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The Blood of Christ in the Later Middle Ages1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Caroline Walker Bynum
Affiliation:
University Professor at Columbia University in the City of New York.

Extract

In one of our earliest descriptions of meditation on the crucifix, Aelred of Rievaulx (d.1166) described the body on the cross, pierced by the soldier's lance, as food and urged the female recluses for whom he wrote not only to contemplate it but also to eat it in gladness: “Hasten, linger not, eat the honeycomb with your honey, drink your wine with your milk. The blood is changed into wine to inebriate you, the water into milk to nourish you.” Marsha Dutton, who has written so movingly of Cistercian piety, speaks of this as a eucharistic interpretation of the literal, physical reality of the crucifixion and points to the parallel with Berengar of Tours' oath at the synod of Rome in 1079: “The bread and wine which are placed on the altar … are changed substantially into the true and proper vivifying body and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord and after the consecration there are the true body of Christ which was born of the virgin … and the true blood of Christ which flowed from his side … in their real nature and true substance.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2002

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References

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On the rise of spiritual communion, see Jules, Corblet, Histoire dogmatique, liturgique et archéologique du sacrement de l'eucharistie, 2 vols. (Paris: Société Générale de Librairie Catholique, 18851886)Google Scholar; Edouard, Dumoutet, Le Désir de voir l'hostie et les origines de la dévotion au Saint-Sacrement (Paris: Beauchesne, 1926)Google Scholar; Dumoutet, , Corpus Domini: Aux sources de la piété eucharistique médiévale (Paris: Beauchesne, 1942)Google Scholar; Peter, Browe, Die Verehrung der Eucharistie im Mittelalter (Munich: Hueber, 1933)Google Scholar; Baix, F. and Lambot, C., La Dévotion à la eucharistie et le VIIe centenaire de la Fête-Dieu (Gembloux: Duculot, 1964)Google Scholar; Bynum, , Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 31–69Google Scholar; Rubin, , Corpus Christi, 35–82Google Scholar; and Charles, Caspers, “The Western Church During the Late Middle Ages: Augenkommunion or Popular Mysticism?,” in Bread of Heaven, ed. Caspers, et al. , 8398.Google Scholar

7. Macy, Theologies of the Eucharist, sees the ecclesiological interpretation of the eucharist as dominant from about the middle of the twelfth century on. For an example of the eucharistic elements as symbols of the pious gathered into one church, see Rupert, of Deutz, , Commentaria in Joannem, bk. 6, sect. 206, in Migne, J.-P., ed., Patrologiae cursus completus: series latina, 221 vols. (Paris; Migne, 18411864)Google Scholar [hereafter PL] vol. 169, cols. 468–69 and 483D–484A. Macy tends, however, to underestimate the element of sacrifice, which remained crucial in eucharistic devotion and theology; see Jaroslav, Pelikan, The Growth of Medieval Theology (600–1300), vol. 3 of The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978), 129–44 and 184204Google Scholar, and Fitzpatrick, P. J., “On Eucharistic Sacrifice in the Middle Ages,” in Sacrifice and Redemption: Durham Essays in Theology, ed. Sykes, S. W. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 129–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. As Dutton points out, the argument that the eucharist should be veiled because of its horror was traditional and went back to Ambrose; see Dutton, , “Eat, Drink and Be Merry,” 910Google Scholar. See also Macy, , Theologies of the Eucharist, 2851, 72 and 108Google Scholar; Pelikan, , Growth of Medieval Theology, 199Google Scholar; Rubin, , Corpus Christi, 91 n. 56Google Scholar; Brian, Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 290–91Google Scholar; and Klaus, Berg, “Der Traktat des Gerhard von Köln über das kostbarste Blut Christi aus dem Jahre 1280,” in 900 Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung in Weingarten 1094–1994: Festschrift zum Heilig-Blut-Jubiläum am 12. März 1994, ed. Norbert, Kruse and Hans Ulrich, Rudolf, 3 vols. (Sigmaringen: Thorbeke, 1994), vol. 1, 442, 449–50Google Scholar. As Roger, Bacon, The Opus mains of Roger Bacon, tr. Robert Belle, Burke, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 1928), vol. 2, 822, expressed it: “[If the body and blood were visible,] we could not sustain it from horror and loathing. For the human heart could not endure to masticate and devour raw and living flesh and to drink fresh blood. And therefore the infinite goodness of God is shown in veiling this sacrament.”Google Scholar

9. Since I wrote this paper, an excellent full-length study of the blood relic at Westminster has appeared: Nicholas, Vincent, The Holy Blood: King Henry III and the Westminster Blood Relic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)Google Scholar. Vincent's study focuses on why the relic at Westminster did not give rise to a cult. Although it attempts to put the English phenomenon in a European context, it has little about blood cult in Germany, in which I have been particularly interested in this paper.

10. See n. 6 above.

11. Megivern, James J., Concomitance and Communion: A Study in Eucharistic Doctrine and Practice, Studia Friburgensia, n.s. 33 (Fribourg, Switzerland: University Press, 1963)Google Scholar. As Megivern points out, the old argument that the doctrine of concomitance was developed to justify the withdrawal of the cup is untenable. The roots of the idea are in early medieval efforts to refute the notion that receiving communion divides Christ into pieces.

