Saint Corona and Saint Rosalia: Two Saints Invoked Against Pandemics

29 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by Reliquarian in Art History, Metal Reliquary, Painting, Reliquary, Sculpture

Tags

Aachen, coronavirus, Germany, Italy, martyr, Palermo, pandemic, plague, Saint Corona, Saint Edmund, Saint Roch, Saint Rosalia, Saint Victor, shrine

Anthony van Dyck, Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo, oil on canvas (1624). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo via the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Great Plague, or Black Death, of the 14th century was one of the most lethal pandemics in human history. The plague was believed to have entered Europe from the Crimean port of Kaffa (modern-day Feodosia) in 1346.[1] From there, it spread to Constantinople, Sicily, Genoa, and Provence before infiltrating the rest of the continent. The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History describes its initial progress as “like the advance of a prairie fire, destroying and inescapable.”[2] Dispersed along well-worn trade routes, the Black Death killed nearly one-third of Europe’s population between 1347 and 1352—an estimated 25 million people.[3] In his book The Great Transition, Bruce Campbell observes that “[b]oth proportionately and absolutely it therefore probably ranks as the single greatest public health crisis in recorded European history.”[4]

The tragedy of the plague, however, did not conclude with this initial wave of fatalities. The plague endured for another three hundred years, returning approximately every ten years to ravage European society anew.[5] Dread of the plague manifested itself in a number of ways. In art, for example, the danse macabre became a popular motif. In these scenes personifications of death, frequently in the form of jaunty skeletons, escorted individuals from all stations in life to their graves. In religion, special saints were invoked for their protection against the Black Death. Chief among these were Saint Roch and Saint Edmund. Saint Roch was often shown pointing at a bubo (a wound caused by the bubonic plague) in his leg and accompanied by a dog carrying a piece of bread. Meanwhile, Saint Edmund, who was King of East Anglia, is frequently portrayed with a crown, an orb, a scepter, or arrows (his death involved a volley of arrows). Other saints, however, were also believed to protect against pandemics and the plague. The COVID-19 outbreak has renewed interest of some of these saints, two of whom are described below.

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

Saint Corona – Patron Saint of Lumberjacks . . . and Epidemics?

Saint Corona is believed to have been martyred in the second or third century in particularly gruesome fashion. Tied between two bent palm trees, she was torn apart when the two trees were released.[6] She later became a patron saint of lumberjacks.[7] In 997, King Otto III translated Saint Corona’s relics to Aachen Cathedral where the relics remained, buried beneath a slab of stone in the cathedral’s floor, until the early 20th century.[8] Around 1912, the relics were transferred to a reliquary shrine created by the famous Aachen goldsmith Bernhard Witte.[9]

Master of the Palazzo Venezia Madonna, Saint Corona, tempera and gold on panel (c. 1350). National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark. Note the crown she holds in her left hand and the two palm leaves she holds in her right. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Experts from the cathedral’s treasury had been working to restore Saint Corona’s reliquary in preparation for an exhibition on goldsmithery when the novel coronavirus emerged last year.[10] The pandemic has lent new relevance to Saint Corona, whom cathedral officials allege is also a protector against infectious diseases. Some scholars, however, question Saint Corona’s historical association with pandemics and infectious diseases.[11] Regardless, her name alone has earned her an inescapable connection with the COVID-19 outbreak. Notably, the names of the saint and the coronavirus share the same Latin root, corona, which means crown.

Coronaviruses derive their name from the protein spikes that protrude from their surfaces; when viewed under a microscope, these spikes give the appearance of a crown. Saint Corona’s name relates to a vision of crowns she had near the time of her death. According to legend, Saint Corona comforted a Roman soldier—the future Saint Victor—who was being tortured for his faith. The Roman Martyrology states, “As Corona . . . was proclaiming him happy for his fortitude in his sufferings, she saw two crowns falling from heaven, one for Victor, the other for herself. She related this to all present and was torn to pieces between two trees; Victor was beheaded.”[12] Saint Corona’s feast day is 14 May.

High Altar of Aachen Cathedral, Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), Germany. The relics of Saint Corona were interred beneath a black stone slab to the left of the high altar in 997. The relics were later transferred to a golden reliquary designed by Bernhard Witte in the early 20th century. Photo by Reliquarian.

