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ISBN 978-3-0343-0993-6
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Judith A. Kidd
Peter Lang
Cultural Interactions:
Studies in the Relationship between the Arts
www.peterlang.com
Judith A. Kidd
Peter Lang
Cultural Interactions
Studies in the Relationship between the Arts
PETER LANG
Judith A. Kidd
PETER LANG
ISSN 1662-0364
ISBN 978-3-0343-0993-6 (print)
ISBN 978-3-0353-0559-3 (eBook)
Cover Image: Daniel, Job and Noah crowned by Angels, Canterbury
cathedral, north choir aisle window, detail, twelfth/thirteenth century.
Photo: John Sells. With kind permission of the Dean and Chapter,
Canterbury.
Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2014
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Contents
List of Illustrations
ix
Acknowledgements xv
Introduction 1
Chapter 1
Precedent 27
Chapter 2
Word 53
Chapter 3
Time 89
Chapter 4
Typology I
135
Chapter 5
Typology II
165
Chapter 6
Synagogue 201
viii
Epilogue 229
Bibliography 233
Index 247
Illustrations
Plates
Plate 1
Plate 2
Plate 3
Eve created from Adam and Noah receiving the Dove into the Ark, Genesis
Initial, Winchester Bible, folio 5r, detail, twelfth century. Photo: Sonia
Halliday.
Plate 4
Front of Enamelled Cross from the Meuse Region with Typological Scenes,
second half of the twelfth century. Photo: The Trustees of the British
Museum.
Plate 5
The Magi with Prophets and Old Testament Scenes, Canterbury Cathedral,
north choir aisle window, detail, twelfth/ thirteenth century. Photo: Sonia
Halliday.
Plate 6
David as Acrobat, Lincoln Cathedral, south transept window, detail, thirteenth century. Photo: Matthew Taylor. With kind permission of the Dean
and Chapter, Lincoln.
x Illustrations
Figures
Fig. 1
Adam, Eve and the Serpent, Amiens Cathedral, west front, thirteenth
century. Photo: J.A. Kidd.
13
Fig. 2 The High Priest worships before the Ark ofthe Covenant, Canterbury
Cathedral, Corona Redemption window, detail, thirteenth century.
Photo: John Sells. With kind permission of the Dean and Chapter,
Canterbury. 18
Fig. 3 The Ark of the Covenant, Laon Cathedral, west front, thirteenth
century. Photo: J.A. Kidd.
19
21
22
Fig. 6 Daniel in the Lions Den, Amiens Cathedral, west front, thirteenth
century. Photo: J.A. Kidd.
38
Fig. 7 Noah and his Wife after the Flood, Chartres Cathedral, north aisle
window, detail, thirteenth century. Photo: Stuart Whatling, by kind
permission. 39
Fig. 8 Joseph receives Benjamin into his Palace, Bourges Cathedral, ambulatory window, detail, thirteenth century. Photo: Stuart Whatling,
by kind permission.
43
56
65
71
Illustrations
xi
Fig. 13 Adam and Eve outside Eden, All Saints church, East Meon, Hamp
shire, font, twelfth century. Photo: J.A. Kidd.
73
Fig. 14 Adam catches the Blood from Christ on the Cross, Chartres Cath
edral, Redemption window, north aisle, detail (modern glass). Photo:
Stuart Whatling, by kind permission.
75
76
Fig. 16 Joseph, Asenath and unidentified figure on the left, Chartres Cath
edral, north porch, thirteenth century. Photo: J.A. Kidd.
78
90
Fig. 18 Six Ages of the World, Canterbury Cathedral, north choir aisle
typology window, detail, twelfth/thirteenth century. Photo: John
Sells. With kind permission of the Dean and Chapter, Canterbury.
97
Fig. 19 Six Ages of Man, Canterbury Cathedral, north choir aisle typology
window, detail, twelfth/thirteenth century. Photo: John Sells. With
kind permission of the Dean and Chapter, Canterbury.
99
101
104
Fig. 22 Creator God imagines Man, from the Creation sequence, Chartres
Cathedral, north porch, thirteenth century. Photo: Sonia Halliday. 106
Fig. 23 Aminadab and Aram, two of the Generations panels, Canterbury
Cathedral, west window, twelfth/thirteenth century. Photo: John
Sells. With kind permission of the Dean and Chapter, Canterbury.
109
111
Fig. 25 Tree of Jesse, Lambeth Bible, Lambeth Palace Library MS. 3, fol. 198r,
twelfth century. Photo: Warburg Institute. With kind permission
of Lambeth Palace Library.
113
xii Illustrations
Fig. 26 Priest and Levite pass the Wounded Man, with four Old Testament
scenes, Bourges Cathedral, Good Samaritan window, detail, thirteenth century. Photo: Stuart Whatling, by kind permission.
117
125
Fig. 28 Creation with Seasons and some Labours of the Months, Gerona
Cathedral Treasury, Tapestry detail, eleventh/ twelfth century.
Photo: Warburg Institute.
128
Fig. 29 Byrhtferth s Diagram, from St Johns College, Oxford, MS. 17, fol.
7v, eleventh century. Photo: Warburg Institute.
131
Fig. 30 Michal lets David down through the Window, Canterbury Cathedral,
Corona Redemption window, detail, thirteenth century. Photo: John
Sells. With kind permission of the Dean and Chapter, Canterbury.
154
160
160
160
162
Fig. 35 The Baptism of Christ with Exodus and Spies, Biblia Pauperum,
fifteenth century. Photo: Warburg Institute.
172
Fig. 36 The Annunciation with Eve and Gideon, Biblia Pauperum, fifteenth
century. Photo: Warburg Institute.
174
Fig. 37 The Nativity with Moses and Aarons Rod, Biblia Pauperum, fifteenth
century. Photo: Warburg Institute.
176
Fig. 38 Souls in Heaven with Job feasting and Jacobs Ladder, Biblia
Pauperum, fifteenth century. Photo: Warburg Institute.
181
187
Illustrations
xiii
188
Fig. 41 Abraham with Sarah and Hagar?, church ofNotre-Dame, GargilesseDampierre, Indre, capital, twelfth century. Photo: J.A. Kidd.
193
203
208
213
224
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Western medieval art is both compelling and remote. It attracts with its
architectural innovations and its stone incised with surface pattern, which
gradually gave way to more naturalistic forms, the intensity of colour in
enamel work, manuscripts and wall painting and the display of its confident vision in stained glass windows. At the same time it can be difficult to
access. There is a certain mystery to its often unidentified figures and images.
The artists were mostly anonymous and even where they did indicate their
names, such as Mateo at Santiago de Compostela and Giselbertus at Autun,
we know nothing else about them. They were to a large extent constrained
by artistic tradition, their iconography the selection and meaning oftheir
subject matter was largely determined for them, especially in the theological programmes of important religious centres. Until the later centuries they
were not offering their own impressions of the world but conveying visually,
in monumental and more private art, pictures which had their ultimate
roots in words and doctrines. From what may be termed the beginning of
the Middle Ages, the time of Charlemagne who was crowned Emperor by
the Pope in the year 800 in Rome, through to the fifteenth century when
artist personalities had emerged, imagery was inspired largely by religious
teaching and had an ecclesiastical context. Now it reflects perceptions of
minds distant in outlook, when even incursions into classical philosophy
or natural and physical science rarely caused world views to stray far from
their biblical and doctrinal inheritance.
Old Testament literature takes the thought further back, through history, saga and legend, to the vivid verbal imagery of early creation stories
in which human nature, from the beginning of Genesis, seemed willing to
jeopardise its well-being for a perceived gain. The books span a thousand
years of writing and present an even longer stretch of time in their recording of oral tradition alongside contemporary chronicles. They offer insights
into the lives of tribes of the Middle East with their unfamiliar family and
2 Introduction
Introduction
adapted from Ancient Near Eastern words for offerings or tribute. Canaan
itself, the Promised Land, was the land of the purple, the dye extracted
from shellfish along its coasts. Artistic expertise was shunned only in the
making of human images or idols to be worshipped. Such practices were
forbidden in the Ten Commandments and condemned by the prophets.
Isaiah ridiculed the craftsmen who expended their energy for this purpose.
A metalworker softens his material over a fire, then swings a hammer to
shape it, but his creation, in contrast to Gods fashioning of the universe,
leaves its maker exhausted. A carpenter measures wood, outlines a figure of
a man with chalk and carves it with his tools. He can then bow down to his
idol, the work of his own hands, while he uses the same material, provided
by nature, to make a fire for warmth and cooking (Isaiah 44vv.920).
Even a cursory glance at medieval art indicates that this ancient world,
fixed in the pages of sacred Scripture, was of great significance to the Middle
Ages. Some of its most familiar images come from the Old Testament.
Abraham about to sacrifice his son Isaac is almost commonplace on
cloister capitals, at church entrances or in interior sculpture and stained
glass. So, too, are Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden beside the serpent
coiled around a tree. The ancient kings feature prominently. Solomon frequently receives the Queen of Sheba or pronounces his judgement between
two women who claimed the same baby. David appears in many guises,
such as slayer of Goliath, musician with harp or bells and as the first king
in the genealogical tree leading from Jesse, his father, to Christ. Prophets,
too, individually or in ranks, sometimes holding attributes, like Habakkuk
with his watch tower, display key sayings from their oracles on sculpted
or painted scrolls. Artefacts of already amalgamated traditions took on
further meanings in the Church. Censers for use in Christian liturgies
were cast in the shape of Solomons temple, where offering of incense had
also formed part of the worship. The font at Saint Barthlemys church in
Lige is a large tub-like container seated on oxen, a replica of the bronze
Sea, or tank, in Solomons temple, made to store water for cleansing both
the priests and places where animals had been ritually slaughtered (1[3]
Kings 7 v25). Now it contains the water of Christian baptism.
Some images hold a less obvious connection to the Old Testament
but nonetheless have their roots in its literature. Christ seated in glory,
4 Introduction
surrounded by the winged man, ox, lion and eagle, appears throughout
Western medieval art. The creatures followed a visual descent from the
early Christian art of Rome to the Carolingian revival, then flourished in
twelfth-century Romanesque art. Their literary route is usually traced back
to the New Testament book of Revelation, where they are the four living
creatures constantly participating in the worship of heaven (Revelation 4).
Here, however, they had been adapted from Ezekiels inaugural vision of the
moving throne of God upheld by the living creatures, each of which had the
four faces of human, lion, bull and eagle, a form known as the tetramorph
(Ezekiel 1). In their separate appearances of the New Testament version
they came to be identified by Christian scholars with the Gospel writers
because of their number and their closeness to the divine presence. They
are usually portrayed holding books or scrolls as they turn towards the
glorified Christ in a mandorla. Tetramorph versions, where the four faces
are attached to a single figure, are rare in the West unless they illustrate
Ezekiels description, though they were occasionally painted in manuscript
initials to the Gospels to imply the unity of the four books.
Ezekiel was in exile in Babylon when he saw his vision, which seems
to have been influenced by the winged, hybrid, forms found in AssyrianBabylonian sculpture. Although the creatures as Gospel writers were based
on the New Testament book of Revelation, questions were being asked
in the nineteenth century about possibilities of direct links between the
Ancient Middle East and medieval art, especially the Romanesque. Such
associations were not always specifically focused on the Old Testament;
they incorporated the fantasy two-headed beasts often carved on capitals,
affronted creatures and the half-human, half-fish designs. Where a human
figure stood or was seated between two lions in the ancient art, a correspondence could be made with Daniel in the lions den: where there was
a struggle between man and beast the combat suggested the exploits of
Samson or David. There are examples of two humans, one on either side
of a tree, which might be considered to have anticipated Christian images
of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, an idea that gained plausibility
from some instances of the former Middle Eastern art in which a serpent
coiled around the central tree trunk. Many examples have been given by art
historians who, notably in the 1920s and 1930s, explored the possibility of
Introduction
a relationship between the ancient and medieval forms as a partial explanation for the twelfth-century upsurge in curious creatures. These, it was
suggested, had been prompted by an awareness of the East promoted by
the Crusades and discovered in the portable objects of metal craft and
textiles carried by returning crusaders. Some scholars also wished to trace
a thread of similar images from Mesopotamia through various cultures,
such as Egyptian and Etruscan and into the Byzantine world, adapted or
reapplied as they migrated westward but still ultimately recognisable as
being of ancient origin.
There was a curiosity about the East during much ofthe Middle Ages.
It was where the Garden of Eden was believed to be situated, where monstrous animals lived and the place from which the ruler Prester John would
come to bring peace. Medieval interest in the Old Testament, though, did
not generally search for accurate geographical factors, any more than it was
concerned with reproducing authentic background details of the daily lives
of its heroes. The mappa mundi in Hereford cathedral, dating from about
1300, placing Jerusalem at the world centre, the Garden of Eden in the East
at the top of the circle and Christ, outside the circumference, presiding over
his creation in judgement, illustrates an essentially theological world view.
It has been the task of modern biblical study from the nineteenth century onwards to identify the foreign influences on practices and descriptions
in the Scriptures and to attempt to understand the ancient writings within
their own context or setting in life. Twentieth-century approaches to the
Bible have also accelerated the process in which Old Testament books are
variously treated as secular literature, as folklore and anthropological data
or as prose and poetry to be analysed in the same way as the works of playwrights, novelists or poets. The medieval outlook did not have the benefits
of advanced archaeology, nor were its scholars concerned with discoveries
of different literary strands in the books of Moses, for example, or with
any editorial stamp on the texts. How the books came to be written was
not an issue. Its interests were encouraged by belief in the whole Bible as
communication of the divine word while the sacred books provided, to a
large extent, their own terms of reference. Study concentrated on looking
into the texts to discover their hidden meanings, rather than attempting
to understand the situations of their writers.
6 Introduction
Introduction
8 Introduction
its identity from its lineage and its allegiance to the God of Abraham. A
formal covenant had been made by Moses on Mount Sinai as a response to
the Exodus, when the Hebrews had escaped from slavery in Egypt: they were
assured of continued divine guidance and protection if, for their part, they
kept the Law summed up in the Ten Commandments. After the conquest
of Canaan, the land promised to Abraham, they moved towards nationhood by establishing their own monarchy. Kings David and Solomon set
up their political and religious centre in Jerusalem, which was to remain
the seat of the line of David until it was overrun by the Babylonians at the
start of the sixth century BCE. Exiled to Babylon, their monarchy, temple
and land lost, the Hebrews were forced to reflect on their history, the binding nature of the Mosaic covenant and their relationship to the rest of the
world. Some fifty or so years later, Cyrus the Persian, conqueror of Babylon,
allowed all captives to return to their homelands, thus the Hebrews resettled in the Promised Land, building a new temple in Jerusalem but not
re-establishing the monarchy. Having already outlived the Assyrian and
Babylonian empires, now given a second chance to keep their covenant,
they came to see a worldwide, divine purpose in their continuity. They
were set apart, a chosen people.
This idea of election had the important implication, suggested already
in the promise to Abraham, that through them the rest of the world would
be blessed (Genesis 12v.3). The revelation of God entrusted to them would,
they believed, at some future time come to be recognised by everyone. An
anointed leader, that is a Messiah or a Christ from the Hebrew and Greek
respectively, descended from the line of King David, would not only usher
in a new age but would restore the harmony between God and mankind
that had been lost when Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden.
Christianity and the New Testament emerged from the belief that Jesus
was that anointed person, with a message to be taken out from Jerusalem
to the ends of the earth. Contemporary Hebrews, by now known as
Jews, probably from the territorial name of Judaea, were divided. Some
accepted his life and teaching as the fulfilment of prophecy and history,
while others rejected the claims made by the Early Church and continued to anticipate a future ruler. Two separate religions based on the same
Scriptures of the Hebrew people developed: Judaism, still attached to the
Introduction
10 Introduction
Introduction
11
Synagogue did not always feature in a pose of defeat, however, and even
though the Hebrew texts helped to define portrayals ofher, it is important
to separate this figure from more general uses ofthe Old Testament in medieval art. Interpretation of biblical imagery solely under Synagogues shadow
can become too narrow. The Church respected the ancient literature for its
intrinsic value and used it in a number of different ways. The Psalms formed
an integral part of the liturgy and monastic offices. Scholarship established
concepts of the nature of time based on the Genesis story of the creation
of the cosmos. These in turn featured in manuscript initials to the biblical
book, delineating the eras of salvation history. Precedents for relationships
between political and religious establishments, for moral behaviour, even
for art itself were found in what was considered its authoritative texts.
Those characters who had received approbation during the centuries before
Christ were no less able to inspire than those who filled the pages of the
New Testament. Heroes such as Noah and Joseph, who appear frequently in
art, had already been singled out in the epistle to the Hebrews as examples
of faithfulness which had won Gods approval (Hebrews 11v.2). Bezalel,
the wilderness artist, who had made the High Priests garments and the
Tabernacle and who features in the windows of the Sainte Chapelle, Paris,
was cited by a medieval practitioner of the arts as role model for his contemporary craftsmen. A major concern of the Church was to ensure correct
conduct among its people. There are many extant portrayals in medieval
art of the consequences of wrongdoing, lurid scenes of punishment where
miscreants fall or are pushed into wide, open-mouthed monsters depicting
hell, or images of vices cowering at the feet of personified virtues. Visual
homilies expressing acceptable moral standards taken from the rich source
of Old Testament example were also in the interests of the Church.
Other non-partisan thought which transferred into art included reflections on creation, mans place in the universe and on the human lot. One
of the key pursuits in some of the twelfth-century schools was to reconcile
the beginning of Genesis and parts of the Old Testament Wisdom literature with Platos philosophical ideas of creation. The revelation that God
had formed all things in measure, number and weight (Wisdom 11v.21)
fitted well with interest in classical mathematics and views on the physical
structure of the universe. Since the name Adam in Hebrew means mankind,
12 Introduction
he could become the centre of diagrams exploring the nature of the world
and mans place in it, his life bound by the seasons and constant circular
movement of the celestial bodies. Job too, who was sometimes interpreted
as a prefiguring of Christ, could be used as an example of a more immediate humanity. He features on a series of capital scenes at the cathedral of
Pamplona and in a similar sequence from La Daurade Abbey, now in the
Muse des Augustins, Toulouse, where his moral rectitude, maintained
through suffering, is rewarded. The divide which he comes painfully to
acknowledge is one between creator and creature, not that between Jew
and Gentile.
Further, there is a slim line generally between propaganda and statement of belief, just as there is between a call to conversion and implicit
denigration of any targeted attitude. The Church was obliged to present its
teaching of redemption against the background of preparation for Christs
life, otherwise its message would be suspended in some sort of historical
vacuum. Events in the New Testament and the emergence and development of the Church had not been the outcome of random situations but
part of a process, believed to have been not only foreseen but ordained by
God. To place the Church in its time context was inevitably to draw on
the same Scriptures as those adhered to by the Jews, but that did not necessarily imply in its images an overt or concealed condemnation of those
who held that the Messiah was still to come.
Meaning and Nuance
Embellishments made to Old Testament stories, through additions to a
scene or by attributes or gestures given to its characters, can often steer
interpretation beyond the general thrust of the image. In the south bay
of the main faade of Amiens cathedral, below the Virgin and Child, is a
depiction of the Fall of Man. Eve, beside a female-headed serpent, tastes
the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as she offers some
to Adam, who clutches his throat. The human-faced tempter seems to have
appeared in art in the early thirteenth century, possibly connected to the
half-woman, half-fish sirens of Romanesque capitals who were thought to
Introduction
13
lure men to destruction. At Amiens, Eves face almost touches and reflects
that of the serpent (Fig. 1). Adams action seems to have been based on
scholarly discussion of the nature of his fault. The Latin word gula, meaning throat, was also used figuratively for gluttony. Adams downfall, due
to greed in accepting the forbidden fruit when there were plenty of other
edible options in the Garden of Eden, was the result of this deadly sin.
Fig. 1 Adam, Eve and the Serpent, Amiens Cathedral, west front, thirteenth century.
Photo: J.A. Kidd.
14 Introduction
Introduction
15
their individual scenes. Cain, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph all
sport a variety of headgear which seems to have been of great significance
to the sculptor. Cain, the son of Adam who killed his brother Abel, wears
a round hat with a small knob on the top similar to those which featured
in German art of the Meuse region from about the mid-twelfth century. It
is a variation of the Judenhut, the Jewish hat, usually brimmed and with a
tall centre section or spike, frequently depicted in later Romanesque images
and beyond and used in the Salisbury frieze to identify Josephs brother
who casts his younger sibling into a pit. Well-rehearsed commentary on the
Genesis story held Cain, the murderer of Abel, to represent the Jews, while
the victim, who had made the acceptable offering of a lamb, anticipated
Christ. When Cain, wearing his hat, makes his unacceptable offering, carries out his crime against the hatless Abel, then is confronted by God who
asks him about his brothers whereabouts, there is possibly the innuendo
that he does represent the Jews who killed Christ.
Other inhabitants of the Salisbury sculpture, such as Noah and Joseph,
albeit with their differently styled head coverings, were usually viewed in
Christian thought as virtuous characters. Hats of similar style to Cains
are worn by two men at the feet of Christ in the Holy Sepulchre Chapel
painting in Winchester cathedral, attending to the crucified body. One of
these is probably Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the Jewish
Council who had asked for Christs body so that he could place in his own
tomb (Matthew 27v.59). There are obvious differences in these near contemporary examples from the thirteenth century of medium, model and
subject matter; moreover Cain may identify the Jews collectively while
Joseph of Arimathea represents himself. They illustrate, though, that the
hat was not always defamatory and that interpretation cannot always be
reduced to simple formulae.
Inscriptions, often a single line or Latin couplet, if they are not too
damaged or over zealously restored, can support a pictorial allusion or identify a particular slant in the iconography. Another of the Old Testament
scenes surrounding the Crucifixion in the Canterbury Redemption window
is that of the Hebrew spies returning from Canaan with a bunch of grapes
on a pole (Numbers 13v.23). The fruit hangs from the horizontal bar,
making a T shape, as the body hangs on the cross above it. Grapes suggest
16 Introduction
the wine described by Christ at the Last Supper as his blood and thus share
some of the same Eucharistic connotations as the lambs blood and chalice
in the Passover scene. A few words around the semicircular frame of the
picture, condensing longstanding commentary on the episode, point to
the figures as representatives of Jewish and Christian attitudes. The first
spy, the Jew, has his back to the hanging grapes, indicating that he does not
wish to see the meaning of Christs crucifixion; the second, the Gentile,
looks towards the grapes, thirsting to benefit from them. This is a statement that the Hebrews, preceding Christianity historically, ignored the
significance of the event which drew the Gentiles towards the Church.
Although at Canterbury little visual distinction was made between the
spies, variations on their portrayal can be found in other examples where
there is no inscription accompanying the image. Sometimes the front spy
wears a hat, suggesting in this case that he may represent contemporary
Jewry; occasionally, though, he looks back over his shoulder. On the base
of a crucifix from the abbey of Saint Bertin, now in the museum at Saint
Omer, northern France, both spies wear hats and stand looking at the bunch
of grapes. Beyond the broad significance of the Old Testament image as a
foreshadowing of the Crucifixion, there are hints of particular meanings
in individual examples.
Multiple Meanings
As the above examples indicate, much medieval art reflects in some way
the findings of commentators on the biblical texts. Some Old Testament
passages lent themselves more readily than others to all four of the broad
medieval categories of study history and allegory, moral and spiritual or
satisfied more easily the quest to find prefigurings of New Testament episodes. This suggests that the same story or object, with multiple meanings
in scholarly exegesis, might be explained in the art in a number of different
ways. The visual context can often direct interpretation, not only in the
considered juxtapositions ofOld and New Testament scenes at Canterbury,
but in less obvious settings. Selection of episodes, too, from a long biblical
saga may indicate a predominant message to be drawn from the story. The
Introduction
17
18 Introduction
Fig. 2 The High Priest worships before the Ark of the Covenant, Canterbury
Cathedral, Corona Redemption window, detail, thirteenth century. Photo: John Sells.
With kind permission of the Dean and Chapter, Canterbury.
Introduction
19
Fig. 3 The Ark of the Covenant, Laon Cathedral, west front, thirteenth century.
Photo: J.A. Kidd.
The Ark of the Covenant also indicates the lengths to which allegory
was sometimes taken, especially if several biblical references combined to
produce extended meanings. In one of Abbot Sugers windows at the Abbey
of Saint Denis in Paris, the Ark is labelled QUADRIGA AMINADAB,
the chariot of Aminadab (Fig. 4). Here it contains the pot of manna
and Aarons rod, additions taken from the New Testament epistle to the
Hebrews (Hebrews 9v.4). It is carried on four wheels and surrounded by
the four heads of the upholders of the moving throne from Ezekiels vision,
representing the Gospel writers. God the Father rises above it, extending
his arms to support a crucifix. The term chariot of Aminadab came from
20 Introduction
the accepted Latin version of the Song of Songs used in the Middle Ages:
I knew not; my soul troubled me for the chariots of Aminadab. Return,
return O Sulamitess, return, return, that we may behold thee (Song of
Songs 6vv.1112). Commentary on the verse linked Aminadab to the
owner of the house where the Ark was kept temporarily when David was
bringing it to its permanent home in Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6v.3).
This already complex image had lent itself to further interpretations.
When Solomon built the temple, the Ark was placed with great ceremony
in the most holy area, with two large cherubim, made of olive wood covered
in gold, overarching it (1 Kings 8). At Saint Denis the chariot has arrived
at a further new beginning, the new covenant. An inscription states that
the altar of the cross of Christ is established on the Ark of the Covenant,
bringing something greater as the former regime ends. The separate living
creatures of the New Testament book of Revelation, firmly established
as the Gospel writers, replace the tetramorph of Ezekiels vision and the
moving throne has now travelled to the era of the Church. In the moralised
Bibles of the thirteenth century, where image and text sat side by side, the
chariot sometimes carried bishops and was followed by monks: the Church
was being guided on the right tracks by its leaders. The Sulamitess of the
Song of Songs was often identified as Synagogue, troubled at the approach
of the chariot: according to some commentators this was the vehicle which
could carry the Jews to Christ.
Occasionally the visual context may provide little help in interpretation and there may be no relevant inscription. The Ark of the Covenant
guarded by two large angels fills the apse of the oratory at Germigny-desPrs, about fifteen miles east of Orleans (Fig. 5). It was built during the
reign of Charlemagne by Theodulph, one time bishop of Orleans and
Abbot of Fleury, the present Saint Benot-sur-Loire, a short distance away.
This much discussed mosaic and the building have been restored to such
an extent that the authenticity of the iconography has been questioned,
but without any definitive evidence for what it might have replaced being
put forward. The Ark here is closed and overshadowed by two large angels,
like those placed by Solomon in the Holy of Holies, their wings touching each other and spread out to the walls of this inner temple (1[3]Kings
6v.27). It is less complicated than the chariot of Aminadab, but there is no
Introduction
21
22 Introduction
Introduction
23
here reflects its association with the Virgin Mary as it does at Laon and
Amiens. This link had been made already by the early Fathers of the Greek
Church but, although the style of Theodulphs mosaic suggests a Byzantine
model, its prominent position in the apse and its early ninth-century date
anticipate, rather than coincide with, the interests of Western writers and
popular devotion to the Virgin.
Interpretation of medieval iconography, therefore, can be far from
straightforward, though fortunately the Ark of the Covenant is an extreme
example, chosen to highlight some of the issues. Different senses attributed to Scripture, many and various meanings offered on biblical texts by
Christian scholars through the centuries, together with the possible significance of any local circumstance, sometimes make it difficult to determine
a dominant motive in the selection of a particular subject. It is tempting
to read preconceived notions of meaning into an image and, perhaps,
inevitable to form conclusions based on partial knowledge and evidence.
Even to come as close as possible to the minds which created the picture
leaves scope for different interpretations. In addition, there is always the
difficulty for the modern observer of finding an unbiased starting point
from which to unpack the iconography.
What may be seen as an inherent ambiguity in the image today may
have been understood as an informed and subtle condensing of different
strands of thought in the Middle Ages. Confusion still surrounds the
purpose of much medieval art: whether the sculptures and stained glass
of cathedrals and pilgrim centres served originally as a focus for sermons
which expounded on their meanings, whether the Latin inscriptions were
translated and the complex theology explained to congregations, is unclear.
The layman and pilgrim would not, in any case, have seen the art displayed
in restricted areas of large churches and cathedrals such as Chapter Houses.
Our access to many of the writings, both scholarly and popular, behind
much of the imagery can bring its own problems, of translation as well as
of assumed knowledge of what was available to programme makers and
artists. We are hampered, too, by partial images and by reconstructions
which have sometimes rearranged the settings of stained glass panels, for
instance, and we are perhaps offered a distorted view of the popularity of
certain topics by the chance survival of examples of the art.
24 Introduction
***
The following chapters approach medieval iconography on the basis of the
ways in which the Old Testament itself was viewed in the Middle Ages. They
are intended to serve as an entrance into a vast subject and, in coming from
a general background of the overall importance of the Hebrew Scriptures
to the Church, to offer a fuller understanding of the imagery wherever it is
encountered. The division of themes was chosen to incorporate key areas of
usage of the Old Testament and to illustrate the versatility of what is often
a neglected area in non-specialist books. Other visual references might
sometimes have been made, though it is inevitable that where extensive
picture series exist, such as at Chartres and Canterbury, or in the printed
block-books, there is more scope for selection. Much has been omitted in
the interests of an overview, while a more detailed study of some examples
has been included to clarify the points. Each subject and each image might
have been pursued further. Footnotes to the chapters will help the reader
inclined to follow up specific areas of interest.
