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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
From the twelfth century onwards it became common for sacred spaces—that is, churches—to be invaded by objects and imagery which are often surprising and bizarre and which, in their secular-ity, have little to do with the fundamental teachings of Christianity. Many of these objects are familiar, some less familiar; arid the topic seems appropriate for a ‘generalist’ audience of ecclesiastical history specialists. It should be said at once that this secularity seems to reach a peak around the middle of the fourteenth century, to be followed by a slow and somewhat irregular retreat; but since the entire sequence of events is accompanied by an almost complete silence in the written sources, the reasons for what was happening remain largely speculative. I shall return to this point.
1 See Theophilus, De diversis artibus, ed. C R. Dodwell (London, 1961), pp. 63-4, for the passage quoted. There is some consensus that ‘Theophilus’ was the pen-name for a monastic goldsmith called Roger of Helmershausen.
2 For the text of Suger see Panofsky, E., Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St-Denis and Its An Treasures, 2nd edn (Princeton, 1979). This episode is to be found on pp. 64–5 Google Scholar.
3 See particularly the Gemma animae, PL 172, cols 541-738. The comments on the parts of the church are to be found in book i.
4 Durandus, Gullielmus, Rationale seu enchyriâion divinorum officiorum, ed. Locatellis, B. de (Lyons, 1512)Google Scholar: see particularly book i, De ecclesia et eiuspartibus.
5 ‘The iconography of the glass is described in Aubert, M. Grodecki, L. Lafond, J. and Verrier, J., Les vitraux de Notre-Dame et de la Sainte Chapelle de Paris (Paris, 1959)Google Scholar.
6 According to Honorius, Gemma animae, i, ch. 131, De columnis ecclesiae, the columns symbolized the bishops. Durandus, Rationale, i, ch. 27, likened them to bishops and doctors, expanding the theme thus: ‘Bases columnarum sunt apostolici episcopi universalis ecclesiae machinam supportantes. Capita columnarum sunt mentes episcoporum et doctorum.’ Suger thought of the main columns surrounding the high altar at Saint-Denis as the Twelve Apostles: Panofsky, Abbot Suger, pp. 104-$.
7 ‘On these see Branner, R., ‘The painted medallions in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 58, pt2 (1068), pp. 3–42 Google Scholar.
8 For an account of the Arena Chapel, see White, J., European Art and Architecture 1250-1400,2nd edn (Harmondsworth, 1987), pp. 309–32 Google Scholar.
9 It has now regrettably been tidied away into the museum in the Undercroft.
10 He appears to have died and been buried at St Julien de Brioude. See Marner, M., Biblioteca Cluniacensis (Macon, 1614, repr. 1915), col. 1617 Google Scholar.
11 See Kubach, H. E.and Haasy, W., Der Dom xu Speyer (Munich, 1972). Textband, pp. 923–32 Google Scholar; for the Saltan burials.
12 Ibid., p. 925. The original position of the burials is reasonably clear from excavations. The six Salian burials were all in stone sarcophagi. Although the original floor level is not completely clear, the authors concluded that the sarcophagi were sunk in the floor ‘zum Teil her-ausragend, zum Teil bundig legend.’
13 Nodet, V., L’église de Brou (Paris, n.d.)Google Scholar; F. Baudron, Brou, l’église et le monastère (Paris, 1951).
14 See Corpus vitrearum. France—Recensement III. Les vitraux de Bourgogne, franche-Comté et Rhône-Alpes (Paris, 1986), pp. 247-5 3 f°r an account of the glazing at Brou and a bibliography. The heraldry emphasizes particularly the ruling houses of France, Austria, Bohemia, Bavaria, Savoy, and Burgundy; also the family of Bourbon.
15 It is generally supposed that the first exhumation of Arthur and Guinevere happened in 1172, during Henry H’s return from Ireland. The main twelfth-century source for the whole history is Gerald of Wales, who described in detail the second exhumation in 1190 or 1191. On the problem of the dating and significance of these episodes see R. Barber, The figure of Arthur (London, 1972), pp. 126–33.
16 See A Martindale, Heroes, Ancestors, Relatives and the Birth of the Portrait (The Hague, 1988), p. 13, for an account of the Winchester chests and a bibliography.
