few drops splatter from his side wound against the matching reddish background of the panel. Mary clasps her hands between her breasts in sorrow, rendered through an illusionistic play of light, shade, and color (gray and pink). John holds his gospel in his left hand, and his right clutches at his chest. Mary’s and John’s garments present a spectacular combination of color, lines, and movement: Mary’s gray-purple tunic is covered by a blue mantle with green lining, and John is dressed in a red tunic and a green mantle with blue lining, as if counterbalancing Mary’s hues. For presentday viewers, the most peculiar feature of the panel, however, is the protruding of the heads of the three biblical protagonists: whereas the

cross, the bodies, the haloes, and the garments are all painted on the two-dimensional panel, the heads are rendered as three-dimensional, oaken sculptures, projecting off the panel as if incarnated (plates 27–29). Being neither fully a painting nor a sculpture, this transformative artwork is in a perpetual state of becoming or metamorphosis, from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, from image to real presence, from imago Dei (image of God) to res (in both meanings as matter and thing). The English portion of the bilingual text that accompanies the work in the museum describes it as follows: This unusual piece—part painting, part sculpture, may be entirely from a woodcarver. That would explain the quality of the heads and the plasticity of the painted figures. When looked at in passing, the carved heads seem to move back and forth. This also fits the symmetrical arrangement of the banderoles around Christ, who commended his mother and his beloved disciple to one another “Woman behold thy son” and “John, behold thy mother” (John 19, 25–27). Medieval reports tell of miracles in which paintings of the crucified Jesus or the Virgin Mary spoke and made gestures that extended towards the viewer’s own physical world. This “multimedia” work simulates just such a vision.

Although this text rightly situates the panel within the larger context of mystical and visionary expectations and the imago movens (moving image),3 its premises seem to be based on several misconceptions: (1) that the panel is an unusual oddity; (2) that the plasticity of the figures must indicate the piece originated in the workshop of a woodcarver; and, most significantly, (3) that the peculiarity of the work lies in its being “multimedial,” namely part painting and part sculpture. This latter assumption is even more perplexing when one bears in mind that most medieval sculptures were painted

and, more specifically, that many objects of late medieval devotion in German-speaking lands were of a transformative character. However, to date these objects have never been considered as coherent phenomena, owing to the categorical separation between painting and sculpture. Such binary thinking on the part of modern art historians and curators who designate sculpture and painting as two distinct forms of media seems to be inherited from the Renaissance discourse of what was labeled retrospectively, during the eighteenth century, as the paragone. The debate known as Paragone delle arti (Comparison of the arts), which goes back to the Historia naturalis of Pliny the Elder, contrasts the virtues of sculpture versus painting and flourished from the second half of the fifteenth century into the sixteenth, gradually waning during the baroque period. At its core lies the question of which artistic medium is better able to communicate nature and which one is superior.4 Consequently, the continuing tendency of modern art-historical discourse to contrast the two arts has overshadowed and even completely distorted our understanding of both media in medieval times. As medieval sculptures were colored and painted (by which I mean the addition of painted images upon the sculptures’ surfaces), and paintings could have also been engraved and chiseled, the validity of the distinct classifications of sculpture and painting with respect to the Middle Ages should be questioned. While this debate deserves a study of its own, here I would like to examine the interplay of both painting/coloring and sculpture in making the tortured bodies of the saints present. What was each medium’s role in materializing bodies? In what ways did they enhance the viewers’ participation in the mutilated bodies of violence imagery and trigger somatic responses? In late medieval Germany, sculpture possessed the ontological status of being alive.

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As discussed at length in my book Sculpting Simulacra in Medieval Germany, sculptures—and effigies in particular—were considered “living images” or “living statues” (lebende bilder / daz lebende bild), real counterparts to the beholder, capable of exerting and absorbing emotions and even able to act and move. The experience of statues as living entities, which substituted for real personages in the here and now of the beholder, is a frequent topos in Middle High German romances and epics, such as in the highly popular Tristan Roman.5 Such similitude and aliveness were achieved through the careful interplay of sculpture and painting. All sculptured galleries of violence discussed in this book were originally colored and some even painted. The best example is at Schwäbisch Gmünd. Although the state of preservation of some of the sculptures is rather poor, color traces are still easily discernable. The stump of the decapitated Saint James the Greater/Saint Paul, turned towards the vantage point of the beholder, is colored red (fig. 5, plate 4c), thus clearly indicating the bleeding of the severed neck. The red coloration is particularly discernable from the vantage point of the ground level. The garment of the executioner is colored yellow, and it forms the background for the bleeding neck, highlighting the redness. In a similar manner, the red neck of another cephalophore who holds his decapitated head in front of his chest (plate 3e) is framed and accentuated by the martyr’s own yellow robe. Coloring is thus not only a matter of representation but also of framing, accentuating, and directing attention. The flayed skin of Bartholomew (plate 4h), drooping down out of the relief’s frame, is colored in a pinkish hue that simulates real skin. It thus impresses upon the viewer not only the materiality of actual skin but also—due to the visual encounter with the familiar, the estranged, and the threatening of the self—the sense of the uncanny. Was the coloring of

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sculptures just a realistic device to make them look more alive, or did it have a more complex role in crafting meaning and experience? Was the three-dimensional projection of the tormented body from a painting to a sculpture a mere virtuosic showcase, or was it designed to evoke sensory and somatic identification? Such questions are hard to answer because only a few medieval commentaries refer to painting and sculpture as such, namely to their idiosyncratic character and specificity as media and their effects on the beholder. A unique insight, however, was offered by the twelfth-century scholastic William of Conches (ca. 1090–1154) in his commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, Glosae super Timeum.6 While earlier studies have explored William’s discussion on the nature of Christian image-making in relation to the definition of the sacred imago and to the divine prototype,7 I would like to reexamine William’s ideas from a new angle and suggest a critical reading of his theory as a polemical take on painting versus sculpture as artistic media. William distinguished between painting and sculpture in their ability to reveal truth. Although blurring at times the boundaries between the terms, he defines the imago/imagines as a painted or divine image and the simulacrum/ effigiem as an effigy or three-dimensional representation.8 He further differentiates between the imago of the universe, which is what we can grasp and understand, and its exemplum, which is what exists in the divine mind. According to William, in trying to account for the creator and his creation, all we can achieve is an inexact simulacrum, an imaginary account, which is “of an image—that is, of the world, which is the image of the archetypal world; ‘a semblance of an account’—that is, an imperfect one, for only the divine account is truly the account; but a human one can be a simulacrum of that one.”9 For William, our present world is a simulacrum of divine wisdom (hic mundus divine sapientie

simulacrum dicitur), that is, a material similitude of the image (imago) of the archetypal world of ideas (exemplum) and eternity.10 The temporal birth of Christ created a perfect imago of the transcendent God and granted humanity the possibility of knowing the invisible through further simulacra, knowing the immutable through the mutable. A imago is everything that is permanent, stable, and atemporal, whereas the simulacrum is changeable, unstable, and temporal. William assigned to the imago the knowledge of the eternal archetype, whereas he related the simulacrum to the signs of the corporeal, temporal, material world—in other words, the body. Painting (imago) and sculpture (simulacrum) can thus be understood as knowledge and corporeality, idea and body. Thus far, the scholarly discourse on what medieval people understood as mixed-media objects has been restricted to formalist aspects and aesthetic approaches alone as tools for categorizing objects, origins, influences, transmissions of artistic traditions, representations, and lifelike effects, etc.11 Here, in contrast, I would like to follow William’s distinction between image and sculpture to look anew at the role of painting and coloring versus sculpture in the late medieval German-speaking regions. While my analysis of the somatic experience of violence imagery has thus far focused on sculpture and painting separately, this chapter seeks to examine their interplay in their most pronounced manifestation, namely in transformative wooden sculpture. Unlike public sculpture, these works were intended for the inner spaces of churches, and therefore their coloration remains well-preserved, and their liturgical use offers fertile ground for the apprehension of the media interplay. Furthermore, the matter of these works—wood—is a central subject of reflection in medieval treatises, thus enabling us to examine the role of materiality in the imagining and realizing of bodies—and

particularly martyred bodies. Although the early modern discourse of the paragone launched a competition between the two media, the medieval debate saw them as complementary and working mutually to materialize the physical and the spiritual in order to produce a real presence, both in Eucharistic and non-Eucharistic, simulacral senses. I argue that while the wooden sculptures offered the believer the tangible and agonized bodies of the saints as a living material and real res, their painting and coloration suggested their spiritual knowing and eternal, divine truth.12 Together, they enabled the beholders to experience the bodies of the martyrs not only as a representation but, rather, as their true counterparts in the here and now, sharing with them place and presence. Since the production of transformative objects spanned the fourteenth to the early fifteenth centuries, and these objects have never been defined as a coherent group, I refer here to three illustrative examples as cases in point: the Metropolitan Schreinmadonna (ca. 1300; fig. 54, plate 30); the busts of Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne (ca. 1350; figs. 55–56, plates 31–32); and the Crucifixion from the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum with which this chapter began (see plates 26–29). While each work belongs to a specific genre, they all share a transformative quality. My purpose here is not to introduce an in-depth study of each object but, rather, to offer a new framework for understanding and rethinking the relationship between sculpture and painting as representations of matter and spirit. Although I focus here on wooden objects and explore the specificity of this particular material, the discussion serves as a springboard for more general insights into the ways in which sculpture and painting materialized and vitalized martyred bodies in viewers’ perceptions and how the interplay between the two media yielded their artistic reincarnation.

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The Schreinmadonnen are perhaps the most striking and well-known group of transformative objects of late medieval wood carving.13 I start my discussion with the Madonnas and not with depictions of martyred bodies for two reasons: the Schreinmadonnen are distinctly transformative objects that offer multiple transformations from sculpture to painting and back again; and even more significantly, the artworks enact violations of sculptured bodies through their performative uses. In their closed state, they present an enthroned Mary, often holding the holy infant on her lap (fig. 54). The crowned Virgin of the Metropolitan Museum bears the infant who grasps a dove. The work combines the Maria regina type with that of the Virgo lactans, marked by the single bare breast that appears through a slit in the robe, the customary nursing garment for a breastfeeding mother.14 The closed state of the statue thus manifests Mary’s role as the sedes sapientiae (throne of wisdom)15 while also attesting to her function as a monstrance for the Eucharist, both metaphorically and practically since the Host was likely stored within the shrine.16 When opened, the sculpture turns into a painted triptych, thereby maintaining an acute tension between the object as a single, whole statue and as a painted altarpiece (plate 30). The liturgical function of the Schreinmadonna has been the focus of many studies, and it is not my intention to rehash this rich and abundant literature.17 Rather, I concentrate here on the alteration in media that occurs when changing this work from a sculpture to a painting and back to a sculpture, delving into the relationship between the sculptured body as forma (form) and a real res and as a painting and its essentia (essence).18 In its open state, the inner body of the Schreinmadonna comprises a central, larger vessel and two smaller side wings, each composed

of three painted cells. The inner vessel originally housed another sculptural group of the Trinity known as the Gnadenstuhl (Throne of Mercy), of which only God the Father remains, holding the lignum vitae (tree of life), with the crucified Christ and dove of the Holy Spirit now missing. The sculpture’s inner structure, as argued by Elina Gertsmann, recalls medieval anatomical diagrams of the womb, which appears as composed of seven cells, three on the right, three on the left, and a larger one in the middle stamped with the shape of a man.19 Thus the opening of the Schreinmadonna reveals the anatomical body of Mary in a direct and straightforward way, creating a literal object that can hardly be read solely in metaphorical terms.20 The central vessel—the womb—contains the Trinity, epitomizing the idea of the Incarnation and salvation, while the wings supplement these concepts with six painted references. From top to bottom, the left wing depicts the Annunciation, the Nativity, and the Adoration of the Magi, while the right one shows the Visitation, the Presentation in the Temple, and the Annunciation to the Shepherds. The scenes do not follow a narrative sequence or typological ordering but, rather, demonstrate the witnessing of the Incarnation, the recognition of Christ’s divinity, and the presence of his real, material body.21 Whatever liturgical practice the sculpture might have served, its use entailed a recurring transformation between sculpture and painting through the opening and closing of Mary’s body. The interplay of media is intriguing: a painted, oaken sculpture is opened and transformed into a panel painting that, in turn, becomes a triptych structure, thus an altarpiece, that can be either portable or fixed.22 The middle section of the painted triptych undergoes another transformation, this time back into a sculpture—or a “sculpted painting”—of the Throne of Mercy—

fig ure 54  Schreinmadonna (closed), ca. 1300. Oak, linen covering, gilding and gesso, 36.8 × 12.7 × 13 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 17.190.185a, b. 100  v i sual aggre ssion

Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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a common motif in late fourteenth-century painting that is now rendered three-dimensionally.23 If, as claimed by William of Conches, the imago is a painted image of the divine truth and the simulacrum is a sculpted effigy indicating a material and ephemeral existence, the media transformations of the Schreinmadonna convey to its viewers the realities and truths of the Virgin: while the sculptural medium communicates the body of the Madonna, the painted wings attest to the truth of her body—namely the mystery of the Incarnation. The second transformation, from a painted triptych to a sculpture of the Trinity originally including the crucified Christ, embodies the son of God’s Incarnation in the metamorphosis from divine to corporeal, his existence as materia. The changing media complete one another to create a full simulation of the body and the idea, materia and its essentia. In addition to this change in media, the image of the enthroned Virgin, when opened, is transformed into a kind of conceptual Virgin of Mercy through its function of protecting the sculptural group inside it—in other words, from Virgo lactans to mediatrix.24 This transformative sensory and visual experience undermines the boundaries between the media in a prelude to the blurring of perceptual boundaries between the object and the viewer that follows the opening of the sculpture and its user’s own joint material and spiritual transformation. In the case of the Schreinmadonna, this user was originally either a nun or anchoress, who transformed from a virginal sister, whose womb was never employed, to a fertile mother when engaging with the work. This transformation was performed by delivering the birth from the womb of Mary while opening the sculpture, whether by plucking up the sculpture of Christ or by receiving the host that was kept inside it.25 Through the act of opening, the womb of the Schreinmadonna mediated between the unfulfilled body of the anchoress and the complex

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Otherness of the body of the Virgin, which is lactating and fruitful. The simulacral substitution of the female devotee’s real body and sexuality by those of the Schreinmadonna and her substantiation and submersion in the Otherness of the Virgin’s womb and breast expropriated the nun from her own body in favor of the simulacrum. For the nun this transformation granted her own metamorphosis from a state of temporary blood and flesh to an atemporal state of resurrection at the end of times. Indulging in the sculpture’s materiality, as a factual res, the real womb of the anchoress was not merely replaced by the simulacrum but was also lost in it. The material of the artwork itself played a significant role in this powerful transformation and materialization of the divine, as the wood of sculpture bestowed its sense of physicality and presence as living matter.26 In his Dialogus miraculorum, compiled between 1219 and 1223, the Cistercian Caesarius of Heisterbach from Cologne (ca. 1180–1240) described the effect of “living” images of the Virgin on the novice Apollonius, who initially declared: “Bewilderment overwhelms me when I hear that in wood there can be a voice to speak, a hand to strike, and a body which can bend itself, raise itself, and sit down, and perform all other functions of life. This astonishes me far more than the speech of Balaam’s ass [Num. 22:28–30]. For it indeed had life in it which could move; but there is no breath of life in wood, or stone, or metal.”27 Caesarius then rebuked the young novice, reminding him that “the Spirit of God exists in every creature, both in essence (essentia) and in power (potentia), and to Him nothing is impossible nor miraculous.”28 As noted by Katherine Allen Smith, clerical authorities such as Caesarius, Vincent of Beauvais (ca. 1190–1264), and Jacobus da Voragine (ca. 1230–1298) did not refute the belief in living images as superstition but, rather, approved and promoted it.29

In a similar tenor, the thirteenth-century play of Saint Nicholas includes a debate between a Saracen king and a Christian devotee as to whether the Christian really believes “in this piece of wood” carved as a sculpture; the believer answers that it is indeed made in the very living likeness of the saint.30 The devout are thus instructed that such statues were to be viewed as alive. Caesarius’s text is replete with accounts of wooden and painted images of the Virgin that talk, cry, shed tears, bleed, incline their heads, stretch out their hands to the believers, breastfeed them, and save them from demonic threats; it also includes many reports of “incarnated” images of the Christ Child.31 This animism is anchored in the doctrine of the real presence and the transubstantiation, existing in the liminal boundaries between visions, revelations, miracles, and reality, dissolving objects into subjects, with images either evoking the mystical experience or being invoked by visions.32 The ontology of the living images and animistic anticipations have been a focus of much exploration in recent years; in this investigation, however, I want to concentrate on the interplay between medium (painting and sculpture) and material (wood) and their specific role as transformative objects.33 In his foundational study on wooden altarpieces in Renaissance Germany, Michael Baxandall shows how the aesthetic peculiarities of statues and their animation were derived from the qualities of the wood out of which they were crafted; he stresses the nature of the wood for the appearance of the sculpture as well as the awareness of wood as a material.34 Here I focus not on the practical dimensions of wood, such as its technical advantages or the ways it was marketed, but, rather, on its symbolic value and the cultural sensibilities with which it was associated. The use of oak in the case of the Schreinmadonna would have bestowed upon

the sculpture the quality of aliveness: the oak tree was considered by Isidore of Seville (ca. 560–636) in his Etymologies (ca. 630) as the strongest and most longevous tree that also provided nourishment: “So called from ‘chosen’ (eligere, electus), for people first chose the fruit of this tree for their sustenance.”35 These properties of strength and life-giving nourishment are reflected in the body of the Virgin Mary and materialized through the opening of the Schreinmadonna. When the life-size statues were used in liturgical ceremonies for public veneration, the opening of Mary’s body reenacted the birth of Christ, with the priest cast in the role of the midwife delivering the baby from the womb. On the other hand, when miniature Schreinmadonnen were opened in private use, it was the anchoress who delivered the body of Christ in the form of the hostia, which was kept inside the sculpture.36 Michel Pastoureau, in his groundbreaking study “Introduction to the Medieval Symbolism of Wood,” noted that among all raw materials, wood was explicitly perceived as living.37 It was chosen for sculptures not only because it is a warm and easily carved material but because it was considered a living material that possessed some of the same properties found in the human body, had spiritual value, and thus was considered an especially suitable medium for living images. Wood preserves less well and is less durable, for example, than stone; it was also regarded as nobler and more easily movable, and thus has a greater affinity with humankind than other materials. Wooden sculptures are less heavy than stone ones and therefore can be relocated from one place to another, wandering like a homo viator. Furthermore, their parts could be joined with hinges to create movable limbs, similar to a living person. For Albertus Magnus, wood resembled the human body as it had analogical organs, such as veins, muscles, marrow, and flesh, and it could suffer, live, die, rot, and be

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infested with worms and insects.38 Like humans, wood had flesh, internal liquids, and moods, and it was affected by weather, seasons, locations, and milieu. Moreover, also like humans, wood was understood to possess moralities. Simple metals (unlike silver and gold), in contrast, were associated with magic and crime, both in terms of being the tools used to commit crimes and as being able to perpetrate crime in themselves.39 For this reason, a tool made of simple metal, such as an axe, was provided with a wooden handle, so that the wood could tame and control the metal. This addition legitimated the use of metal tools that were otherwise considered demonic, akin to the torture instruments of the devil. Medieval sculptures mentioned in contemporaneous reports as having begun to move, speak, or cry were most often made of wood.40 In medieval legends, wooden sculptures that failed to fulfill the expectations of the believers were humiliated and punished by being rendered anew in other materials, thus reducing their status from the animate to the inanimate.41 I identify three factors that are involved in bringing transformative objects such as the Schreinmadonna to life: the oscillation of media (the transition between sculpture and painting), the material (the oak wood with its connotations of the living body), and the coloration, which I will discuss next. While the painting illuminates the essence of the Marian body, the coloring offers a realistic rendition of the sculpture as a living person (for example, on the Virgin’s face) and the marking of the work as a sumptuous object akin to a relic (by the gilding of the robe). The coloration of the Schreinmadonna gives the inanimate image harmony, life, beauty,42 and value, and it functions together with the wood to create a simulacral, living statue, while the figurative paintings on her womb, as a res, reveal the knowing or the meaning of Mary’s body. Sculpture and painting are thus orchestrated together to produce a

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full simulation of the Virgin and Child, essence (painting) and body (sculpture). Unlike painting, however, coloring had a more multivalent use in transformative objects. In her study on late medieval carved altarpieces, Lynn F. Jacobs explores the medieval taste for intense colors.43 She details the theological understanding of colors in terms of light, proportions, harmony, and beauty. The striking late medieval polychrome altarpieces existed within this environment that prized strong color not only in what we call artwork but also in all areas of material culture, including architecture, dress, and food. Jacobs further notes that although medieval viewers appreciated the shining colors of polychromy for their metaphorical meanings, they also valued them for their realistic effects in narrative depictions and figuration. However, whereas some elements of polychromy assert the reality of colored statues—such as flesh tones—others—such as gilding—deny it. While in the case of the Schreinmadonna, painting takes the prominent role in the production of meaning, in other cases it is the coloring that is the main protagonist. The busts of Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins represent an intriguing example in which coloring functions both to intensify the lifelike quality of the reliquary heads while, at the same time, subverting it through abstract gilding.44 Finding the remains of the Eleven Thousand Virgins in Cologne in 1106 in what was to be known as ager Ursulanus (Ursula’s field) initiated the cult not only in the German-speaking lands but throughout the European continent.45 These virgins became the specific heroines and protective patrons of Cologne and particularly the role models for the beguine maidens of the city.46 The mid-twelfth-century excavations of the field outside Cologne’s Roman city walls were supervised by Abbot Gerlach of Deutz (ca. 1075–1129), who, facing the problem of authenticating the relics, sent them to the Benedictine

nun Elisabeth of Kloster Schönau (ca. 1129– 1164).47 In her revelation, the mystic was visited by Ursula’s companions, who provided her with the identities of each of the anonymous skulls and verified those that were accompanied by inscriptions. Through this holy confirmation, Elisabeth was able to declare with certainty that each of the relics she had been sent belonged to a specific saint.48 Production of the bust reliquaries began soon after their authentication as the cult surrounding the exceedingly numerous relics spread; the earliest busts date to around 1260, but most of them were created between 1350 and 1450. Out of the hundreds, if not thousands, of medieval wooden busts of the Eleven

Thousand Virgins, approximately 200 head reliquaries have survived; the city of Cologne has retained 122 busts, and the treasury of the St. Ursula Basilica in the city possesses around 700 undecorated skulls. Most of the busts are between forty and fifty centimeters high—that is, life-size. They are carved in the round with finished backs and polychromy: crystal blue eyes, pinkish skin, flushed cheeks, reddish-brown eyebrows and lines around the eyes, red mouths, and golden hair. The base of the sculptures, which depict their upper chests, are often covered with an imitation of brocade and precious stones (plates 31–32). These bases are perforated, allowing

fi gur es 55–56  Ursula bust (frontal and profile views), ca. 1350. Walnut, 44 cm. Schnütgen Museum, Cologne. Photo: author.

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glimpses of the holy bones contained by the statues; significantly, each reliquary head enshrines a skull (figs. 55, 56).49 The true nature of these bones as relics of the holy martyrs was literally materialized before the eyes of the devotee via the sculptural reliquary, which revealed both the presentia (presence) and potentia (power) of the saint. The wooden shell enclosing the skull thus functioned as skin and flesh,50 and together with the reddish coloring of the cheeks and mouth, the busts seem endowed with an unprecedented animism that is achieved through their immediate verisimilitude. The colored and sculpted heads transformed the desiccated bones into living, warm material, taking them from death to life. A fourteenth-century document from the Cistercian Abbey at Esrom in Denmark recounts that thirteen of the virgins’ heads in the church started singing a response to the Te Deum during the Christmas Eve vigil, marking them as living statues.51 Other contemporary accounts report that while devotees were kneeling and kissing the heads, the saints appeared before them in a vision to affirm their reincarnation in matter.52 The reliquary heads thus became a complete substitute for the absent saints themselves, not only projecting and visualizing the relics but literally materializing and fleshing out their presence. As Scott Montgomery notes: “The metal (or wood) of the reliquary becomes akin to the epidermal layer of the saint’s body. In becoming the skin covering the saint’s bones, the reliquary itself takes on the guise of part of the saint, facilitating a conflation between image, relic, and the actual presence of the saint.”53 The modern, scholarly approach to the production of the busts in Cologne has suffered from several, at times contradictory, prejudices. While the sculptures’ bright coloration was considered as giving the sculptures a lifelike appearance, it was also understood as a means to fully hide the natural wood (considered a cheap

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material) in order to give the busts a luxurious appeal, akin to jeweled reliquaries made of gold and silver. Many studies deemed the wood irrelevant and ignored its cultural specificity; it was perceived as serving mainly as an inexpensive and easily worked substratum. Paradoxically, at the same time, in German romantic and modern scholarship of the nineteenth century, wood carving was related to German ethnicity. This idea was posited as early as 1940 in an iconological study of the material by Alfred Stange, who declares, “The Germans, like the Germanic tribes before them, have preferably worked with one material: wood. It is characteristic of Germans and Germanic creation just like marble is of Greek art.”54 Thomas Raff, in his seminal work Die Sprache der Materialien: Anleitung zu einer Ikonologie der Werkstoffe, rightly notes that this interpretation was an apologetic, nationalistic glorification of German art vis-à-vis Greek, Italian, and French art.55 The legacy of this approach is perplexing: on the one hand, several scholars, such as Baxandall, have indeed acknowledged wood carving as the characteristic medium of late medieval German-speaking lands, while on the other hand, the wood medium itself was often ignored due to this nationalistic overtone, as is the case with later studies such as Montgomery’s. Nevertheless, it is surprising that Raff’s own book, which aimed at a new iconology of materials and became a milestone in the field, is dedicated almost exclusively to metals, minerals, and precious stones, devoting less than two pages to the use of wood. His short account discusses the lignum setim (hardwood) called Akazienholz (acacia wood), the material of the Ark of the Covenant, which was not even available in Germany at that time.56 During the late Middle Ages with the rising popularity of Ursula busts, Cologne became a leading center of production of wooden reliquaries.57 The city’s fourteenth-century guild regulations allowed the use of only walnut or

chestnut wood for sacred objects, although other wood was widely available.58 Walnut was also preferred in Hamburg and Lüneburg, where pear and oak were also permitted; in northern Germany, it was oak that took the lead; in southern Germany, it was limewood (tilia); and in Tirol, stone pine.59 Walnut was not necessarily the cheapest nor the easiest material with which to work; it was exceptionally hard, and although this granted an extended durability quotient to the objects, it deteriorated over time like all other kinds of wood. Walnut, however, was popular not due to its physical properties but because of its spiritual merit. According to Isidore of Seville, when a walnut tree is cut down, it commonly sprouts again and starts regenerating, thereby symbolizing resurrection.60 It seems likely that this characteristic made its use for the sculptural embodiment of the miraculous multiplication of the Ursula skulls particularly apt. While the transformative qualities of the Wallraf-Richartz Crucifixion panel and the Metropolitan Schreinmadonna include the metamorphosis from sculpture to painting and vice versa, the material transition of the Ursula busts lies in their inherent potentiality: the transformation of the enshrined skull to the painted sculpture and to the living head of the saint. In a recent publication, Ittai Weinryb notes that potentiality defined primordial matter, namely its ability to change form and essence from passive matter to dynamic material.61 This unformed matter is capable of transforming itself into all forms, animate and inanimate. Referring to the translation of primordial matter from the Greek word hyle (timber) to the Latin silva (wood, woodland), Isidore of Seville commented that the Latin term was appropriate because materia is connected with wood: The Greeks call the primary material of things ύλη (“matter,” also “wood, woodland”), which is not

formed in any way, but is capable of underlying all bodily forms; from this material the visible elements (elementum) are formed, whence they took their name from this derivation. Latin speakers have named this ύλη “matter” (materia, also meaning “wood”) because every unformed substance, of which something is made, is always called matter. Whence the poets have named it silva (lit. “woodland”), not inappropriately, because materia is connected with woods.62

Following Calcidius, Isidore conceived of silva as an Aristotelian potentiality, a shapeless matter, which was a prerequisite to the creation of the physical world and upon which God impressed an infinite variety of forms;63 silva “is a principle of potentiality, a material substrate invoked to explain where elemental qualities exist at the moment of their transformation from one state to another.”64 The wooden skins of the Ursula busts, which materialize the skulls enshrined within them as fully fleshed heads and make the saints present in the church, bring to mind Calcidius’s notion of matter and potentiality: “All that comes into existence must necessarily exist from a definite point in time: therefore, mortal things are likenesses and images of the immortal and really existing things, but they obtain their existence and reveal themselves in matter, thus producing in us an idea of matter.”65 Wood is thus linked to creation, potentiality, and transformative ability, all traits that are exploited in the Ursula busts: the wooden skin and flesh realize the potentiality of the skulls within them, offering the believers an existence of a real res in every possible sense, with no gap between their surface and truth, their visibility and invisibility, their appearance and essence. Echoing the twelfth-century ethics of intention, high and late medieval thinkers launched a more reconciliatory approach to these categories and the Augustinian dichotomy of body and anima (soul).66 The new relationship

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between appearance (in matter) and essence was aptly described by Hugh of Saint Victor (ca. 1096–1141). In his commentary on The Celestial Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, probably written between 1125 and 1137,67 Hugh elaborates on the appearance of the world as a demonstration of the invisible, divine things in the form of two simulacra.68 The simulacrum naturae (simulacrum of nature), which is of lower perceptibility, exists in the form, appearance, and species of this world: it indicates that God exists through creation. The simulacrum gratiae (simulacrum of grace), in contrast, exists in the Incarnation of the Word, Christ’s time on earth, and attests to God’s presence and knowability, accessible through vision and the senses.69 Crucial to the present discussion is that, according to Hugh, essence (essentia) and form or appearance (forma) are identical in the simulacrum gratiae, and they are not in the simulacrum naturae. The latter offers only an emulative likeness. Nevertheless, the simulacrum naturae contains meaningful, material symbols and sacred signa (signs), which exist in creatures, in Scripture, and in sacraments, which, by way of analogy, lead the mind to the acknowledgment of God. An even more confident approach regarding the appearance of matter was introduced by Thomas Aquinas, who maintained that the “anima is the form of the body.”70 For him, body and soul make up an inseparable unity. As noted in chapter 1, although Aquinas was not entirely free of the hierarchical conception of the two entities, he maintained a relative coherence, equilibrium, equability, and transparency of appearance and essence; in other words: what one sees is what there is, essentia and forma are one. While most medieval sculptures tended to provide the viewer with an impaired mirror of the simulacrum naturae, the Ursula busts constituted a unique case in which the intrinsic separation between appearance and essence is collapsed, thus providing spectators with a

