PIGMENTED deootion MEDIEVAL OBJECTS FROM THE SCHNUTGEN MUSEUM COLOGNE Edited by NANCY NETZER VIRGINIA REINBURG McMullen Museum of Art BOSTON COLLEGE ^G^GMEN TED deootion MEDIEVAL OBJECTS FROM THE SCHNUTGEN MUSEUM COLOGNE Edited by NANCY NETZER VIRGINIA REINBURG McMullen Museum of Art BOSTON COLLEGE Distributed by THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS This publication is issued in conjunction with the exhibition Fragmented Devotion: Medieval Objects from the Schnutgen Museum, Cologne at the Charles S. and Isabella V. McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College. February 7 to May 22, 2000 The exhibition is organized by the McMullen Museum of Art in conjunction with the Schnutgen Museum, Cologne. Principal Curators: Nancy Netzer and Virginia Reinburg Co-Curators: James Bernauer, S.J. Patricia DeLeeuw Donald Dietrich Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen This exhibition and catalogue are underwritten by Boston College and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal Agency, with additional contributions from the Jesuit Institute of Boston College and the Patrons of the McMullen Museum. Copyright 2000 by the Charles S. and Isabella V. McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts Library of Congress Card Catalogue number 99-74756 ISBN 1-892850-01-X Distributed by the University of Chicago Press Exhibition and Publication Coordination by Kerry Leonard Copyediting by Naomi Rosenberg Produced by the Office of Publications and Print Marketing at Boston College and the McMullen Museum of Art Catalogue Design by Julia Sedykh Design Numbered photographs and colored plates have been provided courtesy of the Rheinisches Bildarchiv, Museen derStadt Koln and the Schnutgen-Museum, Cologne, except color plate VI which appears courtesy of Thomas Zwillinger Cover photo: Reliquary Bust of a Female Saint (no. 10 [ plate VII J) CONTENTS Director's Preface Nancy Netzer 7 Introduction Nancy Netzer and Virginia Reinburg 9 COLLECTING, RE/COLLECTING, CONTEXTUALIZING AND RECONTEXTUALIZING: DEVOTION TO FRAGMENTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES Nancy Netzer, Department of Fine Arts, Boston College 17 FRAGMENTS OF RITUAL: THE LITURGICAL USE OF OBJECTS IN THE COLLECTION OF ALEXANDER SCHNUTGEN Patricia DeLeeuw, Department ofTheology, Boston College 31 RELIGIOUS LIFE AND MATERIAL CULTURE IN MEDIEVAL AND REFORMATION COLOGNE Virginia Reinburg, Department of History, Boston College 40 ALEXANDER SCHNUTGEN’S DEVOTION TO THE MIDDLE AGES Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen, Director, Schnutgen Museum, Cologne 60 FATHER SCHNUTGEN’S CATHOLIC GERMANY Donald Dietrich, Department ofTheology, Boston College 68 WHERE WAS MARY? A POST-HOLOCAUST INQUIRY James Bernauer, S.J., Department of Philosophy, Boston College 77 CATALOGUE OF ORJECTS IN THE EXHIBITION Ulrike Mathies, Independent Scholar 97 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/fragmenteddevotiOOnetz director’s prefac e Nancy Netzer In keeping with most academic disciplines, art history recently has come to emphasize the fragmentation and discontinuity of the devel- opment of art. As the canon of objects deemed worthy of serious study expanded, the impossibility of constructing a coherent picture of the whole became evident. If such a picture were to exist, the corpus of examined objects, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, could be fitted together, gradually filling the lacunae until a consistent, total picture emerged. Post-modern scholars now believe that this task is an impossible ideal and that individual objects are fragments that cannot be integrated into a single story. The inquiry shifts then to what stories, if any, various groups of objects are able to tell. Virginia Reinburg, a historian, and I, an art historian, wanted to see if we could find some answers to this question in regard to the material fragments of the devotional world of the middle ages. Specifically, we asked what story might a selection of these objects tell to the post-modern world at the end of two thousand years of Chris- tianity and what stories have they been used to tell in the past. The results are this exhibition and catalogue, the firsts of their kinds to examine aspects of the functions and displays of medieval objects over roughly the past millennium -and fitting projects with which Boston College, a Jesuit and Catholic institution, might celebrate the arrival of the third millennium of Christianity. The possibility of focusing our inquiry on objects from the Schniitgen Museum evolved from casual discussions with a fellow museum director and friend of long standing, Hiltrud Westermann- Angerhausen, who wondered how to store the museum’s collection during planned renovations. Remembering that limitations have the potential to create opportunites, I proposed to solve the Schniitgen’s problem with an exhibition at the McMullen Museum. Dr. Wester- mann-Angerhausen most generously agreed to the idea. What ensued was one of the most rewarding, pleasant, and professionally enrich- ing collaborations I have experienced, for which I extend heartfelt thanks. 7 With no less gratitude, I acknowledge the contribution of m\ friend, colleague and collaborating co-editor, Virginia Reinburg, whose achievements as a scholar of interdisciplinary history are apparent in all aspects of this project. The successful completion of this undertaking also depended on the dedication, creativity and expertise of many. First among them are the other co-curators of this exhibition, all professors from various departments at Boston College: James Bernauer, S.J. (philosophy), Patricia DeLeeuw (theology), and Donald Dietrich (theology) and the author of the entries Ulrike Math- ies. Our curator, Alston Conley, designed the installation to approxi- mate spaces from various periods; our ever-efficient exhibition coordinator and director of publications, Kerry Leonard, aided by grad- uate research assistants Lisabeth Buchelt and Tracey- Anne Cooper and interns Genevieve Reiner and Thea Keith-Lucas, oversaw the produc- tion of the catalogue and loans of the objects; and our administrator, Helen Swartz, coordinated all efforts. I am grateful as well to Naomi Rosenberg for her careful copyediting of the text; to Mark Stansbury for help with proofreading; and to David Williams for supervising the design process. Julia Sedykh designed this elegant book, a devotional object in itself, to mirror the fragmented nature of the objects and their changing meanings over time. Esteemed colleagues Pamela Berger and John Michalczyk of the Fine Arts Department provided expertise and devised public programs to accompany this exhibition. From the Schniitgen Museum in Cologne, Dagmar Taube, Anke Muller, and Gudrun Sporbeck offered wise counsel and aided with research; and Roswitha Neu-Kock, Evelyn Bertram and Marina Frohling at the Rheinisches Bildarchiv supplied photographs. Finally, a special word of appreciation is due the support- ers of this endeavor without whom the exhibition would not have been realized. The administration of Boston College, especially President William P. Leahy, S.J., and Academic Vice-President John .1. Neuhauser, underwrote the major portion of the cost of the project. Generous sup- port was also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, a Fed- eral Agency, the Jesuit Institute of Boston College, and the Patrons of the McMullen Museum chaired by C. Michael Daley. For each of them, as well as for all who participated in this venture, I have unfragmented devotion. 8 INTRODUCTION Nancy Netzer and Virginia Reinburg Medieval art survives today as fragments of larger works, usually dis- played by historical period, geographic location, artistic medium, or monographic theme. Fragmented Devotion is the first exhibition to explore modes of collecting, displaying, and interpreting these frag- ments, and the meanings they have in our understanding of medieval art and religious life. Installations of objects are collections of frag- ments constituting a new whole, and have always changed to reflect the imperatives that surround them, be they intellectual, spiritual, eco- nomic, social, or political. The vision of these broad themes in regard to medieval art presented here is necessarily selective, influenced largely by the objects through which these issues are examined. The works in the exhibition are culled primarily from the collection of Alexander Schniitgen (1843-1918), a Catholic priest and collector in Cologne. Sehmitgen’s collection forms the core of a municipal muse- um of Cologne, which opened in 1910 and to which additional works have been added throughout this century. The Schniitgen Museum now constitutes one of the largest and most important assemblages of medi- eval art in the world. Most of the sixty-two objects shown here have never been exhibited before in North America, and many have not been published since Fritz Witte’s early twentieth-century catalogue of the collection. Five Boston College professors, from the disciplines of art his- tory, history, theology, and philosophy, and the director of the Schniit- gen Museum have come together to examine the contexts in which these medieval objects were viewed and the meanings that they may have had for their various audiences. The exhibition, as presented in the galleries, is divided into three principal sections. The first, “The Middle Ages”, introduces the viewer to the medieval functions of various objects, by evoking both public and private devotional settings in which medieval viewers would have seen them: the medieval church in which the liturgy was performed, smaller shrines dedicat- ed to local patron saints, as well as the more intimate domestic spaces in which medieval people worshipped -the private chapel and the 9 closet altar, equipped wilh smaller crucifixes, reliquaries, rosaries, and i\ ories. The private devotional objects used in homes and shrines emerge as fragments of the public worship conducted in churches and cathedrals. The second section, “Fragments of Fragments: The Nine- teenth-Century Collection,” explains how the destruction of ecclesi- astical foundations during the French Revolution supplied collectors in the nineteenth century, like Schnutgen, with large numbers of medi- eval objects, often fragments from destroyed churches and shrines. The single room in this section, installed with a melange of medieval and neo-Gothic objects, as well as pastiches of both periods, simulates Schnutgen’s own crowded, decorative, and ahistorical display that was organized by type of object-a quintessential mode of display in the nineteenth century. This section explores how a group of medieval fragments from various times and places were collected and present- ed in order to construct a vision of medieval Catholicism; how these fragments, abstracted from their original liturgical and historical set- tings, took on new meanings for the viewer; and how as a group they reflected, supported, and contributed in a newly unifying Germany to the desire for a romanticized, unified past. The third section, “Museum Installation: The 1930s”, in a single, large room approximates the white, spare, bauhaus-like setting in which the Schnutgen Museum was installed in 1932. In this trans- formation from the dense closely-placed arrangements of the previ- ous private setting, the viewer sees how individual fragments from larger devotional ensembles became important as objects of art in themselves, and how the collection that began as an instrument for recalling medieval devotion changed into a museum of art inspiring devotion of a different type. This section also explores how stripping these objects from any recognizable medievalizing context may have left them open to fascist and anti-Semitic exploitation. To better examine the issues raised in the three sections of the exhibition, this volume has been divided into essays focusing on the contexts in which medieval art has been viewed and entries that ana- lyze the individual objects exhibited. The first essay, by Nancy Netzer, provides an overview of reasons for the fragmentation of medieval works of art and of the collecting and display of medieval art from the middle ages to the twentieth century. It considers how the contexts in which these vestiges of the medieval world have been shown alter the messages they convey to audiences. The next two essays, by Patricia DeLeeuw and Virginia Reinburg, address the question of how mate- rial remains may be used to construct a fragmented history of the public and private devotional practices of the middle ages. These are followed by three essays that investigate ways in which medieval devotional objects were interpreted by later generations of Germans with their own religious and political agendas. Hiltrud Westermann- 10 Angerhausen examines Alexander Schniitgen’s philosophy of collect- ing. Donald Dietrich considers the collecting of medieval art as a reflection of issues concerning the position of Catholics in a newly uni- fied Germany in the later nineteenth century. In the final essay, James Bernauer, S.J. discusses how the display of the Schniitgen collection in the 1930s reflects the desire among some German Christians to con- struct from a complex Christian past a religious life relevant for a new age, and how such refashioning left the Christian past vulnerable to fascist exploitation. The short catalogue entries by Dr. Ulrike Mathies treat each object individually, focusing on aspects of their fragmenta- tion and devotional use. The entries are organized according to the order of objects in the exhibition. Needless to say, tb is volume pres- ents only a small part of the history of meanings medieval objects have conveyed over the past millennium. Like the objects displayed, this story is only a fragment, rather than a microcosm of the whole. In the broadest terms, the aims of this exhibition and publication are to invite a varied audience to reflect critically on tbe use and potential abuse of Christian imagery over the past millennium and to stimulate discus- sion about practices of collecting art and the interpretation of art from past cultures. 11 Works in the catalogue are arranged to correspond to the exhibition’s three main sections: The Middle Ages, Fragments of Fragments: The Nineteenth-Century Collection, Museum Installation: The 1930s. Numbered images and color plates (designated by Roman numerals) are works in the exhibition. Additional images are designated as figures (fig.). Abbreviated references are listed in full at the end of each essay and following the catalogue. 3MEN T EJ dcootion MEDIEVAL OBJECTS FROM THE SCHNUTGEN MUSEUM COLOGNE COLLECTING, RE/COLLECTING, CONTEXTUALIZING AND recontextualizing: DEVOTION TO FRAGMENTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES Nancy Netzer w henever the context in which a work of art is seen changes, the resonance of the work changes. This proposition applies especially to the group of objects produced as part of the overarching devotional scheme of the middle ages, and largely because the intellectual, cultural, and physical contexts in which medieval objects have been viewed between the time of their manufacture and the present day have shifted so frequently and drastically. Many medieval works regarded today as objects of art were produced as functional utensils or decorative ele- ments of larger structures. In the post-medieval period, many were severed from their intended contexts and physical settings -for exam- ple, shrines (no. 36), altars, (nos. 35 [plate XI] 56 [plate XII]), or choir stalls (nos. 34, 58 [ plate XIV]). They were transported to different envi- ronments, often collections of similar works from various sources, and used for entirely different purposes. Once they enter collections and are placed on display, most medieval objects are deprived of the use- fulness for which they were produced. Chalices (nos. 5, 45-47), censers (nos. 6, 48-49), candlesticks (nos. 18-19), portable altars (no. 21), and pyxes (no. 17) are no longer used in the practice of the liturgy. Reli- quaries (nos. 10-14 [plate VII]) and paxes (nos. 16, 41) are no longer touched and kissed. Within collections these utilitarian objects of the middle ages acquire the same quality as works of art made not for a specific use, but simply for adornment. Either in display cases or on pedestals and shelves, they await only the gaze of the curious. Their purpose is to be looked at, contemplated, and admired. As elements of new assemblages, these fragments of a medieval past take on new meanings dictated by their ambiance and the critical assumptions of their viewers, thereby engendering devotion of a different sort. Collections of medieval fragments plucked from their orig- inal settings convey information through their systematic arrange- ments. When juxtapositions, accompanying texts, displays and/or installations are altered, the transmitted meanings change; in semi- 17 1 On Schniitgen and his collection see Westermann-Anger- hausen 1993. otic terms, \x hen the contexts of the signifiers change, what is signified max be altered. One goal of this essay will be to suggest a broader con- text for the changing role and messages provided by fragments of the medieval devotional world by focusing on those objects that Alexan- der Schniitgen assembled beginning in the third quarter of the nine- teenth century. Schnutgen’s collection has been amplified to the present day in his eponymous museum, which belongs to the city of Cologne. Of course, how different audiences originally experienced these material vestiges of the medieval past can be recovered only par- tiallx by examining the habits of medieval thought and devotion 2 that informed those early spectators. Similarly, all the meanings these collected objects may have acquired when stripped of their original settings and uses can be neither known nor addressed in so short a survey. Such collections and installations develop overtime and strug- gle against entropy, thereby making recovery of all the intricacies of their original systems and codes impossible. This essay will examine some of the peregrinations of medieval objects over roughly the past millennium and explore some of the types of devotion and meanings they acquired as a result of their fragmentations and new surround- ings. I shall begin with the assembling of objects in medieval church treasuries, then consider the role of medieval works in the collections of nobility and scholars in the early modern period, the Romantic interest in medieval works by antiquarians and other collectors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and some aspects of the contexts public museums provided for medieval objects during the past two centuries. 1 shall pay especial attention to the Schniitgen collection, focusing on how it advanced some of the thematic agendas central to the religious, political and intellectual life in Germany from the mid- nineteenth century to the rise of National Socialism in the 1930s. MEDIEVAL TREASURY The origins of collecting medieval works are to be found in medieval church treasuries, where objects gradually accumulated for both reli- gious and secular reasons. Monastic and cathedral workshops pro- duced precious objects often for use in their liturgies. Churches received valuable objects as gifts from persons wishing to gain favor, and they hoarded holy relics, which are any objects thought to have been in contact with personages from sacred history, often parts of the revered ones’ bodies. Beginning as something different, usually an ele- ment of a living being, relics became both persons and objects through death and fragmentation. The relic retained the grace with which the saint had been invested in life and, therefore, sanctified its new sur- roundings just as effectively as the saint himself would have. It could protect against disease or enemies, insure prosperity, etc. Relics doc- 2 See Reinburg and DeLeeuw in this volume. 18 3 Bede, Historic: Abbatum, chs. 5,6,9. 5 Pearce 1995, pp. 98-108. 6 For inventories of these collections see Labarte 1879 and Guiffrey 1894-96. u merited miracles of divine intervention and thereby reminded the viewer of the link between the divine and mundane worlds. Symbolic meanings of accumulated relics also lay in their ability to attract to the churches that possessed them gills of land and precious objects. Their owners often enshrined them in elaborate cas- ings (nos. 10-14 l plate VII]), which they displayed both during reli- gious ceremonies and in rooms referred to as treasuries, along with their collections of other valuable objects, including manuscripts (no. 7 [plate 111 ]), chalices, chasubles (nos. 8, 53 [plates 1 V-V,V 1 1 ), can- dlesticks, pyxes, and textiles (nos. 54-55). Churches also displayed, throughout their buildings, paintings, stained glass windows, sculp- tures (both architectural and freestanding nos. 1-2, 57, 59-60), carved capitals, choir stalls (nos. 34, 58 [plate XIV]), altars (nos. 35, 56 [plates XI-XI I ]), and screens. Clerics took great pains to accumulate vener- ated works for their treasuries. One of the most celebrated early exam- ples is Benedict Biscop (628-689/90), founder of the twin monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow, in Northumbria, who made several jour- neys to Rome to secure relics, pictures, and manuscripts for his new foundations. 3 As transported Mediterranean Christian artifacts to the northern periphery, these objects acquired meaning in Biscop’s churches as symbols of the community’s allegiance to the Roman Church. One of the richest medieval treasuries resided in the Abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris, which received gifts from French sover- eigns as early as the sixth century and was already large by the end of the Carolingian period. In the twelfth century, Abbot Suger enriched Saint-Denis especially with ancient objects, primarily hard stone ves- sels, which he refashioned into Christian liturgical objects. 4 Thus, during the middle ages, the church took on the role of a repository for the material expression of a community’s collected memory and of an exhibition hall where objects were both used and displayed for con- templation and admiration. When these valuables were withdrawn from circulation and donated as gifts to the church and, thereby, to God, they acquired additional significance in their presumed ability to raise the status of the donor in the next world. The aesthetic qualities of even the most finely crafted objects were less important than their spiritual functions as means by which to approach God. 5 By the end of the fourteenth century, some private royal treasure-houses began to be formed. Most notably, Ring Charles V (1338-80) and his younger brother Jean, Due de Berry (1340-1416) had vast libraries and collections of precious objects, which often were val- ued more for their costly materials than for the quality of their execu- tion. 6 Nonetheless, in these secular collections, the valuing of objects for aesthetic reasons, in decline since antiquity began to re-emerge. In this context, the assembled objects of great value, a display of great wealth, had additional meaning as emblems of social rank and proof of superiority for those in power. 4 The contents of the treasury are known from inventories of 1504, 1534 and 1634 and a series of engravings by Dorn Felibien. Except for a few objects taken for the Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Medailles in 1791 and the Louvre in 1793, most of the treasury disappeared during the French Revolution. For dis- cussion see Tresor 1991. 19 FRAGMENTED INTEREST IN THE MEDIEVAL WORLD: EARLY MODERN COLLECTIONS During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the majority of medi- eval objects remained in the treasuries of religious institutions, but some, diverted from their traditional functions or rescued from the obsolescence into which they had fallen, were acquired by scholars and aristocrats (as purchases, legacies, or gifts) for their private col- lections. Medieval objects began to have value in the marketplace and to be passed from person to person. Dealers emerged, especially in centers like Paris, London, Venice and Amsterdam, supplying the demand. Medieval objects were viewed in the Kunstkammern or Wun- derkammern (collections of art or curiosities), alongside specimens from the natural world, antiquities, objects imported from Asia and the Americas, and contemporary paintings and artifacts, depending on the inclinations of the collector. As evidence of particular truths, these objects formed the basis of knowledge in the modernist world. In this context, medieval works were prized primarily not as treasures, but for their didactic function. The objects became part of an assembled orderly explanation of the world in microcosm, in which all the assem- bled works were accorded equal value. Individual medieval works invoked the invisible, i.e. the medieval devotional world, and provid- ed a link to a lost and usually poorly understood past. The medieval object, be it a textile, painting, weapon, seal, carved ivory, metalwork, or jewelry, often won a place in the early modern collection because it was viewed as a historical document, or because it displayed tech- nical virtuosity, rarity, curiosity, or preciousness, or both. These rari- ties often surmounted technical challenges and, therefore, were viewed as miracles, junctures between the earthly and the divine. The early modern mentality considered the observation and arrangement of these material specimens to be crucial to objective natural knowledge. Unlike medieval treasuries, in which individual objects had spiritual value and their placement was virtually random, early modern col- lections subjected medieval objects to systematic classification (albeit often based on esoteric resemblances among objects). They were viewed as elements that aided reasoned understanding of the world that God created. Thus, within the early-modern context, it was only as part of the larger rational arrangement that medieval objects acquired spiritual meanings. By creating a large and imposing display, the collector conveyed the legitimacy of certain knowledge and his or her mastery of it. This discussion of early modern col- lections is indebted to Pomian 1990, esp. pp. 34-44, and Pearce 1995, esp. pp. 109-121. 20 ROMANTICIZING FRAGMENTS 8 Wainwright 1989, pp. 5-8. OF THE MEDIEVAL WORLD: THE ANTIQUARIAN IN ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY The dissolution of monasteries in the sixteenth century and the icon- oclasm of the subsequent Cromwellian period, which made a large number of works available, facilitated more widespread collecting of medieval art in England. Both events led to the destruction of many medieval buildings and works of art, which left fragments devoid of their original contexts. These ruins were further vandalized through- out the eighteenth century by a group of collectors called “antiquar- ies” or “antiquarians”, who partook of a general burgeoning of English interest in the middle ages in the later seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies. These men were often portrayed in the contemporary literature as eccentrics. Antiquarians were primarily attracted to the age and his- torical associations of medieval objects; they stood apart from their fellow gentlemen connoisseurs, who continued to amass paintings and classical antiquities on the Grand Tour. Unlike the earlier human- ist collector, who aimed to assemble the world in microcosm, the antiquary had more modest and mundane goals, i.e., to furnish and, indeed, to fill his house to overflowing with objects and architectural fragments. 8 The resulting horror vaccui of these “Romantic” interi- ors displayed medieval objects of all media (woodwork, stained glass, metalwork, armor, stone sculptures, etc.), with little distinction between those ecclesiastical and those secular. As in the early-modern Kunstkammer, medieval fragments formed part of a grand, often ostentatious, scheme intended to impress and glorify the owner in the viewer’s eyes. Romantic interiors were more chaotic jumbles of disparate objects lacking the humanist classification and didactic presentation. Installations reflected the whim and vision of the collector; the logic of the assemblages and groupings could be intensely personal. In such a context, the medieval artifact served the Romantic yearning to enhance the individual experience by extending sensation. The display of artifacts took on the effect of a Gothic dreamworld, the most cele- brated manifestations of which were found in the interiors of Fonthill Abbey and Strawberry Hill, the Gothic Revival houses of William Beck- ford (1760-1844), and Horace Walpole (1717-1797), respectively. Here the fragments of the medieval world hovered somewhere between art and decoration, their overall function being to envelop the past with the present and the present with the past. In certain instances, more- over, self-serving narratives and messages were conveyed to the view- er through the arrangement of medieval fragments supplemented by newly commissioned neo-Gothic objects and decoration. For exam- ple, at Fonthill, within “King Edward’s gallery,” which was decorated with an elaborate scheme of contemporary heraldic and genealogical 21 11 Indeed, they remained there until the recent reinstalla- tion, when they were incorporated with the rest of the Louvre’s medieval collection. 12 The museum contained fragments from antiquity to the seventeenth century. For discussion and additional bibliogra- phy see Bann 1984, pp. 83-92; Haskell 1993, pp. 236-252. decoration, the juxtaposition of medieval and neo-Gothic objects (including Limoges enamel reliquaries, various medieval and Renais- sance v essels, metalwork, and stained glass) signified Beckford’s false claim that lie was descended from Edward 111 (1312-1377). 9 Wainwright 1989, pp. 71-146 with detailed descriptions of the houses. COLLECTING FRAGMENTS OF THE MEDIEVAL PAST IN THE WAKE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The Continent embraced the notion of the Romantic interior with medi- eval antiquities only after 1789, when the religious houses of France were closed and the revolutionary government confiscated their prop- erty. Many ecclesiastical monuments were destroyed and many church treasuries dating back to the middle ages, including the treas- ury at Saint Denis, were dispersed. For the most part, medieval objects were seen as instructive, but not admired for their aesthetic value; they were studied by historians, but not emulated by artists. 11 ' The great 10 Pomian 1990, p. 253 treasures from Saint-Denis, fragments of a once all-powerful devo- tional scheme, were displayed as trophies of the victor, Napoleon, in the Gallery of Apollo 11 in the Louvre. Stripped from the perceived enemy, these precious objects communicated to the viewer the tri- umph of the new r regime over the hegemony of the Church with its roots in the middle ages. Initially acquired as booty, such works, in time, received the public’s appreciation for their aesthetic beauty. The artist, writer, and archaeologist Alexandre Lenoir (1761-1839) salvaged displaced fragments from medieval churches and other, buildings, including sculpture, tombs, decorations and stained glass w indows. He exhibited them to the public, in 1796, in an unprece- dented chronological arrangement, by century, in the Musee des Mon- uments Fran^ais within the old Convent of the Petits Augustins in Paris. 12 In this installation, then, the medieval, often mutilated frag- ment, was simultaneously part of a physical manifestation of a century, a synecdochic representation of the defaced or destroyed monument from which it came, and a symbol of the revolutionary government’s reappraisal of the Church and French medieval history. 13 Although 1 Bann 1984, p. 83. Lenoir did not intend to integrate the fragments in a medievalizing milieu, his arrangement sparked interest in medieval fragments and the decorative possibilities for their display in historically authentic interiors. Many of the objects in Lenoir’s museum were dispersed in 1816, after the restoration of the monarchy, and found their way into private collections. The increased availability of medieval objects in the early- nineteenth century coincided with a new image of the middle ages. The grow ing uncertainty that permeated Europe after the political 22 14 See Vaughan 1980, pp. 1-22. 15 This discussion is indebted to Bann 1984, pp. 86-92. Much of Lenoir's earlier collection was merged with Du Sommerard’s and is still displayed in the ruins of the Roman baths adjacent to the Cluny Museum. upheavals or the French Revolution fostered nostalgia for the pre- industrial past, as epitomized in the middle ages. The period, which, since the Renaissance, had been seen as dark and barbaric, was rein- vented as an age of spirituality and faith. Such ideas found great sym- pathy, especially in Germany, at a time that seemed godless and mate- rialistic. This was the intellectual climate that nurtured the Nazarene painters, who, in forming the Guild of Saint Luke and living ascetic lives, sought to revive the spirit of the medieval world in their paint- ings. 14 This was also the cultural setting into which was released and scattered a flood of fragments torn from larger medieval works and buildings. These fragments fed into a market in which long-estab- lished ecclesiastical, public and private collections were dismantled and changed hands with greater readiness as consequences of the rav- ages of the Napoleonic wars and the instability of Europe up to the Fran co-Prussian war in 1870. In the First half of the nineteenth century, Paris was the hub of medieval art collecting. Alexandre du Sommerard (1779-1842), for example, assembled an outstanding array of works from the middle ages and the Renaissance, precious and functional, ecclesiastical and secular, fragmented and complete. He presented them in various “period” rooms in his home, a late-Gothic townhouse that belonged to the Abbots of Cluny and which on his death in 1842 became a muse- um. In his installation, detached medieval fragments became part of a historically reconstructed whole that respected the traditional associ- ations of the medieval rooms in the house. For example, ecclesiastical objects (reliquaries, manuscripts, liturgical vessels, etc.) were dis- played in the chapel; pottery and faience were shown in the dining room. Within this context, the objects invited viewers to place them- selves in the position of the original user. The history of the middle ages was made “real” through the arrangement of surviving fragments in a Fictional installation. Such a considered use of the medieval fragment, which respected its authenticity at the same time that it re-created the collector’s vision of the past, stands in contradistinction to the English antiquarian’s idiosyncratic juxtapositions of objects for Romantic effect or Lenoir’s grouping by century of otherwise unconnected frag- ments. 15 Once largely the province of the aristocracy, the collecting of medieval objects accelerated throughout Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century with the founding of museums of decorative arts. In England, the influential writer and architect Augustus Welby Pugin fostered nostalgia for the middle ages. The trend of building in the neo-Gothic style and collecting medieval objects probably con- tributed to the ascent of the South Kensington Museum (now the Vic- toria and Albert) in becoming the most active pursuer of these objects. Representatives of these new public institutions in Paris, London, and Berlin, for example, set out on predatory expeditions throughout 23 16 Conforti 1997, pp. 33-37. Europe to acquire medieval fragments in a range of media. Unlike their predecessors, they were to amass collections intended to educate the public about technique and aesthetics as part of their mandate to raise the level of public taste. In those assemblages, arranged largely by material (metal, ivory, glass, textile, etc.), medieval objects, frag- mented or complete, were enshrined as canonical examples of aes- thetic standards from an esteemed pre-industrial age. They were not meant entirely to evoke aspects of the historical period in which they were made or to communicate the symbolic value of the larger ensembles of which they were fragments. Rather, they were displayed principally to encourage imitation in hopes of raising the levels of ornamental art and manufactured goods essential for commercial advancement in their respective countries. Relying on this know ledge, an artisan ostensibly would have been able to trace the stylistic devel- opment of a particular functional object. The goal was not so much to foster interest in medieval objects as it was to use knowledge of them, individually and collectively, to make the particular nation’s products more competitive. ° The collection of primarily ecclesiastical objects from the middle ages assembled by Alexander Schniitgen, largely during the last third of the nineteenth century, engages the legacy of both Alexan- dre du Sommerard and the pedagogical approach of contemporary museums of decorative arts to acquisitions and display. Schniitgen gathered examples to chronicle the development of various sacred objects (e.g., chalices, paxes, candlesticks, and reliquaries of various forms) as well as ieonographie themes (e.g., Madonna and Child, no. 57, and figures of Christ, nos. 37-39) from the beginning of Christian- ity 7 . From 1899 until 1910 the collection was displayed throughout his house at Margarethenkloster 7. 