Saint Rosalia – Protector Against the Plague

Another saint associated with pandemics has also been in the news lately. On the eve of an exhibition celebrating its 150th anniversary, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has been forced to close its doors to the public due to the coronavirus pandemic. A centerpiece of its anniversary exhibition, “Making the Met: 1870-2020,” was to be a painting by Anthony van Dyck titled “Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo.”[13]

The painting, one of the first acquired by the museum after its founding, depicts Saint Rosalia ascending to heaven accompanied by a tumbled passel of cherubim.[14] An article by Jason Farago in the New York Times notes that at first glance, the work could easily be confused for an Assumption of the Virgin due to the lack of visual clues clearly identifying its central figure as Rosalia rather than the Virgin Mary.[15] Farago writes, “Unlike Peter with his keys or Catherine with her wheel, this little-known saint did not have a set of standard attributes until the plague struck.”[16] The plague referenced was an outbreak of bubonic plague that beset Palermo in 1624.

Upon closer inspection, van Dyck’s painting does offer some clues to the saint’s identity. Farago suggests van Dyck had to invent an iconography to identify Saint Rosalia, who was credited with ending the 1624 flare-up.[17] One cherub, for example, bears a wreath of pink and white roses which it is preparing to place on Saint Rosalia’s head. The roses are a reference to the saint’s name “Rosalia.” Another cherub holds a more macabre emblem of the saint: an umber brown cranium which the cherub grasps casually in its left hand. The skull is Saint Rosalia’s, a reference to the saint’s relics, which were unearthed near Palermo during the outbreak of plague in the city.[18]

Anthony van Dyck, Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo (detail), oil on canvas (1624). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo via the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

According to legend, a local Palmeritan woman was healed of the plague after praying fervently to Saint Rosalia.[19] Later, the saint revealed the location of her bones to the woman in a dream.[20] The bones were subsequently discovered in a cave on Mount Pellegrino near Palermo.[21] Hagiographies of the saint suggest that Rosalia fled to Mount Pellegrino to avoid a marriage arranged for her by her father and that she changed caverns frequently, guided by an angel, to avoid discovery.[22] In van Dyck’s painting, Mount Pellegrino is clearly visible in the background, as is the harbor of Palermo.

Today, the Festino di Santa Rosalia, which takes place in July, is one of the largest festivals in Italy.[23] At present, however, it is still unclear whether the festival will proceed as planned as many Italians remain in quarantine. Meanwhile, “Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo” also remains in quarantine amidst the coronavirus outbreak. The Metropolitan Museum does not plan to reopen until July at the earliest.[24]

[1] 2 C.W. Previté-Orton, The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History 847 (1952).

[2] Id.

[3] Id.; Bruce M. S. Campbell, The Great Transition 307 (2016).

[4] Id.

[5] Id., Previté-Orton, supra note 1, at 847.

[6] “German Cathedral Dusts Off Relics of St Corona, Patron of Epidemics,” Reuters (Mar. 25, 2020), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-saint-idUSKBN21C2PM.

[7] Id.

[8] Id.

[9] Naomi Rea, “A German Cathedral Plans to Display Its Shrine to Saint Corona, Who It Says Is the Patron Saint of Epidemics,” Artnet (Mar. 27, 2020), https://news.artnet.com/art-world/aachen-cathedral-saint-corona-1817631.

[10] Id.

[11] E.g., id.

[12] Catholic Church, The Roman Martyrology 139-40 (revised ed., reprint 1916).

[13] Jason Farago, “The Saint Who Stopped an Epidemic Is on Lockdown at the Met,” N.Y. Times (Mar. 26, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/arts/design/van-dyck-metropolitan-museum-virus.html.

[14] Id.

[15] Id.

[16] Id.

[17] Id.

[18] Id.

[19] Rosa Giorgi, Saints in Art 323 (Thomas Michael Hartmann trans., Stefano Zuffi ed., 2002).

[20] Id.

[21] Id.

[22] Id.

[23] Farago, supra note 13.

[24] Id.

Saint Thomas Becket: Murder at Canterbury Cathedral

12 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by Reliquarian in Metal Reliquary

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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 Shrine of the Three Kings: Grand Reliquary of the Magi

21 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by Reliquarian in Metal Reliquary, Tomb / Sarcophagus

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Christmas, Cologne, Cologne Cathedral, Germany, Hildesheim, Italy, John of Hildesheim, Magi, Milan, mosaic, Munich, reliquary, Saint Helena, Saint Leo, Saint Ursula, shrine, Star of Bethlehem, Three Kings, Venerable Bede

Adoration of the Magi (detail), Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, oil on panel (1517), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The story of the Magi, or the three kings, is a celebrated part of the Christmas story and a popular motif in Western culture. The story can be found in the Gospel of Matthew, though most details of the Magi’s visit derive from a more obscure fourteenth-century source known as the Historia Trium Regum. Matthew’s gospel describes the mysterious star of Bethlehem; the arrival of “wise men from the East”; the Magi’s reception with King Herod; the Magi’s visit to the infant Jesus; their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh; and the warning the wise men received to return home by another way.¹ Other details, however, are omitted from Matthew’s Christmas tale. Exactly how many wise men arrived from the East? Who were they? What were their names? And what happened to them after they returned from Bethlehem? Ultimately, although clearly outside the scope of Matthew’s gospel, how did the bodies of the three kings come to be laid to rest in Cologne, Germany?

