The Head-Carriers: Headless Saints from Saint Denis to Saint Nicasius

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

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Béziers, cephalophore, Fourteen Holy Helpers, France, martyr, Montmartre, Paris, Rheims, Rouen, Sacré-Coeur, Saint Aphrodisius, Saint Cuthbert, Saint Denis, Saint Dionysius, Saint Firmin, Saint Nicasius, Saint Oswald, Saint Paul, Saint Valerie

Saint Denis, Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France. Photo by Reliquarian.

Saints Without Heads

As we’ve noted before, saints portrayed in Christian art often carry objects that help identify them in art. While some saints carry relatively benign, pedestrian objects — Saint Anthony often carries a white lily, Saint Notburga an ear of corn — others tote more lethal implements including an assortment of knives, swords, arrows, and wooden stakes. Martyrs in particular are frequently shown with deadly devices, generally the instruments of their martyrdom. A curious subset of martyrs, however, are commonly shown carrying their own heads. Known as cephalophores, literally “head-carriers” in Greek, these headless saints all suffered martyrdom by decapitation. Although depicting cephalophores may at first seem straightforward, artists have struggled for centuries with an unusual problem presented by their portrayal: Where does one place the halo on a headless saint?

Things Come to a Head: Secular Examples of Animate, Headless Corpses

John Quidor, The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane, oil on canvas (1858), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Photo by Reliquarian.

Stories of headless men and their improbable feats are not confined to the Roman Martyrology. Secular examples include Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the 14th-century Arthurian legend Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which features a remarkable contest known as a “beheading game.” In the story of Gawain, a giant stranger known as the Green Knight appears before King Arthur’s court on New Year’s Day. The Green Knight challenges the members of the court to strike him with his ax on the condition that he will return the blow in one year and a day. Gawain accepts the challenge, and the Green Knight prepares to receive Gawain’s strike by brushing aside his long locks and laying bare his neck. Gawain then grips the ax, raises it into the air, and lets it fall.

The author of the legend tells us, “The sharp edge of the blade sundered the bones, smote through the neck, and clave it in two, so that the edge of the steel bit on the ground, and the fair head fell to the earth . . . .”[1] The Green Knight, however, “neither faltered nor fell,” but instead, with his hand out-stretched, caught the head, lifted it up, and mounted his steed “as if naught ailed him, and he were not headless.”[2] Then the “grim corpse,” bleeding freely, held up the severed head and turned its face toward the gathered knights. Its eyelids lifted open, and the head spoke, warning Sir Gawain to keep his promise.[3]

Head Cases: Headless Saints and Their Post-Mortem Wanderings

Like the Green Knight and the Headless Horseman, whose severed head rested on the horseman’s saddle before he hurled it, dodgeball-like, at the hapless Ichabod Crane, the bodies of cephalophores remained animated even after the detachment of their heads. They even performed with a remarkable degree of agency, often selecting the sites of their own burials.

Saint Denis, Patron Saint of Paris

Saint Denis, Basilique Sacré-Coeur, Paris, France. The Basilique Sacré-Coeur (Basilica of the Sacred Heart), located in Montmartre, is traditionally associated with Saint Denis’s beheading. Photo by Reliquarian.

In The Golden Legend’s account of the death of Saint Denis, the saint collected his severed head and walked an appreciable distance with it after his beheading. According to the story, after Saint Denis, also known as Saint Dionysius, had been beheaded by a sword, his body “[i]nstantly . . . stood up, took his head in its arms, and, with an angel and a heavenly light leading the way, marched two miles, from the place called Montmartre, the hill of martyrs, to the place where, by his own choice and by God’s providence, he rests in peace.”[4] The abbey church of Saint-Denis was later erected on the spot where Saint Denis was buried.[5] One of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, Saint Denis is often invoked for relief from headaches.