17 See Erlande-Brandenburg, A, Le roi est mort (Paris, 1975), pp. 135–40 Google Scholar.
18 On the surviving sculpture see Sauerlãnder, W., Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270 (London, 1972), pp. 396–7 Google Scholar. On the legend of Ogier, see J. Bédier, Les légendes épiques. Recherches sur la formation des Chansons de Gestes (Paris, 1917), pp. 297ff.
19 Ibid. The sword is already mentioned in the twelfth century. By the time of Montaigne, Benedict’s sword was also on display. For a complete account, see D. Toussaints du Plessis, Histoire de l’église de Meaux, 2 vols (Paris, 1731), 1, ch. 88. By that date, both swords—one large and one small—were in the treasury, the monument itself being decorated with painted representations. Other swords are still visible, notably that of Roland at Roccamadour; and that of S. Galgano at the monastery of that name (near Siena). The sword and- shield supposedly carried before Edward HI during his French campaigns and soil on view in Westminster Abbey (see J. Dart, Westmonasterium, or the History and Antiquities of the Abbey Church of St Peters Westminster, 2 vols (London, 1742), i, p. 42) belong to the same general family.
20 See Sauerländer, Gothic Sculpture, p. 460.
21 Erlande-Brandenburg, Le roi est mort, pp. 81–3.
22 See Sauerlander, W., ‘Die Naumberger Stifterfiguren: Rückblick und Fragen’, in Hausherr, R. and Vaterlein, C., eds Die Zeitder Staufer, 5 vols (Stuttgart, 1977), 5 Google Scholar, pp. 169-245.
23 Queen Kunigunde had been canonized in 1201. For the figures on the Adam Portal, see Baum, J., German Cathedrals (London, 1956), pp. 20–2 Google Scholar and plates 47-50.
24 See Deer, J., The Dynastic Porphyry Tombs of the Norman Period in Sicily (Cimbridge, Mass., 1959), pp. 86–9 Google Scholar.
25 The rebuilding of Prague Cathedral (up to the east wall of the transepts) lasted from 1344 to 1385. The eastern chapels contain the posthumous memorials to six Premyslid ancestors of Charles’s mother, Elizabeth (commissioned in 1376-7). Charles himself features as a painted donor figure in the chapel of St Wenceslas. The triforium gallery contains twenty-one busts, including Charles himself, his mother and father, his four wives, his two brothers, and his son and daughter-in-law. Doubdess the medieval glass, of which none survives, would have contained its due quota of late fourteenth-century heraldry. On the style of the building, see Bachmann, E. and Bachmann, H., in Swoboda, K., ed., Gotik in Bõhmen (Munich, 1969)Google Scholar, respectively pp. 99-102 and pp. 124-7. For a comprehensive photographic record and further discussion, see A. Legner, ed., Die Parler und der schone Sul 1330–1400 (catalogue), 4 vols (Cologne, 1978-80), 2, pp. 650-3,655-62.
26 It should not be supposed that bishops in their patronage remained faceless office-holders. The choir vaults of Norwich Cathedral are extensively decorated on all the principal bosses with golden wells (they were built by Bishop Goldwell, 1472-99); and the nave vaults are supported on corbels showing a recumbent deer (they were built by Bishop Lyhart, 1445-72).
27 William de Valence (d. 1296) was the half-brother of Henry III through Isabella of Angoulême. William had three children—John, Margaret, and Aymer—all of whom were originally buried in the circle of the presbytery. William’s monument was subsequently moved out into the chapel of St Edmnd.
28 See Goüin, H., L’abbaye de Royaumont (Paris, 1967)Google Scholar. Louis’ brother Philippe ‘Dagobert’ (d. 1235), his daughter Blanche (died in infancy, 1243), his son Jean (died, also in infancy, 1248) and his eldest son and heir Louis (d. 1260) were all buried at Royaumont. The process by which Louis himself was attracted towards burial at Saint-Denis is not clear.
