Saint Thomas and apostolic succession in the Antipodes

 

When researching the history of utopian thought, one of my main points of interest is when I can map the continuity of an idea or a topos across the medieval/early modern periodisation. My interest stems from the artificial nature of periods, and how these chronological divides continue to impede our understanding of the past. The other day, I encountered one such example of continuity that both pleased me and surprised me. 

The example in question comes from the 1616 novel Histoire du grand et admirable royaume d'Antangil incogneu jusques a present à tous historiens et cosmographes (‘History of the great and marvellous kingdom of Antangil, unknown to historians and cosmographers until the present day’). On the title page of the 1616, the work is attributed to a certain I. D. M. G. T, whose identity is, as far as I know, still a mystery to us. The work was part of a growing vogue that followed in the wake of Thomas More’s Utopia, published one hundred years before Antangil, where authors described ideal societies found in faraway locations, which could also be used to satirise or criticise the real-world societies of the author’s own time. While the main form of this vogue – a novel about an invented ideal society – had Thomas More’s work as its starting point, both More and later authors belonged to long strands within the history of ideas, and therefore ensured a great deal of continuity in thought and form from both the medieval and the pre-medieval cultural frameworks.   

 

At the point of writing this blogpost, I have not read Antangil in its entirety, and I hesitate to say much about its content, as most of my knowledge about the work comes from secondary sources – especially David Fausett’s excellent 1993 monograph Writing the New World. What I can say, however, is that this marvellous kingdom is located south of the tropic of capricorn, and south of Great Java, the latter being a common point of orientation in late-medieval travelogues. The reader is not only provided with coordinates, but also a woodcut map made with incredible detail, where the main villages and rivers are numbered, and these 129 numbers correspond to a list of three columns where the names are provided. The capital of the kingdom, Sangil, is located at the bottom of a long, narrow inlet akin to a fjord.  

The great kingdom of Antangil

Courtesy of Gallica BnF

Table of the main cities and rivers of Antangil

The capital of Sangil

I hope to delve more deeply into the world of Antangil in the future, but at this point I am most interested in the fifth book, which describes how Christianity was brought to Antangil, and how the kingdom got its first martyr. The events are summarised in the header of chapter 1, which states that the holy gospel was proclaimed the capital of Sangil by Byrachil, who is described as a very sage ‘Braquemane’ who was the disciple of Saint Thomas the Apostle. As I have yet to read how Byrachil met his martyrdom in chapter 16, I can only focus on what the information from chapter 1 tells us, and how this connects to utopian thinking from the Middle Ages. 

Header for chapter 1, book 5

If we start with the description of Byrachil as a ‘Braquemane’, this points us to the tradition of medieval travelogues exemplified in particular by Marco Polo and John Mandeville, two figures whose works remained impactful and widely read well into the seventeenth century. (I say this with full awareness that it was Rustichello of Pisa who gave Marco Polo’s account the shape by which we know it today, and also that John Mandeville might never have existed.) In these accounts, we read about non-Christian sages who are given variations of the name ‘Bragmanni’, which in turn comes from ‘Brahmin’. The descriptions of these sages drew heavily on the so-called Alexander tradition, a long line of fantastical accounts of the exploits of Alexander the Great that comprise the legacy of the Alexander romance by Pseudo-Callisthenes rather than any contemporary accounts from Alexander’s own time. What interests me here, however, is that the figure of the Brahmin was well-established as a marker for the positive ‘other’, and also as a representative of the far east. That the author of Antangil has decided to use such a figure as the apostle of their fictional utopia shows that they were familiar with the traditions of the Middle Ages, and that they expected the medieval traditions to be known to their audience. In short, we see that the idea of the Brahmin was still a figure of contemporary resonance in the early seventeenth century, and that markers of the ideal society established in medieval writing still served that function centuries later.  

 

Another point of importance is that Byrachil was the disciple of Saint Thomas, the apostle of Christ whom the post-biblical apocryphal literature claimed to have evangelised in India. Thomas’ missionary activities were accepted as historically true in the Middle Ages, and there are to this day those who believe that this account is based on historical reality. As Saint Thomas was the apostle of India, it only makes sense to use his activity as a historical reference point for the introduction of Christianity in the antipodean kingdom of Antangil. A similar idea can be found in Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (1624/27), where the society in question is converted to Christianity through a letter from Saint Bartholomew (who was also credited with evangelising in India). In terms of continuity of ideas, however, the use of Saint Thomas as a marker of an ideal society located on the far side of the world – albeit vicariously through his disciple – is also seen in medieval literature. In the mid-twelfth century, members of the court of Frederick Barbarossa forged a letter claiming to be from Prester John, a Christian king in the east, who ruled over an ideal kingdom, which became a fixture in Latin medieval thought well into the sixteenth century and beyond. In the letter, the king states that the tomb is Saint Thomas the Apostle is located in his realm, and that he undertakes pilgrimages to this holy site. Moreover, the king’s own palace is modelled on the palace that Saint Thomas built for King Gundoforus of India, which means that the connection to the apostle is both one of architectural emulation and continuous contact by way of his relics. In other words, Saint Thomas, as apostle, saint, and biblical figure, a marker that proves the ideal condition – the utopian quality – of Prester John’s realm. This same function is fulfilled by him – by way of his disciple – in the novel Antangil.         

 

The Christianisation of the kingdom of Antangil by Byrachil also rhymes with the medieval thoughtworld in another way, namely that apostles of new members in the Christian oikumene had a connection to a biblical figure. Such a connection provides a link to biblical history, and when the figure in question is an apostle, the Christianisation of the new location takes the form of apostolic succession. Such a succession was not always the case in the Christian histories of Latin medieval kingdoms – Latin is here used about the liturgical language, not about the vernacular – and there are plenty of medieval polities where the apostolic mission is not traced all the way back to the Bible. The native France of Antangil’s author, however, had several traditions concerning such biblical connections. In the ninth-century Vita Dionysi by Hilduin, Saint Dionysius – or Saint Denis of Paris – was conflated with two other individuals by the same name, one of whom was Dionysius the Areopagite, who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, which recounts his meeting with the apostle Paul. Through this conflation, the apostle of the Paris region was linked to the apostolic activities of Paul. Similarly, around the year 1000, Ademar of Chabannes, a historian at the abbey of Saint-Martial in Limoges, rewrote his chronicles to claim that Martial was also a first-century figure. It is tempting to see the apostolic succession from Saint Thomas in India to Byrachil in Antangil as a variant of the theme represented by Dionysius and Martial.          

