Decorations for the Holy Dead: Visual Embellishments on Tombs and Shrines of Saints

Description

Devotion to saints, their cult, and memory was enormously popular in medieval Europe. Factual evidence in the form of tombs, shrines, reliquaries, pilgrimages, vitae and souvenirs is legion and attests to the all-pervasive nature of the phenomenon. Despite the massive bibliography on hagiography, few if any books are devoted entirely to the study of saints’ burial places. The purpose of the papers gathered here, based on presentations sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds (1999), plus additional papers commissioned by the editors, is to examine the interaction between the visual arts at specific loci sancti and saints’ cults and, further, to enquire whether a corpus of more unusual motifs appeared at saintly sites, beyond the more predictable narrative, symbolic, and iconic representations of saints. The papers address the active role saints’ tombs and their embellishments assumed within the fabric of medieval society: rituals enacted at saints’ burial places, altarpieces, reliquaries, cloister as shrine, the aura of the venerable past, secular burial near saints’ tombs, and political and feminist elements in devotional practice. Monuments from Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Hungary, and England are examined and the volume incorporates 104 illustrations. Front matter (“Contents”, “Abbreviations”, “List of Illustrations”, “Foreword”, “Acknowledgements”), p. begin Free Access Introduction, p. xxi Stephen Lamia, Elizabeth Valdez del Álamo https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3474 Enjoying the Saints in Late Antiquity, p. 3 Peter Brown https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3475 Imagery and Interactivity: Ritual Transaction at the Saint’s Tomb, p. 21 Rocío Sánchez Ameijeiras https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3476 The Cross and the Crown, the Tomb and the Shrine: Decoration and Accommodation for England’s Premier Saints, p. 39 Stephen Lamia https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3477 A Shrine in its Setting: San Vicente de Ávila, p. 57 Daniel Rico Camps https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3478 Caput sancti regis Ladislai: The Reliquary Bust of Saint Ladislas and Holy Kingship in Late Medieval Hungary, p. 77 Scott B. Montgomery, Alice A. Bauer https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3479 The Bishop-Saints of Galicia and León, their Cults, and Material Remains (Ninth to Eleventh Centuries), p. 93 Eduardo Carrero Santamaría https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3480 The Saint’s Capital, Talisman in the Cloister, p. 111 Elizabeth Valdez del Álamo https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3481 A Reliquary Capital at Moissac: Liturgy and Ceremonial Thinking in the Cloister, p. 129 Leah Rutchick https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3482 Cloister as Shrine to a Patron Saint: Perpetuating the Memory of Saint Pontius at Saint-Pons-de-Thomières, p. 151 Leslie Bussis Tait https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3483 The Representation of Physician Saints in the Katholikon of the Monastery of Hosios Loukas, Phokis, p. 167 Nadezhda Guerassimenko https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3484 The Vanni Altarpiece and the Relic Cult of Saint Margaret: Considering a Female Audience, p. 179 Leanne Gilbertson https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3485 The Sepulchre of Saint Juliana in the Collegiate Church of Santillana del Mar, p. 191 Francesca Español https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3486 Civic Promoters of Celestial Protectors: The Arca di San Donato at Arezzo and the Crisis of the Saint’s Tomb around 1400, p. 219 Ulrich Pfisterer https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3487 Back matter (“List of Contributors”, “Index”), p. 233 Free Access Plates, p. 253 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.3.3488