29 By far the most comprehensive treatment of European tombs is K. Bauch. Das mittelalterliche Grabbild. Figurliche Grabmaler des 11. bis 15.Jahrhunderts in Europa (Berlin and New York, 1976). For an interesting examination of sepulchral effigies, their types and implications, see Schmidt, G., ‘Die gotischen “gisants” und ihr Umfeld—Überlegungen zum Wirklich-keitsbezug spâtmittelalterlicher Grabmãler’, Kunsthistoriker, 4 (1987), pp. 65–72 Google Scholar: and subsequently in Skulptur und Grabmal des Spãtmittelallers in Rom und Italien, ed. Garmes, J. and Romanini, A. M. (Vienna, 1900), pp. 13–82 Google Scholar; ‘Typen und Bildmotive des Spatmittelalterlichen Monumentalgrabes’, in which the author surveys (on a European scale) the typology of tombs and monuments.
30 On the Angevin monuments, see Sauerlànder, Gothic Sculpture, pp. 448-9. The effigies are dated by Sauerlànder to the early thirteenth century. They belong to a very restricted group of effigies confined to the west of France. For other examples, see A. Marrindale, ‘The Knight on the bed of stones; a learned confusion of the fourteenth century?’ Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 142 (1989), pp. 66–74; esp. p. 74, n. 26. To those effigies should be added that of Bishop Peter of Poitiers (d. 113 5), formerly also at Fontevrault, but now known only in the water-colour of Gaignières (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Gough MSS, Gaignières, 14, fol. 23or). The monument from this group which survives in situ at Montbron still has in position under the effigy a ‘leg’, which increases the bedlike effect.
31 The outstanding monument in this respect is that of John of Eltham, the brother of Edward III, who died in mysterious circumstances at Perth in 1337 and was buried at Westminster. The monument was originally set in the circle of the presbytery but seems to have been moved to make way for the tomb of Philippa of Hainault. Although much mutilated (it lost its canopy in the eighteenth century) the ‘weeper’ figures—all crowned and therefore notion-ally royal—are particularly attractive and striking in their costume and poses. The shields beneath them, now blank, would originally have been emblazoned.
32 The enormous gaps in the evidence must again be stressed. Little is known about the iconography of the monuments of Philip Augustus, Louis VIII, and Louis IX (formerly in Saint-Denis); and the surviving monument of Henry III (Westminster Abbey) is in this context so eccentric as to be useless. For the Saint-Denis evidence see Erlande-Brandenburg, Le roi est mort, passim. An interesting monument to Thibaud III of Champagne (d. 1201, formerly in St Etienne, Troyes) is discussed by M. Bur, ‘Les Comtes de Champagne et la “Normanitas”; sémiologie d’un tombeau’, in R. Allen Brown, ed., Proceedings of the Battle Conference of Anglo-Norman Studies, 3 (1980), pp. 22–32. The sarcophagus was decorated with an arcade containing ten silver figures which in 1704 were still identifiable as members of the comital family. However, the question must arise whether this tomb was really datable to the early thirteenth century. Unfortunately there is no picture of it.
33 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Gough Drawings, Gaignières, 1, fols 78,79, 80.
34 The original figure programme is given in Dart, Westmonasterium, 1, p. 41.
35 On Clement VI, see Wood, D., Clement VI. The Pontificate and Ideas of an Avignon Pope (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 62–3 Google Scholar.
36 The programme of figures is given in P.-R. Gaussin, L’abbaye de la Chaise-Dieu 1043-ÍH8 (Paris, 1962), pp. 431-2, n. in. For the surviving fragments of figure sculpture, see Baron, F. in the exhibition catalogue Les Fastes du Gothique (Paris, 1981), item 47, pp. 101–2 Google Scholar. Mile Baron noted two fragments in Le Puy and a further two fragments (not illustrated) both still at La Chaise-Dieu. All four fragments were exhibited in (and illustrated in the catalogue of) the exhibition of Dijon in 1971. See P. Quarré, Les Pleurants dans l’art du moyen âge en Europe (Dijon, 1971), pp. 30–1 and plates VIII-IX.