Chapter 1 looks at what was often an unhindered correspondence
between biblical text and image, that is the function of precedent to authenticate contemporary claims or practices of the medieval Church. Part of a
saga, a single event or a quotation, was extracted from the Old Testament
for various purposes to justify art, to offer role models or to express the
relative positions of sacred and secular power. Inspiration here depended
on the belief that all of Scripture, not only the New Testament, had the
authority to indicate what was acceptable or otherwise to the God who
directed or responded to human situations from the creation onwards.
Chapter 2 acknowledges that most of medieval imagery was the
result of interpretation of biblical texts. It offers a brief introduction to
translations and to commentary and analysis which came to form a body
of material considered almost as authoritative as the Bible. This scholarship
took the image beyond its surface meaning and lay behind certain visual
distinguishing features such as the horns of Moses. In addition, and sometimes mingled with more erudite comment, were what have been called
popular extensions to biblical stories that carried the narratives beyond
the Scriptures and invented sequels or introduced new characters. Such
Introduction
25
events and people, like Marcoul or Markoff, the fool in Solomons court,
which developed outside the canonical literature, are also important for
understanding medieval art because their inclusion in the imagery might
challenge an otherwise secure interpretation.
Chapter 3 looks at the importance of time. The Church stood
between Genesis and final judgement, fulfilling the Old Testament but
also waiting for a completion to the New Age. Time began at creation,
according to Christian thought. The six days which saw the making of
heaven and earth and their furnishings were deemed to have set in place a
pattern both for historical epochs and for the span of human lives. Salvation
history was seen to have been punctuated by six eras, marked by events such
as the giving of the Law to Moses and the Babylonian exile, as it progressed
towards the New Age and final redemption. Each persons lifespan was
potentially determined by the blueprint of six progressive stages, moving
from infancy to old age. On the fourth day of the Genesis narrative, sun
and moon had set in motion circular time, providing the framework for
mans activities in the fields and for his worship through the liturgical year.
Time was at the core of Church teaching and of medieval art, whether
expressed in creation sequences, by prophets with their scrolls proclaiming
the future, in the single capital of Adam and Eve beside a tree in Eden or
heaven and hell on the west walls of church buildings.
Chapters 4 and 5 deal with typology, the study of people and events
seen, in the light of the New Testament, to have been foreshadowings
of the Gospels and the Church. This, too, was concerned with time but
demanded a different way of thinking about it which provided seemingly
limitless and strained interpretations of specific Old Testament stories and
people. In presenting a message that something greater had arrived with
Christianity it was used sometimes to shame the Jewish position, though
in the New Testament it had started out as comparison to illustrate aspects
of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ. Typology was so important
in manuscript, liturgical and monumental art that it requires two chapters.
The first looks at the meaning of typology and explores the subject in more
detail than is usually offered in books on medieval art. It highlights the
importance of the verse in fine-tuning interpretation and considers a list
of Old Testament types with explanations, drawn up around the year 1200,
26 Introduction
Chapter 1
Precedent
When Gervase of Canterbury wrote his eye-witness account of the devastating fire at his cathedral in 1174, he likened it to the Fall of Jerusalem
and the grief of on-lookers to the Lamentations of Jeremiah.1 It was part
of a medieval sense of identity to find parallels to contemporary situations within the Scriptures, that is to make connections with a people
whose successes and disasters were familiar through liturgy, lectionaries and
detailed biblical study in the monasteries and schools. The Old Testament
not only contained a rich collection of human experiences, but allowed
comparisons to be made to the fortunes of those who had lived under the
protection or punishment of the God now worshipped in the Church. A
precedent was, simply, something that had happened before. When it was
acknowledged within this religious context it offered added dimensions and
gained enlarged perspectives. An echo of the present moment within the
books of Scripture linked contemporary events with those believed to have
taken place under divine control. There was a bond with the people who
had lived within the bounds of an earlier stage of sacred history, who had
struggled at times to make sense of their condition but who had eventually
come to realise an overall purpose in their varying fortunes. A modicum of
comfort might be found and raw emotion tempered through comparison
with their previous experiences.
Precedents also offered points of reference for actions undertaken by
the Church, such as the Crusades, or in conflicts relating to the balance of
power, such as those between bishop and monarch. Groups setting out on
the first Crusade took on the role of a people called to liberate the Holy
1
28
Chapter 1
Land as the Hebrews had conquered their Promised Land.2 Even when
their attempts foundered, the Old Testament still provided a comparison
used in the corporate prayers of Western Christianity: O God the heathen have come into thy inheritance (Psalm 78v.1).3 Inspiration came
from the pages of Scripture but also arguable justifications of the status
quo. Sayings or stories could be plucked from their original contexts and,
since the many centuries of Old Testament history contained changing
political and social circumstances, opposing attitudes attracting divine
approval might be found in the Scriptures. It was Samuel, the seer-priest,
who received divine instruction to make Saul king over the tribes of Israel
and Zadok the priest who anointed Solomon, a son of David, as king.
Solomon then exerted his authority as monarch in deposing the existing
High Priest in favour of Zadok.
Old Testament precedent, brought into the present, could also inject a
sense of authority or sanctity into its counterpart. When King Alfred began
his Law for the Anglo-Saxons he aligned it with the God-given commandments of the Hebrew covenant, The Lord spoke these words to Moses.
He was addressing a people who were presented in their vernacular poem
Exodus as having taken on the collective identity of the Hebrews.4 At the
consecration of one of Alfreds successors, King Edgar, the liturgy requested
that he might be strengthened with the faith of Abraham armed with
the fortitude of Joshua and beautified with the wisdom of Solomon.5 The
Anglo-Saxon king would not merely follow previous examples but would
absorb their qualities, as he responded to his divine calling and took on
the mantle of his biblical predecessors.
Later English monarchs seem to have been drawn to Joseph, whose
story of achievement of high office contained both personal appeal and
2
3
4
5
Precedent
29
precedents for leadership. Edward I had scenes from the Genesis saga
embroidered on a cape and Henry III decorated one of his palaces with
a series of paintings of Josephs life.6 It was not only this Old Testament
characters administrative abilities that made him a model ruler but also his
moral integrity. Appointed eventually by Pharaoh to oversee the distribution of food in Egypt, Joseph had also remained faithful to his God. His
adventures, sparked by intrigue and the jealousy of his brothers, ended in
the reward of high position, a reversal in fortune for the perpetrators of
his expected downfall and, finally, a reconciliation with his family through
which they all enjoyed prosperity (Genesis 3747). The wide appeal of the
Joseph saga accounts for its popularity in medieval art and many different
lessons could be extracted from the sequence of events. In a stained glass
window of the saga at Auxerre cathedral, Josephs rise to power is emphasised; in Bourges cathedral, a window of the same Genesis story highlights
the family relationships.
The Old Testament as precedent offers one of the most direct correspondences between image and scriptural text. This was because a verse
or story extracted to justify contemporary actions, or to serve as a model,
required no further explanation. Art itself was justified by reference to the
wilderness tabernacle and to the splendour of Solomons temple as well as
to certain Psalms which spoke of the beauty of the House of God. There
are exceptions. Occasionally a figure was adapted to suit a particular message: Gideon, the pre-monarchic Hebrew leader famed for his bravery in
overcoming the enemy, wears a crown in a window of the Sainte Chapelle,
Paris, which alters his original status. In the portrayal of Josephs story,
there is the possibility that elements of extra-biblical writings and scholarly
debate, discussed in the next chapter, might creep in. Generally, though,
medieval perceptions of Old Testament characters and situations serving
as precedents for contemporary society offer a straightforward introduction to the art.
Tancred Borenius, The Cycle of Images in the Palaces and Castles of Henry III,
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 4 (1943), 4050.
30
Chapter 1
7 Theophilus, On Divers Arts, translated John G. Hawthorne and Cyril S. Smith (New
York: Dover Publications, 1979), 7780.
Precedent
31
most valued among all created things, be laid out, with continual reverence and full
devotion, for the reception of the blood of Christ.8
32
Chapter 1
and decorated with repousse work of pomegranate and palm tree designs,
flowers and cherubim, its detail had been ordered by God (3(1) Kings
56). Huram, a craftsman from Tyre skilled in bronze and responsible for
the portable vessels used in temple rituals and for the bronze sea, was, like
Bezalel, filled with understanding and wisdom (3(1) Kings 7v.14). Biblical
accounts of Solomons projects provided specific examples for medieval art,
such as the font in Liege and the cherubim above the Ark ofthe Covenant at
Germigny-des-Prs mentioned in the Introduction. Descriptions of church
decoration in medieval writings often quoted the Hebrew Scriptures. An
eleventh-century chronicler, said to have reflected Anglo-Saxon tastes for
splendour endorsed by the Old Testament, wrote of a church in Wilton that
it was made of cedar and fir and decorated with palm trees and cherubim;
priests vestments were woven in two purple colours, scarlet and gold thread
and were set with the stones of the High Priests breastplate.12
Theophilus reminded his readers that King David, although he was
not himself permitted to build a permanent place of worship because of
the blood he shed, had, nonetheless, entrusted gold, silver, bronze and iron
to his son Solomon for such a project. In contemplating the earlier tabernacle of Moses, David was persuaded that God delights in the material
embellishment of His dwelling and had uttered the words, Lord, I have
loved the beauty of Thy house (Psalm 25v.8).13 The same sentiment was
expressed by a chronicler at Abingdon, claiming that the Anglo-Saxon
saint Aethelwold had the Psalmists words in mind when he enriched Gods
house with adornments.14 The Psalms offered other reflections which were
drawn on by medieval writers. A certain priest of Gandersheim, named
Eberhard, had heard reports that many churches were, like his own monastery, decorated most beautifully with hangings skilfully painted and shining
with the brilliance of lapis lazuli, silver and gold; there were incense and
lamps as well as singing and reading.15 He considered that the builders and
Charles R.Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art: A New Perspective (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1982), 33.
13 Theophilus, On Divers Arts, 77.
14 Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art, 32.
15 Frederick P. Pickering, Literature and Art in the Middle Ages (London: Macmillan,
1970), 1389.
12
Precedent
33
craftsmen, who provided such means of elevation for the human spirit, are
to be counted among the blessed as David indicated: How blessed are they
that dwell in thy house, O Lord (Psalm 83v.5).
It has often been said that church buildings with their colour and
imagery, even the picture frames in bands of imitation gems which appeared
in some of the earliest Christian art of fourth- and fifth-century Roman
mosaics, represented the heavenly Jerusalem.16 Old Testament expressions
of beauty had been transferred to the New where, in the Apocalypse, Saint
John the Divine was granted a vision of the celestial city of pure gold coming
down from heaven, its foundations made of precious stones and its gates
with pearls, reminiscent of Isaiahs vision of the future, earthly, Jerusalem
(Isaiah 54vv.12; Revelation 21). This adornment of sacred space, the
dwelling place of God, related to a future state, moved church decoration
on from precedent to the hope for a new heaven and new earth. It anticipated what was to come and elevated the viewer by inducing some kind of
mystical experience. Abbot Suger claimed that, When out of my delight
in the beauty of the house of God the loveliness of the many-coloured
gems has called me away from essential cares I can be transported from
this inferior to that higher world.17
Contemplation of his abbey church, including its wonderful cross
on the golden altar, which famously lifted him to this higher state beyond
the mundane, might have propelled him forward in time to the new gold
and jewelled Jerusalem described in the book of Revelation, descending
like a bride to meet her husband. Abbot Suger, however, looked back to
the Old Testament: Thou wast in the pleasures of the Paradise of God
[Eden]: every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, the topaz and
the jasper, the chrysolite, and the onyx, and the beryl, the sapphire, and
the carbuncle, and the emerald (Ezekiel 28v.13).18
Herbert L.Kessler, Seeing Medieval Art (Toronto: Broadview Press, 2004), 34.
Laurence H. Stooky, The Gothic Cathedral as Heavenly Jerusalem: Liturgical and
Theological Sources, in Gesta VIII/1 (1969), 3541.
17 Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St-Denis, 65.
18 Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St Denis, 65. Elizabeth Holt, A
Documentary History of Art, vol. 1, 30.
16
34
Chapter 1
Models of Behaviour
A panel in the first Bible of the Poor window of the north choir aisle in
Canterbury cathedral depicts Daniel, Job and Noah seated in a row, about
to be crowned by angels (front cover). These were Ezekiels three righteous
men, whose exemplary behaviour appears to have been legendary (Ezekiel
14v.14). Although Daniel, of the book of that name, lived some time after
Ezekiel and the text of Job was probably written later, in the Middle Ages
they were understood as the known Old Testament characters of those
names. Origen, the third-century scholar from Alexandria, had expanded
on their role as models in his sermons on Ezekiel:
19
Precedent
35
Just as the man Israel ( Jacob) begets the people of Israel, the nation, so Noah begets
Noah, those who follow the actions of Daniel become Daniel and those who imitate
the patience of Job become Job. In repeating their virtues the disciple identifies with
them: consider yourself if you did what Noah did you will become like Noah.20
Daniels story was set in the Babylonian and Persian empires. He had
been chosen with other exiles to serve in the royal court but refused to worship any king or god other than the Hebrew God, from whom he derived
his wisdom and the ability to interpret dreams. His imprisonment in the
lions den resulted from the jealousy of supervisors and governors who
feared that he would be elevated to a position above them. They forced
King Darius to keep his own temporary order that no one should petition any god or person except the king himself. The Latin version of the
biblical book includes a second episode of Daniel thrown to lions, after he
had exposed the trickery of the priests of Bel in making the Babylonians
believe that their idol was alive and thus a real god (Daniel 14). On this
occasion the prophet Habakkuk in Judaea, setting out with provisions for
some reapers, was diverted by an angel who grasped his hair and carried
him and the food to Daniel.
Job was an upright and God-fearing man, whose faithfulness was challenged through a series of calamities in which his children died, his many
possessions were destroyed and his body covered with sores. His wife and
friends who came to comfort him assumed that everything had happened
as a punishment from God and urged him to repent. Job maintained his
innocence, unimpressed both by their long discourses and by the view
that wealth was a reward for piety or impoverishment the consequence of
wrongdoing. Although he cursed the day of his birth and questioned God,
he never lost faith. Rather, he emerged from his experiences with a greater
awareness of divine power and wisdom, an acknowledgement of his own
limited understanding ( Job 42v.3) and was blessed with more children
and restored fortunes.
20 Origen, Homlies sur Ezchiel IV.4, translated Marcel Borret, sources chrtiennes
no.352 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1989), 173.
36
Chapter 1
Precedent
37
and witnessed to his perseverance.23 His feasting with family and friends,
after his ordeals, became a corresponding image in fifteenth-century books
to the ultimate triumph of the Christian soul gathered by God (Fig. 38).
Daniel was cited in early Christian funerary prayers which asked for
the soul of the deceased to be delivered, as he had been from the lions.24
In the catacomb art his example, that is a precedent of rescue as a reward
of faith, may already have been combined with allegorical interests. Lions,
who were thought to breathe on their stillborn young to give them life, were
considered to be representations of resurrection. In medieval art, other episodes from Daniels story, including his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzars
dream of a stone detaching itself from a mountain to destroy a statue with
clay feet and head and torso made of different metals, lent themselves to
allegory or were used as foreshadowings of events in the life of Christ.
Unlike Job, Daniel had not been absorbed into one of the virtues. Nonethe-less the general message he conveyed was a simple one, that faithfulness
and endurance would be rewarded (Fig. 6).
Noah and the ark, too, in Christian thought soon took on other meanings. Beside his role as a precedent for correct morality, Origen saw him
as a figure of Christ, the ark as the Church and the animals in the ark
as Christians saved by the Church.25 The unfolding Genesis story, however, with its warning of the consequences of wickedness for the whole of
humanity, as well as its interest in the natural world and explanation of
the rainbow, made it both immediate and a useful vehicle for presenting
the importance of good behaviour. In the Noah window in the north aisle
of Chartres cathedral, this upright mans response to God is contrasted
with the behaviour of giants on earth consorting with women.26 Noah
follows instructions to construct an ark, which floats on the water, while
Samuel Terrien, The Iconography of Job through the Centuries. Artists as Biblical
Interpreters (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 1996).
24 E.Mle, LArt religieux du douzime sicle en France (Paris: Armand Collin, 1940),49.
25 Origen: Homlies sur Gense II.3, translated Louis Doutreleau, sources chrtiennes
no.7 (Paris: Cerf ), 905.
26 Colette Manhes-Deremble, Les vitraux narratifs de la cathdrale de Chartres: tudes
iconographiques (Paris: Lopard dor, 1993), 1669, window 47.
23
38
Chapter 1
several of the stained glass panels illustrate evil people drowning. After his
family has disembarked with the animals and has begun to cultivate the
vine, another contrast between the righteous Noah and the consequence
of wrongdoing is highlighted when he sits in judgement cursing his son
Ham. Interestingly, the biblical episode which led to Hams condemnation
was omitted from the Chartres window, possibly because it placed Noah
himself in an unfavourable light. He had abused the fruit of the vine by
becoming drunk and lay naked in his tent. Ham, instead of covering his
father whom he saw in this undignified state, had gone to tell his brothers so that they too could mock him (Genesis 9vv.205). At the end of
the pictorial sequence at Chartres, the upright Noah and his wife kneel in
prayer beneath God and the rainbow (Fig. 7).
Fig. 6 Daniel in the Lions Den, Amiens Cathedral, west front, thirteenth century.
Photo: J.A. Kidd.
Precedent
39
Fig. 7 Noah and his Wife after the Flood, Chartres Cathedral, north aisle window,
detail, thirteenth century. Photo: Stuart Whatling, by kind permission.
40
Chapter 1
they appear at Canterbury and linked them to the parable of the Sower,
suggesting that Daniel brought forth a hundred-, Job sixty- and Noah
thirty-fold.28 Through commentary they also accrued collective meanings
as different groups of Christians: Noah was a model for the rulers of the
Church since he had steered the ark during the flood, Daniel could inspire
those living chaste and devout lives because he had served God in celibacy,
while Job represented those concerned with family and earthly duties.29 The
iconography has moved away from Old Testament example untouched by
the explanations of scholarship and from the directness of precedent, but
the three men, crowned for their virtue, have retained and extended their
role as representatives of good lives. They would have been recognised by
the pilgrims who flocked to Canterbury, even though Augustines rather
remote exegesis would have been known only to the programme makers.
In their present arrangement, a panel from a window in the North East
transept depicting the three virtuous states of virginity, continence and
marriage, is set above them.
Another figure who inspired the medieval world was Joseph. He
had also been the victim of personal circumstances, had displayed moral
rectitude and was, like Daniel, finally rewarded for his loyalty to God
with political power in a foreign country. Whereas there were other Old
Testament characters acclaimed for their faith and deeds whose fame lay
in specific and proactive feats of bravery which turned adverse situations
around, Josephs story, with its domestic setting and focus on relationships,
offered models to which individuals could relate. Gideon, Esther and Judith,
whose heroic actions were told in the stone vaulting of the north porch of
Chartres cathedral and in the windows of the Sainte Chapelle, Paris, had
been national heroes. Gideon had defeated the Midianite enemy at the time
of the settlement in the Promised Land ( Judges 68); Esther had dared to
ask her husband the Persian king for favours for the Hebrew people when
there were plots to destroy them; Judith had entered the Assyrian camp to
28 Augustine, Quaestiones Evangeliorum I.12, ed., Almut Mutzenbecher (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1980), 14.
29 Berthold Kress, Noah, Daniel and Job The Three Righteous Men of Ezekiel 14.14
in Medieval Art, JWCI LXVII (2004), 25967.
Precedent
41
decapitate its commander, Holofernes. Joseph was son, brother, exile, the
man of authority who had a score to settle but who was able to help his
family when their fortunes changed for the worse. Many precedents were
set in the long saga beginning in Genesis 37. Although his mistreatment
came to be interpreted as a foreshadowing of the betrayal of Christ and his
elevation to the royal chariot as anticipating Christs Ascension, his story
offered scope for the preacher, reader or viewer to distinguish among its
characters different motives and consequences. Sequences of the Joseph
chapters in art were able to emphasise different aspects of the narrative to
suit their various purposes.
Joseph was the son of Rachel and Jacob, favoured by his father because
he was a son of his old age and child of the wife he had worked for fourteen years to marry. His brothers anger had been kindled when he related
dreams of sheaves of corn and of stars, the sun and moon, bowing down
to him, suggesting that his family would somehow come to respect his
superiority. They were also jealous of Jacobs gift to him of a coat of many
colours. When Joseph was sent to visit his brothers tending the flocks,
they saw the dreamer coming and conspired to kill him. Instead, they
threw him into a pit, sold him to Ishmaelite traders for twenty pieces of
silver, dipped his robe in goats blood and returned home claiming that
their brother had been savaged by a wild animal. Joseph was taken to Egypt
where he was sold on to a royal official, Potiphar, whose wife later accused
him of attempting to rape her and he was jailed. After interpreting dreams
of the palace butler and baker in prison he eventually came to the kings
notice and, having explained Pharaohs dreams of cows and wheat, was
put in charge of storing corn during the seven years of good harvests for
use during the seven years of famine. He became governor of Egypt, was
given a ring engraved with the royal seal, a gold chain and a robe of silk
according to the Latin version of Genesis and rode in Pharaohs second
chariot (Genesis 41vv.423). The rest of the saga relates in great detail how
Josephs brothers came to Egypt to buy corn, bringing Jacob with them on
their final visit, after which they settled in the north of the country. Several
generations later, when a new Pharaoh who did not know Joseph came
to the throne, these people who were his descendants living near the Nile
delta were considered to pose a threat and were made slaves (Exodus 1).
42
Chapter 1
Precedent
Fig. 8 Joseph receives Benjamin into his Palace, Bourges Cathedral, ambulatory
window, detail, thirteenth century. Photo: Stuart Whatling, by kind permission.
Fig. 9 Joseph rides in his Chariot, Auxerre Cathedral, ambulatory window, detail,
thirteenth century. Photo: Stuart Whatling, by kind permission.
43
44
Chapter 1
Madeline H.Caviness, Biblical Stories in Windows: Were they Bibles for the Poor?
in Paintings on Glass. Studies in Romanesque and Gothic Monumental Art (Aldershot:
Variorum, 1997), XIII, 1467.
Meyer Schapiro, The Joseph Scenes on the Maximianus Throne in Ravenna (1952),
in Late Antique, Early Christian and Medieval Art; Selected Papers, vol. 3 (London:
Chatto and Windus, 1980), 3447.
Precedent
45
Authority
Charlemagne wished to create a new Roman Empire. He adopted the title
of Emperor and made his capital at Aachen into a new Rome through its
architecture and by copying, or bringing north, secular and religious art
from the imperial city. He had seen in the Scriptures, however, the norm,
authority and model for which superiors should act towards their subjects and subjects towards their superiors.35 His friends were encouraged
to call him David, after the Old Testament king. When his son Louis the
Pious was consecrated at Rheims in 816, the liturgy, pronounced by Pope
Stephen IV, continued this biblical theme: Blessed be the Lord, who has
granted us to see the second David.36
33 Marie-Dominique Gauthier-Walter, Joseph, figure idale du roi?, Cahiers
archologiques 38 (1990), 2535.
34 Schapiro, The Joseph Scenes, 36.
35 Walter Ullmann, The Carolingian Renaissance and the Idea of Kingship (London;
Methuen, 1969), 17.
36 Ullmann, The Carolingian Renaissance, 73.
46
Chapter 1
Precedent
47
48
Chapter 1
Precedent
49
never aspired to such a role. Moses, Gideon and Joshua sometimes wear
crowns but were never made kings because they led the Hebrews to victory
in the pre-monarchic period of the Old Testament. Gideon had actually
refused to accept an offer of kingship, claiming that God alone would be
ruler ( Judges 8vv.223). Diminution of priestly function at the Sainte
Chapelle, together with the more favoured acclamations of leaders by the
Hebrew people and elevation of certain biblical figures to kingship, have
been linked to Coronation ritual in thirteenth-century France, in which the
king was welcomed by twelve peers ofthe realm.45 Although six of these did
come from the Church there was nonetheless a sense of direct relationship
between populace and king. Although the crowns of Moses, Gideon and
Joshua may metaphorically signify their leadership in the place dedicated
to Christs crown of thorns and although in Jewish legend Moses was given
a crown, a defining of the spiritual ancestors of the contemporary French
monarchy has caused Old Testament precedent to be visually compromised.
***
Even though the Old Testament was so fundamental to the outlook of
the Middle Ages, there were those who cautioned against an unfettered
use of precedent. Simply plucking an episode from the Old Testament
did not necessarily constitute proof of the validity of a particular stance.
In controversies between Church and state, for example, both sides could
appeal to the Scriptures. In the eleventh century a certain Wenrich ofTrier
in Germany, who was hostile to the reforms of Pope Gregory VII and to
his assertion of papal supremacy over secular rulers, had pointed out that
King Solomon deposed the priest Abiathar for one of his own choosing,
Zadok. Criticism of this example from the opposing camp claimed that
Solomon was not exercising his own, royal, authority over the priesthood
but was, rather, bringing about Gods earlier curse on the priestly line of
Eli (3[1]Kings 2v.27).46
45 Jordan, Visualising Kingship, 27.
46 Ian S. Robinson, The Bible in the Investiture Contest: The South German Gregorian
Circle, in The Bible in the Medieval World: Essays in Memory of Beryl Smalley eds,
Katherine Walsh and Diana Wood, Ecclesiastical History Society 4 (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1985), 812.
50
Chapter 1
There were also those who felt ill at ease with Church customs or
debates based on ancient rites which might be seen as reversions to Jewish
practice and unnecessary attempts at Judaising. An appeal to precedent
had the potential to move the Church backwards, to deny history and to
force its rituals to degenerate into acceptance of an obsolete paradigm. The
attaching of bells to the hems of priests garments simply because it was
an Old Testament practice may have been one such example of a regressive step.47 Precedent at its worst could make an absolute of a model that
had been an ephemeral part of a long literary and historical development.
However, it was the authority of the Old Testament that generally prevailed. A professor of Canon Law in Italy, William Durandus, compiling
his work on practice and symbolism in churches at the time when Rheims
cathedral was being built, berated those who were reluctant to accept the
import of the Hebrew Scriptures. He found that the anointing of religious
and temporal princes both derived their origins from the Old Testament:
in Leviticus the High Priest was distinguished by having had the oil of
unction poured on his head (Leviticus 21v.10) and Samuel had turned
the horn of oil over Davids head to anoint him king (1 Kings [1 Samuel]
16). Following earlier thought, he believed that the sacred unction was a
sacrament.48 The Church, Durandus claimed, doth not Judaize when she
observeth the unctions in her sacraments, as some old writers, who know
neither the Scriptures nor the power of God do falsely say.49 Precedent did
not involve regression to a former, out-of-date, custom but rather supplied
a divinely sanctioned model to be re-applied when circumstances required.
This approach had also been taken by Theophilus. He had cited the
wilderness example of Bezalel and the beauty of Solomons temple, but he
encouraged his protges to make containers for the bones of Christian
saints and censers which replicated a vision of the new Jerusalem.50 Abbot
47 Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art, 32.
48 Ullmann, The Carolingian Renaissance, 74.
49 William (Guillaume) Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum, Book 1, translated John M. Neale and Benjamin Webb as The Symbolism of Churches and Church
Ornaments (Leeds: T.W.Green, 1843) 172, 175.
50 Theophilus, On Divers Arts, 80, 132.
Precedent
51
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situations for those whose world view was ordered and framed by the
Bible. When the twelfth-century chronicler Orderic Vitalis recorded in his
memoir how he had been sent to Normandy at the age of ten, knowing no
one, his thoughts seem to have turned automatically to the Old Testament
boy who had also found himself in a foreign land: Like Joseph in Egypt,
he wrote, I heard a language that I did not understand.52
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Kirk Ambrose, A Visual Pun at Vzelay: Gesture and Meaning on a Capital representing the Fall of Man, Traditio 55 (2000), 10523.
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Virgin Mary, virgo Maria: she actually forms the stem of the tree of Jesse
in the Lambeth Bible frontispiece to Isaiah 9 (Fig. 25).2
In addition to the Latin Bible which served as the standard text for
traditional approaches to exegesis within the four broad categories of history, allegory, spiritual and ethical meaning, there had been other, vernacular, versions of some of the canonical books since the eighth century
in England. These incorporated non-biblical teaching and sometimes
made the characters more immediate. The so-called Caedmon Genesis, for
instance, copied and illustrated in an eleventh-century manuscript now
in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, describes in its account of creation
what had become the doctrine of a fall of rebel angels; it makes the men
of Sodom ale-drinkers and Tubal-Cain, who in Genesis was the founder
of metalwork, the first ploughman.3 It is possible that the English work
Solomon and Saturn reflected an Anglo-Saxon linguistic link which made
the murder weapon used by Cain to kill Abel a jawbone: the word cinban
(jawbone) may have been suggested by a combination of the name Cain and
bana, slayer.4 Several centuries later, in the East window of York Minster,
a long bone with prominent teeth is the instrument wielded by Cain as
he attacks his brother.
Christianity had long adopted the Jewish practice of expanding biblical
stories, filling in gaps by way of explanation or making the accounts more
vivid. Many Old Testament passages left questions unanswered. How did
Jacob and his sons know that there was corn in Egypt during the famine?
What happened to Adam and Eve immediately after their departure from
Paradise? Sequels grew up, sometimes absorbing rabbinic tales, inventing
characters such as the fool at King Solomons court or speculating on
untold aspects of the lives of biblical persons. One writing known to the
Middle Ages imagined events leading to the marriage of Joseph to Asenath,
2
3
4
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who is merely a name in the Genesis saga. The Old Testament itself was
not only the foundation for an enormous corpus of scholarly interpretation, a provider of good stories which could assume modern dress but also
a stimulus to the imagination which extended its narratives into detailed
and colourful tales and sometimes, from these, into art.