The Historia Trium Regum, or History of the Three Kings, by John of Hildesheim elaborates on Saint Matthew’s story and provides an intriguing coda to the narrative, one that explains how the relics of the three kings were brought to the ancient city of Cologne.² From the Historia we learn that there were three wise men and that the three men were actually kings from the East—from the lands of Ind, Chaldea, and Persia. The three kings, named Melchior, Balthazar, and Jasper,³ did not initially know each other before individually setting out to “seek and worship the Lord and King of the Jews.”

Window of the Adoration of the Magi, Cologne Cathedral

Window of the Adoration of the Magi, stained glass (1846), Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom), Cologne, Germany. The Adoration Window actually combines two events related to the birth of Jesus: the Adoration of the Magi and the Adoration of the Shepherds.

The Star of Bethlehem and the Journey of the Magi

According to the Historia, the star that heralded the birth of Jesus had long been prophesied and watched for by the people of Ind. The Historia states, “Now, in the time when Balaam prophesied of the Star that should betoken the birth of Christ, all the great lords and the people of Ind and in the East desired greatly to see this Star of which he spake.”⁴ Consequently, the people gave gifts to the keepers of the Hill of Vaws, a tall hill in the Kingdom of Ind that was used as a lookout point, and bade the sentinels, “if they saw by night or by day any star in the air, that had not been seen aforetime,” to send word to the people of Ind.⁵

Eventually, the star appeared. “When Christ was born in Bethlehem, His Star began to rise in the manner of the sun, bright shining. It ascended above the Hill of Vaws, and all that day in the highest air it abode without moving, insomuch that when the sun was hot and most high there was no difference in shining betwixt them.” Following the day of the nativity, “the Star ascended up into the firmament, and it had right many long streaks and beams, more burning and brighter than a brand of fire; and, as an eagle flying and beating the air with his wings, right so the streaks and beams of the Star stirred about.”⁶

The star guided each of the kings from his native land. We are told that “[w]hen they stood still and rested, the Star stood still; and when they went forward again, the Star always went before them . . . and gave light all the way.” As the three kings and their retinues converged on Jerusalem, they finally met. “[N]otwithstanding that none of them ever before had seen the other, nor knew him, nor had heard of his coming, yet at their meeting each one with great reverence and joy kissed the other.” They continued as a group into Jerusalem and then to Bethlehem, which they entered on “the sixth hour of the day.” Together they rode through the streets until they came to a little house. There, “the Star stood still, and then descended and shone with so great a light that the little house was full of radiance, till anon the Star went upward again into the air, and stood still always above the same place.”⁷

The Adoration of the Magi and the Feast of the Epiphany

The kings “fell down and worshipped” Jesus at the house and offered him magnificent gifts.⁸ In addition to silver, jewels, and precious stones, Melchior gave Jesus “a round apple of gold” and thirty gilt pennies; Balthazar gave Christ incense; and Jaspar gave him myrrh, which he offered “with weeping and tears.”⁹ In art, this event is often referred to as the “Adoration of the Magi,” while their visitation to the infant Jesus is celebrated as the Feast of the Epiphany, or “manifestation.”¹⁰

Columba Altar (detail), Rogier van der Weyden, oil on panel (c. 1455), Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany

The Magi remained in Bethlehem for some time before preparing to return home. In a dream, the three kings were told not to return to Herod, so they chose to return to their homes by another route. When they left Bethlehem, “the Star that had gone before appeared no more.” Journeying together for many days, they eventually came to the Hill of Vaws, where they built a chapel “in worship of the Child they had sought.” They agreed to meet at the chapel once a year and “ordained that the Hill of Vaws should be their place of burial.”¹¹

The Death of the Wise Men

Many years later, “a little before the feast of Christmas, there appeared a wonderful Star above the cities where these three kings dwelt, and they knew thereby that their time was come when they should pass from earth.” Together, they agreed to build “a fair and large tomb” at the Hill of Vaws, “and there the three Holy Kings, Melchior, Balthazar, and Jasper died, and were buried in the same tomb by their sorrowing people.”¹² As Mark Rose observed in an article for Archeology, “If we were to assume that this actually happened, that all three died at the same place at the same time, it might have been in the mid-first century (since the kings were adults already in Bethlehem).”¹³

Two centuries later, the Historia explains that Saint Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, journeyed to Ind and recovered the bodies of the three kings from their tomb on the Hill of Vaws. She put them into a single chest ornamented with great riches and brought the relics to Constantinople and the church of Saint Sophia, also known as the Hagia Sophia. In the late sixth century, under the Emperor Mauricius, the relics were translated to Italy, where “they were laid in a fair church in the city of Milan.”