Saint Aphrodisius of Béziers

Another cephalophore, Saint Aphrodisius (or Saint Aphrodise) of Béziers, similarly retrieved and traveled with his severed head before settling on a final resting place. Saint Aphrodisius, the first Bishop of Béziers, was decapitated on the site of the Roman circus at Béziers, and his head was unceremoniously tossed into a well. Miraculously, the saint’s head was ejected from the well and rolled back to saint’s body. The headless corpse then picked up the head and walked with it through the city to the site of the hermit cave where the saint had lived during his lifetime.[6] The Basilica of Saint Aphrodisius of Béziers (Basilique Saint-Aphrodise de Béziers) was later erected on the spot where Saint Aphrodisius was buried.

Saint Nicasius of Rheims

Joos van Cleve, Saints George and Nicasius with donors (detail of Saint Nicasius), oil on panel (c. 1515), Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany. Here, Saint Nicasius is depicted with just the top of his head missing. Photo by Reliquarian.

Saint Nicasius of Rheims, is commonly portrayed with either his entire head or just a portion of head missing. According to Butler’s Lives of the Saints, Saint Nicasius was a 5th-century Bishop of Rheims who was killed by a marauding army of Gauls. Standing in the doorway of his church, Saint Nicasius was massacred with his deacon, Saint Florentius, and his lector, Saint Jucundus, by his side. The Gauls apparently cut his head off, although, as noted, he is often shown missing just the top of his head.

Other Cephalophores

Other cephalophores frequently represented with their severed heads include Saint Just, Saint Ginés de la Jara, Saint Firmin, Saint Minias, the siblings Saints Felix and Regula, Saint Exuperantius, Saint Valerie, Saints Maxien, Lucien, and Julian, Saint Chéron, and Saint Osyth. Although Saint Paul of Tarsus was martyred by beheading, he is more frequently depicted with a book of letters, signifying the letters he wrote to the earliest Christian communities, or a sword, the instrument of his martyrdom. The Golden Legend notes that at his execution, “[a]s soon as his head bounded from his body, it intoned, in Hebrew and in a clear voice, ‘Jesus Christ.’”[7] Meanwhile, although not a cephalophore, Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne can easily be mistaken for one. Saint Cuthbert commonly carries a severed head, although it is not his own. It belongs to Saint Oswald, whose head was buried with Saint Cuthbert at Durham Cathedral.

Saint Firmin Holding His Head, limestone and paint (c. 1225-75), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo by Reliquarian.

The Secret to Getting A Head

In his essay in Disembodied Heads in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, Scott Montgomery argues that stories describing the “post-mortem ambulation” of cephalophoric saints may have served a pragmatic purpose in certain communities. He observes, “Cephalophores do not merely respond to their decapitation, but more actively direct the location of their resting place and subsequent veneration, establishing the locus sanctus of their cult. Not surprisingly, it seems that the trope is commonly inserted into the saint’s tale by those claiming to possess [the saint’s] relics.”[8] Montgomery observes that texts and images of cephalophory were frequently produced where the relics were kept, suggesting that such tales were effective at “establishing relic claims at the very location where the tale was inserted into the saint’s vita.”[9]

Double Halo!

Whatever the origin of the trope, artists entrusted to render the personalities of cephalophoric saints faced an uncommon challenge. Saints in art were generally depicted with a halo or nimbus behind their heads, indicating their great dignity and sanctity.[10] While many artists continued to follow this convention for cephalophores, the unusual placement of a cephalophore’s head, which artists often deposited in the headless saint’s hands, could visually diminish the effect of the golden, glowing halo. Consequently, artists sometimes sought other ways to communicate the sanctity of cephalophores.

Saint Nicasius, Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, France. Saint Nicasius is holding his bishop’s mitre and is missing the top of his head. Photo by Reliquarian.

One approach involved placing the cephalophore’s halo around the saint’s neck, where the head had been. Saint Denis is depicted this way on the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, as is Saint Nicasius above the north portal of Rheims Cathedral. Another approach involved rendering a cephalophore with two halos: one above the saint’s decollated head and one around the saint’s neck, which was sometimes shown spurting blood. Saint Denis is depicted this way in a manuscript illuminated by the Master of Sir John Fastolf and on the coat of arms of the city of Krefeld, Germany.

