Material Cultures of Devotion in the Age of Reformations (Art & Religion, 10) 9789042945715, 9789042945722, 9042945710

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ART & RELIGION 10 Material Cultures of Devotion in the Age of Reformations edited by Salvador Ryan, Samantha L. Smith & Laura Katrine Skinnebach

PEETERS

MATERIAL CULTURES OF DEVOTION IN THE AGE OF REFORMATIONS

ART&RELIGION

The series Art&Religion was founded in 2011 by the Iconology Research Group. The editor-in-chief is Barbara Baert (Leuven). The series welcomes monographs and themes in the interdisciplinary field of Christian iconography and religion of the Middle Ages and Early Modernity. Art&Religion focuses on how iconology as a field and method relates to recent developments in the humanities. Beyond methodological reflection, Art&Religion highlights the production of paintings and the techniques used (i), the significance and agency of images (ii), and the transfer and migration of motifs (iii) in Christian visual and material culture. The editorial board consists of Claudia Benthien (Hamburg), Ralph Dekoninck (Louvain-la-Neuve), James Elkins (Chicago), Jeffrey Hamburger (Cambridge, MA), Bianca Kuehnel (Jerusalem), Ann-Sophie Lehmann (Utrecht), John Lowden (London), Anneke Smelik (Nijmegen), Victor Stoichita (Fribourg), Jeroen Stumpel (Utrecht), Paul Vandenbroeck (Leuven), Jan Van der Stock (Leuven), Gerhard Wolf (Florence). The advisory editors are Reimund Bieringer (Leuven), Ivan Gerát (Bratislava), Victor Schmidt (Groningen), Hedwig Schwall (Leuven), György Endre Szönyi (Budapest) and Marina Vicelja (Rijeka).

— Art & Religion 10 —

MATERIAL CULTURES OF DEVOTION IN THE AGE OF REFORMATIONS

Edited by Salvador RYAN, Samantha L. SMITH & Laura Katrine SKINNEBACH

PEETERS Leuven – Paris – Bristol, CT 2022

European Network on the Instruments of Devotion (ENID)

www.enid.w.uib.no

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-90-429-4571-5 eISBN 978-90-429-4572-2 D/2022/0602/13 © 2022, Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, 3000 Leuven – Belgium No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval devices or systems, without prior written permission from the publisher, except the quotation of brief passages for review purposes.

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Salvador RYAN, Samantha SMITH & Laura Katrine SKINNEBACH I. THE POLITICS

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MATERIALITY

The Virgin, Aniconism and Early Elizabethan Identity . . . . . . Stephen BATES Catholic Materiality and Political Subversion in Post-Reformation England Aislinn MULLER “For the Good of the Crown” The Resilience of the Old Ways and the Sixteenth-Century Redistribution of Church Art in Western Norway Henrik VON ACHEN II. THE SPIRITUALITY

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Troublesome Books Disrupt Devotional Life at the Convent of St. Mary Magdalene the Penitent in Freiberg, Saxony . . . . . . . . Austra REINIS “A Single Act of Interiority in the Ground of the Soul and in God is More Meritorious Than Innumerable Great Works Without Such Interiority”. “Interiority” in Three Publications by the Cologne Carthusians After 1520 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rob FAESEN The Matter of Catechisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lee Palmer WANDEL III. APPROPRIATING

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The Arte of Prophecying: Transformative Worship and ‘Sense’-orship in the English Reformation Parish Church . . . . . . . . . Emma J. WELLS Chastising the Eye in the ‘Golden Age’. The Image of Blind Tobit in Seventeenth-Century Netherlands . . . . . . . . . . . . Samantha L. SMITH

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Chancel, Chalice and Chasuble – Expressions of Eucharistic Belief in the Parish Churches of Seventeenth-Century Sweden . . . . . Teresia DERLÉN From Medium to Mirror? – Images and their Communicative Potential in Post-Reformation Denmark . . . . . . . . . . . . Laura Katrine SKINNEBACH LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . NOTES

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INTRODUCTION Salvador RYAN, Samantha SMITH & Laura Katrine SKINNEBACH

Negotiation of materiality and devotion in a transnational perspective Material Cultures of Devotion in the Age of Reformations explores how the visual and material cultures of Christian devotion were adapted, developed, transformed, and, in some cases, disappeared altogether, in the age of reformations, c.1500-1650 in Northern Europe. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Northern Europe were characterized by enormous religious change. During this period new religious ideas and ideals gradually took shape and materialized in all aspects of religious life, both on a private level as well as in public and liturgical space. The performance of liturgical ceremonies and its accompanying attire were debated and reevaluated. The practice of devotion, and the use of devotional objects in particular, was subjected to critical scrutiny. The decoration of churches was reassessed and, most importantly, the fundamental question of how God could be experienced as present in the world, became — again — the center of lively debate. Lutheran, Calvinist, Catholic and Anglican reformations — to mention just a selection of the different ideological movements in play during this period — challenged interpretations of the Bible, the sacraments, the communication of religious truth, the practice of devotion and the material expressions of faith. Each of them came to different conclusions. The result was a complex cluster of different, yet overlapping, religious ideals throughout Europe. Thus, when looking at the European reformations from a transnational perspective, they stand forth as a bundle of fundamentally interwoven religious movements attempting to define their specific religious identity in terms of dissimilarity.1 It is this nuanced religious pluralism in Northern Europe which this volume aims to address. The dissemination of these new nuanced approaches to Christianity and the enactment of new devotional practices required new thinking about how matter mattered. Various reformers theorized about the communicative potentials of material objects and their religious and devotional significance. Naturally, the Roman Catholic church and its traditional attachment to vibrant matter was 1  See especially J. KELLY – H. LAUGERUD – S. RYAN, (eds), Northern European Reformations: Transnational Perspectives, London, 2020.

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the main antithesis for many Protestant reformers. From the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, as noted by Caroline Bynum, “religious experience was literalized into encounter with objects”.2 The continuity of this practice was emphasized in the Tridentine decree titled “On invocation, veneration and relics of the saints, and on sacred images,” issued at the last session of the Council of Trent, in 1563. In the decree the Catholic Church officially reiterated the place of relics and images for the cult of the saints within their Church as it has always been, having been ‘received from the earliest times of the Christian religion’. It is this embrace of highly visual materiality which seems to set the Roman Catholic Church apart from its reformed counterparts. However, material objects and physical practices also became important tools for communicating new religious ideals within the reformed branches of Christianity too. Use of, or exclusion of, materiality and ritual could help mark the differences between the various denominations and within the reformed denominations themselves. Individual reformers developed finely-tuned theories of the communicative potentials and specificities of various modalities of expression and signification: the use — or rejection — of word, image, object, space, all played out differently.3 In a Lutheran context, the debate concerning an indifference to those things that were termed adiaphora, was particularly prominent.4 According to Luther, things are merely things existing externally.  See C. W. Bynum’s introduction to her recent Dissimilar Similitudes: Devotional Objects in Late Medieval Europe, New York, 2020. For further reading on late medieval and early modern materiality and devotion, see especially C. W. BYNUM, Christian Materiality: an Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe, Princeton, 2015; H. LAUGERUD – L.K. SKINNEBACH – S. RYAN, (eds.), The Materiality of Devotion in Late Medieval Northern Europe: Images, Objects and Practices, Dublin, 2016; S. IVANIĆ – M. LAVEN – A. MORRALL, (eds), Religious Materiality in the Early Modern World, Amsterdam, 2019; also various articles in S. RYAN, (ed.), Domestic Devotions in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Basel, 2020 (available on open access as a special issue of Religions 11 (2020), no. 4; see https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/devotion). The term ‘vibrant matter’ was introduced in the title of the seminar book by J. BENNET, Vibrant Matter – a political ecology of things, Durham, NC, 2009. 3  P. AYRIS, Reformation in Action: The Implementation of Reform in the Dioceses of England, in Reformation and Renaissance Review 5.1 (2003), pp. 27-53; L. WOODING, Charity, Community and Reformation Propaganda, in Reformation 11 (2006), no. 1, 131-169; C. EIRE, War Against the Idols: the Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin, Cambridge, 1986; L. P. WANDEL, The Eucharist in the Reformation, New York, 2006; and T. KAUFMANN, Der ‘Schriftaltar’ in der Spitalkirche zu Dinkelsbühl – ein Zeugnis lutherischer Konfessionskultur in Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 103, (2012), no. 1, 117–148. 4  C. W. BYNUM, Are Things ‘Indifferent’? How Objects Change Our Understanding of Religious History, in German History, 34 (2017), no. 1, pp. 88-112; A. SPICER, Martin Luther and the Material Culture of Worship, in Martin Luther and the Reformation: Essays, Dresden 2016 2

INTRODUCTION

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While images, for example, might aid the illiterate in understanding doctrine, it was not the images in themselves he considered dangerous; it was, instead, the attitude to such objects. Calvin took a more reserved stance towards images and was wholly against the cult of relics. He regarded images as “phantoms or delusive shows” and wrote satires on relics and other papal “merchandise”.5 For Calvin relics were “useless and frivolous” objects which always led to idolatry. “Instead of discerning Jesus Christ and his Word, his sacraments and his spiritual graces,” writes Calvin, the world was more concerned with “clothes, shirts and sheets,” and “[left] thus the principal to follow the accessory.”6 During the reformations, images, vestments, devotional objects, not to mention religious books, became contested fields.7 The latter, for example, was particularly the case in Germany, England and Denmark; there royal injunctions made attempts to curb the circulation and printing of books, and, thus, controlled what people read. The reformation may, thus, also be regarded as the age of the rise of communication and the censorship that comes with this. The various nationally motivated changes in material practices were not always successful however.8 One main reason was the fact that the reformers (companion volume to The Exhibition Project “Here I Stand: Luther exhibitions USA 2016”), 250-260. E. SHAGAN, The Battle for Indifference in the English Reformation, in L. RACAUT & A. RYRIE (eds.), Moderate Voices in the European Reformation, Aldershot 2005, pp. 122-144; T. KIRBY, “Relics of the Amorites” or “Things Indifferent”? Peter Martyr Vermigli’s Authority and the Threat of Schism in the Elizabethan Vestiarian Controversy, in Reformation and Renaissance Review 6 (2005), no. 2, 313-26; B. VERKAMP, The Indifferent Mean: Adiaphorism in the English Reformation to 1554, Athens, 1977. 5  J. CALVIN quoted in S. CLARK, Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European Culture, Oxford, 2007, p. 163. See the chapter by Samantha Smith in the present volume. See also A. WALSHAM: Recycling the Sacred: Material Culture and Cultural Memory after the English Reformation, in Church History, 86(2017), no. 4, 1121-1154; W. A. KORT, Calvin’s Theory of Reading, in Christianity & Literature 62 (2013), no. 2, 189-202. 6  J. CALVIN, John. Treatise on Relics, Edinburgh, 1854, 217-218. 7  E. WETTER, “On Sundays for the laity … we allow mass vestments, altars and candles to remain”: The Role of Pre-Reformation Ecclesiastical Vestments in the Formation of Confessional, Corporate and ‘National’ Identities, in Lutheran Churches in Early Modern Europe, ed. A. SPICER, Farnham – Burlington, 2012, 165-195. 8  J. GREGORY, The Making of a Protestant Nation: “Success” and “Failure” in England’s Long Reformation in N. TYACKE (ed.), England’s Long Reformation 1500-1800, Bristol, 1998), pp. 307-24; Spreading the Word: The distribution networks of Print 1550-1850, ed. R. MYERS – M. HARRIS, Winchester, 1990; A. PETTEGREE, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion Cambridge, 2005; P. COLLINSON, Night Schools, Conventicles and Churches: Continuities and Discontinuities in Early Protestant Ecclesiology in P. MARSHALL – A. RYRIE (eds.), The Beginning of English Protestantism, Cambridge, 2002.

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were not always in agreement amongst themselves, nor was the populace a coherent group of Christian believers. As much recent scholarship has shown, the reformation was a process of negotiation.9 Elizabeth Williamson reminds us, for instance, that early modern drama scripts “subtly remind us that English Protestants never entirely gave up the physical aspects of worship, and that there was an ongoing slippage between ‘proper’ reformed behaviors and ‘improper’ Catholic ones.”10 It was formed by several different voices, both clerical and lay. As Bridget Heal has stated: “Confessional culture and identity was shaped (…) by all members of the community: theologians and pastors; princes and nobles; and the ‘common’ man and woman.”11 With so many beliefs, opinions and traditions to take into consideration, reform was no simple unilateral task. As a result, the European reformations of material and devotional culture, which stand at the center of the present volume, exhibit a great variety of different practices and outcomes. These differences were generated on national, regional and local levels; different changes thus occurred in parallel with the different religious ideals and reformation strategies of the specific areas and the attitudes of their inhabitants. This is one of the reasons for the plural cultures in the title of the present volume. But, at the same time, the different national reformations show numerous similarities. In order to get a clearer view of the reformation in all its complexity, it should not be reduced merely to a group of isolated national events but instead be understood as an intricate and tangled pan-European web of religious and cultural movements. The contributions to the present volume offer detailed analyses of the reformation of material cultures of devotion across a range of European countries. England, Norway, Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, and Denmark underwent — from an ideological point of view — different reformations, but the influence on material and devotional culture call for the same kinds of questions. This volume investigates how the debates on material and visual cultures

 E. SHAGAN (ed.), Catholics and the “Protestant Nation”. Religious Politics and Identity in Early Modern England, Manchester – New York, 2005, p. 2, with reference to Peter Lake and Anthony Milton, see A. MILTON, Catholic and Reformed: The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600-1640, Cambridge 1995; K. FINCHAM – N. TYACKE, Altars Restored. The Changing Face of English Religious Worship, 1547-c.1700, Oxford and New York 2007. 10  E. WILLIAMSON, The Materiality of Religion in Early Modern English Drama, London, 2016, p. 11. 11  B. HEAL, A Magnificent Faith: Art and Identity in Lutheran Germany, Oxford, 2017, p. 5. 9

INTRODUCTION

5

were played out in different countries. A main interest is to shed light on the concurrent evaluations of religious practice and spirituality, and the way in which they affected the devotional sensorium and reception of religious materiality. Several devotional practices continued throughout the reformations albeit with new material at the core of practice. This affected word as much as image. For example, catechisms lay at the very center of Lutheran religious conduct; however, they shared many similarities with medieval prayer books. These catechisms, often-small objects, were handled and carried along, close to the body, as a means of solace.12 In general, the senses continued to play a significant role in the practice of devotion. As the image controversy suggests, the question was not merely what was set before the eyes, but also how it was perceived. Reformers therefore made attempts to adjust the sensorium of the devout;13 It was all in the eyes of the beholder, so to speak. A general methodological framework runs through the publication. It is firmly based on the conviction that materiality embodies religious experience, that material objects may be agents of change and, ultimately, that studies of material culture are crucial for the exploration of periods of religious transformations such as the age of reformations.14 This approach is inspired, among others, by W.J.T. Mitchell’s iconology and the anthropological approach of Alfred Gell. Mitchell‘s Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology, for example, broadened the concept of ‘image’ and, in doing so, brought it nearer to its pre-modern understanding in which image types such as text, visions, picture and memory all overlap. Mitchell thereby showed how our “theoretical understanding of imagery grounds itself in social and cultural practices.”15 Throughout this volume a number of contributions show how the concept of ‘image’ at the time of the reformations was under negotiation and going through a process which would lead eventually to its demarcation. Alfred Gell’s Art and Agency also investigated, through an anthropological lens, the role of art objects and  L. P. WANDEL, Reading Catechisms, Teaching Religion, Leiden, 2015.  H. LAUGERUD, En reformasjon av blicket? Skrift, bilder og synskulturi det etter-reformatoriske Danmark-Norge, in B. LAVOLD – J. ØDEMARK Reformasjonstidens religiøse bokkultur circa 14001700: tekst, visualitet og materialitet, Oslo, 2017. 14  For some recent works on religion and materiality more broadly, see especially T. HUTCHINGS – J. MCKENZIE, eds, Materiality and the Study of Religion: the Stuff of the Sacred, London, 2017; M. OPUS – A. HAPAALAINEN, Christianity and the Limits of Materiality, London, 2017; E. GERTSMAN, Matter Matters, in S. DOWNES – S. HOLLOWAY – S. RANDLES, eds, Feeling Things: Objects and Emotions through History, Oxford, 2018, 27-42; C. OCKER – S. ELM, eds, Material Christianity, Western Religion and the Agency of Things, London, 2020. 15  W. J. T. MITCHELL, Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology, Chicago, 1986, p. 9. 12 13

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material culture in society.16 In so doing, he showed how objects take on agency and play an active part in social relations. Material objects, whether books, chalices or prints, are not just reflections of a culture but are active in it, creating new attitudes and thoughts about ongoing religious change. Thus, religious devotions, we contend, are fundamentally interwoven with material culture. Devotion may involve the use of material objects — images, books, small figurines — and involve the entire body — certain postures or exercises or ritual choreographies — and may be framed by architectural structures and positions of inventory. Materiality shapes and forms the way in which the devout perceive the world; that is, how they perform their religious practices, how they move and behave, what they touch (or refrain from touching) and where they do it. ‘Things’ extend, enhance, reduce and limit our body and senses. We become affectively attached to the objects around us.17 Medieval nuns showed great affections for their Christ dolls. They were dressed, bathed, tucked in, swaddled and nursed.18 They slept with them and conversed with them. Devotees had lifechanging experiences with particular images. Isabella of Spain (1451-1504) swooned when she stood before the Santo Cristo de Burgos image while, centuries later, Théofile Gauthier (1811-1872) was repulsed by the same statue.19 Guilds put money aside for years in order to found an altar to a carefully chosen saint in a local church and, not least, to equip the altar with a suitable image. The reformation debates about the use and abuse of material objects, thus, touched on an extremely intimate aspect of religious life. The preservation and reuse of objects has recently been the focus of much research. Several scholars have shown that texts and artefacts were kept and taken care of after the reformation. Devotional objects mainly survived when they were reused in a new context. In Denmark, for example, the superintendents of Sealand and Funen ordered that side altarpieces should be removed from their original positions and hung on the wall — if not destroyed completely. When Peder Palladius suggested that side altarpieces could be nailed to a wall and used as a mirror of the devout, this was at one and the same time a practice of preservation and destruction. To remove an altarpiece from its  A. GELL, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Oxford, 1998.  D. MORGAN, Introduction, in Religion and Material Culture; D. MORGAN, (ed.), The Matter of Belief, New York, NY, 2010, 1–18, especially p. 8. 18  J. MOCHENSKA, Iconoclasm as Child’s Play, Stanford, 2019, p. xi. 19  See E. GERTSMAN, Introduction: Bewilderment Overwhelms Me in Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural 4 (2015), no. 1, 1-12. 16 17

INTRODUCTION

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original devotional context seems like a potent way of dismantling the devotional and spiritual potential of the images. The images were simply deprived of their liturgical significance as media of divine interaction and turned into mirrors of Christian conduct. It was also common — and this characterizes all the countries dealt with in this volume — to apply small changes to objects such as primers, chalices, vestments and altarpieces in order to adapt them to the new religious context.20 Thus, numerous objects stayed in use and demonstrate continuity rather than change. Such changes may seem insignificant to us, but to contemporaries, they may have been powerful sensory tools of change but also of memory. It must also be taken into consideration that in several cases preservation happened contrary to the reformers’ regulatory attempts — as was the case with rosaries and Netherlandish primers in England, just to mention one example.21. In some cases, preservation was due to opposition or even resistance towards the reformers and their attempt to disseminate or even regulate religious practice and belief, and not necessarily the ‘preserving power of Lutheranism’.22 In parallel with the practice of preservation, relocation and reuse, a large number of religious artifacts were destroyed. Several countries experienced some measure of bildersturm under the influence of Andreas Karlstadt, Jean Calvin or Huldrych Zwingli.23 Calvin, especially, is often regarded as the reformation  A. WALSHAM, Recycling the Sacred: Material Culture and Cultural Memory after the English Reformation, in: Church History, 86(2017), no. 4, pp. 1121-1154; C. W. BYNUM, Are Things ‘Indifferent’? How Objects Change Our Understanding of Religious History, in German History, 34 (2017), no. 1, pp. 88-112; L.K. SKINNEBACH, Visuell forandringspraksis. Appropriering af billeder efter reformationen, in: Efter Reformationen, K. G. HEMPEL, P. DUEDAHL & B. POULSEN (eds.), Aalborg, 2017, 49-87. 21  The paradigm has been challenged in B. HEAL, Sacred image and Sacred Space in Lutheran Germany, in W. COSTER – A. SPICER, (eds.), Sacred Space in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, 2005, p. 41 and C. W. BYNUM, Are Things ‘Indifferent’? How Objects Change Our Understanding of Religious History, in German History, 34 (2017), no. 1, 88-112. See also A. WALSHAM, The Pope’s Merchandise and the Jesuits’ Trumpery: Catholic Relics and Protestant Polemic in Post-Reformation England, in J. SPINKS – D. EICHBERGER, (eds.), Religion, the Supernatural, and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe: An Album Amicorum for Charles Zika, Leiden, 2015, 370-409. 22  The concept of “die bewahrende Kraft des Luthertums” was set forth in a volume with the same title, published in 1997; see J.M. FRITZ (ed.), Die bewahrende Kraft des Lutherstums. Mittelalterliche Kunstwerke in Evangelishen Kirchen, Regensburg, 1997. The argument has since been followed up; see for example several contributions to A. SPICER, (ed.), Lutheran Churches in Early Modern Europe, London, 2016. 23  R. WHITING, “Abominable Idols: Images and Image-breaking under Henry VIII, in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol. 33 (1982), 30-47; P. COLLINSON, From Iconoclam to Iconophobia: 20

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iconoclast per se. However, it was not images as such that troubled Calvin. He had no problem with fine arts. His concern was the image of God. Images failed, he insisted, in revealing anything about God. The problem with images is “the ease with which human nature makes them God.”24 In all circumstances — preservation, appropriation, reuse, destruction — the reformation had an impact on visual and material culture. What we are left with is a bundle of interlaced practices that exhibit different degrees of iconoclasm.25 We must conclude with Caroline Walker Bynum, that ‘things’ were not indifferent.26 ‘Things’ were laden with meaning — even power — and their potential effect on the beholder had to be addressed, and sometimes a strong emotional attachment had to be severed as was the case in England under the rule of King Edward VI and in reformed countries. Religious change affected material culture, but material objects also shaped change. By removing images, so the reformers hoped, they would get rid of idolatry and superstition. The lack of images would gradually alter the mindset of the devotees. Images were heuristic objects that shaped and reshaped the religious field. If we want to understand the reformation, it is crucial to grapple with materials. Methodologically, the following contributions attempt to study reformation ideas on the communicative potential of material objects — or the lack thereof. Often the materials shed light on the reformations as the result of unanimity, resulting in profound and carefully considered reassessment. But sometimes they reveal deep-seated conflicts and continuous negotiation. Some contributions focus The Cultural Impact of the Second English Reformation, in P. MARSHALL (ed.), The Impact of the English Reformation, 1500–1640, London, 1997, 278–308; M. ASTON, Iconoclasm in England: official and clandestine, in P. MARSHALL (ed.), The Impact of the English Reformation, 1500–1640, London – New York, 1997; M. ASTON, Public Worship and Iconoclasm, in D. GAIMSTER – R. GILCHRIST (eds.), The Archaeology of Reformation 1480–1580, Leeds, 2003, 9–28; L. P. WANDEL, Voracious idols and violent hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel, Cambridge, 1995. 24  D. MORGAN, The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice, Berkeley –Los Angeles – London,, 2005), pp. 142. D. GAMBONI, The Destruction of Art. Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution, London, 1997, MORGAN The Sacred Gaze, p. 138. See also WALSHAM, Recycling the Sacred. 25  B. LATOUR, What is Iconoclash? Or Is there a World Beyond the Image Wars?, in B. LATOUR – P. WEIBEL (eds.), Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art, Cambridge, MA, 2002, A. BESANÇON, The Forbidden Image: an Intellectual History of Iconoclasm, Chicago, 2009; A. MCCLANAN – J. JOHNSON, (eds), Negating the Image: Case Studies in Iconoclasm, Aldershot, 2005; and S. BOLDRICK – R. CLAY, (eds), Iconoclasm: Contested Objects, Contested Terms Aldershot, 2007. 26  C.W. BYNUM, Are Things ‘Indifferent’? How Objects Change our Understanding of Religious History, German History 34, no. 1 (March 2016), 88-112.

INTRODUCTION

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mainly on the material objects themselves, the ‘things’ of devotion, and show that they reveal things that we do not find in texts. They sometimes betray texts or challenge texts. In general, the attempt is to reintroduce ‘things’ into the study of religion and religious practice, as called for by Dick Houtman and Birgit Meyer in the introduction to the anthology Things.27 The contributions in this volume, therefore, all attempt to highlight how materiality mattered, how making the invisible visible and the intangible tangible, or even the denial of such practices, was a way of controlling, negotiating and coping with the rupture that shook peoples’ devotional lives throughout the reformations in Northern Europe Outline of the chapters The contributions to this volume are divided into three thematic sections: The Politics of Materiality includes articles that shed light on reformation debates on visual and material objects, focusing in particular on images — including verbal images — as media and instruments of ideology, religious affiliation, identity and power; A section on The Spirituality of Material Practice contains articles investigating how spirituality was negotiated as practices stimulated by body, performance, art, and space/place. The contributions shed light on interiority and exteriority as strategies of devotional and spiritual practice, focusing in particular on the often permeable relation between spirit and matter; The third section, on Appropriating the Senses, contains investigations of the mediation of transformation; how transformation was applied to and mediated by materiality, images, bodies and the sensorium. I. THE POLITICS OF MATERIALITY Stephen Bates’ contribution The Virgin, Aniconism and Early Elizabethan Identity, investigates the cult and visual culture of the Virgin Mary in Reformation England, focusing in particular on the intersection between Marian aniconism and the construction of early Elizabethan identity. Aislinn Muller examines the survival of devotional instruments such as rosaries, crucifixes and agni dei in late-sixteenth-and seventeenth-century England in spite of a ban by the English parliament in 1571. Her contribution, Catholic Materiality and 27  B. MEYER – D. HOUTMAN, Introduction: Material Religion – How Things Matter, in Things: Religion and the Question of Materiality, New York, 2012.

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Political Subversion in Post-Reformation England, assesses whether such objects were symbols of religious resistance to the Protestant English Church. Henrik von Achen studies attitudes towards art and church decoration and the visual changes it led to in sixteenth-century Western Norway. In For the Good of the Crown he traces political actions and their implications for visual culture, as well as the sentiments of congregations towards visual practices. The article argues that the post-reformation Calvinist approach to images merely served to accelerate changes that had already been introduced in advance. II. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MATERIAL PRACTICES Austra Reinis in her Troublesome Books Disrupt Devotional Life at the Convent of St. Mary Magdalene the Penitent in Freiberg, Saxony employs Brian Stock’s concept of ‘textual communities’ to explore the role of books in shaping this convent. Before the Reformation, the monastic rules, institutions, constitutions, breviary and missal governed the performance of rituals and the use of time and space in the community. When books by Martin Luther, his followers, and his opponents, were smuggled into the convent, some nuns sought to re-shape the community: They insisted that the Bible and Lutheran books be read as table readings, that the daily hours of prayer be abolished, and that sisters be allowed to minister to the needy outside convent walls. Other nuns vehemently disagreed. Both sides produced new texts describing and defending their respective visions of communal life. Rob Faesen’s chapter A Single Act of Interiority in the Ground of the Soul and in God is More Meritorious Than Innumerable Great Works Without Such Interiority investigates the adoption, development and transformation of spirituality in the first half of the sixteenth century in Northern Europe, taking as his point of departure a selection of texts published by some Carthusians in Cologne in view of the Lutheran Reformation. These texts served to consolidate Carthusian spirituality, focusing, in particular, on the subject of interiority as opposed to exteriority of faith and which were, thus, in direct dialogue with Lutheran views on material and outward practices. In The Matter of Catechisms Lee Palmer Wandel investigates a selection of German catechisms, studying especially how specific material and sensory aspects such as size, layout, visual organization and structure supported and mediated a certain devotional dynamic between text and person. It is argued that visual and material aspects of piety played a major role in religious and devotional education.

INTRODUCTION

III. APPROPRIATING THE

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Emma J. Wells addresses the traditional view of a dichotomy between highly sensuous medieval devotion and the a-sensory Protestant religiosity, dominated by what Patrick Collinson terms, ‘visual anorexia’. Her contribution The Arte of Prophecying: Transformative Worship and ‘Sense’-orship in the English Reformation Parish Church investigates the place of the senses in religious debates and the modus operandi of reform in East Anglia and Cornwall, arguing that visual and material culture played a central role. She focuses in particular on architectural schemes and church buildings and how this new ‘censored’ church affected the sensorium of the parishioners. Samantha L. Smith’s contribution Chastising the Eye in the ‘Golden Age’ investigates a surge of seventeenth-century illustrations of the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit in the Netherlands. Rembrandt produced a number of visual interpretations of this biblical story against the background of tension between the Dutch Reformed Church’s stricter attitude to images and the Netherland’s love of pictures. Rembrandt’s scenes often focus on the blindness Tobit is afflicted with, and Smith argues that these scenes reiterate Augustine’s warnings about physical sight. Teresia Derlen’s chapter, Chancel, Chalice and Chasuble – Expressions of Eucharistic Belief in the Parish Churches of Seventeenth-Century Sweden studies the transformation of church interiors in post-reformation Sweden. She illustrates that interiors were often the locus of different religious programmes, and were often a combination of medieval and Lutheran objects; furthermore, she explores the visual agendas regarding sacramental theology as expressed in church media and materiality. Laura Katrine Skinnebach’s contribution From Medium to Mirror? illustrates how the Lutheran view on images was negotiated by a selection of Danish theologians in the early reformation period in Denmark. Skinnebach compares four translations — or, adaptations — of Luther’s Passional. These different translations exhibit very different views of images and their potential as media of divine grace and interaction. Her contribution questions the general understanding of the Danish reformation as one characterized by homogeneity. Acknowledgements The editors of the volume would first and foremost like to thank the contributors for accepting our invitation and for their wonderful work and great patience with the pace of the process. We also acknowledge and sincerely thank the

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various institutions which have granted us permission to reproduce images for this volume. We are grateful for the fruitful discussions we have had over the years with our colleagues in ENID, and in particular for the work of Henrik von Achen who initiated the network several years ago. His ideas about how to practice academic interaction in a social, informal and non-hierarchical setting have turned out to be truly visionary and fruitful. We would also like to thank the current Director of ENID, Justin Kroesen, for his encouragement and support throughout the process. We are likewise indebted to series editor, Barbara Baert, for first planting the seed in our minds to publish this volume in her Art and Religion series and for her guidance during the process of preparing the manuscript. In addition, we greatly appreciate the courtesy and professionalism of the team at Peeters for seeing this volume safely through to publication. We are deeply grateful to our work and research colleagues at the University of Aarhus, the University of Bergen, and the Pontifical University, St Patrick’s College Maynooth, respectively for their collegiality and ongoing support of our endeavours. And, lastly, we wish to acknowledge Michael Potterton and Astrid Schilling for their generosity in assisting with some formatting issues in the preparation of this volume. It is our hope that this collection will serve as a further contribution to a fascinating area of study, and that it may inspire many more works in this everexpanding field.

I. THE POLITICS OF MATERIALITY

THE VIRGIN, ANICONISM AND EARLY ELIZABETHAN IDENTITY Stephen BATES

The Reformation is often characterised by its destruction of the artistic inheritance from the Middle Ages in an assault that alienates modern notions of nostalgia from contemporary mentalities. The tendency to slip into a historical tourism lamenting the loss of materiality behoves us to recover the motivating causes of these acts of cultural violence if we are to understand why the ‘idolatry issue’, to use Carlos Eire’s term, was so central to the agenda of reformers.1 For while modern sensibilities might wish to denigrate the ravaging of late medieval material culture, the immediate heirs to iconoclasm — or at least those with Protestant sympathies — celebrated it and, indeed, gave it the central importance to the process of reform that has endured to this day. To contemporaries these objects were spirituality as much as materiality. Consequently we are required to interpret not only the colour of theology at work in those who smashed statues but also the hue applied by those who recorded these events. This essay seeks to contribute to this project by exploring the cause célèbre of English aniconism, artistic representation of the blessed Virgin Mary, so notable by its ubiquity at the start of the sixteenth century and by its absence at the start of the seventeenth. In doing so it will argue that iconoclasm was assumed into Elizabethan religious identity and that it was therefore the destruction, rather than the icons, that were considered part of the Elizabethan heritage. Those interpreting the reformation of images have indulged in semantics and created a new lexicon. They inherited ‘iconoduly’ and ‘iconolater’, a subtle distinction between those venerating (dulia) and worshipping (latria) icons, and one that was blurred even further by the specialised adoration deemed appropriate for the Virgin Mary, classically defined by Thomas Aquinas as ‘hyperdulia’.2 As the writer of Dives and Pauper explained, ‘proprely to speke Dulia is a worshyp that longeth only to god and to resonable creatures. And pryncypally and excellently to our lady saynt Mary, & to the manhode of  C. EIRE, War Against the Idols: the Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin, Cambridge, 1986, p. 3. 2  M. ASTON, England’s Iconoclasts: Volume 1 Laws against Images, Oxford, 1988, p. 48. 1

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Cryste whiche worshyppe is called yperdulia proprely sayd’.3 The term ‘iconoclast’ (εἰκονοκλάστης) originated as a description for the movement against images in eighth-century Byzantium. The clergyman and martyr John Philpot appropriated ‘iconomaches, that is, overthrowers of images’ from Celio Secondo Curione’s Latin ‘iconomachi’.4 Later the controversialist Andrew Willet defined iconomachs as ‘enemies or oppugners of Idols’, terms that lacked the physical destruction implicit in Philpott’s definition. Willet deployed the term in debate with Robert Bellarmine as Curione had done against Antonio Fiodibelli; they adopted the polemical language of the Counter-Reformation. Bellarmine had ascribed iconomachy to Jews and Muslims and Willet conceded: Moses was an Iconomach, when he caused the golden Calfe to be burnt to powder: Hezekiah an Iconomach, that brake downe the brasen serpent: Iosiah an Iconomach, that caused the Idols to bee destroyed, 2. King. 23. Nay, God himselfe was the first Iconomach, that forbiddeth Images and Idols to be made in the moral law.5

By contrast Martin Bucer’s treatise prohibiting images, Das einigerlei bild bei den gotgläubigen an orten da sie verehrt (1530), set into English by William Marshall in 1535, used neither ‘iconoclast’ nor ‘iconomach’. The reformers of the 1530s had no recourse to identify themselves with a pejoration, but ranked themselves with those who, ‘for their loue and exercyse of vertue & godlynes … gyue euydent testimonye & wytnesse by distroyeng and rydding images’.6 Historians have picked up and added to this vocabulary. Margaret Aston sought to distinguish critics of contemporary imagery (she identifies the early reforming career of Hugh Latimer), iconomachs and iconoclasts.7 She pointed out that while the Decalogue condemned the worship of images it did not demand their destruction, yet that was the ‘seemingly inevitable accompaniment’ of implementing the commandment.8 John Phillips defined iconoclasm ‘in the conventional sense’ as the destruction of art: paintings and sculpture. He recognised, however, that reformers had assaulted buildings and relics too and in describing that process was comfortable deploying another nuanced  Diues and Pauper, London, 1496, sig. B5r.  C. S. CURIONE, Pro uera & antiqua ecclesiae Christi autoritate, Basle, 1547, p. 199; R. EDEN (ed.), The examinations and writings of John Philpot, Cambridge, 1842, 406-407. 5  A. WILLET, Synopsis papismi, London, 1592, p. 351. 6  M. BUCER, A treatise declaryng & shewing that ymages are in no wise to be suffred in churches, London, 1535, sig. B4r. 7  ASTON, England’s Iconoclasts, p. 171. 8  M. ASTON, Broken idols of the Reformation, Cambridge, 2016, pp. 17-18. 3

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dichotomy from Aquinas, that between idolatry and ‘iconolatry’.9 Textual images, which are of course abundant in the Bible, are absent from this definition and are why the term ‘aniconism’, a prohibition on religious symbols not confined to anthropomorphic imagery, is preferred in the present discussion. Where Phillips used ‘iconoclasm’ to describe damage caused by looting, sport and indifference as well as theology, Bruno Latour has coined the word ‘iconoclash’ to embrace ambiguity in the motives behind image destruction.10 Joseph Koerner has subsequently reinterpreted ‘iconoclash’ to describe ambiguity in the re-deployment of images.11 An important observation underpinning this last neologism is that the destruction of one icon often creates a new one: the image of the destruction. One other contribution to the evolving lexicon of aniconism is ‘iconophobia’, a twentieth-century term perhaps distinguishable from ‘iconomach’ by its obvious psychiatric connotations, and one popularised in English Reformation history by Patrick Collinson’s 1985 Stenton Lecture. Collinson’s use of ‘iconophobia’ has proved as problematic as it has useful, largely because he defined it within a narrative.12 He perceived a watershed moment in the middle of Elizabeth’s reign in which the country moved away from ‘iconoclasm’, which he took to be a moral and cultural position embracing both verbal and physical violence against ‘unacceptable images’; consequently, ‘iconoclasm in this sense may imply the substitution of other, acceptable images, or the refashioning of some images for an altered purpose’.13 For Collinson this attitude was distinguishable not only from the antagonists in the Dutch beeldenstorm of the 1560s, but also from those of later Elizabethans who advocated ‘a total repudiation of all images, which on my terms is iconophobia’; this shift also marked the end of cultural common ground with the proponents of English Catholicism.14 On this reading, Philpot’s cultural milieu was one of iconoclasm, while Willet’s was one of iconophobia, and the former shared the traditional scepticism of the use

 J. PHILLIPS, The reformation of images, Berkeley (California), 1973, pp. 4-5.  B. LATOUR, What is Iconoclash?, in B. LATOUR – P. WEIBEL (eds), Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art, Cambridge (Massachusetts), 2002, p. 20. 11  J. L. KOERNER, The Reformation of the Image, London, 2004, pp. 11-12. 12  The most significant critique remains Tessa Watt’s: T. WATT, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550-1640, Cambridge, 1991, pp. 134-139. 13  P. COLLINSON, From Iconoclasm to Iconophobia: the Cultural Impact of the Second English Reformation, in P. MARSHALL (ed.), The Impact of the English Reformation, London, 1997, p. 282. 14  Ibid., pp. 282-83. 9

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of images in worship found in medieval anticlericalism with Fiodibelli and Bellarmine, while the latter did not. ‘From Iconoclasm to Iconophobia’ made helpful assessments of scholarship at a point when ‘revisionism’ was gathering pace in English Reformation studies. To an extent it appropriated the dichotomies offered by Christopher Haigh in his historiographical survey, originally published in 1979 and reprinted in revised form in 1982: was the Reformation a process or an event — of course, he was arguing for the former; as a process was it fast or slow; was it directed from above or below?15 Haigh analysed the Reformation using two matrices, one relating to what he called ‘the motive force’, the other to the ‘pace of religious change’; Collinson more concisely asked ‘what was it’ and ‘when did it happen?’ Moreover, where Haigh spoke of ‘the progress of Protestantism’, Collinson posited that it regressed. In suggesting that it became ‘less not more popular in character’ it may be that Collinson was, uncharacteristically, equating Protestantism too closely with Puritanism.16 There was, of course, a spectrum of Protestant belief including many who were open to the use of images, not least of all Martin Luther.17 Perhaps aniconism was among the radical traits losing allure as England settled down into a sense of religious permanence after three decades of fluidity between the Reformation Parliament of 1529 and the passing of the Act of Uniformity by Elizabeth’s first Parliament in 1559. Moreover, it seems axiomatic that popular forms of criticism will focus assessment on the leaders of Church and State no matter who is in charge, whether Catholic or Puritan, and consequently appear negative if not subversive from the perspective of the magistracy. If late medieval anticlericalism reflected a healthy set of expectations about the level of service desired by the laity, then there is no reason why the same could not hold true of Elizabethan anticlericalism. Collinson did discern that if Puritans like George Gifford and Arthur Dent retained any legacy from works such as Piers Plowman, they discounted Everyman as the thermometer with which to measure England’s spiritual temperature; but he did seem at times in danger of forgetting that those who were comfortable with their bishops, Prayer Books and kneelers were Protestants of a sort too — the other half of a stressful relationship.18

15  C. HAIGH, The Recent Historiography of the English Reformation, in The Historical Journal 25 (1982), no. 4, 995-1007. 16  COLLINSON, From Iconoclasm to Iconophobia, p. 279. 17  EIRE, War Against the Idols, pp. 66-73. 18  P. COLLINSON, The Birthpangs of Protestant England, Basingstoke, 1988, p. 143.

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Collinson pitched the transition to iconophobia to the period around 1580, a fulcrum that coincided with the abbreviated primacy of the Puritan Archbishop Edmund Grindal. Collinson therefore saw the essential phase of English Protestantism as beginning about the time that A. G. Dickens had perceived its conclusion.19 Dickens’ timeframe has subsequently been retained, at least as regards the cleansing of parish imagery, even as his overall narrative was displaced by that of Eamon Duffy. Just as Collinson has written of ‘a major watershed in our civilisation’, so Duffy has consistently focussed on what he has called ‘a deep and traumatic cultural hiatus with the medieval past’.20 While Duffy has stressed the potential for Catholicism to recover under Mary Tudor, even he agrees that it was a different sort of Catholicism. Notably, in the context of iconoclasm, parishes revived their rood images — Christ, the Virgin, John and the patron of the church — but not minor saints and, just as importantly, not the diversity of medieval representations of the Virgin. The pietà, the Madonna and Child, scenes of the Virgin’s life and the Mater Misericordiae shielding her votaries in her mantle were all notable by their absence in the 1550s. These changes suggest a different paradigm from those advanced by Haigh, one where the progress (or regress) of Protestantism should be measured by its deviation from, to borrow Duffy’s label, ‘traditional religion’, but it is a model that seems to fit comfortably with Collinson’s definitions of ‘iconoclasm’ and ‘iconophobia’. On these terms ‘iconoclasm’ involves a re-formation of traditional religion, a ‘refashioning’ to use Collinson’s word, whereas ‘iconophobia’ is its complete rejection. In short, ‘iconophobia’ moves us beyond reformation (indeed, into what Collinson calls the ‘second English Reformation’). Collinson asserted that the ‘first generation of Protestant communicators’, men like Philpot, were in ‘continuity and communication’ with tradition, sharing ‘common cultural ground with their Catholic opponents’.21 By contrast, Duffy concluded The Stripping of the Altars by lamenting that ‘by the end of the 1570s … a generation was growing up which had known nothing else … which did not look back to the Catholic past as their own, but another country, another world’.22 This is more than a narrative of iconoclasm; it is a claim for a paradigm shift in English mentality. Measured in these terms the Reformation actually does look fairly complete by 1580, but it throws into relief the question of the relationship between traditional and Elizabethan religious identities.  A. G. DICKENS, The English Reformation, Batsford, 1989, pp. 360-361.  COLLINSON, Birthpangs of Protestant England, p. 99; E. DUFFY, Saints, Sacrilege and Sedition: Religion and Conflict in the Tudor Reformations, London, 2012, p. 6. 21  COLLINSON, From Iconoclasm to Iconophobia, p. 283. 22  E. DUFFY, The Stripping of the Altars, New Haven, 2005, p. 593. 19 20

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Marian iconism in English material culture At the centre of those traditional identities was Marian iconism for, by the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Virgin Mary had become one the most significant touchstones of orthodoxy in Christendom, perhaps the most significant. Theologically, her position as the mother of God affirmed Christ’s humanity, while the mystery of the incarnation buttressed by her perpetual virginity confirmed his divinity. Among the panoply of saints, the Virgin was the intercessor par excellence, continuing to exert her maternal influence over the divine will as she had done at the wedding at Cana. Moreover, Mary sympathised with the flawed and suffering masses seeking consolation and redemption from the Church. This was particularly evident in her presentation as Ecclesia, the anthropomorphised Church, and in her traumas during Christ’s crucifixion, weeping and swooning on the Via Dolorosa and under the cross. Both of these tropes embodied the image of Mary as the mother of all believers. When Christ said to Mary, ‘woman, behold thy son’ he extended her motherhood to all of his disciples and not merely St John. Consequently the Virgin’s relationship to her devotees was that of evangelist, tutor, consoler and even co-redemptrix as she intervened on earth to shepherd them into heaven. Unsurprisingly, devotions to Mary therefore lay at the centre of popular piety. Unlike other saints and even Christ, however, the Virgin’s death was concomitant with her bodily assumption into heaven. This meant that her devotees could not focus on relics, though there was a good deal of imagination exercised in an attempt to redress this lacuna. There were girdles, probably originating from women who had worn them during pregnancy and even parturition, and which were then donated to parish churches as votive offerings. Subsequently they were rented out. For example, Catherine of Aragon used a girdle from Westminster Abbey to ease her childbirth.23 Donations are found in both men’s and women’s wills: John Bawde left a black girdle with silver ornaments to the image of Our Lady of Woolpit, Suffolk in 1504; Ellyn Taylour left her ‘best girdle’ to Our Lady of Wickwar, Gloucestershire in 1519.24 The pious also left pilgrim badges and rosary beads to local icons of the Virgin, but as Mary was said to have left her own girdle to the great doubter St Thomas, so the gift  S. BRIGDEN, London and the Reformation, Oxford, 1989, p. 288.  S. TYMMS (ed.), Wills and inventories from the registers of the Commissary of Bury St. Edmund’s and the Archdeacon of Sudbury (Camden Society, 49), London, 1850, pp. 83, 109; C. PETERS, Patterns of Piety: Women, Gender and Religion in Late Medieval and Reformation England, Cambridge , 2003, p. 51. 23 24

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of a girdle back to her was a symbolic gesture of the faith of the devotee. Elsewhere, clothing that had once belonged to the Virgin’s own wardrobe was displayed, such as her smock at Maiden Bradley Priory in Wiltshire, but two other types of Marian ‘relic’ offered yet more personal connections. Firstly, there were various claims to hold locks of the Virgin’s hair such as that of Tavistock Parish Church.25 More prevalent still, however, were vessels of breast milk. These could be found in local parish churches from Rufford in Lancashire to Wisborough Green in Sussex, at cathedrals including Worcester, Coventry and old St Paul’s in London, and most famously at the great Augustinian priory at Little Walsingham in Norfolk.26 The Walsingham shrine housed a reconstruction of the house of the Annunciation, where the Virgin had received news of the incarnation from Gabriel, and was said to have been built at her instigation in the eleventh century. England’s Nazareth gave the country an identity as the epicentre of Marian veneration above the claims of other countries also regarding themselves as under Mary’s patronage. This attitude was exemplified by the Wilton Diptych (c. 1395) in which Richard II can be seen offering his kingdom, symbolised by the pennant, to the Virgin. Consequently, the cultural fabric of Tudor devotional life was interwoven with the thread of dos Mariae, Jack Scarisbrick going so far as to describe late medieval Marian devotion as characteristic of a society ‘profoundly addicted to the old ways’.27 In such an environment, bits of clothing, hair and desiccated breast milk were never going to be a satisfactory substitute for the body parts that constituted other saints’ relics and as a consequence Marian veneration almost entirely focussed on images. Marian icons adorned every pre-Reformation English church, within and without. Statues of the Virgin were a standard decorative feature on the fascias of cathedrals, alongside other saints, where they were emblems bordering sacred space, casting a watchful gaze over the local community, simultaneously policing the behaviour of people and spirits. Contemporary belief, influenced by the second-century Roman physician Galen, rested in the extramission theory that  R. N. WORTH, Calendar of the Tavistock Parish Records, Plymouth, 1887, p. 14.  J. GAIRDNER (ed.), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, Volume 10, London, 1887, p. 137; J. GAIRDNER (ed.), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, Volume 13, London, 1893, p. 36; J. GAIRDNER – R. H. BRODIE (eds), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, Volume 14, London, 1894, p. 39. 27  J. J. SCARISBRICK, The Reformation and the English People, Oxford and New York, 1984, p. 54. 25 26

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objects emitted rays which were passively received by the eye. This understanding was not overturned until Johannes Kepler’s description of retinal image formation in 1604 gained acceptance. People assumed these statues were active, emanating both their physicality and sanctity.28 Some parish churches included the Virgin among their grotesques; the sight of the Empress of Hell was far more menacing for spirits threatening churchyard mischief than an ugly face (fig. 1.1). Marian icons were placed on civic buildings, publicising the piety of its patrons and conferring the Virgin’s favour on the business conducted there. Statues of Mary were a widespread feature on bridges, reducing the costs of repair by supernaturally maintaining the structure, and blessing travellers as they crossed over. Bridge-images, particularly those on pilgrimage routes, worked miracles and were subsequently venerated. An inventory of 1488 described ‘Our Lady of the Bryge’ at Derby as stationed in a small chapel, where it was dressed-up in clothes and a girdle and had jewels and beads hung around it.29 In his Debellation of Salem and Bizance, Thomas More referred to an image of the Virgin on London Bridge; a man of his household named Cliffe had apparently ‘sette hande vppon the chylde in her arme and there brake of ye necke’, words which revealed the statue to be a Madonna and child.30 The chapel on the bridge at Corbridge, Northumberland had an associated papal indulgence, ‘on account of the divers miracles wrought therein through the merits of St Mary the Virgin’. As Diana Webb has astutely pointed out, this grant’s effective dates show it was targeting travellers to Newcastle’s midsummer and Whitsun fairs, a shrewdly calculated attempt at extracting offerings that would contribute to maintenance of the bridge.31 Miracles were also claimed by devotees of the wayside chapel at Plym Bridge in Devon.32 The most ubiquitous statue of the Virgin inside parish churches was the (typically wooden) figure situated on the roodscreen below the crucified Christ, but churches contained other Marian icons. Many had altars specifically dedicated to her, where priests would say votive masses and parishioners could light candles, devotions that were important for their efficacy before Mother Mary, the intercessor. The altar image might be a Virgin and Child, but communities  E. MUIR, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, 1997, pp. 192-193.  J. C. COX (ed.), Churchwarden Accounts, from the Fourteenth Century to the Close of the Seventeenth Century, London, 1913, p. 148. 30  T. MORE, The debellacyon of Salem and Bizance, London, 1533, fol. 19r. 31  D. WEBB, Pilgrimage in Medieval England, London and New York, 2000, pp. 102-03. 32  J. A. TWEMLOW, Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, Volume 10: 1447-1455, London, 1915, p. 63. 28 29

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Fig. 1.1. This image offered the protective gaze of the Virgin or another female saint. Grotesque of a crowned woman, fourteenth century; St John the Baptist, Cold Overton, Rutland. Photo: Stephen Bates.

might also draw on a specific affective motif such as a pietà. Mary was also a popular subject for ornamenting retables, the decorative structures bordering the altar, and tabernacles for the reserved Eucharist: her image framed and contained Christ’s body in the context of parish space and liturgy, just as she had carried it in pregnancy. Statues of the Madonna and Child were also common as stand-alone devotional images in wall alcoves. Icons of the Virgin extended beyond images in the round, however. Wall paintings depicting the life of Christ inevitably featured his mother in scenes of the Nativity, the flight to Egypt and the Crucifixion. Such series usually included the Annunciation and Visitation and made Mary a prominent figure in images of the descent from the cross, as testified by survivals at Bardwell in Suffolk and Bengeo in Hertfordshire. Mary’s place in Christ’s deposition was naturally connected to the rood scene; elsewhere she traded her ancillary yet essential role in her son’s narrative

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to take centre stage. The life and miracles of the Virgin were common decorative themes including not only her own Nativity, Presentation at the Temple, Dormition and Assumption, but cameos such as learning to read from her mother, St Anne, as at Slapton in Northamptonshire. The series painted early in the sixteenth century at Winchester Cathedral survives, but lives of the Virgin were not unknown in smaller churches such as Chalfont St Giles, in Buckinghamshire. The Virgin and Child was a characteristic feature on the end of a pew as the summit of a Jesse Tree showing the lineage of Christ; a surviving example at the end of the dean’s choir stall in Chester Abbey combines the rod of Jesse with a Coronation. The decorative aspect of such carvings reflects the prosaic nature of Marian imagery. Often monasteries and larger churches had a lady chapel, typically a reserved area screened off by wooden panelling, but occasionally a semi-detached structure specifically designed to house this subsidiary altar. There was no ordained location for lady chapels just as there was none for Marian altars in the nave, though they were normally situated at the east end of one of the aisles. Both Canterbury and Ely Cathedral placed theirs on the east side of the north transept while Rochester, conversely, went for the west side of the south transept. That at Tintern Abbey was ‘without the west door of the church’.33 The lady chapel at Ely was an extensive semi-detached construction, while that at St Peter’s Stanion in Northamptonshire was an extension of the north aisle that resembled a second chancel (fig. 1.2). The cathedrals of St David’s, Winchester and Exeter all reserved space at the far east end of the church behind the altar, as did the abbeys at Westminster and Tewkesbury and the parish church of Ottery St Mary in Devon. Holy Trinity, Long Melford’s large and partly detached lady chapel projects the whole church building eastward. Peterborough’s Benedictine monks had a lady chapel constructed on the north side of the choir, suggesting it may have been inaccessible to the public. Walsingham’s chapel predated the priory which, when constructed, allowed access to the famous shrine from the north aisle of the nave. Parishioners were still likely to invest in a lady chapel even when the entire church was dedicated to the Virgin. Mary requested such an addition from the Cluniacs of Thetford even though they had already dedicated the Priory to her.34 The obvious relationship between lady chapels and miracle-working shrines was exploited and indulgences were  J. A. TWEMLOW (ed.), Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, Volume 6: 1404-1415, London, 1904, p. 452. 34  W. PAGE (ed.), The Victoria history of the county of Norfolk. Vol.2, London, 1906, p. 364. 33

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Fig. 1.2. Looking west, toward the sanctuary and Lady Chapel extension to the north aisle. St Peter’s, Stanion, Northamptonshire, late thirteenth century. Photo: Stephen Bates.

not uncommon. Shortly after founding his College of Our Lady of Eton, Henry VI obtained a plenary indulgence for pilgrims celebrating the feast of the Assumption at the chapel. Another indulgence was issued for Our Lady of Pewe, in Westminster’s lady chapel, in 1476.35 Sixteenth-century visitors to the lady chapel at Boston, Lincolnshire, on any Friday in the year attracted ‘the full lybertyes & power of Scala celi in Rome’.36 Senior figures in the parish often sought burial in lady chapels as it brought them into a space defined by their patron and advocate and gave the consolation of being physically under the cloak of the Mother of Mercy. Lady chapels represented sanctifying power.  WEBB, Pilgrimage in Medieval England, pp. 90, 102.  List in English of privileges of members of the Guild of Our Lady of Scala Coeli, London, 1515. 35 36

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Fig. 1.3. Such extra-biblical images remained popular until curtailed by Reformation iconomachy. St. Anne teaching the Virgin to read, c. 1530; St Mary the Virgin, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. Photo: Stephen Bates.

Wealthy members of the parish placed images of Mary on memorials and tombs, roof bosses and misericords; for example, there are scenes from the Virgin’s life, including St Anne teaching her to read, on William Rudhall’s tomb at St Mary the Virgin, Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire (fig. 1.3). Rudhall died in 1530, so dating this alabaster to the death of its donor suggests that the popularity of such apocryphal scenes continued right up to the dawn of the Henrician Reformation. Although bosses were more common in cathedrals and abbeys, surviving examples demonstrate that they were also a feature of parish church fabric. There is, for example, an extant fifteenth-century boss of the

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Fig. 1.4. Christ alone crowns Mary, and sits at her level, suggesting he has raised her to an equal. Coronation of the Virgin by Christ, fourteenth century; Tewkesbury Abbey. Photo: Stephen Bates.

Coronation of the Virgin at St Helen’s, Bishopgate in Norwich. Moreover, parishioners utilised abbeys for their own services in some locations and were therefore familiar with the more elaborate art of monastic houses, as at Tewkesbury, where extant roof bosses above the nave and choir include several of the Virgin. Mary was a popular figure in chantry chapels, again invoking her role as an intercessor, as in the Despenser chapel at Tewkesbury (fig. 1.4). She was also a common figure in stained glass. Surviving examples include an early sixteenth-century Crucifixion with Mary, John and a donor in Ely Cathedral and a roundel depicting the pietà in the Victoria and Albert Museum (fig. 1.5).37 Some pieces even remain in situ, such as the Coronation and Assumption at East Harling, Norfolk, and Annunciation and Adoration in the St Nicholas Chapel at Cholmondeley Castle, Cheshire. The survival of medieval legends, such as the late thirteenth-century depiction of the Virgin 37

 V&A C.134-1930.

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Fig. 1.5. While the Bible places St John and the three Marys at the crucifixion, the apocryphal post-mortem adoration of Christ’s body would likely have affronted Protestant sensibilities. Pietà, fifteenth century; stained-glass roundel, diameter 414mm. Photo courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

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recovering Theophilus’ contract with the Devil at Lincoln Cathedral, testify to the practical and financial challenge that images in glass posed to Reformation aniconism. Most intriguingly, Mary’s presence extended into the domestic setting. Figures of alabaster or wood operated as pieces of conspicuous consumption, visible not only to guests but to the Virgin, inviting her intercession and protection over the household. Private devotion to Mary represented orthopraxis, reflected in personal objects ranging from the illustrations of a book of hours or printed primer containing the Little Office for the more literate, to an inexpensive set of rosary beads made of wood, bone or, especially for children, coral; the red colour evoking not only the metaphorical space of the rose garden that gave the practice its name, but also the blood of Christ’s passion.38 This combination is evident in the preliminary drawing for Holbein’s portrait of the More family (now at the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel) where they all have their primers to hand but the youngest daughter, Cecily, is preparing to use beads. Mass-produced printed primers illustrated the Virgin’s life with woodcuts, some of which were innovations on biblical stories. From the 1520s, primers specifically targeting rosary meditations appeared, richly illustrated and introducing new visual motifs, as well as vernacular rosary books.39 Nottinghamshire’s alabaster industry provided diverse images on panels, aiding private devotion; the Annunciation, Assumption and Coronation were particularly popular. Taken together, these material objects suggest the exercise of household piety before alabaster figures, utilising primers and beads. Primers, however, contained other representations. The Virgin was a repetitive feature of the liturgical calendar: the Conception of the Virgin (8 December), her Nativity (8 September), her Presentation in the Temple (21 November), the Annunciation (25 March), the Visitation (2 July), her Purification (2 February, also called Candlemas), and most importantly the Assumption (15 August). Of course the hours traditionally partnered the Virgin’s narrative: Matins and the Annunciation; Lauds and the Visitation and so forth. The liturgy was therefore essential for well-ordered domestic piety, but these lines in the calendar were textual icons of Marian veneration, mapping it in both time and space, and as such would also be purified by reformers.  M. RUBIN, Mother of God, London, 2010, pp. 331, 491 n. 98.  S. BATES, Weaving Vernacular Garlands: Devotion to the Virgin in English, 1525-1537, in J. CARLQUIST – V. LANGUM, Words and Matter: the Virgin in Late Medieval and Early Modern Parish Life, Stockholm, 2015, pp. 169-170. 38 39

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The roots of Reformation aniconism The challenge to Marian iconism began with a concern over institutional corruption. Critics of the system of indulgences formalised in 1343 by the papal bull Unigenitus, focussed on the tendency to play fast and loose with the requirement of contrition, and the exploitation of pilgrims for profit by those managing the shrines. They attacked the system and not the saints. Luther’s early attitude reflected that of the Renaissance humanists, including More, and explains why he found support from the community of letters during the indulgence controversy. His thesis that ‘they who teach that contrition is not necessary on the part of those who intend to buy souls out of purgatory or to buy confessional privileges preach unchristian doctrine’ neatly sums an Erasmian principle. In the colloquy Alcumistica (1524), Erasmus presented a hypocritical priest about to be caught in the act of adultery who found a window too narrow for escape but, after imploring the Virgin on his knees, found the window was wide enough on a second attempt.40 In his Peregrinatio Religionis Ergo (1526) Erasmus had the Virgin describe her own embarrassment at the ‘shameless entreaties’ she had to endure from unrepentant devotees and her bemusement at their reluctance to approach her son, as though he were still a baby, ‘carved and painted as such at my bosom’.41 Likewise, More wrote to Bishop John Fisher deriding ‘the London wives who, as they pray before the image of the Virgin Mother of God which stands near the Tower, gaze upon it so fixedly that they imagine it smiles upon them’.42 What is striking in these comments is that their criticism is aimed at devotees and their cultural milieu (what they would have called ‘superstition’) rather than the images themselves or the saints they represented. During the course of the indulgence controversy, however, Luther’s position radicalised and he began to see the Church as promoters of idolatry. Consequently, he moved beyond the Erasmian scepticism of externalised piety and began advocating iconoclasm. For example, his Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (1520) contained polemic against pilgrimages to the Virgin of Grimmenthal and the Schöne Maria of Regensburg.43 Luther’s colleague at Wittenberg, Andreas Karlstadt, took his lead in writing increasingly aggressive  C. R. THOMPSON, The Colloquies of Erasmus, Chicago and London, 1965, p. 244.  Ibid., pp. 289-91. 42  E. F. ROGERS, St Thomas More: Selected Letters, New Haven, 1961, p. 94. 43  J. ATKINSON (ed.), Luther’s Works, Volume 44: the Christian in Society I, Philadelphia, 1966, pp. 185-186. 40 41

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treatises denouncing the cult of the saints, culminating in Von abtuhung der bylder und das Keyn betdler unther den Christen seyn sollen (Wittenberg, 1522). Karlstadt’s main argument rested on the prohibition of venerating other gods given in the Decalogue; he identified the direction against images as an appendix to the first commandment.44 His conclusion that God forbade the making and keeping of any kind of image and his conviction that externals were an obstruction to true worship fit Collinson’s definition of iconophobia. Karlstadt was especially offended by images placed on altars, but he did not extend his thinking to icons beyond churches, in the home for example. Indeed he assumed rather than defined what ‘images’ were even as he acknowledged that they held a power over him that he feared.45 Von abtuhung der bylder inevitably concluded with an exhortation to remove these ‘carved and painted idols’, a duty which fell on secular authority. Wittenberg’s magistracy duly announced a date for the removal of images but a mob, probably incited by Karlstadt and the fiery preacher Gabriel Zwilling, took matters into their own hands.46 Subsequently Karlstadt was compelled to leave Wittenberg but he continued to develop his views on iconoclasm in a radical direction, ultimately shifting responsibility to the individual in his treatise, Ob man gemach faren und des ergernüssen der schwachen verschonen soll in sachen so Gottis willen angehn (Basel, 1524). Luther condemned as a form of works-righteousness the idea that iconoclasm was a necessary duty, but he could not prevent the targeting of other Marian images: at Riga in 1524, reformers ducked the cathedral’s wooden statue and, since it floated, burnt it as a witch.47 What might be regarded as Luther’s matured view on the use of images has two important characteristics. Firstly iconoclasm was only appropriate when an image was worshipped in an idolatrous fashion, though in England as elsewhere this open-ended definition of ‘abuse’ would beg the question.48 Luther’s preference was that the power of idols should be defused through teaching, destroying them inwardly rather than outwardly: to ‘instruct and enlighten the conscience that it is idolatry to worship them’.49 Secondly, the 44  B. D. MANGRUM – G. SCAVIZZI, A Reformation Debate: Karlstadt, Emser, and Eck on Sacred Images, Toronto, 1991, pp. 22-23. 45  Ibid., pp. 35-36. 46  EIRE, War Against the Idols, p. 64; KOERNER, Reformation of the Image, p. 86. 47  D. MACCULLOCH, Mary and Sixteenth-Century Protestants, in R. N. SWANSON (ed.), The Church and Mary (Studies in Church History, 39), Woodbridge, 2004, p. 198. 48  J. W. DOBERSTEIN (ed.), Luther’s Works, Volume 51: Sermons I, Philadelphia, 1959, pp. 82-83. 49  C. BERGENDOFF (ed.), Luther’s Works, Volume 40: Church and Ministry II, Philadelphia, 1958, p. 91.

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removal of images was a legitimate activity for the magistracy, not for individuals. Popular iconoclasm leant itself to sedition.50 On this latter point Luther was in accord with the Swiss reformers, none of whom took so radical a view as Karlstadt. Huldrych Zwingli for example refused to approve of the spontaneous acts of iconoclasm that took place in Zürich in the autumn of 1523 even though he continued to preach against images: the city’s council eventually issued instructions for an orderly removal in June 1524. In spite of this, English conservatives equated aniconism with social disorder: ‘blasphemynge of sayntes, rasshyng downe theyr images, castynge out theyr relykes, dyspyghtynge our lady’ were, according to More, the natural consequences of the ‘new learning’.51 The destruction of images during the German Peasants’ Revolt leant weight to this assumption. Up until the 1520s England’s iconoclastic tradition lay with Lollardy, a movement that was perhaps defined more by the authorities than by any coherent set of members, and one that had retained a close association with sedition since the Oldcastle revolt of 1414. Consequently, when in early 1522 arsonists attempted to burn the images at St Mary’s, Rickmansworth and badly damaged the church, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and Bishop John Longland of Lincoln issued an indulgence accusing only ‘wretched & cursed people’, not ‘Lutherans’.52 Nevertheless, iconoclasm had a new impetus. In June 1528, John Clerk and John Tayler wrote to tell Wolsey that in Paris, ‘the blessyd ymage off our Lady wyth hyr Sonne in hyr armys, lost bothe off theym ther heedys’.53 There was a social tsunami emanating from Wittenberg and it was nearing England’s shore. The relationship between iconomachy and disorder was only reinforced by the career of Thomas Bilney, priest and Cambridge don, who became the leading evangelical figure at the university. In the summer of 1527, given a licence to preach in the diocese of Ely, he launched a campaign against idolatry that extended into the neighbouring dioceses of Norwich and London. Bilney denounced pilgrimages at Ipswich, home to one of England’s wonder-working Marian shrines, while at Willesden he called the famous image of the Virgin there a ‘common bawd’. Miracles, he declared, were the work of the Devil designed to confound and mislead the people.54 Bilney remains an elusive 50

 Ibid., pp. 90, 101.  T. MORE, The second parte of the confutacion of Tyndals answere, London, 1533, p. 96. 52  M. ASTON, Iconoclasm at Rickmansworth, 1522: Troubles of Churchwardens, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 40 (1989), no. 4, p. 552. 53  State Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 1/48, fol. 123r. 54  ASTON, England’s Iconoclasts, p. 164. 51

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figure. He condemned Luther and affirmed transubstantiation in the mass, but his preaching evidently incited individual acts of iconoclasm and his eventual martyrdom in August 1531 triggered a wave of image destruction across Suffolk.55 As in Wittenberg and Zürich instigation from ‘above’ had quickly produced a reaction from ‘below’. The readily discernible connection between an authority criticising icons and popular iconoclasm created anxiety, whether that authority was found in an ordained preacher or a published book. In October 1527 Cuthbert Tunstall, then Bishop of London, indicted John Gough and Wynkyn de Worde over the translation and publication of The Ymage of Loue. The author, John Ryckes was an orthodox figure, a Greenwich Observant, and he appears to have written the book as a New Year’s gift to the nuns of Syon Abbey.56 Ryckes wrote of how he had considered having an image ‘of our blyssed lady’ made as a gift, only to be rebuked for wasting his money on ‘corruptyble and vayne thynges’.57 Ultimately he found the true image of love in charity toward his fellow man.58 Tunstall felt Ryckes was promoting aniconism. Yet, although Ryckes critiqued the expense lavished on devotional materiality, he affirmed the didactic value of images and did not countenance their removal. Consequently, it is perhaps unsurprising that The Ymage of Loue was reprinted without objection in 1532 but also in revised form by Anthony Munday in 1587. The authorities may have found ambiguity in the words of Bilney and Ryckes, but a growing chorus of iconomachy now emerged from the committed choir of English evangelicals. Importantly though, as they sought to cleanse away what they saw as centuries of accretion from the true image of the Virgin, these reformers regarded themselves as defenders of Mary’s honour against the institutional fraud of the shrines and the hypocritical practices of devotees. They tended to draw short of saying what should be done and by whom, although the implication was that the magistracy should step in and remove venerated icons. The author of Read me and be Nott Wrothe lamented that ‘the aultres of the lorde are subuerted with ymages which cost many a pounde’.59 No other country was so idolatrous as England:  J. FOXE, Actes and Monuments, London, 1570, p. 1173.  M. C. ERLER, Women, Reading and Piety in Late Medieval England, Cambridge, 2002, p. 107. 57  J. RYCKES, The Ymage of Loue, London, 1525, sig. A2r. 58  Ibid., sig. B3r. 59  Read me and be Nott Wrothe (Strasbourg, 1528), sigs B3r-B3v. The text is variously attributed to Jerome Barlow, William Barlow and William Roy: cf. A. KOSZUL, Was Bishop Barlow 55 56

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Then have they ladies as many Some of grace and some of mercy With divers of lamentacion. Morover paynted stock and stones With shrynes, full of rotten bones To the whiche they make oblacion.60

Once more, as with Bilney, the notorious shrine of Our Lady of Willesden was singled out for criticism as the ‘chefe lady mastres’ for ‘whordom and letcherousnes’; pilgrims fathered bastards ‘by her myracles promocion’. Once more, like Ryckes, the writer advocated the removal of gold from shrines and its redistribution to the poor, a step short of removing the images altogether. Significantly Read me and be Nott Wrothe maintained the distinction between ‘stocks in despyte’ and the actual, dishonoured Virgin.61 It is characteristic of how reformers consistently assaulted the perverted practices of piety and not the person of Mary. Simon Fish in his Supplication of the Beggars, for example, marvelled at ‘whate money pull they yn … by mennes offeringes to theyre pilgremages’.62 William Tyndale was utterly uncompromising in his view that ‘no whoremonger, other vnclene person or covetous persone (which is the worsheper of images) hath any enheritaunce in the kyngdome of Christ’.63 Robert Barnes similarly decried devotees of icons as blasphemers. He dismissed any attempt to distinguish dulia from latria even as he sought to widen the distinction between icon and saint. Notwithstanding difference of character, he provocatively asked: whiche of yov alle hath sene oure ladye or any other saynt where by you may lerne to make hare symylitude? and yf yov haue nothing to saye for yov, but bycause she was a woman, thane is youre Image as muche the symilitude of an harlott of the stuys the whiche berythe alle the shape that belongeth to a naturalle woman as well as oure lady.64

Barnes was fully aware that his comparison was outrageous. It was intentionally calculated to drive home the point that his opponents were the Virgin’s assailants and that he was the guardian of her honour. Elsewhere he cautioned, ‘you Friar Jerome Barlow?, Review of English Studies 4 (1928) 25-34, pp. 26-7. 60  Read me and be Nott Wrothe, sig. H4r. 61  Ibid., sigs H4v-5r. 62  S. FISH, A supplicacyon for the beggers, Antwerp, 1529, p. 2. 63  W. TYNDALE, The Obedience of a Christen Man, Antwerp, 1528, fol. 20r. 64  R. BARNES, A supplicatyon, Antwerp, 1531, fol. 137r.

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lerne men to mocke oure lady whan yow lerne them to saie oure ladys sauter’.65 Similarly, in November 1536, John Bale asserted from prison that ‘nether our lady nor ye saynts contentyd with ye superstytyons whych many do use when they pray to our ladye’.66 The Virgin was on-side with the evangelicals and their project to recover her place in popular piety. The noticeable and persistent use by Barnes and Bale (among other reformers) of the phrase ‘our lady’ is revealing of the reverence they held for the theological figure of Mary. Ultimately, she was a biblical character; even Tyndale could accept icons drawn directly from scriptural scenes. His revised Newe Testament of 1534 included a woodcut of the ‘woman clothed with the sunne, and the mone vnder her fete, and apon her heed a croune of xii. starres’ long associated with the Virgin.67 His Pentateuch, however, revealed a new emphasis in evangelical theology by laying out the prohibition on images as the second commandment, something Luther had refused to do: Thou shalt make thee no grauen ymage, nether any symilitude that is in heauen aboue, either in the erth beneth, or in the water that ys beneth the erth. Se that thou nether bowe thysylf vnto them nether serue them: for I the Lorde thy God, am a gelouse God, and viset the synne of the fathers vpon the childern vnto the third and fourth generacion of them that hate me: and yet shewe mercie vnto thousandes amonge them that loue me and kepe my commaundmentes.68

If English reformers looked to the king to implement this instruction, ambiguity remained as to whether that meant instruction or destruction. Barnes had directed his Supplication to Henry and in this context his recitation of the idolatry of King Jeroboam seems a conscious parallel of Tudor religious life. The people of Judah ‘were not so mad (as ye say) to thynk that those caluys were goddis; but they dyd honour them’ wrote Barnes, and he compared this with votaries rubbing beads against statues of the Virgin.69 Hugh Latimer and Edward Crome had both been influenced by Bilney and both connected the reform of images with the supremacy. When Archbishop William Warham and Bishop John Stokesley of London challenged their preaching, they successfully

65

 Ibid., fol. 144v.  State Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 1/111 fol. 170v. 67  W. TYNDALE, The Newe Testament dylygently corrected and compared with the Greke, Antwerp, 1534, fol. 476v. 68  W. TYNDALE, The Seconde Boke of Moses, called Exodus, Antwerp, 1530, fol. 33v. 69  BARNES, A supplicatyon, fol. 135r-v; cf. 1 Chronicles 12.25-33. 66

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appealed to the king; release followed token submissions.70 Subsequently in October 1533, when Latimer was accused of saying that images should be pulled down, one witness warned that he had the ‘kyngs brode seall’.71 Among the apocryphal tales of John Lydgate’s Lyf of our Lady, re-published in 1531, were ‘false Idolis’ of Rome and Egypt collapsing at the birth of Christ and the ‘brasse’ goddess ‘broken and to torne’.72 Thus, even extra-scriptural accounts supported calls for Henry to become a contemporary Hezekiah and sweep away the country’s idols. The evolution of magisterial aniconism Henry’s initial response was to allow a campaign undermining the efficacy of prayer before images and pilgrimages. Peter Marshall has suggested that ‘the withering contempt of radical Erasmianism, rather than the theological resolve of early Protestantism, was the ideological face of the dissolution in its first phase’.73 Indeed, Henry went so far as to write to Erasmus in September 1527 asking him to come to England to help ‘advance the gospel of Christ’ and return the country’s faith to its ‘pristine dignity’.74 As regards Lutheran reform of the Virgin’s cult, however, these positions were essentially the same. The difference revolved around the question of when the rejection of externals required their removal, a question Erasmus never seemed to ask and which Luther never answered. Consequently the 1530s saw the translation and publication of several of Erasmus’ reform-minded texts, largely under the supervision of Thomas Cromwell’s client, William Marshall, but with royal approval. They included Enchiridion Militis Christiani with its characterisation of the visible as ‘imperfyte or els indifferent’ in 1533.75 A vernacular version of Erasmus’ homily for the holy house of Loreto, Walsingham’s continental competitor, was also published in the same year. It presented a Virgin who shunned the externals of much traditional piety as disingenuous attempts at spiritual manipulation: 70  S. WABUDA, Equivocation and Recantation during the English Reformation: the ‘Subtle Shadows’ of Dr Edward Crome, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44 (1993), no. 2, 224-242, pp. 229-30. 71  State Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 2/O fol. 77. 72  J. LYDGATE, The Lyf of our Lady, London, 1531, sigs U2r, U3r. 73  P. MARSHALL, Forgery and Miracles in the Reign of Henry VIII, Past & Present 178 (2003), 39-73, p. 52. 74  J. S. BREWER (ed.), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, Volume 4, London, 1875, p. 1558. 75  D. ERASMUS, The manuell of the christen knyght, London, 1533, sig. H2v.

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they whiche throwe folysshe iudgement … whiche with waxe candellys, whiche with gyftes, or oblacyons, whiche with churches, or chapelles do honoure her … stande in iopardye, leste the mother do saye vnto them … This people honoureth me with theyr lyppes, but theyr hertes be farre awaye from me.76

Later in the 1530s, the Peregrinatio religionis ergo was published as as The pylgremage of pure deuotyon. It was a timely reminder of monastic fraud on the eve of the dissolution, but it drew a clear line at destroying icons. The Virgin personally warns ‘you be abowt (as they say) that what so euer any saynte hathe in any place, to take hyt frome the churches, but take heed what you doo … as for me thou canst not cast owt, except thou cast owt my sone, which I hold in myne armes’.77 Ultimately Erasmus was no iconoclast. When the slow pace of reform in his home city of Basel led to a riotous outbreak of image destruction in February 1529, he promptly left for Freiburg. In England too, evangelical agitation led to spontaneous acts of iconoclasm.78 Criticising popular piety remained orthodox but removing images without authorisation looked both heretical and seditious and some attempt was made to reign in such enthusiasm. For example, the evangelical clergyman Lancelot Ridley decried ‘ignorant people’ who ‘preferred the sayntes before god’, putting their ‘trust, helpe and succour in an image made of stone or of wode by mans hande’, but he asserted that images in churches were ‘commendable & expedient’ in order ‘to bryng vs in remembrance of the vertuousnes and holynes of the holy sayntes, that we may take example of them’.79 This attitude is apparent in official publications. Convocation passed the Ten Articles in July 1536, giving qualified approval to the veneration of images. Censing, kneeling and offering must be done to God, ‘although it be done before the images.’ Statues were appropriate as ‘representers of virtue’ but must not be worshipped. Images of Mary were distinguished from the signified saint, who was to be honoured, even invoked, though she was not more merciful than Christ.80 The articles 76  D. ERASMUS, A sermon made by the famous doctor Erasmus of Roterodame, London, [1533], fol. 3r-v. 77  D. ERASMUS, A dialoge or communication of two persons deuysyd and set forthe in the laten tonge … intituled the pylgremage of pure deuotyon, newly translatyd into Englishe, London, [1537], sig. A6r-v. 78  BRIGDEN, London and the Reformation, p. 288; DUFFY, Stripping of the Altars, p. 381. 79  L. RIDLEY, An exposition in the epistell of Iude the apostel of Christ, London, [1538], sigs B5r-B6r. 80  Articles devised by the kynges highnes maiestie, to stablyshe christen quietnes and vnitie amonge us, and to auoyde contentious opinions, London, 1536, sigs C4v, D1v-D2r.

