A woodcut for the Nativity of John the Baptist

I should be in bed, but since it is a summer's night I am staying up longer than is sensible. This night, moreover, is the feast of the Nativity of Saint John, one of few saints in Latin Christianity whose earthly birthday is celebrated, and moreover as his main feast. The eve of Saint John is an important time in European folklore, and there are numerous traditions associated with the night between June 23 and June 24.  

Throughout the Latin Middle Ages, John the Baptist was a famous and popular saint, mainly due to his appearance in the Bible and his important role in the life of Christ. Several churches were dedicated to him, and his iconography made him a recognisable figure in medieval art. He is typically depicted as a wild-haired man dressed in a camel hide, usually holding an image of the Lamb of God, being, as he was, a forerunner for Christ.  

Due to this iconographical tradition, I was rather surprised to come across a rather different representation in March, when I was researching a collection of saints' lives printed in Lübeck in 1492, namely the Passionael by Steffen Arndes. This was the second edition of Passionael, and the printer had commissioned a new set of woodcuts. For the feast of the Nativity of Saint John, the woodcut does not depict the desert hermit typical of medieval iconography. Rather, it highlights the birth of the saint, or rather his childhood. His sainted mother, Elizabeth, is lying in bed while the holy child is bathed by a maid, a situation that neither maid nor child seems very happy about. It is a sweet domestic scene, perhaps reflecting the secular audience of the collection, namely the merchants and artists of Lübeck. 

Steffen Arndes, Passionael (1492)

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA M 15, f.44v

While I was surprised by this iconography, it was not completely novel the world of late-medieval Latin Christian art. The birth of John the Baptist was recounted in the Bible, and it was part of an expanded narrative commemorated through liturgical celebrations in the Middle Ages. From the late fourteenth century onwards, the Latin Church put greater emphasis on the feast of the Visitation of Mary (July 2), and it was established a compulsory feast at the Council of Basil (1431-49). The Visitation commemorated her visit to John's mother Elizabeth while they both were pregnant. According to tradition, John gave a joyful leap in his mother's stomach when he sensed the approach of the coming Messiah. Consequently, the scene depicted in Passionael fits well within the development of the cults of both Mary and John the Baptist in the later Middle Ages. 

One curious thing about the woodcuts in Passionael, however, is that this particular scene was also used for the chapter on the birth of the Virgin Mary, Nativitas Mariae, on September 8. The viewer is only asked to imagine that the mother who has recently given birth is Anne rather than Elizabeth, and that the baby boy in the bath tub is rather the baby girl who would grow up to become the mother of God. The reuse of this woodcut is perhaps primarily due to practical matters, an opportunity to pay for one less item, or perhaps to save time. But it is also a reminder that the reception of iconographical information is flexible. The readers and viewers of Passionael would eventually encounter both these woodcuts and recognise them as the same - after all, these two feasts are not that far apart in the liturgical calendar - but they would have no problem letting this image represent one occasion on one day and another occasion on a different day. The identity of mother and child changes as the occasion changes, but the scene remains the same because that scene encapsulates what is being celebrated on both occasions, namely the birth of a figure central to the life of Christ. This kind of flexibility requires a kind of pragmatism and iconographical literacy that is often overlooked by modern viewers, inculcated as we are that art needs to be individual and unique. As a consequence, we often underestimate the artistic understanding of the people of the Middle Ages. 

Steffen Arndes, Passionael (1492)

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA M 15, f.142r

Saint George the kneeling knight - recycling images in the 1492 Lübeck Passionael

 

Today, April 23, is the feast of Saint George. He is a widespread figure in late-medieval iconography, and he is most famous for his battle with the dragon which he subdued and later killed once the city he had saved converted to Christianity. The dragonslaying motif became dominant from the thirteenth century onwards, and - as I have outlined in this blogpost - the most common depiction of Saint George in the twelfth and late eleventh century was of his elaborate passion narrative.  

A few years ago, I was leafing through a collection of texts for the feasts of the liturgical year printed in Lübeck in 1492 by Steffen Arndes. The collection, known as the Lübeck Passionael, was a typical work of its time, as it offered vernacular translations of stories most commonly found in Latin. A response to increased literacy and extra-ecclesiastical religious gatherings - such as the guilds - these books were highly popular. When I made my first forays into this work, I was a bit surprised to see that the woodcut vignette that introduced the chapter on Saint George did not contain the typical dragonslaying motif. However, by that time I had already noticed that other scenes did occur and I did not think much of it. Last year, however, as I had an opportunity to examine the woodcuts more carefully, I noticed that this same image was used for two other saints: Longinus, and Quirinus of Neuss. 

Saint George 

Steffen Arndes, Passionael 

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA M 15, f.6v

Saint Longinus

Steffen Arndes, Passionael 

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA M 15, f.379v

Saint Quirinus

Steffen Arndes, Passionael 

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA M 15, f.383r

The Lübeck Passionael contains several images that are recycled for several legends. This was a common method in the making of such collections. Presumably, the main reason was to save on time, effort and money, especially as a work the length of Passionael could consist of close to three hundred chapters. Moreover, because several minor saints were tortured or killed in the same way, one decapitation or torture scene could accurately reflect the climax of several different stories. What surprised me, however, was the image used for George was shared by two saints who were relatively minor figures in Northern Germany at the end of the fifteenth century. Granted, they were not unknown. Longinus was the soldier who had pierced the side of Christ with his lance and was later healed from an eye condition when Christ's blood came into his eyes. Quirinus was a Roman tribune who appears in the story of Pope Alexander I and Saint Balbina, and whose relics were translated to Neuss in the eleventh century. While he appears to have undergone something of a surge in popularity in Northern Germany and Scandinavia from the fifteenth century onwards, he never attained the status and ubiquity of Saint George. 

That three such different saints - two soldiers and a tribune, each from a different century in the Early Christian past - should be represented by the same image appears strange to modern eyes. After all, why pass up on the opportunity to depict the eye-catching and famous dragonslaying scene? Similar scenes do after all appear in the Lübeck Passionael, such as in the chapter on Saint Martha (f.85r) who is shown defeating the dreadful Tarrascon by pointing her cross towards it. However, the recycling of this image, and the choice of saints who share it, might reveal something about what the artist or the commissioner sought to emphasise by this scene. In all three legends, we see a military figure who chooses to die for the faith. His military affiliation differs - George was known more as a knight than as a soldier on par with Longinus, and as a tribune Quirinus was not in active battle - but he is shown to be martial a man on account of his full-body armour. They represent the literal Christian soldier - not the original, spiritual one formulated in the epistles of Paul - and as such demonstrates a military ideal of the late Middle Ages.  

We are still left with the question why the artist or the commissioner decided not to depict the dragonslaying scene. And we cannot possibly say whether the kind of connecting logic I have outlined here reflects the decision making process that led to this recycling of images. Most likely, the motive cuts no deeper than that the image fits an aspect found in all of the stories and has been recycled for practical reasons. What is interesting, however, is that once we divest ourselves of expectation - or the desire to see a dragon in my case - we are left with the result of that editorial and artistic decision. Once we take this as our starting point, we approach the historical source on its own terms, and from there we might start to ask new questions. For instance, given that this image was shared by these saints, what - if anything - can this tell us about how these saints were understood and viewed in late-fifteenth-century Lübeck? Maybe there were other concerns rather than the slaying of a dragon that drew some of the Lübeckians towards George? Ultimately, we do not know, but reflecting on these questions might make us think more carefully about the late-medieval cult of saints.