 

The novel Antangil is very much a work of the seventeenth century, in that it belongs to a contemporary vogue in utopian writing. However, it is also steeped in ideas and traditions that run through the Middle Ages, and which showcase how ideal societies have been imagined or represented in medieval writings. The connection with the Brahmins is a utopian strand where an ideal society is located in the far east. The connection with Saint Thomas is a utopian strand which also places the ideal society in the far east, but which also includes biblical history, and, by extension, the figure of Prester John, the ideal Christian king. The connection with the idea of apostolic succession might be seen as stemming from similar ideas in French medieval hagiography. These medieval strands have remained forceful and important by 1616, and they continued to be so for centuries afterwards. The novel Antangil, therefore, is a good reminder that ideas have a long and often curious life, and that there is more that connects the so-called modern world with the Middle Ages than what separates it.

How to choose a book - on lists and selecting

 

In two recent blogposts (here, and here) I gave an overview of some of the main principles that guide my selection of reading materials through any given year, namely a plethora of lists that provide a wide range of opportunities that can fit almost any mood. The logic behind having several lists rather than just one comes down to a personal quirk of mine: I struggle to stick to a reading plan over a longer period, and I get easily drawn in by items that feature on other lists, or on none of my lists. Since variety is an integral element of my lists, my choices can fit these lists without putting demands on myself that might go contrary to my reading mood on any particular day.  

As a self-diagnosed mercurial reader, I am often not entirely sure why I ended up reading what I have read at any given moment. While some books have been waiting in line for me to get in the right mood, and while some books have been delayed simply because I look forward to reading them so much that I want to enjoy the waiting a bit longer, there are other books that seem to simply just arrive in my hands. The latest book that I finished was precisely such a book, and this is what prompted me to write this blogpost.         

Earlier today, I read the last pages of François Mauriac’s Le Næud de vipères, the knot of vipers, translated into Norwegian as Slangeknuten (The snake knot) by Fride Friestad. Since beginning this novel sometime last week, I have been returning to the deceptively simple question of how I came to select this particular book, and I have still not found a satisfying answer. The more I think about it, the more it feels as if the book selected me and not the other way around. The reason I continue to have this sensation is that until last week, I did not know that Le Næud de vipères even existed. 

Slangeknuten, the Norwegian translation of Le Næud de vipères by François Mauriac
Translation by Fride Friestad

As I mentioned in one of my previous blogposts on reading by lists, one list is comprised of the Nobel laurates in literature. This is the list that I feel the least drawn to, probably because I have no influence on the elements in that list, and I am therefore at a greater risk of ending up with books that I have no real interest in reading, but whose sheer canonicity compels me to finish them. Several of these authors are figures whose works are obscure to me, and I cannot say with certainty that I know all their names, either. If this is an indictment, it is of me, however, and not the authors in question, and the point is merely that this is a list that does not guide me very strongly.      

Even so, despite my lukewarm attitude to the list of Nobel laureates in literature, last week I found myself looking for a Nobel laureate to read. I remember using the search engine of my university’s library, and I seem to recall a certain urgency that meant that my decision was, at least in part, based on what was available and what I could get hold of very quickly. For some reason, the name of François Mauriac popped into my head, and after having refreshed my memory and done a superficial amount of research about his novels and their availability in Norwegian – my preferred language for translations from any Romance language – I ended up with Le Næud de vipères.  

By a stroke of luck, the book got hold of me very quickly. Its deep psychological insights, its complex and, at times, disturbingly recognisable protagonist, its terse but evocative descriptions of early-twentieth-century France, and its beautiful language caused me to enjoy every single page, even the brilliantly nuanced descriptions of tortured relationships between people whose torture stems simply from an inability to see things from the perspective of others. As a Sunday treat for myself, I sought out a café whose menu was French inspired, and which I had eyed on my way to and from work for months already, and this combined wonderfully with the content of the book, meaning that the book and the café enhanced one another and me added delight when contemplating either of them.  

The question of how I came to choose this book rather than any of his other books remains unsolved. Neither can I explain why I decided on Mauriac rather than any of the numerous other French Nobel laureates whom I have not yet read – and I do think the French element played a crucial part in this process. Ultimately, I expect this to be of no great interest to anyone but myself, and perhaps not even myself once I have written this particular blogpost in full. But what this episode has reminded me of, however, is that even with a reading list whose content is not of your choosing – at least on the level of authors – there are potentially great rewards in following such a list anyway. While I do not need the praise of any committee as a reason for reading an author – I actually think such canonicity might just as easily make me averse to such an author – the lack of expectations that come with a list chosen by others can perhaps make the delightful surprises even more delightful. Naturally, the reverse can also be true, but I choose not to be too guided by that worry, perhaps because I am, despite everything, still an optimist.

Saint Peter's Chair - a feast of papal identity

Peter seated

Cambrai - BM - ms. 0528, f.141, homiliary, C12 

(courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

Today, February 22, is the feast of Saint Peter's Chair. This feast commemorates the founding of the bishopric of Antioch. According to early tradition, and based on the historical meeting of Peter and Paul in Antioch as recorded in Galatians 2:11-14, Peter established Antioch as a centre of preaching and served as its leader for a number of years. The name bishopric is a later projection onto the incipient infrastructure, and also conveys a succession and connection to later bishops of Antioch that is historically doubtful. This feast of Saint Peter's Chair is one of two such feasts from the medieval tradition. On January 18 another feast was celebrated, this time commemorating Peter's supposed founding of the see of Rome. This feast is now no longer included in modern Catholic calendars.