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ignored pilgrimages, but the enforcing injunctions insisted that clergy should not ‘set forth, or extolle any ymages, relyques, or myracles’ or encourage pilgrimages, ‘otherwise than is permitted in the artycles, lately putte forthe’.81 The Bishop’s Book, published in the summer of 1537, affirmed that ‘thou shalt not make to thyself any graven thing’ was the second commandment and consequently forbade, bowing, kissing or offering to images.82 Nevertheless, ‘they be not so prohibited, but that they may be had and set up in churches.’ Statues could inspire, but ‘they do greatly err which put difference between image and image’. Pilgrims should help ‘quick and lively images of God’, rather than ‘deck dead images.’83 Under this first phase therefore, it was not the existence of icons but their abuse that had to cease. The magisterial position now began to change, however, in parallel with the dissolution of the monasteries. The motivations here were fourfold: avarice, the political opposition of monks, the evidence of moral abuses, and Henry’s own disinclination toward the intercession of saints. The royal commissioners took a hermeneutic of suspicion out with them and while they wrote favourable reports for some houses, such as Durham and the nunnery at Godstow near Oxford, they had dismantled some pilgrimage sites even prior to the 1536 Act dissolving the lesser monasteries. Visitation correspondence confirms iconoclastic initiative. In August 1535 Richard Layton removed the Maiden Bradley smock and a girdle from neighbouring Bruton Abbey and sent them to Cromwell.84 In September Thomas Thacker recorded the removal from Ipswich of ‘Our Lady’s coat, with two gorgets of gold to put about her neck, and image of Our Lady in gold’, together with ‘a little relick of gold and crystal with Our Lady’s milk in it’.85 In October ‘Our Ladies girdell’ was removed from Westminster Abbey, while ‘a relique of Our Ladies milke’ in St Paul’s was ‘broken and founde but a peece of chalke’.86 In April 1537, auditors removed ‘an image of Our Lady of Grace, old gilt with plate of silver upon the feet and

 Iniunctions gyuen by the auctoritie of the kynges highnes to the clergie, London, 1536, p.2.  The Institution of a Christen man, conteynynge the exposition or interpretation of the commune Crede, of the seuen sacramentes, of the x. commandementes, & of the Pater noster, and the Aue Maria, iustification and purgatorie, London, 1537, fols 70r, 71r. 83  Ibid., fols 71v-72r. 84  J. GAIRDNER (ed.), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, Volume 9, London, 1886, p. 49. 85  Ibid., p. 114. 86  W. D. HAMILTON (ed.), A Chronicle of England during the Reigns of the Tudors by Charles Wriothesley, Volume 1 (Camden Society, 11), Westminster, 1875, p. 31. 81 82

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15 pence nailed about the tabernacle’ from the monastic grange at Stanlow.87 The removal of icons during this period may have been official, but it went beyond the scope of the prevailing injunctions. From 1538 Cromwell moved from the removal of icons toward the physical destruction of shrines. In March John Husee reported to Viscount Lisle that ‘pilgrimage saints goeth down apace’ including Our Lady of Southwick at the Austin Priory in Portchester Castle.88 In June Latimer wrote to Cromwell asking him to help put away the memory of Our Lady of Worcester: ‘our great sibyll hath been the devil’s instrument to bring many, I fear, to eternal fire; now she herself, with her old sister of Walsingham, her young sister of Ipswich, with their other two sisters of Dongcaster and Penryesse, would make a jolly muster in Smithfield. They would not be all day in burning’.89 On 14 July, Cromwell’s commissioners removed Our Lady of Walsingham and it arrived at Lambeth four days later. Subsequently Our Lady of Ipswich joined her.90 Charles Wriothesley recalled: In the moneth of July, the images of Our Lady of Wallsingham and Ipswich were brought up to London, with all the jewelles that honge about them, at the kinges commaundement, and divers other images, both in England and Wales, that were used for common pilgrimages, because the people should use noe more idolatrye unto them, and they were burnt at Chelsy by my Lord Privie Seale.91

The disbanding of England’s major cultic shrines was an inevitable consequence of closing the monastic houses and, while this did not necessarily mean the end for local icons, it inevitably had an impact on parish mentalities. A second set of royal injunctions issued that September were far sharper in tone. At least four times a year, priests were to preach against ‘wandering to pilgrimages, offering of money, candles, or tapers to images or relics, or kissing or licking the same’, devotions which risked ‘maledictions of God, as things tending to idolatry and superstition’. ‘Feyned images … abused with pilgremages or offrynges’ were to be taken down and ‘delayed’ (that is, debased). Confusingly, candles were still allowed before the images on the rood loft.92 These  J. GAIRDNER (ed.), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, Volume 12, London, 1890, p. 435. 88  J. GAIRDNER (ed.), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, Volume 13, London, 1892, p. 207. 89  Ibid., p.437. 90  Ibid., pp. 510, 521, 555. 91  HAMILTON (ed.), A Chronicle of England by Charles Wriothesley, p. 83. 92  Iniunctions for the clerge, London, 1538. 87

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instructions impacted upon piety and materiality in homes as well as churches for now reform-minded clergy had a licence to investigate domestic devotions. The 1538 injunctions would form the basis for those of Edward and Elizabeth, so it is informative that they set out the motivation for removing icons. The attempt to retain them while freeing them from abuse was proving elusive: Images serue for no other purpose, but as to be bokes of vnlerned men, that can no letters, wherby they myght be otherwise admonyshed of the lyues and conuersation of them, that the sayde images do represent. Whiche ymages if they abuse for any other intent, than for suche remembrances, they commytte ydolatrie in the same, to the great daunger of their soules. And therfore the kynges highnesse, graciousely tenderynge the weale of his subiectis soules, hath in parte alredy, and more woll hereafter frauayle for thabolyshynge of suche images, as myght be occasion of so great an offence to god, and so greatte a daunger to the soules of his louyng subiectes.93

Similarly, a draft ‘official account of the Reformation’ penned early in 1539 offered a narrative in which Henry, seeing the abuses revealed by the visitations, had tolerated images except where there had been idolatry, as when ‘Our Lady of Worcester which, when her ornaments were taken off, was found to be the similitude of a bishop’ and when visitors discovered ‘instead of the milk of Our Lady a piece of chalk or ceruse’.94 Consequently this second phase involved selective removal, a concomitant of the necessary ambiguity over what constituted ‘abuse’ (the Henrician term) or ‘misuse’ (the Edwardian). This was exemplified in the case of Thomas Emans who, in 1537, after Latimer had degraded the Virgin at Worcester, approached the unclothed image, kissed its feet and exhorted, ‘ye that be disposed to offer, the figure is no worse than it was before’. Emans carefully chose his words to distinguish the statue from the saint: ‘though our Lady’s coat and her jewels be taken away from her, the similitude of this is no worse to pray unto, having a recors unto her above, then it was before’.95 Nevertheless, the city’s bailiffs arrested him. The 1538 injunctions specifically referenced pilgrimages and offerings as abusive, to which Edward’s articles for the visitation of 1547 added ‘clothes, stones, shoes, offerings, kissings, candlesticks, trindles of wax and such like’, but both these definitions left room for interpretation.96 93

 Ibid.  J. GAIRDNER – R. H. BRODIE (eds), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, Volume 14, London, 1894, p. 153. 95  J. GAIRDNER (ed.), Letters and Papers of the Henry VIII, Volume 12, p. 218 96  Articles to be enquired of, in the Kynges Maiesties visitacion, London, 1547, sig. A2v. 94

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Cromwell’s commissioners confiscated a miscellany of Marian iconography. John London removed the silver-plated Lady of Caversham and then wrote from Coventry having ‘laid down the idolatry of two chapels where offering was to an image of Our Lady and to a rode’.97 Commissioners removed a piece of Our Lady’s tomb and a relic of her milk in silver and gilt from the Cathedral.98 The Austin Friars of Ludlow surrendered a tabernacle in the ‘image of Our Lady a Pyte’, while the Franciscans of Carmarthen gave up an image of the Mater Dolorosa together with ‘two poor coats for Our Lady’.99 Hereford Cathedral gave up three images of the Annunciation.100 At Tewkesbury and Pershore Abbeys, whole lady chapels were demolished as ‘superfluous.’101 There was some complicity, even local iconoclastic initiative, but also resistance. In October 1538, Alexander Barclay lamented how ‘menne are to besye in pullinge downe of Ymages without especiall commaundement of the Prynce’, while there was fresh iconoclasm in Kent following the Prebendaries’ Plot: at Eastwell, where another venerated image with ‘a coat fixed with pence’ was removed, and at Northgate where John Toftes pulled down a picture of Our Lady and ‘did hew her all in pieces’.102 Meanwhile priests at nearby Sholden reinstalled an image of Mary taken down by the commissioners.103 Much, therefore, survived until Edward’s reign. The 1547 Injunctions represented the culmination of this second phase with some intensification: ‘abused’ images were now to be destroyed rather than degraded; the lights before the rood loft images were snuffed out; images were no longer books for the unlearned but served ‘no other purpose but to be a remembrance’.104 Clergy and laity were directed to remove all shrines and any ‘monuments of feigned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry, and superstition: so that there remain no memory of the same in walls, glass-windows, or elsewhere within their churches or houses’. Priests were to exhort their parishioners to ‘utterly extinct’ the Marian icons in their homes; by contrast, even Zürich and

 GAIRDNER (ed.), Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, Volume 13, pp. 143, 257.  GAIRDNER –BRODIE (eds), Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, Volume 14, p. 29. 99  GAIRDNER (ed.), Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, Volume 13, pp. 67, 86. 100  Ibid., p. 507. 101  D. KNOWLES, The Religious Orders in England, Volume 3, Cambridge, 1971, p. 386. 102  H. ELLIS (ed.), Original Letters Illustrative of English History, Volume 3 (Third Series), London, 1846, p. 114; J. GAIRDNER – R. H. BRODIE (eds), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, Volume 18 Part 2, London, 1902, pp. 296, 300. 103  Ibid., p. 299. 104  Iniunccions geuen by the moste excellent prince, Edward the sixte … to all and singuler his louyng subiectes, aswell of the clergie, as of the laietie, London, 1547, sig. A3v. 97 98

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Strasbourg had allowed donors to take images home.105 But distinguishing with the vague terms ‘abuse’ and ‘superstition’ remained unworkable. In February 1548, acknowledging that ‘in every place is contention for images, whether they have been abused or not’, the Council ordered ‘all the images remaining in any church or chapel’ to be removed.106 An Act of Parliament in January 1550 reinforced this order against ‘any images of stone, tymbre, allebaster or earthe graven, carved or paynted’ that were standing in or had been taken out of any church. Those found guilty under the statute would be fined 20s. on a first offence, 4l. on a second, and imprisoned if convicted for a third time. Tellingly, while the Act placed responsibility for collecting old services books on the local magistracy — the mayor, bailiff, constable and churchwardens — all ‘of what estate, degree or condition soever he she or theye be’ were liable for the destruction of icons.107 Images on tombstones were, however, specifically excluded from the provisions of the Act.108 It was now that, in Collinson’s words, ‘pictures with which pre-Reformation churchgoers had been familiar’ were ‘slobbered over with whitewash’.109 The churchwardens of St Laurence, Ludlow, paid 6s 8d ‘for takynge downe of the roode and the images’ and another 4d ‘for nayles to hange up clothes when the images was pullede downe’.110 They recorded their statues as they sold them off: 10d for an image of Jesus, 18d for St George and 7d for the dragon.111 In 1551 they paid ‘for mendynge of an hoole ther as our Lady aulter dyd stand’.112 Meanwhile, Long Melford parishioners hid an alabaster of the Magi adoring the Virgin and Child under the chancel floorboards, where it remained until the eighteenth century.113 It was, presumably, during this third and decidedly iconoclastic phase that Cecily Heron lost her beads in copies of the More family portrait, and that reformers painted out Cuthbert Tunstall’s in the bishop’s Chapel portrait, leaving his hands enigmatically suspended (fig. 1.6). 105

 Ibid., sig. C2v.  J. E. COX (ed.), Miscellaneous writings and letters of Thomas Cranmer, Cambridge, 1846, p. 510. 107  Contra DUFFY, Stripping of the Altars, p. 469. 108  An Acte for the abolishinge and puttinge away of diverse Bookes and Images, 3&4 Edward VI, Ch. X. 109  COLLINSON, From Iconoclasm to Iconophobia, p. 296. 110  T. WRIGHT (ed.), Churchwarden’s Accounts of the Town of Ludlow, London, 1869, pp. 33-34. 111  Ibid., pp. 36-37. 112  Ibid., p. 46. 113  G. M. GIBSON, Theater of Devotion, Chicago, 1989, pp. 61-62. Eamon Duffy identifies a similar story for the patronal image of the Virgin at St Mary, Stamford in Lincolnshire; Stripping of the Altars, p. 490. 106

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Fig. 1.6. Rather than destroy the painting, reformers have chosen to edit out the offending beads. Unknown artist, Cuthbert Tunstall, c.1530. Oil on canvas, 724 mm × 558 mm. Durham University: Tunstall Chapel. Photo courtesy of Durham University.

The Elizabethan settlement largely picked up the third phase of aniconism from where Edward’s death had left it. The character of Elizabeth’s Church was defined by the Act of Uniformity, which came into force on 24 June 1559. An enforcing visitation was organised with a fresh set of articles of inquiry. The visitors were to confirm that all images in churches and chapels had been ‘removed, abolished, and destroyed’ and also whether anyone kept undefaced images in their houses where thy might be adored.114 The corresponding 114  Articles to be enquyred in the visitation, in the fyrste yeare of the raygne of our moost drad soueraygne lady, Elizabeth, London, 1559, sigs A2r, B1v.

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injunctions, while based on Henry and Edward’s, had small but significant differences. They increased the level of required sermons targeting ‘superstition’ from one a quarter to one a month but, curiously, relics and images were left out of the explicit list of ‘works devised by man’s fantasies’. The instruction to ‘take awaye, vtterly extyncte and dystroye’ all shrines, pictures, paintings and ‘other monumentes’ was repeated, with the added caveat of ‘preserving nevertheless or repairing both the walls and glass windows’.115 There was no longer a concern with ‘abuse’; there was no proper use. Images could have no merit. This injunction was reinforced by another, insisting ‘that no persons keep in their houses any abused images, tables, pictures, paintings, and other monuments of feigned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry or superstition’.116 This was a deliberate attempt to ensure there was no repeat of the concealments of 1550, icons hidden by conservative parishioners and restored on the accession of Mary. The 1559 injunctions all but stripped communities of Mariological symbols. Marian aniconism and Elizabethan identity The birth-pangs of iconophobia may, therefore, be fruitfully sought in the early Elizabethan world and its disjuncture with the immediate Catholic past: the world of the Marian restoration. In examining this moment, the continuities that are of most interest are the very criticisms Elizabethans appropriated from their medieval forebears. The Protestant critique represented continuity with Catholicism; the first generation (or generations) of Protestants were late medieval Catholics, which is precisely why they readily found anticlerical precedence in the literature of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century. Indeed, it may well be helpful to lose the standard labels of dichotomy and division in our analysis and to think of conservative and reforming wings of Christianity for as long as we possibly can. Such irenicism may even be less anachronistic, especially before 1563 when the conclusion of the Council of Trent and the passing of the Articles of Religion represented movements toward hardened confessional positions. It locates us sympathetically alongside the Contarinis, Poles and Bucers of the Reformation world, not to mention the ordinary (no doubt disorientated) English parishioner of the 1560s. Duffy has suggested that there was contemporary confusion over the direction of the Elizabethan settlement 115 116

 Iniunctions geven by the Quenes Maiestie, London, 1559, sigs A2v, B3v.  Ibid., sig. C2v.

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and an examination of representations of the Virgin in the primers of 1560 supports this.117 In direct contrast to the Book of Common Prayer, their calendars included dates for the Conception, Nativity and Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple.118 What was required, if you were part of the reforming wing, was to pick up and run with the existing critique of such holy days as apocryphal. ‘Iconoclasm’, as Collinson understood it, here represented continuity rather than innovation. In this context it is informative to reflect on Trent’s decree on the saints and the use of relics and images. It came in December 1563, too late to be of relevance to magisterial reform in Marian England. However, its reaffirmation that veneration to images was to the saint and not the statue represented a tacit acknowledgement of criticisms in this area.119 It bears comparison with the earliest phase of English aniconism. The Council declared that: images of Christ, of the Virgin Mother of God, and of the other saints, are to be placed and retained especially in the churches, and that due honour and veneration is to be given them; not, however that any divinity or virtue is believed to be in them by reason of which they are to be venerated, or that something is to be asked of them, or that trust is to be placed in images, as was of old done by the Gentiles who placed their hope in idols; but because the honour which is shown them is referred to the prototypes which they represent.120

There was definitely something new going on in early Elizabethan identity however and we get a clue to it in the Articles of Religion. They were, of course, a slightly modified version of Cranmer’s forty-two articles of June 1553. The twenty-second article affirmed: the Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory, Indulgences, the worshipping and adoration of not only Images but also Relics, and also the invocation of Saints, is a worthless thing, foolishly invented, and unsupported by the Scriptures; indeed, it contradicts the word of God.121

 DUFFY, Stripping of the Altars, p. 567.  A primer of boke of priuate praier nedeful to be vsed of all faythfull Christians, London, 1560, sigs b3r, b4v, b6v; Orarium seu libellus precationum per Regiam maiestatem, Latinè aeditus, London, 1560, sig. a8r . 119  A. LEPAGE, Art and the Counter-Reformation, in A. BAMJI – G. H. JANSSEN – M. LAVEN (eds), The Ashgate Comnpanion to the Counter-Reformation, Farnham, 2013, p. 379 120  H. J. SCHROEDER (ed.), Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, London, 1941, pp. 215-216. 121  Articuli de quibus in synodo Londinensi, London, 1563, sig. B1v. 117 118

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Cranmer’s original draft had attacked the doctrina scholasticorum, the doctrine of the schoolmen, whereas the Elizabethan articles emphasised an identity that was clearly foreign. The ‘Romish doctrine’ — doctrina Romanensium — was an import.122 Burgeoning nationalism may well have contributed to a union of xenophobia and religious zeal and one group in particular seems to have given English reformers an excuse to cut the cords connecting them with a transnational past. As John Ponet put it ‘ther is no nacion vnder the cope of Christ, like them in pride, crueltie, vnmercifulnesse, nor so farre from all humanitie as the Spanyardes’.123 During Mary’s reign, the regime had presented the Spanish as ‘mynisters of grace and libertie’ who had already saved ‘the soules of innumerable millions of men’ in the New World.124 They closely connected the activities of the Spanish with their devotion to the Virgin. The Marian touchstone reinforced their credentials as missionaries and underlined the orthodoxy of converted natives such as the Cuban king who took the Virgin as his patroness and built a chapel in her honour. From their continental printing presses, Mary’s exiled opponents inverted this and all the qualities that had made her the popular choice in 1553: her legitimacy, her religion, her pious womanhood and her self-determination. In Geneva, Christopher Goodman contrasted ‘this vngodlie serpent Marie, the chief instrument of all this present miserie in Englande … a bastarde, and vnlawfully begotton’ with her half-sister Elizabeth who, while a woman, was at least, ‘lawfullie begotten’, a ‘Godlie Lady, and meke Lambe, voyde of all Spanishe pride, and strange bloude’.125 Consequently, everything associated with the Spanish and the religious restoration of Mary’s reign became vulnerable after her death, including veneration of the Virgin and the icons associated with that devotion. The Elizabethan regime therefore celebrated the loss of images and shrines as an Edwardian achievement. At some point in the 1570s or even the 1580s, an unknown artist painted a small, allegorical panel-painting ‘King Edward VI and the Pope’, a propaganda piece reflecting the success of the Reformation (fig. 1.7). The Bible strikes the Pope unconscious and a Franciscan and a 122  E. C. S. GIBSON, The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, Volume 1, London, 1896, p. 80; ibid., Volume 2, 1897, pp. 537-538. 123  J. PONET, A shorte treatise of politike pouuer and of the true obedience which subiectes owe to kynges and other ciuile gouernours, Strasbourg, 1556, sig. L4r. 124  P. M. D’ANGHIERA, The decades of the newe worlde or west India conteynyng the nauigations and conquestes of the Spanyardes, translated by Rycharde Eden, London, 1555, sigs A2v, A3v. 125  C. GOODMAN, How superior powers oght to be obeyd of their subiects and wherin they may lawfully by Gods Worde be disobeyed and resisted, Geneva, 1558, pp. 53, 98.

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Fig. 1.7. The scene through the window celebrates the destruction of images of the Virgin as an English achievement. Unknown artist, King Edward VI and the Pope, c.1575. Oil on panel, 622 mm × 908 mm. London: National Portrait Gallery. Photo courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

Dominican drag him away. The infulae hanging from the papal mitre read ‘idolatry’ and ‘svpersticion’, while next to the Pope is another inscription: ‘feyned holine’. Behind the ‘godly imp’ and his Regency Council, some men are visible through a window. They are busy pulling down a statue of the Virgin and child from a column, and destroying another image.126 This iconoclastic scene borrows from Dutch engravings following the image-breaking beeldenstorm of 1566.127 The English did not simply share the glory of aniconism with their Protestant brethren in the Low Countries; they sought to demonstrate that they had set the precedent. In 1570, Foxe produced the second edition of his Actes and Monuments, including a woodcut of Edwardian 126

 NPG 4165.  M. ASTON, The King’s Bedpost: Reformation and Iconography in a Tudor Group Portrait, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 70-73. 127

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Fig. 1.8. Virgin-venerating Catholics are stripped of their Englishness and forced to emigrate. The Edwardian Reformation (detail) from John Foxe, Actes and Monuments, 1570. London: John Day. Image: Public domain.

religious accomplishments. Above the caption, ‘the Temple well purged’, parishioners carried items of Catholic worship out of a church, including antiphoners and mass-books, chalices, pax-boards, a censer and a tiara. Simultaneously, an iconoclast pulled down a statue of the Virgin from the church. Behind him was a bonfire of wooden saints’ images. Yet what is truly striking about this scene is the Catholics ‘packing away theyr paltry’ onto the ‘ship of the Roman church’ in a process of emigration. Their commitment to the Virgin and saints had stripped them of their English citizenship; Foxe insists, ‘ship ouer your trinkets & be packing you Papistes’ (fig. 1.8).128 Within a decade of Elizabeth’s ascent, therefore, there was a permanent confessional line demarking Englishness and Catholicism. This left the country’s recusant Catholics in a precarious position; in fact the term ‘English Catholics’ was becoming something of an oxymoron. There is a paradox in these images in the context of ‘iconophobia’. In denigrating images of the Virgin the artists have reproduced them, albeit from the round to paint and print. Much of the discourse surrounding magisterial injunctions against images focused on their ‘abuse’, but these are not images of right use. They are images of repudiation rather than refashioning and that places them closer to Collinson’s definition of ‘iconophobia’ than ‘iconoclasm’. Moreover, there may be more than national 128

 FOXE, Actes and Monuments, Book 9, p. 1521.

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celebration underpinning Foxe’s woodcut since the text is didactic. Was this an act of telling people to remember to forget? Such paradoxes may be a characteristic of the Reformation: in 1641, Nehemiah Wallington gathered up pieces of stained-glass smashed by iconoclasts, ‘to keep for a remembrance to show to the generation to come what God hath done for us, to give a reformation that our forefathers never saw the like’.129 Moreover, these images qualify Collinson’s memorable discussion on the capacity of those who had never seen an icon to form mental pictures.130 They did not need to imagine the image under the slobbered whitewash. The iconoclasts had reproduced it for them in print.

 A. WALSHAM, History, Memory and the English Reformation, in The Historical Journal 55 (2012), 899-938, p. 923. 130  COLLINSON, From Iconoclasm to Iconophobia, p. 296. 129

CATHOLIC MATERIALITY AND POLITICAL SUBVERSION IN POST-REFORMATION ENGLAND Aislinn MULLER

The devotional materials of Catholicism acquired special significance in postReformation England. As in other parts of continental Europe, English reformers debated the necessity of church decorations, liturgical objects, sacred images, and spiritual aids in worship, considering whether such items encouraged idolatry or if they could be tolerated as “things indifferent”. However, this debate took on new and distinctly political connotations during the reign of Elizabeth I. In 1571, the English parliament outlawed the possession of sacred objects such as relics, rosaries, crucifixes, and agni dei (wax pendants blessed by the pope), as part of legislation that also made it treason to import papal bulls from Rome or to convert to the Catholic faith.1 After the passage of this legislation, blessed objects were increasingly attacked in Protestant polemics, dismissed as “trash”, “trumpery”, and “superstitious idolatry”.2 These attacks on sacred materials and the practice of Catholicism were a response to perceived threats against the English realm and its official, Protestant Church, threats supposedly orchestrated by the papacy and England’s Catholic neighbours. In these conditions, membership of the Catholic faith in England became inextricably linked with treason against the realm, and sacred objects became indicators not only of one’s faith, but also of one’s willingness to resist the crown. Despite their treasonous connotations, sacred objects remained popular in England throughout the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Indeed, because the treason laws made it dangerous to participate in conventional forms of Catholic worship such as the Mass or the receipt of sacraments from priests, sacred objects became a critical part of English Catholic devotions, which by necessity had to be conducted in secret.3 In these conditions, sacred Catholic objects acquired unique spiritual and political associations. This chapter will  13 Eliz. I c.2, in Statutes of the Realm, vol. 4.1, London, 1819, pp. 530-31.  See A. WALSHAM, The Pope’s Merchandise and the Jesuits’ Trumpery: Catholic Relics and Protestant Polemic in Post-Reformation England, in J. SPINKS – D. EICHBERGER, eds., Religion, the Supernatural, and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe: An Album Amicorum for Charles Zika, Leiden, 2015, 370-409. 3  A. WALSHAM, Catholic Reformation in Protestant Britain, Farnham, 2014, 369-98. 1 2

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examine how the significance of Catholic sacred objects changed in England during the Reformation and post-Reformation period.4 It will assess the extent to which these objects became symbols of religious and political resistance, as well as the spiritual importance that sacramentals assumed where access to priests and the Catholic sacraments was scarce. The chapter will also consider how sacramentals became markers of confessional identity in post-Reformation England, for Catholics themselves as well as for the ecclesiastical and government authorities who tried to root out and prosecute those who refused to conform to the established English Church. Sacred objects in pre-Reformation culture Blessed objects were a popular and precious component of devotional culture in pre-Reformation England and Europe. Rosaries, crucifixes, and paternosters (single strings of prayer beads) which had been consecrated by priests, along with holy water and agni dei, belonged to a special category of objects called sacramentals. As their name suggests, sacramentals were hallowed objects that could exert effects over their owner which were analogous to receiving the sacraments.5 Sacramentals were also widely believed to provide protection from natural disasters and the dangers of everyday life: the agnus dei, for instance, supposedly offered protection from fires, floods, and the perils of childbirth.6 There were key differences in the benefits that sacraments and sacramentals afforded: although both sacraments and sacramentals were considered mediators of divine presence, in Catholic doctrine receipt of the sacraments was considered necessary for human salvation, whereas sacramentals theoretically functioned only as aids to spiritual formation and devotion. Additionally, the effectiveness of a sacramental depended on the pious disposition of the user. Sacraments, on the other hand, conferred spiritual benefits automatically. Unlike the sacraments, which priests typically administered and controlled, the laity could also use sacramentals in their devotions as they saw fit.7 4  Sarah Johanesen has written a more expansive study of Catholic material culture and the evolution of its political meanings in England as part of a PhD thesis at King’s College, London. S. JOHANESEN, Subversion, Resistance, and Loyalty: The Politicisation of Catholic Material Culture in Post-Reformation England, 1559-1625, PhD Thesis, King’s College London, 2019. 5  R. SCRIBNER, Sacramentals, in H. HILLEBRAND, ed., The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Reformation, Oxford, 2005. 6  M. CORRY – D. HOWARD – M. LAVEN, eds., Madonnas and Miracles: The Holy Home in Renaissance Italy, Cambridge, 2017, pp. 112-116. 7  R. SCRIBNER, Sacramentals.

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Although in theory sacramentals could be made of anything, the matter with which sacramentals were fashioned indicate their spiritual and material value amongst the laity in pre-Reformation England.8 Rosaries, crucifixes, and prayer beads were often made of materials such as gold, silver, amber, and coral, although less precious materials such as wood and glass were also used. The goldsmith Robert Walcote, for instance, left a pair of amber and silver prayer beads to his friend John Leicester upon his death in 1361, while a woman named Margaret Tonk bequeathed two pairs of silver and amber paternosters to her sisters when she died in 1378.9 The widow Helen Goodrich made a similar bequest of a pair of jet and silver prayer beads to her friend Margaret Stevenson in 1476.10 Such materials often had their own spiritual or talismanic significance.11 Coral and amber, for instance, were widely believed to cure illness and protect infants from harm.12 While the value of precious metals such as gold and silver signalled due reverence for the divine, medieval alchemists also believed that gold and silver conferred salutary benefits: both, for instance, appear in a remedy used by King Edward I to ward off leg-pains and dysentery.13 Jacqueline Musacchio has argued that the use of materials with talismanic significance to craft devotional objects points to a melding of sanctioned religious practice with popular culture and medicine, in which people employed diverse accessories simultaneously to avert the dangers of everyday life in medieval and early modern Europe.14 The bequest of devotional objects also reflects the commemorative value of sacramentals in Catholic devotions. In addition to acting as mediators of divine power, sacramentals passed down between friends and family members also 8

 For further discussion of the parochial strength of Catholicism in pre-Reformation England see E. DUFFY, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580, London, 2005. 9  Calendar of Wills Proved and Enrolled in the Court of Hustings, London: Part 2, 1358-1688, London, 1890, pp. 102, 206-215. 10  The Church Records of St Andrew Hubbard, Eastcheap, c. 1450-1570, London, 1999, pp. 239-262. 11  CORRY et al., Madonnas and Miracles, pp. 82-85. 12  J. MUSACCHIO, Lambs, Coral, Teeth, and the Intimate Intersection of Religion and Magic in Renaissance Italy, in S. MONTGOMERY – S. CORNELISON (eds.), Images, Relics, and Devotional Practices in Renaissance Italy, Tempe, 2006, pp. 139-56; H. DRINKWATER, Material in Context: The Amber Head of Christ of the Wallace Collection Pax, in Journal of the British Archaeological Association 169 (2016), p. 103; Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe, Cambridge, 2011, pp. 70-73. 13  M. CAMPBELL, Gold, Silver, and Precious Stones, in J. BLAIR – N. RAMSAY (eds.), English Medieval Industries, London, 1991, pp. 107-08. 14  MUSACCHIO, Lambs, Coral, Teeth, pp. 139-56.

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served as mementos of the dead. In 1528 John May of St Margaret’s parish in Lincoln left a pair of coral prayer beads and a silver crucifix to his wife when he died and directed them to be given to his son John upon her death. Some wills also indicate how sacramentals passed between generations and were shared amongst family members. Robert Carter’s will, made in 1530, dictated that a pair of prayer beads, “wych was my fathers” be left to his “syster Palmer”.15 In the same year William Packer of Boston left to his daughters Dorothy and Margaret “the gerdyll and beades that was ther mothers, and to be equally shyftyd betwyxte them”.16 Rosaries and paternosters functioned as mnemonic devices through touch: passing one’s fingers over the beads assisted in meditation upon the principal events in the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary.17 As objects of inheritance, this act invited the rosary’s owner simultaneously to recall the departed relative or friend who had bestowed the beads upon their death and to remember them in prayer. Agni Dei also appear in the testamentary records. The agnus dei was made from holy water, chrism oil, and the wax of paschal candles, and blessed by the pope in a special ceremony during Easter week, which happened every seven years during the pope’s reign. Because it was blessed by the pope the agnus dei was particularly precious amongst the sacramentals. The papacy typically distributed the agni dei to dignitaries, bishops, and cardinals in Rome or sent them as gifts to rulers in Europe. Those who received them often passed them on to friends and relatives.18 In theory, the pendants could not be bought or sold, but they were often kept in elaborate cases to prevent their decay.19 Surviving wills show that agni dei were frequently left to women, probably because they were also believed to protect women and new-borns during the ordeals of childbirth.20 As with rosaries and paternosters, wearing an inherited agnus dei for protection or holding it in prayer would have likewise encouraged remembrance and facilitated prayers for the dead.

 C. FOSTER, ed., Lincoln Wills, 1530-32, London, 1930, pp. 68-82.  Ibid., pp. 42-60. 17  L. MCCLAIN, Using What’s At Hand: English Catholic Reinterpretations of the Rosary, 15591642, in Journal of Religious History 27 (2003), pp. 161-63. 18  J. MUSACCHIO, Lambs, Coral, Teeth, and the Intimate Intersection of Religion and Magic in Renaissance Tuscany, in S. CORNELISON – S. MONTGOMERY, eds., Images, Relics, and Devotional Practices in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, Tempe, 2005, pp. 144-147. 19  CORRY et al., Madonnas and Miracles, p. 85. 20  MUSACCHIO, Religion and Magic, pp. 149-151. 15 16

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Fig. 2.1. Agnus Dei, consecrated by Pope Leo XIII, 19th century. 7 cm × 5 cm. Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. By permission of the governors of Stonyhurst College.

Sacred objects and the English Reformation In 1534, the English parliament passed the Act of Supremacy, declaring King Henry VIII Supreme Head of the Church of England and officially severing ties between the English and the wider Roman Catholic Church over which the papacy presided. Evangelical reformers who supported the royal supremacy began assuming positions of leadership in the English Church and abolishing what they considered the abuses of Roman Catholicism.21 This included the

21  For an overview of these events see A. RYRIE, The Age of Reformation: The Tudor and Stewart Realms, 1485-1603, London, 2017, pp. 101-134.

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veneration of images, shrines, statues, and relics, which many reformers considered idolatrous, as well as the use of sacramentals in personal devotions. In the churches, images were defaced and pulled down, relics destroyed or thrown away, and other ornaments put into storage, seized by the crown, or sold depending on their value.22 Under Edward VI (r. 1547-1553), the defacement, confiscation, and dismantling of church decoration intensified. The royal injunctions issued in 1552 required all parish churches to compile inventories of chalices, ornaments, bells, and other liturgical items of value, which were then to be sent to the Royal Jewel House in London to be melted down or auctioned off.23 Despite official disapproval, attitudes towards sacred objects changed slowly. People continued to keep sacramentals throughout the 1530s and 1540s, possibly in the hope that Catholicism might be restored in the future, or because of their personal and material value. In 1541, for instance, Roger Bellingham, a gentleman living in York, left an agnus dei to his daughter Elizabeth upon his death.24 The inventory of Joan Hawdy’s possessions, compiled after her death in London in 1543, included a pair of coral prayer beads and “a payre of blacke gett beddes with … a Saynt Jamys shell”.25 The preservation and passage of these objects to other relatives and descendants may suggest a reluctance to cast off precious materials such as coral and jet; but in many cases it also points to sustained beliefs in these objects’ ability to ward off evil, disease, and other dangers, and to provide access to divine power.26 When the princess Mary Tudor rode through London in March 1551, one observer noted that everyone in her retinue, which included 150 knights, ladies, and gentleman, carried a pair of black prayer beads.27 While this public display expressed Mary’s dissent from her brother King Edward VI’s religious reforms, it also served as a statement of the Roman Church’s continued power to mediate access to the divine. The beads signified Mary’s ability to return the presence of God to England  M. ASTON, Broken Idols of the English Reformation, Cambridge, 2015, pp. 17-107.  A. WALSHAM, Recycling the Sacred: Material Culture and Cultural Memory After the English Reformation, in Church History 86 (2017), pp. 1126-28. 24  F. COLLINS, ed., Wills and Administrations from the Knaresborough Court Rolls, vol. 1, Durham, 1902, p. 81. 25  London Consistory Court Wills, 1492-1547, London, 1967, pp. 82-125. 26  Jet stones were also believed to ward off evil spirits. 27  The Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London, 1550-1563, London, 1848, pp. 3-13. For more on Machyn see G. GIBBS, Marking the Days: Henry Machyn’s Manucsript in the Mid-Tudor Era, in E. DUFFY – D. LOADES, eds., The Church of Mary Tudor, Aldershot, 2006, pp. 281-308. 22 23

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and rehabilitate the realm from the heresy into which it had fallen under her father and brother.28 When Edward VI died in 1553, Mary restored Roman Catholicism in England, and the use of sacred objects was again encouraged.29 The queen herself received a box of agni dei as a gift from the English ambassador in Rome in 1556, and sacred objects continued to appear as bequests in wills.30 In parish churches the liturgical objects, vestments, and decorations that had been pulled down or taken away were restored, sometimes with remarkable speed. Alexandra Walsham has described how the “pious theft or circumspect purchase” of church furnishings during the iconoclastic movements of the Henrician and Edwardian Reformations may have been meant to forestall their destruction and confiscation, particularly where such furnishings had been bequeathed by family members.31 The revival of Catholicism in England was short-lived, however. When Mary died in 1558, her restoration was reversed by Queen Elizabeth I, and the official English Church once again became a Protestant one.32 Bishops who conducted parochial visitations in the late 1550s began enquiring about people who continued to use rosaries, blessed beads, and other sacramentals during church services, in an effort to root out practices they considered superstitious.33 Although England’s formal restoration to the Roman Catholic Church was brief, it nevertheless ensured the survival of a small but significant population in England that continued to identify and worship as Catholic, after the religious settlement of 1559 separated England from Rome again. Recent work by Frederick Smith, Lucy Underwood, and Peter Marshall has demonstrated how Catholic priests ordained during Mary’s reign played a critical role in maintaining these Catholic communities, particularly through the encouragement of 28

 I am grateful to Laura Katrine Skinnebach for her advice on this point.  DUFFY – LOADES, Church of Mary Tudor, especially the section on religious culture, pp. 227-333. See also W. WIZEMAN, The Religious Policy of Mary I, in S. DORAN, ed., Mary Tudor: Old and New Perspectives, Basingstoke, 2011, 153-170. 30  Kew, The National Archives, State Papers (Hereafter, TNA SP) 69/8 f. 164; Court of Hustings, London: Part 2, 1358-1688, pp. 697-713. 31  WALSHAM, Recycling the Sacred, pp. 1130-31. 32  P. MARSHALL, Reformation England, 1480-1642, London, 2012, pp. 123-156. For more on the uneven implementation of the Elizabethan religious settlement see P. MARSHALL – J. MORGAN, Clerical Conformity and the Elizabethan Settlement Revisited, in Historical Journal 59 (2016), pp. 1-22. 33  E. DUFFY, Saints, Sacrilege, and Sedition: Religion and Conflict in the Tudor Reformations, London, 2012, pp. 114-122. 29

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recusancy (refusal to attend services in the local parish church) from the early 1560s.34 While the English Church discouraged the use of sacramentals in the first decade of Elizabeth’s reign, they were not formally outlawed by an act of parliament until 1571.35 The early years of the Elizabethan Church were in fact marked by debate about the role of church decoration and ornaments in worship, most notably through the Vestiarian Controversy over the use of liturgical vestments in the 1560s. Hard-line reformers such as Thomas Sampson and Robert Crowley argued that decorative vestments and ornaments should not be used at all, as they encouraged idolatry. Elizabeth’s more moderate bishops, on the other hand, argued that vestments were permissible since they were not forbidden by scripture.36 This controversy was part of the broader debate amongst reformers, both in England and on the continent, about the role of adiaphora (things indifferent) in the Church, which centred on the question of whether ceremonies and objects which had no biblical precedent should be permitted.37 Political developments in England and Europe hardened the position of both the English Church and the crown on decorations, images, and sacred objects. The 1571 parliamentary ban on sacred objects was passed in response to the failed Northern Rebellion of 1569, which had arisen partly from discontent with the Protestant religious settlement, and in reaction to the excommunication of Elizabeth I by Pope Pius V in 1570.38 The pope declared Elizabeth a heretic who was unfit to rule and called upon her subjects to resist her, threatening them with excommunication too if they continued to obey her laws.39 For Elizabeth and her government, the sentence called into question the loyalties of any of her subjects who considered themselves Catholic. Consequently, 34  F. SMITH, The Origins of Recusancy in Elizabethan England Reconsidered, in Historical Journal 60 (2017), pp. 301-32; L. UNDERWOOD, Recusancy and the Rising Generation, in Recusant History 31 (2013), pp. 511-33; P. MARSHALL – J. MORGAN, Clerical Conformity and the Elizabethan Settlement Reconsidered, in Historical Journal 59 (2016), 1-22. 35  Statutes of the Realm, vol. 4.1, pp. 530-531. 36  T. KIRBY, “Relics of the Amorites” or “Things Indifferent”? Peter Martyr Vermigli’s Authority and the Threat of Schism in the Elizabethan Vestiarian Controversy, in Reformation and Renaissance Review 6 (2004), 313-26. 37  For an introduction to this debate in the English context see B. VERKAMP, The Indifferent Mean: Adiaphorism in the English Reformation to 1554, Athens, 1977. 38  See K. KESSELRING, The Northern Rebellion of 1569: Faith, Politics, and Protest in Elizabethan England, Basingstoke, 2007, pp. 45-90. 39  On Elizabeth’s excommunication see A. MULLER, The Excommunication of Elizabeth I: Faith, Politics, and Resistance in Post-Reformation England, 1570-1603, Brill, 2020.

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the 1571 law made it treasonous to convert to Catholicism or participate in the conversion of others, and anyone caught henceforth with blessed objects like rosaries, crucifixes, blessed beads, or agni dei could be imprisoned and lose their property.40 The events of 1569-70 also prompted further public condemnation of Catholic materials from the English Church establishment. The Second Book of Homilies, compiled by John Jewel, bishop of Salisbury, and appointed to be read out in the churches by royal authority, likewise appeared in 1571 and included a sermon against idolatry that criticised relics and sacred objects. The sermon condemned “the outrageous deckyng of temples and Churches, with golde, syluer, pearle, and precious stone” and warned that “idolles and images” deceived ‘the simple and unwyse common people”.41 Idols made “but of small peeces of wood, stone, or mettall”, Jewel argued, “cannot be anye similitudes of the greate maiestie of God”.42 The sermon similarly dismissed the veneration of relics and saints’ images as “heathenishe errour and vanitye of the wicked”.43 The papal excommunication and the government’s reaction created an extraordinary political and spiritual dilemma for English Catholics. Should they continue to practice their faith and risk prosecution for treason, or overlook the papal censure and risk endangering their souls? For those with more ambiguous religious affiliations, did the potential spiritual, medicinal, and protective benefits of objects like the agnus dei outweigh the risk of imprisonment and loss of property? Despite the new treason laws, which remained in force for the rest of Elizabeth’s reign and throughout the seventeenth century, people continued to import and use sacramentals for various reasons. The Council of Trent, which concluded in 1563 and clarified the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings and doctrine in opposition to the various Protestant reformers, had upheld the value of relics and sacred objects as mediators of divine power, and they became increasingly important in the devotions of English Catholics who, in light of the Protestant settlement and the deprivation of clergy who refused to accept it, could no longer regularly access the Mass and the sacraments.44

 Statutes of the Realm, vol. 4.1, pp. 530-31.  J. JEWEL, The Second Tome of Homilies, London, 1571, pp. 27, 34. 42  Ibid., p. 37. 43  Ibid., p. 54. 44  A. WALSHAM, Translating Trent? English Catholicism and the Counter-Reformation, in Historical Research 78 (2005), pp. 288-310; eadem, Beads, Books, and Bare Ruined Choirs: Transmutations of Catholic Ritual Life in Protestant England, in B. KAPLAN – B. MOORE – H. VAN 40 41

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However, the parliamentary bans on these objects also ascribed to them political associations which they had never had before. After 1571, the possession of a sacramental signified not only one’s Catholic faith, but also one’s willingness to defy the queen’s laws and resist her government, thereby challenging her legitimacy and that of her successors as rulers. Although sacramentals functioned as aids in Catholic devotion and offered their owners protection from harm, they were not technically essential to the practice of Catholicism in the way that the sacraments and the Mass were.45 Where records survive of people using sacramentals after their prohibition, it is not possible only to discern more fully the extent to which people continued to engage in forms of Catholic devotion after the Elizabethan settlement, but also the extent to which they were willing to engage in different forms of political subversion against the English government. Sacramentals in post-Reformation politics From 1571 the Elizabethan government tried to keep track of those who circulated and kept Catholic sacramentals, sometimes sending out special orders for the search and seizure of Catholic materials. In 1577, for instance, the queen’s Ecclesiastical Commission directed a “diligente searche” for anyone “knowne to be nourishers harborers mayntaynors or kepers of any popishe pristes to say masse”, as well as for any ‘crosses sencers hanginges for alters beades Images popishe bookes Agnus Dei Bulles and all other suche like trumpery”.46 Searches in Devon and Cornwall in the late 1570s turned up copies of papal bulls and agni dei, while in London searches conducted by the bishop led to the arrest of several priests who had been distributing blessed beads and agni dei to people in the city.47 Although sacramentals had remained in use in England throughout the years of religious reform, circulation of sacramentals and other Catholic materials does seem to have increased with the arrival of missionary priests from Europe in the 1570s. From 1574, priests trained at the English colleges on the continent began returning to England to minister to Catholics in secret, followed by NIEROP – J. POLLMANN (eds.), Catholic Communities in Protestant States: Britain and the Netherlands, ca. 1570-1720, Manchester, 2009, pp. 103-22. 45  R. SCRIBNER, The German Reformation, Basingstoke, 2003, pp. 7-17. 46  London, British Library (Hereafter, BL) Lansdowne MS 25/81 f. 167. 47  Kew, The National Archives, Acts of the Privy Council (Hereafter, TNA PC) 2/12 f. 141, 341; BL Lansdowne MS 25/30 f. 63.

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the Jesuits who sent missionaries to England from 1580. The priests were encouraged to bring sacramentals with them into England and to distribute them to people who asked for them, despite the penalties they faced if caught with the objects. Priests were also permitted to distribute sacramentals to people who were not yet members of the Catholic Church.48 It was thought that sacred objects like beads, rosaries, and agni dei “can be most useful, because they turn people’s minds towards the Apostolic See and warm men’s cold charity, and because they can produce many other spiritual beliefs”.49 Initially, the General of the Jesuits prohibited priests from carrying sacramentals with them on the mission, because it increased the risk of them being caught and executed by the Elizabethan authorities.50 Nevertheless, some members of the mission overlooked this order, and from the mid-1580s the Jesuits played an important role in the circulation of sacred materials in England. The Elizabethan government made every effort to catch the missionary priests travelling around England, using searches for sacramentals to detect where they had been and who they had visited. In June 1580 the Privy Council ordered another search for outlawed sacred materials, having been informed that “diuers persons not onelie forbeare to … conforme them selues in matters of religion according to the lawes but also secretlie haue vsed other popishe service and … Bulles Agnus Dei and other vnlawfull stuffe”.51 When officials tracked Robert Persons, the leader of the first Jesuit mission, to a house in London in 1581, they found “all his stock of pious articles which he had brought from Rome to excite the devotion of the Catholics, such as beads, medals, pictures, crucifixes” and a large number of devotional books.52 A similar stockpile was found in the town of Lewes in Sussex in 1582, which included a box of agni dei, thirty-six pairs of blessed beads, nineteen crucifixes and brooches, and some relics of St Edward, St William, and Mary Magdalene.53 In Norwich, a priest named Monford Scott was indicted in 1584 for giving out blessed beads to recusants in the city.54

 P. HOLMES, Elizabethan Casuistry, London, 1981, pp. 91-92.  Ibid., p. 66. 50  T. MCCOOG, The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England, 1541-1588, Leiden, 1996, pp. 133-140. 51  TNA PC 2/13 f. 59. 52  H. FOLEY, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, 7 vols., London, 18751883, vol. 4, p. 346. 53  TNA SP 12/156 f. 27. 54  J. POLLEN, Unpublished Documents Relating to the English Martyrs, London, 1908, p. 100. 48

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Catholic laymen and women also participated in the circulation of outlawed sacred objects. In 1580 two “young papists” named William Middlemore and William Hildesley were arrested with “certen crucifixes and the picture of Mary Mawdlyn holowed and certen other tryffles” which they had brought back from the continent.55 A search of the Lady West’s house in Winchester in 1583 yielded several agni dei consecrated by Pope Pius V, which had been broken into pieces.56 In 1585 Robert Dibdale, a student at the English College in Rheims, sent a gilded crucifix home to his father, two pairs of blessed beads to his mother and sister, and two strings of blessed grains to be shared amongst the family.57 When officials searched the house of George, Elizabeth, and Bridget Brome in Oxfordshire in 1586, they found an agnus dei and a pair of blessed beads, several crucifixes, blessed grains, and relics, along with images of the Virgin Mary and the Apostles.58 The family had actually tried to smuggle the agnus dei and prayer beads out of the house, but the servant charged with carrying them away was caught at the gate. The correspondence of priests working in England also points to the widespread popularity of sacramentals amongst English Catholics. Writing from England in 1586, the Jesuit Robert Southwell asked Robert Persons, who was now living at the English College in Rome, to petition the pope to allow missionaries to bless 2,000 rosaries and 6,000 grains. The demand for these objects amongst the laity was so great that current supplies would not be sufficient. Reflecting the adverse circumstances in which the mission operated, Southwell also requested that priests be permitted to fashion rosaries and prayer beads from whatever materials they deemed appropriate.59 The use of sacred objects in England despite the prohibitions continued for complex reasons. Although the English colleges in Europe and the Society of Jesus sent priests to minister to English Catholics throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the dangerous conditions in which they worked meant that priests could not always settle in one place, and travelled frequently to avoid detection. Consequently, those who wanted to continue to practise 55

 TNA SP 12/143 f. 89.  TNA SP 12/164 f. 24. 57  TNA SP 12/179 f. 5. Blessed grains can refer either to grains of incense, which were used in rosary beads and portable altars, or to grains that were strung together and used as rosary beads. See V. HOULISTON – G. CROSIGNANI – T. MCCOOG (eds.), The Correspondence and Unpublished Papers of Robert Persons, SJ, Toronto, 2017, p. 83. 58  BL Lansdowne MS 50/76 f. 164. 59  POLLEN, English Martyrs, p. 319. 56

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Catholicism had infrequent access to the sacraments and the Mass.60 Because of these conditions, lay Catholics became increasingly dependent on sacramental objects and personal devotional aids to practise their faith.61 The Roman Catholic Church often attached indulgences to the use of sacred objects in personal devotions, which also increased their appeal. In 1578, for instance, Gregory XIII issued a decree that granted plenary indulgences to anyone who used blessed grains, rosaries, crucifixes, and medals in prayer. The indulgences also applied to anyone who prayed for the pope, the Catholic Church, or the conversion of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The pope issued the decree at the request of the Jesuit rector of the English College at Rome, Alfonso Agazzari, and it applied to anyone who lived outside of the Italian peninsula.62 The papacy renewed these indulgences periodically throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.63 In light of the English government’s attempts to eradicate Catholicism through the extension of the treason laws and the prohibition of the Mass, English Catholics’ need of objects that could aid in private devotion ironically increased, especially sacramentals which could be used in the absence of priests. The decrees on indulgences, however, further complicated English Catholic relationships with the Church in Rome and the Protestant regime under which they lived. Praying for the pope and the conversion of England would have been interpreted in a sinister manner by the kingdom’s Protestant authorities as evidence of Catholics’ divided allegiances. By granting indulgences to anyone who prayed for the papacy and England’s conversion, the papacy essentially politicised certain forms of prayer, given the fact that in the absence of regular 60  See L. UNDERWOOD, Persuading the Queen’s Majesty’s Subjects from Their Allegiance: Treason, Reconciliation and Confessional Identity in Elizabethan England, in Historical Research 89 (2016), pp. 246-267, for more on the political implications of reconciliation and the sacraments during Elizabeth’s reign. 61  WALSHAM, Catholic Reformation, pp. 369-398; see also L. MCCLAIN, Using What’s At Hand: English Catholic Reinterpretations of the Rosary, 1559-1642, in Journal of Religious History 27 (2003), pp. 161-176; and A. DILLON, To Seek Out Comforts and Companions of His Own Kind and Condition: The Benedictine Rosary Confraternity and the Chapel of Cardigan House, London, in L. GALLAGHER, ed., Redrawing the Map of Early Modern English Catholicism Toronto, 2012, pp. 272-308. 62  T. KNOX, The First and Second Diaries of the English College, Douay, and an Appendix of the Unpublished Documents (London: D Nutt, 1878), pp. 366-67. 63  See for instance TNA SP 14/128 f. 7; H. FOLEY, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, vol. 6, London, 1880, p. 100. For a comparative study of indulgences see L. TINGLE, Indulgences After Luther: Pardons in Counter-Reformation France, 1520-1720, London, 2015.

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access to priests, English Catholics became more reliant on devotional aids and personal prayer to practise their faith and ensure the safety of their souls in the afterlife. Furthermore, because sacramentals had also been outlawed by the English parliament, their continued use inescapably became an act of defiance against the queen’s laws, and therefore an act of political subversion. During the reign of Elizabeth I, the persistent enthusiasm for sacramentals struck a raw nerve with the government. Because the pope had declared Elizabeth unfit to rule, the refusal to obey her laws on sacred objects constituted a direct challenge to her authority; it could not be dismissed simply as religious recalcitrance. Thus, when Elinor Brome and her servant, Elizabeth Barram, were each caught wearing an agnus dei out in public in 1578, they were engaging in a bold statement of resistance to the queen’s authority.64 On occasion, English Catholics used sacramentals as aids in more drastic acts against the government. In 1583 John Somerville rode to London planning to assassinate the queen, wearing an agnus dei to protect himself from the dangers of his quest.65 Anthony Babington, who also plotted to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, supposedly kept a rosary during his imprisonment in the Tower of London, and wore it to his execution for treason in 1586.66 Such incidents point to the complex position of sacred objects in acts of political resistance committed by English Catholics. Although carrying such materials in full view was subversive in and of itself, their use in bolder acts of resistance, such as Somerville’s assassination attempt, also speaks to a continued belief in their power to protect the faithful from harm. Although Babington’s rosary did not save him from execution, it provided spiritual comfort through his ordeal, and served as a powerful symbol of his Catholicism to those who witnessed his death. The treason laws and prohibitions against sacramentals remained in force after Elizabeth died in 1603. Although her successor, James I, was never excommunicated by the papacy, his government continued the anti-Catholic policies of his predecessor, especially after the attempt to blow up parliament in 1605.  J. JEAFFRESON, ed. Middlesex County Records, 1550-1603, vol. 1, London, 1886, pp. 111-116.  TNA SP 12/163 f. 141. 66  See the catalogue entry for Anthony Babington’s rosary in the online exhibition, Remembering the Reformation: https://exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk/reformation/artifacts/rememberingwith-beads-anthony-babingtons-rosary/(accessed 13 Feb 2018). See also P. WILLIAMS, Babington, Anthony, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004, available from http:// www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb9780198614128-e-967/version/0 (accessed 13 Feb 2018). 64 65

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The Gunpowder Plot had been orchestrated by a group of Catholics frustrated with the new king’s unsympathetic attitude towards their faith. The political fallout from the plot ensured that Catholics endured severe legal restrictions well into the eighteenth century.67 New laws were also passed in 1606 to publicly destroy or deface confiscated sacramentals. Those sacred objects of little value were defaced or burnt privately, but those deemed more valuable were publicly destroyed at the meetings of the county quarter sessions courts.68 Consequently, government officials continued to hunt for outlawed sacred objects. In 1606 a messenger was arrested in Coventry with boxes of crucifixes, blessed beads, devotional images, and letters which he had intended to distribute.69 In 1607 a priest named Peter Chambers was apprehended in Plymouth with a number of crucifixes and blessed beads that he had smuggled into the country from Ireland.70 Similar accounts appear in government papers throughout the seventeenth century, of priests who arrived from overseas at ports in the southeast and southwest with rosaries, blessed beads, crucifixes, and relics, as well as Catholic devotional and polemical books, which they distributed to Catholics they met during their travels around England.71 In 1625, a search of the recusant Mary Eastmond’s house in Devonshire yielded crucifixes, agni dei, and “divers other Relickes and Popish books”.72 The efforts of priests and Catholic laity to smuggle sacred objects into England after 1571 point to their enduring popularity, despite the penalties they could incur for using them. Sacred objects served a variety of functions in English Catholic devotions after 1571. They could be used as aids in private devotion and prayer, as a kind of substitute for some of the sacraments in the absence of a priest. Sacramentals also appeared in stories of conversion throughout the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.73 The correspondence and memoirs of priests working in England contain accounts of sacred objects occasionally assisting in conversions to Roman Catholicism. John Jackson, recalling 67  See M. QUESTIER, Catholic Loyalism in Early Stuart England, in English Historical Review 123 (2008), pp. 1132-1165. 68  3 Jac. I. c. 5, in Statutes of the Realm, vol. 4.2, London, 1828, p. 1082. 69  TNA SP 14/18 f. 121. 70  Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Honourable Marquis of Salisbury, Preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, vol. 19, 1965, p. 213. 71  See for instance TNA SP 14/113 f. 162, TNA SP 14/123 f. 171, TNA SP 16/250 f. 52, TNA SP 63/255 f. 171, TNA SP 16/436 f. 25. 72  TNA SP 16/4 f. 221. 73  H. SMITH, Metaphor, Cure, and Conversion in Early Modern England, in Renaissance Quarterly 67 (2014), 473-502.

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his conversion to Catholicism in 1603, attributed the change in his religion to several conversations with “a certain noble Catholic” woman who gave him a rosary and a psalter. This encounter moved Jackson to leave England and seek entry into the Catholic faith, which he received in Paris before enrolling at the English College in Rome.74 When Francis Williams entered the Society of Jesus in 1660, he described his first experience in a Catholic church, where he found “several women … saying their beads before the image of our Blessed Lady, others attentive to the Holy Mass”, as instrumental in initiating his conversion to Catholicism.75 Sacred objects were also often used as remedies for illness.76 The annual letters of the Society of Jesus mention numerous incidents in which sacramentals and relics miraculously healed the sick. The litterae annuae of the Jesuits were composed with specific aims: they were collected from all of the provinces for publication, and were required by the Society’s Formula Scribendi to include the “most consoling and edifying events” that transpired in the previous year, including any notable conversions and incidents of extraordinary significance to the Catholic faith.77 The healing and protective powers of sacred objects figured prominently in narratives of such incidents. In 1606, for instance, a fragment of straw covered in the blood of Henry Garnet, who had been executed for treason in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, was used to help a woman safely deliver a child “whom no midwife’s skill or endeavours could help before”.78 The martyred Jesuit Robert Southwell’s sister “was most happily cured of a very severe disease which had baffled the skill of the ablest physicians of the day” through the application of some relics of her brother in 1635.79 Similar powers were attributed to the relics of St Ignatius, which were used to restore the sight of a blind child and to revive a woman thought to be dead after falling down a flight of stairs in 1640.80

 FOLEY, Records of the English Province, vol. 1, pp. 191-192.  FOLEY, Records of the English Province, vol. 5, pp. 411-412. See also M. MURRAY, “Now I ame a Catholique”: William Alabaster and the Early Modern Catholic Conversion Narrative, in R. CORTHELL – F. DOLAN – C. HIGHLEY – A. MAROTTI, eds., Catholic Culture in Early Modern England, Notre Dame IN, 2007, pp. 189-215. 76  CORRY et al., Madonnas and Miracles, p. 110. 77  T. MCCOOG, Monumenta Angliae: English and Welsh Jesuits, Rome, 1999, pp. xxx-xxxi. 78  FOLEY, Records of the English Province, vol. 4, p. 123. 79  FOLEY, Records of the English Province, vol. 1, pp. 375-376. 80  FOLEY, Records of the English Province, vol. 4, p. 616. 74 75

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The Jesuit annual letters frequently noted how sacramentals protected people in times of grave illness or natural disaster.81 In 1622, for instance, the house of a widow described as a “Puritan” caught fire, and the flames were only extinguished when one of her Catholic neighbours threw an agnus dei into the blaze, making the sign of the cross as he did so. The fire in the widow’s house was depicted as a divine warning against her hatred of Catholicism and her insistence upon working on traditional feast days.82 Another woman described as a “heretic” in 1633 consulted a minister of the English Church when she became “haunted by day and night by spectres”. The minister advised her instead to visit a Catholic noblewoman in the area; this lady gave the “heretic” woman some relics and an agnus dei which instantly relieved her of her visions.83 In a village near London in 1635, a woman was cured of a tumour when her Catholic neighbours gave her some holy water to drink. From then on, the woman drank holy water every day to prevent the return of her illness. Another family in the same village was cured of a mysterious wasting disease when, having tried numerous other remedies, they accepted some holy water to drink, along with an agnus dei, from some Catholics who lived nearby. The whole family began to wear agni dei after their cure, and it was hoped that the incident might persuade them eventually to convert.84 Similarly, in 1638 some Jesuit priests lifted a young girl’s paralysis by giving her a piece of an agnus dei dissolved in water to drink and reading the form of exorcism over her.85 The girl’s parents had turned to the priests as a last resort, her illness having flummoxed the “Calvinist” ministers and all of the physicians they consulted first.86 From the perspective of these reports, it appears that the Jesuits’ use of sacred objects became a particularly powerful tool in facilitating contact between missionaries and potential converts. While these accounts demonstrated the efficacy attributed to sacred objects for healing the sick and fending off natural disaster, thereby conforming to the Society’s request for notable events in the missions, they reinforced sacramentals as a powerful symbol of confessional difference in post-Reformation England. In many of these incidents, sacred objects played a 81  On the role of miracles in English Catholic missions see A. WALSHAM, Miracles and the Counter-Reformation to England, in Historical Journal 46 (2003), 779-815. 82  FOLEY, Records of the English Province, vol. 7, p. 1100. 83  Ibid., p. 1131. 84  Ibid., pp. 1133-1134. 85  It was common for sacramentals to be associated with exorcisms. See G. SNOEK, Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist, Leiden, 1995, p. 296. 86  FOLEY, Records of the English Province, vol. 7, p. 1142.

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Fig. 2.2. Image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and infant Jesus carved from the Sichem wood near St Omer, enclosed in a reliquary, 17th Century. 7.5 cm × 5 cm. Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. By permission of the British Jesuit Province.

Fig. 2.3. Agnus Dei with image of the Christ Child, 17th century. Enclosed in the reverse side of the reliquary in Figure 2.2. 7.5 cm × 5 cm. Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. By permission of the British Jesuit Province.

role in interactions between Catholics and non-Catholics. At points of crisis, the relic or sacramental served as the only remedy after every other possible solution had been tried, and sometimes moved the beneficiary of the sacramental’s power to reconsider their beliefs. In other cases, witnessing Catholics use the sacramentals in their devotions inspired people to seek conversion. Sacramentals could therefore act as a point of contact through which those who conformed to the English Church or espoused more radical beliefs were exposed to the tenets of the Catholic faith.87 These narratives also served as a direct rebuke to Protestant dismissals of sacred materials as superstitious, and demonstrated that sacramentals conferred upon Catholics a special divine protection which others could not access. They helped to emphasise the missionaries’ success in spreading the faith, while simultaneously affirming for their readers the Catholic teachings on the power of relics and sacramentals to mediate divine power. 87  Robyn Malo has discussed the efficacy of relics in such circumstances. See R. MALO, Intimate Devotion: Recusant Martyrs and the Making of Relics in Post-Reformation England, in Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 44 (2014), 531-548.

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Sacred objects also served as symbols of confessional difference in the theatre of treason trials, executions, and other punishments for Catholics.88 At the trial of Lawrence Humphreys, a Catholic layman prosecuted for calling the queen “a whore and a heretic” in 1591, the judge presented a pair of beads and a crucifix to the court, saying to Humphreys, “See, here is the God you worship”.89 In 1612, a Benedictine friar held a rosary and a large crucifix in his hands as he ascended the scaffold at his execution, and raised them to make the sign of the cross.90 In 1621 Sir Francis Seymour was made to wear his prayer beads for all to see as he was driven from Westminster to the Tower of London in a cart and lashed for each bead he owned.91 In the same year, the Welsh gentleman Sir Edward Giles was forced to stand in a pillory with his crucifix, blessed beads, and friar’s girdle about his neck, before being whipped and returned to the Fleet Prison in London.92 At the execution of the priest Hugh Green in Dorchester in 1642, Green publicly gave away his crucifix, blessed beads, and agnus dei to some of the spectators before ascending to the gallows.93 The symbolic connotations of these events differed depending on one’s confessional affiliation. For Protestants, allowing or even forcing Catholics to wear devotional objects as they underwent public punishment served as a warning to all who witnessed them, and as a reminder of the inherently treasonous nature of “popery”.94 The poem Albions England, composed by William Warner in 1597, portrayed Mary Queen of Scots adorned with sacramentals at her execution, to remind his readers of their inefficacy as well as her treason: Beades at her Girdle hung, at end of them a Medall, and An Agnus-Dei bout her necke, a crost-Christ in her hand. They prayed her to set a-part those popish Toyes, and pray In saith to Christ, in only whom her whole Saluation lay: And, offring then to pray with her, that Offer she withstood, Alleaging that our Prayers can doe Catholiques no good. So doth the Popes false Calendar of Saints of Sense bereaue Our Traytors, who dye Papists that therein it them receaue.95  P. LAKE – M. QUESTIER, Agency, Appropriation, and Rhetoric Under the Gallows: Puritans, Romanists, and the State in Early Modern England, in Past & Present (1996), pp. 64-107. 89  R. CHALLONER, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, as Well Secular as Regular and of Other Catholics of Both Sexes, That Have Suffered Death in England, London, 1742, p. 249. 90  FOLEY, Records of the English Province, vol. 7, p. 1373. 91  Journal of the House of Commons, 1547-1629, vol. 1, London, 1802, pp. 598-600. 92  Ibid. 93  CHALLONER, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, p. 121. 94  LAKE – QUESTIER, Agency, Appropriation, and Rhetoric, pp. 69-71. 95  W. WARNER, Albions England a Continued Historie of the Same Kingdome, London, 1597, pp. 250-251. 88

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Later in the seventeenth century, when pope-burning processions became more common, sacramentals were attached to the effigies to make clear the religious identity of what was being set aflame.96 In 1676, for instance, an effigy of the pope “was placed siting in a Chair of State, with his Crosier, Keys, Bulls, Pardons, Indulgences, Agnus Dei, and other Implements about him” before being set alight at a procession in Fleet Street in London.97 For Catholics, however, these displays reinforced the strength of the martyrs’ faith.98 The devotional objects that belonged to those who were executed served as mementos of the martyrs’ exemplary behaviour, but they also facilitated a pointed show of resistance to the crown’s prohibitions. As described by Warner, Mary Stuart clung to “popish toys” as she went to her death, but a cursory examination of the objects she carried shows that all of the sacramentals that she wore at her execution were specifically named in the 1571 statute. Mary harnessed the theatre of the scaffold to commit a final act of defiance that would have been immediately recognised as such, by witnesses and those who heard of the execution after the fact. The priests and laity who carried rosaries, crucifixes, and agni dei to executions, as in the case of Laurence Humphreys and Hugh Green, likewise engaged in public displays of subversion even as these objects assisted them through the ordeal. The report of the Jesuit Peter Wright’s execution in 1651 is full of similar instances of Catholics harnessing the symbolism of sacred objects to express their defiance of the Protestant regime’s anti-Catholic policies. Spectators appeared at Tyburn wearing fragments of silk that had been blessed by the condemned priest, expressing their resistance to the statutes against Catholic materials while also showing their support for the condemned man. Those who brought garlands and materials to wipe away the blood at the execution site likewise openly flouted the statutes by creating hallowed mementos of the event. Even the sheriff of London expressed his disapproval of the laws that his office required him to enforce (at least according to the narrators), by allowing

96  S. WILLIAMS, The Pope Burning Processions of 1679, 1680, and 1681, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 21 (1958), 104-118. 97  The Pope Burnt to Ashes, or, Defiance to Rome Being a Perfect Account How the Exact Image of His Holiness was Solemnly Carried in Procession Through the Greatest Part of the City of London, and at Last Exposed to the Flames, London, 1676, p. 3. 98  A. DILLON, The Construction of Martyrdom in the English Catholic Community, Aldershot, 2002; See also A. DAILEY, The English Martyr from Reformation to Revolution, Notre Dame IN, 2012.

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the crowd to carry away Wright’s severed head and body, rather than displaying them at London Bridge as was conventional for executed traitors.99 Sacred objects played a significant role in English Catholic devotions and politics after the Reformation. In many respects, Catholic practices surrounding sacred objects in England shared similarities with other parts of post-Reformation Europe. Rosaries, crucifixes, relics, and agni dei could be found in Catholic homes across the continent in this period. Their popularity amongst Catholics in early modern England reflects a wider trend in Roman Catholicism, in which devotional objects were increasingly domesticated.100 Missionary uses of the sacramentals in England to win converts to the faith and reinforce Catholic identities mirrored similar efforts to revitalise Catholic communities in parts of Bohemia and the German principalities which had previously been neglected by the Catholic Church.101 At the same time, the political afterlife of Queen Elizabeth’s conflict with the papacy fundamentally changed the significance of Catholic devotional materials in post-Reformation England. Parliamentary laws which made treasonous many of the practices of Catholicism and outlawed the use of consecrated objects made the choice to continue in the Catholic faith an inherently subversive decision. Although the possession of blessed objects did not automatically incur charges of treason, those caught with relics, blessed beads, and other sacramentals often fell under suspicion of treasonous activity. These circumstances also contributed to the crystallisation of the reformed English Church’s position on images, idolatry, and “things indifferent” during the reign of Elizabeth I. Official sermons against idolatry, combined with the parliamentary legislation against Catholic devotional materials, formally condemned these objects as both idolatrous and capable of luring the innocent away from their true obedience to the crown. Polemical pamphlets and books published by the clergy that disparaged these materials as “trash”, “trumpery”, and “popish idols” reinforced this idea.102

 FOLEY, Records of the English Province, vol. 2, pp. 541-49.  CORRY et al., Madonnas and Miracles, p. 82. 101  LOUTHAN, Converting Bohemia, chapter 6; JOHNSON, Magistrates, Madonnas, and Miracles, chapter 8. 102  On this theme see A. WALSHAM, The Pope’s Merchandise and the Jesuit’s Trumpery: Catholic Relics and Protestant Polemic in Post-Reformation England, in J. SPINKS – D. EICHBERGER (eds.), Religion, the Supernatural, and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe: An Album Amicorum for Charles Zika, Leiden, 2015, 370-409. 99

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In light of the legal circumstances, it is remarkable that sacred objects remained relatively popular in post-Reformation England. Continuous efforts to distribute these materials throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries indicate that many English people felt that the spiritual benefits of having sacred objects outweighed the risk of arrest. However, collecting and distributing sacramentals also served as a statement of dissent against the Protestant English Church and the government which upheld it. During the reign of Elizabeth I, this practice even implied that one questioned the legitimacy of the queen as a ruler, in light of the papal excommunication and deposition issued against her. The connotations of political resistance which sacramentals gained in England as a result of these tensions were unlike any significance they assumed elsewhere in Europe. The extent of their popularity further complicates our understanding of the Reformation’s reception, particularly with respect to how people lived and practised religion in post-Reformation England. It also raises questions about the nature of political participation in Reformation England, and how religious tensions fostered new ways of expressing dissent.

“FOR THE GOOD OF THE CROWN” THE RESILIENCE OF THE OLD WAYS AND THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY REDISTRIBUTION OF CHURCH ART IN WESTERN NORWAY Henrik

VON

ACHEN

Towards the end of 1559, a survey commission visited the desolate church of the Augustinian monastery Elgeseter in Trondheim, Norway. The church had been closed for some twenty years, and the interior presented a bleak spectacle indeed: The church leaks everywhere, part of the floor is destroyed, some of the choir stalls in the church have come to pieces and are quite ruined; all panels are still in the church, apart from one which was brought to the castle and another having been ruined by water dripping into the church.1

The description makes it evident that the church was not emptied of its decorations and paintings when the monastery was dissolved; it seems simply to have been closed down, and in 1546 the local Lutheran bishop moved in. As he had no use for the church, it was left desolate and without maintenance.2 In the years since the Reformation in 1537, nobody had removed the images from the church. This probably illustrates a general situation, namely the patience or leniency, or lack of interest, of the authorities concerning imagery, and how lack of maintenance played a far more decisive role for the fate of church art and furnishings than the attitude of Lutheran theologians.

1  “Chirckenn Aaffuer altt Rindher, naagiidtt aff gullenn y forscrne Kircke er sønnder nogiidtt aff Stollene y Kirckenn ere sønnder och forderffuidtt, Alle Thaffler ere wdy Kirckenn, wnndennthagenn enn som kam thiill Slotthedtt, enn thaffle er forderffuidtt aff drop som dryber ind y Kirckenn”. Diplomatarium Norvegicum (henceforth DN), 1018-1570, published by the Seksjon for kildeutgivelse, Riksarkivet; online: https://www.dokpro.uio.no/dipl_norv/diplom_felt.html DN XXI, no. 1088, p. 840, survey description of 20 December 1559. In 1546, the Crown took over the monastery complex, which later burned down, in 1564. The term ‘panels’ (Thaffler) indicates paintings on wood. 2  In 1550, the prior of the monastery received a receipt for parting with a chalice, paten and gilt pyxis, see Norske riksregistranter, tildeels i uddrag, vol. 1 (1523-1571), (ed.) CHR. C. A. LANGE, BRØGGER – CHRISTIE, Christiania 1861, p. 123, dated 30 June 1550.

