The Marienschrein at Aachen Cathedral: Reliquary of the Cloak of the Virgin Mary

19 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by Reliquarian in Art History, Metal Reliquary

Tags

Aachen, Chartres, cloak, Germany, Marienschrein, Nuremberg, relic, reliquary, Saint Mary, stained-glass window, textile, Virgin Mary

The Alba Madonna, Rafael, oil on panel transferred to canvas (1510), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Virgin in a Blue Dress

In his superb book on Christian symbolism, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art, George Ferguson writes, “No other figure, except that of Christ Himself, was so often portrayed in Renaissance art as the Virgin Mary.”[1] Ferguson further notes that Saint Mary was traditionally painted wearing blue, the color of truth and a symbol of the sky, heaven, and heavenly love.[2] But did the historical Saint Mary actually wear blue? Evidence preserved in various shrines suggests the Virgin’s blue wardrobe may have been an invention of Medieval and Renaissance artists. These artists expressed their devotion to the Virgin by using a very scarce and very expensive pigment to paint her garments. The pigment, known as ultramarine, was a deep, celestial blue.

Madonna and Child with Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist, Cima da Conegliano, oil on panel (1492-1495), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The Marienschrein and the Four Great Relics of Aachen

The Marienschrein, or Shrine of Saint Mary, at Aachen Cathedral in Aachen (Aix-La-Chapelle), Germany houses four great relics: the cloak of Saint Mary, the swaddling clothes of the infant Jesus, the beheading cloth of Saint John the Baptist, and the loincloth worn by Jesus at his crucifixion. The relics were rarely displayed publicly before the 14th century; however, since about the mid-14th century, the relics have been removed from the shrine approximately every seven years for public veneration.[3]

Marienschrein (Shrine of Saint Mary), gold (1230-1239), Aachen Cathedral, Aachen, Germany

I am unsure exactly what color the relic of Saint Mary’s cloak is, or appears to be, today. Judging by a picture of the garment taken when it was last displayed in 2007, the cloak appears to be flaxen in color, or yellowish gray, with possible hints of light blue along its hem. It is certainly not the deep blue favored by Renaissance artists, though perhaps it has faded significantly over time. Or perhaps it was never blue to begin with. [NOTE: See update below for additional information.]

One other clue to what color Saint Mary may have worn during her lifetime is preserved 300 miles southwest of Aachen, at Chartres Cathedral in Chartres, France. One of the cathedral’s most famous stained-glass windows, a 12th-century window known as Notre Dame de la Belle Verrière (Our Lady of the Beautiful Glass), depicts the Virgin and Child in a sedes sapientiae (seat of wisdom) arrangement with the Christ Child seated on the lap of the Holy Mother. Victoria Finlay, in her engaging study of color and pigments, Color: A Natural History of the Palette, suggests the window shows the Virgin Mary in a blue veil.[4] “The veil,” she writes, “is a pale color, light enough to allow the sun to flood through and depict the young woman’s purity.”[5] However, “it is unmistakably light blue, and worn over a blue tunic.”[6] She further notes that the glass-makers who created the window in 1150 “would have had the ‘real’ veil to model their design on, which is curious, because when you see the precious relic in its gold nineteenth-century box . . . it is not blue at all. More of an off-white: the faded clothing of the melancholy mother of a martyr.”[7]

The Madonna of the Stars, Jacopo Tintoretto, oil on canvas (second half of the 16th century), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

A Blue More Precious Than Gold

If the Virgin Mary did not wear blue, why did artists regularly paint her in blue garments? Victoria Finlay offers several insights. First, she explains that Saint Mary did not always wear blue in artistic representations. In Russian icons, for example, the Virgin Mary more commonly wore red, and in Byzantine art, she often wore purple.[8] On other occasions, she was portrayed in white to represent her innocence, or black to express her grief.[9] Finlay also observes that artists commonly dressed her in a manner to honor her, and their choice of color was frequently decided by cost and rarity.[10] She writes, “In fifteenth-century Holland, Mary often wore scarlet because that was the most expensive cloth; the earlier Byzantine choice of purple was similarly because this was a valuable dye, and only a few people were important enough to carry it off. So when, in around the thirteenth century, ultramarine arrived in Italy as the most expensive color on the market, it was logical to use it to dress the most precious symbol of the faith.”[11]

Example of ultramarine pigment, Albrecht-Dürer-Haus, Nuremberg, Germany.

The deep, rich ultramarine prized by the artists of the Renaissance derived from lapis lazuli, an intensely blue, semi-precious stone found in only a few places on Earth. For artists such as Michelangelo, Titian, and Dürer, the only source of ultramarine was Afghanistan, a “mythical land so far away that no European . . . had actually been there.”[12] Finlay notes that ultramarine was once “the most valuable paint material in the world,” and artists such as Michelangelo would have had to wait for their patrons to procure it for them because they could not afford it on their own.[13] Given its tremendous cost and unquestionable rarity, then, it is not surprising that so many artists chose to clothe the Virgin Mary in ultramarine. Fortuitously, ultramarine also happens to be a serene and majestic color, one truly appropriate for the Queen of Heaven.