111 some rooms, as in du Sommerard’s house, medieval and neo-medieval fragments and furnishings corn- fig. 1 Alexander Schniitgen’s House argarthenkloster 7, vestment room bined to form a pastiche of a medieval setting like the chapel. In other rooms dedicated to specific media, Schniitgen, unlike du Sommerard, did not reintegrate his medieval objects into a mise en sctne of the past, but rather, reflecting the legacy of contemporary decorative arts muse- ums, arranged his objects according to particular liturgical form. Although he often singled out objects of high aesthetic merit, enshrin- ing them in cases in the center of the room, for the most part, he packed the objects on shelves or applied them directly to the walls. For instance, in one room (fig. 1) chasubles decorated with crucifixes arranged in three horizontal rows served as colorful wallcovering. In another (fig. 2), a chronological development of crucifixes was surrounded by similar arrangements of chalices, monstrances, candlesticks, etc., on an array of shelves that lined the walls. Sometimes Schniitgen combined sculp- tures of individual figures, fragments from various sources, on stacked shelves fitted with Gothic-style tracery to approximate altarpieces. 1 The effect of this installation would have been to impart, through a hor- ror vaccui, a potent systematic and accessible vision of the history of Christianity that would reinforce traditional values on the Catholic viewer. In this context, Schniitgen’s fragments of the medieval world probably would have been viewed by their various audiences (be they Catholic, Protestant or Jewish) as asserting a link between the present and the Catholic domination of the medieval past, by then identified as fig - 2 Alexander Schniitgen's House Margarthenkloster 7, metalwork room 17 Brunner 1993, pp. 237-275. 25 18 ane 1991. p. 115. 20 See Dietrich. a root of the modern German nation. The fragmented medieval archi- tectural monuments in the Rhineland destroyed during the Napoleon- ic invasions became inextricably bound with German nationalism in the eyes of intellectuals and political leaders, some of whom even advocated leaving them in their ruined state to engender anger and national unity. 18 Similarly, the medieval empires of the Carolingians, Saxons, Salians, and Hohenstaufen, since the 1840s had been regard- ed as historical precedents for the identification of the German nation. \t a time when Catholics in Germany were struggling against dis- crimination on various fronts, 19 fragments of medieval objects and buildings, and especially those presumed to have been associated with these prized medieval dynasties, would have taken on added mean- ings as links to an ancient Germanic, and specifically Catholic, past. As Schniitgen displayed it, his collection visually preached (possibly defying the Kulturkampf 20 ) a tangible history of the Catholic Church in Germany. Within Schniitgen’s assemblage, medieval objects also functioned as analogues for the presumed ethical purity of a bygone Catholic era. They would have reinforced current nationalist desires, in a quest for stability, to revive folk traditions feared to be disappear- ing through industrialization. Motivated by a sentimental appreciation for the relics of a German past, Schniitgen’s abundant material remains of an admired medieval past and their dense installation would have testified to his erudition and, thereby, increased the collection’s author- ity in arousing a sense of an imposing history of Catholicism, the strength of its tradition and the consistency of its message over near- ly two millennia. At the same time, the display would have promoted nostalgia for the Catholicism of the pre-industrial world. Within the installation, the individual objects were endowed with the power to revive the (Romantically-construed) values of a religious and moral purity. Schniitgen and others thought these values deficient in their contemporaneous culture epitomized by objects of mass production, yet Schniitgen did not present his objects primarily as canonical aes- thetic models for mimesis, as in museums of decorative arts. THE RISE OF MEDIEVAL ART HISTORY AND THE ELEVATION OF THE MEDIEVAL FRAGMENT IN THE MUSEUM INSTALLATION OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Much of the accumulating of medieval fragments by antiquarians was aesthetically haphazard. Given the emphasis within the German acad- emy on the middle ages, in general, and the development of medieval art history as an academic discipline beginning in the third quarter of 19 See Dietrich in this volume. 26 21 See Brush 1996. PP- 1-15. 23 For description of the installation see Bock 1993, pp. 278-282. the nineteenth century, the study, collecting and display of medieval works of art eventually became more ordered and disciplined. By the late-nineteenth century the subdiscipline of medieval art had achieved a status within art history equal to that of Italian Renaissance and clas- sical antiquity. 21 Interest in producing a more accurate and scholarly understanding of medieval art increased as part of a growing profes- sionalism in the field as a whole, and in the documentation of objects, in general. It is against the backdrop of these intellectual develop- ments that collections of medieval objects, including Schniitgen’s, begin to be reinstalled in public museums. As with all collections, the historical trajectory of Schniit- gen’s collection depends more on the wider tide of intellectual affairs throughout the life of the collection, than on the collector’s original vision. By the time Schniitgen donated his collection to the city of Cologne in 1906 and its subsequent installations first, in 1910, in an annex of the Museum of Applied Arts in Cologne and then, in 1932, in a museum of its own in the old Abbey of Saint Heribert in Deutz (across the Rhine from Cologne), the significance of Schnutgen’s original ordering of the objects would have lost its coherence. The contiguities, as presented in his domestic installation, would not have resonated with the needs of a new expanded public audience no longer restrict- ed primarily to scholars and clergy. 22 The Schniitgen Museum of the 1930s reflects a revisionist agenda to extend the canon of works studied according to new meth- ods of art historical scholarship. As in other contemporary museum installations of medieval art (like the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum and the Louvre) archaeological values of rarity, authenticity, condition and quality of execution had become more important. This interest coincided with the desire to discern the position of the object’s style within the development of evolving theories of regional and national schools of art. In his own installation, Schniitgen seemed unconcerned by the juxtaposition of authentic fragments with con- temporary neo-medieval objects. For Fritz Witte, who took over as director of the museum after Schnutgen’s death, in 1918, and installed the collection at Deutz, in 1932, (fig. 3), such juxtapositions would no longer have been acceptable within the new scholarly, chronological conception which began in room 1 with Romanesque sculpture and ended in room 14 with the seventeenth century. The intervening rooms grouped works to a certain extent by medium within their respective periods. 2 In the Deutz museum, Witte expanded Schniitgen’s medi- eval fragments by adding others of ecclesiastical origin from the Muse- um of Applied Arts and from Cologne Cathedral (e.g. nos. 35, 56 [plates XI— XII]). He displayed them, according to current fashion, on individ- ual pedestals or in cases. Isolation of objects was thought to force “objective assessment” (objektiv[e] Aussage ). 24 Thus, the objects were emancipated both from reference to their original Christian devo- 22 See Dietrich. 24 Bock 1993, p. 279. 27 fig- 3 Schnutgen Museum. Deutz Room 10 1932 Installation 25 Fuhrer 1936, pp. 7, 71-87. See also Bock 1993, pp. 281-282. tional context, orchestrated to deepen faith, and from Schniitgen’s all- embracing, romanticized historical scheme. The spare, white bauhaus- style setting thus endowed the fragments with new meanings. They became objects of aesthetic devotion and, through their placement and adjacent identifying labels (presumably with only title, material, assumed place of origin, and date), communicated to the viewer the current art historical construct of the development of medieval style over time and within different regions. Moreover, the latter divisions often corresponded to modern nations (although the majority of works were German), providing a vehicle, through subtle manipulation of display, to assert historical legitimacy for current national rivalries and to give pride of place to local products. Fritz Witte exploited the objects as signifiers of national identities in 1936 in his introduction to a guidebook for the installa- tion. Here, Witte explains the nature of Rhenish medieval art in the bombastic language of National Socialist cultural ideology, thus championing the medieval period in the Rhineland as an anticipation of the current German regime. The stark, spare installation, which stripped the fragments of reference to their original devotional roles in the medieval world, allowed the text to assign new meanings to the objects, meanings which Witte may never have intended when he designed the installation only four years earlier. The objects are pre- sented as embodiments of heroism and anti-modernity, revered German characteristics under National Socialism, thereby legitimiz- ing these current ideals through reference to a period when Germany was politically fragmented but, presumably, culturally unified. Witte speaks about the ability of the objects to provide a picture spanning a thousand years of Rhenish spiritual life (“das Bild rheinischen Gei- steslebens durch ein Jahrtausend hin durch abrollen zu lassen ”). 26 The fragments are, in effect, visual proof that Rhenish has a time-honored tradition of equaling Christian. In light of the Nazi, anti-Semitic rhet- 26 Fuhrer 1936, p. 7. 28 oric of' the time, some viewers also may have seen the objects as legit- imizing the exclusion of the large and thriving Jewish community in Cologne. Thus, through the interaction ofthis text, with the spare, con- temporary setting and the geographic arrangement of objects, frag- ments (thought to be from the Rhineland) of a medieval devotional scheme might have assumed additional meanings for some audiences as instruments of present-oriented anti-Semitism. For the most part, as more medieval objects have flowed into larger public collections in the twentieth century, their once- familiar Christian devotional code has faded. They have been trans- formed into independent objects of beauty. By their nearly universal display in contemporary, non-historicizing settings, medieval objects have taken on meaning to a great extent through accompanying texts on walls and in catalogues, both of which have increased in size throughout the century. More effort has been made to compensate for medieval objects’ fragmented nature and to reconstruct their missing parts, physically, as well as in accompanying texts. In the last two decades especially, museum labels have become more informative, often focusing on the original context in which the object was shown and incorporating drawings of reconstructions of missing elements. Texts relating to permanent installations of medieval art in public museums, in general, impart the conventional wisdom of the discipline at any given time and avoid controversial scholarly opinions. In most of these installations national properties are still projected onto the works through a combination of text and a nationally-orient- ed organizational scheme. For convenience of installation and view- ing, the objects in larger collections often are divided by medium, with monumental sculpture separated from “treasury” objects. The latter are sometimes displayed in settings resembling the early-modern Kun- stkammer. Occasionally, the objects are displayed in a reconstructed historical milieu, like a transplanted medieval cloister, or a neo-Gothic architectural space. The modern viewer adapts to the requisite imag- inative projection, which depends on the individual’s historical cul- ture and sense of the middle ages. It is important to understand that the type of communica- tion that collections of medieval art have had and will continue to have is provisional. An installation is, after all, only a brief moment in the history of these objects. At the end of this century, when many disci- plines have turned to critical self-examination, the combination of Schniitgen’s medieval fragments and text has allowed the McMullen Museum to construct an exhibition that also reflects it own mentality: a current post-modern vision. Here the combination is recontextual- ized to underscore the extent to which collections and re/collections of medieval fragments (this one included) also can be read as histor- ical documents in their own rights, documents that reflect their own intellectual and cultural climate no less than that of the objects dis- played. The criteria according to which medieval objects are collect- ed and presented also have meaning, and the point of this exhibition is to emphasize that this form of meaning is local and transient. Dif- ferent assemblages of objects and installations will engage different audiences differently, and the outcome of the discourse, however frag- mented it may be, will depend on the viewer’s intellectual milieu, atti- tude towards the middle ages and overall devotion to that period. This exhibition is no exception. This essay is dedicated to my god daughter, Nina Katarina Schadlich, whose grandmother, mother, aunt and uncle introduced me to the splendors of the Schniitgen Museum through Rhenish vision nearly thirty years ago. I thank three esteemed colleagues Pamela Rerger, Claude Cernuschi and Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen for help with this essay; errors are entirely my own. ABBREVIATIONS Bann, S. The Clothing of Clio: A Study of the Representation of History in Nineteenth- Century Britain and France. Cambridge, 1984. Bock, U. "Sammlungskonzep- tionen und didaktisches Schrifttum zum Schnutgen- Museum aus der Zeit seines Grunders und Fritz Wittes,” in Westermann-Angerhausen, H. (ed .) Alexander Schnutgen: Colligitefragmenta ne pereant. Cologne, 1993, pp. 269-282. Brunner, M. "Zur Sonderstruk- tur der Privatkollektion am Beispeil der Sammlung Alexan- der Schnutgens,” in Wester- mann-Angerhausen, H. (ed.) Alexander Schnutgen: Colligite fragmenta ne pereant. Cologne, 1993, pp. 237-268. Brush. K. The Shaping of Art History: Wilhelm Voge, Adolph Goldschmidt, and the Study of Medieval Art. Cambridge, 1996. Conforti, M. "The Idealist Enterprise and the Applied Arts,” in Baker, M. and Richard- son, B. (eds.) A Grand Design: The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum. New York, 1997, pp. 23-48. Fiihrer durch das Schnutgen- Museum der Hansestadt Koln. Cologne, 1936. Guiffrey, J. Inventaires de lean due de Berry (1401-1416), 2 vols. Paris, 1894-96. Haskell, F. History and Its Images. New Haven, 1993. Labarte, J. Inventaire du mobilier de Charles V, roi de France. Paris, 1879. Lane, B. "National Romanti- cism in Modem German Architecture," in Etlin, A. (ed.) Nationalism and the Visual Arts. Washington, 1991, pp. 111-148. Pearce, S. On Collecting: An Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition. London, 1995. Pomian, K. Collectors and Curiosities: Paris and Venice, 1500-1800. Cambridge, 1990. Tresor de St-Denis. Louvre, Paris, 1991. Vaughan, W. German Romantic Painting. New Haven, 1980. Wainwright, C. The Romantic Interior: The British Collector at Home 1750-1850. New Haven, 1989. Westermann-Angerhausen, H (ed.) Alexander Schniitgen: Colligitefragmenta ne pereant. Cologne, 1993. 30 FRAGMENTS OF RITUAL: THE LITURGICAL USE OF OBJECTS IN THE COLLECTION OF ALEXANDER SCHNUTGEN Patricia Deleeuw he objects Alexander Schniitgen so assiduously collected M I recalled for him a distant time, but one with which he felt II a close tie. The vessels and vestments he used in his own religious practice very closely replicated those designed in the middle ages, sometimes impeding art historians as they try to distinguish between medieval religious objects and nineteenth-centu- ry copies. The Schniitgen collection contains several such objects (nos. 44 and 50), which demonstrate the continuity that late-nineteenth cen- tury German Catholics strove to maintain with the medieval past. Even better witnesses for this striving might be other objects, whose medi- eval design was quite seriously, and without a sense of incongruity, combined with a nineteenth-century mechanical object, like the hang- ing boxwood cross that contains a clock (no. 42). As Donald Dietrich points out in his essay in this volume, German Catholics of the last third of the nineteenth-century tried mightily to overcome in sensibil- ity the distance in time that separated them from what they believed to be the Age of Faith. For 11s, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, that time may be irretrievable. This essay, however, will try to recreate some aspects of that time by setting the material objects that Alexan- der Schniitgen collected for his own purposes into the context for which they were originally made, or in which they were used: the cel- ebration of religious ritual in Germany in the later middle ages, the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries. Religious rituals, primarily, for Christians, the celebration of the mass and the sacraments, were part of the lived experience of every person in the middle ages. They symbolized medieval people’s beliefs and values, and made concrete and visible their understand- ing of the transcendent. Through the actions, words, and objects used in the liturgy of the mass and sacraments, people spoke to the sacred, sought divine intercession, marked the major events of their lives, and ordered their relationships with others and the world around them. 1 Participation in liturgical practice brought human lives into contact 1 Eliade 1958, pp. 1-3; Geertz 1973, pp. 90 ff.; Scribner 1987, pp. 17- 18; Beckwith 1993, pp. 75-77. 31 fig. 4 Mass of Saint Gregory Lectionary of the Epistles Spain. Guadalupe October 6, 1506 manuscript on vellum Department of Printing and Graphic Arts, The Houghton Library, Harvard University fMSTyp 199 2 Braun 1924, vol. 1, pp. 378-383; Frankl 1962, pp. 125-127; Hegel 1996, p. 107. with the holy, while it hallowed and gave meaning to those lives. We cannot hear the words of the medieval liturgy, nor view the actions of the clergy and people engaged in liturgical celebration, but the objects used in the liturgy can witness for us the meanings with which medieval people imbued the liturgy. The small, dark parish church, and the large, imposing urban church were the settings for most liturgical practice. The vil- lage church might have had only one altar, usually placed against the wall opposite the main door, while the cathedral at Cologne, for exam- ple, or the urban parish church of Saint Rolumba in Cologne, had a main altar in a sanctuary at one end of the building, and many more altars in small chapels along the sides of the building or behind the main altar. In the village church and in the chapels of the urban church, the liturgy of the mass would have been clearly visible to its audience; the high altars of large churches in the late middle ages were often almost entirely obscured from the view of the congregation by screens made of stone, wood, or metal. " Additional altars, called “rood altars,” were sometime placed in front of the screens. Altars were decorated according to the style of the time, and the means of the con- gregation. In great churches, they were often complex structures with varying levels, or retables, rising at the rear (figs. 4-5). The boxes at 3 Braun 1924, vol. 2, pp. 649-670; Jungmann 1959, p.508; Cabie 1992, P-75. 32 4 Braun 1924. vol. 1. pp. 608-623. 5 For examples, see Reinburg 1992, p. 534, and DeLeeuw 1995, pp. 33 and 35; Dix 1945, pp. 419-421. 7 Lobrichon 1994, P 22. 8 Franz 1909, vol. 1, pp. 86-109; pp. 421-425. the back of the highly-ornamented altars of the late middle ages often contained relics, or were tabernacles, receptacles for consecrated hosts. Indeed, by the late middle ages church legislation insisted that relics he placed w ithin every altar, confirming the transition of the meaning of the altar from table of the early church to ornate shrine of the late middle ages. 4 The decoration of the receptacles for relics and hosts suited their purpose; a tabernaele door (no. 32) in the Schniitgen collection, for example, bears an engraving of the Magi adoring the infant Jesus, a reminder to the observer of the reverence due the real presence of the body of Christ hidden within the tabernacle. Despite the emphasis in Gothic architecture on the introduction of light into churches, the interiors of even the cathedrals would have been rather dark, and the altars difficult to see. During the celebration of the mass, candlelight alleviated somewhat the gloom of the church. Candle- sticks appear often in medieval illustrations of altars; two (no. 18) placed on the altar is the norm, but large, late medieval altars often held many more. 5 As the visual focus and liturgical center of the church, the altar provided a suitable platform to display important religious objects, such as crosses, statues, and reliquaries. Schniitgen’s collec- tion contains many such objects, which are decorative indeed, but purposeful as well, both as visible reminders of the lives of Christ and the saints, and as tangible connections with the holy. On feast days, special holy days celebrated throughout the year to commemorate important events in the life of Christ or to remember international or local saints, both small and large church communities brought their crosses, statues and reliquaries in procession to the altar. 6 The cele- bration of feast days included processions to and from the altar with- in the church, before and during mass, and often at other times of the day, as well. On major feasts processions began in the church and then wound through the town or village, or went out to the countryside, to the fields or the sea. Along the way the clergy and people prayed, chanted scriptural texts or prayers suitable for the occasion of the feast, and carried crosses, statues, and reliquaries from the church, bring- ing to a wider world the lessons the holy objects taught and the spe- cial grace they bore. 7 During the procession, a priest or an acolyte might sprinkle holy water from a laver (no. 33) on the participants or those gathered to watch, and others would swing censers (nos. 6, 48-49) full of fragrant, smoking incense, to further honor the holy objects they carried. 8 Another would lead the procession carrying a crucifix attached to a pole (nos. 4 [plate II] and 37-39). When the pro- cession returned to the church, the crucifix could be taken off the pole and slotted into a stand on the altar. Still others might carry statues of saints being honored on that feast day, or saints special to the town or village, like Saint Kiimmernis in Cologne (no. 1). The most precious objects in the procession, indeed, the most precious objects in the 6 Scribner 1987, pp. 21-22. 33 11 Jungmann 1951-55, vol. 1, pp. 107-119. church to and from which the procession came, were the relics that the community owned and with which it identified. Like the decora- tion of the altar, the lavishness of a church’s reliquaries bespoke the community's wealth. In large urban churches, magnificent reliquar- ies housed and displayed the bones of the saints (nos. 9, 11). Smaller churches had relics too, those in the altar or housed in more modest reliquaries (nos. 10 [plate VII], 14). And high-ranking clerics might even wear relics on important occasions: a fifteenth-century German reliquary in the Schniitgen collection was made in the shape of a crucifix to he worn about the neck on a chain (no. 13). In Germany, in the centuries before the Reformation, processions to honor the host as a relic were common. For these occasions, a small stand to hold the host, called a lunette, could be fitted into the floor of a glass reliquary so that the host could he seen by all those gathered for the procession. When the procession returned to the church, this host reliquary, or monstrance, could be placed on the altar. The mass was the central Christian ritual act. From the thirteenth century attending mass once a week was required of all Christians, and priests were required to say mass each day. 111 Lay peo- ple in the late middle ages said that they “heard” mass, while the priest “said” it; the mass was in Latin, a language unknown to most, although some of its sounds and meanings must have been very familiar from this weekly saying and hearing. Most masses in most churches in the middle ages were “low” masses. Celebrated by one priest, perhaps assisted by an acolyte, spoken and not sung, these were the norm on week days in village churches and were common even in large urban churches. Sundays and feast days saw the celebration of “high” mass- es, which included some singing of prayers by priest and congrega- tion, and in large churches, the participation of many clergy in more elaborate rituals. Although medieval congregants might have had trouble seeing, hearing, and understanding much of the mass ritual, its meaning was quite clear. This most sacred Christian ritual was a reenactment of the central Christian story, the life, death, and resur- rection of Christ. All the mass commentaries of the learned theolo- gians, and all the sermons that distilled this learning for the people agreed. Medieval people loved allegory, and saw lessons and sym- bols of the invisible everywhere in the visible, so it is not surprising that they would understand the drama enacted each Sunday morning as a symbol of that larger drama that was the foundation of their faith. All the actions of the priest in the mass, according to the mass com- mentators, pointed to events in Christ’s life, beginning with the Old Testament prophesies of the coming of the Messiah, through Christ’s ascension into heaven at the end of the mass. It is unlikely that the peo- ple understood all the complexities of these interpretations, but they would certainly have understood the main theme, that, at every mass, the priest was following the command of Jesus: “Do this in memory 9 Rubin 1991, pp. 290-293. 10 On the medieval mass, see Jungmann 1951-55, vol 1, pp, 103-131, Cabie 1992, pp. 75-84; Dixl945, pp. 598- 603. 34 12 Norris 1949, pp. 55-83; Braun 1907, pp. 149-247. of me.” As we shall see, the actions of the priest during mass, and the sacred objects he used, reinforced Christ’s mandate. As befitted an actor in a play, the priest entered the church at the beginning of the mass dressed in special articles of clothing. The use of liturgical vestments had developed over centuries to such an extent that few of those articles retained any function, except as they could point to actual garments of the early centuries of the church, or to meanings that furthered the allegorical interpretation of the mass. The outermost and most ornate of these liturgical vestments was the chasuble, a remnant of the cloak worn by men of every station in ancient times; it could signify, in its decoration, the rank and station of the wearer . 12 In the middle ages the decoration and color of the chasuble signified the place of the day in the liturgical calendar, the annual cycle of movable feasts that celebrated the events of the life of Christ, and fixed feasts that generally celebrated the lives of the saints. By the late- middle ages the liturgical colors had become set: white was worn for important feasts, notably the feast of the Resurrection; black or purple for days of penance and for masses for the dead; red for martyr’s days and Pentecost; green for days without a special feast . 13 Churches that could afford them kept multiple chasubles in the various colors of the liturgical year. The priest’s chasuble was the most visible of the litur- gical vestments, decorated to suit the meaning of the mass and means of the church community. Most medieval chasubles bore a cross on the back, reminding the congregation seated behind the priest of what he was about to witness; prosperous priests might have had chasubles embroidered with scenes from the life of Christ or the saints. Schniit- gen collected some excellent remnants of late-medieval vestments (nos. 8 , 53 [plates IV-V, VI]), and had some of these remnants pieced together to make chasubles, presumably for his own use. When the priest entered the church to begin mass he car- ried with him two objects most integral to the mass: a chalice (nos. 5, 45-47), the cup that held the wine; and a paten, the large plate that held the host, a circular piece of unleavened bread. During the middle ages, as the mass became more spectacle, or drama, enacted by the priest-actor for a watching congregation, rather than the communal celebration it had been in the early years of the church, the chalice and paten shrank to the size of personal utensils. They might belong to the priest himself, or to the parish, and were usually gold, or silver, often encrusted with jewels. Like the reliquaries, the chalice and paten were designed to hold, and to honor, most sacred objects. Indeed, by the time the chalices in the Schniitgen collection were made, the objects that held the consecrated bread and wine in the church were reliquaries, since the host, the body of Christ, had become the central object of pop- ular devotion, as the bodies of saints had been centuries before. 14 During mass the priest would read from one or more books containing the prayers, readings from Scripture, and directions for his 13 Jungmann 1951-55, vol. 1, p. 112; Braun 1907, pp. 734-736. 14 Rubin 1991, pp. 108-129, 35 pp 67-68 vol. 1, p. 104. 17 Massa 1966, p. 13. 18 Jungmann 1951-55, vol. 2, pp. 70-76. actions during mass. The book was most often a simple missal, a com- bination of prayers, readings and directions arranged according to the liturgical cycle. Wealthier churches and those, like cathedrals, with main clergy who participated in ornate high masses, had more books with special purposes that were carried around the altar during the mass. The gospel, a reading from the life of Jesus, was one of the more significant parts of the first half of the mass, and occasionally merited either its own book, the evangeliary, or was bound together with the epistles, the other scriptural reading of the mass, in a book called a lec- tionary. When the priest read from one of these books, congregants understood, even though its contents were written in Latin, that the book was especially sacred. The front cover of the evangeliary here, made in Cologne in the fourteenth century (110.7 I plate 111 )), is covered with gold engravings that depict Christ seated as a majestic teacher holding his own book, surrounded by angels, demonstrating the pur- pose of the book. If the members of the congregation could have seen this evangeliary from their positions in the church, they might have been able to discern on the back cover the allegorical symbols of the four gospel writers. At the time during the high mass when this book was used, a procession of attending clergy might have escorted the priest to the pulpit for the reading; the book and the priest might have been incensed before, and perhaps even after the reading; and the peo- ple knew to stand reverently to hear the lesson. 16 After the gospel read- ing the priest kissed the book, and then might have explained in his sermon, in the vernacular, the meaning of the words he had just read in Latin. After the readings and the sermon, and after an offering of prayers and sometimes gifts by the priest and the people, came the most sacred part of the mass. Now the church would be silent, except for the Latin mutterings of the priest. At this moment during high masses, the celebrant or another member of the clergy would incense the altar (nos. 6, 48-49), the gifts that had been brought, and perhaps also the other clergy and the congregation. 8 Then, to prepare for his encounter with the holy, the priest engaged in a ritual washing of his hands, using a vessel held for him by an acolyte, while reciting a prayer that asked God to wash away his sins, so that, in the words of a missal used in late medieval Cologne, “I might be worthy to touch your mysteries.” 19 Although in Germany the hand washing took place usually during mass, the priest alternatively might have washed his hands and said similar prayers in the sacristy before the mass, using a vessel like the bronze hanging bowl in the Schniitgen collection (no. 35). The crowning moment of the mass was the consecration, when the priest said words over the bread and wine to make them become the body and blood of Jesus. The congregation, which most likely had been standing, now knelt on the hard stone floor, and gazed intently at the altar. After whispering prayers in Latin, the priest would 16 Jungmann 1951-55, vol. 1, pp. 442-455. 19 Jungmann 1951-55, vol. 2, p. 78. 36 21 Cabie 1992, pp. 78-79. 22 Bossy 1983, pp. 54-56. 23 Jungmann 1951-55, vol. 2, pp. 452-455; Franz 1909, vol. 1, pp. 239-263. genuflect, an acolyte might ring a bell, and then the culmination: the priest elevated the host above his head for all to see. 20 God was now present on the altar, as He had been on earth in the body of Jesus hun- dreds of years before, and as He would be again at the end of the world. This was the high point of the drama, the ritual moment that con- nected heaven and earth, and all gathered in the church with Chris- tians of all time. Although the consecrated host was an object of intense devotion, medieval people rarely received communion. There was even a perceived need to insist that they occasionally participate in communion: church law in the thirteenth century stipulated that the laity receive the Eucharist once each year. Instead, most were content just to view the consecrated host. There are stories of devout Chris- tians running from church to church, or moving from altar to altar in a large church where multiple masses were being said at the same time, to see the elevation of the host at the consecration as many times as possible. 21 In the later middle ages, the kiss of peace, which comes just before the priest’s communion and after the Lord’s prayer, seems to have replaced communion as a participatory act. In England in the thirteenth century, instead of exchanging a discreet kiss with one another, congregants at mass were invited to kiss a small decorated board, called a pax, which was passed among them after being kissed by the priest. 2 The custom of the pax, which quickly spread through- out Europe, transferred a greeting, and reinforced the notion that the mass was a religious ritual that united all Christians from every order of society. A religious object came into direct contact with, and view of, each person in the church, drawing attention to the decoration of the pax. It often bore a representation of the Crucifixion (nos. 16, 41), a reminder that the mass was a recreation and remembrance of the source of salvation. At the end of mass came another ritual that provided the people direct contact with a holy object, and replaced the reception of communion as a participatory act. Leaving the church, congregants would take with them a piece of leavened bread that had been blessed by the priest. 23 Special plates, decorated with symbols relating to the body of Christ, held this bread. One example of such a plate in the Schniitgen collection (no. 31) bears the image of Christ represented as the Lamb of God. Its German inscription recalls the Latin words of the blessing the priest gave the congregants as they left the church: Go in peace. The manufacture of such a plate in late medieval Germany may be worthy of note, as the custom of the blessed bread was thought to have died out there by about 1200. Carrying their blessed bread, the people left the church and resumed their mundane lives, but took with them the lessons of the rituals they had observed. As we have seen, in the middle ages, reli- gious ritual took place largely within the walls of the church, but not 20 Reinburg 1992, p. 533. 