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74 Introduction

Since the end of the fourteenth century, the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway had been united under Danish rule. In 1534, Christian III (1503-1559) ascended to the Danish throne, yet, until 1536 he had to fight for it, and in Norway, archbishop Olav Engelbrektsson (c. 1480-1538), as regent de facto ruler of Norway, opposed the king, but in April 1537 he had had to flee the country. To consolidate his power, financially as well as politically, the first major issue for Christian III was introducing the Reformation as a royal command — in Denmark in 1536, in Norway a year later.3 The population in Norway remained Catholic; therefore, continuity was the order of the day in the years immediately following the Reformation. Former Catholic priests often remained and served their flocks as new Lutheran vicars. They were not hardcore Lutherans, but rather maintained and promoted a local continuity contributing to the resilience of the existing visual culture.4 In reality, people probably experienced that religious life went on as before, particularly devotional life, the existing religious culture remaining resilient for decades. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to expect that parishes to some extent would continue to purchase art and furnishings for their churches. For decades, parishioners visiting their church would see little or no change, allowing the mutually supportive interaction between devotional instruments and devotion itself to go on.5 In the diocese of Bergen, this continuity found an almost programmatic expression at the very top of local clergy: the last bishop elect of Bergen, Geble Pederssøn (c. 1490-1557), was also the first Lutheran superintendent in Western Norway. Around 1570, a royal commission visiting Bergen complained about the side altars, votive gifts and imagery still found in the churches, and even 60 years after the Reformation, in 1597, the superintendent of Oslo, Jens Nielssøn (1538-1600) had to order a local vicar immediately to remove all the paintings and statues in a church, because people from all over the region came to pray before them.6 An existing visual culture is not merely the sum of its products,  See H. LAUGERUD, Reformasjon uten folk. Det katolske Norge i før- og etterreformatorisk tid, Inst. f. sammenlikn. Kulturforskn., serie B: Skrifter CLXXII, St. Olav forlag, Oslo 2018, in general. 4  Ibid., pp. 147-148 and 287. 5  Ibid. pp. 298-300. 6  Y. NIELSEN (ed.), Biskop Jens Nilssøns Visitatsbøger og reiseoptegnelser 1574–1597, A. W. BRØGGERS, Kristiania 1885, p. 551. The superintendent wrote to the vicar at Skjebjerg about the unacceptable practice in Engedal annex church: “huorledis att her skall findis vdj Eders annex Engedal nogle statuæ och billede, til huilcke mange endnu saa vell som vdj gammel thid skulle søge hen och tilbede”, and demanded the images removed immediately. 3

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and while a religious culture certainly has a material or tangible dimension, it relates to faith, encompassing the phenomenon of piety or devotion, and articulates the relation between the devout and the objects.7 What Jeffrey Hamburger has defined as “the historicity of visual experience”8 indicates the instrumentality of the objects, the use of them in a religious life which they both express and shape.9 The relational dimension of church art was a constitutive element of late medieval piety and its visual culture. This essay focuses on the consequences of the Reformation in Norway for art in the churches until the 1560s. The text does not deal with the theology of images, but investigates the actual practices in handling redundant images in a concrete time and space. It presents the view that for the first thirty years after the Reformation in Norway, images and other instruments of devotion removed from demolished and dilapidated churches were not destroyed, but rather redistributed to other churches in the region. This was not the post-Reformation recycling, or conversion, for new use and context described by Alexandra Walsham, but a redistribution of redundant art and furnishings for a continued local religious purpose.10 Despite the Reformation, instruments of the existing religious culture continued to shape the faith of people, the materiality of faith retaining its traditional function for a considerable time. In the absence of any widespread iconoclasm, and based on the assumption of a staggering amount of art in late medieval churches, one might well ask what happened to the altarpieces, sculptures, paintings, wall carpets, banners, processional staffs, sacred vessels, censers, reliquaries, church furniture and vestments from closed down or demolished churches and monasteries in Norway? Dismantling the old

7

 See H. LAUGERUD, 2018, p. 67.  This idea of a visual culture lies embedded in J. HAMBURGER, Nuns as Artists. The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1997, as does the idea of such a culture as a socially conditioned practice. See also E. DUFFY, The Voices of Morebath. Reformation and rebellion in an English Village, New Haven, 2001, and Marking the Hours. English People & their Prayers 1240-1570, New Haven-London, 2006. 9  H.v. ACHEN, Piety, Practice and Process, in H. LAUGERUD – L. SKINNEBACH, eds, Instruments of Devotion. The practices and Objects of Religious piety from the Late Middle Ages to the 20th Century, Århus 2007, p. 28. 10  A. WALSHAM, Recycling the Sacred: Material Culture and Cultural Memory after the English Reformation, in: Church History, 86:4 (2017), 1121-1154, especially pp. 1122-1124. One such Norwegian example is the late medieval cope from the cathedral of Stavanger in Southern Norway, at some point in time retailored into an antependium, the kind of conversion Walsham describes, p. 1132. The cope, inv.no. MA50, came to Bergen Museum in 1867, but has since 1919 been on loan to Stavanger museum. 8

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religious culture was a slow process.11 The authorities, royal and ecclesial alike, had to take the conservative mood of the population into account — as well as ensuring that the homeless church art brought as much money as possible to the Crown. An ordered transition depended on continuity rather than confrontation, and this essay suggests that to achieve this objective, visual and devotional continuity was accepted. After all, it was a population resisting foreign novelties, as when peasants in the region of Hardanger southwest of Bergen in 1553 still refused to pay their vicars unless they served their congregations in the same way as the Catholic priests had done, and where the parish of Eidfjord on its own hired a priest adhering to the old faith.12 Artworks were not destroyed, but sold off, thus redistributed to churches in the entire diocese, not only in the years immediately before, but even long after the Reformation. If a church was closed down, the art might have been left to decay in situ, as testified by the introductory quote describing a situation in Trondheim 1559, or artworks might have been collected, stored and sold second hand to those still willing to purchase such items for their churches. Even though the situation in Bergen certainly speaks in favor of a concerted effort to handle and reuse a surplus of still valuable church art, the idea of a “warehouse” of redundant church art presented here remains conjectural — even if something quite similar can be documented concerning obsolete vestments. To discuss whether it is likely that a considerable market for secondhand Catholic church art existed in Lutheran Bergen for decades, supplied by redundant works and organized on behalf of the new owner, the King, is to investigate the fate of this art and the attitudes towards it, both from the authorities and the people. The notion that this art market existed in Bergen during the first post-Reformation generation is based on some basic assumptions concerning the situation in Western Norway: % That a vast number of artefacts and works of art existed in churches on the eve of the Reformation % That there were few if any incidents of iconoclasm connected with the Reformation in Norway % That church art remained attractive for parishes even after the Reformation, and, therefore, a market continued to exist 11  H. v. ACHEN, Another Age Will Damage and Destroy: The Radicalised Reformation in Denmark-Norway in the Later Part of the Sixteenth Century, in J. KELLY - H. LAUGERUD S. RYAN, (eds), Northern European Reformations: Transnational Perspectives, London, 2020. 12  H. WINGE, (ed.), Love og Forordninger 1537-1605, Oslo, 1988, no. 96, document of 23 June 1553.

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%

 hat this kind of demand and supply was tolerated by the authorities T % That the art could be sold to satisfy demand and therefore represented a possible income for the Crown or the king’s governor in Bergen The homeless church art from churches demolished before the Reformation might have established a practice supplying a market for second-hand church art, but the possibility of this pattern of demand and supply was inextricably linked with the nature of the Reformation in Norway. Setting the scene – demolishing the churches on Holmen in Bergen Testifying to a weakened Church, Bergen, the largest city in Norway, saw a number of prominent churches around the royal castle on Holmen demolished in the years 1529-1531 to make the royal castle easier to defend. These were troubled times, and for the Danish king Frederik I the deposed king, Christian II, remained a threat, as did the archbishop Olav in Trondheim who represented Norwegian interests against the Danish king. So, the defensibility of the castle had to be improved should warfare come.13 This was done by removing buildings too close to the walls of the castle, the proximity of major buildings regarded an unacceptable risk. With no fighting going on, and no iconoclastic fury at large, the demolition must have proceeded in an orderly fashion, emptying the churches and storing artworks and church furniture, later to be redistributed to other churches, or sold as second-hand church art to other parishes. This situation in Bergen might, then, have created a precedent to be followed when the Reformation was introduced a few years later (fig. 3.1). Tearing down the cathedral, the mother of all churches in the region, was a drastic measure indeed. The governor presented the demand to the bishop in the autumn of 1529, and it took him and his chapter some eighteen months to accept the fact that the cathedral, the larger Christ church, had to be demolished, together with its predecessor, the smaller Christ church. Moreover, the episcopal palace with its chapel was to be torn down as well. However, the first of the churches on Holmen to be demolished, in the spring of 1529, was the  L. HAMRE, Norsk politisk historie 1513–1537, Oslo 1998, p. 445ff. In Ålborg in Denmark, something similar was the case in 1554, where St. Mary’s church was demolished as it was situated too close to the royal castle, see Danske kirkelove, 1536-1683, 1 del, utg. H. Fr. RØRDAM, København, 1883 (henceforth DK), I no. 404, p. 387, letter from king Christian III of 27 September 1554. This church, however, was already in disrepair — and no cathedral. On the military conflict in Western Norway at the time, see also H. LAUGERUD, 2018, pp. 102-105. 13

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Fig. 3.1. Andreas Hauge, A model of Holmen in Bergen around 1525 with the area around the royal castle and the cathedral, 1968, Bymuseet, Bergen. Photo: Bymuseet, Bergen. A Cathedral, B Small Christ church, C the second Church of the Apostles (still standing?), D the third Church of the Apostles, E Palace chapel, F Dominican monastery, G The bishop’s residence with the episcopal chapel

prominent Church of the Apostles, situated very close to the castle, but at least that church belonged to the king.14 In 1528, the Dominican monastery in the same area was destroyed by fire and never rebuilt. Probably by the autumn of that year, at least before he had to resign from his post, the royal governor, Vincens Lunge (1486-1536), must have proposed the demolition of the churches on Holmen. Documentary evidence from April 1529 states that workers had begun tearing down the church of the Apostles.15 In 1528-1529, the somewhat decayed Antonine monastery of Nonneseter south of the city center was partly demolished, partly converted into a private manor for Lunge. By the autumn of 1528, the monastery and the churches on Holmen were doomed, and provisions must have been made for the removal of images, church furniture, shrines, vestments, and sacred vessels. As bishop Olaf Thorkelsson (c. 1480-1535) of Bergen in February 1531 instructed men from the region north of Bergen to assist in tearing down the cathedral, a considerable amount of redundant church art must have accumulated in the city. As the cathedral was doomed, according to the then 14  The most prominent of a number of churches with their own organization, the so-called ‘royal chapels’. Lunge began the demolition of the church in the springtime of 1529, “lader affbrude Aposstell kircke”, as well as fortified Nonneseter, the monastery of St. Anthony, see DN V, letter of 22 April 1529 from Amsterdam to King Christian II. 15  L. HAMRE, Norsk politisk historie 1513-1537, p. 445 states that Eske Bille, the new royal govenor, was not instructed to have the church demolished until the spring of 1530. Yet, according to the letter of 22 April 1529, demolition had begun by then, and in February 1530, already, the stones from the church were to be shipped to Denmark, see DN XIII no. 568, letter from the governor 17 February 1530.

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archdeacon of the diocese, Geble Pederssøn, all those came forward who had never done anything for the church, but now wanted to benefit from its demolition. “They had been given power over her and made a bargain buying those stones which had been transported and carved with great troubles and costs, including other items belonging to the church”.16 Thus, a bargain could be made buying second hand items from a demolished church, and in 1531, the churches on Holmen would represent a true wealth of now homeless art, church furniture and furnishings. Conservatively, one might estimate the number of altars in these churches to be at least 40.17 Documentary evidence mentions nineteen altars in the cathedral alone, but there may have been more.18 Many of the side altars, if not all, would have had their own decorations, books, vestments and sacred vessels. The kind of basic liturgical altar fittings you would expect was described in a Norwegian context in 1429 when the bishop of Stavanger furnished three side altars in his cathedral with chalices, liturgical books and other equipment, “to the benefit of souls and for liturgical use”.19 Concerning the churches on Holmen, one did not have to wait for 1537 to register the royal gain. In 1530, the governor sent lists of precious items from the Church of the Apostles, and from the Dominican monastery, to king Frederik I.20 Adding to such items books and vestments, as mentioned in Stavanger in 1429, and some kind of altar decoration, then multiplying with 16  Oration about Geble Pederssøn, written 1571 by his adopted son, Absalon Beyer. O. KOLSRUD - K. VALKNER, (eds.), Oration om M. Geble, edition based on Edv. Edvartzen’s Bergens beskrivelse. Oslo, 1963, p. 34. , “finge Mact offver hende, oc gaffve saare got Kiøb paa de Steen, som med dyre W-mag oc Bekostning, vaar hentet oc forarbeydet, saavelsom paa andet, Kircken tilhørde”. Born in 1528, Beyer must have been informed about the situation by Geble. 17  Documentary evidence mentions eighteen altars in St. Mary’s in Flensburg, one of the main churches in the town, enlarged around 1400. The last “papist” images were not removed from the church until 1598. In St. Peter’s in Malmø there was at least twenty-seven altars in what was the most important church in the town, enlarged during the fifteenth century. In Copenhagen, the 14th century Our Lady’s was the most prominent church; it burned in 1728 beyond repair, but in the Middle Ages it had no less than at least forty-three altars, see BISGAARD, 2001 op. cit., pp. 178 and 193. In another medieval church in Copenhagen, St. Nicholas, we know of at least thirteen side altars, see Danmarks kirker, vols. I-XXIII, publ. by Nationalmuseet, 1933- , online: http://danmarkskirker.natmus.dk/; vol. 1, København, 1945-58, p. 528. 18  H-E. LIDÉN - E.M. MAGERØY, Norges kirker. Bergen, Oslo, 1980, p. 146. 19  “Hafwm wer gefuet oc skipat till thessa altare calikker bøker oc annor messo reidho oss en til saala gangx oc bønahaldhz”; DN, II no. 699, p. 525, letter 12 June 1429 from bishop Audun Eivindsson. 20  DN XIII, no. 568, letter of 17 February 1530 from the governor to the king. The inventories were enclosed, but unfortunately, only the one from the Dominicans has survived. See DN XIII, no. 569, February 1530, and Norske rigsregistranter vol. 1, p. 22, inventory of 15 July 1530.

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at least 40, one gets an idea about the amount of redundant church art and furnishings from this area alone. Dated 1509, a letter concerning Nonneseter monastery mentions the kind of objects the Crown primarily wanted to list, namely precious items like vestments, chalices, pyxis and other decorative objects (ornamenta). In 1523, an inventory of the church of the Apostles mentioned a golden chalice with paten, five others in gilt silver, a wooden cross covered with gold foil, a silver crozier, a silver reliquary with an angel holding a thorn from the crown of thorns, a monstrance of gilt silver, a silver Calvary group, and other objects of silver or metal, all sent to the King in 1530.21 Objects like altarpieces, vestments or sculptures are never listed, yet in 1531, such objects were still in demand; therefore, they represented economic value. The natural thing would have been to collect such items from the churches and store them for later use or sale, a closed down monastery might have served such a purpose. In this way, less wealthy parishes in the diocese were supplied with prominent pieces at reasonable prices, the Crown pocketing the income from the sale. The Reformation in Bergen and Norway The Reformation in Norway 1537 was a complex phenomenon, and the development in the following decades no less so. While the reuse of the trimmings of the old faith may be understood as a process of appropriation, the border between old and new remained porous for quite some time. Thus, the postReformation era was a period determined by a complex pattern of amalgamation and change, but above all of continuity.22 The reform did not assault a decaying religious institution without popular support, unable to defend itself against change,23 the moving force behind the Reformation was something else. In terms of motivation, political emancipation of rulers and their immense financial gain may to a considerable extent have been powerful drivers, even if 21  The letter of 19 October 1509 mentions “clenodia paramenta calices pixides et alia ornamenta ecclesie”, DN vol. 17, no. 799. The 1523-inventory is referred to extensively in Norges kirker, Bergen vol. 1, p. 138, see also N. NICOLAYSEN, Norske Fornlevninger, Kristiania, 18621866, pp. 428-429. 22  L.K. SKINNEBACH, Visuel forandringspraksis. Appropriering af billeder efter reformationen, in: Efter Reformationen, in K.G. HEMPEL - , P. DUEDAHL - B. POULSEN (eds.), Ålborg, 2017, 49-87, here p. 49. See also T. LEHTONEN - L. KALJUNDI (eds), Re-forming Texts, Music, and Church Art in the Early Modern North, Amsterdam, 2016, the introduction, 21-37, at. p. 23. 23  E. DUFFY, The Stripping of the Altars. Traditional religion in England 1400-1580, New Haven-London, 1992, pp. 3-5.

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disguised as religious concern. The Reformation did have an immense general impact on Northern Europe and in time it certainly did change the religious culture, not least in the Nordic countries. The pre-history of the Reformation was not long, a mere twenty years from Luther in Wittenberg 1517 to the Reformation in Norway. When the Danish king, Frederik I, and his council in 1526 decided that appointments of bishops no longer needed papal sanction, this was already a break with Rome. In the early sixteenth century, the papacy and a transnational Church was spread too far and politically too weak to withstand the centrifugal forces of emerging independent nation states and rulers in Northern Europe. In 1526, then, the power connected with investiture was transferred from the pope to the (local) king. From then on, the independence of the local church was at peril both religiously and financially — and finally lost.24 The monasteries were effectively placed under the control of the Crown, often years before the actual Reformation. In 1532, the abbess and sisters in Reins Monastery in Trøndelag were forced to elect a manager, but in addition, they were ordered to “have proper and Christian services where the word of God was preached and proclaimed purely”.25 So, control was religious as well as financial. In the perspective of the ongoing shift in financial and political power, it was almost prophetic when bishop Olaf of Bergen had to accept the demolition of his cathedral and residence, from the king receiving ad gratiam a monastery as his new residence. By that time, the old church was already dethroned in several of the main Norwegian contact points in the North German Hanse-area: Stralsund 1525, Hamburg 1529, Lübeck 1530 and Rostock 1531. Though there were isolated incidents of iconoclasm, they remained an exception, the Lutheran attitude towards images being rather tolerant and acknowledging that images may fulfill an important role in the religious life of common folk. The Lutheran notion of religious art as adiaphora did not imply that art was of little importance, but recognized its potentiality for either good or bad. In the preface to his

24

 In 1532, the monasteries of Rein and Tautra in Trøndelag were placed under secular administration, and were instructed to announce “nothing but the word of God”; Norske riksregistranter, tildeels i uddrag, vol. 1 (1523-1571), ed. Chr. C. A. LANGE, Christiania, 1861. (henceforth NRR) vol. 1, p. 34, letters about Reins and Tautra monasteries of 1 May 1532, the takeovers were disguised as “elections”. 25  NRR vol. 1, p. 34, letter of 1 May 1532. The same happened to the monastery at Tautra. In Denmark it was stipulated explicitly that the new manager of the Dominican monastery at Gavnø should care for the nuns and keep good order according to the Church Ordinance, NRR vol. 1, letter of 27 April 1544, DKL I, no. 127, p. 223.

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“Passional” from 1529, Martin Luther himself accepted pictures as aids for children and simple folk to remember the Scriptures. Even representations of virtuous Christians from the past (saints) might more easily than just words remind people of the Christian virtues. He wanted a gradual transition to a better and more Christian use of imagery but retained much of the medieval view on the efficiency of visualization.26 The “Passional” was situated within the late medieval tradition of seeing, contemplating and remembering biblical scenes, an attitude imminently suited to the situation in Norway, where the necessity of continuity determined the pace of change.27 Following both Luther and the Church Ordinance of 1536, Peder Palladius, the leading reformer in Denmark, made a distinction between images as such, and images which were part of any devotional practice. The parish “could hang panels or pictures on the walls [of the church], that they may serve as mirrors to the good simple folk in which they might view themselves, but images visited by people who have hung wax statuettes of children and crutches before them, should be removed and burnt”.28 Even though Palladius was careful to state that “now we know that we neither serve God nor help ourselves by saying masses, making vigils, processions, pilgrimages, fasts and such things”, imagery remained an important instrument of devotion. In 1556, a book on the Passion of Christ was published

26  C. REENTS - M. CHRISTOPH, Die Geschichte der Kinder- und Schulbibel, Arbeiten zur Religionspädagogik vol. 48, Göttingen, 2011, pp. 59-63. See also H. LAUGERUD, En reformasjon av blikket? Skrift, bilder og synskultur i det etter-reformatoriske Danmark-Norge, in B. LAVOLD and J. ØDEMARK, (eds.), Reformasjonstidens religiøse bokkultur cirka 1400-1700, Oslo 2017, 209-243. 27  See SKINNEBACH, 2017, pp. 72 and 75. Martin Luther: “Ich habs für gut angesehen / das alte Passionalbüchlin zu der Betbüchlin zuthun / allermeist vmb der Kinder vnd Einfeltige willen / welche durch Bildnis vnd Gleichnis besser bewegt warden / die Göttliche Geschicht zu behalten / den durch blosse wort oder lere (…) Denn ichs nicht für böse achte / so man solch Geschichte auch in Stuben vnd kamern mit den Sprüche malete / Damit man Gottes werk vnd wort an allen Enden jmer für augen hette / vnd daran furcht vnd glauben gegen Gott vbet. Vnd was solts schaden ob jemand alle fürnemliche Geschichte der gantzen Biblia also lies nach einander malen in ein Büchlin / das ein solch Büchlin ein Leienbibel were vnd hiesse”, M. LUTHER, Ein Betbüchlein mit eim Calender und Passional hübsch zu gericht,Wittenberg, 1538, pp. ciij-ciiij. In 1573, the Passional was translated into Danish. 28  L. JACOBSEN, Peder Palladius’ Visitatsbog, special edition of Peder Palladius’ Danske Skrifter V, Danmarks Folkeminder. no. 30, København, 1925, p. 36: “tafflerne eller billeder kunde de sla paa veggen,at de kunde uerre goede enfoldigis spegel som dj kunde see dennem udj, vden her findis nogen billeder som mand haffuer giort søgning til, och hengde voxbørn och krycker for, de schulle borttagis och brendis op”.

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for the Danish-Norwegian market, decorated with 43 woodcuts.29 In this perspective, there might still be a market for redundant church art. As elsewhere, the Reformation in Bergen did not come entirely without warning. In 1526, the new bishop of Bergen, Olaf Thorkelsson, complained to the archbishop in Trondheim about the infamy suffered by the Church from the “Lutheran sect” in the city. His letter expresses a sense of regret that his priests now seemed inclined to act against their oath, order and old ways.30 Indeed, in 1527, a priest called Antonius held the first Lutheran service in the church of St. Hallvard. However, despite many connections with the Netherlands and the Hanseatic areas in Northern Germany, nothing points to a massive Lutheran movement in Bergen, and much less so in the rural districts of Western Norway. In Norway, the situation was not unlike in England, where descriptions of the visitations of 1559 and 1566 testified to a slow and reluctant conformity imposed from above, with little or no evidence of popular enthusiasm for or commitment to the process of reform.31 Therefore, when introducing the Reformation in Norway, letters and documents issued by the Danish king show that he acknowledged that it was forced on the Norwegians. Since the population never welcomed the Reformation, the first Post-Reformation generation was characterized by a clear and undiminishing distance between the authorities and the population when it came to religious matters.32 Moreover, as a religious emancipation from Rome, the royal endeavor was compromised inasmuch as loss of Norwegian independence was an integral part of the event. Though religious matters certainly were a component in the conglomerate we call “The Reformation”, the king initially had to pursue more pressing political and financial objectives.33 Indeed, little was overlooked, and as early as in April 1537 Christian III wanted all gilt copper removed from the churches in Mid and North Norway and sent to Copenhagen.34 In the first years, then, the  Passio, Eller Historien / om Christi Jesu vor Frelseris pine oc død, 1556. Online, https://urn.nb.no/URN:NBN:no-nb_digibok_2012050813008, accessed 16.06.2020. 30  DN, IX, 571, p. 537, “deth schendzell den hellige kirke liider de secta Lutheriana (…) tilbøgeligæ ære ath gaa och gøre i mooth theeris eed oc embithe och gamle siduaner”. 31  E. DUFFY, 1992, p. 573. As an example, focusing on a specific locality, see I. LARKING, Renovating the Sacred: The Re-formations of the English Parish Church in the Diocese of Norwich, c. 1450-1662, PhD dissertation, University of Queensland, 2013, pp. 41ff. 32  H. LAUGERUD 2018 has described persuasively the relation between authorities and population. 33  On a general assessment of the Reformation in Norway along those lines, see Ø. RIAN, Reformasjonen som katastrofe i norgeshistorien. En revolusjon ovenfra og utenfra i et katolsk land, in: Fra avlatshandel til folkekirke. Reformasjonen gjennom 500 år, ed. E. HAUG Oslo, 2017, 19-42. 34  H. WINGE, 1988, no. 1, letter of 27 April 1537. 29

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Reformation in Norway seems to have been an administrative rather than a religious act. In Norway, as everywhere else in Northern Europe, it led to a huge forced transfer of wealth from one institution, the Church, to another, the Crown. Rather bluntly, the motive behind the Reformation in Denmark revealed itself in the recess of 1536: That the Crown and king of Denmark shall become wealthier, all possessions, castles, farms, houses and land of the dioceses, which the bishops have had at their disposal, from now and in eternity shall be brought and remain with their interests and incomes under the control of the Crown, for the support of the king and for the good of the realm.35

The most precious items in all churches in the diocese were to be listed separately: “gold, silver and precious items, chalices, patens, monstrances, gilt tablets and other such things in churches and monasteries”.36 Even before the official issue of the Church Ordinance, the king instructed his governor in Bergen to have inventories of such objects made in order to establish what wealth belonged to the Crown, when the governor had “taken over the diocese of Bergen on Our behalf”. He was instructed to have listed silver, gold together with other decorations and valuable objects in the cathedral and in other churches and monasteries in Bergen, and to have made an inventory thereof, and the same in all monastery and parish churches as well as in hospitals in the entire Bergen diocese. You should receive these complete and explicit inventories of all such items and keep them in your care, that none of what is registered be removed or disappears.37

35  “Paa thett att Danmarckis Krone och Konningh kand bliffue thesmere formuendes tha skulle alle Bickops Sticts Gotz, Slotte, Gaarde, Huse och Jordegodtz, som Bispernne nu haffue haffdt wdi Handt oc were, hereffther tiill evig Tiidt were och bliffue met alt theris Rentthe och Tilleggelse lagde wnder Kronen, oc tiill Konngens Opholdelsse, oc tiill menige Riigens beste”; DKL I no. 2, pp. 4 and 6, recess of 30th October 1536. On the Reformation and the land belonging to ecclesial institutions, see T. WEIDLING,, Reformasjonen og kirkegodset – omveltning og kontinuitet, in E. HAUG, Fra avlatshandel til folkekirke, Oslo, 2017, 75-92. 36  DN III, no. 1147, letter of 23 June 1537 to Eske Bille. This is what was traditionally listed in such inventories; see a papal letter of 1509 allowing the monasteries of Nonneseter and Munkeliv to be united. 37  “atj lade registeere och inuentere hues siølff guldt breffue och anden ornamenter och clenodier som findes bode vdj domkyrcken och andre kyrckere och clostere ther vdj Bergen tesligeste vdj alle closter sogne kyrcker och hospitaller offuer Bergens stygt och annamme helle och clare register tiill eder ther paa och hoss etther gemme saa ther aff ingthet forrvckes eller forkommes”; DN XXII, no. 396, letter 17 June 1537 to Eske Bille. Technically, since 1531, the cathedral was Munkeliv monastery church, but it had burned down in 1534.

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King Christian III wanted to avoid a situation in which possessions of the Church were regarded ownerless and taken once a church was closed or a monastery dissolved. The income of altars endowed with land or other kind of real estate was not given back to the donor families, who had purchased a perpetual service they no longer got, but was now meant to finance clergy and hospitals.38 Leaving nothing to chance, in 1542 the king sent Claus Ottesen Huitfeldt (1515-1590) through Norway to collect confiscated gold and silver objects from churches in the dioceses of Trondheim, Bergen and Oslo. However, sailing along the Norwegian coast, Huitfeldt was captured by the Netherlanders and brought to Burgundy, his small boat (celocem) containing some silver, precious objects and other items, “nothing which was not stolen from the hidden treasuries of churches and sacrilegious spoils of war”, now lost for the Danish Crown.39 Obviously, the transfer of wealth to the Crown was a primary concern, even if it was a lengthy procedure. As late as in 1553, the superintendent in Bergen handed over several treasures in silver and gilt silver, which might have come from the church of All Saints’.40 Filling the royal purse was part of the Reformation process, not unlike the Edwardian endeavors of 1552 in England to collect a “masse of money” by selling off redundant church furnishings.41 Early in the Reformation, in Germany 1522, it was explicitly suggested that images be transferred from the church to the home where they would be more useful — and as we have seen, this is what happed between 1537 and 1559 to one of the paintings in the desolate Elgeseter monastery in Trondheim.42 We know little of the degree to which this was actually done, but might one not imagine the residence of Vincent Lunge in Bergen, a former monastery, in 38  See, for example, cases in Malmø 1536, 1537 and 1539, Trondheim 1541 and Bergen 1564. See Malmø rådstueprotokol pp. 124, 131 and 148. Concerning Bergen 1564 and Trondheim 1541, see NRR vol. 1, p. 60, letter of 27th February 1541, and p. 433, letter of 16 August 1564; also p. 472-473, letter of 4 October 1565. 39  “Nam erat in ea nihil, quod non ex arcanis templorum erutum, praedonis et sacrilegi manubias”, letter dated Leuven 16 September 1543 from the regent Mary of Austria to the Danish king. See L. DAAE, Christopher Throndssøn Rustung, hans sønn Enno og hans datter Skottefruen, in Historisk tidsskrift, vol. 2, Kristiania, 1872, 113-170, here p. 129. 40  NRR vol. 1, p. 164, list of 6 July 1553, among other items two miters, a crozier, a pot and a censor. The previous year it had been decided to tear down the former royal chapel and use the building materials for a new town hall, ibid. p. 154, letter of 22 July 1552. An inventory had already been set up in 1530, see ibid. p. 22. 41  A. WALSHAM, 2017, p. 1127. 42  A letter 1522 from Franz von Sickingen (1481-1523); expressing the notion that images “in schönen Gemächern zur Zierde nützlicher wären als in der Kirche”, see M. WARNKE, ed., Bildersturm: die Zerstörung des Kunstwerks, München, 1973, p. 73.

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1529 equipped with artworks of ecclesiastical origin? The royal quest for the wealth of the Church was even felt in a relatively poor country like Iceland, part of the former archdiocese of Trondheim. In 1545, bishop Jon Arason of the poorest of the two Icelandic dioceses, Holar, sent almost 6 kg silver to the King, collected from churches and monasteries. At that time, the diocese was “still kept in Papist blindness”, according to Peder Palladius.43 When the Reformation was actually introduced, however, the wealth involved in the transfer from Church to Crown increased vastly, in 1551 more than 62 kg.s silver alone.44 In Northern Europe, kings, princes and nobility undoubtedly profited hugely from the Reformation — so much so, that when the Swedish king John III in 1578 negotiated with Rome concerning a return to Catholicism, it was on the condition that the Swedish nobility was allowed to keep possessions formerly belonging to the Church.45 To paint a comprehensive and realistic picture of the Reformation and all the mechanisms at work lies well beyond the scope of this essay. In this context, it suffices to say that in Norway the reformers did not face a decaying Church with a diminishing faith and spirituality degenerating into idolatry and superstition, and there was no popular movement demanding abolition of the Church.46 Even on the continent, a hot topic like indulgences actually seem to have been created rhetorically rather than mirroring a real problem or a massive public outrage.47 The distance between authorities and people concerning religion meant that the population kept to its old faith as long as possible, regarding everything around the Reformation as foreign and alien to the customs of the land.48 Therefore, King Christian III acknowledged the fact that introducing the Reformation to the Norwegians was a delicate matter, which had to be dealt with carefully, and it became an explicitly articulated policy to 43  Máldagar Gisla byskups Jónssonar, in Diplomatarium Islandicum, Reykjavik, Fèlagsprentsmidju H.F.: 1947-50, pp. 545-714, here vol. 11, no. 337, a receipt dated 13 March 1545, and letter from Palladius ibid. no. 400, dated 10 March 1546. 44  Diplomatarium Islandicum, vol. 12, no. 179, 17 Oct. 1551; from the cathedral at Holar and the three northern monasteries, Thingreyrar, Munkathvera og Mødruvollum; croziers, a monstrance and chalices, and additionally almost 9 kgs of gilt copper (probably from shrines). 45  O.B. GARSTEIN, Rome and the Counter-Reformation in Scandinavia: Until the Establishment of the S. Congregatio de Propaganda Fide in 1622, vol. 3, (Jesuit Educational Strategy, 1553-1622), Leiden-New York, 1992, p. 70. 46  H. LAUGERUD, 2018, pp. 247 and 312-314. 47  See A. ANGENENDT, Geschichte der Religiosität im Mittelalter, 4th ed., Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2009, pp. 656-657. 48  H. LAUGERUD, 2018, pp. 10, 171 and 310.

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do this gradually — for a considerable amount of time retaining most of the familiar elements of religious practice. In a letter of 17 June 1537 to his governor in Western Norway, the king issued an instruction on how to proceed with the Reformation: Therefore, We order you to allow parishioners and parish priests in the entire diocese to continue their old ways, and not to appoint new preachers until such time as We have found a good way to do so, that no dismay and discord may arise among the poor, simple and foolish peasantry in the country. Gently and cannily, We shall then provide them with a faith based on better knowledge of the word of God.49

Rejecting “the old ways” too harshly might jeopardize what had been gained so far. While the Church Ordinance in Danish, passed by the Privy Council on the 14 June 1539, certainly articulated a clear antagonism to the old devotional practices, the very short passage on Norway just mentioned that one would have to see how much of the Ordinance might actually be implemented, acknowledging the fact that attending to matters in Norway needed a somewhat different approach than in Denmark. “The superintendents in each diocese in Norway will have to arrange things according to this ordinance until We Ourselves [King Christian III] come to Norway, God willing, in a not too distant future. Receiving counsel from the superintendents We shall then order and decide matters which cannot be regulated by this ordinance, since many issues [there] need a different ordinance”.50 De iure, the Reformation came to Norway in 1537; de facto, in terms of substance and impact on the faith of people, there was hardly any Reformation at all. As in the rest of Europe, the churches in Bergen contained a multitude of artworks and artefacts. In her description of the situation in the diocese of 49  “Dog wille wij etther befallit haffue atj lade alle kyrckernes personer och sogne prester ther offuer alt stygttett bliffue widt theres gammele skicke och ingen ny predicker indsette thennem paa thet att thet icke schall voge nogen forskreck eller wænighedt blant then fattige simple och vforstandige almoe ther vdj landet, førre end vij kunde finde ther andre raadt tiill och saa mett lempe och føge komme thennem tiill nogen bekendelsse och bedre forstandt vdj guds ord”. DN XXII, no. 396, letter of 17 June 1537. 50  M. SCHWARZ LAUSTEN, Kirkeordinantsen 1537/39, København, 1989; and danmarkshistorien.dk, accessed 28.01.2019, see under Reformationen i Danmark, 1520-1539, Ordinansen 1539, p. 53. “Oc skicke huad dennom tilstaar wdi andre sager, de wdi denne wor Ordinants begrebene ere, Ind til wy sielff komme wdy Norge, Huilcket wy med Guds hielp snarlig forhobe, Da wille wy effter Superattendenternis raad besønderlig wdi huer sted beskicke oc stadfeste huad effter denne Ordinantze der icke holdis kand, Di der wil wdi mange støcker holdes een anden Ordinantze”.

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Norwich, England, in the later part of the sixteenth century, Irene Larking has provided a description of the late medieval situation which certainly covers the situation in Norway as well, stating that “the Roman Catholic faith was revealed through the ubiquitous and multifarious images and liturgical paraphernalia that filled parish churches across the country”. 51 Furthermore, it seems that the demand for art did not decrease in the beginning of the sixteenth century; art was commissioned until the very eve of the Reformation.52 Moreover, no instances of iconoclastic measures are known from Norway in the decades immediately after 1537, apart from one incident in the parish of Jølster, Sogn og Fjordane, north of Bergen. According to an eighteenth-century parish record, in 1538, the former Catholic priest, Christopher Johannessen, who was turning into a zealous reformer, collected all sculptures and artworks in the parish, including from the main church at Ålhus, and had them burned. People disliked that intensely, which might be the reason why he was killed shortly after.53 In Denmark only one case of iconoclastic fury is recorded, namely when a mob in 1530 destroyed the interior of the cathedral of Our Lady in Copenhagen. It turned out that leading citizens disapproved of these actions; hence, this remained an isolated incident.54 Even though the superintendent in Lund, Niels Palladius, was strongly opposed to imagery in the churches, in a pamphlet on images and the like of 1557 he was careful to insist that only the proper authorities, not so-called “billede-stormere”, iconoclasts, should dare remove anything.55 Apart from that, the only known incident of a rather systematic

51

 I. LARKING, 2013, p. 84.  K. KAUSLAND, Late Medieval Altarpieces in Norway – Domestic, Imported, or a Mixed Enterprise?, PhD dissertation, University of Oslo, 2017, pp. 48-49. 53  O. KOLSRUD, Folket og reformasjonen i Noreg, in S. SUPPHELLEN (ed.), Norske Historikere i Utvalg, vol. 7, Oslo, 1981, 112-135, here p. 117. The information seems to be correct; if so, Johannessen must have been in his fifties at the time. In Lødingen, Nordland, a friar, Peder Munk, is said to have done likewise, but the information cannot be substantiated, see H. FETT, Norges Kirker i det Sekstende og Syttende Aarhundrede, Kristiania, 1911, p.10. 54  The pro-Catholic “Skibby Chronicle” 1533-1534 in Latin relates the incident, certainly not diminishing the fury of the enemy or the following disapproval. The account is found under 1531, “statuas omnes deiecerunt, ac securibus confringentes, sputis, colaphis ac blasphemis uocibus irriserunt, deinde cleri locum ingredientes, subsellia ac uniuersa subselliorum tabulata prorsus destruxerunt”; online: https://tekstnet.dk/skibykroeniken/4, accessed 24.01.2020. 55  N. PALLADIUS, Commonefactio de vera invocatione dei et de vitendis Idolis, Peter Seitzius, Wittenberg 1557, p. B5rr, “qui pro sua private autoritate & Satanica præsumptione, sine mandato legitimi Magistratus, ui manu imagines perdunt, Danicé, Billedestormere”, https://archive. org/details/den-kbd-pil-130018101115-001/page/n18, accessed 17.01.2020. 52

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removal of church art occurred much later, in Bergen around 1570.56 While churches and monasteries were closed down or demolished, leaving the church furnishings homeless, church art never appears to have been the specific target, the loss more like a kind of collateral damage. The “gentle and canny” approach of Christian III resulted in the fact that a lot of medieval church art survived the Reformation, while the slow and gradual transition from old to new meant that the old church art for quite some time must have corresponded to the devotional life of people and thus remained an attractive investment. The redistribution of church art in Western Norway During the decades immediately following the Reformation, it seems that no churches were emptied of their artworks, and if the situation at Elgeseter monastery in Trondheim is representative, the church art was not even removed from closed down churches. As we have seen in Bergen, demolition of churches began before the Reformation, and the authorities must have accumulated quite a collection. In this perspective, a “warehouse of second-hand church art” in Bergen made sense. It would store redundant and homeless church art, function as a “staple” in the Hanseatic sense and make it accessible to prospect buyers, in this way being instrumental in redistributing it all over Western Norway. While evidence of such a warehouse certainly is at best circumstantial, any argument against it ex silentio would fail to acknowledge the fact that scarcity of documents is the usual situation in pre-seventeenth-century Norway. After all, if we think of the vast amount of church art in the churches in the late Middle Ages, only two (German) instances of a purchase of altarpieces for Norway are mentioned in documents from the entire period between 1350 and 1550.57 To further investigate this idea, one might look at still extant works pointing to post-Reformation redistribution, as well as at the very few scraps of early modern documentary evidence concerning churches, church art or furnishings. 56  N. GILJE, “Saa ere nu saadanne Billedstytter døde træ oc stene”. Billedstriden i Bergen 15681572, in: Tidsskrift for kulturforskning, vol. 10, no. 2-3, Bergen, 2011, in general. 57  Niederstadtbuch, Lübeck, 1436, the piece worth 40 marks was to be made by Berthold von Stenvorde and his son, see S. GRIEG, Ringsakers kirkes gamle herlighet. Kulturhistoriske studier over nederlandske og nordtyske alterskap i Norge, De sandvigske samlinger, Skr. III, Lillehammer, 1955, p. 193. The second is found in Hansisches Urkundenbuch, vol. IX, 1463-1470, Duckler and Humblot eds., Leipzig 1903, p. 89. No. 156, 17 February 1465. The purchase, or commission, was for “ener tafelen myt bylden” (sculptures), the letter is from the representatives of the merchants connected with Bergen to the city council in Lüneburg. See https://www.hansischergeschichtsverein.de/recherche?von=1903&bis=1903&typ=6&suche=Bergen, accessed 20.01.2020.

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Even if few, there are some indications that pieces of medieval church art travelled around after the Reformation, originally having decorated a different church, which means that medieval church art was still placed in churches long after 1537.58 The scarcity of documentary evidence in Norway makes comparisons with Denmark fruitful. What happened there would a fortiori describe the situation in Norway as well.59 That the small late medieval triptych from Eksingedalen originally came from a side altar in another church is a given, since there simply was no church in Eksingedalen until the mid-seventeenth century. (Fig. 3.2) According to a secondary inscription on the frame, the larger part of a late medieval painted panel from c. 1470, depicting the passion, was donated in 1643 to the small church at Volda in Sunnmøre. The only thing we can know, then, is that originally it came from some other church. The proportions of a large figure of Christ from Kyrkjebø in Sogn, 180 cm tall, indicate that it was positioned rather high up, perhaps placed on a rood screen. The corpus is of high quality and was probably transferred to Kyrkjebø from the demolished church at Austreim close by. Originally, however, it seems more likely that a crucifix this size would have been made for a monastery or large city church in Bergen rather than the small church at Austreim.60 As late as in 1590, a monumental late medieval altarpiece was donated to Onsøy church in Eastern Norway by the noblewoman Dorte Juul.61 In the eighteenth century, altarpieces from other churches and twenty-one sculptures from the thirteenth 58  Hence, one has to disagree with Margrethe Stang when she stated in 2007 that there was no evidence that church art moved about in Norway after the Reformation, see M. STANG, Peter Gudleiksson på Eide og alterfrontalet fra Nedstryn, in: J.F. HATLEN, and P. THONSTAD, (eds.) En sann historiker: festskrift til Svein Henrik Pedersen,Trondheim, 2007, 27-31, here p. 28. One instructive example is H. FR. RØRDAM, ed., Danske kirkelove 1536-1683 København, 1883, no. 268, pp. 300-301, letter of 25 July 1550 concerning the citizens in Præstø, Sjælland. 59  See, for example, ibid. no. 329, p. 333, letter of 3 June 1552, ordering the demolition of the former Dominican church in Viborg on Jutland, using the building materials for the cathedral, and transferring the furnishings as well. Or, as the church at Tved on Fyn was closed in 1554, the parishioners were transferred to the church of Our Lady, whereby all “ornaments, be it vestments, bells or other items in the church at Tved should be used for the good of the church of Our Lady”, see ibid. no. 414, p. 393, letter of 30 October 1554. A further slightly earlier testimony dates to the end of 1546, see ibid. no. 188, p. 264. The citizens of Fåborg on Fyn had to give up their old parish church, St. Nicholas in 1539, but was given the monastery church instead. The furnishings were moved to the new parish church, no. 29, p. 141. 60  The passion panel from Volda (inv.no. MA318) came to Bergen Museum in 1885; the crucifix from Kyrkjebø (inv.no. MA666) in 1893, and the triptych from Eksingedalen (inv.no. MA608) from the chapel at Flatekvål in 1883. 61  B. LAVOLD, Alterskapet i Bjugn kirke. Kilde til katolsk og luthersk tro og praksis, in: Årbok for Fosen 2001, Orkanger, 2001, 7-26, here p. 21.

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Fig. 3.2. The altarpiece was based on an engraving by Meister E.S. from the 1460s, as a typical early sixteenth-century small altarpiece for a side altar. In 1864, it came to the museum in Bergen from Flatekvål chapel in Eksingedalen. Originally, the small altarpiece, measuring only 78 by 76 cm when closed, would have decorated a side altar in another church since there was no church in Eksingedalen until the mid-seventeenth century. Interestingly, the crude inscription on the basis of the sculpture seems to be secondary, rendering the Marian prayer AV[E] MARIA GRAC[I]A PLE[NA]. The inscription on the predella is much more elaborate, but now unreadable. Unknown artist: Triptych, the Virgin Mary with Christ Child, flanked by Paul and Peter (in the north wing) and two unknown saints. (inv.no. MA608), c. 1515. From the chapel at Eksingedalen. Photo: Svein Skare, Universitetsmuseet, Bergen.

century were kept at Austråt, Trøndelag.62 Perhaps the manor had been used to store church art from the region. A rather late piece of information describes how the prominent church at Trondenes, Nordland, had provided several 62  Ibid. p. 22. The late medieval altarpiece in the church at Bjugn, Trøndelag, came to the church sometime after 1637.

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churches in the area with art and furnishings.63 Of course, not all artworks needed to pass through the storeroom in Bergen; some might in some way have been distributed locally among churches in the area. In 1544, the superintendent Geble Pederssøn and governor Christoffer Huitfeldt decided to close four churches to raise money for the work at the Holy Cross church in Bergen. They were to be emptied of everything, including “bells, wooden materials and ornaments”.64 Again, it seems unlikely that those responsible simply threw out “ornaments”, as long as they still represented a monetary value or could be used elsewhere.65 Church art and furnishings may have been easy to remove. Since they were once imported and reassembled on the spot, they could be dismounted and remounted according to local circumstances and necessities. And, of course, they could be moved from one church to another.66 How easily church art could be taken down or put up is shown in the diocese of Chichester 1568, where many rood-lofts were kept and could easily be re-erected should circumstances change.67 With obvious local adaptions, easy removal and re-erection of the art and furnishings must be regarded a constitutive feature of the expediency of a warehouse of homeless church art. Since the removal of art was not a result of any religiously fueled iconoclastic frenzy, one might envisage a dispassionate and ordered procedure of dismantling works of art to provide an income for the Crown.68 Moreover, local carpenters, carvers or artisans knew

63  Information in the visitation notes of bishop Frederik Nannestad of Trondheim in 1750; see R.H. BERGESEN, Sangere i det himmelske Jerusalem : funksjonsanalyser av middelalderinventaret i Trondenes kirke, PhD dissertation, UiT, Tromsø, 2012, p. 44, online: https://munin.uit. no/handle/10037/4280, accessed 02.02.2018. The vicar Hans Egede grew up in the area; in 1721 he mentioned that a couple of altarpieces had recently come from Trondenes to churches in the area, ibid. p. 59. The University Museum in Bergen has a small triptych which is said to have come from Trondenes via Ålesund, see ibid. p. 89-92. 64  NRR vol. 1, p. 93; letter of 8 March 1574 referring to a letter by Geble Pederssøn dated 25 January 1544. It concerned the churches Rygge at Aurland, Henjum at Leikanger and Hval at Stedje, all in Sogn; and Framnes outside Os in Hordaland. 65  H. v. ACHEN, Reformationen og kirkekunsten i Bergen, in E. HAUG, Fra avlatshandel til folkekirke, 43-72 deals with the question of reused medieval art after the Reformation, the second-hand market in Bergen, and the resulting problem of provenance. 66  See DUFFY 1992, pp. 577 and 583. 67  Ibid. p. 577. 68  A sixteenth-century painting of the Calvinist sack of Lyon in April 1562 does not, even in a Calvinist iconoclastic event, show much destruction of church art, but people noting the value of items or selling them to anybody willing to pay. The painting is in the Musée Historique in Lyon.

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how to handle and repair items like altarpieces or even sculptures.69 In terms of sales potential and value, a considerable amount of the art must have been relatively new and only slightly used, due to the general attitude towards donating art combined with the frequency of fires in the city. During the fifteenth century, major fires broke out in Bergen in 1413, 1476 and 1489. Yet, it remains uncertain what it meant when a church is recorded “burned”, and to what extent the interiors were obliterated. Many artworks would probably have been hastily dismantled and brought to safety elsewhere, either as flames moved towards the church, or even when it had already caught fire, particularly perhaps, smaller works like side altar decorations and single pieces. Of course, some art might well have been damaged beyond repair. In 1465, the Franciscan monastery in Bergen needed a new altarpiece, the old one having succumbed to a fire two years before, as the church had burned “with all the equipment” (tobehoringen).70 Nevertheless, as donations continued until the very eve of the Reformation, by 1537 a lot of the artworks in churches must have been relatively recently acquired. Even at reduced prices, the church art was not without market value. In 1436, the Dominicans in Trondheim paid 40 Lübeck mark for a “tabula”. In 1519, this would be the cost of some 2500 bricks or 2000 tiles; in the years around 1537, one had to pay almost that sum for one ship cargo of rye.71 Though registered when removed from a given church, the income from the sale of such royal property may have been at the disposal of the governor to cover expenses in the grey area between his obligations to the king and his own needs. Obviously, before the more systematic cleansing of churches from the 1560s onwards, if such a removal of art took place outside Bergen at all, the idea of a “store-room” or “warehouse” for redundant or homeless church art presupposes a surplus of art stemming from churches no longer in use. The churches on 69

 K. KAUSLAND, 2017 pp. 152-155. The box of the triptych from Skjervøy, Troms, was made of local oak, probably in Bergen, while the sculptures were made of oak from Northern Germany, see email to the author from K. KAUSLAND, 07.12.2017. In 1401 an artisan or artist (bilæthamestarenom ) was commissioned to repair a statue of the Virgin Mary in the parish church at Tjølling, Vestfold, see DN I, nr. 578, letter of 7 December 1401; “vare fru bilæth j ydrar sokna kirkiu (…) bilæthamestarenom sem þett skal bætra”. 70  See footnote 57. 71  NRR 1, p. 42, receipt for 30 marks payment, dated 1 February 1533; on the economy see also LAVOLD, 2001 p. 16, and H. v. ACHEN, Sengotiske alterskabe i Hordaland. Studier i senmiddelalderens kunstmiljø, in: Fortidsminnesmerkeforeningens årbokOslo 1981, pp. 31-32. The price for bricks and tiles was paid by the cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark, in 1519 in (probably) Danish mark, see Danske middelalderlige regnskaber. Roskildekirkens jordebøger og regnskaber, pp. 357-358.

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Holmen, demolished in 1529-31, must certainly have stocked up the store room, while the collection of church art must have grown further after 1537. The Brigittine abbey of Munkeliv, since 1531 the residence of Bishop Olaf, was burned down in 1536, and in 1562 it was described as “the decayed and desolate Munkeliv monastery”.72 Whether or not any church art was removed prior to 1536 we do not know. The Augustinian monastery of St. John might have been dissolved well before the Reformation, but the church was still standing in 1552 when it was designated as a town hall, which, however, never happened, and in 1561 the complex may have sustained some damage by a fire in the area.73 The Cistercian Lyse abbey was dissolved in 1536, and in 1560 the governor in Bergen was told to demolish those buildings which could no longer be saved.74 Apart from monastery churches, several parish churches were closed, among those St. Lawrence which was on the market as a secular space in 1568. By 1563, the church of St. Peter’s had already disappeared, in 1559, All Saints’ church, another royal chapel, was described as a “desolate church”. St. Hallvard’s was in use as a church until its demolition probably began in 1559, while the Scholeus-engraving of Bergen from 1580 depicts St. Nicholas’ church as a ruin (Fig. 3.3). From all these churches, and more, each with several altars, an abundance of church art and furnishings would have been collected. Added to the collection of art from the churches on Holmen, this must have constituted a considerable collection of now homeless church art. The storeroom for second-hand church art That some redistribution of church art must have taken place before the Reformation, between 1528 and 1537 is, of course, evident. The combination of the amount of redundant artworks, the fact that a lot of them must have been relatively new and did represent some sales value, and that they were moveable and by no means fixtures whose fate was inextricably linked to the fate of the churches, makes it reasonable to suggest the existence of a royal “warehouse”, a

72

 NRR vol. 1, p. 346, letter of 17 April 1562. The last Brigettine nun died in 1568.  The plan to use the monastery as a town hall was confirmed as late as in 1600; see a letter of 29 May 1600, rendered in NRR vol. 3, pp. 598-599. 74  NICOLAYSEN, 1862-1866, p. 409, referring to a royal letter of 9 March 1560. A mortgage deed of 10 December 1546 allowed one Nils Berrildssøn to manage the monastery estate, paying 500 Daler yearly, and undertake the keep of buildings; see NRR vol. 1, p. 89. 73

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Fig. 3.3. The ruined St. Nicholas church in Bergen 1581, some twenty years before it was demolished. Detail of the engraved illustration of Bergen by Frans Hogenberg, based on a drawing from 1581 by Hieronymus Scholeus, published in Civitates orbis terrarium, vol. 4, Köln, Georg Braun: 1588 (inv.no. By 1685b). Photo: Universitetsmuseet, Bergen.

veritable second-hand store for church art and furnishings.75 If the governor in Bergen wanted to preserve and sell homeless church art on a larger scale to line the royal coffers, how could he not arrange a sheltered place to keep and present the items? This might seem a somewhat bold assumption, but the situation in Norway makes it probable. Concerning redundant vestments, there is, indeed, documentary evidence that such storing took place, delivering a direct proof of the existence of a storeroom for items from former churches, a “staplefunction” as it were. On the 6 November 1562, King Frederik II wrote to his governor in Bergen instructing him to sell off redundant vestments. those vestments which you have in your possession in the castle belonging to Us, you may sell to various churches, or to anybody to whom they might be useful, and use the income for the good of the crown.76

Here, we have what Walsham has called “recycling”, namely liturgical objects reused in a profane context, but also the possibility of churches in the region purchasing vestments for further liturgical use. The chasuble from Hjørundfjord displays an embroidered, rather uncommon, iconography, namely the 75  On this situation and the amount of homeless church art in Bergen after 1528, see H. v. ACHEN, Reformasjonen og kirkekunsten i Bergen, in E. HAUG, (ed.), Fra avlatshandel til folkekirke, Oslo, 2017, in general. 76  NRR vol. 1, p. 362, letter of 6 November 1562.

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lives and martyrdom of the patron saints of shoemakers, Crispin and Crispinian. Since there is no reason to assume that the small church in distant Hjørundfjord was dedicated to these saints, the more likely explanation is that the chasuble was purchased from the church of the German shoemakers in Bergen, St. Hallvard (fig. 3.4). In 1559-60, the Crown had the church torn down, and in November 1562, it is possible that the chasuble was among those in the care of the governor.77 The royal permission to sell out may have concerned a large collection of chasubles, copes, dalmatics and coverings removed from the prominent churches on Holmen, while others from monasteries or demolished city churches had accumulated during the twenty-five years since the Reformation. Moreover, written documents confirm that at the time vestments were transferred from one church to another, as was the case when in 1557, vestments were sent to the church at St. Jørgen’s hospital in Bergen from the dissolved Augustinian monastery on Halsnøy, south of Bergen. Among items wanted for the hospital church, vestments were mentioned explicitly.78 This handling of vestments may well have had a parallel concerning redundant church art and furnishings. Even though it was the largest city in the country, there is no reason to believe that measures to handle redundant church art were taken in Bergen alone. A similar situation must have existed in at least Trondheim and Oslo. In Trondheim, it was decided in 1552 that decayed churches should be torn down to provide materials for the restoration of the cathedral. A few years later, in 1556, the king instructed the governor and the superintendent in Oslo to provide bricks from decayed churches and chapels, “where there are no services”, for the renovation of the royal castle.79 The amount of homeless church  A. WALSHAM, Recycling the Sacred: Material Culture and Cultural Memory after the English Reformation, in Church History, 86:4 (2017) in general. On St. Hallvard’s church, see Norges kirker, Bergen, vol. 1, p.141. On the chasuble from Hjørundfjord, see v. ACHEN, 2017, pp. 48-50. The chasuble, inv.no. MA51, came to Bergen’s Museum in 1864. A similar explanation served to suggest the provenance of a Lübeck altarpiece c. 1490 with the same motif in St. Annen Museum in Lübeck, namely that it originally belonged to the shoemakers’ altar in Saint Peter’s in Lübeck,, see J. H. VENNESBUSCH in the catalogue Lübeck 1500. Kunstmetropole im Ostseeraum, Petersberg, 2015, p. 194. 78  NRR, vol. 1, p. 214, letter of 17 January 1557. 79  Concerning Trondheim, see NRR vol. I, p. 153, letter of 19 July 1552, and Oslo, see ibid. p. 204, letter of 22 October 1556. The demand in Oslo was 30-40.000 bricks — almost the value of one golden chalice which was sold from Roskilde cathedral in Denmark to the bishop in 1520, see Danske middelalderlige regnskaber. Roskildekirkens jordebøger og regnskaber, pp. 367-368. According to a letter of spring 1542, the prominent royal chapel in Oslo, St. Mary’s, was decayed beyond repair; see DN XXII no. 441. 77

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Fig. 3.4. The patron saints of shoemakers, Crispin and Crispinian, offering free shoes to the poor. Detail of a (Flemish?) chasuble from c. 1500, embroidery on Italian velvet cloth (inv. No. MA51), probably from the church of the shoemakers, St. Hallvard, in Bergen, demolished 1559-60. Photo: Universitetsmuseet, Bergen.

art to redistribute to churches in the region, might have been particularly impressive in Bergen, but it was probably a more general phenomenon in Norway. Furthermore, annex churches in the district would have provided additional church art for redistribution. The visitation diary of superintendent Nielssøn from the 1590s testifies to many annex churches still standing but no longer in use. One example is the annex church at Vatnås, which had been desolate since before 1575, “its bells and ornaments long since removed”.80 80  Y. NIELSEN, 1885 includes a list 1591/98 of main churches and annexes in the dioceses of Oslo and Hamar, with many desolate annex churches, pp. 1-19. About the annex church at

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With so much second-hand church art available, it is understandable that village churches were in no dire need for new art, particularly since the general mood did nothing to promote specifically Lutheran motifs. However, we know of one instance where new Lutheran church art, or decorations, was introduced during this early stage of the post-Reformation era in Norway. In the 1550s in Bergen, the superintendent had a number of canvases painted and hung on the walls of the cathedral.81 Even painted texts would have been images of the Word, but since the old Catholic images were still in place, his canvasses may have displayed some kind of Lutheran imagery. Summing up all we know about the situation in the early post-Reformation era, we might imagine that church art and furnishings from demolished churches were sold under royal control through the governor (fig. 3.5). To preserve items until they were sold, they must have been kept in some kind of storehouse — as we know that vestments were stored in the royal palace. Perhaps the items were kept in a desolate church in the city, like St. Columba or St. Lawrence. Here, interested parishes as well as individuals could visit and view the items offered, then perhaps decide to buy something at a reasonable price for their local church, their home, or even private chapel. Perhaps article 24 of the synod of 1589 in Bergen indirectly testified to the problem of locals purchasing homeless art for their churches, when it stated that when churches are renovated, dispositions are not up to the church wardens alone, but had to be carried out in consultation with the provost or superintendent.82 “The old ways” and the religious visual culture As we have seen, King Christian III wanted no revolutionary process with violent suppression of old ways and change of church interiors; on the contrary, the need for a general sense of continuity was stressed to make the transition as Vatnås, Oslo diocese, see ibid. p. 4, “denne kircke er nu plat ødelagt oc forfalden, oc alle klocker, oc ornamenter, som der laage til, ere lenge siden tagen derfra” https://www.nb.no/nbsok/nb/36 32251d790fb2d4a45356ee5a7be8cc?lang=no#0, accessed 8 February. 2019. 81  A. PEDERSSØN BEYER, Dakbok og oration om mester Geble, diary 1552-1571, text volume, ed. R. IVERSEN Oslo-Bergen, 1963, p. 59. They were still there in 1684, cf. E. EVARDSEN: Bergens beskrivelse, 1684, vol. 1-2, O. BRATTEGÅRD, ed., Bergens historiske forenings skrifter 57/58, 1951/52, vol. 2, p. 31: “Hand (…) lod oc male de Tafler paa Læret som ere fæstede til Væggen”. 82  I. MONTGOMERY, Synoden som ett led i reformationskyrkans inre konsolidering. Synoderna i Bergen 1584 och 1589, in I. BROHED (ed.) Reformationens konsolidering i de nordiska länderna 1540-1610, Oslo, 1990, p. 90.

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Fig. 3.5. An impression of how a “warehouse” of slightly used second-hand church art may have looked in Bergen, c. 1550. Drawing and watercolour by the author. Photo: Adnan Icagic, Universitetsmuseet, Bergen.

painless as possible for the population — and thereby for the king. For now, securing military and administrative control, collecting the wealth needed to do so, and keeping the population calm had priority. Therefore, continuity had to be emphasized and the visual culture of the old faith tolerated accordingly. Initially, the reformers and ecclesial authorities adopted the same strategy, namely to make as few changes as possible, and then slowly catechize people to make them regard their old ways differently and lose their attachment to their devotional instruments. The national synods of 1546 and 1555 in Denmark voiced this approach directly, pointing out that one should preach against images, particularly where they were part of devotional practices, thereby first removing the images from the hearts of the people, before they might then easier “be gently removed by the church wardens”.83 However, since devotional 83  National synod at Antvorskov 25 October 1546, and in Copenhagen 12 May 1555. “Presterne skulle flittelige predicke imod alle billeders misbrug, at de motte først tagis aff folckits

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instruments and the devotions themselves were entwined,84 it turned out that this approach was inefficient, as the reformers simply did not manage to remove the hearts of the faithful from their images. The resistance to the new ways did not die out, and in 1551 the superintendents in Norway were instructed to arrange three days of atonement, not least for neglect of proper Lutheran ceremonies.85 In the second and radicalized phase of the Reformation, from the 1560s, it was turned around; now the removal of the images themselves should remove the images from people’s hearts.86 The Reformation in Norway certainly entailed an important ecclesiological and theological change, but initially, the authorities were forced to attempt a gradual transition from old to new, since other and more pressing issues than religion were at stake. While the change was clear, and sudden, in terms of politics and economy, the religious change was administrative, almost impossible to discern, the situation characterized by continuity rather than disruption. It was like a split between the old faith and Lutheranism, at first almost invisible, then slowly widening until the change became an established fact as a new Christian denomination with its own religious practices. What at first appeared as a continuum was in fact a change in radice, at first barely visible and difficult to recognize, later, as the gap between old and new widened and hardened, more obvious.87 The late medieval church may be defined as a cluster of devotional spaces, organized around a space for the communal celebration of mass. The emphasis on keeping the church interior familiar and to initiate only a very slow change, testifies to the role the local church played to the point of becoming itself an instrument of devotion, a space where both individual and collective memory dwelt, a space filled with tangible objects in front of which faith “took place”.88 hierte, oc saa med lempe aff kierckevergerne udryddis, besynderlig huor nogen knefald eller anden affguderi findis endnu der til at skie”, DKL I, pp. 250-251 and 461. 84  H v. ACHEN, Piety, Practice and Process, in H. LAUGERUD – L. SKINNEBACH (eds.), Instruments of Devotion. The Practices and Objects of Religious Piety from the Late Middle Ages to the 20 th Century, Århus 2007, 23-44, particularly pp. 24-29. See also L. K. SKINNEBACH, 2017, p. 52, stressing the relationship between materiality and mentality, “Materialitet - forstået som sanselige oplevelser, genstand, rum og handlinger - er den matrix hvori troen sker”, sensual experiences, objects, space and actions constitute the matrix in which faith takes place (or expresses itself, literally: happens). 85  H. WINGE, 1988, no. 80, letter of 13 October 1551. 86  See H. v. ACHEN, “Another Age will Damage and Destroy”, p. 83. 87  In his description of the religious development from 1540 to the 1570s, Eamon Duffy has shown this slow change in the Cornish village of Morebath; see E. DUFFY, 2000 in general. 88  In this respect, see E. DUFFY, Marking the Hours. English People & their Prayers 12401570, New Haven-London, 2006, esp. chapter 3, “Devotional isolation?”, 53-64. Also, H. LAUGERUD, 2018, pp. 298-304.

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Since the thirteenth century, the church interior had changed into a space of the heart and of prayer, but taking place in a public space private practices did gain a communal dimension89. The instruments of devotion were embedded in practices, simultaneously shaping piety and being shaped by it. The complex structure of late medieval piety had at least one basic feature creating late medieval religious culture, namely the practical and material dimension of faith.90 Faith as a belief system and as practice were inextricably intertwined; it was neither solely spiritual nor solely intellectual.91 In devotional life, then, a distinction between outward, superficial, acts of faith and a true inner or spiritual disposition made no sense. Therefore, the practice of faith was not something simply to shed to focus on faith itself, it was how faith was expressed and lived. From contemporary images and the rubrics of prayer books, we know that devotional life consisted of something to pray, something to do, and a place to do it; where one could light candles and relate to a certain iconography. Targeting the side altars, the reformers wanted to destroy the economy attached to liturgical commemoration of the dead, but more importantly to obstruct devotional life itself. The visitation book of superintendent Peder Palladius (1503-1560) in Denmark, probably written only a few years after the Reformation, around 1541, stressed the importance of only one altar, already presupposing a number of demolished altars in the churches which could provide, then, materials for new pulpits.92 The Lutheran change of the church interior was by effect and intention alike much more than a “pragmatic reorganization of sacred space”;93 removing side altars meant removing all places in the churches where most of the devotional life of people took place outside mass, making devotional practices “homeless”. This homelessness was enhanced by

89  A. ANGENENDT, Geschichte der Religiosität im Mittelalter, 4th ed., Wissenschaftlige Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2009, p. 439. Ses also E. DUFFY, 2006, in general. 90  See H. LAUGERUD, S. RYAN and L. K. SKINNEBACH (eds.): The Materiality of Devotion in Late Medieval Northern Europe. Images, Objects, and Practices, Dublin, 2016, which offers an insightful treatment of the subject. 91  H. LAUGERUD, 2018, pp. 85 and 293-294, emphasizing the role of memory and remembrance connected with what is done and seen. See also C.W. BYNUM, Christian Materiality. An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe, New York, 2011, pp. 270 and 285; and A. WALSHAM, 2017, p. 1124. 92  JACOBSEN, 1925, p. 33. He suggested the pulpits be made properly, using materials from the destroyed altars which were to be found everywhere in the churches; “uel opbyggitt eller opmurit aff de ødelagde Altere, som saa mange nu findis alleuegne udj kirker”. See also L. K. SKINNEBACH, 2017, p. 53. 93  As stated by T. LEHTONEN – L. KALJUNDI, 2016, p. 35.

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closing so many small local churches and chapels, making devotional life and daily life incompatible. As the King consolidated his position, he could afford to give up his initial patience and tolerance. Since open resistance to the new religious authorities indicated an unacceptable disregard for royal authority, confrontations became unavoidable. Contempt for the new, imported religion, a clear unwillingness to comply with religious discipline, became the mode of popular rebellion, the language of discontent. Around 1546, the governor in Bergen, Christoffer Huitfeldt (c. 1501-1559), wrote an open letter censuring the country folk in the diocese of Bergen, critizing that they were stuck in their old ways and disregarded the royal commands concerning active adherence to the new and true Christianity. He threatened to fine them, insisting that they build pulpits in the churches, and that candles were lit only on the high altars and nowhere else.94 Similar complaints are recorded from various parts of the country.95 Nevertheless, people continued to show contempt for the new church institution, keeping to their old faith and practices. In 1555, the authorities in Vestfold, Eastern Norway, put their foot down and two peasants openly adhering to the old faith were arrested and burnt — a forerunner of a new and less tolerant era.96 As in England under Elizabeth I, rejection of the new religion amounted to lesemajesty, and the use of devotional instruments to abominable idolatry. When the superintendent in Oslo, Jens Nielssøn, in 1577 wrote that piety was now homeless, as were good and honorable customs, he lamented a religious and moral attitude subject to the wrath of God, not the lack of side altars or devotional spaces in the churches.97 However, the criticism of the anabaptists by the Danish clergyman, Niels Helvad (1564-1634), encompassed all changes taking place in the radicalized period after the 1560s. He stated that “some in authority remove images, otherwise useful for supporting the memory of common folk who could not read and serve their devotion. Instead, they place their own epitaphs there, or some gilt letters, of which the peasant understands as little as a crow on a Sunday”.98 What had been removed, then, was most 94

 DN XXII no. 468, document dating between September 1545 and December 1548.  H. LAUGERUD, 2018, p. 138 and O. KOLSRUD, Folket og reformasjonen i Noreg, (1937), in: Norske historikere i utvalg, vol. 7, Oslo-Bergen-Tromsø, 1981, p. 113. 96  O. KOLSRUD, 1981, pp. 114-115. 97  E. KRAGGERUD (ed.), Johannes Nicolai. Biskop Jens Nielssøns latinske skrifter, Oslo, 2004, p. 30, “Exulat en pietas, en morum insignis honestas ….” 98  N. HELVAD, Eleusinia Sacra. Kort oc enfoldelige Forklaring offuer woris Kircker oc god Gamle Kircke Ceremonier / oc vdwortis christelige Gudz Tienisti, København, 1597: “En part tage Billeder 95

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likely pre-Reformation imagery, as they substituted representations of saints with those of themselves, while “gilt letters” allude to the catechism-altarpieces introduced in the 1580s. In retrospect, the usefulness of the old imagery was recognized, which may add a catechetic explanation of the pragmatic leniency of the first generation of reformers. Conclusion There was a vast number of church art and furnishings rendered homeless as churches were closed down or demolished in Bergen, hardly any of it succumbing to incidents of iconoclasm. On the contrary, the emptying of churches most likely happened in an orderly fashion. A market for such art continued to exist, probably supported and organized by the authorities carefully promoting a gradual transition as well as lining the royal coffers. If homeless church art were collected and sold from a warehouse in Bergen, as vestments were sold from the castle, the procedure supplied a market kept alive through the resilience of the old ways and tactical choice of King Christian III. Due to the many side altars in churches, a lot of the imagery in such a warehouse of art in Bergen would have been images originally decorating side altars, their size probably making them easier to sell. If redundant art could still be sold off to parishes long after the Reformation, it would indicate a large-scale redistribution of artworks all over Western Norway. Representing a concrete monetary value, altar decorations, altarpieces, sculptures, procession staffs, paintings, wall hangings, vestments and other textiles etc. had to be collected, registered, preserved and presented to prospective buyers. How could the governor not organize a storeroom to serve this purpose, for instance an empty church? This essay submits that he probably did, “for the good of the Crown”.

aff kircken (som giffue Allmuen der ey kand Lese en god paamindelse oc andact) oc sætte deris egne Epitaphia eller ocsaa nogen forgyldede Bogstauer i stæde / huor paa Bonden sig lige saa megit forstaar / som kragen paa Søndagen”, quoted from B. ARVIDSSON, Bildstrid, bildbruk, bildlära. En idéhistorisk undersökning av bildfrågan inom den begynnande lutherska traditionen under 1500-talet, Lund, 1987, p. 194.

II. THE SPIRITUALITY OF MATERIAL PRACTICE

TROUBLESOME BOOKS DISRUPT DEVOTIONAL LIFE AT THE CONVENT OF ST. MARY MAGDALENE THE PENITENT IN FREIBERG, SAXONY Austra REINIS

In the night from 6–7 October 1528, three nuns, Dorothea Tanbergerin, Margaretha Volckmarin, and the Duchess Ursula von Münsterberg (1491/95– after 1534), fled the convent of St. Mary Magdalene the Penitent (Magdalenerinnenkloster or Jungfrauenkloster) in Freiberg in Ducal Saxony and made their way to Wittenberg in Electoral Saxony. In the wake of their flight, Duke George of Saxony (1471–1539), ruler of Ducal Saxony and adamant opponent of Martin Luther’s reforms, ordered an investigation, which took place from 27–29 January 1529.1 The visiting officials discovered that the nuns had read books by Martin Luther, his friends, and his opponents and that their reading had split them into opposing parties. Questioned as to whether there were Lutheran books in the convent, the nuns still loyal to the old faith (“dye noch christlich sein”) replied that even though a number of books had been surrendered, others were still likely in the possession of the Lutheran nuns or had been smuggled out of the convent for the duration of the visitation. Ursula Meyßnerin, who disagreed with Luther’s teaching, complained that “all the discord in the convent had its cause and origin in the books!”2 Anna Kreulin, on the other hand, a nun who agreed with Luther, said she “would not give them up at any cost, because they most certainly were serving her soul’s salvation”.3

1

 On Ursula of Münsterberg and the flight of the nuns, see, most recently, S. ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster in der Reformationszeit: Lebensformen von Nonnen in Sachsen zwischen Reform und landesherrlicher Aufhebung, Stuttgart, 2016, 136-160. The earliest modern treatments of Ursula’s escape are those of J. K. SEIDEMANN (ed.), Erläuterungen zur Reformationsgeschichte durch bisher unbekannte Urkunden, Dresden, 1844, 105-129, and H. ERMISCH, Herzogin Ursula von Münsterberg: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Reformation in Sachsen, in Neues Archiv für sächsische Geschichte und Alterthumskunde 3 (1882), 290-333. The intervening studies are largely dependent on the documents identified by SEIDEMANN and ERMISCH, including R. BAINTON, Ursula of Münsterberg, in his Women of the Reformation in Germany and Italy, Boston, 1971, 45-53. 2  Bericht über die Visitation des Nonnenklosters. 1529 Jan. 27.–29., in H. ERMISCH (ed.), Urkundenbuch der Stadt Freiberg in Sachsen, vol. 1, Leipzig, 1883, Nr. 714, 485-495, p. 488. 3  Ibid.

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For Martin Luther, residing in Electoral Saxony under the protection of Elector John the Steadfast (1468-1532), and engaged in implementing ecclesiastical reforms arising out of his theological insights, the escape became a public relations coup and the occasion for a further attack on monastic life.4 His Judgment of Martin Luther on Monastic Vows (1521/22), written after he had been excommunicated by Pope Leo X and declared outside the law at the Diet of Worms in 1521, had led to numerous defections from convents.5 Upon the escape of nine nuns, including Luther’s future wife, Katharina von Bora, from the Cistercian convent in Nimbschen near Grimma in 1523, Luther had written an open letter, Reasons and Justifications Why Virgins May Righteously Leave Convents, to defend the man who had facilitated the escape, Leonhard Koppe.6 The following year, 1524, the young noblewoman Florentina von Oberweimar escaped the convent of Neu-Helfta in Eisleben. Luther published her statement justifying her escape together with an open letter of his own to the counts of Mansfeld, appealing to them to withdraw their support from the monastic establishments in their domains and to allow nuns wishing to leave their convents to do so.7 When Ursula von Münsterberg appeared on his doorstep in Wittenberg, Luther could boast that yet another member of the highest nobility had embraced his cause.

 On John the Steadfast, see TH. KLEIN, “Johann der Beständige,” in Neue Deutsche Biographie 10 (1974), 522-524, [Online Version]; URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/ pnd100503225.html#ndbcontent, hereafter NDB, accessed 11 February 2018. 5  M. LUTHER, The Judgment of Martin Luther on Monastic Vows (1521), in J. PELIKAN et al. (ed.), Luther’s Works, St. Louis and Philadelphia, 1955–2009, 44:243-400 (hereafter LW). [= De votis monasticis Martini Lutheri iudicium (1521), in J. F. K. KNAAKE (ed.), D. Martin Luthers Werke, Weimar, 1883–2009, 8:564-669 (hereafter WA).] Luther revised and re-published the work in 1522 and Justus Jonas’s German translation of the revised version was published as Uon denn // geystlichen // vnd kloster // gelubden // Martini // Luthers // vrteyll, Wittenberg, 1522 (VD 16 L 7327); see J. ATKINSON, introduction to The Judgment of Martin Luther on Monastic Vows (1521), LW 44:247. The development of Luther’s thinking about the monastic life beginning with his marginal notes on works of Augustine and Peter Lombard (1509–1510), and ending with his Judgment on Monastic Vows (1521/22) is carefully laid out by B. LOHSE in his Mönchtum und Reformation: Luthers Auseinandersetzung mit dem Mönchsideal des Mittelalters, Göttingen, 1963. Unfortunately, Lohse omits examination of Luther’s later treatments of the subject. 6  M. LUTHER, Ursach und Antwort, daß Jungfrauen Klöster göttlich verlassen mögen (1523), WA 11:387-400. 7  F. VON OBERWEIMAR, Eyn geschicht wie // Got eyner erbarn // kloster Jungfrawe(n) // ausgeholffen hat. // Mit eynem Sende= // brieff M. Luthers // an die Graffen zu // Mansßfelt, Wittemberg, 1524 (VD16 O 91). 4

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Ursula was the daughter of Viktorin (1443–1500), Duke of Münsterberg and Troppau in Silesia, and thus a granddaughter of the Hussite King George of Podebrady (1420–71).8 After the death of Ursula’s parents, her father’s sister, Zedena of Saxony (1449–1510), mother of Dukes George and Henry of Saxony, had placed Ursula in the Jungfrauenkloster, of which she was a patron.9 Ursula was thus a first cousin to George of Saxony, who would oppose the Reformation in Ducal Saxony until his death in 1539, and Henry of Saxony (1473–1541), who resided near the convent in Freiberg with this wife Katharina of Mecklenburg (1487–1561). Katharina supported the Reformation; at her urging, Henry began introducing reforms in Freiberg in 1537.10 Prior to her escape from the Freiberg convent, Ursula had prepared a written defense of her actions. Luther quickly wrote an afterword to it and arranged for it to be published in Wittenberg under the title: The enlightened and highborn Lady Ursula, Duchess of Münsterberg [… gives] Christian reasons for abandoning the convent of Freiberg (fig. 4.1).11 For Duke George, the publication constituted a public embarrassment. In response, he and his brother Henry corresponded with Elector John the Steadfast, asking — ultimately in vain — for Ursula’s arrest and return to Ducal Saxony.12 At the instigation of the visiting  ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 305.  On Zedena’s (also known as Sidonie von Böhmen or Zdenka von Podiebrad) patronage of the convent, see ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, pp. 133-135. 10  On George of Saxony, see E. WERL, Georg der Bärtige (oder der Reiche), in NDB 6 (1964), 224-227 [Online Version]; URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/phn118716921.html# ndbcontent; on Henry of Saxony, see E. WERL, Heinrich der Fromme, in NDB 8 (1969), 391-393 [Online Version]; URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/phn115821872.html#ndbcontent; on Katharina of Mecklenburg, see E. WERL, Katharina, in NDB 11 (1977), 325-326 [Online Version]; URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd119240165.html#ndbcontent; accessed 5 February 2018. 11  U. VON MÜNSTERBERG, Der Durchleuchtigen // hochgebornen F. Vrsulen / Her= // tzogin zu Moensterberg etc. Gre= // fin zu Glotz etc. Christliche // vrsach des verlassen klo= // sters zu Freyberg, Wittemberg, 1528 (VD16 M 6729 and M 6730); a third edition, Der Durchleüch= // tigen hochgepornen F. Vrsu= // len / Hertzogin zu(o) Mo(e)nster= // berg (etc.) Gra(e)ffin zu(o) Glotz (etc.) // Christlich vrsach des // verlassen Klosters // zu(o) Freyberg, was printed in Nuremberg in 1529 (VD16 M 6731); further references are to this third edition. For the digitized version, see the Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachbereich erschienenen Drucke des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (hereafter VD 16/17), online edition, www.gateway-bayern.de/index_vd16.html. For a reprint and translation of selections of the pamphlet, see Ursula of Münsterberg in M. WIESNER-HANKS (ed.) – J. SKOCIR and M. WIESNER-HANKS (transl.), Convents Confront the Reformation: Catholic and Protestant Nuns in Germany, Milwaukee, WI, 1998, 39-63. My own translations of Ursula’s pamphlet are informed by those of Wiesner, except where I quote passages not included in her selections. 12  For the correspondence, see ERMISCH (ed.), Urkundenbuch, vol. 1, Nr. 705-713, pp. 477-485. 8 9

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Fig. 4.1. U. VON MÜNSTERBERG, Der Durchleuchtigen // hochgebornen F. Vrsulen / Her= // tzogin zu Monsterberg etc. Gre= // fin zu Glotz etc. Christlich vr // sach des verlassen Klo= // sters zu Freyberg, Wittemberg, 1528. Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Sig. A: 146.16 Theol. (20), [24] Bl; Quarto. Photo with permission: Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel.

officials and possibly Duke George, the prioress Katharina Freiberg and some of the nuns remaining in the convent agreed to respond to Ursula’s pamphlet.13 What is remarkable about Ursula’s pamphlet (hereafter Christian reasons) and the nuns’ answer to it (hereafter “Convent’s response”) is how often the 13  Antwort des Konvents auf den Sendbrief der Ursula von Münsterberg, in ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, 340-360. For unknown reasons, the response was not published; Zinsmeyer offers a transcription. Cf. Hauptstaatsarchiv (HStA) Dresden: 10024, Loc. 10592/14 (bound with the Visitationsakte, 1524–1534), fols 32-58.