Shrine of the Three Kings (detail), Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany

Shrine of the Three Kings (detail), Nicholas of Verdun, gold, silver, and semi-precious stones (1190-1220), Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany

The relics of the three kings remained in Milan until the twelfth century when the city of Milan rebelled against the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I, also known as Frederick Barbarossa. In need of assistance against the Milanese, the emperor appealed to Rainald von Dassel, Archbishop of Cologne, who recaptured Milan and delivered the city to the emperor. In gratitude, and “at the Archbishop’s great entreaty,” the emperor transferred the relics to the Archbishop in 1164. The Archbishop, “with great solemnity and in procession,” carried the bodies of the three kings from Milan to Cologne, where they were placed in the church of Saint Peter. “And all the people of the country roundabout, with all the reverence they might, received these relics, and there in the city of Cologne they are kept and beholden of all manner of nations unto this day.” The Historia concludes, “Thus endeth the legend of these three blessed kings—Melchior, Balthazar, and Jasper.”¹⁴

The Relics of the Magi at Cologne Cathedral

John of Hildesheim may have thought he had had the last word on the three kings, but the Shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne Cathedral (pictured above) and the precious relics it purportedly contains has continued to fascinate modern visitors.¹⁵ Are the bones sealed in the reliquary really those of Melchior, Balthazar, and Jasper?

One of the earliest and most intriguing depictions of the Magi is a late sixth-century mosaic located at New Basilica of Saint Apollinaris (Basilica di Sant’Apollinare Nuovo) in Ravenna, Italy. The Magi appear dressed in Eastern clothing, carrying traditional gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.¹⁶ Additionally, the three kings are portrayed as men of different ages: Jasper is depicted as an older man with white hair and beard; Balthazar is shown as a middle-aged man with dark hair and beard; and Melchior is represented as a beardless young man. (In contrast, the Venerable Bede, writing in the 8th century, identifies Melchior as an “old man, with long beard,” Jasper as “young, beardless, [and] of ruddy hue,” and Balthazar as “with heavy beard” and “middle aged.”)

Mosaic of the Magi, Basilica di Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy. Courtesy of Nina Aldin Thune, Wikimedia Commons.

In 2004, Egyptologist Bob Brier and The Learning Channel examined whether the bones in the Shrine of the Three Kings could possibly be the bones of the Magi, and their investigation revealed something remarkable.¹⁷ Scrutinizing the cranial sutures of the three skulls kept in the shrine, Brier’s team concluded that the skulls appeared to be from individuals of different ages: one older (the sutures were completely fused), one middle-aged (the sutures were mostly fused), and one younger (the sutures were incompletely fused). The relative ages of the skulls appeared to corroborate the depiction of the Magi in the Ravenna mosaic.

The three skulls in the shrine were also graced with golden crowns, apparently given to the church by King Otto IV of Brunswick in 1199. Incidentally, in recognition of the importance of the kings’ relics, three golden crowns appear on the coat of arms of the city of Cologne. As Gerald J. Brault explains in Early Blazon: Heraldic Terminology in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries with Special Reference to Arthurian Heraldry, “Three crowns were frequently an allusion to the Three Wise Men whose relics were brought by Frederick I Barbarossa from Milan to Cologne in 1164. Commemorating this event, three crowns are featured in the arms of the City of Cologne dating from the end of the thirteenth century as well as on the seal of the University of Cologne from 1392 onwards.”¹⁸

King of Kings

For those who have visited Cologne Cathedral, the impressive and stately Shrine of the Three Kings serves as a visual reminder of events that transpired over two thousand years ago, when three men left the comfort of their homes to worship at the feet of an infant. Pope Saint Leo, writing in the fifth century, helps keep the meaning of their visit in perspective: “When a star had conducted them to worship Jesus, they did not find Him commanding devils or raising the dead or restoring sight to the blind or speech to the dumb, or employed in any divine action; but a silent babe, dependent upon a mother’s care, giving no sign of power but exhibiting a miracle of humility.”¹⁹ In the din of our modern world, this message of hope and faith may strike some as something of an epiphany.

