Saint Roch: The Saint “Par Excellence” Against Disease

04 Saturday Apr 2020

Posted by Reliquarian in Tomb / Sarcophagus

Tags

coronavirus, disease, dog, Italy, keys, pilgrim, pilgrimage, plague, Rome, Saint Corona, Saint Peter, Saint Roch, Saint Rosalia, Santiago de Compostela, shell

Christian Jorhan, Heilige Rochus (Saint Roch), polychromed limewood (Landshut, Germany 1760/1770). Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremburg, Germany. Photo by Reliquarian.

For centuries, the anxious and sick have invoked the saints to prevent or cure virtually every conceivable human affliction. The intercession of Saint Blaise, for example, has traditionally been sought to relieve throat ailments while appeals to Saint Erasmus have sought help for intestinal disorders, stomach diseases, or birth pains.[1] In the 14th century, the plague introduced a fearsome new threat to the health and well-being of European society, and a number of saints burnished or established reputations as protectors against the disease. Chief among these was Saint Roch (also San Roque or San Rocco), a devout pilgrim who came to be regarded as “the saint par excellence against pestilence.”[2]

Roch Legends

Not much is definitively known about Saint Roch other than that he was born in Montepelier, France in the 13th or 14th century and that he tended to the sick during an outbreak of plague in Italy.[3] According to legend, he left Montpelier at the age of 20 on a pilgrimage to Rome and, finding vast areas of Italy stricken with plague, he dedicated himself to the care of the sick.[4] He visited various cities and regions—Rome, Rimini, Novara, Acquapendente—healing the sick merely by making the sign of the cross on them until he himself contracted the disease.[5] Determined not to become a burden on any hospital, he resolved to straggle into the forest to die.[6]

Saint Roch, oak, paint, and gilt (Normandy, France, early 16th century). The Met Cloisters, New York. Photo courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Death, however, eluded him. Having entered the forest near Piacenza without food, he was fed by a dog that miraculously appeared everyday with a loaf of bread in its mouth. Eventually, he was healed of plague by an angel and, after recovering, he returned to Piacenza where he cured many more people—as well as their sick cattle.[7]

It is unclear how Saint Roch eventually died. Some stories claim he returned to Montpelier and was imprisoned by his uncle, who did not recognize him, and he eventually died in prison. Other stories suggest he was arrested as a spy and died in captivity in Lombardy. Regardless of how he died, many miracles were attributed to him shortly after his death.[8] For example, he was credited with having ended an outbreak of plague in Constance in 1414 when the Council of Constance was then in session.[9]

Master of the Biberach Holy Kinship, Saint Roch and the Angel, limwood with traces of paint (Swabia, German, c. 1520). The angel who healed Saint Roch of the plague can be seen here attending his wound. Photo courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Saint Roch was initially buried in Montpelier, however, his relics were subsequently stolen in 1485 by wily Venetians intent on securing his powerful protection for their own city.[10] A bustling commercial center, Venice suffered frequent bouts of plague at the time. According to one account, “[t]he [Venetian] conspirators sailed to Montpelier under pretense of performing a pilgrimage, and carried off the body of the saint, with which they returned to Venice, and were received by the doge, the senate, and the clergy, and all the people, with inexpressible joy.”[11] (The Venetians seemed to have a proclivity for stealing holy relics. In 828, the Venetians similarly pilfered the body of Saint Mark from Alexandria, Egypt. The perpetrators concealed their prize under layers of pork and cabbage to dissuade Muslim officials from inspecting their cargo.) Today, the relics of Saint Roch may be found at Chiesa di San Rocco in Venice. Saint Roch’s feast day is 16 August.

Roch Paintings . . . And Other Depictions in Art

Saint Roch’s attributes in art include a small leg wound, a dog carrying a loaf of bread, and pilgrim paraphernalia.[12] In Catholic iconography, his emblems are probably among the least harrowing. Admittedly, there is something unsettling about the plague wound he is frequently shown displaying in his groin, but the wound is far less gruesome than the attributes of many other saints—Saint Erasmus’s intestine-coiled windlass and Saint Lucy’s plate of eyeballs immediately spring to mind.

The wound, known as a bubo, is the result of swollen lymph glands caused by Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for bubonic plague.[13] Commonly transmitted by fleas, the bacterium quickly travels to the lymph nodes once it enters the bloodstream. There, the bacterium multiplies causing the lymph nodes to swell into a painful mass. According to Wendy Orent, these buboes can “turn black and rotten, and begin to slough, revealing and destroying tissue and muscles, sometimes down to the bone. Other times, the buboes ripen and discharge large quantities of foul-smelling pus.”[14] Although buboes can occur in the neck or armpits, Saint Roch is commonly shown with a bubo in his upper thigh.