Léon Bonnat’s famous Le martyre de Saint-Denis at the Pantheon in Paris depicts a variation of the double halo concept. In Bonnat’s painting, the headless bodies of Saint Denis’s companions, Saints Eleutherius and Rusticus, are strewn to Saint Denis’s left and right while a bloody ax rests on steps in the foreground. To the upper right of the painting, an angel swoops from the sky bearing a palm frond and crown of martyrdom. Meanwhile, at the center of the painting, Saint Denis’s headless body is shown scooping up its head like a fumbled football. The disembodied head is surrounded by a distinct halo, but the space above Saint Denis’s neck, where his head would have been, is also aglow. Not quite a halo, nimbus, aureole, or other traditional marker of saintliness, the glow appears as a riot of sparks reminiscent of a holiday sparkler.

The Martrydrom of Saint Nicasius, stained glass (early 13th century), Basilique Cathédrale Saint-Gervais-et-Saint-Protais de Soissons, Soisson, France. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Heady Times: Cephalophores Unbound

Cephalophory is, perhaps, one of the most dramatic examples of a saint’s triumph over death. As Montgomery explains, “much of the potency of the trope is fed by the phenomenon . . . that the martyr is only dispatched by beheading after enduring a series of horrific tortures.”[11] Saint Denis, for example, was stretched on an iron grill over a blazing fire; thrown to hungry, wild beasts; stuffed into an oven; and nailed to a cross before he was finally beheaded. Decapitation, then, was frequently resorted to as a means of “martyr-dispatching” because it was so effective and so definitive.[12] Accordingly, “the act of post-decapatory ambulation (and occasionally locution) is underscored as all-the-more miraculous. Cephalophores dramatically enact their imitatio Christi and imitatio sancti in ‘surviving’ bodily death, essentially following the model of St. Paul in professing faith after decollation.”[13]

[1] 1 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose 15-16 (Jessie Laidlay Weston trans., 1900).

[2] Id. at 16.

[3] Id.

[4] Jacobus de Voragine, 2 The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints 240 (William Granger Ryan trans., 1993).

[5] 4 Butler’s Lives of the Saints 67-68 (Herbert J. Thurston, S.J. & Donald Attwater eds., 2d ed. 1956). Butler’s Lives of the Saints explains that the cultus of Saint Dionysius or Saint Denis was very strong in the Middle Ages and that by the 6th century he was already recognized as “the saint of Paris par excellence.” Id. at 68.

[6] See, e.g., Scott B. Montgomery, Securing the Sacred Head: Cephalophory and Relic Claims, in Disembodied Heads in Medieval and Early Modern Culture 92-93 (Catrien Santing et. al, eds., 2013).

[7] Jacobus de Voragine, 1 The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints 353-54 (William Granger Ryan trans., 1993).

[8] Montgomery, supra note 6, at 85.

[9] Id. at 85-86.

[10] George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art 149 (1954).

[11] Montgomery, supra note 6, at 86.

[12] Id.

[13] Id.

Saint Bernward of Hildesheim: Medieval Patron of the Arts

21 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by Reliquarian in "Speaking" Reliquary, Metal Reliquary

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Charlemagne, Croatia, Germany, Hildesheim, Holy Cross, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, relic, reliquary, Saint Bernward, Saint Cuthbert, Saint Oswald, Saint Valentine, Saints Cosmas and Damian, speaking reliquary, Venerable Bede, Zadar

Baptismal Font (detail), copper alloy (c. 1226), Hildesheim Cathedral, Hildesheim, Germany. Photo by Reliquarian.

Saint Bernward of Hildesheim

During the Middle Ages, few individuals did more to support and develop the arts than Saint Bernward of Hildesheim. Considered one the era’s greatest patrons of the arts,¹ Saint Bernward’s legacy included the commissioning of Hildesheim Cathedral’s monumental bronze doors² and the construction of the abbey church of Saint Michael in Hildesheim.³ At a recent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a number of objects commissioned by Saint Bernward, as well as other important objects from the treasury of Hildesheim Cathedral, were on display. The exhibition included several reliquaries, including a skillfully fashioned reliquary containing the skull of Saint Oswald and an arm reliquary that once held relics of Saint Bernward himself.