37 24 Cauvreau 1966, pp. 175-199, 26 Geertz 1965, pp. 167-168. exelusivelj ; processions of clergy and laity carrying religious objects, for example, brought the transcendent out to the world. There were other ways that the holy, even the mass itself, could leave the confines of the church. Since the time of the missionaries who brought Chris- tianity to Europe in the early middle ages, traveling priests carried portable altars on which to say mass outside a church. Some portable altars were simple boxes, useful as tables for mass and receptacles for the required relics (no. 21). Later examples often recalled elaborate church altars, with their ornate retables forming a background to the priest as he stood to say mass (no. 20 [plate VII 1 ]). On occasion, priests would carry consecrated hosts with them. The sacrament of the last rites, w hich combines the adminis- tration of a last communion, or viaticum, with a blessing of the body with holy oils, 24 necessitated portable receptacles for consecrated objects. The pyx (no. 17) was designed to hold hosts to be carried from the church. The Schniitgen collection includes another sort of vessel (no. 15) that conveniently housed both oils and hosts, and could be attached to the belt of the priest as he journeyed to the side of the sick person. Shaped like a cross and bearing the image of the Crucifixion, it reminds the observer that Christ’s death made possible our entry into heaven. Medieval religious objects that make the holy visible and tangible, and that were designed for use in liturgy, were also, as we have seen, intended to be didactic. The artisans who crafted them shaped their rich ornament to teach lessons about the meaning of the rituals in which they were used. The mass as a recollection of Christ’s saving life and death was clearly taught by the decoration of altars, vestments, liturgical vessels, and books. That death had meaning for all Christians, because it ensured blessings in this life and the possibility of eternal blessings in heaven. That promise of eternal happiness in the Heav- enly Jerusalem of the Apocalypse is a favorite theme in medieval art, c and it is strikingly common in the medieval German religious objects collected by Alexander Schniitgen. Censers, reliquaries, and pyxes all look like little churches themselves, an architectural iconography that any medieval Christian would have understood to symbolize heaven. The theme of the Heavenly Jerusalem reminded medieval Christians that the religious rituals in which they took part, rituals that primari- ly recalled the events of the life of Christ, were efficacious in their own lives and in the future. In the words of a well-known cultural anthro- pologist, this is the cultural system 26 that medieval Christianity was. It is a system that Alexander Schniitgen tried to recreate in his own world, and it is a system that we can begin to understand through the fragments of devotion that he collected. 25 McGinn 1983, pp. 270-283. 38 ABBREVIATIONS Beckwith, S. Christ’s Body: Identity, Culture and Society in Late Medieval Writings. London, 1993. Bossy, J. Christianity in the West, 1400-1700 Oxford, 1985. Bossy. J. "The Mass as a Social Institution, 1200-1700," Past and Present, 100, 1983, pp. 29-61. Braun, J. Die Liturgische Gewan- dung im Occident und Orient. Freiburg, 1907. Braun. J. Der christliche Altar in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung. 2 vols. Munich, 1924. Cabie, R. History of the Mass. trans. by Johnson, L. Washing- ton, DC, 1992. DeLeeuw, P. "Unde et Memo- res, Domini: Memory and the Mass of St. Gregory,” Memory and the Middle Ages. Netzer, N. and Reinburg, V. (eds.) Boston College Museum of Art, 1995, pp. 33-43. Dix, G. The Shape of the Liturgy. London, 1945. Eliade. M Patterns in Compara tive Religion. New York, 1958. Frankl, P. Gothic Architecture. trans. by Pevsner, D. Baltimore, 1962. Franz, A. Die kirchliche Benedik tionen in Mittelalter. 2 vols. Freiburg, 1909. Gauvreau, A. Rituels sacramen- taires. Montreal, 1966. Geertz, C. "Religion as a Cultural System,” Reader in Comparative Religion. An Anthropological Approach. Lessa, W. H. and Vogt, E. Z. (eds.). New York, 1965, pp. 167-178. Geertz, C. The Interpretation of Culture. New York, 1973. Hegel. E. St. Kolumba in Koln. Studien zur Kolner Kirchen- geschichte 30, Siegburg, 1996. Jungmann, J. The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, trans. by Brun- ner, F. A. New York, 1951-55. Jungmann, J. "Liturgy on the Eve of the Reformation," Wor- ship 33,1959, pp. 505-515. Lobrichon, G. La religion des laics en Occident, Xle-XVe siecles. Paris, 1994. Massa, W. Die Eucharistiepre digt am Vorabend der Reforma- tion. Siegburg, 1966. McGinn, B "Symbols of the Apocalypse in Medieval Culture," The Bible and Its Traditions. O'Connor, M. P. and Freedman, D. N. (eds.), Michigan Quarterly Review 22, 1983, pp. 265-283. Norris, H. Church Vestments Their Origin and Development. London, 1949. Reinburg, V. “Liturgy and the Laity in Late Medieval and Reformation France," Sixteenth Century Journal 23, 1992. Rubin, M. Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture. Cambridge, 1991. Scribner, R. Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany. London, 1987. 39 RELIGIOUS LIFE AND MATERIAL CULTURE IN MEDIEVAL AND REFORMATION COLOGNE Virginia Reinburg his exhibition from the Schniitgen Museum, one of the ■ I most important collections of medieval art, provides us a ft I rare opportunity to explore the meaning of religious objects within late medieval European culture. The objects on dis- play from the Schniitgen collection are beautiful, but at the same time puzzling. We can readily admire an expressive Pieta (no. 62 [plate XV]), a gracefully carved sculpture of Christ as the Man of Sorrows (no. 2), the elegant lines of gilded silver chalices (nos. 5, 45-47). But it seems more difficult to imagine what appeal other objects in the exhibition might have had for late medieval men and women. What are we to make of the paper mache head of Jesus (no. 50 [plate X]), dripping with painted blood? Or the ivory beads (no. 22) with worm-eaten skulls carved into them? Or even the homely charm of terracotta Figures of the holy family and saints (nos. 25-29), the oddly bearded Saint Kiim- mernis (no. 1)? Our own aesthetic and religious sensibilities alone may not help us to see the beauty and usefulness of these works. For the opportunity to examine such an extraordinary range of works we must thank several generations of directors and curators of the Schniitgen Museum, and above all Alexander Schniitgen, for his broad-minded collecting of objects of such varied function, medium, and style-many of which do not correspond to modern taste and concern. For a way to understand the objects in our exhibition we could turn to the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga (1872-1945). It was his perception of a sharp difference in sensibility between the late mid- dle ages and the early twentieth century, among other things, that led Huizinga to write his now classic book The Waning of the Middle Ages, first published in 1919. “The study of the art of an epoch remains incom- plete,” Huizinga wrote, “unless we try to ascertain also how this art was appreciated by contemporaries: what they admired in it, and by what standards they gauged beauty.” Furthermore, “really to under- stand art, it is of great importance to form a notion of the function of art in life; and for that it does not suffice to admire surviving master- 40 1 Huizinga 1954, pp. 264, 243-244 On this work see Bouwsma 1990, Krul 1997, Peters and Simons 1999. 2 For critiques of this approach see Rein- burg 1993; Gibson 1989, pp. 1-18; Hamburger 1998, esp. pp. 111-114. 4 On the history of Cologne through the seventeenth century I follow Gerald Chaix's magisterial these d'etat (Chaix 1994). pieces.” 1 Rather, Huizinga argued, the modern viewer must try to under- stand works of art in relation to the culture that gave birth to them. Even the humblest (as well as the “ugliest”) objects were fragments of a larger cultural whole, and could be clues to understanding it. Many features of the portrait of late medieval culture that Huizinga painted based on bis study of its remaining fragments are still fresh alter three- quarters of a century. Long before social historians showed us bow to pay attention not only to a society’s institutions and ideas, but also to its festivals, fashions, and food, Huizinga delighted in such details of everyday life. He was particularly effective at evoking life in the prince- ly courts of northern Europe, but unquestionably an unsympathetic guide to religious life (condemning devotion to saints as “childish,” the cult of relics as “materialistic”). 2 If we ignore Huizinga’s views of medieval Christianity, we might still follow his advice to study art and artifacts as clues to the larger truths of a culture, clues that must be read along with information gleaned from texts. ' “holy cologne” 3 On the relationship of art to religious life seethe differing approaches in Ham- burger 1998 and Scribner 1990. The culture to which objects in this exhibition can provide clues is that of late medieval and early modern Christianity (c. 1200-1600), espe- cially in the city of Cologne and its surrounding region of the lower Rhineland. Cologne is situated on the Rhine river, for over two mil- lennia one of the major waterways of Europe. Cologne has a rich his- tory. 4 It is an ancient city: a fortified town, one of the northern outposts of the Roman empire, it was reestablished in the first century as Colo- nia Agrippinensis, one of the empire’s provincial capitals. A meeting place between Rome and the Germanic peoples of the Rhineland, Cologne early developed into a regional center of trade, manufacture, and administration. After the collapse of the empire, Rome endured in the basic shape of Cologne’s culture and institutions, and remained a key element of the city’s identity. Throughout most of its history Cologne has proudly claimed its Roman past, as any present-day visitor to the city’s spectacular Romisch-Germanisches Museum knows. But Cologne’s Rome bears the particular inflection of the lower Rhineland, a region that was by the middle ages a crossroads of the economies and cultures of Germany, France, Lotharingia (today Lorraine), and the Low Countries (today Belgium and the Netherlands). In a similar way, Cologne’s medieval and early modern identity was rooted in Christianity. Rome brought Christianity to Cologne, and some of the city’s most beloved patron saints -Peter, Pan- taleon, Gereon, and others -were Roman martyrs whose relics were enshrined in local churches. Some martyrs suffered in Cologne itself, like Saint Ursula, believed to have been killed along with 11,000 virgins 41 6 Geary 1994, pp. 243-256; Webb 1999, pp. 69, 74-75, 79-81; Cologne 1982. \\ ho were her companions. (She was often represented in local art, as in nos. 27 and 8 [plates IV and V].) “Holy Cologne” ( Colonia Sancta , hcilige Kiiln), as it called itself, was soaked in the blood of its martyrs. 5 Like communities all over Europe, Cologne was devoted to its saints: holv women and men who had lived virtuous and exemplary lives on earth, and consequently had received God’s reward of eternal life with him in heaven, allowing them to intercede with God on behalf of the living faithful. Medieval Christians prayed fervently to the saints for help in every kind of earthly and spiritual need. They honored the saints’ earthly remains (relics) by enclosing them in reliquaries fash- ioned of precious metals and gems, and giving them places of honor on the altars of their many churches. In this the people of Cologne dif- fered from other medieval Christians perhaps only in the unusually large number of their local saints and relics, as well as the almost equally large number of monastic, collegiate, and parish churches and chapels named for them, and the unbroken history of local devotion to saints from late antiquity until well into the twentieth century. And it was not only ancient martyrs that the city honored. Cologne also remembered its local saints, especially early bishops Maternus, Sever- inus, Kunibert, Heribert, and Anno. From around the eleventh century, Saint Ursula and her companions were much venerated, especially at the church housing their relics. And relics were gathered from abroad. In the most famous incident, Cologne’s archbishop returned from Milan after that city was plundered by imperial troops in 1164, bringing with him a casket he said contained relics of the Magi, the three kings who visited the child Jesus to offer their gifts and homage. The cathedral clergy and city council immediately committed funds to display the relics in a sumptuous gold shrine, installed in the cathedral. Over the following centuries the city did whatever it could to support the cult of the three kings, even arranging for papal indulgences to be offered to pilgrims. 6 A sign of the significance of the three kings to Cologne’s identity was the presence of their image on the city’s seal. 7 (See no. 32, a plaque from a tabernacle door, w ith a scene of the Adoration of the Magi, which Alexander Schniitgen probably acquired in Spain.) Every medieval European city had saints and relics. But the distinctive way in which Cologne’s urban landscape was inscribed with the names, deeds, and relics of its saints attracted attention. The Dutch humanist Erasmus wrote in 1518 that “the whole city of Cologne is to be greatly congratulated” as much for the riches of its hagio- graphic manuscripts as for its large number of saints’ relics. 8 Antonio de Beatis, an Italian church official who visited the city in 1517, pro- vided a fuller and more enthusiastic description of Cologne’s relics, reliquaries, and religiosity. “Both women and men go to church fre- quently,” De Beatis wrote. “They do not talk business or make merry in church as in Italy; they simply pay attention and follow the mass and the other divine services and say their prayers all kneeling.” (See 5 Chaix 1994, p. 35. 7 Cologne 1982, pp. 97-114. 8 Erasmus letter 842. 42 9 De Beatis 1979, pp. 77-80. 10 Chaix 1994, p. 97. fig. 5 Elevation of the Host Canonis Missae Expositio Gabriel Biel, c. 1410-1495 Lyon, 1528 printed on paper Burns Library, Boston College, 16F B43, f. lv fig. 5.) He described his visit to the cathedral of Cologne, still under construction: “there are an infinite number of the most beautiful reli- quaries, in the cathedral, that is. This is being made very large and beautiful They display the heads of the three kings Caspar, Balthasar and Melchior which we saw through grills in an iron shrine where they say their bodies are too. And in a very rich sarcophagus made of sil- ver and gold, with jewels and a most beautiful cameo, is the body of a martyr.” De Beatis also visited the churches of Saints Ursula, Andreas, Pantaleon, Maria im Rapitol, and the Minoritenkirehe, all of which had famous relies. 9 Indeed, late medieval Cologne’s collection of relics was so extensive, so widely dispersed through its neighborhoods, and so carefully enshrined that, in Gerald Chaix’s words, the city itself might be considered a reliquary. 10 Even in the pre-Reformation world of Christian Europe, where saints were everywhere publicly and pri- vately honored, Cologne displayed an exceptional devotion to its many holy men and women. The liveliness of Cologne’s religious life derived in no small measure from the city’s prosperity and the strength of its political and cultural institutions. During the late middle ages Cologne was a een- 43 12 On humanism see Nauert 1991, Chaix 1989. ter of international trade, exporting its agricultural products as well as manufactured goods-especially metalwork (including weapons, jew- elry, household and liturgical vessels), leather goods, textiles (includ- ing ecclesiastical vestments), and books (of which the single largest category was theology)-all over Europe. 11 Some evidence suggests 11 Howell 1986, pp. 95-158. that its economy was contracting by the mid-sixteenth century, but chaix 1994. PP 367-375 compared to other cities of its size and complexity, Cologne’s crafts 742-783.883-895 and commerce continued to flourish at least through the seventeenth century. By 1500 Cologne’s population had swelled to around 45,000, making it easily the most populous city in German-speaking Europe. Cologne was part of the Holy Roman Empire, the federation of princi- palities, duchies, and cities that spread over central and eastern Europe, presided over by an emperor elected from the Habsburg family. As a free imperial city Cologne was under the jurisdiction of the emperor, largely independent of its nominal territorial lord (the archbishop of Cologne, one of the seven electors, powerful lords who elected the emperor), and governed by a city council elected by a small group of leading citizens. Cologne also had a vigorous cultural life. It was a center of schools and scholarship. Monasteries and religious communities had schools that attracted students from all over the region; the Domini- can Albertus Magnus (c. 1206-1280) and the Franciscan Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308) were only two of the city’s renowned scholars. In 1388 the city council established a university, which by the end of the fif- teenth century had a theology faculty trailing only Paris and Louvain in visibility and importance. By that time humanism had arrived in Cologne, though adherents of the new classically inspired scholarship and pedagogy were never large in number, and moreover were per- petually under attack from the university’s increasingly conservative faculty. 1 In the early years of the sixteenth century Cologne profes- sors strongly supported the intellectually conservative, anti-humanist (and more anti-Jewish) side in the notorious Reuchlin-Pfefferkorn dispute over Hebrew studies. A more progressive aspect of local intel- lectual life was the production of manuscripts and books. Throughout the middle ages monasteries and religious houses produced manu- scripts. Later Cologne became a center of the printing industry, with the first press set up about ten years after Johann Gutenberg and his partners printed the first book with movable type in nearby Mainz around 1455. Although most printers specialized in Latin books aimed at university and clerical audiences, especially after the 1520s, the fact that the literacy rate among Cologne’s lay population was higher than that of other German cities was undoubtedly due to the city’s large number of schools and printers. What of the Church? Cologne was the seat of an archbish- opric, although a longstanding power struggle with the city council had considerably diminished the archbishop’s temporal and religious 44 13 Chaix 1994, pp. 628-629. 15 Chaix 1994, pp. 165, 935; Militzer 1997, pp. 507-529; Win- ston-Allen 1997, pp. 24-26, 66-69, 78-79, 111-122; Chatellier 1989, pp. 8-9, 14-32, 50-51; Coster 1605; Conrad 1995. authority by 1500. This did not mean, however, that local ecclesiasti- cal institutions were weak. On the contrary, religious institutions were numerous, diverse, and possessed a degree of autonomy unusual in this period (pastors of seven parishes were nominated by the neigh- borhood’s male heads of household, for example, rather than being chosen by the archbishop). In the sixteenth century Cologne boasted a cathedral, seven collegiate churches, nineteen parishes, fifteen reli- gious communities of men, two dozen women’s communities, thirty chapels, and four hospitals. 13 Every major religious order was repre- sented, some in large numbers, among them the Benedictines, Cister- cians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Carthusians, Carmelites, Augustini- ans, Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life, the Windesheim congregation, and later the Ursulines and Jesuits. The urban land- scape was carpeted with churches, chapels, and shrines. Two religious institutions are of particular importance for assessing the city’s spiritual vitality: beguinages and confraternities. Mid-sixteenth century Cologne had over fifty-five beguinages, com- munities of religious women, ranging in size from a half-dozen to many more, who lived, prayed, and worked together (often in textile and book production, or charitable work), who took vows of chastity and obedience but generally preferred open houses to cloistered con- vents. By 1400, under pressure from archbishops and city authorities who disapproved of groups of women living independent of families and religious orders, most beguines had been compelled to enter con- vents. Numbers of houses and beguines fell from what may have been a high water mark around 1300, yet in the sixteenth century they were still far more numerous in Cologne than elsewhere. 14 Confraternities were another sign of the high level of spiritual commitment among Cologne’s laity. 15 These voluntary organizations, sponsored by parish priests or religious orders but directed by officers elected from the lay membership, were a kind of mutual benefit society, providing aid both spiritual (regular prayers for the ill and deceased) and earthly (poor relief, burial benefits). Many confraternities also provided alms to the neighborhood poor. By the early sixteenth century the city had well over a hundred confraternities, and their numbers would only increase with the Catholic revival at the end of the century. Many confraterni- ties enrolled both men and women, required few if any dues in cash, encouraged popular devotional activities like saying the rosary and attending Sunday mass together, and consequently attracted large memberships. The confraternity of the rosary, established by the Dominicans in 1475, had thousands of members from the time of its founding through the sixteenth century. The Marian sodality founded by the Jesuits in 1575 enrolled 2000 members by the mid-seventeenth century. Women as well as men flocked to confraternities, a phenom- enon on which the Jesuits capitalized by organizing the popular con- fraternity of Saint Ursula in 1606. 14 Southern 1970, pp. 319-331; Chaix 1994, pp. 129-130, 165-169, 628, 866- 866bis. 45 fig. 6 Jews Taking the Road to Exile Spain early 14th century manuscript on vellum By Permission of the British Library MS. Or. 2737, f. 83v (detail) 16 Magnus 1997, pp. 12-26; Minty 1996. Although Cologne’s collective life was rooted in Christian symbols and practices, the city’s Christianity was never unanimous or monolithic. There were Jews and later Protestants in “holy Cologne.” From at least the tenth century the city had a Jewish quarter, popu- lated mostly by traders, moneylenders, and their families, near the archbishop’s palace and town hall. It was a small but vibrant com- munity, with businesses, schools, a synagogue, a mikva (ritual bath), and a cemetery. 16 Like their co-religionists in the Rhineland and cen- tral Europe, Cologne’s Jews lived alongside and did business with their Christian neighbors, often peacefully. Rut equally often, Jews were victims of Christian intolerance, discrimination, and violence. In 1096 and again in 1349 rioting mobs murdered nearly all Cologne’s Jews, and vandalized what Jewish property they did not steal. After each massacre the community reestablished itself. But the final blow came in 1424 when the city council expelled the Jews from Cologne. (See fig. 6.) They were not to return legally until 1794 when the Napoleonic empire conquered the Rhineland, bringing civil rights for Jews, Protestants, and people of African descent. A complex web of religious, political, economic, and social factors brought about the destruction of Jewish communities in Cologne and the Rhineland. Anti-Semitism had deep, tangled roots. 1 Medieval Christians saw Jews as a particular category of heretic, those who had heard and rejected Christ’s message. Christian pastors taught their congregations that Jews had killed Christ, and moreover in the centuries since Christ’s death, had persistently spurned his Church and the promise of eternal salvation. Thus Jews willfully excluded themselves from the majority Christian society. We should not under- estimate the effect of these anti-Jewish teachings on ordinary Chris- tians. What made matters worse was the circulation throughout Germany and central Europe of false but elaborate legends reporting that Jews poisoned Christian wells; stole and desecrated the eucharist; abducted and murdered Christian children so they coidd use their blood 17 Chazan 1987, Chazan 1994, Cohen 1999, Stow 1992, Langmuir 1990, Hsia and Lehmann 1995. 46 18 Rubin 1999; Hsia, Rubin, and Ginzburg, in Hsia and Lehmann 1995, pp, 161-212. 19 Minty 1996; see also Stow 1992, pp. 231-235. 21 See the pointed remarks of Cologne officials quoted in Minty 1996, pp. 77-78, and Chaix’s comments (Chaix 1994, pp. 89-91). in magical rites. 18 Christian theology and legends did not directly cause Cologne’s Jews to be murdered or driven out, but they con- tributed substantially to the ideological justification for those actions. Politics and social tensions also played a part. While not discounting the role of anti-Semitic ideas in preparing the way, Mary Minty situ- ates the 1424 expulsion in the context of Cologne’s politics and urban development. 11 The city was rapidly expanding, land was at a premi- um, and the Jews occupied an important financial and symbolic quar- ter: the area near the town hall, the synagogue itself located on the city’s main square ( Rathausplatz ). In his guise as temporal lord, the archbishop had traditionally protected the Jewish community from the city’s attempts to raise its taxes and limit its rights. So in one way the council’s expulsion of the Jews was yet another episode in the tug- of-war between council and archbishop, but a victory for the city coun- cil in more ways than simply defeating the archbishop. Cologne did not forfeit the fruits of Jewish prosperity. After the 1424 expulsion most Jews relocated to Deutz, a town directly across the Rhine. Merchants, bankers, and physicians easily obtained permits allowing them to take the ferry to Cologne to conduct business as they had before. 20 But the council confiscated Jewish property inside the city. The council also demolished the synagogue, and in a move of great symbolic meaning, built on the same site a Christian chapel ( Ratskapelle ) attached to the town hall ( Rathaus ). The eucharist would now be celebrated daily on the site of Jewish defeat and absence. 21 The expulsion of the Jews cast a shadow over civic and religious life for the next century and a half. 22 Cologne was not alone in excluding those who did not share the majority religion. Other German cities expelled their Jewish residents in the fifteenth century, and in the following century open adherence to minority forms of Christianity was forbidden in most European cities. Only in the late eighteenth century did toleration of religious minorities become wide- spread in the west (although twentieth-century European history pro- vides abundant examples to the contrary). In expelling the Jews and destroying the synagogue in 1424, Cologne’s authorities and leading citizens staked a renewed claim to a Christian identity. Their ideal city was united in celebration of its Roman and Christian past, its saints, and the eucharist. Commonly shared religious values can provide a strong foundation for a vibrant public life, as the experience of Cologne in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries shows. Liturgical and devo- tional practices shaped private and public life: churches were refur- bished, confraternity membership soared, the annual Corpus Christi procession attracted thousands of participants, six hundred masses were said each day in the city’s churches and chapels. 23 This was the positive face of a consciously chosen Christian identity at the end of the middle ages. But Jews and heretics, those who did not share the eucharist or a Christian past, were brutally excluded. 20 See Jutte in Hsia and Lehmann 1995, pp. 137-150. 22 Chaix 1994, esp. pp. 88-91, 216-217, 407-1036. 23 Chaix 1994, p. 94. 47 24 On the Reformation in Cologne see Scribner 1987 (first published in 1975), Scribner 1996, Chaix 1994, A century later, after the Catholic Church condemned Luther as a heretic (1519-1521), Cologne banned other (Christian) reli- gious minorities: Lutherans, Calvinists, and anabaptists. During the Reformation, when many German cities chose some form of Protes- tantism for the state religion (if only for a short time), Cologne was the only large free imperial city to remain continuously Catholic. Yet the city's adherence to Catholicism was never a simple refusal of Protes- tantism in favor of tradition, conservatism, and fidelity to Rome. Nor were Cologne’s Catholics of one mind about their beliefs. Complex political struggles and social dynamics lay behind the city’s increas- ing opposition to Protestantism, as Rob Scribner and Gerald Chaix have established. 24 Local theologians, the cathedral clergy, and the city council consistently opposed not only Luther and Calvin, but also all informed discussion of their ideas, publication and sale of their writings, and eventually the practice of any religion but Catholicism. Several Protestants were executed for heresy. Others went into exile, voluntarily or involuntarily. No legally approved Protestant church opened in Cologne until 1802. Still, Lutherans, Calvinists, and anabap- tists lived there throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though they never numbered more than ten percent of the population. Convinced that they were redeemed by faith in God alone, and not through their own effort or good works, believing fervently that the “pure word of God” (the bible) nourished their faith, Cologne’s Protes- tants worshipped together clandestinely in one another’s homes, per- haps attended mass but harbored heterodox ideas about the Eucharist and priesthood. They declined to donate in support of saints’ cults, confraternities, and monasteries. Far from being outsiders or the downtrodden of urban society, Protestants came from every walk of life, rich and poor, male and female, native-born and immigrant. Some were city leaders, from the city’s patriciate and bourgeoisie, elected members of the city council. Some were respected clergymen like Archbishop Hermann von Wied (r. 1515-1547) who left Cologne for exile in Protestant Strasbourg. But this was only after his modest plan for reforming the archdiocese attracted the combined opposition of pow- erful factions in the city council, theology faculty, and cathedral clergy, and Pope Paul III appointed a coadjutor to take over his duties. 2. Although not a secret Lutheran, Wied had for decades labored to nego- tiate a theological compromise with moderate Protestant leaders like Philipp Melanchthon and Strasbourg’s Martin Bucer. Yet religious opin- ions that earlier in the century might have been considered respectfully dissenting, but still Catholic, were amid the increasingly polarized confessional politics of the 1540s condemned by most Catholic author- ities of both church and state as Protestant and therefore heretical. Archbishop Wied wanted to address abuses that even Catholics acknowledged were damaging the Church, lie tried to raise standards for clerical education, improve preaching, reform the sys- 25 Chaix 1994, pp. 467-496, 645-648. American Catholics will undoubtedly recall the Vatican's similar move in appointing an auxil- iary bishop to take over some of Seattle archbishop Raymond Hunthausen’s duties in the 1980s. 48 26 On Catholic reform see Chaix 1994, Molitor 1994, Ziegler 1995, Conrad 1995, Bosbach 1988. 27 Chaix 1994, p. 518, and throughout. tern of awarding clerical appointments and benefices, and establish regular visitations of the archdiocese’s parishes and monasteries. Though Wied’s project failed, some of his goals were shared by other Catholic reformers of a more determinedly anti-Protestant bent, espe- cially the Jesuits. Jesuits first arrived in Cologne in 1544, only a few years after the order won formal papal approval. From the start the Jesuits took as their mission the establishment of a strongly Catholic, and moreover anti-Protestant state in Cologne. Education was the means they chose for reaching this goal: they founded the first arch- diocesan seminary, a college for the education of sons of the city’s rul- ing classes, and confraternities in which both men and women learned to be faithful, informed Catholics. Partly as a result of the Jesuits’ efforts, Cologne experienced a genuinely Catholic Reformation in the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 26 Confraternity participation increased; donations to the church rose; old churches were renovated, new churches built. Cologne’s Catholic renewal rested on the founda- tions of earlier spiritual vitality, and yet we must not overemphasize the continuities between pre-Reformation Christianity and early mod- ern Catholicism. 27 We generally think of the sixteenth-century Refor- mation as Protestant. But Catholics had their own Reformation. Many features of early modern Catholicism are familiar from late medieval Christianity: clerical roles and authority; theological teachings; litur- gical, sacramental, and devotional practices. Yet some features were new, especially the effort to educate Catholics in their faith. In this way early modern Catholicism blended tradition and modernity. 28 Gerald Chaix signals the Jesuit church of Saint Maria Himmelfahrt (Our Lady of the Assumption), built in 1618-1629, as an emblem of Cologne’s re- newed, modern Catholicism. A baroque church incorporating Roman- esque and Gothic elements, and intended to substitute for the still unfinished cathedral, an edifice at the same time traditional and mod- ern, Saint Maria Himmelfahrt was “the representation of a city that was unfailingly medieval because it was continuously Catholic.” 29 Here is the historical origin of modern Cologne’s, and Alexander Schniitgen’s, celebration of Gothic art and “the Catholic middle ages.” 28 Chaix 1994, pp. 785, 923; O'Malley 1991. 29 Chaix 1994, pp. 921-923. RELIGIOUS OBJECTS AND THE MATERIAL CULTURE OF CHRISTIANITY In Cologne, practicing Christianity required objects, furnishings, and images. Artisans produced, merchants sold, clergy and lay people pur- chased and used religious objects of all kinds, including books, images, statues, rosaries, liturgical vessels, church furnishings, altar- pieces, reliquaries, monstrances, vestments, and altar cloths. Produc- tion of religious objects fed the city’s economy. Pilgrims and visitors 49 30 Bruna 1996. pp. 202- 206: Webb 1999, pp. 127-128. 165, 172-173, 191: Munich 1984, pp. 42, 55: Plotzek 1987. pp. 206-208; Cologne 1982, pp. 73-80, 276-298. from as far away as Paris, England, and Scandinavia, as well as other parts of Germany, visited the shrine of the three kings in the cathedral, spending money on souvenirs, food, and lodging along the way. 30 On a tour through the Rhineland in 1520, Albrecht (Hirer visited the shrines of Saint Ursula and the 11,000 virgins, and recorded purchas- ing a special pastry baked for the feast of All Saints, candles, a rosary, "a little death’s head,” a German pamphlet by Luther, and a copy of the Cologne theologians’ condemnation of Luther-an odd assortment of religious paraphernalia, hut all available in Cologne’s shops. 31 Since such a wide variety of religious objects are repre- sented in the Schniitgen collection, a tour through the exhibition will help us gain, as I luizinga urged, “a notion of the function of art in life,” an understanding of the material culture of late medieval Christianity. It is difficult to be sure how and where religious objects were used. For one tiling, distinguishing sharply between collective and individual devotion, and liturgical and non-liturgical devotion, is not helpful. In the world of medieval Christianity and early modern Catholicism, all devotion, all spirituality revolve in some way around the liturgy. For example, books of hours, the prayer books most commonly owned by lay people, adapt the clergy’s liturgy of the hours (the divine office) for private, lay use. Although they included a wide variety of texts and images not explicitly connected to the liturgy (devotion to the Virgin Mary and saints, for example), owners of books of hours were known to have used their books for prayer during mass. 32 Miniatures of The Mass of Saint Gregory, a pictorial demonstration of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (see fig. 4), were sometimes found in books of hours, as were prayers to be said before and after communion. 