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simulacrum gratiae entwined in the potentiality that is embedded in the material, the relic, and the form. Metal reliquaries indeed presented the realistic appearance of the saints, but in their heavenly state, an otherworldly appearance that was embodied in the precious metal. Wooden reliquaries, on the other hand, presented the coloration of the saint’s past terrestrial appearance, but they did not necessarily take the shape and measurements of the sacred relic they enshrined. The Ursula busts, however, presented the female martyrs both in the here and now (via lifelike coloring) and in the afterlife (through gilding); moreover, the fact that each head was crafted around a skull and took its specific size and shape created an object in which form and essence, nature and grace, and the terrestrial life and the afterlife were one and the same. Finally, in regard to the problem of coloration, Baxandall suggests that in late medieval and Renaissance Germany, it enlivened the wooden sculptures to such an extent that this practice and the works’ uses might later have been viewed as bordering on idolatry; during the Reformation, monochrome wood was preferred in order to prevent such potentially heretical animism.71 Although most scholars have related the hues on the Ursula busts as naturalistic coloration, this is only partly true.72 Their faces are indeed colored as if alive: pinkish skin with ruddy cheeks, blue eyes, and cherry-red lips—all conveying a lifelike image. Yet their hair and Riesenkruseler (elaborate frilled veils) are usually painted gold. Unlike red, green, blue, and so on, gold is not merely a color. It was never perceived by the viewers merely as a pigment due to its precious value; as such, gold is always understood as matter and as resistant to representation. It is a part of the representation but always has autonomous existence as a matter outside representation.73 On the one hand, the polychrome of the busts asserts a verisimilar,

real presence; on the other hand, the gilding denies this veracity and clearly marks the busts as apart from reality, suggesting their creation from a precious metal and, by implication, their otherworldly nature. Because head reliquaries, with their alluring, simulacral presence, might have evoked exclusively corporeal presence, the function of gilding in distancing the sculptures from the merely earthly is especially significant. As Cynthia Hahn notes, “The heads clad in shining metal surfaces deny their status as merely human. The addition of gold, gems, and other ornamentation forthrightly insists that these are anything but of the earth.”74 Although Hahn discusses objects made of (or covered by) real metal and gold, in the cult of relics and objects—including such miracle-working images like Saint Foy of Conques—the gilding of the wooden surface and its shimmering effect evoked the same cultural sensibilities, veneration, and devotional expectation as solid gold. In medieval thinking, the richness of the material increased the efficacy, animism, and spiritual quality of the images.75 The spiritual associations evoked by gold—angelic virtues, wisdom, and an image of heaven—invests the busts with sanctity and a metaphysical existence.76 For Paul Philippot, the tension between gold, gilding, and realistic coloration was an outcome of the late medieval desire to maintain and sign the liturgical functions of ceremonial vessels and cult objects through their visuality—namely gilding—while also appealing to the contemporaneous interest in pictorial realism through their polychromy.77 However, this ostensible dichotomy between two distinct, semiotic systems—symbolism versus verisimilitude—could be resolved by looking deeper at the spiritualization of gold in medieval thought. Although high and late medieval authors appreciated and praised gold for its fiscal value, they nonetheless deemed the medium as

secondary to skillful work and its spiritual, symbolic meaning, quoting Ovid’s “material ladder” in which materiam superabat opus (workmanship surpassed the matter).78 Abbot Suger of Saint Denis (1081–1151), in the famous dedicatory inscription of the gilded bronze doors he commissioned for the abbey church, instructed his viewers not to admire the material and the cost but, rather, the artistry and its anagogical meaning: “Whoever thou art, if thou seekest to extol the glory of these doors, marvel not at the gold and the expenses but at the craftsmanship of the work. . . . The golden doors define in these [forms] what is within. The dull mind rises to truth through that which is material.”79 Konrad Hoffmann reads this dictum differently than the by now canonical translation by Erwin Panofsky and contends that the text should be understood to mean that both the gold and the craftsmanship were to be marveled at, but not the cost.80 Whether one accepts Panofsky’s or Hoffman’s readings, both agree the spiritual meaning of the matter was paramount. Continuing this line of thought, Herbert Kessler has argued that the medieval crafting and figuring of matter was analogous to typology, revealing the truth beneath the image’s surface,81 as is literally the case with the Ursula busts. He focuses on a bronze serpent as a paradigm of the typology of the matter, which, according to Isidore of Seville, evokes Christ’s two natures by form and matter: the figure of the snake signifies Christ’s humanity, while the bronze—as the most durable of all metals and analogous to primordial matter in its ability to assume all physical forms—denotes his divinity.82 Equating the form of an image with humanity/corporeality and its noble substance with divinity/spirituality was a widespread topos in medieval treatises and artwork, as exemplified by the inscription encircling the majestas Domini of the late tenth-century antependium

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in Xanten: “The material and this image show things differently: the image renders the form of a man Effigiatus Homo; the gold signifies his divinity.”83 The combination of two or more materials as an embodiment of Christ’s two natures, or of the Trinity, was an oft-repeated allegory. Rupert of Deutz explained, “The Father is one God with this Word, as gold and ivory and the image of the ruler is recognized to be one in his seal.”84 Gold—and by implication gilding or coloring with gold pigment—thus symbolizes God’s divinity and knowledge.85 In a similar way, the sculptures of the busts render the forms of the virgins as simulacra, while their gilding evokes their inner sanctity (their essence, and their knowing, to follow Hugh of Saint Victor). In this specific case, coloration and painting serve the same function of portraying true essence. Hence, in the Ursula busts, as in the Schreinmadonnen, the interplay between sculpture, painting, and coloration—and their synchronicity—negotiate appearance and essence. The use of coloration to signify essence through materiality also characterizes the martyrdom imagery discussed earlier. The golden hair of Saint Barbara in Master Francke’s altarpiece can be understood as signifying her divinity, a meaning paralleling her gaze lifted upward toward heaven (plate 22). The whiteness of her skin—unlike the pinkish color of the Ursula busts—clearly evokes ivory and its web of cultural associations, which are mainly purity, virginity, and durability.86 In this case, too, coloration signifies the meaning or the concept of the eroticized body. Barbara’s white and gold colors stand in stark contrast to the rich colorfulness of the executioners and the aristocratic audience, which might signify their sinfulness. In the Saint Catherine altarpiece, the red of the background and the saint’s robe signifies the bloody violence she experiences (plates 23–24). In the martyrs’ scenes from Gmünd, as already discussed at the beginning of this chapter,

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coloration became a matter of color composition, not necessarily of realism, functioning to emphasize the mutilation. The Ten Thousand Martyrs altarpiece from the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum also demonstrates an intricate play of matter and color (plates 20–21). In this case, red serves not as a background but as the frame around several groups of martyrs, echoing and emphasizing the drops of blood and wounds of the saints. This panel also engages in sophisticated play between actual material and represented material. The martyrs find their cruel deaths by being pierced on what appear to be thorns that sprout from tree trunks; they are therefore killed by wood, which is considered living matter. This iconographical choice diverges from the legend, which tells that the ten thousand men were crucified. Martyrdom, however, means that resurrection in eternity is assured, and so this discrepancy between text and image carries meaning: their deaths on the wooden thorns of living trees grants them eternal life. The diversity of the movements and positions of the martyrs suggest that indeed the wood infuses the men with life. But one should keep in mind that this image is a careful, calculated representation of wood in an invented moment that does not exist in the legend: Ceci n’est pas une pipe. The panel itself, however, is indeed of wood, specifically oak, the strongest and most longevous, life-giving tree, according to Isidore. Could the skewered martyrs on its surface represent the life-giving fruits of the oak? Should the panel be regarded merely as a flat “painting” that should be seen only from its front, ignoring its materiality and the substrate on which it is made? Or should it be regarded as a three-dimensional object in the round? Almost as a sculpture? A painted, colored, and carved object? In medieval texts, the distinction between imago as a painted image and a sign of divine truth and the simulacrum or effigiem as

materialization remains inconclusive and tends, at times, to blur.87 Nonetheless, the categories still may offer us a framework through which to rethink the relationship between painting, coloration, and carving in wooden works. The use of oak for the Schreinmadonna or walnut for the Ursula busts brings into play a wide range of medieval associations regarding materials, including nourishment, fertility, and resurrection. Each specific wood bestowed upon the sculpture not only a symbolic meaning but also and especially the presence of a real res: that of Mary’s womb in the Schreinmadonna and that of real maidens in the busts. Both media fulfill the potentiality of matter in form. The media transition between painting and sculpture in the Schreinmadonna jointly materializes the body of Mary and the truth of the Incarnation through the shifts from knowing (via the paintings) to res (via the sculpture). In the Ursula busts, the tense dialectic between sculpture and painting suggests simultaneously the simulacrum of matter (via the sculpture and its realistic coloration) and the true essence of the Divine (via the encased relics and the gilding). In both cases, the interplay between imago, simulacrum, and res, knowing and matter, is completed through the transformational interplay of media. This dynamic materialization of the suffering body is effectively illustrated by the Crucifixion group from the Wallraf-RichartzMuseum with which I began this excursion, and it is what makes the work so compelling (plate 26). Whereas the cross, bodies, and garments are all painted, the heads of the three main figures seem as if miraculously metamorphosed into the form of sculptures. The material of the heads—oak wood—was considered living matter, underscoring the power of the heads’ shift in medium. The accompanying inscriptions of the figures contextualize the panel within late medieval mystical spirituality: the Middle High German banderole close to Mary

reads “wif sich din kint” (behold your child), and the one close to Johannes reads “Joh’es sich din muder” (behold your mother), referencing John 19:26–27. These text scrolls evoke not only a visual but also an aural sense of the moment at the Crucifixion. The diminutive donor figures at the base of the cross also have speech scrolls but in Latin: the one by the male donor near Mary reads, “Miserere mei Deus secundum magnam misericordiam tuam” (Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy), quoting Psalm 50:3, and the scroll by the female donor near John reads, “O Domine exaudi orationem meam” (O Lord hear my prayer), citing Psalm 26:7. The beseeching exhortations emotionally trigger affective piety. The scrolls instigate the movement from text to sound and from seeing to hearing, paralleling the visual movement from painting to sculpture. The transition from imago to simulacrum—to a full sensory experience—is enhanced by the red coloration of the panel, which intensifies the sentient experience of blood and suffering. Mystic accounts, by both men and women, often describe the visionary embodiment of images that occurred during prayers in front of Crucifixion scenes.88 The projection of the heads in the Cologne plaque seems, however, to illustrate the specific experience in which images of Christ and other saints became invigorated and inclined their heads toward the devotees in recognition of their devotion. A Parisian preacher during the Good Friday sermon performed around 1272, for example, guided his audience on how to see and perceive a crucifix in the church: “Oh see, Christians, look, look! See how [Jesus] has his head leaning down to kiss you, his arms extended to embrace you.”89 It is unclear, however, whether the preacher was describing the proper way to adore the Crucifixion or whether he was seeking to direct his audience to the animated potential of the crucifix itself as a Kultbild, able to interact intimately with the

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congregation. Was he pointing out what they should see, or was he directing them as to what effect they should envision and experience? Was he detailing the promise of such images or a real experience? This ambiguity also characterized earlier accounts, such as that by Rupert of Deutz in 1127. While imitating the posture and gesture of Christ on the cross installed on an altarpiece, Rupert recounts the image’s response to his mimetic action: “Standing before the altar, I was looking at the Lord’s cross standing in the middle of it, and on it was an image of the Lord Savior. . . . When I perceived him there, immediately inclining my face, I said to him, ‘Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord’ (Matt. 23.39). With what great humility, with how reverential a bending down of his head he received this salutation.”90 Again it cannot be determined whether the image itself was represented with an inclined head or whether the inclination was a vision activated by Rupert’s gaze and devotional expectations. Rupert’s imploration to Christ through the words of Matthew 23, however, uses the same rhetoric as in the WallrafRichartz panel, in which the donors address God with the words of the Psalm while Christ inclines his head toward them in response. The animation of a crucifix and its corporeal incarnation becomes a central experience elaborated upon in the dialogues on miracles by Caesarius of Heisterbach. In the second book, Of Divers Visions, Caesarius includes several depictions of crucifixes that come to life. In chapter 21, he tells about a knight who has pardoned his enemy, the murderer of his father, and granted him the kiss of peace: “Not long afterwards this same knight took the cross and

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passed over the sea, and when he entered the church of the Holy Sepulchre, accompanied by other pilgrims, honorable men from his own province, and passed close before the altar, the image [bild]91 of the Lord’s body bowed very plainly to him from the cross.”92 It is worth mentioning that in Caesarius’s text, predominantly only ecclesiastics are granted visions of Christ’s intimate touch, while laypeople receive Christ’s corporeal and physical recognition through animated sculptures.93 The Wallraf-Richartz panel, in which the lay donors are depicted witnessing a painted Crucifixion that is metamorphosed into a living sculpture, acts as an accurate artifact of its own cultural specificity. Such objects may indeed be regarded, as argued by Bynum, as auxiliary means to the mystical experience transforming violence and wound into love and salvation. Yet, it is the somatic experience of the violated bodies and the immediate identification with the pain of the “incarnated” bodies that become preconditions for the visionary experience. The galleries of violence discussed throughout this book attack the senses of the viewers through the interplay of composition, color, material, and media. The unique iconography of the tortures and the idiosyncratic characteristics of each medium make the violence real in the minds and bodies of the viewers, forcing them to think and imagine through their own bodies. The transformative objects bring this somatic response to an apex. Shifting between painting, coloration, and sculpture, late medieval objects and images of violated bodies offered spectators tangible material and res together with truth, so that essentia and forma become identical, allowing a glimpse into the simaulacrum gratiae.

Epilogue

Effect and Response to Violence Imagery

The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is a more violent world. —Hannah Arendt, On Violence

In her exposition on power, strength, force, authority, and violence, Hannah Arendt distinguishes the last by its instrumentality. Although rage and violence might be justified and rationalized in particular circumstances, the overall effect of violence is unpredictable. Violence dramatizes grievances and brings them to our attention, but as human responses and reactions can never be fully anticipated, its consequences can remain rational only in the pursuit of short-term goals. According to Arendt, violence can achieve obedience but can never engender true power. She contends that since the means would overwhelm the ends, the one immediate result of violence is a more violent world. If that is actually the case, does violence imagery have the same effect as real violence, and how should one differentiate the weight of the two? In empirical studies carried out during the first half of the twentieth century, young children and teenagers were exposed to vio­ lence imagery daily, primarily in films and photographs, and their behavioral changes were monitored; similar psychological experiments were repeated during the 1990s.1 Out of the five effects that the researchers focused on—catharsis and release of aggressiveness, sexual arousal, disinhibition and the consequent increase in violent behavior, imitation and resistance to or restraint of violence, and desensitization—the most notable recorded change was

desensitization, that is, the acceptance of violence as part of the course of life and its cultivation. Surprisingly, however, self-identification, emotional involvement, bodily response (other than sexual arousal), and imaginary and phantom pains were not studied. Such effects, however, were examined in cognitive studies in the field of neuroaesthetics. This research has shown that brain receptors, mirror neurons (found in the premotor and posterior parietal cortices of macaques), and sensorimotor nerves react vigorously to images of suffering bodies to an even greater degree than when witnessing real violence. In their work on emotion and empathy in aesthetic experience, David Freedberg and Vittorio Gallese demonstrate that canonical neurons are responsible for the precognitive understanding of images and behavior. They further note that in mirroring mechanisms and embodied simulation, “feelings might consist of the empathetic understanding of the emotions of represented others or, most strikingly, of a sense of inward imitation of the observed actions of others in pictures and sculptures.”2 Accordingly, in terms of bodily perception, the brain processes an action depicted in an artwork in no less an effective manner (if not on a higher level) than real objects, subjects, and actions. Freedberg and Gallese have shown, for example, that in viewing sculptured bodies that appear in physical tension, “responses often take the form of a felt activation of the muscles that appear to be activated in the sculpture itself,” thus resulting in a real physical reaction.3 In other words, neuroscientists prove that the bodily responses to images of mutilations will be felt in the same limb that is represented as wounded in the artwork. Moreover, if the violent act itself is only about to happen but has not yet taken place, the image will still evoke a response of empathy that will be translated into a bodily response of pain in the organ that

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is about to be “under attack.” This response coincides with a physical recoiling by the viewer together with an imitation of the depicted movements and gestures of agony. In perception, represented bodies and real bodies can become interchangeable. This observation by Freedberg and Gallese that viewing violent imagery inspires the response of the viewer in the same organs or limbs threatened in the artwork corresponds to what I have labeled here as bodily imagination. Also intriguing is that even when the image does not reflect any overt emotional gesture, it still causes a sense of bodily and emotional identification. In viewing such images, the viewer automatically mirrors and simulates the depicted violence, expression, and act, thus experiencing a sense of bodily involvement. These observations are in line not only with Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology but also with Shusterman’s somaesthetics. This branch of knowledge stresses the effectiveness of veristic representations in a way not unlike the use of images as stimulators of emotions and means for identification with the suffering of Christ as practiced by late medieval mystics. Late medieval imagery in German-speaking regions and its contemporaneous discourse on violence, whether textual or visual, would seem to counter some of the present-day assumptions about the use and meaning of violence imagery. Rather than being reduced to reflections of a violent society or to means of social control and intimidation, the visualizations of violence and the somatic experience encouraged by the galleries of violence that are at the core of this book seem to be part of the ethical and moral efforts to define violence. These efforts were directed toward restricting violence and setting the boundaries of the individual body and, consequently, of the self. Instead of having a deconstructing effect on the individual, visual aggression appears be a constructive element, one

that negates violent behavior in reality. Unlike Arendt’s apt articulation concerning the effect of real violence, the immediate consequence of violent imagery and the bodily imagination it evokes is not “a more violent world.” With its concomitantly destabilizing and stabilizing sensorial effects, the visual exposition attests to the regulation of manifestations of real violence and its ritualization. It is remarkable that these galleries of violence emerged in the very civic centers where violent behavior was, for the first time, regulated, delimited, and morally negated. This phenomenon recalls Elias’s suggestion that the emergence of the absolute state, with its monopoly over violence, created an innovative mechanism of control that would dominate human behavior, which in turn would lead to a decline in behavioral aggression.4 Whether this optimistic, hypothesized Zivilisationsprozeß (civilizing process) is criticized, modified, accepted, or rejected,5 violence as a subject for artistic speculation, and as an experimental visual and mental experience, accounts for a relatively short episode in the arts. Roughly demarcated between the 1370s with the sculptures in Schwäbisch Gmünd and 1430s with the panels of Rhineland artists like Lochner, extreme visualized violence constituted a transitional phase that did not sustain the kind of overarching progress suggested by Elias. In the initial encounter with the galleries of violence, the accumulation of countless disfigured bodies, then as today, render the individual martyrs unidentifiable. Instead of an iconographical experience, in which the identities of the saints are deciphered according to representational conventions, the series of visual executions in sculpture, stained glass, or paint provided an overwhelming sensory experience. Indeed, each of these media has unique visual properties and thus stimulates different senses and causes distinctive responses in the bodies of

its viewers. Three-dimensional, sculpted images produce an immediate effect on beholders, especially if they are colored veristically, stimulating unmediated bodily imagination. Sculptures can be measured and apprehended on the real living body, upon one’s very organs, which are thus perceptually interchangeable with the sculptured form. Painted bodies in pain,6 due to the illusionistic potential of painting, can communicate the textures of flesh, hair, blood, textiles, and so on in an undeniably sensual manner that can arouse a strong sense of verisimilitude, synesthetic experience, and immediate bodily response similar to sculptures. In contrast, the glimmering of stained-glass windows with their glowing, flat colors might preclude the possibility of their images engendering such an unmediated corporeal experience. However, owing to their dazzling projections when the sun shines through them, the martyr images in stained glass would have been no less present in the church; they just function in different ways than those works discussed in this book. They are present as colors and lines, as luminous visions, and less as bodies. The same light that allows stained-glass images to be reincarnated in space also erases their forms, turning them into amorphous splashes of color. The cumulative effect of the galleries of violence, with their serial arrangement that blurred iconographical details and prevented conventional identification, was imagery designed to be engaged as an overall encompassing and overwhelming visual and sensual experience. At the same time, in the medieval reality, the devotees visited the same church over and over again, which gave them the opportunity to consider and discuss the images they encountered repeatedly and from different perspectives. The religious aspect to the multiplied depictions of bodily violation was just one of many other characteristics. The galleries, rather than presenting easily identifiable iconographic scenes,

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display series of violent acts that are brutal and cruel, as well as concomitantly attractive and repulsive. The introduction of violence images into ecclesiastical art was a moment of change, a moment of transition between distinct perceptions of body and propositions of theology, ethics, and law.

In the generation to come, this innovative, almost experimental imagery would be circulated widely, assimilated, and established, becoming formulated and conventionalized with a much clearer iconography, as well as becoming integrated in new narrative cycles. The result was that it would lose its antagonistic

fig ure 57  Master of the Ursula Legend, Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, 1456. Oak. WallrafRichartz-Museum, Cologne. Photo: Rheinisches 116  v i s ual aggression

Bildarchiv Cologne, rba_c009802.

and shocking power, which stimulated its empathetic response. More than anything else, it would be aestheticized to such a degree that the images would appear almost pleasant. The popular, elaborated narrative cycles depicting the legend of Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins are illustrative of this anodyne development (figs. 57, 58). Dated to 1456 and attributed to a master from Cologne, the fourteen wooden panels in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum make up an extensive narrative cycle, encompassing many events from Saint Ursula’s vita:7 her birth, her baptism, her prayer with her parents in a chapel, the marriage proposal from the pagan king via his royal messengers, the messengers bringing the proposal to the saint’s parents, the parents giving their written consent, the baptism of the saint’s companions and their embarkation on the ship, their arrival in Trier, their arrival in Cologne, their arrival in Basel, their arrival in Rome, the vision of an angel before the pope and the baptism of the remaining pagan travelers in Ursula’s retinue, their

return to Basel, their reception in Mainz, and ultimately their arrival in Cologne and massacre by the Huns. Just as the present book began with a discussion about the changes in fourteenth-century galleries of violence from earlier narrative cycles, this narrative of Saint Ursula exemplifies the subsequent trend. The extensive narrative cycle bestows equal attention on many elements, with the moment of the martyrdom and physical injury making up only one sequence; violence appears as almost a minor event in the grandiose story. The panel depicting the martyrdom of Saint Ursula and of her companions shows the women standing calmly. They are so emotionless and still that at first sight it is difficult to distinguish that episode from the other pleasant and benevolent receptions of the retinue along their journey. Moreover, the bodily integrity of the executed virgins is maintained, and apart from a few drops of blood on their foreheads, there is nothing to suggest their suffering or violent ends.

fi gur e 58  Master of the Ursula Legend, Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, detail: Martyrdom of Ursula and Her Companions: Return to Cologne, 1456. Oak, 54 × 248 cm. Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne. Photo: Rheinisches Bildarchiv Cologne, rba_c009802.

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Taken in sum, the panels seem almost a kind of counterreaction to the earlier galleries of violence and horrific panel paintings. Whereas that imagery confronts the observer with violent behavior stripped of narrative context, here the narrative sheds the violent content of the martyrdom. In the place of anonymous, mutilated bodies saturated with blood and betraying the marks of unspeakable torment, here the identifiable saints retain their bodily integrity, their spilled blood becoming a decorative attribute that does not begrime the beautiful garments, hairstyles, jewelry, weaponry, and other elements of the scene. Through this pervasive aestheticizing and beautification, the cruelty of the martyrdom is no longer experienced as real and as threatening to the bodies of the viewers. Violence has been fully subsumed in the meditative practices of the period: wounds were perceived as love and suffering as happiness.8 In some cases, this kind of aestheticizing was already in evidence early in the fifteenth century, as with, for example, Henri Bellechose’s The Martyrdom of Saint Denis (1416), now in the Louvre Museum (plate 33).9 This example is instructive precisely because it is of a different temporal as well as geographical and cultural region, thus highlighting the distinctiveness of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century violence imagery in German-speaking lands. Unlike the galleries of violence, here the devotional context of the panel is clearly and visually manifest: to the left, Saint Denis receives Last Communion from Christ, and to the right, he is beheaded; his companion waits submissively for his turn, while the background features a disputant audience. In the center of the panel is a depiction of a visionary apparition of the crucified Christ, with a massive stream of blood flowing from his wounds but not staining the surroundings. The visionary nature of the Crucifixion is emphasized by the different appearance of the rocks beneath the cross; although a few drops of

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blood do appear on the golden background, the figurative images of the martyrdom remain sterile. While the beheaded bodies of Saint Denis and his companions also bleed, the wounds are clean and not one drop of blood dims their bright robes and embroideries. On the other hand, the figure of the executioner is even more strongly sexualized than those discussed earlier. Standing in his underwear, the concave position of his body matches perfectly the concave form of Christ’s, blurring the boundaries between the actual martyrdom and the visionary one, thus locating the panel in mystical expectations. The audience also differs completely from the other examples in this book, as they appear in lively debate, not indifferent as before, almost plotting together as they whisper into each other’s ears. Such panels provided believers not only with the specific identity of the martyrs but also with the mystical and allegorical framework within which the depicted violence should be understood—in this case, the imitatio Christi and the celebration of the Eucharist. Through their aestheticizing of the acts of torture, these images were distanced from the bodily experience of the viewers. In contrast to this aestheticization of the martyrdom, the onlookers and executioner appear to be more carnalized, inverting the relationship between victims and executioners that characterized the works in the German-speaking milieu of the fourteenth century. Another result is that the focus shifts from the brutality of the violent act (which is visually denied) to the brutality of the intention (emphasized by the vigorous plotting and scheming). This development is a radical inversion of the visual dialectic discussed in this book. Whereas both late medieval galleries of violence and later fifteenth-century narrative cycles of martyrdoms and the Passion were characterized by stark verisimilitude, this quality was later employed in very different ways that appeared clean, sterile, and emotionless.

Thus, contemporary stylistic trends by themselves cannot explain the somatic appeal of the earlier images studied here; the galleries of violence were created by a combination of their subjects, compositions, emotionality, and cultural conditions, which worked together with verisimilitude. The late medieval galleries of violence were a distinctive phenomenon unique to the late fourteenth-century culture along the Rhine regions and Swabia. The discussion of violence imagery in the present book followed first and foremost the visual properties of the artworks, moving gradually from their rhetorical, theological, and ethical expositions to the multiple responses they engendered and then to the realizations of imaginative materializations of the violence imagery. The first case study highlighted the new visual rhetoric that characterized martyrdom imagery around the mid-fourteenth century, an imagery that had not yet been completely encoded in memory and pictorial conventions. These depictions offered a novel experience in which theological and ethical concepts of violence were polemicized. Next I focused on the ideological, juridical, and theological implications that were brought into play through the violence imagery. Through a dismantling of the traditional groupings of martyrs and a reorganization according to teleological and punitive principles, these overpowering portrayals of violent behavior gave form to the concepts of lawlessness and authority. They suggested an imaginative sense of reason, justice, and control over the turbulent realities of the age through the idea of renewed martyrdom. Moving beyond such an ideological structuring of violence imagery, chapter 3 opened up the imaginative and speculative horizons encouraged by these same images by examining the somatic responses that they aroused before they had been decoded and placed within intellectual, mental, and devotional frameworks.

The novelty of the images discussed suggests that rather than theological argumentation and devotional practices being the inspiration for the martyrdom imagery, it may have actually been the bodily understanding of the artwork that motivated the practices. In chapters 4 and 5, I explored the somatic dimension and the primacy of bodily imagination from two perspectives. First, I discussed the various and contradictory responses evoked by body imagery falling between the poles of the eroticized and the sexualized. The responses to these works, even if they were supposed to be subject to clerical regulation, could never be entirely controlled. Then, I looked at the way in which the materiality and play of medium in the works reincarnated the absent bodies of the martyrs. Although violent imagery was often interpreted through the perspective of devotional practices and the imitatio Christi, the studies in the present book suggest that from the mid-fourteenth to the mid-fifteenth centuries, this was only one possible reading among others. Furthermore, the too-frequent theological and mystical efforts to regulate beholders’ responses to the manifestations of violence as a participation in Christ’s body, and as an opportunity to experience violence as love and joy, indicate that the real responses were so unpredictable that they had to be monitored. This book explored the potential for disruptive, unorthodox responses. Apparently, despite clerical instruction to the laity to view these images in a certain way, they were actually perceived variably, in ways that resisted regulation. In his exposition Of Martyrs, Caesarius of Heisterbach noted: “It is the cause, not the penalty that makes a martyr. . . . Now there are four kinds of martyrdom. Some have been killed for their innocence, as Abel; some for their uprightness, as the prophets and Saint John the Baptist; others for zeal of the law, as the seven Maccabaean brethren; others for the faith of Christ, as the

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apostles and their successors, and these are by the exact meaning of the name, called martyrs, i.e., witness, because by the effusion of their own blood, they have subscribed to the faith of Christ.”10 Whereas this train of thought is clearly in evidence in the narrative cycles, the galleries of violence explored here are devoid of such structures and references. It was not the reasons (“the cause,” in Caesarius’s words) for the martyrdoms that prompted these serial portrayals of brutal torments but, rather, the penalties that turned the almost anonymous martyrs into images of violence. In many studies, the reception of violence imagery has been regarded through the trianglular lens of indoctrination, memory, and emotion.11 Such images were even recommended as effective pedagogic means for educating young boys (through the example of the suffering of the martyrs) and young girls (through the example of Ursula and her companions).12 Yet bodily imagination and responses have always been unpredictable, unrestrained, and unable to be indoctrinated. In his Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri, Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) discussed a panel by Fra Bartolomeo (1472–1517) depicting the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian in the Dominican church of San Marco in Venice that had such a sensual appeal to the nuns that they were compelled to report it to the brothers: “He painted a picture of Saint Sebastian, naked, very lifelike in the coloring of the flesh, sweet in countenance, and likewise executed with corresponding beauty of person, whereby he won infinite praise from the craftsmen. It is said that, while this figure was exposed to view in the church, the friars found, through the confessional, women who had sinned at the sight of it, on account of the charm and melting beauty of the lifelike fleshly reality imparted to it by the

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genius of Fra Bartolommeo; for which reason they removed it from the church.”13 Although Vasari’s remarks were meant to praise the art of Fra Bartolomeo for his naturalistic artistry, they nonetheless attest to the ambivalent reception engendered by images of such verisimilitude that they could evoke bodily response and the libido as part of their effect.14 This anecdote brings to mind the mastectomy of the perfect breasts of Saint Barbara and Saint Catherine, stressing the subversive potential that martyr imagery might have had for its contemporary viewers. Images of violence—series of mutilated bodies—deferred devotional immersion and opened up innumerable evocations though the interplay of bodily imagination and imagined bodies, through imagined violence and violent experience. This visual exploration of violence and bodily integrity infused endless processes of devotional, ethical, moral, and physical practices. No wonder, then, that violent imagery was swiftly aestheticized and regulated to a degree that its antagonistic power was castrated. The crucial moment in which violence imagery appeared was the moment of transition between the religious and the ethical perception of the body and selfhood, between the eroticized and the sexualized; it was a moment of moving from the social to the private body and from the fragmented to the integral body. Once the early modern notion of selfhood was formulated, this visual discourse became redundant. Seeing the novelty of late medieval notions of violence and bodily integrity as a watershed of early modern individuality suggests that the fourteenthcentury visualization of violence, like all visualizations, changed the world. But the most probable implication of this exploration—to paraphrase Arendt—might have been a less violent world.

Notes

Introduction Epigraph: Jacobus de Voragine, Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints as Englished by William Caxton, 7:35–36. I have used this fifteenth-century translation as its wording is more appropriate to the period and is closer to the Middle High German version, which is discussed below. 1. Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea. 2. Ibid., 2:764. His legend is discussed in chapter 2. All translations are by the author unless otherwise indicated. 3. This response contrasts, for example, to that of Saint Margarete, who states that “dise pin des libes ist ein heil der selen” (this pain of the flesh is the salvation of the soul; ibid., 2:424). 4. Medieval alterity was often marked by an excess of violent behavior and a predilection for self-inflicted pain. This notion was formulated by Huizinga (Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen, 1–36). For a recent translation, see Huizinga, Autumn of the Middle Ages, 1–29. For a detailed discussion of medieval alterity and violence, see Nirenberg, Communities of Violence, 18–40. 5. The term “philopassianism” was coined by Esther Cohen to evoke physical sensation that was considered useful, not pleasurable, in paving the path to salvation (“Towards a History of European Physical Sensibility,” 56–62). The literature on the late medieval body in pain is vast, and I refer here and below only to the most recent publications, see Van Dijkhuizen and Enenkel, Sense of Suffering, i–xxiii, and Cohen, Modulated Scream, 25–51. A useful standard work is Böhme and Wehrli-Johns, Lerne leiden. 6. As early as the late Roman period, the human being was conceived as a body liable to feel pain, and the body in pain became a focus of significant cultural concern that gave rise to the creation of a new subjectivity; see Perkins, Suffering Self, 7–13.