Christian Jorhan, Heilige Rochus (Saint Roch) (detail), polychromed limewood (Landshut, Germany, 1760/1770). Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremburg, Germany. In this detail, Saint Roch points at the bubo caused by bubonic plague clearly evident in his leg. Photo by Reliquarian.

Representations of Saint Roch also frequently show him accompanied by the miraculous dog credited with feeding him in the forest. Interestingly, as Phyllis McGinley points out in her charming book Saint-Watching, dogs make surprisingly few appearances in stories about the saints.[15] Perhaps that is what makes Saint Roch’s canine companion so memorable. Or perhaps the image of a kindly dog with a loaf of bread in its mouth simply cannot fail to enchant. In any event, Saint Roch’s dog is undoubtedly one of the more delightful emblems of any saint.

Christian Jorhan, Heilige Rochus (Saint Roch) (detail), polychromed limewood (Landshut, Germany, 1760/1770). Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremburg, Germany. A miraculous dog is said to have brought Saint Roch loaves of bread in the forest. Photo by Reliquarian.

Lastly, Saint Roch is often depicted in pilgrims’ clothes, alluding to his pilgrimage to Rome. Sometimes his status as a pilgrim is indicated by a scallop shell pinned either to his hat or his cloak. Seashells were a common symbol of pilgrimage, and several other saints, including Saint James the Greater, share this attribute in art. (The seashell initially indicated a pilgrimage to Saint James’s shrine at Compostela, Spain, but it later developed into a more generic symbol of pilgrimage.)[16] Sometimes, however, either in addition to or instead of a seashell, Saint Roch may be represented with crossed keys on his clothes. The crossed keys are a reference to Saint Peter and, by extension, Rome. Saint Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, and his primary symbol in art is a key or set of keys representing the keys to heaven.[17] (In scenes known as the traditio clavum, Christ is shown giving Saint Peter the keys of heaven)]. Other symbols of pilgrimage could include a broad-brimmed hat, a staff, and a small purse.[18]

Stained Glass Panel with Saint Roch, the van Merle Family Arms, and a Donor (detail), pot metal, white glass, vitreous paint, and silver stain (Cologne, Germany, 16th century). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In this detail, note Saint Roch’s pilgrim staff and the crossed keys on his hat. Crossed keys denoted a pilgrimage to Rome. Photo courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Roch Solid

Since at least the early 15th century, Saint Roch has been recognized as a powerful protector against plague and other infectious diseases. Unsurprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic has revived interest in Saint Roch and other saints associated with outbreaks of disease, including Saint Rosalia and Saint Corona.[19] For some, however, Saint Roch is and always will remain “the saint par excellence against pestilence.”[20]

High Altar with Tomb of Saint Roch, Chiesa di San Rocco (Church of Saint Roch), Venice, Italy. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

[1] See, e.g., Rosa Giorgi, Saints in Art 66–68, 119–20 (Thomas Michael Hartmann trans., Stefano Zuffi ed., 2002)

[2] 3 Butler’s Lives of the Saints 338 (Herbert J. Thurston, S.J. & Donald Attwater eds., 2d ed. 1956).

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

[5] Id.

[6] Id.

[7] Id. (“W]hen he was convalescent he returned to Piacenza and miraculously cured many more folk, as well as their sick cattle.”)

[8] Id.

[9] Anna Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art 36 (1887).

[10] Butler’s Lives of the Saints, supra note 2.

[11] Jameson, supra note 9, at 36.

[12] Giorgi, supra note 1, at 320.

[13] Wendy Orent, Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World’s Most Dangerous Disease (2004).

[14] Id.

[15] Phyllis McGinley, Saint-Watching 75 (1969).

[16] Giorgi, supra note 1, at 320.

[17] Id. at 297–310.

[18] See, e.g., Jean Sorabella, “Pilgrimage in Medieval Europe,” (Apr. 2011) Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pilg/hd_pilg.htm.

[19] See, e.g., Bishop Jugis Asks for Intercessory Prayer to End Coronavirus, Catholic News Herald (Mar. 16, 2020), https://catholicnewsherald.com/88-news/fp/5575-bishop-jugis-asks-for-intercessory-prayer-to-end-coronavirus.

[20] Butler’s Lives of the Saints, supra note 2, at 338.