Shrine of the Three Kings, Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany

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To all our readers, we wish you a merry Christmas and a joyous and safe holiday season. We hope to see you back in 2014 and look forward to sharing further posts with you at Reliquarian.com in the new year.

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Die Heiligen Drei Könige (The Three Holy Kings), oak (originally polychromed) (1490), Nuremberg, Germany. These figures are rare examples of Dutch medieval sculpture and were originally displayed on the pillars of a church, along with the Virgin Mary. The physiognomy and lively pose of the sculpture on the left identify him as King Balthazar, who is often depicted as a dark complexioned, “exotic” figure from either Africa or Arabia.

Die Heiligen Drei Könige (The Three Holy Kings) (detail), oak (originally polychromed) (1490), Nuremberg, Germany

Adoration of the Magi, oil on canvas, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, Germany

Adoration of the Magi (detail), painted wood (late 15th century), Archdiocesan Musem, Krakow, Poland

Poklon Trzech Króli (Adoration of the Magi) (detail), painted wood (c. 1450-1475), Archdiocesan Musem, Krakow, Poland. This sculpture was originally displayed in Saint Mary’s Church in Krakow and was probably the central scene of a lost triptych. According to the Archdiocesan Museum, it is an example of the “angular” late Gothic style of sculpture in Krakow that preceded the later, more “expressive” work of Wit Stwosz (Veit Stoss). See Andrzej Jozef Nowobilski, Origin Collection Activity 70 (2011).

Adoration of the Magi - Metropolitan Museum

Adoration of the Magi (detail), oak with paint and gilding, South Netherlandish (1520), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Shrine of the Three Kings, Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany. During the Middle Ages, the shrine was kept in the crossing. Today, it is displayed above the high altar, at the rear of the inner choir.

1 Matthew 2:1–16.

2 See The Early English Text Society, The Three Kings of Cologne: An Early English Translation of the “Historia Trium Regum” by John of Hildesheim (C. Horstmann ed., 1886); Steph Mineart, The Three Kings of Cologne—A Legend of the Middle Ages, CommonPlaceBook.com (Mar. 3, 2004), http://commonplacebook.com/culture/the_three_kings/ (featuring a modernized translation of the story by H.S. Morris). John of Hildesheim was a Carmelite friar who lived in the Prince-Bishopric of Hildesheim in what is not present-day Germany.

3 “Balthazar” is sometimes spelled “Balthasar.” “Jasper” sometimes appears as “Gaspar” or “Caspar.”

4 The Three Kings of Cologne—A Legend of the Middle Ages, supra note 2.

5 Id. The Hill of Vaws is also known as the Hill of Victory.

6 Id.

7 Id.

8 Id.

9 Id.

10 George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art 78 (1961). The Feast of the Epiphany was traditionally celebrated on January 6^th, the twelfth day of Christmas.

11 The Three Kings of Cologne—A Legend of the Middle Ages, supra note 2.

12 Id.

13 Mark Rose, “The Three Kings & the Star,” Archeology, Dec. 21, 2004, available at http://archive.archaeology.org/online/reviews/threekings/.

14 The Three Kings of Cologne—A Legend of the Middle Ages, supra note 2.

15 See Der Kölner Dom, http://www.koelner-dom.de/ (last visited Dec. 21, 2013) (official website of Cologne Cathedral).

16 Ferguson, supra note 10, at 78. As George Ferguson points out in Signs and Symbols in Christian Art, the three gifts apparently hold a symbolic meaning: “gold to a King, frankincense to One Divine, myrrh, the emblem of death, to a Sufferer.” These gifts “represent the offering to Christ of wealth and energy, adoration, and self-sacrifice.” Id.

17 Mummy Detective: The Three Kings (The Learning Channel television broadcast Dec. 23, 2004); see also Rose, supra note 13.

18 Gerald J. Brault, Early Blazon: Heraldic Terminology in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries with Special Reference to Arthurian Heraldry 45 (2nd ed. 1997). The eleven black “tears” on the escutcheon of the coat arms, more formally known as gouttes of tar, have come to represent Saint Ursula (Cologne’s other patron saint) and the eleven thousand virgins with whom she was martyred. In reality, they are likely representations of the black spots commonly found on ermine fur. See Cologne Coat of Arms, Cologne Tourist Board, http://www.cologne-tourism.com/attractions-culture/city-history/coat-of-arms.html.

19 See 1 Butler’s Lives of the Saints 40 (Herbert J. Thurston, S.J. & Donald Attwater eds., 2d ed. 1956).