The idea of Peter as a founding bishop was, and remains, the linchpin of the institutional identity of the papal see. The pope is seen as the apostolic successor of Saint Peter, and the supporters of this view points to Matthew 16:18, where Christ says to Peter that he is the rock (petra - rock in Greek) upon which Christ's church was to be built. This verse is inscribed on the inside of the base of the main cupola in Saint Peter's basilica in Rome, for instance.

The notion that Rome is the centre of institutional Christianity came about in the Early Middle Ages. Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) was one of the most vocal promoters of the primacy of Rome, but for the first seven centuries of Christian history Rome was just one bishopric among many, and a bishopric that was entangled in various local conflicts on the Italian peninsula. Granted, Rome had a symbolic importance, as it was accepted that both Peter and Paul were executed and buried there, but in terms of power, it was not until the alliance between the Carolingian dynasty and the papal see that things began to slowly turn in a different direction. Even so, it would take centuries before the Roman pontiff became a powerful figure on the political scene beyond Italy.

Saint Peter as pope

Besançon - BM - ms. 0007, f.240v, Bible, C13 

(courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

Papal power in the Middle Ages rested in large part on the symbolism of the city and of its connection to Peter. Consequently, Peter became an important figure in the establishment of a papal institutional identity. There are numerous pieces of evidence to showcase how reliant papal identity was, and remains, on the figure of Saint Peter. Churches, liturgical feasts, iconography, history-writing, all contribute to establish, formulate and perpetuate the idea that Peter was the first pope. Among other things, this can be seen in the plethora of medieval illuminations in which Peter is presented in papal regalia, holding one or two keys - the keys to Heaven and Earth which comprise the papal coat of arms - and often sitting on a cathedra, the bishop's seat. In this blogpost, I have collected a few examples from the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries that point to the papal iconography with which these images of Saint Peter are imbued. Three of these four pictures are made in France, and this points to the universality of the idea of Peter as pope in medieval Latin Christendom. 

Saint Peter holding one of his two keys

Dijon - BM - ms. 0021, f.031, Glossed bible, c.1270-80, Paris

(courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr) 

The most recent example I have chosen to include is not made in France, but it ended up in France by historical necessity, as it were. The example in question is a missal containing the Use of Rome, i.e. the list of feasts and their classification that was based on the liturgical performance in the bishopric of Rome. This missal is a sumptuous book produced in Bologna around 1370, a point in time when the leader of the see of Rome was not in Rome but in Avignon in Southern France. While we do not know exactly when the missal was made, it is believed that it was made for Pope Urban V, who returned to Rome in 1367 (but stayed only for a brief period). As Urban died in 1370, the missal passed on to his successors, and it remained in the papal residence at Avignon, even with the return of the pope to Rome in 1376. Consequently, when a series of popes elected by the French cardinals but not acknowledged by the Italian cardinals, these popes - antipopes or Avignon popes - returned to Avignon. The first of these Avignon popes was Robert of Geneva, who took the name Clement (VII), who reigned from 1378 to 1394. Thus, he became the new owner of the missal.

The Bolognese makers of the missal, however, could in no way anticipate how things would turn out. They made the missal for a pope who might at that time have returned to Rome, or might still be in Avignon. But regardless of the pope's geographical location, the pope remained the bishop of Rome, and consequently the missal had to follow the Roman liturgy, and contemporary Roman iconography. This is seen in the various episcopal figures among the saints illuminated in the initials, and among these we find Peter, rendered in the sumptuous garbs of the fourteenth-century Roman pontiff, holding the two keys and wearing the tiara of the papal authority. Despite the ongoing controversy over the fact that the bishop of Rome had resided outside of Rome for decades, the papal identity remained rooted in the idea that Peter was the first of the popes and that the popes were his apostolic successors. The feast of Saint Peter's Chair is one of the feasts that commemorate this papal identity, even though this particular feast was originally celebrated in commemoration of his establishment of the See of Antioch.

Peter as pope 

Avignon - BM - ms. 0136, f.232, Roman missal, Bologna, c.1370

(courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

A look back - my brief encounter with Notre Dame

For a medievalist like myself, the past few days have been strongly marked by the reports and updates from the fire at Notre Dame in Paris and its aftermath. Even for someone whose main field of expertise is not French medieval history, the cathedral of Notre Dame has such a towering presence in one's cultural knowledge that it is difficult to witness the unfolding horror and not be moved. I followed the updates from the scene in Paris as they came in, and I read the responses from medievalists on Twitter, scholars whose relationship with, and knowledge of, Notre Dame of Paris far surpasses my own. I was torn between the protective desire of not wanting to see any updates and wanting to know just when the damage had been halted sufficiently for the status quo to be certain. And most of all, I felt a heaviness in my heart when it was reported that the three rose windows from the thirteenth century - however much restored - had been irreparably lost in the firestorm. It was an intensely heavy loss to wrap my head around, and when the extent of the damage was surveyed the following day, I refused myself to give in to relief when the first reports of the survival of at least one of the rose windows started to emerge. I feared it would be wishful thinking. Consequently, when the first photographs from the inside of the damaged cathedral was circulated and showed that at least one of the rose windows had survived, I wept in relief.

Unfortunately, I was not able to visit Notre Dame when I was in Paris for a conference in December 2017, my first and hitherto only visit to the city of lights. I cannot lay as strong an emotional claim to the building as those who have seen it from the inside, who have studied its history, and who have lived in its surroundings. This blogpost is therefore not a personal elegy or a memoir of a shared sense of loss, because others have a greater claim to this, and have expressed it more vividly, more genuinely, more deservedly than I have the right to do. Instead, I wish to share the few pictures of the building I took as I was hurrying through a cold December morning in Paris on my way to a meeting with a friend, yet taking the time to pause at the facade and take pictures.