Saint Thomas Becket: Murder at Canterbury Cathedral

12 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by Reliquarian in Metal Reliquary

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Tags

archbishop, Canterbury, cathedral, England, King Henry II, London, martyr, pilgrim, pilgrimage, Saint Denis, Saint Thomas Becket, shrine, sword, Thomas à Becket, Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London

Chasse with the Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket (detail), gilded copper with champlevé enamel (c. 1190). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

In the introduction to his acclaimed play Becket, Jean Anouilh describes how he became inspired to write about his most famous protagonist, Saint Thomas Becket. Unlike the zealous pilgrims of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales or the ardent knights of T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, Anouilh did not purposely set out in search of Becket. Rather, he discovered Becket by happenstance—in the pages of a winsome old history book about the Norman Conquest.

“I am not a serious man,” he freely admits. “I wrote Becket by chance.”[1] In his introduction, Anouilh recounts how he purchased Augustin Thierry’s The Conquest of England by the Normans from one of the many book sellers that line the Seine.[2] “I did not expect to read this respectable work, which I assumed would be boring,” he explains. “I bought it because it had a pretty green binding and I needed a spot of green on my shelves.”[3]

Anouilh returned home and was gently browsing its pages—he insists he is “well-mannered with old books”—when he happened on the story of Saint Thomas Becket.[4] The story “might have [been] taken to be fiction,” he writes, “except that the bottom of the pages were jammed with references in Latin from the chronicles of the twelfth century.”[5] Anouilh was “dazzled.”[6] “I had expected to find a saint—I am always a trifle distrustful of saints, as I am of great theatre stars—and I found a man.”[7]

The Life of Thomas

According to the Butler’s Lives of the Saints, Thomas Becket was born in London on 21 December 1118, the Feast Day of Saint Thomas the Apostle.[8] At the age of 21, Becket lost both his mother and father in short succession, and after working for several employers, Becket obtained a post in the household of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury.[9] Theobald trusted and respected Becket, and in 1154, Theobald nominated Becket to become Archdeacon of Canterbury.[10] A year later, King Henry II appointed Becket Chancellor of England.[11]

Detail of Saint Thomas Becket, stained glass window, Canterbury Cathedral. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Thomas and Henry II developed more than just a close professional relationship during Thomas’s Chancellorship. As Butler explains, “their friendship was not confined to a common interest in affairs of state, and their personal relations at times of relaxation have been aptly described as ‘frolicsome.’”[12] When Theobald died in 1161, Henry II told Thomas he intended to appoint him the new Archbishop of Canterbury.[13] Becket was reluctant. “Should God permit me to be archbishop of Canterbury,” he told the king, “I should soon lose your Majesty’s favour, and the affection with which you honour me would be changed into hatred. For several things you do in prejudice of the rights of the Church make me fear you would require of me what I could not agree to . . . .”[14]

The king remained undeterred, and on 23 May 1162, Becket’s election was confirmed.[15] Many of Staunton’s biographers suggest that Becket underwent a genuine conversation following his elevation to Archbishop.[16] Suddenly Becket, who had grown accustomed to wealth and luxury as Chancellor—his household apparently rivaled that of the king—exchanged the finery of his previous life for a simple black cassock, linen surplice, and sacerdotal stole, under which he wore a hair-shirt.[17] More significantly, he wholly immersed himself in the life of an ascetic. He regularly celebrated Mass at 9 o’clock in the morning, and at 10 o’clock distributed alms—which he had doubled—to the poor. He cherished the “monastic regularity” of his new office, and he personally examined and selected candidates for holy orders.[18]

Thomas’s commitment to the Church would eventually bring him into open conflict with the king. After a series clashes that pitted the king’s secular power against Thomas’s authority as Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry II’s anger finally boiled over when he learned that Thomas had excommunicated three bishops who had participated in his son’s coronation.[19] “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” Henry raged. Four knights interpreted the king’s appeal as a call to action, and they hastened to Canterbury in search of Thomas.