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material objects called ‘books’ are mentioned, sometimes by author, sometimes by title only. Inventories of the convent’s library, dated 1542 and 1572, identify further books.14 In what follows, I propose that the concept of ‘textual communities’ as developed by Brian Stock,15 Alexandra Walsham,16 and Lee Palmer Wandel17 can help shed new light on the function of books in devotional life at the Jungfrauenkloster in the years leading up to the introduction of the Reformation in Freiberg in 1537. Treating the convent as a community governed by texts, I explore how the books that had structured convent devotional life since its founding in the thirteenth century were called into question by new books and pamphlets smuggled in in the 1520s. I demonstrate that the reformers’ books, along with the books of their adversaries, brought the Reformation debates, especially the debate about the monastic life, into the convent. The new books divided the nuns into opposing parties that took different approaches to such devotional practices as observing the canonical hours of prayer and selecting texts for table readings. For some nuns, the books called the monastic life into question altogether and led them to leave the convent. A look at the concept of ‘textual communities,’ followed by a review of recent research on books and literacy in women’s convents in fifteenth- and sixteenthcentury Germany, will set the stage for examining the role of books in the Jungfrauenkloster. Stock, Walsham, and Palmer Wandel each identify various functions that texts serve depending on context. Stock presents case studies of selected French and Italian heretical movements to argue for “the rebirth of literacy and of its 14  The 1542 inventory of convent books is transcribed in J. PETZHOLDT, Bibliotheken der Kloester und des Collegiat-Stiftes zu Freiberg, Dresden, 1842, p. 28. Cf. HStA Dresden: 10024, Loc. 10595/03, Visitationsacta der Klöster im Lande zu Meißen und Thüringen, 1542, fol. 74r. For a transcription of the 1572 inventory, along with extensive bibliographical references, see Buchinventar des Freiberger Nonnenklosters, in ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, 364-371. Cf. HStA Dresden: 10036, Loc. 32455, Rep. 20, Freiberg, Nr. 16: Inventar des Jungfrauenklosters zu Freiberg 1572, fols 9v-11. A further catalogue was produced in 1772/80, by which time the library had expanded to include more books of later generations of writers; see ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 364. The books still extant are presently held by the library of the Ev.-Luth. Landeskirchenamt Sachsens in Dresden. Of these extant books, H. DÖRING has identified and catalogued the 42 incunabula; see his Freiberger Inkunabelkatalog, Berlin, 1993, pp. 118122 and 195-196. 15  B. STOCK, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, Princeton, NJ, 1983. 16  A. WALSHAM, Preaching Without Speaking: Script, Print and Religious Dissent, in J. CRICK –A. WALSHAM, The Uses of Script and Print, 1300–1700, Cambridge, 2004, 211-234. 17  L. PALMER WANDEL, Reading Catechisms, Teaching Religion, Leiden, 2016.

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effects upon the cultural life of the eleventh and twelfth centuries”.18 He demonstrates that during this era, reformers and heretics alike used texts “both to structure the internal behavior of [their] groups’ members and to provide solidarity against the outside world”. The driving force behind a textual community, however, was not the text, but rather “an individual, who, having mastered [the text], then utilized it for reforming a group’s thought or action”.19 Textual communities made liberal use of oral communication. Their core text, “whether it consisted of a few maxims or an elaborate programme, was often re-performed orally,” and eventually was internalized. Building, in part, on the work of Stock, Walsham examines the use of written and printed texts by persecuted minorities to disseminate their ideas in pre- and post-Reformation England. For clergy forbidden to preach openly, “written and printed texts could […] operate as a proxy […] for the living voice”.20 They provided a means for geographically-dispersed like-minded individuals to communicate with each other and to establish a sense of community.21 Palmer Wandel applies the concept of textual communities to the German and Swiss contexts of the Reformation era, focusing in particular on printed catechisms. “Printed objects,” Wandel posits, “became a key medium for the formation of communities […]. Multiple copies of the same text, or texts, such as Luther’s German Catechism, pirated and adapted for use in different places, materially united persons living in mountain valleys and hidden in cities”.22 Printed objects could affirm a person’s belonging to a particular place or differentiate that person from another place;23 furthermore, “[p]rint offered a singular kind of material stability in a world of dispersed churches”.24 Books, literacy, and learning in German convents have been the focus of scholarly attention since the 1990s. The research has shown a great deal of variation in levels of literacy among nuns. Marie-Luise Ehrenschwendtner has drawn on numerous sources to describe literacy and devotional practices in Dominican convents in Southern Germany. She demonstrates that readings, both of Scripture and of other books, had an important place in the liturgies for the canonical hours and mass, in chapter meetings, and in conjunction with  STOCK, The Implications of Literacy, p. 3.  Ibid., p. 90. 20  WALSHAM, Preaching Without Speaking, pp. 211-212. 21  Ibid., p. 212. 22  PALMER WANDEL, Reading Catechisms, Teaching Religion, p. 41. 23  Ibid. 24  Ibid., p. 351. 18 19

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meals and work. Additionally, nuns devoted certain hours of the day to private reading.25 Mass was held daily. Gospel readings were heard during mass, and three more readings from the Bible took place during Matins. In the course of any given week, the entire book of Psalms was recited during the canonical hours.26 Ehrenschwendtner demonstrates that even though the level of Latin literacy declined in Dominican convents in the course of the fourteenth century, the nuns still understood the substance of the Latin liturgy they sang and the Scripture readings they heard, because they had access to translations of frequently used texts: the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, the Ave Maria, and various parts of the divine office, such as hymns, sequences, and antiphons, as well as Scripture readings and saints’ lives.27 Ehrenschwendtner also seeks to determine the content of the readings the nuns heard at table which, by the fifteenth century, were conducted in German.28 In the correspondence between St. Katherine’s Convent (Katharinenkloster) in Nuremberg and St. Katherine’s Convent in St. Gallen in Switzerland, she finds an extensive list of table readings spanning the years 1455–61. This list reveals that the rule of Augustine and the order’s constitutions, as well as well-known explanations of the rule such as that of Humbert of Romans, were read on a regular basis.29 The other readings followed the liturgical calendar. On days when mass was held, the table readings included the gospel and epistle readings of the day read from a German Missal.30 On the other days of the week, the table readings consisted of sermons on the previous Sunday’s Scripture readings.31 Good Friday provided the occasion for reading from the passion tracts of Heinrich von St. Gallen and Johannes von Zazenhausen.32 On Saints’ days, readings were selected from the anonymous Lives of the Saints (Der Heiligen Leben) and the Lives of the Fathers (Vitas patrum). On Marian feasts, readings included Marian sermons by various authors.33 The presence of the same or similar books in the library of the Jungfrauenkloster leads one to assume that a comparable schedule of table readings

25  M. L. EHRENSCHWENDTNER, Die Bildung der Dominkanerinnen in Süddeutschland vom 13. bis 15. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart, 2004, pp. 149-150. 26  Ibid., pp. 155-156. 27  Ibid., pp. 165-176. 28  Ibid., p. 183. 29  Ibid., pp. 188-189. 30  Ibid., pp. 191-192. 31  Ibid., p. 195. 32  Ibid., p. 198. 33  Ibid., pp. 202-205.

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may have been followed there, with the difference that in Freiberg the texts appear to have been read in Latin. In contrast to the conclusions of Ehrenschwendtner, studies of learning and literacy in the north German convents of the Lüneburg Heath (Lüneburger Heide) point to a high level of Latin literacy in these communities. Eva Schlotheuber, who has examined a collection of 1,800 letters written between 1480 and 1555 at the Benedictine convent of Lüne, asserts that the nuns’ correspondence “bears testimony to the intense education provided for the novices at Lüne, who were evidently fluent in both their passive and active mastery of learned Latin”.34 The pedagogical methods used by the nuns at the convent at Ebstorf to teach both Latin and singing have been explored by Linda Maria Koldau.35 As I will show, the nuns in Freiberg also appear to have enjoyed solid instruction in Latin. Sabine Zinsmeyer’s recent study, Frauenklöster in der Reformationszeit, attends to convents in the eastern part of Germany from 1464 until ca. 1550. Given that the Jungfrauenkloster in Freiberg is best documented in the extant sources, most of her attention is devoted to this convent. Zinsmeyer focuses on convent life as communal way of life (Lebensform) analogous to family life and life in a state.36 Among the topics she covers are the reforms initiated during the long tenure (1480–1522) of Barbara Schröter as abbess, the influx of Reformation ideas into the convent, the escapes of Ursula von Münsterberg and other nuns, the efforts to reform the convent from 1537 onward, the transformation of the convent into a school in 1555, and finally, the convent’s closure in 1580. Particularly valuable are the transcriptions of archival sources Zinsmeyer offers in her appendix; these include the “Convent’s response” to Ursula’s Christian reasons in 1529 and the 1572 inventory of convent books. On the basis of her evidence, Zinsmeyer characterizes the Jungfrauenkloster as an “educated convent” (“eine[n] gebildeten Konvent”).37 Her assessment, however, of the

 E. SCHLOTHEUBER, Intellectual Horizons: Letters From a Northern German Convent, in E. ANDERSEN – H. LÄHNEMANN – A. SIMON (eds), A Companion to Mysticism and Devotion in Northern Germany in the Late Middle Ages, Leiden, 2014, 343-372, p. 346. 35  L. M. KOLDAU, Klösterliches Leben im Spiegel der spätmittelalterlichen Ebstorfer Quellen, in W. BRANDIS – H. W. STORK (eds), Weltbild und Lebenswirklichkeit in den Lüneburger Klöstern: IX. Ebstorfer Kolloquium vom 23. bis 26. März 2011, Berlin, 2015, 193-212. 36  ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 26, fn. 104. 37  Ibid., p. 147. 34

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nuns’ library and books,38 and her treatment of the nuns’ devotional practices39 only tangentially considers the use and function of books in the devotional lives of the nuns. It is in tracing and describing the changing relationships between the books the nuns read and the devotional acts they practiced, with special attention to the impact of Lutheran books on convent devotional life, that my study builds on that of Zinsmeyer. The Jungfrauenkloster in Freiberg and its library Perhaps more obviously than any other communities, medieval monasteries and convents were shaped by texts. The Order of St. Mary Magdalene the Penitent (Ordo sanctae Mariae Magdalenae de poenitentia), to which the Jungfrauenkloster belonged, was approved by Pope Gregory IX on 10 June 1227.40 The convent in Freiberg is first mentioned in a document dated 1248.41 When Ursula entered it sometime after her father’s death in 1500, it was home to around forty nuns; this number had increased to seventy-seven by the time of her escape.42 The numerous buildings included a cloister (“Kreuzgang”), the upper floor of which housed the convent’s library. The records of a visitation of the convent held in 1542, fourteen years after Ursula’s departure, and seven years after the introduction of the Reformation in Saxony, note that the convent at this time possessed the following: three Bibles (“biblien”) (fig. 4.2),43

38

 Ibid., pp. 114-116 and 145-150.  Ibid., pp. 143-145 and 151-152. 40  Ibid., p. 78. 41  Ibid., p. 80, fn. 20. 42  J. F. KLOTZSCH, Geschichte des vormaligen Jungfrauen-Klosters zu Freyberg, des Ordens St. Marien Magdalenen von der Buße. Nebst dazu gehörigen LXI Urkunden, in G.–I. GRUNDIG – J. F. KLOTZSCH (eds), Sammlung vermischter Nachrichten zur Sächsischen Geschichte 7 (1772) 1-79, pp. 48-49. 43  Two Bibles are extant. One is a composite of two different editions, both printed in Nuremberg by Anton Koberger, one in 1477 (Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (hereafter GW) 4227), the other in 1479 (GW 4239). The other is a complete 1479 edition (GW 4239); see DÖRING, Freiberger Inkunabelkatalog, p. 118, Nr. 609, 610, and 611, and ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 365, fn. 159. 39

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Fig. 4.2. Biblia, Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1477/79. Jerome’s letter to St. Paul the Presbyter serves as a preface. Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden, Kirchenbibliothek St. Jakobi Freiberg, Sig. Fol. 1. Folio. Photo with permission: Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden.

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two missals (“messbucher”),44 a Latin dictionary (“vocabulari(us)”),45 three volumes of Nicholas of Lyra (“iii partes Lire”),46 and a closet containing some 130 “papist books” (“papistische bücher”).47 Thirty years later, when the books were moved from the convent to St. James’s (Jakobikirche) church, only sixty-two remained, but the visiting officials listed all of them by title.48 Along with the books Ursula singles out in her Christian reasons, these lists provide insight into the texts that constituted the convent as a textual community. Daily life in the convent was governed by “the rule, the statutes, [and] the constitutions” (“Regel / Statuten / Constitutien”).49 Ursula is referring to the Rule of St. Augustine, and most likely to the Institutions of the Sisters of St. Sixtus in Rome (1232) and the Constitutions of the Sisters of St. Mary Magdalene (1232).50 The convent library inventory of 1572 lists the “Regula S. patris

44  There is no mention of these books in the 1572 inventory, but the 1772/80 catalog does list a missal, the Missale secundum consuetudinem romanae curiae, Venice, 1502. PETZHOLDT, Bibliotheken, pp. 28, 32. The Freiberg volume is no longer extant; see DÖRING, Freiberger Inkunabelkatalog, p. 196. 45  The 1572 inventory lists two Latin dictionaries: J. REUCHLIN, Vocabularius breviloquus, bound with G. VERONENSIS, De arte diphthongandi, and J. HEYNLIN, De arte punctandi, De accentu, Basel, 1486; see ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 368, fn. 196. The Freiberg volume is extant; see DÖRING, Freiburger Inkunabelkatalog, p. 121, Nr. 632. A. CALEPINUS, Dictionarium, Venice, 1509; see ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 368, fn. 195. The 1772/80 catalog lists three copies; see PETZHOLDT, Bibliotheken, p. 28, 30. None of the volumes are extant. 46  NICHOLAS OF LYRA, Postilla super quattuor evangelistas, Basel, before 1468?; see ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 366, fn.173. One Freiberg volume survives; see DÖRING, Freiburger Inkunabelkatalog, p. 120, Nr. 629. 47  PETZHOLDT, Bibliotheken, p. 28. 48  See fn. 14. 49  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Bijv. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 49, adapted.] 50  When the order initially obtained papal approval in 1227, the life of the nuns was to be governed by the Rule of Benedict and the Constitutions of the Cistercians; this changed in 1232, when it was decided that henceforth the nuns were to live by the Rule of St. Augustine and the Constitutions of the Sisters of St. Sixtus in Rome; see ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 78. The text of the institutions in Latin, as included in the bull of Pope Gregory IX of 1232, is reproduced in ERMISCH (ed.), Urkundenbuch, vol. 1, Nr. 605, pp. 396-402; it can also be found in A. SIMON, L’Ordre des Penitentes de Ste Marie-Madeleine en Allemagne au XIIIme Siecle, Fribourg, Switzerland, 1918, 142-153. Simon additionally provides the text of the constitutions, Ibid., 154-179. P. SKOBEL and E. PIEKORZ offer a translation of the papal bull with the institutions into German; see their Das Jungfräuliche Klosterstift zur Heiligen Maria Magdalena von der Buße zu Lauban in Schlesien von 1320–1821, Stuttgart, 1970, 9-20.

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Augustini”; it does not mention the other documents.51 The Institutions enjoined observance of the monastic vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity, explaining how these were to govern the material and spiritual aspects of convent life. Nuns were to eat twice daily during the summer, and only once during the winter. They were to wear white habits. They were to avoid speaking unless absolutely necessary, for example, at chapter meetings. They were to live inside convent walls and to limit their contacts with the outside world.52 They were to occupy themselves with manual labor and prayer: [E]xcepting the hours during which the sisters are to devote themselves to prayer, reading, performing the divine office, singing or scholarly instruction (“erudicioni litterarum”), they are to diligently occupy themselves with manual labor […]. The sisters in charge of the readings during any given week are to select and prepare the readings and hymns. On feast days […] they are all to set aside manual labor and devote themselves to spiritual reading, the divine office, and prayer. After compline and nocturnal prayers, the sisters are to have an hour to themselves, in which they may occupy themselves with prayer, contemplation or meditation […]. On non-feast days they are still to observe the hours of prayer in a pious and reverent manner. They may, however, observe prime, terce, sext, and none on non-feast days in the work room, if that is considered appropriate.53

Breviaries guided the nuns’ prayer. Barbara Schröter, prioress of the convent from 1480–1522, obtained papal approval to observe the canonical hours according to the custom of the Dominicans in 1518.54 The 1572 inventory lists a “Brewarium praedicatorum,” which may be the Breviary of the Preaching Brothers (1500).55 Breviaries commonly contained a liturgical calendar as well as the texts of the psalms, canticles, hymns, scripture readings, homilies or 51  ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 364. Zinsmeyer surmises that the convent may have owned a manuscript copy. The Freiburg copy of the rule is no longer extant. 52  SIMON, L’Ordre des Penitentes, pp. 144-146, and 150. 53  Ibid., p. 152. 54  A 22 October 1518 letter from a papal legate by the name of “Thomas” grants use of the Dominican breviary to the nuns in Freiberg in response to a request by their prioress; see ERMISCH (ed.), Urkundenbuch, vol. 1, Nr. 693, pp. 471-472. Zinsmeyer overlooks this reform when she writes that there is no evidence of liturgical reforms under Barbara Schröter; see ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 135. 55  “Brewiarium praedicatorum”. ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 366. Breviarium Fratrum Praedicatorum, Venice, 1500 (GW 05229). An alternate possibility, suggested by Zinsmeyer, is the Breviarium ordinis praedicatorum sancti Dominici, Basel, 1492. There are no breviaries extant from the Freiberg convent.

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sermons, saints’ lives, and prayers for each of the eight daily hours throughout the liturgical year.56 The nuns may have owned their own printed copies, or they may have copied the convent’s breviary; there is evidence from England and Southern Germany of nuns hand-copying breviaries for their own use.57 Besides observing the canonical hours, the sisters would also have heard mass and preaching on a regular basis. In 1507, an endowed preaching position was established at the Jakobikirche, the church the convent shared with the parish.58 According to the nuns who wrote the “Convent’s response” to Ursula, the preacher preached “not only on Sundays, but on all other holy days throughout the year,” as well as on certain other prescribed days.59 Readings during chapter meetings and at mealtimes were an additional aspect of the nuns’ devotional life. The Constitutions specified that during chapter meetings there were to be readings from the Rule or the Institutions (“de regula vel de institucionibus”); these were to be followed by various prayers and psalms.60 As for mealtimes, the Institutions stated that “[i]n the refectory, readings are to be held at mealtimes, and the sisters are to listen to the reading in devout silence”.61 Ursula’s Christian reasons provides insight into the types of books read at table in Freiberg:62 “Pomerio de sanctis vnd de tempore63 / Thesaurus de tempore / vnnd

56  See Breviarium in GW 5 (1932):1-12; [Online version]; www.gesamtkatalogderwiegendrucke.de/docs/BREVIAR.htm, accessed 8 January, 2018. 57  On nuns at Syon Abbey in England copying their own breviaries, see P. Lee, Nunneries, Learning and Spirituality in Late Medieval English Society, Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK, 2001, p. 138, and D. N. BELL, What Nuns Read: Books and Libraries in Medieval English Nunneries, Kalamazoo, MI, 1995, pp. 66-67. On nuns in Southern Germany, see EHRENSCHWENDTNER, Die Bildung der Dominkanerinnen in Süddeutschland, p. 155. 58  ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 145, fn. 541. For the document endowing the preaching position, see ERMISCH (ed.), Urkundenbuch, vol. 1, Nr. 683, pp. 464-465. 59  Antwort, in ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 346. 60  SIMON, L’Ordre des Penitentes, p. 156. 61  Ibid., p. 144. 62  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Cr. 63  PELBARTUS de THEMESVAR, Sermones pomerii des sanctis, Hagenau, 1505 (VD 16 P 1169), and Sermones pomerii de tempore, Hagenau, 1500. Cf. ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 368, fn. 189-190; Zinsmeyer has found the first volume to be extant in the Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden under the call number Fol. 45. The second volume has been lost.

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de sanctis64 / Discipulus65 / Mariale66 / Bernhardinus de Senis67 / Stellarius68 / Wilhelmus Parisiensis69 / Rosetum70 / Passionale.71” Given the fact that all of the books Ursula mentions are in Latin, the question arises: To what extent did the nuns understand the readings? The German translations of the constitutions of the Magdalenes found at the convents of Lauban (today Luban, Poland) and Studentiz mandate, respectively, that grammar and schoolbooks are to be taken seriously.72 Interestingly, and apparently with significant consequences for the educational level of this order of nuns in eastern Germany, these German translations diverge from the Latin original, which states the opposite: “to learn grammatical matters and the authors is not

 PSEUDO-PETRUS de PALUDE, Sermones Thesauri novi de tempore, Argentine (Strasbourg), 1487. Cf. ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 367, fn. 183. The Freiberg volume is not extant. 65  JOHANNES HEROLT, Sermones discipuli de tempore et de sanctis vna cum promptuario exemplorum, Argentine (Strasbourg), 1487. Cf. ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 146, fn. 181. The Freiberg volume is not extant. 66  Zinsmeyer suggests that this may be JACOBUS de VORAGINE, Mariale sive Sermones de beata Maria virgine; see her Frauenklöster, p. 146, fn. 545. The Freiberg volume has been lost. 67  BERNHARDIN von SIENA (BERNARDINO de SIENA), Sermones de festivitatibus virginis gloriosae, [Nuremberg], 1493. The Freiberg volume is extant; see DÖRING, Freiburger Inkunabelkatalog, p. 118, no. 608. 68  [PELBARTUS de THEMESWAR], Stellarium Corone benedicte // virginis Marie, [Hagenau, 1505] (VD16 P 1211). The Freiberg volume is not extant; it does appear in the 1772/80 library catalog; see PETZHOLDT, Bibliotheken, p. 33, and DÖRING, Freiberger Inkunabelkatalog, p. 44, fn. 198. 69  The 1572 inventory lists two volumes of sermons attributed by their publishers to a “Wilhelmus Parisiensis”: Registrum sermonum Wilhelmi Parisiensis and Postillae maiores in epistolas et evangelia: per totius anni decursum, Basel, 1507 (VD16 E 4371 and B 4691); see ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 367, fn. 177 and p. 369, fn. 203. The first volume is extant. GUILLELMUS PARALDUS, Sermones de tempore et de sanctis, Tübingen, 1499; see Döring, Freiburger Inkunabelkatalog, p. 120, nr. 631. The title page reads “Registrum sermonum Wilhelmi Parisiensis”. William Peraldus (or Peyraut) (c. 1200–c. 1271) was prior of the Dominicans in Lyon; see G. ROTH, Wilhelm Peraldus, in Verfasserlexikon, 2nd ed. 10 (1996): cols 1116-1129. 70  JOHANNES MAUBURNUS, Rosetum exercitiorum spiritualium, Paris, 1510. ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 367. The Freiberg volume has been lost. 71  Ursula is likely referring to a volume of three passion meditations bound together in one volume: GUILLELMUS TEXTOR (de Aquisgrano), Sermones tres de passione Christi, ANSELM of CANTERBURY, Dialogus beatae Mariae et Anselmi de passione Christi, and PSEUDO-BERNARDUS, De planctu beatae Mariae Virginis, Strasbourg, 1490; see DÖRING, Freiberger Inkunabelkatalog, p. 121, nr. 635. She is most certainly not thinking of lives of saints (Heiligenleben), as ZINSMEYER suggests; see her Frauenklöster, p. 146, fn. 549. The Freiberg volume is extant. 72  “Die Grammatik u. Schulbücher soll man billich lernen”. Statuten, in Regelbuch Lauban. “In der Grammatik u. den Schulbüchern soll eine jede immer weiter fortschreiten”. Statuten, in Regelbuch Studenitz; both cited in SIMON, L’Ordre des Penitentes, p. 165. 64

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appropriate” (“grammaticalia vero et auctores discere non oportet”).73 The fact that the books Ursula mentions are all in Latin, and that of the sixty-two titles in the 1572 inventory, fifty-three are in Latin, while only nine are in German, suggests that instruction in Latin grammar and letters at Freiberg was rigorous. This conclusion is further supported by the presence in the library of two different Latin dictionaries, and a biblical concordance.74 It is thus possible that most, perhaps even all of the sisters in the Jungfrauenkloster understood not only the masses they attended and the hours they sang, but also could read more sophisticated Latin theological texts like sermons. If so, their level of education was more like that of the nuns of the Lüneburg heath in northern Germany than the Dominican sisters in southern Germany. A closer look at Ursula’s list reveals that it includes collections of sermons that follow the lectionary texts for the Sun- and Feast days as well as Saints’ days by William Peraldus (c. 1200–c. 1271), a Dominican prior in Lyon (fig. 4.3), Pelbartus of Themeswar (ca. 1435–1504), a Franciscan preacher in Hungary, and Johannes Herolt (ca. 1380–1468), a Dominican prior in Nuremberg. Assuming a reading schedule similar to that of St. Katherine’s Convent in Nuremberg, the reading of these sermons on weekdays would have been coordinated with the liturgical calendar. Ursula’s list also includes Marian sermons by Pelbartus of Themeswar and Bernardine of Siena (1380–1444), a Franciscan preacher in Italy (fig. 4.4); these would have been appropriate for reading on Marian feasts such as the Annunciation and Visitation. The sermons and meditations on Christ’s passion by Pseudo-Bernardus, Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury (d. 1109), and William Textor (c. 1420–1512), a professor of Hebrew at the University of Basel (fig. 4.5), in turn would have been suitable for passion week. What do the above books reveal about the convent as a textual community? The convent was a community called into being and shaped — both intellectually and materially — by the monastic theologians who wrote its core texts: the rule, the institutions, the constitutions and the breviary, along with the missal used by the convent’s priest. These books were materially present in the refectory, chapter house, chapel, and the convent library. They served — to use Walsham’s term — as “proxies” for the voices of their long-deceased authors, 73

 Ibid.  KONRAD OF HALBERSTADT THE ELDER, Concordantiae maiores sacrae bibliae, Basel, 1516 (VD16 C 4899); see ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 366, fn. 174. The Freiberg volume has been lost. On the dictionaries, see fn. 45. 74

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Fig. 4.3. G. PARALDUS, Sermones de tempore et de sanctis, Tübingen 1499. A sermon for the feast of St. Andrew. Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden, Kirchenbibliothek St. Jakobi Freiberg, Sig. Fol. 35. Folio. Photo with permission: Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden.

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Fig. 4.4. BERNARDINO DE SIENA, Sermones de festivitatibus virginis gloriosae, [Nuremberg], 1493. The preacher is pointing to the Virgin saying, “She is the star of the Sea.” Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden, Kirchenbibliothek St. Jakobi Freiberg, Sig. Q 10, 2. Quarto. Photo with permission: Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden.

whose teachings they conveyed across intervening centuries. The ideas they communicated were internalized by regular re-performance through communal reading. To be noted is that Scripture reading was an integral part of mass and of every canonical hour. However, it seems the readings were read from the breviary and missal, in Latin, not from a physical Bible. Furthermore, both in the church and in the refectory, Scripture readings appear to have been

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Fig. 4.5. G. TEXTOR, Sermones tres de passione Christi, Strasbourg, 1490. Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden, Kirchenbibliothek St. Jakobi Freiberg, Sig. Q 10, 1. Quarto. Photo with permission: Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden.

appropriated in a passive and meditative way, through listening, rather than actively, through discussion. The nuns’ proficiency in Latin allowed for thorough comprehension of the texts and may have intensified their identification with monastic teaching. The books taught that the monastic life was a surer path to salvation than life outside the convent. They structured the nuns’ behavior. Bodily discipline through the observance of the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to superiors, enabled the nuns to avoid sinful acts. By engaging in prayer, the nuns performed their work for the world — obtaining divine grace for themselves and for others through prayer.75 The presence of monastic books lent a sort of 75  On the self-understanding of Dominican nuns, see B. STEINKE, Paradiesgarten oder Gefängnis?: Das Nürnberger Katharinenkloster zwischen Klosterreform und Reformation, Tübingen, 2006, pp. 210-213.

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material stability to the convent. The communal reading and singing welded the sisters together into a community based on shared experience and texts. In identifying the nuns as Magdalenes (Magdalenerinnen), the books united them with other nuns of the same order in other towns and distinguished them from the burghers living outside the convent’s walls. The influx of new books and ideas The apparent intellectual and material stability of this well-educated textual community was shattered when the nuns began reading the publications of Martin Luther, his adherents, and his opponents. The new books, like the old ones, functioned in the convent as “proxies” for the voices of their authors, in this case, contemporary theologians separated from the convent geographically. Some of the new books contested the legitimacy of the monastic life as a surer path to salvation, others defended it. When the visiting officials questioned the nuns about the source of their Lutheran books, they learned that they had been supplied by a number of persons, among them Duchess Katharina’s mistress of the robes (Hofmeisterin) with the help of Duke Henry’s steward (Hofmeister) Rudolf von Bünau.76 Among the books mentioned in the visitation records is a volume of sermons by Martin Luther, almost certainly his Exposition of the Gospels from Easter until Advent (1526) (fig. 4.6).77 The subprioress, Martha von Schönberg, confessed that she had a book by “Brisman” which she had given to other nuns to copy.78 This is most likely Johannes Briesmann’s (1488–1549) contribution to the debate about the monastic life, the pamphlet Response to the Defense of Kaspar Schatzgeyer (1523) (fig. 4.7).79 Two years after Martin Luther had published his principal writing against the monastic life, Judgment of Martin Luther on Monastic Vows (1522), Kaspar Schatzgeyer (c. 1463–1527) had responded with a defense under the title

 ERMISCH (ed.), Urkundenbuch, vol. 1, Nr. 714, p. 487.  “eyn postilla Lutheri […] von ostern bis uffs advent uber die evangelia”. Ibid. M. LUTHER, Auslegu(n)g // der Euangelien / // von Ostern bis // auffs Aduent / ge // predigt durch // Mart. Luther, Wittenberg, 1526 (VD16 L 4006). The volume was edited by Stefan Roth and is commonly referred to as “Roths Sommerpostille”. It is not listed in either the 1542 or 1572 inventories. 78  ERMISCH (ed.), Urkundenbuch, vol. 1, Nr. 714, p. 488. 79  On Briesmann’s pamphlet, see SEIDEMANN (ed.), Erläuterungen, p. 111. J. BRIESMANN, Ad Gasparis Scatz / // geyri minoritae pli= // cas responsio per // Iohan: Briesman= // nvm pro luthe // rano libello // de votis mo // nastici // cis. // M. Lutheri ad Brismannum // Epistola de eodem, Wittenberg, 1523 (VD16 B 8281). 76 77

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Fig. 4.6. M. LUTHER, Auslegu(n)g // der Euangelien / // von Ostern bis // auffs Aduent / ge // predigt durch // Mart. Luther, Wittenberg, 1526. Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Sig. M: Li 5530 Slg. Hardt (15, 154). Photo with permission: Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel.

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Concerning the True Christian Life (1524).80 Luther had asked Briesmann to write a rebuttal. The Lutheran nuns’ proficiency in both German and Latin assisted them in appropriating the new texts and teachings: They not only read, but also copied Briesmann’s lengthy Latin tract for their own use. The opposing party’s interest in the other side of the debate is revealed in the “Convent’s response”. It mentions a defense of monastic vows, life, and ceremonies by a certain “doctore Johanne Diettenberger”. The reference is most likely to Johann Dietenberger’s Answer: Virgins May Never Renounce their Convents or Monastic Vows (1523) (fig. 4.8), which is a response to Luther’s Reasons and Justifications Why Virgins May Righteously Leave Convents (1523).81 Two more anti-Lutheran works are listed in the 1572 inventory: A defense of the monastic life by Jakob Schwederich, Anthology on the Origins of Monasticism (1525),82 and a more general refutation of Luther’s teachings by Johannes Fabri, his Book Against Certain New Doctrines of Martin Luther, Absolutely Foreign to the Christian Religion (1523).83 Reading the books caused the nuns to separate into two opposing textual communities based on different core texts. It also led them to produce their own texts to defend their actions. Ursula’s pamphlet and the convent’s response Ursula’s stated purpose is two-fold: To convince her cousins, the Dukes George and Henry, that her decision to leave the convent was not made thoughtlessly (“auß keyner leychtfertigkeyt geschehen sey”) and to communicate to “every righteous Christian” (“eyn yeder frumer Christen”) that leaving the convent was the only way she and her companions felt they could escape divine

80  K. SCHATZGEYER, Von dem waren Christlichen Leben, in wem es stee, Vil materi inn lateinischen biechlin von dem klösterlichen leben und gelybten vorauß gangen zu samen getragen […], [Augsburg], 1524 (VD16 S 2345 and S 2346). 81  Antwort, in ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 340. Zinsmeyer erroneously transcribes “Diettenberger” as “Guttenberger”. J. DIETENBERGER, Antwort, daß Jungfrauen die Klöster und klösterliche Gelübde nimmer göttlich verlassen mögen ([Straßburg], 1523) (VD16 L 6887), in A. LAUBE (ed.), Flugschriften gegen die Reformation (1518–1524), Berlin, 1997, 530-544. The volume is not listed in the 1542 or 1572 Freiberg inventories. For Luther’s Reasons, see fn. 6. 82  J. SCHWEDERICH, Jacobi Suederici Theologi collectaniolum de religiosorum origine, Dresden, 1525 (VD16 S 4769). ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 364, fn. 156. The Freiberg volume has been lost. 83  J. FABRI (Johannes Heigerlin), Opus adversus nova quaedam et a Christiana religione prorsus aliena dogmata Martini Lutheri, Leipzig, 1523 (VD16 F 217); see ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 365, fn. 163. The Freiberg volume has been lost.

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Fig. 4.7. J. BRIESMANN, Ad Gasparis Scatz / // geyri minoritae pli= // cas responsio per // Iohan: Briesman= // nvm pro luthe // rano libello // de votis mo // nastici // cis. // M. Lutheri ad Brismannum // Epistola de eodem, Wittembergae, 1523. Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Sig. A: 84.5 Theol (11), 26 Bl; Octavo. Photo with permission: Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel.

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Fig. 4.8. J. DIETENBERGER, Antwort das // Junckfrawen die // klo(e)ster vnd klo(e) sterliche ge= // lübt nümer go(e)tlich // verlassen // mo(e)ge(n), [Straßburg], 1523. Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Sig. A: 127.4 Theol. (4), [14] Bl; Quarto. Photo with permission: Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel.

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judgment.84 She clearly explains her theological objections to the monastic life in general, and describes her efforts to reform devotional life in the convent in particular. Her theological reasoning is informed by the Reformation principle of “justification by faith,” and by the concepts of “law” and “gospel,” as set forth, for example, in Luther’s Freedom of a Christian (1520). The law reveals to human beings the inadequacy of their own works before God; the gospel freely promises forgiveness. Through faith in God’s promises, Christians are forgiven. They voluntarily do good works, not for the sake of their own salvation, but for the benefit of their neighbors.85 Thus, Ursula’s first stated reason for leaving the monastic life is that it is above all through faith that Christians are reconciled with God. To support this point, she adduces eleven Scripture passages, beginning with the words of Christ, “The one who believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mk 16:16).86 Baptism, Ursula continues, is the true path to salvation; the monastic life, on the other hand, is a deviation (“neben weg”) invented by human beings.87 Here and in what follows, Ursula echoes many of the points made by Luther in 1521/22 in his Judgment of Martin Luther on Monastic Vows. Her description of monastic life as a “Babylonian Captivity” (“Babilonischen gefencknus”) betrays familiarity with Luther’s The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520).88 She may also have known Luther’s Reasons and Justifications Why Virgins May Righteously Leave Convents (1523).89 The abundant citations from Scripture with which she supports her points appear to follow the text of the Septembertestament (1522), the first edition of Luther’s German translation of the New Testament.90 Very likely she was familiar with Briesmann’s Lutheran refutation  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Aijr and Aiijr. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 41, adapted.] 85  See I. BETHGE-BONK, Die Rezeption der lutherischen Theologie durch Nonnen der Reformationszeit, Das Beispiel Ursula von Münsterberg, Munich, 2015, pp. 17-18, and M. LUTHER, The Freedom of a Christian (1520), LW 31:327-377. [= WA 7:49-73.] My analysis of Ursula’s pamphlet is informed by the insights of both Bethge-Bonk and D. KOMMER, Reformatorische Flugschriften von Frauen, Leipzig, 2013, 289-319. 86  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Aiijv. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 43, adapted.] All Scripture translations follow the NRSV. 87  Ibid., sig. Br. Cf. LUTHER, Judgment, LW 44:252-253. [= WA 8:578, 6-10.] NRSV. 88  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Ev. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 61.] Cf. KOMMER, Reformatorische Flugschriften von Frauen, p. 294, and M. LUTHER, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, LW 36:3-126. [= WA 6:497-573.] 89  See fn. 6. 90  C. ZEIHER, Zum Umgang mit Bibelzitaten in Schriften von Autorinnen der Reformationszeit, in G. BRANDT, (ed.), Forschungsberichte – Projektangebote – Forschungskontexte, Stuttgart, 1994, 39-51, cited in KOMMER, Reformatorische Flugschriften von Frauen, p. 293, fn. 293. 84

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of Kaspar Schatzgeyer’s defense of the monastic life, which was circulating in the convent, and possibly also with Schwederich’s Anthology on the Origins of Monasticism, available in the convent’s library.91 Ursula proceeds with a head-on attack on the legitimacy of monastic vows. She observes that in baptism, believers vow to renounce the devil. On the contrary, she argues, by taking monastic vows, nuns “make a new covenant with [Christ’s] and [their own] renounced enemy [the devil]”.92 Monks and nuns vow obedience to human beings, rather than to God, she points out, and this leads to disobedience: “And here we bind ourselves to obedience, but to people rather than God, and [we] henceforth obey not God but people”.93 The vow of poverty is hypocritical and prevents service to one’s neighbor: “[I]n contrast to the Word of Christ (Matt. 5:3), this is not a ‘poverty of the spirit’, but only an external appearance, which also hinders one from showing one’s fellow human beings love and charity [as one is supposed to] according to divine law”.94 This argument against the vow of poverty is implicitly also an argument against enclosure. Traditionally, enclosure was to help nuns avoid sin. According to Ursula, enclosure in the convent, along with the sanction on personal possessions, prevents the nuns from serving the needy in the community. Chastity — the third vow — is a gift of God and can only by given by God: “No one can deny that chastity is a quality that God alone can create in human hearts and bodies; how, then, are we so arrogant as to pledge and sacrifice what is God’s [to] give and not ours?”.95 Ursula proceeds to explicitly reject the core texts of the convent: “And therefore everything that follows from these vows, that is, rules, statutes, constitutions […] are for the most part opposed to God’s Word and faith. These are indeed a road which bypasses God […]”.96 Two more things can be noted here with respect to Ursula’s use of the convent’s books. First, rather than appropriating Scripture meditatively by reading and singing lectionary texts, Ursula is using Scripture polemically to argue a theological point. Second, her source for the cited Scripture passages is most

91

 See fn. 80 and 82.  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. [Aiv]v. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 45.] Cf. LUTHER, Judgment, LW 44:288. [= WA 8:600, 13-14.] 93  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Bijv. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 49.] Cf. LUTHER, Judgment, LW 44:363. [= WA 8:646, 6-9.] 94  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Bijv. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 49.] Cf. LUTHER, Judgment, LW 44:361. [= WA 8:645, 6-8.] 95  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Bijv. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 49.] Cf. LUTHER, Judgment, LW 44:383. [= WA 8:658, 27-30.] 96  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Bijv. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 49.] 92

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likely not the breviary, but either a pamphlet of Luther or his Septembertestament or both. Ursula goes on to describe the steps she and other Lutheran nuns have taken to change the convent to enable them to continue to live there in good conscience. They have brought their concerns to the Dukes Henry and George, both orally and in writing. With great difficulty, they have secured the appointment of a Lutheran preacher. Unfortunately, his preaching has not led to change in the convent; instead, the nuns are being advised not to listen to his sermons, and efforts have been made to remove the preacher.97 Although Ursula does not mention Luther, it is clear to the nuns writing the “Convent’s response” that she is propagating his ideas: “It seems to us that there is no one who does not know or to whom it is a secret what evil, deception, and ruin Luther’s teaching has […] wrought in German lands […]”.98 The nuns consider it unnecessary to answer Ursula’s Lutheran arguments against the monastic vows, given that “several highly-learned men, in particular, Johann Dietenberger” (“eczlichen hochgelorten, sonderlich […] doctore Johanne Diettenberger”) have already done so. Instead, the nuns state that they wish only to defend their honor and Christian reputation against Ursula’s accusations. With respect to the preacher, they admit that they have asked the territorial rulers to ask the preacher to refrain from preaching about certain subjects (“eczlicher artickel”) and have urged the other nuns not to listen to what he says about these topics.99 Ursula’s second point is that faith of the heart must be followed by public confession of such faith: “[F]aith of the heart is not enough for salvation but there must also be a public confession”.100 Such confession, writes Ursula, is not tolerated in the convent where the sisters are forced on a daily basis to listen in silence to books read at table which contain “blasphemous and absurd  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Biijr-v. Ursula’s efforts to reform the Jungfrauenkloster are highlighted by G. JANCKE, Ursula von Münsterberg und der Versuch einer Reformation des Freiberger Magdalenerinnenklosters, in Verein zur Erforschung der Dresdner Frauengeschichte (ed.), Frauen in der Kirchengeschichte Sachsens, Dresden, 1997, 23-40, pp. 32-33. The first Lutheran preacher at the convent was Andreas Bodenschatz, who held this position from 1526 until he died in 1527 or 1528. He was succeeded by another Lutheran, whose name is not preserved in the records; see ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, pp. 143-145 and 281-282; on the preacher who followed him, see Ibid., pp. 309-310. 98  Antwort, in ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, pp. 340. 99  Ibid., p. 340-341. 100  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Bivv. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 51, adapted.] 97

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teachings” (“abgo(e)ttische vnd widersinnische leren”).101 This criticism of the convent’s table readings is implicitly an additional argument against monastic enclosure: Ursula considers herself as having been confined in a community in which she is forcibly subjected to religious views she considers ungodly and is prevented from expressing her own. To this the nuns respond that they are not aware of any blasphemous teachings (“keyne abgo(e)ttische lere wiszen”) in their books. Furthermore, they state that the sisters are free to read from the Bible, provided they also read “the explanations of the holy teachers” (“dy glosa der heylygen lerer”) that clarify difficult passages. The Lutheran nuns, the convent alleges, have refused to read these explanations; instead, they have wanted to read the Lutheran notes (“luterischen gloszen”). The Lutheran nuns have also objected so vehemently “with words and gestures” (“mit worten und geberden”) to readings from books disputing Luther’s ideas that these readings have been discontinued. Instead, the Lutheran nuns would have preferred to read from the Lutheran books.102 This wrangling over table readings represents an interesting departure from tradition. Rather than reading and passively listening to prescribed lectionary texts, both groups of nuns are actively selecting their own readings and debating how most accurately to interpret them. Ursula’s third point is that Christ teaches that one is to love God and keep his commandments with one’s whole heart, and that outward works without love are not acceptable to God.103 In the convent, however, nuns are obliged to do many “invented works” (“ertichten wercken”) which are neither backed up with a divine command, nor of any use to neighbor. That Ursula has the canonical hours in mind is suggested by her complaint that “there is not a single hour in the day, indeed several in the night, in which we are not bound with special laws”.104 The “Convent’s response” counters this allegation with an extended theological defense of the canonical hours buttressed with multiple Scripture quotes, for example: “Seven times a day I praise you” (Ps 118/119:164).105 On the basis of Scripture, the nuns argue, the Christian church, inspired by the Holy Spirit, has “established the hours and other services, therefore these cannot be human inventions”.106 Interesting here and  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Bivv-Cr; cf. JANCKE, Ursula von Münsterberg, p. 33.  Antwort, in ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 342. 103  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Cijr-v. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 53.] Cf. JANCKE, Ursula von Münsterberg, 34-35. 104  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Cijv. 105  Antwort, in ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 344. NRSV. 106  Ibid., p. 345. 101 102

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elsewhere in the “Convent’s response” is that the nuns loyal to the old faith are using Scripture to justify monastic practices enjoined by the rule, the institutions, and the constitutions. Traditionally, these core texts would have been regarded as having intrinsic authority. Elsewhere in her lengthy pamphlet, Ursula writes that she and the others who escaped lacked the strength to observe the monastic hours and the customary fasts, which they felt to be harmful to their health (“vnser gesundtheyt entgegen”) and unbearable for their weak bodies (“vnsern schwachen leyben vntreglich”).107 The “Convent’s response” counters that the complaint is entirely unjustified: Ursula has for twelve years enjoyed dispensation from the hours and the fasting, and another one of the escaped nuns has for five years absented herself from matins, that is, the midnight prayers, and has been dispensed from the daytime prayers as well.108 The ascetic discipline of fasting was to assist the nuns in avoiding sin. According to the institutions, sick and weak nuns could be exempted from it.109 If, indeed, Ursula had had a dispensation for twelve years, since 1517, then it is likely her initial request had been based on weak health. When she later read Luther’s publications rejecting the legitimacy of the monastic way of life, these would have provided her with theological reasons for rejecting the practice. Ursula’s exemption from the canonical hours is more remarkable — perhaps the prioress granted it to avoid conflict in the convent.110 Important here is that by absenting herself from the canonical hours, Ursula was undermining the foundation of the nuns’ reason for being — to pray for self and for others. Points four and five of Ursula’s defense concern the devotional practices of hearing preaching and receiving the Lord’s Supper. Ursula complains that the nuns are “locked up and held captive, so that [they] cannot, like other people, hear preaching when and where [they] need it”.111 In other words, the nuns cannot choose which church to attend and which preacher to listen to; their enclosure prevents this. To this the convent responds, as noted above, that the convent’s preacher preaches not only on Sundays, but also on holy days and other appointed days.112 To Ursula’s complaint that nuns are forced to receive  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Dijr.  Antwort, in ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 345. 109  SIMON, L’Ordre des Penitentes, p. 145. 110  ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 151. 111  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Ciijv. Cf. LUTHER, Ursach und Antwort, WA 11:397, 3-6. 112  Antwort, in ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 346. 107 108

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communion twenty-four times a year, regardless of whether or not they feel prepared to do so,113 and that when they receive it, they cannot receive it in both kinds, bread and wine, as Christ commands (1 Cor 11:23–26), the convent answers that although the order’s constitutions require the reception of communion on certain days, no one who asks for permission to abstain is forced to commune. To grant reception in both kinds, however, is beyond the prioress’s authority.114 The result of the conflict engendered by the Lutheran books is a poisoned climate in the convent. In point six Ursula complains that whereas Christ commands, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:39),115 the daily opposition she and the other two nuns face is engendering bitterness and hatred in their hearts.116 Interesting in the “Convent’s response” are indications that the Lutheran nuns have introduced a further new devotional practice, namely, group discussions of Lutheran writings and perhaps also the Septembertestament. The nuns loyal to the old faith write that they have counseled other nuns in the convent to avoid the “secret company” (“heymliche geselschafft”) and the “private discussions” (“heymliche zuredunge”) of the Lutheran nuns, and “especially their teaching and books” (“besundern yrer lere und bucher”).117 If, indeed, this is the case, then the Lutheran nuns are actively, rather than passively, engaging both the Scriptures and contemporary theological works, and in doing so, are breaking the silence to which their institutions oblige them.118 Finally — and this is Ursula’s seventh and last point — life in the convent is preventing her and her companions from following Christ’s command to serve others: “For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (Jn 13:15).119 They have offered to “accompany dying persons, to console them and strengthen them with the word of God,” but [they] have not been permitted to do so.120 For all these reasons, Ursula  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Ciijv. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 55.]  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Ciijv-Civr, and Antwort, in ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 347. 115  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Civr. NRSV. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 55, adapted.] 116  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Civv. 117  Antwort, in ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, p. 348. Cf. KOMMER, Reformatorische Flugschriften von Frauen, p. 300. 118  SIMON, L’Ordre des Penitentes, p. 145. 119  MÜNSTERBERG, Christlich vrsach, sig. Dr. NRSV. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 57, adapted.] 120  Ibid., sig. Dv. [= WIESNER-HANKS (ed.), Convents, p. 59, adapted.] 113

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writes, she and her companions have decided to leave the convent “so that God’s anger not speedily overtake and grasp us there”.121 Conclusion The Reformation movement initiated by Martin Luther in Wittenberg generated a great many new books, not only by Luther himself, but also by his friends and his opponents. It may be said of Luther that he, like Stock’s eleventh- and twelfth-century reformers and heretics, became the “driving force” of a new textual community in that he “mastered” a text — the Bible — and then “utilized it for reforming a group’s thought or action”. The Christian Bible, which for more than a millennium had informed monastic thought and life, had, as a material object, receded from view behind the far more frequently used monastic core texts: the monastic rules, institutions, constitutions, breviary and missal. In offering a new translation of the Bible into the vernacular German, Luther foregrounded it as a text and as a printed book. Furthermore, in his many writings he offered new interpretations of this foundational text, all of them based on the fundamental Reformation principle that Christians are made right with God by believing in God’s benevolence toward them, rather than by trying to earn God’s favor by means of works of devotion. This principle effectively undermined the traditional view that the monastic life with its bodily discipline and works of devotion was the surer way to salvation. With the help of Duchess Katharina of Mecklenburg, Luther’s writings, likely including an early edition of his translation of the New Testament, made their way into the convent of the Magdalenes in Freiberg. The works of Luther’s followers and opponents became materially present in the convent as well. Functioning as “proxies” for the voices of their authors — clergymen and monks separated from the convent geographically — they brought the great religious controversy of the day inside convent walls. The new books — both those of Luther and those of his opponents — began to re-structure the behavior of the nuns. Given that the new writings were both in German and in Latin, the nuns’ proficiency in both languages continued to be an asset. The Lutheran nuns appear to have discussed the Lutheran writings in small groups; this constituted a breach of the vow of silence. By reading and discussing the Lutheran books, the Lutheran nuns internalized the new teachings. Having “mastered” the new texts, they began 121

 Ibid., sig. Eijv.

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to seek to reform the convent. With the help of the Duchess Katharina, they secured a Lutheran preacher. In bypassing their prioress in this matter, they broke the vow of obedience. They also advocated for communion in both kinds, a request which was not granted. The Lutheran nuns broke with other monastic practices as well. Ursula and at least one other nun obtained dispensations from fasting and from the observance of the canonical hours. In absenting themselves from the hours, they questioned the convent’s basic reason for its existence: To pray for the souls of both the nuns and their relatives. Ursula and her companions also rebelled against enclosure — a practice originally designed to help nuns avoid sinful behaviors. In her pamphlet, Ursula both explicitly and implicitly argued that enclosure prevented her and her companions from seeking out Lutheran preachers and listening to God’s word, from receiving communion in both kinds, and from rendering service to the needy. It is possible that reading and appropriating Luther’s works may have led the Lutheran nuns to identify more with the textual community of the burghers of Freiberg than with that of their monastic sisters. Those loyal to the old faith, on the other hand, held on to the core texts, traditional devotional practices, and life within monastic enclosure. They found confirmation for their views in the writings of Luther’s opponents, for example, Johann Dietenberger. When they agreed to write a rebuttal to Ursula’s pamphlet, they joined the textual community of those actively defending traditional beliefs and practices. Each group tried to introduce its preferred texts into the table readings. Whereas previously the refectory had functioned as a place in which readings from the traditional core texts had confirmed the unity of the community, the introduction of the new texts caused it to become a place of conflict. Significantly, both parties changed how they used the Bible. Traditionally, the nuns had experienced Scripture relatively passively, reading, listening to, or reciting by memory the Bible readings prescribed by the lectionary and incorporated into the breviary and missal. Having read Luther’s writings, however, the Lutheran nuns, and to some extent the others as well, foregrounded the Bible. For both groups, the Bible reemerged as a core text. Both apparently chose to read Bible passages at table; however, while the nuns loyal to the old faith insisted on reading the explanatory notes of the church fathers, the Lutheran nuns preferred the Lutheran notes. Nuns on both sides cited Scripture to justify their beliefs and devotional practices. The extent, however, to which the two groups used physical Bibles or contemporary theological writings to locate Scripture texts cannot be determined.

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The escape of Ursula and her two companions in October 1528 was followed by two more escapes, in 1529 and 1532, respectively.122 Due to the escapes, and also to a number of deaths, the number of nuns in the convent sank from forty-eight nuns and fourteen lay sisters in January 1529 to thirtyfive nuns and one lay sister in 1537, the year Duke Henry began to introduce the Reformation.123 The remaining nuns, however, remained divided in their religious views. During the years until its transformation into a girls’ school (Jungfrauenschule) and its dissolution in 1580, the Jungfrauenkloster can therefore be described as a pluriconfessional convent housing two different textual communities informed by two different sets of core texts.124 It seems reasonable to conjecture that the nuns adhering the old faith continued to live by the Rule of St. Augustine even as they were subjected to Lutheran preaching. The Lutheran nuns, on the other hand, gradually submitted to the reforms mandated by the authorities, among them the obligation to assent to the Augsburg Confession, which, alongside the Bible, became the second core text of the Lutheran community.125 As for Ursula herself, her flight from the convent became the beginning of a long and ultimately unsuccessful search for a secure existence in a Lutheran environment. After a short stay in Wittenberg, she and Dorothea Tanbergerin spent time in early 1529 with Ursula’s sister Apollonia, also a former nun, and with Apollonia’s husband, the Lutheran bishop Erhard von Queis in Marienwerder in Prussia (today Kwidzyn in Poland). Tragically, Apollonia died in childbirth in March of the same year, and her husband Erhard died a few months later. In 1530, Ursula and Dorothea lived briefly at the court of Ursula’s cousin Duke Frederick II (1480–1547) in Liegnitz (today Legnica in Poland). Frederick was inclined toward the teachings of Kaspar Schwenckfeld (1489/90–1561) and the Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531), which were not acceptable to the Lutheran Ursula.126 On 19 June 1530 she wrote from Liegnitz to Stephan Roth (1492–1546), town secretary (Stadtschreiber) in

 ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, pp. 163-164.  Ibid., p. 171. 124  Kommer uses the term “gemischtkonfessionell”; see her Reformatorische Flugschriften von Frauen, p. 305. 125  At the time of the Freiberg visitations of 1537 and 1538, the visitors presented the nuns with “articles” detailing religious faith and practice to which they wished both parish and convent to assent; the Lutheran nuns agreed, the others either refused or asked for delay, claiming they were not yet ready to agree to them; see ZINSMEYER, Frauenklöster, pp. 172-178. 126  Ibid., p. 158. 122 123

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Zwickau, requesting Lutheran books, “which are rare here for me”.127 To use the words of Lee Palmer Wandel, Ursula and Dorothea appear to have sought in Lutheran books a “kind of material stability” while in exile at a non-Lutheran court. Frail in health, and unable to find a material footing outside the Freiberg convent, Ursula died sometime after 1534.

127  “welch mir hir gantz seltzam seyn”. For a transcription of the letter, see ERMISCH, Herzogin Ursula von Münsterberg, p. 332.

“A SINGLE ACT OF INTERIORITY IN THE GROUND OF THE SOUL AND IN GOD IS MORE MERITORIOUS THAN INNUMERABLE GREAT WORKS WITHOUT SUCH INTERIORITY” “INTERIORITY” IN THREE PUBLICATIONS BY THE COLOGNE CARTHUSIANS AFTER 1520 Rob FAESEN (translated by John Arblaster)

In this contribution, I will explore a case study of the development of spirituality in the first half of the sixteenth century in Northern Europe, namely the topic of “interiority” as it appears in the Evangelical Pearl (first edition 1535), the Institutiones Taulerianae (first Latin edition 1543) and the Temple of Our Soul (ed. in 1543). The Cologne Carthusians published these texts explicitly in view of the Lutheran Reformation — as is mentioned occasionally in the texts — but they are almost never polemical. These (mostly anonymous) texts contain skilful elaborations of spiritual, liturgical and mystical themes from the older tradition, drawing on authors such as Tauler, Ruusbroec, Eckhart, etc. The Carthusians considered it a most important and urgent task to provide texts of high spiritual quality. “Interiority” is one of the central themes in these publications, and in this contribution, I will explore what exactly is meant by “interiority”, in light of the older tradition. 1. THE CHARTERHOUSE

OF

COLOGNE

The Cologne Charterhouse of Saint Barbara played a remarkable role in the Reformation period.1 It had been founded long before, in 1335, thanks to the efforts of the Archbishop of Cologne Walram of Jülich (archbishop from 1332 until 1349). He took the initiative to establish the charterhouse not long after his predecessor Heinrich of Virneburg (archbishop from 1302 until 1332) had instigated the trial of Meister Eckhart. In other words, this 1  Detailed analysis by G. CHAIX, Réforme et contre-réforme catholiques: Recherches sur la Chartreuse de Cologne au XV e siècle, 3 vols. (Analecta Cartusiana, 80), Salzburg, 1981.

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Carthusian community was founded in a context of controversy concerning the spiritual life and a number of its central issues.2 The monks were very familiar with the development of this controversy. They were, moreover, familiar with the Brabantine mystical author John of Ruusbroec (1293-1381) and his oeuvre — an author who was considered by many to be among the most important spiritual writers, “a second Dionysius,” a doctor divinus, as Dionysius the Carthusian (c. 1402/3-1471) would later call him.3 This is evident from the fact that the prior of the Cologne charterhouse proposed at the general chapter in 1371 that the Order send an official letter to Groenendaal, the community of regular canons of which John of Ruusbroec was the prior. This letter was duly dispatched, and the general chapter confirmed that the Order was aware of the friendship between the Cologne charterhouse and Ruusbroec’s community, that they warmly endorsed it, and that they wished to embrace the community of Groenendaal in the spiritual community of the Order.4 In the context of the fourteenth-century controversies about the spiritual life, the Cologne Carthusians thus implicitly trusted the reliability of Ruusbroec and his works. They did not hesitate to adopt a position with respect to these matters, as they would later do again during the Reformation in the sixteenth century, as we will see.

2  See R. FAESEN, Ruusbroec at the Charterhouse of Herne: How Did the Carthusians react to the Eckhart Shock? in S. MOLVAREC – T. GAENS (eds.), A Fish Out of Water? From Contemplative Solitude to Carthusian Involvement in Pastoral Care and Reform Activity (Miscellanea Neerlandica, 41; Studia Cartusiana, 2), Leuven 2013, 107-125. 3  DIONYSII CARTUSIANI, De donis spiritus sancti tractatus quattuor II, 13 (Opera omnia, 35) Tornaci 1908, p. 184B-D. 4  Frater Willelmus, prior Carthusie, ceterique definitores capituli generalis, religiosis viris preposito [Vrank van Coudenberg], priori [Jan van Ruusbroec], suppriori [Renier van Daele], ceterisque fratribus monasterii Beate Marie Vallis Viridis, ordinis Sancti Augustini, in Brabantia, salutem et pacem. Exigente hoc pie devotionis affectu, quem vos ad ordinem nostrum, et precipue ad fratres quosdam domus Coloniensis, relatione prioris eiusdem, in Domino gerere didicimus, plenam vobis singulis omnium missarum, orationum, vigilarium, ceterumque exercitorum piorum que de cetero in toto ordine nostro, Domino favente, fient, concedimus partecipationem: rogantes intime quatenus et (vos) Deum pro bono statu ordinis nostri suppliciter exoretis. Datum sub sigillo domus Carthusie, anno Domini millesimo trecentesimo septuagesimo primo, sedente capitulo nostro generali, quoted by J. HUIJBEN, Uit Ruusbroec’s vriendenkring, in Jan van Ruusbroec: Leven en werken, onder redactie van het Ruusbroecgenootschap, Mechelen – Amsterdam, 1931, 101-150, quote on p. 128.

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Gérald Chaix has published an extensive study on the Cologne charterhouse during the Reformation, and he distinguished three general chronological periods in the community’s attitudes.5 The mystical treatises they published are indicative of these three periods. In the first period — which corresponds to the earliest stages of the Lutheran reformation — Prior Petrus Blomevenna6 published a Latin translation of Hendrik Herp’s Spieghel (Directorium aureum contemplativorum, cf. infra), in 1509. The community also published several shorter spiritual works in this period. These efforts were intended to offer spiritual support to the community’s friends in Cologne and the surrounding region. Cologne was the birthplace of Saint Bruno (c. 1032-1101), the founder of the Carthusian Order, and the Cologne charterhouse sought to be a centre of spiritual life in the city in these troubled times. The second period — during which the Reformation began to take fixed shape — saw the initiation of far more extensive projects. The publication of the enormous opera omnia of Dionysius the Carthusian (c. 1402/3-1471) between 1530 and 1540 was evidently the most important of these projects. This same period also saw the publication of the Evangelical Pearl (first Dutch edition in 1535, second edition in 1536, and expanded edition of the so-called Greater Pearl in 1537/38, cf. infra), the works of Gertrude of Helfta (in 1536), and the works of Maria van Hout (De rechte wech, 1531; Dat paradijs der liefhavender seelen, 1532). The vibrancy of the Cologne charterhouse was thus clearly much greater in this second period. On the other hand, the Reformation movements were also continuing to expand rapidly.

 G. CHAIX, Réforme et contre-réforme, I, p. 103ff.  Pieter Blommeveen (Petrus Blomevenna) was born in Leiden in 1466 and entered the Cologne charterhouse in 1489. In 1507, he was appointed prior and later visitor of the Rhineland Province. He died in 1536. The Cologne charterhouse flourished during his priorship. He was not only an active translator and publisher of spiritual works (such as Herp’s Mirror), but also wrote several treatises himself, such as De bonitate divina, which clearly demonstrates the extent to which he was influenced by Ruusbroec and Herp L. VERSCHUEREN, Blomevenna (Pierre), in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité I (1937), 1738-1739. 5 6

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In the third period, under the priorship of Gerard Kalkbrenner,7 Dirc Loer8 published the Theologia mystica by Hendrik Herp (in 1538),9 but the most active member of the community was undoubtedly Laurentius Surius.10 He undertook the translation and publication of the entire oeuvres of John of Ruusbroec (in 1552), Suso (in 1555), and Tauler (cf. infra). After this third period, the Cologne Carthusians gradually moved in a new direction, and engaged in theological controversies. Their interest in great works of mystical theology dwindled. It is important to note, however, that the general climate had also changed. After the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 and the subsequent abdication of Emperor Charles V, the principle of cuius regio eius religio (“whose realm, his religion”) became generally accepted, and the divisions in the empire became institutionalized.

7

 Gerard Kalkbrenner (Gerardus Hamontanus) was born in Hamont in 1494 and entered the Cologne charterhouse in 1518. In 1523, he was appointed procurator and succeeded Petrus Blomevenna as prior in 1536. He held the office until his death in 1566. He was also the visitor of the Rhineland Province for a brief period. With the support of his community and the general chapter, he was also the spiritual director of a group of mystical mulieres religiosae in Cologne, led by Maria van Hout. In this same period, Pierre Favre, one of the first companions of Ignatius of Loyola, was a guest at the Cologne charterhouse to direct the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises (summer 1543 and spring 1544). At the same time, the young Jan Pullen (15201608), who would later become an important mystical author, was studying at the University of Cologne, as were Petrus Canisius and Laurentius Surius, H. RÜTHING, Kalkbrenner (Calcifis ou Hamontanis; Gérard), in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité VIII (1974), 1653-1657. 8  Dirk Loer (Loerius) was born in Stratum (near Eindhoven), probably before 1500. He entered the Order in 1518 and was later followed by his brothers Bruno and Hugh. In 1530, he was appointed vicar of the charterhouse, succeeding his friend Johannes Justus Lanspergius. In 1539, he became prior of the Charterhouse of Hildesheim, which was at risk of converting to Protestantism. He resistance to this development resulted in him being banished from the city. He was later elected prior of the Charterhouse of Buxheim (near Memmingen) but was again driven out by the Protestants. He spent some time working at the court of the Bishop of Augsburg, and with the support of Emperor Charles V, he was able to re-establish a number of charterhouses in the German Empire. In 1554, he was charged with the supervision of all the charterhouses in German-speaking territories, but he died the same year, H. RÜTHING, Loher (Loerius; Dirk, Dietrich, Thierry), Dictionnaire de Spiritualité IX (1976), 961-963. 9  The Theologia mystica comprises the Directorium aureum contemplativum (= the Latin translation of the Mirror) as well as a number of Herp’s other works, namely his Soliloquium divini amoris and his Eden seu paradisus contemplativorum, cf. the edition by L. VERSCHUEREN, see H. HERP, Spieghel der volcomenheit, vol. 1: Inleiding, Antwerp, 1931, pp. 105-107. 10  Laurens Sauer (Laurentius Surius) was born in Lübeck circa 1522/1524 as the son of a silversmith. He studied at the University of Frankfurt on the Oder and later at the University of Cologne, where he befriended Nicolaas van Esch (Eschius) and Peter Kanis (Canisius). He entered the Charterhouse of Saint Barbara in 1540, and died there in 1578, see A. DEVAUX, Surius (Sauer; Laurent), Dictionnaire de Spiritualité XIV (1990), 1325-1329.

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The aforementioned publications are clearly related to attitudes towards the development of the Reformation. This relationship was occasionally polemical. For example, in 1526, Prior Blomevenna published an anonymous short work, Candela evangelica, in which he responded to seven of Martin Luther’s positions. Reformation thinkers often criticized the contemplative life of monks, and in order to defend it, he also published a Libellus introductorius in vitam contemplativam (1527). We find another such example in the commissioning of Dirc Loer and the introduction by Johannes Lanspergius11 to the edition of the works of Gertrude of Helfta. These visions were published in a period in which the primacy of the Scriptures was being emphasized in the Reformation, in an attempt to demonstrate that visionary theology in no sense contradicts the Bible.12 In the majority of cases, however, the works published by the Carthusians were not polemical. It is evident that, at least as far as this period is concerned, the Cologne Carthusians did not consider polemics to be the most appropriate response to the difficulties of their age. The solution was not, according to them, that they should attempt to convince their opponents of certain theological positions through compelling argumentation. On the contrary, the question was far more fundamental. This is evident not only from the fact that they took the initiative to publish texts — perhaps an unusual choice in light of Carthusian ideals13 — but especially also because of the specific texts that they chose to publish. It is clear that they considered the greatest problem to be that theology and mysticism had been severed from one another,14 and that they might 11  Jan Gerecht (Johannes Justus de Landsberga) was born in 1489 or 1490 in Landsberg (Bavaria), and studied philosophy in Cologne, where he befriended Petrus Canisius. He entered the Cologne charterhouse in 1509, and was professed by Petrus Blomevenna. He was appointed vicar and novice master in 1523; in 1530 he became prior of Vogelsang (near Jülich) and was likewise appointed the preacher at the court of the Duke of Jülich. After only a few years, his health forced him to return to Cologne, where he died in 1539, see H. ROSSMANN, Lanspergius (Lansperge, Landsberg; Jean-Juste), in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité IX (1975), 230-238. 12  See G. CHAIX, Réforme et contre-réforme, t. 1, p. 208. 13  See S. MOLVAREC, Vox clamantis in deserto: The Development of Carthusian Relations with Society in the High Middle Ages, in S. MOLVAREC – T. GAENS, A Fish Out of Water, p. 13-49. 14  This ‘divorce’ is a complex phenomenon that has been the subject of considerable study and about which there is little consensus. It is unquestionably older than the Reformation, however, since it had already started in the twelfth century. See e.g. P. VERDEYEN, La séparation entre théologie et spiritualité: Origines, conséquences et dépassement de ce divorce, in: J. Haers – P. De Mey (eds.), Theology and Conversation: Towards a Relational Theology (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 172), Leuven 2004, 675-688; R. FAESEN, Albert Deblaere on the Divorce of Theology and Spirituality, in R. FAESEN (ed.), Albert Deblaere, S.J. (1916-1994), Essays on Mystical Literature (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 177), Leuven 2004, 407-425.

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be of greatest service by publishing major works of mystical theology. The edition of Dionysius the Carthusian’s opera omnia was intended to make the author accessible, and specifically because he combined mysticism and theology. The publication of Tauler and Ruusbroec is even more interesting from the perspective of the Reformation context. Indeed, in his polemics with Martin Luther, Johannes Eck had repudiated Tauler, so that Luther took up Tauler’s defence. Suspicion had already been cast on Ruusbroec before, namely by Jean Gerson (1363-1429), the Chancellor of the University of Paris.15 The Carthusians were, however, absolutely convinced of both Tauler’s and Ruusbroec’s spiritual and theological orthodoxy and considered both authors to be fruitful in the difficult ecclesiastical circumstances. We find a fine example of the Carthusians’ inspiration and intent in their publication of such works in Dirc Loer’s preface to the first edition of the Pearl (1535): For some years now, I have worked and continue to work, to the honour of God and on the order of my superior, to bring good and upright books, be they in Latin or Dutch, to light through print […]. Thus have I also discovered the following “Evangelical Pearl” or Margarita, in which I have found much joy. It seems to be worthy to me to make it available for all people. For this little book […] teaches us divine wisdom […], it shows us the hidden paths to God, which God teaches the poor and humble […], it encourages the human person carefully to observe God’s presence and himself […] and with a bare, elevated spirit, with our holy, fiery soul, and with a pure body, always to cleave to God and to follow Christ perfectly both exteriorly and interiorly.16

This passage makes clear that from Dirc Loer’s perspective, the central issue was the following: not only the exterior but also the interior imitation of Christ, 15  Jean Gerson mistakenly thought that Ruusbroec taught a form of mystical “fusion” of the human person and God. This is a fundamental misunderstanding, however: Ruusbroec’s doctrine is based on a relational ontology in which the human being is a “person”, whereas Gerson conceives of humans as “individuals”. 16  Want ic somige iaren ter eeren gods, uut mynre overster beveel, in stadiger arbeit geweest ende noch ben, om goede oprechte boecken, latijn ende duytsch, door de druck int licht te brengen […] so is my ooc desen navolghenden Evangelischen peerle oft margarijt te voren gecomen, daer ik mi seer inne verblijt hebbe; ende dunct my weerdich te wesen om allen goeden menschen ghemeyn te maken. Want dit boecxken […] leeret ons die godlijcke wijsheyt […], het toont ons die heymelicke weghen tot god, die god den armen ootmoedigen leeret […] het drijvet den menschen, dat hi die teghenwoordicheit gods, ende hem selven, altijt scherp sal waernemen […] ende met eenen bloten verheven geest, met onser heyliger vueriger sielen, ende met eenen reyenen lichaem godt altijt sal aenhangen, ende Christum uutwendich ende inwendich volcomelic navolghen. Quoted by L. REYPENS, Nog een vergeten mystieke grootheid? in Ons Geestelijk Erf 2 (1928), 52-76, quote on p. 54-55.

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with body, soul, and spirit. His remarks are telling not only for this specific publication of the Pearl, but for all the works that the Carthusians edited and published. It highlights their primary concern for the interior dimension of the Christian life of faith during the Reformation — or perhaps better, a harmonious union of the interior and exterior dimensions, which in the given circumstances apparently required greater attention to the interior. 2. AN

OLD TRADITION: INTERIORITY AS (FUNDAMENTAL) RELATIONALITY

A common feature of many of the works published by the Carthusians is that they devote great attention to interiority, i.e. the interior dimension of lived Christian faith. Unfortunately, this is often described as a theme that is characteristic of the Early Modern period. The spirituality of the Early Modern Period — and especially in the Devotio Moderna — is often associated with a turn to “interiority.” Due to the chaotic condition of ecclesiastical structures in the fourteenth century, there was a growing realization in this period that the spiritual health of the Church was not guaranteed by these structures. It was the precise intention of the Devotio Moderna to retrieve the interiority of the early Christians, which had been lost in their own time.17 Both the Protestant and Catholic experience of the faith came to place a greater emphasis on interiority. However, this “turn inwards” is subsequently associated by some scholars with the first impulses in the development of the Modern subject, which after René Descartes (1596-1650) became man’s unique source of certainty beyond any possible doubt. The “turn inward” then becomes synonymous with the autonomous subject that develops and aggrandizes itself. These latter general impressions are historically debateable, however. They raise a series of questions, not least of which is the precise nature of this “turn inwards”. In other words, to what does one turn? The texts we will examine here provide enlightening answers to these questions. We must first note, however, that interiority is by no means a novum. It has an old tradition. Nevertheless, as we will see, the theme is addressed and elaborated explicitly in the works we will consider, and this elaboration is most probably part of a broader development in which the Reformation also shared.

 See R. FAESEN, “Tentamen vitae contemplativae in actione: The Doctrine of the Devotio Moderna,” in G. MELVILLE – J. I. SARANYANA CLOSA (eds.) Lutero 500 anni dopo (Atti e Documenti del Pontificio Comitato di Scienze Storiche) Città del Vaticano, 2019, 69-89. 17

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The works we will discuss provide clear indications of their conceptions of interiority. And as we shall see, the authors, published by the Cologne Cartusians, conceive of interiority as being fundamentally different from “subjectivity” and “individuality”. They thus align with an older tradition, to which we must first turn. Let us begin our exploration with Hendrik Herp,18 whose Mirror of Perfection discusses this question. As mentioned, this work was published in Latin translation by Petrus Blomevenna in 1509.19 The book provides interesting information about the structure of the soul, i.e. how Herp conceived of human interiority.20 Hendrik Herp writes: One should know that in the Scriptures the soul is divided in three parts and each part has its own name. The lower part, that is according to the lower powers, is called a soul, because through this part it is connected to the body and it gives the body a life. The middle part is called a spirit, that is according to these three higher powers through which man so much may approach to God through continuous contemplation that he becomes one spirit with God. The highest part of the soul, in which these three powers originally are unified and from which they flow like rays from the sun and in which they flow back again, is called a “thought” (ghedanck, cf. Latin mens). And this is the point in which the image of the Holy Trinity is printed. And it is so noble that one cannot give it a proper name, but it is referred to with many names, the best one can, and it is the highest in the soul.21

18  Hendrik Herp was born in the early 15th century in Erp — there are, however, several towns named Erp in the Low Countries. He was appointed rector of the Brethren of the Common Life in Delft in 1445, and later in Gouda. In 1450, he entered the Franciscan Order, and was appointed Guardian, first in Mechelen (in 1454), and later in Antwerp (1460). He returned to Mechelen in 1467. From 1470 until 1473, he was the provincial vicar and founded several new communities. He was later appointed Guardian in Mechelen again and died there in 1477 or 1478. 19  The Mirror has an exceptionally complex textual history. Various manuscripts contain different versions of the text, which was published in several editions and translations (Latin, Italian, Portuguese, French, Spanish, German, etc.). See the edition by Lucidius Verschueren. The consensus is that there are three different versions of the Mirror: A (the oldest), B (amended by Herp himself) and C (with later doctrinal corrections that were not made by Herp). Blomevenna based his Latin translation on version B. 20  See: T. MERTENS, The Playing Field of Mysticism: Middle Dutch Anthropological Terminology in the ‘Spieghel der volcomenheit’ by Hendrik Herp, in J. ARBLASTER – R. FAESEN (eds.), Mystical Anthropology: Authors from the Low Countries (Contemporary Theological Explorations in Christian Mysticism), London – New York, 2017, 119-133. 21  Hier is te weten dat die ziele in drien ghedeilt wert in der scriftueren ende elc heeft sinen sonderlinghen naem. Dat onderste deel als na den ondersten crachten, soe hiet se een ziel, want si mit

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This passage was entirely inspired by John of Ruusbroec, who outlines the same structure, though his terminology differs somewhat.22 Indeed, Herp is sometimes called “the herald of Ruusbroec” because his works draw from Ruusbroec so frequently. For our purposes here, the reference to the “highest” part of the soul is particularly interesting. This highest part is called “unity of spirit,” “being,” or “thought”. Herp uses these terms to describe the most fundamental dimension of the human soul, which is the core of human interiority. It is also striking that Herp, following Ruusbroec, calls this the “highest dwelling place of God in the human soul”.23 Ruusbroec had developed this theme extensively, and he describes it as a genuine encounter between God and the human person.24 It thus does not concern the “I” that fundamentally coincides with itself (as was often the conception of early Modernity), but rather the most fundamental ground of being as a relation.25 This is perfectly aligned with the older tradition. Indeed, Hugh of SaintVictor (c. 1097-1140/1) wrote that the most essential characteristic of being human — the deepest core of humanity, that which is most human — is the openness to the Other. That is, the possibility of not remaining isolated within oneself, but rather to find one’s way to the Other who transcends the human person absolutely. “Interiority” is thus in no sense a self-centred affair. On the contrary, it is the most fundamental form of relationality, which is consequently considered to be the most essential aspect of being human:

dien deel vereenicht is mitten lichaem ende ghevet den lichaem een leven. Dat middelste deel hietet een geest te wesen als na desen drien oversten crachten, daer die mensche also seer mede mach god ghenaken overmids stadighen scouwen dat hi mit god wordet een geest. Dat overste deel der zielen, daer dese drie crachten oerspronghelic in verenicht sijn ende daer si uutvloyen als radien uter sonnen ende daer si weder invloyen, hietet een ghedanck; ende het is dat punct in der zielen daer dat beelt der heyligher drievoldicheit in gheprent is. Ende dat is also edel dat men hem gheenen proper naem gheven en can, mer men bescrivet mit veel namen als men best mach, ende het is dat overste in der zielen. HERP, Spieghel, p. 50. Translation in Mystical Anthropology, p. 124. 22  See Jan van RUUSBROEC, Die geestelijke brulocht, ed. J. ALAERTS (Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medaevalis, 103), Turnhout, 1981, pp. 287-289. 23  Die overste woenstede (Gods) is dat blote wesen der sielen, HERP, Spieghel, p. 121. 24  Cf. R. FAESEN, Poor in Ourselves and Rich in God: Indwelling and Non-identity of Being (wesen) and Suprabeing (overwesen) in John of Ruusbroec, in Medieval Mystical Theology 21 (2012), 147-169. 25  Relational ontology has been much discussed recently, see J. POLKINGHORNE, The Trinity and an Entangled World: Relationality in Physical Science and Theology, Grand Rapids MI, 2010.