33 Thus, when it comes to devotional life, the usual distinction between public and private does not hold. Nonetheless, we do need to call atten- tion to the variety of settings in which religious objects found their use: the grand, formal, public space of a cathedral; the smaller, but still pub- lic parish or monastic church; the smaller, more intimate settings of a chapel in a noble residence, or an altar, closet, or devotional corner in a burgher’s or artisan’s home, a monk’s or nun’s cell. Late medieval Christians often prayed before images and reliquaries, holding books, and fingering beads (fig. 7), and we will only really understand these fragments of devotion if we situate them within the world of religious practice that gave them their meaning. Reliquaries are the most visually arresting objects designed for both churches and domestic spaces. Throughout the middle ages- and in Cologne well into the modern period -much of the cult of saints focused on the location, possession, and veneration of relics. Early Christians gathered at saints’ tombs for prayer and ritual, literally wor- shipping on top ofthe bones of their martyrs. Medieval Christians cus- tomarily buried saints’ bodies inside altars in churches, or in crypts underneath altars. Cologne Cathedral’s splendid gold and jeweled reli- 31 Hutchison 1990, pp. 147-150. 32 See Plotzek 1987, esp. pp. 9-64; Reinburg 1988 33 DeLeeuw 1995, pp. 38-42; Plotzek 1987, nos. 67, 68, 70,73, 79,80. 50 34 Wieck 1988, pp. 122- 123; Hamburger 1997, pp. 11-12, plate 3; "A Legend of the Aus- trian Tyrol: St. Kummer- nis," Modern History Sourcebook (www. fordham.edu/halsall/ mod/kummernis.html) accessed October 1999 quary-sarcophagus of the three kings sits on an altar behind the high altar. But relics were also displayed in smaller portable reliquaries whose size, shape, and style varied enormously. In a relatively large reliquary monstrance (no. 9), the relic would have been visible through the crystal cylinder. A smaller reliquary monstrance (no. 1 1 ) may have been designed for a domestic altar or smaller chapel. The even small- er bronze reliquary shaped like a double-ended church (no. 14) may also have been used for private worship, or perhaps to hold relics imbedded in a church’s altar. The shape of this reliquary and the large reliquary monstrance (no. 9) explicitly recall the notion of a church as the tomb of the saints. A different note is struck by the wooden reli- quary-bust of a female saint (no. 10 [plate VII]), which both portrays and displays one of Saint Ursula’s 11,000 virgin companions. A tracery window in the lower front was designed to reveal to worshippers the relics inside. Reliquary-busts like this were produced in large num- bers in late medieval Cologne. Like other reliquary-busts, this one combines the functions of reliquary and image: it gives a face to the relie, personalizing and animating it. It is impossible to understand late medieval and early modern Christianity without coming to terms with the devotional use of images. On the simplest level images provided visual reminders of God, the Virgin Mary, and the array of saints and angels available for aid or emulation. A fourteenth-century marble statue of Saint Barbara (no. 35 [plate XI]), from the high altar of Cologne Cathedral, would remind worshippers of one of the most popular intercessors of late medieval Germany. Saint Barbara also appears on the back of an early fifteenth-century reliquary cross (no. 13). Also popular in Germany, as he was all over Europe, was Saint Michael the archangel, here repre- sented in a late fifteenth-century Netherlandish wood sculpture (no. 59). A contemporary Swabian lindenwood sculpture portrays Saint Vitus in the cauldron in which he was martyred (no. 61 [plate XII]). A saint perhaps less well known (to us, certainly) is Kummernis, por- trayed here in a late fifteenth-century wood sculpture (no. 1). Accord- ing to legend Kummernis (also called Wilgefortis or Liberata), the daughter of the pagan king of Portugal, converted to Christianity. Steadfast in her religious beliefs, she refused to marry the pagan prince to whom her father had betrothed her. To help her keep her vow of chastity Kummernis prayed to become disfigured. God answered her prayer: she grew a beard. Her suitor withdrew, but her father had her crucified in retaliation. Saint Kummernis was known as a patron saint of unhappily married women, or for nuns who declined marriage for the sake of their religious vocation. 34 She may be less familiar to us than Saints Barbara and Michael, but devotees have kept her memory: an eighteenth-century painting hangs in Prague’s Loreta chapel, Mar- cel Duchamp referred to her in one of his works, and she now enjoys a lively cult on the internet. 51 The cult of saints flourished across medieval Europe. But during the late middle ages (c. 1350-c. 1500), devotion to the Virgin Mary and Christ increased in popularity and intensity, somewhat at the expense of saints’ cults. Cologne was no exception to this transforma- tion of religious practice, though the city continued to affirm alle- giance to its saints to an unusual degree. Late medieval images of the \ irgin and Christ-especially in the form of sculptures, crucifixes, tex- tiles, paintings, and engravings -are ubiquitous (nos. 2, 3, 7, 16, 20, 23, 25, 2(1, 29. 37, 38, 59, 41, 53, and 57). They vary in dimension, from large- scale statues intended for side altars in cathedrals or churches, before which several worshippers might kneel in prayer, to small diptychs (nos. 20 [plate VIII], 23 [plate IX | ) or crucifixes (nos. 12, 13) conceiv- ably used for domestic worship, perfect for holding in one’s hands or setting right before one’s eyes. Late medieval Christians thought the Virgin Mary the perfect intercessor before Christ, her son, and God the father. More often than images of the saints, images of the Virgin func- tioned as aids to prayer and meditation. Several of the texts of prayers commonly found in books of hours appeal to the Virgin as mother of Christ and spiritual mother of the devotee, and implore her through the sorrow and joy of her motherhood to speak to God on the devotee’s behalf. 35 An illumination from a sixteenth-century French devotional Reinburg 1988, pp. 42-43; piotzek book (fig. 7) models the kind of relationship devotees desired with 1987, pp. 48-50, Christ’s mother: a lay man kneels in prayer, hands folded and draped w ith a string of rosary beads, looking up at an image (or meditative vision?) of Mary suckling the child Jesus. Mary as the sorrowful mother is the mirror image of this young mother: the Pieta, repre- sented here in a wood sculpture from the Rhineland or Westphalia (no. 62 [plate XV]). Worshippers would have knelt in prayer before images like this, visualizing, empathizing with, feeling Mary’s relationship with her dead son, and thereby nurturing a closer relationship with both grieving mother and the all too human Christ. Reflecting on this exquisite Pieta, it may not be difficult for us to understand why late medieval viewers believed themselves in the presence of the Virgin and Christ when they prayed in this way. The Piet& was a typical late medieval image, in that it rep- resented the human Christ and his grieving mother, not the less typi- cal majestic Christ on the cover of an evangeliary (no. 7 [plate III]). Devotion to the human Christ, as child and adult, increased markedly over the middle ages. As writers, spiritual advisors, and especially as preachers, the Cistercians, Franciscans, and Dominicans encouraged the faithful to meditate on events in the earthly life of Christ, especial- ly his birth, passion, and death; to appeal in prayer to the God who had known the t rials of human existence; and as far as possible to imitate Christ in their own lives. Exemplary of the late medieval Christian’s search for an intimate, affective relationship with Christ is The Imita- tion of Christ (c. 1427) by Thomas & Kempis, a native of the Rhineland. 52 In this book-by far the most popular spiritual work ofthe fifteenth and sixteenth centuries -Thomas counseled the reader: The love of creatures is deceptive and disappointing, but the love of Jesus is faithful and always abiding. He who clings to any creature must of necessity fail as the creature fails. But he who cleaves abidingly to Jesus shall be made firm in him forever. Love him, therefore, and hold him for your friend, for, when all others forsake you, he will not forsake you, or suffer you finally to perish. You must, of necessity, leave your friends and the company of all men, whether you will or not, and therefore keep yourself in the company of your lord Jesus, living and dying. Com- mit yourself to his fidelity, and he will be with you and help you when all others forsake you.” Thomas recommended meditating on Christ’s passion and crucifixion: Let your thought always be upward toward God, and direct your prayers continually toward Christ. If you cannot, because of your frailty, always occupy your mind in contemplation of the Godhead, yet be occu- pied with a remembrance of his passion, and make for yourself a dwelling place in his blessed wounds. And if you flee devoutly to the wound in Christ’s side, and to the marks of his passion, you will feel great comfort in every trouble . 37 The fifteenth-century reader of this passage would undoubtedly recall images of the suffering Christ like those displayed in Cologne’s churches, books, and homes. A wood sculpture of the Man of Sorrows (no. 2) represents the crucified Christ, crowned with thorns, displaying the wound in his side. “The marks of his passion” and “his blessed wounds” are almost painfully visible in a late four- teenth-century sculpture of Christ crucified on a forked cross (no. 3 [plate I]). An object made of humbler materials-paper mache and paint-represents the head of the crucified Christ, an agonized expres- sion on his face, drops of blood flowing from his crown of thorns (no. 30 [plate X]). And in one of the most curious and affecting images of the exhibition, a fourteenth-century pen and ink drawing of the cru- cified Christ (no. 24), a kneeling Cistercian monk embraces the bloody cross, while a nun wearing Cistercian habit kneels in prayer. This paper image from the Rhineland, possibly drawn by a nun (the one kneeling to the left of the crucifix?), may depict the story of “the vision of Saint Bernard,” in which a monk saw Christ descend from his cross 36 Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ, p. 84. 37 Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ, p. 76. 53 38 Hamburger 1997, pp. 1-5; Didi- Huberman 1990, pp. 242-249. 40 There are examples of similar new year's tokens, German woodcuts and engrav- ings from the same era, in the Library of Congress (Washing- ton, DC), the Biblio- theque Nationalede France (Paris), and other library and museum collections. 41 See Hamburger 1998, pp. 386-388, and notes. to embrace the saintly founder of the Cistercian order. Torrents of Christ’s blood, drawn in reddish ink, nearly obliterate the drawing. Jeffrey Hamburger and Georges Didi-Huberman point out that the image evokes not only the crucifixion, Christ’s bloody sacrifice on Cal- vary, but also the eucharist: the unbloody sacrifice of the mass, in \\ hich Christ, whom medieval Christians believed to be truly and cor- poreally present in the consecrated host, was held up for adoration by the faithful. 38 (figs. 4-5) Didi-Huberman calls the veil of ink an “anointing” of Christ’s body, a near erasure of the drawn body, which has the effect of displaying the eternal truth of the crucifixion, the destruction of Christ’s body for the sake of human redemption. The devout viewer of the image thus participates in a kind of intimate litur- gy. The Vision of Saint Bernard unites meditation and vision, image and prayer, liturgy and devotion. This is the way in which images and objects made the absent Christ present for the faithful Christian. In the middle ages (and for Catholics today, or at least well into the late twentieth century), men and women prayed by using places, images, and objects to bring them into the presence of God, the Virgin Mary, and the saints with whom they firmly believed their help and salvation lay. A devotee’s relationships with God and the saints were mediated through physi- cal contact and presence: at shrines, before tombs and relics of the saints, near images, before the consecrated host displayed in a mon- strance. Modern viewers might be able to imagine what it would mean to feel oneself in the presence of God or the Virgin contemplating a beautiful Pieta (no. 62 [plate XV]). But even the humblest objects could help medieval Christians remember that they lived in the presence of God and the saints. We do not know the precise use of objects like the small terracotta images of Saint Ursula (no. 27), Saint Sebastian (no. 28), and Mary and baby Jesus on the flight into Egypt (no. 29). Mass-pro- duced in Siegburg between around 1500 and the mid-sixteenth century, these unassuming sculptures may have been toys, devotional objects, or souvenirs from pilgrimage or shrines. The statue of the Christ child in his cradle (no. 26) may have formed part of a nativity scene, or pos- sibly been given as a Christmas gift. 39 The “new year’s child” (no. 25), the Christ child wearing a string of beads and holding an orb in his left hand, was likely one of the tokens commonly exchanged at the new year. 40 These images ofthe baby Jesus may be examples ofwhatschol- ars have termed “holy toys”: small, almost doll-like statuettes designed to be handled and held. 41 Modest in appearance, probably negligible in cost, these little terracotta images remind us that for late medieval Christians religious practice was intensely visual and tactile. We learn a similar lesson about religious objects and reli- gious practice from rosaries. For lay people as well as nuns, monks, and priests, rosaries were among the most popular religious objects of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, (fig, 7) A rosary (also called a chap- 39 Images ofthe baby Jesus In his cradle ( Christkind - wiege), crafted of wood, fabric, and ornaments of various kinds, were commonly used as devo- tional objects by nuns in late medieval German and Flemish convents. There are two examples ofthe Christkindwiege in the Schnutgen Museum, and one in the Metro- politan Museum of Art (New York). For a discus- sion ofthe spiritual context see Hamburger 1998, esp. pp. 383-467. 54 42 Wilkins 1969, Romanelli 1992, Cologne 1975, Winston-Alien 1997. 43 Ann Arbor 1975, nos. 79,81,82,83; Detroit 1997, no. 78. nm frc X>onfv fmf <&<*:** rJ r 7i(fcrtatc6 fc cvcarcm- Picucj at t/r< fc ctmpclfct fig. 7 Madonna of Humility France manuscript on vellum By permission of the British Library Add.Ms. 25693, f. 54 let, paternoster, or Our Lady’s psalter) was a string of beads grouped in tens (decades), the decades sometimes separated by additional, larger, or differently colored beads, all joined together by a chain of metal, silk, or cord, adorned with small crucifixes, images, or pilgrim badges. The beads might have been made of wood, bone, horn, coral, ivory, or minerals like jet, amber, and agate. The number of decades varied from one to five, the larger string (as in fig. 7) eventually becom- ing the norm. 42 Rosaries made of costly materials like coral and ivory were sometimes adorned with a memento mori, one or more carved beads representing death, a material reminder of the fragility of human life and the necessity to prepare for death. On one side of two sixteenth- century French ivory beads (no. 22) are represented the portrait-busts of a woman and man in the prime of life; on the reverse are grotesque, worm-infested skulls. The motif of “death and the lovers” is found throughout northern European art of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- turies. 43 (Could this have been the sort of “little death’s head” that Diirer purchased with a rosary in Cologne?) These ivory beads were proba- bly designed for an expensive rosary a nobleman (fig. 7) or burgher would own. Rosaries were prized personal possessions, often passed 55 45 Chaix 1992. pp. 159-160; Chaix 1994. p. 203. 46 Wengler 1999, pp. 211-236. 48 See the website for the Rosary Center, the headquarters of the Dominican confrater- nity of the rosary, at www.teleport.com/ 'rosary. Accessed October 1999. dow n from parent to child, godparent to godchild, friend to friend. We know from inventories of personal property made alter death in the French city of Amiens that women and men of lesser social station- artisans and servants among them-also owned rosaries. 44 Evidence suggests that Cologne conforms to the same pattern of high rosary ownership found for Amiens. 4 Both Amiens and Cologne remained Catholic during the Reformation, so renewed interest in the rosary during the sixteenth century is perhaps not surprising. But at least some residents of Calvinist Geneva kept their rosaries, despite efforts of pastors and the consistory to eradicate every trace of Catholic prac- tice in the city. 41 ' Even convinced Protestants who no longer “prayed their beads” may have been reluctant to part with rosaries handed down from Catholic parents and grandparents. Rosaries were precious possessions, but also aids to reli- gious practice. This was the great age of devotion to the rosary, espe- cially in Germany, and particularly in Cologne. The rosary devotion grew out of the flourishing Marian piety of the fifteenth century, and celebrated the joyful, sorrowful, and glorious “mysteries,” or mile- stones of Mary’s life as Christ’s mother. Devotees said the rosary by praying five decades of Ave Marias, each introduced by a Pater Noster, while recollecting three series of five mysteries each. Fingering the heads helped the devotee keep count, and as a Cologne Jesuit, author of a guide to the rosary, explained, thinking about the mysteries helped relieve the tedium of repetitive prayer. 4 According to a popular hut inaccurate legend Saint Dominic (c. 1171-1221) invented the rosary. We now know that Christians had been praying series of Ave Marias, sometimes with the aid of beads, for centuries. It was however only in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that the rosary devotion grew in popularity, when Dominicans and Carthusians, especially in the Rhineland and Low Countries, formulated the devotion as we know it today, and encouraged lay people to say the rosary as a way of honor- ing Mary’s motherhood. In 1475 the prior of the Cologne Dominicans, Jakob Sprenger, established the European-wide confraternity of the rosary, which enrolled thousands of members in Cologne alone. The confraternity required no dues, and was open to any layperson or cler- ic who wished to enroll and who pledged to say the rosary regularly, both at home and in church with fellow members. (The Dominicans continue their sponsorship of the rosary today, on the internet among other places.) 4 Even the least well instructed Christians knew how to say the Ave Maria and Pater Noster, and rosaries themselves could be made of materials ranging in value from simple knotted cords to ivory beads strung on silver chains. Thus the rosary was a flexible devotion: available to literate and non-literate people, men and women, rich and poor; able to be said in full or abbreviated form; equally adaptable to individual or collective recitation. The rosary devotion blended the use of a religious object with repetitive prayer, Marian piety, and the med- 44 Chase 1992, pp. 262-285. 47 Coster 1605, p. 51v. 56 49 On this issue see the essays by Nancy Netzer and Donald Dietrich in this volume itative inferiority characteristic oflate medieval spirituality. Testimo- ny to its great popularity in Cologne can still be seen in the church of Saint Andreas, in the splendid altarpiece of the Madonna of the Rosary by the Master of Saint Severin (c. 1510-1515) and the chapel of the rosary built in 1539. Like small images and reliquaries, rosaries are fragments oflate medieval domestic religion. They can be appreciated according to whatever religious and aesthetic sensibility viewers bring to them, but they are more fully visible when we understand how they might have been seen, used, and placed in the noble, bourgeois, and artisan homes of late medieval and early modern Cologne. While I do not entirely share Johan Huizinga’s confidence that we can from a distance of half a millennium perceive the essential features of a culture through its surviving artifacts, I would agree with him that we need material artifacts as essential sources for understanding late medieval culture. Studied in isolation, without sufficient reference to the culture’s writ- ten remains, religious objects can give the mistaken (but nonetheless romantic) impression of a medieval Christian culture that was seam- less, static, and unanimous. 49 Religious life in “holy Cologne”- as all over Europe -was varied, pluralistic, and contested. It included expelled Jews and banished protestants and faithful, dissenting Catholics. We should not mistake surviving fragments for the whole culture. I am grateful to Gerald Chaix and the late Bob Scribner for so generously sharing their knowledge of late medieval and early modern Christianity and the history of Cologne. Those who know their work will see how much this essay depends on their insights and painstak- ing research; any errors are of course my own. I would also like to thank John Atteberry, Thomas Head, Kerry Leonard, Nancy Netzer, James M. O'Toole, Lois Rutherford Scribner, Max von Habsburg, and Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen for help of various kinds. ABBREVIATIONS Ann Arbor Olds, C„ et al. Images of Love and Death in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art: The University of Michigan Museum of Art, November 21, 1975-January 4, 1976. Ann Arbor, 1975. Bosbach, F. Die katholische Reform in der Stadt Koln (1550- 1662): Ein Beispiel fur erfolg- reiche kirchliche Erneuerung. Cologne, 1988. Bouwsma, W. "The Waning of the Middle Ages Revisited," in A Usable Past. Berkeley, 1990, pp. 325-335. Bruna, D. Enseignes de peleri- nage et enseignes profanes. Paris, 1996. Chaix, C. De la cite chretienne a la metropole cathohque. 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Okto- ber 1984. Munich, 1984. 58 Nauert. C. "Humanists, Scholastics, and the Struggle to Reform the University of Cologne. 1523-1525," in Humanismus in Koln/Human- ism in Cologne, ed. J. Mehl. Cologne, 1991, pp, 39-76 O’Malley. J, "Was Ignatius Loyola a Catholic Reformer? How to Look at Early Modern Catholicism," Catholic Histori- cal Review, 77 (1991), pp. 177- 193. Peters. E , and W. Simons "The New Huizinga and the Old Middle Ages Speculum, 74 (1999), pp. 587-620. Plotzek, J. Andachtsbucher des Mittelalters aus Privatbesitz. Cologne, 1987. Reinburg, V. "Hearing Lay Peo- ple's Prayer,” in Culture and Identity in Early Modern Europe. 1500-1800, ed. B. Diefendorf and C. Hesse. Ann Arbor, 1993, pp. 19-39. Reinburg, V. “Prayer and the Book of Hours,” in R. Wieck et al., Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life. Baltimore, 1988, pp. 39-44. Romanelli, S. South Netherlan- dish Boxwood Devotional Sculpture. 1475-1530 Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia Univer- sity, 1992. Rubin. 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Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life. Baltimore, 1988. Wilkins, E. The Rose Garden Game: The Symbolic Back- ground to the European Prayer- Beads. London, 1969. Winston-Alien, A. Stories of the Rose: The Making of the Rosary in the Late Middle Ages. Univer- sity Park, PA, 1997. Ziegler, W. "Typen der Konfes- sionalisierung in katholischen Territorien Deutschlands,” in Die katholische Konfessionali- sierung, ed. W. Reinhard and H. Schilling. Dusseldorf, 1995, pp. 405-418. ALEXANDER SCHNUT GEN’S DEVOTION TO THE MIDDLE AGES Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen 0 n 23 February 1993, the Schniitgen Museum, in Cologne, Germany, commemorated the centennial of the birthday of its founder, Alexander Schniitgen. The observance took place in the twelfth-century Romanesque basilica that for forty years has housed the Schniitgen Collection, one of the world’s most important assemblages of medieval, and later, religious art in Central Europe. In 1956, Hermann Schnitzler, curator of Schniitgen’s treasures, deemed a restored ancient monastery church, which no longer served its original purpose, to be the most appropriate perma- nent home for Schniitgen’s precious objects. But, on reflection, I am not quite sure that Alexander Schniitgen would have liked that idea. In his multiple roles as priest, collector and archivist, Schniitgen sought always to gather, preserve, and present religious objects as a way of documenting the histories of their forms and functions for a world w hose material culture would soon consist solely of the mass-pro- duced objects of the industrial age. Schniitgen was born in 1843, just one year after Romantic enthusiasm had inspired work to begin anew on the awesome torso of the Cathedral of Cologne, which had been planned in 1248 as the largest medieval church in Christendom. His family came from hilly farm country that borders on the concentration of cities among Dortmund, Diisseldorf, and Cologne. These cities were becoming centers of indus- trial, financial and commercial activity as the Industrial Revolution changed the world into w hich Schniitgen had been born. The need for labor to fuel new industries in fast expanding cities (even in rural areas such as Schntitgen’s hometown) caused the population to shift and swell. As Germany experienced political and economic changes, the Catholic Church explored new liturgical and pastoral means to organize and reach a new breed of congregation. Intimately connected with the Romantic movement, the Catholic revival was centered in the Rhineland. It was linked in many ways to the growth of nationalism and to the development of the mental, political and aesthetic attitudes which have come to be known as Historicism. 60 Schnutgen was ordained to the priesthood in i8(i(i. The eld- est of six children, he was one of three brothers to follow a religious career. As the best in his class, Schnutgen earned the coveted beginning post of chaplain of the Cathedral of Cologne and assistant to an auxil- iary bishop, who himself ardently supported the building of the Cathe- dral in the spirit of Historicism. Standing well over six feet tall and more than 240 pounds in his best years, Schnutgen enjoyed recount- ing his travels with his two brothers in Italy, where coach drivers would flee when the three large Germans approached, fearing for the springs of their carriages. He also recalled that, “at the age of twenty-three, I came as an ignoramus to the cathedral which I admired but did not understand.” The year after his ordination, he found himself at an auc- tion of paintings, collected by Johann Anton Ramboux, the recently deceased director of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. Here, he laid the ground stock of his collection, acquiring at little cost some Gothic panel paintings that he “could not stop admiring,” among them a small Ste- fan Lochner. At the same time, Schniitgen saw in his pastoral work the changes wrought by the fast pace of the nineteenth century. He real- ized particularly that religious art was losing its value in the emotional and religious life oflarge parts of the population. Collecting, Schniit- gen perceived, w as a way of preserving, with the objects themselves, some of the religious and generally traditional ethical values that were changing so quickly or worse, vanishing. His motto was “Colligite frag- menta ne pereant, ” gather the crumbs lest they perish. Schnutgen began his career as a collector, however, not by the method of a priest, but rather, of an archivist, following two prin- ciples. First, he documented each type of object in its development. This is evident, for example, in the arrangement of the so-called met- alwork room (fig. 2) in the last of the three houses he inhabited with his collection before he donated it to the city of Cologne. He systemat- ically arranged crosses and chalices, ciboria and censers, candlesticks and procession poles. Second, he collected iconographical types, fol- lowing the subject of the Virgin and child or the Crucifixion through various phases. Sculptures out of context would be “repatriated,” as it were, in empty altar-shrines made to fit the purpose. Painted altar- pieces were mounted over altar hangings and under crosses to give an impression of functioning context (fig. 8). Fritz Witte, his assistant and successor as first director of the Schnutgen Museum after 1913, saw Schnutgen never happier than when sorting his treasures, finding new space for new' acquisitions and arranging them so that he could read- ily explain them to many admirers from all over Europe. Characterizing the service he wanted to render to society, Schnutgen described his collection as a “survival station.” 1 The ques- 1 Legner 1991, p. 329. tion arises whether Schnutgen, though unadmittedly, had realized that he was collecting a dying art form and, if so, whether this real- 61 fig. 8 Alexander Schnutgen's House Margarthenkloster 7, hall 3 legner 1991. p. 225, fig. 157. ization motivated him to create a new context for his beloved objects, supplying a new environment for articles that had lost their functions in religious life. Textiles constituted the first important element, not only of the collection, but also of Schniitgen’s method of financing his collect- ing activities. Schniitgen kept many of them in his bedroom, covering the walls with capes and chasubles. Nearly four thousand mounted fabric samples were stacked like prints in big cupboards. In 1876, ten years after beginning work in Cologne, Schniitgen was named the prin- cipal organizer of an exhibition comprising several private Cologne collections. For this exhibition, Schniitgen supplied more than seven hundred of his own textile samples, including fabrics, weavings and embroidery techniques ranging from Coptic wool and Byzantine silks to French brocades of the eighteenth century, to Hungarian and Syri- an embroideries of his own time. The printed catalogue of the exhibi- tion is no more than a detailed list with a preface. A catalogue of silks in the Museum of Applied Arts in Berlin, lists fabrics acquired from Schniitgen in 1877, when the museum had just begun to collect textiles. This list not only corresponds exactly with the Cologne exhibition catalogue of 1876, but it also matches with further cuts of the same textile samples in the Diocesan Museum of Esztergom, the Museum of Applied Arts in Hamburg, and the Ger- manic National Museum in Nuremburg. 2 Although this method of col- lecting has fallen out of favor, it enabled Schniitgen to raise money for further acquisitions. Many objects in Schnutgen’s collection came from unlikely places and at bargain prices. The famous bust with the Parler coat of arms for instance, turned up in a construction site close to the cathe- dral where Schniitgen lived. He found the pocket-sized reliquary of 2 Sporbek 1993, pp. 197-206. 62 the late nth century (no. 14), its east and west crossings and apses reminiscent of the pre-Gothic Cathedral of Cologne, at a scrap metal dealer’s. Collectors, merchants and interested art lovers often followed Schniitgen on the street, and on this occasion, when he paid the few pennies asked for this object, a curious tag-along asked to know what he had just bought. Schniitgen answered that “it was nothing impor- tant, just a mousetrap.” Schniitgen received visitors as early as seven o’clock in the morning, ready to show and explain his collection, having already said mass, had breakfast, seen to his mail, and read the newspaper. Legendary accounts of his hospitality tell of wine served in baroque glasses and cakes baked in antique clay molds by the niece who kept his household. At the turn of the century, Schniitgen’s home had become the meeting place of princes and scholars, of museum admin- istrators and collectors. But the collection had grown too large for Schniitgen to manage, even in the last and largest of the three living quarters provided for him as a canon of Cologne Cathedral; logic dic- tated that he make it a public possession. In 1906, the fortieth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, Schniitgen donated to the city of Cologne all of his sculp- tures, glass paintings, ivory carvings, precious metalwork and, what is still, today, one of the world’s largest textile collections. The archbish- op of Cologne had previously refused the offer, recognizing the costs of housing and caring for the huge collections, so they became public property. The community of Cologne provided exhibition space with- in three and a half years. In 1910, when the first Schniitgen Museum was opened with great ceremony (including an offer of honorary cit- izenship to Schniitgen), the highly respected collector and connois- seur, who had organized some of the largest exhibitions of medieval art of his day, also assisted at the consecration of a small parish church. It was close to the farm in Olpe, about 35 miles east of Cologne, that had been his childhood home and was one of the six churches he planned and had built, five of which were realized before his death in November 1918, shortly before the end of World War I . The formation of Schniitgen’s collections between the 1870s and 1910 was part of a Catholic revival, the rise of nationalism, and the prominence of Historicism in Germany. Late in his collecting career, having devoted most of his life to amassing religious relics, Schniitgen invested all of his money in land. On these rural plots, he built parish churches designed to blend into the countryside as if they had always been there. He went to great lengths to supply his new churches with communion benches, organs, altarpieces, vestments, lecterns, censers and every type of liturgical furnishing that were not new. Some of these furnishings came from his own collections but most, ironically, were salvaged or bought from old Rhenish or Westphalian parish churches that were being demolished and replaced by “modern” churches in the 4 Springer 1993, pp. 13-34. See also, Spiller A. 1993, pp. 105-136. 6 Wilckens 1993, pp. 183-187. current neo-Gothic taste. Other furnishings of Schniitgen’s historiciz- ing churches were either bought from catalogues of factories that pro- duced church equipment, or were modeled on examples provided by the Zeitsehrtfl fur Christliche Kunst , 4 one of the most influential reli- gious art periodicals in Germany at that time. From about 1882 until 1913, Schniitgen not only edited this journal, but also contributed copi- ously to it. Normally restricting himself to describing and publishing new Finds from the Field of medieval church art, he wrote several longer articles on the principles of contemporary church building. Obviously, Schniitgen hoped that objects sanctified and legitimated by long use in religious practice would imbue his country churches with a sense of tradition. His intention, at the end of his life, was to let his fellow Catholics experience the life of these objects. He directly expressed this wish in many of his publications. s By his inces- sant study and presentation of medieval objects as ideal models for contemporary religious practice he hoped to reform practically all aspects of life and culture. The churches that Alexander Schniitgen, the priest, built in his later years were the logical consequences of the activities of Alexander Schniitgen the collector. The furnishing of his First church at Olpe, though com- pleted as a building in 1882, went on until the beginning of World War I in true medieval style. 6 In 1912 Cologne saw the much-discussed Son- derbund-Ausstellung exhibition, within which August Macke had organized the First showing of cubist paintings in the Rhineland. A chapel presented in this exhibition showed windows designed by Jan Thorn Prikker and frescoes by Erich Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirch- ner. The parish priest who had commissioned the decoration of this chapel was dismissed from his post. A year later, in 1913, an official instruction about ecclesiastical church architecture, published by the archdiocese of Cologne, mandated that the neo-Gothic style was to be adopted for all new churches and that the furnishings should be of the same style. In the same year, Alexander Schniitgen, as one of the prin- cipal advisors on the interior furnishing of the Cathedral of Cologne, dedicated one of his most beautiful Rhenish madonnas of the late four- teenth century for the altar of its Lady Chapel. Between 1912 and 1913, on the orders of the archdiocese, this chapel had been stripped of its baroque decoration in a purist attempt to regothicize the old parts of Cologne Cathedral. The walls, floor and ceilings were completely remodeled after the example of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, thus pro- viding a Fitting background for the Gothic madonna Schniitgen had donated. And it is, again, no coincidence that, around this time, Schniitgen sat for a photograph of himself (Fig. 9) in the full regalia of a canon of Cologne Cathedral, kneeling on a draped lectern and look- ing for all the world like van Eyck’s Chancellor Rolin. 