Death Comes for the Archbishop

In the years immediately following Saint Thomas Becket’s death, a number of Vitae detailing Becket’s life and death were written. Though the exact number of works is unknown, the volume of biographical accounts produced was unusually high. In his insightful book Thomas Becket and His Biographers, Michael Staunton suggests Becket’s popularity was due in large part to his compelling life story. Staunton writes, “That so many people chose to write about him in the years immediately after his murder is due not only to the explosion of popular veneration in the early 1170s but to the fact that his life and death provided such rich biographical material.”[20] Thomas Becket and His Biographers examines ten such works, nine of which were written within seven years of Becket’s death. [21]

Five of Staunton’s chosen biographers actually witnessed Becket’s assassination, and their accounts are vivid.[22] Staunton reminds us that while our familiarity with Becket’s story has “dimmed the shock of the event,” for Becket’s contemporaries, the event would have been far more visceral and alarming.[23] After all, Becket was “the leader of the English Church at the height of his fame, murdered in his own cathedral by agents of the king in a place and time where such martyrs must have seemed an exotic reminder of a distant past.”[24]

Reliquary Casket with Scenes from the Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket, gilded silver with niello and glass (1173-80). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The biographer known as Anonymous I provides one of the most concise accounts of Becket’s final moments. After discovering Thomas in the cathedral at Canterbury, Henry’s knights confronted him. Becket, sensing his impending death, “joined his hands and opened his eyes” before addressing his prospective executioner, the knight Reginald FitzUrse.[25] “I commend myself to God and St Denis and St Aelfeah,” he told the knight. At this, Reginald “approached and struck him powerfully from the side in the head, and cut off the top of his crown, and knocked off his cap. The sword fell upon the left shoulder-blade, and cut all his clothes to nakedness.” Then the knight William de Tracy “approached, and struck him with a great blow on the head; but still he did not fall. The same William struck another powerful blow and at this the holy man fell prone on the pavement.” The knight Richard le Bret then took a turn, striking Becket “as he lay on the pavement,” shattering his sword in the process. Finally, the knight Hugh Mauclerk, “the most wicked of all men, approaching as he lay, put his foot on his neck and thrusting the point of the sword into his head spread his brains on the pavement, crying out and saying, ‘Let us go, the traitor is dead.’”[26]

Staunton notes that for some of Becket’s biographers, the act of scattering Becket’s brains on the cathedral floor was an outrage.[27] John of Salisbury, for example, compares the knights unfavorably with Jesus’ executioners, who at least refrained from breaking Jesus’ legs when they realized he was already dead.[28] In Edward Grim’s account, once Becket’s crown had been separated from his head, “the blood white from the brain, and the brain equally red from the blood, brightened the floor with the colors of the lily and rose, the Virgin and Mother, and the life and death of the confessor and martyr.”[29]

In art, Saint Thomas Becket is sometimes portrayed with a bleeding head, signifying the first blow of his attackers.[30] Becket’s other attributes in art are a long sword, representing the sword with which he was martyred, and the palm branch or martyrdom.[31] In some cases, the sword is shown cleaving, or inserted in, the saint’s head. The presence of a bishop’s mitre also helps identify him.

Pilgrims’ Progress

Soon after the assassination, miracles were attributed to Becket’s intercession, and a cult quickly grew around the saint. Staunton attributes the cult’s popularity to its versatility. “One of the reasons for Thomas’s broad appeal as a saint is that he meant many different things to different people. Each could take from his memory and his image what they sought, whether it was the miracle-worker, the martyr, the champion of the Church, or a combination of these.”[32]

Gold Reliquary Pendant with Queen Margaret of Sicily Blessed by Bishop Reginald of Bath (1173-77). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. On the opposite side, the pendant used to contain a crystal under which a number of relics were kept. An inscription on the pendant indicates the relics included “blood of St. Thomas Martyr” as well as parts of his vestments stained with blood, including his cloak, belt, hood, shoe, and shirt.

The notoriety of the Becket’s death and reports of his miracle-working relics naturally attracted pilgrims to Canterbury. Pilgrimages, though certainly not unique to Christianity, were a common form of religious expression in Medieval Europe.[33] Christians regularly undertook these journeys to shrines and other holy places to fulfill vows, to seek cures, as penance, or merely to deepen their faith.[34] Indeed, The Canterbury Tales begins with a paean to the religious pilgrimage:

When the sweet showers of April fall and shoot
Down through the drought of March to pierce the root,
Bathing every vein in liquid power
From which there springs the engendering of the flower,
When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath
Exhales an air in every grove and heath . . .
Then people long to go on pilgrimages . . . .[35]

The text further hints that at least some of the pilgrims on the road to Canterbury are veterans of previous pilgrimages. The Wife of Bath, for example, is described as having “thrice been to Jerusalem,” as well as “to Rome and also to Boulogne, / St James of Compostella and Cologne.”[36] The Pardoner is portrayed has having sewn a “holy relic on his cap,” most likely a pilgrim’s badge commemorating an earlier trip to some holy site.[37] Their tales and the tales of their fellow pilgrims unfold as they wend their way to Canterbury.