7. See Baraz, Medieval Cruelty, 1–2. 8. Huizinga, Autumn of the Middle Ages, 3–4. 9. Bynum, “Violent Imagery in Late Medieval Piety,” 3–36. 10. Kathleen M. Openshaw interpreted the images of knights in combat in the Saint Albans Psalter according to the accompanying explanatory gloss that instructs each person engaged in the spiritual battle of penance to be armed with the weapons of faith and chastity (“Weapons in the Daily Battle,” 17–18). See also Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life, 42–62. 11. For an introduction to the topic, see, e.g., Puppi, Torment in Art; Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption, 184–221; Bynum, Wonderful Blood; Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life; Merback, The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel; Merback, Pilgrimage and Pogrom; Groebner, Defaced; Tammen, “Gewalt im Bilde,” 307–40; Mills, Suspended Animation; Dittmeyer, Gewalt und Heil. For a critical reading of Mills’s work, see Hamburger, “Overkill, or History That Hurts,” 404–28. 12. The gender issues evoked by such representation of Luxuria are discussed in chapter 4. On the Chartres violence imagery, see chapter 1, n. 4. 13. Narrative cycles are common in manuscripts from the twelfth to the fourteenth century but less prevalent in monumental art. Earlier examples are the elaborate narratives of Saint Savin and Saint Cyprian in the romanesque murals of the crypt of Saint-Savinsur-Gartempe, dated ca. 1090. For sculptural cycles, see the martyrdom of Saint Stephen on the southwest portal at Chartres, ca. 1220; the persecution of Saint Victor in the abbey church of Mouzon, ca. 1231; or the Arca di San Pietro Martire, 1339, by Giovanni di Balduccio in Sant’Eustorgio, Milan. 14. See Merback, The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel, 11–32; Bynum, “Violent Imagery in Late Medieval Piety,” 3–36; and Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart, 59–128.

15. In addition to the abovementioned studies, see Belting, Bild-Anthropologie, 11–56; Bredekamp, Theorie des Bildakts, 103–9; Bynum, Christian Materiality, 31–33; Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption, 79–118; and Hamburger, Visual and the Visionary, 197–232. 16. See Shusterman, Thinking Through the Body. 17. Huizinga, Autumn of the Middle Ages, and Elias, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation. 18. For a critical overview, see Classen, “Violence in the Shadow of the Court,” 7–14, and Schuster, “Die Krise des Spätmittelalters,” 19–55. 19. Cohen, Crossroads of Justice, 8–10, and Classen, “Violence in the Shadow of the Court,” 13. 20. Merback, The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel, 129–30. 21. Groebner, Defaced, 40–43. 22. Merback, The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel, 131–33. 23. This signal was recognized in the case of a certain baker’s assistant from Nuremberg who was convicted for murdering five people; see Groebner, Defaced, 103. 24. Ibid., 72–80, and DuBruck, “Violence and Late Medieval Justice,” 56–67. 25. On Aquinas’s notion of the body, see chapter 1, epigraph and nn. 61–67. 26. See Röttgers, “Gewalt,” 562–70; Christoph, “Violence Stylized,” 115–26. 27. Vones, “Potestas,” 131–33. 28. The literature on these churches is discussed in the chapters 1–3. For an overall view, see Pinkus, Patrons and Narratives of the Parler School, 19–32. 29. A shorter version of this chapter has appeared in Pinkus, “Visual Aggression,” 43–59. 30. For the literature on these cycles, see chapter 3, n. 88. 31. For an introduction to the manuscript and its circulation, see Jefferis, “Legenda Aurea, Alsatian,” 33–34, and chapter 2, nn. 13 and 64. 32. See Band, Jung, and Williams-Krapp, Der Heiligen Leben; Söder, “Märterbuch und Prosapassional”; Gierach, Das Märterbuch. I have translated these texts into modern Hebrew and have also translated the significant case studies in this book into English. 33. This view is advocated by Curschmann (“Hören— Lesen—Sehen,” 218–57). 34. For example, in his study of the communicative function of medieval sculpture, Bruno Boerner adopts models of emotive response borrowed from the writings of Dominican female mystics in an attempt to interpret the sculpture on public façades. In doing so, he directs attention to the clerics’ presumed target audience as the key to reconstructing the communicative functions of monumental sculpture. He thus reconstructs the assumed response of the lay congregation on the basis of the models suggested by local female spirituality, which

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might have been irrelevant to the public at large. See Boerner, Bildwirkungen, 9–13. 35. Steer, Klimanek, Kuhlmann, Löser, and Südekum, Die “Rechtssumme” Bruder Bertholds, discussed in Groebner, Defaced, 106. 36. See, e.g., the short discussion on the martyr cycles in St. Martin in Wellmich am Rhein and St. Bartholomew in Zell am Allgäu in chapter 3. Both cycles have suffered from stark restorations and therefore do not merit consideration at length. 37. This source, however, was recompiled during the seventeenth century, and I follow here only those accounts that were found to be reliable; see chapter 2, epigraph and n. 40. 38. See nn. 9 and 11 above; Easton, “Saint Agatha and the Sanctification of Sexual Violence,” 83–118; Carlson, “Spectator Responses to an Image of Violence,” 7–20. I consider the extensive literature on the subject throughout the following pages. 39. There are, of course, several exceptions, such as the well-known Mocking of Christ by Fra Angelico, in the Convent of San Marco in Florence, ca. 1441, but the isolated signs of his humiliations still reconstruct the full narrative of his suffering. For similar reasons, I also do not address the highly emotional images of the Man of Sorrows, which have been discussed extensively; see recently Puglisi and Barcham, New Perspectives on the Man of Sorrows, 1–6, and the seminal study by Erwin Panofsky, “‘Imago Pietatis,’” 261–308. 40. These galleries of violence might have attracted postmodern scholars because such spectacles of tormented bodies in pain have actually disappeared from the penalty system of modern West. See Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 304–8.

Chapter 1 Epigraph: Thomas Aquinas, In Aristotelis libros, De sensus et sensato, De memoria et reminiscentia commentarium, 91–93; translation after Lewis, Reading Images, 242–43. 1. Enders, “Emotion Memory and the Medieval Performance,” 144, and Easton, “‘Images Gross and Sensible,’” 33–54. 2. For his pioneering study, see Freedberg, Eye of the Lynx, 397–416, and Freedberg and Gallese, “Motion, Emotion, and Empathy,” 197–203. 3. See introduction, n. 13; chapter 3, n. 88, and passim. 4. Lutan-Hassner, South Porch of Chartres Cathedral, 32–38, 112–18, and Villette, Portails de la cathédrale de Chartres, 264–69. 5. The term is from Gerstenberg, Deutsche Sondergotik. For a comprehensive bibliography on the Holy Cross

Church, see Strobel, Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Schwäbisch Gmünd, 161–86, and Legner, Die Parler und der schöne Stil, 1:315–25. 6. All these sources ascribe the work in Gmünd to Heinrich Parler and praise him as the famous Werkmeister from Cologne. On the basis of stylistic arguments, the sculpture of the south choir portal may be partly ascribed to his son Peter Parler, from Prague, whereas the Annales also mentions Johann (probably also Heinrich’s son, Werkmeister of the Freiburg-im-Breisgau Cathedral) as working there in 1372. The local Parler workshops were likely dismantled in 1377 when Heinrich died. For an analysis of the inscriptions and sources, see Herrmann, “Die Schriftquellen zu den Parlern am Heiligkreuzmünster,” 25–27. For dating and chronology, see Baumhauer and Schüle, Das Heilig-Kreuz-Münster zu Schwäbisch Gmünd, 32–43; Schmitt, Das Heiligkreuzmünster in Schwäbisch Gmünd, 15–24; Kissling, Das Münster in Schwäbisch Gmünd, 64–68; Pinkus, Patrons and Narratives of the Parler School, 19–32. 7. “anno d (omi )ni mcccli ponebatur prim (us ) lap(is) pro fundamento huius chori xvi k (a)l(endas) augusti.” 8. See Schurr, “Heinrich und Peter Parler am Heiligkreuzmünster,” 29–38. 9. For the stylistic classification, see n. 6 above. 10. For the iconographical program, see Strobel, Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Schwäbisch Gmünd, 269–85. Strobel dates the sculpture to slightly earlier, based mainly on Otto Schmitt (Das Heiligkreuzmünster in Schwäbisch Gmünd). Both scholars later revised and reconsidered their dating. 11. Schmitt, Das Heiligkreuzmünster in Schwäbisch Gmünd, 15–24, and Legner, Die Parler und der schöne Stil, 1:321–24. 12. For the example of the Naumburg western choir screen, see Jung, Gothic Screen, 173–79. 13. On the emotional function of fourteenth-century sculptural programs and their relation to the mystical experience, see Boerner, Bildwirkungen, 55–59, 139–66. Finding parallelism between the subject matter and emotional appeal of sculpted tympana and private Andachtsbilder, between narrative and nonnarrative representations, Boerner reconstructs the assumed response of the lay congregation on the basis of the models suggested by local female spirituality. I do not believe, however, that the devotional practices of such a specific and relatively isolated interpretive community as the female mystics could have served as an exclusive means by which to understand the functions of public sculpture. 14. The southern portals in the Upper Rhine were, in many cases, the place of the civic court; see Nicolai, “Orders in Stone,” 111–28. There is no contemporary

evidence regarding the function of the portal and the liturgical processions that might have passed through it to enter the church. Fourteenth-century sermons from Gmünd have not survived. The earliest record, one from the mid-seventeenth century, testifies that a theatrical performance of the passio took place in front of the north body of the church; it does not specify whether this occurred in front of the south choir portal discussed here, before the south portal of the transept, or between those two doors, against the bare wall of the church; see Baumhauer and Schüle, Das Heilig-Kreuz-Münster zu Schwäbisch Gmünd, 39. Moreover, because the romanesque crossing tower collapsed in 1497, the jamb figures of the portal and the inner portal and the transept’s figural embellishment were damaged to such an extent that the overall context of the portal cannot be reconstructed fully or with any certainty. For overviews of the scant documentary evidence translated into modern German, see Strobel, Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Schwäbisch Gmünd, 178–86; Kissling, Das Münster in Schwäbisch Gmünd, 53–54; Schmidt, Schwäbisch Gmünd, 17–19. 15. None of the figures is identified by inscription. In early twentieth-century iconographic studies, they were identified by conventional attributes or according to their vita, but some figures remain unidentified. See Strobel, Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Schwäbisch Gmünd, 263–64, and Schmitt, Das Heiligkreuzmünster in Schwäbisch Gmünd, 33. 16. For the martyrdom of Saint James the Greater, see Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints (henceforth Golden Legend), 2:5. 17. For the martyrdom of Saint Paul, see ibid., 1:354. (All subsequent references to the Golden Legend refer to the translation by William Granger Ryan.) As both saints were decapitated, there is no firm attribute by which to identify the headless figure as representing one or the other saint; the distinction between them is based on their inclusion in conventional cycles of martyred apostles; see Strobel, Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Schwäbisch Gmünd, 263. 18. See Garnier, Langage de l’image au Moyen Âge, 1:139. These displays of agony stand in stark contrast to Albert Schirrmeister’s contention that pictorial depictions of martyrs reveal no significant meaning in regard to bodily suffering (“Folter und Heiligung in der Legenda Aurea,” 146). 19. Shaw, “Body/Power/Identity,” 269–312. 20. The tympanum was partially restored in the nineteenth century. On the various phases of its sculptural program, see Blum, “Fingerprinting the Stone at SaintDenis,” 19–28. 21. Although a comparison with the torments of the damned in hell seems self-evident, there is almost no

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correlation between the tortures of the martyrs and those of the damned; the latter are usually related to the cardinal sins and show an entirely different range of punishments. 22. Montgomery, “Mittite capud meum,” 53–56. 23. For a full survey and description of the reliquaries and altars, see Strobel, Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Schwäbisch Gmünd, 428–31. 24. Saint Alexius was doused with boiling oil. 25. Violent imagery similar to the eighteen martyrdom scenes in Gmünd can be found in Byzantine illuminated manuscripts, such as the Menologion of Basil II (Vat. gr. 1613), ca. 1000. However, I could not trace any local reception of similar manuscripts or visual traditions along the Middle and Upper Rhine and Swabia prior to the sculptured imagery. For a comprehensive bibliography on the Holy Cross Church and a standard work in the iconography of the sculptures, see Strobel, Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Schwäbisch Gmünd, 1161–446. 26. For Saint Simon’s legend, see Jacobus de Voragine, Golden Legend, 2:263–66. Both Saint Simon and Saint Judas Thaddeus are identified consistently in all previous publications on Gmünd, although the legend is not very detailed in regard to their torments. 27. According to Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend (2:185), Saint Matthew was stabbed in the back and not in the breast. 28. Ibid., 3:264. 29. Ibid., 1:272. 30. Since this figure is part of a martyr cycle, he cannot be identified as Saint Peter of Verona, who was murdered in this manner in 1252; see chapter 2, nn. 5 and 48. 31. For an iconographic analysis, see Katzenellenbogen, Sculptural Programs of Chartres Cathedral, 79–90. Examples of the rather conventional iconography of the stoning of Saint Stephen are numerous and can be found in the Church of Saint Stephen at Chambron-sur-Lac, eleventh century; the Church of Saint Benoît-sur-Loire, twelfth century; Saint Trophime, Arles, western façade, midtwelfth century; Cahors Cathedral, western façade, early twelfth-century; and Bourges Cathedral, west façade, Saint Stephen Portal, ca. 1230. 32. The image of Saint Catherine in Thann and its relationship to the textual sources is one of the foci of chapter 3. 33. On the impassibility of the martyrs, see Cohen, “Animated Pain of the Body,” 44–47. 34. The literature on this cycle is scarce. Apart from attributing the veneration of Saint George to the fact that the local lord, Ulrich III of Schenna, had participated in the Fifth Crusade and relating the central structure of the Church of Saint George in Schenna to that of the

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Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, no study has yet contextualized this extraordinary cycle; see Theil, Sankt George bei Schenna, 26–39, and Weingarten, Gotische Wandmalerei in Südtirol, 37–44. 35. Shaw, “Body/Power/Identity,” 271–73, 279–91. 36. On the dual concept of death and life of the martyr’s body, see also Reudenbach, “Märtyrertode ohne Blut,” 72–75. 37. Shaw, “Body/Power/Identity,” 294. 38. On the problem of the reception of violence in late medieval art, see Tammen, “Gewalt im Bilde,” 307–9, 321–32, and Groebner, Defaced, 14, 23–35. 39. Bynum, Wonderful Blood, 1–22, and Bynum, “Violent Imagery in Late Medieval Piety,” 31–32. 40. Bynum, “Blood of Christ,” 712. 41. Bynum, “Violent Imagery in Late Medieval Piety,” 18–27, 31. 42. Dittmeyer, Gewalt und Heil, 11–12. 43. See, e.g., the various reports on the rituals of public execution and the Erec romance discussed below. 44. See Baraz, Medieval Cruelty, 15–17. According to Augustine, physical cruelty is natural to man after the Fall (De civitate Dei 22.22, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina [henceforth CCSL ] 48: 844). 45. Cohen, “Animated Pain of the Body,” 42–43. 46. Tertullian, Scorpiace, 5.6–8, CCSL 2:1077–78. 47. Jerome, Epistulae, 309, 495. 48. See Cohen, “Towards a History of European Physical Sensibility,” 56–62; Cohen, “Animated Pain of the Body,” 36–68; Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls, 89. 49. Both Huizinga and Elias viewed violence as an impulse of nature; see Huizinga, Autumn of the Middle Ages, 1:21–23; Elias, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation, 1:277. 50. Merback, The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel, 102. 51. Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls, 15–20, 180–202. 52. Caviness, Visualizing Women in the Middle Ages, 83–124; Easton, “Saint Agatha and the Sanctification of Sexual Violence,” 83–118; Schulenburg, “Heroics of Virginity,” 29–72; Stones, “Nipples, Entrails, Severed Heads, and Skin,” 47–70. 53. On this narrative strategy, see Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart, 70–72. 54. Callahan, “Torture of Saint Apollonia,” 119–38. 55. Scarry, Body in Pain, 4–8; Cohen, “Animated Pain of the Body,” 38, 40–41. 56. Groebner, Defaced, 11–12. 57. Enders, Medieval Theater of Cruelty, 6. 58. When the spectators’ genders are taken into account, the number of models increases to six; see Carlson, “Spectator Responses to an Image of Violence,” 7–8. For recent reception studies of martyrdom imagery in French Gothic tympana, see Shalom, “Reliving the Past in the

Present,” 97–113; Shalom, “Morality Lesson at the JobSolomon Portal,” 89–111. 59. Carruthers, Book of Memory, 222. 60. On the usual marginalization of the violent act through aestheticization and sublimation of the blood in conventional martyr representations, see Reudenbach, “Märtyrertode ohne Blut,” 74–75, 80–81. Reudenbach interprets the unemotional martyrs as a new ideal of sanctity at a time when heroic self-sacrifice was no longer relevant; the Gmünd and Thann sculptures, however, constitute a stark counterargument. 61. See, e.g., Gilson, Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 204–20, and Davies, Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 207–26. 62. Cohen, “Towards a History of European Physical Sensibility,” 57. 63. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles 2:67–72 (pp. 166–71), especially 2:71 (p. 170): “ostensum est enim [cf. chaps. 68, 70] quod anima unitur corpori ut forma eius.” 64. On the reemergence of cruelty, see Baraz, Medieval Cruelty, 20–24. 65. For a discussion, see Baraz, “Seneca, Ethics, and the Body,” 196–202. 66. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae: Prima secundae partis 95 (“The Necessity for Human Laws”): 1; Aquinas Reader, 370–71. 67. See McInerny, Ethica Thomistica, 77–89. 68. Starkey, Courtier’s Mirror, 95–99, 293. For a complete bilingual text, see Thomasin von Zerclaere, Der Welsche Gast. 69. Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek, Cod. Memb., I 120, fol. 38r, 1340: Mich dunket des, daz ich wolde daz der man solt den schaden hân der den gewalt hiet getân. Dâ bî sult ir merken wol daz man unsæliger heizen sol [4620] den der dâ gewalt tuot zaller vrist dann enen derz dâ duldend ist; wan der dâ gewalt tuot, den machet schuldic sîn unguot. Sô wizzet vür die wârheit, [4625] schulde ist ein grôz unsælekeit. Dem dâ der gewalt geschiht, der hât an schulde teil niht, sô sol er ouch niht haben teil von rehte an dem unheil. [4630] Er gwinnet dar an teil niht: ir sehetz, swenne daz geschiht daz der rihter rihten sol derz gar nâch reht kan rihten wol. 70. For example, women in late medieval culture did not own their bodies and particularly not their breasts; women were, rather, the bearers of their breasts. Given as a loan from God, their breasts were actually owned by their husbands and fathers, who dispensed their nourishment. This notion changed only with the secularization of Europe. See Miles, Complex Delight, 3–9, 48.

71. For the etymology, see Faber, “Art, Macht, Gewalt,” 3:817–935, here 835; Hofmann, “Anmerkungen zur begriffsgeschichtlichen Entwicklung des Gewaltbegriffs,” 259–72; Dittmeyer, Gewalt und Heil, 13. 72. Baraz, “Seneca, Ethics, and the Body,” 196–202. 73. Reinle, “Bauergewalt und Macht der Herren,“ 110–14. 74. Classen, “Violence in the Shadow of the Court,” 14. 75. Groebner, Der Schein der Person, 1–36, here 14. 76. The body and skin as the boundaries of the selfhood are discussed in chapter 3. 77. McDonald, “Turnus in Veldeke’s Eneide,” 84, 88. 78. The idea of restrained or unrestrained gewalt is contrasted to such ethical terms as zuht (self-discipline and breeding) or schoene site (decorum, manners); see Jaeger, Origins of Courtliness, 173–75. 79. For courtly ideals, languages, and the antithesis of the court, see Bumke, Höfische Kultur, 1:415–30. 80. Lefebure, “Authority, Violence, and the Sacred,” 37–38. 81. Hasty, Art of Arms, 10. 82. Classen, “Violence in the Shadow of the Court,” 6. 83. See, e.g., Gravdal, “Poetics of Rape Law,” 207–26; and the discussion on rape imagery in chapter 4. 84. Bumke, Der “Erec” Hartmanns von Aue, 49–51, vv. 5288–6114. 85. As recently noted by Tina Marie Boyer in her study of giants and otherness in medieval German epic poetry, giants inhabited the margins of the courtly space and yet once “they do take center stage, their monstrous status is called into question,” and they are partially converted and domesticated (“Chaos, Order, and Alterity,” ii). See also Huot, Outsiders; Classen, “Monsters, Devils, Giants, and other Creatures,” 83–121. 86. “Si sluogen in âne barmen, sô sêre daz dem armen diu hût hin abe hie von dem houbete an diu knie” (Hartmann von Aue, Erec, 238, vv. 5408–11). 87. “Er was geslagen unz ûf daz zil, daz er des bluotes was ersigen unde nû sô gar geswigen daz in schrîen verdrôz . . . der ritter grôze quâle leit, sô unvernomen arbeit, daz nimmer man âne tôt möhte erlîden groezer nôt dan ime dô geschach” (ibid., 239–40, vv. 5421–29). 88. “Ir herren beide” (ibid., 240, vv. 5436–37). 89. Ibid., 241, vv. 5440–72. 90. On descriptions of violence, their perception among legal, moral, and ethical systems, and their aesthetic impact, see Schnydere, “Erzählte Gewalt und die Gewalt des Erzählens,” 365–80. 91. Pincikowski, “Die Riesen in den höfischen Romanen,” 104–5. 92. “Denn mit den Söhnen erschien / Der große Recke Harpin / Und führte sie gefangen. / An denen hatt’ er begangen / Unsitt’ und freche Schande. / Allem Kleid’

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und Gewande / Mußten sie sich entfremden, / Bis auf die gröbsten Hemden / Die je ein Küchenjunge trug: / Es trieb sie ein Zwerg der sie schlug / Mit seiner Geißelruthen, / Daß überall sie bluten. / Die Jungherrn ritten mit nacktem Fuß; / Ihr Hemd’ ein Sacktuch, schwarz von Ruß, / Von grobem Lein und ganz zerfetzt” (Hartmann von Aue, Iwein, vv. 4915–50). 93. Pincikowski, “Die Riesen in den höfischen Romanen,” 110, and Cohen, Of Giants, xvii, 62–95. 94. “Juncherren suin von Gâwein / hœren, Clies, Erec, Îwein, / und suin richten sîn jugent / gar nâch Gâwein reiner tugent, / volgt Artús dem künege hér, / der treit iu vor vil guote lér” (Thomasin von Zerclaere, Der Welsche Gast, vv. 1041–46, ed. Gibbs and McConnell, 68). 95. Williams, “Film Bodies,” 2–13. 96. See Groebner, Defaced, 14–18; Cohen, Crossroads of Justice, 113; Spierenburg, Spectacle of Suffering, 4–16; Royer, “Body in Parts,” 319–39; Westerhof, “Amputating the Traitor,” 77–92. 97. See DuBruck, “Violence and Late Medieval Justice,” 56–59, and Cohen, “Towards a History of European Physical Sensibility,” 42–49. 98. Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence, 302–6. 99. Merback, The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel, 157. 100. Ibid., 125–57 and 298–90.

Chapter 2 Epigraph: Tschamser, Annales oder Jahres-Geschichten der Baarfüsseren, 1:426–47. 1. These examples are reported in the years 1331, 1349, 1372, and elsewhere. The various incidents are discussed further below. 2. “Von den englischen Wütereyen wäre noch vil zu schreiben, wan es die Zeit und Noth erforderte . . . darneben mit Rauben und Stehlen, Mörden und Nothzwengen solche Laster verübt, dass einer vermeint hätte, es wären keine Engelländer, wie sie sich nennten, sonder lauter eingefleischte Teuffel. O Gott behüt uns weiter vor Jammer!” (Tschamser, Annales oder JahresGeschichten der Baarfüsseren, 1:427). 3. Although construction of the church lasted from 1324 to the 1390s, the martyr archivolts were probably executed toward the last phases of the decoration, during the last quarter of the fourteenth century. Based on stylistic analyses and local terms of patronage and donations, I have dated the martyr scenes to 1370 as terminus post quem. See Pinkus, Workshops and Patrons, 18–28. However, in light of architectural comparisons, Richard Němec had dated the carvings between 1400 and 1420 (“Thann, Wien, Prag,” 229–55). Nevertheless, many sculptural motifs, details of fashion, and iconographical details

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suggest the 1370s as the general dating of the portal and the 1390s as terminus ante quem. See also Baumann, “Collégiale Saint-Thiébaut,” 212–22. Whereas previous studies focused on the intricate narrativity of the tympana in Thann, the interregional stylistic affiliation of the sculptures, workshop routine, and local terms of patronage, the martyr cycle has been virtually neglected. Apart from an iconographical identification, nothing has been written on it. For a review of the sculptures, state of research, and previous datings, see Lehni and Scheurer, Inventaire topographique Thann, 140–69. 4. As discussed below, the rather succinct composition in other contemporary Parler enterprises consists only of the martyr and the executioner, as, e.g., in the martyrs’ archivolt of the Heilig-Kreuz-Münster in Schwäbisch Gmünd. 5. For an iconographical identification, see Lehni and Scheurer, Inventaire topographique Thann, 162–64. 6. I employ this expression as the ensemble of the martyrs cannot be considered a cycle since there is no discernible organizing principle of the various scenes. 7. The only exception is the Crucifixion. Such a reading, however, is only one aspect of the program, as discussed below. The central typology of the tympana is that of the Creation, Original Sin, and the Eve-Mary antithesis. See Schmitt, “Das Marienleben am Thanner Westportal,” 45–62; Schmitt, “Die Thanner Genesis,” 104–9; Pinkus, Patrons and Narratives of the Parler School, 86–120. 8. Since the calendric ordering of the saints is not always consistent, I have tried to follow the order of the Thann martyria in relation to the standard versions of the Legenda Aurea, as well as the Middle High German hagiography, the passionale, and especially the widely circulated Dominican Prosapassional or Wenzelpassional and the vernacular Buch der Märtyrer because these sources include locally venerated saints that are not found in the Legenda Aurea. The Thann martyria do not follow the order of any of these texts; see Gierach, Das Märterbuch, 713. For a critical analysis of these sources and a full survey of the surviving texts and the missing parts, see Söder, “Märterbuch und Prosapassional,” 180–89, and WilliamsKrapp, Die deutschen und niederländischen Legendare des Mittelalters, 35–50, 191–234; as well as in the newly printed versions of Band, Jung, and Williams-Krapp, Der Heiligen Leben, cited below in the specific cases. 9. On the prospering pilgrimage, see Barth, “Zur Geschichte der Thanner Sankt-Theobaldus Wallfahrt,” 39–63. Theobald’s body is kept in Gubbio. In 1975 a DNA examination of the bishop’s remains verified that the piece of thumb skin still kept in Thann does indeed belong to the same corpse, see Heider, Gloire de Dieu, 5–6. His image atop the façade is a sixteenth-century addition.