Saint Bartholomew's devil - on the moon

I'm currently reading Cyrano de Bergerac's satirical utopian novel Voyages to the Moon and the Sun (Les Histoires comique des États et Empires de la Lune et Soleil), the first part of which concerns the protagonist's journey to the moon where he encounters a civilisation of large humans who walk on all fours, and - in the fashion of the topsy-turvy world of utopias - conduct most of their affairs in a very different manner from those of Cyrano's native seventeenth-century France. The novel contains a lot of interesting details, espcecially for its debt to older novels of moon travel and utopian societies and its influence upon later novels. As a medievalist, however, there was one particular detail which caught my attention, and which served as yet another reminder that the stories of the saints as they were told throughout the Middle Ages, continued to be told and to have an influence on writings and story-telling in what we now call the Early Modern Period.

The detail in question comes at the very end of the novel, where the protagonist discusses the existence of God with the master of the house in which he is lodging. This master is a young man, because on the moon the reverence for age is turned upside down and so he is the sharpest wit of the house and treats his father as unpleasantly as a father in Cyrano's France might treat his son. Cyrano used this device of the contrary world to explore matters of theology, statemanship and sexuality in his own time by using the quadruped men of the moon as a mirror to his own society and a mouthpiece for his own ideas. The young moon-man lambasts the novel's protagonist for the latter's belief in God, and delivers an argument against it. After the main point of the lecture is delivered, however, a knock on the door is heard and in enters - in the translation of Richard Aldington - "a large, black, hairy man" who "approached us, seized the blasphemer by the middle and carried him off up the chimney."

The protagonist grabs hold of the moon-man out of pity and attempts to draw him back, but is himself carried off and follows the devil and the damned moon-man back to earth, where the protagonist manages to let go just before the devil enters Hell in the earth's interior. This devil serves both to ward off any potential censorship of the novel and of Cyrano's person, since Cyrano's lunar mouthpiece is sentenced to eternal damnation for his atheism. Yet at the same time, this damnation is only set in motion after the main argument has been delivered and before the protagonist has a chance to rebut it and thus prove God's existence, thus leaving the matter on the side of Cyrano. Moreover, the devil serves as a useful device for sending the protagonist back to Earth in a speedy manner.

Bartholomew inspecting his knife

Beaune - BM - ms. 0039. f.070, psalter, 13th century

(Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

The reason why this detail caught my attention as a medievalist, however, is the description of the devil as a black man, indeed as an "Ethiopian". This description of the devil has its root in early Christian apocryphal literature, and there are in particular two episodes of early Christian hagiography that has helped disseminating this image into the popular imagination of later centuries. The first instance is found in the Life of Antony of Egypt written in the mid-fourth century by Athanasius of Alexandria. Here, Antony encounters a being called the "spirit of fornication", which is described as an ugly black boy. A slightly more elaborate description, however, is found in the legend of Saint Bartholomew (discussed in this previous blogpost), which was a legend popularised through various collections of the stories of the saints, perhaps most importantly Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda Aurea. In the legend of Saint Bartholomew, we read how he travelled to India to convert its inhabitants to Christianity, and there encountered a devil who was worshipped as a pagan god. This devil is described as having the guise of an Ethiopian, just as the devil visiting Cyrano's blasphemer on the moon. The appellation of "Ethiopian" echoes a long-standing confusion in ancient and medieval geographical learning in which India and Ethiopia were situated very close to one another and were sometimes talked about as neighbouring countries, or as an interchangeable shorthand for a distant, exotic place.

Cyrano does not mention Saint Bartholomew, and neither does he have to. The imagery of the devil as an Ethiopian is clearly influenced from the apocryphal legend, and its survival well into the seventeenth century is an important testament to the endurance of these stories of the saints, and the impression they exert on the literary imagination.

Changing images of Saint George, c.1100-c.1340

One of my several ongoing scholarly obsessions is to emphasise that in the medieval cult of saints, one saint could be depicted differently at various points in time, in various geographical regions, and also at one and the same point in time - to mention just a few factors - and through this variety demonstrate and remind people that the iconography, the reception and the veneration of saints is not something static, but something that is continuously adapted through history, for instance by expansion of the legend, abbreviation of the legend, and through the emphasis on different aspects of the saint's story.

Yesterday, February 21, I was reminded of this when I saw the first of this blogpost's images tweeted by @red_loeb. This image is the initial for the opening of the passion of Saint George contained in a Cistercian passionary from Weissenau in the Diocese of Constance, Germany. We here see George placed on a wheel of knives - a method of torture nowadays most famously associated with Sainth Catherine of Alexandria. This was one of several stages in his passion story, and it emphasises the willing sacrifice and martyrdom which signifies George's imitation of Christ, and which was perhaps the most important marker of his claim to sainthood.

At the time the image from Weissenau was drawn, the legend of George was well-known in the Latin West and his feast was celebrated in calendars throughout Latin Europe, but it was before the image of George as a knight had become widespread in this part of the world. It is generally thought that George's chivalrous iconography was brought to Latin Europe from the sphere of the Greek church in which the cult of warrior saints had by the early twelfth century had a long-standing popularity (see White 2013). It is not known when the image of the knightly Saint George gained a foothold in the Latin West. In England, the earliest known depiction of this kind is a wall-painting dated to the twelfth century in the church of Saint Botolph, Hardham, which also features George's torture on the wheel. While dated to the twelfth century, the idea that the painting is from the earlier rather than the later end of the century is possible but not an inevitable conclusion.   

The martyrdom of George

Weissenau Cod. Bodmer 127, f.48r, twelfth century

(Courtesy of @red_loeb and e-codices, virtual library of Switzerland)

That the image of George on the wheel had a strong tradition in the Latin West can also be seen in the picture below from a Cistercian psalter from Rhineland, dated tothe middle of the thirteenth century, several decades younger than the Weissenau passionary. While the emphasis on the image in the psalter is on the angelic help that stopped the wheel from killing Saint George, rather on the executioner setting the wheel in motion, the main focal point of the image is the same in both cases: George wrapped among blades with only a loincloth to cover him, given over to the sacrifice that proves his willingness to die for the sake of Christ. It is the passion story that is being conveyed, not his life, his deeds or miracles performed for him by God.