Saint James the Greater, pine with paint and gilding, South German (1475-1500), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Saint James is depicted here with one of the earliest and most recognizable pilgrim’s badges—a scallop shell—attached to his cap. Sea shells like this were associated with pilgrimages to Saint James’s shrine at Santiago de Compostela.

Once at Canterbury itself, a number of sites would have formed part of the pilgrimage experience. As Paul Webster explains in The Cult of St. Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, key pilgrimage sites at Canterbury Cathedral included “the site of the martyrdom, the crypt tomb, the principal shrine itself, and the chapel known as the Corona, housing ‘Becket’s crown’, the shrine of that part of his head removed by his murderers.”[38]

As at many medieval shrines, pilgrimage souvenirs, including pilgrim’s badges or ampullae, were available for purchase at Canterbury. Most depicted scenes from Saint Thomas Becket’s life or death, or featured images from the cathedral itself. Depictions of the saint’s assassination—scenes restless with fretful knights and drawn swords—were popular. Renderings of the saint’s shrine were also common and help establish what the shrine might have looked like to a medieval visitor.

A pilgrim’s badge in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York includes a representation of the shrine dating to the late 14th century.[39] The jeweled shrine, ordered by Archbishop Thomas Langton and dedicated on 2 July 1220, rested above a golden tomb containing an effigy of Saint Thomas in ecclesiastical vestments; the effigy is clearly visible on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s pilgrim’s badge.[40] The shrine itself was “encrusted with jewels on a trellis-like ground and surmounted by two ship models.”[41] It also featured what was purportedly the largest ruby in the world, donated to Canterbury by the king of France in 1179.[42] (Look closely and you may spy a small figure pointing directly at the famed ruby.)

Pilgrim’s Badge of the Shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury, cast tin-lead alloy (1350-1400). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Conclusion

Following his elevation to Canterbury, Thomas Becket underwent a religious conversion, the sincerity of which has remained a subject of much speculation ever since. Citing John of Salisbury, Stauton describes how some “deliberately misrepresented his behaviour, interpreting his zeal for justice as cruelty, his magnificence as pride, his pursuit of God’s will as arrogance, his protection of the Church’s rights as rashness.”[43] Staunton further observes how Thomas’s character “seemed to feature a preponderance of traits which could be interpreted either way,” noting that “there is a thin line between bravery and foolhardiness, between constancy and stubbornness.”[44]

At the end of Anouilh’s Becket, King Henry is shown kneeling before Becket’s tomb, naked, as monks whip him with ropes. The play, which is told in flashback, begins as it will conclude. “Well, Thomas Becket, are you satisfied?” Henry exclaims.[45] “I am naked at your tomb and your monks are coming to flog me. What an end to our story! You, rotting in this tomb, larded with my barons’ dagger thrusts, and I, naked, shivering in the draughts, and waiting like an idiot for those brutes to come thrash me. Don’t you think we’d have done better to understand each other?”[46]

Understanding Saint Thomas Becket may, perhaps, have been too much to expect.

[1] Jean Anouilh, Becket at xvii (Lucienne Hill trans., 1960).
[2] Id. The stalls Anouilh describes are still a familiar sight along the Seine, and many continue to sell curious and wonderful books.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] 4 Butler’s Lives of the Saints 629 (Herbert J. Thurston, S.J. & Donald Attwater eds., 2d ed. 1956).
[9] Id.
[10] Id.
[11] Id.
[12] Id. at 630.
[13] Id. at 631.
[14] Id.
[15] Id.
[16] See, e.g., id. at 631; Michael Staunton, Thomas Becket and His Biographers (2006).
[17] 4 Butler’s Lives of the Saints, supra note 8, at 630-31.
[18] Id. at 631.
[19] Id. at 634-35. The Archbishop of York, who performed the actual coronation, had usurped Canterbury’s right in conducting the coronation. Id. at 634.
[20] Staunton, supra note 16, at 216.
[21] In particular, Thomas Becket and His Biographers describes the works of John of Salisbury, Edward Grim, William of Canterbury, William Fitzstephen, Guernes of Ponte-Ste-Maxence, Herbert of Bosham, Anonymous I, Anonymous II, Benedict of Peterborough, and Alan of Tewkesbury. Staunton suggests that the various Vitae, or Lives of Thomas, “are not only exceptional witnesses to Thomas’s life and death and the events in which he was involved,” they are also “literary works of high quality, more complex and sophisticated than has always been recognized.” Id. at 2.
[22] Id. at 184.
[23] Id.
[24] Id.
[25] Id. at 195.
[26] Id.
[27] Id. at 198.
[28] Id.
[29] Id. Notably, Edward Grim was standing next to Becket during the attack, and his arm was nearly severed by the blow that cleft the top of the saint’s head. In Grim’s own account, he identifies the first blow to Saint Thomas Becket’s head as the “same blow [that] almost cut off the arm of this witness.” Id. at 196.
[30] Rosa Giorgi, Saints in Art 354 (Thomas Michael Hartmann trans., Stefano Zuffi ed., 2002).
[31] Id. at 353.
[32] Staunton, supra note 16, at 216.
[33] Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, “Pilgrimage in Medieval Europe,” Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pilg/hd_pilg.htm.
[34] Id.
[35] Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales 25 (Nevill Coghill trans., 1952) (1392).
[36] Id. at 37.
[37] Id. at 44
[38] The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170-1220 (Paul Webster and Marie-Pierre Gelin eds., 2016).
[39] “Pilgrim’s Badge of the Shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury,” Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/473470.
[40] Id.
[41] Id.
[42] Id.
[43] Staunton, supra note 16, at 216-17.
[44] Id. at 217
[45] Anouilh, supra note 1, at 1.
[46] Id.