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When in matters spiritual or invisible something is described as the “highest”, this does not mean that it is located spatially above the highest point or the vertex of heaven, but rather that it is the most interior point. To ascend to God is to turn inwards towards oneself, and not merely to enter oneself, but in an ineffable way to transcend oneself in deepest interiority. Therefore, whoever enters interiorly and penetrates inwardly, and goes further than oneself, really ascends to God. […] Indeed, we know that the world is outside us, but God within us. We must therefore turn from the world to God, and then as it were, ascend from the deepest to the highest and go beyond ourselves.26

Chief among the authors who inspired Hugh’s reflections in this regard was Augustine.27 Various metaphors are used throughout the tradition to indicate this deepest dimension of the human person, and it is interesting to note that an influential sixteenth-century author, the erudite Benedictine abbot Ludovicus Blosius,28 enumerates the various terms and places them all on equal footing: There are but few people who know the highest affectus, the onefold intellectus and the pinnacle of the spirit, and the hidden ground of the soul. On the other hand, it is possible to explain to almost anybody that this ground is within us. Indeed, it is far more interior and more elevated than the three higher faculties because it is their origin. This ground is entirely simple, essential and onefold. There is therefore no multiplicity in it, but unity, and the three higher faculties are one [there].

 In spiritualibus ergo, et invisibilibus cum aliquid supremum dicitur, non quasi localiter supra culmen aut verticem coeli constitutum, sed intimum omnium significatur. Ascendere ergo ad Deum hoc est intrare ad semetipsum, et non solum ad se intrare, sed ineffabili quodammodo in intimis etiam seipsum transire. Qui ergo seipsum, ut ita dicam, interius intrans et intrinsecus penetrans transcendit, ille veraciter ad Deum ascendit. […] Quia vero mundum hunc extra nos, Deum autem intra nos esse cognoscimus, ob hoc a mundo ad Deum revertentes, et quasi ab imo sursum ascendentes per nosmetipsos transire debemus, HUGO OF ST. VICTOR, De vanitate mundi II, in Patrologia Latina 176 (1834), p. 715. 27  For a more extensive discussion of this point, see: R. FAESEN – J. ARBLASTER, The question of mystical anthropology, in J. ARBLASTER – R. FAESEN (eds.), Mystical Anthropology: Authors from the Low Countries, (Contemporary Theological Explorations in Christian Mysticism), London 2017, 1-15. 28  Louis de Blois (later Latinized as Ludovicus Blosius) was born in 1506 in Donstiennes, near Charleroi, in the family of the counts of Blois and of Champagne, who had lived for some centuries in Hainaut. As a child, he was a page at the court of the later Emperor Charles V. When he was fifteen, he joined the Benedictine abbey of Liessies. He studied in Leuven, in the period that Erasmus and Adrian Boeyens (the later pope Adrian VI) were also active there. After having completed his artes studies, he studied theology with Ruard Tapper and John Driedo. In 1530 he was elected abbot of his monastery, where he encouraged intellectual and spiritual life. He died in 1566. See P. DE PUNIET, Blois (Louis de), in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité 1 (1937), 1730-1738. 26

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There is highest rest and highest silence, for no images can reach it. In this ground, in which the image of God is hidden, we are deiform. This ground, which in a certain sense is an abyss, is called the heaven of the spirit, for the realm of God is located there, as the Lord himself said “the kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17: 21). In reality, the “kingdom of God” is God himself, with all his riches. This bare and imageless ground is thus higher than all creatures, higher than all the senses and all the faculties, it occasionally transcends spatial limitations, for it remains in God because it cleaves constantly to its origin. He is essentially within us for he is the abyss of the soul and its most interior being. When this ground opens to the human person and begins to enlighten him — this ground which is constantly suffused by divine light — it awakens in the human person a great attraction and great joy.29

Blosius lucidly articulates that this “ground” — which is also called the “highest affectus” or “pinnacle of the spirit”; in other authors we find terms such as “spark” — is the most fundamental origin of human existence and thus also the most fundamental unity of the various human faculties. This “ground” is the direct contact between the human as creature and the creating God. This direct contact is thus by no means in opposition to the indirect contact. Indeed, the indirect contact occurs through the (sensory, intellectual, etc.) faculties, of which the direct contact is always the creating origin. Indirect and direct contact between humanity and God thus always exist together — though they are of course not always experienced as such. Indeed, the direct contact can remain completely hidden and unobserved. The interiority that these authors discuss so extensively concerns the personal presence of God in the human person, as a creating God. This can perhaps best be understood as a focus on the most fundamental relationality of the human person: the fact that the human person in his or her very being is a relationship, as a creature with the creating God. This conception of “interiority” as the fundamental, essential relationality of the human person and God was developed extensively by Ruusbroec, it was then adopted by Hendrik Herp, and thus transmitted to the Cologne Carthusians in the Reformation period. This is the fundamental insight to which the aforementioned, later publications attest, and which they further describe and analyse. Let us examine their specific insights based on the question we are addressing: how do these texts define and describe interiority as essential relationality?  Opera omnia, Antwerp 1632, p. 326-328.

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152 3. THE EVANGELICAL PEARL

We shall begin our exploration with the Evangelical Pearl. As mentioned, the Cologne Carthusians made the first edition of this work — a unique text with a complex history.30 The author, whose name is not mentioned in the edition, has never been identified.31 Indeed, we do not even know if the book was written by a single author; the Pearl may be a compilation like the Institutiones Taulerianae (cf. infra). The text was enormously influential, largely thanks to the edition and Latin translation made at the Charterhouse of Saint Barbara.32 Its origins are likewise very obscure. It does appear that the text had not been written long before it was edited in Cologne, since there are a few references to “Lutheran people.”33 The author clearly sought to distance himself or herself from these “Lutheran” positions. The book is generally not polemical in tone, however. Almost the entire text is devoted to a discussion of interiority, and the third part of the book deals with dimension in great detail. Chapter 12 is particularly important in this regard and is entitled “On three sorts of spiritual persons”. The chapter first discusses the most mature, spiritually developed people:34 The first ones […] are those who courageously and joyfully give up their own nature and all creatures and who are touched in the pure ground of their soul, and who have learned […] how God is present in the deepest essential ground of their

30  The first edition was published in 1535 by Dirc Loer; the second, expanded edition (the so-called “Great Pearl”) appeared in 1537/1538. Nicolaas van Esch (1507-1578) collaborated with the Cologne Carthusians to publish the Latin translation (1545), perhaps by Surius, and based on the Great Pearl, though it does not follow that text in every detail (some later German and French translations were based on this edition). Finally, there is a fourth textual variant that was never published, and which is only extant in one manuscript. Cf. L. REYPENS, Nog een vergeten mystieke grootheid: De schrijfster van de Evangelische Peerle, in Ons Geestelijk Erf 2 (1928), pp. 52-76; p. 189-213; p. 305-341, and A. AMPE, Perle Évangélique (Die evangelische peerle), in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité XII-1 (1983), 1159-1169. B. MCGINN, A Forgotten Classic of Late Medieval Women’s Mysticism: The Evangelical Pearl, in Archa Verbi: Yearbook for the Study of Medieval Theology 5 (2008), 97-121. 31  K. SCHEPERS, Wat zeggen de vroegste edities over de auteur van Die evangelische peerle? in Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 130 (2013), 26-54. 32  The text influenced many famous authors, such as Petrus Canisius, Louis de Blois, Pierre de Bérulle, Benoît de Canfield, François de Sales, and Angelus Silesius. No comprehensive study has hitherto been devoted to this extremely popular and influential work. A critical edition has been under preparation for the past several years. 33  De groote evangelische peerle, Antwerpen, 1629, p. 240. 34  The book’s general literary structure is that the most mature spiritual development is described first, followed by the “lower” gradations, as in this case.

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soul and ennobled her and her works through the three. […] They are constantly interiorly aware of God and forget themselves totally, always following the will, desires and intentions of God.35

The author clearly alludes here to the relational dimension of the ground of the soul, in which the human person is oriented more to the Other than to herself, and is rooted more in the Other than in herself. Although this relational ground is factually and genuinely present in each person, many people are not consciously aware of it, as the text goes on to emphasize: We have him entirely in the essential ground […] of our soul, and he has saved us all and purified us by his bitter passion, so that the Godhead might once shine and work through us. But not all recognize this, nor do they apply themselves to it; that is why so few arrive at their source and point of origin.36

This is evident from the attitudes of those who are part of the second group, which comprises people who are less mature in terms of experience. The second sort of people are those who have heard that God is essentially in the ground and image of the soul (the holy scripture from the Old and New Testaments witnesses to this many a time; it introduces strong progress of soul to all who practice it, and this is clearly taught). […] But since they turn in again with difficulty and are distracted and multiple, they can neither be united with that simple goodness nor be ignited by its love.37

35  Die eerste menschen […] dat zijn die haerselfs natuer ende alle creatueren koenlic ende vroelic orlof geven ende in desen puren gront der sielen zijn geraect ende dien dat onderwijs ende onderscheyt geleert ende onderwesen is […] hoe dat God is inden diepsten weselijcken gront der sielen ende heeft alle haer binnensten vereedelt ende werct door die drie overste crachten […] ende nemen god stadelic van binnen waer ende laten hem te gronde volgen altijt den wille, begeerte ende meyninge gods. We quote from one of the many re-editions: De groote evangelische peerle… Antwerpen, 1629, p. 429. Translation in R. FAESEN – R. VAN NIEUWENHOVE (eds.), Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries (Classics of Western Spirituality), New York, 2008, p. 235. 36  Want wij hebben hem altemael inden weselijcken gront […] der sielen. Ende hy heeft ons allen gelijc verlost ende door zijn bitter lijden gesuyvert dat die godheyt weder door ons schijnen ende wercken mach. Mer dit en bekennen noch en oeffenen alle menschen nyet. Ende daer om comen so weynich menschen in haer eerste punct ende oorspronc. De groote evangelische peerle, p. 430. Translation in Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries, p. 235. 37  Die ander menschen dat zijn dye geen die gehoort hebben dat God weselijc inden gront ende beeldt der sielen is (dat dye heylige scrift vanden ouden ende nyeuwenTestamente menichfuldelijcken tuyget, daer alle stercken voortganc der sielen in leyt dye dat oeffenen ende dien dat claerlic onderwesen is). […] Ende want si qualic weder in keeren ende verstroit ende vermenichfuldicht zijn so en connen si met dat eenvuldige goet niet verenicht noch in zijnre minnen ontsteken werden. De groote evangelische peerle, p. 431. Translation in Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries, p. 236.

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There is clearly a difference only in terms of experience. Indeed, God is essentially in the ground of the soul of these people, but they only know this because they have heard about it, not because they have any personal experience of it. Consequently, relationality with God is not mutual or reciprocal. The third group is even further removed from a genuinely reciprocal relationship with God: The third group of people are those who enter into themselves and have no knowledge of God as how he is in the ground of the soul; nor do they know how they are constituted within. A watch keeps its ordained time if it remains steady in its point. But when it is not functioning correctly and does not remain steady in its point, then it runs without proper ordinance. And so, too, it is with the soul that does not remain in its point, that is, God.38

The author underscores that the members of this third group are by no means morally at faul; there is nothing to reproach them for. The point is simply that they do not intimately rely on God but on themselves: Nor do they know how God is superessential, without means, in the point of the soul. Of all these they have no correct knowledge. But they have taken on all their practices in outward ordinances and in ownness, in praying, in reading, in thinking, through manifold images and forms that one can take in and feel with outward understanding and through the senses from without. And thus they remain stuck in their nature. And if they receive any grace from God, they enjoy it for their own pleasures and gratification and thus mingle the precious balm with worthless manure.39

38  Die derde menschen dat zijn die gene die ingaen in henselven ende en hebben geen kennisse van God hoe dat hi inden gront der sielen is noch en weten hoe si van binnen gestelt zijn. Een urewerc houdt zijn ordinancie alst in zijn punct blijft gestelt. Mer als dat onstelt is ende nyet in zijn punct en blijft so verloopt dat sonder ordinancie. Also ist metter sielen ooc die niet en blijft in haer punct dat God is. De groote evangelische peerle, p. 434-435. Translation Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries, p. 238. It is striking that Teresa of Avila mentions in her autobiography, written circa 1565, that it took many years before she realized that God was present in the soul, Vida, XVIII, 15, Obras Completas, ed. EFREN DE LA MADRE DE DIOS – OTILIO DEL NIÑO JESUS (Biblioteca de autores cristianos), Madrid, 1951, p. 697. 39  Noch hoe dat God overweselic is sonder wijse in dat punct der sielen. Van alle deser geliken en hebben si geen rechte kennisse. Mer si hebben al haer oeffeninge in uutwendige ordinancie ende in eygenschap aengenomen. In bidden in lesen in dencken door menichfuldige beelden ende formen diemen metten uutwendigen verstande ende door dye sinnen van buyten inhalen ende bevoelen mach. Ende dus blijven si in haer nature staen. Ende ist dat si eenige gracie van Gode ontfanghen die ghebruycken si tot harer ghenoechten ende wellusten ende vermengen so den costeliken balsem metten snoden dreck. De groote evangelische peerle, p. 435. Translation in Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries, p. 238-239.

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This third group consists grosso modo of what we would call the “Modern self”, i.e. those people for whom relationality with God is a secondary issue, and not the ultimate foundation of their being — at least as far as their own self-consciousness and experience is concerned. The author of the Pearl thus clearly highlights that there is a very limited awareness or experience of interiority among such people, and that they have not reached genuinely relational maturity. 4. THE INSTITUTIONES TAULERIANAE The second text we shall examine likewise has very complex origins.40 It is a compilation based on the first printed edition of the works of Tauler, namely the incunable print of 1498 (Leipzig). The edition was reprinted in Augsburg in 1508 and was read and glossed by Luther himself. The work was then expanded considerably and published in Basel in 1521. Some years later, Petrus Canisius (called “Petrus Noviomagus”41) collaborated with the Carthusians to prepare another, even longer edition in 1543: Des erleuchten D. Johannis Tauleri, von eym waren Evangelischen leben, Götliche Predig, Leren, Epistolen, Cantilenen, Prophetien. This last edition contained a great many texts that were not included in the earlier versions, including anonymous pieces, but also passages from Ruusbroec, Eckhart, and others. The Carthusian Laurentius Surius, a friend of Petrus Canisius, published a slightly amended Latin translation of this edition only a few years later (1548).42 All the (numerous) later editions and translations were based on Surius’ text. It is interesting to note that this

40  A clear overview is provided by L. GNÄDINGER in her article Tauler (Jean) in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité XV (1990), pp. 57-79, under “Les éditions imprimées et les Pseudo-Taulerianae”, pp. 72-75. 41  I.e. Petrus “from Nijmegen.” Canisius was indeed born in Nijmegen. For the identification of Petrus Noviomagus as Petrus Canisius, see: A. DE PELSEMAEKER, Canisius éditeur de Tauler, in Revue d’ascétique et mystique 36 (1960), pp. 102-108. 42  D. Ioannis Thauleri sublimis et illuminati theologi, saluberrimae ac plane divinae institutiones aut doctrinae, recens inventae (Köln, 1548). The only thorough studies of the so-called Institutiones is A. AMPE, Een kritisch onderzoek van de ‘Institutiones taulerianae’ in Ons Geestelijk Erf 40 (1966), 167-240 and J.-M. GUEULLETTE, Eckhart en France: La lecture des ‘Institutions spirituelles’ attribuées à Tauler 1548-1699, Grenoble, 2012. On the role played by the Cologne Carthusian Gerard Kalckbrenner in the compilation of the texts considered here, see: A. AMPE, Het aandeel van Gerard Kalckbrenner van Hamont in ‘Peerle’ en ‘Tempel,’ in Ons Geestelijk Erf 40 (1966), 241-305.

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work was also valued highly in Protestant circles. For example, a Dutch Protestant translation was published in Amsterdam in 1565, in which the sequence of the texts was reorganized into a more liturgical structure. This text, which likewise dates from the second period of translation and edition work at the Charterhouse of Saint Barbara, also offers extensive treatments of the theme of interiority. We shall quote from an anonymous passage that does not belong to Tauler’s authentic corpus, but which was added by the Carthusians:43 And when the human spirit is drawn up and all its power is fixated on God, active in a supernatural force, and when its vision contemplates in the supernatural light, then it burns and blazes in supernatural love, and it cleaves to this utterly pure and distinct substance [= God]. Its light does not shine in time, but thirsts longingly for eternity. It sinks away from itself entirely. All that it can do, all that it is and all that it knows, loves, possesses, sees or enjoys, it leaves behind entirely. Yes, it has passed away from all these things in a profound abandonment of spirit and has hurled everything into the inexhaustible abyss of the Godhead. All is sunk away, lost, reduced to not moving, not living, and having no force or power. No language can worthily speak of the depths into which this interior abandonment has descended. They can do nothing, save say with Jeremiah: “Ah, ah, ah, Lord, I cannot speak, for I am only a child” (Jer. 1:6). And yet this highest abandonment is possible thanks to the abyssal omnipotence of God, which nothing can resist. Though there are many blessed ways of attaining a perfect life, there are but few people who travel this road and are led to this [state] without being deceived. How is this so? The reason is certainly that the majority rely on their own complacency or are obedient to their own self-love.44

 As they explicitly indicated themselves, see nota Ad lectorem, Institutiones, p. 444.  (De illa interna resignatione dicendum est… eius opera …sunt) erecta ad incorporeum increatum et bonum illud, quod est ipse Deus, ubi nimirium spiritus sursum attractus, et cum omnibus viribus suis intensus, quadam vi supernaturali contemplatur, supernaturali diletione fervet et ardet, purissimaeque illi et abstractae inhaeret substantiae: non lucens tempori, sed inhians aeternitati, sibijpsi omnino excidens, ac deferens pure et nude quicquid est, potest, scit, praevalet, amat, possidet, contemplatur et fruitur. Haec, inquam, omnia illi in hac intima sui resignatione et inexhausta divinitatis abysso exciderant: submersa, deperdita, abnegata sunt nude in quoddam non moveri, non vivere, non valere, non posse. De hac altissima interna resignatione dignum aliquid dicere nulla sufficit lingua, quin et cum Hieremia fateri cogitur omnis: A, a, a domine, nescio loqui, quia puer sum ego. Attamen ex infinita Dei potentia possibile est hanc obtinere, cum nihil ei sit impossibile. Caeterum cum multi sint sanctioris vitae modi, paucissimi tamen sunt homines, qui vero absque deceptione tractu huc intrahantur. Cuius equidem ratio est, quia fere omnes propriae complacentiae proprioque sensui innituntur, et privato ducuntur amore. Institutiones, p. xxv. 43 44

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Again we see our author describing relationality at the most fundamental level, the level of being itself. The person lives more in the Other than in himself, and the text contrasts this abandonment with the attitude of those who rely on their own “I”. The theme of the highest abandonment (gelassenheit) is then further developed as follows: When the person has been completely and utterly stripped, both exteriorly and interiorly, of all attachments, when he rests on his nothingness, as I have just explained, then she can freely turn to the purest and simplest Good that is God. This conversion must occur essentially. Here the spirit does not turn to God with some aspect or another itself, but completely. This conversion is therefore not only called essential, it is essential: essential, completely undivided, perfect. Indeed, the spirit cannot divide itself into parts. And that is why its conversion is essential. And God responds to it essentially. The spirit does not turn to God through images or through the mediation of intellectual concepts about the divine Being. Indeed, it does not even receive Him as a certain sweet or enlightening experience. It receives Himself, essentially, in a manner that transcends all taste and every light, and any radiance that a creature may receive, which transcends reason and manner and insight. Yes, God enlightens this darkness essentially. He ineffably transcends every name that one might give Him; he is present, purely and simply, within one’s own being.45

Our author thus clearly conceives of relationality as an essentially reciprocal affair. The human person not only gives himself entirely to God (directly, without mediation, “essentially”), God also gives himself, not as an experience or a concept, but as God is. God is thus personally present within the human person.

45  (Tertium est, quod) posteaquam homo ab omni inhaesione perfecte et integre intus atque foris est absolutus, suoque didicit inniti nihilo, idque ea, qua iam dictum est, ratione, iam tunc ei libera patet ad purum illud simplicissimumque bonum, Deum Opt. Max. conversio. Haec autem conversio, essentiali quodam modo fieri habet. Hic nanque spiritus non aliqua sui parte, sed totus et integer in Deum sese recipit. Unde et ista conversio non solum dicitur, sed est etiam revera essentialis, integra, indivisa, perfecta. Ex sui nanque parte nusquam abstrahitur : ideoque essentialis dici potest, eique Deus ipse semper essentialiter respondet. Enimvero homo hic non per imagines, aut meditationes, aut intellectuali modo in Deum essentialiter, nec ipsum iam quasi sapidum sive coruscum, sed ipsum plane in seipso suscipit, ubi omnem saporem et quidquid vel ei vel alicui creaturae lucis potest infundere, omnem quoque rationem, modum et intellectum longe transcendit. Hanc caliginem Deus illustrat essentialiter, et hic ipse, quicquid nobis illi imponi potest, ineffabiliter excedit, in propria substantia sua pure simpliciterque subsistens. Institutiones, p. liij.

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The author then adds a striking ecclesiological reflection: To attain this state, there is no shorter road than to give oneself to God in total abandonment, in profound interior humility, in genuine annihilation, and in a complete and sincere denial of oneself. He sinks away into his ground and eternal origin — namely God, in whom he has been from all eternity. He forgets himself, forgets all people, and forgets everything that is not God. He is emptied of all forms, images, and objects. His only essential object is God, until God, in his turn, draws him into Himself and unites him with Himself, so that they lose sight of all things concerning their being, knowledge, and pleasure. Then his reason knows nothing and he experiences nothing — except the One. These are the noblest people on earth. In the short space of an hour, they are of more benefit to the Church than others are in years. One single act of interiority [in the ground of the soul and in God Himself 46] is more meritorious that innumerable great works and exercises without such interiority. Only here can one find the real divine life and true peace.47

The final reflection — “one single act of interiority is more meritorious than innumerable great works and exercises without such interiority” — has great resonance and relevance in light of the contemporaneous controversies concerning the value of “good deeds,”48 but more than anything else, it highlights that to the author of this passage, there is no principal opposition between interiority and exteriority. On the contrary, the ideal is that these two should coalesce. 46

 This is an addition in the Latin text of Surius; it does not appear in the Middle High German original. 47  Ad haec alia alia compendiosior via dari vix potest, quam ut homo perpetua se Deo subiectione in profunda mentis humilitate, vera sui extenuatione, syncera ac integra suijpsius abnegatione submittat, scienterque sese in fundum suum et aeternam originem suam, Deum Opt. Max. in quo ab aeterno extitit, immergat: suijpsius et omnium hominum et quidquid Deus non est, obliviscatur: a formis et imaginibus et rebus omnibus se absolvat et expediat: Deum perpetuum essentiale obiectum habeat, donec ipsum Deus in se trahat, rapiatque, eique sic uniat, ut obiecta quaelibet excidant ac elabantur, qualiacunque sint illa, sive essentialia, sive cognitionis, sive saporis, nihilque iam omnino per rationem vel experientiam sciat nisi unum. Plane quotquot tales sunt, nobilissimi sunt huius vitae homines, qui una brevi hora plus Ecclesiae sanctae utilitatis adferunt , quam omnes alii extra hos, etiam pluribus annis. In hunc namque animae fundum et deum ipsum vel una introversio, multis extra hunc etiam magnis exercitiis operibusque praeclarior atque praestatior est. In hoc solo fundo vera deiformis vita et pax secura habetur. Institutiones, p. liiij. 48  See Martin Luther’s statement in omni opere bono iustus peccat, which was condemned by the bull Exsurge Domine in 1520 (statement 31), see: H. DENZINGER – A. SCHÖNMETZER, Enchirition symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, Freiburg i.B. 1963, p. 361. The same idea is also to be found in the epilogue of the Temple (ed. Ampe, p. 634-648), which according to Albert Ampe (p. 47-52) was probably written by Kalckbrenner, and inspired by the older Buch von den neun Felsen by Rulman Merswin (1307-1383), a friend of John of Ruusbroec.

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The following remark is likewise particularly significant when read in the historical context of the Reformation, with its emphasis on the principle of sola Scriptura: If we were to have insight into all the Scriptures, if we were teachers who could form others, and guide them to eternal salvation, if we were to possess sufficient riches to alleviate all the poverty in the world, it would be of little benefit if we lacked God, if we were to maintain our own self-possession and thus to form an obstacle and a hindrance for God to enter within us and for us, so that we might abandon ourselves completely to Him and to work for his glory. Therein lies the entire teaching of the Scriptures, to offer ourselves to God incessantly, to live for Him and to give ourselves to Him interiorly, and never to separate ourselves from Him. Amen.49

The Institutiones present a very similar interpretation of “interiority” as the Evangelical Pearl. In both texts, interiority is understood as a mutual relationality of God and the soul on the most fundamental level of the human being. This is presented as vital for the life of the Church, and as the quintessence of the Scriptures. Finally, we may also briefly mention that the Institutiones contain a remarkable chapter (cap. 35) in which the role and the relative importance of images is discussed in connection with interiority and immediate contact. The chapter not only discusses hindering obstructive images, but also good and helpful images. The former are obviously to be stripped away, but the latter can remain under certain conditions: If I strip myself of good images before I have fully recognized them, I behave stupidly and even dangerously. Why? Because I deny myself the knowledge of the truth that is conveyed through these good images.50

 Si quis etiam omnem sacram caperet scripturam hancque alios doceret, atque per hoc omnes ad eternam reduceret beatitudinem, omnium quoque inopiae subveniret: parum ille ex his omnibus referre emolumenti, si seipsum Deo subtraheret, atque in proprietate permaneret, atque ita sibijpsi fieret impedimento, quo minus libere sese ad Deum introrecipere, eidemque penitus resignare, et honorem illius offerre posset , cum in hoc omnis utique scriptura divinitus inspirata sit, ut vivum internumque Dei sacrificium et simus semper et permaneamus. Amen. Institutiones, p. lxx. 50  Si enim priusquam eas plene cognoscam, bonis imaginibus valefaciam, stolide quidem ac noxie ago. Cur hoc? Quia veritas, quae per quanlibet nihil bonam imaginem innotuisset, cognitioni meae subtrahitur. Institutiones, p. lxviij. 49

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The specific circumstances in which useful, noble and even pure images can be relinquished51 are described as inspired by pure love for God, pure desire and pure intention, as a result of which the human person can abandon herself to God completely. The images themselves remain useful and valuable, however: Among the noblest things that a person can do in this life must certainly be undergoing spiritual transformation by spiritual images.52

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The third and final text we shall examine is equally interesting but was far less popular and influential.53 There is only one known printed edition (dating from 1543), and no translations. According to the title page, the author is the same as the (anonymous) author of the Pearl. She is described as a woman who died on 28 January 1540 at the age of seventy-seven, and who had lived in her father’s house and was obedient to her spiritual father. The extent to which we should take this description of the author of both texts literally is uncertain, since there are elements in the text which contradict such a literal interpretation. Although this text was not particularly popular, it may justly be considered a masterpiece of Christian mystical literature. It brilliantly integrates numerous mystical themes in an extensive and carefully considered composition. It is, in other words, an erudite summa of mystical theology, which brings together all the various dimensions into a single comprehensive structure, namely that of the liturgy.54 The combination of liturgy and mystical theology is by no means unique, of course, but the Temple is one of the most comprehensive syntheses of this genre in Christian literature. We must also note that given the historical context of the Reformation, with its interest in “purifying” the liturgy, this text

51  A striking echo of the three signs described in this chapter, signs that indicate that one can unproblematically abandon images, is to be found in the three signs that John of the Cross describes as the basis on which one can move from meditation to contemplation, cf. Subida del Monte Carmelo II, 13, 2-4, Obras Completas 253-254. 52  Inter nobilissima quippe opera, quae in hac vita fieri ab homine possint, etiam illud est rationabiliter [vernūfftelich] in divinas imagines transformari. Institutiones, p. lxviij. 53  Critical edition by A. AMPE: Den tempel onser sielen, door de schrijfster der Evangelische Peerle, Antwerpen, 1968. Leonce Reypens suggests influence of the Temple on Jan ‘Pilgrim’ Pullen (1520-1608), a Dutch mystical author who wrote an impressive oeuvre, but who is almost unstudied, L. REYPENS, Pelgrim Pullen, in Ons Geestelijk Erf 3 (1929), 246-277, see note 41. 54  A theme announced in the Pearl, e.g. III, 3, see De groote evangelische peerle, p. 411-412; translation in Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries, p. 222-223.

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was extremely relevant to its age,55 and it may therefore be considered surprising that it was not circulated more widely. The text describes the human person with the metaphor of the sanctuary, and begins as follows: “The eternal Wisdom has made a house for himself and has carved seven pillars” (Prov. 9:1). This house is the rational soul, which the Master of eternal Wisdom has carved out of the mountain of eternity, out of the almighty abyss of the Father, out of the eternal providential wisdom of the Son, out of the abundant riches of the Holy Spirit. Thus, he has made for himself a most fitting mansion for his noble divinity, just as the prophet says: “O Israel, how vast is the house of your God, how broad the scope of your dominion; its height is immeasurable, its end is eternal” (Bar 3:24). Even though this is to be understood as heaven, nevertheless one can reasonably understand it also as the soul, which is a heaven of the Holy Trinity.56

As the author of the Temple argues, human interiority is by no means opposed to exterior religious (and liturgical) activities. On the contrary, the interior dimension, which concerns one’s personal relationship with God, is the goal and purpose of the exterior: Consecration of the church is accomplished only in the most intimate part in the soul, in the same place that God has reserved for himself and united to himself, where neither angel nor human person nor any other creature can enter — that is the noble superessence of the soul — and the same place he desires to have for himself alone, and he does not want to share it with anyone else. […] The exterior temple is made for this inner temple. Everything that is disposed in it has no purpose other than to come to this inner temple, and all that is celebrated in it has no aim other than to be perfected in this inner temple.57 55

 As Luther said: “It is not now nor has been our intention to abolish the liturgical service of God completely, but rather to purify the one that is now in use from the wretched accretions which corrupt it and to point out an evangelical use.” Luther’s Works (American Edition), vol. 53 ed. J. PELIKAN – H. T. LEHMAN, Philadelphia 1986, p. 20. 56  Die eewighe Wijsheyt heeft hem selven een huys ghemaect ende uutgehouwen seven calommen. Dit huys is die redelike siel, die daer van den meester der eewigher Wijsheyt ghehouden is uuten berch der eewicheyt, uut die almachtighe afgrondicheyt des Vaders, uut die eewighe voorsienighe wijsheyt des Soons, uut dat weeldige rijcdom des heyligen Geest. So heeft hi hem selven een alte bequamen woninghe zijnre edelre Godheyt ghemaect, als die propheet spreect: O Israël, hoe groot is dyns Gods huys, ende hoe wijt is die stede dijnre besittinge! Haer hoocheyt is onghemeten, ende haer eynde is eewich. Al yst datmen hierbi verstaet den hemel, nochtans machmen hier wel rechtelijc bi verstaen die siel, die daer is een hemel der heyligher Drievuldicheyt. ed. AMPE, p. 225-228. Translation in: Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries, p. 324. 57  Want dat die kercwidinge alleen volbracht wort int alder-binnenste der sielen, inde selve steden, die God hem selven gevrijt ende gheeenicht heeft, dat noch engel noch mensche noch gheen

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The entire treatise consists of a detailed reflection on this theme. By way of example, we may refer to the description of the Christmas liturgy. The birth of God — which is celebrated liturgically at Christmas, but which in fact finds its fundamental, spiritual reality in interiority, is described as occurring in three interior ways: As the soul has received nothing but God, and is filled with God, it can give birth to nothing else than to God, who is born from it in three ways — nevertheless he is and remains one […]. Indeed, there are three unities in all human beings, and each unity is in God. The first unity is that of the inner being of the soul. The second is the unity of the higher faculties. The third is the unity of the heart.58

According to our author, the birth of God occurs on each of these three levels. First, there is a birth in the highest unity of human interiority, which finds its liturgical equivalent in midnight mass: Now, the highest unity of the being of the soul hangs always in God — one life — and is united with the divine Being. It is one and unwavering, because God dwells in that unity as in an eternal “now.” […] There, God ever gives birth to himself, in a superessential way, and he keeps the essence of the soul fixed to his unity, so that it is free and stripped, without name or form. The essence of the soul is simple and does not intermingle with anything, so that one cannot reach it in a determined way. And here the Father gives birth to his only Son, as truly as he does in himself, and the mind is continuously embraced in the divine unity. The one who experiences this in himself finds all good and eternal life. In this lies all freedom and abundance of wealth. It is not limited, it is wider than all the heavens, and it is a streaming flood, a bottomless source from which all living rivers flow forth. In this way, the Son to whom the Father gives birth is ever born. And that is the meaning of the first mass sung at midnight, in the dark night unknown to the created intellect. This intellect is unable to reach it, because it is creatuer daerin comen en mach (dat is dat edel overwesen der sielen), die selve stede wil die eewighe God hem selven alleen hebben, ende en wil ooc niet, dat yemant daer ghemeynscap met hem heeft. [… ] Om desen inwendigen tempel is den uutwendigen tempel ghemaect; ende al dat daerin is gheordineert, en is anders niet dan te comen tot desen inwendigen tempel, al hetghene datmen daerin begheet, dattet al in desen inwendigen tempel volbracht soude werden, A. AMPE (ed.), p. 278-280. Translation in Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries, pp. 328-329. 58  Want si in haer niet ontfangen en heeft dan God, ende is vol Gods, so en can si niet voortbrenghen dan God, die in drierhande wisen van haer gheboren wort — ende is ende blivet nochtans één aenden wesen, ghelijckerwijs die heylighe Drievuldicheyt is inden personen drievuldich, mer weselic één. Ende dat daerom, want daer drie eenicheden zijn in allen menschen daer God in elcker eenicheyt is. Dat een is die eenicheyt des binnenste wesens der sielen. Die ander is eenicheyt der overster crachten. Die derde is eenicheyt des herten, ed A. AMPE, p. 309-310, translation in Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries, p. 340-341. Cf. J. RUUSBROEC, Brulocht, p. 287-289.

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a darkness to it. And in this dark silence a simple light reveals itself, and the Father speaks: “You are my Son, today I have begotten you” (cf. Ps.2:7). Here the spirit is born again, and taken up in its divine origin, where it has been from eternity. There it is God with God, where God gives birth anew to himself — in the mode of simplicity, in the highest unity.59

Second, there is a birth in the higher faculties of the soul, which finds its equivalent in Mass at dawn: The middle unity is that of the higher faculties, which emerge from the first unity. They have their origin and foundation in the divine being. In this unity, God dwells with his holy Trinity, and he works in this unity according to distinctions of the Persons. The Father is the power and being of memory, and keeps it in an eternal attention. The Son is the clarity and the being of the intellect and keeps it in an eternal light. The Holy Spirit is the burning spark of the will, and keeps it in loving inclination, in an eternal adherence to God. He unites the spirit with God in the bond of love. And here God gives birth to his Son in a hidden brightness, with which the spirit is clarified. That light gives the spirit knowledge of God and of itself; it discloses the senses of Scripture and teaches the content and the modes of all spiritual exercises and spiritual life. It gives all this to enlighten the soul. This birth is the sense of the second mass, where we sing: “light will shine upon us today.”60 59  Nu die overste eenicheyt des wesens der sielen hanghet altijt in God — een leven — ende is vereenicht in die eenicheyt des godliken wesens. Si is eenich ende onberoerlijc als God eenich ende onberoerlic is, want God is in dese cracht als inden eewighen Nu. […] Ende God baert hem selven in haer sonder onderlaet in een overweselike wise, ende hout dat wesen der sielen aen zijn eenvuldicheyt, dattet vry ende bloot is alder namen ende van alle formen, ende is also eenvuldich, ende en vermenget hem met ghenen dingen also datmen met gheenre wisen tot haer comen en mach. Hier so baert die Vader sinen eenigen Sone, also waerlic als in hem selven. Ende het ghemoede wort stadelic omvanghen met godliker eenicheyt. Die dit in hem bevint, die vindet alle goet ende eewich leven. Daerin leyt alle vriheyt ende rijcheyt der weelden. Het en is niet benaut; het is wider dan alle hemelen; het is een wellende vloet, een afgrondige fonteyn, daer die levende rivieren uut vloeyen. In deser wisen wordet die selve Sone, die den Vader baert. Ende dese gheboerte is beteeckent bi der eerster missen, die men inder middernacht singet, inde duyster nacht, die allen gheschapen verstant onbekent is. Want het hier niet toe comen en can, want het hem duyster is. Ende in dese duyster stilheyt openbaert hem een eenvuldich licht, ende die Vader spreect: ‘Ghi zijt mijn Sone; heden heb ic die ghewonnen’. Hierin wort die gheest wedergheboren, ende is inghenomen in zijn godlike oorspronc, daer hi eewelijc in heeft geweest, ende is daer God met God, daer God hem selven wederghebaert nae eenvuldicheyt in die overste eenicheyt, ed. A. AMPE, pp. 310-315, translation in: Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries, p. 341-342. Albert Ampe points to some parallels with Eckhart’s homily Intravit Jesus in quoddam castellum (ed. PFEIFFER, p. 44-47; D.W. I, p. 32, ll. 1-6, p. 33, l. 6 – p. 34, l. 5, p. 39, l.1 - p. 44, l. 6) and with Tauler (ed. VETTER, p. 7, l. 21 – p. 8, l. 16). 60  Die middelste eenicheyt is eenicheit der overster crachten, die daer vlieten uut die eerste eenicheyt, ende hebben haer beghin ende haer onthout inden godliken wesen. Dese eenicheyt besit God met zijn heylige Drievuldicheyt, ende werct daerin na persoonliken onderscheyt. Die Vader is die

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Third, the birth of God also occurs in the most visible and palpable dimensions of human interiority, which finds its liturgical equivalent in the Mass on Christmas morning: The last unity is that of the lower faculties and the heart. God dwells in this unity by his inner illumination, which comes forth from the higher faculties. This illumination guides all that is in the soul and in the human person. It shines through, keeps reason in discernment, so that with God it wisely probes and disposes all things. It keeps desire in a pure orientation toward all that is good, in order to adhere to him with all its strength. It maintains the irascible force in its inclination to God, in its composure and discernment. It also keeps conscience in the light of knowledge, in order to be joyful in all virtues and to allow nothing else. It collects the heart’s sensitivity, with all the senses of the human person; it purifies them, makes them inner senses, and unites them with God. In this way, God takes up our humanity and, in turn, gives us his divinity in order to be born spiritually from us, and so that we may apply ourselves to his human birth and become similar to it. He gives us all his life, virtues and loving birth in order that we might be united completely with him.61

macht ende dat wesen der memorien, ende behout die in eewiger aendacht. Die Sone is die claerheyt ende dat wesen des verstants, ende behout dat in een eewich licht. Die heylighe Geest is die vierige vonc des willen, ende behout die in minliker neyghinghe, in een eewighe aenhanghinge Gods, ende eenicht die gheest met God inden bant der minnen. Ende hierin ghebaert God sinen Sone in verborghen claerheyt, daer die gheest mede doorschenen wort. Dit licht openbaert inden gheest kennisse Gods ende zijns selfs, ende ontdect die sinnen der scriftueren, ende ingeeft die wise alre gheesteliker oeffeningen, ende besteedtse inder sielen te lichten. Dese gheboerte is beteekent bider ander missen, daermen in singhet: ‘Dat licht sal heden op ons schinen’, ed. A. AMPE, pp. 316-317, translation in: Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries, p. 342; Albert Ampe points to some parallels with Peerle II, 5 (De groote evangelische peerle, p. 204). 61  Die leste eenicheyt is eenicheyt der nederster crachten ende des herten. Dese eenicheyt besit God met zijn inlichtinghe, die daer vloeyt uut die overste crachten, ende regeert al wat inder sielen ende inden mensche is, ende behout ende doorlicht die reden met onderscheyt, datse alle dingen met hem wiselijc doorsiet ende ordineert, ende behout die begeert in een puer neygen alles goets, datse hem sterckelijc aenhange, ende behout die toern in een neygen der minnen tot God matich ende bescheyden, ende behout die conscientie in een licht der wetenheyt, dat si in allen duechden vruchtbaer si ende anders niet toe en laet, ende versamet alle die beweghelicheyt der sielen ende des herten ende alle die sinnen des menschen, ende suyvertse ende maectse inwendich, ende vereenichtse met hem, ende neemt aen onse menschelicheyt, ende gheeft ons weder zijn Godheyt, op-dat hi gheestelic uut ons gheboren mach werden, ende gheven ende ghelijcken ons zijn menschelike geboorte; ende al zijn leven ende duechden ende minlike geboorte gheeft hi ons, op-dat wi hem gheheel gheëenicht werden. Ed. A. AMPE, pp. 317-318, translation in: Late Medieval Mysticism of the Low Countries, p. 342, Albert Ampe points to some parallels with Peerle II, 5 (De groote evangelische peerle, p. 204-205).

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6. CONCLUSION What have we learned from this exploration? In the context of the Reformation, the Cologne Carthusians played an important role through their translations, editions, and publications. They considered it their calling and greatest concern to make mystical-theological literature available in this troubled context, and especially to make it accessible through translation efforts, since many of these books had been written in the vernacular. They apparently deemed this to be a far more fruitful undertaking than engaging in polemical or theological debate. A crucial theme in these texts is that of interiority, specifically in harmony and natural coherence with exterior forms of following Christ. These texts describe and analyse interiority and it is particularly striking that they do not conceive of interiority as “individuality” or “subjectivity”, but as fundamental relationality. The texts presuppose that the core of human being is a relationship with God. We may consider this to be the sixteenth-century adaptation and development of older spirituality in Northern Europe. Indeed, these texts explicitly appeal to older authors such as Ruusbroec and Tauler. They do not only quote and paraphrase these authors extensively, but also defend and develop their fundamental insights. These “compilations” integrate older mystical-theological concerns into a larger whole and transmit the thought of the older authors extensively through Latin translations and the printing press. Interiority understood as relationality in natural harmony with exteriority is one of the fundamental insights of John of Ruusbroec, as is evident from one of the key sentences from his Espousals: God comes without cease within us, with intermediary and without intermediary, and demands of us enjoyment and activity, and that the one should not be hindered by the other, but rather always fortified.62

Interiority and exteriority are thus not mutually opposed, given that they both find their origins in the relationship with God. This perspective is beautifully developed in the Temple of our Soul, which is the most mature composition we have examined here, and which also develops

 God comt sonder onderlaet in ons met middele ende sonder middel, ende eyschet ons ghebruken ende werken, ende dat dat een vanden anderen onghehindert blive, maer altoes ghesterket werde, RUUSBROEC, Brulocht, p. 533. 62

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the ecclesiological dimension of mysticism most explicitly, by associating it with the liturgy — which is both interior and exterior. This may perhaps be a useful hermeneutical key for the study of the development of material culture (the “instruments of devotion”). Indeed, it is possible that certain objects in material religious culture were primarily intended — in and through the visual — to foster the discovery and cultivation of interiority as fundamental relationality with God, while other objects functioned rather as visual “illustrations” of theological polemic.

THE MATTER OF CATECHISMS Lee Palmer WANDEL

The codicil catechisms that survive from the sixteenth century offer tantalizing evidence of a dramatic shift, most tangibly to a new medium of education.1 It is not, as far as we know, that this is a proliferation in print of a medieval manuscript tradition.2 Medieval catechesis, as far as we know, was oral and aural, the catechist, normally a priest, leading the catechumen, possibly through question and answer — though without material traces of the practice beyond handbooks for priests, we cannot say. Nor was it a shift from oral culture to written: most sixteenth-century catechisms were designed in question and answer form, scripting an oral performance in the very spacing of words on the physical page. We might put it thus: the medium of education was no longer the priest; the medium of education was an object.3 The codicil catechisms of the sixteenth century were to mediate knowledge of Christianity through their very matter (Fig. 6.1). Originally, sixteenth-century catechisms must have numbered in the thousands. Paul Begheyn has compiled a list of 331 separate editions of the Jesuit Peter Canisius’s catechisms published during his lifetime (1555-97).4 Josef Benzing identified at least one surviving copy each of twenty-two different  L. P. WANDEL, Reading Catechisms, Teaching Religion, Leiden, 2015. In this essay, I use “codicil” as an adjective, to point towards the form catechesis was given in the sixteenth century: the codex. On the use of the term, “codex,” see foremost R. CHARTIER, Forms and Meanings: Texts, Performances, and Audiences from Codex to Computer, Philadelphia, 1995. 2  On the history of catechesis, see A. LÄPPLE, Kleine Geschichte der Katechese, Munich, 1981; B. ROEST, Franciscan Literature of Religious Instruction before the Council of Trent, Leiden, 2004. 3  The scholarship on codices as material objects is vibrant. For an entré into that literature, see most recently, R. CHARTIER, The Author’s Hand and the Printer’s Mind, trans. Lydia Cochrane, Malden, MA, 2014; H. BRAYMAN, J. M. LANDER, and Z. LESSER, eds., The Book in History, The Book as History: New Intersections of the Material Text, New Haven and London, 2016. 4  “This list has been made up on the basis of the publications by Carlos Sommervogel and Fritz (sic) Streicher, with additions from my own research. This research has not yet been finished. Therefore it is very probable that this list will be complemented in the future. It is not impossible that some titles from this list will have to be removed, especially among those of which no copy has been described through autopsy,” P. BEGHEYN, S. J., Petrus Canisius en zijn catechismus / Peter Canisius and his catechism: De geschiedenis van een bestseller / The history of a bestseller, Nijmegen, 2005, p. 85. 1

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Fig. 6.1. Peter Canisius, Institutiones, 1566. Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, pp. 12-13. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

editions of Martin Luther’s German Catechism published in his lifetime (14831546) in High German, another nine in Low German and four in Latin — not including Johannes Spangenburg’s editions (a total of eleven); surviving copies of two separate editions of the Enchiridion in table form, two as tables bound in a codex; four separate reprints of lost Wittenberg editions; as well as copies of another eight editions published by Nicholas Schirlentz in Wittenberg between 1531 and 1553; copies of eighteen editions published outside of Wittenberg in High German; twenty-five editions in Latin; and another fifteen

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editions done in translations by members of his circle.5 At least forty other authors, both Evangelical and Catholic, published catechisms in the sixteenth century that survive, some, such as Johannes Meckhart of Augsburg, published annually over years for local congregations, some, such as John Calvin, for dispersed communities on the Continent and in London. Finally, at least seventeen sixteenth-century editions of catechisms without identifiable authors also survive.6 This shift was not confessional. While more codicil catechisms, as well as the earliest were authored by Evangelicals (including most published anonymously), Canisius is the author of more surviving catechisms than any other single author, including Luther, and he was not alone among Catholics to author a catechism. If the shift had its origins in the Evangelical rejection of so much of medieval Christian culture and foremost, the potential of the images, objects, textures, and sounds of the medieval Church to convey knowledge of true Christianity, it was realized in a world of Christians set in motion, Christians who might no longer be able to go to their parish church or listen to their parish priest. Strikingly, although Christians divided on so very much in the sixteenth century, they were largely agreed that every Christian should be able to recite the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments — even if they disagreed how the words of each were to be understood. Those objects changed Christian education. It is not that codices were placed, possibly for the first time, in the hands of laity; the laity had held many different sorts of codices in their hands long before the 1520s: prayer books, books of hours, explications of the Ten Commandments or the Lord’s Prayer. In part, it was the claim, there on the opening pages of so many of them, to present the knowledge that their readers “needed” in order to be “Christian,”7 the physical

5  J. BENZING, Lutherbibliographie: Verzeichnis der gedruckten Schriften Martin Luthers bis zu dessen Tod, Baden-Baden, 1966, Nos. 2548-2666. 6  These are the catechisms I was able to see in various physical and online collections in Europe and the United States. It includes adapted and pirated copies of Luther’s catechisms, surviving copies of Canisius’s catechisms, catechisms by some 45 other authors, catechisms the authors of which have not been identified, as well as those folio-sized catechisms, such as four separate editions of The Catechisms of the Council of Trent. For a list of all the sixteenth-century catechisms I was able to identify and examine, WANDEL, Reading Catechisms, 355-73. 7  See foremost, Martin Luther, Vorrhede, “Deudsch Catechismus. (Der Große Katechismus). 1529,” D. Martin Luthers Werke [hereafter WA] 30, 1, Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1910, p. 129.

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words on the page materializing a sense of “knowledge” that was itself printed on a page and then spoken by the reader. From Charlemagne to the sixteenth century, the sacrament of baptism had made one a Christian.8 By the time of Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), “knowledge” might come through many media, in many different forms — through the liturgy, through visions, through the sacraments, through images of so many different kinds, through processions, through living as or simply seeing religious orders, through the Mass.9 From Augustine onwards, popes, bishops, councils, theologians and pastors had called for Christians to be able to recite the Lord’s Prayer, somewhat later, the Apostles’ Creed, and even later, the Ten Commandments, but none before the sixteenth century held that knowledge to be necessary, a prerequisite for being a Christian. Equally, words that became printed texts in the sixteenth century were known aurally through the liturgy, the sacrament of penance, the Divine Office. Evangelicals, no later than Martin Luther’s 1520 treatises, called into question not simply images or the purpose of religious orders, but the very nature of knowledge of Christianity and, my focus in this essay, the means through which one learned it.10 The change in what European Christians understood the knowledge of Christianity to be was materialized in how they taught that knowledge. One surviving example of catechesis in the medieval Church is Thomas Aquinas’s catechetical sermons, which were copied and, one surmises, widely imitated. Those sermons did not pose questions his listeners were to answer. They did not directly engage his listeners in a dialectic of learning at all, but explicated the texts of the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. Thomas’s sermons, delivered in the midst of the Lenten season, rest in the shared assumption that one learned Christianity over a lifetime through sacraments, attending Mass, witnessing and receiving the Eucharist which was the heart of all sacraments. Medieval churches, as physical sites, offered images, places not only to witness the Mass, but to contemplate images, to pray, to practice devotions, to witness processions, to hear the Office, all of which were encompassed in “Christianity.” There was no “Catechism of the 8  O. M. PHELAN, The Formation of Christian Europe: the Carolingians, Baptism, and the Imperium Christianum, Oxford, 2014. 9  WANDEL, Reading Catechisms, Introduction. 10  As early as 1520, he inverted what medieval theologians and liturgists had taken as the process of acquiring knowledge of Christianity. See, for example, Martin Luther, Eyn Sermon von dem // newen Testament. das // ist von der heyligē // Messe Doct. // Mar. L. // Aug. // Wittenbergk. 1520.

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Church.” There was catechesis, but no authoritative or normative text, no normative mode of instruction, no set body of words to be learned — and no single object held to contain “what a Christian needs to know.” Beginning in 1527, with an anonymous catechism published in Strasbourg, and, with the rapid proliferation in the wake of Luther’s 1529 publication of two catechisms, the Enchiridion and the German Catechism, of authorized, pirated, and adapted copies, print became a central medium of religious education and the codex the preeminent form. But it was not simply the medium of print or the form of the codex. It was also size which made it popular. The first Catechism of the Catholic Church — that is, a formally set body of texts, of set wording, spacing, and order — was commissioned in the last day of the last session of the Council of Trent, December 4, 1563.11 Aldus Manutius published the first edition in 1566.12 Unlike the overwhelming majority of printed codicil catechisms of the sixteenth century, The Catechism of the Council of Trent was not intended for lay hands; it was designed and intended for the hands of priests, preeminently parish priests who had the care of souls. As such, even as printed codex, it belonged in the tradition of Thomas’s catechetical sermons. It was a compendium of how to teach, through sermons, the Apostles’ Creed, the sacraments, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer. Albeit published in vernacular languages, authorized editions were published as folios: large, heavy, running to hundreds of pages of text. The Catechism of the Council of Trent was neither intended nor designed to be what we now associate with the notion of a physical catechism: octavo or smaller and intended for lay hands. That was first materialized in the anonymous Strasbourg catechism and most extensively in the codices of Peter Canisius’s many different catechisms, which ranged in format from octavo to 24mo and which both the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand and his nephew, Philip, King of Spain, authorized for lay hands.

 N. P. TANNER, S. J., ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, London, 1990, II, p. 797.  G. BELLINGER, Der Catechismus Romanus und die Reformation: Die katechetische Antwort des Trienter Konzils auf die Haupt-Katechismen der Reformatoren, Paderborn, 1970. See also Petrus Rodrigvez’s Introduction to the critical edition, P. RODRIGVEZ, ed., Catechismvs Romanvs seu Catechismvs ex Decreto Concilii Tridentini ad Parochos PII Qvinti Pont. Max Ivssv Editvs, Vatican, 1989. 11

12

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Objects To consider the materiality of sixteenth-century codicil catechisms let me begin with specific copies: the first Evangelical catechism, published anonymously in Strasbourg in 1527; the sole surviving copy of the second 1529 edition of Luther’s Enchiridion13; the first edition of the Heidelberg Catechism, published in that city in 1563; and a range of different editions of Peter Canisius’s Parvus Catechismus. Each copy, printed, was therefore one of a multitude of like objects, the precise number of which we do not know. All but two of the catechisms treated in this essay are to be found in the Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg; Luther’s Enchiridion is in the Bibliothek des Germanischen Nationalmuseums. We shall not be considering Luther’s German Catechism, now known as his Large Catechism, which, analogously to The Catechism of the Council of Trent, was not intended for the hands of catechumens, but for those who would lead catechesis, fathers in the case of Luther’s German Catechism. Arguably, all catechisms were intended for the hands of catechists; certainly, Luther’s Small Catechism, also known as the Enchiridion, was explicitly titled for Pastors and Preachers. The catechisms explored in this essay, however, shared what I wish to argue were key material characteristics. Those characteristics invited uses that the larger catechisms precluded: the German Catechism was published in quarto, as was, say, Luis de Granada’s catechism intended for the western hemisphere, and all were considerably longer than any of catechisms considered here; various editions of the German Catechism ran to well over 200 pages, Luis de Granada’s catechism to nearly 800.14 The first Evangelical catechism, DE PVERIS // INTITVENDIS ECCLE= // siæ Argentinensis // Isagoge, (hereafter Isagoge) was published in octavo format (Fig. 6.2).15 Roughly a half dozen copies seem to have survived, scattered from Utrecht to Zurich. The Augsburg copy is some 10 cm wide, 15.5 cm high, and, not including the coarse paper cover that was glued on sometime later, roughly a half centimeter thick. The pages are numbered on the upper recto corner; while the numbering implicitly includes the title page, there is a total of fifty-seven pages of text, concluding on page thirty-one with Emendanda,  BENZING, Lutherbibliographie, no. 2597.  Luis de Granada, CATECHISMVS // IN SYMBOLVM // FIDEI (Venice: Damian Zenarius, 1586). On the various editions of the Deutsch Catechismus, see WA 30,1 pp. 491-98. 15  A digitalized version is available at: http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/resolve/display/ bsb11003477.html 13 14

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Fig. 6.2. Anonymous, De pveris institvendis … Isagoge, 1527. Strasbourg, A2. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

as well as the coda: ARGENTORATI ANNO // M. D. XXVII MENSE // AVGVSTO. No printer’s name is given, no author. While the Isagoge was published, as far as we know, only once, the survival of so few copies may not be solely the consequence of its relative obscurity. There were so many editions of Martin Luther’s Enchiridion that the editors of the Weimar edition of the text set six different versions of, first two, then four next to one another.16 And yet, even though Luther’s Enchiridion was 16

 WA 30, 1, pp. 239-425.

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published seven times in the year 1529 alone, according to Josef Benzing, of any one 1529 edition of the Enchiridion only a single copy survives.17 The copy that is the focus of this essay is, at present at least, the only known surviving copy of a 1529 Wittenberg edition of the Enchiridion still extant.18 The condition of that copy, its visible and tangible fragility, points toward the reasons catechisms as a genre survived the sixteenth century so poorly: quickly printed, on rough paper, loosely stitched together. Surviving catechisms typically were bound in the sixteenth century with other texts or not at all. The German National Museum’s Enchiridion is in a modern binding by the library’s book conservator.19 Among the pages missing from the German National Museum copy of the Enchiridion is the title page; a later owner wrote by hand the title on what may have been the original cover, “Enchiridion, der kleine Catechismus.” The coda provides the information: “Printed at Wittenberg by Nicholas Schirlentz. M D XXIX.”20 Catalogued octavo, the surviving object is nearly square, 7 cm wide by 9.5 cm high.21 These measurements vary from page to page, at places by a few millimeters,22 given the state of the codex, a variation more pronounced than in the other catechisms. Missing pages, it is, without the binding, 1.2 cm thick. It is unusual as well in the texts that Schirlentz printed with those that Luther included in all his catechisms — the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the sacrament of baptism, the sacrament of the altar, and confession. There were instructions, “How a House Father Should Teach His Servants [Gesinde] to Bless Themselves,” and “How a House Father Should Teach His Servants [Gesinde] to Speak the Benediction and Grace”; a table of sayings for the orders of the Church and society; a “Trawbuch” for pastors; for “Christian readers” a second and longer text on baptism which included the words to be said at baptism. At the end of the codex, beginning at page Oii, was the German Litany, which included both some twenty pages of musical notation and prayers to accompany the litany.

 BENZING, Lutherbibliographie, nos. 2589-2597.  The 1529 Enchiridion has been digitalized: http://dlib.gnm.de/item/8Rl3342/html 19  This information comes from email correspondence with Michael Pörzgen, of the GNM book bindery, dated 15 January 2018. 20  See Aufname 204, http://dlib.gnm.de/item/8Rl3342/html 21  On the variablitiy of octavo size, see J. CARTER, ABC for Book Collectors, revised N. BARKER and S. THADANI, Ninth edition, New Castle, DE, 2016, pp. 174-75. 22  Herr Pörzgen provided all measurements, in millimeters, as well as the caution that these are not uniform throughout. 17 18

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Fig. 6.3. Catechismus oder Christlicher Underricht, 1563. Heidelberg: Johannes Mayer, title page. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

The first edition of the Heidelberg Catechism was published in both Latin and German editions, by Johannes Mayer in 1563 (Fig. 6.3). Both editions were octavo. This essay takes up the German edition, Catechismus // Oder // Christlicher Underricht / wie der in Kirchen und Schu = // len der Churfürstlichen // Pfaltz getrieben // wirdt.23 The Augsburg copy is 10.5 cm wide by 14.6 cm high, and, not including the coarse paper cover that was glued on sometime later, 0.6 cm thick. The pages are numbered, recto and verso, at the 23  A digital version of the German can be found at http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/ fs1/object/display/bsb11290353_00001.html A digital version of the Latin: http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0002/bsb00020366/ images/index.html?seite=00001&l=de

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center on the top. Including the title page, but not the list of errors on the verso of page 94, there are 94 pages in the catechism. It was published as a standalone text, not bound with other devotional works. Friedrich Streicher dates the first Latin edition of Canisius’s Parvus Catechismus to 1558 or 1559 — it is lost.24 Among German editions, Streicher identifies a) Catechismi Germanici minores, first published in 1560; and b) Catechismi Germanici minimi, first published in 1556 or 1557, both of which include editions titled Der klain Catechismus.25 Canisius’s Little Catechism was the single most printed and, arguably therefore, the most popular catechism of the sixteenth century. Luther composed two catechisms in three formats, two codices and one table, which were subsequently both adapted with his full support, as in the case of Spangenburg’s versions, and pirated. All versions, whether authorized or pirated, can be traced back to one of two catechisms, either the German Catechism or the Enchiridion. Canisius, in contrast, seems to have overseen a range of catechisms, published over some forty years, which differed as to length, size, complexity, accompanying texts, and whether they had images or not.26 For Canisius, more than any other author of catechisms, the codex could be adapted to different readers: differing formats, from quarto to 24o; differing forms, from Summa to song; different languages; published with different texts such as a calendar; and, for a tiny minority, images. Canisius’s catechisms teach the same core texts in the same order; they differ as to the complexity of explication marked structurally by a greater or lesser number of questions and answers, which resulted in differing lengths, formatted from quarto to 24o. The Little Catechism varied as to format and the texts with which it was published, as well as whether it was published with images. Canisius also oversaw at least one image catechism,

24  F. STREICHER, S. J., ed., S. Petri Canisii Doctoris Ecclesiae Catechismi Latini et Germanici, Rome, 1933, vol. I: Catechismi Latini, p. 31. 25  F. STREICHER, S. J., ed., S. Petri Canisii Doctoris Ecclesiae Catechismi Latini et Germanici, Rome, 1936, vol. II, Catechismi Germanici, pp. 16-17. 26  Carlos Sommervogel distinguished five major forms: a Summa doctrinae christianae, which was translated in his lifetime into German, English, Spanish, Flemish, French, Italian, Serbian, and Slavic; a Catechismus parvus, also translated into German, Spanish, Flemish, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, and Czech in his lifetime; which was often published with the Institutiones Christianae pietatis; a Catechismus minor, published in German; and a catechism in verse, to be sung, C. SOMMERVOGEL, S.J., ed., Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus: Bibliographie, vol. II, Brussels, 1891, cols. 618-658.

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Fig. 6.4. Peter Canisius, Institutiones, 1566. Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, title page. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

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which had very little text, and which invited a different sort of catechesis from that under consideration here.27 Beginning in 1566, Christophe Plantin in Antwerp published editions of Canisius’s Institutiones, 28 which contained his Little Catechism, in 16o format (Fig. 6.4).29 Subsequent editions are physically similar to the first edition Plantin published, also in 16o, but these differ in such variables as the arrangement of the words on the title page. Plantin’s 1566 edition of the Institutiones bore the title subsequent editions would also carry: INSTITVTIONES, // ET EXERCITAMENTA // CHRISTIANAE // PIETATIS. The title page of the Plantin measures 6.5 cm wide by 11.25 cm high; with the leather binding, the volume is 3.6 cm thick, without, 3 cm thick, 511 pages numbered recto and verso. The actual printed page is even smaller, occupying, for example, on the first page of the catechism, a space 5 cm by 9 cm. This edition comprised, in this order: title page, summa privilegiorum (verso of title page), letter to the reader (pages 3-4), index (page 5), admonition for the liturgical calendar (pages 6-9), the calendar (A5v-B3, otherwise unnumbered), the Parvus Catechismus Catholicorum (pages 12-60), Testimonia scripturae sacrae (pages 61-71), “In Seqvens opvs epistolarvm et evangeliorvm” preface and texts (pages 72-511). The Little Catechism, in other words, both comprised about a tenth of the whole and was situated within a number of liturgical texts which took up different aspects of the liturgy: time and Bible. In 1575, Johannes Bellerus also published in Antwerp at least one edition of an Institutiones, which differed in a number of ways from the Plantin editions, not least in the images which accompany the text.30 Bellerus’s edition marked explicitly in the title the inclusion of Canisius’s Little Catechism: INSTITVTIONES // CHRISTIANAE // PIETATIS // SEV // PARVVS CATECHISMVS // CATHOLICORVM (Fig. 6.5). The title page measures 7 cm wide by 11.25 cm high. The Bellerus Institutiones is 1 cm thick, 163 pages numbered recto and verso. In it, too, the printed page does not occupy the entire space of a 16o page, making possible 27  Streicher reproduces this catechism, which Christopher Plantin in Antwerp published under the title, Institvutiones Christianæ, seu Parvvs Catechismvs Catholicorvm, I, pp. 275398. For a discussion of the images in catechesis, see WANDEL, Reading Catechisms, pp. 280-92. 28  STREICHER, I, p. 33. 29  The Augsburg copy of the 1566 edition has been digitalized: http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb11292549_00001.html The Augsburg copy of Plantin’s 1574 edition has also been digitalized: http://reader.digitalesammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb11253555_00001.html 30  The Augsburg copy has been digitalized: http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/resolve/ display/bsb11287585.html

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Fig. 6.5. Peter Canisius, Institutiones, 1575. Antwerp: Johannes Bellerus, title page. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

trimming to an even smaller format: the first page of the catechism’s text is a space 6 cm by 9 cm. The Bellerus edition does not contain the same texts: title page; two poems, one addressed to “the Christian Reader,” the other to “Christian boys”; a letter to the Reader (A2r-v); Imperial edict (A3-A7v); liturgical calendar (largely unpaginated); Parvus Catechismus Catholicorum (pages 1-64); Testimonia scriptvrae sacrae (pages 65-74); “Singvlis horis praemittitur hic versiculus” (pages 74-103); Meditationes quotidiannae (pages 103-63). In both, the catechism is placed immediately after a liturgical calendar and before the other texts in the codex. Bellerus’s edition of the Little Catechism was published with one full-page (5 cm wide by 6.5 cm high) and 38 woodcuts half-page (roughly 5.5 cm wide and 3.5 cm high) in size, of which one appeared four

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Fig. 6.6. Peter Canisius, Catechismus Catholicus, 1583. Ingolstadt: Wolfgang Eder, first page. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

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Fig. 6.7. Peter Canisius, Catechismus und Bettbuch, 1590. Dillingen: Johannes Mayer, title page. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

times and two appeared twice in the catechism.31 All but two of the woodcuts were printed on pages that corresponded directly to Evangelical catechesis. Wolfgang Eder of Ingolstadt published in 1583, CATECHIS- // MVS CATHO- // LICVS, // IVVENTVTI FORMAN- // DÆ HOC SECVLO QVAM // maxime necessarius.32 This edition helps us to see Canisius’s typographical choices. The Eder edition

31  This number does not include the small woodcut printed on the title page of the Institutiones, one more full-page woodcut, or the thirteen half-page woodcuts printed with other texts, six of which are duplicates of images found in the catechism portion of the codex.. 32  The Augsburg copy has been digitalized: http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/ object/display/bsb11290321_00001.html

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carries no woodcuts. Duodecimo in format, it is larger than the Antwerp editions, 8 cm wide by 13 cm high, and, not including the coarse paper cover that was glued on sometime later, 1 cm thick. Unlike the Antwerp editions, the Eder contains no liturgical calendar. The catechism is the first text, following the brief poem addressed to Christian boys. The pages are numbered, both recto and verso; the catechism begins on page 3 and finishes on page 52. It is followed by Preces horariæ (pages 53-86) and Meditationes qvotidianæ (pages 87-131). An edition of the Little Catechism Johannes Mayer of Dillingen published in 1590 printed the catechism with a liturgical calendar and also with a prayer book: Bettbuoch vnd // Catechismus (Fig. 6.7).33 In an octavo edition of 782 pages (391 r-v numbered), plus an Index of an additional 20 pages, the Catechism runs to 55 pages. It is followed immediately by the prayer book. Every page in the codex carries an elaborately carved border; the Catechism has two woodcuts, one on its first page, one before the section on diffferent Creeds of the Church. The range of formats of Canisius’s Little Catechism makes tangible as well as visible just how experimental these first codicil catechisms were. Which hands? In what place, church or home or school or mission or foreign soil? The language of the schoolroom? The home? Questions of readerships and the location of catechesis are tangible as well as visible in Canisius’s catechisms. How are we to read the size of his Little Catechisms? Scale Size alone did not alter the relationship among person, codex, and Christian identity (Fig. 6.8). Prior to the sixteenth century, lay men and women had held many different sorts of codices in their hands: saints’ lives, prayerbooks, explications of the Ten Commandments, even the texts to accompany the liturgy such as the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, or other prayers. But those earlier codices were not understood to be the locus of the fundamentals of Christian knowledge. The words that would come to be printed on the pages of sixteenth-century catechisms — the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ave Maria — had different lives in the medieval Church: sung, chanted, 33

 The title continues Nach rechter Catholischer // form vnd weyß / jetzt sum // oefftern mahl im Truck // außgangen. The Augsburg copy has been digitalized: http://reader.digitalesammlungen.de/resolve/display/bsb11290322.html

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Fig. 6.8. Two catechisms and ruler. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

spoken aloud and quietly in the cadences of the Mass.34 They were familiar, aurally present in the life of worship. No, it was what cartographers and geographers call scale: a relationship among object, person, and what that object, often expressly in ink on the page, claimed to represent.35 In the case of sixteenth-century maps, it was the earth or its regions. In the case of catechisms, it was what one “needed to know,” in Luther’s words, what one “professed,” in Canisius’s, in order to be called a “Christian.” Sixteenth-century cartographers were seeking, as Gerard Mercator would put it on his path-breaking and norm-setting 1569 map of the world, “to extend on a plane the surface of a sphere such that the location of places is true with regard to direction as well as distance,” to represent on a plane the  See WANDEL, Reading Catechisms, chapters 2 and 4.  For a recent summary of geographers’ consideration of scale, see C. LLOYD, Exploring Spatial Scale in Geography, New York, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. 34 35

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earth in such a way that the representation accorded with the physical experience of distance, shape, and direction — to bring the earth into a mathematically determined relationship to the body as well as the eyes of the person holding that representation.36 Sixteenth-century cartographers were seeking not simply to make visible the whole globe on a surface the eye could encompass, which medieval mappaemundi had done, but to represent according to mathematical constants, what Mercator called “correspondence,” that then enabled the viewer to imagine him/herself in place. It may well prove more than a striking coincidence that sixteenth-century authors of catechisms were claiming a small, portable, physical object could carry within its very materiality knowledge of a scale that the medieval Church had held boundless.37 More and more Europeans were in motion in the sixteenth century, many because they could not practice the Christianity they held to be “true” in the places of their childhoods. And Evangelicals had explicitly, often physically violently, severed so much of what medieval Christians had held to participate in the meaning of the Mass, from crucifixes through vestments to all images, irrevocably changing places of worship.38 Catechisms were published in smaller formats — octavo, duodecimo, 16o, and even 24o — that were more easily and readily portable.39 They share size with books of hours, prayerbooks, and other devotional works. Like those earlier devotional works, the majority of sixteenth-century catechisms materially invited the intimacy, the physical proximity, the connection of hand and object. So, too, like books of hours and prayerbooks, codicil catechisms had on their pages words that each reader was to speak — not simply to read, but to form the mouth and create sound. Analogously to manuscript illuminations, some catechisms brought the reader closer through the size of font or image. The Isagoge’s typefont invited 36

 The texts of all the legends on the map are reproduced in the Wikipedia article: https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_1569_world_map 37  The literature on the codex and knowledge is enormous. In thinking about the mediation of knowledge in the form of the codex, I have found especially helpful R. CHARTIER, Forms and Meanings: Texts, Performances, and Audiences from Codex to Computer, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995; K. A. ENENKEL and W. NEUBER, eds., Cognition and the Book: Typologies of Formal Organization of Knowledge in the Printed Book of the Early Modern Period, Leiden, Brill, 2005. 38  See L. P. WANDEL, Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel, New York, Cambridge, 1995. 39  On format, see CARTER, ABC, pp. 125-7; B. RICHARDSON, Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, Part I.

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proximity; the very denseness of the words on the page presents not a text to be passed back and forth, where place could be held by a finger, but a script to be held in duplicate, to be followed simultaneously in identical objects by catechumen and catechist (Fig. 6.2). The pages look more like a school textbook, another kind of Isagoge, than either a summary of doctrine, which would itself be divided into sections — different doctrines, and their scriptural authorizations — or what would become a typical formatting of catechesis by the end of the century, with questions and answers clearly marked by the use of font and/ or spacing on the page. Some, such as the Bellerus edition of Canisius’s Little Catechism, invited their reader to bring the codex closer to the eyes, closer to the face, in order to discern more fully the images. In all the Antwerp editions of the Institutiones, font size itself invites an intimacy of person and object. With catechisms, size was combined with the claim that the codices conveyed essential Christian knowledge. Size facilitated a new relationship between person and object and among person, object, and the “knowledge” it mediated. Essential knowledge had a locus, a physical site, which was itself portable in the fragmentation of sixteenth-century Europe. The Isagoge and the Heidelberg Catechism are nearly identical in size, small enough to hold in a single adult hand, small enough for two small hands to hold, and small enough to be hidden. The Antwerp editions of Canisius’s Little Catechism are both a full size smaller, small enough, when not bound with other texts, to be held by a child. All are small enough to be held close to the body, to be held without any support, to be held in one or two hands, adult or child, even as the praxis of catechesis sought the elision of physical distinction between object and body. The matter of paper and print: The Isagoge is printed predominantly in Italic (Figs 6.9 & 6.10).40 The names of Christ and God, as well as the initials for the two voices, “Parens vel Præceptor & Filius,” and the subheading for the section on the Lord’s Supper (DE VSV CAENAE DO= // minacæ) are printed in Roman capitals. Words of the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer are printed in larger Roman font. Luther’s Enchiridion is printed in Fraktur font (Fig. 6.11).41 The largest font size marks Luther’s division of catechesis into what will become the texts of the Ten Commandments, Apostles’ Creed, and Lord’s Prayer, as well as baptism  On different font, see CARTER, ABC, pp. 133-4, on italic, p. 154.  On Gothic font and Fraktur, see CARTER, ABC, pp. 133-4.

40 41

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Fig. 6.9. Anonymous, De pveris institvendis … Isagoge, 1527. Strasbourg, A4v-A5. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

and the Eucharist. Another size of font distinguishes the words of each of those texts, as well as the name Luther gives them: “Commandment,” “petition.” The words, “Question” and “Answer” are placed consistently in the same spatial relationship on the page, the words of the question following the question immediately, the words of the answer set apart as a discrete paragraph. With the exception of the first word of the title, Catechismus, and the word, Errata on the final page, all the words of the German edition Heidelberg Catechism were printed in Fraktur; those of the Latin, in Roman font (figs 6.12 & 6.13). The printer varied the font size, distinguishing “Frag” and “Antwort,” centered on the plane of the page and larger in size, as well as the words of each of the texts, which were printed both in larger font and in bold. Scripture was visually distinguished on the page, as was doctrine.

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Fig. 6.10. Anonymous, De pveris institvendis … Isagoge, 1527. Strasbourg, D3v-D4. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

Editions of Canisius’s Little Catechism use font and size to differentiate kinds of words: voices, questions, answers, core texts, explication. In the Plantin and Bellerus editions, questions are printed in italics, centered on the page (Figs 6.1 and 6.14). Answers are printed as paragraphs, in Roman font, in the same font size as the questions. The chapters of the catechism are marked by Roman capitals in a larger font. In the Plantin editions, the subtitle of the first chapter is also printed in Roman capitals; subsequent chapters’ subtitles are printed in italics. In the Bellerus edition, the subtitles are printed in larger Roman font, but only the first letter of each word is capitalized. If the Eder edition suggests that these decisions on font and size were Canisius’s own (Fig. 6.6), another edition confirms it (Fig. 6.15). Sebaldus Mayer of Dillingen printed an edition of Canisius’s Little Catechism with Peter de Soto’s COMPENDIVM DOCTRI= // NÆ CATHOLICÆ, in 1564. Like the Eder, the Mayer

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Fig. 6.11. Martin Luther, Enchiridion, 1529. Wittenberg: Nicholas Schirlentz, E. Germanisches National Museum, Nuremberg

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Fig. 6.12. Catechismus oder Christlicher Underricht, 1563. Heidelberg: Johannes Mayer, pp. 12-13. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

edition was printed in duodecimo format (6.5 cm wide by 13.5 cm high). Continuous foliation links the Soto text to the Canisius catechism. That said, however, de Soto’s portion of the text is not as visually differentiated: pages in italic tend to be entirely in italic, pages in Roman font, entirely in Roman, even as both appear on pages in which some text is centered, some blocked to the margins. In both the Eder and the Mayer editions, Canisius’s text draws on a wide variety of visual cues to differentiate chapters (Roman capitals and numbers); chapter titles (in the Eder italicized capitals, in the Mayer, larger Roman font); questions (in italics); answers (blocked paragraphs in Roman font); and scriptural authorizations (italics in the margins). In all, the structure of knowledge is visualized: the five parts as well as prompt and the answer that was to become embodied.

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Fig. 6.13. Catechismus oder Christlicher Underricht, 1563. Heidelberg: Johannes Mayer, pp. 22-23. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

Time The time of catechesis is linear: one word after another, one clause after another, one sequence of words becoming an integral text (Fig. 6.16). Authors of catechisms used the matter of codices not simply to structure the sequence of learning words, or even, the sequence of question and answer. They drew on the material properties of codices to distinguish questions — and the questioner, whether catechist or catechumen — and answers, prompts and those words that were to come automatically in response to each particular prompt, using font and spacing to visualize two voices, speaking alternately, moving from one cluster of words to the next, building through the sequence a text. They drew on the spatial structure of the codex to set one text before another: in Luther’s catechisms, to learn the Ten Commandments before the Apostles’ Creed, for reasons the catechumen learned; in Canisius’s catechisms, to learn what one

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Fig. 6.14. Peter Canisius, Institutiones, 1575. Antwerp: Johannes Bellerus, calendar and first page, Catechism. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

believed, Apostles’ Creed, before learning to pray and then all that God had prohibited. The matter of the codex structured the time of catechesis: the question “above” on the page, the answer, “below,” each question and each answer leading in the reading to the next, top to bottom of the page, left page then right page, “front” to “back.” They materialized a temporal sequence, question and answer, and with it, the progress of learning in linear time. Even as spacing and font, top to bottom, left to right, structured a process of learning, that same process very probably involved repetition. Thus the very material structure of the codex promised progress, a sequence, within which the catechumen might pause, circle back, repeat. Reading top to bottom, left to right, the catechumen physically moved towards the “end” of catechesis, itself frequently marked on the bottom of the last page.