7 He kneels on the new Neo-Romanesque mosaic floor that was laid between 1910 and 5 Westermann-Anger- hausen 1993, pp. 323, 330. See also the list of articles by Alexander Schniitgen in Borkopp 1993, pp. 347-356. 7 Neu-Kock 1993, p.287, fig 4. See also Wester- mann-Angerhausen, H. 1993, p. 344. 64 1912 in the Gothic ambulatory by August Essenwein, the founder of the Germanic National Museum in Nurenburg. These images from the end of his long career epitomize the principles to which Alexander Schniitgen had remained true. He retained his commitment to the idea of a survival station for old church art and to the collection of exam- ples and models typical of a style of religious practice to which he hoped Catholics would return. The relics he collected for his museum, as well as for re-use in churches, were meant to function as conduits to bring the past into the present. In the early 1920s, however, Schniitgen’s successor Fritz Witte, also a priest but formally trained in art history as well, rear- ranged the collections, which then were still housed in an annex of the Museum of Applied Arts. Witte’s new presentation, liberating the items from Schniitgen’s dense, carpetlike arrangements and displaying them individually, showed that single museum objects were becoming im- portant in themselves, and no longer as just models or vehicles of memory. Schniitgen’s instrument for recalling the past was changing into a museum of art. This became even more apparent when Witte presented the collection in a new environment. In 1932, in an effort to fig. 9 Alexander Schnutgen in the ambulatory of the Cologne Cathedral 65 8 Legner 1991, figs. 227-231, p. 333 ff. decentralize the Museums of Cologne, which had evolved from many pri\ ate donations like Sclmiitgen’s, the Schnutgen Museum was estab- lished in the cloisters and baroque convent building of the Church of Saint Heribert, in the suburb of Deutz, on the bank of the Rhine opposite from the cathedral. It stood next to a museum whose name betrayed its ideology: “Haus der deutschen Heimat.” While the Schnutgen Museum moved to a new location, four other museums in Cologne shuffled collections, altering the make- up of the Schnutgen Museum. 8 The Wallraf-Richartz Museum trans- ferred its antique sculpture to the Archaeological Museum, and its medieval and later sculptures to the Schnutgen Museum, among them the figures from the altar of the Cologne Cathedral (nos. 35 [plate XI] and 5b [plate XII]). The Museum of Applied Arts gave the Schniitgen all its stained glass church windows and received in return many of Selmiitgen’s secular wrought iron, and tooled leather objects, jewelry, and furniture. The Schnutgen Museum also lost another important treas- ure: 172 panel and oil paintings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Thus, what had been a universal medieval collection, similar to that of the Mus6e du Moyen Age in the Hotel de Cluny, in Paris, had become a specialty museum of church art. Witte’s spare presentation in the museum in Deutz, with an emphasis on sculpture, nevertheless implied a courageous break with the past, clearly showing the influence of Bauhaus principles. The individual object had now acquired an aes- thetic presence of its own. When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, the Schnutgen, like most Cologne museums, was closed. Some of its most precious treas- ures w ere shown in the Museum of Applied Art, which was evacuated only after severe bombing in 1944. The old Deutz museum had suffered damage beyond repair, but the collections had survived. About ten years after World War II the Schnutgen Museum was installed in its third location, a Romanesque church that had been a monastery from the seventh century to the French Revolution, and afterward, the chapel of Cologne’s first public hospital. The Church of Saint Cecilia, next to the still functioning parish church of Saint Peter, had lost its roof and vaults in the bombing, and was still being restored. In the mid 1950s, Germany was still undergoing mental and material reconstruction and searching for new values to supplant Nazi ideology. One of those “new” values was the Romantic and politi- cally charged notion of a unified, Christian Europe, which had been popular between 1800 and 1840, long before Alexander Schnutgen had launched his mission. In retrospect, it appears to have been no coin- cidence that in 1956, when the Schnutgen Museum reopened, one of the most popular art exhibitions of the decade in Germany was the Werdendes Abendland, in Essen, a great panorama of the formation of Christian Europe after the period of the migrations. This restoration 66 mentality of the 1950s can be credited with the relocating the collec- tions of Alexander Schnutgen in the restored Church of Saint Cecilia. Now, as the twentieth century ends, these collections, which Schnixt- gen called a survival station for relics of the past and their religious identities, fill a beautiful space that is itself a monument of the past. Today, one would not dream, as Alexander Schniitgen did, of reviving the artistic, religious and ethical values of the middle ages through the presentation of medieval church art in a medieval church. In this time of virtual realities, however, the Schniitgen Museum is ever more becoming a very privileged place, where memory is kept alive by the real presence of original objects. ABBREVIATIONS Borkopp, B. and Renner S„ “Verzeichnis der Schriften Alexander Schnutgens in der 'Zeitschrift fur Christliche Kunst,"' in Westermann-Anger- hausen, H. (ed.) Alexander Schniitgen. Colligitefragmenta nepereant. Cologne, 1993, pp. 347-356. Legner, A. Rheinische Kunst und das Kolner Schnutgen-Museum. Cologne, 1991. Neu-Kock, R. "Alexander Schniitgen — Sammlung und Person im Spiegel der Foto- grafie," in Westermann-Anger- hausen, H. (ed.) Alexander Schnutgen. Colligitefragmenta ne pereant. Cologne, 1993, pp. 283-301. Sporbeck. G. "Vages und Ungewisses — Spurensuche zur Geschichte derTextilsamm- lung Alexander Schnutgens," in Westermann-Angerhausen, H. (ed.) Alexander Schnutgen. Colligitefragmenta ne pereant. Cologne, 1993, pp. 197-206. Spiller, A. "Alexander Schnut- gen und die Anfange der ‘Zeit- schrift fur christliche Kunst,’" in Westermann-Angerhausen, H. [ed.)Alexander Schnutgen. Colligitefragmenta ne pereant. Cologne, 1993, pp. 105-136. Springer, P. "Vorbild Mittelalter — Alexander Schnutgen und derWandel mittelalterlicher Kunst zwischen Kirche und Industrie,” in Westermann- Angerhausen, H. (ed.) Alexan- der Schnutgen. Colligite fragmenta ne pereant. Cologne, 1993, pp. 13-34. Westermann-Angerhausen, H "'Exegi Monumentum’. Zu den Kirchenstiftungen Alexander Schnutgens im Sauerland,” in Westermann-Angerhausen, H. (ed.) Alexander Schnutgen. Colligitefragmenta ne pereant. Cologne, 1993, pp. 323-345 Wilckens, L. von .’’Alexander Schnutgen und die ’neue Kunst,’’’ in Westermann-Anger- hausen, H. (ed .) Alexander Schnutgen. Colligitefragmenta ne pereant. Cologne, 1993, pp. 183-187. 67 FATHER SCHNUTGEN’S CATHOLIC GERMANY Donald Dietrich ince the French Revolution, relations between the Chris- tian churches and European societies have frequently been acrimonious. It is not sufficient to analyze the issue of the relevance of Christianity to society since 1789 as merely revolving around the political struggles between churches and states. Rather, the causes of virtually all modern Christian conflicts have been, at least on one level, aspects of the general process of sec- ularization, which originated in the breakdown of the medieval syn- thesis. For the last two centuries, therefore, Christianity has been challenged to prove not just its truth value, but also its relevance. Since 1789, Europeans have been concerned with the relevance of Chris- tianity in the face of urbanization, industrialization, and the emer- gence of such organizing ideologies as liberalism, democracy, and socialism/communism, not to mention the totalitarian impulses that have fractured cultural life in the twentieth century. Common to the ideologies that have organized societies since 1789 has been a worldview that would allow individuals freely to integrate themselves into the social communities of their respective countries to avoid the anomie that has become the seedbed of modern social fractures. To assist their socio-spiritual integration, Catholics have tried to create a religiously material and spiritual culture for themselves. Collections of artifacts, such as Alexander Schniitgen’s in the Rhenish city of Cologne, exemplify how the German Catholic com- munity adapted to and confronted modern culture. Before 1914 about 30 percent of all Germans were Catholics. They were particularly populous in such states as Bavaria (independ- ent until 1870, and thereafter, part of the Second Reich) and the Rhine- land area (controlled by Prussia prior to 1870 and integrated into the German Empire by Bismarck after his three successful wars of unifi- cation against Denmark in 1864, Austria 1866, and France 1870). In the Rhenish areas where parity became an issue, Catholics suffered dis- crimination in their access to universities, were underrepresented in 68 2 Ross 1976. 4 Anderson 1991, p. 689; Mason 1989, p. 14. the professions, and occupied the lower socio-economic levels. They encountered a variety of discriminatory practices ranging from rules requiring Catholic conscripts to attend Protestant services to such spectacular actions as the arrest of the archbishop of Cologne in 1857. 1 Following the German Unification (1870-71), the Iiullurkampf waged against the Catholic Church heightened tensions until the early 1880s. Until 1914, and to a lesser degree thereafter, Catholics felt that they were in a “beleaguered tower” 2 and aggressively grounded their per- sonal and communal identities in the life of Church. Nowhere does religion seem more important, as Catholics discerned, than in a soci- ety grown secular and politically dangerous. As Catholics and their Church sustained political and socio-economic attacks, their religion became an ever more crucial source of identity. To cope with modern life, therefore, German Catholics tried to link piety, sociability, voting behavior, and industrialization. In the decades before the Revolution of 1848, the multiple threads connecting church and society had worn thin. The Catholic laity was “sliding away from clerical supervision.” 3 The conviviality characterizing brotherhoods and sharpshooting clubs was becoming increasingly interdenominational and secular. Weary clergymen com- plained about drink, illegitimacy, and the loss of respect for sacred things. Even pilgrimages had become such unedifying occasions for hucksterism, fornication and general rowdiness that when the Pruss- ian bureaucracy, dismayed at the loss of workdays, moved to suppress them, it found clerics happy to cooperate. At mid-century these trends were decisively reversed, although the reform trend had been strengthening even before 1848. Buffeted by a decade-long famine, Catholic Germany experienced a religious revival. Franciscan, Redemptorist and, particularly, Jesuit evangelists fanned out over the countryside, offering in hellfire ser- mons an alternative “festivity” to that of the tavern and attracted Catholics in the thousands back to their original religious culture. Pil- grimages, now under clerical control, enjoyed a renaissance. Illegiti- mate births declined. The new piety recast the forms of Catholic sociability. Devotional confraternities proliferated, and social organi- zations administered by priests became specifically Catholic. The cler- gy, moreover, now even spearheaded the formation of occupational self-help associations, whose halls were hung with crucifixes and whose meetings opened and closed with prayer. Such clubs increas- ingly articulated the responses to modernization needed by the varied strata of Catholic society. This had effected, by 1870, a churchgoing, sober, and chaste population, one w hose practice of delayed gratifica- tion mirrored the needs of an industrializing economy. Such a society was not specific to Germany; rather, it characterized the impact of Vic- torian mores on Europe as a whole. 4 It was also a population organ- 1 Sperber 1984, p 11 Schnutgen 1934. 3 Sperber 1984, p. 17 69 6 In Anderson 1991, p. 690. ized to within an inch of its life -a significant political fact until World War 1 and with repercussions even to the present in the ethos of the Christian Democratic Party in contemporary Germany. Although traces of religious renewal can he found in the Rhineland prior to the Revolution of 1848, this post-1850 quickening of Catholicism was a dramatic revolution in behavior and in mentality. Catholic piety and its milieu were parts of a complex adaptation to industrialization, which was carried out by members of the middle class, artisans, and proletarians. The Catholic Center Party itself was spawned from the Catholic social and moral environments and was not merely a reaction to political events. Political formations and party identities w ithin this new religious culture lasted until the Third Reich and, in some respects, even until today. The reemergence of religion-centered piety, which blos- somed fully in the final decades of the century, is conspicuous in its earlier roots. A representative from Constantia, a laymen’s club in Aachen, had already stated it well in 1846: “The fire of Catholic enthu- siasm . . . will be carried throughout the entire land by processions with song and prayer. Instructed and encouraged by the speech of the accompanying priests, the faithful pilgrim will at last step into the ven- erable halls of our thousand-year-old cathedral. With every step, long- ing will increase, his heart will beat faster, until at last, kneeling before the holy symbols of our salvation, he can pour out all his needs and desires to our Lord.”' The post-1871 success of political Catholicism was grounded in a distinctive social milieu characterized by a living piety. This living piety was made possible in part by the innova- tion of mechanical reproduction, which brought forth the ubiquitous plaster saint among other types of religious art. The colorful figurines of the Christmas creche and images of the Virgin Mary, of the Sacred Heart, of local saints, and of traditional saints (for example, nos. 42-44, 50) now dwelt in many homes. Collections of medieval art, contem- porary equivalents to that of Schniitgen, could now be replicated in the privacy of homes. Christian popular culture, which helped forge Catholic identity, gradually became part of an internationalized mass culture. Indeed, the cult of the pope both fostered and reflected this integration. Pio Nono (Pius IX), besieged in the 1860s by Italian armies and a secular culture, was the object of prayers to lessen his suffer- ings. He was the subject of special masses on the anniversary of the conquest of Rome by the Italian armies, which had completed the Ital- ian Unification. Pius IX and his successors saw their names invoked and their images reproduced, which helped their flocks integrate and identify themselves as Catholic. Concomitantly, the hierarchy gradu- ally switched from merely demanding the loyalty of the laity to culti- vating a living solidarity with a relevant Catholic Church under siege. Material artifacts like those collected by Alexander Schniitgen helped weld the laity to the Vatican and its religious mission. 5 Anderson 1991, pp. 683-685; Darnton 1984, pp. 79-81; Larkin 1972, pp. 677-652; Cary 1996. 7 Blessing 1982; Nipperdey 1988, p. 45. 70 9 Anderson 1991, p. 696. 11 See Macaulay in Anderson 1991, p. 70S. The reappearance of the miraculous in the nineteenth cen- tury also strengthened the distinctive Catholic mentality. In 1848 the Catholic paper Neue Sion carried several articles on the appearance of the Virgin Mary near the upper Bavarian village of Aichach. She appeared again in 1872-73 in Kriith and Issenheim in Alsace, where she conversed in French; in 1877 in Dittrichswalde, West Prussia, where she spoke elegant Polish; and in 1878 near the Benedictine cloister of Metten in lower Bavaria. An 187(1 appearance in Marpingen, in the Saarland, led to the quartering there of Prussian soldiers for two weeks at the town’s expense, and eventually to more than two thou- sand arrests. The three eight-year-old girls in Marpingen who reported having seen the vision were sent away to a Protestant reform school for causing such a public nuisance. In addition, the changing rhetoric of devotional acts and literature served a social function and altered detrimental attitudes toward women and the family, thus helping Catholics work against the radical gender re-imaging brought on by industrialization. The new piety may also have contributed to, or reflected, declining illegitimacy rates and the adjustment to industri- alization. 9 One manifestation of the new piety was the reestablish- ment of the authority of the clergy, who helped mobilize the devotional emphases tied to material Christianity. Clerical self-understanding clearly underwent a change between 1851 and 1914. The influential Uni- versity of Munich and its Romantic-historicist scholarship as well as the seminary at Mainz and the revival of the neo-Thomism it spearheaded helped reshape clerical consciousness. The Collegium Germanicum in Rome, a training center for an increasing number of German priests, assisted the new clerical formation. Institutions tried to make clerics aware of their distinctiveness from the rest of society. The Catholic clergy now was urged to avoid tobacco and taverns, forbidden to ride bicycles, and ordered to wear distinctive long black cassocks with Roman collars. The advantages for Catholicism in developing what Ernest Geller has called a “gelded” elite, one forcibly prevented from having connections too intimate with the society it led, seem obvious in light of the triumphant resurgence of the church by 1900. 10 Through the newly reformed and now-disciplined clergy and the accompanying focus on material Christianity, ultramontanism was able to harness the popular enthusiasm that many nineteenth- century authorities initially viewed as disruptive. Perhaps Thomas Macaulay said it best when he marveled that “the Church of Rome unites in herself all the strength of dissent. With the utmost pomp of a dominant hierarchy above, she has all the energy of a voluntary sys- tem below.” 11 Catholicism received its critiquing energy not just from the political genius of its hierarchy, but also from the impetus provid- ed by the specifically Catholic solutions to social problems, which Leo XIII helped to articulate in such encyclicals as Rerum Novarum. But 8 Blackbourn 1993; Blackbourn 1988; Korff 1986, pp. 137-151. 10 Dalberg 1988, pp. 200-203; Gellner 1983, pp. 14-16. 71 12 Erlinghagen 1965; Blackbourn 1988; Jarausch 1982, p. 97. these defensive solidarities rose also from the social locations of Catholics, their minority status, and especially the sensibility that they were an underprivileged minority in a society where position still counted for much. Although thirty percent of the German population, Catholics were still considered religious outsiders, which continued to drive their need for solidarity. 12 The Catholic milieu that developed in the nineteenth cen- tury fully matured in Cologne, where the Schniitgen Collection was formed, housed and later publicly displayed. 1 3 Known since the mid- dle ages as “the German Rome” for both its ecclesiastical power and the depth of its popular piety, Cologne traditionally represented the spiritual and administrative heart of German Catholicism. The seat of the largest archdiocese in Germany, Cologne was also the headquar- ters of the powerful Rhenish branch of the Center Party, and thus became the locus of the vibrant religious and political authority that helped shape the Catholic community thriving within the German Empire. Already the headquarters of the international federation of clerically-led journeymen’s clubs (Gesellenvereine), Cologne pioneered in the 1880s a local network of Catholic workers’ clubs that became a model for the rest of Germany. The Cologne clergy played a crucial role in developing the theoretical and institutional framework for these clubs at the regional and national levels. It was the clerically-led Catholic workers’ clubs that church leaders regarded as their chief building blocks in constructing a socio-cultural milieu. These clubs were meant to become the spiritual and cultural center of the local working-class community, and the core of religious renewal that was designed to save the workers and artisans, the majority of the Catholic populace, from Social Democracy. Catholicism in Cologne, symbol- ized in its “heaven-oriented” Gothic cathedral and in its traditionalis- tic Catholic culture, confronted the Social Democratic movement that sought its utopia in this world and not in the next. Seen from the Rhine, the cathedral dominated nineteenth- century Cologne. Construction had begun in 1248; the official com- memoration took place 15 October 1880. 14 Prussian authorities intended the cathedral to be a monument to the cultural superiority of the new nation, the outpost and stronghold of an all-embracing national iden- tity that found its origins in the First Reich. Catholics themselves saw it as transcending narrow confessional purposes as well as a monu- ment to their faith. The Prussian intention met with only limited suc- cess, and the Cardinal Archbishop continued to preside over the vibrant Catholic life in the Rhineland. The twin-spired cathedral con- tinued visibly to reaffirm the power of a revived medieval piety that was being manipulated to serve the Church in the modern world. Catholics in Germany imputed near-mystical qualities to the cathe- dral. To them, it represented an organic, historical connection to the romanticized medieval age of faith and thus became “the centerpoint 13 On the Schniitgen Museum, see Legner 1982. 14 On the Cologne Cathedral, Wolff 1995 and Nipperdey 1981. 72 17 Broch 1977, pp. 9-19. and symbol” of the Catholic religious and political resurgence of the latter third of the nineteenth century. 1 It was the cathedral that con- cretely projected the revived spiritual life of German Catholics and simultaneously the political ambitions of the conservative German Emperor, Wilhelm I. The foundational post-1848 Catholic response to modern- ization was the strengthening of the popular religious devotions, which helped reinforce both the Catholic and Prussian antipathy to the prin- ciples of liberalism and radical democracy. The hierarchy consistently had considered those principles as the basis of the general moral breakdown and as very real dangers to the institutional Church and its vision of society. The Catholic clergy in the Rhineland worked steadfastly to create and sustain an ongoing religious revival to sup- port a conservative political and moral order against the forces of lib- eralism and Social Democracy. The rise of ultramontanist support for a papacy increasingly under attack lent an additional purpose to the clergy’s efforts, uniting its work at the local and regional levels, which were dedicated to defending the international Church. Revivals, mis- sions, well-organized processions and pilgrimages, and the creation of Marian religious associations based on age, gender, and profession sustained the broadest possible cross-section of the Catholic populace and created an active, structured form of religious practice under the direct authority and influence of the clergy. The clergy knew that to build the Catholic community, workers and artisans especially had to be attached to the Church and its socio-religious culture. One exam- ple can help illustrate the typical clerical attention to the workers. On 10 October 1886, the Catholic Workers’ Club of Cologne (south) cele- brated the first anniversary of its institution. 16 With a perfect sense of symbolism, Church leaders scheduled the event to coincide with the anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Gereon, a Roman officer who, together with 318 of his soldiers, had died for their faith. The festivi- ties were designed to celebrate Catholicism, its workers’ organiza- tions, and the Catholic Center Party. General Vicar of the Archdiocese of Cologne Dr. Friedrich Rleinheidt, opened the celebration with a mass in the parish church of Saint Maria in Kapitol, which was filled to overflowing. Rleinheidt hoped to impress on his listeners that only through prayer, mass, and the Eucharist could they bear the trials of this life. Seven hundred workers came forward to receive communion. At 3:00 in the after- noon representatives of neighboring Catholic workers’ groups joined the host club for a thanksgiving service. The service reached its apogee during the dedication of the new club flag, an elaborately dec- orated creation emblazoned on the front with a mosaic of the Holy Family, which was surrounded with the exhortatory inscriptions “God Bless Honorable Labor”, “Virtue and Industriousness” and “Justice and Love”. 17 is Lill 1983, pp. 97-106 16 Sperber 1984, Ch. 2; Klersch 1968, pp. 271-275. 73 18 Ibid. 20 Strick 1985, pp. 128-129. 21 Joos 1913, pp. 23-24; Jahres- bericht 1908-1910, pp. 8,22. Subsequently, the assembled workers proudly carried this colorful banner, accompanied by three music corps, and militarily marched to the Fmnkischer Hof. Once inside the meeting hall, the par- ticipants received a blessing from Archbishop Philipp krementz of Cologne. The chairman of the host club, Chaplain Peter Oberdorffer, congratulated the exuberant group, urging them, in the spirit of Saint Gereon, to struggle against the non-Christian Social Democrats, espe- cially in the upcoming election . 18 The institutional Church in Cologne was dedicated to forg- ing the intense personal, cultural, and ecclesiastical loyalties that were based in religious identity. The revitalized clergy hoped to include Catholics of all classes into a church community that responded to all their devotional, occupational, social, and political needs. The ethos of their clerical religious training was one that encouraged subordina- tion. Workers were encouraged to accept and express their dependence on the teachings and authority of the institutional Church. Catholics were warned that Social Democrats, among others, denied the exis- tence of God and of heaven, sought to make pleasure the highest law of human existence, and organized their political activities around anti-Christian, secular theories . 19 To combat such alien worldviews, Catholics were urged to take communion, which, the clergy felt, would help imbue them with a sense of identity rooted in the ecclesiastical community. Taking communion as part of a peer group, it was thought, could strengthen their social and religious identities. Such feast days as those of Corpus Christi and Saint Joseph the Worker were designed to reinforce such a collective emotional and religious identity. The clergy especially prized such virtues as faith, hope, love, brotherhood, industriousness, and the joy of singing. 11 Popular leisure time activities, such as partici- pating in singing and shooting clubs, also enabled the workers’ clubs to develop a strong sense of community among their Catholic members. The political sector matched these efforts to bind Catholics religiously and socially to the Church. Catholics were encouraged to project their values into the public sector, whether through corporate religious practices, mass demonstrations, or, above all, through unwa- vering support for the Center Party. In virtually all the Catholic asso- ciations, education in religious apologetics became ever more intense through lectures and the distribution of the tracts produced by the Catholic press. It is not surprising that the favorite topics included the renewed emphasis on the authority of the papacy, the importance of preserving the institutions of the Church, and the relationship of Catholicism to modern culture, all reflecting the antimodernist views of Pius X. 2] In addition, the clergy sought to deepen religious intensity by encouraging Catholics to participate in weekend retreats. The great state-building process in nineteenth-century Europe, whether it occurred in monarchical, imperial, or republican 19 Berger 1971, p. 215. 74 22 Blackbourn 1993, P- 27. forms, challenged the jurisdictional authority of the Church. Catholics developed their own flags, anthems and monuments as symbols of allegiance. This rival set of emblems, medieval religious objects, pil- grimage badges, Marian hymns, and processions illustrated the hold that Church militants had on the popular Catholic imagination in nineteenth-century Europe. Catholics also stressed the secular Ger- man concept of the Gemeinschqft, the romantic-idealistic viewpoint that the community was organic and had its own vibrant life, and to an extent, even its own moral personality. The medieval synthesis was also perceived as historically nurturing the Catholic Church, even in modern times, and as enlivening a Church dedicated to combating secularism. Schniitgen’s collection, therefore, was no mere gathering of artifacts for display; it was an attempt to revive the values of the medi- eval Church by visually projecting the traditional faith into modernity. Preserving its historical tradition was part of the Catholic defense against the Kulturkampf and the secularization of European culture. The works in Schniitgen’s museum in the church of Saint Cecilia manifested the pre-World War I Catholic communal response to an Enlightenment that stressed atomistic individualism and to the secular ideologies that critiqued the traditional Catholic synthesis nur- tured by the middle ages. In the last third of the nineteenth century during the establishment of the Second Reich and stimulated by the assault of the Kulturkampf, as well as by the response to the industri- alization of Germany, Schniitgen designed his display of medieval art to help revitalize the Catholic faith-tradition as a necessary remedy to the fragmentation of European culture and civilization. In the pre- Vatican II Church his artifacts served pastoral and homiletic functions. Antimodernist, therefore, was not just a theological position in the early twentieth century, it was also the avowed goal of such collections as that organized by Alexander Schniitgen. Such museum initiatives also have had very anachronis- tic consequences for the modern Catholic Church, since they tried to stop the metamorphoses common to all living institutional entities. In contrast to the Church’s earlier antimodernism stance, Vatican II ulti- mately stressed that Catholics should greet modernity as an opportu- nity rather than confront it as the enemy that Schniitgen and his contemporaries perceived it to be. Schniitgen represented one attempt by the Church to keep its members united in an ecclesiastical com- munity that did, indeed, convey the traditional Catholic faith into the twentieth century. But no longer can this collection serve such a pur- pose. In light of the totalitarian impulses that we have experienced and that Christianity has confronted, however, Schniitgen did well in help- ing to preserve the Christian tradition, at least at one level. He helped reconstruct an earlier world of belief, which has aided the Church in sustaining and enlivening the Christian tradition in this ideological century and has helped combat the cultural fragmentation that has 75 characterized the post-Eulightenment era. The faith that he tried to preserve pro\ ided the foundation upon which Vatican II could engage modern culture in a meaningful way for contemporary Catholics. ABBREVIATIONS Anderson, M. "Piety and Poli- tics. Recent Work on German Catholicism," Journal of Mod- ern History, 63 (1991), 681-716. Berger, M. Arbeiterbewegung und Demokratisierung. Die wirtschaftliche, politische und gesellschaftliche Gleich- berechtigung des Arbeiters im Verstdndnis der katholischen Arbeiterbewegung in Wilhelmi- nischen Deutschland zwischen 1890 und 1914. Diss. University of Freiburg im Breisgau, 1971. Blackbourn, D. Marpingen. Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Bismarckian Germany. New York, 1993. Blackbourn, D. Volksfrommig- keit und Fortschrittsglaube im Kulturkampf. Stuttgart, 1988. Blessing, W. Staat und Kirche in der Gesellschaft: Institu- tionelle Autoritat und mentaler Wandel in Bayern wahrend des 19. lahrhunderts. Gottingen, 1982. Broch, E. Kathoiische Arbeiter- vereine in der Stadt Koln 1890- 1901. Wentorf/Hamburg, 1977. Cary, N. The Path to Chrisitian Democracy: German Catholics and the Party System from Windthorst to Adenauer. Cam- bridge, MA, 1996. Dalberg, J. (Lord Acton) "The Munich Congress,” Home and Foreign Review (January, 1864) and in Fears, J. R. (ed.) Lord Acton, Essays in Religion, Poli- tics, and Morality. Indianapolis, 1988. Darnton, R. The Great Cat Massacre and other Episodes in French Cultural History. New York, 1984. Erlinghagen. K. Katholisches BUdungsdefzit in Deutschland. Freiburg, 1965. Gellner, E. Nations and Nation- alism. Ithaca, 1983. Jahresbericht des Bezirksver- bandes der katholischen Arbeit- ervereine Koln-Mulheim und seiner beiden Sekretariate. 1908-1910. Jarausch, K. Students, Society, and Politics in Imperial Germany. The Rise of Academic Illiberal- ism. Princeton, 1982. Joos, J. Die Katholischen Arbeit- ervereine. Monchen-Gladbach, 1913. Klersch, J. Volkstum und Volks- leben in Koln, vol. III. Cologne, 1968. Korff, G. (et al) "Kulturkampf und Volksfrommigkeit,” in Schieder, W. (ed.) Volksreligio- sitat in der modernen Sozial- geschichte. Gottingen, 1986. Larkin, E. "The Devotional Revo- lution in Ireland, 1850-1878," American Historical Review 77 (1972), 627-652. Legner, A. Schnutgen Museum Cologne. Zurich, 1982. till, R. "Der Kolner Dom und der deutsche Katholizismus im 19. Jahrhundert," in Dann, 0. (ed.) Religion-Kunst-Vaterland. Der Kolner Dom im 19. Jahrhundert, Cologne, 1983. Mason, M. "Review: F. M. L. Thompson, The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian Britain, 1830-1900," London Review of Books (16 February, 1989), p. 14. Nipperdey, T. Religion im Umbruch: Deutschland, 1870- 1918. Munich, 1988. Nipperdey, T. "Der Kolner Dom als Nationaldenkmal," Histo- rische Zeitschrift 233 (1981), 595-613. Ross, R. Beleaguered Tower • The Dilemma of Political Catholi- cism in Wilhelmine Germany. Notre Dame, 1976. Schnutgen, A. "Beitrage zur Ara des Kolner Erzbischofs Graf Spiegel. Ill Die Feiertage in der Kolner Kichenprovinz auf gesamtkirchen und gesamt- preussicher Hintergrunde," Annalen des Historischen Vere- insfurden Niederrhein 125 (1934), 38-107. Sperber, J. Popular Catholicism in Nineteenth Century Germany. Princeton, 1984. Strick, H. "Der Kathoiische Arbeiterverein Ostheim," Rechtsrheinisches Koln Jahr- buchfur Geschichte und Lan- deskunde 11 (1985), 127-154. Wolff, A. Cologne Cathedral: Its History — Its Works of Art. Cologne, 1995. WHERE WAS MARY?: A POST- HOLOCAUST INQUIRY James Bernauer, S.J. he delicacy of the works of art in our exhibition enhances M I their beauty, and yet it is that very fragility that disquiets II the religious believer. These objects of art-faith open a path into the depths of Germanic spirituality but, for us who live after the era of Nazism and of the Holocaust, they also force us to wonder about the faults in that spirituality. How are we to feel and think about the religious art of a culture which manifested such brilliant devotion but that came to explode into mass murder? Do not the fragments of our exhibition recall the ruins of the war-ravaged cityscapes of 1945 (fig. 10), known in Germany as Year Zero? The Cathe- dral of Cologne, rising majestically above the city’s other shattered structures, cannot disguise the hollowness, the defeat. The ruins of a church, of a house of God, are always especially piercing. Thus, it seems suitable that the single most recognizable German witness to the destruction of World War II is the preserved shell of the Kaiser-Wil- helm-Gedachtniskirche (fig.11) at the entrance to Berlin’s Kurfiirsten- damm. The pale illumination of the church emphasizes its presence as a massive stone sentinel, its enormous mouth gaping, charred. fig 10 Image of the destroyed city of Cologne and the Cologne Cathedral, 1945 fig- 11 Kaiser-Wilhelm- Gedachtniskirche Berlin 77 But what memory does the ruined church guard and speak of.’ Traveling through Germany immediately after the war, Stephen Spender called its former centers, Cologne among them, “corpse cities” that broadcast but one message: annihilation. “The sermons in the stones of Germany preach nihilism.” 1 More than fifty years later, the stones are now reconfigured, the sermons necessarily more nuanced. \nd yet there remains something stark and empty that the last section of our exhibition tries to capture in its Bauhaus-like setting. While the setting reflects the actual look of the Schniitgen Museum in the nine- teen-thirties, it also recalls the yearning in Germany at the time to cre- atively redesign its culture; most Germans of that day would have viewed the objects of our exhibition as representing elements of the traditional faith regarded as essential to that redesign. Although the unsuccessful painter Adolf Hitler manipulated that yearning for Ger- many’s cultural revitalization then, the redesign is yet again a work in progress, as the current rebuilding of Berlin symbolically demon- strates. Surrounded by the gaudy neon signs of nightlife in a reanoint- ed capital city, Berlin’s Memorial Church resembles a relic set in a vibrant reliquary. It is the fragment of a corpse, certainly, but one per- haps still worthy of a reverential gaze and a humble invocation. Per- haps the most fitting piety is to voice our deepest questions. “where was mary?” It is a Catholic question, one witnessing to the millennium-old shrine the Mother of Jesus has occupied in Catholic piety. She has served as the model of fidelity to God’s demands, even risking total disgrace in the eyes of the world. In her is disclosed the peak of the human dignity to which God has called the human: “all ages to come shall call me blessed” (lk 1:48). But, above all, Mary embodied mercy, maternal care, and compassion. Her place was at the foot of the cross and so we have works such as the portable altar (no. 20 [plate VIII]), and the pax with Crucifixion (no. 16). Crucifixion may have been an especially cruel and disgraceful punishment, but it did not drive Mary away; indeed she becomes part of the very cross on the back of the splendid chasuble embroidery showing Madonna and the Saints (no. 53 [plate VI]). The Madonna was the Second Eve, every- one’s mother, and there was the expectation that she would be as pres- ent to faithful men and women today as she had been for her Son. Several pieces in our exhibition reveal Mary’s general importance; the splendid Pietci (no. 62 [plate XV]), from Westphalia, exemplifies her abiding faith even in the face of death. Mary is Catholicism’s central figure of consolation as her prayer makes clear; Protestant theologian Jaroslav Pelikan ranks the entreaty “second only to the Lord’s Prayer in the number of times it has been spoken” in the twenty centuries of Christianity: “Mary, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” 2 The mass death of our age troubles this simple wish. Funda- Pelikan 1996, p. 14. 1 Spender 1946, pp. 22, 24. 78 mental questions are common in the literature responding to twenti- eth-century massacres: Where was God in the midst of such savage violence? Where was the human being at a time of such irresponsi- bility and despair? While it springs from the ancient soil of Catholic devotion, this third question -“Where was Mary?”- has specific post- Holocaust accents. Its uncertainty contrasts with any triumphal reli- gious confidence. For Catholicism, the one hundred and fifty years beginning in 1800 deserve to be called the “Second Great Age of Mary,” succeed- ing the high middle ages when the great cathedrals of Europe were constructed to honor her. If the achievements of scientific rationalism have been staples of the nineteenth century, so have been the num- berless apparitions of the Virgin Mary throughout the world in that same century, modern versions of those medieval cathedrals. Our exhi- bition includes the striking fourteenth-century Vision of Saint Bernard (no. 24), in which the crucified figure of Christ bends down to embrace the saint. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it is not Christ, but Mary, who continually breaks through normal time and consoles. Per- haps that ubiquity could have been predicted as a form of popular spir- itual resistance both to the severity of a Vatican-centered Catholicism and to the cruel dynamic of modern industrialization. Mary appears not to the important in their churches and great cities but to children in fields and small towns. And frequently. An estimated three hundred apparitions have been reported since 1930; in Germany alone, at least once each year between 1932 and 1950. 3 Within this perspective, “Where was Mary?” seems an unnecessary question. But surely it is not. The maternal figure of compassion and profound suffering all too often appears vulgar and trivial, her appearances an imitation of the mass- produced statues that enter homes and gardens. The colors of her dress and stockings come to be described in precise detail; her beauty a constant refrain; her message unclear. In the important nineteenth- century appearances of Mary in Marpingen, Germany, for example, her exchanges with the local children “seldom rose above the level of banality, their prophecies concerning missed appointments rather than sublime matters of war, peace and famine.” Sometimes Mary joined the children in their games as they rolled down the hillside. Apparitions such as these, in the judgment of David Blackbourn, “did not so much represent the eruption of the divine into everyday life, as subject the divine to an everyday regimen.” 4 While there is Our Lady of Lourdes and of Fatima, a Virgin of the Heart of Gold and a Virgin of the Poor, there is no Our Lady of Dachau, no Our Lady of Auschwitz and no Our Lady of Treblinka. The slaughters and death camps scattered across Poland seemed a point- ed mockery of that most Marian of countries and occasionally achieved deliberate perversion: “At the Mauthausen quarry, an Italian 3 Billet 1973. 4 Blackbourn 1995, p. 112. 79 .lew w ith a good voice was made to stand on top of a rock already wired with dynamite, and then blown to death as he sang ‘Ave Maria’.” 5 \\ here was Mary? It is a plea for compassion, from the divine but also from the humans watching such evil. The Vatican followed three strate- gies in dealing with these conflicting currents of abandonment and presence in modern Marian experience: bureaucratic, pastoral and dogmatic. First, it exercised total control over the strict process that would determine which appearances were authentic and which were not. Pastorally, the Church tried to remove Mary from the realm of the childish and commonplace hv enlisting her in a Great Cause, espe- cially the overcoming of Communism. “During the war and after- wards Pius committed Catholics the world over to dedication to Our Lady of Fatima, whose apparition in Portugal had occurred the same year as the Bolshevist revolution in Russia. Peace would be restored, Pius believed, if the Soviet Union could be won over to consecrate itself to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” 6 Here we must pause for a moment. Phayer 1998, p. 248. Perhaps it was then that the Church lost its greatest opportunity to challenge the Nazi war on the Jews, when the widespread devotion to Mary did not lead ecclesiastical authorities to stress her Jewish character and to speak of the two covenants in which she lived her life. Finally and most important, was the dogmatic level. The New York Times, 2 November 1950, carried this front-page headline: “Pope Affirms Dogma of Assumption of Mary to Heaven ‘Body and Soul’.” Pope Pius XU’s declaration of this dogma in Rome the day before was the first, and is still the only, exercise of papal infallibility. In the wake of twentieth-century violence and the widespread phenomenon of a shocking lack of compassion and mercy, the pope sought to elevate the maternal principle above all doubt and ensure Mary’s full pres- ence for humanity on a level that only works of art had tried to cap- ture before. It may have been a way to calm himself. In his 1944 public denunciation of any plans for the bombing of Rome, Pius XII warned that raising a hand against the Eternal City would constitute “matri- cide.” Should we hear in such a word not only a protective concern Blet 1981, p. 341. for the urban center of Catholicism but, even more, a terror about both the Mother of the Church, who seemed to have abandoned the world of flesh and blood, and the people from whose stock she came? The pope’s dogmatic declaration responded with absolute certainty to the doubts voiced in “Where was Mary?”: “Thus, while the Blessed Virgin is fulfilling in the most affectionate manner her maternal duties on behalf of those redeemed by the blood of Christ, the minds and the hearts of her children are being vigorously aroused to a more assidu- ous consideration of her prerogatives.” 8 Mary was not merely a spiri- tual presence; she was a bodily presence as well. The non-Catholic Carl Jung applauded the psychological significance of the 1950 dogma, calling it the “most important religious event since the Reformation.” 5 Johnson 1987, p. 511. 8 Pius XII 1992, pp. 3-4. 80 10 For example, seeTheweleit 1987. 11 Hartman 1986, p. 264. Mary had become the “mistress of heaven” and now was “functionally on a par with Christ, the king and mediator.” 9 If the divine had low- ered itself to become human, the human had now been elevated to a previously unimaginable summit. Just judge and merciful mother were united eternally. “Where was Mary?” Perhaps the question is part of a more extensive anxiety and call for consolation in our post-Holocaust cul- ture, secular as well as religious. There is growing appreciation that important dimensions of fascist violence were fashioned against women in particular. 10 With this realization has come the desire to acknowledge those women who, actually or symbolically, withstood that violence. In his famous address to the Bundestag commemorat- ing the fortieth anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, Richard von Weizsacker, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, paid special tribute to their maternal witness: “Because of the war, many women were left alone and spent their lives in solitude. Yet it is First and foremost thanks to the women that nations did not disintegrate spiritually on account of the destruction, devastation, atrocities and inhumanity and that they gradually regained their foothold after the war.” 11 There is a dramatic artistic recognition of the post-World War II period’s continuing dialogue with the maternal, with Mary. For years Germans sought an appropriate symbol through which to remember the tragedy of their twentieth-century history. Finally, in 1993, sixty years after the rise of Hitler, a small ceremonial building already on the Unter den Linden Boulevard in Berlin was chosen. The words on its sides commemorated the victims of war and dictatorship: the Jews, the Sinti and Roma peoples, homosexuals, the weak and sick. In the single chamber there is but one object, a large sculpture of a Mother cradling her dead son in her arms. The memorial, Grieving Mother (t ig. 12), is an enlarged version of Rathe Kollwitz’s 1937 Pieta. fig. 12 Grieving Mother 1993 Berlin bronze enlarged version of Kathe Kollwitz's 1937 Pieta 9 Jung 1971, pp. 642-643. 81 12 Nolte 1993. p. 22. 13 For example, see Burke 1964, pp. 95-119. 15 Origins 24, 35, 1995, pp. 585-586. wii.u \i\\. There are those who would claim that questions about Nazism and the Holocaust need not be asked any longer, certainly not here in an exhibition of objects assembled in the nineteenth century. \ fierce controversy erupted in Germany not long ago when the argu- ment w as made that the genocide of the Jews is not a deed which flows from Christian Europe. No, the claim went, it must be of some foreign, unci\ ilized world and, thus, another question was put forward: “Did the National Socialists or Hitler perhaps commit an ‘Asiatic’ deed merely because they and their ilk consider themselves to be potential \ ictims of an ‘Asiatic’ deed?” 12 We would like to believe that the reli- gious riches of European culture exclude association with the deprav- ities of the Third Reich. Rut we also know that such belief would be wishful thinking. In fact, German fascism continually and explicitly drew on Christian themes to create its own appeal and myth. Who is unable to detect the Christian accents in Nazi ritual or in Hitler’s rhet- oric? 1 ’ There are assorted ways of describing the relationship of Chris- tian tradition to the Nazi phenomenon. Perhaps it should be explained as a secularized exploitation of religious categories and practices. 14 If so, all of us, religious or not. must grasp the potentially dangerous dimension of the spiritual dynamics which operate in the objects of Sclmiitgen’s collection. These pieces show a stable piety but they also murmur of a threatening, iconoclastic violence. We are fortunate that, as this millennium draws to a close, we hear the awareness of this vio- lence in the requests for forgiveness by ecclesiastic leaders. There was the 1995 statement of the German bishops, which commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of the Ausch- witz camp. Christians “did not offer due resistance to racial anti-Semi- tism. Many times there was failure and guilt among Catholics. Not a few of them got involved in the ideology of National Socialism and remained unmoved in the face of the crimes committed against Jew- ish-owned property and the life of the Jews. Others paved the way for crimes or even became criminals themselves.” The German bishops spoke clearly: “The practical sincerity of our will of renewal is also linked to the confession of this guilt and the willingness to painfully learn from this history of guilt of our country and of our church as well. We request the Jewish people to hear this word of conversion and will of renewal.” In September 1997 the French bishops delivered their powerful confession, blaming narrow ecclesiastical interests for blinding Church leaders to the need for a denunciation of the crimes against the Jewish people. Recognizing that their silence had been a sin, the bishops declared: “We confess this sin. We beg God’s pardon, and we call upon the Jewish people to hear our words of repentance.” 16 More recently, a Vatican statement, “We Remember: A Reflection on the ‘Shoah’”, proclaimed an “act of repentance (teshuva)”: “Al the end ofthis millennium the Catholic Church desires to express her deep sorrow for the failures of her sons and daughters in every age. We pray that our 14 As an excellent example ofthis view, see Tal 1981, pp. 43-74. 16 Origins 27, 18 1997, pp. 301-305. 82 19 Russell 1994, p, 44. 20 Strachey 1964, pp. 90-91. sorrow for the tragedy which the Jewish people have suffered in our century will lead to a new relationship to the Jewish people.” 17 While this statement disappointed many Jews and Christians, especially in its sharp differentiation between Christian anti-Judaism and pagan anti- Semitism (Nazi “anti-Semitism had its roots outside of Christianity”), this formulation also contains an invitation to a broader confession. But what should Christianity confess? We are told that in 1944 only 1.5 percent of Germans considered themselves unbelievers in religion, which is certainly a startling figure if one recalls the level of destruction occurring at that time. 18 Perhaps the Wild Man from a choir stall (no. 58 [plate XIV]) gives us a clue. It is a complex unity: not an otherworldly devil, the wild man was perceived as operating in one’s own vicinity, at one’s elbow as it were, even in the sanctuaries of great cathedrals. In its wood we touch those deep, mysterious forests from w hich modern romanticism carved a German Teutonic identi- ty-a tribe of the forest not an urban citizenry. Closer in both time and space to Germany’s pagan world, this medieval wild man may instruct us in an anthropology more profound than a simple, complete con- version to Christian identity; such anthropology would appreciate those dimensions which are of a wild nature, those that are inimical to human solidarity. Forgotten will be the myth that one is either pagan or Christian; remembered will be Christianity’s compromises with those who converted, especially in German lands. All too often Chris- tianity was absorbed as a cult with no need for personal spiritual and ethical transformation. Christian historians have taken pride in the so- called conversion of the barbarians; these historians have not shown an equal shame about how their faith was paganized. We may speak of a German paganization of Christianity, the best known example of which might be how the Christmas festival cycle came to rival the Easter cycle. 19 Other examples abound: for one, the emphasis on a warrior code with military virtues taken as signs of religious commit- ment. Whereas pagan influence is visible in the emphasis on warrior knights and kings, Christian scripture presents the subordination of the powerful to the powerless as in The Adoration of the Magi for a tab- ernacle door (no. 32). Freud is suggestive in his grasp of one source of the anti-Semitic masses: They are all “Tnisbaptized’. They have been left, under a thin veneer of Christianity, what their ancestors were, who worshipped a barbarous polytheism. They have not got over a grudge against the new religion which was imposed upon them; but they have displaced the grudge on to the source from which Chris- tianity reached them. The fact that the Gospels tell a story which is set among Jews, and in fact deals only with Jews, has made this displace- ment easy for them.” 20 As we examine these beautiful works, we must be alert to how we might abuse them, especially in the ways they speak to a human subconscious or how they display or disguise the living paganism that is intimate to them. 17 Origins 27, 40, 1998, pp. 669,671-675. 18 Robert Michael 1989, pp. 1372-1389. 83 21 The most recent study of this move- ment is Bergen 1996. Also see the earlier Helmreich 1959. 23 Faulhaber 1934, pp. 4-5, 14. 24 Faulhaber 1934, P-71. moses. The presence of Moses on the high altar of Cologne’s cathe- dral (no. 56 [plate XI 1 1 ) should reassure. Moses was the honored medi- ator between God and Israel. To the Christian, though, his depiction as a spiritual figure appears to have been created less from his voca- tion of service to God and people than it was from his prophetic point- ing to Jesus. Christianity declared Jesus the second and greater Moses and the surpassing of the Chosen People’s destiny by the founding of the Now Israel of the Church. From his privileged altar Moses saw the spiritual manna of Jesus Himself, the Promised Land ofGod’s Kingdom. Nazism’s opposition to Moses’ esteemed place in Christian thought and art gave birth to an “anti-Moses” movement, the determination among many Nazis and some Christians to purge Christianity of so- called Jewish influences, in general, and to eliminate the Jewish tes- tament from the Bible in particular. This determination to eliminate the Hebrew books was prelude to their genocide. 21 Perhaps the most famous defense of the integrity of the Bible in the face of the anti-Moses movement was the December 1933 Advent preaching of Munich's Cardinal Faulhaber. He speaks of a “storm” and a “hurricane” that will “sweep the Sacred Scriptures out of Germany, because they are Jewish books.” 22 Still, his sermons sound alarms even in their effort to protect. Faulhaber sharply distin- guishes between the Jews who lived before Christ and those who lived after: “After the death of Christ Israel was dismissed from the service of Revelation. She had not known the time of her visitation.” So while the Jews had lost their chosenness to the Christians, God had still spo- ken in their Bible. However, the cardinal argues with Nazi charges against Christianity by demeaning Jewish authorship. He claims that in its acceptance of Jewish books “Christianity does not become a Jew- ish religion. These books were not composed by Jews; they are inspired by the Holy Ghost, and therefore they are the word of God, they are God’s books.” 2 Turning his back on the long history of Ger- man Marian devotion, Cardinal Faulhaber goes on to deny any Chris- tian affinity with the “womanly” qualities of Judaism, a major Nazi claim. No, Faulhaber’s Christianity is completely masculine and not even the approaching Christmas season’s traditional ways of com- memorating the Nativity could dent its armor. To be sure, he acknowl- edges “those childish, pious souls-whether they wear the nun’s veil or not- who speak and sing in sugary tones of the little Jesus and the little angels,” but, he continues, “Christmas must be a feast for grown men, and not only for children, and it must not belie the manly char- acter of the Christian religion.” It is as if he was embarrassed by the importance placed on the Child Jesus in so much Christian art as shown, for example, in statuettes of a cradle of the Christ child (no. 26), and the Flight Into Egypt (no. 29). Most alarming in Faulhaber’s sermons is the reassertion of traditional claims of an abyss between the Law of Judaism and the 22 Faulhaber 1934, p. 89. 84 Grace of Christianity. The Moses figure in our current exhibition car- ries the tablets of the Law he received on Sinai and this is certainly the identity Moses most frequently possessed for the Christian Scriptures. The Law was usually perceived, not as gift, but as burden, and one from which the new Moses had freed people. “For while the Law was given through Moses, this enduring love came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). Paul elaborates by contrasting a living spirit with a dead letter. Christians are letters “written not in ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh in the heart.” Paul’s ministry is of a “new covenant, a covenant not of a written law but of spirit. The written law kills, but the Spirit gives life.” The earli- er covenant had a glory, but it was nevertheless a “ministry of death”: “We are not like Moses, who used to hide his face with a veil so that the Israelites could not see the final fading of that glory. Their minds, of course, were dulled” (2 Corinthians 3:3, 6, 7, 12-14). Moses may stare from the altar but his presence is as much warning as assurance. Faul- haber embraces the traditional view: “We do not want to re-establish the Mosaic mode of life, nor the Mosaic legislation.” 28 But there is worse. Not only were the Jews considered the bearers of the Law; they were also accused of bringing a burden that they themselves made every effort to avoid. Christian Scripture accents this accusation. Hadn’t Jesus said, “Moses has given you the law, has he not? Yet not one of you keeps it” (John 7:19). This view echoes in Faulhaber’s sermons when he speaks of the ethical weakness of the “Old Testament.” Others write even more fiercely that the “birth of Jesus from among the Jewish people is to be considered a sign of spe- cial self-abasement.” They insist that the needs of the time demanded a “genuine Christian struggle against Judaism,” for what Germany requires the “Law of Moses cannot grant, namely the strength of eth- 26 ical renewal.” 26 I emphasize this dimension of Law and evasion Hauser, 1987, p. 159. because it permits me to introduce one of the most significant efforts to account for the Holocaust, the insight of George Steiner. In search- ing the cultural source of the Shoah, Steiner finds a clue in a remark attributed to Hitler: “conscience is a Jewish invention.” The Jews are identified with the biblical commandments and, thus, with the guilt resulting both from humanity’s necessarily inadequate fulfillment of the Law and from the repression of drives entailed in the effort of fulfillment. Steiner reads the peaceful century preceding World War I as the incubator of a cultural malaise, a pervasive boredom that pro- duced an “itch for chaos” and a “nostalgia for disaster.” Nietzsche’s revolt anticipated the passion to overthrow the era of bourgeois con- formity; Steiner argues that the explosive violence of this century was the “lashing out of the choked psyche, an attempt to ‘get air’, to break the live prison-walls of an intolerably thronged condition.” 28 And what had created these prison walls? In Steiner’s view, they were created by 25 Faulhaber 1934, p.67. 27 Steiner 1971, p. 36. 28 Steiner 1971, pp. 11, 20, 52. 85 BO "Deutschland" Cited in Baird 1990, pp. 132-133. 32 Adam 1992, p. 78. the three great moments in Judaism’s ethical instruction ofhumani- t\ : the Mosaic revelation of a monotheism that gives a Law; the impos- sible ethical demands of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount; finally, Marx’s vision of a messianic age of freedom and justice. Jew s had imposed the conditions for a life of intolerable guilt. Although the subconscious desire was to eliminate the god w ho was the ultimate author of this guilt, an “easier vengeance” lay in the violence of the Holocaust. 29 In annihilating the Jews, the Nazis would eradicate those who invented a single god and the demands of that god. the cross. Frequently displayed since the fifth century, the cross has been the supreme artistic symbol of Christian faith throughout its sec- ond millennium. Several fine examples appear in our exhibition. Among them are the Swabian cross of the thirteenth century (no. 37), the fifteenth century reliquary cross (no. 13), and, from the nineteenth century, there is the pendant cross with a clock (no. 42). The cross commemorates the mystical, Paschal event of Jesus’ redemption and, thus, until the thirteenth century, the figure usually represented was the living, triumphant Christ. Only in the mid -thirteenth century was the resurrected Christ regularly replaced by Jesus’ suffering body or corpse. The Crucifixus Dolorosus (no. 3 [plate 1 ]) is for me the most striking example of this latter style among our exhibition’s many crosses. Although it portrays the suffering Christ, this beautiful depic- tion is understated and its tree branch form draws attention to the theme of “arbor vitae,” the tree of life, which is the meaning of the cross. In time, realistic portrayals of Jesus’ agonies and tortured body eclipsed this image of hope. Jesus’ victimization, running wounds and dra- matic suffering were most attractive for the Nazi imagination as a fate to be overcome. The poet Gerhard Schumann put Germany herself on the cross: “Blood streams from a thousand wounds, /Suffering devours you, that fearful ghost. . . /Now that the entire globe has crushed you, Aren’t you too, guilty in your apathy?/ Don’t agonized prayers rise up/ For the sacrificial purity of the Reich? . . . /Has God forgotten you?/ Or have you betrayed yourself?” 30 Jesus’ sacrifice was yoked with primitive Teutonic myths of dying warriors and fashioned into a cult of heroic death, mocking the peaceful, insignificant death imposed by bourgeois society. 31 This theme of valorous death obsessed art in the Third Reich: “Painting, sculpture, film, and literature constantly glorified death and the deep- er meaning of sacrifice.” 32 Thus, art encouraged the capacity for the sacrifices that would he demanded. The mass death of World War 1 prepared the vast canvas for those millions of crosses that would mark the individual resting places of soldiers throughout Europe. But such cemeteries were, in fact, less places of rest than they were education- al monuments; spectral armies still advanced, row after row, in mili- 29 Steiner 1971, p. 41. 31 See Baird 1990, p. 244, and Mosse 1990, p. 92. 86 34 Kershaw 1983, p. 348. tary formation, armies calling to arms tens of millions of new soldiers. German war cemeteries were regarded as Prussian in their simplicity. “To be sure, no individual inscriptions were allowed. Here, iron or stone crosses were usually substituted for gravestones. Such crosses were in the shape of the Iron Cross, which dated to the Wars of Liber- ation but was still Germany’s highest military decoration.” 33 Polemics 33 Mosse 1990, p. 84. about the way modern mass production trivialized such sacred sym- bols as the cross would precede protests against the slaughter. The armies of graves to come are eerily foreseen in the wall of crosses in Schniitgen’s collection. Would their display in his museum’s stark Bauhaus-setting have emphasized the nobility of death itself and, thus, subtly foster an acceptance of those graves? Did the crosses, present- ed as art objects and isolated from liturgical settings, prepare Chris- tians for a kingdom of violence that was antithetical to their Gospel’s meaning? The cross also became the preferred target for Nazi vandals who would deface it with their replacement, the swastika; Hakenkreuz over Kreuz. And this disfigurement paid silent tribute to the political power of the cross, for we know from some few instances of rare pub- lic protest that the crucifix could galvanize a temporary Catholic resist- ance to the Nazis. When the Nazis removed crucifixes from numerous Bavarian schools in 1941, Faulhaber issued a strong pastoral letter in which “he contrasted the removal of crucifixes from the schools with the placing of crosses on the graves of fallen warriors.” 34 When a soldier, fighting on the Russian front, learned from his wife that the National Socialists were planning to strip numerous schools of their crosses, his reply identified the Nazis with the godless Communists. He told her that he had read her letter to his comrades: The effect was dreadful. These mud-encrusted, exhausted men cursed and ranted. You have no idea. No one wanted to fight any longer. Do we have to endure this unheard-of murder, this terrible struggle, these dreadful hardships, so that we are oidy skin and bones, just for Bolsheviks in the homeland? I only have the one wish: Our Lord should let me just once more back home. I’ll sort out these Heimat heroes , so help me God. And a soldier keeps his word. Let me know immediately if they remove the cross . 3 Kershaw 1983, p. 351. What the Nazis feared most, an alliance between domestic protest and the fighting army, accounts for their willingness to back down when confronted with Church protest. There had been an earlier 1936 confrontation over the cru- cifix which proved Catholics were willing to protest if a crucial symbol 87 such as the cross was involved. On the November Remembrance Day for the soldiers of World War 1 , a priest, a veteran of that war, helped create a virtual mass demonstration. Speaking at a service attended by some three thousand ex-servicemen, the priest said: Our comrades died and we fought and bled for our fatherland on earth, so that we will be even more determined to fight and bleed, and if necessary to die for Christ and his kingdom and for the symbol of Christianity, the crucifix. Someone, who has never smelt die smell of cordite, who has never heard bul- lets whistling overhead . . . may be incapable of under- standing this. But we war veterans will make him aware that we still know how to fight and if it comes to it to die ... If anyone now wants to take the crucifix out of our schools . . . the answer is we will never, never, never accept it. That is our final word. 3 ' Noakes 1978, pp. 220-221. Would a massive movement of protest have put the Kreuz over the Hakenkreuz? We may wonder whether the courageous pas- sion generated by Nazi disparagement of the cross might have been evoked by courageous Catholic identification with the Jews. The anti- Nazi Bishop Clemens August von Galen of Minister doubted that the majority of Catholics would, in fact, engage in an all-out fight with the Nazis. " So it may not have been the Kreuz over the Hakenkreuz after Noakes 1978, p.226. all. Gazing upon the cross, one sees a strength, but recognizes weak- ness as well. body and soul. The enshrining of the crucified body in Christian piety and art leads us to the uncomfortable recognition of a dangerous weakness in Christianity’s ability to respond to the challenge of Nazism. 1 first came to study the weakness as the result of a remark made by the courageous Protestant resistance leader Helmut James von Moltke, who was later to be executed by the Nazis. On 23 August 1940, von Moltke wrote this to his wife: “N(ational) S(ocialism) has once more taught us reverence for what is below us, i.e., material things, blood, ancestry, our bodies.” 3 The art of the Third Reich cele- 38 Moltke 1990, p. 110. brated a human body untouched by ugliness and distortion. Indeed, at one point, the Nazis put themselves forward as protectors of a more noble image of the Crucifixion itself. The very first room of the famous 1937 exhibition on “Degenerate Art” featured several crosses. The tor- tured, distorted and very unheroic body of Ludwig Gies’s Crucified Christ (1921), which had hung as a war memorial in Liibeck Cathedral, was included in the exhibition because the Nazis judged it a defama- tion of the war’s dead. Also included in the Nazi exhibit were Emil 88 40 Jaspers 1947. Nolde’s Crucifixion and Max Beckmann’s angular Deposition. ' The rich heritage of religious art should have secured Christians in an incarnational vision, in an appreciation ofthe body and soul as a unity. The remark of von Moltke points to another reality though: how Nazism successfully exploited a strong religious alienation from the body and, thus, manipulated Christianity’s estrangement from its own incarnational tradition. At the end ofthe war Karl Jaspers differenti- ated German guilt according to various levels: political, criminal, moral and metaphysical. 41 I would like to argue that there is a fifth level of ethical-spiritual responsibility which explores how our most foundational religious images, concepts and practices for intimate and public lives may contain those seeds of hate and violence that could burgeon almost automatically in certain cultural crises. But that would be to race ahead. How was it possible for National Socialism to be so suc- cessful in capturing the minds and hearts of so many Christians either as committed believers or as tolerant bystanders? The Nazi period forces all of us to ask this question, to confront our dangerous ethical selves: How adequately or inadequately do we fashion ourselves, or are we fashioned, intellectually, ethically, and spiritually, to appreciate or refuse certain types of moral appeal. These practices of the self define how an individual comes to feel that a matter warrants moral concern and what steps one is obliged to take in response to that moral signal. It is true that National Socialism appropriated a ready-made set of national virtues -honesty, diligence, cleanliness, dependability, obe- dience to authority, mistrust of excess. 41 Still, if we are to understand why these virtues came to be so characteristic and why people were so prepared to tolerate evil, we must interrogate the dynamics of the spiritual formation that German culture had passed down. To speak of spiritual life at that time might seem to miss the mark when one remembers the brutal reality of Nazi deeds. What we must face, though, is that the beginning of the Hitler regime coin- cided with a passionate desire among many Germans for a spiritual renewal. At this distance it is difficult to appreciate how promising a year 1933 was expected to become. In fact, Paul Tillich at the time accused perhaps his most prominent theological colleague, Emanuel Hirsch, of associating the year so closely with 33, the traditional date of Jesus’ death and resurrection, that the year of Hitler’s rise to power assumed the “meaning of an event in the history of salvation.”" One must acknowledge, though, that there was an intense atmosphere of spiritual transformation that year. Philosophers and theologians felt as though a special invitation had been extended to their talents. Perhaps the most important question before them was how to relate to one’s self, how one might affirm oneself as worthwhile. But to speak of spirit in the context of a culture still deeply rooted in Chris- 39 Barron 1991: No. 41, Cies, Kruzifixus (pp. 49-51); No. 325, Nolde, Kreuzigung (p. 317); No. 164, Beckman, Kreuzab- nahme (p. 205). 41 See Amery 1967, pp. 29-34. 42 Tillich 1985, p. 364. 89 44 See Mahoney 1987, pp. 28-29, 45. Also see Langer 1986, p. 127. 45 See Phayer 1977; Pascal 1973, especially pp. 198-228. tianitj \tas also to discuss flesh; cravings for spirit inevitably connect to a discourse of sin, sensuality and sexuality. If spirit expressed vital- ity and creative force, flesh possessed many Satanic features, assault- ing reason and proclaiming human weakness. This dualistic reading of the spirit-flesh struggle as soul-versus-body is certainly inadequate to Paul's theology; yet it has often characterized Christian discussion, both past and present, especially in regard to sexual matters. 