The Way of Saint James: Pilgrimage to the Tomb of a “Son of Thunder”

09 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by Reliquarian in Altarpiece

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Tags

Altar of the Holy Blood, altarpiece, church, Friedrich Herlin, Germany, martyr, pilgrimage, relic, Rothenburg, Saint James, Santiago de Compostela, tomb

Twelve Apostles Altar, Church of Saint James (St. Jakobskirche), Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany. Photo by Reliquarian.

The Way of Saint James

According to tradition, Saint James, one of the twelve Apostles, was martyred by beheading in the year 44. After the rediscovery of his relics in 814, pilgrimages to his tomb in Compostela, northern Spain, became extremely popular. Compostela even rivaled Jerusalem and Rome as a destination for pilgrim travelers during the Middle Ages. Consequently, routes to Saint James’s shrine, including one through Rothenburg, Germany, crisscrossed Europe, marking the path to the saint’s tomb. Today, the Way of Saint James (Camino de Santiago) continues to direct travelers to the remains of the fiery-tempered Apostle whom Jesus once called a “Son of Thunder.”

Invitation to a Beheading

Saint James was beheaded in Jerusalem during the Christian persecutions of King Herod Agrippa I. According to Clement of Alexandria, Saint James’s accuser was so moved by the courage and conviction James showed at his trial that he subsequently repented and declared himself a Christian. As a consequence, the man was sentenced to be beheaded alongside Saint James. As both men were led to execution, the accuser turned to James and begged for his forgiveness. According to Butler’s Lives of the Saints, “St James, after pausing a little, turned to him and embraced him, saying, ‘Peace be with you’. He then kissed him, and they were both beheaded together.”[1]

A Tomb by the Sounding Sea

Isenheim Altarpiece, Matthias Grunewald (sculptures by Nicolas of Hagenau) (detail), 1510-1515, Colmar, France. On the carved predella of the Isenheim Altarpiece, Saint James can be seen holding a large seashell in his right hand. His pilgrim’s cap is also adorned with a shell. Photo by Reliquarian.

Early chronicles suggested that after his death, Saint James’s remains were transported from Jerusalem to the northern coast of Spain where they were buried contra mare Britannicum, “close to the British sea.”[2] The location of the tomb, however, remained a mystery until, centuries later, in about 814, the tomb was rediscovered under miraculous circumstances.[3] According to legend, a local monk named Pelayo was guided by a star to a secluded spot in the woods near the Galician coast.[4] There he discovered a marble sarcophagus that contained human bones, apparently very old.[5] Bishop Teodomir, the local bishop, proclaimed the remains to be those of Saint James, long believed to have been buried in the region. After learning of the discovery, King Alfonso II journeyed to the site to venerate the relics and ordered that a church be built on the spot. The modest church established by King Alfonso II later grew into the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the ultimate destination of pilgrims traveling the Way of Saint James.