Martyrdom of George

Besançon - BM - ms. 0054, Cistercian psalter, c.1260

(Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

Roughly contemporary to the image from the Cistercian psalter is one from a gradual - a liturgical book containing songs for the mass - from the Abbey of Notre-Dame in Fontevraud, home of the Fontevraud Order founded in the early twelfth century. Here, we see Saint George as a knight ready for battle, carrying the cross of Saint George as his standard. This image is found in the initial for the chant Protexisti me Deus in the mass for George's feast day of April 24. It is in every respect a different formulation of the image of Saint George: He is shown both alive and prepared for battle, not at anyone's mercy, and with his militant role emphasised rather than completely omitted as in the two images shown above. In other words, in the Cistercian psalter and in the Fontevraud gradual we have two contemporaneous representation, albeit from two different geographies, of the same saint that displays him in two markedly different ways.

St George 

Limoges - BM - ms. 0002, f.129, Graduale, Abbey of Notre-Dame, Fontevrault, c.1250-1260

(Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

When comparing the images from the psalter and the gradual, it is important to keep in mind the many contextual differences that prevent us to draw any more wide-ranging conclusions from the comparison.

First of all, while both images are from liturgical books, they do not play the same role in their respective codicological contexts. In the psalter, the entire page is dedicated to the martyrdom of Saint George, giving it a prominent role that was meant to be easily seen and recognised. In the gradual, however, the image much smaller and appears to serve first and foremost as a visual reminder of the saint for whom the mass is being sung. While it is likely that the initial would have been seen by several of the singers who could view the open page, its function as a mnemonic device is less prominent than George's martyrdom of the Cistercian psalter. In other words, while George in the psalter seems to have as its purpose to command focus and precipitate the beholder's meditation on the saint's imitation of Christ, the mnemonic function of the initial is more practical or mechanic, he is depicted to remind the beholder for whom the mass is being sung. This might also have to do with the fact that the chant in question is taken from the common of one martyr, a repertoire of chants that could be used in the liturgy for any martyr.

Secondly, it is important to keep in mind that the two books come from two different religious orders. I do not know enough about the order of Fontevraud to comment on their use of Saint George, but as for the Cistercians they were a conservative order. It is therefore possible that their use of the martyrdom has to do with the conservative nature of the order, and that we cannot take this appearance of the martyrdom motif in the iconography of Saint George as evidence for the widespread endurance of this motif in mid-thirteenth century Latin Europe as a whole.

Thirdly, aside from the differences between the orders and the codicological contexts, it is important to keep in mind that the psalter is from Rhineland while the gradual is from France. These geographical locations might have their own traditions from which they draw, and we must therefore be careful in drawing conclusions when comparing them.

However, one case demonstrates that the two images of Saint George - the martyr and the knight - were in use side by side in the thirteenth century. We turn now to a martyrology from Abbey of Notre-Dame des Prés of Douai, dated to the last quarter of the thirteenth century.

Martyrdom of George

Valenciennes - BM - ms. 0838, f.078v, Arras, last quarter of the thirteenth century

(Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

George the knight

Valenciennes - BM - ms. 0838, f.078v, martyrology, Abbey of Notre-Dame des Prés de Douai (Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

The two images above are from the same page in the martyrology of Notre-Dame des Prés, showing three images of Saint George: The standing soldier, the charging knight, and the unhurt, victorious martyr sitting on top of his would-be torture device. This shows clearly that by the end of the thirteenth century, both the martial and the christological image of Saint George was in use and had become established in the saint's iconography. It is here of particular interest that the abbey of Notre-Dame des Prés is a Cistercian house, and we see that this order has embraced the idea of George as an armed knight, a development possibly influenced both by the crusades of Louis IX of France earlier in the century and the ongoing efforts to have Louis IX canonised as a saint. Another point of interest is that the representation of the martyrdom has changed radically. While the images from the Rhineland and the Weissenau books emphasised George's complete lack of control on the wheel - his hands thrown out, in the first image at the mercy of the executioner, in the second image helped by angels - the image from the Cistercian martyrology is that of a triumphant matyr. He is still naked, but sitting atop the instrument of his passion with his arms stretched upwards in prayer or thanksgiving in front the pagan ruler and his priest, he appears undaunted and unafraid. Saint George is not unharmed as we see bloody cuts on his thigh and leg and his imitation of Christ is therefore clear, but he is not helpless, he rather appears to be petioning for divine help of his own strength. It is tempting to see this triumphant martyrdom as belonging to the same tone set by the two other - militant - depictions of George on the same folio. In other words, both George the knight and George the martyr are examples of triumphant Christians.

The two depictions of Saint George shown in these images demonstrate how one and the same saint can be presented in different ways, even on one and the same page, thus invoking different aspects of the saint's qualities - both the soldier and the martyr. Moreover, the different representations of one and the same motif - the martyrdom - also testify to the non-static nature of the iconography of saints.

The question then naturally becomes: How do we explain these changes in Saint George's iconography? Naturally, the present blogpost is not the right forum for drawing any conclusions, but I do want to point to some of the factors that must be taken into consideration when dealing with this question, namely that of the religious order for which the image was produced, the geographical location in which it was produced, and the time period in which it was produced. Here we have seen three examples of Cistercian representations of George's martyrdom from the twelfth to the late thirteenth century and from the German sphere as well as from France. Together they might show a chronological development from Weissenau to Rhineland to Douai, thus allowing us to follow the development of the image in time. However, the three images represent two different geographies and are too few to allow for any conclusions regarding the trajectory. It is possible that we see here two different traditions rather than one tradition developing over time.

I would like to see a more overarching, thorough, detailed examination of the available iconographic source material for the cult of Saint George in Germany and France from the twelfth to the thirteenth century. What I have shown in this blogpost is not nearly sufficient for anything but a pointer to a potential interesting development. The overall question here is whether, and if so when, the popularity of the image of George the martyr was replaced by the image of George the knight. The material I have gone through here point towards a change happening in the course of the thirteenth century, culminating in the fourteenth as suggested by two examples shown below. However, this is insufficient data for drawing conclusions, and it might be that the image of George the knight had been present in France much longer than seen in these examples.