Scholarship
Search for meaning through the word had inevitably to accommodate
different translations of biblical texts. The books of the Old Testament
which were originally written in Hebrew were the Jewish Scriptures. During
the third century BCE they were translated into Greek, a task traditionally
accomplished by seventy or seventy two elders which gave them the name
Septuagint, the Latin for seventy. Incorporated into this body of literature
over the next century or so were other Greek writings, such as the books of
Maccabees, that provided an expanded version ofthe Old Testament which
was accepted by the Christian Church but not in Judaism. Christianity
emerged when Greek was still the cultural language of the Mediterranean
world and this was the medium in which the New Testament was written.
During the latter part of the second century, however, Latin was becoming
the spoken word of the church in Rome, where the organisation of Western
Christendom was increasingly focused. At the same time Tertullian, a
Christian scholar in North Africa, indicated that Latin was now the only
language used there in the churches.
Various translations of the biblical books had already been made into
Latin. Their diversity through North Africa and Europe gave rise to the
need for a standard text which could provide a recognisable and unifying
basis for preachers and scholars. Towards the end of the fourth century the
papal librarian Jerome, at the request of Pope Damasus, undertook the task
of producing such a Bible. After a short time he left for Bethlehem where
he furthered his studies, continued his translations and wrote in a cave that
was to feature in many later depictions of him at work. He consulted Greek
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texts alongside the Old Latin versions, learnt Hebrew and created what
became the common Bible of the Western Church, in its now common
language of Latin, the Vulgate. The frontispiece to a Carolingian Bible
produced in Tours illustrates, in pictorial narrative, with explanatory lines
below each scene, Jerome departing in a boat for Bethlehem, dictating his
learning to scribes and distributing copies of his translations to tonsured
monks (Fig. 10).5
Fig. 10 Jerome translates the Vulgate, Paris, Bibliothque nationale, MS. latin 1, fol. 3v,
ninth century. Photo: Warburg Institute.
5
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This Vulgate was essentially the Bible of the Middle Ages, though subject in the Carolingian era and at later stages to textual revisions which corrected errors that had been made in its transmission. Jerome had included
the later Greek writings as well as the Septuagint numbering of Psalms
which counted the Hebrew 9 and 10 as one unit, thus making the Vulgate
system for subsequent psalms, up to 148, one number below those of the
Hebrew Scriptures. The Roman Catholic Church still recognises the
Vulgate as the correct canon of Scripture, whereas Protestant reformers
were to accept the authority of the Hebrew texts of the Old Testament,
question the validity of the additional Greek writings and sideline them
into the Apocrypha. Medieval art took its biblical imagery from the longer
version of the Old Testament, to which belong the stories of blind Tobit,
Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes and the prophet Habakkuk
miraculously bringing food to Daniel in the lions den.
Manuscripts of the Bible in the Middle Ages, or of partial sections such
as the Psalms or Gospels, often contained prefaces to the books. These had
been written by Jerome, either specifically as prologues or as explanatory
information in letters to individuals and were deemed significant enough
to be copied in the medieval scriptoria. The twelfth-century ceremonial
Bible in Winchester cathedral library, for example, opens with Jeromes
letter to Paulinus of Nola advising him to seek guidance when studying
the Scriptures, so that its mysteries would become clear; his letter to Pope
Desiderius serves as a prologue to the whole of the Old Testament. Initials
to these writings were treated in the same way as those which opened the
sacred texts themselves, painted and historiated, that is containing figures and scenes.6 Copies of the Vulgate used in the medieval schools also
included written explanation for each verse. These glosses, inserted into
the margins or between the lines of the biblical texts, were extracted from
scholarly commentary. They incorporated teachings based largely on the
writings of the Latin Fathers: Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome and Gregory.
Ambrose had been consecrated bishop of Milan in 374; Augustine, a pagan
convert baptised by Ambrose, who became bishop of Hippo in North
6
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Africa and died in 430, is perhaps the theologian most widely quoted
by art historians. Jerome himself, who had left Rome in 384, died in the
Holy Land in 420 and Pope Gregory the Great, the pontiff who had sent
missionaries from Rome to Kent at the end of the sixth century, died in
604. Their prolific works came to form a classic repertoire of authoritative
writings, copied and discussed by later scholars, which formed the basis of
a standard system of glosses known as the Glossa Ordinaria.7
These interpretations of the Vulgate text were as vital to medieval
study as the Scriptures themselves and had far-reaching consequences for
art. On the one hand their details enriched understanding of the biblical
literature, on the other they could blur distinction between Bible and
commentary so that the image often resulted from an amalgamation of
the translated Word of God with words of exposition. Emile Mle, one
of the key pioneers of medieval iconography, who frequently quoted the
Glossa alongside fuller works when interpreting the art, claimed that it
bewitched the Middle Ages.8 Leaving aside discussion of the date of its
final form and identity of its compilers, it is well attested in the twelfthcentury schools, where it provided a summary and quick reference to centuries of Christian scholarship. It was the norm to follow this traditional
teaching as an integral part of learning, alongside the Scriptures, at the
time when the Church was conveying its message increasingly in visual and
public form. The medieval artist did not stand, so to speak, with his tool
in one hand and a copy of the Old Testament in the other, any more than
the student of the Bible looked to the Vulgate texts and disregarded the
revered learning that lay between their origin and his own understanding.
A perusal of the interlinear comments of the Glossa indicates how certain
figures in art have come to be associated with particular meanings and
why interpretation of Old Testament imagery is not always obvious from
reading the biblical text alone.
7
8
Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1952), 4666. J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus Series Latina, vols. 11314
(Parisiis: Garnier Fratres, 1879).
Emile Mle, The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France in the Thirteenth Century,
translated Dora Nussey (New York: Harper, 1958), 138.
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Sancti Isidori, Hispalensis episcope, opera omnia Etymologies Patrologia Latina 82.
74728 (185062).
Emile Mle, The Gothic Image, 236.
Herrad, of Landsberg, Abbess of Hohenbourg, Hortus Deliciarum, eds, Rosalie
Green, Michael Evans, Christine Bischoff and Michael Curschmann, 2 vols (London:
Warburg Institute, 1979).
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61
understand its significance. Herrads image and words help to explain the
positions of these personifications of the Church and the Jews not only
for the immediate context but for their appearance throughout medieval
art beside the cross.
The above remarks are not to suggest that each individual example of
medieval art was dependent on a direct correspondence with works such
as the Glossa, a detectable commentary or sermon, or on a compendium
of teaching. Once established, the image could take on a life of its own,
having been swept into a general visual vocabulary in which the origin of
the iconography may have been forgotten. When Augustine, Gregory or
other Church Fathers and later scholars are quoted in relation to a work
of art, it is not an indication that the cited text lay immediately behind the
picture; rather it suggests that these writers introduced or perpetuated ideas
which became part of the vast hinterland of biblical interpretation from
which the image emerged. A loosening of ties between attribute and its literary starting point, however, can lead to anachronisms. Where Moses with
horns meets the God of his ancestors in the burning bush (Exodus 3), the
episode from his later life, in a subsequent chapter of the book of Exodus
which was to give him this attribute, has intruded into the picture. In the
Salisbury Chapter House frieze of the sequence of events from Genesis
and Exodus, for instance, in scenes of the burning bush, the crossing of
the Red Sea, the striking of the rock to find water in the wilderness and
the giving of the Ten Commandments, Moses is horned. Biblical text and
scholarship, or what may be understood as the collective learning behind
the image, has produced a visual convention in which the horns identify
Moses in any context.
Moses with Horns
A list of pictorial features dependent on Old Testament words and verses
would not by itself indicate the complexities behind the journey of an
image. The horns of Moses offer a well-attested and interesting example of
a widely used feature acquired by a biblical person, developed from translation and exegesis, which took on its own visual history. Extant images
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63
64
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65
light (Fig. 11). These visual tokens of illumination have moved away from the
literary sources which gave them their original meaning, but they still carry
the sense of leadership and enlightenment as Moses, the Old Testament
Law-giver, now directs his attention and that of Synagogue towards the
figure of Ecclesia.
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Story
There had been a long standing practice of presenting parts of the Biblical
literature in a form other than that of direct translation. Gregory of Tours
in his History of the Franks tells how a priest named Juvencus rewrote the
Gospels in verse, at the request ofthe Emperor Constantine himself.26 Later,
at the end of the fifth century, the Bishop of Vienne wrote six books in verse
on the creation of the world and other cognate subjects.27 In his History of
the English Church, Bede recorded how a former cowherd was so adept at
composing religious songs that he could quickly turn whatever passages
of Scripture were explained to him into delightful and moving poetry in
his own English tongue.28 This was Caedmon who, embarrassed as his
turn approached to entertain his fellow revellers, escaped a social gathering
only to have a dream of a man asking him to sing. After some hesitation he
agreed. Inspired verses flowed from him as he made delightful renderings
of creation and the origin of the human race, the whole story of Genesis
into Exodus and entry of the Hebrews to the Promised Land, many other
Old Testament events and on into the new era to the Last Judgement.
Learned men would explain a section of Scripture to him then leave him to
ruminate on it, like an animal chewing the cud. Next morning his instructors became his admiring audience as he recited his vernacular poetry to
them. That ruminating possibly referred to the formal meditation on the
Bible practised in monasteries, since Caedmon had entered the abbey at
Whitby after his talent had become known.29 Bede, though, emphasised
that his gift was unique, given directly from God.
26 Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks I.36, translated Lewis Thorpe
(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974), 91.
27 Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks II.34, 149.
28 Bede, A History of the English Church and People Book 4.24, translated L.ShirleyPrice (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965), 245.
29 Paul G.Remley, Old English Biblical Verse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), 40.
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Andrew Orchard, Conspicuous Heroism: Abraham, Prudentius and the Old English
Verse Genesis, in R.M.Liuzza, ed., The Poems of MS. Junius 11 (New York: Routledge,
2002), 11936.
31 Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, cat. no. 58.
32 George Henderson, Sources of the Genesis Cycle at St-Savin-sur-Gartempe, Journal
of the British Archaeological Association, 3rd series XXVI (1963), 1126.
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dissipating the darkness and obscurities of the Old Testament, glows with
lightning flashes of truth and shining sparks of allegory.33 Peter wrote in
Latin, his work condensed the Vulgate text and included extensions to the
biblical story or lines of interpretation.
He told the tale of Lamech, the hunter who became blind, for example, who, led by a boy glimpsing a movement in a bush which he thought
was caused by a wild animal, directed the old man to shoot an arrow at
the spot. The victim turned out to be Cain, thus Lamech had killed his
ancestor. This story was probably based on a Jewish tale.34 It had grown
up around the difficult verses in Genesis where Lamech, telling his wives
that he had killed a man, referred to a previous pronouncement of the
seven-fold vengeance that would descend on anyone who murdered Cain.
Lamech warned that if anyone now killed him, revenge for his death would
be seventy times seven (Genesis 4vv.15, 234). In the Glossa, the story had
been overlaid with Christian interpretation in which a connection with
the Gospel of Lukes seventy generations from God and Adam to Christ
was woven into an explanation of the time that humanity had waited for
redemption.35 Lamech with bow and arrow had already appeared on the
Modena cathedral frieze and on a capital at Autun cathedral where his arm
is supported by a boy, but the episode seems to have become more frequent
in art from the thirteenth century. Although this story was circulating in
slightly different versions before Peter Riga, verse Bibles such as Aurora,
together with compilations of history, story and commentary such as Peter
Comestors School History, the Historia Scholastica, made it more widely
known and possibly contributed to its increasing popularity in art.
Another tale which seems to have been of rabbinic origin grew up
around the biblical statement that during seven years of predicted plenty
in Egypt there was such an abundance of wheat that it was equal to the
Peter Riga, Aurora: Petri Rigae Biblia Versificata: a verse commentary on the Bible, 2
vols, ed. Paul E.Beichner (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press, 1965), Introduction,
xvi.
34 Brian Murdoch, The Medieval Popular Bible: Expansions of Genesis in the Middle
Ages (Cambridge: D.S.Brewer, 2003), 725.
35 Glossa, Patrologia Latina, 113.101.
33
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69
Madeline Caviness, Biblical Stories in Windows. Were they Bibles for the Poor? in
Paintings on Glass. Studies in Romanesque and Gothic Monumental Art (Aldershot:
Variorum, 1997), XIII, 142.
Pamela Blum, The Middle English Romance Iacob and Iosep in the Joseph Cycle
of the Salisbury Cathedral Chapter House, Gesta 8/1 (1969), 1834.
Jane W.Williams, Bread, Wine and Money (Chicago: Chicago University Press,
1993), 132.
Marie-Dominique Gautier-Walter, Lhistoire de Joseph (Bern: Peter Lang, 2003), 299.
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40 Angelo Rappoport, Myth and Legend ofAncient Israel (London: Gresham Publishing,
1928), vol. 3, 16376.
41 Donald Beecher, ed., The Dialogue of Solomon and Marcolphus (Ottawa: Dovehouse
Editions, 1995). Jan M.Ziolkowski, Solomon and Marcolf (Harvard: Harvard
University Press, 2008).
42 Robert J.Menner, Poetic Dialogues ofSolomon and Saturn (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1941), 26.
43 Andr Chastel, Trsors de la poesie mdieval (Paris: Le club franais du livre, 1959),
6417.
44 Michael Camille, The Image on the Edge: the Margins of Medieval Art (London:
Reaktion Books, 1992), 268.
45 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 366, fol. 72r.
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73
with their first child Cain, God sends the angel Michael with some seeds to
show Adam how to till the soil and to grow food.49 In the Old Testament
frieze formerly on the west front of Lincoln cathedral, a bearded Adam
with a younger man work the ground with spade and hatchet respectively;
a hand in the top right of the frame holds out a bag. Cain was a tiller of
the soil according to Genesis. At Lincoln the scene appears to depict both
Adam and his son engaged in the punishment for the Fall, but encouraged
by the invisible Michael whose hand extends towards him.50 Adam himself
holds the bag of seeds in the equivalent scene of the Caedmon manuscript.
In the illustrated Aelfric version of the first books of the Old Testament
the angel teaches Adam how to dig, as he does on the twelfth-century font
in All Saints Church, East Meon, Hampshire (Fig. 13).
Fig. 13 Adam and Eve outside Eden, All Saints church, East Meon, Hampshire,
font, twelfth century. Photo: J.A. Kidd.
49 M.D.Johnson, The Life of Adam and Eve, in The Old Testament Pseudepigraha, vol.
2, 25895. Gary A. Anderson and Michael E. Stone, A Synopsis of the Books of Adam
and Eve, 2nd edn (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999).
50 George Zarnecki, Romanesque Lincoln: The Sculptures of the Cathedral (Lincoln:
Honywood, 1988), 456.
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An unusual sequence of Adam and Eve on the west wall of the chancel in St Botolphs church Hardham, West Sussex, appears to show them
standing in water, heaped up in wavy lines to cover the lower part of their
bodies. Outside Eden, they decided, according to the Life, to do penance
by standing in a river, Eve for thirty-seven days in the Tigris, Adam for
forty days in the Jordan. Adam addressed the water of his river, asking it
to gather its creatures around him to mourn for his sin; it then stopped
flowing. There is a possible parallel to the image on the nave side of the
chancel arch at Hardham, which depicts Christ standing in the heaped-up
water of the Jordan as he is baptised by John the Baptist.
Other correspondences between these paintings and the Life of Adam
and Eve are perhaps more tentative than the water scene but nonetheless fit
with the story. The painted version of the serpent who tempts Adam and
Eve in Paradise has prominent teeth, ears and wings (Plate 2). According
to the Life, its punishment was to lose its wings and ears; its teeth were
implied in its biting of Seth, the son born to Adam and Eve after Abels
murder, when he and his mother approached the gates of Paradise after
Adams death. In the story, too, the first humans had had to search for their
food and eat only such as animals eat. The very unusual depiction of Eve
milking an animal on the right side of the inner chancel wall at Hardham
may possibly be an interpretation of the work required by the first humans
for their own nourishment, now that they were no longer entitled to the
food of angels outside the Garden of Eden.
Many stories had grown up around the figure of Adam and the
redemption of humanity. Sometimes in art he crouches at the foot of
the cross. In the north aisle Redemption window at Chartres cathedral
he holds a bowl beneath the crucified Christ to catch his blood (Fig. 14).
One tradition held that Noah took Adams body from its cave into the ark
at the time of the flood and that it was eventually brought to Jerusalem,
where the cross was set up above it so that Christs blood would flow onto
the burial place.51 Another variation on the theme spoke of Adam being
51
E.A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Cave of Treasures (London: The Religious Tract
Society, 1927), 35.
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given a glimpse of the future Crucifixion when he saw blood flowing from
Christs side and learnt that, through this blood, life would be restored
to him.52
Fig. 14 Adam catches the Blood from Christ on the Cross, Chartres Cathedral,
Redemption window, north aisle, detail (modern glass). Photo: Stuart Whatling,
by kind permission.
In the Greek version of the Life ofAdam and Eve, Adam and mankind
had been promised a resurrection. A common image in Christian iconography from the eleventh century onwards is that of Christ leading the first
humans, with others who had died before the New Testament era, from the
jaws of Hades. This Harrowing of Hell, in which a striding Saviour carrying a cross pulls Adam to safety, was carved on the twelfth-century font at
Saint Mary Magdalenes church in Eardisley, Herefordshire, to link redemption to the new life entered through baptism (Fig. 15). Adams release was
described more fully in a non-biblical New Testament apocryphal writing,
52 Budge, The Book of the Cave of Treasures, 231.
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the Acts of Pilate, probably dating from the fourth century, in which the
Lord stretched forth his hand and made the sign ofthe cross over Adam and
over all his saints, and he took the right hand of Adam and went up out of
hell, and all the saints followed him.53 In this text, Old Testament prophets
cry out words from their oracles which had anticipated salvation. When
the righteous are led by the angel Michael to Paradise, they are greeted by
the two Old Testament people who had not died, Enoch and Elijah.
Fig. 15 Christ rescues Adam from Hell, St Mary Magdalene church, Eardisley,
Herefordshire, font, twelfth century. Photo: J.A. Kidd.
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Already in the sixth-century Vienna Genesis a woman was depicted standing beside the prison where Joseph was incarcerated; she is possibly the
temptress who followed him when he was in fetters and sent messages
that, if he acquiesced in fulfilling her desire, she would have him freed.54
Josephs marriage to Asenath appears in the Sainte Chapelle windows. In
the north porch at Chartres cathedral two column figures in the right bay
have been identified as Joseph and Asenath.55 He was sculpted holding a
sceptre, wearing a diadem rather than a crown and standing above a basilisk that whispers into the ear of a boy. Beside him is a female companion,
with scroll but no other extant attribute, standing above a dog (Fig. 16).
This designation of the Chartres statues as Joseph and Asenath has
been questioned and is no longer fashionable.56 There remain points in its
favour, however. The man, with his sceptre, is a ruler though not a king, a
description of Joseph that accords with the book of Genesis. The creature
on which he stands, a basilisk, was in the Book of Proverbs a spreader of
poison and in the Bestiaries the chief of serpents, representing the devil, the
head of all sin, tempting those who would listen to break codes of morality.57 In Genesis, Joseph had repelled the advances of Potiphars wife; in the
story of Joseph and Asenath his moral rectitude was constantly emphasised,
including his rejection of the gifts sent by other women who had succumbed to his beauty.58 The dog sculpture beneath the womans feet may
refer to Asenaths conversion. She was a foreigner who, coming to recognise
Josephs God, not only threw her gold and silver idols out of the window
to beggars in the street below and her food to strange dogs, but would not
allow her own guard or pet dogs to be tainted by eating meat which had
54 Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, MS. Vindob. theol.gr.31, p.33. Howard C. Kee, The
Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1,
821. Katrin Kogman-Appel, Bible Illustration and the Jewish Tradition, in John
Williams, ed., Imaging the Early Medieval Bible (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1999), 6196.
55 Gautier-Walter, Joseph, figure idale du roi?, Cahiers archologiques 38 (1990) 2535.
56 Anne Prache et Edouard Fievet, Le portail de la Sagesse (Paris: Mame, 1994).
57 Marianne Sammer, Der Basilisk (Munich: Literatur in Bayern, 1998) 45. Proverbs
23v.32.
58 C. Burchard, Joseph and Asenath, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2, 20247.
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been offered in sacrifice to her statues. Further, this woman in the Chartres
north porch faces the Queen of Sheba, a better-known representative of
gentile nations, who acknowledged the Hebrew God when she witnessed
the wisdom and wealth given to Solomon (1(3) Kings 10v. 9). Her arrival at
Solomons court became a popular Old Testament prefiguring of the Wise
Men from the East coming to Jerusalem to find the Christ. In the extrabiblical Joseph story, not only does Asenath convert but her parents also
praise the God who gives life to the dead as they eat, drink and celebrate.
The Pharaoh of Egypt, too, blesses the bride and groom in the name of
the Lord God the Most High.
Fig. 16 Joseph, Asenath and unidentified figure on the left, Chartres Cathedral,
north porch, thirteenth century. Photo: J.A. Kidd.
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Drama
Drama provided another channel for a merging of biblical text with additional story. Here beside the words to be spoken there were also rubrics,
with their potential bonus for iconography of details of staging, costume
and props. A case has been made for the late medieval stained glass serpent in St Neots church in Cornwall, with its masculine head and evident
human body in a snake costume, to have derived from the Cornish play
of Creation.59 In the drama, Eve addresses the serpent as Sir. He is really
Lucifer, the devil, costuming himself in the body of a serpent to tempt Eve
as he struggles on stage to don the snake attire which allows him to retain
moveable arms and legs and to strut about. Other examples of Adam and
Eve imaging drama or its rubrics might be cited. In a wall painting now
in the Episcopal museum at Vic, Spain, they carry agricultural tools; in
Wiligelmos frieze on Modena cathedral in northern Italy they both till
the ground. These may reflect similar sources to the directions in a twelfthcentury play, now known only in Norman French, that instructed Adam
and Eve outside Paradise to pick up a spade and rake respectively.60
This Play of Adam, with Latin liturgical quotations punctuating the
Norman French text, translated into English from the single extant copy
in Tours, was to be performed in the open area in front of a church or
cathedral. After a reading from Genesis, Adam was reminded of his and
Eves origins and was shown Paradise by Figura, the character representing
God, who warned them about the forbidden fruit. The devil approached
Adam, but being unsuccessful in tempting him to eat turned to Eve, who
put her ear towards the imitation snake in the tree to listen to its advice.
Both humans tasted the apple, realised their fault and somehow, out of
sight of the audience, changed their festive garments for worn ones sewn
with fig leaves. Figura, now wearing a stole, re-entered to reprimand them
and to chase them from Paradise before he returned towards the church.
59 Evelyn S. Newlyn, The Stained and Painted Glass of St Neots Church and the
Staging of the Middle Cornish Drama, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies
XXIV/1 (1994), 89111.
60 Carl J. Odenkirchen, The Play of Adam (Brookline, MA: Classical Folio Editions,
1976), 100.
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Adam collected his spade, Eve her rake, then they sat at a distance, tired
from their work, beating their breasts. With smoke rising from hell, pans
clashing and demons running about in all directions, the devil re-appeared
to chain them. Into the biblical account of the Fall have been woven later
Christian teachings that the serpent was the devil, presiding over his helpers in a fiery realm and that the fruit was an apple.
Precise instructions were given in the play about scenery. Paradise was
to be set on a higher level, with curtains and silk panels placed around at
such height as to allow the actors to be visible only from the shoulders
upwards. Fragrant flowers were to be intertwined with foliage and different
varieties of trees were to have fruit suspended from them, making a delightful place.61 There are some similarities between this and the inner chancel
wall paintings at Hardham, which now are considerably faded (Plate 2).
Above Adams shoulder fruit hangs from the ends of branches; flowers are
scattered across the serpents red ochre panel. Across the chancel entrance
on the north side it is the bust of a figure, seen only to the shoulders, which
looks towards Eve milking an animal. Further, Adam, Eve and the serpent
are depicted as though on painted hangings, suspended on loops from a
bar which forms the top of the picture frame, like moveable scenery for a
play. Outside Paradise, the rubric states, Adam and Eve are sad and confused and crouch on the ground perhaps represented by their unusual
seated back to back poses on the other side of the chancel wall, away from
the trees and flowers.
The addition to the costume of Figura after the apple has been eaten,
when he re-entered Paradise wearing a stole, a mark of priestly authority,
brought a more immediate and sombre note to the drama. Adam and
Eve hid themselves as the mood turned towards judgement. The play was
probably performed during Lent.62 On Ash Wednesday, the start of the
penitential season, ashes were placed on the heads of sinners who were
then expelled from the church building because of their misdeeds, that is,
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fourth figure and remained unharmed (Daniel 3v.96). In the Play ofAdam
he proclaims that this additional person he could see in the furnace made
the faces of the three boys shine so brightly that they, too, seemed to be
sons of the mighty God. At Gargilesse near Limoges and in the cloisters
of Moissac abbey in south west France, he is portrayed as an emaciated
animal with human head, still crowned, punished for his arrogance.69 At
Poitiers, however, he sits enthroned, dressed as a king and identified as
NABUCODNOSOR REX, the character of the drama who makes a
magnificent entrance. The words on the scrolls of Daniel, Jeremiah and
Moses at Poitiers were taken directly from the sermon ofPseudo-Augustine
Against Jews, Pagans and Arians.70 Moses does not feature in the extant copy
of the Play of Adam, though he was included in other known versions of
the Procession of Prophets, which might explain his inclusion at Poitiers.
How far these parades of witnesses may have influenced imagery is
impossible to assess. Collectively they were the dramatic equivalent of
the rows of prophets in stained glass or sculpted at entrances to cathedrals and churches. Individually, some figures may have been influenced
in their portrayal by local performance and interest. It is tempting to think
that some depictions of Balaam were inspired by the drama. He was the
prophet who proclaimed that a star shall rise from Jacob, a sceptre spring
up from Israel which would strike the enemy chiefs of Moab (Numbers
24v.17) and whose donkey spoke to reprimand him for beating him. On
a capital at Saulieu in Burgundy he is seated on his donkey, clutching the
bridle, leaning forward to urge on the animal, his feet in prominent stirrups which were specified in a number of versions of the Procession. Here
also the donkey might almost be a model mounted on wheels. A model
ass was used in the dramatic presentation of the Balaam episode at Rouen,
where a sense of realism was provided by a pelt covering and the words of
the creature uttered by a boy crawling underneath the animal.71
69 Anat Tcherikover, The Fall of Nebuchadnezzar in Romanesque sculpture (Airvault,
Moissac, Bourg-Argental, Foussais), Zeitschrift fr Kunstgeschichte 49 (1986),
288300.
70 Emile Mle, The Gothic Image, 162 n.4.
71 Gustave Cohen, Anthologie du drame liturgique en France au Moyen Age (Paris: du
Cerf, 1955), 128 n.1.
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Both scholar and populariser of the biblical text wished to bring out
a moral message. Hugh of Saint Victor encouraged his pupils at the school
for Augustinian canons outside Paris to compare study to a building. The
foundation is history, the literal meaning of the Scriptures; allegory is
the mental structure of faith; then the whole is painted with the loveliest
colours, with the elegance of morality.74 Caedmon the versifier had made
many poems on judgement and the blessings of God, Bede recorded, to
turn his hearers from delight in wickedness and to inspire them to love
and to do good deeds.75 Adams and Eves dialogues in the Play of Adam
explored the psychology of sin, reiterated the consequences of the Fall of
Man for future generations, but affirmed at the same time that acknowledgement of the fault would bring Gods grace to save. Some lines of the
play were directed to the audience, urging them to reform in preparation
for the coming of the Son of God.76 Messages conveyed in story and drama
were often essentially those of the moralising homily, presented in a more
entertaining and possibly more frightening setting.
Scholarship and story both had the potential to distance reader or
viewer from the biblical text. A certain Robert of Melun in the twelfth
century complained that students in the schools were tending to look
at the Glossa rather than the Scriptures themselves.77 He was referring to
the genealogies from Genesis, illustrated by figures drawn in circles and
accompanied by short bibliographies, hung on classroom walls for the
benefit of those unable to afford their own books. One modern view of
the popular Bible, such as Peter Rigas Aurora, is that its writers perceived
and presented what amounted to a purely hypothetical book.78 Medieval
students still learnt the genealogies, however, and the popular Bibles had
many positive aspects. They simplified while retaining essential features of
the story, gave instruction and, if they were in Latin, offered more concise
74 Hugh of St Victor, Didascalicon, translated Jerome Taylor, Book 6.23 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1961), 135.
75 Bede, History of the English Church, Book 4.24.
76 M.F. Vaughan, The Prophets of the Anglo-Norman Adam, 99, 102.
77 Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 214.
78 Quoted in Brian Murdoch, The Medieval Popular Bible, 1.
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and lyrical descriptions than the Vulgate. Aurora was one of the most widely
copied books in the thirteenth century. When Peter related the episode of
David feigning madness so as not to be recognised by Achis, king of Gath
(1 Kings (1 Samuel)21v.13), he pointed out at the beginning that David
made himself insane, an observation that left the subsequent behaviour
more understandable. Then he simplified the account and, finally, added
a comment that Achis lack of recognition of David signified Synagogues
ignorance of Christ.79 A Middle English metrical paraphrase of Genesis
claimed that its purpose was to teach the common man.80 The versifying,
the drama and the extended tale, made the Scriptures more accessible to
many people and provided the means of sifting certain of the more relevant
findings of scholars for wider appreciation.