King Alfonso II’s journey to the tomb of Saint James is considered the first pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, and it set the example for subsequent generations of pilgrim travelers. Departing from Oviedo, the location of his royal court, King Alfonso II likely took the Roman road known as the Camino Primitivo to Compostela. As the popularity of Saint James’s shrine grew, other routes gradually came into regular use, such as the Camino del Norte, another Roman road, which skirted the coast. By the 11^th century, the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela had become an international phenomenon, drawing visitors from all over Christendom and establishing Santiago de Compostela as a rival to Jerusalem and Rome for pilgrims.[6] In a paper discussing the history of the pilgrimage, Laurie Dennett opines that interest in Saint James’s relics had begun to shift the “conceptual geography of Christian Europe, giving it a new pole in the west, a new focus for popular devotion, that balanced the Byzantine east with its spiritual centre at Jerusalem.”[7] She further notes that “Santiago de Compostela even seemed to rival the pretensions of Rome,” at least for a time.[8]

St. Jakobskirche and the Twelve Apostles Altar

The St. Jakobskirche (Saint James’s Church) in Rothenburg ob der Tauber was once an important stop on the pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela. Known more widely as the home of the Altar of the Holy Blood, the church also houses the impressive Twelve Apostles Altar (Zwölfbotenaltar), a carved altarpiece with a painted predella and painted wings, which incorporates several images of Saint James.

View of St. Jakobskirche from the city walls. Photo by Reliquarian.

Completed in 1466, the altarpiece is the work of Hans Waidenlich and Friedrich Herlin with carvings in the Multscher tradition by an unknown sculptor.[9] Herlin, who may have been from Rothenburg, moved to Nördlingen later in his career and is closely identified with the Twelve Apostles Altar, which he signed: “This work was made by Friedrich Herlin, painter, mcccclxvi. Saint James pray to God for him.”[10]

In Carved Splendor: Late Gothic Altarpieces in Southern Germany, Austria, and South Tirol, Rainer Kahsnitz identifies the Twelve Apostles Altar as “one of the best-preserved altarpieces from the Late Gothic period.”[11] Although little is known about the origins of the altarpiece, Kahsnitz speculates that it must have replaced an earlier work at St. Jakobskirche.[12]

Twelve Apostles Altar (detail). Photo by Reliquarian.

The corpus of the altarpiece depicts the Crucifixion, with Mary (to the left) and Saint John the Evangelist (to the right) below the cross, flanking the dying Christ. Next to Mary stands Saint James wearing a pilgrim’s hat decorated with a scallop shell, a symbol of pilgrimage. Two other shells dangle from his wrist, and he is shown with a pilgrim’s staff, another defining attribute of the patron saint of pilgrims.[13] The other carved figures below the cross are Saint Elizabeth (to the far left), who is carrying a loaf of bread and a pitcher; Saint Leonard (next to Saint John), the patron saint of prisoners of war; and Saint Anthony the hermit (to the far right), who is shown with a bell. According to Kahsnitz, the altar was kept permanently closed following Rothenburg’s adoption of the Reformation.[14] This helped preserve the sculptures and the paintings on the inner wings.[15]

Saint James and Saint Peter. Friedrich Herlin’s predella depicts Saint James with his traditional attributes in art: a pilgrim’s staff and a seashell. To the right of Saint James is Saint Peter with several of his symbols: a set of keys and a book. Photo by Reliquarian.

Saint James appears again on Herlin’s predella with a shell in one hand and a pilgrim’s staff in the other. To his left, Saint Peter carries two of his traditional attributes: a set of keys and a book, which he peers into with the aid of spectacles. All twelve Apostles are represented on the predella, arranged in pairs behind a Late Gothic balustrade.[16] In addition to other paintings, the back of the predella also features a depiction of the veil of Saint Veronica: the image of Christ’s face with a crown of thorns imprinted on a veil or shroud.[17]

Sons of Thunder

Saint James is often known as “the Greater” to distinguish him from Saint James, son of Alphaeus, known as “the Lesser.” He was the son of Zebedee and brother of Saint John the Evangelist, and he was the first Apostle martyred. Saint James and his brother John apparently earned the epithet Boanerges, or “Sons of Thunder,” on account of their “impetuous spirit and fiery temper.”[18] Nevertheless, as noted in Butler’s Lives of the Saints, James, John, and Peter, the Apostles “who from time to time acted impetuously, and had to be rebuked, were the very ones our Lord turned to on special occasions.”[19] James, John, and Peter were the only Apostles to witness the agony in the garden of Gethsemani and were the only ones present for the Transfiguration.

Modern Pilgrims

The Way of Saint James continues to be a popular with pilgrims even today. According to the Confraternity of Saint James, an organization founded “to bring together people interested in the medieval pilgrim routes through France and Spain to Santiago de Compostela,” the last several decades “have seen an extraordinary revival of interest in the pilgrimage to Santiago.”[20] Once considered “one of the greatest of all Christian shrines” in the Middle Ages,[21] the route from the border of France and Spain known as the Camino Francés was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.[22]

Twelve Apostles Altar, Church of Saint James (St. Jakobskirche), Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany. Photo by Reliquarian.