12. Peter, Browe, Die Eucharistischen Wunder des Mittelalters, Breslauer Studien zur historischen Theologie, NF 4 (Breslau: Müller und Seiffert, 1938)Google Scholar; Corblet, , Histoire dogmatique, vol. 1, 447515Google Scholar; Caroline Walker, Bynum, “Women Mystics and Eucharistic Devotion in the Thirteenth Century,” Women's Studies 11 (1984): 179214Google Scholar; Hans Ulrich, Rudolf, “Die Heilig-Blut-Verehrung im Überblick: Von den Anfängen bis zum Ende der Klosterzeit (1094–1803)” in 900 Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung, vol. 1, 351Google Scholar, esp. 6–7; Walter Kasper, “Der bleibende Gehalt der Heilig-Blut-Verehrung aus theologischer Sicht,” in ibid., vol. 1, 382.

13. See Bynum, , Holy Feast and Holy FastGoogle Scholar; Réginald, Grégoire, “Sang,” Dictionnaire de spiritualité, ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, ed. Viller, M. et al. , vol. 14 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1990), cols. 324–33Google Scholar; Rubin, , Corpus Christi, especially chapters 2 and 5Google Scholar; Peter, Dinzelbacher, “Das Blut Christi in der Religiosität des Mittelalters,” in 900 Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung, vol. 1, 415434Google Scholar; and Danièle, Alexandre-Bidon, “La dévotion au sang du Christ chez les femmes médiévales: des mystiques aux laïques (XIIIe – XVIe siècle),” in Le Sang au moyen âge: Actes du quatrième colloque international de Montpellier, Université Paul Valéry (27-29 novembre 1997), ed. Marcel, Faure (Montpellier: Université Paul Valéry, 1999), 405–13Google Scholar. Dinzelbacher maintains that the substitution of blood for communion wine in visions was fairly infrequent (“Das Blut Christi,” 425).

14. Bynum, , Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 177Google Scholar; on Catherine's blood mysticism generally, see ibid., 174–79, and Hanna-Barbara, Gerl-Falkovitz, “‘Die Braut auf dem Bett von Blut und Feuer’: Zur Bluttheologie der Caterina von Siena (1347–1380),” in 900 Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung, vol. 1, 494500.Google Scholar

15. Bynum, , Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 399, n. 49Google Scholar. See also ibid., 62, n. 128, for Mechtild of Hackeborn (d. ca. 1298) who received Christ's heart “in the form of a cup” containing “the drink of life” at “the hour of communion.” On the blood mysticism (with strong eucharistic overtones) of the Helfta nuns generally, see Bynum, , Jesus as Mother, chapter 5.Google Scholar

16. “Les ‘Vitae Sororum’ d'Unterlinden. Edition critique du Manuscrit 508 de la Bibliothèque de Colmar,” ed. Jeanne, Ancelet-Hustache, Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 5 (1930): 352–53Google Scholar; discussed in Otto, Langer, Mystische Erfahrung und spirituelle Theologie: zu Meister Eckharts Auseinandersetzung mit der Frauenfrömmigkeit seiner Zeit (Munich: Artemis, 1987), 135Google Scholar, and Hamburger, Jeffrey F., The Visual and the Visionary (New York: Zone, 1998), 413Google Scholar. The early-fourteenth-century Rhenish devotional drawing of St. Bernard and a nun at the foot of the cross, to which Jeffrey Hamburger has drawn our attention, shows such inundation. The fact that the nun's hands are over the gushing flood may suggest that the adherent is still at some distance from immersion-union, but it may also suggest that access to the Christ of blood and suffering is through touch, grasping, physical encounter. See Hamburger, Jeffrey F., Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), plate 1Google Scholar. There is, in this period, a strong devotional emphasis on touching as well as seeing the precious blood—an emphasis found especially in the references (both visual and textual) to Thomas putting his hand into Christ's side and touching his heart; see Horst, Appuhn, “Sankt Thomas,” Kunst in Hessen und am Mittelrhein 5 (1966): 710Google Scholar, and Der Auferstandene und das Heilige Blut zu Wienhausen: Über Kult und Kunst im späten Mittelalter,” Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 1 (1961): 9094.Google Scholar

17. See the works cited in n. 77 below. For a number of examples of objects that accuse and threaten by bleeding, see Bynum, , Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 329 nn. 135 and 138Google Scholar. Medieval writers occasionally understood unworthy reception as itself killing Christ; see, for example, Gerald of Wales, Gemma ecclesiastica, c. 50, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. Brewer, J. S., Dimock, J. F., and Warner, G. F., 8 vols., Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores, 21 (London: Longman, 18611891; Kraus reprint, 19641966), vol. 2, 139Google Scholar. I owe this reference to an anonymous reader for Church History.

18. Edward, Peacock, “Extracts from Lincoln Episcopal Visitations in the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries,” Archaeologia: or Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity 48 (London: The Society of Antiquaries, 1885), 251–53Google Scholar, and see Rubin, , Corpus Christi, 344–45.Google Scholar

19. For two examples, see n. 56 below.

20. Wine or water was poured over the relic and drunk; see Rainer, Jensch, “Die Weingartener Heilig-Blut- und Stiftertradition: Ein Bilderkreis klösterlicher Selbstdarstellung” (Diss. Phil., Tübingen, 1996), 2324Google Scholar, and Adalbert, Nagel, “Das Heilige Blut Christi,” in Festschrift zur 900-Feier des Kloslers: 1056–1956 (Weingarten, 1956), 201–03Google Scholar. Edmund Rich of Abingdon (d. 1240), archbishop of Canterbury, washed the wounds of a crucifix with wine and then drank it; see Louis, Gougaud, Dévotions et pratiques ascétiques du moyen âge (Paris: Descleé, de Brouwer, 1925), 7778Google Scholar. On the general relationship between eucharist and relic, see Snoek, Godefridus J. C., Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Mutual Relationship (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995).Google Scholar

21. There are, however, a few Holy Blood altars that relate the blood closely to the Last Supper; see Barbara, Welzel, Abendmahlsaltäre vor der Reformation (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1991), 24, 26, and 116–31Google Scholar. It is important to note that such depictions of the Last Supper are usually of the moment of Judas's betrayal, not of the consecration.