10. See Lehni and Scheuer, Inventaire topographique Thann, 162. In addition, the local confessor Saint Ulrich and Nicolaus, patron saint of Alsace, appear among the saints in the archivolt. 11. Heider, Gloire de Dieu, 15; Stintzi, “Thann,” 194–224. 12. As labelled by Merback, The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel, 157. 13. As Thann was the principal city of Upper Alsace, I follow the legends as they appear in the Alsatian Golden Legend, compiled during the first half of the fourteenth century and swiftly circulated in the region; see Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea. On the narrative structure of martyrdom in Middle High German hagiography, see Feistner, Historische Typologie der deutschen Heiligenlegende, 90–145, and Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart, 29–58. As noted in the introduction, I have spent more than two years researching, reading, and translating this source, as well as the Märterbuch, in order to interpret the more enigmatic scenes of the cycle. Most of them, however, are based on the local version of the Alsatian Golden Legend. In the following, I refer to this and other sources only for the less conventional martyrdoms. 14. Identified as such by Lehni and Scheuer, Inventaire topographique Thann, 162, though he does not appear in parallel cycles in the region. For example, the Martyr Cycle in Freiburg-im-Breisgau Minster, ca. 1320, includes sixteen torture scenes; die Stiftskirche Saint Florentius in Niederhaslach, 1330–50, has twelve; and Saint Dionysiuskirche in Esslingen, ca. 1350, has twenty-four. 15. “Do dis sach Dioclecianus do hies er Sant Vitus werfen in einem glugenden ofen; do vf ging dis kint vnfúrseret” (Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 1:372). In his legend he was cooked in an oven, not in a cauldron, but since the cooking of Saint John the Evangelist is depicted in the archivolt of the upper tympanum, the image was considered in all earlier studies as that of Saint Vitus; see Lehni and Scheuer, Inventaire topographique Thann, 162. 16. The problematic identification of Saint Erasmus is discussed below. 17. “Do noment su des richters diener vnd fůrtent sú in ein jnsel des wassers Lech genant vnd entblo˙setent sú vnd bundent sú do noch an einem bŏm. . . . Hie noch wart su ane gezúndet” (Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 1:803). 18. This correlation and the rich literature on the topic was recently discussed in Dittmeyer, Gewalt und Heil, 45–56. 19. See, e.g., Barker, “Making of a Plague Saint,” 90–119, and Marshall, “Manipulating the Sacred,” 485–532. 20. Because the wood would not burn, she was finally executed with a knife. “Der vicarie waz Aspasius, genant,

der hies die magetin ein kreftig fúr werfen. Do teilete sich daz fúr in zwei teil vnd flog zů siten vf vnd fúrbrante dez vngelŏbigen folks vil vnd fůrserte die maget nút. Do gebot Aspasius, daz man ein messer in ir kele solte stechen. Also starb die heilige sant Agnes also ein vnschuldiges lemblin vnd wart von irem gemahel Cristo enpfangen vnd gecro˙net mit der megede vnd mit der marteler crone” (Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 1:137). 21. See, e.g., Easton, “Saint Agatha and the Sanctification of Sexual Violence,” 83–118, and Schulenburg, “Heroics of Virginity,” 11–22. For a seminal study on violence imagery, mutilation, and the erotic-sadomasochist experience, see Mills, Suspended Animation, 106–44. 22. “Von zorne hies in der keiser mit bliklo˙czen gar sere durch allen sinen lip schlahen. . . . Do hies in der keiser mit stecken gar sere schlahen, doch erschein an sime libe keine mose von allen den streichen. . . . Von zorne hies der keiser mit iserinen crŏwelen sant Erasmus alles das fleisch sines libes abe zerren. . . . Do hies der keiser bly, oley, bech, harcz vnd swebel zůsamen lossen vnd hies sant Erasmus do mitte begiessen” (Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 1:361–62); “Do wart der keyser beweget in zorne gegen sant Erasmum vnd hies ime Machen einen glůgeden erinen rok, vnd stief in dar in. . . . Do mitte machte er ein krúcze fúr sich vnd schlŏs in den rok. . . . Zů der selben stunden wart der rok kalt, vnd fúrserte in nút an keime ende sines libes. . . . Von zorne hies der keiser einen erinen hafen gar heis Machen vnd Giessen dar in bech, oley, was, harcz vnd swebel vnd hies sant Erasmum dar in seczen” (ibid., 1:365–66). 23. I know of no other contemporary cycle that combines her vita with that of other martyrs. 24. For example, Albrecht II of Habsburg and Johanna of Pfirt, who held the Thann fief, were often summoned to court in Augsburg to defend their local rights; see Claerr-Stamm, Johanna von Pfirt, 53, and Heider, “Thann, ville domaniale,” 101–22. 25. “Also sante er sine ritter daz sú den bischof soltent fohen. Den begegente er uf dem felde, do stochent sú ime sin o˙gen uf” (Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 1:663). 26. Apollonia’s tortures have been the focus of response studies by Leslie Abend Callahan (“Torture of Saint Apollonia,” 7–20). Carlson differentiates among iconic, clinical, and theatrical representations of her tortures, and she suggests six gender-based models of responses (“Spectator Responses to an Image of Violence,” 7–20). 27. “Do von leite su sich mit grosser andaht, mit vastende vnd wachende an ir gebet so lange vnd so innenklich fúr iren vatter daz zů iungest eine stimme mit eime liehten schine kam, die sprach: “Otilia du vferwelte

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dienerin gottes, nút pinige dich me durch dins vatter súnde, wenne der almehtige got hat dich erhoret vnd fůrent die engel dins vatter sele nů zů himmele in den chor der patrirchen” (Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 1:821). 28. Although Lehni and Scheurer claim the figure is Saint Emmeram (Inventaire topographique Thann, 163), this identification, as discussed below, has no solid ground. 29. “Do hies sú der richter in sin hus fůren; do satte er sú uber dag vnd naht in ein siedende bat: do sas sú vnfúrseret genczlich. Do dis sach Almachius der richter do hies er sú in deme bade entho˙beten. Do schlůg der richter drie streiche mit deme swerte uf iren hals, doch furserte er su nút denne alleine daz sú blůtete. . . . Also lebte sú drie dage do noch vnd gab alles ir gůt den armen menschen” (Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 1:743). 30. “Do noch legten di diner ir hent an ant Haimran vund habten in vast. Vund zugen in seinev klaider ab vnd punten in do mit striken auf ain laiter vnd zugen in ir herberg vhnd sniten im seinev glider an” (Band, Jung, and Williams-Krapp, Der Heiligen Leben, 1:561). 31. “Do snittent ime des kúniges richter sinen rechten dumen von sinre hant. . . . Zů dem snitte des súbenden vingers sprach er: ‘Herre alle tage han ich dir súben mol lop gesprochen . . . ’ Do sneit man ime den rechten fůs abe do sprach er: ‘Nů bringe ich eine gobe dem himelischen kúnige durch den ich dis lide’” (Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 1:762–63). He is mentioned both in the Alsatian Golden Legend and in the Märterbuch; see Band, Jung, and Williams-Krapp, Der Heiligen Leben, 2:590–93. For his rare iconography and cult, see Kaster, “Jacobus intercisus,” 42–43. 32. The figure was identified as Saint James the Greater only because he and James the Lesser are the only apostle-martyrs missing from the cycle; see Lehni and Scheuer, Inventaire topographique Thann, 163. 33. See nn. 10, 14, and 32 above. However, I could not find any legend that would correlate with this depiction. 34. I have interpreted the Creation as a comfort vision in the face of the plague; see Pinkus, Patrons and Narratives of the Parler School, 86–97. 35. An example is the narrative expansion over three scenes dedicated to the Virgin’s encounter with Dismas, including his conversion through her gaze, and the resurrection of the son of the robber leader; see ibid., 105–10. Dismas was especially venerated in the Habsburg Cycle; see Kretzenbacher, “St. Dismas, der rechte Schächer,” 120–21; Zoepfl, “Dismas und Gestas,” 4:83–87; Krausen, “Der Kult des heiligen Dismas,” 16–21. 36. See, e.g., Lukatis, “Die Weltgerichtsretabel Stefan Lochners,” 15–21, 45–50, and Dittmeyer, Gewalt und Heil, 67–150, 222–26.

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37. Earlier cycles tended to exclusively depict figures of the male gender. For example, the forty-two martyr reliefs on the pillar in front of the Martyrs Portal in the south porch in Chartres Cathedral, ca. 1220, include only males; see Lutan-Hassner, South Porch of Chartres Cathedral, 32–38, 112–18, and Villette, Portails de la cathédrale de Chartres, 264–69. This is also the case with the eighteen martyrdoms in Schwäbisch Gmünd. In contrast, the Bischofstor in Saint Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, ca. 1360, features only female martyrs; see Böker, Der Wiener Stephansdom, 61, and Donin, Der Wiener Stephansdom, 38–42. For a stylistic analysis of the Viennese sculpture, see the classic study by Kosegarten, “Zur Plastik der Fürstenportale,” 74–96. 38. In the legends, Saint Christopher is not only a giant from Canaan but also a half-bestial pagan, with a dog’s head (a cynocephalus); long, unkempt hair; uncut toenails; and tusks. This iconography prevailed mainly in the Orthodox Church until Iconoclasm in the eighth century, but it persisted somewhat until the fifteenth century. The imagery does also appear in Western manuscripts; see Benker, Christophorus, Patron der Schiffer, 33. Following the canonization of Christopher’s vita by Jacobus de Voragine, the saint lost his bestial features, but as a giant, he was still associated with ancient paganism and monstrousness. 39. Heider, Gloire de Dieu, 15. I concentrate here on the account between circa 1330 and 1400; see Tschamser, Annales oder Jahres-Geschichten der Baarfüsseren, 1:298–470. 40. Scholly, Geschichte und Verfassung des Chorherrenstifts Thann, and Lempfrid, “Die Thanner Theobaldsage,” 1–128. 41. For example, the 1338 record (which indicated that the local heiress Johanna von Pfirt was the protector of the local clergy, who granted them certain privileges and donated affluently to the construction of the church) was considered unreliable. A document preserved in the Pruntrut archive, however, bearing Johanna’s signature, proved otherwise (see Archives de l’Ancien Evêche de Bâle, Pruntrut, A 105/1, and Scholly, Geschichte und Verfassung des Chorherrenstifts Thann, 48–49). 42. “In der Marckh haben die Polacken mit den Closterjungfrawen übel gehaußet und selbe schändlich mißbrauchet; eine aus dieße, als wollte sie ein Soldaten ein Bestung lehrnen, dardurch er von hauen und Stechen sicher wäre, streckht ihren halßm dessen Schwert dar, an ihr die Kunst zu probieren und erhalt also durch dießen List ihre unversehrte Jungfrawschafft bis in Todt” (Tschamser, Annales oder Jahres-Geschichten der Baarfüsseren, 1:319). 43. Tschamser’s Annales oder Jahres-Geschichten der Baarfüsseren are replete with horrifying accounts of Jewish persecution because of the Plague, e.g., in the

years 1320, 1331, 1333, 1349, 1374, and more. It is beyond the scope and the aim of my book to consider this aspect, since apart from the marginal representation of the Jews who were struck blind during the Virgin’s funeral, there is no direct reference to Jewish persecution or anti-Semitic imagery in Thann; see Pinkus, Patrons and Narratives of the Parler School, 114–15. 44. “Eben in dießem Jahr hat man zu Ueberlingen, am Bodensee, den 300 Juden in ein Haus zusammen gesperret, welches von den übrigen etwas entfernet war, selbes angezündet, und alle bis an etlich wenige, so sich salviren wollten und zu den Fenstern hinab gesprungen, verbrennet, solche hat man aufgefangen und wo und wie man kunte, zu tod geschlagen. Und dießes darumb, weil dise verbeinte Schelmen ein christliches Knäblein, eines Burgers daselbsten mit Nammen Frey, Söhnlein lebendig geschunden und grausamb gemartert haben” (Tschamser, Annales oder Jahres-Geschichten der Baarfüsseren, 1:328). 45. “Livinus Gallus, ein frommer, gottseeliger Baarfüßer und Missionarius in Orient, wird in der Gegend Babyloniae den 1. August durch ein herrliche Marter gen Himmel geschickt . . . und weil er dan den Türckhen Christi Glauben unaufhörlich predigte, und den mahometanischen Aberglauben immer verwarffe und als falsch und verdammlich darthate wurde er von den Türckhen durch das Schwerdt hingericht und enthauptet” (ibid., 1:353). 46. “Do wurdent sú gefuret uf den berg Ararach vnd folgeten in noch núnzig tusent man die ir soltent hůten vnd warten. Do wurdent sú alle gecruziget” (Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 1:384). 47. “Den 20. Jenner hat der geistreiche Vatter P. Petrus Lombardius von den tobsinnigen Ketzeren, umb des christlichen Glaubens Willen, ein grausame Marter erlitten, und hat sein unschuldiges Blut umb Christi Willen vergossen, den heiligen Baarfüßer Orden aber mit dem Purpur seiner Marter beglückhet, ligt zu ober nit weit von Meyland begraben” (Tschamser, Annales oder Jahres-Geschichten der Baarfüsseren, 1:354). 48. The Dominicans tried to establish his grave as a site of pilgrimage; see Moskowitz, “Giovanni di Balduccio’s Arca di San Pietro Martire,” 7–18. 49. These wars were instigated by local bishops, inspired by English gangs, and carried out by leading dukes and princes outside Alsace. Examples include the 1345 revolt against Bertholdus von Bucheck, bishop of Strasbourg, and the murders and battles at the court of Ludwig of Bavaria in that same year (Tschamser, Annales oder Jahres-Geschichten der Baarfüsseren, 1:353). 50. “Das arme Elsaß wird annoch von den Räubern sehr betrübet und aller Orten geplundert; dahero fielen die Straßburger aus, kamen den Betrangten zu Hilf, belägerten den 2 Apr. das Stättlein Ehrstein, besteigens

und eroberns; Schwanaw, das Raubnest, schleiffen sie dem Boden gleich, machten ein Brucken über den Rhein, zerstören Schutteren, das Stättlein und Kloster, und fiengen und tödteten fast alle Räuber und Schnapphanen. Item das Stättlein Sulz bei Molsheim, allwo ein treffliches Bad gewesen, und wohin ein großer Zulauf aller Orthen her ware, wurde eingenommen und zerstört” (ibid., 1:331). 51. “Zu Constanss, am Bodensee, haben die Juden sich an den Christen vergriffen, vile Christen übel tracktiert und sehr verwundet, da bliben neun Juden todt auf dem Plaz, sechs wurden in das Wasser geworfen und ersäuft, und zwölf lebendig verbrennet” (ibid., 1:332). 52. Thann belonged to the diocese of Basel before the city was transferred to the Habsburgs in 1324 through the marriage of the local heiress Johanna of Pfirt to the Habsburg duke Albrecht II; see n. 24 above, and Wilsdorf, Histoire des comtes de Ferrette, 233–41. The foundation of the Thann church actually celebrated the wedding, which is commemorated on one of the capitals on the inner side of the west façade; see Baumann, “Clefs de voûte armoriées,” 15–32, and Pinkus, Patrons and Narratives of the Parler School, 102–4. 53. Dismal müssten die Juden herhalten, und wurden deren bey 1800 Personen auf ihrem Kirchhoff zu Straßburg verbrennt. Zu Zürch hatten vor Martini die Burger gleicherweiß gehandlet mit ihrem Juden. Zu Menz hat man die Juden dergestallten gebraten, daß in S. Quirins Kirch-Thurm die Glockhen und das Bley von Fenster zerschmolssen; zu Speyr und Wormbs verschossen sie sich vor Forcht und verbrennten sich selbst. Den 2. Aprilis zündete ein Jud zu Constanz, aus Forcht weltliche Schmach, sein eigen haus an, darin er samt seinem Gesind war, schreyten, sie wollten als frommen Juden sterben; mit dieses Judenhaus verbrunnen wohl vierssig Fürsten. Zu Basel zwungen die Burger den Raht, daß sie die Juden alle verbrennen und in 200 Jahren keinen mehr in die Statt lassen sollen. Also wurden sie nach Weynachten in ein Aw des Rheines zusammen gesperrt, und jämmerlich im Rauch ins Abrahams Schooß geschickt. Vile junge Judenkinder wurden vom Feuer errettet, und wider ihren Elteren Willen getaufft. (Tschamser, Annales oder JahresGeschichten der Baarfüsseren, 1:363) 54. Zu Ulm, Augsburg, Constanss, Esslingen, Schwäbisch Hall und fast im ganssen römischen Reich, habens die verfluchte Juden auch also gemacht, und alle Brönnen vergifft, ausgenommen ihre eigne in ihren Häusseren. . . . Die Juden aber hat man über

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alle Masen und, wie sie es dan wohl verdient, grausamb und unerbärmlich verfolgt, verbrennt, verwürgt, vertränckht, erhengt, zu den Fenstern zu Tod gestürsst, den Kopf abgehauen, erstochen und mit tausend Pein und Marter hingerichtet. Ihre Häusser, Ställ, Speicher, Synagogen, und Freyhöff sambt Begräbnuss zerstört, verbrennt und niedergerssen; ohne alle Verhör wurden Schuldige und Unschuldige, Weiber und Töchteren, Kinder und Alte was sich nit wollt tauffen lassen, ermordet von den rasenden Christen Pöffel. (Ibid.)

Goldstuckh, und so vil hängste, es wurde aber ihnen Alles abgeschlagen. Darauf wurden sie der Massen ergrimmet, das sie raubten und plünderten, was sie funden: mit Weibsbildern giengen sie grausamb um, so nicht zu beschreiben. Wan sie jemand bekamen, so müsste er sich sehr hoch ranssionieren; die Reiche schässeten sie umb Gelt, Pferd, oder Seidengewandt, die Armen umb huffeysen, Nägel, Schuh und dergleichen Nothdurfft; die es nit gaben, müssten den Kopf dargeben. (Tschamser, Annales oder Jahres-Geschichten der Baarfüsseren, 1:421)

55. See Cohen, “Symbols of Culpability,” 410. In 1390, e.g., a converted Jew asked the mayor to be burned alive as a penitent—which was done; nevertheless, he was not called a martyr (Tschamser, Annales oder JahresGeschichten der Baarfüsseren, 1:446). 56. Attacks by English soldiers are recorded from 1337 as by-products of the Hundred Years’ War; however, the English gangs became an independent phenomenon of that conflict; see von Gierke, Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, 448–50. 57. “In dießem und folgenden Jahren haben die gemelte Raubvögel (die englische Gesellschafft genannt) in Lotringen, Nider und Ober Elsass, im Breyssgaw und in dem Schweisserlandt sehr übel gehausset, vile Kirche und Götteshäusser geblündert, verbrennt und zerstöret . . . die Weiber und Jungfrawen missbrauchten sie zu ihren viehischen Gelüsten, die Männer schäzten sie um gros Gelt, und die es nicht gaben, hieben sie zu Stückhen oder schleppten sie gefangen hinweg; mit einem Wort, es war ein grosser Jammer und erbärmliches Elendt an allen Orthen” (Tschamser, Annales oder Jahres-Geschichten der Baarfüsseren, 1:418–19). 58. Ibid., 1:419. 59. “Es war ein grosser Jammer und erbärmliches Elendt an allen Orthen” (ibid.). 60. This phrase refers to the laying of the neck on the block before decapitation. It appears in descriptions of the English gangs’ assaults:

61. “Zu Sraßburg haben die Mordbrenner, da man kaum die vor fünf Jahren abgebronnene Häuser wider aufgebawen und eingedeckht hatte, widerumb ein Anders in der Nachbarschafft angesteckt, das also alle die andere und noch mehr mit ihnen wider eingeäschert wurden; dahero hat man sie allenthalben aufgesucht, etliche bekommen und gefangen gefeßt, ihren Dreyen aber die Köpf abgeschlagen” (ibid., 1:428). 62. On the Vienna cycle, see n. 37 above; on the Ulm sculpture, see Schultz, “Beiträge zur Baugeschichte,” 7–38, and Zahlten, “Das Sechstagewerk am Hauptportal,” 183–208. 63. On Bartholomew’s particular martyrdom, see Lindquist, “Masculinist Devotion,” 173–207, and Kay, “Original Skin,” 36–50. 64. On the circulation and adaptation of the Alsatian Golden Legend, see Kunze, “Überlieferung und Bestand der elsässischen Legenda Aurea,” 265–309. On its illuminations, see Barth, Die illustrierte Strassburger Übersetzung. For bibliography and detailed study of the illuminations from the Strasbourg version of 1414 discussed below, see Universitäts-Bibliothek Heidelberg, “Elsässische Legenda Aurea,” https://​digi​.ub​.uni​heidelberg​.de​/diglit​/cpg144; Rappl, Text und Bild. 65. The correlation between martyr imagery and the contemporary punitive system has been widely discussed in recent years. Among the seminal studies on the subject, see Edgerton, Pictures and Punishment, esp. 21–58; Puppi, Torment in Art; Merback, The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel; Terry-Fritsch, “Criminal Vision in Early Modern Florence,” 47–48; Decker and Kirkland-Ives, Death, Torture, and the Broken Body. 66. See DuBruck, “Violence and Late Medieval Justice,” 56–59. 67. On the problem of response and reception of sodomist imagery, see Mills, Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages, 74–80. 68. For a detailed account of the new quantification of violent behavior and punishment, see DuBruck, “Violence and Late Medieval Justice,” 56–67. The first to note the

Am Freytag nach S. Michaëlis Tag kamen die Engelländer und Franssosen, die englische Gesell­ schafft gennant, abermahl mit einer grossen Macht über die Steig in das Elsass, mit allerhand ausgelassenem Gesündlein; sie hatten bey sich, wie man vermeinte, bey 6000 Curassier, man schässte sie in Allem bey die 60,000 starck . . . im ersten Einbruch verbrannten sie etliche Dörffer, trohten das Land mit Feuer und Schwert zu verderben, wo man sich nit mit Geld und Guth bey ihnen abfinden wurde, sie forderten bey 60,000 Gulden, 60 Ballen Tücher von

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equivalence between juridical progress and late medieval imagery was Edgerton (Pictures and Punishment). For a critical essay on the relationship between the civic juridical process and the tortured body of Christ, see Groebner, “‘Abbild’ und ‘Marter,’” 225–34; see also Merback, The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel, 126–57. 69. See Easton, “‘Images Gross and Sensible,’” 49, and Stahl, Histoire de la decapitation. 70. Unfortunately, during my visit to the archives in Basel, Strasbourg, Thann, and Pruntrut, I found that no juridical treatises from Thann and its annexed territories have survived; see nn. 40–41 above. 71. Thirty-seven richly ornamented exemplars of this chronicle are known. In addition to the juridical text, it contains treatises on the papacy and the Mass, texts on the genealogy of the French monarchs and on Limousin saints, and various prayers. The last line of the first page notes that it was translated into French by the Carmelite monk Gloein in 1369; see Thomas, “Manuscrit de Charles V au Vatican,” 259–83. For an English translation and introduction, see Coffey, “Fleurs des Croniques.” 72. Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale, Les Fleurs des chroniques, MS 677, fols. 76v, 88v, 96v, 107, 122v, respectively. 73. On the martyrs’ identification or lack thereof, see Lehni and Scheuer, Inventaire topographique Thann, 164. 74. See Lentz, Konflikt, Ehre, Ordnung, 35–68. He includes eighteen transcriptions of Schmähbriefe dated from the second half of the fourteenth century. On the Italian pittura infamante, see Edgerton, Pictures and Punishment, 59–90, and Ortalli, Pittura infamante nei secoli XIII –XVI . Three-dimensional effigies substituted for absent criminals who had escaped the law by premature death or inconclusive identification, and these were also tormented and executed publicly in view of the community; see Terry-Fritsch, “Execution by Image.” 75. Evidence of these practices can still be found in many torture museums across Europe; see Terry-Fritsch, “Craft of Torture,” 209. 76. Evidence of such imagery also appears in the apostle-martyrs cycle at Ulm, in which the majority of the figures are depicted as being killed on the battlefield. Unfortunately, apart from stylistic studies, this cycle has not been the focus of any contextual investigation; see n. 62 above. 77. On the visuality of the so-called liturgy of public execution as an essential part of the social and juridical communication, see Cohen, “Symbols of Culpability,” 409–16; Tracy, Torture and Brutality in Medieval Literature, 2–11; Mills, Suspended Animation, 9. 78. Spierenburg, Spectacle of Suffering, 12. 79. Cohen, “Symbols of Culpability,” 409. 80. Cohen, “To Die a Criminal,” 285–304.

81. This visual categorization is clearly stated in death sentences, such as the 1441 sentence in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms dr, 7645, no. 50. 82. Langbein, “Torture and Plea Bargaining,” 3–22. 83. Ibid., 4. 84. “In omni causa testis unus quasi nullus habeatur etiam si presidialis curie honore prefulgeat” (Stephen of Tournai, Summa “Elegantius in jure divino,” 147). 85. “Regulare est, quod in qualibet cause duo testes sufficiunt” (Pillius Medicinensis, Pilii, Tancredi, Gratiae, 228). For a detailed discussion, see Evans, Law and Theology in the Middle Ages, 147–51. 86. If the accused confessed his crimes, it could satisfy the juridical process, but torture was also a legitimate means of extorting a confession. 87. These rules were formulated by Gratian in Decretum 2.4.qq. 2 and 3. 88. The Massacre of the Innocents is depicted in the upper tympanum; see Pinkus, Patrons and Narratives of the Parler School, 106–7. 89. I discuss this point further in the epilogue.

Chapter 3 Epigraph: Quintilian, Orator’s Education 6.2.31–32, trans. Russell, 63. 1. See Callahan, “Torture of Saint Apollonia,” 119. The earliest known depiction of the two saints in the clinical or theatrical manner appear to be that in Guido da Siena’s panels, dated ca. 1260, which are discussed below; see, most recently, Pinkus, “Guido da Siena,” 19–34. 2. Jacobus de Voragine, Golden Legend, 2:338. 3. Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 2:759. 4. Jacobus de Voragine, Golden Legend, 2:339. 5. Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 2:760. Her joyfulness in accepting the martyrdom is also stressed in the canonical version of the legend; see Jacobus de Voragine, Golden Legend, 2:339. 6. For the panel’s iconography, dating, style, and attribution, see Stubblebine, Guido da Siena, 21–23. This work is still the main study on the panels and provides the standard interpretation. On Guido’s oeuvre, see also Weidmann, Zur Genese der Trecentomalerei, 61–99. 7. The method appears in many artworks from the fifteenth century. On the dialectics between the iconography of martyrdoms, warfare, and juridical punishment, see the seminal study by Puppi (Torment in Art, 11–18). 8. The outer sides are kept in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich; see Budde, Köln und seine Maler, 69–75, and Chapuis, Stefan Lochner, 41–54. The combination of the martyrdom of the apostles with the Last Judgment was long considered highly unusual (I debate this below).

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Whether belonging to the same altarpiece or not, the panels are stylistically considered to be from the same phase of Lochner’s oeuvre. In 1803 the wings were dismantled, and the martyrdom scenes were sawn apart. For an introduction to the history of the altarpiece, see Lukatis, “Die Weltgerichtsretabel Stefan Lochners,” 4–14. Their current reassembly into each wing remains uncertain; see Corley, Painting and Patronage in Cologne, 142. For a current review of the literature of the reconstruction, see Brinkmann, “Stefan Lochner,” 206–15. 9. Budde, Köln und seine Maler, 75, and Lukatis, “Die Weltgerichtsretabel,” 15–21. For Chapuis, the martyrdom scenes “stand out by their intensity and violence” (Stefan Lochner, 46). On Lochner’s verisim, see Zehnder, Stefan Lochner, Meister zu Köln, 81–94, esp. 87–88. 10. On the Dominican attitude, see Hamburger, Visual and the Visionary, 437–68. 11. The outer wings depict Catherine with the four Heilige Marschälle venerated in the Catherine brotherhood, together with Mary Magdalene. For the ascription of the altar to the cult of the Katharinenbruderschaft, see Gompf, “Lochners Altar der Katharinenbruderschaft,” 205–12. 12. For example, see Brinkmann, “Jenseits von Vorbild und Faltenform,” 81–82. Although the iconography might be related to a contemporaneous cycle in the Cathedral of St. Bartholomew in Frankfurt, Lochner’s panel stands out in its colorful narrative and its original, distressing details; see Lukatis, “Die Weltgerichtsretabel Stefan Lochners,” 16–18, and Lukatis, “Die Apostelmartyrien Stefan Lochners,” 55–86. 13. The clerk’s depiction with the typical Jewish pointed hood brings to mind Rainer Warning’s observation that the excess of cruelty in late medieval passion plays reflected an epochal longing for social scapegoats, usually the Jews; see Warning, Ambivalences of Medieval Religious Drama, 233, and Bale, Feeling Persecuted, 65–89. 14. Chapuis has mistakenly identified this as a refreshing drink (Stefan Lochner, 44). 15. Historical evidence on the social class of the tanner is sparse; most records mention that tanners tended to live in the city’s peripheries so that their work would not cause the city’s water to become polluted. For seminal studies, see Clarkson, “Organization of the English Leather Industry,” 245–56, and Kay, “Original Skin,” 36–50. 16. Jacobus de Voragine, Golden Legend, 1:112. 17. Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässiche Legenda Aurea, 1:547. 18. Bartolomeus der zwelfbotte wart zů ende der [145vb] welt in Yndiam gesant. Do kam er in einem temple, in deme stunt ein abgot Astoroth genant. Dirre Astoroth half allen siechen des landes daz sú

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irre siechtagen keine pin enphunden. Noch dem also sant Bartholomeus in den temple was kome do wolte noch enmohte dirre Astoroth den siechen keine antwurt geben. Do von lieffent die siechen in eine ander stat zů eime anderen abgotte, Berith gennant, vnd frogetent den was sachen were das Astoroth in nút antwurten wolte. . . . Antwurt Berith: Er ist ein frúnt des almehtigen gottes vnd ist dar vmb in dis lant komen daz er alle die gotter dis landes zerstore. (Ibid., 1:545–46) 19. Cohen, “Animated Pain of the Body,” 45. 20. As phrased by Mills, Suspended Animation, 64, and discussed by Behrmann, “Testimonium und ‘aútopsía,’” 89–108. 21. On the point of view, see Bal, Quoting Caravaggio, 27–44. 22. Shusterman, Body Consciousness, 1–2. 23. See Lindquist, “Masculinist Devotion,” 173–207. I am grateful to Dr. Lindquist for letting me read the draft of her article. 24. In addition to the studies cited in chapter 1, see, for example, Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, and Hamburger, “Use of Images,” 20–46. 25. Terry-Fritsch, “Criminal Vision in Early Modern Florence,” 47–48. 26. Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology, 61. 27. Merleau-Ponty, Phänomenologie der Wahrnehmung, 275. 28. Von Mallinckrodt, Bewegtes Leben, 1–13. 29. “Historical studies,” Mills continues, “find it difficult to come to terms with artefacts that generate such powerful responses” (Suspended Animation, 65). 30. Shusterman, Thinking Through the Body. 31. See the famous study by Freedberg, Power of Images, and Freedberg, “Play of the Unmentionable,” 45. 32. Shusterman, Body Consciousness, 3. 33. See Belting, “Image, Medium, Body,” 302–19; Belting, Bild-Anthropologie, 11–56; Bredekamp, Theorie des Bildakts, 51–56. 34. The height of the rider is 165 cm and that of the horse is 134 cm (the average medieval horse was between 119 and 145 cm high). See Hubel, “Der Bamberger Reiter,” 126–27. 35. Rowe, “Synagoga Tumbles,” 5–42, esp. 21, and Pinkus, Sculpting Simulacra in Medieval Germany, 59–60. On the spatial dimension and interactive environment of Gothic sculpted portals in the German-speaking lands, see Jung, “Dynamic Bodies and the Beholder’s Share,” 135–60. 36. These sculptures have been understudied. Some ten sculptures dated to the fifteenth century have survived, and around thirty are recorded between the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries. For a survey

and iconographical study, see Goerlitz, Der Ursprung und die Bedeutung der Rolandsbilder; Gathen, Rolande als Rechtssymbole; Grape, Roland. 37. Actually, the statues do not reflect the conventional iconography of Roland, such as Roland’s horn, and have many attributes of giants as they appear the Middle High German epics and legends; see Wood, Forgery, Replica, Fiction, 164–84, and Pinkus, “Giant of Bremen,” 387–91. 38. In Daniel von dem blühenden Tal, ca. 1220, a giant challenges King Arthur’s court. This giant is a sculpture made by a goldsmith, invigorated by magic, and endowed with unassailable power; see Der Stricker, Daniel of the Blossoming Valley, 11–12, vv. 504–26; 18, vv. 807–9. 39. Memories of the Colossus of Rhodes might have been transmitted through the German adaptations of Master Gregory’s De mirabilia urbis Romae; see Gregorius, Marvels of Rome, 23–24, and Miedema, Die “Mirabilia Romae,” 95–144. However, giants and their associations with invigorated sculpture and magic are frequent topoi in epic literature; see Boyer, “Chaos, Order, and Alterity,” 64–86. 40. For dating, stylistic classification, and the doubtful attribution to the circle of Tilman Riemenschneider, see Sladeczek, Der Berner Skulpturenfund, 139–40. 41. For an introduction to the medieval forms of voyeurism, see Springer, “Genese des voyeuristischen Blicks,” 37–70. 42. The literature on the Schreinmadonna is too vast to be cited here. I refer only to the recent studies that engage with the voyeuristic qualities of this genre: Gertsman, “Performing Birth, Enacting Death,” 83–104; Katz, “Behind Closed Doors,” 194–221; Pinkus, “The Eye and the Womb,” 223–42; and, most recently, Gertsman, Worlds Within, 105–20. 43. This manipulation was also the case with monumental Schreinmadonnen, but these served the liturgy and public ritual where either the Crucifixion was taken out of them, or they were delivered and not viewed intimately and voyeuristically; see Kroos, “Gottes Tabernakel,” 58–61. 44. Mills, Suspended Animation, 75–80. 45. Decker, “Spectacular Unmaking,” 9. 46. Mills, Suspended Animation, 70–71, 75–76, and Kristeva, Powers of Horror, 3–4. 47. Hamburger criticizes Mills’s notion of pleasure and eroticism as being devoid of historical context (“Overkill, or History That Hurts,” 410–45). 48. See the discussion below and nn. 66–70. 49. Herodotus, Histories 5:25, trans. Waterfield, 312. 50. Vincentius Bellovacensis, Speculum historiale, iv, xix. 51. Welter, Tabula exemplorum secundum ordinem alphabeti, 36.