By the end of the fifteenth century, however, the image of George the knight seems to have more or less completely replaced the image of George the martyr, both in France, in England and even in Italy. Why this is, and when we see the break with the depiction of the martyrdom, is something that remains to be argued and remains to be discovered, and I hope to be able to return to this at some future point.        

St George

Paris - Bibl. Sainte-Geneviève - ms. 0588, f.113, Vie de saints, c.1290-1310

(Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

George and the dragon

Auch - BM - ms. 0020, f.001, Ruralium commodorum opus by Petrus de Crescentiis, c.1330-1340

(Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

 

Similar blogposts

A carol for Saint George

A liturgical chant for Saint George

A nineteenth-century Hungarian imitation of George and the dragon

On the cults of George and Edward the Confessor in England

Saint George in the Old English Martyrology

Two depictions of Saint George in Odense

Bibliography


Gaposchkin, Cecilia, The Making of Saint Louis, Cornell University Press, 2008

Good, Jonathan, The Cult of Saint George in England, Boydell & Brewer, 2015

Riches, Samantha, St George - Hero, martyr, myth, Sutton, 2000

White, Monica, Military Saints in Byzantium and Rus, 900-1200, Cambridge University Press, 2013

Translating the lexicon of sainthood - rethinking virtus

Since 2010 I have been researching the cult of saints, and since 2011 I have been doing translation work of texts pertaining to saints, for the most part liturgical texts but also saints' lives. In the course of this research, most of my secondary literature, and most of the translated saints' lives I have read, have been in English, in great part because I have worked extensively on material from medieval England. Increasingly, however, I have become dissatisfied with how certain key terms pertaining to the cult of saints have been rendered into English, and I have often found - particularly in older scholarship - that the Latin terms have been inaccurately translated. Frequently, this inaccuracy owes to the fact that many Latin terms have become part of the standard English language, but have had their meaning altered in the course of the centuries. One particularly problematic word here is the Latin "virtus", which can be found in English as "virtue". But what does "virtue" actually mean, and what does it signify in the context of the cult of saints? Many translators of saints' lives from Latin into English tend to merely render "virtus" as "virtue" without adding any further nuance to the issue. This is highly unfortunate, given that both the Latin and the English words have several different meanings. Consequently, to translate "virtus" as "virtue" is not really a translation, because the meaning of the Latin term depends so very much on the context of the work, the passage, and indeed the sentence. In this blogpost, I wish to address one single instance of such a failed translation in order to demonstrate my point, and the need for careful consideration when choosing how to render "virtus" in modern English. This blogpost touches on merely one case, and I might address others later on.


The inspiration for this blogpost came from listening to the chant Orientis partibus is a song performed at the cathedral of Beauvais in the thirteenth century. The song was part of the liturgical ritual of the mass on January 14, a feast that commemorates the flight into Egypt, and which had elements of the feast of fools embedded into it, such as the procession of the ass (hence the term Festum asinorum, "feast of the ass", which is sometimes applied to this day). An ass, either a live animal or a figure, was brought into the cathedral to the mock-celebratory strophes of Orientis partibus, each strophe ending with the refrain in the vernacular "hez sire asne hez" (hail Sir Donkey, hail).

Orientis partibus

The Latin text of the song, with English translations, can be cobbled together from this and this website. The structure of the song is modelled on liturgical chants, but does itself not fit in any established, formal liturgical category, as it draws elements from different chant types and because it contains a vernacular refrain (chants for mass and offices were in Latin).

I will not here go into detail about the song, the ritual or the text, but I will instead focus on one of the strophes which runs like this.


Aurum de Arabia
Thus et myrrham de Saba
Tulit in ecclesia
Virtus asinaria


An incorrect translation of this strophe can be found here, in which the final verse is translated as "this gallant donkey". This translation presupposes that "virtus" is an adjective and a qualifier to subject of the sentence, and this is a common rendition of "virtus" in many scholarly translations into English (though I do not guarantee that this particular translation is scholarly).

The problem here, however, is that "virtus" cannot possibly be rendered as an adjective. Instead, it is "virtus" which is the subject and to which "asinaria" serves as a qualifier. This is also seen from the fact that the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh are rendered in the accusative and therefore are direct objects. In other words, "virtus" cannot simply be translated into a synonym for modern English virtuous, but must be understood from its Latin etymology, namely "strength" or "power".

In this particular case I favour "strength" because this reflects more accurately what is needed to bring, "tulit", the gifts of the three wise men into the church. Consequently, "asinaria" is thus the qualifying adjective to the strength, and the text should be rendered as follows.


The strength of the donkey
Carries in the church
Gold from Arabia,
Frankincense, and myrrh from Saba


In this way we see how different the results can be when translating a text containing the word "virtus". In this case, "virtus" is best understood as strength and as the subject of the sentence, but in other instances there might be other nuances that demand a different translation. In short, "virtus" is a very complicated word to translate, as shown by this single strophe from Orientis partibus.

Musical Mirror Images - the office of Saint Louis of France and Roman de Fauvel

In 1297, Pope Boniface VIII canonized King Louis IX of France (1214-70). This canonization was the result of an investigation into testimonials by witnesses and consultation of the various biographies that were written in order to testify to the dead king's holiness. Ever since Louis' death from dysentery in Tunis at the beginning of the Eighth Crusade, several interest groups had begun lobbying for a canonization of the king. Among the most important of these groups were the French king Philippe IV Le Bel (Louis' grandson), the Dominican Order, and the Franciscan Order. For the latter two groups, Louis IX had been an important patron, and he was also an ideal Christian king.

As mentioned, in order to provide solid, written evidence for Louis' holiness, an unusual large number of hagiographical accounts were produced prior to the canonization. When the pope had affirmed that Louis was indeed among God's holy, there were also composed liturgical offices in honour for his feast-day, his dies natalis, which was the day of his death, August 25.