22. The devotion to Christ's foreskin was, in a sense, a body-devotion parallel to the devotion to blood relics. But it was far rarer. See Bynum, , Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 377 n. 135Google Scholar. Charroux provides an example of devotion to parallel bodily relics of foreskin and blood from the circumcision: see Barbier de Montault, X., Oeuvres complètes, vol. 7: Rome, part 5.2 (Paris: Vives, 1893), 528.Google Scholar

23. Dinzelbacher, , “Das Blut Christi,” 415.Google Scholar

24. “Non pas comment u Sacrement/Mès en sa fourme proprement/Vermel comment il le sengna/Quant pour nous mort soufrir dengna.” In Oskari, Kajava, ed., Etudes sur deux poèmes français rélatifs à l'abbaye de Fécamp (Helsinki: Société de Littérature Finnoise, 1928), 95.Google Scholar

25. Jonathan, Sumption, Pilgrimage: An Image of Medieval Religion (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1975), 48Google Scholar. The competition is all the more interesting in light of the fact that the cult at Fécamp appears to have originated in a eucharistic miracle that was later re-figured as a blood relic; see Vincent, , Holy Blood, 5758.Google Scholar

26. On blood relics generally, see Barbier de, Montault, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 7, 524–37Google Scholar; Johannes, Heuser, “‘Heilig-Blut’ in Kult und Brauchtum des deutschen Kulturraumes. Ein Beitrag zur religiösen Volkskunde” (Diss. Phil., Bonn, 1948)Google Scholar; Nagel, , “Das Heilige Blut Christi,” 197–98Google Scholar; Sumption, , Pilgrimage, 4449 and 312Google Scholar; Thomas, Stump and Otto, Gillen, “Heilig-Blut,” in Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunst-Geschichte, ed. Otto, Schmitt, vol. 2 (Stuttgart: Alfred Druckenmüller, 1948) [hereafter RDK], cols. 947–58Google Scholar; Haubst, R., “Blut Christi”, R. Bauerreiss, “Bluthostien”, A. Winklhofer, “Blutwunder”, in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. Josef, Höfer and Karl, Rahner, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Freiburg: Herder, 1958) [hereafter LTK], cols. 544–49Google Scholar; and Vincent, , Holy Blood, 3181 (see 51–52 n. 76 for more bibliography).Google Scholar

27. On Braulio, see Caroline Walker, Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 107–8 n. 179Google Scholar. On the early cult, see Jensch, , “Die Weingartener Heilig-Blut- und Stiftertradition,” 2025, 3031Google Scholar; Nagel, , “Das Heilige Blut,” 188229Google Scholar; Rudolf, , “Die Heilig-Blut-Verehrung im ÜberblickGoogle Scholar;” Helmut, Binder, “Das Heilige Blut der Reichenau,” in 900 Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung, vol. 1, 337–47Google Scholar, and Lukas Weichenrieder, “Das Heilige Blut von Mantua,” in ibid., 331–36.

28. Stump, and Gillen, , “Heilig-Blut,” cols. 947–58Google Scholar; Jensch, , “Die Weingartener Heilig-Blut-und Stiftertradition,” 31.Google Scholar

29. Jacques, Toussaert, Le sentiment religieux en Flandre à la fin du Moyen-Age (Paris: Plon, 1963), 259–67Google Scholar. Although obtained with enthusiasm in 1150, the relic apparently did not receive regular processions until the beginning of the fourteenth century, which saw an explosion of miracles and devotional practices relating to it.

30. Matthew, Paris, Chronica majora, vols. 4 and 5, ed. Henry Richards, Luard, Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores 57 (London: Longman, 18771880), vol. 4, 640–44, and vol. 5, 29, 48, and 195Google Scholar; Roberts, M. E., “The Relic of the Holy Blood and the Iconography of the Thirteenth-Century North Transept Portal of Westminster Abbey,” in England in the Thirteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1984 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Ormrod, W. M. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 1986), 129–42, esp. 138–39Google Scholar; and now Vincent, , Holy Blood.Google Scholar

31. Jensch, , “Die Weingartener Heilig-Blut- und Stiftertradition,” 4347Google Scholar; Nagel, , “Das Heilige Blut,” 197Google Scholar; and Binder, , “Das Heilige Blut in Weissenau,” in 900 Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung, vol. 1, 348–58Google Scholar. Note that this is just at the time of Gerhard's treatise. Rudolf was also patron of Weingarten.

32. The Book of Margery Kempe: The Text from the Unique MS. Owned by Colonel W. Butler-Bowdon, ed. Meech, S. B. with Allen, H. E., Early English Text Society 212 (London: Oxford University Press for EETS, 1961), 232–35Google Scholar. On the Wilsnack hosts, see Browe, , Die Wunder, 166–71Google Scholar; Jensch, , “Die Weingartener Heilig-blut- und Shiftertradition,” 3739Google Scholar; Hartmut, Boockmann, “Der Streit urn das Wilsnacker Blut: zur Situation des deutschen Klerus in der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 9 (1982): 385408Google Scholar; Charles, Zika, “Hosts, Processions and Pilgrimages: Controlling the Sacred in Fifteenth-Century Germany,” Past and Present 118 (1988): 2564Google Scholar; and Hartmut, Kühne, “‘Ich ging durch Feuer und Wasser.…’ Bemerkungen zur Wilnacker Heilig-Blut-Legende,” in Gerlinde, Strohmaier-Wiederanders, ed., Theologie und Kultur: Geschichten einer Wechselbeziehung: Festschrift zum einhundertfünfzigjährigen Bestehen des Lehrstuhls für Christliche Archäologie und Kirchliche Kunst an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Halle: André Gursky, 1999), 5184Google Scholar. On frauds generally, see František, Graus, “Fälschungen im Gewand der Frömmigkeit,” in Fälschungen im Mittelalter: International Kongress der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, München, 16.–19. September 1986, 5 vols. (Hannover: Hahn, 1988), vol. 5, 261–80Google Scholar. It is significant that the goal of pilgrimage at Wilsnack was known at the time as the “blood of Christ,” although the objects revered were wonderhosts.