52. For an introduction, see Gerdes, “Gesta Romanorum,” 3:25–34. For a survey of the various versions of the stories as transmitted through the Middle Ages, see Van der Velden, “Cambyses for Example,” 7–15; Decker, “Spectacular Unmaking,” 7–9; Mills, Suspended Animation, 59–82. 53. Valerius Maximus, Facti et dicti memorabilia, Bruges, Groot Seminarie, ms. 158/I89, fol. i66r, and Valerius Maximus, Memorable Deeds and Sayings, 213. 54. Gesta Romanorum, trans. Swan, 62–63. 55. Herodotus, Histories, bk. 5, trans. Waterfield, 312. 56. Gesta Romanorum, trans. Swan, 63–64. 57. Most artworks related to the Sisamnes story depict the flaying in the manner of St. Batholomew. An example is the famous panel The Judgment of Cambyses by Gerard David, 1498, now in the Groeningemuseum, Bruges. 58. Translation by the author. For the full text, see Sievers, “Das mitteldeutsche Schachbuch,” 212–13. 59. See Van der Velden, “Cambyses for Example,” 10–12. 60. Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.383–400, and Heß, “Häutung,” 211–13. Medieval writers were understood as scriptors (scribes) or compilators (commentators) but not as auctors (authors); only antique writers were considered auctors. See, for example, Minnis, “Late Medieval Discussion of Compilatio,” 385–86. 61. Van der Velden, “Cambyses for Example,” 12, and Miegroet, “Gerard David’s Justice of Cambyses,” 116–33. 62. Kern, Wandmalerei des 13. bis 16. Jahrhunderts, 235–36. Kern, too, pays little attention to the general composition and simply describes it as imitatio Christi. 63. The cycle has been understudied, and the literature is sparse; see Dehio, Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, 1138–39; Petzet, Die Kunstdenkmäler von Bayern, 102–30; Otto, “Hans Strigel der Ältere,” 3–4. 64. This positioning was the case, for example, with Fra Angelico’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ altarpiece (see Terry-Fritsch, “Criminal Vision in Early Modern Florence,” 45–61). However, the context in which Lochner’s altarpiece originally stood remains unclear. Zehnder suggests that the inclusion of the Four Holy Marshals might suggest their popular veneration as plague-protectors, a cult that was especially strong in the Apostelkirche in Cologne, which was also the home of the Katharinenbruderschaft (Die Verehrung des hl. Quirinus, 34); such a reading is also suggested by Gompf (“Lochners Altar der Katharinenbruderschaft,” 205–13). Other scholars suggest that the panel was intended for the senate room; see, for example, Damm, Iuste iudicate filii hominum, 86–88. 65. Art-historical studies tend to excuse the novelty of such representation as part of tendencies toward realism, yet the imagined flaying cannot be understood as

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realistic. For criticism and a survey of the discussion, see Mills, Suspended Animation, 61–65. 66. On the infrequency of flaying in medieval reality, see the seminal study by Barron, “Penalties for Treason,” 191. Thus the high frequency of flaying in artistic works (visual and textual) is indeed puzzling. “Why,” asks John Decker, “use this level of representational fidelity to depict something that no one was likely to see in a judicial setting?” (“Spectacular Unmaking,” 8). 67. Such illegal mob activity occured in 1218, for example, during the Albigensian crusade; see Belperron, Croisade contre les Albigeois, 342. 68. Barron scrutinizes a broad range of medieval courtly literature, romances, and epics that depict flaying (“Penalties for Treason,” 191–95). In Chrétien de Troyes’s Lancelot, for example, flaying appears as an appropriate punishment for treason and fraud, and yet its implementation is avoided; this is also the case with the false Guinevere; see Sommers, Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, 4:10–82. 69. On the symbolic significance of skin removal and on the crucified Christ as vellum, see Kay, “Original Skin,” 38–47, 57– 64. Kay is interested in the analogy between flaying and book production, the relationship between the material and the incorporeal, and how we might read the materiality of the medieval codex in relation to skin. Her springboards for discussion are the influential works by Anzieu (Moi-peau) and Deleuze (Logique du sens). A useful anthology on the topic of flaying and book production is Walter’s Reading Skin in Medieval Literature and Culture. However, in monumental painting and sculpture, the syllogism between flayed skin and artistic media has no significance, especially because flaying is always accompanied by other depictions of torture. 70. Flaying could also mean the stripping away of the temporal identity and sins, exchanging the skin with the immortalized, sublime body; see Kay “Original Skin,” 41–44, and Tracy, Flaying in the Pre-Modern World, 1–19. On the skin as a book and vice versa, see also Holsinger, “Parchment Ethics,” 131–36. 71. Lindquist made this argument in her talk “Somaesthetic Devotion: Violence and Identity in Late Medieval Books of Hours” in the session Thinking Through the Body, February 2, 2016, CAA Annual Conference, Washington, D.C.; see also Lindquist, “Masculinist Devotion,” 173–207. 72. For a discussion of the impact of narrative structure and hagiographic writings, see Lukatis, “Stichpunkte zur Ikonographie der Apostelmartyrien,” 219 –29. 73. Lukatis, “Die Apostelmartyrien Stefan Lochners,” 61–62.

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74. “Do nam der bischof des tempels ein swert vnd durchstach sant Thoman, vnd sprach: ‘Also sol ich minen got rechen’” (Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 40). 75. “Do zuckete der glissener einre eine grosse stange vnd schlůg sant Jacob uf sin hobet daz sin hirne zerteilet lag uf der erden” (ibid., 309). 76. Dittmeyer’s analysis of the panels unfortunately does not indicate any perception of the many nuances and types of response that Lochner offered. She perceives the saints as indifferent, which is totally at odds with their agonized expressions; see Dittmeyer, Gewalt und Heil, 222–26. 77. See Zehnder, Kühn, Bauch, Eckstein, and Klein, Katalog der Altkölner Malerei, 105–6. 78. For the most recent overview on the topic, see ibid., 144–45. 79. Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 284. 80. This invented moment appears in many thirteenthand fourteenth-century frescoes, such as in Boppard, Alsheim, Lobenfeld, and Ilbenstadt; see Dammann, “Hirschhorn / Ilbenstadt und Frau-Rombach,” 131–52. 81. See, for example, the 1480 Lübecker Passional or the 1493 Schedelsche Weltchronik by Hartmann Schedel. For a reproduction, see Schedel, Chronicle of the World, fol. 112v. 82. Dittmeyer, for example, simply quotes secondary sources, which recount that the martyrs were thrown from the mountain on the thorns (Gewalt und Heil, 134). On this deviation and its reception, see Braun, Tracht und Attribute der Heiligen, 19; Joannides, “Bodies in the Trees,” 3–14; Stöcker, “Dürer, Celtis und der falsche Bischof Achatius,” 121–37; Bacon, “Humanism in Wittenberg,” 1–25. 83. Raff, Die Sprache der Materialien, 93–94; Timmermann, “Avenging Crucifix,” 141–60. 84. Shusterman, Body Consciousness, 214. 85. See, for example, Freedberg, Power of Images, 274–83. Recently two journals, Preternature and Representations, dedicated an entire volume each to theories and practices relating to the efficacy of objects and their existence as real things and living entities: see Gertsman, “Animating Medieval Art,” and Weinryb and Baader, “Images at Work.” These studies are discussed in chapter 5 of this book. 86. Terry-Fritsch, “Craft of Torture,” 209. 87. This figure cannot be identified as Saint Peter of Verona, who was murdered in this manner in 1252, because it belongs to a martyr cycle; see chapter 2, nn. 5 and 48.. 88. For example, the martyr cycle in the Freiburg-imBreisgau Minster includes sixteen torture scenes; die Stiftskirche St. Florentius in Niederhaslach, 1330–50, has twelve; and the St. Dionysiuskirche in Esslingen, ca. 1350,

displays twenty-four. See Mittmann, Die Glasfenster des Freiburger Münsters; Becksmann, Die mittelalterlichen Glasmalereien in Freiburg im Breisgau; Becksmann, Die mittelalterlichen Glasmalereien in Schwaben; Burger, “Die Langhausfenster der Stiftskirche St. Florentius”; Keberle, Die Glasmalereien in den Langhausfenstern, 15–36; and Parello, “Modernisierungskonzepte um die Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts,” 151–80. 89. Dittmeyer, Gewalt und Heil, 133–39.

Chapter 4 This chapter is part of research supported by the Gerda Henkel Foundation (grant no. AZ 47/F /15). 1. Although the martyrdoms of both sexes are equally characterized by gender metamorphosis, the male transmutation has thus far attracted little scholarly attention; see chapter 1, and Riches and Salih, Gender and Holiness, 1–8. Apart from the crucified Christ, male nudity has also not generated much study in comparison to that paid to the female body; see Ambrose, “Male Nudes and Embodied Spirituality,” 65–84; Trexler, “Gendering Jesus Crucified,” 107–20; Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart, 59–89. Studies such as those by Madeline H. Caviness and Margaret Miles, as discussed below, insist on misogynist and sadomasochist features in the representations of female nudity, while ignoring medieval gender fluidity. Caroline W. Bynum, however, does address gender fluidity in her classic study Fragmentation and Redemption (esp. 204–20). See also Freeman, “Theologizing Gender in the Rothschild Canticles,” 268–93; Salih, “Sexual Identities,” 112–30; Mills, “‘Whatever You Do Is a Delight to Me!,’” 1–37. 2. See the groundbreaking study by Hamburger (Rothschild Canticles, 72). 3. On the fluidity of gender identities offered by such images, see Easton, “Saint Agatha and the Sanctification of Sexual Violence,” 83–118. On the speaking and silencing of the female martyr, see Mills, “Can the Virgin Martyr Speak?” 187–213; Bynum, “Female Body and Religious Practice,” 182. Such stories are not devoid of misogyny. On the cruelty of female mutilation, see Schulenberg, “Heroics of Virginity,” 29–72, and Burnett McInerney, “Rhetoric, Power, and Integrity,” 50–70. 4. The literature is too extensive to be surveyed here. Its main exponents are discussed throughout the chapter. 5. Leo Steinberg (Sexuality of Christ) and Caroline Bynum (“Body of Christ in the Later Middle Ages”) were the first to debate the use of erotically charged imagery; see n. 44 below. However, Margaret Miles (Carnal Knowing, 16) and Martha Easton (“Was it Good for You, Too?,” 1–30)

suggest a careful examination of the terms in relation to medieval culture and art-historical discourse. The body was interpreted in many different ways by medieval thinkers and artisans, and the problem of its reception should be attuned accordingly; see Lewis, “Medieval Bodies Then and Now,” 15–28. 6. Mills, Suspended Animation, 121; Bartlett, Hanged Man, 106–16. 7. The incentive for the exploration of the male gaze and pleasure in such representations was discussed by Mulvey (“Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” 6–18). On the male fetishized gaze and the pornographic fantasy of rape in the Middle Ages, see Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, 22–24; Birge Vitz, “Rereading Rape in Medieval Literature,” 280–91; Miles, Carnal Knowing, 156; Caviness, Visualizing Women in the Middle Ages, 86, 115. See also nn. 8–13 below. 8. Easton, “‘Images Gross and Sensible,’” 43. 9. Wolfthal, “‘Hue and a Cry,’” 39–64; Wolfthal, Images of Rape, 286. 10. Buettner, “Profane Illuminations, Secular Illusions,” 75–90, esp. 87. 11. Easton, “Uncovering the Meanings of Nudity,” 159–60. 12. Bundage, “Rape and Seduction in the Medieval Canon Law,” 141–48; Gravdal, “Poetics of Rape Law in Medieval France,” 207–26. 13. Classen, Sexual Violence and Rape. An illustrative example is that of the early thirteenth-century Middle High German verse narrative Mauritius von Craûn (ibid., 53–82, 113, 199). 14. For Tertullian, every public exposure of a virgin was equal to her suffering a rape, but in this case the differentiation between the eroticized and the sexualized body suggested otherwise; see Tertullian, Liber de virginibus velandis, in Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina (henceforth PL), 2:892. 15. Easton, “Uncovering the Meanings of Nudity,” 175. 16. For its program and iconography, see Markus, “Saint Barbara Altarpiece of Master Francke,” 4–24; WaismaaPietarila, “From Turku Cathedral to the National Museum of Finland,” 172–77. 17. Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 1:816–17. For the various sources that might have informed the altarpiece, see Martens, Meister Francke, 44. 18. I refer here to eroticism in its general sense, not as gender-based. Since such delineations as the lactans imagery with the bare breast were a common motif in the period and were not used solely by female mystics, there is no reason to enter here into a discussion of same-sex eroticism as arises in Hamburger’s work (Visual and the Visionary, 233–78, and Rothschild Canticles, 155–57). Transformation of erotic imagery is not unique to female

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spirituality; it was both supplied and shaped by a tradition of exegesis developed primarily by male mystics. See Hamburger, Nuns as Artists, 2–18. 19. Mills, Suspended Animation, 112, 141. 20. “Do hies der richter búrnende sackellen an ire siten vnd brústelin halten vnd mit eime hammer ir hŏbet sere schlahen. Do rief sú in den himmel vnd sprach: >Herre Ihesu Criste du erkennest wie sere ich in dinre minne enzúndet bin, do von wil ich gewilleklich durch dich dise pin liden.< Hie noch hies ir der richter ire brústlin abe sniden” (Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 817). 21. “Do der keiser enphant daz sin frowe cristen waz worden do hies er ire brúste mit croweln ab irme herzen zerren vnd do noch enthŏbten” (ibid., 759). 22. Miles, Complex Delight, 45. I discuss the topic at length below. 23. The orientalized clothing and the demonic, almost anti-Semitic physiognomy is typical of the executioner’s figure during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; see Mellinkoff, Outcasts, 1:25–26, Klemettilä, Epitomes of Evil, 109–64. 24. This composition would appear to perfectly illustrate Mulvey’s idea of “male gaze” (“Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” 6–18). 25. Since the tormentors were considered contaminated, their garments were starkly regulated in order to distinguish them from ordinary people; see Klemettilä, Epitomes of Evil, 109–16. 26. During the late Middle Ages, a swollen belly was a sign of femininity; see Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes, 97. Here, however, the meaning is inverted and the belly is a sign of sexual lust. 27. As Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption, 214–20; Dittmeyer, Gewalt und Heil, 187. 28. Vavra, “Kleidung im Werk Michael Pachers,” 95–103; Vavra, “Überlegungen zum ‘Bild der Frau,’” 292. 29. Miles, Carnal Knowing, 156. 30. See, e.g., Dworkin, Pornography, 160–98, and Wolfthal, In and Out of the Marital Bed, 121–28. 31. See nn. 7, 32–35, and 37 in this chapter. Sarah Salih uses the limiting term “pre-pornographic” since the primary aim of the images was not sexual arousal (“Erotica,” 208). See also Easton, “Was It Good for You, Too?,” 7, 10. 32. Caviness, Visualizing Women, 115. 33. Ibid., 99. 34. Sorgo, Martyrium und Pornographie, 11, 63–65. 35. Ibid., 17, 30–35. 36. Jacobus de Voragine, Golden Legend, 1:115; for a discussion, see Easton, “Saint Agatha and the Sanctification of Sexual Violence,” 83–118. 37. Mills, Suspended Animation, 106.

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38. Marla Carlson offers a similar possibility of a female viewer’s response, as one who enters into dialogue with the saint and establishes a site of resistance (“Spectator Responses to an Image of Violence,” 7–8, and Performing Bodies in Pain, 25–48. 39. Mills, Suspended Animation, 120. 40. For a short survey on the parallelism and differences between hagiography and pornography, see Schäfer-Althaus, “Painful Pleasure,” 151–59, and Ferguson, “Pleasure of Martyrdom,” 117–36. 41. On the similarities and contradictions between modern and medieval pornography, see Burgwinkle and Howie, Sanctity and Pornography in Medieval Culture, 4–5, 28–29, 30–39, 74–83. Accordingly, what distinguishes medieval from modern pornography is that the former denounces corporeality while it celebrates it and destroys bodies through visual rhetoric while rendering them unforgettable. 42. Failing to acknowledge the medieval notion of the erotic, Dittmeyer recently posited the anachronistic notion that these images simply exemplify the imitatio (Gewalt und Heil, 184–94). 43. Most recently, Seidel, “Nudity as Natural Garment,” 207–30. 44. Leo Steinberg and Anne Hollander argue that images of exposed bodies can never be completely devoid of sexual associations or constitute a means for purely theological abstractions (Steinberg, Sexuality of Christ, 1–109, 151–53; Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes, 83–157). Bynum criticized Steinberg for ignoring the context of the medieval religiosity in which it was viewed (“Body of Christ in the Later Middle Ages,” 399–439). Nevertheless, in a later publication, Bynum herself admits that one cannot deny the immediate corporeal appeal of such images (“Violent Imagery,” 31). For a recent survey of the late medieval approach to nudity, see Lindquist, “Meaning of Nudity in Medieval Art,” 1–46. 45. See Lindquist, “Meaning of Nudity in Medieval Art,” 18; Dale, “Nude at Moissac,” 61–76; Catalini, “Luxuria and Its Branches,” 13–20. 46. For an introduction, see Ohly, Hohelied-Studien, 121–34, and Leclercq, Love of Learning, 74–85. The Song of Songs has been the subject of many studies, focusing on the Bride mysticism as interpreted by Bernard of Clairvaux and the mystics; see Astell, Song of Songs, 73– 105, 119–35; Matter, Voice of My Beloved, 49–85; Hamburger, Rothschild Canticles, 61–62; Turner, Eros and Allegory; Kingsmill, Song of Songs and the Eros of God, 12–22; Moore, “Song of Songs in the History of Sexuality,” 328–49; Astell and Cavadini, “Song of Songs,” 27–39. 47. For Michael Camille, the otherness of the pagan idols was demonstrated, among other ways, through their nakedness (Gothic Idol, 87–101).

48. Such sexually charged representations were usually connected with low-class individuals who could be visually exploited for the illicit sexual desire of the owner of the work; see, e.g., Camille, “‘For Our Devotion and Pleasure,’” 169–94. 49. These men were not models for behavior, even if, in practice, they might have been so for some viewers; see Salih, “Medieval Looks Back,” 223–31. 50. Klemettilä, Epitomes of Evil, 5, 34, 54–55, 70–72. 51. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica canticorum. On Bernard’s interpretation of the bride and bridegroom, see Astell, Song of Songs, 89–99. The erotic notion was further developed into a complex, fluid gender symbolism; see Bynum, Jesus as Mother, 155–58, and Newman, From Virile Woman to WomanChrist, 1–18. See also Brenner-Idan, “On Feminist Criticism of the Song of Songs,” 28–37. 52. See, e.g., Matter, Voice of My Beloved, 12–77, 159–67, and Astell, Song of Songs, 42–50. On the iconography of the sponsa and sponsus in Christian and Jewish perceptions, see Shalev-Eyni, “Iconography of Love,” 27–57. 53. Kieckhefer, “Mystical Experience and the Definition of Christian Mysticism,” 213–17. 54. Camille, Medieval Art of Love, 22–23; Astell, Song of Songs, 89–101. 55. Newman, “Gender,” 42. See also Newman, God and the Goddesses, 138–89. 56. For a discussion on the various sorts of pleasure suggested in the text, see recently Barthal, Earthly Love— Divine Love, 125–67. 57. On the metaphors for taste and smell, see Kingsmill, Song of Songs and the Eros of God, 61–64. 58. Hamburger, Rothschild Canticles, 81. 59. For Bernard’s text, see ibid., 81, 270 n. 107. 60. Rupert of Deutz was the first exegete to systematically identify the bride with the Virgin Mary; see Astell, Song of Songs, 32; Fulton, From Judgment to Passion, 334–37. 61. Rupert of Deutz, Commentaria in Canticum Canticorum 5:2–8, vv. 196–216, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis (henceforth CCCM ) 26:110–11. Translation after Fulton, From Judgment to Passion, 334–35. 62. The language of love was adopted by the Beguines; see Newman, From Virile Woman to WomanChrist, 108–36. 63. Hamburger, Rothschild Canticles, 85. 64. See Kingsmill, Song of Songs and the Eros of God, 75–98. 65. For a discussion on the Jewish exegeses, see ShalevEyni, “Bared Breast in Medieval Ashkenazi Illumination,” 26–31. 66. Origen, Cant. prol. 3.3,7, in Song of Songs: Commentary and Homilies, trans. Lawson, 41. 67. Miles, Complex Delight, 45.

68. On the Virgo lactans, see Williamson, “Virgin ‘Lactans’ as Second Eve,” 105–38; Miles, “Virgin’s One Bare Breast,” 193–208. For the significance of breast milk in the Middle Ages, see Miles, Complex Delight, 8, 36–39; Yalom, History of the Breast, 30–49; McLaughlin, “Survivors and Surrogates,” 115. However, breastfeeding was a matter of moral identity, as infants were thought to acquire not only their physical appearance but also their personality and intelligence directly from the kind of milk they imbibed; see Ross, “Middle Class Child in Urban Italy,” 184–87. The evocations of motherhood, breasts, and the giving of life were also assimilated in Jewish representation of naked breasts; see Shalev-Eyni, “Bared Breast in Medieval Ashkenazi Illumination,” 1–34. 69. “When, therefore I fondled such as Son, born of my flesh, as my bosom, carried in my arms, nursed him at my breasts” (Rupert of Deutz, after Astell, Song of Songs, 64). 70. Bruno of Segni, Expositio in Cantica Canticorum, 5, PL 164:1242, translation after Astell, Song of Songs, 55. 71. On transgender metamorphosis, see the groundbreaking study by Bynum (Jesus as Mother, 155–58). 72. Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs, in Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, 2:27. 73. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 9, pars. 5–8, Sancti Bernardi opera, 1:45–46, in Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, 2:5–58, translation after Bynum, Jesus as Mother, 117. 74. William of Saint Thierry, Sur le Cantique, chap. 38: 122–24, in Works of William of St. Thierry, trans. Mother Columba Hart, 30; for a discussion, see Bynum, Jesus as Mother, 117–19. 75. Hamburger, “Rothschild Canticles,” 314–17, and Ringler, Viten- und Offenbarungsliteratur in Frauenklöstern, 255–56. 76. Tauler, Das Buch von geistlicher Armut, i.126, vv. 1–2, p. 62; translation by author. See also Oppel, Das Hohelied Salomonis, 9. 77. This inversion has inspired the representation of the two-figure sculptural group of John resting in Christ’s bosom, head on shoulder; see, e.g., Möbius and Sciurie, Geschichte der deutschen Kunst, 373–74; Camille, Medieval Art of Love, 127–28; Hamburger, St. John the Divine, 72; Boerner, Bildwirkungen, 234–36. Boerner has shown that this specific group was not circulated among the laity but only among the nuns and was thus aimed at a specific interpretive community. 78. Elisabeth of Schönau, “Lobrede auf St. Iohannes,” in Das Gebetbuch der hl. Elisabeth von Schönau, sermon 4, p. 11; translation by author. See also Leclercq, “Dévotion au Sacré-Coeur,” 2:11–12. 79. In many contemporaneous representations of the Visitation, such as that from Katharinenthal bei Diessenhofen, ca. 1310, both the Virgin’s and Elisabeth’s

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wombs are depicted figuratively elevated to their chests to demonstrate that these women, unlike ordinary women, bear their pregnancies in their hearts; this imagery also epitomized the notion that the holy women nourished their babies directly from their blood and not from an inferior substance such as the menstrual blood that was transformed into milk through the filter of the breast. See Jung, “Crystalline Wombs and Pregnant Hearts,” 223–37. On the heart metaphor in theological and political use, see Jager, Book of Heart, 69–71, and LeGoff, “Head or Heart?,” 3:12–27. 80. See the description of Origin’s understanding of the ladder in Astell and Cavadini, “Song of Songs,” 29. 81. Kieckhefer, “Mystical Experience,” 198–234. On the relationships among the naked female figure, Frau Minne, and the Passion, see, e.g., Keller, “Gott im Visier,” 204–27. The bridegroom was paralleled with the chivalrous knight who saves his lady from captivity, as recounted in many romances; see Woolf, “Theme of Christ the LoverKnight,” 1–16. 82. Mechthild of Magdeburg, Flowing Light of the Godhead, bk. 1, chap. 2, 114–15. 83. Tammen, “Gewalt im Bilde,” 320. 84. For general introduction to these allegorical figures, see Stammler, Frau Welt; Rowe, The Jew, the Cathedral and the Medieval City, 40–61; Käfer, Blindheit in der Kunst, 239–49. 85. Most of these images are dated from the midfifteenth century. For a comprehensive survey, see Gerát, Legendary Scenes, 235–94, and Dittmeyer, Gewalt und Heil, 15–95. On the violence in the miniature, see Callahan, “Torture of Saint Apollonia,” 119–38, and Easton, “‘Images Gross and Sensible,’” 39. 86. The miniature has often been studied as a testimony in painting of late medieval theater-in-the-round, as a kind of visual documentation; see, e.g., Arnott, “Origin of Medieval Theatre in the Round,” 84–87. For a criticism of this notion, see Callahan, “Torture of Saint Apollonia,” 119–20. In such performances, the tortures constituted the climax of the event, and the tormentors were the main figures, the superstars of the play; see Klemettilä, Epitomes of Evil, 49. 87. Klemettilä, Epitomes of Evil, 165–203. 88. Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 758–60. Unfortunately, this panel is understudied, and apart from a laconic mention in a catalogue entry, I could not find any substantial, relevant information. An even more elaborated cycle, including eleven episodes from Saint Catherine’s persecution, appears in the Belles Heures of Du Jean, Duke of Berry, 1405–8; see Easton, “Uncovering the Meanings of Nudity,” 149–56.

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89. Klemettilä, Epitomes of Evil, 135–42, and Blanc, “Historiographie du Vetement,” 7–33. 90. For a detailed study on the physiognomy of the tormentors, see Klemettilä, Epitomes of Evil, 165–214; Mellinkoff, Outcasts, 1:5–9; Cohen, “Animated Pain of the Body,” 55. 91. This version is a remarkable deviation from the official version, in which she says: “Thou art ancient and of great age, and how well that I be a young maid, nevertheless my body is defeated by the torments, that the wounds suffer nothing to enter into my thought whereof I should be ashamed, and not for but I thank thee fair father that thou art so diligent to heal me, but know that my body shall receive no medicine of no man”; see Jacobus de Voragine, Golden Legend, 1:155. In the Alsatian version, the story appears as follows: Do es nů mitternaht wart, do erschein der maget in dem kerker ein alter man. Dem trůg ein kindelin ein lieht vor. Der hette bi ime maniger hande erzenige. Der sprach zů dirre megede: >Wie daz si daz der vnsinige richter dich habe liplich gepiniget, so hast du in doch mit dinen antwurten geistlich in sime herzen gepiniget uil swerlicher denne er dich. Vnd also er dich an dinen brústen hat gepiniget, also sol sin friheit in eine bitterkeit ime furkert werden. Vnd von ich bi dirre martil bin gewesen, so han ich gesehen daz dine brúste noch geheilet múgent werden.< Do antwurt sant Agatha vnd sprach: >Jch han mime libe keine lipliche arzenie erbotten. Do von so wer es schemelich daz ich nů fúrlúre daz ich so lange han behalten.< Do sprach der alte man: >Dohter ich bin Kristen. Du ensolt dich nút schammen.< Antwurt sant Agatha: >Wo von solte ich mich schammen, sit du so alt bist vnd so swermůtig, vnd ich so zerzerret vnd so úbel gehandelt bin an minem libe daz nieman keine frŏde mohte enphohen von mime libe. Doch so dancke ich dir heiliger vatter daz du dinen flis hast enbotten zů minre gesuntheit.< Do sprach der alte: >Wo von enlost du mich dich nút gesunt machen?< Antwurt sant Agatha vnd sprach: >Jch han minem herren Ihesum Cristum der mit einem worte alle creaturen gesunt machet, vnd mit sinre rede alle ding wider bringet. Wil der, so mag er mich zů stunt gesunt machen.< Do lachete der alte vnd sprach: >Jch bin dines herren zwelfbotte vnd bin von ime zů dir gesant. Do von so wissest daz du in sime namen bist gesunt worden.< Do mitte fúrswant der heilige zwölfbotte sant Peter. Do fiel nider sant Agatha vnd danckete gotte sinre gnoden vnd enphant

gesuntheit ires libes, vnd worent ir ire brúste one alle gebresten wider geben an iren lip. (Jacobus de Voragine, Elsässische Legenda Aurea, 1:199–200) 92. The frequency of such images in late medieval art casts doubts on Miles’s assumption that female nudes embodied sinfulness, whereas male nudes signaled an active faith (Carnal Knowing, 117–44).

Chapter 5 Epigraph: Rupert of Deutz, De gloria et honore, CCCM 29:382–83. 1. Although previously identified as a nun and a monk, the donors actually represent two citizens, probably a married couple; Zehnder, Kühn, Bauch, Eckstein, and Klein, Katalog der Altkölner Malerei, 136. The literature on the panel is scarce. It is only mentioned in the museum’s catalogues and in general surveys of German Gothic painting. All these sources focus on stylistic attribution in the narrative of late medieval Middle-Rhine painting and tend to repeat the same suggestions already posited by Alfred Stange (Kritisches Verzeichnis der deutschen Tafelbilder, 1:38), with minor revisions; Zehnder, Kühn, Bauch, Eckstein, and Klein’s Altkölner Malerei catalogue mentioned above offers the most comprehensive survey of the earlier entries; see also Budde, Kölner und seine Maler, 62, 225; Tauch, Vor Stefan Lochner, 103–4. All authors reiterate the same erroneous observation that the combination of painting and sculpture is an exception. 2. On the ontology of “Intensität” (intensity) and “Medialität” (mediality) of this iconographical formula, see Schwarz, Visuelle Medien im christlichen Kult, 37–39. 3. Bartlová, “Imago movens—Moving Image,” 268–71; Bredekamp, Theorie des Bildakts, 103–9; Tripps, Das handelnde Bildwerk in der Gotik, 149–52, 159–73; and, more recently, Truitt, Medieval Robots, 116–40. 4. Varchi, Paragone. For seminal studies on the paragone, see Mendelsohn, Paragoni, 12–57; Mendelsohn, “Simultaneität und der Paragone,” 294–334; Nova, “Paragone-Debatte und gemalte Theorie,” 183–202; Goffen, Renaissance Rivals, 31–66; Preimesberger, Paragons and Paragone, 23–52. 5. In Tristan, a giant and his minion erect living sculptures of Isolde and her companions, which were installed with mechanical devices that enabled their heads to shake and their limbs to move so they could embrace. The sculptures had internal pipes that let a sweet smell emanate from the mouths and the napes of their necks; see Pinkus, Sculpting Simulacra in Medieval Germany, 1–27, 77–79.

6. William of Conches, Glosae super Platonem 38, 45,

CCCM 203:70–72 , 80–83.