4 ' Here we may have, though, a major source of Christianity’s weakness in its encounter with Nazism, for much pathology seemed to flourish in the charting of sexuality by modern religious culture. It is the charting with which 1 am concerned, not the sexual morality that may be put forward as a response to it. The disciplining of sexuality was selected as a privileged route to moral status, but the churches did not create a very sophisticated palette of insight into it. The broodings of moral theology were too frequently isolated from the traditions of Christian spiritual theology. 44 I will not repeat the series of Christian statements from this period denouncing the social permissiveness of co-educa- tion, and its supposed lack of concern for the lust in children and ado- lescents; nor those denouncing the immodesty intrinsic to public swimming pools; nor the many warnings about the dangers of nudity and male friendships. This determination to exorcise eroticism all too often encouraged a fierce self-hatred. The Church tended to see in a certain modern relaxation of sexual moral codes a decline of faith and, thus, an historical intimacy between Christian existence and the spirit- flesh struggle was reconfirmed and strengthened, now with modern sexuality as its unchallenged center. 45 There was strong emphasis on Marian devotion in large part because Mary, as Virgin and Mother, could be put forward as the model of sexual purity. The pivotal role which Christian moral formation entrusted to disciplining sexuality had two major consequences. First, it exposed Christians to a Nazism that they could think of as either ethically allied with Christianity or as a liberation from religion’s inadequacy to the richness of human life. National Socialism found the religious preoccupation with sexuality in moral formation to be helpful in a variety of ways: it sustained the emphasis on those secondary virtues that made people so compliant; it habitu- ated people to an atmosphere of omnipresent sinfulness that seemed to grow with every step beyond childhood; and it educated people into a moral pessimism about themselves and what they might be able to achieve; and this issued in what the Jesuit Alfred Delp, who was later to be executed by the Nazis, described as a paralysis of the inner self. 46 While it has been frequently acknowledged that an absence of German self-confidence was a precondition for Hitler’s popular success, the focus of responsibility has usually been given to economic factors; the moral-spiritual dimensions, however, should not be ignored. 47 Many religious and moral practices established a profound alienation from 43 For discussion of this theme, see Brown 1988, especially pp. 47-49, 86, 296-297, 348-349, 376-77. 46 Delp 1963, pp. 118, 146-147. 47 Curian 1942, p. 391. 90 48 See the study by Mosse 1996. 52 Bleuel 1973, p. 57. 53 See Murphy 1970. one’s self and one’s desires. And this self-alienation was also a mode of alienation from the public space. Sexuality set the model for dealing with moral difficulty: avoidance of danger and cultivation of a tranquil interiority. This trained some people into a permanent submissiveness and stimulated in others an intense welcome to Nazism’s seductive promise they they might get beyond the sexual guilt of Christianity. Nazism in effect put forward the bold project of overcom- ing the dualisms fostered by religion: body versus soul, flesh versus spirit . 48 National Socialism spoke to-and not just flattered -the Ger- man tradition of and pride in inwardness, the Innerlichkeit which advo- cated a strenuous self-cultivation . 49 But the Nazi revolution bound together this celebration of inwardness, of the German spirit, with a profound affirmation of one’s historical moment, of one’s own German body, social and personal. This body was to be praised for its health, its beauty, its utility and, most of all, as the temple for the transmis- sion of biological life. The extent of its sexual ethics could he put for- ward as what is most distinctive of Aryan ideology . 50 Aryan ethics was a strategy of sabotage against alternative relations to sexuality. It made a foe of the sexual libertinism of the Weimar Republic and of the Soviet Union. The sexual laxity which had been identified in the past with Germany’s ancient enemies, the French, now was tied to Communism’s relaxation of legal restraints . 51 After it had replaced the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich mounted a wide- spread campaign of sexual purification-denunciations of pornogra- phy, homosexuality and any eroticism not governed by the desire for procreation, for those would eclipse the central status which sexual- ity had on the “battlefield of life .” 51 This crusade against eroticism was terribly attractive for German Christians -and, I might add, made Hitler appear as a force for moral renewal to Christians in the United States as well . 53 Catholic anxiety about Communism included its per- ceived sexual license and hostility to family values. Thus, on the eve of the Second World War and the Holocaust, the Nazis blanketed Ger- many with a campaign for decency. But National Socialism was far more cunning than most expected. The campaign for decency was by no means an acceptance of Christian codes. National Socialism con- structed a post-Christian erotic. While Church leaders were regularly denouncing the dangers of immodesty, Nazi culture was celebrating the beauty of the nude body and the benefits of exhibiting it- in gal- leries of art as well as among the joyful gatherings of youth. The Nazis succeeded in portraying Church views as hopelessly prudish, the Church’s sexual teaching as unrelentingly hostile to the joys of sexu- al life and in encouraging young people to look elsewhere for a wise understanding of their erotic desires . 54 One might have hoped that the long pondering about sexual activities would confer upon Christians a particular sophistication in grasping some of the subtle tones in Nazism’s sexual propaganda. I have found few signs of such profi- 49 On this topic, see Bruford 1975. 50 See Hoffmann 1938, p. 51 and Hermannsen and Blome 1940. For a gen- eral text on Nazi sexual ethics, see Siebert 1938. 51 See Engelstein 1992. 54 Arp 1939; Langer 1986, p. 115. For examples of Nazi denunciations, see Mariaux 1940, pp. 440, 464, 472-475. The anonymous editor of this collection was a German Jesuit resid- ing in Rome, Walter Mariaux. 91 55 It could be argued that an exception would be the resistance shown by German Catholic women, motivated by ideals of virginity, to Nazi efforts to reduce women to the level of mere breeders of chil- dren. I cannot develop this issue here but see Phayer 1990. 57 For a Jewish defense against these charges, see Bloch 1935. On the charges, see Gilman 1991, p. 258. 59 I try to advance this mapping in a forthcoming essay, Bernauer 1999. For extensive examina- tions of these themes see: Mosse 1985, and the extraordinary series of works by Gilman, especially 1986; 1989; 1993 and 1998. Also see Felden 1963. Also Edwardes, 1967, pp. 106, 180; Koch 1975 and 1986, pp. 83-86; Showalter 1982, pp 189, 198. See Flauser 1925; Diehl 1933; Blau 1951, pp. 321-324; Goldhagen 1981, pp. 7-15; Runkel, 1979 especially pp. 122-127. Also Flartner 1925; Hyams 1995, p. 166. ciency. It is as if the long stress on the natural law had deafened them to the changing sounds of historically contingent evil. Indeed, there seems a special blindness, a general failure to recognize how demon- ic the unrelenting stress on eroticism’s demonic force could also be. The inadequacy of this moral formation had a second face. In that endless searching after the reasons for why the Jews were so victimized by the Nazis, for why so many collaborated in their mur- der, and especially for why so many stood aside and failed to do what could have been done, 1 propose that an essential answer lies in this issue of sexuality. Before the Jews were murdered, before they were turned away from as not being one’s concern, the Jew had already been defined as spiritless, on the one hand, and sexually possessed, erotically charged on the other hand. In contrast to the special Ger- man inwardness I mentioned earlier, the Jew was portrayed not only as empty of spirit but as an enemy of it. German philosophers worried about what was called a Verjudung of deutschen Geistesleben, a “Jew- ification” of German spiritual life. 56 The Jewish intellectual was both a materialist and a pharisaic rationalist in comparison with German depth thinking. Deprived of spirit, the Jew was defined in Nazi prop- aganda as essentially carnal, as excessively sexual, indeed as bound- lessly erotic, whose conduct was not under the control of the moral conscience. 57 Lust robbed the Jews of reason and, thus, reduced them to an animal level, a status which would soon come to be reflected in Nazi torture. Some roots of the Nazi portrayal are in Christianity. 58 1 am not able here to trace these roots, but I do wish to note the inadequacy of a frequently appearing model: the chronological calendar on which modern anti-Semitism supersedes Christian anti-Judaism. In fact they coexisted in the Nazi period and blended in ways that have yet to be adequately mapped. 59 It was in their customary portrayal of Jews as an erotic flood that the Nazis spoke to Christian anxieties about the sexual climate of their culture. Why were so few people troubled about standing on the sidelines? Why did so many fail to get involved with victimized Jews, practically or even emotionally? I would claim that this portrayal is certainly a major source of that moral indifference. For the Germans, who were proud of the spiritual inwardness that was the legacy of their culture, the supposed carnal Jew represented a con- tamination, the destruction of the spiritual sense and the eruption of the uncontrollable erotic body. In the light of the predominant style of moral formation, one could have predicted that, even while Christians mounted protests on behalf of the crippled and the insane, they would abandon the Jews. At best. A religious formation that learns from this sorry history must abandon dualism and embrace an ideal that does justice to the worth of the human body as well as integrates viewpoints about sexuality with a discourse on human dignity. Many Church statements demonstrate that major steps have already been taken in 56 As an example see Martin Fleideggers’s October 2, 1929 letter to Victor Schwoerer, included in Leaman 1993, pp. 111-112. It is also an expression which Flitter used fre- quently. For example Hitler 1971, p. 247. Also see the fine dis- cussion in Ascheim 1985, pp. 212-241. 58 For example, see Oberman 1984. 92 this direction. Far more significant, though, will be the moral practices that they promote and the art a post-Holocaust culture creates. The harmony that great art fashions from matter and spirit is not just an object of beauty; it is the teaching of reverence for the human body’s integrity as both body and soul. And perhaps someday the Catholic dogma of the Assumption of Mary will come to be understood more clearly as a proclamation of that integrity: the heavenly status of the humanly embodied. ABBREVIATIONS Adam. P. Art of the Third Reich. New York, 1992. Amery. C. Capitulation. New York, 1967. Arp. W. Dos Bildungsideal der Ehre. Munich, 1939. Ascheim, S. "'The Jew Within': The Myth of 'Judaization' in Germany” in Reinharz, J. and Schatzberg. W. (eds.) The Jew- ish Response to German Cul- ture: From the Enlightenment to the Second World War. Hanover, NH, 1985. Baird, J. 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The Per- secution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich. Facts and Documents Translated from the German. London, 1940. Michael, R. Bystanders to the Holocaust. Westport, CT, 1989. Moltke, H. J. von, Letters to Freya: 1939-1945. von Oppen, B. R. (ed. and trans.) New York, 1990. Mosse, G. Nationalism and Sexuality: Respectability and Abnormal Sexuality in Modern Europe. New York, 1985. Mosse. G, Fallen Soldiers : Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars. New York, 1990. Mosse, G. The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Mas- culinity. New York, 1996. Murphy, F. I. The American Christian Press and Pre-War Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939. Diss. the University of Florida, 1970. Noakes, J. "The Oldenburg Crucifix Struggle of November 1936: A Case Study of Opposi- tion in the Third Reich,” in Stachura, P. (ed.) The Shaping of the Nazi State. New York, 1978. Nolte, E. "The Past That Will Not Pass: A Speech That Could Be Written but Not Delivered," Forever in the Shadow of Hitler? 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CATALOGUE of objects IN THE EXHIBITION ■ - .■ “/■< ■iytev m Ill Cover of an Evangeliary with Christ in Majesty no. 7 I previous page Crucifixus Dolorosus no. 3 II Cross no. 4 m jr^«; _ J VI Chasuble with Medieval Orphrey Cross showing Madonna and Saints no. 53 I V front V back Baroque Chasuble with Medieval Orphrey Cross (Cacilienkasel) no. 8 VIII Portable Altarpiece with the Crucifixion and Saints no. 20 VII Reliquary Bust of a Female Saint no. 10 IX Diptych with Virgin and Child and Crucifixion no. 23 X Head of Christ no. 30 XI Saint Barbara from the High Altar of Cologne Cathedral no. 35 XII Moses from the High Altar of Cologne Cathedral no 56 XIII Saint Vitus in the Kettle no. 61 XIV Wild Man from a Choir Stall no. 58 next page XV Pieta no. 62 the middle ages 4 Cross Vienna. 1st half of 14th century Champleve enamel and gilding on copper over wood core H: 17 S A in. (45 cm), W: 6’/» in. (15,8 cm) Bibliography: Falke 1906. cols. 333-334. fig. 4; Witte 1913, p. 102, pi. 31. Schnutgen Museum. G 31 This cross could be removed from its base and slipped into the shaft of a staff for use in processions. A fully modeled figure of Christ, surrounded by the symbols of the four Evangelists in repouss6, that is, hammered from the back into a concave cast-iron mold and embossed from the front to sharpen details, dominates the front of the cross. Only the titulus crucis and the nimbus of Christ are champleve enamels. Precious stones once framed the medallions of the Evange- lists. Early Gothic foliage against parallel hatching of the background ornaments both sides. The reverse shows the engraved medallions of the Lamb of God in the center and frontal busts of angels on the four terminals. Von Falke (1906, cols. 333-334) has compared several details of this object with other deco- rative works thought to have been made in Vienna in the fourteenth century. His attribu- tion is based on characteristic details such as the enameled red roses on blue ground and the engraved foliage on the cross of the nimbus. 5 Chalice Rhineland, 14th century Gilded silver (cup) and gilded copper (base) H: 6 in. (15 cm), Diam: 4 in. (10 cm), W base: 5'A in. (14 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1913, p. 94, pi. 3.5. Schnutgen Museum. G 107 The medieval chalice is the ves- sel in which the wine at mass is consecrated, and from which the priest drinks at Commu- nion. Early examples of these vessels show deep oval or hemi- spherical bowls designed to hold large quantities of wine, while the later examples have smaller and slimmer conical cups. In the celebration of the Eucharist, the chalice was often accompanied by a matching paten, the flat dish on which the Eucharistic bread is placed. This simple chalice of the fourteenth century is represen- tative of the new elongated Gothic form consisting of a small cup with a slightly flared rim, a long, thin stem divided midway by the protruding knop, and a broad, octagonal, stellate, flat base. The latter, wide and stable but not massive, permits the chalice to rest on its side without rolling. On the present example, a rounded, ribbed knop, used for holding the ves- sel, sits on an octagonal stem; the edge of the eight-sided, star- shaped foot is decorated with small stars. The chalice was produced economically, since only the cup is made of silver. The rest is of less expensive copper, which, when gilded, gave the impression of a precious metal. 6 Censer North Germany, c. 1200 Bronze H : 9Vi in. (24 cm) Bibliography: Zeit derStaufer 1977, no. 695, pp. 521-522, fig. 494; Legner 1985, 1, no. B 115, pp. 337 and 341. Schnutgen Museum. G 575 a.b This censer combines the two principal forms of censers: the architectural, and the spherical with ornamental openwork. Its shallow bowl shows chased bands of decoration running vertically from each chain loop to the foot. The spherical lower half of the cover is pierced with three rows of mushroom- shaped openings and serves as a base for an architectural superstructure, a building w ith a large conical roof surmounted by a lily. Nearly identical in form to the present work, and only slightly varied in ornament, are two censers in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (acc. no. 09.152.4) and the Statens Historiska Museum in Stock- holm (acc. no. 2548 :ia). Their similarity indicates that they all came from the same work- shop, which specialized in mass-production. 118 7 [ PLATE III ] Cover of an Evangeliary with Christ in Majesty Cologne. 1st quarter of 14th century Gilded silver sheets on velvet-covered oak H: 7*Ain. (19.S cm). W: 5 in. (12.5 cm) Bibliography: Dos Schnutgen-Museum 1968. no. 116, p. 71; Euw 1997, no. 3, pp. 38-43. Schnutgen Museum. G 532 Precious covers such as this w ere reserved for the liturgical books used in religious services. Here, the cover binds an older, twelfth-century parchment manuscript containing excerpts from the Gospel read during mass and an appended Ordo missae. The covers, set against a green velvet background covering the wooden boards, are executed in Opus interrasile, a technique in which forms and figures are cut from thin metal sheets and engraved. The front cover shows the image of the Majestas Domini (Majesty of the Lord). Christ is seated on an arc symbolizing the globe of the universe within a mandorla, or aureole, indicat- ing the divine glory of light. In his left hand, he holds a book and raises his right in a gesture of blessing. Four angels fill the corners, the lower ones kneel- ing and supporting the mandor- la, the upper ones swinging censers (the censer of the right upper angel has broken away). The back cover shows sym- bols of the four Evangelists and the Lamb of God in medallions. From the Cologne church of Saint Aposteln, this book cover provides rare evidence of the art of goldsmithing in that city in the early-fourteenth century. 8 ( PLATES IV, V ] Baroque Chasuble with Medieval Orphrey Cross (Cacilienkasel) Chasuble: Italy, 2nd quarter of 17th century; red-white silk, satin weave; H: 43 in. (109 cm), W: 25'/: in. (65 cm) Orphrey: Cologne, after 1470; linen, plain- weave, embroidered in polychrome silk and gold threads, parcel-painted; W: 6% in. (16 cm) Combined in mid-19th century Bibliography: Scheyer 1932, no. 25, pp. 89-91; Stefan Lochner 1993, no. 102, p. 452; Sporbeck 1996. pp. 46, fig. 21. Schnutgen Museum. P 864 The chasuble was the principal liturgical vestment worn by the bishop or priest when celebrat- ing the mass. Derived from the ancient traveling cloak, early medieval chasubles were capa- cious and of conical or tent-like form. The present piece is consid- erably smaller than earlier medieval examples and shows the typical “fiddle-shaped” cut of the Baroque period, which allowed the wearer greater freedom of movement. In the mid-nineteenth century this seventeenth-century Italian silk fabric was decorated with embroidered opherys of a fifteenth-century cope and dal- matic that had been given to the hospital church of Saint Cecilia in Cologne. On the cen- tral band, the images of Saints Thomas, Ursula, and Lawrence alternate with coats of arms. The names of the donor, Johann Pennynck, and his wife are inscribed beneath the shields. The cross beam shows the smaller figures of Saint Peter (right) and of Saint Gereon (left), the warrior saint of Cologne martyred near the city, whose relics are venerated in a church bearing his name. 9 Tower Monstrance Rhineland or Westphalia, mid-15th century Gilded copper H: 22 3 A in. (58 cm), W base: 7 7 /s in. (20 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1913. p. 101, pi. 25.2. Schnutgen Museum. G 94 The monstrance or ostensorium (Latin monstrare or ostendere, to show) is a liturgical vessel for the exposition of the blessed sacrament (see Eucharistic Vessels 1975, pp. 97-101). During the late middle ages, the host became an object of veneration outside mass. After the institu- tion of the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264, a new vessel was required both to present and to protect the host. The form of the monstrance is closely related to the reliquary from which it evolved -the relics simply being replaced with the sacrament. During the fourteenth and fif- teenth centuries, the monstrance developed independently from the reliquary and became increasingly elaborate. The present example, in the shape of a tower, represents the most common of medieval monstrances. Like a chalice, it comprises an octagonal stellate base and a stem divided by a knop. These support a platform on which a cylindrical vessel made of glass or rock crystal displays the host. The cylinder is flanked by two buttressed piers and surmounted by a crown and pointed, shingle roof. Above the spire, a crucifix appears as a visual sign of the sacrificial death of Christ who, at the same time, is believed to be truly present in the exposed sacrament. 120 10 PLATE VII ] Reliquary Bust of a Female Saint Cologne, c. 1350 Walnut H: 16 in. (42.5 cm). W. 13 in. (33.5 cm), D:9in. (24 cm) Bibliography: Schnutgen 1908, col. 33-34, pi. Ill, fig. 4; Witte 1912, p. 74, pi. 47.4; Legner 1978 (1). no. 16, p. 56, fig 60, Bergmann 1984, no. 96, p. 54, fig. 73; Bergmann 1989, no, 87, pp. 311-314. Schnutgen Museum. A 102 This reliquary bust of a female saint portrays one of the eleven thousand virgin martyrs who, according to legend, accompa- nied Saint Ursula and followed her into death. Her wavy hair gently falls down her back, framing her delicate and charm- ing facial features. Head and corpus are hollowed to hold the saint’s skull and other bones under a hidden hinged top. The large rectangular tracery window in the front of her chest reveals the relics inside. Wooden reliquary busts became a distinction of four- teenth-century Cologne after the rediscovery of the remains of Saint Ursula, the town’s vener- ated patron, and her numerous followers (see Legner 1978 (1), pp. 9-14; Bergmann 1989, p. 33.). Produced in large numbers, they were displayed on altars or as parts of altarpieces, as well as in reliquary chapels. The present bust, having lost its original polychromy and gild- ing, reveals the refined carving techniques of a highly skilled workshop of the mid-fourteenth century: the carefully planed surface, the smooth excavation without splitting, the elaborate details, and a certain naturalism in modeling (Bergmann 1989, P- 3*3)- 11 Reliquary Monstrance Lower Rhineland, early 14th century Gilded copper H: 9 'A in. (23.5 cm), W base: 3 'A in. (8.5 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1913, p. 110, pi. 58.4 Schnutgen Museum. G 104 The reliquary monstrance, or reliquary ostensorium, devel- oped during the thirteenth century, an age which strove for the display of relies. It was the simplest and most common receptacle, the function of which was simultaneously to protect and display small relics, such as pieces of bones or other parts of a saint’s body, or objects con- nected with a saint. The tower shape was later adopted for the monstrance of the consecrated host (see no. 9). The relies, often wrapped in precious silks, were kept in the transparent centerpiece of the reliquary. This cylindrical vessel was made of crystal or glass, framed by ornamental or architectural elements, and covered by a conical or pyram- idal detachable roof. In the pre- sent case, a large circular foot supports the slim cylinder, which is set in bands of foliage and vertically supported by engraved strips. A cross rests on the roof. 12 Reliquary Cross with Pedestal Germany, c 1500 Gilded copper H: 9'A in. (24 cm), W base: 3 5 A in. (9.8 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1913, p 101, pi 30 2. Schnutgen Museum. G 176 This small cross with trefoil ends and a fully modeled body of Christ is supported by a rectangular pedestal and knop- divided stem. Its cross-hatched front, hinged on the upper edge, can be opened to hold relics. With its ends sprouting flowers, it alludes to the tree of life as a visual symbol of redemption. The cross, while intended to be placed on the altar, integrates the function of a reliquary. 122 12 13 Reliquary Cross Rhineland, c. 1420 Silver (?) H: 6’A in. (16 cm), W: S'/j in, (14 cm) Schnutgen Museum C 648 Made to contain relics, this pectoral cross was suspended from a chain around the neck. It consists of two valves deco- rated with engraving, and fastened with two bolts at the bottom and a hinge at the top. A three-dimensional, delicately modeled figure of Christ is attached to the front side. The four trefoil-shaped ends show the elaborately engraved sym- bols of the four Evangelists, the winged animals described by the Old Testament Prophet Ezekiel (i: 5-10; 10: 14) and the Book of Revelations (4: 6-7). Clockwise from the top, John is represented by an eagle, Matthew by an angel, Luke by an ox, and Mark by a lion. The same positions on the back of the cross are occupied by the engraved busts of crowned female saints holding their attributes: Saint Catherine with the wheel, Saint Dorothy with a basket. Saint Margaret fight- ing the dragon with a cross, and Saint Barbara with the tower. In the center is a circular win- dow, covered by glass or crystal, displaying the relics inside. 14 Reliquary in the Shape of a Double-Ended Church Lower Rhineland (Cologne 7 ), late 11th century Bronze H: 2 in (5.3 cm), W 4 in. (10.1 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1913, p 109, pi. 55.5; Der Kolner Dorn 1956, no. 10, p. 22, fig. 26; Euw 1993, p. 39, fig. 14, Schnutgen Museum, H 43 This small reliquary takes the form of a long double-ended church. The apses, one at each short end, are flanked by circu- lar towers and the saddleback roof is topped by a ridge-turret. The receptacle, opened by lift- ing the hinged roof, hides the relics in its interior. It may have come from the sepulchrum of an altar, a cavity which is situ- ated immediately below the slab ( mensa ), and contains the relics of the saint to whom the altar was dedicated (Euw, 1993 P- 39)- The reliquary may reflect the architectural appearance of Cologne’s Carolingian cathedral (Der Kolner Dom 1956, p. 22). Excavations of its foundation walls show that this church was built in the late ninth century and later replaced by the pre- sent Gothic cathedral. 124 [ FRONT ] 13 16 15 Cross-Shaped Vessel for Anointing the Sick Northwest Germany (Westphalia?), c. 1400 Gilded copper H: 9 S A in. (25 cm), W: l'h in. (19 cm), D: 2'/* in. (5.5 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1913, p. 112, pi. 66.2. Schnutgen Museum. G 134 This cross-shaped vessel contains three smaller boxes for consecrated hosts and oil. The shape and iconography of the present object serve as a fitting container for them. The gilded hinged lid is decorated with the repoussd figure of Christ on the cross. At the short ends, there are bolts for attach- ment to a belt. The vessel was used by priests for the administration of the last rites to the sick or dying. After hearing and absolv- ing the sins of the ailing person, the priest would anoint the body with holy oil and adminis- ter the last communion, called viaticum because it was under- stood to be food for the journey into death. Pax with Crucifixion Germany, early 15th century Copper alloy, parcel-gilt H : 4V5 in. (11.5 cm), W: 4 in. (10 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1913, p. 113, pi. 68.1. Schnutgen Museum. H 209 Intended for transfering the Kiss of Peace from the celebrant at mass to the clergy and laity, the pax (Latin for peace) or osculatorium was introduced during the thirteenth century to replace a physical embrace. A tablet-like object (with a handle on the back) bearing an image from Christ’s passion or a similar suitable subject, the pax was first kissed by the priest and deacon and then presented to the congregants before communion so that all could express their mutual love and unity in Christ. The present piece, from the early fifteenth century, shows the crucified Christ surrounded by sprouting flowers and flanked by the mourning figures of the Virgin Mary and Saint John. Above the titulus crucis (inri), the symbols of Sol and Luna appear indicating the sorrow of all creation. The inscription on the beveled frame reads: ave MARIA GRACIA PLENA DOMINUS TECUM BENEDICTA TU. All fig- ures are cast from copper and attached with rivets to the cast and engraved copper plate. 17 Pyx Rhineland (?), early 14th century Brass H: 2 'A in. (6 cm), W: 2’/« in. (6 cm) Schnutgen Museum. G 660 Derived from the Greek pyxis, meaning boxwood receptacle, pyx generally designates a container for the consecrated host. In particular, it refers to a small covered box in which the eucharistic wafer was taken to the sick for the administra- tion of the viaticum, or last communion. The material and shape of pyxes varied greatly, ranging from simple wood and ivory to precious metals. The present pyx, made of brass, takes the shape of an irregular hexagon with archi- tectural decoration. On the sides of the body, separated by pier buttresses, blind tracery quatrefoils alternate with dou- ble lancet windows. The lid, which has a knop on top and is fixed by a hinge and clasp, shows trefoil tracery and trefoil- shaped lancet leaves. 126 17 18 Pair of Candlesticks Dinant or Cologne, c. 1500 Brass H (without pricket): 11 'A in, (29 cm), Diam pan: 5'A in. (13.3 cm), Diam base: 9 in. (23 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1913, p. 103, pi. 38.6. Schnutgen Museum. H 225/286 From the early Christian period, candles symbolized the pres- ence of God or Christ (the lux mundi or light of the world). Almost all liturgical ceremonies made use of their lively and warming light. Like crosses, candles were carried in proces- sions from the earliest times. Later, they were placed on or near the altar during the cele- bration of mass, their number ranging from two to seven. These candlesticks are made from brass and cast in one piece, except for the prickets and three clawed feet, attached by welding. Their circular form and stocky proportions are typi- cal for the period around 1500. 19 Candlestick with Coats of Arms Limoges, after 1250 Champleve enamel and traces of gilding on copper H: 4 5 A in. (12 cm), W: 2% in. (7 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1913, p, 103, pi. 38.4. Schnutgen Museum. C 102 Comprising only a pyramidal base and tall pointed spike, this small enameled candlestick might have belonged to an ensemble of matching pieces known as traveling candlesticks. Their graduation in size and hollow spikes allow them to fit perfectly into one another, thus they could easily be transported. Such candlesticks, popular in the second half of the thirteenth and early-fourteenth centuries, are most often ornamented with armorial escutcheons taken from the standard reper- tory of Limoges enamels and used purely for decoration (see Enamels of Limoges 1996, no. 135, p. 380). Here, griffins in medallions alternate with coats of arms. 20 ( PLATE VIII ] Portable Altarpiece with the Crucifixion and Saints Cologne, c. 1500 Gilded copper H: 6 'A m (15.6 cm), W (closed): 3 J A in (9.5 cm) Bibliography: Fritz 1966, no. 366, pp. 111-112 and 494, fig. 80. Schnutgen Museum. G 556 This small, folding altarpiece, probably used for private devotion, is gilded and finely engraved. Supported by a pre- della-like pedestal, it comprises a central box with cusped trefoil top and two hinged wings. The Crucifixion on the inside com- prises cast figures of Christ on the cross, the Virgin and Saint John riveted to a plain back- ground. The delicately engraved wings show Saint John the Baptist pointing to the lamb (left) and Saint Catherine with sword and wheel (right), both placed under baldachins of branch-motif ornamentation. While the image of the Baptist is an almost exact but reduced copy of Martin Schon- gauer’s copper engraving (Strauss, 1980, p. 262), the pro- totype for the powerful figure of Saint Catherine is unknown. Her robe, however, with the rich trains of cloth and the con- centration of folds, suggests a slightly younger model (see Fritz 1966, p. 112). 128 18 21 Portable Altar with the Relief of an Evangelist Westphalia, 11th century and 2nd half of 8th century (relief) Silver-gilt and copper mounting on oak, serpentine stone H: 2 J A-3 in, (7.0-7.9cm),W: 7 '/« in. (18.2 cm), D: 4>/. in. (10.7 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1913, p. 94, pi. 1; Das Schnutgen-Museum 1968, no. 21b, p. 30. Schnutgen Museum. C 13 Portable altars were used by traveling and missionary priests to celebrate mass wherever an altare fiaurn, a permanent structure, was unavailable or impractical. Equipped with a consecrated stone plaque and space for liturgical vessels and a relic, portable altars meet the liturgical requirements for any Christian altar. In Romanesque times, they were rectangular boxes, supported by four feet and decorated on all sides. The wooden core of the present object is covered with decorative metalwork showing interlaced and zigzag patterns and palmettes. The small ser- pentine stone at the top is framed by the inscription of the names of the saints (sc i/i/ioannes baptiste/sci martini) whose relics were once kept within the altar. An older copper-gilt relief with the image of a seated figure replaces the bottom. This large repoussd plaque is said to be of eigth century origin; it might have come from a book- cover depicting the four Evan- gelists ( Das Schnutgen-Museutn 1968, p. 30). 130 21 | fRONT ) 22 Memento Mori, Rosary Beads France, 16th century Ivory H: 2 s /* in. (7.1 cm) Bibliography: Dieckhoff 1981, p 43. fig. p. 42. Schnutgen Museum B 130/131 These Janus-faced ivory carv- ings show on one side the lively portrait of a young person, male and female respectively, contrasting sharply with the grinning, worm-eaten skull on the other side. Unusually large and pierced vertically for sus- pension, they were used as the primary beads on a rosary. There arc considerable signs of wear and tear, especially on the noses. The theme of death in the form of a gruesome skull appears frequently in sixteenth- century art in northern France and Flanders. Memento mori allegories are meant as warning reminders that life is transitory, that man is mortal, and all earthly goods are of no avail. Accordingly, the French inscrip- tion on one of the present rosary beads (B 131) reads: ‘ansi SERON NOU [AUJOURD] WI OU demin finis’ (Just as this we will be dead today or tomorrow). In popular belief, such beads were also thought to be deter- rents to death and evil. 23 [ PLATE IX ] Diptych with Virgin and Child and Crucifixion Paris, 2nd quarter of 14th century Ivory H: 8 in (16 cm), W: 4 in (9.3 cm) Schnutgen Museum. B 141 Small foldable ivory diptychs like the present, a pair of tablets hinged together to open like a book, were plentiful in the fourteenth century. Intimate in character, they were devotional objects designed to aid worship- pers in their prayer. Here, the left leaf shows the Virgin and Child among angels; the right leaf depicts the Crucifixion. The body of Christ in an S-shaped pose is flanked by Mary and Saint John. Each scene is placed under a pointed trefoil arch with angels in the spandrels. 132 24 Vision of Saint Bernard Lower Rhineland. 14th century Pen and ink on paper H: 10 in (25.5 cm). W: 7 in (18 cm) Bibliography: Dos Schnutgen-Museum 1958. p. 39. no. 84; Dos Schnutgen- Museum 1968. no. 102; Buttner 1983. pp. 150 and 215, fig. 162; Hamburger 1997, pp, 1-5, fig 1. pi, 1; Westermann- Angerhausen 1997, no. 44, p. 191, pi. 44. Schnutgen Museum M 340 Size and intensity of color lend this drawing an expressionist quality. Covered with ruddy ink, the body of Christ appears as a large wound (Hamburger 1997, p. 1). A monk and nun kneel at the foot of the cross; the nun with her hands folded in prayer, the monk embracing the cross and the feet of Christ. Both wear the white habit of the Cistercian order. The image evokes a scene from the legend of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the founder of the Cistercians. Bernard was pray- ing before a crucifix when the figure of Christ bent down and embraced him. The drawing may have been made by, and was probably made for, a clois- tered woman (represented by the nun in the picture) living in the Rhineland in the fourteenth century. 