Still, some scholars question whether Saint James ever preached in Spain and whether the remains interred at Santiago de Compostela really are those of Saint James. Butler’s Lives of the Saints states, “Outside of Spain almost all eminent scholars and critical students of history answer both questions in the negative.”[23] Several authors have argued that Saint James’s visit to Spain is “improbable” because Saint James was martyred in Jerusalem in the year 44 and because he was “unheard of in Spain before the end of the seventh century.”[24] Additionally, while it may be “quite possible that the relics recovered, after they had been lost, are identical with those which were venerated at Compostela in the middle ages, . . . the authenticity of medieval relics is always difficult to establish and in this case it is more than dubious.”[25]

Nevertheless, thousands of people continue to follow the Way of Saint James to Santiago de Compostela each year. While there are “as many reasons for this revival as there are pilgrims,” the Confraternity of Saint James observes that “many people make the pilgrimage at a turning point in their lives, and . . . many are helped to come to terms with personal crisis by a period of separation from all that is familiar, and the shared hardship of the road.”[26]

Pilgrim’s Hat, felt, silk braid, shell, bone, jet (c. 1571). This pilgrim’s hat is currently on display at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Germany, along with a matching pilgrim’s cloak and staff. The matching set of pilgrim’s garb belonged to Stephan Praun III, a pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela. Photo by Reliquarian.

Saint James the Greater, pine with paint and gilding, South German (1475-1500), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The influence of Veit Stoss, who worked in Nuremberg and Krakow, is evident in the carving of the statue’s robes and face. Photo by Reliquarian.

[1] 3 Butler’s Lives of the Saints 183 (Herbert J. Thurston, S.J. & Donald Attwater eds., 2d ed. 1956).

[2] Laurie Dennett, “2000 Years of the Camino de Santiago: Where Did It Come From? Where Is It Going?,” The Confraternity of Saint James, http://www.csj.org.uk/2000-years.htm (citing martyrologies by Florus of Lyons and Usuard of St. Germaine-des-Prés). Dennett observes that “by the late 8^th century, a literary tradition had developed which held that the burial place of St James lay in Spain, even if the site had not yet been identified.” She further notes, “Interestingly, it was not until after the purported discovery of the tomb in about 814 that a corresponding tradition evolved concerning the Apostle’s return to Palestine and death, and the transportation of his mortal remains back to Spain for burial.” Id. The mare Britannicum is the present-day English Channel.

[3] See id.

[4] Id.

[5] Id.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Id.

[9] See Rainer Kahsnitz, Carved Splendor: Late Gothic Altarpieces in Southern Germany, Austria, and South Tirol 58 (2006). Kahsnitz explains that the sculptures “were executed by a carver from the circle around the Ulm sculptor Hans Multscher (active there from 1427 until his death in 1467). In their compact three-dimensionality they are based more strongly on Multscher’s earlier works from the 1450s, at which time the sculptor was probably Multscher’s pupil.” Id. at 61.

[10] Id. at 58. A clever Latin inscription on the frame of the altarpiece also dates the work to 1466. It begins, “Bis duo c quoque sexagintaque sex quoque mille . . . .” Id.

[11] Id.

[12] Id.

[13] See George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art 112 (1959). Ferguson observes that the pilgrim’s staff is “used alone and in combination with various other objects as an attribute of numerous saints who have been noteworthy for their travels and pilgrimages.” Id. Other saints commonly depicted with staffs include Saints Christopher, John the Baptist, Jerome, Philip the Apostle, Ursula, and Roch. Id.

[14] Kahsnitz, supra note 9, at 58.

[15] Id.

[16] Id. at 60.

[17] See, e.g., Rosa Giorgi, Saints in Art 119 (Stefano Zuffi ed. & Thomas Michael Hartmann trans., 2002).

[18] Butler’s Lives of the Saints, supra note 1, at 182.

[19] Id.

[20] The Confraternity of Saint James, The Confraternity of Saint James, http://www.csj.org.uk/csj.htm; The Present-Day Pilgrimage, The Confraternity of Saint James, http://www.csj.org.uk/present.htm.

[21] Butler’s Lives of the Saints, supra note 1, at 183.

[22] The Present-Day Pilgrimage, supra note 20.

[23] Butler’s Lives of the Saints, supra note 1, at 183.

[24] Id.

[25] Id.

[26] The Present-Day Pilgrimage, supra note 20.