33. Stump, and Gillen, , “Heilig-Blut,” col. 956, figure 7Google Scholar; Chenu, M.-D., “Sang du Christ,” in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. Vacant, A., Mangenot, E., and Amann, E., vol. 14 (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1939), col. 1094–97Google Scholar; Jensch, , “Die Weingartener Heilig-Blut-und Stiftertradition,” 31Google Scholar. In the fifteenth century, Nicolas V (wrongly) attributed the story to a sermon of Athanasius cited at II Nicaea (787). In the eleventh century, Siegebert of Gembloux tells the miracle of Beirut under the year 765, and it was often celebrated in the high Middle Ages; the Roman martyrology mentions it for November 9.

34. See, for example, the articles from LTK cited in n. 26 above, which strain to divide the surviving stories into categories according to the source of the blood.

35. The seventeenth-century chronicle from Wienhausen, which draws on earlier traditions, has been edited by Horst, Appuhn, Chronik des Klosters Wienhausen (Celle: Bomann-Archio, 1956)Google Scholar; the blood miracles are on 140–42. We have records of several fourteenth-century donations to maintain an eternal light before the holy blood; see Appuhn, , “Der Auferstandene und das Heilige Blut,” 98Google Scholar. Contemporary accounts from Rothenburg ob der Tauber also show some confusion about the source of the blood relic there. And see n. 25 above on Fécamp.

36. Romuald, Bauerreiss, Pie Jesu: Das Schmerzensmann-Bild und sein Einfluss auf die mittelalterliche Frömmigkeit (Munich: Karl Widmann, 1931); see also n. 17 above and n. 77 below.Google Scholar

37. Innocent III, De sacro altaris mysterio, bk 4, c. 30, PL 217, col. 876D–877B. Almost a hundred years earlier, Guibert of Nogent had raised objections to relics of Christ's milk, teeth, and foreskin; see Klaus, Guth, Guibert von Nogent und die hochmittelalterliche Kritik an der Reliquienverehrung, Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktiner-Ordens und seiner Zweige, Supplement 21 (Augsburg: Winfried, 1970).Google Scholar

38. Matthew, Paris, Chronica majora, vol. 4, 643, and vol. 6 (reprint 1964), 138–44Google Scholar; see also Roberts, , “Relic of the Holy Blood,” 141Google Scholar. Franciscans generally took this position; see Chenu, , “Sang du Christ.”Google Scholar And on the entire controversy, see Vincent, , Holy Blood, 82117.Google Scholar

39. For a thorough discussion of the concept of the “truth [or core] of human nature” in twelfth- and thirteenth-century theology, see Philip Lyndon, Reynolds, Food and the Body: Some Peculiar Questions in High Medieval Theology (Leiden: Brill, 1999).Google Scholar

40. Thomas, Aquinas, Summa theologica, pt III, quaestio 54, art. 3, in S. Thomae Aquinatis opera omnia, ed. Robert, Busa, 7 vols. (Stuttgart and Bad Cannstadt: Friedrich Frommann, 1980), vol. 2, 853–54Google Scholar; Quaestiones quodlibetales, Quodl. 5, quaestio 3, art. 1, in ibid., vol. 3, 466.

41. See, for example, the numerous eucharistic miracles in Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, ed. Strange, J., 2 vols. (Cologne: Heberle, 1851), esp. distinctio 9, and Gerald of Wales, Gemma ecclesiastica. And see n. 12 above.Google Scholar

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43. Thomas, Aquinas, Summa theologica, pt III, quaestio 77, art. 1, and quaestio 80, art. 4 ad 4, in Opera omnia, ed. Busa, , vol. 1, 896–97, 905Google Scholar. Gabriel Biel used the distinction between substance and accidents to argue that communion with the eyes reached only the accidents of bread, whereas those who eat consume species and the vere contentum as well; see André, Goossens, “Résonances eucharistiques à la fin du moyen âge,” in Haquin, ed., Fête-Dieu, , 173–91, esp. 177Google Scholar. See also Yrjö, Hirn, The Sacred Shrine: A Study of the Poetry and Art of the Catholic Church (Boston: Macmillan, 1912), 124–25, 135–36.Google Scholar

44. Burr, , Eucharistic Presence and ConversionGoogle Scholar; Jorissen, , Die Entfaltung der TranssubstantiationslehreGoogle Scholar; and n. 42 above. The decision on the part of certain theologians (especially Dominicans) for trans-substantiation rather than con-substantiation or annihilation was undergirded by their desire to adhere to a truly Aristotelian theory of substantial change and to adhere as well to the Boethian notion that something common must connect the two poles in a relationship of change. See Caroline Walker, Bynum, Metamorphosis and Identity (New York: Zone, 2001), 197–98Google Scholar, nn. 6 and 7, and “Seeing and Seeing Beyond: The Mass of St. Gregory in the Fifteenth Century,” in The Mind's Eye: Art and Theology in the Middle Ages, Proceedings of a Conference Held at Princeton University, 10, 2001, ed. Anne-Marie, Bouché and Jeffrey, Hamburger, to appear.Google Scholar