Medieval iconography brought together a close study of the Bible, its
popular versions and a more liberated imagination that carried the narrative beyond the canon of Scripture. The story-teller bequeathed Marcoul,
crushed beneath Solomons feet, to the north porch of Chartres cathedral,
but in representing folly contrasted to wisdom he presented what were also
the concerns of more philosophical debate. One of the scholars legacy
was the horned Moses. He emerged through the intricacies of translation
and exegesis but become familiar in public entertainment. In the British
Library copy of Aelfrics paraphrase, the horns are attached to a headband,
removable like part of a costume, just as the portable panel depicted in the
same manuscript beside Moses addressing the Hebrews after the Exodus
appears to be a moveable prop.81
A mixture of Bible text, traditional exegesis, chronicles of world and
religious history, Jewish-Christian apocryphal stories and rabbinical tales,
were brought together in the Historia Scholastica of Peter Comestor.82 He
was one time chancellor ofthe Paris cathedral, preacher and theology master
in the schools and his work, completed by about 1173, was given official
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80
81
82
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recognition by Pope Innocent III in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council. His
writing soon became very influential and is now frequently cited as a source
for iconography. It was probably this work which gave rise to the image of
the human-headed Eden serpent, for instance, which became widespread
in the later Middle Ages and which found its way through drama into the
window of Saint Neots church in Cornwall. It seems to have entered art
in the early thirteenth century on the Virgin portal of Notre Dame, Paris
and the west facade of Amiens cathedral (Fig. 1), where it bore the more
common female face as Peter, wrongly attributing her to Bede, had indicated.83 Historia can mean both history and story. The metrical paraphrase
of Genesis in Middle English, which claimed to teach the common man,
gave Peter the epithet Master of Stories. He was called Comestor, the
eater, because he devoured both learning and traditional tales. His interests
and writing encapsulated the interdependence of diverse strands which lay
behind much medieval imagery.
83
Henry A. Kelley, Metamorphoses of the Eden Serpent during the Middle Ages and
Renaissance, Viator 2 (1971), 30127. Nona C.Flores, Effigies Amicitiae. Veritas
inimicitiae. Antifeminism in the Iconography of the Woman-headed Serpent in
Medieval and Renaissance Art and Literature, in Nona C. Flores, ed., Animals in
the Middle Ages (New York: Garland Publications, 1996), 16795.
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Fig. 17 Genesis Initial, Winchester Bible, folio 5r, Winchester Cathedral Library,
twelfth century. Photo: Warburg Institute. Reproduced by kind permission
of the Dean and Chapter, Winchester.
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91
Among depictions of time were those which flowed more easily from
the Old Testament into the New. Christs ancestry was contained in the
genealogical windows of Canterbury cathedral and in the popular trees
of Jesse found throughout Europe, in which descendants of the father of
King David rise through the trunk to the top branches where the Virgin
Mary and her son complete the royal line. Stone prophets with scrolls
announce events that were to take place in the Gospels, illustrating the
simple but crucial notion that the biblical testaments stood together in
their own time zone of promise and fulfilment.
The rose window offered a different slant on the progression of history. A depiction of Christ or the Virgin and Child at its heart expressed
the idea of a pivotal moment in history, a centre around which everything
was drawn together and from which it took its meaning. In the north rose
window at Chartres cathedral, the Virgin and Child are surrounded by Old
Testament kings and prophets who enclose the central figures from whom
they took their historical purpose. The Lausanne cathedral rose with its
cosmic winds, sun, moon, elements, zodiac and seasons, incorporates the
whole universe. If in its restored state the central glass reflects accurately
the original iconography, it is an image of time and space, with the creator
god at its hub immediately surrounded by a condensed version of the six
days of Genesis.3 Its four rivers of Paradise recall a world of harmony. Man
works with nature in a labour suited to each month. Imagined creatures
and monstrous races reported by travellers are included, dog-headed men
and those with one large foot which they use to shade themselves. They,
too, are part of the whole, sustained by the central creator and they would
one day be caught up in a final redemption since they also, according to
Augustine, are descendants of Adam.4
Ellen Beer, Die Rose der Kathedrale von Lausanne (Bern: Benteli Verlag, 1952).
Christophe Amsler, La Rose de la cathdrale de Lausanne: histoire et conservation
recente (Lausanne: Payot Lausanne, 1999). Painton Cowen, Rose Windows (London:
Thames and Hudson, 1979), 12831.
4 Augustine, City of God XVI.8, translated Dyson, 70710.
3
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A link between creation and how man should live his life and understand
his place in the universe lay behind Gregory the Greats interpretation of
the questions asked of Job in the Old Testament, Where were you when I
laid the foundations of the earth Who stretched the line upon it? ( Job
38vv.45). God had placed lines around what humans could do, limits
had been set to morality when the physical boundaries of the universe
were put in place.5 What had happened in the beginning had set markers
not only for the natural order but for an ethical dimension to human life.
Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, translated les moines de Wisque, Book 28.xi.26,
Sources chrtiennes no.476 (Paris: du Cerf, 2003) 12837.
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elements of fire, earth, water and air.13 Red planets feature elsewhere, in
scenes apparently removed from reconciliation of Old Testament texts
with classical thought, such as in the Good Samaritan window in Bourges
cathedral. The colour layers in the Chartres orb reflect those in the rest
of the image and are therefore not especially distinct as representations of
the elements. Moreover, the focal point of the circle held by Christ is an
ecclesiastical building, possibly the cathedral itself.
Manuscript imagery possibly offers the greatest scope for detecting
this aspect of classical interest in creation scenes because of a secure textual setting, a lack of restoration and the greater opportunity to include
explanatory words or numbers. Thierrys expositions are thought to have
influenced the sequence to the opening of Genesis in the late twelfth century Souvigny Bible.14 Here, in the first of eight squares, the creator appears
in a fiery roundel; beneath him and the dove, that is the spirit which moved
over the face of the waters in Genesis, are the black earth, blue-black water
with orange streaked air in the middle of the waters. This might illustrate
perhaps how the water vapour caused by the suns heat rose to form a separate layer of waters above the air.
An attempt to reconcile classical ideas with the first chapter ofthe Old
Testament had the potential to undermine the six day scheme. Further, in
relegating the work of the biblical God to that of artisan who only shaped
the pre-existent material at his disposal, the Genesis creator ceased to be the
originator of everything. In some prefatory images to the bibles moralises
there seems to be an emphasis on the artisan God, fashioning and measuring with his compasses a circle surrounded by different coloured rings that
represent the elements.15 He brings an order to matter that may have been
created from the void of Genesis, but equally this may be the pre-existent
material awaiting the stroke of the designer god. Robert Grosseteste, a
teacher in Oxford and later Bishop of Lincoln, writing on the six days, felt
obliged to assert both the temporal and physical beginning of the world by
13
14
15
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explaining that since God exists in eternity, creation cannot be the junction
of a past and a future but is simply the beginning of a future.16 This was the
traditional Christian view, that there was neither time nor substance before
creation and that God created everything out of nothing.17
The Genesis Scheme
This background of speculation and discussion about creation was important not only for the escalation of depictions of the beginning of Genesis
but also because the six days were understood to have indicated a blueprint
for the rest of time. An archetypal pattern, though not in the Platonic
sense of pre-existent Ideas copied when the material world was formed,
had been set out for a future sequence of six Ages; it would create history
as it progressed through its Old Testament stages to the era of the Church.
In his refutation of heretics who disparaged the Old Testament, Augustine
had used the opening of Genesis to suggest that the creation narrative was
neither false nor arbitrary since the pointers it gave to the future unfolding
of time had already happened.18 His view was that history had proved the
veracity of the opening chapter of the Bible. The making of the physical
order and stages of subsequent history shared a pattern because it was the
same God who had commanded both.
In a stained glass half roundel in the north choir aisle at Canterbury
cathedral, six seated figures are titled the Six Ages of the World (Fig. 18).
They are Adam holding a hoe, Noah the ark, Abraham a flame, David a
harp, King Jehoiakin is crowned and carries a sceptre, Christ displays an
open book turned towards the viewer. Each marks the start of a new era.
There was a second beginning for mankind after the flood. Abraham left his
homeland to become founder ofthe Chosen People: his flame may indicate
16
17
18
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the strange ritual of a covenant between God and himself when a smoking fire-pot and a lamp of fire passed between the two halves of sacrificed
animals as a sign of divine promise to his descendants (Genesis 15). The
Davidic monarchy lasted until the exile when King Jehoiachin ( Jechonias)
was taken to Babylon. The sixth Age, corresponding to the Genesis day on
which humans were made, was the current era of the Church, beginning
with the coming of Christ who was the ideal representative of humanity
and bringer of redemption.
Fig. 18 Six Ages of the World, Canterbury Cathedral, north choir aisle typology
window, detail, twelfth/thirteenth century. Photo: John Sells.
With kind permission of the Dean and Chapter, Canterbury.
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99
be the coming of Christ in glory to bring in the final age of rest for those
who had faith, Augustine told heretics, and who deserved their reward
because of good works.
Fig. 19 Six Ages of Man, Canterbury Cathedral, north choir aisle typology window,
detail, twelfth/thirteenth century. Photo: John Sells. With kind permission
of the Dean and Chapter, Canterbury.
As God had rested on the seventh day after completion of his work,
so the sequence of eras would also end, with the future perpetual Sabbath.
Augustine, who had based his delineation of the ages as they were to appear
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The end of time in the last medallion of the initial I of Genesis in the
Winchester Bible, which concludes six chronologically arranged scenes
from the Old Testament (Fig. 17), marks the beginning of the perpetual
Sabbath. Christ returns, displaying the nail marks, preceded by the cross
depicted as a tree and supported by two angels. It is the sign of the Son of
Man coming in power and majesty at the end of time, after the old order
of sun, moon and stars will no longer be needed (Matthew 24vv.2931).
Outside this last medallion, in the lower angles of the letter I, figures rise
from their graves.
Wisdom
Old Testament interest in creation was not confined to the beginning of
Genesis. There are a number ofbooks, including Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiasticus
and the Wisdom of Solomon, which are not concerned with covenant or
salvation history but with a sense of order in the universe that continues
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Time
103
London, British Library, Cotton MS. Tiberius C. VI, folio 7v. Temple, Anglo-Saxon
Manuscripts 9001066, cat.no.98.
30 London, British Library, Royal MS. Royal 1 E VII, fol. 1v, Temple: Anglo-Saxon
Manuscripts 9001066, cat.no. 102, fig. 319.
31 John Block Friedman, The Architects Compass in Creation Miniatures of the Later
Middle Ages, Traditio XXX (1974), 41929.
32 Rudolph, In the Beginning, 36.
33 John Lowden, The Making of the Bibles Moralises (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 2000), 87. Vienna, sterreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS.
1179, fol. 1v.
29
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Fig. 21 Creator God with Compasses, Great Malvern Priory of St Mary and St
Michael, Worcestershire, creation windows, detail, fifteenth century. Photo: J.A. Kidd.
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105
Annunciation and Nativity: Christ had been identified with the Wisdom
of the Old Testament by Christian interpreters.34 Next to the snake in the
Eden tree, Moses lifts up the serpent on a pillar, anticipating the healing
nature of mans acceptance of Wisdom. In the two half quatrefoils above
the scene of Adam and Eve driven from Paradise are the Christianised
consequences of the choice between folly and Wisdom. On the right, two
people echoing the movement of the first humans are driven by Christ
from his presence. To the left, he raises up two people from the jaws of a
monster, saving them from an eternity of punishment.
When the world was created, Wisdoms special delight had been with
the children of men (Proverbs 8v.31). An emphasis on humanity and society as part of the natural order fitted well with the philosophical European
humanism of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that derived its main
impetus from classical sources. Great prominence was given to the dignity
of mankind as a rational creature and to his nobility, which continued even
after the Fall since human reason was still able to understand the intelligible universe.35 Although dangers in attempting to interpret iconography
in the light of scholarly trends at particular centres have been indicated,
the creation sequence around the outer arch of the central north portal
at Chartres does seem to be of especial interest. It brings together the six
days of Genesis and expulsion from Eden with a very unusual portrayal of
mans special place in the divine plan. A series of depictions of God ascend
along the outer voussoirs on the left side of the arch as he creates the angels
then various aspects of the world outlined in the first chapter of Genesis.
What he brings into existence, from light and angels through to plants
and animals, is confined to the second order of sculpture. In the creators
fifth pose, however, like a projection of what is in his mind, a human figure
stands beside him within his separate space, as an apparent anticipation of
man made in his image (Genesis 1v.26) (Fig. 22). The two frames at the
pinnacle of the sequence show Adam being formed, his head resting on
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the creators lap, then he stands beside God who holds his hand. Alone
of all the created universe, God allows man to inhabit the divine realm of
the outer band of sculpture.
Fig. 22 Creator God imagines Man, from the Creation sequence, Chartres Cathedral,
north porch, thirteenth century. Photo: Sonia Halliday.
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36
Helen Waddell, The Wandering Scholars, 7th edn (London: Collins Fontana Library,
1968), 139.
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The sequence is also caught up into the wider display of biblical time
in the north porch. Beneath the ascending Creation and descending Fall at
the cathedral entrance are column figures of Old Testament precursors. The
generations of the tree of Jesse are carved on the soffits of the central arch.
Mans rescue in the biblical scheme of redemption is in process. Bernard
Sylvestris, a humanist writer who may have been associated with Chartres,
who had attributed the universe to divine intelligence and claimed for man
a special dignity because he is both divine and human, would have found
his thoughts echoed in this total scheme. It expresses his eternal ideas of
the knowledge of things that are to be, the generations and mysterious
destiny of creation, the texture of time, the foredoomed consequence and
disposition of the centuries.37
Continuum
Apart from the six ages which presented time as a creation process in theological stages leading to the Church, there were other, more conventional,
means of conveying the progress of history from its beginning. The story
ran its course through the generations, the ancestors of Christ who were
named in the Gospel genealogies. Matthews list began with Abraham and
was divided into three groups of fourteen generations while Luke, starting
with the present, traced the line back to Adam (Matthew 1vv.117; Luke
3vv.2338). Canterbury cathedral possessed the longest series of ancestors
known to medieval art, eighty-six stained glass figures of which over forty
remain, derived from Luke and supplemented by eight from Matthew.
Their original positions in the building have been reconstructed using
available documentation.38 The series began on the north side with God
and Adam, then advanced chronologically in an arrangement oftwo figures
37 Waddell, The Wandering Scholars, 1367.
38 Caviness, The Windows of Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury, 810.
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to each lancet, the earlier placed above the other. Most are seated, named
and originally either faced or gestured towards the East as they moved
through the north and south clerestory windows, ending in the west with
the Virgin and Child. Adam digs the ground, dressed in an animal skin
which, according to Augustine, was a sign of his mortality.39 It was this
post-Paradise state that necessitated the gallery of his descendants who,
like links in a chain, would lead to the focal point of history.
Fig. 23 Aminadab and Aram, two of the Generations panels, Canterbury Cathedral,
west window, twelfth/thirteenth century. Photo: John Sells. With kind permission
of the Dean and Chapter, Canterbury.
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Aminadab, for instance, the son of Aram and father of Naasson, was interpreted as my freely chosen people, referring to Christ who voluntarily gave
himself for mans salvation as the spotless victim. In keeping with most
depictions of the ancestors at Canterbury, he holds no attribute. Nothing
is known about him from the Old Testament, although his name is the
same as that of the chariot of Aminadab in the Song of Solomon which
had come to carry so much allegorical meaning. Next to him, now in the
west window of the cathedral, is his father Aram, wearing a hat (Fig. 23).
Interpretation of his name was electus, indicating someone elected or
special, as Christ was chosen by the Father.40
In Herrads manuscript, Matthews genealogy is illustrated as a tree.
Abraham stands in the trunk looking towards an angel who points to some
stars, a reference to Gods promise to the patriarch that his seed would be
as countless as the stars in the heavens (Genesis 15v.5). Then, in bust form
within the widening central stem, the people of the Gospel list follow, culminating with Joseph the carpenter, above whom is his wife the Virgin Mary.
In the branches on either side, onlookers include other patriarchs, kings,
priests, Jews in their tall hats worn elsewhere in the manuscripts illustrations. Christ is at the summit. Martyrs with their palms, monks and nuns
and Church authorities feature in extended rows beside him, members of
the Christian community who are the spiritual descendants of Abraham.
Herrads drawing is a variation on the tree of Jesse, who in this picture supports the foot of the plant from which the ancestors spring. It was
based on Isaiahs prophecy, there shall come forth a rod out of the root
of Jesse: and a flower shall rise up out of his root. And the spirit of the
Lord shall rest upon him, (Isaiah 11vv.12). Tentative beginnings of the
Jesse tree may appear in the frieze at Notre Dame, Poitiers, where a half
figure, with a rod bearing a dove emerging from his head, features beside
the Annunciation (Fig. 24).
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41
London, British Library, Additional MS. 49622, fol. 8r, illustrated in Janet Backhouse,
The Illuminated Page, Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library
(London: The British Library, 1997), fig. 87.
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raises his hand as the veil is removed from Synagogues eyes. On her right, a
crowned Ecclesia is directed towards the bust ofChrist. In the central circles
the female figures on either side ofthe Virgin represent Mercy and Truth in
harmony with each other and Justice greeting Peace. According to Jeromes
comment on Psalm 84, Truth represents the Jews, Mercy the Gentiles.45
Justice was established in the Law, Christ brought the possibility of peace.
Fig. 25 Tree of Jesse, Lambeth Bible, Lambeth Palace Library MS. 3, fol. 198r, twelfth
century. Photo: Warburg Institute. With kind permission of Lambeth Palace Library.
45 Dorothy M. Shepard, Introducing the Lambeth Bible: A Study of Texts and Imagery
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 150.
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115
creatures and elders of the Apocalypse. The West rose presents him as judge,
presiding over what is to come. They thus represent the past, present (the age
of the New Testament) and future.47 There is also a vertical reading of time
in the south transept stained glass. Here the standing prophets Jeremiah,
Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel of the lancet windows below the rose, carry on
their shoulders the animated Gospel writers, conversing with each other.
These are Luke, Matthew, John and Mark respectively. As the viewers look
up from the prophets and evangelists to the ascended Christ in heaven, they
are taken in three layers through biblical revelation, from Old Testament
prophets to writers of the life of Christ and then to the subsequent state
of glory described in the last book of the New Testament, the Apocalypse.
Bernard of Chartres, in the twelfth century, expressed the idea that
generations enjoy the legacy bequeathed to them not in terms of family
tree but through the progression of knowledge. We know more, he said,
because we possess riches inherited from our forefathers. We see more
and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or
greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature.48 This well-known dwarfs on the shoulders of giants quotation referred originally to the legacy of the classical world to the Middle
Ages, but here in the south transept at Chartres it is depicted literally to
acknowledge the indispensible foundation of the Old Testament for the
vision ofthe New. This unusual pictorial arrangement was not unique. It had
occurred in early Roman art, in San Sebastiano al Palatino, where prophets had carried Apostles on their shoulders beside the twenty four elders
of the Apocalypse in a horizontal arrangement.49 On a font in Meresburg
cathedral in Germany, twelve standing prophets, with banderols containing their names, also support the Apostles who are identified by name on
the sculpted arcading.
47 Cowen, Rose Windows, 10.
48 John of Salisbury, bishop of Chartres, The Metalogicon: a Twelfth Century Defense of
the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium, translated Daniel D. McGarry (Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 1955), Book 3.4; 167.
49 Stephan Waetzoldt, Die Kopien des 17 Jahrhunderts nach Mosaiken und Wand
malereien in Rom (Vienna: Schroll-Verlag, 1964), figs. 519, 520.
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Time
117
Fig. 26 Priest and Levite pass the Wounded Man, with four Old Testament scenes,
Bourges Cathedral, Good Samaritan window, detail, thirteenth century.
Photo: Stuart Whatling, by kind permission.
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takes the consequences of the road to Jericho which imprints the defects
in us of our mortality.51 The Sens window highlights mankinds renewed
access to Paradise, made possible through the Church and brought about
by the Crucifixion and overcoming of mortality in the Resurrection.
Time and the Church, though, carrying humanity towards this reentry to Paradise, were finite. The Gospel genealogies of Old Testament
figures, which had inspired the Canterbury ancestors, were to take on
another significance that anticipated the final age. During the late twelfth
century a monk from Calabria, Joachim of Fiore, divided history into
three equal sections corresponding to the Trinity, allocating forty two
generations to each age. This was based on the total number of ancestors
indicated by Matthew in his genealogy of Christ. Joachim understood the
first Age, that of the Old Testament, to be the Age of the Father. The New
Testament and Church were the Age of the Son and a future section of
time, when knowledge of God would be revealed directly to everyone, as
the Age of the Holy Spirit. If thirty years represented a generation, then
the forty two units from the time of Christ meant that the second Age
was about to come to an end and the third to be ushered in, around the
year 1260.52 Although such ideas were not unique to Joachim, they took
on an urgency through his teaching. They spread rapidly, partly because
they captured the imagination of certain new thirteenth century religious
orders and because they seemed to confirm contemporary events and social
upheavals as heralds of an approaching end.
It has been claimed that a new awareness of time, rising in the collective consciousness, promotes the popularity of apocalypses which look to
the end and that Joachims excesses were exaggerations of this sensitivity to
history.53 As there had been an upsurge in depictions of creation a hundred
51
52
53
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Time Recurring
On day four of creation sun, moon and stars were made, not only to rule
day and night but also for signs and seasons, days and years. They were the
mechanism which regulated natures rhythm, producing the changing work
54 Nigel J. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts (2) 12501285. A Survey of MSS illuminated in the British Isles, vol. 4 (London: Harvey Miller, 1988), 16.
55 Suzanne Lewis, Parallel Tracks Then and Now: the Cambridge Alexander
Apocalypse, in Paul Binski and William Noel, eds, New Offerings and Ancient
Treasures: Studies in Medieval Art for George Henderson (Stroud: Sutton Publishing,
2001), 36788.
56 Calvin Kendall, The Allegory of the Church: Romanesque Portals and their Verse
Inscriptions (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1998), 231.
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of each month and the annual round of collective celebrations that marked
turning points of the year. The main feasts of Christmas and Easter in
the liturgical calendar overlaid these patterns with Christian significance.
Christs entry to the world as Light ( John 1vv.19) is celebrated at the
time when the sun is at its lowest point in the northern hemisphere. In
the Old Testament, what may originally have been a Spring lambing celebration became associated with Passover rituals, when the blood of the
sacrificed animal was daubed on doorposts ofthe Hebrews to protect them
from the angel of death as they prepared to escape from slavery in Egypt
(Exodus 1114). Christianity remembers the Crucifixion and Resurrection
of Christ, the new paschal lamb (1 Corinthians 5v.7), when new life is
born after winter.
Determining the date of Easter required intricate calculations based
on lunar and solar movements. This computus material, which occupied
numerous folios of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, was used to work out, among
other key moments in the year, the time of the vernal equinox and the
date of Easter which was to fall on the Sunday following the full moon
after the equinox. Study of such measurement of time had been enjoined
on priests at the Council of Aachen in 789;57 and Aelfric stated that every
priest should have details of the reckonings at his disposal.58 The Psalter
from Winchester depicting the creator God holding compasses and scales
as conclusion to a series of diagrams of different measures, including the
means of ascertaining whether a sick person will live or die, contains an
horologium. This time-piece consisted of a series of circles, diminishing in
size within each other, joined at a common point at the top from which
a pendant falls vertically, giving the impression of a sundial. On the same
folio is the hand of God with dates of Easter written on each finger.59 An
extant school book detailing orbits of planets through the zodiac, movements of tides and climate changes, together with extracts from classical
57 Bede, The Reckoning of Time, Wallis, Introduction, lxxxix.
58 Adelheid Heimann, Three Illustrations from the Bury St Edmunds Psalter and their
Prototypes, JWCI 29 (1966) 3959.
59 Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 9001066, cat. no. 98. London, Brit. Lib. Cotton
MS. Tiberius C.VI, fol. 7r.
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intervene in the processes he set in motion. He could stop the sun in its
tracks, as he had done for Joshua when he led his army to victory against
the Amorites ( Joshua 10v.13). King Hezekiahs sign from God, that he
would recover from his illness, was that the shadow on the sundial built by
his father, Ahaz, would be made to move backwards by ten degrees (Isaiah
38v.8). The prophet known as Second Isaiah, who was in exile, had mocked
the Babylonian astrologers who studied stars and mapped out zones in
the heavens to tell what was going to happen in the future. He described
them as stubble that will be burnt by fire (Isaiah 47vv.1314). For Bede,
who wrote several works on time, the solar and lunar year with planets
borne around the zodiac were in place because the creator, as revealed in
Genesis, had made it that way; the zodiac was merely the daily advances
of the sun in the heavens.62
Such was the fascination of the zodiac, however, that many Jewish and
Christian writers gave the signs a symbolic value to make them respectable.
Philo, a first century Jewish philosopher in Alexandria, equated the twelve
divisions with the tribes of Israel, as did the early rabbis.63 For Josephus, a
first century Jewish historian, the twelve stones of the High Priests breastplate were the measured year, that is the months or same number of signs
which the Greeks call the zodiac.64 In his description of Herods temple
he likened them also to the Bread of the Presence, twelve loaves set out as
a continual offering to God, which the Old Testament traced back to the
wilderness tabernacle (Exodus 25v.30).65 An early fifth century bishop of
Verona named Zeno wrote a tract on the zodiac for the newly baptised,
associating each sign with aspects of the Christian life.66 Scorpio, like all
serpents, is evil and to be trodden underfoot; Pisces, the two fishes, stand
for unity between Jews and Gentiles baptised in living water to make one
62 Bede, The Reckoning of Time 18, translated Wallis, 60.
63 Erwin R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, vol. 8 (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1958), 214 n.250.
64 Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 3.7.7, in The Works of Flavius Josephus,
translated William Whiston (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1842), 92.
65 Josephus, The Wars of the Jews Book 5.5.5, in William Whiston, The Works of Flavius
Josephus, 718.
66 San Zeno, Tract XLIII, Patrologia Latina 11. 4926.
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people. The zodiac features on the lead font in Saint Augustines church,
Brookland, Kent, and over the south door of San Isidore in Leon where it
may indicate that the baptised can now enter the church as fully-fledged
Christians.67 Later, in a manual of the Anglo-Saxon compiler Byrhtferth,
Old Testament characters were linked to each sign: Scorpio was the menacing Pharaoh defeated in the Red Sea, for example, and Pisces became
associated with Jonah who had been saved from drowning by a large fish.
Abraham, who had sacrificed a ram in place of his son Isaac, stood easily
alongside Aries.68
On the doors of San Zenos church in Verona, in Aelfrics Hexateuch
and as part ofthe carved narrative around the south entrance to Malmesbury
abbey, Wiltshire, Abraham is told by an angel to look up at the countless
stars, so that he will understand the extent of descendents promised to
him (Genesis 15). Herrads illustration of the episode in her family tree of
Christ had taken the story at its face value and placed it in a context of time
through the generations. A rabbinic tradition, known to Bede, held that
when Abraham was shown the stars it made him the first astronomer. He
then taught the Egyptians about the zodiac and came himself to know God
better through the stars.69 Rabbinic literature also described a vision said
to have been experienced by Abraham of his descendants seeing the divine
Presence, the Shekinah, dwelling in their midst, just as the zodiac encircled
Gods glory.70 This was the pattern of the twelve tribes camped around the
wilderness tabernacle and of tribal settlements around the rebuilt temple
envisioned by Ezekiel (Numbers 2v.2; Ezekiel 48vv.18). There was also
a Jewish belief that when the Romans destroyed their temple at the fall of
Jerusalem in 70 ce, the Shekinah removed itself to the synagogues.
67 S. Moralejo Alvarez, Pour linterpretation iconographique du Portail de lAgneau
St Isidore, Leon: les signes du zodiac, Cahiers de Saint Michel de Cuxa 8 (1977)
quoted in Teresa P. Higuera, The Art of Time: Medieval Calendars and the Zodiac
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1998), 92.
68 Wolfgang Hbner, Zodiacus Christianus: Judisch-Christliche Adaptationem des
Tierkreises von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Knigstein: Hain, 1983), 71.
69 Bede, The Reckoning of Time 6, translated Wallis, 27.
70 Pierre Prigent, Limage dans le Judaisme du IIe au VIe sicle (Geneva: Labor et Fides,
1991), 134.
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125
Time
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was probably no overt reference to mans loss of Paradise. At the centre the
creator is enclosed in a circle around which is written in Latin, And God
said Let there be light, and there was light. Above him are a dove with
cruciform halo hovering over the face of the waters and two figures representing day and night. Dry land appears and sun and moon, the waters of
the firmament are divided, Adam names the animals, birds and fish, Eve is
taken from his rib beside a plant in the Garden labelled a fruit-bearing tree.
The scheme moves outside the circle to the four winds, sun and moon, Annus
the year, the seasons, Labours of the months and rivers of Eden. Around the
circle enclosing the creation scenes is the Old Testament affirmation, in the
words of the Vulgate, that God saw that everything he had made was good.
Fig. 28 Creation with Seasons and some Labours of the Months, Gerona Cathedral
Treasury, Tapestry detail, eleventh/ twelfth century. Photo: Warburg Institute.
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ence of the wheel, each containing the names of a zodiac sign, an ancestor
and a prophet. The months and seasons are written between these circles. A
cross divides the inner space of the large rota into four equal segments, each
of which contains the name of an element. Each arm is inscribed with one
of the letters of the name ADAM, the Hebrew for mankind. The cardinal
points East, West, North and South, are written in Latin script but use the
Greek names Anatole, Dysis, Arcton and Mesembrion respectively the
initials of which spell ADAM, a significance which had long been recognised.82 Man is placed with the constituent parts of the universe, at the
heart of the recurring year, with the ancestors who brought him through
salvation history and the prophets who announced a New Age.