Since Louis the king and saint was of great importance to several groups, there were composed many offices - some of which were merely different versions of the same basic template - and the Dominicans, the Franciscans and the Cistercians all had their own offices. To the mendicant orders, Louis was the ideal king to which all other French kings should be measured, and their textual production centred on Louis should also be understood in this regard, namely as attempts to influence the behaviour of the current king.

Also to Philippe IV his grandfather appeared as an ideal king, and also as an important facet in the mythology of French kingship which by that time was already expansive and complex, drawing on elements from Merovingian and Carolingian history as well as from the Capetian dynasty. In other words, Louis IX was an important pillar by which Philippe IV's own reign was supported.

After Philippe IV's death in 1314, however, the French monarchy descended into a state of chaos due to a series of short-lived young kings. Philippe IV was succeeded by Louis X who reigned for two years until his death. Louis was succeeded by Jean I who was born November 5 1316 and died five days later. Jean I was then succeeded by Philippe V, the second son of Philippe IV, who reigned until 1322.

In the midst of this turbulent period, there was composed a poem by Gerard du Bus which addressed the troubles of the French monarchy through an allegory. The poem is called Roman de Fauvel, and chronicles the rise of the donkey Fauvel from his insurrection against his master to his accession to the French throne. Fauvel marries one of Dame Fortune's handmaidens, Vainglory, and together they populate the garden of France with their unholy offspring, and it is revealed that Fauvel is indeed Antichrist.

Fauvel approaches Vainglory's bed
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fonds francaise 146, f.34, 1316
Courtesy of Wikimedia

The poem is an attack on corruption and abuses by political and religious men, and serves as a warning for the young king - presumably Philippe V - of the importance of a strong, virtuous ruler, and the necessity of not allowing little Fauvels to rise to positions of power. The poem survives in a manuscript from 1316, BnF fr.146, so it was composed in the midst of a very uncertain period of the French monarchy.

In BnF fr.146, the narrative of the Roman de Fauvel is interspersed with musically annotated songs, providing another dimension for its performance. And we should assume that the Roman has indeed been performed for the young king Philippe. One of the aspects of the Roman de Fauvel is that here, too, good kings are presented to the young king as ideals worthy of emulation. Unsurprisingly, Gerard du Bus makes use of Philippe V's own great-grandfather Louis IX as one such ideal king. As a consequence, despite the darkly satirical mode of Roman de Fauvel, also here we find Saint Louis serving as an edifying model, similar to one of his purposes in the hagiographic corpus (which naturally includes the liturgical offices).

In this way, the offices for Saint Louis and the Roman de Fauvel function as a kind of mirror images to each other. They both share a purpose, namely to shape the future of the French monarchy. Of course, this is not a purpose they both share to the same extent. The liturgical offices had as their primary goal to honour the saint in Heaven so that he would act as their ambassador in the court of God. Consequently, the liturgical attempt to shape the future of the monarchy was less direct in that it addressed the saint and exhorted him for divine intervention.

The Roman de Fauvel, on the other hand, is addressed directly to the king and seeks to influence its audience by holding forth a story of a possible future disaster - in modern parlance we might call it dystopian. Therefore, the similarities between the Roman and the offices should not be overemphasized or simplified, but in the end they both apply the figure of the holy king Louis as a key figure in their respective narratives, and they both seek to influence worldly events through the performance of their texts.

Louis IX, initial from the office Ludovicus decus
Paris - Bibl. Mazarine - ms. 0344, f.242, breviary, Use of Paris, c.1318
(Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr)

Ludovicus Rex: Extraits Des Offices de l'Adoration de Saint Louis
Choeur Grégorien de Paris, Jean-Noël Haddad, 1997

Roman de Fauvel, directed by Joël Cohen
Performed by Boston Camerata and Project Ars Nova

Bibliography
https://global.britannica.com/topic/Roman-de-Fauvel

Dillon, Emma, Medieval Music-making and the 'Roman de Fauvel', Cambridge University Press, 2002

Gaposchkin, Cecilia, The Making of Saint Louis, Cornell University Press, 2010

Gervais du Bus, Le Roman de Fauvel, edited by Arthur Långfors, Paris, 1968

Wine for the Epiphany - a miracle of Saint Martin's

Today is the feast of the Epiphany, marking the day when the three kings or the three magi came to visit the Christ-child in Bethlehem. In the medieval calendars, Epiphany was a feast of great importance and was celebrated with due liturgical rites.

In this blogpost, I wish to present a story about a miracle wrought through Bishop Martin of Tours on the feast of the Epiphany. The story comes from the third book of the Miracles of Bishop Martin, written by Gregory of Tours who held Martin as his particular patron saint.

Bishop Martin of Tours and a crippled man
MS Egerton 3018, f.117, missal, use of Cologne, 1st quarter of the 15th century
Courtesy of British Library

Adoration of the magi
MS Egerton 2125, f.182v, prayer book, Ghent, c.1519
Courtesy of British Library

It is common in stories about saints that their deeds in life, or the miracles wrought through them either while living or posthumously, are in some way meant to be in imitation of deeds performed by Christ in the gospels. In this case, as will be seen, the imitation is of the miracle at Cana, where Christ made water into wine at the wedding feast.

As will also be seen, the connection to the miracle at Cana is circuitous at best, yet Gregory himself makes this overt connection in the first paragraph, saying:

There was also that extraordinary miracle on Epiphany, when, at the request of the blessed bishop Martin, the Lord produced Falernian wine from water and made wine come forth from the riverbed for a poor man, just as he had once transformed water into wine.

- Gregory of Tours, The Miracles of Bishop Martin, book 2, chapter 16 (translated by Giselle de Nie)

The specification of Falernian wine might seem a bit odd at first, a detail somewhat on the acribic side even for God, but I'm tempted to ascribe this to Gregory's sense of humour, The miracle itself is placed within the frame narrative of a fishing trip on the Loire river which was undertaken by Gregory himself. Together with some companions he inquires a local boatman where there are good places for fishing, and the boatman points out one spot, adding that they should invoke the aid of Saint Martin in order to secure a catch. Gregory's companions show some skepticism to this, saying that "no one had ever seen a fish caught in his name". The boatman then goes on to correct this misapprehension.