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46. Peter, Browe, “Die eucharistischen Verwandlungswunder des Mittelalters,” Römische Quartalschrift 37 (1929): 156–57 nn. 60 and 61.Google Scholar

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49. Chenu, , “Sang du Christ;”Google ScholarJensch, , “Die Weingartener Heilig-Blut- und Stiftertradition,” 3940Google Scholar; and Kasper, , “Der bleibende Gehalt.” Nicolas V's bull of August 19, 1449, permitted blood veneration; the bull Ineffabilis summi providentia Patris of August 1, 1464, forbade further discussion of the status of the blood (divided or undivided) after the PassionGoogle Scholar. In the early sixteenth century, pope Clement VII declared that the blood that was poured out did participate in the hypostatic union; see Rudolf, , “Die Heilig-Blut-Verehrung im Überblick,” 16Google Scholar. Increasingly therefore in the Baroque period theologians came to think that anything that remained after the resurrection was not part of the hypostatic union; see Kasper, , “Der bleibende Gehalt,” 382Google Scholar. For example, in the early sixteenth century, Peter of Nivolaria defended blood cult but argued that the blood came not from the veritas humanae naturae of Christ but rather from the excess blood of humors; see Berg, , “Der Traktat des Gerhard von Köln,” 454–55.Google Scholar

50. Boockmann, , “Der Streit,” 391–92.Google Scholar

51. Brückner, , “Liturgie und Legende.”Google Scholar

52. See n. 74 below for a Reformation image that makes clear the demand for return of blood to the laity. As both my brief account here and the large bibliography on Wilsnack (see n. 32 above) should make clear, differing opinions about blood relics, wonderhosts, and bleeding images do not fall into an elite versus popular or a clerical versus lay pattern.

53. On Gerhard, see Berg, , “Der Traktat des Gerhard von Köln,” 435–57Google Scholar. There is no evidence that he is the same person as the Gerhard of Cologne whose sermons have been edited by Ph. Strauch or the Gerhard who wrote the De medulla animae. Gerhard's Tractatus de sacratissimo sanguine domini is edited and translated into German (somewhat freely) by Berg, , in “Der Traktat des Gerhard von Köln,” 459–76Google Scholar. On Weingarten, see 900 Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung, ed. Kruse, and Rudolf, , 3 vols.Google Scholar

54. Berg, , “Der Traktat des Gerhard von Köln,” 453–55Google Scholar; on Gerhard see also Nagel, , “Das Heilige Blut,” 193–94.Google Scholar

55. Gerhard argues that the name “Weingarten” was prophetic; Christ knew there would be a blood relic there. See Tractatus de sacratissimo sanguine, 474.

56. Gerhard, , Tractatus de sacratissimo sanguine, 467Google Scholar. Thomas of Chobham in his treatise on preaching (ca. 1210) makes similar use of the eucharistic analogy. Discussing how Christ's foreskin can both remain on earth and be resurrected, Thomas asserts: “just as by a miracle the body of Our Lord can be at one and the same time in several places, so that body can exist in several forms. … Christ's foreskin, glorified as part of his integral body, may exist in another place unglorified.” Cited in Vincent, Holy Blood, 85.

57. See Jensen, , “Die Weingartener Heilig-Blut- und Stiftertradition,” 23Google Scholar, and Nagel, , “Das Heilige Blut,” 200–201. The late-thirteenth-century indulgences at Weingarten were for seeing the relic; and the crystal form of the reliquary clearly corresponded to this devotional emphasis.Google Scholar

58. See above n. 20, and Hans Ulrich, Rudolf, “Heilig-Blut-Brauchtum im Überblick,” in 900 Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung, vol. 2, 553–74Google Scholar. The earliest miracles at Weingarten seem to have come from being touched by the Holy Blood reliquary or from visiting abbot Meingoz's grave or both; see Norbert, Kruse, “Der Bericht von den ersten Wundern des Heiligen Bluts im Jahre 1200,” in 900 Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung in Weingarten, vol. 1, 124–36.Google Scholar

59. Gerhard, , Tractatus de sacratissimo sanguine, 474–75.Google Scholar

60. Dinzelbacher, , “Das Blut Christi,” 430, n. 202, quotes the parallel opinion of priest and religious at Wilsnack that their blood relic is more efficacious (efficacius) than consecrated wine.Google Scholar

61. Peter, Dinzelbacher, “Die ‘Realpräsenz’ der Heiligen,” in Heiligenverehrung in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Dinzelbauer, P. and Bauer, D. (Ostfildern: Schwabenverlag, 1990), 115–74Google Scholar. One must not, however, take the point too far; relics were also, even to simple adherents, triggers of remembrance—that is, mnemonic as well as thaumaturgic.