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Fig. 6.15. Pedro de Soto, Compendium Doctrinae Catholicae and Peter Canisius, Parvvs Catechismvs, 1564. Dillingen: Sebaldus Mayer, ff. 170v-171. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

As we have seen, certain catechisms were also bound with texts that called forth a markedly different kind of time, liturgical time (Figs 6.14 & 6.17).42 In the Plantin and Bellerus editions of Canisius’s Institutiones, a liturgical calendar immediately precedes the Little Catechism. Mayer of Dillingen also published the catechism with a liturgical calendar, as well as a prayer book. Schirlentz’s 1529 edition of Luther’s Enchiridion includes, after the end of the catechism, Luther’s German Litany.

 On liturgical time, see J. HARPER, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy from the Tenth to the Eighteenth Century, Oxford, 1991, Part II; J. F. WHITE, Introduction to Christian Worship, Nashville, 1980, Ch. 2; 42

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Fig. 6.16. Peter Canisius, Catechismus Catholicus, 1583. Ingolstadt: Wolfgang Eder, p. 4. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

Liturgical time is cyclical.43 As the catechumen could see in the calendar published in Canisius’s Institutiones, each day of each month was anchored to no particular year. The point of those calendars was not the measuring of time, year to year, nor process as catechesis instituted, but the commemoration each 43

 On the specific cycles, see especially J. HARPER.

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Fig. 6.17. Peter Canisius, Institutiones, 1566. Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, November - December. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

and every year of the lives of saints, marked on just one day each year, and Christ’s life, which structured the entire year: its seasons, its colors, its rhythms. The sanctorale encompassed all those specific dates on which the life of an apostle, a martyr, a founder of an order, a mystic — a person whose life was distinguished by the quality of holiness — was to be remembered. In this cycle, a single life was marked on a single day; that day was distinguished not only by a Mass for it, but by the collective remembering of the particular acts of holiness of that life. The temporale is also visible in specific dates in those calendars — Christmas and Epiphany — but it marked time differently. It encompassed both those feasts, foremost Easter, and those seasons, Advent, Lent, Pentecost, that were calculated for each year, and which wove together the life of Christ and each Christian’s experience of each year. Each year, each church throughout Europe marked with bells and its designated liturgy his birth, for which

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Christians prepared themselves in the Advent season and celebrated at Christmas; his time in the desert, Lent; his suffering and death, Passion Week, and resurrection, Easter; his appearance before the apostles and Mary, Pentecost. Liturgical time, in other words, was cyclical in a number of ways. If the saints were remembered on their dates, Christ’s life structured the year. There were as well the weekly rhythms of collective worship and, for Catholics, the daily cycle of the Divine Office, in which the Lord’s Prayer would be spoken. If the codex materialized on its pages two kinds of time, catechesis and liturgy, the texts on its pages also, through the person of the catechumen, were to link catechesis to liturgy. Catholic and Anglican catechumens were to learn two clusters of words as texts — the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer — that they then heard and could speak in the Mass or the service. While not all Evangelical Churches preserved the Creed as a part of worship, Reformed and Lutheran Churches preserved the Lord’s Prayer in the Supper. In every catechism, the catechumen learned words that were not simply to be spoken once, or even repeated until memorized, but words that linked the codicil catechism through the person of the catechumen to the life of worship of the Church that the catechism was building catechumen by catechumen. The words on the pages of codicil catechisms, progressively learned, were in turn to be spoken again and again in the rhythms of worship, daily, weekly, seasonally, and annually. They were to inform the devotional life of each catechumen, to link person and congregation through embodied words spoken rhythmically throughout a life. In Luther’s and Canisius’s catechisms, but not in the Heidelberg Catechism, catechesis in the codex, in the physical sequence of learning, culminated in learning the sacraments: baptism and the Eucharist in Luther’s; the seven sacraments in Canisius’s. For all but Anabaptists, baptism would normally occur before catechesis, in infancy; for all, all other sacraments were ideally to come after catechesis. In Luther’s catechisms, catechesis was the necessary prerequisite for receiving the Eucharist — the codex was to become embodied before experiencing sacramental time. Catholic and Evangelical catechisms all distinguished between sacraments — baptism for all, marriage and ordination as well for Catholics — that were to be received once, and those, the Eucharist for all, and confirmation and penance for Catholics, that were to be received regularly (last rites could be repeated, but need not be repeated). This, then, was the time for which catechesis prepared the catechumen, a time within the cadences of the liturgy, but distinct, in which God and humankind touched through the “signs” — the matter of water, bread, wine, oil — and in which, all Churches agreed, divine grace worked.

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Fig. 6.18. Peter Canisius, Institutiones, 1575. Antwerp: Johannes Bellerus, pp. 22-23. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

Conclusion If the knowledge necessary to be a Christian — to receive Communion, to belong to the community of the true faithful — was to be found in a codex, that codex also mediated complexly the relationship of matter to Christian life (Figs 6.11 and 6.13). It was not simply that the codex carried on its pages words that catechumens were to learn in order to “be Christian,” in Canisius’s words — to erase the material distinction between person and page. Nor only that, in being learned, the words printed on the page were to be transformed from ink to sound. In those printed prompts on the page, codicil catechisms invited their readers to speak, to make of their own bodies media of sound that they saw printed, in ink on paper. They called forth sound that, in turn, was then heard and possibly spoken in the liturgy of each Church. They called forth sound that linked codex and liturgy in the person of the catechumen.

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In mediating in these ways, codicil catechisms also invited catechumens into the mystery of the Incarnation, an invitation that the Bellerus edition of Canisius’s Little Catechism makes visually explicit (Fig. 6.18). In each, words begin as ink on paper, become sound and then identity. As each codex — through the materialities of ink, paper, and the spatial structure of the codex — elided the distinction between itself and its reader, it invited catechumens not simply to see ink as words, and then to experience words as sounds, but themselves to become the medium of those words, which originated, in the case of the Ten Commandments, with God, and in the case of the Lord’s Prayer, in Christ.

III. APPROPRIATING THE SENSES

THE ARTE OF PROPHECYING: TRANSFORMATIVE WORSHIP AND ‘SENSE’-ORSHIP IN THE ENGLISH REFORMATION PARISH CHURCH EMMA J. WELLS

Censoring of the sensory? In 1544, at the height of the Henrician Reformation, the Bishop of Winchester, Stephen Gardiner, denounced the conduct of the Protestant reformers of the English church by insinuating they were robbing religion of its synaesthetic experience. Gardiner opined, They wold we shuld se nothyng in remembrance of Christ, and therfore can they not abyde image. They wold we shuld smel nothyng in memori of Christe, and therfor speak they against anoyntyng and hallywather. They wold we shuld taste nothyng in memory of Christe, and therfore they cannot away with salt and holy brede. A supper they speak of, wich they wold handle lyke a dryngkyng. Finally they wold have all in talkyng, they speak so myche of prechynge, so as all the gates of our sences an wayes to mannis under standynge shuld be shut up, savyng the eare alone.

His words lend support to the widely-held consensus that traditional medieval Catholicism (and thus now early modern Catholics) favoured a highly sensory worship that offered dangerous and idolatrous attractions to the eyes and ears, among the other senses, through which mediation with the sacred could occur. This stood in sharp contrast to the austere, suppressed nature of sixteenthcentury Protestantism, with its focus on aurality through text, prayer-books and vernacular scripture. Its asensoriality, devoid of the images, relics, incense, music, vestments, tastes and textures of late-medieval religiosity, Gardiner argued, was a desecration of the very route to behold the divine. Perpetuating this idea, Patrick Collinson argued for a sudden cultural caesura around the year 1580 – when English Protestantism abandoned an assortment of sensory and material customs favoured by its traditional forebear.1 The title 1  Collinson termed this “total repudiation of all images” as iconophobia. P. COLLINSON, From Iconoclam to Iconophobia: The Cultural Impact of the Second English Reformation, in P. MARSHALL (ed.), The Impact of the English Reformation, 1500–1640, London, 1997, 278– 308, p. 282. Also, Alexandra Walsham has often broken down the long-held yet little-evidenced

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of this paper alludes to the purported sense of loss brought about by the changes advocated by sixteenth-century Protestant reform: how the accompanying sensory elements of Christianity were ‘rejected’ or, at the very least, reduced and perceived as ‘superstitious distractions’ or what William Gray of Reading, the Cromwellian propagandist, termed “fantassies of idolatrie”, thought to create an inappropriate setting for worship and pursuit of the knowledge of God.2 Although purporting a sense of loss may seem prescriptive, in 1560 James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham, described the sombre mood of many traditionalists: “many weep, when they see not the churches so well decked and furnished as before. The pope’s church [old Catholicism] hath all things pleasant in it to delight the people withal.”3 Thus, although Collinson’s argument is rich and persuasive with regards to a visual anorexia of the Reformation period or ‘censoring of the sensory’, it provides further pause for thought as it denies the very real presence held by the senses, not only within religious debates and contentions, but as the means by which reform took place – and argues far beyond the suggestion of a decisive spiritual fracture. Protestant reformers did not simply purge sensation from liturgical experience to focus on the Word as spoken at the pulpit and read in the Bible (or seen elsewhere in the church). This is a long-held, misconception of Reformation – primarily ‘puritan protestant’ – historiography which this paper seeks to overturn. The practice of faith shifting from one that emphasised an experience concentrated on objects and gestures to one that endorsed the symbolic possibilities of written works (i.e., an understanding of belief and doctrine through God’s Word in the vernacular), does not automatically denote that the ‘sensational pathway’ to the sacred was expunged by Protestant changes. As Elizabeth L. Swann has argued, although the Reformation is commonly regarded as a period of profound devotional “disembodiment”– when Protestant worship was ostensibly removed of physical experience – in fact, its metaphorical and figurative language illustrates that this disembodiment was not caesuras between pre- and post-Reformation Catholic practice, see: A. WALSHAM, Catholic Reformation in Protestant Britain, Farnham, 2014; D. MACCULLOCH. Changing Historical Perspectives on the English Reformation: The Last Fifty Years, in Studies in Church History 49 (2016), 282–302. 2  E.W. DORMER, Gray of Reading: a 16th Century controversialist and ballad writer, Reading, 1923, pp. 70–75; E. DUFFY, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400– 1580, Yale, 2002, p. 407. 3  He was writing in the 1560s. J. SCHOLEFIELD (ed.), The Works of James Pilkington, Cambridge, 1842, p. 129.

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eventuated, and the Reformation Church instead “hovered” between the physical and corporeal, and the abstract and representational, thereby cleverly evading the heretical consequences that could befall stressing the literal nature of humankind’s sensory appropriation of the divine during the current regime.4 What we must therefore be open to is a Protestant worship that may also be viewed as sensory, and, more importantly, one which was criticized as being so by its traditional opponents. “Both [Catholicism and Protestantism]”, Matthew Milner has established, “feared the power of the senses and their misuse.”5 The sensory devices remained; they were merely altered. This paper will illustrate what may be more aptly termed a ‘reorientation’ of the senses or sensory experience through a transformation of the devotional material habitus (in the broadest sense). Taking Milner’s contention that to conceive images as mere objects, and the Word as solely message, is an undermining of the fact that, first and foremost, both were communicative, sensory objects and language offered a full synaesthetic experience.6 It goes further to suggest that Reformation religion was shaped by far more than language alone and that, for churchgoers, as in pre-modern life, the senses and associated paraphernalia, fabric and materiality were the conduits through which they related to and understood the sacred. The question stands: what could the Word do that the image was no longer able to? How was it ‘sensed’ – smelled, tasted, touched, heard, and seen? Taking the revised view that the Reformation was not one single, catastrophic event but a series of smaller waves of change, this paper will analyse the impact of the continual revision and adaptation of the ‘puritanisation’ enforced on traditional religion within the parish church, primarily during what I argue to be the key sensorial turning points of the English Reformation: the reigns of Henry VIII (1509–1547) and Edward VI (1547–1553), and how the devotional infrastructure was radically changed as a result.7 It will explore the ways in which local faith communities responded to profound reorganization within their  E.L. SWANN, God’s nostrils: the divine senses in early modern England, in R. MACDONALD – E.K.M. MURPHY – E.L. SWANN (eds), Sensing the Sacred in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, Aldershot, 2018, 220–244, pp. 220–221; J. MOSHENSKA, Feeling Pleasures: The Sense of Touch in Renaissance England, Oxford, 2014, 30–45; M. MILNER, The Senses and the English Reformation, Abingdon – New York, 2016. 5  MILNER, The Senses and the English Reformation, p. 2. 6  Ibid., p. 242. 7  P. MARSHALL, (Re)defining the English Reformation, in Journal of British Studies 48 (July 2009), 564–586, p. 577. 4

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churches (the form and fabric of belief) and highlight them as active agents in shaping and re-shaping their own religious experience. Most crucial to the debate will be the effect on the mentalité, as iconoclasm was more than just the smashing of images; it was a profound mental revolution towards the role of the sensory in religious perception. As such, the sacred space of the sixteenth-century parish church will be shown not as a static institution but one that transformed repeatedly in response to a push/pull between what was suitable for the senses of congregants and a reconsideration of traditional religious material culture.8 Lessons in iconography Traditional medieval Catholicism was a greatly sensorial affair, with sight and hearing given primary rank. Several competing theories of vision proposed that pseudo-physical rays directly connected an image or figural object with the viewer’s eye, engaging them in direct interpersonal communication. This had a spiritually efficacious effect thought to provide the beholder with the sense of physically contacting the object of vision and so images, architecture and objects were called upon to evoke the sacred.9 By the mid 1530s, Henry VIII had attacked pilgrimage, relics, reliquaries, shrines, the cult of saints and the veneration of images but retained the principle that images were legitimate so long as they, as tangible and visible objects, were not worshipped in and of themselves. “Feigned images” – any deemed to be instilled with miracle-working powers – promoted the idea that direct contact with holiness could be corporeally attained. This amounted to a physical definition of the abuse of images and, accordingly, their misuse led to the condemnation of interactive worship. In his sermon of 1532, Bishop Hugh Latimer exclaimed that images existed “only to represent things absent” and  For a detailed overview, see R. M. DELMAN & A BOELES ROWLAND, Introduction: people, places and possessions in late medieval England, in Journal of Medieval History 45 (2019), no. 2, 129–144. 9  St. Augustine’s De Genesi ad Literram (401–415CE) and Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica (c. 1225–1274) psychologically typified human sight and perception as so powerful, images could leave a tactile print – these were the theories of intromission and extramission. See R. S. NELSON (ed.), Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance, Cambridge, 2000; M. MERLEAU-PONTY, The Visible and the Invisible, in A. LINGIS (trans), Evanston, IL, 1968, 130–155; B. PENTCHEVA, The performative icon, in Art Bulletin 88 (2006), no. 4, 631–655, p. 631; C. PAMELA GRAVES, Sensing and believing: exploring worlds of difference in pre-modern England: a contribution to the debate opened by Kate Giles, in World Archaeology 39 (2007), no. 4, 515–531, p. 516. 8

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should not be gilded or jewelled, nor should relics and ex-votos including cloths or garments placed over them. These were diligently condemned as acts of idolatry for it was thought that no-one should worship an image before an actual body and such fallaciousness endorsed them as manifestations of the holy figure they depicted.10 To believe that “images of the deity and saints had any kind of implanted sacredness was equivalent to heathen idolatry and placed a barrier between the Almighty and the soul of the individual.”11 No area was considered more sacred than another, no material object was thought to be endowed with a sacred power of an automatic efficacy and no human actions could have a supernatural effect. Seeing was not simply believing. “Reformers viewed late-medieval religion as excessively sensual because its images, incense, candles, vestments, music and, above all, its Eucharistic doctrine were used to protect, transform and condition churchgoers”, Milner advocates, but it was through these ‘sensory experiences’ that believers could be misled.12 The 1538 Injunctions condemned the “kissing or licking” of relics in a bid to discredit the concept of the traditional cult and, with it, the inherent “superstitious” practices, as it was these above all that tended towards idolatry. Simply, the sensorial elements were perceived as annoying distractions that created an inappropriate setting for worship. This was predicated on the idolatrous concept that holiness could be physically detected through such contrived objects. Images taught but veneration was abuse towards faith, and the abuse, categorised by Cranmer’s De Imaginibus in 1538, was belief that the image affectively mediated grace.13 Abuse was now a physical concept. Hence, the sensory actions themselves were not in contempt but external manifestations which were thought not to be purely spiritual – and threats towards God. Their use had to be governed. The only “holy relic that remaineth on earth” and thus material object was scripture.14 And so, the mighty task of determining those which taught and those which abused (reformation of the parish church and its material culture) was an uphill, slippery slope.  G.E. CORRIE (ed.), Sermons of Hugh Latimer, London, 1844, p. 36; DUFFY, The Stripping of the Altars, p. 390. 11  A. WALSHAM, The Reformation and the Disenchantment of the World Reassessed, in The Historical Journal 51 (2008), no. 2, 497–528, p. 506. 12  MILNER, The Senses and the English Reformation, p. 3. 13  T. CRANMER, XV: Articuli de Missa Privata, de Veneratione Sanctorum, et De Imaginibus, in J. E. COX (ed.), Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer, Cambridge, 1846, p. 484. 14  T. CRANMER, A Prologue or Preface, in J. E. COX (ed.), Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer, Cambridge, 1846, p. 122. 10

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“Thou shalt make the no grauen ymage” Based on the evangelical interpretation of the second (and in fact, first) commandment, “Thou shalt make the no grauen ymage”, reformers condemned the use of images as a devotional tool.15 This extension to the prohibition against idolatry now assumed that such abusive behaviour could take many different forms.16 The defacement and elimination of images followed, based on the hypothesis that they were physical stores of holiness and therefore misuse inflicted on them was carried out in a bodily manner. Depictions of saints were condemned as purveyors of the senses, and therefore rather than destroying an entire window, figure or statue, many were simply removed of their eyes, ears, hands, or their faces were gauged, smashed or scratched out which served to devastatingly destroy their miraculous power similar to physical breaking.17 In this sense iconoclasm became ritualistic, with some instances resulting in targeted physical violence against images and relics echoing criminal sanctions. Rather than remove or destroy their own senses to ensure sensory governance, contends C. Pamela Graves, reforming parishioners removed the offending objects’ features through practices such as burning to deprive them of lifelike attributes.18 This type of defacement can be seen at St Peter, Ringland where plain glass strips intentionally highlight the replaced eyes of holy figures in the stainedglass windows, with the additional leading even further accentuating the iconoclastic act. Examples also survive in the chancel at Great Massingham (Norfolk) where the saints’ faces and the Lamb of God were blotted out and replaced with plain panels – stressed by the sunlight which now freely streams through the former human features. In some cases, heads of figures were knocked out in the belief that this destroyed the power of the figure to affect and impart its intercessory role, as well as voided its identity, or windows were whitewashed or walled up, cutting light from the church which may also explain their survival. In Kent, several parishes simply painted out the heads and faces of saints in the  T. CRANMER, The Byble in Englysh…, London, 1541, p. f.xxx.  J. WILLIS, The Reformation of the Decalogue: Religious Identity and the Ten Commandments in England, c.1485–1625, Cambridge, 2017, p. 32. 17  M. ASTON, Iconoclasm in England: official and clandestine, in P. MARSHALL (ed.), The Impact of the English Reformation, 1500–1640, London – New York, 1997, p. 173. 18  R. MARKS, Image and Devotion in Late Medieval England, Stroud, 2004, p. 270; C.P. GRAVES, From an Archaeology of Iconoclasm to an Anthropology of the Body: Images, Punishment, and Personhood in England, 1500–1660, in Current Anthropology 49 (February 2008), no. 1, 35–60. 15 16

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Fig. 7.1. Stained glass panel of Our Lady with eyes destroyed and highlighted by leading, fifteenth century. St Peter, Ringland, Norfolk. Photo: John E. Vigar.

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Fig. 7.2. Stained glass panel of St Mary with blocked out face reglazed in plain glass, fifteenth century. St Mary, Great Massingham, Norfolk. Photo: John E. Vigar.

glass so fenestration could be retained. Others survive simply due to the high cost of replacing them and for the mundane fact that they kept out the weather. Whitewash served two-dimensional images better than mutilation, Graves suggests, yet solely painting over the face and hands did not signal its “death” nor deprive the image of its salvific power.19 Correspondingly, considerable numbers of heads, hands or feet painted on wood were scraped off based on the traditional notion that they embodied more of the symbolic life force than any other feature. Signs of abrasion as well as deliberate iconoclastic scratches and deep gouging to the faces accentuating the force applied to the task can be identified on the wainscoting of the thirtytwo figures of saints on the early fifteenth-century screen of Higher Ashton (Devon). At St Mary’s, North Elmham and St Andrew’s, Burlingham, the rood screens bear the marks of iconoclasm on the defaced images of the saints’ faces, but as the screens at the latter two were also later removed, the defacement may  GRAVES, From an Archaeology of Iconoclasm to an Anthropology of the Body, p. 39.

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not have been sufficient for the faith communities.20 While the paraphernalia associated with Catholic worship was dismantled, the wider visual and material superstructure which supported belief and practice was retained and recast wherever possible in order to assist in the processes of religious and cultural transformation. Still, repeated Injunctions published into the concluding part of the sixteenth century to “utterly destroy” figurative imagery “so that there remained no memory of the same in walls, glass windows or elsewhere” suggests that the process was far from swift and happened over a progressive period.21 Beside scripture, people were “not to repose their trust and affiance in any other works devised by men’s phantasies[…]as in wandering to pilgrimages, offering of money, candles or tapers to images or relics, or kissing or licking the same[…] not understood or minded on.”22 In turn, much statuary, though damaged, was left on view in a maimed state in order to demonstrate its inactive, ineffective and powerless nature. Great Witchingham’s (Norfolk) defaced font was turned into a visual representation of the now ineptness of images. Even though significant traces of paint remain, not one face exists intact nor most of the hands; the erased attributes left on display cogently illustrating “the objects’ impotence, as blind, mute and anonymous stone.”23 This ritualistic defacement was thus a result of the desire to remove the symbolic sensory elements of the figures. This was far more than merely covering; to remove physically all suggestions of head and hands – from where power exuded – and so that repainting could not be undertaken, was a bold move. But the pendulum soon halted in 1543, when the King’s Book was published. Although it approved the setting up of images before the saints in churches and how to venerate them in a ‘proper’ manner, pilgrimages to them or vows made before them were strictly prohibited.24 Still, the denunciation did not seem to penetrate all parishes and many retained the abrogated customs and devotions towards the saints through these measures: the ‘abused’  M. GLASSCOE, Late Medieval Paintings in Ashton Church, Devon, in Journal of the British Archaeological Association 140 (1987), 182-190; M. ASTON, Broken Idols of the English Reformation, Cambridge, 2015, p. 223. 21  W.H. FRERE, Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Period of the Reformation, London, 1910, no. 2, p. 107. 22  DUFFY, The Stripping of the Altars, p. 407. 23  J.L. KOERNER, The Reformation of the Image, London, 2004, p. 108. 24  T.A. LACEY (ed.), The King’s Book, Or a Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for Any Christian Man, 1543, London, 1932, pp. 87–89. 20

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Fig. 7.3. Defaced image of the Ordination, seven-sacraments font, fifteenth century. St Mary, Great Witchingham, Norfolk. Photo: John E. Vigar.

sensory elements were gone, ready for ‘proper’ sensory devotion, though associated practices were often kept to a minimum. Following April 1538, when a citation ordering St Thomas Becket to appear before the King’s Council was published, the legend of Becket window at Henley-on-Thames, punctuated with hagiographic and soteriological subjects, including the alleged “feigned story of his death”, stood entirely intact. Further to this, “all beams, irons and candlesticks, were upon tapers and lights were wont to be set unto images, remain[ed] still untaken down.”25

25  In 1538, the King had declared Becket a traitor and decreed that images of the saint be destroyed. DUFFY, The Stripping of the Altars, p. 453–454, 418.

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Yet the vanquished past also remained a constant reminder of an idolatrous one, and in many cases, such literal aide-mémoire – physical scars of how the reformation was delivered – could be seen up and down the kingdom. Rather than destroy their image of Becket as sanctioned in the proclamation against the saint, the parishioners of Ashford (Kent) converted the figure by taking the crozier situated in the saint’s hand and transforming it into a wool-comb thereby changing the archbishop into St Blaise, fooling the reformers.26 Such chicanery was also undertaken at St Thomas’ on London Bridge. There, in 1543, an embroidery was converted of the martyrdom of Becket into an image of Our Lady.27 Whether ‘abusive’ idolatrous images were left altered or unveiled, having been removed of the symbolic sensory elements, their exposed existence aided in the biblia pauperum, yet remained preserved as monuments of indignant feelings towards them – and indeed warnings against the perils of ignoring such changes; even an apocalyptic culmination of Second Coming prophecies.28 From sensory misuse to correct governance: a radical transformation With the accession of Henry’s son, the boy-king Edward VI, the gloves were off. The Edwardine Injunctions of 1547 showed an increasingly fundamentalist attack on traditional religion, strictly clarifying any previous inconsistent policies, consolidating all that had gone before and warning of more to come. Imagery, especially, was now obliterated from churches and religious houses – particularly those which had managed to survive the Henrician era – in the most extensive iconoclasm ever seen in English history. The idea that images were permissible providing they were not worshipped or, more correctly, ‘abused’, was overturned, and now the definition of abuse could be branded as endless. The process of hearing the will of God was deemed to convert the eyes, as the books of Holy Scripture, notes the 1547 homily, “ought to be as much in 26

 Ibid., p. 419.  G. HOME, Old London Bridge, London, 1931, p. 168. 28  See P. SCHWYZER, Fallen Idols, Broken Noses: Defacement and Memory after the Reformation, in Memory Studies 11 (January 2018), no. 1, 21–35; A. WALSHAM, Like fragments of a shipwreck: Printed images and religious antiquarianism in early modern England, in M. Hunter (ed), Printed Images in Early Modern Britain: Essays in Interpretation, Farnham, 2010, 87–109, p. 89. Also, A. WALSHAM, Skeletons in the Cupboard: Relics after the English Reformation, in Past & Present 206 (2010), no. 5, 121–143, pp. 126–128 for the deception produced by polemical taunts in contradiction to the continuing presence and creation throughout the advent of Protestantism and post-Reformation England; A. WALSHAM, History, memory, and the English reformation, in The Historical Journal, 55 (2012), no. 4, 899–938, p. 903. 27

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our hands, in our eyes, in our ears, in our mouths, but most of all in our hearts.”29 The establishment on 21 January 1549 of Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer inaugurated legal services in English (permitting only those in the common language) – and copies of the New Testament, with paraphrases by Erasmus, were a mandatory requirement for every church.30 A visual and dramatic sensory encounter with the Word for celebrants was thrust towards the precipice of collective worship. The elevation of the Host had been eradicated and Transubstantiation attacked; however, in a similar manner, the Word now entered literally through the very sensory being of believers. Scripture and preaching were “soules fode”: as the Eucharistic bread was the body of Christ which devotionally fed the believer, so too the Word, as Christ in text, “fed and sustained the faithful.”31 Worshippers were to “inwardly digest” the Logos as if it were the “heavenly meat of[…]souls”, or the individual believer may palliate God, either through Eucharistic sacramental consumption, or absorption of the Gospel, thus again illustrating that human and heavenly sensation was sustained through a reciprocal, somewhat physical, relationship.32 Swann described claims made by Essex minister John Smith that taking the Sacrament provoked a sensory transformation of the congregant’s physical (body) and spiritual (soul) plane. Having taken the spiritual blood of Christ, “all his actions and all his thoughts will be full of the good taste, and good relish of the same.”33 The prayer-book now embodied a liturgy that put reformation teaching into praying words. This process had originated in 1538 when Henry VIII first gifted to his nation the Word in the vernacular and with that the nature of the practice of faith shifted from a spiritual involvement concentrated on objects and gestures to an auditory comprehension of belief and doctrine through God’s Word. Or did it? 29  Certain Sermons or Homilies appointed to be read in churches, In the time of the late Queen Elizabeth of famous memory, Liverpool, 1799, p. 8. 30  Cranmer produced a new and more radical Protestant prayer-book in 1552, whose subsequent vicissitudes echoed the conflicting tides of opinion within the Church of England. It was revised in a more Catholic spirit in 1559, to be succeeded eventually by the 1662 Anglican prayer-book, more Catholic still and the familiar one which has lasted down into this century. DUFFY, The Stripping of the Altars, p. 593. 31  MILNER, The Senses and the English Reformation, p. 278. 32  Certain Sermons, p. 9–11. M. ASTON, England’s Iconoclasts: Volume 1, Laws Against Images, Oxford, 1988, p. 369. 33  J. SMITH, Essex Dove, Presenting the World with a Few of Her Olive Branches: Or, A Taste of the Workes of that Reverend, Faithful, Iudicious, Learned, and Holy Minister of the Word, Mr. John Smith, 1637, p. 125; SWANN, God’s nostrils, p. 229.

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Coverdale’s English translations of 1537 became the authorised edition (making use of Tyndale’s earlier translations) which allowed, only two years later, after revision, for a printed Bible in churches nationwide. The scripture for reformers – most significantly and undoubtedly Protestant – could now be appreciated for its beauty and even read by those with the literacy ability to comprehend its guidance – at least in the very basic sense.34 Hence, sensing of the Word was both the source of knowledge, as faith, and its object in sensing as edification. With its vernacular publication, the ‘Great Bible’ relocated from the sanctuary and chained within naves – the ‘lower end’ or laity’s part of the church – and focus was removed from the sanctuary and its High Altar. With this single pronouncement, the King removed the linguistic, physical and even visual barrier to this sacred text. Thus, access to vernacular scripture was crucial to evangelicals but the Injunctions which saw to this were not without mixed-message provisions. The parish of Boxford (Suffolk) purchased its Bible in 1540/41 having travelled to London especially, yet the prospect of a fine appears to have been the motivator for the Dioceses of Bath and Wells, who were forced into buying theirs in 1541.35 Long Melford was in no hurry either, with no indication of a Bible purchase or possession in the 1540s.36 There was no media battle per se (e.g., Word versus image), but the enforced shifting towards the doctrine of sola scriptura – scripture alone – occasioned a reconfiguration of the parish church interior as the once strictly demarcated and hierarchical space of its Catholic predecessor was abandoned and/or reordered in light of Protestant modifications. “This was brought about through the purchase and maintenance of Bibles”, argues I. T. M. Larking “but also lecterns, pulpits, pews and the writing of English scriptures on interior walls once peppered with images.”37 Accordingly, the empirical use of scripture and the touting of scriptural authority was seen as the proper use of the senses to determine faith – and only through the internal rather than improper external act of sensing could this be ordained. The material culture of the Reformation began to take centre stage. 34  I.T.M. LARKING, Renovating the Sacred: Faith Communities and the Re-formation of the English Parish Church, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2017, p. 49. 35  Boxford Churchwardens’ Accounts, Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds. FB 77/E2/2 – FB 77/E2/3, p. 37; K.L. FRENCH, The People of the Parish: Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese, Philadelphia, 2000, p. 209. 36  Long Melford Churchwardens’ Accounts, Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds FL 509/5/1 – FL 509/5/1/15m. 37  LARKING, Renovating the Sacred, p. 49.

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Of minds and masonry: a sensory revolution In the late 1540s, many items were introduced to support this reformed ministry. Altars were stripped and replaced by a communion table, which might include a reredos and tabernacle. Other aspects of the church fabric such as sedilias and candles, which now held a non-sacramental association, became functionally redundant and medieval plate was melted, while pulpits and seating were installed. As North Elmham saw their modified altar replaced with a wooden communion table, they were also coerced into perceiving kneeling as idolatrous. Alternative seating requirements had never been so imperative.38 By the late sixteenth century the nave necessitated the most salient reorganisation. The new instructional didactic focus, to be delivered orally, provided worshippers with the ability to physically partake in the aural demonstrations of the new Protestant devotional practices. As the Word of God was now broadcasted using the Bible in the vernacular, the pulpit became the principal site for the dissemination of reformed doctrine. Language was critical but this was about far more than hearing and seeing; this delivery would be a comprehensive, synaesthetic experience and, therefore, a very physical act.39 God was now accessed and submitted to through the scriptural word as delivered by the pulpit and its ministering voice. St Mary’s, Reading set up a pulpit to comply with Edward’s 1547 Injunctions that a mandatory “comely and honest” pulpit be put up in each church at the parishioners’ cost illustrating that, prior to this, their installation was voluntary and evidence of their survival shows that they were a regular feature of many fifteenth-century churches – the soundscape had been significant for centuries.40 Nonetheless, given the intensity of scrutiny which occurred during Edward’s reign, we must be careful to assume that implementation and cooperation equated to approval. 1543/44 saw evidence of the value placed by North Elmham on the Word’s delivery apparatus by its “mendyng of [the] pulpytt”,41 while the pulpit at St Margaret’s, Old Catton (dated to 1537) still remains (though no longer in situ), indicating a similar sustained rededication to the Word. The prayer-book was now a “scripture delivery mechanism”, a teaching aid rather than a liturgy, and the pulpit, a  Besides two candles on the altar before the Sacrament. R. WHITING, The reformation of the English Parish Church, Cambridge, 2010, p. 193; N.J.G. POUNDS, A History of the English Parish Church, Cambridge, 2000, p. 454; LARKING, Renovating the Sacred, p. 61. 39  MILNER, The Senses and the English Reformation, p. 6. 40  LARKING, Renovating the Sacred, p. 92. 41  North Elmham Churchwardens’ Accounts, p. 29. 38

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sixteenth-century “radio transmitter” fit to “broadcast a rolling programme of Bible reading to the population,” and fit to act as an impressive prop of Edward’s now well-established dignity in acting as Supreme Head of the Church.42 As well as the removal and occlusion of objects and images associated with traditional worship, the first Edwardine Injunctions sought to remove the “monuments of feigned miracles” and, with that, the dye was cast: traditional pre-Reformation piety sought to counterfeit true religion.43 Denying the ‘superstitious’ notion behind the sensory stimulants was as important as removing the materiality and objects themselves. Behaviour as much as misrepresentation was attacked as true religion was only to be found in spirituality, not in tasting, touching, smelling, hearing and seeing.44 With the institution of the Book of Common Prayer, holy bread, oil and water were eradicated, the old ‘fraudulent’ manuals, psalters, hymnals and even primers, together with Catholic clerical vestments, were all sent to the bonfire, and one of the most sensory elements – music – came under extreme attack as the chantries were dissolved in 1547 hence polyphony was eradicated, and into the 1550s, organ removal commenced. Not only music but melodious sounds had to be carefully controlled and monitored. The physical properties that sound could convey – essentially, “touching at a distance” – had the power to effect physical and emotional changes in hearers, Emilie K. M. Murphy has expounded, both curing illnesses and comforting at times of distress which meant that their curtailment was intended to curb the power that music had to gratify the senses, potentially leading the mind astray.45 Once again, misuse and mismanagement of the falsities behind the sensory response was feared. The tri-sensory or synaesthetic quality of the experience produced by sound (eyes, ears and reciprocal touch) was particularly difficult to control or transform, hence a complete eradication of many musical sensory practices was evidently the only surefire method.

 A. RYRIE, Being Protestant in Reformation Britain, Oxford, 2013, p. 322; D. MACCULLThe Boy King: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation, Berkeley – Los Angeles, 2002, p. 160; R. REX, The crisis of obedience: God’s word and Henry’s reformation, in The Historical Journal 39 (1996), no. 4, 863–894. 43  P.L. HUGHES – J.F. LARKIN (eds), Tudor Royal Proclamations, 3 vols, Yale, 1969, no. 2, p. 118. 44  A. GILBY, An Answer to the Devilish Detection of Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, London, 1547, fol. 198v. 45  E.K.M. MURPHY, A sense of place: hearing English Catholicism in the Spanish Habsburg territories, 1568–1659, in MACDONALD et al., Sensing the Sacred in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 136–157, p. 138. 42

OCH,

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This was not merely an abolition of the ‘sensible’ instruments behind miracles, relics, images and the like. As influential English divine William Perkins clarified, indecorous management of the senses may have led to miracles and wonders, but only those “in sight” were mere “juggling deceits.”46 The worshippers of idols were thus bound to such images through their senses – slaves to them. No longer was traditional piety and its sensuality simply ‘abusive’. Now, idolatry was binding worshippers to a false religion instilled with deception and through the lack of sensory control, the only way to eradicate the problem was iconoclasm. As Milner put it, “heretics misused their senses, but idols unknowingly caused believers to do the same[…][Iconoclasm] was an extreme act of affective piety that sought to reclaim sensory governance for those participating and witnessing it.”47 No longer were images teaching devices for the illiterate – books of unlearned men – but were simply to act as a memorial to the lives and stories of the figures they represented, meaning that the procession of material and sensory paraphernalia of Catholicism that parishioners had been so familiar with just a short period earlier, was now considered idolatry. By 1549, the majority of images had gone but severity towards apathy shown of the implementation of the commands was ever growing, such as in Kent where parishes who delayed the removal of their altars were resultantly excommunicated even though altars effectively remained legal. Of course, the scope of the assaults on popular religion can be seen best in the most controversial of visual imagery: the rood. From region to region the intensity, response and acceptance of rood removal varied greatly but such inconsistency implies that there was never a consequence of a total absence of Protestant religious art. At Ludlow (Shropshire), the rood was promptly removed in 1547 but, only that same year, the parish purchased a canopy for the Blessed Sacrament even though the sepulchre had been deemed illegal.48 In 1547/48, the rood figures were removed from Long Melford and St Helen’s, Ranworth in addition to its loft, candlebeam and chancel screen tracery. Rather than allowing entire furnishings to be thrown on the bonfire, the screen was sawn-off at a lower level, so remained in partial form, whitewash was splashed across any and all decorative painting then plastered over with biblical texts and 46  W. PERKINS, A golden chaine: or the description of theologie containing the order of the causes of salvation and damnation, according to Gods word, London, 1591, p. 64. 47  MILNER, The Senses and the English Reformation, p. 255. 48  T. WRIGHT (ed.), Ludlow Churchwarden Accounts, London, 1869, pp. 30–34.

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Fig. 7.4. Rood screen from the south, fifteenth century. St Helen, Ranworth, Norfolk. Photo: John E. Vigar.

the King’s arms, while the high altar, mount and reredos were dismantled. Still, the more decorative yet sacramental elements and images were broken up and sold as scrap. And though mandatory requirements for the removal of illicit images and artefacts enforced further alterations, many East Anglian parishes – Boxford, Long Melford and North Elmham – were far more voluntarily receptive, some even going beyond the prescribed changes. Heeding and taking advantage of the 1547 Injunction to remove all internal superstitious pictures, Boxford sold several items including “tabarnaculls” for the total sum of 11s. 3d – and even went so far as to sell the roodloft (not obligatory until the Royal Order of Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603) in 1561).49 The Cornish parish of Stratton’s rood-loft, covered in images and an altar, was also dismantled in 1549, but apparently done so carefully that they managed to thwart the reforms

 Boxford Churchwardens’ Accounts, p. 49.

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and reinstate it.50 A similar stealthy operation occurred at St Thomas Vintry in London where, to circumvent the Injunction which now forbade lights anywhere but before the Sacrament, they were simply maintained by moving them onto the rood-loft.51 Edward’s commissioners had taken their task of parish visitations to the extreme. The removal of relics, images, pictures and paintings, etc., had clearly become out of hand due to the new radical provision to destroy not only those images on the walls but also those adorning windows (outlawing imagery in toto), some even going so far as at Hadleigh (Suffolk) to hurl stones through stained glass.52 Images or paintings were whitewashed from the walls and woodwork, and replaced by the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer or the 1548 Catechism, an act seen as a symbolic manifestation of the removal of Catholicism from the entire building. But this was not always successful as can be seen in the priory church at Binham (Norfolk) where the saintly figures of the fifteenth-century rood screen, once whitewashed, have begun to emerge as ghostly watchers over a painterly pen: the over-text of Tyndale and Coverdale’s English Bible translation. Though often cited as a victorious example of the Word winning out over the image, whitewashing not only served to conceal but also to preserve. So, regardless what was being officially implemented from above and the hopes they had of turning minds against pictures by clearing church buildings of them, in such uncertain times, the inherent beliefs of many parishes were clearly not for turning. What this tells at the very least is that some parishes were staunchly compliant; others remiss. Was it the attachment to the sensory nature of traditional worship, as much as the objection to the doctrinal change, which sparked indignation towards defacement? Indeed, the hypocrisy here embodies the very issues behind idolatry which, by Edwardine England standards, had transitioned to a focus on utter misrepresentation and deceit through the legitimation of sensory realism of such figural imagery. And in with iconoclasm did not simply mean out with the old forms of sensory apparatus to worship. As before, hearing God’s message through the orally delivered Word was an inherently physical act, not merely a message to be received. Complementing this experience – as Bibles, prayer-books, psalms, and 50  J. MATTINGLY, Stratton Churchwardens’ Accounts, 1512–1578 (60) (Devon and Cornwall Record Society), Woodbridge, 2018; S. G. CHAPMAN, Religious Space in Reformation England: Contesting the past. London, 2013. 51  H.B. WALTERS (ed.), London Churches at the Reformation, London, 1939, p. 617. 52  WHITING, The reformation of the English Parish Church, p. 145.

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Fig. 7.5. Image of St Michael overpainted with blackletter text on Rood Screen. Screen dated to fifteenth century; scriptural texts added in the reign of Edward VI (1547–1553) The Priory Church of St Mary and the Holy Cross, Binham Priory, Norfolk. Photo: John E. Vigar.

the Decalogue – the Word was now also emblazoned across church walls, screens and windows, and therefore edging its way into the material landscape, even usurping the place of former holy imagery. These houses of edification were now equipped to bond believers to a transformed sensory process of worship. Yet, given this process resulted in the removal of what was almost a thousand years of practice and, with that, its associative imagery, it is perhaps too much to suggest that this also signified a total refusal to accept that images could be seen in any way as book equivalents – as even ‘Protestant’ visual imagery supports this claim.53 For the majority of illiterate society in early Tudor England, 53  M. ASTON, Public worship and iconoclasm, in D. GAIMSTER – R. GILCHRIST (eds.), The Archaeology of Reformation 1480–1580, Leeds, 2003, 9–28, p. 12.

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Suzannah Lipscomb explains, “Their faith was something forged in the visual and kinaesthetic[…]and not the written word. These alterations to their relationship with objects they could see and touch[…]was to make that relationship fraught and uncertain; it was to rob their faith of some of its colour and confidence.”54 While I agree that the new evangelical devotional relationship would certainly have been one categorized by uncertainty, the spuriousness and speciousness of images was indeed an inherent and promoted aspect of the reforms but a carte blanche that taught images as lies is a falsehood. Devotees instead remodelled understanding through new doctrine – through the physical reading and observing of texts and books, and the viewing of new forms of imagery which provided worshippers with a great range of tone and conviction towards the ‘new’ religion. Walls were whitewashed and texts overpainted images at Boxford in the year 1547/48 walls while North Elmham dutifully paid “for [the] whytyng of [the] Chyrche”, though fragments of English blackletter text, possibly the Creed, proposes Larking, still remain.55 That same year, Long Melford commenced a “wrytyng of chyrche & chappelles” in its expansive interior.56 So it followed that the embracing visual, material and decorative infrastructure was accentuated and reinforced by the preaching heard from the English Bible – or vice versa – resulting in sola scriptura being “not only an audible idea[…but] a sensory reality.”57 This simultaneous annihilation and creation therefore confronts commonly-held convictions that post-Reformation culture was diminished of the delights of the eyes, but strikes with the emerging consensus that the process involved the reworking, reconstituting and migration of traditional cultural forms of imagery. Wall paintings and image-shrines of saintly and biblical images may no longer have existed for congregations to visually contemplate, but the liturgical focus was now a priority: The Word. Through images – only this time, the pure text of scriptures – devotees could be once again seduced and persuaded by, as Pilkington explicated, “God’s eternal word sounding always amongst them in their sight and ears.”58 While “foolish anticks” may have been purged, light, colours and images of the traditional past were not so simply overlaid. Additionally, the walls of England’s parish churches remained  S. LIPSCOMB, 1536: The Year That Changed Henry VIII, Oxford, 2009, p. 124.  North Elmham Churchwardens’ Accounts, p. 45. 56  Long Melford Churchwardens’ Accounts, pp. 40–41. 57  LARKING, Renovating the Sacred, p. 55. 58  J. PILKINGTON, The Works of James Pilkington, (ed.), J. SCHOFIELD, Cambridge, 1842, p. 129. 54 55

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clean of legally-sanctioned scriptural text until as late as the seventeenth century – its voluntary implementation therefore hinting at glimmers of material commitment to reformed practice, Larking opines.59 Arguably, the sensorial experience of traditionally Catholic images differed from text but, post-Reformation, the two operated in similar ways; they also inspired devotional contemplation in the eyes and minds of their beholders whether they were readily understood by a largely illiterate congregation or not (the same could be said of comprehension towards former images), communicating complex theological principles and doctrinal messages to their audiences. Essentially, the Word equally provided examples for both proper sensation and proper cognition: a sensory manifestation of dynamic preaching and godly worship. The belief that it was the last “relyque” left for Christians made scripture the centre of a tenuous Protestant sensory-based piety. However, established recitation practices, or simply repeated discernment, converted written texts into perceptible scriptures – the new ‘relyques’ – of the “library” for “lewd” men.60 One of the widest shifts in the nature of experience at parish level was the setting up of the royal crest to represent the role of the monarch as the new supreme Head of the English Church. While some crests still survive from Henry’s reign (e.g., Bletchingley, Surrey), it was during Edward’s that they became more commonplace, but Elizabeth’s 1561 requirement that texts should “give some comlye ornament” to the chancel thus reinforcing the Second Commandment, ordered boards above the east end of the church in place of the reredos or adorning the tympanum above the rood screen.61 The earliest is perhaps St Martin Pomary (London) who erected theirs in February 1547, followed closely by Long Melford in 1547/48. At St Catherine, Ludham the erased medieval rood figures were replaced by a cheaper painted image of the Crucifixion on boards which filled the entire tympanum above the rood beam to meet Queen Mary I’s (r. 1553–1559) traditional requirements. When requirements were reversed, Elizabeth’s arms were painted on a cheap canvas covering the boards, now restored on the reverse of the painted panels. A common practice, many churches were required to paint the biblical scriptures over the woodwork of former rood screens, as at Wing (Buckinghamshire), as well  LARKING, Renovating the Sacred, p. 54.  Ibid.; L. GROENEVELD, A Theatrical Miracle: The Boxley Rood of Grace as Puppet, in Early Theatre 10 (2007), no. 2, 11-50, p. 37. 61  Elizabeth discussed this in a letter informing about the inclusion of new calendar lessons before the Book of Common Prayer, dated 22 January 1561: E. CARDWELL (ed.), Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of England, 2 vols. Oxford, 1844, Volume 1, p. 296. 59 60

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Fig. 7.6. Royal Arms of Elizabeth I in tympanum, sixteenth century. St Catherine, Ludham, Norfolk. Photo: John E. Vigar.

as triptychs or reredoses, thereby erasing the medieval saints and biblical figures which formerly adorned them. The backing of The Kiss of Judas, an oil work dated c. 1460 from the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Grafton Regis (Northamptonshire), was found to once exhibit lettering from the sixteenth century, likely the Decalogue. The addition of the text may have been a pragmatic decision to recycle a significant decorative element that was no longer acceptable to the religious conventions of a shifting era, or perhaps a deliberate choice made to protect the painting from the damaging hands of reformers. Collinson suggests that this renewed focus on the royal coat of arms imposed a “wholly abstract symbolism” which forced churchgoers not to “look at different pictures but no pictures at all.”62 In fact, sited in the most visible and privileged place in the pre- and post-Reformation church, facing west above or beyond the chancel arch, this was not so. At the most basic level, the arms  P. COLLINSON, The Birthpangs of Protestant England, Basingstoke, 1988, pp. 118–119.

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offered a continuous splash of colour, if located in place of the former Doom paintings that had adorned the very same spot. They also continued to act as a tool of edification. As the Doom had informed the congregation about the significance of judgement and imminent prospect of suffering an eternity in Hell, so the scriptures taught such lessons of obedience but perhaps acted as more of a visual gesture, promoting claims to the biblio-centric edification than practical teaching aids for largely Latin-illiterate congregations. These palimpsestic remnants illustrate that this new visibility and concentration on heraldic or secular decoration throughout the parishes fostered a sense of familiarity and appropriated identity within the wider community. From a focus on the glorification of the holy company of heaven as provided by the rood (an identifiable barrier between chancel and nave thus emphasising the mystery of the Mass), to one which represented God’s chosen representative on earth – and equally the English church’s subordination to the crown – the exuberant visual display did not suggest an absence of images, ocular symbolism or fundamental change in the balance of power – i.e., from image to word. Put simply, it provided a transformative visual focus; in edification terms, one which offered more to the literate of the congregation: a stimulating, meditational, and moral substitute. An interesting contradiction subsequently arises. Images were now condemned as “teachers” or, as they were so derogatorily termed, “blind books and dumb schoolmasters”, but in their place, the New Testament was regarded as the truer image of the Saviour than any carved or painted pictures.63 This was based on the ideology that images could never be seen as equivalent to books and yet the very essence of such zealous attacks proves this was positively not the case. Moreover, the very fact that the rood was removed, and, in its place, the royal arms installed in order to inform congregants that the monarch was now Head of the Church in England, again validates the notion that images were still used as “informers”. Language was now the focus, the means of communication between man and God, but the spoken word was not the only sensory tool through which this dialogue was transferred – it remained very much in the visual, according to a new conception of the sacred.64

63  Sermon against Peril of Idolatry, in Certain Sermons Or Homilies Appointed to be Read in Churches in the Time of Queen Elizabeth of Famous Memory, London, 1843, p. 256. 64  W. COSTER – A. SPICER, Introduction: the dimensions of sacred space in Reformation Europe, in W. COSTER – A. SPICER (eds), Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, 2005, 1–16. p. 6.

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Conclusion As the final waves of change crashed ashore the end of the sixteenth century, sailing aboard since the very ripples of disturbance was the primary vessel carrying Protestant theology and practice: artistic, architectural and material culture – and towards skies of reform and reformational challenge of the habitus. While scholars have long argued for Protestant belief to be considered as a fundamentally asensual experience, resulting from forms of recognition and contempt seemingly displayed towards Catholicism’s overt materialism and ornate liturgy, this paper has revealed that reformed practices towed far more closely to the devotional sensory experience line of the spiritual precursor than frequently claimed. Worship after the Reformation did not merely change tack from “doing things[…]to solely communicating a message” to believers.65 English Protestants were very much governed by the demands and complexities of an intense hypersensuality that brought solace through the use of scripture, preaching and canonical worship as a means to deduce true religion, were certainly aware what sensory experiences did to them physiologically, understood the anxiety surrounding sensation through iconoclasm (not solely the use of associated objects and gestures), and that ultimately agency resided within them as percipients. Essentially, this reorientation or transformation of the sensory disposition was actually formed through a resolution to the ideologies of traditional Catholic piety – as the old helped to circumvent the unfamiliar new. Studying sensory processes have thus proven to be a valued instrument in understanding and chronicling religious and cultural change during the English Reformation, as well as the dynamics involved. However, there is nothing to indicate a sudden sensory break, as Collinson proposed, and it was rather a continual shift – and one of minds, as well as religious spaces. Parishes moved at their own pace – some running far ahead of the Crown; others falling far behind due to “competing ideas as to what constituted proper Protestant worship.”66 An alternative explanation is to propose an interweaving of significant vicissitudes in the way congregants observed and inferred the unprecedented theological and, furthermore, sensory advances occurring around them – and were just as wed to the material, artistic and architectural arrangements which engineered the change. It was all just part of the Reformation furniture.

 MILNER, The Senses and the English Reformation, p. 6.  LARKING, Renovating the Sacred, p. 111.

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CHASTISING THE EYE IN THE ‘GOLDEN AGE’ THE IMAGE OF BLIND TOBIT IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NETHERLANDS. Samantha L. SMITH

Would we be assisted and succoured then in our adversities? Truly wee must content our selves to be blind then: that is to say, we must tryn our eies from beholding things present, and keepe our reason shorr, that we may onley rest upon Gods free promises. I grant this blindnesse will not be very pleasing to us, and that therein the imbecillitie of our judgements may be therein easilie discerned, yet ought wee not therefore to flee it much, if we wiselie consider the fruit that redounds to us by it. For is it not better to be blind, and to bee led by Gods hand then to see with both eies, and to plunge our selves into unavoidable dangers […] By this we evidentlie see to whom the former doctrine belonged: for now he distinguisheth Gods Servants form Idolaters. As if he should say, The Lord will leade his people, but in the meane while those that trust in Graven Images shall be ashamed. As if he should say, the choice is here set before you, either by grace to be saved, or miserablie to perish. For all such as put their confidence in Idols shall surely perish: but those that rest upon Gods word and promise shall assuredly be saved. [sic] (Calvin, Commentary upon the Prophesy of Isaiah 42:16-17)1

This chapter takes Rembrandt van Rijn’s (1606-1669) etching of the Blindness of Tobit to explore the culture that consumed it, the Dutch Republic of the seventeenth century. The period is often referred to as its ‘golden age’ due to the Republic’s prosperity both in commerce and the arts. In particular this chapter looks at how reformed viewers might have interpreted this image, because although the book of Tobit was not accepted into the biblical canon by the Dutch Reformed Church, images from the book were just as present in the homes of the reformed Dutch as those of Catholics.2 The Protestant 1  J. CALVIN, A Commentary Vpon the Prophecie of Isaiah. By Iohn Caluin. Whereunto Are Added Foure Tables … Clement Cotton (trans.), London, 1609, pp. 440-441. 2  For examples on numbers of and types of images in Reformed and Catholic homes see tables 6a and 6b in J. M. MONTIAS, Works of Art in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam: An Analysis of Subjects and Attributions, in D. FREEDBERG – J. DE VRIES (eds.), Art in History, History in

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Reformation in the Dutch Republic stemmed largely from Calvinism, but rather than follow Calvin’s teachings to the letter, the Dutch Republic adapted Calvinism for their own Dutch Reformed Church. In this sense Calvinism in the Netherlands is an interpretation rather than a pure adherence to Calvin’s beliefs. Calvin’s teachings however were still very influential. I believe that the framing of blindness in Rembrandt’s etching of Tobit is telling of how the Dutch Republic digested Calvin’s position on images, sight, and devotion whilst surrounded by a multitude of pictures. I hope to show that although the Dutch did not fully embrace Calvin’s stricter views towards images,3 the Netherlands adapted Calvinism and Reformed ideas to its own ends, leaving it with a profitable and yet uncomfortable relationship with images and sight in the Dutch ‘golden age’. While it might be tempting to see the image of Tobit as an illustration of Calvin’s preference of the sense of hearing over sight, this would be to miss the point; the very medium in which this blind man is presented contradicts this Reformed stance; the image is after all a visual medium. Rather, this etching deals with this unease about the image and the sense of vision by presenting the viewer with two forms of metaphorical blindness: ignorance and inner sight, and in doing so it provides a material continuity to the former Catholic culture which utilised images as a medium for guiding devotion. Calvin took a strict stance on images, warning that they were ‘phantoms or delusive shows’4 and rejecting their use in the Church completely.5 Thus it might be argued that the occurrence of any images at all, let alone of the apocryphal book of Tobit should have been fairly unlikely in the Reformed Dutch Republic which had adopted and adapted Calvinism which rejected biblical apocrypha. Whilst the Catholic Church accepted the book of Tobit together with what it regards as other deuterocanonical6 books as part of the biblical Art : Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Culture, Santa Monica, CA, 1991, pp. 331-372. It might also be noted here that despite the reformation of the Church and earlier the rejection of Catholicism as a stance against Spanish rule, the Netherlands remained rather tolerant to a number of other faiths including Catholicism. This may also explain the variety of iconography one finds there at this time. 3  Calvin’s more reserved, yet often misunderstood, view on images is discussed in more detail later in this contribution. 4  J. CALVIN quoted in S. CLARK, Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European Culture, Oxford, 2007, p. 163. 5  J. CALVIN, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Philadelphia: 2014, Book 1: XI, xiii. 6  Whilst these books are here referred to as ‘deuterocanonical’ because of their acceptance into the Roman Catholic canon of Scripture, I will refer to them throughout this article as

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Fig. 8.1. Rembrandt van Rijn, The Blindness of Tobit (the larger plate), 1651. Etching with drypoint (first of two states), 16 × 12.9 cm, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum. Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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canon at the Council of Trent in 1546,7 Calvin wrote that with the acceptance of Tobit, the Catholic Church showed it supported ‘satisfactions, exorcisms and what not.’8 Nevertheless, it is in the Netherlands that we find an influx of Tobit images from the mid-sixteenth century onwards, the beginning of which coincides with the time Calvinism and reformation ideals began to take hold in the Low Countries.9 Amongst this influx of Tobit images, we find an etching of the Blindness of Tobit from 1651 (Fig. 8.1) made by the Dutch seventeenth-century artist, Rembrandt. He depicted the book of Tobit a staggering 49 times throughout his career. It is depicted by the painter more than any other OT biblical story in his oeuvre and is found in drawings, etchings and paintings.10 Making up a large number of the images of this story by the artist are depictions of the less eventful episodes of the book in which the theme of blindness features (see figs 8.2 and 8.3).11 While some art historical theories regard the artist’s interest in the story as personal, this etching, a mass-produced image, seems to indicate a wider public interest in blind Tobit.12 Confirming this public interest is the ‘apocrypha’ as I am referring to the books in a Reformed context. 7  THE COUNCIL OF TRENT, The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Celebrated under Paul Iii, Julius Iii, and Pius Iv, Bishops of Rome, London, 1687, pp. 12-13. 8  J. CALVIN, Calvin’s Tracts Containing Antidote to the Council of Trent, vol. III, (trans.) Henry Beveridge, Edinburgh, 1851, p. 68. 9  Interestingly, images of the book of Tobit appear rather sporadically throughout history. There are two major outputs: the first is in Florence between 1425-1500 and the second in the Netherlands in the second half of the 1500s and first half of the 1600s. For a discussion of this first group see, E. H. GOMBRICH, Tobias and the Angel in E. H. GOMBRICH, Symbolic Images: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance, London, 1978. See also T. HART, Tobit in the Art of the Florentine Renaissance, in M. BREDIN (ed.), Studies in the Book of Tobit: A Multidisciplinary Approach, London, 2006. pp. 72-89. For the history of Tobit images in Christian art see, E. PHILPOT, Old Testament Apocryphal Images in European Art, Göteborg, 2009. 10  G. SCHWARTZ, The Rembrandt Book, New York, 2006, p. 361.Schwartz puts the number of images from the book of Tobit at 132; within this category he gives the number of 86 etchings, yet there are only three etchings by Rembrandt (in various states). Having counted the known copies from Bartsch and in White and Boon’s list from 1969, I can only locate 72 copies.This however does not take away from the amount of images Rembrandt made of Tobit in total. 11  For a discussion of the medical and religious readings of the healing scenes by Rembrandt see my discussion. S. SMITH, On Hands That Make Us See: Tobias Healing His Father’s Blindness, in N. SØRENSEN VAAGE, et al (eds.) Images of Knowledge: The Epistemic Lives of Pictures and Visualisations, Frankfurt am Main, 2016. For a wider interpretation of the theme of blindness in Rembrandt and early modern European art see S. SMITH, ‘Painting Blindness and Obscuring Vision: Rembrandt and the Senses’, Unpublished MA dissertation, Bergen, 2014. 12  For a discussion about Rembrandt’s personal interest in the story see for example J. S. HELD, Rembrandt Studies, Princeton, N.J, 1991.

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Fig. 8.2. Rembrandt van Rijn, Tobit and Anna, 1659. Oil on Panel, 40.3 × 54 cm, Rotterdam, Netherlands: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Photo: Public Domain.

Fig. 8.3. Rembrandt van Rijn, Anna and the blind Tobit, 1630. Oil on Oak, 63.8 × 47.7 cm, London, England: The National Gallery. Image courtesy of National Gallery, London.

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fact that Rembrandt had already published another etching (the first of the total of three etchings from Tobit by Rembrandt) of the same moment in the story in a similar manner, earlier in c.1629 (see Fig. 8.4). The story of the book of Tobit Before examining the role this image played in the Reformed Dutch Republic, it might be useful to relay the story from Tobit so that we might get an overview of its narrative and themes. The story of Tobit takes place in the Assyrian capital of Nineveh where the Jews of Israel had been taken captive. Tobit was one of these Jews and, being devoted to his faith, followed the dietary requirements and burial rituals of the dead according to his beliefs, despite the threat of persecution. It is at one of these secret burials that Tobit becomes blind. As he sleeps outside the city wall, a swallow’s dropping falls into his eyes creating a white veil and depriving him of his sight. Tobit, his wife Anna, and his son, Tobias, fall into poverty. Tobit prays to God and, on hearing his prayers, God sends the archangel Raphael, disguised as a traveller Azarias, to accompany and protect Tobias on a journey to collect money on behalf of his father. The angel enables Tobias to find a wife on his journey and advises Tobias to gut a fish which attacks him at a river, and use its liver and gall, not only to rid his new wife of a curse, but also to reinstate his father’s sight. Meanwhile, Tobit and his wife wait, seemingly in vain, for their son’s return. Whilst Anna gives up in despair, Tobit continues to have faith. When Tobias does return, Tobit goes to meet him but stumbles at the door. This event is directly followed by Tobias healing his father’s blindness, guided by the angel Raphael. This culminating scene describes Tobias’ use of the fish gall to remove the ‘white veil’ and return his father’s sight. The story is concluded by the revelation of the identity of archangel and his taking leave from Tobit, Tobias and their families. The themes of the story are family, devotion and piety, seen through the relationship between father and son as well as the marriage of Tobias to Sarah. It is also a story of retribution: the righteous and pious will receive reward from God. The story also tells of the struggle of the Jews, and their exile. Tobit is a determined Jewish man and along with his family is living in exile. Yet despite the oppression and hardship experienced he continues to practice his own beliefs according to his faith and tribe. And, whilst this brings him misfortune, the loss of sight and poverty, the family’s faith and determinism are eventually rewarded under God’s guidance.

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Fig. 8.4. Rembrandt van Rijn, The Blindness of Tobit: sketch, c. 1629. Etching (state 5 of 5), 7.9 × 5.5 cm. Washington, US: National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection. Photo: Public Domain.

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The etching The 1651 (Fig 8.1) etching illustrates Tobit 11:10 ‘And Tobit went forth toward the door and Stumbled’ and shows the blind Tobit, arms outstretched before him, feeling his way towards the doorway to greet his son. The doorway however shows no sign of activity beyond the room, that is the arrival of Tobit’s son, Tobias, and his new wife, Sarah. Tobit here is alone, framed, if you will, in his blindness. Rembrandt cleverly hints at Tobias’ arrival with the addition of a dog (who had accompanied Tobias on his journey) which has entered the room and stands excited at Tobit’s feet attempting to lead him in the right direction towards the door. Behind Tobit there is a fireplace where fish hang, reminding the viewer of the following event in the story: the healing of the old man’s blindness with the gall of a fish. To the right we see the chair where Tobit had sat waiting, seemingly in vain for Tobias’ return, and we see the spinning wheel that marks the poverty of the family. The image shows the transition from the long wait for the return of his son, Tobias, to the reunification with his son and the miraculous return of his sight: a moment of conversion. Whilst earlier depictions of this scene by other artists show the rest of the narrative (see figs 8.5 – 8.6) — Tobit’s wife Anna, Tobias and his wife, and the angel in disguise as the traveller Azarias — Rembrandt excludes them. It might be noted that Rembrandt even leaves out the stumbling event, and instead suggests it with the toppled wheel. Rembrandt instead isolates Tobit in this scene and, using a method known as extraction, manages to provide a sense of transition with small visual clues which help the viewer of this image recall the rest of the story.13 By presenting Tobit in this way, Rembrandt captures the emotional intensity of a crucial moment which balances between faith and fulfilment, blindness and sight.

13  Extraction is a way of isolating figures from their context and disentangling them from the rest of the narrative in order to heighten the emotional impact of a scene or character’s emotions. This pictorial convention was already established in the 1300s for certain biblical figures. In the 1500s and 1600 this exploded and widened to new figures. For further details on the origins of this and its use see, C. TÜMPEL, Rembrandt’s Old Testament Etchings, in P. VAN DER COELEN (ed.), Patriarchs, Angels & Prophets: The Old Testament in Netherlandish Printmaking from Lucas Van Leyden to Rembrandt, Amsterdam, 1996, pp. 33-34.

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Fig. 8.5. Claes Moeyaert, The return of Tobias (Terugkeer van Tobias) from the series History of Tobit (Geschiedenis van Tobias), c. 1612–1655. Etching, 11.7 × 19.3 cm, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum. Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Fig. 8.6. Cornelis Massijs, The Return of Tobias (Terugkeer van Tobias), from the series The History of Tobit (Geschiedenis van Tobias), 1544 – 1556. Engraving on Paper, 7.2 × w 9.9 cm, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum. Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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The book of Tobit and the reformed church As noted above, Calvin dismissed the Apocrypha completely and excluded it from the biblical canon. He criticises it in his Antidote (1547) for encouraging superstition and the promise of earthly rewards from God. Shortly afterwards, however, in the same text, Calvin seems to recognise that these Apocryphal stories have some worth, and states, ‘I am not one of those, however, who would entirely disapprove the reading of those books.’14 He says no more about how these texts should be read further. Yet there were other reasons for the rejection of the book; the story contained historical and geographical inaccuracies, leading many to interpret the story as a fable for the use of moral instruction only. One might note that Luther took a slightly more tolerant attitude towards Tobit and was a little clearer on what he saw as its purpose. In 1534 Luther’s preface to the book of Tobit, the story is described as a ‘truly beautiful, wholesome and profitable fiction’.15 It could be argued that it was perhaps this sense of leniency, derived from the understanding that the story might provide moral guidance, that one might still read Tobit albeit not as Scripture. It seems that this conditional allowance for these books, used as they were for moral guidance, was also adopted in the Netherlands. The issue of apocrypha was debated at the Synod of Dordrecht in 1618-9 after the Council of Trent. The rejection of these books was confirmed but a majority vote decided that they would be translated and published together with the new Dutch State Bible (Statenbijbel or Statenvertaling). A compromise was reached; they would be treated separately with their own page numbers so they could be bound separately. The font size and layout of the pages would also differ from that of the official canon and the margins provide no commentary, in contrast to the canonical books. That is, the difference between Scripture and Apocrypha was marked visually.16 In 1637 the Statenbijbel was published and Apocryphal books were included at the very end (after the New Testament rather than after the Old Testament) and with a warning to the 14

 Calvin’s Tracts, p. 64.  M. LUTHER quoted in PHILPOT, Old Testament Apocryphal Images, p. 129. 16  This was confirmed in sessions 9 and 10 of the first session of Acts of the National Synod of Dordrecht (Dordt) which took place in 1618. Whilst no words relating to ‘visual’ are used, the entire prescription for the Apocrypha denotes a clear visual difference from the rest of the bible. The differences between canonical scripture and Apocrypha can be seen here in the digitalised version of the original Statenbijbel of 1637: http://www.bijbelsdigitaal.nl/view/?mode=1 &bible=sv1637&part=1 15

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reader in a preface.17 In this preface the reader is reminded that the Apocrypha are not part of the canon of Scripture but still might provide moral guidance.18 This was reiterated in the Belgic Confession (1561) which constituted, in part, along with the Heidelberg Catechism, the foundation of the Nederduitsche Gereformeerde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church). The Confession states that the Apocrypha ‘All of which the Church may read and take instruction from, so far as they agree with the canonical books,’ were, nonetheless, ‘far from having such power and efficacy, as that we may from their testimony confirm any point of faith, or of the Christian religion; much less detract from the authority of the other sacred books.’19 Thus with their reluctant acceptance into the Statenbijbel, the Apocryphal stories, including the book of Tobit, might continue to be read. The book of Tobit was therefore tolerated as instructional. It taught the rewards of keeping faith through turbulent times and was seen as an example of divine providence. In the Netherlands the story was, along with the other Apocrypha and Old Testament stories, often used to explore the story of the Israelites and their struggle against Egyptian oppression; the Dutch identified with this, particularly in the 1500s, as they saw themselves living through their own repression: that of Catholic Spain.20 Although the more traditional images of the book of Tobit (see for example figs 8.7 – 8.9) depict the main themes of the story such as the marriage of Tobias to Sarah, the angel guiding Tobias, or the healing of blindness, Rembrandt’s 1651 etching is unprecedented in iconography.21 What sort of guidance would this print of a blind old man approaching a doorway provide, particularly to the Reformed Dutch Christian? In this image Tobit is highlighted in his state of blindness. In doing so the scene increases the viewer’s awareness of the sense of sight, perhaps even the advantages blindness  H. J. SELDERHUIS, Handbook of Dutch Church History, Göttingen, 2015, p. 311.  The warning to the reader in the Statenbijbel of 1637 before Apocrypha can be read in the original in digitalised form here: http://www.bijbelsdigitaal.nl/view/?mode=1&bible=sv1637&p age=1318, accessed 18.07.18. 19  See article 6 of the Belgic Confession: https://www.prca.org/bc_text1.html#a6 20  This comparison can be seen in the the visual culture of the time. See for example the prints discussed by P. VAN DER COELEN, Netherlandish Printmakers and The Old Testament in P. VAN DER COELEN, Patriarchs, Angels & Prophets : The Old Testament in Netherlandish Printmaking from Lucas Van Leyden to Rembrandt, Studies in Dutch Graphic Art, Amsterdam, 1996; For an example in a religious setting see the prayer quotes in S. SCHAMA, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, London, 1987, pp. 98-99. 21  This is of course if we discount Rembrandt’s treatment of the same scene in 1629, although one might note that the iconography here is a little trickier to spot. See for example VAN DER COELEN, Netherlandish Printmakers, pp. 140-50. 17 18

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Fig. 8.7. Adam Elsheimer, Tobias Accompanied by the Angel (Tobias en de engel), 1560 – 1610. Etching on Paper, 9 × w 14 cm. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum. Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

might have for faith, as Tobit is soon to meet his son. However, the state of blindness according to Calvin and perhaps later the Dutch Reformed Church would not have necessarily been interpreted as a mere rejection of all things visual, including images. In order to understand the lesson that the Blindness of Tobit image might have communicated we first turn to how Calvin considered images and sight because, although it is often said that Calvin was wholly against images of any sort, the situation is rather more complex. Calvin on images Calvinism is frequently viewed as fully opposed to all images, and it is often presumed that Calvin himself was ‘iconophobic’. The iconoclastic riots of the Calvinists in the Low Countries in 1566, along with the confiscation and stripping of all Catholic churches of religious imagery later in 1578-79 would indicate that this was indeed the Calvinist belief. Whilst there are a handful of persons who were wholly against images in the Dutch Republic of the

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Fig. 8.8. Cornelis Massijs, Tobias and the Fish, from the series The History of Tobit (Geschiedenis van Tobias), 1544 – 1556. Engraving on paper, 7.3 cm × 9.1 mm. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum. Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Fig. 8.9. Cornelis Cort, The Return of Tobias (Terugkeer van Tobias) from the series Story of Tobias (Verhaal van Tobias) after Maarten van Heemskerck, 1556 – 1633. Engraving on Paper, 24.3 × 19.9 cm. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum. Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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seventeenth century, this extreme attitude is uncommon.22 A closer look at Calvin’s writings show that he is not against images entirely but rather disputes the uses of certain images. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) Calvin prohibited the depiction of God, noting that to depict what one cannot see was impossible.23 God, according to Calvin, could only be understood through Scripture, and adored in his spirit. Images for Calvin offered no knowledge of God. Calvin was also against images in the Church24 which he believed led to idolatry.25 Calvin’s criticism of images took aim at the papal use of images and relics which he saw as arousing idolatry and superstition. In Calvin’s Institutes, in the section following this criticism of images, he rationalises, Nevertheless, I am not so scrupulous as to think that no images ought ever to be permitted. But since sculpture and painting are gifts of God, I wish for a pure and legitimate use of both [….] We conclude, therefore, that nothing should be painted and engraved but objects visible to our eyes: The Divine Majesty, which is far above the reach of human sight, ought not to be corrupted by unseemly figures.26

In Calvin’s view, if something is visible to the eye, that is, material, then it may be depicted in visual, material means. In particular he saw images which presented ‘histories and transactions’ as worthier as they may help the use of ‘information and recollection.’27 However, an attempt to depict God as a physical body would be both misleading and blasphemous. Calvin is very aware of the deceptive quality of images but a turning away from images completely or even a negation of sight entirely is not what Calvin calls for. Calvin was not against vision but valued vision and even images if used properly. This is indicated when he remarks that images are allowed as long as their use is ‘pure and 22  See for example the discussion between Johannes Geesteranus and his translator, Dirck Camphuysen, in I. M. VELDMAN, Protestantism and the Arts: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Netherlands, in P. CORBY FINNEY (ed.), Seeing Beyond the Word Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition : Grand Rapids Mich, 1999, pp. 415-16. 23  CALVIN. Institutes, Book 1:XI, ii-v. ‘whatever visible representations of God are invented by man, are diametrically opposite to his nature; and that, therefore, as soon as ever idols are introduced, true religion is immediately corrupted and adulterated.’ 24  Ibid., Book 1: XI, xiii. ‘And we have found it too true, that, through the horrible frenzy, which, almost to the total destruction of piety, hath heretofore possessed the world, as soon as images are set up in churches, there is, as it were, a standard of idolatry erected; for the folly of mankind cannot refrain from immediately falling into idolatrous worship.’ 25  Ibid., Book 1:XI, iv. 26  Ibid., Book 1: XI, xii. 27  Ibid., Book 1: X, xii.

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legitimate’. This points us to the real issue Calvin had with images: Calvin does not dispute every image, but how images are used.28 And in terms of the sense which enables us to see images, it is not so much what we see, but how we see that is crucial. Calvin on vision Calvin gives few instructions on how we should view images (rather he prefers to instruct his reader how images should not be used), but he does give more specific instructions on viewing something else: the natural world. In Book 1, chapter V of Institutes Calvin details how we might know something of God through the observation of the world: Of his wonderful wisdom, both heaven and earth contain innumerable proofs; not only those more abstruse things, which are the subjects of astronomy, medicine, and the whole science of physics, but those things which force themselves on the view of the most illiterate of mankind, so that they cannot open their eyes without being constrained to witness them.29

According to Calvin, God is everywhere to be seen through the physical world, and even those who might not have specialist knowledge of how the world works may see it. In this sense, the vision of God’s marks on creation are everywhere to be seen. This was in line with the traditional Christian notion that the natural world provided proof of God. The universe is understood as a ‘second book of God’ or a ‘Bible of Nature’. Accordingly, mere physical vision alone does not lead to a better understanding of God. Rather one should read the book of nature as one reads Scripture. This was also embodied by the second article of the Belgic Confession which explains that the universe is ‘before our eyes like a most elegant book in which all creatures great and small are like letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God’.30 Thus the notion of ‘reading’ is understood as a much more embracing term than we understand it today: It is not only words which are able to be read, but also nature, and it is through this ‘reading’ that one may, in part understand God and this requires

28  The Heidelberg Catechism reiterates Calvin’s point in the discussion of the second commandment. 29  CALVIN, Institutes, Book 1: V, ii. 30  Belgic Confession, Article 2.

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the prerequisite of faith. This is fully embraced in Calvin’s theory of reading.31 To reiterate, it is not necessarily what is seen which matters here, but just as we have noted regarding Calvin’s discussion on images, it is how one sees which counts. Calvin however, also goes on to explain how a specialist knowledge such as medicine or physics might help stimulate a clearer view of the universe and more profound appreciation of God: In disquisitions concerning the motions of the stars, in fixing their situations, measuring their distances, and distinguishing their peculiar properties, there is need of skill, exactness, and industry; and the providence of God being more clearly revealed by these discoveries, the mind ought to rise to a sublimer elevation for the contemplation of his glory.32

A scientific investigation into the natural world might offer a better understanding of God’s work, according to Calvin, as it makes the eye readier to elevate the soul to a higher level. Observing the world and understanding how it works, really appreciating every tiny detail could lead to a greater sense of awe for God’s work. This way of seeing the world is embraced fully by the Dutch Republic who investigate the world around them, be that with close observation or with their use of vision enhancing instruments (see for example fig. 8.10). And in turn this is evident in the images produced in the ‘Golden Age’. Calvin’s theory of spiritual vision is not unique, however. It recalls a threelevel mode of understanding through seeing which can also be found in Catholic writings on vision and the use of religious art, such as we find with the Post-Tridentine art theorist Gabriele Paleotti (1522-1597). Paleotti saw human cognition as three sorts: sensory delight, rational and spiritual. Using an example of how one might view a starry sky, Paleotti explains the three forms of perception. In the first the beauty of the planets and stars is noticed, through colours and forms; the second considers a more rational understanding of the stars, their workings and orders, as discovered through scientific observations; the third tier is a spiritual contemplation in which ‘the soul feels an enjoyment deep inside, exceeding the other two mentioned above to the degree that it

 W. A. KORT, Calvin’s Theory of Reading, in Christianity & Literature 62, no. 2 (2013), pp189-202, p. 190. 32  CALVIN, Institutes, Book 1: V, ii. 31

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Fig. 8.10. Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt, 38 Winged Insects, 1596 – 1610. Paper, pencil, chalk, watercolour, deck paint and ink, 27.5 × 17 cm, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum, On loan from a private collection. Photo with permission Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

arises a much more lofty and perfect cause.’33 These three levels of seeing can also be used for sacred images explains Paleotti. The third level of spiritual 33  G. PALEOTTI, Discourse on Sacred and Profane Images, trans. William McCuaig, Los Angeles, 2012, pp. 112-13; For a more indepth discussion on Paleotti’s notion of perception see P. M. JONES, Art Theory as Ideology: Gabriele Paleotti’s Hierarchal Notion of Painting’s Universality and Reception, in C. FARAGO (ed.) Reframing the Renaissance: Visual Culture in Europe and Latin America, 1450-1650, New Haven, 1995, pp. 126-139.