There were variations on this circle construction and more complex
diagrams. A late eleventh century natural science text book included
Byrhtferths harmony of the universe, with the elements and seasons, compass points and zodiac, the four ages of man and his four humours and the
letters A.D.A.M. at the points of the inner lozenge (Fig. 29).83
Man was understood to be a microcosm, a small or replica world made
up of the features of the macrocosm, the large world. On the crypt walls
of the papal chapel at Anagni, south of Rome, an elaborate programme
begins with the zodiac then moves to a figure designated HOMO standing
at the core of circles whose circumferences are divided into four to incorporate the seasons, elements, humours and four ages of man; he is labelled
MICROCOSMOS. Galen and Hippocrates, the ancient doctors with
whom identification of the humours was associated, are depicted next to
the HOMO diagram. The presentation of man here owes much to commentaries on Platos Timaeus.84 Herrad of Hohenberg instructed her nuns
82 Eg. Augustine, Commentary on Johns Gospel IX.14.12. Ennarationes in Psalmos
XCV.15.
83 Byrhtferth s Diagram in Romanesque Art Exhibition Catalogue 10661200 (1984),
104. Oxford, St Johns College, MS. 17, fol. 7v. Byrhtferths Manual, translated S.J.
Crawford from Bodleian Library MS. Ashmole 328 (London: Humphrey Milford,
for Early English Text Society, Oxford University Press, 1929), frontispiece.
84 Michael Q. Smith, Anagni, An Example of Medieval Typological Decoration,
Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. XXXIII, New Series, vol. 20) (1965), 147.
Gioacchino Giammaria, Un universo di simboli: gli affreschi della cripta nella cattedrale di Anagni (Rome: Viella, 2001), 812 and Plate 6.
Time
131
Fig. 29 Byrhtferth s Diagram, from St Johns College, Oxford, MS. 17, fol. 7v,
eleventh century. Photo: Warburg Institute.
85 Herrad, Hortus Deliciarum, fol. 16v, vol. 1, 30.
86 Herrad, Hortus Deliciarum, vol. 2, 96.
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***
When the writer of Ecclesiastes noted that nothing under the sun is new
(Ecclesiastes 1v.10) he was not, Augustine explained, talking of an endless series of recurring cycles which caused the same events of time to be
repeated. This would suggest that Plato, teaching at the academy in Athens,
would return at intervals with the same disciples. What the Old Testament
was speaking of was the succession of generations, the orbit of the sun, the
course of rivers, or of all kinds of creatures that are born and die. Men were
before us, are with us and shall be after us.87 Time recurring that exactly
repeats its own history is a view put forward by those who do not know
how our mortal condition took its origin, nor how it will be brought to an
end, because they cannot penetrate the inscrutable wisdom of God who
caused time to have a beginning.88
More than any other broad category in which the Old Testament in
medieval art might be placed, time encompasses the situation of the whole
of humanity. Man, of all creatures, is able to remember the past and to
reflect upon the future, just as he has the intellect which enables him to
understand the things around him and those which are invisible, and he
has the will to reject evil or choose good.89 From the beginning he held a
privileged place; each individual potential lifespan derived its stages from
the pattern of creation of the universe; he lives within the framework of
the recurring year in his work and worship; he exists in a process of renewal
through the generations which, because of his moral fragility, gave rise
to the particular history presented in the Old and New Testaments then
through the Church.
ADAM is recycled in every human as microcosm, sinner, toiler and
ennobled worker, part of the grand scheme in whichever age or point of the
year he finds himself. He always has the possibility of redemption, because
the work of Christ at a given moment was effective for all time. Thus Adam
and other Old Testament characters who moved history towards the New
87 Augustine, City of God, XII.14, translated Dyson, 51618.
88 Augustine, City of God, XII.14, translated Dyson, 51618.
89 Herrad, Hortus Deliciarum, vol. 2, 96.
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Testament also benefited from what was to come. The Churchs doctrine
of the harrowing of hell extends the notion of salvation backwards so that
Christ, visiting those Old Testament people who had preceded him, was
able to bring them into the new order. On the Eardisley font referred to in
Chapter 2, Christ with his banner of the cross pulls Adam, the representative of all humanity, to new life (Fig. 15).
In a different expression of the same theme, one of Herrads drawings
depicts Christ lifting patriarchs and prophets with a fishing rod from the
mouth of Leviathan, the sea monster who came to represent the devil and
whose jaws often indicated the entrance to hell in medieval art.90 Herrads
picture was based on a challenge put to Job could he draw out the leviathan with a hook? ( Job 40v.20 [41v.1]); it was one of the series of rhetorical questions intended to remind him of his own dependence on the
creator. The Christianised image combines the creative authority of God
with the redemptive power of Christ. Job could not join together the stars
of Pleiades, stop the turning of Arcturus or, according to the Hebrew and
Septuagint texts, bring out the mazzaroth, the zodiac ( Job 38vv.312). For
the medieval world, man, the climax of creation whose life was shaped by its
pattern, whose physical and psychological characteristics were linked to the
elements, compass points and seasons, depended for his spiritual well-being
and salvation on the intervention of his creator God at the hub of history.
Mans journey through time is expressed in an unusual way in the
Genesis initial to the late eleventh century Stavelot Bible.91 In the central shaft of the letter I are depicted the key events of Christs life from
Annunciation to empty tomb, then his return at the final judgement. To
the left of these another picture series illustrates Adams and Eves expulsion
from Paradise and their work, followed by Noah, Abraham and Moses, the
Apostles baptising and preaching and the resurrection on the Last Day.
On the right of the life of Christ are illustrations of the New Testament
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92 Irenaeus, Contre les hrsies IV. 36.7, ed. Adelin Rousseau, sources chrtiennes no.100,
vol. 2 (Paris: du Cerf, 1965), 91013.
Plate 2 Adam, Eve and Serpent, St Botolphs Church, Hardham, West Sussex,
chancel wall painting, twelfth century. Photo: J.A. Kidd.
Plate 3 Eve created from Adam and Noah receiving the Dove into the Ark, Genesis
Initial, Winchester Bible, folio 5r, detail, twelfth century. Photo: Sonia Halliday.
Plate 4 Front of Enamelled Cross from the Meuse Region with Typological Scenes,
second half of the twelfth century. Photo: The Trustees of the British Museum.
Plate 5 The Magi with Prophets and Old Testament Scenes, Canterbury Cathedral,
north choir aisle window, detail, twelfth/ thirteenth century. Photo: Sonia Halliday.
Chapter 4
Typology I
One of the key uses of the Old Testament in medieval art comes under the
heading of typology. It was a method of exegesis that has been defined as an
establishment of historical connections between certain events, persons or
things in the Old Testament and similar events, persons or things in the New
Testament.1 In art history it usually applies to a correspondence of meaning in two images placed side by side, or to a visual comparison between two
pictures in which colour, form and line echo each other. The most familiar
use of the term relates to the iconography of Old Testament images set
beside events from the Gospels. In the corona window of Redemption in
Canterbury cathedral, each of the frames of the New Testament sequence
of Christs Crucifixion, Entombment, Resurrection, Ascension and sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is surrounded by four episodes from
the Hebrew Scriptures. The Crucifixion group (Plate 1), referred to in the
Introduction, depicts Moses striking a rock in the wilderness (Exodus 17),
Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22), the Passover lamb killed and
its blood painted on the doorposts of Hebrew houses (Exodus 12), spies
returning with a bunch of grapes from the Promised Land (Numbers 13).
These Old Testament scenes are types, from the Greek word tupos, often
translated as impression, pattern or likeness and having the more specific
meaning in the context of biblical art of prefigurings of the future in prior
history.2 They are not related to each other and have been selected for their
correlation to the central scene rather than for their original significance.
1
2
Geoffrey W.H. Lampe and K.J. Woollcombe, Essays on Typology (London: SCM
Press, 1957), 39.
Leonhard Goppelt, Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the
New, translated Donald H. Madvig (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1982), 45
and n.14.
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Typology I
137
encountering Elijah as she gathers sticks for a fire to cook a last meal for
herself and her son before they died in the famine (3[1] Kings 17vv.816).
Her two sticks became a cross in Christian thought and iconography.3 On
the right is the marking of the doorposts with the blood of the Lamb, the
sign of the Hebrew letter Tav taken from Ezekiel (Ezekiel 9v.6); at the base
of the cross the spies, both haloed and looking in the same direction, carry
their grapes on a pole. The central point where the arms of the cross meet
illustrates the patriarch Jacob, crossing his arms as he blesses the children of
Joseph. His gesture was questioned already in the Genesis account because
his right hand rested on the head of Ephraim, Josephs second son, rather
than on Manasseh, the first born, elevating the younger brother to a status
denied him in patriarchal tradition (Genesis 48vv.1520). All the figures
on the cross are named, but there are no explanatory words to indicate the
particular nuances of each image.
From the second century onwards the number of types increased. They
were explored in commentaries, deployed in homilies and aired in works
concerned with the Jewish-Christian debate and with heresy. Typology took
root in art in the early churches of Rome.4 Bede recounts that Benedict
Biscop, founder of the monasteries of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, returning from his several journeys to Rome in the seventh century, brought
back treasures of liturgical objects and manuscripts and many pictures to
adorn his abbey churches. On his last visit he had acquired for Jarrow an
admirable system of decoration displaying the concordance between the
Old and New Testaments. The examples cited by Bede were of Isaac carrying the wood for his sacrifice beside Christ bearing the cross, drawn in
one piece and exhibited as corresponding subjects, and Moses raising the
serpent in the wilderness beside Christ on the cross.5 It was in the twelfth
century, as with so many areas of iconography, that typology flourished in
public and manuscript art, sometimes accompanied by Latin verses draw3 Augustine, Sermon 50 on Elijah, Patrologia Latina 39. 18245.
4 George Henderson, Vision and Image in Early Christian England (New York and
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 72.
5 Bede, The Lives of the Abbots ofWearmouth, translated Peter Wilcock, 1818 (Newcastle
upon Tyne: Frank Graham, 1973), 223.
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ing out particular meanings from the scenes. Such was the importance of
this visually economic way of conveying the results of exegesis and debate,
that typology remained prevalent until the end of the Middle Ages and
formed the contents of some of the earliest printed books.
Typology I
139
in which the participants were unaware of themselves as likenesses or patterns of any future event. Without compromising their own historical merit
they came to take on a new function, imposed on them with hindsight, as
they were searched out and identified by Christian scholars as parallels to
events in the life of Christ.
Typology was the child of scholarship, which looked below the apparent surface meaning of an Old Testament episode. Many prophecies and
Psalms were cited in the New Testament to support the claims ofthe nascent
religion, such as the birth of a ruler in Bethlehem (Micah 5v.2; Matthew
2v.6), Christs triumphal entry into Jerusalem towards the end of his life
(Zechariah 9v.9; Matthew 21v.5) and details of the Crucifixion which
related to Psalm 22 [21]. Typology gained access to the whole of the Old
Testament, extending the terms of reference as it identified precise parallels between specific events. It understood Melchizedek, the priest-king
of Salem, offering bread and wine to Abraham (Genesis 14v.18) to be a
veiled anticipation of Christ giving bread and wine to his disciples at the
Last Supper. When Christ washed the disciples feet, he came to be seen
as mirroring what Abraham had done for the three visitors who arrived to
give him Gods promise of a son (Genesis 18v.4). Angels announcing good
news of great joy to the shepherds paralleled, rather than fulfilled, what
Raphael had said to the blind Tobias: Joy to thee always (Tobit 5v.11).
Typology could fill in the finer points of what Old Testament prophecy
had generally supplied in broader outline. Further, it allowed the cross of
Christs Crucifixion to be found in the former Scriptures. Beliefs that the
New Testament was hidden in the Old, that the actions of characters in the
Old Testament looked forward in some shadowy way to specific events to
come and that now the more ancient literature not only yielded its secrets
but was itself authenticated, became deeply embedded in Christianity.
Alongside recourse to prophecy, typology developed in early
Christianity when the beliefs of the Church came under attack, that is
when Christian argument focused on Jewish or heretical stances. During
the second century there were Christians who followed Marcion, a heretic
who could not reconcile the deity of the Old Testament with the God
revealed in Christ and who therefore dismissed the former Scriptures as
irrelevant. There were sects which claimed that the material world was
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evil, in contrast to the Genesis account of creation in which God saw that
everything he had made was good. In controversies between the Jews and
Christians, who could not agree about the fulfilment of Old Testament
history and teaching, typology was developed as proof of the connection
between these Scriptures and Christianity, as a means of persuasion and an
opening up of the dialogue. In condemning what were classed as heretical
attitudes, many Christian writers used the potential of typology to define
the more mainstream teaching of the Church.
An important writing of an imaginary conversation between a
Christian and a Jew comes from the first half of the second century. In
this Dialogue with Trypho, Justin Martyr confronts Trypho the Jew with
prophecy and typology. To convince him of the veracity of the Christian
religion he suggests that both are laid up in Tryphos Hebrew Scriptures,
but that when he reads them he fails to understand their sense.6 Many Old
Testament examples cited by Justin relate to the cross of Christ, which was
a major stumbling block to the Jews since the messianic expectation had
been of a royal, rather than criminal, leader and the Law of Moses had
stated that anyone who hangs on a tree is cursed (Deuteronomy 21v.23). In
this early work which made extensive use of typology, Justin cited Moses
striking the rock with his rod to make water flow (Exodus 17vv.17) and
throwing wood into the waters of Marah to take away their bitter taste
(Exodus 15v.25), both examples corresponding to the material of the cross.
Trypho was asked to consider the gesture of Moses, too, when the Hebrews
were fighting the Amalekites and his arms were held up, outstretched and
forming the sign of the cross, which gave victory over the enemy (Exodus
17vv.816).7 Justins Dialogue was not the first work to incorporate an
appeal to typology, but it was more comprehensive than earlier writings
and indicates that this approach to the Old Testament gained some impetus
from the Jew-Christian debate.
6
7
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, XXIX, translated A. Lukyn Williams (London:
SPCK, 1930), 578.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 192, 228.
Typology I
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Avril Henry, Biblia Pauperum: a facsimile and edition (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1987),
40 n.39.
13 Augustine, Contra Faustum, Patrologia Latina 42. 207518.
12
Typology I
143
14
15
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were models, like the people of Israel themselves, valued until the truth
arrived but displaced and made void now that the really precious things
have been revealed.16 Another comparison of type to its fulfilment was
that of the portrait of a king, sketched in black, the outlines filled in by a
painter to show the royal theme with horses and bodyguards and enemies
in chains. The viewer only knows in a general way that it is about a king
and a horse until the picture is finished, with the colours filled in. This
is how, the writer suggested, you should think on the subject of the Old
and New Testaments, and not demand of the type all the exactness of the
reality.17 The completed picture was the outcome of the previous stages.
John Chrysostom, who provided this illustration of the unfinished image,
believed that completion moves towards excellence in a gradual process,
that could happen without any opposition or contention.18
Far from the Old Testament having served the purpose of a preliminary
sketch, to be discarded when the final version of the project was achieved,
it held a lasting place in medieval art beside its New Testament counterpart. The biblical harmony it permitted was often reflected in the visual
presentation, with groups of scenes forming patterns of line and colour
and causing the Christian event to be echoed in images of the types. In
the lowest quatrefoil of the Canterbury Redemption window (Plate 1),
the horizontal bar of the cross resonates in Abrahams sword above it and
in the spies pole below. Arm movements of Abraham and the angel who
prevents him from sacrificing Isaac, the posture of the figure applying the
sacrificial blood of the Passover lamb to the lintel, the angle of the rod of
Moses striking the rock, all echo the gestures of those beside the cross and
the arms of Christ. The sequence of the Exodus, Magi with Herod and
Christ leading the Gentiles from idolatry in a typology window in the
north choir aisle at Canterbury (Plate 5, middle band) has been described
in terms of the poetic lines which accompany the images. Art follows the
16 Melito, On Pascha and Fragments, lines 4816, 259, 265, 273.
17 John Chrysostom, Homily 10.2 in Philippians, quoted in Jean Danielou, From
Shadows to Reality, translated Dom Wulstan Hibberd from Sacramentum Futuri
(London: Burns and Oates, 1960), 191.
18 Danilou, From Shadows to Reality, 192.
Typology I
145
cadences and caesuras of the verses in which Christ and Moses rhyme in
posture; pharaoh and the pagan idol reach across the pause created by the
Magi. Relationships are enhanced by colour repetition.19
Orchestrated lines and colour, here and in other typological schemes,
explored visually the theological structures and belief in the unity of the
Scriptures that lay behind them. Verses written beside the now lost typology paintings in Worcester cathedral Chapter House, copied into a commentary of Jerome on the Psalms, began by inviting the observer to look at
the juxtaposed Old and New Testament pictures and discern their mystery,
or secret.20 Here the painters art has shown in history and allegory that
the shadow world of the Law was opened up by Grace, that is by the era
of the New Testament and Church. Here the mass of colours has given
expression to the meaning of the Christian mystery; in these lessons and
testimonies of faith is conveyed the essence of the religion based on both
the Old and New Testaments. Grace could only be fully revealed in conjunction with what it had replaced.
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well-known correspondence between word and image from the early centuries of Christianity is contained in the forty eight sections of a biblical
cycle written by Prudentius who, already in his opening stanza, related his
Latin description of the Fall to a visual language of colour: Eve was the white
dove who became black because of the serpents malice and who tinted
Adam with dirty stains.22 There were inscriptions in the basilicas at Nola
near Naples, known from the letters of its bishop, Paulinus, which were
descriptive but also functional, sometimes addressed directly to the reader.
Above a side entrance leading into a church building from a garden, the
verse invited worshippers of Christ, who came along roads of brushwood
from the gay garden, to enter into holy Paradise. Over the sacristy door the
purpose of sacristies was displayed in verse and the lines, or tituli, beneath
the apse mosaic related both to the picture and to the wood from Christs
cross below it under the altar.23 Description of biblical imagery and verses
for locations in the church setting were written in these examples expressly
for their particular situations.
This practice of verbal identification continued to form part of manuscript and public art. In Carolingian scriptoria, illustration of narrative
sequences in strips of horizontal bands was often provided with what
amounted to a story-telling below the scenes. Jeromes journey to Bethlehem
in a manuscript from Tours has already been cited in Chapter 2 (Fig. 10).
Other extant Carolingian examples include picture narratives of Adam and
Eve and their Fall, the verses stretched out beneath the images to follow the
chain of events.24 Some of these lines have been associated with scholars
at the court, such as Alcuin.25 Theodulphs inscription at Germigny-desPrs was twofold, identifying the Ark of God shimmering between the
cherubim and also asking for intercession for himself. In Germanic literaRenate Pillinger, Die Tituli Historiarum oder sogenannte Dittochaeron des Prudentius
(Vienna: Verlag der sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1980).
23 Rudolph C. Goldschmidt, Paulinus Churches at Nola (Amsterdam: Nord-Hollansche
Uitg. Maatschappij, 1940), Letters 32, 41, 45, 37.
24 Beckwith, Early Medieval Art, figs. 46 and 50. Wilhelm Khler, ed., Die Karolingischen
Miniaturen I, Die Schule von Tours (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1930).
25 Arnulf, Versus ad Picturas, 150.
22
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ture there are references to series of pictures with verse tituli, at Ingelheim
for instance, where world history from a Christian perspective decorated
the imperial palace walls.26 Anglo-Saxon use of word with image has been
linked to the monastic reform movement.27 Here written lines, intended
to reinforce meanings of the scene, were sometimes arranged around the
perimeters of manuscript pictures, strategically placed and in continuous
verse form. This application of the verse also featured in Ottonian manuscripts of the eleventh century.
By the time extended typological schemes in medieval monumental art
were created, such as the Worcester Chapter House paintings, the cloisonn
enamel Klosterneuburg altarpiece of Nicholas of Verdun near Vienna and
the Canterbury stained glass, there was a well-established tradition that the
picture would be explained, or at least identified, by a single written line
or couplet. These three examples expressed the meaning of the images in
leonine hexameters. These were lines in two parts, at least one section of
which contained six feet, with an internal rhyme between the end syllable
and the one at its pause, or caesura. At Klosterneuburg, around the image
of the announcing of the birth of Isaac to Abraham by the three visitors
(Genesis 18vv.116), which is a type for the Annunciation to Mary (Figs.
31, 32), the verse reads: huic sobolis munus / promittit trinus et unus (the
three and one promised this offspring as a gift). Abrahams meeting with
Melchizedek, the priest-king of Salem (Genesis 14), is set beside the visit of
the Magi who brought gifts to Christ. After his victory over the alliance of
kings in the Dead Sea area, Abraham offered the tithe of his loot as his gift
to Melchizedek: victor Abram regum / decimavit singular rerum (the only
victor over the kings, Abram gave a tenth of the booty). By highlighting
Abrahams gift the verse confirms the reason here for selection of the type,
which elsewhere might have emphasised rather the priest-kings offering of
bread and wine to the patriarch as a foreshadowing of what Christ would
offer at the Last Supper.
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anew. At Worcester the fuller verse had spoken of the hostia solennis, the
holy victim, or perhaps the solemn host, sacrificed on the altar. Although
a further bowl in the Victoria and Albert museum, the Warwick ciborium,
has lost its cover and much of its enamel and gilding, the remaining scenes
include Jonah and the whale with a relevant line from the Worcester poem
concerning the Resurrection and a picture of Moses and the burning bush,
a type of the Virgin birth, also with its verbal match in the Nativity bay
of the Chapter House.33
A comparison between the typological images around the ciboria and
those in the Eton manuscript, together with their verses which approximate
closely to the Worcester texts, suggest that the lost paintings may have
been the model for these extant works.34 Their dating also supports this
view. Whereas in some instances a smaller, easily transportable, artefact or
manuscript might have served as model for a larger, static work, in the case
of the ciboria the very limited schemes would not have given rise to the
much fuller descriptions at Worcester. If the cathedral paintings were the
original source, it may be reasonable to assume that the composition and
other features of the lost works can be partially recreated from the Eton
manuscript. A further point in favour of the primacy of the monumental
work is that the tone of its verses, discussed below in a comparison with
Canterbury and Klosterneuburg, is distinctive and suited to the Chapter
House context. There is another possibility, however, namely that the verses
circulated independently, part of some kind of Ur-compilation of types
with verses and comments that served as a verbal reservoir from which
patrons and programmers could draw.
One such work, dating from about 1200, is known as Pictor in Carmine,
the Painter in Song. It exists in a number of unillustrated copies made during
the thirteenth century and later which are associated with, or later found
their way to, ecclesiastical centres at Lincoln, Waltham Abbey, Durham
and Worcester.35 The text contains verses and exegesis of Old Testament
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episodes relating to Christs life, the apostolic age and future judgement.
Its author gathered together established types, including some which were
not apparently widely featured in art, under one hundred and thirty eight
chapter headings and interpreted each with leonine verses and exegesis. He
set out in a preface both his reasons for undertaking the task and what he
thought typology offered the viewer. He will be taken for convenience here
as Adam of Abbey Dore in Herefordshire, a Cistercian monk who would
have preferred a visual silence in churches but who conceded that it was
preferable to display more meaningful images than the fantasy world offour
lions with one head, for instance, or monkeys playing the pipe. His introduction to acceptable pictures echoes the thoughts of his Cistercian predecessor Bernard ofClairvaux, who had railed against the monstrous centaurs,
half-men and four-footed beasts with serpent tails, deformities that had no
place in a religious setting, especially in the cloister.36 Adam ofAbbey Dore
thought it an excusable concession for parish churches to provide images.
As books for the laity, they could teach the unlearned or help those who
knew more to love the Scriptures. He also stated in his introduction that his
purpose was to curb the licence of painters in local churches. Adam, wishing
to extend the impact of typology to the laity, stated that New Testament
subjects should be identified in art by the names oftheir characters but that
the Old Testament types required verses by way of explanation.
Some of the episodes he cited from Christs life lent themselves readily
to Old Testament foreshadowings, while others struggled to attract relevant
comparisons. Instances from the moralising animal stories of bestiaries and,
occasionally, perceived and inherited scientific facts, feature alongside the
types. They, too, must have been deemed edifying. The Annunciation, the
episode with the most sub-headings, has been assigned eighteen types with
three extras: the sun shining through a window without violating the glass,
a rhinoceros lying in the lap of a virgin and the image of fire drawn from
crystal water by the action of the sun. Christ changing water in six jars
36
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related to the Virgin which included the Ark of the Covenant. The other
examples, of the burning bush and Gideon, were commonplace. At Saint
Marys church in Fairford the late fifteenth century typology window of
the Virgin shows the horned Moses holding a shoe he has removed in the
divine presence, looking up at the image of God in the bush and Gideon,
approached by an angel, is dressed as a soldier, kneeling beside the animal
skin. Adam of Abbey Dore also included among Annunciation types Gods
words to the serpent in the Garden of Eden that a woman would crush its
head, which was understood to look forward to the Virgin Mary, whose
obedience would bring about the overcoming of Satan.40
Events around the Crucifixion are especially rich in the range of Old
Testament types offered by Pictor, in keeping with the emphasis placed by
the Church on the sacrificial nature of the death of Christ. The Worcester
verses had declared that Christs birth would have meant nothing if he had
not died.41 Adam of Abbey Dore listed forty examples, divided into eight
sections. These were the Carrying of the Wood, Lament of the Women,
Christ on the Cross, Christ derided by the ChiefPriests, the Commendation
of his Mother to John, the Prayer for his Oppressors, his Pierced Side with
Blood and Water flowing out, the Curtain of the Jewish Temple rent into
two. Some of the types are very rare in art, such as Jephthahs daughter
lamenting her virginity with her friends before being offered as a sacrifice
by her father ( Judges 11vv.349) and the daughters of Sion lamenting
the death of King Saul (2 Samuel [Kings] 1v.24), both foreshadowing the
weeping women of Jerusalem following Christ to his death.
Other types are more familiar: Eve taken from Adams side and Moses
striking the rock with his rod, the two types given by Adam of Dore for
Christs pierced side, both of which related specifically to the Church, the
first to its emergence and the second to its sacrament of the Mass, in which
wine mixed with water was consecrated. There are types which emphasised
the sacrificial nature of the Crucifixion, the bull in Leviticus immolated at
the entrance to the tabernacle and the red heifer burned outside the camp.
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The first was the offering made acceptable by place (Leviticus 17v.4), the
Tabernacle signifying the Church; the red heifer (Numbers 19v.2) was the
sacrifice without blemish whose ashes were kept for the preparation of water
used for removing sin. Christs readiness to offer himself for the benefit of
mankind was expressed through Jonahs willingness to be thrown overboard
in a storm to save his fellow passengers and crew of the boat. Some of Adam
of Dores types for the Crucifixion included Old Testament episodes in
which the meanings would be reversed by the New Testament event. Eve
reaches out her hand to the fruit of the forbidden tree, in contrast to Christ
who stretched out his arms on the tree of the cross to bring healing. This
visual comparison had been made on the bronze doors of the cathedral
in Hildesheim, north Germany. Other types were to be completed by the
New Testament episodes. Abraham had been stopped from offering his son
Isaac and had killed the sheep instead, thereby anticipating the true Lamb
and allowing the incident to escalate into the sacrifice of the Son of God.
Some of the typology gathered in Pictor in Carmine seems stretched
or exaggerated. Noah being roused from his inebriated sleep (Genesis
9vv.207) and David let down from a window by Michal his wife (1 Samuel
[Kings]19v.12), for instance, both foreshadow the Resurrection of Christ.
The first example follows on from the teaching of the Glossa that Noah
spread out naked in his drunken state was Christ extended on the cross.
The second, which is included in the Redemption window at Canterbury
cathedral, was David let out of a window of his house by his wife, Michal,
to escape the tyranny of Saul (1 Samuel [Kings]19v.12), just as Christ broke
free from the clutches ofSatan and death (Fig. 30). David escapes unharmed,
the Canterbury verse points out, so Jesus routs the envious squadron that
he may rise again with death overcome.42 This does not seem to have been
a common type, though it was used in a lost painted cycle in Peterborough
cathedral and does feature in extant illustration other than at Canterbury,
including some manuscript versions of the Biblia Pauperum.43
42 Caviness, The Windows of Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury, 155.
43 Lucy Sandler, The Peterborough Psalter in Brussels and other Fenland Manuscripts
(London: Harvey Miller, 1974). Colum Hourihane, ed., King David in the Index of
Christian Art (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 18991.
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Fig. 30 Michal lets David down through the Window, Canterbury Cathedral,
Corona Redemption window, detail, thirteenth century. Photo: John Sells.
With kind permission of the Dean and Chapter, Canterbury.
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46 Augustine, Exposition in the Book of Psalms. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 8
(Massachusetts: Hendrick, 1995) 723 (Psalm 34).
47 James, Pictor in Carmine, 148.
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scene at Lincoln depicts the Last Supper. As a type it does not appear to
have been common, though it featured in the original typological windows
at Canterbury and has survived mainly in manuscript illumination where,
for example, the mad David sometimes accompanies the title to Psalm 33.48
Adam of Abbey Dores work is an important compendium to medieval art, not only for its gathering together of type and exegesis but for
the emphasis it places on the key role of the verse in conveying the more
lengthy interpretations of biblical exegetes. It provides another dimension to our knowledge of written sources behind the images, alongside the
popular Bibles and the plays based on Old Testament characters. Pictor in
Carmine is also further witness to the major importance of typology in the
Churchs use of the Old Testament to convey a message. Actions of many
of the characters and stories in the Vulgate, from the Garden of Eden to
the wars of the Maccabees, in their unassumed roles of foreshadowings,
instruct and edify. Even without the benefit of illustration in manuscripts
of Adam of Dores text, the types come alive in the rhythm of the verse.