7. For a discussion and Begriffsgeschichte, see Pinkus, Sculpting Simulacra in Medieval Germany, 1–16. 8. For a discussion, see Dronke, Fabula, 32–43. I have relied here on his translations. William’s explorations in Glosae super Macrobium are somewhat earlier than his commentary on the Timaeus. For the commentaries on Macrobius, see Jeauneau, “Gloses de Guillaume de Conches sur Macrobe,” 17–28, as well as many other publications by this author. Camille mistakenly understood William as referring to the terms as interchangeable (Gothic Idol, 43). 9. “Continuatio; Ratio de mundo est perfunctoria utpote pro ‘sicut’ imaginaria imagines id est mundi qui est imago archetipi mundi et simulacrum rationis id est imperfecta ratio quia sola diuina ratio uere est ratio, humana uero est eius simulacrum” (from the commentary on the Timeus, William of Conches, Glosae super Platonem 46, vv. 12–15, CCCM 203:83). 10. “Necesse est id est ineuitabile, efficiat honestum simulacrum. Simulacrum nec penitus est id cuius est simulacrum nec penitus diuersum. Vnde hic mundus diunae sapientiae simulacrum dicitur, cum eius sit effectus, in illius compositione et disposione potest perpendi quanta et qualis sit diuina sapientia et, per talem et tantam sapientiam” (ibid., 38, vv. 20–25, CCCM 203:71). 11. For an introduction to the topic, see Fachechi, “Varietas delectat,” 162–77. The objects discussed in this essay fall into the category that she defines as polimateric sculpture by superimposition, in which multiple media merge into each other. See also Tronzo, “Mixed Media / Admirabiles mixturae,” 207–12. 12. Johannes Taubert’s collection of articles remains the most comprehensive source for the aesthetic and technique of wood coloration (Farbige Skulpturen). For a generally useful manual, see also Ballestrem, “Sculpture Polychrome,” 253–71. 13. A recent overview of the function and meaning of the Schreinmadonna as a transformative medium is provided by Rimmele (Das Triptychon als Metapher Körper und Ort, 107–85). On the Metropolitan Schreinmadonna, see Van Os, Art of Devotion in the Late Middle Ages, 50–57, and Gertsman, “Image as Word,” 51–80. 14. On this double meaning, see Van Os, Art of Devotion, 52. 15. Forsyth, Throne of Wisdom. 16. Van Os, Art of Devotion, 55. 17. For a comprehensive study of the object, including its theological foundations and the state of research for each of the surviving Schreinmadonna, see Radler, “Die Schreinmadonna ‘Vierge Ouvrante,’” and, most recently,

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the exemplary study by Gertsman, Worlds Within. On their liturgical function and use, see, for example, Kroos, “Gotes Tabernackel,” 58–61; Katz, “Marian Motion,” 63–91; and n. 13 above. 18. The relationship between forma/essentia/materia are discussed below; for an introduction, see Raff, “‘Materia superat opus.’” 19. Gertsman, “Performing Birth, Enacting Death,” 88–91. As a case in point, she refers to Honorius Augusto­ dunensis (d. 1151), who described the womb as “composed of seven cells with the shape of a man stamped on them as if on a coin” (De philosophia mundi, De matrice 4.10, PL 172: 88–89). 20. The womb of the Schreinmadonna mediated between the unfulfilled bodies of the nuns and anchoresses, who were the owners of such objects, and the complex Otherness of the body of the Virgin, which is lactating and fruitful, thus offering the nuns a substitute for their own bodies and celebrating the corporeality of Mary’s body as real. Although Van Os argued that the statue belonged to a nun from a convent near Cologne, I have demonstrated that the actual owner must have been an anchoress. The anchoress’s cell was called—and was designed as—a womb, while Mary’s womb was called an anchorhouse. The Virgin’s womb was considered a parallel to the anchoress’s cell, offering the devotee a chain of simulations and an emotional state of being; see Pinkus, “The Eye and the Womb,” 223–42. Whereas Katz interprets the opening of the Schreinmadonna as an erasure of the Virgin’s body, it is the anchoress’s body that is denied through celebrating the Virgin’s corporeality and simulacral womb; see Katz, “Behind Closed Doors,” 215–16. 21. Elina Gertsman suggests a chiastic reading of the scenes across the Virgin’s body, resonating with the rhetoric of the Eucharist (“Image as Word,” 51–80). 22. The figurine of Christ could be removed, fixed to the cross held in the hand of God the Father, or put on the main altarpiece, in the case of monumental Schreinmadonnen. 23. I have labeled this work a “sculpted painting” as its iconographical type first appeared in illuminated manuscripts and frescoes and was only later adapted as a sculptural motif; see Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, 2:133. 24. Marius Rimmele interpreted the Schreinmadonna as a matrix and convergence of several individual Marian functions and as a means of communication and an intermediary between God and man (Das Triptychon als Metapher Körper und Ort, 54–55). 25. This practice of plucking and delivering the sculpture is recorded in several instances; see the discussion in Pinkus, “The Eye and the Womb,” 223–42.

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26. Wood as both subject and medium in fifteenthand sixteenth-century altarpieces is the topic of Gregory Bryda’s dissertation, recently completed at Yale University under the supervision of Jacqueline Jung. Unfortunately, his material has not yet been published. 27. Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum 4:45, in Dialogue on Miracles, trans. Bland, Coulton, and Scott, 1:528. 28. Ibid. 29. Smith, “Bodies of Unsurpassed Beauty,” 173. 30. Jean Bodel of Arras, “Le jeu de Saint Nicolas,” 78, vv. 31–32. 31. For a survey, see Gertsman, Worlds Within, 105–6. 32. This link has already been noted by Camille (Gothic Idol, 217). 33. See, most recently, Gertsman, “Bewilderment Overwhelms Me,” 1–12; Mittman, “Of Wood and Bone,” 110–24; Lutz, “Drop of Blood,” 37–51. Lutz is mainly engaged with the viewers’ interaction with images through visionary animation. See also Suda, “Vindictive Virgins,” 150–59, and n. 3 above. 34. Baxandall, Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany, 27–49. See also Van de Velde, Beeckman, Acker, and Verhaegehe, who offer a useful study from archeo­ logical, technological, dendrochronological, and arthistorical perspectives, delving into the sociocultural and ecocommercial significance of the carved altarpiece in Brabant in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Constructing Wooden Images). Nevertheless, the question of animism and cultural imagination related to wood is given little attention, if at all. 35. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum 17.26, in Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. Barney, 345. 36. Gertsman, “Performing Birth, Enacting Death,” 84. 37. Pastoureau, “Introduction á la symbolique médiévale du bois,” 2:25–40, esp. 26–28. 38. Balss, Albertus Magnus als Biologe, 106. See also Neilson, “Carving Life,” 275. 39. For a comprehensive study of bronze as a medium of magic, see Weinryb, Bronze Object in the Middle Ages, 108–46. For a specific discussion on the morality of wood and its use in metal tools such as axes and saws, see Pastoureau, “Introduction á la symbolique médiévale du bois,” 27–28, 32–34. 40. On moving and speaking images, see nn. 3 and 33 above; Jung, “Tactile and the Visionary,” 203–40; Pinkus, Sculpting Simulacra in Medieval Germany, 1–27, 105–11. 41. Pastoureau even suggested that the shift from wood to stone sculpture indicated a reduction in wood’s symbolic value (“Introduction à la symbolique médiévale du bois,” 27). See also Geary, “Humiliation des saints,” 27–42.

42. Augustine considered “pleasing colors” a precondition for harmony and beauty; see Augustine, “Letter 3,” in Letters (trans. Parsons), 1:9. For a discussion on animism, see Freedberg, Power of Images, 283–316, and Francis, “Living Icons,” 575–600. 43. Jacobs, Early Netherlandish Carved Altarpieces, 81–96. 44. On immediacy and abstraction in head reliquaries, see Hahn, Strange Beauty, 117–22; on the problem of their likeness while retaining generic qualities, see Dale, “Romanesque Sculpted Portraits,” 101–19; Perkinson, “Portraits and Counterfeits,” 13–35; Perkinson, Likeness of the King, 27–84 (which provides an excellent discussion on the terminology of al-vif and protrabere). For an introduction to head reliquaries, see Falk, “Bildnisreliquiare,” 99–238. 45. The literature on the topic is vast; for a comprehensive study that surveys and comments on the state of research, see Montgomery, St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne, 1–46, 59–82, 137–64. For pathbreaking studies on the legend and its sources, see Zehnder, Sankt Ursula; Bergmann, Die Holzskulpturen des Mittelalters, 19–63; Levison, “Das Werden der Ursula-Legende,” 107–39; Schnütgen, “Vier kölnische Reliquienbüsten,” 33–34. 46. Holladay, “Relics, Reliquaries, and Religious Women,” 67–118. 47. Zehnder, Sankt Ursula, 37; Clark, Elisabeth of Schönau; Wiechert, “Die Reliquien der Klosterkirche zu Schönau,” 262–72. 48. Montgomery, St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne, 22. 49. This head from the Schnütgen Museum displays both remnants of the original color and the mechanism that allows the heads to function as shrines and containers of the skulls. 50. On the conventional notion that polychromy acts as a skin and heightens the realism of the figure, see also Fachechi, “Varietas delectate,” 164. I will challenge this interpretation below. 51. Valentiennes, Gloire de s. Vrsule divisee en deux parties, 40–41. 52. See Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls, 169. 53. Montgomery, St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne, 60. 54. “Mit einem Material hat der germanische und hat späterhin der deutsche Mensch vorzugsweise gearbeitet: mit dem Holz. Es ist für deutsches und germanisches Schaffen ähnlich bezeichnend wie der Marmor für die griechische Kunst” (Stange, Die Bedeutung des Werkstoffes in der deutschen Kunst, 179). Translation by author. The volume was published for Hitler’s fiftieth birthday. For a classification of media and material, see Kahsnitz, “Sculpture in Stone, Terracotta, and Wood,” 61–74.

55. The first edition of this important study was published by Deutscher Kunstverlag in 1994. I have used the second edition; see Raff, Die Sprache der Materialien, 13. 56. Ibid., 93–94. 57. See Neilson, “Carving Life,” 223. 58. Brachert, “Die techniken der polychromierten Holzskulptur,” 156. 59. Huth, Künstler und Werkstatt der Spätgotik, 55. 60. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum 17.20–23, in Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (trans. Barney), 344. 61. Weinryb, “Living Matter,” 113–32, esp. 126. 62. “[Hyle, ύλην] Graeci rerum quandam primam materiam dicunt, nullo prorsus modo formatam, sed omnium corporalium formarum capacem, ex qua visibilia haec elementa formata sunt; unde ex eius derivatione vocabulum acceperunt. Hanc Latini materiam appelaverunt, ideo quia omne informe, unde aliquid faciendum est, semper materia nuncupatur. Proinde et eam poetae silvam nominaverunt, nec incongrune, quia materia silvarum sunt” (Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum 13.3.1–2, in Etymologies of Isidore of Seville [trans. Barney], 272). 63. Calcidius’s notion of silva was developed in his commentary on Plato’s Timaeus; see O’Donnell, “Meaning of ‘Silva,’” 1–20. On the reception of Calcidius between the seventh and the twelfth centuries in the Latin West, see Ambrose, Nave Sculpture of Vézelay, 68–69, and Weinryb, “Living Matter,” 127. 64. Kauntze, Authority and Imitation, 75. 65. “Omnia quae gignuntur et ex aliquo tempore sint necesse est; sunt ergo mortalia immortalium uereque existentium simulacra et imagines, accipiunt autem substantiam in silua proptereaque et ipsa illic apparent et siluae nobis iniciunt recordationem” (Calcidio, Commentario al “Timeo” di Platone 321, pp. 628–29; translation after Van Winden, Calcidius on Matter, 172). 66. Such thinkers as Pierre Abélard have argued that actions are morally neutral, only the underlying intention matters; see Baraz, Medieval Cruelty, 23. 67. Pseudo-Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy, in Complete Works, 28. For a discussion, see Pinkus, Sculpting Simulacra in Medieval Germany, 5–6. 68. On this topic see, most recently, Blessing, “Sacramenta, in quibus principaliter salus constat,” 91–96, and the illuminating essay by Even Ezra, “Power of Living Words,” 92–117. 69. “Duo enim simulacra erant proposita homini, in quibus invisibilia videre potuisset: unum naturae, et unum gratiae. Simulacrum naturae erat species huius mundi. Simulacrum autem gratiae erat humanitas Verbi . . . Impossibile enim est invisibilia, nisi per visibilia demonstrari: et propterea omnis theologia necesse habet visibilibus demonstrationibus uti in invisibilium

n otes to pag es 104–108  141

declaratione. Sed mundana, ut diximus, theologia opera conditionis assumpsit, et elementa huius mundi secundum speciem creata, ut demonstrationem suam faceret in illis. Theologia vero divina opera restaurationis elegit secundum humanitatem Jesu, et sacramenta eius, quae ab initio sunt, naturalibus quoque pro modo subiunctis, ut in illis eruditionem conformaret.” Hugh of St. Victor, Expositio in hierarchiam coelestem S. Dionysii Areopagitae libri I 1, PL 175:926C . 70. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles 2:67–72 (pp. 166–71), especially 2:71 (p. 170): “ostensum est enim quod anima unitur corpori ut forma eius.” On the new attitudes to the relationship between body and soul in Thomistic thought, see, for example, Gilson, Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 204–20, and Davies, Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 207–26. 71. Although Baxandall remains at times evasive in regard to whether monochrome was intentionally chosen in order to prevent a suggestion of idolatry, this notion resonates indirectly throughout his study (Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany, 69–78). 72. On this paradox in painted altarpieces, see Jacobs, Early Netherlandish Carved Altarpieces, 92–96, and Philippot, “Signification de la polychromie,” 15–22. Henk van Os, for example, notes that the use of gold coloration on the Metropolitan Schreinmadonna was intended to hide the cheap wood and to give it the appearance of goldsmith’s work; at the same time, he argues that the lifelike coloration aimed at making the sculpture realistic and tangible (Art of Devotion, 52). 73. On “gold as gold,” see Schwarz, “Goldgrund im Mittelalter,” 29–37. I discuss this topic further below. 74. Hahn, Strange Beauty, 122. 75. Fachechi, “Varietas delectate,” 165. 76. On the symbolism of gold from Abbot Suger to Alberti, see Raff, Die Sprache der Materialien, 30–34, and nn. 72–82 in this chapter. 77. Philippot, “Signification de la polychromie,” 15–22. 78. This very dictum, however, attests to the fact that marveling at matter was the issue in practice; see Claussen, “Materia und Opus,” 40–49, and Raff, “Materia superat opus,” 17–28. 79. Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church, 46–49. For a reinterpretation of the inscription, see Büchsel, “Die romanische Portale im Geiste Cluny,” 12–15, and Büchsel, “Die von Abt Suger verfaßten Inschriften,” 57–73. 80. Hoffmann, “Die Entstehung des Königsportals in Saint-Denis,” 36. 81. Kessler, “‘They Preach Not by Speaking Out Loud,’” 55–70. 82. Isidore of Seville, Mysticorum expositiones sacramentorum 36, PL 83:355. However, gold could have had multivalent and ambivalent meanings. In frequent

142  not es to pages 108–112

medieval accounts, whether in travel literature or in theological exegeses on the vision of a colossus or an idol with a golden head, a silver chest, bronze accoutrements, and clay feet, each material symbolized an early kingdom or age to be destroyed; a colossus of this sort could also represent the hierarchy of materials. See Raff, Die Sprache der Materialien, 77–79, and Wood, Forgery, Replica, Fiction, 164–77. 83. “Res et imago duas fert ista notatque figures / Effigatus homo, Deus est signatus in auro.” I have followed Kessler’s translation (“Eloquence of Silver,” 49). I am grateful to Herbert Kessler for sending me the image and the transcription. 84. Rupert of Deutz, Commentaria in Evangelium Sancti Johannis, CCCM 9:14. I have relied on the translation by Kessler, “‘They Preach Not by Speaking Out Loud,’” 58. 85. Gold could also signify the virtues and generosity of the donors. The inscription for the head reliquary of Saint Martin (now lost), commissioned by Abbot Berthold of Weingarten (d.1232), read, “This head, like God, is judge and witness. It exhibits in its vestments [the golden covering] pious and pleasing gifts.” See Swarzenski, Berthold Missal and the Scriptorium, 117–18. Later, as the Annals recounts, Berthold decided to commission an additional gilded silver head in order to encourage piety. 86. On ivory’s symbolism, see Guérin, “Meaningful Spectacles,” 53–77. 87. This inconsistency and wavering between two representational modes mark an epistemological crisis regarding the definition of the “real” and its visualization; see Pinkus, Sculpting Simulacra in Medieval Germany, 78–95. 88. Lipton, “‘Sweet Lean of His Head,’” 1172–208. 89. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 16482, fol. 141v; translation from Lipton, “Sweet Lean of His Head,” 1172. 90. Rupert of Deutz, De gloria et honore Filii hominis super Mattheum, CCCM 29:382–83. 91. The Middle High German word bild can refer either to a painted or sculpted image. 92. Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum 8:21, in Dialogue on Miracles, trans. Bland, Coulton, and Scott, 2:23. In other cases, Christ stretches his hands beyond the images and embraces, kisses, or even slaps devotees; see, for example, ibid., 1:455. 93. The entire eighth book of the Dialogus miraculorum, Of Divers Visions, is replete with such accounts in which monks and mystics are granted visions of sacredness, sometimes with but mostly without the intercession of images. For example, chapter 10 tells about a certain religious women in Gerlach who saw Christ through closed eyes, namely in a vision; chapter 13 tells about Peter, a monk from Hemmernode, who, while praying before an

altar, had a vision of the crucified Christ who stretched out his arms and embraced him; and chapter 86 recounts Abbess Euphemia seeing two of Ursula’s virgin companions in a revelation. Unlike the visions experienced and recounted by laypeople, in these accounts it is Christ or the saints themselves (not their living images) who appear to and embrace the devotees. Images served merely as agents to their visionary experiences. It is therefore remarkable that the living, moving images mentioned in book 8 are related to the visionary experiences of the laity (as in chapter 21) or of nonbelievers (as in the vision of the crucifix in St. George in Cologne, which smote the disrespectful bellman in chapt. 25). See Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum 8:10, 13, 21–22, 25, 86, in Dialogue on Miracles, trans. Bland, Coulton, and Scott, 2: 12, 15–16, 23–24, 26, 88.

Epilogue Epigraph: Arendt, On Violence, 80. 1. Staiger, Media Reception Studies, 167–68. 2. Freedberg and Gallese, “Motion, Emotion, and Empathy,” 197–203. The most recent results and experiments in tracking the responses of brain receptors were introduced by Freedberg in his keynote lecture “Still Images and Motor Imagination” during the IMAGO conference “Speculation, Imagination, and Misinterpretation in Medieval and Early Modern Art” at Tel Aviv University, March 22–23, 2015. Their view was criticized by de Preester, who asked, “Is the way that the body normally perceives simply in the background, informing the sense that the painted object appears, or is the painted object really given just like any other?” See de Preester, Moving Imagination, 302. 3. Ibid., 197. 4. Elias, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation, 1:xiii–xv. 5. On this wildly disputed topic, see Dinges, “Formen­ wandel der Gewalt in der Neuzeit,” 171–94; Schwerhoff,

“Zivilisationsprozeß und Geschichtswissenschaft,” 561–605. 6. This identification is especially true for life-sized imagery, such as the diptych The Judgment of Cambyses by Gerard David, 1498, now in the Groeningemuseum, Bruges; see chapter 3, nn. 57 and 61. 7. The panels were once considered as wall installations in a refectory or a church, but it is now thought that they probably adorned a chest. For the ascription and detailed iconographical identification, see Zehnder, Kühn, Bauch, Eckstein, and Klein, Katalog der Altkölner Malerei, 201–8. 8. On the pervasiveness of this idea in mystical writings, see the seminal study by Bynum, “Violent Imagery in Late Medieval Piety,” 3–36. On the distancing effect of aestheticization, see, e.g., Dittmeyer, Gewalt und Heil, 31–40, 170. 9. The panel has been studied only rarely, and its role in late medieval mystic experience has not yet been fully explored; see Reynaud, “À propos du martyre de saint Denis,” 175–76, and Boespflug, Trinité dans l’art d’occident, 57–76. On the political implications of the panel in regard to the ownership of the saint’s relics, see Boespflug, “Bleu, couleur liturgique ou signal politique?,” 135–49. 10. Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum 8:64, in Dialogue on Miracles, trans. Bland, Coulton, and Scott, 2:66–67. 11. See, e.g., Easton, “‘Images Gross and Sensible,’” 33–54; Bale, Feeling Persecuted, 30–64; Aurenhammer and Bohde, Räume der Passion, 1–13. 12. Cardinal Giovanni Dominici, for example, recommends using images in 1403; see Rösler, Kardinal Johannes Dominicis Erziehungslehre, 26. 13. Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, 4:158, trans. Warner, https://​archive​.org​/stream​/livesofmostemine 04vasauoft​/livesofmostemine04vasauoft​_djvu​.txt. 14. This response is noted by Bohde, “Der hl. Sebastian,” 89–90.

n otes to pag es 113–120  143

co lor plat e 1 (overleaf, above) Schwäbisch

co lo r p l ate 3  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy

Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal,

Cross Minster, north choir portal, outer archivolt,

Passion Portal, 1351–70s. Photo: author.

martyrdom scenes, 1351–70s: (a) Saint Matthew, (b) Saint Judas Thaddeus, (c) Saint Christopher,

co lor plat e 2 (overleaf, below) Schwäbisch

(d) an unidentified martyr, (e) an unidentified

Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, detail

cephalophore saint, maybe Saint Denis, (f ) Saint

of the first register of the tympanum: Betrayal of Judas,

Alexius, (g–h) unidentified martyrs, (i) Saint Andrew,

1351–70s. Photo: Gili Shalom.

(j) Saint James the Lesser (?). Photos: author / Gili Shalom.

a

b

c

d

e

f

g

h

i

j

a

b

c

d

e

f

g

h

co lor plat e 4  Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster, north choir portal, inner archivolt, martyrdom scenes, 1351–70s: (a) John the Evangelist and Aristodemos from Ephesus, (b) an unidentified martyr, (c) Saint James the Greater or Saint Paul (?), (d) Saint Simon, (e) Saint Thomas (?), (f ) Saint Philip, (g) Saint Peter, (h) Saint Bartholomew. Photos: author / Gili Shalom.

co lor p l ate 5  Schenna, Church of St. George, Saint George on the Wheel, ca. 1400. Photo: author.

co lo r p l ate 7 (opposite)  Schenna, Church of St. George, Saint George Stabbed with Red-Hot Nails, ca. 1400. Photo: author.

co lor p l ate 6  Schenna, Church of St. George, Saint George Dragged and Quartered by Horses, ca. 1400. Photo: author.

gewalt rovp (thievery)

vmazze (immoderation)

vbermůt (pride)

trvnkenheid (drunkenness)

trvngenheit (betrayal)

vunrecht (injustice) rům (boasting)

hvgelůst (whoremongering) lůge (lying)

vnstete (inconstancy)

zorn (anger)

neit (hatred)

girde (greed) wůcher (usury)

vntugent (vice)

erge (avarice)

co lor plat e 8  Vices, from Thomasin

co lo r p l ate 9 (opposite)  Guido da Siena,

von Zerklaere, Der Welscher Gast, 1340.

reliquary shutter with the martyrdom of Saint

Forschungsbibliothek Gotha, Memb. I 120, fol. 100v.

Catherine of Alexandria, detail, ca. 1260. Tempera

Photo: Forschungsbibliothek Gotha.

on wood panel. Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena. Photo: Alinari. Reproduced with the permission of Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali / Archivi Alinari, Florence. co lo r p l ate 10 (overleaf)  Stephan Lochner, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, ca. 1435. Walnut, 126.8 × 175.6 cm. Städel Museum, Frankfurt. Photo: author, with permission of the Städel Museum.

co lor p l ate 11  Stephan Lochner, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, ca. 1435. Walnut, 40 × 40.6 cm. Städel Museum, Frankfurt. Photo: author, with permission of the Städel Museum.

co lor plat e 12 (above)  Stephan Lochner (?), Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, ca. 1425. Walnut, 40 × 40.6 cm. Städel Museum, Frankfurt. Reproduced with permission of the Städel Museum. colo r plat e 13 (right)  Wellmich am Rhein, Church of St. Martin, Last Judgment with the Martyrdoms of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Dragging by Horse of Saint Philip, last quarter of the fourteenth century. Photo: author.

co lor plat e 14 (opposite, above)  Wellmich am

co lo r p l ate 16 (left)  Zell am Allgäu, Church of

Rhein, Church of St. Martin, Last Judgment with the

St. Bartholomew, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles,

Martyrdoms of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Mouth of Hell,

detail: Flaying of Bartholomew, ca. 1450. Photo: author.

last quarter of the fourteenth century. Photo: author. co lo r p l ate 17 (right)  Zell am Allgäu, Church co lor plat e 15 (opposite, below)  Zell am Allgäu,

of St. Bartholomew, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles,

Church of St. Bartholomew, Martyrdom of the Twelve

detail: Martyrdom of Saint Simon and Saint Judas,

Apostles, detail: Boiling of Saint John the Evangelist,

ca. 1450. Photo: author.

ca. 1450. Photo: author.

co lo r p l ate 18 (left, above) Stephan Lochner, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Saint James the Lesser, ca. 1435. Walnut. Städel Museum, Frankfurt. Photo: Städel Museum. co lo r p l ate 19 (left, below)  Zell am Allgäu, Church of St. Bartholomew, Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, detail: Martyrdom of Saint James the Lesser, ca. 1450. Photo: author. co lo r p l ate 20 (opposite, above)  The Ten Thousand Martyrs altarpiece, 1325. Oak, 16.5 × 14 cm. Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne. Photo © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln, 1982, rba_c004450, rba_d037005-01. co lo r p l ate21 (opposite, below)  The Ten Thousand Martyrs altarpiece, detail, 1325. Oak. Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne. Photo © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln, 1982, rba_c004450, rba_d037005-01.

co lo r p l ate 22 Master Francke, Martyrdom of Saint Barbara altarpiece, detail: Saint Barbara’s Mastectomy and Whipping, ca. 1410–16. Pine. National Museum of Finland, Helsinki. Photo: Timo Syrjänen. co lo r p l ate 23  (opposite)  Saint Catherine of Alexandria altarpiece, detail: Whipping of Saint Catherine, ca. 1440. Pine. Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt. Photo: author, with permission of the Hessisches Landesmuseum.

co lor plat e 24 (opposite)  Saint Catherine of

co lo r p l ate 25  Saint Catherine of Alexandria

Alexandria altarpiece, detail: Mastectomy of Saint

altarpiece, detail: Decapitation of Empress Faustina,

Catherine, ca. 1440. Pine. Hessisches Landesmuseum,

ca. 1440. Pine. Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt.

Darmstadt. Photo: author, with permission of the

Photo: author, with permission of the Hessisches

Hessisches Landesmuseum.

Landesmuseum.

co lor plat e 26 (opposite)  Crucifixion, ca. 1425–35. Oak, 89 × 62 cm. Wallraf-RichartzMuseum, Cologne. Photo: author, with permission of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. co lor plat e 27 (above, left)  Crucifixion, detail: sculpted head of Mary, ca. 1425–35. Oak. WallrafRichartz-Museum, Cologne. Photo: author, with permission of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. colo r plat e 28 (above, right)  Crucifixion, detail: sculpted head of John the Evangelist, ca. 1425–35. Oak. Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne. Photo: author, with permission of the Wallraf-RichartzMuseum. colo r plat e 29 (right)  Crucifixion, detail: sculpted head of Christ, ca. 1425–35. Oak. WallrafRichartz-Museum, Cologne. Photo: author, with permission of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum.

co lor plat e 30 (opposite)  Schreinmadonna

co lo r p l ate 31 (left)  Ursula altarpiece, detail:

(opened), ca. 1300. Oak, linen covering, gilding, and

Ursula head reliquary, ca. 1350. Walnut, ca. 40

gesso, 36.8 × 34.6 × 13 cm. Metropolitan Museum of

cm. Cistercian Abbey at Marienstatt, Rheinland-

Art, New York, 17.190.185a, b. Photo: Metropolitan

Pfalz. Photo: author, with permission of the Abtei

Museum of Art.

Marienstatt. co lo r p l ate 32 (right)  Ursula altarpiece, detail: Ursula head reliquary, ca. 1350. Walnut, ca. 40 cm. Cistercian Abbey at Marienstatt, RheinlandPfalz. Photo: author, with permission of the Abtei Marienstatt.

co lor plat e 33  Henri Bellechose, The Martydom of Saint Denis, 1416. Panel painting, 162 × 211 cm. Louvre Museum, Paris. Photo: author, with permission of the Louvre Museum.