25 Statuette of the New Year’s Child Siegburg, c, 1500 Terracotta H: 5*/« in. (14.5 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1912, p. 96, pi. 87.3/r. Schnutgen Museum. E 95 Simple terracotta sculptures such as this were mass-produced throughout the later middle ages in workshops dubbed ‘picture bakers’ Made in two part molds from a light-colored clay that was also used for pipes, they became known as Pfeifentonfig- uren (pipe-clay-figures). These inexpensive, small figures are often imprecise in detail. Found almost exclusively in modest domestic settings, these statuettes were most like- ly used for private devotion, or as souvenirs or toys. Siegburg was thought to be the center of production in Germany, but recent excavations have revealed the existence of workshops in other cities, as well, including Cologne (Neu-Kock 1988, pp. 2-40; Neu-Kock 1990, pp. 9-21). One of the most popular subjects depicted in terracotta is the Christ Child, a nude boy, identified by his gesture of blessing or, as in the present example, by the orb in his left hand. Here, he also wears a rosary-like string of pearls around his neck. Contemporary depiction indicates a tradition of presenting images of the Christ Child to friends and neighbors as New Year’s gifts (Neu-Kock 1988, p. 20). 26 Statuette of the Cradle of the Christ Child Siegburg, 16th century Terracotta H: 19 in (48 cm) Schnutgen Museum. E 132 As subjects, the cradle of Christ and the standing Christ Child are closely related. Although the child here reclines in an ornamented bed with a pillow under his head, his right hand is raised in blessing. Together with other terracotta images, this figure might have been part of a nativity scene, which would have included the Holy Family, angels, shepherds, an ox and an ass. 134 24 27 Statuette of Saint Ursula with Companion and Marksman Siegburg, early 16th century Terracotta H: 4>/ 2 in. (11.5 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1912, p. 96, pi. 87.12/1. Schnutgen Museum. E 63 Like tiie Madonna and the Christ Child, images of the saints occupied an important place among terracotta figures. Saint Ursula, the patron of the city of Cologne, is represented here in the manner of a Madonna della Misericordia, sheltering a female companion and an armed marksman under her cloak. 28 Statuette of Saint Sebastian Siegburg, mid-16th century Terracotta H: 4 in. (10 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1912, p. 96, pi. 87.6/1. Schnutgen Museum. E 74 Saint Sebastian, one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, was a very popular object of venera- tion as a protector against the plague. The present terracotta shows the most common depic- tion of the saint, naked, tied to a post to receive the arrows of his executioners. Before the Renaissance, the subject of Saint Sebastian was one of the few that allowed the painter or sculptor to render a nude male body in the pride of life and beauty. 29 Statuette of Flight into Egypt Siegburg, early 16th century Terracotta H: 3 in. (7.5 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1912, p 96, pi. 87 8/r. Schnutgen Museum. E 80 This depiction of the flight into Egypt in simple terracotta has its counterparts in large-scale sculpture around 1500. Here it is rendered in the usual man- ner, with the Virgin holding the Christ Child while seated side- ways on the ass. A statuette of Joseph probably led the group. 136 29 BO Head of Christ Lower Rhineland. 17th century Paper mache H: 8 7 /s in. (22.5 cm). W: 6 5 A> in. (16 cm) Schnutgen Museum. E 154 This portrait shows the head of Christ wearing the crown of thorns. Drops of blood are spattered over his face, which is contorted in pain. A drastic image of Christ’s suffering, this type of three-dimensional picture was inexpensively pro- duced from paper mach6. It probably served the devotional needs of worshippers who could not afford a sculpture can ed in wood or stone. 31 Basin with Agnus Dei and Inscriptions Germany, 15th-16th century Brass Diam: 16 In. (41.5 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1913, p 109, pi. 51.2. Schnutgen Museum. H 113 Shallow basins of this size and shape, produced in large num- bers in German workshops in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, originally held water for the washing of hands. Like hanging lavers, they could be used in a liturgical context, as well as in secular life; later, they also became popular for chris- tening. Sheets of brass or other cop- per alloys were hammered and bent to form these basins. Orna- ments, like the hanging lilies on the broad flat rim of the present example, were stamped. The relief on the inside of the bowl is formed by repouss6. Because stamps and molds could he reused and even exchanged between workshops, the same decorative motifs appear on numerous basins. Mutilated or illegible inscriptions either of repetitions of senseless letters or of deformed characters derived from the Gothic minus- cule are common on these objects. On the present basin, the enigmatic inscription geh wart der in frid appears four limes around the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God. 32 Plaque of the Adoration of the Magi from a Tabernacle Door Spain, late 16th century-early 17th century Gilding on copper H: 15 5 A in (40 cm), W: ll'/i in (29 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1913, pp. 116-117, pi. 82.2. Schnutgen Museum. C 266 This beautiful repouss£ shows the Adoration of the Three Magi. Flanked by two standing kings who present their gifts, the third kneels in front of the enthroned Virgin and kisses the foot of the Christ Child. A man, probably Joseph, leans over the balustrade and watches the scene with two other bystanders. With its landscape setting and classical column architecture, this design may be derived from an Italian print of the sixteenth century. It is said that Schnutgen him- self bought the plaque in Spain. It probably comes from a taber- nacle, the structure close to the altar where the eucharistic host was locked when not in use. 138 FRAGMENTS OF FRAGMENTS The Nineteenth-Century Collection 33 Hanging Laver North Germany, c. 1500 Bronze H: 6 s /« in. (17 cm). Diam: 7 Vi in. (19 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1913, p. 108. pi. 48.12. Schnutgen Museum. H 127 This hanging later may have been used for either secular or religious hand washing. Its bul- bous body with prominent lip is decorated w ith three simple bands. The arched handle with suspension loop is attached to female busts riveted to the body. Such a bronze kettle might have been used, together with a basin during the lavabo, a cer- emony during the mass when the priest washes his hands. Or it might have been placed in the sacristy so the priest could wash before mass. In a secular context, lavers such as this sat in wall niches in well-equipped households of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as shown in numerous contemporary panel paintings of the Annunciation, like the Merode Altarpiece by the Master of Flemalle, in the Met- ropolitan Museum in New York. 34 Board with Fantastic Beasts from the Choir Stalls of Cologne Cathedral Cologne, c. 1310 Oak H: 20'/2 in. (52 cm), W: 25'/: in. (65 cm), D: 4 ’A in. (11cm) Bibliography: Witte 1912, p. 98, pi. 95.5; Bergmann 1989, no. 51, pp. 239-240. Further literature: Bergmann 1987; esp. col 2, no. NI26, p. 31-32, fig. 191. Schnutgen Museum. A 42 The front of this thick wooden board is decorated in relief with two facing fantastic beasts, each in a quatrefoil. (The right quar- ter was partially reconstructed in the nineteenth century.) The draped figure on the right has a female face and an animal rump with fins and a dragon’s wing. The other, a male figure, combines a hood-covered bearded bead, the body of a lion and two large human hands serving as feet. Originally about four or five times longer, the board was the supporting sub- structure of the sedilia of the Cathedral of Cologne. Its top and side surfaces still display the notches for the attachment of a high back (dorsal) and hinged tip-up seat, as well as the fastening of the side walls. Containing two quatrefoils, the present fragment corresponds to the size of an individual stall. Depictions of imaginary beasts are among the most pop- ular carvings on the Cologne choir stalls, where the icono- graphical program deals with man’s inability to decide between original sin and redemption. In that context, creatures com- posed of two or more separate beings (and therefore thought to be unclean) symbolize the world of vices. They often have human faces and are depicted in a playful or parodistic manner. Dendroehronological exami- nations reveal the Cologne choir stalls date from 1308-1311 (Hollstein 1967, pp. 57-64). The leading sculptors, who worked in the style of Cologne-Lorraine and Paris, would have needed many assistants to complete so much work in such a short time. The present board is a less distinctive workshop product. In the nineteenth-century reconstruction of the choir stalls which had been shortened in the baroque, it was replaced with a copy, which still can he found in the hack row of the northern side (Bergmann 1987, p. 31-32, fig. 191). 142 33 35 vs XI ] Saint Barbara from the High Altar of Cologne Cathedral Cologne, c. 1310-1322 Marble H: 15 in. (38 cm) Bibliography: Bergmann 1984. no, 61, pp. 43-45. fig. 51. Schnutgen Museum. K 210 This delicately can ed marble figure depicting Saint Barbara w ho has lost her attribute, a tower- as well as a prophet, usually identified as Moses (no. 56 [plate XII]) holding a book- come from the high altar of Cologne Cathedral. The altar, with sculptures on all four sides, was completed at the same time and probably by the same workshop as the choir stalls (see no. 34). It has lost significant portions of its medieval decora- tion. A series of white marble arcades form the framework of the altar and contrast with the black background of its core. The center of each side is occu- pied by a larger niche with a figured group, and flanked by single standing figures, lconographically, the program focuses on the Virgin Mary, the cathedral’s second patron after Saint Peter. The image of the Annunciation is shown on the south side, the Presentation in the Temple on the north, the Adoration of the Magi on the east, and the Coronation of the Virgin on the west. In 1766 the conversion of the altar into a baroque tabernacle led to the removal of three-quar- ters of its figural decoration, most of which subsequently found its way into the Schnutgen Museum (only the front of the altar still displays medieval carvings). Following a general restoration of the cathedral’s Gothic appearance at the turn of the century, the high altar was purified and brought back to its presumed original state. The then-missing sculptures were replaced with copies carved by Alexander Iven begin- ning in i8gg. As a result, the altar today conveys the overall effect and the main characteris- tics of its medieval appearance. However, the sensitivity and liveliness of the surfaces and the remaining traces of poly- chromy and parcel gilding can only be experienced in originals like the present statuette. 36 Relief of an Apostle from a Shrine Meuse, later 13th century Gilded copper H 9% in. (25 cm) Schnutgen Museum H 55 As part of the representation of the twelve apostles or other saints, this repouss6 figure orig- inally was applied to a reliquary shrine. It is hammered from a sheet of copper, engraved, chased, and gilded; only the left hand is cast separately and attached. Reliquaries in the form of house-shaped caskets ( chdsses ), often richly decorated with enamels and reliefs, were produced in large numbers in the ecclesiastical and metal- working centers of the Meuse valley. 144 37 Crucifix Swabia or Meuse, mid-12th century (cross not original) Bronze Corpus H (without suppedaneum): 4 s /* in. (12.1 cm), W: 4’/i in. (11.6 cm) Cross H 10 'A in. (26.8 cm). W: 9 ’/j in (23.9 cm) Bibliography: Bloch 1992, no. IV B 12, pp 202-3. Schniitgen Museum. H 105 This Romanesque crucifix shows Christ standing on a mask-decorated suppedaneum. His arms are bent and the frontal pose is broken by the right incline of the head. The cruciform nimbus behind his head is cast in one piece with the corpus. His hair, centrally parted and vertically waved, falls over his shoulders in a single strand; his eyes are closed in death. The pectoral area is muscular, ribs are three- dimensionally articulated, and an incised circle marks the navel on a swelling stomach. The centrally knotted and folded loincloth ( perizonium ) is combined with a shorter rounded apron. 38 Crucifix Westphalia or Lower Saxony. 12th century (cross modern) Bronze Corpus H (without suppedaneum): 5 3 /t in. (14.9 cm), W: syi in. (14 cm) Bibliography: Bloch 1992, no. I D 3, pp. 77 and 79. Schnutgen Museum. H 459 This fully modeled corpus of Christ belongs to a large group of over six hundred Roman- esque crucifixes datable from the late-eleventh to the early- thirteenth centuries and cast from bronze or other copper alloys. They were intended either to be carried on a staff in ecclesiastical processions or to remain on an altar. The present example shows Christ with his arms raised to his shoulders and slightly bent at his elbows. His body, almost stocky, retains a severe sym- metrical frontality, including the bowed head. Hair is parted in the center and falls down the back in strands. The charac- teristically bulging form of the beard parallels traits found in metalwork of Lower Saxony (Bloch 1992, p. 77). Closing horizontally, the loincloth ( peri- zonium ) is knotted and folded in the center and falls straight ending just above the knees. Judging from the rough surface and the lack of elaboration, the corpus was probably never finished by cold-work after casting. 39 Crucifix South Germany or Rhineland, 14th century Gilded bronze H: 8 in. (20.5 cm), W: 8 in. (20.5 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1912, p. 58, pi. 7.5 Schnutgen Museum. H 57 Unlike Romanesque crucifixes, this Gothic example displays the so-called three-nail iconog- raphy. The feet, no longer separately standing on the suppedaneum (footrest), are crossed and bound by a single nail. Christ is shown in death: his head is down, his body is sagging. Instead of a crown of thorns, he wears a rope-like hand in his hair. The double- knotted loincloth ( perizonium ) falls in a small bundle from either hip and clings smoothly to the thighs, while ample drap- ery sweeps across the front. The refined facial features and repose place the figure in the later fourteenth century. 146 40 Pricket Stand Byzantium. 6th-10th century Bronze with green patina H: 12 V5 in. (31.5 cm) Schnutgen Museum. H 844 The dark interiors of Byzan- tine churches were most often illuminated by polycandela , perforated flat discs suspended by chains, which held a series of small bowls filled with lamp oil. In adaptations of a Roman tradition, however, the common single oil lamps made of bronze, were also used. They were placed on pricket stands to faeil- iate their handling. The present object served this purpose. Like comparable examples, it comprises a tripod base with three clawed feet, a decoratively tooled stem, a drip pan and a large pricket (see Byzantium 1988). The once-accompanying bronze oil lamp is lost. 41 Pax with Engraved Crucifixion South Germany, early 16th century Silver, translucent enamel missing H: 4 'h in. (11.4 cm), W: 4 in. (10.2 cm) Schnutgen Museum. G 523 This pax, or osculatorium, of the early sixteenth-century bears the image of the Crucifixion. Here, the scene is engraved in silver and set within an ornate architectural framework. Combining stylistic elements and forms of the late- Gothic period with those of the early Renaissance, it consists of a base with quatrefoil tracery, a semi-circular arch supported by columns and, on top, an ogee arch set with crockets and sur- mounted by a finial. Originally, the engraving was covered with translucent enamel, which would have given the pax a jewel-like effect. 148 42 Pendant Cross with Clock Augsburg, 19th century Boxwood H: 3% in. (8.5 cm), W: 2 ’/a in. (6.5 cm) Schnutgen Museum. A 1077 The front of this cross-shaped pendant shows the Crucifixion as the main scene, and the Carrying of the Cross and the Resurrection as smaller side scenes, all beneath pointed Gothic arches. On the back side, angels with candles flank the Virgin with Child. Hinged at the top and fastened with a clasp at the bottom, the pendant can 43 be opened. The inside reveals a clock among decorative Statuettes of Mary and John Brabant (?), 19th century Boxwood H: 7 7 /s in. (20 cm) Schnutgen Museum. A 1073 scrollwork. This invention of the nineteenth century is remi- niscent of medieval pectoral crosses of about Ihe same size as the present piece, which These tiny boxwood statuettes imitate medieval models. They may have belonged to a Crucifixion scene, flanking Christ on the Cross. The figure of Mary is a copy of a large mourning Virgin made in Brus- sels around 1500, now in the Suermondt-Lud wig-Museum in Aachen. The statuette of Saint John is probably an invention of the nineteenth century, com- bining various models. were made to contain relics. 150 [ FRONT | 42 44 Diptych France, 19th century Ivory H: 7 in. (18 cm), W. 3 J /s in, (8.5 cm) SchnLitgen Museum. B 145 In style and form, this ivory of the nineteenth century imi- tates the French diptychs of the middle ages, especially during the fourteenth century (see no. 23 [plate IX]). The iconography, however, is a mis- understood pastiche of medieval motifs. On the left leaf a man kneels to Saint John the Baptist, who holds the Lamb of God as his attribute. The scene on the right leaf, a woman kneeling before Christ, recalls the Noli me tangere representations with Magdalene recognizing the Risen Christ after mistaking him for the gardener. The spandrels show the Virgin and Child and Christ blessing, respectively. Unlike the panels of medieval diptychs, which are rectangles, the panels of this piece have pointed arches. 45 Chalice Unknown, mid-15th century Glided silver H: 6V 2 In. (16.5 cm), Diam: 4 in. (10 cm) Schnutgen Museum. G 106 This is an excellent example of a typical German Gothic chalice. Its lobed, octafoil foot is framed by a tracery border and bears a finely engraved escutcheon. The prominent knop is studded with eight lozenge-shaped protrusions containing floral motifs. 152 46 Chalice Westphalia, c. 1500 Gilded silver H: 7 in. (17.5 cm). Diam: 4'A in. (10.5 cm), W base: S s /» in. (14.3 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1913, p. 95, pi. 6.4. Schnutgen Museum. G 34 Tit is v essel represents a v aria- tion of the common Gothic chalice in Germany. The lobed, hexafoil foot rises in a steep splay to the thinner hexagonal stem, which is modeled after window tracery. The protrud- ing knop is studded with small ov al and lozenge-shaped pro- trusions, providing a means for both ornamenting and grasping the chalice. Originally fdled with enamel, the protrusions contain decorative motifs and the letters that spell out ‘Jhesus’ and ‘Maria’. On the underside of the foot is a hallmark comprising a Gothic ‘h’, probably assigna- ble to the city of Herford, Westphalia. Hallmarks are the official stamps that mark silver and gold articles with a certain standard of quality and purity, and are clues to the origin and date of a piece. This chalice bears, as well, an engraved inscription, that reads % loit 2 marc.’ Such indications of weight date from the first decade of the nine- teenth century, when, in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, most of Germany’s church trea- suries were secularized. 47 Chalice Westphalia, 16th Century Gilded Silver (cup); gilded copper (base) H: 7’A (18.5cm); Diam: 3 ! /t in (9.5cm) Schnutgen Museum. G 153 Although similar to older Gothic chalices, this vessel of the six- teenth century shows some new features. Its shape, rather than conical, is that of a beaker with a rounded bottom and steep walls. The protruding knop, dividing the hexagonal stem at its center, comprises soft vege- tal, leaf-like motifs that form a convenient handle. 154 48 Censer in the Shape of a Cross-Shaped Basilica Moselle area, 13th century (?) Bronze H: 6'/: in, (16,8 cm), W: 4 In, (10.3 cm) Schnutgen Museum. H 925 Indicating honor and the ascent of prayers to God, the burning of incense during mass, bless- ings. processions and other ceremonies was common from the fifth century. The liturgical censer, or thurible, consists of a metal container with stand, a pierced cover, and chains for its suspension. Grains of incense are sprinkled on hot charcoal held inside the vessel, which, when swung vigorously, gives off clouds of aromatic smoke. \rchiteetural censers symbol izing the heavenly Jerusalem were popular in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the present example, the cover takes the shape of a cross-in-square church with a circular tower surmounting the crossing. The facades and the gables of the naves, as well as the drum and the conical roof of the turret, have numerous openings resembling portals and win- dows. Finely cast and chased, the censer once was suspended from four chains; the loops around its body and on the top suggest a fifth, which may have raised and lowered the cover. 49 Censer Italy, late 13th Century Bronze H: 6'A in (16.3cm) Schnutgen Museum. H 83 This ornamental liturgical censer, spherical in shape, is finely cast in bronze. The relief- decorated bands on both bowl and cover display flowers and animals in medallions. As the loops around the body indicate, the censer was suspended from three chains. 50 Apostle (Saint Peter) from a Sacrament House Cologne (?), 15th or 19th century Stone H total: 181/2 in (47 cm), H figure: 13 3 A in (35 cm) Schnutgen Museum. K 196 This bearded figure holding a book represents an apostle; the bald forehead with a single curl suggests Saint Peter. It is said to have come from a sacra- ment house, a small decorated structure attached to the wall of a church, in which conse- crated hosts are kept. At first glance, the sculpture seems to fit perfectly into the stylistic development of the mid-fifteenth century. However, the sharp edges of the drapery folds and their contrast with the vast, plain area over the right knee, as well as the very polished finish prompt speculation that it might be a neo-Gothic invention of the late-nineteenth century, produced in one of the Cologne workshops that specialized in sculpture in the medieval style. 156 48 51 Textile Samples on Schniitgen’s Original Mounts Silk damasks, 16th-17th Century H: 28% in (71 cm). W: 21'/* in (53 cm) Bibliography: Sporbeck 1993, p, 198, fig 1. Schnutgen Museum. XXXIII 52 Textile Samples on Schniitgen’s Original Mounts Velvets. 16th-17th Century H 28% in (1 cm), W: 21% in (53 cm) Schnutgen Museum. LXI Textiles were one of the first and most important elements in Schniitgen’s collection. In time, Schnutgen accumulated hundreds of fragments consist- ing of a wide range of fabrics, weavings, and embroideries from all parts of the world. He also cut off and sold fragments from his larger textiles to other collectors and museums to raise money for further acquisi- tions. The present examples (nos. 51 and 52) belong to a larger group of velvet and silk fragments, which Schnutgen himself arranged and mounted on cardboard. 53 [ PLATE VI ] Chasuble with Medieval Orphrey Cross showing Madonna and Saints Chasuble: Italy, 15th century; green silk, damask weave; H: 43 in. (109 cm), W 26% in. (67 cm) Orphrey: Cologne, mid-15th century; embroidery on woven ground; W: 7% in. (19 cm) Combined in mid-19th century Bibliography: Witte 1926, p. 9, pi. 6. Schnutgen Museum. P 222 This chasuble is said to have been assembled by Schnutgen himself from fragments of varying origin. The “fiddle- shaped” vestment is cut from a fifteenth-century Italian silk fabric with pomegranate pattern. The orphrey cross comprises embroidered borders made in Cologne showing, within an architectural frame- work, the Virgin and Child (inscribed regi[n]a celi leta[r]e ali,[elui]a), Peter (sanctus petrus), Catherine (sancta katherina), and Saints Catherine and Quirinus on the short ends. 158 51 54 Textile Fragment with Vine Pattern Italy, Lucca (?), 14th century Silk H: 11 y« in (28 cm), W: 15'A in (39 cm) Schnutgen Museum. N 70 This fragment of an Italian textile of the fourteenth century shows a pattern of intertwining vines. Precious silks were a speciality of Italy in the four- teenth and fifteenth centuries. 55 Textile Fragment with Lions and Ornament Italy, c. 1400 Silk H: 8’A in (20 'A cm) W: 6 in (15 cm) Schnutgen Museum. N 117 This silk fragment, one of several hundred collected by Schnutgen, was woven in Italy around 1400. The repeating pattern, divided by rosette-like ornaments, comprises two affronted lions facing an orna- mented rhombus. 160 MUSEUM INSTALLATION The 1930s 57 56 PLATE XII] Moses from the High Altar of Cologne Cathedral Cologne, c. 1310-1322 Marble H: 15 in, (38 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1912, p. 89, pi. 76.3; Rhein und Maas 1972, no. 0 1, p. 374; Bergmann 1984, no. 69, pp. 43-45, fig. 54. Schruitgen Museum. K 210 Dating from the first quarter of the 14th century, this delicate figure of Moses stands in a swaying pose. The drapery swirls softly around his body and the face is framed by wavy hair and beard. This marble figure, like the other from the high altar (Saint Barbara no. 35 [plate XI]), is thought to have been made by Lotharingian sculptors working with crafts- men from Cologne and Paris. Although the sculptors were imported, the style developed in Cologne was new and influ- enced Cologne sculptural style beyond the mid-fourteenth century. Torso of Virgin and Child Cologne or Meuse, c. 1320 Marble H: 18 in. (46 cm) Schnutgen Museum. Loan Cellitinnen The Virgin stands in a swayed pose and holds the Christ Child in her left arm. Her head, bro- ken at the neck, is missing, as is her right hand. She wears a long full mantle over a gown which is belted high above the waist. To pical of the early fourteenth century, the volumi- nous drapery swings across her body, creating a series of curves, and falls to the ground in heavy, diagonal, tubular folds. The Child, dressed in a full-length tunic, holds an open book that he seems to read, symbolizing the presentiment of the Passion of Christ. The Virgin’s head must have been inclined to look at tbe Child. It was covered by a short veil, the end of which is still visible in the back, and most probably topped by a crown. Statuettes of the Virgin and Child such as the present mar- ble carving emphasize the intimacy and tenderness of the relationship between mother and child. These images were often intended for private devo- tion in chapels or oratories and had special importance on days dedicated to the Virgin. 164 58 PLATE XIV ] Wild Man from a Choir Stall Cologne, late 14th century Oak H: 11 j /a in. (30 cm), W : 10V* in. (26 cm), D: 3 '/jin. (9 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1912, p 99. pi. 96.6; Legner 1978 (2), p. 110-111; Husband 1980, no. 26, p 113; Bergmann 1989, no. 116, pp. 369-370. Schnutgen Museum. A 47 The thick wavy body hair and full beard of this fragmen- tary sculpture connote a wild man. Originally part of a choir stall, it might have been placed atop the high side wall. The hirsute figure once struggled w ith an aggressor, most likely a griffin. The latter is lost except for the foot, which grasps the w ild man’s lower leg, and the three claws remaining at his right arm. The w ild man has raised his arms, also half lost, to ward off the beast’s attack. His expression shows fear and melancholy. The w ild man, a literary and artistic invention of the medie- val imagination, was thought to live in remote, mountains and forests. Once regarded as the archetype of chaos and heresy, the image was trans- formed into an idyllic image of freedom and closeness to nature. The present sculpture, however, offers a view of the threatening side of nature by depicting the wild man engaged in a primordial struggle for surv ival. This creature, animal 59 Saint Michael Master from Elsloo Limburg (Netherlands), c. 1490-1500 Oak H; 45 in. (114 cm), W: 16 'A in. (42 cm), D: UVi in. (30 cm) Bibliography: Kunst und Kultur 1992, no. Ill, p. 195. Schnutgen Museum. A 214 Saint Michael is shown as a youthful warrior overcoming the devil, who appears in the form of a dragon. Only the handle remains of the sword he once held in his raised right hand. As this sculpture comes from Limburg, a place with close artistic contacts with the Meuse Valley, especially Liege, it has been attributed to the Master of Elsloo (whose most famous work is the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne in Elsloo Parish church) as one of his early works. Since its establishment in the early middle ages, the cult of the Archangel Michael spread across Europe. In times of war, rulers called to the saint for protection. Isolated sanctuaries on mountain tops imitating the original Italian shrine of Saint Michael on the Gargano penin- sula, such as Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, France, became centers of pilgrimage. in body but distinctly human in spirit, has been interpreted to symbolize the fight between the celestial and lower worlds (Legner 1978 (2), p. 110; Husband 1980, p. 113). Stylistically the figure can be compared to works of art, such as marginal illuminations of manuscripts, in King Wences- laus’ Prague court. The wild man provides evidence of the continuing artistic connections between Cologne and Prague at the end of the fourteenth cen- tury (Bergmann 1989, p. 370). 166 60 Salvator Workshop of Tilman van der Burch Cologne/Lower Rhineland, late 15th century Oak H:19'Ain. (49 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1912, p, 77, pi. 53 2: Appel 1962, pp. 246-247, fig. 243. Schnutgen Museum. A 473 This sculpture represents Christ as Salvator Mundi, the savior of the world. As was typical for this theme, his right hand, now broken, was raised in blessing, lie stands, looking straight ahead, with a long mantle wrapped around his body and gathered by his left hand. Size and material suggest that the figure comes from one of the large wood altarpieces typical in the Rhineland in the late fifteenth century. Originally polychromed, it might have been part of a sculptural scene showing Christ among his Apostles, which was placed either in the deep central shrine flanked by movable wings or in the predella. 61 | PLATE XIII ] Saint Vitus in the Kettle Swabia, end of the 15th century Linden wood H: 19 3 A in. (50 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1912, p. 90, pi. 77.4 Schnutgen Museum. A 213 This figure represents Saint Vitus, one of the earliest patrons of Saxony, especially venerated in medieval Germany. He appears in legendary accounts as an Italian pagan converted by his nurse and his tutor during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian. Here, hands folded in prayer, the saint stands or kneels in a burning cauldron, an allusion to his martyrdom. The small scale of this sculpture suggests that it served the devotional needs of a private worshipper. The figure’s almost portrait-like facial features reveal a tendency toward realism typical of the late Gothic period. 62 [ PLATE XV ] Pieta Lower Rhineland/Westphalia, c. 1500 Oak H: 18 in. (46 cm) Bibliography: Witte 1912, p 71, pi. 39.3. Schnutgen Museum A 93 One of the most moving devo- tional images is that of the seated Virgin holding the broken body of Christ across her lap. The German term Vesperbild (vesper image) refers to the contemplative prayers said at the end of the day, recalling events surrounding Christ’s descent from the cross. The pre- sent sculpture, too small to have been placed on an altar, was most probably used for a worshipper’s private devotion. The Virgin’s garment with a close-fitted dress underneath the ample coat, the multiple, hollowed folds of drapery, and the well-observed anatomy of the body of Christ are charac- teristic of the late 15th and early 16th centuries. 168 62 Catalogue entries by Ulrike Mathies ABBREVIATIONS Alemann-Schwartz, M. Cruzi- fixus dolorosus. Beitrdge zur Polychromie und Ikonographie der rheinischen Gabelkruzifixe. Berlin, 1992. Appel. H. "Studien zur nieder- rheinisch-kolnischen Plastik der Spatgotik I," Wallraf- Richartz Jahrbuch, 24 (1962), pp. 227-260. Bergmann, U. (ed.) Verschwun- denes Inventarium Der Skulp- turenfund im Kolner Domchor. Cologne, 1984. Bergmann. U. Dos Chorgestuhl des Kolner Domes. 2 vols. Neuss, 1987. Bergmann, U. Schniltgen- Museum. Die Holzskulpturen des Mittela Iters (1000-1400). Cologne, 1989. Bloch, P. Romanische Bronze- kruzfxe. Berlin, 1992. Buttner, F. O. Imitatio pietatis: Motive der christlichen Ikono- graphie als Modelle zur Verahn- lichung. Berlin, 1983. Byzantium. The Light in the Age of Darkness. Ariadne Galleries. New York, 1988. Dieckhoff, R. "Klappernd Gebein und nagend Gewurm,” in Legner, A. (ed.) Kleine Fest- schrift zum dreifachen Jubi- laum. Cologne, 1981. Enamels of Limoges 1100- 1350, Metropolitan Museum. New York, 1996. Eucharistic Vessels of the Mid- dle Ages. Cambridge, MA, 1975. Euw, A. von. "Die Mittelalter- sammlung Alexander Schniit- gens," in Kolner Museums- Bulletin, Sonderheft, vol. 1: Schnutgens Schatze. Ein Samm- lerund sein Museum. Cologne, 1993. Euw, A. von. Die Handschriften und Einzelblatter des Schniit- gen-Museums. Cologne, 1997. Falke, 0. von. “Wiener Gruben- schmelz des XIV Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift fur christliche Kunst, no. 11 (1906). Fritz, J. M. Gestochene Bilder. Gravierungen aufdeutschen Goldschmiedearbeiten der Spat- gotik. Graz, 1966. Hamburger, J. Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent. Berkeley, 1997. Hollstein, E. “Jahresringchrono- logien aus dem Chorgestuhl im Kolner Dom," Kolner Domblatt 26/27 (1967), pp. 57-64. Husband, T. The Wild Man. Medieval Myth and Symbolism. New York, 1980. "Der Kolner Dom Bau- und Geistesgesch ichte," Kolner Domblatt 11 (1956). Kunst und Kultur urn 1492. Siville, 1992. Legner. A. Spatgotische Skulp- turen im Schnutgen-Museum. Cologne, 1970. Legner. A. (ed.) Die heilige Ursula und ihre elftausend lungfrauen. Wallraf-Richartz Museum. Cologne, 1978. (1) Legner, A. (ed.) Die Parler und der Schone Stil 1350-1400, 3 vols. Kunsthalle, Cologne, 1978. (2) Legner, A. (ed.) Ornamenta Ecclesiae: Kunst und Kunstler der Romanik, 3 vols. Cologne, 1985. Liithgen, E. Gotische Plastik in den Rheinlanden. Bonn, 1924. Meurer, H Das Klever Chor- gestuhl und Amt Beeldensnider. Dusseldorf, 1970. Muhlberg F. "Crucifixus Doloro- sus. Uber Bedeutung und Herkunft des gotischen Gabel- kruzifixes," Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch 12 (1960), pp. 69-86. Neu-Kock, R. "Heilige und Gaukler: Kolner Statuetten aus Pfeifenton," Kolner Museums- Bulletin, Sonderheft, vol. 1 (1988), pp. 2-40. Neu-Kock, R. ‘“Bilderbacker' im fruhen 15. Jahrhundert/’/Co/ner Museums-Bulletin, vol. 3 (1990), pp. 9-21. Scheyer, E Die Kolner Borten- weberei des Mittelalters. Augsburg, 1932 Schniitgen, A. "Vier kolnische Reliquienbusten der Hoch- gotik," Zeitschrift fur christliche Kunst 21 (1908), cols. 33-34. Dos Schnutgen-Museum Fine Auswahl. Cologne, 1958. Dos Schnutgen-Museum Fine Auswahl. Cologne, 1968. Sporbeck, G. "Vages und Ungewisses, Spurensuche zur Geschichte derTextilsamm- lung Alexander Schnutgens,” in Westermann-Angerhausen, H. (ed.) Alexander Schniitgen. Colligitefragmenta ne pereant. Cologne, 1993, pp. 197-206. Sporbeck, G. Textil Kunst aus tausend Jahren. Cologne, 1996. Stefan Lochner, Meisterzu Koln. Cologne, 1993. Strauss, W. L. (ed.) The Illus- trated Bartsch. vol. 8. New York, 1980. Rhein und Maas Kunst und Kul- tur 800-1400, vol. 1. Cologne, 1972. Westermann-Angerhausen. H (ed.) Amt von Kalkar und Zwolle. Das Dreikonigenrelief Cologne, 1993. Westermann-Angerhausen, H (ed.) Joseph Beuys und das Mit- telalter. Cologne, 1997. Witte, F. Die Skulpturen der Sammlung Schniitgen in Coin. Cologne, 1912. Witte, F. Die liturgischen Gerate und andere Werke der Metal Kunst in der Sammlung Schnut- gen in Coin. Berlin, 1913. Witte. F. Die liturgischen Gewander und kirchlichen Stickereien des Schnutgen- Museums Koln. Berlin, 1926. Die Zeit der Staufer Geschichte. Kunst. Kultur, 5 vols. Wurttem- bergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart, 1977. The catalogue is composed in Berthold Walbaum, an early nineteenth-century German typeface, and Thesis-The Sans. The blackletter type isGoudyText. The catalogue is printed by Meridian Printing, East Greenwich, Rhode Island. The paper is Mohawk Superfine and Potlatch McCoy. The binding is by The Riverside Group, Rochester, New York.