37 For a consideration of the monument, with bibliography, see Martindale, Heroes, p. 16.
38 Martindale, Heroes, pp. 16-19.
39 The names of the figures are given in Dart, Westmonasterium, p. 42. There is some reason Co question the exact sequence of the original figures. The origins of this idea are likely to lie earlier. There were, for instance, standing statues of six of Louis IX’s chidren set against the wall of the north choir aisle of the convent of Poissy. The only record of them is now a water- colour of Gaignières: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Gough Drawings, Gaignières, 2. fol. 31. Gaignières gave their names as Louis, Philippe,Jean, Ysabeau, Pierre, and Robert. The date of the sculptures and the logic of the choice are not entirely clear; but the figures were ranged almost chronologically, and the eldest, Louis, was perceptibly larger in size than the youngest, Robert.
40 The details are given in Dugdale, W., The Antiquities of Warwickshire Illustrated (London, 1656), pp. 3281–9 Google Scholar.
41 The surviving companions of Sir Hugh have been identified as Edward III, Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, Henry, Earl of Lancaster, Ralph Lord Stafford, and Almeric Lord St Amand.
42 See Corpus Vilrearum. France—Recensement II Les vitraux du centre et des pays de la Loire (Paris, 1981), pp. 103-8, for description and bibliography.
43 See Oberhammer, V., Die Bronzestandbilderdes Maximiliangrabmales in der Hofkirclie zu Innsbruck (Innsbruck, Vienna, and Munich, 1935).Google Scholar
44 Some account of the Karlstein genealogy (with a bibliography) will be found in Martindale, Heroes, pp. 5–8.
45 The earliest evidence (1528) distinguishes in fact between the ‘pilder des stammes der fürsten’ and the ‘anderer pilder’. See Oberhammer, Die Bronzestandbilder, pp. 14ff.
46 See particularly Aston, M., Lollards and Reformers (London, 1984), pp. 135–92 Google Scholar. Especially ‘silent’ on the subject of commemoration and lay intrusion are the Documents Illustrating the Activities of the General and Provincial Chapters of the English Black Monks 1215-1540, ed. W. A. Pantin, 3 vols (London, 1931-7). There is, indeed, a well-known passage in Langland, Piers Plowman, ed. W. W. Skeat, 2 vols (Oxford, 1886, repr. 1969), lines 42-65, in which the poet criticizes the friars. The targets are the large churches, splendid cloisters, and, in particular, stained-glass windows in which the donors are recorded. The speaker, Lady Mede, offers to make all these things possible if the friar whom she is addressing will ‘pardon’ the lechery of the nobles who are providing the money—the implication being that the friars are conniving at gross sin in return for handsome contributions to the fabric fund. It will be perceived, however, that although Langland disapproved of the secular ostentation of the stained glass in particular, the burden of his complaint is not so much against the secularity itself as against the means by which he claimed it had been obtained.
47 There were political reasons for getting rid of Stigand; but the process was made easier by the fact that he had had his election to Canterbury confirmed by an anti-pope, Benedict X, and that he was considered to have held uncanonically two sees at once—that is, Winchester and Canterbury.
48 De civitate Dei, bk i, ch. 12, PL, 41, col. 26. The passage continues: ‘Si aliquid prodest impio sepultura pretiosa, oberit pio vilis aut nulla. Praeclaras exsequias in conspectu hominum exhibuic purpurato illi diviti turba famulorum: sed multo clariores in conspectu domini ulceroso illi pauperi ministerium praebuit Angelorum, qui eum non extulerunt in marmoreum tumulum, sed in Abrahae gremium sustulerunt’
49 Summa Theologiae, Editiones Paulinae (Rome, 1962), supplementum teniae partis, qu. 71, art. xi, pp. 2626-7: ‘Utrum cui tus exequiarum defuncto prosit’.
50 Powicke, F. M.and Cheney, C. R., Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, 2 vols (Oxford, 1964), 2 Google Scholar, p. 1117.
51 The text of the will relating to the monument is printed in Willis, R., The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral (London, 1845), pp. 131–2 Google Scholar, note k.