For I shall tell you what happened to me this year, how through the invocation of his name and with the Lord's help I deserved to get what I wished. In effect, it was the day of Epiphany and when I entered my storeroom I found nothing in it to drink. When I had left it I prayed, saying: 'Most holy Martin, send me some wine in this sacred solemnity lest, when the others are drinking, I remain deprived.'

- Gregory of Tours, The Miracles of Bishop Martin (translated by Giselle de Nie)

As he is praying, the boatman is called to the other shore of the river to help a traveller across, and as he is rowing "suddenly a huge fish sprang from the water and fell into the boat". The boatman continues:

Having immediately killed it and ferried the men, I returned home, sold the fish for a couple of gallons of wine, and dined along with the others. You will therefore know how quickly, if he is asked in faith, Martin will appear to help in situations in which he is invoked.

- Gregory of Tours, The Miracles of Bishop Martin (translated by Giselle de Nie)

This is arguably not the most impressive way of turning water into wine, and the story sounds more like a folktale in which help comes in unexpected ways and where wishes are granted after having been filtered through a great deal of interpretative liberty. However, Gregory makes the connection overtly and it is clear that in the taxonomy of miracles, the circuitous route to the wine belongs to the same category as the miracle at Cana.

The wedding feast at Cana
MS Egerton 2781, f.15v, book of hours, use of Sarum, 2nd quarter of the 14th century
Courtesy of British Library

The wedding at Cana
MS Arundel 157, f.6v, St. Albans, c.1240, possibly by Matthew Paris
Courtesy of British Library

The Mannerist Saint Louis

 

Yesterday, August 25, was the feast of St. Louis of France who died in 1270 and was canonised by Pope Boniface VIII in 1297. Louis is an immensely fascinating character, and I have written about him elsewhere as a saint rather than as a living monarch (see here, here and here). The cult of Saint Louis became very widely disseminated in Europe, largely thanks to the family ties of the Capetian dynasty which introduced him to Spain, The Kingdom of Neaples, Bohemia and Hungary. (1) As a consequence, Louis is endowed with a rich iconography which has received input from changing trends in art. In this brief blogpost, I give you a rather late rendition of the royal saint, painted by El Greco c.1586. El Greco was influenced by the Mannerist movement, but in his own version in which the the shapes are more voluble and elongated, and the use of perspective is applied more playfully and with less rigour than in the Italian schools of the sixteenth century. As we see in the image below, El Greco also employs shadows and light in a way reminiscent of the chiaroscuro technique perfected by Caravaggio but which had been developed since the late fifteenth century or so.

El Greco's Saint Louis, c.1586
Courtesy of Wikimedia

Louis as we see him here has greater resemblance to the Renaissance princes that were so often subject of mannerist portraits, and when compared with the medieval illuminations below we see that El Greco has brought out Louis' personality more acutely. This is of course unsurprising since completely different iconographic rules applied to Mannerist painting and manuscript illuminations of the high and later Middle Ages. It is nonetheless interesting to note that the Louis seen in the illuminations are more serenely beatific, almost as an embodiment of the perfect Christian king, whereas in El Greco's painting he is more reminiscent of the worldly king. El Greco's Saint Louis has no halo to suggest sanctity, and only his sombre, almost sad, expression and his thin, almost scrawny face might give a hint of the strict mendicant lifestyle he is said to have embraced.

Saint Louis standing serene
Châteauroux - BM - ms. 0002, f.298v, breviary, use of Paris, c.1414
Courtesy of enluminures.cultures.fr

The liturgical Saint Louis
Paris - Bibl. Mazarine - ms. 0344, f.242, breviary, Use of Paris, c.1318
Courtesy of enluminures.cultures.fr

Naturally, the image of Saint Louis changed over the years, both in art and in literature, and this is the normal progression in saints' cults. When comparing to so diverse expressions of imagery as the medieval illumination and the sixteenth-century painting we see how differently one saint might be imagined. The important thing about this difference need not be the medium through which these images come down to us. Naturally, illumination and painting work differently and have different audiences and purposes, which also means that they have different messages in their iconography. But we also could argue that aside from the iconographic rules intrinsic to the various pictorial genres, we see here how the king and saint has been envisioned in different milieus and different spiritual climates. The medieval illuminations belong to a period close to the canonisation and close to that widespread enthusiasm which found expression both in lay and monastic art. The mannerist depiction by El Greco, however, belong to the Counter-Reformation and its more sober, restrained approach to the cult of saints, which might more than anything else account for Louis' dark, gloomy appearance.


Notes
1) For the cult in Spain and Neaples, see Gaposchkin 2010: 210ff; for the cult in Bohemia see Marosi 2011: 188; for the cult in Hungary see Szakács 2011: 222.


Bibliography


Gaposchkin, Cecilia, The Making of Saint Louis, Cornell University Press, 2010

Giorgi, Rosa, Saints in Art, translated by Thomas Michael Hartmann, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003

Marosi, Erno, "Saints at Home and Abroad: Some Observations on the Creation of Iconographic Types in Hungary of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries", printed in Gecser, Ottó; Laszlovszky, József; Nagy, Balázs; Sebók, marcell; Szende, Katalin (eds.), Promoting the Saints – Cults and Their Contexts from late Antiquity until the Early Modern Period – Essays in Honor of Gábor Klaniczay for His 60th Birthday, CEU Press, 2011

Szakácz, Béla Zsolt, "Palatine Lackfi and his Saints: Frescos in the Franciscan Church of Keszthely", printed in Gecser, Ottó; Laszlovszky, József; Nagy, Balázs; Sebók, marcell; Szende, Katalin (eds.), Promoting the Saints – Cults and Their Contexts from late Antiquity until the Early Modern Period – Essays in Honor of Gábor Klaniczay for His 60th Birthday, CEU Press, 2011