Variations on a Theme
In the absence of images, the Worcester Chapter House typology also has
to be studied from its songs. These had pre-dated Pictor and included
some of the types which were later gathered up in Adams compilation.49
There was an inscription over the door at Worcester, as there had been at
Nola eight hundred years previously, and a general introduction to the
iconography. On entering, members of the Chapter were reminded that
they were passing into a non-worldly kingdom and that their deliberations
were not to be corrupted by the sin of simony, the buying of ecclesiastical
office, named after Simon in Samaria who had wanted to purchase the
power of the Holy Spirit from the Apostles Peter and John (Acts of the
Apostles 8vv.1824). Images in this special space once opened to view
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what the letter enclosed.50 Ten subject areas, probably painted on the vault,
contained eight episodes in Christs life from the Nativity to the Ascension,
each supported by three Old Testament types. After these were depicted
Synagogue, supported by John the Baptist, Ezekiels vision ofthe wheels of
the moving chariot and the Queen of Sheba. Finally, Christ with his Bride,
the Church, completed the scheme beside Jew united with Gentile, Mercy
joined with Truth and Justice with Peace, probably inspired by Jeromes
exegesis on Psalm 85 [84] which lay behind the same iconography in the
Lambeth Bible tree of Jesse.
The verses indicate a different emphasis from those of the Canterbury
Redemption window types, which seem to promote the status quo of
the ecclesiastical hierarchy. At Worcester the verses are what would now
be called people-friendly and there is a concern for the whole body of
Christians, perhaps reflecting the pastoral interests of the cathedral clergy.
Christ presented in the temple (Luke 2vv.2239) attracted the three types
of Abels offering of a lamb (Genesis 4), Abraham giving Melchizedek
the tithe of booty (Genesis 14) and Samuel dedicated to God (I Samuel
[Kings]1v.24). A lamb given by one person now becomes at Worcester a
Lamb offered from the people; it is the whole Christian community that
presents its tithes to Christ; Samuel has become miles, a soldier in the
service of the King.
Selection of types, too, as well as their verses, provided a different
tone from those at Canterbury. The widow of Zarephath with her two
sticks anticipates the cross, which joins two peoples; Elisha raising the
son of the Shunamite woman (2 [4]Kings 4vv.2537), here a type of the
Crucifixion, foreshadows the God on the cross raising us to life. In the
Worcester scheme, also, Christ does not enter heaven at his Ascension as
the privileged and remote High Priest of the Old Testament going into
the Holy of Holies; rather he is the scapegoat, carrying the sins of the
people. According to the introductory verse to the lost Ascension painting,
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he leads the way as the head of the body of Christians: Where, as your head,
I ascend, you, my limbs, come following.51 In the last two bays, Synagogue
is not condemned but invited to be adorned with Grace and Faith to attach
herself to Christ to form one flock. Mercy and Truth join together, Justice
and Peace rejoice, as they do in the Lambeth Bible tree of Jesse where the
veil is lifted from Synagogues eyes.
Typology on the altarpiece of Nicholas of Verdun had another setting
and purpose. Originally made as a pulpit for the community of Augustinian
canons near Vienna and transformed into an altarpiece in the fourteenth
century, it had a liturgical context which may have influenced its iconography and verses. New Testament scenes in chronological order, which highlight the key moments of the liturgical year, occupy the middle horizontal
band. Each episode is flanked by two Old Testament types, the scene above
taken from before the giving of the Law to Moses (ante legem) and, below,
from the time of Hebrew history under the Law (sub lege). This threefold
division went back at least to Augustine.52 It was related to broader eras of
salvation time than the six-fold division based on the Genesis creation and
lent itself more readily to typology. The New Testament band of scenes on
the altarpiece, representing the Age of Grace (sub gratia), was explained
in a general inscription as the reparation of the ruin brought about by the
serpent.53 In the top spandrels above the images, Old Testament prophets are represented. Below the New Testament scenes are the virtues. The
emphasis here is on a presentation of theological statement which is not
partisan as some of the Canterbury images and verses and which does not
follow the Worcester pastoral interests.
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Fig. 31 Announcing of the Birth of
Isaac, Altarpiece of Nicholas of Verdun,
Klosterneuberg, twelfth century.
Photo: Warburg Institute.
Typology I
161
Most ofthe Klosterneuburg types are familiar and the Annunciation is illustrated so that comparison can be made with the Biblia Pauperum described
in the next chapter. The three angels who visited Abraham by the oaks of
Mamre to announce the birth of Isaac (Genesis 18), carry a scroll stating
that he saw three and worshipped one (Fig. 31). This type has been taken
beyond its direct comparison with the New Testament angel visiting Mary
into an affirmation of the Trinity. Similarly with the second type beside
the Annunciation, in which the angel announces Samsons birth to his
mother, the verse does not simply identify the occasion but extends into
the significance of what is to happen: she will have progeny to the peril of
the enemy (Fig. 33). This anticipates Samsons overcoming ofthe Philistines
who were fighting the Hebrews and, by implication, suggests that Christ
will also subdue his opponent, the devil.
Verse and picture together present different layers of meaning in the
Queen of Sheba panel where, as in the Canterbury typology window (Plate
5, lower left), she serves as type of the Adoration of the Magi. The emphasis
of the text at Klosterneuburg is on the gifts she brings to Solomon, which
secretly acknowledge her faith in him (Fig. 34). In the image she is black,
an allusion to the beloved in the Song of Solomon: I am black but comely
(Song ofSongs 1v.4), interpreted by Augustine as referring to the Gentiles.54
She is the ruler from the distant South who recognises Gods anointed, as
Gentiles and kings will come to the glory of the New Age and the camels
of Sheba will carry offerings of gold and incense (Isaiah 60vv.16). In the
traditional dividing of the text of the Song of Songs into parts spoken by
Christ, Church and Synagogue, she represents the voice of the Church.55
Her black image on the altarpiece may have been inspired by liturgical
hymns written by the Augustinian canons at St Victor near Paris, which
are said to have been adopted at Klosterneuburg.56 In any case her appearance here reflected a long-standing result of exegesis.
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Fig. 34 Visit of the Queen of Sheba
to Solomon, Altarpiece of Nicholas of
Verdun, Klosterneuburg, twelfth century.
Photo: Warburg Institute.
57
Brussels, Royal Lib. MSS. 99612. Sandler, The Peterborough Psalter in Brussels and
other Fenland Manuscripts, 11215.
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Typology II
Typology was to achieve a final flowering in the late Middle Ages. The rich
sources of types, with their extended possibilities when supported by verses,
continued to offer a system which reflected the unity of Scripture and was
flexible in its application. When the religious mood in parts of Europe was
moving towards an emphasis on private devotion and the printing presses
were transforming the way in which the Bible could reach out more directly
to the laity, typology adapted to the shifting scene. There were two works in
particular, the block-books of the Mirror of Mans Salvation and the Bible
of the Poor, which made typological schemes more widely accessible by
bringing together, into single volumes, many of the types previously known
from monumental or liturgical art and from the pages of manuscripts previously confined to monastic libraries, schools and universities. The Bible of
the Poor, especially, is now accessible in facsimile editions and published
with translation of the Latin quotations and commentary.1
The word typology has today gained currency in other ways. Apart
from the visual correspondences of form, line and colour echoing each other
in images set side by side, the term has sometimes been used of a single
figure whose features might be drawn in such a way as to present a similitude to another person. Thus the figure of Daniel in a manuscript now in
Dijon, in the initial to the commentary by Jerome on the biblical book of
that name, is haloed, seated on a throne, his hands raised and hair parted
in the middle, deliberately portrayed to resemble depictions of Christ. This
Eg. Avril Henry, Biblia Pauperum (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1987). Albert C. Labriola
and John W. Smeltz, The Bible of the Poor (Biblia Pauperum) (Pittsburgh, PA:
Duquesne Press, 1990). Elizabeth Soltesz, The Esztergom Blockbook of Forty Leaves
(Budapest: Corvina Press, 1967).
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Typology II
167
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brief written commentary and quotations from the prophets and Psalms.
In the early fourteenth century the Mirror of Mans Salvation appeared in
Latin as a continuous poetic narrative; only later some copies of both the
original text and translations into the vernacular came to be illustrated.
It began by setting out the need for redemption, starting with the fall of
angels and man, continuing with a series of forty one events taken from
the lives of the Virgin and Christ, then ending with the Blessed in heaven.
Each episode attracted three types. By about 1350 the text of the Mirror was
known through much of Europe, from Dortmund in the north, Prague in
the east to Toledo in south-west Spain.8
Typology served the different purposes of the Biblia Pauperum and
Mirror of Mans Salvation. However much in the course of its transmission illustrations to the Mirror assumed increasing importance, the work
remained primarily a text. Although many more manuscripts have now
been discovered, as well as further block-book versions, from over two
hundred Latin and Latin-German extant manuscripts that were known
in the early twentieth century fewer than half were illustrated.9 In the
first productions in which image and text did combine, the writing took
up as much space as the picture.10 The author of the Mirror set out his
intention in the prologue, namely to enable man to know his Maker and
to offer what he considered might be used as a source book for sermons.
To this end he extended his range of New Testament themes and Old
Testament types beyond the Scriptures, drawing on the apocryphal Gospels,
Peter Comestors Historia Scholastica, the theological writings of Thomas
Aquinas and the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine which recorded
the lives of the Virgin Mary and the Saints.11 His simple style, he claimed,
would be understood by the uneducated as well as the educated.
Avril Henry, The Mirour of Mans Salvacioune (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1986), 10.
Montague R. James, Speculum Humanae Salvationis (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1926).
10 Bert Cardon, Manuscripts of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis in the Southern
Netherlands c.14101470 (Leuven: Peeters, 1996), 32.
11 Henry, Mirour of Mans Salvacioune, 12.
8
9
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169
Many of his examples are unusual. His inclusion of the life of the
Virgin from the Gospel of James meant that he had to find types for these
events which were unfamiliar from previous schemes concentrating on
New Testament events.12 Sometimes he poached his types. He included
the sacrifice of Jephthahs daughter ( Judges 11), for example, as a foreshadowing of the surrender of Mary by her parents to the temple, not as it had
been cited in Pictor in Carmine for the lamenting women following Christ
to his death. Even with mainstream Gospel subjects his choice of type was
sometimes rare, in some cases fulfilling his own observation in the prologue
that certain parallels might be shocking. For the Nativity he cited Aarons
rod blossoming, the dream of the butler in prison with Joseph in Egypt
and a story of the Virgin and Child appearing to the sibyl who was on her
way to visit Solomon. Aarons rod is familiar from earlier medieval uses.
Pharaohs butler had seen a vine with three branches (Genesis 40v.10)
and this unusual choice of type had become to the Mirrors author an
indication of the flesh, soul and godhead of Christ revealed at his birth.
His non-biblical prefiguration came from a story included in a thirteenth
century chronicle, copied from an earlier text on the marvels of Rome. The
Emperor Augustus (Octavian) consulted a sibyl when he learned that the
Roman senators wanted to worship him; he was told by the prophetess
that in a sign of doom the earth would grow moist with sweat and that the
king who is to reign for ever shall come down from heaven.13
In contrast to the more textually oriented Mirror, the Bibles of the
Poor explored the impact of the picture through juxtapositions of Old
and New Testament scenes that are generally more consistent with former
medieval examples of typology. Page design and handwriting in the earlier
versions varied, the layout being dependent on the family to which the
manuscript belonged.14 Each maintained the centrality of the Gospel
event, with Old Testament scenes, prophetic sayings and brief commentary
Montague R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924,
1972), 3849.
13 James, Speculum Humanae Salvationis, 19.
14 Henrik Cornell, Biblia Pauperum (Stockholm: Thule-Tryck, 1925), 46.
12
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15
Typology II
171
172
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Fig. 35 The Baptism of Christ with Exodus and Spies, Biblia Pauperum,
fifteenth century. Photo: Warburg Institute.
Typology II
173
The first two pages of the Schreiber edition of the Biblia Pauperum
block-book described by Avril Henry, the Annunciation and Nativity, indicate a deliberate pairing of events which occurs more-or-less throughout
that book and which indicates the inter-related nature of the scheme.17 In
the fifty page block-book, illustrated here, these scenes are separated but
follow the same imagery and verse accompaniment.18 Old Testament types
beside the two New Testament scenes are Eve with the serpent, Gideon
and the fleece which became wet when the surrounding ground remained
dry (Fig. 36), Moses beside the burning bush which was not destroyed
and Aarons rod which budded (Fig. 37), which had previously been used
interchangeably for the Annunciation and Nativity. The verse below Eve
states that the virgin bears without labour. All four types therefore indicate
that the New Testament events are unnatural and unique.
On the Annunciation page the unity of the scenes is emphasised in
the imagery. Curves of the scrolls containing words of the speakers echo
each other; there is a visual parallel between Gideons tree and the one in
the Garden of Eden; God or an angel from heaven fills the top left of each
frame. The comment above Eve refers to Gods announcement to the serpent in Eden that the woman would crush his head, She being interpreted
here as the glorious Blessed Virgin Mary in a tradition that had come to be
associated especially with Bernard of Clairvaux.19 The verse below Eve, the
only one which is not a leonine hexameter, which states that the serpent
loses power, a virgin bears without labour, has been linked to Peter Rigas
Aurora.20 Gideon the warrior, the complete animal fleece stretched out
in front of him, acknowledges the angels greeting that God is with him,
the most valiant of men ( Judges 6v.12). Two Gideon episodes have been
amalgamated, namely his initial call to lead the Hebrews and the sign of
the fleece which immediately preceded his battle with the Midianites. The
17 Henry, Biblia Pauperum, 48.
18 P. Heitz and W.L. Schreiber, Biblia Pauperum, nach dem einzigen Exemplare in 50
Darstellungen herausgegeben von P. Heitz (frher in Wolfenbttel, jetzt in der bibliothque nationale) (Stassburg: J.H. Ed. Heitz (Heitz und Mndel), 1903).
19 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon on Luke 1vv.267, Patrologia Latina 183.63.
20 Henry, Biblia Pauperum, 50, 131 note 2.
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with his rod and Daniel, his arms raised in amazement as a large boulder
detaches itself from the top of the mountain. Canterburys lost typology
windows had also included the image of the stone beside the Nativity scene.
Fig. 37 The Nativity with Moses and Aarons Rod, Biblia Pauperum, fifteenth century.
Photo: Warburg Institute.
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Paul Saenger, Silent Reading; Its Impact on Late Medieval Script and Society, Viator
13 (1982), 367414 (401).
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population, they provided the laity, from royalty and dukes to affluent
burghers and their wives, with their own prayer books.28 However much
they might have been considered by some as status symbols, they seem to
testify to the growing desire for personal devotion.
The Biblia Pauperum, generally more modest and, especially in blockbook form, less individualised, served a different purpose within the movement towards a more private piety. Books of Hours were prayer books,
their texts to be read or recited privately at the time ofthe monastic offices.
Sometimes Old Testament scenes were depicted, such as Jobs misfortunes
before the Office ofthe Dead and occasionally typological parallels appeared.
Eve, Moses and the burning bush and Gideon with his fleece were included
in the images for Matins in a French Book of Hours from about 1485.29 The
spies with their bunch of grapes as a type of Christs baptism appeared in
another French work from about the same time, which bears many other
similarities in style and iconography to the Bible of the Poor, but here the
images are in the border.30 The Biblia Pauperum was Bible focused, its Gospel
story recounted in image and brieftext through thirty-four sections initially,
which had expanded by the later fifteenth century to forty or fifty pages. It
is not liturgical and possibly demanded more from its readers. Each single
page, even though it might have featured beside another displaying a related
subject, was complete in itself. Its Old and New Testament juxtapositions,
prophecies and verses set within a recognisable framework, guided its readers on an intellectual journey which began with the central images. It was a
stimulus to meditation on the Gospel events, based on the whole of biblical
revelation. Since it contains the first temptation of Christ in the wilderness
after his baptism, as half of its sequence relates to the last events in his life
and as forty was the usual number of its pages, it may well have come to
be used, as has been suggested, as a companion to the forty days of Lent.31
28 John Harthan, Books of Hours (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), 31.
29 Roger S. Wieck, The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life (London: Sothebys
Publications, 1988), Catalogue of Manuscripts no.64, 200. Walters Art Gallery, MS
W. 245, fols 6v, 7v.
30 Mary B. Winn, Vrards Hours of February 20, 1489/90 and their Biblical Borders,
Bulletin du bibliophile (1991), 299330. Angers, bibliothque municipale MS. T 1343.
31 Henry, Biblia Pauperum, 18.
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These books, through their selection of types, quotations and comment, draw out certain aspects of the Gospel event which would encourage
readers in their spiritual quest. On the Crucifixion page, Christs suffering,
remembered on the penultimate day of Lent, Good Friday, is said to snatch
the believer from the gloomy abyss. The type of Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac is said to represent the love of the Father, rather than present a
doctrine of sacrifice. The second type, the bronze serpent raised by Moses
in the wilderness when a plague of snakes invaded the camp (Numbers
21vv.49), indicates healing. It was the serpent hung up who healed the
Hebrews, that is Christ on the cross, on whom every believing person who
wishes to be rid of the Garden of Eden serpent (that is the devil) should
gaze. At the end of Lent, Christians reconfirmed their baptismal vows
before celebration of the Resurrection; the spies in the Biblia Pauperum,
as a type of Christs baptism, offer reflection on the importance of baptism
as the means of a person entering the land of honey on the other side of
the water (Fig. 35).
In meditating on the images and their Old Testament supports, the
reader of the Biblia Pauperum is drawn towards an increasingly personal
involvement. Inclusion in the Gospel sequence of Mary Magdalene repenting, with unusual types of the prophet Nathan bringing King David to
repentance (2 Kings[Samuel] 12vv.113) and the sister of Moses and Aaron
cured of leprosy when she repented (Numbers 12), encourage penitence.
The prophetic verses emphasise Gods acknowledgement of the contrite
heart and the relationship which ensues from it. Later, on one of the last
pages of the block-book, where God gathers the souls of the blessed in a
napkin after the Judgement, the types are of Job feasting with his family
after his former trials and Jacobs ladder, which he saw in a dream when
God promised him and his descendants the land flowing with milk and
honey (Genesis 28vv.1017) (Fig. 38).
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Fig. 38 Souls in Heaven with Job feasting and Jacobs Ladder, Biblia Pauperum,
fifteenth century. Photo: Warburg Institute.
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The text at the base of this page is a prayer: O Father in the heavens,
may you wish to feast me in your company.32 At the end of the block-book
there is the union with God of the individual who has let the mind wander
through Old and New Testament and whose devotion has reached its
summit. Christ awards the crown of eternal life, flanked by the groom of
the Song ofSongs crowning the spotless bride (Song ofSongs 4vv.78) and
by a second type of Saint John the Divine with the angel who promised
to show him the bride, the wife of the Lamb (Revelation 21v.9). Beneath
the Old Testament image the verse speaks of the soul, Praise indeed to
the soul, be quite confident that you have a husband.33
This devotional use of typology in the Biblia Pauperum adds another
dimension to a subject which has often been interpreted solely as a proclamation of the Churchs superiority over Judaism, or which has been
understood as a mirror of the conflict between Jew and Gentile.34 The
topic is much wider than this. Previous attitudes towards the Jews, especially links made with their part in the death of Christ, do feature in the
Biblia Pauperum, but they are not the purpose of the whole work. There
are five pages out of the forty folio version which provoke comment on
Jewish treachery: the prediction of the Passion; the Jews falling back ( John
18v.6) with its New Testament types; Christs betrayal in the Garden of
Gethsemane; his condemnation; the mockery. The imagery is made relevant
to the personal piety of the reader.
One of the lost Canterbury windows had prefigured Judas disloyalty
by that of Joab, Davids commander, greeting Abner then killing him (2
Samuel [Kings] 3vv.267) with the words that while he feigns friendship,
Joab draws his sword for slaughter, indicating the wicked friendship of the
Jews.35 The block-book repeats the theme: Joab is like Judas who deceitfully kissed Christ and gave him to the wicked Jews to be crucified.36 Then
32 Henry, Biblia Pauperum, 126.
33 Henry, Biblia Pauperum, 127.
34 Eg. Henry N. Claman, Jewish Images in the Christian Church. Art as the Mirror of the
Jewish-Christian Conflict 2001250 CE (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2000).
35 Caviness, Windows of Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury, 151.
36 Henry, Biblia Pauperum, 90.
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the accompanying quotation from Proverbs warns that anyone who lies,
not only a Jew, falls into evil (Proverbs 17v.20). Comment on the page
of the Jews falling back from Christ, included between the prediction of
the Passion and Betrayal, allegorised the devils who fell with Lucifer in
the book of Revelation as the Jews who were proud and afraid of losing
their status and land. The reference to the Psalms, that they have fallen
into the pit which they themselves made (Psalm 7v.16), serves as a general
warning. The Jews in history are held up like the foolish girls without oil
in their lamps (Matthew 25vv.113), examples of those unprepared. Here
the verse from Baruch warns that anyone who falls to the ground does not
get up again by himself (Baruch 6v.26). In the specific context of personal
meditation, these traditional condemnations are extended to invite the
reader to consider for himself the correct or incorrect responses to Christ.
Some warnings of condemnation which might have been directed
towards the Jews turn instead to Christian apostasy and the Gentiles. In
the imagery of Hell, it is those wearing crowns and mitres, rather than the
Jews, who are herded towards the place of torment, as they had been in
the Hortus Deliciarum.37 This apparent anti-clerical imagery fits the overall
theme of the Biblia Pauperum that all people, whatever their status in the
world, would suffer the same fate if they pursue evil. Types of those entering
hell record previous Old Testament incidents of immorality or disobedience, with their consequences: the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah
are destroyed (Genesis 19vv.129), Dathan and Abiron are swallowed by
the earth because of their rebellion (Numbers 16vv.433), while the reader
is warned that everyone who pays no attention to Catholic Law or the Ten
Commandments will suffer a similar fate. The Amalekite condemned by
David for killing Gods anointed (2 Samuel [2 Kings] 1vv.1316) is a type
of the Last Judgement. Here the comment cautions that anyone will be
judged according to his sins. Also on this Judgement page Ezekiels quotation states that God will judge you according to your ways (Ezekiel 7v.3)
and Isaiahs words speak of God judging the Gentiles and accusing many
people (Isaiah 2v.4).
37 Herrad, Hortus Deliciarum fol. 255, 338.
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Beyond Typology
There is an integrity to the Biblia Pauperum, an easy flow of imagery continuing through the familiar structure of each page. Its single line verses
which identify the scenes and the prophetic quotations and brief commentary related to the central images, present a directness that makes each
subject immediately accessible. In less secure settings, it is not always clear
if an Old Testament subject was intended to be interpreted as a type. Since
biblical episodes attracted multiple meanings, a depiction of Daniel in the
lions den, for example, might hint at the entombment of Christ and imminent Resurrection, but equally it could have served as an encouragement
to faithfulness, an expression of trust in divine providence, or even simply
as a reminder of an event acted out in the play of Daniel, prompting the
viewer to recall the Old Testament story and its implications. Parameters
to typology had been stretched in the Mirror of Mans Salvation. Pictor,
too, had included a few scientific and Bestiary examples among the firmly
based biblical references. The essential simplicity of typology, that is a direct
relationship in history between one Old and one New Testament episode,
could be compromised by the single image that was made up from several
Old Testament texts or by the complex diagram which presented multiple
ideas relating to the two parts of Christian Scripture.
A tendency towards allegorising typology was not new. Already in
Justin Martyrs Dialogue with Trypho, when he quoted from the book of
Exodus that the Lord was said to fight with hidden hand against Amalek,
the enemy had become the spiritual and human opponents of the true
Israel, the Church.39 Allegory had been a favoured area of interpretation
at the intellectual centre of Alexandria in the time of Philo during the first
century ce and was approved by the rabbis in their exegesis of the Hebrew
Scriptures.40 The same tradition soon became established in Christian
scholarship, but when allegory blended with typology it distorted the
39 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho XLIX, 99.
40 Lampe and Woollcombe, Essays on Typology, 32.
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41 Annette Krger and Gabriele Runge, Lifting the Veil: Two Typological Drawings
in the Hortus Deliciarum, JWCI LX (1997), 122.
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evangelists, by whom the testament is laid out in both persons, Moses and
Christ. The diagram sets out the Old Testament offerings as allegories of
virtues and relates to the Christian doctrine of atonement rather than to
any specific episode in the Gospels.
Fig. 39 Christ and Moses, Hortus Deliciarum, fol. 67r, twelfth/thirteenth century.
Photo: Warburg Institute.
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front of the Ark of the Covenant which is flanked by cherubim and constructed of brick in the form of a church building. Biblical texts, mainly
from the Psalms and relating to sacrifices, flow backwards and forwards
like antiphonal chanting between him and the female busts who inhabit
the inner roundels and who represent virtues.
Fig. 40 Christ as High Priest, Hortus Deliciarum, fol. 67v, twelfth/thirteenth century.
Photo: Warburg Institute.
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42 L. Grodecki, Les vitraux allgoriques de St Denis. Art de France I. Paris 1961 pp.1946.
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Christ.43 Each of the many strands condensed into this single picture has
to be unpacked and analysed. Some commentators had seen the new cart
on which the Ark of the Covenant left its resting place at Aminadabs
house as the New Testament, its four wheels as the Gospel writers. At
Saint Denis the Evangelist symbols were depicted in the wheels. Other
writers related the Shulamite of the Song of Solomon to Synagogue and
spoke of her travelling in the chariot to join Christ.44 The biographer of
Gilbert of Sempringham likened it to the Gilbertine order he founded in
south Lincolnshire in the twelfth century, which included both men and
women. He considered that Father Gilbert guides the chariot over places
rough and smooth. Two of the four wheels were the clerks and laymen,
the others the lettered and unlettered women; the two oxen pulling the
cart were the clerical and monastic disciplines of Saint Augustine and
Saint Benedict.45 The Ark of the Covenant alone had long been accepted
as a type of the Church.46 Even in Herrads complex drawings, the Ark
stood for the Church and Old Testament rituals have given way to the
atonement of Christ in the Crucifixion. The chariot of Aminadab, from
its beginnings a contrived image, has now, in this Gilbertine use, lost any
semblance to typology.
Challenges to Typology
As so many Old Testament episodes served as types it was inevitable that
the same subjects would overlap with other areas of iconography, in narrative sequences or depictions of time, without any specific visual reference
to a New Testament counterpart. The Winchester Bible Genesis initial,
43 Erwin Panofsky in Holt, A Documentary History of Art, vol. 1, 33.
44 Michael Curschmann, Imaged Exegesis: Text and Picture in Rupert of Deutz,
Honorius Augustodunensis and Gerhoch of Reichersberg, Traditio 44 (1988),
14569.
45 Raymonde Foreville and Gillian Keir, eds, The Book of Saint Gilbert, with critical
text of the Vita (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 53.
46 Eg. Bede, On the Tabernacle I.5.
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marking the ages from creation to final judgement, has already been cited.
The first medallion, of Eve taken from Adams rib, was an unusual choice
for a creation scene and may have been chosen for its typological significance of the Church issuing from the side of Christ (Plate 3). When his
body on the cross was pierced, blood and water flowed from the wound
( John 19v.34), which came to be seen as symbolic of the blood of the new
covenant delivered to the Church. There were many types in the Joseph
story relating to the last days of Christs life: he was placed in the tomb as
Joseph was put into the pit, betrayed and sold for ten more pieces of silver
than Joseph was, condemned on the cross between two criminals as Joseph
found himself in gaol with two other prisoners, in each case one good the
other bad. Comparisons between the two stories might continue.47 It has
been suggested that the narrative Joseph mosaics in Saint Marks, Venice,
were actually adapted from their source in a fifth century illustrated Genesis
to accommodate typology.48 These emphasise the issues about the importance of context when interpreting imagery and the possibility of several
meanings in a work of art. That apparently essential juxtaposition of Old
and New Testament events is brought into question since there are no antitypes in the Winchester initial nor in the Venice Joseph saga. The problem
expands into a more general one, of how far a type functions as such when
it is only implied and when it is not supported by a corresponding New
Testament idea or image.
Where Old Testament figures appear apparently at random or without
New Testament counterparts, interpretation has often turned to typology.
Single catacomb images have been described as types, including those of
Daniel, the three boys in the fiery furnace and Moses striking the rock
for water. Daniel in the lions den came to be seen as a foreshadowing of
Christs entombment and anticipated resurrection. In the later Bible of the
Poor, the three youths were a type of Christs Transfiguration, in which
the disciples were given a glimpse of his future glorified state but in the
47 Eg. In Guillaume de Bourges, Livre des guerres du Seigneur XXX lines 20655.
48 Kessler, Seeing Medieval Art, 107. Martin Bchsel, Die Schpfungsmosaiken von
San Marco, Staedel Jahrbuch 13 (1991), 2980.
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catacombs these figures would have been precedents of release and hope
for salvation after endurance. Daniel had been one of the examples named
in an early Christian prayer for deliverance.49 Moses finding water in the
rock, already a type in Justin Martyrs Dialogue, signalled new life from the
stone just as through Christ there was the hope of resurrection for those
buried in the catacombs. In any case physical or posthumous salvation was
certainly more pressing than theological refinements of the new covenant
finding hidden meanings in the old one. These early Old Testament images
served the need for a visual expression of deliverance, before the double
imagery of type and antitype became commonplace.