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Index

Italicized page numbers indicate illustrations. Endnotes are referenced with “n” followed by the endnote number. abjection, 26, 67, 71, 76 acacia (wood), 79, 106 acacia thorn impalement diptych altarpieces featuring, 77, 79, 110, plate2, plate20 portal sculptures featuring, 43, 49, 50 Achatius, Saint, 53, 77, 79 Adam and Eve, 11, 30, 88 Adoration of the Magi (Church of St. Theobald, Thann), 45 Adoration of the Magi (Schreinmadonna), 100, plate30 aestheticization of juridical record descriptions, 83 of literary violence, 32–33, 83–84 of martyrdom imagery, 15, 19–20, 27, 62, 116–18 Afra of Augsburg, Saint biographical information and social status, 51, 54 cult veneration of, 38, 45 martyrdom imagery of, 39, 40, 44, 45, 54 Agatha, Saint conventional portrayals, 27, 39 martyrdom imagery of, 42, 47, 48, 55, 82, 83 post-martyrdom body restoration, 27, 94–95 sadomasochistic references, 87 viewers’ responses to, 76 Agnes, Saint conventional portrayals, 28, 29 martyrdom imagery of, 39, 40, 44, 45, 54 Agony of Christ in Gethsemane, 16, plate1 Akazienholz (acacia wood), 79, 106 Albertus Magnus, 103–4 Albrecht II of Habsburg, 127n24, 129n52 Alexius, Saint, 18, 21, 124n24, plate3f

Alsatian Golden Legend (Elsässische Legenda Aurea) (Jacobus de Voragine) as iconographic studies source, 9 martyrdom illustrations in, 55–56, 57 publication of, 9 saint biographical information, 46–47, 53, 67, 84, 86 saint martyrdom descriptions, 1, 63–64, 65 Altschpach monastery, 54 amputations in Betrayal of Christ scene, 16 for healing, 26 as juridical punishments, 7, 58, 59 as martyrdom torture method, 1 during medieval warfare, 6 See also dismemberment anchoresses, 69, 102, 103, 140n20 anchorhouse, 140n20Andrew, Saint, 18, 40, 43, 45, plate3i Angelico, Fra Lamentation over the Dead Christ, 133n64 Mocking of Christ, 122n39 angels intervention of, 25, 42, 55, 63, 63, 64, plate5 as martyrdom attendants, 19, 19 visions of, 117 anger (zorn), 31, 32, plate8 anima. See soul animal legs, as weapons, 3, 43, 50, 59 animism, 68, 102–3, 106, 108, 109 Annales (Schwäbisch Gmünd), 15 Annales (Thann) community disasters, 37, 51, 52, 53 community violence records, 37, 38–39, 52–55 document history, 38, 52 as martyria iconographical study source, 11, 38 prayers in, 37, 38, 55 scholarship on, 52

Anne, Saint, 20 Annunciation to the Shepherds, 100 anointing, 27 anonymity, 28, 115, 118 Anthony, Saint, 41, 45 Anzieu, Didier, 134n69 Apollonia, Saint, 24, 41, 45, 46, 92–94, 93 Apollonius, 102 Aquinas, Thomas body-soul relationship, 7, 30, 31, 108 images, effects of, 14 impassibility, 30 matter, appearance of, 108 violence categories, 58 violent behavior and psychology, 30 Arca di San Pietro Martire (Giovanni di Balduccio), 53, 121n13 archaic authenticity, 26 Arendt, Hannah, 113, 115 aristocracy manners treatises for, 30–31, 31, plate8 as martyrdom spectators, 55, 56, 57, 67, 70, 77, 110, plate12, plate22 as martyr social class, 51 sexual temptation iconography of, 83 treason and punishment methods for, 58, 60 Aristodemos of Ephesus, Saint, 18, plate4a Ark of the Covenant, 79, 106 Arles, Saint Trophime, 124n31 arrow impalement, 39, 40, 44, 51 Ascent to Calvary (Holy Cross Minster, Schwäbisch Gmünd), 16, 17 Astoroth, 67 auctors (ancient authors), 72, 133n60 Augsburg, 7, 45, 53 Augustine of Hippo, 2, 7, 26, 32, 107–8, 124n44, 141n42 authority, 8, 56, 58, 59–60 autopsia, 67 axes, 3, 23, 104 axe-split skulls battlefield violence associations, 23, 24, 59, 80 martyrdom narratives featuring, 124n30 martyrdom scenes featuring, 3, 9, 18, 23, 23–24, 59, 80, plate3j Bamberger Reiter, 69 baptism, 27 Barbara, Saint altarpieces featuring eroticism, 84–92, 85, plate22 biographical information, 84 conventional portrayals of, 39

162  i ndex

portal sculptures and brutality of, 39, 42, 47, 48, 55, 76, 82–83 reliquaries of, 20 barrels with needles/nails, 25, 45, plate7 Barron, William, 74 Bartholomew, Saint biographical information, 65, 67 frescoes featuring, 72–73, 73, 74, plate16 hagiographic illustrations featuring, 56, 57 imagery style, 62 literary themes compared to, 33, 71–72 panel paintings featuring, 64–65, 67, 70–74, 77, plates11–12 popularity of, 62 portal sculptures featuring, Schwäbisch Gmünd, 18, 55, 65, 66, 98, plate4h portal sculptures featuring, Thann, 42, 47, 50, 55, 65, 67 reliquary shutters featuring, 65, 66, 131n1 skin of, 67, 98 viewers’ responses to, 65, 70–71, 74, 76 Bartolomeo, Fra, 120 Basilica of Saint-Denis, Paris, 20, 20, 24 battlefields, medieval body penetrations associated with, 80 execution methods associated with, 23, 24, 59, 80 torture methods on, 6 Baxandall, Michael, 103, 106, 108, 142n71 beatings with animal legs, 3, 43, 50, 59 with clubs, 65, 77 domestic violence biblical metaphors, 91 of English gang victims, 54 Jewish persecution, 52 literature featuring, 33 Becket, Thomas, Saint, 39, 40 Bede the Venerable, 89 beheadings. See decapitations Bellechose, Henri: Martyrdom of Saint Denis, 118, plate33 Belles Heures of Du Jean, Duke of Berry, 138n88 bellum spirituale (spiritual battle), 3 Belting, Hans, 5, 69 Berith (idol), 67 Bernard Gui, 58 Bernard of Clairvaux, 89, 90, 136n46 Berthold of Weingarten, 142n85 Bertholdus von Bucheck, 129n49 bestiality, 69, 88, 94, 128n38 Betrayal of Judas (Holy Cross Minster, Schwäbisch Gmünd), 16, plate2 blood book production analogies, 74

coloration realism of, 18, 98, 115 Crucifixion scenes featuring, 96, 118, plate26, plate33 decorative, 117, 118 framing color emphasizing, 110, plates20–21 literary violence and descriptions of, 33, 34, 53 martyrdom imagery and decorative, 117, 118 mastectomy and Christ’s, 86 maternal saints nourishing babies with, 137–38n79 religious symbolism of, 25 bodily imagination brutality impacting, 34, 35, 64–67 definition, 5 giant associations, 69 imagery function descriptions, 68 violence imagery and responses of, 2, 30, 63–65, 68–71, 77, 79–80, 114–15 violence perceptions as influences on, 74, 76–77 bodily integrity allegorical imagery non-threatening to, 4 body-soul relationship, 7, 30, 31, 108 martyrdom conventions and depictions of, 27, 117, 118 post-martyrdom restoration of, 27, 94–95 violations of, 3, 7, 74, 76 bodily martyrdom movement, 38, 53 body book production metaphors, 74 medieval views of ownership of, 7–8, 31, 125n70 penetration of, 25, 27, 39, 80, 82 philosophical views on violence and suffering of, 26 and posture, 19, 27, 39, 67, 82, 83 and soul relationship, 7, 26, 30, 31, 107–8 Boerner, Bruno, 122n34, 123n13boiling alive community violence and accounts of, 37, 38, 55 as juridical punishment, 58, 59 liturgical sacrament associations, 27 as martyrdom method, 9, 28, 39, 40, 41, 43, 45, 50, plate15 Boiling of Saint John the Evangelist (Church of St. Bartholomew, Zell am Allgäu), 72–73, plate15 boiling oil boiling in, 27, 43, 50 drinking, 45 thrown, 124n24 book production analogies, 74, 134n69 Boppard, Saint Severus, 24 Bourges Cathedral, 24, 124n31 Boyer, Tina Maria, 125n85 Brautmystik, 88–92, 136n46 breastfeeding, 90–91, 100, 102, 103, 137n68 breast milk, 86, 90 breasts biblical verses on, 90 categories of, terminology usage, 86

medieval perceptions and metaphors, 90–91 ownership of, 125n70 Virgin iconography and exposed, 100 See also mastectomies bribery, 71–72 bridal mysticism, 88–92, 136n46 bridegrooms, 89–92 bronze, 104, 109, 140n39, 142n82 Bruno of Segni, Saint, 90 brúste/brústelin, 86 Bryda, Gregory, 140n26 Buch der Märtyrer, 9, 126n8 Buch von geistlicher Armut, Das (Tauler), 91 Budde, Rainer, 65 Buettner, Brigitte, 83 bulls, 15 burgerlijk, 70 burials, live, 58 burning alive Jewish executions, 53, 55 as juridical punishment, 58 as martyrdom method, 18, 39, 40, 44, 45, 53–54, 55, plate3d burning of skin in fiery helmets, 18, 21, 21, 43, 50, plate3c in metal costumes, 45 by torches, 42, 47, 48, 84, 85, 86 buttocks, exposure of, 86, 88, 94 Bynum, Caroline W. female martyr sexuality debates, 135n5, 136n44 gender fluidity studies, 135n1 impassivity, 27 mastectomies and religious associations, 86 transformative objects, 112 viewers’ violence reception and response, 27 violence and cathartic inversion, 25, 26, 30, 86, 112, 136n44 Cadoc (literary character), 33–34 Caesarius of Heisterbach, 102, 103, 112, 119–20, 142n93 Cahors Cathedral, 124n31 Cain and Abel, 49, 50, 58 Calcidius, 107 Callahan, Leslie Abend, 27–28, 62, 127n25 Calvary, 16, 17 Cambyses II (king), 71–72 Camille, Michael, 88, 139n8 caritas, 89 Carlson, Marla, 28, 127n26, 136n38 Carruthers, Mary, 29 Cassian, Saint, 39, 40, 45

in dex   163

cathartic inversion, 25–26, 27, 30, 68, 80, 112, 118 Catherine of Alexandria, Saint altarpieces featuring eroticism, 94, plates23–24 biographical information, 63–64, 86 clothing coloration and symbolism, 110 conventional portrayals of, 24, 63, 64, 76 imagery style, 62 juridical punishments compared to, 76 literary descriptions, 63–64 manuscript illuminations featuring, 138n88 martyrdom methods, 64 popularity of, 62 portal sculptures featuring brutality, 24, 42, 50, 63, 63, 64 reliquaries of, 20 reliquary shutter paintings featuring, 64, 131n1, plate9 spectator responses, 55, 63, 63, 64, 76, 84, plate9 Caviness, Madeline Harrison, 27, 83, 87, 135n1 Cecile, Saint, 41, 45, 47 Celestial Hierarchy, The (Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite), 108 cephalophores, 18, 20, 31, 98, plate3e, plate4c Chambron-sur-Lac, Church of Saint Stephen, 124n31 Charles V (king), 58 Chartres Cathedral, 4, 4, 14–15, 15, 24, 121n13, 128n37 Chéron, Saint, 15 chestnut wood, 107 children flaying narratives and morality themes, 71, 72 as martyrs, 52, 61, 73, 76 violence imagery studies on, 113–14 Chopping Off the Hands of Forgers, from Les Fleurs des Chroniques, 58, 59 Chrétien de Troyes, 134n68 Christian-Jewish relations, 52, 53, 55, 128–29n43 Christoffelturm, 69 Christopher, Saint biographical information, 51, 69, 128n38 portal sculptures featuring, 18, 21, 21, 43, 50, 51, plate3c reliquaries of, 20 Church (Ecclesia), 7, 26, 88, 89 Church of Saint Benoït-sur-Loire, 124n31 Church of Saint Eustorgio, Milan, 53, 121n13 Church of Saint Stephen, Chambron-sur-Lac, 124n31 Church of St. Florent, Niederhaslach, 9, 80, 81, 127n14, 134n88 Church of St. Martin, Wellmich am Rhein, 72, 73, 73, 74, 122n36, plates13–14 Church of St. Theobald, Thann. See Thann, Church of St. Theobald; Thann, Church of St. Theobald martyria circumcision, 86 Classen, Albrecht, 32clinical images, 27, 28, 62

164  i n dex

clothing of aristocratic spectators, 67, 70, 77, 110 burning metal costumes, 45 Christ-associated, 29, 45, 86, 92, 96 coloration of, 88, 98, 110 flayed/tanned skin as, 71 of martyrs and viewer response ambiguity, 23, 92 rape imagery in manuscript illuminations, 83 sexual temptation symbolism, 83, 84 of tormentors, 86, 87, 88, 92, 94, 136n25 clubs beaten with, 65, 77 skulls split with, 18, 21–23, 22, 22 (detail), plate3b codpieces, 86, 88 Cohen, Esther, 67, 121n5 Cologne crucifix visions in, 142–43n93 martyred virgin legends and relics, 104–6, 105 reliquary production and material regulations, 106–7 coloration (pigment) of clothing, 88, 98, 110 Crucifixion themes and symbolism of, 111 function of, overview, 98 gilding, 88, 104, 108–9, 110 for harmony and beauty, 104, 141n42 idolatry and monochromatic, 108 intensity of, medieval preference for, 104 for liturgical/ceremonial objects, 109 for realism of reliquary busts, 104, 105, 106, 108 for realism of saint sculptures, 18, 23, 96, 97, 98, 99, 104 as skin, 141n50 of skin, flayed, 98 of skin and character associations, 86, 88, 110 for terrestrial symbolism, 108 viewers’ responses to, 12, 34, 98, 115, 120 for violence emphasis, 65, 110 for wood material camouflage and appeal, 106 colossi imagination, 69 compilators (commentators), 133n60 Constance, 53 cooking, 45 courtly literature, 32–34, 71, 74, 91 craftsmanship, 109 Creation (Church of St. Theobald, Thann), 49, 50, 126n7 criminal justice system absent criminals and effigy substitutions, 59, 131n74 behavior monitoring and violence prevention, 35 coerced confessions, 131n86 courtly literary violence and morality themes addressing, 33–34 crime category and punishment associations, 58, 60 guilt determination processes, 60

history, 6 juridical themes in martyrdom scenes, 56, 58, 70 perpetrators of violence and psychological effects of, 30 punishment knowledge vs. bodily imagination, 74, 76–77 punishments and martyrdom iconography comparisons, 56, 58–61, 74, 76 regulation and ritualization of, 6–7 repentance rituals, 6, 7, 60, 73–74, 79 criminals, 23, 30, 35, 59 Crown of Thorns (Holy Cross Minster, Schwäbisch Gmünd), 16, 17 crucifixes, animation of, 111–12 Crucifixion of Christ criminal punishments associated with, 35 devotional practices with, 111–12 (see also imitatio Christi) martyrdom scenes in panel paintings of, 118, plate33 martyrs’ poses compared to, 27, 39, 82 mixed-media panels featuring, 96–97, 99, 111, 112, plates26–29 portal tympanums with martyrdom archivolts, 8, 16, 24, 39, 45, plate1 side wounds, 39, 82, 83 violence imagery of, 4, 24 visions at imagery of, 111, 112, 142–43n93 crucifixions downward, 18, 42, 45, 50–51, plate4g literary accounts and martyrdom reinventions, 79, 110 praying saints in scenes of, 51 with ropes, 18, 42, 43, 45, 47, 50, 58, plate3i, plate4f as torture method, 9, 65 crudelitas, 32, 58 cruelty aestheticizing of, 118 Christian perception of, 25–26 Crucifixion imagery and intensification of, 96 martyrdom imagery emphasis on, 21–24, 28, 50, 65 medieval definitions of, 10, 32 theological discourse on, 30, 58 torture methods for maximum, 74 Crusades, 77–78 cupiditas, 89 cynocephaly, 128n38 Cyprian, Saint, 121n13 damned in hell, 20, 72 Daniel von dem blühenden Tal (Der Stricker), 69 decapitations (beheadings, decollations) cephalophoric martyrs, 18, 19, 20, 20, 31, 98, plate3e, plate4c

contemporary medieval accounts of, 53 with Crucifixion scenes, 118, plate33 as enforced silence, 27, 82 of English gang members and their victims, 54 of female martyrs, 45, 55, 64, 82, 84 as final act of martyrdom, 12, 25, 65 gender and, 51, 55 hagiographic descriptions of, 1, 2 of Jews, 53 as juridical punishment, 58, 59, 59, 60 of male martyrs, Schwäbisch Gmünd, 18–19, 19, 21, 98, plate3b, plate3e, plate4b, plate4c, plate4e of male martyrs, Thann, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 47, 48, 51, 55, 59, 80 praying during, 9, 21, plate4e of royal converts, 94, plate25 Decker, John R., 71, 134n66 decollations. See decapitations De gloria et honore (Rupert of Deutz), 96 Deleuze, Gilles, 134n69 De memoria et reminiscentia commentarium (Aquinas), 14 demons in female martyrdom scenes, 93, 94 Last Judgment iconography, 4, 4 martyr temptation and visions of, 41, 45 materiality associations, 104 tormentor imagery comparisons, 88, 94, 136n23 Denis, Saint panel paintings featuring, 118, plate33 portal sculptures featuring, 15, 18, 20, 20, 98, plate3e Descent from the Cross, 16 desensitization, 23, 113–14 deutsche Sondergotik, 15 devotio moderna, 70 devotional practices affective piety, 2, 5, 38, 51, 111 at Crucifixion scenes, 111–12 cult veneration, 20–21, 38, 45, 104 martyrdom scenes and prayer modeling, 24, 45, 50, 51, 77 violence imagery decontextualized from, 3, 4, 5, 10, 18, 28, 51, 65 Dialogus miraculorum (Caesarius of Heisterbach), 102, 103, 119–20, 142n93 diseased, the, 53, 55 disgust, as viewers’ response, 26, 74, 76 Dismas, Saint, 128n35 dismemberment hagiographic martyrdom descriptions, 1–2 as juridical punishment, 58, 59 portal sculptures featuring, 3, 24, 41, 45–47, 47, 58 Dittmeyer, Daria, 25–26, 134n76, 134n82, 136n42

in dex   165

divinity, 108–9, 110 dog-headed saints, 128n38 domestic violence, 91 dragging by bulls, 15 of English gang victims, 54 of female martyrs, 84 by horses as juridical punishment, 25, 58, 60 by horses as martyrdom torture method, 9, 25, 45, 73, plate6, plate13 public execution rituals of, 6, 7 social class and, 55 of vice allegories by demons, 4, 4 drinking tortures boiling oil, 45 molten sulfur, 9 drownings, 25, 53, 55 Dyoscurus, 84, 86 ear amputations, 7, 16 Easton, Martha, 27, 83, 84, 87, 135n5 Ecclesia (Church), 7, 26, 88, 89 effigies (effigiem), 98, 102, 110–11, 131n74 Ehrstein, 53 Eleven Thousand Virgins archaeological discoveries and relic authentication, 104–5 cult veneration, 104 devotee visions of, 106 painted panels featuring, 116, 117, 117 pedagogical function of, 120 portal sculpture of, 42, 48, 50 reliquary busts of, 99, 104–10, 105, plates31–32 visions of, 106, 142–43n93 Elias, Norbert, 5, 26, 115, 124n49 Elisabeth of Schõnau, 91, 105 Elsässische Legenda Aurea. See Alsatian Golden Legend embodied simulation, 114 Emmeram, Saint, 41, 45–47, 47, 58 Enders, Jody, 28 English gangs (Englische Gesellschaften), 37, 54, 129n49, 130n56 Entry into Jerusalem, 16 envy, 32 Erasmus, Saint, 24, 39, 40, 44, 45 Erec (Hartmann von Aue), 33–34, 58 eroticism biblical verses on, 88–92 female martyrdom and viewers’ response of, 92 female martyrs and sado-, 86–88 post-martyrdom body restoration and perceptions of, 94–95 terminology usage and descriptions, 83, 135n18

166  i ndex

Esrom Cisterian Abbey, Denmark, 106 essence (essentia), 100, 102, 107–8, 110, 112 Esslingen, 53 Esslingen, St. Dionys, 9, 127n14, 134–35n88 ethics public execution rituals as social indoctrination of, 6–7, 59–60 of violence, 30–33, 31, 71–72 as violence imagery effect, 114–15 Etymologies (Isidore of Seville), 103 Eucharist, 16, 25, 99, 100, 118 Euphemia (abbess), 142–43n93 Eve-Mary (Church of St. Theobald, Thann), 126n7 executioners/tormentors conventional depictions of, 25, 70, 136n25 emotional involvement as identification of, 77 female martyrdom and sexualized, 12, 86, 88, 92, 94, 118 juridical events and spectator participation, 7 responses of, 1, 2, 18, 70, 84 Execution of Nicolas le Flamand, from Les Fleurs des Chroniques, 58, 59 executions battlefield, 23, 24, 59, 80 by/of English gangs, 54 of heretics, 53, 58 of Jews, 52, 53 executions, public of absent criminals’ effigies, 131n74 martyrdom iconography comparisons, 23, 56, 58–61, 73–74, 88 martyr tortures compared to practices during, 25 public perceptions of violence at, 3 purpose of, 6, 59–60 regulation and ritualization of, 6–7, 59–60 treatises illustrating, 58, 59 exemplum, 39, 71–74, 76, 98–99 exemplum iustitiae, 71–74 eye enucleation as martyrdom torture method, 24, 33, 41, 45, 46 as sinners’ punishment, 7 eyewitnesses juridical system and guilt determination process using, 60 martyrdom spectators as, aristocracy, 55, 56, 67, 70, 77, 110 martyrdom spectators as, civic representatives, 56, 70 martyrdom spectators as, devotees, 55, 63, 64, 70, 84 martyrdom spectators as, passive, 55, 56, 70, 77 of public executions, 7, 59–60 torture endurance as moral triumph due to, 25 viewer participation as, 2, 23, 34, 70, 84

Facti et dicti memorabilia (Valerius Maximus), 71 Faustina, Empress, 86, 94, plate25 Feldbach monastery, 54 female martyrs common martyrdom methods for, 27, 51, 55 (see also mastectomies) conventional portrayals, 39 decapitations of, 45, 55, 64, 82, 84 dragging of, 84 erotic vs. sexualized bodies of, 83–92 flagellation of, 27, 86, 91–92, 94, 100, plates22–23 gender representations, 50, 128n37 masculinization of, 27, 82 nudity of, 11, 39, 83, 84, 92, 135n1 praying, 41, 45 as protectors of women, 104 reliquary busts of, 104–10, 105, plates31–32 teeth removal of, 24, 41, 45, 46 unconventional portrayals, 39, 40, 44, 45 virgin massacres, 42, 48, 50, 99, 104–6 feminism, 12, 27, 83 feminization of male martyrs, 19, 25, 27, 82 finger amputations, 1, 6, 7 fingernail extraction, 24, 39, 40, 44, 45 flagellation (whipping) of Christ, 16, 27, 45, 46, 86, plate1 of female martyrs, 27, 86, 91–92, 94, 110, plate22–23 of male martyrs, 77 flaying alive vs. postmortem, 72 of Christian children, 52 descriptions of, 1–2, 33 for exemplum iustitiae, 71–72 imagery popularity, 134n66 as juridical punishment, 58, 74, 134n68 literary descriptions, 1, 2 Otherness associations, 74 skin analogies, 71, 74, 134n69–70 skin coloration, 98 skin relics, 126n9 skin tanning, 65, 67, 71, 72, 77 viewers’ responses to, 71, 72, 76 Flaying of Bartholomew, from Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles (Church of St. Bartholomew, Zell am Allgäu), 72–73, plate16 Flaying of Saint Bartholomew (Church of St. Martin, Wellmich am Rhein), 72–73, 73, 74 Flaying of Saint Bartholomew (Lochner, 1435), 65, 67, 70–71, 72, plate11 Flaying of Saint Bartholomew (Lochner attrib., 1425), 67, 70, plate12 Fleurs des chroniques, Les (Bernard Gui), 58, 59 flogging, 18, 21–23, 22, 22 (detail), 33, plate3b

forgery, 58, 59 forma, 100, 108, 112 forma crucis, 27 Four Holy Marshals, 133n64 Foy, Saint, 109 fraud, 134n68 Frau Welt, 92 Freedberg, David, 114Freiburg-im-Breisgau Minster, 9, 123n6, 127n14, 134n88 frescoes, 72–77, 73, 74, 75, 122n36, plates5–7, plates13–19 galleries of violence, overview compositional styles of, 24–25 decontextualization of, 3, 4, 5, 10, 18, 28, 51, 65 definition and descriptions, 2–3, 4 history of, 14–15 late medieval martyrdom style comparisons, 116–18 martyr anonymity, 15, 28 purpose of, 5, 8, 120 reception and effects of, 5, 25–26, 115, 120 scholarship study process for, 8–10 torture categories featured in, 3, 9 Gallese, Vittorio, 114 gazes of Christ, 16 of female martyrs, 86, 88, 90 of tormentors, 88, 94 at viewers, 2, 23, 34, 70, 84 voyeuristic, 25, 69, 83, 87, 92, 95 gender inversion and metamorphoses, 19, 25, 27, 82, 90–91 martyr cycles and, 128n37 torture methods and, 51, 55 viewers’ violence imagery responses influenced by, 28 Gennheim, 54 George, Saint, 25, plates5–7 Gerard David: Judgment of Cambyses, The, 133n57, 143n6 Gerlach of Deutz, 104–5, 142n93 Gertsman, Elina, 100, 140n21 Gesta Romanorum, 71–72 gewalt/gewalte, 8, 10, 31–32, 35, plate8 gewalttätigkeit, 31, 32 giants, 33–34, 51, 69, 74, 128n38 gilding, 88, 104, 108–9, 110 Giovanni di Balduccio: Arca di San Pietro Martire, 53, 121n13 Giovanni Dominici, 143n12 Glosae super Macrobium (William of Conches), 139n8 Glosae super Timeum (William of Conches), 98 Gnadenstuhl, 100, 102 God body as property of, 7, 31, 125n70 image of, 97, 99

in dex   167

God (continued) legal system based on judgment of, 6 Schreinmadonna figurines of, 100 gold coloration simulating, 106, 142n72 gilding, effects and symbolism, 88, 104, 108–9, 110 material symbolism, 108–9, 110, 142n85 moral associations, 104 Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea) (Jacobus de Voragine) as iconographic studies source, 8 sadomasochistic references, 87 saint biographical information, 128n38 saint martyrdom descriptions, 1–2, 18, 23, 63, 65, 77, 124n27 translation of, 123n17 Gravdal, Kathryn, 83 gridirons, 39, 40 Groebner, Valentin, 7, 28 Guido da Siena Saint Bartholomew reliquary shutters, 65, 66, 131n1 Saint Catherine of Alexandria reliquary shutters, 64, 131n1, plate9 Hadrian (emperor), 79 hagiographies body integrity and impassivity descriptions, 27 graphic torture as component of, 3 martyrdom scenes reinterpreted from, 77, 79, 110 martyria ordering of saints based on, 126n8 religious pornography and sado-eroticism in, 87 somaesthetic responses supported by, 76 torture methods for moral indoctrination, 71 Hahn, Cynthia, 109 Hamburg, 107 Hamburger, Jeffrey, 5, 71, 91 hand amputations, 1, 2, 7, 45, 58, 59 hangings of English gang members, 54 of Jews, 53 as juridical punishment, 7, 59, 60 martyrdom imagery compared to gallows, 42, 47, 48, 76, 82, 83 Harpin, 34 Hartmann von Aue, 33–34, 58 Hasty, Will, 32 healing, 7, 26 Heiligen Leben, Der, 9 hell mouths, 72, 93, 94, plate14 helmets, fiery, 18, 21, 21, 43, 50, plate3c heretics, 53, 58 Herod, 56, 56, 57 Herodias, 56, 56, 57

168  i n dex

Herodotus, 71, 72 Historia naturalis (Pliny the Elder), 97 Histories (Herodotus), 71, 72 hoes, 9, 49, 50 Hoffmann, Konrad, 109 Hollander, Anne, 136n44 Holy Cross Minster, Schwäbisch Gmünd. See Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster homo viator, 103 hômût, 32 Honorius Augustodunensis, 140n19 horses dragged by, as juridical punishment, 25, 58, 60 dragged by, martyrdom/torture method, 9, 25, 45, 58, 73, plate6, plate13 equestrian sculptures, 69 life-sized funerary sculptures of, 69 quartered by, 25, 60, plate6 hostia, 103 Hours of Étienne Chevalier (Fouquet), 92–94, 93 hubris, 32 Hugh of Saint Victor, 108, 110 Huizinga, Johan, 5, 26, 121n4, 124n49 hyle, 107 iconic images, 15, 20, 27, 62, 65, 67 identity, human, 74, 134n70, 137n68 idolatry, 77, 84, 88, 108 imago Dei (image of God), 97, 99 imago/imagines character of, 99 definitions, 98, 102, 110–11 exemplum of, 98–99 mixed-media function of, 102 moving, 97 transition to simulacrum, 111 of the universe, 98 imago movens, 97 imitatio Christi galleries of violence and lack of, 9, 10, 11, 24, 35, 50, 88 manuscript illuminations for, 27 martyrdom literary descriptions modeling, 2 as mystic role model, 27, 38, 82 Thann martyria imagery and, 38, 39, 45, 54–55 themes for, 4, 10, 16, 18, 24, 34, 50 violence imagery for, 3, 39, 72, 114, 118, 119, 133n62 warnings against false, 10 imitatio martyr, 55, 60 impalement as juridical punishment, 58 as martyrdom/torture method, 25, 27, 39, 51, 80, 82 impassibility, 24, 28, 30, 64, 67

See also impassivity; passibility impassivity as conventional martyr response, 2, 19–20, 24, 27, 63, 64, 70, 117 as late medieval martyrdom convention, 118 martyr qualities enabling states of, 24 as masculine quality, 27 Incarnation, 2, 69, 100, 102, 108, 111, 112 incest, 86 indoctrination criminal punishment events for social, 6–7, 59–60 as galleries of violence purpose, 120 torture methods for moral/ethical, 71–72 violence imagery for, 27, 120 in forma crucis, 27 insects, 104 intention, 30, 107, 118, 141n66 intuitive responses, 10, 79 inversion cathartic, 25–26, 27, 30, 68, 80, 112, 118 gender, 19, 25, 27, 82, 90–91 Isidore of Seville, 103, 107 ivory, 110 Iwein (Hartmann von Aue), 34 Jacobs, Lynn F., 104 Jacobus de Cessolis, 72 Jacobus de Voragine, 102 See also Alsatian Golden Legend; Golden Legend James the Dismembered (Jacobus Intercisus), Saint, 1–2, 41, 45, 46–47, 47, 58 James the Greater, Saint, 18–19, 19, 42, 47, 48, 98, plate4c James the Lesser, Saint frescoes featuring, 77, plate19 martyrdom descriptions, 23 panel paintings with martyrdom reinterpretations, 77, plate18 portal sculptures featuring, 18, 23, 23–24, 43, 50, 80, plate3j Jerome, 26 Jesus Christ breastfeeding and transgender inversion, 90–91 bridal mysticism and role of, 89, 90, 91 Church relationship to, 89 flagellation of, 16, 27, 45, 46, 86, plate1 Incarnation, 2, 69, 100, 102, 108, 111, 112 living sculpture of, 103 Madonna figurines with figurines of, 100, 140n22 martyrs’ suffering and addressing, 2 mastectomies associated with bodily fluids of, 86 materiality symbolism of natures of, 109, 110 mystical animation of, 112

nudity of, 88 side wounds of, 39, 82, 83 violence imagery as access to, 25–27 See also Crucifixion of Christ; imitatio Christi; Passion of Christ jeu de Saint Nicolas, Le (play), 103 Jews, 52, 53, 55, 65, plate11 Johanna von Pfirt, 127n24, 128n41 Johannes of Freiburg, 10 John, Gospel of, 97, 111 John the Baptist, Saint, 39, 40, 55–56, 56, 57 John the Evangelist, Saint Christ breastfeeding, 91 frescoes featuring, 72–73, plate15 multimedia Crucifixion panel featuring, 96–97, plate26, plate28 portal sculptures featuring, 18, 43, 50, plate4a Josias (scribe), 18 Judas Iscariot, 16, plate2 Judas Thaddeus, Saint courtly literature violence compared to martyrdom of, 33 frescoes featuring, 72–73, plate17 portal sculptures featuring, Schwäbisch Gmünd, 18, 21–23, 22, 22 (detail), plate3b portal sculptures featuring, Thann, 43, 50, 55 Judgment of Cambyses, The (Gerard David), 133n57, 143n6 judicium Dei, 6 Jungherr (Hartmann von Aue), 34 Katharinenbruderschaft, 133n64 Katz, Melissa R., 140n20 Kay, Sarah, 134n69 Kessler, Herbert, 109 Kieckhefer, Richard, 26–27, 89 Kristeva, Julia, 71 Kultbild, 111–12 ladders, 45–46 Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Angelico), 133n64 Lancelot (Chrétien de Troyes), 134n68 lances, 9, 39, 77, 82 Last Judgment female martyrdom scene comparisons, 94 fresco themes featuring, 72–73, 73, 75 imagery purpose, 50 martyrdom imagery popular with, 72–73, 73 martyrdom panels originally for altarpiece of, 65 portal sculpture featuring, 17, 18 saint narrative cycles featured in, 4 virtue and vice themes of, 3–4, 4, 33, 88

in dex   169

Last Judgment (Church of St. Bartholomew, Zell am Allgäu), 73, 75 Last Supper, 16 law and order. See criminal justice system law of proof, 60 Lawrence, Saint, 39, 40, 51 lebende bilder (living images), 97–98, 99, 102–3, 104, 106, 111–12 Legenda Aurea. See Golden Legend leges barbarorum, 6 Lempfrid, Heinrich, 52 Leodegar, Saint, 24, 33, 41, 45, 46 leprosy, 67 Life of the Virgin (Church of St. Bartholomew, Zell am Allgäu), 72–73, 75 Life of the Virgin (Church of St. Theobald, Thann), 24, 36, 38, 47, 50 lignum setim, 79, 106 lignum vitae, 100 limewood, 107 Lindquist, Sherry, 76 literature, medieval exemplum iustitiae themes in, 71–72 living statues in, 98 Song of Songs themes influencing, 91 violence in, 32–34, 74, 83–84 liturgy of public executions, 6–7, 25, 59–60, 131n77 Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (Vasari), 120 living images, 97–98, 99, 102–4, 106, 111–12 Livinius Gallus, 53 Lochner, Stefan Flaying of Saint Bartholomew (1425), attributed to, 67, 70, plate12 Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles (1435), 64–65, 72, 73–74, plate10 Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, 65, 67, 70–71, 72, plate11 Saint James the Lesser, 77, plate18 Saint Thomas, 77, 78 Logique du sens (Deleuze), 134n69 loincloths, 29, 45, 86, 92, 96 Longinus (Roman solider), 39, 82 Ludus Scaccorum, 72 Ludwig of Bavaria, 129n49 Luke, Gospel of, 2 Lüneburg, 107 lust clothing and sexual temptation symbolism, 83 female martyrdom scenes and, 12, 86–87, 88, 92, 94 terminology usage and distinctions, 83 as vice, 4, 4, 88 as viewers’ response, 92, 113, 120