Saint Bernward was born to a noble Saxon family and served as the tutor of the future emperor Otto III before his appointment as Bishop of Hildesheim in 993. Hildesheim is one of the oldest cities in northern Germany, and the bishopric of Hildesheim was established by Louis the Pious, Charlemagne’s heir and successor, in 815.⁴ During the Middle Ages, Hildesheim was renowned for its metalworking, and many of Saint Bernward’s commissions would not have been possible if not for the extraordinary skill of the region’s metalsmiths. As noted in Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim, the proximity of nearby mines, which provided easy access to raw materials, “gave rise to a tradition of metalworking expertise that reached its peak during Bernward’s era.”⁵

The Golden Madonna (Virgin and Child Enthroned)

Golden Madonna, gold over linden wood, (c. 1022), Hildesheim Cathedral, Hildesheim, Germany. Photo by Reliquarian.

Neither Bernward’s Doors from Hildesheim Cathedral nor Bernward’s Column, an imposing bronze column circa 1015 representing “the first triumphal column since antiquity,” were on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but the exhibition did include other impressive examples of the metalworkers’ art. The Golden Madonna, which dates to before 1022, has been attributed to Saint Bernward’s patronage.⁶ Sheathed in gold over a linden wood core, the depiction of the Virgin and Child enthroned is one of the oldest sculptures in the round from the Latin West.⁷

Reliquary of the Holy Cross

Cross Reliquary, gilded silver, rock crystal, and semiprecious stones, Hildesheim, Germany (c. 1180-1190), Hildesheim Cathedral, Hildesheim, Germany. Photo by Reliquarian.

A reliquary cross containing relics of the Holy Cross was also on display. According to legend, Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria obtained the relics from the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On his safe return to Saxony in 1173, Henry allegedly donated the relics to the Church of the Holy Cross in Hildesheim, although no records supporting this story appear to exist.⁸ Nevertheless, the reliquary cross’s opulent gilding and intricately hammered ornamentation, as well as its impressive array of colored gems and rock crystal, attest to the significance of the darkened slivers of wood nestled at the center of the cross.

The Ringelheim Crucifix and Hidden Relics of Saints Cosmas and Damian

Ringelheim Crucifix, linden wood and oak (c. 1000). Photo by Reliquarian.

In addition to the Golden Madonna, Saint Bernward commissioned other large sculptures during his reign as bishop, including a striking wooden crucifix known as the Ringelheim Crucifix. Carved from linden wood and oak, the crucifix stands at over five feet tall and represents one of the most significant monumental wooden sculptures from the Ottonian period in existence today.⁹ Though carved as an object of devotion, conservation work conducted in the mid-20^th century revealed that the crucifix also served as an inconspicuous reliquary. Concealed in a small cavity in Christ’s head, conservators discovered several relics, including two stones from the Holy Sepulcher and two bone fragments, wrapped in silk, of the twin saints Cosmas and Damian.¹⁰

Reliquary of Saint Oswald and the Story of His Skull

Reliquary of Saint Oswald, gold, silver, pearls, and gemstones over wood core (c. 1185-1189), Hildesheim Cathedral, Hildesheim, Germany. Photo by Reliquarian.