52 For example, Psalm 127.3, ‘Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward.’
53 A further example is to be found in the tomb, said to be of Hiiglin von Schõnegg (d. 1377-8) in St Leonhard, Basle. The recessed monument appears to go with the structure of the chapel (1362–9). Above the recess, set on a corbel but not in its original position, is an armed, kneeling figure, who bears the Schõnegg arms: see F. Maurer, Die Kunstdenkmilerdes Kantons Basel-Stadt. Die Kirchen Kloster una Kapelien IV. Pt 2. St Katharina bis St Nubians (Basle, 1961), pp. 191, 245. See also the kneeling figure of Jean Porcher (ci 370) in the church of St Thibault at Joigny. Bauch, Dos mittelalterliche Grabbild, who apparently did not know the Despenser and Porcher monuments, amalgamated all kneeling figures within the category of monument he called epitaphs. He disputed (p. 342, n. 410) that any of the figures could be in perpetual adoration of the Eucharist at the altar. However, there is little reason to doubt that the figure of Despenser is in its original position, and that he at least is in a posture of ewige Anbetung. To the same line of thought belongs the more famous figure of Philip the Bold of Burgundy, kneeling at the entrance to the chapel of Champmol, though he is in perpetual adoration of the Christ-child. The incorporation into a monument of an image of the dead person in an attitude of prayer is, of course, much older and probably thirteenth century. The point here is that in the late fourteenth century the image was ‘extracted’ and made a principal focus of attention.
54 Quoted in Dugdale, Antiquities of Warwickshire, pp. 329-30.
55 Already from the twelfth century there survive monuments—or evidence of monuments—in which the effigy of the dead person is accompanied by a representation of some part of the funeral rites. These images appear transferred to the sarcophagus in the monument of Louis of France (d. 1260) now in Saint-Denis but formerly in Royaumont (much restored). The explicit emphasis on mourning and grief is harder to trace in what survives. See particularly Quarré, Les pleurants. Early examples must be the monuments in Amiens Cathedral to Thomas of Savoy (d. 1333 or 1335-6) and Bishop Simon de Gonçon(d. 1325), each of which has a sarcophagus decorated exclusively with heavily cloaked and cowled ‘weepers’, some with their heads in their hands. Since there are no real distinctions in their clothing, they appear to be official (paid) mourners.
56 For the development of this image, see Bauch, Dos mittelalterliche Grabbild, ch. 19, ‘Bild des Leichnams’.
57 The post-medieval inscription dedicates the monument to the ‘pious memory’ of François, lord of La Sarra who died in 1363. The chapel is said to have been consecrated in 1370. The armour appears to be later than that of the figures set on the monument at Neuchâtel. For further comment and bibliography see Martindale, Hemes, p. 41, n. 20.
58 The Chronicle of Henry of ‘Huntingdon, tr. and ed.T. Forrester (London, 1909), pp. 262-3 for the whole passage.
59 The contents of the letter are discussed by R. Lightbown, Donatello and Michelozzo (London, 1980), pp. 128-33.
60 See Clayton, M., Victoria and Albert Museum. Catalogue of Rubbings of Brasses and Incised Slabs (London, 1968)Google Scholar, plate 39. The brass is in the church of St Margaret, King’s Lynn.
61 The monument is well characterized by White, European Art, pp. 447-9. Above the scenes in the central register, the Bishop is accompanied to his rest by a funeral ceremony. The top register is now empty, but Gert Kreytenberg has drawn attention to the possibility that this unusual memorial took as its model that of the Emperor Henry VII, once behind the high altar in Pisa Cathedral. See Kreytenberg, G., ‘Das Grabmal von Kaiser Heinrich VII. in Pisa’, Mttteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 28 (1984), pp. 34–64 Google Scholar. Because of the con straints of time, little was said of Italy in the course of the lecture. However, these two tombs can be joined by the Angevin tombs in S. Chiara, Naples, the tomb of Bernabò Visconti, formerly in S. Eustorgio, Milan, and other monuments and frescos surviving or formerly in Verona and Padua as evidence of the increasing secularization with which the lecture was concerned.
62 See J. Gardner, ‘A princess among prelates: a fourteenth-century Neapolitan tomb and some northern relations, Romisches Jahrbuch fur Kunstgeschichte, 23-4 (1988), pp. 31-60, for a discus sion of the imagery. He points out that the sarcophagus of the slightly earlier monument to the Empress Margaret of Brabant at Genoa was supported on the theological Virtues.
63 See Lightbown, Donatello, pp. 24-51.
64 See Holroyd, C., tr. and ed., Michael Angeh Buonarroti, 2nd edn (London, 1911), pp. 28–9 Google Scholar.