170 i nde x

Luxuria, 4, 4, 33, 88 Luxuria Dragged by a Demon (Chartres Cathedral), 4, 4, 33 Mainz, Saint Quirinus Church, 53 Malchus (biblical character), 16, plate2 manners, 30–31, 31, 33, 34, 125n78, plate8 manuscript illuminations audience comparisons, 13 female martyrdom imagery, 27, 92–94, 138n88 rape imagery conventions in, 83 saint narrative cycles common in, 121n13 spiritual battles of penance themes, 3 violence imagery in, 27, 124n25 Marcien, 84 Marck, 52 Margarete, Saint, 121n3 Maria regina, 100 Märterbuch, Das, 46 Martin, Saint, 142n85 Martyrdom of John the Baptist, from Alsatian Golden Legend, 55–56, 57 Martyrdom of Saint Apollonia (Fouquet), 92–94, 93 Martyrdom of Saint Barbara altarpiece (Master Francke), 84–88, 85, 91–92, 110, plate22 Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, from Alsatian Golden Legend, 56, 57 Martyrdom of Saint Christopher (Holy Cross Minster, Schwäbisch Gmünd), 18, 21, 21, plate3c Martyrdom of Saint Denis (Basilica of Saint-Denis, Paris), 20, 20, 24 Martyrdom of Saint Denis (Bellechose), 118, plate33 Martyrdom of Saint James the Greater or Saint Paul (Holy Cross Minster, Schwäbisch Gmünd), 18, 19, 19, 20, plate4c Martyrdom of Saint James the Lesser (Church of St. Bartholomew, Zell am Allgäu), 77, plate19 Martyrdom of Saint James the Lesser (Holy Cross Minster, Schwäbisch Gmünd), 18, 23, 23–24, plate3j Martyrdom of Saint Judas Thaddeus (Holy Cross Minster, Schwäbisch Gmünd), 18, 21–23, 22, 22 (detail), plate3b Martyrdom of Saint Paul, from Alsatian Golden Legend, 56, 57 Martyrdom of Saint Simon (Holy Cross Minster, Schwäbish Gmünd), 18, 21, 23, plate4d Martyrdom of Saint Simon and Saint Judas (Zell am Allgäu, Church of St. Bartholomew), 72–73, plate17 Martyrdom of Ten Thousand (Church of St. Theobald, Thann), 43 Martyrdom of Ten Thousand (Saint Severus, Boppard), 24 Martyrdom of the Apostles (Ulm Minster), 80, 81

Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles (Church of St. Bartholomew, Zell am Allgäu), 72–73, 77, plates15–17, plate19 Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles (Lochner, 1435), 64–65, 72, 73–74, plate10 Flaying of Saint Bartholomew, 65, 67, 70–71, 72, plate11 Saint James the Lesser, 77, plate18 Saint Thomas, 77, 78 Martyrdom of Ursula and Her Companions: Return to Cologne (Master of the Ursula Legend), 117, 117 martyrs contemporary, 52–53, 54 conventional depictions of, 2, 19–20, 24, 28 criminal characteristics and identification challenges, 23, 35 fictional, 53 identification vs. anonymity of, 3, 15, 18, 28, 50, 118 responses of, 79, 86, 88 (see also impassibility; impassivity; passibility) types of, 119–20 violence imagery history, 14 Martyrs Portal (Chartres Cathedral), 14–15, 15, 128n37 Martyrs’ Window (Church of St. Florent, Niederhaslach), 9, 80, 81, 127n14, 134n88 Mary, Virgin Crucifixion panels featuring, 96, 111, plates26–27 fresco cycles dedicated to, 72–73, 75 living statues of, 102–3 as martyrdom prototype, 50 roles of, 100, 102, 135n18 sedes sapientiae imagery, 100 Song of Songs associations, 89, 90, 137n60 transformation figurines of, 69, 99, 100–104, 101, plate30 tympanum portal themes of, 24, 36, 38, 47, 50 womb of, 69, 100, 102, 137–38n79, 140n20 Mary Magdalene, Saint, 21, 132n11 masculinization of female martyrs, 27, 82 masochism, 71 Massacre of the Innocents (Church of St. Bartholomew, Zell am Allgäu), 73, 76 Massacre of the Innocents (Church of St. Theobald, Thann), 61 massacres of children, 61, 73, 76 of Jews, 52 of soldiers, 43, 49, 50, 51, 77, 80, 110, plate20, plate21 (detail) of virgins, 42, 48, 50, 99, 104–6, 117, plates31–32 mastectomies Christ’s body fluids associated with, 86 of female martyrs, 42, 47, 48, 82, 92–94, 93, 110, plate22, plate24

gender metamorphosis of, 82 juridical punishment comparisons, 76 post-martyrdom body restoration, 94–95 sexualized vs. eroticized scenes of, 82–89, 94–95 viewers’ responses to, 76, 120 Mastectomy of Saint Barbara, 27, 42, 47, 48, 55, 76, 82–89, 85, plate22 See also Master Francke Mastectomy of Saint Catherine (Saint Catherine of Alexandria altarpiece), 94, 110, plate24 Master Francke Martyrdom of Saint Barbara altarpiece Saint Barbara Burned with Fiery Brands, 84–88, 85 Saint Barbara’s Mastectomy and Whipping, 84, 86, 110, plate22 Master of the Ursula Legend Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, 116, 117, 117–18 Martyrdom of Ursula and Her Companions: Return to Cologne, 117, 117 materia (matter), 68, 99, 102–3, 107–8, 109 materiality allegorical combinations of, symbolism, 110 coloration and, 12, 98, 110 flayed skin symbolism, 134n69 moral associations, 104 perception of, 109 role of, 99, 119 symbolism of, 102, 142n82 Matthew, Gospel of, 112 Matthew, Saint, 18, 21, 24, 41, 45, 124n27, plate3a Mauritius von Craût, 135n13 Maxentius (emperor), 63, 63, 64, plate9 Maximian (emperor), 84 Mechthild of Magdeburg, 92 mediatrix, 102 medical procedures, 26, 27–28, 67, 70 medieval paradigm, 35 medieval warfare historical records of, 53, 129n49 literature and violence legitimization for, 32 theological views on violence and, 30 violence acts associated with, 6, 23, 24, 59, 80 Meditations on the Life of Christ, 16, 18 memory, 10, 14, 29–30, 69, 74, 90, 120 Menologion of Basil II, 124n25 Merback, Mitchell B., 6, 24, 26, 35 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 68, 114 metal costumes, 45 metals, 104, 106, 108–10, 140n39, 142n82 See also gold Metamorphoses (Ovid), 72 Milan, Church of Saint Eustorgio, 53, 121n13

in dex   171

Miles, Margaret, 83, 86, 135n1, 135n5 militum Christi, 3 Mills, Robert, 68, 70, 71, 87 Minnesang, 83–84, 91 mirroring mechanisms, 114 Misfortune, 31, 31 Mittelsheim, 54 mixed-media objects (polimateric sculpture) examples of, 99 function of, 97–98, 99 materiality and transformative qualities of, 96–100, 102–11 medieval perception of, 99 placement of, 99 reception of, 97, 99, 100, 103 Mocking of Christ (Angelico), 122n39 Moi-peau (Anzieu), 134n69 molten sulfur drinking, 9 Montgomery, Scott, 106 morality material associations, 104 public execution rituals as social indoctrination of, 6–7, 59–60 of violence, 30–33, 31, 71–72 as violence imagery effect, 114–15 Mouzon Abbey Church, 121n13 murderers, 58, 60, 122n23 mysticism bridal (Brautmystik), 88–92, 136n46 devotional practices of, 5 female, 4, 27, 68, 122n34, 123n13 gender metamorphoses, 90–91 response models, 83, 86, 88 sexual assault interpretations, 92 suffering role models, 4, 27, 38, 82, 114, 118, 119 violence perceptions, 112 nail/needle impalement, 3, 25, 45, plate7 Nativity (Schreinmadonna), 100, plate30 Nativity/Adoration of the Magi (Church of St. Theobald, Thann), 45, 47 Nĕmec, Richard, 126n3 neuroscience, 14, 30, 68, 113–14, 115 Nicaise, Saint, 18–19, 19 Nicolas le Flamand, 58, 59 Nicolaus, Saint, 127n10 Niederhaslach, Church of St. Florent, 9, 80, 81, 127n14, 134n88 nît, 32 nose amputations, 7 nudity associations, 27, 45, 136n44, 137n47

172  i n dex

biblical conventional of, 88 of female martyrs, 11, 39, 83, 84, 92, 135n1 gender and studies on, 135n1 of male martyrs, 45, 120 rape imagery in manuscript illuminations, 83 of tormentors, 86, 88, 94 Numbers, book of, 102 nuns, 52, 54, 69, 102, 120, 140n20 Nuremberg, 7, 122n23 oak (wood), 103, 104, 107, 110, 111 Odile, Saint, 38, 41, 45 Of Divers Visions (Caesarius of Heisterbach), 112, 142n93 Of Martyrs (Caesarius of Heisterbach), 119–20 On Violence (Arendt), 113 Openshaw, Kathleen M., 121n10 Orator’s Education (Quintilian), 62 oratory eloquence, 27 Origen, 90 Original Sin (Church of St. Theobald, Thann), 126n7 Os, Henk van, 140n20, 142n72 Otanes (literary character), 71 Otherness, 31–34, 74, 94, 102, 140n20 See also pagans Ovid, 72, 109 pagans Christian conversion and martyrdom, 51, 77, 79, 117 as martyrdom perpetrators, 1, 70, 77, 84, 92 as martyrdom spectators, 2, 25, 56, 70 martyrs praying to destroy idols of, 77, 88, 108 medieval literature and justifiable violence against, 74 monstrosity associations of, 51, 128n38 veiling iconography symbolism, 92 pain, sensory martyrs’ expression of (see impassivity; passibility) martyrs’ inability to experience (see impassibility) philosophical perceptions of, 26, 30 sado-eroticism and, 87 subjectivity of, 28 painting, 97, 98, 99 See also coloration; imago/imagines; mixed-media objects Panofsky, Erwin, 109 paragone, 97, 99 Paris, Basilica of Saint-Denis, 20, 20, 24 Parler, Heinrich, and workshops, 8, 15–16, 28, 55, 123n6 Parler, Johann, 123n6 Parler, Peter, 16, 123n6 passibility altarpiece panels with visual indications of, 27, 77, 78, plate19

as feminine trait, 27 hagiographic accounts with verbal, 1, 2 sculptural imagery with visual indications of, 18, 19, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 63, 63, 64, 70 Passion of Christ devotional practices associated with, 10, 16, 18, 24, 34, 50 martyrdom framing of, theories, 25–26, 50 portal sculpture featuring, 16–18, 17, plates1–2 Passion Portal (Holy Cross Minster, Schwäbisch Gmünd), 16–18, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, plates1–2 See also Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster martyrdom scenes Pastoureau, Michel, 103 Paul, Saint hagiographic illustrations featuring, 56, 57 martyrdom account descriptions, 18 portal sculptures featuring, 18–19, 19, 42, 47, 55, 98, plate4c pear wood, 107 pedophilia, 86 Peter, Saint Crucifixion theme associations, 45 female martyrs post-martyrdom encounters with, 94–95 portal sculptures featuring Betrayal of Judas with, 16, plate2 portal sculptures featuring martyrdom of, 18, 42, 43, 50, plate4g Peter Lombardus, 53 Peter of Hemmernode, 142–43n93 Peter of Verona, Saint, 53, 124n30, 134n87 Philip, Saint, 18, 42, 47, 58, plate4f, plate13 Philippot, Paul, 109 philological turn, 8 philopassianism, 2, 3, 67, 87, 121n5 physiognomy of damned, 20, 72 of tormentors, 86, 88, 94, 110, 132n13, 136n23, plate11 Pierre Abélard, 141n66 Pietà, 16 piety, affective, 2, 5, 38, 51, 111 pigments. See coloration pig’s legs, as weapons, 3, 43, 50, 59 pincers, 7, 21, 21 Pisa, San Piero a Grado, 24 pitture infamanti, 59 plagues as historical context, 37, 51, 52, 53 Jewish persecution and blame for, 55, 128–29n43 religious conceptualization of, 39 saints as protectors from, 39, 133n64 Plato, 98

Pliny the Elder, 97 poisoning, 18, 53, plate4a polimateric sculpture, 139n11 See also mixed-media objects pornography, 11–12, 86–88 posture, 19, 27, 39, 67, 82, 83 potentia, 102, 106 potentiality, 107, 108, 111 potestas-vis-violentia, 31 praying in civic records for intervention, 37, 38, 55 of devotees, 111 of donors, 96, 111 during juridical procession, 6–7 martyrdom representations of, symbolism, 51 of martyrs, 24, 41, 43, 45, 49, 50, 51, 64, 77 Preester, Helena de, 143n2 Presentation in the Temple, 100 presentia, 106 primordial matter, 68, 107, 109 processions for public executions, 6–7, 18, 88 Prosapassional, 9, 126n8 prostitution, 51, 54, 87 Psalm, 111, 112 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, 108 Quintianus, 55 Quintilian, 62, 63 Raff, Thomas, 106 rage, 32 rape community violence records, 37, 52, 54 female martyrdom compared to sadomasochistic, 11–12, 83, 86–88 juridical punishments for, 58, 59, 80 juridical records describing, 83 literary idealization of, 83–84 martyrs’ sacrifice and false claims of, 46 realism coloration of reliquary busts for, 104, 105, 106, 108 coloration of saint sculptures for, 18, 23, 96, 97, 98, 99, 104 somaesthetic responses impacted by, 69–70 reception of mixed-media objects, 97, 99, 100, 103 to violence imagery, 10, 25–27, 50–51, 58, 92, 120 Rechtssumme (Johannes of Freibrg), 10 Regensburg Cathedral, 24 Reims Cathedral, 18–19, 19 reincarnation, artistic, 99 relics, 38, 53, 104–5, 106, 126n9

in dex   173

religious pornography, 11–12, 86–88 reliquaries bust, 104–10, 105, plates31–32 martyrdom imagery on shutters of, 64, 65, 66, 131n1, plate9 martyrdom sculptures and related, 20–21 production of, 106–7 repentance, 6, 7, 60, 73–74, 79 res definition, 97 materiality for, 99, 100, 104, 111 mixed-media works and metamorphosis, 97, 102 reliquary busts materiality as, 107 Virgin’s womb as, 111 resistance, 87 responses of executioners/tormenters, 1, 2, 18, 70, 84 to idealized literary violence, 32–33 literature modeling appropriate, 2 of martyrdom spectators, 55, 56, 57, 63, 64, 70, 77, 84 of martyrs, 79, 86, 88 (see also impassibility; impassivity; passibility) secular justice vs. devotional, 70 of viewers (see under violence imagery) resurrection, 26, 102, 107, 110, 111 Resurrection (Holy Cross Minster, Schwäbisch Gmünd), 16, plate1 Reudenbach, Bruno, 125n60 Rimmele, Marius, 140n24 robberies, 37, 53, 54 Roland statues, 69 Rupert of Deutz, 89, 90, 96, 110, 112 Sachsenspiegel, 7 sacrifice, 2, 3, 12, 25–27, 39, 52, 91 sadism and sadomasochism, 11–12, 83, 86–88, 135n1 Saint Agnes with the Lamb (Vienna Cathedral), 28, 29 Saint Albans Psalter, 121n10 Saint Barbara Burned with Fiery Brands (Master Francke), 84–88, 85, 91–92 Saint Barbara’s Mastectomy and Whipping (Master Francke), 84, 86, 91–92, 110, plate22 Saint Benoît-sur-Loire Church, 124n31 Saint Catherine of Alexandria altarpiece Decapitation of Empress Faustina, 94, plate25 Mastectomy of Saint Catherine, 94, plate24 Whipping of Saint Catherine, 94, 110, plate23 Saint George Dragged and Quartered by Horses (Church of Saint George, Schenna), 25, plate6 Saint George on the Wheel (Church of St. George, Schenna), 25, plate5 Saint George Stabbed with Red-Hot Nails (Church of St. George, Schenna), 25, plate7

174 i n dex

Saint James the “Dismembered” (Intercisus) Golden Legend, 1–3, 45 Saint James the Lesser (Lochner), 77, plate18 Saint Juliana with the Devil (Vienna Cathedral), 28, 29 Saint Nicaise (Reims Cathedral), 18–19, 19 Saint Quirinus Church, Mainz, 53 Saint Saturin Dragged by a Bull (Chartres Cathedral), 15 Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe Abbey Church, 121n13 Saint Severus, Boppard, 24 Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna, 55, 128n37 Saint Thomas (Lochner), 77, 78 Saint Trophime, Arles, 124n31 Salih, Sarah, 136n31 Salome, 56, 56, 57 salvation female martyr bodily restoration as hope for, 94–95 sexualized bodies as antimodels for, 12, 88 violence and suffering as, 2, 7, 24–26, 30, 32, 121n3 San Piero a Grado, Pisa, 24 Saracens, 74 Saturin, Saint, 15 Savin, Saint, 121n13 scale, 68–69 Scarry, Elaine, 28 Schachspiel, Das (Jacobus de Cessolis), 72 Schamkapsel (codpieces), 86, 88 Schandbildern, 59 Schenna, Church of St. George, 25, plates5–7 Schmähbriefen, 59 Scholly, Karl, 52 Schõnensteinbach monastery, 54 schöne sitte/schoene site, 30–31, 31, 33, 34, 125n78, plate8 Schreinmadonna, 69, 99, 100–104, 101, plate30 Schulenburg, Jane Tibbetts, 27 Schutteren, 53 Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster architect and style descriptions, 15–16 Last Judgment Portal, 17, 18 Passion Portal, 16–18, 17, 123n14, plates1–2 reconstruction and restoration history, 15, 123n20 reliquaries and altars at, 20–21 Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster martyrdom scenes coloration effects, 18, 23, 98, 110 compositional descriptions, 8, 18, 24–25, 28, plates3a–j, plates4a–h cruelty and brutality emphasis, 21–24, 22, 23, 28, 65, 66 cultic devotion correlation, 20–21 execution and torture variety, 21, 34 figural composition configurations, 55, 65, 66 gender depictions, 128n37 scholarship on, 8 suffering in, expressions of, 18–19, 19, 20

tympanum theme relationship, 18 viewers’ responses to, 25, 28, 34, 35 Schwanau, 53 scopophilia, 87 screaming martyrs, 18, 19, 20, 24, 27, 63, 63, 70 scriptors (scribes), 133n60 sculpture debates on painting vs., 97, 98, 99 living, 97–98, 99, 102–4, 106, 111–12 scale effects, 69 violence imagery media and effects of, 115 See also mixed-media objects; Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster; Thann, Church of St. Theobald Sebald, Saint, 21 Sebastian, Saint, 21, 39, 40, 44, 51, 120 sedes sapientiae, 100 self-discipline, 125n78 selfhood, 3, 10, 71, 76, 120 self-reflection, 86, 88 Seneca, 30 Sermons on the Song of Songs (Bernard of Clairvaux), 89 sex crimes. See rape sexual abuse, 55, 87 See also mastectomies; rape sexuality. See eroticism; lust; sexualized bodies sexualized bodies of aristocratic women, 83 of executioners/tormentors, 12, 86, 88, 92, 94, 118 of female martyrs, 86–88, 92, 94–95 Shaw, Brent, 25 Shusterman, Richard, 5, 67–68, 79, 114 signa, 108 silva, 107 silver, 104, 106, 142n82, 142n84 similitudo corporis, 26 Simon, Saint frescoes featuring, 72–73, plate17 portal sculpture featuring, 18, 21, 23, 43, 50, 55, plate4d simulacra, 28, 98–99, 108, 110–11, 131n74, 192 See also imago/imagines; mixed-media objects Simulacra in Medieval Germany (Pinkus), 98 simulacrum / effigiem, 98, 102, 110–11, 131n74 See also mixed-media objects simulacrum gratiae, 108 simulacrum naturae, 108 sine macula, 94 sinfulness, 7, 94, 110 Sisamnes, 71–72 skin body metaphors and role of, 71, 74, 79, 134n70 coloration and character descriptions, 86, 88, 110 flayed, 65, 67, 71, 72, 77, 98, 126n9 reliquary materiality as, 106, 107

skulls archaeological discoveries of martyrs’, 104–5 club-split, 18, 21–23, 22, plate3b reliquary busts with relics of, 105, 105–9 sword-split, 18, 19, 21, 23, 43, 50, plate4d Smith, Katherine Allen, 102 snakes, 109 social status clothing indicating, 94 juridical processes and eyewitness requirements, 60 juridical punishments based on, 58 martyrdom methods for lowest, 53–54, 55 martyria organization based on, 51 sexual exploitation and, 137n48 of tanners, 132n15 sodomy, 58 somaesthetics analytic, 68 definitions and process descriptions, 5, 67–68, 70–71, 79 factors impacting, 28, 34, 35, 67, 68–70, 74, 76–77, 79 violence imagery efficacy through, 6, 79 Song of Songs, 83, 88–92, 136n46 Sorgo, Gabriele, 87 soul (anima) body and, 7, 26, 30, 31, 107–8 coloration as indication of, 12 Song of Song passages and allegories of, 89–90 violence and suffering effects on, 2, 26, 30, 121n3 spears, 77 spectators. See eyewitnesses Speculum historiale (Vincent of Beauvais), 71 sponsus et sponsas, 89–92 Sprache der Materialien, Die (Raff ), 106 St. Dionys, Esslingen, 9, 127n14, 134–35n88 St. George’s Church, Cologne, 142–43n93 St. Ursula Basilica, Cologne, 105 stabbings daggers and swords, 9, 80, 81 of Jews, 53 lances, 9, 39, 77, 82 as martyrdom method, 18, 73, 73, 124n27, plate3a, plate4e, plate17 nails/needles, 3, 25, 45, plate7 spears, 77 sticks, 59, 80, 81 stained glass martyr cycles in, 9, 24, 80, 81, 134–35n88, 134n88 violence imagery media and effects of, 115 Stange, Alfred, 106 Steinberg, Leo, 135n5, 136n44 Stephaton (Crucifixion figure), 39 Stephen, Saint, 15, 24, 41, 45, 121n13, 124n31

in dex   175

sticks, 59, 80, 81 stone pine (wood), 107 stone sculpture, 104 See also Schwäbisch Gmünd, Holy Cross Minster; Thann, Church of St. Theobald; Ulm Minster stonings, 9, 15, 24, 41, 45, 73, 77 Strasbourg, 7, 53 Streinbach, 54 Stricker, Der, 69 suffering Christian conceptualization of, 3, 25 love of, 2, 3, 67, 87, 121n5 theological perceptions of, 2, 26, 30 value inversions and perception of, 25–26, 27, 30, 68, 80, 112, 118 viewers’ obsession with, 26–27 viewers’ responses to, 28 suicide, 52, 58 sulfur, 9, 45 Sulz, 53 Summa Theologiae (Aquinas), 30 swollen bellies, 86, 88, 136n26 swords battlefield associations, 80 decapitations with, 3, 18–19, 19, 41, 45, plate4c skulls split with, 18, 19, 21, 23, 43, 50, plate4d stabbings with, 9, 80, 81 wheels of, 25, plate5 Synagoga, 92 synesthesia, 69, 87, 115 Tabula exemplorum secundum ordinem alphebeti, 71 tacks, walking on, 79 Tammen, Silke, 92, 95 tanners and tanning skin, 65, 67, 71, 77, 132n15 Taubert, Johannes, 139n12 Tauler, Johannes, 91 teeth lust and exposure of, 94 removal of, 3, 9, 24, 41, 45, 46 suffering and baring of, 19, 20, 27 Ten Thousand Martyrs contemporary martyr comparisons, 53 diptych altarpieces featuring, 77, 79, 110, plates20–21 legend and interpretation, 77, 79 portal sculptures featuring, 43, 49, 50 Terry-Fritsch, Allie, 68 Tertullian, 26, 135n14 Thann calendric reports on, 38, 52 contemporary martyrdom in, 52–53, 54 plagues, 37, 51, 52, 53 violence and civic order challenges, 37, 38–39, 52–53, 54

176  i n de x

Thann, Church of St. Theobald ownership, 129n52 relics of, 38, 126n9 sculptural program themes and iconography, 24, 36, 38, 39, 45, 47, 61 Thann, Church of St. Theobald martyria battlefield tortures associated with imagery of, 59 compositional descriptions and organization, 11, 24–25, 37–38, 50, 51, 61 construction dating, 37 on Crucifixion tympanum archivolts, 39, 40, 44, 45, 56 cruelty and brutality emphasis, 24, 28 cult veneration correlation, 38 execution/torture methods, 34, 51 female martyrs and sexual mutilation, 48, 82–83 figure configurations, 55–56, 56, 58, 60 gender and torture classifications, 55 historical context, 37, 51–52 iconographical sources for, 38, 52 juridical interpretations of, 56, 58–61 on Life of the Virgin tympanum archivolts, 24, 38, 42, 43, 47–50, 49, 65, 66 martyr identification challenges, 45–46, 50 on Nativity/Adoration of the Magi tympanum archivolts, 41, 45–47, 46, 47 praying scenes, 41, 45 purpose of, theories, 11, 38–39, 55, 60 scholarship on, 126n3 viewer reception and responses to, 25, 34, 50–51, 76 Thann, Franciscan monastery, 37, 53, 54 theatrical images, 28, 62, 67 Theobold (Ubald of Umbria), Saint, 38, 126n9 Theo-erotic mysticism, 89 thievery, 7, 31, 37, 60, plate8 thinking through/with the body, 5, 68, 79, 80 See also somaesthetics Thomas, Saint, 18, 43, 50, 77, 78, plate4e Thomasin von Zerklaere [Zerclaere] aristocratic manner treatises by, 30–31 Vices, from Der Welscher Gast, 31, plate8 Violence Enthroned, from Welscher Gast, 31, 31 Throne of Mercy, 100, 102 throne of wisdom, 100 thumb skin, as relic, 38, 126n9 tilia (wood), 107 Timaeus (Plato), 98 Tirol, 107 torch burnings, 42, 47, 48, 84, 85, 86 torture categories of, list, 9 Christological associations, 3, 12, 25–27, 39 coerced confessions through, 131n86 of courtly literary violence, 33

endurance as moral triumph, 25 liturgical sacrament associations, 27 martyria compositional organization based on, 51 martyrs’ responses to, 79, 86, 88 (see also impassibility; impassivity; passibility) pre-martyrdom acts of, 12, 25, 65 public execution rituals of, 7 torture instruments, 27, 28, 34, 62, 63, 69–70 See also specific instruments and weapons traitors and treason, 48, 58, 60, 74, 134n68 tree of life, 100 Trial before Pilate, 16 Trinity, 100, 102, 110 Tristan Roman, 98 Tschamser, Malachiam, 52 typology, 11, 24, 39, 47, 55, 109 Ubald of Umbria (Theobald), Saint, 38, 126n9 Überlingen am Bodensee, 52 Uffholz, 54 Ulm, 7, 53 Ulm Minster, 55, 80, 81 Ulrich, Saint, 127n10 Ulrich III of Schenna, 124n34 uncanny, 98 unheil, 32 unmâze, 32 unquiet souls, 26–27 Ursula, Saint, and Eleven Thousand Virgins altarpieces and bust reliquaries of, 99, 105, 105–10, plates31–32 painted panels featuring, 116, 117, 117–18 pedagogical function, 120 portal sculptures featuring, 42, 48, 50 Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins (Master of the Ursula Legend), 116, 117, 117–18 Valerius Maximus, 71 Vasari, Giorgio, 120 Vavra, Elisabeth, 86 veiling/unveiling, 92 veneration, 38, 47, 103, 109, 133n64 vices, 4, 4, 30–31, 31, 33, plate8 Vices, from Der Welscher Gast (Thomasin von Zerklaere [Zerclaere]), 31, plate8 Victor, Saint, 121n13 Vienna, Saint Stephen Cathedral, 28, 29, 55, 128n37 Vincent of Beauvais, 71, 102 violence as art subject, 6 community chronicles and records of, 37–39, 52–54 definitions of, 32, 34 domestic, 91 effects of, 14, 30, 113, 114

ethics of, 30–35 forms of, 8 legal conceptualization and juridical responses to, 6–7, 35, 58 perceptions and attitudes towards, 3, 5–8, 26 philosophical/theological theories on, 7, 26, 31, 32, 124n44 state-sponsored, effects of, 115 studies and theories on, 5 terminology and categories of, 10, 30, 31–32, 35, 58 See also violence imagery Violence Enthroned, from Der Welscher Gast (Thomasin von Zerklaere [Zerclaere]), 30–31, 31 violence imagery as art subject, 6 classifications of, 27–28, 62 definition and descriptions, 4–5 descriptions, 3 effects of, 14, 113–14, 115 function of, 26, 27, 120 martyrdom history of, 14 medieval perception of, 25–27 victim anonymity in, 28 viewers’ responses to (see also bodily imagination; somaesthetics) categories of, 28 to coloration, 12, 34, 98, 115, 120 factors influencing, 23, 26, 28–30, 35, 115 female martyrdom scenes and, 76, 87, 92, 120 initial, 30 modeling of, 2, 55, 63, 64, 84, 86, 88 neuroscientific studies on, 114 nudity and nuns, 120 participation strategies, 2, 23, 34, 70, 84 studies on, 113–16 value inversion, 25–26, 27, 30, 68, 80, 112, 118 violentia, 10, 30, 32, 58 virginity, 52, 86–88, 110, 135n14 Virgin of Mercy, 102 Virgo lactans, 100, 102, 135n18 virtues, 4, 30, 82 vis, 32 visions of Christ and eroticism, 89–90 at living statues, 97, 103, 105, 106, 111, 112, 142–43n93 portal sculptures with martyr representations of, 41, 45 post-martyrdom body restoration and, 94–95 virgin martyr appearances, 106 Visitation, 100 visual aggression, defined, 4 vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori, Le (Vasari), 120 Vitus, Saint, 39, 40

in dex   177

Vitz, Evelyn Birge, 83 Vmazze, 31, plate8 voyeurism, 25, 69, 83, 87, 92, 95 walnut (wood), 106–7, 111 Walter, Katie, 134n69 water drownings in, 25, 53, 55 poisoning of, 53 thrown into tubs of, 27 See also boiling alive Weinryb, Ittai, 107 Wellmich am Rhein, Church of St. Martin, 72, 73, 73, 74, 122n36, plates13–14 Welscher Gast, Der (Thomasin von Zerclaere), 30–31, 31, plate8 Wenzelpassional, 126n8 wheels breaking on, as juridical punishment, 58, 64, 76 breaking on, as martyrdom torture, 42, 50, 63, 63, 64, 76, plate9 of swords, as martyrdom torture, 25, plate5 whipping. See flagellation Whipping of Saint Catherine (Saint Catherine of Alexandria altarpiece), 94, 110, plate23 Wickedness (personification), 31, 31 William of Conches, 98

178  i ndex

William of Saint Thierry, 90–91 Williams, Linda, 35 wisdom/Wisdom, 89, 91, 98–99, 100, 109 Wolfthal, Diane, 83 wombs anchoress’s cell descriptions as, 140n20 biblical references to, 89 Madonna figurines and symbolism, 69, 100, 102, 103, 104, 111 saints and iconographical descriptions of, 137–38n79 of Virgin Mary and terminology descriptions, 140n20 women, 52, 54, 58, 91, 104, 125n70 See also breasts; female martyrs; rape; wombs wood, 79, 99, 102–7, 110, 119 worms, 104 wuoten (wrath), 32 Xanten antependium, 109–10 Zehnder, Matthias, 133n64 Zell am Allgäu, Church of St. Bartholomew, 72–73, 75, 76, 77, 122n36, plates15–17, plate19 Zivilisationsprozeß, 115 zorn (anger), 31, 32, plate8 zuht (self-discipline), 125n78