A more traditional reliquary, the Reliquary of Saint Oswald, was also on display at the exhibition. Richly crafted from gold and silver and embellished with niello, cloisonné, pearls, gemstones, and recycled Roman cameos and intaglios, the reliquary is regarded as a masterpiece of medieval goldsmithing.¹¹ The reliquary’s most obvious and most striking feature is undoubtedly the gold bust of Saint Oswald placed atop the reliquary’s octagonal base. The saint’s eyes, finished in niello, were eerie and arresting, their blackened pupils eternally transfixed on the middle distance. Meanwhile, the saint’s crown seemed remarkable for its odd fit. I later learned that the crown and its decoration were cobbled together from earlier components, including a Roman cameo prominently displayed at the crown’s center.¹² Apparently, sovereigns occasionally donated their own crowns to churches for reuse on bust reliquaries, although whether this happened to be the case with the Reliquary of Saint Oswald is unclear.¹³

Reliquary of Saint Oswald 2 The Reliquary of Saint Oswald was designed to carry the skull of Saint Oswald, and the relic is evidently still enclosed within the reliquary, wrapped in silk. Saint Oswald was a King of Northumbria who lived in the early 7^th century.¹⁴ According to the Venerable Bede, Saint Oswald was killed in battle by the pagan king of the Mercians at a place called Maserfield in 642.¹⁵ The Venerable Bede observes that the extent of Saint Oswald’s faith and devotion were made evident by the miracles that occurred at the spot where he died in battle.¹⁶ “[I]nfirm men and cattle are healed to this day,” he reports, and as a consequence, “many took up the very dust of the place where his body fell, and putting it into water, did much good with it to their friends who were sick.”¹⁷ In their enthusiasm for this holy dust, the people eventually carried away so much dirt that “there remained a hole as deep as the height of a man.”¹⁸

The Venerable Bede further explains that Saint Oswald’s head was originally buried in Lindisfarne. The Venerable Bede writes that after the Battle of Maserfield, the king of the Mercians commanded that Saint Oswald’s head, hands, and arms “be cut off from the body, and set upon stakes.”¹⁹ Returning with an army the next year, Saint Oswald’s successor, Oswy, removed the slain king’s body parts from their stakes and eventually buried Saint Oswald’s head at Lindisfarne Abbey. A century later, Saint Oswald’s head was translated to Durham Cathedral, where it was reburied with the body of Saint Cuthbert and the Venerable Bede himself.²⁰ In 1538, however, under the authority of King Henry VIII, the relics of Saint Cuthbert and Saint Oswald were removed from their shrine and were deposited in an unmarked grave behind the high altar of Durham Cathedral.²¹ According to some sources, the relics of Saint Oswald were eventually destroyed during the Reformation—though perhaps his skull survived, cosseted away in an opulent reliquary.²²

Arm Reliquary of Saint Bernward

Army Reliquary of Saint Bernward, silver, gold, and semiprecious stones over wood core (c. 1194), Hildesheim Cathedral, Hildesheim, Germany. Photo by Reliquarian.

The exhibition also included an arm reliquary that once held the relics of Saint Bernward. Reliquaries in the shape of body parts, also called “speaking reliquaries” (redende Reliquiare), first gained popularity in the 11^th century and were intended to evoke the character of the relics they contained.²³ So, for example, leg reliquaries held leg bones, and foot reliquaries held foot bones. In the Permanent Exhibition of Religious Art in Zadar, Croatia I even encountered a shoulder blade reliquary, shaped somewhat like a baby grand piano, that allegedly contained the shoulder blade of Saint Mark.²⁴

Church of Saint Donatus, Zadar, Croatia. The church of Saint Donatus is located across the street from the convent of Saint Mary and the Permanent Exhibition of Religious Art. Photo by Reliquarian.

In his superb study on relics, Holy Bones, Holy Dust, Charles Freeman argues that arm reliquaries sometimes served an additional purpose beyond that of mere identification. Freeman notes that after Mass, celebrants traditionally blessed their congregations before they departed.²⁵ Freeman writes that a blessing given by a bishop “was of a much higher status [than] that by a mere priest, and congregations often felt they had been badly done by. Yet if a priest held up an arm reliquary and blessed the congregation with that, it was believed to have the same effect as if the bishop himself had been there.”²⁶ The posture of the Arm Reliquary of Saint Bernward—its right index finger and middle finger extended to heaven, its thumb curled slightly inward—suggests that it may occasionally have been used for this purpose, to deliver the final blessing. Another arm reliquary in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Arm Reliquary of Saint Valentine, likely served a similar function.