62. Ademar of Chabannes, Historia 3.46, trans, in Richard, Landes, Relics, Apocalypse and the Deceits of History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), 87. See below n. 65.Google Scholar

63. Peter, Damian, Opusculum 19: De abdicatione episcopatus [Letter 72], c. 5, PL 145, col. 432B, trans. Blum, Owen J., The Letters of Peter Damian, 1–120, The Fathers of the Church, Mediaeval Continuation, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 19891998), vol. 3, 129–30Google Scholar; Dinzelbacher, , “Das Blut Christi,” 425, n. 147, says this is the first such vision.Google Scholar

64. “The Monk of Evesham's Vision,” cc. 2, 4, and 10, in Eileen, Gardiner, ed., Visions of Heaven and Hell Before Dante (New York: Italica, 1989), 198, 202–3, 214.Google Scholar

65. Both Rachel Fulton and Phyllis Jestice, from different perspectives, are at work on the origins of the devotion to the suffering Christ. See now Rachel, Fulton, From Judgment to Passion: An Intellectual History of Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, forthcoming). Fulton discusses both Ademar of Chabannes and Peter Damian at length.Google Scholar

66. See, for example, Mary, Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology, with new intro. (New York: Pantheon, 1982)Google Scholar. Michel, Foucault, History of Sexuality, tr. Robert, Hurley (New York: Vintage, 1990), vol. 1: An Introduction, 147, describes premodern society as “a society of blood,” saying blood is “a reality with a symbolic function.” He stresses the symbolic importance of the precariousness of blood; it decays, spills, and so on. I pointed out the symbolic asymmetry of blood and body fifteen years ago in the first chapter of Holy Feast and Holy Fast.Google Scholar

There are some interesting ideas in Jean-Paul, Roux, Le Sang: Mythes, symboles et réalités (Paris: Fayard, 1988) but it is too general to be of much help. The essays in Le Sang au moyen âge, ed. Faure, are useful on individual figures and literary texts, but the volume attempts no overview of blood piety.Google Scholar

67. Hence Miri Rubin's argument that there is no “one” eucharist (see, for example, Corpus Christi, 35, 11, 288, etc.) seems to me self-evident. Symbols and rituals are, of course, polyvalent and culturally constructed; they are, moreover, always viewed from a particular perspective. But this does not mean that every symbol stands for or evokes everything. The symbol itself brings something to the relationship. And it is always an empirical question into which particular patterns symbols and rituals fall.Google Scholar

68. Georges, Dumézil, “Le sang dans les langues classiques,” Nouvelle revue française d'hématologie 25 (1983): 401–4. (Interestingly enough, German does not have the distinction.)Google Scholar

69. As it is in many religions; see Closs, A., “Blut,” LTK, vol. 2, cols. 537–38Google Scholar; Schumann, , “Blut: religionsgeschichtlich,” in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Handwörterbuch für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1927), cols. 1154–56Google Scholar; and Kasper, , “Der bleibende Gehalt,” 377–80Google Scholar. Grosseteste (according to Matthew Paris) states this explicitly; see Matthew, Paris, Chronica majora, vol. 6, 143.Google Scholar

70. For example, Alger of Liège, De sacramentis corporis et sanguinis Dominici, bk 2, c. 8, PL 180, col. 826D. For other examples, among them Peter Lombard, Rupert of Deutz, Gerald of Wales, and Peter the Chanter, see Macy, , Theologies of the Eucharist, 6470Google Scholar, and Dinzelbacher, , “Das Blut Christi,” nn. 58 and 67Google Scholar. Medieval authors themselves explored the connection of the physical object and its religious significance. Robert of Melun (d. 1167), for example, argued that God can change anything into anything but in fact he converts bread to flesh and wine to blood because wine has more “similitude” with blood; see Jorissen, , Die Entfaltung der Transsubstantiationslehre, 2728.Google Scholar

71. In the later Middle Ages, the blood was sometime carried in procession around newly sown fields to protect crops and increase fertility; see Rudolf, , “Die Heilig-Blut-Verehrung im Überblick,” 16Google Scholar. And on women's blood as food to fetus and suckling, see Caroline Walker, Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York: Zone, 1991), 181238.Google Scholar

72. Hans, Wissmann, Otto, Böcher, and Walter, Michel, “Blut…,” TRE, vol. 6, 727–38Google Scholar; and Merback, Mitchell B., The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel: Pain and the Spectacle of Punishment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe (London: Reaktion, 1999), 9798Google Scholar. Note the prominence of blood as healing in the story of Longinus. See also Hsia, R. Po-chia, The Myth of Ritual Murder: Jews and Magic in Reformation Germany (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988), 9, 143–51.Google Scholar

73. For the power of cannibalistic images, see Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 319, n. 75, 412, n. 77Google Scholar; and Schumann, , “Blut: religionsgeschichtlich,” cols. 1154–56Google Scholar. For the motif of blood-eating in popular piety, see Tubach, Frederic C., Index exemplorum: A Handbook of Medieval Religious Tales, FF Communications 204 (Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 1969), number 761.Google Scholar

74. See the woodcut from 1530 in Leopold, Kretzenbacher, Bild-Gedanken der spätmittelalterlichen Hl. Blut-Mystik und ihr Fortleben in mittel- und südosteuropäischen Volksüberlieferungen (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997), 89, figure 10. Here Martin Luther and Jan Hus give the Lord's Supper under both species in front of an altar with a huge grape vine curling around a chalice or basin that contains the crucified Christ als Blutquell.Google Scholar

75. For objects that accuse by bleeding, see n. 17 above, and see also Peter, Browe, “Die Eucharistie als Zaubermittel im Mittelalter,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 20 (1930): 134–54Google Scholar. On the theme of horror cruoris, see n. 8 above.