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vision can only be obtained with ‘purged eyes’ explains Paleotti, reiterating the need for faith as a prerequisite for this spiritual sight. These concepts are clearly adopted from Augustine’s theory of vision which requires an active seeing which comes with practice. Whether one sees the world through innocent eyes or with scientific instruments, the vision of God is revealed when the observer invests faith and longing.34 That is, one might see what is physically there, but it is never fully understood if faith has not been wholly invested. Calvin’s ideas about how one should truly see come, therefore, from a long Christian tradition; yet it is with the Reformation that sight and images come into crisis. For Calvin, the training of spiritual sight, what he may even term as ‘reading’, was important, because everyone could see, but not everyone could see spiritually. Thus, the problem for Calvin was the “paradox of not-seeing what is ontologically visible.”35 This possibility of physically seeing the material world, but not in the correct way, would come to create a feeling of vulnerability for the Dutch because, despite Calvin’s reservations about images, and emphasis on seeing properly, the making and use of images in the Northern Netherlands was as prolific as ever. The Dutch Republic’s visual culture When images were removed from the church and their use disputed, the Dutch Republic was not ‘cleansed’ of images, but instead pictures multiplied in the freedom they found outside of the Church. Images in other forms than religious: landscapes, portraits, genre and domestic scenes all thrived.36 The Dutch had had a rich visual culture before the Reformation,37 and as a number of seventeenth-century accounts show, this custom did not change after the introduction of Calvinism or other reformed theology to the region. Images were

34  M. MILES, Vision: The Eye of the Body and the Eye of the Mind in Saint Augustine’s ‘De Trinitate’ and ‘Confessions’, in The Journal of Religion 63, no. 2 (1983), 125-142, p.133. 35  L. PALMER WANDEL, John Calvin and Michel De Montaigne on the Eye, in W. S. MELION – L. PALMER WANDEL (eds.), Early Modern Eyes, Leiden, 2009, pp. 135-156, p. 151. 36  See for example the estimation of numbers of paintings made in A. VAN DER WOUDE, The Volume and Value of Paintings in Holland at the Time of the Dutch Republic, in D. FREEDBERG – J. DE VRIES (eds.), Art in History, History in Art: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Culture, Santa Monica, 1991, pp. 285-330. 37  S. ALPERS, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century, London, 1983, xxvi, 25.

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everywhere in the Dutch Republic and owned by all ranks of society.38 The number of images made in the Dutch Republic between 1580 and 1800 has been estimated to be somewhere between 5 and 10 million.39 Evidently, Calvin’s reserved stance towards images did not stop or even reduce their production or appreciation, but this does not mean that Reformed theology or even Calvinism did not affect the art being produced outside the church. Rather, it seems that Calvin’s notion that ‘sculpture and painting are gifts of God’ became fully embraced. In the Dutch ‘golden age’ of painting the artist exerted himself to depict profane subject matter in the best possible way for the glory of God through this gift.40 This attitude is seen, for example, in the introduction to Samuel van Hoogstraten’s (1627–1678) book Introduction to the Academy of Painting or The Visible World (1678), a contemporary of Rembrandt. A poem introducing the book shows the importance of reaching new artistic achievements in praise of God: The brush must not falter, all the more because nowadays human sensibility (that stands as if confused and stupefied by such an art, the choice out of a hundred) has begun to sing the praises of the invisible Godhead through this painting of visible things and humbly honoured its Creator, who taught man those wonders, or who bestowed on him such rich gifts that he sailed in spirit into the haven of art, and succeeded in representing all that is visible on canvases flat and even.41

As the poem relates, it is not only the way the divine gift of painting which praises God, but also the way in which art might mirror the world around the artist. In doing so images elevate the onlooker’s awareness of nature in order 38  P. MUNDY, Travels of Peter Mundy, in Europe and Asia, 1608-1667 : Volume Iv: Travels in Europe 1639-1647, Farnham, 2010. p. 70. Other contemporary witness accounts which remark on the large number of images in the Dutch Republic are, for example, the English John Evelyn’s account of Rotterdam from 1641 and the French Jean Nicolas de Parival’s observations in Leiden from 1661. 39  VAN DER WOUDE, The Volume and Value of Paintings in Holland, pp. 285-330. 40  A. BESANÇON, The Forbidden Image: An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm, Chicago, 2009, pp. 189-90. 41  T. WESTSTEIJN– B. JACKSON –L. RICHARDS, The Visible World, Samuel Van Hoogstraten’s Art Theory and the Legitimation of Painting in the Dutch Golden Age, Amsterdam, 2008, p. 112.

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to contemplate its Divine Architect, God, in line with Calvin’s ‘reading’ of nature. Consequently, the concept of nature as ‘the second book of God’ is also embraced, albeit through pictures. The fascination for the observation of the world as the second book of nature was also influential for the scientific exploration of the natural world in the early modern Netherlands. Visual apparatus that enabled the understanding of the natural world better, such as lenses and the camera obscura were also embraced enthusiastically. And, in turn, this is visible in the art of the time. Images, such as maps made in the country in this period, provide detailed views of city and landscapes, whilst paintings and drawings such as still lives and scientific studies pay close attention to the surface of objects (see, for example, figs 8.10 and 8.11). Images are used to document the findings seen through newly developed optical technologies. And in addition, the pictures made at this time aimed to present the world as naturalistically as possible and were seen as providing the same information that physical sight could give, if not more so. This investigation of the world with newly scientific apparatus would not have been at odds with Calvinism and should rather be seen as a method of reading the ‘book of nature’ more closely. However, this enthusiasm for understanding the world through keen observation, and this observation then translated into images, posed a problem. In order to read the ‘book of nature’ one must first see the surfaces of things, their material qualities. And painting, in turn, represents merely these superficial qualities. Images do not provide a deeper reading of what is depicted, that was left to the spectator. Whilst the intent may have been to get to know God better through images of the natural world, there was no guarantee. If the image was naturalistic enough, the superficial qualities might allure their onlooker more than the moral content which lay beyond the canvas. Netherlandish painting posed a particular problem as naturalism was the Dutch artist’s forte. This skill of representing the surface of things has also been much later criticised as ‘barren entertainment’ — enjoyable for its surface but void of content.42 More recently, art from the Dutch Republic has been at the forefront of the discussion about how one should interpret these ‘naturalistic’, and sometimes almost realistic images, posing the question: are the images descriptive or prescriptive? A still life such as those by Willem Claesz Heda (1594-1680) or by Balthasar van der Ast (1594-1657) raises such a question (Figs 8.11 – 8.12). 42  J. REYNOLDS, Journey to Flanders and Holland 1781, as quoted in ALPERS, The Art of Describing, p. xvii.

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Fig. 8.11. Willem Claesz. Heda, Breakfast Table with Blackberry Pie, 1631. 54 × 82 cm, Oil on Oak panel. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany. Photo with permission: Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister.

Fig. 8.12. Balthasar van der Ast, Still Life with Fruit and Flowers, 1620-1621. 39.2 × 69.8 cm, Oil on panel. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum. Photo with permission Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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Are the opulent objects in Heda’s breakfast still life to be seen as a simple expression of and celebration of the ‘golden age’ of Dutch culture, or should the broken glass and open pocket-watch prompt us to think something more profound, such as the fragility or brevity of life? Are the fabulous insects, sea creatures and flowers in van der Ast’s images set before the viewer’s eyes so that they might find enjoyment in the country’s increasing import of exotic goods like shells and porcelain? Or all of these things put onto canvas so that the observer might develop a better understanding of God’s marvellous creation? One might imagine that this debate was also an issue to the seventeenth-century art viewer surrounded by a myriad of images of various types. How does the viewer know how to look? An image which displays the real world so convincingly tempts its viewer with the surface of things, and the sensory experience of them. How can the seventeenth-century viewer be reminded of the risks of physical vision, and be directed towards a ‘sublime elevation for the contemplation of His glory’? This notion that ‘real’ seeing was spiritual sight must have given the Dutch a sense of unease when it came to viewing the abundance of images around them. That is, although we do not witness a reduction in the creation or use of art in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries due to the Reformation we do see Calvinism and the ideals of the Dutch Reformed Church materialise in other places. When the use of images had been criticised during the Reformation and Dutch churches had been ‘cleansed’ of images in the century before, the individual must also have been wary of the negative power images could have. It might be said that the reservations about images takes root in the mind-set of the individual rather than out in the open, and a sense of unease about images seeps in.43 This unease, I argue, finds it expression through the trope of blindness. Comfort for the eye A view of the state of blindness from the perspective of the Dutch Republic can be found in the writings of a rather prominent figure of the time: the Dutch stadholder and patron of the arts (and it might also be noted poet), Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687). What is particularly interesting is that Huygens is often used as a source for the appreciation of art in this period, particularly of Rembrandt. He is often cited too for his enthusiasm for the sense of sight and 43

 The reservations about images took a much more public expression with the ‘beeldenstorm’ of 1566, these outbursts of rash behaviour were criticised and calmed in favour of a more rational approach to image control.

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the apparatus which enhance it. In a poem from his Daghwerck, God’s gift of the eye is praised: O’ you who give the eyes and the power, Give eyes through his power: Eyes once made watchful, Which see the totality of all there is to see.44

Svetlana Alpers has described him as a man who trusted and embraced the sense of sight for access to new knowledge, be it through images or instruments of vision.45 Yet as we will see Huygens also wrote a poem which goes against this typical image of Huygens as patron of the arts and enthusiast of all that vision can offer. Ooghentroost, Huygens’ poem on blindness, it might be argued, sums up the apprehension about images and vision felt by the Dutch Republic. ‘Ooghentroost’, translated as ‘Comfort for the Eye’, was published in 1647 just a few years before Rembrandt’s Blindness of Tobit etching. The poem takes the form of consolatio, and within this genre a more specific sub-genre, consolatio caecitatis, a consolation poem which was intended to offer comfort to someone who had lost or was losing their sight. The poem was written for Lucretia van Trello, a close friend of Huygens, who had begun to lose her eyesight due to cataract. Although a poem of consolation, it also holds a satirical element which is aimed at those who are blind, or better put, those who can physically see but remain spiritually or morally blind. Although one might read the poem in a personal sense, that is with direct address to van Trello, there emerges in the poem a number of references, through the trope of blindness, to the way in which sight might both mislead and at the same time, if used wisely might lead to a more spiritual contemplation. In Lise Gosseye’s analysis of the poem there are two points that are particularly relevant for this current discussion. The first is Huygens’ discussion of the natural world as the second book of God and the other is his criticism of the visual arts, particularly painting. Both points are, naturally, given the topic of the poem, explored through the trope of blindness. Despite this, it seems that with the trope of blindness Huygens is able to express exactly the problems with his own contemporaries’ use of vision and the arts. Whilst the poem consoles it also acts as a guide to an individual through the act of reading. It is this very activity of reading which allows the reader to see  ALPERS, The Art of Describing, p.15.  Ibid., p. 23.

44 45

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beyond physical signs on a page, or physical objects in the world, that is a type of ‘blindness’ to physical appearances and to a higher spiritual understanding.46 Huygens does not believe that Lucretia’s blindness will automatically lead her to an inward seeing that is needed when meditating on Scripture, but that her blindness will, in a sense, make this inward turn easier. This is because a literal turning inwards is to simplify the matter, as we have seen in Calvin’s writings. What one sees is dependent on how one sees it, how one uses the experience of vision. The text, through the act of reading, guides the reader towards a mode of seeing that goes beyond mere visual marks on a page (or even canvas) in which physical vision leads to spiritual understanding.47 This concept of reading does not stop at the reading of words but also incorporates the reading of the world as the ‘Bible of Nature’. As Gosseye argues, Calvin’s view that the reading of nature as a way to find better understanding of God is embraced in line 61 of Hugyens’ poem. He plays on this idea that reading — ‘uytgelesen’— can be both literally reading and the observation of the natural World: ‘You and I have now finished reading the World’.48 The vision of the world whether directly or through images (as we saw in the poem in van Hoogenstraten’s book) is considered a type of reading of Scripture. Huygens goes onto show what this ‘reading’ makes possible in the following lines (61-65): Do you think it would be too early for us To close the Book and create on that Text What is wisest for man, is as crazy as it gets, Our blind sermon, our eyeless contemplation49

As Gosseye explains, ‘The blind sermon they should make is cognitive interpretation’, that is inner meditation.50 That is, the act of reading, ‘uytgelesen’ can 46  L. GOSSEYE, Salutary Reading: Conversion and Calvinist Humanism in Constantijn Huygens’ Ooghentroost, in L. STELLING – H. HENDRIX – T. M. RICHARDSON (eds.) Intersections: Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture, Leiden, 2012. 47  This way of reading text according to Calvin is also discussed in Palmer Wandel, John Calvin and Michel de Montaigne. 48  The original text reads ‘Nu hebben Ghij en ick de Wereld uytgelesen.’ As Gosseye notes in her analysis of the poem that Hugyens use of ‘uytgelesen’ can mean both ‘to have finished reading’ and also to the ‘to observe the world’. GOSSEYE, Salutary Reading, pp. 229-239. 49  ‘Nu Hebben Ghijen Ick de Wereld,uytgelesen / Wat dunckt u, soud’t voor ons all heel ontijdigh wesen, / Het Boeck eens toe te slain, en maken op dien Text / Op’s menschen aller wijst, dat is op taller ghext, /Ons blindeling Sermoen, ons ooghenloos bedencken?’, Huygens’’ Ooghentroost as cited in Ibid., p. 229. 50  Ibid.

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result in a conversion for the devotional reader. In this way, ‘Ooghentroost paradoxically uses reading to leave the physical act of reading behind. Once this is established the real inward turn can take place’ she argues.51 This poem therefore takes the form of an argument about the sense of sight both in the physical sense and inward sense. The following lines of the poem (78-89) reveal this transformation from turning inwards, when he writes, Wise people are their own telescopes, And he who uses himself wisely, won’t need glasses, And he who uses himself thusly, can only sigh, For a lost eye: but let him with his reason, Spend the remainder of his days to God and Him; His soul is full of works, and in those activities He won’t have a single hour to spend on the vanity Of the century; to the heavenly ages Will his thoughts go, he shall have to praise God For the extraordinary favour that showed the bright day That showed the external light, never seen by the eyes52

In these lines the idea of the three-tiered way of seeing might be recalled, particularly the last movement of turning inwards where according to Calvin the ‘mind ought to rise to a sublimer elevation for the contemplation of his glory’. A few lines later he also addresses the worthlessness of scientific understanding in relation to this true knowledge: And they have learned more science in that dark school Than they would have done as worldly-wise men, Believing to understand the secrets of Nature.53

What Huygens reveals in Ooghentroost is the tendency for his contemporaries to never see past the surface of things, even when trying to understand nature through scientific investigation. Huygens, despite his confidence in what sight 51

 Ibid.  ‘De wijse luyden sijn haer’ eighen verrekivkers, / en die sich wel gebruyckt en hoeft geen’ Brillen meer; / En die sich soo geybruckt magh suckten, en niet meer, / Om een verloren oogh; maer laet hem met syn’ Reden / Den overighen dagh aen God en Hem besteden, / hy heft de ziel voll wercks; en, in die besigheid /En sla hem niet een’ uer, niet een’, voor d’ydelheid / Der eewen over zijn: door d’eewen van daer boven /Sal syn gedachte gaen, hy sal God moeten loven /Voor d’ongemeene gunst, die hem den hellen dagh / Die hem het eeiwigh licht, dat ooghe noijt en sagh.’Huygens cited in Ibid, p. 229-230. 53  ‘En in die donck’re school meer wtenschaps geleert / Dan daer sij, met den name van werled-wijs vereert / Natuuers geheimeniss geloofden te begrijpen,’ Huygens as cited in Ibid. 52

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can bring us, essentially disregards vision if faith does not stand behind it. Physical vision without faith is, to him, blindness, albeit a metaphorical blindness: ignorance. At the same time, he argues that vision can be useful, but that we must turn away from the mere surface of things if we are to find deeper meaning in the world or words we witness with our eyes. Rather the things seen are only useful if they are meditated on, initiating an inner turn, another metaphorical blindness — insight. Painting and blindness However, Huygens deals with painting and poetry in his poem too. In it he is quite critical of painters. This may come as quite a surprise when we keep in mind that Huygens was also a keen patron of the arts, and later in his life described those who did not appreciate the wonders of painting as blind.54 In lines 453–492 of Ooghentroost, Huygens attacks the painter for placing more worth on the mimetic replica of nature than on nature herself. Painters, according to Huygens are blind as they are only able to envision everything as if a painting. Providing the example of portraits, Huygens is critical of painters who produce mere copies of nature. In short he argues that painters are limited by the vision of everything through their palette (sy sien maer door tpalett’) and place worth on mere surfaces. His criticism of painters also extends to poets who prize the rhyme over the message (‘sy sien maer door Rijm’). Huygens’ criticism, in short, is the valuing of artifice over content, and blindness is again used as a metaphor for ignorance. If the painter prizes the appearance over content then he is blind. The painter, by nature, is bound to represent the surface of things; this after all is his work. However, not all poets or artists are necessarily blind; Huygens’ seemingly contradictory views (as art lover and then critique of the painter for his art) are reconcilable. The blindness of artists and poets are avoidable if they are able to engage their own inner eye, and therefore that of their audience.55

54  J. PIETERS – L. GOSSEYE, The Paradox of Paragone: Painters and Poets in Constantijn Huygens’ Ooghen-Troost, in Neophilologus 92, no. 2 (2008); F. R. E. BLOM, Mijn Leven Verteld Aan Mijn Kinderen in Twee Boeken: D. 1 : Inleiding, Teksteditie En Vertaling, vol. 1, Amsterdam, 2003. See also 1630/5 in W. L. STRAUSS, et al., The Rembrandt Documents, New York, 1979, p. 71. 55  PIETERS – GOSSEYE, The Paradox of Paragone, p. 189. This idea that the artist’s piety is transferred through the work of art is also picked up on by PALEOTTI, Discourse, p. 61.

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To be sure, a closer look at the reasons for which Rembrandt was praised by Huygens back in 1630 reveal that it was the painter’s ability to convey more than meets the eye that the stadsholder admired. Huygens says of Rembrandt that he is able to ‘present an effect by condensation’, and manages to sum up ‘individual elements in one human being and express […] what is universal,’56 appealing to both the outer eye and inner eye of the spectator.57 Undoubtedly, Rembrandt does exactly this in this 1651 etching, particularly with his use of extraction. From blindness to sight: chastising the eyes But how does this etching adhere to these two metaphorical types of blindness which Huygens describes in his poem? Well the blindness represented in this etching, I argue, does not just lie with Tobit himself who wonders in hope towards the door. Whilst Tobit undoubtedly illustrates a ‘turning inwards’, or what might even be identified as devotion itself; the way in which the viewer of this picture sees the object itself can also illustrate two types of blindness. The image fulfils one of Calvin’s prerequisites for images: it prompts a ‘recollection’ of the entire Tobit story, and provides information, that is an instruction of how to see. Tobit’s resignation to God in his state of despair would, for the Christian viewer familiar with Scripture, enable a connection with other references to blindness found in the official canon of Scripture, such as in Isaiah 42:16-17: And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods.58

For without knowledge of the story of Tobit the viewer is not able to recognise the hints to the rest of the story, or know even, that Tobit is soon to receive his sight back through God. The viewer would then receive only an image of a blind man feeling his way to a door. The viewer, familiar with the story on the other  See document 1530/5 in STRAUSS et al., The Rembrandt Documents, pp. 68-71.  PIETERS – GOSSEYE, The Paradox of Paragone, p. 189. This reading of Huygens’ opinion of Rembrandt is in accordance with Gosseye’s analysis of Huygens’ praise of Rembrandt in his first autobiography. 58  Isaiah 42:16-17 56 57

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hand, would be able to recognise that Tobit, in his state of blindness, has now put all of his trust in God to guide his son home, and then return his sight. It is within this line of argument that we might place the theme of Rembrandt’s 1651 The Blindness of Tobit. Tobit’s blindness encourages an inner turn of contemplation. Without the distractions of vision, one might argue that he is Calvin’s ideal pious figure.59 But what else Tobit does in this blindness is wait. It is the longing that brings back his son; his waiting is an expression of faith which eventually brings him back his sight. It can therefore be argued that Tobit’s blindness is almost synonymous with his faith in this image and point us to St. Augustine’s notion that the Christian life is a life of longing.60 In this etching this longing is soon to be fulfilled, and with it sight. It is faith and longing that enables renewed vision, just as it will with the viewer of this image. Knowledge of the story, along with other parts of Scripture describing blindness, would allow the viewer to know that he was on the path to seeing beyond the surface of this image, to see more than what is merely physically present. Indeed, what better to help and instruct the Dutch to prioritise inner sight over physical sight than a picture?61 If the etching allowed the viewer to recall Isaiah 42:16-17, he may also have recalled Calvin’s commentary on this very passage: ‘For is it not better to be blind, and to bee led by Gods hand then to see with both eies, and to plunge our selves into unavoidable dangers [sic]’ We are given a choice, explains Calvin, just as we are with this image: perish with idolatry or be saved by faith. Is this why we find images from the book of Tobit occurring just as often in Protestant homes as in those of Catholics? Although it is often presumed that Calvinism and the Dutch Reformed Church had little effect on the amount and types of images which were produced in Dutch Republic, particularly those outside the Church, the reformed view was embodied in different ways; In a culture which trusted the sense of sight and was surrounded by images, it is perhaps only the

 On this point see W. BOUWSMA, Calvin and the Renaissance Crisis of Knowing, in Calvin Theological Journal 17, no. 2 (1982): p 204; See also M. JAY, Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought, Berkeley, CA, 1993, p. 42. 60  St. Augustine as quoted in MILES, Vision, p. 134. 61  Naturally, the image of Tobit would have had appeal for Catholics resident in the Netherlands, and they may well have read the image in this way. One might ask, however, if due to the book being accepted as deuterocanonical, this inner wariness of what one was looking at may well not have occurred in the same way for a Catholic as a member of the Reformed Church. Thus, the effect may have been different. 59

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image itself which would have provided the most influential model with which to guide the art viewer in how one should see. The image of The Blindness of Tobit provides the onlooker with a choice: the superficial sight, which causes a blind ignorance, and the inner sight, which comes from turning inwards from the contemplation of this image. This etching offered the seventeenth-century viewer a way to redeem his carnal vision with the very object he was trying to redeem himself from. Rembrandt’s The Blindness of Tobit thus offers a paradox: a vision to repair vision. The Blindness of Tobit is not an obvious devotional image; it offers no obvious miracle, no saint or God to be worshipped. It is rather a devotional image which offers an instruction. It provides a reminder that turning away from physical vision offers its rewards. Tobit’s faithful waiting, his pious life, leads him from blindness to sight. The image then asks the same of its viewer: first to see the ordeal of the old man in the material image, then to contemplate the rewards of a pious life, of inner sight. This process would bring about a change, an act of conversion, from sensory seeing to a spiritual sight. Rembrandt’s etching thus reminds its viewer that in order to finally see he must first chastise his eyes.

CHANCEL, CHALICE AND CHASUBLE EXPRESSIONS OF EUCHARISTIC BELIEF IN THE PARISH CHURCHES OF 17TH CENTURY SWEDEN Teresia DERLÉN

The Swedish archbishop Haquin Spegel (1645-1714) once referred to hymns as effectively the common man’s Bible. The easiest way the population learnt about and memorised God’s Word was, according to Spegel, by singing hymns.1 What Spegel expressed was the consequence of an era where neither the availability of books nor the ability to read was commonplace. A Church-led reading campaign in the seventeenth century did raise levels of semi-literacy to ninety per cent by the end of the century, but for most of the early modern era the Swedish population was largely illiterate.2 So while a budding publishing industry produced a great number of prayer books, we need to consider alternative media if we are to understand the public mind of the century. Apart from sermons and literature, musical and visual media would have been a necessity in theological instruction.3 This is especially true if the Church wanted to spread theological innovations. In fact, the Church needed every tool available to make the Reformation the faith of the people. In a predominately rural country,4 with cities few and far between, Sweden did not 1  Haquin Spegel was a prolific hymn writer, as well as involved in the continuous work on the catechism and a new Bible translation. He was made superintendent 1679, bishop 1685, and archbishop 1711. For the Swedish quote, see Bror Olsson’s study on the prevalence and usage of hymn books. H. PLEIJEL – B. OLSSON – S. SVENSSON, Våra äldsta folkböcker, Lund, 1967, p. 117. 2  E. JOHANSSON, Literacy Studies in Sweden: some Examples, in E. JOHANSSON – R.S. SCHOFIELD, (eds), Literacy and Society in a Historical Perspective: a Conference Report, Umeå, 1973, 41-66, p. 46; D. CRESSY, Literacy and the Social Order: reading and writing in Tudor and Stuart England, Cambridge, 1980, pp. 178-179. 3  The limited reach of printed propaganda was made clear by Robert Scribner in For the Sake of Simple Folk. Here he points towards the widespread impact of visual representations of propaganda, in broadsheets and blockbooks, owing very much to the fact that literacy was low in Europe, even after the Reformation. See R.W. SCRIBNER, For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation, Cambridge, 1981, pp. 1-5. 4  Census figures have been recorded from 1751 and onwards. They show a slow rise in urban population from 5.8% in 1760 to 7.4% in 1850, see M. MÖRNER, Människor, landskap, varor & vägar, Stockholm, 2001, p. 116. We can assume, then, an even lower percentage of urban population in the seventeenth century.

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have a critical mass of an intellectual burgher class who took to new religious ideas. The Reformation, then, came about more on the initiative of Church and the Crown, than as a grass-roots movement by literary laypeople. A century after the initial attempts of Reformation in Sweden, the visual was still used by the Church as a tool for instruction and reform. By studying the visual, we are going to explore both how the Church used the media, and how integrated the evangelical-Lutheran faith had become among the laity. The latter is an issue well worth investigating. Sweden did not officially claim to be evangelical-Lutheran until 1593, a full seventy years after Luther’s ideas of reform were first introduced in the country. What was the reason for the long delay? As mentioned, the initiative to reform came from above, from some members of the clergy and the Crown. In many ways the Reformation became a means of claiming independence from Denmark in the 1520s. It also helped in building up the national finances. The latter was achieved to a degree by taxing the Church of tithes and confiscating ecclesial valuables. King Gustav I Vasa (1496-1560) readily supported the Reformation if it meant financial and political gains. Thus parishes saw their monstrance and spare chalices confiscated by the Crown. In many other instances, however, whenever it did not suit his political purposes, King Gustav I withdrew his support of the reformers. Unsurprisingly, parishes, who had seen their safety-box looted, had little love for the new religious agenda.5 As an added complication, between 1523 and 1611 Sweden had six different rulers who were regarded — especially by the clergy — as vascillating between different nuances of the religious spectrum, from Reformed to Roman Catholic.6 The sixteenth century did have one religious constant in Archbishop Laurentius Petri (1499-1573, archbishop from 1531). In 1571 he managed to have his Church Ordinance (KO1571) confirmed by King Johan III, having failed to do so during the reigns of the two previous kings.7 The religious foundation of the Church risked becoming shaky, though, when Johan’s son King Sigismund was about to succeed the throne in 1593. King Sigismund, a Roman Catholic, was also the King of Poland. Duke Karl, Sigismund’s uncle, 5  E.I. KUORI, The Early Reformation in Sweden and Finland, in O.P. GRELL, (ed.), The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, Cambridge, 1995, 42-69, pp. 45-46, p. 48, p. 51. 6  Å. ANDRÉN, Sveriges kyrkohistoria: Reformationstid, Stockholm, 1999, pp. 144-145, pp. 160-162; I. MONTGOMERY, The Institutionalisation of Lutheranism in Sweden and Finland, in O.P. GRELL, (ed), The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, Cambridge, 1995, 144-178, pp. 162-164, p. 169. 7  ANDRÉN, Reformationstid, pp. 162-164.

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saw an opportunity. He gathered the Riksdag, the Swedish parliament, which adopted the Uppsala Resolution in 1593. With this resolution, the Riksdag claimed that Sweden was, and would remain, an evangelical-Lutheran country. It was to adhere to the unaltered Augsburg Confession and keep to the tradition of late Archbishop Laurentius Petri and KO1571. The resolution also asserted the ideal of the “gentle Reformation”. A gentle pace and patience in the reformation process was seen as preferable, thus avoiding drastic measures that might cause turmoil. According to the Act, nothing was more detrimental to a country’s well-being than disputes on religion.8 Hence, the removal of the elevation from the liturgy, although discussed at the Riksdag in Uppsala 1593, was not decided upon until the Riksdag of 1604, much of the delay caused by objections from the laity.9 Similarly, architecture and church decoration changed little. 10 Admittedly, Sweden was in the geographical backwaters of Europe, but comparisons with Norway indicate this was not the only reason for the lack of visual transformation. In Denmark-Norway, the period between 1575 and 1625 saw the beginning and end of the text retable, or the ‘Nichtbild’. These word-based decorations existed side-by-side with images, indicating a word-image conflict.11 Per-Gustaf Hamberg has studied the text retables that used to abound in the county of Jämtland, a border county between Norway and Sweden. Their existence was short-lived, however. When Jämtland went from Danish to Swedish rule in the seventeenth century, the text retables were replaced with imagebased altarpieces on the expressed wish of the Swedish bishop. There are very few other examples of text-based decoration in Sweden, exceptions that rather confirm the rule than undermine it.12 Instead, the main reason for the stalled

8  Montgomery, The Institutionalisation, pp. 156-158; L. ECKERDAL – P.E. PERSSON (eds), Confessio Fidei: Uppsala mötes beslut 1593 om Svenska kyrkans bekännelse, Stockholm, 1993, p. 11, p. 13. 9  C. PAHLMBLAD, Gudstjänstliv och gudstjänstbruk i 1600-talets Sverige, in I. MONTGOMERY, (ed.), Sveriges kyrkohistoria: Enhetskyrkans tid, Stockholm, 2002, 259-269, pp. 261-262. 10  A. ELLENIUS, Kyrklig konst och miljö, in I. MONTGOMERY, (ed.), Sveriges kyrkohistoria: Enhetskyrkans tid, Stockholm, 2002, 190-203, p. 191, p. 194. 11  B. BØGGILD JOHANNSEN – H. JOHANNSEN, Re-forming the Confessional Space: Early Lutheran Churches in Denmark, c.1536-1660, in A. SPICER, (ed.), Lutheran Churches in Early Modern Europe, Farnham, 2012, pp. 241-276, especially pp. 252-253 and pp. 264-265. 12  P. G. HAMBERG, Norrländska kyrkoinredningar: Från reformation till ortodoxi, Uppsala, 1974, pp. 136-137. For examples see Bettna Church, in M. LINDGREN, , Reformationen och bilden, in Å. ANDRÉN, (ed.), Sveriges kyrkohistoria: Reformationstid, Stockholm, 1999, pp. 304320 pp. 310-313; and a catechism retable at Hellvi Church, Gotland. Gotland, like Jämtland,

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transformation of the church space is probably because the Swedish version of the Reformation did not push for that kind of change. But the question remains, with the Reformation what visual change was actually implemented? As mentioned, we will study how the Church used the visual as a means of instruction. A side benefit of the study will be that it gives us an opportunity to compare visual instruction with its written counterpart. The visual is an understudied field, an unfortunate circumstance, and this article will show how the study of ecclesiastical space actually adds to our understanding of the theology of the time. In order to explore how well the Lutheran doctrine (according to the Swedish confessional documents) had been integrated in the larger population, we will also look at how the laity used the church space. This essay will limit the scope of discussion to the visual of the Eucharist and the chancel. What we find are three groups that all had influence over the church building: the Church, the rural community, and the secular elite. The discussion will also reveal that they all seemed to approach ecclesiastical space in different ways, something which will be referred to as different ‘visual agendas’. Church is here defined as the national ruling body of the Church of Sweden, mainly represented by the collegiate of bishops and superintendents, but also the Clergy Estate in the Riksdag. The rural community is exactly what the word implies, the rural population and the farming community, excepting the nobility. The secular elite, on the other hand, refers to the group who had both power and influence in the Church, but was not part of the Church hierarchy. The group was not “secular” per se; it had a vested interest in both Church and faith, but since the group also includes influential burghers and statesmen, “secular elite” is used instead of ‘nobility”. The Church sets the dogmatic agenda St Jacob’s Church in Stockholm provides an interesting example of the theological agenda set by the Church. The construction of St Jacob’s started already in the late sixteenth century, during the reign of Johan III, to accommodate the growing population of Stockholm. It was not finished, however, until 1643, well into the era of Lutheran Orthodoxy. Hence, the architecture is predominantly

used to be part of Denmark-Norway. See I. MONTGOMERY, Sveriges kyrkohistoria: Enhetskyrkans tid, Stockholm, 2002, p. 155.

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late medieval.13 The interior, on the other hand, is more post-Reformation than medieval. The church used to have a screen separating the nave from the chancel. Of course, rood screens were prevalent in medieval churches, but in Sweden they remained common during the Reformation and post-Reformation.14 The screen at Jacob’s Church was unlike many others, though; while screens commonly towered high, about two metres,15 here the parishioners had a more uninterrupted view of the chancel because the frame was lower, one and a half metres. The screen also had two tall, narrow pyramids flanking the gate to the chancel, which were decorated with writings around the sides. These written messages are of particular interest to us. The screen no longer exists, but it has been described in detail by the eighteenth-century parish historian, Fredric Wittingh.16 Made entirely of brass, it replaced a simpler wooden screen when it was installed in 1667. It is possible that the screen became an inspiration for other installations in the country, for versions similar to Wittingh’s description are still in situ in other churches. One example is found in the Old Church on the island of Alnö, in the Diocese of Härnösand. Here the pyramids seem to have a more decorative and practical function, however; without any inscriptions they stand as garland-covered sentinels between the nave and the sanctuary (see fig. 9.1). As mentioned, the pyramids at Jacob’s Church were not mere silent guardians; they were covered with readings. While a layperson gifted the screen to the church,17 it is probable that the text collection was produced in cooperation with the clergy. Holding on to old inventories in a church is one thing — even if the iconography is out-dated —, but when producing new ecclesiastical items for a new doctrinal era a certain theological consideration would be expected. The theological message on the pyramids is about the Eucharist and defines Communion as a divine meeting, a meeting to which we are invited by the Son of God. The Eucharist is described as a gift of grace and of life, and in return the Christian offers thanks and praise. The writings are in Latin, but translated extracts read, 13  S. SANDSTRÖM – P.G. HAMBERG, (eds), Konsten i Sverige. Vasatiden och den karolinska tiden, Stockholm, 1981, p. 83. 14  HAMBERG, Norrländska, p. 63, p. 65. 15  See Hamberg’s study for illustrations. Ibid., p. 64, p. 67. 16  F. L. WITTINGH, St Jacobs Minne, eller Historisk Berättelse, om St. Jacobs och Johannis Församling i Stockholm, Stockholm, 1771, p. 58, pp. 60-63. 17  One inscription on the pyramids of the screen mentions that it was gifted by Anna Gyldenklou Bure in memory of her husband Andreas Gyldenklou. Ibid., pp. 60-61.

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But these doors open the way to (or enclose) the blessed Sacrament, by which God himself is received. I will give the victorious to eat from the Tree of Life that is in Paradise. I will give of the hidden Manna. 18

Wittingh also mentions the Song of Simeon. The Latin text he refers to on the pyramid is a paraphrase of the canticle, but the theme of the song is there; it concerns the fulfilment of God’s promise and having seen salvation with one’s own eyes. It is worth noting that the inscription of the Song of Simeon was on the side of the pyramid facing east. This means it would have been visible when leaving the chancel after receiving Communion, having seen and partaken of salvation in the body and blood of Christ.19 The Latin paraphrase signals that someone with a formal school education was part of the ordering process of the screen, since these kinds of paraphrases and Latin songs were common in schools. A collection of music from the school in Västerås shows works in Latin, German, Italian and Swedish.20 There was also a school attached to St Jacob’s Church, and an important duty for school boys at the time was as choristers, to support the congregational singing.21 So not only can we deduce that the Latin verses had a natural place in this context, as a static instruction on the pyramid and a reminder of Eucharistic doctrine, but also that the clergy most probably had a hand in church decoration. St Jacob’s did have both affluent and noble patrons,22 but that does not necessarily mean they were responsible for the doctrinal aspects of the newly decorated church. Much as the clergy were in charge of the parish, they were also responsible for the school,23 and they probably had a strong input into the educational aspects of the ecclesial space. Added to the inscriptions on the pyramids are six references to biblical passages: Ps. 61:5 (verse 4 in the English translation), 1 Cor. 6:20 and 1 John 1:7, as well as Lev. 19:30, Ps. 84:5 (verse 4 in the English translation) and 1 Cor.

18  Ibid., p. 62; I have been aided in my English translation from the Latin with the kind assistance of Professor Stephan Borgehammar and Latin student Max Cheung. 19  Ibid., p. 62. 20  W. MOLÉR, Förteckning över musikalier i Västerås högre allm. läroverks bibliotek till och m. 1850, Västerås, 1917. 21  A.S. QUENSEL, Jakobs kyrka. 1, Församlingshistoria, Stockholm, 1928, pp. 129-136. 22  The main contributors to the actual building phase of the church were, first of all, the Crown, then the leading men and families of Sweden, and the council men of Stockholm. There were also national collections for St Jacob’s construction, which was then the norm for important church and civic developments. Ibid., pp. 22-25. 23  Ibid., pp. 129-131.

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Fig. 9.1. Alnö Old Church. Image: Ulf Klingström, Image: Public Domain.

15:57.24 These passages talk of the blessing and the peace found in God’s dwelling. Furthermore, they express the importance of keeping the Sabbath and praising God, because the debt has been paid — in Jesus there is victory from death and purification in his blood. All of these inscriptions echo the writings found in prayer books from the early modern period. The same Bible passages and verbal iconography appear in the written manuals, but there is a notable difference between them and the visual. In prayer books a great amount of the text is pledged to preparation manuals: lengthy confessions and the dangers of receiving unworthily.25 The joy and the love found in the Eucharist do not get nearly as much attention. The written word is consistent: the Eucharist is a divine meeting. Christ is a physical and real presence in the Sacrament, so whoever receives God without proper preparation will condemn themselves to  WITTINGH, St Jacobs, p. 62.  D. LINDQUIST, Studier i svenska andaktslitteraturen under stormaktstidevarvet: Med särskild hänsyn till bön-, tröste-, och nattvardsböcker, Stockholm, 1939, pp. 335-336, p. 338. 24 25

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damnation.26 The teaching of the prayer books is in harmony with Luther’s Theology of the Cross. Preparation needs to be rooted in an honest admittance of human frailty, as well as faith in God’s redeeming power.27 Goodness and joy are merely consequences of the experience of God’s grace, hence not something that is of great concern in Eucharistic preparation. By contrast, the texts on the pyramids focus almost solely on the joyful fruits found in the last theses of the Theology of the Cross. 28 Here the words convey the richness of divine grace and life that is given in the divine meeting of Christ’s body and blood. They talk of the blessings found in God’s house and of Christ’s invitation to the Sacrament, as well as the praise offered up by the congregation. Joy should fill the Christian heart at the time of Communion, not angst or trepidation. This joyful message is also found on a number of Eucharistic objects. A poignant example is a chasuble decorated with the tree of life (see figs 9.2a and 9.2b). On the backdrop of red velvet, golden plants and flowers fill the base of the vestment. From its midst the cross flourishes as the tree of life itself.29 Another illustration of the same message is a chalice in the shape of a cluster of grapes (see figs 9.3a and 9.3b).30 Vines encircle the stem, and where the knob would be is a tiny vineyard worker with a sickle. The vines and the sickle are completely overshadowed, however, by the abundance of grapes on the cup. The cup comes with a lid that completes the shape of the grapes. A small urn stands on the top, the crowning glory, possibly as a reminder of the wedding at Cana. The impression of this cup is in direct contrast to the preparation manuals in devotionals. The cup focuses on the generous and divine gifts of grace and fruits of life. Only a minor reference is made to preparation and repentance in the sickle. Prayer books, by contrast, would have had the focus on repentance and only a tangential reference to the gifts of grace.

26

 Ibid., p. 341.  On thesis 11-12 of Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, see G.O. FORDE, On Being a Theologian of the Cross – Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518, Grand Rapids, 1997, pp. 46-48. 28   On thesis 27-28 of Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, Ibid., pp. 110-115. 29  17th century chasuble from the Parish of Bärbo, Diocese of Strängnäs, currently at the History Museum, Stockholm. Information about the piece is available online at: , accessed 13 August 2015. 30  The chalice, a Nurnberg make from the mid-seventeenth century, was mentioned in the 1701 inventories of Fors Church, Eskilstuna, in the Diocese of Strängnäs. It was possibly left to the church around the year 1700. R. BENNETT – R. EDENHEIM, Ralph, Fors kyrka: Sveriges kyrkor Södermanland, Stockholm, 1976, pp. 52-53. 27

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Fig. 9.2a. Chasuble from Bärbo Church, seventeenth century, History Museum Stockholm. Photo: Teresia Derlén

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Fig. 9.2b. Detail of chasuble from Bärbo Church, seventeenth century. History Museum Stockholm. Photo: Teresia Derlén

So far, research on the Eucharist during the seventeenth century has leaned heavily on literature, and then naturally on preparation before the Eucharist. As a consequence, the study of Eucharistic instruction by the Church has focused on the importance of receiving worthily. When we take the visual into consideration, however, we find that the message of preparation is more a testament of the written word than the full doctrinal teaching of the Church. By adding the visual message to the written, the Eucharistic doctrine of the Church has to be modified and enriched by the message of grace and thanksgiving. How accessible these objects were to the common man and woman is another question, as is how they might have been interpreted. Unfortunately, these are also questions with no real answers, since most of the population were part of oral culture and their personal experiences are lost to us. However, without veering too close to conjecture, it would be safe to assume that smaller silver objects would not have been available for closer inspection and contemplation,

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Fig. 9.3a. Chalice from Fors Church, Sweden, mid seventeenth century. Photo: Teresia Derlén

Fig. 9.3b. Detail of chalice from Fors Church, Sweden, mid seventeenth century: Photo: Teresia Derlén

except for brief periods of time during Communion. Chasubles and murals, on the other hand, would have had a greater impact. The two country churches of Tuna and Julita (both in Strängnäs diocese) have chancel murals from the seventeenth century with a message that is similar to that of the screen pyramids at St Jacob’s. These murals carry reassuring images of Jesus that are visible as one leaves the sanctuary. At Tuna church the chancel arch (facing east) has an image of Christ Pantocrator.31 He holds an orb in his one hand, and the other hand is held up for a blessing. The backdrop is a peaceful landscape with houses and trees. This is a comforting image, full of grace and mercy, not a warning of judgement. Similarly, at Julita Church the mural on the chancel arch offers reassurance. Here Jesus stands upright, dressed in robes, but holding the cross to him. Above him is a banner pointing out that he is ‘Salwator Mundi’ [sic!] (see fig. 9.4).32 This is the strong victorious Christ 31  Ivar Schnell dates the murals at Tuna to c. 1620, see I. SCHNELL, Tuna kyrka, 3rd edition, Nyköping, 1973, p. 10. 32  The murals at Julita are harder to date, but by comparing them to similar murals Schnell posits that they are from the early 1600s. The old chancel is now the central arch, as a new

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Fig. 9.4. Julita Church, Sweden, Chancel arch mural of Salwator Mundi, c. 1600. Photo: Teresia Derlén

who offers life and salvation in the sacrament of the altar. Nearby in the chancel is a supporting image of Simeon. He has his arms outstretched, reaching for the babe in Mary’s arms, as beams radiate from a cloud in the sky above. Unspoken are his words, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation…”.33 Similar messages of grace, joy and life appear wherever the clergy seemingly had an influence on the decoration of the chancel, shown here most readily at St Jacob’s, Tuna and Julita. But even though the clergy may have highlighted these aspects of the Eucharist, it is doubtful that the message made much impact on lay belief. As mentioned, an attempt to interpret the experience of these images will be speculative, but the laity seemed to stress other aspects of Communion, such as community and protection against evil/death.

sanctuary was built to the east in 1763. See I. SCHNELL, Julita kyrka, Nyköping, 1976, pp. 6-7, p. 10. 33  The Nunc dimittis, Luke 2:29-30, King James Version.

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The Rural Community: Guardians of a Legacy So, while the national Church used new ecclesiastical iconography to foster an evangelical-Lutheran understanding of faith,34 the local parish did not always participate. One could even say they dragged their feet. Certainly, Swedish churches acquired decoration and artefacts that were influenced by Protestant imagery, but the new iconography frequently shared the ecclesial space with objects of the past. The visual agenda of the lay community seems to have had a different motivation than that of the national Church. The rural laity tended to emphasise community life and a shared legacy in both church furnishings and religion. If we are to understand the strength of rural community life, we need to take into consideration that priests often were local sons. New incumbents tended to succeed their fathers in their posts, or they married the widow or daughter of the previous priest. Clergy should be ordained for the diocese in which they were raised, so they frequently returned to their roots. 35 Thus the Church, or at least the local church, and the local community shared a common ground. Furthermore, the sixteenth century shows little evidence of the Reformation as a people’s movement in Sweden. As Martin Berntson points out in his study on Reformation Sweden, five rebellions took place just in the first twenty years of Gustav I Vasa’s reign (from 1523 onwards). The cause of these risings was a mix of dissatisfaction with Protestant influence over the Church and centralisation of power.36 Berntson gives examples of the lay population being upset both over ritual changes (such as the rumoured introduction of Mass in the vernacular) and “insults made towards the saints”.37 Seen against this backdrop of the sixteenth century, with a population that was reticent adopt Protestant rituals, it is perhaps not surprising that post-Reformation Swedish churches still carried images of saints. One of these local examples is found in the parish church of Ytterjärna, Diocese of Strängnäs. Here a medieval Eucharistic illustration was on display right through the seventeenth century. The church houses mural paintings from

34

 Here understood as the confessional documents of the Uppsala Resolution 1593.  G. MALMSTEDT, Bondetro och kyrkoro –Religiös mentalitet i stormaktstidens Sverige, Lund, 2002,pp. 76-77. 36  M. BERNTSON, Popular Belief and the Disruption of Religious Practices, in T.M.S. LEHTONEN – L. KALJUNDI, (eds.), Re-forming Texts, Music, and Church Art in the Early Modern North, Amsterdam, 2016, 43-68, especially pp. 59-60. 37  Ibid., pp. 51, 60. 35

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several centuries. There are fourteenth-century fragments of apostles on the north wall, and seventeenth-century illustrations over the vestry arch. Of particular interest, however, are some murals in the south aisle that were probably painted in the late fifteenth century.38 The Mass of St Gregory can be seen in one of the vaults. Pope Gregory is depicted in full ornament and tiara, celebrating mass at the altar while he gazes at the Man of Sorrows, Christ himself (see fig. 9.5). According to the medieval legend the vision appeared as the saint was praying for some proof of transubstantiation. The image was very common in the late medieval period, and simple block-prints were produced to support the devotion that centred around the wounds of Jesus. Eamon Duffy writes about this traditional piety in England from both visual and textual sources.39 Ytterjärna Church was whitewashed at some point and the illustrations were only revealed in the 1940s. It is uncertain when the murals were covered, but if it followed the same trends as other Swedish churches it would have been during the eighteenth century. Eighteenth-century aesthetics called for white and bright interiors with numerous large windows.40 At Ytterjärna, too, new windows were installed and old windows enlarged around 1740.41 The photo of the mural shows how part of the image was damaged to make way for the new window arch. If the church was whitewashed at that same time it would have mattered little whether the mural remained intact or not. The presence of the illustration in the ecclesial space means the church had a Roman narrative of the Eucharist co-existing with an evangelical-Lutheran Communion practice. In addition, and as mentioned above, many churches kept altarpieces or sculptures of saints, inventories that clearly heralded medieval tradition and theology. The parish church of Rättvik, for example, had an altarpiece with the Crowning of Mary and the Pietà as the main motifs. The church kept the altarpiece until 1706, when they installed a new reredos. Then the piece was moved to a nearby chapel church and thus remained in use well into the eighteenth and possibly nineteenth century.42 Also, Västerås Cathedral has an altarpiece dating from 1516, with a top tier illustrating the Mass of 38  I. SCHNELL – E. Bohrn, Ytter-Järna kyrka – Stiftelsen Södermanlands museum, Nyköping, 1976, p. 6, pp. 11-13. 39  E. DUFFY, The Stripping of the Altars; Traditional Religion in England c. 1400-c. 1580, nd 2 ed., New Haven – London, 2005, pp. 238-248. 40  ELLENIUS, Kyrklig konst, 194. 41  SCHNELL, Ytter-Järna, pp. 8, 11. 42  S. GARMO, Rättviks kyrka; Västerås Stifts kyrkobeskrivningskommitté, Stockholm, 2014, pp. 3-4.

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Fig. 9.5. Mural at Ytterjärna Church, Sweden, fifteenth century, possibly 1460. Photo: Teresia Derlén

St Gregory.43 One can wonder at the state of Eucharistic belief among the laity of the early modern era, because the bishops kept writing about the fallacy of transubstantiation, and often in combination with a critique of the mass as a sacrificial offering. As late as 1658 Bishop Johannes Matthiæ of Strängnäs (1593-1670) elaborates on the Eucharist in an instruction book to the households of his diocese. He writes how the bread and the wine transform (mystically) to Christ’s body and blood, and then goes on to clarify that the Sacrament was not instituted as a sacrifice, but that with his one death Christ perpetually redeemed the holy.44 His successor as Bishop of Strängnäs, Emporagrious (1606-1674), also took pains to explain that Communion was certainly

 Västerås domkyrka – århundradenas tecken i katedralen, Västerås, 2011, p. 5, p. 12.  ‘Thet brödet som vij bryta är icke thet Christi Lekamens deelachtigheet?… Natwarden är icke instichtat til itt Offer för the lefwandes och dödas synder. Ty med itt Offer hafwer han ewinnerlijga fullkompnatt them som helige warda. JOHANNES MATTHIÆ GOTHUS, Strengnäs kyrkie och hwsbook, Strengnäs, 1658, p. 35. 43 44

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not transubstantiation, but most definitely Real Presence in, under and with the bread.45 At a time when there was no native Roman Catholic community, why were the finer points of Real Presence a concern for the higher clergy? The mural at Ytterjärna may provide an insight into popular religion that leaned more towards medieval religiosity than the confessional documents of the Church in Sweden, a religiosity that the episcopacy felt the need to correct. In 1595, the Dean of Turku/Åbo, Melartopæus, complained about the use of a medieval elevation prayer, “I saw today my God and creator in the hand of the priest”.46 If this prayer was used later still is hard to say, but other prayers and spell-like formulas were collected throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These prayers mention both the Eucharist and the saints as protectors and divine help.47 There might be something to be said for the visual, and even tactile presence of the divine. In his book, Seeing Things, Stephen Pattison writes of “haptic vision”, which denotes a sense of seeing that involves a mutual exchange with what one regards. He finds this understanding of sight in descriptions of relics and rituals made by medieval pilgrims. With this in mind, Pattison then proposes that it was this tactile experience of sight that may explain the medieval piety around elevation: “just witnessing the consecration, or seeing the elevation of the host at Mass, rather than consuming it, was thought to be efficacious.”48 This reasoning compares well with Bob Scribner’s idea of the “sacramental gaze”, where all the senses were at an interplay and seeing was a sensual experience.49 Even though the common man or woman may not have articulated either piety, sight or senses in these terms, their relationship to sacred objects and the ecclesiastical visual world would have been an intimate one. The central aspect of sacred objects and rituals in medieval piety, can also be traced in the actions of the Protestants who opposed the practice. Melartopaeus was horrified by the traditional piety that lingered among his parishioners. Moreover, in an article on Reformation England, Alexandra Walsham writes 45  E.G. EMPORAGRIUS, Catechesens enfaldige förklarning, effter bookstafwen, medh under fogade böner…, Strengnäs, 1669, chapter V. 46  ‘Jag såg i dag min Gud och skapare i prästens hand.’ H. LUNDSTRÖM, P. Melartopaeus’ herdabref till Åbo stifts prästerskap 1596, in Kyrkohistorisk Årskrift 1904, pp. 185-203, p. 194. 47  E. LINDERHOLM, Signelser ock besvärjelser från medeltid ock nytid, Stockholm, 1917–1940, pp. 96-97, p. 99. 48  S. PATTISON, Seeing Things; Deepening Relations with Visual Artefacts, London, 2007. For haptic vision, see especially pp. 19, 42-43. 49  R.W. SCRIBNER, Perceptions of the Sacred in Germany at the End of the Middle Ages, in L. ROPER, (ed.), Religion and Culture in Germany, Leiden, 2001, 85-103.

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about the efforts that were taken to de-sacralise ecclesiastical objects. “A disparaging language of ‘trumpery,’ ‘trash,’ ‘trifles,’… suffuses the Edwardian and Elizabethan inventories”.50 Pattison in turn explains the dichotomy, not just as contrasting religious views, but as differing philosophical world-views. He compares “haptic vision” to what he calls “ocularcentric perspectivalism”, where sight is separated from the other senses, and there is a certain detachment from the object. Pattison regards the latter as a philosophical elevation of sight, for clarity, insight and scientific objectivity, which became increasingly more influential in the West since early modernism.51 “Ocularcentric perspectivalism” demands a certain sense of detachment, which is instrumental in modern scientific research. When Melartopæus complained about the use of elevation prayers, and that the congregation gave evidence of the Roman practice of de opera operato,52 we might well have a conflict of two scopic regimes: the old, represented by the people, and the new, represented by the academic theologian. For the dean, the academic, gazing at the blessed sacrament was a passive and detached activity. For the people, the visual was instead part of a mutual exchange, where they might well have had a tactile experience of God’s grace and presence. How the mystery was described theologically — transubstantial or not — was probably of less importance. Then again, this is a simplification and reality would not have been quite so polarised. Even if we can talk of different scopic regimes, there would have existed many layers of personal experience of holiness and piety. Whether the medieval images that were so prevalent in Swedish churches were still objects of devotion would also have been a matter of personal piety. However, the fact that they did remain in situ was conducive to a gradual change of piety, much as they made it possible to uphold traditional belief systems. Supporting the latter is the fact that kakaltare (cake altars) were still in use in many Swedish churches.53 The cake altar was a side altar, often placed on the north side — Mary’s side — and used for offerings in connection with churchings. At Tuna Church, an inventory from 1686 mentioned one of these  A. WALSHAM, Recycling the Sacred: Material Culture and Cultural Memory after the English Reformation, in Church History 86:4 (December 2017) < https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0009640717002074 > accessed 14 December 2018, pp. 1121-1154, pp. 1127-1128 51  PATTISON, Seeing Things, pp. 19, 34-35. 52  Melartopæus defines De opera operato as the belief that the labour of worship in itself, such as watching the elevation, is enough to work salvation. H. LUNDSTRÖM, P. Melartopaeus’ , p. 195-196. 53  Seventeenth-century inventories of both Tuna Church and Jäder Church mention cake altars. See SCHNELL, Tuna, p. 12; B. FLODIN, Jäders kyrka: Österrekarne härad, Södermanland, Stockholm, 1989, p. 100. 50

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cake altars. The church also still has a fifteenth-century altarpiece with the Madonna and the child, which was moved from the north side of the church in the nineteenth century when a new pulpit was installed in its place. A probable theory is that the Madonna statue had belonged to the cake altar, which is now gone.54 This example, if correct, points to a connection that the laity may have made between rituals of offering and the image of Mary, and well into the post-Reformation period. The relationship that Swedish communities had with their ecclesial images comes into greater light if we compare these with practices in England. The above mentioned article by Walsham notes how many church objects were recycled in the days of Edward VI and Elizabeth I. Stone, timber, lead and soft furnishings were reused for other purposes in household or civic spaces, both to recycle valuable material, in an effort to de-sacralise “holy” objects, and in some cases simply for opportunistic reasons. The interesting thing here is that the laity seems to have been involved in this process.55 Again, there were layers of Protestant activity in the population of England, and not all were in favour of the development (which Eamon Duffy shows in The Stripping of the Altars),56 but there was a popular support for the Reformation that in comparison seems to have been lacking in Sweden. If Walsham describes the English transformation of the ecclesial space of the Reformation in terms of recycling and reuse, the Swedish laity instead invested in conservation and even imitation of traditional material. An example of imitation of medieval fabric will be discussed in the next section. The motivation for conservation of traditional pieces however, could be explained by a sense of local pride and collective ownership. Another explanation is that some parishioners still saw them as sacred objects. What is evident, though, is that the rural community of the seventeenth century valued the legacy of ecclesial objects — both spiritual and physical — more than doctrinal correctness. The Secular Elite: Showcasing Family Ambition The seventeenth century, though, was far from minimalist. A sudden influx of wealth and Baroque aesthetics ensured that the post-Reformation left an indelible mark on the ecclesial space in Sweden. Donating to the church fabric and building was nothing new, of course. Duffy’s account of late medieval England shows that the upkeep and investment of churches was at the heart of  SCHNELL, Tuna, 12.  WALSHAM, ‘Recycling’, pp. 1131-1143, pp. 1145-1146. 56  Ibid., p. 1147; DUFFY, Stripping, pp. 478-503. 54 55

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traditional corporate religion.57 The same was true for Sweden, but the sixteenth century was a time of economic decline, which also is evident in the lack of donations and refurbishment of churches during the Reformation. In a study on vestments, Inger Estham notes both the very few vestments that were made during the sixteenth century, and the great number of medieval vestments that were mentioned in sixteenth-century inventories. In the seventeenth century the production of vestments took off again, and Estham attributes this both to a growing economy, and that the time of religious uncertainty was over. 58 The post-Reformation was also a time when the gentry increased their powerbase, and demonstrations of status and wealth became common.59 This was true for the old noble families, as well as the new politically based aristocracy. Both used the church as the public arena to display their achievements.60 The burgher class, which also grew in numbers and influence, tended to follow close on the heels of the nobility, and their donations are particularly frequent in city churches.61 In general, the bequests of the secular elite fall into four main groups. There are those objects that showcase a new Protestant and biblical imagery, but also those that seem to have been inspired by medieval pieces. Then there are objects with no ecclesial origin and without Christian iconography, as well as pieces with a clear Roman-Catholic origin. In fact, the common thread between the various donations is that they rarely seemed suitable for an evangelical-Lutheran ecclesial space. When exploring a visual agenda of the secular elite, we find a testimony to the fact that there was still no clear distinction between sacred and non-sacred. Of greater importance than the iconography was the status the object gave the family, and what connects the imagery of these donations is that the family crest seemed to be as important as the religious motif. The focus here will be on pieces with iconography that seem incongruous to an evangelical-Lutheran confession; the more Protestant pieces may be left for another discussion.

 DUFFY, Stripping, pp. 131-154.  I. ESTHAM, Figurbroderade mässhakar från reformationstidens och 1600-talets Sverige, Stockholm, 1974, pp. 14-15. 59  MÖRNER, Människor, pp. 21-24. 60  ELLENIUS, Kyrklig konst, pp. 197-200. 61  One example of a burgher bequest is the altarpiece at Fors Church, Eskilstuna. The Lohe family donated the piece in the 1650s in memory of the ironmaster Henrik Lohe. BENNETT, Fors kyrka, pp. 40-41. 57 58

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Fig. 9.6. Chasuble from Ytterjärna Church, Sweden, 1645. Photo: Teresia Derlén

The church at Ytterjärna, which contains the mural of the Mass of St Gregory, also has a chasuble that illustrates how medieval art still inspired the fabric of the post-Reformation (see fig. 9.6). Inger Estham sees a clear link between the aesthetics of medieval chasubles and those from the seventeenth century. The vestments from this period tended to be adorned with a crucifix. Estham compares this to vestments in the previous Danish province of Gotland. On Danish Gotland chasubles had come out of use during the Reformation, and they were only reintroduced once it came under Swedish rule. Estham found no chasubles with a crucifix motif on the island, something she posits is due to the break in the use of vestments.62 The chasuble at Ytterjärna (from 1645)  ESTHAM, Figurbroderade, p. 19.

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supports the theory of inspiration from medieval chasubles as it is very similar to a fifteenth-century vestment at Strängnäs Cathedral. Both these chasubles have a wide cross stitched on the back. Inside the cruciform shape is another cross with Jesus crucified. The differences between these chasubles are in the details. On the medieval version Jesus is surrounded by angels (in the horizontal arms), God the Father and Spirit (above), and the Virgin Mary (below). The post-Reformation chasuble at Ytterjärna, on the other hand, seems to have taken inspiration from medieval roods, with the winged symbols of the evangelists surrounding the central crucifix. Below is the apostle St Andrew with a halo around his head and carrying his own cross. There is also the important addition of the family crest between the images of Jesus and the apostle. As Estham pointed out, these post-Reformation chasubles, with a seemingly medieval imagery, were common in Sweden in both rural and urban settings.63 They also show that we cannot make a clear distinction between low and high culture, since these vestments were acquired both by farming communities (but then without the decoration of family crests) and the secular elite. Then there were the pieces that displayed no ecclesial origin. In 1701 the Oxenstierna family gifted a chalice to their country church at Jäder, Diocese of Strängnäs. This chalice is one example of a domestic piece turned ecclesial (see figs 9.7a and 9.7b).64 It started out as an ornamental drinking cup and was decorated as such. Flower garlands, vine leaves, pomegranates and rams’ heads decorate the goblet. Surrounding the rim of the cup are also four medallions with naked women just out of the bath. Naked subjects frequently appear on seventeenth-century ecclesial objects, and almost seemed to be de rigueur. This particular piece proves the point as it has actually been modified for its use as a Eucharistic vessel. Medallions of the evangelists have been added to the base of the chalice. Similarly, new medallions were added at the rim in-between the bathing nymphs, picturing the crucifixion and the crests of the Oxenstierna family. That is, the cup has been visually modified, with additions of ecclesial and status images, but not transformed to remove what our age might regard as explicit imagery. Other examples of incongruous visuals in the ecclesial space are war spoils. The parish church of Skokloster, in the diocese of Uppsala, is an excellent example. Sometime after 1660 the patrons, the Wrangel family, donated a set consisting of reredos, pulpit and baptismal font to the church. The set, dating from the beginning of the seventeenth century, had been taken from the Oliwa 63

 Ibid., pp. 37-45.  B.I. KILSTRÖM, Jäders kyrka: Sörmländska kyrkor 38, 7th edn, Nyköping, 1999, p. 13.

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Fig. 9.7a. Chalice at Jäder Church, Sweden, early seventeenth century. Photo: Maria Boström

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Fig. 9.7b. Detail of chalice at Jäder Church, Sweden, early seventeenth century. Photo: Maria Boström

Abbey Church in Poland.65 The imagery on the Oliwa reredos compares well with other evangelical-Lutheran counterparts, but there is one differentiating and peculiar detail in the design namely the significance that is given to Mary (see fig. 9.8). Also, the predella on most Swedish reredoses at this time depicts the Last Supper, which puts them in continuance with the medieval tradition. Instead of a Eucharistic image, this piece has a written message in German, “Das Blut Jhesu Christii, des Sohnes Gottes, Rettiget uns von allen unsern Sündern”. In theory it compares; though textual and not pictorial, the writing does refer to the Eucharist, specifying that the blood of Jesus Christ redeems us from our sins. In practice, on the other hand, it would not be compatible since it is doubtful the local layperson could read Swedish, let alone understand German. Thus, the text is comparable with Swedish post-Reformation iconography, but it does not have the instructional quality that was so common for the decoration of that period. 65  B. ÅNGMAN, Skoklosters kyrka: Upplands kyrkor Del IX. The booklet lacks pagination, place and year of publication. An older, more extensive booklet contains some discrepancies.

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Fig. 9.8. Skokloster Church, counter-Reformation reredos from Oliwa, Poland, early seventeenth century. Photo: Teresia Derlén

Moving on to the first tier, however, we find a familiar image in the crucifixion. This use of the Calvary motif on the first tier was common both in medieval and in post-Reformation altarpieces. The second tier is where the Protestant imagery is left behind, and instead we find something distinctly unusual for the era. The second tier, which was generally the place for the victorious and resurrected Christ, displays Mary as the celestial queen. Holding the baby Jesus in her arms, she stands on a golden crescent. Unlike the predella and the first tier, which are painted illustrations, Mary is a three-dimensional statue.

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The eye is naturally drawn to Mary’s level, with the golden sheen of the backdrop and the depth created by the statue itself, making her a centre piece even though the second tier is almost at the top of the design. The pulpit also makes reference to Mary, and thus points to a culture where she was of central importance. The pulpit baldachin has the words “Ecce virgo concipiet” written around its sides. The actual pulpit gives another pointer that the piece has been imported from a different cultural sphere. Where an evangelical-Lutheran pulpit would have sculptures of the evangelists, apostles or Jesus himself, the piece at Skokloster has renditions of the Church Fathers: St Gregory, St Ambrose and St Augustine. Both these churches, Jäder and Skokloster, give evidence of the diversity that is to be found in Swedish churches, an elasticity, as it were, to what was deemed fitting and proper in the ecclesial space. In real terms, these objects hardly give us an insight into a specific confession of the donor. They neither cast a benefactor as cavalier with a sacred space for gifting an explicit object to the church, nor do Counter-Reformation artwork tell of secret Catholic tendencies. We need to take great care in our interpretations when we study the ecclesial space for clues to the beliefs and rituals of the day. This is especially true if we approach the visual with our understanding of a dichotomy of secular and sacred. As seen here, the church was not just a place for worship, or divine instruction, nor was it just a shared legacy; it was in many ways a public billboard. Here a prominent family had a chance to display their status, and this was probably a stronger religious message than the images that can be seen on the bequests. The hierarchical and patriarchal aspects of religion, which were nothing new with the Reformation, were emphasised in post-Reformation Sweden through state-building, absolutism, and the growing power and wealth of the nobility.66 The hierarchy was something positive; it enforced God’s good order and plan. By affirming a family’s place in society with a generous donation to the church, the bequest also affirmed the order that God had ordained. As much as the Church, and religion, was part of public life, public life was also part of the Church, the ecclesial space.

66

 This understanding is exemplified in the Church Act of 1686. The legal text affirmed the king’s authority over both realm and church, as he was appointed by God, see MONTGOMERY, Enhetskyrkan, pp. 211-213.

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Conclusions The various examples given in this essay show how studying visual evidence can enhance the understanding both of the written confession of the Church, and the piety of popular belief. The study of the ecclesial space reveals a multilayered and complex post-Reformation religious culture. We have seen different agendas motivate the decoration of church interior, and if we are to attempt to comprehend the religious language and Eucharistic beliefs of the day through visual evidence, we need to understand the agendas behind what we study. As seen in the case of Fors Church in Eskilstuna and Jäder Church, not all chalices are equal. Some of the visual clues in the church were purposefully installed as means of instruction in evangelical-Lutheran dogmas, and in adherence with the confession. Other objects were present to conserve a collective legacy and can possibly tell of lasting medieval practices. Yet other iconography represented the status of a family, either with objects that beautified the ecclesial space or with pieces that told of personal achievements. In simplified terms, the clergy supported dogmatically correct iconography, the peasant’s church upheld religion as a community builder, whereas the secular elite emphasised hierarchy and family with their donations. All of these factors, with careful consideration, can inform us of the Eucharistic belief of the post-Reformation period.

FROM MEDIUM TO MIRROR? IMAGES AND THEIR COMMUNICATIVE POTENTIAL IN POST-REFORMATION DENMARK Laura Katrine SKINNEBACH

In recent years, the status of images in a post-reformation context has received much interest. The writings of the different reformers are often regarded as sources that provide us with an opportunity to identify a specific visual and material mindset of a certain culture. One important challenge to this approach is a general tendency to synthezise certain reformations. Research on Danish post-reformation visual and material culture, for example, is often regarded as distinctly Lutheran, and often refers to Martin Luther’s understanding of things as adiaphora. Luther stated that “[…] images, bells, Eucharistic vestments, church ornaments, altar light, and the like I regard as things indifferent. Anyone who wishes may omit them.”1 Furthermore he argued that “all things that Christ did not institute are optional, voluntary, and unnecessary, and therefore also harmless” and images in particular are “unnecessary, and we are free to have them or not, although it would be much better of we did not have them at all. I am not patial to them”. 2 On this ground, Andrew Spicer has stated that “the material culture and setting of Lutheran worship was not fundamental to the actual preaching of the Word of God and the celebrations of the sacraments.” Lutheran worship was, he argues, closely related to the Christian freedom of choice and the individual church could thus “preserve aspects of the medieval past, experiment with liturgical arrangements, respond to other theological beliefs, or represent the interests of its patrons.”3 In a similar fashion the 1  “Bilder, glocken, Messegewand, kirchenschmück, allter liecht und der gleichen halt ich frey, Wer da wil, der mags lassen, Wie wol bilder aus der schrifft und von guten Historien ich sast nützlich, doch frey und wilkörig halta, Denn ichs mit den bilderstürmen nicht halte.” Vom Abendmahl Christi. Bekenntnis, 1528, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Weimar 1883. WA 26, p. 509. LW 37, p. 371. 2  “Nun das wir zu den byldern kommen: umb die bilder ist es auch so gethan, das sie unnöttig, sonder frey sein, wir mügen sie haben order nicht haben, wie wol es besser were, wir hetten sie gar nicht.” Die Dritte Predigt am Dinstage nach dem Sontage Inuocauit, 1522, WA 10:3, p. 26. LW 36, p. 168. 3  A. SPICER, Martin Luther and the Material Culture of Worship, in Martin Luther and the Reformation: Essays, Dresden 2016, p. 250-260, here p. 260. The volume is a companion for the exhibition project, “Here I Stand: Luthers exhibitions USA 2016”. See also A. SPICER, Adiaphora Luther and the Material Culture of Worship, Studies in Church History 56 (2020), pp. 246272. doi: 10.1017/stc.2019.14.

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Danish reformation has been characterized as “a via media, avoiding more drastic agendas of iconoclasm, prescriptive oblivion, and expurgation, thereby abundantly illustrating the prevailing narrative of continuity through revision or redefinition, though decidedly not avoiding new buildings, nor the introduction of new furnishings.”4 Adiaphora was, it seems, the fundamental concept and modus operandi of reformation material culture in Germany as in Denmark. Concurrent signs of change and continuity should be attributed to a harmonious and common understanding of images as “indifferent” things. Recently Caroline Walker Bynum has, in an article on the reuse of medieval images in German churches, challenged this view by asking “Are Things ’Indifferent’?”. Does Luther’s adiaphora explain the acceptance of both radical and pragmatic approaches to images and “the preserving power of Lutheranism”?5 This would, she argues, entail a unified view on images which even Luther himself did not manage to formulate.6 If the Danish reformers agreed on the indifference of images, would not the sources reflect these agreements? The present article offers a reevaluation of the view on images in Denmark in the sixteenth century. The understanding of images was to a large extent inspired by Luther’s writing, but only on the surface. Various Danish theologians disagreed on how to interpret Luther’s — ambivalent — view on images and were, at the same time, stimulated and influenced by other views circulating around Europe. Thus, the Danish theologian Hemmingsen, a student of Melanchthon, is often characterized as a Crypto-Calvinist or Philippist and forced to retract some of his expositions.7 The contention becomes very visible when one compares different danish translations of the same Lutheran texts. Luther published several writings on images, but his Passional, included in the 1529 edition of the Betbüchlein (first published in 1522), was one of the most 4  B.B. JOHANNSEN – H. JOHANNSEN, Re-forming the Confessional Space: Early Lutheran Churches in Denmark, c. 1536-1660, in A. SPICER (ed.), Lutheran Churches in Early Modern Europe, Farnham – Burlington, 2012, 241-276. 5  C. W. BYNUM, Are Things ‘Indifferent’? How Objects Change Our Understanding of Religious History, in German History, 34:1, 2017, 88-112. 6  Luther’s own understanding of images was ambiguous, as also argued by among others B. HEAL, Introduction: Art and Religious Reform in Early Modern Europe, in Art History, 40:2, 2017, 247-254. 7  JOHANNSEN – JOHANNSEN 2012, p. 250 and P.D. LOCKHART, Frederik II and the Protestant Cause. Denmark’s Role in the Wars of Religion, 1559-1596, Leiden, 2004 and M. FINK-JENSEN, Printing and Preaching after the Reformation: A Danish Pastor and his Audiences, in C. APPEL – M. FINK-JENSEN (eds), Religious Reading in the Lutheran North. Studies in Early Modern Scandinavian Book Culture, Cambridge, 2011, 15-47, p. 21.

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widely circulated and published in both German and Latin.8 The Passional was a thoroughly illustrated book complete with a prologue in which Luther explained and defended the incorporation of images. The Passional summarized the Bible in fifty focal events, eleven from the Old Testament and thirty-nine from the New Testament. Each event was rendered intelligible by passages from scripture and supplied with one illustration.9 The Betbüchlein and the Passional was extremely popular in Denmark and translated — or, rather, adapted and reworked — severel times. The fact that several Danish theologians chose to translate the text, illustrates the importance of the topic in a Danish context, but when compared they also elucidates the potential controversies related to the matter of images. The rhetorical, linguistic and structural details of each translation disclose individual receptions of the orginal source and express singular and often highly original understandings of visual communication and mediation. Each translator distinctly emphasized different aspects of the original text, and in some cases criticized the work of their colleages. A comparison illustrates that the ‘true’ reception of Luther’s view on images was negotiated, and, most importantly, it challenges the view, that the understanding of religious images or things was a settled matter in Denmark. Martin Luther’s Passional Luther’s Passional was decisively inspired by the devotional and cultural trends of his time. The passion of Christ was a focal devotional focus in fifteenth- and 8  The book was published several times in German during Luther’s lifetime. The first in 1539, printed by Hans Lufft in Wittenberg, containing 50 woodcuts; the second, also by Hans Lufft in Wittenberg in 1530; and again in 1538 with woodcuts inspired by Dürers passion; an extended version was published by the same printer in 1538; a new corrected and extended version was published in 1542 in Augsburg by Valentin Otthmar, and Hans Lufft republished the book the same year. The betbüchlein and passional was also published in 1539, 1540 and 1543 by Georg Rhau, and in 1543 printed in Leipzig by Nicolaum Wolrab, with 73 woodcuts. Hans Lufft published the book again in 1545. Furthermore it was published by Lufft in Latin (a translation of the German version, but with a few additions) as Enciridion piarum precationum, com Calendario et passionali, ut uocant etc., first in 1529, again in 1543, see WA 10:2, p. 359ff. 9  The book is often regarded as the first evangelical Bilderbibel. See T. KAUFMANN, Die Mitte der Reformation, Tübingen 2019, p. 680ff. The only extant version of the book is in the Ehemal Reichsstädtische Bibliothek (ERB) in Lindau, manuscript-catalogue callnumber P IV 140. I wish to thank Markus Breitwieser, who generously helped me with information onn this rare volume.

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sixteenth-century devotion and played a central role in visual culture. Luther’s most obvious source of inspiration was the illustrated passion cycles published in the beginning of the sixteenth century with woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) and Latin texts on the back of the images. Illustrations for Luther’s 1529 edition may have been loosely inspired by Dürer’s prints, but the 1538 were in fact copies of them (see figs. 10.1, 10,2 and 10.3). The main difference between the medieval passion books and Luther’s Passional was the textual material. Luther’s Passional only referred to the bible. In addition, the book came with a prologue, a short, albeit fairly thorough, apology for the use of images as media of Scripture and, thus, mediation of true Christianity. In the prologue Luther states that images are beneficial for “[…] children and simple folk / who are moved more from beholding images and likenesses of Godly histories / than by mere words and instruction” and he refers to Mark 4:11 which states, that Christ always spoke to the simply folk in parables.10 Luther’s reference to parables suggest that he regarded verbal and mental narratives as ‘images’ in the same right as physical pictures. Both images and quotes, he states, are beneficial, and will serve to induce the practice of fear and faith in God, if positioned in livingrooms and chambers so that “[…] the deeds and words of God are always held before the eyes.” The small book containing images and words from scripture should simply be regarded as a lay bible, “ein leyen Bibel” as Luther states, thus echoing some of the most profound medieval arguments in favour of images, stated already by St Augustin (354-420) and Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) and repeated several times in the medieval and early modern period.11 In a letter to Bishop Serenus who had destroyed images in his church in Marseilles, Gergory stated that: It is one thing to worship a picture, it is another by means of pictures to learn thoroughly [addiscere] the story that should be venerated. For what writing makes present to those reading, the same pictures make present [praestat] to the uneducated, to those perceiving visually, because in it the ignorant see what they ought

10

 “Ich habs fur gut angesehen das alte Passional büchlin zu dem bettbüchlin zu thun, allermeist umb der kinder und einfeltigen willen, welche durch bildnis und gleichnis besser bewegt werden, die Göttlichen geschicht zu behalten, denn durch blosse wort odder lere, wie Sant Marcus bezeuget, das auch Christus umb der einfeltigen willen eitel gleichnis fur yhn prediget habe.” All quotes from Luther’s Passional refer to WA 10:2, pp. 458-459. 11  H. LAUGERUD, En reformasjon av blicket? Skrift, bilder og synskultur i det etter-reformatoriske Danmark-Norge, in B. LAVOLD – J. ØDEMARK Reformasjonstidens religiøse bokkultur circa 1400-1700: tekst, visualitet og materialitet,. Oslo, 2017, p. 217. After the reformation it was cited in treatises by Eck and Emser and at the Council of Trent, 1563.