Army Reliquary of Saint Valentine, silver, gilded silver, and blue cabochon, Basel, Switzerland (c. 1380-1400), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo by Reliquarian.

Because of his patronage of the arts and his own reputed skill as an architect and artist, Saint Bernward is recognized today as a patron saint of architects, goldsmiths, painters, and sculptors. While the church he helped build, the abbey church of Saint Michael, may be his most conspicuous achievement, he accomplished so much more as a bishop and patron of the arts.²⁷ As Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim states, “While many of Hildesheim’s bishops endowed its institutions with extraordinary works of art, no donor was more prolific or had a more significant impact on Hildesheim’s production than Bernward, the thirteenth bishop of Hildesheim.”²⁸

Cross Reliquary (detail), gilded silver, rock crystal, and semiprecious stones, Hildesheim, Germany (c. 1180-1190), Hildesheim Cathedral, Hildesheim, Germany. Photo by Reliquarian.

Arm Reliquary of Saint Bernward (detail), silver, gold, and semiprecious stones over wood core (c. 1194), Hildesheim Cathedral, Hildesheim, Germany. Photo by Reliquarian.

Small Bernward Cross, copper alloy, gilding, and semiprecious stones, Hildesheim, Germany (c. 1170-1180), Hildesheim Cathedral, Hildesheim, Germany. Photo by Reliquarian.

Reliquary Cross (detail), silver, gilded silver, enamel, coral, and rock crystal, Italy (the Marches), c. 1375-1400, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This reliquary cross from the late 14th century is part of the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Slivers of wood can still be seen encased at the center of the cross. Photo by Reliquarian.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York. Photo by Reliquarian.

1 Metropolitan Museum of Art, Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim 6 (Peter Barnet et al. eds., 2013).

2 Id. at 11. According to Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim, the casting of Bernward’s enormous and highly decorated bronze doors, now known as Bernward’s Doors, was “a technological breakthrough for the Middle Ages and a milestone in the history of art.” Id.

3 Id. at 7.

4 Id. at 3.

5 Id. at 14, 16.

6 Id. 42.

7 Id.

8 Id. at 86.

9 Id. at 44.

10 Id. Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim further notes that other monumental crucifixes similarly served as reliquaries.

11 Id. at 88.

12 Id.

13 Id. Examples of this reuse can be found at Prague Cathedral and Saint-Denis in Paris.

14 Charles Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust 63 (2011).

15 Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England 123 (J. A. Giles ed., 1847).

16 Id. at 123–24.

17 Id. at 124.

18 Id.

19 Id. at 129.

20 Saint Bede, 1 The Complete Works of Venerable Bede: Life, Poems, Letters, Etc. at xcviii, xciii (J. A. Giles trans., 1843); Thomas J. Craughwell, Saints Preserved 228–29 (2011).

21 Craughwell, supra note 20, at 229.

22 Id.

23 Freeman, supra note 14, at 82.

24 The Permanent Exhibition of Religious Art is also more informally known as the “Gold and Silver of Zadar.” Located in the Benedictine convent next to the church of Saint Mary, the exhibition includes an overwhelming and truly extraordinary collection of relics and other sacred objects, the oldest of which—a small pectoral cross—dates from the 8^th century. See Ivo Petricioli, The Permanent Exhibition of Religious Art in Zadar at VIII (2004). According to Michelin, the museum itself is “[o]ne of the best museums in Croatia.” Sacred Art Museum, Michelin Travel, http://travel.michelin.com/web/destination/Croatia-Zadar/tourist_site-Sacred_Art_Museum-Trg_Opatice_Cike. The Reliquary of the Shoulder Blade of Saint Mark, which is fashioned of embossed gilded copper metal plate, is estimated to date to the 13^th century.

25 Id.

26 Id.

27 Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim suggests that the original structure of the church may have been preserved over the centuries “because Bernward’s sainthood and supposed involvement as an architect and artist gave St. Michael’s itself the status of a relic.” Metropolitan Museum of Art, supra note 1, at 7.

28 Id. at 6.