***

[UPDATE, 27 JUNE 2014.] The following description is from the Aachen Pilgrimage 2014 (Heiligtumsfahrt 2014) website: “St. Mary’s robe is an ancient work of domestic embroidery. . . . It is made of naturally coloured linen and is embroidered with vertical and horizontal lines in a grid pattern. In Israel flax and cotton were only to be found on the coast and in the lowlands of Jordan . . . .” The website further notes that the dress is 153 cm long; the seam circumference is 246 cm; and the span of the sleeves is 132 cm. The Aachen Pilgrimage 2014 homepage can be found here. More information about the cloak of Saint Mary can be found here. A picture of the robe can be viewed here.

***

Madonna and Child, Vittore Carapaccio, oil on panel (1505-1510), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Madonna and Child, Jan Gossaert, oil on panel (c. 1532), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Virgin and Child, sandstone with traces of polychrome (c. 1325-1350), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Madonna and Child, stained-glass window, Strasbourg Cathedral, Strasbourg, France.

Aachen Cathedral with High Altar and Pala d’Oro in foreground and Marienschrein (Shrine of Saint Mary) behind. Hanging from the vault above the choir is a wooden medallion of the Madonna and Child carved by Jan van Steffesweert of Maastricht in 1524.

[1] George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art 71 (1954).

[2] Id. at 151.

[3] John Carroll Cruz, Relics 23 (1984).

[4] Victoria Finlay, Color: A Natural History of the Palette 317 (2002).

[5] Id.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Id. at 292-93.

[9] Id. at 293.

[10] Id.

[11] Id.

[12] Id. at 282.

[13] Id. at 287.

Winter of Discontent: Saint Sebaldus, Protector Against Cold Weather, Takes a Sabbatical

07 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by Reliquarian in Tomb / Sarcophagus

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Albrecht Durer, Bamberg, Germany, Nuremberg, pilgrim, Saint James, Saint Sebaldus

Statue of St. Sebaldus, Church of Saint Sebaldus, Nuremberg, Germany

This winter has been unusually cold, dark, and damp in Germany. A recent article in Spiegel Online proclaimed it the “darkest winter in 43 years,”[1] and the German weather service (Deutscher Wetterdienst) reported that this past March was the 6^th coldest since 1881, when official records began to be kept.[2] One headline expressed what many Germans have been thinking. It read, “Just Kill Us Now: German Spring Kicks Off With More Snow.”[3]

In past centuries, unrelenting winter weather like this might have elicited prayers and entreaties to a saint. In Germany, that saint might have been Saint Sebaldus, a protector against cold weather, who is also the patron saint of Nuremberg.

Patron Saint of Nuremberg

St. Sebaldus Kirche Saint Sebaldus (or Sebald), was a hermit who lived in the Reichswald around the 8^th century.[4] Little is definitively known about Saint Sebaldus, although by 1072, he was already recognized as the patron saint of Nuremberg.[5] Sigismund Meisterlin’s Life of Saint Sebald, completed in 1484, provides some background on the saint, although even Meisterlin acknowledged that his vita was imperfect.[6] David Collins, in his book Reforming Saints: Saints’ Lives and Their Authors in Germany 1470-1530, notes that Meisterlin “fixed certain inaccuracies and contradictions in the older legends” about Saint Sebaldus, although Meisterlin realized his corrections “might offend popular sensibilities.”[7] According to Collins, “Meisterlin’s concern about the changes he had made indicates his familiarity with Sebald’s rich hagiographical tradition.”[8]

Meisterlin wrote the Life of Saint Sebald at the request of the Nuremburg city council.[9] Collins states, “The city fathers sought a new life of Sebald apparently because the earlier ones were not inspiring the reverence for Sebald outside of Nuremberg in the diocese of Bamberg . . . that the city fathers believed he (and, derivatively, they themselves) deserved.”[10] At the time, Bamberg was a rival of Nuremberg, and jokes about Saint Sebaldus, especially ones that characterized the saint as rustic and simpleminded, offended the people of Nuremberg, who imagined the jokes implicated them by extension.[11] Meisterlin’s new vita, it was hoped, would restore the dignity and prestige of Saint Sebaldus, as well as of the city of Nuremberg.