76. Robert, Wildhaber, “Feiertagschristus,” in RDK, vol. 7, cols. 1002–1010Google Scholar. See also Rudolf, Berliner, “Arma Christi,” Münchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 3rd ser., vol. 6 (1955): 68Google Scholar, who sees the motif more broadly as “Christ attacked by the sins of the world,” and Douglas, Gray, Themes and Images in the Medieval English Religious Lyric (London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1972), 5154, who gives examples of the theme in devotional literature.Google Scholar

77. See Bauerreiss, , Pie JesuGoogle Scholar; Browe, , “Die Eucharistie als Zaubermittel;”Google ScholarLionel, Rothkrug, “Popular Religion and Holy Shrines: Their Influence on the Origins of the German Reformation and Their Role in German Cultural Development,” in Religion and the People, 800–1700, ed. Obelkevich, J. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 2086, esp. 27–8Google Scholar; Lotter, F., “Hostienfrevelvorwurf und Blutwunderfälschung bei den Judenverfolgungen von 1298 (‘Rintfleisch’) und 1336–1338 (‘Armleder’),” in Fälschungen im Mittelalter: Internationaler Kongress der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, München, 16.–19. September 1986, 5 vols. (Hannover: Hahn, 1988), vol. 5, 533–84Google Scholar; Hsia, , The Myth of Ritual MurderGoogle Scholar; Rainer, Erb, ed., Die Legende vom Ritualmord: Zur Geschichte der Blutbeschuldigung gegen Juden (Berlin: Metropol, 1993)Google Scholar, especially Friedrich, Lotter, “Innocens Virgo et Martyr: Thomas von Monmouth und die Verbreitung der Ritualmordlegende im Hochmittelalter,” 2572Google Scholar; Diane, Wood, ed., Christianity and Judaism: Papers Read at the 1991 Summer Meeting and the 1992 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Studies in Church History 29 (Oxford: Published for the Ecclesiastical History Society by Blackwell, 1992)Google Scholar; Minry, J. M., “Judengasse to Christian Quarter: The Phenomenon of the Converted Synagogue in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Holy Roman Empire,” in Popular Religion in Germany and Central Europe, 1400–1800, eds. Scribner, R. and Johnson, T. (New York: St. Martin's, 1996), 5886Google Scholar; John, McCulloh, ‘Jewish Ritual Murder: William of Norwich, Thomas of Monmouth, and the Early Dissemination of the Myth,“ Speculum 72.3 (1997): 698740Google Scholar; Stacey, Robert C., ”From Ritual Crucifixion to Host Desecration: Jews and the Body of Christ,” Jewish History 12.1 (1998): 1128CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Miri, Rubin, Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999)Google Scholar. Blood can, of course, have denotations and connotations of community, especially in a family or racial sense, as the rhetoric of National Socialism makes clear; see Kasper, , “Der bleibende Gehalt,” 378Google Scholar. I have discussed these issues in “Violent Imagery in Late Medieval Piety,” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute 30 (Spring, 2002): 336.Google Scholar

78. The earliest example (ca. 1400) seems to come from St. Georg, in Räzüns (Graubünden), Switzerland, although some consider this a precursor or a parallel tradition; see Berliner, , “Arma Christi,” plate 18 on 68Google Scholar. According to Marianne, Lorenz, “Die Gregoriusmesse: Entstehung und Ikonographie” (Diss., Masch.-Schr., Innsbruck, 1956)Google Scholar, the earliest example is a relief in the parish church of Münnerstadt (1428). On the Gregorymass generally see Herbert, Thurston, “The Mass of St. Gregory,” The Month 112 (1908): 303319Google Scholar; Endres, J. A., “Die Darstellung der Gregoriusmesse im Mittelalter,” Zeitschrift für christliche Kunst 30.11–10.12 (1917): 146–56Google Scholar; Louis, Réau, Iconographie de l'art Chrétien, vol. 3, pt 2 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1958), 609–15Google Scholar; de Borchgrave d'Altena, Comte J., “La Messe de saint Grégoire: Etude iconographique,” Musées royaux des beaux-arts: Bulletin; Bulletin Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten 8 (1959): 334Google Scholar; Carlo, Bertelli, “The Image of Pity in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme,” in Douglas, Fraser, Howard, Hibbard, and Lewine, Milton J., eds., Essays in the History of Art Presented to Rudolf Wittkower (London: Phaidon, 1967), 4055Google Scholar; Colin, Eisler, “The Golden Christ of Cortona and the Man of Sorrows in Italy,” The Art Bulletin 51.2 (06, 1969): 107118, 233246Google Scholar; Westfehling, , Die Messe Gregors des Grossen, especially 1654Google Scholar; Brigitte, d'Hainaut-Zveny, “Les messes de saint Grégoire dans les retables des Pays-Bas. Mise en perspective historique d'une image polémique, dogmatique et utilitariste,” Bulletin: Musées royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique, Bruxelles 41– (19921993): 3561Google Scholar; and Flora, Lewis, “Rewarding Devotion: Indulgences and the Promotion of Images,” in Diana, Wood, ed., The Church and the Arts, Ecclesiastical History Society (Oxford: Published for the Ecclesiastical History Society by Blackwell, 1992), 179–94. Thomas Lentes and the Art History Research Group at Münster are preparing an extensive catalogue of Gregorymass iconography. I discuss the iconography in Bynum, “Seeing and Seeing Beyond.”Google Scholar

79. To say that the image does not originate as an illustration of Paul the Deacon does not of course mean that there is no connection of Gregory to eucharistic devotion in early literature. There is much in Gregory's own writing about the mass, and the devotion to the arma Christi and the Schmerzensmann was early associated with Gregory's feast day. See Westfehling, , Die Messe Gregors des Grossen, 1622.Google Scholar

80. See the classic article by Endres, “Die Darstellung der Gregoriusmesse”; also Carlo, Bertelli, “The Image of Pity in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme;”Google Scholar and Westfehling, , Die Messe Gregors des Grossen, 1822.Google Scholar