The above examples raise the possibility of what may be termed a half
typology, where Old Testament types might feature without their antitypes
in medieval art. Such is probably the case, for instance, in twelve images
on a chalice ranging from Samuels presentation to Eli (1 Kings [Samuel]3)
to Elishas raising of the sunken axe-head (4[2] Kings 6vv.17).50 This
second episode was a foreshadowing of Christ carrying the cross according to Pictor in Carmine. Reference to types may often have lain behind
the choice of Old Testament imagery. In the twelfth century church of
Notre Dame at Gargilesse-Dampierre, in the Indre department, France,
Old Testament scenes dominate the interior capitals, though these may not
be a true reflection of the complete iconography as the church has been
considerably shortened.51 From the New Testament are an Annunciation,
Visitation and scattered figures of the twenty four elders of the Apocalypse,
but the most striking carvings are those from the Old Testament. Near the
Annunciation and Visitation capitals are those of Daniel amongst lions
and Habakkuk, leaving his house with food for the reapers, plucked by a
lock of his hair to be diverted to the lions den, which had become a type of
the Holy Spirit entering the sealed womb of the Virgin. Nearby, the fall of
Nebuchadnezzar is depicted, the king with long beard and crown but the
body of an animal, forced to eat grass like an ox (Daniel 4v.22). He had
attempted to overthrow the Chosen People and in biblical commentary
49 Mle, LArt religieux du 12e sicle, 49.
50 Piotr Skubiszewski, The Iconography of a Romanesque Chalice from Tremeszna,
JWCI XXXIV (1971), 4064.
51 Adelheid Heimann, The Master of Gargilesse, JWCI XXXXII (1979), 4764.
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was allegorised as Satan.52 Now that Christ is about to enter the world, his
kingdom is coming to an end. Other Old Testament scenes in the north
aisle at Gargilesse are not related to New Testament images. One capital
depicts Joseph sold to the Midianites and his father Jacob inspecting his
blood-stained robe, which were types of the betrayal of Christ and of his
crucified flesh. A companion capital at the same level, across the window
opening, depicts Samson wrestling with a lion, a type of the Harrowing of
Hell, and Delilah cutting his hair, an anticipation of Christ captured and
handed over to the enemy.
Opposite the Samson and Joseph capitals at Gargilesse is one of an
uncertain subject (Fig. 41). Behind a seated bearded male figure a woman
tears her clothes, in anger or distress, while in front ofhim another woman
kneels, pleading with him. A youth approaches the scene holding a branch
and an orb-shaped, decorated, container.
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European countries.56 On this capital, the man with orb and branch may
be the messenger who tells Hagar to submit to Sarah, the building from
which he comes being a church, which the Jews are invited to join. Without
the juxtaposition of New Testament scenes or texts the full impact of any
typology is lost and without those correspondences between the impression and its fulfilment there can, arguably, be no typology. An appeal to
the half type at Gargilesse, however, or in other places, might offer another
dimension to the deciphering of an apparently disjointed choice of scenes
or in interpreting an elusive imagery.
Another challenge to typology comes when the second part of the
link between Old Testament and Christian doctrine has yet to take place.
On the Day of Atonement in Leviticus (chapter 16) two animals were
taken, the first to be burnt as an offering, the second to be sent off into
the wilderness, having had the sins of the community pronounced over it.
In Herrads diagram of the former sacrificial system contrasted with the
New Testament scheme of salvation, which revolves around the central
figure of Moses-Christ (Fig. 39), there are two goats below Moses arm,
one labelled the victim consumed by fire and the other, held out beside it,
the scapegoat. Justin Martyr had seen in these goats the two comings of
Christ. Historically, at his first appearance, the elders and priests had laid
hands on him and killed him; like the scapegoat he had continued to live
and had gone away bearing the sins of the people. The Gospel promised
that he would return (Luke 21v.27), to be recognised in Jerusalem Justin
stated.57 He would come back at the end of the age immediately before
the final judgement. An anticipated future is a doubtful antitype because
the type has, as yet, nothing to prefigure.
After judgement the judged would be consigned to heaven or hell. The
deaths of Dathan and Abiram who had rebelled against Moses in the wilderness (Numbers 16, Deuteronomy 11v.6) and the destruction of Sodom
56 Walter Cahn, The Expulsion of the Jews as History and Allegory in Painting and
Sculpture, in Michael A. Signer and John Van Engen, eds, Jews and Christians in
Twelfth Century Europe (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001),
94109.
57 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho XL, 80.
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and Gomorrah (Genesis 19), famed for immorality, were included in the
Biblia Pauperum as types of hell, which cannot be classed as an antitype
relating to an historical event. So, too, Christ and the souls of the blessed,
foreshadowed by Job feasting with his children and by Jacobs ladder, are
also types of a future possibility. Here the manuscript commentary explains
that Jacob, sleeping on a stone, had a dream of a ladder stretching from earth
to heaven with angels descending and had heard God promise the land to
his descendants for ever. This signified the souls of the faithful resting in
Christ, the stone, who have obtained the land of milk and honey which is
the Kingdom of Heaven (Fig. 38).
A further area in which a kind of typology functioned was where
the Old Testament image was situated appropriately in a church building to ally it to liturgical practice. Its counterpart here would be related
to worship rather than to a New Testament scene. Reference was made in
the Introduction to the Ark of the Covenant at Germigny-des-Prs, possibly placed to connect it with the Mass said at the altar (Fig. 5). Since it
was a type of the Church, for instance, its place in the most holy room of
Solomons temple has now been transferred here to the most sacred area
of the building where Christs sacrifice and blood have replaced the old
regime. Another interpretation of the Ark in the sanctuary may relate it
to the reality of Christian ritual in contrast to the former practices of the
old regime, described in the Epistle to the Hebrews, or to the true Holy of
Holies to which Christ had ascended (Hebrews 910).
There are other examples of what may be termed situation typology.
At the abbey of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe the extensive narrative paintings
from Genesis and Exodus, in double registers on the nave vault, take the
viewer in a progression of several forward and backward movements from
entrance to choir as the scenes fold back upon themselves. This arrangement has ensured that Noah cultivating the vine and Noah drinking wine
are closest to the altar.58 Joseph distributing grain in Egypt and what was
probably Moses with the Ark of the Covenant or wilderness Tabernacle are
the subjects at the altar end of the other two bands of the paintings. Wine
58 Kessler, Seeing Medieval Art, 120.
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and wheat suggest the substances of the Mass. Noah planting the vine then
drinking wine made from its fruit was a type of Christs Nativity.59 Here it
signifies perhaps the coming of Christ to the altar below, his body reborn
when the priest was believed to change the bread and wine into his flesh
and blood. Noahs drunkenness was a type of Christs death, re-enacted
here in the liturgy of the Mass: the Glossa had compared Noah to Christ
spread out naked on the cross, the mortality of his flesh laid bare among
his own people.60
Another area of strategic typology can be found at church entrances.
The portal of Sainte Madeleines church at Neuilly-en-Donjon in Burgundy
presents the Last Supper on its lintel beside Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit, with Adam holding his throat. To the right are Daniel and
Habakkuk on a capital, the prophet here possibly bringing the saving food
which may have prefigured Christs meal with the disciples and which the
worshippers on entering the building would be about to celebrate.61 On
the early eleventh century bronze doors of the cathedral of Hildesheim,
north Germany, biblical scenes seem to make parallels not only between
Eve and the Virgin but between the entrance to the church and the way
to Paradise.62
Eight Old Testament sections begin at the top left with the creation of Eve from Adam and descend to the murder of Abel: eight New
Testament events, starting with the Annunciation at the base of the right
hand sequence, ascend to the post Resurrection appearance of Christ to
Mary Magdalene in another garden. In several panels there is the theme of
a door. As Adam and Eve leave Paradise, in the fifth register from the top,
they are about to pass a church which has a closed door. When the angel
greets Mary at the Annunciation, the way into the church is wide open.
Bishop Bernward, who commissioned the doors, also presented a Gospel
Book to Saint Michaels in which part of the titulus surrounding the seated
59 James, Pictor in Carmine, 152.
60 Glossa on Genesis 9v.21 Patrologia Latina 113.112.
61 Elizabeth A. Saxon, The Eucharist in Romanesque France (Woodbridge, Suffolk:
Boydell Press, 2006), 11011.
62 Kessler, Seeing Medieval Art, 108.
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Virgin being crowned, with the child on her lap, reads that she is the open
door of Paradise, the portal of God.63 Mary is the new Eve, a comparison
that went back at least to Justin Martyrs Dialogue, who has reversed the
situation brought about by her type through her acceptance of the role of
Mother of God. Eve had caused the door to Eden to be closed; it is because
of Mary that Christians are able to regain Paradise, as they do in replica
when they pass through the church door.
A juxtaposition of Mary and Eve occurs also at the west doorways of
Amiens cathedral and Notre Dame, Paris, where in both instances a statue
of the Virgin and Child on the socle rises above a depiction of the Fall.
This typology, where the first mother of the living gives way to the mother
of the Christian era, reflects the sense of type in which Saint Paul spoke
of Adam as the tupos of Christ (Romans 5v.14). Beyond the more direct
meaning of much typology based on a single episode, such as the widow
of Zarephath gathering two sticks or Moses striking the rock for water
which prefigured specific moments in the Gospels, the correspondence
between Eve and the Virgin, Adam and Christ mark different beginnings.
The antitypes regain the Paradise that mankind experienced initially, thus
undoing the actions of the types by reversing their consequences, as the
angels greeting to Mary, Ave, spelt backwards the name ofthe first woman,
who sinned. In the hymn Ave Maris Stella, Hail Star of the Sea, used as a
Vespers canticle from the seventh or eighth century, Mary is addressed as
portal of the sky who, by Gabriels Ave, reversed the name of Eva.
***
Typology can be classified in different ways and the above perspectives
do not attempt to replace already defined categories. Areas systematised
more than half a century ago for the contents of the Bible of the Poor
might be applied to earlier expressions of correspondences ofOld and New
Testaments. These were situation images, in which there is an outward similarity between the main types in the picture: image relationships in which
63 Kessler, Seeing Medieval Art, 4950, 108. Hildesheim, Cathedral Museum MS. 18
fols 16v-17.
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Chapter 6
Synagogue
1 Prudentius, A Reply to the Address ofSymmachus, Book 1. 221, translated H.J. Thomson,
in Prudentius, vol. 1 (London: Heinemann, the Loeb Classical Library, 1949), 366.
2 Munich, Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 4453 fol. 23v. Illustrated Beckwith, Early Medieval
Art, fig. 85.
3 Wolfgang Seiferth, Synagoge und Kirche im Mittelalter (Munich: Koesel-Verlag,
1964), 26.
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error but in the meantime they remained blind, like people without vision
looking into their own mirror.8 They read their sacred books but fail to see
what is there. In the south porch of Chartres cathedral the column figure
of Jerome holds an open book, to which he points, and a scroll which
unfurls downwards to Synagogue crouching beneath him, gazing up. She is
identified by her blindfold (Fig. 42). She grasps and indicates what appears
to be the other end of his scroll, which is broken, both of them gesturing
to now invisible texts in support of their respective theological positions.
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The veil which signified her blindness was in some imagery removed
so that she could see clearly, possibly reflecting the Church Fathers conviction that she would eventually be caught up into the Christian process
of salvation. One of Abbot Sugers windows at Saint Denis has Christ,
surrounded by seven doves representing the gifts of the Spirit, standing
between Ecclesia and Synagogue and reaching out his hand to take the veil
from the latter. In the Old Testament Moses, on his descent from Mount
Sinai with his face radiating horns of light, had covered his face with a
veil when he spoke to the people because they were afraid to go near him
(Exodus 34vv.325). Synagogues blindness, though, signified her inability
or unwillingness to appreciate the new revelation entrusted to the Church.
There is a story related to Innocent IIs visit to Saint Denis in 1131 that
the Jews presented him with a scroll of the Law. The Popes response was,
May Almighty God take away the veil from your hearts.9 Christian belief
was that the glory of God had now been presented directly in the person
of Christ ( John 1vv.114). Abbot Sugers verse accompanying the image
explains that what Moses covers with a veil the doctrine of Christ reveals.
When Synagogues eyes are uncovered she comes to see directly the glory of
her God and to understand the meaning of her own Scriptures. A similar
gesture occurs on a font from Selincourt, now in the museum of Amiens,
where a clear-sighted Synagogue stands with a banderole and sceptre.10 Here
baptism signifies her conversion when, according to the New Testament,
her veil shall be taken away (2 Corinthians 3v.16).
Beneath the bust of Christ surrounded by seven doves in the Lambeth
bible Jesse tree, Synagogue looks at the horned Moses as though taking
leave of him while a hand extends to remove her veil and she is led towards
Christ by a haloed figure (Fig. 25). On the other side of the tree, crowned
Ecclesia, with cross but without chalice, is led to Christ by two figures with
scrolls. This image captures the sentiment of the Worcester Chapter House
9
10
Constant J Mews, Abelard and Heloise on the Jews and the Hebraica Veritas, in
Michael Frassetto, ed., Christian Attitudes to the Jews in the Middle Ages. A Case Book
(New York: Routledge, 2007), 83108 (85).
Louis Grodecki, Etudes sur les vitraux de Suger St Denis au 12e sicle, vol. 2 (Paris:
Presse de luniversit de Paris Sorbonne, 1995), 6975, fig. 29.
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Peterson, Textual Basis for Visual Errors, 191 and note 47. Peter Lombards commentary on the Psalms, Patrologia Latina 191. 7045.
Elizabeth C. Parker and Charles T. Little, The Cloisters Cross, its Art and Meaning
(New York: Harvey Miller, 1994). Nina Rowe, Other, Studies in Iconography 33
(2012), 13144.
Synagogue
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Fig. 43 Synagogue crowned with Basilisk, church of St Seurin, Bordeaux, south porch,
thirteenth/fourteenth century. Photo: J.A. Kidd.
Christian thought had aligned the Garden of Eden serpent with the devil
and had connected Synagogue to the asp and basilisk ofPsalm 91 [90](v.13).
A Carolingian scholar, for example, had compared the Jews to those who
sharpen their tongues and have the venom of snakes under their lips.20 The
hybrid basilisk according to the bestiaries was the king of creeping things,
its venom leading to death for the heedless sinner. Synagogues attitude
amounted to opposition to God, her mind was closed to truth and her
stubborn adherence to the old regime could only lead her away from the
life offered by the Gospel. The serpent had not only tempted Eve but in so
doing had used the fruit of the tree which was not his to dispense, while
the Church had been entrusted with the body and Blood of Christ which
it could legitimately offer.21 Eves disobedience became the infidelity and
20 Rhabanus Maurus, Allegoriae in sacram Scripturam (Psalm 139v.4), Patrologia Latina
112.868.
21 Rupert of Deutz, In Cantica Cantorum IV, 5.1 Pat. Lat. 168. 839962 (901).
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Synagogue
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what was said to Rebecca, she replies, citing the prediction of the future
relationship of Jacob (Israel) with his twin brother Esau, that the elder shall
serve the younger (Genesis 25v.23). Synagogue is then told to look at the
standards of the legions and bear in mind that the emperors are Christians.
No Jew may even be a member of the Senate. When she asks what she has
done to be deprived by God of her superiority, a dialogue follows in which
the disputants argue their positions from the Old Testament. During the
process of claim and counterclaim Ecclesia announces with evident reference to the Song of Solomon, I am the Queen who have removed thee
from thy throne, the Bride who have come down from the forest and
the mountain. My Bridegroom is fair beyond the sons of men, the King
of kings, who has set the marriage crown on my head33
An uncommon depiction of Synagogue losing her crown appears on
the west front of the abbey church of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard in southern
France (Fig. 44). A mutilated, swaying female figure to the left of the
Virgin Mary beside the crucified Christ has often been assumed to represent Ecclesia. This is possible but by no means certain. In her almost
dancing posture she seems to bend backwards towards two Jewish leaders
seated in the lower left corner who observe the scene with their arms outstretched, one of them with his hand on the hilt of a sword. In her damaged state, though, it is impossible to tell if she once wore a crown. The
well-preserved, disproportionately large, fleeing Synagogue on the other
side of the tympanum tries to grasp her toppling crown which takes the
form of a two-tiered round building with a cupola.
Although stylised, it is the structure of the Jerusalem temple featured
on the north bay of the same faade, towards which Christ rides for his
triumphal entry to the city. Thus beside the Crucifixion here Synagogue
appears to lose the crown of her sovereignty, both geographically and historically. After the Old Testament fall of her capital, Jeremiah had lamented
that God cast down Israel headlong and had thrown down his tabernacle
(Lamentations 2vv.56). Now events in the Holy Land contemporary
with the sculpture had seen Christian domination of Jerusalem through
crusader activity and the setting up of the Latin kingdom.
33 Williams, Adversus Judaeos, 331.
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213
Fig. 44 Synagogue flees from the Crucifixion, abbey church of St Gilles, Saint-Gillesdu-Gard, Gard, west front, twelfth century. Photo: J.A. Kidd.
There are also links between city and crown found in the Talmud, in
the saying What is a crown worn by a bride? It is a city of gold and in a
story about the early rabbi Aqiba who, on becoming wealthy, had a city of
gold made for his wife which was possibly a head adornment in the shape
of Jerusalem.34 Synagogue herself had been portrayed with walls and towers
around her head in one of the first depictions of her on the ivory plaque
from Metz mentioned above. Specific Jewish influence on medieval art
is notoriously difficult to verify, but it is perhaps worth noting that Saint
Gilles had a considerable Jewish population in the twelfth century, with
its own synagogue, six rabbis and numerous teachers of Jewish wisdom.35
A further aspect of this fleeing Synagogue scene is that she is driven
away from the cross by a sword-bearing angel. This also is very unusual
though it had featured on an eleventh century ivory now in Berlin.36 Loss
of status is emphasised in this image since it recalls the expulsion of Adam
and Eve from Eden where the first humans had initially been at ease in the
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divine presence. Synagogue, driven from the crucified Christ has, like them,
denied a special relationship with God in pursuit of her own interests. In
this double exile, from status and territory, she rushes from the event of
reconciliation and domain of Ecclesia. Paradise and the Church were often
equated. It was a parallel which inspired Herrads Hortus Deliciarum, the
Garden of Delights in which, as one of her frequently quoted medieval writers explained, are all the pleasures of the Scriptures, beautiful to view and
to taste and where the tree of life, the cross, offers the fruit of eternal life.37
Dispute
During the Middle Ages the relationship between Christians and Jews was
brought into sharp focus by a number of factors. Major areas of discussion
continued to centre on the Bible, with interpretation of certain texts which
had recurred through the centuries of dispute still unresolved. Whatever
lay behind specific images, whether historical events such as the temporary
Christian domination of the Holy Land or ongoing and fluctuating social
and practical religious confrontations, it had been intellectual debate that
had dominated the literature of polemic. This continued to revolve around
correct exegesis of the Old Testament, revisiting well-rehearsed argument
and extending discussion on traditional stumbling blocks such as doctrines
of the Incarnation and Trinity. A treatise On the Catholic Religion, Against
the Jews, written by Isidore of Seville in the seventh century remained
influential throughout the Middle Ages. For Christians Christs birth was
miraculous, though the Jews claim, he said, that the virgin who was to bear a
son as a God-given sign in the prophet Isaiah (chapter 7v.14) was, according
to the Hebrew language, a young woman: if that were the case, he pointed
out, Christs birth would not be a miracle.38 An eleventh century abbot of
37
38
Synagogue
215
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hoopoe bored a hole in it, bringing it down on his shoulders instead and
the teeth of the thwarted king became stuck in it.41 Some of his examples
were taken up by other writers; the abbot of Cluny in Burgundy was one,
outraged by the suggestion that God does nothing in heaven but read the
Talmud and discuss it with Jewish scholars.42
Hostility towards the book increased not only because of its apparent blasphemies but because of its derogatory remarks about Christianity.
One rabbi was taken by an angel to visit hell where he saw the Hebrews
Old Testament enemies with Christians. The answer to his enquiry as to
why the latter were there was that they believe in the Son of Mary, do
not keep the Law and do not believe the Talmud.43 A probable factor
in the increasing hostility between Christians and Jews was this gradual
awareness of the Talmud. Pope Gregory IX believed that in some Jewish
thinking it had come to supplant the Old Testament as the authoritative
book, even though many of its chapters promoted a distortion of Judaism.
Later, after trials in 1240, it was burnt in Paris by the Church authorities. If
the Hebrew Scriptures were given less prominence, the common ground
between Christians and Jews was diminished. Further and more importantly, the Jewish role as book-bearers for the Church was undermined
because they seemed to have neglected the Old Testament foundation that
verifies the Christian faith.44
For their part the Jews produced their own literature against
Christianity, raising issues from the New Testament on doctrine and highlighting apparent discrepancies between Church teaching and observable
religious practice. Compilations of points to counter Christian claims
and series of proofs that the Messiah had not come were made to help the
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217
Jewish cause.45 A defamation of the New Testament, that may have had
its roots as early as the fifth century, claimed Jesus as the illegitimate son
of Mary and a Roman soldier, his miracles as magic and his resurrection
chicanery.46 Some of the earliest works of Jewish polemic, dating from
the second half of the twelfth century, contained discussion on correct
exegesis of the books of Moses, the Prophets and Psalms. Jewish interpretation came to favour a literal, historic approach to the Old Testament and
denied allegorical aspects of the Christian perspective. Although Jewish
allegory had flourished in Alexandria at the time of Philo and had been
adopted by some early Christian writers, scholars now accused the Church
of making the sacred texts fit their own purposes. The written works of the
controversies seemed to feed on each other, public debates between the
clergy and Jews took place and regional bans on illiterate clerics engaging
in disputes in front of the laity were extended by Pope Alexander IV to
the whole of Western Christendom.47
Conversion
Already in the sixth century Pope Gregory the Great had defended the
rights of Jews to be allowed to celebrate their own services and to refuse
Christian baptism.48 His statements were to be reiterated many times during
the following centuries by Church authorities. In 1120 a papal bull was issued
by Calixtus II, in response to a request from the Jews ofRome, emphasising
that they were not to be forced into accepting baptism; later popes addressed
the problem for other cities and towards the end of the twelfth century
the ruling was included in a bull issued to all faithful Christians, which
became a guide to canon law. The theological reason for papal protection
45 Daniel J. Lasker, Jewish Philosophical Polemic against Christianity in the Middle Ages
(New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1977), 1323.
46 Lasker, Jewish Philosophical Polemic against Christianity in the Middle Ages, 5.
47 Dahan, Christian Polemic against the Jews in the Middle Ages, 29.
48 Gregory, Epistle 11. 35. Margaret Schlauch, The Allegory ofChurch and Synagogue,
Speculum 14 (1939), 44864.
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of Jews was that the Christian faith is proved through them, but other
prohibitions besides the forcing of baptism were enjoined on Christians
in the wake of widespread and continuing social unrest. Among these was
the spreading of rumour about Jewish use of human blood in religious
rites, which had led to the killing of Jews.49
A grim history in relations between Christians and Jews has often been
laid at the door of the crusades. When bands of crusaders from England,
Flanders and the Meuse region had crossed the Rhine in 1096 on their
way to the Holy Land in expectation of freeing it and bringing in a new
world order, they pillaged Jewish communities, tried to force many to be
baptised and resorted to massacre. Whatever the more mundane reasons
for their behaviour such as the need for food and money, or the belief
that punishment was due because the Jews had killed Christ, there was an
anticipation that a battle against the Antichrist was about to take place in
Jerusalem. If the Jews would not convert they were seen either to represent
the enemy or to prevent all the conditions being fulfilled for the expected
handing over of the holy city to Christ because they, finally, were to be
included in the new age.50
Many Jews appear to have returned to their original faith after fake
conversions entered into through coercion or fear and by the early thirteenth century Pope Innocent III had to explain what constituted a valid
baptism for them. Fear of torture or violence leading anyone to baptism to
avoid harm did not render the sacrament invalid, only those who had never
consented were not true members of the Church.51 Medieval art reflects
the persistent Christian desire to convert them in some of its images of
Synagogue. The font from Selincourt had illustrated her enlightenment,
her veil removed on the ecclesiastical furnishing that denoted entry to
49 Solomon Grayzel, The Papal Bull Sicut Judeis, in Jeremy Cohen, ed., Essential Papers
on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict (New York: New York University, 1991),
23158.
50 H. Liebeschtz, The Crusading Movement in its Bearing on the Christian Attitude
towards Jewry, in Jeremy Cohen, ed., Essential Papers on Judaism and Christianity
in Conflict, 2645.
51 Poliakov, History of anti-Semitism, vol. 1, 47.
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219
Peter Damian, A Dialogue between an enquiring Jew and a Christian answering his
Questions, in Williams, Adversus Judaeos, 3714.
53 Eg. Mle, The Gothic Image, 99105.
54 Martens, Le mirroir du meurtre ou la Synagogue dvoile, 66.
55 C.S.Drake, The Romanesque Fonts of Northern Europe and Scandinavia (Woodbridge:
Boydell, 2002), 18.
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lending, but the image appears more probably to be that of the Virtue
holding up a whip, in keeping with other instruments of punishment used
by her companions.
One of Synagogues attributes here is an oil or perfume jar with its
stopper in place. Bernard of Clairvaux reflecting on the beginning of the
Song of Songs, Thy name is as oil poured out, claimed that the Jew clutches
in his hand a jar that is full but sealed. He has the oil of the knowledge
of God but, like a miser, keeps it bottled up for his own benefit. He has it
in his Scriptures but not in his heart. It is within you, Bernard said, deep
within, that the Spirits unction is poured out: open and be anointed and
you will no longer be a rebellious house.56 His theme was that the Jews
continue to trust in the written Law and to rely on a covenant written
on stone tablets, whereas Christianity is based on love. An outpouring
of grace also allows a more intimate relationship between the individual
and God. This kind of imagery was readily applied to baptism, in which
the candidates were anointed with oil as well as marked with the sign of
the cross in holy water as they received the invisible Holy Spirit. Moses,
Synagogues revered Old Testament Law-giver, turns his back on her at
Southrop as he points to Ecclesia in an unequivocal gesture of persuasion,
indicating that the Jews should turn rejection into acceptance by joining
the Church through baptism.
Drama and story provided examples of the converted Jew. Two stained
glass narratives at Chartres, one near the transept in the north side of the
nave, the other towards the south east of the ambulatory, depict a play
about Saint Nicholas and the Borrowers Tale, both of which end in baptism of the convert. The play, Iconia, which would have been staged in the
cathedral between the two windows, tells how a Jew brought a statue of
the saint into his home to guard a looted treasure. During his absence robbers stole his goods so, as the image had not worked, the Jew whipped it.
Saint Nicholas himself appeared to the thieves, threatening to report them
to the authorities, whereupon they returned their cache to the owner who
56 Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs I, Sermon 14, translated Kilian Walsh
OCSO (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1979), 99, 104.
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221
was converted and baptised. The Borrowers Tale concerns a Jewish money
lender deceived by a dishonest Christian. As a punishment the latter was
run over by a chariot and restored by Saint Nicholas, to the amazement of
the money lender who converted to Christianity and was baptised.57 The
earliest extant version of the Borrowers Tale appears in an eleventh century
manuscript.58 It was a twelfth century version of the play from Fleury, now
Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire, which made the foreign owner of the treasure a
Jew. At Tours, Le Mans, Auxerre, Troyes and other French cathedrals as
well as at Chartres, the drama was played out in stained glass.59 In the south
nave aisle of York minster also, a window panel depicts the man run over
by the chariot. These examples of the miracles of Saint Nicholas indicate
a certain topicality to the theme of Jewish baptism and an acceptance of
the Jew who was willing to convert.
Synagogue herself would also be led to the faith, by Ecclesia. Her desire
for reconciliation is said to be expressed in two apparently contradictory
illustrations in the Gospel Book of Henry of Saxony and his wife Matilda,
dating from the second half ofthe twelfth century.60 Below a scene ofChrists
flagellation are the familiar aspects ofhostility and defeat as Synagogue loses
her crown, her banner is inverted and she proclaims, Cursed is everyone
who hangs on a tree. On the opposite folio, however, she wears her crown
while from the lower corner medallions she converses across the page with
the Church. Ecclesia laments, On my bed through the nights I sought him
whom my soul loves (Song of Songs 3v.1). Synagogues response, suggesting a willingness to join her, uses another verse from the Song of Songs,
Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou most beautiful among women?
we will seek him with you (5v.17).
57
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A further illustration to this second quotation that hints at reconciliation can be found in a commentary by Robert of Tomberlaine on the Song
of Songs which incorporated an earlier work by Gregory the Great. An
initial Q contains a depiction of the two women side by side.61 Synagogue
with the Law and a blank scroll places a hand on crowned Ecclesias shoulder. According to the exegesis in Roberts work, this is her conversion. A
subsequent miniature in which Christ embraces Synagogue accompanies
the commentary, when at last converted she will follow the four holy
Gospels just as Ecclesia. She will be said to be fair and friendly and sweet
and beautiful, as Jerusalem is called, because she imitates holy Church.62
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223
west entrance to Sens cathedral, were easily brought within the Christian
domain, since the book ofJob had stated that even the birds and animals
have much they could teach ( Job 12v.7). Synagogue, too, in her position
beneath the cross, provides an insight into how the Old Testament could
be hidden in imagery. Her defeat portrayed in this familiar context was
influenced not only by the New Testament observation ofthe Crucifixion
as a stumbling block to the Jews (1 Corinthians 1v.23) or by the recurring
theme of polemic from Deuteronomy that anyone who hangs on a tree is
cursed, but by other biblical references and by Christian exegesis ofthe Song
ofSongs, for which the art offered no immediate indication of its source.
A crucifixion scene labelled with quotations in Herrads Hortus
Deliciarum offers a key to some of this concealed Old Testament background to Christian imagery (Fig. 45).63 On the left of the cross Ecclesia,
unusually, is seated on an animal with the four heads of the creatures of
Ezekiels vision which had become symbolic of the Gospel writers. To the
right Synagogue rides an ass, a feature more-or-less confined to Germanic
iconography. Written lines explain the meaning of the arrangement of
these and other characters in the crowded picture. The cross marks a dividing line between recognition, with acceptance of the meaning, of the
Crucifixion and ignorance with rejection of the implication of the event.