The Life of Saint Sebaldus

According to Meisterlin’s account, Sebaldus was a Danish prince who felt called to serve God from an early age. Upon reaching adulthood, he left Denmark and joined three children of the king of Brittany: Willibald, Wunibald, and Walpurgis. The group dedicated itself to religious asceticism and elected Willibald, the eldest, as their leader. The four chose to serve God as itinerants, and they vowed to travel to Rome as pilgrims. When they arrived in Rome, the pope appointed Willibald a bishop and eventually sent the group back to Germany. Sebaldus made his way to Regensburg and then to the forests of Franconia, where he lived in solitude, praying and fasting, until his death. When the locals discovered his body, they placed it on a bier and yoked it to several untamed oxen, which brought the body to a deserted place in the woods, the future site of Nuremberg.[12]

Miracle of the Icicles

Saint Sebaldus is credited with having performed several miracles during his lifetime. One of his more famous miracles involved the transformation of icicles into fuel for a warm fire. The story, as recounted in Butler’s Lives of the Saints, goes like this: “[O]ne snowy night [Saint Sebald] took shelter in a peasant’s cottage, but found it was almost as cold within as without, for the fire was low and small. Sebald suggested that more fuel might be put on, but the man answered that he was too poor to keep up a decent fire, so Sebald turned to the housewife and asked her to bring in a bundle of long icicles hanging from the eaves; this she did, Sebald threw them on the fire, and they blazed up merrily.”[13] The miracle of the icicles is depicted in relief on the base of Saint Sebaldus’s shrine at the church of Saint Sebaldus in Nuremberg. The bronze shrine (below), which was made between 1508 and 1519, is one of the best-known works of Peter Vischer the Elder.

Shrine of Saint Sebaldus by Peter Vischer the Elder, Church of St. Sebaldus, Nuremberg, Germany

Another miracle, included in earlier hagiographies but omitted from Meisterlin’s 1484 vita, describes the experience of an unfortunate Scottish monk who, for some unexplained reason, was plucking the beard of Saint Sebaldus’s corpse. Apparently annoyed by this, the dead saint’s right hand shot up and poked out the monk’s eye. This story is not depicted on the saint’s tomb.

Attributes in Art

Depictions of Saint Sebaldus are not as ubiquitous as depictions of more popular saints, such as Saint Christopher or the four Evangelists, even in Germany. In the few representations I have seen, the saint is frequently depicted as a pilgrim, replete with a pilgrim’s hat, cloak, and staff. Albrecht Dürer, a native of Nuremburg, executed a number of woodcuts of Saint Sebaldus dressed as a pilgrim, including Saint Sebald on the Column (c. 1501) in the collection of the Albertina Museum in Vienna. Another woodcut by Dürer, entitled Saint Sebald in the Niche (c. 1518), similarly shows Saint Sebaldus as a pilgrim holding his namesake church in his right hand.

St. Sebald in the Niche (1518) by Albrecht Durer, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

When depicted as a pilgrim, it is easy to confuse Saint Sebaldus for Saint James, the patron saint of pilgrims. For example, the statue shown at the beginning of this post, located inside the church of Saint Sebaldus in Nuremberg, could be mistaken for Saint James, although the miniature church in the figure’s hand – and, importantly, the location of the statue itself – would suggest it is actually Saint Sebaldus.

Interestingly, Peter Vischer the Elder’s shrine of Saint Sebaldus is supported by several plump snails, which I was not aware were associated with Saint Sebaldus. Whether the snails are symbolic or whether they were included for purely aesthetic reasons, I am not sure. In Christian art, snails do not have the best of reputations.[14] Snails were believed to have been born from mud and were thought to feed on mud.[15] Consequently, they were seen as symbols of laziness because they did not seek food but merely ate what was available.[16]

On the other hand, the snail is an apt symbol for this long German winter, which has passed at a snail’s pace and threatens to linger while Saint Sebaldus takes a sabbatical.

Exterior of the Church of St. Sebaldus, Nuremberg, Germany

[1] Overly Overcast: Germany Weathers Darkest Winter in 43 Years, Spiegel Online, Feb. 26, 2013, available at http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-weathers-darkest-winter-in-43-years-a-885608.html. According to Spiegel Online, Germany receives an “already measly” average of 160 hours of sunshine each winter. As of late February, Germany had received less than 100 hours of sunshine over the course of the meteorological winter, which begins in December and ends in February. Id.

[2] Press Release, Deutscher Wetterdienst, “Deutschlandwetter im März 2013,” March 28, 2013

[3] Just Kill Us Now: German Spring Kicks Off With More Snow, Spiegel Online, Mar. 21, 2013, available at http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/winter-weather-plagues-germany-as-spring-begins-a-890166.html. The article remarks, “The calendar says spring started Wednesday, but a look outside tells sun-starved Germans otherwise. Snow has blanketed large parts of the country in recent days, and forecasts predict yet more wintry weather to come. Super.”

[4] See 3 Butler’s Lives of the Saints 357 (Herbert J. Thurston, S.J. & Donald Attwater eds., 2d ed. 1956).

[5] Id.

[6] See David J. Collins, Reforming Saints: Saints’ Lives and Their Authors in Germany 1470-1530 at 56-64 (2008).

[7] Id. at 57.

[8] Id.

[9] Id. at 57-58.

[10] Id. at 57.

[11] Id.

[12] Id. at 59.

[13] Butler’s Lives of the Saints, supra note 4, at 357.

[14] See Rosa Giorgi, Saints in Art 25 (Stefano Zuffi ed. & Thomas Michael Hartmann trans., 2002).

[15] Id.