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to follow, in it they read who do not know letters. Wherefore, and especially for the common people, picturing is the equivalent of [pro] reading.12

Luther’s visual theology in the prologue drew heavily on this long tradition. Images are, like litteratura or graphemes, signs of meaning and may be regarded as letters of the simple folk.13 Luther also echoes the traditional greogorian distinction between learning from images on one hand and worshipping images on the other. Thus, he concludes the prologue by stating that “I have always condemned and punished misuse and false confidence in images” but “[…] that which is not misuse, I have always allowed and kept in order to bring it to beneficial and holy use.”14 This aspect was included in order to meet potential critique the book might entail from the contemporary “bilder stürmer” or iconoclasts. The prologue intended to legitimize a specific use of images in the midst of an ongoing debate on the permissibility and use of visual objects. However, Luther did not formulate a radically new view on images, but made an attempt to narrow down a specific and traditional use of images. His text may, thus, be regarded as a return to a Gregorian visual theory. The visual layout of Luther’s Passional underlines his point concerning the importance of images. Each double spread consists of a full-page illustration (on the verso) paired with the biblical story on the facing page (recto) (fig. 10.2). Each biblical story is thus transmitted in different communicative modi at the same time, providing the reader with a multimodal appreciation of Scripture. Images and texts stand forth as two commensurate mediations of the word of God: Word and image

12  “Aliud est enim picturam adorare, aliud per picturae historiam quid sit adorandum addiscere. Nam quod legentibus scriptura, hoc idiotis praestat pictura cernentibus, quia in ipsa ignorantes uident quod sequi debeant, in ipsa legunt qui litteras nesciunt; unde praecipue gentibus pro lectione est;” Epist., XI,10 (CCSL 140A, p. 874). In an earlier letter Gregory stated that: “For this reason painting should be used in churches, that those who do not know letters at least by looking at the walls read those [things] which they are not able to read in books”, “Idcirco enim pictura in ecclesiis adhibetur, ut hi qui litteras nesciunt saltem in parietibus uidendo legant, quae legere in codicibus non ualent”, (CCSL 140A, p. 768). See M. CARRUTHERS, The Book of Memory. A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, Cambridge, 1990, p. 222 and notes. 13  M. CARRUTHERS, 1990, p. 221ff. Carruthers argues that images were understood as equal and parallel to texts: “pictures themselves function “textually”, as a type of writing and not something different from it in kind”, p. 222. Others have argued that images were communicative agents in their own right, rather as a supplement or alternative to texts, providing other kinds of information through another sensory faculty. 14  “Misbracuh und falsche zuuersicht an bilden habe ich alle zeit verdampt und gestrafft, wie yn allen andern stücken. Was aber nicht misbrauch ist, habe ich ymer lassen und heissen bleiben und halten, also da mans zu nützlichem und seligem brauch bringe.”

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complement and enlighten each other in a mutual fashion. But how was Luther’s image theology transmitted in the Danish translations of the prologue? Danish editions of the Passional The Betbüchlein was translated several times into Danish.15 The very first versions including the Passional were published already in 1531, years prior to the Danish reformation in 1536. One translation was provided by the theologian Christiern Pedersen (1480-1554) who wrote several devotional books on both sides of the reformation, including popular devotional volumes such as The Hours of our Lady and On hearing Mass, both in 1514, and Jærtegnspostil in 1515. In 1526-1531 he lived in exile in the Netherlands and converted to Lutheranism. His Passional was printed in Antwerp.16 It stands forth as a rather free translation of Luther’s text. Pedersens prologue is more than twice as long as Luther’s and expands considerably on the image question. This focus also appears from the title: On the Passion and Pain of our Lord, and on Images. In addition, Pedersen equipped each biblical scene with a prayer, thus causing the book to take a more devotional direction. He also had a liberal approach to the choice of biblical scenes. He included only two scenes from the Old Testament, both from the Fall of Man just as in Dürer’s Passional, (whereas Luther had eleven scenes), and forty-five from the New Testament — which is six more than in Luther’s version. The images were not copied form Dürer or the Luther prints, but may have been copied or reused from older Netherlandish prints (fig. 10.4).17

15  The first edition was a translation by Paulus Helie in 1526, with a rather critical prologue. The 1531 edition (anonymous) includes the Passional, but is largely based on Helie, whereas Pedersen’s translation from the same year is independent of it. The Betbüchlein of 1544 by Palladius and Rosæfontanus, combines Helie’s and Pedersen’s translation, whereas the Passional was completely reworked, see L. JACOBSEN, Peder Palladius Skrifter, Copenhagen: HH Thiele, 1911-1926. For more on the different translations of the Betbüchlein, see C. APPEL, Læsning og Bogmarked I 1600-tallets Danmark, Copenhagen, 2001 & H. HORSTBØLL, Mening Mands Medie. Det Folkelige Bogtryk I Danmark, Copenhagen, 1999. 16  C. PEDERSEN, Om vaar Herris død oc pine Och om billede, Antwerp, Willem Vorsterman 1531. Royal Danish Library LN 159 8°, copy 1,2 & 3. Only copy 1 is intact. 17  The prints may have been made by the Leiden printer Jan Severszoon, See J.M. JENSEN, The Wall-Paintings of Sulsted Church, Denmark: Between the Middle Ages and the Reformation?, in D. GAIMSTER – R. GILCHRIST (eds), The Archaeology of the Reformation, 1480-1580, Oxford – New York, 2003, no page numbers.

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The other Danish translation of the Betbüchlein and Passional from 1531 was much more conservative.18 The prologue was an almost verbatim translation of Luther’s original text, albeit with a few significant underscorings. Most significantly, however, the translator chose to omit the final short parapgraph on the potential critique from bilderstürmer.19 The book did not include prayer texts as Pedersen’s book did, but adhered to the format of the prototype. It even reused the illustrations from the Wittenberg edition of 1529. A new version of the Passional was not published until thirteen years later, in 1544, by Matthias Parvus Rosæfontanus (d. 1553) who was most likely a cleric in Roskilde. The translation was made in collaboration with Peder Palladius (1503-1560), the first superintendent of Sealand, appointed by the German reformer Johann Bugenhagen in 1537. Rosæfontanus made the translation, and Palladius produced the prologue (it carries his name). It was given the title A proper prayerbook of Scripture, the Old and new Testmant, with the proper Passional […]”.20 As the title suggests — twice — Rosæfontanus (and Palladius) intended a more accurate translation. It was much less liberal than Pedersen’s book, and explicitly departed from it. The prologue follows the German original closely and also includes the final paragraph on iconoclasm. The layout is, however, more flexible. Whereas Luther’s and Pedersen’s versions were systematically arranged and dedicated each double spread to one particular biblical event, Rosæfontanus and Palladius’ version stands forth as one running biblical narrative. The number of images (four Old Testament images and thirty-two New Testament) and size has been considerably reduced and inserted into the text where appropriate. The result is that some double spreads may contain only one illustration, whereas others may contain three (fig. 10.4).

18  ANONYMOUS, Een ny Bedebog aff then hellige scrifft thet gamle oc ny Testamentis, hwes lige tilforn icke er seet eller hørd. Wdi huilcken klarlig findis oc bewises alt thet som er mennisken nytteligt til siælens salighed. Med gantske flÿt forsamled. Med én skøn Passie bog, med figurer oc scrifft subtilig wdstafferet. M.D.XXXI. Karen Brahes Library, LN 11, 8°. The name of the translator and printer as well as year of printing does not appear in the book, but according to the library’s database, it was translated by Georg Smaltzing and printed by Hans Walter in Magdeburg in 1531. The images are the exact same as the ones in the 1529 version of the Enchiridion piarum. 19  It should be underlined, that the Latin version did not omit the paragraph, although the term bilderstürmer, or a Latin equivalent, was not used. 20  M.P. ROSÆFONTANUS – P. PALLADIUS, Een ræt Bedebog aff den hellige Scrifft Gamle oc ny Testamente, met den rætte Passional, wdi huilcken klarlige findis oc beuises alt det som mennisken er nytteligt til siælens salighed, flytelige offerseet oc corrigeret, Copenhagen 1544. Royal Danish Library, LN 140,8 copy 1,2 and 3. Only copy 3 – which will be referred to in the following – still contain the Passional. Copy 2 is no longer extant.

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The next version to appear was published in Lübeck around 1550 by an anonymous translator.21 It carried a new title, The tale of the passion and death of Christ Jesus our saviour from the Holy scripture. The title refers to the fact, that the bible quotes were based on the first translation of the entire bible into Danish. The so-called Bible of Christian III from 1550 was, among others, inspired by Christiern Pedersen’s translation of the New Testament from 1529, and Pedersen has often been mentioned as the editor in chief of this grand task.22 The new Passional included a new translation of Luther’s prologue that differed slightly from Rosæfontanus and Palladius’ ‘true’ Passional. Interestingly, the first sentence was taken from Pedersen’s Passional, whereas the rest is not, almost as if the translator has suddenly changed his mind.23 It also differed from the preceeding edition by adding a prayer to each biblical scene. These prayers were not based on Pedersen’s edition, but were completely new compositions. A new variant of the Passional was published already in 1556.24 In several aspects it was much like the 1550 edition. It carried the same title, same prayers and same prints. In this version, the connection to the Danish Bible is further underlined by the fact that a print of Christian III was included on the verso of the title page. The picure is clearly a copy of the King’s portrait in the bible. 21  ANONYMOUS, Historien, om Jesu Christi vor frelseris pine oc død, aff den Hellige scrifft. Met Herlige skøne Figurer oc merckelige Bøner. Lybeck. 1550. Without publisher. Royal Danish Library LN 949, 8°. The library owns two copies. They are both defect; the Passional is not extant in copy 1, and only half of the prologue is preserved in copy 2. 22  Biblia, Det er den gantske Hellige Scrifft, udsæt paa Danske, Ludowich Dietz, Copenhagen 1550, Royal Danish Libaray, LN 15 2°, three copies. The entire bible was digitalized in 2018: https://tekstnet.dk/christian-3-bibel/metadata. Pedersen’s translation of the New Testament: Det ny Testamente Jhesu Cristi ord oc Euangelia som han selff predickede oc lerde her paa orden etc., Willem Vosterman, Antwerp 1529, Royal Danish Library, LN271 8°, three copies. It was published again in 1531 by Willem Vosterman in Altwerp, this time with new images, see Royal Danish Library, LN 272 8°, four copies. For a throrough treatment of Pedersen’s translation of the New Testament, see C. BACH-NIELSEN, Fyrstebibel eller Folkebibel?, in C. BACH-NIELSEN – P. INGESMAN (eds), Reformation, religion og politik. Fyrsternes pesonlige rolle i de europæsike reformationer, Aarhus, 2003, 73-125, pp. 89ff. 23  As mentioned in note 22, there are no extant versions with a complete prologue. Thus, we don’t know the wording of the last part of the texts. 24  ANONYMOUS, Historien om Christi Jesu vor frelseris pine oc død aff den Hellige scrifft. Met Herlige skøne Figurer oc merckelige Bøner, Mickael Lotter, Magdeburg 1556, Royal Danish Library, LN 945 8°. This same year Lotter also issued another book related to the passion and death of Christ, namely Passio, eller, Historien om Christi Jesu vor Frelseris pine oc død, predicket aff Vito Theodoro, nu fordansket aff Peder Tidemand, Michael Lotter, Magdeburg 1556, Royal Danish Library, LN 525 8°, two copies. The sermon is not included in the exposition of the passional offered here.

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However, contrary to its ‘twin’ edition six years earlier, it did not include Luther’s prologue, but Pedersen’s prologue from 1531 — with a few insignificant amendments. The choice of biblical scenes did not follow Luther’s model. Both books included 43 scenes from scripture, with only one from the Old Testament, none from the Childhood of Christ and an extended rendering of the Passion. The size of the images are full-page versions, as is the case with Luther’s original, Pedersen’s 1531 edition and the anonymous 1550 edition.25 Years later, in 1573, Rasmus Hanssøn Reravius chose yet another approach for his translation of the Passional. His version, Passional. The story of the passion and death of our Lord, Jesus Christ, with many beautiful and lovely figures and Christian prayers […]” was printed in Copenhagen by Laurentz Benedicht.26 The book begins with a translation of Luther’s prologue, but Reravius has added a parapraph at the end, which emphasize the need to always meditate in humility on the Passion of the Lord.27 As Luther’s original, it contains eleven scenes from the Old Testament, but only thirty-eight from the New Testament. Differing from Luther’s book, each biblical scene is supplied with a prayer (fig. 10.5). The prayers are not related to Pedersen’s Passional. Instead, each prayer is dedicated to a specific theme inspired by the biblical story: the prayer related to the visitation is “A prayer for humility”, and the prayer related to the adoration of the Magi is “A prayer, that we may follow the words of God”, and the prayer related to Christ in the desert is “A prayer against temptation”. Thus, Reravius’ book stands forth as a synthesis of the different versions, perhaps as a sign of a gradual recession of debates. A version of the book was dedicated to the noblewoman Birrethe Rosensparre and contains a long dedication which expands on the use and significance of images.28

25  Images are placed on the verso in Luther’s book. The same layout was used for the anonymous Danish 1531 version and Pedersen’s 1556 edition as well as Reravius’ book, whereas images were placed on the recto in Pedersen’s 1531 edition. 26  R.H. RERAVIUS, Passional. Vor Herris Jhesu Christi Pinis oc Døds Historie, met skøne oc deylige Figurer, oc Christelige Bøner, huer Christen saare nyttelige at læse. Udsær paa Danske, aff Rasmus Hanssøn, Copenhagen: Laurentz Bendicht 1573. Royal Danish Library, LN 1306 4°, three copies. 27  The term ‘Bilderstürmer’ included in Rosæfontanus/Palladius’ version, is omitted here, as in the anonymous translation of 1531 and the Enchiridion piarum of 1543. 28  R.H. RERAVIUS, Passional. Vor Herris Jhesu Christi Pinis oc Døds Historie, met skøne oc deylige Figurer, oc Christelige Bøner, huer Christen saare nyttelige at læse. Udsær paa Danske, aff Rasmus Hanssøn, Copenhagen: Laurentz Bendicht 1573. Royal Danish Library, LN 1306 4°, copy 1 and 2.

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In 1575, the Passional was issued again, this time from a printer in Rostock.29 The translator is anonymous. It contains Luther’s prologue and prayers copied directly from the 1550 or 1556 edition. The last version to appear in the sixteenth century was a passional by Anders Sørensen Vedel in 1592 which referred to Luther’s book and paraphrased the prologue, but merely used the original as source of inspiration.30 It reused the images from Reravius’ edition from 1573 and was eqipped with prayers composed by Vedel. All in all, a first look at the Danish editions of the Passional show us a rather variegated reception and transmission of Martin Luther’s work. Different editions circulated at the same time and sometimes even competed to be regarded the most authoritative (‘proper’) version. It should be underlined, however, that the chronological description of the course of events offered here does not do justice to its extremely complex publication history. The Danish translations were based on different versions of the Passional and may indeed have been inspired by material from other passion books which circulated in this periode.31 Most importantly, however, is the fact, that the different translations clearly illustrate, that Danish theologians did not always treat Luther as the grand authority, but subjected his work to interpretation and sometimes transformed it. The following investigation offers a detailed analyses of the textual differences between the translations of the Passional. The different versions gave the image question dissimilar weight and put varied emphasis on the communicative potential of visual objects. The comparative approach focuses primarily on Pedersen’s edition of 1531, Rosæfontanus and Palladius’ edition of 1544 and finally Reravius’ edition of 1573. Other editions will be included along the way.

29  ANONYMOUS, Historien om Jesu Christi vor frelseris Pine oc Død aff den Hellige scrifft, Met Herlige skøne Figurer oc merckelige Bøner. Rostock 1575. Royal Danish Library LN 946, 8°. The book contains a close translations of Luther’s prologue save the part referring to the bilderstürmer. 30  A.S. VEDEL, Historien om Jesu Christi, vor Frelseris, Pine oc Død. Met Gudelige Bøner, skiøne Figurer, oc merckelige Sententser, baade aff det gamle oc ny Testamente. Forbedret met nogle ny Figurer, aff Mosis Bøger oc Christi Fødsels Historie. Prentet i Ribe, paa Oliebierget. M.D. XCII. Ribe 1592. Royal Danish Library LN 948,8° copy 1, 2 and 3. 31  Johan Bugenhagen’s Passional should be mentioned here. First printed in 1544, and translated by Peder Palladius into Danish in 1551, and again in 1575 as Vor HErris Jesu Christi Pinis, Døds oc ærefulde Opstandelsis Historie, flitelige tilsammen screffuen aff de fire Evangelister, ved D. Johannem Bugenhagen Pomern. The Danish version only includes very few illustrations. The 1575 version of the book contains a lengthy dedication to Eline Gøye.

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The Liberal approach: Pedersen’s Passional Pedersen’s translation from 1531 may best be characterized as an independent reworking of Luther’s Passional.32 The prologue is inspired by Luther’s original, but Pedersen eloborates freely on the model and expands with numerous reflections. As mentioned, Pedersen included a prayer with each biblical scene. The prayers were modelled on one of his earlier publications, namely the Jærtegnspostil of 1515 and follows the ideal of the late medieval Meditationes vitae Christi by Pseudo Bonaventura, as well as late medieval popular collections of legends.33 Just as in Luther’s original, it contained 50 illustrations, but Pedersen emphasized different content matter.34 Pedersen paraphrazes the first part of Luther’s text but whereas Luther merely states that children and lay folk will learn more by the aid of images and likenesses than merely words and teaching, Pedersen goes further. He states that “One cannot learn or teach the unlearned common people enough of God’s word and wonderful deeds / Even if one preached, taught, said, wrote, and educated them both early and late […]” and later adds that “[…]it is profitable and appropriate that every human read, speak, paint, hear, feels, reflect on, and remember Gods wonderful benefactions, words and teachings with his entire heart […]” and that he “[…] always see the wonderful deeds of God before his eyes whereever he turns, both painted and written.”35 The main difference between the two texts is that Pedersen adds a comprehensive list of modi through which these “wonderful deeds of God” may be communicated. In the following paragraph he includes a lengthy discussion of the image ban in the second commandment and concludes, that the ban only pertains to the misuse of images 32  Two extant version can be found in The Royal Danish Library, LN 158, 8 (copy 1 which is fully annotated and suppled with further prayers. One of the initial pages has the year 1548 in handwriting) and LN 159, both consisting of 56 folios. Christiern Pedersen’s Passional was published again in 1556 by Mechior Lotter in Magdeburg. This version included a small format image of the Danish king, Christian III, from the Danish Bible-edition published 1550, see H. HORSTBØLL 1999, p. 375. 33  H. LAUGERUD 2017, p. 222f. See also J.M. JENSEN in D. GAIMSTER – R. GILCHRIST (eds) 2003. 34  Among others, Pedersen goes into much detail when explaining Gospel quotes and includes different images, such as Christ on the cold Stone waiting to be offered vinegar. See J.M. JENSEN in D. GAIMSTER – R. GILCHRIST (eds) 2003 and H. HORSTBØLL 1999, p. 484. 35  “Thi man kan icke for meget lære sige eller underuise den menige enfoldige almwe aff Gudz ord oc underlige gerninger / En dog ath man predickede lærde sagde screffue och underuisde dem det baade aarle och sille […]” “Thi er det endelige nøtteligt oc tilbørligt / at huert menniske læser taler / maler hører / merker / besinder oc i hwkommer aff alt sit hierte Gudz underlige velgerninger oc hans ord oc lerdom […]” and “at han kan stedsse see Gudz underlige velgerninger fore sine øge(n) ehurt han vender sig baade malne och screffne […]” LN 158, 8.

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praticed by heathens and Jews. It is in fact “profitabel and good” to admit layfolk to use the very same images if they are used to “see and reflect on the great deeds of God”, and always “commemorate the death and suffering of our Lord”.36 This combination of mental contemplation and bodily/sensory practices form the basis of the devout ideal expressed in Pedersen’s text. The use of (external) images simply helps the devout remember and understand (internally) the doctrines of faith.37 There is a distinct reciprocity between body and mind here: Images make God visible and inspire and prompt the beholder to praise the Lord and remind the beholder to fear for the anger of God if we do not live according to his will. Pedersen’s prologue also includes a paragraph with instructions to the reader on how to use the Passional, that is, the devotional practices connected to it. One should not, he states, merely read and behold the death and suffering of our Lord in “words and body” (“met ord oc skin”), but also live according to it. Furthermore, one should not read several pages every day, but only one or two in order to “[…] contemplate the words and the suffering of the Lord in ones heart and thank him for it.”38 We should simply place the passion “[…] before our eyes as a mirror and example / so that we may daily reflect outselves therein […]”, and when one sees and contemplates that “[…] he is flagelated, crowned, crucified / and pierced through hands and feet /then one will truely believe and know that it is for his deeds and sins / And that he deserves to suffer and be tormented for them for eternity.”39 Here ends Pedersen’s text, with a firm constitution of the images of the Passion of Christ as a mirror that reflects the sins of man, but also as a medium of faith and trust in God. 36

 The paragraph reads as follows: “[…] Oc det er da meget nøtteligt oc gaat for wlerde ligfolk / Thi at mand bruger de same billed til nøtte / och gaffn i det ath man skal see / och tencke paa Gudz store velgerninger / Och paa hans død oc pine / Och tacke oc loffue hannem der fare / Oc ath wii skulle frøckte oc redis for hans heffn oc vrede / om wii icke leffue effter hans bud oc vilie / Gud fore sine store miskundhed skyld / Vnde oss alle naade til / ath wii muee altid I hwkomme hans død oc pine […]” 37  H. LAUGERUD, 2017, p. 215ff. 38  “Det gørss icke heller behoff ath læse huer dag v eller vii blad / men ith eller tw hour man haffuer mest vilge til och besinde de ord oc vor herris pine vel i sit hierte och tacke hannem der faaae.” 39  “Vos Herris Jhesu Christi død och pine settis oss for øgen tile n sp(e)gel oc exempel / Ath wii skulle daglige spegle oss der udi […] Naar man seer at han hustrugis kronis kaars festis / och slass gennem hender och føder / Da skal huer visselige tro oc vide ath det er hans gerninger oc for hans synder skyld / Oc ath hannem burde self saa pines oc plaffuis for dem euindelige met rette.”

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According to Pedersen, images may, thus, spark deep emotions and devotional affection. They influence the mind in a way far more fundamental — and ultimately constructive — manner, than merely informing the beholder about specific biblical truths. Images may conclusively, according to Pedersen, lead to grace and salvation. Thus, the text has many affinities with medieval image theology which conceived of a profound and reciprochal interdependence and synergy between the sensory perception of wordly sensibles and the sentiments and divine inclinations of the soul.40 In works such as Vaar Frue Tider and Om at høre Messe Pedersen described how bodily, sensory, mental and material practices could lead to appreciation, devotion and veneration of God. The devotional theology of his earlier books seems to have been integrated into the prologue, without, however, violating the original message: that images are beneficial if they are not misused and adorned. As mentioned above, an anonymous translator published en alternative edition of the Passional the same year as Pedersen’s. In comparision with Pedersens libral edition, this edition was much more conservative. It seems to have been the model for Rosæfontanus and Palladius’ edition from 1544. The narrow road: Rosæfontanus’ and Palladius’ Passional Rosæfontanus and Palladius’ collaboration was, it seems, intended as a scrupulous transmission of Luther’s original. As already mentioned, it follows the original closely but, as we shall se below, some aspects of the original were augmented while others were downplayed.41 Before the prologue, Palladius addresses the reader. He states that this new edition of the Betbüchelin and Passional is indeed “The proper (sic.) prayer book […] with the proper (sic.) Passional […]”.42 Palladius states, that he has been asked to “recondition the small prayer book published in Danish 13 year ago”, most likely referring to Pedersen’s adaptation of the Passional in 1531. 40  L.K. SKINNEBACH, Devotion. Incorporating the Immutated Sensorium in Late Medieval Devotional Practice, in H.H.L. JØRGENSEN, H. LAUGERUD & L.K. SKINNEBACH (eds), The Saturated Sensorium. Principles of Perception and Mediation in the Middle Ages, Aarhus, 2015, pp. 152-179. 41  Copenhagen, Hans Viingaard 1544. One specific copy of the volume (Royal Danish Liberay, LN 140,8 (copy 2), with Passional from p. 210), was heavily annotated by its owner, who included several prayers in the end of the book and signed it with his initials M.P.R. and the words “Beder Gud for meg arme sÿndere”. 42  “En ræt Bedebog aff den hellige Scrift Gamle oc ny Testamente / met den rætte Passional / wdi huilken klarlige findes oc beuises alt det som mennisken er nytteligt til siælens salige bed / flytelige offuerseet oc corrigeret.”

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Palladius reflects on the editorial practice in the following way: “I have done it in a way / so that if something was of no need according to the constitution of the present time / I would leave it out […]”.43 Palladius — and the commissioner — had an intention of dispensing with some of Pedersen’s additions and producing a clean and updated version. The result was a version of the text without Pedersen’s expanded prologue and without the prayers. Instead it follows the anonymous 1531 translation closely. If we take a closer look at the translation of the prologue, its austerity concerning the image-question springs to mind. Luther states that he has supplied the Passional with more stories from the Bible and “supplied with sayings from scripture, so that both may be more safely and firmly retained”, thereby suggesting, that the combination of the two modalities aids the mental storage: by combining the two modalities, both may be memorized. Palladius and Rosæfontanus’ translation includes an interesting addition. They state that the images have been “supplemented with some sayings and meanings from scripture, so that both can be more safely retained”.44 The inclusion of the word meaning introduces a subtle, but very significant, displacement of the logic of Luther’s text. Whereas Luther trusted both modi to mediate the commemoration of scripture, Palladius/Rosæfontanus emphasized the ability in text to delineate the visual expressive potentials of images. In fact, Palladius and Rosæfontanus develops this notion further later in the prologue — and still conveying the translation established in the anonymous 1531 edition. They state, that it is no evil to paint such stories with their meaning and texts in both livingrooms and chambers.45 Painted stories have to be supplied not only with texts, such as Luther states in the German version, but also with meaning.46 43

 “[…] huuilcket ieg gorde wdi saa maade / ath hues icke behoff vor / effter tidens leylighed / det loed ieg være bortte […]” 44   “[…] sæt der hooss nogle sprock oc meninger (my emphasis) aff Texten / på det / ath begge partene kunne diss tryggere beholdis”. The latin Enchiridion piarum precationum, cum Passionali from 1543 has “Addidi autem passioni Christi, plerasq alias sacræ scripturæ Historias, una cum integris locis, ut eo firmius puerorum animis utraq adhærescerent, & depict in tabulis, & literis descriptæ Historiæ.” 45  “Fordi meg tyckis ath det wor icke ont / der som mand malede saadanne historie / met deris mening oc sprock / baade i Stuerne oc Kammer / Paa det / ath mand kunde altiid oc alle veyne haffue Guds gierninger oc ord for øyne / oc der i kunne offuerkomme baade fruchten oc troen mod Gud.” 46  The Latin version of the passional in the Enchiridion piarum precationum, does not include a term that might be translated into meaning. It uses the terms ‘verba’ and ‘facta Dei’ which may be taken to mean ‘words’ and ‘deeds of God’ The Latin text reads has “Nam & illorum

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By incorporating the term meaning into the otherwise extremely orthodox translation twice, Palladius and Rosæfontanus inflict an explanatory value of text in relation to images. Texts serve to control the expression of images, that is, to explain and confine that which is visually communicated. They are indeed not two commensurate modalities of mediation. As will become apparent below, the term ‘meaning’ was not used in subsequent translations of the Passional until it appeared again in the 1575 edition, printed in Rostock. As mentioned above, Rosæfontanus and Palladius included the final paragraph of the prologue dealing with “die bilderstürmer”. The fact that Rosæfontanus and Palladius embraced it seems to suggest two things: first of all that they wanted, as the title and prologue states, to produce a true Betbüchlein and Passional and secondly that they found it necessary to underline the potential conflicts related to the use of images. This final paragraph was fundamentally concerned with differentiating between use and misuse of images — although it does not define in any detail what is what. In 1551 Palladius issued Johan Bugenhagen’s Passio, an abridged version of the New Testament with only very few illustrations. His conviction concerning the communicative potential of text comes to the fore here. In the introductory dedication to the noblewoman Eline Gøye, he refers to St Helena, the mother of Constantine, who supposedly found the true cross, and brought it to Rome. Palladius explains to the reader that here, in the pages of the book, one will not find a tree or trunk, for it is not worth looking for. Instead one will find the crucified Jesus Christ, who hung from the cross, died and shed his rose colored blood, by which he removed from us all our sins and resurrected for our justice.47 The text, we understand, simply replaces the relics of the past and even surpass them because words are able to induce the crucified Christ and make him present to the reader.

exemplum ualde probo, qui in parictibus illas Historias depictas habent. Debent enim tum uerba tum facta Dei, ubiq obuerfari oculis, ut ita timor ac fides habeant quo se exerceant.” And later “Et nulla unquam opera nimia est, quæ ad uerba & facta Dei uulgo proponenda ponitur.” 47  “Men her finde i icke Træ eller Staack, som er icke vært at lede effter i den maade, men den Kaarsfeste Jesum Christus, som hengde paa Kaarsset, døde og udgaff sit rosens Blod, huor met hand tode oss aff alle vore Synder, oc opstod til vor Retfærdighed.”

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Via Media: Reravius’ Passional The translation of the Passional produced by Reravius in 1573, almost 30 year later, exhibits yet another interpretation of the original.48 Reravius’ translation was modelled on a German version of the book from 1553 and contained woodcuts by Virgil Solis.49 It was printed by Laurentz Benedickt in Copenhagen. A slight rearticulation of the religious significance of images comes to the fore in the exact same sentence as in Rosæfontanus and Palladius’ translation of the text. Reravious states that he has provided the book with “[…] more stories from the bible and included sentences and quotes from Scripture so that they may be felt and retained better and more firmly […]”50 Reravius omits the word “mening” introduced by Palladius and Rosæfontanus51 Instead he introduces the term “merckis”, felt, which also differs from Luther who merely has “so that both may be more safely and firmly retained”. In danish, the verb ‘merckis’ has a number of differet meanings. It means at one and the same time to feel, both emotionally and tacitly, as well as to be ‘marked’ or ’impressed’ by something. By introducing this term Reravius seem to underscore how the combination of different modalities may both contribute to an enhancement of the emotional involvement and commemoration of the biblical stories, but also to be imprinted — physically and mentally — by them. Texts may serve to augment the experience of images. Whereas Palladius underlined that images profit from textual specification in order to give them meaning, Reravius emphasises how texts and images are mutually constitutive media for the internalization of the deeds of God. 48  In the present context I refer to copy 1 and 2 from the Danish Royal Library. LN 1306 4, copy 1. They contain a five-page dedication to Birrethe Rosensparre, the daughter of Sten Rosensparre til Skarolt, from Pasmus Hanssøn Reravius himself, and is fully coloured. For comments on the book, see M. FINK-JENSEN in M. FINK-JENSEN – C. APPEL (eds) 2011, p. 15-47. LN 1306 4 copy 3, also in the Royal Danish Library, does not contain the reference to the translator, Reravius, but is otherwise the exact same. Both versions also conclude with the 51. Psalm of David. The title is Passional. // Vor Herris // Jesu Christi Pinis oc // Døds Historie / met skøne oc // deylige Figurer / oc Christelige // Bøner / huer Christen // saare nyttelige at // læse. 49  The title of the German version of the treatise was: Passio, vnser Herren Jhesu Christi, Auß den Euangelisten gezogen. Mit shönen Figuren geziert. Mit Schöenen Christlichen andechtligen gebeten einem jeden Christen sehr nutzlich zu lesen. See M. FINK-JENSEN, 2011, p. 38. 50  ”Jeg haffuer ocsaa sæt nogle flere Historier der til udaff Bibelen/ oc sæt Sententzer oc Sprock der hoss aff Texten / paa det at det diss bedre oc fastere kand merckis oc beholdis.” 51  “oc sæt der hooss nogle sprock oc meninger aff Texten / på det / ath begge partene kunne diss tryggere beholdis.” (Palladius/Rosæfontanus) “oc sæt Sententzer oc Sprock der hoss aff Texten / paa det at det diss bedre oc fastere kand merckis oc beholdis” (Reravius)

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Reravius introduces yet another important change, as he has adjusted the paragraph on bilderstürmer and given it new meaning. Luther states that he has always condemded and punished misuse and false trust in images, as in all other aspects and Rosæfontanus and Palladius follows him closely.52 Reravius, however, excludes the term bilderstürmer — like in Luther’s Enchiridion piarum — in the beginning of the paragraph and accentuates the meaning of the sentence mentioned above differently through the use of grammar: “I have always condemned misuse and false trust, in images as well as all other aspects.”53 The change of focus implies that misuse is a general concern and images do not hold a priviledged position here. Reravius has, in addition, inserted a long paragraph at the end of the prologue — not in Luther’s German or Latin editions — that does not reflect on the use of images, but on the grace of God. Here he underlines that a faithful Christian cannot fulfill anything by himself without the grace of God. One can only contemplate the Passion of Christ because God has granted us the ability to do so. Reravius attacks the idea of justification through deeds and advice the reader to distance herself from this type of performance. Reravius dedicated a coloured version of his translation to the noblewoman Birrethe Rosensparre and included a prologue especially directed to her. It exists in more than one copy and may, thus, have circulated among ordinary people as well. The dedicatory text contains important supplementary information regarding Reravius’ visual theology. Reravius develops a triple strategy for internalization of the Passion of Christ.54 First of all, it is beneficial for everyone to hear the oral sermon when the Passion and death of Christ “with its accomplishment and power, fruit, advantage and benefit, is conveyed and proclaimed from the pulpit”. Secondly one should carefully and continuously read, or have some read aloud, from the Passion of Christ, and thirdly it is “[…] of no small usefulness and advantage for children, youth, and common, simple and unlettered people […]” to be sourrounded by “[…] delightful figures / paintings and images / in which the story of Christ is set before the eyes and

52

 Luther states: “Misbracuh und falsche zuuersicht an bilden habe ich alle zeit verdampt und gestrafft, wie yn allen andern stücken.” and Rosæfontanus/Palladius translates to: “Misbrug oc falsk forladelsse til Billede / haffuer ieg altiid fordømt oc straffet / ligesom i alle andre stycke.” 53  “Misbrug oc falsk tillid haffuer ieg altid fordømt oc straffet / lige saa vel udi Billder som i alle andre stycker.” 54  My description of the triple strategy relies heavily on M. FINK-JENSEN, 2011, p. 38.

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imprinted (affmalis) therein.”55 This third aspect accentuates that images may serve to imprint stories of God in the eyes and mind of the beholder, and in this respect it follows numerous medieval theories of memory closely. Reravius’ adaptation of Luther’s Passional conjures up an extensive multisensory approach to the internalisation of faith. This focus on the combination of oral, textual and visual communication permeated his writing in general.56 Conflicting positions: a short summary The first thing that strikes the modern reader is that Luther’s Passional seem to have been treated rather differently, even though the different versions all used his name in order to augment the authrority of their individual versions. One major divergence relates to the prologue: some books included a version close to Luther’s original (anonymous Magdeburg 1531, Rosæfontanus/Palladius 1544, anonymous Lybeck 1550, Reravius 1573) whereas others were based on Pedersen’s prologue from 1531 (anonymous Magdeburg 1556) and finally, towards the close of the century, we have Vedel’s new prologue. Even some of those following Luther’s version most scrupulously, removed (anonymous Magdeburg 1531, anonymous Lybeck 1550,) or added (Reravius 1573) paragraphs from the original. It must be concluded that distinctly dissimilar versions circuated at the same time. A further important difference is whether or not the books included prayers. Reravius’ edition, Pedersen’s 1531 edition, the anonymous 1550 edition from Lübeck, and the 1556 edition all supplied the biblical scenes with prayers whereas Rosæfontanus and Palladius — following Luther closely — did not. The prayer texts in Pedersen’s 1531 book were reused from some of his earlier publications, namely Jærtegnsboken and late medieval popular collections of legends.57 The prayers in the 1550 edition were completely new compositions and reused word-for-word in the 1556 edition. Reravius’ prayer texts were most likely composed by him for the occasion. The different editions put different emphasis on devotional practice. Reravius states in his addition to Luther’s prologue that it is paramount that “[…] we pray to God / that he will soften each 55

 “Der til met fører det icke til ringe nyttighed oc gaffn / for Børn / ungt folck / oc for de enfoldige simple oc ulærde folck / at de haffuefaar sig udi deris Bøger / Stuer oc kammer / herlige smukke Figurer / malninger oc Billeder / I huilket Christi Historie sættis faar øyen oc affmalis […]”. 56  M. FINK-JENSEN, 2011, p. 34ff. 57  H. LAUGERUD, 2017, p. 222f.

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human heart / and grant us mercy / so that we may fruitfully contemplate the death and passions of Jesus Christ […]”58 No man will be able to fully contemplate Christ if he has not been granted the ability in his heart. Pedersen states, as mentioned above, that we should not merely read and behold the passion of Christ, but also live according to it. The biblical stories and images are instruments of devotional practice.59 The inclusion of prayer texts gives a distinctly devotional flavour to the texts. In these editions the combination of word and image is transposed from a didactic emphasis towards a slightly greater emphasis on practice. Commemoration and didactic communication is supplied with contemplation. The differences between the editions also come down to the degree of prominence each individual interpretation places on the communicative potential and authority of the textual mode in relation to the visual. In Reravius’ translation, as in Luther’s original, images and texts stand forth as two equally reliable mediations of scripture, whereas Rosæfontanus and Palladius rely on the textual modus to produce some kind of meaning that images are not able to produce. Palladius and Rosæfontanus introduces a certain degree of logocentrism into the equation whereas Pedersen clearly regards images as communicative modi in their own right. The writers simply differ when it comes down to the prominence placed on the communicative potential of the different modi. One cannot help notice the great care the Danish theologians took to define and explain the question of images. Some seem to have been less conviced that Luther’s text fulfilled this need, and added more information in order to provide further focus and comprehensibility. The very quintessence of the texts is a major interest in visual communication, and the ability in things to encourage and spark devotion. To these writers, then, ‘things’ were not ‘indifferent’, but an important matter of persistent negotiation and clarification. So far my comparison has concentrated merely on the textual aspects of the different appropriations of the Passional. The following considerations will turn to visual aspects. Layout and the amount and size of images were — as the debate itself underlines — communicative elements in their own right. However, visual features, such as layout and illustrations, were often not in the hands of the author, but were decided by the printer. The printer would reuse older images in order to keep expenses down instead of ordering a completely 58

  “Der faare skulle wi bede Gud / at hand vil blødne huert Menniskis hierte / oc giffue oss naade / at wi fructsommelige kunde betencke Jesu Christi død oc pine” 59  H. LAUGERUD, 2017, p. 214.

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new set of illustrations. In any case, the visual features of the books contributed to a great extent to the experience and use of the book. And, as we shall see, there is a striking convergence between the different prologues and the visual layout of the books. In order to get a deeper understanding of the significance of images in these books, the following discussion comprises a comparative analysis of one specific visual example from the books, namely the textual and visual communication of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary. Contemplating the annunciation: from medium to mirror? Luther’s passional was modelled on medieval passion books. When he published the Betbüchlein with Passional in 1538, the printer, Hans Lufft, used a set of 50 illustrations inspired by Dürer’s small passion (see figs 10.1 and 10.2). As the original, the print in Luther’s edition shows the Virgin Mary kneeling with hands clasped by a ‘prie dieu’ on which an open prayer book is placed. She turns her head towards the archangel entering the small chamber from the right. Her face expresses a combination of surprise and contemplation. Above the head of the angel hovers a diminutive depiction of the Lord in the midst of a cloud from which rays of light emit down towards the dove/holy spirit above the Virgins head, almost like a halo taking shape around her. In the very foreground of the image, right before the Virgin, is a lily, a sign of Mary’s purity and virginity. The only other object on the room is a canopy bed with a cushion, a prop of typical northern European noble living. The spational boaders of the scene, the walls and ceiling of the chamber, seem to dissolve as a result of the divine presence. The incarnation is depicted as a divine penetration of worldly matter. The woodcuts for Luther’s 1529 edition, were produced by an anonymous artist. They are obviously not copies of Dürer’s work (fig. 10.3). The main difference is the depiction of the chamber. The artist has included a detailed wooden ceiling and a brick wall with a stained glass window in the background. Behind the archangel — appearing from the right, which is unusual — is a figure that looks like a door. All in all, the champer shares several likenesses with a typical German or Netherlandish fifteenth-century domestic setting (of the nobility). Mary is depicted like a devout noblewoman, interrupted in the midst of her daily prayers. This pictorial aspect would have provided the owner of the book with ideal possibilities for identification with the Virgin Mary. The whole setting is a model for devout imitation of the most holy virgin. But, if

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Fig. 10.1. Albrecht Dürer. Annunciation from the small passion 1509-1511; Woodcut on paper, sheet: 5 × 3 7/8 in. (12.7 × 9.8 cm). Metropolitan Museum, New York, Photo: Public Domain.

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Fig. 10.2. The illustrations from the 1538 edition of the Passional were copied from Dürer’s small passion. Annunciation from Ein Betbuchlin, mit eim Calender vnd Passional, hübsch zu gericht. D. Mart.Luth. printed by Hans Lufft. Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, 990,121 Theol, H 703.

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Fig. 10.3. Annunciation from the 1529-edition of Luther’s Passional. The only extant copy of the volume is located in the ERB (VD16 L 4100, P IV 140). Reproductions of single pages form the original is not possible due to the rarity and condition of the volume. The present reproduction is from a facsimile edition published in 1982.

the print is compared with Dürer’s execution of the same scene, the prominence given to the representation of domestic space is rather conspicuous. The visual framing of matter over spirit is foregrounded. The woodcuts for Luther’s early edition were reused for the Danish anonymous translation from 1531. As shown above, this version differed considerably from Pedersen’s contemporary version, and a comparison of their individual visual equipment makes these differences stand out even more clearly. The woodcuts in Pedersen’s book are simple. The image of the annunciation is organized according to the well-known scheme: the Virgin Mary is kneeling by a ‘prie dieu’ and turning her head slightly towards the angel who appears in her chamber from the left (fig. 10.4). The interaction takes place in a room with a half-open window to the Virgin’s side and an indefineable background behind the angel as if to suggest, that it appears from a celestial space. The Holy Spirit is not depicted, but the open window is a typical pictorial refrence to the Holy

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Fig. 10.4. A double spread from Pedersen’s Passional showing the Annunciation scene with the accompanying bible passages and a prayer. Om vaar Herris død oc pine Och om billede, Antwerp 1531, LN 159 8, copy 1. Royal Library, Copenhagen. Photo: Laura Katrine Skinnebach.

Spirit that entered the womb of the virgin. Similar to the Dürer-inspired depiction of the scene, the physical space and the womb of the Virgin is permeable, and may be penetrated by the breath, pneuma, of God. The scene in Pedersen’s book is enclosed in a structure consisting of pillars and a vault and the entire picture is framed by ornaments that mimic the framework of a typical northern European altarpiece (this latter pictorial detail is repeated in all the images in Pedersen’s Passional, but with small variations). The framing introduces a new layer of meaning to the image: it becomes an image within an image. The image simply underlines its own image-ness with the use of visual remedies. It is, thus, a visual equivalent to the written prologue, which underlines one of the main points of Pedersen’s visual theology: that images and texts are two separate, but equally valid, means of communication. The biblical text describes the sacra conversatione between the angel and

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Mary and the prayer text makes the Annunciation a model for daily religious conduct. Just as God chose to be conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the devout beholder should pray to God, that he will let holy faith be conceived in one’s heart so we may live according to his bidding and, thus, with the prospect of future salvation. Faith in God is, through images and texts, able to penetrate the soul of the devout and, consequently, lead to salvation. The representation of the annunciation in Rosæfontanus and Palladius’ book is significantly smaller due to the specific layout (fig. 10.5). The text takes up the majority of the space on the pages and the images seem to be of secondary importance — which merely underlines the interpretation of their prologue offered here. The annunciation is postioned at the bottom of a verso page, next to two biblical quotations. The woodcut shows a seated Virgin Mary with a prayer book in her lap and the dove above her head to the left. She turns her head slightly to the right from which the archangel enters. The chamber is small, too small for the characters to stand upright, as an intimate devout space. The depiction makes use of the most elementary pictorial units in order to transmit the annunciation. The print is simply an illustration of the words expressed in scripture and nothing more. The passionals published by an anonymous translator in Lybeck 1550 and in Magdeburg 1556 both left out the annunciation. In fact, all biblical scenes dealing with the childhood of Christ were excluded.60 The annunciation returned in a new and very delicate version in Reravius’ edition from 1573 (fig. 10.6). The angel appears from the left to announce the news to the Virgin, who kneels behind her ‘prie dieu’ with folded hands and eyes turned modestly downward towards the open prayerbook. Above her the dove lets a shower of holy light shine down over her head, which is crowned with a golden halo. Behind the Virgin is a niche, a pictorial detail that serves to collapse the domestic interior into a church-like architecture, and make the devout virgin stand forth as a statue in a church. The main focus of the prayer text is the incarnation and a prayer that Christ “will forgive and purify our sinful and unclean conception” and grant us eternal membership of the Christian congregation. The prayer illuminates and activates the devotional application and internalization of the biblical stories into Christian daily life. Image and prayer instills a parallel focus on the intersection between daily devotion and liturgical celebration of the incarnation.

60

 Royal Danish liberary LN 945 8°.

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Fig. 10.5. Rosæfontanus and Palladius’ Passional included small size images inserted in the running text. It contained no prayers. Een ræt Bedebog aff den hellige Scrifft Gamle oc ny Testamente, met den rætte Passional, wdi huilcken klarlige findis oc beuises alt det som mennisken er nytteligt til siælens salighed, flytelige offerseet oc corrigeret, Hans Wiingaard, Copenhagen 1544., LN 140,8 copy 3. Royal Library, Copenhagen. Photo: Laura Katrine Skinnebach.

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Fig. 10.6. Reravius’ Passional from 1573. Passional. Vor Herris Jesu Christi Pinis oc Døds Historie, met skøne oc deylige Figurer, oc Christelige Bøner, huer Christen saare nyttelige at læse. Lauurenz Benedicht, Copenhagen 1573. LN 1306 4, Royal Library, Copenhagen. Photo: Laura Katrine Skinnebach.

It is obvious that books that include prayers provide the reader with a contemplative focus, which is underscored and amplified by the visual aids. In these books, the images are not merely illustrations of biblical events, but devotional objects in their own right. The prayer texts prompt the integration of a specific way of life, a certain religious sentiment, modelled on the visual example. The devotional application of the biblical story, the translation from example to daily life, is of an allegorical or metonymic kind, as when a prayer in Pedersen’s book states: “Oh living son of God, who let yourself be circumcised according to the law of Moses (…) circumcise our hearts remembrance and minds from all evil desires”. A focal biblical event is used to describe an aspect of daily religious life and the comparison suggests to the reader that the model may — by way of devotion — inundate ordinary life.

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Conclusions Denmark has often been described as the most genuine lutheranized monarchy characterized by a large degree of consensus. Indeed, violent conflict does not seem to be at the centre of the Danish reformation, but, as illustrated above, questions concerning ‘things’, and especially visual communication and agency, were negotiated. As the comparision between different translations of Martin Luther’s Passional above suggest, Danish theologians disagreed on how to interpret and translate Luther’s view of images into Danish. However scrupulously some translations seem to transmit the words of Luther, they all weave their own individual interpretations into the fabric of the text. Pedersen produced a very free adaptation, whereas Rosæfontanus and Palladius inserted a rigorous differentiation between the communicative potentials of images versus texts. Reravius adopted a middle ground and added both prayer texts and more comments in the prologue. There are fundamental likenesses as well. The Gregorian argument related to commemoration and images as mirrors of divine events runs through all the texts. So does the refusion of adoration as well as destruction of images. Images are tolerable and even beneficial, but should not be misused. The differences do, however, illustrate two important things: first, that there was no such thing as a transparent or agreed translation of Luther, and secondly, that the image question was not a settled matter. Both Pedersen and Reravius regarded images as more than mirrors, and conceived of them as media of divine interaction. The Danish translations of the Passional demonstrate that different views concerning the religious use and communicative abilities of images circulated in sixteenth-century Denmark. This is especially evident when it comes to the communicative abilities of different communicative modi. The iconoclasts — Calvin and Karlstadt — voiced a mistrust in the communicative potential of images, that is, whether images were able to communicate the truth of the Christian faith on their own in a clear and unmistakable manner. They also feared that the superstition of ordinary folk would lead to a false perception of images. In Palladius and Rosæfontanus’ edition of the Betbüchlein and Passional this fear lingers on. Faith may constructively be communicated through various sensory modi — allthough they have different communiative weight. According to their prologue and visual equipment, we can only rely on texts — more precisely scripture — to communicate the truth of the Gospels. Words are able to communicate meaning, as Palladius and Rosæfontanus states. They simply separate the visual and rhetoric aspects of images and texts: the word which is God, is more infallible than the image which is man.

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Things were indeed not ‘indifferent’ in Danish sixteenth-century theology and devotion. The post-reformation culture in Denmark cannot be regarded as a unified Lutheran culture, but a period of constant negotiation. The comprehensive campaigns, rhetorical strategies and the use of all media at hand to communicate the new principles of faith and form a unified devotional nation by eradicating the gulf between different beliefs and practices were, to some extent, unsuccessful.61 The gradual establishment of a Lutheran visual theology in Denmark was not so much based on freedom of choice, but as negotiation and potential conflict.

 See also A. PETTEGREE, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion. Cambridge, 2005.

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS BATES – The Virgin, Aniconism and Early Elizabethan Identity Fig. 1.1. Fig. 1.2. Fig. 1.3. Fig. 1.4. Fig. 1.5. Fig. 1.6.

Fig. 1.7.

Fig. 1.8.

Grotesque of a crowned woman, fourteenth century; St John the Baptist, Cold Overton, Rutland. Photo: Stephen Bates. St Peter’s, Stanion, Northamptonshire, late thirteenth century. Photo: Stephen Bates. St. Anne teaching the Virgin to read, c. 1530; St Mary the Virgin, Rosson-Wye, Herefordshire. Photo: Stephen Bates. Coronation of the Virgin by Christ, fourteenth century; Tewkesbury Abbey. Photo: Stephen Bates. Pietà, fifteenth century; stained-glass roundel, diameter 414mm. Photo courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Unknown artist, Cuthbert Tunstall, c. 1530. Oil on canvas, 724 mm × 558 mm. Durham University: Tunstall Chapel. Photo courtesy of Durham University. Unknown artist, King Edward VI and the Pope, c. 1575. Oil on panel, 622 mm × 908 mm. London: National Portrait Gallery. Photo courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery. The Edwardian Reformation (detail) from John Foxe, Actes and Monuments, 1570. London: John Day. Image: Public domain.

MULLER – Catholic Materiality and Political Subversion in Post-Reformation England Fig. 2.1.

Fig. 2.2.

Fig. 2.3.

Agnus Dei, consecrated by Pope Leo XIII, nineteenth century. 7 cm × 5 cm. Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. By permission of the governors of Stonyhurst College. Image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and infant Jesus carved from the Sichem wood near St Omer, enclosed in a reliquary, seventeenth century. 7.5 cm × 5 cm. Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. By permission of the British Jesuit Province. Agnus Dei with image of the Christ Child, seventeenth century. Enclosed in the reverse side of the reliquary in Figure 2.2.  7.5 cm × 5 cm. Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. By permission of the British Jesuit Province.

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ACHEN – “For the Good of the Crown” The Resilience of the Old Ways and the Sixteenth-Century Redistribution of Church Art in Western Norway VON

Fig. 3.1.

Fig. 3.2.

Fig. 3.3.

Fig. 3.4.

Fig. 3.5.

Andreas Hauge, A model of Holmen in Bergen around 1525 with the area around the royal castle and the cathedral, 1968, Bymuseet, Bergen. Photo: Bymuseet, Bergen. Unknown artist, Triptych, the Virgin Mary with Christ Child, flanked by Paul and Peter (in the north wing) and two unknown saints. (inv.no. MA608), c. 1515. Photo: Svein Skare, Universitetsmuseet, Bergen. Frans Hogenberg; The ruined St. Nicholas church in Bergen 1581, some twenty years before it was demolished. Detail of the engraved illustration of Bergen by Frans Hogenberg, based on a drawing from 1581 by Hieronymus Scholeus, published in Civitates orbis terrarium, vol. 4, Köln, Georg Braun: 1588 (inv.no. By 1685b). Photo: Universitetsmuseet, Bergen. The patron saints of shoemakers, Crispin and Crispinian, offering free shoes to the poor. Detail of a (Flemish?) chasuble from c. 1500, embroidery on Italian velvet cloth (inv. No. MA51), probably from the church of the shoemakers, St. Hallvard, in Bergen, demolished 1559-60. Photo: Universitetsmuseet, Bergen. An impression of how a “warehouse” of slightly used second-hand church art may have looked in Bergen, c. 1550. Drawing and watercolour by the author. Photo: Adnan Icagic, Universitetsmuseet, Bergen.

REINIS – Troublesome Books Disrupt Devotional Life at the Convent of St. Mary Magdalene the Penitent in Freiberg, Saxony Fig. 4.1.

Fig. 4.2.

Fig. 4.3.

U. VON MÜNSTERBERG, Der Durchleuchtigen // hochgebornen F. Vrsulen / Her= // tzogin zu Monsterberg etc. Gre= // fin zu Glotz etc. Christlich vr // sach des verlassen Klo= // sters zu Freyberg, Wittemberg, 1528. Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Sig. A: 146.16 Theol. (20), [24] Bl; Quarto. Photo with permission: Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel. Biblia, Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1477/79. Jerome’s letter to St. Paul the Presbyter serves as a preface. Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden, Kirchenbibliothek St. Jakobi Freiberg, Sig. Fol. 1. Folio. Photo with permission: Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden. G. PARALDUS, Sermones de tempore et de sanctis, Tübingen 1499. A sermon for the feast of St. Andrew. Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden, Kirchenbibliothek St. Jakobi Freiberg, Sig. Fol. 35. Folio. Photo with permission: Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 4.4.

Fig. 4.5.

Fig. 4.6.

Fig. 4.7.

Fig. 4.8.

311

BERNARDINO DE SIENA, Sermones de festivitatibus virginis gloriosae, [Nuremberg], 1493. The preacher is pointing to the Virgin saying, “She is the star of the Sea.” Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden, Kirchenbibliothek St. Jakobi Freiberg, Sig. Q 10, 2. Quarto. Photo with permission: Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden. G. TEXTOR, Sermones tres de passione Christi, Strasbourg, 1490. Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden, Kirchenbibliothek St. Jakobi Freiberg, Sig. Q 10, 1. Quarto. Photo with permission: Bibliothek des Landeskirchenamtes Dresden. M. LUTHER, Auslegu(n)g // der Euangelien / // von Ostern bis // auffs Aduent / ge // predigt durch // Mart. Luther, Wittenberg, 1526. Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Sig. M: Li 5530 Slg. Hardt (15, 154). Photo with permission: Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel. J. BRIESMANN, Ad Gasparis Scatz / // geyri minoritae pli= // cas responsio per // Iohan: Briesman= // nvm pro luthe // rano libello // de votis mo // nastici // cis. // M. Lutheri ad Brismannum // Epistola de eodem, Wittembergae, 1523. Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Sig. A: 84.5 Theol (11), 26 Bl; Octavo. Photo with permission: Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel. J. DIETENBERGER, Antwort das // Junckfrawen die // klo(e)ster vnd klo(e)sterliche ge= // lübt nümer go(e)tlich // verlassen // mo(e)ge(n), [Straßburg], 1523. Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Sig. A: 127.4 Theol. (4), [14] Bl; Quarto. Photo with permission: Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel.

WANDEL – The Matter of Catechisms Fig. 6.1. Fig. 6.2. Fig. 6.3. Fig. 6.4. Fig. 6.5. Fig. 6.6.

Peter Canisius, Institutiones, 1566. Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, pp. 12-13. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Anonymous, De pveris institvendis … Isagoge, 1527. Strasbourg, A2. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Catechismus oder Christlicher Underricht, 1563. Heidelberg: Johannes Mayer, title page. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Peter Canisius, Institutiones, 1566. Antwerp: Plantin, title page. Staatsund Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Peter Canisius, Institutiones, 1575. Antwerp: Johannes Bellerus, title page. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Peter Canisius, Catechismus Catholicus, 1583. Ingolstadt: Wolfgang Eder, first page. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

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Fig. 6.7. Fig. 6.8. Fig. 6.9. Fig. 6.10. Fig. 6.11. Fig. 6.12. Fig. 6.13. Fig. 6.14. Fig. 6.15.

Fig. 6.16. Fig. 6.17. Fig. 6.18.

Peter Canisius, Catechismus und Bettbuch, 1590. Dillingen: Johannes Mayer, title page. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Two catechisms and ruler. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Anonymous, De pveris institvendis … Isagoge, 1527. Strasbourg, A4v-A5. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Anonymous, De pveris institvendis … Isagoge, 1527. Strasbourg, D3v-D4. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Martin Luther, Enchiridion, 1529. Wittenberg: Nicholas Schirlentz, EvFii. Germanisches National Museum, Nuremberg Catechismus oder Christlicher Underricht, 1563. Heidelberg: Johannes Mayer, pp. 12-13. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Catechismus oder Christlicher Underricht, 1563. Heidelberg: Johannes Mayer, pp. 22-23. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Peter Canisius, Institutiones, 1575. Antwerp: Johannes Bellerus, calendar and first page, Catechism. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Pedro de Soto, Compendium Doctrinae Catholicae, and Peter Canisius, Parvvs Catechismvs, 1564. Dillingen: Sebaldus Mayer, ff. 170v-171. Staatsund Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Peter Canisius, Catechismus Catholicus, 1583. Ingolstadt: Wolfgang Eder, p. 4. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Peter Canisius, Institutiones, 1566. Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, November - December. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg Peter Canisius, Institutiones, 1575. Antwerp: Johannes Bellerus, pp. 22-23. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

WELLS – The Arte of Prophecying: Transformative Worship and ‘Sense’-orship in the English Reformation Parish Church Fig. 7.1.

Fig. 7.2.

Fig. 7.3. Fig. 7.4.

Stained glass panel of Our Lady with eyes destroyed and highlighted by leading, fifteenth century. St Peter, Ringland, Norfolk. Photo: John E. Vigar. Stained glass panel of St Mary with blocked out face reglazed in plain glass, fifteenth century. St Mary, Great Massingham, Norfolk. Photo: John E. Vigar. Defaced image of the Ordination, seven-sacraments font, fifteenth century. St Mary, Great Witchingham, Norfolk. Photo: John E. Vigar. Rood screen from the south, fifteenth century. St Helen, Ranworth, Norfolk. Photo: John E. Vigar.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 7.5.

Fig. 7.6.

313

Image of St Michael overpainted with blackletter text on Rood Screen. Screen dated to fifteenth century; scriptural texts added in the reign of Edward VI (1547–1553) The Priory Church of St Mary and the Holy Cross, Binham Priory, Norfolk. Photo: John E. Vigar. Royal Arms of Elizabeth I in tympanum, sixteenth century. St Catherine, Ludham, Norfolk. Photo: John E. Vigar.

SMITH – Chastising the Eye in the ‘Golden Age’ the Image of Blind Tobit in Seventeenth-Century Netherlands Fig. 8.1.

Fig. 8.2.

Fig. 8.3.

Fig. 8.4.

Fig. 8.5.

Fig. 8.6.

Fig. 8.7.

Fig. 8.8.

Fig. 8.9.

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Blindness of Tobit (the larger plate), 1651. Etching with drypoint (first of two states), 16 × 12.9 cm, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum. Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Rembrandt van Rijn, Tobit and Anna, 1659. Oil on Panel, 40.3 × 54 cm, Rotterdam, Netherlands: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Photo: Public Domain. Rembrandt van Rijn, Anna and the blind Tobit, 1630. Oil on Oak, 63.8 × 47.7 cm, London, England: The National Gallery. Image courtesy of National Gallery, London. Rembrandt van Rijn, The Blindness of Tobit: sketch, c. 1629. Etching (state 5 of 5), 7.9 × 5.5 cm. Washington, US: National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection. Photo: Public Domain. Claes Moeyaert, The return of Tobias (Terugkeer van Tobias) from the series History of Tobit (Geschiedenis van Tobias), c. 1612–1655. Etching, 11.7 × 19.3 cm, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum. Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Cornelis Massijs, The Return of Tobias (Terugkeer van Tobias), from the series The History of Tobit (Geschiedenis van Tobias), 1544 – 1556. Engraving on Paper, 7.2 × w 9.9 cm, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum. Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Adam Elsheimer, Tobias Accompanied by the Angel (Tobias en de engel), 1560 – 1610. Etching on Paper, 9 × w 14 cm. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum. Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Cornelis Massijs, Tobias and the Fish, from the series The History of Tobit (Geschiedenis van Tobias), 1544 – 1556. Engraving on paper, 7.3 cm × 9.1 mm. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum. Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Cornelis Cort, The Return of Tobias (Terugkeer van Tobias) from the series Story of Tobias (Verhaal van Tobias) after Maarten van Heemskerck,

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Fig. 8.10.

Fig. 8.11.

Fig. 8.12.

1556 – 1633. Engraving on Paper, 24.3 × 19.9 cm. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum. Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt, 38 Winged Insects, 1596 – 1610. Paper, pencil, chalk, watercolour, deck paint and ink, 27.5 × 17 cm, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum, On loan from a private collection. Photo with permission Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Willem Claesz. Heda, Breakfast Table with Blackberry Pie, 1631. 54 × 82 cm, Oil on Oak panel. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany. Photo with permission: Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. Balthasar van der Ast, Still Life with Fruit and Flowers, 1620-1621. 39.2 × 69.8 cm, Oil on panel. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum. Photo with permission Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Teresia Derlén – Chancel, Chalice and Chasuble. Expressions of Eucharistic Belief in the Parish Churches of seventeenth-century Sweden Fig. 9.1. Fig. 9.2a. Fig. 9.2b. Fig. 9.3a. Fig. 9.3b. Fig. 9.4. Fig. 9.5. Fig. 9.6. Fig. 9.7a. Fig. 9.7b. Fig. 9.8.

Alnö Old Church. Image: Ulf Klingström, Image: Public Domain. Chasuble from Bärbo Church, seventeenth century, History Museum Stockholm. Photo: Teresia Derlén Detail of chasuble from Bärbo Church, seventeenth century. History Museum Stockholm. Photo: Teresia Derlén Chalice from Fors Church, Sweden, mid-seventeenth century. Photo: Teresia Derlén Detail of chalice from Fors Church, Sweden, mid-seventeenth century: Photo: Teresia Derlén Julita Church, Sweden, Chancel arch mural of Salwator Mundi, c. 1600. Photo: Teresia Derlén Mural at Ytterjärna Church, Sweden, fifteenth century, possibly 1460. Photo: Teresia Derlén Chasuble from Ytterjärna Church, Sweden, 1645. Photo: Teresia Derlén Chalice at Jäder Church, Sweden, early seventeenth century. Photo: Maria Boström Detail of chalice at Jäder Church, Sweden, early seventeenth century. Photo: Maria Boström Skokloster Church, Counter-Reformation reredos from Oliwa, Poland, early seventeenth century. Photo: Teresia Derlén

ILLUSTRATIONS

315

SKINNEBACH – From Medium to Mirror? Images and their communicative Potential in Post-Reformation Denmark Fig. 10.1.

Fig. 10.2.

Fig. 10.3. Fig. 10.4.

Fig. 10.5.

Fig. 10.6.

Albrecht Dürer. Annunciation from the small passion 1509-1511; Woodcut on paper, sheet: 5 × 3 7/8 in. (12.7 × 9.8 cm). Metropolitan Museum, New York, Photo: Public Domain. Annunciation from Ein Betbuchlin, mit eim calender vnd Passional, hübsch zu gericht. D. Mart. Luth. Printed by Hans Lufft, 1538. Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, 990, 121 Theol, H 703. Annunciation from the 1529-edition of Luther’s Passional. The only extant copy of the volume is located in the ERB (VD16 L 4100, P IV 140). Christiern Pedersen. Om vaar Herris død oc pine Och om billede, Antwerp 1531, LN 159 8, copy 1. Royal Library, Copenhagen. Photo: Laura Katrine Skinnebach. Rosæfontanus and Palladius. Een ræt Bedebog aff den hellige Scrifft Gamle oc ny Testamente, met den rætte Passional, wdi huilcken klarlige findis oc beuises alt det som mennisken er nytteligt til siælens salighed, flytelige offerseet oc corrigeret, Hans Wiingaard, Copenhagen 1544. LN 140,8 copy 3. Royal Library, Copenhagen. Photo: Laura Katrine Skinnebach. Reravius Vor Herris Jesu Christi Pinis oc Døds Historie, met skøne oc deylige Figurer, oc Christelige Bøner, huer Christen saare nyttelige at lœse. Lauurenz Benedicht, Copenhagen 1573. LN 1306 4, Royal Library, Copenhagen. Photo: Laura Katrine Skinnebach.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Henrik von Achen is professor of art history at the University of Bergen and director of the University Museum. His research centres on late medieval, early modern and nineteenth-century religious culture, architectural history 17301930, medallic art, and museology. Recent publications include “The Writing of Faith. Icons and religious Books as a Transylvanian Cultural and Religious Heritage”, in Museikon. Time-Faith-Heritage (2017); “The origins of the university – the Bergen Museum art collection”, in Art and Architecture at the University of Bergen (2018); “Another Age Will Damage and Destroy”: The Radicalised Reformation in Denmark-Norway in the Later Part of the Sixteenth Century, in: Northern European Transformations. Transnational Perspectives, ed. J. E. Kelly, H. Laugerud & S. Ryan (2020). He is currently working on the question of what a university museum for the 21st century should be. Stephen Bates is a Fellow at the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at the University of Warwick and an Associate Lecturer at the University of Northampton. He was formerly Lecturer in History at Warwick, a Visiting Lecturer at Newman University, and an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow of the Academy for Advanced Study in the Renaissance. His research interests include late medieval and early modern religious and cultural history, with particulat focus on lay piety, printed discourse, gender, and the reign of Mary Tudor. His recent publications include essays on Tudor vernacular rosary books, the use of the Virgin in the querelle des femmes in the English Reformation, and the impact of Luther’s Mariology on the English Midlands. He is currently working to complete a monograph on the re-imagining of the Virgin in sixteenth-century England. Teresia Derlén earned her doctorate at King’s College London in 2019. She is an ordained priest for the Church of Sweden and has also served in the Church of England. For her PhD she explored lay religiosity and Eucharistic belief in seventeenth-century Sweden by studying the spiritual tools in a pre-literate society: prayers, catechism, hymns and the visual of the ecclesial space. Her doctoral thesis is titled “A Most Lutheran Nation? On Popular Religion and Eucharistic Belief in Post-Reformation Sweden”. (accessible via the research portal of King’s College London); she has also recently published an article on Swedish hymnology, ‘Learning to be Lutheran by Singing: The Pedagogy of a Communion Hymn of the Swedish Reformation’, in Celebrating Lutheran

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Music: Scholarly Perspectives at the Quincentenary, ed. by Maria Schildt, Mattias Lundberg and Jonas Lundblad, (Uppsala, 2019). Rob Faesen is professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven (Belgium) and at Tilburg University (The Netherlands). He is a member of the Ruusbroec Institute (University of Antwerp, Belgium). His research focusses on the history of Middle Dutch mystical literature. He edited together with John Arblaster, A Companion to John of Ruusbroec (Leiden, Brill: 2014), Mystical Anthropology: Authors from the Low Countries (London: Routledge, 2017) and Theosis/Deification: Christian Doctrines of Divinization East and West (Leuven: Peeters 2018). Aislinn Muller is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Society for Renaissance Studies in the UK. From 2018-2019 she was a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies at Boston College. Muller is the author of The Excommunication of Elizabeth I: Faith, Politics, and Resistance in PostReformation England, published with Brill in 2020. Her research currently focuses on the relationship between material culture and political participation amongst Catholics in post-Reformation England. Austra Reinis is Professor of the History of Christianity at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, USA. She is the author of Reforming the Art of Dying: The ars moriendi in the German Reformation (1519-1528) (2007). A two-time Fulbright Scholar, she has recently published articles exploring the devotional writings and correspondence of Princess Margarethe of Anhalt (1473-1530), including “The Historia vom Leiden, Sterben, Aufferstehung vnd Himelfart Christi of Margarethe, Princess of Anhalt (1473-1530),” Sixteenth Century Journal 51, no. 1 (2020), pp. 79-108. Salvador Ryan is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the Pontifical University, St Patrick’s College Maynooth. He has published widely in the area of late medieval and early modern popular religion. Recent publications include: Remembering the Reformation: Martin Luther and Catholic Theology (Minneapolis, 2017); (with Liam M. Tracey), The Cultural Reception of the Bible: Explorations in Theology, Literature and the Arts (Dublin, 2018); Marriage and the Irish: a Miscellany (Dublin, 2019); Domestic Devotions in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Basel, 2020); (with James Kelly and Henning Laugerud), Northern European Reformations: Transnational Perspectives (London, 2020).

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

319

He is Reviews Editor for Irish Theological Quarterly and Treasurer and a member of the editorial board of Archivium Hibernicum, the journal of the Catholic Historical Society of Ireland. He also serves on the international Editorial Advisory Boards of [British Catholic History]; The Journal of Baroque Studies (University of Malta); and Maria: a Journal of Marian Studies. Samantha L. Smith is a PhD candidate at the University of Bergen, Norway. Her current research project is entitled ‘The reception of the Holy Shroud of Turin in Early Modern Bologna’ which investigates the presence of various copies of the Shroud in Bologna and their role in defining the image post Reformation. Smith’s recent publications include, ‘Truth and the Transunto: A Copy of the Holy Shroud in Sixteenth-Century Bologna’ in ACTA no. XXXII (forthcoming), and, ‘On Hands That Make Us See: “Tobias Healing His Father’s Blindness”, in Nora S. Vaage, et al. (eds), Images of Knowledge: The Epistemic Lives of Pictures and Visualisations. Peter Lang Publishing, 2016, of which she was also co-editor. Laura Katrine Skinnebach, PhD, is associate professor of Art History at the Department of Art History, Aesthetics & Culture and Museology at Aarhus University, Denmark. Her research focus on medieval and early modern devotional practice, spirituality and material culture. She is currently involved in a research project with Hans Henrik Lofhert Jørgensen, Aarhus University, and Henning, University of Bergen on “Bleeding Images” which focus on medieval animation and image theory. Recent publications are “Devotion in transition – Appropriation of Danish and British medieval prayer books and devotional practices”, in: Northern European Reformations: Transnational Perspectives, eds. J. Kelly, H. Laugerud & S. Ryan, Palgrave Macmillan 2020, pp. 235-268 and “Haptic prayer – devotional books and practices of perception”, in: Touching Christ – Devotional practices, touching, and visionary experience in the Late Middle Ages, eds. D. Carrillo-Rangel, D. I. Nieto-Isabel & P. Acosta-Garcia, Palgrave Macmillan 2019, pp. 95-122. Lee Palmer Wandel is the WARF Michael Baxandall and Linda and Stanley Sher Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. She is the author of Always Among Us: Images of the Poor in Zwingli’s Zurich (1990), Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg and Basel (1995), The Reformation: Towards a New History (2011), The Eucharist in the Reformation: Incarnation and Liturgy (2006), Reading Catechismus,

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Teaching Religion (2015). Most recently she co-edited with Walter Melion and Elizabeth Pastan, Quid est Sacramentum? On the Visual Europe and the Americas, 1400-1700 (2019). Currently, she is working on a book, The Matter of the Liturgy. Emma J. Wells is a Lecturer in Ecclesiastical and Architectural History of the Late Medieval and Reformation Era, and a Research Associate in Archaeology, based at the University of York. Her main research specialisms are sensory experience, the cathedral and parish church, reformation devotion, pilgrimage, and the cult of saints. She is a frequent broadcaster and author for scholarly publications, broadsheets, and editorial magazines, including Pilgrim Routes of the British Isles (Hale) and Heaven On Earth: The Lives & Legacies of the World’s Greatest Cathedrals (Head of Zeus), co-editor of the Brepols Series Reinterpreting the Middle Ages: from Medieval to Neo, the Times Literary Supplement, Church Times, History Today and BBC History. She is also Secretary and Assistant Editor for the Society and Journal of Church Archaeology.

INDEX NOMINUM A adiaphora agnus dei aniconism annunciation apocrypha appropriation architecture A true prayer book of Scripture, the Old and New Testament, with the true Passional B baptism Barnes, Robert (1495 –1540) Bellerus, Johannes (1526 –1995) Belgic Confession Bergen Bernardine of Siena (1380 –1444) Betbüchlein Bible Bilderstürmer Bilney, Thomas (1495 –1531) birth of God blindness body book Book of Common Prayer breviary Briesmann, Johannes (1488 –1549) Bucer, Martin (1491–1551) C Calvin, Jean (1509 –1564) Commentary upon the Prophecy of Isaiah Institutes of the Christian Religion Tracts Containing Antidote to the Council of Trent Calvinism Canisius, Peter (1521–1597) Catechismus und Bettbuch Institutiones Parvus Catechismus (Little Catechism)

Canonical hours catechism catechism of the Council of Trent Catholic missions chalice chancel Charterhouse of Saint Barbara chasuble Christian III, (1503 –1559), King of DenmarkNorway) Church ordinance Collinson, Patrick (1929 –2011) Cologne communication Communion (see also, Eucharist) communion vessel confessional identity convent conversion Counter Reformation Council of Trent cult of saints D Denmark devotion, devotional books devotional practices Dietenberger, Johann (c. 1475 –1537) domestic piety [and/or piety in the home] Dordrecht, Synod of Dutch Reformed Church Dutch Republic Dutch State Bible E Eder, Wolfgang (1578 –1596) Elizabethan enclosure, monastic England English Catholicism Erasmus, Desiderius (1466 –1536)

322 etching Eucharist Eucharistic piety Evangelical Pearl extramission theory of vision F Freiberg, Saxony G George of Saxony (1471–1539) Germany H Heidelberg Catechism Helvad, Niels (1564 –1634) Hemmingsen, Niels (1513 –1600) Hendrik Herp (c.1400 –1477) Henry of Saxony (1473–1541) Heron (née More), Cecily (1507 –?) hours of prayer Huygens, Constantijn (1596 –1687) I Iceland iconoclash iconoclasm iconoclast iconophobia idolatry illiteracy illustration incarnation insight Institutiones Taulerianae interiority Isagoge, (De Pueris Instituendis ecclesiae…) J Jesuit John of Ruusbroec (c.1293–1381) John the Steadfast (1468–1532) K Karlstadt, Andreas (1486 –1541) Katharina of Mecklenburg (1487–1561)

INDEX

L lady chapels Laurentius Surius (1522 –1578) Library, –ies literacy liturgical calendar liturgy Lord’s Prayer Luther, Martin (1483-1546) Enchiridion German Catechism Lutheran Lutheranism Lutheran Orthodoxy M martyrdom Meditationes vitae Christi medium memory mirror Mirror of Perfection missal monastic life More, Thomas (1478-1535) N Nielssøn, Jens (1538 –1600) Netherlands Norway nuns O Om vaar Herris død oc pine Och om billede On the Passion and Pain of our Lord, and on Images Ordo sanctae Mariae Magdalenae de poenitentia Oslo P Painting Paleotti, Gabriele (1522-1597) Palladius, Peder (1503 –1560) parish church Passional

INDEX

Passional. The story of the passion and death of our Lord, Jesus Christ Pedersen, Christiern (1480 –1554) Peraldus, William (c.1200-c.1271) Peter Canisius (1521 –1597) Philpot, John (1516 –1555) pilgrimage Plantin, Christopher (1520 –1589) popular religion Q R Reformation relic religious book religious resistance Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 –1669) Reravius, Rasmus Hanssøn ( –1582) retable rood reredos rosary Rosæfontanus, Mathias Parvus ( –1553) rule, monastic Ryckes, John (16th century) S sacramentals Sacraments senses scripture sight silence spirit spirituality stained glass Statenbijbel (see also, Dutch State Bible) St. Mary Magdalene the Penitent superintendent Sweden synaesthesia

323

T table readings Temple of Our Soul Ten Commandments textual community, –ies Testor, William (c.1420 –1512) The tale of the passion and death of Christ Jesus our savaiour from the Holy scripture. Thirty Years War Tobit transition translation Trondheim U Ursula von Münsterberg (1491/95 –after 1534) V vestment Virgin Mary vision W Walsingham, shrine to Our Lady of warehouse Willet, Andrew (1562 –1621) worship Worcester, shrine to Our Lady of