Beside crowned Ecclesia, her flying banner on its pole surmounted by a
cross and her chalice held up to receive Christs blood, is a quotation from
Jacobs awareness of Gods presence at Bethel, Surely the Lord is in this
place (Genesis 28v.16). Synagogue, her veil dropping over her forehead to
accentuate her blindness, her lap holding a goat of the old atonement ritual,
clutches a sacrificial knife and a sheet of parchment on which is written
the continuation of the Genesis verse, and I did not know. Her ancestor
Jacob had perpetuated the revelation given to him by renaming the place
of his vision Bethel, meaning house ofGod. He had subsequently accepted
his new designation as Israel, the name which came to be applied to the
Chosen People. Synagogue, however, warrants the inscription inserted
between her and the crucified thief on Christs left who did not repent,
We desire not the knowledge of thy ways ( Job 21v.11).
63 Herrad, Hortus Deliciarum, fol. 150r and vol. 2, 176, figure 234.
Fig. 45 Crucifixion with Synagogue and Ecclesia, Hortus Deliciarum, vol. 2 fig. 234, twelfth/thirteenth century.
Photo: Warburg Institute. Bibliothque nationale, Paris.
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Synagogue
225
Beneath Christs right arm and beside Ecclesia, words from the Song
of Solomon indicate that the Church had its genesis with the event of
Christs Crucifixion. Bede, for example, in his commentary on the Song,
following the tradition of a three-part division of the text between Christ,
Church and Synagogue, has Christ address this line of Herrads quotation
to Ecclesia, Under the apple tree I raised thee up (Song 8v.5). This tree
is the cross. Ecclesia emerged from the historical event of the Crucifixion,
accepting the blood of the new covenant, or as Bede indicated by reference
to an earlier verse in the Song, recognising Christ as the beloved, As the
apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons
(Song 2v.3). It was she, rather than Synagogue, who had desired Christ
and accepted the significance of his death. Beside Synagogue in Herrads
drawing, Christ continues his address to Ecclesia, There thy mother was
corrupted, there she was deflowered who bore thee (Song 8v.5). The
people who had prepared for and given birth to Christianity had become
tarnished because of the cross. Their leaders who had brought them to corruption had led them to cry out, His blood be on us and on our children.64
A further inscription from the Song of Songs, written above the
Evangelist symbol heads of Ecclesias mount, recalls the verses associated
with the chariots of Aminadab. In the tripartite attributions of the text
of the book it is Synagogue who expresses fear when she sees the Church
approaching, Who is this that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as
the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array? (Song 6v.9).
Then, her soul troubled for the chariots of Aminadab, she is invited by
Ecclesia to return, to join her rather than be overpowered, Return, return
O Sulamitess, that we may behold thee (Song 6vv.1112).
This request for her to come back was inserted by Herrad between
Ecclesia and Christ on the cross, below the words that expressed the raising of the Church under the apple tree. It was an invitation, Bede said, to
Synagogue to acknowledge her redemption, to be seen in purity of faith
and perfection of works and to cease to be hindered by the long-lasting
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dullness of her mind.65 The response, however, is found on the other side of
the cross, below the quotation of the genetrix deflowered under the apple
tree and beside the figure on the ass: Synagogue withdraws.
On Ecclesias side of the crucified Christ are Mary his mother, the
thief who repented and Longinus, the traditional name for the soldier who
pierced his side, causing water and blood to flow out. According to Johns
Gospel, this soldiers act fulfilled both the prophecy from Zechariah that
they would look on him whom they pierced and Moses instructions that
no bone of the Passover lamb should be broken ( John 19vv.317). On
Synagogues side of the cross are John the disciple, the thief who did not
repent and Stephaton, the traditional name of the person who held out a
sponge of vinegar on a stick to Christ. In Herrads drawing Stephaton is
described as the Jew. He fulfils the Psalmists words, In my thirst they gave
me vinegar to drink (Psalm 68v.22). A similar sentiment from the prophet
Habbakuk, understood to implicate the Jews, in which friend offered a
bitter drink to friend, had been included on the Bury cross, Woe to him
who gives drink to his friend and presents him with gall (Habakkuk 2v.15).
It was a Jew who had held up the inferior wine to Christ according to the
Glossa Ordinaria since it signified the old law turned sour, in contrast to
the good wine of divine knowledge in the Church.66 The Glossa had also
identified the unrepentant thief as the Jews.67
Synagogues link with John the beloved disciple, to whom was entrusted
the care of Christs mother at the moment of the Crucifixion, is not obvious, whereas the Virgin and Ecclesia were interchangeable as the bride of
Christ.68 The Glossa explains their relationship. On the first day ofthe week
following Christs death, when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and
found it empty, she ran to tell Peter and John. They approached the sepulchre, the younger John outrunning Peter, but when he looked in and saw
the linen cloths he waited for his fellow disciple to enter first, followed him
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227
and believed ( John 20vv.38). Thus John represented Synagogue, according to the Glossa, because he stood back to make way for Peter who was to
become head of the Church, thereby according him the pre-eminence.69
At this stage of events Peter and John themselves did not appreciate from
the Scriptures that Christ should rise from the dead ( John 20v.9) but,
unlike Synagogue, they both accepted the evidence of what they witnessed.
Although Synagogue herself is not a figure found in the pages of
Scripture, in this crucifixion scene with its explanatory biblical quotations, where she intrudes on the historical biblical event, she reflects some
of the ongoing problems between Jewish and Christian theology. There is
further innuendo in Synagogues mount, the ass labelled silly and lax and
with a rope formed in a noose lying at its feet. Peter the Venerable, Abbot
of Cluny, in his treatise on the obstinacy of the Jewish people included the
saying that the ass will hear but not understand, just as it is with the Jews.70
In Herrads picture the animals stance, its back arched as it seems about
to throw its rider who is unable to tame it now that its leash has fallen to
the ground, suggests that it is the unbroken creature of the Gospels which
Christ was to ride in triumph (Matthew 21vv.111). The Carolingian
writer who had urged the Jews not to be like the deaf asp had commented
on Matthews account of the Entry into Jerusalem that they preferred to
remain bound by the rope of their sins.71
Many facets of Christian attitudes to Synagogue elucidated in this
drawing, from reference to a past event to frustration with her continued
unwillingness to convert, seem to be negative. Above the head of Stephaton
the Jew and below Christs left arm, Herrads inscription reads that under
the tree of the cross Synagogue was corrupted because she had said with
the scribe and Pharisee, in the words quoted also on the Stavelot altarpiece,
His blood be on us and on our children. Contemporary Jewry bore the
stigma of its past and had inherited the malediction of its ancestors.
69 Glossa on John 20, Patrologia Latina 114.422.
70 Peter the Venerable, On the Obstinacy of the Jews, in Williams, Adversus Judaeos,
388.
71 Rhabanus Maurus, Commentariorum in Matthaeum Book VI Patrologia Latina
107.1036.
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Epilogue
230 Epilogue
The Garden of Eden where the need for redemption originated and
Jerusalem, the city still displayed as the centre of the world in the late thirteenth century Hereford mappa mundi, lent their potent imagery to expressions of belief in a future realm. Jerusalem on earth, seat of the Davidic
monarchy and the temple, capital of the Promised Land but conquered
by Babylonians and again by Romans a generation or so after the death of
Christ, was transformed in the Book of Revelation into the unassailable
heavenly city. Isaiah had envisaged a new Jerusalem built of gems for the
returning Hebrew exiles (Isaiah 54). According to Ezekiel there would be
a rebuilt temple in the future earthly Jerusalem from which a stream would
flow, reminiscent of the rivers of Eden, sustaining the fruit-bearing trees on
its banks (Ezekiel 47). As the Hebrews themselves had absorbed, adapted
and developed practices and beliefs, so the vision of Saint John the Divine
in the New Testament book of Revelation reworked some of the verbal
imagery of the Old Testament. The new and future Jerusalem became the
celestial city built of precious stones, those forming its foundations engraved
with the names of the twelve Apostles, its gates bearing a list of the tribes
of Israel (Revelation 21vv.1021), which had previously been incised on
the breastplate of the High Priest (Exodus 28vv.1521). The stream now
flows from Gods throne and from the Lamb that is Christ. Here, as in
Eden, there would be neither temple nor intermediary, the tree of life on
both sides of the river becomes not only accessible again but produces fruit
for each month of the year, without the labour of men.
This biblical vision of the end, which carried forward and modified the
Old Testament imagery of place where divine and human meet, was portrayed in many ways in medieval art. In an eleventh century ceiling painting
at the remote church of San-Pietro-al-Monte in Civate, northern Italy, a
river proceeds from the throne of God and the Lamb. Christ is flanked by
two trees and enclosed in a walled city where some of the building blocks
contain jewels; his open book invites anyone who is thirsty (for salvation)
to come to him to drink ( John 7v.37). On the fifteenth century altarpiece
by the van Eyck brothers in Saint Bavos church, Ghent, the future Paradise
has become a landscaped garden with grass, flowers and fruit-bearing trees
set against a backdrop of towers and spires of towns in the Netherlands.
Groups of the faithful converge towards the water of the fountain of life,
Epilogue
231
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Williams, Jane Welch, Bread, Wine and Money (Chicago: Chicago University Press,
1993).
Winn, Mary B., Verards Hours of February 20 1489/90 and their Biblical Borders,
Bulletin du bibliophile (1993), 299330.
Young, Karl, The Drama of the Medieval Church, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1951).
Zarnecki, George, Romanesque Lincoln: the Sculptures of the Cathedral (Lincoln:
Honywood, 1988).
Ziolkowski, Jan, Solomon and Marcolf (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2008).
Index
248 Index
Ark of the Covenant 17, 48, Figs 3,
5; allegorically interpreted 6,
1723, 60, 18990; and new
covenant 20, 60, 18990; as type
of Church 190, 196; as type of
Virgin Mary 18, 23, 152; see also
High Priest
Ascension (of Christ): and ascension of
Elijah 148, 155; and ascension of
Enoch 171; and OT High Priest
entering Holy of Holies 143,
158, 163
Asenath 545, 76, 778, Fig. 16
astrology: Babylonian 122
Augustine, St 578, 61; ages of world and
man aligned by 98; Against Jews,
Pagans and Arians 81; Confessions 89; Contra Faustum 142;
on creation narrative 84, 96;
on Jews 2023; three righteous
men3940
Autun cathedral: Jew depicted on west
doorway207
Auxerre cathedral: Joseph narrative
window 29, 42, 44, 69, Fig. 9
Balaam (prophet) 81, 83
Balfour ciborium 148
Bamberg Apocalypses 36
Baptism (of Jesus): with Exodus and
spies 142, 180, Fig. 35; and spies
returning from Canaan 171
basilisk: associated with Synagogue 207,
208, Fig. 43
Bede: on Ark of the Covenant 21; on
Caedmon 85; commentary on
Song of Songs 2256; History
of the English Church 66; on
imagery 31; on time 98, 122
Benedict Biscop 137
Bernard of Chartres 115
Index
Byrhtferth: diagram 130, Fig. 29; on
zodiac123
Caedmon 66, 85
Caedmon Genesis: unbiblical details
in54
Cain: uses jawbone to kill Abel 54;
killed by Lamech 68; as tiller of
soil 73; wearing of hat by 15
calendar, liturgical 120
Cana, marriage in: waterpots at 98,
1501
Canaan 8; and OT 2, 3; spies returning
from, with grapes 1516, 63, 135,
137, 1412, 163
Canterbury cathedral: ancestors of
Christ sequence 10810;
Bible of the Poor window 34,
3940; ExodusMagiChrist
sequence 1667; fire at
(1174) 27; north choir aisle windows 968, 144, Pl. 5, Figs 18, 19;
Redemption window 14, 18, 135,
141, 144, 154, 155, Pl. 1, Figs 2, 30;
west window, Fig. 23
catacomb art: OT types without antitypes in 191
censers3
Charlemagne: as David 45
Chartres cathedral: baptism of Jews
depicted at 2201; creation
imagery (north portal) 945,
1057, Fig. 22; Good Samaritan
window 117; Joseph window 69;
Noah window 378, Fig. 7;
north porch statuary 45, 77,
108, Figs 12, 16; Redemption
window 74, 207, Fig. 14; rose
windows 81, 11415; south porch
statuary Fig. 42; time depicted
in11415
249
Christ: genealogy of 108, 110, see also tree
of Jesse; and Adam in Hell 756,
Fig. 15; as creator 945; in
glory 34; as High Priest antitype 60, 143, Fig. 40; mockery
of 206; and Moses Fig. 39; OT
types of 1434; return of Fig. 27;
as stone 175, 176; see also Ascension; Baptism; Crucifixion; Nativity; Presentation; Transfiguration
Christianity: and Judaism 810, 202,
21417; and OT 9, 10, 11, 12, 54;
typology important in 139; see
also Ecclesia
Church: art used by 229; OT precedents
for arts of 304; OT precedents
used by 278;
churches: orientation of 121
Clement of Alexandria 126
Comestor, Peter; Historia Scholastica 68, 867, 168; on Jews and
secret arts 209
computus120
Concordantia Caritatis 184
coronations489
creation 92; depictions of 935, Figs 20,
21, 22; OT vs classical accounts
of 935; with seasons and
labours of the months 128, Fig.
28; sequence Fig. 20; and order
in the universe 1013, 1299, see
also heavenly bodies
cross: as apple tree 225; enamelled
(Mosan) 136, Pl. 4; and OT
types 1367, 139, 140
Crucifixion: OT prefigurings of 14,
1516, 1523; with Synagogue and
Ecclesia 223, 2256, Fig. 45; Synagogue flees from 21214, Fig. 44;
with typological scenes 14, 135,
Pl. 1; typologies of, flexible 163
250 Index
Crusades: and medieval knowledge of the
East 5; OT precedent for 278
Daniel (prophet) 37, 175, 176; likened
to Christ 1656; in the lions
den 4, 35, 37, 84, 185, Fig. 6; as
righteous man 34, 40; story of,
dramatised84
David 8, 32; as acrobat 156, Pl. 6;
anointed 46, 136; in art 3;
Charlemagne as 45; crowning
of 47; and Goliath 46; insanity of, feigned 86, 156; let down
through window 153, Fig. 30; and
link with Gideon; royal line of 2;
in Sainte Chapelle windows 48;
slaying bear as type of Harrowing
of Hell 148
devotio moderna 178
door, closed: Eve as 1978
door, open: Virgin Mary as 1978
drama: and iconography 79
Durandus, William 50
East, the: medieval curiosity about 5
Easter: date of 110
Eberhard of Gandersheim 323
ecclesia9
Ecclesia (personification) 10, 26, 113;
Altercatio with Synagogue 211
12; as bride of Christ 205, 226;
crowned 211; in Hortus Deliciarum 60, 225, Fig. 45; on
Southrop font 645, 219, 220;
and Synagogue 202, 2045,
21112, 219, 221, 223, 228, 231
Ecclesiastus: on God as cosmic
designer102
Eden, Garden of 5, 334, 230, see also
under Adam; forbidden fruit
in53, see also Fall of Man; and
Paradise recreated 214, 2301
Edgar, King 28
Edward I, King: and Joseph 29, 45
Elijah 76; ascension of 148; cloak
of 155; and widow of
Zarephath137
Elisha: raisies son of Shunamite
woman158
Enoch 76; ascension of 67, 155, 171
Enoch, books of 72
Entombment (of Christ): sleeping
Samson as type of 155
Esther 40; in Sainte Chapelle
windows48
Eve: creation of, from Adam 136,
Pl. 3; juxtaposed with Virgin
Mary1978; see also Fall of Man
Evrat: creation verses 84
Exodus (Anglo-Saxon poem) 28
Ezekiel, vision of 2; and closed door 151,
175; tetramorphs in 4, 19, 20
Fall of Man 7, 1213, 107, 146, Fig. 1;
dramatised 7980; and penitential ritual 801; serpent in depictions of 12, 79, 87
fall of rebel angels 54, 67
fantasy creatures 4, 5, 91
four living creatures: in Ezekiels
vision 4, 19, 20; symbolising
Gospel writers 19, 20
Galen130
Genesis: creation narrative in 11, 96101;
initial letter of see I[n principio];
narratives from, in art 7, see also
Joseph, narrative sequences on
Genesis A 67
Genesis B 67
Germigny-des-Prs (oratory): apse
mosaic 202, 146, 196, Fig. 5
Gerona tapestry 1278, 129
Gervase of Canterbury 27, 211
Index
Gideon (Hebrew leader) 40;
crowned 29, 49; fleece of, as type
of Virgin Mary 151, 152, 1734,
175
Gilbertine order: chariot of Aminadab
allegorised as 190
Gislebertus: work at Autun 1
Glazier Psalter: David crowned by
bishops47
Glossa Ordinaria 58, 84, 85, 226
God: as creator/cosmic designer 956,
1023, Figs 21, 22; as one or
plural 215; rests on seventh
day 99100; holds souls in
heaven in napkin 180, Fig. 38
Good Samaritan (parable) 11617; as
allegory of mankind 11618;
priest and Levite pass by 116,
Fig. 26
Gorleston Psalter: tree of Jesse 111
Gospel Book of Henry of Saxony 221
Gospel of James: as typological
source169
grapes: brought from Canaan by Hebrew
spies 1516, 63, 135, 137, 1412,
163
Great Malvern Priory: creation
sequence 103, Fig. 21
Gregory (I) the Great, Pope 57, 58, 61,
92; comments on stars in book of
Job 121; on rights of Jews 217
Gregory IX, Pope: on Talmud 216
Gregory of Tours: History of the
Franks66
Grosseteste, Robert: on creation 95
Habakkuk (prophet) 3, 35, 57, 62, 84, 177
Ham: laughing at Noahs nakedness as
type of mockery of Christ 206
Harrowing of Hell 756, 133; and David
slaying bear 148; Samson carrying Gaza city gates as types of 155
251
hats: wearing of, by Jews/OT characters
in art 1415, 141
Heaven: souls in, types of 180, 182, Fig.
38
heavenly bodies 1212
Hebrew people: OT history of 78; see
also Jews; Judaism
Hell: clergy in 183; souls in, OT types
of 183, 195
Hell, Harrowing of, see Harrowing of
Hell
Henry III, King: and Joseph 29, 45
Herman of Valenciennes 69
Herrad, abbess of Hohenbourg 5961,
123, 131, 133, see also Hortus
Deliciarum
Hezekiah, King: and sundial 122
High Priest (OT): before Ark of the
Covenant 1718, Fig. 2; see also
Christ, as High Priest antitype
Hildesheim cathedral: doors 197
Hippocrates130
horns of Moses see Moses, with horns
Hortus Deliciarum 5960, 10910, 186,
195, 214, 2337, Figs 39, 40, 45
Hugh of Saint Victor 85
Huram (OT craftsman) 2, 32, 194
hyle93
I[n principio] (Genesis initial) 8990,
133, Pl. 3, Fig. 17
Iacop and Iosep 69
Iconia (play): at Chartres 220
iconography: defined 1; difficulties in
interpreting23, see also typology,
type without antitype in; sources
for84, see also Bible, commentaries on, and art; supported by
inscriptions15
Innocent II, Pope: and Jews 204
Innocent III, Pope: on valid baptism of
Jews218
252 Index
inscriptions: in art 15
Isaac: birth of, announced 147, Fig. 31;
carrying wood see Abraham, and
sacrifice of Isaac
Isaiah: foretells Nativity 175, 177; on
God as cosmic designer 102;
and makers of human images 3;
and new Jerusalem 230; sawn in
half72
Ishmael, Rabbi: scrolls of 31
Isidore of Seville 141; On the
Catholic Religion 21415;
Etymologies59
Israel: personified as woman 202
Jacob (patriarch) 223; blesses sons of
Joseph 137, 141
Jacobs ladder 180, 196, Fig. 38
Jephthahs daughter: sacrifice of 152, 169
Jeremiah: foretells new order 175;
Lamentations211
Jerome, St 57, 58, 84, 146; on
Hebrew 202; and horns of
Moses 62; prefaces by 57; Synagogue at the Feet of 203, Fig. 42;
translates Bible 557, Fig. 10
Jerusalem 5, 8, 230; crown in form
of 213; heavenly 33, 230; personified as woman 202; see also
temple ( Jerusalem)
Jesse see tree of Jesse
Jesus: as Messiah 8
Jews: biblical characters understood
as 226; in biblical polemic with
Christians 21417; and blood
libel 218; caricatured 209; conversion/baptism of 218, 2201;
and crusades 218; desecration of
Host by 207; like foolish girls
without lamp-oil 183; influence
of, on Christian art 213;
Index
Justin Martyr: Dialogue with
Trypho 140, 185; and examples
of types 163, 195
Klosterneuburg altarpiece 1478, 15961,
175, Figs 31, 32, 33, 34
Labourers in the Vineyard (parable): as
human history 134
Labours of the Months: in art 126 7,
Fig. 28; interpretations of 127
La Lande de Fronsac (church of ): apocalyptic Christ 119
lamb: Passover, prefigures Christ/Crucifixion 14, 120, 135, 137
Lambert of St Omer: Liber Floridus 211,
219
Lambeth Bible 54, 63, 64, 11213, 159,
Fig. 25
Lamech68
Langton, Stephen 48
Last Supper: and Abrahams hospitality 162; prefigured by Davids
dancing1567
Le Mans cathedral: window 104
Leviathan: as devil 133
Laon cathedral, west front: Ark of
the Covenant, Fig. 3; creation
scheme 100, Fig. 20
Latin: as language of Bible 556, see also
Vulgate
Lausanne cathedral: rose window 912,
129
Life of Adam and Eve 724, 75
Lincoln cathedral: OT frieze 73; south
transept window Pl. 6
lion: a symbol of resurrection 37
Louis IX 51
Louis the Pious 45
Maccabees55
253
Magi: Adoration of, and Queen of
Sheba 161, 171; and Abrahams
meeting with Melchizedek 147;
with prophets and OT scenes
Pl. 5
Mle, Emile: on the Glossa Ordinaria 58
Malmesbury abbey: 123
man: place of, in cosmic order 12731
mappa mundi (Hereford) 5, 230
Marcion (heretic): dismisses God of
OT 139, 142
Marcoul/Markoff 25, 70; under Solomons feet 71, 86, Fig. 12
marriage at Cana see Cana, marriage in
Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah 72
Mary see Virgin Mary
Mary Magdalene: types of the penitence
of180
Mass of St Giles (National Gallery,
London)31
Mateo: work at Santiago de
Compostela1
Maximianus, Bishop: ivory chair of 42,
44
medieval art: characteristics and categories of 1, 229; influence of
ancient Middle East on 45;
and salvation history 229; verbal
interpretations in 1459
Melchizedek: Abrahams meeting
with 147; as type of Christ 139
Meresburg cathedral: font 115
Micah: foretells Nativity 177
Michal: lets David down through
Window 153, Fig. 30
Michelangelo: Moses 62
Mirror of Mans Salvation 165, 1689,
178, 184, 185; description of 168;
sources of 168
Moissac see St Peters, Moissac
Morgan ciborium 148
254 Index
Moses: and burning bush 61, 152, 175,
177; and Christ Fig. 39; covenant
of, with God 8; crowned 49;
with horns (of light) 24, 53,
615, 86, 152, 204, Fig. 11; Law
given by 136; lifting up bronze
serpent 6, 136, 137, 180; rejects
Synagogue 220; removes
shoe 152; strikes rock 135
Nativity: in Biblia Pauperum 173; with
Moses and Aarons rod Fig. 37;
types of 175
Nebuchadnezzar 51, 823; dream of 37,
175
New Testament (NT): allusions to OT
concealed in 2223; antitypes
in 136; Jewish attacks on 216
17; OT as forerunner of 8, 9, 10,
11, 139, 216;
Nicholas, St: in plays on conversion of
Jews2201
Nicholas of Verdun: altarpiece see
Klosterneuburg altarpiece
Noah 15, 36, 378; and Adams body 74;
after the flood 38, Fig. 7; drunkenness of 38, 153, 197; receives
dove 136, Pl. 3; as righteous
man 34, 40;
Notre-Dame (church), Gargilesse-Dampierre: choice of imagery in 1923;
capital 1935, Fig. 41
Notre-Dame-la-Grande, Poitiers: and
Play of Adam 82, 83; west front
frieze 110, Fig. 24
Og, king of Bashan: Talmudic tale
of21516
Old Testament (OT): approaches to 5,
84; art in 23, 67, 29, 30; and
Christianity 9, 139, 199, 231; and
Index
Prudentius: on colour 146; Psycho
machia 36, 219
Psalms: on beauty of Gods house 323;
cited in NT 139
Pseudepigrapha (OT) 72
Queen of Sheba: allegorised as
Church 161; blackness of 161;
visits Solomon 3, 78, 161, Fig. 34
Rashi (rabbi): on horns of Moses 64
Resurrection (of Christ): Jonah emerging
from whale as type 6; symbolised
by lion 37;
Revelation, book of 119; the four living
creatures in 4; heavenly Jerusalem in 33, 230
Rheims cathedral: David and
Goliath 46; Samuel anointing
David (window) 7, 46
Robert of Melun 85
Robert of Tomberlaine: commentary on
Song of Songs 222
Rome (personification) 201
rose windows: and time 91
Rouen cathedral: Joseph window 69
Rutland Psalter: David crowned by
bishops 47, 48
Sabbath, perpetual see time, end of
St Albans Bible 93
St Barthlemy (church), Lige: font 3
St Botolphs (church), Hardham 74, 80,
Pl. 2
St Denis (abbey), Paris 30; chapel
window 1920, Fig. 4;
depicted 31; treasures of 31; tree
of Jesse 112
St Gilles (church), Saint-Gilles-du-Gard:
west front with Synagogue 212,
Fig. 44
255
St Mary (church), Fairford: iconographical scheme 114
St Mary Magdalene (church), Eardisley:
font 75, 133, Fig. 15
St Mary Magdalene, Vzelay: tympanum 124, Fig. 27
St Neots church: serpent in windows
of 79, 86
St Nicholas (church), Oddington: judgement mural 231
St Peters (abbey), Moissac: figure of
Isaiah at 6
St Peters (church), Southrop: font 645,
21920, Fig. 11
St Seurin (church), Bordeaux: south
porch 1011, Fig. 43
St Victor (school) 64, 85
Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe: nave vault
paintings 42, 67, 196
Sainte Chapelle: OT windows 489
Sainte Madeleine (church), Neuilly-enDonjon: 197
Salisbury cathedral: chapter house frieze
of OT narratives 1415, 42, 45,
61, 69
Samson: birth of, announced 151, Fig. 33;
and Gaza city gates 155; sleeping
in bed with prostitute 155
Samuel (prophet) 28; anoints David 7,
46, 47; represents religious
authority 47, 48
San-Pietro-al-Monte, Civate: ceiling
painting in 230
San Sebastiano al Palatino 115
Santiago de Compostela: tree of Jesse 111
San Zeno, Verona: doors 123
Saul (king of Israel) 28
Sens cathedral: Good Samaritan
window11718
seven gifts of the spirit 30; doves as 112,
204; Pleiades as 121
256 Index
Shaftesbury Psalter 63, 64
Shekinah 123, 124
Shelters, Jewish feast of 124
sibyl: prophecies of 82, 169
Six Ages of Man 989, 151, Fig. 19
Six Ages of the World 967, 98, Fig. 18;
end of 99100
Solomon 8, 28; in art 3; anointing
of 46; on couch 60; deposes
priest 49; and fool (Marcoul) 701, 86; judgement
of 194; as temple-builder 2,
32; worships idols 51; see also
under Queen of Sheba; temple
( Jerusalem)
Solomon and Saturn: Cains jawbone
in 54; Marcoul in 70
Song of Songs/Song of Solomon: allegorically interpreted 6, 20, 601;
and Queen of Sheba 161; see also
Synagogue, and Song of Songs
Souvigny Bible 93
Sower (parable) 39
stars: Abrahams descendants like 123;
and the future 1212
Stavelot Bible: Genesis initial 133
Stavelot portable altar 207
Stephaton: as Jew 226
Suger, abbot of St Denis 33, 34, 51; justifies church art 30, 31
Sylvestris, Bernard 108
Synagogue (personification) 10, 26, 113,
20128, Figs 11, 42, 43, 44; Altercatio with Ecclesia 21112; with
basilisk headdress 207, Fig. 43;
on Bury cross 206; crown lost
by 201, 205, 21112, 221; depiction
of 20127; and Ecclesia 202,
209, 21112, 220, 2212, 228, 231;
flees 10, 212, 21314, Fig. 44;
in Hortus Deliciarum 60, 223,
Index
257
Cultural Interactions
Studies in the Relationship between the Arts
Edited by J.B. Bullen
Interdisciplinary activity is now a major feature of academic
work in all fields. The traditional borders between the arts
have been eroded to reveal new connections and create
new links between art forms. Cultural Interactions is intended
to provide a forum for this activity. It will publish monographs,
edited collections and volumes of primary material on
points of crossover such as those between literature and
the visual arts or photography and fiction, music and
theatre, sculpture and historiography. It will engage with
book illustration, the manipulation of typography as an art
form, or the double work of poetry and painting and will
offer the opportunity to broaden the field into wider and
less charted areas. It will deal with modes of representation
that cross the physiological boundaries of sight, hearing and
touch and examine the placing of these modes within their
representative cultures. It will offer an opportunity to publish
on the crosscurrents of nationality and the transformations
brought about by foreign art forms impinging upon others.
The interface between the arts knows no boundaries of time
or geography, history or theory.
Vol. 3 G.F. Mitrano and Eric Jarosinski (eds): The Hand of the
Interpreter: Essays on Meaning after Theory
370 pages. 2009. ISBN 978-3-03911-118-3
Vol. 13