81. See, for example, the Gregorymass by the Meister des Augustineraltars or his workshop, from about 1490, in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg, Gm. 154; reproduced in Gertrud, Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, 4 vols. (Gütersloh: Mohn, 19661980), vol. 21, plate 807Google Scholar. For examples in which mass is not being said, see Nemilov, Alexander N., “Gedanken zur geschichtswissenschaftlichen Befragung von Bildern am Beispiel der sog. Gregorsmesse in der Ermitage,” in Historische Bildkunde: Probleme—Wege—Beispiel, ed. Brigitte, Tolkemitt und Rainer, Wohlfeil (Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1991), 126Google Scholar, and Westfehling, , Die Messe Gregors des Grossen, 45.Google Scholar

82. For an example see the altar panel of the Meister der Heiligen Sippe (1486), Erzbischöfliches Museum, Utrecht; reproduced in Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, plate 3. According to Westfehling, Christ bleeding into the chalice is the most common form (although many examples do not show the motif); see Die Messe Gregors des Grossen, 16, 24. Closer inspection reveals, however, that Christ is often not bleeding into the chalice. The blood sometimes bypasses even the standing cup (see, for example, ibid., 17, plate 5). Sometimes the chalice is covered by a corporal with the host lying in front in preparation for mass (see, for example, ibid., 40, plate 13, and James, Clifton, The Body of Christ in the Art of Europe and New Spain, 1150–1800 [Munich: Prestel, 1997], 133, plate 60).Google Scholar

83. For an example, see the miniature in the Book of Hours of Jean de Montauban, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Cod. Lat. 18026, fol. 9, from 1440–50. As Westfehling, Die Messe Gregors des Grossen, 24, points out, we have this motif in only a few cases.

84. See, for example, the altar painting by an unknown middle Rhenish painter, second half of the fifteenth century (the inscription was altered in the sixteenth century), now in the Hermitage; see Nemilov, , “Gedanken zur geschichtswissenschaftlichen Befragung,” 123–33 and esp. plate 20Google Scholar. See also the fresco from the parish church in Karlstadt, about 1446; Westfehling, Die Messe Gregors des Grossen, 27, plate 8. Indulgenced versions are probably our earliest examples; see Thurston, , “The Mass of St. Gregory;” and Lewis, “Rewarding Devotion.”Google Scholar

85. Mass of St. Gregory, attributed to Wilm Dedeke, about 1496; in St. Annen-Museum, Lübeck; see Brigitte, Heise and Hildegard, Vogeler, Die Altäre des St. Annen-Museums: Erläuterung der Bildprogramme (Lübeck: Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte der Hansestadt Lübeck, 1993), 6773Google Scholar; and Reudenbach, , “Das Altar als Bildort,” plate 3.Google Scholar

86. See n. 18 above.

87. Mass of St. Gregory, Wing of the St. Anne Altar, Wiesenkirche, Soest, about 1473; reproduced in Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, vol. 2, plate 806. For other examples, see Hans Georg, Gmelin, Spätgotische Tafelmalerei in Niedersachsen und Bremen (Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1974), 162, plate 22.8; 260, plate 67.1; 379, plate 120.2; 381, plate 121.1; 430, plate 142.3; 467, plate 153.1; and 469, plate 154.2.Google Scholar

88. It seems that, from at least the twelfth century on, the pope would have removed his tiara (as bishops today remove the mitre) during the canon of the mass. See Joseph, Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung im Occident und Orient nach Ursprung und Entwicklung, Verwendung und Symbolik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964), 485–87Google Scholar, and on the tiara as a form of mitre, see Ladner, Gerhard B., “Der Ursprung und die mittelalterliche Entwicklung der päpstlichen Tiara,” in Cahn, Herbert A. and Erika, Simon, eds., Roland Hampe zum 70. Geburtstag am 2. Dezember 1978 dargebracht von Mitarbeitern, Schülern und Freunden, 2 vols. (Mainz: Von Zabern, 1980), vol. 1, 449–81, and vol. 2, plates 86–93. This suggests that the Soest depiction is not of the moment of consecration.Google Scholar

89. Westfehling, Die Messe Gregors des Grossen, 24, sees support of the doctrine of transubstantiation as “der eigentliche Hauptgedanke des Bildthemas;” see also 32. For an argument against this interpretation, which (in my view) overemphasizes dogma, see my “Seeing and Seeing Beyond.” The basic theme of the Gregorymass is salvation, especially through blood. Such an interpretation makes more plausible the close connection of Gregorymass iconography to Reformation uses of blood imagery (which reflect, of course, a different eucharistic theology). See n. 74 above for an example.

90. It is worth remembering in this connection that fifteenth-century devotions to the heart and wound of Jesus sometimes relate it not to eucharist but to baptism and penance, and that the pressing out of Christ's blood (even in the image of the winepress) is often not associated with sacramental feeding at all but rather with the need to drain every drop in expiation for the sins of the world. See Ancient Devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Carthusian Monks of the XIV–XVII Centuries (London: Benziger Bros., 1895; 2nd ed., 1920), esp. 1–4, 17–28, 47–48, 61–62, and 185.Google Scholar

91. Dumoutet, Le Désir de voir l'hostie, and see above n. 6.

92. For a parallel point, see Jeffrey, Hamburger, “Seeing and Believing: The Suspicion of Sight and the Authentication of Vision in Late Medieval Art,” in Imagination und Wirklichkeit: Zum Verhältnis von mentalen und realen Bilder in der Kunst der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Alessandro, Nova and Klaus, Krüger (Mainz: Von Zabern, 2000), 4770.Google Scholar